Renewal Of The Persecution (Of The Catholics) Towards The Close Of 1678 part 1.

Titus Oates The Perjurer

In the year 1678 the enemies of Catholicity in England, anxious to make a last assault on the Church of their fathers, entered into a conspiracy as dark and as hideous as any known in history. The chief agent in this plot was Titus Oates, whose name has been attached to it by posterity. He had been a clergyman of the Established Church, but preferred to his benefice an infamous and vagrant life. Under ever-varying disguises he insinuated himself into some religious houses on the continent, and made himself sufficiently acquainted with Catholic usages and distinguished Catholic names to be able to give a semblance of circumstantial accuracy to any anti-Catholic tale which he might devise. Returning to England, he found the Protestant populace in a ferment lest a Papist should succeed to the royal throne, and he soon learned that the leaders of the opposition _ were eager to second and repay each effort to fan the flame. Such was, then, the disposition of mens' minds, that the monstrous romance which he constructed was hailed with applause, and found credence, not only with the vulgar, but even with the most sober members of the king's council. The Pope, he said, had handed over the government of England to the Jesuits, and these had already, by commissions under the great seal of the society, appointed to all the chief offices in church and state. Once before the Papists had burned London: that scene was to be now renewed, whilst in the confusion they would assassinate the king, and, at a given signal, each Catholic should massacre his Protestant neighbours.

This tale was not merely greeted with applause. Oates became the idol of the people, and through the influence of his patrons, was raised on a sudden from obscurity and poverty to a position of dignity and wealth Hence he soon found associates and rivals. To give perjured evidence, and lead Catholics to the scaffold, had proved a good speculation, and many wished to share in its profits and honours. We shall allow a Protestant historian to trace the character of the principal of these informers. "A wretch named Carstairs, who had earned a living in Scotland, by going disguised to conventicles, and then informing against the preachers, led the way: Bedloe, a noted swindler, followed; and soon, from all the brothels, gambling-houses, and spunging houses of London, false witnesses poured forth, to swear away the lives of Roman Catholics. One came with the story, of an army of thirty thousand men, who were to muster in the disguise of pilgrims, at Corunna, and to sail thence to Wales. Another had been promised canonization and five hundred pounds to murder the king.

Oates, that he might not be eclipsed by his imitators, soon added a large supplement to his original narrative. The vulgar believed, and the highest magistrates pretended to believe even such fictions as these. The chief judges of the kingdom were corrupt, cruel, and timid... . The juries partook of the feelings then common throughout the nation, and were encouraged by the bench to indulge those feelings without restraint. The multitude applauded Oates and his confederates, hooted and pelted the witnesses who appeared on behalf of the accused, and shouted with joy when the verdict of guilty was pronounced." And hence, as the same writer had already remarked, the courts of justice, "which ought to be sure places of refuge for the innocent of every party, were disgraced by wilder passions and fouler corruptions'' than could be found in the annals of England.

Such an excitement against the Catholics naturally found a response in the Protestant ascendancy of Ireland. Ormond was, at this time, Viceroy; his private letters, indeed, prove that he gave no credence to the accusations against the Catholics, but, nevertheless, with his usual duplicity, he enacted such measures and laws as supposed and confirmed the belief of the reality- of their treasonable designs. The council of Ireland met in the presence of the Viceroy, on the 14th of October, 1678. Their first enactment was, that all officers and soldiers should repair without delay to their respective garrisons. A proclamation ensued, commanding "all titular Popish bishops and dignitaries, and all others exercising ecclesiastical jurisdiction by authority from the See of Rome, all Jesuits and other regular priests," to depart from the kingdom before the 20th of November following; whilst a reward was offered of £10 for the capture of a bishop, and £5 for that of a regular, after that period. Orders were, at the same time, given, that all "Popish societies, convents, seminaries, and schools," should be forthwith dissolved and utterly suppressed.

To prevent all excuses for not obeying the foregoing proclamation, another was issued on the 16th of November, requiring all owners and masters of ships bound for foreign parts to receive "the Popish clergy" on board, and to transport them accordingly.

It was deemed necessary, too, to disarm the Catholics; and a special-proclamation enacted, that "no persons of the Popish religion should carry, buy, use, or keep in their houses any arms without license; and that all justices of the peace should search for such arms as were not brought in within twenty days, and bind over the offenders to be prosecuted at the next assizes.''

It was feared, however, that some officers were remiss in executing these laws, and hence positive orders were further issued on the 2nd of December, by the Lord Lieutenant and council, addressed to the sheriffs of the several counties, and to be by them communicated to the justices of the peace, " taking notice of their neglect in not apprehending such of the Popish regular clergy as did not transport themselves, and requiring them to return, not only their names, but the names also of such as received, relieved, and harboured them." They were, moreover, required to return " the names of all persons licensed to carry arms, and to prosecute those who had not delivered in their arms" according to preceding proclamations.

These orders were principally directed against the prelates and regulars, but in reality the officers commissioned with their execution prosecuted alike the secular clergy; it was enough for them to raise the cry that any one was a Jesuit in disguise to obtain their reward. A proclamation, however, published on the 26th of March, 1679, had the secular clergy for its special object. It commanded "that when there was any Popish pretended parish priest of any place where any robbery or murder was committed by the tories he should be seized upon, committed to the common gaol, and thence transported beyond the seas, unless within fourteen days after such robbery or murder the persons guilty thereof were either killed or taken, or such discovery made thereof in that time, as the offenders might therefore be apprehended and brought to justice."

A further proclamation ordered the suppression of "Mass-houses and meetings for Popish services in the cities and suburbs of Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Waterford, Kinsale,Wexford, Athlone, Ross, Galway, Drogheda, Youghall, Clonmel, and Kilkenny," these being the most considerable towns in the kingdom, "in which too many precautions could not be taken"

No soldier had for many years been admitted to the army till he had taken the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. It was now rumoured that some, after entering the service, had embraced the Catholic religion, and hence a special proclamation offered rewards " for the discovery of any officer or soldier who had heard Mass or been so perverted to the Popish religion." On the same day with this proclamation (20th November, 1678), another was issued, prohibiting all Catholics, "from entering the Castle of Dublin, or any other fort or citadel," and ordering that "no persons of the Romish religion" should be suffered to reside in the towns of Drogheda, Wexford, Cork, Limerick, Waterford, Youghall, and Galway, or in any other corporation, excepting such as " for the greatest part of the twelve months past had inhabited them."

The result of such stringent measures, though, perhaps, it did satisfy the cravings of those who had anxiously looked forward to the rooting out of Catholicity from the "Island of Saints," yet was such as even to surpass the expectations of moderate Protestants, and Carte remarks, that though all the clergy were not expelled from the kingdom, " which never was, and never will be, the consequence of a proclamation; yet more had been shipped off than could have been imagined, and the rest lurked in corners, and durst not come near the great towns." (Ibid. 483.)

The illustrious Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Talbot, returned to England from his exile on the continent in 1676, and a few months before the present outburst of feeling against the Catholics, through the intercession of the Duke of York, obtained permission to revisit and console his spiritual flock. Though subject to violent disease, and apparently at the close of his eventful career, yet was he chosen by the malignant policy of Ormond to be the first Irish victim of the persecution. Dr. Plunket announces his arrest, writing on the 27th of October, 1678:—

"The matter being proposed and discussed in the Provincial Council that I should make a visitation of the province, I commenced with Meath, which is the first suffragan diocese, and then proceeded to the diocese of Clonmacnoise, where I had scarcely finished when the news arrived by post, that Dr. Talbot of Dublin was arrested and imprisoned in the Castle or Tower of this city. I received this news on the 21st of the past month; immediately afterwards came a proclamation or edict, banishing all the archbishops, bishops, vicars-general, and all the regulars, commanding them to leave the kingdom before the 20th of November, and threatening penalties and fines against any secular who would give them to eat or drink, or otherwise assist them. I was quite astonished at the arrest of the Archbishop of Dublin, the more so, as since his return to Ireland he did not perform any ecclesiastical function.

"The convents of the poor regular clergy have been all scattered and destroyed; so that all the disputes and the reforms which were in contemplation for them are all terminated by this edict. The parish priests and secular priests are not included in it. It is not known what particular accusation has been made against the Archbishop of Dublin; he is in the secret prison, and no one is allowed to hold communication with him. Some have been imprisoned in London on suspicion of conspiracy against the king, and for maintaining private correspondence with foreign princes, and for the murder of a nobleman who was found dead in London. As to the conspiracy against the king, it is a merely imaginary one. I have not been included by name in the present edict, nor in that passed four years ago, and, therefore, I will remain in the kingdom, though retired in some country place, and it is probable that Dr. Brennan and I shall be together.

