ing Church, and by the unbelief which has banished the Eucharistical presence of the Incarnate Word, should be concentrated upon the person who is the Vicar and Representative of Jesus, and upon the Body which witnesses alone for the Incarnation, and for all its mysteries of truth and grace. Such is the one Holy Catholic and Roman Church, and such is the Supreme Pontiff, its Visible Head. Such, in the words of Holy Scripture, are the two mysteries of godliness and of iniquity. All things are throwing out into light and prominence the two ultimate powers which divide the destinies of men. The conflict is a simple antagonism of Christ and Antichrist; and the two arrays are marshalling in order, and men are choosing their principles; or events are choosing for them, and they are drifting unconsciously into currents, of which they are not aware. The theory, that politics and religion have different spheres, is an illusion and a snare. For history can only be truly read in the light of faith ; and the present can only be interpreted by the light of revelation: for above the human wills which are now in conflict, there is a Will, sovereign and divine, which is leading all things to fulfil its own perfect end.

LECTURE II.

SUCH, then, is the Revolt, which has been gathering strength these 1800 years, and ripening for the hour when it shall receive its leader and head.

The interpretation universally received by Anticatholic controversialists, whereby, first, Antichrist is held to be a spirit or system, and not a person, and next, to be the Catholic or Roman Church, or the Vicar of the Incarnate Word, is the master-stroke of deceit. It allays all fear, and inspires presumption and confidence, and fixes the attention of men to watch for the signs of his appearing any where except where they are to be seen; and draws it off from the quarter where they are already visible.

Now, I do not hesitate to say, that, in all the prophecies of Revelation, there is not one among them which relates to the coming of Christ more explicit and express than those which relate to the coming of Antichrist.

1. He is described with all the attributes of a person. In this one passage St. Paul calls him that wicked one,' ó avopos, ille iniquus; the man of sin,' ǎvОρWπоs τîs ȧμapτías, homo peccati; and 'son of

perdition,' viòs TŶs ȧπwλeías. And St. John in four places speaks of him as the Antichrist. To deny the personality of Antichrist, is therefore to deny the plain testimony of Holy Scripture: to explain away these personal terms and titles as of a system or spirit, is as rationalistic as the impiety of Strauss in denying "the historical," that is, the personal, Christ.

It is a law of Holy Scripture, that when persons are prophesied of, persons appear; as, for instance, the prophecies of St. John Baptist, or of the Blessed Virgin, or of our Lord Himself.

All the Fathers, both of the East and West,St. Irenæus, St. Cyprian, St. Jerome, St. Ambrose, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Gregory of Nazianzum, St. John Chrysostom, Theophylact, Ecumenius,-all interpret these passages of a literal and personal Antichrist. What I may call the corporate interpretation is modern, heretical, controversial, and unreasonable. This fanciful and contradictory system has been sufficiently destroyed even by Protestant writers: as by Todd in his work on Antichrist, a creditable and learned book, though somewhat defaced by the reliquia of Protestant prejudice; by Greswell, in his Exposition of the Parables; and by Maitland on Daniel and St. John. In Germany, even among Protestant interpreters, to maintain the Anticatholic interpretation is looked on as a surrender of the cha

racter of a biblical scholar. The Protestants of England are still, as they always were, the least cultivated and reasonable. It is true, indeed, that the Antichrist has had, and may still have, many forerunners, as had also Christ Himself: as Isaac, Moses, Josue, David, Jeremias, were types of the one, so Antiochus, Julian, Arius, Mahomet, and many more, are the types of the other; for persons typify persons. So, again, as Christ is the Head and Representative in which the whole mystery of godliness (τὸ τῆς εὐσεBeías μvoτýpiov*) has been summed up and recapitulated, so also the whole mystery of impiety (rò μυστήριον τῆς ἀνομίας†) will find its expression and its head in the person of Antichrist. He may indeed embody a spirit and represent a system, but is not less, therefore, a person. So also the theologians. Bellarmine says, "All Catholics hold that Antichrist will be one individual person." Lessius says, "All agree in teaching that the proper Antichrist will be not many, but one only person."§ Suarez goes so far as to say that this doctrine of the personal Antichrist of faith is "certain de fide.”||

2. Next, the Fathers believed that Antichrist will be of the Jewish race. Such was the opinion of St. Irenæus, St. Jerome, of the author of the work De

* 1 Tim. iii. 16.

† 2 Thess. ii. 7. Bellarm. de Summo Pontif. lib. iii. c. 2.

§ De Antichristo, Tertia Dem.

In iii. p. D. Thomæ, Disp. liv. s. 1.

Consummatione Mundi ascribed to St. Hippolytus, of the writer of a Commentary on the Epistle to the Thessalonians attributed to St. Ambrose, and of many others, who add that he will be of the tribe of Dan; as, for instance, St. Gregory the Great, Theodoret, Aretas of Cæsarea, and many more.* Such also is the opinion of Bellarmine, who calls it certain.† Lessius affirms that the Fathers, with unanimous consent, teach as undoubted that Antichrist will be a Jew. Ribera repeats the same opinion, and adds that Aretas, St. Bede, Haymo, St. Anselm, and Rupert affirm that for this reason the tribe of Dan is not numbered among those who are sealed in the Apocalypse. § Viegas says the same, quoting other authorities. And this will appear probable, if

we consider that the Antichrist will come to deceive the Jews, according to the prophecy of our Lord: "I am come in My Father's name, and you receive Me not: another will come in his own name, him you will receive;" which words are interpreted by the Fathers with one consent of the false Messias, who shall pass himself off upon the Jews as the true. And this, again, is the unanimous interpretation of the Fathers both of the East and of the West, as St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Ephrem Syrus, St. Gregory

* Malvenda de Antichristo, lib. ii. cc. x. xi.

+ Ibid. c. xii.

Ribera, in Apoc. c. vii.

Ibid. in præfatione.

Viegas, in Apoc. c. vii.