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The death and resurrection of Christ constitute the definitive victory over death, Satan and sin: the kingdom of God is the Church, the immaculate bride of the Lamb, the new Israel, which now and forever works the salvation of the baptised, while the deicidal ѕуηαgσgυє has horribly transformed itself into the whore of Babylon. This, in short, is the theme of the Apocalypse for Corsini.

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As we have already repeatedly mentioned, in the destruction of Babylon we believe we see not a prophecy about the material end of Rome, but an allegory of the spiritual end of Judaism: the earthly Jerusalem disappears to give way to the heavenly one. This is the central thesis of the book that St. John takes up and develops through the series of the four great seven-year cycles of letters, seals, trumpets and vials, which all end with a hint of an interruption, an end. The seventh letter should also be read in this sense, a dramatic conclusion that led to the judgement and repudiation of those who continue to call themselves Jєωs but are no longer Jєωs (2, 9; 3, 9).

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There is therefore a true Judaism, which is embraced by the Apocalypse, and a false one that the Apocalypse radically rejects. “Perhaps no New Testament writing has more forcefully reaffirmed the vital continuity between Judaism and Christianity. In the vision of Patmos (...) Jesus Christ appears to St. John in the centre of seven golden candlesticks (see 1, 13) and shortly afterwards He describes Himself to him as 'He, who ... walketh among the seven golden candlesticks' (see 2, 1). The meaning of the vision is clear: Jesus Christ comes from Judaism. (...) When He denies the Jєωs the right to continue to call themselves with that name, it is understood that this appellation now belongs to Christians, the true heirs of spiritual Judaism, which, according to St. John, had been guarded and advocated by saints and prophets, i.e. from the ancient 'witnesses'. (...) Here, in the new ecclesial community, spiritual Judaism now lives and continues: the seven candlesticks, as Jesus Christ solemnly announces to St. John, have become the seven churches (see 1, 20)." The Church as the "New Israel," a truth of faith that today is rejected as a "theory of substitution" [of the Church for Israel], is therefore the object of the author: "To say that 'the candlesticks are the seven churches' means to say that Judaism, with the coming of Jesus Christ and the fulfilment of his messianic work, has been transformed into the 'seven churches', i.e. into the totality of the Church. This is the culmination of the 'revelation of Jesus Christ,' the fulfilment of the 'mystery,' the meaning of the whole book of the Apocalypse.

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In the sixth seal, St. John sees the 144,000 marked (saved) under the ancient law: not all Jєωs were saved, but only those belonging to "spiritual Judaism." Definitive salvation is found only in the New Testament, open to an immense crowd of every people, language and tribe, thanks to the death of Christ. The silence that is made in Heaven at the opening of the seventh seal indicates the cessation of Jєωιѕн worship (the synoptic Gospels express the same concept by narrating the tearing of the veil of the Temple at the death of Christ: Sts. Mt 27, 51; Mk 15, 38; Lk 23, 45) in anticipation of the new cult, at the resurrection of Christ. As for the old cult, it is profaned by the abomination of desolation predicted by Daniel: the death of Christ, in fact, "occurred at the instigation of the Jєωιѕн High Priests, would have definitively profaned the temple, causing the end of the Jєωιѕн cult."

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Then the the Two Witnesses appear, who are not Enoch and Elias expected for the end of the world, but Moses and Elias, that is, the Law and the Prophets, who bear witness to Jesus (St. Jn 5, 31; 8, 54) in Sacred Scripture as in the Gospel episode of the Transfiguration. This is the positive role of the Old Testament: the Law, after the coming of Christ, is no longer salvific, but deadly. Taking up the famous vision in which Ezechiel eats the book (i.e. the Old Testament), St. John changes it: the bitterness in the bowels caused by the education of the book "is synonymous with spiritual death." Even the Jєωιѕн cult is now reprobate, after the coming of Christ. The angel who throws fire from the censer on the earth (Apoc. 8, 5) symbolises, with his gesture, "the end of the Jєωιѕн cult that the first Christians linked to the death of Christ," as well as "the expulsion of Satan and his followers from Heaven," which will be described in the first four trumpets. The seventh, however, still refers to the death of Christ, which involves the opening of the Temple, the end of Jєωιѕн worship and angelic mediation.

