Bl. John Newman on Antichrist, Lecture 3. The City of Antichrist

Bl. John Newman on Antichrist,

Lecture 3. The City of Antichrist

{77} THE Angel thus interprets to St. John the vision of the Great Harlot, the enchantress, who seduced the inhabitants of the earth. He says, "The woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth." The city spoken of in these words is evidently Rome, which was then the seat of empire all over the earth,—which was supreme even in Judæa. We hear of the Romans all through the Gospels and Acts. Our Saviour was born when His mother, the Blessed Virgin, and Joseph, were brought up to Bethlehem to be taxed by the Roman governor. He was crucified under Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor. St. Paul was at various times protected by the circumstance of his being a Roman citizen; on the other hand, when he was seized and imprisoned, it was by the Roman governors, and at last he was sent to Rome itself to the emperor, and eventually martyred there, together with St. Peter. Thus the sovereignty of Rome, at the time when Christ and His Apostles preached and wrote, which is a matter of historical notoriety, is forced on our notice in the New Testament itself. It is undeniably meant by the Angel when he speaks of "the great city which reigneth over the earth."

The connexion of Rome with the reign and exploits of Antichrist, is so often brought before us in the controversies of this day, that it may be well, after what I {78} have already had occasion to say on the subject of the last enemy of the Church, to consider now what Scripture prophecy says concerning Rome; which I shall attempt to do, as before, with the guidance of the early Fathers.

1.

Now let us observe what is said concerning Rome, in the passage which the Angel concludes in the words which I have quoted, and what we may deduce from it.

That great city is described under the image of a woman, cruel, profligate, and impious. She is described as arrayed in all worldly splendour and costliness, in purple and scarlet, in gold and precious stones, and pearls, as shedding and drinking the blood of the saints, till she was drunken with it. Moreover she is called by the name of "Babylon the Great," to signify her power, wealth, profaneness, pride, sensuality, and persecuting spirit, after the pattern of that former enemy of the Church. I need not here relate how all this really answered to the character and history of Rome at the time St. John spoke of it. There never was a more ambitious, haughty, hard-hearted, and worldly people than the Romans; never any, for none else had ever the opportunity, which so persecuted the Church. Christians suffered ten persecutions at their hands, as they are commonly reckoned, and very horrible ones, extending over two hundred and fifty years. The day would fail to go through an account of the tortures they suffered from Rome; so that the Apostle's description was as signally fulfilled afterwards as a prophecy, as it was accurate at the time as an historical notice.

St. John, the Eagle of Patmos

This guilty city, represented by St. John as an abandoned woman, is said to be seated on "a scarlet-coloured {79} monster, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns." Here we are sent back by the prophetic description to the seventh chapter of Daniel, in which the four great empires of the world are shadowed out under the figure of four beasts, a lion, a bear, a leopard, and a nameless monster, "diverse" from the rest, "dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly;" "and it had ten horns." This surely is the very same beast which St. John saw: the ten horns mark it. Now this fourth beast in Daniel's vision is the Roman Empire; therefore "the beast," on which the woman sat, is the Roman Empire. And this agrees very accurately with the actual position of things in history; for Rome, the mistress of the world, might well be said to sit upon, and be carried about triumphantly on that world which she had subdued and tamed, and made her creature. Further, the prophet Daniel explains the ten horns of the monster to be "ten kings that shall arise" out of this Empire; in which St. John agrees, saying, "The ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet, but receive power as kings one hour with the beast." Moreover in a former vision Daniel speaks of the Empire as destined to be "divided," as "partly strong and partly broken." [Dan. ii. 41, 42.] Further still, this Empire, the beast of burden of the woman, was at length to rise against her and devour her, as some savage animal might turn upon its keeper; and it was to do this in the time of its divided or multiplied existence. "The ten horns which thou sawest upon him, these shall hate" her, "and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh and burn her with fire." Such was to be the end of the great city. Lastly, three of the kings, perhaps all, are said to be subdued by Antichrist, who {80} is to come up suddenly while they are in power; for such is the course of Daniel's prophecy: "Another shall rise after them, and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings, and he shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws; and they shall be given into his hands until a time, times, and the dividing of time." This power, who was to rise upon the kings, is Antichrist; and I would have you observe how Rome and Antichrist stand towards each other in the prophecy. Rome is to fall before Antichrist rises; for the ten kings are to destroy Rome, and Antichrist is then to appear and supersede the ten kings. As far as we dare judge from the words, this seems clear. First, St. John says, "The ten horns shall hate and devour" the woman; secondly, Daniel says, "I considered the horns, and behold, there came up among them another little horn," viz., Antichrist, "before whom" or by whom "there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots."

