Many of the commentaries which examine the final persecution of the Church during the reign of Antichrist insist that the army of Antichrist will be composed of orientals or those people who live in that part of the world which is now Russia. Reverend Pascal Huchede, in his History of Antichrist, explains that, "According to Saint Bellarmine, Gog will be the Antichrist himself and Magog will be his army. Because Ezechiel always designates Gog as a leader and Magog as a region [Ezech. 38-39], Magog, it is true, is regarded as being the Sythian nation. In Genesis [10:2] the second son of Japeth is said to have borne this name, and the country in which he settled was naturally called after him, and this country, according to Josephus, is scythia.* In employing this term to designate the army of Antichrist, we are led to infer that the men composing it will be orientals, or what seems more plausible, that his soldiers will possess all the brutality of those barbarous people." (History of Antichrist, p. 25).
Saint Augustine, Father and Doctor of the Church, in his City of God, Book 20, explains in detail how the army of Antichrist will be made up of all depraved men scattered over the surface of the earth who have a hatred for truth: "...the binding of the devil is his being prevented from the exercise of his whole power to seduce men, either by violently forcing or fraudulently deceiving them into taking part with him...But when the short time comes he shall be loosed. For he shall rage with the whole force of himself and his angels for three years and six months; and those with whom he makes war shall have power to withstand all his violence and stratagems..."
Saint Augustine then cites Revelation 20: 7-9 - "And when the thousand years are finished Satan shall be loosed from his prison, and shall go out to seduce the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, and shall draw them to battle, whose number is as the sand of the sea." And then he writes, "This, then, is his purpose in seducing them, to draw them to this battle. For even before this he was wont to use as many and various seductions as he could contrive. And the words, 'he shall go out' mean, he shall burst forth from lurking hatred into open persecution. For this persecution, occurring while the final judgment is imminent, shall be the last which shall be endured by the holy Church throughout the world, the whole city of Christ being assailed by the whole city of the devil, as each exists on earth. For these nations which he names Gog and Magog are not to be understood of some barbarous nations in some part of the world...For John marks that they are spread over the whole earth when he says, 'The nations which are in the four corners of the earth,' and he added that these are Gog and Magog.
The meaning of these names we find to be, Gog, 'a roof,' Magog, 'from a roof' - a house, as it were, and he who comes out of the house. They are therefore the nations in which we found that the devil was shut up as in an abyss, and the devil himself coming out from them and going forth, so that they are the roof, he from the roof. Or if we refer both words to the nations, not one to them and one to the devil, then they are both the roof, because in them the old enemy is at present shut up, and as it were roofed in; and they shall be from the roof when they break forth from concealed to open hatred." (City of God, Modern Library edition, p. 729).
Cardinal John Henry Newman was a prophet. He saw the foundations being laid for apostasy in his own time [ the Apostasy which has now arrived]. He was able to see the signs of sickness within the Body of Christ as surely as a physician today is able to detect a cancer in the human body. In a sermon dealing with the times of Antichrist delivered more than a century ago, his Eminence asked, "And is there no reason to fear that some such Apostasy is gradually preparing, gathering, hastening on in this very day? For is there not at this very time a special effort made almost all over the world, that is, every here and there, more or less, in sight or out of sight, in this or that place, but most visibly or formidably in its most civilized and powerful parts, an effort to do without religion? Is there not an opinion avowed and growing, that a nation has nothing to do with religion; that it is merely a matter for each man's own conscience,-which is all one with saying that we may let the truth fail from the earth without trying to continue it? Is there not a vigorous and united movement in all countries to cast down the Church of Christ from power and place? Is there not a feverish and ever busy endeavour to get rid of the necessity of religion in public transactions? for example, an attempt to get rid of oaths, under a pretence that they are too sacred for affairs of common life, instead of providing that they be taken more reverently and more suitably? an attempt to educate without religion,-that is, by putting all forms of religion together, which comes to the same thing? an attempt to enforce temperance, and the virtues which flow from it, without religion, by means of societies which are built on mere principles of utility? an attempt to make expedience, and not truth the end and the rule of measures of state and the enactments of law an attempt to make numbers, and not truth, the ground of maintaining, or not maintaining this or that creed, as if we had any reason whatever in Scripture for thinking that the many will be in the right, and the few in the wrong? An attempt to deprive the Bible of its one meaning to the exclusion of others, to make people think that it may have a hundred meanings all equally good, or in other words, that it has no meaning at all, is a dead letter, and may be put aside? an attempt to supersede religion altogether, as far as it is external or objective, as far as it is displayed in ordinances, or can be expressed by written words,-to confine it to our inward feelings, and thus, considering how transient, how variable, how evanescent our feelings are, an attempt in fact, to destroy religion?
Surely, there is at this day a confederacy of evil, marshalling its hosts from all parts of the world, organizing itself, taking its measures, enclosing the Church of Christ as in a net, and preparing the way for a general apostasy from it. Whether this very apostasy is to give birth to Antichrist, or whether he is still to be delayed, we cannot know; but at any rate this apostasy, and all its tokens, and instruments, are of the Evil One and saviour of death. Far be it from any of us to be of those simple ones, who are taken in that snare which is circling around us! Far be it from us to be seduced with the fair promises in which Satan is sure to hide his poison! Do you think he is so unskillful in his craft, as to ask you openly and plainly to join him in his warfare against the Truth? No; he offers you baits to tempt you. He promises you civil liberty; he promises you equality; he promises you trade and wealth; he promises you a remission of taxes; he promises you reform. This is the way in which he conceals from you the kind of work to which he is putting you; he tempts you to rail against your rulers and superiors; he does so himself, and induces you to imitate him; or he promises you illumination,-he offers you knowledge, science, philosophy, enlargement of mind. He scoffs at times gone by; he scoffs at every institution which reveres them. He prompts you what to say, and then listens to you, and praises you, and encourages you. He bids you mount aloft. He shows you how to become as gods. Then he laughs and jokes with you, and gets intimate with you; he takes your hand, and gets his fingers between yours, and grasps them, and then you are his."
Man is being conditioned to worship himself. The crisis of faith is a crisis of the supernatural. Once this crisis of faith has reached its zenith, once men have deified themselves, the one whom St. Paul calls "the man of iniquity" will reveal himself to the world. For he can only reveal himself within the context of apostasy, loss of faith - open rebellion against God. Until then he is restrained.
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