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

ARTICLE III-PROXIMATE PREPARATION

1. Origin of Antichrist

Relative to the origin of Antichrist, erroneous, probable, and truthful things have been said. We shall endeavor to sift the truth on the subject.

In the first place, it is not true that Antichrist will be the son of the devil, born of woman, as Jesus Christ was born of Mary by the operation of the Holy Ghost (St. August.); human generation, outside the laws of nature, is a work of the creative power and belongs to God alone. Nevertheless, theologians as Suarez and Bellarmine observe that the devil has power to produce illusions in this matter. Antichrist will not be the devil, born of a fantastic virgin, clothed in flesh and blood, as it was believed by St. Hipollytus of Antioch; nor will he be an incarnate demon, as Jesus was an incarnate God, according to Origen's opinion.

Some Christians of the primitive ages of the Church believed that Nero was Antichrist. (Sulpit lib. histor.). They were under the impression that this emperor did not die, or that if he did, he was to rise from the dead before the end of time to come and persecute the Church. St. Augustine regards this opinion as mere presumption. (Lib. 20, c. 19, City of God). St. John Damascus and some other Fathers are of opinion that Antichrist will be an illegitimate offspring. (Lib. iv, ch. 27, Orthodoxy of Faith). Holy Scripture says nothing of this, at least in an explicit manner, and tradition bearing on it is not unanimous enough to merit for it anything more than a probable certainty. It is also probable that he will be of the tribe of Dan. St. Irenaeus in book 5th on Heresies; St. Hippolytus of Antioch; St. Augustine in his book on the benediction of the Patriarchs (C. 7); St. Prosper, part iv of the Promises and Benedictions of the Fathers; Theodoret, question 109 in Genesis; St. Gregory, book 31 on Morals affirm it, founding the truth of this assertion on the three following passages of Holy Scripture: "Let Dan be a snake in the way, a serpent in the path, that biteth the horses heels that his rider may fall backwards." (Gen. 49:17). "The snorting of his horses was heard from Dan, all the land was moved at the sound of the neighing of his warriors; and they came and devoured the land and all that was in it; the city and its inhabitants." (Jer. 8:16).

Finally, we see in the 7 [th] chapter of the Apocalypse that all the tribes furnish their quota to the heavenly Jerusalem, except that of Dan, of whom there is nothing said on account of the hatred borne to AntiChrist. However, the Fathers cited above, in their explanations of these texts, seem to have paid no attention to tradition and only gave their personal opinion on the matter. And furthermore, these texts are susceptible of another interpretation. The words of Genesis may be understood of Sampson as well as of Antichrist. These of Jeremias, in their literal sense, refer to Nabuchodonosor. Finally, the tribe of Dan is not the only one that is omitted in the enumeration of the Apocalypse. That of Ephraim is also omitted, but some commentators say that it is not omitted, being substituted by that of Joseph. Hence this omission might have been made for a different motive than the one assigned by these Fathers. This opinion, being that of a great many holy Doctors, is not more certain, however, than the first and does not merit a higher degree of credence than a probable opinion. In any case, it would be very difficult to prove this origin since the Jewish genealogies have perished.

It is certain that Antichrist will be a man because the Scriptures call him in express terms the "man of sin," (2 Thes. 2) and leave us under this impression when they speak of him in direct terms. Finally, it is certain that he will be of the Jewish race. Tradition bears us out on this point. [Antichrist will be a Jew and see Antichrist will be a Jew]

Antichrist, according to St. Jerome and other Fathers, will be born in Babylon (Jerome in Dan. 11), which may be figuratively said of the society of the impious.

2. His Education

Like Our Lord, he will be brought up in obscurity; he will lead a hidden life until the time comes when he shall begin his public career. This assertion is founded on the words of Daniel (11:21), "And there shall stand up in his place one despised, and the kingly honor shall not be given him, and he shall come privately and shall obtain the kingdom by fraud."

According to tradition, he will be educated by magicians who will imbue his mind and heart from his very childhood with their doctrine and wicked principles; God neither depriving him of his liberty nor denying him sufficient grace, will suffer the devil to tempt him and take possession of him. St. Anthony does not hesitate to say (Part 4 and 13, c. 4. par. 3) that although he will not be deprived of his guardian angel, nevertheless, all the angel's efforts to do him good shall be paralysed by his obstinate persistency in evil.

