Henoch and Elias

 Just when the tempest is at its most violent, when

the Church is leader less, when the unbloody sacrifice has 
everywhere ceased and everything seems humanly lost, two 
witnesses, St. John tells us, will be seen to arise. 

These two witnesses will be two strange men, appear- 
ing suddenly amidst the world, without anyone being able 
to say of what birth or origin they are, nor from what 
place or family they have come . 

This is how St. John speaks of them in the eleventh 
chapter of the Apocalypse: 

"And I will give unto my two witnesses, and they 
shall prophesy a thousand two hundred sixty days, clothed 
in sackcloth. These are the two olive-trees and the two 
candlesticks that stand before the Lord of the earth." 

No tongue can express the sheer amazement which will 
grip mankind, at the sight of these two men, strangers to 
our passions and affairs, one of them having lived six 
thousand years, the other thirty centuries, in some eth- 
ereal region or other, beneath. firmaments and upon spheres 
inaccessible to our senses and understanding. Yet, 
neither of these witnesses is alien to the human family. 
One of these candlesticks and olive-trees is Henoch, the 
great-great-grandfather of Noe, the direct ancestor of the 
whole human race. The other is the prophet Elias who, as 



[7 2] St* John does not tell us expressly that the two witnesses 
whom he mentions will be Henoch and Elias, but it is clear from 
the context that, by the two candlesticks and the two olive- 
trees, he does not mean any two saints or preachers, but two 
definite personages, endowed with an extraordinary power and 
holiness. Now - pondering all the facts and circumstances 
foretold to us about the life and death of these personages, 
and recalling all that we are told about them by Scripture, 
especially in Ecclesiasticus 4 8 and by the prophet Malachias, 
concerning the mission they will one day be called upon to 
fulfil - Bede,- St. Anselm, St. Augustine and a large number of 
the Fathers assure us that the two witnesses of whom the Apoc- 
alypse speaks are none other than Henoch and Elias, and that 
they were miraculously preserved from death for no other pur- 
pose- than to fight against Antichrist, and bear testimony to 
Jesus Christ, at- the end of the world. 



the Saviour has said, is destined to restore all things. 
 He will come a second time to stem the tide of 
wickedness, more reckless and unrestrained than it was in 
the days of Achab. It will also be the hour of the redemp- 
tion of_ -Israel. The great prophet will convince the 
posterity of Abraham that the Messias has come, and will 
remove the -veil of ignorance and darkness which has lain 
heavy upon their eyes for nineteen centuries. 

What sort of appearance and bearing will these strang- 
ers from another age present? What venerable majesty will 
shine forth from their persons? What inspired language^ 
will flow from their lips? Holy Scripture does not tell 
us. It teaches us that they will prophesy for one thous- 
and two hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth, 
their garments and features bearing the marks of humility 
and penance. According to Daniel, the persecution of 
Antichrist will last for one thousand two hundred and 
ninety days; so the preaching of Henoch and Elias will be 
thirty days shorter. Hence it follows that they will 
appear in the period when the persecution is unleashed 
with the greatest violence. How, within the space of time 
set for their mission, will they manage to give their 
testimony in all inhabited places, and cover the whole 
extent of the earth? We answer that it will not be 
necessary for them to visit every town; it will be enough 
for them to appear in the principal ones, and for their 
preaching to be heard in the capitals and main centres of 
population where Antichrist has been present and has 
exercised his most powerful fascination. Furthermore, it 
is unlikely that Henoch and Elias will be constantly 
together: it is more probable that they will preach 
separately, until, by a command from God, or following a 
providential inspiration, they suddenly come together for 
the final battle. 


Cornelius a Lapide tells us that it is a certain truth, 
almost of faith, fidei proximum , that Henoch and Elias did not 
die. Tertullian, in book LVIII on the Resurrection, calls them 
"candidates of Eternity", in order to make us understand that 
they are freed from all misery and suffering, and incapable of 
sin. St. Irenaeus, bk.IV, ch.V, calls them coauspicantes 
immortalitatem , which means that they have the certain presage 
and omen of immortality. Neither Henoch nor Elias are yet 
glorified in their bodies; since they continue to be enveloped 
in flesh, from which, like us, they will one day be separated 
by death. The Fathers teach that Henoch was taken up into 
paradise, which is also the teaching of Ecclesiasticus 44:16. 
At the Flood, when the earthly paradise was submerged, Henoch 
was taken up into some unknown region of heaven, where Elias 
accompanied him when he was borne away on a fiery chariot. In 
their dwelling-place they live absorbed in the contemplation of 
divine things, in a state which is not that of heavenly bliss 
but in which they are inundated with divine consolations and 
enjoy continuous repose. As they have, in a certain sense, 
left this life and are no longer subject to trial, they cannot 
acquire new merits, nor grow in holiness. When, however, they 
return to earth at the end of the times, they will revert to 
the conditions of the present life, will again become liable to 
undergo suffering and, once more, will gain merit, whether by 
fighting Antichrist or by bearing witness, through their preach- 
ing and death, to Jesus Christ of Nazareth. 


