01-29-2021, 12:02 AM
Antichrist According to the Apocalypse
"Despite the fact that the spiritual or ideal interpretation of the Apocalypse, elaborated chiefly by Father Allo, O.P., has gained many adherents in the past forty years, there is an ever increasing number of authors who, along the lines of the earliest Church Fathers, prefer to give an eschatological interpretation to the greater part of that prophetical book of the New Testament. It would be interesting to see what such an interpretation would offer in detail. A summary picture would probably result as follows.
"The Apocalypse is chiefly the grand finale of the Kingdom of God on earth, the completion of all prophecies in, a final synthesis.
"Part I (1 :9-3 :22) depicts the First Age of the Church with its needs and impending trials. Part II (4:1-20 :15) sets forth the Final Age of the Church. Such a combination of events widely separated in time is common to the prophetic vision. However, a connecting bridge between the two eras is probably given in a second fulfillment of Part I, namely, the typical sense of the Seven Letters.
"Part II opens with the Almighty Judge seated in judgment together with His heavenly court (Apoc. 4 :1-5 :14). His final decrees for mankind are in the sealed scroll. But He has given all judgment to the Son (John 5:22), so it is the Lamb, once slain by man, who executes these decrees on man, through the mediation of the angelic world. Part II has two sections.
"Section One (6 :1-11 :19) portrays the great distress among the nations on account of the calamities which the Lamb allows to overtake the world in punishment for unbelief. These calamities are in origin terrestrial (ch. 6), celestial (ch. 8), and infernal (ch. 9). Even a foretaste of hell is given to mankind before the great day of reckoning. Also in St. Luke's eschatological chapter, there is a clear distinction made between ordinary wars and insurrections on the one hand, and universal war, calamity, famine and death on the other. The latter is the sign of the coming judgment (Luke 21:9 and 10-11).
"The period of great distress coincides with the 'Major Apostasy' of 2 Thess. 2:3 and with the end of the 'Time of the Gentiles.' After describing the destruction of Jerusalem, Jesus said: 'And Jerusalem will be trodden down by the Gentiles until the times of the nations to be fulfilled' (Luke 21 :24). The great distress brought physical death to many on earth, but like in the days of the flood (see 1Peter 3 :20), many found repentance before death and washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb, and an innumerable crowd remained faithful to Him unto death (Apoc. 7 :9-14).
"At this juncture there is place for the conversion of the Jews (as a whole) (see Rom. 11:13-25). 'A partial blindness only has befallen Israel until the full number of the Gentiles should enter, and thus all Israel should be saved' (Rom. 11: 25). So the Church of the Last Age (represented by the 144,000 of chapter 7, sealed from both spiritual and physical harm) shall come through unscathed, and shall once more be (predominantly) Israelitic. It shall continue so to the end, marked (sealed) by God, like Israel of old in Egypt, as His own people. But the nations fall back into unbelief (Luke 18 :8).
"Israel's conversion is brought about by the preaching and miracles of Elias during the great distress. 'Behold I will send you Elias the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall turn the heart of the children to the fathers; lest I come and strike the earth with anathema' (Mal. 4 :5-6). 'Elias is indeed to come and will restore all things' (Mt. 17 :11). True Israel is now spiritual; the material-minded and worldly Jews are rejected, as symbolized in the measuring cf the Temple (Apoc. 11 :1-2).
"Henoch is the second witness sent back to preach penance in preparation for the coming of the reign of Antichrist. It seems that his mission is to the nations, so that they have an opportunity of salvation to the end (see Sir. 44 :16). Jude 14-15 also hints at Henoch's mission in the latter days. The ministry of the two witnesses lasts 'three and a half years' (Apoc. 11 :3), which coincides with the first half of Daniel's last 'year-week' (Dan. 9 :26-27), whereas the second half of that 'year-week' coincides with the reign of Antichrist (who also reigns for three and a half years or 42 months in Apoc. 13 :5) and makes desolate all religion, only to sit in the temple of God and give himself out to be God (2 Thess. 2 :4). This is either a typical fulfillment of Daniel's last year-week, or there was a suspension in Daniel's vision after the seven plus sixty-two weeks until the time of the nations be fulfilled, and then the vision is resumed with the last year-week concerning Daniel's own people: Israel.
