# Mahometanism in its Relation to Prophecy/Chapter 6

PROPHECIES RELATING TO EVENTS CONTEMPORANEOUS WITH, AND SUBSEQUENT TO, THE BREAKING UP OF THE TURKISH EMPIRE.
We now come to the twelfth chapter of Daniel, and of this we must say, that in all this sublime book, there is nothing more sublime.
In the eleventh chapter, the Prophet concludes his predictions, which relate to the four great Gentile monarchies. In this chapter, he brings us to the glorious period of the Church of God; to the period of the restoration of Israel. This event he ushers in with these words: "But at that time shall Michael rise up, the great prince, who standeth for the children of thy people; and a time shall come, such as never was from the time that nations began even until that time."
"And at that time shall thy people be saved, every one that shall be found written in the Book." All interpreters agree that this prophecy refers to the future conversion of the Jewish people, while it also fixes the period of this blessed event. It shows to us, that after the destruction of the Mahometan empire has been accomplished by the successful inroads of ​the King of the South, followed up by the still more overwhelming aggressions of the King of the North, then Michael the archangel shall interpose for the conversion of the Jewish people. Here, again, we cannot fail to remark what power is attributed in Scripture to the angels of God, and how thoroughly such statements of Holy Writ justify the belief and practice of the Catholic Church in reference to these blessed spirits. It seems probable, from many passages in Scripture, that the Jews will have been brought back to Palestine by Antichrist previous to his destruction, and previous to their own conversion, and this also appears to be handed down by the tradition of the Church. Now, as we believe that we have demonstrated Antichrist to be Mahomet, and the Mahometan empire to be the kingdom of Antichrist, we should naturally expect that the restoration of the Jews to Palestine in their unconverted state will be the work of some Turkish Sultan. Now, what is more probable, humanly speaking, than that the present Sultan in his struggle with that great northern potentate, the Russian Emperor, should have recourse to the Jews for a loan? The Jews are the great money-lenders of the earth; it is they who make bondsmen of all the Christian kings and emperors, and if they advance a loan to ​the Sultan suitable to his present emergency, they will assuredly demand some solid guarantee in return. It is a remarkable fact, that while I am writing, the rumour has gone forth that a great Jewish capitalist has offered a loan, for any amount required, to the Sultan, on condition of a mortgage on Palestine, and it is also currently reported that the Jews are collecting vast sums for the work of rebuilding the Temple of Jerusalem. Be all this as it may, the declaration of Daniel us unmistakeable, that the Archangel Michael will stand up for the conversion of the Jewish people at the very time when the Turkish empire shall fall before the victorious arms of the King of the North. And when the Prophet adds the words quoted above, "And a time shall come such as never was from the time that nations began even until that time:" he may refer either to the dreadful conflict that is to usher in the destruction of Mahometanism, or he may refer to the unprecedented peace and prosperity that are to ensue after it. We trust these words rather to the latter: but of this we may feel sure, that the peace and prosperity of the glorious period will be preceded by calamities of the most terrible kind, for prophecy is most explicit upon this head. Our Saviour distinctly tells us, that before the conversion of the Jews, ​there will be a period so dreadful, that "unless it were shortened, no flesh should be saved," but He presently adds, that "For the sake of the elect, those days shall be shortened."—(Matt. xxiv. 22.) Now it will be well to examine a little, what Scripture tells us about this terrible conflict. It seems to hold a conspicuous place in all the predictions of the prophets. We read of it in Daniel, in the Psalms of David, in Isaiah, in Ezekiel, in Michieas, in Osee, in Joel, in Amos and Zacharias, in Sophonias and Malachias, in the Epistles of St. Paul, and the Apocalypse of St. John. We will not dwell at length upon these terrible predictions, but we will briefly state our opinion concerning the principal ones that refer to this mighty conflict that is to precede the conversion and restoration of Israel.
It seems to me, that the destruction of the metallic statue seen in the vision: of Nabuchodonozor (Dan. ii.), which takes place, when struck on its feet by the little stone cut out of the mountain without hands, exactly corresponds with the destruction of the great Babylon of the Apocalypse—(Apoc. xviii. 21.) We there read these remarkable words: "And a mighty angel took up a stone, as it were a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, With such violence as this shall Babylon, that great ​city, be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all." How perfectly does this description correspond with that of the Prophet Daniel—(Dan. ii. 34, 35.)
"Thus thou sawest, till a stone was cut out of a mountain without hands: and it struck the statue upon the feet thereof, that were of iron and clay, and brake them in pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of a summer's thrashing-floor, and they were carried away by the wind: and there was no place found for them." And then presently the Prophet adds: "But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth."
Now I believe the Babylon of the Apocalypse, and Nabuchodonozor's metallic statue in Daniel, represent the same thing. And what is that? They represent, as I think, the whole secular organization of mankind from the very beginning of nations, until the period when the Catholic Church is to assume her grandest development, and to take possession of that universal dominion which is promised to her.
The destruction of Daniel's metallic statue is succeeded by the establishment of the kingdom of the stone cut out of the mountain without hands; and the destruction of the ​Apocalyptic Babylon is succeeded by the chanting of hymns both in heaven and on earth, saying: "Alleluia: for the Lord our God the Almighty hath reigned. Let us be glad and rejoice, and give glory unto Him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His Bride hath prepared Herself."
What is figured in Daniel by the stone cut out without hands becoming a great mountain, and filling the whole earth, is figured in the Apocalypse by the proclamation of the reign of the Almighty, by the marriage of the Lamb, and the adornment of His Bride.
