On the false wisdom concerning the single-personhood of the Antichrist. -Pichugin

ON THE NONSENSE OF THE UNREASONING BOOK-READERS WHO AWAIT, IN A SELF-PERSONIFIED INDIVIDUAL, THE ANTICHRIST, THE UNIVERSAL CONQUEROR, A LITERAL FORTY-TWO-MONTH REIGN, PRESENTING THE TRUE SIGN OF THE SECOND COMING OF GOD

On the false wisdom concerning the single-personhood of the Antichrist.

A certain Syzran literalist, driven to the point of madness by his zeal for the future coming of the last Antichrist in his own person, along with all its consequences—exclusively in the literal sense—has become carried away by the letter of the text. Possessed by a passion for short-sighted judgment, he proves himself to be a man who has nothing in common with the proper understanding of things relating to allegory and analogy. This Syzran book-reader is so short-sighted in his judgments that he cannot even distinguish history from prophecy, or reality from likeness.

I will not deny that the Antichrist may deceive the peoples of the earth apart from the flesh, but the flesh itself, taken alone, is just as ineffective as the spirit without it. Man consists not of flesh only, but of flesh and spirit; therefore, his very blessedness depends on the will of the spirit, and not on the slavish flesh. Everything that depends on the flesh is beastly and mortal.

In considering the existence of life, we can imagine only food and water, but such things are by nature common to all dumb animals as well. Yet here is the main point: man, endowed with the image and likeness of God and with reason, is the most noble creature among all created beings. To reduce his most noble intellect merely to material limits would be equivalent to saying that man has no future life beyond the present one. In the same way, it is impossible to offer Scripture to man only in its outward appearance—as if for the flesh alone—thereby depriving him of reason and faith. To act in such a manner would be more than impious. If it is truly impossible to insult man’s most noble spiritual feelings in this way, then is it permissible to secretly insult the hidden wisdom of the Divine Scripture (the Apostle, in reading 126), by stripping it of its concealed spiritual power, reducing it to the arena of the passions, and confining it to the externality of a simple narrative?

Yet in the position taken by the Syzran writer, everything can indeed be applied to the letter in a historical sense and made accessible to the understanding of even the most immature mind. But according to the words of the prophecy: “None of the wicked shall understand, but the wise shall understand” (Daniel 12:10).

The Scripture concerning the Antichrist possesses a rather complex idealism and varied modes of expression. All of its narratives range from direct concepts to allegory. But the Syzran scholastic has preferred the future to the past, and the allegorical meaning to plain history. The poor man has failed to realize that writings of this kind, in the sense in which he presents them, are narrated only in the past tense, not in the future. For example, there is a passage spoken through the prophet Isaiah: “The wolf shall graze with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion shall graze together” (Isaiah 11). Would the Syzran materialist accept these words in their literal sense as an actual future event—that a wolf will graze with a lamb, a tiger will lie down with goats, and a lion will peacefully graze with a young bull on the pasture? I suppose the answer would be negative: it cannot be that a wolf, by its very nature, would become a peaceful companion to the gentle lamb, nor a fierce tiger with a goat, nor a lion with a young calf of the horned species.

If it is impossible to accept such a figurative statement according to its outward action, then is it possible to accept the following statements as literal reality: the man Antichrist as “a beast rising out of the abyss”; a seven-headed serpent with ten horns and a tail that reaches to heaven; also a beast rising out of the sea with seven heads and ten horns; and finally a beast rising out of the earth with two horns like a lamb, speaking like a dragon? Four different kinds—all for one future man, the Antichrist?

I suppose it would be difficult for a materialist to fashion a man—the Antichrist—out of these chimerical apparitions into a single concrete, material being. If he assigns such statements to the category of active, literal operations, then by that very fact he will justly convict himself of departing from the true meaning of this Scripture, which truly lies in the allegorical, and not in the outwardly literal, sense.

I will also not deny that the Antichrist is a man, as an organic instrument of Satan. But in accordance with the holy Church Fathers, I will likewise affirm that in the adjectival sense the word “Antichrist” conceals an entire organization of people of an apostate nature. This follows from the words of the blessed Apostle John (Apostle, reading 71), who, while speaking of one, revealed many. Let the champion of the bare letter not be troubled that in some places I shall call the Antichrist by this spiritually understood name, for the simple reason that the flesh always wars against the spirit. This is because the Antichrist is not merely a simple sound of a word, nor an elusive spirit of mysticism, but a man — in the full sense of that word — who personifies a vile apostasy from the truth, as the embodiment of the shameless apostate Satan. For Satan cannot personally be present in the seduction of men from the path of truth; instead, he chooses a worthy vessel of destruction — a man — and through a man he deceives men.

Is it necessary to be surprised at the childish understanding of the Syzran antagonist, who took the commonly used scriptural expression “spiritual understanding” (that is, Scripture understood spiritually) and turned it into an abstract phantom of the Antichrist himself, saying: “Some kind of spiritual one”? Such crude naïveté can only amuse children, to whom various fables are sometimes told to frighten them. Our understanding is not about the bare pronunciation of the word “Antichrist,” but about the man-apostate concealed within that ominous utterance. I do not say that the Antichrist is an invisible spiritual being, but, in agreement with the true reason of the Divine Scripture, I hold that the Scripture which speaks of the coming of the Antichrist and his actions has as its main essence a profound spiritual understanding, and not a literal narrative. If one follows only the narrative, then nothing more will result than a historical meaning. But the Syzran book-reader must not forget that the Scripture speaking of the Antichrist narrates not past, but future events. And prophetic depictions of future things do not belong to the category of historical narrative, but undoubtedly fall into the category of mysterious contemplations. For future things are accepted by Scripture only in the sense of mystical vision.

I refuse to understand the meaning of the Syzran antagonist, who has taken the unforgivable audacity of confining the vast, grace-filled Scripture within a narrow Jewish frame. Whether out of love for the letter, or for some other considerations, he has taken away the great vital power — the reason — from Scripture and given it a wretched historical direction.

The unrestrained will of a fiery temperament is reflected in every feature of his brochure, as is his narrow understanding, characterized by superficial meaning and pretensions to nonsense. According to his view, very little understanding is needed to define the appearance of the enigmatic figure of the Antichrist: “There will be a man who is a sorcerer and he will be born from the tribe of Dan, from a Jewish maiden,” and that is enough! But how a Jew will become a Christian apostate in the office of the Antichrist — this is not in his character to explain. What this simple-minded Syzran sage has copied from the pages of a book onto his stapled notebooks is quite accessible for reasoning by children and wives who can at least read printed Slavonic letters. But according to his view, one does not need to be far-sighted, nor should one burden one’s mental faculties in considering apostate Antichrists. He calmly advises waiting for this “little Tito” according to the outlined program, in full parade uniform and with the mark of the number 666 in his hand. And since I have no desire to follow his example, he therefore makes the following claim against me.

Beginning of the Syzran polemical notebook.

“First,” begins the Syzran man, “Mr. Pichugin writes: ‘It is not timely to teach that we should expect the second coming of the Antichrist. But the Lord said to the Jewish preachers: I have come in the name of My Father, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, him you will receive.’ Here is the question: Whom did the Jews accept — the one who came in his own name? They still await the Messiah to this day” (End quote).

To this I have grounds to reply. The Savior Jesus Christ quite forcefully remarked to the Jewish scribes concerning the knowledge of the time: “Hypocrites,” He said, “you know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times. A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it” (Matthew, reading 65). From this it is clear that the Jewish scribes lost sight of the important significance of the spirit — the power of the events of the prophecies — and placed their hopes more on material phenomena, just as the contemporary Syzran man, having grown foolish in his reason, does not believe in spirit in the Redeemer of mankind who has already come — Christ Jesus. For this reason they shamelessly asked for a sign from heaven, but the divine answer was this: “To a wicked and adulterous generation seeking a sign, no sign will be given.” The signs — the cessation of lawful leaders and rulers according to the prophecy of the patriarch Jacob — the Jews saw with their own eyes and did not believe. Just as the Syzran observer seeks to see transformations of the heavenly luminaries and the very elements, with the intention that the son of lawlessness, the Antichrist, will appear only when the prescribed signs occur. A bitter truth pursues such people: “To what shall I liken this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their companions, saying: ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we mourned for you, and you did not lament.’ For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ But wisdom is justified by her children” (Matthew, reading 41). The Syzran observer suffers from the same disease. Signs were revealed to him: “the loosing of Satan after a thousand years,” the fall of the West together with all its spiritual institutions, headed by the proud prince of this world — the Pope, who makes himself the head of the Church; the identical seduction and apostasy of the vile Uniates in the year 1595; and finally the most striking year of 1666. But alas for the blindness of the Syzran cosmopolitan! For he still insists: “Two comings,” he says, “must be seen in the Roman kingdom of the Antichrist.” But the poor man, beaten by time, does not even feel his wounds! And the word of the Lord remains in force: “Wisdom is justified by her children.”

On the sleepiness of the Jews, who overslept the appointed time, Saint Chrysostom writes in the Margarita: “He who does not know the times of the things spoken or fulfilled, how can he show the dignity of prophecy to one who contends against it? Hence arises our struggle with the wretched and passionate Jews, who through ignorance of the years have committed a great sin” (Homily 1 on the Seraphim). And again: “If they had carefully observed the times of His coming, they would not have fallen away from Christ and fallen into the arms of the Antichrist. As Christ Himself prophesied to them: ‘I have come in the name of My Father, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, him you will receive.’ See how great a fall came about from ignorance of the years” (ibid.). On this divine foundation we clearly see that the Jews, accustomed to handling Scripture according to the feeling of the flesh and paying no due attention to the indication of the time given by the patriarch Jacob, fell into a great sin: having apostatized, they laid murderous hands upon the coming Christ the Savior, and then, whether they wished it or not, fell into the embrace of the Antichrist. So it is with the Jews. In like manner, the heretics who apostatize from the truth also conceal the time in which the Antichrist comes and, together with the Jews, obscure the essence of the truth. But the evil intention of both is exposed by the following writing: “The Jews,” it says, “therefore await the Messiah because they say that the years of His coming have not yet arrived. Likewise the heretics, so that people might not know that the years have already come in which the last Antichrist must arise, not only destroy the count of the last years from the creation of the world, but also the days and months, and for the sake of the continuation of the whole world, with a new faith and old heresies they now begin; and all these servants do this in order to prepare a place for their ruler, the Antichrist” (Book of Kirill, folio 43 verso).

Do you see what bitter consequences can come from literal apathy and that deadly blindness of spirit which so sadly drives a man into such delusion! There is no need to speak of the Jews, who do not rise in their understanding above the letter, having a carnal heart and an intellectual vision covered with a veil that prevents them from seeing — not Moses, as before, but the very essence of the truth. A similar veil may also lie upon the intellectual vision and lips of those people who, though they have seen and see the Sinai mountain smoking with fire, yet see smoking vile altars and those very representatives whom the great one once figuratively exposed by name. And we indeed, as blessed Kirill says, “seek our own sign concerning the coming; belonging to the Church, we seek the Church’s sign” (Catechetical Lecture 15). The Savior says: “Then they will be offended and will betray one another and hate one another. And here is yet another sign: And this Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come” (Matthew chapter 24). Almost the whole world, as we see, is filled with the teaching of Christ.

Thus reasons Saint Kirill concerning the causes of the signs before the coming of Christ and the time of the onset of the Antichrist. For the preaching of the holy Gospel embraces the ends of the universe. It is impossible to enumerate the false teachers who have come in the name of Christ, because of their multitude. There have been innumerable risings of kingdom against kingdom and city against city in the past. The enmities of spiritual leaders have been reflected in false beliefs and countless anathemas. The discontent of the laity against one another has gone beyond what was said. By the false teachings of false Christs the whole earth has been flooded as with a muddy stream, and there is no place under the sun where false teaching does not hold sway. And this manifests the direct fulfillment of the Lord’s prediction as a sign of the last time (Matthew chapter 13). The thousand years indicated in the Apocalypse for the safe dwelling of the faithful have passed, almost another thousand years having elapsed since it ended. Its consequences are well enough known to everyone acquainted with the sorrowful history of the Church. Nor is the deadly effect of the Antichristian infection unknown, which appeared in the year 593 after the ill-fated end of the thousand. Finally, the number 666 of years most strikingly completed the deficiency of that sorrowful time. These are the signs of the times of which Saint Kirill speaks, drawing from the holy Gospel. And such signs appear, as is known, in the long-past time; only the coming of the Judge remains for the future.

To neglect such phenomena as clear signs of the times, one must first be ungrateful to one’s Creator for the reason granted, or be like the blind expectation of things already past — the state of the Syzran scribe. The above-mentioned signs are clear indications of the times, about which Saint Chrysostom wrote in the Margarita: “Therefore, do not neglect such great benefit. For just as boundaries and markers in villages do not allow fields to become mixed together, so also times and years do not allow things to coincide with one another, but, dividing them from each other and assigning each to its proper order, they deliver us from much confusion” (Margarita, folio 177).

Do you see how Scripture teaches us to watch the signs of the times, by which alone it is possible to discern the divine predictions? If Saint Chrysostom takes into consideration even rural boundaries, to what extreme madness must one descend if one does not take into consideration the very signs of the times from the Scriptures? Watch therefore, lest it be said of you: “Hypocrites, you know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times” (Matthew, reading 65). Test the time, examine things by Scripture — with your own eyes you will see the fulfillment of the times.

Look at what was in ancient Rome and what became of it afterward. Where is that great and mighty kingdom of Rome seen by Daniel in the form of the fourth beast and recorded by John in the Revelation? We shall say that it fell. But who conquered it, according to the prediction of Scripture? You will have to say, even against your will — the Antichrist, in the person of the proud Pope — a man of simple birth, of monastic origin, having nothing in common with the dynasty of reigning generations. He is an apostate from the truth, like Simon, an enemy of Orthodoxy, a usurper of civil power; instead of Christ he exalts himself on earth as the head of the Church. Examine therefore the prophet Daniel — chapters 7 and 9; first, the great visionary John in the Apocalypse — chapter 20; second, and third, the blessed Apostle Paul in the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians; and Saint Chrysostom explaining the words of the Apostle on reading 276; and then blessed Kirill together with the wise Zizanius. Go hence with the mental eye of the soul and look attentively at how time gathers its servants. In the year 595 after the thousand, the spirit of Antichristian abomination was reflected even in Little Russia. For the spiritual stars of the churchly heaven — the teachers of the people and the representatives of the altars — fell, torn away by the tail of the false teaching of the serpent, and were laid in the earth like the other apostates, so that they might no longer be satisfied with the sight of the Sun of Righteousness, but feed on the lust of delusion and evil carnal reasoning. And concerning such falls of the teachers of the Church, much was foretold by the holy Gospel (Matthew ch. 24, Mark ch. 13, and Luke ch. 22). And the truth of the events was confirmed by Meletius of Antioch [Alexandria?] in his fourth and tenth epistles (in the Book of Kirill). Finally, the 666th year after the thousand, like the ill-fated number indicated in the Apocalypse (chapter 13), completed the apostasy that had begun, according to the Scripture as well (Book On the True Faith, ch. 30).

And so, on the strength of such events, which clearly took place according to the prediction of the divine Scriptures, I was obliged to point out to my brethren that some people are untimely bringing forward the patristic writing about the future coming of the enigmatic Antichrist. Having been deprived since 1666 of the hands of consecrated men (prophet Daniel ch. 9), they suffer great spiritual need and, reading the Scripture about the time as a simple history and judging it by the letter, refer the disastrous circumstances to the future, while they themselves are convicted by their deeds and by time striking their conscience. But they close the eyes of their mind and grope after the preaching of external false teachers; and — how shameful — they strive together with them to persuade others that the time for the coming of the last Antichrist has not yet arrived. But the poor ones forget themselves in their own spiritual need and sacrifice reason to the worldly blindness of the seduced nations.

Paying a just debt to time, I also find it necessary to correct the presumptuous compiler of the brochure in the following matter: as if the Lord had said to the Jewish “preachers” (on leaf 12). The Jews contemporary with Christ the Savior never had the pleasure, at least nowhere in the divine Scripture, of hearing themselves addressed by the true Preacher of salvation, the Lord, with such an honorable title as “preachers.” On the contrary, to the address of the stiff-necked Jewish scribes one can see rather more bitter truths (Matthew, readings 94, 95 and 96) than the title of “preachers.” Whence the Syzran Aristotle derived the idea of greeting the wretched Jews as “preachers” is unknown.

Even more out of place is the question posed by the Syzran man: “Whom,” he asks, “did the Jews accept — the one who came in his own name?” For what exact purpose the Syzran man raises such a question, I do not understand. Perhaps he only wishes to say that the last Antichrist, who is to come in his own name, is not only not yet present among the Christian nations, but is not even seen among the Jews themselves — although he must come to them first. This excuse is false and the reasoning of the questioner is vain, for he seeks the Antichrist from the Christ-killing Jews before the Antichrist is already in the world, according to the Apostle (Catholic Epistle, reading 73). The careless and ever-sleepy Jews, having lost the appointed days at the coming of Christ, have of themselves delivered themselves into the power of the Antichrist. As Saint Chrysostom understood and handed down concerning them: “If they had carefully observed the times of His coming, they would not have fallen away from Christ and fallen into the arms of the Antichrist” (Margarita, folio 177). Look, O contentious one, and learn that the superficial expectation of the Jews for the Messiah has led to the complete darkening of their mind and conscience. They have already been in the embrace of the Antichrist for nearly two thousand years, yet they shamelessly and impiously continue to argue even to this day that the Messiah has not yet come for them. And they have grown so foolish because they did not recognize the time indicated by the patriarch Jacob and the other prophets. Beware, therefore, lest you also fall into this same disease. For the time “of the Antichrists” has also been shown to you in the holy books, yet you pay no attention to the past upheavals of the Universal Church, but senselessly contend for a day that has already passed, which you wish to present as still future.

Next, I shall also propose something to refute the slander raised against me by the Syzran author of the brochure. His monstrous offspring draws the picture: “Here,” he says, “Mr. Pichugin again equates those people with the Jews and heretics who do not accept the spiritual Antichrist” (End quote). It is timely to bring forth the words of the prophet: “They knew not, neither did they understand; they walk in darkness.” And indeed, because this fiery and petty literalist, through the blindness of ignorance of reason, falls into slander in the words set before him and into an understanding alien to the truth.

First, I can in no way number my brethren who are of one faith with me among the Jews and heretics merely because some of them have been carried away by hot-headed madmen into the worldly squares to await a highly privileged Antichrist. On the contrary, I grieve with all my soul for such people and even fully share with them the bitter lot of the most irrefutable truth. I believe that they, like all the elect of God, also feel the heavy blow of fate dealt by the hand of the Antichrist. Nor do they grieve any less over the stripping of the churches of apostolic and patristic splendor. But you, guided by the spirit of a zealot — and what is worse, by sheer audacity — you stir up strife in the midst of this sorrowful situation and wish to lead it, directing yourself toward the flowering valleys of Jericho to meet the Antichrist who, according to you, is still to come.

Second, “those who do not accept the spiritual Antichrist.” I would ask you: what do you mean by the word “spiritual” — a mirage or a reality? For it is noticeable that from this word there peeps out in you a foolish sacrilege. The word “spiritual” is not mere imagination, but reality. Action proceeds from the one who acts; therefore, the action and the actor are one whole. For example: from heresy is called a heretic, from apostasy — an apostate, from opposition — an opponent, from false anointing — an Antichrist, and he is the enemy of the truth.

