History shows that, when preaching about the end of the world, zealous and holy priests have not always been prudent priests.
Take, for example, the preaching of Saint Gregory the Great. He lived in an era that many of his contemporaries considered “the worst of times,” flooded with many terrors which Gregory interpreted to mean one and only one thing: the end of the world is at hand! Thus he preached:
Look, we now see everything in this world destroyed, as we heard in the Holy Scripture that it would perish. Cities have been sacked, fortresses razed to the ground, churches destroyed and no farmer inhabits our land. A human sword is raging incessantly against the very few of us who have been left behind for the time being, with disastrous blows from above. Thus we look at the evils of the world that we have long heard were to come; the very destruction of the world has come to look like the pages of our scriptures.1
Gregory is unshakeable in his belief that the events in the world around him are the fulfillment of the terrors that Christ foretold as signs of his second coming. Thus Gregory states, “The end of the present world is now close at hand, and the kingdom of saints is about to come, and it will not be possible for their kingdom ever to be terminated with any end. And as the same end of the world is approaching, many things threaten us that did not exist before, namely change in the air and terrors from the sky and tempests, contrary to the order of the seasons, as well as wars, famines, plagues and earthquakes in many places.”2 Because of these “unprecedented” events, there is no doubt in Gregory’s mind that the historical clock is winding down, that Scripture is being fulfilled before his eyes, and Christ will be coming sooner rather than later.
Because 1400 years have now passed since such an imminent ending was preached, it is impossible to believe that the events surrounding Gregory were as apocalyptic as he understood them to be. Furthermore, in similarly disastrous situations, there were brother priests who preached a different message, and Gregory could have profited from their insight. One such priest was Saint Augustine.
In one of his letters, Saint Augustine responds to a zealous and holy priest named Hesychius who thinks almost identically like Gregory the Great: Hescychius says “the signs in the Gospel and in the prophets that have been fulfilled among us reveal the coming of the Lord.”3 Hesychius is crying wolf, and Augustine critiques this conclusion with unsparing acumen.
First, Augustine disputes the idea that any of the present difficulties are unprecedented, for many of the foretold apocalyptic events are “events that have often happened in this world even before Christ’s first coming.”4 Earthquakes, wars, famines, and pestilences all preceded the birth of Christ, and to see them in the present day is no real novelty and thus no conclusive sign of the second coming.
Some people think that these events are signs of the second coming not necessarily because of their novelty but because of their magnitude, and yet Augustine disputes this idea just as firmly, for Augustine believes that the history books tell of “more and much greater events than those that we dread as the last and greatest of all.”5 In his own age, Augustine experienced a large degree of social disorder and international dissolution, seeing the Roman empire collapse at the hands of vandals and enduring many wars and pestilences which afflicted his people. But Augustine nonetheless insists that such tragedies, including those that Hesychius and others are observing, should be considered lesser evils, not greater evils, than those of previous ages. While Augustine never belittles the religious zeal of Hesychius, he does express frustration over the shallowness of his historical insight.
According to Augustine, Hesychius’ distorted view of history contributes to other scriptural misinterpretations. While Hesychius is attached to John’s statement in Scripture, “My little children, it is the last hour” (1 John 2:18), Augustine insists that “we, of course, ought to bear in mind how long ago it was said.”6 For Augustine, authentic interpretation of this passage from John (and other similarly apocalyptic texts) requires astute historical awareness of the many years that had passed since it was stated. Thus he quips, “See how long this hour is!”7 Instead of using this passage as a reason to preach that the world is coming to an end, Augustine considers it to be Scriptural proof that apocalyptic quotes must be interpreted very loosely, even those from holy priests like John the Evangelist (who, as a “son of thunder,” was himself filled with great zeal).
