Nostradamus

Life of Nostradamus

Nostradamus was born and educated in the south of France. By all accounts his grandfather had been Jewish, later converting to Roman Catholicism, and the influence of more than one sacred narrative on the young Nostradamus is often regarded—largely because of the vague pronouncements of Nostradamus himself concerning his childhood—as formative. He appears, for instance, to have shown an interest in the Kabbalah as well as in such Christian scriptures as the Book of Revelation. A precocious scholar, he familiarized himself with Latin, Classical Greek (a much less normal academic achievement at that time than later), and Hebrew. He is also said to have demonstrated an aptitude for mathematics, an interest in the natural world, and a fascination with astrology.

His undergraduate studies in the liberal arts at Avignon, France, ended when the university was closed by an outbreak of plague, at which point Nostradamus set himself up as a traveling apothecary. He subsequently migrated to Montpellier, France but was expelled from its university owing (as he claimed) to the authorities' displeasure at discovering his history as a practitioner, rather than academic theoretician, of medicine. During the extensive travels which led up to this period Nostradamus specialized in treating plague victims, and in time he established a reputation as an effective herbalist, using natural cures such as the vitamin-rich “rose pill” (compacted from crushed rose hips) and an emphasis on basic hygiene, an approach that was opposed to many [Page 726]of the kill-or-cure techniques used in medicine at the time.

In consequence, he became something of a regional celebrity and began associating with politically and culturally influential figures, such as the Renaissance scholar Julius Caesar Scaliger. Despite his training and experience in medicine, Nostradamus's interest in almanacs and books of prognostication continued to grow. Although he published medical treatises and commentaries, his transition toward occultism, and the published predictions which followed, would seal the destiny by which he has been known ever since.

The Prophecies

His most famous work is Les Prophéties (The Prophecies). The first version of this almanac of predictions appeared in 1555, an expanded second edition was released in 1557, with a third and final edition published posthumously in 1568. The predictions are arranged in four-line verse stanzas (or quatrains), mostly in French, and mostly in rhyme. These are in turn organized in groups of 100, which Nostradamus calls “centuries.” The final edition of the The Prophecies contains 942 quatrains. Problematically, they are phrased in such a way that interpretation is left up to the reader and many widely differing readings have been offered; difficulty in interpretation is compounded because details are omitted and the text is intentionally vague, containing no dates and sowing confusion over verb tenses—past, present, and future.

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