Dr.

Robert Hickson

18 September 2013 Saint Joseph Cupertino

Reflections on the End of Time: Fortifying Convictions for the Sake of Courage and a Final Fidelity (Transcending the Dialectic of Liberal and Conservative)
Epigraphs: In the revealed prophecy of the end of history a catastrophic end within history is foretold. Whoever believingly accepts this [apocalyptic] prophecy, that is to say, whoever takes it to be revelation, has no possibility of ignoring the fact that the end of Time [Apoc. 10:5], within history, will be a downfall, a catastrophe. Nonetheless, his attitude to history, his attitude to the future, may not be one of despairand this for reasons arising out of that very same faith. The hope of him who thus believes, of him who [also] believes in the [extratemporal] transposition as deliverance [as salvation], is by no means a hope directed purely upon the beyond. It is, rather, a hope that renders the believer able and willing to act here and now within history, indeed even to see a possibility of meaningful action within history. Admittedly, this attitude [to history], as really lived, can flourish only on the soil of that believing understanding of the end of Timean end [a cessation] which, though catastrophic, does not [necessarily] mean disaster [a final futility, or missed goal]. This is one of the reasons why today, at a time of temptations to despair [and presumption?], it may appear necessary to bring into view a notion of the End [a twofold Finis, both as cessation and as goal] in which an utterly realistic freedom from illusion not only does not contradict hope but in which the one serves to confirm and corroborate the other. (Josef Pieper, The End of Time, pp. 78-79) *** In Latin the word for endfinisalso means goal. End and goal, however, are certainly not the same thing. There may be an end that is not simultaneously a goal. Something may cease without having reached its goal [e.g., eternal life, or salvation]. There may be an end that is characterized precisely by the goal having been missed, an end that is synonymous with non-attainment of the goal. Nevertheless, goal and end inwardly cohere. I refuseand in doing so know that my refusal is correctI reject the idea that I ought to believe the world so constructed that it is leading to an end in which the goal is missed and that, in other words, the name of the course of the world is futility.....And [in 1

contrast to the intra-historical end] it is only this end outside time [an extra-temporal end of history] of which we can finally say whether finis-end and finis-goal coincide in it or not. (Josef Pieper, The End of Time, pp. 80-81) *** To style the Church's attitude to history as unmitigated pessimism, however, [i.e., and especially [the attitude of] the Catholic Churchas Jacob Burkhardt claimed], is an unwarranted simplification. Such oversimplified characterizations become possible and, to some degree, meaningful only when the tense and complex structure of the Western conception of history [ i.e., when the tense and complex fabric of the Christian view of history (103)], and above all the notion of the end of time, dissolves. This dissolution, by the way, does not imply the loss of all the individual elements of the old conception of history, for instance, the most unequivocally religious elements stemming from the depositum of revelation. What has been lost is the bond between them. (Josef Pieper, The End of Time, pp. 86-87 and 103) *** How much the Enlightenment's doctrine of progress [with its optimism] rested upon a secularization of Christian theology, more precisely of the theology of the [Four] Last Things [Ta Eschata], is shown in the very title, by the treatise [Immanuel Kant's own Treatise on] The Victory of the Good Principle over the Evil and the Establishment of the Kingdom of God on Earth (1792); we see at once that the language is the language of theology. But what is the content of this [specious] pronouncement framed in theological terms? What does Kant understand by the establishment of the Kingdom of God on Earth? The answer [Kant's own answer] is: The gradual transition from ecclesiastical creed to the absolute sovereignty of pure [sic] religious faith is the approach of the Kingdom of God.....Ecclesiastical creed means the faith lived in the cultus, the faith grounded on revelation, which treats of a history of salvation. And pure religious faith? This is the bare faith in Reason, which, stripped of the cultus [hence of the public worship, such as the Sacrifice and Sacrament of the Catholic Mass], is no more than [putative] morality....The positively political character of this [Kantian] pronouncement, only slightly camouflaged because of the danger into which it might have placed the author, can be understood when one reflects that it was written with the French Revolution in view [i.e., one of those revolutions, he had earlier said, which may shorten this progress from ecclesiastical creed to the faith in Reason]....The believer cannot help being shocked as he [herein] watches [as also in the sly language of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (d. 1778)] a fundamental concept of New Testament revelation being debased and inverted before his eyes into a crudely rationalistic formulation; moreover, even the non-believer of a later generation will look back in surprise at this shallow and over-hasty 2

misinterpretation of the enigma [the mysterium] of history. (Josef Pieper, The End of Time, pp. 95-97) ***

