Äyny\^^^^?z^eiX^ (S^^ 7^::ty, i4.0i2:>cc^€H?'c/^ L^ot^i/tO: THE ANTICHEIST LEGEND THE Antichrist Legend H Cbaptec in Cbristian anö Jewisb ENGLISHED FROM THE GERMAN OF W. BOUSSET WITH A PROLOGUE ON THE BABYLONIAN DRAGON MYTH BY A. H. KEANE, F.R.G.S. Late Vice-President Anthropological Institute; Author of " Ethnology" etc. Xonöon HUTCHINSON AND CO 34, PATERNOSTER ROW 1896 » 2 62 4 8 Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury. TABLE OF CONTENTS, PAGE Author's Preface ix Prologue to the English Edition . . . . xi Key to the Eeferences to Authorities . . xxix PART I. THE SOURCES. CHAPTER I. Introduction — Methods of Interpretation— Rela- tions TO THE Babylonian Dragon Myth . . 3 CHAPTER IL Statement of the Problem 19 CHAPTER III. Pseudo-Ephrem : A Latin Homily on the End of the World — S. Ephrem : A Greek Homily on the Antichrist, and other Prophetic Writings— PSEUDO-HlPPOLYTUS *. UN THE EnD OF THE WORLD — The Pseudo-Johannine Apocalypse— S. Cyril OF Jerusalem : Fifteenth Catechesis— Philip the Solitary : Dioptra— Pseudo-Chrysostom . . 33 vi TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. PAGE Two Medieval Sibylline Documents (Bede and Usinger) — Adso on the Antichrist — Pseudo- Methodius— S. Ephrem : Syriac Homily on the Antichrist — Review of the Group of Ephremite Writings— The Common Source of Adso's Anti- christ AND OF Bede's Sibyl— S. Jerome's Apoca- lyptic Material 45 CHAPTER V. The Greek and Armenian Apocalypses of Daniel — The Arabic, Syriac, and Ethiopic Apocalypses OF Peter — The Syriac Apocalypse of Ezra . . Qß CHAPTER VI. Commodian's Carmen Apologeticum — Lactantius : Institutiones Divine, VIL x.— Relations of commodian to the work of hippolytus on the Antichrist — S. Martin of Tours : Eschatological Testament— ViCTORiNUS : Commentary on Reve- lation—The Parts of the Book of Clement, and OF THE ASCENSIO JeSAI^ REFERRING TO THE LaST Things ; Relations to 4 Ezra .... 79 CHAPTER VII. The Apocalypse of Zephaniah— Survey of other Patristic Writings bearing on the Antichrist Legend 87 CHAPTER VIII. Jewish Sources— The Sibylline Literature— The Fourth Book of Ezra and the Book of Baruch — The Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs — TABLE OF CONTENTS, vii PAGE Later Jewish Sources — The Mysteries of Simon — MiDRASH VA-YOSHA — ThE SiGNS OF THE MeSSIAH — The Book of Zorobabel — The Persian History OF Daniel— Non-Christian and Non-Jewish Sources — The Elder Edda (Völuspa)— The Bahman-Yast Parsee Apocalypse— The Arab Tradition of the Antichrist 95 PART II. HISTORY OF THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND. CHAPTER IX. Signs and Forewarnings — The Fall of the Eoman Empire before the End — Origin of the Anti- christ 121 CHAPTER X. The Jewish Origin of the Antichrist— His Name — The Devil and Antichrist — Belial — The Anti- christ figured as a Monster .... 133 CHAPTER XI. First Victories of Antichrist— Seats himself in THE Temple — Antichrist the Pseudo-Messiah of THE Jews — His Birth in the Tribe of Dan . 158 CHAPTER XII. The Wonders of the Antichrist— A Retrospective Glance — The Antichrist's Ministers . . .175 Tiü TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIII. PAGE Antichrist Kuler of the World— Drought and Famine — The Mark of Antichrist. . . .191 CHAPTER XIV. Enoch and Elias— The Flight of the Faithful . 203 CHAPTER XV. The Shortening of the Days— The Last Stress— The Deliverance — The Doom of the Antichrist 218 CHAPTER XVI. The Sign of the Son of Man — The Time of His Advent — The Destruction of the World by Fire — The Four Winds— The Sounding of the Trump — The Last Judgment 232 An Old Armenian Form of the Antichrist Saga . 253 Appendix. Greek and Latin Texts . . . ,263 Index 301 AÜTHOE'S PEEFACE T CANNOT better introduce the present treatise -'- than by a remark appended by Gutschmid to his critique of Zez schwitz' work On Roman Imperialism of German Nationality : " The whole of this apocalyptic literature, extending on the one hand from the Book of Daniel, or even from the Old Testament Prophets, and on the other from the Cymaean Sibyl, in an all but unbroken chain, down to the time of Capistrano and the capture of Constantinople by the Turks, has hitherto been strangely neglected by historians. Yet it would be difficult to mention any other manifestation of popular thought in which was at all to the same extent directly reflected the impression produced by historical events on contemporary generations, on their ideas, hopes, and fears." * I may here add that in this work I have been unable to offner more than an indis- pensable preliminary essay on the subject to which Gutschmid draws attention. I trust, however, still * Kleine Schriften, V. 505. BT 985" -37 X AUTHOR'S PREFACE, to find time and strength for a comprehensive treat- ment of the eschatology of the Christian Church. Meanwhile the sketch, such as it is, may perhaps serve to stimulate the efforts of other workers in this endlessly entangled and almost limitless field of literature, and thus promote its study and bring fresh materials to light. I may further remark that in the list of authorities referred to the editions of all quoted works are given together with an indication of the way the quotations are made. The reader is therefore requested to con- sult this list wherever the quotations may not be intelligible. WILHELM BOUSSET. Göttingen, June, 1895. PEOLOGÜE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION. ORIGIN OF THE BABYLONIAN DRAGON MYTH. "TT may be safely afifirmed that no popular myth -■- can compare with that of the Antichrist legend in general interest, widespread diflfusion, and persis- tence, from a hoar antiquity down to the present time. In the present work, which deals mainly with the early Christian and media3val aspects of the subject, no attempt is made to trace the origin of the saga much farther back than about the dawn of the new era. But the author leaves no doubt on the mind -of the reader that he regards it not merely as a pre-Christian tradition quite independent of the New Testament writings, but as prior even to the oldest of the Old Testament records themselves. From many passages it is evident that he is in xii PUOLOGXJE TO TBE ENGLISH EDITION. full accord with Gnnkel, whose canons of interpre- tation he adopts, and whose views regarding the ultimate Babylonian source of the myth he implicitly accepts, though of course not in all their details. Thus Gunkel's reference of the mystic number 666 to the "primeval monster" (p. 11) is for obvious reasons rightly rejected, and a complete reconstruction of the old Babylonian legend by the aid of S. John's Eevelation is declared to be opposed to all evidence, and consequently to be " nothing more than a piece of pure fancy work." But on the other hand it is clearly implied that the Antichrist legend is nothing less than a later anthropomorphic transformation of the Babylonian Dragon myth, which is " doubtless one of the earliest evolved by primitive man" (p. 13). And although Gunkel may have exaggerated the influence of this legend on the New Testament writers, he is none the less declared to have done a real service by following up the after-effects of the Dragon myth " to its last echoes in the New Testament " (p. 13). My own attention was first attracted to this subject by the stimulating writings of Mr. Andrew Lang, and I was struck in a special manner by the theory, now almost become an axiom amongst folklorists, that the elucidation of the widely diffused mythologies of cultured peoples is to be sought, not in later " solar myths " or in literary influences of any kind. ORIGIN OF THE BABYLONIAN DRAGON MYTH, xiii but rather in the beliefs and traditions of our rnder forefathers, of uncultured peoples, and possibly of primitive man himself. This theory, it seems to me, receives a brilliant confirmation from the early history of the legend under consideration — a legend which may without exaggeration be said to link together some of the very oldest reminiscences of struggling humanity with its aspirations for a better future (the Millennium) and its forebodings of the final consummation (the Last Judgment). At least this much may be said, that Gunkel's views regarding the evolution of the Antichrist legend from the Dragon myth have been greatly strengthened by the results of recent studies in the hitherto almost unexplored field of early Babylonian folklore. In Mr. Th. G. Pinches' Religious Ideas of the Babylonians we plainly see how the myth of Tiamat, "the Dragon of Chaos," prevalent amongst the Akkadian founders of Babylon and by them trans- mitted to the later Assyrian Semites, is the very first and oldest element in the current mythologies of those ancient peoples. At the same time this primeval dragon presents so many features in common with the dragon of Revelation, as well as of the independent Antichrist legend, that the descent of one from the other can scarcely any longer be denied. All the more readily may the identification be accepted, when such obvious connecting links are xW PBOLOGTJE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION, afforded as may be drawn from the Books of Daniel and of Enoch, and even from many passages in the prophets and other earlier biblical writings. The parallelism between dragon and serpent is too close to need discussion, while the intimate association of the Hebrew writers with their Assyrian kinsfolk is attested by such common popular names as Marduka (Mardochai),Shama'-ilu (Samuel), Ishm^-ilu (Ishmael), Mutu-sha-ili (Methusael), Gamal-ili (Gamaliel), and many others. Ninip, the deity who, according to the Tell-el- Amarna tablets, was worshipped at Jerusalem before the advent of the Israelites, seems to have been identified with many gods, amongst others with Bel mätäti, " Lord of the Lands," this, as Mr. Pinches tells us (p. 17), being one of the titles of Merodach. But Merodach himself (Amar-uduk, " Brightness of the Day") was the chief deity of the Babylonian pantheon, though not the father or the oldest of the gods. In fact he was originally only the son of fia or Ae, king of the underworld, and acquired the place of eminence by his triumph over Mummu-Tiamat, the Dragon of Chaos, who is not distinguishable from the Kirbish-Tiawat associated with the " Bel and the Dragon" myth. In the Semitic account of the creation this Tiamat or Tiawat (both words meaning the " sea ") is represented as presiding over the waste of waters in a time of disorder and con- fusion prior to the creation of Lahmu and Lahamu, ORIGIN OF THE BABYLONIAN DBA GON MYTH, xv of Anshar and Kishar, of Ann and the other gods of the heavens and the earth. Then comes a period of strife between the primordial chaos and the established order. Tiawat rises in rebellion against the gods, and arms herself (she is always represented as a female monster, the prototype of the scarlet woman of Babylon) with formidable weapons for the straggle. " I have collected un- rivalled weapons — the great serpents are hostile (they war on her side) — sharp-toothed also, and I have made them relentless. I have filled their bodies with poison like blood. I have clothed dreadful monsters with terrors — fearful things I have set up and left on high — scorpion-men, fish-men — wielding weapons, ruthless, fearless in battle," and so on, in strains that recall the descriptions of the combatants in the Old English poem of Beowulf. In the first encounters the gods are worsted ; Anu, god of the heavens, avails not ; Eä himself trembles and, in prosaic language, runs away. Then there appears to be a gathering of the gods, in which Ea's son, Merodach, boldly offers to come to the rescue. He also arms himself for the fight with formidable weapons, with spear, bow, and arrows ; he flashes lightning before him, fills his body with darting fiames ; and sets his net to catch and entangle the evil one. She cries out in her rage, utters spells and charms, but is overthrown, and Chaos being thus ended, Merodach orders the world anew, and in gratitude xvi PROLOGUE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION, for his great deeds lie is proclaimed king of the gods. And the Assyrian text goes on : As he tirelessly thwarted Kirbish-Tiawat, Let his name be Nibu^u, seizer of Kirbish-Tiawat. May he restrain the paths of the stars of heaven. Like sheep let him pasture the gods, all of them. May he imprison the sea [tiawat], may he remove and store up its treasure, For the men to come, in days advanced (i&., p. 6). But if all this goes a long way to connect the Antichrist legend with the Babylonian Dragon myth, it may still be asked with Herr Bousset, though in another and a wider sense, " Whence this whole cycle of thought ? " (p. 24) ; whence the Babylonian myth itself ? Here we are reminded by folklorists that man invents little. He borrows, modifies, recasts, freely adapts the legacies of preceding ages to the ever- shifting environment, to his own immediate surround- ings. The apocalyptic writers themselves, we are here told, do not create or invent their materials. '' They of course modify here and there ; but their function consists essentially in adaptation, not in invention — in application to the times, not in fresh creations " (pJ 6). Hence it may be infe^^ed that, as neither the Christians nor the Jews invented their dragon, but borrowed it from the Babylonians, so did the Babylonians in their turn borrow it from some still earlier source. ORIGIN OF THE BABYLONIAN DRAGON MYTH xvii But the Dragon myth was the property, not merely of the later Assyrians, but of their far more ancient Akkadian (and Sumerian) precursors, as shown by the above-given Akkadian interpretation of the name Merodach, " Brightness of the Day." Now the Akka- dians were beyond all question the first civilised inhabitants of Mesopotamia, although it need not be supposed that they entered this region already in the possession of an advanced culture. It is obvious enough that they may have themselves developed this advanced culture on the spot, as their Egyptian con- temporaries certainly did in the Nile valley. But however this be, whether the Akkadians were civilised or savage intruders in the Lower Euphrates valley, we have no knowledge of any possible earlier culture prior, for instance, to the foundation of their city of Lagash (Tell-Loh), which its discoverer, M. de Sarzec, assigns to about 4000 b.c., or, say, 6000 years ago. Thus nothing is known to stand between these presum- ably Mongolo-Turki settlers in Chaldaea and primitive man himself. Consequently their dragon, if borrowed, could only have been borrowed from the men of the Stone Ages. It is evident that these rude prehistoric peoples could not be credited with the invention of such an anthropomorphic conception as thatr here in question. Nor is it necessary to suppose that they did invent it. In my Ethnology (Part II., chap, x.) I advance grounds for believing that Pleistocene man may well have h xviii PROLOGUE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION. readied the Mesopotamian plains both from South Asia and from North Africa ; and Professor