AntiChrist

[Fr., from Gr. anti, against, and Christ.] (Eccl. Hist.) Although this term is employed only by the Apostle John in the 2d and 3d Epistles, it has been applied, by almost universal consent, to the Man of Sin in 2d The alonians, to the Little Horn, and to the fierce-countenanced King of Daniel, and to the two Beasts of Revelation, as well as to the false Christ spoken of in Matt. xxiv. The books of the New Testament mention the A. as one or several false prophets, who would pretend to be the true Christ, and would deceive the world. In the Apocalypse alone, he is represented as a powerful ruler opposed to Christianity. The Christians, in the first centuries, retained the idea of such a powerful enemy of the Church, whose appearance, announced by their own persecutions, would precede the reappearance of Christ, which was then commonly expected. With the belief of the millennium, which was to succeed the vexations of the church by the Antichrist, the idea. of such a being continued under various forms, and was heightened by the most lively descriptions on the part of the Christian fathers, until the year 1000 had elapsed without the fulfilment of these prophecies, and the mil lennial enthusiasm itself was cooled. The fathers have generally agreed that the Antichrist will appear at the approach of the last day, in a bodily shape; but as to his origin, and time and place of appearing, their opinions differ. Some believe that he will be a mere man "the man of sin, the son of perdition," spoken of by St. Paul; and others, that he will be an incarnation of the devil. The Church of Rome has never pronounced any decision with regard to the various notions its members have entertained on this subject. - In the last centuries before Christ, the Jews connected with their idea of the Me iah the notion of an Anti-Me iah, or an enemy to the attempts of the Me iah to promote the good of their nation. They preserve, since the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, the wonderful prophecy of a contest in which an A., by name Armillus, will be vanquished by the true Me iah, after a severe oppre ion of the Jews. Antichrist'ian, a. and n. Opposite to, or opposing the Christian religion.