A Prophetical Timeline of the Latter Days
A Prophetical Timeline of the Latter Days
An essay drawing upon the Catholic prophetic tradition, from the Fathers of the Church through approved private revelations of the modern era
Introduction
The prophetic tradition of the Catholic Church spans nearly two millennia. It includes visions, locutions, apparitions, and inspired writings. From the Church Fathers commenting on the Apocalypse to the mystics of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a large body of testimony has accumulated on the destiny of the world and the Church in the last age.
This essay does not claim prophetic authority. Its purpose is synthetic: to gather the most significant threads of this tradition and trace a coherent sequence of events. Catholic prophets have described these events as belonging to the "latter days." That is: the period preceding, surrounding, and following the reign of Antichrist and the end of the present age. No private revelation, however well-attested, binds the faithful's assent. The Church obliges belief only in the deposit of faith. Yet private revelation, especially when it has received ecclesiastical approval or consistent endorsement from orthodox commentators, may legitimately guide expectation and encourage perseverance.
Several caveats deserve mention at the outset. First, the prophets examined here span fifteen centuries. They write from different cultural contexts and employ different symbolic vocabularies. They do not always agree with one another. Where contradictions arise, this essay will note them. Second, the precise interpretation of many prophecies is disputed even among sympathetic scholars. Alternative readings are often possible. Third, the question of when these events will occur is entirely outside the scope of this essay. Setting dates would be presumptuous and contrary to the unanimous teaching of the tradition itself.
With these cautions in place, the tradition speaks with a surprisingly coherent voice. There is broad agreement on the sequence: a great crisis within the Church, followed by a terrifying chastisement, followed by a miraculous restoration under a holy pope and a great Catholic monarch, followed by a golden age of peace, followed by apostasy and the rise of Antichrist, and finally the intervention of the Two Witnesses, the defeat of Antichrist, and the Last Judgment. That arc is what the following pages trace.
Phase One: The Growing Crisis in the Church and the World
The prophetic tradition is nearly unanimous that the period immediately preceding the great events of the latter days will be marked by a profound crisis of faith within the Church herself. This is not the external persecution of pagans or tyrants, though that too will come. It is something more intimate and more terrible: a collapse of faith, morals, and discipline from within.
The Fifth Age of the Church
The Venerable Bartholomew Holzhauser (d. 1658), whose commentary on the Apocalypse remains one of the most systematic treatments of the subject in the Catholic tradition, divided Church history into seven periods or "ages," corresponding to the seven churches of Asia addressed in the Book of Revelation. His description of the Fifth Age, which he believed to be in progress during his own lifetime, reads as a precise diagnosis of the present moment:
"The fifth period of the Church, which began circa 1520, will end with the arrival of the Holy Pope and of the powerful Monarch who is called 'Help from God' because he will restore everything. The fifth period is one of affliction, desolation, humiliation, and poverty for the Church. Jesus Christ will purify His people through cruel wars, famines, plagues, epidemics, and other horrible calamities. He will also afflict and weaken the Latin Church with many heresies. It is a period of defections, calamities and exterminations..."
Holzhauser's picture is bleak. The Church is reduced, her leaders persecuted, her teachings mocked. He explicitly states that "the best Catholics" will be "put to death" and that "during this unhappy period there will be laxity in divine and human precepts."
La Salette and the Loss of Faith
The apparition of Our Lady at La Salette in 1846 is one of the most theologically rich and disturbing of the modern Marian apparitions. The full text of the secret given to Mélanie Calvat describes a collapse that begins at the very top of the Church's hierarchy:
"Rome will lose the faith and become the seat of the Antichrist... The Church will be in eclipse, the world will be in dismay. But now Enoch and Elias will come, filled with the spirit of God... they will preach with the might of God, and men of good will believe in God, and many souls will be consoled."
This is one of the most contested passages in the entire prophetic corpus. "Rome will lose the faith" has been interpreted as referring to the city of Rome, to the Roman Rite, or to the Roman hierarchy. Some commentators argue it refers not to the lawful Pope but to an antipope or to the corrupt clergy surrounding him. The matter is not settled. What is clear is that La Salette envisions a profound crisis of faith reaching to the very heart of Catholic life.