"Section Two of Part II (12 :1-20 :15) portrays the godless reign of a personal Antichrist, and the subsequent utter destruction of his kingdom, metropolis, and devotees. The stage is prepared by showing the Church of the Consummation fitted out with the characteristics of the Virgin Mother, invulnerable in this attire against the attacks of the fierce dragon. Yet the dragon prepares to engulf her in a last supreme onslaught (ch.12).
"Beast number one is collective Antichrist persecuting the People of God from its very beginnings on earth down through the centuries (ch. 13). This it does through its seven heads but chiefly through him who caps all seven, namely, personal Antichrist, who sums up in himself all the perversity of the seven. Thus he is the eighth (Apoc. 17: 11). Seven heads which endeavored to engulf God's people on earth from the beginning of its existence are: Egypt (Pharao), Assyria, Babylonia, Medo-Persia (under Artaxerxes Ochos), Greco-Macedonia (in the Seleucides), Totalitarian pagan Rome (the sixth head) and a world empire of latter times. Symb8lism (like in Daniel) fluctuates between a collective and a personal being, namely, an empire and a chief representative of that empire, e.g., the sixth head is represented as both empire and chief head of that empire (see 17 :9). Daniel's fourth beast with the ten horns (Dan. 7 :17-25) coincides with this beast of the Apocalypse in its sixth head (Apoc. 17 :10). Ten horns are those state-kingdoms which follow upon the break-up of the Roman Empire and (eventually) persecute the Church.
"Beast number two is a false Elias heralding the advent of the false Christ (Antichrist in person). By diabolical signs he succeeds in bringing over the infidel world to Antichrist. St. Paul states that this deception is also a punishment for unbelief in Christ's Gospel of truth and love (2 Thess. 2: 9-12). Antichrist's name is given a numerical value: 666. Fulfillment alone can give certitude to this riddle. The Hebrew letters of Nero (n) Kaisar amount to 666. If this is the meaning of St. John, then Antichrist will come in the spirit of Nero (the sixth head), so that the horrible beast lives again (Apoc. 13 :3).
The Marian Church of the Consummation has nothing to fear from the Antichrist, for he cannot extinguish her. God gives her supernatural aid (Apoc. 12 :6). She is now virginal in the purity of her conduct and her devotedness to the Lamb. Her imitation of the Lamb is unexcelled (14 :4). Mindful of the advice of St. Paul (1 Cor. 7 :26-31), all live the virginal ideal. The time is at hand.
"Destruction of Antichrist's metropolis and works is accomplished by angelic powers in the pouring out of the bowls of God's wrath (ch. 16). Personal Antichrist and False Elias are overcome and cast into hell by the personal coming of Christ in glory (19:11-21).
"Millenium: Since the Holy Office decreed (July 21, 1944) that it cannot be safely taught that Christ at His Second Coming will reign visibly with only some of His saints (risen from the dead) for a period of time before the final and universal judgment, a spiritual millenium is to be seen in Apoc. 20 :4-6. St. John gives a recapitulation of the activity of Satan, and the spiritual reign of the saints with Christ in heaven and in His Church on earth. When Christianity triumphed over the Beast (in its sixth head, the pagan Roman empire) Satan was chained. With the re-appearance of the Beast in the anti-Christian world empire (the seventh head), he will be unchained, and muster all his forces against the Church until the peak of the persecution under Antichrist (the eighth). Meanwhile, the church enjoyed the millenium with Christ enthroned among the nations.
"Part III (Apoc. 21-22) deals exclusively with the new heaven and the transformed earth, the new Jerusalem, Paradise, and eternal happiness. It harkens back to the first three chapters of Genesis. Mankind is restored forever to God's love and friendship, but through the Lamb and the Virgin (22 :1-3). And the river of God's Love shall quench the thirst of the sons of God forever. And they shall be like unto God (22 :4-5)."
(Bernard J. LeFrois: "Eschatological Interpretation of the Apocalypse" in The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Vol. XIII, pp. 17-20. This text has been added by the editor).