It is from one specific passage in Scripture that all of Augustine’s rebuttals find their deepest source of conflict with the preaching of priests like Gregory and Hesychius. For Augustine, the end times are intrinsically and irrevocably uncertain because Christ himself stated, “It is not yours to know the times that the Father has established by his own authority” (Acts 1:7). Although priests like Hesychius manifest a deep-seated desire to identify the imminent timing of the Lord’s second coming, Augustine interprets any attempt to do so as a transgression of the intrinsic meaning of this passage from Scripture. Thus Augustine blends the passage from 1 John 2:18 with this passage from Acts and concludes, “During the whole hour, there are taking place the events that the Lord foretold would take place at the approach of his kingdom. But if in regard to how long this hour will last the apostles were told It is not yours to know the times [Acts 1:7], how much more should an ordinary human being, such as I am, recognize his limits so that he does not think more of himself than he ought!”8 Despite being a priest in persona Christi, Augustine counts himself among those human mortals who Christ himself foretold as unreliable authorities for determining when, even approximately, the world will end.
Neither Gregory nor Hesychius pin down an exact date for the end of the world, but even in their mere allusions to some impending second coming, to their not-so-veiled insistence on apocalyptic machinery that is now being set in motion because of the terrorizing events that surround them, Augustine thinks that they are harming the souls to whom such ideas are preached. He makes this argument when he generalizes the apocalyptic preaching of priests into two broad categories: the first category includes those who preach that the world is ending sooner rather than later (like Gregory and Hesychius), whereas the second category preaches that it is never possible for a human being to know when the Lord will come again. Augustine critiques the preaching of this first group in the following manner: if the Lord continues to delay his return, those who hear of an imminent coming “may be disturbed and begin to think that the coming of the Lord will not be late but will not be at all. And you see what great harm that is for souls.”9 By preaching approximate certainty around the timing of the second coming, either directly or in an allusive way, priests in this first group plant seeds that, in the long run, may not bear fruit into eternal life but rather contain the poisonous seeds of spiritual despair. This is why Augustine is unflinching in his critique of priests in the first category, and why he repeatedly affirms his identity as a priest in the second category.
There are other holy priests who have been convinced of Augustine’s logic. One such priest is Thomas Aquinas, who takes up the opinions of Augustine on this matter and makes them his own.10 But it is especially in the pontificate of Pope John XXIII that the spirit of Augustine has returned to the Church with docile firmness. In opening the Second Vatican Council, he expressed his weariness with the “Prophets of Doom” whose chief characteristics are the following:
Although filled with zeal for religion, [these prophets] evaluate the current state of affairs without sufficient objectivity nor prudent judgement. These prophets are not capable of seeing anything but ruin and woe in the concrete conditions of human society; they say that our times are definitely worse when compared with the past centuries, and they arrive ultimately to the point of upholding themselves as if they have nothing to learn from history, which is a teacher of life, and they act as if in the times preceding the Council all was proceeding happily with regards to Christian doctrine, with morality, and with the just freedom of the Church.11
Like Augustine’s opinion of Hesychius, Pope John XXIII thinks these prophets fail, not in their religious zeal, but in their hyper-subjective interpretation of history, which leads to a lack of prudential judgment in their interpretation of the present. Contrary to the seeds of despair planted in such apocalyptic prophecies, Pope John XXIII opened the Second Vatican Council with the certainty, not that the world was on the threshold of an imminent ending, but that there remained much to do before the second coming of Christ. Yes, things are changing, and “humanity seems to be entering a new order of things,” but the fundamental task of the Church within this new order is to impose its own Order, to “continue on the way (il cammino) that the Church has continued for almost twenty centuries.” Like Augustine, Pope John XXIII did not profess to know how many miles were left on this journey, but he did know that there was more to travel, and “what lies ahead” occupied his thoughts more than the imminent ending of all that “lies behind” (Philippians 3:13–14).
When the prophets of doom were crying wolf, Pope John XXIII proclaimed Christ, and the patient unfolding of all history (including Salvation History) continues to reveal whose words come from a heart filled with Wisdom. And wisdom, when combined with zeal, is a powerful instrument for bringing about Holy Order.
