When you wish to be informed about
the Antichrist
the first thing you want to know is why he is so called. This is because
he will do things that are against Christ. Christ came as a humble man;
he will come as a proud one. Christ came to raise the lowly, to justify
sinners; he, on the other hand, will cast out the lowly, magnify sinners,
exalt the wicked. He will always exalt vices opposed to virtues, will
drive out the evangelical law, will revive the worship of demons in
the world, will seek his own glory, and will call himself Almighty God.
The Antichrist
has many ministers of his malice. Many of them have already existed,
like Antiochus, Nero, and Domitian. Even now
in our own time we know there are many Antichrists,
for anyone, layman, cleric, or monk, who lives contrary to justice and
attacks the rule of his way of life and blasphemes what is good is an
Antichrist,
the minister of Satan. Now let us see about the Antichrist's
origin. What I say is not thought out or made up on my own, but in my
attentive reading I find it all written down in books. As our authors
say, the Antichrist
will be born from the Jewish people, that is, from the tribe of Dan,
as the Prophet says: "Let Dan be a snake in the wayside, an adder
on the path." He will sit in the wayside like a serpent and will
be on the path in order to wound those who walk in the paths of justice
and kill them with the poison of his wickedness. He will be born from
the union of a mother and father, like other men, not, as some say,
from a virgin alone. Still, he will be conceived wholly in sin. At the
very beginning of his conception the devil will enter his mother's womb
at the same moment. The devil's power will foster and protect him in
his mother's womb and it will always be with him. Just as the Holy Spirit
came into the mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ and overshadowed her with
his power and filled her with divinity so that she conceived of the
Holy Spirit and what was born of her was divine and holy, so too the
devil will descend into the Antichrist's
mother, will completely fill her, completely encompass her, completely
master her, completely possess her within and without, so that with
the devil's cooperation she will conceive through a man and what will
be born from her will be totally wicked, totally evil, totally lost.
For this reason that man is called the "Son of Perdition",
because he will destroy the human race as far as he can and will himself
be destroyed at the last day. You have heard how he is to be born;
now hear the place where he will be born. Just as Our Lord and Redeemer
foresaw Bethlehem for himself as the place to assume humanity and to
be born for us, so too the devil knew a place fit for that lost man
who is called Antichrist,
a place from which the root of all evil ought to come, namely the city
of Babylon. Antichrist will be born in that city, which once was a celebrated
and glorious pagan centre and the capital of the Persian Empire. It
says that he will be brought up and protected in the cities of Bethsaida
and Corozain, the cities that the Lord reproaches in the Gospel when
he says, "Woe to you, Bethsaida, woe to you Corozain!". The
Antichrist will have magicians, enchanters, diviners, and wizards who
at the devil's bidding will rear him and instruct him in every evil,
error, and wicked art. Evil spirits will be his leaders, his constant
associates, and inseparable companions. Then he will come to Jerusalem
and with various tortures will slay all the Christians he cannot convert
to his cause. He will erect his throne in the Holy Temple, for the Temple
that Solomon built to God that had been destroyed he will raise up to
its former state. He will circumcise himself and will pretend that he
is the son of Almighty God. He will first convert kings and princes
to his cause, and then through them the rest of the peoples. He will
attack the places where the Lord Christ walked and will destroy what
the Lord made famous. Then he will send messengers and his preachers
through the whole world. His preaching and power will extend "from
sea to sea, from East to West", from North to South. He will also
work many signs, great and unheard-of prodigies. He will
make fire come down from heaven in a terrifying way, trees suddenly
blossom and wither, the seas become stormy and unexpectedly calm. He
will make the elements change into differing forms, divert the order
and flow of bodies of water, disturb the air with winds and all sorts
of commotions, and perform countless of other wondrous acts. He will
raise the dead "in the sight of men in order to lead into error,
if possible, even the elect". For when they shall have seen great
signs of such a nature even those who are perfect and God's chosen ones
will doubt whether or not he is the Christ who according to the scriptures
will come at the end of the world. He will arouse universal persecution
against the Christians and all the elect. He will lift himself up against
the faithful in three ways, that is, by terror, by gifts, and by prodigies.
To those who believe in him he will give much gold and silver. Those
he is not able to corrupt with gifts, he will overcome with terror;
those he cannot overcome with terror, he will try to seduce with signs
and prodigies. Those he cannot seduce with prodigies, he will cruelly
torture and miserably put to death in the sight of all. "Then there
will be tribulation such as has not been on earth from when the nations
began to exist up to that time. Then those who are in the field I will
flee to the mountains, and he who is on the roof will not go down into
his house to take anything from it". Then every faithful Christian
who will be discovered will either deny God, or, if he will remain faithful,
will perish, whether through sword, or fiery furnace, or serpents, or
beasts, or through some other kind of torture. This terrible and fearful
tribulation will last for three and a half years in the whole world.