As for the Jews and heretics who await the coming of the former a Messiah and the latter an Antichrist (and in general one and the same), I have grounds to say the following. In the Book of Kirill it is written: “The Jews, it says, therefore await the Messiah because they say that the years of His coming have not yet arrived. Likewise the heretics, so that people might not know that the years have already come in which the last Antichrist must arise, not only destroy the count of the last years from the creation of the world, but also the days and months, and for the sake of the prolongation of this whole world, with their new faith and old heresies they now begin; and all these servants do this in order to prepare a place for their ruler, the Antichrist. Therefore Christ in these last times clearly commanded His faithful to beware” (Book of Kirill, folio 43 verso).

Do you see to whom alone it belongs to await the Antichrist — to the Jews and the heretics? For they not only deflect this, hiding the times and days, but under this pretext they strive to conceal their own apostate abominations, so that it might not be known that they are the servants of the last Antichrist, being themselves the first false Christs and apostates, prefiguring the last one by their own persons. This writing was brought forward by Stefan Zizanius on the theme of the year 595. But my brethren who are of one faith with me, like myself, have existed for more than two hundred years since the number of the time 1666 (Book On the Faith, chapter 30). “And none of the wicked shall understand this, but the wise shall understand” (Daniel chapter 12). As for people who are coming to their God from delusion, they repeat the Church’s prohibition: “I curse all who await the coming of the Antichrist” (Great Trebnik, folio 646). Therefore let him who intentionally conceals the time that has already passed be clothed with this curse, and let these audacious and unbridled mouths be restrained by these bridles!

I still face the arena of struggle on account of the slander of one who has not understood the meaning of the words — a fiery supporter of dead literalness. For his benefit I can offer the following advice: In order to understand properly the data corresponding to the meaning, he must look at the things set before him not with hostility, like children who dislike something they have no sense to determine truly, and then twist it according to their own arbitrary will. Rather, as befits everyone who has skill in various kinds of knowledge: read what is written twice, thrice, and draw from the reading a meaning identical to it.

For example, I said: “The expectation of a sensual Antichrist belongs only to Jews and heretics.” And such a comparison was made by me not groundlessly, but in view of the above-cited writing (Book of Kirill, folio 43 verso; Trebnik, folio 646). And this was not addressed to my like-minded brethren, but to the misinterpreters and liars against the truth, and especially to those who steal the appointed time in order to cover their abominations.

But I do not know why the Syzran lunatic has so quickly climbed onto the “most high” tower and cries out: “Come, come and hear what I will tell you! For ‘Mr. Pichugin equates those people with the Jews and heretics who do not accept the spiritual Antichrist!’” Such a shout I do indeed hear from the stapled minaret. And I advise the shouter: call upon the name of God and be healed before he is convicted by the disease of slander. For I love and respect my brethren who are of one mind with me in the Lord, and as far as possible I warn them against the unseemliness of judgments of the time and against that very darkening with which the Jews and all heretics are diseased. The spirit that taught the passionate judges to slander an innocent person, as is evident, we shall also offer our services to this one. But may the disease of slander not be reflected by the judgment of the Almighty God upon the creator of the brochure as well (Daniel chapter 13).

Going further along the tracks of the brochure, I find it necessary to note the following. Since the compiler of the brochure, paying no attention to the true facts of the time — which peck at his own eyes — and leaving his own disease to the will of fate, again turns to the Jews: “Here,” he says, “the Jews even until now await the reception of the one who is to come. But Mr. Pichugin does not believe the words of Christ and has found a special Antichrist — some kind of spiritual one — which is not written in Scripture. As he himself said: ‘not testified to by Scripture,’ and he makes use of it” (End quote).

Complete madness is offered here by the compiler of the brochure in the words: “The Jews even until now await the one who is to come, and that is the Antichrist, but I, Pichugin, do not follow their example; therefore, according to his conclusion, I do not believe the words of Christ.” False, I may say, is the excuse, and crooked is the statement of the brochure’s author. Are the Jews despised by God because they await the Antichrist? Not for that reason. But in every way for their impudent character, for their renunciation of God the Word who came in the flesh, and for the utter lawlessness of stretching out their unclean hands to murder the Creator — which is expected of the Jews according to their crude and impudent conduct. God the Word Himself indicated: “You are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father you will do” (John, reading 32). If the Jews, according to the unlying indication of God, are children of the devil, then why would Satan war in the form of a man against the devil? For if Satan wars against Satan, his kingdom will not stand, according to the utterance of God (Matthew, reading 46). Having seen this, be ashamed, and let the word of unbelief in the words of Christ which you have ascribed to me return upon your own head and upon your crown, for you have lied about this without shame.

Thus, we shall leave the wretched Jews whom you offer as a shield, and give place to a remark on the words “some kind of spiritual one, as if it is not written in Scripture.” The word “spiritual” is a derivative term from “spirit.” And all the divine Scripture is spirit and not flesh; therefore its understanding is called spiritual. “Scripture,” it says, “as it is placed in the flesh, the spirit which is in the depth is divine understanding. But the Jews rejected this through lack of reason, as carnal. For they could not think spiritually” (Triodion for the Color Fast, folio 425). The compiler of the brochure evidently holds to this same rule. By blaspheming the word “spiritual,” he thereby, as if theatrically, depicts a kind of dull-witted contempt for the living word of the Scriptures, which is to be understood by the spirit and not by the flesh.

I would in particular ask the blasphemer: to which category of writings does he assign the Scripture concerning the Antichrist — the historical or the allegorical? If to the historical, according to the reason of the letter, then historical writings narrate only events of things that have passed, and not of things to come. But the writings concerning the Antichrist are a narration of the future and not of the past. Historically it is said: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Enoch pleased God and was translated. God destroyed the world with a flood. And the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat. And Moses was meek above all men. And Bezaleel made the tabernacle and the ark of the covenant of the Lord,” and so on. But concerning future things it is said in Scripture otherwise: “Gather yourselves together, O sons,” says the patriarch Jacob, “that I may tell you what shall befall you in the last days.” “A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you,” says Moses, “of your brethren; unto Him shall you hearken.” “Behold, a Virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel.” “And I will make a new covenant with the house of Jacob and with the house of Judah.” “The daughter of Zion shall be left.” “And in those days the Lord God will bring a burning wind,” etc.

Here, in brief, from the prophetic and historical, and from the New Testament writings concerning the Antichrist himself: “If another comes in his own name, him you will receive.” “Take heed that no one deceives you.” “Many false prophets and false Christs shall arise.” “And the man of lawlessness shall be revealed.” “He shall be born of an unclean woman, a Jewish maiden.” “He shall come with lying signs and wonders and shall deceive the world with false signs,” etc. Do you see that in Scripture the Antichrist is spoken of not at all historically, but in the order of prediction? And every prediction from the Scriptures belongs to the category of prophetic writings. “No prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation” (holy Apostle Peter, reading 66). It requires understanding in it by the reason of the Holy Spirit. But you present the Scripture concerning the Antichrist by the letter, so simply, as if you were recounting the biography of some historical person. Have you not heard above why the stubborn Jews were rejected by God? Clearly because they followed Scripture only by the letter and accepted all its things according to their natural sense, but did not wish to know the depths of their spiritual understanding. For this reason alone they fell by means of Scripture. In the same way you also mock the concepts of the spirit lying in the Scriptures and, blaspheming, say: “Mr. Pichugin has found some kind of spiritual Antichrist, a special one.” And by this very thing you evidently reject the very living power of the Scriptures concerning the Antichrist, that is, the spiritual understanding. Just as if you were to separate the most honorable part from a man — the spiritual, invisible soul — so also from the Scriptures you separate the most honorable part, the spirit, and leave it, according to your vain reasoning, dead — in mere ink sounds.

To reason about the Antichrist according to the Jewish method is not only free for every man, but even for a woman. And children in the streets can tell such fables instead of fairy tales, but those who know the true spiritual meaning in Scripture will not tolerate such a creeping tale.

Do you wish to learn the spiritual understanding of the Scriptures concerning the Antichrist? Come and listen. In the divine Gospel the Savior Christ delivered: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves” (Matthew, reading 22). And now, if you set aside the spiritual understanding from the words of the Lord, how will you accept the word lying in the letter: “False prophets shall come, clothed in sheepskins, but inwardly they are wolves”? Must we really accept it so simply that wolves dressed in sheepskins will prophesy lies? You will say that wolves are by nature dumb animals and cannot speak human language, and therefore to accept the divine word in this sense would be childish and ridiculous. The answer would be praiseworthy, but the sought meaning remains undisclosed. But when you leave the open surface and accept the key of spiritual understanding, we shall open the hidden door of the spirit and in every way see that heretics and false teachers are called wolves — covered with the hypocrisy of humility as with sheep’s skin. And this is spiritual understanding.

The Apostle Paul, speaking to the Ephesian bishops, said: “For I know this, that after my departure grievous wolves shall enter in among you, not sparing the flock” (Acts of the Apostles, reading 44). And here the divine Apostle is not speaking about dumb animal beasts, but about spiritual wolves, that is, heretics and apostates designated according to spiritual understanding, clearly: “Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things.” See what spiritual understanding is.

Blessed John writes in the Catholic Epistle: “Little children, it is the last time; and as you have heard that Antichrist is coming, even now there are many Antichrists” (Catholic Epistle, reading 71). Will you not marvel at the reason of the word? Or will you again question the letter? But what will the letter give you except an indefinite expectation of the Antichrist? Where then will you stand when you hear what follows: “even now there are many Antichrists”? Will you not marvel and seek the spiritual meaning of the word — whom does the blessed Apostle designate as Antichrists already existing? How does he not separate the title of the one coming from those already existing, and calls both Antichrists? Are these not the words of the Spirit? Did not the Apostle understand spiritually the apostate heretics of that time, according to the Scripture: “They went out from us, but they were not of us. Who is the Antichrist? He who denies the Father and the Son” (in the Second Catholic Epistle). This one, he says, and not another. This one, of whom you have heard that he is coming, and even now is in the world. Heresies, I say, from heretics scattered at night among the good seeds of the Gospel. Vile heresies, like the tares of the enemy, are the offspring of the Antichrist, for they are friendly and dear to him. To whom? To this one: he who denies the Father and the Son. Tell us, O most blessed one, who having drunk the cup of the wisdom of God, who is “this one,” the nameless? That one, answers the great visionary: “Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either” (ibid.).

Do you see, O contentious debater, whom the great Apostle of Christ designated as Antichrist — not the Jew you propose, but the denier, that is, the apostate. Do you really have no natural shame, that you do not blush before the truth which lets you understand that the words of Scripture concerning the Antichrist are filled with the Spirit and not with a simple historical tale? Judge for yourself what you say: the Antichrist will be a Jew and will come to the Jews — let it be so according to you. But then tell us: from what will your worldly sorcerer Antichrist apostatize, if he was never a Christian before? Perhaps this question will seem somewhat strange to you, so I shall give clarification. Simon the Samaritan, having become a Christian at the hand of the God-preacher Philip, finally proved to be an apostate. Look then: this Simon became the first Antichrist in Rome and prefigured the last one by himself. But so that you cannot say I am speaking this from myself, I present Scripture to you as witness. It is written in the Book of Kirill: “Just as that proud Simon the sorcerer of Samaria apostatized from Simon Peter and the other Apostles, and came first to Rome, making himself Christ in every likeness, so he was the first of the last Antichrist” (Book of Kirill, folio 45 verso).

Do you see that the Antichrist — both the first and the last — is an apostate, and not a circumcised Jew according to you? And he is designated as coming not to the rejected Jews, but to Christians — and perhaps to those having something Jewish in themselves (Great Catechism, folio 45). Consider also the very word “Jewishness” according to conduct, for by their deeds people are known. For example: what does the word “Israel” mean? A man with the mind that sees God. This wonderful name was originally given to Jacob for his knowledge and firmness. In the same way with “Jewishness.” See how the vile prophets of Jezebel (I do not say Ahab’s) acted like Jews. They burned incense both to the God of heaven and at the same time offered vile sacrifices to the Phoenician god Baal. Biblical history tells us: “How long,” Elijah says to them, “will you limp on both knees? Go after Baal if he is god to you; but if not, then go after the God of Israel.” Is there not such hypocrisy among the spiritual Jews — the heretics? And do not forget the very close transition from the natural word “Jews” to the spiritual one. The patriarch Jacob was by nature a Jew, but in spirit an Israelite; and by this name every believer is called. And he receives it from deeds: from the knowledge of God and from faith. And the apostate Antichrist is named from deeds, not from nature — understand this from Simon and others like him.

And so you have lied that I have only found some kind of special spiritual Antichrist. But to your blindness I have presented — though gently, yet forcefully — that the Antichrist is embodied in every apostate, beginning from Satan himself and Simon and ending with the last one (Book of Kirill, folio 45). For this word belongs to the active title in the broad sense, and not to a worldly man born according to the flesh.

Thus, it turns out that the pious worshipper of truth has only to await the righteous Judge, God, who is to come from heaven, according to the commandment of the holy Apostle (in the 263rd reading), and not a man with horns and a mysterious statue that speaks every kind of nonsense and blasphemy against God.

Then the word I set down in writing—“the Antichrist unwitnessed by Scripture”—became for the Syzran cosmopolite a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence. But now I must satisfy the desire of this raging reviler, since in many places he attempts to chew this word-stone; yet his corrupted organism, as it turns out, cannot endure its sharpness, and so he flings the mire of abuse at this allegorical expression. Let him learn, however, who is the author of this word.

Blessed Theophylact of Bulgaria, having received understanding from Saint Chrysostom on the 35th reading of John’s Gospel, gives this opinion: “Such as Theudas and Judas, who came before Christ, deceived the people and then destroyed and ruined them. Such also will the Antichrist be, for he has no witness from those Scriptures” (Blagovestnik of John, folio 165). That is, Theudas and Judas, shortly before the appearance of Jesus Christ, came of their own accord to the Jews and presented themselves as zealots—that is, as free men fighting for independence, as Josephus Flavius relates—against the Roman state order. Having no witness from the Law and the holy prophets, they deceived the people and perished together with them. This was under the Old Law. “Such,” says blessed Theophylact, “will the Antichrist also be.” He will creep through the fence of the Scriptures like Theudas, and having deceived the peoples of the New Law, will destroy them with the help of a Judas-like figure in relation to the false king, and will himself likewise perish, having no witness from the Scriptures.

From the demonstrative pronoun “such as” follows the affirmative verb “will be,” and then the predicate takes form: “for he has no witness from those Scriptures.” Therefore the word “unwitnessed” emerges—i.e., the word “Antichrist” in its adjectival sense clothes itself in a nameless figure of speech, being born of the nameless beast, and will deceive the peoples of the earth in his own name alone, and not from the Scriptures. Such is the meaning of this word “unwitnessed.”

Now let the Syzran tragicomic fling his vulgar mire of abuse into the face of holy Theophylact. And the “chador” he has cut out and sewn together, likening it to heretics—let him put that on his own eyes and shoulders as parade dress for meeting his expected lord Titine. It does not suit me.

But enough of that; let us proceed to the next point.

The defender of a sensual (literal) Antichrist further says: “The Lord and the saints wrote many things: that the Antichrist will come sensually (physically) at the end of the world!” (End of quotation). After the word “sensually” the defender even jumped up and placed an exclamation mark out of place, forgetting propriety, knowing he would be pursued for it.

First, the Lord wrote no writings at all. Second, the saints nowhere wrote “that the Antichrist will come sensually.” So let us look at what the Lord said, not wrote: “I came in the name of My Father, and you did not receive Me. If another comes in his own name, him you will receive” (John, reading 17).

The word “I” is a first-person pronoun. “Another” is a third-person pronoun. The first “I” is the “Word,” the “Only-begotten Son” of the Father before the ages; I came to you in the flesh, witnessed by Scripture—“Me you do not receive,” being offended by the sight of My poor form. “But if another comes,” proclaiming to you glory and all the charms of the world, him you will receive. For he will come “in his own name.” “Another” and “he” are pronouns of equal dignity. How then can a third-person pronoun be turned into the proper title of a future man?

For in the Gospel it is not said that “he will come to you sensually.” It is said, “If another comes,” but who exactly is not stated. From subsequent matters, however, we may learn. This pronoun in the singular can pass into the plural, according to the indication of Christ Himself, who said: “Take heed that no one deceives you; for many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many” (Matthew, reading 98). The Apostle Paul likewise declared such deceivers to be “of ourselves,” and called them wolves (Acts, reading 44). This is concerning the Lord’s utterance.

Now let us see what the saints write. We begin with the subject. In the Revelation of Saint John it is written: “The beast that ascends from the abyss” (Revelation ch. 9). “The beast, that is, the Antichrist, coming out of dark and abyssal places wherein the devil was condemned” (St. Andrew of Caesarea, commentary on ch. 9). Can such an appearance be ascribed to the appearance of a man-Antichrist and be understood in a human, physical manner as his coming out of the abyss-hell? Moreover, one must not forget that the Antichrist comes out of the abyss not as a man, but as a beast. And this is the first appearance.

Again Saint John shows: “And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven crowns. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth” (ch. 12, v. 4). This is the second appearance, and such a chimerical monster has no relation whatever to a physical man. For a dragon appears, not a man—physically. Let us say a little also about why the dragon appears: “The dragon stood before the woman clothed with the sun, who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might devour her child.” “The woman clothed with the sun is the Church. What is clothing to us is light to her” (further on). “That she might give birth,” say the holy interpreters, “to the intellectual Zion, a male child, etc.” “And she gave birth to a male child. Interpretation: A male son is the churchly people” (above). “The Church continually gives birth to Christ in those being baptized, being formed in them until the measure of spiritual stature, according to the Apostle” (St. Andrew on ch. 12 of the Apocalypse). Behold, this appearance images birth not natural but spiritual. And the holy fathers took the most excellent woman as the spiritual Church, spiritually giving birth to God’s chosen people. The dragon again they took not as a natural man but as the spiritual enemy, the Antichrist. “When,” they say, “the devil working in the Antichrist will arm himself against the Church” (p. 54). And the very action of the Antichrist is not physical but spiritual. This can be seen from what follows: “And the dragon was angry with the woman, and went off to make war with the rest of her offspring.” That is, with the excellent teachers of the Church, according to the interpretation of the holy fathers.

And if you contend for physicality on this account, then show me where exactly, after the fall of the year 1666, there remain excellent church teachers capable of repelling the evil delusion of the future Antichrist? I think you will not show any. Then, according to you, the future dragon-Antichrist, the woman as the conciliar Church, the war, and the water cast out of the dragon’s mouth—all these are future events; yet there are no longer any excellent servants and teachers of God’s Church, as you yourself confess. With whom then will the future Antichrist wage war? If you say with the prophets Enoch and Elijah, the speech here is not about the prophets of ancient times but about the excellent teachers of the New Testament Church who are able to repel the evil designs of the Antichrist. And of course you will agree with this, but you will still refer this war to future time, since according to you the Antichrist will also be in the future. And you support this opinion with “a multitude of writings of holy men,” as you express it in your brochure.

But I must tell you that you have not yet recognized the hidden understanding of the saints on this matter. And behold, see: the holy fathers understood this war with the Antichrist not only in the future but also in the past tense. And how? Listen: “This same war I think John the Theologian shows in the Revelation, how the dragon pursued the woman about to give birth to lawful children, that is, the Church of the New Testament, upon whom the dragon sent water, that is, heretics. When God saw her greatly shaken and afflicted by him, He raised up these strong and good pastors, of whom I name first the wise and great Dionysius the Areopagite, and Justin, and Irenaeus, and the divine Hippolytus, and the wondrous and excellent among philosophers Cyprian, and the strong and invincible warrior for the Holy Trinity Athanasius the Great, and the firm and unshakable pillars of Orthodoxy Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, and John Chrysostom. These truly helped the Holy Church, swallowing up heretical teaching as the earth swallows water, by right teachings which even now lie before the faithful for the driving away of such abomination” (Great Sobornik, folio 818).

