The anti-Christ is against Christ and His Church. His goal is to destroy them and as many souls as he can. We may think of him as the “apostate angel”, which is how Hugh of St. Victor describes him in the Didascalicon. In our time, it helps to understand him and his function by thinking of him as a producer of viruses.
We all experience the anti-Christ’s viruses in our own lives, often without knowing it. Any time that we have a thought that is hurtful to ourselves or others, we may see that thought as a corrupting virus. It has been copied and emailed into our mind, and as many other minds as possible, with the dark hope that it will multiply within until it destroys us.
Our minds are attacked by viruses of which we have little understanding. If we, imitating Linneaus in his monumental classification of plants, were to try classifying viruses, we could begin with what The Church identifies as the seven swarming battalions of living viruses by the sin they encourage. This lets us begin by considering that there are seven basic species of viruses: Pride, Envy, Greed, Gluttony, Avarice, Lust, and Sloth.
Another means of identifying and classifying the evil spirits who wish to destroy us is to consider that the the Gifts of the Spirit are manifestations of guardian angels who have living opposites. His Gift of Wisdom organizes our mind and lets it work well. That gift is attacked by the viruses of foolishness. Against the Gift of Understanding, there are viruses promoting the “We (I) just don’t know” thinking so prevalent among those avoiding truth. Counsel is attacked by spirits who urge and justify willful headstrongness. Hating Fortitude are the viruses who cause weakness. Knowledge is attacked by viruses that lead us to prefer ignorance. Piety is attacked by viruses of self-worship. Fear of the Lord is opposed by evil viruses who erase the reality of God from our serious consideration.
What we do know is that any tendency to distance ourselves from God, or to hurt our neighbor, comes from he who does not want us to love either. We must be alert to those tendencies; evil viruses creep within us, insinuating themselves within our mind, spreading tendrils of destruction.
When we think of them as living beings, tapeworms and roundworms of the mind, or viruses corrupting programs, we see that His words are designed to keep us free from them; “Our Father (Loving Programmer) Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name. Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
