Mahometanism in its Relation to Prophecy/Chapter 3
PROOFS CHIEFLY DERIVED FROM THE PROPHECIES OF ST. PAUL AND ST. JOHN THAT THIS GREAT ANTICHRIST WAS MAHOMET; AND THAT THE MAHOMETAN EMPIRE WITH ITS RELIGIOUS SYSTEM WAS THE KINGDOM OF ANTICHRIST.
The question that must now occupy our attention is whether Antichrist, of whom we have already been considering the remarkable predictions given by the Prophet Daniel, be come or not? and secondly, whether any political and religious system has arisen in the world, resulting from the work of any celebrated personage, recorded in history, that bears a sufficient resemblance either to what the prophecies of Daniel, or others of the New Testament, to which we are now about to turn our attention, have described, so that we should be justified in coming to the conclusion that such a personage was the predicted Antichrist, and such a polity the Antichristian empire?
In regard to the first question it is undoubtedly the opinion of many Catholic authors that Antichrist has not yet appeared; but all the authors, who take this view, hold that Antichrist is to reign only for the brief period of three literal years and a half, and that his empire and dominion are not to outlive their founder, but to perish with him after that exceedingly short duration. Other Catholic authors however take another view, affirming that Antichrist is already come, and that the duration of his dominion was not to be for the literal period of three years and a half, or of 1260 natural and literal days, but for a prophetic period so called, which would in reality amount 1260 years. The only difference between such years and natural years being, that they are years of 360 not 365 days each, such difference resulting from the precise terms in which the prophecies relating to them are couched.
We at once inform our readers that this latter view is the one which we adopt, and which appears to us most consonant to Holy Scripture, to the earliest traditions of the Church, and to common sense.
By-and-bye we shall unfold the scriptural and traditional arguments which go to establish this theory, but it seems to us eminently agreeable to common sense also, and to all sound analogy. For on the face of it, is it likely that all the wonderful and awful descriptions of Antichrist, as given in Scripture, could be fulfilled in the short period of three literal years and a half? that every evil personage recorded in history is a sort of Antichrist, or type of the great Antichrist, we have scriptural authority for affirming; but if the real Antichrist is to last for only three years and a half, many of his types would be infinitely worse than the great antitype himself. For instance Arius, whose heresy desolated the Church for centuries, must have done much more mischief to the Church and to the souls of men, than any such ephemeral Antichrist ever could do: and what shall we say of the three centuries of Pagan-Roman persecution of the early Church on this theory? Assuredly no persecutor for three literal years and a half could ever rival the accumulated amount of the ten great persecutions enacted all over the earth by the Pagan-Roman emperors. Or what ought we to think of the still greater mischief perpetrated by Mahometanism during the last twelve centuries on such a theory as this? It is evident that if Antichrist be not yet come, and if his continuance is only to be for three literal years and a half, instead of being the principal incarnation of evil, to which prophecy points, he would be vastly inferior in this respect to what were merely types and shadows of what he was to be. It is therefore obvious to us, that either some enduring form of evil, already recorded in history, must be the predicted Antichrist, or if not, that at least it must be some system still future, which will at any rate endure as long as its predecessors and its types, and which can in no case be realized by an ephemeral Antichrist enduring only for three years and a half.
We shalt proceed to show why we believe that this great Antichrist is not future, but that he belongs to the region of the past and to the domains of fulfilled prophecy.
It is well known to our readers, whether they be Catholic or Protestant, that almost all Protestant commentators on prophecy so far at least coincide with our view, as to admit the symbolical nature of the prophetic period of three years and a half or 1260 days, and that Antichrist is already come.
We need scarcely say that they do not agree with us as to whom prophecy points as the predicted Antichrist. Mr. Mede, a writer certainly of no mean repute whether for learning or ability, has left on record what were his views on this question. The learned Bishop Newton has done the same, and his treatise on the prophecies is certainly a work of great ability and research. That great philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician, Sir Isaac Newton, has done the same also, and however erroneous his conclusions, as Catholics must necessarily affirm them to be, they are at any rate the homage of a great mind and of a brilliant genius to the Divinity of the Scripture prophecies. And to say nothing of other minor authors, or of the continental Protestants from Luther downwards, in our own time the subject has certainly been ably handled, although on wrong premises and false principles, by modern writers,—such as Forster, Faber, and Elliott. All these writers have laboured to show, according to their respective theories, that the Pope was either the Antichrist, or the Man of Sin, or the False Prophet of the Apocalypse, or that he was all three of these figurative characters combined. They have laboured to show that the Catholic Church of Christ fell at a very early period into a fatal apostacy from her primitive faith, that she defiled the revelation of God with a demonolatrous worship of saints and angels, an idolatrous worship of images and the Eucharist, and with a general practice, that fully warranted both them and their forefathers in quitting her communion, and in denouncing her to mankind as the Babylon of prophecy doomed to destruction, and as the most impious foe both of God and man.
On the other hand, Catholic writers, ever since the outbreak of the Protestant Revolution of the sixteenth century, have striven to show, and they have done it successfully, that the Protestant theory of Antichrist was contrary not only to the whole teaching of the Catholic Church in all ages, and the tradition both of East and West, but utterly at variance with the statements of prophecy itself, and that if true, it would do more than annihilate the claims of Catholicity, it would overthrow those of Christianity itself; for what becomes of that religion, as a fact of any practical importance to mankind, if you entirely separate it from the Church, if you make it a mere theory, that has never been properly carried out or realized upon earth? Of course, in saying this, Catholics are far from denying or overlooking the fearful abuses that have, alas! ever existed in the Christian Church. Our Lord and Master prepared us for these. He tells us, that these abuses and scandals must of necessity arise even within His own kingdom, the Church, and that they will never be entirely rooted out until His second coming to judge the living and the dead. But Catholics, while they admit this, and deplore it, are surely right in saying that the Protestant theory goes much further. It passes beyond the corruption of individual members and individual pastors, and affirms that the whole body of the Church has been corrupted, that her doctrine has been perverted, her practice (as approved by her œcumenical councils) has become idolatrous, that from having once been the Church of the living God, authorized by Him :to teach all nations," she has become for many ages the very synagogue of Satan, a sink of corruption, and nothing less than "the great Babylonian Harlot," "the mother of all the abominations of the earth."—(Apocalypse xvii. 5.) If this be true, they must show not only how such a result is consistent with the commission given by Christ to this same Church "to teach all nations," but how it agrees with His glorious promise "that the gates of hell should never prevail against His Church," and that He would remain with the visible teaching Church "always even unto the end of the world."—(Matt. xxviii. 20.)
The commission given by our Lord to His visible Church, and the promises with which He consecrated and confirmed that commission, are utterly inconsistent with the Protestant theory of prophetic interpretation. It cannot be denied even by those who hold this theory, that the visible Catholic Church of the present day is the Church which Christ's apostles founded, and which is the offspring of our Lord’s command to them to teach all nations; how then could Christ command the nations to submit to a teaching, which after three or four centuries was to become idolatrous and blasphemous? and yet assuredly He places no limit to the commission He gave, but on the contrary promised to be with it "always, even to the end of the world." In a word Christ declares "the gates of hell shall never prevail against His Church:" the Protestant theory asserts, that the gates of hell have prevailed against it: for if idolatrous teaching be not a gate of hell, we know not what can deserve to be so called. Now all this has been triumphantly shown over and over again by Catholic writers.
Whoever wrote with greater power on this subject, than the great and pious Cardinal Bellarmine? and if the Protestant student of prophecy would turn to the voluminous commentaries of that able interpreter of Scripture Cornelius à Lapide, or to those of the learned Salmeron, who has literally exhausted the subject, they would see how very weak are the grounds for their own interpretation, how contradictory it is to the whole tenor of Scripture, how it is founded on mere assumptions, on gross misrepresentations of historical facts, or on a still grosser misunderstanding of Catholic usages and doctrines, or on an illogical confusion between the character of the Church as a body, and the crimes of some of her pastors or individual members.
