The Warning? The Illumination of Conscience? (Catholic Prophecy?) – Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World

In recent years, some authors have been discussed a proposed prophetic event called the Warning or Illumination of Conscience, even claiming it will happen in 2020. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli examine how accurate these claims are and whether such an event actually take place.

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Secret No More

After reading the secret, the Holy Father realized the connection between the assassination attempt and Fatima. He has since consistently attributed his survival of the gunshot wound to the intercession of Our Lady of Fatima. 

For years I have had a special devotion to Our Lady of Fatima. Of all the recent Marian apparitions, Fatima has spoken to me the most. Like millions of others, I had often wondered about the contents of the “third secret of Fatima,” which is more properly termed the third part of the secret of Fatima.

When the Holy See released the text of the 83-year-old third secret June 26, it was as part of a booklet prepared by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith titled The Message of Fatima (MF). I wasn’t the only one surprised at its contents. It did not contain prophecies of the end of the world, of a great apostasy, or many of the other things it had been rumored to contain. However, I was not disappointed. (Relieved would be a better word.) And it gave me a new appreciation of the Church’s struggle with Communism and of the current pontiff by showing me the view from heaven.

What Happened at Fatima, Portugal

Lucia dos Santos—the only Fatima seer alive today—is in many ways the “core” visionary of Fatima. She says she experienced supernatural visitations as early as 1915, two years before the famous appearances of the Virgin Mary. In 1917, she and two of her cousins, Francisco and Jacinta Marto, were working as shepherds tending their families’ flocks. On May 13, 1917, the three children saw an apparition of Our Lady. She told them, among other things, that she would return once a month for six months.

At Our Lady’s third appearance, on July 13, Lucia was shown the secret of Fatima. She reportedly turned pale and cried out with fear, calling Our Lady by name. There was a thunderclap, and the vision ended.

The children again saw the Virgin on September 13. In the sixth and final appearance, on October 13, a dramatic outward sign was given to those gathered to witness the event. After the clouds of a rainstorm parted, numerous witnesses—some as far as 40 miles away—reported seeing the sun dance, spin, and send out colored rays of light.

Meanwhile, as World War I raged across Europe, an epidemic of Spanish flu swept the globe. It erupted in America and was spread by soldiers being sent to distant lands. This epidemic killed an estimated 20,000,000 people. Among them were Franciso and Jacinta, who contracted the illness in 1918 and died in 1919 and 1920, respectively. Lucia entered the convent.

On June 13, 1929, at the convent chapel in Tuy, Spain, Lucia had another mystical experience in which she saw the Trinity and the Blessed Virgin. Mary told her, “The moment has come in which God asks the Holy Father in union with all the bishops of the world to make the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, promising to save it by this means” (S. Zimdars-Schwartz, Encountering Mary, 197).

On October 13, 1930, the bishop of Leiria (now Leiria-Fatima) proclaimed the apparitions at Fatima authentic and worthy of assent.

The Secret Is Written Down

Between 1935 and 1941, on the orders of her superiors, Sr. Lucia wrote four memoirs of the Fatima events. In the third of these, she recorded the first two parts of the secret, explaining that there was a third part she was not yet permitted by heaven to reveal. In the Fourth Memoir, she added a sentence to the end of the second part of the secret: “In Portugal, the dogma of the faith will always be preserved, etc.” This sentence has been the basis for much speculation that the third part of the secret concerned a great apostasy. Sr. Lucia also noted that in writing the secret in the Fourth Memoir, “With the exception of that part of the Secret which I am not permitted to reveal at present, I shall say everything. I shall not knowingly omit anything, though I suppose I may forget just a few small details of minor importance.”

Upon the publication of the Third and Fourth Memoirs, the world became aware of the secret of Fatima and its three parts, including Our Lady’s request that Russia be consecrated (entrusted) to her Immaculate Heart by the pope and the bishops of the world. On October 31, 1942, Pius XII consecrated not only Russia but the whole world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. What was missing, though, was the involvement of the world’s bishops.

In 1943, the bishop of Leiria ordered Sr. Lucia to put the third secret of Fatima in writing. She did not feel at liberty to do so until 1944. It was then placed a wax-sealed envelope on which Sr. Lucia wrote that it should not be opened until 1960.

The “Third Secret” and the Popes

The secret remained with the bishop of Leiria until 1957, when it was requested (along with photocopies of Sr. Lucia’s other writings) by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. According to Cardinal Bertone the secret was read by both Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul VI (see MF, “Introduction”). “John Paul II, for his part, asked for the envelope containing the third part of the ‘secret’ following the assassination attempt on 13 May 1981” (ibid.). He read it sometime between July 18 and August 11.

It is significant that John Paul II did not read the secret until after the assassination attempt was made on his life. He notes in Crossing the Threshold of Hope (1994), “And thus we come to May 13, 1981, when I was wounded by gunshots fired in St. Peter’s Square. At first, I did not pay attention to the fact that the assassination attempt had occurred on the exact anniversary of the day Mary appeared to the three children at Fatima in Portugal and spoke to them the words that now, at the end of this century, seem to be close to their fulfillment” (221).

After reading the secret, the Holy Father realized the connection between the assassination attempt and Fatima. He has since consistently attributed his survival of the gunshot wound to the intercession of Our Lady of Fatima. “It was a mother’s hand that guided the bullet’s path,” he said, “and in his throes the Pope halted at the threshold of death” (Meditation from the Policlinico Gemelli to the Italian Bishops, May 13, 1994).

As had Pius XII, John Paul II decided to consecrate not only Russia but also the entire world to her Immaculate Heart. After he read the third part of the secret in July, he decided to journey to Fatima on May 13, 1982, and there performed the Act of Entrustment.

This act, however, did not appear to satisfy the requested consecration, and so, “on 25 March 1984 in Saint Peter’s Square, while recalling the fiat uttered by Mary at the Annunciation, the Holy Father, in spiritual union with the bishops of the world, who had been ‘convoked’ beforehand, entrusted all men and women and all peoples to the Immaculate Heart of Mary” (Bertone, MF).

“Sister Lucia personally confirmed that this solemn and universal act of consecration corresponded to what Our Lady wished (‘Yes it has been done just as Our Lady asked, on 25 March 1984’: Letter of 8 November 1989). Hence any further discussion or request is without basis” (Bertone, MF).

The Fall of Communism

After it became public that there was a secret of Fatima and that it mentioned Russia, many pondered Fatima in the light of Russian Communism.

Nineteen seventeen was a year of turmoil for Russia. Besides fighting in World War I, the country experienced two civil wars known as the February Revolution and the October Revolution. The former led to the creation of a provisional government that proved unstable. On October 24–25, less than two weeks after the final appearance of Our Lady of Fatima, the second revolution resulted in the creation of the Soviet government.

In the ensuing years, Russia expanded its sphere of influence, exporting Communist ideology and revolution to other lands and martyring Christians wherever it spread. Once Pope John Paul II’s 1984 consecration took place, first the Soviet bloc and then the USSR itself crumbled from a variety of social, political, and economic factors.

As the Pope himself noted, “And what are we to say of the three children from Fatima who suddenly, on the eve of the outbreak of the October Revolution, heard: ‘Russia will convert’ and ‘In the end, my [Immaculate] Heart will triumph’ . . . ? They could not have invented those predictions. They did not know enough about history or geography, much less the social movements and ideological developments. And nevertheless it happened just as they had said” (CTH, 131; emphasis in original).

Though he did not reveal the third part of the secret until this year, six years earlier John Paul II hinted at its contents. Immediately after he meditated on the fall of Communism in connection with Fatima, he went on to write:

“Perhaps this is also why the Pope was called from a ‘faraway country,’ perhaps this is why it was necessary for the assassination attempt to be made in t. Peter’s Square precisely on May 13,1981, the anniversary of the first apparition at Fatima – so that all could become more transparent and comprehensible, so that the voice of god which speaks in human history through the ‘signs of the times’ could be more easily heard and understood” (CHT, 131-132).

By the year 2000, the Holy Father felt able to reveal the final part of Fatima’s secret, since “the events to which the third part of the ‘secret’ of Fatima refers now seem part of the past” (Sodano, MF, “Announcement”). The pontiff selected the beatification of Francisco and Jacinta on May 13, 2000 in Portugal as the occasion to announce this fact.

