As Ham is at pains to point out, a pair of mulattos can generate children exhibiting a whole range of racial characteristics. This is how he explains the eventual divergence of humanity into races. Adam and Eve would have had a brood of children including Negroes, Aryans, and other Mulattos (I am simplifying the model to make the discussion tractable). Free intermarriage leading to an ongoing mulatto mixing-bowl continued until Babel (p. 69). After Babel, groups separated from each other based on language (p. 71). Initially, each group had the full spectrum of racial characteristics, including the mulatto base stock. Then, survival of the fittest sifted out the non-optimal traits from each “people-group” according to climate and geography (pp. 71-73).

The first question Ham’s Mulatto Model raises is what the divine creation intent of that diversity would be for history, looking forward in time from the moment of creation. The instability of the genetic reproduction should either be maintained through history, or accommodated. If the divine intent in creation were (1A) to maintain the “humanity as mulatto” model, then it would have been incumbent on the offspring to seek out such mates as would make that likely — that is, the Aryan children should actually seek out and prefer the Negro children of the mulatto couple; while the mulatto children could mate with other mulatto children. Otherwise, there would be a tendency toward racial sifting and refinement, leading to the separations that we in fact see today, which by hypothesis is counter to the creation intent.

On the other hand, suppose the creation intent of Adam and Eve as mulattos was (1B) to look forward to a gradual historical diversification, in which the racial diversity would serve as a refractive rainbow-creating medium to reveal the glory of God in its diversity-in-unity. This model has intuitive appeal since it would give a telos to the genetic differentiation of humanity analogous to the diversification of gifts and callings; it would do so in terms of the Trinitarian unity-in-diversity principle; and would apply the organizing principle of the glory of God, which can be more fully reflected from many facets. See my colleague’s speculation on how racial diversity could be carried out eschatologically (even though that reflection does not presuppose the Mulatto Model).

Unfortunately, Ham excludes the B variant explicitly. We mention it only as a logical possibility for rescuing his model.

If we call Ham’s Mulatto view model #1, consider the opposite model, #2, whereby Adam and Eve were of one of the sifted, refined races such as we see today, contrary to Ham’s proposal. In that case, the racial diversity that ensued would have been brought about by providential changes in time. Whether such changes should be classified as “mutations” or something else, would need to be debated by geneticists and philosophers. That is not important here, so much as the decision, would the changes fall under the category of chance or covenant? By chance I do not of course mean a view of ultimate randomness, but rather, a manifestation of the decree of God that is ethically neutral as it were. In this view, the question then is, is the historic diversification of humanity from a primeval pure form, a manifestation of (2A) an ethically-neutral, “random” throwing of the dice, or (2B) under the rubric of covenant, governed by blessings and curses?

The table presents the four views in their 2×2 structure. Row 1 represents “Adam and Eve as mulattos” view, and Row 2 represents “Adam and Eve as a telic (i.e. stable, planned, desirable) race.” Column (A) represents subsequent history as value-free or non-eschatological, while column B represents history as value-laden, teleological, or eschatological.

We can summarize the problems using the table to aid in organization:

•    The (A) column (value-free history) is counter to the warp and woof of Scripture. In general, Ham’s book does not entertain a view of Providence characterized by blessing and cursing. Yes, there is plenty of curse (pp. 27, 29, 31, 36, 44) but no blessing, and no historical coloring of the curse-motif: it is all Fall. There is no common grace within Providence, nor specific curse that might differentiate the “people groups.”  The “curse” is simply the new “natural law” of genetic mutation and natural selection. But Scripture presents the history-producing aspects of creaturely reality as ethically and covenantally charged, and overlaid with sovereign grace. Ham’s view of history is homomorphic with a naturalistic view.

•    The Ham model (Row 1) sets up a pattern of development that is in stark contrast to the creation principle of like begetting like (“each after its kind,” Gen 1:11,12,21,24,25). Birds beget “birds of a feather,” not all kinds of different colored birds. Humanity’s basic look and sound would be unstable in contrast to all the other species.

•    Which came first, the chicken or the egg? the tree or the seed? How you answer that in large part reveals whether you are a creationist or evolutionist in the bones. The purpose of the chicken is not merely to produce eggs, but the purpose of the egg is only to produce chickens. There is an asymmetry. Creation breaks the apparent symmetry and establishes the teleology of type by putting the chicken, and the tree, first in time, before the egg or seed. But this creation principle is disrupted by the mulatto model (row 1). The mulatto is genetically unto something else, not an end in itself.

•    More specifically the 1A version (perpetual mixing-bowl telos) means that the mulatto start is potentiality that is never fulfilled. Its inherent power of diversity is never exemplified fully.