But it was not merely at the period of the great falling away from the Catholic Church, that Catholic authors refuted the theories of their adversaries. As time rolled on, the subject was continually taken up on both sides, and often treated in a new point of view as to some of its details.
We may here mention some others of the principal writers, who have handled this portion of Scriptural interpretation on the Catholic side of the question: and by referring to their pages, the reader will be better able to form an estimate of this immensely important subject.
The great Bossuet wrote a treatise on the Apocalypse, which, like all he wrote, is full of ability and of edifying matter. The venerable Father Holtzhauser, of Bingen, on the Rhine, did the same, and a most interesting and valuable treatise it is. There was also an exposition of the Apocalypse published by an English Catholic bishop, Dr. Walmesley, under the assumed name of Pastorini: and just before the close of the last century, an English lady, who had embraced the Catholic faith, published a most able and learned disquisition on the same mysterious book, under the title of "Preuyes Incontestables de la Verité de l'Eglise Catholique et Apostolique déduites de l'Apocalypse." There is, too, a very valuable and interesting disquisition on Daniel's prophecy relating to the little horn in the tenth volume of the Abbé Rohrbacher's "History of the Catholic Church," in which he proves with great ability that Mahomet is that little horn and the Antichrist of prophecy. There have been also several minor treatises on the Apocalypse. Still, however, it may be advisable for others to continue digging in the same inexhaustible mine, and it may be, that as time flows on, and events develop themselves, the true meaning of prophecy, and its connection with what is passing around us, may possibly receive some elucidation.
But now it is time we should reply to the question, Is Antichrist still to come, or is he already come? I answer, he is come: and if the further question be put, Who then is he? I answer, without any doubt or misgiving whatever, Mahomet is he: Mahomet is the great Antichrist foretold in the Sacred Scriptures: and this is what I shall endeavour to prove in the following disquisition.
St. John the Evangelist, he to whom our Lord made his special Revelation of what was to come to pass even to the end of the world, tells us, in his first Epistle and the second chapter and the eighteenth verse, "Little children, it is the last hour,"—that is to say, the last period of the world, or the last dispensation of God to men,—"and as you have heard that Antichrist cometh, even now there are many Antichrists, whereby we know that it is the last hour." . . . . "They went out from us; but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would no doubt have remained with is; but that they may be made manifest that they are not all of us." And again, in the twenty-second verse he continues, "This is Antichrist, who denieth the Father and the Son." St. John here gives us an unmistakeable clue to discover the great Antichrist. He tells us that the very basis of his teaching will be "to deny the Father and the Son." He says, and he says most truly, that even when he wrote his Epistle, there were already many Antichrists, and that they were heretics, who had left the Apostolic Communion: "They went out from US." Hence it is evident that any spirit that opposeth the authority of the one Catholic Church founded by the Apostles at the command of Christ, who said to them, "Go ye and teach all nations," is a spirit of Antichrist, whether such heretics were forerunners of the great Antichrist, or whether they have arisen since, and have trodden in his footsteps. All such spirits have a natural sympathy for one another, and they all are linked together by one common design: the spirit which actuates them is a spirit that "denieth the Father and the Son." It will not be difficult to explain, why it was quite reasonable for Antichrist, on his false principles, or rather for Satan who inspired him, to deny "the Father and the Son:" and why this denial of "the Father and the Son" should be the highest act of human impiety. For assuming the truth of Divine Revelation, and of the statement it makes to us of the Fall of Man, and that man having sinned, and so fallen from God, could never by any act of his own recover the favour of that God, but that God provided a way for recovering His grace by the incarnation of His own Son, God like Himself, who by His meritorious obedience, and by His patient endurance of sufferings, and even of a cruel death upon the cross, obtained for mankind, what otherwise man could never have merited for himself, a restoration to God's favour, and the power of "working out his own salvation with fear and trembling;"—I say, assuming the truth of all this, which all Christians do assume, is it not clear that the denial of the Persons of "the Father and the Son" in God denies the whole scheme of human redemption and salvation, undermining thereby the whole system which Christ came on earth to teach, and consequently doing the utmost to undo what was done by Christ,—in a word, doing that which all common sense and analogy would lead one to expect that Antichrist, when he was fully revealed, would do? But this is not all; we shall hereafter have occasion to show, from prophecy, what other things this great Antichrist was to do, and how completely all these predictions have been fulfilled in Mahomet, and his religion and empire. But St. John tells us that even in his day "there were many Antichrists," and it is remarkable how all the heresies that sprung up in the early Church tended to that great denial "of the Father and Son," which received its fullest development in the very words of the Mahometan creed, "God is one. God is eternal. He hath neither begotten, nor is begotten." Chapter 112 of the Koran, being the first of the last three Revelations, which "the False Prophet" impiously pretended that God had revealed to him at Mecca. These words emphatically deny the whole doctrine of Christ, the whole scheme of human redemption, and the Personal distinction and existence "of the Father and the Son" in the Godhead. "God hath neither begotten nor is begotten," says Mahomet: "This is Antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son," says the inspired Evangelist and Apostle St. John, he that leaned on the bosom of Christ at His last supper, and drew in from the Sacred Heart of his Lord and Master the stream of Grace and Truth. Is it then too much to say that in this special feature, attributed by St. John to Antichrist, Mahomet literally fulfils the predictions of Holy Writ?
The truth of this will become more and more apparent as we trace the links between the early heretics, of whom St. John said, "Already there are many Antichrists," and the great arch-heresy promulgated by Mahomet in his Koran, in which, summing up and carrying out all the denials contained in previous heresies, he affirmed "that God hath neither begotten nor is begotten,"—that is, that there is neither "the Father nor the Son" in the Godhead.
In the very days of St. John the Evangelist, there were heretics, who, separating themselves from the Apostolic communion, and resisting the authoritative teaching of the Church, affirmed that Christ was not come in the flesh; that He only assumed a phantom of human nature, no real body. The effect of this heresy was to deny and overthrow the reality of the atonement: and when Mahomet came, one of his principal heresies was to deny that Christ had died upon a cross, or had redeemed mankind by his death. By this heresy Mahomet adopted those of the Gnostics, of Cerinthus, of the Marcionites, the Ebionites, and the earliest recorded in Church history. As these earlier forms and varieties of the same great fundamental heresy died out, they were reproduced in still more definite shape by the celebrated heresiarch Arius; he, like his predecessors, overthrew the doctrine of redemption through Christ, by denying the Divinity of our Lord: for though he allowed a sort of Godhead in Christ, he denied the eternal Sonship, and the equality of the Son with the Father. Nestorius, too, while agreeing with the Catholic doctrine of the blessed Trinity, overthrew the Divinity of Jesus, by denying the hypostatic or personal union between Christ and God the Son; he affirmed that there were two Persons, absolutely distinct in Christ, so that God the Son was not Christ, nor Jesus God the Son: so that, according to him, the all-holy Mary was not the Mother of God, but of a mere man, and consequently he virtually overthrew the doctrine of the atonement; for how could one mere man atone for sins of millions of men? and yet Nestorius was not aware of the consequences of his own heresy. Then followed Eutyches, who in another way came to the same impious conclusion of the virtual denial of the atonement; for he denied the distinction of natures in Christ. Running into the opposite extreme against the heresy of Nestorius, who affirmed not only the distinetion of natures, but of Persons, in Christ, he (Eutyches) denied that Christ had at once the nature of God and the nature of man, and he affirmed that the manhood of Christ was altogether confounded with the nature of God the Son, so that he was not truly man, as well as truly God: and by this heresy he overthrew all the reality of Christ's merits and sufferings, for the Divinity can neither merit nor suffer, although the creature cannot have infinite merit (such as the Redeemer of all men must have) unless hypostatically united, as the Church teaches us the humanity of Christ was, with the Divinity. Then the Manicheans, uniting in themselves all previous heresies, carried on the tradition of impious denial, till at last, when the Roman empire had been removed, and the world was once more plunged in barbarian anarchy; Mahomet came forth from his obscurity, to usher in a new religion, and to found a new empire. His religion was to supersede Christianity, and his empire was to be universal, so he said, and so he promised his deluded followers. He admitted that Christ was a Prophet, but he denied that He was God, and he spurned at the doctrine of the atonement, and he proclaimed himself to be the last and the greatest of the Prophets, consequently greater than Christ: and as Christ had founded a religion and a spiritual empire, to embrace one day within its sacred bounds the whole extent of the world, so did this "Father and Son denying" Antichrist found a carnal and sensual religion, connecting it with a brutalizing and carnal empire; and as Christ had connected the establishment of His empire with that of every virtue, especially with the Divine gift of continence and virginity, so did this beastly Antichrist associate his empire with the reign of promiscuous concubinage, and of every sensual gratification. What he adopted and retained of revealed Divine Truth was but the mask and the cloak for his impious blasphemies, to deceive the unwary, and if possible to lead captive even the elect. And how many millions and hundreds of millions of men has he not led captive from the first dawning of his career up to this very hour, in which we see England and France ranging themselves in battle array to uphold his old, now worn out, cursed dominion! How many fair provinces of holy Church has he not trampled down! how many millions of Christians has he not slain during more than twelve centuries! how has he not desolated the richest and most beauteous provinces of the earth, diffusing barrenness and desolation over lands flowing with milk and honey, stopping the current of civilization, and realizing to the letter all the hideous descriptions of Antichrist and Antichristian dominion contained in the infallible prophecies of God's Word!