Interpreting the Secret

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the CDF, points out that the key to the apparition of Fatima is its call to repentance and conversion (MF, “Theological Commentary”). All three parts of the secret serve to motivate the individual to repentance, and they do so in a dramatic way.

The first part of the secret—the vision of hell—is the most important, for it reveals to individuals the tragic consequences of failure to repent and what awaits them in the invisible world if they are not converted.

In the second part, Mary says, “You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart.” Speaking of devotion to the Immaculate Heart as a means of salvation is not part of our cultural vocabulary and is easily misunderstood. Some anti-Catholics have even taken it as a false gospel replacing the gospel of Christ. It is no such thing, as Cardinal Ratzinger explains:

“According to Matthew 5:8, the ‘immaculate heart’ is a heart which, with God’s grace, has come to perfect interior unity and therefore ‘sees God.’ To be ‘devoted’ to the Immaculate Heart of Mary means therefore to embrace this attitude of heart, which makes the fiat —‘your will be done’—the defining center of one’s whole life. It might be objected that we should not place a human being between ourselves and Christ. But then we remember that Paul did not hesitate to say to his communities: ‘imitate me’ (1 Cor. 4:16; Phil. 3:17; 1 Thess. 1:6; 2 Thess. 3:7, 9)” (op. cit.).

After explaining the vision of hell, Mary spoke of a war that “will break out during the pontificate of Pius XI.” This latter war, of course, was World War II, which Sr. Lucia reckoned as having been occasioned by the annexation of Austria by Germany during the reign of Pius XI (J. de Marchi, Temoignages sur les apparitions de Fatima, 346).

Sr. Lucia understood the night of the “unknown light” mentioned by Our Lady to be January 25, 1938, when Europe was witness to a spectacular nighttime display of light in the sky. In her third memoir she wrote, “Your Excellency is not unaware that, a few years ago, God manifested that sign, which astronomers chose to call an aurora borealis. . . . God made use of this to make me understand that his justice was about to strike the guilty nations.”

Much has been made of the statement “Russia will be converted.” Many people have assumed this meant the Russian people as a whole would become Catholic. But the language of the text does not require this: The Portuguese word converterá doesn’t necessarily mean converted to the Catholic faith. It can mean simply that Russia will stop its warlike behavior, and thus “there will be peace.” This interpretation seems to be the one understood by John Paul II in a passage cited above from Crossing the Threshold of Hope.

The Third Part

In reading the third part of the secret, it is important to understand that its imagery is similar to that of many prophecies in the Bible in four key ways.

First, its depiction of events is non-literal. When it describes the pope’s ascent to the foot of a cross, it can be seen as symbolic of the continual struggle of the pope to follow Christ.

Second, it compresses events that occur over many years and in many places into a single image. The third secret of Fatima is essentially an icon of the twentieth-century conflict between the Church and Communist Russia. And, like any icon, the elements that it shows us must be meditated upon in a kind of timeless fashion.

Third, the third secret is written according to the language of appearances. It describes things as they appeared in the vision, not necessarily as they are in reality. We see this mode of speech (called “phenomenological language”) in the Bible, for example, when Scripture speaks of the sun rising and setting. The sun appears to move around the earth, though in reality it is the motion of the earth around the sun that causes this phenomenon.

Fourth, scriptural prophecies often can be changed by the response of human free will. For instance, when Jonah preached destruction to Nineveh and it repented, God spared it. Similarly, in Scripture, God declares, “If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will repent of the evil that I intended to do to it” (Jer. 18:7–8).

In one crucial respect, the secret of Fatima is unlike any of the biblical prophecies: It is not divinely inspired. While it is the product of God’s grace, God does not guarantee the exact wording or even every element of the text the way he does with the statements of Scripture.

In a letter to John Paul II date May 12, 1982, Sr. Lucia wrote: “The third part of the secret refers to Our Lady’s words [in the second part]: ‘If not, [Russia] will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated’ (13-VII-1917)” (MF, Introduction).

In interpreting the third part of the secret, the angel with the flaming sword clearly represents the judgment that would fall on the world were it not for the intercession of Mary (and, of course, the intercession of others, though here it is Mary with whom we are concerned). For many years it was rumored that the third part of the secret involved the possibility of a nuclear war. If there is anything in the text that suggests this, it is the flames of the sword, which Sr. Lucia noted “looked as though they would set the world on fire.”

In Scripture, fire tends to be an image of judgment or conflict in general. In his commentary on the angel’s flaming sword, however, Cardinal Ratzinger seems to allude to nuclear war: “Today the prospect that the world might be reduced to ashes by a sea of fire no longer seems pure fantasy: Man himself, with his inventions, has forged the flaming sword” (ibid.). In the 1984 consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the second of Pope John Paul II’s specific petitions was, “From incalculable self-destruction, from every kind of war, deliver us” (Sodano, MF, “Introduction”).

The angel then signifies the means by which the judgment is averted: “Pointing to the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice: ‘Penance, Penance, Penance!’”

The seers then saw in the unapproachable light of God a reflection of someone who, Lucia says, ‘we had the impression . . . was the holy father.’”

With the pope were others climbing a mountain to a rough-hewn cross. Mountains are traditional places where man meets with God, the difficult process of ascending the mountain suggesting the perseverance required to follow God. The ruggedness of the cross depicted in the vision evokes the harshness of the sufferings of Christ and those who share in his sufferings.

The journey of the pope and those with him through the half-ruined city suggests that the Church must pass through the destruction that accompanies war, and it evokes the suffering of the pontiff in witnessing this destruction but being unable to stop it. This reflects the experience of many twentieth-century popes.

Then comes the part of the vision reflecting the attempted assassination on Pope John Paul II. It shows that he, like numerous other members of the Church, must face the possibility of martyrdom in the conflict between the Church and Russian Communism. (There are, in fact, significant indications that the would-be papal assassin, Mehmet Ali Agca, was on a mission sponsored by the Russian secret police, the KGB.)

There are two.aspects of this part of the secret that will be seized upon by those who wish to challenge the Holy See’s interpretation. First, the killers are described as a group of soldiers using guns and arrows, not as a lone gunman who is not a soldier.

The response to this objection is simple. The third part of the secret simply describes one group of people killing another group. The soldiers in the vision represent all those who have been used by Communists to martyr or attempt to martyr Catholics, and those being killed represent all Catholics who suffer in this way at the hands of Communists. The vision thus indicates that the Holy Father will himself be a victim of this violence, though without indicating the particular means by which it will be brought to bear upon him.

Critics of the Holy See’s interpretation will also point to the fact that Pope John Paul II did not die. To this there are a couple of responses:

(1) If in the vision Lucia saw the pope being shot and falling over, she might well have thought that he had been killed even though in reality he would only be gravely wounded.

(2) The intercession of Mary may have changed what would have happened. “That here ‘a mother’s hand’ had deflected the fateful bullet only shows once more that there is no immutable destiny, that faith and prayer are forces which can influence history and that in the end prayer is more powerful than bullets and faith more powerful than armies” (Ratzinger, MF, op. cit.).

In the final image of the two angels, an aspersorium can refer to a stoup, basin, or vessel used to hold holy water, or it can refer to the.aspergill used to sprinkle holy water. Either way, the angels using the blood of the martyrs to sprinkle the souls going to God gives us a powerful symbol of salvation, of the honor shows to the martyrs by God, and of the significance of their blood. Cardinal Ratzinger points out: “Therefore, the vision of the third part of the ‘secret,’so distressing at first, concludes with an image of hope: No suffering is in vain, and it is a suffering Church, a Church of martyrs, which becomes a sign-post for man in his search for God” (op. cit.).

Apologetic Fallout

Having looked at the entire secret of Fatima, it remains for us to assess a few questions and apologetic issues that remain in the wake of the release of its final part:

1) Has the Vatican revealed the whole of the secret?
Yes. Any accusation to the contrary is simply not credible. John Paul II clearly believes that the third secret of Fatima is crucial to understanding his own pontificate. He is specially invested in the third secret, and, if he says that he has released the full text of the document, then he has. No one with an accurate appraisal of the moral character of John Paul II could think otherwise.

2) Why does the end of the second part of the secret not flow seamlessly into the third?
Because the third part was written more than three years after the first two. Though the three parts describe a single event, they were not composed as a single narrative. For whatever reason, when Sr. Lucia wrote down the third part of the secret she chose not to write it in a way that fit seamlessly with her previous narrative.

