(Updated August 1, 2025)
This Quote Archive is on the eschatological (end times) topic of Antichrist, Jerusalem, the Jews, and the Temple. Each Archive is a treasury of original source quotes on various topics relevant to the Catholic Faith, and addressed in Becoming Catholic articles. They are intended to help people explore the “gold, silver, and precious gems” that have been mined and sifted from the sources of the Great Tradition by Eternal Christendom as a labor of love for our readers, and all seekers of Truth. They are periodically updated as more research is completed.
Some Quote Archives cover topics that include multiple sub-topics, in which individual quotes only address particular sub-topics. Therefore, in order to help readers more easily identify the sub-topics addressed in each quote, they will be listed in alphabetical order after each citation.
Sub-Topics
The sub-topics in this Quote Archive are:
- Demonic Deception (the false worship and miracles of Antichrist, as well as the “strong delusion” or “operation of error” mentioned in 2 Thess. 2:11)
- Great Apostasy (the “rebellion” of 2 Thess. 2:3 prior to the coming of Antichrist)
- Katechōn (the “restrainer” that holds back the coming of Antichrist in 2 Thess. 2:6-7)
- Jerusalem (Antichrist’s possible presence in Jerusalem)
- False Messiah (the Jews’ acceptance of Antichrist)
- Conversion (the Jews’ final conversion to Christ)
- Temple (i.e. whether the “Temple” of 2 Thess. 2:4 is a rebuilt Jewish Temple, the Temple of the Catholic Church, etc.)
St. Irenaeus of Lyon (c. 130-c. 202) (EAST/WEST)
St. Irenaeus of Lyon, Against Heresies (c. 180)
(Book 5, Ch. 25, §§1-2, 4) | JERUSALEM | TEMPLE
(§1) …This he [Antichrist] does, in order that they who do [now] worship the devil by means of many abominations, may serve himself by this one idol, of whom the apostle thus speaks in the second Epistle to the Thessalonians: “Unless there shall come a failing away first, and the man of sin shall be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped; so that he sits in the temple of God, showing himself as if he were God” (2 Thess. 2:3-4). The apostle therefore clearly points out his apostasy, and that he is lifted up above all that is called God, or that is worshiped—that is, above every idol—for these are indeed so called by men, but are not [really] gods; and that he will endeavor in a tyrannical manner to set himself forth as God.
(§2) Moreover, he (the apostle) has also pointed out this which I have shown in many ways, that the temple in Jerusalem was made by the direction of the true God. For the apostle himself, speaking in his own person, distinctly called it the temple of God. Now I have shown in the third book, that no one is termed God by the apostles when speaking for themselves, except Him who truly is God, the Father of our Lord, by whose directions the temple which is at Jerusalem was constructed for those purposes which I have already mentioned; in which [temple] the enemy shall sit, endeavoring to show himself as Christ, as the Lord also declares: “But when ye shall see the abomination of desolation, which has been spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (let him that reads understand), then let those who are in Judea flee into the mountains; and he who is upon the house-top, let him not come down to take anything out of his house: for there shall then be great hardship, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, nor ever shall be” (Matt. 24:15, 21)…
(§4) The Lord also spoke as follows to those who did not believe in Him: “I have come in my Father’s name, and you have not received Me: when another shall come in his own name, him you will receive” (John 5:43), calling Antichrist “the other,” because he is alienated from the Lord. This is also the unjust judge, whom the Lord mentioned as one “who feared not God, neither regarded man” (Luke 18:2), to whom the widow fled in her forgetfulness of God—that is, the earthly Jerusalem—to be avenged of her adversary. Which also he shall do in the time of his kingdom: he shall remove his kingdom into that [city], and shall sit in the temple of God, leading astray those who worship him, as if he were Christ. To this purpose Daniel says again: “And he shall desolate the holy place; and sin has been given for a sacrifice, and righteousness been cast away in the earth, and he has been active (fecit), and gone on prosperously” (Dan. 8:12). And the angel Gabriel, when explaining his vision, states with regard to this person: “And towards the end of their kingdom a king of a most fierce countenance shall arise, one understanding [dark] questions, and exceedingly powerful, full of wonders; and he shall corrupt, direct, influence (faciet), and put strong men down, the holy people likewise; and his yoke shall be directed as a wreath [round their neck]; deceit shall be in his hand, and he shall be lifted up in his heart: he shall also ruin many by deceit, and lead many to perdition, bruising them in his hand like eggs” (Dan. 8:23). And then he points out the time that his tyranny shall last, during which the saints shall be put to flight, they who offer a pure sacrifice unto God: “And in the midst of the week,” he says, “the sacrifice and the libation shall be taken away, and the abomination of desolation [shall be brought] into the temple: even unto the consummation of the time shall the desolation be complete” (Dan. 9:27). Now three years and six months constitute the half-week.
Tertullian (c. 155-c. 220) | WEST
Tertullian, Apology (197)
(Ch. 32) | KATECHŌN
There is also another and a greater necessity for our offering prayer in behalf of the emperors, nay, for the complete stability of the empire, and for Roman interests in general. For we know that a mighty shock impending over the whole earth—in fact, the very end of all things threatening dreadful woes—is only retarded by the continued existence of the Roman empire. We have no desire, then, to be overtaken by these dire events; and in praying that their coming may be delayed, we are lending our aid to Rome’s duration. More than this, though we decline to swear by the genii of the Caesars, we swear by their safety, which is worth far more than all your genii. Are you ignorant that these genii are called Dæmones, and thence the diminutive name Dæmonia is applied to them? We respect in the emperors the ordinance of God, who has set them over the nations. We know that there is that in them which God has willed; and to what God has willed we desire all safety, and we count an oath by it a great oath. But as for demons, that is, your genii, we have been in the habit of exorcising them, not of swearing by them, and thereby conferring on them divine honor.
Tertullian, Resurrection of the Flesh (c. 210)
(Ch. 24) | GREAT APOSTASY | KATECHŌN | TEMPLE
Again, in the second epistle he addresses them with even greater earnestness: “Now I beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto Him, that you be not soon shaken in mind, nor be troubled, either by spirit, or by word,” that is, the word of false prophets, “or by letter,” that is, the letter of false apostles, “as if from us, as that the day of the Lord is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means. For that day shall not come, unless indeed there first come a falling away,” he means indeed of this present empire, “and that man of sin be revealed,” that is to say, Antichrist, “the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or religion; so that he sits in the temple of God, affirming that he is God. Remember you not, that when I was with you, I used to tell you these things? And now you know what detains, that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity does already work; only he who now hinders must hinder, until he be taken out of the way” (2 Thess. 2:1-7). What obstacle is there but the Roman state, the falling away of which, by being scattered into ten kingdoms, shall introduce Antichrist upon (its own ruins)? “And then shall be revealed the wicked one, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming: even him whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish” (2 Thess. 2:8-10).
St. Hippolytus of Rome (c. 170-c. 235) (WEST)
St. Hippolytus of Rome, Treatise on Christ and Antichrist
(§§6, 27, 63) | JERUSALEM | TEMPLE
(§6) Now, as our Lord Jesus Christ, who is also God, was prophesied of under the figure of a lion [Apoc. 5:5; cf. Gen. 49:8], on account of His royalty and glory, in the same way have the Scriptures also aforetime spoken of Antichrist as a lion, on account of his tyranny and violence. For the deceiver seeks to liken himself in all things to the Son of God. Christ is a lion, so Antichrist is also a lion; Christ is a king [John 18:37], so Antichrist is also a king. The Savior was manifested as a lamb [John 1:29]; so he too, in like manner, will appear as a lamb, though within he is a wolf. The Savior came into the world in the circumcision, and he will come in the same manner. The Lord sent apostles among all the nations, and he in like manner will send false apostles. The Savior gathered together the sheep that were scattered abroad [John 11:52], and he in like manner will bring together a people that is scattered abroad. The Lord gave a seal to those who believed on Him, and he will give one in like manner. The Savior appeared in the form of man, and he too will come in the form of a man. The Savior raised up and showed His holy flesh like a temple [John 2:19], and he will raise a temple of stone in Jerusalem. And his seductive arts we shall exhibit in what follows. But for the present let us turn to the question in hand…
(§27) As these things, then, are in the future, and as the ten toes of the image are equivalent to (so many) democracies, and the ten horns of the fourth beast are distributed over ten kingdoms, let us look at the subject a little more closely, and consider these matters as in the clear light of a personal survey…
(§63) And the blessed Apostle Paul, writing to the Thessalonians, says: “Now we beseech you, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together at it, that you be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letters as from us, as that the day of the Lord is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means; for (that day shall not come) except there come the falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped: so that he sits in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Remember you not, that when I was yet with you, I told you these things? And now you know what withholds, that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity does already work; only he who now lets (will let), until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that wicked be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus shall consume with the Spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming: (even him) whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness” (2 Thess. 2:1-11). And Isaiah says, “Let the wicked be cut off, that he behold not the glory of the Lord” (Isa. 26:10).
Origen (c. 184-c. 253) (EAST)
Origin, Commentary on Matthew (c. 249)
(Commentary on 24:2)1 | TEMPLE
After Christ predicted everything that was about to happen to Jerusalem, he who had preserved the temple left it, lest it collapse while he was still in it. The temple stood safe and secure as long as the Word and the kingdom of God were with the Jews, as did all things Jewish. Subsequently, however, the kingdom of God was taken from the Jews and given to the Gentiles, as it is written, “The kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to the nations who produce its fruit” (Matt. 21:43). Both Jesus and the kingdom of God were then established among the Gentiles. Therefore neither Jesus nor the kingdom of God is to be found among the Jews, because they were abandoned “like a booth in a vineyard and like a hut in a cucumber field and like a city besieged” (Isa. 1:8), on account of the crime they committed against Christ.
Lactantius (c. 250-c. 325) | WEST
Lactantius, The Divine Institutes (c. 303-311)
(Book 7, Ch. 14-21, 25-26) | KATECHŌN | TEMPLE
Since we have spoken of the immortality of the soul, it follows that we teach how and when it is given to man; that in this also they may see the errors of their perverseness and folly, who imagine that some mortals have become gods by the decrees and dogmas of mortals; either because they had invented arts, or because they had taught the use of certain productions of the earth, or because they had discovered things useful for the life of men, or because they had slain savage beasts. How far these things were from deserving immortality we have both shown in the former books, and we will now show, that it may be evident that it is righteousness alone which procures for man eternal life, and that it is God alone who bestows the reward of eternal life. For they who are said to have been immortalized by their merits, inasmuch as they possessed neither righteousness nor any true virtue, did not obtain for themselves immortality, but death by their sins and lusts; nor did they deserve the reward of heaven, but the punishment of hell, which impends over them, together with all their worshipers. And I show that the time of this judgment draws near, that the due reward may be given to the righteous, and the deserved punishment may be inflicted on the wicked.
Plato and many others of the philosophers, since they were ignorant of the origin of all things, and of that primal period at which the world was made, said that many thousands of ages had passed since this beautiful arrangement of the world was completed; and in this they perhaps followed the Chaldeans, who, as Cicero has related in his first book respecting divination, foolishly say that they possess comprised in their memorials four hundred and seventy thousand years; in which matter, because they thought that they could not be convicted, they believed that they were at liberty to speak falsely. But we, whom the Holy Scriptures instruct to the knowledge of the truth, know the beginning and the end of the world, respecting which we will now speak in the end of our work, since we have explained respecting the beginning in the second book. Therefore let the philosophers, who enumerate thousands of ages from the beginning of the world, know that the six thousandth year is not yet completed, and that when this number is completed the consummation must take place, and the condition of human affairs be remodeled for the better, the proof of which must first be related, that the matter itself may be plain. God completed the world and this admirable work of nature in the space of six days, as is contained in the secrets of Holy Scripture, and consecrated the seventh day, on which He had rested from His works. But this is the Sabbath-day, which in the language of the Hebrews received its name from the number, whence the seventh is the legitimate and complete number. For there are seven days, by the revolutions of which in order the circles of years are made up; and there are seven stars which do not set, and seven luminaries which are called planets, whose differing and unequal movements are believed to cause the varieties of circumstances and times.
