VISIO DECIMA, cap. XXX
The Antichrist's Corruption of Desire
The ancient enemy, working through the Antichrist, will spread perverse teaching that denies sin, mocks chastity, and twists the law of God to justify the fiery cravings of the flesh.
The ancient enemy, whom the power of God cast into the pit of the abyss — as lead sinks into rushing waters — because he set out to establish iniquity, since God is just and truthful and has no equal, because he himself, subsisting eternally through himself, made all things from nothing — this enemy, since he had overcome the first man, thinks he can accomplish through another man, namely the Antichrist, what he once began when he tried to fight against God. From the devil, then, the Antichrist, filled with malice, will — as foretold — open his mouth to spread perverse teaching, and will destroy everything God established in the old law and in the new; he will declare that incest and other similar acts are not sins. For he will say that it is no sin if flesh inflames flesh, just as it is no sin if a person is inflamed by fire; he will also claim that all the precepts of chastity were made out of ignorance, since one person is hot and another cold, and they need to temper each other by heat and cold. And again he will say to the faithful: 'Your law of continence is established against the way of nature — namely, that a person ought not to be hot, when the breath of fire is in him, the fire that sets the whole human body ablaze.' And how could this person be cold against his own nature? But by what reasoning would a person refrain from inflaming another's flesh? For that person whom you call your teacher gave you a law that is beyond measure, because he commanded you to see in this way. But I say: be in these two conditions — that is, of heat and of cold — and cherish one another, and consider that the man we spoke of gave you unjust precepts; for even though he ordered people not to cherish one another, they themselves lived out their nature in the flesh.
The Counterfeit Teacher and the Rejection of Baptism
The Antichrist will deceive people by claiming divine self-sufficiency, urging them to live by fleshly desire, denying God's justice, and seeking to overturn baptism so that the faithful are reduced to a remnant.
So watch out that you're not led astray by unjust teaching from now on, because what you can or can't do is up to me, and your teacher hasn't set you upright principles — he wanted you to be like a spirit that isn't clothed in flesh, and that doesn't act, since human flesh isn't created that way when it's shaped and fired by its heat, because if children weren't being born, they'd have no capacity to act. And so know what you yourselves are. For the one who first taught you deceived you and did nothing to help you; but I pour into you so that you may know yourselves and understand what you are — namely, that I created you, and I am wholly present in all things. That one, on the other hand, assigning all his works to others, spoke nothing of himself, because he had nothing from himself; but I speak from myself, and through myself I can do all things. With words and other tactics like this, that wretched son of perdition will lead people astray, teaching them to live by the fiery craving of the flesh and to carry out every desire of their flesh, even though both the old law and the new law summon people to chastity — only in such a way that chastity doesn't overstep its proper limit. And in this way Lucifer, through that one, will deny God's justice, and thinking that everything he has begun he can bring to completion through him, he will reckon that the Jordan flows into his mouth so that baptism is no longer named, but throws it back — just as he himself was cast out through baptism. And so by dominating like this, he will think he can subjugate any number of people to himself, so that the Son of God would have only a small number of faithful compared to his own number.
The Man of Sin in Scripture
The chapter concludes by noting that the Apostle calls the Antichrist the man of sin and son of perdition, and that the devil has deceived through idols and heretics across both Testaments.