Almost fifteen years before the farsighted James Burnham first published his secular, empirical-analytical study, Suicide of the West: An Essay on the Meaning and Destiny of Liberalism (1964),1 Josef Pieper published his own quite challenging, philosophical-theological study, ber das Ende der Zeit: Eine geschichtsphilosophische Betrachtung (1950)2 (About the End of Time: A Meditation on the Philosophy of History). The former book includes a reasoned prediction as to where the inner logic of Liberalism's own fundamental premises leads, especially its disintegrating effects on Western Civilization; and, therefore, Burnham also proposes his own modest kind of empirical prediction and projection of the Liberal Ideology's likely temporal fruits: namely, that form of disciplined and differentiated extrapolation called prognostication (or prognosis). However, the latter study by Josef Pieper goes further. For Dr. Pieper also includes in his close study a nuanced consideration of the even greater intellectual and moral burden of prophecy. That is to say, divine prophecy, in its strict sense, as distinct from mere human prognostication: i.e., especially as to the nature and onerous moral consequences of a truly believed Divine Prophecy about specific future contingents, such as the coming of the Messiah. For, the earlier, pre-Christian Messianic Prophecies in the Old Testament became increasingly specific, so as to include the depiction of the coming Messiah, not just as a Ruler, but also as a Suffering Servant. Moreover, in light of the fuller sacred corpus of both Jewish and Christian Revelation, Josef Pieper then gives us a further challenge, which is also a vividly burdensome test of our courage and of our perduring loyalty to Christ, especially as his meditation presents to us the as-yet-unfulfilled (still remaining) historical prophecy concerning the end and final meaning of history, specifically in relation to the end of time itself. Thus, to include the formidable preparatory events of the
1 James Burnham, Suicide of the West: An Essay on the Meaning and Destiny of Liberalism (New Rochelle, New York: Arlington House, 1964), 306 pages. In 1975, the book was re-published by Arlington House, but the only changes Burnham then made, in light of the events of the previous ten years, was an illuminating Afterword from pages 313320. 2 A third edition of Josef Pieper's original 1950 book was published in German in Munich in 1980, also by Ksel Verlag.

Antichrist's historical precursors and, finally, the explicitly foretold Dominion of the Antichrist, as such: a seductive dominion which will cruelly confront and acutely persecute the Catholic Church near the end of time. But, are we convinced of that? Over the twenty years I was privileged to know him, Father John A. Hardon, S.J. often said both in private and in public, and usually with his special accent and his solemn intonation addedthat We are only as courageous as we are convinced . The implication was clear. But what, indeed, are we now (or not yet) truly convinced of? What abiding convictions do we deeply hold and cherish? Do we believe, for example, in the traditional historical prophecy of the coming Ecclesia Martyrum (Church of the Martyrs) at the end of time as a formative part of Divine Revelation and of the purposive culmination of history when time shall be no more? (Book XI of Saint Augustine's Confessions will certainly introduce us to the Mystery of Time!) Although it is not so widely known in these times, the Catholic Church's highly differentiated, and fuller doctrinal tradition concerning the End of Time will propose a further challenge of the Faith i.e., to be more deeply understood in its gradually unveiled twofold meaning of the end (Latin Finis): both in its sense as an intra-historical conclusion (or mysterious termination) of time; and in its sense as the higher, purposive goal (or intended completion) of time (God's created Time). The concept and reality of the End of history (and Time) will certainly challenge our intellect and test our loyalty to Christ and His Church, especially during that foretold event of the Ecclesia Martyrum and its inescapable Blood Witness. Indeed, our convictions about this whole momentous matter of the outcome of history i.e., the question of what the historical process is 'leading up to' 3should certainly prepare us for courage, and perhaps even for that form of fortitude as it was shown in the blood testimony of the Christian Martyrs of earlier history, whose invariant witness, amidst unmistakably acute concentrations of evil, nevertheless never displayed contempt for the essential goodness of the Divine Creation itself. Even though we may not be called to such a blood witness, the hope of the Christian martyrs should be our abiding standardalso, like the gift of fear ( Donum Timoris), as a reliable guard against the sin of
3 Josef Pieper, The End of Time: A Meditation on the Philosophy of History (Ignatius Press: San Francisco, 1999), p. 12.