The kingdom of the stone cut out without hands signifies the Church of Christ and her kingdom. The Bride of the Lamb is undoubtedly the Church of Christ, and the adornment of this Bride signifies the glory and prosperity of the Catholic Church that is to ensue on the breaking up of the present secular organization of the earth, that is, on the destruction of Babylon. And as the metallic statue of Daniel figured the great empires that were successively to preside over the secular organization of the earth, so did Babylon (Apocalypse xvii. 9–12), seated on seven mountains, represent the same secular organization of mankind enthroned on its seven principal seats, When St. John saw his vision, the angel told him ​that five of these heads or mountains were already fallen; and these five that had passed away were the five first great monarchies:—1. The Egyptian; 2. The Ninivite, or Assyrian; 3. The Babylonian, or the Chaldean; 4. The Medo-Persian; 5. The Grecian; and "one," said the angel, "now is;" and this was the Roman empire that ruled mankind when St. John wrote the Apocalypse; and then the angel added, "and the other," viz., the seventh mountain or head, "is not yet come." And this seventh was to be the kingdom of Antichrist, viz., that of Mahomet, which was to arise, as we have already shown, when the Roman empire was removed. Of this kingdom, said the angel, "when he is come he must remain a short time," that is, a short time in comparison with eternity, or with the whole duration of the seven empires of the mystic Babylon, But besides these seven empires ten kings are also mentioned, and these correspond to the ten toes of the feet of Daniel's metallic statue, and they represent the ten kingdoms into which the Roman empire (which is Daniel's fourth empire, and St. John's sixth empire) was to be subdivided; while we know from Daniel that three of these kingdoms were to be incorporated into the empire of Mahomet, that is, ​of the Little Horn, or of Antichrist, which is the same as the seventh empire of St, John. "But the beast which was, and is not" (Apoc. xvii. 2), that is, the beast which in one part of the Apocalyptic vision was beheld in all its rampant vitality, but which now "is not," that is, now is destroyed, being utterly ruined by the overthrow of the mystic Babylon, "is the eighth, and is of the seven." By these mysterious words, it seems to me that the Apostle, or rather the angel who speaks to him, means that the beast, taken in its totality, and compounded of these seven several empires, did itself constitute one great whole, which he calls "the eighth," because it represented the sum total of humanity, viewed in its one single aspect; whereas, when viewed in detail, it consisted of seven distinct empires, under whose governing control mankind was successively divided. "This beast," says the angel, "goeth into destruction," that is, the secular organization of mankind shall one day be superseded. by a better organization, viz., by the great dominion of the Catholic Church. Now what do we understand by this? Do we mean to say that in the glorious period of the Church's reign there will be no more earthly rulers, no more kings and emperors? Far from it, we believe the very reverse, but in those blessed ​days kings and emperors will rule, not according to the principles of Babylon, but according to those of the City of God. We firmly believe that they will then hold their crowns in very deed from the successor of St. Peter, the vicar of Christ Jesus, and that what in the middle ages was done by a few pious kings, will then be done by all the kings of the earth. We believe that when the Jews shall have been restored to their own land, and converted to the faith of Him whom they crucified, they will turn to the vicar of Christ Jesus to receive them into that Church, and to reign over them. All kings and nations will then do homage to the Apostolic See, and the pope, father of the Gentile nations, as well as of the converted Jews, will rule over the earth, and gather the peoples of the earth into one happy sheepfold. Then will the nations beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; then will the weapons of war and the implements of defence be burnt with fire, for our Lord will then put an end to all war.—(Psalm xlv. 9–11.) "Be still, and see that I am God; I will be exalted amongst the nations, yea I will be exalted over all the earth."
But what is to usher in this glorious pacification, this wonderful prosperity of the human race, this perfection of civilization, this uni​versal diffusion of true religion and vital godliness? We answer, without hesitation, the conversion of the Jewish people. And this is what Daniel foretells in the chapter we are now considering, the twelfth chapter. And what Daniel foretells is foretold by all the prophets, and by Jesus Christ, the King of Prophets. "Jerusalem," says our Lord, "shall be trodden down by the Gentiles, UNTIL the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." And "at that time," says the angel to Daniel, "shall thy people be saved, every one that shall be found written in the Book," that is, in the Book of God's Predestination. This corresponds with what St. Paul assures us of in his Epistle to the Church of Rome (Rom. xi. 25, 26): "For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, of this mystery, that blindness in part hath happened in Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles should come in: and so all Israel shall be saved, as it is written, There shall come out of Sion, he that shall deliver, and he shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob." And as St. Paul a little before had said (Rom. xi. 15), "For if the loss of them," that is, the apostasy of the Jews from Christ, "be the reconciliation of the world," that is, the occasion of the preaching of the faith to the Gentiles, "what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?" that is, what shall ​their future conversion to Christ be, but the occasion of the spiritual resurrection of the whole earth?
Can anything be more consoling than these prophecies of sacred Scripture? What a happy prospect they hold out before us! If these grand events are to be preceded by woes and tribulations, we know from the same prophecies that these will be of short duration, whereas the glorious period of the Church, during which St. John tells us that Satan will be bound in chains, is to last for the space of a thousand years.—(Apoc. xx. 2.)
Now, whether this period is to continue for a thousand literal years, or not, we cannot tell. But there is every reason to believe that it will be a very long period; and some persons have thought that it might last even for three hundred and sixty thousand years. But this is a question into which we abstain from entering; we content ourselves with the belief that its duration will be worthy of the goodness of God, and a fitting compensation to the Catholic Church, even here upon earth, for all her previous trials, sorrows, and persecutions.
Some persons have thought that the second advent of our blessed Redeemer would precede this binding of Satan, and this glorious period of the Church's earthly triumph. And most ​able are the treatises that have been written upon this great question: there is one in particular, from the pen of my learned and excellent friend, the very Reverend Dr. Pagani, provincial of the Order of Charity in this kingdom, which, by his kindness, I have been permitted to see in manuscript, and I cannot but here express my earnest desire to see it in print with as little delay as possible. There are, however, other commentators, who hold that our Lord's second advent will follow, not precede, the binding of Satan, and that it will not take place till after the final apostasy of mankind, foretold by St. John as ensuing upon the future loosing of Satan at the end of the glorious period.