"Then the days will be shortened for the sake of the elect, for
unless the Lord had shortened those days, mankind would not have been
saved". The Apostle Paul reveals the time
when the Antichrist
will come and when Judgement Day will begin in the Epistle to the Thessalonians,
chapter two ("We beseech you through the coming of Our Lord Jesus
Christ"), in the place where he says:" Unless the defection
shall have come first and the man of sin and the Son of Perdition shall
have been revealed". For we know that after the Greek Empire, or
even after the Persian Empire, each of which in its time had great glory
and flourished with the highest power, at last after all the other empires
there came into existence the Roman Empire, which was the strongest
of all and had all the kingdoms of the earth under its control. All
nations were subject to the Romans and paid tribute to them. This is
why the Apostle Paul says that the Antichrist
will not come into the world "unless the defection shall have come
first", that is, unless first all the kingdoms that were formerly
subject shall have defected from the Roman Empire. This time has not
yet come, because even though we may see the Roman Empire for the most
part in ruins, nonetheless, as long as the Kings of the Franks who now
possess the Roman Empire by right shall last, the dignity of the Roman
Empire will not completely perish because it will endure in its kings.
Some of our learned men say that one of the Kings of the Franks will
possess anew the Roman Empire. He will be in the last time and will
be the greatest and the last of all kings. After he has successfully
governed his empire, he will finally come to Jerusalem and will lay
aside his sceptre and crown on the Mount of Olives. This will be the
end and the consummation of the Roman and Christian Empire. Immediately, according to the saying
of Paul the Apostle cited above, they say that the Antichrist
will be at hand. And then will be revealed the man of sin, namely, the
Antichrist. Even though he is a man, he will still be the source of
all sins and the Son of Perdition, that is, the son of the devil, not
through nature but through imitation because he will fulfil the devil's
will in everything. The fullness of diabolical power and of the whole
character of evil will dwell in him in bodily fashion; for in him will
be hidden all the treasures of malice and iniquity. "He is the
Enemy," that is, he is contrary to Christ and all his members "and
he is lifted up, that is, raised up in pride above everything that is
called God", that is, above all the heathen gods, Hercules, Apollo,
Jupiter, Mercury, whom the pagans think are gods. Antichrist
will be lifted up above theses gods because he will make himself greater
and stronger than all of them. He will be lifted up not only above theses
gods, but also "above everything that is worshipped," that
is, above the Holy Trinity, which alone is to be worshipped and adored
by every creature. "He will exalt himself in such a way that he
will be enthroned in God's Temple, displaying himself as if he were
God." As we said above, he will be born
in the city of Babylon, will come to Jerusalem, and will circumcise
himself and say to the Jews: "I am the Christ promised to you who
has come to save you, so that I can gather together and defend you who
are the Diaspora." At that time all the Jews will flock to him,
in the belief that they are receiving God, but rather they will receive
the devil. Antichrist
also "will be enthroned in God's Temple," that is, in Holy
Church, and he will make all Christians martyrs. He will be lifted up
and made great, because in him will be the devil, the fountainhead of
all evil "who is the king above all the sons of pride". Lest the Antichrist
come suddenly and without warning and deceive and destroy the whole
human race by his error, before his arrival the two great prophets Enoch
and Elijah will be sent into the world. They will defend God's faithful
against the attack of the Antichrist with divine arms and will instruct,
comfort, and prepare the elect for battle with three and a half years
teaching and preaching. These two very great prophets and teachers will
convert the sons of Israel who will live in that time to the faith,
and they will make their belief unconquerable among the elect in the
face of the affliction of so great a storm. At that time what scripture
says will be fulfilled "If the number of sons of Israel be like
the sand of the sea, their remnant will be saved". When, after
three and a half years, they shall have finished their preaching, the
Antichrist's persecution will soon begin to blaze out. He will first
take up his arms against them and will slay them, as it says in the
Apocalypse:
"And when they have finished their witness the beast which will
ascend from the abyss will make war against them and will conquer and
kill them".
After these two have been slain, he will then persecute the rest of
the faithful, either by making them glorious martyrs or by rendering
them apostates. And whoever shall have believed in him will receive
his brand on the forehead. Since we have spoken about his beginning,
let us say what end he will have. This Antichrist,
the devil's son and the worst master of evil, as has been said, will
plague the whole world with great persecution and torture the whole
people of God with various torments for three and a half years. After
he has killed Elijah and Enoch
and crowned with martyrdom the others who persevere in the faith, at
last God's judgement will come upon him, as Saint Paul writes when he
says, "The Lord Jesus will kill him with the breath of his mouth".
Whether the Lord Jesus will slay him by the power of his own might,
or whether the Archangel Michael will slay him, he will be killed through
the power of Our Lord Jesus Christ and not through the power of any
angel or archangel. The teachers say that Antichrist
will be killed on the Mount of Olives in his tent and upon his throne,
in the place opposite to where the Lord ascended to heaven. You ought
to know that after Antichrist has been killed the Judgement Day will
not come immediately, nor will the Lord come to judge at once; but as
we understand from the Book of Daniel, the Lord will grant the elect
forty days to do penance because they were led astray by the Antichrist.
No one knows how much time there may be after they shall have completed
this penance until the Lord comes to judgement; but it remains in the
providence of God who will judge the world in that hour in which for
all eternity he predetermined it was to be judged. |