Our Lady of Good Success
The apparitions to Venerable Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres in Quito, Ecuador, occurred in the early seventeenth century. Their formal prophetic content was revealed in 1634 and speaks with extraordinary specificity about the twentieth century. Our Lady of Good Success described what would befall the Church "in the latter half of the twentieth century":
"The sacrament of Matrimony, which symbolizes the union of Christ with His Church, will be attacked and profaned in the fullest sense of the word. Masonry, which will then be in power, will enact iniquitous laws with the aim of doing away with this sacrament, making it easy for everyone to live in sin and encouraging procreation of illegitimate children born without the blessing of the Church... In this supreme moment of need for the Church, the one who should speak will fall silent."
"The one who should speak will fall silent" has haunted Catholic commentators for generations. It points to a failure of nerve, or perhaps something worse, at the highest levels of ecclesiastical leadership. The theme recurs with striking consistency across the prophetic tradition.
Anne Catherine Emmerich
The visions of Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich (d. 1824) are among the most detailed in the entire corpus. Her description of the Church in the last days includes a haunting image of two popes simultaneously: one the lawful shepherd, one a false or compromised figure. She also describes a "strange Church" being built by human hands while the true Church was being attacked:
"I had another vision of the great tribulation. It seems to me that a conciliatory spirit and lack of conscientious strictness threaten to sink all in one common level, and cause the ruin of everything. I see no longer any powerful opposition to this... I see the Holy Father in great anguish. He lives in a palace other than before and he admits only a limited number of friends near him. I fear that the Holy Father will suffer still more. I see that false prophets and bad priests are its promoters."
Fatima: The Final Warning
The apparitions at Fatima in 1917 are perhaps the most widely known and ecclesiastically endorsed prophetic events of the modern era. Our Lady's warnings speak not merely of individual conversion but of a global crisis driven by the spread of Russia's errors. Commentators have generally understood this to mean atheistic materialism and the revolutionary programs that flow from it:
"If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated."
Sister Agnes of Akita (1973), whose apparitions have received full episcopal approval, extends the Fatima theme with even greater urgency:
"As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one will never have seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful."
The Convergence of Signs
These prophecies come from different origins and different centuries. Yet they describe the same fundamental disease: a loss of faith cascading from the hierarchy downward, the infiltration of the Church by her enemies, the silence of those who should speak, and the suffering of the faithful remnant. Sister Jeanne Royer (d. 1798), whose visions were known to several saints of her era, described the state of affairs in the period before the chastisement:
"I see in God that the faith will be so terribly obscured in those days that priests will doubt many articles of the Catholic faith, and even the sacred character of their priesthood... The Church will be utterly desolated."
This is not the ordinary spiritual aridity familiar to any age. The prophets describe something qualitative: a collapse of the very structures by which faith is transmitted and preserved.
Phase Two: The Minor Chastisement
If Phase One is characterized by gradual decay, Phase Two is marked by sudden catastrophe. Before the great restoration, the prophets agree, there must be a purification. Several prophets speak of a "minor chastisement" distinct from the ultimate tribulation of Antichrist. This chastisement will involve wars of extraordinary ferocity, societal revolution, and a supernatural intervention: the event known as the Three Days of Darkness.
Wars and Revolutions
Abbe Souffrant (d. 1828) paints a vivid picture of the convulsions that precede the Great Monarch's arrival:
"Before the Grand Monarch, terrible misfortunes are to arrive. The blood will flow in torrents, in the north and the south... I see the horses in blood up to their bridles. Paris will be destroyed, so much destroyed that the plow will pass it by..."
Father Nectou, S.J. (d. 1772), describes the period of crisis in dramatic terms:
"When the time of the trial will have come, a general confusion which will spread everywhere and over all things will have come to a climax... The confusion will be so general that men will not be able to do anything. They will not know where to turn for advice or help... As when a fire burns in a forest, the animals flee: so also a great number of souls will leave the Church."
The Three Days of Darkness
The most dramatic element of the minor chastisement is the supernatural event known as the Three Days of Darkness: a period of profound supernatural darkness during which a cleansing purification will pass over the earth. The most detailed description comes from Blessed Anna Maria Taigi (d. 1837), one of the most authoritatively attested visionaries of the nineteenth century:
"There shall come over the whole earth an intense darkness lasting three days and three nights. Nothing can be seen, and the air will be laden with pestilence which will claim mainly, but not only, the enemies of religion. During this darkness, artificial light will be impossible. Only blessed candles can be lighted and will afford illumination. He who out of curiosity opens his window to look out, or leaves his home, will fall dead on the spot."