Be this as it may, it seems clear, from the twentieth chapter of the Apocalypse, no less than from the twelfth chapter of Daniel, that there will be a resurrection of many of the servants of God, just before the commencement of the glorious period: and St. John calls this "the first resurrection," This event does not appear at all improbable, when we reflect that already many saints of the old law have arisen with their bodies, as we read in the twenty-seventh chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel, and the fifty-second verse, "And the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints that had ​slept arose, and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection, came out of the holy city, and appeared unto many." And it is the universal belief of the Catholic Church, that this privilege was also granted to our Blessed Lady, who, as St. John Damascene assures us, rose from the dead on the third day after her decease. It does not, therefore, appear in any degree improbable, that as St. John seems to tell us in his Apocalypse, the martyrs and principal saints will rise with their glorified bodies at the commencement of the glorious period of the Church. And this certainly agrees with the statement we have just quoted from Daniel: "And many of those, that sleep in the dust of the earth, shall awake, some unto life everlasting, and others unto reproach."
It may be, that some such miracle as this may be made use of by Almighty God for the conversion of the Jews; and, I confess, I think this is highly probable.
There are, however, other interpretations that are given by orthodox men to this prediction of Holy Writ. They say it may refer to the solemn canonization of saints, when their sacred bodies are exhumed from the tombs, and placed upon the altars of the Living God. This honouring of their sacred relics is undoubtedly a sort of anticipated resurrection, ​still I confess that I prefer the other interpretation, which seems to me more in accordance with the obvious meaning of Scripture. Besides, the canonization of saints has always been going on in the Church, and the placing of their sacred relics on the altars has been in use even since the very days of St. Polycarp, as we may learn from the epistle of the Church of Smyrna, which recounts the martyrdom of that holy bishop. How, then, could the canonization of saints be the distinguishing mark of the commencement of the thousand years' triumph of the Church of God? But take the first resurrection in the obvious sense of the term, and you have an event at once worthy of God, and of the magnificent epoch it is destined to inaugurate.
In the fourth verse, we read these remarkable words; "But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the Book, even to the appointed time: many shall pass over, and knowledge shall be manifold." From these words we may surely gather, that until near upon the time of their accomplishment, these prophecies would remain hidden and sealed up, that is, uninterpreted or misinterpreted; but that towards "the appointed time" a new and lively interest would be called forth in their regard; and the Prophet gives us a sign of when that period ​should arrive by telling us, that at that time "many shall pass over, and knowledge shall be manifold."
Now, could we have a more striking prediction of what so remarkably characterizes the century we are living in? If there be one feature more than another that distinguishes it from all its predecessors, it surely is that most wonderful increase of communication between the most distant parts of the earth, and the most distant nations. The application of steam to locomotion has, as if were, annihilated distance, and the whole human race seems bent on passing from one country to another; while the other fact is no less remarkably fulfilled, "and knowledge shall be manifold."
Was there ever an age in which human knowledge was so diversified, and so generally diffused? It would be useless to enlarge upon such a fact as this; it is an unmistakeable fulfilment of the Prophet's words, and no one would call it in question; its existence is the boast of the nineteenth century.
But if this be so, what else can we conclude but that we are close upon the wonderful period announced by the Prophet, and that, if our days are spared a little longer, we may very probably witness the tremendous conflict of all the secular powers, so often predicted by the ​prophets, as well as the commencement of the blessed period that is to ensue afterwards? In the sixth verse (Dan. xii. 6), Daniel himself asks the question, "How long shall it be to the end of these wonders?"
The seventh verse answers it in these words:
"And I heard the man, that was clothed in linen, that stood upon the waters of the river, when he had lifted up his right hand, and his left hand to heaven, and had sworn by Him, that liveth for ever, that it should be unto A TIME, AND TIMES, AND HALF A TIME. And when the scattering of the band of the holy people shall be accomplished, all these things shall be finished."
Daniel continues:—
"And I heard and understood not; but I said, O my Lord, what shall be after these things? And he said: Go Daniel, because the words are shut up, and sealed until the time appointed. Many shall be chosen, and made white, and shall be tried as fire: and the wicked shall deal wickedly, and none of the wicked shall understand, but the learned shall understand:" that is, they who are enlightened by true learning, by the light of the Holy Ghost, and the teaching of the Catholic Church. "And from the time when the continual sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination ​unto desolation shall be set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days."
"Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh unto a thousand three hundred and thirty-five days."—(Daniel xii. 7–12.)
In these verses we have the same period predicted, that we have already remarked in other prophecies both of Daniel and of St. John: "A time, and times, and half a time." And then a little after we have another statement, that from the time of the taking away of the daily sacrifice, and the setting up of the abomination of desolation, there should be a period of "a thousand two hundred and ninety days." While the prophecy winds up with pronouncing a blessing upon the man, that waiteth to the third period of "a thousand three hundred and thirty-five days."
The first of these periods, "a time, times, and half a time," we have already seen elsewhere reduced to a corresponding period of twelve hundred and sixty days; and we have already shown how we understand that period; that period we have explained to signify twelve hundred and sixty years, during which the Mahometan empire is to continue. But here we find also a second period named, somewhat longer, "twelve hundred and ninety days." That this period includes the former one of ​1260 days is certain, because the Prophet refers it to the same date, and the same events, for its commencement, viz., the taking away of the daily sacrifice, and the setting up of the abomination of desolation. It is evident, therefore, that as it commences from the same date as the other period of 1260 days, it must extend to thirty days beyond the conclusion of that same period.