•    Likewise, the 1B version (mulatto start unto the end of racial diversity) means that the mulatto start is potentiality that is not fulfillable except in something other than what it is. This would be different than every other pattern we see in Creation.

•    2a has, in addition to its anti-covenantalism, a conceptual problem: Even if some genetic mutation were governed by the category of chance, yet how could the outcomes be regarded as value-neutral? Is an IQ of 120 of equal value to 80? Is a tribe that produces all eye- and hair-colors equal to one that can produce only one? Is a tribe that can grow enough food to export equal to one that ceteris paribus cannot grow enough for itself?

Though the (1b) form of their model is more appealing than (1a), note also it does not support their agenda of favoring miscegenation. For, if racial refinement and diversification were the creation intent, then it would be natural and normative for fathers or tribesmen to resist an amalgamation that ends the refinement and moves back toward the generic mulatto. The teeth would be taken out of Ham’s acceptance of miscegenation. To put it bluntly, anti-miscegenation would be a creation mandate. Moreover, as people spread out over the earth and developed individuated cultures, it would be natural to do so on ethnic lines. The citizen/alien distinction would be largely coterminous with “race.” Dialects would develop on ethnic lines.  In short, history would develop exactly as we see that it in fact has developed and this would be ethically normal on the (B) variant of the model.

Striking out the rejected possibilities from the discussion to this point, we are left with 2B as the only theologically-sound possibility. Note that this view also leads to the unpacking of history as outlined in the previous paragraph, but does so in terms of covenant, in terms of blessing and cursing, and common grace that may be distributed equally or unequally, according to God’s will.

Where did Ham go wrong here? I submit it was a failure to think theologically in two main areas. (1) The eschatology of his racial model. Ham has painted himself into an embarrassing corner, as unpacked above. (2) The relation of science and creation. Creation is a necessary presupposition for the possibility of science, but creation is itself opaque to science. The same comment applies to Providence when it reflects free sovereign choice. It is interesting that the authors conceive Babel to be a miraculous creation of languages – which would therefore not be subject to Grimm’s Laws or any other linguistic insight – but they cannot entertain that the genetic dispersion might have been of such origin as well – and thus not subject to ordinary genetic research.

At the end of the day, Ham’s worldview is thoroughly naturalistic. Not surprisingly, “nature red in tooth and claw” in the form of survival of the fittest governs his view of the emergence of races, not God’s loving Providence.

As covenantal thinkers, we are left with the (B) column in any case, and probably 2B. Unfortunately for Ham’s thesis, regardless of which row governed by (B) is lighted upon, it would not lead to a “race-neutral” outlook.

But perhaps Ham’s party will attempt to escape between the horns of the dilemma I have presented by recourse to Christian libertarianism: individual freedom governed by covenantal categories that do not ever apply to collectives. Perhaps the divine intent in creating a mulatto couple was to enable the exhibition of maximum freedom of the individual in tribe-less autonomy, governed only by conformity to specified precepts, and to be judged in individual eschatology at the end of history. Examining that outlet will be the burden of the next section.

Under the rubric of apocalypticism, this book weaves together a story about views of time and history, eschatology, astrology, magic and secret societies in Lutheran Germany in the century following the Reformation.

Prof. Barnes (of Davidson College) defines apocalypticism as a view of the future combining prophecy and “gnosis” or secret knowledge. Belief that the end-times were near, and concrete predictions of its time and circumstances grew to frenzied proportions following Luther’s death, peaking in the 1610-1620 time-frame; it then fell off in conjunction with the Thirty Years War (1618-48). Leading up to the high-point of this arc, there was wide-spread use of astrology, culminating in magic; the Rosicrucian manifestos were published and created an instant following. Finally, orthodox Lutheranism counter-attacked; this along with the sociological forces of the War led to its rapid decline. But the frenetic decades of its ascendancy were by no means confined to those outside the church. Quite the contrary.

Let’s back up and unpack some of the detail of this amazing story.

The early setting: Luther

There were some aspects of Luther’s eschatology that greased the skids for some of the excesses that broke out later, even if Luther cannot be blamed directly.

Luther’s view of the “intermediate state” was that there was no such thing. The soul upon death “fell asleep” and woke again just in time for the great Day of Judgment (37). Luther’s model gave the Final Judgment more of a sense of existential immediacy, in contrast to the traditional view of the intermediate state, in which the Final Judgment could almost be modeled as an ex post facto ratifying of what has already happened. In the larger context, Luther’s view gave the Final Judgment a dynamic status, something that both the individual and (consequently) all of human history was rushing toward: a true historical telos.

Second was Luther’s acceptance of the 6 x 1000 or 3 age model (50-51). The 6 x 1000 model had ancient Jewish and Christian pedigree, hypothesizing that the span of human history from Adam until the end would be 6,000 years—a thousand years for each day of creation.

Finally, Luther adopted aspects of what today would be called the historicist school of interpreting Revelation and Daniel. The pope was revealed as the Antichrist; the Turk was the little horn; the four kingdoms of Daniel were identifiable, the last being the Roman, which continued under German auspices.

The ferment

For Luther, the keynote was always to penetrate to the spiritual kernel of a subject. The apocalyptic elements in Luther’s teaching were for warning the ungodly and giving comfort to the righteous (44-5). He pooh-poohed astrology in the sense that the godly could be indifferent to it: but if the ungodly took omens as a warning, that could be a good thing. Thus, Luther’s view, though negative, left a backdoor open that was a bit ambiguous.

However, the transition to the intense interest in apocalypticism and finally, magic, came via several mediating influences after Luther passed.

First, Melancthon had a much more favorable attitude toward humanistic science, including astrology. Speculation on the latter led Melancthon so far as to insist that Luther must have been born in 1484 (147).

Second, there was in general a rise in literacy and a huge expansion of the commercial press, leading to a proliferation of books. Authors and publishers could more or less publish anything; this and the fact that there was a natural tendency to believe what one reads in print, led to a certain assumption of authority: each book tends to become part of the stock one needs to build upon.

Third, the inter-kingdom wars, and the setbacks suffered by Lutheran domains, made it look as though the Lutheran revival of the gospel was a one-generation phenomenon; coupled with the identification of Antichrist, it was plausible to think that the end was near. There was a natural comfort in seeing this feeling apparently confirmed via “prophecy and gnosis.”

Chronology and Prophecy

Out of this brew of background impulses, there was an explosion of works in the two-fold direction of apocalyptic prediction, and historical chronology. This is a curious phenomenon: one genre looks forward, the other back. Was there a connection between these?

Yes, there are two: astrology and the Bible. Moreover, these two seemed to point to a third impulse, namely modeling history as about to move into a “third age.”

1. Astrology

The link was astrology in the widest sense of taking into account both planetary conjunctions and comets. If there is a correlation between the heavenly lights and events on earth, this will be evident in looking backward through history; the insights obtained will then aid in projecting events into the future. It is very logical.

One particular planetary conjunction was deduced to occur every 795 years; Kreuzheim observed that this had happened only six times before, at the times of Enoch, Noah, Moses, Elijah, Christ, Charlemagne (158). The next one would soon happen again, completing a sabbath, and thus indicating the end.

So, when new comets were seen, in 1556, 1577, 1596, 1607, and 1618, they set off a rash of speculation as to import. Even more so, when new stars appeared, in 1572 and 1604. For Heylandt, this new star pointed to the imminent conversion of the Jews. The comets generally were the launch pad for dire warnings of judgment, with immediate penance urged. Sometimes, a comet pointed to something directly relevant to the current situation, like the death of Charles V, or the restoration of John Frederick. At various times, other strange phenomena were reported, such as multiple suns; the birth of “freaks of nature,” whether man or beast, were also given due significance.

Even the famous astronomer Tycho Brahe declared that the new star of 1572 represented direct words of God (173).

2. The Bible

If observation of the heavens is a reading of the book of nature, this by no means entailed a rejection of the prophecies revealed in the Bible. This too provided data for correlating with both history and the future.

The day/year correlation in conjunction with the study of Daniel led to 1,260 years playing a role. Winckler (119) identified 1,260 years between 328 (Nicea) and 1588; then, the Turk and Pope would rise higher than ever prior to being defeated; a 45 years golden age would ensue.

The number 666, of course, played a role. If you added 666 to the rise of the papacy as Antichrist, AD 885, you get 1551. Others suggested using the numeric value of Hebrew letters to add up to 666, and got the Hebrew for “Roman.” Michael Stifel suggested 666 = Pope Leo X, derived from the numerics of Leo X Decimus, provided you take out the “M” for “Mysterium.”

The numerology went in other directions as well. G. Walther found a line in the Te Deum whose numerical equivalent predicted the arrival of Luther (194).

An idea that a hundred years earlier had been suggested by Nicholas of Cusa was that each year of Christ’s earthly life should correspond to a subsequent “jubilee” cycle, or 50 years. 33 times 50 is 1650. Others noted that the time from Adam to Noah was 1656 years, and the time from Christ to the end should be the same: thus, 1656.

Barnes observes that the passing of each year for which great things if not the end were predicted did not lead to an abatement of prophetic interest.

