“As long as the monastery has stood it has been a home of terror and a cursed dwelling; but for the suffering of all those who have lived here, God has been gracious. And now all danger is over.
“God has crowned the fight with victory, and this that you have seen is the sign that Antichrist shall not be worshipped on the Capitol.
“For in order that the sibyl’s words should be carried out, God has sent this false image of Christ that bears the words of Antichrist in its crown, and he has allowed us to worship and adore him as if he had been the great miracle-worker.
“But now we can rest in joy and peace, for the sibyl’s mystic speech is fulfilled, and Antichrist has been worshipped here.
“Great is God, the Almighty, who has let our cruel fear be dispelled, and who has carried out His will without the world needing to gaze upon the false image made by man.
“Happy is the monastery of Aracoeli that rests under the protection of God, and does His will, and is blessed by His abounding grace.”
When the prior had said those words he took the false image in his hands, went through the church, and opened the great door. Thence he walked out on the terrace. Below him lay the high and broad stairway with its hundred and nineteen marble steps that leads down from the Capitol as if into an abyss. And he raised the image over his head and cried aloud: “Anathema Antikristo!” and hurled him from the summit of the Capitol down into the world.