I
-.LIBRARY
OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIf
*
Received. jSeptz mber., ... ...i 885 .
A c cess ions No . . 2,? <f?4 Shelf No.
MAHOMETANS!
ITS RELATION TO PROPHECY;
6B,
AN INQUIRY
INTO
% irqrdfrifs roiutrning
WITH
SOME REFERENCE TO THEIR BEARING. ON THE EVENTS
DAY .
OF OKACB OIKU MANOR, LICMTRgHIR.
LONDON:
CHARLES DOLMAN, 61, NEW BOND STREET;
AND J8, PATERNOSTER ROW.
1855.
The righi of authoring Translation, of Mu Work is re.er Ded .
FEINTED BY
cox (BROS.) AND WTMAN, GREAT QUKEN STREET,
LINCOLN'S-INN FIELDS.
PREFACE.
the earliest dawn of human history we
find mankind striving, though for the most
part in vain, to lift up the curtain that hangs
before the future, to obtain some glimpse of
what is to come.
There was nothing unnatural in this; the
past had fled away, and with it that feclmir
which its actual presence had inspired. The
present no sooner arrived than it was gone, it
did nothing but swell the recollection of what
had previously passed away. No doubt the
past must ever occupy a large portion of humnn
thought; a human faculty has been created to
exercise itself upon it the memory : and as
we dwell upon it we feel in turn joy or sorrow,
remorse or satisfaction, hope or fear. It con-
tains, as Revelation assures us, the catalogue of
those acts, which, whether good or bad, are to
decide our future and everlasting destiny. The
A 2.
IV PREFACE.
past then in its own nature must exert a
stronger influence over the human mind, and
excite deeper feelings, than the present ever
can. For the past is nothing else but the
whole collection of numberless instants, that
once were present for a moment, and then for
ever ceased : though, awful mystery ! their
consequences are eternal and for ever present !
But if the past naturally and necessarily exer-
cises so large an influence on the feelings of
men, what must be the intensity of interest
that belongs in every thoughtful mind to the
consideration of the future ?
The future contains within its fathomless and
boundless bosom our own destiny, our own lot
for good or evil, for weal or woe : it contains
the sum and the result of more than all that
lies buried in the past ; it contains those brief
instants still reserved for each of us, that will
soon be present, and then become the apanage
of the past ; but it contains far more, it con-
tains the moral and physical results of all these
little present instants, and of the use which we
shall make of them. It contains the solution
of the great mystery of human creation, of the
PREFACE. V
relation of man to his Maker, of time to eter-
nity, of ^vliat changes and passes away to what
shall never more change, but shall endure in
God and with God for ever and ever, world
uithout end ! O wonderful and overwhelming
thought ! O who will grant us rightly to esti-
mate the great thought of the future ? It is
evident that for the human mind to dwell upon
the future is not only a necessary result of the
order of God, strictly according to the nature
of things, but the highest duty and interest of
man, strictly reasonable, inasmuch as it relates
to what in its own nature is far more important,
than anything that is present, or even the whole
assemblage of what is recorded in the history
of the past.
And yet this great and all-absorbing future
is an impenetrable mystery, which no human
mind can fathom. We are irresistibly drawn
to the thought of it, but we cannot see to the
end of it; we wander and wonder upon its
dreary shore, as we may on that of the ocean,
but our eye is soon perplexed and dazzled, our
mind reels and falters, and we turn Jtway from
an impossible task, not to be accomplished by
VI PREFACE.
the most powerful understanding, or the deepest
calculations of human reason. And yet, as we
turn away, an unseen force drives us once more
to the same margin.
This unseen force, what is it, but God ? and
He, who urges us, provides what is to satisfy
the feeling He Himself has called forth within
us. The limited mind of the creature cannot
know what is in the future ; but God, in whom
all that is, lives, and moves, and has its being,
God knows what is in the future, because He
knows, and must know, all things. Man may
guess some of the things that are in the future,
because, reasoning from what has passed, he may
calculate upon certain results springing from
certain causes ; but he can never do more than
guess, because he never can tell how the causes
he calculates from may themselves be changed.
But if man can guess, and if sometimes the
result will bear out the accuracy of the guess,
God, who knows all the secret springs and
bearings of all that He has created, God must
know all the results of the working of His own
work, witk even a much greater certainty than
the watchmaker knows what will be the prac-
PREFACE. Vll
tical result of his own mechanical contrivances.
And this must be so, no matter what be the
mechanism (if I may use such a word) employed
by the Almighty Creator. In a word, if a part
of this mechanism be what is termed free will,
that is, a power vested by its Maker in the
creature of acting according to or against His
own Divine will, which power, He assures us,
was granted to the creature for a moral purpose,
namely, for rendering it fit or unfit to be here-
after ussoriuti'd with Himself; if such a power
, as this were part of the mechanism employed
by the Almighty Creator in the construction
of the rational creature, that would no more
hinder the Creator from certainly foreknowing
the consequences and results of His own me-
chanism, than any mechanism invented by a
human artificer could baffle the accuracy of the
inventor's calculations.
God, then, knows all things, whether past or
future ; man is ignorant of the future, but he
feels himself urged on to the consideration of
it. What is he to do ? From the earliest
moments of human history God Himself has
given us an answer to the question, in reveal-
yiii PREFACE.
ing to men from time to time the secrets of
the future. Sometimes these revelations, or
prophecies (as we call them), have come direct
from God, sometimes through the instrumen-
tality of inspired men, that is, of men speaking
as the mouthpieces of God Himself. No
sooner had Adam and Eve transgressed the
probationary commandment of God in Eden,
than the Almighty revealed to them the
greatest of all events that lay buried in the
future, the coming of a Redeemer who should
atone for their fault ; while very soon after
we find the Almighty making known other
portions of the future through the instrumen-
tality of such men as Enoch and Noah, till it
pleased His Divine goodness to raise up a
succession of prophets, by whose ministry He
announced to mankind all the principal events
in human history, even until the very end of
the world, that is, until the consummation of
the probationary condition of men ; for it is
from prophecy, and from prophecy alone, that
we know that the present state of the human
race will one day cease, and be replaced with
another which is to be far better for all those
PREFACE. IX
who shall be made fit for it, while the misery
of all the rest will be equally perfect in its
kind, and, like the happiness of the redeemed,
everlasting.
To satisfy, then, the cravings of mankind to
dive into the future, God has given prophecy,
and, like every other Divine gift, we ought to
receive it with thankfulness and humility. It
is no part of our present object to discuss the
question of true as distinguished from apo-
cryphal prophecy, or even that of the general
test of true prophecies ; we assume throughout
the truth of the prophecies recorded in the
l>il)le, and accepted by all Christians, whether
Catholic or Protestant. We say, then, that
God having given such a gift as prophecy, it is
clear that He intended us to make use of it,
and to profit by it ; else we may surely infer
the gift would not have been bestowed. Under
this conviction, we find that good men in all
ages of the Church, both before and after the
coming of our Saviour, have made prophecy
the subject of their studies, while they endea-
voured by means of its light to read the pur-
poses of God in what was passed and accom-
X PREFACE.
plished, as well as to enter into those same
Divine purposes in what still remained as yet
unfulfilled. (See 1 Peter i. 1012.)
The history of the heathen world reveals a
similar feeling amongst all nations; the ora-
cles of their false divinities were indeed a poor
counterfeit of the prophecies of the true God ;
still they did homage to a great principle, and
bore witness to the fact how eagerly men dive
into the future, while they proved the necessity
of true prophecies. Amongst the heathen there
remained also a large store of the ancient true
prophecies along with that portion of other
Divine truths, which they still retained, ob-
scured and corrupted as they were by their
own vain reasonings and erroneous traditions.
But amongst the people of God, whether
under the Mosaic or the Christian dispensa-
tions, the most eminent lights of the Church
have ever turned their minds to the considera-
tion of prophecy, and in proportion to the
magnitude of the events in the sphere of which
they were placed, have they striven to examine
the relations between such events and pro-
phecy. And assuredly they were right in doing
PREFACE. XI
so. No doubt they were often mistaken in
their application of particular prophecies to
particular events ; and yet their labours con-
tributed to the sum of general interpretation,
which (it must be acknowledged) is singularly
uniform in its conclusions, if due allowance be
made for natural divergencies upon particular
details. Thus, 'to give an example, it is quite
remarkable what a unity there is amongst
commentators upon the Little Horn describe d
by Daniel as growing out of the Grecian beast !
Even Protestants agree with Catholics in tin Mi-
interpretation of this portion of prophecy.
And so with other portions also, as we shall
have occasion to see hereafter. And though,
at the moment, in the application of par-
ticular prophecies to particular events, great
mistakes may very naturally be made, still
it will be found that there was much that
was valuable connected with the labours, even
of those who blundered in some of their
conclusions, inasmuch as they laid down prin-
ciples of interpretation, which others afterwards
found to be of the greatest value, not only
in ascertaining truth, but in rectifying their
Xll PREFACE.
blunders. And as an instance of what I mean,
I should say that the most powerful arguments
to disprove the Protestant theory that the pope
was the fulfilment of prophecy as relating to
Antichrist, have come to me from the very
writings of Protestant commentators, which
undertook to establish the soundness of this
very theory.
So also students of prophecy may have erred
in supposing that the events of their own day
had any place at all in prophecy, at least any
distinct and definite place, and yet that ought
not discourage others from considering other
events in their possible relation to prophecy.
The only conclusion, that it seems to me may
be fairly drawn from any such past failures of
interpretation, is, not that we should not en-
deavour to find out any such relation between
what is going on in the world and prophecy;
but that, in our labours to attain this, we
should act with great caution and humility, and
abstain from all dogmatizing assurance, simply
stating our opinion, and the reasons on which
it is grounded : leaving it to God and to the
future to do the rest : moreover bearing in
PREFACE. Xlll
mind the words of the Apostle Peter, "That
no prophecy of Scripture is made by private
interpretation/' (2 Peter i. 20.)
These few observations we felt we owed to our
readers as preliminary to our entering on the
very interesting question, as to the possible
relation that may exist between the Divine
prophecies of the Holy Scripture and the great
events that are now taking place all over the
earth, and that seem likely to usher in others
of still greater magnitude.
But in all our observations on this most
interesting subject, we here declare that we
submit all that we have written to the infallible
authority of our Holy Mother, the Catholic
and Apostolic Church, to whom alone belongs
the true interpretation of Divine Scripture.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PACK
ON THE USE AND ADVANTAGE OP DIVINE PROPHECY . 1
CHAPTER II.
PROPHECIES OP THE OLD TESTAMENT CONCERNING AN
CHRIST . . . . . . . . 7
CHAPTER III.
PROOFS CHIEFLY DERIVED PROM THE PROPHECIES OP
I 'AUL AND ST. JOHN THAT THIS GREAT ANTICHRIST
WAS MAHOMET ; AND THAT THE MAHOMETAN EMPIRE
WITH ITS RELIGIOUS SYSTEM WAS THE KINGDOM OP
ANTICHRIST . . 41
CHAPTER IV.
THE HISTORY OP THE MAHOMETAN EMPIRE is THE
LITERAL FULFILMENT OP THE PROPHECIES OP HOLY
WlUT, RELATING TO THE KINGDOM AND DOMINION
OP ANTICHRIST ... ., . . . . ... ... 102
CHAPTER V.
PROPHECIES OP DANIEL RELATING TO MAHOMETANISM
AND THE FUTURE DESTRUCTION OF THE TURKISH
EMPIRE ... ... ... 176
XVI CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VI.
PACK
PROPHECIES RELATING TO EVENTS CONTEMPORANEOUS
WITH, AND SUBSEQUENT TO, THE BREAKING UP OF THE
TURKISH EMPIRE ... ... .... .. .. 204
CONCLUSION . 252
APPENDIX 257
AN INQUIRY
INTO THE
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST,
CHAPTEE I.
ON THE USE AND ADVANTAGE OF DIVINE PROPHECY.
OF all the evidences of the truth of revealed
religion, there is perhaps not one that holds
so important a rank not even miracles being
excepted as prophecy. That this is so, reason
alone must convince us. Who but God can
possibly know what is still future ? A man
well acquainted with history, versed in the
experience of the past, or who has studied the
hidden depths of human nature, may assuredly
form conjectures, more or less probable, of
what is likely to happen in the times imme-
diately bordering on his own; for, indepen-
dently of what is called the Philosophy of
History, which may assist him in some slight
degree to unravel the mysteries of the future,
there is no event of great magnitude which
2 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
must not have been prepared at least by a
series of smaller events, the chain of which he
already finds commenced, so that its coming
(to use the beautiful expression of our wise
poet) " casts its shadow before it"
In this sense the politician, the philosopher,
the poet, may be said to prophesy. In this
sense, aided, too, no doubt, by the superior
craft and experience of evil spirits, as the holy
fathers of the Catholic Church abundantly
prove, the heathen oracles foretold, and fore-
told correctly, many events.
But who does not see the infinite difference
between such predictions as these, whether
natural or preter-natural, and the prophecies
of our Sacred Scriptures ? prophecies which,
made many thousand years ago, foretell the
events which are to take place even to the
consummation of the world ? prophecies,
which foretell what the free will of unborn
millions in the remotest ages was foreseen by
the mind of God as certain to accomplish ?
prophecies, in fine, which not only lay bare
the future, but reveal the great and glorious
purposes of the Almighty, which He intended
to bring to perfection out of a series of acts
having no individual reference the one to the
other, nor, indeed, ordained as though by a
fate inconsistent with the freedom of the
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 3
human will; but which, foreseen by Him as
the certain result of that very free will of
which He was the Author and Creator, were
made subservient by Him to that unity of
gracious purpose which could never appear so
glorious as when triumphing over a chaos that
must have baffled the highest created intelli-
gence, nor so beneficent as when turning the
abuses of man's freedom at once to the benefit
of the creature so abusing it, and to the
greatest glory of the Creator so offended and
so dishonoured by it ?
Truly, when we contemplate the wonderful
prophecies of our Sacred Scriptures, we may
well exclaim, in the devout and humble Ian-
guage of St. Paul, " O ! the depth of the
riches of the wisdom and the knowledge of
God ! how incomprehensible are His judge-
ments, and His ways past finding out ! "
(Romans xi. 33.)
But if we may say of these Divine prophe-
cies that they perhaps constitute the strongest
evidence of the truth of that revelation of
which they form a part, and in which they
hold so conspicuous a place, it is no less true
that their fulfilment, manifested by the event,
is their only certain and satisfactory expositor.
This truth is beautifully expressed by the
prince of the apostles, the glorious St. Peter :
B2
4 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
"We have also a more sure word of pro-
phecy, to which ye do well to give heed, as
unto a light shining in a dark place, until the
day shine forth " (2 Peter i. 1921) ,- that is,
until the event manifest its fulfilment ; while
we learn, from the same words, that the great
object of prophecy, separate from that still
higher one of serving as an evidence of reve-
lation, is " to shine as a light in a dark place ; "
or, in other words, to enable the Christian to
read the designs of God on the dark face of
events.
Amongst all the various events foretold by
the prophecies of God, there are two which
appear to hold a place conspicuous amongst
all the rest, and to which the others hold a
subordinate relation : the first of these is the
coming of the Messiah, that is, the Christ ; the
second is the coming of the Antichrist. Of these
two great events we may say, that as, on the
one hand, Almighty God has made every
human event subservient to His great and
glorious designs, manifested and accomplished
in the incarnation of his Son, that is, in the
coming of Christ; so, on the other, man's
great enemy, Satan, has endeavoured to render
the same subservient to that grand scheme
which he devised to counteract the work of
God, namely, the coming of Antichrist. Hence
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 5
the whole history of the human race may be
compared to a sublime epic, in which the
contending powers are, in the invisible world,
Almighty God with His blessed angels against
Satan and the rebel angels ; in the visible
world, Christ and Antichrist; whilst the op-
posite camps are the city of God (that is, the
Holy Catholic Church) on the one hand, and
the city of the devil (that is, fallen human
nature warring against God) on the other.
And as Almighty God, the Supreme Disposer
of human events, turns all to the glory of
His cause, that is, the good of His Holy
Church, consisting as it does of redeemed and
regenerate men purchased by the blood of
Christ, so that the whole chain of Divine
acts is, as it were, riveted to that single
Divine purpose, namely, the coming of Christ,
and the establishment of His spiritual king-
dom; so the devil, in all his contradictory
plans and schemes, would at least make the
wickedness of all of them subservient to the
single diabolical purpose meditated in the
coming of Antichrist, and the establishment
of his iniquitous kingdom.
It would seem that the blessed apostle
St. John viewed Antichrist in this light, when
in his first epistle he thus wrote : " Little
children, this is the last hour : and like as
6 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
ye have heard that Antichrist is to come,
even so now (I tell you) there are already
many Antichrists." (1 John ii. 18.) That
is, besides the general evil and malice me-
ditated by Satan in the acts to which he
tempted and directed all his agents and in-
struments, from the foundation of the world,
he had an especial reference to the coming of
Antichrist, as the full development of all his
designs : so that, as all the holy personages
who went before Christ, were so many types
of Christ ; so, in like manner, all the servants
of Satan who were to precede Antichrist, were
so many types of him, and might therefore
be termed, not inappropriately, so many Anti-
christs, as the apostle said : " There are already
many Antichrists."
It is the object of the present treatise to
endeavour, humbly treading in the footsteps
of the earliest fathers and doctors of the Holy
Catholic Church, to unfold the prophecies of
God, which relate to this masterpiece of Satanic
malice and craft, manifested in the coming of
Antichrist.
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST.
CHAPTER II.
PROPHECIES OP THE OLD TESTAMENT CONCERNING
ANTICHRIST.
WE read, in the seventh chapter of the book of
Daniel, the following words (verses 1 to 14) :
"1. In the first year of Balthassar, king of
Babylon, Daniel saw a dream ; and the vision
of his head was upon his bed : and writing the
dream, he comprehended it in few words ; and
relating the sum of it, in short he said :
" 2. I saw in my vision by night, and behold
the four winds of heaven strove upon the great
sea:
"3. And four great beasts, different one
from another, came up out of the sea.
" 4. The first was like a lioness, and had the
wings of an eagle : I beheld till her wings
were plucked off, and she was lifted up from
the earth, and stood upon her feet as a man,
and the heart of a man was given unto her.
"5. And behold another beast like a bear
stood up on one side, and there were three
rows in the mouth thereof, and in the teeth
thereof; and thus they said to it, Arise, devour
much flesh.
8 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
" 6. After this, I beheld, and lo ! another
like a leopard, and it had upon it four wings
as of a fowl, and the beast had four heads, and
power was given unto it.
" 7. After this, I beheld in the vision of the
night, and lo ! a fourth beast, terrible and
wonderful, and exceeding strong ; it had great
iron teeth, eating and breaking in pieces, and
treading down the rest with its feet : and it
was unlike to the other beasts, which I had
seen before it, and it had ten horns.
"8. I considered the horns, and behold
another little horn sprung out of the midst
of them ; and three of the first horns were
plucked up at the presence thereof : and
behold eyes, like the eyes of a man, were
in this horn, and a mouth speaking great
things.
" 9. I beheld, till thrones were placed, and
the Ancient of Days sat : his garment was
white as snow, and the hair of his head like
unto clean wool; his throne like flames of
fire ; the wheels of it like a burning fire.
" 10. A swift stream of fire issued forth
from before him : thousands of thousands
ministered to him ; and ten thousand times a
hundred thousand stood before him : the judge-
ment sat, and the books were opened.
"11. I beheld, because of the great words,
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 9
which that horn spake : and I saw that the
beast was slain, and the body thereof was
destroyed, and given to the fire to be burnt.
" 12. And that the power of the other
beasts was taken away ; and that times of life
were appointed them for a time and a time.
"13. I beheld therefore in the vision of
the night, and lo ! one like the Son of Man
came with the clouds of heaven, and he came
even to the Ancient of Days; and they pre-
sented him before Him.
" 14. And He gave him power, and glory, and
a kingdom : and all peoples, tribes, and tongues,
shall serve him; his power is an everlasting
power that shall not be taken away : and his
kingdom that shall not be destroyed."
In these sublime and mysterious words, does
the Prophet Daniel lay open to us the whole
mystery of God, containing the prediction of
all the principal events from his own time even
unto the end of the world. All commentators
agree that the four beasts signified the four
great monarchies or empires, which were des-
tined to arise on the earth, successively holding
dominion over all nations. In fact this inter-
pretation was revealed to Daniel along with
the vision itself, as we find stated in the same
chapter, from the 16th to the 28th verse.
That great father and doctor of the Church,
10 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
St. Jerome, commenting (Hieronymi Comment,
in Daniel, e. vii. torn. v. p. 584, ed. Basi-
liensis) upon this vision, thus interprets it :
" I understand by the four winds of heaven,
four angelical powers, to whose guardianship
the principal kingdoms of the world are com-
mitted, as we read in the book of Deuter-
onomy : e When the Most High divided the
nations asunder, when he separated the children
of Adam, He constituted the boundaries of the
nations according to the number of the angels of
God ; but the Lord's portion is His people, yea,
Jacob is the boundary of His heritage? By the
sea is signified the world, or the secular state
of mankind, tossed to and fro with the billows
of human passions ; as our Lord interprets the
same figure in His parable of the net cast into
the sea. Hence the dragon is called the king
of all that moves in the waters, and, according
to David, his heads are bruised in the sea.
(PsaL Ixxiii.) And we read in the Prophet Amos
(Amos ix.) : c Though he go down to the depth
of the sea, there will I command the dragon, and
he shall devour him? But as for the four
beasts that arose from the sea, and were dif-
ferent one from the other, if we listen to the
angel's interpretation, we may know the mean-
ing of the vision. These four great beasts,
says he, are four kingdoms, that shall arise
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 11
from the earth. But the four winds of heaven,
that strove on the great sea, are termed winds
of heaven, because each angel striveth with
God for the kingdom that is committed to his
guardianship. And we must remark, that by
the term beasts is signified the brute force and
cruelty of the several kingdoms. But in the
vision, the first was like a lioness, and it had
the wings of an eagle : this was the kingdom
of Babylon, and it was symbolized by a lioness,
rather than a lion, on account of its savage
cruelties, as well as its luxury and beastly lust."
We may here remark, to interrupt for a mo-
ment the commentary of St. Jerome, that our
own illustrious traveller Layard has discovered
in his laborious investigations of the ruins of
the old Assyrian power at Nineveh, and in the
territory of the great Babylonian empire, nu-
merous remnants of vast colossal statues of
winged lionesses, some of which are now depo-
sited in our own British Museum. These
figures probably symbolized the Assyrian power,
and in that case it was very natural that in the
vision that empire should be so represented to
the prophet. And it is evident that those
statues must have had a symbolical meaning,
which was well understood by the people
amongst whom they were erected. The lioness
would signify a mighty people, emerging from
12 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
the desert of barbarism, and the wings that
aided it in its flight would signify the arts and
appliances of civilization, which enabled it to
soar above the low and grovelling pursuits of
savage life, while the nature and character of
the lioness would express the moral and phy-
sical qualities of that people. But let us listen
to St. Jerome : " ' And it had the wings of an
eagle/ By this I understand the pride of that
most powerful kingdom, for Esaias the Prophet,
speaking of the prince of pride, saith, f I will
place my throne above the stars of heaven, and I
will be like unto the Most High.' (Isaias xli.)
And in another place it is said of him : ' Yea,
though thou be lifted up on high like an eagle,
yet will I drag thee down from thence/
Moreover, as the lion amongst beasts, so the
eagle hath a sort of royalty amongst birds.
And as the eagle is said to live to a great age,
so it may be said that the Assyrian monarchy
subsisted for many centuries. But when the
prophet tells us that its wings were plucked off,
whether from the lioness or the eagle, that
refers to the other kingdoms which that empire
ruled over, and by which it soared over the rest
of the world. And when it is said that it was
taken from the earth, the words evidently refer
to the destruction of the Chaldean empire ; and
what follows ' That it stood on its feet like a
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 13
man, and the heart of a man was given to it :'
if we apply it to Nabuchodonosor, it is evident
that at one period he was deprived of his royal
state, and was afterwards restored to it, so that
he learnt he was a man, and not a savage
beast ; and he took back the heart which he
had lost in his dreadful humiliation. But if
we interpret it in general of the Chaldean
kingdom, it would mean, that when Balthassar
was slain, and the Chaldean dominion was
overthrown by the Medes and Persians, the
men of Babylon learnt that they were frail,
and liable to fall like other men. We must
also remark the order observed by the prophet
in this vision, and we shall find that it exactly
coincides with that which we have already seen
in the great metallic statue in the dream of
Nabuchodonosor. What in DaniePs vision is
described as a lioness with eagles' wings, is
there called the head of gold ;" [and both the
one and the other signify the Babylonian or
Assyrian monarchy.]
" But the Prophet continues, ' and behold a
second beast like unto a bear/ This relates to
the power, of which it is said in Nabuchodo-
nosor's dream of the statue : e and his breast
and his arms were of silver/ The Medo-
Persian empire is compared to a bear, on
account of the strength and fierceness of that
14 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
power." And here we may interrupt for a
moment the commentary of St. Jerome, to
observe, that there also may be some allusion
on the part of the prophet to the geographical
position of the two empires in question. The
Assyrian monarchy was in a more southern
latitude, nearer the tropics, and so it is com-
pared to a lioness, for such animals abound
within its territory ; while Persia, situated
much further to the north, and diversified with
great mountains, abounded with bears ; and so
it is not unaptly symbolized by that very
animal. But to return to St. Jerome : " More-
over the habits of the Persians were hardy and
frugal, like what we read of the Lacedaemonians,
and as we may see detailed at length by Xeno-
phon in his ' History of the Education of the
elder Cyrus / and when it is said ' that it stood
up on one side,' the Hebrews thus interpret it,
that the Medo-Persians never did anything to
persecute Israel. Hence by Zachariah the Pro-
phet they are called ' white horses' But ' there
were three rows in the mouth and in the teeth
thereof.' This has been interpreted of the three
principalities into which the Medo-Persian em-
pire was subdivided, as we read in the TTC/HKOTTI)
of Baltasar and Darius, that there were three
princes, each of whom presided over one hun-
dred and twenty satrapies. But others have
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 15
made it refer to three kings, who reigned after
Cyrus over the Persian empire, but without
telling us which they refer to. But as we find
from history, that after Cyrus, who reigned for
thirty years, there followed Cambyses and his
brothers the Magi, and then Darius, under
whom the restoration of the Temple of Jeru-
salem was commenced; and then the fifth
king, Xerxes, the son of Darius; Artabanus,
the sixth; the seventh, Artaxerxes, surnamed
Longimanus, or long-handed; Xerxes, the
eighth; Sogdianus, the ninth; the tenth,
Darius, surnamed Nofloc ; the eleventh, Arta-
xerxes, who was called MvY}ft(uv, that is, 'the
Rememberer ;' the twelfth, another Artaxerxes,
who was surnamed Ochus ; the thirteenth,
Arses, the son of Ochus ; the fourteenth,
Darius, son of Arsamus, who was conquered
by Alexander, king of Macedon. How then
can it be true to say there were but three
kings of the Persians, unless indeed there were
three who were specially conspicuous for their
cruelty, which I do not find from history to
have been the case. The 'three rows' then
in the mouth of the Persian beast, and in the
teeth thereof, must signify three kingdoms
those of the Babylonians, the Medes, and the
Persians, which were fused into one kingdom.
And whereas the prophet continues, ' And thus
16 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
they said unto it : Arise, devour much flesh ; '
that may refer to the period of Assuerus, whom
the Septuagint names Artaxerxes, when Aman
exhorted him in one day to slay all the Jews.
We must observe the prophet does not say, that
the beast devoured much flesh, but that they said
unto it, ' Arise and devour much flesh ;' signi-
fying that the thing would be planned, but not
executed." And here we may add to the expo-
sition of St. Jerome, that these words may also
refer to the unsuccessful expeditions of Darius,
and subsequently of Xerxes, against Greece,
when the wonderful bravery of the Greeks
overthrew the almost countless hosts of the
Persians in the memorable battles of Mara-
thon, Thermopylae, Artemisium, and Salamis.
But St. Jerome continues : " ( After this I
beheld, and lo ! another beast, like unto a
leopard/ The third kingdom, of which it is
said, in the corresponding vision of Nabuchodo-
nosor's statue, ' his belly and his thighs of brass?
This kingdom is that of the Macedonian Greeks,
and it is compared to a leopard, one of the
swiftest of beasts, and o/ojuTjrficrJ : to signify its
headlong course of conquest. And it had four
wings ; signifying the wonderful rapidity with
which Alexander the Great won victory after
victory, from the Illyrian and Adriatic Sea
even to the Indian Ocean and the Ganges ; so
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 17
that in six years he subdued a large portion of
Europe and the whole of Asia. That it had
four heads, is to be understood of the sub-
division of Alexander's empire, immediately
after his death, between his four principal
generals, viz. : Ptolemy, Seleucus, Philip, and
Antigonus." St. Jerome then proceeds in his
commentary to the fourtli beast. " ' After this*
saith the Prophet, ' I beheld in the vision of the
?///////, and lo ! a fourth beast, terrible and won-
derful, and exceeding strong ; it had great iron
teeth and it had ten horns : I considered
the horns, and behold another little horn sprung
out of the midst of them : and three of the first
horns were plucked up at the presence thereof:
(UK! behold eyes like the eyes of a man were in
this horn, and a mouth speaking great things'
This fourth beast signifieth the Roman empire,
which now governs the whole world; and it
corresponds with that part of Nabuchodo-
nosor's statue, of which it is said, ' its legs
were of iron, but the feet part of iron and part
of potter's clay : ' in this place it is only the
iron that is referred to, the Prophet witnessing
'that it had great iron teeth/ And here I
wonder not a little, that whereas the Prophet
had compared the three former empires to
beasts, the habits of which we are acquainted
with, such as the lioness, the bear, and the
c
18 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
leopard, he compares the Roman empire to no
known animal, but simply terms it a beast
exceeding strong and terrible. What can be
the meaning of this ? possibly to excite a still
greater fear of the power and fierceness of the
fourth empire, by giving it no definite name ;
as if to insinuate, that whatever there was of
such fierceness and strength in all other beasts,
we might expect to find all this combined and
united in the Roman empire. But what Daniel
passes over in silence, the Hebrew interpreters
think is supplied by David in the Psalms, where
he saith, f the wild boar from the forest hath
devoured her/ which is read thus in another
version, ' all the wild beasts of the field have
devoured her/ which would refer to the fact
that the Roman empire was an agglomeration
of all nations and kingdoms, seeing that the
Roman beast either devoured them all, or
reduced them to tribute and subjection: in
reference to which Daniel here says of this
beast, that it devoured all things, and trampled
them under its feet " St. Jerome here
refers to the interpretation which Porphyrius
had given of this prophecy, and especially of
the horns, in which he understood the little
horn to signify Antiochus Epiphanes. But
St. Jerome rejects this as utterly untenable,
the fourth beast referring to the Roman em-
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 19
pire, and not to the kingdoms into which
Alexander's empire was subdivided ; and, after
declaring this, he winds up with these remark-
able words : " Let us therefore say, what hath
been handed down to us by all ecclesiastical
writers : that in the latter days of the world,
when the Roman empire shall have been de-
stroyed, ten kings shall arise, who shall parcel
out the Roman territory between themselves :
after which an eleventh king shall arise, small
iu his beginnings, who shall subdue three of
those other kings." And here St. Jerome adds
(what he could only have learnt from the same
remarkable tradition, which he tells us pre-
vailed in the early Church), that the three kings
referred to, were " those of Egypt, Africa, and
Ethiopia, or the interior of Asia." How re-
markably this has been fulfilled we shall show
more at large in a subsequent chapter. " ' And
behold/ says the Prophet, ' there were as it
were the eyes of a man in that horn / to show
that he was not the devil or an evil spirit as
some have thought, but a man, in whom Satan
would dwell with his whole force; ' and he had
a mouth speaking great things:' for he is the
same, as the Man of Sin, the Son of Perdition
[spoken of by St. Paul in his second Epistle to
the Thessaloniaus], who sitteth in the Temple
of God, making himself as it were God." Thus
c2
20 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
far have we quoted the words of the great
St. Jerome, we shall have to refer to them
again later, as well as to the prophecy of
Daniel, to which they relate.
The same great revelation had already been
made to King Nabuchodonosor, as we find in
the second chapter of the same prophecy (Dan.
ii. 31 45), under the figure of a vast statue,
composed of four different materials, answering
to the four beasts in Daniel's vision, as we
have already had occasion to see pointed out to
us by St. Jerome in his commentary on that
vision. The only difference between the two
visions consists in this, that the second con-
tains a fuller development of future events than
the first; the groundwork of both being evi-
dently the same. In the sequel we shall observe
that still fuller developments of the mighty
events, connected with these four empires, and
subsequent to them, are revealed to the Prophet.
We have already seen, from the quotations
given from St. Jerome, what was his inter-
pretation of the four beasts, and in this inter-
pretation we may safely affirm that all other
commentators agree with him. For if any have
ventured to dissent from the general expla-
nation, they are really too insignificant to be
seriously dealt with. We may therefore lay it
down, as the tradition of the Church, that the
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 21
four beasts, and the four metals of Nabuchodo-
nosor's statue, undoubtedly signify,
1st. The Assyrian-Babylonian empire ;
2nd. The Medo-Persian empire ;
3rd. The Macedonian-Greek empire founded
by Alexander the Great ;
4th. The Roman empire, which these pro-
phecies clearly indicate as the most powerful of
them all.
But, besides these four empires, the Prophet
speaks of a fifth, which he clearly intimates
should be different from all the rest, which
should be the kingdom set up by Almighty God
Himself; and that its first establishment should
take place before the expiration of the period
allotted to the four empires, which we have
just named. This is revealed to us in the forty-
fourth verse of the second chapter of Daniel in
these words : " But, in the days of those king-
doms, the God of Heaven shall set up a kingdom
that shall never be destroyed"
What kingdom is this, but that spiritual one
of Jesus Christ, His Holy Catholic and Apos-
tolic Church ? that kingdom, of which He
declared "my kingdom is not of this world/'
of which He laid the first foundations on that
blessed day when, just before His glorious
Ascension into Heaven, He thus addressed
His apostles, giving them the mighty com-
22 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
mission to found it : " All power is given to me
in Heaven and on Earth, going therefore TEACH
YE all nations : baptizing them in the name
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost; TEACHING them to observe all things,
whatsoever I have commanded you : and be-
hold I am with you, ALL DAYS even to the
CONSUMMATION of the WORLD." This was the
kingdom which Daniel had declared, so many
hundred years before, the God of Heaven would
set up, which Jesus Christ the God of Heaven
actually did set up, and which He set up " in
the days of those kingdoms/' that is, while the
Roman empire, ruling as it did over the terri-
tory of all the other monarchies, still swayed
the destinies of the earth, and of which Daniel
declared "that it should never be destroyed;"
while Jesus Christ, its founder, affirmed that He
Himself would abide with it "for ever, even to
the end of the world."
The Prophet having described the founda-
tion of this fifth kingdom, which was God's
own kingdom, a spiritual kingdom, of which
in the same chapter it is said " a stone was
cut out of the mountain without hands " (Dan.
ii. 34), as well to signify that no human force
would be used for its foundation, as to denote
the supernatural birth of its Founder Jesus
Christ, he goes on to describe the foundation
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 23
of another kingdom, the distinctive character-
istic of which would be, that it would make
war with the saints of God, that is, according
to the language of Scripture, the people of God,
in other words, with the fifth kingdom, or
the Catholic Church.
Having described the fourth great monarchy,
or the Roman empire, under the figure of a
beast " terrible and wonderful (Dan. vii. 7, 8),
and exceeding strong, having great iron teeth,
with which it devoured and brake in pieces,
treading down the rest with its feet/' the Pro-
phet adds, " that it was unlike the other beasts,
and that it had ten horns." Now what can
this mean, except that the Roman empire was
not to be supplanted, like the other great
monarchies, by another universal monarchy,
but that when the period of its dissolution
should arrive, it should be subdivided into ten
kingdoms ? In the sixth verse of this same
chapter (Dan. vii.), the third monarchy, or the
Greek empire of Alexander, had already been
described as having four heads ; and in the
eighth chapter (Dan. viii. 8), the same Mace-
donian Greek empire is described as a he-goat
with a notable horn and four lesser horns ; and
the four heads in the first vision and the four
horns in the latter, symbolized the subdivision
of Alexander's empire after his death amongst
24 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
liis four generals, who founded four distinct
kingdoms out of it; so here, in the seventh
and eighth verses of the seventh chapter, we
find the Roman empire dissolved into ten
kingdoms, which the Prophet foresaw under
the symbolical figure of ten horns. What
ensues thereupon ? Listen to the Prophet :
"I considered the horns, and behold, another
little horn sprung out of the midst of them:
and three of the first horns were plucked up
at the presence thereof: and behold eyes, like
the eyes of a man, were in this horn, and a
mouth speaking great things." And a little
further on, in the eleventh verse, he continues :
" I beheld, because of the voice of the great
words which that horn spake ; " and again, in
the twenty -first verse : " I beheld, and lo !
that horn made war against the saints, and
prevailed over them ; " and again, in the
twenty-fourth verse : " And another horn shall
rise up after the other ten horns, and he shall
be mightier than the former, and he shall
bring down three kings, and he shall speak
words against the High One, and shall crush
the saints of the Most High; and he shall
think himself able to change times and laws,
and the saints shall be delivered into his hand,
until a time, and times (in the dual number,
meaning, therefore, two times), and half a
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 25
time ; after which," concludes the Prophet,
" judgment shall sit, that his power may be
taken away, and be broken in pieces, and
perish even to the end."
Now, who is this little horn, of which such
great and terrible things are here foretold ?
The holy fathers of the Church, with one con-
sent, declare that it is that great opponent of
God and of His Church which, in the language
of the New Testament prophecies, is denomi-
nated Antichrist ; and in this interpretation
all later commentators, whether Catholic or
Protestant, agree. The only question agitated
between them is, " IVho is this Antichrist ? "
It is true that Mr. Faber, the rector of Long
Newton, has laboured, in a work entitled " The
Sacred Calendar of Prophecy," to establish a
distinction between Antichrist and the Man of
Sin; but, speaking generally of Protestant com-
mentators since the first period of their separa-
tion from the Catholic Church, it is true that
they agree with ourselves in regarding the Little
Horn of Daniel, the Man *of Sin of St. Paul,
the Antichrist of St. John, and the False Pro-
phet of the Apocalypse, as the same personage.