Therefore, since all the works of God were completed in six days, the world must continue in its present state through six ages, that is, six thousand years. For the great day of God is limited by a circle of a thousand years, as the prophet shows, who says “In Thy sight, O Lord, a thousand years are as one day” (Ps. 90:4). And as God labored during those six days in creating such great works, so His religion and truth must labor during these six thousand years, while wickedness prevails and bears rule. And again, since God, having finished His works, rested the seventh day and blessed it, at the end of the six thousandth year all wickedness must be abolished from the earth, and righteousness reign for a thousand years; and there must be tranquility and rest from the labors which the world now has long endured. But how that will come to pass I will explain in its order. We have often said that lesser things and things of small importance are figures and previous shadowings forth of great things; as this day of ours, which is bounded by the rising and the setting of the sun, is a representation of that great day to which the circuit of a thousand years affixes its limits.
In the same manner also the fashioning of the earthly man held forth to the future the formation of the heavenly people. For as, when all things were completed which were contrived for the use of man, last of all, on the sixth day, He made man also, and introduced him into this world as into a home now carefully prepared; so now on the great sixth day the true man is being formed by the word of God, that is, a holy people is fashioned for righteousness by the doctrine and precepts of God. And as then a mortal and imperfect man was formed from the earth, that he might live a thousand years in this world; so now from this earthly age is formed a perfect man, that being quickened by God, he may bear rule in this same world through a thousand years. But in what manner the consummation will take place, and what end awaits the affairs of men, if anyone shall examine the divine writings he will ascertain. But the voices also of prophets of the world, agreeing with the heavenly, announce the end and overthrow of all things after a short time, describing as it were the last old age of the wearied and wasting world. But the things which are said by prophets and seers to be about to happen before that last ending comes upon the world, I will subjoin, being collected and accumulated from all quarters.
It is contained in the mysteries of the sacred writings, that a prince of the Hebrews, compelled by want of corn, passed into Egypt with all his family and relatives. And when his posterity, remaining long in Egypt, had increased into a great nation, and were oppressed by the heavy and intolerable yoke of slavery, God smote Egypt with an incurable stroke, and freed His people, leading them through the midst of the sea, when, the waves being cut asunder and parted on either side, the people went over on dry ground. And the king of the Egyptians endeavoring to follow them as they fled, the sea returning to its place, he was cut off, with all his people. And this deed so illustrious and so wonderful, although for the present it displayed to men the power of God, was also a foreshadowing and figure of a greater deed, which the same God was about to perform at the last consummation of the times, for He will free His people from the oppressive bondage of the world. But since at that time the people of God were one, and in one nation only, Egypt only was smitten. But now, because the people of God are collected out of all languages, and dwell among all nations, and are oppressed by those bearing rule over them, it must come to pass that all nations, that is, the whole world, be beaten with heavenly stripes, that the righteous people, who are worshipers of God, may be set free. And as then signs were given by which the coming destruction was shown to the Egyptians, so at the last time wonderful prodigies will take place throughout all the elements of the world, by which the impending destruction may be understood by all nations.
Therefore, as the end of this world approaches, the condition of human affairs must undergo a change, and through the prevalence of wickedness become worse; so that now these times of ours, in which iniquity and impiety have increased even to the highest degree, may be judged happy and almost golden in comparison of that incurable evil. For righteousness will so decrease, and impiety, avarice, desire, and lust will so greatly increase, that if there shall then happen to be any good men, they will be a prey to the wicked, and will be harassed on all sides by the unrighteous; while the wicked alone will be in opulence, but the good will be afflicted in all calumnies and in want. All justice will be confounded, and the laws will be destroyed. No one will then have anything except that which has been gained or defended by the hand: boldness and violence will possess all things. There will be no faith among men, nor peace, nor kindness, nor shame, nor truth; and thus also there will be neither security, nor government, nor any rest from evils. For all the earth will be in a state of tumult; wars will everywhere rage; all nations will be in arms, and will oppose one another; neighboring states will carry on conflicts with each other; and first of all, Egypt will pay the penalties of her foolish superstitions, and will be covered with blood as if with a river. Then the sword will traverse the world, mowing down everything, and laying low all things as a crop. And—my mind dreads to relate it, but I will relate it, because it is about to happen—the cause of this desolation and confusion will be this; because the Roman name, by which the world is now ruled, will be taken away from the earth, and the government return to Asia; and the East will again bear rule, and the West be reduced to servitude. Nor ought it to appear wonderful to anyone, if a kingdom founded with such vastness, and so long increased by so many and such men, and in short strengthened by such great resources, shall nevertheless at some time fall. There is nothing prepared by human strength which cannot equally he destroyed by human strength, since the works of mortals are mortal. Thus also other kingdoms in former times, though they had long flourished, were nevertheless destroyed. For it is related that the Egyptians, and Persians, and Greeks, and Assyrians had the government of the world; and after the destruction of them all, the chief power came to the Romans also. And inasmuch as they excel all other kingdoms in magnitude, with so much greater an overthrow will they fall, because those buildings which are higher than others have more weight for a downfall.
Seneca therefore not unskillfully divided the times of the Roman city by ages. For he said that at first was its infancy under King Romulus, by whom Rome was brought into being, and as it were educated; then its boyhood under the other kings, by whom it was increased and fashioned with more numerous systems of instruction and institutions; but at length, in the reign of Tarquinius, when now it had begun as it were to be grown up, it did not endure slavery; and having thrown off the yoke of a haughty tyranny, it preferred to obey laws rather than kings; and when its youth was terminated by the end of the Punic war, then at length with confirmed strength it began to be manly. For when Carthage was taken away, which was long its rival in power, it stretched out its hands by land and sea over the whole world, until, having subdued all kings and nations, when the materials for war now failed, it abused its strength, by which it destroyed itself. This was its first old age, when, lacerated by civil wars and oppressed by intestine evil, it again fell back to the government of a single ruler, as it were revolving to a second infancy. For, having lost the liberty which it had defended under the guidance and authority of Brutus, it so grew old, as though it had no strength to support itself, unless it depended on the aid of its rulers. But if these things are so, what remains, except that death follow old age? And that it will so come to pass, the predictions of the prophets briefly announce under the cover of other names, so that no one can easily understand them. Nevertheless the Sibyls openly say that Rome is doomed to perish, and that indeed by the judgment of God, because it held His name in hatred; and being the enemy of righteousness, it destroyed the people who kept the truth. Hystaspes also, who was a very ancient king of the Medes, from whom also the river which is now called Hydaspes received its name, handed down to the memory of posterity a wonderful dream upon the interpretation of a boy who uttered divinations, announcing long before the founding of the Trojan nation, that the Roman empire and name would be taken away from the world.
But, lest anyone should think this incredible, I will show how it will come to pass. First, the kingdom will be enlarged, and the chief power, dispersed among many and divided, will be diminished. Then civil discords will perpetually be sown; nor will there be any rest from deadly wars, until ten kings arise at the same time, who will divide the world, not to govern, but to consume it. These, having increased their armies to an immense extent, and having deserted the cultivation of the fields, which is the beginning of overthrow and disaster, will lay waste and break in pieces and consume all things. Then a most powerful enemy will suddenly arise against him from the extreme boundaries of the northern region, who, having destroyed three of that number who shall then be in possession of Asia, shall be admitted into alliance by the others, and shall be constituted prince of all. He shall harass the world with an intolerable rule; shall mingle things divine and human; shall contrive things impious to relate, and detestable; shall meditate new designs in his breast, that he may establish the government for himself: he will change the laws, and appoint his own; he will contaminate, plunder, spoil, and put to death. And at length, the name being changed and the seat of government being transferred, confusion and the disturbance of mankind will follow. Then, in truth, a detestable and abominable time shall come, in which life shall be pleasant to none of men.
Cities shall be utterly overthrown, and shall perish; not only by fire and the sword, but also by continual earthquakes and overflowings of waters, and by frequent diseases and repeated famines. For the atmosphere will be tainted, and become corrupt and pestilential—at one time by unseasonable rains, at another by barren drought, now by colds, and now by excessive heats. Nor will the earth give its fruit to man: no field, or tree, or vine will produce anything; but after they have given the greatest hope in the blossom, they will fail in the fruit. Fountains also shall be dried up, together with the rivers; so that there shall not be a sufficient supply for drinking; and waters shall be changed into blood or bitterness. On account of these things, beasts shall fail on the land, and birds in the air, and fishes in the sea. Wonderful prodigies also in heaven shall confound the minds of men with the greatest terrors, and the trains of comets, and the darkness of the sun, and the color of the moon, and the gliding of the falling stars. Nor, however, will these things take place in the accustomed manner; but there will suddenly appear stars unknown and unseen by the eyes; the sun will be perpetually darkened, so that there will be scarcely any distinction between the night and the day; the moon will now fail, not for three hours only, but overspread with perpetual blood, will go through extraordinary movements, so that it will not be easy for man to ascertain the courses of the heavenly bodies or the system of the times; for there will either be summer in the winter, or winter in the summer. Then the year will be shortened, and the month diminished, and the day contracted into a short space; and stars shall fall in great numbers, so that all the heaven will appear dark without any lights. The loftiest mountains also will fall, and be leveled with the plains; the sea will be rendered unnavigable.
And that nothing may be wanting to the evils of men and the earth, the trumpet shall be heard from heaven, which the Sibyl foretells in this manner:
“The trumpet from heaven shall utter its wailing voice.”
And then all shall tremble and quake at that mournful sound. But then, through the anger of God against the men who have not known righteousness, the sword and fire, famine and disease, shall reign; and, above all things, fear always overhanging. Then they shall call upon God, but He will not hear them; death shall be desired, but it will not come; not even shall night give rest to their fear, nor shall sleep approach to their eyes, but anxiety and watchfulness shall consume the souls of men; they shall deplore and lament, and gnash their teeth; they shall congratulate the dead, and bewail the living. Through these and many other evils there shall be desolation on the earth, and the world shall be disfigured and deserted, which is thus expressed in the verses of the Sibyl:
“The world shall be despoiled of beauty, through the destruction of men.”
For the human race will be so consumed, that scarcely the tenth part of men will be left; and from whence a thousand had gone forth, scarcely a hundred will go forth. Of the worshipers of God also, two parts will perish; and the third part, which shall have been proved, will remain.
But I will more plainly set forth the manner in which this happens. When the close of the times draws nigh, a great prophet shall be sent from God to turn men to the knowledge of God, and he shall receive the power of doing wonderful things. Wherever men shall not hear him, he will shut up the heaven, and cause it to withhold its rains; he will turn their water into blood, and torment them with thirst and hunger; and if anyone shall endeavor to injure him, fire shall come forth out of his mouth, and shall burn that man. By these prodigies and powers he shall turn many to the worship of God; and when his works shall be accomplished, another king shall arise out of Syria, born from an evil spirit, the overthrower and destroyer of the human race, who shall destroy that which is left by the former evil, together with himself. He shall fight against the prophet of God, and shall overcome, and slay him, and shall suffer him to lie unburied; but after the third day he shall come to life again; and while all look on and wonder, he shall be caught up into heaven. But that king will not only be most disgraceful in himself, but he will also be a prophet of lies; and he will constitute and call himself God, and will order himself to be worshiped as the Son of God; and power will be given him to do signs and wonders, by the sight of which he may entice men to adore him. He will command fire to come down from heaven, and the sun to stand and leave his course, and an image to speak; and these things shall be done at his word—by which miracles [Apoc. 13; 2 Thess. 2] many even of the wise shall be enticed by him. Then he will attempt to destroy the temple of God, and persecute the righteous people; and there will be distress and tribulation, such as there never has been from the beginning of the world.