3) Wouldn’t it have been of use for people to have known the secret much sooner? 
Sr. Lucia herself explained: “It may be . . . that some people think that I should have made known all this some time ago, because they consider that it would have been twice as valuable years beforehand. This would have been the case, if God had willed to present me to the world as a prophetess. But I believe that God had no such intention, when he made known these things to me. If that had been the case, I think that, in 1917, when He ordered me to keep silence . . . He would, on the contrary, have ordered me to speak” (Third Memoir, 115).

This highlights the error of those who have insisted that the Virgin Mary demanded that the third part of the secret be read to the world by 1960 at the latest. When queried about this, Sr. Lucia replied: “It was not Our Lady. I fixed the date because I had the intuition that before 1960 it would not be understood but that only later would it be understood” (Bertone, MF, “Conversation”).

4) To what does the triumph of Mary’s Immaculate Heart refer?
Cardinal Ratzinger explains, “The Heart open to God, purified by contemplation of God, is stronger than guns and weapons of every kind. The fiat of Mary, the word of her heart, has changed the history of the world, because it brought the Savior into the world ” (op. cit.).

5) Are other interpretations of the “third secret” possible?
Since the Holy See has not infallibly defined the subject, other interpretations are possible. This does not mean that other interpretations are rational—at least if they depart from the main lines of the interpretation given by the Holy See.

The reason has to do with the nature of private revelation. Since it is principally for the benefit of the individuals directly involved, they are the most likely to interpret it properly. In this case, both Sr. Lucia and the Holy Father are in agreement that the interpretation offered in The Message of Fatima is the correct one. Those of us who are not principals have little reason to question the judgment of those for whom the revelation was given.

Bottom line: If they’re satisfied, we should be.

Getting Fatima Right

In 1915, as World War I raged in Europe, a Portuguese girl saw something strange in the sky.

The girl—Lucia dos Santos—was seven years old and lived near the town of Fatima. One day, as she was tending her family’s sheep along with three other girls, they began to say the rosary and saw a strange sight.

In the second of four memoirs she would write, Lucia recalled: “We saw a figure poised in the air above the trees; it looked like a statue made of snow, rendered almost transparent by the rays of the sun.” She also wrote, “It looked like a person wrapped up in a sheet.”

They did not know what to make of the sight, and it vanished when they finished praying. The same thing happened on two more occasions.

The angel of peace

In the spring of 1916, Lucia and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Martos (then 7 and 6) began seeing an angel.

It appeared as “a young man, about fourteen or fifteen years old, whiter than snow, transparent as crystal when the sun shines through it, and of great beauty.”

The angel identified itself as “the angel of peace” and as the guardian angel of Portugal. Lucia understood it to be the same figure she had seen in the sky.

The angel appeared to the children on three occasions, taught them prayers, and during the last appearance showed them a host and chalice that hung miraculously in the air. It then gave them Holy Communion.

‘I am from heaven’

On May 13, 1917, the three were again tending their sheep when they perceived what they thought was a flash of lightning. As they hurried home, there was another flash, and they beheld a beautiful woman in a hemlock tree that grew in a field known as the Cova da Iria.

“We beheld a Lady all dressed in white. She was more brilliant than the sun and radiated a light more clear and intense than a crystal glass filled with sparkling water, when the rays of the burning sun shine through it” (Fourth Memoir).

When asked where she was from, the Lady replied, “I am from heaven.” She requested that the children return to the spot once a month for six months.

She also informed the children that they would go to heaven, and she asked if they were wiling to offer themselves to God and bear the sufferings he would send them, in reparation for sin and the conversion of sinners. They replied they would.

She also told them: “Pray the rosary every day, in order to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war.”

“Jesus wishes to make use of you”

When the Lady reappeared the next month, Lucia asked her to take the three children to heaven, and she replied, “I will take Jacinta and Francisco soon. But you are to stay here some time longer. Jesus wishes to make use of you to make me known and loved. He wants to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart.”

This prediction was fulfilled. In 1918, toward the end of the war, a global flu pandemic took the lives of millions. Among them were Francisco, who died in 1919, and Jacinta, who died in 1920. Lucia would not die until 2005 at the age of 97.

A secret revealed

At the July apparition, the Lady promised that, in October, she would identify herself and perform a miracle so that all might see and believe.

She also gave the children a secret, which included a vision of hell that caused Lucia to cry out. Afterward, the Lady said:

“You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war is going to end; but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the pontificate of Pius XI. When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that he is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father.

“To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays. If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated. In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world. In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved; etc. . . . Do not tell this to anybody.”

Arrested

The children were prevented from returning to the site on August 13 because the local mayor—an opponent of the apparitions—had the young visionaries arrested. Despite threatening them, he was unable to get them either to admit that they were lying or to reveal the secret.

Pilgrims who had gathered at the site of the apparitions reported strange phenomena. Some said they saw a blue and white cloud descend and then ascend again, some reported lightning, and some reported seeing our Lady.

‘A chapel that is to be built’

Since the children had not been able to come to the site of the apparitions on August 13, the Lady appeared to them a few days later.

When asked what should be done with money that pilgrims were leaving at the apparition site, she indicated that two processional litters should be made for the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, adding, “What is left over will help toward the construction of a chapel that is to be built here.”

On September 13, large crowds of pilgrims greeted the children and urged them to present their petitions to the Lady.

As the children and the crowd prayed the rosary, she appeared, this time promising, “In October our Lord will come, as well as Our Lady of Dolors and Our Lady of Carmel. Saint Joseph will appear with the Child Jesus to bless the world.”

The miracle of the sun

On October 13, the Lady said, “I am the Lady of the Rosary. Continue always to pray the rosary every day. The war is going to end, and the soldiers will soon return to their homes.”

According to Lucia, the Lady opened her hands, “made them reflect on the sun, and as she ascended, the reflection of her own light continued to be projected on the sun itself.”

Lucia then called for people to look at the sun, and an event called “the miracle of the sun” occurred. Although not everyone claimed to see the phenomenon, numerous individuals reported that the sun appeared to change colors, spin, and “dance” in the sky.

In the wake of this event, the children reported visions of St. Joseph, the Child Jesus, and our Lady in various guises, including Our Lady of Dolors and Our Lady of Carmel, as had been promised.

First Saturdays devotion

In the July 1917 apparition, the Lady had indicated that she would request a devotion involving the First Saturdays of the months.

This request was made on December 10, 1925, when Lucia was a novice among the Dorothean Sisters. On that day, Sr. Lucia experienced an apparition of the Virgin Mary and the Child Jesus, in which Mary said:

“All those who during five months, on the first Saturday, go to confession, receive Holy Communion, say a rosary, and keep me company for fifteen minutes, meditating on the fifteen mysteries of the rosary for the intention of making reparation to me, I promise to assist them at the hour of death, with all the graces necessary for the salvation of their souls” (Documents on Fatima & the Memoirs of Sister Lucia, 279-280).

On January 15, 1926, she experienced an apparition of the Child Jesus, asking if she had spread this devotion, which has come to be known as the First Saturdays devotion.

Consecration requested, apparitions approved

The July 1917 apparition also indicated a request would be made for the consecration of Russia, and this was done on June 13, 1929. On that night, Sr. Lucia experience a vision of the Holy Trinity and the Virgin Mary, in which Mary said:

“The moment has come in which God asks the Holy Father, in union with all the bishops of the world, to make the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, promising to save it by this means” (Documents on Fatima & the Memoirs of Sister Lucia, 393-394).

On October 13, 1930, the bishop of Leiria, Portugal—in whose territory Fatima lies—granted formal approval for the 1917 apparitions, declaring “as worthy of credence the visions of the children in the Cova da Iria, parish of Fatima, of this diocese, on the thirteenth day of each month from May to October 1917” (Documents on Fatima & the Memoirs of Sister Lucia, 290).

“An unknown light”

In the July 1917 apparition, the Lady stated that the war (World War I) would end but that a worse one could break out in the reign of Pius XI, who would not be elected until 1922. The sign presaging this event was to be “a night illumined by an unknown light.”

On the night of January 25-26, 1938, an extraordinary display of the aurora borealis was widely visible in Europe. In her Third Memoir, Sr. Lucia interpreted this as the sign indicating the new war was close.

World War II broke out the following year.

The third part of the secret

Between 1935 and 1941, Sr. Lucia wrote a series of four memoirs concerning the 1917 apparitions and her cousins.

