Page:Mahometanism in its relation to prophecy - or, an inquiry into the prophecies concerning antichrist, with some reference to their bearing on the events of the present day (IA mahometanisminit00philrich).pdf/84

 away from the earth, and the empire will return into Asia, the East will domineer again, and the West will be subdued." (Lactantii, lib. vii. c. 15.) These expressions of Lactantius are most remarkable, and their fulfilment is equally remarkable: for they have been fulfilled to the very letter. The Roman empire was no sooner overthrown, than it was subdivided into a number of comparatively small states, whereupon Mahomet arose in the Asiatic provinces of the old Roman empire, and founded upon its ruins another mighty empire, which was for ages the terror of the West, and the scourge of Christendom. The holy patriarch of Jerusalem St. Cyril also thus writes: "The devil will raise up a famous man, who will seize upon the domains of the Roman empire. That man Antichrist will appear, as soon as the Roman empire shall have come to its conclusion."—(Cyrilli, Cateches, 15.) And we may well say these words of St. Cyril are still more remarkable, and still more literally fulfilled, when we remember that the very diocese of Jerusalem, over which this great father of the Church was at that time presiding, was destined to become a province of the Mahometan empire, and Jerusalem itself was to be captured by the Caliph Omar, within a few years after the destruction of the Roman empire, and no very