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56-490: The Antichrist is a Christian concept based on the exegesis of Second Temple (500 BC–50 AD) Jewish texts that refer to anti-messiahs (see List of fictional Antichrists ). Antichrist or Antikrist may also refer to: Antichrist The similar term pseudokhristos or "false Christ" is also found in the Gospels . In Matthew ( chapter 24 ) and Mark ( chapter 13 ), Jesus alerts his disciples not to be deceived by

112-524: 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. Arnulf (bishop of Orléans) disagreed with the policies and morals of Pope John XV . He expressed his views while presiding over

168-687: A forerunner of Antichrist". Jerome wrote: "Says the apostle [Paul in the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians], 'Unless the Roman Empire should first be desolated, and antichrist proceed, Christ will not come.'" He also identifies the little horn of Daniel 7:8 and 7:24–25 which "He shall speak as if he were God." Some Franciscans had considered the Emperor Frederick II a positive Antichrist who would purify

224-550: A historical context. The non-canonical Ascension of Isaiah presents a detailed exposition of the Antichrist as Belial and Nero . Tertullian (c. 160 – c. 220 AD) 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

280-483: A pope with the Antichrist (see Christian Historicism ). Pope Gregory VII (c. 1015 or 1029–1085), 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 arch- heretic ." Cardinal Benno , on the opposite side of

336-495: Is already at work, but only until the one who now restrains it is removed. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will destroy with the breath of his mouth, annihilating him by the manifestation of his coming. The coming of the lawless one is apparent in the working of Satan, who uses all power, signs, lying wonders, and every kind of wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love

392-614: Is coming; and now it is already in the world. Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh; any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist! 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: As to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we beg you, brothers and sisters, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as though from us, to

448-494: Is for me the only possible way to understand Christian history and to find it meaningful". And Schmitt adds: "the Katechon needs to be named for every epoch of the past 1948 years. The place was never unoccupied; otherwise we would no longer be present." Paolo Virno has a long discussion of the katechon in his book Multitude: Between Innovation and Negation . He refers to Schmitt's discussion. Virno says that Schmitt views

504-503: 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

560-533: 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. Protestant Reformers , including John Wycliffe , Martin Luther , John Calvin , Thomas Cranmer , John Thomas , John Knox , Roger Williams , Cotton Mather , and John Wesley , as well as most Protestants of

616-612: Is the last hour. Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. And this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it

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672-453: Is used by Jesus in the Gospels : For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and produce great signs and omens, to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. 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

728-509: 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 " (or "lawless one"), 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

784-660: 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

840-1143: The Lutherans , the Reformed Churches , the Presbyterians , the Baptists , the Anabaptists , and the Methodists contain references to the Pope as the Antichrist, including the Smalcald Articles , Article 4 (1537), the Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope written by Philip Melanchthon (1537), the Westminster Confession , Article 25.6 (1646), and the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith , Article 26.4. In 1754, John Wesley published his Explanatory Notes Upon

896-585: 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. 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 "horns like a lamb," he means that he will make himself like the Son of God, and set himself forward as king. And

952-938: 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. Antichrist is translated from the combination of two ancient Greek words ἀντί + Χριστός (anti + Christos). In Greek, Χριστός means "anointed one" and

1008-645: The katechon as something that impedes the coming of the Antichrist, but because the coming of the Antichrist is a condition for the redemption promised by the Messiah , the katechon also impedes the redemption. Virno uses "katechon" to refer to that which impedes both the War of all against all ( Bellum omnium contra omnes ) and totalitarianism, for example the society in Orwell's Big Brother (Nineteen Eighty-Four) . It impedes both but eliminates neither. Virno locates

1064-676: The katechon as the Grand Monarch or a new Orthodox Emperor, and some as the rebirth of the Holy Roman Empire . Other scholars suggest that the katechon is the Holy Spirit or the Church . In Nomos of the Earth , German political thinker Carl Schmitt suggests the historical importance within traditional Christianity of the idea of the katechontic "restrainer" that allows for a Rome-centered Christianity, and that "meant

