PROPHECY OF THE MONK JOHANNES – Written in 1600

(Copied from the Tillsonburg News) The article as it appeared in the Tillsonburg Liberal in 1917 is reprinted herewith.

The following prophecy of the monk Johannes made in the year 1600 makes interesting reading. Much has already come to pass. David S. Ward writes to a Harrogate contemporary; I received through the kindness of a Belgian judge, whom I met in London, a copy in French of an exceedingly interesting old prediction made in 1600 and evidently referring to the present war raging on the continent, and thinking it might interest some of your readers I have pleasure in forwarding it for your perusal. As a proof of its genuineness, I may say this gentleman assured me he had a copy of this prophecy as far back as the Antwerp Exhibition. Some of the French words used, are I believe, very old, this being also indirect testimony to its age. Your readers must, of course allow for the religious preconceptions of the author, as altogether apart from this, its detail is, to say the least, remarkable.

The Prophesy of the Monk Johannes was originally written in Latin

1.Several times has one seemed to recognize him because all slayers of the Lamb resemble each other and all the wicked are the precursors of the Great Wicked One.

2. The veritable Antichrist will be one of the monarchs of his time, a son of Luther; he will invoke God and call himself His messenger.

3. The Prince of Lies will swear by the Bible; he will call himself the arm of the Most High, chastising corrupted people.

4. He will only have one arm, but his innumerable armies, who will take as their motto “God is with us,” will seem like infernal legions.

5. For a long while he will act by ruse and treason. His spies will spread all over the earth, and he will be the master of the secret of those in power.

6. He will have theologians in his pay to certify and prove his celestial mission.

7. A was will furnish him with the reason for lifting the mask. Is will not be on which he will make against the French monarch, but another which will be easily recognized by the fact that in two weeks time it will have become universal.

8. It will call to arms all Christians, all Mohammedans, and even other distant people. Armies will be formed in the four parts of the world.

9. For men’s minds will be opened by angels, and in the third week they will understand that this is the Antichrist and that they will all become slaves if they do not trample down this conquering one.

10. The Antichrist will be recognizable by several marks; he will chiefly massacre priests, monks, women and children and old people. He will show no mercy; he will pass along holding a torch like the barbarians, but invoking the name of Christ.

11. His false words will resemble those of Christians, but his acts will be those of Nero and the Roman persecutors; there will be an eagle in the coat-of-arms and there will also be one in that of his confederate, the other wicked monarch.

12. But this one is a Christian and he will be cursed by the Pope Benedictus, who will be elected at the beginning of the reign of the Antichrist.

13. Priests and monks will no longer be seen confessing and absolving the combatants, because for the first time priests and monks will fight with other citizens; and a1so because Pope Benedictus having cursed the Antichrist, it will be procla1med that all those who wage war against him will be in a state of grace, and should they die will like martyrs go straight to heaven.

14. The Pope’s “bull” proclaiming these things will make a great sensation and will cause the death of the monarch, the Antichrist’s ally.

15. In order to conquer the Antichrist more men must be ki1led than Rome has ever held. It will require an effort from all lands, for the Cock, the Leopard, and the white eagle wil1 not suffice to overcome the black eagle if they were not helped by all the prayers of a1l the Roman race.

16. Never before has humanity been in such a peril, for the triumph of the Antichrist would that of the Demon, in whom he is incarnated.

17. For it had been said that 20 centuries after the incarnation of the world, the beast in his turn would be incarnated and would threaten the earth with as many evils as the Divine Incarnation had brought in graces.

18. Near the year two thousand the Antichrist will appear; his army will surpass in numbers anything before imagined; there will be Christians among its hordes, and among the defenders of the Lamb there will be Mohammedans and savage tribes.

19. For the first time the Lamb will be entirely red; in the whole of the Christian world there will not be a place that will not be red; and the heavens, the earth, the water, and even the air will be red, for blood will flow in the sphere of the four E1ements at the same time.

20. The black eag1e will throw itself upon the cock, which wi1l lose many of its feathers, but will strike heroically with its spur. It would be soon be annihilated were it not for the help of the leopard and its claws.

2l. The black eagle, which will come from the land of Luther will surprise the cock by another side and will invade one ha1f of the land of the cock.

The white eagle, which wi1l come from the north, will surprise the black eagle and the other eagle and will completely invade the land of the Antichrist from one end to the other.

23 .The black eagle will be forced to leave the cock to fight the white eagle, and the cock will pursue the black eagle into the land of the Antichrist to help the white eagle.

24. The battle waged until then will be small in comparison to those that will take p1ace in the land of Luther. Because the seven angels will at the same time pour fire from their burners on the impious land (image taken from the Apocalypse), which means that the Lamb will order the extermination of the Antichrist’s race.

25. When the Beast sees he is lost he will become furious; during the months the beak of the white eagle the claws of the people and the spurs of the cock will harass him.

26. Rivers will be crossed on stepping-stones of corpses, which in some cases will change the course of the water.

Only great noblemen, superior officers and princes will receive burial for to the carnage caused by firearms will be added the piling up of those who perished by famine and plague.

27. The Antichrist will several times ask for peace, but the seven angels who precede the three animals, defenders of the Lamb, have said victory shall only be accorded on the condition, that the Antichrist be crushed like straw on the threshing floor. 28. Executors of the Lamb’s justice, these three animals cannot stop fighting so long as a soldier remains to the Antichrist.

29. The reason the sentence of the Lamb is implacable is that the Antichrist has pretended to be a Christian and to be acting In His name so that if he did not perish the fruit of the redemption would be lost and the gates of hell prevail against the Saviour.

30. It will be seen that it is not a human combat which will be waged where the Antichrist forges his arms. The three animals, defenders of the Lamb, will exterminate the Antichrist’s last army, but the battlefield will become as an altar of sacrifice larger than the greatest of cities, and the corpses will have changed its shape by raising in it chains of mounds.

31. The Antichrist will loose his crown and will die demented and alone. His empire will be divided into 22 states, but none will have either a royal house, an army or vessels.

32. The white eagle, by Michael’s order will chase the Crescent from Europe, where only Christians will remain. It will occupy Constantinople.

33. Then an era of peace and prosperity will commence for all the Universe and there will be no more war. Each nation being governed according to its own wish and living in Justice.

34. There will be no more Lutherans or Schismatics. The Lamb will reign and the joys of humanity will commence. Happy they who, escaping from the perils of the prodigious time, can taste of its fruit, which will be the reign of the Eternal Spirit, and the sanctification of humanity, only to be achieved by the defeat of the Antichrist.

According to a note added apparently by the translator; France is figured by the Cock, England by the Leopard, Russia by the White Eagle, and Germany and Austria by the Black Eagle and the other “eagle”. This explanation we can easily accept in view of the references in the text, remembering, too, that the leopard was originally more in evidence than the lion as the badge of England.

Reprinted in the Norwich Gazette, Thursday, May 23rd, 1940.