2.

Now then, let us consider how far these prophecies have been fulfilled, and what seems to remain unfulfilled.

In the first place, the Roman Empire did break up, as foretold. It divided into a number of separate kingdoms, such as our own, France, and the like; yet it is difficult to number ten accurately and exactly. Next, though Rome certainly has been desolated in the most fearful and miserable way, yet it has not exactly suffered from ten parts of its former empire, but from barbarians who came down upon it from regions external to it; and, in the third place, it still exists as a city, whereas it was to be "desolated, devoured, and burned with fire." {81} Fourthly, there is one point in the description of the ungodly city, which has hardly been fulfilled at all in the case of Rome. She had "a golden cup in her hand full of abominations," and made "the inhabitants of the earth drunk with the wine of her fornication;" expressions which imply surely some seduction or delusion which she was enabled to practise upon the world, and which, I say, has not been fulfilled in the case of that great imperial city upon seven hills of which St. John spake. Here then are points which require some consideration.

Prophet Daniel in the lions den...

I say, the Roman Empire has scarcely yet been divided into ten. The Prophet Daniel is conspicuous among the inspired writers for the clearness and exactness of his predictions; so much so, that some unbelievers, overcome by the truth of them, could only take refuge in the unworthy, and, at the same time, unreasonable and untenable supposition, that they were written after the events which they profess to foretell. But we have had no such exact fulfilment in history of the ten kings; therefore we must suppose that it is yet to come. With this accords the ancient notion, that they were to come at the end of the world, and last for but a short time, Antichrist coming upon them. There have, indeed, been approximations to that number, yet, I conceive, nothing more. Now observe how the actual state of things corresponds to the prophecy, and to the primitive interpretation of it. It is difficult to say whether the Roman Empire is gone or not; in one sense, it is gone, for it is divided into kingdoms; in another sense, it is not, for the date cannot be assigned at which it came to an end, and much might be said in various ways to show that it may be considered still existing, though in a mutilated and decayed state. But if this be so, and if {82} it is to end in ten vigorous kings, as Daniel says, then it must one day revive. Now observe, I say, how the prophetic description answers to this account of it.

"The wild Beast," that is, the Roman Empire, "the Monster that thou sawest, was and is not, and shall ascend out of the abyss, and go into perdition." Again mention is made of "the Monster that was, and is not, and yet is." Again we are expressly told that the ten kings and the Empire shall rise together; the kings appearing at the time of the monster's resurrection, not during its languid and torpid state. "The ten kings ... have received no kingdom as yet, but receive power as kings one hour with the beast." If, then, the Roman Empire is still prostrate, the ten kings have not come; and if the ten kings have not come, the destined destroyers of the woman, the full judgments upon Rome, have not yet come.

3.

Thus the full measure of judgment has not fallen upon Rome; yet her sufferings, and the sufferings of her Empire, have been very severe. St. Peter seems to predict them, in his First Epistle, as then impending. He seems to imply that our Lord's visitation, which was then just occurring, was no local or momentary vengeance upon one people or city, but a solemn and extended judgment of the whole earth, though beginning at Jerusalem. "The time is come," he says, "when judgment must begin at the house of God" (at the sacred city); "and, if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the Gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved,"—(i.e., the remnant who should go forth of Zion, according to the prophecy, that chosen seed in the Jewish Church which received Christ {83} when He came, and took the new name of Christians, and shot forth and grew far and wide into a fresh Church, or, in other words, the elect whom our Saviour speaks of as being involved in all the troubles and judgments of the devoted people, yet safely carried through); "if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear,"—the inhabitants of the world at large? [Note 1]

Destruction of Jerusalem

Here is intimation of the presence of a fearful scourge which was then going over all the ungodly world, beginning at apostate Jerusalem, and punishing it. Such was the case: vengeance first fell upon the once holy city, which was destroyed by the Romans: it proceeded next against the executioners themselves [Note 2]. The empire was disorganized, and broken to pieces by dissensions and insurrections, by plagues, famines, and earthquakes, while countless hosts of barbarians attacked it from the north and east, and portioned it out, and burned and pillaged Rome itself. The judgment, I say, which began at Jerusalem, steadily tracked its way for centuries round and round the world, till at length, with unerring aim, it smote the haughty mistress of the nations herself, the guilty woman seated upon the fourth monster which Daniel saw. I will mention one or two of these fearful inflictions.