It is a remarkable fact connected with the spiritual affinity, of which we have been speaking, between Mahomet and the early heretics, that Mahomet was actually assisted by Nestorians and Jews in compiling the first outlines of his religious system. This fact is attested by all historians, and it is another fulfilment of the conditions of that spiritual genealogy of Antichrist indicated in the passages of St. John's Epistle, which we have already cited.
But if we turn from the words of St. John to the writings of St. Paul, who also predicted many things concerning the great Antichrist, as all commentators unite in affirming, we shall find all that he foretold no less literally and strikingly fulfilled in the person of Mahomet.
St. Paul, in his second Epistle to the Thessalonians, and in the second chapter, writes as follows: "And we beseech you, Brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus, and of our gathering together unto him; that you be not easily moved from your mind, nor be frighted, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by epistle as sent from us, as if the day of the Lord were at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means; for unless there come a revolt first, and the Man of Sin be revealed, the Son of Perdition, who opposeth and is lifted up above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, so that he sitteth in the Temple of God, showing himself as if he were God. Remember you not, that when I was yet with you, I told you these things? and now you know what withholdeth that he may be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity already worketh: only that he, who now holdeth, do hold, until he be taken out of the way; and then that wieked one shall be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming; him, whose coming is according to the working of Satan, in all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and in all seduction of iniquity to them that perish: because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved. Therefore, God shall send them the operation of error, to believe a lie."
If we examine these very remarkable words of the Apostle, we shall see that his object was to instruct his Thessalonian disciples that the day of our Lord's second coming was not so near at hand, as some, who had misinterpreted our Lord's words (St. Luke xxii. 82), "Amen I say unto you, this generation shall not pass away, till all things be fulfilled," had supposed.
He tells them, therefore, that many things are to happen in the world before that day arrives: that it will not come "until there has been a revolt first." Now this word, which our English Catholic version thus renders, is in the original Greek termed "ἡ αποστασία," and in the Anglican version it is translated a falling away, which comes nearer the expression of the Latin Vulgate, which words it "discessio," than either the original Greek or the English Catholic version, although the latter professes to follow the Vulgate. But the English word "apostasy" would certainly come nearer to the Greek than any other, and we must not forget it was in the Greek that the Apostle wrote. The Apostle then foretells, that before the day of the Lord, that is the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, shall arrive, there will be "the apostasy," that is, "a great apostasy:" and this apostasy is coupled with the revelation of "the Man of Sin," evidently showing that the two are identified together, and that the apostasy will be his work; in other words, that there was to be a religious system instituted by the Man of Sin for the purpose of superseding Christianity, and of inducing all men to apostatize from it. Further, the Apostle tells the Thessalonians that the Man of Sin, and the great apostasy he was to usher in, would not be manifested "until that, which now holdeth," or restraineth their appearance, "be taken way" or removed: and then, he concludes, "shall that wicked one be revealed."
At the same time St. Paul declares that "the mystery of iniquity already worketh," which agrees with the statement of the Evangelist St. John, "already are there many Antichrists," It is evident, therefore, that what St. Paul calls "the Apostasy," which he identifies with "the Man of Sin," and what St. John calls "Antichrist," was to be ushered in by the heresies that prevailed in the earliest periods, the connection of which with Mahometanism we have already shown. But St. Paul's prediction to the Thessalonians gives us many other marks by which this Man of Sin was to be known. Now the first of these is the period of his appearance. This is distinctly noted by the Apostle. "That which now holdeth and restraineth shall be removed, and then shall that wicked one be revealed."
Now what was it that withheld, and that was to be removed? so as to make way for Antichrist?
The early fathers with one consent declare that St. Paul referred to the Roman empire: as long as this empire lasted, the coming of Antichrist was to be delayed, but when once this was gone, then "was that wicked one to be revealed." "Who holds," says Tertullian, "but the Roman empire? the division of which into ten kingdoms will bring on Antichrist: and then, according to the Apostle, that wicked one shall be revealed." (Tertullian de Resurrect. Carnis, cap. 24.) And that great doctor and most learned ancient Father St. Jerome, commenting on these same words of the Apostle, "only he who now holdeth doth hold, until he be taken out of the way," writes thus: "The Apostle by this expression, He who now holdeth, signifieth the Roman empire. He says it in obscure terms, for if he had spoken openly, he would by his imprudence have excited the rage of the persecutors agaist the Christians, and against the Church, which was then in its very infancy." (Hieronymi, in Jeremiam, cap. 25.) And again the same holy doctor, on another occasion explaining the same passage, says: "Only that the Roman empire, which at present holdeth all nations beneath its sway, be taken away, and then shall Antichrist come." (Hieronymi, Epist. cli. ad Algas. qu. xi.) The illustrious Patriarch of Constantinople, St. John Chrysostome, commenting on the same text, speaks thus: "It may be asked, what is the meaning of St. Paul, when he says, you know what withholdeth him from being revealed; and why does the Apostle speak so obscurely? It is because he has in view the Roman empire: and on that account, with good reason, he speaks in obscure and enigmatical terms, for fear of irritating the Romans. The Apostle then on this account says: only that he, who now holdeth, doth hold, until he be taken out of the way; that is, when the Roman empire shall have been removed from the face of the earth, then shall Antichrist come." (Chrysost. Homelia iv. in Pauli Epist. ad Thessalonicenses ii.) A still earlier father of the Church, the great Laetantius, speaking of the latter period of the world, says: "At that time desolation will overspread the whole earth, destroying everything: the cause of which desolation will be that the Roman empire (I shudder to say it, but I must needs say it, because it is to be) will be taken away from the earth, and the empire will return into Asia, the East will domineer again, and the West will be subdued." (Lactantii, lib. vii. c. 15.) These expressions of Lactantius are most remarkable, and their fulfilment is equally remarkable: for they have been fulfilled to the very letter. The Roman empire was no sooner overthrown, than it was subdivided into a number of comparatively small states, whereupon Mahomet arose in the Asiatic provinces of the old Roman empire, and founded upon its ruins another mighty empire, which was for ages the terror of the West, and the scourge of Christendom. The holy patriarch of Jerusalem St. Cyril also thus writes: "The devil will raise up a famous man, who will seize upon the domains of the Roman empire. That man Antichrist will appear, as soon as the Roman empire shall have come to its conclusion."—(Cyrilli, Cateches, 15.) And we may well say these words of St. Cyril are still more remarkable, and still more literally fulfilled, when we remember that the very diocese of Jerusalem, over which this great father of the Church was at that time presiding, was destined to become a province of the Mahometan empire, and Jerusalem itself was to be captured by the Caliph Omar, within a few years after the destruction of the Roman empire, and no very long period after the saint had uttered these remarkable words: but about all this we shall have to say more by and by. We might add other citations from the holy fathers to the same purpose, but we have already given enough; we will therefore conclude this part of our subject with the following remarkable passage from St. Jerome (Hieron, in Daniel, cap. vii.): "Ergò dicamus, quod omnes Scriptores Ecclesiastici tradiderunt: in consummatione mundi, quando regnum destruendum est Romanorum, decem futuros Reges, qui orbem Romanum inter se dividant; et undecimum surrecturum esse Regem Parvulum, qui tres Reges de decem Regibus superaturus sit: id est, Ægyptiorum Regem, et Africæ, et Æthiopiæ: sicut in consequentibus manifestitùs dicemus." From this passage of the great St. Jerome, we learn that the tradition was universal in the Church of his day, that immediately after the breaking up of the Roman empire it would be parcelled out into ten kingdoms, by which number might be intended either the literal number into which the Roman territory would be subdivided, or as other fathers often explain the Scripture numerals, it might mean simply to express the whole number of states into which the possessions of the old Roman empire would be subdivided. But whether the Holy Ghost intended this number to be taken literally or in a more general sense, St. Jerome declares that the tradition of the whole Church handed down that amongst them a king would arise, who was to subdue three of the others, and he adds that these three were, according to the same tradition, those of Egypt, of Africa (or the northern provinces of that continent—for so the Romans termed that portion), and of Ethiopia (that is Babylon and Asia). How remarkably all this has been fulfilled by the conquests of Mahometanism we shall hereafter see more fully.