By his own choice and under the tutorship of Satan's agents he will grow up in the knowledge and practice of evil until the time comes when he shall commence his public career. (Dan. 8:23).

3. His Character

St. Cyril of Jerusalem says that "his malice will surpass the combined wickedness of all the evil doers gone before him (Catechism 15) and that he will be like an ocean in which all human and diabolical wickedness shall meet." Some theologians, and among them Suarez in his Memorati, assert that he shall never do a good act, being the counterpart of Our Saviour, who never did an evil deed - that he shall be like the devil, buried in wickedness. (1 In. 5:18-19).

Among his predominant vices, his satanic pride shall be especially conspicuous. Like Lucifer, he shall even attack Almighty God, according to the prophet Daniel (11:36-37) and St. Paul (2 Thes. 2:4); he shall follow the lust of women. Finally, on account of his most cruel instincts, the Sacred Scriptures compare him to the most ferocious beasts (Apoc. 13 :2): "And the beast which I saw was like to a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion, and the dragon gave him his own strength and great power." At the same time he will adroitly conceal all his crimes and pass for the most virtuous of men, as stated by St. Cyril of Jerusalem (Cat. 15), St. John Damascus (c. 27), St. Hippolytus (book on the end of time).

Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was loaded with approbrium on the cross, though being the model par excellence of all virtues, as stated by Jean Jacques Rousseau. Antichrist on the contrary, worthy of all confusion and ingominy, will be loaded with honors. United with this consummate ability, he will possess a natural, vast, and powerful genius, an irresistable eloquence ("and there was given to him a mouth speaking great things." - Apoc. 13 :5), for according to St. Anselm in his Elucidations, his wisdom and eloquence will surpass all possible realization known or imagined; he will know by heart all the Sacred Scriptures and possess a perfect knowledge of all the arts. Still, all this gives but a very imperfect idea of the extraordinary resources he will possess to attain his end.

4. His Means of Action

To insure the success of his enterprise, he will employ means that naturally secure the service of men, such as imposture, recompence, violence and miracles.

I. Imposture

By his deceitful craft he will detach the minds and hearts of all peoples from the religion of Jesus Christ. By his incomparable eloquence he will represent Jesus as an imposter; he will attack His doctrine and institutions, according to the teachings of St. Cyril of Jerusalem (Cat. 15), Damascus (c. 27), Jerome (in his work on the prophet Daniel).

After having weakened the faith of Christ in the minds and hearts of many, he will proceed to show that the law of Moses still prevails; he will re-establish the Sabbath and all the legal observances; and he will invite all the Jews to re-establish their nationality, after which he will declare himself to be the true messiah; he will endeavor to prove the truth of his assertion from Scripture - he will declare his design of rebuilding Jerusalem and the temple and of bringing the whole world under his dominion. The carnal Jews, finding these projects in perfect harmony with their own prejudices, will easily acknowledge for the Messiah the one whom they desire. And after having at first despised and scorned him, they will subsequently receive and proclaim him king. (Dan. 11:21). According to St. Cyril of Jerusalem (Cat. 15), he will win the esteem and attachment of mankind by his urbane and unbounded kindness.

II. Rewards

The wily imposter will join to the illusions of hypocrisy the bait of temporal goods, as there will be no end to his riches. "For he shall have power over the treasures of gold and silver, and all the precious things of Egypt." (Dan. 11:43). St. Anselm says in his Elucidations that the devils will show him all the money which is hid and all the mines of the precious metals, out of which they will have money minted for him. These immense riches, which he will have distributed among his followers, will soon bring countless numbers to rallyroundhis standard, and they will faithfully carry out his designs in all things. For all things obey money. (Ecclesiastes 10:19). Cupidity is the root of evil, or as the Apostle says: "For the desire of money is the desire of all evils, which some coveting have erred from the faith." (1 Tim. 6:10). Bribes even blind the wise and pervert the words of the just. (Exod. 23 :8).

III. Violence

In order to infallibly attain his end, he will employ such violence as will overcome all human resistance; and to use the words of Damascus (book 3, c. 24), by means of the above mentioned factors of his power and strategem, he will bring all men under his tyrannical sway.

