ANTICHRIST FROM THE TRIBE OF DAN? ‘As is well known, there is some lack of consistency among the Church Fathers in the way each tried to synthesize the variegated traditions that formed the Christian expectation of the Antichrist. This is no less true when it came to the question of the Antichrist’s origins. The starting point for much of New Testament and later Christian thought, as well as much Jewish apocalyptic thought in this area, was the book of Daniel, particularly the portrayal of the final wicked ruler of Daniel’s fourth kingdom in the visions of chapters 2 and 7, and filled in with details from chapters 8 and 11 which were thought to point beyond the past historical appear ance of Antiochus Epiphanes. Paul (assuming it was indeed Paul) plainly draws upon this tradition in his description of the ‘man of lawlessness’ in 2 Thessalonians 2: 1-12. The book of Revelation too is indebted to this tradition in its depiction of the beast from the sea (13: 1-9), who embodies in some sense the four kingdoms of Daniel 2 and 7. ‘This tradition of the fourth kingdom, wedded always in some way in the literature of our period to the Roman empire, lent itself to fears and speculation about the return of Nero as the head of the revived fourth kingdom, as may be seen in the Ascension of Isaiah and in Sibylline Oracles 3, 4, and 52 ‘And Origen can refer to his three main sources for Antichrist teaching, Daniel, the writings of Paul (2 Thess. 2: 1-12), and the * Research for this study was made possible in part by # travel grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and a Summer Research Grant from Northwestern College, Iowa. I wish to express my gratitude to each of the awarding bodies. An earlier version of this paper was read at the 1993 meeting of the North American Patristic Society 2'In Ase. Isa. 4. 4 fi. the great angel Beliar comes in the form of Nero, who acts and speaks ‘like the Beloved’. There is some relationship here with the view of ‘Sib. Or. 3. 63-74, which also knows of Beliar coming ‘from the Sebastenoi’. In the latter passage this king deceives even ‘faithful, chosen Hebrews’. In Sib, Or. 4. 119-48 a new Nero returns from beyond the Euphrates, but his career is taken up in affairs which do not really affect the Jews. Again in Sib. Or. 5 while Rome and a Nero redivivus are warned of future judgment, they are castigated not for their treatment of the Jews but for being sexually perverse and ignorant of the true God, the Nero figure even finally ‘declaring himself equal to God’ (5. 33)- His animosity towards the Jewish people comes through in 5. 106-10, ‘But when he attains a formidable height and unseemly daring, he will also come, wishing to destroy the city of the blessed ones, and then a certain king sent from God against him will destroy all the great kings and noble men. Thus there will be judgment on men by the imperishable one.’ This, in turn, compares well to 4 Ezra 12. 31-34, where the Messiah reproves and destroys the eagle of Rome, Here the Messiah ‘will denounce them for their ungodliness and for their wickedness, and ‘will cast up before them their contemptuous dealings’ © Oxford University Press 1995 [Journal of Theological Studios, NS, Vol. 45, Pt As it a9951100 C. E. HILL sayings of Jesus in the Gospels (Cels. 6. 45), without even men- tioning the Johannine writings. But it is precisely in those writings (1 John 2: 18, 22; 4: 3; 2 John 7), written towards the end of the first century ap, that the term ‘Antichrist’ makes its first known appearance in literature, and there no hint survives of a Roman or even a chiefly political foe. The author shows no trace of the Danielic fourth kingdom tradition at all. Rather, the emphasis is on deception, error, and false teaching, specifically about Jesus. ‘This tradition is easily linked with words of Jesus in the Olivet Discourse about false prophets and false Christs working signs and wonders so as to deceive those who might still be looking for the Christ and, if such were possible, even the elect (Matt, 24: 5, 11, 23-24). Most patristic authorities,’ rightly or wrongly, sought in some fashion to accommodate both these emphases in their portrait of the Antichrist. Commodian made two attempts at a resolution, writing first (Instr. I. 41) of a single Neronian Antichrist who will deceive the Jews,* but later positing two Antichrists, a Neronian Precursor and the final Jewish tyrant who will trick the Jews into thinking he is their Messiah. As Schaff summarizes this later view, ‘The Goths will conquer Rome and redeem the Christians; but then Nero will appear as the heathen Antichrist, reconquer Rome, and rage against the Christians three years and a half. He will be conquered in turn by the Jewish and real Antichrist from the east, who, after the defeat of Nero and the burning of Rome, will return to Judea, perform false miracles, and be worshiped by the Jews, At last Christ appears, that is, God himself ... with the lost Twelve Tribes [?] as his army, which had lived beyond Persia in happy simplicity and virtue. Under astounding * An carly exception is Justin, who does not mention Jewishness as an attribute of Antichrist and shows only the definite influence of the Danielic fourth-empire tradition now informed by Paul's ‘man of lawlessness’ (2 Thess. 