It would be a curious list to make of all the years in which it was said that Antichrist was born; they might be counted by hundreds, to say nothing of the future. At the commencement of the fourteenth century, the alchemist Arnault of Villeneuve announced the end of the world for 1335. In his treatise _De Sigillis_ he applies the influence of the stars to alchemy, and expounds the mystical formula by which demons are to be conjured. St. Vincent Ferrier, a famous Spanish preacher, gave to the world as many years' duration as there were verses in the Psalms--about 2537. The sixteenth century produced a very plentiful crop of predictions of the final catastrophe. Simon Goulart, for example, gave the world an appalling account of terrible sights seen in Assyria--where a mountain opened and showed a scroll with letters of Greek--"The end of the world is coming." This was in 1532; but after that year had passed in safety, Leovitius, a famous astrologer, predicted it again for 1584. Louis Gayon reports that the fright at this time was great. The churches could not hold those who sought a refuge in them, and a great number made their wills, without reflecting that there was no use in it if the whole world was to finish. One of the most famous mathematicians of Europe, named Stoffler, who flourished in the 16th century, and who worked for a long time at the reform of the calendar proposed by the Council of Constance, predicted a universal deluge for 1524. This deluge was to happen in the month of February, because Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars were then together in the sign of the Fishes. Everyone in Europe, Asia, and Africa, to whom these tidings came, was in a state of consternation. They expected a deluge, in spite of the rainbow. Many contemporary authors report that the inhabitants of the maritime provinces of Germany sold their lands for a mere trifle to those who had more money and less credulity. Each built himself a boat like an ark. A doctor of Toulouse, named Auriol, made a very large ark for himself, his family, and his friends, and the same precautions were taken by a great many people in Italy. At last the month of February came, and not a drop of rain fell. Never was a drier month or a more puzzled set of astrologers. Nevertheless they were not discouraged nor neglected for all that, and Stoffler himself, associated with the celebrated Regiomontanus, predicted once more that the end of the world would come in 1588, or at least that there would be frightful events which would overturn the earth. This new prediction was a new deception; nothing extraordinary occurred in 1588. The year 1572, however, witnessed a strange phenomenon, capable of justifying all their fears. An unknown star came suddenly into view in the constellation of Cassiopeia, so brilliant that it was visible even in full daylight, and the astrologers calculated that it was the star of the Magi which had returned, and that it announced the second coming of Jesus Christ.