It is with such who agree in holding this view
that we are specially concerned in this treatise,
although indirectly we have to do with others
also, as will be seen in the sequel.
26 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
It is not the place, as yet, to answer the
question, " Who is the Antichrist ? " we shall
do this in another chapter: here we confine
ourselves to the consideration of some of the
characteristics of Antichrist, as they are fore-
told in this prophecy of Daniel, reserving it
for our interpretation of other prophecies, both
in Daniel and elsewhere, fully to develop who
the great Antichrist really is.
In the prophecy before us, this, at least,
seems quite clear, that Antichrist was not to
appear in the world until after the dissolution
of the Roman empire, and its consequent sub-
division into ten kingdoms ; that he was to
rise up amongst these, and to subdue three of
them ; that he was to speak great things
against God and against His saints ; in other
words, against God, as the revealer and founder
of the Christian Church, which was, as we have
already seen, the kingdom of the saints, or the
fifth monarchy, which the Prophet told us God
would found " in the days of those kingdoms "
(Dan. ii. 44) ; that is, during the period allotted
for the duration of the four monarchies ; in
other words, before the dissolution of the
Roman empire : that is, Christ was to found
His kingdom before the dissolution of the
Roman empire, Antichrist was to found his
after its dissolution. Finally, this prophecy
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 27
contains a prediction of the period for which
this kingdom of Antichrist was to last,
namely, for the mystical period of a time,
times, and half a time, that is, for one year,
for two years (the word times, both in the
Hebrew and Greek versions, being in the dual
number), and for half a year; that is alto-
gether, for three years and a half. What is
meant by this symbolical period of three years
and a half, we shall discuss later. In fine, in
these two prophecies of Daniel, contained in
the second and seventh chapters, we have the
prediction of Christ's kingdom, and of Anti-
christ's kingdom ; that the former was to be
founded, as we have just observed, before the
dissolution of the Roman empire, the latter
shortly after that dissolution ; that the former
was to last for ever, and that the latter was to
last for the symbolical period of three years
and a half.
Now let us proceed to the eighth chapter of
Daniel. In this chapter the Prophet relates
a vision which he had concerning two of
the four great monarchies, the four monar-
chies which formed the subject of the vision
related in the last chapter. It may perhaps
here be asked, of what use could it be to
show the Prophet so many visions concern-
ing the same thing ? The reason is obvious ;
28 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
the Prophet does, or rather the Holy Spirit
deals with the Prophet, as a skilful artist
treats any subject, of which he would convey
to persons at a distance an accurate idea :
he presents his subject to them in different
points of view, first giving them a general view
of it, and then in successive sketches after-
wards he displays all its different details. By
and by we shall see the exceeding value and
force of these different details, *in establishing
the date as well as the locality of Antichrist.
Thus in the seventh chapter we have the vision
of the four great monarchies, of the establish-
ment of the Catholi c Church, related still more
emphatically in the second chapter, forty-fourth
verse, and of the kingdom of Antichrist in
opposition to it ; whilst in the eighth chapter,
we have the vision of two out of those four
monarchies, together with the establishment
of Antichrist's kingdom as coming out of the
second of these two monarchies, namely, out
of the Grecian beast, though, as the Prophet
says (viii. 23), not until " after their reign"
Let us now consider this prophecy contained
in the eighth chapter. The Prophet teUs us
that this vision was revealed to him in the
castle of Susa, in the third year of King Bal-
thassar's reign. " And I lifted up my eyes,"
says Daniel, " and saw : and behold a ram
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 29
stood before the water, having two high horns,
and one higher than the other, and growing
up." (Dan. viii. 3.) The interpretation of
this verse is given by the angel Gabriel in the
twentieth verse of this same chapter, in these
words : " The ram, which thou sawest with
the horns, is the king of the Medes and Per-
sians." In other words, the ram is the Per-
sian monarchy, and the two horns are the two
great nations coalescing together in the for-
mation of that empire, viz., the Medes and
Persians, and the horn, which was the higher
of the two, is evidently the Persians, who took
the lead in regard to the Medes in forming
the empire. In the fifth verse, the Prophet
describes the vision of another beast, which he
saw under the form of a he-goat : " And behold
a he-goat came from the west on the face of
the whole earth, and he touched not the
ground, and the he-goat had a notable horn
between his eyes." The Prophet then describes
the violent combat, which took place between
the he-goat and the ram : in the seventh verse
he declares that the he-goat overcame and
destroyed the ram, but in the eighth verse he
describes the breaking of the notable horn
already mentioned, in the place of which four
other horns arose. Now before we proceed
further, let us look at the twenty-first verse of
30 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
the same chapter (Dan. viii. 21), and we shall
find all these figures interpreted by the angel
Gabriel. The he-goat is declared to be the
Greek or Macedonian monarchy j the notable
horn, which came up between the eyes of the
he-goat, is the first king or founder of this
monarchy, that is, Alexander the Great, the
rapidity of whose conquests is aptly figured
by the expression of the Prophet, that the he-
goat " touched not the ground ; " and we are
then informed by the same angelic interpreter,
that immediately upon his death, his empire
should be subdivided into four portions or
kingdoms, of which his four principal generals
became the four first kings respectively : all
which, history informs us, was literally accom-
plished upon the death of Alexander, when the
mighty dominions of this extraordinary con-
queror were subdivided amongst his four gene-
rals ; Antipater taking possession of Mace-
donia ; Lysimachus of Thrace and the Helles-
pont ; Ptolemy of Egypt and its dependencies ;
and Seleucus of Syria, including Babylon, part
of Arabia, Persia, and the other Asiatic pro-
vinces of the old Medo-Persian empire.
Having described this, the Prophet at once
proceeds to the subject of Antichrist; for so
St. Jerome assures us that the tradition of
primitive interpreters understood the Prophet's
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 31
words. (Hunc locum plerique nostrorum ad
Antichristum referunt. Hieronymi in Dan.
c. viii. torn. v. p. 589.) "And out of one of
them came forth a little horn, and it became
great against the south, and against the east,
and against the strong ; and it was magnified
even unto the strength of heaven, and it threw
down of the strength, and of the stars, and trod
upon them : and it was magnified even unto
the prince of the strength ; and it took away
from him the continual sacrifice, and cast down
the place of his sanctuary, and strength was
given him against the continual sacrifice, be-
cause of sins : and truth shall be cast down on
the ground, and he shall do and shall prosper."
In the thirteenth verse, which follows, Daniel
hears a saint, who was present in the heavenly
vision, asking another saint, how long should be
the vision unto the end of the desolation, and of
the dominion of the little horn, concerning
which such terrible things are here predicted ?
To which question the following answer is re-
turned : " Unto evening and morning two
thousand three hundred days ; and the sanctu-
ary shall be cleansed." This prophecy is, per-
haps, one of the most important in the whole
book, as it gives us the clue for calculating the
period when Antichrist shall perish, and the
sanctuary of God, that is, the Holy Land and
32 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
Jerusalem, if we understand it literally, shall
be freed from his pollutions, and if we take it
mystically, when the Holy Catholic Church
shall be delivered from the defiling contact of
his impious conflict. By the term two thousand
three hundred days, we understand symbolical
or prophetic days, that is, according to the
interpretation given to the word day, in the
prophecy of the seventy weeks of days.
(Dan. ix. 24) . Days, which signify and sym-
bolize years. That in the prophecy of the
seventy weeks a day symbolized a year, no one,
who compares the event with the prediction, will
for a moment deny. Seventy weeks would amount
to four hundred and ninety days, and it was pre-
cisely at the close of four hundred and ninety
years from the time specified to the Prophet,
that our Lord's advent took place ; the conclu-
sion, therefore, of all Christian interpreters has
been that the term week in that prophecy must
signify a period of seven prophetic days, each day
symbolizing a year. And if in one prophecy the
event has proved the necessity of this inter-
pretation, there is every reason from analogy
to conclude that the same method of interpre-
tation is to be observed in regard to the meaning
of other prophetic periods also. And what tends
still further to corroborate this are the words of
God Himself to Moses, recorded in the Book
of Numbers (Numb. xiv. 34) ; " according to
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 33
the number of the forty days, wherein you
viewed the land : a year shall be counted for
a f/fty.' And again we read in the Book of
K/ekiel the Prophet (Ezek. iv. 5, 6) : "And I
have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity,
according to the number of the days, three
hundred and ninety days, and thou shalt bear
the iniquity of the house of Israel. And when
thou hast accomplished this, thou shalt sleep
11 upon thy right side : and thou shalt take
upon thee the iniquity of the house of Juda
forty days: a day for a ycur, yea, </ day for a
year have / appointed unto thee. 93 It is true
that the term f/ay has not always, in all cases,
been so interpreted by Christian interpreters,
many having taken it in a literal sense; but it
always appeared to me that the argument
in favour of the symbolical and conventional
nu -ailing of the term is far stronger than any
argument on the other side. In this view, the
majority of Protestant commentators agree,
and the ablest treatises on prophecy from
Cutholie authors take the same view also. The
ruble Father Bartholomew Holtzhauser, of
Bingen, so interprets the 1260 Apocalyptic
days. The learned Church historian, the
Abbe Rohrbacher udopts the same view, as
may be seen in the tenth volume of his
" Ecclesiastical History," where he treats at
34 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
length the prophecy of Daniel in reference to
Mahomet and the Mahometan apostacy. The
same view is also maintained in a learned
work, published at Paris in 1844, and dedicated
to the late Pope Gregory XVI., entitled, " La
Fin des Temps." The same is upheld in
another most admirable treatise, entitled,
" Preuves Incontestables de la Verite de
TEglise Catholique deduites de 1' Apocalypse."
In the prophecy, therefore, which we are now
considering, " Unto evening and morning, two
thousand three hundred days, and the sanc-
tuary shall be cleansed," we understand that
from the date symbolized by the word evening,
to that symbolized by the word morning, a
period of two thousand three hundred years
was to elapse ; at the end of which the event
signified by the cleansing of the sanctuary will
take place.
And here we must observe a very important
remark made by the great St. Jerome ; he tells
us that in some versions of the Book of Daniel,
the words are not written " two thousand three
hundred," but "two thousand two hundred
days." " Quidam pro duobus millibus trecentis,
duo millia ducentos legunt." (Hieron. in Dan.
torn. v. p. 589.) And this we apprehend to
be the truer reading, because it seems to us
to agree better with the prophecy of the
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 35
1260 days, of which, if we are correct in
dating it from the year of our Lord 622, the
conclusion would be somewhere about the year
1882, or earlier, if the years be not natural
years, but prophetic periods of 360 days each,
which we arc inclined to believe that they are.
But now the question naturally presents
:f, from what period are we to date the
commencement of the two thousand two hun-
dred days, or two thousand three hundred days,
whichever be the corrector reading ? In answer
to this, I have no hesitation in replying, that I
should date it from the period when Alexander
the Great began to reign, that is, from the
moment when the he-goat commenced his
struggle with the ram : because it is out of the
precincts of Alexander's empire that the little
horn is said to spring ; and consequently, when
the vision describes the period of the desolation
occasioned by the little horn, and the taking
away of the daily sacrifice, concluding with the
glorious event of the cleansing of the sanctuary,
it not unnaturally dates back from the very
commencement of Alexander's reign, that
being the commencement of the symbolical
he- goat, for out of the geographical limits of
his empire it was, that this little horn was
destined to rise. It may, however, perhaps be
objected here, that the period assigned would
D2
36 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
seem to belong to the dominion of the little
horn, and the taking away of the daily sacrifice,
and that, if so, the period of desolation assigned
to the little horn, in the eighth chapter of
Daniel, is very much longer than that assigned
in the preceding chapter (Dan. viii. 25) to the
dominion of the same little horn, when described
as issuing out of the Roman beast, into which
the kingdoms of Alexander's he-goat were
ultimately destined to be absorbed by conquest,
before this little horn emerged from them.
But this difficulty is cleared up, by a reference
to the twelfth chapter of Daniel, which contains
a still fuller revelation of the events foretold in
the eighth chapter : if we look there, we shall
find it is again predicated of the dominion of
Antichrist, that it shall be for a time, and
times (in the dual number), and half a time.
(Dan. xii. 7.) So that it is clear, that in this
place, where the Prophet is speaking of a period
of 2300 days, he does but include the period of
three times and a half, or 1260 days, dating
back from a period antecedent to the com-
mencement of these 1260 days, and onwards,
perhaps to a period subsequent to the conclu-
sion of the same 1260 days, probably to that
glorious period, of which it is said : " Blessed
is he that waiteth, and cometh unto a thousand
three hundred and thirty-five days." (Dan.
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 37
xii. 12.) For these words of the angel would
seem fitly to refer to the glorious event, which
was revealed to the Prophet as the closing act
of the 2300 days " And the sanctuary shall
be cleansed."
We have thus laid before our readers those
portions of Daniel's prophecy, which, according
to St. Jerome, relate more especially to the
coming of Antichrist under the symbol of the
little horn. We have shown that the period of
his coming would seem, by comparing these
visions of Daniel together, to be one immedi-
ately following the destruction of the Roman
empire, and its subdivision into the ten king-
doms foretold by the Prophet ; we have shown
that the prophecy relating to the he-goat, or
the Macedonian-Greek empire, proves the
itirnlity of the little horn, or Antichrist, to be
within the geographical limits of what consti-
tuted Alexander's empire ; that the expression of
tlu> Prophet, that this little horn was to grow up
within these limits after the time (Dan. viii. 23,
"After tlu'ir reign") allotted for the duration
of the four monarchies into which Alexander's
empire was to be subdivided (for how else
can we interpret the expression " after their
reign ?"), warrants us in looking for the coming
of Antichrist after these four portions of Alex-
ander's empire should have ceased to be inde-
38 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
pendent kingdoms, that is, after they should
have been absorbed into the Roman empire,
which is DanieFs fourth beast : whilst the other
prophecy, that a little horn (of which Daniel
predicates precisely the same things, as he had
predicated of the little horn growing out of the
Macedonian he-goat) should arise out of the
ten horns or kingdoms of the subverted and
subdivided Roman empire, fixes the period of
his coming as clearly as the preceding prophecy
of the he-goat had fixed his locality.
And here we are met by an objection, which
Protestant commentators are not slow to ad-
vance. They deny the identity of the little
horn of the Macedonian he-goat, with that of
the Roman beast. They agree with us in all
we have advanced about the period of the ap-
pearance of the little horn of the Macedonian
he-goat, as they agree with us also in their
personal application of that prophecy : but they
do not agree with us in admitting the identity
of this little horn, with the little horn, which
the Prophet describes as issuing out of the sub-
divided Roman empire.
In maintaining this theory, in opposition to
our's, which asserts the identity of the two
little horns, Protestants seem to forget that
the Roman beast must represent the whole
Roman empire, and not alone the western half
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 39
of it : that the empire of the Macedonian he-
f/odt had already become a portion of the
Roman c//t/>ire, and consequently, in looking
for the ten horns into which the Roman empire
to be subdivided, that we must look for
them not only in the western half, but in the
rn portion also of this same Roman em-
: and consequently, that when the Prophet
ks of the little horn that rose up amongst
the ten other horns of the Roman empire, it is
altogether arbitrary and unreasonable to say
that we are to look for this little horn only
within the precincts of the western empire, and
that he is not to be expected within the pre-
cinct> of the eastern half of the Roman beast.
If so, then how comes it, that the Prophet in
describing, what Protestants gratuitously as-
sume to be the western little horn, makes no
mention whatever of that other little horn,
which they themselves cannot deny was destined
to arise in the east out of the precincts of the
Macedonian he-goat? How comes it, I say,
that the Prophet tells us of only one, instead
of two little horns, issuing out of the Roman
beast, if the Protestant theory be correct that
there really were two such horns ? Assuredly
no satisfactory answer can be given to this
question on the Protestant theory, whereas on
our theory the answer is simple and obvious,
40 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
because there was but one such little horn,
and therefore but one is described as issuing
out of the Roman beast. The prophecy of the
eighth chapter had already prepared us to
expect and to conclude this, for when the angel
explained to Daniel the time of the coming of
the little horn which he had seen issuing out
of the Macedonian he-goat, he expressly assured
him that it would be after the reign of the four
kingdoms of the Macedonian he-goat, that is,
after they ceased to be independent kingdoms,
and after they had been absorbed within the
limits of the Roman beast. All Protestants,
as far as I know, admit that the little horn of
the Macedonian he-goat did, in point of fact,
not appear until after the breaking up of the
Roman empire : I therefore conclude, peremp-
torily, that the little horn described by the
Prophet as issuing out of the Roman beast is
the little horn of the Macedonian he-goat,
consequently that the Roman little horn is
to be looked for within the precincts of the
Eastern, not the Western Roman empire, that
is, in other words, within the geographical
limits of the domains of the Macedonian he-
goat.
PROPHECIES
CHA
PROOFS CHIEFLY DERIVED FROM THE PROPHECIES OF ST. PAUL
I ) ST. JOHN THAT THIS GREAT ANTICHRIST WAS MAHOMET ;
A1TO THAT THE MAHOMETAN EMPIRE WITH ITS RELIGIOUS
SYSTEM WAS THE KINGDOM OF ANTICHRIST.
THE question that must now occupy our atten-
tion is whether Antichrist, of whom we have
already been considering the remarkable pre-
dictions -iven by the Prophet Daniel, be come
or not? and secondly, whether any political
and religious system has arisen in the world,
resulting from the work of any celebrated
personage, recorded in history, that bears a
sufficient resemblance either to what the pro-
phecies of Daniel, or others of the New Testa-
ment, to which we are now about to turn our
attention, have described, so that we should be
justified in coming to the conclusion that such
a personage was the predicted Antichrist, and
such a polity the Antichristian empire?
In regard to the first question it is un-
doubtedly the opinion of many Catholic authors
that Antichrist has not yet appeared; but all
the authors, who take this view, hold that
Antichrist is to reign only for the brief period
42 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
of three literal years and a half, and that his
empire and dominion are not to outlive their
founder, but to perish with him after that
exceedingly short duration. Other Catholic
authors however take another view, affirming
that Antichrist is already come, and that the
duration of his dominion was not to be for the
literal period of three years and a half, or of
1260 natural and literal days, but for a prophetic
period so called, which would in reality amount
to 1260 years. The only difference between
such years and natural years being, that they
are years of 360 not 365 days each, such dif-
ference resulting from the precise terms in
which the prophecies relating to them are
couched.
We at once inform our readers that this
latter view is the one which we adopt, and
which appears to us most consonant to Holy
Scripture, to the earliest traditions of the
Church, and to common sense.
By-and-bye we shall unfold the scriptural and
traditional arguments which go to establish this
theory, but it seems to us eminently agreeable
to common sense also, and to all sound analogy.
For on the face of it, is it likely that all the
wonderful and awful descriptions of Antichrist,
as given in Scripture, could be fulfilled in the
short period of three literal years and a half?
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 43
that every evil personage recorded in history
is a sort of Antichrist, or type of the great
Antichrist, we have scriptural authority for
affirming ; but if the real Antichrist is to last
for only three years and a half, many of his
types would be infinitely worse than the great
antitype himself. For instance Arius, whose
heresy desolated the Church for centuries, must
have done much more mischief to the Church
and to the souls of men, than any such ephe-
! Antielirist ever could do: and what shall
we say of the three centuries of Pagan-Roman
persecution of the early Church on this theory ?
Assuredly no persecutor for three literal years
and a half could ever rival the accumulated
amount of the ten great persecutions enacted
all over the earth by the Pagan-Roman em-
perors. Or what ought we to think of the still
greater mischief perpetrated by Mahometanism
during the last twelve centuries on such a theory
as this ? It is evident that if Antichrist be not
yet come, and if his continuance is only to be
for three literal years and a half, instead of
being the principal incarnation of evil, to which
prophecy points, he would be vastly inferior in
this respect to what were merely types and
shadows of what he was to be. It is therefore
obvious to us, that either some enduring form
of evil, already recorded in history, must be the
44 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
predicted Antichrist, or if not, that at least it
must be some system still future, which will at
any rate endure as long as its predecessors and
its types, and which can in no case be realized
by an ephemeral Antichrist enduring only for
three years and a half.
We shall proceed to show why we believe
that this great Antichrist is not future, but
that he belongs to the region of the past and
to the domains of fulfilled prophecy.
It is well known to our readers, whether they
be Catholic or Protestant, that almost all Pro-
testant commentators on prophecy so far at
least coincide with our view, as to admit the
symbolical nature of the prophetic period of
three years and a half or 1260 days, and that
Antichrist is already come.
We need scarcely say that they do not agree
with us as to whom prophecy points as the
predicted Antichrist. Mr. Mede, a writer cer-
tainly of no mean repute whether for learning
or ability, has left on record what were his
views on this question. The learned Bishop
Newton has done the same, and his treatise on
the prophecies is certainly a work of great
ability and research. That great philosopher,
astronomer, and mathematician, Sir Isaac New-
ton, has done the same also, and however
erroneous his conclusions, as Catholics must
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 45
necessarily affirm them to be, they are at any
rate the homage of a great mind and of a bril-
liant genius to the Divinity of the Scripture
prophecies. And to say nothing of other minor
authors, or of the continental Protestants from
Luther downwards, in our own time the subject
has certainly been ably handled, although on
wron^r premises and false principles, by modern
\vriier>, IK li a> 1 orster, Faber, and Elliott.
All thesr \\riter.s havi- laboured to show, ac-
og to their respective theories, that the
eiihrr the Antichrist, or the Man of
Sin, or the False Prophet of the Apocalypse,
or that he was all three of these figurative
eharaeters combined. They have laboured to
show that the Catholic Church of Christ fell at
a very early period into a fatal apostacy from
her primitive faith, that she defiled the reve-
lation of God with a demonolatrous worship of
saints and angels, an idolatrous worship of
images and the Eucharist, and with a general
practice, that fully warranted both them and
their forefathers in quitting her communion,
and in denouncing her to mankind as the
Babylon of prophecy doomed to destruction,
and as the most impious foe both of God and
man.
On the other hand, Catholic writers, ever
>inee the outbreak of the Protestant Revolu-
46 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
tion of the sixteenth century, have striven to
show, and they have done it successfully, that
the Protestant theory of Antichrist was con-
trary not only to the whole teaching of the
Catholic Church in all ages, and the tradition
both of East and West, but utterly at variance
with the statements of prophecy itself, and
that if true, it would do more than annihilate
the claims of Catholicity, it would overthrow
those of Christianity itself; for what becomes
of that religion, as a fact of any practical
importance to mankind, if you entirely sepa-
rate it from the Church, if you make it a mere
theory, that has never been properly carried
out or realized upon earth ? Of course, in
saying this, Catholics are far from denying or
overlooking the fearful abuses that have, alas !
ever existed in the Christian Church. Our
Lord and Master prepared us for these. He
tells us, that these abuses and scandals must
of necessity arise even within His own king-
dom, the Church, and that they will never be
entirely rooted out until His second coming
to judge the living and the dead. But Catho-
lics, while they admit this, and deplore it, are
surely right in saying that the Protestant
theory goes much further. It passes beyond
the corruption of individual members and in-
dividual pastors, and affirms that the whole
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 47
body of the Church has been corrupted, that
her doctrine has been perverted, her practice
(as approved by her oecumenical councils) has
become idolatrous, that from having once been
the Church of the living God, authorized by
Him "to teach all nations," she has become
for many ages the very synagogue of Satan, a
sink of corruption, and nothing less than "the
irivat Babylonian Harlot," "the mother of all
the abominations of the earth." (Apocalypse
xvii. 5.) If this be true, they must show not
only how such a result is consistent with the
ronmii MM, iriven by Christ to this same Church
"to teach all nations," but how it agrees with
His glorious promise " that the gates of hell
should never prevail against His Church," and
that He would remain with the visible teach-
ing Church " always even unto the end of the
world." (Matt, xxviii. 20.)
The commission given by our Lord to His
visible Church, and the promises with which
He consecrated and confirmed that commission,
are utterly inconsistent with the Protestant
theory of prophetic interpretation. It cannot
be denied even by those who hold this theory,
that the visible Catholic Church of the present
day is the Church which Christ's apostles
founded, and which is the offspring of our
Lord's command to them to teach all nations ;
48 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
how then could Christ command the nations
to submit to a teaching, which after three or
four centuries was to become idolatrous and
blasphemous ? and yet assuredly He places no
limit to the commission He gave, but on the
contrary promised to be with it " always, even
to the end of the world/' In a word Christ
declares " the gates of hell shall never prevail
against His Church : " the Protestant theory
asserts, that the gates of hell have prevailed
against it : for if idolatrous teaching be not a
gate of hell, we know not what can deserve to
be so called. Now all this has been trium-
phantly shown over and over again by Catholic
writers.
Whoever wrote with greater power on this
subject, than the great and pious Cardinal
Bellarmine ? and if the Protestant student of
prophecy would turn to the voluminous com-
mentaries of that able interpreter of Scripture
Cornelius a Lapide, or to those of the learned
Salmeron, who has literally exhausted the sub-
ject, they would see how very weak are the
grounds for their own interpretation, how con-
tradictory it is to the whole tenor of Scrip-
ture, how it is founded on mere assumptions,
on gross misrepresentations of historical facts,
or on a still grosser misunderstanding of Ca-
tholic usages and doctrines, or on an illogical
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 49
confusion between the character of the Church
as a body, and the crimes of some of her
pastors or individual members.
But it was not merely at the period of the
great falling away from the Catholic Church,
that Catholic authors refuted the theories of
their adversaries. As time rolled on, the sub-
was continually taken up on both sides,
and often treated in a new point of view as to
nc of its details.
\\ e may here mention some others of the
principal writers, who have handled this por-
tion of Scriptural interpretation on the Catho-
lic side of the question : and by referring to
their pages, the reader will be better able to
form an estimate of this immensely important
subject.
The great Bossuet wrote a treatise on the
Apocalypse, which, like all he wrote, is full of
ability and of edifying matter. The venerable
Father Holtzhauser, of Bingen, on the Rhine,
did the .same, and a most interesting and valu-
able treatise it is. There was also an exposi-
tion of the Apocalypse published by an Eng-
lish Catholic bishop, Dr. Walmesley, under the
assumed name of Pastorini : and just before
the close of the last century, an English lady,
who had embraced the Catholic faith, pub-
lished a most able and learned disquisition on
E
50 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
the same mysterious book, under the title of
' ' Preuves Incontestables de la Verite de PEglise
Catholique et Apostolique deduites de 1' Apoca-
lypse." There is, too, a very valuable and
interesting disquisition on Daniel's prophecy
relating to the little horn in the tenth volume
of the Abbe Rohrbacher's " History of the
Catholic Church," in which he proves with
great ability that Mahomet is that little horn
and the Antichrist of prophecy. There have
been also several minor treatises on the Apoca-
lypse. Still, however, it may be advisable for
others to continue digging in the same inex-
haustible mine, and it may be, that as time
flows on, and events develop themselves, the
true meaning of prophecy, and its connection
with what is passing around us, may possibly
receive some elucidation.
But now it is time we should reply to the
question, Is Antichrist still to come, or is he
already come? I answer, he is come : and if
the further question be put, Who then is he ?
I answer, without any doubt or misgiving what-
ever, Mahomet is he : Mahomet is the great
Antichrist foretold in the Sacred Scriptures :
and this is what I shall endeavour to prove in
the following disquisition.
St. John the Evangelist, he to whom our
Lord made his special Revelation of what was to
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 51
come to pass even to the end of the world, tells
us, in his first Epistle and the second chapter
;'iid the eighteenth verse, " Little children, it is
the last hour," that is to say, the last period of
the world, or the last dispensation of God to
men, " and as you have heard that Antichrist
cometh, even now there are many Antichrists,
whereby we know that it is the last hour."
. . . . " They uent out from us; but they
were not of us. For if they had been of us,
they would no doubt have remained with us ;
but that they may be made manifest that they
are not all of us." And again, in the twenty-
second verse he continues, " This is Antichrist,
who denieth the Father and the Son." St.
John here gives us an unmistakeable clue to
discover the great Antichrist. He tells us that
the very basis of his teaching will be " to deny
the Father and the Son." He says, and he
says most truly, that even when he wrote his
Mpistle, there u ere already many Antichrists,
and that they were heretics, who had left the
Apostolic Communion : "They went out from
US." Hence it is evident that any spirit that
opposeth the authority of the one Catholic
Church founded by the Apostles at the com-
mand of Christ, who said to them, " Go ye and
teach all nations," is a spirit of Antichrist,
whether such heretics were forerunners of the
52 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
great Antichrist, or whether they have arisen
since, and have trodden in his footsteps. All
such spirits have a natural sympathy for one
another, and they all are linked together by
one common design : the spirit which actuates
them is a spirit that " denieth the Father and
the Son" It will not be difficult to explain,
why it was quite reasonable for Antichrist, on
his false principles, or rather for Satan who
inspired him, to deny f( the Father and the
Son :" and why this denial of " the Father and
the Son" should be the highest act of human
impiety. For assuming the truth of Divine
Revelation, and of the statement it makes to
us of the Fall of Man, and that man having
sinned, and so fallen from God, could never by
any act of his own recover the favour of that
God, but that God provided a way for recover-
ing His grace by the incarnation of His own
Son, God like Himself, who by His meritorious
obedience, and by His patient endurance of
sufferings, and even of a cruel death upon the
cross, obtained for mankind, what otherwise
man could never have merited for himself, a
restoration to God's favour, and the power of
" working out his own salvation with fear and
trembling;" I say, assuming the truth of all
this, which all Christians do assume, is it not
clear that the denial of the Persons of " the
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 53
Father and the Son" in God denies the whole
scheme of human redemption and salvation,
undermining thereby the whole system which
Christ came on earth to teach, and consequently
doing the utmost to undo what was done by
Christ, in a word, doing that which all common
sense and analogy would lead one to expect
that Antichrist, when he was fully revealed,
would do? But this is not all; we shall here-
after have occasion to show, from prophecy,
what other things this great Antichrist was to
do, and how completely all these predictions
have been fulfilled in Mahomet, and his re-
ligion and empire. But St. John tells us that
\eu in his day " there were many Antichrists,"
and it is remarkable how all the heresies that
sprung up in the early Church tended to that
great denial " of the Father and Son" which
received its fullest development in the very
words of the Mahometan creed, " God is one.
God is eternal. He hath neither begotten, nor
is begotten." Chapter 112 of the Koran,
being the first of the last three Revelations,
which " the False Prophet" impiously pre-
tended that God had revealed to him at Mecca.
These words emphatically deny the whole
doctrine of Christ, the whole scheme of human
redemption, and the Personal distinction and
existence " of the Father and the Son" in the
54 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
Godhead. " God hath neither begotten nor is
begotten/' says Mahomet : " This is ANTI-
CHRIST, that denieth the FATHER and the SON,"
says the inspired Evangelist and Apostle St.
John, he that leaned on the bosom of Christ at
His last supper, and drew in from the Sacred
Heart of his Lord and Master the stream of
Grace and Truth. Is it then too much to say
that in this special feature, attributed by St.
John to Antichrist, Mahomet literally fulfils
the predictions of Holy Writ ?
The truth of this will become more and more
apparent as we trace the links between the
early heretics, of whom St. John said, " Already
there are many Antichrists," and the great
arch-heresy promulgated by Mahomet in his
Koran, in which, summing up and carrying
out all the denials contained in previous here-
sies, he affirmed " that God hath neither be-
gotten nor is begotten" that is, that there is
neither " the Father nor the Son" in the God-
head.
In the very days of St. John the Evangelist,
there were heretics, who, separating themselves
from the Apostolic communion, and resisting
the authoritative teaching of the Church, af-
firmed that Christ was not come in the flesh \
that He only assumed a phantom of human
nature, no real body. The effect of this heresy
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 55
was to deny and overthrow the reality of the
atonement : and when Mahomet came, one of
his principal heresies was to deny that Christ
had died upon a cross, or had redeemed man-
kind by his death. By this heresy Mahomet
adopted those of the Gnostics, of Cerinthus,
of the Marcionites, the Ebionites, and the
earliest recorded in Church history. As these
curlier forms and varieties of the same great
fundamental heresy died out, they were repro-
duced in still more definite shape by the cele-
hratcd heroiarch Arius ; he, like his predeces-
sors, overthrew the doctrine of redemption
thnmdi Christ, by denying the Divinity of our
Lord : for though he allowed a sort of Godhead
in ChriM. he denied the eternal Sonship, and
the equality of the Son with the Father.
Nestorius, too, while agreeing with the Catho-
lic doctrine of the blessed Trinity, overthrew
the Divinity of Jesus, by denying the hypos-
tatic or personal union between Christ and
God the Son ; he affirmed that there were two
Persotis, absolutely distinct in Christ, so that
God the Son was not Christ, nor Jesus God
the Son : so that, according to him, the all-holy
Mary was not the Mother of God, but of a
mere man, and consequently he virtually over-
threw the doctrine of the atonement ; for how
could one mere man atone for sins of millions
56 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
of men ? and yet Nestorius was not aware of
the consequences of his own heresy. Then
followed Eutyches, who in another way came
to the same impious conclusion of the virtual
denial of the atonement ; for he denied the
distinction of natures in Christ. Running into
the opposite extreme against the heresy of
Nestorius, who affirmed not only the distinc-
tion of natures, but of Persons, in Christ, he
(Eutyches) denied that Christ had at once the
nature of God and the nature of man, and he
affirmed that the manhood of Christ was alto-
gether confounded with the nature of God the
Son, so that he was not truly man, as well as
truly God : and by this heresy he overthrew
all the reality of Christ's merits and sufferings,
for the Divinity can neither merit nor suffer,
although the creature cannot have infinite
merit (such as the Redeemer of all men must
have) unless hypostatically united, as the
Church teaches us the humanity of Christ was,
with the Divinity. Then the Manicheans,
uniting in themselves all previous heresies, car-
ried on the tradition of impious denial, till at
last, when the Roman empire had been re-
moved, and the world was once more plunged
in barbarian anarchy, Mahomet came forth
from his obscurity, to usher in a new religion,
and to found a new empire. His religion was
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 57
to supersede Christianity, and his empire was
to be universal, so he said, and so he promised
his deluded followers. He admitted that Christ
i Prophet, but he denied that He was God,
and he spurned at the doctrine of the atone-
ment, and he proclaimed himself to be the last
and the greatest of the Prophets, consequently
greater than Christ : and as Christ had founded
a religion and a spiritual empire, to embrace
one day within its sacred bounds the whole
t of the world, so did this "Father and
Son dnnjiiiti" Antichrist found a carnal and
sensual religion, connecting it with a brutal-
izing and carnal empire; and as Christ had
connected the establishment of His empire
with that of every virtue, especially with the
Divine gift of continence and virginity, so did
this beastly Antichrist associate his empire
with the reign of promiscuous concubinage,
and of every sensual gratification. What he
adopted and retained of revealed Divine Truth
was but the mask and the cloak for his impious
blasphemies, to deceive the unwary, and if pos-
sible to lead captive even the elect. And how
many millions and hundreds of millions of men
has he not led captive from the first dawning of
his career up to this very hour, in which we see
England and France ranging themselves in battle
array to uphold his old, now worn out, cursed
58 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
dominion ! How many fair provinces of holy
Church has he not trampled down ! how many
millions of Christians has he not slain during
more than twelve centuries ! how has he not
desolated the richest and most beauteous pro-
vinces of the earth, diffusing barrenness and
desolation over lands flowing with milk and
honey, stopping the current of civilization, and
realizing to the letter all the hideous descrip-
tions of Antichrist and Antichristian dominion
contained in the infallible prophecies of God's
Word!
It is a remarkable fact connected with the
spiritual affinity, of which we have been speak-
ing, between Mahomet and the early heretics,
that Mahomet was actually assisted by Nes-
torians and Jews in compiling the first outlines
of his religious system. This fact is attested
by all historians, and it is another fulfilment of
the conditions of that spiritual genealogy of
Antichrist indicated in the passages of St.
John's Epistle, which we have already cited.
But if we turn from the words of St. John
to the writings of St. Paul, who also predicted
many things concerning the great Antichrist,
as all commentators unite in affirming, we
shall find all that he foretold no less lite-
rally and strikingly fulfilled in the person of
Mahomet.
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 59
St. Paul, in his second Epistle to the Thessa-
lonians, and in the second chapter, writes as
follows : " And we beseech you, Brethren, by
the coming of our Lord Jesus, and of our
gathering together unto him ; that you be not
easily moved from your mind, nor be frighted,
neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by epistle
as sent from us, as if the day of the Lord were
at hand. Let no man deceive you by any
means; for unless there come a revolt first,
and the Man of Sin be revealed, the Son of
JVnliti<>n, who opposeth and is lifted up above
all that is called God, or that is worshipped, so
that he sitteth in the Temple of God, showing
himself as if he were God. Remember you
not, that when I was yet with you, I told you
these things ? and now you know what with-
holdeth 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
\virked one shall be revealed, whom the Lord
Jesus shall slay with the spirit of his mouth,
and shall destroy with the brightness of his
coming; him, whose coming is according to the
working of Satan, in all power, and signs, and
lying wonders, and in all seduction of iniquity
to them that perish : because they received not
the love of the truth that they might be saved.
60 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
Therefore, God shall send them the operation
of error, to believe a lie/'
If we examine these very remarkable words
of the Apostle, we shall see that his object was
to instruct his Thessalonian disciples that the
day of our Lord's second coming was not so
near at hand, as some, who had misinterpreted
our Lord's words (St. Luke xxii. 32), " Amen I
say unto you, this generation shall not pass
away, till all things be fulfilled," had supposed.
