§ 1. The text reads thus:
And arms from him will stand, and they will pollute the sanctuary of strength and take away the continual sacrifice; and they will set up the abomination unto desolation. And the impious will deal fraudulently against the covenant; but the people who know their God will prevail and act. And the learned among the people will teach very many, and they will fall by the sword and by flame and by captivity and by plunder for days. And when they have fallen, they will be raised up by a little help, and very many will be joined to them fraudulently. And some of the learned will fall, that they may be smelted and chosen and made white until the appointed time, because there will still be another time. And the king will act according to his will, and he will be raised up and magnified against every God, and against the God of gods he will speak great things; and he will be directed until wrath is completed, for the determination has been accomplished. And he will not regard the God of his fathers, and he will be among the desires of women, nor will he care for any of the gods, because he will rise against all things. But he will honor the God Maozim in his place, and a God whom his fathers did not know he will worship with gold and silver and precious stone and costly things. And he will act so as to fortify Maozim with a foreign God whom he acknowledged, and he will multiply glory and give them power over many, and will divide the land without charge. And at the appointed time the king of the South will fight against him, and the king of the North will come against him like a tempest, with chariots and horsemen and a great fleet; and he will enter the lands, crush them, and pass through. And he will enter the glorious land, and many will fall; but these alone will be saved from his hand: Edom and Moab and the first of the sons of Ammon. And he will send his hand into the lands, and the land of Egypt will not escape. And he will rule over the treasures of gold and silver and all the precious things of Egypt; he will also pass through Libya and Ethiopia. And a report from the East and from the North will disturb him, and he will come with a great multitude to crush and kill very many. And he will plant his tent Apadno between the seas upon the renowned and holy mountain; and he will come even to its summit, and no one will help him.
Of whom these things are said cannot be understood unless the sense is understood accurately; for this reason it is doubtful among many, because they do not know to whose deeds these words must be applied. For even some of the innovators accommodate all things to Antiochus in such a way that they stop with him; others are carried elsewhere.
But it must be said that the discourse concerns Antiochus, because his lineage and deeds are described, and this most certainly from verse 24. Then Antichrist is described in Antiochus as in a figure, but in such a way that some things agree with Antiochus alone and others with Antichrist alone. Yet because the sectarians accommodate all these deeds to Antichrist, we shall follow their tracks and show that they do not pertain to the Pontiff. They are not concerned to expound Daniel, but to set forth his words and then, gathering notorious pamphlets and public calumnies from every side, fasten them upon the Pontiff.
§ 2. Verse 31: “And arms from him will stand.” The Septuagint has σπέρματα, “seeds,” which they interpret of Eupator, the son of Antiochus, who himself also oppressed the Jews. They read זרעים, zerāʿîm, “seeds,” in place of זרועים, zerôʿîm, “arms.” But I do not think this must be understood of Eupator.
For he did not take away the continual sacrifice; indeed, he could not, because it had already been restored and the Maccabees were defending themselves bravely. The arms, therefore, are the men whom Antiochus set over the Jews with the greatest savagery. Thus 2 Maccabees 5:22: “He left governors to afflict the nation: at Jerusalem, Philip, a Phrygian by birth, more cruel in character than the very man by whom he had been appointed; and at Garizim, Andronicus and Menelaus, who pressed upon the citizens more grievously than the rest.” And when he was set against the Jews, he sent the hateful prince Apollonius with an army of 22,000, commanding him to kill all who had reached perfect age and to sell the young and the women.
Their deeds were to pollute and profane the sanctuary. The event is described in 2 Maccabees 6 and 1 Maccabees 1 from verse 40. Then šiqqûṣ mêšômēm: “they will set up the abomination of desolation,” or “the desolating” or “stupefying abomination.” The Septuagint calls it βδέλυγμα ἠφανισμένον, “an abomination made to disappear”; thus the Roman codex has it. Other copies read better: καὶ δώσουσι βδέλυγμα τῶν ἠφανισμένων, “and they will set up the abomination of the things removed from the midst”—the image of Jupiter, which was nothing, because an idol is nothing.
