Christianity has a long and richly varied history of failed predictions of Christ’s coming. Enough to warn Christians that their hope might after all be mistaken. But what is most remarkable about Christian belief in the second coming of Jesus is its resilience in the face of negative feedback blows of failure of predictions. While the culture of date setting for the return of the Lord began in the second century A.D.(as far as the records show), Christians have been feverishly, since the first century A.D., awaiting the second coming of the Lord(the first century Christians had not actually set date but had only been convinced that the Day of Lord would come in their generation).

The motto of the Christian Church of the first century A.D. was “Maranatha!”(Our Lord Cometh!). After the incident of Second Coming apocalyptic excitement in the Thessalonian Church of early Apostolic times, Ignatius Bishop of Antioch, early in the second century, raised hopes and expectations when he declared authoritatively and urgently that “The last days are come upon us.” Prior to his declaration Christians had been thrown into feverish expectation of the “coming of the Lord” in the reign of the half-mad Nero who many were convinced was the Antichrist; then again in the right of Domitian who unleashed vicious persecution on the Christian church.

The first prominent apocalyptic Christian movement in post-Apostolic times was probably the Montanist movement founded by Montanus of Phrygia. The Montanists were a crisis cult(as all millenarian cults are) which arose in a time of horrible persecution of the Christian church(156-172 A.D.) Montanus, with two Prophetesses Priscilla and Maximilla, proclaimed that Christ would return about 156 A.D. and that the New Jerusalem from which Jesus would rule the world for one thousand years would be Phrygia. The Montanists caused a great deal of excitement and unrest among Christians. They preached extreme austerity, banned marriage and even urged Christians to provoke persecution in service to God. After repeated failure of their prophecy of Christ’s return and on account of the widespread disruption of the lives of Christians who had abandoned their secular responsibilities in anticipation of The End, the church excommunicated the Montanist leaders and the movement finally exhausted itself at the death of Maximilla in 179 A.D. Before her death she predicted that the end would come soon after her death.

The period just before the turn of the second millennium A.D., the two centuries after the death of Charlemagne(768-814 A.D.), was one of the most unstable periods in the history of Western Europe. The instability and insecurity arose, first from the murderous raids of the Vikings(“from the fury of the Northmen, good Lord deliver us,” became a prayer refrain in Christian churches all over Europe). And as if the fury of the Northmen was not bad enough, a new wave of fierce nomads burst into Europe from the east; the Magyars kinsmen of the terrible Huns. They carried out constant fierce raids deep into Europe burning towns and villages, killing the men and driving the women with their hair tied together in gangs. At the same time, Muslim pirates were conducting destructive raids on the coasts of southern France and Italy. This, unfortunately, coincided in Europe, with the period of decline of the power of French and German states at the death of Charlemagne who had welded them into a strong Holy Roman Empire.

The poor helpless people, crazed with fear went literally hysterical. All sorts of bizarre portents were seen in broad-day light in the mass hysteria: comets,blood downpours, dragons appeared routinely in the skies and celestial serpents and devils were as common-place as sheep grazing on the fields(Halley’s comet appeared over Europe in 989 A.D.). The church authorities joined in the mass hysteria. The Ecumenical Council sitting in 999 declared solemnly that the world would end on January 1, 1000 A.D. That was the signal for mass madness. On the last day of the year, St. Peter’s at Rome was filled with a crazed mass of people, weeping, trembling, screaming in fear of the Day of the Lord. They thought that God would send fire from heaven and burn the world to ashes. Many rich and wealthy people gave away their possessions to the poor to make heaven. They dressed up in sackcloth and poured ashes over themselves. The grounds of St. Peter’s on new year’s eve was filled with people vying to outdo each other in acts of penance and self-mortification, self-mutilation and flagellation. Some branded their skins with hot iron to prove their repentance; some were actually beaten to death by overzealous mates.

But new year came and passes and nothing happened.