As I recall, and, again, it has been a long time since I’ve read him [John Cardinal Newman], he goes on to envision a time in his future during which not Ecclesiastical but rather Imperial Rome could rise again. That was one of his expressed fears –a return of pagan, Imperial Rome. Furthermore, while he was no fan of Islam, he also saw portents in the decline of the Ottoman Turks. To fast forward from his time until now, it might be worth noting that there is at least a fledgling “united” Europe, from the Atlantic increasingly to the Urals, and, meanwhile, Pope
Benedict XVI plaintively cries, from the sidelines, that “Europe cannot and must not deny her Christian roots,” despite the fact that whole swathes of Europe are evidently doing exactly that (else there would be no need for the papal injunction, or admonition).
I had a chance yesterday to review John Henry
Cardinal Newman’s above-linked sermons on the subject and am posting some excerpts here, for those who might be interested. His is a viewpoint expressed by an Anglican turned Roman Catholic whose life spanned practically the whole of the 19th Century, a period characterized by "rationalism." It seems to me that, if his statements cannot be spiritually appreciated (or even defended) as a sermon, they might in any case be admitted as of interest to historians. Consider these as Cliff Notes, but, as far as I know, there will be no examination to follow.
Sermon 1
“What I have said upon this subject may be summed up as follows:-that the coming of Christ will be immediately preceded by a very awful and unparalleled outbreak of evil, called in the text an apostasy, a falling away, in the midst of which a certain terrible man of sin and child of perdition, the special and singular enemy of Christ, or Antichrist, will appear; that this will be when revolutions prevail, and the present framework of Society breaks to pieces; that at present the Spirit which he will embody and represent, is kept under by "the powers that be," but that on their dissolution, he will rise out of the bosom of them, and knit them together again in his own evil way, under his own rule, to the exclusion of the Church.”
“In truth, every event in this world is a type of those that follow, history proceeding forward as a circle ever enlarging.”
“… I do not grant that the Roman empire is gone. Far from it: the Roman empire remains even to this day. These ten horns, an Angel informed him, "are ten kings that shall arise out of this kingdom" of Rome. As, then, the ten horns belonged to the beast, and were not separate from it, so are the kingdoms into which the Roman empire has been divided … And as the horns, or kingdoms, still exist, as a matter of fact, consequently we have not yet seen the end of the Roman empire.”
“… at this very time there is a fierce struggle, the spirit of Antichrist attempting to rise, and the political power in those countries [European monarchies] which are prophetically Roman, firm and vigorous in repressing it.”
Sermon 2
"I am come in MY FATHER'S Name, and ye receive Me not; if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive." This they [Church fathers] consider to be a prophetic allusion to Antichrist, whom the Jews were to mistake for the Christ. He is to come "in his own name."”
“Hence, considering that Antichrist would pretend to be the Messiah, it was of old the received notion that he was to be of Jewish race and to observe the Jewish rites.”
“…. Of course I must be understood to mean ... that this belief of the Church that Antichrist should be connected with the Jews, was expressed long before [the apostate] Julian's time, and that we still possess the works in which it is contained. We have the writings of two Fathers, both Bishops and martyrs of the Church, who lived at least one hundred and fifty years before Julian, and less than one hundred years after St. John. They both distinctly declare Antichrist's connection with the Jews. The one of them speaks as follows: "In the Temple which is at Jerusalem the adversary will sit, endeavouring to show himself to be the Christ." And the other says, "Antichrist will be he who shall resuscitate the kingdom of the Jews."”
“What makes this still more observable is that the recent Shadow of Antichrist [referring here to Napoleon Bonaparte, I presume], whom our fathers or we ourselves saw, by a sort of fatality (so to speak) took up the cause of the Jews and was almost hailed by them as their Messiah, and seemed to be drawn irresistibly towards and to hover about the Holy Land, which the early Church considered would be the scene of Antichrist's exploits.”
“… after having broken away from all restraint towards GOD and man, they [French revolutionaries] gave a name to the reprobate state itself into which they had thrown themselves, and exalted it, that very negation of religion, or rather that real and living blasphemy, into a kind of God. They called it LIBERTY, and they literally worshipped it as a divinity."
"And further, let it be remarked that there was a tendency in the infatuated people I have spoken of, to introduce the old Roman democratic worship, as if further to show us that Rome, the fourth monster of the prophet's vision, is not dead. They even went so far as to restore the worship of one of the Roman divinities (Ceres) by name, raised a statue to her, and appointed a festival in her honour.”