IV. His Miracles: Their Nature

It is on the unquestionable authority of miracles that the truth of the Christian religion is established and believed by all those who are sincere seekers of the truth.

This impostor will make use of the same means to create objections against the Church of God. According to St. Paul, his event will be signalized by numerous signs and prodigies due to the operation of Satan; he will work all kinds of miracles, signs, and deceitful prodigies, whose "coming is according to the working of Satan, in all power, in signs and lying wonders, and in all seduction of iniquity to them that perish." [2 Thes. 2:9-10). And we are told in the Apocalypse [13:13) that great will be the things which he will do to deceive mankind. "And he did great signs, so that he made also fire to come down from heaven unto the earth in the sight of men." The same is said of him by the evangelist when he speaks of false prophets and false Christs. [Mark 13:22). "For there will rise up false Christs and false prophets and they shall show signs and wonders to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect."

Holy Writ furnishes three examples of the miracles that will be wrought by Antichrist: "He shall cause fire to come down from heaven." (Apoc. 13:13). "He shall make the beast speak." (Apoc. 13:15). And finally, he will pass for being dead (Apoc. 13:3), and then he will, as it were, raise himself to life, thus securing the admiration and homage of all men. The holy Fathers are very explicit on this point and give many details on it. St. Clement, in his work entitled Third Book of Recognitions, a work on which we may rely as being authentic in spite of the rude attacksmade upon it, relates as coming from St. Peter himself that the accursed man will have power to perform miracles of beneficence like those of Our Saviour. St. Hippolytus, in his work on the consummation of time, does not hesitate to affirm wonderful things which he apparently held from apostolic tradition. He will heal lepers, make the lame to walk, cast out demons, raise the dead to life. He will know the most secret and hidden things. He will move mountains, walk on the waves of the sea, turn day into night, and vice versa. He will direct the course of the sun at will, and finally, appear as being the master of the elements.

He will therefore appear as having performed miracles similar to all those wrought by Jesus Christ, in order to eclipse His glory and purloin to his own advantage the honors due to the true Messiah. But St. Paul warns us that all those miracles, so numerous and striking, will be the work of deception. "Therefore God shall send them the apparition of error to believe lying." [2 Thes. 2:11). Those miracles will be deceptive in their origin, deceptive in their nature, deceptive in their form, deceptive in their object. Reason and faith assure us that God alone can perform genuine miracles. "Blessed be the Lord and God of Israel, who alone doth wonderful things." [Ps. 71:18). Hence we are sufficiently warned that those miracles which Antichrist would attribute to his own divinity are the work of Satan, the father of lies, who performs - and cannot perform any other than - false miracles.

(added note: like the illusion at Fatima - St. Hippolytus warned that the Antichrist will even turn the sun around see: Marian Apparitions are False and Marian Apparitions are False)

The greater part of those prodigies will be optical illusions and diabolical charms. Men shall be deceived by appearances, hence the reason why the Scriptures say that he will work miracles before the eyes of man and not in the sight of God. (Apoc. 13 :13).

Some of them, it is true, will surpass all human power and will be materially prodigious. This, however, is not to be wondered at. In the hierarchy of beings, man is naturally inferior to the angels, even to the fallen angel, who has preserved his natural qualities. The devils are able to do things which are impossible to man, yet their deeds are miracles relatively and not absolutely, since it does not belong to the province of any created being to perform a miracle properly so called; this requires the intervention of divine power, which belongs to God alone. Consequently, of this latter order of miracles Antichrist will perform none, although some of his prodigies, such as raising the dead to life, which he will seem to do, must have all the appearance of true miracles.

5. His Relations with Satan

Satan will utilize the immense advantage of this wicked man to attain his ends. Satan has been chained by Jesus Christ for one thousand years (Apoc. 20:2), which means that he must remaIn in the bottom of the abyss until the end of the world, for these thousand years signify the duration of the Church. Others, however, give a more literal interpretation to this chaining of Satan. They are of the opinion that the social dominion of the Church is fixed at a thousand years, commencing with Charlemagne and finishing with the revolutionary era. According to this hypothesis, Satan is already unchained, preparing the way for Antichrist, through whom he will rule the world. This opinion is most probable. According to the other opinion, the power of the demon and the wicked is limited. They cannot do all the evil that they wish to do. lt is written that the wicked move in a circuitous manner. The wicked walk round about. (Ps. 11:9 [12:8]). After having gone through their evolutions they return again to their point of departure and repeat the ordeal through which they have already passed. This is required by Divine Providence in favour of our weakness. When we are apprised beforehand of the wiles of our enemy, we are better ableto evade him. But God has warned us that at the end of the world the angel of darkness shall be let loose for awhile. (Apoc. 20). During this time he will have full liberty to attack the Church and use every artifice possible for its destruction, according to Damascus. (Book 4, c. 27). Antichrist will be his most docile agent, wonderfully adapted to seduce the people.