presumption, itself being one of the two sins against hope, indeed one of the two forms of hopelessness (the other, more well known, being the sin of despair). In any case, says Pieper, with his characteristic sense of adventure and wonder: For the man who is spiritually existent, who is directed upon the whole of reality, in other words, for the man who philosophizes, this question of the end of history is, quite naturally, more pressing than the question of what actually happened.4 Later in his meditation, Josef Pieper once again expressed this combined and resilient disposition of heart with lucid incisiveness, even as he would then also prepare us to be faithful members of that Ecclesia Martyrum (if it be God's will): The Christian attitude to history contains both the affirmation of creation and readiness for blood-testimony; only the man who combines in himself this affirmation and this readiness will retain the possibility of historical activity [e.g., moral resistance to the evils of injustice, or his missionary generosity and sacrificial works of mercy], arising out of a genuine impulse, even in the midst of the catastrophe [i.e., even amidst the prophesied cruelty, deceitful propaganda, and especially seductive pseudo-order of the Antichrist]....even in the downfall of the witness to truth [as this fundamental form of apparent failure was also once to be seen in the perceptibly ignominious case of the dead Christ Himself on Calvary]. 5 For, Pieper adds, the Church's doctrinal tradition fully and vividly expects, near the end of time (within history), the extreme intensification of the mendacity and sham-sanctity which, in general, [will also] characterize the Antichrist. 6

4 Ibid.italics in the original 5 Josef Pieper, The End of Time: A Meditation on the Philosophy of History (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999), pp. 149-150my emphasis added. Josef Pieper's study, originally in German, was, significantly, first published in English in 1954, by Pantheon Books, Inc., in New Yorkan excellent publishing house, and very important in our literary history. 6 Ibid., p. 138my emphasis added. Such mendacity and sham-sanctity (with seeming piety) will also thereby intensify the intimate breaking of human trust. But the faithful Christian is still commissioned to persevere and to survive these grave trials as they are foretold for the end of time and historya special additional burden of historical prophecy which is, as of yet, still unfulfilled; and that direly promised, event-sequence to come and manifest itself near the end of created time is itself for man also intrinsically undatable (except for the knowledge and illumination of God the Father in Heaven, according to the Church's doctrinal tradition, and in light of Christ's own explicit words in the Gospel).

Josef Pieper had earlier said, with some additional details and vivid specificity, as follows: Therefore, despite the fact that the Christian's attitude to history includes preparation for a catastrophic end within history, it nevertheless contains as an inalienable element the affirmation [of the intrinsic goodness] of created reality. To create a vital link between these seeming irreconcilables is a task that challenges the courage of the most valiant of hearts, precisely in times when the temptation to despair is strong. Thus it is a distinguishing mark of the Christian martyr that in him no word is raised against God's creation. This, says Erik Peterson, who has formulated this wonderful insight in his interpretation of the [New Testament Book of] Apocalypse [in his book, Zeuge der WahrheitWitness to Truth]this is something which distinguishes the Christian martyr [i.e., in contradistinction to the Gnostic]: He [the Christian martyr] does not revile natural mundane reality; he finds creation, in spite of everything, very good [i.e., valde bonathe specific Latin Vulgate words from the Book of Genesis itself]; whereas it is characteristic of the gnostic [such as Old-Testament-Rejecting Marcionite Gnostic], who shuns the bloodtestimony, that he speaks ill of creation and of natural things . And the Antichrist, too, is hostile to creation.7 It is my contention, furthermore, that a more adequate understanding of the Church's fuller doctrinal tradition about the end of time (and history) will help us to transcendas well as to be more attentive tothe inadequacy of the concepts of optimism and pessimism and to the comparably shallow (and potentially misleading) categories of Liberal and Conservative, especially given their frequently mutable and equivocal definitions. In any case, we should at least ask of any professed Liberal what he is seeking freedom from and what he is seeking freedom for, and on what grounds and by what authority. Correlatively, we should ask a professed Conservative what he is trying to conserve and why and for how long does he propose to do that, and according to what specific criteria and standards of faithful preservation, and by what authority. We may aid our applicable understanding here by attempting to be especially specific about these inherently relational wordsLiberal (or
7 Ibid., pp. 148-149italics in the original text; my bold emphases added. In his own grateful reference to Erik Peterson, moreover, Josef Pieper cites pages 52 and 91 from Peterson's own original German text, Zeuge der Wahrheit.

