Christopher Columbus
The great missionary thrust turned toward the west with both Christopher Columbus and Vasco de Gama driven by the conviction they were fulfilling Bible prophecy. Inspired by an eschatological vision from the Book of Revelation particularly, Columbus was much influenced by the Franciscans who were under the spell of Joachim of Fiore. Possibly Jewish himself, he felt he was an instrument of divine providence as history was grinding down to its climax.
Christopher Columbus in his fabled voyage of 1492 carried with him The Book of Prophecy written by a disciple of Joachim named Johannis de Rupescissa which outlined the strategy to be followed in the new world.
The tumultuous seventeenth century was a time of rabid and raucous millennialism and this was true not only in Britain but in the Puritan colonies across the Atlantic. Those who established the Massachusetts Bay Colony did so explicitly to "erect in New England a Bulwark against the kingdom of Antichrist."
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