- Gregory the Great, Letter 3.29, trans. John Martyn in The Letters of Gregory the Great (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2004). This letter is addressed to “the priests, deacons and clergy of the church of Milan” and thus considered not just something Gregory wrote but rather preached. ↩
- Gregory the Great, Letter 11.37, trans. John Martyn. ↩
- Augustine, Letter 198.5, trans. Roland Teske in The Works of Saint Augustine, vol. 2.3 (Hyde Park: New City Press, 1999). ↩
- Augustine, Letter 199.39, trans. Roland Teske. ↩
- Augustine, Letter 199.39, trans. Roland Teske. ↩
- Augustine, Letter 199.7, trans. Roland Teske. ↩
- Augustine, Letter 199.17, trans. Roland Teske. ↩
- Augustine, Letter 199.35, trans. Roland Teske. ↩
- Augustine, Letter 199.53, trans. Roland Teske. ↩
- Thomas Aquinas, ST Supplementum, q. 77, a. 2, resp. ↩
- Pope John XXIII, Solemn opening of the Second Vatican Council (October 11, 1962), trans. the author, https://www.vatican.va/content/john-xxiii/it/speeches/1962/documents/hf_j-xxiii_spe_19621011_opening-council.html. ↩
About Fr. Anthony Hollowell
Hi, thank you for this nice article. I am just wondering, I want to make a little bit larger common later in the day and I am asking if you could keep the comments open and not shut them down if possible at least for today? Thank you.
Sincerely, Scott.
Dear Father Anthony,
Well said and Amen.
Hi, to the administrators, I tried to post a rather huge or long comment nothing antagonistic but it I gave me an error that I think was in the sense that it was probably way too long and it said that it was a firewall issue. Is there any way I can contact you to see if you can publish it in smaller chunks so I don’t break your system if you choose to accept my larger comment?
Thank you in advance
Sincerely Scott
Hello Scott,
I would be surprised if your comment was blocked due to length, since we have previously gotten comments that ran nearly to the length of essays. On the other hand, I don’t recall seeing your lengthy comment in queue, so it is possible. You would be welcome to try again by posting in installments.
A Merry Christmas to you,
S.E. Greydanus
Managing Editor
My educational history will prevent any essay length comments! Consider yourself “spared”…..
Thank you guys I think I can really shorten it up because it would really be unbelievably long and burdensome I’ll have to get back though when I can God bless you all!!
The ages of the world Response shortened a bit
PART I
Yeah what I was really going to try to say after the rigmarole to keep it brief, but Lord have mercy, I still have to use a couple chunks, :(, is that firstly, in terms of the “what,” there is a certain sense that with fully approved private revelation, which involved an article way back by Colin Donovan (which I believe was entitled something like “End TImes, Millennium, Rapture”), and which was resurrected by Women of Grace Mrs Susan Brinkman, that, by most fully approved private revelations, the best scenario that we can draw from them, seems to be that what we are currently in is what we could call an intermediate Godless age for the church, that is threatened with a conditional chastisement, but that either way, whether we have a mitigated chastisement or repentance at this point, a great restoration in the world of the Catholic faith will occur, and our lady will triumph in men’s hearts as in Fatima.
Only after this period of spiritual peace of an indeterminate period of time, will there be a development of laxity, which will pave the way for the great apostasy and Antichrist, within which of course will include the most horrific persecution of the church that ever has been or will be, followed by at some point or within which at some point, the fullness of the conversion of the Jews, then succeeded by the great chastisement of unfathomable horror, and then as it were, within this period and in an unknown hour quote on quote. Christ will return to end human history and the resurrection etc.