It is clear, therefore, that according to the unanimous teaching of the Primitive Church St. Paul's expressions to the Thessalonians indicated that Antichrist (as St. John calls him), or the Man of Sin, as St. Paul here terms him, would not be revealed until the Roman empire was removed, but that very shortly after that event was consummated, and its ancient territory subdivided into ten kingdoms (as the Prophet Daniel had foretold), this Man of Sin would be revealed.
Accordingly we find the Roman empire was no sooner broker up and subdivided, than a most extraordinary person arose in Arabia of the name of Mahomet, a person of obscure origin and of but little consideration in the beginning, and this person pretended that he was sent by God as the last and the greatest of His prophets, and that his mission was to overthrow the Christian religion, to found another religion on its ruins, and also to found a universal empire, to which he was to subdue the whole human race, forcing them, under pain of temporal death and everlasting condemnation, to embrace his new religion and submit to his dominion. Within an astonishingly short period after the first promulgation of this new religion and the foundation of the temporal sovereignty connected with it, we find that either Mahomet or his immediate successors had subdued the greater part of the East and of Africa, had established his infamous apostacy in the fairest dioceses of the Eastern and African Churches, and had filled all Christendom with terror. St. Jerome had written the different passages we have cited between the years 331 and 422 of the Christian era; in 476 the Roman empire was extinguished by the deposition of its last Western emperor, who bore the ominous name of Romulus Angustulus; out of the political chaos there had arisen a number of new states, amongst which the emperor of Constantinople for a long while held a sort of primatial dignity; and in 612 Mahomet commenced the publication of his Koran. That this was the revelation of the Man of Sin foretold by St. Paul we shall now proceed to show; we have already shown how the fundamental doctrine of the Koran fulfilled St. John the Evangelist's prediction of the fundamental teaching of the great Antichrist, it remains for us to show how the conduct of Mahomet agreed with St. Paul's prophetic description of the Man of Sin, as given in his second epistle to the Thessalonians.
The Roman empire had been broken up, the whole Christian Church was locking forwards {as the testimonies we have already cited from the holy fathers sufficiently prove) with terror and anxiety to the predicted appearance of the Man of Sin, when in the year 609 a fearful sign was sent by the Almighty to warn Christendom, and especially Eastern Christendom, of the visitation that impended. The powers of darkness were let loose; and as Satan had furiously raged against Christ in His passion and death, so now he directed his fury against the image of Christ crucified, and against the true cross, which the holy Empress St. Helena had discovered and deposited in a costly shrine at Jerusalem. In the year 609, as the bishops and clergy in divers cities of the province of Galatia were making solemn processions, preceded by the holy cross, all at once a great prodigy was beheld. The crosses reeled to and fro, and no human force could keep them steady; an evil feeling seized upon men, and all felt conscious that a new power of wickedness was coming upon the earth. The account of this awful sign is given at length in the history of 5t. Theodore Siceotes, one of the most illustrious saints of the Greek Church,—(Baronii Annales, tom. viii. pp. 203–205.) At that time the most blessed Saint Thomas was patriarch of Constantinople. The intelligence which the bishops forwarded to him of the prodigy, which had been witnessed by vast numbers in so many places, greatly alarmed the holy father. In his distress, he wrote to the man of God, St. Theodore Siceotes, bidding him come to Constantinople, that he might consult him. The patriarch then asked him, as the king of Babylon had formerly asked Daniel the Prophet to interpret his dream, what this sign meant. The man of God seemed unwilling to answer the question; but on the patriarch conjuring him for the love of God to do so, St. Theodore bursting into a flood of tears, thus addressed him: "Most holy father, it seemed to me that I ought not too much to grieve you, for it is not well that you should know the meaning of these things; but since it is commanded by you that I should explain the mystery, be it known unto you that this movement of the crosses foretokens unto us great and numberless calamities. Myriads of Christians will shortly abandon our most holy religion; on all sides the barbarians will attack the territory of the faithful; there will be such bloodshed as hath not been seen before, with great destruction and seditions all over the earth. The churches will be abandoned, and the ruin of God's worship and of the empire approacheth. Know, moreover, that the coming of the Adversary is at hand." No sooner did the holy patriarch hear these words, than he melted into tears, and falling on his knees, he besought the man of God to intercede with the Lord, that He would take him out of this world before these horrible calamities came upon the Church. The saint replied, that rather he would pray to God to preserve his holiness for the good of his flock, and of so many churches over which he presided. Shortly after this, the Persians, having declared war upon the empire, ravaged it in many of its richest provinces, took the city of Jerusalem, and carried away from the famous church of the holy sepulchre the true cross, which had been enshrined there by the blessed Empress St. Helena. This deplorable event took place in the year 615; and two years before this it was that Mahomet first published his famous Koran, thus fulfilling, as we shall soon see, the prediction of the blessed St. Theodore Siceotes.—(See at length, The Life of St. Theodore Siceotes, by the Monk Eleusius; also, Surius, April 22.)