In the Third Memoir, she revealed the first two parts of the secret they had been given on July 13, 1917: the vision of hell and the material concerning Russia and the pope, along with the forthcoming requests for the First Saturdays devotion and the consecration of Russia.

However, she did not reveal the third part at that time. On January 3, 1944, at the request of her bishop, Sr. Lucia did record it, placing the text in a sealed envelope, which in 1957 was transferred to the Holy See.

Before giving the sealed envelope containing the third part of the “secret” to the then bishop of Leiria-Fatima, Sr. Lucia wrote on the outside envelope that it could be opened only after 1960, either by the patriarch of Lisbon or the bishop of Leiria. Archbishop Bertone therefore asked: “Why only after 1960? Was it our Lady who fixed that date?” Sr. Lucia replied: “It was not our Lady. I fixed the date because I had the intuition that before 1960 it would not be understood, but that only later would it be understood” (The Message of Fatima; all subsequent quotations are taken from this document).

When 1960 came, the Holy See chose not to reveal the third part of the secret.

Assassination attempt

On May 13, 1981—the anniversary of the first Fatima apparition—a Turkish man named Mehmet Ali Agca shot John Paul II in St. Peter’s Square. The pope almost died from the wound, but surgeons were able to save his life.

Though Agca has repeatedly changed his story, it is widely thought he was acting on behalf of Communist forces wishing to neutralize the Polish pope, who went on to play a key role in the downfall of Soviet Communism.

On July 18, 1981, John Paul II read the third part of the secret for the first time and learned what it contained.

The consecration performed

As early as 1942, Pius XII consecrated the entire world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and in 1952 he specifically consecrated Russia.

Following the assassination, while he was still recuperating, John Paul II had a special act of entrustment performed on June 7, 1981, and it was repeated in Fatima on May 13, 1982.

However, there was a question of whether these fulfilled the request made by the Virgin Mary, as she had asked that the pope perform the consecration “in union with all the bishops of the world.”

Consequently, “in order to respond more fully to the requests of ‘our Lady’ . . . on 25 March 1984 in St. Peter’s Square, while recalling the fiat uttered by Mary at the Annunciation, the Holy Father, in spiritual union with the bishops of the world, who had been ‘convoked’ beforehand, entrusted all men and women and all peoples to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”

Subsequently, in a letter dated November 8, 1989, Sr. Lucia confirmed that the consecration had been done, writing, “Yes, it has been done just as our Lady asked, on 25 March 1984.”

The fall of communism

The Cold War, which began in the wake of World War II, was a tense period. It saw various conflicts; national borders were redrawn (“various nations will be annihilated”), and the world itself was threatened by the prospect of nuclear war.

In 1989, the Soviet bloc collapsed, and in 1991 the Soviet Union itself dissolved, with the Communist Party losing power in Russia.

Beatification and disclosure

In 2000, John Paul II beatified Francisco and Jacinta. He also decided that the time had come to release the third part of the secret, and the Holy See issued The Message of Fatima, which contained it along with supporting documents.

The third part of the secret turned out to be a vision of destruction in which an assassination attempt was made on the pope. Others also were martyred.

Interpreting the secret

The first part of the secret was a vision of hell, the ultimate consequence of human sin, and the second and third parts contained references to how human sin would play out in the course of the twentieth century.

The Lady referred to the end of World War I and the outbreak of World War II.

According to Sr. Lucia, “The third part of the secret refers to our Lady’s words: ‘If not, [Russia] will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated.’”

The third part of the secret therefore seems to refer in a special way to the Cold War and the persecution of the Church by atheistic Communism.

“The vision of Fatima concerns above all the war waged by atheistic systems against the Church and Christians, and it describes the immense suffering endured by the witnesses of the faith in the last century of the second millennium. It is an interminable Way of the Cross led by the popes of the twentieth century.”

The assassination attempt on John Paul II on the anniversary of the first Fatima apparition, along with his act of consecration and his role in the fall of Soviet Communism, seems to indicate that he, in a special way, was tied to the fulfillment of the prophecy.

John Paul II regarded the fact he survived the assassination attempt as a special grace. “Sr. Lucia was in full agreement with the pope’s claim that ‘it was a mother’s hand that guided the bullet’s path and in his throes the pope halted at the threshold of death.’”

The significance of Fatima

The Church teaches that private revelations like Fatima do not have the same status as the public revelation God has given us in Scripture and Tradition.

The latter requires the assent of faith, but private revelations—even when approved—do not. The “ecclesiastical approval of a private revelation has three elements: the message contains nothing contrary to faith or morals; it is lawful to make it public; and the faithful are authorized to accept it with prudence.”

The purpose of private revelation is to help people live the Faith in particular circumstances, such as the conflicts that affected the Church in the twentieth century. However, even when these circumstances are past, apparitions can have an enduring value going forward.

In The Message of Fatima, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) wrote:

Insofar as individual events are described, they belong to the past. Those who expected exciting apocalyptic revelations about the end of the world or the future course of history are bound to be disappointed. Fatima does not satisfy our curiosity in this way, just as Christian faith in general cannot be reduced to an object of mere curiosity. What remains was already evident when we began our reflections on the text of the “secret”: the exhortation to prayer as the path of “salvation for souls” and, likewise, the summons to penance and conversion (ibid.).

The Mystery of Near-Death Experiences – Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World

Some people claim to have died and come back to life and report strange experiences of life after death. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli look at the claims, the scientific evidence, and the implications for faith of these near-death experiences.

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Jesus’ Prophecy: “The Temple Will Be Destroyed!” – Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World

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In the first century, Jesus’ most famous prophecy—other than his own death and resurrection—was that the Jewish temple in Jerusalem would be destroyed. And it was. But was the prophecy fulfilled? Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli discuss the claims and counter-claims about the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple.

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The Mystery of the Antichrist – Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World

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What or who is the Antichrist? Is he alive today, was he an historical figure, or perhaps he’s yet to be born? Does he signal the end of the world? Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli tackle the mystery of the Antichrist, what the Bible says, and what the Church says.

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Domitian and the Persecution That Didn’t Happen

DOMITIANIt’s common to encounter claims that the Roman emperor Domitian was a major persecutor of Christians and that he demanded divine worship, insisting on being called “Lord and God.”

It’s even common to hear these “facts” cited as important keys for determining the date and meaning of the book of Revelation, with Domitian serving as its famous “beast.”

But there’s a problem. Here are the real facts . . .

 

The Real Domitian

Domitian reigned between A.D. 81 and 96, and like all of the Roman emperors in this period, he had flaws.

Ancient authors even accuse him of being responsible for the death of his brother, Titus, who had preceded him in office.

He also angered the aristocracy, and he was eventually assassinated by court officials.

However, ancient Roman authors don’t accuse him of being the kind of monster that Caligula or Nero were.

Neither do the earliest Christian sources accuse him of instituting a major persecution of the Faith.

 

A False Narrative Develops

Biblical Archaeology Review recently ran a piece in which biblical scholar Mark Wilson looked at the origin of how the idea of a Domitianic persecution developed. He writes:

Eusebius in his Church History (CH) provides the first reference to Domitian persecuting the church.

Writing over three centuries later in the early fourth century C.E., this ancient Christian historian first quotes Melito of Sardis, who mentioned that Domitian brought slanderous accusations against Christians (CH 4.26.9).

He also cites Tertullian, who claimed that Domitian was cruel like the emperor Nero (r. 54–68 C.E.), but that Domitian was more intelligent, so he ceased his cruelty and recalled the Christians he had exiled (CH 3.20.9).

Eusebius also quotes Irenaeus, who claimed Domitian’s persecution consisted only of John’s banishment to Patmos and the exile of other Christians to the island of Pontia (CH 3.18.1, 5).

Despite these cautious statements by three earlier authors, Eusebius then spun his own alternative fact by claiming that Domitian, like Nero, had “stirred up persecution against us” (“anekinei diōgmon”; CH 3.17).

From here the tradition was enlarged by Orosius (d. 420 C.E.), who, in his History Against the Pagans, wrote that Domitian issued edicts for a general and cruel persecution (7.10.5).

Despite a lack of evidence, [Roman historian Brian] Jones observes that the tradition concerning Domitian’s persecution persists: “From a frail, almost non-existent basis, it gradually developed and grew large.”