He tells them, therefore, that many things
are to happen in the world before that day
arrives : that it will not come " until there has
been a revolt first." Now this word, which
our English Catholic version thus renders, is
in the original Greek termed " 17 airoaraaia"
and in the Anglican version it is translated a
falling away, which comes nearer the expression
of the Latin Vulgate, which words it " dis-
cessio," than either the original Greek or the
English Catholic version, although the latter
professes to follow the Vulgate. But the Eng-
lish word "apostasy" would certainly come
nearer to the Greek than any other, and we
must not forget it was in the Greek that the
Apostle wrote. The Apostle then foretells,
that before the day of the Lord, that is the
second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, shall
arrive, there will be "the apostasy" that is, " a
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 61
i/rcat apostasy :" and this apostasy is coupled
with the revelation of " the Man of Sin" evi-
(1 ntly showing that the two are identified
together, and that the apostasy will be his
work ; in other words, that there was to be a
religious system instituted by the Man of Sin
for the purpose of superseding Christianity,
and of inducing all men to apostatize from it.
Further, the Apostle tells the Thessalonians
that the Man of Sin, and the great apostasy
lie was to usher in, would not be manifested
" until that, which now holdeth" or restraineth
their appearance, "be taken way " or removed:
and then, he concludes, " shall that wicked one
be reveated."
At the same time St. Paul declares that
"the mystery of iniquity already worketh,"
which agrees with the statement of the Evan-
gelist St. John, " already are there many Anti-
chri>ts." It is evident, therefore, that what
St. Paul calls " the Apostasy" which he iden-
tifies with " the Man of Sin," and what St.
John calls "Antichrist" was to be ushered in
by the heresies that prevailed in the earliest
periods, the connection of which with Maho-
metanism we have already shown. But St.
Paul's prediction to the Thessalonians gives us
many other marks by which this Man of Sin
was to be known. Now the first of these is
62 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
the period of his appearance. This is distinctly
noted by the Apostle. " That which now
holdeth and restraineth shall be removed, and
then shall that wicked one be revealed."
Now what was it that withheld, and that
was to be removed ? so as to make way for
Antichrist ?
The early fathers with one consent declare
that St. Paul referred to the Roman empire :
as long as this empire lasted, the coming of
Antichrist was to be delayed, but when once
this was gone, then " was that wicked one to
be revealed." "Who holds," says Tertullian,
" but the Roman empire ? the division of which
into ten kingdoms will bring on Antichrist:
and then, according to the Apostle, that wicked
one shall be revealed." (Tertullian de Resur-
rect. Carnis, cap. 24.) And that great doctor
and most learned ancient Father St. Jerome,
commenting on these same words of the Apostle,
" only he who now holdeth doth hold, until he
be taken out of the way' 3 writes thus : " The
Apostle by this expression, He who now holdeth,
signifieth the Roman empire. He says it in
obscure terms, for if he had spoken openly, he
would by his imprudence have excited the rage
of the persecutors against the Christians, and
against the Church, which was then in its very
infancy." (Hieronymi, in Jeremiam, cap. 25.)
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 63
And again the same holy doctor, on another
occasion explaining the same passage, says:
"Only th; t the Roman empire, which at pre-
sent hohleth all nations beneath its sway, be
taken away, and then shall Antichrist come."
(Hieronymi, Epist. cli. ad Algas. qu. xi.) The
illustrious Patriarch of Constantinople, St. John
Chrysnsiume, commenting on the same text,
speaks thus : " It may be asked, what is the
meaning of St. Paul, when he says, you know
what ir'itltlioldeth him from being revealed; and
why does the Apostle speak so obscurely? It
is hrcaiiM' he has in view the Roman empire :
and on that account, with good reason, he
speaks in obscure and enigmatical terms, for
fear of in Hating the Romans. The Apostle
then on this account says: only that he, who
now holdeth, doth hold, until he be taken out of the
way ; that is, when the Roman empire shall have
been removed from the face of the earth, then
shall Antichrist come/' (Chrysost. Homelia iv.
/// Pdu/i Itjiist. ad Thessalonicenses ii.) A still
earlier lather of the Church, the great Lactan-
tius, speaking of the latter period of the world,
says : " At that time desolation will overspread
the whole earth, destroying everything : the
cause of which desolation will be that the
Roman empire (I shudder to say it, but I must
needs say it, because it is to be) will be taken
64 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
away from the earth, and the empire will return
into Asia, the East will domineer again, and
the West will be subdued." (Lactantii, lib. vii.
c. 15.) These expressions of Lactantius are
most remarkable, and their fulfilment is equally
remarkable : for they have been fulfilled to
the very letter. The Roman empire was no
sooner overthrown, than it was subdivided into
a number of comparatively small states, where-
upon Mahomet arose in the Asiatic provinces
of the old Roman empire, and founded upon
its ruins another mighty empire, which was for
ages the terror of the West, and the scourge of
Christendom. The holy patriarch of Jerusalem
St. Cyril also thus writes: " The devil will
raise up a famous man, who will seize upon the
domains of the Roman empire. That man
Antichrist will appear, as soon as the Roman
empire shall have come to its conclusion. "
(Cyrilli, Cateches, 15.) And we may well say
these words of St. Cyril are still more remark-
able, and still more literally fulfilled, when we
remember that the very diocese of Jerusalem,
over which this great father of the Church was
at that time presiding, was destined to become
a province of the Mahometan empire, and
Jerusalem itself was to be captured by the
Caliph Omar, within a few years after the
destruction of the Roman empire, and no very
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 65
long period after the saint had uttered these
remarkable words : but about all this we shall
have to say more by and by. Vie might add
other citations from the holy fathers to the
same purpose, but we have already given
enough ; we will therefore conclude this part
of our subject witli the following remarkable
passage from St. Jerome (Hieron. in Daniel,
cap. vii. : " Krjro dicamus, quod omnes Scrip-
thri's Ecclesiastici tradiderunt : in consumma-
tione inn nd i, quando regnum destruendum est
Romanorum, decem futures Reges, qui orbem
' Romanum inter so dividant; et undecimum
surreeturum esse Regem Parvulum, qui tres
s de <!ecem Regibus superaturus sit : id
Kiryptiorum Regem, et Africae, et ^Ethi-
opia- : si cut in consequentibus manifestius di-
eeiuu>i.'' From this passage of the great
St. Jerome, we learn that the tradition was
universal in the Church of his day, that im-
mediately after the breaking up of the Roman
empire it would be parcelled out into ten
kingdoms, by which number might be in-
tended either the literal number into which
the Roman territory would be subdivided, or
as other fathers often explain the Scripture
numerals, it might mean simply to express
f/ir wJiole number of states into which the pos-
ons of the old Roman empire would be
F
66 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
subdivided. But whether the Holy Ghost
intended this number to be taken literally or
in a more general sense, St. Jerome declares
that the tradition of the whole Church handed
down that amongst them a king would arise,
who was to subdue three of the others, and
he adds that these three were, according to the
same tradition, those of Egypt, of Africa (or
the northern provinces of that continent for
so the Romans termed that portion), and of
Ethiopia (that is Babylon and Asia). How
remarkably all this has been fulfilled by the
conquests of Mahometanism we shall hereafter
see more fully.
It is clear, therefore, that according to the
unanimous teaching of the Primitive Church
St. PauFs expressions to the Thessalonians
indicated that Antichrist (as St. John calls
him), or the Man of Sin, as St. Paul here
terms him, would not be revealed until the
Roman empire was removed, but that very
shortly after that event was consummated, and
its ancient territory subdivided into ten king-
doms (as the Prophet Daniel had foretold),
this Man of Sin would be revealed.
Accordingly we find the Roman empire
was no sooner broken up and subdivided, than
a most extraordinary person arose in Arabia of
the name of Mahomet, a person of obscure
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 67
origin and of but little consideration in the
beginning, and this person pretended that he
was sent by God as the last and the greatest
of His prophets, and that his mission was to
overthrow the Christian religion, to found
another religion on its ruins, and also to found
a universal empire, to which he was to subdue
the whole human race, forcing them, under
pain of temporal death and everlasting con-
demnation, to embrace his new religion and
submit to his dominion. Within an astonish-
ingly short period after the first promulgation
of this new religion and the foundation of the
temporal sovereignty connected with it, we
find that either Mahomet or his immediate
successors had subdued the greater part of the
East and of Africa, had established his infamous
apostacy in the fairest dioceses of the Eastern
and African Churches, and had filled all Chris-
tendom with terror. St. Jerome had written
the different passages we have cited between
the years 331 and 422 of the Christian era;
in 170 the lloman empire was extinguished by
the deposition of its last Western emperor, who
bore the ominous name of Romulus Augustu-
lus ; out of the political chaos there had arisen
a number of new states, amongst which the
emperor of Constantinople for a long while
held a sort of primatial dignity; and in 612
F2
68 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
Mahomet commenced the publication of his
Koran. That this was the revelation of the
Man of Sin foretold by St. Paul we shall now
proceed to show : we have already shown how
the fundamental doctrine of the Koran fulfilled
St. John the Evangelist's prediction of the fun-
damental teaching of the great Antichrist, it
remains for us to show how the conduct of
Mahomet agreed with St. Paul's prophetic
description of the Man of Sin, as given in his
second epistle to the Thessalonians.
The Roman empire had been broken up, the
whole Christian Church was looking forwards
(as the testimonies we have already cited from
the holy fathers sufficiently prove) with terror
and anxiety to the predicted appearance of the
Man of Sin, when in the year 609 a fearful
sign was sent by the Almighty to warn Chris-
tendom, and especially Eastern Christendom,
of the visitation that impended. The powers
of darkness were let loose ; and as Satan had
furiously raged against Christ in His passion
and death, so now he directed his fury against
the image of Christ crucified, and against the
true cross, which the holy Empress St. Helena
had discovered and deposited in a costly shrine
at Jerusalem. In the year 609, as the bishops
and clergy in divers cities of the province of
(rulatia were making solemn processions, prc-
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 69
ceded by the holy cross, all at once a great
prodigy was beheld. The crosses reeled to and
fro, and no human force could keep them
steady; an evil feeling seized upon men, and
all felt conscious that a new power of wicked-
ness was coming upon the earth. The account
of this awful sign is given at length in the his-
tory of St. Theodore Siceotes, one of the most
illustrious saints of the Greek Church. (50-
rnnn Annalcs, torn. viii. pp. 203 205.) At
that time the most blessed Saint Thomas was
patriarch of Constantinople. The intelligence
which the bishops forwarded to him of the
prodigy, which had been witnessed by vast
numbers in so many places, greatly alarmed
the holy father. In his distress, he wrote to
the man of God, St. Theodore Siceotes, bidding
him come to Constantinople, that he might
consult him. The patriarch then asked him,
as the king of Babylon had formerly asked
Daniel the Prophet to interpret his dream,
what this sign meant. The man of God
seemed unwilling to answer the question ; but
on the patriarch conjuring him for the love of
God to do so, St. Theodore bursting into a
flood of tears, thus addressed him : " Most
holy father, it seemed to me that I ought not
too much to grieve you, for it is not well that
you should know the meaning of these things ;
70 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
but since it is commanded byyou that I should
explain the mystery, be it known unto you
that this movement of the crosses foretokens
unto us great and numberless calamities.
Myriads of Christians will shortly abandon our
most holy religion ; on all sides the barbarians
will attack the territory of the faithful ; there
will be such bloodshed as hath not been seen
before, with great destruction and seditions
all over the earth. The churches will be
abandoned, and the ruin of God's worship
and of the empire approacheth. Know, more-
over, that the coming of THE ADVERSARY is
at hand." No sooner did the holy patriarch
hear these words, than he melted into tears,
and falling on his knees, he besought the man
of God to intercede with the Lord, that He
would take him out of this world before these
horrible calamities came upon the Church.
The saint replied, that rather he would pray
to God to preserve his holiness for the good
of his flock, and of so many churches over
which he presided. Shortly after this, the Per-
sians, having declared war upon the empire,
ravaged it in many of its richest provinces,
took the city of Jerusalem, and carried away
from the famous church of the holy sepulchre
the true cross, which had been enshrined there
by the blessed Empress St. Helena. This
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 71
deplorable event took place in the year 615 ;
and two years before this it was that Mahomet
first published his famous Koran, thus fulfil-
ling, as we shall soon see, the prediction of
the blessed St. Theodore Siceotes. (See at
length, The Life of St. Theodore Siceotes, by
the Monk Eleusius ; also, Surius, April 22.)
Let us now examine how far the character
of Mahomet agreed with St. Paul's description
of the Man of Sin. The apostle calls him " the
Son of Perdition." The elect are called in
Scripture "the Children of God," " Sons of
God," and " heirs of everlasting life." It is
not wonderful, therefore, that the apostle
should call Antichrist a " Son of Perdition "
a "Man of Sin." Such a name rightly be-
longs to him, for he is the child of the devil ;
he springs from the source of perdition, and
his ways are those of sin and wickedness. As
Christ is termed by all the Prophets "the
Just " and " the Righteous " above all others,
so Antichrist would naturally be the very type
of sin and injustice, and his teaching would
open wide the gates of perdition. Now what
heretic has ever arisen in the world, of whom
this was so true, as it was of Mahomet ?
Other heretics retained at least the outward
profession of Christianity, the belief and use
of the sacraments ordained by Christ. Many
72 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
heretics, and we may say all the earlier here-
tics, who lived before the coming of Mahomet,
retained the daily sacrifice of the holy Eucha-
rist ; and though there could be no hope of
salvation for the miserable heresiarchs them-
selves, still many of their followers might be
invincibly ignorant (to use the phrase of Catho-
lic theology) of their state of heresy or schism,
and so by God's mercy, and the merits of
Christ applied to them by the sacraments of
baptism or of penance in articulo mortis, they
might be saved. But Mahomet abolished
Christianity root and branch ; he took away
the daily sacrifice, which the Prophet Daniel
expressly foretold that Antichrist would do,
and instead thereof he established vain repe-
titions of unmeaning prayers, in which there
was no love expressed for God, nor any hope
in the merits of a Redeemer. He utterly
denied the passion of Christ, which he con-
sidered a disgraceful doctrine, and he abolished
all the seven sacraments of grace, which our
Lord had instituted as so many fountains,
whereby he might apply and communicate to
mankind the fruits of His passion and death.
Could Antichrist establish a more appropriate
work than this ? or one which more com-
pletely could undo the work of Christ ? Was
not, then, the work of Mahomet precisely
PROPHECIES CONCERNING
what all analogy would have led us
for the work of Antichrist ? In other
it' Mahomet be not Antichrist, be not
Man of Sin, the Son of Perdition, it is not
possible that any heretic can ever arise who
would more literally fulfil the predictions of
(iod's word concerning that awful personage
than has been done by Mahomet. The more
we look into the Mahometan system, the more
clearly does this fact manifest itself. The
doctrine of Christ had taught men all justice,
to abstain from even the thought of evil,
to live a holy, pure life. "Be ye perfect/'
said our Lord, " as your Heavenly Father is
pert But what was the doctrine of
Mahomet?
In the fortieth year of his age, he shut him-
self up in the caverns of Mount Hera, not far
from the city of Mecca ; there he remained for
>i\ entire months, from time to time he made
his wife, his children, and his servants visit him,
and he entertained them with strange accounts
of nocturnal visions and apparitions, with which
he declared that he was favoured. At length,
on the twenty-third night of the month of
Ramadan, he beheld, as he assured his wife,
the following vision. A voice called him by
his name, a bright light from heaven illumined
the whole country, and the Alcoran, the last
74 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
Revelation of God to men, descended from
heaven, complete in all its parts. It was borne,
said he, on the hands of the Archangel Gabriel,
and such was the splendour and brilliancy of
the messenger, that it was more than the eyes
of Mahomet could bear, so he besought him in
future to appear in human form. This Gabriel
promised that he would do, having saluted
Mahomet as "the Prophet of God." After
which he commanded him to read through the
Koran, which he had no sooner done, than
Gabriel carried it back to heaven, promising to
bring it back again, as it should be needed,
chapter by chapter.
Now, can we imagine any description that
more perfectly agrees with the words of St.
Paul in his second Epistle to the Thessalonians,
where, describing the revelation of the Man of
Sin, he says : " Whose coming is according to
the working of Satan, in all power, and signs,
and lying wonders?" Who was it that per-
sonated the Angel Gabriel, but Satan himself,
of whom the same St. Paul declares, that he is
wont "to transform himself into an angel of
light ?" Then Mahomet came "in all power "
with the power of the sword and of armies.
Christ came meek and lowly, and when one of
His disciples drew the sword, He rebuked him
and said, " Put back thy sword into the scab-
bard, for all they that take the sword shall
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 75
perish })y the sword :" and having said this He
healed the wound of His mortal enemy. Christ
came to minister unto the meanest of His fol-
lowers, saxinir, ' My kingdom is not of this
world :" He had indeed a kingdom, but it was
not a kingdom of flesh and blood, but of holi-
ness, of peace, and of love. But the kingdom
of Mahomet was one of earthly power (in all
power) : it was a kingdom of luxury and sen-
suality, in uhich it was permitted to men to
indulge to the full in all the sins of the flesh,
and in which he promised t'.ie same sensual
enjoyments even in the life to come. Then
the Man of Sin was to come, "in signs,
and I n't n< j in, niters" And could there be
<: renter signs, than what God had given to His
Church of the near coming of this Son of Per-
dition? Could there be a more striking sign,
than the miraculous shaking of the crosses,
uhich St. Theodore Siceotes explained to St.
Thomas, the Patriarch of Constantinople, "as
the sign of the immediate coming of the adver-
sary >" Could there be a greater sign of the
revelation of this Man of Sin, than the miracu-
lous shaking of the cross ? The cross of Christ
trembled at the coming of Mahomet, and well
might it seem to tremble, for Mahomet was its
bitterest foe. The cross had redeemed the
world, and the Koran of Mahomet was to undo
the redemption of the cross. For three hours
76 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
our Lord Jesus had hung in mortal agony on
the cross, giving birth to the children of His
adoption, and purchasing the souls of His elect ;
setting them, moreover, an example of cruci-
fixion to the world, and of a renunciation of
all our corrupt passions and lusts; but Ma-
homet came to level the cross,* and to preach
sensuality, to set up the power of this world,
and to procure the ruin of countless millions
of human souls, for whom the Lord Jesus had
shed His precious blood. Well might the
cross tremble ! well might such a sign usher in
the coming of Christ's arch-enemy, of Anti-
christ, and well might the revelation of the
Alcoran synchronize with the capture of Jeru-
salem, and the carrying away of the true cross
into the land of the infidel Persians, that very
people who were destined to become one of the
first conquests of the Mahometan apostacy !
Oh ! these indeed were signs, such as amply
verified the prediction of the blessed Apostle
St. Paul. Nor were these the only signs :*
St. Paul had given another, the removal
* Amongst other signs, that marked the coming in of the
Mahometan empire, we may mention what the Byzantine
historian Cedrenus relates as having occurred at the death
of the False Prophet : the apparition in the heavens, during
thirty days, of a vast comet in the shape of a sword, which
was interpreted as a sign of the scourge that impended over
Christendom. "MfTo C ye rbv 5a.va.Tov TOV StrjXarov
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 77
and destruction of the Roman empire, and
all the fathers of the Church, with one con-
senting voice, had proclaimed that this would
be the siyn of Anticlirist's coming. The Roman
empire fell, and the empire of Mahomet
was revealed. The kingdom of Christ waxed
weak, torn by the internal strife of heresy and
seliism, and the cross was seen to shake and to
tremble. It only remained for the "Son of
Perdition" to inaugurate his accursed "apos-
tacy" by the "tying wonders" foretold by St.
Paul. And here we see unfolded to us these
very lyinir wonders, in all the force of their
" seductive iniquity." Was it not a wonder,
when Satan appeared in the garb of Gabriel to
the impious Mahomet?* when he ushered in
to his vision the blasphemous and impious
Koran? when he shook the rocks of Mount
Hera, and terrified even the heart of Mahomet
himself, accustomed, as he said he was, to such
nocturnal visions? Was this event, pregnant
\\ith the spiritual and temporal destruction of
countless millions of men, not to be called as
Movgov/icr ityai'i) Kara utotjufipiav dffTijp o
ioflrtfff Trponrjvuwv TIJV TUIV 'Ajod/3wv twiKparfiav' tptive
->. ///itpac rpta'covra, tftaret'vwv dirb fieffrmpplas w
upKToi'. iir ft i'r^of/r/'/r." Gewgii Cedreni Historiarum
. torn. i. p. 745.
Vbb Rohrbacher's tenth volume of Ecclesiastical
>ry.
78 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
St. Paul foretold of it, a " wonder," and " a
lying wonder" seeing that it was invented by
Satan to usher in the most false and lying
system of impiety that had ever been palmed
upon the credulity of fallen man ? Yes, Ma-
homet came "in lying wonders" and he deceived
mankind more than any impostor or deceiver
that had ever preceded him. . It has been
sometimes urged by commentators, who did
not admit that Mahomet was the Antichrist of
prophecy, that whereas it was foretold in God's
Word that Antichrist should perform great
wonders, by which he was to deceive mankind,
Mahomet did not pretend to the gift of mira-
cles. It is true that Mahomet did not pretend
to the gift of miracles, if by miracles be under-
stood the power of healing diseases, of raising
the dead to life, or such other miracles as have
always been wrought in the Church of God :
and Mahomet was right in not pretending to
such a gift, inasmuch as he had none such, and,
had he pretended to it, his imposture would
quickly have been found out : but he did lay
claim to wonderful and supernatural commu-
nications with God, and these were assuredly
to be called " lying wonders/' as St. Paul had
termed them. They were surely wonders in
every sense of the term, and they were " lying"
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 79
wonders, because they were false, vile impos-
tures, and diabolical deceits.
On one memorable occasion* in the year
621, A.D., Mahomet pretended that the Angel
(labriel brought him a miraculous beast, called
Kl-Borac, on which he mounted and ascended
to the seventh heaven, \vhere he conversed face
to lace \\ii\\ God, and was proclaimed greater
than all the prophets and all the angels of
( I od ! When he entered the first heaven Adam
came and made obeisance to him, and recom-
mendrd himself to his prayers! God's Word
tells us that all the ancient fathers of the Old
Testament had been delivered from the prison,
in which they were detained, by the preaching
of Messiah in person (1 Peter iii. 19), who, as
the Church teaches us, applied to their souls
the merits of his precious death, and then
transported them to Paradise, "leading cap-
tivity captive," as David had foretold in the
Psalms. But all this is denied by the impious
Mahomet, who, on the contrary, pretends that
Adam came and recommended himself to his
prayers ! as if the prayers of Mahomet would
prove more efficacious than the merits of the
God-Man ! In one of these heavens he tells
us he saw Issa or Jesus, but he does not say
* See Vie de Mahomet, Koran, Kasimirski.
80 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
in which. Now is it possible to conceive blas-
phemous falsehood beyond all this ? At least,
unless we believe the word of Mahomet, arid
embrace Islamism, we must come to this con-
clusion. I will not dwell upon the other lying
wonders which Mahomet relates of this journey
to the seventh heaven; the miraculous cock,
which was several thousand miles high, and
which crowed so loud as to be heard by the
whole universe; or the colossal angel he met
in the third heaven, whose height was equal to
one hundred and forty thousand years of the
swiftest travelling ! or the other ridiculous fables
he recounts of this prodigious journey; but I will
only add, in conclusion, that, when he reached
the seventh heaven, Gabriel was not allowed to
accompany him further, but Mahomet, holier
than the highest angel, climbed the tree Sedra,
and so ascended through a boundless ocean of
light to the very throne of God Himself, on the
steps of which he beheld these words : <( la
Allah ilia Allah, va Mohammed rasoul Allah ;"
the meaning of which is, " There is no God,
but God, and Mahomet is His Prophet." He
was no sooner admitted to the presence of the
Most High, than God, placing one hand on his
breast, and the other on his shoulder, revealed
to him all Truth, and declared to him that he
was the most perfect of all creatures, and that
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 81
he should be honoured and raised above all
other men, and that he should be the Re-
deemer of all those that believed in him, that
he should know all languages, and that the
spoils of all he conquered in war should belong
to him alone. He then ordered him to pre-
scribe fifty prayers a day to his followers, but
on the remonstrance of Mahomet He reduced
the number to five ! After which Mahomet
ret u rued to the earth, and recounted to his
deluded disciples the Satanic vision, with which
Lucifer hud deceived his proud and presump-
tuous mind. Could blasphemy, falsehood, and
folly go beyond this?
This was the man, who was destined to be
the chief opponent of Jesus Christ, of whom
the Apostle St. Paul most properly foretold,
" who opposeth and is lifted up above all that is
called God and worshipped." That he opposed
Christ, no one who has read history would
venture to deny, for the records of twelve cen-
turies are at hand to prove that no one ever
opposed with such awful success the extension
of Christ's kingdom : and if we wanted a clue
to the interpretation of the other statement of
the Apostle, " that he should be lifted up above
all that is called God and worshipped," surely
the miraculous journey of Mahomet, we have
just been describing, furnishes it for us. Ma-
82 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
hornet proclaims himself as having been pro-
nounced by God Himself as the " most perfect
of all creatures." What was this but to lift
himself (for it was not really God who lifted
him to this blasphemous height) above all
"that is called God and worshipped?" If he
proclaimed himself the highest of all creatures,
he was of course higher than Christ, who was
a creature at the same time as God. He was
higher than Mary, the all-pure Mother of God.
In other words, "he lifted himself above all
that is called God and worshipped." Jesus is
called God because He is at once God and
Man, and as such He is rightly worshipped :
but Mahomet proclaimed himself greater than
Jesus, he therefore (( lifted himself above all
that is called God and worshipped." Again, in
Scripture, princes and kings are sometimes
called Gods; thus we read in Deuteronomy,
" Thou shalt not curse the Gods, nor speak
evil of the rulers of my people." So that,
when the Apostle tells us that the Man of Sin
would exalt himself above all that is called
God, he meant that he would exalt himself
above angels and archangels, above prophets
and saints, above the all-holy Mother of God,
and even above Jesus, the eternal Son of God,
who is God blessed for evermore. Now all this
Mahomet literally did, and by so doing he
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 83
exalted himself both directly and indirectly
" above all that is called God and worshipped."
But Mahomet was not only a religious im-
postor, " a False Prophet/' he aimed at other
ends besides the religious veneration of his
fellow-men : he aimed at dominion over them,
at nothing short of universal empire; for he
said that he was sent by God to subdue all
other kings and potentates, and to subject
them to himself: in this sense, therefore, also
he equally exalted himself above all that is
called God and worshipped; for in Scripture
the term worship is applied not only to the
honour which is due to God, but also to that
which is due to kings and princes : hence we
MI how literally and completely Mahomet ful-
filled the Apostle's prediction of the Man of
Sin, that he would " lift himself above ALL "
(whether in Heaven or on earth) "that is
called God and worshipped."
But this is not all that St. Paul foretold, he
continues : " So that he sitteth in the Temple
of God, showing himself as if he were God."
By this I understand that the Man of Sin
would endeavour to usurp for himself, in the
Tcmpk of God, that is in the public worship
paid by mankind to the Supreme Being, whether
in material temples or in the temple of con-
science, that place, in which He alone had a
84 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
right to sit, who, as the Word of God declared,
sat down "at the right hand of God the Father,"
in virtue of His eternal Sonship, that eternal
generation from the Father, which it was the
special province of Mahomet utterly to deny
in his famous dogma "that God neither be-
getteth nor is begotten."
Yes, we may indeed truly say, that when
Mahomet asserted himself to be " the highest of
all creatures, 33 and the Redeemer of mankind,
he not only robbed our Lord Jesus Christ of
his glory, of whom St. Paul had said " that He
thought it not robbery to be equal with God : "
for He indeed was truly equal with God : but
he took that place in the mystical, as well as
the real, Temple of God, which belonged to
Christ and to Christ alone.
In another, and a still more literal sense, did
Mahomet also fulfil this prophecy, when Jeru-
salem was taken by his general the Caliph
Omar, and when on the site of Solomon's
Temple, which, above all others, is pre-emi-
nently styled in Scripture "the Temple of
God," he impiously pretended to restore that
sacred edifice, and did in fact defile that most
holy spot by erecting thereon one of his prin-
cipal mosques : thus placing, as Daniel the
Prophet and our blessed Lord had foretold,
"the abomination of desolation in the Holy
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 85
Place/' and on that sacred ground proclaiming
himself the highest and holiest of all crea-
tures, the greatest of the prophets, and, as he
reported of himself in his nocturnal journey to
the seventh heaven, "the Saviour of all who
should believe in him." And it is a remarkable
fact connected with the taking of Jerusalem by
tin Caliph Omar, that Saint Sophronius, who
was patriarch of that city at the time, expressly
declared that he saw in that event the fulfil-
ment of the prophecy of Daniel concerning the
,nii nut t mi of Desolation in the Holy Place"
(Dunn I \\. 31.)
Cedrenus, the learned Byzantine annalist,
attests this fact as follows : "
Ou/wapoe ccc TTJV aytav TTO\IV
K'n/17/XoU IvSvfJLCUTlV f)fJL(t>lt(TfJLlvO
iv rt SaravticTjv EvSeticvv/ievoc, rov Naov
TWV 'lovSaiwv, ov ^IicoSojurjcre
' oti]<yat r^c avrov
Tourov (Saiv Sw^ovioc f^?* tTT* aAijflefac TOVTO
tGTiv TO jSSlXuy/ua rf/c f/ojft(t)<Ta>c fffrwg Iv TOTT^
fiyiy." (Cedrenus, Hist. Comp. torn. i. p. 746.)
And in a subsequent chapter the same author
mentions a remarkable fact, " that when Omar
commenced his famous mosque on the site of
Solomon's Temple, the building, in spite of all
his efforts, continually fell down, and on the
Caliph inquiring of the Jews the reason of this
86 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
prodigy, the latter informed him it was because
of the cross which the Christians had erected
upon their church on the Mount of Olives,
whereupon Omar ordered that cross, and many
others also, to be demolished." (Cedrenus,
Hist. Comp. torn. i. p. 754.)
What was this, but " to sit in the temple of
God, showing himself, as if he were God, 33 as if
he were that, which none but Christ, who is
" God of God and very God of very God 3 ' is
and can be ? In fine, if Mahomet has not
fulfilled the Apostle's prediction, both in the
spirit and the letter, we know not how it could
be fulfilled.
But we now come to a further description of
the Man of Sin in this remarkable prophecy of
St. Paul (2 Thess. xi. 9, 10), "whose coming
is .... in all seduction of iniquity to them that
perish : because they received not the love of
the truth, that they might be saved. There-
fore God shall send them the operation of
error, to believe a lie." If ever a system was
based on the seduction of iniquity, it surely was
that of Mahomet. Look at the morality which
he practised, which he taught his disciples to
practise, and it will not be difficult to under-
stand what the Apostle means by " seduction of
iniquity," when addressed to the corrupt nature
of fallen man. The very paradise he promised
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 87
to his deluded followers, is a place of debauchery,
a sink of " iniquity." Whole troops of beautiful
houris are provided to gratify the everlasting
and insatiable lust of the Mahometan elect,
and that there may be no stint, no progeny
ever follows this unbridled concubinage : it is
an everlasting enjoyment of the basest pleasures,
without the end or the sanction of marriage :
pleasures which, as mankind now tastes them,
are essentially allied with the debasements of
nal -in, and which the pure religion of
Jesus had restricted to the single use of mar-
riage, while it taught men to forego them alto-
gether, if they would seek perfectly to please
their Heavenly Creator, by imitating here on
earth the purity and the innocence of angels.
Jesus Christ had restored woman to her ori-
ginal rank in the scale of God's creation;
Mahomet degraded her again into the mere
instrument of passion, and the slave of man.
Our Lord had made marriage the holiest and the
happiest union of man and wife, to be for ever
consecrated to each other, with no thought of
another to inspire jealousy or divide their love,
and this union He pronounced indissoluble,
except by death. Mahomet restored polygamy,
and consecrated divorce. Thus, instead of de-
veloping the holy tendencies of Christianity,
he threw men back, and as he impiously pre-
88 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
tended, by the authority of God Himself, into
all the degradations of human corruption, such
as even enlightened pagans viewed with shame
and disgust. What has been the result of this
legislation of the false Prophet ? Let the his-
tory of Mahometanism answer the question :
in order to enable a comparatively few privileged
men to enjoy the possession of whole troops of
women, hundreds and thousands of men are
annually condemned to mutilation, and so sen-
tenced to a debased and compulsory celibacy.
Thus fulfilling another prophecy of the same
St. Paul in his epistle to his disciple St.
Timothy (1 Tim. iv. 14) : " Now the Spirit
manifestly saith, that in the last times some
shall depart from the faith, giving heed to
spirits of error and doctrines of devils, speaking
lies in hypocrisy, and having their conscience
seared, forbidding to marry, and commanding
to abstain from meats, which God hath created
to be received with thanksgiving by the faith-
ful, and by them that have known the truth."
How remarkably is this fulfilled by the eunuchs
of Mahometanism, whom this impious system
has effectually forbidden to marry, although it
has thrown open to them every other brutal
and degrading licence. What a contrast be-
tween this diabolical celibacy, and the angelical
celibacy of the monastic state in the Catholic
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 89
Church ! The former is that of Mahomet, what
the devil has long practised in hell : the latter
is the life of the angels of God, of whom Jesus
said, " That they neither marry, nor are given
in marriage ;" that life which He, the Lamb of
God, led, when He trod this earth in pain and
sorrow for three-and-thirty years, seeking and
saving that which was lost ; that life, which in
every age of Christianity, thousands and tens
of thousands of His followers have led in imi-
tation of Him, and of whom, when translated
to a happier life, the beloved disciple witnesses
that he heard them singing such a heavenly
song as no one else could learn, for, said the
evangelist, " these were virgins, who were never
defiled with women, and they follow the Lamb
whithersoever Hegoeth." (Apocalypse xiv. 4.)
And as with the contrast between Mahometan
and Christian celibacy, so also between Chris-
tian self-denial, and the impious and truly
Manidieaii abstinence of the false Prophet, to
which the Apostle St. Paul here alludes. In
the old law, Moses had commanded for mystical
and temporary reasons abstinence from certain
meats, but this uncleanness was washed away
in the all-atoning blood of Christ; Mahomet
renewed what had now lost all rational signifi-
cation, and to the restrictions of Judaism, he
added blasphemies of his own : he abolished
90 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
the daily sacrifice of the new law : that sacrifice
which our Lord Jesus Christ, as Priest for ever
after the order of Melchisedech, had instituted
in the form of bread and wine ; the sacrifice
which the Prophet Malachi had foretold would
everywhere be offered amongst the Gentiles.
And that he might as it were stamp that Divine
oblation of the Christian altar with the seal of
his malediction, he pretended that God had
told him, that wine was an abomination, in-
vented by Satan (Alcoran v. 92) ; such were
the abstinences imposed by Mahomet on the
meats and creatures of God, which, as the
Apostle said, " God had created to be received
with thanksgiving:" how different from the
abstinences of the Christian Church, which, on
the contrary, proclaim, that every creature of
God is good, and that when for a season, or on
given days, we abstain from any of them, we
do so, not because they are evil, but for morti-
fication and penance, that we may subdue the
flesh to the spirit, that we may learn to use the
gifts of God with moderation and sobriety, for
the purpose ordained by Him, and not to gra-
tify our mere animal appetite, or a spirit of
luxury.
But if we turn from the doctrine of Mahomet
to his own conduct and practice, we shall find
that his example was on a par with his teach-
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 91
ing. Not content with fifteen wives, and a
whole host of concubines and female slaves, at
the age of fifty-four, he fell in love with Aicha,
a beautiful girl of only nine years of age, who
was just married to his own adopted son, Zaid.
The unfortunate man was forced to repudiate
his wile to gratify the insatiable passions of the
Prophet, who immediately took possession of
her, and married her : and when some of his
followers murmured at his brutality, how did
he answer them? He makes the angel Gabriel
descend from heaven with a fresh chapter of
the Koran, prepared on purpose, in which the
incest and adultery of the Prophet is vindicated
by a blasphemy, and the God of heaven is made
to say, that He gives a special privilege to the
Prophet to marry any woman upon earth, no
matter what previous ties she may have con-
tracted, provided she be ready to yield to his
solicitations.* It was surely not too much for
St. Paul to have foretold of this Man of Sin,
that he would come " in all seduction of
iniquity," nor can Mahomet be charged with
having done too little to fulfil, even to the
extremest point of the letter, the inspired pre-
diction of the Apostle !
But if such was his unbridled career of lust
* See Alcoran, chap, xxxiii. p. 341. Paris edit. 1844.
92 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
and passion, his cruelty was, if possible, greater
still. For this, too, the lying revelations of
the Koran gave him the amplest scope. If
any one doubted his divine mission, the fifth
chapter of this blasphemous book (Alcoran v.
37) tells us how Mahomet was to deal with
him : " Behold, what is to be the recompense
of those who oppose God and His Apostle"
(that is Mahomet] , " you shall put them to death,
or you shall crucify them, you shall cut off their
hands and their feet alternately : they shall be
banished from their country ; they shall be
loaded with ignominy in this life, and they
shall receive a cruel chastisement in the life to
come." With such an authority in his hands,
is it wonderful that this false Prophet should
have committed the cruelties which history
records, or that his followers in every age
should have been as conspicuous for their
horrible disregard of human life and human
suffering, as they have been for their unbridled
lust and unnatural crimes ?
But we will not pursue this odious subject
further : enough has been said to convince our
readers, and we ought rather to apologise for
recounting to Christian ears the unspeakable
wickedness of him whom the Apostle rightly
forenamed " the Man of Sin."
We have thus far examined the prophetic
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 93
statements of the Apostle Paul concerning the
general characteristics of the Man of Sin, and
we have found that the apostolic prediction is
fully borne out by the history and character of
Mahomet : but there is another fact foretold
by the Apostle, which we have not yet con-
sidered, but which greatly increases the evi-
dence that Mahomet is the Man of Sin, the
Son of Perdition. The Apostle tells us that
he would not only come, as we have already
shown, 'in all seduction of iniquity to them
that perish," but he adds, " therefore God shall
send tin ,11 the operation of error to believe a
lie : that all may be judged, who have not
believed the truth ) but have consented to ini-
gvity."