Verse 32: “And the impious will deal fraudulently against the covenant; but the people who know their God will prevail and act.”
The Hebrew words are emphatic: ומרשיעי ברית להחניף בחלקות, ûmaršîʿê berît lehaḥănîp baḥălaqqôt, which in Greek is translated καὶ οἱ ἀνομοῦντες διαθήκην ἐπάξουσιν ἐν ὀλισθήμασι. The Hebrew may be translated word for word thus: “And he will cause the sinners against the covenant to sin, to dissemble, and to act impiously through flatteries.” The Greek means: “Those sinning against the covenant will lead others into falls,” or slippery places—that is, into a slippery fall. Our interpreter read yaḥănîpû, “they will sin, they will dissemble”; for this verb signifies to sin, but particularly with hypocrisy and pernicious dissimulation, and the Greeks read it in the same manner. Thus at Job 34:30 and 36:13 there is חנף, ḥānēp, “a hypocrite.” These, however, are those who in 1 Maccabees 1:12 resolve to establish a covenant with the Nations, and afterward all who fraudulently deceived the people of God or attempted to deceive them. Antiochus Eupator also did this in 1 Maccabees 6:61, as did Nicanor at 7:5, 10, and 28 and 9:58.
§ 3. This profanation and abomination is not in the Pontiff, but in the two hundred sects which defected from the Pontiff. We have remained in the first religion and changed nothing from the first faith, as I have proved from the adversaries themselves, who begin our so-called Antichristianism from thirty-three martyr-Pontiffs. If you seek the fraudulent, see the testimonies of the Lutherans and Calvinists against one another; no doubt will remain. They took away the sacrifices and profaned the Sacraments, so that the Calvinists are called by the Lutherans scarcely by any other name than Sakramentsschänder and Sakramentsschwärmer, profaners and fanatics of the Sacrament. They killed priests, dug up the very bodies of the saints, and reduced them to ashes. What follows pertains to the Pontiff and the Catholics: “But the people who know their God will prevail and act.”
§ 4. Thus the strong people against Antiochus were victorious in battle and victorious under torture, 1 Maccabees 1:56 and following, and 2 Maccabees 5, 7, and 9. It will be no different with the most noble martyrs in the time of Antichrist. For if within the memory of our fathers and in our own days they endured the theater of Calvinist cruelty in France, and even now endure it in various places, and if by their patience they overcame the dispositions of their executioners, why should they not set themselves against that bloodiest beast when Antichrist rages at his highest pitch? Indeed, in 2 Maccabees 2:47 the Maccabees are said to have pursued the sons of pride, to have prospered in the work of their hands, to have obtained the law from the hands of the Nations and of kings, and not to have given a horn to the sinner.
We give thanks to you, great God, because the people who know God have even now prevailed and acted, and have remained in the ancient faith amid so many thousands of errors. My mind shudders when I see that within a few years innumerable heresies have come forth and that each convenient man has been swept away by one or another of them; that those very heresies have collided with one another and entered into the most hostile conflict. Yet meanwhile I see so many thousands remaining in the ancient faith of the Martyrs, in the canon of the Apostles, and in the Churches which received the transmitted succession of doctrine and Bishops from the primitive Church; I see so many thousands coming from the Nations, and so many thousands returning from error. Blessed be God, who has caused his people to act and not to give a horn to the sinner.
§ 5. Verse 33: “And the learned among the people will teach very many, and they will fall by the sword and by flame and by captivity and by ruin for days.”
These things too must be understood of the time of the Maccabees and the Antichristian persecution. For both then the fury of the impious bore down especially upon the teachers of the people, and in our own time many thousands of priests and monks have been slaughtered, indeed slaughtered by a new kind of torment.
“The learned among the people”—ûmaśkîlê ʿām, those understanding among the people, or also those causing the people to understand. For they persecute them in marvelous ways: by sword, fire, and iron when they can, and by calumnies when they cannot. Who, from the foundation of the world, ever experienced more savage calumnies than the most illustrious and learned Bellarmine? What order today is exposed as a mark for arrows in the way the Society of Jesus is, whose institution is to benefit every class of men by teaching, from which the other orders also flourished again, and which Clement VIII was accustomed to call a society of talents?
