Too bad there's not some kind of "Trad-Snopes" for this sort of thing

Too bad there's not some kind of "Trad-Snopes" for this sort of thing

No Trad-Snopes, but I found this...

http://www.traditioninaction.org/Questions/B260_MoreNilus.html

A Phony St. Nilus Prophecy?


St. Nilus Source
WhatPeopleAreSaying02_Cir_

    TIA,

    I pulled this from an internet search of the subject of this :

    "I'm afraid this "prophesy" is a forgery. And yes, I'm aware that it appeared in the previous edition of the "Athonite Gerontikon", but monks make mistakes too! Several things give it away as a forgery:

       1. No one heard of this prophesy prior to the 1990's.


       2. The first versions of the "prophesy" which appeared began with the words: "After the year 1900, towards the middle of the 19th century..."- which of course is AD 1850! The forger couldn't even get that right!


       3. In the supposed "original" Greek versions, the "prophesy" uses the word "homophilia" (the adjective of "ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ"), but the words "homophilo" and "homophilia" (the noun and adjective of "ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ") were not coined in Greece until after AD 1896- two hundred years after St. Nilos the Myhrrgusher died.


       4. The first versions ascribe the "prophesy" to the St. Nilus who died in AD 430 (St. Nilus of Sinai). And even then, the forger didn't get his dates right, calling him a "4th century Saint" when he was in fact a "5th century Saint"- which of course is the same mistake he or she made by ascribing the words "towards the middle of the 19th century" to the Saint.


       5. Some versions add the words "with few exceptions" to the prophesy after the part which says that the Church will be deprived of "God-fearing and pious pastors".

    It is time to relegate this "prophesy" to the realm of urban legends and "spooky-doxy" as Fr. Joseph Huneycutt does in his blog.

         P.M.V.




Pseudo-Nilus

WhatPeopleAreSaying02_

    Dear Sir,

    You seem to be promoting the so-called Prophesy of St Nilus to Catholic Traditionalists.

    When someone asked for the source you wrote this reply

        We contacted the priest who had forwarded the prophecy of St. Nilus to us, but he did not have a source for it. However, a reader from Brazil, Mr. P.H.M., who had sent us the same prophecy in Portuguese was able to provide the due source. According to Mr. P.H.M. the original source is:

        Biblioteca Sanctorum, volume IX, page 1008.

        We checked the texts in both English and Portuguese and they match in almost everything with only some few differences, which is understandable given that both texts seem to be translations from Latin.

    I have found the Biblioteca Sanctorum (published in Italian not Latin as you assumed). Volume IX page 1008 does indeed have an article about "Nilo il Sinaita, asceta di Ancira, santo", however there is no prophecy described there. The only thing I can see that relates the text of this "source" to the "prophecy" is the phrase "Fino all'inizio del XX sec. egli era noto sotto il nome di N., asceta del monte Sinai." (where the bold part seems to mean "until the beginning of the 20th century" cf. the prophecy "in the middle of the 20th century").

    The information that "Mr P.M.H" has provided is therefore false.

    The real source for the "prophecy" seems to be Eastern Schismatics This article http://www.holy-transfiguration.org/library_en/mod_endtimes.html containing the "prophecy" seems to have been written by ROCOR Archbishop Averky about 1957 (deduced from the phrase "for forty long years Satan’s faithful servants – the godless Communists – have been trying to eradicate God from the soul of this people" on the 2nd page http://www.holy-transfiguration.org/library_en/mod_endtim;es1.html).

    On the first page Averky claims the prophecy comes from: The Russian translation of the book published on Mt. Athos back in 1912, “The Posthumous Predictions of St. Nilus the Myrrh-streaming,”

    Assuming this is correct then it is likely that the "prophecy" was fabricated by a Greek Orthodox monk ~1912, and translated/published by a Russian Orthodox Monk on Athos in 1912. In 1912 the early women aviators (wearing a bizarre adaptation of "mans clothes") were in the newspapers. An Athos monk pretending to adopt the persona of the obscure St Nilus might have reacted with "it will be impossible to distinguish men from women due to their shamelessness in dress and style of hair" ... "men will also fly through the air like birds," etc.