Thus I have shown you who the excellent fighters for truth against the Antichrist are—they were, and not “will be.” They had the struggle with the Antichrist according to the 12th chapter of the Apocalypse. And to us who are last they left their spiritual weapon, which is the holy books, “for the driving away of such abomination.” Do you see that all this ascends in an anagogical (elevated, spiritual) sense, and not as you want it—according to the literal nature and in the future!

Thus I have shown you the second appearance of the Antichrist in the form of the dragon with his evil activity. Now I will show also the third appearance of the same Antichrist from the same Apocalypse: “And I stood,” says John, “on the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his horns ten diadems, and on his heads names of blasphemy” (Revelation ch. 13). But see—do you expect him in such a form as he appeared here? But this cannot be according to nature, for the simple reason that after the creation of the elements God gave the sea power to bring forth not beasts but fish and the like, while He commanded beasts to bring forth on the earth, not in the sea. Consequently even here, according to your view, nothing comes out. For this appearance is interpreted by the saints in a spiritual, not a physical, sense.

Saint Methodius, Hippolytus, and others interpreted this beast as the Antichrist himself. The sea symbolizes this world, because of the turbulent and wave-tossed existence of men, in a realm of distracted quality, in a relation opposed to God. From this worldly sea there emerges the chimerical beast-Antichrist, bearing on his heads the name of blasphemy (St. Andrew, Archbishop, on ch. 13 of the Apocalypse). Do you see that this third figure of the beast also images one and the same Antichrist, and not in the literal sense as you take it, but in the anagogical understanding!

But that is not all. Look at the fourth appearance: “And I saw,” says the seer of mysteries, “another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spoke like a dragon” (Revelation ch. 13, v. 11). This beast is interpreted variously: “some say it is the Antichrist; to others it seemed that it is Satan, and that his two horns symbolize the Antichrist and the false prophet. We also think it not unreasonable that the false prophet will come in his own person: the dragon as Satan, the beast rising from the sea as the Antichrist. But the present beast, according to the opinion of blessed Irenaeus, is interpreted as the false prophet” (St. Andrew, Archbishop of Caesarea, in the commentary).

See: if according to you the appearance of the Antichrist were simple—as merely a sorcerer-man—there would be no difficulty in explaining it even to children. But because this mystery requires much attention to identity and to the very sequence of appearances, for that reason the saints spoke variously about it. Yet not as you do. Agreeing with the spirit of the Revelation, they interpreted it spiritually. And in which respects, listen: “Coming up out of the earth—clearly out of earthly, low, creeping life” (in the commentary on the Apocalypse, p. 61), the Antichrist arises. Behold, you see from where the composite Antichrist appears—from earthly and material-minded philosophy. As all heretics have proved by their very deeds: and they are the Antichrists.

If, however, you insist on presenting the Antichrist in the person of a particular man, then first labor to recreate him with your proofs: first from the abyss, then from the sea, then from the air, and finally from the earth—and after that say whatever you like. This I have shown you from the Apocalypse, though briefly; yet everything said above speaks against your material opinion, for it speaks of this in an allegorical sense, not a historical one. According to your reasoning, not only would this not be a mystery, but by your method wives and children could easily recount it, and there would be no difficulty for any age or sex to recognize the man-Antichrist—for the sole reason that he will appear in full parade uniform, in the presence of the false prophet with ram’s horns and an idol speaking all manner of things. But according to the opinion of the saints, only those close to God will recognize him, those who are always occupied with the vision of God and diligent reading of books (St. Ephraim the Syrian, folio 304).

Now let us look also at the writings of other saints. Do they really speak so positively about the coming of the Antichrist as you suppose?

The Apostle Paul, in the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, writes: “Let no one deceive you in any way; for that day will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of perdition, the adversary who exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God” (reading 275).

First of all, the Apostle Paul protects the Thessalonians from other false teachings that claimed the second coming of the Lord had already occurred, thereby troubling the minds of the Thessalonians. But the Apostle Paul speaks directly and expressly that first there must be the apostasy, which the man of lawlessness, the son of perdition, will bring about, and so forth. Then, by his cunning, he will draw many worshippers to himself, and will exalt himself in pride even to equality with God, and will attempt by every means to sit in the temple of God as God, boasting that he is God.

Behold what the Apostle writes. The Antichrist, he says, will sit in the temple of God. In which one? In that which Solomon and Nehemiah built for natural sacrifices? Or in that which the Saviour promised to destroy and raise up in three days? If we say it is the disturbed Jewish one, I accept it in another sense. But note that the magnificent Jewish temple has not existed for nearly two thousand years. If we say that at the end of the age the Antichrist will build a new temple for the Jews with some other form of worship, then let it be so according to you. But can a temple built by the Antichrist be called the temple of God? Here, I suppose, your sharp tongue will be blunted in seeking a way to make the God-rejected Jewish assembly a temple and the Antichrist’s building the Church of God!

First of all, one need not be a reasonable man to say that the Antichrist will build a church for the Jews and that it will be called God’s. Consequently, the Apostle Paul points not to the rejected Jewish church but to a certain spiritual one. Concerning the Jewish church, you must first know that it has perished irrevocably. For Saint Chrysostom said directly of it: “That the Jewish temple will never be rebuilt” (Margarit, folio 103 verso). So if you contend for it, you will necessarily have to buy land from the Turks in Jerusalem for the construction of a temple whose builder will be the future Antichrist—and necessarily with the permission of Mohammed himself. But if this is impossible to allow, then give place to the truth, and it will be just: “The Church of God is nothing other than the house created by our souls” (St. Chrysostom, 10[5?]th Homily on the Epistle to the Ephesians). It is the Church built upon Peter’s confession (Matthew, reading 67) and recreated on the Cross, in the person of Jesus Christ, as a temple not made with hands (Mark, reading 65). It is of this Church that the whole divine and patristic Scripture speaks. This is the Church that the Jewish leaders and legalists rejected; being blinded by everything material, they refused to acknowledge any other spiritual Church besides the material one. Therefore it is clear that they still do not remove from the eyes of their mind that notable veil which was upon Moses.

Is it not this very Church, then, that the Antichrist wars against? Is it not upon the mind and heart of the faithful sons of God, as upon a spiritual throne, that the deceiver Antichrist always attempts to sit, painting various delusions in imitation of the works of God? For the heart of a faithful man is the throne of God, according to the writing of Saint Macarius (Nikon the Black-Mountain, folio 568). Take heed, therefore, lest an idol of error be painted on your mind, and lest the abomination of desolation come upon you. “For the abomination of desolation is every satanic understanding standing in the holy place, that is, in our mind” (Blagovestnik of Mark, folio 80). For by the abomination of desolation many have perished, having defiled the spiritual temple with satanic understanding—heresy. “See to it also that you do not make the Church of God, which is your heart, a den of robbers, that is, a dwelling-place of demons, if you have thoughts that love material things” (Blagovestnik of Matthew, folio 161 verso). Thus speak the saints!

Run again to the contest; direct the mental eye of your soul, lay aside material-minded reasonings, and behold what blessed Hippolytus wishes to tell about the appearance of the Antichrist. First of all, do not forget that this sacred man, while speaking of the Antichrist as one, nevertheless placed in the title “On the End of the World and on the Antichrists” (in the plural). This reveals the hidden understanding of the holy man, who wishes to discourse on the end of the world and on the son of perdition, the Antichrist, in whose person he placed many. Then hear what he relates even about his very birth: “In the same manner the adversary will come forth upon the earth from an unclean woman, and will be born by procurement from a virgin” (in the Sobornik for Meatfare Sunday).

What then? Will the Antichrist pass through two wombs if, according to you, he is to be born in the flesh? Are you prepared to answer that he will be born by procurement—I accept that too. But explain to me why he first comes forth from an unclean woman and then from a virgin? I suppose you will be ashamed to affirm, contrary to the determined law of nature for one person, that one and the same person is born first from a wife and then from a virgin—it is more than incredible. Consequently there is a hidden understanding in these words.

Blessed Hippolytus again wishes to perplex you: for above he said that the Antichrist comes from two persons, but here he sequentially describes also the quality of the one born, adding quantity to the birth: “For first he will be born meek, quiet, amiable,” etc. Look at what is said. If he is born “first,” then he is born also “second,” and then “third,” and so on. And you cannot say here that this refers to his activity. For the verb of indefinite time expresses not quality but the quantity of births: “first,” etc. Nowhere and of no one in Scripture is it said that someone must be born with the indispensable condition “first.” Therefore here too there is no sense, according to you, that the man of lawlessness will be born from the tribe of Dan and from a Jewish girl. For the quantity of what is born declares also the quality of evil deeds, according to the writing of this holy man.

And look further ahead. Saint Ephraim does not testify that the Antichrist is born of a virgin: “But he will be born,” he says, “of an unclean woman; she is a vessel for him” (Homily 105), setting aside the virgin. Yet in the Synaxarion for Meatfare Sunday it is again related: “From an unclean virgin woman” the Antichrist is to be born. And note the hidden distinction: Ephraim says “from an unclean woman,” while the Synaxarion says “from an unclean virgin woman.” But what can come from a woman who is a virgin? Can a woman be a virgin after having been a wife? And will not even the most ignorant know when the servant of Satan is gradually being born—first from an unclean woman, and then from a virgin? Yet the Holy Scripture relates that his appearance will be known only by those who comprehend things by experience and who are always engaged in the thought of God and the reading of the holy books (St. Ephraim the Syrian, Homily 105). And here there is no sense for you to paint, according to nature, the birth of the Antichrist whom you spare.

But this is not all.

Be attentive; do not hasten to swallow the naked words, lest your belly be filled with unseemly reasoning and, God forbid, something unpleasant be born, as has happened with others. For the deceiver more often begins to catch people from the belly. And behold, I will show you yet another enigmatic birth of the Antichrist you expect—not from persons, as has been said, but simply from fornication. On this Saint John of Damascus writes as follows: “The devil himself will not become man, after the Lord’s incarnation—far be it—but a man will be born of fornication” (Book 4, ch. 27).

Do you see what the great thinker of Damascus proposes concerning the birth of the Antichrist? And what will you say after this, if the Antichrist is destined to be born from the act of fornication and not from persons—a wife and a virgin? And not only that. Look also at the great mysterious sequence in the saint’s statement. The saint did not say simply “of fornication,” as from a subject action, but “from fornication,” as if from the action alone. This is preceded by the special grammatical particle of an impersonal and indefinite preposition—“from” (из).

Note also that “fornication” is not a subject person for birth, but an action of passion. It is in this sense that the great church thinker wrote so subtly that the Antichrist “will be born from fornication.” And fornication is twofold—natural and spiritual. Is it not the latter fornication that will be the cause of the Antichrist’s origin? If it seems otherwise to you, then find me a personal vessel for the birth of the Antichrist in the words of John of Damascus, where it speaks of the Antichrist, even under the common name of wife or virgin.

Meanwhile, I will present to you yet another difficulty from the same Damascene word. Concerning the very coming of the Antichrist the saint writes: “However, he says, properly, figuratively, and excellently is the Antichrist called the one coming at the end of the age.” And how could you explain these present words? If according to you the Antichrist is a man of the future time, then this is quite simple: he will be. Who will be? The man-Antichrist. And that is enough. But here there are three qualifiers: 1) properly, 2) figuratively, 3) excellently. A simple natural birth does not require such qualifiers. Consequently the coming of the Antichrist is contained in a complex understanding.

And therefore let us examine the parts of the said words. What is “properly”? This word can belong to two different actions: what is proper to righteousness and what is proper to falsehood. To whom is it proper to lie? Assuredly to the devil. According to this property he will appear in the person of one “figuring” himself a supposed god. And among false material gods there is also a non-material false god—the belly. Which the Apostle called god in corrupt men who always serve the belly. And it is from the belly that the Antichrist begins to pervert men (St. Ephraim the Syrian, Homily 105). This is the property of the Antichrist: figuratively, as that hypocrite by the lie of fasting; and excellently coming by the path of God-hating heresies and evil deeds of the world, sealing with time the apostasy of men from the truth, and being himself an apostate, he will sew up the mouths of the deceived—that is, he will make them unable to answer—who have accepted falsehood instead of truth. Therefore it is a proper, figurative coming of the Antichrist.

Thus you see the various predictions of the saints concerning the birth of the Antichrist. If a natural birth for a man were needed, it would have been enough to say “he will be born of a wife or a virgin.” But the birth of the adversary is attributed to various forms and actions, not to persons, as has been shown: from the abyss, from the sea, from the earth—according to the Revelation; from the woman sitting upon the beast—according to Athanasius; from an unclean virgin woman—according to Hippolytus; from an unclean woman—according to the account of Venerable Ephraim (who did not say “from a virgin”); “from an unclean woman he will come forth, and will be born by procurement from a virgin”—according to the Synaxarion. Finally, “from an unclean Jewish virgin.” And such predictions cannot be according to you, as you seek the birth of a single natural man. But according to us they are far more fitting. For all the above-cited predictions of the holy fathers (to which you yourself referred) foretell the birth of the Antichrist not in a natural but in an allegorical sense. Therefore the last Antichrist himself represents the proud apostate Simon, who was also the first Antichrist—according to the activity of apostasy (Book of Kirill, folio 47 verso).

On the basis of the foregoing, and taking into account the events of the times, I come to the conviction that the adversary reigns in the realm of sin and apostasy. And those who live in chastity of righteousness and the thought of God, and the divinely-marked ascetics who keep watch on the church’s ramparts, have personally borne witness to the human number 666. And the year 1666 proved by itself the final reform in the realm of piety. And the sorrowful remnants, as factors driven and oppressed, hearkening in due time to the voice of profitable counsel: “Save, save your own soul, and you shall be great in the kingdom of heaven.”

But it is time now to present the accusatory words of the Syzran defender of the future Antichrist spoken against me. He says: “Mr. Pichugin, contrary to Scripture, overthrows this; let him perhaps say that I did not write from Scripture, but from myself” (End of quotation). To such words I reply: It seems that the Syzran Protestant, in his bitter expectation of the adversary of truth, has unfortunately had his mental vision impaired, and has taken white for black and called sweet food bitter. If he needs to know the very justice of what was written, let him first agree whether the Pharisees spoke truth to the Lord who had come not according to their liking: “You bear witness of Yourself; Your witness is not true” (John, reading 29). But if the Pharisees spoke untruth to the Son of God who had come in due season, then let him also hearken to the edifying instruction of Him who said: “You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one” (in the same reading 29). Thus let the Syzran geologist read what is written, checking every word, and give due place to reason; then he will be convinced that everything written by me was from Scripture or in accordance with it. And from this he will learn that it is impossible to subject gracious, spiritual Scripture to natural Jewish criticism.

Further, the Syzran liberalist still contends for a sensual Antichrist and protests against my writing: “Mr. Pichugin,” he says, “writes a word against the Jews: the Jews sensually saw Christ and did not receive Him, and fell away from Him, and want to fall to the sensual Antichrist, though unwillingly; but when that last one comes, they will fall to him. But Mr. Pichugin, without waiting for that last sensual Antichrist, has joined himself in his writing to some unwritten one and calls him an apostate” (End of the protest). To this too petty argumentation of the Syzran critic I say the following.

In the realm of the Christian faith there have appeared teachings foreign to grace, and various heretics—Antichrists—have almost flooded the whole world like a turbid stream (Venerable Joseph of Volotsk, Homily 12). By them the Syzran sensualist himself is surrounded on all sides. But he does not wish to acknowledge his own poverty of faith as belonging to the time of the last Antichrist; instead he calmly looks at the Jews even with the unarmed eye, and on the question of the Antichrist he points directly at the Jews: “If,” he says, “no Antichrist is seen among the Jews, then there is nothing to worry about, for he will come first to them.”

And I might have asked the careless liberalist in due season: Why exactly did the Jews fall away from Christ and fall into the hands of the Antichrist? From summer-long ignorance, according to the remark of Saint Chrysostom (Margarit, folio 177). And this is indeed so. If the Jews overslept the time and, half-asleep, throw themselves into the embrace of the Antichrist, then from what cause does the son of the Gospel—the Syzran thinker—now suffer from the complete absence of the ranks of the sacred hierarchy? Perhaps he will say that he is Russian, and in Russia the priesthood has been corrupted by error; therefore he suffers need of the fullness of the Church. Very well. But is there nowhere beyond the borders of Russia any priesthood uncorrupted by heresy? If he is well acquainted with the geography of the earth and the history of the peoples, he will answer this question as well, since the Christian faith had its beginning from Jerusalem and, gradually multiplying, became known in Syria, Egypt, Arabia and Ethiopia, in Italy and Asia. And in all those countries at the present time various heresies dominate, and the lying Koran of the dog Mohammed is preached instead of the Gospel. Thus this is a worldwide falling away of the hands of consecrated men! And this only one last Antichrist will accomplish, according to the prophecy of Saint Daniel (chapter 12). And such a state—precisely the scattering of the hands of consecrated men—can only be, according to the word of that man clothed in purple, “for a time, times, and half a time” (Daniel ch. 12). Which has been interpreted by the teachers of the Church as three and a half years.

So if the scattering of the hands of consecrated men has in fact taken place, then why is the Antichrist still hiding with you in Bashan beyond the Euphrates? Will not your Jewish girl also be superfluous, from whom you expect the seven-headed Antichrist, since the fatal “time, times, and half a time” exist in fact? Take heed lest you fall into his nets. For he forges every kind of cunning to obscure the truth, disguising himself in various forms. Come to your senses and consider: why does he need the Jews, who from the days of the shedding of the blood of the Son of God have been wholly at his disposal, for they are children of the devil (John, reading 32)? Will Satan in the Antichrist really war against the devil? Take heed, lest you be scandalized and, by reason of identity, suffer the Jewish unbelief. Look from things and consider what was, what is, and what remains. Let this teach you, He who swore by Him who lives forever: “The lawless will act lawlessly, and none of the ungodly will understand, but the wise will understand” (Daniel ch. 12). What will the lawless and all the ungodly not understand? The time from the prophecy. But the wise, that is, the prudent, having learned from experience, will know the power of things (Blessed Theodoret, in the commentary).

If, then, the Syzran defender of the sensual Antichrist so unjustly accuses me of understanding by the word “Antichrist” an apostate from the truth, let him first accuse Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, for he directly calls the last Antichrist an apostate. And so that the defender of the Antichrist cannot accuse me of this, I will here, in confirmation of what was said, adduce the actual words of Saint Irenaeus, which are as follows: “And not only from what has been said above, but also from what will be under the Antichrist, it is evident that he, being an apostate and a robber” (ch. 25). Do you now see where your dark blindness and impudence are dragging you? You offend not me, but the reason of the holy man, and you blaspheme against his authoritative person. Do not forget that this man was almost a contemporary of the Apostles; he knew what the Antichrist is and fittingly called him an apostate and a robber. But to your future Jew it is impossible to apply the word “apostate” if he was not first a believer. Consider this while it is not too late!

Meanwhile, I still have to speak about what you wrote. You reproduced the following lines from my writing on your sewn brochure. These are truly my words as I wrote them: “That the teaching of a sensual Antichrist truly cannot agree with the present time, both on account of the circumstances of past causes and on account of the need of the time depicted by Christ’s Church, as the thing itself paints the gradual fall of the teachers and rulers of the spiritual world.” Up to this is taken from my writing. And now the Syzran scholastic makes his remark on my writing. With what does he begin his protest? With the following words: “This,” he says, “is written about that; this is a private fall in Rome and Poland” (End of the remark). To this I can impressively say with the words of the Prophet David that truly: “The sinner is caught in the works of his own hands” (Psalm 9). Let there have been in Rome and Poland an apostasy of the earthly rulers of the spiritual world—let it be, according to you, private; that is, these private apostasies were accomplished by the forerunners of the Antichrist, while the worldwide apostasy will be accomplished by the last Antichrist himself.

