#7—The Binding of Satan, the Catholic Epoch, and the Loosing of Satan at the End of the World, Part 1
Philippe-Jacques de Loutherbourg, The Angel Binding Satan (1797
The universal theory of history we outlined in Katechōn #1 contends that prior to the “end times” (the times immediately preceding the return of Christ), Satan will be loosed. This necessarily means that prior to such a time, Satan will have been bound. Thus, the binding and loosing of Satan are the bookends of the history of the katechōn, Christendom, which restrains the mystery of iniquity until it (the katechōn) is “out of the way.” (2 Thess. 2:7)
In these next few posts, we will dive specifically into the nature of these two historical bookends—the binding and loosing of Satan—and briefly cover what happens in between, what we call the “Catholic Epoch.” The grand outline of this theory of history (incorporating elements from some of our previous posts) is as follows:
(1) Pre-Incarnation: the world is dominated by paganism and demon worship (excepting, on various occasions, the Jews, who themselves frequently fell into the same).
(2) The Binding of Satan: the power of the demonic is restrained by the power of Christ’s cross and resurrection.
(3) The Catholic Epoch: With Christ’s Resurrection and Ascension, He sits at the right hand of the Father, and the Messianic Kingdom is established until all His enemies are put under His feet. This Kingdom, which would later come to be known as Christendom, is established by the power of His blood which binds Satan, and is thus the restrainer, or katechōn, referred to by St. Paul in 2 Thessalonians. Christ establishes the thrones (cathedra) of the Catholic Church upon which sit the Apostles and their successors (the bishops), and the Gospel spreads to the ends of the earth.
(4) The Loosing of Satan: Prior to Christ’s return, Satan is loosed once again for a brief time. This coincides with three principal signs which precede Christ’s return: the Gospel has gone to the ends of the earth; the Great Apostasy from the Catholic Church; and the coming of Antichrist (we believe we are in the midst of the Great Apostasy now).
(5) The Return of Christ: After the persecution of Antichrist, which typologically is the Passion of the Church, Christ returns to judge the living and the dead, and the final enemy—death—is defeated. The Church is resurrected in glory just as Her Lord was.
In Part 1, we’ll cover the overarching outline provided in Scripture of the Binding and Loosing of Satan, as well as the reasons why we can be reasonably certain that the Catholic Epoch truly began with the Ascension of Our Lord, and will continue (did continue?) until the loosing of Satan prior to Christ’s return.
We were surprised to discover how coherently Scripture lays out this historical outline if one analyzes all the relevant verses. We begin with the end in mind, the book of Apocalypse, which provides the most explicit and overarching summary of this grand historical narrative (Apoc. 20:1-10):
Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain. 2 And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, 3 and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years were ended. After that he must be loosed for a little while.
4 Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom judgment was committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony to Jesus and for the word of God, and who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life, and reigned with Christ a thousand years. 5 The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. 6 Blessed and holy is he who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and they shall reign with him a thousand years.
7 And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be loosed from his prison 8 and will come out to deceive the nations which are at the four corners of the earth, that is, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea. 9 And they marched up over the broad earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city; but fire came down from heaven and consumed them, 10 and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night for ever and ever. [Emphasis added]
We will examine what the Fathers have said on this chapter in other posts, though many interpret it in a way consonant with our theory. But even where they perhaps diverge in their interpretations of this particular chapter, there is an overwhelming consensus that the binding of Satan was accomplished by the Passion and Resurrection of Our Lord (we will demonstrate this in future posts). Therefore, we do not hesitate to incorporate this virtually unanimous consensus of the Fathers of what actually bound Satan into our interpretation of this particular chapter of the Apocalypse, where there is some consensus, but more variety in their interpretations.
The cross of Christ that bound Satan also provided the power by which He established the Catholic Church, and gave it not only the authority, but the power to spread the Gospel to the ends of the earth, and instruct the nations in its precepts. During that time, those who are seated on the thrones and to whom judgment has been committed are the Apostles and their successors, the bishops. This is the Catholic Epoch.