Now if we are asked to explain this apparent discrepancy in the two periods, the only reason we can assign, why in this passage it would seem as if the dominion of Antichrist were to last for thirty days, that is for thirty years longer than the other period, so often mentioned, of 1260 years, is this: when Daniel speaks of the dominion of the little horn, called in the eleventh chapter "the king that worships the God Maozim," he is speaking of the temporal empire of Mahomet, of that empire which was to arise upon the platform of the Macedonian he-goat's territory, and when he assigns to that dominion the duration of 1260 prophetic days, he is assigning that duration to the temporal dominion of Mahomet: now we have already seen, from this same prophecy of Daniel, that this empire is to be destroyed by the King of the North. When, therefore, in this twelfth chapter we find Daniel assigning ​to Antichrist a still longer duration, viz., twelve hundred and ninety prophetic days, it is evident that he must refer to something else belonging to Antichrist, other than his temporal dominion, the duration of which we have already seen was limited to twelve hundred and sixty days: now what can this be? I confess it seems clear to me that this must be Antichrist's religion, or what St. Paul calls "the revelation" of the Man of Sin. It is evident, that if the Mahometan empire were destroyed to-morrow, great as the shock would be to the religious system of Mahomet, it would not be utterly extinguished by it. When the Empress Catherine conquered the Crimea, she abolished a Mahometan government, but she did not entirely root out Mahometanism, and to this hour the Tartar population of the Crimea remains Mahometan in its faith, and so no doubt will it be for some time after the empire of the Sultan shall have been absorbed within the dominions of the King of the North. The power of the little horn, the temporal kingdom of Antichrist, will have been broken, but his religion will still remain, still professed by its more obstinate adherents: it is then the religious system of Antichrist that we believe the Prophet refers to, when, in this text of his twelfth chapter, he assigns to that deso​lating influence a duration of 1290 days. In other words, we anticipate, from this prophecy, that thirty years are to elapse, subsequent to the breaking up of the Turkish empire, before the religion of Mahomet will be completely extinguished: and this brings us back to St. Paul's words to the Thessalonians concerning the Man of Sin: "Whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming" (2 Thess. ii. 8): from which we gather that the religious system of Mahomet will be rooted out by the preaching of the Gospel, which will ensue on the destruction of his empire, while the last remains of its influence in the East will not be obliterated even until the second Advent of our Lord Himself, "the brightness of whose coming" will dissipate all the clouds of error, But it is also clear, from the words of the angel to Daniel, that many things concerning these great prophecies are to remain sealed up until the time of their perfect fulfilment, and when that time comes, every difficulty connected with the interpretation of Divine prophecy will be fully cleared up and unravelled. One thing, however, seems unmistakeably foretold, and it is that those, who live to see the arrival of the thirteen hundredth and thirty-fifth day or year, will see a day of ​surpassing blessedness. "Blessed is he that waiteth and cometh unto a thousand three hundred and thirty-five days."—(Dan. xii. 12.)
This text brings us to a period of seventy-five days or years beyond the expiration of the 1260 days. Now dating the commencement of the latter (the 1260 days) from the commencement of Mahomet's empire, which is dated from his famous flight called the Hegira, which is the Mahometan era, and which is commonly placed by chronologists about the year 622 after Christ, the conclusion of the 1260 years would be somewhere about the year 1882. But then it appears to me probable that these 1260 years are prophetic periods of 360, not 865 days each (for 1260 days are the sum of three prophetic periods and a half, consisting of 360 days each), consequently, if we deduct five days from each of the 1260 years, it would shorten the whole period by a sum of 6300 days, which would be equal to seventeen years of 360 days each, and 180 days besides, or exactly half a year of the same length: in other words, it would shorten the whole period of 1260 natural years by a period of seventeen years and a half of prophetic years; or if you divide the sum of 6300 days by 365 days (one natural year) it would amount to about seventeen natural years and ninety-five days.
​So that, dating the 1260 years from the year of our Lord 622, and deducting seventeen years and ninety-five days, it would bring the conclusion of the 1260 years to somewhere about the year of our Lord 1865, minus ninety-five days.
Assuming, therefore, the correctness of this calculation, we may expect that the Mahometan empire will be utterly overthrown about the year of our Lord 1865.
But to this period it also seems from the prophecy we have been examining, that we must add on a period of thirty years, of 360 days each, which would be equivalent to about twenty-nine natural years and 220 days. This would bring us to somewhere about the year 1894; after which we must still look forwards to the conclusion of another period of forty-five years, of 360 days each, which would be equivalent to about forty-four natural years and 140 days. Adding, therefore, forty-four years to 1894, it brings us to somewhere about the year of our Lord 1938, which seems, therefore, to be fixed by the Prophet Daniel as the date of the commencement of the BLESSED PERIOD. Now, it is a very remarkable fact, that this calculation, which fixes the termination of the periods given by Daniel in his twelfth chapter at about the ​year of our Lord 1938, exactly coincides with the conclusion of the period of 2300 days, assigned in the eighth chapter of the same prophecy, and the fourteenth verse, for the duration of the vision recorded in that chapter as closing with what the Prophet there terms "the cleansing of the sanctuary:" for dating the commencement of that period from the triumph of the Macedonian he-goat over the Medo-Persian ram, which was accomplished when Alexander the Great conquered Darius in the famous battle of Arbela, which Blair, in his accurate chronology, fixes at the year 331 before Christ; I say, dating from this year the whole period of the 2300 prophetic years, and deducting from the same number five days for every year, we find that it would conclude exactly at the same date after Christ as that which we have just above assigned for the conclusion of the other periods given in the thirteenth chapter of Daniel, viz., about the year of our Lord 1938: thus making the "blessed period" and "the cleansing of the sanctuary" coincide.
But we must here observe that we do not attach too much importance to this calculation, as the period would be earlier, if we date the commencement of the 1260 years from the birth of Mahomet, while it would be very ​much later, if we date its commencement from the taking of Jerusalem by the Caliph Omar, which took place in the year of our Lord 637.
And assuredly when we look at the present state of mankind, and reflect how very far it is from what the glowing predictions of Holy Writ would lead us to anticipate of its condition in the blessed period, we may well fear that the farther period would be more probable than one less distant. But be this as it may, it would seem as if the destruction of the Mahometan empire, as distinguished from the religious system upheld by it, would not be delayed beyond the year of our Lord 1865.