Taken from - MEMOIRS OF THE MOST REV. OLIVER PLUNKET, WHO SUFFERED DEATH FOR THE CATHOLIC FAITH IN THE YEAR 1681. 

Penal Laws enacted against the Irish Catholics— General State of the Kingdom in 1652. part 10.

§ 10.—Decay Of The Puritan Colonists.

That Protestant colonists have never been able to secure a permanent hereditary succession in Ireland, is a matter of notoriety. As regards the Puritan hordes that rushed over to seize on the devastated country, we shall merely cite an extract from the manuscript narrative now referred to:—

[Cambrensis Eversns writes in 1662 almost in the same strain. "They have drawn their precedent from the policy of the Philistines who, after banishing all smiths from the land, fell upon the Israelites unarmed," &c. Edit. Dublin, page 23.]


"The English Parliamentarians in the beginning of the war, inflated with their own power and strength, did not hesitate to parcel out Ireland for sale to the London merchants, and other heretics throughout England. The whole kingdom was thus divided, as if by agrarian law, into geometrical portions, a certain price being fixed for each farm. Each one purchased for himself some vast territory, subdividing it at a higher price to others. New colonists thus flocked to Ireland in countless numbers ; artisans, merchants, soldiers, and others, numbering more than 200,000. To consummate the insolence of their pride, they already prepared ships with chains and cords, and more than 30,000 iron manacles are said to have been made, to transfer the Irish slaves (it was thus they designated our free and innocent people) to the Indian islands to cultivate the tobacco-plant, and they were all persuaded that the old inhabitants being expelled they had nothing to do but settle down at their ease and enjoy their estates. But, behold the hand of the Lord struck these persecutors, I might say, with Egyptian plagues. They were not, as yet, three months in Ireland, when most fetid vermin crawled forth from their bodies in such swarms, that their hair, and beard, and garments, were covered with them, so that they could not appear in public through shame, nor could they anywhere fmd rest, and what increased the wonder, though their beds and rooms were filled with this pest, yet the contagion did not spread to the neighbouring Irish, nor did it even touch the Irish servants of those who were infected with it, not one of whom is known to have suffered from this disease; it was confined to the strangers alone, and by that disease, and in other ways, God so humbled their pride, that from 1641 to 1650 more than 180,000 English in various parts of Ireland were carried away, not so much slain in war, as destroyed by this herodian disease and other plagues. And though the Puritans have now nearly all Ireland in their own hands, still we are confident that they will not last, nor strike deep roots ; but when our offended God will have through them scourged us for our iniquities, the earth shall, in the words of scripture, vomit them forth, and like their predecessors they, too, will fall away. For it is observed and confirmed by experience, since the beginning of the anglican schism, all the heretics that went from England to inhabit Ireland, though they were by rapine and exactions raised on a sudden to immense wealth and the highest titles, yet, like snow at sunrise, they melted gradually away, and as smoke and vapour they quickly disappeared. Not that this is to be imputed to the English nation, whose natural disposition and innate uprightness, were they not infected with heresy, would be admired and loved by all; but in these facts we recognize the special punishment of God for heresy, and the special protection of St. Patrick for our island, who, as he expelled all serpents from our shores, so that nothing venomous can, to the present day, subsist there, so did he obtain for us this blessing from God, that the Catholic religion being once planted in Ireland, it should never be infected by the poisonous breath of heresy. The Catholic religion has certainly continued untainted for twelve hundred years and more, in our island; so that from the blessing already received through the intercession of our holy Patron, we have reason to hope for the future blessing, and the present firmness of the nation in the faith of Christ, is a pledge of its future constancy."

Taken from - MEMOIRS OF THE MOST REV. OLIVER PLUNKET, WHO SUFFERED DEATH FOR THE CATHOLIC FAITH IN THE YEAR 1681. 

Penal Laws enacted against the Irish Catholics— General State of the Kingdom in 1652. part 9.

§ 9.—Constancy Of The Irish In The Faith.

The author of Cambrensis Eversus well contrasts the condition of the Irish nation, with that of other countries, at the close of this sad period :—

"The happiness of the other nations of Europe has often excited our envy. They have peace on every side, and dwell everyone under his own vine and fig-tree, but we are expelled from our home and country; others overflow with abundance of all things, we are emaciated by want; the foreigner is naturalized amongst us, the natives are made aliens. In foreign cities majestic piles of new buildings are every day towering to the skies, with us the foundations of not a single house are laid, while the old are heaps of crumbling ruins, their roofs open to the rains, and their walls rent, or mere shells and shapeless masses. In other countries temples are zealously decorated, with us they are either levelled to the ground or roofless, or desecrated by tribunals which condemn men to death, or by similar sacrilegious uses. The children of foreigners receive a learned education, which is contraband and penal in our country. With them the clergy are honoured, with us they are either in dungeons or forests, bogs or caverns. The universal law of the Christian world has exempted from slavery all who profess the Christian religion; but your Irish subjects are torn from the" arms of their wives and children by civic vultures, and transported and sold as slaves in India. Thus are the children of the Irish made a prey, and their wives carried off, and their cities destroyed, and their holy things profaned, and themselves made a reproach to the nations. . . . There is no species of injury which the enemies have not inflicted on the Irish, no virulence which they have not disgorged, no torture which they have not employed."

It would, indeed, be difficult to find in history a parallel for that ever-redoubled cruelty which the Puritans displayed. Yet it was impossible to weaken the innate attachment of the Roman Catholics to their holy religion. Countless was the number of those who perished by the sword of the persecutor, or on the scaffold, yet the survivors declared themselves ready to risk the same torments rather than renounce the Catholic faith. When they were offered the enjoyment of their possessions, should they embrace the new creed, all, as in Cork, went forth from their homes, embracing poverty, and cold, and nakedness, in preference to prosperity with the wicked ; when their lives were offered to them if they only delivered up their priests to the mercy of the enemy, they choose to be butchered with the martyrs of God rather than live with the impious ; when, as we have just seen, the oath of abjuration was commanded, under penalty of the loss of the little goods that yet remained to them, they, with one accord, resolved to cling to the cross of Christ, and reject the proffered boon. As a true Christian people, they looked upon all their sufferings as chastisements from the hands of God, and their chief care was, by penitential deeds, to avert his indignation. One instance is especially recorded in the "Description of Ireland in 1654" :—

"Throughout the entire kingdom prayers and fasting were ordered; the priest in each district exhorting- the people to appease the anger of God. With such exactness was this order obeyed, that there was not one Catholic throughout the entire kingdom who did not fast for three days on bread and water, and even the little children of four, or perhaps only three years, most rigorously observed that fast; moreover, all that had attained the proper age were consoled with the holy sacraments of Confession and the Eucharist. No sooner did this piety of the people become known, than, like oil cast upon the fire, the fury of the heretics was rekindled three-fold, and, like hungry wolves, they now breathe nothing but slaughter, and threaten to pursue, with still more atrocious violence, the children of Christ."

Thus, as often in the ways of God, the immediate result of the piety of our people seemed to be only a redoubling of the persecutor's rage, and yet these prayers were not breathed in vain; "a remnant remained in Israel;" all the power and ingenuity of the enemy could not root out the tree of faith, and the 500,000 Catholics that then survived in Ireland were in less than two hundred years swelled to more than eight millions.

Sir William Petty, writing in 1672, states that the population of Ireland, in 1641, was 1,466,000, the Catholics being to Protestants as eleven to two. After the devastation of the country by the Puritans, the population could not be accurately determined, yet the same writer (page 29), estimates the proportion of Catholics to Protestants as eight to one- Lord Orrery, writing to the Duke of Ormond, Feb. 26, 1662, says—" It is high time to purge the towns of the papists, as in most of them there are three papists to one Protestant." At the same time, in the rural districts, the Catholics were as fifteen to one. Dr. Plunket, in some of his letters, states the proportion of Catholics to Protestants throughout Ireland as eleven to one; but he subsequently adds that the proportion was small in the northern counties. It cannot, of course, be pretended that these calculations were accurate, for, owing to the state of the country, it must have been impossible to learn the precise number of the Catholic inhabitants in the rural districts. One thing, however, they sufficiently prove, that the persecutors had not attained the desired end, and that with the Irish race the Catholic religion was still firmly rooted in Ireland. Sir William Petty describes as follows the religion of our country at this period :—"All the Irish are Catholics; the Scotch colonists are Presbyterians; the English are one-half Protestant, the other half Independents, Anabaptists, Quakers, and other dissenters."