As many as shall believe him and unite themselves to him, shall be marked by him as sheep; but they who shall refuse his mark will either flee to the mountains, or, being seized, will be slain with studied tortures. He will also enwrap righteous men with the books of the prophets, and thus burn them; and power will be given him to desolate the whole earth for forty-two months [Dan. 7; Apoc. 2]. That will be the time in which righteousness shall be cast out, and innocence be hated; in which the wicked shall prey upon the good as enemies; neither law, nor order, nor military discipline shall be preserved; no one shall reverence hoary locks, nor recognize the duty of piety, nor pity sex or infancy; all things shall be confounded and mixed together against right, and against the laws of nature. Thus the earth shall be laid waste, as though by one common robbery. When these things shall so happen, then the righteous and the followers of truth shall separate themselves from the wicked, and flee into solitudes. And when he hears of this, the impious king, inflamed with anger, will come with a great army, and bringing up all his forces, will surround all the mountain in which the righteous shall be situated, that he may seize them. But they, when they shall see themselves to be shut in on all sides and besieged, will call upon God with a loud voice, and implore the aid of heaven; and God shall hear them, and send from heaven a great king to rescue and free them, and destroy all the wicked with fire and sword.
That these things will thus take place, all the prophets have announced from the inspiration of God, and also the soothsayers at the instigation of the demons. For Hystaspes, whom I have named above, having described the iniquity of this last time, says that the pious and faithful, being separated from the wicked, will stretch forth their hands to heaven with weeping and mourning, and will implore the protection of Jupiter: that Jupiter will look to the earth, and hear the voices of men, and will destroy the wicked. All which things are true except one, that he attributed to Jupiter those things which God will do. But that also was withdrawn from the account, not without fraud on the part of the demons, viz., that the Son of God would then be sent, who, having destroyed all the wicked, would set at liberty the pious. Which, however, Hermes did not conceal. For in that book which is entitled the Complete Treatise, after an enumeration of the evils concerning which we have spoken, he added these things: “But when these things thus come to pass, then He who is Lord, and Father, and God, and the Creator of the first and one God, looking upon what is done, and opposing to the disorder His own will, that is, goodness, and recalling the wandering and cleansing wickedness, partly inundating it with much water, and partly burning it with most rapid fire, and sometimes pressing it with wars and pestilences, He brought His world to its ancient state and restored it.” The Sibyls also show that it would not be otherwise than that the Son of God should be sent by His supreme Father, to set free the righteous from the hands of the wicked, and to destroy the unrighteous, together with their cruel tyrants. One of whom thus wrote:
“He shall come also, wishing to destroy the city of the blest; and a king sent against him from the gods shall slay all the great kings and chief men: then judgment shall thus come from the Immortal to men.”
Also another Sibyl:
“And then God shall send a king from the sun, who shall cause all the earth to cease from disastrous war.”
And again another:
“He will take away the intolerable yoke of slavery which is placed on our neck, and he will do away with impious laws and violent chains.”
The world therefore being oppressed, since the resources of men shall be insufficient for the overthrow of a tyranny of immense strength, inasmuch as it will press upon the captive world with great armies of robbers, that calamity so great will stand in need of divine assistance. Therefore God, being aroused both by the doubtful danger and by the wretched lamentation of the righteous, will immediately send a deliverer. Then the middle of the heaven shall be laid open in the dead and darkness of the night, that the light of the descending God may be manifest in all the world as lightning: of which the Sibyl spoke in these words:
“When He shall come, there will be fire and darkness in the midst of the black night.”
This is the night which is celebrated by us in watchfulness on account of the coming of our King and God: of which night there is a twofold meaning; because in it He then received life when He suffered, and hereafter He is about to receive the kingdom of the world. For He is the Deliverer, and Judge, and Avenger, and King, and God, whom we call Christ, who before He descends will give this sign: There shall suddenly fall from heaven a sword, that the righteous may know that the leader of the sacred warfare is about to descend; and He shall descend with a company of angels to the middle of the earth, and there shall go before Him an unquenchable fire, and the power of the angels shall deliver into the hands of the just that multitude which has surrounded the mountain, and they shall be slain from the third hour until the evening, and blood shall flow like a torrent; and all his forces being destroyed, the wicked one shall alone escape, and his power shall perish from him.
Now this is he who is called Antichrist; but he shall falsely call himself Christ, and shall fight against the truth, and being overcome shall flee; and shall often renew the war, and often be conquered, until in the fourth battle, all the wicked being slain, subdued, and captured, he shall at length pay the penalty of his crimes. But other princes also and tyrants who have harassed the world, together with him, shall be led in chains to the king; and he shall rebuke them, and reprove them, and upbraid them with their crimes, and condemn them, and consign them to deserved tortures. Thus, wickedness being extinguished and impiety suppressed, the world will be at rest, which having been subject to error and wickedness for so many ages, endured dreadful slavery. No longer shall gods made by the hands be worshiped; but the images being thrust out from their temples and couches, shall be given to the fire, and shall be burnt, together with their wonderful gifts: which also the Sibyl, in accordance with the prophets, announced as about to take place:
“But mortals shall break in pieces the images and all the wealth.”
The Erythraean Sibyl also made the same promise:
“And the works made by the hand of the gods shall be burnt up.”
After these things the lower regions shall be opened, and the dead shall rise again, on whom the same King and God shall pass judgment, to whom the supreme Father shall give the great power both of judging and of reigning. And respecting this judgment and reign, it is thus found in the Erythraean Sibyl:
“When this shall receive its fated accomplishment, and the judgment of the immortal God shall now come to mortals, the great judgment shall come upon men, and the beginning.”
Then in another:
“And then the gaping earth shall show a Tartarean chaos; and all kings shall come to the judgment-seat of God.”
And in another place in the same:
“Rolling along the heavens, I will open the caverns of the earth; and then I will raise the dead, loosing fate and the sting of death; and afterwards I will call them into judgment, judging the life of pious and impious men.”
Not all men, however, shall then be judged by God, but those only who have been exercised in the religion of God. For they who have not known God, since sentence cannot be passed upon them for their acquittal, are already judged and condemned, since the Holy Scriptures testify that the wicked shall not arise to judgment [Ps. 1:5]. Therefore they who have known God shall be judged, and their deeds, that is, their evil works, shall be compared and weighed against their good ones: so that if those which are good and just are more and weighty, they may be given to a life of blessedness; but if the evil exceed, they may be condemned to punishment. Here, perhaps, some one will say, If the soul is immortal, how is it represented as capable of suffering, and sensible of punishment? For if it shall be punished on account of its deserts, it is plain that it will be sensible of pain, and even of death. If it is not liable to death, not even to pain, it follows that it is not capable of suffering.
This question or argument is thus met by the Stoics: that the souls of men continue to exist, and are not annihilated by the intervention of death: that the souls, moreover, of those who have been just, being pure, and incapable of suffering, and happy, return to the heavenly abodes from which they had their origin, or are borne to some happy plains, where they may enjoy wonderful pleasures; but that the wicked, since they have defiled themselves with evil passions, have a kind of middle nature, between that of an immortal and a mortal, and have something of weakness, from the contagion of the flesh; and being enslaved to its desires and lusts, they contract an indelible stain and earthly blot; and when this has become entirely inherent through length of time, souls are given over to its nature, so that, though they cannot altogether be extinguished, inasmuch as they are from God, nevertheless they become liable to torment through the taint of the body, which being burnt in by means of sins, produces a feeling of pain. Which sentiment is thus expressed by the poet (Virgil, Aeneid (Book 6, Line 735)):
“Nay, when at last the life has fled,
And left the body cold and dead,
E’en then there passes not away
The painful heritage of clay:
Full many a long contracted stain
Perforce must linger deep in grain.
So penal sufferings they endure
For ancient crime, to make them pure.”These things are near to the truth. For the soul, when separated from the body, is, as the same poet says, such as (Virgil, Aeneid (Book 6, Line 702)):
“No vision of the drowsy night,
No airy current half so light,”because it is a spirit, and by its very slightness incapable of being perceived, but only by us who are corporeal but capable of being perceived by God, since it belongs to Him to be able to do all things.
First of all, therefore, we say that the power of God is so great, that He perceives even incorporeal things, and manages them as He will. For even angels fear God, because they can be chastised by Him in some unspeakable manner; and devils dread Him, because they are tormented and punished by Him. What wonder is it, therefore, if souls, though they are immortal, are nevertheless capable of suffering at the hand of God? For since they have nothing solid and tangible in themselves, they can suffer no violence from solid and corporeal beings; but because they live in their spirits only, they are capable of being handled by God alone, whose energy and substance is spiritual. But, however, the sacred writings inform us in what manner the wicked are to undergo punishment. For because they have committed sins in their bodies, they will again be clothed with flesh, that they may make atonement in their bodies; and yet it will not be that flesh with which God clothed man, like this our earthly body, but indestructible, and abiding for ever, that it may be able to hold out against tortures and everlasting fire, the nature of which is different from this fire of ours, which we use for the necessary purposes of life, and which is extinguished unless it be sustained by the fuel of some material. But that divine fire always lives by itself, and flourishes without any nourishment; nor has it any smoke mixed with it, but it is pure and liquid, and fluid, after the manner of water. For it is not urged upwards by any force, as our fire, which the taint of the earthly body, by which it is held, and smoke intermingled, compels to leap forth, and to fly upwards to the nature of heaven, with a tremulous movement.
The same divine fire, therefore, with one and the same force and power, will both burn the wicked and will form them again, and will replace as much as it shall consume of their bodies, and will supply itself with eternal nourishment: which the poets transferred to the vulture of Tityus. Thus, without any wasting of bodies, which regain their substance, it will only burn and affect them with a sense of pain. But when He shall have judged the righteous, He will also try them with fire. Then they whose sins shall exceed either in weight or in number, shall be scorched by the fire and burnt: but they whom full justice and maturity of virtue has imbued will not perceive that fire; for they have something of God in themselves which repels and rejects the violence of the flame. So great is the force of innocence, that the flame shrinks from it without doing harm; which has received from God this power, that it burns the wicked, and is under the command of the righteous. Nor, however, let anyone imagine that souls are immediately judged after death. For all are detained in one and a common place of confinement, until the arrival of the time in which the great Judge shall make an investigation of their deserts. Then they whose piety shall have been approved of will receive the reward of immortality; but they whose sins and crimes shall have been brought to light will not rise again, but will be hidden in the same darkness with the wicked, being destined to certain punishment.
These are the things which are spoken of by the prophets as about to happen hereafter: but I have not considered it necessary to bring forward their testimonies and words, since it would be an endless task; nor would the limits of my book receive so great a multitude of subjects, since so many with one breath speak similar things; and at the same time, lest weariness should be occasioned to the readers if I should heap together things collected and transferred from all; moreover, that I might confirm those very things which I said, not by my own writings, but in an especial manner by the writings of others, and might show that not only among us, but even with those very persons who revile us, the truth is preserved, which they refuse to acknowledge.
But he who wishes to know these things more accurately may draw from the fountain itself, and he will know more things worthy of admiration than we have comprised in these books. Perhaps some one may now ask when these things of which we have spoken are about to come to pass? I have already shown above, that when six thousand years shall be completed this change must take place, and that the last day of the extreme conclusion is now drawing near. It is permitted us to know respecting the signs, which are spoken by the prophets, for they foretold signs by which the consummation of the times is to be expected by us from day to day, and to be feared. When, however, this amount will be completed, those teach, who have written respecting the times, collecting them from the sacred writings and from various histories, how great is the number of years from the beginning of the world. And although they vary, and the amount of the number as reckoned by them differs considerably, yet all expectation does not exceed the limit of two hundred years. The subject itself declares that the fall and ruin of the world will shortly take place; except that while the city of Rome remains it appears that nothing of this kind is to be feared. But when that capital of the world shall have fallen, and shall have begun to be a street, which the Sibyls say shall come to pass, who can doubt that the end has now arrived to the affairs of men and the whole world? It is that city, that only, which still sustains all things; and the God of heaven is to be entreated by us and implored—if, indeed, His arrangements and decrees can be delayed—lest, sooner than we think for, that detestable tyrant should come who will undertake so great a deed, and dig out that eye, by the destruction of which the world itself is about to fall. Now let us return, to set forth the other things which are then about to follow.
