tion of those days, the sun shall be darkened and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven shall be moved.”[1] Mark the word “immediately.” We must not understand by it that the moment Antichrist sinks into the abyss those signs shall be visible. No; for according to commentators the mercy of God shall grant a respite of some months, or, as some say, of years for those who shall be perverted by Antichrist to repent, because then almost the whole world shall return to Christ after their accursed apostasy. But when the time of the general judgment is finally at hand, “There shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars, and upon the earth distress of nations, by reason of the confusion of the roaring of the sea and of the waves.”[2] The sun shall be deprived of its brilliancy and make night out of day, like to the darkness of Egypt: “There came horrible darkness in all the land of Egypt for three days. No man saw his brother, nor moved himself out of the place where he was.”[3] The moon, of a blood-red color, shall appear like some grizzly phantom of night; the stars shall fall from the sky; not iLdeed the stars that God has placed in the firmament: for where should they fall? Not on the earth, because according to astronomers the smallest star is much larger than the earth. But the stars shall hide themselves as if they had fallen, and at the same time luminous vapor in the shape of stars shall fall in masses on the globe as if to set fire to it.
In the elements. All the elements shall be disturbed; the air shall resound with fearful storms and thunder; the sea and all waters shall be disturbed by mighty waves rising and falling; the earth shall be shaken and almost riven asunder by earthquakes that shall swallow whole cities, while fire shall burst forth with a great roar from the mountains and caverns. In a word, the wheels of the vast clock of the world shall be all broken and disordered, according to the works of Louis de Ponte, as a sign that the last hour of judgment is at hand, and such shall be the fear, anguish, faint-heartedness, and dread of men and the howling and roaring of beasts, that no one will know where to turn or what to do.
- ↑ Statim autem post tribulationem dierum illorum sol obscurabitur, et luna non dabit lumen suum, et stellæ cadent de cœlo, et virtutes cœlorum commovebuntur.—Matt. xxiv. 29.
- ↑ Erunt signa in sole, et luna, et stellis, et in terris pressura gentium præ confusione sonitus maris et fluctuum.—Luke xxi. 25.
- ↑ Factæ sunt tenebræ horribiles in universa terra Ægypti tribus diebus. Nemo vidit fratrem suum, nec movit se de loco in quo erat.—Exod. x. 22, 23.