How remarkably was this prophecy fulfilled
in the early history of Mahometanism. We
have already seen, that both from the expres-
sion of St. Paul, " the mystery of iniquity
already worketh," and that of St. John, " al-
ready are there many Antichrists," a prepa-
ration for the revelation of the Man of Sin
was going on from the very beginning of the
Church; and St. John had shown that this
preparation was wrought by the early heretics
and separatists, for, speaking of these Anti-
christs, he says : " They went out from us ;
but they were not of us; for if they had been
94 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
of us, they would no doubt have remained
with us : " that is, they left the apostolic com-
munion of Christ's holy Catholic Church, and
they did so because they would not submit to
its authority: "They were not of us;" that
is, they would not listen to our teaching.
And so it was ; the ground was gradually pre-
pared all over the provinces of the East for
the advent of him who was destined to set up
a new religion in the place of Jesus Christ's
religion, that of His Apostolic Church ; and
this ground was prepared by the gradual and
successive undermining of the Catholic faith
in those countries by the erroneous teaching
of the various heretics. So when Mahomet
arose, the men who were the first to aid him
in the compilation of his impostures were Jews
and Nestorians, that is, those " who had not
believed the truth" of Jesus, and those "who
had consented to iniquity; 3 ' in other words,
those who had refused to embrace the doc-
trine of the Messiah, and those who had
perverted it. And those who flocked to his
standard, and embraced his soul-destroying
doctrines, were, as he himself assures us, the
Christians, both clergy and laity, of the Asi-
atic provinces, in which he first exercised his
diabolical apostleship. If the reader will con-
sult the fifth chapter of the Koran and the
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 95
eighty-fifth verse, he will find Mahomet
witnessing to this fact; and an awful fact it
was.
We thus see not only that Mahomet was the
Man of Sin, the Son of Perdition, the Great
Antichrist, but likewise that he was the founder
of a great false religious system ; and hence,
in the Apocalypse of St. John he is termed,
on this latter account, " the False Prophet."
Under this name he is mentioned expressly in
tin sixteenth chapter of the Apocalypse, and
the thirteenth verse. Could any name be more
appropriate for Mahomet ? He affirmed of
himself that he was pre-eminently above all
others the Prophet of God. Now, unless he
really was what he pretended to be, he was of
course pre-eminently what the Apocalypse terms
him, " the FALSE PROPHET." And this appel-
lation well accords with what we have already
seen in Daniel concerning the little horn, that
it had " a mouth speaking great things" and
" eyes like unto a man." Now what descrip-
tion could better portray the great pretender
to the title of God's greatest Prophet ? The
mouth speaking great things aptly sym-
bolizes the false and blasphemous doctrines
uttered by the mouth of Mahomet ; while " the
eyes as it were of a man" are the most appro-
priate designation of the pretended Seer or
96 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
Prophet* and well express those evil eyes of
Mahomet with which he beheld the false
visions of Satan, those nocturnal apparitions
of which he speaks so much, and on which he
blasphemously grounded his pretensions.
But there is one more Scriptural prediction
concerning this great Antichrist which may
well wind up and conclude our prophetic
proofs that Mahomet is the great Antichrist.
It is given in the thirteenth chapter of the
Apocalypse, and in the eighteenth verse :
" Here is wisdom. He that hath understand-
ing let him count the number of the beast :
for it is the number of a man ; and the number
of him is six hundred and sixty-six" Every
student of prophecy is aware of the many and
various interpretations that have been given
to this mysterious number. How Protestants
have laboured to make it agree with their
anti-Catholic and anti-papal theories. How
at one time they have made it spell Aaravoe,
at another AouSojSetfcoc, at another PwjuiuO, and
the rest. But if it can be shown, with at
least equal force, that it furnishes the letters
which spell the name of Mahomet, as that
name was written by cotemporary Greek au-
thors, having already shown that the other
* See Histoire Universelle de 1'Eglise Catholique, par
Rohrbacher, vol. x. p. 2.
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 97
prophecies relating to Antichrist have been so
literally and so perfectly fulfilled in that very
Mahomet, I should submit that Mahomet must
have a better claim to the mysterious number
666 than any of his rivals, even admitting
which I do not admit that their names may
with equal accuracy be extracted from the sum
of Greek letters expressing it.
The following explanation of the mystic
number was sent me the other day by my
learned friend the Abbe Vandrival, one of the
most profound students of Oriental literature
in France.
I give it in his own words.
M ~ 40 A = 1
Y = 400 B = 2
H = 8 A = 4
A = 1 A = 1
M = 40 A = 30
M = 40 A = 30
E = 5 H = 8
A = 4
B = 2
N = 50
Total, 666
In other words, MYHAMMEA B'N AB-
AAAA'H spells the number 666; that is,
Mahomet the Son of Abdallah.
My learned friend appends to his exposition
of the number 666 these remarkable words :
"Les 1260 jours, 42 mois, ou 3| ans, sont
H
98 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
bien pres de finir ; I'lslamisme se meurt ;
FAntechrist va etre mis a mort, alors nous
aurons un beau regne pour la religion, mais
apres une secousse bien forte encore. Voila
ce que nous pensons id"
Other Catholic commentators, taking the
Byzantine-Greek mode of spelling the name of
Mahomet, in preference to the Arabic, as given
by my learned friend the Abbe Vandrival, de-
rive the number 666 from the name written
thus, Mao/zf-ne, which I confess I myself should
be inclined to adopt, that being the way in
which his name has been popularly written
amongst the Greeks.*
The sum in this case is as follows :
M
=
40
a
=
1
6
70
V-
=
40
=
5
r
300
i
=
10
C
=
200
= 666 f
This result is surely a remarkable fact; but
* See Salmeron, Praeludia in Apocalypsin, torn. xvi.
p. 366.
t Mr. Forster, in his work " M ahometanism Vnveikd,"
states " The name of Mahomet, as written in the idiom of
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 99
another Catholic commentator gives another
interpretation, which is also equally remarkable
in its way, and may perhaps be equally correct,
for it is not uncommon for a text of Scripture
to have a double meaning. This writer says :
" Ainsi puisque le nombre de la Bete est le
nombre d'un homme, cela signifie d'un individu
qui a commence a se faire connaitre au monde,
soit par lui-meme, soit par [les consequences
de] ses actions a telle ou telle date; et si
cette epoque se date a 1'annee ou les Mahome-
tans completerent la conquete de toute la terre
ijlorieuse done parle Daniel (c'est k dire la terre
Sainte) ; tout cela fut accompli et acheve en
666, et il est certain que ce fut cette conquete
qui porta leur puissance au plus haut point." *
In other words, it was that conquest which
completed the character of Mahomet as the
predicted Man of Sin ; for he was not only to
exhibit in his own person all that St. Paul, and
the other prophets of God, had predicated of
the Apocalypse by the Byzantine historians, accurately re-
turns the prophetic number 666. This mystical number
(understood, it has been shown, of Mahometanism by the
Oxford monk Roger Bacon) was first applied to Mahomet
personally by Fevardentius ; and I am obliged to subscribe
the judgment of a venerable authority still living, that his
interpretation is preferable to all succeeding conjectures."
(Mafionietanism Unveiled, p. 238.)
* Preuves de 1'Eglise Catholique, p. 243.
100 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
him, but he was to accomplish by means of the
forces, which he himself set in motion, the
conquest of Jerusalem, and the subsequent
subjection of the whole of Palestine. Some
may object to this interpretation, inasmuch as
it extends the fulfilment of prophecies, that
seem to belong personally to himself, to the
consequences of his policy subsequent to his
death. But this objection has no real weight,
for if it had, it would equally overthrow the
application of the prophecies that belong to
Christ Himself. How often in Scripture is it
said of Messiah, that He shall subdue all na-
tions to His spiritual rule : and yet during His
lifetime He never so subdued them, although
He has done so since by the preachers of His
Word : and therefore we rightly say that Christ
has done it, and that the event has completed
the prophetic history of Christ. Now then, if
Mahomet be Antichrist, and Antichrist be a
diabolical counterpart of the Christ, the con-
quest of the Holy Land by the disciples and
successors of Mahomet may rightly be looked
upon as the act of Mahomet himself, and con-
sequently as filling up the prophetic description
of Antichrist. For assuredly every man is re-
sponsible for the consequences of his own acts,
whether they be good or bad, and in proportion
as they result more directly from his own con-
triving and designing.
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 101
We have thus endeavoured to show the ful-
filment of the prophecies relating to Antichrist
in the history of Mahomet, and the foundation
of his Antichristian empire ; it now remains for
us to unfold, in the next chapter, how the his-
tory of that empire from its first foundation
until the present time has literally fulfilled,
what was predicted in Holy Writ concerning
the kingdom and empire of Antichrist.
102 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
CHAPTER IV.
THE HISTORY OF THE MAHOMETAN EMPIRE IS THE LITERAL
FULFILMENT OF THE PROPHECIES OF HOLY WRIT, RELATING
TO THE KINGDOM AND DOMINION OF ANTICHRIST.
BEFORE we exhibit to our readers the history
of the Mahometan empire, as the fulfilment of
the prophecies relating to the empire of Anti-
christ, it is necessary that we consider, for a
few moments, the history of the Catholic
Church, that is, of the kingdom and empire of
Christ. For it is impossible to form a right
view of the Antichristian empire, unless we set
before our readers the parallel history of the
Christian empire of the Church, inasmuch as it is
in the mutual conflict between these two powers,
that one of the main evidences is developed of
the fulfilment of Divine prophecy.
If we turn to the twelfth chapter of the
Apocalypse, we find the following words :
" And a great sign appeared in heaven : a
woman clothed with the sun, and the moon
under her feet, and on her head a crown of
twelve stars."
Now, what is meant by this symbol ? In its
first and limited application, I should refer it
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 103
to the blessed Virgin Mary, the all-pure
Mother of God, for she might well be com-
pared to a woman "clothed with the sun"
seeing that she was "full of the grace of God"
as the angel Gabriel had declared of her,
" Hail full of grace/' (Luke i. 28), "the Lord
is with thee ;" that is, she was filled with God,
and might well, therefore, be compared to a
woman clothed with the sun, for the sun was
an emblem of God ; and the moon was said to
be u nd IT the feet of Mary, because the moon
symbolized the variable and empty things of
tins life, which our blessed Lady trod under
IKT feet : while the crown of twelve stars, that
encircled her head, signified, on the one hand,
the twelve patriarchs of the people of Israel,
and the twelve tribes into which that people
was subdivided, and, on the other, the twelve
Apostles of Jesus Christ, who were the chosen
patriarchs of the Christian Church, that is, of
the children of Mary, for, in the strictest sense
of the term, Mary, as the Mother of Christ, is
also the mother of all those who are born again
in Christ, and who were all committed to her
maternal keeping by Christ upon the cross in
the person of John the beloved disciple. And
when, in the fifth verse, the Prophet tells us,
that " She brought forth a man-child, who was
to rule all nations with an iron rod, and her
AN INQUIRY INTO THE
Son was taken up to God, and to His throne ;"
it is evident that Christ our Lord, the only
Son of Mary, is most distinctly referred to;
but in a more extended and general sense,
there can be no doubt that the Catholic Church
of Christ is " the woman clothed with the sun,"
and so all interpreters, both ancient and modern,
have with one accord interpreted this symbol.
Now, applying it to the Church, she appears
" in heaven/' that is, in the region of God, in
the region of His grace and mercy unto men,
for no one but God designed this marvellous
and admirable creation of His bounty and
wisdom. She is " clothed with the sun/ 3 that
is, with that " Sun of Righteousness" that was
to rise upon the earth "with healing in His
wings," as Isaias the Prophet had foretold.
Her being " clothed with the sun" denoted
her infallible authority, and her unerring
truth, for how can there be any darkness of
error in the teaching of her who is " clothed
with the sun ?" This symbolical description of
the Church well accords with the words of
Christ when He first instituted her. " Go ye
and teach all nations, and lo ! / am with you
always, even unto the end of the world."
What Christ then promised, St. John, in the
Apocalypse, beholds accomplished in the mystic
symbol of the Divine vision; and that there
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTIOHM^T. 105
might be no mistake concerning the
referred to as "the woman clothed
sun" it is presently added, " and on her head
(there was) a crown of twelve stars : " that is,
of the twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ, they
whom lie sent to gather His Church out of all
nations. Hence the true Church of Christ has
always been termed the Catholic and Apostolic
Church, that is, the Church of all nations
(which is the signification of the title Catholic),
and the Church founded by the twelve Apostles,
which is the reason why we call her Apostolical.
"And being with child, she cried, travailing in
birth, and was in pain to be delivered." The
Church's child is every child of Adam, baptized
in the sacred laver of regeneration, and she
might well be described as travailing with pain,
when the birth of her first children cost her
so many cruel persecutions, as she endured
during the three first centuries of her exist-
ence. The Prophet continues, "And there
was seen another sign in heaven : and behold,
a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten
horns : and on his heads seven diadems : and
his tail drew the third part of the stars of
heaven, and cast them to the earth : and the
dragon stood before the woman who was ready
to be delivered ; that when she should be de-
livered, he might devour her Son: and she
106 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
brought forth a man-child, who was to rule all
nations with an iron rod : and her Son was
taken up to God, and to His throne." Now,
who was represented by this " other sign in
heaven ?" " The great red dragon ?" If we
take it in its first and direct application, it
would evidently refer to Satan, and the ninth
verse of this same chapter, puts this out of all
doubt ; but if we take it in a more extended
sense, it would refer to Satan as working by
and through mankind ; in other words, it would
signify the whole mass of fallen men, ruled
over and directed by the devil. Taking it in
this sense, I should understand the seven-headed
and ten-horned dragon to symbolize the whole
mass of mankind, ruled over by the enemy of
God; and the seven heads of this dragon
would signify the seven great kingdoms'* or
associations of fallen men, which from the time
of Noah until the end of the world were to
carry out the devil's purposes in opposition to
God, and to His true religion. Viewed in this
light, the seven heads of the dragon would
signify: 1. The Egyptian monarchy; 2. The
Assyrian ; 3. The Chaldean or Babylonian ;
4. The Medo-Persian; 5. The Grecian; 6. The
Koman ; 7. The Antichristian empire of Ma-
* It is in this sense that the Douay commentators under-
stand it.
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 107
hornet. While the ten horns would signify
the ten kingdoms, into which the Roman em-
pire, or sixth head of the dragon, was to be sub-
divided. While Mahometanism, or the dragon's
seventh head, was destined eventually to absorb
three of these ten horns or kingdoms, as we
have already intimated, and shall still further
explain in the course of this work.
But although I feel no doubt that this is the
most accurate interpretation of the Apocalyptic
vision, it may also be referred in a somewhat
more limited sense to that power which I be-
lieve to have been the dragon's sixth head,
namely, to the Roman empire : now the Roman
empire was emphatically the instrument of the
devil in persecuting the Church, that is, "the
woman clothed with the sun/' on her first
appearance in the world.
Applying it, then, to the Roman empire, by
the seven heads crowned with diadems I should
understand either the seven principal emperors
who exhibited the greatest fury in persecuting
the Primitive Church, which I consider the
most probable interpretation, or what some
other commentators have taken it to mean, the
seven forms of government that successively
prevailed in the Roman state, being as follows :
1. The Kings; 2. Consuls; 3. Dictators; 4.
Decemvirs ; 5. Military tribunes ; 6. Emperors ;
108 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
7. The senate, which co-existed with all the
other heads, but, as sharing the sovereignty
with them all, may well be counted for one of
the mystic heads of the Roman dragon. Others
have interpreted the seventh head of the Roman
beast to mean the kingdom of Italy, established
by Odoacer, king of the Heruli, after the
deposition of R/omulus Augustulus, the last
emperor, in 476 A.D. But I confess I think
this less likely than the other interpretation ;
for, whatever may be true of the different forms
of government under which the Roman beast
has subsisted, it is evident that in St, John's
vision that beast is contemplated chiefly in its
connection with the Church, as Satan's first
instrument in persecuting her. Now Rome
never persecuted the Church under any of her
seven forms of government except the imperial;
why, therefore, should her seven heads, in that
sense of them, be introduced in connection
with the persecutions of the early Church,
when it is clear neither the kings, nor the
consuls, nor the dictators, nor the decemvirs,
nor the military tribunes ever persecuted the
Church ? for all these forms of government
were passed and gone when the Church's his-
tory commenced. But it is quite clear that
seven of the Roman emperors were conspicuous
for their fury in persecuting the Church ; for
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 109
although, if we include Tiberius, under whom
the crucifixion of our Lord Himself and the
martyrdom of St. Stephen took place, there
were eleven emperors who persecuted the
Church, we may certainly conclude from his-
tory that there were seven who were conspi-
cuous above all the rest of the emperors for
the terrible cruelty with which they waged
this internal war; and these seven I should
enumerate thus: 1. Nero; 2. Domitian ; 3.
Trajan; 4. Hadrian; 5. Decius; 6. Aurelian;
7. Dioclesian : and it would seem that Diocle-
siau was the worst of them all.
But there is another reason for interpreting
in this passage the seven heads, exclusively
of the emperors, and it is that they are ex-
pressly said to be diademed heads, an appel-
lation which belongs more properly to the
emperors than to any of the other governing
powers, if, at least, we except that of the kings.
Also by the seven diademed heads I under-
stand the whole body of the emperors perse-
cuting the Church under the influence of the
seven deadly sins, for we must observe that the
dragon, who is described as having these seven
diademed heads, is primarily Satan, and it is
by these seven capital sins that he governs his
impious kingdom over the bodies and souls of
men. Then by the ten horns I understand
110 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
here not the ten kingdoms into which the
Roman empire was ultimately subdivided, but
the ten general persecutions of the Primitive
Church, which are well compared to ten horns,
because they aptly represent those ten furious
assaults which Satan gave to the Church, by
urging against her the whole physical force of
the Roman empire in those ten great persecu-
tions. But be this as it may, commentators
agree that the dragon in this vision symbol-
izes both Satan, in his organization of mankind
under seven great monarchies, and in a more
special sense the pagan empire of Rome, com-
bined and connected as it so closely was with
the devil in the persecution of the Church of
Christ. And when the text says that " his
tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven,
and cast them to the earth," I understand by
that, first, in reference to Satan, that portion
of the angels whom he dragged down from
heaven to become his accomplices in warring
against God along with himself upon the earth
by trying to defeat the designs of God upon
mankind ; and secondly, in reference to the
persecuting action of the pagan Roman em-
pire upon the bishops of the Catholic Church,
who are elsewhere in the Apocalypse com-
pared to stars : " The seven stars are the
angels " or bishops " of the seven Churches."
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. Ill
(Apocalypse i. 20.) Now it might well be
said that the dragon's tail cast a third part of
these stars unto the earth, for full one-third
of the primitive bishops were levelled in the
grave by the sword of martyrdom, urged on
by the devil, and unsheathed by the Roman
emperors. The vision continues : " And the
dragon stood before the woman who was ready
to be delivered ; that when she should be deli-
vered, he might devour her son. And she
brought forth a man-child, who was to rule all
nations with an iron rod : and her Son was
taken up to God and to His throne." *
* Cornelius a Lapide, in his commentary on the Apoca-
lypse, writing upon this verse, gives a summary of the dif-
ferent interpretations suggested by various eminent Catholic
interpreters. He himself holds that the proper and genuine
sense of this passage is that the " Man-child " whom " the
woman brought forth" represents the children whom the
Church bore to Jesus Christ, and who witnessed their faith
by suffering martyrdom: "Fortes et electi Dei rapientw
per mortem, vel per martyrium in ccdum, ut Deo fruantur
itaque evadant os et man us Draco nis." But then it is clear
that the expression used of this man-child, that " he shall
rule all nations with a rod of iron," is by no means appli-
cable to the whole body of the martyrs in its direct sense,
for in this it belongs exclusively to Christ, and only by
participation can it be applied to the saints "participative
tamen competit etiam aliis sanctis." And so St. Ambrose
says : " The one man-child is He, whom the Blessed Virgin
bore, and that which the Church bringeth forth, for Christ
is one body, and as it were one person, with all His mem-
112 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
The dragon, standing before the woman
about to be delivered of her son, appears to
me to signify the efforts of Satan in endea-
vouring to destroy the Primitive Church : and
by the man-child of the woman, that was
destined to rule all nations with an iron rod,
I understand the Papacy, ruling over the
Christian nations with the spiritual sceptre of
St. Peter. And whereas this rod or staff is
said to be of "iron," I understand by that
term, that the chief seat of the sceptre was
destined one day to be in Rome, which we
may remember in Nabuchodonosor's statue was
symbolized by the iron. Hence David, in the
Psalms, foretells of Messiah that He would
rule the Gentiles " with a rod of iron."
(Psalm ii. 8, 9) "Ask of me and I will give
thee the Gentiles for thine inheritance, and
the utmost parts of the earth for thy posses-
sion. Thou shalt rule them with a rod of
iron, and break them in pieces like a potter's
vessel" By which last words of the Psalmist
I see a reference to the fact foretold to Nabu-
bers, that is with the Faithful, as the Apostle saith in his
first epistle to the Corinthians xii. 12, 27." " But," continues
Cornelius a Lapide, " Alcazar (a very celebrated interpreter)
in his method refers this passage to the Primitive Church :
hence by the man-child he understands the Roman Church.
* Romano enim Ponlifici data est a Christo VIRGA FER-
RE A, qua regat omnes gentes Christianismo subditas.'"
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 113
chodonozor, where it was said that the feet of
the great statue " were partly of iron and
partly of potter's clay" (Dan. ii. 33, 34) : "Thus
thou sawest, till a stone was cut out of a
mountain without hands : and it struck the
statue on the feet thereof that were of iron
and cluij, and broke them in pieces." And
it was expressly revealed to Nabuchodonozor
that this iron and clay signified the fourth
empire, which was afterwards revealed to Da-
niel as tlu> Roman empire, eventually to be
subdivided into ten kingdoms. The Church's
man-child is therefore evidently the sovereign
pontiff, reigning from Rome over the Gentiles,
and thus governing Messiah's spiritual king-
dom. And whereas this man-child was said
to be " taken up to God and to His throne,"
that may signify, that when the dragon stood
before the woman to devour her child, he was
taken up to the throne of God by martyr-
dom, for almost all the early popes, during the
irreat Roman persecutions, laid down their
lives for the testimony of Jesus, and so were
taken up to the throne of God. But we shall
see later, when this man-child began to rule
the nations with his iron rod, that is, with his
Roman sceptre, how that event is represented
by another symbol.
But we must observe here an important
114 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
distinction, and it is that which exists between
the temporal and the spiritual power vested by
Almighty God in the papacy, that is, in the
Holy See.
The latter, that is the spiritual power, is
essential to it, that which it possesses of Divine
right, by the institution of Christ Himself; the
former (that is the temporal power) is acci-
dental and dependent upon circumstances; it
has been given to the Holy See for very great
and holy purposes, and to reward the great
constancy and zeal of so many holy successors
of St. Peter, but it is not essential to the
papacy. The popes were not always sovereigns
of Rome, but they have always been the chief
bishops of the Catholic Church, and they alone,
amongst all other bishops, have jurisdiction
over the whole Church.
It is useless here for me to attempt to prove
this as a fact from Church history ; it would
lead me away from the subject which we are
principally treating of here, and would swell
this work far beyond the limits I wish to
assign to it. But I would refer the reader,
who would wish to investigate the truth of
my assertion, to the very able treatises of my
learned friend, Mr. Allies, " On the See of
St. Peter as the Centre of Unity" and " On
St. Peter, His Name and Office ;" and still more
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 115
to that masterly work just published by Arch-
deacon Robert Wilberforce, "An Inquiry into
the Principles of Church Authority." In the
works of these two writers all controversy on
the subject of the pope has been set at rest for
ever.
The popes then, from the very infancy of
the Church, have always been regarded as the
centre of unity and the source of spiritual
authority ; and inasmuch as St. Peter fixed the
local residence of this authority at Rome, the
capital of the Gentile world, it is true that
Messiah's kingdom of the Church, gathered as
it has been out of all nations, has always been
ruled with the rod of iron, virgd ferred, as it is
termed in the Vulgate, and we have shown
what we conceive to be the meaning of this
remarkable term, namely, that it signifies a
Roman staff y or an authority emanating from,
and holding its chief seat in Rome, which city,
with its empire, were figured by the iron
portion of Nabuchodonozor's metallic statue.
But if we pursue our investigation of the
Apocalyptic vision, we find the Prophet thus
continuing: "And the woman fled into the
wilderness, where she had a place prepared by
God, that there they should feed her a thou-
sand two hundred and sixty days."
The flight of the woman into the wilderness
H6 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
I conceive to mean the Church's entrance into
the world. For the world might well be
termed a wilderness, when we consider what
was its moral and physical condition before
our Saviour's birth : and when the text adds,
" where she had a place prepared by God/' it
evidently refers again to the fact of the Church
having one principal primatial see and source
of spiritual authority, in other words the Holy
See of Rome; for if Rome be not such, no
other see at least has ever made such a claim ;
and it is clear from the text that some such
primatial seat of spiritual dominion there was
to be somewhere. The text continues, "that
there they should feed her a thousand two
hundred and sixty days."
This expression is very significant, and it
surely indicates that there would be a very
remarkable period in the Church's history, a
period during which the Church was to be fed,
that is to be specially nourished and enriched ;
and that this period was to last for the space
of twelve hundred and sixty days ; that is for
the very same space of time that was allotted
by Daniel, as we have already seen, to the
dominion of the little horn, that is of Anti-
christ, which we have proved to be the religious
system and empire of Mahomet. Now then
we may begin to understand why God gave a
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 117
temporal dominion to the popes at Rome, in
other words, why He ordained that the Church
should be fed, in a place prepared for her, for
twelve hundred and sixty days.
Mahometanism decreed the extirpation of
the Church by fire and sword, and it was to
meet this armed heresy that God gave a tem-
poral dominion to His Church. And we shall
see in the sequel how this temporal dominion
of the popes was the only thing that saved
Christendom from being overrun by the Ma-
hometan armies: so that, humanly speaking,
unless God had given temporal dominion to
the popes, Christianity would have been rooted
out, and Antichrist would have extended his
empire not only over the three great provinces
of the Macedonian he-goat, but over the
universe itself.
The Prophet then goes on to describe the
conflict between St. Michael and the good
angels with the dragon, or Satan, and his evil
angels ; and he describes this in order to explain
the causes which in the invisible world prepare
and bring about the results which we witness
here below in this visible world ; that conflict
of good and evil, which has continually been at
work ever since the fall of our first forefather
Adam. He carries us back in this description
to the remote period when Lucifer and his
118 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
confederate angels first rebelled against God,
and were east out of heaven : and he declares
that the Almighty Creator effected this by the
ministry of the Archangel St. Michael : of
which we will just observe how completely this
statement coincides with the teaching of the
Catholic Church, that God usually acts through
the ministry of angels and saints; while it is
at variance with the Protestant theory, which
completely ignores all such ministry and action
on the part of blessed spirits. St. John then
goes on to tell us, in the ninth verse, what was
the result of Lucifer's ejection from heaven :
" He was cast unto the earth, and his angels
were thrown down with him :" and the effect
of this he tells by the character he gives of
Satan, " who seduceth the whole earth."
In these few words the Prophet sums up the
history of mankind from the time of Adam, the
seduction of the whole earth. For it was, alas !
a total seduction; with the single exception
of the Jewish people, all mankind had been
seduced into idolatry and every sort of wicked-
ness.
But in the tenth verse a new and brighter
scene dawns upon the world : " And I heard a
loud voice in heaven, saying : Now is come
salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of
our God, and the power of His Christ." This
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 119
refers to the coming of our blessed Redeemer,
" now is come salvation." And " the kingdom of
God" and " the power of His Christ" was first
unfolded to mankind by the establishment of
His Church, and the effect of that redemption,
so proclaimed to mankind, is thus described by
St. John : " For the accuser of our brethren
is cast out, who accused them before our God
day and ni^ht." The accusation of mankind,
which had hitherto been so triumphantly
pleaded by Satan, was now torn aside by our
Lord Jesus Christ, who nailed it to His cross.
And the first Christians showed the fruits of
this redemption in their lives, for "they over-
came him (Satan) by the blood of the Lamb,
and by the word of the testimony, and they
loved not their lives unto death." It was
through the merits of our Saviour's passion
and death that they obtained forgiveness, as it
was through the sacraments, " the word of the
testimony," those mysterious forms instituted
by Christ, that His precious merits were prin-
cipally applied to their souls ; and out of the
fulness of their gratitude, and the tender out-
pourings of their love, they gave their lives for
Jesus, who had redeemed them by the loss of
His. How wonderfully and how sublimely was
this exhibited by the Christians of the early
Church.
120 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
Millions and millions laid down their lives
to suffer the most cruel deaths in testimony of
their faith in Christ : and when the sword of
the persecutor was sheathed, millions of other
generous Christians renounced the pleasures of
this life, and betook themselves to the deserts
of Egypt, of Syria, and of Arabia, in order to
consecrate themselves to the perpetual and ex-
clusive service of Jesus, whom alone they loved,
for "they loved not their lives unto death."
Well might the Apostle add, in the twelfth
verse, " Therefore rejoice, O ye heavens, and
ye that dwell therein." For if the angels re-
joice over the sinner that doeth penance, what
shall not be the joy of these heavenly spirits
over the just, who give their lives by martyrdom
for the love of Christ, and who consecrate
themselves to His love in the most holy monas-
tic state, renouncing the world, and the plea-
sures of the world.
But it was to be expected that this bright
vision would soon be troubled ; while the pro-
bationary state of man endures, the bright
blue sky of God's serene heaven must often
and often be clouded over, and storms and
tempests must try the shrubs and trees even in
God's sacred Eden, the Catholic Church, to
prove whether they be truly and firmly rooted
in Christ; and so no sooner does St. John be-
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 121
hold the fruits of Divine grace, and the conse-
quent joy of angels, but he hears the dismal
cry of woe. " Woe to the earth, and to the
sea." That is, " Woe to the earth," woe to
that beautiful work of God's creation, this
planet of ours, which the devil hates because
it was to 1)0 the dwelling-place of that great
mystery, the Incarnation of the Son of God.
And " Woe t/n/o the sea" that is mankind, for,
as we have already seen, St. Jerome, following
the instruction of the angel, interprets " the
sea" to signify mankind tossed about by the
Minds of trial and temptation. And why is
this woe uttered ? " Because the devil is come
down" (Apoc. xii. 12), " having great wrath,
knowing that he hath but a short time." For
although to us poor mortals it may seem a
long time that Satan has been trying and per-
secuting the Church, it is but a short time in
the estimation of God, when compared with
eternity. And short in the estimation of Satan
also, when he compares it with that miserable
and never-ending future to which he looks for-
ward. For short indeed is the space of two or
three thousand years, when compared with
countless millions of millions of ages, destined
to usher in similar periods for all eternity,
world without end.
The comparison is almost too fearful to con-
122 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
template : we none of us realize it as we ought ;
if we did, assuredly we should be ready to endure
the worst torments rather than to offend God,
and so lose His grace, and our own salvation.
But the Prophet tells us, that the feeling
which actuated the devil, when he thought of
the comparative shortness of this time of trial,
was to redouble his fury against God, and to
contrive all sorts of mischief against God's
work, the Catholic Church. He says, in the
thirteenth verse, "And when the dragon saw
he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the
woman that brought forth the man-child."
This evidently refers to the persecutions of
the Primitive Church, which we know continued
more or less until the conversion of Constantine
the Great. And even after his conversion, the
Church has been continually persecuted ; but
in the next verse, the Prophet tells us, that at
a certain period God gave His Church a special
protection against the fury of persecution.
"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."
Now, what are these wings of a great eagle ?
and when were they specially given unto the
woman, that is, the Church ?
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 123
In order to answer the question what they
are, the best way is to consider when it is that
they are promised, and then to compare the
history of the Church with the prediction.
This will give us an infallible answer, for the
history of the Church is God's own commen-
tary upon His own prophecies.
Now, wo have already seen that the dominion
of the little horn, that is, of Antichrist, was to
last for a time, and times, and half a time : in
other words, for the very same period as that
during which the wings of the eagle are given
to the Church. We have shown that the little
horn was indisputably Mahomet. The question
thru arises, was there, or was there not, coin-
cident with the coming of Mahomet, any new
privilege conferred upon the Church, as it were
to meet the exigencies and difficulties of the
times ? What is the answer of history to this
question ?
Its answer is unmistakeable : there was.
And what was it? The answer is equally
unmistakeable : the temporal sovereignty of the
popes at Rome. So distinct, so unmistakeably
clear is this answer of history to the question
we have put, that Protestant authors have not
hesitated to make it the basis of all their proofs
that the pope was, what they erroneously talk
of, the western little horn. They have shown,
124 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
and truly shown, that the establishment of the
pope's sovereignty exactly coincided with the
rise of Mahometanism, which, in their theory
of prophetic interpretation, they term the
eastern little horn. And hence they unani-
mously vie with one another in drawing absurd
parallels between these two little horns, which
of course they are compelled to do, if there be
two little horns, seeing that prophecy predi-
cates the same things of each. But we have
shown that there is but one little horn, namely,
that one which Protestant commentators deno-
minate the eastern little horn. Consequently,
we affirm, that when Scripture declares that
the wings of a great eagle were given to the
Church, coincidently with the rise of the little
horn, that prophecy was fulfilled in that new
development of the Church's temporal state,
which history informs us actually did take
place, coincident with the coming of Mahomet,
and the establishment of his apostacy and em-
pire. Now, this new development was the
establishment of the sovereignty of the popes
in the Roman states : we therefore affirm, that
the wings of the great eagle signify the tem-
poral sovereignty of Rome.
The eagle, all men know, was the symbol of
Roman sovereignty. The old Romans bore
the eagle as their military standard, and no
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 125
one can deny that the Roman eagle is another
phrase to express " the Roman power." And
the flight of the Roman eagle is used even by
profane writers to symbolize the conquests of
the Roman armies. When, therefore, the Pro-
phet tells us tli at the wings of a great eagle
were given to the Church for the very period
of the little horn's dominion, and history tells
us that the temporal sovereignty of Rome was
at that very time given to the popes, we are
surely justified in appealing to this great fact
as the fulfilment of the prophecy. And as this
temporal sovereignty was given to the popes,
as the Prophet assures us, " for a time, and
times, and half a time," to guard Holy Church
" from the face of the serpent," that is, from
the great efforts which the devil was to make
against her during that remarkable period, and
which we find from history to have been chiefly
wrought by the instrumentality of Mahomet,
and his religious and political empire, so the
same text prepares us to expect, what history
records, that, in proportion to the growth and
decline of Mahometanism, the temporal power
of the popes would wax and wane along with
it. So that, as in the thirteenth century the
Papal power was at its greatest height, that
was precisely the period when Mahometanism
was most formidable. It is admitted by all
126 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
impartial historians, that but for the crusades
Christendom must have fallen a victim to the
victorious arms of Islamism. Now, who was
it that summoned the princes of Christendom
to these sacred wars ? The popes ; it was they
who, either in person or by their delegates,
preached the crusades, and called upon all
Christians to take the cross. But we all know
that the most effectual argument is example,
and the popes, as sovereigns of the Roman
states, gave that argument in arming their own
people in defence of our holy religion. If they
had not been sovereigns of Rome, they might
have preached, but their call, humanly speaking,
would not have been responded to.
As with the growth so with the decline of
the temporal power of the popes, history proves
its coincidence with that of Mahomet anism.
Never did that impious heresy receive a
more deadly blow than the one infiicted upon
it by the instrumentality of the great pope
St. Pius the Fifth. Islamism has never reco-
vered from the memorable victory of Lepanto.
At the moment the battle was fought, and the
victory won, that great pontiff was seen to lift
up his eyes to heaven, as he sat by a window
in the Vatican palace at Rome, and the tears
flowed, and his blessed soul was absorbed in
mystic ecstasy. He beheld the glorious Mother
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 127
of God at the right hand of her Divine Son,
interceding with Him and through Him for
the safety of Christendom and the success of
the Christian arms ; and it was given him to
understand that the prayer of Mary had pre-
vailed. Turning to his attendants, he an-
nounced to them a mighty victory over the
infidels, worthy of the intercession of the Mo-
tlu-r of God. The event justified the pope's
assertion, and it was found, when the official
intelligence arrived, that it was achieved at
the very moment when God opened the eyes
of the holy lather to see what was passing in
that wonderful instant before the throne of
His omnipotence. Yes, in that critical hour
St. Michael and his angels were fighting with
the dragon, and Mary, the immaculate queen
of angels, was bruising his poisonous head.
From that hour the Crescent has rapidly
waned ; but the wings of the eagle have also
lowered their flight ; and we have lived to see
the day when the temporal sovereignty of the
popes has been all but extinguished.
Protestants thought it was actually gone,
and they congratulated one another that their
old foe the pope was now no more, and they
appealed with as much confidence (as Catholics
might have done to a miracle) to a fanatical
commentary on prophecy, written in the reign
128 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
of Queen Anne by one Fleming, a Dutchman,
a raving Calvinist, who came over to England
from the fens of Holland with William the
Third, and who backed up his master's hatred
of the pope and Catholicism by fanciful cita-
tions of Scripture. Fleming foretold that
in 1848 the papacy would be extinguished.
Never shall I forget the rapture of the ultra-
Protestant party, when in that very year the
pope was driven from Rome ; and for the
moment it seemed as if the Dutchman had
made a lucky guess. But two years sufficed
to prove he was a false prophet, in spite of
first appearances, and the eagle once more
flapped its wings in the face of rampant de-
mocracy and infidelity, as it had heretofore
so often done in the very teeth of the Maho-
metan dragon ; and that the event might be
more marked and fixed in men's minds, Pro-
vidence decreed that the pope should be re-
stored to his temporal sovereignty by the
armies of republican and democratic France.
Thus, that the Word of God might be fulfilled,
a republic overthrew a republic, lest the wings
of the eagle should be severed from the mystic
woman, who was to be guarded by them " for
a time, and times, and half a time. 33
The question may here be put, if it be said
" that the wings of the eagle are given to the
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 129
woman for a time, and times, and half a time,"
does that expression of prophecy, understood
as we understand it of the temporal sove-
reignty of the popes, necessarily imply on this
theory that this temporal sovereignty of the
popes will cease at the end of the period de-
signated as "a time, and times, and half a
time?"