Marie Julie Jahenny (d. 1941), the stigmatist of La Faudais whose visions were documented extensively by local ecclesiastics, provides a closely parallel account:
"The three days of darkness will be on a Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Days of the Most Holy Sacrament of the Cross and Our Lady... three days less one night. The candles of blessed wax alone will give light during this horrible darkness. One candle alone will be enough for the duration of this night of hell. In the homes of the wicked and blasphemers these candles will give no light."
Blessed Casper del Bufalo (d. 1837) describes the event in similarly stark terms:
"The death of the impenitent persecutors of the Church will take place during the Three Days of Darkness. He who outlives the darkness and fear of the Three Days — it will seem to him as if he were alone on earth because of the fact that the world will be covered with carcasses."
The Scope of the Purification
The prophets who describe this event are largely consistent on its scope and spiritual purpose. Abbess Maria Steiner (d. 1862) emphasizes both the severity of the chastisement and the beauty that follows it:
"I see the Lord as He will be scourging the world, and chastising it in a fearful manner so that few men and women will remain... The Lord showed me how beautiful the world will be after the awful chastisement. The people will be like the Christians of the primitive Church."
Johannes Friede (d. 1257), a thirteenth-century mystic whose prophecies were preserved in Austrian Dominican tradition, adds a striking detail about the role of St. Michael:
"When the great time will come, in which mankind will face its last, hard trial, it will be foreshadowed by striking changes in nature. The alteration between cold and heat will become more intensive, storms will have more catastrophic effects, earthquakes will destroy greater regions and the seas will overflow many lowlands."
There is some tension between prophecies that describe a total supernatural darkness and those that describe the purification primarily in terms of natural catastrophe: wars, plagues, and geophysical events. These need not be mutually exclusive. Many seers describe both dimensions. But the weight of the tradition favors understanding the Three Days as a supernatural event distinct from the natural disasters that precede it.
Phase Three: The Great Monarch and the Holy Pope
From the ashes of the chastisement emerges the most consistently recurring figure in the prophetic tradition: the Grand Monarque, or Great Monarch. He is a figure of extraordinary holiness, military prowess, and providential mission. He will restore the Church and Christendom together with a holy pope. This pair appears so frequently across so many centuries that it constitutes one of the most robustly attested elements of the entire tradition.
The Great Monarch
The description of the Great Monarch is remarkably consistent across very different sources. He will be of royal blood. Most prophecies identify him as a descendant of the Frankish royal line, connected to France or the Holy Roman Empire. He will rise to power after a period of extraordinary chaos. He will be a man of deep personal holiness, despite his warrior role.
Holzhauser describes his appearance in explicitly providential terms:
"God will raise a valiant monarch. He will be a great man who will restore the throne of David... He will be called the 'Great Monarch' and he will restore everything... He will root out the false prophets and heretics. He will extend the Church all over the world."
The Monk Hilarion (d. 1476) is specific about the lineage:
"Before the Christian world is reformed, God will send great calamities upon it. The good will suffer greatly. Then shall a powerful monarch arise... He will conquer the whole world."
St. Francis de Paul (d. 1507), the founder of the Minims whose letters were treasured by the French royal family for generations, wrote to a Calabrian nobleman with an extraordinary description of this king:
"By his means the nation's religions and laws will be changed. The new leader will be a man of remarkable holiness. God and men shall hold him in veneration. He shall purge the Church of evil priests, and restore the discipline of former times. His own holiness shall make him most acceptable to God and men, and he shall be reverenced by all... This is the one who by his justice shall be called: Son of God, Son of Justice, Prince of Peace."
Bernhardt Rembordt (d. 1783) adds that the great ruler's achievements will be unmistakably supernatural in character:
"God will choose a Prince from a noble house in Germany who will reform the Church. He will restore all old laws, he will ban from the earth all heresy and unbelief. His name will begin with the letter O... He who reads this prophecy should never doubt it. It will certainly come true in due time."