But I also ask you factually, as you demand a personal factor of worldwide reforms: answer me. Who took from you the God-established priesthood? If private forerunners, then show in what places of the visible world Orthodox bishops still uncorrupted by false belief are preserved? And before what priests exactly will the last Antichrist mask himself and play the hypocrite, according to the word of Saint Hippolytus: “He will honour grey hairs, he will be ashamed before a priest”? But if you cannot find on the face of the earth any grace-filled priesthood, then with what “excellent church teachers” can you imagine a struggle against the future Antichrist? Let this be on your conscience.

As regards your view of the fall of Rome and Poland, which you called private falls, in this you are mistaken to the point of unpardonability, apparently following the refinement of the external apostles. But like an unskilled craftsman, you have sewn a patch of unbleached cloth, taken from another’s ingenuity, onto a garment already aged by time. Take heed lest, according to the Lord’s word, the tear become greater. Understand your own position, and go with the mental eye of your soul into the lands of Italy, and behold how that once whole country, flourishing in Orthodoxy and civil order, having no rivals in all the world, fell in both respects not partially, as it seemed to you, but loudly and inimitablely. For the greatness of Rome and its fall had been foretold beforehand by the Prophet Daniel. Listen not with half an ear, and do not squeeze your eyes shut before reality.

The Roman monarchical kingdom—and therefore God showed Daniel not something private, but a great and mighty kingdom in the form of the fourth beast, terrible in appearance and enigmatic in its complexity, to which God did not deign to give a name. It was from this very beast that the Antichrist was foretold to come. Of such a prophecy it has been spoken before, and it has been testified to above in this writing; to repeat it now would be superfluous for the present word. Likewise, in Little Russia and Poland holy Orthodoxy diminished by the same apostasy and for the very same reason by which one of the greatest hierarchs of the Christian world, the Pope of Rome, fell ill and apostatized. There is no need to write in detail here about his fall. But concerning the fall of the Greco-Russian sacred hierarchy the Syzran defender of the formal Antichrist has for some reason passed over in silence.

He probably has no further need of historical world events wrought in the realm of the Church, except, while awaiting his imaginary lord Titine, to occupy himself with the repetition of natural sounds on account of the obscurity of what is written. And the poor man himself, being beaten from time to time, does not feel his wounds, according to the writing of the wise Sirach. Notwithstanding his complete own spiritual poverty, in his chase after the letter he still accuses me of the following: “In the Book of Kirill,” he says, “it shows the first arising of the Antichrist through his servants. And it is shown from whom it arose and from what year. But not as Mr. Pichugin has done, who has mixed both arisings on the Roman throne into one” (End of quotation).

To such a short-sighted remark I have grounds to reply. First of all I must tell my instigator that he relates to this great matter, which requires both reason and understanding, almost childishly. The Roman kingdom cannot be compared with some Syzran. Of the Roman kingdom, as a great kingdom, the great Daniel prophesied; he saw the Roman kingdom in the form of the fourth beast, having seven heads and ten horns—from this very beast God showed him the sudden appearance of the eleventh little horn. The Syzran wise man must not forget that the Antichrist in the person of the little horn proceeds from the great Roman kingdom, imaged in the form of the fourth beast.

Further, the Antichrist imaged in the little horn, according to the opinion of the Apostle Paul and the explanation of Saint Chrysostom, will seek to seize both human power and divine power at the time when Roman power falls into anarchy. Following this brief indication I shall proceed for the precise application of facts both to the prophetic and to the apostolic-hierarchical prediction.

Blessed Theodoret explains the face of the fourth beast seen by Daniel: “The fourth,” he says, “he calls the Roman kingdom by the name of beast; he gives it no name, because the Roman city, being gathered from many nations, ruled the world. The ten horns of that beast are ten kings who will arise at the end of the Roman kingdom. And ‘I considered,’ says Daniel, ‘among the horns, and behold, another little horn came up among them.’ Here he designates the Antichrist, appearing in the midst of the ten horns” (Blessed Theodoret on ch. 7). Andrew of Caesarea, commenting on the 17th chapter of the Apocalypse, says: “The beast, he says, is the Antichrist. The eighth, therefore, as rising after the seven kingdoms for the deception and desolation of the earth. Of the seven, as growing out of one of them. For he will come not from another tongue, according to what has been said, but as a Roman king, for the destruction and ruin of those who submit to him” (Apocalypse commentary, p. 84).

Here blessed Andrew seems to speak quite clearly that there are not two Antichrists but one, and the very same one who was previously seen by Daniel in the person of the little horn will arise from the disturbed Roman kingdom as a Roman king. To this the Apostle Paul adds: “So that he sits in the temple of God as God, showing himself that he is God. And now you know what restrains, that he may be revealed in his own time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way” (reading 275). Saint Chrysostom explains this: “Likewise here he says: only he who now restrains, until he is taken out of the way—that is, when the Roman power is removed from the midst, then he will come. And fittingly. For as long as the fear of this power remains, no one will quickly submit. But when it is destroyed, he will attack the anarchy and will seek to seize both human and divine power” (on reading 275 of the Apostolic Epistle).

Now only one thing remains to be known—namely: Does the Roman kingdom stand at the present time in the Orthodox spirit? It is known to all that it does not. If the great Roman kingdom no longer exists, then who destroyed it, or in other words, who disturbed it? No one other than the Antichrist. To whom it was destined to occupy, though falsely, the place of a supposed king, according to the explanation of blessed Theodoret.

There is yet another question, and perhaps the most important. In the disturbed Roman kingdom, after its falling away from the Greek lawful and orthodox sovereigns, did anyone seek to seize both human and divine power, according to the predicted Scripture? It is not difficult to answer this question. Both the civil and the hierarchical power were seized by the Roman apostate, the Papist. A proof of this may be the Book of Kirill to which my accuser referred. Saint Kirill writes: “The aforementioned Antichrist will come in this likeness. When the years of Roman power are fulfilled, then the end is near.” The reasoning of Zizanius: “Two likenesses concerning the arising of the Antichrist on the Roman throne. Saint Kirill, gathering from prophecy, confesses to us. First, from that time the kingdom of the Antichrist in Rome will begin, as he says, when the years of the Roman kingdom are fulfilled; and he does not say ‘when it is disturbed,’ but ‘when the years are fulfilled,’ that is, when Rome will no longer have emperors ruling it, as you now see, for they do not rule” (End of quotation from the Book of Kirill).

Having restored such testimony written by my opponent, as though two arisings need to be determined for the Antichrist on the Roman throne, one can understand what is said: that it is not about the arising itself that is spoken here, but “about the likeness of the arising of the Antichrist on the Roman throne” that is proclaimed—that is, in two different forms. The first form, or likeness, is the sign of the completion of the years of the Roman kingdom. And this is designated, though in various forms, essentially after a thousand years. According to the interpretation of Andrew of Caesarea: “A thousand years is the time from the Incarnation even until the coming of the Antichrist” (Apocalypse commentary, p. 84). Concerning the binding of Satan for a thousand years, according to the Revelation of John the Theologian, and his loosing, the compiler of the Book on the Faith directly points to this event in Rome. On the basis that after the thousand years “the devil returns to his first beloved place, where he still wished from heaven. And from that time the West was struck with a heavy plague,” etc. (Book on the Faith, ch. 30). This is the first likeness, testified by faith itself, that emperors no longer rule Rome.

The second likeness, that is, the sign of the Antichrist’s entry, must be recognized from the following event: “Then ten kings will arise in Rome in different places, and they will be in obedience to the eleventh Roman kingdom as one. Then in Rome, upon that eleventh king, who is the last Antichrist, it will soon be accomplished.” And this is interpreted variously by the fathers of the Church. By Andrew of Caesarea as the power of the unity of the devil’s action. By Theodoret it is explained as “various Roman regions” (Book 7, folio 115 verso). Such as, for example: 1) Italy, 2) Spain, 3) Gaul, 4) Germany, 5) Greece, 6) England, 7) Asia, 8) Syria, 9) Africa, 10) Egypt (Book 7, folio 117 verso). “And when the power of the Roman emperors in Rome ceased, then the spiritual man, the Roman Pope, began to hold both divine and hierarchical power” (Book of Kirill, folio 72). This can be understood historically of all the rulers subject to the Roman throne. But upon the completion of this, the historical meaning, or likeness, passes into allegorical action, according to the pattern of the second likeness of the Antichrist’s arising. And how? Hear: “For the Antichrist will seek seven kings into his obedience at the Roman throne through his servants voluntarily and without battle, and three again by war and force together with the other seven kings. Those three kings will begin to remain under one Roman king and name.” This can be understood historically. “Since they will be conquered by the command and providence of the Roman throne. And for this reason the evil spirit himself, called the eighth, the Antichrist sitting on the Roman throne, will take seven of the fiercest. And the last deception comes upon that man, worse than the first” (Book of Kirill, folio 72).

Behold, this last refers to the understanding of allegorical judgment, that is, figurative. Therefore understand “the two likenesses concerning the arising of the Antichrist on the Roman throne” both historically and in action. Having examined these things in the proper manner, you will then see that it is not I, but you yourself through carelessness who have mixed two different forms into one nameless man. And you could not distinguish in the Book of Kirill the abstract action and its very quality: that the Antichrist in Rome will arise twice. Unfortunately this blind man, while reading the Book of Kirill, did not notice even the essential first likeness, which precedes in action the second arising. This is Simon the Samaritan, who apostatized from Simon Peter and the other Apostles. “And he came to Rome, making himself Christ in every likeness. He was himself the first of the last Antichrist, and by himself prefigured those who would come after him in Rome.” What then did he prefigure? This: that in Rome, in the name of Simon Peter, the proud prince of this world, the Antichrist, will sit (Book of Kirill, folio 45 verso). Here are the two arisings you demanded.

But if you still have the desire to remake allegory into natural physiology, then labor to convince me of the following: Simon the apostate proved by himself, and by similar apostates who came after him, the first likeness of the Antichrist’s arising. Then has the proud prince imaged in him arisen in Rome upon the throne of the Apostle Peter? If according to you he has not arisen but will arise in the future, then for what purpose will he arise, since the Roman apostolic throne has already for nearly a thousand years been occupied by the abomination of desolation? Take heed lest the abomination of desolation stand in the holy place, that is, in your mind (Blagovestnik of Mark, folio 80 verso).

But again the defender of the formal Antichrist contends and again writes: “It is wonderful,” he says, “that Mr. Pichugin does not allow one to accept from Scripture two testified arisings of the Antichrist on the Roman throne. Yet he teaches to accept an unwitnessed one from Scripture, his own special spiritual one. And this teaching in Syzran some have lovingly accepted; and like people subject to fits, they cannot bear what is read in Scripture about the coming of the Antichrist, and turn to anger and rage. Likewise at the service of the past week on the Second Coming, while reading the Synaxarion, in which there is placed a very clear and understandable writing about the coming of the Antichrist for even the least informed person, upon hearing these words, though they do not fall, they go out where the words of the Synaxarion are read” (End of quotation).

Behold to what the crooked tongue of the Syzran writer has come; his unbridled mouth speaks both stammeringly and blasphemously. First he accuses me of having written that “the expectation of a sensual kingdom is proper and inherent only to the Jews who have denied the Lord of glory, having accepted a sensual understanding in Scripture, and, unwillingly, of another Antichrist unwitnessed by Scripture.” Over such words the open throat (I will not say reason) of the Syzran projector mocks. He apparently was scandalized or completely failed to understand the written word “unwitnessed” Antichrist from Scripture. And he casts such an expression out of the limits of thoughtful terminology, saying: “That I teach to accept a special spiritual Antichrist.” But he has spoken more than prematurely about this.

First of all, the word “unwitnessed” belongs not to me personally, but to the brilliant translator of the words of Saint Chrysostom, Theophylact, Bishop of Bulgaria, as a dialectical term in the realm of spiritual thought. The actual words of the Blagovestnik I here set forth: “Such as Theudas and Judas, who before Christ deceived the people, destroyed and ruined them. Such also will the Antichrist be, for he has no witness from those Scriptures” (on the 35th reading of John, folio 165). “For he wishes to show himself alone” (Blagovestnik on the 17th reading of John). And so, instead of mocking the words of truth, the hasty remark-maker needs to read the Holy Scripture much more.

Secondly, then, against the blasphemous formula of the Syzran storyteller I say the following: Ham, having noticed the nakedness of his father, hastened to tell it to his other brothers; but the prudence of the latter gained the complete victory of perfection over their blaspheming brother. And what punishment the presumptuous blasphemer deserved can be seen from biblical history. In the same way the new Ham mocks the old-age infirmities of his own brethren in the Lord, calling such “subject to fits,” “unable to bear” the words read from the Synaxarion. What is even worse, he likened his Syzran brethren to “demoniacs” who cannot endure the prayer read on Sunday (in the footnote 14). So stupidly has the waterless voivode chattered that he has even forgotten propriety. But like a street woman he has tried to make use of magical fables. Yet for him whom the composer of the fable so harshly condemns, the great theologian Gregory shall be the defender. “And this passion,” says the Theologian, “of which they speak, occurs also in the more moderate and not entirely evil people, who, though they err in the truth, yet since they do this out of zeal for the faith, and though they have zeal it is not according to knowledge, may perhaps be subject to less severe condemnation and lighter punishment than those who through malice and cunning have fallen away from the will of the Master. (further) But what shall one say of people who through vainglory or love of power speak falsehood against the Most High, of the loquacity of some Jannes or Jambres, not warring against Moses but against the Truth, and rising up against sound doctrine? (further). But we know that it is better to entrust the reins of our government to others more skilled than to be ourselves unskilled drivers of others, and to extend a well-disposed ear rather than to move an undisciplined tongue” (Saint Gregory the Theologian, Oration 1). Let this serve you as a lesson.

Let us now look also at the instructive Synaxarion for Meatfare Sunday, at the indication of our accuser. Is it really true that such people, as soon as they hear the place read from it about the Antichrist—which is supposedly understandable even to the least informed—fall into anger and rage, and like those subject to fits, fall down, not wishing to hear the words of this writing? Let us set forth here the words of the Synaxarion. It is said therein: “That after seven thousand years the coming of Christ will be. But before His coming the adversary of Christ will come, and will be born, as says the divine Hippolytus of Rome, from an unclean virgin woman” (End of Synaxarion quotation).

Does not the Syzran critic himself suffer from the disease of mania, who makes the Synaxarion accessible not only to people who have laboured in the Scriptures and the thought of God, but openly speaks even for the most ignorant? In reality, how can such not understand that “the Antichrist will be born from an unclean virgin woman”? Yet I pass over the innocent listeners on this account, but turn to you, as one who knows the art of the Antichrist’s birth, with a question: In what manner does the unclean wife, the mother of the Antichrist, turn into a virgin and give birth to the man Antichrist? Is it really permissible, according to you, to listen so simply that the Antichrist will be born from an unclean wife and from a virgin? You are mistaken! And according to the word of God you evidently do not know the order of the Scriptures nor their power. You only try to tell about the Antichrist as about a Chinese official having a family tablet on his breast, but you forget the main thing: that he will be born from two common nouns—“an unclean virgin woman.” And of such an extraordinary birth it is not only inaccessible for all the least informed to know, but even you will perhaps have to think properly. For Xanthopulos most likely did not write so simply as it appears to you, easily marketable, but with a deep understanding befitting the spiritual sense. And consequently it may not be accessible to everyone.

I have pointed out to you the first thing, which is “not so simple.” Look also at the second. The same Synaxarion, a little further on, relates the birth of the Antichrist no longer from a wife and a virgin, as from subject persons for birth, but simply states: “A man born of fornication, and he will take upon himself all the working of Satan.” Do you see that this writing is not set down so simply as it seemed to you? If you need the Antichrist as a man, then according to you it should have been said that he will be born from a subject person of birth. But here it is quite the contrary: “a man from fornication”—fornication is not a person, but an action. And the Antichrist, contrary to your desire, must have been “born” from the action of apostasy subject to it, and not from the person you expect.

Then I shall present yet another place from the same Synaxarion, which is read in the following form: “But before the seven years, as Daniel says, Enoch and Elijah will come, preaching to the people not to accept this one. And he, having seized them, will torment them” (for Meatfare Sunday). The question is: Can your “simplest ones” know what these seven years are, before whose arrival Enoch and Elijah will come? Will they not fall into difficulty if they so simply and despotically decide the indicated week? For even Callistus Xanthopulos himself did not say it authoritatively, but pointed to the place from which he borrows the testimony. This week, or the same as seven years, is a mysterious week, and by its character a great one, perhaps not accessible to everyone, as will be seen from what is shown.

Before I proceed to the explanation of the indicated week, I deem it necessary to remark to the Syzran scholastic that it is unpardonable to so peddle the Holy Scripture and openly say that the writing of the Synaxarion for Meatfare Sunday can be comprehended by understanding even by the very simplest. Against such an insulting proposition for spiritual writing I shall present Saint Chrysostom in rebuke. On this the universal teacher writes: “And let the hearer know that simple understandings I declare with simple words, but deep knowledges require many varieties. And when you see the word covered, lift up your thought” (Margarit, folio 487). And so, leaving your simplest ones, I leave it to you yourself, the all-knowing, to judge my word.

The seven years written in the Synaxarion are that great seventieth week of which, prophesying, Daniel writes: “Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people,” says the Archangel to Daniel, “and upon thy holy city. (further) And thou shalt know and understand from the going forth of the word to answer and to build Jerusalem unto Christ the Prince, seven weeks and threescore and two weeks. And the city and the sanctuary shall be destroyed with the prince that is to come, and he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week; and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate” (Daniel ch. 9). The interpretation of the 69 weeks from the Book of Kirill: “Seven weeks and threescore and two weeks. And all together seventy minus one. Weeks, not in days nor in months, but seven years in a week, that is, four hundred and eighty-three years. And after that the final destruction of Jerusalem is foretold” (Book of Kirill, ch. 4, folio 132 verso). This is said of the sixty-nine weeks, which literally received their end at the end of the Old Testament and at the beginning of the New Grace-filled Law. Now there remains one, the seventieth week, of which we shall speak. The 69 weeks received their end at the coming and crucifixion of the Lord. But in this seventieth week “the new covenant will be given to the believers, and He will fill them with all powers; and in the midst of this week the sacrifice and libation will be taken away,” that is, the sacrifice that was according to the Law, after the offering of the true sacrifice of the immaculate Lamb—for once this has been offered, that former one will receive its end. (further) “And if anyone desires to know the time, he will know from the Evangelist John that the Lord, after a preaching of about three and a half years and after confirming His holy disciples by teaching and miracles, then at the end endured the Passion. After the Cross and death and resurrection, and ascension into heaven, and the descent of the Holy Spirit, the rest of the time of the week the holy Apostles, preaching in Jerusalem and working miracles and bringing many thousands of people to the evangelical teaching, taught the new covenant and prepared them for the acceptance of holy baptism” (Blessed Theodoret on Daniel ch. 9).

Thus the 69 weeks received their end, and in the last, the seventieth, the new covenant was delivered. Now let the Syzran expert show me what exactly this week is that remains in the Synaxarion he indicated, for the preaching of the prophets and the kingdom of the Antichrist? His simplest ones may count and determine the 69 weeks, but will even the rector himself, who frightens his opponents with the Synaxarion, be able to determine the seventieth? What week from Daniel will he now take for the term of the prophets’ preaching and for the inquisition of the future Antichrist? Since Daniel’s weeks are distributed in their places. Take heed, O presumptuous man, how you shamelessly revile many honourable defenders of the truth as liars, lest the net of materiality itself ensnare you, and—God preserve—lest you become a victim of the time.