We have said, a little before, that it will come to pass at the commencement of the sacred reign, that the prince of the devils will be bound by God. But he also, when the thousand years of the kingdom, that is, seven thousand of the world, shall begin to be ended, will be loosed afresh, and being sent forth from prison, will go forth and assemble all the nations, which shall then be under the dominion of the righteous, that they may make war against the holy city; and there shall be collected together from all the world an innumerable company of the nations, and shall besiege and surround the city. Then the last anger of God shall come upon the nations, and shall utterly destroy them; and first He shall shake the earth most violently, and by its motion the mountains of Syria shall be rent, and the hills shall sink down precipitously, and the walls of all cities shall fall, and God shall cause the sun to stand, so that he set not for three days, and shall set it on fire; and excessive heat and great burning shall descend upon the hostile and impious people, and showers of brimstone, and hailstones, and drops of fire; and their spirits shall melt through the heat, and their bodies shall be bruised by the hail, and they shall smite one another with the sword. The mountains shall be filled with carcasses, and the plains shall be covered with bones; but the people of God during those three days shall be concealed under caves of the earth, until the anger of God against the nations and the last judgment shall be ended.
Then the righteous shall go forth from their hiding places, and shall find all things covered with carcasses and bones. But the whole race of the wicked shall utterly perish; and there shall no longer be any nation in this world, but the nation of God alone. Then for seven continuous years the woods shall be untouched, nor shall timber be cut from the mountains, but the arms of the nations shall be burnt; and now there shall be no war, but peace and everlasting rest. But when the thousand years shall be completed, the world shall be renewed by God, and the heavens shall be folded together, and the earth shall be changed, and God shall transform men into the similitude of angels, and they shall be white as snow; and they shall always be employed in the sight of the Almighty, and shall make offerings to their Lord, and serve Him forever. At the same time shall take place that second and public resurrection of all, in which the unrighteous shall be raised to everlasting punishments. These are they who have worshiped the works of their own hands, who have either been ignorant of, or have denied the Lord and Parent of the world. But their lord with his servants shall be seized and condemned to punishment, together with whom all the band of the wicked, in accordance with their deeds, shall be burnt for ever with perpetual fire in the sight of angels and the righteous.
This is the doctrine of the holy prophets which we Christians follow; this is our wisdom, which they who worship frail objects, or maintain an empty philosophy, deride as folly and vanity, because we are not accustomed to defend and assert it in public, since God orders us in quietness and silence to hide His secret, and to keep it within our own conscience; and not to strive with obstinate contention against those who are ignorant of the truth, and who rigorously assail God and His religion not for the sake of learning, but of censuring and jeering. For a mystery ought to be most faithfully concealed and covered, especially by us, who bear the name of faith. But they accuse this silence of ours, as though it were the result of an evil conscience; whence also they invent some detestable things respecting those who are holy and blameless, and willingly believe their own inventions.
[The address to Constantine is wanting in some manuscripts and editions, but is inserted in the text by Migne, as found in some important manuscripts, and as in accordance with the style and spirit of Lactantius.]
But all fictions have now been hushed, most holy Emperor, since the time when the great God raised you up for the restoration of the house of justice, and for the protection of the human race; for while you rule the Roman state, we worshipers of God are no more regarded as accursed and impious. Since the truth now comes forth from obscurity, and is brought into light, we are not censured as unrighteous who endeavor to perform the works of righteousness. No one any longer reproaches us with the name of God. None of us, who are alone of all men religious, is any more called irreligious; since despising the images of the dead, we worship the living and true God. The providence of the supreme Deity has raised thee to the imperial dignity, that you might be able with true piety to rescind the injurious decrees of others, to correct faults, to provide with a father’s clemency for the safety of men—in short, to remove the wicked from the state, whom being cast down by pre-eminent piety, God has delivered into your hands, that it might be evident to all in what true majesty consists.
For they who wished to take away the worship of the heavenly and matchless God, that they might defend impious superstitions, lie in ruin. But you, who defends and loves His name, excelling in virtue and prosperity, enjoys your immortal glories with the greatest happiness. They suffer and have suffered the punishment of their guilt. The powerful right hand of God protects you from all dangers; He bestows on you a quiet and tranquil reign, with the highest congratulations of all men. And not undeservedly has the Lord and Ruler of the world chosen you in preference to all others, by whom He might renew His holy religion, since you alone did exist of all, who might afford a surpassing example of virtue and holiness: in which you might not only equal, but also, which is a very great matter, excel the glory of ancient princes, whom nevertheless fame reckons among the good. They indeed perhaps by nature only resembled the righteous. For he who is ignorant of God, the Ruler of the universe, may attain to a resemblance of righteousness, but he cannot attain to righteousness itself. But you, both by the innate sanctity of thy character, and by your acknowledgment of the truth and of God in every action, does fully perform the works of righteousness. It was therefore befitting that, in arranging the condition of the human race, the Deity should make use of your authority and service, Whom we supplicate with daily prayers, that He may especially guard you whom He has wished to be the guardian of the world: then that He may inspire you with a disposition by which you may always continue in the love of the divine name. For this is serviceable to all, both to you for happiness, and to others for repose.
St. Ephrem the Syrian (c. 306-373) | EAST
St. Ephrem the Syrian, On the Antichrist2
DEMONIC DECEPTION | FALSE MESSIAH
The most despicable one will come as a robber, in a manner such as to deceive all; he will come as one humble, meek, a hater (as he will say himself) of unrighteousness, despising idols, giving preference to piety, good, lover of the poor, beautiful to an extreme degree, constant, gracious to all. He will especially esteem the Jewish race, since the Jews will await his coming.
But together with all this he will work signs and miracles and dreadful spectacles with great authority; and he will use sly means to please all, so that the people will quickly fall in love with him. He will not accept bribes, speak with anger, show a gloomy countenance, but with a decorous exterior he will take to deceiving the world, until he has become king… 123 | 127
Many of the saints, those who can be found at the time, at the coming of the execrable one [Antichrist], will shed rivers of tears before the holy God, that they may be delivered by Him from the serpent…And this will be granted them from the holy God; His grace will lead them to the place determined for this, and they will save themselves, hiding in precipices and caves, not seeing the signs and terrifying spectacles of Antichrist because the coming of Antichrist will be made known without difficulty to those who have knowledge. But to him who has his mind on the affairs of this life and loves the earthly, this will not be comprehensible; for he who is always tied to the matters of this life, although he even hear, he will not believe, and will despise him 127 | 128 who says these things. But the saints will be strengthened, because they scorned every care for this life…
The earth and the sea will weep because the sound of the psalms and prayers will suddenly cease from the lips of men. And the Church of Christ will weep with great weeping because the celebration of the divine service and the offering [of the Eucharist] will not be [Dan. 9:27, 11:31, 12:11].
After the fulfillment of three and one-half years of the authority and activities of the impure one, and when all the temptations fill the whole earth, then at last the Lord shall come, according to His word, like lightning flashing from heaven…
St. Ephrem the Syrian, On the Antichrist and the Consummation3
DEMONIC DECEPTION | JERUSALEM | FALSE MESSIAH | CONVERSION | TEMPLE
And after the nations have waited in patience, thinking that peace had come, they still pay tribute. The fear of the conquerors fills every mind. Iniquity mounts up upon the earth and covers it like a cloud. The whole world is held fast in the bonds of wickedness. The smoke of abominations rises 134 | 135 to heaven. Then since iniquity is multiplied upon the earth, He stirs up men, who destroy themselves… 135 | 138
Then the Lord from His glorious Heaven shall set up His peace. And the kingdom of the Romans shall rise in place of this latter people [the Jews], and establish its dominion upon the earth, even to its ends, and there shall be no one who will resist it. After iniquity shall have multiplied, and all creatures have become defiled, then Divine Justice shall appear, and shall wholly destroy the people and, coming forth from perdition, the man of iniquity shall be revealed upon the earth, the Seducer of men, and the Disturber of the whole earth.
In that day in which the son of perdition shall come upon the earth, there shall be great confusion throughout the whole world, and bewilderment shall come upon the earth…Rulers shall cease from judgment, and priests tremble in the sanctuary. The power of the strong shall collapse. There shall be stupor upon the earth; the hands of all shall be undone. The man of evil will prepare, and coming he will enter Jerusalem; he will build up and establish Sion, and will make himself God, and entering he will 138 | 139 sit in the temple, as the Apostle has written: “as if he were God” (2 Thess. 2:4).
The Jews will glory in him, and will assemble to join him. He will blaspheme, declaring: “I am the Father and the Son, the first and the last, and there is no other God but me.” In that moment ten thousand Jews shall deny him and they shall answer him: “Thou are the deceiver of the world” (2 John 1:7). For He Whom our fathers fastened to a cross on Golgotha, He saved creatures, and has ascended to Him Who sent Him” [Zech. 12:10]. And raging in fury, the Evil One will command that those who deny him shall be instantly slain by the sword. And because of this all shall fear to deny him…
The lightnings will be his servants, and will give a sign of his coming. Demons will be his forces; the princes of the demons his disciples. He will send the leaders of his forces into far distant regions, and will give them power and healing, and they will seduce the whole world… 139 | 140
Sons will deny their fathers, and follow the Evil One. Priests will leave their altars, and going forth become his heralds.
St. Hilary of Poitiers (c. 310-c. 367) | WEST
St. Hilary of Poitiers, Commentary on Matthew
(Ch. 25, §§1-4)4 | FALSE MESSIAH | TEMPLE
(§1) He [Christ] said that it [the Temple] will be entirely destroyed and demolished since the stones of the entire structure would be knocked down [Matt. 24:2]. But an eternal temple is one that is consecrated to be a habitation of the Holy Spirit, that is, the temple is a person who is worthy to become a dwelling for God by knowledge of the Son [1 Cor. 6:19; 2 Cor. 6:16], by confession of the Father, and by obedience to his commandments… 248 | 249
(§2) …All this happened in Jerusalem, just as it had been foretold; the city was consumed—ruined by her stonings, by her expulsions, by her murder of the apostles, by her hunger, by war, and by her captivity. For having rejected the preachers of Christ, she was shown to be unworthy of God’s message and not worthy to exist. 249 | 250
(§3) Then there follows a sign of his [Christ’s] future advent. When they see the “abomination of desolation” standing in the holy place [Matt. 24:15], we should understand his glorious return. Concerning this matter, I think that our comment is superfluous given the teaching of the most blessed Daniel [Dan. 9:27] and Paul [2 Thess. 2:4]. That which is spoken by each writer concerns the times of the Antichrist. He is an “abomination” because he rises up against God by claiming for himself the honor due to God. As the “abomination of desolation,” he is going to render the earth desolate by war and bloodshed in keeping with its sacrilege. Because the Antichrist was received by the Jews, he will stand in the holy place [Matt. 24:15; Dan. 11:31-32] where God used to be invoked by the prayers of his saints and where the Antichrist is received by unbelievers with the same honor with which they venerated God.
(§4) The error of the Jews will be that, having rejected the truth, they adopted a lie. The Lord warns them to abandon Judea and flee to the mountains [Matt. 24:16], lest the violence and contagion of those who will believe in the Antichrist be brought among them. But for all who remain faithful, they will be safer in the deserted places of the mountains than in the busy avenues of Judea.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem (c. 313-386) | EAST
St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture 15: Concerning the Article in the Creed, “And Shall Come in Glory to Judge the Quick and the Dead” (c. 350)
(§§9, 15) | TEMPLE
(§9) And what comes to pass after this? He says next, “When therefore you see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of by Daniel the Prophet, standing in the Holy Place, let him that reads understand” (Matt. 24:15). And again, “Then if any man shall say unto you, ‘Here, here is the Christ,’ or, ‘Here, there,’ believe it not” (Matt. 24:23). Hatred of the brethren makes room next for Antichrist; for the devil prepares beforehand the divisions among the people, that he who is to come may be acceptable to them. But God forbid that any of Christ’s servants here, or elsewhere, should run over to the enemy!
