Page:Eminent Victorians.djvu/127

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CARDINAL MANNING
103

subject, he confessed, "deals with agencies so transcendent and mysterious, that all I shall venture to do will be to sketch in outline what the broad and luminous prophecies, especially of the Book of Daniel and the Apocalypse, set forth; without attempting to enter into minute details, which can only be interpreted by the event." While applauding his modesty, we need follow Manning no further in his commentary upon those broad and luminous works; except to observe that "the apostacy of the City of Rome from the Vicar of Christ and its destruction by Antichrist" was, in his opinion, certain. Nor was he without authority for this belief. For it was held by "Malvenda, who writes expressly on the subject," and who, besides, "states as the opinion of Ribera, Gaspar Melus, Viegas, Suarez, Bellarmine, and Bosius that Rome shall apostatise from the faith."