Among his strange ideas must be reckoned his threefold conviction, first, that he was called to be the opponent of Antichrist, secondly, that Popery was a thing of boundless and utter depravity, thirdly, that in his own personal experiences and gifts he was blessed beyond all other men. Here again we shall have to refer to many passages already quoted and also to some fresh ones of Luther’s which afford a glimpse into his perverted mode of thought and incredible prejudice. His obstinate belief in his mission against Antichrist keeps the thought of a mortal combat ever before his mind; a decisive battle at the approaching end of all, between heaven and hell, between Christ and the dragon. This struggle, such as he viewed it, needless to say existed only in his imagination. If, according to him, the devil fights so furiously that at times Christ Himself seems on the point of succumbing, this is only because Luther’s cause does not thrive, or because Luther himself is again the butt of gloomy fears. As early as 1518, as we know, he fancied he had detected the Papal Antichrist, and could read the thoughts of Satan, who was at work behind his opponents.[494] In this idea he subsequently confirmed himself by his reading of the Old-Testament prophecies, on which, till almost the very end of his life, he was wont laboriously to base new calculations. From the dawn of his career it has been borne in on him with ever-growing clearness how Christ, using Luther as His tool, will overthrow, as though in sport, this “man of sin” of which Popery is the embodiment; at the very close of his days, when the sight of the evils rampant in Germany was causing him the utmost anxiety, he seems to hear the trump that heralds the Coming of the Judge. Using images that suggest a positive obsession, he depicts the world as full of the traces of Antichrist and the devil his forerunner. Yet all the machinations of the old serpent avail only to strengthen the defiance with which he opposes Satan and all his myrmidons. The signs in the heavens above and on the earth below all point to him, the great, albeit unworthy, champion of God’s cause. Though Antichrist and the powers that are his backers in this world may for the time have the better of the struggle this is but the last flicker of the dying flame which, by prophecy and vision, he had been predestined to extinguish (above, vol. iii., p. 165 ff., etc.).