The Last Days and the Fall of the Antichrist - Saint Hildegard Von Bingen

St. Hildegard Von Bingen (1098 - 1179) - Scivias, Vision XI:

VISION XI: The Last Days and the Fall of the Antichrist

Then I looked to the North, and behold! five beasts stood there. One was like a dog, fiery but not burning; another was like a yellow lion; another was like a pale horse; another like a black pig; and the last like a gray wolf. And they were facing the West. And in the West, before those beasts, a hill with five peaks appeared; and from the mouth of each beast one rope stretched to one of the peaks of the hill. All the ropes were black except the one that came from the mouth of the wolf, which was partly black and partly white. And lo, in the East I saw again that youth whom I had first seen on the corner of the wall of the building where the shining and stone parts came together, clad in a purple tunic. I now saw him on the same corner, but now I could see him from the waist down. And from the waist down to the place that denotes the male he glowed like the dawn, and there a harp was lying with its strings across his body; and from there to the width of two fingers above his heel he was in shadow, but from there down to the bottom of the feet he was whiter than milk. And I saw again the figure of a woman whom I had previously seen in front of the altar that stands before the eyes of God; she stood in the same place, but now I saw her from the waist down. And from her waist to the place that denotes the female, she had various scaly blemishes; and in that latter place was a black and monstrous head. It had fiery eyes, and ears like an ass', and nostrils and mouth like a lion's; it opened wide its jowls and terribly clashed its horrible iron-colored teeth. And from this head down to her knees, the figure was white and red, as if bruised by many beatings; and from her knees to her tendons where they joined her heels, which appeared white, she was covered with blood. And behold! That monstrous head moved from its place with such a great shock that the figure of the woman was shaken through all her limbs. And a great mass of excrement adhered to the head; and it raised itself up upon a mountain and tried to ascend the height of Heaven. And behold, there came suddenly a thunderbolt, which struck that head with such great force that it fell from the mountain and yielded up its spirit in death. And a reeking cloud enveloped the whole mountain, which wrapped the head in such filth that the people who stood by were thrown into the greatest terror. And that cloud remained around the mountain for a while longer. The people who stood there, perceiving this, were shaken with great fear, and said to one another: "Alas, alas! What is this? What do you think this was? Alas, wretches that we are! Who will help us, and who will deliver us? For we know not how we were deceived. O Almighty God, have mercy on us! Let us return, let us return; let us hasten to the covenant of Christ's Gaspel; for ah, ah, ah! we have been bitterly deceived!" And lo, the feet of the figure of the woman glowed white, shining with a splendor greater than the sun's. And I heard the voice from Heaven saying to me:

1. The Five Ferocious Epochs of Temporal Rule
All things that are on earth hasten to their end, and the world droops toward its end, oppressed by the weakening of its forces and its many tribulations and calamities. But the Bride of My Son, very troubled for her children both by the forerunners of the son of perdition and by the destroyer himself, will never be crushed, no matter how much they attack her. But at the end of time she will rise up stronger than ever, and become more beautiful and more glorious; and so she will move sweetly and delightfully to the embraces of her Beloved. And this is mystically signified by the vision you are seeing. For you look to the North, and behold! five beasts stand there. These are the five ferocious epochs of temporal rule, brought about by the desires of the flesh from which the taint of sin is never absent, and they savagely rage against each other.

2. The Fiery Dog
One is like a dog, fiery but not burning; for that era will produce people with a biting temperament, who seem fiery in their own estimation, but do not burn with the justice of God.

3. The Yellow Lion
Another is like a yellow lion; for this era will endure martial people, who instigate many wars but do not think of the righteousness of God in them; for those kingdoms will begin to weaken and tire, as the yellow color shows.

4. The Pale Horse
Another is like a pale horse; for those times will produce people who drown themselves in sin, and in their licentious and swift-moving pleasures neglect all virtuous activities. And then these kingdoms will lose their ruddy strength and grow pale with the fear of ruin, and their hearts will be broken.

5. The Black Pig
And another is like a black pig; for this epoch will have leaders who blacken themselves with misery and wallow in the mud of impurity. They will infringe the divine law by fornication and other like evils, and will plot to diverge from the holiness of God's commands.

