3. The Little Horn (Dan. vii). Here the four beasts indicate four kings ; their kingdoms are supposed to be the Assyrian, Persian, Grecian, and Syrian (some say Roman) empires. The last empire breaks up into ten, after which the king rises up and masters three (ver. 24) of them. It is declared (ver. 25) that "he shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws ; and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the di- viding of time" — indicating a person, as well as a power or polity. It is likely that this prediction re- fers also to Antiochus as the type of Antichrist, at least primarily. See Horn, Little.
III. Passages in A'. T. — 1. In Matt, xxiv, Christ himself foretells the appearance of false Messiahs ; thus, ver. 5 : "For many shall come in my name, say- ing I am Christ, and shall deceive many;" also ver. 23, 24: "Then if any man shall say unto j-ou, Lo, hero is Christ or there, believe it not; for there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders ; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect." (Comp. Mark xiii, 21, 22.) In these passages anti-
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Christian teachers and their works are predicted. Christ teaches "that (1) in the latter days of Jerusa- lem there should be sore distress, and that in the midst of it there should arise impostors who would claim to be the promised Messiah, and would lead away many of their countrymen after them ; and that (2) in the last days of the world there should be a great tribulation and persecution of the saints, and that there should arise at the same time false Christs and false prophets, with an unparalleled power of lead- ing astray. In tj'pe, therefore, our Lord predicted the rise of the several impostors who excited the fanati- cism of the Jews before their fall. In antitype He predicted the future rise of impostors in the last days, who should beguile all but the elect into the belief of their being God's prophets, or even his Christs. Our Lord is not speaking of any one individual (or polity), but rather of those forerunners of the Antichrist who are his servants and actuated by his spirit. They are rpivSoxpiaroi (false Christs), and can deceive almost the elect, but they are not specifically o civtixpittoq (the Antichrist); they are %piv?<yirpo<p)JTai (false proph- ets), and can show great signs and wonders, but they are not 6 \psudonpo(piiT?ig (the false prophet) (Rev. xvi, 14)" (Smith, s. v.).
2. St. Paul's Man of Sin. Paul specifically per- sonifies Antichrist, 2 Thess. ii, 3, 4 : " Let no man de- ceive you by any means ; for that day shall ?iot come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition ; who opposeth and exaltcth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped ; so that he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God ;" also ver. 8-10 : "And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying won- ders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish." Here he "who opposeth him- self" (6 dvTiKiifiivoc, the Adversary, ver. 4) is plain- ly Antichrist. Paul tells the Thessalonians that the spirit of Antichrist, or Antichristianism, called by him "the mystery of iniquity," was already working; but Antichrist himself he characterizes as "the Man of Sin," "the Son of Perdition," "the Adversary to all that is called God," "the one who lifts himself above all objects of worship;" and assures them that he should not be revealed in person until some present obstacle to his appearance should have been taken away, and until the predicted UTzoesTama should have occurred (Smith, s. v.). Comp. 1 Tim. iv, 1-3 ; 2 Tim. iii, 1-5. See Man of Sin.
3. The Antichrist of John. The Apostle John also personifies Antichrist, alluding, as St. Paul does, to previous oral teaching on the subject, and applying it to a class of opponents of Christ; ch. ii, 18: "Little children, it is the last time : and as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come, even now are there many An- tichrists ; whereby we know that it is the last time ;" and to a spirit of opposition; ch. iv, 3: "And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is not of God. And this is that spirit of An- tichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come ; and even now already is it in the world." The Apos- tle here teaches "that the spirit of the Antichrist could exist even then, though the coming of the An- tichrist himself was future, and that all who denied the Messiahship and Sonship of Jesus were Anti- christs, as being types of the final Antichrist who was to come. The teaching of John's Epistles, therefore, amounts to this, that in type, Cerinthus, Basilides, Si- mon Magus^ and those Gnostics who denied Christ's Sonship, and all subsequent heretics who should deny it, were Antichrists, as being wanting in that divine principle of love which with him is the essence of Christianity ; and he points on to the final appearance