Our answer to this question is emphatically
that we repudiate any such inference ; and, on
the contrary, it is our firmest conviction that
the 1260 days, or a time, times, and half
a time are ended, the papal power will assume
ii still greater development all over the earth.
It is not the place here to state our reasons
for this conviction, but it is right that we
should anticipate a question that would natu-
rally occur to the reader, while we just glance
at the answer, which further on we shall give
more at length.
The Prophet tells us, in the fifteenth verse,
" And the serpent cast out of his mouth after
the woman, water as it were a river, that he
might cause her to be carried away by the
river."
And in the sixteenth verse he continues:
" And the earth helped the woman, and the
earth opened her mouth and swallowed up the
river, which the dragon cast out of his mouth."
K
130 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
In these two verses, it seems to me that we
have a recapitulation, or a more enlarged de-
scription, of what was stated in the thirteenth
verse ; and that the Prophet refers to the per-
secutions raised against the Church by the
pagan Roman emperors, which might well be
compared to a river, for by their means tor-
rents of Christian blood were shed all over the
earth; and such was the impetuosity of their
fury, that had it not been for the miraculous
help of God the Christian faith must have
been rooted out from the world. But when
the Prophet adds, " and the earth helped the
woman, and swallowed up the river," it seems
that he refers to the conversion of Constantine,
which by placing Christianity on the throne of
the Csesars effectually swallowed up the river
that had hitherto so violently assailed the
Church, and it might truly be said " that the
earth helped the woman ; " for from this mo-
ment the riches of the earth were poured into
the Church's lap. Now did the glowing pro-
phecies of the Old Testament begin to receive
their accomplishment ; the gold of Ophir, the
precious stones of the East, and the frankin-
cense of Arabia, were combined in the offering
of the converted earth to its Lord and Saviour ;
stately churches now began to be erected all
over Christendom, so magnificent that they
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 131
rivalled even the Temple of Solomon, and far
surpassed the most splendid temples of Pagan-
ism. The learned Abbe Fleury, in his " Church
History," has given us such a description of
the glories of the Church under the Chris-
tian Roman emperors, that the reader is quite
lost in wonder and admiration. But it was
not only in material riches and splendour that
the Church shone after Constantine's conver-
sion, .she developed her spiritual principles and
her inherent sanctity with equal brilliancy.
The holy counsels of Jesus Christ were now
eagerly embraced, we may say, without ex-
aggeration, by countless millions of fervent
Christian virgins and youths, whose hearts
glowed so brightly with the love of Jesus, that
they counted all things else but as dross in
comparison of His service, and the continual
contemplation of His blessed life and His
adorable perfections. When we read the lives
of St. Anthony and the other holy fathers of
the deserts, we are filled with devotion, and
the coldest hearts are kindled with the love of
Jesus. Oh ! how great was the fervour, the
humility, the devotion, and the mortification
of these great servants of God ! Well might
the devout author of the " Imitation of Christ"
exclaim, when he compared the Christian fer-
vour of his own times with that of these golden
132 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
days of the Church's first love : " Look upon
the lively example of the holy fathers, in whom
shone real perfection and the religious life, and
thou wilt see how little it is and almost nothing
that we do ! Alas ! what is our life, if it be
compared with theirs ! Saints and friends of
Christ, they served our Lord in hunger and
thirst, in cold and nakedness, labour and wea-
riness, in watchings and fastings, in prayers
and holy meditations, in frequent persecutions
and reproaches. Oh ! what a strict and self-
renouncing life the holy fathers of the desert
led ! what long and grievous temptations did
they bear ! how often were they harassed by
the enemy ! what frequent and fervent prayers
did they offer up to God ! what rigorous absti-
nence did they practise ! what great zeal and
fervour had they for spiritual progress ! what
a valiant conflict did they wage to subdue their
imperfections ! what purity and straightfor-
wardness of purpose did they keep towards
God ! By day they laboured, and a great
part of the night they spent in prayer ; and
even while they laboured they ceased not to
pray in spirit. They spent all their time pro-
fitably ; the hours seemed too short to spend
with God ; and even their needful refection of
the body was forgotten in the great sweetness
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 133
of their contemplations." (Imitation of Christ,
b. i. 18.)
AVhat a picture is here given us of the first
fruits of Christ's grace in converting the barren
t of this earth into a garden of spiritual
But here below these bright intervals of
Divine sunshine are few and transient : and K)
tin Prophet at once prepares us for Satan >
lie natural issue of his diabolical
j and wrath; hence he adds: "And the
on was angry against the woman ; and went
to make war with the rest of her seed, who 1
the commandments of God, and have tin
timony of Jesus Christ. And he stood upon
the sand of the sea/' (Apocalypse xii. 17, 18.)
We believe that these verses introduce us to
the history of Mahometanism, that is, of the
Jit tie horn of Daniel, and " the Antichrist" of
the New Testament.
Satan, enraged at the failure of all his efforts
to destroy the Church by the furious persecu-
tions of the Roman emperors, still further in-
furiated by seeing that river absorbed by the
earth in the conversion of those very emperors,
and the manifold fruits of sanctity all over the
earth, meditates a fresh war upon the seed of
the woman, that is, the Church's children;
134 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
and so St. John tells us, that this implacable
enemy of God and man took his stand " upon
the sand of the sea."
An able Catholic interpreter (Preuves Incon-
testables de VEglise Catholique, chap. v. p. 297),
explains this to mean Arabia, for that country
might well be termed " the sand of the sea/'
both from the vast tracts of sandy desert, of
which it is mainly composed, and from the
fact of its peninsular form being chiefly sur-
rounded by the sea. But I should also inter-
pret this expression, according to what we have
already seen of St. Jerome's interpretation of
the term " sea," to mean the most worthless
portion of mankind, for if " the sea" signifies
mankind, then the sand of the sea signifies all
the scum and cast-off deposit, which the sea
throws up upon the beach : and what would
this be, but those reprobate outcasts of the
Church, whom Mahomet seized upon as his
instruments to propagate his mighty heresy?
and as the grains of sand are infinite in number,
so countless was the multitude of that light and
faithless generation, which the hurricane of his
impiety drove in clouds over the deserts of
Asia and Africa, till the sun of Divine truth
was darkened, and God's moon, the Church,
was turned into blood, so that in those desolate
regions she no longer reflected the rays of her
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 135
Divine Master, but waned beneath the fury of
the Mahometan tempest, and the clouds of
schism and heresy.
The thirteenth chapter at once discloses to
us the prophetic history of the two great Ma-
hometan beasts or empires.
"And I saw," says St. John, "a beast
coming up out of the sea, having seven heads
and ten horns, and upon his horns ten diadems,
and upon his heads names of blasphemy."
Now, who is this beast?* Some interpreters,
observing no doubt that there are several
points of resemblance between the description
of this beast, and that of the great red dragon
of the last chapter, which we have already
proved to be mankind subdivided into seven
monarchies, and, in a secondary sense, the
pagan Roman empire, conclude that this beast,
and the seven-headed dragon, are the same.
But this is evidently a great mistake : there
are indeed some points of resemblance in the
two descriptions, but there are also differences,
and these differences are fatal to their identity.
For instance, the red dragon of the twelfth
* The learned Father Salmeron, in his interesting " Free-
ludiain Apocalypsin," explains this beast, of the thirteenth
chapter, of Mahomet and his empire in a dissertation of con-
siderable length. (Salmeron, Prcdudia in Apoc. torn. xvi.
p. 365.)
136 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
chapter is said to have " seven heads, and ten
horns, and on his heads seven diadems :"
whereas the beast that comes up out of the sea
in the thirteenth chapter, is said to have
" seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns
ten diadems."
How, then, can these two beasts be the
same?
Again, the Prophet assigns a chronological
difference to them also.
The red dragon, with its seven heads and
ten horns, failing in its onslaught on the
woman, the devil subsequently takes his stand
" on the sand of the sea," as we have already
seen. And the Prophet tells us that he saw
the result of that, in the coming of a beast
" out of the sea."
Now, the pagan Roman empire arose long
before the date of St. John's vision. Its
twelfth emperor, Domitian, was reigning at the
time, and what St. John is here describing is
evidently posterior not only to Domitian, but
to the conversion of Constantine.
This beast, then, in the thirteenth chapter,
cannot refer to the pagan Roman empire.
What is it then ?
The learned Anglican, Bishop Newton,
suggests another interpretation, which, with
much ingenuity, he endeavours to establish.
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 137
(Bishop Newton's Dissertations on the Prophe-
cies, chap, xiii. p. 5:26.)
Affirming the general identity of the red
dragon, and the first beast of the thirteenth
chapter of the Apocalypse, whereby he vio-
all ju-t rules of prophetic interpretation,
lie concludes this beast to be papal Rome.
But we have already shown what place papal
Rome occupies in prophecy, and especially, in
St. John's Apocalypse; we have shown that
this place is a place of honour, not of dishonour ;
the place of the chief instrument of God in
His spiritual sway over the nations, not one of
error or blasphemy. How, then, can this beast
be papal Rome? Bishop Newton admits (and
it would be impossible for him to deny it), that
there is a wonderful resemblance, amounting
to complete identity, between this beast and
another prophetic personage; viz., the little
horn of Daniel, or rather what he, on his erro-
neous principles of interpretation, would term
" the western little horn." Well, then, agree-
ing on this point with Bishop Newton, so far
as the identity between this beast and Daniel's
" little horn" is concerned, and having already
shown that there is but one little horn, although
mentioned twice, and not two little horns (as
Bishop Newton and other Protestant commen-
tators have conveniently imagined), and having
138 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
already established and demonstrated what and
where that little horn is, we say at once, with-
out hesitation, that the first of the two beasts
described in the thirteenth chapter of the Apo-
calypse is unquestionably the same power as
Daniel's little horn, that is, the Mahometan
empire, as it was at first established by Maho-
met and his immediate successors.
Let us examine the words of St. John, and
compare them with what history records, and
we shall find that the prophetic description,
and the history of Mahometanism, agree
together.
St. John tells us that this beast, which we
affirm to represent the empire of Mahomet,
had " seven heads." By these seven heads, we
understand the seven thrones, which were
erected in seven different countries, wherein the
power and religion of Mahomet were established
with the greatest authority.
These seven heads or thrones were :
1. That of the Caliphs, the immediate suc-
cessors, and principal representatives of the
false Prophet Mahomet, whose chief capital or
seat of government was first placed at Medina,
and then at Bagdad.
2. That of Persia, one of the principal Ma-
hometan powers even to this day.
3. That of North Africa, or the empire of
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 139
Morocco, whose sovereign had the title of Mi-
ramoulin;* the last who bore it being the cele-
brated Muley-Ismael, who played a conspicuous
part in the history of the seventeenth century.
4. That of Egypt, under the sway of the
mites, who occupy a great position in Ma-
hometan history.
5. That of Damascus, in Syria, under espe-
cially those remarkable sovereigns, Noradin
and Saladin, whose names figure so conspicu-
ously in the history of the crusades, and even
in our own contemporaneous English annals.
<>. The Mogul empire in Hindostan, of the
riches and splendour of which the accurate de-
scriptions of grave historians sound more like
Oriental fiction than a sober reality, although
the remains, which exist even at the present
day, are satisfactory evidence that they were
not exaggerated nor over-coloured.
7. The seventh throne of the beast was the
Moorish kingdom of Granada, in Spain, which
has undoubtedly left monuments behind it of
its power and its magnificence that can never
be surpassed.
These, then, were the seven heads or thrones
of the beast ; these all existed and flourished
* This title was derived from the words Emir-al-Mous-
lemin, or Prince of the Worshippers of Unity. (See Ency-
cloptdie, du xix. siecl. torn. xi. p. 434.)
140 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
simultaneously ; and in their respective territo-
ries, as well as all around, they spread every-
where the terror of the name of Mahomet, and
everywhere combated the religion of the cross.
But St. John tells us not only that the beast
had "seven heads," but it had also "ten
horns," and these ten horns were crowned with
" diadems."
By these ten diademed horns, I understand
ten royal dynasties, which we actually find de-
scribed in Mahometan history, as having con-
tributed, in an especial manner, to uphold and
extend the faith and dominion of the little horn
over that portion of the earth which God gave
into his hand. The learned author of the
" Preuves Incontestables de PEglise Catholique
deduites de V Apocalypse" (ch. vi. p. 210), has
demonstrated these ten horns to represent the
ten great dynasties as follow: 1. The Tha-
herians; 2. The Soffarides; 3. The Samanides;
4. The Gaznevides; 5. The Bouides; 6. The
Tholonides ; 7. The Seljucides ; 8. The Ajou-
bites; 9. The Aglabites; 10. The Khouaras-
mians." These are the principal dynasties
that figure in Mahometan history during the
period of what we will now call the Saracenic
or first beast.
We shall not at present enter into the mi-
nutiae of Mahometan history, as it developed
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 141
itself under these dynasties in the several
kingdoms subject to the sway of the False
Prophet. These details will come in their
proper place in a future work, and we shall
have occasion to glance at some of them in
course of the present treatise; but here
our object must rather be as briefly as possible
to lay our interpretation of the prophecy be-
fore our readers.
St. John continues (xiii. 2) : " And the
\\liich 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 liim liis own strength and great power."
Now in this remarkable description of the
Saracenic beast, it seems to me that the Pro-
phet has given us a symbolical clue to ascer-
tain where his power would chiefly be esta-
blished. He describes the beast as made up
of a strange conglomeration of three other
beasts ; he had the mouth of a lion, the body
of a leopard, and the feet of a bear. Now it
is impossible to read this description and not
to remember Daniel's vision of the four beasts,
which represented the four great monarchies.
And if we turn to it, we shall find that the
first Apocalyptic beast of St. John is com-
pounded of the three first of the four beasts of
Daniel.
142 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
The lion or lioness represented the Assyrian
or Babylonian empire ; the bear, the Medo-
Persian ; and the leopard, the Greek empire
of Alexander the Great.
Now it is a fact, fully borne out by history,
that it was precisely of the provinces formerly
subject to these very empires that the Sara-
cenic empire was composed ; and, what is more
remarkable still, those provinces bore a rela-
tion to the Mahometan empire completely
analogous to the position assigned to each of
these three beasts in the Saracenic beast.
Thus his mouth is said to be that of a lion.
Now in every animal the expression of the will
is manifested by its voice or mouth, so that in
a symbolical beast the mouth would represent
the seat of the voice that governed its move-
ments, and that expressed its will ; in other
words, it would represent its principal seat of
government. Now what was this in the Sara-
cenic empire? It was Bagdad, that is, the
chief city of the Caliphs, situated in the pro-
vince of Babylon, which was the capital of the
old Assyrian empire symbolized in Daniel by
the lion. In other words, its mouth was that
of a lion, that is, its seat of government was in
the chief province of the old Assyrian empire.
Moreover, as this empire was not only a
political but a religious power, and as its
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 143
founder pretended to be God's greatest pro-
phet, or the utterer of God's revealed will, the
term mouth is aptly used by the Prophet to
designate this most striking characteristic of
the Saracenic empire. And the Assyrian or
Babylonian qualification here given to the
mouth of the beast aptly describes the geo-
graphical position not only of its seat of govern-
ment, but also of the birthplace of Mahomet,
its founder, which was in the province of Hejaz,
of which the capital was Mecca, one of the most
notable provinces of the old Babylonian empire.
But the Prophet continues. He describes
the body of the beast as being that of a leo-
pard. What can this mean, but that the main
body of the Saracenic empire consisted of the
provinces that had formerly composed the em-
pire of the Macedonian leopard ? Now history
tells us what countries were subdued by Alex-
ander the Great, and history informs us that
it was precisely this very territory that formed
the main body of the Saracenic empire. Alex-
ander devoured the territory of Asia Minor,
Syria, Arabia, Babylonia, Persia, Egypt, even
to the Indus ; and it was precisely in the same
territory that the Saracenic empire extended
its dominion ; in other words, to use the sym-
bolical language of St. John and of Daniel,
this beast had the body of a leopard.
144 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
But St. John gives us one more character-
istic : it had the feet of a bear. Now we have
already seen, in our remarks on Daniel's pro-
phecies, that the bear symbolized the Medo-
Persian empire ; I therefore conclude that the
territory of that empire had the same analo-
gous relation to the Saracenic empire as the
feet of a bear would hold to St. John's sym-
bolical beast. Now in every animal the feet
are the main instrument to effect its loco-
motion ; and this is precisely the relation
which the provinces of the Medo-Persian bear
held to the Saracenic empire. Persia was, as
we have already seen, the first kingdom to
embrace Mahometanism, and it has been at
all times from its Caucasian provinces that the
chief strength of Mahometanism has issued
forth. In other words, it had the feet of a
bear. Besides all which, we may add what
St. Jerome remarks of the four beasts of
Daniel, that they represented the physical and
moral characteristics of the peoples they sym-
bolized. Hence, when it is said by St. John
of the Saracenic beast that it had the head of
a lion, the body of a leopard, and the feet of a
bear, we are at once reminded of the loud and
presumptuous language, the unfeeling cruelty,
and the grasping ambition that have ever cha-
racterised the Mahometan system, and that
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 145
were so remarkably conspicuous in Saracenic
history.
The Apostle continues, " and the dragon
him liis own strength and great power."
AY hat can he more characteristic of Mahome-
tanism than this prophecy ? If ever there was
an empire of which this was eminently true,
it surely was the great Mahometan Saracenic
empire. The dragon had given a portion of
his strength and power to the other great em-
j>iiv>, hut as they all possessed it in common,
and none of them had it in any superior degree
ovrr the rest, it could hardly be a character-
istic distinction of any one of them in parti-
cular. I 'lit here in the case of this Apocalyptic
beast, it is given as a most special character-
istic. that it was to be emphatically the seat of
Satan's power. Now either Mahometanism
came from the devil, or it did not ; if it did,
then in that case it was a political and religious
m, endowed with vast power and terri-
torial strength, raised up for the special pur-
pose of warfare with Christianity and the true
religion of God. That this was the special
mission of Mahometanism is what it asserted
of itself, and what has been fully borne out by
its history from the beginning up to the pre-
sent day. Assuming, then, the truth of Chris-
tianity and the falsehood of Mahometanism, no
L
146 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
one can deny that it literally fulfils this portion
of the sacred text ; for no one can deny (ad-
mitting this premise) either its power or its
strength on the one hand, or that Satan, not
God, was the object in whose behalf all that
power and strength were wielded. Besides,
no other empire was ever of its own nature so
essentially antagonistic to Christ. The pagan-
ism of the old heathen empires was antecedent
to the coming of the Messiah ; and though it
naturally came into collision with the progress
of His kingdom, still we cannot say of it what
we must say of Mahometanism, that it was
devised and constituted for the main purpose
of opposing the Church of God. The force of
this argument has appeared so cogent to learned
Protestants, that Bishop Newlon, in his cele-
brated treatise on the Prophecies, uses it as
an overwhelming proof that this beast repre-
sents papal Rome, the latter power being in
his opinion that of the great Antichrist. We
agree with him and with the holy fathers in
interpreting this symbolical beast of Anti-
christ ; but we differ from him altogether in
his estimate as to who Antichrist was; and
differing from him in this, and believing as we
do that Antichrist is no other than Mahomet,
we come to the conclusion that this first beast
of the Apocalypse represents the Mahometan
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 147
Saracenic empire, and not what Bishop Newton
erroneously interpreted it, papal Rome.
The Prophet continues, " And I saw one of
his heads, as it were slain to death : and his
death's wound was healed."
Bishop Newton and other Protestant com-
mentators see in this text, following up their
erroneous hypothesis concerning this beast, the
<1( struction of the imperial power of old Rome
in the person of its last western emperor,
Romulus Augustulus. But that destruction
was not the destruction of a form of govern-
ment merely, but of the Roman empire itself.
It was the destruction of the Roman beast, as a
single empire, and not alone of one of the
heads of that empire. That this was so his-
tory proves : from that time the Roman empire
as such ceases, and the ten kingdoms, of which
the Byzantine Greek empire was of course one,
take its place. To say the contrary is to
deny history. No man in his senses would
call European history subsequent to that date
" Roman history," but it is equally true that
no man in his senses either could or does term
European history before that date by any other
name than that of Roman history. And why ?
because before that date Europe and the Ro-
man empire were synonymous, whereas after it
Europe was subdivided into independent king-
L2
148 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
doms or polities. It is from that date that
English, French, German, Spanish, and the
other national histories, of what is called
modern Europe, commence.
The destruction of imperial Rome was there-
fore not the destruction of any head of any
beast, but the destruction of the imperial beast
itself; and consequently cannot (on that ground
alone) be represented, as Bishop Newton thinks,
by the deadly wound of one of the heads of
the Apocalyptic beast in question : not to add
that the falsehood of this conclusion has already
been proved by anticipation, when we showed
that this beast could not represent the Roman
empire at all.
What then is the head referred to? We
have already demonstrated the beast to signify
the Mahometan Saracenic empire; we, there-
fore, without hesitation, express our conviction
that his head, thus wounded to death, sym-
bolized the extinction of the dynasty of the
caliphs, which took place under Motassem, the
fifty-sixth successor of Mahomet. So that, as
we shall presently see, St. John describes a
second beast coming up out of the earth,
which evidently is but a development of the
consequences resulting from the healing of the
deadly wound inflicted on the principal head of
the first beast.
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 149
Now the throne of the caliphs was extin-
guished by the Tartar Turks, led on by the
great grandson of the famous Zingis Khan :
and at the time when these Tartar hordes over-
threw the caliph they professed paganism, and
not Mahometanism. Those who would wish
for fuller details of this portion of Mahometan
history, if they have not time to refer to the
larger histories, should by all means read the
admirable lectures "on the Turks/' published
lately by that eminent writer, Father Newman,
the superior of the Oratorians in England.
It appears from contemporary history that
those, who witnessed the extinction of the
caliphate by their Tartar conquerors, fully cal-
culated on the utter destruction of Maho-
metanism. They saw the principal head of
the Mahometan beast wounded to death, and
they saw the Mahometan empire in its prin-
cipal head, the caliphate, overthrown ; but
what was their wonder, what the horror in all
Christian lands, when they saw that the deadly
wound was healed, and that though the prin-
cipal head of the Mahometan power had been
destroyed, the natural effect of that event did
not ensue !
But what does this healing refer to ? I will
say no more of Bishop Newton's theories, but
I answer at once, it signified the conversion of
150 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
the Tartars and Turks to Mahometanism, and
the consequent establishment of the power of
the Turkish sultans on the ruins of the caliphate.
From the moment the Turkish sultans assumed
the Mahometan turban, they constituted them-
selves the heads of the Mahometan religion,
and were accepted as such by all true Maho-
metans. And when the Prophet continues, " All
the earth was in admiration of the beast/' he
does but express in prophetic language what
history records, that the Mahometan power
became still more formidable in the eyes of all
men; for the term, which in our version is
here rendered by the word " admiration," would
be more correctly translated by another, viz.,
" amazement :" that being rather the meaning
of the Greek term, used by the Apostle,
" iQavnaaQr\" And so it is rendered in the
Anglican version, " all the world wondered after
the beast."
And well might it wonder, for the Maho-
metan empire was dead, and was alive again !
And well might the consequence be what St.
John describes as ensuing thereon, " And they
adored the dragon, which gave power to the
beast : saying who is like unto the beast, and
who shall be able to fight with him ? "
Stricken with terror, the nations of Chris-
tendom fell before the beast one after the
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 151
other, the victims of his rapacious ambition :
and though for a season his rapid progress was
checked by the crusades, it was but a mo-
mentary pause in that fearful career of con-
quest; for while to these holy expeditions,
replete as they are with poetic and chivalrous
interest, we may trace the ultimate safety and
independence of Latin Christendom, they sig-
nally failed in their immediate object, and the
ill success that attended them, did but force
the whole world to cry out, as the Prophet
foretold it would do, "Who is like unto the
!)rast, and who shall be able to fight against
him?" Nor were the terrors of Christendom
groundless, for as St. John goes on, borrowing
almost the very words of Daniel in his previous
description of the little horn, " There was given
unto him " (Apocalypse, xiii. 5) " a mouth
speaking great things and blasphemies: and
power was given unto him to do " (that is to
carry on his career) " two and forty months"
That is, the whole duration of Mahometan
blasphemy shall be for the space of forty-two
months; we have already seen in another pro-
phecy that it was to last for the prophetic
space of 1260 days, and if you reduce these
forty-two months to days, according to the
duration of Mahometan months, it also makes
the exact number of 1260 days, or, as we have
152 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
already shown, taking a day for a year, 1260
years. But St. John goes on : " And he opened
his mouth unto blasphemies against God, to
blaspheme His Name, and His Tabernacle,
and them that dwell in Heaven." This de-
scription exactly agrees with what we have
already seen in a former chapter was foretold
by Daniel of the little horn : and it perfectly
agrees with the religious character of Maho-
metanism. If Christianity be the religion of
God, and God be what Christianity reveals
Him to be, One God in Three Persons, then
does Mahometanism emphatically " open its
mouth in blasphemies against God, to blas-
pheme His Name" viz., that of the adorable
Trinity. And if the sacred humanity of J esus
be, what Christianity reveals it to us, the very
Tabernacle of the Godhead, then did Mahomet
blaspheme "the Tabernacle of God:" and if
the Christian Church be indeed, what the
Gospel declares it to be, the Kingdom of
Heaven, then did Mahomet blaspheme also
them that dwelt in heaven, for assuredly he
blasphemed against the Church, and against
the Church's children, that is against them
" that dwell " in the mystic " heaven"
Verse 7. " And it was given unto him to
make war with the saints, and to overcome
them. And power was given him over every
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 153
tribe, and people, and tongue, and nation.
And all that dwell upon the earth adored him/
whose names are not written in the book of
life of the Lamb, which was slain from the be-
ginning of the world/' This portion of St.
John's prophecy, agreeing as it does in the
most remarkable manner, and even in its very
phraseology with Daniel's prediction of the
little horn, foretells what portion of mankind
would be the chief objects of Mahometan ag-
gression, and of Mahometan subjugation. He
was to make war upon the saints, as his prin-
cipal object, that is, upon the Christians, for
in Scripture, and especially in the Apostolic
Epistles, the term " saints" is frequently applied
to the Christians, that is, to the members of
God's true Church, and with reason, for all the
members of the Church are made saints or holy
in baptism; and though, unhappily, too many
fall from their baptismal inuocency, yet they
all possess, in the sacrament of penance, and
the other means of grace, the means of reco-
vering their sanctity, so that they may well be
termed by the Apostle " saints," not only from
the sanctification that has been bestowed upon
them through the grace of the sacraments, but
also because they are indeed " saints" in com-
parison and in relation to the world without ;
that world, of which Scripture tells us " that it
154 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
lieth in wickedness/' Now, it was emphatically
upon "the saints/' namely, the children of
God's Church, that Mahometanism made war,
and it was given unto him, the Apostle tells us,
to overcome them, although the subsequent
verse tells us, that this power was to be limited,
and that the conquests of the beast were to be
confined to those whose names were not written
in the book of life of the Lamb. In other
words, Mahometanism was to make war with
Christianity, was to gain great victories over
the Christians, but was only to conquer the
reprobate Christians whose names were not
written in the book of life of the Lamb, and
those that dwelt on the earthy namely, the
heathen nations, as contradistinguished from
those that dwell in heaven, whom we have
already shown to symbolize the children of the
Church. Now, if St. John had written the
history, instead of the prophecy, of Maho-
metanism, it is impossible that he could more
accurately have described the characteristic
features of its aggressions, or of its conquests.
But the Apostle suddenly halts in his de-
scription of Mahometan impiety and success,
and he cries out, in the well-known words of
his beloved Lord and Master, "If any man
have an ear, let him hear." In such words as
these did Jesus Christ usher in whatever He
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 155
would most urgently commit to the considera-
tion of His disciples, and in these same words
does His favourite disciple call our attention to
the future destruction (for it was then future,
although it be passed now) of the Mahometan
Saracenic empire. Verse 10. "He that shall
lead into captivity shall go into captivity : he
that shall kill by the sword, shall be killed by
the sword/' And so it was, the heathen Turks
bore down with resistless force and countless
multitudes upon the empire of Mahomet, led
his hosts into captivity, and slaughtered them
by the sword. St. John then adds, " Here is
the patience and the faith of the saints;" as
much as to say, that the events that are to
ensue upon these victories of the Turkish
hordes will give ample scope to the Christian
nations to exercise the virtues of patience and
faith. The next verse (llth) ushers into our
vir\v the second Mahometan beast in these
words : " And I saw another beast coming up
out of the earth, and he had two horns, like
unto a lamb, and he spake as a dragon/'
Let me here pause for a moment to reply to
an objection that the reader may possibly sug-
gest. Why, he may ask, do you call this second
beast a Mahometan beast at all ? Is not this
a gratuitous assumption ? I answer, certainly
not ; I have already shown my grounds for be-
156 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
lieving that the first beast signified the Maho-
metan Saracenic empire, and if I am right in
that supposition, it necessarily follows that the
second beast must symbolize the Mahometan
empire, that succeeded the Saracenic, from the
very terms employed by St. John in the next
verse (12) : " And he executed all the power of
the former beast in his sight, and he caused the
earth, and them that dwell therein, to adore the
first beast, whose wound unto death was healed."
Is it possible that the Prophet could use lan-
guage more forcible to describe that which
Turkish history records the Turkish power to
have done. If the destruction of the Saracenic
empire threatened death to the Mahometan
system upheld by it, assuredly that deadly
wound was healed by the establishment of the
Mahometan Turkish empire. But let us exa-
mine a little more closely some of the predi-
cated characteristics of this second beast. It
came up out of the earth. The first beast had
arisen from the sea, that is, symbolically from
"the sea," as the symbol of mankind tossed
about by the winds of corrupt nature, and
the revolutionary upheavings of the restless
multitude, which is the interpretation St.
Jerome gives to this prophetic image : and lite-
rally from the sea, inasmuch as it sprung from
the pestilent shores of the great Asiatic Ocean,
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 157
the arid sands of Arabia. But this beast
springs from the earth, that is, literally from
the great continent, of which Europe, Asia, and
Africa are but conventional and nominal divi-
sions, constituting, as they do, that one only
portion of habitable earth which, in the days of
the Evangelist, was known to exist, and which
was called by the great civilized nation, that
ruled mankind in his day, the " Orbis terra-
rum" or, as the Apostle emphatically phrases
it, "the earth;" and it sprang mystically from
< arth y inasmuch as it represented all that
evil and enmity to God of which this fallen and
mi regenerate earth has ever been the mother;
that earth, of which God declared to our first
parent Adam, after his fall, "Cursed is the
earth in thy work."* True religion is from
above, descending from the Father of Lights,
I) ut it is from the earth that all false religion
springs. From the earth came paganism ; and
when God by His only Son had once more en-
lightened mankind, and brought many nations
to the belief of His Divine truth, Satan raised
up in the person of Mahomet, and by his
agency, a new system of error to combat God's
truth ; a system compounded of fragments of
revelation, so as to deceive the unwary, and of
the grossest impiety, so as to lead men to per-
* Genesis iii. 17.
158 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
dition. Such a system might truly be said to
spring from " the earth;" it was, as St. Paul
elsewhere expresses it, " of the earth, earthy"
And the Turkish empire, rising on the ruins of
the former Mahometan empire, that of the
Saracens, and fulfilling all the designs of its
predecessor, accurately fulfilled the prediction
of St. John in its mystic meaning ; it sprang
from the earth, 110 wholesome well of living
waters, but a bitter and death-distributing
fountain, destined for many centuries to over-
flow and destroy some of the fairest provinces
of God's Holy Church.
And this beast " had two horns, like unto the
horns of a lamb. 93 It is impossible to read
this description of the second beast, and not to
remember the pastoral origin of the Ottoman
Turks, springing, as they did, from the steppes
of Scythian Tartary, with their vast flocks of
sheep, and all the habits of a nomad pastoral
people. Let the reader turn to Father New-
man's lectures on " The Turks/' and he will
see how appropriate a symbol of the Ottomans
was " the horns of a lamb." Now, observe
this beast " had two horns, like unto the horns
of a lamb." The strength of every beast, as
St. Jerome has observed, lies in its horns, and
in its other weapons of defence; and the strength
of the Ottoman Turks, in their origin, lay in
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 159
the multitude of their flocks and herds : what
apter symbol of a pastoral people could be de-
\ iM-d than the two horns of a ram ? If sports-
men hang up in their halls the horns and skins
of the animals they have slain in the chase,
well might the horns of a ram symbolize the
11 and the character of a shepherd people,
like the Ottomans, dwelling in tents, adminis-
tering summary justice in the gate of a move-
able camp, of which ''the Sublime Porte" of
modern Turkey hands on the memory and the
tradition. But there is something else that
these two horns of the ram remind us of; can
we forget another Caucasian people and empire,
which Daniel had seen under a similar image ?
The second of Daniel's four beasts was beheld
by the Hebrew Prophet under the symbolical
image of a ram with two horns : for the Medes
and Persians, like their successors, the Ottoman
Turks, were a pastoral people, and the angel
declared to Daniel, that those two ram's horns
signiiied t hose two nations. Is there not, then,
a strong analogy between the two horns of the
Medo-Persian beast of Daniel, and the Turks
and Tartars of the second Apocalyptic beast of
the blessed Apostle John ? Can we forget the
achievements of the Turkish tribes from the
days of Othman, on the one hand, and of the
Tartars, from those of Tiinour and Zingis Khan,
160 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
on the other? The former overflowing with
their irresistible hordes the west of Asia, the
north of Africa, and the fairest European pro-
vinces of the Greek empire : the latter carrying
their triumphant sword along with the Koran
of Mahomet, across the Himalayas into the
very heart of the Indies. Truly this second
beast had two horns, and these horns were like
the horns of a ram, for the flocks and herds of
Tartary gave them their heraldic device, and
symbolized the profession and the habits of
their ancestors.
But this beast " spake as a dragon"
(Apoc. xiii. 2.) His language, his doctrine,
came from below, from the great dragon of the
abyss; the same dragon that in the twelfth
chapter of this same Apocalypse we have already
seen arming the Roman empire against "the
woman and her seed ; " and when the Roman
empire became Christian, and so the very
" earth " helped the woman, he, this implaca-
ble dragon, conjured up Mahomet and his first
empire out of the sea ; so now does he speak
through the voracious throat of the two-
homed Turco-Tartar beast uttering his dragon
cries, terrible to be heard, and bearing the
message of death to myriads of the human
race.
St. John continues his description : " And
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 161
he executed all the power of the former beast
in his sight ; " that is, whatever had been
done by the Saracens is now repeated over
again by the Turks and Tartars. " And
he caused the earth, and them that dwell
therein, to adore the first beast, whose deadly
wound was healed;" that is, he caused the
children of perdition, symbolized by " the
earth, and them that dwell therein" to adore,
that is, to venerate and accept the religious
in of the first beast, that is, the religion
and political system of Mahomet, whereby
tin- deadly wound occasioned by the destruc-
tion of the Saracenic empire, that is, of the
first Apocalyptic beast, was healed. In Scrip-
ture the term wpomntvu*, or to adore or wor-
ship, is not exclusively confined, as it is by
our modern English, to the expression of Di-
vine worship, but it signifies that homage and
reverence \\hich men are wont to give to any
form or semblance of authority, whether true
or false. Hence, in the passage before us, it
need not mean any Divine worship paid to
Mahomet, or still less to the Sultans who re-
presented him, for all such Divine worship is
expressly disclaimed by Mahometans, and
therefore not to be charged upon them, but it
signifies the allegiance, spiritual and temporal,
which they pay to the false system of that
M
162 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
great impostor, and to the polity established
by him. In this sense, obviously the sense
implied by the Apostle, did the second beast
force all the children of perdition to adore the
former beast, and in this sense his deadly
wound was healed.
But let us follow the description of St. John :
"And he wrought great wonders, so that he
made also fire to come down from heaven unto
the earth in the sight of men" From these
words it appears that this beast was to astonish
mankind by his wonderful achievements, and
amongst the rest by one which the Prophet
describes as " making fire to come down from
heaven unto the earth in the sight of men"
Now, bearing in mind that the language of
prophecy in general, and especially of the Apo-
calypse, is conveyed to us under hieroglyphical
symbols, we must not suppose that this second
Mahometan power was literally to bring down
fire from heaven, any more than that it was to
be a literal beast with two literal horns ; but
though the language of prophecy is veiled
under symbols, it never is used at random,
and never fails to carry along with it some
very real, definite, and appropriate meaning.
