Antichrist
In Christian eschatology, Antichrist, or in broader eschatology, Anti-Messiah, refers to a kind of entity prophesied by the Bible to oppose Jesus Christ and falsely substitute himself as a savior in Christ's place before the Second Coming. The term Antichrist is found four times in the New Testament, solely in the First and Second Epistle of John. Antichrist is announced as one "who denies the Father and the Son."
The similar term pseudokhristos or "false Christ" is also found in the Gospels. In Matthew and Mark, Jesus alerts his disciples not to be deceived by the false prophets, who will claim themselves to be the Christ, performing "great signs and wonders". Three other images often associated with Antichrist are the "little horn" in Daniel's final vision, the "man of sin" in Paul the Apostle's Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, and the Beast of the Sea in the Book of Revelation.
In the New Testament, particularly in the Johannine epistles, the term does not refer to a single individual but rather to a category of people opposing Christ, often called deceivers or false teachers. Early Church Fathers like Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Hippolytus expanded on the idea, sometimes linking the Antichrist to the Roman Empire, the tribe of Dan, or the eschatological “man of lawlessness” described in 2 Thessalonians. Over time, interpretations varied, including figurative, historical, and personal applications of the concept.
During the Reformation, many Protestant leaders identified the Papacy as the Antichrist, viewing it as a present manifestation rather than a future individual. This historicist interpretation was shared by figures like Martin Luther, John Calvin, and John Knox, who associated the Pope with the "man of sin" and other biblical symbols of opposition to Christ. Catholic, Orthodox, and other Christian traditions generally see the Antichrist as a future deceiver or a manifestation of evil, sometimes inhabited by Satan, whose deception challenges human allegiance to God. Non-Christian traditions, such as Judaism and Islam, have analogous figures—like Armilus in Jewish eschatology or the Al-Masih ad-Dajjal in Islamic eschatology—representing ultimate evil opposing divine will.
Etymology
Antichrist is translated from the combination of two ancient Greek words ἀντί + Χριστός. In Greek, Χριστός means "anointed one" and the word Christ derives from it. "Ἀντί" means not only anti in the sense of "against" and "opposite of", but also "in place of".History
New Testament
Whether the New Testament contains an individual Antichrist is disputed. The Greek term antikhristos originates in 1 John. The similar term pseudokhristos is also first found in the New Testament, but never used by Josephus in his accounts of various false messiahs. The concept of an antikhristos is not found in Jewish writings in the period 500 BC–50 AD. However, Bernard McGinn conjectures that the concept may have been generated by the frustration of Jews subject to often-capricious Seleucid or Roman rule, who found the nebulous Jewish idea of a Satan who is more of an opposing angel of God in the heavenly court insufficiently humanised and personalised to be a satisfactory incarnation of evil and threat.The five uses of the term "antichrist" or "antichrists" in the Johannine epistles do not clearly present a single latter-day individual Antichrist. The articles "the deceiver" or "the antichrist" are usually seen as marking out a certain category of persons, rather than an individual.
Consequently, attention for an individual Antichrist figure focuses on the second chapter of 2 Thessalonians. However, the term "antichrist" is never used in this passage:
The latter of these passages is also the primary scriptural source concerning the Katechon, the "one who now restrains" the coming of the Antichrist. The identity of this person, if it is a person, is mysterious and the subject of debate.
Although the word "antichrist" is used only in the Epistles of John, the similar word "pseudochrist" is used by Jesus in the Gospels:
Early Church
The second- or first-century book Odes of Solomon, written by an Essene convert to Christianity, makes mention of the Antichrist in figurative terms, where the redeemer overcomes the monstrous dragon.The only one of the late 1st-/early 2nd-century Apostolic Fathers to use the term is Polycarp, who warned the Philippians that everyone who preached false doctrine was an antichrist. His use of the term Antichrist follows that of the New Testament in not identifying a single personal Antichrist, but a class of people.
