Christopher Columbus

A small ship, battered by storms, returned to the harbor of Palos on 15 March 1493. It brought news of a voyage across the Sea of Darkness, and that news drew back the veil that had concealed from each other the people of the two halves of the world. The opening up of the Western Hemisphere marked the beginning of an era that will reach its five-hundredth anniversary in 1992. The return of Christopher Columbus from his first voyage of discovery, and the rapid spread of his printed report throughout Europe in 1493, began an interaction between the Old and New worlds that continues to this day. The event was not only the discovery of a New World but a new beginning in a new age for the civilization of the old world.

Christopher Columbus is one of the best-known world heroes. People everywhere know his name and some facts about him. His memory, invoked by paintings, statues, monuments, geographical names, biographies, poetry, and stories, is surpassed by only a few other leaders of world history. But our purpose is to call attention to something more significant about Christopher Columbus than his fame as the discoverer who opened up a frontier and gave the world a new beginning and a new age.

Christopher Columbus was a man with a vision. The vision came first, long before it reached fulfillment in the discovery. It was strong, patient, and unwavering in the face of human opposition and ridicule. It was undaunted by obstacles and unknown dangers. Only after long years of single-minded dedication came at last a discovery.

The magnitude of the discovery, with its incalculable, unfolding implications, brought down on the Discoverer a series of pressures, compromises, errors, conflicts, and frustrations that were far more harmful to his health and happiness than the problems of the earlier years when he promoted his vision with so little success. In this, too, the great Discoverer was typical of the age he began. His vision was followed by his discovery and both were tremendously successful, but they did not add up to a success story. They did open a new era of human development, but not all agree on how warmly to view this as human progress.

Yet, human development must be seen as inevitable and positive. Just as records are there to be broken and problems to be solved, so frontiers beckon individuals who have a vision of something new. Christopher Columbus was a man who had a dream, kept the faith, and ran the full course from vision to discovery.

Our purpose is to present for the first time in English the book by which Christopher Columbus explained his vision to his king and queen. He called it a Notebook of authorities, statements, opinions and prophecies on the subject of the recovery of God's holy city and mountain of Zion, and on the discovery and evangelization of the islands of the Indies and of all other peoples and nations. Library catalogers labeled it Libro de las profecias, the Book of Prophecies.

The reader will recognize in the title that the vision of Columbus was one of a missionary and a crusader. This theme is present in writings that survive from every period of his life, in notes written on the margins of books he owned that are dated as early as 1481, and in letters to a wide range of people throughout his lifetime. Christopher Columbus was a careful student of the Bible. He studied it systematically together with the opinions of learned scholars and commentators who were held in the highest regard in his day. The focus of the Discoverer's interest was the prophesied latterday enlargement of the Christian Church which would take place through the discovery and evangelization of all the world's nations and tribes, with the consequent renewal and enrichment of Christendom.