We say, then, without hesitation, that the
figure here used by St. John is a most appro-
priate one to express a most remarkable cha-
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 163
racteristic of Turkish warfare, one which at
the time constituted a striking difference be-
tween the Turkish armies and those against
whom they directed tlicir victorious force. We
refer to the use of firearms, which were first
employed on an extensive scale and with apal-
IHIL; success by the Turks. When we reflect
upon this remarkable fact, and the effect pro-
dneed upon the minds of men by the heavy
guns and enormous cannon used by the Otto-
man Turks with such deadly effect, we can
hardly CODCeive a more appropriate symbol
than the one used by the Apostle, "that the
beast wrought great wonders, so that he m<nle
also fire to come down from heaven unto the
earth in the //'///// ttf men." How terribly
these words were realized by the Turks, history
accurately records. It was chiefly by means
of his artillery that Amurath the Second sub-
dued so large a portion of the Greek empire,
after invading and laying waste the Pelopon-
nesus. And when a few years later his son
Mahomet besieged Constantinople, he employed
guns of such a calibre, that the description of
them, were it not vouched for in the most
authentic statements of contemporary history,
would sound quite fabulous. One of these
guns was of such monstrous size, that it re-
quired seventy yoke of oxen, and no fewer
M2
164 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
than two thousand men to draw it. There
were two more great cannon, each of which
discharged huge stone balls of the weight of
two hundred pounds. Several discharged balls
of half a talent, or fifty pounds 3 weight ; while
there was one, which was the largest of all,
and which actually discharged stone balls of
the weight of three hundred pounds, and the
report of this cannon is said to have been so
loud as to shake all the country round to the
distance of forty furlongs ! When we reflect
upon such facts as these, and bear in mind
how very little there was as yet on the side of
the Christian armies to withstand such mighty
machines, we shall at once see how graphic
and appropriate is the symbolical language of
St. John, that this beast " wrought great won-
ders, so that he made even fire to come down
from heaven in the sight of men "
In the fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, and
seventeenth verses, St. John continues to de-
scribe the mighty achievements of this Turkish
beast, and he describes them in the same figu-
rative but appropriate language. Thus, in the
fourteenth verse, it is said " that he seduced
them that dwell on the earth ; " that is, that he
perverted to the Mahometan faith all those
whose " names were not written in the Book
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 165
of Life of the Lamb " . . . " saying to them that
dwell on the earth, that tJiey should make the
image of the beast that had the wound of the.
sword (UK! lived ;" that is, that all they who
were seduced into the Mahometan apostacy
by the great achievements of the Tartar Turks
should constitute that mighty Turkish empire
that was so lively an image of the Saracenic
Mahometan empire, that empire which these
very Turks had heretofore destroyed, while
their own conversion to the creed of Mahomet
had healed his deadly wound. And \vhen the
Prophet says, in the fifteenth verse, "And it
was given to him to give life to the image of ///<
beast, and that the image of the beast should
speak," he well describes what terrible life
and force these Turkish hordes imparted to
MahometaniMn, while the speaking of theiincn/c
aptly denotes the impious preaching of Maho-
metan blasphemy which the Turkish power, as
the image of the Saracenic empire, diffused
amongst so large a portion of mankind. And
when he says, " And he caused that whosoever
will not adore the image of the beast should be
ft/aifi," he well describes the bloody and im-
placable fury with which the Turks persecuted
to death all who refused to accept the religion
and polity of Mahomet ; so that, as the follow-
166 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
ing verse declares,, " He maketh all, both little
and great, rich and poor, freemen and bond-
men, to have a mark in their right hand or on
their forehead ; and that no man might buy or
sell, but he that hath the character or the name
of the beast, or the number of his name." All
these expressions aptly symbolize the conduct
and policy of the Turkish power. The giving
a mark to the right hand and to the forehead
signified the giving political power to the right
hand to wield, and of authority to the mind
for governing others ; while the right of buying
and selling symbolized the commoner rights
of citizenship and the subordinate political
privileges of ordinary subjects, which we know
from history were inexorably denied by Ma,-
hometanism to any but its own votaries, Chris-
tians and all other religionists being reduced
to the most abject slavery. Many authors
have shown that this prophecy has had even
a still more literal fulfilment, and explain it
of the Mahometan turban, while they appeal
to decrees of the Sultans actually forbidding
the right of commerce to any but Mahometans.
For my own part, however, I prefer the other
more general interpretation, inasmuch as it
agrees better with the general symbolical cha-
racter of St. John's prophecy.
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 167
The concluding verse of this chapter is most
remarkable, and it seems evidently designed by
St. John to give us an unmistakeable clue for
deciphering the name, and so for determining
who and what are the two beasts described,
and so closely identified together in this same
chapter.
"Here is wisdom," says St. John (v. 18),
" lie that hath understanding let him count the
nninlHT of the beast. For it is the number of
a man, and the number of him is six hundred
v and six."
As though he would say, "Here is some-
thing to exercise the ingenuity of the wise,
something whereon he, who is learned in the
Scriptures, and has studied the sacred and
mysterious symbols contained therein, may
vise himself in deciphering ; here is a clue
to enable him to discover the name that is
to distinguish the beast, or rather the
two beasts, which are here described as iden-
tical in their interests and their objects; and
the clue is to be found by deciphering the
number that spells the name of a man, who
shall be inseparably connected with the empires
and the system represented by these two beasts.
And the number that contains his name is the
number six hundred and sixty-six."
168 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
I have already had occasion, in a foregoing
chapter of this work, to give my interpretation
of this remarkable prophecy, and I have shown
that it relates to the name of Mahomet, and
that it has been already so explained, as Father
Salmeron assures us, in his " Prceludia in Apo-
calypsin" by various Byzantine Greek authors,
such as Cedrenus, Zonaras, and Euthymius :
and as this learned author, Father Salmeron
himself, adopts the same interpretation of the
beasts of this thirteenth chapter of the Apoca-
lypse, as referring to Mahomet, and the empires
that sprang from him, it is clear this inter-
pretation of the mystic numerals, 666, must be
also that which he himself adopts, although
he mentions, as I myself have already done,
other interpretations also. The Oxford friar,
Father Roger Bacon, has also adopted this
same interpretation ; and the learned Anglican,
Mr. Forster, affirms that, in his opinion, this
interpretation has higher claims to being the
correct one than any other advanced by other
commentators.
It must be borne in mind that the Apostle
expressly tell us that "it is the number of a
man/' consequently it seems clear that we
must seek for the solution of the mystic num-
ber in the name of a man, rather than of a
nation or of a system; hence, although the
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 169
following solution was given by so great an
authority as the blessed St. Irenseus :
A
SSB
30
a
=
1
T
=
300
==
5
1
=
10
v
==
50
=
70
C
=
200
= 666
I confess it is to me far from satisfactory, be-
cause the word Aar^voc is not the name of any
m nn recorded in history, but the general name
of a nation : now the Apostle says " it is the
number of a MAN/' not of a nation." How
thru can it be rightly interpreted of the Latin
nation ? Protestants very naturally have caught
at this interpretation coming from so great a
saint, who had seen those who had seen St. John :
they are ready enough to make much of the
fathers, when they seem to say anything that
favours their own theories ; but we all know in
what utter contempt they hold their testimony
on general subjects. On the other hand, I am
at a loss to understand how Protestant authors
can possibly deduce Pw^uO from 666. In
Greek numerals that word would give us a
170 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
sum, amounting to 969, which is unluckily too
large to serve the purpose sought by these
eager enemies of the papacy : and if they would
get it from Hebrew numerals, the reader must
recollect we have nothing to do with any but
Greek numerals.
But it is an historical fact that, since the
destruction of the Roman empire, two vast
empires have arisen on the broad platform of
the old empire of the Macedonian he-goat,
that these empires have done exactly what all
prophecy declared that they would do, that they
have literally fulfilled the descriptions of Daniel
and St. John : and it is no less a fact, that both
these empires have been identified with Ma-
homet. Now then let the reader weigh in con-
nection with this remarkable fact this equally
remarkable solution of the mystic number 666.
M
= 40
o
= 70
a
1
fji
= 40
e
= 5
r
= 300
i
= 10
C
= 200
= 666
In other words, 666 in Greek numerals gives
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 171
us the name of the MAN, Moa'jucrte, that is
Mahomet, the impious blasphemer, who pro-
claimed, that he was sent by God, as his last
and greatest prophet, and that his mission was
to overthrow the Church of Christ, and to put
in its plaer his own diabolical sect.
\Ve have thus far endeavoured to show the
agreement between the prophecy contained in
tin- thirteenth chapter of the Apocalypse, in
relation to the two beasts, and the history of
those two great empires, that have successively
upheld the religion of Mahomet. It remains
lor us to consider the objections that may be
made to this interpretation, and to refute them.
\Ye have already seen what is the interpreta-
tion of Protestant authors, such as the learned
ill-hop Newton, in reference to the first beast,
and that which he gives of the second beast is
in keeping with the former. As he believes
the first beast to be papal Rome in its secular
aspect, consisting of the various kingdoms, into
which the western empire was subdivided, so
he maintains that the second beast represents
papal Rome in its ecclesiastical aspect, con-
sisting of the clergy, regular and secular,
whom he supposes to be represented by the
two horns of a lamb, that grew out of the
head of that beast. But such interpreters
never reflect what is involved in their inter-
172 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
pretations; in their anxiety to justify their
own guilty separation from the Catholic and
Apostolic Church of Christ, they hesitate not
to adopt an interpretation of prophecy, which,
if it were really true, would overthrow Christi-
anity itself. For what becomes of Christianity,
if the Apostolic See, and all the Churches in
communion with it, could possibly constitute
the Antichristian power predicted by the
Apostle? Bishop Newton would include the
Greek, and other Oriental communions, in the
same anathema with those of the west, for, like
the Latin Church, the Eastern upholds the
same sacraments, the same adoration of Christ
in the Eucharist, the same invocation and
veneration of the blessed Virgin Mary and the
saints, the same devotion to images and relics,
and the same sacrifice of the Mass ; where, then,
does Bishop Newton look for his Christianity,
and his witnesses of Divine truth ? Either he
must confess that Christ's truth was totally
rooted out from the earth, or he must look for
it amongst a number of discordant sects, founded
at various epochs by persons who separated
from the Catholic Church in which they had
been baptized, and who agreed in nothing but
their common hatred of their Mother Church.
This alternative he adopts, but, by so doing, he
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 173
utterly destroys the visible continuity of the
Christian Church, her unity, and her univer-
sality ; and after slandering the faith of Chris-
tendom, and utterly misrepresenting its tenets,
he pins his own faith upon a few obscure men,
without mission from Christ or his Apostles,
who disagreed with each other in doctrine, and
held no communion with one another. And
yet all the while, as a consistent member and
bishop of the Anglican Church, this same
Bishop Newton must have held that he derived
his own mission and orders from Antichrist,
and that such mission and orders were neces-
sary for the valid administration of the Sacra-
ments of Christ ! Could absurdity go further ?
Catholics, however, who believe the Word of
Christ, that the gates of hell shall never prevail
against His visible Church, and that as our
Divine Master has commissioned His Church
to teach all nations, He must have guaranteed
Her from the possibility of teaching error,
Catholics, we say, can never regard with any
other feelings, than those of pity and horror,
such blasphemous interpretations of Divine
prophecy.
On the other hand, the interpretation, which
we have advanced, is consistent with what his-
tory records, with the fact that a great religious
174 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
and political system arose upon earth, the main
object of which was to uproot the Gospel, and
that this religious and political system was
upheld by two vast and most powerful empires,
which occupied the very territory, that all pro-
phecy foretold would be held by Antichrist,
and which certainly fulfilled to the letter, as
we have shown, all that prophecy said that
these powers would do. We, therefore, wind
up what we have to say upon this thirteenth
chapter of the Apocalypse with this conclusion,
either the Saracenic and Turkish empires have
fulfilled this prophecy, or it has never been
fulfilled. Either this is the fulfilment, and it
now belongs to the domains of past history, or
we must look forward to some future and still
more accurate fulfilment. But this alternative
is singularly unlikely, for the very preface of
the Apocalypse leads us to look for a speedy,
although a gradual accomplishment of the pro-
phecy; and when we reflect that it is now
more than eighteen centuries since the Apostle
wrote his revelation, and that at least these
great facts of history singularly accord with
the prophetic statements, we confess that we
at least cannot doubt that they are its fulfil-
ment, and that it is quite vain to expect or
wait for any other. In our next chapter we
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 175
shall examine the prophecies of Daniel, which
we believe relate also to these same Mahometan
powers, and these we shall regard with all the
more interest, because they seem to conduct
us to the end and destruction of this impious
system.
176 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
CHAPTER V.
PROPHECIES OF DANIEL RELATING TO MAHOMETANISM AND
THE FUTURE DESTRUCTION OF THE TURKISH EMPIRE.
LET us now turn our attention to the sublime
prophecies contained in the eleventh chapter
of the Prophet Daniel, ushered in as they are
by the magnificent and terrible description of
the angelic vision seen by this same holy
Daniel on the banks of the river Tigris. But
before we come to the substance of this re-
markable prophecy, let us pause for a moment
to observe one or two expressions of the in-
spired writer, which undoubtedly throw a great
light on the controversy which has unhappily
lasted so long between Catholics and Pro-
testants.
Now in the nineteenth, twentieth, and
twenty-first verses of the tenth chapter, we
find that the glorious angel, who had appeared
to Daniel on the banks of the Tigris, speaks of
a conflict he had with the prince of the Per-
sians, and that he also mentions the coming of
the prince of the Greeks, after which he adds
these remarkable words : " But I will tell thee
what is set down in the scripture of truth:
PROPHECIES CONCERNING
and none is my helper in all these things, but
Michael your prince : " that is, none is my
helper but the Archangel Michael, who is
" your prince" that is the prince y or guardian
anyel, of the Jewish people or Church of God.
Now it is impossible for even the most
superficial reader, not to remark in all these
words of Daniel, how completely he uses in
regard to angels all those same expressions,
which, when employed by Catholic writers in
reference to the Blessed Virgin Mary and the
saints, are at once charged with an idolatrous
tendency by our Protestant opponents. It is
not here the place to enter into the question,
how far it is proper to apply to the saints
expressions which Scripture applies to angels;
but this we will say, as angels are after all
creatures, not one whit less so than the
saints, if it be improper to attribute to the
latter (as Protestants affirm) any interference
or active agency in human affairs because they
are creatures, and such an attribute would
i to interfere with the prerogative of the
one Almighty Creator, it is quite clear that it
would be equally inconsistent to do so in the
case of the angels, they also being, like the
saints, mere creatures. But, on the other
hand, from these passages, and a large number
of others in sacred Scripture, it is quite clear
N
178 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
that such an active agency and interference in
human affairs is attributed to the angels : how
then can any man be justified in accusing the
Church of idolatry for attributing a similar
power and a similar office to our Blessed Lady
and the saints? Now even admitting, for the
sake of argument, that because such power is
attributed in Scripture to the angels, it does
not therefore follow that we have any right to
attribute similar powers to the saints, still it
would equally remain an absurdity to term it
idolatrous in us to do so : it might be gra-
tuitous, it might be unauthorised, but how
could it be idolatrous ?
On the other hand, when we see this mighty
power attributed by Scripture to the angels,
when we find one of the greatest angels appear-
ing to Daniel on the banks of the Tigris, and
distinctly telling him that he has been helped
in his endeavours to aid the Jewish people by
another angel, namely, the Angel Michael,
either we must conclude that such phraseology
is perfectly consistent with the supremacy of
the one true God, or that the Bible itself
teaches idolatry ; but, as we suppose no Pro-
testant would dare to accept the latter alter-
native, are we not justified in affirming that
the Catholic practice of invoking the prayers
and the assistance of God's saints is strictly in
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 179
analogy with the whole teaching of the Old
Testament in reference to angels ? Believing,
as the Gospel teaches us, that the saints of
God, when translated to paradise, are made
"like unto the angels" (Luke xx. 36), how
could the Catholic Church but conclude that
she must believe them to be invested with the
attributes of angels, and therefore with a
similar power of mediation and active inter-
;rc in the affairs of men?
I know that the force of this argument has
been endeavoured to be eluded by affirming
that whenever such power is attributed in
Scripture to angels, it is Christ, the second
person of the Blessed Trinity, elsewhere termed
in Scripture "the Angel of Great Counsel/'
that is intended, and not angels in the strict
sense of the term. But, then, this interpre-
tation is entirely gratuitous, contrary to the
plain meaning of Holy Writ, and only adopted
for the confessed and obvious purpose of meet-
ing a difficulty. Such an interpretation is
repugnant to the known interpretation of the
synagogue of old, as may be seen at length in
the learned writings of Rabbi Brack,* while
it contradicts that of the Primitive Church;
and in the present passage we have just quoted
* L'Harmonie entre 1'Eglise et la Synagogue. 12 yols.
8vo. Paris, 1844.
N2
180 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
from Daniel (x. 21), it would involve its up-
holder in the most ridiculous and illogical con-
tradictions. If the angel that appeared on
the banks of the Tigris was Christ, who was
Michael ? and if Michael was Christ, what will
the Protestant objector say to the mighty
assumptions of power claimed by the other
angel ? at least they could not both be Christ,
and one of them, at all events, must prove fatal
to the Protestant objection.
But to return from this digression to the
prophecy. It is the opinion of the learned
Protestant interpreter of prophecy, the great
Sir Isaac Newton, that the eleventh and twelfth
chapters of Daniel are a kind of commentary
on his eighth chapter ; and in this opinion
many very learned Catholic interpreters concur
with him. A work of great ability, published
at Paris in 1840, and dedicated to Pope Gre-
gory XVI., entitled, "La Fin des Temps,"
coincides with this view ; and although we
must confess that it is impossible to read the
eleventh chapter of Daniel and not to see that
the interpretation of it is involved in many
difficulties and great obscurity, still there are
parts of it which most evidently supply a com-
mentary on the prophecy of the Little Horn, as
given in the eighth chapter.
In discussing the bearings of this eleventh
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 181
chapter of Daniel upon Mahometan history,
we shall not enter into any historical disquisi-
tion concerning that part of it which all com-
mentators, whether Catholic or Protestant,
admit as referring to the immediate successors
of Alexander the Great, especially to Anti-
ochus Epiplmnes, such a disquisition being
foreign to our purpose ; but we shall at once
I on to that which they all equally agree
rs to Antichrist.
The thirty-fifth verse of the eleventh chapter
appears to wind up that portion of the prophecy
which more properly belongs to Alexander's
immediate successors, the Syrian kings on the
one hand, and the Egyptian kings on the other.
And it intimates a transition to another sub-
ject, to the history of another great monarch,
who was destined to arise and to reign upon
the suine platform or stage.
The transition is ushered in by these remark-
able words: "And some of the learned shall
fall, that they may be tried, and may be chosen,
and made white, even to the appointed time,
because yet there shall be another time." These
words are understood by commentators to refer
to the persecution of the servants of God
amongst the Jewish people, that took place
under the tyrannical government of Antiochus
Epiphanes ; and when the text tells us that
182 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
" some of the learned shall fall" it refers to
the martyrdom of the Maccabees, and that
gradual trial and preparation of the Jewish
Church that preceded and ushered in the ad-
vent of the Messiah, who appeared " at the
appointed time" And when it goes on to
add, "for yet there shall be another time" it
indicates, that as there was to be a time of
redemption and grace, when the Messiah
should redeem His people, so there should also
be afterwards " another time" or a time of
malediction and judgment, wherein Antichrist
should come to establish his false system and
empire in opposition to the kingdom of Christ.
And so the next verse (verse thirty-sixth) in-
troduces us at once to that terrible personage
whom the blessed St. Jerome, in his inter-
pretation, without hesitation pronounces to be
Antichrist. We have already demonstrated
who Antichrist is, that he is no other than
Mahomet, and we have also demonstrated
when he was to appear on earth, and if we
examine the description in the prophecy now
before us, we shall see how wonderfully it
agrees with what history records concerning
Mahomet.
" And the king shall do according to his
will;" that is, a king shall arise who shall do
all things according to his own strong and
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 183
impious will. The will of God he shall trans-
gress by setting up a new religion, which he
shall falsely pretend to be the revelation of
God Himself; " and he shall be lifted up."
What could be greater than the exaltation,
both temporal and spiritual, to which Mahomet
lifted himself? " He shall magnify himself
against every god" This he did, whether we
refer the expression "every god" to the hea-
then gods, against whose worship he declared
war, or whether we refer it to the temporal
ruin-sot' all other nations, against whom Maho-
met declared that he was sent to make war,
and to subdue them to his faith and to his
temporal dominion. (C And he shall speak great
////'////* (tf/tiit^t the God of gods" Now surely,
when we reflect on the blasphemies which Ma-
homet vomited forth against our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ, the God of gods, we
must at once admit that these words also were
most literally and wonderfully fulfilled in him.
"And he shall prosper till the wrath be accom-
plished ; " that is, the reign of Mahomet shall
continue until the anger of God against His
people, that is, the Jews, shall be accom-
plished, and until the anger of God against His
people, composed of the converted Gentiles,
shall have been appeased. But when this
happy day arrives, then shall Mahomet's pros-
184 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
perity cease, and his name shall be utterly
rooted out.
In the thirty-seventh verse, the Prophet con-
tinues his description of Antichrist : " And he
shall make no account of the God of his fathers."
This was fulfilled when Mahomet renounced
the worship of the true God, the ever adorable
Trinity in Unity, who was the God of his fore-
fathers (however little He was known or wor-
shipped by them) as He is the God of all the
earth, the only true God, blessed for evermore.
" And he shall follow the lust of women" Our
version, in this rendering of the sacred text,
follows the Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate ;
and it is not possible (admitting this to be the
accurate rendering of the original) to look for
a more accurate description of Mahomet or
Mahometanism. But the Anglican version
following the Hebrew text renders it thus :
" Neither shall he regard the God of his fa-
thers, nor the desire of women, nor regard any
God." And Bishop Newton, with his usual
hatred of Catholicity, and his dexterous inge-
nuity in turning the words of Scripture against
the Church of God, interpreting, as we do also,
this portion of Daniel's prophecy as relating to
Antichrist, applies it to what he considers to
be that Antichrist, namely, the assumed cor-
ruptions of the Greek and Latin Churches ;
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 185
and so he applies these words to the doctrine
of celibacy, and to that blessed and angelical
chastity which is the brightest gem in the
character of God's saints, and which entitles
them, as the blessed St. John declares, " to
fallow the Ldinh ir hither soever He goeth, for
these urc r//y////.s'." (Apocalypse xiv. 4.)
And yet Bishop Newton is forced to admit
that there is evidently some fault in the He-
brew text, and he owns his preference of the
Septuagint, although with an inconsistency
quite remarkable he substitutes a reading of
ln< own instead of both. But if even the
Hebrew reading, as followed by the Angliean.
Bible were correct, it appears to me that it
would only still more go to express the insa-
tiable lust of Mahomet and his followers; for
when it says that he shall make no account of
the desire of women, we are forcibly reminded
of a common expression in our own language,
which describes an extreme propensity to any
evil habit, or complete success in any under-
taking by a similar phrase. When we say that
a man " makes nothing " of drinking so many
bottles of wine, we do not mean to say that he
is a total abstainer from such a liquor, but
quite the contrary. So when the Hebrew text
says "that he shall not regard the desire of
women," it means that Mahomet would treat
186 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
women as if they were brute beasts, and not as
rational creatures, almost denying their future
existence, and representing them as the mere
slaves of man, and the instruments of his basest
passions ; while we are also carried on to the
contemplation of the unnatural lusts which it
is notorious are more freely indulged in by
Mahometans than by any other religionists.
But there is every reason to believe that the
reading given in the Vulgate, agreeing as it
does with the Septuagint, a version, which our
Lord Himself sanctioned, is a more accurate
rendering of the Divine original : and admitting
this, no one can for a moment doubt how lite-
rally Mahomet and his blasphemous system
have fulfilled the words of the sacred text.
"And he shall not regard any gods:" we
have already shown in what sense it is true,
that Mahomet " made no account of the God of
his fathers" that is, of the true God, we now
come to another feature of his system, which,
in one sense, may be said to be a good feature,
namely, his enmity to the polytheism of ido-
laters. " He shall not regard any God"* No
* In reference to this feature of Mahometanisra it is
remarkable, what I find referred to by the learned Jesuit
Father Salmeron, in his commentary on St. Paul's second
Epistle to the Thessalonians, torn. xvi. p. 391, that St. Cyril,
the Patriarch of Jerusalem, discoursing concerning Anti-
christ, uses these words : " Idola scilicet odio habiturus est
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 187
one can open the Koran, or its remarkable
commentary, the history of Mahometanism,
and not at once recognise the graphic portrait
of his religious system, which the sacred text
here gives us. There never was a system, true
or false, that proclaimed a more deadly war
than ^lahomctanismhas ever proclaimed against
the false gods of the heathen, or against any
representations, whether of sacred or profane
subjects. Mahometanism is essentially icono-
clastic, and it has done great things in rooting
out the gross polytheism of Pagan nations, and
yet we cannot say that the words of the text,
accurately as they portray this feature of Anti-
christ, convey any commendation upon him for
his hypocritical zeal in this matter. In fact,
what commendation is due to him who substi-
tutes one system of imposture for another ?
Antichristus, ut IPSE in templo Dei sedeat." And the
blessed St. Ephrsem, the Syrian, in his sermon on Anti-
christ, says of him, " quod aspernabitur Idola." While we
find that St. Irenaeus declared, that whereas St. Paul fore-
told of the Man of Sin, " that he would sit in the Temple of
God" that temple would be in the literal Jerusalem,
" Sedebit in Templo Dei, scilicet ffierosolymitano." (Irencei,
lib. 5.) And St. Hippolytus the Martyr, in his book De
Consummatione Mundi, declares, " Antichristum Hieroso-
lyinis suscitafurum templum lapideum." How wonderfully
was this fulfilled, when the mosque of Omar, the greatest of
Mahometan mosques, was erected on the very site of Solo-
mon's temple in this very Jerusalem !
188 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
The zeal of the Mahometan against heathen
gods and idols, was nothing but a change of
tactics on the part of the Evil Spirit. Satan
had seen his dominion over mankind notably
impaired by the successful preaching of the
Gospel ; idolatry had been rooted out of vast
continents, and the knowledge of the one true
God had been everywhere diffused; as the
Psalmist had foretold, " the sound' 3 of the
Apostles " had gone forth into all lands," and
the result had been, what our blessed Saviour
described, "I beheld Satan," said our Lord,
" like lightning falling from heaven," that is,
from his usurped dominion in the mystic
heaven. Under such circumstances, it was
quite natural that Satan, in his last and greatest
effort to regain that usurpation, should have
recourse to some new expedient, suited to the
exigencies of the moment. Idolatry was every-
where discredited, and so in ushering into ex-
istence the Alcoran of the False Prophet, and
his attempt to supplant the faith of Christ by
the creed of Antichrist, he simulated a won-
derful zeal for the unity of the Godhead, and
an inextinguishable hatred for the superstitions
of polytheism. But alas ! the zeal and the
hatred were alike hypocritical ; it was an angel
of darkness in the garb of an Angel of Light,
from whose inspirations they sprang : Satan
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 189
would fain rob Jesus Christ of the glory of
having subjugated idolatry, and under pretence
of zeal for the unity of God, he denied the
ever blessed and adorable Trinity, in whose
name Christ had commanded all men to be
baptized, and on the throne of the everlasting
Godhead lie raised himself: for it is Satan,
not the true Triune God of revelation, that
Ifahometanism adores. It is Satan simulating
the true God, " similis ero Altissimo" as the
Prophet had foretold of him. Heretofore he
had substituted idols in place of the true God,
now he substitutes himself: how naturally,
then, does this fact bring us to the concluding
words of the thirty-seventh verse, " For he shall
rise up against all things" The Alcoran sub-
verted every existing system, whether true or
1'aUe. It subverted truth, to make way for
falsehood ; it subverted all pre-existing false-
hoods to make way for a new, a greater, and a
more destructive falsehood, than any that had
ever heretofore deceived the children of men.
And now the Prophet goes on to describe
the character of this falsehood, and so he rouses
the attention of the reader by the emphatic
use of the word " But." " But,", says Daniel,
" he shall worship the god Maozim in his place ;
and a god whom his fathers knew not, shall he
worship with gold, and silver, and precious
190 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
stones, and things of great price. And he shall
do this to fortify Maozim with a strange god,
whom he hath acknowledged, and he shall in-
crease glory, and shall give them power over
many, and shall divide the land gratis."
In these words, we have the prediction of
the characteristic features of Mahometanism,
the very name of its Liturgic symbols, and of
its palmy prosperity and possession of the fairest
provinces of the earth.
" He shall worship the god Maozim" What
is Maozim? St. Jerome informs us that
" Maozim," or " Mahuzzim," as Bishop New-
ton writes it after the Hebrew, signifies
<( strongholds," "forces" Now, the god of
Mahomet was emphatically a god of forces, of
strongholds, of physical force : his implement,
both for extending his spiritual and temporal
dominion, was one and the same instrument,
the sword. Not the sword of the Spirit, but
that sword of which Jesus Christ had declared,
" Put up again the sword into its place, for all
that take the sword shall perish by the sword.*
Now, Mahomet's god was the god of the sword,
even the god Maozim, or, as the Hebrews read
it, the god Mahuzzim.
And who is so blind, as not to see further in
this remarkable word, whether the " Maozim "
* Matthew xxvi. 52.
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 191
of the Septuagint, or the " Mahuzzim " of the
Hebrew, a still more remarkable and wonderful
coincidence betwmi it and the name of the
False Prophet ? Write it Mahomet, Mohammed,
or Muhammed, it cannot fail to remind us of
Maozim and Mahuzzim. And if we would
pursue such coincidences a little further, we
may find an equally striking one between the
Maozim and Mahuzzim of the Prophet, and
the Mt/cz^'rtn* of the Mahometan mosques.
This coincidence had often struck the writer
of this treatise, but he was glad to find that it
is recognised and enforced by the learned author
of a very remarkable French work on Prophecy,
" La Fin des Temps" to which the reader has
been already referred ; in page xiii of his Pre-
face it is emphatically alluded to, as also in
the body of that learned work. And if the
reader will procure that work, he will see how
ably the writer treats it.
Bishop Newton, as usual, endeavours to turn
the word to his own purpose, which, we need
not say, is one hostile to Catholicity. Accord-
ing to him, Mahuzzim signifying forces or
fortifications, and Antichrist signifying the
pope, as in the Greek and Latin Churches
* The Muezzim amongst the Mahometans are criers, who
ascend the minarets of their mosques to call the people to
pray to the God of Mahomet.
192 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
saints and angels are sometimes mystically
saluted, as the spiritual forces that encamp
around the children of God, or as the forti-
fications and bulwarks of the city of God (in
our humble judgment, a very appropriate as
well as a very poetical phrase in their regard) ,
the " worship of the God Maozim " signifies
the worship of God joined with that of media-
torial saints and angels.
But, unfortunately for Bishop Newton's in-
terpretation, while it is obviously neither a
literal nor a direct one, it militates quite as
much against Scripture, as it does against
Catholicism.
Does not Scripture inform us that God
" has given His angels charge over us to keep
us in all our ways?" (Psalm xc. 11.) Do we
not read in the thirty-third Psalm, at the
eighth verse, the following words, " The angel
of the Lord shall encamp round about them
that fear Him ; and shall deliver them " ? And
not to multiply quotations, is not the Bible
from beginning to end literally filled with
statements of a similar nature concerning
these blessed spirits ; statements that assuredly
give full warrant to the Catholic Church to
salute them, as she does, as the guardians
and protectors of men, under the overruling
Providence and Sovereignty of God? And if
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 193
Scripture justifies such expressions in reference
to the angels, it also justifies them equally in
reference to the blessed saints reigning with
Christ in glory. Is it not our Lord Himself,
who tells the faithful soul of His servant, as he
welcomes it to the joys of Paradise, " Well done,
thfjic good and faithful servant, became thou hast
been faithful in a little, thou shall have power
ten rifles' 9 ? (Luke xix. 17.) Then let
Bishop Newton write as he pleases about the
blasphemy of the Church in accepting the
declaration of her Divine Master, and in re-
cognising the blessed angels and saints as the
patrons and guardians of men, as the protectors
ami rulers of cities and provinces, his heretical
interpretations are silenced by the Gospel of
Christ, and in spite of his sneers, England will
still be, what she was, the dowry of Mary, the
kingdom of St. George ; and France, and Spain,
ami Italy, and Russia, and Greece will con-
tinue to recognise their patron saints and their
guardian angels, when the heresy of Luther
and Newton shall be forgotten, and their de-
scendants shall have returned to the faith of
their forefathers, the Catholic faith !
He then who was predicted by Daniel to
"worship the God Maozim in his place" is
Mahomet, not the pope; and "Maozim" re-
o
194 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
presents the evil forces of Mahometanism, not
the invisible bulwarks of the city of God.
And when the Prophet tells us that this
God, is a God " whom his fathers knew not"
he refers to that, which we have already pointed
out, that the god of Mahomet is not the true
God, but a god invented by his own imagi-
nation, inspired as it was by Satan. The true
God had already revealed Himself to man, as
One God in Three Persons, a Trinity of Per-
sons in the Unity of one nature and substance.
This revelation of God Mahomet impiously
denied, and he substituted for it a creation of
his own. The god therefore of Mahomet is
not the God of Revelation, but a false god,
and when we examine in the Alcoran the
character of this god, as He reveals himself in
that impious book both in his commands and
in what he permits, it is clear that this god is
no other than Satan himself, as I have already
said in reference to one of the preceding verse s
of this same chapter.
But the Prophet continues, "And he shall
worship him with gold and silver, and precio us
stones, and things of great price." In these
words the Prophet emphatically predicts two
of the most remarkable features of Maho-
metanism : the first is the personal unity of the
God it worships, " he shall worship Him ;" and
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 195
the second is the magnificence of the places in
which it worships him. All travellers concur
in their description of the wonderful splendour
of the Mahometan temples or mosques. It is
scarcely possible to conceive anything to sur-
pass them in grandeur or richness of decoration.
They are resplendent with gold and silver, with
the most costly marbles and alabaster, with all
sorts of precious stones and woods of great
price. The Alliambra in its ruins fills the
Christian traveller with wonder and admiration,
while the mosques of Cairo and Mecca, along
with innumerable others, realise all the grandest
descriptions of the Arabian Nights. In the
single city of Cairo there are no fewer than
seven hundred mosques, and some of them of
vast dimensions. Well might the Prophet add,
" And he shall do this to fortify Maozim with a
strange God, whom he hath acknowledged."
For it' anything could fascinate the imagination
of a people, he at least has made use of it for
that purpose.
And when, in the thirty-ninth verse of this
same eleventh chapter, Daniel winds up his
prophecy of Mahomet by saying, "he shall
divide the land gratis," he tells us, what his-
tory bears him out in witnessing, that the land,
namely the Holy Land, the land flowing with
milk and honey, and those other fair lands,
o2
196 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
that next to Palestine emphatically merited
the appellation of THE LAND, for they were the
fairest and most fertile provinces of the earth,
were to become his prey : and so contemp-
tuously would he treat them, that he would
divide them gratis, as if they were worth
nothing, to his rapacious followers.
And worth nothing have all these noble lands
become beneath the blighting influence and the
desolating sway of Mahometanism. Read what
all travellers tell you of all the lands beneath
the sceptre of Mahometanism, of their de-
plorable degradation, and then judge what the
gratuitous division of them by Antichrist has
wrought !
Think what Greece, what Asia Minor, what
Palestine and Egypt, what Persia and Armenia
were in old times, under the benignant in-
fluences of the old Greek and Roman civili-
zation on the one hand, and of Christianity on
the other ; think of the glorious and splendid
cities, of the cultivation that made that vast
portion of the earth one garden, of the in-
fluence of the Church, that studded it over
with churches and monasteries, and with a
progeny of innumerable saints in all ranks of
men, and you will be better able to estimate
the work of physical and moral destruction
achieved by the Man of Sin, and what was
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 197
meant by the Prophet, when he foretold the
division of this land amongst his barbarian
satellites !
But it is enough ; the devil himself could do
nothing worse ; and it is time that God should
interpose to bring such a desolation to an end.
And so the Prophet now turns to a brighter
theme, and a more cheering prospect.
" And at the time prefixed" says the Holy
Ghost by the mouth of Daniel, " the King of
the South shall fight against him" Now who is
the King of the South ? The south is a rela-
tive term ; what is south of one place may be
north of another ; when, therefore, the Prophet
talks of the King of the South, he may refer to
a kin^ who should reign over lands to the south
of that land where the Prophet saw his vision,
or he may mean to the south of the country
which he immediately afterwards characterizes
as " the north" over which would reign " the
King of the North" or to the south of the land
over which Antichrist himself should reign.
Now we must observe that Daniel ushers in
this consoling prophecy by saying " at the time
prefixed" that is, the time prefixed for Anti-
christ's destruction, in other words, towards the
latter end of the 1260 years, which were pre-
fixed for the continuance of his dominion. At
that time the " King of the South shall fight
198 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
against him ; " that is, a king who shall rule
over what is to the south of that other terri-
tory which is characterized in the same pro-
phecy as the dominion of the King of the
North.
Now it is a fact, whatever be the relations
between Mahometanism and this prophecy, that
we are not far off from the conclusion of the
twelve hundred and sixtieth year of Mahometan
history. And it is equally a fact, that not-
withstanding the disgraceful jealousies of the
Christian powers, a kingdom has been created
in the south of Europe, the very existence of
which is a triumph over Mahometanism the
kingdom of Greece. In Africa, still further
south, the French nation have wrested another
large territory from the Mahometan dominion,
the vast province of Algeria, and no one can
doubt that the same noble power threatens the
existence of the empire of Morocco.
What then Daniel foresaw the nineteenth
century has accomplished. The King of the
South has fought against Mahomet. But it is
not in the south alone that Mahomet is to
suffer, " The King of the North shall come
against him like a tempest, with chariots, and
horsemen, and a great navy, and he shall enter
into the countries, and shall destroy, and shall
pass through. And he shall enter into the
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 199
f/lorious land, and many shall fall, and these
only shall be saved out of his hand, Edom, and
Moab, and the principality of the children of
Ammon. And he shall Jay his hand upon the
lands, and the land of Egypt shall not escape.
And he shall have power over the treasures of
yolil, and of allrt-r, and all the precious things
of Egypt ; and he shall pass through Lybia and
Ethiojt'm. And /i'/ifif/s out of the East and out
of the North shall trouble him : and he shall
come with a great multitude to destroy and slay
And he shall fix his tabernacle Apadno
the seas, upon a glorious and holy
mountain : and he shall come even to the summit
thereof, and no man shall aid him."
In these remarkable words does the Prophet
foretell the utter destruction of Mahometanism,
and we here find that this great work is to be
achieved by a potentate whom Daniel desig-
nates as " the King of the North/'
It is evident that this prophecy has not yet
been accomplished, it still remains to be
fulfilled. Its accomplishment may have com-
menced, but we may not live to see its comple-
tion. One great northern potentate, the Rus-
sian Emperor, has already been at war with
the representative of the False Prophet. When
Russia conquered the Crimea and other pro-
vinces bordering on the Black Sea, the inroads
200 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
of the King of the North evidently com-
menced. The prophecy tells us where they
will end, not until the King of the North is
master of the whole Turkish empire, with all
its feudal dependencies enumerated in the text.