Our Lord Himself refers to this time of the thrones being setup in St. Matthew’s Gospel (Matt. 19:28-30):
28 Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of man shall sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. 29 And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life. 30 But many that are first will be last, and the last first. [Emphasis added]
Our Lord references not only the same thrones, but the trials that will be endured by those who follow him as found in Apocalypse 20. He uses similar language in St. Luke’s Gospel (Luke 22:28-30):
28 “You are those who have continued with me in my trials; 29 as my Father appointed a kingdom for me, so do I appoint for you 30 that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. [Emphasis added]
These are the thrones of the messianic kingdom, the New Jerusalem, the restored house of David (Ps. 122:3-5):
3 Jerusalem, built as a city which is bound firmly together, 4 to which the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, as was decreed for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the Lord. 5 There thrones for judgment were set, the thrones of the house of David. [Emphasis added]
Indeed, at the Council of Jerusalem, St. James quotes the prophet Amos on the rebuilding of the House of David, and equates it with the Gospel going to the nations (Acts 15:14-15):
14 Symeon [St. Peter] has related how God first visited the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name. 15 And with this the words of the prophets agree… [quotes Amos 9:11-12]
We can be confident this period of the thrones being setup is the epoch of the spread of the Catholic Church throughout the world, and the same period referenced in Apocalypse 20, because of a clue provided by Our Lord Himself in the passage quoted from Matthew above. He speaks of a “new world” in which the Apostles sit on thrones “judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” But this is not the “new world” of the New Heavens and the New Earth, because Christ identifies its beginning with a specific event: “when the Son of man shall sit on his glorious throne.”
Fortunately, Scripture is extremely clear about when Christ began to sit down on His throne: after He rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven. For example, St. Mark’s Gospel is explicit about this (Mark 16:19):
19 So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God. [Emphasis added]
The book of Hebrews is likewise clear (Heb. 8:1-2):
Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, 2 a minister in the sanctuary and the true tent which is set up not by man but by the Lord. [Emphasis added]
This idea of Christ sitting at the right hand of God comes straight from the opening verse of the messianic Psalm 110 (Ps. 110:1):
The Lord says to my lord: “Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool.” [Emphasis added]
In fact, this verse was quoted, and authoritatively interpreted by St. Peter in his first sermon on Pentecost (Acts 2:29-36):
29 “Brethren, I may say to you confidently of the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. 30 Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants upon his throne, 31 he foresaw and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. 32 This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. 33 Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this which you see and hear. 34 For David did not ascend into the heavens; but he himself says,
‘The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand,
35 till I make thy enemies a stool for thy feet.’
36 Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” [Emphasis added]
Indeed, just prior to his martyrdom, St. Stephen visibly witnessed Christ sitting at the right hand of God (Acts 7:55-56):
55 But he [St. Stephen], full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God; 56 and he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God.” [Emphasis added]
Similar reinforcing references are found throughout the New Testament in the following verses: Matt. 22:44, Matt. 25:33-34, Matt. 26:64, Mark 12:36, Mark 14:62, Luke 20:42, Luke 22:69, Acts 2:25, Acts 5:31, Rom. 8:34, Eph. 1:18-23, Col. 3:1, Hebrews 1:3, 13, Heb. 8:1, Heb. 10:12, Heb. 12:2, 1 Pet. 3:22, and Apoc. 3:21.
Therefore, since Christ identifies the beginning of the Catholic Epoch—the setting up of the thrones—with the Messiah sitting on His throne, and since Scripture explicitly and frequently identifies this moment with His resurrection and ascension into Heaven, we can be reasonably certain that the binding of Satan, and thus the beginning of this period, took place in the first century itself.
St. Paul also alludes to this idea in 1 Corinthians, where he adds a crucial detail that sheds light on Apocalypse 20 (1 Cor. 15:20-27):
20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. 23 But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. 24 Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. 25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death. 27 “For God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” [Emphasis added]
The key detail that St. Paul provides is that the last enemy to be defeated is death. By its nature, death is an enemy no earthly power can conquer. Its final defeat is meted out by Christ Himself upon His return in glory to judge the living and the dead, as the Nicene Creed states.