Flinders Petrie's recent explorations in Upper Egypt prove that men of the Old Stone Age were already settled in that region at a time when '^ the Nile still rolled down as a vast torrent fifty times its present volume at the latter age of palaeolithic man." What was the condition of the Euphrates and Tigris basins at that remote epoch and for long generations afterwards ? We know that there was no Shatt el- Arab in the comparatively recent Akkadian times, when the Persian Gulf penetrated much farther inland than at present, and when Lagash itself may have almost been a seaport. At that time the twin rivers entered the head of the gulf through independent channels ; and what a vast volume they rolled down during the floods may be inferred from Mr. D. G. Hogarth's description of the Euphrates, which, during the melting of the snows, is even still, in its upper reaches, " a fuller, broader Rhine, rushing six miles an hour between towering banks which had weathered to fantastic pinnacles, and displaying a hundred metres' breadth of turbid flood, boiling in mid-stream over sunken rocks " {A Wandering Scholar in the Levant). Lower down the estuaries were infested by huge crocodiles, which may well have been over thirty feet long, like their plesiosaurian and ichthyosaurian precursors. Even now the Gangetic gavial reaches twenty-five feet, and the crocodiles in many tropical ORIGIN OF THE BAB YL ONI AN BRA G ON MYTH, xix African rivers range from twenty to thirty, while a water-camoodi measured by Mr. E. im Thurn was found to be thirty feet long {Among the Indians of Guiana^ p. 133). Assuredly the chief difficulties that primitive man had to contend with on first reaching the Lower Mesopotamian plains were the turbulent streams themselves and their voracious saurian fauna. Nor can there be any doubt that the struggle with these relentless foes must have been maintained from age to age throughout the Old and New Stone epochs right into prehistoric times. Here therefore was a region of all others most likely to have given rise to popular tales of fights with monsters of the deep and with the watery element itself — fights real enough at first, but gradually assuming a fabulous character, according as the actual occurrences faded into mere memories of past contests, of heroic deeds, of dangers overcome. Then the fore- most champions engaged in these contests acquired their apotheosis in the minds of a grateful posterity, while the vanquished enemy assumed more and more the form of unearthly monsters and demons hostile to man. Such memories easily passed on from generation to generation until they acquired consistency and per- manency in the written records of the cultured Baby- lonian peoples. The interval between the dawn of Babylonian culture and the last amphibious monster slain by neolithic man cannot have been too long for the oral transmission of such reminiscences from pre- XX PROLOGUE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION. historic to historic times. And thus may the elements of the Dragon myth, without being invented, have been passed on through the Stone Ages to the first civilised inhabitants of Mesopotamia, and later by them handed on to the forefathers of the Israelites, Terah and his son Abram, who " went forth . . . from Ur of the Chaldees to go into the land of Canaan " (Gen. xi. 31). And if not to Terah and Abram, then to their descendants ; for the great extent of Baby- lonian influences throughout this region during the whole of the period from Abraham to Moses has now been fully revealed by the researches of Akkadian and Assyrian scholars.* We now begin also to understand the peculiar form assumed by the Semitic account of the creation, which is itself based on earlier Akkadian traditions. Before the dawn of Akkadian (and Sumerian) civilisation all was still chaos and disorder, the chief elements of confusion being the periodical freshets of the Euphrates and Tigris, which were caused by the melting of the snows on the Armenian and Kurdistan highlands, and which produced widespread devastation among the early settlements on the low-lying plains of Chaldaea. Then the next great difficulty that the settlers had to contend with were the saurian inhabitants of these turbulent waters ; so that there could be no peace or progress until the waters were quelled (confined within * See, amongst others, Professor A. H. Sayce, Fatriarchal Palestme, 1896. ORIGIN OF THE BAB YL ONI AN DBA G ON MYTH, xxi their banks, and diverted into irrigation canals), and until their presiding genius (the reptile or dragon, "lord of chaos") was overthrown. In these respects the Mesopotamian rivers must have assumed, in the eyes of the early Akkadian or pre-Akkadian dwellers on their banks, much the same aspect as did the Achelous and other wild torrents to the early Hellenic settlers in Greece. The Achelous, which also had its rise in a mountainous region (Pindus), and which by its recurrent floods spread havoc over the lowlands, had, like the Euphrates, to be vanquished — that is, restrained within its natural bed. Hence it was afterwards fabled to have con- tended under various forms (man, serpent, bull) with Herakles, a sort of Greek Merodach, a general re- dresser of wrongs and restorer of order throughout the Hellenic world. Here it is specially noteworthy that when Herakles breaks oif one of the bull's horns the vanquished Achelous retires to its bed, and the broken horn is presented to the goddess of Plenty, that is, becomes a cornucopia, emblem of the abun- dance that follows the subsidence of the flood-waters and their confinement to their natural channel. So in Babylonia law and order succeed chaos when the gods of heaven and earth are created — that is, when man himself becomes strong enough to contend successfully with the difficulties of his physical en- vironment. But before that time Tiawat (the sea, the Euphrates estuary) ruled supreme, and the dragon xxii PROLOGUE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION, is represented as an aquatic monster aided in the fight with Merodach by " fish-men," " scorpion-men," and such-like allies. Then in the Assyrian text Merodach himself opens his mouth, and says : " I will confine Tiawat — I will save you." Such language, hitherto misunderstood or given up as hopeless, is now clear enough. Tiawat, the waste of waters, cannot be slain; but it may be " confined " (to its proper channel), and the people seated on its margin may thus be " saved." In other words, they may be enabled to sow and reap their crops in peace, when protected by Merodach's victory from the periodical inundations, and from the attacks of the fierce dragon, the huge reptiles coming up out of the deep, the "great serpents" that are '^ hostile " and " sharp-toothed " like Machairodon, or " sabre-tooth," associated with palaeolithic man in Britain. After the combat Tiawat is represented as being divided ; one portion being made into a covering for the heavens — "the waters above the firmament" — while the other remained below — " the waters under the firmament" (Pinches, p. 4). But the meaning would rather seem to be, that henceforth the turbulent streams are brought under better control, the waters on high — that is, the flood-waters from the uplands — being regulated by irrigation works, while the others — that is, the surface waters — subside into their respective river-beds, where they are confined by dykes and embankments. Those who might suppose that this ORIGIN OF THE BABYLONIAN DRAGON MYTH, xxiii is a fancy picture should remember that such works were carried out on a vast scale by the ancient Babylonians thousands of years ago. The plains of the Lower Euphrates and Tigris, rendered desolate under Turkish misrule, are intersected by the remains of an intricate system of canalisation covering all the space between the two rivers, and are strewn with the ruins of many great cities, whose inhabitants, numbering many scores of thousands, were supported by the produce of a highly cultivated region which is now an arid waste encumbered by crumbling mounds, stagnant waters, and a few fanatical Arab tent-dwellers. The scribe who has left to posterity this fragmentary Semitic account of the creation goes on to sing the praises of the legendary hero by whom order was evolved out of chaos : " May he imprison Tiawat ; may he remove and store up its treasures for the men to come, in days advanced, . . . that his land may prosper and he himself have peace." Here again the nature of the great change brought about by Merodach is clearly indicated. Tiawat is once more " imprisoned " (confined), and its treasures are stored up (possibly an allusion to the development of trade and navigation) for the benefit of ^^ the men to come " (future genera- tions) ; the land prospers, and Merodach, now 'Hhe lord of the gods," has peace, rests after his triumph over the foes of his people. He receives another title, Zi, " Life," for he is the " life-giver," who " doeth glorious things, God of the good wind, lord of hearing xxiv PROLOGUE TO TBE ENGLISH EDITION, and obeying ; he who caiiseth glory and plenty to exist, establishing fertility." These continual references to prosperity, abundance, fertility present a most striking parallelism with the ^^ cornucopia " of the Achelous legend, although it does not follow that one is borrowed from the other. The resemblances may be equally well accounted for, whether we assume one origin, or merely analogous causes for both. Thus we see that even in many of its details all this legendary matter, saturated as it is with local colouring, carries us back to the primeval conditions under which it grew up and crystallised into later national mythologies. These conditions were here, as elsewhere, the circumstances incident to the struggle of primitive man with his physical surroundings. Thus also the weird story of the Antichrist legend is com- pleted in its three successive phases — from the new era to mediaeval times, a millennium (Bousset) ; from Babylonia to the~new era, four millenniums (Gunkel) ; from the Stone Ages to Babylonia, as here suggested, many millenniums. And still a boundless and fascinating field of inquiry is open to folklorists, who may be tempted to follow the endless ramifications of the saga throughout the rich mythologies of the Greeks, Scandinavians, Teutons, and other imaginative peoples. But before plunging into these fathomless depths of speculation they will be wise to carefully study Herr Bousset's judicious remarks on Gunkel's method of interpretation (chap, i.), ORIGIN OF THE BAB YLONIAN BRA GON MYTH, xxv and remember that in the wide range of comparative mythology " the temptation to yield to fancy flights is all but irresistible " (p. 16). And here we are forcibly reminded of the reckless way in which certain popular and unscrupulous " expositors " are accustomed to handle such extremely difficult texts as, for instance, the Books of Daniel and Revelation. We all know how the rage for expounding these texts breaks out at intervals, and especially how it has tended to assume the character of a virulent epidemic towards the close of each suc- cessive century of the Christian era. Symptoms are not wanting that as the present century approaches its end the intermittent fever will again reach its centennial crisis, and the advertisement columns of the periodical press show that prophecy-mongering about the Antichrist and " the crack of doom " is already '^ in the air." A sober, and above all a scholarly, treatment of the subject, such as is here presented to the thoughtful reader, may perhaps be found the best corrective of such disorders. These professional and not always disinterested '' latter-day saints and seers " may at least here learn that, " to understand Revelation, we need a fulness of eschatological and mythological knowledge " (p. 17), and that " no one should venture on an exposition of this book without a comprehensive knowledge of all its bearings " (p. 9). These pre- sumptuous charlatans should take warning from the xxvi PROLOGUE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION. repeated failures of their illustrious predecessors, such as Hippolytus, Irenasus, and other Fathers of the Church, all of whose predictions served only to show how rash it is, even for qualified expositors, to venture into the dangerous field of prophetic interpretation. And they will do well to bear in mind the solemn words of Origen : '' Because perhaps amongst the Jews were some persons professing to know about the Last Things either from Holy Writ or from hidden sources, therefore he [Paul] writes warning his disciples to believe no one making such professions " (p. 31). Lastly, they should clearly understand that the Antichrist legend, connected, as it undoubtedly is, with the Babylonian Dragon myth, if not also with reminiscences of primitive man himself, is far less a biblical subject than a chapter in uninspired folklore, the most persistent, the most widespread, of all popular myths. A few words will suffice to explain the plan I have adopted in preparing this English edition of Herr Bousset's book. Such changes as have been made affect the arrangement of the subject-matter only — chapters substituted for indicated sections, a clause here and there removed from the text to the notes, a note now and then transferred to the text, and above all the text disencumbered of a large number of Greek and ORIGIN OF THE BABYLONIAN DRAGON MYTH, xxvii Latin passages from the documents consulted by the author and by him left untranslated. All these will be found brought together in an Appendix at the end, their place being taken by versions as close as was compatible with English idiom. I have not, however, thought it necessary to print any of these passages more than once, or to reproduce those from the Greek and Latin Scriptures, which are easily accessible to all. By this plan the book is made more generally readable without detriment to its value for serious students, while folklorists unfamiliar with the classical languages will here find, for the first time, placed at their disposal a multiplicity of out-of-the-way texts bearing on the Antichrist legend in all its varied aspects, at least for a period of about a thousand years, from the new era far into mediaeval times. The scheme of references is explained in a note at the beginning of each chapter. Several of the Greek and Latin passages, such especially as those from the Sibylline sources, are not only designedly obscure, but are also extremely corrupt. Two or three of these have been given up as hopeless, while I have to thank Mr. Henry Chettle, Head Master of Stationers' School, for his kind assistance in the elucidation of the others. Herr Bousset, who has looked over the proofs, has also favoured me with a German version of the passage from an old Bavarian poem reproduced in English at p. 243. The figure of Bel and the Dragon on the cover has been prepared from a cast taken by xxviii PROLOGUE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION. Mr. A. P. Ready from a Babylonian cylinder in the British Museum. No complete text is anywhere given by Herr Bousset of any particular form of the Antichrist legend, such as might serve the purpose of an object- lesson in enabling the reader to understand the general character of the saga as it exists in extant documents. Through the courtesy of Mr. F. C. Conybeare I am enabled to supply this want by reproducing, at the end of the volume, an old Armenian form of the legend, a translation of which was given by Mr. Conybeare in the Academy of October 26th, 1895. A. H. KEANE. Aeam-Gah, 79, Broadhurst Gardens, N.W., March, 1896. I EXPLANATION OP THE REFERENCES TO AUTHORITIES QUOTED IN THE TEXT. Andr. : Andreas, Commentary on the Apocalypse^ Sylburg's edition. Bk. K. : Booh of S. Clement (BißXiov KXj//x6i/T0ff), ed. Lagarde, in Reliqicice JuriSj etc, 80 et seq, Cyr. : Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures (Karrjxw^t^s, 15), in Migne, Vol. XXXIII. D. A. Gr. : Greek Apocalypse of Daniel^ ed. Klostermann, Änalecta, 113 et seq. D. A. Arm. : Armenian Apocalypse of Daniel, ed. Kalemkiar, Wiener Zeitschrift, VI. 127 et seq, Eluc. : Elucidarium of Honorius of Autun, III. 10 ; Migne, Vol. CLXXII., p. 1163. Ephr. Gr. : Discourse on the Antichrist (Aoyoy ds tov ' AvtIxpio-tov), Assemani, III. 134-143 ; Prologue from W* Meyer's MSS* XXX REFERENCES TO AUTHORITIES, Ephr. Syr. : Discourse on the Consummation {Sermo de fine Extermo), Lamy, III. 187. Eter. : Eterianus Hugo, On the Return of the Souls from the Lower Regions {Liber de Regressu Animarum ab Liferis), chaps, xxiv. et seq. ; Migne, Vol. CCII., p. 168. Hild. : Hildegard, Scivias, III. 11 ; Migne, Vol. CXCVI., p. 709. Hipp. : Hippolytus, Exposition . . , on the Antichrist (^Anobei^is . . . Trepl Tov ^AvTLxpiO'Tov), ed. Lagarde, 1 et seq, J. A. : Pseudo-Johaymine Apocalypse ; Tischendorf, Apocalypses Apocryphce, Ixx. Joh. Damasc. : S. Jolin of Damascus, Exposition of the Ortho- dox Faith (''EKÖeo-i.s rrjs opdodo^ov ttiWcos), iv. 27. Lact. : Lactantius, Institutiones Divince, VII. 10 et seq.