6. Justification of Divine Providence

By what visible signs can his deceptive or false miracles be discerned from those that are true and genuine? They shall be detected by one only sign, namely, the end for which they will be wrought; their object shall be to persuade the world to accept for truth a palpable lie. The motives of credibility of the Christian religion are so evident that Hughes of St. Victor might justly say: "Lord, if we are in error, You are the cause of it."

Either the Christian religion is true, or it is false; if it is not true, there is no God, as there can be no medium between truth and error. A God infinitely wise, just, and holy could not suffer the elite of the human race to be made the victims of an artifice so fabricated as to baffle all the powers of man to discover it. If we consult the pages of history, we will find them replete with miraculous facts which prove the divinity of Christianity, facts so evident that their denial would necessarily incur an absolute historical scepticism. If we appeal to science, it testifies in favor of revelation; metaphysics discloses an admirable fitness in the dogmas; logic shows a wonderful chain of connection in the mysteries; ethics shows the perfect harmony that exists between the noble aspirations of the human heart and the evangelical law; physical or natural science shows the constant existing agreement between the certain geological, physiological, ethnographic data and the facts of Scripture which relate to them. We must thence conclude with St. Paul, "But though we or an angel from heaven preach a gospel to you besides that we have preached to you, let him be anathema." (Gal. 1:8).

Let him be anathema who with great power will come and deceive even the elect and place himself up for Christ - to be adored!

Whatever may be the influence that he will exercise over the world, it will be always easy to evade his snares, at least for such as preserve in their heart any vestige of divine faith. Are we not already warned of his coming by Our Divine Lord? Hence it will be our own fault if we are deceived by him. Divine Providence is not in fault since it tells and warns us beforehand of the nature and mode of our final trial and exposes to us also Its designs of justice and mercy over humanity. Antichrist will come, says St. Paul, full of allurements for those who wish to perish because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved. Therefore, God shall send them the operation of error, to believe lying, that all may be judged who have not believed the truth, but have consented to iniquity. (2 Thes. 2:10-11). The impious alone will fail to comprehend the divine action. (Dan 12:10) "Many shall be chosen and made white and shall be tried as by fire; and the wicked shall deal wickedly, and none of the wicked shall understand, but the learned shall understand."

Rev. Paschal Huchede's view of the Antichrist

Chapter 3- The Consummation

ARTICLE I-DIVINE REACTION AGAINST ANTICHRIST AND HIS PARTISANS

1. Resurrection of Elias and Enoch

Three days after their death, the glorious martyrs will rise triumphant from the dead to the great wonder and consternation of their enemies. Those who rejoiced on seeing their mangled bodies lying in the street will be terror-stricken on beholding them walking again as other living beings. "And after three days and a half, the spirit of life from God entered into them. And they stood upon their feet, and great fear fell upon them that saw them. And they heard a great voice from heaven, saying to them come up hither. And they went up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies saw them. And at that hour there was made a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell; and there were slain in the earthquake names of men seven thousand; and the rest were cast into a fear, and gave glory to the God of heaven." (Apoc. 11:11-13).

What are we to think of those events recorded in the Sacred Scriptures? Is the narration an allegory, or is it historic? The most of the holy Fathers and Doctors, and notably St. Hippolytus of Antioch, Tertullian (lib. de Anima), St. Ambrose (in Ps. 45), St. Gregory (14 Moral., C. 11), Richard of St. Victor, and St. Thomas (in 11 Apoc.) are of opinion that St. John narrates here a[n] historical fact.