The King of the North will make himself
master of all that Turkey reigns over, "save
only Edom, and Moab y and the principality of
the children of Amman" That portion of the
Turkish empire, for some reason decreed by
God, will escape the grasp of the Northern
Eagle. But Palestine, and Egypt, and Lybia,
and Ethiopia will witness the passage of his
victorious troops. His course, however, will
not be one of uninterrupted victory ; " tidings
out of the East and out of the North " are to
trouble him ; his armies may sustain a tem-
porary check from Asiatic tribes on the one
hand, or the more northern portion of his
dominions may receive a shock from the suc-
cessful aggression of hostile powers, jealous of
his increasing empire. But the Prophet warns
us that the fate of Mahometanism is sealed ;
" the King of the North " " shall come with a
great multitude to destroy and slay many. And
he shall fix his tabernacle Apadno between the
seas, upon a glorious and holy mountain : and
he shall come even to the summit thereof, and
no man shall help him" Such, if it may be
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 201
permitted to express an intimate conviction of
the meaning of prophecy, is the wonderful
destiny of this great northern potentate. I
hazard no predictions of my own ; I fix no
dates, but no man can arrest the onward
course of time, or gainsay the decrees of the
Almighty.
The Kin of the North, when the hour marked
from all eternity has arrived, will fix his taber-
nacle, Apadno, that is, his royal palace (for
such is the force of the Hebrew term), between
the seas, upon a glorious and holy mountain,
that is, as an Anglican writer, Forster, has
clearly demonstrated,* at Constantinople. It
is true, that that learned and interesting writer
takes a totally different view from myself upon
the prophecies in question ; but that the glorious
and holy mountain between the seas signifies
Constantinople, he entertains no doubt what-
ever. Nor do I ; and sooner or later I believe
the King of the North will reign in that im-
perial city, and rescue the ancient churches of
Oriental Christendom from the dominion of
Antichrist. But it is clear from the language
of the Prophet that this great achievement
will be the result of the immense exertions of
the King of the North, single-handed, and un-
aided by other powers ; for the Scripture con-
* Mahometanism Unveiled, vol. i. 297. London, 1829.
202 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
eludes the prediction of it with these significant
words, " And no man shall aid him." That is,
he shall achieve it in spite of the opposition he
may encounter from all other powers.
It is not for us to discuss the diplomatic
questions connected with the present struggle,
which France and England have entered into
in order to uphold the Turkish empire in its
integrity, a purpose, which they declare to be
essential to the balance of power in Europe.
We have nothing to do with such questions,
when attempting to interpret the predictions of
prophecy. This attempt we lay before our
readers, not because it exhibits what English
politicians might desire, but because we consci-
entiously believe it to be the only one consistent
with the prophetic statement itself. And much
as others may deprecate the ascendancy of
Russia over the Turkish provinces referred to
in the prophecy, and deeply as we feel the duty
that loyalty to our sovereign imposes upon us,
we at least can descry no necessarily evil con-
sequences for the future of our own beloved
country from such a result. Why should
England decline, because Russia eventually
subdued Turkey, any more than that destruc-
tion should have ensued to Russia, or to
Austria, from the Anglo-British conquest of
Hindostan ? We believe that there never was
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 203
a more absurd chimera than the diplomatic
nonsense we so often hear about the balance of
power : but be this as it may, and although
some may shudder at the thought, it seems
most clearly foretold in this prophecy, that the
Turkish empire is to be devoured by the Great
Northern Eagle.
204 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
CHAPTER VI.
PROPHECIES RELATING TO EVENTS CONTEMPORANEOUS WITH,
AND SUBSEQUENT TO, THE BREAKING UP OP THE TURKISH
EMPIRE.
WE now come to the twelfth chapter of Daniel,
and of this we must say, that in all this sub-
lime book, there is nothing more sublime.
In the eleventh chapter, the Prophet con-
cludes his predictions, which relate to the four
great Gentile monarchies. In this chapter, he
brings us to the glorious period of the Church
of God; to the period of the restoration of
Israel. This event he ushers in with these
words : " But at that time shall Michael rise
up, the great prince, who standeth for the
children of thy people; and a time shall come,
such as never was from the time that nations
began even until that time."
" And at that time shall thy people be saved,
every one that shall be found written in the
Book." All interpreters agree that this pro-
phecy refers to the future conversion of the
Jewish people, while it also fixes the period of
this blessed event. It shows to us, that after
the destruction of the Mahometan empire has
been accomplished by the successful inroads of
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 205
the King of the South, followed up by the still
more overwhelming aggressions of the King of
the North, then Michael the archangel shall
interpose for the conversion of the Jewish
people. Here, again, we cannot fail to remark
what power is attributed in Scripture to the
angels of God, and how thoroughly such state-
ments of Holy Writ justify the belief and
practice of the Catholic Church in reference to
these blessed spirits. It seems probable, from
many passages in Scripture, that the Jews will
have been brought back to Palestine by Anti-
christ previous to his destruction, and previous
to their own conversion, and this also appears
to be handed down by the tradition of the
Church. Now, as we believe that we have
demonstrated Antichrist to be Mahomet, and
the Mahometan empire to be the kingdom of
Antichrist, we should naturally expect that the
restoration of the Jews to Palestine in their
unconverted state will be the work of some
Turkish Sultan. Now, what is more probable,
humanly speaking, than that the present Sultan
in his struggle with that great northern poten-
tate, the Russian Emperor, should have recourse
to the Jews for a loan? The Jews are the
great money-lenders of the earth : it is they
who make bondsmen of all the Christian kings
and emperors, and if they advance a loan to
206 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
the Sultan suitable to his present emergency,
they will assuredly demand some solid guarantee
in return. It is a remarkable fact, that while
I am writing, the rumour has gone forth that a
great Jewish capitalist has offered a loan, for
any amount required, to the Sultan, on con-
dition of a mortgage on Palestine, and it is
also currently reported that the Jews are col-
lecting vast sums for the work of rebuilding
the Temple of Jerusalem. Be all this as it
may, the declaration of Daniel is unmistake-
able, that the Archangel Michael will stand up
for the conversion of the Jewish people at the
very time when the Turkish empire shall fall
before the victorious arms of the King of the
North. And when the Prophet adds the words
quoted above, (f And a time shall come such as
never was from the time that nations began even
until that time:" he may refer either to the
dreadful conflict that is to usher in the destruc-
tion of Mahometanism, or he may refer to the
unprecedented peace and prosperity that are to
ensue after it. We trust these words refer
rather to the latter : but of this we may feel
sure, that the peace and prosperity of the glo-
rious period will be preceded by calamities of
the most terrible kind, for prophecy is most
explicit upon this head. Our Saviour distinctly
tells us, that before the conversion of the Jews,
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 207
there will be a period so dreadful, that " unless
it were shortened, no flesh should be saved"
but He presently adds, that " For the sake of
the elect, those days shall be shortened"
(Matt. xxiv. 22.) Now it will be well to exa-
mine a little, what Scripture tells us about
tliis terrible conflict. It seems to hold a con-
spicuous place in all the predictions of the
prophets. We read of it in Daniel, in the
Psalms of David, in Isaiah, in Ezckiel, in
Michcus, in Osce, in Joel, in Amos and Zacha-
rias, in Sophonias and Malachias, in the Epistles
of St. Paul, and the Apocalypse of St. John.
We will not dwell at length upon these terrible
ictions, but we will briefly state our opinion
concerning the principal ones that refer to this
miirhty conflict that is to precede the conversion
and restoration of Israel.
It seems to me, that the destruction of the
metallic statue seen in the vision of Nabucho-
dunozor (Dan. ii.), which takes place, when
struck on its feet by the little stone cut out of
the mountain without hands, exactly corre-
sponds with the destruction of the great Baby-
lon of the Apocalypse. (Apoc. xviii. 21.) We
there read these remarkable words : " And a
mighty angel took up a stone, as it were a great
millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, With
such violence as this shall Babylon, that great
208 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
city, be thrown down, and shall be found no more
at all. 33 How perfectly does this description
correspond with that of the Prophet Daniel.
(Dan. ii. 34, 35.)
" Thus thou sawest, till a stone was cut out
of a mountain without hands : and it struck the
statue upon the feet thereof, that were of iron
and clay, and brake them in pieces. Then was
the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the
gold broken to pieces together, and became like
the chaff of a summer's thrashing-floor, and
they were carried away by the wind : and there
was no place found for them" And then pre-
sently the Prophet adds : " But the stone that
struck the statue became a great mountain, and
filled the whole earth 33
Now I believe the Babylon of the Apoca-
lypse, and Nabuchodonozor's metallic statue in
Daniel, represent the same thing. And what
is that ? They represent, as I think, the whole
secular organization of mankind from the very
beginning of nations, until the period when the
Catholic Church is to assume her grandest
development, and to take possession of that
universal dominion which is promised to her.
The destruction of Daniel's metallic statue
is succeeded by the establishment of the king-
dom of the stone cut out of the mountain
without hands ; and the destruction of the
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 209
Apocalyptic Babylon is succeeded by the
chanting of hymns both in heaven and on
earth, saying : " Alleluia : for tJie Lord our
God the Almighty hath reiyned. Let us be
(/lad and rejoice, and give glory unto Him : for
the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His
Bride huth prepared Herself."
What is figured in Daniel by the stone cut
out without hands becoming a great mountain,
and filling the whole earth, is figured in the
Apocalypse by the proclamation of the reign
of the Almighty, by the marriage of the Lamb,
and the adornment of His Bride.
The kingdom of the stone cut out without
hands signifies the Church of Christ and her
kingdom. The Bride of the Lamb is undoubt-
edly the Church of Christ, and the adornment
of this Bride signifies the glory and prosperity
of the Catholic Church that is to ensue on the
breaking up of the present secular organiza-
tion of the earth, that is, on the destruction of
Babylon. And as the metallic statue of Da-
niel figured the great empires that were suc-
cessively to preside over the secular organiza-
tion of the earth, so did Babylon (Apocalypse
xvii. 9 12), seated on seven mountains, repre-
sent the same secular organization of mankind
enthroned on its seven principal seats. When
St. John saw his vision, the angel told him
p
210 AX INQUIRY INTO THE
that five of these heads or mountains were
already fallen ; and these five that had passed
awav were the five first great monarchies :
1. The Egyptian; 2. The Ninivite, or Assy-
rian; 3. The Babylonian, or the Chaldean ;
4. The Medo-Persian ; 5. The Grecian; and
" one" said the angel, " now is ; " and this
was the Roman empire that ruled mankind
when St. John wrote the Apocalypse ; and
then the angel added, " and the other," viz.,
the seventh mountain or head, "is not yet
come" And this seventh was to be the king-
dom of Antichrist, viz., that of Mahomet,
which was to arise, as we have already shown,
when the Roman empire was removed. Of
this kingdom, said the angel, "when he is
come he must remain a short time," that is,
a short time in comparison with eternity, or
with the whole duration of the seven empires
of the mystic Babylon. But besides theso
seven empires ten kings are also mentioned,
and these correspond to the ten toes of the
feet of Daniel's metallic statue, and they re-
present the ten kingdoms into which the
Roman empire (which is Daniel's fourth em-
pire, and St. John's sixth empire) was to be
subdivided ; while we know from Daniel that
three of these kingdoms were to be incor-
porated into the empire of Mahomet, that is,
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 211
of the Little Horn, or of Antichrist, which is
the same as the seventh empire of St. John.
" But the beast which was, and is not " (Apoc.
xvii. 2), that is, the beast which in one part of
the Apocalyptic vision was beheld in all its
rampant vitality, but which now " is not," that
is, now is destroyed, being utterly ruined by
the overthrow of the mystic Babylon, " is the
cif/h/h, and is of the seven" By these mys-
terious words, it seems to me that the Apostle,
or rather the angel who speaks to him, means
that the beast, taken in its totality, and com-
pounded of these seven several empires, did
itself constitute one great whole, which he calls
( the fit/lit h" because it represented the sum
total of humanity, viewed in its one single
aspect; whereas, when viewed in detail, it con-
el of seven distinct empires, under whose
governing control mankind was successively
divided. " This beast," says the angel, " goeth
Into destruction," that is, the secular organiza-
tion of mankind shall one day be superseded
by a better organization, viz., by the great
dominion of the Catholic Church. Now what
do we understand by this ? Do we mean to
say that in the glorious period of the Church's
reign there will be no more earthly rulers, no
more kings and emperors ? Far from it, we
believe the very reverse, but in those blessed
212 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
days kings and emperors will rule, not accord-
ing to the principles of Babylon, but according
to those of the City of God. We firmly believe
that they will then hold their crowns in very
deed from the successor of St. Peter, the vicar
of Christ Jesus, and that what in the middle
ages was done by a few pious kings, will then
be done by all the kings of the earth. We
believe that when the Jews shall have been
restored to their own land, and converted to
the faith of Him whom they crucified, they
will turn to the vicar of Christ Jesus to receive
them into that Church, and to reign over them.
All kings and nations will then do homage to
the Apostolic See, and the pope, father of the
Gentile nations, as well as of the converted
Jews, will rule over the earth, and gather the
peoples of the earth into one happy sheepfold.
Then will the nations beat their swords into
ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-
hooks ; then will the weapons of war and the
implements of defence be burnt with fire, for
our Lord will then put an end to all war.
(Psalm xlv. 911.) "Be still, and see that I
am God ; I will be exalted amongst the nations,
yea I will be exalted over all the earth"
But what is to usher in this glorious pacifi-
cation, this wonderful prosperity of the human
race, this perfection of civilization, this uni-
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 213
versal diffusion of true religion and vital godli-
ness? We answer, without hesitation, the con-
version of the Jewish people. And this is what
Daniel foretells in the chapter we are now con-
sidering, the twelfth chapter. And what Daniel
foretells is foretold by all the prophets, and by
Jesus Christ, the King of Prophets. " Jerusa-
li-ut" says our Lord, "shall be trodden down
by the Gentiles, UNTIL the times of the Gentiles
he fnl filled: 3 And "at that time," says the
angel to Daniel, " shall thy people be saved,
every one that shall be found written in the
Book," that is, in the Book of God's Predesti-
nation. r lh is corresponds with what St. Paul
assures us of in his Epistle to the Church of
Home (Rom. xi. 25, 26) : " For I would not have
you ignorant, brethren, of this mystery, that
blindness in part hath happened in Israel, until
the fulness of the Gentiles should come in : and
so a/I Israel shall be saved, as it is written, There
shall come out of Sion, he that shall deliver, and
he shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob"
And as St. Paul a little before had said
(Rom. xi. 15), "For if the loss of them," that
is, the apostasy of the Jews from Christ, " be
the reconciliation of the world," that is, the
occasion of the preaching of the faith to the
Gentiles, " what shall the receiving of them be,
but life from the dead?" that is, what shall
214 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
their future conversion to Christ be, but the
occasion of the spiritual resurrection of the
whole earth ?
Can anything be more consoling than these
prophecies of sacred Scripture ? What a happy
prospect they hold out before us ! If these
grand events are to be preceded by woes and
tribulations, we know from the same prophecies
that these will be of short duration, whereas
the glorious period of the Church, during which
St. John tells us that Satan will be bound in
chains, is to last for the space of a thousand
years. (Apoc. xx. 2.)
Now, whether this period is to continue for
a thousand literal years, or not, we cannot tell.
But there is every reason to believe that it will
be a very long period ; and some persons have
thought that it might last even for three hun-
dred and sixty thousand years. But this is a
question into which we abstain from entering ;
we content ourselves with the belief that its
duration will be worthy of the goodness of
God, and a fitting compensation to the Catholic
Church, even here upon earth, for all her pre-
vious trials, sorrows, and persecutions.
Some persons have thought that the second
advent of our blessed Redeemer would precede
this binding of Satan, and this glorious period
of the Church's earthly triumph. And most
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 215
able are the treatises that have been written
upon this great question : there is one in par-
ticular, from the pen of my learned and excel-
lent friend, tho very Reverend Dr. Pagani,
provincial of the Order of Charity in this king-
dom, which, by his kindness, I have been per-
mitted to see in manuscript, and I cannot but
here express my earnest desire to see it in print
-with as little delay as possible. There are,
however, other commentators, who hold that
our Lord's second advent will follow, not pre-
cede, the binding of Satan, and that it will not
take place till after the final apostasy of man-
kind, foretold by St. John as ensuing upon the
future loosing of Satan at the end of the glo-
rious period.
Be this as it may, it seems clear, from the
twentieth chapter of the Apocalypse, no less
than from the twelfth chapter of Daniel, that
there will be a resurrection of many of the
nits of God, just before the commencement
of the glorious period : and St. John calls this
" the first resurrection" This event does not
appear at all improbable, when we reflect that
already many saints of the old law have arisen
with their bodies, as we read in the twenty-
seventh chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel, and
the fifty-second verse, "And the graves were
opened, and many bodies of the saints that had
216 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
slept arose, and coming out of the tombs after
His resurrection, came out of the holy city, and
appeared unto many. 33 And it is the universal
belief of the Catholic Church, that this privi-
lege was also granted to our Blessed Lady,
who, as St. John Damascene assures us, rose
from the dead on the third day after her de-
cease. It does not, therefore, appear in any
degree improbable, that as St. John seems to
tell us in his Apocalypse, the martyrs and prin-
cipal saints will rise with their glorified bodies
at the commencement of the glorious period of
the Church. And this certainly agrees with
the statement we have just quoted from Daniel :
" And many of those, that sleep in the dust of
the earth, shall awake, some unto life everlasting,
and otJiers unto reproach"
It may be, that some such miracle as this
may be made use of by Almighty God for the
conversion of the Jews ; and, I confess, I think
this is highly probable.
There are, however, other interpretations
that are given by orthodox men to this predic-
tion of Holy Writ. They say it may refer to
the solemn canonization of saints, when their
sacred bodies are exhumed from the tombs, and
placed upon the altars of the Living God.
This honouring of their sacred relics is un-
doubtedly a sort of anticipated resurrection,
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 217
still I confess that I prefer the other interpre-
tation, which seems to me more in accordance
with the obvious meaning of Scripture. Be-
sides, the canonization of saints has always
been going on in the Church, and the placing
of their sacred relics on the altars has been in
use even since the very days of St. Poly carp, as
we may learn from the epistle of the Church of
Smyrna, which recounts the martyrdom of that
holy bishop. How, then, could the canoniza-
tion of saints be the distinguishing mark of the
commencement of the thousand years' triumph
of the Church of God ? But take the first re-
surrection in the obvious sense of the term,
and you have an event at once worthy of God,
and of the magnificent epoch it is destined to
inaugurate.
In the fourth verse, we read these remarkable
words: "But thou, O Daniel, shut up the
words, and seal the Book, even to the appointed
time : many shall pass over, and knowledge
shall be manifold." From these words we may
surely gather, that until near upon the time of
their accomplishment, these prophecies would
remain hidden and sealed up, that is, uninter-
preted or misinterpreted; but that towards
" the appointed time " a new and lively interest
would be called forth in their regard ; and the
Prophet gives us a sign of when that period
218 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
should arrive by telling us, that at that time
" many shall pass over, and knowledge shall be
manifold."
Now, could we have a more striking predic-
tion of what so remarkably characterizes the
century we are living in ? If there be one
feature more than another that distinguishes
it from all its predecessors, it surely is that
most wonderful increase of communication be-
tween the most distant parts of the earth, and
the most distant nations. The application of
steam to locomotion has, as it were, annihilated
distance, and the whole human race seems bent
on passing from one country to another ; while
the other fact is no less remarkably fulfilled,
" and knowledge shall be manifold."
Was there ever an age in which human
knowledge was so diversified, and so generally
diffused ? It would be useless to enlarge upon
such a fact as this ; it is an unmistakeable ful-
filment of the Prophet's words, and no one
would call it in question; its existence is the
boast of the nineteenth century.
But if this be so, what else can we conclude
but that we are close upon the wonderful period
announced by the Prophet, and that, if our
days are spared a little longer, we may very
probably witness the tremendous conflict of all
the secular powers, so often predicted by the
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 219
prophets, as well as the commencement of the
blessed period that is to ensue afterwards ? In
the sixth verse (Dan. xii. 6), Daniel himself
n-ks the question, " How long shall it be to the
end of these wonders ?"
The seventh verse answers it in these words
" And I heard the man, that was clothed in
linen, that stood upon the waters of the river,
when lie had lifted up his right hand, and his
left hand to heaven, and had sworn by Him,
that livcth forever, that it should be unto A
TIME, AND TIMES, AND HALF A TIME. And when
tin scattering of the band of the holy people
*hnll he accomplished, all these things shall be
finished."
Daniel continues :
"And I heard and understood not; but I
said, O my Lord, what shall be after these
things? And he said: Go Daniel, because the
words are shut up, and sealed until the time
appointed. 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, but the learned shall
understand :" that is, they who are enlightened
by true learning, by the light of the Holy
Ghost, and the teaching of the Catholic Church.
" And from the time when the continual sacri-
fice shall be taken away, and the abomination
220 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
unto desolation shall be set up, there shall be a
thousand two hundred and ninety days."
" BLESSED is he that waiteth, and cometh
unto a thousand three hundred and thirty-five
days." (Daniel xii. 712.)
In these verses we have the same period
predicted, that we have already remarked in
other prophecies both of Daniel and of St.
John : ' ' A time, and times, and half a time."
And then a little after we have another state-
ment, that from the time of the taking away
of the daily sacrifice, and the setting up of the
abomination of desolation, there should be a
period of " a thousand two hundred and ninety
days." While the prophecy winds up with
pronouncing a blessing upon the man, that
waiteth to the third period of "a thousand
three hundred and thirty-five days."
The first of these periods, " a time, times,
and half a time," we have already seen else-
where reduced to a corresponding period of
twelve hundred and sixty days ; and we have
already shown how we understand that period ;
that period we have explained to signify twelve
hundred and sixty years, during which the
Mahometan empire is to continue. But here
we find also a second period named, somewhat
longer, "twelve hundred and ninety days."
That this period includes the former one of
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 221
1260 days is certain, because the Prophet refers
it to the same date, and the same events, for
its commencement, viz., the taking away of the
daily sacrifice, and the setting up of the abomi-
nation of desolation. It is evident, therefore,
that as it commences from the same date as
the other period of 1260 days, it must extend
to thirty days beyond the conclusion of that
same period.
Now if we are asked to explain this apparent
discrepancy in the two periods, the only reason
we can assign, why in this passage it would
sec in as if the dominion of Antichrist were to
last for thirty days, that is for thirty years
longer than the other period, so often men-
tioned, of 1260 years, is this: when Daniel
ks of the dominion of the little horn, called
in the eleventh chapter " the king that worships
the God Maozim," he is speaking of the tem-
poral empire of Mahomet, of that empire which
was to arise upon the platform of the Mace-
donian he- goat's territory, and when he assigns
to that dominion the duration of 1260 pro-
phetic days, he is assigning that duration to
the temporal dominion of Mahomet : now we
have already seen, from this same prophecy of
Daniel, that this empire is to be destroyed by
the King of the North. When, therefore, in
this twelfth chapter we find Daniel assigning
222 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
to Antichrist a still longer duration, viz., twelve
hundred and ninety prophetic days, it is evident
that he must refer to something else belonging
to Antichrist, other than his temporal dominion,
the duration of which we have already seen
was limited to twelve hundred and sixty days :
now what can this be ? I confess it seems clear
to me that this must be Antichrist's religion,
or what St. Paul calls " the revelation " of the
Man of Sin. It is evident, that if the Maho-
metan empire were destroyed to-morrow, great
as the shock would be to the religious system
of Mahomet, it would not be utterly extin-
guished by it. When the Empress Catherine
conquered the Crimea, she abolished a Maho-
metan government, but she did not entirely
root out Mahometanism, and to this hour
the Tartar population of the Crimea remains
Mahometan in its faith, and so no doubt will
it be for some time after the empire of the
Sultan shall have been absorbed within the
dominions of the King of the North. The
power of the little horn, the temporal kingdom
of Antichrist, will have been broken, but his
religion will still remain, still professed by its
more obstinate adherents : it is then the reli-
(jious system of Antichrist that we believe
the Prophet refers to, when, in this text of
his twelfth chapter, he assigns to that deso-
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 223
lating influence a duration of 1290 days. In
other words, we anticipate, from this prophecy,
that thirty years are to elapse, subsequent to
the breaking up of the Turkish empire, before
the religion of Mahomet will be completely
extinguished : and this brings us back to St.
Paul's words to the Thessaloniaus concerning
the Man of Sin : " Whom the Lord Jesus shall
slay with the spirit of His mouth, and shall
destroy uith the brightness of His coming"
(2 Thess. ii. 8) : from which we gather that the
religious system of Mahomet will be rooted out
by the preaching of the Gospel, which will
ensue on the destruction of his empire, while
the last remains of its influence in the East
will not be obliterated even until the second
Advent of our Lord Himself, "the brightness
of whose coming " will dissipate all the clouds
of error. But it is also clear, from the words
of the angel to Daniel, that many things con-
iing these great prophecies are to remain
sealed up until the time of their perfect fulfil-
ment, and when that time comes, every diffi-
culty connected with the interpretation of
Divine prophecy will be fully cleared up and
.unravelled. One thing, however, seems un-
mistakeably foretold, and it is that those, who
live to see the arrival of the thirteen hundredth
and thirty-fifth day or year, will see a day of
224 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
surpassing blessedness. "BLESSED is he that
waiteth and cometh unto a thousand three
hundred and thirty-five days." (Dan. xii. 12.)
This text brings us to a period of seventy-
five days or years beyond the expiration of the
1260 days. Now dating the commencement
of the latter (the 1260 days) from the com-
mencement of Mahomet's empire, which is
dated from his famous flight called the Hegira,
which is the Mahometan era, and which is
commonly placed by chronologists about the
year 622 after Christ, the conclusion of the
1260 years would be somewhere about the year
1882. But then it appears to me probable that
these 1260 years are prophetic periods of 360,
not 365 days each (for 1260 days are the sum
of three prophetic periods and a half, consisting
of 360 days each), consequently, if we deduct
five days from each of the 1260 years, it would
shorten the whole period by a sum of 6300
days, which would be equal to seventeen years
of 360 days each, and 180 days besides, or
exactly half a year of the same length : in
other words, it would shorten the whole period
of 1260 natural years by a period of seventeen
years and a half of prophetic years ; or if you
divide the sum of 6300 days by 365 days (one
natural year) it would amount to about seven-
teen natural years and ninety-five days.
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 225
So that, dating the 1260 years from the year
of our Lord 622, and deducting seventeen years
and ninety- five days, it would bring the con-
clusion of the 1260 years to somewhere about
the year of our Lord 1865, minus ninety-five
days.
Assuming, therefore, the correctness of this
calculation, we may expect that the Mahometan
empire will be utterly overthrown about the
year of our Lord 1865.
But to this period it also seems from the
prophecy we have been examining, that we
must add on a period of thirty years, of 360
days (arh, which would be equivalent to
about twenty-nine natural years and 220 days.
This would bring us to somewhere about the
year 1894: after which we must still look
forwards to the conclusion of another period
of forty-five years, of 360 days each, which
would be equivalent to about forty-four na-
tural years and 140 days. Adding, therefore,
forty-four years to 1894, it brings us to some-
where about the year of our Lord 1938,
which seems, therefore, to be fixed by the
Prophet Daniel as the date of the commence-
ment of the BLESSED PERIOD. Now, it is a very
remarkable fact, that this calculation, which
fixes the termination of the periods given by
Daniel in his twelfth chapter at about the
Q
226 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
year of our Lord 1938, exactly coincides with
the conclusion of the period of 2300 days,
assigned in the eighth chapter of the same
prophecy, and the fourteenth verse, for the
duration of the vision recorded in that chapter
as closing with what the Prophet there terms
"the cleansing of the sanctuary:" for dating
the commencement of that period from the
triumph of the Macedonian he-goat over the
Medo-Persian ram, which was accomplished
when Alexander the Great conquered Darius
in the famous battle of Arbela, which Blair, in
his accurate chronology, fixes at the year 331
before Christ ; I say, dating from this year the
whole period of the 2300 prophetic years, and
deducting from the same number five days for
every year, we find that it would conclude
exactly at the same date after Christ as that
which we have just above assigned for the
conclusion of the other periods given in the
thirteenth chapter of Daniel, viz., about the
year of our Lord 1938: thus making the
"blessed period" and "the cleansing of the
sanctuary" coincide.
But we must here observe that we do not
attach too much importance to this calcu-
lation, as the period would be earlier, if we
date the commencement of the 1260 years from
the birth of Mahomet, while it would be very
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 227
much later, if we date its commencement from
the taking of Jerusalem by the Caliph Omar,
which took place in the year of our Lord 637.
And assuredly when we look at the present
state of mankind, and reflect how very far it
is from what the glowing predictions of Holy
Writ would lead us to anticipate of its con-
dition in the blessed period, we may well fear
that the further period would be more probable
than one less distant. But be this as it may,
it would seem as if the destruction of the
Mahometan empire, as distinguished from the
rc/if/ious system upheld by it, would not be
drhiyed beyond the year of our Lord 1865.
In the meanwhile, looking to the various
statements of Divine prophecy, we apprehend
that a time is coming, nay even already com-
menced, of unprecedented trouble and disaster.
These calamitous times, while they witness the
destruction of the mystic Babylon, will also
witness, if we may refer to the same sources, a
terrible persecution of the Catholic Church, a
persecution which will purify and prepare her
for her great millennial triumph.
Let us glance at some of the symbolical
.predictions of the Apocalypse, which are com-
monly referred by Catholic interpreters to this
last great persecution of the Church. We find
a very vivid and striking one in the eleventh
Q2
228 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
chapter of the Apocalypse. In the second
verse of that chapter, it is stated that the Holy
City, or Jerusalem, shall be trodden down by
the Gentiles for two-and-forty months ; and if
we reduce that period to days, we find that it
amounts to a sum of 1260 days. This entirely
coincides with the statement we have already
seen made by Daniel, that the abomination of
desolation should be set up for the same period
of 1260 days. But St. John tells us, in the
third verse of this same eleventh chapter :
" And I will give unto my two witnesses, and
they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred
and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth." Now,
whoever be the two witnesses, it is clear that
they are " to prophesy " for the same period,
that is, for 1260 days, and they are to prophesy
" clad in sackcloth," that is, clad in the gar-
ments of humiliation and penitence, weeping
for the sorrows and sufferings of the Church of
God.
It may here be objected that our Blessed
Lord, in foretelling the destruction of Jeru-
salem by the Romans, which was accomplished
by Titus a very few years afterwards, expressly
declared that " Jerusalem shall be trodden down
by the Gentiles, till the times of the nations be
fulfilled;" from which it would seem that our
Lord dates the treading down of the Holy City
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 229
from a much earlier period than St. John in the
Apocalypse, and assigns to it a much longer
duration. This is indeed true, but there is no
contradiction involved in the apparent discre-
pancy. Our Lord is foretelling the whole his-
tory of Jerusalem from his own time until the
end of "the times of the Gentiles" whereas
St. John is predicting a still further desecra-
tion of the Holy City, which was to take place
very much later, in fact, several centuries after-
wards, and which, from the identity of its
duration with that assigned by Daniel and else-
whciv by St. John himself to the anti-Chris-
tian desolation, viz., the prophetical l^fiodays,
we may confidently conclude to be that most
fearful desecration of Jerusalem that took place
in the year 636, when the Caliph Omar made
himself master of Jerusalem, and erected his
famous Mahometan mosque on the site of
Solomon's Temple. Dating from this period,
St. John tells us that the Holy City shall be
trodden down by the Gentiles, that is, by the
infidels, the enemies of God, for forty-two
months, that is, for 1260 days or years.
Now it is a remarkable fact, as the learned
author of a work we have more than once had
occasion to refer to (La Fin des Temps, p. 117)
has proved at length, the descendants of Israel
who embraced the Christian faith were never
230 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
entirely driven out from Jerusalem until the
time of Omar. When Titus destroyed Jeru-
salem, many still lingered in its sacred pre-
cincts, and, converted to Christianity, were
governed by their patriarchs, who for a long
period were all of them of Jewish extraction.
Under the Emperor Adrian, after the destruc-
tion of six hundred thousand Jews, in conse-
quence of the revolt effected amongst his coun-
trymen by the impostor Barchochebaz, a new
city was built at Jerusalem, to which the name
of ^Elia was given by the Romans. But this
city became a most flourishing Christian city,
and its patriarchs were famous in the annals of
the Church, many of them having been canon-
ized, witness St. Cyril, St. Sophronius, and
others. But when the Caliph Omar took Jeru-
salem, and built his mosque on the site of Solo-
mon's Temple, the patriarch St. Sophronius, as
we have already seen, declared that this fact was
the fulfilment of the prophecy of Daniel con-
cerning the placing of the abomination of deso-
lation in the holy place. Now our Blessed
Lord had expressly declared that when his
disciples (that is, the Christians) should see
" the abomination of desolation " there placed,
"they were to flee to the mountains" (Matt.
xxiv. 15, 16.) This advice of our Lord they
followed; for, immediately after that event,
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 231
and the declaration of the holy patriarch St.
Sophronius, the great mass of the orthodox
Catholic Christians of Jerusalem left the city,
and betook themselves to the mountains of
Lebanon, where they have dwelt ever since
even to the present day. These Christians are
to this hour Catholic and orthodox, and their
patriarch is the true Catholic patriarch of Jeru-
salem. They are known commonly by the
name of Maronites, and they are conspicuous
for their piety, their simplicity, their virtue,
and their faith. They have always remained
firmly united to the see of St. Peter, and the
liained author of "La Fin des Temps" con-
tends with great force and ability that these
holy Christians are the descendants of the first
Jewish converts to the faith of Christ. From
the time that the Mahometans got possession
of Jerusalem very few orthodox Christians have
remained in that city, and it is only on suffer-
ance that the Catholics are able to celebrate
the Divine Liturgy in the holy places, which
for the most part are in the hands of heretics
and schismatics.
AVe may therefore confidently date the tread-
ing down of the Holy City, of which St. John
speaks in this eleventh chapter of his Apoca-
lypse, from the period of its capture by the
Caliph Omar in 636, and from the establish-
232 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
ment of the Mahometan religion within its
sacred precincts. But St. John tells us, that
from that time the two witnesses of Jesus
Christ should prophesy in sackcloth, and that
they should so continue for 1260 prophetic^
days.
Now who are these two witnesses ? That
great commentator on Holy Scripture, and
great light of the society of Jesus, Cornelius &
Lapide, in his " Commentary on the Apoca-
lypse" (chap. xi. 3), answers the question thus :
" Some understand by these two witnesses not
any two persons in particular, but two classes
of witnesses. Hence Pannonius affirms that
these two witnesses are the whole body of doc-
tors and preachers in the Church who expound
and preach the two Testaments, that is to say,
the Old and New Testaments ; while Arias
Montanus thinks that these two witnesses re-
present the law and the prophets." A little
further on he tells us that another commen-
tator, Alcazar, understood by these witnesses
" the great wisdom and the great sanctity of
the Primitive Church," and that the Apostle
alluded to Enoch and Elias, concerning whom
it is an ancient and venerable tradition that
they will appear on earth and suffer martyrdom
in the final persecution of the anti-Christian
power. He also informs us that some have
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 233
taken them " to mean Christ and St. John the
Baptist ; " and " St. Antoninus thought they
were the Pope Sylverius and Mennas of Con-
stantinople ; " while others, he adds, took them
to mean " Saint Dominic and Saint Francis ; "
and the Abbot Joachim held them to be the
priests and the monks of the Catholic Church ;
while the glorious St. Teresa thought that
they represented the Jesuit and Dominican
orders ; and Protestant authors have inter-
preted them to mean the two Testaments of
Holy Scripture, or the sects of the mediaeval
period, who protested against the Catholic
Church, such as the Waldenses and Albi-
genses, the Hussites and Lollards, and the
It is manifest from all this that there is a
very great variety of opinion amongst commen-
tators whether they belong to the Catholic
Church, or whether they be separated from her
communion.
For my own part, whilst I have no doubt
that Elias will come again, and restore all
things, as our Lord Himself asserted ; and
while I think there is a very general tradition
in the Church affirming the same of Enoch ;
and while I believe that St. John in this place
alludes to Elias and Enoch, and probably in-
cludes them, I also am convinced that he means
234 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
much more. I believe with Abbot Joachim
that he intends by the two witnesses "the
priests and monks of the Catholic Church,"
or, in other words, " the clergy regular and the
clergy secular."
Whatever ground there may be for inter-
preting the 1260 days to signify 1260 years,
there would be the same ground for interpret-
ing the two witnesses to be not two literal per-
sonages, but the whole body of the Catholic
clergy, who may be accurately termed "the
witnesses of God and of His truth," and His
two witnesses, because it is an historical fact,
that ever since the time of Mahomet up to the
present day they have been divided into two
general classes, the regulars and the seculars ;
the former representing the contemplative state,
the latter the active ; the former symbolized by
Elias, who has ever been regarded as the type
and pattern of the monastic state ; while Enoch,
who was a patriarch and a prophet, that is, a
preacher of truth, might not inaptly represent
the general body of the pastors whom we com-
monly call the secular clergy. Now, although
there is solid ground for believing that Enoch
and Elias will appear on earth "before the
great and terrible day of the Lord," it does
not by any means seem clear that they are
intended in this passage of the Apocalypse;
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 235
and, in fact, we have already seen what a va-
riety of interpretations have been suggested
by different Catholic commentators : and if we
are right in our opinion that the 1260 days
signify 1260 years, it is quite clear that Enoch
and Elias have not been on earth for that
period, up to the present time at least. But
we think, on examining the context, that it
becomes still more obvious that the Apostle
means the whole body of the clergy : he says,
" these are the two olive trees, and the two
candh sticks, that stand before the Lord of the
earth." Now we confess we hardly see how
such words as these are applicable to Enoch
and Elias, whereas to the clergy they are per-
fectly so. The clergy may well be said " to
stand before the Lord of the earth," because
they stand at His altar and minister unto Him,
standing before Him as " dispensers of His
mysteries," and priests of the new covenant.