Why is this detail so important? Because it amounts to an apostolic disavowal of the idea that the Messianic Kingdom represents a triumph of the Church within history, rather than by the return of Christ Himself at the end of history. In other words, the final enemy—death—cannot be conquered by anything of this world, but only by the personal reappearance of Christ Himself. There is no triumph of any political or utopian scheme involved here. The idea of an earthly paradise to be achieved by the Church prior to Christ’s return is totally disavowed. There is no earthly triumph of the Church in this world. Indeed, “the world passes away.” (1 John 2:17)
This perfectly aligns with our theory of history (see Katechōn #1), for we contend that Christendom, as the katechōn, will appear to have been defeated by the time Christ returns, having followed in the footsteps of Her Lord by enduring a Passion of Her own during the last and greatest persecution by Antichrist. As Our Lord Himself stated, “Nevertheless, when the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Luke 18:8) As such, following the way of the cross, the Church Herself will be finally and completely redeemed and resurrected from a seemingly hopeless situation. The number of the elect will, at last, be filled up. There will no longer be a Church Triumphant (in Heaven), Suffering (in Purgatory), and Militant (on earth), but only a Church Triumphant, “and so all Israel will be saved.” (Rom. 11:26)
This also aligns with the teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (pars. 675-77):
675 Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. [Eph. 4:13; 1 Cor. 15:28] The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth [C.f. Luke 18:8; Matt. 24:12] will unveil the “mystery of iniquity” in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh. [C.f. Luke 21:12; John 15:19-20] [Emphasis added]
676 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 judgement. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism, [C.f. 2 Thess. 2:4-12; 1 Thess. 5:2-3; 2 John 7; 1 John 2:18, 22] especially the “intrinsically perverse” political form of a secular messianism. [Decree of the Holy Office, July 19/21, 1944, Denzinger 3839] [Emphasis added]
677 The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection. The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God’s victory over the final unleashing of evil, which will cause his Bride to come down from heaven. [Apoc. 19:1-29] God’s triumph over the revolt of evil will take the form of the Last Judgement after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world. [Emphasis added]
We thus arrive at the following conclusion: Apocalypse 20 describes the binding of Satan, which is accomplished by the Passion and Resurrection of Our Lord. Upon His ascension into Heaven, Christ sits at the right hand of the Father until all His enemies are put under His feet. This marks the beginning of the Messianic Kingdom, and the setting up of the thrones of the Apostles and their successors, the bishops—“those to whom judgment was committed.” (Apoc. 20:4) This is the Catholic Church He has commanded to teach the Gospel to every nation on earth. With Satan bound, the knowledge of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is brought to the nations of the world. The paganism and demon worship that dominated the earth prior to the Incarnation experiences an unprecedented defeat—a fact frequently spoken of by the Church Fathers. In future posts, we will explain why we believe this pre-Incarnation reign of paganism and demon worship is “the Beast” who (from St. John’s perspective, toward the end of the first century) “is not, and is to ascend from the bottomless pit and go to perdition…because it was and is not and is to come.” (Apoc. 17:8) While the Church experiences persecutions throughout the Catholic Epoch, the Gospel continues to advance until it reaches every nation. However, prior to Christ’s return, Satan is once again released, which represents the beginning of the “end times.” During these times, three great signs will take place prior to Christ’s return: (1) The Gospel will be preached throughout the world; (2) the Great Apostasy from the Catholic Church; and (3) the coming of Antichrist. (See Katechōn #2: The Three Great Signs of the End, According to the Council of Trent)
In Part 2 (Katechōn #8, forthcoming), we will show how this overarching theory of history, the bookends of which are the binding and loosing of Satan, align with a great deal of Scripture in ways that may not seem obvious, but mysteriously and surprisingly work.