Progressive) and Conservative (or Reactionary)and, thus, concentrate first on the context, and then on what these terms are, therein, very specifically related to. Lest the vagueness of discourse thereby become both a lure and a trap. And a distracting false dialectic! Because of the differentiated and highly interwoven strands of traditional doctrine about the End of Time and the abiding burden and challenge of these teachings and reflections in their inspiring integrity, Josef Pieper's own carefully crafted words about philosophyspecifically in its relation to theologyare important for us now to consider. Recalling first what he had earlier only briefly presented, Dr. Pieper now elucidates his fuller meaning, and in the form of a correlative, relative proposition (the more..., the more...): It has already been mentioned that the more a philosophic inquiry relates to history, the more the inquirer needs to return to theology. In addition, the more closely a concept in theology is related to the [Four] Last Things, to the realization of the meaning of history, to the End, the more the totality of theological concepts comes into play. With respect to our theme, this means that a correct interpretation of the concept Dominion of Antichrist [and of Antichrist's Precursors or Forerunners] presupposes that all the basic concepts of theology, or rather all the fundamental realities of the history of salvation, are correctly understood. 8 At the very beginning of his inquiry about the End of History and the End of Time, Josef Pieper characteristically speaks of the inclusive attentiveness and receptivity of philosophy itself, and especially of the one who truly philosophizes, saying that he who philosophizes ...means any man who meditates upon the roots of things and lovingly seeks wisdom!9 The question of the outcome of historythe question of what history is leading up to, namely, its issue or particular end-state of perfection or impoverishment 10becomes operative on a widening front and attains an all the more painful topicality the more the historical happening [e.g., war or pestilence, or the death of the beloved] shakes man's foundations. 11 By way of illustration, speaking of the aftermath of World War II and the resort to Atomic Weapons, Pieper adds:
8 Ibid., pp. 121-122. 9 Ibid., p. 11my emphasis added. Analogously, a guiding priest once memorably invited us in his Ignatian Retreat during Holy Week to contemplate with love the Passion of the Lord. Seeking wisdom thereby. 10 Ibid., pp. 15 and 14. 11 Ibid., p. 12my emphasis added.

Everyone is aware of the extent to which [even in 1950] the question of the end of history is today exercising the minds of men. This results in a multiplicity of abortive answers, which win equally premature approbation and support [similar, perhaps, to the exegetical theories of the end times and the rapture and other opinions of the Evangelical and self-professed Protestant Christian Zionists today?]all of which in conjunction leads to those particular [and political!] forms of sectarian apocalyptic which must be regarded as typical phenomena of the age, whose pronouncements are, for the most part, beyond discussion but which must undoubtedly be taken seriously as a symptom. We shall do well to oppose to this kind of overheated interest in eschatological questions an especially high measure of sobriety and [disciplined] exactitude....And the question may [also] be asked whether a connection does not exist between the absence of a genuine association of inquiry in the philosophy of history with true theology, that is to say the absence of a genuine philosophy of history [properly open to sound theology]...on the one hand, and, on the other [hand], the unrestrained proliferation of Utopianmillenarian expectations of intra-historical salvation....12

In contradistinction to this proposed immanentism, the sacred doctrinal traditions of the Catholic Church have always been a-millennialist (or non-chiliastic), despite the hints that an early Church Father (Saint Irenaeus)the only onemight well have himself believed in a Millennium: a thousand years when Christ would actually reign in person in temporal history (intra-historically). Given the Church's predominant (though not yet dogmatically defined) orientation toward the end of time and history, a responsible and faithful Catholic is fearfully aware of his personal responsibility and risk in the challenge and adventure of the Faith, and he strives for that abiding openness in hopethe theological virtue which is able to bear the abiding existential tension between humility and magnanimity, and which is, therefore, neither despair, nor presumption ( i.e., neither the premature anticipation of final non-fulfillment nor the premature anticipation of final fulfillment in Eternal life, in Josef Pieper's own memorable words to me once). Such a faithful Catholic, knowing well the intrinsic moral burden of his free will, is acutely (but trustfully) aware that, until the moment of his death, he retains the permanent possibility of his voluntary defection from God and His Grace. Hence, his recurrent prayer for the Gift of Fear (the Donum Timoris), that he not be finally separated from the Beloved. Such is the risk, such is the adventure, such is love and prerequisite self-sacrifice.
12 Ibid., pp. 12 and 28my emphasis added.