They may well be compared to olive trees,
because they dispense the chrism of salvation,
and because it is with the oil of the olive that
they are consecrated to the service of God's
altar ; and they may no less properly be called
" the two candlesticks," because they dispense
the light of truth to mankind by their preach-
ing and their example. And we have already
seen why they should be called the two olive
236 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
trees and the two candlesticks. Moreover,
when in the next verse it says, " And if any
one will hurt them, fire shall come out of their
mouths and shall devour their enemies," that
may refer to the power of anathema which is
vested in the clergy, and to the power of in-
flicting excommunication and other spiritual
censures. And when in the next verse the
Prophet continues, " These have 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 all plagues as often as they will," this
may refer to the power which our Lord vested
in the clergy, and which he called the " power
of binding/' or of " retaining sin ; " the power
of interdict, which history records to have been
often exercised by the popes and other great
bishops over whole provinces and kingdoms;
a power very properly symbolized by such ex-
pressions as " shutting heaven" " turning the
waters into blood" and " striking the earth with
plagues/' to say nothing of the miraculous
powers which have been vested in many holy
bishops and priests, who literally did what the
text describes.
But in the seventh verse we come to what we
regard as the prophecy of a tremendous perse-
cution, which these witnesses, that is, the whole
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 237
body of the clergy, both regular and secular,
are to endure towards the conclusion of the
1260 years. "And when they shall have
finished their testimony," that is, when they
shall have come to the conclusion of that wit-
ness for Divine truth, which was to be exercised
during the 1260 years, and which during that
period was with varied success to uphold the
Catholic faith in the West, the East being
ground down under the feet of Antichrist :
then, says t lit; Apostle, " the beast that ascendeth
out of the abyss, shall make war upon them,
and shall overcome them, and kill them."
Now this prophecy, we believe, is not yet ful-
filled, although we believe that its fulfilment is
near at hand. That a tremendous persecution
of the Catholic Church is coming may well be
rat hered from all that has happened in the world
since the middle of the last century. The sup-
pression of the holy society of Jesus, which,
in an evil hour, was wrung from Pope Cle-
ment XIV. by the secular power, followed up
as it was by a violent persecution of the Church,
especially in France, by the suppression of mo-
nasteries and convents, the desecration of innu-
merable churches and chapels, the confiscation
of ecclesiastical property, the abolition of tithe,
and the inundation of impiety, which spread
desolation from one end of Christendom to the
238 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
other ; and though we have lived to see a par-
tial revival of Catholicity in some countries,
yet the encroachments of the secular power
upon the Church's domain have continually
gone on increasing, and if in any country any
king or emperor has relaxed the usurpations of
the state for a single instant, that has only been
the signal for fresh violence on the part of the
disciples of error. I say, when we look back
upon all that has taken place during the last
eighty or hundred years, and when we recollect
that during that same period the sovereign pon-
tiff has been thrice driven from Rome, and the
Roman people in a great degree perverted from
the simplicity and fervour of former times, we
must surely apprehend that all this will issue
in some most fearful persecution of the Catholic
Church. Now, this is precisely what I gather
from this chapter of the Apocalypse, and when
it says " that the beast shall make war upon
them, and overcome them, and kill them," I
think it means, that the secular power, influ-
enced by the devil, will use all its endeavours
to crush the spiritual power of the clergy, that
is, of the Church's pastors, and that, for a short
time, " it will overcome them/' that is, it will
destroy their influence over the majority of
men, and that "it will kill them ;" it will even
put very many of them to death, perhaps even
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 239
the greater part of them. Nor is it visionary
to apprehend such a catastrophe. Look at the
principles of socialism, that are at work in
France, and in other countries; look at Mor-
monism, that is every day becoming more for-
midable in America, and even in Europe ; look
at the general spread of atheism and infidelity ;
look at the horrible war that has broken out,
one-half of Christendom aiming at the destruc-
tion of the othrr half for the express purpose
of upholding tin* Mahometan empire, which is,
in fact, Mahometanism. And who shall say
when this overwhelming persecution may not
break out ?
The Prophet continues, " And their bodies
shall lie in the streets of the great city, which
is called spiritually Sodom and Egypt, where
also their Lord was crucified." By these words
we understand that this persecution will extend
all over the mystic Babylon, that is, through
every country in the world, in the streets and
highways of human civilization. Wherever
these are, there will be seen slaughtered priests
and monks, who will lay down their lives for
the testimony of Jesus; and in a figurative
sense, the different bodies of the clergy will be
as it were annihilated or reduced to a very low
ebb. Some have thought, from one expression
in this text, that the "great tity" must mean
240 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
Jerusalem, and not, as I interpret it, the whole
world, because it says " where also their Lord
was crucified," but I do not think this is the
meaning, because the preceding words qualify
the expression, "the great city, which is
called spiritually Sodom and Egypt, where also
their Lord was crucified." The term " spiritu-
ally" evidently qualifies all that follows in the
sentence, not only the words " Sodom and
Egypt," but also the concluding words, " where
also their Lord was crucified." I think, there-
fore, that it means, wherever spiritually our
Lord has been crucified, that is, wherever men
have crucified Him afresh by mortal sin after
baptism, in other words, all over the world.
That the two witnesses will not be totally
rooted out, and utterly annihilated, I gather
from the next verse : " And they of the tribes,
and peoples, and tongues, and nations, shall
see their bodies for three days and a half; and
they shall not suffer their bodies to be laid in
sepulchres." From these words, it is clear the
Church will still be visible, and still oecumenical,
composed of all nations, tongues, tribes, and
peoples. From the same text, I gather that
the duration of this persecution will be for three
days and a half, that is, for three years and a
half: and this persecution will be the finishing
stroke of Satan, his last effort before the com-
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 241
mencement of that glorious reaction which
ushers in the millennial triumph of the Catholic
Church.
This blessed reaction is predicted in the
eleventh verse : " And after three days and a
half, the spirit of life from God entered into
them," that is, into the two witnesses, over
whose destruction the preceding verse had told
us "that they that dwell upon the earth" that is,
all the impious disciples of this world, and its
false doctrines, were to rejoice and congratulate
each other, because the two prophets, who tor-
mented them by the painful truths of God's
revelation, were now slain : " and they stood"
once more " upon their feet, and great fear fell
upon them that saw them."
In the thirteenth verse, a great earthquake
is described ; by this I understand a great war,
and the result is declared to be the falling of a
tenth part of the great city, by which may be
meant the total destruction of one of the ten
kingdoms, of those ten kingdoms, into which
the great Roman empire we have already seen
was to be subdivided. It is not for us to con-
jecture what kingdom is specially referred to ;
the event will show this to those who are alive
at the time ; but we may probably conjecture
that it will be that kingdom, which more than
the others shall have been conspicuous in per-
R
242 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
securing the Catholic Church; and when it
says that in that earthquake ' ' names of men
seven thousand were slain/' we must not under-
stand that number to be literal, but to symbo-
lize a countless multitude, who will perish in
the great catastrophe. I ought here to say,
that the tenth part of the city may also refer
not to any one of the ten kingdoms in particular,
but to a tenth part of the whole city, taken as
a whole, that is, to a tithing of civilized men,
wherever they are settled under a secular
government, and, if so, I should apply it to
the governing powers everywhere ; in this view
of it, the fall of a tenth part of the city would
symbolize the destruction of all existing thrones
and governments all over the world ; and this
interpretation I prefer, because it agrees better
with Daniel's prophecy, when he interpreted
Nabuchodonozor's dream, and described the
total destruction of the metallic statue, and
also because it coincides with St. John's own
description of the total destruction of the
mystic Babylon, in the eighteenth chapter of
this same Apocalypse. Now, no one can read
that description, and think for a moment that
it refers to any one single city, because it de-
scribes all mankind as involved in the ruin that
comes upon Babylon, and all equally bewailing
and lamenting over it.
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 243
Our readers are well aware that Protestant
commentators are accustomed to interpret this
Apocalyptic Babylon to signify Rome, and the
Catholic Church ruled over by the pope of
Rome. But to any one who reads atten-
tively St. John's words, the absurdity of such
an interpretation must be manifest. In the
eighteenth chapter of the Apocalypse, the angel
speaking of Babylon, whose utter destruction
he is proclaiming, uses this remarkable expres-
sion : " because all nations have drunk of the
wine of the wrath of her fornication : and the
kin. ITS of the earth," that is, all the kings of the
earth, " have committed fornication with her :
and the merchants of the earth have been
made rich," that is, all the merchants of the
earth, " by the power of her delicacies." Now
let the reader dwell upon these words, and he
will at once see the absurdity of applying them
to the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church
has never yet brought all nations within her
pale : and as for the kings of the earth, very few
of them have ever yet admitted her authority,
or embraced her doctrine. At the moment
that I am now writing, there are in Europe
alone a majority of nations and kings who do
not profess the Catholic faith. England, Hol-
land, Wirtemberg, Prussia, Denmark, Norway,
Sweden, Greece, Russia, are all of them either
R2
244 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
Protestant or else in schism, all separated from
the Catholic Church : and when we look to the
other continents the proportion is still less in
her favour. While I am quite at a loss to
understand what the Catholic Church can have
to do with " the merchants of the earth ;" or
how "the power of her delicacies" can have
possibly enriched them. No, if the Catholic
Church were exterminated from the face of the
earth to-morrow, I think the last people, who
would mourn over her destruction, would be
the kings and the merchants. Neither of these
two classes of men have ever been very famous
for obeying her laws, or following her maxims :
I should be more inclined to expect that they
would rejoice over it, and say, as we read in
the eleventh chapter, "let us rejoice, for her
prophets tormented us, who dwell upon the
earth."
But supposing some very horrible and general
war, some terrible revolution, were to involve
the whole civilized world, and we were to see
enacted, on a still greater scale, what we wit-
nessed in miniature in 1848, and that we saw
every throne overturned, the landmarks that at
present divide the nations swept away, socialism
and Mormonism and infidelity taking the place
of religion and social order, and trampling all
government and property under their feet, why
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 245
we should then witness precisely what this pro-
phecy leads us to expect : we should see all
the kings of the earth " weeping and bewailing
themselves " (Apoc. xviii. 9) over their great
Babylon, overwhelmed as she then would be in
the general conflagration: we should see the
merchants " weeping and mourning over her "
(ver. 11), for their commerce would be at an
end: we should see the shipmasters (ver. 17)
bewailing the end of their trade and their
gains. Cities and villages, palaces and cot-
tages, parks and gardens, would all perish in
the general conflagration. Anarchy would
sweep away every vestige of order, and instead
of the boasted civilization of the nineteenth
century, all things would be reduced to primi-
tive chaos.
Now horrible as it may seem, no one can
read the eighteenth chapter of the Apocalypse,
and not perceive that some such catastrophe is
foretold, if at least he believe in the Divine
inspiration of that book: and, on the other
hand, if he looks around and accurately scans
the various elements that are at work in modern
society, he will not regard such an issue, awful
though it be, as in any degree impossible : on
the contrary, unless the destructive influences
that are at work are removed, it is clearly
inevitable.
246 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
That these destructive influences will one
day be removed, we have the consoling assur-
ance of the same prophecy, but not until they
have done their work, and absolutely anni-
hilated the whole fabric of the hollow and
deceitful civilization of mankind, as it exists at
present. It is this great consummation, which
the Prophet refers to, when he says (ver. 20),
"Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy
apostles and prophets, for God hath judged
your judgment upon her." And well might
the heaven and its angelic inhabitants, well
might the apostles and prophets rejoice over
the destruction of this accursed Babylon, for
(ver. 24) " in her was found the blood of the
prophets and the saints, and of all that were
slain upon the earth." Now these last words
clearly and incontestably prove what, and where,
this mystic Babylon is. It is the city of the
devil, the " mundus tenebrarum " of which St.
Augustine speaks, *nankind, in a word, organ-
ized, ruled over, and civilized upon the prin-
ciples of the devil, not of God : that great mass
of humanity, into which, like three measures of
meal, Holy Church was to cast the Gospel
leaven, till the whole should be leavened. Now
what is the process that takes place in the
leavening of bread ? it is a fermenting process,
which makes the whole mass heave and rise,
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 247
and the noxious gases bubble up and explode,
after which it is baked in the oven, and be-
comes good bread, fit for the food of man. So
has it been, and so will it be with humanity,
under the influence of the Gospel leaven. This
leaven was given to the Church by Jesus Christ,
her Divine Founder. The Church cast it at
once into the corrupted mass of humanity : and
as our Lord speaks in His parable of three
" measures of meal/' so I conceive there were
to be three great fermentations of mankind
before it should be perfectly leavened with the
Divine doctrine. The first of these fermen-
tations was the great strife between the Gospel
and paganism during the three first centuries,
working that dreadful persecution that crowiu-d
all the primitive martyrs, issuing in the con-
version of Constantino, and the subjugation of
the pagan element; for though paganism has
not yet been rooted out from the earth, yet
since Constantino's conversion, it has never
been able to afflict the Church with any general
and universal persecution, as it did before that
epoch, and although it has ever existed, it has
been only in the heart of the most distant and
least influential portions of the human race:
such as in India and China, or amongst the
degraded nations of Africa, America, and the
islands of the ocean. The conversion, there-
248 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
fore, of Constantine indicated the completion
of the first fermentation of humanity, namely,
the fermentation of the pagan element. This
was, it seems to me, the leavening of the first
" measure of meal," spoken of by our Lord.
The second fermentation dates from Con-
stantine to Luther, and this may be called the
fermentation of the heretical element : which
is the same as the Antichristian element : the
element of the " False Christs " foretold by our
Saviour. Amongst these the culminating and
crowning personage is the False Prophet Ma-
homet. This fermentation came to its utmost
height in the time of Luther, and issued in the
severance of the northern nations from the
Catholic Church, as it had previously severed
the east from her dominion by the heresies
that ensued upon Constantino's conversion,
crowned as they were by the great apostasy of
the Man of Sin, Mahomet. This fermentation,
while it severed the chaff from the good grain,
led to all those glorious definitions of Divine
truth, by which the Church has guarded the
deposit of revelation from the days of the
Council of Nice down to those of the Council
of Trent : and this was, as I think, the leavening
of the second " measure of meal " spoken of by
our Lord.
The third fermentation dates from Luther to
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 249
the final destruction of Babylon. And this may
be called the fermentation of the infidel or ra-
tionalistic element, which was generated by the
Protestant principle of bringing all things to the
bar of private judgment and individual interpre-
tation of Scripture, as separated from tradition.
The effect of this fermentation has been unfolded
by the history of the last three centuries, and
it will be still more unfolded. It has produced
a countless host of discordant sects, issuing in
complete rationalism and infidelity, the result
of which has been not only to paralyse faith,
but even to destroy all healthy action in the
body politic. It is to this that we may trace
up all the anarchical and revolutionary out-
breaks, that for the last century and a half
have, with ever-increasing force, shaken and
disorganized the whole framework of the
civilized world. It is this fermentation, which
we believe is to issue in the utter destruction
of Babylon, that is, of the present social orga-
nization of mankind, and the subsequent esta-
blishment of the Church empire, that is, of the
kingdom of the stone, cut out of the mountain
without hands.
The first effect of this rationalistic fermenta-
tion manifested itself in the sixteenth century,
when learned men, abandoning the Divine
philosophy of the Catholic Church, such as
250 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
the angelical Doctor St. Thomas Aquinas had
fashioned it, embraced the Epicurean and other
false systems of heathen antiquity. Along
with this new development of heathen philo-
sophy, there arose a simultaneous desire to
revive the expression of the heathen mind in
art and architecture, and in literature. The
result of this was more and more to sever men's
minds from the influence of Catholicism and
the Gospel, and so to make them an easier prey
to the arguments of rationalism and infidelity,
while it tended immensely to the development
of immorality and impurity in its worst forms.
All this came to a culminating point in the
great French Revolution, which, on a smaller
scale, has been enacted in almost every other
country ; and although good men from time to
time have been raised up by God to stem the
torrent, or, if possible, to infuse a Christian
element into it, it has been continually spread-
ing its noxious influence, till at length we be-
hold the universe involved in it, and all men,
who look seriously at what is going on, are
persuaded that humanity is hurrying on to the
most tremendous cataclysm that history has
ever witnessed.
This cataclysm is what we understand by the
destruction of the mystic Babylon of the Apo-
calypse, and it will issue in the final triumph
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 251
of the Catholic Church over all her foes, in the
total conversion of the earth, and the final
leavening of the third " measure of meal," as
our Lord and Master intimated in His Divine
parable.
Veni Domine Jesu, et noli tardare.
252 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
CONCLUSION.
WE have thus far endeavoured to investigate
the prophecies of Holy Scripture, which relate
to that dreadful incarnation of evil, that the
same Sacred Book designates under the name
of Antichrist, or of those other symbolical de-
scriptions and personages, which, by the common
consent of Christian interpreters, are referred
to Antichrist. We have examined, first, what
prophecy in general would lead us to expect
concerning this being ; when he was to appear ;
where he was to fix the principal seat of his
dominion; what was to be the period or the
duration of that dominion ; and what were to
be the characteristics of it. We then inquired
whether any personage had arisen in past his-
tory answering to these prophetic marks and
descriptions, and we found that there was a
personage, who, in our opinion at least, exactly
fulfilled them all, and that this personage was
the great Arabian impostor, Mahomet : while
the religious system he fabricated, in alliance
with the mighty political empire he also founded
along with it, had exercised in relation to
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 253
Christianity all that prophecy foretold would be
perpetrated by Antichrist in opposition to the
kingdom of Christ ; and so we have passed on
to conjecture from the same prophecies of Holy
Writ, what is the future destiny, and when the
probable end of this great delusion.
At the moment that I am now writing, it is
affirmed by several authors, that the followers
of the false Prophet, Mahomet, amount to
not less than two hundred millions of the
human race. And it is probable, that at many
other periods of Mahometan history, their
number has been greater still. Now, let the
reader weigh well the moral importance of such
a fact as this, let him count up the successive
generations of so many hundred millions of
the human race, who, during the long lapse of
twelve centuries, have been swept away to ever-
lasting perdition in the flames of hell by the
operation of the lying revelations of Mahomet
let him estimate all the persecutions of Chris-
tians, all the murders of the followers of Jesus,
all the desecrations and destructions of churches
and monasteries, all the desolating wars, all the
hideous cruelties, and all the other unnatural
crimes committed by the disciples of Mahomet
during the same period, and let him remember
that all this sprung from the very system itself,
254 AN INQUIRY INTO THE
and was enjoined by it. And then let him say,
what more he could possibly expect from any
ideal Antichrist of his own theory.
Jesus Christ was the son of Isaac, that is, of
the legitimate son of Abraham.
Mahomet was the son of Ishmael, that is,
of the illegitimate son of Abraham ; and the
latter, that is, Mahomet, has assuredly held to
the former, that is, to Jesus Christ, precisely that
relation which all analogy would have led us
to expect between Christ and Antichrist. The
first, the Saviour of mankind ; the latter, their
destroyer. The first, the legitimate King of
all the earth; the latter, the usurper of that
dominion, the arch-rebel, who would fain have
robbed Christ of His glory as a Prophet, of
His empire as a King, and of His everlasting
Priesthood, by the denial of His atonement,
and the abolition of the daily sacrifice of the
altar.
If Mahomet be not Antichrist, may humanity
be spared the revelation of something worse, of
something still more horrible ! But if the ima-
gination of my reader would be satisfied with
something less horrible than Mahomet, let me,
at least, congratulate humanity that it has
already seen the worst phase of evil, while I
leave it to the contradictor to adjust the ba-
PROPHECIES CONCERNING ANTICHRIST. 255
lance between the statements of prophecy, and
the phantoms of his own brain.
But while, on the other hand, we may feel
convinced who and what is the great Anti-
christ so often foretold in Divine Scripture, let
us never forget those remarkable words with
which St. John ushers him into our considera-
tion : " Little children, there are many Anti-
christs." The inspired Apostle tells us who
these Antichrists were, they were seducing
spirits, that had gone forth from the apostolic
communion. And so, though Mahomet be the
great and crowning Antichrist, all heresies are
Antichrist, and Mahomet is the Antichrist
above all others, because his heresy is the
greatest and the worst that has ever desolated
the Church.
We have shown the absurdity of those inter-
preters who would refer to the pope and the
religion of the pope, that is, to the Catholic
religion, the Divine prophecies relating to An-
tichrist, but we have also shown that all such
interpreters of prophecy are themselves emis-
saries and disciples of Antichrist. What re-
mains but that all who adhere to Catholicity
in these perilous times should look well to
themselves, and earnestly pray for grace to live
worthy of their holy vocation, so that they be
256 AN INQUIRY, ETC.
found fit to partake of that great triumph
which the Word of God assures us is in store
for that blessed and holy Church of which they
have the privilege to be the children and the
upholders.
Exurgat Deus y et dissipentur omnes inimici
ejus ! Amen.
APPENDIX.
NOTE I.
THE reader will have observed, that in the fore-
going treatise we have not touched upon that
portion of St. John's Apocalypse which relates
to the seven vials, and which is given in the
fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of this myste-
rious book. The reason was this, we confined
ourselves to that which more immediately re-
ferred to the subject on which we were specially
treating. But as, in a work lately published
by Dr. Cumming, a most extraordinary inter-
pretation has been advanced for one of the
symbolical figures given by St. John in the six-
teenth chapter, relating to the pouring out of
the sixth vial, I think it right to make some
remarks upon that very startling supposition
of the earnest and eloquent writer.
Agreeing with Dr. Cumming in his interpre-
tation of the drying up of the Euphrates men-
tioned in the twelfth verse, I confess I cannot
agree in his interpretation of the thirteenth
verse. What does St. John tell us in this thir-
teenth verse : " And I saw from the mouth of
the dragon, and from the mouth of the beast,
and from the mouth of the false prophet, three
unclean spirits like frogs "(ver. 14): " for they
258 APPENDIX.
are the spirits of devils working signs : and they
go forth unto the kings of the whole earth to
gather them to battle against the great day of
the Almighty God." (ver. 16) And he shall
gather them together into a place, which is
called in Hebrew Armageddon."
Now I have no doubt whatever that this very
remarkable passage of the Apocalypse refers to
the very period to which Dr. Gumming and
Mr. Elliot (from whom the former appears to
borrow his interpretation) refer it ; I have no
doubt that it refers to the very period in which
we ourselves are now living, and that it pre-
dicts the tremendous conflict of all nations, in
which I apprehend that our own England is
already unhappily embarked, a conflict which
evidently is foretold as disastrous in its issue
for all the powers engaged. But I cannot
agree that either Dr. Cumming or Mr. Elliot
have given a satisfactory solution for the symbol
of " the three unclean spirits" which St. John
describes as resembling frogs issuing out of the
mouths of three other symbolical personages.
Dr. Cumming gravely tells us that he thinks
the third of these unclean spirits issuing from
" the mouth of the false Prophet " is will the
Catholic reader believe it? Puseyism ! ! ! Now
I think even Dr. Cumming, with all his inge-
nuity, and all his eloquence (and no one can
read his books and not perceive that he is a very
eloquent and a very ingenious writer), would
find it difficult to show how Dr. Pusey or how
Tractarianism has fulfilled St. John's declara-
tion, that the special work of these three un-
APPENDIX. 259
clean spirits was to gather the kings of the earth
together to battle. What in the world has
Tractarianism had to do with the present de-
plorable European complication, and the deadly
conflict resulting from it ?
No, there must be some other explanation
better than this : and what may that be ?
I understand by the three unclean spirits
what I am now going to put before my reader.
The spirit from the mouth of the dragon being
evidently the spirit that now specially proceeds
from the devil, must clearly represent that in-
iluence which we see most noxious and most
B'evalent at the present day, and as to this
r. Cumming so far agrees with us in explain-
ing this of the spirit of iufit/c/ift/, which there
e;m l)e no doubt is the most prevalent and most
noxious influence now at work in this nine-
teenth century. This spirit might well be de-
scribed by St. John as issuing from the mouth
of the dragon, that is, of the devil.
The second spirit, which comes from the
month of the beast, I conceive to be " the spirit
of worldly policy " It comes from the mouth
of the beast, that is, it comes from those who
represent and direct the secular organization
of mankind, that is, from the kings and poten-
tates ; for I have already shown that " the
beast " symbolizes that " secular organization."
This spirit of worldly policy calls upon the
kings of the earth to wage war in behalf of
" the integrity of the Ottoman empire," that
is, in behalf of a power that has for centuries
desolated the whole East, trodden Oriental
s2
260 APPENDIX.
Christendom under its feet for nearly 1260
years, and upheld the most blasphemous and
obscene system of religion that ever existed
upon earth. Now if a hundred years ago any
one had predicted that in the year 1855 all
the most enlightened and civilized nations of
Christian Europe would have been leagued
together to uphold the integrity of the Maho-
metan empire, such a prophet would have been
looked upon as a doating visionary; or if, for
any antecedent reasons, he were considered as
at all worthy of credit, it would at least have
been said that such a prediction could only
be credible upon one hypothesis, namely, that
the sense of Christian faith should have been
nearly rooted out from the minds of Christian
rulers by a prevalent spirit of infidelity on the
one hand, and of an overwhelming spirit of
worldly policy on the other. Now it is pre-
cisely these two spirits to which we believe that
St. John refers. The other spirit, namely,
" the spirit that proceeds from the mouth of
the False Prophet/' which Dr. Cumming ex-
plains of Tractarianism, we believe to be the
evil spirit of Mahometanism ; we believe it to
be that most powerful devil which originally
inspired Mahomet, the False Prophet, and
which now combining with the spirit of worldly
policy, and the spirit of infidelity, that is, with
two other very powerful devils, that direct the
workings of fallen men, has, alas ! succeeded in
gathering together the kings of the earth in
the unholy confederation, which the intelligence
of each successive day more and more sadly
APPENDIX. 261
confirms. And it is a remarkable fact, that
the same potentates who are combining in this
impious war are every day more and more
throwing off the mask, and openly avowing
their utter hatred of Catholicity. Look at
what is now going on in Piedmont and in Spain,
where the ruling power declares its determina-
tion to strip the Church of Christ of all its tem-
poral possessions ! Look at Germany, the
same odious and impious policy reigns in the
Grand Duchy of Baden, in the kingdom of
Prussia, and I am sorry to add, even in Austria !
We heard a great deal lately of the piety of
the young Emperor of that mighty state, how
he had swept away all the iniquitous enact-
ments of the Emperor Joseph, and had given
complete liberty to the Church. But I i
to say this is far from being the case. I lately
saw a letter from a distinguished ecclesiastic,
high in the Emperor's favour, and holding a
very conspicuous position in Vienna, in which
the writer affirms the very reverse. He praises
the Emperor himself, whom he represents as a
young man of pious and Catholic feelings, but
he affirms that the Church is as much enslaved
by the secular government at the present mo-
ment, as it was in the worst times that are
passed.
If we consider all these things, we shall not
be surprised at what follows in the seventeenth,
eighteenth, and nineteenth verses of this same
chapter. We are there conducted to the same
awful catastrophe, which we have already con-
templated in the concluding chapter of this
262 APPENDIX.
work. There is, however, one very important
fact referred to in this prophecy, which is not
noticed in those we have already considered.
No sooner does the seventh angel pour out his
vial upon the air, than St. John tells us a great
earthquake ensued, " Such as never hath been
since men were upon the earth."
Now, we have already seen, that by the term
earthquake, we should understand war. The
war, then, which ensues after " the gathering of
the kings of the earth to battle" is to be the
most terrible and the most destructive war that
has ever been since men first met each other
on the field of battle. One of the results of
this conflict St. John describes to be the divi-
sion of the great city into three parts. By
this expression I believe he means, that the
civilized world will be divided into three parts :
in what way this will be fulfilled, it is not for
us to conjecture, but time will show. One
thing is clear, St. John tells us that this tripar-
tite division of the civilized world will immedi-
ately precede the destruction of the mystic
Babylon. (Seever. 19). But in the twentieth
verse there is a very remarkable expression :
" And every island fled away, and the moun-
tains were not found. " This would seem to
denote the destruction of all insular powers, of
every vestige of provincial and communal go-
vernment, every power being absorbed into the
general despotic centralizing force, ruling the
whole, and levelling everything that had here-
tofore diversified the body politic, as we see
mountains diversifying the physical landscape.
APPENDIX. 263
The twenty-first verse foretells a plague of great
hail coming down from heaven upon men.
This may signify, at least it seems to me that
it symbolizes, what we have already seen de-
scribed in the latter verses of the eleventh
chapter of Daniel, namely, the irruption of the
King of the North into the provinces of Europe,
Asia, and Africa to the south of his dominions.
We need not say how we believe that this pre-
diction will be fulfilled. But a vast storm of
mighty hail, such as that described by St. John,
would aptly symbolize the irruption of mighty
hosts from the north, bearing down upon the
decayed and disorganized populations, whether
of Turkey, on the one hand, or of Germany,
Italy, France, and Spain, on the other. It is
a remarkable fact, whatever be the ground for
such an opinion, that there is a very prevalent
belief on the continent, that Europe is now on
the verge of a great political and social catas-
trophe, very analogous to what occurred at the
close of the old Roman empire. When I was
at Munich, in 1844, I heard this conviction
expressed in the most positive terms by the late
illustrious Gorres, and it was shared by all other
politicians and men of reflection with whom I
conversed, whether at Munich, or generally on
the continent. I do not think the events of
1848 can in any way have tended to diminish
this conviction, or make it less prevalent ; while
the subsequent rush of Europe into the arms
of absolutism, is certainly no sign of returning
health. These violent changes from the ex-
tremes of democracy to the extremes of despo-
264 APPENDIX.
tism, are very like the alternations of ague and
burning fever in a patient at the last stage of
physical decay, and on the eve of death. Paris
may well be looked upon as the capital of
modern civilization, as the great centre of all
the characteristic elements of the nineteenth
century. It is the opinion of all thinking men,
and especially of pious men, in that capital,
that modern Europe is a perfect transcript of
the lower Roman empire on the eve of its dis-
solution. The degradation of Spain and Por-
tugal, and their South American colonies, is
proverbial. No one can travel through the
fair provinces of the Italian Peninsula, and
not remark the same political decay. Every-
where one beholds traces, only too apparent,
of the existence of the most destructive ele-
ments ; the old hereditary reverence for religion
becoming weaker and weaker ; infidelity making
fresh inroads in every quarter ; the antagonism
between the State and the Church becoming
more pronounced every hour ; and the most
deplorable political theories absolutely depriving
men of all common sense. Whichever way we
look, everything is like Babel, a perfect chaos
of every sort of evil principle. We have already
shown in the course of this work, that while
the secular world is thus hastening on to de-
struction, there is, blessed be God, a corre-
sponding revival of vital religion and earnest
devotion in the Church of God, as if God were
preparing His Church for that solemn hour, in
which the warning voice will be heard in ac-
cents unmistakeable, " Come out of her, my
APPENDIX. 265
people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and
that you receive not of her plagues." In some
way or other God will interpose in behalf of His
Catholic Church, when the dreadful hour comes.
She will suffer a terrible persecution, we doubt
not, but it will be a persecution to purify and
prepare her for such an epoch of glory, for such
a destiny of sublime magnificence, as passes the
mind of man to conceive, but which, great and
glorious as it will be, will not exceed the glow-
ing predictions of the prophets. Babylon will
fall ; Nabuchodonozor's metallic statue will be
broken in pieces ; but these events usher in the
empire of the Church, the triumph of Catho-
licism; a period wherein mankind, under the
benign influence of St. Peter's successor, will
develop all the hidden resources of a holy and
a Christian civilization.
NOTE II. On the Name of Mahomet.
It appears, that amongst the Byzantine
Greek authors, there are many different modes
of writing the name of the false Prophet, Ma-
homet. St. John Damascene, in his work,
Utpl Aiptaluv, "On Heresies," writes his name
thus, Ma/Lil 7rovo/Ltaojuvoe (p. Ill) ; while
in another work, AmAe&c Sapaioivov icat
Xpumavov, i . e., " Conference between a Chris-
tian and a Saracen," he thus writes it, fiXOev b
Mov\afjLtO, (St. John Damascen. p. 470, torn, i.),
while Ephrgemius writes it Mwa^tS. (Ephra-
mius de Manuele Comnene, Corpus Byz. Hist.
p. 199, ed. Bonn.) And Constantinus Por-
266 APPENDIX.
phyrogenitus (ibid. pp. 92, 93), writes it
Mov^ovfui^T and MouajutS ; and Cedrenus adopts
very much the same mode (Hist. Comp. p. 738,
torn, i.) : ovrog 6 MwajutS 6 KOL Mou^oujuer,
ic. r. X. We have, therefore, in these four
authors no fewer than five different modes
of writing the name of Mahomet : MajucS,
Mov\afj.i9j MwajusS, Moua/isS, Mou^ou/ucr. But
it is evident every one of these are more or less
an approximation to the original Arabic name
of the great impostor : and although used by
Greek authors, they are not the proper Greek
version of his name ; arid so Cedrenus, Zonaras,
and Euthymius, when interpreting the mystical
number 666, translate the name of the false
Prophet into the word, which we have already
given in the body of this work, as the Hellenic
version of his ill-omened name Moa'/^nc.
(See Cornelius a Lapide, Comment, in Apoca-
lypsin, cap. xiii. p. 231 ; and Salmeron, in his
Praludia in Apocalypsin.}
NOTE III.
There was perhaps not one of the ancient
fathers, who had a more intense devotion to
the great mystery of our Blessed Lord's Incar-
nation, than that great light of the Eastern
Church, St. John Damascene. This is evident
in all his writings, especially in his great and
admirable treatises in defence of holy images,
impugned, as they were, by the Iconoclast
heretics. This divinely-illuminated father, com-
APPENDIX. 267
meriting on these* words of St. Paul's second
Epistle to the Thessalonians, ii. 7, " only he, that
now holdeth, doth hold, until he be taken out of
the way" answers the question as to whom
the Apostle there refers, thus : " TTJV Pw^alwv
fia.Gi\tiav ^ij(rr ravri]^ yap TrArj/oou^i'Tjc, 6 avr[-
XpioTos tp\trat," that is, "the Apostle refers
to the Roman empire. And when that is
removed, Antichrist cometh." Now the force
of the words is very striking, " 6 aiTixpivroc
tpXtrat," "Antichrist comet h ;" the saint might
have said " Antichrist shall come," but he says
" cometh ;" that is, " cometh immediately."
There was to be no delay, no sooner was the
Roman empire to be removed, than Antichrist,
the Man of Sin, was to be at once revealed,
"t(>X TCU avrtxpHrroe" Now, bearing these
remarkable words in mind, is it likely, assuming
the accuracy of the Patristic tradition, that on
the breaking up of the Roman empire Anti-
christ was speedily to appear; is it likely, I
say, that his coming should have been delayed
for more than twelve hundred years ? All the
lathers of the Church, with one consent, affirm
that the existence of the Roman empire was
what delayed the coming of Antichrist, and
that >vhcn that empire was removed, then he
was to appear, and they all unanimously affirm
that this was the meaning of the Apostle's
words : now can anything be conceived more
utterly at variance with such a statement, than
the one we so often hear, that Antichrist is
still to come? But if we look into another
268 APPENDIX.
passage in the writing of this same St. John
Damascene, I think it is pretty clear, that he
regarded Mahomet as the great Antichrist:
this passage is in his Homily for Holy Saturday
(torn. ii. p. 832). " MioYjo-wjusv o5v roue e\OpovQ
avrovy ?rac oortc ou^ ojuoAo-ysi rov Xptorov vlov
TOV Geou icat Kuptov, ANT1XPISTOS mv
lav Tig H7TTJ, OTt SouXoe OTIV 6 XjO/3TOC> IcXrf-
<Tw//fv rac acoae, a'Soree ort T^CUOT^C 0"r*> Kai
iA^$ia cv ai;r(^> OUK 2emv w that is, "Let us
hold God's enemies in detestation. Every man
that confesseth not that Christ is the Son of
God and Lord, is ANTICHRIST. If any
man shall say that Christ is a servant, let us
stop our ears, knowing that he is a liar, and
the truth is not in him." Now who was it
that said that Christ was not the Son of
God, nor the Lord, but merely a servant of
God ? It was Mahomet in his Alcoran ; and
the learned Dominican editor of St. John
Damascene, in his note to this passage, at the
foot of the page, appends these words : " HGC
contra MAHOMEDEM, qui in Alcorano fre-
quentissime inculcat Christum Dei servum esse,
nee proinde Deum" Now St. John Damas-
cene was an eyewitness of the first commence-
ment of Mahometan desolation ; and although
he was not in the same position that we are
in the nineteenth century, to take a general
survey of Mahometan history in all its enor-
mity, and in all its hideous conformity with
the descriptions of the Prophets, he could
scarcely have used words more expressive to
APPENDIX. 269
proclaim his conviction that Mahomet was the
Man of Sin, the chief Antichrist, he who was
to be revealed on the breaking up of the old
Roman empire. And if we turn to another
homily of the same holy father on the Annun-
ciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we shall
see with what fervour he implores the Mother
of God to intercede with her Divine Son, that
He would deliver the Church from the cruel
tyranny of Mahomet, saying, " All hail to Thee,
by whom the wild, savage, ravenous dog of Ish-
mael is smitten as though by a sword!"
" XaTof, Si* i}c t<j)OKTovtiTat 6 Bapj3apo / yV7/ re
teal 0iAo/icik-AAoc KVWV Iff/LcaijA." And so from
that day to this, whatever partial relief has
been granted to the Church of God from the
desolating persecution of this cruel Antichrist,
the annals of her history assure us that it has
been granted by God at the special intercession
of His ever blessed Mother. And now that we
seem to be drawing near to that great consum-
mation for which the Church of God has been
so long praying, the final destruction of Maho-
met, it will not be uninteresting to the Catholic
reader to hear what was revealed to the blessed
Father Leonard, of Port Maurice, a short time
before his holy death. It was made known
to him, that when the Church of God should
solemnly define the ancient belief of the Imma-
culate Conception of the Mother of God to be
an article of Divine faith, then three great and
wonderful things should ensue. There would
be a tremendous war all over the world, with
270 APPENDIX.
awful desolation and calamities such, as had
never been witnessed upon earth before. The
empire of Mahomet would utterly be destroyed;
and that great and universal peace and bene-
diction of mankind, so often foretold by the
Prophets, would be ushered in. This remark-
able prediction of the blessed Leonard was
communicated to me by one of the most
learned and devout priests of the Church of
France, the Abbe Gaume.
Fiat citb.
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