We have already often had occasion to refer to a manuscript narrative of the Jesuit Mission in Ireland, written about the year 1655; from it we extract the following record of the devotedness of the surviving natives in enduring every suffering rather than abandon the Catholic faith :—

"Although heresy and tyranny, in the fullness of its pride, strove by every artifice and cruelty, to extirpate this people, and wished that there" should be no smith in Israel, that thus the nations might be either overwhelmed in ignorance, or compelled to whet their arms in the forges of the Philistines; nevertheless, the Irish, despising every danger, choose rather to send their children to distant lands in search of learning, than that they should enjoy at home domestic ease under heretical masters, imperiling their faith. So tenaciously and indomitably has the whole nation clung to the Catholic faith in its full integrity and purity, that in a thousand Irishmen, scarcely one can be found who is not thoroughly devoted to the Holy See; and even the heretics who came to Ireland from other countries, when they have lived there for a little while, and become accustomed to the genius of the people, gradually detest their heresies, and embrace the Catholic religion."

Taken from - MEMOIRS OF THE MOST REV. OLIVER PLUNKET, WHO SUFFERED DEATH FOR THE CATHOLIC FAITH IN THE YEAR 1681. 

Penal Laws enacted against the Irish Catholics— General State of the Kingdom in 1652. part 8.

§ 8.—The Oath Of Abjuration.


Father Richard Shelton, Superior of the Jesuits in Ireland, writing to the Sacred Congregation, on 28th of April, 1658, conveyed the sad intelligence, that the persecution of Cromwell against the Irish Catholics was carried on with ever increasing fury; two of the Jesuit fathers had lately been arrested, and were treated with great cruelty, especially, he adds, "every effort is now made to compel the Catholics, by exile, imprisonment, confiscation of goods, and other penalties, to take the sacrilegious oath of abjuration, but all in vain, for as yet there has not been even one to take it, with the exception of a stranger residing in our island, who had acquired large possessions, and being afraid of losing them, and at the same time being ashamed of the other Catholics, undertook a journey of more than 200 miles, to present himself to one of Cromwell's commissaries "


The oath devised by Cromwell, condensed into a few formulas all the virulence of Puritanism against the Catholic tenets. It was as follows:—


"I A. B. abhor, detest, and abjure the authority of the Pope, as well in regard of the Church in general, as in regard of myself in particular. I condemn and anathematize the tenet that any reward is due to good works. I firmly believe and avow that no reverence is due to the Virgin Mary, or to any other saint in heaven; and that no petition or adoration can be addressed to them without idolatry. I assert, that no worship or reverence is due to the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, or to the elements of bread and wine after consecration, by whomsoever that consecration may be made. I believe there is no Purgatory, but that it is a popish invention; so is also the tenet that the Pope can grant Indulgences. I also firmly believe that neither the Pope, nor any other priest, can remit sins, as the papists rave. And all this I swear," &c.

( In a note of the Sacred Congregation at this period, reference is made to a Brief sent by the Holy Father to console the Catholics of Ireland, and animate them to endure with constancy the persecution to which they were exposed.)

The penalty enacted against all who should refuse to take this oath was the confiscation of two-thirds of all their goods, which was to be repeated each time that they should prove refractory. It was expected that the Catholic gentry, already reduced to poverty by continued exactions, would be terrified into compliance by the dread of absolute penury and utter ruin which now impended over them. As to the poorer class, another penalty was enacted, forsooth, slavery in the Barbadoes. In every town commissaries and officers were specially deputed to receive this oath, and these received instructions from Government to commence with such persons as would probably assent to the oath, and to proceed in the matter with the greatest energy. At this moment of peril for the faith of our people, the Catholic clergy were everywhere to be seen abandoning their hiding-places to encourage their flocks; they fearlessly went around from house to house admonishing the rich to despise their transitory possessions, when an eternal inheritance was at stake, and reminding the poor that God's providence would not abandon them, and that in his own good time God would repay an hundred-fold all their sufferings.

"These exhortations were not made in vain (we quote the words of a contemporary narrative), and the innate constancy of the whole nation in the Catholic faith, shone forth with such splendour, that a like instance of national constancy can nowhere be found in history; all, animated with the spirit of faith, declared that they were ready to endure extreme torture, rather than obey the impious edict. Even the most wealthy betrayed no apprehensions, and they avowed that of all the penal enactments, this was the most grateful to them; for in the others some secondary motive was often assigned, but here the only and express motive was hatred to the Catholic faith, for which it would be to them a matter of joy to sacrifice whatsoever they possessed ?"

For once the heretics were found to second the efforts of the Catholic clergy. They yearned for new confiscations, and already had marked out for themselves the lands now possessed in Connaught by the transplanted Irish gentry. The better to secure their prey, they assumed the sheep's clothing, and going round amongst the Catholics, they declared that the act of parliament was most unjust, that no one should interfere with their conscientious convictions, that they admired the steadfastness of the Catholics in adhering to principle despite every enactment, and that this heroic constancy of the nation had won for it an immortal fame throughout the kingdoms of Europe. The Catholics were not deceived by these vain appearances, but, nevertheless, they clung unflinching to their holy resolve.

The citizens of Cork had already distinguished themselves by their constancy in the Catholic faith; when summoned to take the impious oath their laurels were multiplied ten-fold.

To the city of Cork all the Catholics of the surrounding territory were ordered to repair on a stated day to have the new oath proposed to them; the penalty of imprisonment and confiscation of all their goods was enacted for all above fifteen years of age who should neglect to attend. On the appointed day, between five and six thousand Catholics entered the city walls; a few only absented themselves, anxious to await the result. According to the heretical custom of holding the assizes in the cherished sanctuaries of the Catholics, the magistrates took their seats in Christ's Church, a happy omen that even the material edifice should be dedicated to Him whose faith was now so nobly to be confessed. All were arranged in processional order, that the oath might be more easily administered individually to each of them. In the foremost ranks was a young man who entered the church with a light step, and whose looks beamed with joy. The clerk received immediate orders to administer to him for the first the oath; for the magistrate saw in his joyous countenance a readiness, as they imagined, to assent to their desires. The young man requested that the oath should be translated into Irish, for he feared lest some of those around him not understanding the English language, might inadvertently take the oath; a crier at once read it aloud in Irish, so that all within the church might hear. "And whatis the penalty," he then asked, "for those who refuse the oath." "The loss of two-thirds of their goods," was the magistrate's reply. "Well, then," added he smiling, all that I possess is six pounds; take four of them; with the two that remain and the blessing of God, myself and my family will subsist; I reject your oath." An aged husbandman that Stood by his side, filled with admiration, cried out aloud, "Brave fellow, reject the oath." The.words were caught up from rank to rank till the church and the street without rang with the echo, "reject the oath, the impious oath." For half an hour these words and the exclamation, " Oh God look down on us;" " Oh Mary, mother of God, assist us," could alone be heard. The magistrates, as though a thunderclap had rent the heavens, were struck mute with terror; then rising from their seats, they commanded the assembled multitude to disperse, and every one of them under pain of death, to depart from the city within an hour. Thus, concludes the contemporary narrative, the glorious confessors of Christ went forth with joy, praising God for the mercy he had shown to them.

In other districts similar scenes of Catholic constancy were witnessed, and none could be found to assent to the impious oath, and barter for the momentary enjoyment of their perishable goods the priceless treasure of their faith.

Taken from - MEMOIRS OF THE MOST REV. OLIVER PLUNKET, WHO SUFFERED DEATH FOR THE CATHOLIC FAITH IN THE YEAR 1681.

Penal Laws enacted against the Irish Catholics— General State of the Kingdom in 1652. part 7.

§ 7.—Irish Exported As Slaves.

It was not enough to import foreigners of every hue and every denomination into Ireland; the Puritan rulers deemed it further necessary to export as slaves to the American islands as many of the natives as yet survived the miseries and vexations of Connaught. Jamaica and the adjoining islands had lately passed into the hands of England, and slaves were wanting to cultivate the sugar and tobacco-plant on their deadly soil. Sir William Petty, writing in 1672, states that six thousand boys and women were thus sold as slaves to the undertakers of the American islands. Bruodin estimates the total number of the exiles from Ireland at 100,000; and adds, that of these several thousands were transported to the tobacco islands. A letter, written in 1656, cited by Dr. Lingard, reckons the number of Catholics thus sent to slavery at 60,000. "The Catholics are sent off in ships-full to the Barbadoes and other American islands. I believe 60,000 have already gone; for the husbands being first sent to Spain and Belgium already, their wives and children are now destined for the Americans."

This transportation to slavery was even viewed by the Puritan persecutors as a boon they were conferring on the Irish Catholics. When Secretary Thurloe wrote to the Lord Deputy of Ireland to inform him that a stock of Irish was required for the peopling of Jamaica, the Lord Deputy replied: —

"Concerning the supply of young men, although we must use force in taking them up, yet it being so much for their own good, and likely to be of so great advantage to the public, it is not the least doubted but that you may have such a number of them as you may think fit to make use of on this account. I shall not need repeat anything regarding the girls, not doubting to answer your expectations to the full in that; and I think it might be of like advantage to your affairs there and ours here, if you should think fit to send fifteen hundred or two thousand boys to the place above mentioned. We can well spare them, and who knows but that it may be the means of making them Englishmen—I mean rather Christians. As for the girls, I suppose you will make provisions of clothes and other accommodations for them."

