The Lactantius Prophecy

 

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Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius (c. 250 – c. 325) was an influential Christian author of the fourth century who became an advisor to Roman emperor Constantine. He is best known for his apologetic Institutiones Divinae (“The Divine Institutes”), a Christian defense against paganism. He is counted among the Early Church Fathers for both his proximity to the early Church and his orthodoxy. But today, he is becoming better known for what appears to be a stunning prophetic acuity…

 

The End of the Age

Of particular note are his writings on the end of this age that mirror a sequence exactly as St. John describes in Revelation chapters 19 – 21: There will arise an antichrist, a beast, followed by the triumph of the Church and an Era of Peace, and then the final conclusion of history.^[1]cf. How the Era Was Lost What is most eye-opening is Lactantius’s description of the proximate times of the Antichrist:

That will be the time in which righteousness shall be cast out, and innocence be hated; in which the wicked shall prey upon the good as enemies; neither law, nor order, nor military discipline shall be preserved… all things shall be confounded and mixed together against right, and against the laws of nature. Thus the earth shall be laid waste, as though by one common robbery. When these things shall so happen, then the righteous and the followers of truth shall separate themselves from the wicked, and flee into solitudes. —Lactantius, Church Father, The Divine Institutes, Book VII, Ch. 17

Just a cursory examination of this passage reveals a remarkable parallel to our present hour:

 

I. “righteousness shall be cast out”

Today, good is called evil, and evil, good. Within a single generation, traditional marriage has been sidelined; the biological definition of sexuality discarded; the body reduced to a mere object to be sexualized, modified, and used; and the value of life itself has been trampled, from the womb to the tomb through the enshrinement of abortion, gender-affirming surgery, and euthanasia under the deceptive term “health care.”

Given such a grave situation, we need now more than ever to have the courage to look the truth in the eye and to call things by their proper name, without yielding to convenient compromises or to the temptation of self-deception. In this regard, the reproach of the Prophet is extremely straightforward: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness” (Is 5:20). —POPE ST. JOHN PAUL II, Evangelium Vitae, “The Gospel of Life”, n. 58

 

II. “innocence be hated”

From extreme violence, to pornography, to an explosion of vulgar language — all in the name of “entertainment” — the innocence of an entire generation is being destroyed. This, in turn, is numbing consciences on an unprecedented scale. 

When the conscience is weakened the sense of God is also obscured, and as a result, with the loss of this decisive inner point of reference, the sense of sin is lost. This explains why my predecessor Pius XI, one day declared, in words that have almost become proverbial, that “the sin of the century is the loss of the sense of sin.” —POPE ST. JOHN PAUL II, Reconciliato et Penaetentia, n. 18

The subsequent collapse in civil discourse on social media, talks shows, and even between national leaders is what Jesus himself foretold:

…because of the increase of evildoing, the love of many will grow cold. (Matthew 24:12)

And thus, even against our will, the thought rises in the mind that now those days draw near of which Our Lord prophesied: “And because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold” (Matt. 24:12). —POPE PIUS XI, Miserentissimus Redemptor, Encyclical on Reparation to the Sacred Heart, n. 17 

 

III. “wicked shall prey upon the good as enemies”

Aside from the growing persecution and martyrdom of Christians worldwide, we are witnessing the exploitation of the vulnerable through the drug trade and human trafficking. In this regard, Benedict XVI saw our generation as fulfilling this prophecy, as described also in the Book of Revelation:

The Book of Revelation includes among the great sins of Babylon — the symbol of the world’s great irreligious cities — the fact that it trades with bodies and souls and treats them as commodities (cf. Rev 18:13). In this context, the problem of drugs also rears its head, and with increasing force extends its octopus tentacles around the entire world… No pleasure is ever enough, and the excess of deceiving intoxication becomes a violence that tears whole regions apart — and all this in the name of a fatal misunderstanding of freedom which actually undermines man’s freedom and ultimately destroys it. —POPE BENEDICT XVI, On the occasion of Christmas Greetings, December 20th, 2010; http://www.vatican.va/

The global opioid crisis is the result, in part, of a massive, profit-driven push by pharmaceutical interests to expand the market for pain management. We read of this very thing in Revelation, of how Babylon’s…

…merchants were the great men of the earth, all nations were led astray by your magic potion. (Rev 18:23)

The Greek word for “magic potion” is φαρμακείᾳ (pharmakeia) — “the use of medicine, drugs or spells.” This “deceiving intoxication,” as Benedict puts it, has indeed led to a global instability with drug cartels, human trafficking, and intense violence destabilizing entire regions.

“The wicked shall prey upon the good,” said Lactantius. 

 

IV. “neither law, nor order… shall be preserved…”

Here, Lactantius echoes St. Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians, that “lawlessness” would precede the “lawless one”, the “son of perdition” or Antichrist.^[2]cf. 2 Thess 2:3-7 The penultimate lawlessness of our times is judicial bodies who, with the stroke of a pen, are overturning the natural moral law. Whether it is the redefinition of marriage, gender, or the inviolable dignity of every human life, these politicians and magistrates are ultimately lawless when they reject the higher laws of God. 

