Antichrist

According to early and medieval Christian belief, Antichrist is the universal enemy of human beings who in the latter days will scourge the world for its wickedness. He is only mentioned as a character in the Bible in two brief passages occurring in the First and Second Epistles of John (1 John 2:18, 22, and 4:3; and 2 John 7). However, the "man of Lawlessness" (2 Thessalonians 2:3-12) and the "beast" (Revelation 13) are also commonly thought to represent the Antichrist.
Abbot Bergier described the Antichrist as a tyrant, impious and excessively cruel, the arch enemy of Christ, and the last ruler of the Earth. The persecutions he will inflict on the elect will be the last and most severe ordeal that they will have to endure.
The Antichrist will pose as the Messiah and will perform things wonderful enough to mislead the elect themselves. The thunder will obey him, according to St. John, and Leloyer asserts that the demons below watch over hidden treasures with which he will be able to tempt many. Because of the miracles that he will perform, Boguet calls him the "Ape of God," and it is through this scourge that God will proclaim the final judgment.
Antichrist will have a great number of forerunners and will appear just before the end of the world. St. Jerome claimed that he will be a man fathered by a demon; others said that he will be a demon in the flesh. But, following the thinking of Saints Ireneus, Ambrose, Augustine and almost all of the church fathers, Antichrist will be a man similar to and conceived in the same way as all others, differing from them only in a malice and an impiety more worthy of a demon than of a man. More recently, however, Cardinal Bellarmin asserted that Antichrist will be the son of a demon incubus and a sorceress.
He will be a Jew of the tribe of Dan, according to Malvenda, who supported his view with the words the dying Jacob spoke to his sons, "Dan shall be a serpent by the way—an adder in the path": by those of Jeremiah, "The armies of Dan will devour the earth"; and by the seventh chapter of the Apocalypse, where St. John has omitted the tribe of Dan in his enumeration of the other tribes.
Elijah and Enoch will return to convert the Jews and will die by order of Antichrist. Then Christ will descend from the heavens, kill Antichrist with the two-edged sword, which will issue from his mouth, and reign on the earth for a thousand years.
It is claimed by some that the reign of Antichrist will last fifty years; but the opinion of the majority is that his reign will last three and a half years, after which the angels will sound the trumpets of the day of judgment, and Christ will come and judge the world. Boguet declared that the watchword of Anti-christ will be "I abjure baptism." Many commentators foresaw the return of Elijah in these words of Malachi "I will send Elijah, the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord." But it is not certain that Malachi referred to this ancient prophet, since Christ applied this prediction to John the Baptist when he said, "Elias is come already, and they knew him not"; and when the angel foretold to Zacharias the birth of his son, he said to him: "And he shall go forth before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elias."
The word "Antichrist" probably refers to the persecutors of the church. Through the centuries, different groups of Christians declared that one or more of their contemporaries was the Antichrist. For example, sixteenth-century Protestants called the pope Antichrist. Even Napoleon was called Antichrist.
The third treatise in the History véritable et mémorable des trois possédees de Flandre (1613) by Father Sebastien Michaelis, a Dominican friar, described Antichrist: "Conceived through the medium of a devil, he will be as malicious as a madman, with such wickedness as was never seen on earth. An inhuman martyr rather than a human one, he will treat Christians as souls are treated in hell. He will have a multitude of synagogue names, and he will be able to fly when he wishes. Beelzebub will be his father, Lucifer his grandfather."
According to Michaelis, exorcised demons revealed that Antichrist was alive in 1613 but had not yet attained his growth. "He was baptized on the Sabbath of the sorcerers, before his mother, a Jewess, called La Belle-Fleur. He was three years old in 1613." Louis Gaufridi is said to have baptized him, in a field near Paris. An exorcised sorceress claimed to have held the little Antichrist on her knees. She said that his bearing was proud and that even then he spoke many languages. But he had talons in the place of feet. His father is shown in the figure of a bird, with four feet, a tail, a bull's head much flattened, horns, and black shaggy hair. He will mark his own with a seal representing this in miniature. Michaelis added that things execrable will be around him. He will destroy Rome and the Pope with the help of the Jews. He will resuscitate the dead, and, at the age of 30 will reign with Lucifer, the seven-headed dragon. After a reign of three years, Christ will slay him.
Many such details might be quoted of Antichrist, whose coming has long been threatened but not yet realized (see End of the World). A volume by Rusand published many years ago at Lyons, Les Prècurseurs de l' Antechrist, stated that the reign of Antichrist, if it has not begun, is drawing near; that the philosophers, encyclopedists, and revolutionaries of the eighteenth century were only demons incarnated to precede and prepare the way for Antichrist. During World War I, there were people who were convinced that Antichrist was none other than the ex-kaiser of Germany.
Another way to recognize Antichrist is by the title "Beast 666," because Revelation describes the beast as a "false prophet." The title "Beast 666" was applied to modern occultist Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) by his mother, and he accepted it as a symbol of his break with the severe fundamentalism of his Plymouth Brethren father.
Sources:
Crowley, Aleister. The Confessions of Aleister Crowley. Edited by John Symonds and Kenneth Grant. New York: Hill & Wang, 1969.
Kirban, Salem. 666. Huntingdon Valley, Penn.: Salem Kirban, 1970.
McBirnie, William S. Anti-Christ. Dallas: International Prison Ministry, 1978.