ANTICHRIST
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ANTICHRIST
First Scries, p. 33, Camb. 1842) ; and the theologians of the 17th century did not repudiate it, though they less and less dwelt upon it as their struggle came to he with Puritanism in place of popery. Bishop An- drewes maintains it as a probable conclusion from the Epistle to the Thessalonians (Resp. ad Bellarm. p. 304, Oxon. 1851); but he carefully explains that King James, whom he was defending, had expressed his pri- vate opinion, not the belief of the church, on the sub- ject (ibid. p. 23). Bramhall introduces limitations and distinctions ( Works, iii, 520, Oxf. 1845) ; significantly suggests that there are marks of Antichrist which ap- ply to the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland as much as to the pope or to the Turk (ibid, iii, 287), and declines to make the Church of England respon- sible for what individual preachers or writers had said on the subject in moments of exasperation (ib. ii, 582). From this time onward, in the Church of England, the less evangelical divines are inclined to abandon the theory of the Reformers, while, of course, the Roman- izers oppose it. Yet it appears, from the list above, that some of the best interpreters in that church, as well as in other branches of Protestantism, maintain the old interpretation of the prophecies of Daniel, Paul, and John.
Some writers have gone back to the old idea of an individual Antichrist yet to come, e. g. "Lacunza or Benezra (1810), Burgh, Samuel Maitland, Newman (Tracts for the Times, No. 83), Charles Maitland (Pro- phetic Interpretation). Others prefer looking upon him as long past, and fix upon one or another perse- cutor or heresiarch as the man in whom the predic- tions as to Antichrist found their fulfilment. There seems to be no trace of this idea for more than 1G00 years in the church. But it has been taken up by two opposite classes of expounders — by Romanists who were anxious to avert the application of the Apoca- lyptic prophecies from the papacy, and by others, who were disposed, not indeed to deny the prophetic import of the Apocalypse, but to confine the seer's ken within the closest and narrowest limits that were possible. Alcasar, a Spanish Jesuit, taking a hint from Victori- nus, seems to have been the first (A.D. 1604) to have suggested that the Apocalyptic prophecies did not ex- tend further than to the overthrow of paganism by Constantine. This view, with variations by Grotius, is taken up and expounded by Bossuet, Calmet, De Saey, Eichhorn, Hug, Herder, EwaW, Moses Stuart, Davidson. The general view of the school is that the Apocalypse describes the triumph of Christianity over Judaism in the first, and over heathenism in the third century. . Mariana sees Antichrist in Nero; Bossuet in Diocletian and in Julian ; Grotius in Caligula ; Wet- stein in Titus; Hammond in Simon Magus (Works, iii, 620, Lond. 1631) ; Whitby in the Jews (Comm. ii, 431, Lond. 1760); Le Clerc in Simon, son of Giora, a leader of the rebel Jews ; Schottiien in the Pharisees ; Nossett and Krause in the Jewish zealots ; Harduin in the High-priest Ananias; F. D.Maurice in Vitellius (On the Apocalypse, Camb. I860)." (Smith, s. v.)
5. The same spirit that refuses to regard Satan as an individual, naturally looks upon the Antichrist as an evil principle not embodied either in a person or in a polity. Thus Koppe, Storr, Nitzsch, Pelt. (See Al- ford, Gh. Test, iii, 69.) Some of the Romish theologi- ans find Antichrist in rationalism and radicalism, oth- ers in Protestantism as a whole. Some Protestants fix it in Romanism as a whole, others in Jesuitism ; others, again, in the latest forms of infidelity, while some of the ultra Lutherans find it in modern radical- ism, political and religious. Any view of this kind, when carried so far as to exclude all personal identifi- cation, is certainly too vague to be satisfactory. But, at the same time, the just conclusion seems to be that Antichrist is not to be confined to an}' single person or power, but is essentially a great principle or system of falsehood, having various manifestations, forms of
working, and degrees, as especially exemplified in An- tiochus Epiphanes, Jewish bigotry, and pagan intoler- ance ; while it is undeniable that later Romanism ex- hibits some of the most prominent characteristics of Antichrist in a manner so striking and peculiar as to assure us that the sj'stem is not only one among the many species of Antichrist, but that it stands in the fore-front, and is pointed at by the finger of prophecy as no other form of Antichrist is (Eden, s. v.).
V. Time of Antichrist. — A vast deal of labor has been spent upon computations based upon the "time, times, and dividing of time" in Daniel (vii, 25), and upon the " number of the Beast" (666) given in Rev. xiii, 18. We can only refer to the commentators and writers on prophecy for these, as it would take too much space to enumerate them. As to Daniel's "time, times, and dividing of time," it is commonly interpret- ed to mean 1260 years. " The papal power was com- pletely established in the year 755, when it obtained the exarchate of Ravenna. Some, however, date the rise of Antichrist in the year of Christ 606, and Mede places it in 450. If the rise of Antichrist be not reck- oned till he was possessed of secular authority, his fall will happen when this power shall be taken away. If his rise began, according to Mede, in 456, he must have fallen in 1716; if in 606, it must be in 1866; if in 755, in 2015. If, however, we use prophetical years, consisting of three hundred and sixty days, and date the rise of Antichrist in the year 755, his fall will hap- pen in the year of Christ 2000" (Watson, s. v.). As to the "number of the beast," the interpretation sug- gested by Irenauis is one of the most plausible. The number is "the number of a man" (Rev. xiii, 18); and Irenaeus names Aartivoc as fulfilling. the condi- tions (see Alford, Comm., who considers this the near- est approach to a complete solution). But human in- genuity has found the conditions fulfilled also in the name of Mohammed, Luther, Napoleon, and many oth- ers. After all the learning and labor spent upon the question, we must confess that it is yet left unsolved.