Let us now examine how far the character of Mahomet agreed with St. Paul's description of the Man of Sin. The apostle calls him "the Son of Perdition." The elect are called in scripture "the Children of God," "Sons of God," and "heirs of everlasting life." It is not wonderful, therefore, that the apostle should call Antichrist a "Son of Perdition," a "Man of Sin." Such a name nightly belongs to him, for he is the child of the devil; he springs from the source of perdition, and his ways are those of sin and wickedness. As Christ is termed by all the Prophets "the Just" and "the Righteous" above all others, so Antichrist would naturally be the very type of sin and injustice, and his teaching would open wide the gates of perdition. Now what heretic has ever arisen in the world, of whom this was so true, as it was of Mahomet? Other heretics retained at least the outward profession of Christianity, the belief and use of the sacraments ordained by Christ. Many heretics, and we may say all the earlier heretics, who lived before the coming of Mahomet, retained the daily sacrifice of the holy Eucharist; and though there could be no hope of salvation for the miserable heresiarchs themselves, still many of their followers might be invincibly ignorant (to use the phrase of Catholic theology} of their state of heresy or schism, and so by God's mercy, and the merits of Christ applied to them by the sacraments of baptism or of penance in articulo mortis, they might be saved. But Mahomet abolished Christianity root and branch; he took away the daily sacrifice, which the Prophet Daniel expressly foretold that Antichrist would do, and instead thereof he established vain repetitions of unmeaning prayers, in which there was no love expressed for God, nor any hope in the merits of a Redeemer. He utterly denied the passion of Christ, which he considered a disgraceful doctrine, and he abolished all the seven sacraments of grace, which our Lord had instituted as so many fountains, whereby he might apply and communicate to mankind the fruits of His passion and death. Could Antichrist establish a more appropriate work than this? or one which more completely could undo the work of Christ? Was not, then, the work of Mahomet precisely what all analogy would have led us to expect for the work of Antichrist? In other words, if Mahomet be not Antichrist, be not the Man of Sin, the Son of Perdition, it is not possible that any heretic can ever arise who would more literally fulfil the predictions of God's word concerning that awful personage than has been done by Mahomet. The more we look into the Mahometan system, the more clearly does this fact manifest itself. The doctrine of Christ had taught men all justice, to abstain from even the thought of evil, to live a holy, pure life. "Be ye perfect," said our Lord, "as your Heavenly Father is perfect." But what was the doctrine of Mahomet?
In the fortieth year of his age, he shut himself up in the caverns of Mount Hera, not far from the city of Mecca; there he remained for six entire months, from time to time he made his wife, his children, and his servants visit him, and he entertained them with strange accounts of nocturnal visions and apparitions, with which he declared that he was favoured. At length, on the twenty-third night of the month of Ramadan, he beheld, as he assured his wife, the following vision. A voice called him by his name, a bright light from heaven illumined the whole country, and the Alcoran, the last Revelation of God to men, descended from heaven, complete in all its parts. It was borne, said he, on the hands of the Archangel Gabriel, and such was the splendour and brilliancy of the messenger, that it was more than the eyes of Mahomet could bear, so he besought him in future to appear in human form. This Gabriel promised that he would do, having saluted Mahomet as "the Prophet of God." After which he commanded him to read through the Koran, which he had no sooner done, than Gabriel carried it buck to heaven, promising to bring it back again, as it should be needed, chapter by chapter.
Now, can we imagine any description that more perfectly agrees with the words of St. Paul in his second Epistle to the Thessalonians, where, describing the revelation of the Man of Sin, he says: "Whose coming is according to the working of Satan, in all power, and signs, and lying wonders?" Who was it that personated the Angel Gabriel, but Satan himself, of whom the same St. Paul declares, that he is wont "to transform himself into an angel of light?" Then Mahomet came "in all power," with the power of the sword and of armies. Christ came meek and lowly, and when one of His disciples drew the sword, He rebuked him and said, "Put back thy sword into the scabbard, for all they that take the sword shall perish by the sword:" and having said this He healed the wound of His mortal enemy. Christ came to minister unto the meanest of His followers, saying, "My kingdom is not of this world:" He had indeed a kingdom, but it was not a kingdom of flesh and blood, but of holiness, of peace, and of love. But the kingdom of Mahomet was one of earthly power (in all power): it was a kingdom of luxury and sensuality, in which it was permitted to men to indulge to the full in all the sins of the flesh, and in which he promised the same sensual enjoyments even in the life to come. Then the Man of Sin was to come, "in signs, and lying wonders." And could there be greater signs, than what God had given to His Church of the near coming of this Son of Perdition? Could there be a more striking sign, than the miraculous shaking of the crosses, which St. Theodore Siceotes explained to St. Thomas, the Patriarch of Constantinople, "as the sign of the immediate coming of the adversary?" Could there be a greater sign of the revelation of this Man of Sin, than the miraculous shaking of the cross? The cross of Christ trembled at the coming of Mahomet, and well might it seem to tremble, for Mahomet was its bitterest foe. The cross had redeemed the world, and the Koran of Mahomet was to undo the redemption of the cross. For three hours our Lord Jesus had hung in mortal agony on the cross, giving birth to the children of His adoption, and purchasing the souls of His elect; setting them, moreover, an example of crucifixion to the world, and of a renunciation of all our corrupt passions and lusts; but Mahomet came to level the cross, and to preach sensuality, to set up the power of this world, and to procure the ruin of countless millions of human souls, for whom the Lord Jesus had shed His precious blood. Well might the cross tremble! well might such a sign usher in the coming of Christ's arch-enemy, of Antichrist, and well might the revelation of the Alcoran synchronize with the capture of Jerusalem, and the carrying away of the true cross into the land of the infidel Persians, that very people who were destined to become one of the first conquests of the Mahometan apostacy! Oh! these indeed were signs, such as amply verified the prediction of the blessed Apostle St. Paul. Nor were these the only signs:[1] St. Paul had given another, the removal and destruction of the Roman empire, and all the fathers of the Church, with one consenting voice, had proclaimed that this would be the sign of Antichrist's coming. The Roman empire fell, and the empire of Mahomet was revealed. The kingdom of Christ waxed weak, torn by the internal strife of heresy and schism, and the cross was seen to shake and to tremble. It only remained for the "Son of Perdition" to inaugurate his accursed "apostacy" by the "lying wonders" foretold by St. Paul. And here we see unfolded to us these very lying wonders, in all the force of their "seductive iniquity." Was it not a wonder, when Satan appeared in the garb of Gabriel to the impious Mahomet?[2] when he ushered in to his vision the blasphemous and impious Koran? when he shook the rocks of Mount Hera, and terrified even the heart of Mahomet himself, accustomed, as he said he was, to such nocturnal visions? Was this event, pregnant with the spiritual and temporal destruction of countless millions of men, not to be called as St. Paul foretold of it, a "wonder," and "a lying wonder," seeing that it was invented by Satan to usher in the most false and lying system of impiety that had ever been palmed upon the credulity of fallen man? Yes, Mahomet came "in lying wonders," and he deceived mankind more than any impostor or deceiver that had ever preceded him.. It has been sometimes urged by commentators, who did not admit that Mahomet was the Antichrist of prophecy, that whereas it was foretold in God's Word that Antichrist should perform great wonders, by which he was to deceive mankind, Mahomet did not pretend to the gift of miracles. It is true that Mahomet did not pretend to the gift of miracles, if by miracles be understood the power of healing diseases, of raising the dead to life, or such ether miracles as have always been wrought in the Church of God: and Mahomet was right in not pretending to such a gift, inasmuch as he had none such, and, had he pretended to it, his imposture would quickly have been found out: but he did lay claim to wonderful and supernatural communications with God, and these were assuredly to be called "lying wonders," as St. Pant had termed them. They were surely wonders in every sense of the term, and they were "lying" wonders, because they were false, vile impostures, and diabolical deceits.