    By 1912 intercontinental telephone conversations, and submarines were already history.

    Once people have swallowed this kind of "prophecy" you can get them to believe almost anything. For instance Archbishop Averky (2nd page of his article) introduces more untraceable "prophecies" as follows:

        Recently, during a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, by the grace of God I became acquainted with new, hitherto unknown prophecies, which shed a new light on Russia’s destiny.

    These further "prophecies" seem to have been fabricated (presumably between 1917-1957) to lead members of ROCOR to believe they were the chosen remnant of the "third chosen people" - the Russians supposedly.

    If you are honest you should issue a statement saying that the "Nilus prophecy" you have promoted is probably a non-Catholic fabrication dating from 1912.

    Since I doubt you will do anything with this information (except ignore it), I will be forwarding this to other people also.

         Regards

         D.E.

All I can say is, I am 70 years old and have had this prophesy since my high school days.  I graduated high school in 1958.  

I will admit this one seems a little exaggerated then I remember, and I may be inclined to see if I can find my copy, it is old and wrinkled but I do see it around here from time to time.  

And the purpose of forging such a prophesy would be?
This proves very little. There are always those who wish to discredit any writing that hits a little too close to home.
Just like the Protocols are also supposedly a "forgery".  
If you can't prove something wrong then simply discredit it by labelling it a forgery.

The "proof" would be to find this text in any compilation of the Desert Fathers released before, say, 1500.  Such  collections exist.  Point us to the place.  I'd love for this to be proved genuine.  Now, if someone could just do that.

I am not hell bent on proving this prophesy true. I simply put it up as it is very interesting. What is bad in it and for the third time, what would be the purpose of forging such a prophesy?
If it is a fraud then so be it though until you can prove to me that it is, I see no harm in it.
You are the one hell bent on discrediting it.

I'm not hellbent on discrediting anything, just on finding out the truth.  So, more research discovered this...

http://orthodoxwiki.org/Prophecy_of_St._Nilus


Prophecy of St. Nilus
From OrthodoxWiki


The Prophecy of St. Nilus is an apocryphal work of uncertain origin (thus often referred to as the Prophecy of Pseudo-Nilus) predicting the apocalypse to occur in the 19th or 20th century (depending on the version of the text). As there are serious problems with the text, it is clear that it was either not written by St. Nilus or that it has been altered in translation. With the advent of the Internet, the work has taken on the status of urban legend.

The Prophecy claims to be written by a saint named Nilus, variously the 4th century St. Nilus the Ascetic, the 17th century St. Nilus the Myrrhstreamer of Mount Athos, or someone from the 14th century.


Problems with the text

The most obvious problem with the text is one of dating. It claims to be regarding either the 19th or 20th centuries with varying levels of internal consistency in the actual text. Some, for instance, read "After the year 1900, toward the middle of the 19th century," which is contradictory, since starting with the year 1901, the 20th century began. Additionally, with several different versions circulating, especially with variances in this key opening phrase, it would seem that the text has been altered, so one cannot be sure about the period it supposedly is addressing.

The claim that the Prophecy is from the 4th century is also problematic, as in the 4th century it was not yet the practice of Christians to date from the birth of Christ, a practice introduced only in the 6th century by Dionysius Exiguus ("the Short"), a Roman monk. In the 4th century, dating was still calculated from the Creation, the founding of Rome, from the accession of the current emperor, or from the time of Diocletian according to the Indiction. Even after its introduction by Dionysius, it did not come into general use in the West until the 8th century.

Eastern Christians waited even longer to use the Nativity as a dating point. Most Orthodox Christians began the practice only after the fall of Constantinople, while the Church of Russia introduced it only with the time of Tsar Peter the Great (16th/17th c.).

Even aside from these problems, a "21st century" version has yet to surface, meaning that the Antichrist supposedly appeared around 1950 and has yet to take over the world.

The ethic of the Prophecy has problems, as well. It focuses on external appearances much more than the more serious problems of immorality, which were just as much present (and arguably even moreso) in the various eras in which the text was allegedly written.