I pass over the other audacities of the Syzran Shimei, as unworthy of attention, and still more the inappropriate exclamation marks and cabalistic dots. But I shall pause at the following. These are my former words, which he reproduced alongside his abuse. I truly wrote: “Since this understanding is not guided by the spirit of divine freedom, but by a scanty and servile manner of the flesh. Yet all the teaching of Christ’s Church consists in spiritual understanding, and not in the flesh” (End of my writing).

To this the hasty Syzran editor makes his remark: “And here,” he says, “is his own invention and slander, and he has said everything not from Scripture, but from his own spirit, and not by the Spirit of God, but by a scanty reason and a high-flown manner of the flesh” (End of the remark). To which I shall make a fitting refutation.

He says that I “have said everything not from Scripture.” This is untrue. Come, curious Thomas, and see on what theme and in what manner I spoke. First, that God-inspired Scripture is not subject to carnal analysis. This is indisputable. Christ the Saviour remarked to the Jewish lawyers: “You judge according to the flesh, but I judge no one” (John, reading 29). The Apostle Paul in the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians writes: “Who has made us sufficient to be ministers of the new covenant; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter kills, but the spirit gives life” (reading 173). And again to the Romans: “The mind of the flesh,” he says, “is death; but the mind of the spirit is life and peace, because the mind of the flesh is enmity against God” (reading 96). Saint Chrysostom in his homilies on the Epistle of Paul to the Galatians says: “Let us do this, for we ought not to examine naked words, since many sins will follow; nor to investigate the expression by itself, but to attend to the understanding of the writer. For if in our own words we do not accept this manner and examine the understanding of the speaker, we shall produce much hatred and everything will be perverted” (on reading 10[5?200?], p. 35). Saint Athanasius of Alexandria in his Second Encyclical Epistle writes: “It is fitting, as with all divine Scripture one ought to do, and it is necessary also here, in which the Apostle speaks of time, and person, and parable; therefore to understand rightly what is written, lest by ignorance of these or something other than these, the reader should be outside the true understanding. (further) For if the heretics had understood the person, the matter, and the time of the apostolic words, they would not have so impiously taken away the divinity, extracting the human instead” (St. Athanasius the Great, Second Oration against the Arians). Saint Joseph of Volotsk writes: “It is beastly and crooked not to attend to the power of the understanding, but to the ink of the letters. And from this alone does one foolishly hope to be wise” (Venerable Joseph of Volotsk, Homily 8).

Without spreading further, the one who said that I supposedly spoke in that place of the letter only from myself ought to be satisfied with what has been set forth. In this he must now be convinced that his present remark is nothing more than slander and an inability to determine given opinions in a known case. I do not even understand a man who wages war with a pen on paper, how he cannot distinguish proposed terms from comparisons, and the very theme that gives entrance into the realm of the created word, and finally the conclusion of the things themselves. Was it really so repugnant to him to see what was written: that “all the teaching of Christ’s Church consists in spiritual understanding, and not in the flesh”? But these very words openly bear the character and form of a single idea, having before it corresponding proofs that grace-filled Scripture “is spirit, and not flesh.” “Read according to the letter and understood by the spirit” (Blagovestnik of the Gospel of Luke, folio 34). To interpret it literally turns out to be beastly and crooked. And it would be foolish for such a one to seize naked words in order to compare imaginary fantasy and by their deadness to preach future miracles. But I have presented proofs, though in abbreviated form, that the letter indeed kills, while the spirit on the contrary gives life. And how this is in reality you can see from the following.

Christ the Saviour says: “I have come in the name of My Father.” The Jews object: “Is not His father Joseph, and His mother Mary?” The true Son of God and God is testified: “You both know Me, and you know where I am from. And I have not come of Myself, but He who sent Me is true, whom you do not know.” But the Jews object: “But we know this one, where He is from. But when the Christ comes, no one will know where He is from.” Christ the Saviour said, being: “I am the light of the world; he who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” The question is: By what fault did the Jewish lawyers become foolish, not accepting the divine light? It is not difficult to answer that the entire Jewish Sanhedrin in Scripture went no further than the letter. And that this is truly so is witnessed by the Holy Church in hymnody: “The Jews carnally, thinking carnally of the Scriptures, fall by the Scriptures. But we, leaving these things, understand the spiritual.” And again: “The Scripture as it was placed in the flesh, but the spirit in the depth of divine understandings. But the Jews rejected these things through ignorance, as carnal. For they could not understand spiritual things” (Triodion of the Flower, on the feast of Mid-Pentecost, in the 9th Ode of the Canon).

Thus the Syzran physiologist, not understanding the hidden reason in the words that have behind them the above-stated proofs, hastened to say: that “Mr. Pichugin has said everything not from Scripture,” “but with a scanty reason and a high-flown manner of the flesh.” Such expressions, the Syzran critic probably thought, are not a praiseworthy review of him. But alas, the poor man did not even notice that this coarsely worked sphinx is the fruit of his own invention! Be instructed, ignorant head, and remember: who among us in our concepts holds to the dead letter of “Antichrist,” led by a scanty reason? Is it not you! Who rages for the letter like one possessed by fear of light? Is it not you! So in the last let it be according to you: I will go high-flown, with the help of the wings of the great eagle; but you remain creeping on the outskirts of the suburb, awaiting the coming Antichrist.

Then, I do not understand the words written by the defender of sensuality: “But we,” he says, “celebrate the Resurrection of Christ in the flesh, and sing: Christ is risen—in the flesh. We celebrate the Nativity of Christ in the flesh, and sing: Thy Nativity (O Christ our God)—in the flesh. And Christ laid down beatitudes for the Apostles: Blessed are the merciful, and the rest of the beatitudes—in the flesh” (End of quotation). To what purpose is such a confession! Does he wish by this to say that the whole evangelical teaching also consists in the flesh? Then this will perhaps smell of Gnosticism! And the stamp of ignorance will be reflected on the author himself.

For example: “We celebrate the Nativity of Christ in the flesh.” True. But such a notion was shared by Paul of Samosata and Arius of Alexandria. Yet I know well that the Syzran moralist has nothing in common with that teaching. But if he wanted to say something fitting about the carnal economy of Christ, it would have been better to say thus: We celebrate the Resurrection of Christ spiritually, not as the foul Arius—carnally. For Christ, by the good pleasure of the Father, transformed sensible flesh into spiritual flesh and rose victoriously; and in this spiritual flesh He trampled the enemy and death itself according to nature; He descended into hell, cast down the opposing powers. In this spiritual flesh He appeared to the disciples, not touching the closed doors, working wonders on the sea and preparing a strange supper on the land for His wearied disciples and Apostles; and with this spiritual flesh He ascended into heaven and sat at the right hand of God the Father. Do you see the true understanding of the Church concerning the flesh of Christ?

Do not forget also that the flesh of Christ is not a birth according to the law of common nature, but its conception was from the Holy Spirit, and the birth itself is an incomprehensible mystery. Therefore one must say: that we celebrate spiritually, as the chosen spiritual Israel, and not bodily as the children of the Jews. “For our Passover, Christ God, has been sacrificed for us”—spiritually, and not in the manner of irrational flesh. Likewise the fruit and reward of the beatitudes lies not in the flesh, but in the spirit. And how? Hear: “Blessed are the merciful”—here: “for they shall obtain mercy” on the day of the terrible judgment, and so forth. But if not so, then tell me what the following beatitude means: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” If according to you this lies only in the flesh, then in what manner can a man see God for the merit of a pure heart? I know well that here you will blunt your immodest tongue. And if I am not mistaken, I foresee your thought: you probably wanted by these respectable names to say more simply that Christ was in the flesh, and the Antichrist will be in the flesh. Christ suffered and rose in the flesh; and the Antichrist will deceive and will be slain by the spirit of Christ’s mouth in the flesh. All this is logical from one side. But there is yet another side in reasoning about the flesh—the spiritual side.

Christ suffered for our salvation with mortal flesh, but rose already with immortal—the very same flesh. But He will slay the Antichrist not with flesh, “but with the spirit of His mouth.” And look with reason at what the prophet says concerning the slaying of the Antichrist: “Until,” he says, “the beast was slain, and perished, and his body was given to the burning of fire” (Daniel ch. 7). Behold, you see that the beast—the Antichrist—will be slain, and his body will be given to the burning of fire. But his body, according to the literal narrative, will not be genuine like our body, but imaginary—as you yourself maintain. In that case you must answer me the following question: In what manner will an immaterial imaginary body be in the burning of fire? I think it will be difficult for you to find a written answer—according to nature. Yet you are obliged to give an answer at the judgment of justice. For you say that the Antichrist will be a man, will appear as a man to deceive the Jews, and as a man must receive the punishment of the Lord’s judgment.

Here is the chief cause of the blunting of your reason. Look anagogically, be understanding above nature, and you will comprehend that the beast—the power of sin holding authority—will be slain. And the body of the beast will be given to burning—the people who have lived impiously. But lest you think that I say this from myself, I present to you in proof blessed Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrrhus. He writes on this: “For after the judgment was carried out on account of the madness of that beast, the fourth kingdom was also destroyed, and the body of the beast was given to the fire for burning. However, it must be noted that he did not simply say the beast was given to burning, but his body: for as by the beast the whole kingdom is signified, and in the kingdom some are pious and others evildoers, and we are accustomed to call the former spiritual and the latter carnal, being assured by divine Scripture—for this reason he did not say that the beast was given to the burning of fire, but the body of the beast, that is, the grosser people, carnal and understanding nothing spiritual” (Blessed Theodoret, commentary on Daniel ch. 7, folio 70). And: “Those who, having taken away power from the soul, gave freedom to the body, and through all their life used carnal understanding—I say this body of the beast will be given to the burning of fire” (ibid., folio 75 verso).

Now behold what flesh the beast—the Antichrist—bears: not literal according to you, but figurative; that is, the flesh of all the ungodly who know nothing beyond the flesh. And in order for you to incline to such understanding, you must take into account the following: Those who truly believe in Christ are called, according to the Apostle, the body of Christ: “You are the body of Christ,” he says. In like manner understand also the body of the Antichrist. By this degree of equality raise your thought that “in everything the deceiver wishes to liken himself to the Son of God,” etc. And this I conclude anagogically: the Church, as the body of Christ, will be caught up on the clouds on the day of the Lord’s coming, according to the Apostle; but the church of the evildoers, as the body of the beast, according to the prophet, will be given to burning for ever and ever: “where their fire is not quenched and their worm does not die,” according to the Lord’s utterance.

Next follows the restoration of a portion of my letter in the brochure of the Syzran master concerning the four kingdoms, represented in the form of the four beasts seen by Daniel. On this account, in the above-stated present discourse, I have already adduced quite enough various testimonial data; to repeat them here I consider superfluous. I shall only make a small remark to the author of the brochure on the following point: “Mr. Pichugin,” says the author, “has cited writings about the Antichrist and indicated the book, chapter, and pages. (Below) But on these pages and in these verses there turned out to be nothing about the Antichrist—not a single line, nor even a single word.” (Thus far.) I can only say: an astonishing master of literacy and a keenly sensitive connoisseur of every breath! For example: under his nose it smelled of apricot, yet he calls it polecat. It was said: “From the fourth (nameless) ten-horned beast the Antichrist shall arise in the person of the little horn.” But he declares that “on the indicated places the writing is biblical.” Therefore one must say something practical to him as well: one cannot blame the mirror if one’s own physiognomy is out of order.

Then I shall present for consideration a few more lines written by the accuser of my letter: “Mr. Pichugin,” he writes, “set forth his conception with the aim of accommodating his Antichrist, whereas Hippolytus writes and points to the writings of the saints that the Antichrist shall arise from Bashan; and Bashan denotes a locality and the city of Bashan, where the tribe of Dan has its dwelling.” (Thus far.) Here the Syzran warrior of sensuality has made an incredible leap, from top to bottom, somehow crudely and illogically, rushing from the prophetic writing to the patristic one, saying that the Antichrist shall arise not from Rome but from Bashan. And Bashan is, or denotes, a locality and the city of Bashan. I do not rightly know what sort of geography this scholar has devoured, who now fancies himself editing the statement that “Bashan is a locality and at the same time a city.” Involuntarily one is reminded of the words of the Theologian Gregory: “Since even a small quantity of wormwood quickly imparts bitterness to honey, yet honey—even double—does not impart its sweetness to the wormwood. Let us not imitate the bad example of many, though we ourselves may perhaps be no bad painters; lest, while undertaking to heal others, we ourselves should pour forth pus.” (In Oration 1 against Julian.) This the Syzran geographer has proved quite clearly about himself.

First, to his own misfortune, he has proved his complete ignorance in the words: “Bashan denotes a locality and the city of Bashan, where the tribe of Dan has its dwelling.” Secondly, inattention to Scripture. The curious and ignorant-in-geography defender of a sensual Antichrist ought to know that “Bashan” is a region adjoining the borders of the Jordan, among the territories of the pagan ancient rulers—the Amorites, Hittites, and Perizzites: of Og, Sihon, Balak, and the other kings of Canaan. The region of Bashan, conquered by Israel, is reckoned at sixty cities, according to the description in Deuteronomy, chapter 3. Thus Bashan is a region, or a small kingdom. Just as Egypt, Libya, India, and Ethiopia are not cities but countries of peoples; the cities within those countries have their own special names. So too in Bashan there existed up to sixty cities of various names. But for the region of Bashan to be called also a city would be more than ignorant. Meanwhile the Syzran historiographer ought to know that the blessed Moses personally handed over the conquered region as an inheritance to the tribe of Reuben, the tribe of Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh (Book of Numbers, chapter 21; Book of Deuteronomy, chapter 29). Consequently the tribe of Dan had no settled dwelling in the kingdom of Bashan.

Therefore, not knowing the exact allocation of the tribes of Israel in the lands they conquered, the Syzran defender of the natural genealogy of the Antichrist could write nonsense and a personal untruth, since Saint Hippolytus has no such explanation. Nor are there those words that “the Antichrist shall arise from Bashan,” as the Syzran dialectician wrote. For Saint Hippolytus wrote: “A lion’s whelp is Dan; he shall leap forth from Bashan.” He took this writing from the prophecy of Moses in Deuteronomy, chapter 33. Where the divine prophet says nothing historically, but prophetically. A prophetic utterance has an elevated sense, not a historical one. The Syzran pedagogue wanted all too simply to explain a matter quite unsuited to his thought and to the audacity of the hand that set forth its own belly-prophecy.

To the prophet-seer it is said prophetically “he shall leap forth,” that is, it manifests some unforeseen impudence: “he shall leap forth,” it says, and not “he shall go forth” as a robber, nor “he shall arise” genealogically and peacefully. And in the present discourse, concerning “he shall arise,” the Syzran moralist ought to have considered that this honourable utterance is ascribed prophetically by Balaam to the only-begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ alone: “There shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Man shall arise out of Israel” (Numbers, chapter 24). But to Dan it is said “to leap forth.” This leaping forth manifests: “For from the swiftness of his horse,” says the prophet Jeremiah, “all the earth shall be shaken.” By this is signified something grievous and tormenting that is about to be.

As for the dwelling of the tribe of Dan, as the Syzran historiographer wrote—that it is situated in Bashan—if one follows the historical letter, then as I said above, in Bashan there remained two and a half tribes: Reuben, Gad, and the half of Manasseh. This is said historically. From the factual point of view, however, it is evident that the tribes of Israel long ago lost the historical settlement given them by God. After the final destruction of Jerusalem, it would be not only audacious to determine the factual existence of the tribe of Dan in Bashan, but even of all the tribes of Israel that once existed independently in the “promised land.” For nearly two thousand years now they have been scattered over the face of all the earth—irrevocably!

If, however, it pleases the Syzran watchman to see the beast in human form and Satan in a man, then he must first of all seek in Arabia for Bashan and the living tribe of Dan within it. But if Bashan is not found geographically, nor the factual existence of the tribe of Dan in it, then the besotted sentinel, whether he likes it or not, will have to reconcile himself to the truth that the Antichrist in the person of the little horn will appear not from a non-existent Bashan, but from the ruling Rome. On the basis of the following truths.

The prophet Daniel saw in vision four beasts representing four great kingdoms in the world, and the last, the fourth beast, is accepted by the holy interpreters as an image of the Roman kingdom. The blessed Theodoret therefore explains: “By the fourth beast he calls the Roman kingdom; he does not give it a name, because the Roman city, being assembled from many nations, ruled the world.” The fourth beast seen by Daniel had ten horns. “And I considered the horns, and behold, another little horn came up among them, and three of the first horns were plucked out before it; and behold, in that horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things.” On this Theodoret comments: “Here, he says, he designates the Antichrist, appearing in the midst of the ten horns” (blessed Theodoret on Daniel, chapter 7).

Then Saint Kirill of Jerusalem in his Fifteenth Catechetical Lecture says: “We are taught this not from our own invention, but having learned it from the divine Scripture read in the Church, and especially from the prophecy of Daniel lately read; as the Archangel Gabriel explained it, speaking thus: The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall surpass all kingdoms (Daniel, chapter 7). The Church interpreters hold that this kingdom is the Roman one. The first renowned kingdom was the Assyrian, the second the Median together with the Persian, after them the third the Macedonian; and the fourth kingdom now standing is the Roman.—Its ten horns are ten kings that shall arise, and after them shall arise another who shall surpass in evil all the former. He says not only ten, but all who were before him. And he shall humble three kings, who are clearly from among those ten. Having overthrown three of the ten, he will without doubt reign as the eighth himself.”

“By whom the Antichrist shall hold dominion, as a coming Roman emperor, and destroying the Roman principality” (Andrew of Caesarea on chapter 13 of the Apocalypse).

From the Book of Kirill, Sign Nine: “Saint Kirill, having gathered from prophecy, relates to us. First, from that time the kingdom of the Antichrist shall begin in Rome, as he says, when the years of the Roman kingdom shall be fulfilled. And he does not say when it shall be disturbed, but when the years shall be fulfilled, that is, when the Roman emperors shall no longer rule. As we now see, that they do not rule” (Book of Kirill, folio 71). “And it is evident that from that time in Rome the power of the forerunners of the Antichrist began, when the power of the Roman emperors in Rome ceased; then the spiritual man, the Roman Pope, began to hold the power of God and the episcopal office” (folio 72). “And for this reason the Antichrist himself shall also be called the eighth; sitting on the Roman throne, the evil spirit shall take seven of the fiercest, and the last deceit shall come upon that man, worse than the first” (Book of Kirill, folio 72 verso).

Thus all the cited proofs confirm that the arising of the Antichrist shall follow not from Bashan, which no longer exists, but from the royal and mighty Rome, according to the writing concerning him. Bashan, on the other hand, remains now a mysterious residence for the Antichristian dynasty. Therefore the Syzran Thomas-builder must necessarily concern himself with material means for the construction of a temple in Arabia, according to the plan of the same Syzran architect, for the future disposal of the Antichrist to come from the tribe of Dan. Having chosen a suitable locality in advance, he must beforehand take care to settle in it the tribe of Dan scattered throughout the world; and meanwhile, in the region of wandering tribes, on the basis of Jewish geography, he must give the name Bashan to some settlement; and since this artificial city must first be entered on the map of Europe. But if the defender of materiality does not accept such measures, it will be difficult for the Antichrist to arise, since in reality the city of Bashan does not exist.