The author of the "Description of Ireland in 1654,'" without stating the number of those thus transported to the tobacco islands, observes:—

"The heretics at length, despairing of being ever able to alienate the Irish from the ancient faith, transport their children in ships-full for sale to the Indian islands, that thus, forsooth, no remnant of the Irish race may survive, and none escape from the utter extermination of the nation."

[When the Rev. John Grace visited these islands in 1666, he found that there were as yet no fewer than 12,000 Irish scattered amongst them, and that they were treated as slaves.]—(From his letter of 5th of July, 1669).

The same writer adds an instance of the sufferings to which the Irish slaves "were subjected in these distant islands:—

"God alone knows the severe lot that awaits the Irish children in that slavery. We may form some idea of it from what happened to some others of our nation there last year, that is to say, in 1653. The heretics, seeing that matters were prospering with the Irish in the island of St. Christopher, and being excited partly by envy and partly by hatred of the Catholic religion, seized in one night and bound with chains three hundred of the principal Irish that were there, and carried them off to a desert island, which was wholly destitute of all necessaries of life, that there they might inevitably perish from cold and starvation. This was, alas! too sadly realized in all, excepting two, who, through despair, cast themselves into the sea, resolving to risk their lives rather on the waves than on the barren rocks. One of these soon perished, the other reached the mainland, bearing the sad intelligence of the dreadful fate of his companions."

The letter of father Grace, already mentioned, states that those who yet survived in 1666 were cruelly treated both temporally and spiritually: "The administration of the sacraments and the giving of instruction is wholly interdicted, nor can any priest visit them without risking his life."

Another "Relatio" of the same islands, made about the same time, reckons the population of Barbadoes at 40,000, of whom 8,000 were Irish; and it adds, regarding these Irish, that "they are sadly deprived of spiritual assistance; nevertheless their constancy in the faith is wondrous and miraculous (mira et miraculosa), for they cling to it despite the oppressive exactions, and threats, and promises, and innumerable arts employed by the heretics to withdraw them from it." In another small island adjoining St. Christopher, the same narrative says, there were 600 Irish; these stealthily sought to frequent the sacraments, and assist at the holy sacrifice in some of the French chapels, but "as often as they are discovered they receive the lash and are fined by their English masters" (mulctas et verbera patiuntur ab Anglis.)

Taken from - MEMOIRS OF THE MOST REV. OLIVER PLUNKET, WHO SUFFERED DEATH FOR THE CATHOLIC FAITH IN THE YEAR 1681.

ANTICHRIST pt 2 BY THE REV. C. C. MARTINDALE .S. J.

