ANTICHRIST

ANTICHRIST . The final opponent of good, known as Antichrist, has haunted Christianity since its beginnings. With roots in Hellenistic Judaism, and an Islamic echo in the figure of al-Dajjāl, the Antichrist myth has had a potent influence on belief, theology, art, literature, and politics.

The name Antichrist occurs in the New Testament only in the Johannine letters (1 Jn. 2:18, 2:22, 4:3; 2 Jn. 7), but the figure of a final enemy appears in several New Testament books. Second Thessalonians contains a description of "the rebel, the lost one" who is now "restrained" but who will lead the "great revolt," enthrone himself in the sanctuary of the temple, and be slain by Christ at the Parousia (2:1–12). The apocalyptic discourse found in the synoptic Gospels (Mk. 13, Mt. 24–25, Lk. 21) speaks of the "abomination of desolation" to be set up in the holy place (Mk. 13:14, Mt. 24:15) and the appearance of false Christs and false prophets (Mk. 13:5–6, 13:21–23; Mt. 24:4–5, 24:23–24; Lk. 21:8). The Book of Revelation contains symbolic portrayals of Antichrist figures under the guise of two beasts—one arising from the sea (or abyss) with seven heads and ten horns (11:7, 13:1–10, 17:3–18, 19:19–21), whose number is 666 (13:18), the other coming from the land as the servant of the former monster (13:11–17, 16:13, 19:19–21).

It is evident that the early Christians made use of traditions regarding eschatological opponents that depended upon Jewish apocalyptic and earlier prophetic traditions (e.g., Gog and Magog in Ez 38–39). The Book of Daniel is the source for both the "abomination of desolation" (9:27, 11:31, 12:11) and for the beasts described in Revelation (7:1–9, 7:15–27). Other Jewish texts contain speculation about an evil angel named Beliar who functions as God's final adversary (e.g., Testament of Levi 3.3, 18.2; Sibylline Oracles 3.63–3.74). Modern research has uncovered similar concerns about eschatological foes in the Qumran community (e.g., War Rule 17.6 and the fragments known as 4 Q 186). Late Jewish apocalyptic seems to be the source of physical descriptions of Antichrist (e.g., Apocalypse of Elijah 3.14–3.18) that were also used by Christians. Belief in a final opponent of the Messiah survived in later Judaism in the legendary descriptions of the persecuting king Armilus (e.g., in Sefer Zerubbabel).

Various explanations have been given for the origin of Antichrist. Wilhelm Bousset advanced a mythological interpretation that saw Antichrist as a projection into the end time of the monster of chaos who had warred against the creator god in Near Eastern cosmogonies. R. H. Charles argued that Antichrist originated from the interaction of three traditions: individual and collective notions of an eschatological enemy based upon political events, the mythic figure of Beliar, and the growth of the Nero myth.

The evidence indicates that belief in Antichrist arose through the interaction of ancient myths and current political situations. The desecration of the Temple by the Seleucid king Antiochus IV (167 bce) and his savage persecution of the Jews were shocking events that called out for universalistic interpretations based on archetypal myths (Dn. 8:9–14). Subsequent persecutors of Jews and Christian were also given mythological stature, and their stories in turn further shaped the legendary narratives. The most important of these persecutors was the Roman emperor Nero (54–68). Building on the confusion surrounding the death of Nero, legends about a returning (or later resurrected) Nero who would function as an ultimate enemy influenced contemporary Christian and Jewish texts (e.g., Rv. 13, 17; Ascension of Isaiah 4.1–4.4; Sibylline Oracles 3.63–3.74, 4.119–4.150, 5). Another historical figure whose legendary history became intertwined with Antichrist was Simon Magus (Acts 8:9–13).

Christian thinkers of the second and third centuries tried to weave the diverse traditions concerning Antichrist into a coherent picture. Was he to be one or many? A human person or a demon? Jewish or Roman in origin? A false teacher (a pseudomessiah) or an imperial persecutor? The Antichrist legend developed as the reverse side of the growing Christology of the early church, speculation on the person and prerogatives of Christ encouraging attention to his eschatological opposite. In the early third century, Hippolytus of Rome wrote a treatise, On Christ and the Antichrist, that gave a handy summary of belief and legend. Some of his successors (e.g., Commodianus, Lactantius, Sulpicius Severus) deal with the variety of traditions about Antichrist by distinguishing between two final enemies: a Roman persecutor, for which Nero was the prototype, and a false Jewish messiah born of the tribe of Dan who would rebuild the Temple at Jerusalem.