One of the principal rules by which we must interpret the Sacred Scriptures is to always take the obvious and literal sense of the words unless that there is a sufficient reason for doing otherwise. And in the text cited above there is no reason why we should deviate from the literal sense to accept an allegorical meaning. On the contrary, this an­ticipated glorification of Elias and Enoch is in perfect harmony with the justice and goodness of God. Nothing could conduce more to reanimate the courage of the faithful who were disheartened by the death of their leaders, while it was well calculated to induce Antichrist to attempt an extravagant enterprise that would result in his destruction.

2. End of Antichrist; Destruction of his Empire

According to the hypothesis (which seems to be certain) that the man of sin will appear simultaneously on the scene with Elias and Enoch, Antichrist will survive them only thirty days, which gives Tertullian occasion to say that the impious will perish by the blood of Elias and Enoch. (lib. de Anima).

In order to destroy the good effect which the ascension of the two martyrs produced in the hearts of men, Antichrist will proclaim to the world his design of ascending to heaven. With a view to the carrying out of this project, he will pitch his tent on Mount Apadno, situated between the Caspian and the Persian Seas, where, according to some writers, Antiochus Epiphanes, figure of Antichrist, perished and from which, according to others. Christ ascended into heaven, it being then called Mount Olivet. (Dan. 11 :45). St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, and St. Thomas say that he will ascend from the top of this mountain into the air, as did Simon Magus at Rome. But God shall overwhelm him by the splendor of His glory and shall precipitate him to the earth by a simple puff of his breath. (2 Thes. 2 :8).

And when he shall fall, the earth will open and swallow up the beast and false prophet amidst flames of fire and sulphurous smoke, while his emissaries shall perish by the sword of him seated on the white horse. (Apoc. 19:11-21).

Thus shall vanish like smoke the power and glory of Antichrist, to whom we may very appropriately apply these words of Holy Writ: "I have seen the wicked highly exalted, and lifted up like the cedars of Lebanon, and I passed by, and 10 he was not; and I sought him and his place was not found." (Ps. 36:35-36).

ARTICLE II-DIVINE REACTION AGAINST THE WORLD WHICH DESIRED AND MERITED THE GOVERNMENT OF ANTICHRIST

1. Interval between the Death of Antichrist and the End of the World

The end of the world will take place almost immediately after the death of Antichrist. An interval of forty [-five] days, however, will be granted, in order to give many a chance to do penance. This assertion is very probably founded on the following words of Daniel the prophet: "Happy those who wait on the Lord and full of hope in his promises thus await him 1335 days." (12:12). According to the Fathers there is question here of those who await the second coming of Our Saviour during the last persecution, which will last 1290 days, (Dan. 12:11). leaving a remainder of forty-five days before His arrival. (Hieron, in Dan., etc.).

{It is probably during this interval that the accomplishment of the prophecy of St. Paul shall be realized in the conversion of the Jews who were followers of Antichrist. ("All Israel shall be saved.") [This is not only mere conjecture but is simply and completely wrong and totally contrary to the whole consensus of the Church Fathers and against the whole and complete meaning of scripture - especially the one quoted here out of context.]} There are many commentators especially among those of recent date who hold an opinion diametrically opposed to ours. According to them, the Church should represent the different phases of the life of Our Blessed Lord. And in studying the history of the Church, they presume to have found the following analogy. They say that the first 300 years of the persecution of the Church is an image of the persecution of Jesus during His childhood. During the interval between the fourth and sixteenth centuries, she was comparatively at peace - figure of the Saviour's life at Nazareth. From that period the Church had to contend with many and serious obstacles on the part of various governments; still, she constantly preached the Gospel and evangelized the poor - figure of the public life of Our Lord. Finally, the hour of darkness is approaching; the passion of the Church will commence with the advent of Antichrist. But soon again the Church, spouse of Jesus Christ, shall rise from her chains more resplendent and glorious than ever - figure of the days passed by Our Saviour with His Apostles after His resurrection, before His ascension into heaven. During those days of universal regeneration, the Church, according to some, shall be governed by Pontiffs risen from the dead. The "Angelic Pastor" of the prophecy of Malachy, will commence the glorious series.

All this reasoning is very fine and quite plausible. But withal, we must confess that it is nothing more than a fine hypothesis which seems to be in contradiction with the words of Our Saviour representing the wicked as having been taken by surprise by the final destruction of all things, which shall be in punishment of the unheard of crimes committed during the time of Antichrist.