Not long after these letters of St. Paul were written, the career of the Emperor Nero startled the world. Genius, artist, actor, evidently a man of fascinating charm, under the frantic adulation of his court, the omnipotence of money and of absolutism, he quite lost his balance, and became a hideous assassin and a god. In 67, he committed suicide. None could believe him dead. The idea of Nero had penetrated right below the sheaths of the Empire's soul. Tacitus and Suetonius show that he was held, for long, to be still alive. More than one pretender was able, in the east, to maintain his claim to be Nero. Such an one was actually supported for some time by a Parthian general, Artaban. The fact that Nero was, after all, obviously dead, made not the slightest difference. He would rise again, or, at least, the devil himself would take the form of Nero and appear among men. This last suggestion comes, of course, from the Jews, whose apocalypses become full of the idea. On the whole, it was held that he would come from the East, from beyond the Euphrates, and I may add at once that at least a connection between Antichrist and Nero was frequently and early admitted even by Christian writers. It is now easier to approach the next great Christian document, St. John's Apocalypse. In chapter vi., we are told that persecution has already raged and produced its martyrs, but they are to wait for a little longer till their number be made full. In chapter ix., we have the double symbolic vision of an army of evil spirits coming from the abyss, having for chief "the angel of the abyss, whose name in Hebrew was Abaddon, in Greek, Apolluon," the Destroyer, and of the invading army of cavalry from beyond the Euphrates, whom we have reason to regard at least on the immediate and historic plane as the Parthians, of whose onslaught the Empire stood in continual dread. Then, in chapter xi., John sees the sack by the “Beast of the Abyss," of the Holy City, Jerusalem, all but its innermost shrine; even during the worst hours Two Witnesses to God and His Truth come forth and preach, but after a while they too are killed, and the enemies of God congratulate one another and think they have triumphed. But the Witnesses are restored to life, and their foes are discomfited. Their death had lasted for 3 1/2 days, as compared to the 3 1/2 years of the total persecution. (Throughout the Apocalypse, John uses 3 1/2 years, 42 months, or 1260 days, as identical in meaning and as symbolising "persecution-time," on the model set by the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes, supra, pp. 6, 7.) In the second part of the Apocalypse, which begins in chapter xii., is seen the Great War between Michael and Satan, and the replica of this on earth, that between Satan's representatives and the Church. The War is actually waged there by a Wild Beast who combines in his one self all the characteristics of the various wild beasts, portraying successive empires, mentioned by Daniel. He holds an authority delegated to him by the Dragon, who is Satan, and just as the name of Michael means: Who is like to God? so the Beast's war-cry is, Who is like to the Beast? His power over the Saints of God lasts 3 1/2 years; his mouth speaks "great things and blasphemies"; one of his seven heads is seen "slain unto death," but this death-stroke had been healed. And the world went gaping after him. This Beast had, he too, a lieutenant, a Beast that came not "from the sea," but from the mainland, and was partly like a lamb. His business was to induce the world at large to worship the first Beast, of whom he made an animated Image that spoke, and he worked all sorts of miracles in the name of the first Beast, and on the forehead and right hand of all who worshipped the image he caused to be stamped the number of the Beast, 666, and those who had it not could neither buy nor sell, and they who would not worship were killed. John then sees the triumph of the elect, and the Judgement. Again, in chapter xv., he sees the way opened for the kings from beyond Euphrates, and the dragon, the Beast, and the second Beast; here called the False Prophet, gathered together with their troops from all sides to a final battle, and the ruin of the Great City, Babylon. Again, chapter xvii., he is shown the doom of that city now under the symbol of the World-Wanton, seated on a beast with seven heads and covered with blasphemous names. The Beast, parodying the Eternal God who "Was, and Is, and Shall Come," "was, and is not, but shall come (again)." As for the heads, they are, says John, the Seven Hills of that city where the woman has her throne; but also, seven kings, of whom five have been, one is (now), another is not yet come, but shall rule for a short space, and—the Beast is himself an Eighth, though he is also one of the Seven. Then John sees the ruin of the harlot city; the Beast survives her, only himself ultimately to perish along with his false prophet, and last of all Satan himself is destroyed. There is today, we think, no danger of anyone supposing that the visions of the Apocalypse are meant to represent a series of historical events succeeding one another chronologically. John relates the same thing again and again under different symbols, rather as at least once he uses the same symbol (the Beast's heads) for different things—hills and kings. It is true that in re-relating under a new symbol what he had already told, he has usually altered the focus of his gaze somewhat, and is contemplating truth on a different plane. Thus in the first part of the Apocalypse, he may be said to remain on all but the most general plane of all, and to contemplate great principles rather than historical events, save quite in passing, as when he declares the number of the martyrs to be not yet full, and has, I think, an eye briefly turned towards the group of martyrs slain under Nero, and not yet followed by those to be slain by Domitian. In the double vision of the Angel of the Abyss, and of the Parthians, he certainly has the City and Empire of Rome in his mind, as representative of evil, but goes into no great detail. Under the image of the siege of the Holy City, he tells certainly that for a while the forces of evil seem to defeat Christ's Church, though they do not quite succeed in annihilating it: true, they get rid of the continual witness that infuriates them, but even then the success is only apparent and brief, for the remnant of the Church has new Life given to it, and the triumph of evil is neither complete nor lasting. Here the detail of "persecutionperiod" is introduced. Each vision, it, may be noticed, offers a new detail which fits it in, from a literary point of view, to the next ones, and each becomes more focussed on to actual life than the preceding one was. But hitherto, nothing like an "Antichrist," save in the most vague and general sense, has been mentioned. This is what the second part of the book supplies. We are shown first in a most general symbol the attack of the Dragon upon the Messiah, and the war on His behalf captained by St. Michael. Then the scene is shifted to the earth, and the Dragon's Viceroy, the Beast from the Sea, and that Beast's own delegate, the Beast from the land, are seen persecuting the Church. There is no doubt about the first Beast. It is the persecuting Roman Empire. And to my mind there is no doubt, or very little, about the second Beast. It is, immediately, proconsular power in Asia that “played up" to the Emperor; saw to the exhibiting everywhere of his images, and worked, quite possibly, imitation miracles and even ventriloquial effects in connection with them. Unless a man did acts of divine homage to the Emperor in the person, so to say, of his image, he was boycotted and cast out of social life, and in course of time persecuted to death. Does John fix his eye, here, on any particular Emperor? He seems to do so when he says that the Beast has a "number," which is "that of a man," namely, 666. In Hebrew and in Greek, numbers were represented by letters—1 by a, and so forth. Into whatever number the letters of a man's name added up, that was his number. This game, for so it almost was, occurs very often in the Sibylline Oracles among apocalyptic books, but also in quite ordinary life it was common. Now in Or. Sib. i. 324-33 If the name of Jesus is given as 888; and it is thought at least possible that the number of Antichrist was 666. Anyhow, the words Nero Cesar in Hebrew give the total 666, and in Greek, 616, which is a variant reading of 666, as St. Irenaeus testifies, in the Apocalypse. Now by the further "game" called isopsephia, or "equal reckoning," if the number of a man's name could be shown as identical with that of a word expressing a quality, etc., that man would be said to have that quality. So if the name Nero Cesar added up into 666, and also the number of Antichrist was 666, it would follow that Nero was Antichrist, and, indeed, as such he was often to be exhibited to the reprobation of future generations. There are difficulties that beset every single explanation of this subject; but the above seems at present far the most probable, and is reinforced by what St. John says when he describes the Harlot. There the Beast is represented as the Empire, or at least the Imperial Force or spirit supporting the City of Rome.: it had parodied the Lamb, the Son of God, who had been slain and risen again, by itself suffering apparent defeat and returning to life, as indeed the Empire may be said to have done after the collapse which seemed total after the death of Nero, and the revival that followed in the persons of the Flavian Emperors. But in particular John tells of the seven heads of the Beast as being seven kings, of whom five had already ruled; a sixth was actually on the throne, a seventh was still.to come, but should have but a brief reign; and then the Beast himself should be, says John, an eighth, and yet be one of the seven. Those who have the patience to look up the book, Princes of His People, II, which I have several times mentioned, will find reasons that allow of our safely saying that the kings, calculating from the Emperor Augustus, bring us to Domitian for the eighth in their series: now Domitian was everywhere nicknamed the Resurrected Nero, and was really thought to be, by some, a reincarnation of that Emperor, so savage was his policy. In him, the whole spirit, then, of the Empire, seemed once more to be that of Nero, so that in myth and in fact he was, or acted as, not only "the eighth," but as one of the seven, i.e. Nero. All the same, it is noticeable that John cannot shut up his thought into the person of one Emperor or even period, or of one Empire; for the Beast survives the city Rome and is not conquered till the end of time. John does no more than see Nero (who certainly is in his mind) and Domitian (who perhaps is) as types of a policy—examples of persecution proper to pagan Rome. His eye is on this plane far more occupied with the whole series of Emperors and the whole persecuting work of Rome, than with any particular man. See then the levels in John's thought—the Christ-persecuting Emperors of Rome, as it were represented by Nero in particular as their type; the "Romes," or persecuting powers of all ages, be they cities, systems of thought, principles, ideals, or what you will; and floating above them all, the tremendous figures of the archangel Michael and of Satan. Constantly, the Church appears to be on the verge of annihilation; even while there is a "check" upon that total defeat be this "check" symbolised as Michael, or the Two Witnesses, or seen in a particular man or policy or some existing political or philosophical system—the evil influence is still at work; a moment of great weakening on the part of the Christians suffices for the full "revelation," as St. Paul calls it, of that evil influence; it seems to score a triumph of the completest sort, but is then itself defeated—absolutely, at the last day, when Satan, whose representatives all these earthly persecuting men, influences, legislations are, shall be bound for ever along with his wicked servants. Thus, to start with, the harmony of St. Paul and of St. John is seen to be complete. Satan is engaged in his enduring war against God; that anti-God influence is throughout history felt upon the earth; it has at all times its particular representative. The battle sways to and fro: sometimes the Beast seems stricken to death; but it revives: sometimes, the Christian Witness and the sources of Grace, that inhibit the full triumph of evil, are for a space apparently destroyed— there is Apostasy, and the anti-Christian foe is fully