To further punctuate this lawlessness, several Western governments are passing laws as we speak to even ban the freedom of speech to disagree with these unjust or immoral laws.

 

V. “nor military discipline shall be preserved…”

Today, wars are increasingly being ‘linked to the exploitation of oil and mineral resources with, says Pope Leo XIV, “no regard for international law or the self-determination of peoples.”‘ He adds:

…the destiny of humanity risks being tragically compromised… —Apostolic Journey to Equatorial Guinea, April 21, 2026, Vatican News

Since 911, there has emerged the use of “pre-emptive strikes” based on the concept of a “just war.” But the Catechism of the Catholic Church warns that…

…the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. —n. 2309 on conditions for a “just war”

Israel’s response to the terrorist attack being case in point, or the war in Iraq. Indeed, the unfounded claim of “weapons of mass destruction” in 2003, which was used as a pretext for an invasion, led to the deaths of as many as a million Iraqis. It also spawned new terrorist organizations that, to this day, are wreaking havoc in the Middle East.

Thus, it was shocking, to say the least, when the President of the United States recently threatened on social media:

A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will. —truthsocial.com

Such rhetoric falls completely outside the boundaries of “just war” into the realm of potential war crimes — whether the President meant his threat or not. The “rules-based order” is collapsing, say several commentators.^[3]dw.com From the threat of nuclear warfare to provocative testing of intercontinental ballistic missiles to the use of space to wage war, military order is collapsing. 

As a footnote to the collapse in military discipline has been the introduction of DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) policy in the recruitment of troops in various nations. This is when a person is elevated into military service because of their skin color or gender identity, as opposed to choosing the most qualified candidates.

 

VI. “all things shall be confounded and mixed together against right, and against the laws of nature”

Here, Lactantius seems to be speaking of the overthrow of the entire natural and moral order, the “right” and good that Christendom has brought. Pope Leo XIII would eventually identify the architects of this “new world order”:

At this period, however, the partisans of evil seem to be combining together… led on or assisted by that strongly organized and widespread association called the Freemasons. No longer making any secret of their purposes, they are now boldly rising up against God Himself. They are planning the destruction of holy Church, publicly and openly, and this with the set purpose of utterly despoiling the nations of Christendom… that whole religious and political order of the world which the Christian teaching has produced, and the substitution of a new state of things in accordance with their ideas…. —Humanum Genus, April 20, 1884; 30, 10

Even the “laws of nature” would be assaulted, says Lactantius. This refers not only to the nature of man but also to the natural world. Today, farming practices use harmful chemicals to control crops; we are genetically modifying foods, spraying chemicals into the atmosphere to block the sun, cloning animals, and toying with DNA as we seek to create designer babies. Artificial intelligence and robots have begun to displace man himself, and the value of labor.

Hence, the ultimate abuse in nature is indeed of man himself in what is being called the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” — the fusion of man’s biological, digital, and physical identities: transhumanism.^[4]Chairman Prof. Klaus Schwab, World Economic Forum, The Rise of the Antichurch, 20:11 mark, rumble.com Thus warns Cardinal Robert Sarah:

The West refuses to receive [his nature from God], and will accept only what it constructs for itself. Transhumanism is the ultimate avatar of this movement. Because it is a gift from God, human nature itself becomes unbearable for Western man. This revolt is spiritual at root. —April 5th, 2019, catholiceducation.org

The word “apostasy” in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 is rendered “revolt” in the Douay-Rheims bible:

Let no man deceive you by any means, for unless there come a revolt first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposeth, and is lifted up above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, so that he sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself as if he were God.” (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4) 

Could there be any revolt, any revolution that fulfills this Scripture more than transhumanism, which is literally the attempt to make man like God?^[5]cf. The Final Revolution Yuval Noah Harari is an advisor to the World Economic Forum advisor and a main presenter at their Davos gatherings in Switzerland. He once declared that “God is dead”,^[6]cf. YouTube and that…

In seeking bliss and immortality humans are in fact trying to upgrade themselves into gods. —The Guardian, March 19, 2017 from his book Homo Deus

 

VII. “Thus the earth shall be laid waste, as though by one common robbery.”

Finally, Lactantius foresees how this new world order is to be achieved: “by one common robbery.” As I have already explained in Isaiah’s Prophecy of Global Communism and The Great Theft, this is being accomplished through The World Economic Forum’s (WEF’s) “Great Reset” and the UN’s Agenda 2030 using the levers of “open borders,” “pandemics”, “climate change,” and “digital IDs.”^[7]cf. The Final Revolution As Ottmar Edenhofer of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change openly admitted:

…one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore… —dailysignal.com, November 19th, 2011

It’s Communism with a green hat.