Hosts of barbarians came down upon the civilized world, the Roman empire. One multitude—though multitude is a feeble word to describe them,—invaded France [Note 3], which was living in peace and prosperity under the shadow of Rome. They desolated and burned town and country. Seventeen provinces were made a desert. {84} Eight metropolitan cities were set on fire and destroyed. Multitudes of Christians perished even in the churches.

The fertile coast of Africa was the scene of another of these invasions [Note 4]. The barbarians gave no quarter to any who opposed them. They tortured their captives, of whatever age, rank, and sex, to force them to discover their wealth. They drove away the inhabitants of the cities to the mountains. They ransacked the churches. They destroyed even the fruit-trees, so complete was the desolation.
Of judgments in the course of nature, I will mention three out of a great number. One, an inundation from the sea in all parts of the Eastern empire. The water overflowed the coast for two miles inland, sweeping away houses and inhabitants along a line of some thousand miles. One great city (Alexandria) lost fifty thousand persons [Note 5].

The second, a series of earthquakes; some of which were felt all over the empire. Constantinople was thus shaken above forty days together. At Antioch 250,000 persons perished in another.
And in the third place a plague, which lasted (languishing and reviving) through the long period of fifty-two years. In Constantinople, during three months, there died daily 5,000, and at length 10,000 persons. I give these facts from a modern writer, who is neither favourable to Christianity, nor credulous in matters of historical testimony. In some countries the population was wasted away altogether, and has not recovered to this day [Note 6].

Such were the scourges by which the fourth monster {85} of Daniel's vision was brought low, "the Lord God's sore judgments, the sword, the famine, and the pestilence." [Ezek. xiv. 21.] Such was the process by which "that which withholdeth," (in St. Paul's language) began to be "taken away;" though not altogether removed even now.

And, while the world itself was thus plagued, not less was the offending city which had ruled it. Rome was taken and plundered three several times. The inhabitants were murdered, made captives, or obliged to fly all over Italy. The gold and jewels of the queen of the nations, her precious silk and purple, and her works of art, were carried off or destroyed.

4.

These are great and notable events, and certainly form part of the predicted judgment upon Rome; at the same time they do not adequately fulfil the prophecy, which says expressly, on the one hand, that the ten portions of the Empire itself which had almost been slain, shall rise up against the city, and "make her desolate and burn her with fire," which they have not yet done; and, on the other hand, that the city shall experience a total destruction, which has not yet befallen her, for she still exists. St. John's words on the latter point are clear and determinate. "Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen; and is become the habitation of devils, and the hole of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird;" [Rev. xviii. 2.] words which would seem to refer us to the curse upon the literal Babylon; and we know how that curse was fulfilled. The prophet Isaiah had said, that in Babylon "wild beasts of the desert should lie there, and their houses be full of doleful creatures, and owls should dwell there, and satyrs," or wild beasts "dance there." [Isa. xiii. 21.] {86} And we know that all this has in fact happened to Babylon; it is a heap of ruins; no man dwells there; nay, it is difficult to say even where exactly it was placed, so great is the desolation. Such a desolation St. John seems to predict, concerning the guilty persecuting city we are considering; and in spite of what she has suffered, such a desolation has not come upon her yet. Again, "she shall be utterly burnt with fire, for strong is the Lord God, who judgeth her." Surely this implies utter destruction, annihilation. Again, "a mighty Angel took up a stone, like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence, shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all."
To these passages I would add this reflection. Surely Rome is spoken of in Scripture as a more inveterate enemy of God and His saints even than Babylon, as the great pollution and bane of the earth: if then Babylon has been destroyed wholly, much more, according to all reasonable conjecture, will Rome be destroyed one day.

St. Malachy, 12th century Archbishop of Armagh,
is one of the few Irish national saints

It may be farther observed that holy men in the early Church certainly thought that the barbarian invasions were not all that Rome was to receive in the way of vengeance, but that God would one day destroy it by the fury of the elements. "Rome," says Pope Gregory, at a time when a barbarian conqueror had possession of the city, and all things seemed to threaten its destruction, "Rome shall not be destroyed by the nations, but shall consume away internally, worn out by storms of lightning, whirlwinds, and earthquakes." [Note 7] In accordance with this is the prophecy ascribed to St. Malachi of Armagh, a mediæval Archbishop (A.D. 1130), which declares, "In the last persecution of the Holy Church, {87} Peter of Rome shall be on the throne, who shall feed his flock in many tribulations. When these are past, the city upon seven kills shall be destroyed, and tile awful Judge shall judge the people." [Note 8]

5.