Melito of Sardis and Irenaeus of Lyons were individuals who wrote in the late second century, less than a hundred years after Domitian’s reign, and Tertullian wrote at the end of the second and the beginning of the third centuries. They report only that he slandered Christians and exiled some. If they don’t provide evidence of a wide-scale persecution, then it’s very unlikely there was one. Furthermore:

No pagan writer of the time ever accused Domitian, as they had Nero, of persecuting Christians. Pliny [the Younger], for example, served as a lawyer under Domitian and wrote in a letter to Trajan (r. 98–117 C.E.) that he was never present at the trial of a Christian (Letters 10.96.1). This is a strange claim for one of Domitian’s former officials if Christian persecution were so prevalent.

 

“Lord and God”?

What about the claim that Domitian insisted on being worshipped as a god during his lifetime and even demanded the title “Lord and God” (Latin, Dominus et Deus)? Wilson writes:

The poet Statius (Silvae 1.6.83–84) states that Domitian rejected the title Dominus as his predecessor Augustus (the first Roman emperor) had done.

The historian Suetonius (Life of Domitian 13.2) does report that Domitian dictated a letter that began, “Our Lord and Master orders . . . ,” but it was only his sycophantic officials who began to address him in this way.

The story was again embellished by later historians to the point that Domitian is said to have ordered its use.

Jones thinks the story incredible because Domitian was known for his habitual attention to theological detail in traditional Roman worship, so he would not have adopted such inflammatory divine language.

After their deaths, the best that emperors could hope for was to be called Divus (Divine), not Deus (God).

If Domitian were such a megalomaniac who ordered worship to himself, why haven’t any inscriptions been found using this formula?

In fact, no epigraphic evidence exists attesting to Christians being forced to call him “Lord and God.”

 

The Last Refuge of a Failing Hypothesis

Wilson writes:

[Biblical scholar] Leonard Thompson notes that a more critical reading of Eusebius raises doubts about a widespread persecution of Christians under Domitian. He concludes that “most modern commentators no longer accept a Domitianic persecution of Christians.”

However, that hasn’t stopped some from trying to rescue the hypothesis:

Some writers consider Revelation as a source for a persecution by Domitian, although John never identifies a specific emperor. If so, then Revelation would be the only ancient source pointing to such a persecution.

This is a sign of a failing hypothesis: Using the very data that the hypothesis was supposed to illuminate to prop it up instead.

Revelation contains many things that are unclear, and the Domitianic hypothesis was supposed to be a historical certainty that could unlock Revelation and make its meaning clear. Instead, after we realized we don’t have evidence for a Domitianic persecution, the ambiguities in Revelation are now being used to prop up the idea that one occurred.

This is circular reasoning.

 

Breaking out of the Circle

In fact, we have good evidence that Revelation was written well before Domitian’s reign.

First, in Revelation 11:1-2, John is told:

Rise and measure the temple of God and the altar and those who worship there, but do not measure the court outside the temple; leave that out, for it is given over to the nations, and they will trample over the holy city for forty-two months.

This is an unambiguous reference to the temple in Jerusalem. It describes the temple as still in operation (“those who worship there”). But the temple was destroyed by Roman forces in August of A.D. 70, indicating that Revelation was written before this date.

Second, in Revelation 13:18, we read:

This calls for wisdom: let him who has understanding reckon the number of the beast, for it is a human number [lit., “the number of a man”], its number is six hundred and sixty-six.

A few manuscripts give the number as 616 instead of 666.

From elsewhere in Revelation, we learn that the beast is linked to a line of kings that rules the world, that it demands worship, and that it persecutes Christians. This sounds very much like the line of Roman emperors—especially Caligula and Nero, who portrayed themselves as living gods—and it so happens that both 666 and 616 are the numbers you get when you add up the letters in different ways of spelling “Nero Caesar.”

Nero—the fifth Roman emperor—reigned from A.D. 54 to 68, which suggests that he was or had been on the scene, allowing the original readers to calculate his number.

That would put the writing of Revelation sometime between A.D. 54 and 70. But can we be more specific? We can.

Third, in Revelation 17:9-10 we read:

This calls for a mind with wisdom: the seven heads [of the beast] are seven mountains on which the woman is seated; they are also seven kings, five of whom have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come, and when he comes he must remain only a little while.

The most natural reading of this is that the kings are the line of Roman emperors, who reigned from Rome’s famous seven hills. The first five emperors were Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. These are the five who are fallen.

The “one [who] is” would be the sixth emperor—Galba—who reigned from June of 68 to January of 69.

The “other [who] has not yet come” would be the seventh emperor—Otho—and he did, indeed, reign “only a little while,” from January of 69 to April of 69—just three months.

This would put the writing of Revelation during the reign of Galba, between June of 68 and January of 69.

Once we detach Revelation from the idea of a non-existent, lethal persecution under Domitian, so much falls into place.

God’s Elect in 1 Clement

divine electionCalvinist theology places a great deal of emphasis on the concept of God’s elect.

The term “elect” is taken from the Greek word eklektos, which means “chosen.”

In Calvinist thought, the elect are those that have been chosen by God to be saved on the last day. The Westminster Confession of Faith states, “God hath appointed the elect unto glory” (3:6).

This sense of the term is not unique to Calvinism. It is also the way the term has traditionally been used in Catholic theology, from which Calvinism inherited it.

However, it is important to be careful about the way terms have come to be used in theology, because language changes over time, and sometimes the meaning a term has in later texts does not correspond to the one it has in earlier ones.

A classic example of this is “heresy.” Originally, the Greek term hairesis just meant “opinion” or “sect” (i.e., the group of people who hold a particular opinion), but today it means something very different.

What about “elect”? Can we count on early texts using it in the sense later theologies have?

 

Multiple Senses of “Elect”

It’s easy to show from the Bible that the term isn’t always used in the later, theological sense. When Jesus is described in John 1:34 as the “Chosen One” (eklektos) of God, it does not mean that God has chosen Jesus to be saved on the final day.

Similarly, there are various passages in the Old Testament where God’s people Israel is described as his “chosen” (Heb., bakhir; LXX, eklektos; e.g., 1 Chr. 16:13, Ps. 105:6, Is. 65:9).

However, if we set these aside and look at early Christian texts that speak of a group of people in God’s new dispensation as “the elect,” what do we find?

A striking example of where the term is not used in the later theological sense is found in 1 Clement, and it is worth looking at the way this document uses it.

 

Introducing 1 Clement

1 Clement is a letter written from Rome to Corinth in the first century. It is often dated to around A.D. 96, but it is more plausibly dated to the first half of A.D. 70.

Although written in a corporate manner (1 Clem. 65:2 describes it as “The letter of the Romans to the Corinthians”), its eloquence reveals that it is the product of a single author (not a committee), as was virtually universal for letters at this time.

The extensive knowledge of the Old Testament that its author clearly possesses suggests that he was of Jewish extraction.

Various early Christian sources identify the author as Clement, a bishop of Rome, and there is no good reason to doubt this identification.

It is significant for our purposes is that this Clement was a disciple of both Peter and Paul.

He may be the same Clement mentioned in Philippians 4:3, and 1 Clement describes Peter and Paul as men of “our generation” (5:1-7). Both Peter and Paul are known to have spent significant amounts of time at Rome, and both were martyred there—likely just a handful of years before the letter was written.

Although 1 Clement is not part of the New Testament, the fact it was written so early and by a disciple of Peter and Paul make its discussion of the elect significant, and it may shed light on the way this term is used in New Testament texts.

So how is the concept is handled in 1 Clement?

 

Election in 1 Clement

The first mention of the elect in 1 Clement occurs in its opening passage. Responding to a crisis that has occurred in the church of Corinth—whereby the leaders of that church had been unjustly expelled from office—the author notes that this “unholy rebellion” is “both foreign and strange to the elect of God” (1:1).

From this we may infer that God’s elect are to be characterized by holiness and due order in church affairs.

Clement next comments on how the Corinthians have made great efforts to seek the salvation of others. He writes:

It was your struggle,  both day and night, on behalf of the whole fellowship of believers,  to save the total number of his elect with mercy and conscientiousness (2:4).

This passage uses the term “elect” in a way distinctly different from its later theological use.

Here “the total number of his [God’s] elect” is identified with “the whole fellowship of believers”—a usage reminiscent of the Old Testament passages that speak of the people of Israel collectively as God’s chosen.

We thus need to be alert to the idea that Clement simply envisions the Christian community in the same way: Christians as a whole are God’s new elect or chosen people.