Here they are tossed and harried “in the plunder of days”; in some Hebrew copies rabbîm, “many,” is added. But so that the reader may judge which party persecutes which, let him weigh the freedom—and sometimes the insolence—of the pseudo-Evangelical ministers in Catholic cities. By contrast, the pupils of our Society are scarcely permitted to pass through a little town governed by preachers without mockery, abuse, and sometimes unjust detentions and stonings; neither the peace of religion nor the authority of the magistrate who forbids it is of any help. Ministerial fury imbues everyone with hatred of truth and of those who teach the truth.
§ 6. Verse 35: “And some of the learned will fall, that they may be smelted and chosen and made white until the appointed time, because there is still another time.”
The end of tribulations is the advancement of the faithful and the saints. For they fall not by defecting from the faith, but by falling bravely for the faith: lehāṣērāp bāhem, “for smelting among them,” just as in Malachi 3 God sits like a smelting fire. For metals are purified by fire and the faithful by tribulation. Stubble is burned up; gold comes out purer. “That they may be chosen”: the Hebrew ûlebārēr carries the signification both of choosing and of cleansing; the Greek text has ἐκλέξασθαι, “to choose.” “To make white” in Hebrew is ûlelabbēn, “and for whitening”; certain Greek copies have ἐκλευκᾶναι, “to whiten,” while others have ἀποκαλυφθῆναι, “to be revealed.” Now these things begin; when Antichrist rages, the pious and steadfast will advance extraordinarily.
Of this too we now see examples: how many faithful princes and nobles, how many colleges of canons, how many assemblies of monasteries have reformed themselves and, by new laws, excluded every enticement of vice.
§ 7. Verse 36: “And the king will act according to his will, and he will be raised up and magnified against every God, and against the God of gods he will speak great things; and he will be directed until wrath is completed, for the determination has been accomplished.”
There is a twofold opinion. The first is that this must be understood of Antiochus alone. Bruchthon, Junius, Tremellius, and other Calvinists interpret it so, thereby showing that those who strive to fit these things to the Pontiff labor in vain. Pellican accommodates it first to Antiochus and then to the Turks.
The second opinion interprets it of Antichrist, but in two ways: first, of Antiochus and Antichrist together; others, of Antichrist alone. The Catholics understand the true Antichrist, the antitype of Antiochus; among the sectarians, some understand the Turk, others the Roman Pontiff, and others both together. The jubilators, in accordance with their purpose, refer all things with enormous abuse to the Papacy—that is, to all Catholic princes. Erhart Lauterbach briefly reports the calumnies of others in his first sermon. “Because,” he says, “the general mark of Antichrist is that he will act according to his own will. ‘Thus I will, thus I command; let my will stand in place of reason’: so it is in canon law. For the Pope, in those things which he wills, his will stands in place of reason.” He cites canons in the manner of men who have not seen them: Distinction 19, chapter Si Romanorum; Cause 9, question 3, chapter Cuncta; and Cause 16, question 3, chapter Nemini. In these canons the Pope is not granted power to do anything whatsoever at his pleasure, whether just or unjust, but only the supreme power of judgment in spiritual affairs, from which there is no appeal, just as the same power is given to a king in political affairs. Nothing else at all can be concluded from these words. Accordingly, whatever he commands lawfully and honorably must be followed. The Pope is not to be obeyed if he commands evil; and if he inflicts an injury, lawful defense under the protection of blameless self-defense is permitted against him, which jurists and theologians grant against a tyrant. Nevertheless, there is no superior judge before whose tribunal the Pope may be summoned.
§ 8. This passage, therefore, proves that there will be another Antichrist. For he who governs the Church not according to his own will but according to the divine laws, the canons, and the statutes of the Fathers is not Antichrist. But the Pontiff governs in this manner; and if anyone departs from that law, he is rejected by God and disturbs the Church. As for the saying that the will sometimes stands in place of reason, the canons do not affirm it, but jurists sometimes use it in a sense applicable to all judges. For he who, after weighing the considerations in controversies, decides the suit does not provide an account, but judges by authority so that the matter is not perpetually agitated and controversies never ended.
