In a letter to Timothy, Bishop of Ephesus, S. Paul writes: “Now, the Spirit says expressly that, in the last times, some shall apostatize from the faith, giving heed to spirits of error and to doctrines of demons, speaking falsehood in hypocrisy, and having their own conscience seared.”[24]
In a second letter to the same bishop he writes: “Know this, moreover: that in the last days there will be a pressure of perilous times; men will be self-lovers, covetous, lifted up, proud, blasphemous, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, malicious, without affection, discontented, calumniators, incontinent, hard, unamiable, traitors, froward, fearful, and lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, having indeed a form of piety, but denying its power.”[25] S. Peter writes that “there will come in the last days mockers in deception, walking according to their own lusts.”[26]
S. Jude describes them as “mockers, walking in impieties according to their own desires. These are they who separate themselves—animals, not having the Spirit.”[27]
It would seem from the expressions of S. John-who of all the apostles appears to have had most pre-eminently the gift of prophecy—as well as from the manner in which the last days of Jerusalem and the last days of the world appear to be mingled together in the fore-announcement of Christ, that powerful manifestations of Antichrist were to precede both events; although the apostasy was to be far more extensive and destructive before the latter. “Little children,” writes the favorite apostle, “it is the last time; and as you have heard that Antichrist comes, so now many have become Antichrists; whence we know that it is the last time.… He is Antichrist who denies the Father and the Son.”[28]
“Every spirit who abolishes Jesus is not of God. And he is Antichrist about whom we have heard that he is coming, and is even now in the world.”[29]
We believe that these are the only passages wherein the Holy Ghost has vouchsafed to give us distinct and definite information as to the marks and evidences by which we are to know that there is amongst us that Antichrist whose disastrous although short-lived triumph is to precede by only a short space the end of time and the eternal enfranchisement of good from evil.
The prophetic utterances on this subject in the revelations of S. John are veiled in such exceedingly obscure imagery that we do not propose to attempt any investigation of their meaning in this article. It is our object to influence the minds of such Protestants as believe in God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and of Catholics whose faith is so dull and whose charity is so cold that they can listen to the blasphemies of Antichrist without emotion.
We may remark here, however, that if we succeed in supplying solid reasons for believing that Antichrist is already amongst us, and that his dismal career of desolating victory has already begun, the duty of studying those utterances of the Holy Ghost, so darkly veiled that the faith of those who stand firm may have more merit in the trial of that great tribulation, will have assumed a position of importance impossible to be overrated. That they are to be understood, the Holy Ghost himself implies. He intimates that their meaning is accessible to the spiritually minded, and would even seem to make dulness of apprehension of it a reproach, a lack of spiritual discernment. “If any one has the ear, let him hear,”[30] he writes. And again: “This is wisdom. Let him who has understanding reckon the number of the beast.”[31]
It is not necessary to the object we have in view that we should identify “the beast” of the Apocalypse, seven-headed and having ten horns crowned with diadems, with Antichrist. The question we propose to answer is simply, “Are there under our eyes at this moment evidences of a present Antichrist, or of his being close at hand?” In other words, “Is what is called ‘the spirit of the age’ the spirit of Antichrist?”
For us, that we may be on our guard against his wiles, and armed to the teeth to fight against him to the death, it is comparatively unimportant whether we decide him to be actually amongst us or only just about to appear. His marks and characteristics, his badges or decorations—these are all we require.