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Sign Theory: Some Scholastic Encounters with ‘The Fifteen Signs before the Day of Judgement’
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 April 2022
Abstract
The traditional medieval ‘Fifteen Signs Before the Day of Judgement’ have recently become a subject of renewed scholarly interest. Nevertheless, more work has been done on vernacular versions than Latin ones and little attention has been paid to analytical or critical stances taken regarding the ‘Signs’. This article proposes to accomplish this, first by treating approaches taken by two Scholastic authors: Hugo of Novocastro and Guiral Ot. Then it looks at various Scholastic expressions of doubt.
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Footnotes
This article has benefitted greatly from critical readings by Susanne Ehrich and an anonymous reader for this Journal.
References
1 The standard account that remains a point of reference is Heist, William W., The Fifteen Signs before Doomsday, East Lansing, Mi 1952Google Scholar. Among important recent studies are those that concentrate on late medieval visual representations: Wagner, Daniela, Die Fünfzehn Zeichen vor dem Jüngsten Gericht: spätmittelalterliche Bildkonzepte für das Seelenheil, Berlin 2016Google Scholar, and Wagner, Daniela, ‘Zeit und Zeitlichkeit in bildlichen Darstellung der Fünfzehn Zeichen vor dem Jüngsten Gericht’, in Ehrich, Susanne and Worm, Andrea (eds), Geschichte vom Ende her denken: Endzeitentwürfe und ihre Historisierung im Mittelalter, Regensburg 2019, 361–76Google Scholar; and those that concentrate on vernacular versions: Hawk, Brandon W., ‘The Fifteen Signs before Judgement in Anglo-Saxon England’, Journal of English and German Philology cxvii (2018), 443–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Gayk, Shannon, ‘Apocalyptic ecologies: eschatology, the ethics of care, and the Fifteen Signs of the Doom in early England’, Speculum xcvi (2021), 1–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 Gayk, ‘Apocalyptic ecologies’, 16.
3 For the Latin with English translation see Bayless, Martha and Lapidge, Michael (eds), Collectanea Pseudo-Bedae, Dublin 1998, 178–9Google Scholar. The texts of Damian and Comestor are reproduced in Wagner, Die Fünfzehn Zeichen, 273–4.
4 Gayk offers a useful list of the ‘major branches of the Fifteen Signs motif’ in parallel: columns: ‘Apocalyptic ecologies’, 36–7.
5 ‘Illud tamen quod de quindecim signis totidem dierum diem iudicii praecedentium beatum Hieronymum referre didicimus, hic eisdem verbis inserere non superfluum iudicamus. Quibus profecto verbis sicut nec auctoritatis robur adscribimus, ita nec fidem penitus denegamus. Res ergo sicut ad nos pervenit, hujus stilo se simpliciter inserat’: Heist, The Fifteen Signs, 27.
6 One outstanding exception of which I am aware are eight lines in the Middle High German ‘Apokalypse’ written by the Thuringian knight, Heinrich von Hesler, between 1250 and 1260. See Die Apokalypse Heinrichs von Hesler, ed. Karl Helm, Berlin 1907 (verses 19832–40). Heinrich refers to the signs as ‘gelougene veichen’ (a pack of lies). I am unable to account for his taking this position, unless it is an expression of antisemitism on the basis of his understanding that the source of the signs were ‘Hebrew annals’.
7 See Lerner, R., ‘Antichrist goes to the university: the De victoria Christi contra Antichristum of Hugo de Novocastro (1315/1319)’, in Young, Spencer (ed.), Crossing boundaries at medieval universities, Leiden 2011, 277–313Google Scholar.
8 de Novocastro, Hugo, De victoria Christi contra Antichristum, Nuremberg 1471Google Scholar. Because this edition is not paginated I refer parenthetically to book and chapter within my text.
9 ‘Hec autem signa dupliciter posui quia dupliciter posita inveni et licet certa non sunt, probabilia tamen aliqua videntur et multum concordantia cum signis et [edition: a] veritate que Christus est predictis, ut inferius apparebit. Dicuntur autem rationabiliter propria quia nusquam alio tempore visa sunt, neque consimilia futura sunt’: ibid.
10 ‘Sicut in traditione Hebraica signa quindecim precedent iudicium, sic et secundum veritatem evangelicam xv signa adventum districti iudiciis Christi debent precedere que sparsim in scripturis novi testamenti predicunt’: ibid.
11 ‘Implebuntur que post ipsam tempora nationum et perfecte israhel convertetur ad Christum quod quia non erit nisi in illo medio tempore inter mortem antichristi et iudicium’: ibid.