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Judaism, a reality in itself good enough to have the nature of the divine Lamb, became worldly: "It still believes to be Judaism, i.e. witness and heir of the divine promise, but it is no longer so, indeed, it has become the 'ѕуηαgσgυє of Satan '(see 2, 9; 3, 9), 'Sodom and Egypt' (see 11, 8), speaking [that is, acting] ‘as a dragon' (see 13, 11)."

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"The city that is destroyed here is no longer the 'holy city': it is a 'harlot', rather, 'the great harlot,' 'Babylon the great, the mother of the fornications, and the abominations of the earth' (17, 1 and 5). Even this, however, should not surprise us too much, as this terrible metamorphosis was also anticipated in chapter XI, when St. John told us that the corpses of the two 'witnesses' killed by 'the beast that ascendeth out of the abyss' lie unburied 'in the streets of the great city, which is called spiritually, Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord also was crucified.' (11, 8). And therefore, if the destruction to which the passage we are examining alludes to is to be understood in a literal and material sense, it can only refer to what the Romans did in 70 AD: only then, in fact, following the deicide, in the eyes of St. John and the first Christians, in a complete and definitive way, Jerusalem had become the 'prostitute,' the opposite of the 'holy city' it was previously." Therefore, Corsini identifies earthly Jerusalem with the great prostitute: “a conclusion,” he writes, “which will certainly bring astonishment because of its apparently paradoxical character. And, moreover, before us, such a mystery brought astonishment and bewilderment to St. John himself who was the first to contemplate it with eyes illuminated by the Spirit (see 17, 6)."



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The earthly Jerusalem thus became 'Babylon,' and the prostitute. The term should not surprise: "As everyone knows, the metaphor of prostitution is drawn by St. John from the Old Testament, especially in the Prophets, where it is synonymous with idolatry and is applied both to cities and pagan peoples, as well as to Jerusalem and the Jєωιѕн people, especially to the latter, given the special bond they had with Yahweh, whereby the infidelity of Israel takes on the connotation of a real adultery (see Is 1, 21; Ez 16, 15 ff; Hos 2, 1 ff; 5, 3 etc.).

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Chapter XXI and the beginning of Chapter XXII (the last one) present us this famous heavenly Jerusalem, the Bride of the Lamb. As far as I know, only Mormons expect to see a city descending from heaven, as the Apocalypse symbolically says. In reality, the woman depicted by the Bride of the Lamb (i.e. the Bride of Christ) is the faithful bride of the Messias, just as the prostitute is the unfaithful bride: the Church, the first, the ѕуηαgσgυє, the other. And the "new Jerusalem" presupposes "the destruction of the previous one (which became Babylon)." "The final part of the Apocalypse therefore symbolically represents the glorious conclusion, the full and perfect implementation of the divine plan of salvation. The new Jerusalem is the symbol of the reconciliation between humanity and God, of the new eternal and definitive covenant, of the new chosen people that God has chosen for Himself no longer from a single nation but from ‘all nations, and tribes, and peoples, and tongues’ (see 7, 9). In this sense it depicts the Church which is, on the one hand, the revival and continuation of ancient Israel (see 1, 20), but welcomes and saves all peoples (see 21, 25 ff; 22, 2)." It is already a "new creation," "new heaven and earth," tree of life. "In the light of the Spirit one can see what the Jєωs, blinded by pride, are unable to see: the heavenly Jerusalem, foretold by the Scriptures, was brought from Heaven to earth by Christ; but they neither recognised nor accepted it, and remained outside it, becoming the 'ѕуηαgσgυє of Satan' (see 2, 9; 3, 9)."

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On the one hand, the Apocalypse confirms with great force all the revealed doctrine, and, in particular, the one on the relationship between the Old and New Testaments, between the Church and the ѕуηαgσgυє, between The Great Whore of Babylon, Christianity and Judaism. It avoids the Gnostic and Marcionist obstacle that rejects the Old Testament, and at the same time attacks Judaism head-on, which rejected the Messias.

I think you must be misunderstanding the purpose of the writing and where it originates.

True Restoration is publishing an article written by don Francesco Ricossa and published in Sodalitium, back in 1999. I know Father Ricossa to be a good friend and a traditional Catholic. I went to his Masses in Italy in 2011 and we are still in touch from time to time.

I haven't read the article, no will I, however he gives a pretty good description of Corsini and I presume is explaining his theories and giving a criticism of them.

A small excerpt here

I hope that helps.