YI. Jeuifh and Mohammedan Traditions of Anti- christ.— Of these we take the following account from Smith, s. v.: 1. "The name given by the Jews to Antichrist is (^b^'IN) Armillus. There are sev- eral rabbinical books in which a circumstantial ac- count is given of him, such as the ' Book of Zerubba- bel,' and others printed at Constantinople. Buxtorf gives an abridgment of their contents in his Lexicon, under the head 'Armillus,' and in the fiftieth chapter of his Synagoga Judaica (p. 717). The name is de- rived from Isa. xi, 4, where the Targum gives 'By the word of his mouth the wicked Armillus shall die,' for ' with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wick- ed.' There will, say the Jews, be twelve signs of the coming of the Messiah : (1.) The appearance of three apostate kings who have fallen away from the faith, but in the sight of men appear to be worshippers of the true God. (2.) A terrible heat of the sun. (3.) A dew of blood (Joel ii, i"0). (4.) A healing dew for the pious. (5.) A darkness will be cast upon the sun (Joel ii, 31) for thirty days (Isa. xxiv, 22). (6.) God will give universal power to the Romans for nine months, during which time the Roman chieftain will afflict the Israelites ; at the end of the nine months God will raise up the Messiah Ben-Joseph — that is, the Messiah of the tribe of Joseph, named Nehemiah — who will de- feat the Roman chieftain, and slay him. (7.) Then there will arise Armillus, whom the Gentiles or Chris- tians call Antichrist. He will be born of a marble statue in one of the churches in Rome. He will go to the Romans and will profess himself to be their Messiah and their God. At once the Romans will believe in him and accept him for their king. Having made the whole world subject to him, he will say to the Idu- ma?ans (i.e. Christians), 'Bring me the law which I have given you.' They will bring it with their book of prayers; and he will accept it as his own, and will
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exhort them to persevere in their belief of him. Then he will send to Nehemiah, and command the Jewish Law to be brought him, and proof to be given from it that he is God. Nehemiah will go before him, guard- ed by 30,000 warriors of the tribe of Ephraim, and will read, ' I am the Lord thy God: thou shalt have none other gods but me.' Armillus will say that there are no such words in the Law, and will command the Jews to confess him to be God as the other nations had confessed him. But Nehemiah will give orders to his followers to seize and bind him. Then Armillus, in rage and fury, will gather all his people in a deep val- ley to fight with Israel, and in that battle the Messiah Ben-Joseph will fall, and the angels will bear away his body and carry him to the resting-place of the Pa- triarchs. Then the Jews will be cast out by all na- tions, and suffer afflictions such as have not been from the beginning of the world, and the residue of them will fly into the desert, and will remain there forty and five days, during which time all the Israelites who are not worthy to see the redemption shall die. (8.) Then the great angel Michael will rise and blow three mighty blasts of a trumpet. At the first blast there shall ap- pear the true Messiah Ben-David and the prophet Eli- jah, and they will manifest themselves to the Jews in the desert, and all the Jews throughout the world shall hear the sound of the trump, and those that have been carried captive into Assj'ria shall be gathered together ; and with great gladness they shall come to Jerusalem. Then Armillus will raise a great army of Christians, and lead them to Jerusalem to conquer the new king. But God shall say to Messiah, ' Sit thou on my right hand,' and to the Israelites, ' Stand still and see what God will work for you to-day.' Then God will pour down sulphur and fire from heaven (Ezek. xxxviii, 2'-'), and the impious Armillus shall die, and the im- pious Idumseans (i.e. Christians), who have destroyed the house of our God and have led us away into captiv- ity, shall perish in misery, and the Jews shall avenge themselves upon them, as it is written : ' The house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau (i. e. the Christians) for stubble, and they shall kindle in them and devour them : there shall not be any remaining of the house of Esau, for the Lord hath spoken it' (Obad. 18). (9.) On the second blast of the trumpet the tombs shall be opened, and Messiah Ben-David shall raise Messiah Ben-Joseph from the dead. (10.) The ten tribes shall be led to Paradise, and shall celebrate the wedding- feast of the Messiah. And the Messiah shall choose a bride among the fairest of the daughters of Israel, and children and children's children shall be born to him, and then he shall die like other men, and his sons shall reign over Israel after him, as it is written : 'He shall prolong his days' (Isa. liii, 10), which Rambam explains to mean, ' He shall live long, but he too shall die in great glory, and his son shall reign in his stead, and his sons' sons in succession' (Buxtorrii Synagoga Judaica, p. 717, Basil, 1661).