In the meanwhile, looking to the various statements of Divine prophecy, we apprehend that a time is coming, nay even already commenced, of unprecedented trouble and disaster. These calamitous times, while they witness the destruction of the mystic Babylon, will also witness, if we may refer to the same sources, a terrible persecution of the Catholic Church, a persecution which will purify and prepare her for her great millennial triumph.
Let us glance at some of the symbolical predictions of the Apocalypse, which are commonly referred by Catholic interpreters to this last great persecution of the Church. We find a very vivid and striking one in the eleventh ​chapter of the Apocalypse. In the second verse of that chapter, it is stated that the Holy City, or Jerusalem, shall be trodden down by the Gentiles for two-and-forty months; and if we reduce that period to days, we find that it amounts to a sum of 1260 days. This entirely coincides with the statement we have already seen made by Daniel, that the abomination of desolation should be set up for the same period of 1260 days. But St. John fells us, in the third verse of this same eleventh chapter: "And I will give unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth." Now, whoever be the two witnesses, it is clear that they are "to prophesy" for the same period, that is, for 1260 days, and they are to prophesy "clad in sackcloth," that is, clad in the garments of humiliation and penitence, weeping for the sorrows and sufferings of the Church of God.
It may here be objected that our Blessed Lord, in foretelling the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, which was accomplished by Titus a very few years afterwards, expressly declared that "Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles, till the times of the nations be fulfilled;" from which it would seem that our Lord dates the treading down of the Holy City ​from a much earlier period than St. John in the Apocalypse, and assigns to it a much longer duration. This is indeed true, but there is no contradiction involved in the apparent discrepancy. Our Lord is foretelling the whole history of Jerusalem from his own time until the end of "the times of the Gentiles," whereas St. John is predicting a still further desecration of the Holy City, which was to take place very much later, in fact, several centuries afterwards, and which, from the identity of its duration with that assigned by Daniel and elsewhere by St. John himself to the anti-Christian desolation, viz., the prophetical 1260 days, we may confidently conclude to be that most fearful desecration of Jerusalem that took place in the year 636, when the Caliph Omar made himself master of Jerusalem, and erected his famous Mahometan mosque on the site of Solomon's Temple. Dating from this period, St. John tells us that the Holy City shall be trodden down by the Gentiles, that is, by the infidels, the enemies of God, for forty-two months, that is, for 1260 days or years.
Now it is a remarkable fact, as the learned author of a work we have more than once had occasion to refer to (La Fin des Temps, p. 117) has proved at length, the descendants of Israel who embraced the Christian faith were never ​entirely driven out from Jerusalem until the time of Omar. When Titus destroyed Jerusalem, many still lingered in its sacred precincts, and, converted to Christianity, were governed by their patriarchs, who for a long period were all of them of Jewish extraction, Under the Emperor Adrian, after the destruction of six hundred thousand Jews, in consequence of the revolt effected amongst his countrymen by the impostor Barchochebaz, a new city was built at Jerusalem, to which the name of Ælia was given by the Romans. But this city became a most flourishing Christian city and its patriarchs were famous in the annals of the Church, many of them having been canonized,—witness St, Cyril, St. Sophronius, and others. But when the Caliph Omar took Jerusalem, and built his mosque on the site of Solomon's Temple, the patriarch St. Sophronius, as we have already seen, declared that this fact was the fulfilment of the prophecy of Daniel concerning the placing of the abomination of desolation in the holy place. Now our Blessed Lord had expressly declared that when his disciples (that is, the Christians) should see "the abomination of desolation" there placed, "they were to flee to the mountains."—(Matt. xxiv. 15, 16.) This advice of our Lord they followed; for, immediately after that event, ​and the declaration of the holy patriarch St. Sophronius, the great mass of the orthodox Catholic Christians of Jerusalem left the city, and betook themselves to the mountains of Lebanon, where they have dwelt ever since even to the present day. These Christians are to this hour Catholic and orthodox, and their patriarch is the true Catholic patriarch of Jerusalem. They are known commonly by the name of Maronites, and they are conspicuous for their piety, their simplicity, their virtue, and their faith. They have always remained firmly united to the see of St. Peter, and the learned author of "La Fin des Temps" contends with great force and ability that these holy Christians are the descendants of the first Jewish converts to the faith of Christ. From the time that the Mahometans got possession of Jerusalem very few orthodox Christians have remained in that city, and it is only on sufferance that the Catholics are able to celebrate the Divine Liturgy in the holy places, which for the most part arc in the hands of heretics and schismatics.
We may therefore confidently date the treading down of the Holy City, of which St. John speaks in this eleventh chapter of his Apocalypse, from the period of its capture by the Caliph Omar in 636, and from the establish​ment of the Mahometan religion within its sacred precincts. But St. John tells us, that from that time the two witnesses of Jesus Christ should prophesy in sackcloth, and that they should so continue for 1260 prophetic days.
Now who are these two witnesses? That great commentator on Holy Scripture, and great light of the society of Jesus, Cornelius à Lapide, in his "Commentary on the Apocalypse" (chap. xi. 3), answers the question thus: "Some understand by these two witnesses not any two persons in particular, but two classes of witnesses. Hence Pannonius affirms that these two witnesses are the whole body of doctors and preachers in the Church who expound and preach the two Testaments, that is to say, the Old and New Testaments; while Arias Montanus thinks that these two witnesses represent the law and the prophets." A little further on he tells us that another commentator, Alcazar, understood by these witnesses "the great wisdom and the great sanctity of the Primitive Church," and that the Apostle alluded to Enoch and Elias, concerning whom it is an ancient and venerable tradition that they will appear on earth and suffer martyrdom in the final persecution of the anti-Christian power. He also informs us that some have ​taken them "to mean Christ and St. John the Baptist;" and "St. Antoninus thought they were the Pope Sylverius and Mennas of Constantinople;" while others, he adds, took them to mean "Saint Dominic and Saint Francis;" and the Abbot Joachim held them to be the priests and the monks of the Catholic Church; while the glorious St. Teresa thought that they represented the Jesuit and Dominican orders; and Protestant authors have interpreted them to mean the two Testaments of Holy Scripture, or the sects of the medieval period, who protested against the Catholic Church,—such as the Waldenses and Albigenses, the Hussites and Lollards, and the rest.
