For Advent, on the Antichrist

As is only appropriate for the season of Advent, we speak of the end of the world. Blessed Cardinal Newman on the Antichrist, sermon 2:

...I shall now make some further observations on the characteristic marks of the predicted enemy of the Church; and, as before, I shall confine myself to the interpretations of Scripture given by the early Fathers.

My reason for doing so is simply this,-that on so difficult a subject as unfulfilled prophecy, I really can have no opinion of my own, nor indeed is it desirable I should have, or at least that I should put it forward in any formal way. The opinion of any one person, even if he were the most fit to form one, could hardly be of any authority, or be worth putting forward by itself; whereas the judgment and views of the early Church claim and attract our special regard, because for what we know they may be in part derived from traditions of the apostles, and because they are put forward far more consistently and unanimously than those of any other set of teachers.

Thus they have at least greater claims on our attention than those of other writers, be their claims little or great; if they are little, those of others are still less. The only really strong claim which can e made on our belief, is the clear fulfillment of the prophecy. Did we see all the marks of the prophecy satisfactorily answered in the past history of the Church, then we might dispense with the authority in the parties setting the proof before us.

This condition, however, can hardly be satisfied, because the date of the Antichrist comes close upon the coming of Christ in judgment, and therefore the event will not have happened under such circumstances as to allow of being appealed to, Nor indeed is any history producible in which are fulfilled all the marks of Antichrist clearly, though some are fulfilled here and there.

Nothing then is left us, (if we are to take up any opinion at all,-if we are to profit, as Scripture surely intends, by its warnings concerning the evil which is to come), but to go by the judgment of the Fathers, whether that be of special authority in this matter or not. To them therefore I have had recourse already, and now shall have recourse again. To continue, then, the subject with the early Fathers a my guide...