2: 1-12) (Dial, 40), Justin seems to think this tyrant is already alive. It is to be noted that Justin never uses the title Antichrist for this figure. Irenaeus seems to be the first to do 80 Against Heresies 3. 5. 5; 3. 7. 25 5. 28.1, 3) 1 He himself shall divide the globe into'three ruling powers, when, moreover, Nero shall be raised up from hell, Elias shall first come to seal the beloved ones, But Elias shall occupy the half of the time, Nero shall occupy half, Then the whore Babylon, being reduced to ashes, its embers shall thence advance to Jerusalem; and the Latin conqueror shall then say, I am Christ, whom ye always Pray to; and indeed, the original ones who were deceived combine to praise hitn He does many wonders, since his is the false prophet. Especially that they may believe him, his image shall speak. ‘The Almighty has given it power to appear such. The Jews, recapitulating Scriptures from him, exclaim at the same tine to the Highest that they have been deceived’ (The Ante-Nicene Fathers iv, 210).ANTICHRIST FROM THE TRIBE OF DAN 101 phenomena of nature he will conquer Antichrist and his host, convert all nations, and take possession of the holy city of Jerusalem.’ Lactantius seems to follow this bifurcation of the Antichrist, though he is ambiguous as to Roman or Jewish origins, stating only that the second figure will arise out of Syria (Div. Inst. 7 16-18). More often however, as with Victorinus, Cyril of Jerusalem, and Jerome, if the seductive, false teacher, false Messiah motif was preserved, it was combined with the fourth- kingdom tradition into a single figure who would be both a false ‘Messiah to the Jews and a Roman emperor. For instance, Cyril, though he does not exactly say that Antichrist will be born a Jew, speaks both of the Jews honouring the Antichrist as their Messiah, supposing him to be of the line of David, and of the Antichrist seizing for himself the Roman power (Catech. Lect. 15. 11).° ‘The idea of a Jewish Antichrist in Christian thought may be quite old, Bousset, with others, believed Paul had in view an Antichrist who would deceive the unbelieving Jews into thinking *’ ANF iv, 219. For the relevant texts, see Gregory C. Jenks, The Origins and Early Development of the Antichrist Myth, BZatW 59 (Berlin/New York, 1991), 103-106. © See also Catech. Lect. 1s. 18 (c. 347-48), ‘For if he comes to the Jews as Christ, and desires to be worshipped by the Jows, he will make great account of the Temple, that he may more completely beguile them; making it supposed that he is the man of the race of David, who shal build up the Temple which was erected by Solomon, And Antichrist will come at the time when there shall not be left one stone upon another in the Temple of the Jews... I mean not merely of the outer circuit, but of the inner shrine also, where the Cherubim were...". Charles Maitland, The Apostles’ School of Prophetic Interpretation with its History Doten to the Present Time (London, 1849), 230-31, quotes Jerome (Commentary on Daniel) as indicating that Antichrist will be a Jew who obtains the kingdom even over the Romans ‘by stratagem and fraud’, ‘And this he will do, under pretence of being the leader of the covenant...for no Jew besides Antichrist will have reigned over the whole world.’ Bousset, The Antichrist Legend. A Chapter in Christian and Jewish Folklore, tr. A. H. Keane (ET London, 1896), 168, cites Jerome’s comment on Dan, 11: 23, “But our [expositors} interpret both better and more correctly, that at the end of the world these things shall be done by the Antichrist, who is to spring of a “small people”, that is, from the Jewish nation’ and (172) on Dan. 11: 37 ‘But our [expositors] interpret in the above sense everything concerning the Antichrist, who is to be born of the Jewish people and to come from Babylon.” Victorinus, though he believes Antichrist will be Nero raised from hell, says God will raise him up and ‘send as a worthy king, but worthy in such a way as the Jews merited. And since he is to have another name, He shal also appoint another name, that so the Jews may receive him as if he were the Christ. Says Daniel: “He shall not know the lust of women...and he shall know no God of his fathers”; for he will not be able to seduce the people of the circumcision, unless he is a judge of the law. Finally, also, he will recall the saints, not to the worship of idols, but to undertake circumcision, and, if he is able, 10 seduce any; for he shall so conduct himself as to be called Christ by them’ (Comm, XII.3 CSEL, 49, 121 TANF vii, 358).