Antichrist

[4][5][6] Three other images often associated with Antichrist are the "little horn" in Daniel's final vision, the "man of sin" in Paul the Apostle's Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, and the Beast of the Sea in the Book of Revelation.

[15] However, Bernard McGinn conjectures that the concept may have been generated by the frustration of Jews subject to often-capricious Seleucid or Roman rule, who found the nebulous Jewish idea of a Satan who is more of an opposing angel of God in the heavenly court insufficiently humanised and personalised to be a satisfactory incarnation of evil and threat.

Origen, using scriptural citations from Daniel, Paul, and the Gospels argued: Where is the absurdity, then, in holding that there exist among men, so to speak, two extremes—the one of virtue, and the other of its opposite; so that the perfection of virtue dwells in the man who realizes the ideal given in Jesus, from whom there flowed to the human race so great a conversion, and healing, and amelioration, while the opposite extreme is in the man who embodies the notion of him that is named Antichrist?...

The whole country between the Alps and the Pyrenees, between the Rhine and the Ocean, has been laid waste by hordes of Quadi, Vandals, Sarmatians, Alans, Gepids, Herules, Saxons, Burgundians, Alemanni, and—alas for the commonweal!—even Pannonians.

[37]In his Commentary on Daniel, Jerome noted, "Let us not follow the opinion of some commentators and suppose him to be either the Devil or some demon, but rather, one of the human race, in whom Satan will wholly take up his residence in bodily form."

"[49] Cardinal Benno, on the opposite side of the Investiture Controversy, wrote long descriptions of abuses committed by Gregory VII, including necromancy, torture of a former friend upon a bed of nails, commissioning an attempted assassination, executions without trials, unjust excommunication, doubting the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and even burning it.

"[51] Eberhard II von Truchsees, Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg in 1241, denounced Pope Gregory IX at the Council of Regensburg as "that man of perdition, whom they call Antichrist, who in his extravagant boasting says, I am God, I cannot err.

"[52] He argued that the ten kingdoms that the Antichrist is involved with[53][54][55] were the "Turks, Greeks, Egyptians, Africans, Spaniards, French, English, Germans, Sicilians, and Italians who now occupy the provinces of Rome.

[73] Jerome wrote: "Says the apostle [Paul in the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians], 'Unless the Roman Empire should first be desolated, and antichrist proceed, Christ will not come.

Yet this hinders not, but that the last Pope in this succession will be more eminently the Antichrist, the Man of Sin, adding to that of his predecessors a peculiar degree of wickedness from the bottomless pit.

"[83]John Knox wrote on the Pope: "Yea, to speak it in plain words; lest that we submit ourselves to Satan, thinking that we submit ourselves to Jesus Christ, for, as for your Roman kirk [church], as it is now corrupted, and the authority thereof, whereon stands the hope of your victory, I no more doubt but that it is the synagogue of Satan, and the head thereof, called the pope, to be that man of sin, of whom the apostle speaks.

And he is, too, properly styled, the son of perdition, as he has caused the death of numberless multitudes, both of his opposers and followers, destroyed innumerable souls, and will himself perish everlastingly.

[89] Tyndale's translation of 2 Thessalonians, chapter 2, concerning the "Man of Lawlessness" reflected his understanding, but was significantly amended by later revisers,[90] including the King James Bible committee, which followed the Vulgate more closely.

In 1973, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs and the USA National Committee of the Lutheran World Federation in the official Catholic–Lutheran dialogue officially signed an agreement on Papal Primacy and the Universal Church, including this passage: In calling the pope the "Antichrist", the early Lutherans stood in a tradition that reached back into the eleventh century.

What Lutherans understood as a papal claim to unlimited authority over everything and everyone reminded them of the apocalyptic imagery of Daniel 11, a passage that even prior to the Reformation had been applied to the pope as the Antichrist of the last days.

[104] The church teaches that this supreme deception is committed by people who claim to fulfill Israel's messianic hopes (world peace, immortality, end of evil and suffering, no more poverty or pollution, etc.

Fulton J. Sheen, a Catholic bishop, wrote in 1951:[117][118] The Antichrist will not be so called; otherwise he would have no followers... he will come disguised as the Great Humanitarian; he will talk peace, prosperity and plenty not as means to lead us to God, but as ends in themselves...

The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the "mystery of iniquity" in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth.

[119] Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky, in explaining the necessity of rebaptism for Roman Catholics, Protestants and Nestorians, declared:[119] It is clear that by this regulation the Church does not recognize in heretics and schismatics either the priesthood or the other mysteries, and considers them subject to ecclesiastical baptism in the nature of things ... the Church by receiving Latins into communion in the same way as Nestorians (Council of Trullo, 95) does not make any distinction between old heresies and the Latin one.

These efforts[further explanation needed] to cleanse Christianity of "legendary" or "folk" accretions effectively removed the Antichrist from discussion in mainstream Western churches.

[129] Ellen White writes, His word has given warning of the impending danger; let this be unheeded, and the Protestant world will learn what the purposes of Rome really are, only when it is too late to escape the snare.

The devout Christian and political theorist Martin Wight, writing immediately after World War II, favoured the revival of the Antichrist doctrine not as a person, but as a recurrent situation featuring "demonic concentrations of power.

[142] Just like the Dajjal,[138] the Mahdi is never mentioned in the Quran but his description can be found in the ḥadīth literature;[142] according to the Islamic eschatological narrative, he will appear on Earth before the Day of Judgment.

As such, Ahmadis identify the Antichrist collectively with the missionary expansion and colonial dominance of European Christianity throughout the world that was propelled by the Industrial Revolution.

[148][149][150] Mirza Ghulam Ahmad wrote extensively on this topic, identifying the Antichrist principally with colonial missionaries who, according to him, were to be countered through argumentation rather than by physical warfare and whose power and influence was to gradually disintegrate, ultimately allowing for the recognition and worship of God along Islamic ideals to prevail throughout the world in a period similar to the period of time it took for nascent Christianity to rise through the Roman Empire.

[152][153][154][155] The Antichrist is considered to subvert the religion of God from the inner reality of man as 'Abdu'l-Baha narrates: "Christ was a divine Center of unity and love.

"[156] In a document originally released only to high-ranking followers, Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard referred to himself as the Antichrist, who would defend humanity against an alien invasion (for which he believed the Second Coming of Jesus was a metaphor).

In February 1900, the Christian Russian philosopher and mystic Vladimir Solovyov published the apocalyptic A Short Tale of the Antichrist, showing his prophetic vision about the oncoming 20th century and the end of the human history.

[157][158] It is prophesied that the Antichrist will present himself to the whole of humanity like a pacifist, animalist, ecologist, vegetarian, ecumenist, biblical exegete, philanthropist, as a person who has faith in the progress of science and in universal forgiveness.

The character of Michael Langdon, played by actor Cody Fern, in the FX series American Horror Story: Apocalypse, is labeled as the Antichrist and brings upon the end times.