Rev. Paschal Huchede's view of the Antichrist

II. His Atrocity

No language can give an adequate idea of the atrocity and effects of this frightful persecution. "I beheld and 10 that horn made war against the saints, and prevailed over them." (Dan. 7:21). The beast shall make war against the saints, and shall overcome them and kill them. (Apoc. 11:7). And he "shall crush the saints of the Most High." (Dan. 7:25). And he will put to death all those who will not adore the image of the beast. (Apoc. 13:15). Then shall the truth be oppressed. The Church shall see her children apostatize in vast numbers, and in the agony of her heart­rending grief, she will cry out in the words of her divine spouse, "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Mk. 15:34).

Then by order of the tyrant the continual sacrifice shall be abolished. (Dan. 9:27). The holy sacrifice of the Mass shall no longer be offered up publicly on the altars. The Church shall be devastated; the sacred vessels desecrated; the priests shall be scattered and separated from their flocks and put to death. The beauty of the new Sion has vanished! Her priests sigh; her streets resound with wailings and lamentations because there is no one found to assist at the solemnities of the Lamb. The Church has taken up her abode in the catacombs. (Jerem. Thren.).

All the faithful shall be terror-stricken, for there is nothing to equal the ferocity with which the beast will persecute the Church. "The beast which I saw," says St. John, "was like to a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion." (Apoc. 13:2). Those who will refuse him obedience, says St. Gregory (32 Moral., c. 12), shall perish in the midst of the most excruciating torments. They shall be tortured by infernal engines of pain such as had never been thought of before. The persecutors will add to the terror of punishment the prestige of miracles, which makes St. Gregory exclaim in a state of bewilderment, "What a frightful temptation for the human heart! Behold a martyr who delivers over his body to torture, and his executioner per­forms miracles before his eyes" Where is the virtue that would not receive a profound shock in the presence of such a scene? "Woe, then, to land and sea because the devil is come down unto you having great wrath, knowing that he hath but a short time." (Apoc. 12:12). "And a time shall come such as never was from the time that nations began even until that time." (Mat. 24:21; Mk 13:19).

III. His Duration

"And for the sake of the elect those days shall be shortened." (Mat. 24:22). In order that the faithful may not be discouraged, God has de­termined the number of years, months, and days of this final persecu­tion.

It is not known how long it will take Antichrist to achieve the con­quest of the world, yet we may justly conjecture that the process shall be very rapid. The Prophet informs us that from the moment the per­petual sacrifice shall cease, which shall be the beginning of the general persecution, "they shall be delivered into his hands until atime and times and a half a time." (Dan. 7:25). This he repeats in the twelfth chapter, and St. John employs the same expression to signify the time during which the woman, figure of the Church, will tarry in the desert. "And there were given to the woman two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the desert unto her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time from the face of the serpent." (Apoc. 12:14). St. Jerome remarks that the term "a time" is generally employed in Holy Scripture in the sense of a year; the second term "tempora" is translated by the plural form because the Hebrew and Greek texts em­ploy the dual. The words of the sacred text should therefore be inter­preted, "a year, two years and a half year." However, the determination of the number of months removes all equivocation on the subject, as specified in the Apocalypse. "And the holy city they shall tread under foot two and forty months," (11 :2), which is equivalent to three years and a half. Finally, to remove all possible doubt on the matter, God has even revealed the number of days that the persecution will last: "The abomination of desolation," after the cessation of the perpetual sacri­fice, must last, according to the Prophet, "1290 days." (Dan. 12:11). In other words, three years and a half with a few days over. Hence, it is certain that this terrible persecution will last during three years and a half.

3. The War that he will Wage against Religious Societies

I. His Combat with Religious Societies of Human Origin

Schismatics, heretics, and pagans will offer but a cowardly resistance to the formidable enemy of God. They will either become converts of the Catholic Church or proselytes of the archfiend.