Brother Louis Rocco (d. 1840) provides a rich description of the monarch's military campaign:
"Terrible wars will rage all over Europe. God has long been patient with the corruption of morals; half of mankind He will destroy... The other half will be converted... A great and powerful monarch will arise. He will drive the Turks out of Europe. He will restore order everywhere."
The Holy Pope
The descriptions of the "Angelic Pastor" or Holy Pope are equally consistent. Unlike many prophecies about the chastisement, which admit of some variation, the descriptions of the Angelic Pope converge sharply. He is a man of extraordinary holiness, gentle in manner, profound in theology. He will reunite East and West, reform the Church's discipline, and govern during a brief but glorious golden age.
Abbot Joaquim Merlin (d. 1202) provides one of the fullest portraits:
"After many prolonged sufferings endured by Christians, and after a too great effusion of innocent blood, the Lord shall give peace and happiness to the desolated nations. A remarkable Pope will be seated on the pontifical throne, under the special protection of the angels. Holy and full of gentleness, he shall undo all wrong, he shall recover the states of the Church, and reunite the exiled temporal powers. He shall be revered by all people, and shall recover the kingdom of Jerusalem. As the only Pastor he shall reunite the Eastern to the Western Church, and thus one only faith will be in vigor."
St. Caesarius of Arles (469–543), writing more than fourteen centuries ago, described the same figure:
"A Great Monarch will arise after a period of great wars and troubles, and he will set right many abuses. He will be attended by an Angelic Pope, and together they will rule the world in peace."
Cardinal La Roque adds a detail about the new pope's origins in obscurity:
"A Pope who will be unknown to most people will arise from an obscure station... He will be holy, courageous, and simple. He will take the name of the Apostle Peter, and under his reign many conversions will take place."
Abbot Werdin D'Orante, writing in the twelfth century, explicitly links the two figures and connects their mission to the ultimate destiny of Antichrist:
"The great monarch and the great Pope will precede Antichrist. The nations will be at war for four years and a great part of the world will be destroyed. The Pope will go over the sea carrying the sign of Redemption on his forehead. The great Monarch will come to restore peace and the Pope will share in the victory."
The Restoration of Christendom
What the Great Monarch and Holy Pope accomplish together is the restoration of a genuinely Christian civilization. The prophecies consistently speak of the conversion of Islam and of schismatic Christian bodies. They speak of the reform of clerical morals and a general renewal of piety. On the return of Jews to the faith, many prophecies make an important qualification: the "mass conversion" of the Jews is placed after the death of Antichrist, not before.
Abbe Souffrand (d. 1828) captures the almost abrupt quality of this reversal:
"Between the cries 'Everything is lost' and 'Everything is saved,' there will be scarcely any interval."
The Capuchin Friar of 1776 describes a universal evangelization:
"After the great comet, the great monarch will establish his empire... He will send missionaries everywhere, even to the most remote corners of the earth... There will be but one flock under one shepherd."
St. Cataldus of Tarentino (circa 500 A.D.) foresaw that this monarch would come "from the West" and would accomplish a recovery of the Holy Land:
"The Great Monarch... will come from the West, and will be possessed of a lofty spirit and will be lord over the whole world... he will recover the Holy Land."
One honest tension in the tradition deserves notice here. Some prophecies — Monk Adso among others — speak of the Great Monarch eventually making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and there laying down his crown, "returning the kingdom to God" before Antichrist's arrival. Others envision a more prolonged dynasty. This divergence is not resolved by any synthesis the present author can offer. It may reflect different prophets describing different moments in the same sequence, or it may reflect genuine uncertainty about the details.
Phase Four: The Era of Peace
Following the restoration effected by the Great Monarch and the Holy Pope, the prophetic tradition describes a period of genuine peace and prosperity. Holzhauser calls this the "Sixth Age" of the Church, analogous to the Sabbath rest that follows six days of labor.
The Sixth Age of Holzhauser
Holzhauser's commentary on the Sixth Age is one of the most detailed accounts of this period in the tradition:
"The Sixth period of the Church will begin with the powerful Monarch and the Holy Pontiff... During this period many conversions will take place. Peace will reign over the whole earth. Men will love God and their fellow men... The Church will extend to the ends of the earth."
He explicitly identifies this with a binding of Satan: "Divine Power will bind Satan for many years until the coming of the Son of Perdition." This language deliberately echoes Revelation 20. Holzhauser is careful to distinguish this era from the millennium described there. He does not endorse a literal thousand-year physical reign of Christ on earth, which Catholic orthodoxy rejects.