Then, in indifferent matters which must be done, but which can be done in diverse ways—and must indeed be done rightly, though a uniform and harmonious manner of action is needed—the Pope may determine one good and honorable way, even though the matter by its nature does not demand this way more than another. Thus in the state a law is called the will of the prince; by it many things are established which could also rightly be done in another manner, but nevertheless, for the peace and tranquility of the state, the prince’s will must be observed, and subjects ought not to oppose their own reasons to his just discretion.
Thus Charles the Great must be understood in the twenty-three capitularies which he sent to all the provinces, which are found in Ivo and the Council of Tribur, and so forth, at Distinction 90, chapter 3:
In memory of blessed Peter the Apostle, let us honor the holy Roman and Apostolic See, so that, as it is for us the mother of priestly dignity, so it should be the mistress of ecclesiastical reason. Therefore humility must be preserved with meekness, so that although a yoke scarcely to be borne should be imposed by that holy See, we nevertheless bear it and endure it with pious devotion. But if—which is not fitting—anyone, whether presbyter or deacon, is convicted of contriving some disturbance and lying in wait for our ministry, falsely claiming that he has brought a letter from the Apostolic See, or anything else which did not come from there, let the Bishop have power, while faith is preserved and humility toward the Apostolic See remains intact, to cast him into prison or other custody until by letter, or by suitable legates from his own party, he appeals to the Apostolic sublimity, so that it may especially deign by its holy legation to determine what the Roman law establishes should be defined concerning such persons in due order, so that both the man may be corrected and a limit imposed upon others.
For subjects do not rightly judge those things which the Roman law defines in due order, and which are often thought scarcely bearable by men whose judgment or will has been preoccupied. Meanwhile this law is laid down for all Pontiffs, Cause 25, chapter 9: “The first salvation is to keep the rule of faith and in no way depart from the constitutions of the Fathers.” The Pope, therefore, does not act according to his own will, but accommodates his will to the prescriptions of the laws.
§ 9. Nor does the Pontiff do what Daniel prophesies concerning Antichrist: “And he will be raised up and magnified against every God.” In Hebrew there is ויתרומם, wayyitrômēm, “he will raise himself,” ὑψωθήσεται, “he will be raised up,” which certain preachers greatly exaggerate as if, by saying “at Rome,” they held Rome itself. Then ויתגדל, “and he will magnify himself.” This does not seem to agree with Antiochus, who worshiped Olympian Jupiter, Bacchus, and other gods with most perverse superstition. Accordingly, that is the insanity of Antichrist, who will be restrained from crimes by reverence neither for the true God nor for any false god.
Erhart Lauterbach says that the Pope cares neither for God nor demon, neither for heaven nor hell, and that Luther heard these words at Rome: Ist ein Helle, so stehet Rom drauf—“If there is a hell, Rome stands upon it.” He proves it thus: because the Pope commands angels to carry the souls of those going to Rome into heaven; prohibits foods and days; makes a sin of what is not sin; and finally is called God by the canonists. He says that Augustine Boetius writes that the Pope can do everything God can, and Philip Decius likewise.
Let us consider these things accurately. As far as King Antiochus is concerned, he worshiped the gods extraordinarily. Thus Polybius in Athenaeus:
ἐν δὴ ταῖς πρὸς τοὺς πολέμους ἐξόδοις καὶ τοῖς πρὸς τοὺς θεοὺς τιμαῖς πάντας ὑπερέβαλε τοὺς βεβασιλευκότας, τούτου τις τεκμήραιτο ἂν ἔκ τε τῶν ἐν Ἀθήναις Ὀλυμπιείων, καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα περὶ τῶν ἐν Δήλῳ ἀνδριάντων.
“In his expeditions for wars and in his honors toward the gods he surpassed all who had been kings. One might infer this both from the Olympieum at Athens and, after these things, from the statues at Delos.”
