Depressed by Politics? Some Words of Cheer

By some authoritative calculations, world peace is scheduled to break out tomorrow morning.

In a book published in Paris in 1623, the religious writer and early peace advocate Emeric Cruce observed that, “The ancient theologians promised that after 6,000 years have lapsed the world will live happily and at peace.”

Cruce was alluding to two widely accepted notions. The first, holding that a day for God takes up 1,000 human years, was based on two biblical passages: “For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by” (Psalms 90:4) and “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years” (2 Peter 3:8).

The second held that the life of mankind, following the pattern of the creation week, would encompass 6,000 years of toil followed by 1,000 years of rest.

There is, regrettably, some disagreement about the age of the Earth, and therefore about when its 6,001st year will begin. Many theologians of Cruce’s era spent much time trying to dope it out. Easily the most famous of these was the Archbishop of Armagh, James Ussher (1581-1656). He worked chiefly from biblical information but added both extrabiblical and astronomical data to develop a complete chronology of the history of the Earth.

His findings, written in Latin, cover exactly 2,000 pages of his “Whole Works,” and they conclude that God created heaven and Earth at 6 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 22, 4004 BC and that light was created on Sunday, Oct. 23, at high noon.

Ussher worked with great care and does not seem to have forced the data to fit preconceived notions, though because of the ambiguity of some of the biblical material it was necessary to make assumptions from time to time that might make even a rational-choice theorist blush: For example, to make things come out sensibly, he finds it useful to conclude that when Genesis says, “When Terah had lived 70 years, he became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran,” it means that Terah became the father of Nahor and Haran when he was 70, but that he didn’t become the father of Abram for another 60 years.

Despite such occasional infelicities (he also ignored such complicating factors as the stopping of the sun in the days of Joshua and its brief reverse perambulation in the days of Hezekiah), Ussher’s chronology gained substantial acceptance, and it clearly forms a useful first approximation. (Ussher’s chronology has several tidy benchmarks--by his reckoning, Jesus was born precisely in the year 4000 anno mundi and the temple of Solomon was completed precisely in the year 3000 anno mundi. Moreover, although he could not possibly appreciate the significance of the finding, he was able to deduce that Noah’s infamous flood had begun on Sunday, Dec. 7.)

However, an adjustment is necessary if one is to adapt his dating system to ours. Although Pope Gregory XIII had introduced the calendar we use today in 1582, Ussher kept to the old Julian system and, partly because of his influence, the British did not adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1752. Accordingly, Ussher’s datings are 10 days out of synch with ours.

Putting this all together and adjusting dates appropriately, we have an empirical test. If everybody has everything right, we can expect the Earth’s 6001st year to begin--and therefore peace and happiness to break out--tomorrow: Friday, Nov. 1, 1996, at 6 p.m. Since God was apparently working in the area of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers on Day One--that is to say, in Iraq--this works out to 7 a.m. Pacific Standard Time.

However, if there is still war in the world Friday morning, we may be forced to abandon Ussher and test the estimations of some of the other biblical chronologists. By the calculations of the Jesuit thinker Petavius (1583-1652), the Earth’s 6,000th year will not begin until 2017 (on Oct. 26); by those of Martin Luther (1483-1546), it will come in 2040; by those of the 11th century Anglo-Norman historian Orderic Vitalis, it will come in 2048; by those of the great classicist Joseph Justus Scalinger (1540-1609), it will come in 2050; and by those of Jewish tradition, it will be delayed until 2239.

But for all that, we have, perhaps, something to look forward to.