nearer we approach to the complete fulfilment of any prophecy, the more obvious does its interpretation naturally become. Lastly, it may be added, that in one sense, the Christian Church has admitted Mahomet to be the Antichrist, in admitting him to have been, what history witnesses, her chief opponent, that is, Christ's chief antagonist for so many centuries.

SECTION XI.

Remarkable passages of some ancient divines, who teach that Mahomet is the Antichrist predicted in Holy Writ.

The opinion which we have vindicated respecting Mahomet having fully realized in himself and his followers what prophecy predicts of the Antichrist and his kingdom, found its supporters among ancient divines no less than among modern writers.

The celebrated Genebrard, archbishop of Arles, in his Chronography on Mahomet, writes thus : "I should easily believe that Mahomet is the Antichrist, or, at least, the founder of Antichrist's kingdom. For the name Maóμεris corresponds with the name of the beast, 666,1 of which the Apocalypse speaks. Moreover, Mahomet, a martial, bloody, and military king, established his religion, not by preaching, but by brute force and the sword." And after narrating Mahomet's horrible crimes against God, the Holy Trinity, Christ, and the Christian Church, he thus continues: "What of a more hostile nature could be effected against Christ? What could there be more Antichristian, or more contrary to Christ?" And again,

1 See Mahometanism in its Relation to Prophecy, p. 98. Apoc. ch. xiii. 3 Ad annum Christi, 476.

2

when treating of the year 657, after confuting the absurd opinion of those impious men who, like the heretics of our days, attributed to the Roman See what is predicted in Holy Writ of Antichrist's kingdom, he subjoins: "The number 666, mentioned in the Apocalypse, is the number of Mahomet, the true Antichrist, or, at least, the real founder of Antichrist's kingdom."

John Hentenius, of Mechlim, a very pious and learned divine, in his preface to the Commentaries of Arete on the Apocalypse, maintains the same opinion: "The opinion of John Annius,” he writes, "that the beast mentioned in the Apocalypse, which is commonly interpreted of the Antichrist, means the false prophet Mahomet, does not seem unreasonable. For although Mahomet has now been dead for very many years, his sect is yet alive, and stands up in a continual opposition against the people of God." And again: "The fallacious signs and prestiges of Antichrist, to the ruin of those who perish, are the many and various arts by which Mahomet seduced the servants of God. And the fact that he preferred himself and his sect above Christianity, and all other laws, shows that he raised himself above all that is called God."

The same opinion is supported by Jodocus Clictoveus, who, commenting on the fourth book of St. John Damascenus, ch. 27, writes thus: "Some very learned men are of opinion that Mahomet, the filthy author of a most abominable and detestable doctrine, is personally the true Antichrist predicted in Holy Writ; because they see that almost all the things which the Scriptures prophesy of the Antichrist have been fulfilled in Mahomet. For who was more opposite to Christ

in customs and doctrine? Christ's law is repugnant to flesh and blood, and teaches to hate our own soul, that we may keep it unto eternal life. But Mahomet, in order to catch into his snare the human race, naturally bent upon sensuality, and to induce them to embrace his religion, let loose the passions of men, indulged their lust, admitted the plurality of wives, and lastly, promised to his followers a filthy paradise, full of the base pleasures and delights of the world." And a little further, he says: "Mahomet invented and put in his Koran many strange and ridiculous things, aberrations, and follies, old women's fables and falsehoods; so that from the simple inspection of his nefarious doctrine, it appears manifest, that he is either the Antichrist, or his principal precursor. Nor are there wanting scriptural authorities to show that Mahomet is personally the true Antichrist. For the Apocalypse1 describes a beast coming out of the earth, and having two horns like those of a lamb. This beast, as all writers explain it, means the Antichrist. But there is no doubt that it literally signifies Mahomet, especially by reason of his most beastly and filthy life, as well as his most impure doctrine."

2

Fer. Ardentius, in his Annotations on the fifth book of St. Iræneus against Heresies, supports the same opinion at some length, and by very solid reasons. After expounding several opinions of Catholic doctors and divines concerning the Antichrist, he continues thus: "Putting all these opinions aside, I am pleased with the sentence of the learned and pious writers, John Annius, John Hentenius, Jodocus Clictoveus, and Genebrard, a Parisian theologian and royal professor of Hebrew, Apoc. ch. xiii.

1

2 Ch. xxx.

who, treating of the impure and false prophet Mahomet, and of his wicked and reprobate sect, say, that he is either the Antichrist in person, or the founder of his kingdom. And, really, any one can see that the marks of the Apocalyptic beast, and those things which are predicted by the ancients, of the Antichrist, have either entirely, or at least in the greatest part, already been fulfilled, and still continue to be fulfilled in Mahomet. I will here subjoin their arguments and my own.

"1. In the first place, the eight letters of the name Maometis, or Moametis, as Euthemius, Zonaras, and Cedrenus write it, agree with the numeric title in Greek letters, making the number 666, the name of the beast given by St. John.

"2. Mahomet's life was marked by signs and lying wonders, such as Paul assigned to the son of perdition: for both the account of his generation, and the commentaries of the Saracenic chronicles, trace his genealogy up to Seth and Adam, with monstrous and blasphemous fables; of which are the following:-that he was born without causing pain to his mother, both circumcised and joyful; that at his birth all the idols in the world fell down; that Lucifer was caught by angels and immersed in the depth of the sea of Alcasus; that the winds, birds, and clouds contended about his education; that an ass with human voice called him the Seal of the Prophets; that a black cloud, although the heavens were clear, was always seen above his head; that two halves of the moon were united together by him and made into one full moon; that he was carried by Gabriel into heaven, and there learned his mysteries. Paul the Deacon and Zonaras say, that when he was seized

by sickness and convulsed by epilepsy, he persuaded others, after his recovery, that he then talked with the archangel Gabriel.

"3. It was the opinion of St. Jerome, Methodius the Martyr, St. Augustine, and the Gloss on the 2nd of the Thessalonians, and of many others, that the Antichrist was to be born in the province of Babylon; and to be brought up in Bethsaida, Capharnaum, and Chorazin; which John Hentenius judged so far applied to Mahomet, that the inhabitants of those cities were the first to take up his sect with great zeal and energy, that they defended it and strove to this very day to spread it.

"4. Besides, almost all the literary ecclesiastical monuments of antiquity declared that the Antichrist would arise from the Jewish nation and tribe of Dan. That Mahomet was an Arab does not forbid this; indeed his mother Emina, or Hennia, was a Jewess, and perhaps of the tribe of Dan. Moreover the Arabs, the Agarenes, and Ismaelites were descendants of the holy patriarch Abraham, by Ismael and Esau, as well as the Jews; whence marriage covenants were frequently ratified between them. Again, what forbids the assertion that his mother, an impure woman, conceived him in adultery with a man of her own tribe, especially as the fathers teach that he was to be born of a most wicked woman: as, on the contrary, Christ from the most immaculate and blessed Virgin? The passage of Genesis, which they take to confirm this proposition, may perhaps be better explained of Samson than of Antichrist, as Hippolytus, Procopius, Gazæus, and many others admit. Or, it may be more aptly understood in a spiritual sense that the Antichrist was to be born of that

H