Nor does this seem a sufficient reason for despising them, that reverence for no god restrained him from crime; for very many atheists, Epicureans, and others have done this—and indeed worshiped their divinities by crimes. Let another passage in Athenaeus concerning the procession which he led also be considered:
τὰ ἀντίτυπα τῶν παρὰ τοῖς ἀνθρώποις λεγομένων ἢ νομιζομένων θεῶν, ἢ δαιμόνων, προσέτι καὶ ἡρώων εἴδωλα διήγετο, τὰ μὲν κεχρυσωμένα, τὰ δὲ ἠμφιεσμένα στολαῖς διαχρύσοις· ἐπὶ πᾶσι τούτοις δὲ προσήκοντες μῦθοι κατὰ τὰς παραδεδομένας ἱστορίας ἐν διασκευαῖς πολυτελέσι παρείχοντο.
“Representations of those who among men are spoken of or regarded as gods, and images of daemons and also of heroes, were led in procession, some gilded and others clothed in robes interwoven with gold; and in addition to all these, the appropriate myths according to the traditional accounts were presented in costly settings.”
Then he says that Antiochus danced with the mimes, καὶ μετὰ τῶν γελωτοποιῶν, “and with the buffoons.” Finally, at the end, he adds: ἱεροσυλήκει δὲ καὶ τὰ πλεῖστα τῶν ἱερῶν, “he also sacrilegiously plundered most of the temples.” Behold, the same man appears to be most superstitious and yet most impious toward the gods.
§ 10. But Antichrist will care for no God. Rather, as it is said in 2 Thessalonians 2:4, he “opposes and is exalted above everything which is called God or worshiped, so that he sits in the temple of God, showing himself as though he were God”; and in 1 John 2, he will deny Christ.
The innocence of the Pontiff, therefore, is strongly established in this passage. For he venerates God and professes himself the servant of the servants of God. He does not command the Angels, but prays to them. There is a certain prayer of the most confident friendship which employs the imperative: every day he prays, “Saint Michael, Saint Gabriel, all holy Angels and Archangels, pray for me.” He is not called God except in the manner in which Scripture calls princes gods and vicars, and in a degree proportionately greater as spiritual power is more exalted than temporal power. The statement about Augustine and Decius is a manifest lie. Then who among men is so unacquainted with human affairs as to believe that anyone said the Pope can do everything God can—a man commonly weak and old? It is a foul calumny invented by some and seized upon by others. We pronounce anathema upon anyone who says that the Pope can do everything God can.
§ 11. Good God, if it is permissible to snatch at words—even if I pass over the old ones which were not written this year—behold, the ignorant and abusive scoundrel Sharpe is called Alcides, and the most serene James, King of Great Britain, is called the British Jupiter; for in this very year Stephen Gilbert, Doctor of Laws, flatters them both thus:
Once sent from highest Jove to earth, Alcides with a mighty hand laid low the monsters that infested the world from its tender cradle. Wishing to destroy the final monsters which the languishing old age of the world brought forth upon the earth, the BRITISH JUPITER sends SHARPE from his gracious bosom. Advance, returned conqueror, go beneath so great an auspice; whatever Cacus, Lycos, and the very Beast displaying seven heads the Vatican cave of the god has brought forth—the certain destruction of Christ’s worshipers— subdue it with both sword and fire. By as much as these new monsters are worse than the ancient ones, since they consign not only the body to savage death, but the soul as well, by so much, by Hercules, do you come to us greater than the old hero.
But passing over these things, let us examine the matter more accurately. Antichrist will deny, not only by deeds but by profession and openly, that Christ is the Redeemer; and because he will oppose Christ, he will therefore win to himself the Jews, enemies of the cross of Christ. The Pontiff has not done this, but condemns it; therefore he is not Antichrist. Then he confesses Christ to be the Christ and the Savior; he confesses that he has all his power from him, that without him he can do nothing, and that he has been redeemed by his blood; he calls everyone to Christ.
Third, they themselves distinguish Antichrist into the one who is called Antichrist commonly and the one who is so called properly. Powell, book 1, chapter 1, §3, says that they commonly call Antichrist anyone who in any manner opposes Christ, such as Jews, Gentiles, and heretics; properly, some kingdom opposed to Christ’s kingdom, or the head of that kingdom. But those whom they improperly call Antichrists openly deny Christ; therefore so also will he who is properly called Antichrist, since he is both more powerful and worse than they, and sits in the temple, showing himself as though he were God.
