The three secrets of Fatima

In 1917, Lucia Santos and her cousins Jacinta and Francisco Marto claimed to have seen visions, the three young shepherd children from the town of Fatima in Portugal claimed to have received words of prophecy from the Virgin Mary and they were shown terrible visions of which they refused to share. Within three years, two of the children had died, and the third decided to share the secrets in the prophecies with the Vatican, with-holding the last of the three till 1943.

The secrets have since been released by the church, yet many people believe that these could be false and that the church has chosen to withhold the true secrets that had been revealed. The first secret is of a vision of hell, seeing the demons and the tormented souls suffering the great fire. The second announces that the war (World War 1) will soon end, but that if people don't change their ways that a bigger and more devastating war will break out (World War 2). The third foretells blood of many religious people being spilt and some point to this as predicting the attempted assassination of the Pope in modern times.

The controversy is centred around the third secret, as it was supposedly written on only one sheet of paper, where-as four sheets were released, leading to claims that the actual secret had not been released. People who had spoken to the author and people who had seen the secret referred only to one piece of paper. The Vatican did not help themselves as they held back from releasing it, as the author had wanted it revealed in 1960, yet they held out, making some guess at what it could have said and that it may suit the church to hide the real secret for some reason. Either way, we will never know for sure.

Mary the Prophetess (est400BC - 300AD)

She is estimated to have lived anywhere bwtween 400B.C.-300 A.D. And is said to be the first non fictitious alchemist in the Western world. She is known as the names Maria the Jewess or Maria Prophetissima or Mary Prophetissa or Miriam the Prophetess. There is no tangible evidence of the exact time and place of her existence. One theory is that she is possibly Miriam, the sister of Moses and the prophet Aaron.

She is mentioned in a few sources including the 4^th century alchemy by Zosimos of Panopolis, she is also mentioned by George Syncellus in the eighth century as 'Mary the Prophetess', the Arabs knew her as the 'Daughter of Plato'. In the Alexander book by Nizami, Maria a Syrian princess visits Alexander the Great in Greece and learns from Aristotle (384-322B.C.) including how to make gold.

Although none of her original writings have survived the test of time, she is said to have invented some aparatus that alchemists use as well as having various precepts attributed to her.

Old Document Review on 'The Expositions on the Apocalypse'

This old document was composed around 1235 A.D. by Hugh of Saint Cher (d.1263) under the title of Aser pinguis. Hugh was a dominican preacher and also a theology professor. In this document, he gives comments about the meanings behind the Apocalypse ( otherwise called Revelations).

His views are somewhat similar to that of Apringus, in that the Seven Seals mentioned in the book refer to prophecies sealed in time that were broken by the coming of Christ, in fact he goes as far as to say the 'the book is Christ'.

Hugh goes on to describe the various references from the Old Testament which are the seals, the incarnation, nativity, passion, resurrection, ascension, the sending of the Holy Spirit and lastly the coming judgement. These are all referenced to the seven miracles of Jesus. Note the slight differences to beliefs of Apringus from hundreds of years previous, this may be due to passage of time that ideas may change, but this document gives insight to what was believed within church circles in the 13Th century.

Most profound was a reference which claimed that Mary was not just the mother of Jesus, but in fact she was a prophetess!! This is formulated based upon one of the prophecies that formed one of the seals and quoted from Isaiah.