Duration of the Peace
The duration of this era of peace is honestly contested in the tradition. Sister Jeanne Royer's visions gave her the impression that it would be relatively brief: "This epoch of peace will last twenty to twenty-five years." St. Caesarius of Arles, by contrast, seems to envision a considerably longer period. The Old French prophecy speaks of peace continuing until a gradual erosion of faith:
"After the great triumph of the Church over the world, there will arise a period of peace... But men will grow proud in their prosperity and forget God. Little by little the old sins will return."
Merlin (attributed, 7th century) echoes the theme of gradual decline after triumph:
"After the great Ruler, peace will endure for many years... but toward the end men will forget God."
The Jerusalem Journey and the End of the Empire
Monk Adso of Montier-en-Der (d. 992), whose treatise De ortu et tempore Antichristi remains the most systematic medieval treatment of the tradition, contributes the striking image of the Great Monarch ending his reign in a final act of symbolic surrender:
"Some of our teachers say that a King of the Franks will possess the entire Roman Empire. He will be the greatest and last of all monarchs. After he has successfully governed his kingdom, he will come at last to Jerusalem and will lay down his scepter and crown upon the Mount of Olives. This will be the end and consummation of the Roman and Christian Empire."
This image is one of the most haunting in the tradition. The last great Catholic king makes a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and surrenders his crown to God. Its significance is not primarily political but theological. It represents the Christian empire's acknowledgment that all earthly authority is derivative of, and must ultimately be returned to, divine sovereignty.
Blessed Rabanus Maurus (d. 856) confirms the general pattern: after the era of peace, the path opens for the entry of the last enemy.
Phase Five: The Great Apostasy
The peace does not last. Every prophet who describes the era of peace also describes its end. The faith painstakingly restored by the Great Monarch and the Holy Pope gradually or suddenly collapses. Scripture and Tradition call this the Great Apostasy: the falling away that must precede the revelation of the Man of Sin.
The Erosion of Faith After Prosperity
The pattern described by the Old French prophecy is confirmed by St. Hildegard of Bingen (d. 1179), one of the most intellectually formidable prophets of the medieval tradition. Prosperity leads to pride. Pride leads to forgetfulness of God:
"Before the coming of the Antichrist, many wars and upheavals will take place. The people will be unmindful of God... Before the beast is revealed, the signs foretold in the heavens and on earth will be seen."
Sister Jeanne Royer captures the specific spiritual mechanism of this decline:
"The closer we get to the end of time, the more the triumph of the devil will make itself felt... In the last times, God will allow the strength of the devil to greatly increase."
The False Peace Before Antichrist
La Salette describes in stark terms the deceptive quality of the final pseudo-peace that will precede Antichrist's appearance:
"There will be a kind of false peace in the world; people will think of nothing but amusement. The wicked will give themselves up to all kinds of sin. But the children of Holy Church, the children of the faith, my true followers, they will grow in the love of God and in all the virtues most precious to me. Blessed are all innocent souls... Then Jesus Christ, by an act of His justice and His great mercy toward the good, will command His angels to have all His enemies put to death. At one blow the persecutors of the Church of Jesus Christ and all those given over to sin will perish, and the earth will become desert-like."
This passage from La Salette describes what appears to be yet another chastisement, distinct from the "minor chastisement" of Phase Two, occurring within the context of Antichrist's approach. This may explain why some students of prophecy speak of two great chastisements rather than one.
Signs of Antichrist's Approach
St. Bridget of Sweden (d. 1373) provides a memorable list of the signs that will appear as Antichrist's arrival approaches:
"When the feast of Christ is no longer observed in cities, when bishops tolerate what cannot be tolerated, when the churches are places of amusement, when the most serious things are treated as jokes: then know that the coming of Antichrist is very near."
Monk Adso, drawing on the patristic tradition he synthesizes, describes the specifically political mechanism by which the way is prepared for Antichrist. In his theology, as long as the Roman Empire endures in any form, Antichrist cannot come. It is the restraining force mentioned by St. Paul in 2 Thessalonians. Only when the last emperor "returns" his dominion to God does this constraint dissolve:
"When the Roman Empire shall have ceased, then the Antichrist will be openly revealed and will sit in the house of the Lord in Jerusalem."