It is manifest from all this that there is a very great variety of opinion amongst commentators whether they belong to the Catholic Church, or whether they be separated from her communion.
For my own part, whilst I have no doubt that Elias will come again, and restore all things, as our Lord Himself asserted; and while I think there is a very general tradition in the Church affirming the same of Enoch; and while I believe that St. John in this place alludes to Elias and Enoch, and probably includes them, I also am convinced that he means ​much more. I believe with Abbot Joachim that he intends by the two witnesses "the priests and monks of the Catholic Church," or, in other words, "the clergy regular and the clergy secular."
Whatever ground there may be for interpreting the 1260 days to signify 1260 years, there would be the same ground for interpreting the two witnesses to be not two literal personages, but the whole body of the Catholic clergy, who may be accurately termed "the witnesses of God and of His truth," and His two witnesses, because it is an historical fact, that ever since the time of Mahomet up to the present day they have been divided into two general classes, the regulars and the seculars; the former representing the contemplative state, the latter the active; the former symbolized by Elias, who has ever been regarded as the type and pattern of the monastic state; while Enoch, who was a patriarch and a prophet, that is, a preacher of truth, might not inaptly represent the general body of the pastors whom we commonly call the secular clergy. Now, although there is solid ground for believing that Enoch and Elias will appear on earth "before the great and terrible day of the Lord," it does not by any means seem clear that they are intended in this passage of the Apocalypse; ​and, in fact, we have already seen what a variety of interpretations have been suggested by different Catholic commentators: and if we are right in our opinion that the 1260 days signify 1260 years, it is quite clear that Enoch and Elias have not been on earth for that period, up to the present time at least. But we think, on examining the context, that it becomes still more obvious that the Apostle means the whole body of the clergy: he says, "these are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks, that stand before the Lord of the earth." Now we confess we hardly see how such words as these are applicable to Enoch and Elias, whereas to the clergy they are perfectly so. The clergy may well be said "to stand before the Lord of the earth," because they stand at His altar and minister unto Him, standing before Him as "dispensers of His mysteries," and priests of the new covenant. They may well be compared to olive trees, because they dispense the chrism of salvation, and because it is with the oil of the olive that they are consecrated to the service of God's altar; and they may no less properly be called "the two candlesticks," because they dispense the light of truth to mankind by their preaching and their example. And we have already seen why they should be called the two olive ​trees and the two candlesticks. Moreover, when in the next verse it says, "And if any one will hurt them, fire shall come out of their mouths and shall devour their enemies," that may refer to the power of anathema which is vested in the clergy, and to the power of inflicting excommunication and other spiritual censures. And when in the next verse the Prophet continues, "These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy, and they have power over waters to turn them into blood, and to strike the earth with all plagues as often as they will," this may refer to the power which our Lord vested in the clergy, and which he called the "power of binding," or of "retaining sin;" the power of interdict, which history records to have been often exercised by the popes and other great bishops over whole provinces and kingdoms; a power very properly symbolized by such expressions as "shutting heaven," "turning the waters into blood," and "striking the earth with plagues," to say nothing of the miraculous powers which have been vested in many holy bishops and priests, who literally did what the text describes.
But in the seventh verse we come to what we regard as the prophecy of a tremendous persecution, which these witnesses, that is, the whole ​body of the clergy, both regular and secular, are to endure towards the conclusion of the 1260 years. "And when they shall have finished their testimony," that is, when they shall have come to the conclusion of that witness for Divine truth, which was to be exercised during the 1260 years, and which during that period was with varied success to uphold the Catholic faith in the West, the East being ground down under the feet of Antichrist: then, says the Apostle, "the beast that ascendeth out of the abyss, shall make war upon them, and shall overcome them, and kill them." Now this prophecy, we believe, is not yet fulfilled, although we believe that its fulfilment is near at hand. That a tremendous persecution of the Catholic Church is coming may well be gathered from all that has happened in the world since the middle of the last century. The suppression of the holy society of Jesus, which, in an evil hour, was wrung from Pope Clement XIV. by the secular power, followed up as it was by a violent persecution of the Church, especially in France, by the suppression of monasteries and convents, the desecration of innumerable churches and chapels, the confiscation of ecclesiastical property, the abolition of tithe, and the inundation of impiety, which spread desolation from one end of Christendom to the ​other; and though we have lived to see a partial revival of Catholicity in some countries, yet the encroachments of the secular power upon the Church's domain have continually gone on increasing, and if in any country any king or emperor has relaxed the usurpations of the state for a single instant, that has only been the signal for fresh violence on the part of the disciples of error. I say, when we look back upon all that has taken place during the last eighty or hundred years, and when we recollect that during that same period the sovereign pontiff has been thrice driven from Rome, and the Roman people in a great degree perverted from the simplicity and fervour of former times, we must surely apprehend that all this will issue in some most fearful persecution of the Catholic Church. Now, this is precisely what I gather from this chapter of the Apocalypse, and when it says "that the beast shall make war upon them, and overcome them, and kill them," I think it means, that the secular power, influenced by the devil, will use all its endeavours to crush the spiritual power of the clergy, that is, of the Church's pastors, and that, for a short time, "it will overcome them," that is, it will destroy their influence over the majority of men, and that "it will kill them;" it will even put very many of them to death, perhaps even ​the greater part of them. Nor is it visionary to apprehend such a catastrophe. Look at the principles of socialism, that are at work in France, and in other countries; look at Mormonism, that is every day becoming more formidable in America, and even in Europe; look at the general spread of atheism and infidelity; look at the horrible war that has broken out, one-half of Christendom aiming at the destruction of the other half for the express purpose of upholding the Mahometan empire, which is, in fact, Mahometanism. And who shall say when this overwhelming persecution may not break out?
