By Cynthia Chung
In Part I of this series we left off with the false Messiah Sabbatai Zevi changing the year of his bringing forward the Messianic era and redemption for the Jewish people from 1648 (which was prophesised in the Kabbalah) to the year 1666 (which was prophesised by the Book of Revelation), after he had failed to bring it forward in the former year.
Recall that Sabbatai Zevi would begin the Sabbatian movement, where the concept of “Holy Sin” had been introduced. Central to his teachings was the belief that during the Messianic Age, acts traditionally considered sinful would be transformed into righteous ones.
Sabbatai Zevi was born in Smyrna, Turkey under the Ottoman Empire. His father Mordecai worked in Morea, the Peloponnese peninsula in southern Greece. Morea had gone through Byzantine, Ottoman and later Venetian rule. During the Ottoman-Venetian wars, Smyrna became the center of Levantine trade. Mordecai would become a Smyrnan agent for an English trading house, achieving great wealth.[1]
This is significant since it is believed by historians that the Book of Revelation date, the Christian prophecy of the return of the Messiah, likely came to Mordecai, who was an Ottoman Jew, through his relations with the British.
The Book of Revelation, also known as the Book of the Apocalypse, or the Apocalypse of John, would prophesise that the year 1666 would bring forth the Apocalypse along with the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. John writes that this would be accompanied by visions of a woman clothed with the sun and with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars, the Serpent, the Seven-Headed Dragon, and the Beast. In Revelation 13:18 it states “Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.”
Note that Aleister Crowley would call himself “the Beast 666.”
The year 1666 would also have importance within the Old Testament with the reference to Gog from Magog, later referred to as Gog and Magog in Jewish tradition. The Gog prophecy is meant to be fulfilled at the approach of what is called the “end of days.” In the Book Ezekiel, the prophet records a series of visions he has received. Ezekiel is a priest of Solomon’s Temple, who was among the captives during the Babylonian exile.
‘The Babylonian captivity or Babylonian exile was the period in Jewish history during which a large number of Judeans from the ancient Kingdom of Judah were exiled to Babylonia by the Neo-Babylonian Empire. The expulsions occurred in multiple waves: After the siege of Jerusalem in 597 BCE, around 7,000 individuals were exiled to Mesopotamia. Further expulsions followed the destruction of Jerusalem and Solomon’s Temple in 587 BCE.’[2]
Ezekiel tells his fellow Jewish captives in Babylon that the exile is God’s punishment on Israel for turning away, but that God will restore his people to Jerusalem when they return to him. ‘After this message of reassurance, chapters 38–39, the Gog oracle, tell how Gog of Magog and his hordes will threaten the restored Israel but will be destroyed, after which God will establish a new Temple and dwell with his people for a period of lasting peace (chapters 40–48).’[3]
Thus, Gog and Magog appear to be relating to the work of the Devil who will bring forward the end of days that will in turn invoke the second coming of the Messiah.
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Gog and Magog would also be incorporated into a medieval British tale and a strange City of London tradition as protectors of the city.
The Lord Mayor of London’s annual parade is one of the oldest civic parades in the world, where among many strange things are the parading of the giants Gog and Magog who are viewed as the traditional guardians of the City of London.
According to this storyline, Gog and Magog, sometimes written as Gogmagog and Corineus (from older writings), are mythical pagan giants whose origins lie in the medieval legends of the early British Kings.
Stephen Liddell writes on his blog Musings on a Mad World:
The story goes that the Roman Emperor Diocletian had thirty-three wicked daughters. He managed to find thirty-three husbands to curb their unruly ways, but the daughters were not pleased and under the leadership of their eldest sister Alba they plotted to cut the throats of their husbands as they slept.
For this crime they were set adrift in a boat with half a year’s rations, and after a long and dreadful journey they arrived at a great island that came to be named Albion, after the elder sibling. They decided to set up home in Albion and with the assistance of demons they populated the wild, windswept islands with a race of giants.
Some time later Brutus, the great-grandson of Aeneas, fled after the fall of Troy and by way of various scrapes arrived at the same islands. He too named them for himself, so we also know them as Britain. With him he brought his most able warrior and champion Corineus, who faced the leader of the giants in single combat and eventually hurled him from a high rock to his death. The name of the giant was Gogmagog and the rock from which he was thrown became known as Langnagog or ‘The Giants Leap’. As a reward Corineus was given the western part of the island, which came to be called Cornwall after him. Brutus travelled to the east and founded the city of New Troy, which we know as London. How this ties in with King Lud who also founded London and indeed the historically slightly more certain King Cassivellanus…is all a little bit conflicting!
The full story can be found in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s twelfth century Historia Regum Brittaniae, a largely fanciful (but hugely influential) history that connects Celtic royalty to the heroic world of the Greek myth by way of the old Welsh legend of King Arthur. Those who enjoy history might know that the fall of Troy was about 2300 years before the reign of Diocletian and that the name Gogmagog is a mangled borrowing from the Old Testament, but these histories were accepted as fact for centuries and would have real importance to the mediaeval participants in the Mayor’s procession.
The custom of carrying effigies and images such as Gog and Magog at festivals can be said to be a relic of the days when the same festival would have revolved around a human sacrifice. The victim was replaced with a symbolic representation, and as the old rites were incorporated into the Church the sacrificial effigy became the saint who had made the sacrifice. Whatever one thinks of this theory, the custom of carrying effigies at festivals was widespread in the middle ages both in England and on the continent, and the giants of myth were among them. The tall figures that you will see on the day of the Lord Mayor’s Show are just the latest in a long line of pagan effigies that go back at least a thousand years and a few miles away there is the annual festival at St Albans where effigies are brought through the street to commemorate historical events there.
So according to this legend, Britain apparently began with Alba and her sisters procreating with demons and siring a race of giants, two of them who are now viewed as guardians of the City of London….
The year 1666 was believed by many in Britain to be as the Book of Revelation had prophesied.
On Sunday, September 2, 1666 a fire started in the medieval City of London. It appears to be the general consensus that the fire was allowed to grow out of control due to the refusal or “delay” of the Lord Mayor, Sir Thomas Bloodworth, in ordering for firebreaks to be setup in a timely fashion. This delay allowed for the fire to spread over nearly the whole city by Tuesday and lasted until Wednesday September 5, 1666. By then most of the city had been burned down. London at the time was the largest city in Britain and the third largest city in the Western world with an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 inhabitants. The death toll from the fire is not clear.
Sugar and Spice and Everything Vice: the Empire’s Sin City of London
Strangely, the City of London would choose the giants Gog and Magog as their guardians and are located in the Guildhall, the ancient seat of power of the City of London Corporation.
If you look at Magog’s shield, you will see the emblem of the phoenix, which symbolises how the City of London rose from the ashes after the Great Fire of 1666, and was reborn anew…
1666 the Beginning of the New Millenium
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