^ ed. Brandt, Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum^ Vol. XIX. Mart. : S. Martin of Tours, in Sulpicius Severus, Dialog., II. 14 ; Migne, Vol. XX. I Ethiopic, Arabic, Syriac Recension of Clement's P. A. Ar. : > Petrine Apocalypse {Petri Apostoli Apocalypsis V A Svr • ) ^^^ dementem) ; Bratke. Phil. Sol. : Philippus Solitarius, Dioptra, III. 10 et seq. ; Migne, Vol. CXXVIL Ps. Chrys. : Pseudo-Chrysostom, On the Second Coming, etc. {Els Trjv devTcpau TTapovcrlav, k. t. X.), amongst the WOrks of S. Chrysostom ; Migne, Vol. LXL, p. 776. Ps. E. : The Syriac Apocalypse of Ezra ; Baethgen. Ps. Ephr. : Pseudo-Ephrem, the Discourse preserved under the name of S. Ephrem ; Caspari, Briefe und Abhandlungen, 1890, pp. 208 et seq. REFERENCES TO AUTHORITIES. xxxi Ps. H. : Pseudo-Hippolytus, On the End of the World (Ilept t^s a-vvTekclas tov Koa-jxov) ; Lagarde, 92. Ps. M. : Pseudo-Methodius, Orthodoxograjpha (Greek 93, Latin 100 pp.). Sib. B. : The Sibylline document included in the works of the Venerable Bede ; Migne, Vol. XC, p. 1183. Sib. Us. : The Sibyl published by Usinger in his Forschungen zur Deutschen Geschichte, X. 621. Vict. : Victorinus, Commentary on Revelation ; ed. de la Bigne, Vol. I. (2nd ed., 1589). Z. A. : The Apocalypse of Zephaniah ; Stern, Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache^ 1886, 115 et seq. Note. — In the English edition most of the abbreviated forms have been extended. The same remark applies to many other forms of reference, which might be unintelligible to any but specialists. Thus Z. K. W. K. L. becomes Zeitschr.fiir Kirhliche Wissenschaft und KirJdiches Lehen (p. 84), and so on. PAET I. THE SOURCES. CHAPTER I. Inteoduction — Methods of Interpretation — Relations TO the Babylonian Dragon Myth. THE present work was originally undertaken with a view to the explantion and interpretation of some obscure passages in the Revelation of S. John. My inquiries were first turned in this direction by the remarks contained in Isolin's Comparative Study of Revelation with the Later Syriac Apocalypse at- tributed to Ezra.^ Then my attention was drawn to these remarkable literary problems by Bratke's work on the Arabo-Ethiopic Petrine Apocalypse. After reading a fellow-worker's treatise on the Apocalypse two years ago, it seemed to me highly probable that at least chap. xi. of the Johannine Apocalypse had its origin in an earlier tradition which might still be recovered. Corrodi's History of the Millennium for the first time brought under my notice the writings of S. Ephrem bearing on this subject. Then one branch after another of this astonishingly widespread literature was in due course brought to * This work, however (Theol. Zeitschrift aus der Schiveis, 1887), is known to me only by report. 8 4 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND. light, although I should have still undoubtedly over- looked some important documents but for the help repeatedly rendered to me by Professors Bonwetsch and W. Meyer. My thanks are also due to Dr. Achelis and to Dr. Rahlfs for the assistance kindly afforded by them on several points occurring in the course of my investigations. But even so I am far from claiming any finality for these researches, many documents from which light might be derived being still inaccessible to students. However, I have at least reason to believe that nothing essential has been overlooked in connection with the current of tradition on the Antichrist saga in the early Church. I would, nevertheless, here point out that the later mediaeval history of the saga has only been glanced at by me, so that here I make no kind of pretence to thoroughness. I was fain to set this limit to my work in order not to break down altogether in the attempt to elucidate the apocalyptic text. At the same time my researches have thus developed into something more than a mere aid to the interpre- tation of Revelation. The interest felt by me in the spread and influence of the Antichrist legend itself, once aroused, grew steadily stronger, and thus it came about that the work has assumed the character of a contribution to the eschatology of the early Church. Despite their entangled and fantastic nature, the records here dealt with in their literary connection possess at least a great and special charm. In this literature are simply and directly mirrored the senti- ments, the sufferings, hopes, and aspirations of the INTERPRETATION OF REVELATION. 5 masses in times ^of great political throes and con- vulsions. The generations pass before our eyes in a weird, fantastic light, for it is never to be forgotten that all these whirling and checkered thoughts at one time throbbed with life ; they excited the popular imagination more than dogmatic wranglings, and at least in media3val times they made history. Meanwhile I would indulge the hope that my efforts to unravel the apocalyptic entanglement may yield no little fruit both directly and above all indirectly. We have not yet come to an end in the interpretation of the Apocalypse. Much has doubtless been cleared up by the historical and critical methods of inquiry. But these very methods themselves have plunged us into deep complications and an almost boundless range of hypotheses. Hence fresh ground must be broken, fresh processes applied, nay, a thoroughly new method of investigation will be needed, if the subject is to be advanced beyond the phase it has now reached. But the essential point will be to form a clear conception of the method to be applied. In my studies I have not failed to notice the law of eschatological tradition apparent in a whole series of apocalyptic documents. And precisely herein lies in my opinion the indirect value of my labours for the interpretation of the Apocalypse. It is at this point that the present work comes in contact with Gunkel's Creation and Chaos {Schöpf fung und Chaos), a work which has already struck out or indicated new lines of inquiry. In fact a feeling of gratitude requires that at the very outset I should 6 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND, state how greatly I have been stimulated and en- couraged by this work, more especially as regards the method and the statement of the problem. I emphasise this point all the more willingly that, in respect of the results, I have frequently found myself in points of detail at variance with the author himself. In the present connection, however, I am concerned mainly with the second half of Gunkel's work, where in proposing an explanation of Revelation, chap, xii., he formulates the laws for the interpretation of all apocalyptic traditions bearing on the Last Days. Of these laws the most frequent and valuable in my opinion is that laid down by Gunkel at pp. 252 et seq. Here he suggests that, speaking broadly, the several apocalyptic writers do not themselves create or invent their materials, or even merely weave them together of all sorts of scattered threads. How could they else succeed in passing off their fancies for authentic holy revelations ? This could be done only by the posses- sion of an unbroken chain of traditions hallowed with age, so that these seers simply reveal the sacred lore of primeval times. They of course modify here and there ; but their function consists essentially in adapta- tion, not in invention, in application (to the times), not in fresh creations. " Such personal activity must always be taken as confined to those limits within which the belief of the writer in his own words does not become impossible " (p. 254). Naturally this limitation is somewhat vague ; one apocalyptic writer may be trusted less, another more, but the limitation exists. Gunkel's assumption is, INTERPRETATION OF REVELATION 7 in fact, confirmed by the history of the eschatological literature which I have here surveyed, and which — herein consists its advantage — lies in the clear light of history. Let it not here be objected that the later epochs of Christian apocalyptic literature should not be applied to the laying down of rules for the inter- pretation of the inspired Revelation of S. John. In the course of the present work it will be shown that the eschatological literature here dealt with still stands in a position of independence in respect of the New Testament, and more especially of the Johannine Apocalypse. From the following review of a literature spread over a thousand years the clearest evidence will also be afi'orded of the great persistence of eschatological imagery, which passes on from hand to hand with scarcely a change of form in the course of centuries. To explain this persistence of legendary eschato- logical conceptions, Gunkel advances the hypothesis of an esoteric oral tradition, and endeavours to support his assumption by 2 Thessaloniatis ii., and by passages from the Apocalypse of Ezra (pp. 265, 292). I am now in a position to bring forward proof of such a secret eschatological tradition even for the first centuries of Christianity. It has been objected to Gunkel that he does not make it sufiiciently clear how utterly unconscious the author of Revelation may have been of adopting earlier mythical and eschatological materials, how largely he dealt with unintelligible and half-under- stood eschatological traditions. Although this is 8 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND. repeatedly acknowledged by Gunkel himself, there is still some force in the objection. The contact of Revelation more particularly with the early Babylonian myths — a contact which Gnnkel has really proved — is after all frequently limited to some misunderstood borrowings. And on the strength of such contacts it was very venturesome to credit the circles amongst which the Apocalypse grew up with the further know- ledge of a coherent early Babylonian myth, of which no trace is elsewhere to be found. Yet this is what Gunkel attempts to do in his explanation of Revela- tion, chap, xii., and of the numerical riddle in chap, xiii. 18. So much may be admitted without prejudice to the accuracy of the above-mentioned law respecting the persistence of eschatological tradition. If the Book of Revelation is not to be explained, or explained only to a very small extent, by the old Babylonian myth, it may still perhaps find its interpretation in some less remote tradition. At the same time the potency of early traditions and the possibility of their being still partly understood are not to be underestimated. In fact they can hardly be overrated; in this connection centuries need scarcely be taken into account, and it must be frankly stated that no one has a right to an opinion on this subject who has not earnestly and sedulously studied the traditions of mythical and eschatological records. But even if the fullest weight be given to the objection urged against Gunkel, and if nothing more than a few scattered fragments of early Babylonian mythology can be detected in Revelation, still the INTERPRETATION OF REVELATION. 