VISIO DECIMA, cap. XXXVII
The Accuser Cast Down
Believers praise God with tears and thanksgiving as the accuser is thrown down, and they overcome him through the blood of the Lamb and their faithful testimony.
But all who faithfully believe in the Son of God will praise God with a voice that weeps and gives praise, just as it is written through my beloved and truthful witness: 'Now salvation has come, and power, and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ, because the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, the one who accused them before our God day and night.'✦ And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives even to the point of death.✦
Salvation Through Christ the Priest
With the devil and Antichrist defeated, salvation comes through heavenly ordering and the unconquerable authority of Christ the true Priest, while the accuser is cast into eternal condemnation.
The meaning of this sentence should be understood in this way: now that the devil has been defeated and his son the Antichrist cast down, salvation has been brought about by heavenly ordering, fearing no devilish dangers, and that power which completely crushes and rules over all who are under the governance of our God, and the unconquerable authority of Christ, that is, his Son, whom he appointed as true Priest for the salvation of souls. For the most persistent accuser and most restless deceiver of those who, as fellow children of God, will share the heavenly inheritance with us — the one who accused them by assenting to his various suggestions before the gaze of the supreme Creator and Judge, and did this as much in spiritual as in worldly transgression at all times, because humanity always sins — has been cast down into eternal condemnation.
The Lamb's Blood and the Martyrs' Witness
God conquered the rebel angel from the first battle to the last, and those who confess God overcome the devil through the Lamb's blood, the word of their faith, and the surrender of their lives, as Abel and all the martyrs bear witness to the Son of God, until the war of the son of perdition ends forever.
For the first battle of the lost angel, in which he fought against God, wanting to be God, God conquered, and in that battle he also foresaw the last battle he would fight with him, when he cast him down through his Son, and through that Son completely confounded him along with him. And those who truly confess God overcame him because they did not consent to him, through the blood of the Lamb by which they were redeemed, and through which they also stood as victors, enduring many hardships in their bodies, and through the word — that is, the teaching he testified to in the Catholic faith, which also stretches back to that Word through which all creation came forth — they did not cling to their lives in their bodies, but let them go to the death of their bodies, when they subjected their bodies to temporal death in many sufferings, and there gave those same souls back to almighty God. For the martyrs ran all the way to death, and before they would deny the Son of God they subjected themselves to sufferings, and so Abel too, and the prophets, and the rest of the martyrs who were killed for God up to the last day, bear witness to the Son of God, because he also, in the will of the Father, poured out his blood for them. And so the war of the son of perdition has come to an end in this way, and he will never again appear in any worship.
Rejoice, Heavens and Earth
Heaven and earth are called to rejoice, for after the Antichrist's fall the glory of the Son of God will be magnified.
Rejoice, you who dwell in heaven and on earth. But after the fall of the Antichrist, the glory of the Son of God will be magnified.
Praise and Commendation
The book closes with heavenly praise to God for the reparation of humanity, commending the work and its author to God and the faithful.
This is the epilogue of the book itself, in which praise is rendered to God with a heavenly voice for his own work—namely, for the reparation of humanity—and this little work, together with its author, is earnestly commended to the same God and to his faithful.
Read the original Latin
Sed et omnes in Filium Dei fideliter credentes flebili atque laudabili voce Deum laudabunt, velut per dilectum et veridicum testem meum scriptum est: « Nunc facta est salus, et virtus, et regnum Dei nostri, et potestas Christi ejus, quia projectus est accusator fratrum nostrorum, qui accusabat illos ante conspectum Dei nostri die ac nocte. Et ipsi vicerunt illum propter sanguinem Agni, et propter verbum testimonii sui, et non dilexerunt animas suas usque ad mortem . Hujus sententiae intellectus hoc modo accipiendus est: Nunc diabolo devicto, filioque ejus Antichristo prostrato, facta est superna dispositione salus, nulla diabolica pericula metuens, et virtus illa omnino conterens, et regnum omnibus dominans, qui sub regimine Dei nostri sunt, et potestas invincibilis Christi scilicet Filii ejus, quem verum Sacerdotem super salutem animarum constituit. Nam projectus est in aeternam damnationem accusator pertinacissimus et insidiator inquietissimus illorum videlicet qui filii Dei sicut et nos existentes supernam haereditatem nobiscum habebunt, qui accusabat illos diversis suggestionibus ipsius consentientes, coram intuitu summi Creatoris et Judicis, et hoc tam in spiritali quam in saeculari transgressione omni tempore faciebat, quoniam homo semper peccat. Primum enim praelium perditi angeli, quo contra Deum pugnavit, volens se Deum esse, Deus vicit, et in illo etiam ultimum praelium, quod cum illo facturus erat, praevidit, cum filium ejus eum dejecit, et cum ipsum per illum omnino tam confudit. Et ipsi qui veraciter Deum confitentur vicerunt illum cum ei non consenserunt propter sanguinem Agni, per quem redempti sunt, et per quem ipsi etiam plurimas adversitates in corporibus suis sustinentes victores exstiterunt, et propter verbum, id est doctrinam quam testificatus est in catholica fide, quae etiam ab illo verbo se extendit, per quod omnes creaturae processerunt, nec dilexerunt animas suas eas in corporibus suis retinentes, sed ad mortem corporum suorum praecedere fecerunt, cum corpora sua temporali morti in plurimis passionibus subjecerunt, ubi et easdem animas suas omnipotenti Deo reddiderunt. Martyres enim usque ad mortem cucurrerunt, et priusquam Filium Dei negarent passionibus se subjecerunt, et ideo etiam Abel, et prophetae, caeterique martyres qui usque in novissimum diem pro Deo occisi sunt, testimonium Filio Dei perhibent, quod etiam ipse in voluntate Patris sanguinem suum pro ipsis fuderit. Itaque bellum filii perditionis hoc modo finitum est, nec ipse deinceps in ulla cultura apparebit.
Unde gaudete, qui in coelo et in terra habitationem habetis. Post casum autem Antichristi gloria Filii Dei amplificabitur.
Epilogus libri ipsius, in quo pro opere suo, scilicet pro reparatione hominis, Deo laus coelesti voce exsolvitur, et opusculum istud cum auctore suo eidem Deo et fidelibus ejus studiose commendatur.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Rev.12.10 — Then I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down—the one who accuses them before our God day and night.
- ↩Rev.12.11 — And they conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives even unto death.
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