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The term or title antichrist, according to some Christians' interpretation of various biblical
eschatological passages, refers to an "end time" leader who fulfills Biblical prophecies
concerning an adversary of Christ, while resembling
him in a deceptive manner. The antichrist will seemingly provide for the needs
of the people but deny the ultimate salvation. "Antichrist" is the English translation of
the original Koine Greek
ἀντίχριστος, pronounced än-tē'-khrē-stos. It is made up of two root words, αντί
+ Χριστός (anti + Christos). "Αντί" can mean not only “against” and “opposite
of”, but also “in place of", "Χριστός",
translated "Christ", is Greek for the
Hebrew "Messiah" meaning "anointed," and refers to
Jesus of Nazareth within Christian
theology. The term "antichrist" appears five times in 1 John and 2 John of the New Testament — once in
plural form and four times in the singular. The Apostle Paul's
Second Epistle to the
Thessalonians, in particular the 2nd chapter, summarizes the nature, work,
coming, and revelation of the "man of sin" - a passage often regarded as referring
to same person as the antichrist of 1 and 2 John.
The words antichrist and antichrists appear five times in the
First
and Second
Epistle of John. The word is not
capitalized in most English translations of the Bible, including the original King James Version. 1 John
chapter 2 refers to many antichrists present at the time while warning of one
Antichrist that is coming. The "many
antichrists" belong to the same spirit as that of the one Antichrist. John wrote
that such antichrists deny "that Jesus is the Christ", "the Father and the Son",
and would "not confess Jesus came in the flesh.": a probable reference to the Gnostic claim that
Jesus was not human, but only a spirit.
Polycarp (ca. 69 – ca. 155)
warned the Philippians that everyone that preached false doctrine was an
antichrist.
Irenaeus (2nd century AD - c.
202) held that Rome, the fourth prophetic kingdom, would end in a tenfold
partition. The ten divisions of the empire are the "ten horns" of Daniel 7 and
the "ten horns" in Revelation 17. A "little horn," which is to supplant three of
Rome's ten divisions, is also the still future "eighth" in Revelation.
He identified the Antichrist with Paul's Man of Sin, Daniel's Little Horn,
and John's Beast of Revelation 13. He sought to apply
other expressions to Antichrist, such as "the abomination of desolation,"
mentioned by Christ (Matt. 24:15) and the "king of a most fierce countenance,"
in Gabriel's explanation of the Little Horn of Daniel 8.
Under the notion that the Antichrist, as a single individual, might be of
Jewish origin, he fancies that the mention of "Dan," in Jeremiah 8:16, and the omission of that
name from those tribes listed in Revelation 7, might indicate Antichrist's
tribe. He also speculated
that it was “very probable” the Antichrist might be called Lateinos, which is
Greek for “Latin Man”.
Tertullian (ca.160 – ca.220
AD) held that the Roman
Empire was the restraining force written about by Paul in 2 Thessalonians
2:7-8. The fall of Rome and the disintegration of the ten provinces of the Roman
Empire into ten kingdoms were to make way for the Antichrist.
'For that day shall not come, unless indeed there first come a falling away,'
he [Paul] means indeed of this present empire, 'and that man of sin be
revealed,' that is to say, Antichrist, 'the son of perdition, who opposeth and
exalteth himself above all that is called God or religion; so that he sitteth in
the temple of God, affirming that he is God. Remember ye not, that when I was
with you, I used to tell you these things? And now ye know what detaineth, that
he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work;
only he who now hinders must hinder, until he be taken out of the way.' What
obstacles is there but the Roman state, the falling away of which, by being
scattered into the ten kingdoms, shall introduce Antichrist upon (its own
ruins)? And then shall be revealed the wicked one, whom the Lord shall consume
with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His
coming: even him whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power, and
signs, and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them
that perish.'
Hippolytus of
Rome (c. 170-c. 236) held that the Antichrist would come from the tribe of Dan and would
rebuild the Jewish temple in order to reign from it. He identified the
Antichrist with the Beast out of the Earth from the book of Revelation.