On one memorable occasion[3] in the year 621, A.D., Mahomet pretended that the Angel Gabriel brought him a miraculous beast, called El-Borac, on which he mounted and ascended to the seventh heaven, where he conversed face to face with God, and was proclaimed greater than all the prophets and all the angels of God! When he entered the first heaven Adam came and made obeisance to him, and recommended himself to his prayers! God's Word tells us that all the ancient fathers of the Old Testament had been delivered from the prison, in which they were detained, by the preaching of Messiah in person (1 Peter iii, 19), who, as the Church teaches us, applied to their souls the merits of his precious death, and then transported them to Paradise, "leading captivity captive," as David had foretold in the Psalms. But all this is denied by the impious Mahomet, who, on the contrary, pretends that Adam came and recommended himself to his prayers! as if the prayers of Mahomet would prove more efficacious than the merits of the God-Man! In one of these heavens he tells us he saw Issa or Jesus, but he does not say in which. Now is it possible to conceive blasphemous falsehood beyond all this? At least, unless we believe the word of Mahomet, and embrace Islamism, we must come to this conclusion. I will not dwell upon the other lying wonders which Mahomet relates of this journey to the seventh heaven; the miraculous cock, which was several thousand miles high, and which crowed so loud as to be heard by the whole universe; or the colossal angel he met in the third heaven, whose height was equal to one hundred and forty thousand years of the swiftest travelling! or the other ridiculous fables he recounts of this prodigious journey; but I will only add, in conclusion, that, when he reached the seventh heaven, Gabriel was not allowed to accompany him further, but Mahomet, holier than the highest angel, climbed the tree Sedra, and so ascended through a boundless ocean of light to the very throne of God Himself, on the steps of which he beheld these words: "la Allah illa Allah, va Mohammed rasoul Allah;” the meaning of which is, "There is no God, but God, and Mahomet is His Prophet." He was no sooner admitted to the presence of the Most High, than God, placing one hand on his breast, and the other on his shoulder, revealed to him all Truth, and declared to him that he was the most perfect of all creatures, and that he should be honoured and raised above all other men, and that he should be the Redeemer of all those that believed in him, that he should know all languages, and that the spoils of all he conquered in war should belong to him alone. He then ordered him to prescribe fifty prayers a day to his followers, but on the remonstrance of Mahomet He reduced the number to five! After which Mahomet returned to the earth, and recounted to his deluded disciples the Satanic vision, with which Lucifer had deceived his proud and presumptuous mind. Could blasphemy, falsehood, and folly go beyond this?
This was the man, who was destined to be the chief opponent of Jesus Christ, of whom the Apostle St. Paul most properly foretold, "who opposeth and is lifted up above all that is called God and worshipped." That he opposed Christ, no one who has read history would venture to deny, for the records of twelve centuries are at hand to prove that no one ever opposed with such awful success the extension of Christ's kingdom: and if we wanted a clue to the interpretation of the other statement of the Apostle, "that he should be lifted up above all that is called God and worshipped," surely the miraculous journey of Mahomet, we have just been describing, furnishes it for us. Mahomet proclaims himself as having been pronounced by God Himself as the "most perfect of all creatures." What was this but to lift himself (for it was not really God who lifted him to this blasphemous height) above all "that is called God and worshipped?" If he proclaimed himself the highest of all creatures, he was of course higher than Christ, who was a creature at the same time as God. He was higher than Mary, the all-pure Mother of God. In other words, "he lifted himself above all that is called God and worshipped." Jesus is called God because He is at once God and Man, and as such He is rightly worshipped: but Mahomet proclaimed himself greater than Jesus, he therefore "lifted himself above all that is called God and worshipped." Again, in Scripture, princes and kings are sometimes called Gods; thus we read in Deuteronomy, "Thou shalt not curse the Gods, nor speak evil of the rulers of my people." So that, when the Apostle tells us that the Man of Sin would exalt himself above all that is called God, he meant that he would exalt himself above angels and archangels, above prophets and saints, above the all-holy Mother of God, and even above Jesus, the eternal Son of God, who is God blessed for evermore. Now all this Mahomet literally did, and by so doing he exalted himself both directly and indirectly "above all that is called God and worshipped." But Mahomet was not only a religious impostor, "a False Prophet," he aimed at other ends besides the religious veneration of his fellow-men: he aimed at dominion over them, at nothing short of universal empire; for he said that he was sent by God to subdue all other kings and potentates, and to subject them to himself: in this sense, therefore, also he equally exalted himself above all that is called God and worshipped; for in Scripture the term worship is applied not only to the honour which is due to God, but also to that which is due to kings and princes: hence we see how literally and completely Mahomet fulfilled the Apostle’s prediction of the Man of Sin, that he would "lift himself above ALL" (whether in Heaven or on earth) "that is called God and worshipped."
But this is not all that St. Paul foretold, he continues: "So that he sitteth in the Temple of God, showing himself as if he were God." By this I understand that the Man of Sin would endeavour to usurp for himself, in the Temple of God, that is in the public worship paid by mankind to the Supreme Being, whether in material temples or in the temple of conscience, that place, in which He alone had a right to sit, who, as the Word of God declared, sat down "at the right hand of God the Father," in virtue of His eternal Sonship, that eternal generation from the Father, which it was the special province of Mahomet utterly to deny in his famous dogma "that God neither begetteth nor is begotten."
Yes, we may indeed truly say, that when Mahomet asserted himself to be "the highest of all creatures," and the Redeemer of mankind, he not only robbed our Lord Jesus Christ of his glory, of whom St. Paul had said "that He thought it not robbery to be equal with God:" for He indeed was truly equal with God: but he took that place in the mystical, as well as the real, Temple of God, which belonged to Christ and to Christ alone.
In another, and a still more literal sense, did Mahomet also fulfil this prophecy, when Jerusalem was taken by his general the Caliph Omar, and when on the site of Solomon's Temple, which, above all others, is pre-eminently styled in Scripture "the Temple of God," he impiously pretended to restore that sacred edifice, and did in fact defile that most holy spot by erecting thereon one of his principal mosques; thus placing, as Daniel the Prophet and our blessed Lord had foretold, "the abomination of desolation in the Holy Place," and on that sacred ground proclaiming himself the highest and holiest of all creatures, the greatest of the prophets, and, as he reported of himself in his nocturnal journey to the seventh heaven, "the Saviour of all who should believe in him." And it is a remarkable fact connected with the taking of Jerusalem by the Caliph Omar, that Saint Sophronius, who was patriarch of that city at the time, expressly declared that he saw in that event the fulfilment of the prophecy of Daniel concerning the "Abomination of Desolation in the Holy Place."—(Daniel xi. 31.)
Cedrenus, the learned Byzantine annalist, attests this fact as follows:—"Εἰσελθὼν δὲ Οὔμαρος εἰς τὴν ἁγίαν πόλιν τριχίνοις ἐκ κα μήλου ἐνδύμασιν ἠμφιεσμένος ἐρρυπωμένοις, ὑπόκρισίν τε Σατα νικὴν ἐνδεικνύμενος, τὸν ναὸν ἐζήτει τῶν Ἰουδαίων, ὃν ᾠκοδόμησε Σολομῶν, προσκυνητήριον ποιῆσαι τῆς αὐτοῦ βλασφημίας. τοῦ τον ἰδὼν Σωφρόνιος ἔφη "ἐπ' ἀληθείας τοῦτό ἐστι τὸ βδέλυγμα τῆς ἐρημώσεως, ἑστὼς ἐν τόπῳ ἁγίῳ."—(Cedrenus, Hist. Comp. tom. i. p. 746.) And in a subsequent chapter the same author mentions a remarkable fact, "that when Omar commenced his famous mosque on the site of Solomon's Temple, the building, in spite of all his efforts, continually fell down, and on the Caliph inquiring of the Jews the reason of this prodigy, the latter informed him it was because of the cross which the Christians had erected upon their church on the Mount of Olives, whereupon Omar ordered that cross, and many others also, to be demolished."—(Cedrenus, Hist. Comp. tom. i. p. 754.)
What was this, but "to sit in the temple of God, showing himself, as if he were God," as if he were that, which none but Christ, who is "God of God and very God of very God," is and can be? In fine, if Mahomet has not fulfilled the Apostle's prediction, both in the spirit and the letter, we know not how it could be fulfilled.