6. The Gray Wolf
And the last is like a gray wolf. For those times will have people who plunder each other, robbing the powerful and the fortunate; and in these conflicts they will show themselves to be neither black nor white, but gray in their cunning. And they will divide and conquer the rulers of those realms; and then the time will come when many will be ensnared, and the error of errors will rise from Hell to Heaven. And then the children of light will be pressed in the winepress of martyrdom; and they will not deny the Son of God, but reject the son of perdition who tries to do his will with the Devil's arts.
And these beasts are facing the West; for these fleeting times will vanish with the setting sun. For people rise and set like the sun, and some are born, and some die.

7. The Five Peaks and the Five Ropes
And in the West, before those beasts, a hill with five peaks appears; for in these peaks is symbolized the power of carnal desire. And from the mouth of each beast one rope stretches to one of the peaks of the hill; for each of those powers will extend throughout the period in question. All the ropes are black except the one that comes from the mouth of the wolf, which is partly black and partly white. For the length of the ropes indicates how far people are willing to go in their stubborn pleasures; but though the one that symbolizes greed is partly black and puts forth many evils, yet some will come from that direction who are white with justice. And these latter will hasten to resist the son of perdition by ardent wanders, as My servant Job indicates about the righteous doer of justice, when he says:

8. Words of Job
"The innocent shall be raised up against the hypocrite, and the just shall hold to his path; and to clean hands he shall add strength" [Job 17:8-9]. Which is to say:
One who is innocent of bloody deeds, murder and fornication and the like, will be aroused like a burning coal against one who deceives in his works. How? This latter speaks of honey but deals in poison, and calls a man friend but stifles him like an enemy; he speaks sweet words but has malice within him, and talks blandly to his friend and then slays him from ambush. But one who has a rod with which to drive away vile brutes from himself walks in the light of the shining sun on the righteous path of his heart; he is raised up in the sight of God as a bright spark and a clear light and a flaming torch. And so, bearing in himself the strongest and purest works, he puts them on like a strong breastplate and a sharp sword, and drives away vice and wins virtue.

9. The Church will shine in her justice until the time of Antichrist
And therefore, in the East you see again that youth whom you first saw on the corner of the wall of the building where the shining and stone parts come together, clad in a purple tunic, now standing on the same corner. For here is the Sunrise of Justice, the Son of Man, manifest to you to confirm the truth afresh through His mysteries and miracles; still presiding over the union of reflective knowledge and human deeds, having shed His blood by the will and goodness of the Father for the salvation of the world. So now you can see him from the waist down; for now you see Him in the strength of His members who are His elect, and He will flourish as Bridegroom of the Church, with many obscure signs and wonders, until their number is complete. And from the waist down to the place that denotes the male he glows like the dawn; for until the time of the son of perdition, who will pretend to be the man of strength, His faithful members will be perfected in fortitude and He will be splendid in the justice of His righteous worshippers. So, in the same place, a harp is lying with its strings across his body; which signifies the joyful songs of those who will suffer dire torments in the persecution that the son of iniquity will inflict upon the chosen, torturing their bodies so much that they are released from them and pass over into rest.

10. The Church's faith will be in doubt until the witness of Enoch and Elijah
And from there to the width of two fingers above his heel he is in shadow. For, from the time of the persecution the faithful will suffer from the son of the Devil until the testimony of the two witnesses, Enoch and Elijah, who spurned the earthly and worked toward heavenly desires, faith in the doctrines of the Church will be in doubt. People will say to each other with great sadness, "What is this they say about Jesus? Is it true or not?"

11. Before the end of the world the Devil will perish and the Truth be known
But from there down to the bottom of the feet he is whiter than milk. That is to say that, by the testimony of those same witnesses who await the eternal reward when the son of perdition is defeated, before the world ends the Son of Man will be brilliantly and beautifully seen in the Catholic faith. The truth will be plainly shown in Him, and the falsity of the son of iniquity rejected in every way, as My servant David testifies when he says:

12. Words of David
"The king shall rejoice in God; all they that swear by Him shall be praised; for the mouth of them that speak wicked things is stopped" [Psalm 62.:12.]. Which is to say: The profound knowledge of the beautiful human language that gives voice to the will and disposition of God is a great measure of human stature; and it makes music at the altar of God, for it knows Him. And when the hissing and gaping of the Devil, which taints human minds with shame, is forsaken in the time of desperation, the blessed will be praised in minds that sing, and they will make a flowing path of words to the pure fountain of the mighty Ruler.