When Josef Pieper speaks of philosophy's fitting openness to theologyat least as it has been true of the Christian aeon, of the period [after the Incarnation and His Nativity, thus,] post Christum natumit must incorporate the data of accessible Christian Revelation, to include the matter of reliable (though mysterious) prophecy, and always with one overarching purpose: the purpose of fostering, under Grace (sub Gratia) a faithful Christian's combined readiness for the blood testimony and affirmation of created reality, that he may truly survive the end of time and, with gratitude, enter Vita Aeterna. To instruct us further, speaking likewise of the formidable challenge of tradition, Pieper says: If, in this discussion, I constantly refer to the pronouncements of Christian theology, the only genuine theology to be encountered at all in the European quarter of the globe [at least as of 1950, or even in 1980]....I do so because otherwise the inquiry would lose its philosophical character and would simply no longer be worthwhile....The primary thing, which is presupposed by theology, is a body of traditional pronouncements which are believed to have been revealed, not to have come into being through human interpretation of reality....Now theology is the human endeavor to interpret this body of tradition out of itself by ordering it and weighing it....[Thus, his own footnote, namely:] In this connection it must be noted that theology in this sense is scarcely possible without a genuinely philosophical attitude (and to some extent, also, without philosophical training). This does not imply primarily that particular philosophical concepts and terms (e.g., substance-accident) are necessary to the pronouncement of a particular content of revelation (e.g., the doctrine of transubstantiation). What is meant is that the import of the pronouncement of revelation as a whole becomes intelligible to the interpreter i.e., the theologianin the act of spiritual appropriation only if his gaze is already focused upon, and ready for, the dimension roots of things, [and] ultimate reality.13 Therefore, before his important and differentiated discussion of prophecy, in contrast to the extrapolations of prognostication, Josef Pieper would further assure us that his own interpretive thought presupposes both the primary thing, the tradition assumed in faith to be revealed [the Depositum Fidei], as well as the secondary thing, the theological interpretation of this body of tradition. I refer to the interpretation of the pronouncement of revelation set down in theological writingswhich
13 Ibid., pp. 29-30my emphasis added.

[interpretation, hermeneutic] can, of course be done in earnest [and with integrity!] only if this pronouncement anterior to theology is accepted as valid, in other words, if it is believed.14 He adds one more clarification to convince us, implicitly, of the integrity of his own approach: Philosophizing does not become intellectually easier by referring back to theology; to be sure, reference back to a true theology in philosophy renders the nature of reality more deeply accessible, but at the same time its mysteriousness becomes more compellingly manifest; the greater the extent to which knowledge discloses being, the more profoundly does the mystery of the existent unveil itself within it [i.e., within beingintelligible, knowable, but finally unfathomable to our finitude]. This truth, however, which is characteristic of all philosophy as a whole [its mysteriousness], applies above all to the philosophy of history. 15 Josef Pieper will now make it even more difficult for himself, but he then makes his fundamental distinctions clearer and even more persuasive and indeed convincing: A Christian philosophy, which derives all the evil in the world from the revealed fact of original sin [and demonic agency?], may now suppose for an instant that things have become more plausible and simpler. Yet to the vision that penetrates deeper, this proves to be an illusionnotwithstanding the fact that this derivation [from the fact of original sin], because it is true, stands infinitely higher in its power to disclose reality than all other derivations (such as from an original evil principle operating beside God , or from a tragic contradiction within God himself [recalling Hegel's unfolding, evolutionary Geist and the earlier and later Hermetic, or Kabbalistic, Ontological Dialectic itself]).Within original sin, however, a new mystery becomes manifest, much more enigmatic and impenetrable than the empirically encounterable evil in the world. Or, the enlightened philosophy of progress [as in I. Kant] is just as simple as the philosophy of despair of radical pessimism, which foresees the end of history as [mere] decay, chaos, self-destruction, non-fulfillment. A philosophy of history dealing with the end, however, which refers back to the pronouncement of the Apocalypse that in the last days the Antichrist will establish a world dominion of evil, and which nevertheless will not and cannot be a philosophy of despair of such a philosophy of history no one will expect an intellectually simple view of history. It may perhaps be said that a philosophy of history which is in this sense Christian constitutes the most intellectually arduous task that can be
14 Ibid., p. 30my emphasis added. 15 Ibid., p. 31.