This understanding is strengthened by the fact he here says that the Corinthians have struggled to ensure that “the total number of his elect” be saved, for it suggests that the total number of the elect might not be saved.

This makes better sense if the elect are conceived of as Christians in general rather than those who will be saved on the last day. The former (people who have professed faith in Jesus Christ and been baptized) are not guaranteed salvation, but those who will be saved on the last day—by definition—are.

The natural sense of the passage is thus that the Corinthians have made great efforts to ensure the salvation of all believers, though this salvation is not guaranteed. (Indeed, Clement later warns those who fomented the Corinthian rebellion that they need to repent or they will be “driven out from his [Christ’s] hope,” literal translation; 57:2).

As we will see, this corporate understanding of the elect is consistent with all of the other references Clement makes to the elect.

Clement notes that, to Peter and Paul “a great multitude of the elect was gathered” (6:1).

He also refers to us approaching the Father, “who made us his own chosen [eklogēs] portion” (29:1)—an idea strongly reminiscent of and undoubtedly based on Israel as God’s portion, which he chose (cf. Deut. 7:6, 14:2, 32:9).

It is important to note that here Clement conceives of Roman and Corinthian Christians as a whole—not just certain individuals among them—as being God’s chosen.

Later he quotes from Psalm 118:25-26, writing:

“With the innocent one you [God] will be innocent and with the elect you will be elect and with the perverse you will deal perversely.” 

Therefore let us cling to the innocent and the righteous, as these are the elect of God (46:3-4).

Here he identifies the elect as “the innocent and the righteous”—terms that can characterize Christians in general.

In the same chapter, he writes:

Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, for it says, “Woe to that person, it would be better for him if he had not been born than to cause one of my elect to sin. It would have been better for him to be tied to a millstone and to sink into the sea than to turn away one of my elect” (Matt. 26:24 with Luke 17:1-2). Your schism has turned many away . . . ! (46:7-9).

Here Clement envisions it being possible for the elect to sin and to “turn away”—something he says the Corinthian schism has accomplished.

Clement later writes that “All of the elect of God were made perfect in love. Apart from love, nothing is pleasing to God” (49:5), indicating that the elect are to be characterized by love.

Quoting Psalm 32:1-2 (or perhaps Rom. 4:7-9), he writes:

“Blessed are those whose trespasses are forgiven and whose sins are covered up; blessed is the one the sin of whom the Lord does not take into account, and in his mouth there is no deceit.” 

This blessing was given to those who have been chosen [eklelegmenous] by God through Jesus Christ our Lord (50:6-7).

Thus the elect have been given the blessing of forgiveness.

Clement identifies the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as “both the faith and the hope of the elect” (58:2)—meaning they believe and hope in the Persons of the Trinity.

He says that the Roman church will make “earnest prayer and supplication, that the number of those who are counted among his elect throughout the whole world, the Creator of everything may guard unharmed through his beloved child Jesus Christ” (59:2). The elect thus need to be guarded from harm.

In the same chapter, Clement addresses God directly, noting that he “multiplies the nations upon earth and chose [ekleksamenon] from all of them those who love you through Jesus Christ your beloved child” (59:3).

Here the elect are again identified with “those who love you [God] through Jesus Christ”—i.e., the worldwide Christian community.

The above are the only places where 1 Clement refers to “the elect” or uses the corresponding terms for choosing to refer to a group of people in the Christian age.

He also uses these terms to refer to specific chosen individuals, such as Aaron (43:4-5), David (52:2), and Jesus (64:1), as do various passages in the Old Testament. However, these do not pertain to the subject we are examining.

What, then, can be said about 1 Clement’s understanding of the elect?

 

Synthesis

It appears that 1 Clement’s understanding of “the elect” is based on Old Testament passages (e.g., Deut. 7:6, 14:2, 32:9, 1 Chr. 16:13, Ps. 105:6, Is. 65:9) that conceive of Israel as God’s elect or chosen people.

Clement thus refers to members of the Roman and Corinthian churches as a whole (not just certain individuals) as the subject of God’s election, saying that he “made us his own chosen portion” (29:1).

Today, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are “the faith and the hope of the elect” (58:2), and from among the nations, God “chose . . . those who love you through Jesus Christ your beloved child” (59:3). The elect are thus identified with the worldwide Christian community.

Therefore, “the total number of his elect” is identified with “the whole fellowship of believers” (2:4).

In Rome in particular, “a great multitude of the elect was gathered” around Peter and Paul (6:1).

The elect have been given the blessing of forgiveness. (50:6-7), and thus can be described as “the innocent and the righteous” (46:3-4), for “all of the elect of God were made perfect in love” (49:5). Consequently, they are to be characterized by holiness and due order in church affairs (1:1).

However, it is possible for members of the elect to sin and to “turn away”—something the Corinthian schism has caused to happen (46:7-9).

It is not guaranteed that “the total number of his elect” will be saved, and the Corinthians themselves have struggled to ensure their salvation (2:4). The Roman church likewise prays that God “may guard [them] unharmed through his beloved child Jesus Christ” (59:2).

 

Conclusion

We thus see that Clement—a disciple of Peter and Paul—conceives of “the elect” simply as the Christian people as a whole, not specifically as that group which will be saved on the last day.

His use of the term thus differs from the use it has in later Catholic and Calvinist theologies.

Given the fact his understanding of election closely corresponds to the Old Testament’s treatment of Israel as God’s elect people—not to mention his early date and the fact he was a disciple of Peter and Paul—this may well shed light on the way the term is used in the New Testament.

However, that is a subject for another time.

Josephus and Reincarnation

josephusRecently we began looking at claims that the Jewish historian Josephus (A.D. 37-c. 100) said that his people believed in reincarnation.

This is not true.

As we’ve already seen, there were two general views of the afterlife among Jews in his day.

One view—which was a minority position held by the Sadducees—claimed that there was no afterlife at all.

The other view—which was the majority position and which was held by Pharisees, Christians, and other Jews—claimed the dead would be resurrected on the last day.

For a discussion of evidence regarding these views, see my previous blog post.

In this post, we’ll look at the writings of Josephus himself.

 

1) What Josephus might have said

Josephus’s surviving works were written to a Greco-Roman audience, following the disastrous Jewish War of the A.D. 60s, when the Jews had a very bad reputation around the Mediterranean world.

Consequently, in his writings Josephus does his best to rehabilitate his co-religionists’ reputation, and sometimes he stretches the truth to do so.

If Josephus had said that Jews believe in reincarnation, it wouldn’t have been because this was true—the evidence against that in this period is just too strong—but because he wanted to make his countrymen seem less weird to his audience, many of whom (being Greco-Romans) did believe in reincarnation.

Even that would be unlikely, though, because all one of his readers would have had to do is ask a local Jew whether their people believed in reincarnation. As a Roman collaborator, Josephus’s reputation was very shaky in the Jewish world, and he would have been aware that such an inquirer ran the risk of getting a snorting, derisive reply, with the respondent heaping scorn on Josephus.

Josephus was too smart to make such an easily falsifiable claim.

He would have been particularly unlikely to make one because he had Jewish critics, and if there was any reputation he cared about more than that of his people, it was his own.

Josephus was not going to make an easily falsifiable claim that could damage his own reputation!

Consequently, it would be more likely that he would have explained Jewish beliefs about the afterlife in a way that didn’t make them seem too weird, but that wasn’t false.

In other words, he might have soft-pedaled Jewish belief in resurrection, but he wouldn’t have outright falsified it.

As we’ll see, it looks like that’s precisely what he did.

 

2) Josephus and the Jewish sects

In his autobiography (see Life 1-2[1-12]), Josephus tells us that he grew up in a priestly family and was very studious.

When he was 16, he decided to explore the different Jewish sects and determine which was best.

He therefore explored the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes, as well as staying with an ascetic in the desert named Banus. Then, at age 19, he decided to be a Pharisee.

As a teenager, Josephus could not have made a thorough exploration of the teachings of these groups, especially in that amount of time.

He even says he stayed with Banus for three years, which on its face would have consumed the whole period of investigation (though in ancient reckoning “three years” might mean only two years plus part of a third).

Though he may not have made a rigorous, detailed study of these groups as a young man, he did grow up among them, and he continued to live among them as an adult, and it is certain that he was familiar with their principal teachings and main points of difference with each other.

This would have included an awareness of the dispute between the Pharisees and the Sadducees over whether there is a resurrection or whether there is no afterlife.