By the beast, then, coming up out of the earth, he means the kingdom of
Antichrist; and by the two horns he means him and the false prophet after him.
And in speaking of “the horns being like a lamb,” he means that he will make
himself like the Son of God, and set himself forward as king. And the terms, “he
spake like a dragon,” mean that he is a deceiver, and not truthful.
Origen (185–254) refuted Celsus's view of the Antichrist. Origen
utilized Scriptural citations from Daniel, Paul, and the Gospels. He argued:
Where is the absurdity, then, in holding that there exist among men, so to
speak, two extremes-- the one of virtue, and the other of its opposite; so that
the perfection of virtue dwells in the man who realizes the ideal given in
Jesus, from whom there flowed to the human race so great a conversion, and
healing, and amelioration,
while the opposite extreme is in the man who embodies the notion of him that is
named Antichrist?... one of these extremes, and the best of the two, should be
styled the Son of God, on account of His pre-eminence; and the other, who is
diametrically opposite, be termed the son of the wicked demon, and of Satan, and
of the devil. And, in the next place, since evil is specially characterized by
its diffusion, and attains its greatest height when it simulates the appearance
of the good, for that reason are signs, and marvels, and lying miracles found to
accompany evil, through the cooperation of its father the devil.
Athanasius
(c. 293 – 373), writes that Arius of
Alexandria is to be associated with the Antichrist, saying, “And ever since [the
Council of Nicaea] has Arius's error been reckoned for a heresy more than
ordinary, being known as Christ's foe, and harbinger of Antichrist.”
John Chrysostom
(c. 347–407) warned against speculations and old wives' tales about the
Antichrist, saying, “Let us not therefore enquire into these things”. He
preached that by knowing Paul's description of the Antichrist in 2 Thessalonians
Christians would avoid deception.
Jerome (c. 347-420) warned that those
substituting false interpretations for the actual meaning of Scripture belonged
to the “synagogue of the Antichrist”. “He that is not of
Christ is of Antichrist,” he wrote to Pope Damasus I. He believed that “the mystery of iniquity” written about by Paul in 2
Thessalonians 2:7 was already in action when “every one chatters about his
views.” To Jerome, the
power restraining this mystery of iniquity was the Roman Empire, but as it fell
this restraining force was removed. He warned a noble woman of Gaul:
“He that letteth is taken out of the way, and yet we do not realize that
Antichrist is near. Yes, Antichrist is near whom the Lord Jesus Christ “shall
consume with the spirit of his mouth.” “Woe unto them,” he cries, “that are with
child, and to them that give suck in those days.”... Savage tribes in countless
numbers have overrun run all parts of Gaul. The whole country between the Alps
and the Pyrenees, between the Rhine and the Ocean, has been laid waste by hordes
of Quadi, Vandals, Sarmatians, Alans, Gepids,
Herules, Saxons, Burgundians, Allemanni, and—alas! for the commonweal!-- even Pannonians.
In his Commentary on Daniel, he noted, “Let us not follow the opinion of some
commentators and suppose him to be either the Devil or some demon, but rather,
one of the human race, in whom Satan will wholly take up his residence in bodily
form.”
Instead of rebuilding the Jewish Temple to reign from, Jerome thought the
Antichrist sat in God’s Temple inasmuch as he made “himself out to be like God.”
He refuted Porphyry’s idea that the “little horn” mentioned in Daniel chapter 7
was Antiochus Epiphanes by noting that the “little horn” is defeated by an
eternal, universal ruler, right before the final judgment. Instead, he advocated that the “little horn” was the Antichrist:
We should therefore concur with the traditional interpretation of all the
commentators of the Christian Church, that at the end of the world, when the
Roman Empire is to be destroyed, there shall be ten kings who will partition the
Roman world amongst themselves. Then an insignificant eleventh king will arise,
who will overcome three of the ten kings... after they have been slain, the
seven other kings also will bow their necks to the victor.
