The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1

IV. Urges Preachers to Explain Prophecies

Villanova was far from cowed by the opposition of the theologians. In 1301 he not only appealed to the pope but restated his arguments in the Tractatus de Misterio Cimbalorum Ecclesie (Treatise on the Mystery of the Church Bells, which he sent with an accompanying letter to various leading churchmen and princes, including the Dominicans of Paris and other orders. ⁴⁰ In this he protested more strongly than ever his loyalty to the church, and urged the preachers of the church to fulfill their responsibility to explain to the people the prophecies of the end. PFF1 757.1

1. BELLS ARE PREACHERS SOUNDING GOD’S MESSAGE

The symbolism of the title is explained thus: PFF1 757.2

“Since the material campanae or cymbala (large or small bells) denote the preachers of the church, it can reasonably be said that because the church rings the small bells a long while in matins and afterwards the large ones, it commemorates by a convenient sign the grade and order of those preachers.” ⁴¹ PFF1 757.3

The matins, he continues, would represent the period of darkness before Christ, and the bells—first smaller and then larger—the patriarchs and later the prophets who sounded forth the message of God. One of the larger bells was Daniel, who sounded forth “not only the advent’ but even the fruit of that advent under a certain number of weeks,” and then Christ’s coming multiplied the sound of the great bells in the temple of God as the virginal dawn brought forth the sun. ⁴² PFF1 757.4

2. PROPHETIC PERIODS END IN WORLD’S EVENING

In the church the same order was observed, and the preaching of the apostles and evangelical men continued. Reaching his own time in prophetic interpretation, Villanova points out that the evening of the world draws near when the two greatest vesper bells, Enoch and Elijah, will sound forth in the time of Antichrist. ⁴³ Usque ad vespere et mane, flies duo milia ccc—to the evening and the morning, 2300 days, he says, refers to the evening of the world, and to Antichrist, 1290 days from the taking away of the continual sacrifice, etc. ⁴⁴ The prophecy is ambiguous until one determines the starting point and meaning of the term day, which may, he explains, mean a day, a whole period of time, a thousand years, or a year (citing Ezekiel 4:6); and that year may be either lunar, solar, or “hebdomadal,” which he explains as 365 weeks of days, months, or years. ⁴⁵ PFF1 758.1

3. CITES AUGUSTINE, DANIEL, FOR CHRONOLOGY

In this tract Villanova is not on the defensive. Ignoring opposition, he is trying to arouse the church bells to sound forth the message of the nearness of the end, and thus give the people what he considers “meat in due season.” ⁴⁶ It is not difficult, he urges, to find an opening to announce the time of the end of the age, for Augustine’s dating of the sixth millenary would make the end less than two centuries away. ⁴⁷ If one wishes to use Daniel’s visions, let him first study the Scriptures to determine the starting point, and the sort of day used in computation of the 2300 days to the evening of this age and morning of the next. ⁴⁸ It would be reasonable to start from the time of the vision, and if Daniel used day to mean year, the century may be determined. PFF1 758.2

“Yet it will be safer for preachers, if they wish to assert something in a common audience concerning the last times of the world through the words of Daniel, to dismiss this prophecy concerning the end of the world and accept that which is concerning the time of Antichrist.” ⁴⁹ PFF1 759.1

The chronology which he offers for the 1290 days is the same as in the tract on Antichrist, on the supposition that Jerusalem fell in the forty-second year after the cross, and that a covenant made with the Jews was broken three years later, in the midst of a week of years, or in the forty-sixth year after the cross; the period is ended, however, in the sixty-eighth year of the fourteenth century. ⁵⁰ The year number ⁵¹ in this manuscript is likewise a correction from the original, and in the Paris manuscript of this same work it reads “seventy-sixth” with no erasure. ⁵² PFF1 759.2

As for the year-day reckoning, he argues that a day could not here be reckoned as an ordinary day, as the whole period, or as a hebdomadal year. ⁵³ It is necessary, he contends, since the Scripture is true, that the exposition of it should agree. If Daniel uses days for lunar or solar years, the prophecy agrees with Augustine, and to this the Sibyl agrees as well. ⁵⁴ Thus Villanova makes a bid for orthodoxy according to the standard authorities of his day. PFF1 759.3

Informed, then, by these arguments, the preachers of the church can probably assert that by a day Daniel means a lunar or solar year—the’ difference between them being only about two years at the end. ⁵⁵ PFF1 759.4

4. CHRISTIANS ARE TO UNDERSTAND DANIEL

With these proofs, cries Villanova, the preachers can announce boldly the nearness of Antichrist; nevertheless they have remained mute, frightened by Daniel’s saying that the book is sealed. ⁵⁶ Then he argues at length that this fear is unreasonable. Let the preachers study the Scriptures, and they will understand, for it is the wicked who are not to understand. The words of Daniel are not to be closed to the Christian people. The Jews, who declared that Daniel’s words could not be understood because the seventy weeks proved the time of the first advent of Christ, would ridicule and insult any Christians who would concede that, for they would say our faith concerning Christ was empty. ⁵⁷ PFF1 759.5

Furthermore, he argues, another fear which restrains a preacher is removed by the Scripture, for Daniel says that the book is sealed only to the prescribed time, and then “many shall pass through it and knowledge shall be multiplied.” And if a preacher fears to be caught in a mistake by proclaiming a determined time for the last persecution, he can preach cautiously—for the hearts of mortals are frightened—and he will be preserved from falsehood. If he says, “Watch and be cautious for many believe that the last times are here,” he will then speak with Catholic moderation. ⁵⁸ PFF1 760.1

5. PREACHERS MUST STUDY SCRIPTURES

But he ends with the exhortation to ring out the message of the Scriptures like large bells in the vespertime of the world. PFF1 760.2

“It is therefore the conclusion of all these sayings that the preachers of the church ought to study the Scriptures and their expositions so diligently that they may not, like a small bell at the evening of this world make an imperceptible sound; ... let them imitate the great bells, so that as if with a thundering sound they may warn all the citizens to take part in the praises of the heavenly Lamb.” ⁵⁹ PFF1 760.3

And he adds, discreetly, as a final token of loyalty to the Papacy: “From whose throne, namely, the summit of the Roman see, He makes the mystery of the church bells, briefly explained, to be given out to the rest.” ⁶⁰ Villanova’s loyalty to the popes, to say nothing of his value to them as physician, was to save him from the wrath of his ecclesiastical enemies, but his attempt to rally the orders to his prophetic message failed. PFF1 760.4