As a Pharisee, he certainly would have known that the sect he identified with believed in resurrection, and this makes it extraordinarily unlikely that he would say his countrymen believed in reincarnation.

So why would anyone think he did?

 

3) Josephus in Whiston’s Translation

In 1736, a man named William Whiston published a translation of Josephus’s works, and this became the standard English edition of them.

Today it is in the public domain, and it is all over the Internet.

Unfortunately, it’s also quite flawed, and in a moment we’ll see an example of that.

In his history of the Jewish War of the A.D. 60s, Josephus explains the different Jewish sects for the benefit of his readers. In doing so, he notes that the Sadducees did not believe in an afterlife, and—in Whiston’s translation—this is what he says about the Pharisees’ belief on the matter:

They say that all souls are incorruptible; but that the souls of good men are only removed into other bodies,—but that the souls of bad men are subject to eternal punishment (War 2:8:14[163]).

Note the phrase: “into other bodies” (plural).

To an inattentive reader, or one unfamiliar with what the Pharisees actually taught, this could suggest reincarnation—that after death a righteous man’s soul would enter one body, only to die and enter another, and so on—life after life.

However, this is a place where Whiston’s translation is mistaken.

I checked the Greek, and what Josephus actually says is that the soul of the good man enters eis heteron sōma—“into another body” (singular).

What Josephus is talking about here is the reconstituted, resurrected body they will receive on the last day—not a series of bodies received in different lifetimes during history.

It’s the same basic mode of language St. Paul uses when—in the middle of a passionate defense of the doctrine of resurrection—he writes:

But someone will say, “How are the dead raised? And with what sort of body do they come?” Foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. . . .

Thus also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruptibility. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body (1 Cor. 15:35-36, 42-44, LEB).

St. Paul makes it clear that there is both continuity and difference between the bodies we have in this life and the resurrected bodies we will one day receive.

There is continuity because it is fundamentally the same body: “It” (singular) is sown, and “it” is raised.

But there is also a difference, because its initial condition is natural and corruptible and its later condition is spiritual and incorruptible.

Reflecting this continuity-and-difference, Paul compares our bodies to seeds which are sown in the ground and then transform into mature plants.

Yet the continuity between the two does not stop him from speaking of their two conditions as if they were two bodies—a natural one and a spiritual one.

In reality, it’s one body that experiences a dramatic change in condition.

Josephus is describing the same thing, only he isn’t making clear the continuity between the body we have in this life and the resurrected body—presumably to keep the Pharisees’ belief in the resurrection from seeming “too weird” for his Greco-Roman audience.

He thus accurately describes the Sadducees’ disbelief in the afterlife and the Pharisees’ belief in the resurrection on the last day, but he describes it in a way that keeps it from sounding too strange for his readers.

 

4) Josephus on suicide and resurrection

The above passage isn’t the only one which people have pointed to as evidence for Josephus saying Jews believe in reincarnation, however, the others fare no better.

Later in Jewish War, Josephus recounts a speech he gave to his men when they were about to be captured by the Romans and wanted to commit suicide. In counseling them against this, he reports saying:

Do not you know that those who depart out of this life, according to the law of nature [i.e., who die a natural death], and pay that debt which was received from God, when he that lent it us is pleased to require it back, enjoy eternal fame?

That their houses and their posterity are sure, that their souls are pure and obedient, and obtain a most holy place in heaven, from whence, in the revolution of ages, they are again sent into pure bodies; while the souls of those whose hands have acted madly against themselves [i.e., by committing suicide], are received by the darkest place in Hades, and while God, who is their father, punishes those that offend against either of them in their posterity? (War 3:8:5[374-375]).

Here there is a plural in the Greek: agnois . . . sōmasin—“(into) pure bodies” (plural).

The reason is that Josephus is trying to persuade a group of men not to kill themselves, and so he’s contrasting the fate of those who don’t commit suicide with the fate of those who do. This is the reason he uses the plural here.

It’s not that a single righteous man will enter multiple bodies over the course of history. It’s that multiple righteous men will each enter a single body on the last day.

What makes this certain is his reference to what happens before hand: The souls of the righteous “obtain a most holy place in heaven” and then at the end of the world—“in the revolution of ages”—they are again returned to bodily form.

This is a description of the normal Pharisaic (and Christian) belief in the soul continuing in the intermediate state until the eventual, eschatological resurrection.

 

5) Josephus on the rewards of keeping God’s law

In a similar vein, Josephus elsewhere discusses the rewards his people believed they would gain for keeping God’s law as given by Moses.

Surprisingly, this passage has also been appeal to as teaching reincarnation, but a careful reading indicates it does not. Josephus writes:

[T]he reward for such as live exactly according to the laws, is not silver or gold; it is not a garland of olive branches or of smallage [i.e., parsley], nor any such public sign of commendation; but every good man hath his own conscience bearing witness to himself, and by virtue of our legislator’s [Moses’] prophetic spirit, and of the firm security God himself affords such a one, he believes that God hath made this grant to those that observe these laws, even though they be obliged readily to die for them, that they shall come into being again, and at a certain revolution of things receive a better life than they had enjoyed before (Against Apion 2:31[217-218]).

There is even less here than in previous passages to suggest reincarnation.

There is no explicit mention of “bodies”—either singular or plural, in the Greek or the English—and we again have the time cue telling us when the restoration to life will happen.

What Josephus says in the Greek is that it will happen ek peritropēs—literally, “at (the) turning round/revolution.”

This is a shortened form of the Greek phrase he used in his speech to his men, when he said they would be reembodied ek peritropēs aiōnōn—“at the turning round/revolution of the ages.”

The meaning is the same: The resurrection will happen at the last day, at the turning of the ages.

Josephus is simply describing belief in the eschatological resurrection, which was normal among Jews (with the exception of the Sadducees, who denied the afterlife).

 

6) Confirmation from the Antiquities

Josephus also discusses the major Jewish sects in his longest work, Antiquities of the Jews, and there we find further confirmation. Josephus writes:

They [the Pharisees] also believe that souls have an immortal vigor in them, and that under the earth there will be rewards or punishments, according as they have lived virtuously or viciously in this life; and the latter are to be detained in an everlasting prison, but that the former shall have power to revive and live again. . . .

But the doctrine of the Sadducees is this: That souls die with the bodies. (18:1:3-4[14, 16]).

Here again we have the expected contrast between the Sadducees’ denial of the afterlife and the Pharisees’ belief that, after death, the soul will experience rewards or punishment, with the righteous being given new life at the resurrection of the dead.

 

7) Conclusion

From what we’ve seen, there is no basis for the claim that Josephus teaches that Jews in general, or the Pharisees in particular, believe in reincarnation.

He accurately describes the standard contrast between the Sadducees’ disbelief in the afterlife and the Pharisees’ belief in resurrection on the last day—a view that was held broadly among non-Sadducee Jews, including the early Christian movement.

Josephus does not stress that the righteous will rise in the same body they had in this life—presumably because that would harm his audience’s impression of Jews—but it is clear from what he says that the return to life happens once, on the last day, rather than over and over through history.

It is less clear whether he thinks the wicked will be raised. Although he does not specifically deny that they will be resurrected, one could conclude from what he writes that they will not be.

Despite the fact Daniel speaks of a resurrection of the wicked, the belief that the wicked would not be raised may have been common, and this may have left traces in the language even of Jews who did believe in the resurrection of the wicked (as with the New Testament’s identification of “the resurrection” and “the resurrection to/of life” with the righteous; see our previous post).

The claim that Josephus said Jews believe in reincarnation, however, is simply false.

Judaism and Reincarnation

Afterlife1Every so often I’ve encountered people claiming that the Jewish historian Josephus (A.D. 37-c. 100) said that Jews believe in reincarnation.

Sometimes this claim is made by New Agers, who want to bolster the antiquity of the idea in Judeo-Christian circles, but I’ve also seen it made by others.

It has always struck me as very implausible that Josephus would say this, but the people making the claim never gave references to where in his writings he was supposed to have said this, making it very hard to check out.

Web searches didn’t turn up anything useful, either.

Recently, however, I hit pay dirt.

We’ll look at what Josephus did say in my next blog post on this subject, but first, some context about Jewish views on the afterlife in this period.

 

1) The afterlife in the Old Testament

The earlier books of the Old Testament—as well as the archaeological evidence we have—indicate that the Israelites believed in an afterlife. That’s not surprising, because belief in an afterlife is a human universal—something that appears in all cultures.