1120-499: The son of perdition (the Antichrist of 1 and 2 John ) must be revealed before. The author of Second Thessalonians then adds that the revelation of the Antichrist is conditional upon the removal of "something/someone that restrains him" and prevents him being fully manifested. Verse 6 uses the neuter gender , τὸ κατέχον; and verse 7 the masculine, ὁ κατέχων. Since the author of Second Thessalonians does not explicitly mention

1176-585: 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: We should therefore concur with the traditional interpretation of all the commentators of the Christian Church, that at the end of the world, when

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1232-521: The 12-volume Magdeburg Centuries to discredit the Catholic Church and lead other Christians to recognize the Pope as the Antichrist. So, rather than expecting a single Antichrist to rule the earth during a future Tribulation period, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and other Protestant Reformers saw the Antichrist as a present feature in the world of their time, fulfilled in the Papacy. Among

1288-732: The 16th–18th centuries, felt that the Early Church had been led into the Great Apostasy by the Papacy and identified the Pope with the Antichrist . Luther declared that not just a pope from time to time was Antichrist, but the Papacy was Antichrist because they were "the representatives of an institution opposed to Christ". The Centuriators of Magdeburg , a group of Lutheran scholars in Magdeburg headed by Matthias Flacius , wrote

1344-683: The Antichrist will come at the End of the World . The katechon - what restrains his coming - was someone or something that was known to the Thessalonians and active in their time: "You know what is restraining" (2:6). As the Catholic New American Bible states: "Traditionally, 2 Thes 2:6 has been applied to the Roman empire and 2 Thes 2:7 to the Roman emperor [...] as bulwarks holding back chaos (cf Romans 13:1-7)" However, some understand

1400-594: 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 [the] Antichrist." As part of his prediction that the world would end before 400 CE, Martin of Tours (c. 336 - 397) 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 (c. 347–407) warned against speculating about

1456-521: 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 lawlessness" written about by Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2:7

1512-429: The Antichrist. By, "For that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first," he [Paul] means indeed this present empire, "and the man of lawlessness is revealed"—that is to say, the Antichrist, "the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or religion, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, declaring himself to be God. Do you not remember that I told you these things when I

1568-437: The Catholic Church from opulence, riches and clergy. Historicist interpretations of Book of Revelation usually included the identification of one or more of the following: The Protestant Reformers tended to hold the belief that the Antichrist power would be revealed so that everyone would comprehend and recognize that the Pope is the real, true Antichrist and not the vicar of Christ. Doctrinal works of literature published by

1624-508: 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: "A little horn has grown up" with "eyes and mouth speaking great things", which

1680-471: The Lord will destroy with the breath of his mouth, annihilating him by the manifestation of his coming. The coming of the lawless one is apparent in the working of Satan, who uses all power, signs, lying wonders, and every kind of wicked deception for those who are perishing." Hippolytus of Rome (c. 170 – c. 236) held that the Antichrist would come from the tribe of Dan and would rebuild the Jewish temple on

1736-670: The New Testament , which is currently a Doctrinal Standard of the United Methodist Church . In his notes on the Book of Revelation (chapter 13), he commented: "The whole succession of Popes from Gregory VII are undoubtedly Antichrists. Yet this hinders not, but that the last Pope in this succession will be more eminently the Antichrist, the Man of Sin, adding to that of his predecessors a peculiar degree of wickedness from

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1792-593: 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

1848-564: 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

1904-464: 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 (c. 298–373) wrote that Arius of Alexandria is to be associated with

1960-523: 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. This would correlate to the Talmudic view of the Jewish Messiah coming from the tribe of Dan on his maternal line. However, his readings of the Antichrist were more in broader theological terms rather than within

2016-469: The bottomless pit." Katechon The katechon (from Greek : τὸ κατέχον , "that which withholds", or ὁ κατέχων , "the one who withholds") is a biblical concept which has subsequently developed into a notion of political philosophy. The term is found in 2 Thessalonians 2:6–7 in an eschatological context: Christians must not behave as if the Day of the Lord would happen tomorrow, since