Through carbon taxes and the sale of carbon credits, governments and corporations are literally robbing lower-income households and transferring that wealth to the upper echelons of society. These corporations and “partners,” in turn, will be the ones participating in what the WEF calls “stakeholder capitalism,” whereby only a few will own the world’s assets. From a working document on the WEF’s website:

…a smaller number of asset owners will take custodianship of assets to keep them in use and provide services to many users based on consumption [ie. your carbon footprint]… More local user-centric versions of business models such as Uber, Airbnb would be much needed not only to share housing and vehicles, but essential items such as tools, equipment, and electronic equipment/office spaces. In addition, wider communal access to small items such as toys, books and tools can be created through libraries for sharing. — “How a circular economy could help tackle Sri Lanka’s economic crisis”, July 5, 2022, weforum.org

As one of their promotional videos states, by 2030, “You will own nothing. And you will be happy.” Again, this is simply a new form of Communism blended with elements of Capitalism.

And it’s a very big deal. It’s why Our Lady of Fatima appeared in 1917, warning that the “errors of Russia” (Marxism, Socialism, atheism, rationalism, etc.) were about to spread across the globe. It’s the reason that Jesus announced to St. Faustina that the Day of Justice is approaching. Why? Because this neo-Communist movement is the global satanic kingdom — the “beast” attempting to pre-empt, and if possible, destroy the establishment of the Kingdom of the Divine Will “on earth as it is in Heaven” that we pray for every day in the Our Father. As Pope Leo XIII said in another encyclical on Freemasonry:

It is the plan of the sects [secret societies] that is now unfolding… especially in what relates to the Catholic religion and the Church, with the final and avowed purpose, if it were possible, of reducing it to nothing. —Dall’alto dell’Apostolico Seggio, n.2

It’s the Great Reset — bringing Christendom to nothing, after which they promise to “build back better” — but build a world without Jesus Christ as Lord. Thus warns the Catechism:

The Antichrist’s deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgment. The Church has rejected… especially the “intrinsically perverse” political form of a secular messianism. —Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 676

The deception is that these “stakeholders” will bring about peace, equality, and harmony between man and creation — through coercion and control of private property.   

Woe to those who plan iniquity, and work out evil on their couches; in the morning light, they accomplish it when it lies within their power. They covet fields, and seize them; houses, and they take them; they cheat an owner of his house, a man of his inheritance… (Micah 2:1-2)

Several Church Fathers such as Hippolytus,^[8]“…lo, the Lord brings up upon you the water of the river, strong and full, even the king of Assyria. By the king he means metaphorically Antichrist…” — “On Christ and the Antichrist”, n. 57; newadvent.org Victorinus^[9]“There shall be peace for our land… and they shall encircle Assur [Assyria], that is antichrist, in the trench of Nimrod.” —Commentary on the Apocalypse, ch. 7 and Lactantius foresaw the Antichrist originating from Assyria (present-day Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Syria.). Remarkably, the prophet Isaiah seems to describe the Great Reset — the global confiscation of wealth and reordering of national boundaries, through an antichrist figure:

Woe to Assyria! My rod in anger, my staff in wrath. Against an impious nation I send him, and against a people under my wrath^[10]1 Peter 4:17: “For the time is, that judgment should begin at the house of God. And if first at us, what shall be the end of them that believe not the gospel of God?” I order him to seize plunder, carry off loot, and tread them down like the mud of the streets… it is in his heart to destroy, to make an end of nations not a few. For he says: “By my own power I have done it, and by my wisdom, for I am shrewd. I have moved the boundaries of peoples, their treasures I have pillaged, and, like a giant, I have put down the enthroned. My hand has seized like a nest the riches of nations; as one takes eggs left alone, so I took in all the earth; no one fluttered a wing, or opened a mouth, or chirped!” (Isaiah 10:5-7, 13B-16)

Didn’t we see this during COVID? People were afraid to resist, to question pseudo-science, or resist obvious injustices — like keeping liquor stores open while churches were forced to close. That was but a foretaste of the control that is coming. Hence, the people cry out in the Book of Revelation:

Who can compare with the beast or who can fight against it? (Revelation 13:4)

Lactantius perceives that it is then that many Christians, refusing to take the mark of the beast, will either give their lives for the sake of Christ^[11]VII, Ch. 17, The Divine Institutes or separate themselves from the wicked and flee into “solitudes” — or as we say today, “refuges.” 

Whether or not Lactantius’s prophecy refers to our generation, we are certainly a candidate. Here, the wisdom of St. Cyril applies:

The Church now charges you before the Living God; she declares to you the things concerning Antichrist before they arrive. Whether they will happen in your time we know not, or whether they will happen after you we know not; but it is well that, knowing these things, you should make yourself secure beforehand. —St. Cyril of Jerusalem (c. 315-386) Doctor of the Church, Catechetical Lectures, Lecture XV, n.9

My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way that will lead you to God. —Our Lady of Fatima, June 13, 1917, The Revelation of the Two Hearts in Modern Times, www.ewtn.com

 

Related Reading

How the Era Was Lost

When Communism Returns

The Great Reset

The Final Revolution

 

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