revealed; but at the last the Word of God, Eternal Truth, will make an end of these lying doctrines that set the world astray. Have then either John or Paul prophesied the Advent of a definite individual Antichrist at the end of time? No. There is most certainly nothing to prevent our surmising that the enemies of God may be led or represented by an individual, at the end of human history just as at any other time; indeed, since the " End of the World," and the events surrounding it, must necessarily occur as historical events, it seems equally necessary that they must express themselves in something concrete, either a man, or a group, or a political or systematic unit of some sort: but the Old Testament, St. Paul, and St. John use their image of a definite one person precisely when their gaze is fixed rather on their own time, which is, in a sense, the least "real," most transitory, plane of all those that they contemplate. Babylon, Tyre; Antiochus, Rome—and all the persecutors of all history for ever, are but the crude material examples of a much deeper and abiding truth, just as the Two Witnesses stand as symbol of that residue of the Faithful who never cease their promulgation of God's truth even in the worst of persecution, and, "though they be dead, yet shall they live," as Our Lord promised; and just as we ought not to try to tie them down to definite personalities, like Moses and Elias, Elias and Enoch, Peter and Paul, so neither should we seek to assign a definite individual as the captain of the enemy host that forever bears hard upon them. These conclusions would have to be modified were there a consistent patristic or ecclesiastical tradition concerning the Antichrist, and different in scope. But there is not. To begin with, the Apocalypse so startled the imagination of Christians that any speculations about Antichrist were based almost wholly on that book. But its obscurity served it, so to say, a bad turn. For many people gave it up, as we are apt to, in despair, and others found in it justification for unjustified ideas of their own. For example, those who had imbibed from other sources the belief that Christ was to reign 1000 years upon the earth before the End, had certain sentences in the Apocalypse which they could quote in their support. This,' we think, is largely why the Apocalypse took so long to make good its claim to be included in the canon. Having suffered, then, this sort of eclipse, it became the prey of every kind of guesswork. The earliest writers, who do not seem to have sought for any general method of interpreting the book, also seem to mingle a due recognition that the Beast is the Roman Empire, with the idea that the Antichrist will be a personage appearing at the End, and acting as the Beasts in the Apocalypse, and in Daniel do. But these writers are accessible to us only in fragments or quotations., or at least do not treat ex professo of the Apocalypse. Victorinus, Bishop of Pettau, wrote two commentaries on the Apocalypse, but he belongs already to the third century; he still believes in the millennium, though St. Jerome, who edited his shorter commentary, corrects this, and holds that the Beast is Nero, who will be resuscitated by God as Antichrist and king of the Jews. But this writer is of enormous importance as being the first we possess who makes it clear that St. John's visions do not display historical events in chronological order, but the same events or ideas under different, completer forms. Tyconius, an African schismatic, wrote about 380 a commentary which orthodox Fathers esteemed most highly, having but to purge it of the passages that related to the Donatist schism in particular. He regards the "Witnesses" as the Church with her two testaments; the Beast with its seven heads is the totality of the powers that oppose Christ, which shall be concentrated in some sense in the last King of Satan's city. He makes it most clear that John takes up the same subject again and again. St. Jerome at least makes it clear that he held no method of explanation or particular interpretation to be traditional. St. Augustine holds indeed that there will be a personal Antichrist, but this is due rather to St. Paul than to St. John, especially as he reads "apostate" instead of "apostasy" in the Epistle to the Thessalonians. The Beast is, for him, the totality of Satan's city, including bad Christians. In short, the Apocalypse is, for him, the world-long contest of the two cities. The only criticism we might, with Fr. Allo, make, is that Augustine is still too near the Roman Empire for it to have sunk, as it should, into its due place as but an incident in the enormous struggle. Enough really has been said to show at least a negative—that no system of interpretation was official in the Church, nor lvas any tradition in the technical sense established. Nor did the subsequent centuries, in the Greek or the Latin world, succeed in doing so, though let us make it quite clear that nearly all Catholic writers have expected a personal "Antichrist," and not one of them has excluded the idea of a personal Antichrist; nor, indeed, can we see how they could possibly, on (as we have said) appropriately do so. Certainly we do not. The really new start was made in the twelfth century when the Abbot Joachim of Flora, among much that was good, fell into the fatal innovation of supposing that the Apocalypse describes successive ages of Church history. The fourth period, for example, is that of the Ascetics (Apoc. xi. 19–xiv) who are attacked by Mohammed, or Islam generally, whose wound, inflicted by the Crusades, was cured when Saladin re-took Jerusalem. The sixth period is that in which Joachim himself is living, and is to contain the destruction of the Germanic empire by Asiatic chiefs, to whom a way was opened (the Euphrates was dried up) by the defeat of the army of Frederick Barbarossa in the third Crusade. His successors became even more fantastic, and it was they who started to see Antichrist in the person of certain Popes. This idea was taken up by the precursors of Protestantism, like Wyclif and Hus, and from now on the poor book becomes the prey of what is almost like insanity. In 1522, Luther himself did not admit the Apocalypse to be a genuine prophecy; but he began to do so in proportion as he found in it weapons against the Papacy. English and Scotch writers went even further along this line, Brightman (1616) reserving the Last Plagues for the benefit of the Jesuits, and of Bellarmine in particular. The real renaissance of scientific study of the book took place in Spain in the sixteenth century, and the Jesuits themselves were largely responsible for it, especially Alcazar, 1614 and 1619, and Mariana, about the same time. Modern criticism has been either historical and sane, or quite fantastic in its dismemberment of the book and its assigning of the fragments to different authors; but none of it bears directly on our subject. It is, however, very clear to our thinking that there is no Catholic tradition necessitating our adopting any particular view of the Antichrist, and that the periods which have shown the strongest inclination to fasten his identity on to this or that person, have been precisely the ones when scientific criticism flourished least. Moreover, we recognise that there is every temptation to seek for such identifications, in so far as they are always more exciting and picturesque than more profound and spiritual considerations. To sum up. Outside the sacred text there is nothing that can be of any real value to us in our study of this subject. The Book of Daniel represents under the image of four wild beasts, four successive empires which, because they were the enemies of God's People were foes no less of God. The last of these produces a king who triumphs over the people to such an extent that he can set up an idolatrous image in the Temple itself. This image represents himself under the features of the supreme pagan God. The persecution period lasts three and a half years, after which God triumphs, and the End of the World is described as the consummation of His triumph. We considered Daniel, no less than Isaiah and Ezekiel, to see behind these concrete personages a wider view—that of the world-long struggle of good and evil, ending in the Victory of God. Towards the Christian era, "apocalypses" began to be written, in which this theme was developed, the enemy of God, or of His Christ, being regarded as a pagan prince, or as Satan incarnate. After the Christian era, all these lines of speculation poured together, for a space, into the personality of Nero risen. Christian writers, outside the New Testament, lent themselves more or less to these speculations, without really basing themselves on, or constructing, a "tradition." Within the New Testament, the clearest references are our Lord's own words,—when He says that there shall be many false Christs before the End, and also sees and describes the End through, so to say, the disaster of the taking of Jerusalem by Rome; and, the words of St. John, in his epistles, where alone the word "Antichrist" is used. Here he definitely says that whatever the Christians may have heard about Antichrist, Antichrist is already present—in the person of all those who deny Christ, especially apostates. St. Paul, while insisting that the date of the End is and must be unknown, also says that it cannot come till much has happened first. Elsewhere, he includes in these happenings the conversion of the Jews, itself preceded by that of the Gentiles. He says that the Spirit of Revolt is already active, but checked for the present; that when there is an "apostasy," then its full force shall be able to reveal itself, and that this will happen when the "check" is in some way removed. We saw reason to think that St. Paul might possibly have his eye upon some contemporary situation—the tendency of the Empire to substitute itself in the person of the Emperor, for God; at present, this had not fully happened. But St. Paul also sees the matter in far more general terms, his persons become abstractions, operating throughout history, and the ultimate forces are even spiritual altogether—Satan and his great enemy, Michael. St. John in many symbols, throughout his Apocalypse, teaches the self-same thing. Ever is there an anti-God—ever a struggle—it may be this Emperor or that, who demands of the Christians of his age that they should worship him; it may be a collectivity of such Emperors, making up the whole history of the Roman Empire; it may be successive Empires or other such dominant forces throughout Christian history. Ever Michael is fighting with the Dragon; ever the Witnesses are being seemingly destroyed, and then reviving by the breath of God; ever the Beast is being wounded to death, but the wound of his death is healed. Whether, when the world's history has gathered to its climax, the Antagonist is to be represented by one man, or one system of government or of thought, matters very little, and we cannot assert. But precisely as John generalises his vision to take in more than the Empire of his day, the less does he assign anything that we can legitimately tie down to one human or diabolic personality. The upshot of this is not to make us careless. We have to obey the reiterated command—to Watch. More subtle influences surround us and sap our loyalty than any mere visible persecutor, whether open and ravaging undisguisedly, or veiled in some likeness of reason or philanthropy—that "angel of light," as whom we are told Satan can disguise himself. The fierce materialistic atheism of a generation ago has been succeeded by a vague semi-mystical quasispiritual tendency that does not refuse to use the names that Religion has always used; this spurious Universalism that speaks so fair is perhaps today the most dangerous of the Beasts that attack and hate us. The Parody of the Church! The false internationalism that masquerades as the truer Catholicism; the disregard of all fixed beliefs and codes that engineers a lying Unity; the ethical enthusiasm that seeks to replace supernatural holiness; the theosophical, continuity that is fain to join hands with ancient errors and cults, and to reduce historic Christianity to being but a phase, a momentary expression of the mind of man when it muses upon God. We have not to tremble at the thought of some future horrible revelation that may never come in our day; nor yet have we to lap ourselves in false security precisely because it has not yet come. Already the "Mystery of Revolt" is active. Already there are "many Antichrists." Let us watch, lest unawares we be caught up into our own Apostasy.