2072-539: The clouds ... for the righteous". Tertullian looking to the Antichrist wrote: "He is to sit in the temple of God, and boast himself as being god. In our view, he is Antichrist as taught us in both the ancient and the new prophecies; and especially by the Apostle John , who says that 'already many false-prophets are gone out into the world' as the fore-runners of Antichrist". Hippolytus of Rome in his Treatise on Christ and Antichrist wrote: "As Daniel also says (in

2128-591: The commonweal!—even Pannonians . 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

2184-401: The effect that the day of the Lord is already here. Let no one deceive you in any way; for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the lawless one is revealed, the one destined for destruction. He opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, declaring himself to be God. For the mystery of lawlessness

2240-517: 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" ("Latin" or pertaining to the Roman Empire ). In his exegesis of Daniel 7:21, he stated that the ten horns of

2296-520: The historical power to restrain the appearance of the Antichrist and the end of the present eon." The katechon represents, for Schmitt, the intellectualization of the ancient State of the Roman Empire , with all its police and military powers to enforce orthodox ethics. In his posthumously published diary (the Glossarium ) the entry from December 19, 1947, reads: "I believe in the Katechon: it

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2352-413: The katechon's identity, the passage's interpretation has been subject to dialogue and debate amongst Christian scholars. Common interpretations for the identity of the katechon include the government , the church, or the Holy Spirit . The last two interpretations are usually believed by Christians supporting a pretribulation rapture . The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions consider that

2408-463: 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

2464-597: The others who interpreted the biblical prophecy historically there were many Church Fathers ; Justin Martyr wrote about the Antichrist: "He Whom Daniel foretells would have dominion for a time and times and a half, is even now at the door". Irenaeus wrote in Against Heresies about the coming of the Antichrist: "This Antichrist shall ... devastate all things ... But then, the Lord will come from Heaven on

2520-623: 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." Gregory of Tours claimed that the antichrist would place his image to be worshipped in

2576-449: 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. Cyril of Jerusalem , in the mid-4th century, delivered his 15th catechetical lecture about

2632-632: 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 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 , Alemanni , and—alas for

2688-517: 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 ,

2744-466: 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. Children, it is the last hour! As you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. From this we know that it

2800-425: The term is Polycarp (c. 69 – c. 155), 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 (2nd century AD – c. 202) wrote Against Heresies to refute the teachings of the Gnostics . In Book V of Against Heresies he addresses

2856-417: The terms, "it spoke like a dragon," mean that he is a deceiver, and not truthful. Origen (185–254) refuted Celsus ' view of the Antichrist. Origen, using scriptural citations from Daniel , Paul, and the Gospels 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

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2912-446: The truth and so be saved. 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" (Greek antikhristos ) is used only in the Epistles of John, the similar word "pseudochrist" (Greek pseudokhristos , meaning "false messiah")

2968-463: The word Christ derives from it. " Ἀντί " means not only anti in the sense of "against" and "opposite of", but also "in place of". Whether the New Testament contains an individual Antichrist is disputed. The Greek term antikhristos originates in 1 John. The similar term pseudokhristos ("False Messiah") 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

3024-629: The words) 'I considered the Beast, and look! There were ten horns behind it—among which shall rise another (horn), an offshoot, and shall pluck up by the roots the three (that were) before it.' And under this, was signified none other than Antichrist." Athanasius of Alexandria clearly hold to the historical view in his many writings; in The Deposition of Arius , he wrote: "I addressed the letter to Arius and his fellows, exhorting them to renounce his impiety.... There have gone forth in this diocese at this time certain lawless men—enemies of Christ—teaching an apostasy which one may justly suspect and designate as

3080-399: 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 : 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

3136-428: Was still with you? And you know what is now restraining him, so that he may be revealed when his time comes. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, but only until the one who now restrains it is removed." What obstacles are there but the Roman state, the rebellion of which, by being scattered into the ten kingdoms, will introduce the Antichrist upon its own ruins? "And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom

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