Writing concerning this matter, the Apostle Paul gave a manifest sign, saying, “For that day shall not come, except there came first the falling away, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself against all that is called God, or that is worshiped; so that he sits in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Remember you not that when I was yet with you, I told you these things? And now you know that which restrains, to the end that he may be revealed in his own season. For the mystery of iniquity does already work, only there is one that restrains now, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall the lawless one be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the breath of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming. Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceit of unrighteousness for them that are perishing” (2 Thess. 2:3-10).
Thus wrote Paul, and now is the falling away. For men have fallen away from the right faith; and some preach the identity of the Son with the Father, and others dare to say that Christ was brought into being out of nothing. And formerly the heretics were manifest; but now the Church is filled with heretics in disguise. For men have fallen away from the truth, and “have itching ears” (2 Tim. 4:3). Is it a plausible discourse? All listen to it gladly. Is it a word of correction? All turn away from it. Most have departed from right words, and rather choose the evil, than desire the good. This therefore is “the falling away,” and the enemy is soon to be looked for: and meanwhile he has in part begun to send forth his own forerunners, that he may then come prepared upon the prey. Look therefore to thyself, O man, and make safe thy soul. The Church now charges thee before the Living God; she declares to thee the things concerning Antichrist before they arrive. Whether they will happen in your time we know not, or whether they will happen after you we know not. But it is well that, knowing these things, you should make yourself secure beforehand…
(§15) And again he says, “Who opposes and exalts himself against all that is called God, or that is worshiped; (against every God; Antichrist forsooth will abhor the idols) so that he seats himself in the temple of God” (2 Thess. 2:4). What temple then? He means, the Temple of the Jews which has been destroyed. For God forbid that it should be the one in which we are! Why say we this? That we may not be supposed to favor ourselves. For if he comes to the Jews as Christ, and desires to be worshiped by the Jews, he will make great account of the Temple, that he may more completely beguile them; making it supposed that he is the man of the race of David, who shall build up the Temple which was erected by Solomon. And Antichrist will come at the time when there shall not be left one stone upon another in the Temple of the Jews, according to the doom pronounced by our Savior [Matt. 24:2; Mark 13:2; Luke 19:44, 21:6]; for when, either decay of time, or demolition ensuing on pretense of new buildings, or from any other causes, shall have overthrown all the stones, I mean not merely of the outer circuit, but of the inner shrine also, where the Cherubim were, then shall he come “with all signs and lying wonders,” exalting himself against all idols; at first indeed making a pretense of benevolence, but afterwards displaying his relentless temper, and that chiefly against the Saints of God. For he says, “I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints” (Dan. 7:21); and again elsewhere, “there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation upon earth, even to that same time” (Dan. 12:1). Dreadful is that beast, a mighty dragon, unconquerable by man, ready to devour; concerning whom though we have more things to speak out of the divine Scriptures, yet we will content ourselves at present with thus much, in order to keep within compass.
St. Jerome (c. 342/347-420) | EAST/WEST
St. Jerome, Letter 121: To Algasia
(§11) | GREAT APOSTASY | KATECHŌN | FALSE MESSIAH | TEMPLE
What does what the same Apostle writes to the Thessalonians mean: “Unless a revolt comes first and the man of sin is revealed” and the rest? In the first letter to the Thessalonians, he had written: “About the time and the moment, brothers, you do not need me to write to you; for you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. For when they have said: ‘Peace and security,’ then sudden destruction will come upon them just like pain upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.”
For he had written to them a little earlier in the letter: “We say this to you in the word of the Lord, that we, who are alive, who remain for the arrival of the Lord, we will not stop those who have fallen asleep, since the Lord himself will come down from heaven with an order and with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead, who are in Christ, will be the first to rise. Then we, who are alive, who remain, at once we will be snatched up with them in the cloud, face to face with God in the air and we will always be thus with the Lord. And so we console one another in these words.”
Hearing this, the Macedonians did not understand whom the apostle calls living with him and who are said to remain, and who would be seized with him into the clouds, face to face with Lord. But they thought that, so long as Paul was still in his body and before he could taste death, Christ would return in his majesty.
Hearing this, the apostle begs them and swears by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ that they should not be agitated so quickly—and neither by the spirit nor by a speech nor by a letter written supposedly by him, as though the day of the Lord was at hand. Moreover, all the volumes of the prophets and the faith in the gospels teach that there are two arrivals of the Lord Savior: in the first, he will come in humility, and in the second, he will come in glory. The Lord himself attests to what must happen before the end of the world and how the antichrist will come, when he says to the apostles: “When you see the abomination of desolation,” which was spoken of by the prophet Daniel, “standing in the holy place—let he who reads understand—then, those who are in Judea, let them flee to the mountains, and the one on the rooftop not descend to take anything from his house.” And likewise: “Then, if anyone says to you, ‘Behold: Christ is here or there,’ do not believe it. For false Christs will rise and false prophets will give both great signs and prodigies, so that even the elect might be led into error, if it is possible. Behold: I have warned you. If therefore anyone says to you: ‘Behold: he is in the desert,’ do not go out there, ‘Behold: he is inside,’ do not believe him. For just as lightning proceeds from the east and appears even in the west, so too will be the arrival of the son of man.” And next: “Then the sign of the son of man will appear in heaven and they will see the son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with great strength and splendor. And he will send his angels with a trumpet blast and with a great voice and they will gather together his elect from the four winds from the farthest part of the heavens to their ends.” And again he speaks to the Jews about the antichrist: “I have come in the name of my father and you have not believed me. If another comes in his name, you will receive him.”
Therefore, either the occasion of a misunderstood letter or a counterfeit revelation, which had deceived them in a dream as they were sleeping, or the suppositions of others interpreting the words of Isaiah and Daniel and the Gospels heralding the antichrist at that time had shaken up and disturbed the minds of the Thessalonians, so that they hoped that Christ in his splendor would come.
The apostle remedies this error [thinking the Antichrist was about to appear] and explains the things which are to be expected before the arrival of the antichrist, so that, when they see that these things have happened, then they will know that the antichrist is about to come, that is, the man of sin and the son of perdition, “who is opposed and is raised above everything that is called God or that is worshiped” and who “sits in the temple of God.” “Unless,” he says, “revolt comes first,” which in Greek is called apostasia, so that all nations, which are subject to the Roman Empire, may withdraw from them—“and he will be revealed”—that is, he will be shown, whom the words of all the prophets announce in advance—“the man of sin”—in whom lies the spring of all sins—“and the son of perdition”—that is, the devil; for he himself is the destruction of everything—“who is opposed” to Christ and for that reason is called the antichrist “and he is raised above all that is called God,” so that he might trample with his foot the gods of all nations or every approved and true religion and “in the temple of God”—or in the temple of Jerusalem, as some think, or in a church, as I think more correctly—“he might sit and show himself,” as if he were Christ and the son of God.
If, he says, the Roman Empire is not devastated and if the antichrist does not come first, Christ will not come, who is going to come to destroy the antichrist. You remember, he says, that these things which now I write in a letter, I said in person when I was with you, and I said to you that Christ will not come unless the antichrist had preceded him. “And now you know what detains him, so that he might be revealed in his time,” that is, you fully know what the reason is that the antichrist does not come in the present time. He does not mean to speak openly of the Roman Empire’s destruction, which its rulers think is eternal. Thus according to the Apocalypse of John, on the forehead of the whore dressed in purple the name of blasphemy is written, that is “To Eternal Rome.” For if openly and brazenly he had said: “The antichrist will not come until the Roman Empire is destroyed,” a reasonable cause for persecution against the church, which was rising at that time, seemed to spring up. What follows: “For already the mystery of iniquity is at work, that only he who now holds may do so, until he is taken out of the way, and then the wicked man will be revealed” has this sense: With the many evils and sins with which Nero, the most defiled of the Caesars, oppresses the world, the arrival of the antichrist is born and what the antichrist will use later is partially completed by Nero, to such an extent that the Roman Empire, which now holds all nations, will withdraw and be taken out of the way. And then the antichrist will come, the spring of iniquity, “whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth”; that is to say, with divine power and the authority of his splendor, whose role it is to have issued orders, not in the multitude of the host, not in the strength of soldiers, not in the help of angels, but, as soon as Christ comes, the antichrist will be killed. And in the way that shadows are put to flight by the arrival of the sun, so “by the brightness of his arrival” the Lord will destroy and blot out the antichrist, whose works are the works of Satan, and, just as the fullness of divinity was bodily in Christ, thus in the antichrist will be all strength and signs and prodigies, but these will all be deceptions. For just as the magicians, with their own trickeries, opposed the signs of God, which were accomplished through Moses, and Moses’ staff devoured their staffs, so the truth of Christ will devour the deceit of the antichrist; moreover, they who have been prepared for destruction will be seduced by his trickery.
And a silent question was able to be raised: “Why did God grant him to have all strength, signs, and prodigies through which even God’s elect could be seduced, if it were possible?” Paul presents this question with a solution, and he dismisses what could be argued before it is argued. The antichrist will do, he says, all these things not by his own strength, but by God’s permission because of the Jews, since it was they who were not willing to receive the love of truth, that is Christ, because the love of God was spread out in the hearts of believers and he himself says: “I am the truth,” about whom it has been written in the psalms: “Truth has arisen from the land.”
Therefore, they who did not receive love and truth so that they, upon receiving the savior, might be saved, God sends to them not a worker, but the work itself, that is, the source of error, so that they may trust in a deception, “because he and his father are deceitful.” And if, accordingly, the antichrist was born from a virgin and had come first into the world, the Jews could have an excuse and say that they thought it was truth and for that reason they took up a deception for truth; but now for this reason they must be judged—rather, without doubt they must be condemned, because having despised truth, that is, Christ, they will later take up a deception, that is, the antichrist.
St. Jerome, Commentary on Daniel
(Commentary on 11:44-45)5 | JERUSALEM
Those of our party, on the other hand, explain the final chapter of this vision [of Daniel] as relating to the Antichrist, and stating that during his war against the Egyptians, Libyans, and Ethiopians, in which he shall smash three of the ten horns, he is going to hear that war has been stirred up against him in the regions of the North and East. Then he shall come with a great host to crush and slay many people, and shall pitch his ten in Apedno near Nicopolis., which was formerly called Emmaus, at the beginning of the mountainous region in the province of Judaea. Finally he shall make his way thence to go up to the Mount of Olives and ascend to the area of Jerusalem; and this is what the Scripture means here: “And when he has pitched his tent…” at the foothills of the mountainous province between two seas. These are, of course, that which is now called the Dead Sea on the east, and the Great Sea on the shore of which lie Caesarea, Joppa, Ashkelon, and Gaza. Then he shall come up to the summit therefor, that is of the mountainous province, or the apex of the Mount of Olives which of course is called famous because our Lord and Savior ascended from it to the Father. And no one shall be able to assist the Antichrist as the Lord vents his fury upon him. Our school of thought insists that Antichrist is going to perish in that spot from which the Lord ascended to heaven.
St. Jerome, Commentary on Matthew (398)
(Book 4, Commentary on 24:15-18)6 | TEMPLE
24:15. “Therefore, when you see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place, let the reader understand.”
Whenever we are summoned to understanding, what has been said is shown to be mystical. Now, we read it in Daniel in this way: “And for half a week my sacrifice and libations will be removed, and in the Temple there will be an abomination of desolations until the consummation of the time, and the consummation will be given over the devastation” (Dan. 9:27). The apostle also speaks of this, that the man of iniquity and the adversary 271 | 272 is to be lifted up against everything that is called God or that is worshiped. He will dare to stand in the Temple of God and show that he himself is God [2 Thess. 2:3-4] that his coming in accordance with the working of Satan destroys them [2 Thess. 2:8-9], and that it reduces those who received him to a devastation, void of God [Lev. 26:31; Jer. 25:18]. Now this can be interpreted either literally of the Antichrist, or of the image of Caesar that Pilate placed in the Temple, or of the equestrian statue of Hadrian, which stands to the present day in the very location of the holy of holies. According to the old Scripture, an “abomination” is also called an “idol,” and this is why “of desolation” is added, because an idol will be placed in the desolated and destroyed Temple.