Of course, the completely understandable and valid question can be so what, so what, we know quote on quote WHAT is going to happen from here on out , and I would say that’s correct and the question is really not so much WHAT but WHY the ages of the world and of the church are what they are, in terms of a theological understanding of them: why they are occurring in what order and in what nature, as to why progressively God is bringing about the greatest possible good before the world radically rejects him at the end, which seems inevitable because of the fallen nature of humanity.
In other words, having a theological and rigorous understanding of why the ages develop as they do, why God is guiding them as he does, in which manner he intervenes in response to each of the successive manifestations of the Fall during the world and church history, and in having this fullness of that understanding, we understand, quote on quote, why the world ends when it does in terms of the ages.
And this is of course because obviously we have to understand the entirety of the divine plan from beginning to end and all through the middle in order to understand why the world will end as it does theologically and psychologically, and not just taking pot shots at looking at the beginning or the end with no consideration of the entire trajectory, as well as perhaps layers of cyclic fulfillment as it were…
continued in next comment…
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PART II
Toward this end, just let me say, per my book that I’m still trying to develop, several ideas of which I have been blessed to have shared in homiletic pastoral review here some years ago…
That already both saint Augustine and the saint Methodius of Olympus, delineate similar ways of dividing of the ages of the world with one notable difference in Saint Methodius’ version.
In short, they both delineate five ages to the old law, and the sixth stage to the church,.
Moving forward however, Augustine effectively conjoins the 7th and the 8th days into what we would call eternity, whereas St Methodius sees the 7th and 8th as separate dimensions, in the sense that he assigns to the seventh a quote on quote Millennium of rest, and then the 8th is eternity.
In short, now that we have an amended understanding of what is taking place in the history of the church and of the world, which is to say that, not only are there two great phases of darkness within the age of the church, which is to say pagan Rome at the beginning, and then the Antichrist at the end in the Great apostasy, we now have a renewed view: that in between these two, there is a substantial godless age that we are currently in that is going to be followed by glorious rest from most of sin and iniquity in the world, bringing a spiritual peace in which man will stop fighting with God and his church, and live in a relative solidarity with one another until their laxity emerges toward the end of the era as we just saw above.
And this will exactly be, quote on quote, a Sabbath like rest for humanity within human history, which is to say, on THIS side of the end of time, versus, the ultimate Sabbath, THE 8TH DAY,, which is BEYOND the eschaton in the new creation, where all humanity will rise to the public judgment, just as Christ was on the eighth day, where evil will be utterly vanquished in the eternity of hell , never again to harm the just, who will live forever in the resurrection of the new creation.
With this renewed understanding, and in providing a certain symbolism and allegory towards this quote-on-quote Millennium of rest, we can amend Augustine’s version so that there really is a seventh sub age of the world and not merely just a seventh and eighth conjoined in allegory.
But still once again people can say so what, so what if these are the ages, how does this help us, and I agree in and of itself, it really isn’t that interesting or helpful to simply know WHAT, again, the ages are but to know WHY.
All I can do at this point is share what I feel is going on. …
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PART III
If the church is likened first to the woman in the apocalypse 12, which is an individual human person in the symbolism, in addition to the virgin, and if Saint Paul also likens the church to an individual human person, namely the Christ, there would be really no reason why we couldn’t say that since most individual saints journey the three ways of the path of holiness to go from beginning to perfection in maturity of holiness and knowledge of God, that how much more would each separate people of god, both of old in the Hebrews, and then also the church in the new testament, journey these three great ways in a great spiritual trajectory. …
Honestly , I don’t have the space to go through these things entirely, because as it were, you don’t want an article that already seems to be developing in response.
Nevertheless, this would explain three of the sub ages of the Old law, namely the last three for the people of God of the old covenant, namely the Hebrews, and then the three for the Church, which, if we look at them as the darknesses of the night of the senses, the night of the soul, and then martyrdom, as it were, then we have that the final three great phases of darkness in human history are pagan Rome, the intermediate dark night of the soul in our modern apostasy, and finally the great apostasy, the age of supreme martyrdom under Antichrist at the end.