Further, no known source for this text has yet surfaced.
Text

One of the versions of the text circulating on the Internet.


The Prophecy of Saint Nilus

The Plight of the World and the Church during the 20th Century

By SAINT NILUS (d. circa AD 430)

After the year 1900, toward the middle of the 20th century, the people of that time will become unrecognizable. When the time for the Advent of the Antichrist approaches, people's minds will grow cloudy from carnal passions, and dishonor and lawlessness will grow stronger. Then the world will become unrecognizable.

People's appearances will change, and it will be impossible to distinguish men from women due to their shamelessness in dress and style of hair. These people will be cruel and will be like wild animals because of the temptations of the Antichrist. There will be no respect for parents and elders, love will disappear, and Christian pastors, bishops, and priests will become vain men, completely failing to distinguish the right-hand way from the left.

At that time the morals and traditions of Christians and of the Church will change. People will abandon modesty, and dissipation will reign. Falsehood and greed will attain great proportions, and woe to those who pile up treasures. Lust, adultery, ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖity, secret deeds and murder will rule in society.

At that future time, due to the power of such great crimes and licentiousness, people will be deprived of the grace of the Holy Spirit, which they received in Holy Baptism and equally of remorse. The Churches of God will be deprived of God-fearing and pious pastors, and woe to the Christians remaining in the world at that time; they will completely lose their faith because they will lack the opportunity of seeing the light of knowledge from anyone at all. Then they will separate themselves out of the world in holy refuges in search of lightening their spiritual sufferings, but everywhere they will meet obstacles and constraints.

And all this will result from the fact that the Antichrist wants to be Lord over everything and become the ruler of the whole universe, and he will produce miracles and fantastic signs. He will also give depraved wisdom to an unhappy man so that he will discover a way by which one man can carry on a conversation with another from one end of the earth to the other.

At that time men will also fly through the air like birds and descend to the bottom of the sea like fish. And when they have achieved all this, these unhappy people will spend their lives in comfort without knowing, poor souls, that it is deceit of the Antichrist.

And, the impious one!—he will so complete science with vanity that it will go off the right path and lead people to lose faith in the existence of God in three hypostases. Then the All-good God will see the downfall of the human race and will shorten the days for the sake of those few who are being saved, because the enemy wants to lead even the chosen into temptation, if that is possible... then the sword of chastisement will suddenly appear and kill the perverter and his servants.


External links
Versions

    * "After the year 1900, toward the middle of the 19th century..." (4th c.)
    * "After the year 1900, toward the middle of the 20th century..." (5th c.)
    * "After the year 1900, toward the middle of the 20th century..." (14th c.)
    * "After the year 1900, toward the middle of the 20th century..." (1651)

Criticism and debunking

    * "Spooky-doxy", by Fr. Joseph Huneycutt, listing many links and uses of the Prophecy
    * On the dating issues, a listserv post by Fr. Dimitri Cozby
    * A listserv post, by Bp. Tikhon (FitzGerald) of San Francisco and Los Angeles

Retrieved from "http://orthodoxwiki.org/Prophecy_of_St._Nilus"

Repeating once again, I'm not trying to discredit this prophecy!  I'm just trying to find the unaltered version of it if there is one.

Zenith, please check the names to the left of the post. I have not cited internet sources, that would be Cheryl.  (Not that I disagree with her!)

I am not trying to discredit anything. The first time I read it I thought "Wow, this is great".  

It's just common sense to check out some novelty like this to see that it passes the test.  You're the one that needs to do some investigation on this if you want to stand by it. Why did it jump from nothingness to a big deal in the last century. The sayings and writings of the major Desert Fathers have been compiled and passed down to us.

I think this would be a great weapon to wave under the nose of God's enemies.  So, please, prove this for me.  

Sorry for the misquote. That is my fault for not checking.
As for proving this, I have no intention to prove this prophesy is true as you will see this in my last post.
I don't think there is any need as there are other approved writings which say similar things as this one.
If someone won't heed something that is officially approved, why would they care about one that was not approved?

True.