Hi there! So in my last post I said I hoped to come back to the idea of the Antichrist. Well, here I am. I’m game if you are!
If you haven’t read that first post, An ’Aspie’ Catholic Reflects on the Present Situation, I would encourage you to do so. The following might appear more ”doom and gloom” than I intend without the perspective I tried to provide there.
The idea of the Antichrist has captivated the Western imagination for nearly 2,000 years. And if we think it fails to intrigue in the modern era, we need only look to such iconic media sensations as Rosemary’s Baby, The Omen, and the hit Left Behind series to disillusion ourselves.
Narrative treatments being what they are, the likes of the aforementioned tend toward sensationalism and unnecessary scariness. But there is an element of truth in them.
Here is what the Catechism of the Catholic Church has to say on the subject:
Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the “mystery of iniquity” in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. [T]he supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.
The Antichrist’s deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgement. [T]he Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism, especially the “intrinsically perverse” political form of a secular messianism.
CCC 675-76
Going back to the nineteenth century we find an echo of this in Saint John Henry Newman’s lecture titled The Times of Antichrist:
Do you think [the devil] is so unskilful in his craft, as to ask you openly and plainly to join him in his warfare against the Truth? No; he offers you baits to tempt you. He promises you civil liberty; he promises you equality; he promises you trade and wealth; he promises you a remission of taxes; he promises you reform. This is the way in which he conceals from you the kind of work to which he is putting you; he tempts you to rail against your rulers and superiors; he does so himself, and induces you to imitate him; or he promises you illumination, —he offers you knowledge, science, philosophy, enlargement of mind. He scoffs at times gone by; he scoffs at every institution which reveres them. He prompts you what to say, and then listens to you, and praises you, and encourages you. He bids you mount aloft. He shows you how to become as gods. Then he laughs and jokes with you, and gets intimate with you; he takes your hand, and gets his fingers between yours, and grasps them, and then you are his.
Patristic theologians, Newman tells us in the same lecture, generally concur that the Antichrist will be a single figure with great deceptive power, and that this figure will be granted a short period of reign on earth (three and a half years seems to be the consensus) before the Lord comes to save His people and usher in the ”new heavens and the new earth.”
Films and books like those cited above give artistic expression to a feeling, more or less latent, somewhere in the consciousness of everyone aware of such matters — namely, that for all we know the Antichrist could be walking amongst us already.
History features various ”types” of Antichrist, just as Christ had His prefiguring types in the Old Testament (Adam, Noah, Isaac, Moses, etc). Even before the time of Christ the Chosen People were beset by the tyranny of Antiochus Epiphanes, who compelled them to violate the Mosaic Law and set up an idol in the Jerusalem Temple itself (the victory of the Maccabees over Antiochus at the beginning of their revolt is what is celebrated every year at Hanukkah).
Fast forward to the mid-4th-century A.D. and you will meet the Roman emperor Julian, called in after ages ”Julian the Apostate.” He is known for having dramatically renounced the Christian faith, and for striving to return the recently Christianized Empire to Roman paganism. Christians living in the Empire had a hard time of things under his reign.
We could cite a number of other instances of Antichrist typology as well, of shameless rebels against God and against humankind. Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, and others seem to fit the bill. If we look carefully, we will notice that in each case the arrival of the offending figure tends to be preceded by a falling-away on the part of believers. We read in 1 Maccabees that Antiochus’ tyranny came only after a great number of the Israelites had abandoned, or at least badly compromised, their religious practices. Julian the Apostate came only after most of Christendom had succumbed to the Arian heresy, leaving a persecuted minority of faithful souls who were convinced (very understandably) the End was nigh.
Each of these historical circumstances echoes, in its own way, the Scriptural prophecies pointing to a Great Apostasy, and the coming of the Antichrist on the heels of it. Nor is this an accident. The forces of evil have been looking for their Champion since day one, and they never lose an opportunity to elevate the greatest candidate they can find to power.
But by the grace of God, working through holy souls and through the natural restraining power He utilizes for the purpose (I’ll try to get to that in another post), the reign of these Champions has repeatedly been cut short.
Indeed, one day the world will see the Great Apostasy, and the Antichrist. Naturally the question arises as to why we fight to ward off what we know is coming eventually. Well, for the same reason that we strive against death, on behalf of ourselves and others, even though we know we all must die sometime. Legitimate self-preservation is a duty, and one naturally engraved on our hearts. Likewise, as the great drama of history marches on we must do our part to keep the Antichrist at bay, and then leave the rest in God’s hands — all the while obeying our Lord’s command to watch for His Coming.
Like I said, I’ll try to get one more post in. That ought to wrap things up pretty well. Thanks for reading.
Acknowledgements
Film poster for The Omen. 20th Century Fox – IMPAwards. File:Omen ver4.jpg. Created: 14 January 2007. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Omen#/media/File:Omen_ver4.jpg
Altes Museum – Berlin – Germany. José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro. File:Antiochus IV Epiphanes – Altes Museum – Berlin – Germany 2017.jpg. Created: 25 July 2017.
Ioulianou autokratoros ta sozomena (1696). Iulianus, Flavius Claudius – Available in the BEIC digital library and uploaded in partnership with BEIC Foundation. File:Ioulianou autokratoros ta sozomena.tif. Created: 1 January 1696.
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