9 verified relations must be regarded as something more than mere literary ^' curiosities." They might even afford a sure means of distinguishing in the interpre- tation of this book between the material handed down by tradition and that special to the apocalyptic writer. And in such discrimination lies the whole art of sound exegesis for all apocalyptic writings. Everything depends on clearly distinguishing between the tradi- tional and what is peculiar to each document. Gunkel's work may accordingly be regarded as the starting-point of a new method of interpretation of Revelation. To the study of contemporary history and of textual criticism is superadded that of traditional history, by which both are controlled but not super- seded, as might appear from occasional passages in Gunkel's work. The method of textual criticism so much in vogue at present will certainly have to greatly modify its pretensions ; an end must once for all be put to the reckless use of the knife, and critics must henceforth refrain from laying rude hands on original documents. As is rightly urged by Gunkel, all attempts at verbal criticism must be preceded by a far more accurate knowledge of the logical connection of all available materials. A few exegetic remarks on the Johannine Apocalypse, such as every one fancies himself capable of, will no longer suffice. No one should venture on an exposition of this book without a comprehensive knowledge of all its bearings, and a satisfactory elucida- tion will assuredly for a long time exceed the powers of any individual student. Such an elucidation 10 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND. involves nothing less than a thorough grasp of its special character within the compass of an eschato- logical tradition embracing a period of nearly a thousand years. Yet I already begin to fear that Gunkel's canon may soon be so far overstrained as to cause the critical study of the text to fall into complete neglect. Hence it may here be urged that a sound method of verbal criticism will always act as a healthy counter- poise to an arbitrary treatment of mythical sources. I hope to show in the first part of this work how much may be achieved in this field even by textual criticism. The method based on a study of contemporary history will also have to confine itself within narrower limits. Against this method Gunkel advances the most diverse arguments. He protests especially against the favourite process of interpreting independ- ently isolated passages of Revelation, and points out the absolutely arbitrary character of such a course. A limitation of the contemporary historical method follows, in fact, as a matter of course from the recognition of the claims of traditional history. When we once recognise that at many points the writer is leaning on tradition, we become instinctively more guarded against explanations suggested by con- temporary events. But above all Gunkel absolutely rejects those adaptations to current history that date back to times antecedent to the apocalj^ptic writer as not in harmony with the essential character of Revelation. But, however encouraging they may be, these de- ductions require to be somewhat modified. Even INTERPRETATION OF REVELATION 11 when the apocalyptic writer takes over distinctly traditional materials, he often does so not quite purposelessly. He may, in fact, be still thinking of his own and immediately antecedent times. Thus the description of those slain under the altar (Rev. vi. 9 et seq.) is after all a mere adaptation of an older tradition. But when borrowing this incident the writer was thinking of the martyrs of his ojvn time, of those that had already suffered, and of those that were to follow. Nor is it altogether beside the question to consider and to ask to what temporal relations he is alluding. For to me Gunkel does not seem to have proved that there are no references in the Johannine Apocalypse to past times. Even the Books of Daniel, chap, vii., and of Enoch, chap. Ixxxviii., have also allusions to the period antecedent to that of the assumed writer. Why may we not therefore under- stand chap. xii. of Revelation to be a retrospective historical introduction to chap, xiii., at least in the mind of the writer who has given it the last touch ? But in any case it must be regretted that Gankel makes a decided mistake when he attempts to upset the long-standing accepted allusion to current events during the reign of Nero, supporting his contention with much straining of the text, but with little solid argument. Let it be said once for all that the refer- ence to Nero is not to be eliminated from the Revelation of S. John. It is to be feared that Gunkel's reference of the number 666 to the '^ primeval monster," * whereby he strives to put aside the allusion to Nero, 12 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND. will ere long be ranked with those apocalyptic curiosities on which he lavishes so much scorn. But so long as the allusion to Nero justly holds its ground, the interpretation of Revelation in the light of con- temporary events will also be justified. Nor will the question be in any way affected by the assurance of Gunkel and of his reviewer Edward Meyer * that this method has here proved a failure. But here again all exaggeration must be deprecated. A claim to exclusiveness is no recommendation for any new method. Gunkel claims far too much when, for instance, he chngs to the fundamental principle that the method based on historical tradition is to be applied wherever the allusion to current events is not quite clear or does not lie on the surface. A cautious inquiry will accept the results based on allusions to contemporary history when such allusions are not strained. But the caution here insisted upon has nothing in common with that hair-splitting reasoning with which Gunkel rejects the Neronic interpretation ; it is a caution which will accept all genuine inferences and results of the traditional method, but will admit moot questions wherever both principles are unconvincing, will even allow the possibility of allusions to contemporary events of which we have no knowledge — in a word, it will in many cases apply both methods concurrently. But in Gunkel's work the student has above all to be on his guard against postulates or assumptions. ■'^ In the Supplement to the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung^ December 13th, 1894. THE BABYLONIAN DB AGON MYTH. 13 To attempt, as Gunkel does, to completely reconstruct from our Revelation a now lost old Babylonian myth by patching together a few surviving shreds of some fragmentary contacts, whose connections are no longer clear, is tantamount to flying in the face of all evidence and ignoring the limits of scientific proof. Gunkel's interpretation of Revelation xii. 13 is nothing more than a piece of pure fancy work, which had better have been left undone. Many will be only too ready on this ground to shut their eyes to the real merits of a work which as a whole has certainly opened up new methods of research. In any case Gunkel has done a real service by following up in a separate treatise the after-effects of the old Babylonian Dragon myth to its last echoes in the New Testament. And even though he may have largely overrated the influence of this myth in the New Testament, he has still considerably sharpened our perception of the mythological element in Revelation. In some respects I might describe my work as a modest continuation of Gunkel's inquiry. In it proof might be advanced to show that the Antichrist legend is a later anthropomorphic transformation of the Dragon myth, and further that this myth has made itself felt in its traditional form far beyond the time of the New Testament, cropping out again and again now in one now in another feature of its old charac- teristic aspects. On the other hand, I might in a certain sense justify Gunkel's work. Of the Dragon myth scarcely anything has found its way into the 14 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND. Apocalypse beyond a few unintelligible fragments. The Apocalypse has, in fact, been to a far greater extent influenced by another eschatological tradition, which is connected with that of the Dragon, and which may still be recognised by the student. I am also in accord with the traditional method so energetically advocated by Gunkel, and with his equally vigorous contention for the persistence of eschatological tradition. But it did not fall within the scope of my work to embrace the early Babylonian period, with a view to recovering in this field the key to the understanding of Revelation. My aim has rather been to seek my material in the later Christian tradition, with a retrospective view of the New Testament period — that is, so far as such tradition maintains its independence of the New Testament itself. And my belief is that the key thus recovered works better, at least as regards the understanding of Revelation. At the same time I am quite aware that after all I have not arrived at a thorough understanding of this legendary eschatological imagery. But it may be asked. Can such an understanding ever be arrived at by any process ? Gunkel thinks he has found an explanation of the Dragon myth ; bufc this is precisely what Edward Meyer {loc. cit,) demurs to. Here, when all is said and done, everything seems uncertain. Enough will have been done if we can in a measure realise to ourselves the nature of the eschatological imagery prevalent at any given period, say, for instance, in New Testament times, and thus help to unravel THE BABYLONIAN DRAGON MYTH. 15 this almost inextricable tangle of traditional and contemporary representations, of intelligible and un- intelligible elements. But while saying this we do not of course mean to withhold our thanks for any further light that in the course of his investigations Gunkel may still throw on the subject. For me the main point was to examine the nearest available documents tending to elucidate Revelation, and nearer than the old Babylonian mythology was the early Christian eschatological tradition, which, taken as a whole, is independent of the Johannine document. It is precisely the study of the writings nearest to hand that has been often neglected by Gunkel. The remark applies especially to his comments on chap. xii. of Revelation. Another matter has to be mentioned in which I am indebted to Gunkel. All praise is due to the restraint which he has imposed upon himself in this work. It was especially in the mythological field, which he undertook to investigate, that lay the greatest temptation to indulge in wild flights into extraneous mythological systems far removed from the subject in hand. Both the Greek and Norse mythologies present numerous parallelisms, and there occur many other traces of the influence of this primeval myth, doubtless one of the earliest evolved by primitive man. Gunkel has happily avoided the danger both of the dilettanteism which here lurked close at hand and of premature judgments on the ascertained facts. The same can by no means be said of all mytho- 16 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND, logical researches. However stimulating, for instance, may be Dietrich's investigations in the history of religion, however valuable they may be in a domain where he is at home (and here are naturally included his commentaries on the Petrine Apocalypse), still his conclusions on Jewish and early Christian eschatology bear none the less the stamp of the amateur. How superior Gunkel is to this writer appears from the few pages in which he dijffers from Dietrich in his attempt to elucidate chap. xii. of Revelation. Much serious work has still to be done, many careful inquiries into special points have still to be concluded, before any decided inferences, such as those of Dietrich, can be drawn in detail on the origin of the eschatological representations regarding the destruction of the world, heaven and hell, or even on the fundamental moral concepts involved in the pictures of the last judgment. Nor in my opinion has the time yet arrived for an inquiry into the intricate mythology of the Edda, or for an attempt to discriminate between the Christian and earlier elements of this compilation, as is done by E. H. Meyer in his Völuspd. I mention this work because I have had repeated occasion to refer to it in this treatise. The colossal work of a comparative mythology will have to be done step by step, if it is to give the impression of anything more than a fantastic, amateurish experiment. The temptation to yield to fancy flights is all but irresistible, and in the little that I have brought together from outlying quarters I may have myself perhaps already trespassed too far. I SCOPE AND DIVISIONS OF THE WORK. 17 Although the labour still to be done is of a comprehensive character, its sphere of action will be extended only to extraneous works. These investi- gations do not penetrate into the essence of things, into all that lives and has real force in every religion. For the pith and marrow of all creeds lies in what is special to each, not in what one people or one faith may have borrowed from another ; it lies in the original creations of distinct personalities, not in what one generation may have handed down to another. To understand Revelation we need a fulness of eschatological and mythological knowledge ; to under- stand the Gospel all this may for the most part be dispensed with. Nevertheless this work has also to be done, and such work remains instructive in many respects. It delivers a lesson of modesty and lowliness, showing how each individual, each genera- tion of men is but a ripple in the stream of the endless life of history ; it teaches what an infinite variety of knowledge, feelings, and sentiments every age un- consciously inherits from previous ages. But it also quickens our vision — and herein lies its fullest value — for all that is original in every living belief ; it shows us indirectly whence flow the living waters of life. The present work comprises two main divisions. In the first I have endeavoured to give a survey of the extremely difficult relations of the literature bearing on the subject. In the second I have pre- sented a reconstruction of the legend, an exposition of its origin and history. In this second part I quote very fully from the various authorities dealing with 2 18 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND. the question in hand. This seemed all the more necessary that the literature under consideration is very scattered and of difficult access. The second part also often affords support to the exposition of the mutual relation of the sources to each other — an exposition which, owing to the abundance of materials, had often to be given in a very summary manner. CHAPTER IL* Statement of the Problem. A SURVEY of the eschatological parts of the New Testament, and more especially of those referring to the fearful storms and stress of the last days shortly before the general doom, gives a decided impression that we have here nothing more than the fragmentary survivals of a tradition which points at greater associations now shrouded in mystery. This character of the tradition is most pronounced in chap. xi. of the Revelation of S. John. Specially puzzling is here the sudden appearance of the beast that comes up out of the pit and kills the two witnesses (ver. 7). If we suppose that in the expression "the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit" the hand of the '^editor" of Reve- lation has been at work, still there is the reference in ver. 7 to a demoniacal power by which the two witnesses are slain. As this can by no means be separated, as Spitta would have it, from the general context, the fragment remains all the more puzzling. In any case the sudden cessation of the testimony of the witnesses after three years and a half must * For Notes ^ to ^ of this chapter, see Appendix, p. 263, 19 20 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND, still have been brought about by some hostile power. But where are we elsewhere to look for the appearance of the witnesses and of the beast? According to ver. 8, in Jerusalem. Even apart from the words '^ where also our [their] Lord was crucified," Jerusalem is unmistakably indicated both by the connection with vers. 1 and 2, and by the circum- stance that in the earthquake in which the tenth part of the city fell seven thousand men were slain (ver. 13). For the assumption that the scene takes place in Rome there is not a particle of evidence. The assertion that Jerusalem could not be called "the great city" can be shown to be groundless, while the fact that Rome is elsewhere in Revelation also called '' the great city " proves nothing for the explanation of this quite exceptional chapter. But if everything thus points to Jerusalem as the theatre of these events, then comes the question, How are we to explain the appearance in Jerusalem of the beast which is elsewhere in Revelation associated with the Roman empire, with Rome itself, or with Nero returning from the Euphrates ? Here a too hasty exposition of a single chapter of Revelation would avail