Page:Curious myths of the Middle Ages (1876).djvu/176

 nculcating the purest morality, yet Himself fallible and carried away by fanaticism.

In the end, however, Antichrist will “exalt himself to sit as God in the temple of God,” and become “the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place.” At the same time there is to be an awful alliance struck between himself, the impersonification of the world-power, and the Church of God; some high pontiff of which, or the episcopacy in general, will enter into league with the unbelieving State to oppress the very elect. It is a strange instance of religionary virulence which makes some detect the Pope of Rome in the Man of Sin, the Harlot, the Beast, and the Priest going before it. The Man of Sin and the Beast are unmistakably identical, and refer to an Antichristian world-power; whilst the Harlot and the Priest are symbols of an apostasy in the Church. There is nothing Roman in this, but something very much the opposite.

How the Abomination of Desolation can be considered as set up in a Church where every sanctuary is adorned with all that can draw the heart to the Crucified, and raise the thoughts to the imposing ritual of heaven, is a puzzle to me. To the man uninitiated in the law that Revelation is