And that the Antichrist, according to you, “will be circumcised,” I do not dispute. But there are two kinds of circumcision: the natural—Jewish, and the spiritual—Christian. Of which the Apostle Paul says: “being circumcised with the circumcision made without hands.” With which circumcision the Antichrist will be circumcised is for you to answer. Meanwhile I shall again examine your brochure.

On folio 18 you say: that “Mr. Pichugin brings forward the witness the Apostle Paul: he writes thus: ‘except there come a falling away first, the man of sin, the son of perdition, shall be revealed,’ and so forth. Here you say: ‘Mr. Pichugin himself writes that the Apostle Paul writes about him secretly.’ But Chrysostom interprets openly… And after those words Mr. Pichugin begins trying to close up the open interpretation!.. And he called him an apostate… And he wrote that the name ‘apostate’ is an adjective, therefore his real name is Antichrist.” (Thus far.)

To such an absurd perversion of the authentic words I shall make a remark. It is true that I wrote: that the holy Apostle Paul in the 275th reading writes secretly, not wishing to sow enmity prematurely against those in power. But my remark is not about this. What extremely surprises me is the carelessness of the protester toward the meaning of what is written, and his very shortsightedness toward the letter of the apostolic writing on the subject. Let us now look at the words of the Apostle in which I find a hidden meaning.

After the words “showing himself that he is God,” the Apostle says: “And now ye know what withholdeth, that he might be revealed in his own time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work; only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.” Saint Chrysostom explains: “Someone might rightly inquire first what is that which withholdeth, and after that wish to learn why Paul sets it forth so obscurely (that is, secretly)?” (below). “Since he is speaking of the Roman power, he rightly indicated it, and up to that point spoke covertly. For he did not wish to incur excessive enmity and unprofitable dangers.” Behold wherein lies the mystery: “For if he had said that the Roman power would soon be destroyed, they would immediately have buried him as a destroyer, and all the faithful as people living and warring for this very thing.” (below) “Thus he spoke covertly and did not wish to make it manifest, not out of fear, but instructing us not to incur excessive enmity when there is nothing compelling us to do so” (Homily 4 on 2 Thessalonians).

Such was the reason that I called hidden—not in the letter, but in the understanding of the holy Apostle. You, too, look attentively at how the Apostle designated that the Antichrist would arise in Rome, and mystically pointed to Nero as a type of the future Antichrist. Yet you labour senselessly, expecting him from Bashan, and do not wish to know that this may be said in a figurative sense, since in the historical sense Bashan no longer exists. But it is foretold that he will actually appear in Rome, and precisely then: when “the Roman power is taken out of the way, then he shall come,” according to the understanding of Saint Chrysostom. And this has truly come to pass. For under Arcadius and Honorius, the hereditary sovereigns of the East and Rome, the western country, in the person of the Roman Pope, violated the oath of allegiance given to its lawful sovereigns and raised to the rank of Roman autocrat the foreigner Charles, alien to the faith. From this the Roman state fell into anarchy. And the spiritual man, the Pope, in fact seized both human and divine power. From this it is evident that the prediction of the Apostle Paul was fulfilled in deed upon the proud prince of this world, the apostate Pope. Of whom the holy Chrysostom also prophesied: “For as the kingdoms that were destroyed before—namely, the Median by the Babylonian, the Babylonian by the Persian, the Persian by the Macedonian, the Macedonian by the Roman—so also this one shall be destroyed by the Antichrist, and he by Christ” (Homily 4 on 2 Thessalonians).

Have you seen the harmony of words—prophetic, of the Apocalypse itself, apostolic, and finally patristic—that the arising of the Antichrist shall follow from Rome, after the fulfilment of the years of Roman monarchical power, and finally according to the number 666 concerning him, which was covertly said by the Apostle?

As for the open understanding of Saint Chrysostom, I have spoken of it in part and shall speak further in what follows. That Saint Chrysostom called the Antichrist by the adjective “apostate” is beyond doubt. The divine Chrysostom set forth the words of the Apostle Paul: “Let no man deceive you by any means; for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition,” and so forth. And here is how he explains them: “Here he is discoursing about the Antichrist,” he says, “and reveals great mysteries. What is the apostasy? He calls the Antichrist himself the apostasy, as one who will destroy and turn away many” (Homily 3 on 2 Thessalonians).

How unjust must a man be, how more insensible than a stone to the knowledge of truth, and how blind besides, not to see the true light placed in the words of the great universal teacher of the Church! Not only that, but even to utter a wild untruth: “Mr. Pichugin,” he says, “fell into perplexity and asks, What is the apostasy?” Indeed this is wild—to twist the words written by Saint Chrysostom into a statement of lowly things, and then shamelessly to declare that “Mr. Pichugin asks, What is the apostasy?” This question does not belong personally to me, but to Saint Chrysostom. And I truly do not know how the Syzran paramonary reads these lines; and while reading them, does he feel that after the words “What is the apostasy?” there stands the mark of a question? If he feels that the question is directed by Chrysostom toward explanation, then he must agree also with the answer of the same Chrysostom. For he answers: “He calls the Antichrist himself the apostasy.”

In considering this word one must also take into account the words of the Apostle Paul and the Theologian John: “Little children, it is the last time; and as ye have heard that Antichrist cometh, even now are there many antichrists.” Do you see? While discoursing of one, the blessed Apostle called many antichrists. Whom did the holy Apostle mean by antichrists? Undoubtedly heretics; and they are precisely apostates. “They went out from us,” he says, “but they were not of us” (reading 71). And again: “This is the Antichrist, who denieth the Father and the Son.” “For the blessed Apostle called the heretic an Antichrist,” according to the testimony of Joseph of Volotsk (Word 12, p. 520). “Just as the holy Apostles themselves at that time called those apostates and seducers of God’s people antichrists along with themselves” (Book of Kirill, folio 45).

Upon the restoration of such testimonial truths, by virtue of the written word that “the apostate” is the Antichrist, the compiler of the Syzran brochure is shown to be guilty of slander in personally ascribing to me the invention of the word, and of complete negligence toward patristic writing.

As for the word “Antichrist,” it likewise undoubtedly signifies, in its adjectival sense: adversary, false Christ, apostate-heretic. But that I ever had in mind to give this word the force of a proper name I have never entertained; knowing that “the Divine grace has not deigned to write its name in the books for the son of perdition.” On what ground the Syzran pedagogue decided to write that “his real name is Antichrist” I truly do not know.

Next, the Syzran editor of the press further restores my letter exactly as I wrote it: “If, therefore, the Antichrist is known through the apostasy, then what kind of apostate can there be from the law of grace, in the person of a fornicating Jew descending from the tribe of Dan—a Jewish circumcised one and a hypocritical fulfiller of that law? From what can he apostatize when he has not yet been a true worshipper of grace? A matter requiring deep understanding!” (End of the lines of my letter.)

But what does the restorer of these lines from the Syzran side turn out to have done? He has not made a single proper remark on any one word. In reality, what could he say against this allegory: that the Antichrist proceeds first from a defiled woman—and at the same time from a Jewish virgin—of the tribe of Dan; that he will seize the Roman kingdom; will call himself king, the eighth; will reign with seven evil spirits; and that the last deceit upon that man will be worse than the first; that he will also seek to seize both divine and human power; that he will sit not only in the temple of God but also in the churches. Would the Syzran letter-eater dare to assert that these enigmatic words belong to the category of historical narrative? That would be unforgivable audacity on his part.

First of all, he ought to know that all the utterances concerning the Antichrist do not narrate the past but foretell the future as in the manner of prophecy; and not uniformly, but in various forms. He preaches too simply, offering the letter as witness, that the Antichrist will be circumcised and will come to the Jews and will attempt to build a church for them. But Scripture says that the Antichrist will sit not only in the temple of God—which is not in Jerusalem—but also in the churches (Homily 3 on 2 Thessalonians). For Saint Chrysostom understood the settled lawlessness of the Antichrist to be in the churches of the new age, not in the Jewish ones of the past. “He shall sit,” he says, “in the temple of God, not the one in Jerusalem.” For the Jewish temple in Jerusalem has fallen irrevocably, and even while it still existed in its last days it was deprived of God’s gifts and was called desolate by Christ the Saviour. “But also in the churches,” he says. In the manner of Simon and other false christs.

Do you see the mystery lying in the words of Scripture: “The Antichrist shall sit in the temple of God, not the one in Jerusalem” (that is, which no longer exists), “but also in the churches”? And by churches Saint Chrysostom understood not the Jewish synagogues in which demons dwell, but Christian ones—or, what is even more, the animated churches. “For the Church,” he says, “is nothing else but a house created by our souls” (Homily 10 on Ephesians). As the Apostle also says: “Ye are the church of the living God,” and “ye are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone” (reading 222). Saint Chrysostom: “What then does the building desire? That God should dwell in this church” (Apostolic Discourses, Part 2, p. 71).

Do you see what the word “churches” signifies and what a wondrous building this is? If he used the concept of a material building, that one decays with years. But this one never does. For it does not grow old, but rather grows younger. “The Church is not walls and a roof, but faith and life. Speak not to me of walls and weapons; walls decay with time, but the Church never grows old” (Margarit, in the discourse “The Queen Stood”). According to the understanding of Saint Chrysostom. In the true believing rational church, the true God dwells: “I will dwell in them,” He says, “and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” Understand what in the true sense are the churches of God in which God abides. For such a church is holy and truly wonderful. “Become thou a church of God, and the Most High God will dwell in thee” (St. Ephraim, Word 83).

Do not forget either that there are also churches of those who work iniquity (Psalm 25), in which the spirit of delusion abides, just as God abides in His own. If you seek the indwelling of God in the human soul—how in a certain manner God dwells in man, that is, in the bodily temple of the church—you will be fully satisfied by the answer of the Gospel: “If a man love Me, he will keep My words; and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him and make Our abode with him.” “For God loves above all to dwell in immaterial, non-hand-made temples, that is, in pure human souls.” According to the prophet Isaiah: “The Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands” (Acts of the Apostles, chapter 3, verse 48? [actually 17:24]).

In like manner the deceiver-Antichrist will sit in the churches instead of God, showing himself that he is God; this he will do in those who are deceived, who, according to the Apostle, received not the love of the truth. “The evil spirit shall take seven of the fiercest and come to that man, and the last deceit shall be worse than the first” (Book of Kirill, folio 72). And you can no longer kick against these pricks. For the true God dwells in the animated churches of the faithful, not naturally but spiritually. In like manner the false god-Antichrist sits in the churches, in the souls of heretics, also not naturally but spiritually. “For he, the Antichrist, being a deceiver, desires in all things to imitate the Son of God” (St. Hippolytus in the Sobornik).

The true name “church” is a spiritual name. And the true Son of God and God abides in His Church truly spiritually; from this true reality the deceiver desires in all things to imitate the Son of God. The true God abides in the souls of the faithful; the deceiver Antichrist abides in the souls of heretics. And in what manner, hear: “Since the devil is the very inventor of hatred and a great demon, he only appears and leaps upon all like a serpent, like a dragon, like a lion, seeking whom he may devour. Therefore, what he himself is he conceals and hides, but he hypocritically assumes the name beloved by all, so that by deceiving with an apparition he may afterwards bind the deceived with his own chains” (Athanasius the Great against Arius, Oration 1). “Such is the working of the adversary, and such are the plottings of heresies. For each heresy, having its own invention from the beginning, having turned aside and become a murderer and liar like the devil, and being ashamed to pronounce his hateful name, hypocritically assumes what is good, and above all the name of the Saviour; it clothes itself in the words of Scripture, utters the words, but steals away the true meaning” (ibid., folio 8).

This spirit of deceit settles in vessels like itself, in animated organs, and in the souls of heretic-apostates contends against the true God, being himself a false god of the belly; he chooses for himself like-minded servants who always speak lies. For “they have gone astray from the womb.” From this the Antichrist begins to deceive such people (Ephraim, Word 105). The belly in Scripture is understood in two ways: fleshly and spiritual. The spiritual belly, that is, the heart that has received the word of the true God and believed in it with all the soul, pours forth for others also the living water of true teaching in grace (Commentary on John, reading 27). But the fleshly belly, that is, the hardened heretical heart of falsehood, by the delusion of the spirit, brings forth false teaching. The prophet says: “They have gone astray from the womb, they have spoken lies.” The interpretation of Gregory of Nyssa: “I think the prophecy speaks of those who by delusion have gone astray, for they have gone astray from the womb. They have gone astray because they have spoken falsehoods… How does one go astray from the womb? Not yet being under the law. But he calls the womb and belly baptism; hence the bath of regeneration, the grace of baptism, is named. Those, therefore, who have fallen ill with the greatness of impiety, like Simon, together with the gift have turned themselves to sins—the prophet rightly laments over them.” Theodoret: “He says the same thing again from another angle: from whence they were born. They remain in error away from God, in no way abiding in His dogmas… as those rejoicing in falsehood and having it in their mouths. From afar they stray from the Master.” Didymus: “The very expression ‘they have spoken lies’ shows that they are born of perverted teaching, from the very womb that bore them. They had both to go astray and to speak falsehoods” (Commentary on the Psalter, folios 455–456).

Wherefore? Because “they had in themselves the unclean satanic spirit” (St. Joseph of Volotsk, Word 12). They bear in active form the image of the Antichrist himself. It is not as the Syzran book-reader simply and openly understands—that the Antichrist as a man will personally sit in the Jewish church and in the churches together. He does not understand that it is impossible for any one man, whoever he may be, to sit in thousands of visible buildings—in Jerusalem and throughout the whole world. What is impossible by nature is very possible by spirit: for a heretic is an Antichrist, according to the tradition of the catholic epistle of John, as Joseph of Volotsk understood (Word 12, p. 508). The spirit of delusion, with seven of the fiercest, comes not to a building but to a man who has some impiety against the truth; seeing a convenient temple, it reasonably takes its place and dwells in him. “And the last state of that man shall be worse than the first” (Matthew, reading 48), according to the word of God.

Thus the Antichrist sits in the churches, that is, in the hearts of ungodly men. This is according to the true understanding of the Church. But you demand a material building, a Jewish temple, in which, according to you, the Antichrist will sit. Yet there is no Jewish temple; it has perished irrevocably. And if, according to you, the Antichrist builds it, then it will be an Antichristian temple and not God’s. Thus I do not know how you can show from an Antichristian building the Church of God.

You accuse me therefore for the allegorical method, but I have proved to you many times above that all the new-grace Scripture is judged not by the outward letter but by the hidden meaning within it. Conforming to the times and taking into account the past 1000 years, the 595th and the 1666th as the final number of time with its bitter consequences, I advise you to shake off the gaping sleep of death and look at reality from the spiritual point of view. Namely: everything you point to in Scripture according to the letter lies in the spiritual meaning; and its fulfilment has long since been actually accomplished.

To our extreme regret, it is evident that the Syzran literalist has not only not been corrected by the evil fate that has befallen him, but by every means strives to prove that the Scripture concerning the Antichrist has only one side of meaning—the outward side—while the other side, the spiritual one, he even tries to deny in everything. And seeing others who understand his propositions better, he turns to them without ceremony and says something entirely different, wishing to display his mental deficiency upon another. Thus he says: “Mr. Pichugin did not wish to go by the open path, but composed his own special interpretation, contrary to Chrysostom. Chrysostom did not write the name ‘Apostate’ for the Antichrist as Pichugin wrote, but gave him the name according to his activity—‘apostasy’—and set forth the reason why he called him apostasy: because he will turn many away from the truth.” (Thus far.)

In the delirium of his literal state the Syzran man appears all the more pitiable; he even imagines that I have composed some special interpretation contrary to Chrysostom. In what exactly? In that under the word “apostasy” I recognise the Antichrist himself, and, as it seems to him, in this word I recognise a proper name for the Antichrist. I can say this is a brazen lie on his part. “Apostate” receives this title from the cause of apostasy; but apostasy itself cannot exist without an apostate, just as confession cannot exist without one who confesses. The compiler of the brochure, however, refers this title “apostasy” to a mere impersonal action, or, as he expresses it, “according to activity.” And in the realm of such lowly knowledge he shows himself to be a man quite incapable even of managing his own imagination. He ought to have imagined to himself that activities cannot exist without an actor, or, in other words, that action cannot exist without one who acts—just as apostasy cannot exist without an apostate.

Before presenting the words of Saint Chrysostom for clarification, I consider it necessary to explain the essence of the matter. The Apostle Paul, writing his second epistle to the Thessalonians, did so because certain idle disorderly persons were going about among the brethren and falsely telling them that the coming of Christ had already taken place. And to give their words special weight they were not ashamed to lie that they had received this opinion as though from the Spirit and from the Apostle himself. It was this false teaching—this peculiar delusion scattered by idlers—that the Apostle Paul refutes. And he begins in a truly apostolic spirit: “Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto Him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, the adversary,” and so forth (reading 275).

Now justice requires us to ask, before setting forth the interpretation of Saint Chrysostom: in the words of the Apostle it is clear—“except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed.” In these two expressions—“apostasy” and “the man of sin”—did the Apostle understand one person or two? If two, then which comes first—the apostate or the apostasy? It goes without saying that where there is apostasy, there is also an apostate, for the one cannot exist without the other. Let us now see which of us does not follow the interpretation of Saint Chrysostom—you or I, or the compiler of the brochure.

Saint Chrysostom, interpreting the above words of the Apostle Paul, says: “Here Paul is discoursing about the Antichrist and reveals great mysteries. What is the apostasy?” (Here in the original there stands a question mark.) “He calls the Antichrist himself the apostasy, as one who will destroy and turn away many” (Discourses on the Apostolic Epistles, p. 1135).

Behold how the divine universal teacher unites the two expressions—“apostasy” and “the man of sin”—into one whole: the Antichrist! The blessed Chrysostom understands no one else under the word “apostasy” but “the Antichrist himself,” of whom the Apostle wrote. But you, forgetting decency, shame, and the fear of God, have ascribed this explanation to my invention, and with your ignorance you so brazenly mock the words of Saint Chrysostom.

Now pay attention to your own words with which you tried to persuade others that apostasy is a word of “activity,” and this activity you called by name: “and he wrote,” you say, “Saint Chrysostom gave him (the Antichrist) the name according to activity—apostasy.” Look at what incongruities and ignorant conclusions you write! “Apostasy” is not a proper name but a verbal noun of indefinite time. And the word “apostasy” in the Apostle stands before the words “man of sin.” But you have made the first the second and the second the first; and in the end you have obtained two kinds and two persons: “apostasy” and “lawlessness,” “activity” and “man.” But this opinion is vain, both according to the circumstances of the time and according to the very importance of the word.

For your instruction I will present to you one prophetic example: “Behold, he travaileth with iniquity, and hath conceived mischief, and brought forth falsehood” (Psalm 7). Three things are seen in one person: weakness, sickness, and iniquity. If these things are not given an actor, can they be effective apart from an organic conductor? No. On the simple ground that where there is no man, there is no action; and where action appears, there must also be an actor. Thus Saint Chrysostom rightly understood the words of the Apostle Paul: “except there come a falling away first, that man of sin be revealed,” and so forth. Therefore he said: “He calls the Antichrist himself the apostasy.” Which one? Precisely the one whom the Apostle called the man of sin and the son of perdition.

As for the words “as one who will destroy and turn away many, so that, if it were possible, he might deceive even the elect,” Saint Chrysostom directly refers these to the evil activity of the apostate. Since he himself is an apostate, he will also serve as an example of apostasy for many. Thus Saint Chrysostom truly understood it.

But the Syzran blind man, reproaching the true understanding, falls himself into error: “Saint Chrysostom says he wrote him the name according to activity—apostasy—and gave the reason why he called him apostasy: because he will turn many away from the truth.” To the man sitting in ignorant darkness one may remark that he is a very poor interpreter of the theory laid down by so great a father of the Church. First, the word “apostasy” is not a name but an action. Secondly, the Antichrist is not called “apostasy” because he will turn many away from the truth, but because he himself is first of all an apostate, and then by his example will lead others also.

