On The Time of Antichrist


 On The Time of Antichrist

from his book “The Reckoning of Time”
by  St. Bede the Venerable


 “We have two very certain indicators of the approach of the Day of Judgment, namely the conversion of the Jewish people, and the reign and persecution of Antichrist, which persecution the Church believes will last three and a half years. But lest this [persecution] come unexpectedly and involve everyone whom it finds unprepared, [the Church believes] that Enoch and Elias, great Prophets and Teachers, will come into the world before [Antichrist’s] arrival, and will convert the Jewish people to the Grace of Faith, and will surrender to the insuperable affliction of this mighty whirlwind directed against the elect. 

After they have preached for three and a half years, and as the Prophet Malachi predicts, one of them – Elias – has ‘turned the hearts of the fathers to the children’ (that is, when they will have planted the faith and love of the Saints of old in the mind of those who will then be persuaded), then that horrific persecution will burst into flame. First it will crown [Enoch and Elias] with the virtue of Martyrdom, and then engulfing the rest of the faithful, it will make them either Glorious Martyrs of Christ or condemned apostates. This is what the Apostle John seems to signify when he writes in the Apocalypse: ‘But do not measure the court outside the Temple; leave that out, for it is given over to the nations, and they will trample over the Holy City for forty-two months.’ That is, show that those who love external things only, but claim the title of faithful, are to be set apart from the destiny of the elect. For they themselves will turn to persecuting the Church in that final persecution of three and a half years. ‘And I will grant My Two Witnesses power to Prophesy for one thousand two hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth,’ that is, they will preach clothed in the confining labours of continence and affliction. And a little later on he says: ‘And when they have finished their testimony, the beast that ascends from the bottomless pit will make war upon them and conquer them and kill them,’ and so on. He records that the ministers of this same beast, that is, Antichrist, will rejoice over the slaying of these Two Witnesses, that is, Martyrs, and will even mock them after their death. “And in another place he says, ‘And I saw a beast rising out of the sea. And to it the dragon gave his power and great authority,’ that is, I saw a man of savage mind, begotten from the turbulent stock of the impious, to whom after his birth and training by the most despicable teachers in the magic arts, the Devil will add all the authority of his power, through which he will accomplish feats of magic greater than any others. [The Devil] presented [Antichrist] as his sole companion, and (he says) ‘the beast was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months.’ When that son of perdition will have been struck either by the Lord Himself or by the Archangel Michael, as some teach, and damned with an eternal verdict, it is not to be believed that the Day of Judgment will arrive immediately. Otherwise, the men of that age would be able to know the time of the Judgment, if it followed immediately upon the three and a half years after the beginning of Antichrist’s persecution. 

Everyone is allowed to know that the Day of Judgment will not come before that persecution is completed; but it is granted to no one to know how long after the end of that persecution it will come. Therefore the Prophet Daniel, who writes that the reign of Antichrist will be fore 1,290 days, concludes thus: ‘Blessed is he who waits and comes to one thousand three hundred and thirty-five days.’ Jerome explains it in this way: ‘He says, blessed is he who, after Antichrist is slain, waits until the forty-fifth day’ after the 1,290 days, that is, three and a half years, ‘when the Lord and Saviour shall return in His Majesty. But why there should be 45 days of silence after the slaying of Antichrist, is known to God Alone, unless perhaps we might say that the postponing of the Kingdom is a test of the patience of the Saints.’”




 [“The Reckoning of Time”, sec 69, St. Bede the Venerable (+735)]

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