21. The Science Of The Prophets-e

Next came the reign of Anael, the spirit of Venus, on 24 June, in the year of the world 354, when love began to be the instructor of mankind; it created the family, while the family led to association and the primitive city. The first civilizers, were poets inspired by love; presently the exaltation of poetry produced religion, fanaticism and debauchery, culminating subsequently in the deluge. This state of things continued till 25 October, being the eighth month of the year A.M. 708, when the reign of Zachariel, the angel of Jupiter, was inaugurated, under whose guidance men began to acquire knowledge and dispute the possession of lands and dwellings. It was also the epoch of the foundation of towns and the extension of empires; its consequences were civilization and war. The need of commerce began, furthermore, to be felt, at which time -namely, 24 February, A.M. 1063 - was inaugurated the reign of Raphael, angel of Mercury, angel of science and of the word, of intelligence and industry. Then letters were invented, the first language being hieroglyphic and universal, a monument of which has been preserved in the Book of Enoch, Cadmus, Thoth and Palamedes, the kabalistic clavicle adopted later on by Solomon, the mystical book of the TERAPHIM, URIM and THUMMIM, the primeval Genesis of the Zohar and of William Postel, the mystical wheel of Ezekiel, the ROTA of the Kabalists, the Tarot of Magi and Bohemians. The invention of arts began, and navigation was attempted for the first time; relations extended, wants multiplied and there followed speedily an epoch of general corruption, preceding the universal deluge, under the reign of Samael, angel of Mars, which was inaugurated on 26 June, A.M. 1417. After long exhaustion, the world strove towards a new birth under Gabriel, the angel of the moon, whose reign began on 28 March, A.M. 1771, when the family of Noah multiplied and re-peopled the whole earth, after the confusion of Babel, until the reign of Michael, angel of the sun, which commenced on 24 February, A.M. 2126, to which epoch must be referred the origin of the first dominations, the empire of the children of Nimrod, the birth of sciences and religions, the first conflicts between despotism and liberty. Trithemius pursues this curious study throughout the ages, and at corresponding epochs exhibits the recurrence of ruins; then civilization, born anew by means of poetry and love; empires, reconstituted by the family, enlarged by commerce, destroyed by war, repaired by universal and progressive civilization, absorbed subsequently by greater empires, which are syntheses of history. The work of Trithemius, from this point of view, is more comprehensive and independent than that of Bossuet and is a key absolute to the philosophy of history. His exact calculations lead him to the month of November in the year 1879, epoch of the reign of Michael and the foundation of a new universal kingdom, prepared by three centuries and a half of anguish and a like period of hope, coinciding precisely with the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth and first part of the nineteenth centuries for the lunar twilight and expectation, with the fourteenth, thirteenth, twelfth, and second half of the eleventh centuries for the ordeals, the ignorance, the sufferings, and the scourges of all Nature. We see therefore according to this calculation, that in 1879 - or in twenty-four years’ time - a universal empire will be founded and will secure peace to the world.