Circa 380, an apocalyptic pseudo-prophecy falsely attributed to the
Tiburtine Sibyl
describes Constantine as victorious over Gog and Magog. Later on, it
predicts:
When the Roman empire shall have ceased, then the Antichrist will be openly
revealed and will sit in the House of the Lord in Jerusalem. While he is
reigning, two very famous men, Elijah and Enoch, will go forth to announce the
coming of the Lord. Antichrist will kill them and after three days they will be
raised up by the Lord. Then there will be a great persecution, such as has not
been before nor shall be thereafter. The Lord will shorten those days for the
sake of the elect, and the Antichrist will be slain by the power of God through
Michael the Archangel on the Mount of Olives.
Augustine of
Hippo (354 – 430) wrote “it is uncertain in what temple [the Antichrist]
shall sit, whether in that ruin of the temple which was built by Solomon, or in
the Church.”
Pope Gregory I
wrote in A.D. 597, “I say with confidence that whoever calls or desires to call
himself ‘universal priest’ in self-exaltation of himself is a precursor of the
Antichrist.”
Archbishop Arnulf of Rheims
accused Pope John XV in
A.D. 991:
Are any bold enough to maintain that the priests of the Lord all over the
world are to take their law from monsters of guilt like these—men branded with
ignominy, illiterate men, and ignorant alike of things human and divine? If,
holy fathers, we are bound to weigh in the balance the lives, the morals, and
the attainments of the humblest candidate for the priestly office, how much more
ought we to look to the fitness of him who aspires to be the Lord and Master of
all priests! Yet how would it fare with us, if it should happen that the man the
most deficient in all these virtues, unworthy of the lowest place in the
priesthood, should be chosen to fill the highest place of all? What would you
say of such a one, when you see him sitting upon the throne glittering in purple
and gold? Must he not be the "Antichrist, sitting in the temple of God and
showing himself as God"?
Pope Gregory
VII (c. 1015 or 29 - 1085), struggled against, in his own words, "a robber
of temples, a perjurer against the Holy Roman Church, notorious throughout the
whole Roman world for the basest of crimes, namely, Wilbert,
plunderer of the holy church of Ravenna, Antichrist, and archeritic."
Cardinal Benno, on the opposite side of the Investiture
Controversy, wrote long descriptions of abuses committed by Gregory VII,
including necromancy, torture of a former friend upon a bed of nails,
commissioning an attempted assassination, executions without trials, unjust
excommunication, doubting the Real Presence in the Eucharist, and even burning it.
Benno held that Gregory VII was “either a member of Antichrist, or Antichrist
himself.”
Eberhard II von Truchsees, Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg in 1241
at the Council of Regensburg
denounced Pope Gregory
IX as "that man of perdition, whom they call Antichrist, who in his
extravagant boasting says, I am God, I cannot err." He argued that the ten kingdoms that the Antichrist is involved with
were the "Turks,
Greeks, Egyptians, Africans, Spaniards, French, English, Germans, Sicilians, and
Italians who now occupy the provinces of Rome." He held that the papacy was the "little horn" of Daniel 7:8:
A little horn has grown up with eyes and mouth speaking great things, which
is reducing three of these kingdoms--i.e. Sicily, Italy, and Germany--to
subserviency, is persecuting the people of Christ and the saints of God with
intolerable opposition, is confounding things human and divine, and is
attempting things unutterable, execrable.
Many Protestant reformers, including Martin Luther, John Calvin, Thomas Cranmer, John Knox, and Cotton Mather, identified the Roman Papacy as the
Antichrist. The
Centuriators of Magdeburg, a group
of Lutheran scholars in Magdeburg headed by Matthias Flacius, wrote the 12-volume "Magdeburg
Centuries" to discredit the papacy and identify the pope as the Antichrist.
The fifth round of talks in the Lutheran-Roman Catholic
dialogue notes,
- In calling the pope the "antichrist," the early Lutherans stood in a
tradition that reached back into the eleventh century. Not only dissidents and
heretics but even saints had called the bishop of Rome the "antichrist" when
they wished to castigate his abuse of power.
