The Antichrist
The claim that the pope is the Antichrist has been
part of anti-Catholic rhetoric since the Reformation, when it was needed
to justify the Protestant Reformers’ desire to leave the Catholic Church.
Thus the Lutheran Book of Concord states,
"[T]he pope is the real Antichrist who has raised himself over and set
himself against Christ . . . Accordingly, just as we cannot adore the devil
himself as our lord or God, so we cannot suffer his apostle, the pope or
Antichrist, to govern us as our head or lord" (Smalcald Articles
2:4:10, 14).
The Presbyterian and Anglican Westminster Confession
states, "There is no other head of the church but the Lord Jesus Christ;
nor can the pope of Rome in any sense be the head thereof; but is that
Antichrist, that man of sin, and that son of perdition, that exalteth himself
in the church against Christ, and all that is called God" (25:6).
To make the prophecies of the Antichrist fit the
pope, some even claimed that "the temple of God" in which the Antichrist
pretends to be God (2 Thess. 2:4) is the Vatican.
Although the Fathers of the Church speculated on the Antichrist in various ways, they would never have agreed.
They showed the temple to be the Jewish temple, rebuilt by Antichrist in
Jerusalem. Rather than the bishop of Rome, the early Fathers identified
the Antichrist as a government official—a king coming to power in the ruins
of the Roman Empire. He would probably be Jewish, possibly from the tribe
of Dan. And most importantly, rather than claiming like the pope to be
the vicar or emissary of Jesus Christ, he would claim that Jesus was not
the Christ but that he was instead. He would then seduce many of
the Jewish people by attempting to fulfill the political.aspirations they
held for the Messiah. The quotes that follow illustrate both the different ideas they had about the Antichrist and how different their conception was from the anti-papal idea that arose in later centuries.
"[T]he whole time of your faith will not profit
you unless you are made complete in the last time. For in the last days
false prophets and corrupters shall be multiplied, and sheep shall be turned
into wolves . . . and then shall the deceiver of the world appear, pretending
to be the Son of God, and [he] shall do signs and wonders, and the earth
shall be delivered into his hands" (Didache 16:3-4 [A.D. 70]).
Polycarp of Smyrna
"Everyone who does not confess that Jesus Christ
has come in the flesh is an antichrist [1 John 4:2-3, 2 John 7]; whoever
does not confess the testimony of the cross is of the devil; and whoever
perverts the sayings of the Lord for his own desires, and says that there
is neither resurrection nor judgment, such a one is the firstborn of Satan"
(Letter to the Philadelphians 7:1 [A.D. 135]).
Irenaeus
"[B]y means of the events which shall occur in
the time of the Antichrist it is shown that he, being an apostate and a
robber, is anxious to be adored as God, and that although a mere slave,
he wishes to be proclaimed as king. For he, being endued with all the power
of the devil, shall not come as a righteous king nor as a legitimate king
in subjection to God, but as an impious, unjust, and lawless one . . .
setting aside idols to persuade [men] that he himself is God, raising himself
up as the only idol. . . . Moreover [Paul] has also pointed out this which
I have shown in many ways: that the temple in Jerusalem was made by the
direction of the true God. For the apostle himself, speaking in his own
person, distinctly called it the temple of God [2 Thess. 2:4] . . . in
which the enemy shall sit, endeavoring to show himself as Christ" (Against
Heresies 5:25:1-2 [A.D. 189]).
"Moreover, another danger, by no means trifling,
shall overtake those who falsely presume that they know the name of the
Antichrist. For if these men assume one [number] when this [Antichrist]
shall come having another, they will be easily led away by him as supposing
him not to be the expected
one. . . . It is therefore more certain, and less
hazardous, to await the fulfillment of the prophecy than to be making surmises
and casting about for any names that may present themselves, inasmuch as
many names can be found possessing the number mentioned, and the same question
will, after all, remain unsolved" (ibid., 5:30:2-3).
"But when this Antichrist shall have devastated
all things in this world, he will reign for three years and six months
and will sit in the temple at Jerusalem; and then the Lord will come from
heaven in the clouds, in the glory of the Father, sending this man and
those who follow him into the lake of fire" (ibid., 5:30:4).
Hippolytus
"Now as our Lord Jesus Christ, who is also God,
was prophesied of under the figure of a lion, on account of his royalty
and glory, in the same way have the scriptures also beforehand spoken of
Antichrist as a lion, on account of his tyranny and violence. For the deceiver
seeks to liken himself in all things to the Son of God. Christ is a lion,
so Antichrist is also a lion. Christ is a king, so Antichrist is also a
king. The Savior was manifested as a lamb, so he too in like manner will
appear as a lamb without; within he is a wolf. The Savior came into the
world in the circumcision [i.e., the Jewish race], and he will come in
the same manner. . . . The Savior raised up and showed his holy flesh like
a temple, and he will raise a temple of stone in Jerusalem" (The Antichrist
6 [A.D. 200]).
"[W]e find it written regarding Antichrist . .
. ‘Dan is a lion’s whelp, and he shall leap from Bashan’ [Deut. 33:22].
But that no one may err by supposing that this is said of the Savior, let
him attend carefully to the matter. Dan, he says, is a lion’s whelp. And
in naming the tribe of Dan, he declared clearly the tribe from which Antichrist
is destined to spring. For as Christ springs from the tribe of Judah, so
Antichrist is to spring from the tribe of Dan. And that the case stands
thus, we see also from the words of Jacob: ‘Let Dan be a serpent, lying
upon the ground, biting the horse’s heel’ [Gen. 49:17]. What then is meant
by the serpent but Antichrist, that deceiver who is mentioned in Genesis
[Gen. 3:1], who deceived Eve and supplanted Adam? . . . [I]t is in reality
out of the tribe of Dan, then, that tyrant and king, that dread judge,
that son of the devil, is destined to spring and arise" (ibid., 14).