But we now come to a further description of the Man of Sin in this remarkable prophecy of St. Paul (2 Thess. xi. 9, 10), "whose coming is . . . . in all seduction of iniquity to them that perish: because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. Therefore God shall send them the operation of error, to believe a lie." If ever a system was based on the seduction of iniquity, it surely was that of Mahomet. Look at the morality which he practised, which he taught his disciples to practise, and it will not be difficult to understand what the Apostle means by "seduction of iniquity," when addressed to the corrupt nature of fallen man. The very paradise he promised to his deluded followers, is a place of debauchery, a sink of "iniguity." Whole troops of beautiful houris are provided to gratify the everlasting and insatiable lust of the Mahometan elect, and that there may be no stint, no progeny ever follows this unbridled concubinage: it is an everlasting enjoyment of the basest pleasures, without the end or the sanction of marriage: pleasures which, as mankind now tastes them, are essentially allied with the debasements of original sin, and which the pure religion of Jesus had restricted to the single use of marriage, while it taught men to forego them altogether, if they would seek perfectly to please their Heavenly Creator, by imitating here on earth the purity and the innocence of angels. Jesus Christ had restored woman to her original rank in the scale of God's creation; Mahomet degraded her again into the mere instrument of passion, and the slave of man. Our Lord had made marriage the holiest and the happiest union of man and wife, to be for ever consecrated to each other, with no thought of another to inspire jealousy or divide their love, and this union He pronounced indissoluble, except by death. Mahomet restored polygamy, and consecrated divorce. Thus, instead of developing the holy tendencies of Christianity, he threw men back, and as he impiously pretended, by the authority of God Himself, into all the degradations of human corruption, such as even enlightened pagans viewed with shame and disgust. What has been the result of this legislation of the false Prophet? Let the history of Mahometanism answer the question: in order to enable a comparatively few privileged men to enjoy the possession of whole troops of women, hundreds and thousands of men are annually condemned to mutilation, and so sentenced to a debased and compulsory celibacy. Thus fulfilling another prophecy of the same St. Paul in his epistle to his disciple St. Timothy (1 Tim. iv. 1–4): "Now the Spirit manifestly saith, that in the last times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to spirits of error and doctrines of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy, and having their conscience seared, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving by the faithful, and by them that have known the truth." How remarkably is this fulfilled by the eunuchs of Mahometanism, whom this impious system has effectually forbidden to marry, although it has thrown open to them every other brutal and degrading licence. What a contrast between this diabolical celibacy, and the angelical celibacy of the monastic state in the Catholic Church! The former is that of Mahomet, what the devil has long practised in hell: the latter is the life of the angels of God, of whom Jesus said, "That they neither marry, nor are given in marriage;" that life which He, the Lamb of God, led, when He trod this earth in pain and sorrow for three-and-thirty years, seeking and saving that which was lost; that life, which in every age of Christianity, thousands and tens of thousands of His followers have led in imitation of Him, and of whom, when translated to a happier life, the beloved disciple witnesses that he heard them singing such a heavenly song as no one else could learn, for, said the evangelist, "these were virgins, who were never defiled with women, and they follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth."—(Apocalypse xiv. 4.) And as with the contrast between Mahometan and Christian celibacy, so also between Christian self-denial, and the impious and truly Manichean abstinence of the false Prophet, to which the Apostle St. Paul here alludes. In the old law, Moses had commanded for mystical and temporary reasons abstinence from certain meats, but this uncleanness was washed away in the all-atoning blood of Christ; Mahomet renewed what had now lost all rational signification, and to the restrictions of Judaism, he added blasphemies of his own: he abolished the daily sacrifice of the new law; that sacrifice which our Lord Jesus Christ, as Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedech, had instituted in the form of bread and wine; the sacrifice which the Prophet Malachi had foretold would everywhere be offered amongst the Gentiles. And that he might as it were stamp that Divine oblation of the Christian altar with the seal of his malediction, he pretended that God had told him, that wine was an abomination, invented by Satan (Alcoran v. 92); such were the abstinences imposed by Mahomet on the meats and creatures of God, which, as the Apostle said, "God had created to be received with thanksgiving:" how different from the abstinences of the Christian Church, which, on the contrary, proclaim, that every creature of God is good, and that when for a season, or on given days, we abstain from any of them, we do so, not because they are evil, but for mortification and penance, that we may subdue the flesh to the spirit, that we may learn to use the gifts of God with moderation and sobriety, for the purpose ordained by Him, and not to gratify our mere animal appetite, or a spirit of luxury.
But if we turn from the doctrine of Mahomet to his own conduct and practice, we shall find that his example was on a par with his teaching. Not content with fifteen wives, and a whole host of concubines and female slaves, at the age of fifty-four, he fell in love with Aicha, a beautiful girl of only nine years of age, who was just married to his own adopted son, Zaid. The unfortunate man was forced to repudiate his wife to gratify the insatiable passions of the Prophet, who immediately took possession of her, and married her: and when some of his followers murmured at his brutality, how did he answer them? He makes the angel Gabriel descend from heaven with a fresh chapter of the Koran, prepared on purpose, in which the incest and adultery of the Prophet is vindicated by a blasphemy, and the God of heaven is made to say, that He gives a special privilege to the Prophet to marry any woman upon earth, no matter what previous ties she may have contracted, provided she be ready to yield to his solicitations.[4] It was surely not too much for St. Paul to have foretold of this Man of Sin, that he would come "in all seduction of iniquity;" nor can Mahomet be charged with having done too little to fulfil, even to the extremest point of the letter, the inspired prediction of the Apostle!
But if such was his unbridled career of lust and passion, his cruelty was, if possible, greater still. For this, too, the lying revelations of the Koran gave him the amplest scope. If any one doubted his divine mission, the fifth chapter of this blasphemous book (Alcoran v. 37) tells us how Mahomet was to deal with him: "Behold, what is to be the recompense of those who oppose God and His Apostle" (that is Mahomet), "you shall put them to death,or you shall crucify them, you shall cut off their hands and their feet alternately: they shall be banished from their country; they shall be loaded with ignominy in this life, and they shall receive a cruel chastisement in the life to come." With such an authority in his hands, is it wonderful that this false Prophet should have committed the cruelties which history records, or that his followers in every age should have been as conspicuous for their horrible disregard of human life and human suffering, as they have been for their unbridled lust and unnatural crimes?
But we will not pursue this odious subject further: enough has been said to convince our readers,—and we ought rather to apologise for recounting to Christian ears the unspeakable wickedness of him whom the Apostle rightly forenamed "the Man of Sin."
We have thus far examined the prophetic statements of the Apostle Paul concerning the general characteristics of the Man of Sin, and we have found that the apostolic prediction is fully borne out by the history and character of Mahomet: but there is another fact foretold by the Apostle, which we have not yet considered, but which greatly increases the evidence that Mahomet is the Man of Sin, the Son of Perdition. The Apostle tells us that he would not only come, as we have already shown, "in all seduction of iniquity to them that perish," but he adds, "therefore God shall send them the operation of error to believe a lie: that all may be judged, who have not believed the truth, but have consented to iniquity."
How remarkably was this prophecy fulfilled in the early history of Mahometanism. We lave already seen, that both from the expression of St. Paul, "the mystery of iniquity already worketh," and that of St. John, "already are there many Antichrists," a preparation for the revelation of the Man of Sin was going on from the very beginning of the Church; and St. John had shown that this preparation was wrought by the early heretics and separatists, for, speaking of these Antichrists, he says: "They went out from us; but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have remained with us;" that is, they left the apostolic communion of Christ's holy Catholic Church, and they did so because they would not submit to its authority: "They were not of us;" that is, they would not listen to our teaching. And so it was; the ground was gradually prepared all over the provinces of the East for the advent of him who was destined to set up a new religion in the place of Jesus Christ's religion, that of His Apostolic Church; and this ground was prepared by the gradual and successive undermining of the Catholic faith in those countries by the erroneous teaching of the various heretics. So when Mahomet arose, the men who were the first to aid him in the compilation of his impostures were Jews and Nestorians,—that is, those "who had not believed the truth" of Jesus, and those "who had consented to iniquity;" in other words, those who had refused to embrace the doctrine of the Messiah, and those who had perverted it. And those who flocked to his standard, and embraced his soul-destroying doctrines, were, as he himself assures us, the Christians, both clergy and laity, of the Asiatic provinces, in which he first exercised his diabolical apostleship. If the reader will consult the fifth chapter of the Koran and the eighty-fifth verse, he will find Mahomet witnessing to this fact; and an awful fact it was.