Antichrist myths continued to flourish after the conversion of the Roman empire to Christianity. Building upon the description of many Antichrists in the New Testament letters of John, the Donatist exegete Tyconius (d. 390?) stressed a moralizing view of the final enemy as the aggregate body of evildoers within the church. This tradition was handed on to the Middle Ages by Pope Gregory I (d. 604). Corporate views of the Antichrist, including those that focused on heretics, Muslims, or Jews, were common in the Middle Ages, but evil individuals within or without Christianity were still often identified with Antichrist or his immediate prede-cessor.

Christian beliefs about Antichrist, especially those originating in Syria, were the source for Islamic legends regarding a final eschatological foe, called al-Dajjāl ("the deceiver"). Although al-Dajjāl does not appear in the Qurʾān, traditions appeared early concerning this monstrous figure who was to be manifested shortly before the end, lead the faithful astray, and be slain either by Jesus or by the Mahdi.

The Christian monk Adso's Letter on the Antichrist (c. 950), written on the model of a saint's life, depicts the final enemy as a combination of both a pseudo-Christ and a persecuting tyrant, a depiction that was to remain standard in Latin Christianity for centuries. The twelfth-century renewal of apocalyptic thought was rich in speculation on Antichrist. In Germany, the first and greatest of the medieval Antichrist dramas, Ludus de Antichristo, appeared, while in Italy, Joachim of Fiore (d. 1202) wove both corporate and individual views of Antichrist together into his new apocalyptic schema.

In the later Middle Ages, the view of Adso, passed on by writers such as Hugh of Strassburg and John of Paris, remained popular and in the fifteenth century was illustrated in a remarkable series of block books. The Joachite tradition looked forward to a struggle between one or more spiritual popes (pastores angelici ), who would try to reform the church, and their opponents, evil popes introduced by force or schism who were identified with Antichrist or his predecessors. In Peter Olivi's Franciscan Joachitism, there are dual final Antichrists: the papal Antichristus mysticus and the Antichristus magnus, a persecuting emperor (sometimes identified with a reborn Frederick II). Fueled by the Avignon papacy, the schism of 1378–1417, and the general failure of the papacy to reform the church, such beliefs were widespread in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. John Wyclif and the Hussites sharpened the identification of the papacy with Antichrist. It is no surprise that Martin Luther and other reformers seized upon Antichrist rhetoric in the battle against Rome.

Reformation identification of the papacy with Antichrist (e.g., Smalcaldic Articles 2.4) went beyond most late medieval views in its total rejection of the papal office and in its insistence upon a renewed corporate interpretation that identified the institution of the papacy, and not individual popes, with Antichrist. Some reformers also held double-Antichrist views coupling the Turks with the papacy. The strength of the corporate view may have been the source of the widening of Antichrist rhetoric that marked the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Reformation debates, especially in England, where Antichrist became a term of opprobrium that could be used against any institution or group.

It is tempting to think that this inflation of rhetoric, together with Enlightenment criticism of religion, stifled belief in Antichrist, but the last enemy's ability to serve as a symbol of evil has given the figure a singular longevity. Historical figures, like Napoleon I and Mussolini, have been seen as Antichrist, as have such movements as the French Revolution, socialism, and communism. Friedrich Nietzsche's adoption of the role of Antichrist and his use of the title for this most violent attack on Christianity and bourgeois morality are well known. No less significant are the uses of the myth by some of the Russian writers of the nineteenth century, such as Fedor Dostoevskii, Vladimir Solovʾev, and Dmitrii Merezhkovskii. Belief in an individual final Antichrist continues in popular culture, and Fundamentalist Christianity, but for other Christians the Antichrist has become a symbol of the evil in the human heart.

Bibliography

Bousset, Wilhelm. The Antichrist Legend. London, 1896. A classic work.

Emmerson, Richard K. Antichrist in the Middle Ages. Seattle, 1981. Deals primarily with the Adsonian tradition.

Jenks, Gregory. The Origins and Early Development of the Antichrist Myth. Berlin, 1991.

McGinn, Bernard. Antichrist: Two Thousand Years of the Human Fascination with Evil. 2d edition, New York, 2000. The most complete account.

Malvenda, Tomás. De Antichristo libri undecim. Rome, 1604. An extensive survey of the traditional materials.

Preuss, Hans. Die Vorstellungen vom Antichrist im späteren mittelaalter, bei Luther und in der Konfessionellen Polemik. Leipzig, 1906. Unsurpassed for its period.

Wright, Rosemary Muir. Art and Antichrist in Medieval Europe. Manchester, 1995.

Bernard McGinn (1987 and 2005)