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set in the whole domain of philosophy.16 Dr. Pieper had said that The question of the man who philosophizes about history, that is, of the man who looks at the whole and at the roots of things , runs: What is it that really takes place there?17 Answering his own question, he says that it is not the disintegration of culture, nor the rise of world empire, nor that economic development comes about nor that a class conflict is enacted; but, rather: What really and in the deepest analysis happens in history is salvation and disaster. These, however, are concepts [like the momentous, related decision for or against Christ] that can be apprehended only on the basis of revelationalthough, on the other hand, they are certainly not concepts which the human spirit could abstain from thinking [as man's anxiety dreams often fearfully and convincingly show, indeed, the man who has lost his salvation]. He who philosophizes cannot ignore salvation and disaster, this core of history which is accessible only to the believer unless he ignores that at which philosophical inquiry is aimed per definitionem....[For] the claim of the philosophy of history to be aimed at the whole and at the foundations can no more be sustained if the concepts of salvation and disaster [final loss, final futility] are excluded than can the vitally existing, historically active and passive man withdraw from this core of all happening to a merely economic or political or scientific activity (forwhether we will it or not, whether we see it or notit is our very own salvation or disaster that actually comes to pass in history.) One can, of course, refuse to see history in this light at all; in that case, no further argument is possible. 18 For sure, although one may intend to operate exclusively with psychologico-politicosociological categories in the consideration of history, but the crux of the matter, the real core of the process [the historical process] will not be attained after such a fashion; indeed: We are moving within the realm of the mysteriousin the strictest sense. And even for the [Christian] believer, the history of salvation within history is not to be apprehended concretely....Nonetheless,...it should be considered and recognized that the true and ultimate reality in the happening of history , though it cannot be apprehended in detail, is the mysterium of salvation and disasterThis is...why precisely in questions of the philosophy of history the adoption [the affirmation!] of ultimate positions cannot be left aside.19
16 17 18 19 Ibid., pp. 31-32my emphasis added. Ibid., p. 20my emphasis added. Ibid., pp. 20-21italics in the original; my bold emphasis added. Ibid., pp. 22-23italics in the original, my bold emphasis added.

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Josef Pieper will, very importantly, now introduce us to the matter of prophecy and history, inasmuch as the fact that the theological pronouncement to which this inquiry has, above all, to refer [i.e., the end of time] is made in the guise of prophecy; and, unmistakably, there exists an inner coordination of history with prophecy.20 For, it is true that History involves happening; but not everything that happens is history. The flash of lightening, the fall of a stone, the flowing of waterall this is unhistorical happening....The history of manthis is rather the unique commingling of free decision and fate; the encounters which fall to his lot in this unrepeatable moment of life; man's path, insofar as it is determined by his particular response to what destiny causes to befall him (whether this is a beloved person, a teacher, [a mentor!], an antagonist or the gain or loss of possessions, health, beauty, or the innate gift of aptitudes, temperament, constitution.) The concepts associated with the essential nature of history are freedom, decision, uniqueness, unrepeatability, un-interchangeability, unpredictable capacity for variation, the individually solitary; by these, historical happening is distinguished from the unhistorical happening of nature [the germinating plant or the life-cycle of an animal, for example]. Because this is so, however, because history is not simply the unfolding [or dialectical evolution] of something previously given that was not yet unfolded, because it is not simply developmentfor this reason, in the sphere of history the concretely future cannot be calculated in advance, neither by the stars nor by statistics. But there may be prophecy. Prophecy is the sole form of prediction coordinated with the essence of history ....so it is part of the concept of prophecy to be a prediction that does not require any foothold in experience [in the fund of experience (that is, from the past)]. 21

20 Ibid., p. 32. 21 Ibid., pp. 32-34italics in the original, my bold emphasis added.

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Moreover, the full concept of prophecy includes another important element: It is not some indifferent aspect of the future which is foretold [in prophecy], but an event related to the inmost kernel of history, to the realization of salvation or disaster; it is one of the conceptual elements of prophecy that it has its place in the history of salvation.22

It seems to me important to sharpen our understanding of the concept and reality of prophecy, by contrasting it with prognosis or prognostication, and Dr. Pieper is especially profound here, also with his illustrative examples: It is essential to the concept of prognosis that it stands on footholds in the present; indeed, the art of prognosis consists in discovering in the fund of experience itself pointers to the future, which is concealed in the present. This distinguishes prognosis from prophecy; as does the other fact, that prognosis necessarily proceeds toward the probable....It could, of course, have been stated in the summer of 1944 [during World War II], on the basis of statistics, how many fatal accidents there would be in the city of Danzig in 1945provided that the city of Danzig existed and that [under the bombing] there was still traffic there at all. That this condition would not hold good, howeverthis could not be predicted on the basis of statistics....The truly historical event, concrete in every respect (when? where? who?), cannot be foreseen at all in prognostication. The claim of prophecy, however, is aimed at precisely this. 23