Irenaeus wrote Against Heresies to refute the teachings of the Gnostics. In Book V of Against Heresies he addresses the figure of the Antichrist referring to him as the "recapitulation of apostasy and rebellion." He uses "666", the Number of the Beast from Revelation 13:18, to numerologically decode several possible names. Some names that he loosely proposed were "Teitan", "Evanthos", "Lateinos". In his exegesis of Daniel 7:21, he stated that the ten horns of the beast will be the Roman Empire divided into ten kingdoms before the Antichrist's arrival. Additionally, he stated that the antichrist would be of the tribe of Dan, evoking Jeremiah 8:16. However, his readings of the Antichrist were more in broader theological terms rather than within a historical context.
The non-canonical Ascension of Isaiah presents a detailed exposition of the Antichrist as Belial and Nero.
Tertullian held that the Roman Empire was the restraining force written about by Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2:7–8. The fall of the Western Roman Empire and the disintegration of the ten provinces of the Roman Empire into ten kingdoms were to make way for the Antichrist.
Hippolytus of Rome held that the Antichrist would come from the tribe of Dan and would rebuild the Jewish temple on the Temple Mount in order to reign from it. He identified the Antichrist with the Beast out of the Earth from the book of Revelation.
Origen refuted Celsus' view of the Antichrist. Origen, using scriptural citations from Daniel, Paul, and the Gospels argued:
Post-Nicene Christianity
, in the mid-4th century, delivered his catechetical lecture about the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, in which he also lectures about the Antichrist, who will reign as the ruler of the world for three and a half years, before he is killed by Jesus Christ at the end of his three-and-a-half-year reign, shortly after which the Second Coming of Jesus Christ will happen.Athanasius of Alexandria wrote that Arius of Alexandria is to be associated with the Antichrist, saying, "And ever since has Arius's error been reckoned for a heresy more than ordinary, being known as Christ's foe, and harbinger of Antichrist."
As part of his prediction that the world would end before 400 CE, Martin of Tours wrote that "There is no doubt that the Antichrist has already been born. Firmly established already in his early years, he will, after reaching maturity, achieve supreme power."
John Chrysostom warned against speculating 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 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 lawlessness" 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 lawlessness was the Roman Empire, but as it fell this restraining force was removed. He warned a noble woman of Gaul:
In his Commentary on Daniel, Jerome 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 IV 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:
Circa 380, an apocalyptic pseudo-prophecy falsely attributed to the Tiburtine Sibyl describes Constantine as victorious over Gog and Magog. Later on, it predicts:
Augustine of Hippo wrote "it is uncertain in what temple shall sit, whether in that ruin of the temple which was built by Solomon, or in the Church."
Gregory of Tours claimed that the antichrist would place his image to be worshipped in the temple in Jerusalem, he would assert himself to be Christ and would call for Christians to undergo circumcision.
Pope Gregory I wrote to the Byzantine Emperor Maurice in A.D. 597, concerning the titles of bishops, "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."
By the end of the tenth century, Adso of Montier-en-Der, a Benedictine monk, compiled a biography of Antichrist based on a variety of exegetical and Sibylline sources; his account became one of the best-known descriptions of Antichrist in the Middle Ages.
De Antichristo libri undecim, published by Tomàs Maluenda in 1604, is considered the most complete treatise on the subject.
Pre-Reformation Western Church accusers
disagreed with the policies and morals of Pope John XV. He expressed his views while presiding over the Council of Reims in A.D. 991. Arnulf accused John XV of being the Antichrist while also using the 2 Thessalonians passage about the "man of lawlessness", saying: "Surely, if he is empty of charity and filled with vain knowledge and lifted up, he is Antichrist sitting in God's temple and showing himself as God." This incident is history's earliest record of anyone identifying a pope with the Antichrist.Pope Gregory VII, 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 arch-heretic."
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 of Christ 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, denounced Pope Gregory IX at the Council of Regensburg 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: