Arnold of Villanova: Antichrist about the seventy-eighth year of the fourteenth century
interpretation
On: standing in the holy place
Source quotation · Arnold of Villanova, De tempore adventus Antichristi (1297), as printed by H. Finke, Aus den Tagen Bonifaz VIII. (1902), pp. CXXXI–CXXXII; English translation by Rainbow Watch (2026)
Ad que nos. qui nunc ab adventu domini computamus M.CC.XCVII annos, procul dubio venimus, ut probabiliter credi potest. Que ideo ultima revera dicuntur, quia, priusquam duo centenaria compleantur, status presentis seculi finietur. […]
Audiamus igitur, quali computatione Daniel docet tempus huius abhominationis prenoscere. Inquit enim XII°. c.° circa finem: „A tempore, cum ablatum fuerit iuge sacrificium et posita fuerit“ id est usque ad tempus, quo ponetur „abhominatio in desolationem“ scilicet populi fidelis „dies mille ducenti nonaginta“. Et hic sicut supra per diem annus intelligitur.
Quod nobis tamen hic sufficit, istud est, scilicet quod completis mille CC.XC. annis a tempore, quo populus Judaicus amisit possessionem terre illus, stabit, ut ait dominus, abhominatio desolationis, scilicet Antichristus in loco sancto, quod erit circa septuagesimum octavum annum centenarii sequentis videlicat quarti decimi a salvatoris adventu. Nec determinare possum, quantum ante vel quantum post, ideo quoniam determinare nescio, quoto anno post eversionem Jerusalem perdidit Judaicus populus terram promissionis. Certum tamen est ex verbis prophete, quod ille numerus complebitur infra centenarium dictum vel sequens intelligendo per dies annos lunares sive solares ...
New Rainbow Watch translation (2026):
To these we, who now count 1297 years from the Lord’s coming, have without doubt arrived, as may be believed with probability. And they are truly called the last because, before two centuries are completed, the state of the present age will come to an end. […]
Let us hear, then, by what reckoning Daniel teaches us to know beforehand the time of this abomination. For he says in chapter 12, near the end: “From the time when the continual sacrifice shall be taken away and there shall be set up”, that is, until the time when there shall be set up “the abomination unto desolation”, namely of the faithful people, “a thousand two hundred and ninety days.” And here, as above, a day is understood as a year.
What suffices for us here, however, is this: that when one thousand two hundred and ninety years are completed from the time when the Jewish people lost possession of that land, the abomination of desolation, namely Antichrist, will stand in the holy place, as the Lord says; and this will be about the seventy-eighth year of the following century, that is, the fourteenth from the Saviour’s coming. I cannot determine how much before or how much after, because I do not know in what year after the overthrow of Jerusalem the Jewish people lost the land of promise. It is certain, however, from the words of the prophet, that that number will be completed within the said century or the next, taking the days as lunar or solar years ...
De tempore adventus Antichristi · Arnold of Villanova, Tractatus de tempore adventus Antichristi (first part 1297), excerpts printed from Cod. Vat. lat. 3824, fol. 50 ff., in Heinrich Finke, Aus den Tagen Bonifaz VIII.: Funde und Forschungen (Münster: Aschendorff, 1902), Quellen, pp. CXXXI–CXXXII (Internet Archive ausdentagenboni00finkgoog, leaves n450–n451). Transcribed from the page images. Finke’s spelling of the manuscript (abhominatio, terre illus, videlicat) retained; his errata (p. CCXXXII) correct “videlicat” to videlicet, and his footnote says “septuagesimum octavum” stands on a correction in the manuscript. Finke’s ellipses retained; his footnote markers omitted; German-style quotation marks as printed. Followed in the note by a new AI-assisted English translation (Rainbow Watch, 2026), labelled as such.
Source reuse and transcription
Latin text of 1297 in a 1902 edition; public domain. The English translation in the note is new (Rainbow Watch, 2026). Historical printed text, public domain (published before 1929). The historical wording is reproduced.
Community response to this revision: 0
Published revision history
2026-10-05T15:53:51+00:00
Ad que nos. qui nunc ab adventu domini computamus M.CC.XCVII annos, procul dubio venimus, ut probabiliter credi potest. Que ideo ultima revera dicuntur, quia, priusquam duo centenaria compleantur, status presentis seculi finietur. […]
Audiamus igitur, quali computatione Daniel docet tempus huius abhominationis prenoscere. Inquit enim XII°. c.° circa finem: „A tempore, cum ablatum fuerit iuge sacrificium et posita fuerit“ id est usque ad tempus, quo ponetur „abhominatio in desolationem“ scilicet populi fidelis „dies mille ducenti nonaginta“. Et hic sicut supra per diem annus intelligitur.
Quod nobis tamen hic sufficit, istud est, scilicet quod completis mille CC.XC. annis a tempore, quo populus Judaicus amisit possessionem terre illus, stabit, ut ait dominus, abhominatio desolationis, scilicet Antichristus in loco sancto, quod erit circa septuagesimum octavum annum centenarii sequentis videlicat quarti decimi a salvatoris adventu. Nec determinare possum, quantum ante vel quantum post, ideo quoniam determinare nescio, quoto anno post eversionem Jerusalem perdidit Judaicus populus terram promissionis. Certum tamen est ex verbis prophete, quod ille numerus complebitur infra centenarium dictum vel sequens intelligendo per dies annos lunares sive solares ...
New Rainbow Watch translation (2026):
To these we, who now count 1297 years from the Lord’s coming, have without doubt arrived, as may be believed with probability. And they are truly called the last because, before two centuries are completed, the state of the present age will come to an end. […]
Let us hear, then, by what reckoning Daniel teaches us to know beforehand the time of this abomination. For he says in chapter 12, near the end: “From the time when the continual sacrifice shall be taken away and there shall be set up”, that is, until the time when there shall be set up “the abomination unto desolation”, namely of the faithful people, “a thousand two hundred and ninety days.” And here, as above, a day is understood as a year.
What suffices for us here, however, is this: that when one thousand two hundred and ninety years are completed from the time when the Jewish people lost possession of that land, the abomination of desolation, namely Antichrist, will stand in the holy place, as the Lord says; and this will be about the seventy-eighth year of the following century, that is, the fourteenth from the Saviour’s coming. I cannot determine how much before or how much after, because I do not know in what year after the overthrow of Jerusalem the Jewish people lost the land of promise. It is certain, however, from the words of the prophet, that that number will be completed within the said century or the next, taking the days as lunar or solar years ...