(3) In the Apocalypse. — As follows naturally both from its subject and from its literary form, the Apocalypse is more permeated than any other book in the NT with the idta of the Antichrist. For its subject is the speedy return of Christ to subdue
His enemies and set up His Kingdom (Rev F 2'^ 3", etc. ), and its form is an adaptation to Christianity of the ideas and imagery of those Jewish Apoca- lypses, from Daniel onwards, which were chietiy responsible for the growth of the Christian Anti- christ conception. It would be out of place to enter here into any discussion of the conflicting interpretations of the symbolism of the dragon and the beasts that appear and reappear from ch. '11 to the end of the book (see artt. Apocalypse, Dragon). But in ch. 11 'the beast that cometh up out of the abyss ' was evidently suggested by the dragon-myth as embodied in the Jewish Anti- christ tradition, Mliile the 'great red dragon' of 12^, who is also described as 'the old serjient, he that is called the Devil and Satan' (v.^), and who is clearly represented as the Antichrist (w.^''^- "), reproduces both the mythical dragon and the later Beliar-Satan conception, now fused into one ap- palling figure. Again, the scarlet-coloured beast of 13^"'° and the realm of the beast in ch. 17 are described in language which recalls the apocalyptic imagery of Daniel (see esp. ch. 7), and clearly applies to a hostile and persecuting world-power represented by its ruler. In Daniel that power was the kingdom of the Seleucidte under Antiochus Epiphanes ; here it is very plainly indicated as the Roman Empire (n^-a-isj -with the Emperor at its head (13'^"*). But to these pre-Christian forms of the Antichrist tradition — the dragon, Satan, and a hostile world-power — the Apocalypse contributes two others which are peculiar to Christianity and which play a large part in the Christian tradition of later times.
The first of these is found in the application to Christian ideas of the Antichrist of the con- temporary Nero-saga, with its dream of a Nero Redivivus who should come back to the world from the realms of the dead (cf. Sib. Or. iv. 119 ff.; Suetonius, Nero, 41 ; Augustine, de Civ. Dei, XX. 19). That Nero is referred to in 13'® is most probable, the number 666 being the equivalent of Nero Caesar (NEPiiN KAI2AP) when written in Heb. characters ("lop p"u). And the legend of his return from the under world of the dead explains in the most natural way the healing of the beast's death-stroke (13^"^^) and the statement that it ' shall ascend out of the bottomless pit , . . and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder when thej^ behold the beast, how that he was, and is not, and shall come' (17*). See also art. APOCALYPSE.
The second contribution was the idea of the false projjhet (1613 19-'» 20'0), who is to be identified with ' another beast' of 13i^^-. It is most probable that the false prophet represents the Imperial priesthood as propagandists of the Ca?sar-cnlt, but it seems not unlikely that elements in the representation are taken from the legend that had grown up around the name of Simon Magus (cf. Justin Martyr, Apol. i. 26, 56 ; Irenaeus, c. Hcer. i. 23). To the early Church, Simon with his magic arts and false miracles was the arch-heretic and the father of all heresy, and suggestions of his legend- aiy figure loom out from the description of the second beast (IS'^"'^), even while the author attri- butes to it functions and powers that belong more properly to the ministers of the Emperor-worship (v.>^).
(4) In the Johannine Epistles. — In these writings, where the word 'Antichrist' appears for the first time, the idea is spiritualized as nowhere else in the NT except in the teaching of Jesus. The Antichrist is not, as in the Apocalypse, a material world-power threatening the Church from without, but a sf>irit of false doctrine rising up from within (1 Jn 2'^). It is true that Anticlirist is .spoken of as still to come (2'^^ 4^), so that some culminating manifestation is evidently expected — probably in
ANTmOMIANISM
Al^TIOCH
69
a definite personal form. But even noAv, it is said, there are many antichrists (2^^ ; cf. 2 Jn ''), and the spirit of Antichrist is already in the world (1 Jn 4^). And the very essence of that spirit is the denial of 'the Father and the Son' (2--), i.e. the refusal to acknoAvledge the Son as well as the Father ; more explicitly it is the refusal to confess that Jesus Christ is come in the tiesh (42- ^, 2 Jn ''). The spirit of Antichrist, in other words, is a spirit of heresy — such heresy as flourished in Asia Minor towards the close of the 1st century through the doctrines of Cerinthus {q.v.).
When the NT utterances regarding the Anti- christ are looked at in their variety and as a whole, it is difficult to derive from tliem any justification for the view that the Church should expect the advent of a personal Antichrist as an individual embodiment of evil. The NT authors were evi- dently influenced in their treatment of the subject by contemporary situations as well as by an inherit- ance of ancient traditions. To St. Paul, writing out of his own experience of Jewish persecution and Koman justice and protection, Judaism was the ' man of lawlessness,' and Rome the beneficent restraining power. To the Apocalyptist, writing to a Church which had known Nero's cruelty and now under Domitian was passing througli the flames once more. Antichrist was the Roman Empire represented by a ruler who was hostile to Christianity because it refused to worship him as a god. In the Johannine Epistles, Antichrist is not a persecuting power but a heretical spirit, present in the world already but destined to come in fuller power. The ultimate authority for our thoughts on the subject must be found in the words of Jesus when He leaches us to pray for deliver- ance from 'the evil one' (Mt 6'^), and warns us against false Christs and false prophets who pro- claim a kingdom that is not His own (24^'*).