“Now it is very observable that one of the two early Fathers whom I have already cited , expressly says that the ten states (the "toes" of Dan. ii.) which will at length appear, shall be democracies.”
“Another expectation of the early Church was that the Roman monster, after remaining torpid for centuries, would wake up at the end of the world, and be restored in all its laws and forms … One of the Fathers … expressly deduces … that "the system of Augustus, who was founder of the Roman Empire, shall be adopted and established by him (Antichrist), in order to his own aggrandizement and glory. This is the fourth monster whose head was wounded and healed; in that the empire was destroyed and came to naught, and was divided into ten. But at this time Antichrist, as being a man of resources, will heal and restore it; so that it will be active and vigorous once more through the system which he establishes.”
“... as far as the testimony of the early Church goes, Antichrist will be an open blasphemer, opposing himself to every existing worship, true and false,-a persecutor, a patron of the Jews, and a restorer of their worship, and, further, the author of a novel kind of worship. Moreover, he will appear suddenly, at the very end of the Roman empire, which once was and now sleeps; that he will knit it into one, and engraft his Judaism and his new worship (a sort of Paganism, it may be) upon the old discipline of Caesar Augustus; that in consequence he will earn the title of the Latin or Roman King, as best expressive of his place and character; lastly, that he will pass away as suddenly as he came.”
Sermon III
“… the Apostle's description was as signally fulfilled afterwards as a prophecy, as it was accurate at the time as an historical notice.”
“… we are sent back by the prophetic description to the seventh chapter of Daniel, in which the four great empires of the world are shadowed out under the figure of four beasts, a lion, a bear, a leopard, and a nameless monster, "diverse" from the rest, "dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly;" "and it had ten horns." This surely is the very same beast which St. John saw: the ten horns mark it. Now this fourth beast in Daniel's vision is the Roman empire; therefore "the beast" on which the woman sat, is the Roman empire.”
“Now then, let us consider how far these prophecies have been fulfilled, and what seems to remain. In the first place, the Roman empire did break up, as foretold. It divided into a number of separate kingdoms, such as our own [British], France, and the like; yet it is difficult to number ten accurately and exactly.”
“… when the barbarians came down [to Rome], GOD had a people in that city. Babylon was a mere prison of the Church; Rome had received her [the church] as a guest ... Thus from the Goth, Hun, and Vandal, did the Christian Church shield the guilty city in which she dwelt.”
“… nor can reason be given why Rome has not fallen under the rule of GOD'S general dealings with His rebellious creatures, and suffered (according to the prophecy), the fulness of GOD'S wrath begun in her, except that a Christian Church is still in that city, sanctifying it, interceding for it, saving it. That part of the Christian Church, (alas!) has in process of time become infected with the sins of Rome itself, and learned to be ambitious and cruel after the fashion of those who possessed the place aforetimes. Yet if it were what some would make it, if it were as reprobate as heathen Rome itself, what stays the judgment long ago begun? … Why is not Rome as Sodom and Gomorrah, if there be no righteous men in it?
“The text speaks of the great persecution yet to come—and seems referred to by our LORD in His solemn prophecy before His passion, in which He comprises both series of events, both those which attended His first, and those which will attend at His second coming—both persecutions of His Church, the early and the late. He speaks as follows: "Then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be; and except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened."”
“Let us then apprehend and realize the idea, thus clearly brought before us, that, sheltered as the Church has been from persecution for 1500 years, yet a persecution awaits it, before the end, fierce and more perilous than any which occurred at its first rise. Further, this persecution is to be attended with the cessation of all religious worship "They shall take away the Daily Sacrifice,"—words which the early Fathers interpret to mean, that Antichrist will suppress for three years and a half all religious worship. St. Augustine questions whether baptism even will be administered to infants during that season.”
“We suppose indeed that it [Roman empire] will not die without some violence even yet, without convulsions. Antichrist is to head it; yet in another sense it dies to make way for Antichrist, and this latter form of death is surely hastening on, whether it comes a few years sooner or later. It may outlast our time, and the time of our children; for we are creatures of a day, and a generation is like the striking of a clock; but it tends to dissolution, and its hours are numbered … "
"Again, another anxious sign at the present time is what appears in the approaching destruction of the [Islamic] power. This too may outlive our day; still it tends visibly to annihilation, and as it crumbles, perchance the sands of the world’s life are running out.”