At first, no doubt, incredulous men will refuse to 
admit their identity. They will seek to lay hold of them, 
and punish them as mountebanks and sham visionaries; 
public opinion will shower them with satirical barbs and 
mockery, and the organs of publicity will persist in 
ignoring them, and pretend not to know of them. The per- 
secutor, foaming with rage, will try to have them put to 
death; but, as long as their mission lasts, they will be 
guarded by a superior force. Here is what St. John, 
chapter 11, verse 5, says: "And if any man will hurt 
them, fire shall come out of their mouths and shall devour 
their enemies; and if any man will hurt them, in this 
manner must he be slain. These have power to shut heaven, 
that it rain not in the days of their prophecy; and they 
have powers over waters, to turn them into blood and to 
strike the earth with all plagues, as often as they will." 

The Gospel is not so specific about the result and 
efficacy of the mission of these two great witnesses; but 
it may be taken as certain that they will undeceive a 
large mass of the deluded, and bring back most of those 
whom fear or ambition had enticed from worship of the true 
God. Indeed their preaching will need to have a power 
which no other words since those of the Gospel have ever 
had, since it will overcome the obstinacy of the Jews, 
who, bowing to the lustre of the marvels and the evidence 
of the facts, will return beneath the staff of the Shep- 
herd of shepherds, to form with the Christians one flock 
and one fold. 

However, God gives His graces with due proportion. 
When the light has been given, when men have had all the 
time they need to distinguish -truth from error, God, in 
His wisdom, will then suspend the miracle. That is how 
Providence invariably acts. So it was of old with Samson 
when, once the Philistines had been humbled and defeated, 
God took away from him His spirit and the stupendous 
strength with which He had endowed him. Heaven proceeded 
again in the same way with Joan of Arc: once her mission 
had been fulfilled, when she had routed the English and 
placed the crown back upon the head of Charles VII, her 
genius and military talent seemed to pale; she was taken 
prisoner, and reverted to the  normal circumstances of 
human life. So shall it be in the case of Henoch and 
Elias. Besides, the miracle, if prolonged, would have no 
other effect than to confirm their obduracy stubborn 
men who had refused to receive their words with a submis- 
sive ear and heart. In short, the two witnesses are not 
dead, although one of them is six thousand and the other 
three thousand years old, and it is necessary that they 
should seal their testimony by the shedding of their 
blood, and be subjected to the law of human nature from 
which Christ Himself did not desire to be spared. 

Here then, is what will take place, says St. John, 
in the chapter already quoted: 

- "And when they shall have finished their testimony, 
- the beast that ascendeth out of the abyss shall make war 
against them and shall overcome them and kill them. And 
their bodies shall lie in the streets of the great city 
which is called spiritually Sodom and Egypt; where their 
Lord also was crucified. ' And they of the tribes and 
peoples and tongues and nations shall see their bodies for 
three days and a half; and they shall not suffer their 
bodies to be laid in sepulchres. And they that dwell upon 
the earth shall rejoice over them and make merry; and 
shall send gifts one to another, because these two pro- 
phets tormented them that dwelt upon the earth. And after 
three days and a half, the spirit, of life from God entered 
into them; and they stood upon their feet; and great fear 
fell upon them that saw them... And at that hour there was 
made a great earthquake; and the tenth part of the city 
fell. And there were slain in the earthquake, names of 
men, seven thousand; and the rest were cast into a fear 
and gave glory to the God of heaven." 

St. John does not tell us what the fate of Antichrist 
will be, but St. Paul teaches that "the Lord Jesus shall 
kill [him] with the spirit of his mouth and shall destroy 
[him] with the brightness of his coming. "

Some have concluded from this passage that Christ is 
to come down in person to strike His great adversary, and 
that this will be the day when He will appear in His glory 
and majesty. This interpretation is incorrect. 

St. Thomas and St. John Chrysostom explain the words "quem 
Dominus Jesus destruet illustratione adventus sui" in the 
sense that Christ will strike Antichrist by dazzling him 
with a brightness, which will be like an omen and sign of 
His Second Coming. St. Paul does not at all say that 
Christ will kill him with His own hands, but by the spirit 
of His mouth, "spiritu oris sui," that is, as St. Thomas 
explains, by virtue of His power, as a result of His 
command: whether, as some believe, executing it through 
the co-operation of St. Michael the Archangel, or having 
some other agent, visible or invisible, spiritual or 
inanimate, intervene. 

What is certain is that Satan 
will be hurled back into the darkness of the abyss, the 

Cornelius a Lapide and Holzhauser say that, at the sight 
of the triumph of Henoch and Elias, Antichrist will be struck 
numb with fear; he will quiver with rage, and, in his over- 
weening pride and infernal presumption, will attempt to main- 
tain the nations in error by a novel and more sacrilegious 
hoax. With the aid of demons, he will rise majestically into 
the air from the Mount of Olives, and strive to reach Henoch 
and Elias in order to cast them down to the ground. At that 
grave moment, the virtue of the Almighty will strike him and 
throw him into the utmost ignominy and confusion. This inter- 
pretation of the Venerable Holzhauser is only an opinion, but it 
is possible, and does not conflict with the sacred text. 


The  reign of the man of evil will be utterly destroyed, and 
his power, which aspired to extend up to the heavens, will 
vanish like a cloud of smoke. 

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