II. Combat against the Catholic Church, the Only Religious Society of Divine Origin

The Catholic Church will be made desolate during those three years, but she will remain invincible and unconquered, for God, who is faith­ful to His word, has said that the gates of hell shall not prevail against her. (Mat. 16:19). What a sublime spectacle! Man, an intelligent being, the most feeble and despicable of creation, exposed to the attacks of Lucifer, the first among "pure" creatures, and in this fierce struggle, man, aided by God's grace, will be victorious. It is at this juncture that grace will appear in all its grandeur and efficacy. God will not leave His Church a disarmed prey to such a formidable enemy. He will assist Her by invisible and visible means.

III. Ordinary Help that God will Grant to the Holy Catholic Church; Heroic Resistance of the Spouse of Christ

God will impart greater light to the minds of His faithful servants; He will fortify their will[s] and give a patience which St. John eulogizes in the Apocalypse. "Here is the patience and the faith of the saints." (13 :10). The Holy Scriptures will form the impregnable rampart of the Church. They will be her first and best defense against all the artifices of the impostor, for in them will be found the predictions and explana­tions of all that will then take place in the world; whence. it is said that the true doctors will understand the mysteries of these latter times, while the impious will fail to understand them, being carried away by the torrent of their impiety. "Many shall be chosen and made white, and shall be tried as fire. and the wicked shall deal wickedly, and none of the wicked shall understand." (Dan. 12 :10). God, who neverfails to raise up men equal to the wants of the times - apostles burning with zeal, martyrs endowed with undaunted courage, doctors whose learning and erudition vindicated truth in all its beauty - will raise up at this critical juncture a vast number of extraordinary men, adorned with all the noble qualities and virtues of all the saints of preceeding ages. "Who are we," exclaims St. Augustine, "compared to the saints and faithful of those latter times, who shall be called on to resist the attacks of an enemy unchained, whom we can but feebly resist while he is yet in chains?" (20 De Civit c. 8). Oh happy those who will conquer such a tyrant, exclaimed St. Hippolytus. (De Consum. Mund.) They will cer­tainly be far and away more illustrious than their fathers in the Faith, for the first martyrs had to contend only against the satellites of the demon, while they will be victorious over the son of perdition. What praise, what crowns shall be awardedthem by Our Lord!

If the Church be compared to an army drawn out in battle array (Cant. 6:9), we have reason to believe that Jesus Christ, its captain, would reserve the best soldiers to withstand the most terrible shock. But the people who know and serve the true and living God shall be victorious. God shall send teachers to instruct his people; they shall rush into the midst of fire and sword; they will be made prisoners and their possessions will be confiscated; some of those teachers shall be cast into a fiery furnace, there to be purified. (Dan. 11 :32, etc.).

Not only the saints but also the angels will hasten to the standard of the cross and aid the Church in this her great tribulation; St. Michael the Archangel shall rise and engage in furious combat against the enemy of the people of God. (Dan. 12:1). St. John represents St. Michael fight­ing against the dragon unchained. (Apoc. 12:7). Finally, God shall pre­pare a safe retreat for his faithful children in the desert (Apoc. 12:14), which means that God will not allow the demons, all-powerful as they will be, to reveal to the emissaries of Antichrist the hiding places of a great number of Christians, who, though faithful to God, yet have not courage enough to confront the enemy or brave the dangers of so ter­rible a persecution. All this aid will certainly be greater and more abundant in this last struggle, though quite the same in all ages of the Church; God directs all things by His benign Providence, and He will send Elias and Enoch to aid and sustain His spouse in her last trying ordeal. (Lap. 8,1).