For example: why is John called holy? From likeness to holiness. But the word “holiness” is only a spoken word, having no visible form. When you apply to the word “holiness” the name of a saint, then it receives its proper form. In the same way the word “apostasy” is only a kind of action. But when you apply to this apostasy the action of some actor—the apostate—then it becomes clear that the apostate has produced the apostasy. Just as theft—the thief; robbery—the robber. For the actor is known from the action: “Every tree,” it says, “is known by its own fruit.”

The Syzran man called it a “reason” that “he will turn many away from the truth,” and according to his meaning this is still in the future time—“if even the elect might be deceived.” Which elect does the Syzran man now have in mind in the more chosen places: in Jerusalem, in Antioch, in Constantinople and Egypt, in Arabia and Africa, in Asia and Europe? And finally in historical Rome itself, in White Russia, Poland, and in the Third Rome—Moscow? Thus, for the future coming of the Antichrist he expects, he must now take care to go through world history and first of all point out the elect in faith and the many in ordination. If such exist, then I shall be guilty of despising them. But if they do not exist, then let our word have strength. For “the scattering of the hands of the sanctified people” (Daniel, chapter 12) will not be fiercely accomplished except after the completion of the time of the number 666 (Apocalypse, chapter 13).

Concerning this time Daniel asked the Archangel: “O Lord, what shall be the end of these things? And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end… And the wicked shall do wickedly, and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand” (chapter 12). “For the prudent, by means of knowledge granted them from above, shall understand; but those living in lawlessness and impiety shall not be able to know anything of what is within, until the event of things comes; then they shall clearly understand the power of the prophecies.” (below) “And the Angel of God informs the blessed Daniel, as a holy and reverent servant of the Master, concerning the time of the tyranny of the Antichrist, saying: And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days. For, having said ‘for a time and times and half a time,’ and perceiving that the blessed Daniel had not understood, he divided the time into days and explained to him what was doubtful, but left the word obscure for others even after this. By the abomination of desolation he calls the Antichrist himself; by the taking away of the daily sacrifice—the order of church service destroyed by his frenzy and rage” (blessed Theodoret, Book 7, folio 120 verso).

Such is the testimony concerning the things I have indicated; and the Syzran materialist, feeling the walls with half-sleeping eyes, strives in vain against the things of truth. For the pious guardians of the immaculate faith of Christ have known by experience the time and have pointed to the chief thing—the fall of the Roman kingdom, imaged by the fourth beast.

On the arising of the little horn—from an insignificant line of monks—the Pope, come in his own name, having no testimony from God and the holy Scriptures, exalts himself as head of the universal Church, making himself in every way like Christ’s vicar. After a thousand years he became the proud apostate, hypocritically pretending to truth, finding no equal for himself on earth, and impiously declaring himself infallible. Him whom all the impious heretics have not understood worship as God. His foul consequences, in the course of time, have become the abomination of desolation in the lands of White Russia, Poland, and Lithuania. And finally the number 666 has reached its apex. This the wise, in accordance with the holy Scriptures, have understood and with great sorrow have handed down in writing. If such phenomena do not satisfy the disordered imagination of the Syzran man, there is nothing surprising in it, since it is impossible for one walking outside the city and feeling the walls to know what lies within.

But the dissatisfaction of the Syzran cosmographer goes further. Thus he says: “Mr. Pichugin closes up those places where the first arising of the Antichrist on the Roman kingdom is to be. He presents it in one form. But in the Book of Kirill, in chapter 4, it is written: ‘Two likenesses of the arising of the Antichrist on the Roman kingdom does Saint Kirill, gathering from prophecy, relate to us.’” (Thus far.)

A workman is known from his work, and a crane from its voice. A scribe is known from a poor understanding, and a writer from a perverse meaning. Such reasoning has also been set forth by the Syzran crane, wheezing upon the imaginary height of his own dignity. As though there must be two arisings of the Antichrist upon the Roman kingdom. And as though I am concealing those places where the first is to be. And in confirmation of his opinion he has adduced words from the 4th chapter of the Book of Kirill. I would first of all advise my accuser to heal his mental faculty and to direct the God-given sight more accurately toward the words of Scripture. “Two likenesses of the arising of the Antichrist upon the Roman kingdom,” reasons Saint Kirill. But the hasty and quick-judging one, not heeding the sense of Kirill’s words speaking of two likenesses, has turned the image of likeness into something complete and declared that Saint Kirill relates two arisings, of which I, in his opinion, am concealing the first. The open mouth of the Syzran man speaks untruth, and his tongue, not moved by reason, has spoken to his own head’s harm.

Did he have any conception of the words: that “two likenesses” — a likeness is an image of the prototype. The prototype is known from the likeness, and the likeness finds its completion in the prototype. Thus the word “likeness” is a comparison to another thing, and not the person himself indicated by the likeness. “Arising,” however, is a verb of indefinite aspect and time. The word “arising” itself is an action of abstract character and, being extensible in nature, contains within itself a concept. Having restored the corresponding meaning to the words of the blessed Kirill, and for greater clarity, I present the following: “Two likenesses,” he says, “of the arising of the Antichrist upon the Roman kingdom does Saint Kirill, gathering from prophecy, relate to us.” And what does he relate? That which was forewritten by the prophet Daniel: that the Antichrist shall arise from the last fourth beast in the person of the eleventh horn, shall trouble the Roman power, and shall uproot its strong autocracy in such a likeness.

“The first likeness,” he says, “is that from that time the kingdom of the Antichrist shall begin, as he says, when the years of the Roman kingdom shall be fulfilled. And he does not say when it shall be disturbed, but when the years shall be fulfilled, that is, when the Roman emperors shall no longer rule Rome. As we now see, that they do not rule.” Behold what the first likeness is. See that you do not forget: when he says “when the years of the Roman kingdom shall be fulfilled,” that is, when it shall be evident that emperors shall not rule Rome, at that time the kingdom of the Antichrist shall begin. By the years of time understand the end of the millennium, and this time is attested by Scripture. The first testimony is from the 20th chapter of the Apocalypse, that Satan was bound for a thousand years. And after his loosing, the second testimony is adduced from the 30th chapter of the Book On the Faith. When a thousand years from the birth of Christ the Saviour had been completed, Satan, by God’s permission, was loosed and struck the West with a heavy pestilence — that is, he made it apostate from the right faith and the right dogmas. This was done by the Pope. In that very time of which Saint Kirill speaks, when lawful Roman emperors no longer ruled Rome, the Roman apostate Pope then seized the throne of the Roman emperors. And as Saint Chrysostom had written earlier when he said the Roman kingdom would be destroyed and fall into anarchy, and would seek to seize both human and divine power (on the 4th chapter of the 2nd Epistle to the Thessalonians). Therefore it is also written in the Book of Kirill: “Then,” he says, “the spiritual man, the Roman Pope, began to hold divine and episcopal power” (Book of Kirill, folio 76). And behold, the first likeness received its end in the person of the apostate Pope, and the writing of Chrysostom, and still more that of the Apostle Paul, was fulfilled upon him.

Then look also at the second likeness of the arising of the Antichrist upon the Roman kingdom. “And the second likeness tells us how, and in what manner, the last Antichrist is to be expected upon that Roman throne, as it says: Then ten kings shall arise in Rome; they shall be in different places, but shall be in one obedience with the eleventh Roman kingdom. Then upon that eleventh king in Rome, who is the last Antichrist, it shall soon come to pass” (Book of Kirill, folio 72). By this second likeness one may understand that the Roman apostate Pope does not reign alone, but together with his enthronement there arose also the following kings who reign with him in the spirit of apostasy: in Gaul, Germany, Prussia, Austria, England, Holland, and Sweden — under the head of the eighth, according to number, the Pope. For those kingdoms were subject to him both in civil and spiritual matters. And what he commanded, that they did. Concerning the joint actions of these kings with the Pope you may see in the book of Baronius, and in the historical fact of the Crusades.

Let this second likeness be clear to you, because all the aforementioned rulers confess one and the same apostate faith with the Pope, obey his will in all things, reign under his name, and he, being himself the eighth, sitting upon the Roman throne, the evil spirit with seven of the fiercest works in the temple of the soul. And woe to him who has received him: “For upon that man the last deceit shall come, worse than the first” (Book of Kirill, folio 72 verso).

Behold, now I have exposed your lie which you raised against me — that I present only one likeness of the arising of the Antichrist upon the Roman kingdom. From this you may be assured that I point out to you not only the first but also the second arising, from the authentic deeds of Roman history. Now can you not be ashamed of your own reasoning? Think within yourself: what kind of Antichrist are you preparing for the Roman kingdom, which has for nearly a thousand years been sunk in impiety? Why should your unknown Antichrist come to an already enslaved kingdom? Whom will he pervert, when all in Rome from head to foot are infected with the abomination of apostasy? Is it not true that this great historical body of the entire West has been turned into a dead corpse? So, according to you, will the deceiver-Antichrist fight against Satan? If it be so according to you, then his kingdom shall not stand. Guard yourself; look reasonably upon his number 666. See what was, and do not forget what has become. It was as Saint Chrysostom writes: “For as the kingdoms that were destroyed before — that is, the Median by the Babylonian, the Babylonian by the Persian, the Persian by the Macedonian, the Macedonian by the Roman — so also this one by the Antichrist, and he by Christ, and it shall no longer stand” (Homily 4 on 2 Thessalonians). And all this was fulfilled in due time according to Scripture: the first and second likeness upon the Roman kingdom.

Not extending further, and having in view the next obstacle from my opponent, I shall again give due place to the reproachful words of his brochure, where he says: “Pichugin considered it necessary to be blind, and then closed his own eyes so as not to feel shame before himself, and at that moment and in that place dragged in his spiritual Antichrist and closed the holy Scripture both from himself and from other people. He wrote falsely, with closed eyes, not having seen what is written in the Book of Kirill in chapter 3: that first shall come the apostasy, then the man of sin, the son of perdition, the adversary, the Antichrist” (End of the brochure).

Such is the reviling of the reviler. He says that I closed my eyes so as not to feel shame before myself. For what reason exactly? For this, he says: “that at that time and in that place he dragged in his spiritual Antichrist.” It is beyond doubt that one deprived of reason is mocking like a townsman. For in his words there appears folly and a complete deficiency of understanding. What does it mean to close one’s eyes and drag in a spiritual Antichrist? Alas, wretched head! You receive rational direction not from the spirit but from the belly. It is not mental contemplation that has been given you to determine, but the vapours of the belly have clouded your head; under their influence you dared to say “that he dragged in his spiritual one.” What is this “his own spiritual Antichrist”? If this foolish invention is to be called an argument — it is not worth it. A term? Of a dirty nature — fitting. For “this wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish” (Apostle James, reading 55). For he who uttered those words is directly mocking the Spirit. Since everything contained in the holy Scripture is vivified by the Spirit, therefore it is also called spiritual. As the Lord Himself said: “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life” (John, reading 24). Theophylact’s commentary: “As we have often said, those who understand carnally the things spoken by Christ are offended; but to understand spiritually what is spoken by Him — this is profitable. But to understand these things carnally is flesh, and profits nothing, but rather becomes a cause of offence” (Gospel Commentary on John, folio 107).

If the words of God in the Gospel are spirit, then how ought one to understand these: “I am come in My Father’s name, and ye receive Me not”? Were they spoken according to the flesh or according to the spirit? If according to the flesh, then one must, in the Jewish manner, seek the one spoken of in Joseph — this is a Jewish opinion. But if according to the spirit, then it will be pious, and Truth Itself answers for it: “Before the ages He begetteth Me,” and “The Lord said unto Me: Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee,” and “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him.” If these words, set forth according to the flesh but understood according to the spirit, then who will dare to take away the spiritual meaning also from the following words of Christ: “If another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive” (John, reading 17). See: “if another” — who according to nature is “another”? A man. Will there then be in the present answer the reason of the spirit? No, for this was said according to humanity. Raise up your understanding, apply the words of the spirit, and give due honour to what is fitting; then what is sought will be obtained in the spiritual meaning. “Another” is a word of indicative aspect, indefinite person, contrary disposition, conditional position: “If another shall come,” and so forth. But who in the spiritual sense is “another”? “The man of sin, the son of perdition, the adversary,” and so forth. And how does this come to pass? Hear: “Did not Moses say this concerning Christ, composing the faith: for if, said the prophet, there shall arise a prophet working signs, and departing from God, believe him not — that is, the Antichrist” (Gospel Commentary on John, folio 87 verso).

One might inquire of Moses and rightly find: “If there arise among you a prophet working signs, and he shall say, Let us go and serve other gods which ye have not known, ye shall not hearken unto the words of that prophet” (Deuteronomy, chapter 13). And the word which is “Antichrist” was named by Moses. How then do you understand this application — according to nature or according to the spirit? Whether you wish it or not, you will answer — according to the spirit. That is, not according to the fleshly but according to the spiritual meaning. Then understand also our opinion concerning the Antichrist: not “spiritual” in the sense of your distortion of the word do we understand the Antichrist, as some invisible power or something unknown, but as an apostate man, a real heretic, exalting himself to equality with God in his position — in the spiritual sense, and not himself a spiritual being, as it has pleased you to pervert it. For the holy Apostle and Theologian John, indicating the spiritual understanding, said: “This is the Antichrist, who denieth the Father and the Son” (Catholic Epistle, reading 71). The denier, or apostate, does the blessed Apostle signify. “They went out from us,” he says, “but they were not of us.” And: “Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is the Antichrist.” On such a foundation is built our conception of the Antichrist — not as though he were himself spiritual, but in the spiritual sense.

Then I also restore and refute the next of your curses, which is likewise devoid of reason and common decency, just as all the above. You say that I “wrote falsely with closed eyes, without having seen what is written in the Book of Kirill in chapter 3: that first there shall come the apostasy, then the man of lawlessness, the son of perdition, the adversary, the Antichrist” (thus far). To this I reply. The first words leave behind nothing more than a brazen and ignorant outburst, as an unseemly offspring of an ignorant womb. Consider the words themselves and apply to them this test: who works with closed eyes when committing a forgery? Or what can one produce after first closing one’s eyes? It would be senseless to think so. Or perhaps you wish to present yourself as a critic? That is very poor; for your creaturely Pythian oracles, hastily and clumsily slapped together from clay and unhardened by the fire of the spirit, quickly fall apart even at the slightest touch of the water of true knowledge. Your weak understanding of the word “apostasy,” and then of the “man of lawlessness,” likewise falls apart when the following truths are applied to them: “Except there come the apostasy first, and the man of sin be revealed,” and so forth. And you, as is evident, divide these two expressions—“apostasy” and “man of lawlessness”—into two separate persons. It is possible to define the man of lawlessness as a person. But how can the impersonal word “apostasy” apostatize by itself? From what material substances will you assign it a body, and what spirit will you give it for personal movement? Do not accuse others of falsehood before you yourself are convicted of rational blindness. For what you have called falsehood is in fact the truth: that the word “apostasy” refers to the quality of the apostate. Apostasy, like a contagious disease, mentally precedes the apostate. It is not some mystical imagination lacking flesh and blood. Therefore it is self-evident that “apostasy” and “man of lawlessness” denote one and the same apostate. This is on the basis that Saint John Chrysostom, interpreting the words proposed by the Apostle Paul—“Except there come the apostasy first”—says: “What is apostasy? He calls the very Antichrist apostasy” (in Homily on the 275th section). Do you see the true meaning? The wise Chrysostom does not reveal some spirit or any other stranger, but says that Paul calls the very Antichrist apostasy. In this sense the words are also placed in the Book of Kirill: that first shall come the apostasy—not as a religious disease hiding in the organic vessel of the apostate, and being delusion, it cannot long be concealed, but appears in the person of a man full of lawlessness, the son of perdition, and as an adversary of the truth. Concerning a similar disease the prophet David also philosophized, wishing to show the disease of the hidden lawless one; from here he begins: “Behold, he travailed with iniquity, conceived sorrow, and brought forth ungodliness” (Psalm 7). See: the disease of unrighteousness is conceived with sorrow in the womb and finally is born into the light—and does it appear by itself, without an organic instrument, like the word “apostasy” according to you? The disease of unrighteousness does not appear by itself in the form of lawlessness, but a man gives birth to it. And after the birth of lawlessness, it is also called the son of that lawlessness. Thus apostasy precedes the apostate, as illness precedes the sick man, and time reveals both together. And those who are chaste and watchful will point it out (St. Andrew of Caesarea, p. 65). Therefore the Syzran scribe must look upon the words in the divine Scripture not as simple historical things, which are superficially presented to children in schools, but as letters concealing in themselves a profound meaning. For the Lord of the world does not command us to accept Scripture simply, but with laborious examination: “Search the Scriptures,” He says—not merely “read them.” And the Jews read the Scriptures, and likewise reproached those who received them with spiritual understanding: “Shall Christ come out of Galilee?” (John, section 27), and they reproached Nicodemus: “Search and see that no prophet arises out of Galilee,” and: “None of the rulers or Pharisees believed in Him.” For being carnal and thinking carnally about Scripture, they fall by Scripture. In like manner the compiler of the brochure accuses me for revealing the spiritual meaning in Scripture. He likewise says: “Mr. Pichugin conceals and hides the final Antichrist, and turns the factual proof—that is, Scripture—inside out, in order thereby to close eyes and more conveniently hide that final Antichrist” (thus far). I can say that this Jewish maneuver not only does no honor to the creator of the slanderous brochure, but even places his authority at too low a level. First, I do not conceal the final deceiver and God-fighter Antichrist, but reveal him as an evil genius. And this turns out to be exactly the opposite: it is the compiler of the brochure himself who conceals him, saying that the final Antichrist does not yet exist—look at Scripture, it says the Antichrist will come before the second coming of Christ only for three and a half years. There is no need, he says, to turn this clear fact inside out. Secondly, what notion did the Syzran man have of the word “fact”? As is evident, he threw this new expression to the mercy of fate without understanding the word “fact.”

A fact is the accomplishment of some undertaking, whether good or evil. It is accepted in the sense of past or present time. The future is nowhere called a fact, being still unknown. Thus the factor of the brochure did not know how to use another’s word for the reproach of others; now he must himself unwillingly swallow this bitter pill. Here indeed is a clear factual proof: that the Syzran man, robbed almost naked in faith by a spiritual thief (if the spiritual garment had not covered him), quarrels with everyone and, for unknown reasons, conceals the robber-Antichrist who robbed him, saying that he has not yet come. I leave the other expressions of the morally sick man to himself for correction.

The next of his slanderous productions—and almost the last—I present here for a worthy refutation: “Moreover Mr. Pichugin writes thus: ‘And that this is so may be verified in the book On Faith in chapter 30.’ This he placed at the conclusion of the whole letter—the book On Faith—while he himself, as previously stated, first closed his eyes as needed, and closed his own eyes: he indicated that disturbance or pestilence, but then was silent about the final Antichrist” (thus far the words of the Syzran man).

