ANTICHRIST (Gk.' A ich rig tos ; from anti, against + Nour6c, Christos, Christ). A name which occurs only in the Epistles of John, lint which, in all likelihood, designates the final New Testament form of a popular belief, whose rise is to be found in later Judaism and which was appropriated with vari ous modifications by biblical writers.
Its source is a question of smile debate. probably, however, it lay in the popular emwie lions aroused by the constant of the divine purpose to punish Israel': sin by giving her into the hands of heathen nations, but to recover her by force from their power when her spiritual discipline had been acconqilished. The repeated carrying out of this policy, even in earlier Jewish history, evidently impressed the popular mind with the idea of an essential oppo sition between the heathen nations and the people of God, the final outcome of which was yet in the future, but must lie in favor of the chosen people. Such an impression may have been aided by the instinctive natural beliefs in the struggle of darkness with light and chaos with order (Bossuet) : but, in view of the above unique line of revelation and experience peculiar to the Jew ish people, it is quite gratuitous to make such general beliefs the definite squrce of such a dis tinctive popular conviction.
As the later revelation emphasized the element of punishment to be administered to the heathen nations by announcing that God would not only recover his people when their discipline was finished, hut would chastise the nations for any attempt on their part to overreach the discipli nary mission given them, the popular idea of the hostility of the nations to the people of God was naturally increased. The primary form of this popular conception is evidently used by Ezekiel as a hasis for his prophecy concerning the consummation of lsrael's restoration, in which he describes the nations of the world as assembled under the leadership of "Gog of the land of Magog" for final battle against. Israel (Ezekiel xxxviii, xxxix; see also Zechariah xii to xiv, where the prophet foretells the gathering together of all the nations of the earth to fight against Jerusalem. and the Lord's going forth in turn to fight against them).
In the experience of the Jews under .Antio•hus Epiphanes, however, the popular conception of this struggle made a distinct advance, in which the opposition was concentrated in a single per sonage, and all idea of disciplinary mission to ward Israel was lost sight of in the conviction of an•inherent enmity against the people of God. This secondary form appears in the esehatologieal prophecies of the Maccabean Book of Daniel (Daniel vii to ix, xi, xii, in which are given the vision of the beast with the ten horns, triumphed over by the "Ancient of Days," and the vision of the goat with the horn between the eyes who warred against the holy city but was finally him self destroyed).
Naturally, as the idea of a personal Messiah increased in definiteness, this popular belief in a personal adversary would grow stronger, es pecially when we consider the long-continued influence on Jewish thought of the Daniel proph ecies. We can believe, therefore. though the Jewish apocryphal literature antedating, the Christian era does not distinctlyshow it,that the conception of an Antimessialt was more or less current in Judaism before the rise 0f Christian ity. This Antimessianic conception is appro priated by New Testament writers, with modifications due to the newer revelations of truth in the Gospel and apostolic times, particularly those which substituted the spir itual for the national idea of the king dom of God, and so emphasized the signifi cant distinction between righteousness and sin. So we see Paul's statement concerning the advent and mission of the Man of Sin and his final de struction by Christ (11. Thessalonians ii : 1-12:
"For the day of the Lord will not come, except . . . the Man of Sin he revealed, . . . who oppos eth and exalteth himself against all that is called God . . . whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the breath of his mouth . . whose mining is according to the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders . . . and deceit of unrighteousness"), where, however, in the deceiv ing character of his mission, there is brought out a new idea—an idea which is frequently applied by Paul to those who opposed him and his gos pel (Acts xx : 30; 11. Corinthians xi : 13; 1. Timothy iv : 2). So also We see the various forms of statement in the Book of Revelation regarding the Beast and the Dragon (compare Revelation xi to xiii, xvi, xix, xx, in which we are told of "the beast that cometh up out of the abyss," who overcomes "the two witnesses," and of the "red dragon having seven heads and ten horns," warring against the woman and her child and destroyed by 'Michael and his angels; also of the "beast. coming up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven beads," ministered to by the "beast coming out of the earth," with "two horns like unto a lamb•" and finding his identification in the mystical number "six hun dred and sixty and six"). The idea of the deceiving mission of the adversary, however, is in this book specifically pictured in the separate figure of the False Prophet, "who wrought signs wherewith he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast" (Revelation xvi : 13, xix : 20, xx : 10. though compare also xii : 9 and xnii : 14 for the same characteristics in the Dragon and the Beast). In this figure there is a return to the earlier personal idea of the Anti messiah, and, at the same time, an advance to the final New Testament form found in the .Johannine Epistles, where the teaching of false doctrines is personified in the term Antichrist (1. John ii : IS, 22; iv : 1-3: "Many false proph ets are gone out into the world . . . Every spirit which confesseth not Jesus . . . this is the spirit of Antichrist ;" IT, John 7: "This is the deceiver and the Antichrist").
This Antimessianic conception is elearlyappro priated by Jesus as a form for his esehatologieal statements regarding those who shall appear in opposition to his cause (Mark xiii : 5, 6: "Many shall conic in my name, saying, 'I am he:' and shall lead many astray:" see also verses 21. 22: •There shall arise false Christs and false proph ets, and shall show signs and wonders, that they may lead astray, if possible, the elect"). In these statements Jesus seems, in the term "false," to have distinctly introduced a new idea. which does not appear to have been present in the popular beliefs. This would. however. have been quickly intelligible to those of his hearers who recalled the false prophets of Jewish history, whose abil ity to deceive the false Christs were to reproduce. From the tradition of Jesus' words may have come the idea of falseness in Paul's statement regarding the Man of Sin and his own gospel opponents: from its definite form in the written gospel is quite certain to have come John's state ment regarding the false prophet, if not his use of the term itself.
The idea of Antichrist persisted into the post apostolic times, in both Jewish and Christian circles. In the former it returned to its earlier national form: in the latter it carried forward the final New Testament form of the teaching. Consult: Discussions ; H. Gunkel, ScHpfang and Chaos (Gottingen. 1895) : W. Bousset, The Anti christ Legend, English translation ( London, 1896) ; Friedliinder, Del- Antichrist in den ristlichen jiidischen ()lichen (Gottingen, 1901).