Before considering the even greater burden of the as yet unfulfilled prophecies about the end of time, Josef Pieper has us freshly consider the model of all prophecy: namely, the Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament, for those prophecies, in their incremental specificity, still altogether Foretell the passion of the Servant of Godan occurrence which could not have been predicted by any sort of calculation, a fact for which no expectation could be found in the concerns of history available to experience, an event in the highest sense historical, grounded on an unconstrained and absolutely free Yea. Because prophecy relates to what is in the strictest sense historical, it is therefore of its essence that it brings to view, not a result arising out of the interpretive penetration of what can be experienced, but something known by
22 Ibid., p. 34my emphasis added. 23 Ibid., pp. 34-35italics in the original, my bold emphasis added.

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revelation, a vision, the announcement of something [important to salvation] pertaining to the indeterminate future. 24

Moreover, when one is inquiring after the end of time in terms of the philosophy of history, the situation becomes even more complicated, because prophecy that is not yet 'fulfilled' is now involved and thus constitutes an added scandal (as in Matthew 11:6) for the natural man in the face of a still 'unconfirmed' and purportedly revealed [theological] announcement and prediction that comes to us 'from without' [as a gift desursum descendens, or as in a deeper Grace itself] with a claim to absolute truth, at which human cognitive power [, moreover,] could never have arrived of itself. 25 Unlike an already 'concluded' revelationas the Catholic Faith believes to be so in the case of Isaiah's Messianic Prophecies, for exampleand one which has also now been fashioned into the accepted property of tradition by centuries of theological interpretation, becoming thereby, as it were, historically legitimized and thus also seems to be something less scandalous and aggressivea not yet 'fulfilled' prophecy still calls to our reflective mind (and the moral imagination) the originally scandalous character of the [original Messianic] revelation, its incommensurability with the spheres both of nature and of culture.26 But, in any case, one need not make such a strenuous act of reflection and synchronous moral imagination when faced with the stark fact of a still 'unconfirmed' prophecythat is, provided that its claim to be [true] revelation is taken seriously. 27 Josef Pieper now concentrates on the stern challenge of such a still unconfirmed historical prophecy, and, in support of his insights, he also calls to mind the acute nineteenth-century reflections of John Henry Newman himself: A prophecy whose absolute claim is accepted [in faith], a prophecy relating to our own future that has not yet happened (that which is truly ours is the future the future tense is the tense of the existential , whereas the past [for example, the rooted belief that the Incarnation happened, the Resurrection, too] is of existential consequence only insofar as the future is rooted in it)
24 25 26 27 Ibid., p. 35. Ibid., p. 36. Ibid., pp. 36-37. Ibid., pp. 37-38my emphasis added.

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a prophecy relating [also] to our own future is ipso facto and in every case a challenge and a scandalHow differently the Apocalypse affects us from the [Messianic] predictions of Isaiah!it is John Henry Newman [from his 1870 book, Grammar of Assent] who ponders this question: and he simultaneously proposes to explain the attitude of the Jews at the turn of the ages toward the Messianic prophecies by our own [attitude], at present [in 1870], towards the Apocalypse....Suffice it for now that it has become clear that the scandalousness, the incommensurable element in revelation as a whole is naturally most sharply defined in the prophecy which refers to the future of the people living at any given time. 28 Returning to the very nature of all prophecy, Dr. Pieper adds some further clarifications, for It is of the essence of prophecy that it can be understood only to the extent to which it is being fulfilledand even then only to the believer [the convinced believer!]. It is hardly necessary to say how greatly this fact also complicates, distinctively, inquiry in the philosophy of history about the end of time. The attitude of the Jews to the Messianic prophecies, of which Newman speaks, is something very remarkable: They did not recognize or accept the fulfillment of the prophecies, although they believed, that is to say, although they accepted the claim of the prophecies [themselves] to be Divine Revelation. 29 In contrast to the earnest Jews who believingly accepted the reality of such Messianic prophecy as trustworthy Divine Revelation, let us contrast the more natural attitude of the formatively cultured, governing pagan Romans of that timeand then try to put ourselves in their places today, but now with specific reference to the more obscure, end-time prophecies: If a historically educated Roman on the staff of Pontius Pilate, well acquainted with the scriptures of this singular and, from a religious-historical point of view, very interesting people, the Jews, and familiar with all these prophecies, but obviously not accepting them as being in any way the word of God if this Roman, despite his wide knowledge, had failed to perceive the fulfillment of the prophecies taking place before his eyes, this would have been entirely natural. This would have been just as natural as that [today] a radically secularized mankind, with an lite committed to a rationalistic theory of society, will be utterly incapable of recognizing the fulfillment of the Apocalyptic prophecysince the latter will not be believingly acceptedbut, on the contrary, will rather interpret the [Apocalyptic] events as the realization
28 Ibid., p. 37my emphasis added. Josef Pieper is quoting from a later edition of J.H. Newman's 1870 text, Grammar of Assent (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1930), p. 446. 29 Ibid., p. 38italics in the original, my bold emphasis added. Pieper then argues that, in this remarkable response by the Jews, we seem to have something paradigmatic, something typical of the understanding of prophecies in general. (38)