3. Third Age

The so-called Prophesy of Elias varied the 6 x 1000 scheme by bundling pair of millennia, so that there would be three epochs of 2,000 years each. For the Elias prophecy, each epoch had a characteristic which was identified as pre-law, law, and Messianic.

The “prophecy of Elias” was not canonical of course, but yet was sort of deuteron-canonical; at least, it could easily slip into regard as something of an authority. Then, the three-fold epochal scheme easily morphs into Joachim of Flora’s alternative three-fold scheme, the age of the Father, then the Son, then the Holy Ghost.

Likewise, a three-epoch schema was preserved but naturalized by Martin Mirus (115): there was the age of reason and wisdom, to Abraham, characterized by peace; that of the heart, honor and glory, to Augustus, characterized by wars; and since then that of the belly, characterized by man as beast.

The shift to magic

With astrology accepted by just about everyone, both ortho- and heterodox, the stage was set for expanding to additional sources: the “ancient wisdom.”

Already starting in 1586 the magician Giordano Bruno joined the faculty at Wittenberg. Barnes suggests that the apocalyptic ferment made such speculations congenial (184). There was a desire to find more correlations.

To be sure, a distinction needs to be made between “magic” as a quasi-scientific endeavor to unlock the key to the cosmos, to seek multi-layered connections between all phenomena; and black magic, that seeks an alliance with illicit spirits. Yet the fact that the Faust legend arose for the first time during this period shows that a deeper connection between the two was intuited at least by some.

In any case, an integration with the ancient wisdom was sought. Caspar Füger, citing Lactantius, opened the door to the Sibyls, the Hermetic literature, Jewish apocalyptic, and even Zoroastrianism. “Hermes, Moses, and other eminent ancients were supposed to have possessed profound and godly insight, anticipating Christian as well as classical wisdom” (108). There was an increased interest in the Cabala (both a bastard indigenous form and the genuine Jewish article). Helisaeus Roeslin warned, “What is opposed to the Holy Scripture and to faith is neither Astrology nor Magic, nor true Cabala, but rather sheer fictions, against which arts, as against vain and empty philosophy and loose sophistical prattle, Saint Paul has warned us” (109). [Note that even while appearing to endorse Scripture as the ultimate authority, the door is opened to some sort of true Astrology, Magic, and Cabala—since an alternative type is rejected as not being the “true” kind.]

In popular lore, alchemy has only to do with combining metals, but Barnes correctly notes:

[Alchemy] was concerned with far more than the transmutation of metals; it wrought the “moral and spiritual rebirth of mankind.” Such high ideals meant that alchemical secrets were not to be broadcast wholesale (208).

In 1614 and 1615 the Rosicrucian manifestos (Fama fraternitatis and Confessio fraternitatis respectively) were published in Kassel (219). Here, a kind of “golden age” is proffered, that looks a bit like post-millennialism, but is actually Platonic. “God has certainly and actually resolved to show the world, before its destruction, which will soon ensue, such truth, light, life, and glory as the first man, namely Adam, lost and forfeited, so that his descendants were cast and driven with him into misery” (221) — as if the way of redemption has not already been shown!

Later, J. Hörner wrote (214) of the superiority of symbolic theology or cabala; his work included illustrative Rusicrucian dialogues (222).

In Paul Nagel (212-4), the shift in perspective is complete. the ancients, including Moses, Solomon, Hermes, Egyptians, and Babylonians had much to offer. Scripture was added, but then revelation ceased. Now is time to “open up the book again.”

The “Empire Strikes Back”

At length, the orthodox Lutherans came to realize the theological disaster that had brewed on their watch, and a rising tide struck back and finally defeated it.

Georg Rost led the way (241- 245) with his 1620 Prognosticon attacking exactitude in prediction. He struck down the hopeful theme of many with a strong dose of amillennial pessimism: neither Pope nor Turk would fall before end, and the Jew would not be converted. The bulk of his book expounded the traditional personal eschatology. There would (of course) not be any “third age,” but rather believers could expect continuous persecution to the end.

The war itself probably caused a shift in popular emphasis to more of the mundane and political. This was the age when newpapers appeared. Barnes suggests “news began to replace prophecy as the effort to fit current events into a transcendent scheme of meaning was gradually abandoned” (253). The war saw the strengthening of pacifistic teaching of Felgenhauer as well as the Mennonites. Barnes makes the interesting (if debatable) comment that pacifism can only appeal when war is not [or no longer] seen as judgment (256). Another interesting comment is that the shift to an individualized, rationalized eschatology led to a fork in the road as the prophetic/Gnostic element lost its apocalyptic coupling: the prophetic motive tended to quietism and inner spiritualism; the Gnostic element became the quests of modern science.