Rev. Paschal Huchede's view of the Antichrist

Eusebius (Lib 3. Hist. C. 31), St. Jerome (Hieron, Lib. de Scriptura, Eccles. et contra Jovin.), Tertullian (Lib. de Anim. 20), St. Augustine (Serm. 549, de Tempore), St. Isidore (Lib. de Vita et Obitu Sanct.), St. Epiphanius (Haeres, 78), maintain that St. John is dead, as well as the other Apostles. In the Ecumenical Council of Ephesus (2 C. 14), Pope St. Celestine and St. John Chrysostom speak of the relics of his body, and the fact that these relics not existing now must be attributed to the evil days of the past. The text of the Gospel on which the return of St. John is based may be otherwise interpreted. Thus it is susceptible of the following signifi­cation: "I desire that he may remain as he is until I return and destroy Jerusalem." This is the interpretation given by Theophylacte.

Those words of Our Lord are also susceptible of a conditional signi­fication similar to this: "And even when I would desire that this disciple should remain in the world until I return to judge it, what is if to you?" This is the explanation given by St. Chrysostom and St. Cyril. Finally, it is not possible that Our Saviour meant by this that St. John should live on without dying until His second coming when He should visit him. Nevertheless, such is the opinion of St. Augustine, Venerable Bede, and St. Thomas. The prophecy relative to the martyrdom of the Apostle was fulfilled the day on which he was cast into the cauldron of boiling oil in Rome. He came out of it full of life and vigor, it is true, but that was due to a great miracle. He withstood a torture capable in itself to cause death, which in the eyes of the Church and before God suffices to merit the palm of martyrdom. Hence it is that the Church in her liturgy gives him this glorious title. As to the other prophecy, it has certainly been realized during the life of St. John. After having written his Apocalypse, he preached the Gospel again in Asia Minor. Finally, to refute the plausibility of the alleged reasons, we can say that the witnesses of the Law of Grace are so numerous and their testimony so certain and so striking, since they sealed it with their blood, that it does not appear necessary nor even useful to revoke any other proofs. And in any case, may we not cite Elias as an eye-witness of the Law of Grace since he saw the Transfiguration of the Saviour.

It is, then, more than probable, as we are led to suppose from the Apocalypse, that God has reserved only two men of the world to de­fend and console the Church during her last persecution.

VIII. Mission of Elias and Enoch

In the Church's infancy, St. Peter and St. Paul received, individually, a special mission, though not exclusively so; St. Peter was destined to evangelize the Jews, and St. Paul became the Apostle of the Gentiles. (Gal. 1 :16). In the latter times, two new Apostles will divide between them the work of evangelizing the world. Enoch will preach to the Gen­tiles, whose faith and charity he will stir up and revive (Ecclesiasticus 44:16), while Elias, Jew by birth, will be charged with the conversion of the Jews. (Ecclesiasticus 48:10).

IX. Conversion of the Jews

We here meet with the difficult task of reconciling two prophecies which are apparently in contradiction: Antichrist will be received by the Jews; Elias will convert the Jews.

Still it becomes an easy task by making use of a distinction furnished by the Sacred Scriptures. "And at that time shall thy people be saved, everyone that shall be found written in the book" of life. (Dan. 12:1). "And all that dwelled upon the earth adored him, whose names are not written in the Book of Life of the Lamb." (Apoc. 13 :8). According to these texts, a portion of the Jews will remain obstinate and will adhere to Antichrist, but the greater part [there is no indication of the number and certainly not those who received the mark of the beast] will hear the voice of Elias and will be converted. This final conversion of the Jews is spoken of in various places of the Bible. The prophet Osee speaks of it (3 :4-5): "For the chil­dren of Israel shall sit many days without king, and without prince, and without sacrifice, and without altar, and without ephod, and without theraphim; and after this the children of Israel will return and shall seek the Lord their God and David their king; and they shall fear the Lord and His goodness in the last days." Moses expresses the same prediction. "After all the things aforesaid shall find thee, in the latter thou shalt return to the Lord thy God and shalt hear his voice." (Deut. 4:30). St. Paul speaks in similar terms: "Hath God cast away his people?" (Rom. 11:1). And again he adds: "That blindness in part hath happened in Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles should come in, and so all Israel should be saved, as it is written." (Rom. 11 :25-26). In light of language so clear and formal of the sacred text, St. Augustine and St. Gregory do not hesitate to affirm that this conversion of the Jews is a truth of divine faith. (Aug. 20 de Civitate, C. 39; Greg. in prim. Lib. Reg. C 2 et 20, Moral. C. 23, Super. Cant. C 6).