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of a stupendous advance [progress] on the part of mankindthat this [too] will be so is itself part of the Apocalyptic prophecy! All this is natural....But thatas the case of the Jews showsthe believer may himself also mistake the meaning of the prophecy....30 This is certainly a humbling insight, and an aid in overcoming our complacencyand also our presumption and spiritual sloth. This truth goes far beyond the matter of Liberal and Conservative. Since this problem of a believer's culpability (negligence), or even his sincerity, in mistaking the meaning of prophecy has, indeed, many levels, Josef Pieper now proposes to go a little deeper still, also concurrently adding to our rational fears, if not yet to our faithful convictions: It is true that prophecy, like all revelation, can be intentionally rejected. And since the predictive meaning of prophecy is only unveiled little by little, explicit, intentional approbation [affirmation] is invited and becomes possible only in the same measure, little by little, approbation as well as nonapprobation, the Yea as well as the Nayso that once-and-for-all approbation would be neither possible nor sufficient, by virtue of the very nature of the [gradually unveiling and incrementally self-manifesting] matter. The great apostasy resulting from the events of the Apocalypse itself, and what is more, as the theological interpretation states, the apostasy of believers, which is explicitly foretold, is accordingly contained as a possibility in principle in the essence of the prophecy.31 This certainly invites an ongoing prayer for the Holy Ghost's gift of fear ( Donum Timoris), both as a precaution against the lax vice (and prideful sin) of presumption, and as an aid to the virtue of hope. (For, hope is only a virtue when it is a theological virtue, infused in the Ordo Gratiae.) And, in this context, we might now also further reflect on the Lord's lengthy (and His own self-explicated) Parable of the Sowerand its meaning about the disciplined, gradual, perceptive, and finally fruitful cultivation of the soul, as well as the soil. It certainly suggests that we must either continually grow in our understanding of our Faith, or lose it. (It is another aspect of Credo ut intelligam.) In addition to the gift of fear, it is fitting also to pray faithfully and abidingly for the Gift of Final Perseverance, which is an additionally undeserved Great Gift (a Magnum Donum), as it was so designated in the doctrinally explicit words of the Council of Trent itself. We are certainly
30 Ibid., pp. 38-39my emphasis added. 31 Ibid., p. 39italics in the original, my bold emphasis added.

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encouraged to live and die gratefully and supernaturally alivethat is, to be and to remain in the state of sanctifying grace. And that we may, moreover, help others to do the same, not only those, such as our children, whom we more proximately and intimately love. (For just as the soul, the Anima, is the principle of natural life, sanctifying grace is the principle of supernatural life.) Salvation is a social process and we shall be finally judged by our acts of practical charity, thus especially by how many souls we sincerely (sine dolo, without guile) help get to heaven. (Yet, as we may now agree, the Mysterium also irreducibly remains as to the Book of Apocalypse's own specific meaning concerning the final coming of the New Heaven and the New Earth.) We offer these added insights, deriving from our beloved Catholic Faith, on the premise that at the core of history, finally, is the decision for or against Christand the Church He founded. If we have a believing acceptance of this still contested proposition, it should further challenge and motivate us, sub Gratia, unto our own final loyalty: our own prepared for and trustful readiness for the blood testimony and the affirmation of created reality; that is to say, both the affirmation of creation and the readiness for blood-testimony,32 because of our grateful love for Christ, to the end. --Finis- 2013 Robert D. Hickson

32 Ibid., p. 149my emphasis added. The momentous, ultimate matter of salvation or disaster, also goes far beyond the categories of Liberal and Conservative.

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