Hence, notwithstanding the opportunity given to do penance (Thorn. in Apoc. Acosta, lib. 3), the greater part will continue to lead disorderly lives, just like those who lived in the time of Noe. (Mat. 24: 38; Lk. 17:27). They shall continue to indulge in all kinds of excesses of intemperance and luxury until they will be surprised by the deluge of fire that will envelope and devour them. (2 Pet. 3:7-12; Apoc. 22:11). But the faithful friends of Jesus will patiently await His coming. They will say with the beloved Apostle, "Come, Lord Jesus." (Apoc. 22:20).

It is probable that our resurrection will take place on Easter Sunday; such is the opinion of Lactance (lib. 7, C.19) and of St. Anselm (Elucid.). If there will be an interval of forty-five days between the death of Antichrist and our resurrection, the death of Antichrist must take place during the days of debauchery which precede the holy time of Lent. [That is pushing the times and seasons of a later church calendar too far, but it is possible.]

2. Signs that Will Appear in Inanimate Things and Which are Forerunners of the End of the World

The events which we shall now briefly set forth disclose the tragic end of the great drama of humanity, the destruction of the city of wick­edness, whose principal representative on earth will be Antichrist [and] the definite and eternal triumph of the City of God, of which Jesus Christ is King.

As St. Augustine remarks (lib. 20, de Civit., C. 30), the events pertain­ing to the end of the world will happen in the manner they have been foretold, but as to their accidental circumstances, God alone knows the order in which they will take place. He has revealed nothing explicitly on this point, and consequently, our knowledge of them is confined to mere conjecture, possessing a greater or less degree of probability. Ex­perience alone will put us in possession of the desired information.

The general run of events will most probably occur in the following order: First, great signs and wonders in the heavens and upon earth shall precede the coming of Jesus Christ. Second, the resurrection of the dead. Third, the General Judgment. Fourth, the renewal of heaven and earth. Many signs that are forerunners of the end of the world have already appeared; others shall follow, such as the Gospel preached to all nations, the reign of Antichrist, the conversion of the Jews - partially accomplished by Elias and finally completed by the death of Antichrist. But other revelations are expected before the end comes.

The evil genius will, to all appearance, hold in check the power of Christ for a long time. But the hour of Divine justice and retribution shall come. An angel will appear in the heavens and swear by Him that liveth forever and ever that time shall be no more. (Apoc. 10:6). The Lord, like a warrior, "will put on justice as a breastplate" and "will take equity for an invincible shield." (Wis. 5 :19-20). He advances at the head of His army, "for His armies are exceeding great; His warriors are strong, and execute His word; for the day of the Lord is great, and very terrible, and who can stand it?" (Joel 2:11). "And he will arm the creature for the revenge of His enemies." (Wis. 5:18).

The beautiful order that now governs the whole universe shall give place to wild confusion. "The sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven shall be moved." (Mat. 24:29). On the day of the Lord, "the heavens shall pass with great violence, and the elements shall be melted with heat, and the earth and the works which are in it shall be burned up." (2 Pet. 3:10) "The heavens departed as a book folded up." (Apoc. 6:14). these passages, according to St. Augustine and all the other Fathers and theologians, must not be taken in their mystical sense, but in their literal meaning. (St. Augustine, 18 de Civit. D., C. 23)

Rev. Paschal Huchede's view of the Antichrist

CONCLUSION

1. When Shall Antichrist Come?

The Holy Scriptures do not specify the exact time when Antichrist shall come; all that they say is that he will not come before the Gospel has been preached throughout the whole world, that the Roman empire shall have passed away.

I. The Gospel Preached Throughout the World.

It is of Faith that the Gospel shall be preached to all nations before the end of the world, that it may bear testimony against the wicked. (Mat. 24:14; Mk 13:10). But will that take place before the coming of Antichrist? It is, if not impossible, at leastextremely difficult to see how it should be otherwise. According to St. John (in Apoc. 14), the reign of the man of sin will be the second last scourge of the world. He will abolish public worship, and the Church, instead of being consoled by the efforts of her children to achieve new conquests, will see with poignant grief many of them abandon her to follow her declared enemy and persecutor. The diffusion of the Gospel will therefore be universal before Antichrist will appear on the scene.