This is the deeper theological meaning of the Great Monarch's Jerusalem gesture described in Phase Four. It is not merely the end of a dynasty but the removal of the last eschatological barrier.
Phase Six: The Rise and Reign of Antichrist
Of all the phases described in this essay, the rise and reign of Antichrist has generated the largest body of prophetic comment. From Lactantius in the early fourth century to Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich in the nineteenth, the figure of Antichrist has been described, analyzed, and warned against with remarkable consistency.
His Origins and Birth
Monk Adso's treatise remains the locus classicus for Catholic teaching on Antichrist's origins. Drawing on the Fathers, he writes:
"We must now say something about Antichrist... He will be born of the Jewish race, of the tribe of Dan... He will be educated in Capernaum or in Babylon, or in Bethsaida, a city of Galilee as some say... He will be born in sin, conceived in sin. At the very moment of his conception the devil will enter his mother's womb."
La Salette specifies the geography of his nativity:
"Antichrist will be born of a Hebrew nun, a false virgin who will communicate with the old serpent, the master of impurity; his father will be a Bishop. Antichrist will be born in a town in the Judean desert. He will perform miracles and these miracles will be fake."
St. Hildegard of Bingen adds remarkable detail about his physical characteristics and early career:
"He will be born near the sea... He will grow up unknown until the time of his manifestation... He will be versed in every science and art. He will know all languages... He will be of extraordinary beauty."
His Rise to Power
Antichrist's rise follows a consistent pattern across the tradition. He will begin with false humility, perform astonishing signs and wonders, present himself as a benefactor of humanity, and only gradually reveal his true nature. St. Cyril of Jerusalem (d. 386), writing in the fourth century, provides one of the earliest accounts:
"He will seize the Roman power; some of the Emperors before him persecuted the Church out of ignorance, this man after knowing and understanding the meaning of the faith will fight against it more violently. This persecution will be the worst."
Dionysius of Luxembourg (d. 1682) describes the specific phases of Antichrist's political rise:
"Antichrist will, at first, pretend to be humble and holy. He will perform apparent miracles and obtain the position of the supreme ruler... He will pretend to be a great reformer, will create a new church, and will introduce all sorts of innovations... For three and a half years he will reign over the Church and over the world."
The False Miracles
One of the most emphatic points in the entire prophetic tradition regarding Antichrist is the character of his "miracles." They are not genuine acts of divine power but demonic counterfeits. Yet they will be so convincing that, as Scripture warns, they would deceive the very elect if that were possible.
St. Ephrem the Syrian (d. 373), whose homily on Antichrist is one of the most extended patristic treatments, emphasizes this with great urgency:
"Antichrist will use every kind of wickedness to deceive those who are doomed to destruction. He will send devils to all parts of the world to proclaim that a great king has arisen who is above all gods. He will raise the dead as if he were giving them life... but it will be a deception. They will not truly be raised, only given the appearance of life."
Francisco Suarez (d. 1617), the great Jesuit theologian, systematizes the tradition regarding Antichrist's miracles. He distinguishes between what might be genuinely preternatural, wrought by demonic power with divine permission, and what will be pure illusion. His conclusion: while Antichrist may perform certain genuinely preternatural acts through diabolical power, the core of his wonder-working will rest on deception.
The Great Persecution
Antichrist's reign will be above all a time of persecution for the faithful remnant. Richard Rolle of Hampole (d. 1349) describes the testing of the elect:
"In the days of Antichrist the Church will endure a terrible persecution. The Antichrist will seek to abolish Christian worship everywhere. Those who believe in Christ will be forced to choose between apostasy and death. Some will apostatize, many will suffer martyrdom."
Jane le Royer (d. 1798, also called Sister Mary of the Nativity) gives a vivid account of the terror of this period:
"I saw Antichrist, that man of sin... He was a young man, beautiful in appearance, all radiant and brilliant, but inwardly he was like a dark pit. He had a thousand ways of causing harm and he used them all. He persecuted the Church terribly."
Cornelius a Lapide (d. 1637), the eminent Jesuit exegete, comments on the Pauline description of the Man of Sin with characteristic precision. Antichrist will claim to be God. He will establish a counter-liturgy, abolish every true religion, and demand universal worship of himself.