The Prophet continues, "And their bodies shall lie in the streets of the great city, which is called spiritually Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified." By these words we understand that this persecution will extend all over the mystic Babylon, that is, through every country in the world, in the streets and highways of human civilization. Wherever these are, there will be seen slaughtered priests and monks, who will lay down their lives for the testimony of Jesus; and in a figurative sense, the different bodies of the clergy will be as it were annihilated or reduced to a very low ebb. Some have thought, from one expression in this text, that the "great city" must mean ​Jerusalem, and not, as I interpret it, the whole world, because it says "where also their Lord was crucified," but I do not think this is the meaning, because the preceding words qualify the expression,—"the great city, which is called spiritually Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified." The term "spiritually" evidently qualifies all that follows in the sentence, not only the words "Sodom and Egypt," but also the concluding words, "where also their Lord was crucified." I think, therefore, that it means, wherever spiritually our Lord has been crucified, that is, wherever men have crucified Him afresh by mortal sin after baptism, in other words, all over the world.
That the two witnesses will not be totally rooted out, and utterly annihilated, I gather from the next verse: "And they of the tribes, and peoples, and tongues, and nations, shall see their bodies for three days and a half; and they shall not suffer their bodies to be laid in sepulchres." From these words, it is clear the Church will still be visible, and still œcumenical, composed of all nations, tongues, tribes, and peoples. From the same text, I gather that the duration of this persecution will be for three days and a half, that is, for three years and a half: and this persecution will be the finishing stroke of Satan, his last effort before the com​mencement of that glorious reaction which ushers in the millennial triumph of the Catholic Church.
This blessed reaction is predicted in the eleventh verse: "And after three days and a half, the spirit of life from God entered into them," that is, into the two witnesses, over whose destruction the preceding verse had told us "that they that dwell upon the earth," that is, all the impious disciples of this world, and its false doctrines, were to rejoice and congratulate each other, because the two prophets, who tormented them by the painful truths of God's revelation, were now slain: "and they stood" once more "upon their feet, and great fear fell upon them that saw them."
In the thirteenth verse, a great earthquake is described; by this I understand a great war, and the result is declared to be the falling of a tenth part of the great city, by which may be meant the total destruction of one of the ten kingdoms, of those ten kingdoms, into which the great Roman empire we have already seen was to be subdivided. It is not for us to conjecture what kingdom is specially referred to; the event will show this to those who are alive at the time; but we may probably conjecture that it will be that kingdom, which more than the others shall have been conspicuous in per​secuting the Catholic Church; and when it says that in that earthquake "names of men seven thousand were slain," we must not understand that number to be literal, but to symbolize a countless multitude, who will perish in the great catastrophe. I ought here to say, that the tenth part of the city may also refer not to any one of the ten kingdoms in particular, but to a tenth part of the whole city, taken as a whole, that is, to a tithing of civilized men, wherever they are settled under a secular government, and, if so, I should apply it to the governing powers everywhere; in this view of it, the fall of a tenth part of the city would symbolize the destruction of all existing thrones and governments all over the world; and this interpretation I prefer, because it agrees better with Daniel's prophecy, when he interpreted Nabuchodonozor's dream, and described the total destruction of the metallic statue, and also because it coincides with St. John's own description of the total destruction of the mystic Babylon, in the eighteenth chapter of this same Apocalypse. Now, no one can read that description, and think for a moment that it refers to any one single city, because it describes all mankind as involved in the ruin that comes upon Babylon, and all equally bewailing and lamenting over it.
​Our readers are well aware that Protestant commentators are accustomed to interpret this Apocalyptic Babylon to signify Rome, and the Catholic Church ruled over by the pope of Rome. But to any one who reads attentively St. John's words, the absurdity of such an interpretation must be manifest. In the eighteenth chapter of the Apocalypse, the angel speaking of Babylon, whose utter destruction he is proclaiming, uses this remarkable expression: "because all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication: and the kings of the earth," that is, all the kings of the earth, "have committed fornication with her: and the merchants of the earth have been made rich," that is, all the merchants of the earth, "by the power of her delicacies." Now let the reader dwell upon these words, and he will at once see the absurdity of applying them to the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church has never yet brought all nations within her pale: and as for the kings of the earth, very few of them have ever yet admitted her authority, or embraced her doctrine. At the moment that I am now writing, there are in Europe alone a majority of nations and kings who do not profess the Catholic faith. England, Holland, Wirtemberg, Prussia, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Greece, Russia, are all of them either ​Protestant or else in schism, all separated from the Catholic Church: and when we look to the other continents the proportion is still less in her favour. While I am quite at a loss to understand what the Catholic Church can have to do with "the merchants of the earth;" or how "the power of her delicacies" can have possibly enriched them. No, if the Catholic Church were exterminated from the face of the earth to-morrow, I think the last people, who would mourn over her destruction, would be the kings and the merchants. Neither of these two classes of men have ever been very famous for obeying her laws, or following her maxims; I should be more inclined to expect that they would rejoice over it, and say, as we read in the eleventh chapter, "let us rejoice, for her prophets tormented us, who dwell upon the earth."
But supposing some very horrible and general war, some terrible revolution, were to involve the whole civilized world, and we were to see enacted, on a still greater scale, what we witnessed in miniature in 1848, and that we saw every throne overturned, the landmarks that at present divide the nations swept away, socialism and Mormonism and infidelity taking the place of religion and social order, and trampling all government and property under their feet, why ​we should then witness precisely what this prophecy leads us to expect: we should see all the kings of the earth "weeping and bewailing themselves" (Apoc. xviii. 9) over their great Babylon, overwhelmed as she then would be in the general conflagration: we should see the merchants "weeping and mourning over her" (ver. 11), for their commerce would be at an end: we should see the shipmasters (ver. 17) bewailing the end of their trade and their gains. Cities and villages, palaces and cottages, parks and gardens, would all perish in the general conflagration. Anarchy would sweep away every vestige of order, and instead of the boasted civilization of the nineteenth century, all things would be reduced to primitive chaos.