It is true that from the very birth of Christianity the Apostles preached the Gospel to all the nations then living upon earth. (Ps. 18:5). But when Our Lord spoke, He had in view not only the preaching of, but also the diffusion of the Gospel and its acceptation by all nations. The royal prophet (Ps. 21 :28) says, "All the people of the earth shall remember and shall be converted to the Lord; and all the kindreds of the gentiles shall adore in his sight." St. Prosper (de liber arbit, ad Rufinum) challenges anyone to point out a single nation in which the standard of the cross will not have been planted and received. He founds the truth of his assertion on the following passage of Holy Writ: Did not God the Father say to His Son: Ask Me and I will give Thee the nations of the earth for Thy inheritance, and Thy possessions shall be limited only by the extremities of the earth? St. John in the Apocalypse (7:9) says, "I saw a great multitude, which no man could count, of all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues standing before the throne and in sight of the Lamb, clothed with white robes and palms in their hands."

That the Gospel must be preached and received everywhere does not imply any more than what can be morally done, since the doctrine of the Church will be morally opposed till the end of time. But when will the Gospel be sufficiently diffused? When will it have borne sufficient fruits in the designsof God to require no further delay to the second coming of Christ? These are questions which cannot be answered at present. This knowledge is the secret of that divine wisdom which alone has built the tower of heaven, penetrated the depths of the abyss, walked on the waves of the sea, and traversed the extremities of the universe. (Ecclesiasticus 24:8).

II. The Roman Empire

The complete destruction of the Roman Empire is also an event that must happen prior to the coming of Antichrist, but it remains to be examined what is meant by the Roman Empire and what is the authority upon which the assertion of its destruction is founded. Commentators of the Bible contend that this empire is explicitly pointed out and described by the prophet Daniel under the form of a statue, the head of which is gold, and represents the Persian empire; the body and thighs are of brass and represent the Grecian empire; the legs being of iron, the feet partly iron and partly clay, represent the Roman empire. (Dan. 2 :32, etc.).

The feet of this statue had ten toes, which represent the ten kings who will divide the kingdom among them. The same prophet also saw four kingdoms under the form of four beasts (Dan. 7), the latter of which had ten horns, which were broken and divided among the despoilers.

According to some commentators, when Rome relapses into idolatry, it shall be destroyed and burned by those ten kings by order of Antichrist. (Cornelius a Lap. in Apoc.). St. John gives a description of a beast with seven heads and ten horns. On this beast is seated a woman, who represents the city seated on its seven hills, which in turn are represented by the seven beasts.(Apoc. 17:1,3,9). The ten horns are ten kings, enemies of Rome, who will pillage and destroy it. (Dan. 7:8, etc.; Apoc. 17:12 & 16). Such is the manner in which the Fathers have always interpreted the foregoing prophecies.

In his second epistle to the Thessalonians, St. Paul, wishing to disabuse them of a false notion they had relative to the immediate coming of Our Saviour, says to them (2 Thes. 2 :2-3 & 6-7): "Let no man deceive you by any means; for unless there corne a revoIt first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, the day of the Lord is not yet at hand. . . And now you know what withholdeth, that he may be revealed in his time, for the mystery of iniquity already worketh; only that he who now holdeth, do hold, until he be taken out of the way, and then that wicked one shall be revealed." This text, obscure in itself, has been interpreted in the same manner by St. Ambrose (in 2 Ep. ad Galat.), by St. Jerome (quae st. 2 ad Algarium), by St. Chrysostom (ham. 4 in hanc epist.), by St. Hippolytus (de Anti-christo), by St. Irenaeus (lib. V haeres, C. 25 et 26). All the Fathers hold as apostolic tradition that St. Paul wished to designate the Roman empire in the above passage and which they explain as follows: Let the hands which hold at present the reins of the empire hold them until it is completely destroyed. The Apostle did not wish to express himself more clearly than he did, as he did not wish to wound the Roman pride. At Rome the city was believed to be eternal, and it was deemed blasphemous to deny it - a crime that merited the severest punishment. Hence it was that the surest means of securing the Christians' condemnation was to accuse them of being enemies of the Roman empire. The first apologists of Christianity labored assiduously to refute this calumny and remove the public prejudice which it created against the Christians. Tertullian (in Apologet, C. 32) says that the Christians pray for the preservation of the Empire, the ruin of which would entail so many frightful disasters.

