ANTICHRIST (from Gr. anti, against, and Clithtog, Christ). The general notion of A., as a power opposing itself to the reign of the Messiah, may be traced back beyond the Christian era. Its origin is perhaps to be found in the prophecy of Ezekiel concerning the doom of Gog and Maglg. In accordance with the old saying, " When need is sorest, help is nearest," the Jews conceived that, immediately previous to the Messiah's reign, national adversity must be experienced in an extreme degree, and that an agent of Satan would appear, who must be overcome before prosperity could be restored. This was A. The idea is adopted in the New Testament, although the term A. occurs in no place of Scripture, except in the first and second epistles of John. From such passages as the prophecies of the Savior, Matt. xxiv. and Mark xiii., it has been inferred by some that probably the gredt truth which this conception was intended to shadow forth was similar to that illustrated in the life of "the man of sorrows"—that only through tribu lation and strife could the reign of the Messiah be established; that Christ's kingdom. Ake Christ himself, could be made perfect only through suffering. And with this the language of John in his epistles, and of Paul in passages which seem to embody the same idea, suPposed to accord. Nor is it regarded as a fatal objection to this opinion, that in the Apocalypse the antichristian power or element is associated with the great heathen capital Rome, symbolically designated Babylon.
But this opinion neither has been nor is generally prevalent. The idea of A. early became associated with that of the millennium (q.v.), retaining a form very similar to that which it had among the Jews before the advent of the Messiah; and popular opinion has always sought to find for it some actual and definite embodiment. In the 5th c., popular delusion prevailed, founded on the passage in the Apocalypse, xvii. 8, that Nero was not dead, and would return in the character of A. Since the 16th c., the prevalent opinion among Protestants has been that A. is the Roman Catholic church; an idea entertained even at an earlier period, as, for instance, by Ludwig of Bavaria, regarding pope John XXII., by Occam, Wickliffe, and his pupil Cobham, and the Bohemian
reformer Janow, and which seems to have prevailed to a considerable extent among the Hussites and other opponents of Rome. This opinion has, of course, been strenuously opposed by Roman Catholic writers, as by Bossuet, who, in his comments ou the Apocalypse, ably advocates the opinion that pagan Rome was A. The opinions of Roman Catholics, however, are much divided upon this subject, many of them main taining that A. is yet to come and "to raise the last persecution," as "no one has yet appeared to whom we can apply the character which the infallible word of God declares shall be that of the real A.—Keenan's Catechism of the Christian Religion.
The opinion prevalent among Protestants depends upon the identification of A. with the mystical Babylon of the Apocalypse, and with other symbolic representations in that book, of a power opposed to the cause of Christ, and also with the " wicked" one, the "man of sin," and •' son of perdition," in 2d These. ii. Thus it is maintained that definite embodiment of the idea of A. is to be sought in history, and that this is to be found in the church of Rome or in the papal power. And Protestants refer to the gradual growth and development of the errors which they regard as culminating in the church of Rome, as accordant with the declaration of Paul in 2d Thess. ii., that "the mystery of iniquity cloth already work," and with that of John, "Even now are there many antichrists." There have been, however. among Protestants eminent opponents of this opinion, among whom may be named Grotius. Ills own opinion was singular, that Caligula, the Roman emperor, was A. In the Greek church, the term A. has been understood as especially applicable to Mohammed, or to the dominion of the Turks and Saracens. Almost every great or striking event—the arrival of the year 1000; the beginning of the crusades; the "black death" and other plagues in the 14th e. • the Career of Napoleon in 1805; and even the political movements of 1848 and 1849—has suggested new inter pretations of the passages of Scripture regarding A. See REVELATION OF ST. Join.