We thus see not only that Mahomet was the Man of Sin, the Sen of Perdition, the Great Antichrist, but likewise that he was the founder of a great false religious system; and hence, in the Apocalypse of St. John he is termed, on this latter account, "the False Prophet." Under this name he is mentioned expressly in the sixteenth chapter of the Apocalypse, and the thirteenth verse. Could any name be more appropriate for Mahomet? He affirmed of himself that he was pre-eminently above all others the Prophet of God. Now, unless he really was what he pretended to be, he was of course pre-eminently what the Apocalypse terms him, "the False Prophet." And this appellation well accords with what we have already seen in Daniel concerning the little horn, that it had "a mouth speaking great things," and "eyes like unto a man." Now what description could better portray the great pretender to the title of God's greatest Prophet? The mouth speaking great things aptly symbolizes the false and blasphemous doctrines uttered by the mouth of Mahomet; while "the eyes as it were of a man," are the most appropriate designation of the pretended Seer or Prophet,[5] and well express those evil eyes of Mahomet with which he beheld the false visions of Satan, those nocturnal apparitions of which he speaks so much, and on which he blasphemously grounded his pretensions.
But there is one more Scriptural prediction concerning this great Antichrist which may well wind up and conclude our prophetic proofs that Mahomet is the great Antichrist. It is given in the thirteenth chapter of the Apocalypse, and in the eighteenth verse: "Here is wisdom. He that hath understanding let him count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and the number of him is six hundred and sixty-six." Every student of prophecy is aware of the many and various interpretations that have been given to this mysterious number. How Protestants have laboured to make it agree with their anti-Catholic and anti-papal theories. How at one time they have made it spell Λατεινος, at another Λουδοβεικος, at another Ρωμιιθ, and the rest. But if it can be shown, with at least equal force, that it furnishes the letters which spell the name of Mahomet, as that name was written by cotemporary Greek authors, having already shown that the other prophecies relating to Antichrist have been so literally and so perfectly fulfilled in that very Mahomet, I should submit that Mahomet must have a better claim to the mysterious number 666 than any of his rivals, even admitting—which I do not admit—that their names may with equal accuracy be extracted from the sum of Greek letters expressing it.
The following explanation of the mystic number was sent me the other day by my learned friend the Abbé Vandrival, one of the most profound students of Oriental literature in France.
I give it in his own words.
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Tn other words, ΜΥΗΑΜΜΕΔ Β᾽Ν ΑΒΔΑΛΛ᾽Η spells the number 666; that is, Mahomet the Son of Abdallah.
My learned friend appends to his exposition of the number 666 these remarkable words: "Les 1260 jours, 42 mois, ou 3½ ans, sont bien près de finir; l'Islamisme se meurt; l'Antéchrist va être mis à mort, alors nous aurons un beau règne pour la religion, mais après une secousse bien forte encore. Voila ce que nous pensons ici."
Other Catholic commentators, taking the Byzantine-Greek mode of spelling the name of Mahomet, in preference to the Arabic, as given by my learned friend the Abbé Vandrival, derive the number 666 from the name written thus, Μαόμετις, which I confess I myself should be inclined to adopt, that being the way in which his name has been popularly written amongst the Greeks.[6]
The sum in this case is as follows:—
| Μ | = | 40 |
| α | = | 1 |
| ό | = | 70 |
| μ | = | 40 |
| ε | = | 5 |
| τ | = | 300 |
| ι | = | 10 |
| ς | = | 200 |
| Μαόμετις | = | 666[7] |
This result is surely a remarkable fact; but another Catholic commentator gives another interpretation, which is also equally remarkable in its way, and may perhaps be equally correct, for it is not uncommon for a text of Scripture te have a double meaning. This writer says: "Ainsi puisque le nombre de la Bête est le nombre d'un homme, cela signifie d'un individu qui a commencé à se faire connaître au monde, soit par lui-même, soit par [les consequences de] ses actions à telle ou telle date; et si cette époque se date à l'année où les Mahométans complétèrent la conquête de toute la terre glorieuse donc parle Daniel (c'est à dire la terre Sainte); tout cela fut accompli et achevé en 666, et il est certain que ce fut cette conquête qui porta leur puissance au plus haut point."[8] In other words, it was that conquest which completed the character of Mahomet as the predicted Man of Sin; for he was not only to exhibit in his own person all that St. Paul, and the other prophets of God, had predicated of him, but he was to accomplish by means of the forces, which he himself sect in motion, the conquest of Jerusalem, and the subsequent subjection of the whole of Palestine. Some may object to this interpretation, inasmuch as it extends the fulfilment of prophecies, that seem to belong personally to himself, to the consequences of his policy subsequent to his death. But this objection has no real weight, for if it had, it would equally overthrow the application of the prophecies that belong to Christ Himself. How often in Scripture is it said of Messiah, that He shall subdue all nations to His spiritual rule: and yet during His lifetime He never so subdued them, although He has done so since by the preachers of His Word; and therefore we rightly say that Christ has done it, and that the event has completed the prophetic history of Christ. Now then, if Mahomet be Antichrist, and Antichrist be a diabolical counterpart of the Christ, the conquest of the Holy Land by the disciples and successors of Mahomet may rightly be looked upon as the act of Mahomet himself, and consequently as filling up the prophetic description of Antichrist. For assuredly every man is responsible for the consequences of his own acts, whether they be good or bad, and in proportion as they result more directly from his own contriving and designing.
We have thus endeavoured to show the fulfilment of the prophecies relating to Antichrist in the history of Mahomet, and the foundation of his Antichristian empire; it now remains for us to unfold, in the next chapter, how the history of that empire from its first foundation until the present time has literally fulfilled, what was predicted in Holy Writ concerning the kingdom and empire of Antichrist.
- ↑ Amongst other signs, that marked the coming in of the Mahometan empire, we may mention what the Byzantine historian Cedrenus relates as having occurred at the death of the False Prophet: the apparition in the heavens, during thirty days, of a vast comet in the shape of a sword, which was interpreted as a sign of the scourge that impended over Christendom. "Μετὰ δέ γε τὸν θάνατον τοῦ θεηλάτου Μουχούμετ ἐφάνη κατὰ μεσημβρίαν ἀστὴρ ὁ λεγόμενος δοκίτης, προμηνύων τὴν τῶν Ἀράβων ἐπικράτειαν᾿ ἔμεινε δὲ ἐπὶ ἡμέρας τριάκοντα, διατείνων ἀπὸ μεσημβρίας ἕως ἄρκτου. ἦν δὲ ξιφοειδής."—Georgii Cedreni Historiarum Comp. tom. i, p. 745.
- ↑ See Abbé Rohrbacher's tenth volume of Ecclesiastical History.
- ↑ See Vie de Mahomet, Koran, Kasimirski.
- ↑ See Alcoran, chap. xxxiii p, 341, Paris edit, 1844.
- ↑ See Histoire Universelle de l'Eglise Catholique, par Rohrbacher, vol, x. p. 2.
- ↑ See Salmeron, Præludia in Apocalypsin, tom, xvi. p. 366.
- ↑ Mr. Forster, in his work "Mahometanism Unveiled," states "The name of Mahomet, as written in the idiom of the Apocalypse by the Byzantine historians, accurately returns the prophetic number 666. This mystical number (understood, it has been shown, of Mahometanism by the Oxford monk Roger Bacon) was first applied to Mahomet personally by Fevardentius; and I am obliged to subscribe the judgment of s venerable authority still living, that his interpretation is preferable to all succeeding conjectures."—(Mahometanism Unveiled, p. 238.)
- ↑ Preuves de l'Eglise Catholique, p. 248.