However, the nature of this afterlife is not fully clear. It appears that they believed most people had a shadowy kind of existence in the next world, about which not much was known.

As the centuries progressed, however, the afterlife came into clearer focus, manifesting in a belief in bodily resurrection on the last day.

The clearest passages referring to this are found in Daniel and 2 Maccabees. In the former, we read:

And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt (Dan. 12:2).

This attests to a resurrection of both the righteous (those who gain everlasting life) and the wicked (those who gain shame and everlasting contempt).

The passage does not indicate that all people will be raised. In Hebrew idiom, the word “many” can mean either “all” or “many but not all,” so the matter is ambiguous.

In 2 Maccabees, we read the account of seven brothers who were tortured and killed for their faith, along with their mother:

And when he [one of the sons] was at his last breath, he said, “You accursed wretch, you dismiss us from this present life, but the King of the universe will raise us up to an everlasting renewal of life, because we have died for his laws.”

After him, the third was the victim of their sport. When it was demanded, he quickly put out his tongue and courageously stretched forth his hands,  and said nobly, “I got these from Heaven, and because of his laws I disdain them, and from him I hope to get them back again.” As a result the king [i.e., Antiochus IV Epiphanes] himself and those with him were astonished at the young man’s spirit, for he regarded his sufferings as nothing.

When he too had died, they maltreated and tortured the fourth in the same way. And when he was near death, he said, “One cannot but choose to die at the hands of men and to cherish the hope that God gives of being raised again by him. But for you there will be no resurrection to life!” (2 Macc. 7:9-14).

As her sons are being killed, the mother also said:

Therefore the Creator of the world, who shaped the beginning of man and devised the origin of all things, will in his mercy give life and breath back to you again, since you now forget yourselves for the sake of his laws.”

Do not fear this butcher, but prove worthy of your brothers. Accept death, so that in God’s mercy I may get you back again with your brothers” (2 Macc. 7:23, 29).

Later in the book, we read about an incident in which Judah Maccabee and his men found some of their colleagues who had fallen in battle because of their sins:

He [Judah] also took up a collection, man by man, to the amount of two thousand drachmas of silver, and sent it to Jerusalem to provide for a sin offering. In doing this he acted very well and honorably, taking account of the resurrection. For if he were not expecting that those who had fallen would rise again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead. But if he was looking to the splendid reward that is laid up for those who fall asleep in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought. Therefore he made atonement for the dead, that they might be delivered from their sin (2 Macc. 12:43-45).

In 2 Maccabees, the picture is much like in Daniel: God will raise the righteous back to “an everlasting renewal of life,” which will involve receiving back from God the bodily members that have been lost.

However, unlike in Daniel, it is not clear that the wicked will rise again, for the persecuting king is told “for you there will be no resurrection to life.”

This doesn’t mean that the wicked won’t be raised. There may be an implied contrast—as in Daniel—between a resurrection to “everlasting life” and one to “everlasting contempt.”

However, the passage may also indicate that the matter was not yet clear in Jewish thought.

It is also worth noting that the author of 2 Maccabees frames his account of Judah’s sin offering in apologetic terms. He considers two viewpoints: (1) belief in the resurrection and (2) the position of a person who is “not expecting that those who had fallen would rise again.” The author concludes that Judah’s collection for the sin offering for the dead shows that he was a believer in the resurrection.

The second position, which rejects the resurrection, seems to reject belief in the afterlife altogether, since if people continued to live on in any form, it would not be useless to pray for them. It would only be “superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead” if there was no afterlife at all.

The fact the author frames the matter in this way indicates that there were likely some in his audience who did not believe in the resurrection and he wants to win them over by showing that the great, national hero Judah did believe in it.

This sets us up for the conflict between the Sadducees and the Pharisees in the New Testament.

 

2) The resurrection in the New Testament

At the time of Jesus, the two most influential Jewish groups in Palestine were the Sadducees and the Pharisees.

These groups were developing around the time 2 Maccabees was written, and they were divided on the question of whether there is no afterlife.

Thus the smaller group—the Sadducees—challenge Jesus with an argument against the resurrection of the dead (Matt. 22:23-33, Mark 12:18-27, Luke 20:27-40). In all three of the Synoptic Gospels, they are identified as those “who say there is no resurrection.”

The more popular group—the Pharisees—did believe in the resurrection, and we see the two groups in open debate with each other over this question in Acts 23:6-10, when Paul divides the two factions against each other over this question.

On that occasion, Luke explains: “the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit; but the Pharisees acknowledge them all” (Acts 23:8).

This makes it clear that the Sadducees did not believe in any afterlife at all, for not only did they not acknowledge the resurrection of the dead, they didn’t even acknowledge the existence of angels or human spirits.

The Pharisees, however, believed that human spirits existed after death and would, on the last day, be bodily resurrected.

This view was not only shared by the Pharisees but by the majority of Jews, generally. Thus, Martha says of her brother Lazarus:

I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day” (John 11:24).

The New Testament is clear that both the righteous and the wicked will be raised to life. Thus Jesus says:

Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment (John 5:28-29; cf. Acts 24:14-15, Rev. 20:12-15).

Here again we encounter a contrast between a resurrection of/to “life” and one of/to “judgment/contempt.”

Although the authors of the New Testament unambiguously believed in the resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked, the mode of language they use to express their beliefs may reflect a popular usage that was shaped by the fact that not all Jews believed the wicked would be raised.

This may be why the fate of the righteous is described as being raised to new “life,” even though both the righteous and the wicked will both be alive again.

It may also be why Paul on one occasion speaks in a way that identifies resurrection itself with the fate of the righteous, saying that he wants to know Christ “and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that if possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead” (Phil. 3:10-11).

 

3) Other Jewish sources

Our knowledge of Jewish views of the afterlife in this period is not limited to the Old Testament, the New Testament, and Josephus. It is widely discussed in other Jewish writings.

For a general overview of Jewish views regarding the resurrection see the Jewish Encyclopedia’s article on the subject.

We know, in particular, of the conflict between the Sadducees and the Pharisees on the subject:

The Sadducees denied the resurrection (Josephus, “Ant.” xviii. 1, § 4; idem, “B. J.” ii. 8, § 14; Acts 23:8; Sanh. 90b; Ab. R. N. v.). All the more emphatically did the Pharisees enunciate in the liturgy (Shemoneh ‘Esreh, 2d benediction; Ber. v. 2) their belief in resurrection as one of their fundamental convictions (Sanh. x. 1; comp. Abot iv. 22; Soṭah ix. 15) (Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. “Resurrection”).

While the Pharisees clearly believed in resurrection, there were different positions on precisely who would be resurrected:

As to the question, Who will be raised from death? the answers given vary greatly in rabbinical literature. According to R. Simai (Sifre, Deut. 306) and R. Ḥiyya bar Abba (Gen. R. xiii. 4; comp. Lev. R. xiii. 3), resurrection awaits only the Israelites; according to R. Abbahu, only the just (Ta‘an. 7a); some mention especially the martyrs (Yalḳ. ii. 431, after Tanḥuma). R. Abbahu and R. Eleazar confine resurrection to those that die in the Holy Land; others extend it to such as die outside of Palestine (Ket. 111a). According to R. Jonathan (Pirḳe R. El. 34), the resurrection will be universal, but after judgment the wicked will die a second death and forever, whereas the just will be granted life everlasting (comp. Yalḳ. ii. 428, 499). . . .

At first, it seems, resurrection was regarded as a miraculous boon granted only to the righteous (see Test. Patr., Simeon, 6; Levi, 18; Judah, 25; Zebulun, 10; Vita Adæ et Evæ, 13; comp. Luke 14:14, 20:36). Afterward it came to be regarded as an act of God connected with the last judgment, and therefore universal resurrection of the dead became a doctrine, as expressed in the second benediction of the Shemoneh ‘Esreh (tḥyyt hmtym; Sifre, Deut. 329; Sanh. 92b) (Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. “Resurrection”).

However, reincarnation—also known as metempsychosis or the transmigration of souls—was not broadly taught in this period. That only happened in Jewish circles centuries later:

This doctrine was foreign to Judaism until about the eighth century, when, under the influence of the Mohammedan mystics, it was adopted by the Karaites and other Jewish dissenters (Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v., “Transmigration of Souls”).

So, what did Josephus have to say about Jews in the first century?

That’s the subject of our next blog post on this subject.