Luther’s views on the unmasking of Antichrist and the approaching end of the world carry us back to the early years of his career. Soon after beginning his attack on the Church, he, over and over again, declared that he had been called to reveal the Pope as Antichrist.[898] His breach with the ecclesiastical past was so far-reaching that he could not have expressed his position and indicated the full extent of his aims better than by so radical an apocalyptic announcement. Nor did it sound so entirely strange to the world. Even according to Wiclif the Papal power was the power of “Antichrist” and the Roman Church the “Synagogue of Satan”; John Hus likewise taught, that it was Antichrist who, by means of the Papal penalties, was seeking to affright those who were after “unmasking” him.
The idea of Antichrist in Luther’s mind embodied all the wickedness of the Roman Church which it was his purpose to unmask, all the religious perversion of which he wished to make an end, and, in a word, the dominion of the devil against which he fancied he was to proclaim the last and decisive combat. When, by dint of insisting in his writings, over and over again, and in the most drastic of ways, on the Papal Antichrist, the idea came to assume its definitive shape in his own mind, his announcement of the end of the world could not be any longer delayed; for, according to the generally accepted view, Antichrist was directly to precede the coming of Christ to Judgment, or at least the latter’s coming would not be long delayed after the revelation of Antichrist in his true colours.[899] As a rule Antichrist was taken to be a person; Luther, however, saw Antichrist in the Papacy as a whole. Antichrist had had a long spell of life; the last Pope would, however, soon fall, he, Luther, with Christ’s help, was preparing his overthrow, then the end would come—such is the sum of Luther’s eschatological statements during the first period of his career.
Speaking of the end of the world he often says, that the fall of the Papacy involves it. “Assuredly,” he says, the end will shortly follow on account of the manifest wickedness of the Pope and the Papists. According to him, the Bible itself teaches that, “after the downfall of the Pope and the deliverance of the poor, no one on earth would ever again be a tyrant and inspire fear.” “This would not be possible,” so Luther thinks, “were the world to go on after the fall of the Pope, for the world cannot exist without tyrants. And thus the Prophet agrees with the Apostle, viz. that Christ, when He comes, will upset the Holy Roman Chair. God grant it may happen speedily. Amen!”[900]
In his fantastic interpretation of the Monk-Calf he declares in a similar way, that the near end of the world is certain in view of the abominations of the sinking Papacy and its monkish system, which last is symbolised in the wonderful calf: “My wish and hope are that it may mean the Last Day, since many signs have so far coincided, and the whole world is as it were in an uproar,”[901] the source of the whole to-do being his triumphant contest with Antichrist. In the same way his conviction of the magnitude and success of his mission against the foe of Christ gives the key to his curious reading of Daniel and the Epistle to the Thessalonians with regard to the time of Antichrist’s advent and the end of the world, which we find set forth quite seriously in his reply to Catharinus.[902] In short, “Antichrist will be revealed whatever the world may do; after this Christ must come with His Judgment Day.”[903]
When the Papacy, instead of collapsing, began to gather strength and even proceeded to summon a Council, Luther did not cease foretelling its fall; he predicts the end of the world in terms even stronger than before, though the reason he assigns for his forebodings is more and more the “contempt shown for the Word,” i.e. for his teaching and exhortations. Disgust, disappointment and the gloomy outlook for the future of his work are now his chief grounds for expecting the end of all and for ardently hoping that the Day will soon dawn.... It is the self-seeking and vice so prevalent in his own fold which wrings from him the exclamation: “It must soon come to a head,”[904] for things cannot long go on thus.
The last temptation which shall assail the faithful, he says, will be “an undisciplined life”; then we shall “grow sick of the Word and disgusted with it.” “Not even the Word of God will they endure; ... the Gospel which they [his own people] once confessed, they now look upon as merely the word of man.” “Do you fancy you are out of the world, or that Satan, the Prince of this world, has died or been crucified in you?”[905] It is bitter experience that causes him to say: “The day will dawn when Christ shall come to free us from sin and death.”[906] “May the world go to rack and ruin and be utterly blotted out,” “the world which has shown me such gratitude during my own lifetime!”[907] “May the Lord call me away, for I have done, and seen, and suffered enough evil.”[908] “Would that the Lord would put an end to the great misery [that among us each one does as he pleases]! Oh that the day of our deliverance would come!”[909] “The people have waxed cold towards the Evangel.... May Christ mend all things and hasten the Day of His Coming.”[910]
“It is a wonder to me what the world does to-day,” he said, alluding to the turmoil in the newly acquired bishopric of Naumburg; he then goes on to complain in the words already given (p. 233), that a new world is growing up around him; no one will admit of having done wrong, of having lied or sinned; those only who meet with injustice are reputed unrighteous, liars and sinners. Verily it would soon rain filth. “The day of our redemption draweth nigh. Amen.” “The world will rage, but good-bye to it”![911]—“The world is indeed a contemptible thing,” he groans, after describing the morals of Wittenberg.[912]
The conduct of the great ones at the Saxon Court led him to surmise that “soon,” after but a few days, hell would be their portion.[913] For those who infringe the rights of his Church he has a similar sentence ready: “Hell will be your share. Come, Lord Jesus, come, listen to the groaning of Thy people, and hasten Thy coming!”—“Farewell and teach your people to pray for the day of the Lord; for of better times there is no longer any hope.”[914]
“During our lifetime,” he laments in 1545, “and under our very eyes, we see sects and dissensions arising, each one wishing to follow his own fancy. In short, contempt for the Word on our own side and blasphemy on the other seem to me to announce the times of which John the Baptist spoke to the people, saying: ‘The axe is laid to the root of the tree,’ etc. Accordingly, since the end at least of this happy age is imminent, there seems no call to bother much about setting up, or coming to an understanding regarding, those troublesome ceremonies.”[915]