13 When justice grows cold the Church will undergo suffering and persecution
And you see again the figure of a woman whom you previously saw in front of the altar that stands before the eyes of God, standing in the same place. For the Bride of the Son of God is shown to you again, to reveal the truth, always present to the pure prayers of the saints and, as was said before, offering them up devotedly to the eyes of Heaven. But now you see her from the waist down; for you see her in her full dignity as the Church, replete with the full number of her children, in the mysteries and wonders by which she has saved so many. And from her waist to the place that denotes the female, she has various scaly blemishes. This is to say that, though she is now flourishing worthily and laudably in her children, before the time in which the son of perdition will try to perfect the trick he played on the first woman, the Church will be harshly reproached for many vices, fornication and murder and rapine. How? Because those who should love her will violently persecute her.

14. Antichrist will horribly rend the faithful and cruelly tear humanity
And thus in the place where the female is recognized is a black and monstrous head. For the son of perdition will come raging with the arts he first used to seduce, in monstrous shamefulness and blackest wickedness. It has fiery eyes, and ears like an ass', and nostrils and mouth like a lion's; for he runs wild in acts of vile lust and shameful blasphemy, causing people to deny God and tainting their minds and tearing the Church with the greed of rapine. It opens wide its jowls and terribly clashes its horrible iron-colored teeth; for with his voracious and gaping jaws he evilly infuses those who consent to him with his strong vices and mordant madness.

15. The son of perdition, unable to be gentle, will try to persecute
And from this head down to her knees, the figure is white and red, as if bruised by many beatings; for the son of perdition will try to seduce people by evil deceptions, and at first speak to them flatteringly and gently, but then try cruelly to pervert and force them. And then the Church will know purity of faith in her children, but anguished and bloody terror and the tribulations of many sufferings for herself.

16. The Church near the end of the world will be bathed in righteous blood
And from her knees to her tendons where they join her heels, which appear white, she is covered with blood. For at the time near the end of the world when she must endure assault, until the coming of the two witnesses of Truth who will keep the Church together by their strength, she will suffer most terrible persecutions, and the blood of those who despise the Destroyer will be most cruelly shed. What does this mean? When the son of perdition is strengthened through deceit, and derives confidence from his perverse teachings, the Church, as she hastens on, will be bathed in the noblest blood; and then she will be fully constructed as the celestial dwelling. For you, O streets of Jerusalem, will then shine with the purest gold which is the blood of the saints; the Devil will be extinguished for persecuting the members of the Supernal King, and his great terror will be reduced to naught.

17. We are now in the seventh millennium
But, O ye people who desire to dwell in those streets, flee from the Devil and adore God, Who created you! For in six days God completed His works, and on the seventh day He rested. What does this mean? The six days are the six numbered epochs; and in the sixth epoch the latest miracles were brought forth in the world, as God finished His work on the sixth day. But now the world is in the seventh epoch, approaching the end of time, as on the seventh day. How? The prophets have completed their utterances, My Son has accomplished His will in the world, and the Gospel has been preached openly throughout all lands; and throughout the times of this full number and more years after it, despite the diversity of human customs, the world has remained as it was well-established by Me.

18. Why God now utters new mysteries by the mouth of an unlearned person
But now the Catholic faith wavers among the nations and the Gospel limps among the people; and the mighty books in which the excelling doctors had summed up knowledge with great care go unread from shameful apathy, and the food of life, which is the divine Scriptures, cools to tepidity. For this reason, I now speak through a person who is not eloquent in the Scriptures or taught by an earthly teacher; I Who Am speak through her of new secrets and mystical truths, heretofore hidden in books, like one who mixes clay and then shapes it to any form he wishes.

19. God's warning to the learned not to spurn these words but exalt them
O fruitful and rewarding teachers! Redeem your souls and loudly proclaim these words, and do not disbelieve them; for if you spurn them, you condemn not them but Me Who am Truth. For you should nurture My people under My law, and care for them until the time for their supervision is past, and all cares and labors cease. But from now on the predestined epoch is approaching, and you are hastening toward the time when the son of perdition will appear. Grow therefore in vigor and fortitude, My elect! Be on your guard, lest you fall into the snare of death; raise the victorious banner of these words, and rush upon the son of iniquity. For those who forerun and follow , the son of perdition whom you call Antichrist are in the way of error; but as for you, follow the footsteps of Him Who taught you the way of truth, when He appeared with humility and not with pride in the world in the body. Hear therefore and understand.

- St. Hildegard Von Bingen (1098 - 1179)