ANTICHRIST pt 1 BY THE REV. C. C. MARTINDALE .S. J

When the present writer was a small boy, he was given a booklet about Antichrist. It purported to interpret St. John's Apocalypse, and decided that the Seer had prophesied the career of Prince Jerome Napoleon, whose name it succeeded in adding up into 666, the Number of the Beast. On the back of this booklet were gory representations of a guillotine set up in the Place de la Concorde, Paris. It was surrounded by Catholic priests, while vast crowds of people, stamped on their foreheads with the sinister number, were watching the others, a select few, presumably all Huguenots, being led up to execution. This book so frightened us that it became quite impossible so much as to go down the passage into which the door of the room, where it was kept, opened, and we adopted all sorts of circuitous routes and a most inappropriate staircase to avoid it. The imaginations of thousands of children must, in past generations, have been similarly tortured, and though that is not likely to happen now, so has the grim old Protestantism disappeared from among us, it may be interesting to try to ascertain what really the Scriptures and Catholic tradition do teach on the subject of Antichrist. We cannot refer Catholic readers to any first-rate book directly on the point, but for those who can read French, Fr. F. Prat's fine work, Theologie de St. Paul, and Fr. Allo's quite admirable one upon the Apocalypse, place the whole matter in a proper light, and illustrate it with an erudition that none could wish to better. We make no apology for not repeating in this booklet all the fantastic legends that have from time to time haunted the feverish imaginations of students or of writers concerning Antichrist; it has seemed to us far better to try to state what is positive and right, than to mention all sorts of views, entertaining though they might be, merely forthwith to deny them. So far, the earliest writing in which the name Antichrist appears is the First Epistle of St. John, and it recurs in his Second Epistle. St. John says: "Little children, it is the last hour, and even as you have heard that 'Antichrist is coming,' why, even now many Antichrists have come into being. Whence we know that it is the last hour. They went out from among us, yet they were not from among us; for had they been from among us, they would have remained with us. . . I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no Lie comes from the truth. Who is the Liar, if not he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the Antichrist—he who denies the Father and the Son. Every one who denies the Son, hath not the Father either. He who acknowledges the Son hath the Father too." (1 John ii. 18-23.) "Beloved, do not trust every spirit, but test the spirits (to see) if they are from God, because many false prophets have come forth into the world. By this do you recognise the Spirit of God. Every spirit that acknowledges Jesus Christ come-inthe-flesh [incarnate] is from God: and every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus [or, divides Jesus: see below], is not from God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, of whom you have heard that he is coming, and [in fact] he is already in the world." (1 John iv. 1-3.) "Now many Deceivers have come forth into the world, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ come in the flesh. This is the Deceiver and the Antichrist." (2 John 7.) St. John does not say here that what the Christians have heard about Antichrist is a Christian doctrine about Antichrist; he does say that they are familiar with a doctrine on the subject, or at least a tradition. Nor does he say that there will ever be an Antichrist, But he affirms that the collectivity of those who deny the Incarnation, and the spirit that animates them, are Antichrist, and that this is already active in the world, and is a sign that we are even now in " the last days." Such "Anti-christians" are in general those who deny the Incarnation, and in particular are heretics—men who once professed themselves Christians and have apostatised. If the reading "divide Christ" be the true one, he is alluding to those contemporary heretics who taught that our Lord was not truly one Person, God and Man, but (perhaps) a man on whom the Spirit of God had descended, e.g. at the Baptism, or, true God indeed, but merely surrounded with a sort of phantom body. There may be more Christian doctrine than this, concerning Antichrist; but St. John does not state it here, but rather obviously, to our mind, refrains from sanctioning explicitly any current belief about the coming of an Antichrist. St. John's epistles, which may have been written about A.D. 90 or 95, recall at once a passage in St. Paul's Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, written in A.D. 51: "We beg you, brethren, for the sake of the Advent of our Lord Jesus Christ and of our gathering together unto Him, not to be swiftly tossed out of your wits nor to be scared, whether by means of a spirit [in the concrete, prophecy], or preaching, or by a letter quoted as coming from me [this may mean, by a forged letter, purporting to come from me; or, by means of a letter, i.e. my own first one to you, so that as it were through me myself you had been scared], to the effect that the Day of the Lord is imminent. Let no one deceive you in any way; for unless the Apostasy have come first, and the Man of Lawlessness be unveiled, the Son of Destruction, the Antagonist, he who exalts himself over all that can be called God or Worshipful, so as to set himself down in the Temple of God, exhibiting himself as being God— (the End shall not come). Do you not remember that while I was still with you I told you this? And you know too, that which is holding [him] in, so that he shall be revealed [only] at his proper time. For the Mystery of Lawlessness is already at work—let but him who holds [it] in so far, be removed out of the way. Ah! then shall be unveiled the Lawless One, whom the Lord Jesus shall destroy with the breath of His mouth, and shall bring to naught by the manifestation of His Advent—even him whose [own] 'advent' is according to the activity of Satan with all [sorts of] power and signs and lying miracles, and with all sorts of wicked deceit unto those who are destined to destruction, because they have not accepted the love of the truth unto their salvation. And that is why God sends them an activity of deception [practically, a tendency or bias towards being deceived] so that they should believe the Lie." (2 Thess. 1-12.) It is certain that St. Paul here is not even meaning to speak very clearly. He had told something to the Thessalonians to which he alludes in veiled language, because it might be dangerous for him or for them to write about it in so many words. So we shall be wise not to try to decipher him—to de-code him, so to say—with the help only of such clues as his letter taken by itself provides, but to see if similar language is used elsewhere in a clearer way. Somewhat similar ideas will be expressed, no doubt, by St. John in his Apocalypse, written about half-way between St. Paul's letter and St. John's own first epistle; but the Apocalypse is itself obscure, and St. Paul, by quoting Daniel (xi. 36, in verse 4 of this chapter) shows that he is using a traditional language that our Lord Himself made use of when speaking of the "last days." Anyhow, what St. Paul does say here is, that the End of the World is not due till much has happened first—there is to be an Apostasy; and the Advent of Christ will be prefaced by a pseudo-advent, accompanied with deceptive miracles, and that he, or "that" which thus "comes" is here and active already—or would be so, were he, or it, not held in check. When he, or "that," which now acts as check, is removed, then will be the manifestation of the Antagonist. This is where Paul goes nearest to the word Antichrist. His word anti-keimenos means, practically, He who establishes himself against—a kind of (evil) counterpart, like convex to concave, though the "evilness" is not contained in the word itself, but is implied by the fact that this Power acts lyingly and in opposition to Christ by whom it will ultimately be destroyed. And that this power is not the Devil, though it works for him we must wait to see what more than this is implied in St. Paul's words. But our Lord Himself had quoted Daniel: "When therefore you shall see the Abomination of Desolation, which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the [a] holy place (let him that readeth understand)—then let him that is in Judea flee into the mountains, etc. . . . There shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect." (Matt. xxiv. 15.) It is clear that our Lord, too, alludes to the words of Daniel, though St. Paul makes them a little more explicit, and He exhorts readers to apply their intelligence and discern their true meaning, which He does not make obvious any more than St. Paul does. But He goes on to say that this will be the preface to the siege and destruction of Jerusalem, and after that, of the End of the World and the Last Coming of the Messiah, though He definitely asserts that no man knows the date of this—only, it shall be sudden, which is exactly what Paul teaches.- Our Lord then refers us back to Daniel. In Daniel, chapter vii., we read of four wild beasts (who are four successive empires), and from the fourth rises a king who shall speak "great—i.e. insolent —things," shall speak "words" against the Most High, and "wear out" the Saints of the Most High. This persecution lasts "a time, times, and half a time," that is, three and a half years. After his death and defeat comes the triumph of God and of the holy People. In chapter viii., another vision shows a king who waxes great "even to the prince of the host," who takes away the daily sacrifice and gives sanctuary and people alike to be trampled under foot for the space of 1150 days. This event is alluded to in verse 13 as "the abomination of desolation" possibly, the Abomination that Desolates. Again in Daniel, in chapter ix., a vision further shows the daily sacrifice taken away from Jerusalem for "half a week"—in Daniel's language here, this means three and a half years—and of that period a phrase is used that seems best translated: "and on the pinnacle of abomination (shall stand) one that maketh desolate." After this, the conqueror is in his turn defeated. In chapter xi., the wicked king shall "profane the sanctuary, and shall take away the continual burnt offering, and they shall set up the abomination that maketh desolate." This king, moreover, shall magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against (i.e. blaspheme) the God of gods. But he comes to a sudden and disastrous end; the Judgement and the Resurrection follow, and God and His People triumph. Now in Isaiah xi. 4, God is described as "slaying the wicked" at the last Day "with the breath of His (quoted by St. Paul, supra); and in xiv. it is definitely the King of Babylon who exalts his throne above the stars of God, saying: "I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like unto the Most High "—and in Ezekiel xxviii. it is the King of Tyre who, God says, has "lifted up his heart," and has said, "I am a god, I sit in the seat of God . .. yet thou art man, and not God "; and similarly in Daniel the wicked blasphemous king who for a while conquers the Holy City and replaces the divine sacrifice with an abomination, is throughout, we hold, Antiochus Epiphanes. This king after being for fourteen years a hostage at Rome succeeded to the throne of Syria in 175 B.C. In 172 he marched against Jerusalem, took it, and stripped the Temple of its treasures, though hitherto he had been on good terms with the High Priest who had been ready to co-operate with Antiochus's scheme of introducing Greek culture into Palestine. However, hearing a suspicion of treachery, he attacked it as we have said. In 168 B.C. the city was even worse devastated, the men were killed, the women and children sold into slavery, and the city burned and its walls pulled down. Antiochus then decreed that "all should be one people," even in religion. Observance of the Sabbath and circumcision were forbidden on pain of death; on December 15, 168, a small altar was built upon the altar of burnt sacrifice, and sacrifice was offered on it to Olympic Zeus. In the first book of the Maccabees this altar is called by Daniel's expression, The Abomination of Desolation. Now the first of these words is, no doubt, constantly used in the Old Testament of idolatrous practices, etc.; but taken together the words make, in Hebrew, a very good "pun" or assonance with the words meaning Baal of Heaven, which is the Hebrew equivalent for Zeus Olympios, Antiochus's patron deity, whose image, no doubt, was placed on the altar, and was also, no doubt, identified