History is never “all or nothing.” There were occasional new flare-ups, as when a new comet appeared in 1664, and as 1666 approached with its embedded 666.

Evaluation

The book is a tour de force, stuffed with an astonishing level of detailed documentation, and bristling with interesting insights.

The analysis of the motives (of preachers and teachers) and susceptibility (of the Christian public) to apocalyptic themes may be lacking a spiritual and thus figurative aspect. The motives or susceptibilities are identified as pessimism (e.g. pp. 1, 49) and the quest for certainty (e.g. 99, 114, 128, 154-5, 209, 242).

Pessimism, whether in respect to declining social circumstances or man’s corrupt nature, will always be one theme that the preacher must bring home as prolegomena to the gospel. Thus, we find godly preachers “harping” on the decline of morals and so forth even during periods that look, from our perspective, as virtual golden periods. I suggest that this is not necessarily due to either self-deception or manipulation on the part of the preachers (though of course it could be such, in a particular case). Rather, it is the nature of the human situation as it is when confronted by the gospel, regardless of the outward circumstances. In modern times this has been clarified as the already/not-yet duality of the history of redemption.

The same dynamic accounts for much appropriation of symbolic and hence also apocalyptic language. It can be expressive of an inner warfare and resolution. So, when a Lutheran preacher mentioned Luther as “Elias” (54, 60), I would first look at a figurative rather than literal sense.

In reflecting on the need for certainty, distinctions need to be made. The first is between assent to the Christian metaphysical scheme, versus assurance of personal salvation. However, it is hard to see how either of these themes of uncertainty would be satisfied by apocalyptic interest. Instead, therefore, Barnes must be using it in the sense of comfort in times of personal difficulty. A characteristically Lutheran response to trying times is contrasted with that of Calvinism:

But whereas Calvinism developed an aggressive creed and adopted prophecies that encouraged worldly confidence, Lutherans, increasingly on the defensive, tended to cultivate prophetic methods that assumed a fixed divine scheme and that assured believers of final triumph (153).

The definition of apocalypticism in a dual aspect of prophecy and gnosis fails to draw an adequately sharp distinction in each case for prophecy or knowledge that is speculative vs. revealed.

The use of the term chilialism is sometimes confusing, alternating between a view (such as modern pre-millennialism’s) of a golden age ensuing upon Christ’s physical return to earth, and just any “new age” or hoped-for golden future. For example, on p. 221, Rosicrucian’s cyclical return to paradise is identified as chiliastic; then this is corrected p. 223.

Some discussion of just how wide-spread the apocalyptic frenzy was would be helpful. We know, for example, that Protestant scholasticism took its rise during this same period, with its dry, academic distinctions. Think of our own dispensationalists with their prognostications, and multi-million copy novelizations: will a future archaeologist suppose that most Americans were pre-occupied with this kind of thinking?

Applications

In view of the end-times prophecy mania that dominated American fundamentalism for a thirty year period ending only quite recently (if indeed it has ended yet), it is comforting to know that this is not just some “crazy” gene in our tribe: the intellectual, orderly Germans fell for it for a time as well. There are differences of course: our fundamentalists did not fall for astrology, nor for the microcosm/macrocosm mysticism. But there are formal similarities as well, particularly as to exegesis. Gog and Magog morphed from Turk and Tartar to Soviet Russia. Then the wall fell.

One thing we learn from this period of history is that the “four views of eschatology” approach that is currently popular is inadequate. For example, there are views of a future golden age that are quite different from each other, ranging from a “third age” concept that denies the centrality of Christ in history, to the hypothesis of a brief period of belief after persecution prior to the Second Coming, to a period after the Second Coming, to the post-millennial position. And practically any of those options can be coupled or not coupled to an historicist overlay.

A warning might be taken by us from the ease by which thinkers slipped into a “third age” kind of thinking in which the “latter days” were different from that inaugurated by God the Son. The Christo-centric interpretation of history is instantly lost. There were versions with a ring of piosity, and even a call to repentance, but where Christ was noticeably absent. A merely abstract repentance is counterfeit.

Those of us that tend to the post-millennial position can heed a warning that is nested here. If ever a temptation to reify the progress of history sets in to our thinking, making it autonomous, then it is magic, it is Rusicrucianism. Prof. Gaffin’s critique, though unsound, needs to be heeded. Even Boetner falls into this a bit, in my opinion, when he points to the (merely) material and technological progress of history as evidence of postmillennialism.

Professor Barnes has done us a great service to provide this massively-documented source for this period so important both for subsequent history and concepts that stick to us still.