12 ‘Predicabitur hoc Evangelium regni in universo orbe, in testimonium omnibus gentibus, et tunc veniet consummatio’: ibid.
13 See my The feast of Saint Abraham: medieval millenarians and the Jews, Philadelphia, Pa 2001, 23–37.
14 Ibid. 51–2.
15 For the sake of completeness here is what he offers: ‘Tertium confusio sonitus maris et fluctuum. Quartum universalis terremotus. Quintum de aere terrores et tempestates. Sextum quod arescent homines pre timore et expectatione que supervenient universo orbi. Septimum quod virtutes celorum movabuntur. Octavum quod sol obtenebrescet. Novum quod luna non dabit lumen suum. Decimum quod stelle cadent de celo. Undecimum ignis omnia conflagrans. Duodecimum mors omnium viventium. Tredecimum tuba angelica clamans surgite mortui ad iudicium. Quartumdecimum resurrectio mortuorum. Quintumdecimum apparitio ultimi signi filii hominis in celo.’ (The eighth sign – the sun darkening – also appears in a vernacular Anglo-Norman list; the reference to the moon is not found in any of the standard Latin lists.)
16 See, for example, Duba, William and Schabel, Chris (eds), ‘Gerald Odonis, Doctor Moralis and Franciscan Minister General’, Vivarium xlvii (2009), 147–373Google Scholar.
17 Sylvain Piron, ‘Les studia franciscains de Provence et d'Aquitaine (1275–1335)’, in K. Emery Jr, W. J. Courtenay and S. M. Metzger (eds), Philosophy and theology in the studia of the religious orders and at papal and royal courts, Turnhout 2012, 303–58 at pp. 345–6.
18 Langlois, Charles-Victor, ‘Guiral Ot (Geraldus Odonis), Frère Mineur’, Histoire littéraire de la France xxxvii (1927), 203–25Google Scholar at pp. 213–14.
19 I know of three witnesses. The only complete version is of ‘the first reportatio’, located in Bibliothèque nationale de France, ms Latin 8023, fos 59r–60v (second half of the fourteenth century). The preface and first part of this appears in Joachim of Fiore, Psalterium decem cordarum, Venice 1527, fo. 279r. I discovered a second reportatio in Real Academia de la Lengua, Madrid, ms 18, fos 70v–71r.
20 The prefaces of the Paris and Venice copies are almost identical in this regard except for the fact that P lacks V's first two sentences.
21 See Appendix 1 below for an edition of Ot's version of the Fifteen Signs.
22 The works of Aristotle translated into English: Meteorologica, Oxford 1923, book ii, 8 (366a).
23 ‘Septimo petre adinvicem collidentur’: Comestor (as Wagner, Die Fünfzehn Zeichen, 274); ‘Signum noni diei: Omnes lapides tam magni quam parvi scindentur in quatuor partes, unaqueque pars collidet alteram partem’: Damian (as Wagner, Die Fünfzehn Zeichen, 273); ‘Septima petre adinvicem collidentur et in quatuor partes scindentur et unaqueque pars, ut dicitur, collidet alteram’: Voragine (as Jacopo da Varazze, Legenda aurea, ed. Giovanni P. Maggioni, Florence 1998, 16). Gayk overlooks this conflation: ‘Apocalyptic ecologies’, 36.
24 ‘Praeterea, Hieronymus ponit quindecim signa praecendentia judicium dicens, quod primo die’: Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Sentences: Book IV, Distinctions 43–50, trans. Beth Mortensen and others, Green Bay, Wi 2018, 328 (distinct. xlviii, q. 1, art. 4, questiuncula 1). Wagner states that in the Sentences commentary Thomas repeated Damian's hedging, but I do not find this in either of the two editions I have consulted: Die Fünfzehn Zeichen, 237.
25 “Utrum aliqua signa precedent adventurum Domini ad judicium? . . . Signa verò que Hieronymus ponit, non asserit, sed in annalibus Hebraeorum se ea scripta reperisse dicit; que etiam valde parum verisimilitudinis habent’: Summa Theologica S. Thomae Aquinatis, VIII: Supplementum, Paris 1860, 75, art. 1 (in this edition at p. 348).
26 I have used two manuscripts, Biblioteca del Sacro Convento, Assisi, ms 635, fos 146v–157v (late thirteenth/early fourteenth century) and Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, ms Vat. lat. 808, fos 76v–99v (fifteenth century), as well as an imperfect printed version in St Thomas Aquinas, Opera, ed. S. E. Fretté, Paris 1871–82, xxviii. 629–53, repr. from de Ferrari, Hyacinthe, Sancti Thomae Aquinatis Tractatus de adventu et status et vita Antichristi, Rome 1840Google Scholar, containing only the part of the work that is relevant here, including ‘Circa statum purgationis’. I take the title De precedentibus, concomitantibus et subsequentibus ad iudicium venturum from the Assisi manuscript.