24:16-18. “Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let the one who is on the housetop not go down to take anything from his house, and let him who is in the field not turn back to take his tunic.”
The “abomination of desolation” can also be understood of all perverted doctrine. When we see it standing in the holy place, that is, in the Church, and showing itself as God, we should flee from Judea to the mountains; that is, when the letter that kills and Judaic depravity have been abandoned, let us draw near to the eternal mountains from which God illumines marvelously. Let us be on the housetop and in the home where the flaming arrows of the devil cannot reach. Let us not go down and take anything from the house of our former way of life, nor seek the things that are below. Rather, let us sow in the field of the spiritual Scriptures, that we might receive fruit from it.
St. John Chrysostom (c. 347-407) | EAST
St. John Chrysostom, Homily 76 on Matthew
(Commentary on 24:16-18, §§1-2) | TEMPLE
(§1) Having spoken of the ills that were to overtake the city, and of the trials of the apostles, and that they should remain unsubdued, and should overrun the whole world, He mentions again the Jews’ calamities, showing that when the one should be glorious, having taught the whole world, the others should be in calamity.
And see how He relates the war, by the things that seem to be small setting forth how intolerable it was to be. For, “Then,” saith He, “let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains.” Then, When? When these things should be, “when the abomination of desolation should stand in the holy place.” Whence he seems to me to be speaking of the armies. Flee therefore then, says He, for thenceforth there is no hope of safety for you.
For since it had fallen out, that they often had recovered themselves in grievous wars, as under Sennacherib, under Antiochus again (for when at that time also, armies had come in upon them, and the temple had been seized beforehand, the Maccabees rallying gave their affairs an opposite turn); in order then that they might not now also suspect this, that there would be any such change, He forbids them all thought of the kind. For it were well, says He, to escape henceforth with one’s naked body. Therefore them also that are on the housetop, He suffers not to enter into the house to take their clothes, indicating the evils to be inevitable, and the calamity without end, and that it must needs be that he that was involved therein should surely perish…
(§2) …But He not only encouraged them, but also led them off secretly and unsuspectedly from the customs of the Jews. For if there is not to be a change afterwards, and the temple is not to stand, it is quite evident that the law also shall be made to cease.
St. John Chrysostom, Homily 3 on 2 Thessalonians
(Commentary on 1:9-2:5) | TEMPLE
Verses 3-4: “Let no man beguile you in any wise: for it will not be, except the falling away come first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, he that opposes and exalts himself against all that is called God or that is worshiped; so that he sits in the temple of God, setting himself forth as God.”
Here he discourses concerning the Antichrist, and reveals great mysteries. What is “the falling away [apostasy]?” He calls him Apostasy, as being about to destroy many, and make them fall away. “So that if it were possible,” He says, “the very Elect should be offended” (Matt. 24:24). And he calls him “the man of sin.” For he shall do numberless mischiefs, and shall cause others to do them. But he calls him “the son of perdition,” because he is also to be destroyed. But who is he? Is it then Satan? By no means; but some man, that admits his fully working in him. For he is a man. “And exalts himself against all that is called God or is worshiped.” For he will not introduce idolatry, but will be a kind of opponent to God; he will abolish all the gods, and will order men to worship him instead of God, and he will be seated in the temple of God, not that in Jerusalem only, but also in every Church. “Setting himself forth,” he says; he does not say, saying it, but endeavoring to show it. For he will perform great works, and will show wonderful signs.
St. John Chrysostom, Homily 4 on 2 Thessalonians
One may naturally inquire, what is that which withholds, and after that would know, why Paul expresses it so obscurely. What then is it that withholds, that is, hinders him from being revealed? Some indeed say, the grace of the Spirit, but others the Roman empire, to whom I most of all accede. Wherefore? Because if he meant to say the Spirit, he would not have spoken obscurely, but plainly, that even now the grace of the Spirit, that is the gifts, withhold him. And otherwise he ought now to have come, if he was about to come when the gifts ceased; for they have long since ceased. But because he said this of the Roman empire, he naturally glanced at it, and speaks covertly and darkly. For he did not wish to bring upon himself superfluous enmities, and useless dangers. For if he had said that after a little while the Roman empire would be dissolved, they would immediately have even overwhelmed him, as a pestilent person, and all the faithful, as living and warring to this end. And he did not say that it will be quickly, although he is always saying it—but what? that he may be revealed in his own season, he says,
For the mystery of lawlessness does already work. He speaks here of Nero, as if he were the type of Antichrist. For he too wished to be thought a god. And he has well said, the mystery; that is, it works not openly, as the other, nor without shame. For if there was found a man before that time, he means, who was not much behind Antichrist in wickedness, what wonder, if there shall now be one? But he did not also wish to point him out plainly: and this not from cowardice, but instructing us not to bring upon ourselves unnecessary enmities, when there is nothing to call for it. So indeed he also says here. Only there is one that restrains now, until he be taken out of the way, that is, when the Roman empire is taken out of the way, then he shall come. And naturally. For as long as the fear of this empire lasts, no one will willingly exalt himself, but when that is dissolved, he will attack the anarchy, and endeavor to seize upon the government both of man and of God. For as the kingdoms before this were destroyed, for example, that of the Medes by the Babylonians, that of the Babylonians by the Persians, that of the Persians by the Macedonians, that of the Macedonians by the Romans: so will this also be by the Antichrist, and he by Christ, and it will no longer withhold. And these things Daniel delivered to us with great clearness.
St. John Chrysostom, Discourse 4 Against Judaizing Christians
(Ch. 4, §9)7 | FALSE MESSIAH | TEMPLE
This is certain not only from what I have said but also from the prophets. What excuse would the Jews of today have when it is clear that the Jews of old never offered sacrifice, nor sang hymns in an alien land [cf. Ps. 136/137:4], nor did they observe any such fasts as they do today? To be sure, the Jews of old were expecting to recover the way of life in which they could observe these rituals. Therefore, they remained obedient to the Law and did what it commanded, for the Law told them to expect this. But the Jews of today have no hope of recovering their forefathers’ way of life. In what prophet can they find proof that they will? They have no hope, but they cannot bear to give up these practices. And yet, even if they were expecting to recover the old way of life, even so they ought to be imitating those holy men of old by neither fasting nor observing any other such ritual.
St. John Chrysostom, Discourse 5 Against the Jews
(Ch. 1, §3)8 | TEMPLE
For even if the Jews were going to recover their own city, if they were about to return to their old commonwealth and way of life and see their temple rebuilt—an event which will never come to pass—even so, they have no defense for their present practices.
(Ch. 3, §§13, 15)9 | TEMPLE
(§13) Tell me this. What human being ever had the power to do this? Yet this man [Jesus] made all these predictions about that woman, about the Church, and about the wars which would be waged against it. He also predicted that the temple would be destroyed, that Jerusalem would be captured, and that the city would no longer be the city of the Jews as it had been in the past…
(§15) Suppose a mere ten, twenty, thirty, or fifty years were to have passed since the capture of Jerusalem. Even then you would have absolutely no right to show your impudence by rejecting this prediction, but if you wished to be obstinate, you might have had some pretext for protest left to you. But not only fifty years but many more than one, two, or three centuries have passed since Jerusalem was captured. And never has there been seen a single trace or shadow of the change for which you are waiting. Why, then, are you so rash and foolish as to keep up your shameless objections?
(Ch. 4, §§1-3)10 | TEMPLE
(§1) We have said enough to prove that the temple will never be rebuilt. But since the abundance of proofs which support this truth is so great, I shall turn from the gospels to the prophets, because the Jews put their belief in them before all others. And from the words of the prophets I shall make it clear that the Jews will recover neither their city nor their temple in days to come. And yet the need was not mine to prove that the temple will not be restored. This was not my obligation; the Jews have the obligation to prove the opposite, namely, that the temple will be rebuilt. For the years that have elapsed by my side in the combat and bear witness to the truth of my words.
(§2) Even though the outcome of events defeats them, even though they cannot prove in deeds what they maintain in words, even though they are simply making a rash boast, they have a right to present their testimony. The proof for my position is that the events of which I speak did actually occur: Jerusalem did fall and has not been restored after so many years. Their position rests on their unsupported words.
(§3) Yet the burden of proof was on them [the Jews] to show that the city would rise again…They must produce a prophet who says that by all means Jerusalem will be rebuilt. For if there was going to be an end to the present captivity for you Jews, there was every need for the prophets to foretell this, as is clear to anyone who has even so much as glanced at the prophetic books. For it was the custom of old among the Jews that, under inspiration from above, their prophets would foretell the good or evil things which were going to befall the people.
(Ch. 10, §§5, 7)11 | TEMPLE
(§5) And again, in speaking of this slavery, he said: “The incense and the oblation will be abolished and, furthermore, on the holy place will be the abomination of desolation: and accomplishment 134 | 135 shall be given to the desolated until the end of time” (Dan. 9:27). When you hear him say “Until the end of time,” what else is left for you the Jews to look forward to?…
(§7) What is there for me to say to you now that has not already been said? When the prophets predicted the other captivities, they spoke not only of the captivity but also of the length of time it was appointed for each bondage to last; for this present captivity, however, they set no time but, to the contrary, said that the desolation would endure until the end. And to prove that what they said is true, come now and let me offer as witnesses the events themselves. 135 | 136 If the Jews had never attempted to rebuilt the temple, they could say: “If we had wished to set our hands to the task and to begin to rebuild it, we could by all means have completed the task.” But now I shall show that not once, not twice, but three times they did attempt it and three times, like wrestlers in the Olympics games, they were thrown to the ground. Therefore there can be no dispute or question but that the Church has won the victory crown.
(Ch. 11, §§1, 6)12 | TEMPLE
(§1) Yet what kind of men were they who set their hands to the task [of rebuilding the temple]? They were men who constantly resisted the Holy Spirit, revolutionists bent on stirring up sedition. After the destruction which occurred under Vespasian and Titus, these Jews rebelled during the reign of Hadrian and tried to go back to the old commonwealth and way of life. What they failed to realize was that they were fighting against the decree of God, who had ordered that Jerusalem remain forever in ruins…
(§6) These abominable and shameless men had the impudence to ask these things from an impious pagan [Emperor Julian the Apostate] and to invite him to rebuild their sanctuary with his polluted hands. They failed to see that they were attempting the impossible. They did not realize that if human hands had put an end to those things, then human hands could get them back for them. But it was God who destroyed their city, and no human power could ever change what God had decreed. “For what God, the Holy One, has planned who shall dissipate? His hand is stretched out; who will turn it back?” (Isa. 14:27). What God has reared up and wishes to remain, no man can tear down. In the same way, what he has destroyed and wishes to stay destroyed, no man can rebuild. (For all the details from this account, see: Study Bank | Pagan Attempt to Rebuild the Temple Thwarted)
Theodore of Mopsuestia (c. 350-428) | EAST
Theodore of Mopsuestia, Commentary on 2 Thessalonians
(Commentary on 2:4)13 | TEMPLE
And he calls him “the adversary” [“who opposes”], inasmuch as he does things adverse to the divine will and strives to draw all people over to himself. And he is the one “highly exalting himself above everything that is said to be god or that is worshiped,” because by persuading all people to depart from their own sect, he will make them worship him, saying that he is himself Christ, to whom he will claim the honor of God should be bestowed by all, as is right. For in this way even “in God’s temples,” that is, even in the houses of prayer, he will enter and take his seat as though he were Christ and for this reason should be worshiped in the rank of God by all.
