APOCALYPSE.) In proportion as the figure of Nero again ceased to dominate the imagination of the faithful, the wholly unhistorical, unpolitical and anti-Jewish conception of Antichrist, which based itself more especially on II. Thess. ii., gained the upper hand, having usually become associated with the description of the universal confla gration of the world which had also originated in the Iranian eschatology. On the strength of exegetical combinations, and with the assistance of various traditions, it was developed even in its details, which it thenceforth maintained practically unchanged. In this f orm it is in great part present in the eschatological por tions of the Adv. Haereses of Irenaeus, and in the de Antichristo and commentary on Daniel of Hippolytus. In times of political excitement, during the following centuries, men appealed again and again to the prophecy of Antichrist. Then the f oreground scenery of the prophecies was shifted ; special prophecies, having reference to contemporary events, are pushed to the front, but in the background remains standing, with scarcely a change, the prophecy of Antichrist that is bound up with no particular time. Thus at the beginning of the Testamentum Domini, edited by Rahmani, there is an apocalypse, possibly of the time of Decius, though it has been worked over (Harnack, ibid. ii., 514 etc.). In the 3rd century, the period of Aurelianus and Gallienus with its wild warfare of Romans and Persians, and of Roman pre tenders one with another, seems especially to have aroused the spirit of prophecy. To this period belongs the Jewish apocalypse of Elijah (ed. Buttenwieser) of which the Antichrist is possibly Odaenathus of Palmyra, while Sibyll. xiii., a Christian writing of this period, glorifies this very prince. It is possible that at this time also the Sibylline fragment (iii. 63 etc.) and the Christian recension of the two first Sibylline books were written. To this time possibly belongs also a recension of the Coptic apocalypse of Elijah, edited by Steindorff (Texte and Untersuchungen N.F. ii. 3). To the 4th century belongs, according to Kamper (Die deutsche Kaiseridee, 1896, p. 18) and Sackur (Texte and For schungen, 1898, p. 114 etc.), the first nucleus of the "Tiburtine" Sibyl, very celebrated in the middle ages, with its prophecy of the return of Constans, and its dream, which later on exercised so much influence, that after ruling over the whole world he would go to Jerusalem and lay down his crown upon Golgotha. To the 4th century also perhaps belongs a series of apocalyptic pieces and homilies which have been handed down under the name of Ephraem. At the beginning of the Mohammedan period, then, we meet with the most influential and the most curious of these pro phetic books, the Pseudo-Methodius, which prophesied of the em peror who would awake from his sleep and conquer Islam. From the Pseudo-Methodius are derived innumerable Byzantine prophe cies (cf. especially Vassiliev Anecdota Graeco-Byzantina) which follow the fortunes of the Byzantine emperors and their govern ments. A prophecy in verse, adorned with pictures, which is as cribed to Leo VI. the Philosopher (Migne, Patr. Graeca, cvii. p. 1,121, etc.) tells of the downfall of the house of the Comneni, and sings of the emperor of the future who would one day awake from death and go forth from the cave in which he had lain. Thus the prophecy of the sleeping emperor of the future is very closely connected with the Antichrist tradition. There is extant a Daniel prophecy which, in the time of the Latin empire, foretells the restoration of the Greek rule. In the East, too, Antichrist prophe cies were extraordinarily flourishing during the period of the rise of Islam and of the Crusaders. To these belong the apocalypses in Arabic, Ethiopian and perhaps also in Syrian, preserved in the so-called Liber Clementis discipuli S. Petri (Petri apostoli apoca lypsis per Clementem), the late Syrian apocalypse of Ezra (Bous set, Antichrist, 45, etc.) the Coptic (i4th) vision of Daniel (in the appendix to Woide's edition of the Codex Alexandrinus; Oxford i 799) the Ethiopian Wisdom of the Sibyl, which is closely related to the Tiburtine Sibyl (see Basset, Apocryphes ethiopi ennes, x.) ; in the last mentioned of these sources long series of Islamic rulers are foretold before the final time of Antichrist. Jewish apocalypse also awakes to fresh developments in the Mo hammedan period, and shows a close relationship with the Chris tian Antichrist literature. One of the most interesting apocalypses is the Jewish History of Daniel, handed down in Persian.
This whole type of prophecy reached the West above all through the Pseudo-Methodius, which was soon translated into Latin. Especially influential, too, in this respect, was the letter which the monk Adso in 954 wrote to Queen Gerberga, De ortu et tempore Antichristi. The old Tiburtine Sibylla went through edi tion after edition, in each case being altered so as to apply to the government of the monarch who happened to be ruling at the time. Then in the West the period arrived in which eschatology and above all the expectation of the coming of Antichrist, exercised a great influence on the world's history. This period, as is well known, was inaugurated, at the end of the 12th century by the apocalyptic writings of the abbot Joachim of Floris. Soon the word Antichrist re-echoed from all sides in the embittered con troversies of the West. The pope bestowed this title upon the emperor, the emperor upon the pope, the Guelphs on the Ghibel lines and the Ghibellines on the Guelphs. In the contests between the rival powers and courts of the period, the prophecy of Anti christ played a political part. It gave motives to art, to lyrical, epic and dramatic poetry. Among the visionary Franciscans, en thusiastic adherents of Joachim's prophecies, arose above all the conviction that the pope was Antichrist, or at least his precur sor. From the Franciscans, influenced by Abbot Joachim, the lines of connection are clearly traceable with Mile of Kremsier (Libellus de' Antichristo) and Matthias of Janow. For Wycliffe and his adherent John Purvey (probably the author of the Com mentarius in Apocalypsin ante centum annos editus, edited in 1528 by Luther), as on the other hand for Hus, the conviction that the papacy is essentially Antichrist is absolute. Finally, if Luther advanced in his contest with the papacy with greater and greater energy, he did so because he was borne on by the conviction that the pope in Rome was Antichrist. And if in the Augustana the ex pression of this conviction was suppressed for political reasons, in the Articles of Schmalkalden, drawn up by him, Luther pro pounded it in the most uncompromising fashion. This sentence was for him an articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae. To write the history of the idea of Antichrist in the latter middle ages, would be almost to write that of the middle ages. (W. B.) See Bousset, Antichrist, etc., 1895 (Eng. trans. A. H. Keane 1896) ; Bousset, Die Religion des Judentums, etc. (3 Auf. herausg. H. Gress mann 1926), p. 254 ff ; H. Preuss, Die Vorstellungen vom Antichrist im split. Mittelalter, etc. (1906) ; Hastings Encyc. Rel. Eth. s.v.; Encyc. Biblica s.v. Commentaries to 1 & 2 John, 2 Thess., etc.