Thursday in the Octave of Christmas, December 31, 2020

John 2:18-21

Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that the antichrist was coming, so now many antichrists have appeared. Thus we know this is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not really of our number; if they had been, they would have remained with us. Their desertion shows that none of them was of our number. But you have the anointing that comes from the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. I write to you not because you do not know the truth but because you do, and because every lie is alien to the truth.

The Lord Jesus warned his followers that in the future, especially near the end of the world, “false Christs and false prophets will arise and show great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect” (Matthew 24, 24).  St. Paul elaborated on this teaching for Gentile Christians, telling them of “the man of lawlessness . . . the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God” (2 Thessalonians 2, 3-4).  This man will savagely persecute the Church at that time but “the Lord Jesus will slay him with the Spirit of his mouth and destroy him by his appearing and his coming” (2 Thessalonians 2, 8).  In his Book of Revelation, St. John calls this man “the beast” who will appear as holy to the unbelievers and the wicked, but will be seen in his true horrifying form by those who believe in Christ.  By the time of St. Jerome, the Fathers had concluded that this man would be born a Jew from the tribe of Dan, that he would rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem and in it proclaim himself to be God, although St. Thomas Aquinas pointed out that “Certain others say that the temple in Jerusalem will never be rebuilt, but will be kept as a ruin until the consummation and end of the world.  Even some Jews believe this.  Therefore, [that he would reign in] ‘the temple of God’ is explained as ‘in the Church’, for many in the Church will receive him.”  In addition, it was believed that he would appear to raise the dead (with the help of demons) and that he would be slain at the end of the world “with the Spirit of [the Lord’s] mouth”, which, as St. Thomas explains: “that is, by his command; for [the Archangel] Michael shall kill him on the Mount of Olives, from which Christ ascended; just as [Emperor] Julian [the Apostate] was destroyed by the divine hand.”

St. John is already writing of certain “antichrists” even in his own day.  These made themselves out to be believers but “they were not really of our number.”  Indeed, they opposed Christ and his Church, either by attempting to introduce pagan or gnostic teachings or customs or by falsely interpreting the Gospel, as in the case of a man named Nicolaus (cf. Revelation 2, 15), who taught his followers that belief in the Lord meant holding everything in common, which led to the practice of free love.  The people John called “antichrists” posed a real threat to the early Church because they attempted to use the words of the Lord to support their perverse teachings, and they succeeded in luring some believers away — to their damnation.  They were not the Antichrist, but they were antichrists in the Antichrist, members of the devil’s body to parody how Christians are truly members of the Body of the Lord.  And as they plagued the Church even in the times of the Apostles, so they continue to do so today: pretended Catholics who sow dissension and teach what is false, sometimes very persuasively, “so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect” (Matthew 24, 24).  

Eventually, though, they publicly apostatize and join other religious groups or form their own, and “their desertion shows that none of them was of our number.”  That is, they admit the wickedness of their teachings by leaving the Church altogether.  “But you have the anointing that comes from the Holy One, and you all have knowledge.”  That is, the true believer in Christ has been baptized and filled with grace (“anointed”) by God and so this believer has “knowledge” — is able to discern the falseness in perverse teaching, and to resist it.  John then states that, “I write to you not because you do not know the truth but because you do, and because every lie is alien to the truth.”  That is to say, he, the Apostle, in whom the true teaching of the Lord is invested, is writing to the faithful in order to encourage them and confirm them in their fidelity.  In our own day, we know that the Lord has committed the Deposit of the Faith — all that we need to know for faith and practice in order to be saved — and that we need only look to these teachings to judge whether something a person says is of the Faith or not.  This preserves us from following false leaders — even bishops and priests who spout error — into damnation.

So much does God desire his faithful to surround him in heaven, that he gives us his Gospel to follow, the means (grace) with which to follow it, and his own protection (the Church), against which the gates of hell shall not prevail.