nothing. For after all it is quite possible, nay, even tolerably certain, that we have in this book diverse cycles of thought lying close together. Moreover, who are the two witnesses ? Why are they here introduced at all ? Why, and against whom, do they forebode the plagues ? In what relation do they stand to the beast? Why does the beast of all others slay the witnesses ? Who ORAL TRADITIONS, 21 are the dwellers upon the earth who rejoice and make merry and send gifts one to another during the three days and a half that the witnesses lie dead ? If we are to suppose that they gathered about Jerusalem, how did they get thither ? Is it the Roman legions that are to tread Jerusalem underfoot ? But if so, how can these be spoken of as " they that dwell upon the earth " ? All these are moot points which will never be solved by discriminating the sources within chap. xi. Now let us take it as unquestioned that in this chapter the figure of the Antichrist appears in Jerusalem, that he here stands in no relation to Rome and the Roman empire, or to, the Gentiles, who, as would seem, tread Jerusalem underfoot. Then a parallel passage will at once be found in the eschato- logical section of the SecondEpistletotheThessalonians, whose authenticity I accept without however in my researches laying too much weight on this assumption. Here the very mysterious fragmentary manner of the exposition is obviously intentional. The author will not say more than he has said, but refers to his previous oral communications, giving the impression of an allusion to some esoteric teaching. In fact Paul speaks of a mystery in the words — ^^ Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things ? And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work : only he who now letteth will let^ until he be taken out of the way" (chap, ii., vers. 5-7). We read of '' the man of sin," a '' son 22 THE ANTlCnniST LEGEND. of perdition," who is yet to come. This figure also of the Antichrist appears in Jerusalem ; he sitteth in the Temple of God, and proclaims himself God. His advent will be ^^ after the working of Satan " ; he will work " signs and lying wonders," and will beguile them that perish '^with all deceivableness of un- righteousness." Here therefore we have also an Antichrist who has nothing whatever to do with the Roman empire. For the passage is not applicable even to Caligula and his whim to have his statue set up in the Temple of Jerusalem. By such an interpretation we should miss the most essential point — that is to say, the threatened profanation of the Temple by foreign armies. Here we have nothing but signs and wonders and deceits, and it is characteristic of the passage that it contains an altogether unpolitical eschatology— an Antichrist who appears as a false Messiah in Jerusalem and works signs and wonders. And when Paul says that this man of sin will lead astray those destined to perish because "they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved" (ver. 10), it is quite evident that he is thinking of the Jews, to whom a false Messiah will be sent because they have rejected the true Messiah. But whence does Paul know all this, and who is the one that " letteth,'' who has to be " taken out of the way " before the coming of the Antichrist ? I turn to a third allied passage, the section of the Lord's discourse in Matthew xxiv. and Mark xiii. on the Second Coming, and I assume, with many recent OBAL TRADITIONS, 23 expositors, that the distinctly apocalyptic part is a fragment of foreign origin introduced amid genuine utterances of the Lord. It is also evident that com- pared with that of Mark the text of Matthew is the original. Here we have again the same phenomenon of short mysterious forebodings. The writer speaks of the '' abomination of desolation " in the holy place, followed by the flight of the faithful (one scarcely knows from what) ; of a shortening of the days (we know not what days, or whether any definite period of time is meant) ; of the " sign of the Son of man," which still remains a puzzle, although treated lightly by most expositors. In any case the view is steadily gaining ground that the allusion to the siege of Jerusalem and the flight of the Christians to Pella is an expla- nation introduced as an after-thought into Revelation. Yet one is reluctant to understand the passage except in association with the time of the emperor Caligula. How then is to be explained the flight after the pollution of the Temple ? Was the writer one of the advocates of peace, who wished to dissuade his fellow-countrymen from taking to arms ? But if so, he might have spoken in plainer language. A life-and-death struggle would after all seem probably to have taken place before the setting up of the emperor's statue. The simplest way out of the difficulty will be to apply 2 Thessalonians to the explanation of Matthew xxiv. Then the profanation will be the Antichrist who takes his seat in the Temple of Jerusalem, and the flight will be that of the faithful from Antichrist and his persecution. 24 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND. But then the question will again arise, Whence this whole cycle of thought ? What was the source of this conception of the Antichrist in the Temple of Jerusalem ? Do the last verses of Revelation ii., 2 Thessalonians ii., and Matthew xxiv. all belong to the same legendary matter, and will it be possible again to bring the scattered fragments together ? Apart from the New Testament, are there any sources still at all available calculated to afford fresh information on this common tradition ? We can now say that there is, in fact, still extant a superabundance of such material. When we pass on to the eschatological commentaries of the Fathers on Daniel, Revelation, 2 Thessalonians ii., Matthew xxiv., etc., we everywhere observe the same phenomenon, a multiplicity of details, causing us to ask in amazement, How does it happen that these expositors of the Old and New Testament writings are all alike so full of those wonderful and fantastic representations which occur precisely in this particular domain ? Even beneath the most arbitrary exegetic fancies and allegorical explanations we may still per- ceive how this came about. But in this field of research there is opened up a world of fresh eschato- logical imagery, for which scarcely any support is sought in the Bible, at least beyond mere suggestions. Yet these very suggestions or assertions everywhere crop out with surprising persistence, so that when the matter is more closely examined we begin to detect order, consistency, and system in what we had regarded as a mere congeries of marvellous fancies. Doubtless explanations of a chapter in eschatology HIPPOLYTUS ON THE ANTICHRIST. 25 are not to be sought in the apostolic Fathers or in the apologists. But with Iren tens the above-mentioned statements already begin to be more clearly formulated and supported by a series of instances. I prefer, however, to illustrate the point from Hippolytus' treatise On the Antichrist^ reserving for the next section a general survey of the whole material. In chap. vi. Hippolytus sets forth the following con- trasts : '^ A lion is Christ, and a lion is the Antichrist ; King is Christ, and king is the Antichrist. ... In the circumcision came the Redeemer into the world, and in like manner will the other come ; the Lord sent apostles unto all nations, and in the same way will the other send false apostles ; the Saviour gathered the scattered sheep, and in like manner will the other gather the scattered people. The Lord gave a seal to those that believed in Him, and a seal will the other likewise give; in the form of a man appeared the Saviour, and in the form of a man will the other also come ; the Lord stood up and exhibited His holy body as a temple, and the other will also set up the temple of stone in Jerusalem." Whence did Hippolytus get all these data concern- ing the Antichrist? In any case it cannot be said that from the figure of Christ the several features in the figure of the Antichrist were inferred by the law of contrasts ; it would seem rather that the case was here and there reversed ; compare, for instance, the last antithesis, and that other further back, '' The Lord gave a seal to those that believed in Him." In what follows a biblical passage is quoted only for the first 26 TBE ANTICHRIST LEGEND. statement — the Christ, like the Antichrist, was called a lion. Then comes a proof (chap, xv.) that the Anti- christ will spring from the tribe of Dan, on the strength of Genesis xlix. 16, 17 and Jeremiah viii. 16. This last notion, so surprisingly widespread amongst the Fathers, seems, however, to have had its origin in those passages of Scripture, though we cannot yet say when it arose. But before any one thought of applying those passages to the Antichrist, the idea must have already prevailed that the Antichrist would spring from the people of Israel. This idea is also shared by Hippolytus, and thus is obtained another very important factor in the problem. For Hippolytus, the Eoman empire is not the kingdom of the Antichrist, which is all the more remarkable that the Johannine Apocalypse distinctly indicates the Roman empire as the last great foe before the end of the world. Nor could Hippolytus be personally at all opposed to such an assumption, considering the judg- ment he himself pronounces on the Roman empire at the end of chap, xxxiv. He so far agrees with chap, xiii. of Revelation that he certainly understood the allusion in the first part of the chapter to point at the Roman empire ; but then for him the Antichrist is the second beast with the two horns, who will establish his sway after the fall of the Roman empire. By such an exposition we may gather what violence Hippolytus does to the text of Revelation (see chap, xlix.) ; nor did his exegesis on this point find much approval in after-times. Yet none the less is the conception itself a commonplace for nearly all the mPPOLYTUS OJSt THE ANTICHRIST, 27 Fathers, beginning with Irenaeus. They hold, not that the Roman empire is the Antichrist, but that the Antichrist will appear after its fall. The Roman empire is the power referred to as ^'he who now letteth " in 2 Thessalonians ii. 7. In this application the Antichrist saga has made its way into history, and in fact has acquired a historic mission. Bearing this in view, it becomes extremely remark- able that, despite the after-effect of Revelation, the assumption of the Jewish origin of the Antichrist should acquire such general acceptance as to be so unanimously applied to the solution of the really puzzling passage in 2 Thessalonians. How short-lived, on the other hand, was the notion that the relations in Revelation had reference to Nero, and how infinitely varied and manifold are the interpretations of the passage in question ! Here we are again confronted with the puzzling- assumption of a Jewish Antichrist who appears in Jeru- salem. Hippolytus, like Ireneeus, shows (chap, xliii.) that the two witnesses (Rev. xi.) will be Elias and Enoch. He has of course little difficalty in quoting- Scripture for the return of Elias ; but he nowhere tells us how he discovered that Enoch was to be the asso- ciate of Elias. This assumption also that Elias and Enoch are the two witnesses is so prevalent in patristic traditional lore that scarcely any other names are mentioned. How is the firm belief in this tradition to be ex- plained? In support of his theory, Hippolytas in one place actually quotes as an inspired authority a 28 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND. document absolutely unknown to us (chap, xv.) : " And another prophet says : lie [the Antichrist] will gather all his power from the rising to the setting of the sun. Those whom he has called and whom he has not called will go with him. He will make white the sea with the sails of his ships, and the plain black with the shields of his hosts. And whoso will war with him shall fall by the sword." This passage he repeats in chap, liv., and in this and the following chapter he brings together specially remarkable statements regarding the Antichrist, statements the evidence for which we vainly seek in the Old or the New Testa- ment. We may assuredly regard as unconvincing the occurrence of the curious combination from Daniel vii. and xi., implying that on his first appearance the Antichrist will overcome the kings of Egypt, of Libya, and Ethiopia, a combination with which again is connected the interpretation of Revelation xvii. In these details, however, Hippolytus is dependent on Iren sens. It is again still more difficult to understand how Hippolytus knows that the Antichrist's next exploit will be the destruction of Tyre and Berytus (Beyriit). But so much will suffice to show that in his treatise on the Antichrist Hippolytus is dependent on a tradition which no doubt has something in common with many eschatological parts of the Old and New Testaments, but which none the less stands out quite distinctly as an independent concrete tradition. In fact he may well have borrowed the legend from some document already quoted by him as '' a prophet." VICTOBTNUS ON JREVELATION XIT, 29 As a second case in point I may appeal to the Commentary of Victorinus. On the foreboding of the famine imder the third seal this writer observes : '^ But properly speaking the passage has reference to the times of the Antichrist, when a great famine will prevail." The flight of the woman in the second half of Eevelation xii. he refers to the flight of the 144^000, who are supposed to have received the faith through the preaching of Elias^ supporting his inter- pretation with Luke xxi. 21. The water which the Dragon casts out of his mouth after the woman is taken to mean that the Antichrist sends out a host to persecute her, while the earth opening her mouth signifies the woman's miraculous deliverance from the host by the Lord. Although holding fast to the Neronic interpretation, Victorinus connects it in a remarkable way with another. Nero will appear under another name as the Antichrist, and then he continues (chap, xiii.) : " He will lust after no women, and acknowledge no God of his fathers. For he will be unable to beguile the people of the circumcision, unless he appears as the champion of the law. Nor will he summon the saints to the worship of idols, but only to accept circumcision, should he succeed in leading any astray. Lastly, he will so act that he will be called Christ by them. The false prophet (Rev. xiii. 11 et seq,) will contrive to have a golden statue set up to him in the Temple of Jerusalem. The raising of the dead to life is mentioned among the wonders wrought by this false prophet." 