This is what may be said on the one side, but after all something may be said on the other; not indeed to show that the prophecy is already fully accomplished, for it certainly is not, but to show that, granting this, such accomplishment as has to come has reference, not to Rome, but to some other object or objects of divine vengeance. I shall explain my meaning under two heads.

First, why has Rome not been destroyed hitherto? how was it that the barbarians left it? Babylon sank under the avenger brought against it—Rome has not: why is this? for if there has been a something to procrastinate the vengeance due to Rome hitherto, peradventure that obstacle may act again and again, and stay the uplifted hand of divine wrath till the end come. The cause of this unexpected respite seems to be simply this, that when the barbarians came down, God had a people in that city. Babylon was a mere prison of the Church; Rome had received her as a guest. The Church dwelt in Rome, and while her children suffered in the heathen city from the barbarians, so again they were the life and the salt of that city where they suffered.

Christians understood this at the time, and availed themselves of their position. They remembered Abraham's intercession for Sodom, and the gracious announcement made him, that, had there been ten righteous men therein, it would have been saved. {88}

When the city was worsted, threatened, and at length overthrown, the Pagans had cried out that Christianity was the cause of this. They said they had always flourished under their idols, and that these idols or devils (gods as they called them) were displeased with them for the numbers among them who had been converted to the faith of the Gospel, and had in consequence deserted them, given them over to their enemies, and brought vengeance upon them. On the other hand, they scoffed at the Christians, saying in effect, "Where is now your God? Why does He not save you? You are not better off than we;" they said, with the impenitent thief, "If thou be the Christ, save Thyself and us;" or with the multitude, "If He be the Son of God, let Him come down from the Cross." This was during the time of one of the most celebrated bishops and doctors of the Church, St. Augustine, and he replied to their challenge. He replied to them, and to his brethren also, some of whom were offended and shocked that such calamities should have happened to a city which had become Christian [Note 9].

He pointed to the cities which had already sinned and been visited, and showed that they had altogether perished, whereas Rome was still preserved. Here, then, he said, was the very fulfilment of the promise of God, announced to Abraham;—for the sake of the Christians in it, Rome was chastised, not overthrown utterly.

Historical facts support St. Augustine's view of things. God provided visibly, not only in His secret counsels, that the Church should be the salvation of the city. The fierce conqueror Alaric, who first came against it, exhorted his troops "to respect the Churches of the Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, as holy and inviolable sanctuaries;" and he gave orders that a quantity of plate, consecrated {89} to St. Peter, should be removed into his Church from the place where it had been discovered [Note 10].
Again, fifty years afterwards, when Attila was advancing against the city, the Bishop of Rome of the day, St. Leo, formed one of a deputation of three, who went out to meet him, and was successful in arresting his purpose.

Genseric Sacking Rome, a painting by Karl Briullov

A few years afterwards, Genseric, the most savage of the barbarian conquerors, appeared before the defenceless city. The same fearless pontiff went out to meet him at the head of his clergy, and though he did not succeed in saving the city from pillage, yet he gained a promise that the unresisting multitude should be spared, the buildings protected from fire, and the captives from torture [Note 11].
Thus from the Goth, Hun, and Vandal did the Christian Church shield the guilty city in which she dwelt. What a wonderful rule of God's providence is herein displayed which occurs daily!—the Church sanctities, yet suffers with, the world,—sharing its sufferings, yet lightening them. In the case before us, she has (if we may humbly say it) suspended, to this day, the vengeance destined to fall upon that city which was drunk with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. That vengeance has never fallen; it is still suspended; nor can reason be given why Rome has not fallen under the rule of God's general dealings with His rebellious creatures, and suffered (according to the prophecy) the fulness of God's wrath begun in it, except that a Christian Church is still in that city, sanctifying it, interceding for it, saving it. We in England consider that the Christian Church there has in process of time become infected with the sins of Rome itself, and has learned to be ambitious and cruel after the fashion of those who possessed the place aforetimes. Yet, if it were what many would make it, if it were as reprobate as {90} heathen Rome itself, what stays the judgment long ago begun? why does not the Avenging Arm, which made its first stroke ages since, deal its second and its third, till the city has fallen? Why is not Rome as Sodom and Gomorrah, if there be no righteous men in it?