X. Miracles and Combats of the Two Patriarchs

In order to discharge the duties of their mission with greater effi­ciency, the two patriarchs willbe invested with the power of the Most High God.

St. John, speaking of them in the Apocalypse (11 :3-6), says: "I will give my power unto my two witnesses; and they will prophesy. . . clothed in sack-cloth. These are the two olive trees and two candlesticks that stand before the Lord of the earth. And if any man will hurt them, fire will come out of their mouths and shall devour their enemies; and if any man will hurt them, in this manner must he be slain. These have the power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy; and they have power over waters to turn them into blood, and to strike the earth with plagues as often as they will."

In virtue of this power they will be able to console the Church and diminish the evils with which she will be afflicted in those days of sor­row and desolation.

St. Peter and St. Paul were not deterred from announcing the Gospel to pagan Rome, the mistress of idolatry. In those latter times the two prophets will also come and attack with intrepidity the enemy of Christ. They will attack him at Jerusalem, the center of his empire. This as­sertion seems to be founded on the Apocalypse, (11:8), "And their bodies shall lie in the street." By this passage they are represented as dying in the city of Jerusalem.

XI. Duration of Their Preaching

The mission of Elias and Enoch will last for 1260 days; that is to say, three years, five months, and fifteen days; in other words, about three years and a half, which is about the length of Antichrist's reign. (Apoe. 11:3). Antichrist and these two patriarchs will very probably appear simultaneously. The Sacred Scripture, Tradition, and the Fathers all concur in corroborating this opinion.

XII. Their Martyrdom

Having fulfilled their mission, the beast will prevail over them. The career of these holy apostles will be similar to that of Our Divine Saviour, who during three years was inviolable: His enemies dispatched soldiers to take Him prisoner (In. 7:32); they endeavored to stone Him to death (In. 10:31); and they brought Him to the brow of the hill whereon their city was built that they might cast Him down headlong. (Lk. 4:29). But their courage failed them, and "He passing through their midst went His way." (Lk. 4:30). But there came a time when He suffered Himself to fall into their hands. "Your hour and that of the powers of darkness has arrived." (Lk. 22:53).

Elias and Enoch will be invulnerable during 1260 days. Then God will suffer them to fall into the hands of Antichrist that they may win the crown of martyrdom - their time for working miracles having ceased while the man of sin will still perform more striking wonders. And [when] they shall have given their testimony, "The beast that ascendeth out of the abyss shall make war against them, and shall overcome them and kill them." (Apoc. 11 :7). A pious legend has it that they will be crucified like Our Divine Saviour. Their holy bodies shall lie in the great city where their Master has been crucified. This city is called mystically Sodom and Gomorrah. A great number of people of every tribe and na­tion will see the bodies of these martyrs during three days and a half. At this sight the people will rejoice and makemerry and shall send each other presents because these two prophets are dead who tormented them that dwelt upon the earth. (Apoc. 11:8-10).

XIII. Apogee of Antichrist's Power

Antichrist will boast and glory in his victory. He will open his mouth in blasphemy against God, cursing His holy name, the tabernacle, and the saints of heaven. (Apoc. 13:6). No reverses shall impede his action. (Dan. 8:12). His glory will surpass that of all other divinities (2 Thes. 2:4), and his language shall be that of a boaster. (Dan. 11 :36). The uni­versal acclamations which he will receive on all sides will flatter his pride; all will exclaim, "Who is like unto the beast, who can withstand him?" (Apoc. 13:4). Finally, prosperity shall attend all his movements up to the time when the vengeance of God shall overtake him. (Dan. 11:36).