William Tyndale,
English reformer, held that while the Roman Catholic Empire of that age was the
empire of Antichrist, any religious organization that distorted the doctrine of
the Old and New Testaments showed the work of Antichrist. In his treatise The
Parable of the Wicked Mammon, he expressly rejected the established Church
teaching that looked to the future for an Antichrist to rise up, and he taught
that Antichrist is a present spiritual force that will be with us until the end
of the age under different religious disguises from time to time. Tyndale's
translation of 2 Thessalonians, chapter 2, concerning the "man of sin" reflected
his understanding, but was significantly amended by later revisers, including
the King James Bible committee,
which amendments tended to support a future Antichrist.
After the reforms of Patriarch Nikon to the Russian
Orthodox Church of 1652, a large number of Old Believers held that czar Peter the Great was
the Antichrist because of his
treatment of the Orthodox Church, namely subordinating the church to the state,
requiring clergymen to conform to the standards of all Russian civilians (shaved
beards, being fluent in French), and requiring them to pay state taxes.
The view of Futurism, a product of the Counter-Reformation, was advanced beginning
in the 16th century in response to the identification of the Papacy as
Antichrist. Francisco
Ribera, a Jesuit
priest, developed this theory in In Sacrum Beati Ioannis Apostoli, &
Evangelistiae Apocalypsin Commentarij, his 1585 treatise on the Apocalypse of John. St. Bellarmine codified
this view, giving in full the Catholic theory set forth by the Greek and Latin
Fathers, of a personal Antichrist to come just before the end of the world and
to be accepted by the Jews
and enthroned in the temple at Jerusalem — thus endeavoring to dispose of the
exposition which saw Antichrist in the pope. Most premillennial dispensationalists
now accept Bellarmine's interpretation in modified form.[citation needed] Widespread
Protestant
identification of the Papacy as the Antichrist persisted until the early 1900s
when the Scofield Reference Bible was published
by Cyrus
Scofield. This commentary promoted Futurism, causing a decline in the
Protestant identification of the Papacy as Antichrist.
Some Futurists hold that sometime prior to the expected return of Jesus, there will
be a period of "great tribulation" during which the
Antichrist, indwelt and controlled by Satan, will attempt to win supporters with false peace,
supernatural signs. He will silence all that defy him by refusing to "receive
his mark" on their right hands or forehead. This "mark" will be required to
legally partake in the end-time economic system. Some Futurists believe that the Antichrist will be assassinated half way through
the Tribulation, being revived and indwelt by Satan. The Antichrist will
continue on for three and a half years following this "deadly wound".
In Mormonism, the term
anti-Christ refers to those who deny the divinity of Jesus Christ, deny the Gospel, and oppose his faith. "It is a word
used by John to describe one who would assume the guise of Christ, but in
reality would be opposed to Christ (1 John 2: 18, 22; 1 John 4: 3-6; 2 John 1:
7)." In a broader sense Mormons believe that the anti-Christ, "is anyone or
anything that counterfeits the true gospel or plan of salvation and that openly
or secretly is set up in opposition to Christ. The great antichrist is Lucifer,
but he has many assistants both as spirit beings and as mortals." (Book of
Mormon: Jacob 7: 1-23, Alma 1: 2-16, Alma 30: 6-60)
Masih ad-Dajjal (Arabic: الدّجّال, literally "The Deceiving Messiah"), is an evil
figure in Islamic eschatology. He is to appear
pretending to be the Messiah (Jesus) at a time in the future, before Yawm al-Qiyamah (The
Day of Resurrection, Judgment Day). It is also believed by Muslims that Jesus
will return at the time of the Dajjal and he will be the one to
eventually defeat him.
Prophet Muhammad said: "I warn you against {antichrist} and every prophet
warned his nation against him. But I am telling you something that no prophet
has told his nation before me that he will be one eyed and Allah is not one eyed" {Sahih Bukhari}
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