Now horrible as it may seem, no one can read the eighteenth chapter of the Apocalypse, and not perceive that some such catastrophe is foretold, if at least he believe in the Divine inspiration of that book: and, on the other hand, if he looks around and accurately scans the various elements that are at work in modern society, he will not regard such an issue, awful though it be, as in any degree impossible: on the contrary, unless the destructive influences that are at work are removed, it is clearly inevitable.
​That these destructive influences will one day be removed, we have the consoling assurance of the same prophecy, but not until they have done their work, and absolutely annihilated the whole fabric of the hollow and deceitful civilization of mankind, as it exists at present. It is this great consummation, which the Prophet refers to, when he says (ver. 20), "Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets, for God hath judged your judgment upon her." And well might the heaven and its angelic inhabitants, well might the apostles and prophets rejoice over the destruction of this accursed Babylon, for (ver. 24) "in her was found the blood of the prophets and the saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth." Now these last words clearly and incontestably prove what, and where, this mystic Babylon is. It is the city of the devil, the "mundus tenebrarum" of which St. Augustine speaks, mankind, in a word, organized, ruled over, and civilized upon the principles of the devil, not of God; that great mass of humanity, into which, like three measures of meal, Holy Church was to cast the Gospel leaven, till the whole should be leavened. Now what is the process that takes place in the leavening of bread? it is a fermenting process, which makes the whole mass heave and rise, ​and the noxious gases bubble up and explode, after which it is baked in the oven, and becomes good bread, fit for the food of man. So has it been, and so will it be with humanity, under the influence of the Gospel leaven. This leaven was given to the Church by Jesus Christ, her Divine Founder. The Church cast it at once into the corrupted mass of humanity: and as our Lord speaks in His parable of three "measures of meal," so I conceive there were to be three great fermentations of mankind before it should be perfectly leavened with the Divine doctrine. The first of these fermentations was the great strife between the Gospel and paganism during the three first centuries, working that dreadful persecution that crowned all the primitive martyrs, issuing in the conversion of Constantine, and the subjugation of the pagan element; for though paganism has not yet been rooted out from the earth, yet since Constantine's conversion, it has never been able to afflict the Church with any general and universal persecution, as it did before that epoch, and although it has ever existed, it has been only in the heart of the most distant and least influential portions of the human race; such as in India and China, or amongst the degraded nations of Africa, America, and the islands of the ocean. The conversion, there​fore, of Constantine indicated the completion of the first fermentation of humanity, namely, the fermentation of the pagan element. This was, it seems to me, the leavening of the first "measure of meal," spoken of by our Lord.
The second fermentation dates from Constantine to Luther, and this may be called the fermentation of the heretical element: which is the same as the Antichristian element: the element of the "False Christs" foretold by our Saviour. Amongst these the culminating and crowning personage is the False Prophet Mahomet. This fermentation came to its utmost height in the time of Luther, and issued in the severance of the northern nations from the Catholic Church, as it had previously severed the east from her dominion by the heresies that ensued upon Constantine's conversion, crowned as they were by the great apostasy of the Man of Sin, Mahomet. This fermentation, while it severed the chaff from the good grain, led to all those glorious definitions of Divine truth, by which the Church has guarded the deposit of revelation from the days of the Council of Nice down to those of the Council of Trent: and this was, as I think, the leavening of the second "measure of meal" spoken of by our Lord.
The third fermentation dates from Luther to ​the final destruction of Babylon. And this may be called the fermentation of the infidel or rationalistic element, which was generated by the Protestant principle of bringing all things to the bar of private judgment and individual interpretation of Scripture, as separated from tradition. The effect of this fermentation has been unfolded by the history of the last three centuries, and it will be still more unfolded. It has produced a countless host of discordant sects, issuing in complete rationalism and infidelity, the result of which has been not only to paralyse faith, but even to destroy all healthy action in the body politic. It is to this that we may trace up all the anarchical and revolutionary outbreaks, that for the last century and a half have, with ever-increasing force, shaken and disorganized the whole framework of the civilized world. It is this fermentation, which we believe is to issue in the utter destruction of Babylon, that is, of the present social organization of mankind, and the subsequent establishment of the Church empire, that is, of the kingdom of the stone, cut out of the mountain without hands.
The first effect of this rationalistic fermentation manifested itself in the sixteenth century, when learned men, abandoning the Divine philosophy of the Catholic Church, such as ​the angelical Doctor St. Thomas Aquinas had fashioned it, embraced the Epicurean and other false systems of heathen antiquity. Along with this new development of heathen philosophy, there arose a simultaneous desire to revive the expression of the heathen mind in art and architecture, and in literature. The result of this was more and more to sever men's minds from the influence of Catholicism and the Gospel, and so to make them an easier prey to the arguments of rationalism and infidelity, while it tended immensely to the development of immorality and impurity in its worst forms. All this came to a culminating point in the great French Revolution, which, on a smaller scale, has been enacted in almost every other country; and although good men from time to time have been raised up by God to stem the torrent, or, if possible, to infuse a Christian element into it, it has been continually spreading its noxious influence, till at length we behold the universe involved in it, and all men, who look seriously at what is going on, are persuaded that humanity is hurrying on to the most tremendous cataclysm that history has ever witnessed.
This cataclysm is what we understand by the destruction of the mystic Babylon of the Apocalypse, and it will issue in the final triumph ​of the Catholic Church over all her foes, in the total conversion of the earth, and the final leavening of the third "measure of meal," as our Lord and Master intimated in His Divine parable.
Veni Domine Jesu, et noli tardare.