It appears certain, then, that the Roman empire will be completely demolished by Antichrist and that he will substitute another in its place. The Scriptures affirm it; the Fathers almost unanimously assert it; St. Augustine (lib. 20 de Civit., C. 19) explicitly says that he cannot see how the text of St. Paul can be otherwise interpreted, nor how to give to Theodoret's opinion another meaning. Lactance says that the Roman empire, which today governs the world - terrible to say, but true for all - will be swept from the face of the earth. The empire shall return to Asia; the oriental countries shall reign once more and lord it over the Western nations. (Lib. 7, 15). But it is as difficult to understand what is meant here by the word "empire" and to determine its duration as to find the solution to Jacob's problem relative to the permanency of the scepter in Judea. (Gen. 49:10). Some are of opinion that the destruction of the Roman empire and its division among the ten kings will not be the immediate prelude to the apparition of Antichrist. Those ten kings may have successors whose reign may be indefinitely prolonged till the advent of the last conqueror. St. John seems to favor this opinion when he says that "those kings shall receive their power for an hour."

While others believe that the Sacred Scriptures and the Fathers explicitly teach that the coming of Antichrist will take place immediately after the destruction of the empire by the ten kings. According to this opinion, some theologians maintain that the temporal Roman empire has never ceased to exist. In the beginning of the Christian era its sway prevailed over the known world. And if in some parts it has been deposed, it has always existed and still exists, at least virtually, under some shape or form, and shall thus continue to exist till the end of time. To prove this assertion, they compare it to the legs of the statue mentioned in the prophecy of Daniel. When one of the legs of this statue fell, the other did not fall, and the one that fell represents the downfall of the Western Empire, while the standing leg represents the Eastern Empire, which still exists. But it shall fall, as stated in the prophecy. Through the intervention of the Popes, Providence has long since restored the Empire in the person of Charlemagne. It passed from France to Germany, and hence the temporal succession of the Roman Emperors has been perpetuated to our time. (Bellarm. de summa Pontit.). It is true that the title of Roman Emperor exists no longer; there is, however, as yet a temporal monarchy at Rome which is quite sufficient in the esteem of the supporters of this opinion to save the truth of the prophecy.

If this opinion be true, we might perhaps say that the end is near at hand. We say "perhaps", for Almighty God has not yet said the last word relative to this redoubtable Roman question on which hangs the destiny of the world.

But other theologians maintain. that the prophecy refers to the spiritual power of Rome. The Roman Empire is not destroyed says St. Thomas (in 2 Thes. 2); it is only transformed, that is, the temporal power has become spiritual as St. Leo remarks in the feast of the Holy Apostles. Hence, the disaffection of which the Apostle speaks is a revolt not only against the temporal empire, but also against the spiritual empire. that is, against the faith of the Roman Church. And further on he adds "that many must yet receive the faith, and many shall lose it to such an extent that the Church will be desolated and devastated by the great apostasy before the coming of Antichrist."

By spiritual empire, we do not mean the religious government of individuals alone, but also the introduction of religious principles into the social order. Europe, though divided into several kingdoms, has felt the religious action of Rome in its laws and public institutions. The great ancient pagan empire of Rome has become the Christian empire governed by the law of Christ and the law of the Church, which represents Jesus Christ upon earth. This "law" emanates from Rome, the new Sion. (de Sian exibit lex; Is. 2:3). At present the evil tendencies of men lead them to arrest as much as possible the action of the Roman Church on mankind. Were we to form our judgment from the signs of the times the conjured perversity of men who band together for the sole purpose of subverting the Catholic Church, or at least to destroy its influence throughout the world - we feel inclined to think that we see in them the commencement of the final apostasy foretold by St. Paul. (2 Thes. 2:3). However this may be, it is a known fact that God has made the nations curable. The present blindness may be only a transistory evil to which shall succeed a more perfect development and ready acceptance of the Catholic doctrine among the nations of the earth. [This exegesis which was the approved doctrine of the Catholic Church at that time and summed up nearly two thousand years of teaching beginning with Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, was written in French first and translated into English in 1884 which is reproduced here. The curing for a while of the blindness occurred beginning with Pius X and is over -  the 1958 Conclave and Vatican II are the final great apostasy and that will last until the Second Coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the flesh from heaven with all of His elect angels.]