more or less closely with Antiochus himself. This desecration lasted till December 25, 164. Antiochus put, then, an image of himself, as incarnating his Empire, fashioned in the likeness of Zeus Olympios, in the Temple itself, and this was treated with divine honours. The Jews never forgot this desecration of the Temple, invitation to Idolatry, and to apostasy from their Vocation to be God's unique and chosen People. Clearly we have no space to go into more details than this. But it is certain that Daniel's phrases became part of a recognised style, which was used by writers who may be called Apocalyptists, and must now be explained. Any careful reader of Daniel will see at once that he does not intend to refer only to Antiochus Epiphanes. He sees, behind the invading pagan king, the forces of right and wrong, of God and His enemies. You may say that a writer like Daniel will have four planes, so to call them, in his vision—he will see something quite concrete; like this or that king, this or that invasion or persecution, and this may be called the historical level; or, he may see the conflict of right and wrong, and this is the ethical or moral level or plane; or, he may see all this at its consummation, at the End of the World, and this is called the eschatological planer: finally, he may see the history of the world, or of the soul, as it were universally, and no more than typified or symbolised by any particular conflict, and the triumph of God in the whole series of creation. This might perhaps be called the universal or cosmic plane. Such a writer will find his gaze focussing and refocussing itself very rapidly, sometimes nearer, sometimes at a more distant point, or rather, now on the more concrete, and now on the more spiritualised plane. Isaias, then, and Ezekiel saw not only the impious triumph and ultimate defeat of the kings of Babylon and of Tyre, but God's triumph and that of His People and of righteousness; Daniel saw beyond Antiochus, though his gaze was primarily fixed on him; our Lord, we dare reverently to say, was using this same traditional way of speaking, with its accustomed formulae, which Jews of His time perfectly well understood, when in the concrete and immediate future He saw and spoke of the sack of Jerusalem by the Roman armies, but, also, the ultimate fate of the world and the last great contest of good and evil, and the triumph of the former and of His Church. Does the Old Testament, then, so far teach, or even lead us to expect, an individual person who, at the end of time shall act as an evil counterpart to the Messiah, or even as the professed supreme enemy of God? No. The inspired writers proclaim the world-enduring struggle of good and evil, and the ultimate triumph of good, and they sometimes express this in terms of warfare, and in particular under the symbolism of, or as working itself out in, a contest actual or in the more or less remote future—thus serving the double purpose of instructing the Chosen People in what might pedantically be called the spiritual interpretation of the universe, and of encouraging them in view of a crisis in their national history sooner or later to be experienced by them. From the imaginative standpoint, or that of dramatic appropriateness, it will be clear how naturally the great Protagonist, God, could be represented as ultimately confronting an individual foe; but the canonical writers do not do this; the drama, thus set forth, developed outside them. All prophets foretold, at times, the future, and also exhorted the people, and variously "foretold" God's word. But those who by preference "unveiled" the underlying spiritual truth of things, particularly with reference to the End of the World, and often in the hour of the Chosen People's disasters when it needed special encouragement, and, finally, as a rule, in a very. special symbolical "dialect," have come to be called "Apocalyptists," owing to St. John's great writing, which was the first document of the sort, I think, to bear the name of Apocalypse. Almost all prophets contain apocalyptic passages: but, during the century and a half both preceding and following the Christian era, there were many entire books which were Apocalypses. Those which St. John, and perhaps St. Paul, may have known, since they were written before their date, were, The Book of Jubilees, The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, the Ethiopian Enoch, the Slavonic Enoch, and the Assumption of Moses, and parts also of the Sibylline Oracles. Roughly contemporary with St. John are the Fourth Book of Esdras, other parts of the Sibylline Oracles, the Apocalypse of Abraham, etc. Later are the Odes of Solomon, the Apocalypse of Peter, Shepherd of Hermas etc.; and others much later, like the Apocalypse of Paul. In many of these there are Christian elements, and it is in these classes of literature that the motif of the Antichrist is developed. One element in it is the advent of a pagan chieftain; the kings of Babylon, Tyre and Syria were followed by Herod the Great, Pompey or some Roman emperor (like Gaius (Caligula), and with quite extraordinary consequences as we shall see after the sensational reign of Nero); and this facilitated the idea that the Enemy of God should manifest himself in Jerusalem itself, since these personages either took and dismantled it, or were expected to do so. There was also a tradition that this enemy should be an apostate Jew, perhaps from the tribe of Dan. There was a different idea, which seems to have been felt as more than a mere metaphor, that the Enemy should be Satan himself, either incarnate, or at least acting through a definite lieutenant. Thus, in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs and the Assumption of Moses, it is Belial, or Satan or the Devil who is overthrown or bound by God or the Messiah; whereas, in the Psalms of Solomon, Pompey is described as the Dragon. In the last case, we can see how the two motifs are intertwining; Satan and his instrument are not clearly distinguished. We may interpolate here that non-Catholic writers are fond at this point of assigning pagan origins to this idea, and to the imagery in which it is clothed. Thus the whole idea of a fight between God and the principle of Evil is supposed to be Persian, and all dragon-imagery, etc., is supposed to be borrowed from Babylonian myth. Enough to say that at this date the Jews not only had no need to borrow any such metaphors at all, for they had long possessed them, but the metaphors themselves were very natural ones to be developed precisely when the Jews were continually being attacked and defeated; and, that they were almost as unlikely as actual Christians to borrow religious ideas from others just when the sense of their peculiar privileges and vocation was felt more and more intensely by them; while not only had this imagery long been traditional in substance, but meant no more to a Jew than the word " Titan " did to Milton when he so described the archangels Gabriel and Abdiel; nor would we ourselves be committed to any kind of belief in the storming of Olympus by the Giants if we spoke of the gigantic struggle of right with wrong. We are now, I think, in a much better position for understanding St. Paul, whose letters to the Thessalonians come next in chronological order. St. Paul's language is certainly both "eschatological" and in part "apocalyptic." We may, then, almost assert that they are certainly wrong who try to make him allude either to a contemporary concrete fact alone, or to the ending of the world alone. It is extremely probable that he will be alluding, indeed, to the consummation of all things (as, indeed, he obviously does), and to some present or imminent hostile influence or person. (This view will be immensely corroborated when we speak of St. John's Apocalypse.) Suppose Paul were alluding only to a contemporary person, he would not only be expecting the consummation of the world to be destined to occur within the lifetime of that person (for all that was necessary for his "manifestation" and full persecuting activity was the removal of a certain mysterious "check"), but asserting that it would so occur, whereas the whole point of the letter is that no one has any idea when it will occur, and he is warning the Thessalonians not to act as if it were known to be imminent. Moreover, though this is not the place to argue this matter out, I hold that St. Paul did not think that the End was to come immediately, or even soon, and, in fact, that while he continued to fix no dates, he thought it was very far off indeed, as we reckon "far." For from the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, he seems to say definitely that the conversion of the Jews is to take place before the End (and even then he does not say, or hint, that it is to take place just before), and that before this conversion, the Gentiles, that is, the world at large, are to have been converted. But it is certain that he did not expect to convert the world in his own life-time, or anything like. To my mind, then, Paul is very likely considering some actual persecuting agency, held for the time being in check, but likely soon to break out, and, the enduring series or collectivity of such agencies, continually checked until for a brief space the restraining power is withdrawn, and, finally, the consummation of the world-long struggle between God and all that is anti-God, and the divine triumph. What, then, on this hypothesis, does St. Paul regard as the contemporary evil influence which is "from now on," “already," energizing, but held in check for the while? and what is it that holds it in check? I think he almost certainly saw that within the Roman Empire was a tendency, already operative, which very soon revealed itself, to set itself up, as it were, incarnate in its Emperor, as absolute and supreme even in the realm of conscience. To refuse to worship the Emperor, meant that one made one's life, in army, in commerce, in society, in the rapidly developing bureaucracy, unlivable, and at frequent crises, involved oneself in actual martyrdom. What was at the moment restraining this influence? Perhaps the personality of the contemporary Emperor himself, Claudius, who did not like Emperor-worship, and reacted against the policy of his mad predecessor Gaius; or, the spirit of the governing class of officials, who had not yet yielded, as they did later, to the insane orgy of flattery with which the Emperor became surrounded. But since St. Paul uses the vague neuter both for the "mystery of Lawlessness," and for "That which acts as check," as well as the masculine, and since the Old Testament models are at least as much a collectivity of enemies as any one man, though they may be led by, summed up in, or typified in, one man, and since it will be seen that St. John uses his personal symbols to stand for such a collectivity quite as much as, and more than, for an individual, we take it that St. Paul also alludes hereto that enduring Opposition to the Triumph of God. This is ever appearing to come to a head, is ever defeated or at least checked in part and for a while, primarily by the Christian preaching and supernatural influence, and is destined to be utterly overwhelmed by the Truth as revealed by the Son of God Incarnate, the Messias, the Word made Flesh. I will add that it is quite possible that St. Paul's mind, moving thus in a realm of apocalyptic thought, may have had in it, as Fr. Prat holds, the very special apocalyptic symbolism connected with the archangel Michael. This would make another link with the Apocalypse. The floating thought of the Jews not only set God, or the Messias Himself, in opposition to the AntiMessias, or to Satan, but also, St. Michael. Not only in the extra-canonical apocalypses does Michael play a great role, but in the book of Daniel himself, Michael is the leader of God's armies and takes the Chosen People in charge (chapters x. and xii.). Paul certainly had him in mind when he describes the Last Day, and "at the voice of an archangel, at the sound of a trumpet," the dead rise. Not only was Michael regularly conceived as the great protector of the Chosen People in battle, especially the last Battle, but in pre- and post-Christian apocalypses he is seen as a Recording Angel, setting down the works of nations and their presiding angels, and is held to have been the medium through whom God gave the law to Moses, and the constant intercessor on behalf of humanity, the mediator between God and the race on behalf of the peace of Israel; while in the letter of St. Jude he is seen fighting with Satan for the body of Moses, and in St. John's apocalypse it is he who carries on the great mystical war with Satan. So Paul, on yet another plane of thought, may here well be seeing the World-Struggle in terms of a fight between Satan and the Archangel, and Michael will then be the "check."