Duration of His Reign
The duration of Antichrist's reign is one of the few points on which the tradition is nearly unanimous: three and a half years, the "time, times, and half a time" of Daniel, the forty-two months of the Apocalypse. Lactantius (circa 310 A.D.), one of the earliest systematic expositors of the tradition, confirms this:
"All these things shall be done in three years and six months during which time tyrants will devastate the earth."
The Sibylla Tiburtina, one of the oldest Sibylline texts adapted for Christian use, speaks of this same period and the events that will bring it to an end.
Rev. Frederick William Faber (d. 1863), the great Oratorian preacher, wrote movingly about the spiritual desolation of this period. He described the apparent triumph of evil, the near-extinction of genuine faith, and the abandonment of the faithful few. He emphasized that this period will be, precisely in its apparent hopelessness, the supreme test of faith.
Phase Seven: The Two Witnesses and the Final Conflict
The darkest hour of Antichrist's reign is broken by the appearance of two extraordinary figures: the Two Witnesses of the Apocalypse. The consistent tradition identifies them as Enoch and Elias — the two men of the Old Testament who were taken up to heaven without dying. These witnesses will preach against Antichrist, suffer martyrdom, and then rise again. Their resurrection will provide the final evidence of the truth of the Christian faith.
Enoch and Elias
The Acts of Pilate, an early apocryphal text preserved in the Catholic tradition (though not canonical), contains one of the earliest explicit identifications of the Two Witnesses with Enoch and Elias:
"I am Enoch, who pleased God and was translated hither by Him... For we are not yet dead but have been preserved until the end of the world... We shall not taste death until we have appeared before Jesus Christ, our Lord, as witnesses."
St. Ephrem the Syrian confirms and expands this tradition:
"Hear then about Elijah the Tishbite and Enoch the Ethiopian. These two will be sent by God before the great and glorious day of the coming of the Lord. They will declare the coming of the Antichrist... They will proclaim to the whole world: 'Do not believe in him, do not submit to his tyranny.'"
Monk Adso provides a detailed account of their ministry:
"Because of their preaching, many people will be converted... Antichrist will be unable to overcome these two prophets by argument, so he will seize them and put them to death. For three and a half days their bodies will lie in the street, and the enemies of God will rejoice. But then they will rise again and ascend to heaven."
Their Preaching and Martyrdom
Richard Rolle of Hampole describes the power and character of their preaching:
"Enoch and Elias shall preach against Antichrist and shall declare him to be a deceiver and not God. Many shall believe them and shall be saved. For this Antichrist shall slay them and then three days and a half their bodies shall lie unburied."
The Revelation of John, which many of the prophecies here explicitly reference, speaks of their lying in the street of the great city "spiritually called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified." That city is Jerusalem. The witness of their death, followed by their resurrection before the eyes of their enemies, constitutes the final evangelizing act of history before the Last Judgment.
The Defeat of Antichrist
Antichrist's death will not come through military power. It will come through a direct act of divine intervention, specifically the appearance of the Archangel Michael. The tradition is notably specific on this point.
Monk Adso, drawing on 2 Thessalonians 2:8, writes:
"When this Antichrist shall have subdued the whole world, after three years and a half St. Michael the Archangel will kill him on the Mount of Olives, in his tent, between the sea and the mountain."
Jane le Royer confirms the role of St. Michael:
"I saw in my heart St. Michael descending and casting Antichrist into the abyss... When the time of God's wrath is accomplished, the demon will be imprisoned again."
Dionysius of Luxembourg specifies that the defeat will occur publicly and will be unmistakable:
"Antichrist will come to his end on the Mount of Olives... He will be struck down by the breath of the Lord. All who follow him will perish."
After Antichrist: The Last Days
The tradition is notably sparse on the events between Antichrist's defeat and the Last Judgment. There will be a brief period for survivors to repent and receive the faith. Sister Bertina Bouquillion (d. 1850) speaks of a brief respite after Antichrist's fall during which the Church will know a final peace before the End.
La Salette describes the sequence that follows Antichrist's defeat in terms that gesture toward the Last Day:
"After the defeat of Antichrist... the sun will grow dark, the moon will give no light, the stars will fall from the sky... and then the Sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky."