30 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND, Eevelation xiii. 2 is explained as indicating the captains or leaders of the Antichrist, who are over- taken by the wrath of God in xiv. 20. Here again we see what a wealth of special traditions is revealed by such interpretations. And again we stand before the figure of the Jewish Antichrist, which is here rarely interwoven with the other figure of Nero redivivus. But to avoid going twice over the same ground, I will break off at this point. Both examples sufficiently bear out the argument as above stated, and it will be enough here to assure the reader that the demonstra- tion might still be carried to a great length. Mean- while I would draw attention to a few considerations. The farther we advance into the centuries, the richer and the more fruitful become the sources. At the same time it is by no means to be supposed that the later documents merely introduce farther embellishments into the still extant earlier materials. On the contrary, it is precisely from them that we obtain much supplementary matter needed to fill up the gaps and omissions in the earlier and more frag- mentary documents. How is this to be explained ? As seems to me the explanation lies in the fact that in many cases the eschatological revelations have been passed on, not in written records, but in oral tradition, as an esoteric doctrine handled with fear and trembling. Hence it is that not till later times does the tradition come to light in all its abundance. We may learn from Hippolytus (chap, xxix.) what in his time was thought of traditional lore ; '' This, THE ESOTEBIC TEACHINGS. 31 beloved J I communicate to thee with fear. . . . For if the blessed prophets before us, although they knew it, were unwilling openly to proclaim it in order not to prepare any perplexity for the souls of men, but imparted it secretly in parables and enigmas, saying ^ whoso readeth let him understand,' how much more danger do we run if we openly utter what was couched by them in covert language ! " With this may be compared 8ibyll,, X. 290 : '^But not all know this, for not all things are for all." ^ It is very significant that Sulpicius Severus (Hist,, II. 14) wrote down the Antichrist legend from an oral de- liverance of S. Martin of Tours. Hence the secret teaching concerning the Antichrist was still in the time of S. Martin passed on from mouth to mouth. An interesting passage also occurs in Origen on 2 Thessa- lonians ii. 1 et seq, : " Because perhaps amongst the Jews were certain persons professing to know about the Last Things either from Scripture or from hidden sources, therefore he writes this, teaching his disciples that they may believe no one making such professions " ^ (in Matthceum Gomm., IV. 329).* In Commodian's Carmen Apologeticum there also occurs the line : " About which, however, I submit a few hidden things of which I have read."^ In the following chapters I give a survey of the sources here consulted. Besides the Fathers, the later and latest Christian Apocalypses come naturally under * For this passage I am indebted to Bonnemann, Kommentar zu den Thess, -Brief en. 32 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND, consideration. But of course mucli of this material is still inaccessible, and the Syriac, Coptic, and Slavic manuscripts will yet yield rich fruits. As, however, the tradition of the Antichrist legend is extremely persistent, the still missing documents will change but little in the general character of the tradition. 1 CHAPTER III.* Pseudo-Ephrem : A Latin Homily on the End of the World— S. Ephrem : A Greek Homily on the Anti- christ, AND OTHER PROPHETIC WRITINGS — PSEUDO- HippoLYTUs : On the End of the World — The PSEUDO-JOHANNINE ApOCALYPSE — S. CyRIL OF JERU- SALEM : Fifteenth Catechesis— Philip the Solitary : Dioptra — Pseudo-Chrysostom. THE first group of documents bearing on the subject is connected with, that highly interesting Apocalypse which was published in 1890 by Caspari.f From chap. i. to iv. the treatise has rather the character of a sermon, after which in chap. v. the Apocalypse is related in the usual way in a simple, quiet flow of speech. In the very first chapter a clue * For Notes ^ to ^^ of this chapter, see Appendix, p. 263. t Briefe^ Abhandlungen^ etc., pp. 208 et seq. (Text), pp. 429 et seq, (Abhandlung). The document is contained in the Codex Barberinus^ XIV. 44, ssec. viii., under the title : " Dicta sancti Effrem de fine mundi et consummatio sseculi et conturbatio gentium " ; that is, " The Utterances of S. Ephrem about the End of the World, and the Consummation of the Universe, and the Tribulation of the Nations." It occurs also in a codex of S. Gall, 108, 4% ssec. viii., under the title : " Incipit sermo sancti Ysidori define mundi '\; that is, '' Here begins the Discourse of S, Isidore on the End of the World." 33 3 34 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND. to its dates is afforded in the following sentences : '' And amid all these things are the wars of the Persians — in those days will two brothers come to the Roman kingdom, and with one mind they stand forward (?) ; but because one precedes the other, schism will arise between them." ^ Caspari has brought proof to show that these allusions indicate the time of the emperors Valentinian and Valens, the first of whom was raised to the purple in 364, and the second soon after chosen by his brother to share the throne with him. " Schism will arise between them " is referred by Caspari to the division of the empire, which took place soon after. The question might nevertheless be asked, whether with these words the apocalyptic writer does not forebode some dissension foreseen by him, but which has not yet come to pass, whence the future tense '' will arise." This would also agree better with the words " because one precedes the other." Caspari, however, is right in supposing the passage was not written before the close of Valentinian's reign, or about the year 373 when the war with the Persians broke out again. At the same time he raises serious doubts against the inference that the treatise was written about 373. For in that case we should have to assume that the writer had projected his own time into the future, after the manner of the Sibylline utterances. But as this Sibylline method is not elsewhere to be detected in the whole treatise, he thinks it more probable that the writer has quite clumsily interwoven some extraneous (Sibylline) matter into the text. If so, we should have nothing but the age of the extant PSEUBO-EPIIREM— APOCALYPTIC HOMILY, 35 manuscripts to help us in determining the age of the work. But all these assumptions of Caspari are groundless. A mere cursory perusal of the document makes it tolerably clear that the author simply reproduces not a contemporary but an early prophecy regarding the Antichrist, merely superadding a short historical and exhortative introduction. This view will be confirmed by the comparative study of the sources appended below. The author speaks in his own person only in the first chapter, where he partly brings the ensuing revelation into connection with current events, partly introduces it with commonplace exhortations. Thus we see that the first chapter alone is available for determining the period. Nor is it easy to imagine that a writer living centuries later would have accepted such a distinct earlier prophecy had he not seen its fulfilment in his own days. In this Apocalypse on the Antichrist we have accordingly a document com- posed about the year 373. Caspari then proceeds to discuss with much acumen the relation of the foregoing Apocalypse to the writings of S. Ephrem.^^ Unfortunately he has neglected to clear the ground respecting the tradition of the * For the present I assume the genuine character of the Greek homilies here in question ; nor do I know any reasons against their ascription to S. Ephrem. In any case the whole of this literature is closely associated with the name of Ephrem. Compare, for instance, the Syriac homily on the Antichrist, which will be dealt with farther on, and which has also been banded down under the same name. 36 TBE ANTICHRIST LEGEND. Ephremite writings under consideration, despite the incredibly careless way that Ephrem has been edited by Assemani. The extant manuscripts have been simply printed off without any attempt at sifting, although from the first a heterogeneous mass of homilies had acquired currency under the name of Ephrem. No doubt some of these formed originally a connected group ; but they were for the most part bundled together in the manuscript collections in the most diverse ways. Thus four distinct documents, a, 5, ^, a) tovs dyyeXovs fxov wpos cr€ KOL TTOLTjo-ü) (T€ eXdclv TTpos /i6 (" I wlll Send my angels to thee and cause thee to come unto me"). ANTICHBIST AND THE DRAGON MYTH. 151 demon, and fashioning portents and wonders unto deception." ^^ So also in the Apocalypse of Ezra (p. 29) we have concerning the Antichrist : '' And he becomes a child and an old man, and no one believeth in him that he is my beloved son." ^^ Similarly in the Apocalypse of Zephaniah (123) in the sight of the onlookers he transforms himself, growing at one time young at another aged. Here is clearly seen how both cycles of legends come in contact. In early Christian (New Testament) times the Antichrist saga had already acquired a political tendency with reference to Nero. When the figure of this ruler, returning with the Parthians after the lapse of a generation, had gradually been distorted to a demoniac and spectral being, the elements of the primeval Dragon myth also found their way into this picture of Nero returning from the lower regions. Cases in point are presented in superabundance by the Sibyls, Thus V. 214 : Weep thou also, Corinth, for the dire undoing of thee ; For when with their twisted threads the three sister Fates, Having ensnared him fleeing by the Isthmian oracle, Shall raise him on high, then let all look to it.^^ In VIII. 88 the figure of the Dragon stands out clearly : The fiery -eyed Dragon when he cometh on the waves With full belly, and shall oppress the children of thee, Famine also pending and fratricidal strife, Then is nigh the end of the world and the last day.^^ 152 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND. And again, VIII. 154 : From the Asian land [he shall come] mounted on the Trojan chariot, With the python's (?) fury ; but when the isthmus he shall cross, Changing from sea to sea in eager search of all, Then shall he encounter the great beast of black blood .^^ And V. 28 : And whoso hath fifty horns (?) received, lord shall he be, A dire serpent begetting heavy war. 32 : And the height 'tween two seas shall he sever and with gore befoul, And unseen shall be the pernicious one ; [but] again shall he return. Holding himself equal to God, and shall contend that He is not.^^ Here is lastly to be mentioned yet another reference in Ephr. Syr., 7,* where the Antichrist comes from a place which is translated by Lamy " perdition," but which probably means from the lower world, that is, the Hebrew Abaddon.] Although in Eevelation this is a personal name, it is translated in the Old Testa- ment by the Syriac term in question. Andreas, who in his Commentary points to many coincidences with Ephrem, remarks on Revelation xi. 7 : " The Antichrist coming out of the dark and THE FIGURE OF BELIAL. 153 deep recesses of the ground, to which the devil had been condemned."*^ Here might again be compared the Abaddon of Revelation ix. 11, and the expression " son of perdition " in 2 Thessalonians ii. 3. Note on Belial, As above remarked, Paul was already acquainted with this name as that of the Antichrist (2 Cor. ii. 3), and the Greek expression " man of sin " (properly '' man of lawlessness ") is probably a trans- lation of the Hebrew Belt- air We thus come upon firm Jewish traditional ground. Who then is Belial ? The best explanation occurs in Ascensio JesaicBj IV. 2 : '' . . . And after the consummation the angel Berial shall descend, the great king of this world, over which he ruleth since it existeth, and he shall descend from his firmament [in the form of man, king of wickedness, matricide ... he is king of this world]. . . . This angel Berial [in the form of this estate] shall come, and with him shall come all the powers of this world, and they shall hearken unto him in all things as he shall will."^^ It may be, and indeed is probable enough, that the reference to Nero (see the clauses in square brackets) is not here made for the first time. Still we clearly see that originally Belial had naught to do with Nero, but is an evil angel, who is called the ruler of this world, who has his abode in cloudland, and to whom 154 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND. are subject other angels, the '' powers of this world." Of this Belial it is announced that he is to set up his dominion at the end of the world. In equally plain language Belial is also described as the ruler of the last time in Sibyl III. 63 et seq,y where he is brought into relation with Nero : " And from the Sebastenes shall come Beliar." Although this reference is lacking in Sibyl II. 167, Belial is also in the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs an evil spirit, apparently the devil or Satan himself, and here also we read of the " spirits of Beliar." ^^ Likewise in the Testament of Daniel, Belial is spoken of as the foe of the last days ; as in chap, v., where it is said of the Messiah that " He shall make war against Beliar, and the vengeance of victory shall He grant for our translation [to heaven]."*^ Some of the following passages also have perhaps been modified in a Christian sense. Thus, while Codex R reads "in the kingdom of Jerusalem," all the others have " in the new Jerusalem." Some light may now be shed on a passage in the Ascensio Jesaice^ VII. 9 : " And we ascend into the firmament, I and he, and there I beheld Sammael and his powers, and a great battle was there and Satanic speeches, and one was wrangling with another ; . . . and I asked the angel : What is this strife ? And he said to me : So is it since this world existeth until now, and this contest [abideth] until He shall come whom thou art to behold, and He shall destroy it [the world]." ^^ It is not clear in what relation Sammael stands to Belial, and possibly Sammael was not originally in the THE FIGURE OF BELIAL, 155 text at all.