Now let us see who closed his eyes before the event of truth. In the book On Faith, chapter 30, it is written: “Let no one deceive you by any means, for except there come the apostasy first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition” (below) “And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work, only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way,” and so forth. “On this passage Saint John Chrysostom gives the interpretation: that this is to be understood of the Roman authority. When both human and divine authority are mingled into one, as we now see.” See from where the compiler of the book On Faith begins his narrative when speaking of the Antichrist, and where he wishes to stop. He begins from the Apostle, as the cause of all the narratives that subsequently come to pass, and stops at the Roman authority, seeing that what the Apostle Paul foretold has come to pass upon the Roman authority; and bringing Saint Chrysostom as a faithful witness, he confirms: “as we now see.” What do we see? This: that the Roman Pope, the apostate, has seized both divine and civil authority and mingled them in himself alone. Then see further what the author of this book writes. He begins from the Catholic epistle of John: “Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists.” Coming to such a conclusion, he exclaims: “O truth! that there have been many forerunners, but he himself is already near, according to the number concerning him, 666. For the number of the beast is the number of a man, the number of Antichrist. Who knows whether in these years, the 1666th, it will not point out his manifest forerunners, or himself.” Here the Syzran scribe should have stopped and thoroughly considered what was said, and then gone further; but he, like a saiga antelope, leaped over the dangerous place and, seeing a word depicting a man, began to hide behind it. But we shall supply what is missing: “Many forerunners there were,” he says, “but the number does not refer to them.” “But he himself is already near.” What sign do you lay down for the nearness of his coming? “According to the number,” he says, “concerning him, 666. For the number is that of a man, Antichrist’s” (Apocalypse, chapter 13). And what does this number signify—is it not the fateful year of worldwide apostasy? “Who knows,” he says, “whether in these years 1666 it will not point out his manifest forerunners, or himself.”

Here one must stop and test what has been said with good knowledge. And we shall examine it. This writer was not in Great Russia, but in Little Russia. Little Russia was under the civil dominion of the Polish Catholic king. And this writer lived at the end of the sixteenth century. He was an eyewitness to the growth of the pernicious Union in the year 1595. Seeing what was happening and taking into consideration the number 666 of the Apocalypse, he directly foretold its fulfillment in the future year 1666, or that in that year, he said, manifest forerunners or he himself would inevitably be pointed out by those who understand this. This prediction was some sixty years beforehand. And the Syzran cosmographer must not forget that this writer did not live to see the year 1666 indicated by him. But since that year is now in the past, we must turn to it. The year 1666 turns out to be the fulfillment of the number 666 and the accomplishment of the wise predictor of the book On Faith. It should be added that he derives the cause of the number from the following reckoning: “After the thousandth year,” he says, “when the 595th year arrived, the apostasy and seduction of those called Uniates from the holy Eastern Church to the Western Latin Church became manifest. And upon the fulfillment of the years of the number one thousand six hundred and sixty-six, it is not unfitting for us also to have caution from these causes, lest we suffer some evil according to the previously mentioned things, in fulfillment of the testimonies of Scripture. If anyone reaches those times (1666), it will be a battle with the devil himself.” Now we must ask those who reached the year 1666: was there anyone at that time who apostatized from Orthodoxy? And was there any battle with the devil? Contemporaries of that year recount a very sorrowful history. The apostate from Orthodoxy was, as is known to all, the Russian chief hierarch Nikon; and with the help of the Greek patriarchs Macarius and Paisius he renounced the holy traditions and certain ordinances of Christ’s Church. Delivering the ancient symbolic traditions to derision, and with the help of the aforementioned patriarchs cursing them with terrible curses, he fenced with anathema every one who did not wish to cast the stone of the curse into the face of the mother, the catholic apostolic Church. Against this traitor there rose up the fearless warrior of Christ’s Church, in spirit and power like Elias, Bishop Paul of Kolomna. The apostate Nikon, unable to bear the righteous man’s reproof, deposed him from his see and delivered him to beating; and after some time this zealot died a martyr’s death, being burned alive in a tarred log-house. At the same time there appeared on the field of battle a powerful man in spirit and a strong fighter for the holy traditions of the Church, Archpriest Avvakum. He fearlessly reproved Nikon and his accomplices for betraying Orthodoxy. Nikon, unable to bear his reproof, ordered him to be tormented with various tortures; and finally in that fateful year this zealous fighter for the truth died a martyr’s death. But the spiritual battle did not cease with the death of these reprovers of falsehood; it only increased. And by the force of cruel commands of the authorities, there were set in motion the whips of executioners, tormenting racks, damp earthen prisons, burying people alive up to their shoulders in the earth, cutting out tongues and ears, and other torments. And finally banishments to Siberia and to the distant borders of the Russian land (in the preface to the three petitions published by Kozhanchikov). And all this took place in the year 1666—that very time to which the writer of the book On Faith had so wisely pointed sixty years earlier. Consequently this was not an accidental period of time, but a factual one according to the signification of the number 1666—the visible seal of worldwide apostasy. For the writer of the book On Faith did not invent the number 666 of himself, but borrowed it from the Apocalypse, chapter 13.

In the aforementioned chapter of the Apocalypse it is written: “And all the earth wondered after the beast; and they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and who is able to make war with him? And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme His name, and His tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.” Could not the period of the year 1666 serve as a comparison? For from the east and the west, from the south and other countries, the spiritual representatives of the peoples gathered in the north, and at the council of the year 1666 they universally legislated new church orders and traditions foreign to the faith, while they delivered the ancient ordinances, traditions, orders, and the very Symbol of Faith—in the sense of the words “the true and life-giving Spirit”—to anathema. And the whole earth wondered at the universal apostasy; and who indeed could stand against the force of these enactments? And if there were true zealots for the holiness of the ancient traditions, the most sorrowful fate befell them: they were either killed or sent into exile (Acts of the Moscow Council of 1666, Supplement to the Acts of History, vol. 10, p. 448). Blasphemy against the name of God, “Jesus,” received its beginning from the book The Sceptre, on leaf 78. And the appending of the octal letter in 1666 was reflected in the consequences set forth in The Sling: answer 146; The Investigation, leaf 18; Theophylact Lopatinsky, leaf 83; Nicephorus Theotokis (of Astrakhan), p. 71. In these aforementioned books the blasphemy against the name of God, written in the ancient manner with one iota—“Исус”—is pronounced quite clearly. Blasphemy against the saints of God was likewise clearly reflected, as was that against the holy traditions of the Church. The Hundred Chapter Council is blasphemed, together with Metropolitan Macarius who presided over it. The writing of the Life of the Venerable Euphrosynus of Pskov is blasphemed, and consequently he himself. In the testament of the Council of 1666 other Russian saints are also reviled by the ignorant. The present blasphemy was reflected in black ingratitude toward much of the holy tradition and writing. On March 15, 1667, the code of Patriarch Philaret concerning the Latins is refuted and vilified. The apostolic tradition of making the sign of the cross with two fingers is blasphemed as heresy, Arianism, Macedonianism, Nestorianism, a fig sign, a devilish tradition, the gates of hell, demon-seating, a magical sign, a deadly poison, and finally as chiromancy (Nicephorus of Astrakhan, p. 273). The compiler of the Book of Kirill is blasphemed as a deceiver, a madman, a proud man, a slanderer. And finally the Book of Kirill itself is declared unpleasant, he says, to Christians, to God, and to natural conscience itself, but pleasant only to the devil (book of answers of Nicephorus, pp. 308, 310, 318). If one were to enumerate the other blasphemies and curses both from the Council of 1666 and from its followers, their exposition would compose an entire book. But I depict the above-cited testimonies rather concisely, precisely because they coincide with the number of the year 1666 indicated in the book On the Orthodox Faith. Meanwhile, from chapter 13 of the Apocalypse I deem it necessary to present here also the marking of the followers of the beast. It is written: “And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.”

Whoever can compare the curse-laden testament of the conciliar definition of the year 1667 with the mystery prescribed in the Revelation, let him look upon it, which stands in the following form:

“To this, therefore, now together we, by the mercy of God, the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarchs—Paisius, Pope and Patriarch of the great city of Alexandria and Judge of the Universe, and Macarius, Patriarch of the God-protected city of Great Antioch and all the East—together with our brother and concelebrant, His Holiness Lord Joasaph, Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia, and with the Most Reverend Metropolitans, Archbishops and Bishops of Russia, and with the Greek hierarchs who happened to be present here, and with the rest, and with the whole consecrated Council of the Great Russian State, in the name of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, do conciliarly command all of you—archimandrites and abbots and all monks, protopopes and priestly elders and all priests, both local and non-local, clerics and every rank of Orthodox Christians, great and small, men and women:…

To receive the Symbol without the addition ‘true’; to say Alleluia in divine singing three times, and the fourth time ‘Glory to Thee, O God’; and to make the sign of the honourable and life-giving Cross upon oneself with the first three fingers of the right hand; and to say the Jesus Prayer thus: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, our God, have mercy on us.’ In addition, we command all prosphora-bakers, wherever they may be appointed, to stamp the prosphoras with the seal of the four-pointed Cross. Moreover, we command all of you of the consecrated rank and show you how you should sign, that is, bless the people: with the Christ-name or the name-sign. This our conciliar command and testament we deliver to all the aforementioned ranks of the Orthodox and command all to keep it unchangeably. But if anyone will not hearken to what is commanded by us and will not submit to the holy Eastern Church and to this consecrated Council, or will begin to contradict and oppose us, then we, by the authority given us by the All-Holy and Life-giving Spirit, if he be of the sacred rank, depose him and deprive him of all sacred ministry and grace, and deliver him to anathema. But if he be of the lay rank, we cut him off and make him alien from the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and deliver him to curse and anathema as a heretic and disobedient one. And we sever him from the Orthodox universal fellowship and flock and from the Church of God as a rotten and useless member, until he comes to his senses and returns to the truth by repentance. But if anyone does not come to his senses and does not return to the truth by repentance, but remains in his stubbornness until his end, let him be even after death excommunicated and unforgiven, and let his portion and soul be with Judas the betrayer, and with the Jews who crucified Christ, and with Arius and the other accursed heretics; let iron, stones, and trees be broken and decay, but may he remain unresolved and unresolved as a drum forever and ever, amen.” (Conciliar Scroll, May 13, 1667).

Thus from this curse-laden testament it is evident that here more than by mere curses is it forbidden to follow the ordinances and traditions of the ancient holy Church, while new commands and ordinances are prescribed equally to laity and priests, to men and women, to small and great, everywhere and in all places without distinction—in such a way that this spiritual commerce can be carried out only upon presentation of adherence to this testament. In the contrary case the Council threatens excommunication even after death, the lodging in hell, and the most sorrowful place of torments where the Jews and the universally hated Judas are. Such is the imprint of the number of the time 1666.

Therefore I directed my gaze according to the 30th chapter of the book On Faith very fittingly, and not with closed eyes, as the Syzran man slandered me. The requirement of the time, and of all that has come to pass, is characterized quite clearly in the curse-laden testament of the year 1667. That those who do not fold three fingers of the right hand for the sign of the Cross, who do not venerate the shadow of the four-pointed Cross, and who do not confess the new wording in the Symbol of Faith—“And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life,” with the great curse placed on the word “true,” and so forth—have no right to carry on spiritual commerce (Luke, section 95). And since the compiler of the brochure himself openly stands against that curse-laden testament, he consequently does not even feel his own most complete restriction of spiritual freedom in the sphere of spreading religious commerce, the required circulation of the spiritual talent (Matthew, section 105; Luke, section 95). Let him compare such straitness of the things that are saved with the warning of Apocalypse chapter 13. Then will there be any need to await a man-sorcerer with an icon of the beast and a steel brand bearing the image 666 as a seal for all apostates from God?

As for the following words of the book On Faith, chapter 30, to which the Syzran man points, there is nothing surprising in the fact that the Antichrist, according to the writing of Saint Hippolytus, will be “a man, the son of lawlessness, and will be born of an unclean virgin, a Jewess of the tribe of Dan.” Much has already been said above on such an indication, and it would be superfluous to repeat it. From this holy writing I can only set forth the chief point, namely: “an unclean virgin.” Let the Syzran man then explain to me what, in essence, this word “unclean” signifies. Is she unclean because she will be corrupted, or because she is a Jewess? If she is called unclean on account of natural corruption, then there have been several such both before and in the present time. But Saint Chrysostom called such women only harlots in the book The Pearl: “A virgin, if she does not keep the seal of virginity but is corrupted, is no longer called a virgin, but a harlot, even if in appearance she seems a virgin.” And from other accounts it is evident—for example, from the written Lives of Saint Mary of Egypt, Eudocia, and others—that until their repentance they were named harlots, but nowhere “unclean.” If it is because she is a Jewess, then this designation is self-evident without the addition “unclean.” Consequently this adjectival designation has another meaning: that it is the harlot woman sitting upon the scarlet beast, from whom the Antichrist will be born, as Athanasius of Alexandria reasoned (in the preface to the Apocalypse). Such an enigmatic signification cannot be referred to a literal person, and still less in the future tense.

The very word “Antichrist” is not a proper name belonging to one single man, but a common name bearing the character of an appellative. That this is so is evident from the catholic epistles of John the Theologian: “Ye have heard,” he says, “that Antichrist cometh” (that is, that Antichrist of whom Christ the Saviour foretold). But already: “even now are there many antichrists” (Catholic Epistle, section 71). These the blessed Apostle indicated not from elsewhere: “But,” he says, “they went out from us.” Not from the tribe of Dan by nature, but by apostasy from grace—he clearly pointed out apostates; and since such bear the same title of antichrists, then as the first are so by quality, so also the last will be by quantity and quality, up to the very last apostate. That very last apostate Saint Chrysostom also named Antichrist (in the commentary on the 275th section of the Apostle). By such an explanation the universal teacher directly points to the final Antichrist in the person of the apostate indicated by the Apostle Paul. And therefore from such an explanation it follows of itself that the Antichrist is a man-apostate, and not a spirit of mythology mysteriously born of a Jewish virgin and of a defiled woman, together for the deception of those suffering from the vice of inattention (Venerable Ephraim the Syrian, leaf 304).

Such is our understanding of the proposed writing from the book On Faith. As regards the Platonic argument appearing as the concluding phrase—that “apostasy has no genealogy”—the scribe of the brochure apparently wished by this expression to strike at the words of my letter. He figuratively stretched them out into the skeleton of a Gango-khudan, gave them crane’s legs, a camel’s body, bat’s muscles, and an ass’s head, which, stretching out their neck, stand higher than the other lines. But, to the misfortune of the figure himself, the lifeless phrase falls by itself before the setting forth of the words of truth. For we do not take the bare sound “apostate” for the spiritual Antichrist, but a man in essence and in the quality of a spiritual apostate, formerly a Christian. If, however, your fence-like words serve as a negative sign against the line of apostasy, then at least a drop of reason should have been poured into them; then it would have been evident that apostasy does not occur without an apostate, as an action does not occur without an actor. For example: if a robbery has been committed somewhere, there must also be a robber; if apostasy has taken place somewhere, there must also be an apostate, for these exist together.

Furthermore, the Syzran zealot himself forgets, in clinging to the bare letter, that the Jew-Antichrist from the tribe of Dan whom he proposes can in no way be an apostate, for the simple reason that he presents him in a substantial Jewish form, clearly bearing the seal of circumcision. Such a proposal is childish and laughable. For a genuine descendant of Dan, a Jew, cannot be a traitor to Christianity. But if the Syzran scribe had sought with reason what Antichrist is, he would have fittingly found that Antichrist is essentially a heretic, and not a Jew by genealogy. As Joseph of Volotsk also understood and handed down: “The Theologian,” he says, “called the Antichrist a heretic” (in Word 12, p. 508). “If anyone,” he says, “does not confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, this is a deceiver and an Antichrist” (Apostle, section 73; Venerable Joseph of Volotsk, Word 12). And again: “This is the Antichrist, who denieth the Father and the Son” (section 71). And in the second epistle he writes: “This is the commandment, as ye have heard from the beginning, that ye should walk in it. For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an Antichrist” (section 75). Do you see whom the great divine Apostle designates as Antichrist—not a future Jew according to you, but “this” one who “arises from among us,” having departed from the truth, lays hold of falsehood, and preaches false teaching as true, denying the true evangelical teaching, as a heretic: “this,” he says, “is the Antichrist.”

On this last point I shall make my conclusion concerning the proposed brochure. The groundlessness of the claims of the Syzran materialist, built upon a single literal sense, can at last be seen to have been dispelled like darkness at the appearance of the light of the spiritual reason of the Scriptures. The drowsy carelessness of the frozen Christian has evidently led him to complete apathy, and in the delirium of materiality he advises others to turn all their attention wholly to the Jews, with the intention that if there is no beast-man-Antichrist among the Jews, then, according to his meaning, there is no need to trouble oneself about his coming.

The lethargic moral sleep of the careless Syzran man has led to complete spiritual amputation, and he, having been deprived of the well-ordered members of the persecuted and warred-against Church, like an animated corpse risking his last head, says: “Is there any country not infected with heresy—this is no concern of ours.” This sorrowful fragment of cold acknowledgment plunges the sick man into complete contempt and inclination toward deadly slumber. Inattention to the events of the times and absence of spirit toward the letter have brought a weak nature, carried away by material things, to the conclusion of confining the broad and profound reason of the divine Scripture within the narrow confines of the Jewish Sanhedrin. One who awaits the darkening of the heavenly luminaries and the transformation of the elements, a great cry of the sea, the groaning of the earth, natural famine, war of father with son, and mothers selling their daughters into shameful fornication, and the common death of parents with children, the flight of people from the ends of the earth from east to far west and back again in complete stupor, seeking food in lifeless trees, being devoured by carnivorous beasts, the wails and laments of churches, and the utter despair of all the living, and sorrow unheard of in the days of the final Antichrist. But the wretched observer of the letter has evidently quite forgotten the Lord’s warning: “Take heed to yourselves,” He says, “lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth” (Luke, section 107). And: “For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be” (Matthew, section 102). Such a divine warning directly opposes the desire of the literal cosmographer, who projects chronic phenomena of worldly horrors in the days of the final Antichrist, who can reign no more than the three and a half years permitted by the letter and by the indication of the Syzran man. Such a theory of thoughts is inaccessible to none except irrational animals; to men and women, elders and youths, and to all in general, it will not be difficult to count the last days of the world before the coming of Christ in the proposed reign of the final Antichrist. But the Lord foretold unexpected universal destruction upon those living in carelessness, pleasure-loving, and drunkenness, and not with signs written out by letter.

Therefore let us all pray most fervently to the merciful Master, our Lord God Jesus Christ, that He deliver us from bitter inattention and the snares of the cunning world-ruler, lest the coming terrible hour overtake us unprepared and sleeping. Let us render thanks for the present to the Most Holy and Life-giving Trinity, to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Postscript.

Let no one think that I, in various places, speak of the coming of antichrists by chance or by private understanding of the Scriptures; but having at hand the prophetic utterances and the events given by them, I have set forth the very manifestation exactly and definitely according to places. The Antichrist’s procession and manifestation according to the places indicated is like a dynasty, in the sense of apostasy, reigning chronologically in apostates. The overthrow of the great Roman kingdom by the Antichrist is an event of the prophet Daniel, who indicated the Roman kingdom in the person of the fourth nameless beast. As also the mighty enthronement of the little horn, making war with the saints. Which by war fought against the Greeks and others who did not submit to him through apostasy. The Florentine union of the Greeks with the Roman prince of the world did not remain without consequence for the apostasy of the times being fulfilled. The year 595 was the forerunner of the seal 666—the seal of that king who, according to the Scripture, reigned in Rome. The word “seal” is an indication of the sign of the time of the final apostasy. And the dynastic course of the adversary is like a sentence or some exposition. As, for example, some command or matter is first set forth on a charter, and the charter gradually increases with the sounds of letters, until it receives upon itself the full image of the thing set forth; and then the seal confirms what has been set forth, as a sign of the time affirming the meaning of the exposition. In like manner also the seal of the number 666 serves only as proof of the confirmation of the worldwide charter of apostasy, placed at the very end of 1666. As for the rest, let every laborious lover, skilled in the Scriptures and in time, know it.