Fourth, the holy Fathers interpret it thus. Hilary, book 6 On the Trinity; Hippolytus says that his mark will be that men deny baptism; Jerome, on this passage of Daniel, says that he will pretend to be the leader of the covenant; Gregory, book 11, epistle 3, says that he will compel men to Judaize. Fifth, he will come in his own name; therefore he will not put forward Christ and the vicariate of Christ as a pretext for his blasphemies. Beza therefore rightly warns on 2 Thessalonians 2 that Antichrist will transfer to himself not only all the honors of men but also whatever glory has anywhere been exhibited to any divinity whatsoever. This does not agree with the Pontiff, who daily bends his knees to God publicly and privately, who not only adores God as the highest beginning and highest good, but also follows the friends of God with a lesser worship.
There is an example in Gregory XIV. Thus Ciccarelli writes of him:
He fasted on every Friday and abstained from meats on Wednesdays, unless perhaps hindered by ill health. He always discharged upon bended knees the allotted burden of his prayers, both the ordinary ones and those of the Lady, as they call them. Rising from sleep in the morning, he immediately began the seven penitential psalms and continued them while clothing himself. He meditated for a full hour in the morning, reading the works of the honey-flowing Bernard; and if he drew any good conceptions of mind from them, he diligently noted and elegantly wrote them down. As long as he was a priest, he omitted saying Mass on no day; there was no day on which he did not confess, unless illness prevented him from doing so. But when he was ill, he received the Eucharist daily from the hands of another. And if the illness appeared likely to be mortal, he commanded that extreme unction be procured for him with much devotion.
Antichrist will do nothing of the kind. They will see him ἀποδεικνύοντα ἑαυτὸν ὅτι ἐστὶ θεός, “showing himself to be God.” Irenaeus, book 5; Ambrose, on Luke 21, says that he will argue from the Scriptures that he is Christ. Theodoret, on 2 Thessalonians 2: he will name himself Christ. In no way, therefore, does the Pontiff exalt himself above every σέβασμα, “object of worship,” which the more ignorant Lutherans also interpret perversely when they wish it to signify worship, while the Calvinists refute them well by translating it “divinity.”
§ 12. Nor does he rise against the God of gods or speak great things, or ὑπέρογκα, “exceedingly swollen things,” as the Septuagint has it; in Hebrew it is niplāʾôt, that is, marvelous things. For he professes that the works of God are marvelous, and teaches that all things stand by his omnipotence. I call all Catholics and heretics alike to witness that the majesty, power, goodness, and persons of God have never been taught and written of more accurately than by those who have lived and now live in the Papacy. The books themselves speak. Why, then, could so many and so learned men, who investigate the infinite nature of God in this manner and know so many things, endure the Pope if he placed himself before God in any manner or made himself equal to him? Or how could the Pope, chosen from among theologians and mindful of his own weakness, raise himself to a place from which not only the writings of theologians but even the swords of kings would drag him down?
But if they heard the Pope praying on his knees or prostrate on the ground, “Have mercy upon me, O God,” and so forth—if they saw him confessing his sins and weeping—would they still make τῇ ἀποδείξει, “the demonstration,” a matter of dispute for him? The same reasoning is confirmed: “And he will not regard the God of his fathers.” The Hebrew text, ʿal ʾĕlōhê ʾăbōtāw lōʾ yābîn, means, “concerning the gods of his fathers he will not understand”: ἐπὶ πάντας τοὺς θεοὺς τῶν πατέρων οὐ συνήσει, “concerning all the gods of his fathers he will not understand.” Nor only this, but he will care for none of the gods, because he will rise against them all.
Antichrist will care for no God, whether true or fictitious, but will magnify himself, lehitgaddēl, against all gods. If he who is properly Antichrist does this—that is, the Pope’s kingdom, or the head of that kingdom, namely the Pope himself—let them at least cease accusing us of manifold idolatry. For if we care for no God, then we do not make the saints into gods.