Antichrist—the Antichrist believed in by the Jews—passes through several stages. He is per- haps originally a natural force personified, repre- senting Chaos as opposed to order, Darkness as against light. He is then identified with Satan, the great adversary of God in the moral world. The Antichrist of the Sibylline Oracles is, as we have seen, Beliar. And, lastly, he is thought of as a man in whom Satan’s power is concen- trated, as the power of God is concentrated in the Messiah.
In the New Testament St. Paul adopts, and St. John in the Epistles alludes to, a conception of Antichrist which had been coloured largely by the identification (in the Book of Daniel) of Antichrist with a historical person (Antiochus Epiphanes). In the Apocalypse the traditional Antichrist appears for a moment (in ch. 11); and thereafter his characteristics are divided between the Beast of ch. 13, who is Rome, headed by Nero redivivus, claiming divine worship, and the False Prophet who parodies the τ and performs the lying wonders.
The wish to identify the Antichrist of tradition with definite contemporary personalities (as Anti- ochus and Nero) is very largely responsible for the confusion which surrounds the whole subject.
A word as to later Jewish beliefs. The destrue- tion of Jerusalem by Rome operated largely upon Jewish minds. Whereas to them Rome had been the bulwark against Antichrist, it now took the place of Antichrist in Jewish thought ; and accord- ingly in such late compositions as the Book of Zerubbabel (as well as in the earlier Targums) the name of Antichrist is Armillus (=Romulus= Rome). But, in spite of the adverse view of the Apoealypse of John, the Christian Church con- tinued to regard Rome as the protector of the world against Antichrist, and to pray for its pre- servation accordingly.
The clearest of the utterances of our Lord and of St. John point rather to a plurality of antichrists who are to appear in different ages of the Church’s
owth—rather to movements and tendencies of a Kind hostile to Christianity, than to any one well- defined personality.
MANAEN
LireraTore.—The most important sources of knowledge on the subject of Antichrist are given in full in Bousset’s excelleny monograph, Der Antichrist, which has been copiously used in the body of this article. Besides those alread named, the following may be mentioned here: Hippolytus, Antichristo —sermons attributed to Ephraem Syrus (Latin and Greek); Victorinus Petabionensis on the A lypse ; Lactantius (a very important authority); the pseudo-Methodius, de principio et jure seculi; the tract of Adso (printed ge Ser m’s works), de Antichristo. Of Apocryphal documents, the following con- tain interesting details: the Oeplie ous of Elias (Chris- tian, in its present form), recently edited by Steindorff in ‘Texte und Unters.’ (Neue Folge); the Syriac Book of Clement or Testament of the Lord, coupled with a Latin fragment found by the present writer at Treves; the late Greek Apocalypses of Esdras and of John (these four will be found collected in Apocrypha Anecdota, i.); the various forms of the Apocalypse of I Daniel (see Bousset, and Vassiliev’s Anecdota Byzantina, and Klostermann’s Analecta zur LXX). An Armenian prophec; of St. Nerses, published by F. 0. Conybeare Academy, 1895), and an interesting Latin document attribu to St. John in Roger Hoveden’s Chronicle (Rolls Series), should be added to Bousset’s stock of documents.
A principal feature in the later A description of Antichrist’s person scribed as very unpleasing. traits of this are borrowed in the Greek Acts of St. Christopher (Analecta Bollandiana), and attached to that saint before his
conversion, M. R. JAMES.
ocalyptic literature is the appearance, which is de- It is curious to note that several
MANAEN (Μαναήν, Gr. form of 0739 Menahem, LXX Μαναήμ, ‘consoler,’ 2 Καὶ 15"), one of the ‘prophets and teachers’ in the Church of Antioch at the time of St. Paul’s departure on his First Missionary Journey (Ac 13!),* and σύντροφος of Herod the tetrarch, i.e. Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great (Lk 31° 97 etc.). σύντροφος may mean either collactaneus, ‘ foster-brother,’ ‘ nursed along with’ Herod (Walch, Ols., de Wette, Alf., Words. ; ef. Xen. Mem. ii. 3. 4), or merely con- tubernalis, ‘brought up in the same household,’ or ‘on intimate terms with’ him (Eras. Luth. Caly. Grot. Baumg. Ew.; cf. 1 Mac 1”). Walch, recalling that the brothers Antipas and Archelaus were brought up together (Jos. Ant. XVI. i. 3), argues for the closer (without excluding the more general) relationship, on account of the tetrarch t alone being here mentioned.
It is highly probable that this Manaen was related to an older Manaen referred to by Josephus (Ant. XV. x. 5) as a notable Essene who, about B.C. 50, met Herod, afterwards the Great, then a schoolboy, and saluted him as future king of the Jews (Antipater, the father of Herod, was then chief minister of the Hasmonzan prince Hyrcanus). When the anticipation was afterwards realized (B.C. 37), Herod sent for this older Manaen, treated him as a friend (δεξιωσάμενος), and thenceforth honoured the whole Essene sect. A Talmudic authority t identifies the same Manaen with a leadin, bbi who entered the household service of ἘΘΙΒΕΤΙ When Antipas was born, some years later, Herod may very naturally have selected, as the child’s foster-brother and youthful companion, a grandson § or grandnephew of the senior Manaen, who would thus be honoured in the person of the boy.|| As σύντροφος (in either sense) the younger Manaen would receive a place at the royal table, be educated along with Antipas, and probably accompany him and Archelaus when the two panes were sent to complete their education at