St. Augustine (354-430) | WEST
St. Augustine, City of God (c. 413-26)
(Book 20, Ch. 19) | DEMONIC DECEPTION | KATECHŌN | TEMPLE
I see that I must omit many of the statements of the gospels and epistles about this last judgment, that this volume may not become unduly long. But I can on no account omit what the Apostle Paul says, in writing to the Thessalonians, “We beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thess. 2:1-11), etc.
No one can doubt that he wrote this of Antichrist and of the day of judgment, which he here calls the day of the Lord, nor that he declared that this day should not come unless he first came who is called the apostate—apostate, to wit, from the Lord God. And if this may justly be said of all the ungodly, how much more of him?
But it is uncertain in what temple he shall sit, whether in that ruin of the temple which was built by Solomon, or in the Church; for the apostle would not call the temple of any idol or demon the temple of God. And on this account some think that in this passage Antichrist means not the prince himself alone, but his whole body, that is, the mass of men who adhere to him, along with him their prince; and they also think that we should render the Greek more exactly were we to read, not “in the temple of God,” but “for” or “as the temple of God,” as if he himself were the temple of God, the Church.
Then as for the words, “And now you know what withholds,” i.e., you know what hindrance or cause of delay there is, “that he might be revealed in his own time;” they show that he was unwilling to make an explicit statement, because he said that they knew. And thus we who have not their knowledge wish and are not able even with pains to understand what the apostle referred to, especially as his meaning is made still more obscure by what he adds. For what does he mean by “For the mystery of iniquity does already work: only he who now holds, let him hold until he be taken out of the way: and then shall the wicked be revealed”? I frankly confess I do not know what he means. I will nevertheless mention such conjectures as I have heard or read.
Some think that the Apostle Paul referred to the Roman empire, and that he was unwilling to use language more explicit, lest he should incur the calumnious charge of wishing ill to the empire which it was hoped would be eternal; so that in saying, “For the mystery of iniquity doth already work,” he alluded to Nero, whose deeds already seemed to be as the deeds of Antichrist. And hence some suppose that he shall rise again and be Antichrist.
Others, again, suppose that he is not even dead, but that he was concealed that he might be supposed to have been killed, and that he now lives in concealment in the vigor of that same age which he had reached when he was believed to have perished, and will live until he is revealed in his own time and restored to his kingdom [Suetonius, Nero, Ch. 57]. But I wonder that men can be so audacious in their conjectures.
However, it is not absurd to believe that these words of the apostle, “Only he who now holds, let him hold until he be taken out of the way,” refer to the Roman empire, as if it were said, “Only he who now reigns, let him reign until he be taken out of the way.” “And then shall the wicked be revealed”: no one doubts that this means Antichrist. But others think that the words, “You know what withholds,” and “The mystery of iniquity works,” refer only to the wicked and the hypocrites who are in the Church, until they reach a number so great as to furnish Antichrist with a great people, and that this is the mystery of iniquity, because it seems hidden; also that the apostle is exhorting the faithful tenaciously to hold the faith they hold when he says, “Only he who now holds, let him hold until he be taken out of the way,” that is, until the mystery of iniquity which now is hidden departs from the Church. For they suppose that it is to this same mystery John alludes when in his epistle he says, “Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us” (1 John 2:18-19). As therefore there went out from the Church many heretics, whom John calls “many antichrists,” at that time prior to the end, and which John calls “the last time,” so in the end they shall go out who do not belong to Christ, but to that last Antichrist, and then he shall be revealed.
Thus various, then, are the conjectural explanations of the obscure words of the apostle. That which there is no doubt he said is this, that Christ will not come to judge quick and dead unless Antichrist, His adversary, first come to seduce those who are dead in soul; although their seduction is a result of God’s secret judgment already passed. For, as it is said “his presence shall be after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and with all seduction of unrighteousness in them that perish.” For then shall Satan be loosed, and by means of that Antichrist shall work with all power in a lying though a wonderful manner. It is commonly questioned whether these works are called “signs and lying wonders” because he is to deceive men’s senses by false appearances, or because the things he does, though they be true prodigies, shall be a lie to those who shall believe that such things could be done only by God, being ignorant of the devil’s power, and especially of such unexampled power as he shall then for the first time put forth. For when he fell from heaven as fire, and at a stroke swept away from the holy Job his numerous household and his vast flocks, and then as a whirlwind rushed upon and smote the house and killed his children, these were not deceitful appearances, and yet they were the works of Satan to whom God had given this power. Why they are called signs and lying wonders, we shall then be more likely to know when the time itself arrives.
But whatever be the reason of the name, they shall be such signs and wonders as shall seduce those who shall deserve to be seduced, “because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved.” Neither did the apostle scruple to go on to say, “For this cause God shall send upon them the working of error that they should believe a lie.” For God shall send, because God shall permit the devil to do these things, the permission being by His own just judgment, though the doing of them is in pursuance of the devil’s unrighteous and malignant purpose, “that they all might be judged who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” Therefore, being judged, they shall be seduced, and, being seduced, they shall be judged. But, being judged, they shall be seduced by those secretly just and justly secret judgments of God, with which He has never ceased to judge since the first sin of the rational creatures; and, being seduced, they shall be judged in that last and manifest judgment administered by Jesus Christ, who was Himself most unjustly judged and shall most justly judge.
Ambrosiaster/Pseudo-Ambrose (wrote c. 366-384) | WEST
Ambrosiaster, Commentary on 1 Corinthians (c. 366-384)
(Commentary on 15:53)14 | GREAT APOSTASY
In the time of the Antichrist, the rest of the Gentiles [non-Christians] will be either apostate, or guilty, or in hiding, or enduring punishment already, and the Lord Jesus “will slay them,” along with their ruler, the Antichrist, “with the breath of his mouth” (2 Thess. 2:8). That is to say, at his command they will be burnt up by the angels of his power.
Ambrosiaster, Commentary on 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12 (c. 366-384)
(Commentary on 2:1-4)15 | DEMONIC DECEPTION | GREAT APOSTASY | KATECHŌN | FALSE MESSIAH | TEMPLE
Paul enjoins the Thessalonians not to be lightly or easily persuaded that the return of the Lord is imminent and gives the command that even if someone like a prophet were to speak to them in the spirit they should not believe him, nor should they agree to any book or letter even if it is written in the name of the 114 | 115 apostles. Deceivers have a way of counterfeiting letters under the name of some well-known person in order to mislead, so that the authority of the name may recommend something which would never be accepted on its own. He says this so that they will not be upset by their own lack of caution and be led astray into the worship of the devil, who will act in such a way as to appear in the name of the Savior and try to trick the saints into worshiping him, in order to ensnare those who believe in Christ. But so that that most shameless Satan should not have the space or opportunity which he thinks he has to deceive others, Paul pointed out the time and the signs of Christ’s return. The Lord would not come back until the Roman Empire fell and the Antichrist appeared, who would kill the saints and give the Romans back their freedom, but under his name. Knowing that the Lord would come to suppress him, Satan would usurp his name, both in order to make it appear that his rule is genuine and in order to take with him those who would perish along with him. He would even sit in Christ’s seat in the house of God and declare that he, and not the Son of God, is God himself.
This is why the Lord says to the Jews in the Gospel: “I have come in the name of my Father and you have not received me; if someone else comes in his own name, you will receive him” (John 5:43). Thus it appears that this person whom they are expecting to come will be either of the circumcision or at least circumcised himself, so that the Jews will have the confidence to believe in him. Therefore when writing to the Thessalonians, Paul teaches them to be cautious about this matter.
(Commentary on 2:5-6)16 | GREAT APOSTASY | KATECHŌN
Paul says that it only remains for the one who is to come before the [return of the] Lord to be revealed, because he is already expected and the Lord is coming. He already said this in a guarded way when he wrote: “Unless the rebellion comes first” (2 Thess. 2:3), which I mentioned must be understood as the destruction of the Roman Empire. When it collapses and the Antichrist comes, then we will believe that the return of the Lord is near.
(Commentary on 2:7)17 | DEMONIC DECEPTION | KATECHŌN
The mystery of iniquity began with Nero, who in his zeal for idolatry killed the apostles at the instigation of his father the devil, and went on to Diocletian, and most recently Julian. They started persecution with some cleverness and trickery but could not bring it to fruition because they were not permitted to do so. Satan uses these servants so that meanwhile in a crowd of gods he can feign a revelation of the one God and lead people astray as long as the Roman Empire survives. This is what Paul said: “until it is out of the way” (2 Thess. 2:7).
(Commentary on 2:8-9)18 | DEMONIC DECEPTION | KATECHŌN
Paul says that Antichrist will appear after the collapse of the Roman Empire, as has been stated. Most recently, the devil, knowing that his end is nigh (for the Roman Empire is crumbling and he will be cast down out of heaven and thrown to earth, as it says in the Revelation of the Apostle John [Apoc. 12:9]) will commandeer to himself certain signs of power as and when he can, doing this with the permission of the righteous God, and will offer himself for worship as if he were God. He will copy the Son of God who after He was born and made a man, demonstrated His divinity in signs and wonders. Satan will also appear as a man and present himself as God by the powers of the lie, as was said above.
This is the revelation of the mystery of iniquity. When Antichrist appears, he will be recognized as the god of those to whom the common people once worshiped as gods with his permission. He himself is the first or chief of them all, because by the powers of his signs he will do something which is believable. Paul called these the portents of the life, because Satan wants himself to be believed in by these signs, which is not the same thing as deceiving those whom he has led astray. All this is revealed to the saints in advance so they will know what to beware of.
(Commentary on 2:10)19 | DEMONIC DECEPTION
Paul says that the deception of the iniquity of his [Antichrist’s] miracles is of advantage to those who will perish. Because they have rejected the love of the truth by which they could have been saved through the preaching of the apostles, they have been handed over to the devil. They did not want to be saved and so they have been abandoned by God.
(Commentary on 2:11-12)20 | DEMONIC DECEPTION
The working of error is to put faith in what is false. Those who did not want to admit that the bright of the light is day think that darkness ought to be called daylight instead. That way they become guilty of even greater sin and are damned without contradiction as enemies of the truth and accomplices of iniquity.
Theodoret of Cyrus (c. 393-c. 458/466) | EAST
Theodoret of Cyrus, Commentary on 2 Thessalonians
(Commentary on 2:3-4)21 | TEMPLE
“Because unless the defection comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship so that he takes his seat as God in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God” (vv. 3-4).
By “defection” he referred to the Antichrist in person, making a title out of the event. He called him “the man of sin” since he is a man by nature, receiving all the devil’s activity in himself, and “son of perdition” as being ruined himself and proving the source of ruin to others. In fact, human beings’ avenging spirit mimics the Incarnation of our God and Savior; as the latter by assuming human nature procured our salvation, so the former by selecting a human being capable of receiving all his activity will endeavor through him to deceive all human beings, calling himself Christ and God, and betraying the falsity of the so-called gods, which he himself practices in times past. By “temple of God” he referred to the churches, in which he will arrogate to himself pride of place, striving to declare himself God. The divine Daniel also prophesied this in the words, “He will not recognize him over gods of his ancestors, and will glorify Maozim as god in his own place” (Dan. 11:37), that is, he will name himself powerful god.
Oecumenius (600s?) | EAST
Oecumenius, Commentary on the Apocalypse
(Ch. 6, Apoc. 11:7-8)22 | JERUSALEM | FALSE MESSIAH
He says, “the beast that ascends from the bottomless pit” (v. 7): he calls the Antichrist a “beast” because he is cruel, inhuman, and greedy for blood. He calls the life of human beings a bottomless pit, bitter wit its sins, distasteful, and never at rest with the proliferation of wicked spirits. For the wretch will not arise from any other source other than our own human nature. For he will be a man “whose coming is due to the activity of Satan” (2 Thess. 2:9), as has just been 103 | 104 said. Therefore he says “the beast will kill” the two witnesses, and he will cast their bodies unburied into the streets of Jerusalem. For he will reign there as king of the Jews, whom he will keep deceived as they comply with him and obey him in every way, as the Lord says according to John, “I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me; if another comes in his own name, him you will receive” (John 5:43).