Similarly, the Jews encounter these three as well but in an individual national sense and not in the Catholic Church sense , which is in all nations and tongues and relatively related to European civilization in the first two ages. Their dark night of senses would be Egypt, which parallels, Rome, their dark night of soul would be the wickedness of the Jews just prior to the exile, which parallels our modern minor godless age of much of Gentile Euro civs, which also makes the captivity, the repentance of the Jews in the Exile, their Restoration and their relative greater faihtfulness to the Old Law until they get closer to the Maccabean times,, making then their martyrdom the persecution and war with the OT antichrist figure Antiochus, IV Ephiphance, who can prefigure NT Antichiist.
This then leaves the first 2 great ages of the Old Testament to be explained.
In short, in several of my articles on this site, including the sacramental article on the five loaves and two fish, and then in the article on the Kings from the East and the theology of strife, I argue that there are TWO great lies of the Fall that are symbolized in the anti-sacramental quote unquote horns of the second beast of Apocalypse that comes out of the Earth.
The two great lies are simply the THE ANTITHESIS OF THE TWO GREAT REASONS WE LIVE ACCORDING TO THE CATECHISM.
The First great reason we live is that we might know and love God in this life.
The rejection of this is on what we could call the anti-baptismal disposition. Here, one rejects knowing God by rejecting faith either in everything God has revealed or perhaps being indifferent to it. Similarly, the refusal to love God is the refusal to live in a state of repentance, and faith and repentance are once again the dispositions of baptism.
The second Great lie is the antithesis of the second Great reason we exist ,which is to be happy with God forever in the next life.
When we don’t want to be with our Creator in the next life, we are effectively rejecting what we can call the wedding feast of the lamb in apocalypse. This is because, we are called to marry our Creator in the next life with wondrous spiritual ecstasy, mystery and love.
And when one does not wish to have this, they are necessarily living not for the CreatOR in the NEXT life but the creaTION in THIS life, which is effectively materialism. This is like a quote on quote figurative FORNICATION, with the creation instead of spiritually MARRYING the Creator….
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PART IV
Interestingly here, we have that of the seven sacraments, like in a certain sense the seven horns of the lamb in apocalypse, only these two great sacraments of baptism and marriage are retained by heretics precisely by virtue of theology of the sacramental realities that occur when the heretical rift occurs within the body of Christ.
So it is like the devil takes the two great sacraments of heretics that still give them some goodness, and that summarize everything that is good in a general sense for our life here, that he takes them and twists them into the ultimate lies to deceive humanity.
Hence, again, the apocalypse says that the second beast from the earth has, quote on quote, two horns like a lamb but speaks as a dragon.
These two great lies can then provide the understanding of why there are two great phases of sin each uniquely redeemed by God in the beginning of human history before the prefiguring Covenant commences with Abraham and the Hebrews.
Naturally, the first great lie is the antithesis of baptism, or the wickedness of Noah’s day, in which humanity mocks the message of Noah in lack of faith of the flood, and this of course by the testimony of Genesis, wicked, or the antithesis of repentance. God responds with the flood, which we know is like a baptism of the world.
Secondly it then regresses into a certain blasphemous materialism, man seeking his ultimate fulfillment in the glorious things of this world in place of God as their ultimate fulfillment. The antitheses of the apocalyptic, heavenly marriage.
God then confounds this to break up temporarily humanity’s persistent seeking of this perverse fulfillment at babel, and chooses one remnant Nation to be his special people, which can then begin the commencement of the way of the saint : The dark night of the senses of Egypt, and so forth for the Hebrew people until the Maccabees of martyrdom, in which the Jewish people will have then reached the fullness of maturity for the old covenant, meaning that it is safe, for the Messiah to enter the world most efficaciously, which is to say, in the 5th great light of human history.
Hope this helps , I could say more, but obviously it’s already long , thanks, Scott