Thursday, November 12, 2020

Catholic Denis Fahey (writing pre-Vatican II) Affirming a Future Coming of Elijah Just Before the Parousia

The belief that OT Elijah would appear after the first coming of Christ is not a novelty in LDS theology. It is part of other theologies, too. For example, Robert Bellarmine (my favourite Catholic theologian to read) said to deny a future coming of Elijah was proximate to heresy. For LDS and even Catholic belief that the coming of Elijah was not completely fulfilled in the person of John the Baptist, but instead, Malachi and Jesus believed OT Elijah would come just before the Parousia, see:

 

Refuting the Tanners on the LDS Interpretation of Malachi 4:5-6

New Testament and Early Patristic Expectation of a Future Coming of Elijah

Robert Bellarmine on the Future Coming of Elijah

 

Joseph Pohle on the Coming of Elijah Before The Lord's Second Coming

 

Another RC affirmation of such can be seen in Denis Fahey in his The Kingship of Christ and The Conversion of the Jewish Nation form 1953:

 

From the Old Testament, Father Lémann cites first the text of the prophet Osee to which I have already referred, and which contains the words “they shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the last days” (Osee, III, 5). He quotes also the words of Moses: “After all the things aforesaid shall find thee, in the latter time thou shalt return to the Lord thy God, and shalt hear his voice” (Deuteronomy, IV, 30), and refers briefly to the prophecy of Azarias in II. Paralipomenon, (XV, 3-6), and Isaias (X, 20-23). He dwells at greater length, however, on the last two verses of the prophet Malachias: “Behold I will send you Elias the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers: lest I come and strike the earth with anathema” (Malachias, IV, 5, 6). “The Prophet Elias, then,” comments Father Lémann, “shall return upon the earth to bring back the Jews to the Saviour. Our Lord Himself has clearly affirmed it (St. Matthew, XVII, II). Elias will turn the hearts of the fathers and the hearts of the children. The fathers are the patriarchs and all the pious ancestors of the Jewish people, the sons represent the degenerate race of the time of Our Lord Jesus Christ and of the succeeding centuries. It is, however, only some time before the second coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ, before the dreadful day of the Divine Judgment dawns, that our Saviour will end the prophet Elias to the Jewish to convert them and to save them from chastisement.

 

“These precise statements of the Old Testament find an echo in the New Testament. St. Paul, who has devoted a whole chapter of the Epistle to the Romans to the conversion of the Jews, as we have seen, points out nevertheless that this conversion will take place only near the end of the world. Until then, they continue ‘to fill up their sins always: for the wrath of God is come upon them to the end.’ (I Thessalonians, II, 16). The blindness which has fallen on Israel from the time of the Apostles will remain upon them until towards the end of the world.” (Histoire complete, etc., p. 463). (Denis Fahey, The Kingship of Christ and The Conversion of the Jewish Nation [Hawthorne, Calif.: The Christian Book Club of America, 1953], 106-7)