27 Mandonnet, Pierre, Des Écrits authentiques de Saint Thomas d'Aquin, 2nd edn, Fribourg 1916, 155–6Google Scholar.
28 Compare ms Vat. lat. 808, fo. 87ra, ‘Et sancta ecclesia quasi dimidie hore silentio, scilicet tempore quod sequitur usque ad finem mundi, pacificata conquiescet’, which is identical to Hugh of St Cher op, Aser pinguis, ‘Et sancta ecclesia quasi dimidie hore silentio, scilicet tempore quod sequitur usque ad finem mundi, pacificata conquiescet’, as cited in Robert E. Lerner, ‘Poverty, preaching, and eschatology in the commentaries of “Hugh of St Cher”’, in Katherine Walsh and Diana Wood (eds), The Bible in the medieval world: essays in memory of Beryl Smalley, Oxford 1985, 157–89 at p. 163 n. 18.
29 ‘Quarti assessores erunt chorus pauperum que omni dimiserunt proper Christum, et secuti sunt eum, sicut sunt predicatores evangelii, et defensores fidei’: ms Vat. lat. 808, fo. 92rb. Further support for Dominican origins may come from the fact that a copy of On the antecedents (now Biblioteca Casanatense, Rome, ms 2001) was owned by the seventeenth-century cardinal, Girolamo Casanati, a friend of Dominicans who founded the Dominican library in Rome, the Casanatense.
30 I refer to Kaeppeli, Thomas, Scriptores ordinis praedicatorum medii aevi, Rome 1970–93, ii. 308Google Scholar, #2057B, and Biblioteca del Sacro Convento, Assisi, ms 635, which is the same work.
31 ms Vat. lat. 808, fo. 89va.
32 Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, i, ed. Heinrich Denifle and E. Chatelain, Paris 1889, 486–7.
33 ms Vat. lat. 808, fo. 95vb.
34 Ibid. fo. 92rb.
35 Ibid. fo. 92va.
36 Ibid. fos 87va–88ra.
37 The printed version attributed to St Thomas offers more supporting biblical passages than are located in the two manuscripts I have used.
38 ‘omnes homines morientur, ut simul resurgant cum mortuis’: Collectanea Pseudo-Bedae, 178; ‘morientur omnes vivi, ut simul cum mortuis resurgent’: Vat. lat. 808, fo. 88ra.
39 Augustinus, De civitate Dei, PL xxxix, bk xx. chap 20, n. 3 (cols 688–9), trans. H. Bettenson in Augustine, City of God, Harmondsworth 1972, 936.
40 ‘Sed super hoc verbum non aperte habetur quod omnes debeant mori, sed magis in immortalitatem mutandi, ut dicit glossa Augustini. Sed apostolus alibi dicit Omnes quidem resurgemus. Et secundum quod dicit Augustinus super illud I Thess. 4: Nos qui vivimus qui residui sumus, etc. Sed nonnulli codices habent omnes dormiemus’: ms Vat. lat. 808, fo. 88ra. (The nineteenth-century edition is corrupt to the point of incomprehensibility.)
41 ‘Hec autem signa que sunt XV, utrum fiant per ordinem sicut posui, an quod omnino non fiant, non assero; sed sicut inveni, ita recito’: ibid.
42 Kaeppeli, Scriptores ordinis praedicatorum, ii. 258.
43 Idem. I add Ansbach, ms lat. 37; Erlangen, ms 578; Giessen, ms 756; and Melk, ms 666 (1653).
44 Sermones dominicales super evangelia et epistolas per totum annum fratris Hugonis de Prato ordinis predicatorum (Hain, 8997). I cite from a copy owned by the Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal (incun. 1210) available at <www. purl.pt/32455/1/index.html#/1/html>.
45 ‘Post hunc statum erit status signorum que ponit Hieronymus, que supradicta sunt, si tamen sunt vera. Nam de eis apud theologos doctores dubitatio est. Quidam enim dicunt quod possibilia sunt et possibile videtur ea sic evenire. Quibusdam autem videtur omnino absurdum et dicunt quod statim post prehabitum tempus mundus comburetur. Quidquid autem sit predicatoris arbitrio relinquatur’: ibid. fo. 25v.
46 For the signs in Vincent of Beauvais and Nicholas of Lyra see Heist, The Fifteen Signs, 206–7.