St. John of Damascus (c. 675/76-749) | EAST
St. John of Damascus, Exposition of the Orthodox Faith (c. 730-743)
(Book 4, Ch. 26) | FALSE MESSIAH | TEMPLE
And the apostle says: “Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God” (2 Thess. 2:3-4); “in the temple of God” he said; not our temple, but the old Jewish temple. For he will come not to us but to the Jews: not for Christ or the things of Christ, wherefore he is called Antichrist.
St. Bruno of Cologne (c. 1030-1101)
St. Bruno of Cologne, Commentary on 2 Thessalonians23
If he [Antichrist] would come into the world now, when the majority of people obey the Roman pontiff and when Christian kings thus far preserve the faith, he would have a beast to mount that was not ready, and he would not be able to proceed on his way. When there is such a discessio, the faith will survive on the throne of Peter, even if only in a few. For the saints are said to have obtained the prayer of Christ when he said to Peter, “I have prayed for you, Peter, that your faith may not fail” (Luke 22:32)… 199 | 201
Just this restrains Antichrist, that who now holds the Christian empire and the unity of the faith may hold this for so long, until iniquity, which is now secret, may be taken from among the midst, that is from among the community, that just as now faith is in public (in communi) and iniquity in secret, so in the time of Antichrist faith may be in secret and iniquity in public, since his members will blush no more at acts of impurity than acts of purity, and those who have faith will be few.
St. Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1274)
St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on 2 Thessalonians
(Ch. 2, Lecture 1)24 | JERUSALEM | FALSE MESSIAH | CONVERSION | TEMPLE
When he says “so that he sits in the temple of God, showing himself as if he were God,” he gives the sign of this wrongdoing. For the Antichrist’s pride is greater than the pride of all who came before him. So as it is written of Gaius Caesar that he wanted to be worshiped while he was still alive, and put statues of himself in every temple, and as Ezekiel says of the king of Tyre, “I have said that I am God” (Ezek. 28:2), so it is quite believable that the Antichrist will act as they did, saying that he is both God and man. And as a sign of this he will sit in the temple.
But in what temple? Was it not destroyed by the Romans? This is why some say that the Antichrist is from the tribe of Dan, whose tribe is not named among the other twelve in Revelation (Apoc. 7:5). Because of this, the Jews will accept him at first, and will rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, and thus Daniel will be fulfilled: “an abomination and an idol will be in the temple” (Dan. 11:27). “But when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet standing in the holy place, let him who reads understand” (Matt. 24:15).
But some say that neither Jerusalem nor the temple will ever be rebuilt, but that their desolation will last until the final consummation. And even some Jews believe this. So this text is explained to mean “in the temple of God,” i.e., in the Church, since many from the church will accept him. Or according to Augustine, “he sits in the temple of God,” i.e., he rules and governs as though he himself with his messengers were the temple of God, as Christ is the temple with his adherents.
St. John Henry Newman (1801-1890)
St. John Henry Newman, The Patristical Idea of Antichrist, Lecture 1: The Times of Antichrist
A second objection may be made as follows: St. Paul says, “Now ye know what withholdeth, that he (Antichrist) might be revealed in his time.” Here a something is mentioned as keeping back the manifestation of the enemy of truth. He proceeds: “He that now withholdeth, will withhold, until he be taken out of the way.” Now this restraining power was in early times considered to be the Roman Empire, but the Roman Empire (it is argued) has long been taken out of the way; it follows that Antichrist has long since come. In answer to this objection, I would grant that he “that withholdeth,” or “hindereth,” means the power of Rome, for all the ancient writers so speak of it. And I grant that as Rome, according to the prophet Daniel’s vision, succeeded Greece, so Antichrist succeeds Rome, and the Second Coming succeeds Antichrist. But it does not hence follow that Antichrist is come: for it is not clear that the Roman Empire is gone. Far from it: the Roman Empire in the view of prophecy, remains even to this day. Rome had a very different fate from the other three monsters mentioned by the Prophet, as will be seen by his description of it. “Behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns” (Dan. 7:7). These ten horns, an Angel informed him, “are ten kings that shall rise out of this kingdom” of Rome. As, then, the ten horns belonged to the fourth beast, and were not separate from it, so the kingdoms, into which the Roman Empire was to be divided, are but the continuation and termination of that Empire itself—which lasts on, and in some sense lives in the view of prophecy, however we decide the historical question. Consequently, we have not yet seen the end of the Roman Empire. “That which withholdeth” still exists, up to the manifestation of its ten horns; and till it is removed, Antichrist will not come. And from the midst of those horns he will arise, as the same Prophet informs us: “I considered the horns, and behold, there came up among them another little horn…and behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things.”
Up to the time, then, when Antichrist shall actually appear, there has been and will be a continual effort to manifest him to the world on the part of the powers of evil. The history of the Church is the history of that long birth. “The mystery of iniquity doth already work,” says St. Paul. “Even now there are many Antichrists” (1 John 2:18) says St. John—”every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is not of God; and this is that spirit of the Antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come, and even now already is it in the world” (1 John 4:3). It has been at work ever since, from the time of the Apostles, though kept under by him that “withholdeth.” At this very time there is a fierce struggle, the spirit of Antichrist attempting to rise, and the political power in those countries which are prophetically Roman, firm and vigorous in repressing it. And in fact, we actually have before our eyes, as our fathers also in the generation before us, a fierce and lawless principle everywhere at work—a spirit of rebellion against God and man, which the powers of government in each country can barely keep under with their greatest efforts. Whether this which we witness be that spirit of Antichrist, which is one day at length to be let loose, this ambitious spirit, the parent of all heresy, schism, sedition, revolution, and war—whether this be so or not, at least we know from prophecy that the present framework of society and government, as far as it is the representative of Roman powers, is that which withholdeth, and Antichrist is that which will rise when this restraint fails.
Catechisms
The Roman Catechism (1566)
(Part 1, Art. 7: Circumstances of the Judgment)25 | GREAT APOSTASY
The Sacred Scriptures inform us that the general judgment will be preceded by these three principal signs: the preaching of the Gospel throughout the world, a falling away from the faith, and the coming of Antichrist. This gospel of the kingdom, says our Lord, shall be preached in the whole world, for a testimony to all nations, and then shall the consummation come [Matt. 24:14]. The Apostle also admonishes us that we be not seduced by anyone, as if the day of the Lord were at hand; for unless there come a revolt first, and the man of sin be revealed [2 Thess. 2:3], the judgment will not come.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church
(Pars. 675-677) | DEMONIC DECEPTION | GREAT APOSTASY
(Par. 675) Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers [Luke 18:8; Matt. 24:12]. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth [Luke 21:12; John 15:19-20] 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. the 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 [2 Thess. 2:4-12; 1 Thess. 5:2-3; 2 John 7; 1 John 2:1, 8, 22].
(Par. 676) 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. the Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism [DS 3839], especially the “intrinsically perverse” political form of a secular messianism [Pius XI, Divini Redemptoris, condemning the “false mysticism” of this “counterfeit of the redemption of the lowly”; cf. GS 20-21].
(Par. 677) The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection [Apoc. 19:1-9]. The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God’s victory over the final unleashing of evil, which will cause his Bride to come down from heaven [Apoc. 13:8; 20:7-10; 21:2-4]. God’s triumph over the revolt of evil will take the form of the Last Judgement after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world [Apoc. 20:12; 2 Pet. 3:12-13].
Footnotes
- Manlio Simonetti, ed., Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, Vol. 1b, New Testament: Matthew 14-28 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2002), 187. ↩︎
- St. Ephrem the Syrian, M.F. Toal and Henry Burgess, trans., Eschatological Hymns and Homilies (Florence, AZ: Sagom Press, 2019), 123, 127-28. ↩︎
- St. Ephrem the Syrian, M.F. Toal and Henry Burgess, trans., Eschatological Hymns and Homilies (Florence, AZ: Sagom Press, 2019), 134-35, 138-39, 140. ↩︎
- St. Hilary of Poitiers, D.H. Williams, trans., The Fathers of the Church, Vol. 125: St. Hilary of Poitiers, Commentary on Matthew (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2012), 248, 249-50. ↩︎
- St. Jerome, Gleason L. Archer, trans., Jerome’s Commentary on Daniel (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2009), 142. ↩︎
- St. Jerome, Thomas P. Scheck, trans., The Fathers of the Church, Vol. 117: St. Jerome, Commentary on Matthew (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2008), 271-72. ↩︎
- St. John Chrysostom, Paul W. Harkins, trans., The Fathers of the Church, Vol. 68: Discourses Against Judaizing Christians (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1979), 84. ↩︎
- St. John Chrysostom, Paul W. Harkins, trans., The Fathers of the Church, Vol. 68: Discourses Against Judaizing Christians (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1979), 98. ↩︎
- St. John Chrysostom, Paul W. Harkins, trans., The Fathers of the Church, Vol. 68: Discourses Against Judaizing Christians (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1979), 109. ↩︎
- St. John Chrysostom, Paul W. Harkins, trans., The Fathers of the Church, Vol. 68: Discourses Against Judaizing Christians (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1979), 110-11. ↩︎
- St. John Chrysostom, Paul W. Harkins, trans., The Fathers of the Church, Vol. 68: Discourses Against Judaizing Christians (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1979), 134-36. ↩︎
- St. John Chrysostom, Paul W. Harkins, trans., The Fathers of the Church, Vol. 68: Discourses Against Judaizing Christians (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1979), 136, 138. ↩︎
- Theodore of Mopsuestia, Rowan A. Greer, trans., The Commentaries on the Minor Epistles of Paul (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2010), 507. ↩︎
- Ambrosiaster, Gerald L. Bray, Ancient Christian Texts: Commentary on Romans and 1-2 Corinthians, Ambrosiaster (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), 201. ↩︎
- Ambrosiaster, Gerald L. Bray, trans., Ancient Christian Texts: Commentaries on Galatians-Philemon, Ambrosiaster (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), 114-15. ↩︎
- Ambrosiaster, Gerald L. Bray, trans., Ancient Christian Texts: Commentaries on Galatians-Philemon, Ambrosiaster (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), 115. ↩︎
- Ambrosiaster, Gerald L. Bray, trans., Ancient Christian Texts: Commentaries on Galatians-Philemon, Ambrosiaster (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), 115. ↩︎
- Ambrosiaster, Gerald L. Bray, trans., Ancient Christian Texts: Commentaries on Galatians-Philemon, Ambrosiaster (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), 116. ↩︎
- Ambrosiaster, Gerald L. Bray, trans., Ancient Christian Texts: Commentaries on Galatians-Philemon, Ambrosiaster (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), 116. ↩︎
- Ambrosiaster, Gerald L. Bray, trans., Ancient Christian Texts: Commentaries on Galatians-Philemon, Ambrosiaster (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), 116. ↩︎
- Theodoret of Cyrus, Robert Charles Hill, trans., Commentary on the Letters of St. Paul, Vol. 2 (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2001), 128. ↩︎
- Oecumenius, John N. Suggit, trans., The Fathers of the Church, Vol. 112: Oecumenius, Commentary on the Apocalypse (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2006), 103-104. ↩︎
- Kevin L. Hughes, Constructing Antichrist: Paul, Biblical Commentary, and the Development of Doctrine in the Early Middle Ages (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2005), 199, 201. Quoting from PL 153.419A and PL 153.420A. ↩︎
- St. Thomas Aquinas, F.R. Larcher, OP, trans., Latin/English Edition of the Works of St. Thomas Aquinas, Vol. 40: Commentary on the Letters of Saint Paul to the Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians, Timothy, Titus, and Philemon (Lander, WY: The Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine, 2012), 219. ↩︎
- John A. McHugh, OP, Charles J. Callan, OP, trans., Catechism of the Council of Trent for Parish Priests (Rockford, IL: TAN Books and Publishers, Inc., 1982), 84. ↩︎
Buy Us a Coffee