* But in any case here also we read of an evil spirit whose domain is the sky Q' firmament "), and who in the last days is to be vanquished. How is the figure of Belial himself to be explained ? Whatever view be taken, it is a figure which from its name and tradition must have originated on Jewish ground, and in it we have seemingly to recognise a first phase of the Antichrist legend. The Dragon who revolts against God is here metamorphosed to a wicked angel who becomes the ruler of the aßthereal regions and prince of this world. Thus is accom- plished the first step in the migrations of the Baby- lonian mythology. As seen, Paul is already familiar with the figure of Belial as the opponent of the Messiah in the last days. But what can Christ and Belial have in common ? But with Paul Belial has already ceased to be an angel or a demon, and becomes '^ the man of lawlessness." This determination is of unusual importance. Even allowing that the notion of the Antichrist seated in * The Latin text (Dillmann, 77) varies greatly ; but the Etliiopic version is confirmed by the Latin fragment, p. 85. Still there remains the possibility that the original reading has been preserved by the Latin text I., as compared with the two other documents. This text knows absolutely nothing of Sammael, while in the recension represented by the Ethiopic and Latin II. Sammael and Belial are brought into artistic relation one with the other. Thus p. 84 (III. 13) : ^' Fuit enim Beliac bilem habens in Esaiam propter quod in se ostenderit Samael " (" For Beliac was enraged against Isaiah for that he held up Samael against him ")• 156 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND, the Temple originated with Christianity in opposition to the Jews, nevertheless it has its roots in Judaism, that is, in the distinctly Jewish expectation of the revolt of the aerial spirit, Belial, and this again in the Babylonian Dragon myth. The Antichrist in the Character of a Monster. In this connection it may further be mentioned that a description of the Antichrist as of a hnman monster is found widely diffused. Such a variant of the Antichrist occurs in the Apocalypse of Ezra, where we read (Tischendorf, Apocalypses Apocryphce^ xxix.) : " The form of the face of him as of a field ; his right eye as the morning star, and the other one that quaileth not ; his mouth one cubit ; his teeth of one span ; his fingers like unto sickles, the imprint of his feet two spans, and on his brow the inscription Antichrist." ^^ So also in some manuscripts of the pseudo- Johannine Apocalypse, chap. vii. Moreover, we have in the Armenian Apocalypse of Daniel (239, 11) a diff'erent description couched in similar language, as also in the Book of Clement, with which compare the part extant in Latin. Then the same fanciful description reappears in the accounts of Armillus occurring in the late Jewish apocalypses. So also in the Apocalypse of Elias, where, however, no reference yet occurs to Armillus, though, strange to say, appeal is made to a Vision of Daniel. In the Midrash va-Yosha (Wünsche, 119) we read: "He i ANTICHRIST AS A HUMAN MONSTER. 157 shall be bald-headed, with a small and a large eye ; his right arm shall be a span long, but his left two and a half ells ; on his brow shall be a scab, his right ear stopped, but the other open." Similar accounts may be seen in the Mysteries of Simon ben Yokhai, in the Book of Zorobabel, in the Signs of the Messiah, and in the Persian History of Daniel.* It is very noteworthy that a description clothed with this distinctly Jewish tradition occurs also in the Apocalypse of Zephaniah, p. 125. Such a coinci- dence points at the original Jewish character of the work. With this compare also the extravagant description of the personal appearance of Judas Iscariot in the fragment of Papias.f About its source there can no longer be any doubt. * Cf. also Quoestiones ad Antiochum, 109 (Migne, XXVIII.) : Kai, (rrjixelov tl iif rrj xeipi rfj fxia kol ev r« 6cj)dakfX(Z reo eVt KeKTrjraL (" And he hath received a certain sign in one hand and in one eye"). t Patres Apost^ I. 94. Cf. also the comparison drawn in pseudo-Methodius, p. 99, between Antichrist and Judas. CHAPTER XI.* First Victories of Antichrist—Seats himself in the Temple— Antichrist the Pseudo-Messiah of the Jews — His Birth in the Tribe of Dan. FROM a collation of Daniel xi. 43 with vii. 8 there arises the notion that at the outset of his career Antichrist will vanquish the kings of Egypt, Libya, and Ethiopia — that is to say, three of the ten last kings of the Roman empire. This Rabbinical interpretation seems to be utilised in the Anti- christ legend, and the tradition is already known to Iren^us (V. 26, 1) and to Hippolytus (li. 27, 7).t These writers apply it even to the interpretation of Revelation, striving in direct opposition to the text to connect the seven heads and the ten horns of the beast in such a way as to assume that both images represent the Roman kings of the last days, of whom Antichrist kills three and subdues the remaining seven. * For Notes ^ to ^^ of this chapter, see Appendix, p. 276. t Cf. also Jerome on Daniel xi. 43, and many other ex- positors of Kevelation and of Daniel, all writing under the influence of Jerome. 158 FIRST VICTORIES OF ANTICHRIST, 159 In Ephr. Gr. we find the same fancy interwoven with the Antichrist saga. III. 138 D : And forthwith is set up — his kingdom, And in his wrath shall he smite — three great kings.^ This trait belongs so essentially to the substance of the legend, that Commodian, in accordance with contemporary historical precedents, associates two CaBsars with his Nero, precursor of the Antichrist, the object being to enable the Antichrist to triumph over three kings (911 et seq.) : And to oppose him shall three Caesars go forth ; Whom having slain he gives as food to the birds.^ Hence nothing could be more absurd than to attempt to explain this passage of Commodian by reference to historical events. Here we have, in fact, nothing but an eschatological picture. A further parallel is presented by Sibyl V. 222 : And first having by a mighty stroke from the roots Three heads severed, he will give them to be scattered amongst others. So that they may eat the royal polluted flesh of their fathers ! The persistency with which this eschatological fancy was propagated, despite the silence of Revelation on the subject, again shows that the following age was influenced not by this work, but by our eschatological tradition. For the notion derived from Daniel xi. 41 of an alliance between Antichrist, Moab, and Ammon, see 160 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND. Hippolytus (li. 27, 1), Greek Ephrem (III. 138 C), and pseudo-Ephrem (chap. vii.). It is, however, possible that this element, suggested by an exposition of Daniel, may not have found its way into the tradition till later times. As already seen, the Antichrist Apocalypse holds on the whole a position independent of Daniel. But of course this does not exclude the idea that in some respects it may have been developed under the influence of that work. Considering its manifold points of contact with Daniel in certain details, fresh significance is added to the remarks above made (p. 71) in reference to the early existence of an apocryphal Apocalypse of Daniel — the Little Daniel, the History of Daniel, the Last Visions of Daniel. After triumphing over those three kings, the Anti- christ is to take his seat in the Temple of Jerusalem. This characteristic belief, already mentioned in 2 Thessalonians ii. 3, prevailed to an extraordinary extent, and is very frequently referred to by Irenseus, as in V. 30, 4 : " But when this Antichrist shall have wasted everything in this world, ... he shall seat himself in the Temple " ; and in V. 25, 1 : " And [shall] indeed depose the idols, that he may persuade [the people] that he is himself God, setting himself up as the one idol."^ So also Hippolytus, Hi. 27, 12 (liii. 27, 19) : "He shall begin to be exalted in his heart, and rise up against God, holding sway over the whole world."* The Sibyl XIL (x.) : "Making himself God's equal, he shall argue that He is not." ^ ANTICHRIST IN THE TEMPLE. 161 Psendo-Ephrem : " And entering that [Temple] he shall seat himself as God, and command all nations to worship him." ^ And the pseudo-Johannine Apoca- lypse, 6, Cod. E : " And him he represents as God, and shall set up the place of him on the place of Calvary (?)." ' It is remarkable that the incident occnrs neither in the Greek Ephrem nor in pseudo-Hippolytus, while but a very slight allusion is made to it in Philip the Solitary. On the other hand, it is still mentioned by Hilarius commenting on Matthew xv. ; by the Syriac Ephrem, 8 ; by pseudo-Methodius, 99 ; John of Damascus ; Jerome (on Daniel vii. 25 ; xi. 30, etc.) ; by Adso and Bede's Sibyl. A special variant, also dating somewhat far back, occurs in the Ascensio Jesaice^ IV. 6 : " And he shall say, I am God, the excellent and greatest, and before me was no one." IV. 11 : " And his image shall be set up before his face in all the cities."^ In Victorinus on Revelation xiii. 15: "He shall also cause a golden statue to be set up to the Anti- christ in the Temple of Jerusalem, that a fleeing [fallen ?] angel may enter and thence emit voices and oracles." ^ In the Ethiopic Apocalypse of Peter: "And his statue shall stand in the churches and before all in Jerusalem, the holy city of the great king." Can these variants in the tradition date perhaps from the time of Caligula, seeing that a tendency has also been shown to explain 2 Thessalonians ii. 11 162 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND. and Revelation xiii. by the events of the same period ? But if the Antichrist is to be seated in the Temple of Jerusalem, then the Temple mnst exist, and must consequently be re-erected after the destruction of Jerusalem. Hence this incident in the tradition is also of very early occurrence, although of course forming no part of its original substance. Thus Hippolytus, c. 6, 5, 11 : " The Saviour raised up and manifested His holy body as a temple ; in the same way he also [the Antichrist] shall raise up the temple of stone in Jerusalem." ^^ GreekEphrem, III. 138C : Whence also as preferring — the place and the temple To all those he displays — his exercise (?) of foreknowledge.^^ Cyril, XV. 15 : " In order the more to deceive them [the Jews] he builds for himself the Temple in great haste, giving out that he is of the race of David." ^^ The Greek Apocalypse of Daniel : " And the Jews he shall exalt, and dwell in the Temple that had been razed to the ground." ^^ Andreas, xlv. 42 : " And be seated in the Temple ... to be erected by him as expected by the Jews contending with God." ^* Adso, 1293 C: '^The ruined Temple also, which Solomon [had] raised to God, he shall [re] -build and restore to its [former] state." ^^ Haymo on 2 Thessalonians ii. 4 : " And they shall rebuild the Temple that the Romans had destroyed, and he shall seat himself therein." ^^ ANTICHRIST REBUILDS TBE TEMPLE. 163 Elucidarium : " Antichrist shall rebuild the old Jerusalem^ in which he shall order himself to be worshipped as God." ^^ Lastly, in Lactantius, VII. 16, 639, 7, or rather in his Jewish source, we have a most remarkable variant : "Then shall he strive to raise the Temple of God, and the righteous people shall he oppress." ^^ Com- modian, from whom something similar might be expected, has no reference at all to this incident. But the last-quoted passage gives rise to some re- flections. Is not the notion of a ruler hostile to and contending with God, a ruler arising amid the Jews, having the centre of his sway in Jerusalem, and seating himself in the; Temple of Jerusalem, — is not such a notion essentially Christian, and not of Jewish origin in times prior to the New Testament epoch, so that here Lactantius may have somehow preserved the old type of the legend ? And this, even if it were a question of a false Messiah, such as the figure of " the man of lawlessness " already partly grasped by Paul ! For surely this utterly reckless revolt against God and the seat in the Temple scarcely harmonise with the idea of a false Messiah. Is there any means at all of explaining this remark- able element in the Antichrist legend ? It depends not a little on one consideration. If we wish to get on the right track, the first thing to be done is to get rid of all interpretations based on current events. In this we adhere to the above-enunciated principle, that, during the excitement caused by momentous contem- porary occurrences, the apocalyptic writer, speaking 164 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND, generally, does not invent new, bnt applies old imagery. From the disorders of Caligula's reign it is impossible to elucidate Revelation xiii., 2 Thes- salonians ii., or Matthew xxiv. From Caligula's well-known doings how could the idea have arisen of the Antichrist seating himself in the Temple of Jerusalem, even had this incident survived only in the above-quoted variants in the Ascensio Jesaice^ in Victorinus, and the Ethiopic Apocalypse of Peter ? As matters stand it must, on the contrary, be inferred that the variant, as in 2 Thessalonians ii., was perhaps revived in the exciting time of Caligula, being based on an earlier representation. The belief, however, was at that time current that the old prediction of Beliar enthroned in the Temple of Jerusalem would be ful- filled by Caligula's threat to set up his statue in the Temple. Where, then, are we to look for a solution ? The question must in any case be asked, whether this notion may not, after all, be somehow conceived as a belief prevailing amongst the later Jews. For it already occurs with great distinctness in the most divers places in the New Testament, and we know that such eschatological notions are of very slow growth. Involuntarily our eyes are turned searchingly in the direction of the Dragon myth, in the hope of here finding light. It has already been seen that ^Hhe man of lawlessness " is nothing more than an incar- nation of the old foe of God, the demoniacal Dragon. Now this Dragon storms the welkin, the heavenly ANTICHRIST AND THE DRAGON 166 abode of God. A distinct echo of this old represen- tation occurs in Revelation xiii. 6 : '' And he openeth his month in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme His name and His tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven" (the angelic hosts). So also the Dragon storms (blasphemes) the abode of God in heaven, the Antichrist ejects God from His sanctuary on earth, seats himself in the Temple of Jerusalem. Such may perhaps be the solution of this highly enigmatic fancy. If so, we can at least understand how such an idea could have arisen and spread amongst the Jews. It may not have spread far, but, as was only natural, dawning Christianity eagerly seized on and further developed it. Paul especially adopted the notion, and a place was even given in the inspired writings to a short Jewish apocalypse which dealt with the Antichrist times, the frightful desola- tion of the Temple. For it becomes clearer and clearer that Matthew xxiv. 15-31 represents such an apocalypse of the Antichrist. So also the author of Revelation, chap, xi., makes the beast coming out of the bottomless pit quite naturally appear in Jerusalem, although amongst the later Jews this incident was completely forgotten. By them the Antichrist after the first century was brought into direct relation with the Roman Cassars and the Roman empire. But the Antichrist legend is older than the special hate harboured by the Jews against the Roman destroyer of their Jerusalem. And thus this representation with its dualistic feature borrowed from the Dragon myth remains an 166 TBE ANTICHRIST LEGEND. exotic growth on the soil of Judaism. The idea of a demoniac power hostile to God and ejecting Him from His Temple very soon became degraded to the simple expectation of a false Messiah. For Paul the Antichrist is this false Messiah, who works by the power of Satan with signs and wonders, and who, above all, is sent by God to the Jews because they refuse belief in the true Messiah. Attention has already been called to an interesting parallel in John V. 43 : ^' I am come in My Father's name, and ye receive Me not : if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive." The other, who shall come in his own name, is the Antichrist. So is the passage expounded by nearly all the Fathers, from whom in this field of inquiry there is much to learn.