"Above all, moreover, he will love the nation of
the Jews. And with all these [Jews] he will work signs and terrible wonders,
false wonders and not true, in order to deceive his impious equals. . .
. And after that he will build the temple in Jerusalem and will restore
it again speedily and give it over to the Jews" (Discourse on the End
of the World 23-25 [A.D. 217]).
Tertullian
"[T]he man of sin, the son of perdition, who must
first be revealed before the Lord comes, who opposes and exalts himself
above all that is called God or that is worshipped; and who is to sit in
the temple of God and boast himself as being God. . . . According indeed
to our view, he is Antichrist; as it is taught us in both the ancient and
the new prophecies, and by the apostle John, who says that ‘already many
false prophets have gone out into the world,’ the forerunners of Antichrist,
who deny that Christ is come in the flesh, and do not acknowledge Jesus,
meaning in God the Creator" (Against Marcion 5:16 [A.D. 210]).
Cyprian of Carthage
"If they [the heretics] desire peace, let them
lay aside their arms. If they make atonement, why do they threaten? Or
if they threaten, let them know that they are not feared by God’s priests.
For even Antichrist, when he shall begin to come, will not enter into the
Church [even though] he threatens; neither shall we yield to his arms and
violence, [though] he declares that he will destroy us if we resist" (Letters
69[70]:3 [A.D. 253]).
"[B]oth baptism is one and the Holy Spirit is one
and the Church, founded by Christ the Lord upon Peter, by a source and
principle of unity, is one also. Hence it results that with them [heretics
and schismatics] all things are futile and false, nothing that which they
have done ought to be approved by
us. . . . And the blessed apostle John also, keeping
the commandments and precepts of the Lord, has laid it down in his epistle
and said, ‘You have heard that Antichrist shall come; even now there are
many antichrists, whereby we know that it is the last time . . . ‘[1 John
2:18]. Wherefore we who are with the Lord and maintain the unity of the
Lord, and according to his condescension administer his priesthood in the
Church, should repudiate and reject and regard as profane whatever his
adversaries and the antichrists do; and to those who, coming about of error
and wickedness, acknowledge the true faith of the one Church, we should
give the truth both of unity and faith, by means of all the sacraments
of divine grace" (ibid., 54[69]:19).
"[B]ecause there can be nothing common to falsehood
and truth, to darkness and light, to death and immortality, to Antichrist
and Christ, we ought by all means to maintain the unity of the Catholic
Church and not to give way to the enemies of the faith and truth in any
respect. Neither must we prescribe the form of custom, but overcome opposite
custom by reason. For neither did Peter, whom first the Lord chose and
upon whom he built his Church . . . despise Paul because he had previously
been a persecutor of the Church, but admitted the counsel of truth [that
Paul gave] . . . furnishing thus an illustration to us both of concord
and of patience" (ibid., 70[71]:2-3).
Lactantius
"[A] king shall arise out of Syria, born from an
evil spirit, the overthrower and destroyer of the human race, who shall
destroy that which is left by the former evil, together with himself. .
. . But that king will not only be most disgraceful in himself, but he
will also be a prophet of lies, and he will constitute and call himself
God, and will order himself to be worshipped as the Son of God, and power
will be given to him to do signs and wonders, by the sight of which he
may entice men to adore him. He will command fire to come down from heaven
and the sun to stand and leave his course, and an image to speak, and these
things shall be done at his
word. . . . Then he will attempt to destroy the
temple of God and persecute the righteous people" (Divine Institutes
7:17 [A.D. 307]).
Cyril of Jerusalem
"This aforementioned Antichrist is to come when
the times of the Roman Empire shall have been fulfilled, and the end of
the world is drawing near. There shall rise up together ten kings of the
Romans, reigning in different parts, perhaps, but all reigning at the same
time. After these there shall be an eleventh, the Antichrist, who by the
evil craft of his magic shall seize upon the Roman power. Of the kings
who reigned before him, three shall he humble [Dan. 7:24], and the remaining
seven he shall have as subjects under him. At first he shall feign mildness—as
if he were a learned and discreet person—and sobriety and loving kindness"
(Catechetical Lectures 15:12 [A.D. 350]).
"Having beguiled the Jews by the lying signs and
wonders of his magical deceit, until they believe he is the expected Christ,
he shall afterwards be characterized by all manner of wicked deeds of inhumanity
and lawlessness, as if to outdo all the unjust and impious men who have
gone before him. He shall display against all men, and especially against
us Christians, a spirit that is murderous and most cruel, merciless and
wily. For three years and six months only shall he be the perpetrator of
such things; and then he shall be destroyed by the glorious second coming
from heaven of the only-begotten Son of God, our Lord and Savior Jesus,
the true Christ, who shall destroy him with the breath of his mouth [2
Thess. 2:8], and deliver him over to the fire of Gehenna" (ibid.).
Augustine
"Daniel prophesies of the last judgment in such
a way as to indicate that Antichrist shall first come and to carry on his
destruction to the eternal reign of the saints. For when in prophetic vision
he had seen four beasts, signifying four kingdoms, and the fourth conquered
by a certain king, who is recognized as Antichrist, and after this the
eternal kingdom of the Son of Man, that is to say, of Christ" (The City
of God 20:19 [A.D. 419]).
NIHIL OBSTAT:
I have concluded that the materials
presented in this work are free of doctrinal or moral errors.
Bernadeane Carr, STL, Censor Librorum, August 10, 2004
IMPRIMATUR:
In accord with 1983 CIC 827
permission to publish this work is hereby granted.
+Robert H. Brom, Bishop of San Diego, August 10, 2004
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