The Prophesy of Orval, attributed to the abbey of Orval in Belgium and widely circulated in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, ends with a vision of the world utterly transformed, the Church triumphant, and the glory of God manifest to all:
"After this time, the Lord will allow his people to enjoy a great peace... And after this peace, the end of the world shall come."
Conclusion: The Hope Implicit in the Tradition
It would be easy to read through a catalogue of chastisements, apostasies, and antichrists and conclude that the prophetic tradition is a literature of despair. That would be precisely the wrong conclusion.
The tradition is a literature of hope. Not hope founded on human optimism, but hope founded on the certainty of divine providence. Every prophet who describes the worst also describes the triumph that follows it. Every saint who foresaw the corruption of the Church also foresaw her renewal. The logic of the tradition is not cyclical, as in pagan fate, but dramatic, as in the Passion and Resurrection: the darkest hour is the one immediately before the dawn.
Holzhauser, whose cool systematic intelligence gives his prophecies particular weight, describes the Sixth Age in terms that almost defy the imagination of those living through the crisis of the Fifth:
"The Sixth Age of the Church will be a period of peace and prosperity... Men will live in the fullness of grace, and the Church will overflow with holy people. The earth will overflow with the blessing of God."
Even within the terrible tribulation of Antichrist's reign, the Witnesses preach and souls are saved. Even at the moment when the whole world seems given over to the Enemy, the final trump of St. Michael sounds. The tradition leaves no room for the conclusion that evil triumphs. In every voice and from every century, it insists that God's plan is not defeated but fulfilled — fulfilled precisely through and beyond the catastrophe.
The proper response to this tradition is not fear, nor morbid fascination, but what it has always been: repentance, prayer, and confidence in God. As Our Lady of Fatima said, summarizing the entire prophetic tradition in a single sentence:
"In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph."
That triumph is not in spite of the suffering described in these pages but through it, as the Resurrection is not in spite of the Cross but through it. In the words of Abbe Souffrant, one of the most economical of all the prophets:
"Between the cries 'Everything is lost' and 'Everything is saved,' there will be scarcely any interval."
Sources Referenced
Every prophecy cited in this essay, listed in order of appearance, with links to the full text in the Prophetical Encyclopedia:
- Venerable Bartholomew Holzhauser (d. 1658)
- La Salette Prophecy (1846)
- Our Lady of Good Success
- Anna Catherine Emmerich (d. 1824)
- Sister Jeanne Royer (18th century)
- Apparition of Our Lady at Fatima (1917)
- Sr. Agnes of Akita (20th century — The Third Message)
- Abbe Souffrant
- Abbe Souffrand (d. 1828)
- Father Nectou, S.J. (d. 1772)
- Blessed Anna Maria Taigi (d. 1837)
- Marie Julie Jahenny of La Faudais (1891)
- Bl. Casper del Bufalo (d. 1837)
- Abbess Maria Steiner (d. 1862)
- Johannes Friede
- A Return to Holzhauser's Prophecies
- Monk Hilarion (d. 1476)
- St. Francis de Paul (d. 1507)
- Bernhardt Rembordt (d. 1783)
- Bro. Louis Rocco (d. 1840)
- Abbot Joaquim Merlin (d. 1202)
- Abbot Joaquim Merlin
- St. Caesarius of Arles (469–543)
- Cardinal La Roque
- Abbot Werdin D'Orante (12th century)
- Capuchin Friar (1776)
- St. Cataldus of Tarentino (circa 500)
- Monk Adso (d. 992)
- Blessed Rabanus Maurus (d. 856)
- Old French
- Merlin (7th century)
- St. Hildegard (12th century)
- St. Bridget of Sweden (d. 1373)
- Adso the Monk (d. 992)
- Dionysius of Luxembourg (d. 1682)
- St. Cyril of Jerusalem (d. 386)
- St. Ephrem
- Richard Rolle of Hampole (d. 1349)
- Jane le Royer (d. 1798, Sister Mary of the Nativity)
- Lactantius (cir. 310)
- St. Hildegard (born 1098 A.D.)
- Sibylla Tiburtina
- Acts of Pilate
- Monk Adso (10th century)
- Sister Bertina Bouquillion (d. 1850)
- Prophesy of Orval
Source
Prophetical Encyclopedia editorial synthesis