This then is the first remark I would make as to that fulfilment of the prophecy which is not yet come; perhaps through divine mercy, it may be procrastinated even to the end, and never be fulfilled. Of this we can know nothing one way or the other.

Secondly, let it be considered, that as Babylon is a type of Rome, and of the world of sin and vanity, so Rome in turn may be a type also, whether of some other city, or of a proud and deceiving world. The woman is said to be Babylon as well as Rome, and as she is something more than Babylon, namely, Rome, so again she may be something more than Rome, which is yet to come. Various great cities in Scripture are made, in their ungodliness and ruin, types of the world itself. Their end is described in figures, which in their fulness apply only to the end of the world; the sun and moon are said to fall, the earth to quake, and the stars to fall from heaven [Note 12]. The destruction of Jerusalem in our Lord's prophecy is associated with the end of all things. As then their ruin prefigures a greater and wider judgment, so the chapters, on which I have been dwelling, may have a further accomplishment, not in Rome, but in the world itself, or some other great city to which we cannot at present apply them, or to all the great cities of the world together, and to the spirit that rules in them, their avaricious, luxurious, self-dependent, irreligious spirit. And in this sense is already fulfilled a portion of the chapter before us, which does not apply to heathen Rome;—I {91} mean the description of the woman as making men drunk with her sorceries and delusions; for such, surely, and nothing else than an intoxication, is that arrogant, ungodly, falsely liberal, and worldly spirit, which great cities make dominant in a country.

6.

To sum up what I have said. The question asked was, Is it not true (as is commonly said and believed among us) that Rome is mentioned in the Apocalypse, as having especial share in the events which will come at the end of the world by means, or after the time, of Antichrist? I answer this, that Rome's judgments have come on her in great measure, when her Empire was taken from her; that her persecutions of the Church have been in great measure avenged, and the Scripture predictions concerning her fulfilled; that whether or not she shall be further judged depends on two circumstances, first, whether "the righteous men" in the city who saved her when her judgment first came, will not, through God's great mercy, be allowed to save her still; next, whether the prophecy relates in its fulness to Rome or to some other object or objects of which Rome is a type. And further, I say, that if it is in the divine counsels that Rome should still be judged, this must be before Antichrist comes, because Antichrist comes upon and destroys the ten kings, and lasts but a short space, but it is the ten kings who are to destroy Rome. On the other hand, so far would seem to be clear, that the prophecy itself has not been fully accomplished, whatever we decide about Rome's concern in it. The Roman Empire has not yet been divided into ten heads, nor has it yet risen against the woman, whomsoever she stands for, nor has the woman yet received her ultimate judgment. {92}

We are warned against sharing in her sins and in her punishment;—against being found, when the end comes, mere children of this world and of its great cities; with tastes, opinions, habits, such as are found in its cities; with a heart dependent on human society, and a reason moulded by it;—against finding ourselves at the last day, before our Judge, with all the low feelings, principles, and aims which the world encourages; with our thoughts wandering (if that be possible then), wandering after vanities; with thoughts which rise no higher than the consideration of our own comforts, or our gains; with a haughty contempt for the Church, her ministers, her lowly people; a love of rank and station, an admiration of the splendour and the fashions of the world, an affectation of refinement, a dependence upon our powers of reason, an habitual self-esteem, and an utter ignorance of the number and the heinousness of the sins which lie against us. If we are found thus, when the end comes, where, when the judgment is over, and the saints have gone up to heaven, and there is silence and darkness where all was so full of life and expectation, where shall we find ourselves then? And what good could the great Babylon do us then, though it were as immortal as we are immortal ourselves?

Notes

1. 1 Pet. iv. 17, 18. Vide also Jer. xxv. 28, 29. Ezek. ix. 6.
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2. Vide Is. xlvii. 5, 6.
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3. A.D. 407. Vide Gibbon, Hist. vol. v. chap. 30.
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4. A.D. 430. Vide Gibbon, Hist. vol. vi. chap. 33.
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5. A.D. 365. Ibid. vol. iv. chap. 26.
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6. A.D. 540. Ibid. vol. vii. chap. 43.
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7. Greg. Dial. ii. 15.
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8. Vide Dr. Burton, Antiq. of Rome, p. 475.
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9. August. de Urbis Excidio, vol. vi. p. 622. ed. Ben. de Civ. Dei, i. l-7.
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10. Vide Gibbon, Hist. vol. v. chap. 31.
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11. Ibid. vol. vi. chap. 35, 36.
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12. Vide Isaiah xiii. 10, etc.
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