Why the Apostle calls the Antichrist the man of sin and the son of perdition, and why the testimony from John's Apocalypse is relevant to this, and how it is to be understood, and that the devil has had followers in both the Old and the New Testament, deceiving some through idols and others through heretics.✦✦1
Read the original Latin
Antiquus enim hostis, quem fortitudo divinitatis in lacum abyssi projecit, quemadmodum in vehementes aquas plumbum decidit, quoniam iniquitatem constituere voluit, cum Deus justus et verax sit, et nullum sibi similem habeat, quia per se ipsum aeternaliter subsistens cuncta ex nihilo fecit, quoniam hominem primum superaverat, per alium hominem scilicet Antichristum aestimat se posse perficere quod olim incoeperat, cum adversus Deum pugnare tentavit. A diabolo quippe Antichristus infusus cum os suum ad perversam doctrinam ut praedictum est aperuerit, omnia quae Deus in antiqua, et in nova lege constituerat destruet, incestumque et alia similia non esse peccata affirmabit. Dicet enim quia peccatum non sit, si caro carnem calefaciat, sicut nec hoc si homo ab igne calefiat, affirmans etiam quod omnia castitatis praecepta per ignorantiam facta sint, quoniam cum homo alter calidus, alter frigidus sit, calore et frigore oporteat eos invicem temperari. Et iterum ad fideles dicet: « Vestra lex continentiae contra modum naturae constituta est, scilicet quod homo calidus esse non debeat, in cujus spiramine ignis est, qui totum corpus hominis incendit. Et quomodo iste contra naturam suam frigidus esse possit? Sed qua ratione homo omitteret, quin carnem aliam calefaceret? Homo enim ille, quem magistrum vestrum esse dicitis, legem quae supra modum est vobis dedit, quia sic videre vos jussit. Ego autem dico: Vos in his duobus modis videlicet caloris et frigoris estote, atque in invicem vos fovete, et praedictum hominem injusta praecepta vobis dedisse considerate, quoniam quamvis juberet ne homines se mutuo foverent, ipsi tamen naturam suam carnaliter coluerunt.
Videte ergo ne injusta doctrina amodo seducamini, quoniam in me est quid facere possitis vel non, nec magister vester rectas propositiones vobis proposuit, qui vos esse voluit sicut spiritum qui carne coopertus non est, et qui non operatur, cum nata caro hominum sic creata non sit, quae per ignem infunditur et formatur, quia si filii non crearentur, possibilitatem operandi non haberent. Unde et vos quid sitis scitote. Nam ille qui vos primum docuit vos decepit, et in nullo vos adjuvit: ego autem vobis infundo, ut vosmetipsos cognoscatis, et ut quid sitis sciatis quoniam creavi vos, et totus in omnibus sum; ille vero omnia opera sua alii assignans a se ipso nihil loquebatur, quoniam de se nihil potuit; sed ego a meipso loquor, atque per me ipsum omnia possum. » Hic verbis et aliis similibus iste infelix filius perditionis homines seducet, docens eos ut secundum igneum carnis gustum vivant, et omnem voluntatem carnis suae perficiant, cum tam vetus quam nova lex homines ad castitatem invitent, ita scilicet ne castitas modum suum transcendat. Et hoc modo Lucifer per illum justitiam Dei abnegabit, atque omne quod facere incoeperit, per ipsum se posse perficere putans, Jordanem in os suum fluere aestimabit ita ut baptismus deinceps non nominetur, sed illum retrorsum abjiciat, quemadmodum ipse per baptismum abjectus est. Unde sic dominando tantum numerum populi sibi subjugare putabit, ut Filius Dei parvum numerum fidelium ad comparationem numeri sui habeat.
Quare Antichristus homo peccati, et filius perditionis ab Apostolo vocetur, et testimonium ex Apocalypsi Joannis ad hoc competens, et quomodo intelligendum sit, et quod diabolus et in Veteri et in Novo Testamento sectatores habuerit, alios per idola, alios per haereticos decipiens.
Scripture echoes
- ↩2Thess.2.3 — Let no one deceive you in any way, because the rebellion must come first, and the man of lawlessness must be revealed—the son of destruction.
- ↩Rev.13.4-Rev.13.8 — And they worshiped the dragon, because he gave his authority to the beast; and they worshiped the beast, saying, 'Who is like the beast, and who is able to wage war against it?' Rev.13.5 — And a mouth was given to it, speaking great things and blasphemies, and authority was given to it to act for forty-two months. Rev.13.6 — And it opened its mouth in blasphemies against God, to blaspheme his name and his dwelling, those who dwell in heaven. Rev.13.7 — And it was given to him to make war with the saints and to conquer them, and authority was given to him over every tribe and people and tongue and nation. Rev.13.8 — And all who dwell on the earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world.
Notes
- 1 ↩The Latin 'vocetur' is subjunctive, likely reflecting an indirect question dependent on 'Quare' (Why it is that the Antichrist is called...). Rendered as a natural English indirect question.
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