* Thus in our authorities the Antichrist is everywhere described as a false Messiah appearing amongst the Jews. Hippolytus, chap, vi., already draws the com- parison between the true and the false Messiah : '' The Saviour has gathered the scattered sheep, and he * Cf. Malvenda, de Antichr., I. 599 ; Commentaries on John V. 43, by Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, Euthymius, Bede ; Irenseus, V. 25, 3 ; Cyril's Catechetical Lectures, XII. 2 ; Aretas on Revelation xi. 7 ; Ambrosius on Psalm xliii. 19 ; Prosper? Dimidium Temp., 9 ; Eufinus, Expositio SymhoU, 34 ; Jerome, ad Algasiam, in Ahdiam, V. 18 ; Adso, 1296 A ; Hugo Eterianus, chap, xxiii. Both of the last quoted collate a series of the Fathers on the characters of the Antichrist ; cf. the Commen- taries of Ambrosiaster, Theodoretus, Theophylactus, CEcu- menius ; Jerome, ad Algasiam, 11 ; Theodoretus, Hceret. FabuL, V. 23; John of Damascus, Altercatio Synagogce et Ecclesice, chap. xiv„ etc. THE KINGDOM OF ANTICHRIST. 167 [Antichrist] also shall likewise gather the scattered people." 1^ And Hippolytus, liii. 27, 30 : " For he shall summon all the people to himself from all the land of dispersion, making them as his own children, proclaiming that he will restore the land and recon- stitute the kingdom." ^^ Characteristic details are even already found in Irenaeus, who applies the contrast between the un- righteous judge and the widow (Mark xviii.) to the Antichrist (V. 25, 3) : " To whom the widow unmind- ful of God, that is, the earthly Jerusalem, appeals for vengeance on her adversary." ^^ So also Victorinus in his Commentary (on chap, xiii.), although he associates the Antichrist with Nero : " Him therefore shall God having raised up send as a worthy king to the worthy [of him] , and a Christ such as the Jews deserved." ^ In Commodian we read (927 et seq.) : But thence marches the Conqueror into the land of Judah ; . . . Many signs does he work that they may believe, Because unto their seduction has the wicked one been sent. . , . For us Nero has become the Antichrist, he for the Jews.^^ Throughout the whole cycle of literature associated with the name of Ephrem the same thought prevails. Ephr. Syr. : " But in him shall the Jews exult, and girdle themselves to come unto him ; but he shall blaspheme, saying, I am the Father and the Son," etc.^* Ephr. Gr., III. 238 A : Honouring unto excess — the race of the Jews. For they shall await — his coming. 168 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND, 238 C: But more doth the people — the murderous people of the Jews Honour and rejoice — in the kingdom of him.^^ After this passage pseudo-Hippolytus (xxiv. 107, 12) gives a somewhat lengthy exposition. Cyril, XV. 10 : '' And through the name of Christ he deceiveth the Jews expecting the Anointed." ^^ Pseudo-Ephrem : '' Then shall the Jews give [him] thanks that he hath restored the use of the former testameiit."^^ Pseudo- Johannine Apocalypse, 6, Cod. E. : " And there shall be gathered the ignorant and unlettered, saying one to another, Do we indeed find him just? "28 Greek Apocalypse of Daniel : " And he shall work wonders and incredible things, and shall exalt the Jews." 29 Hence respecting the diffusion of the tradition Jerome is able truthfully to say (on Daniel xi. 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." ^^ Compare further the Ethiopic Apocalypse of Peter : "In those days shall a king come, evil-minded and evil-doer ; on that day shall Zabulon rise up and Naphthali stretch his neck on high and Capernaum exult, . . . because they shall take that man for Christ." Adso, 1296 A : " Then shall [all the Jews] flock unto ANTICHRIST THE FALSE MESSIAH 169 him, and thinking they receive Christ they shall receive the devil." ^^ Hence the Antichrist will get circumcised, as in Hippolytus, chap, v.: "In the circumcision came the Saviour into the world, and he [Antichrist] will come in like manner." ^^ Hence also Victorinus says of the Nero redivivus (on Revelation xiii.) : " And because he shall bring another name, so shall he also institute another life, that so the Jews may accept him as Christ, for saith Daniel that he shall not regard the desire of women, although he was before most corrupt, nor regard any god of [his] fathers, for the upholder alone of the law shall be able to beguile the people of the circum- cision." ^^ The same strange and mistaken translation of the passage in Daniel (xi. 37) occurs in pseudo-Ephrem, 7: " Then shall be fulfilled that utterance of the prophet Daniel, ^ And the God of his fathers shall he know not, nor shall he know the desire of women.' " ^* But Lactantius also must have had under his eyes the same relation as Victorinus, although with him the old connection can no longer be recognised. Thus VII. 16 635, 15: "New counsels in his breast shall he harbour, that ... at last by change of name and removal of the seat of empire there may ensue disorder and perturbation amongst mankind." ^^ With these may further be compared the following passages : Adso, 1293 C : " And he shall circumcise himself, and lie that he is the Son of God Almighty " ; and else- 170 TBE ANTICHRIST LEO END. where (1296 A): ^^ Coming to Jerusalem he shall be circumcised, saying to the Jews, I am the Christ promised unto you, who have come for your weal that I may gather and defend you that are scattered." ^^ Haymo, on 2 Thessalonians ii.: *^ And when he shall come to Jerusalem he will circumcise himself, saying to the Jews, I am the Christ promised to you." ^^ Elsewhere the rite of circumcision is enforced, as in Victorinus : " Nor is he lastly to call back the saints to the worship of idols, but to observe the circum- cision ; and should he be able to seduce any, them he will in the end compel to call him Christ." ^^ A noteworthy parallel drawn from the Simon Magus legend occurs in the Martyrdom of S8. Peter and Paul : " Nero asked, Was Simon then circum- cised? Peter answered, [Surely], for otherwise he could not have beguiled the souls, except by explaining that he was a Jew, and showing that he taught the law of God." ^' This notion of the Antichrist appearing as the false Messiah is further developed in the series of Ephremite writings. Ephr. Gr., II. 137 : In the form of him — shall come the all-polluted As a false wily thief — to beguile all beings, Humble and gentle — hating the speech of the unjust, Overturning the idols — honouring piety, A good lover of the poor — exceeding fair, Altogether well disposed — pleasant towards all.^° An exact parallel occurs in pseudo-Hippolytus, xxiii. 106, 18 ; while in pseudo-Ephrem, chap, vi., we read of ANTICHRIST COMES FROM DAN, 171 " that impious corrupter more of souls than of bodies, that subtle dragon [who] in his youth seems to move about under the form of justice before he assumes empire."*^ Pseudo-Johannine Apocalypse, 6, Cod. E : " And he begins by judging with mildness and much charity and consideration for sinners, and as he says makes allowance for sin."^^ Cyril, XV. 10 : ^^ At first indeed he simulates dis- cretion and humanity, as a wise and shrewd person [might exercise] clemency." *^ John of Damascus : " And at the beginning of his reign he simulates benevolence." ^* With all this is associated the notion that the Antichrist was expected to come from the tribe of Dan. This is an indication that the apocalyptic tradition in question originated under the influence of the Jewish hagadic (homiletic) interpretation. For the belief itself arose out of the Rabbinical exposition of such passages as Deuteronomy xxxiii. 22, Genesis xlix. 17, and Jeremiah viii. 16, and is every- where in patristic literature supported by reference to these passages.* * Cf. Malvenda, I. 140 ; Caspari, 217, Anmerkung 22. This idea is already found in Irenaeus, V. 30, 2 (on Jeremiah viii. 16) ; Hippolytus, chaps', xiv., xv., and after him pseudo-Hippolytus, chaps, xviii., xix. ; Ambrosius, de Benedict. Patriarcharum, 7 (on Psalm xl.) ; Eucherius, on Genesis, III., p. 188 ; Austin, in Josuam, Qucestio XXII. ; Jacob of Edessa (in Ephrem, I. 192 et seq.) ; pseudo-Ephrem, chap. vi. ; Theodoretus, on Genesis, Qucest. CX. ; 172 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND. This notion is probably of long standing. At least we have in Irenaens, V. 30, 2 : '^ And for this reason this tribe [Dan] is not numbered in Revelation amongst those that are saved." *^ It seems to me that this interpretation, especially as it is now a mere link in the chain of a much wider connection, is the only one possessing a certain degree of probability. If so, the idea must have already been known to the author of Revelation, chap. vii. With this is connected the more definite assumption of later authorities that the Antichrist would come from Babylon, where the tribe of Dan was supposed to dwell. Here we seem to feel the later influence of Jerome, who writes (on Daniel xi. 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." ^^ The above-suggested connection is seen most dis- tinctly in Andreas' comment on Revelation xvi. 12 : "It is probable also that the Antichrist shall come from the eastern parts of the land of Persia, where is the tribe of Dan of the Hebrew race."*^ We may now trace farther afield this idea of the Antichrist coming from the East, although not yet in connection with the notion of his origin in the tribe of Dan. Prosper Aquitanicus, Dimid. Temp., 9 ; Gregory, Moralia, XXXI. 24 ; pseudo-Methodius ; Anastasius Sinaita, in Hexcemeron, Lib. X., 1018 B ; Adso, 1292 B ; Bede's Sibyl ; Hugo Eterianus ; Primasius and Ambros. Ansbertus, Commentaries (on Revela- tion xi, 7). ANTICHRIST COMES FROM DAN. 173 Lactantius, VII. 17 : ^^ Another king shall arise in the East."^ Still more weighty is the passage in Commodian, 932 : "A man [coming] from the Persian land pro- claims himself immortal." ^^ On the other hand, we have in psendo-Methodius a different tradition : " He is begotten in Choraza [Chorasmia ?], because amongst them hath the Lord tarried, and in Bethsaida (?), because there he was nourished." ^ Both Adso (1293 B) and the Elucidarium betray the influence of this tradition in so far as to hold that the Antichrist grows up in the said regions. The origin of the fancy is now clear. It is significant, however, that the notion of the Antichrist springing from the tribe of Dan is unknown to Ephrem and the sources directly dependent on him. To me this seems another proof of the great antiquity of the views regarding the Antichrist which are here in question. Nevertheless the opinion that the Antichrist is to come from Dan occurs also in the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs (Dan, chap, vi.), a document probably of Jewish origin, unfortunately the text is here so corrupt that no definite conclusions can be arrived at. Beliar, however, is described as the Antichrist in the prediction (chap, v.) which is made touching the children of Dan : '' And unto you shall the salvation of the Lord arise from the tribe of Judah and of Levi ; and he shall make war against Beliar." ^^ Now this Beliar seems to stand in a definite relation to the children of Dan : " For I knew in [from] the 174 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND. Book of Enoch the Just that your ruler is Satan, and that all the spirits of fornication and of arrogance shall be subservient to Levi, in order to lie in wait (?) for the children of Levi, to make them sin before the Lord." ^^ As it stands the passage is meaningless, for what sense can there be in their being subservient or obedient to Levi, in order to lie in wait for his children ? In Codex E, however, '' Levi " is missing ; and if it be struck out, then '' shall be obedient " remains without its object. But the error would seem to lie in this last expression, for which a Latin manuscript version has " sese applicabit " — that is, all the evil spirits " will plot," etc. But possibly we should read lirohvaovraL — that is, all the evil spirits shall strive to ensnare the children of Levi. Thus we arrive at the suggested idea of the sons of Dan in league with Beliar and his angels against Levi. In what follows, however, this idea again disappears, for here emphasis is laid above all on the sinfulness of the children of Levi and of Judah. It is urgently to be desired that the whole apparatus of the text of this work be made available for study. Meanwhile the important fact remains that in this very Testament of Dan, where we had conjectured such an incident, allusion is made to a league between Satan and the children of Dan. Here, however, there is yet no question of the Antichrist's birth in the tribe of Dan. In the Testament of Dan Beliar is not yet even a human being, but is conceived as an evil demon — the demon, however, who in the last days is to revolt against God. CHAPTER XIL* The Wonders of the Antichrist— A Ketrospective Glance— The Antichrist's Ministers. IN our aathorities prominence is given above all to signs and wonders in heaven. But respecting these, as well as all other manifestationsj it is every- where insisted upon that the works wrought by the Antichrist are only lying and magical portents. Thus Sibyl III. 64 : And the mountain-tops he shall make stand still, and the ocean And the great flaming sun and the bright moon.^ AsceJisio Jesaice^ IV. 5 : " And at his word the sun shall rise at night, and the moon also he shall cause to appear at the sixth hour " (after dawn).^ Here it again becomes clear that 4 Ezra v. 1 et seq. is influenced by the Antichrist legend. Thus v. 4 : " And suddenly shall the sun shine again at night, and the moon during the day."^ With this is also con- nected Revelation, chap. xiii. 13, as will be seen later. To the same distinctly Jewish cycle of traditions is also to be referred Lactantius, VII. 17, 639, 4 : * For Notes ^ to ^^ of this chapter, see Appendix, p. 281. 175 176 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND. " He shall bid fire fall from heaven, and the sun stand still on its course " * (an echo of Revelation). Apocalypse of Zephaniah, 124 : '' To the sun he shall say, Fall, and he falleth. He shall say, Light, and he lighteth. To the moon he shall say, Be as blood, and so shall it be. From the sky he shall make it vanish." Ephr. Syr., 9 : " Then shall he begin to show lying signs in heaven and on earth, in the sea and on the dry land ; rain shall he call upon, and it shall come down." ^ Pseudo-Methodius, 93 B : '' The sun shall he turn to darkness, and the moon to blood." ^ Ethiopic Apocalypse of Peter : " The sun shall he cause to rise in the West, and the moon towards iElam." Pseudo-Hippolytus, xxvi. 108, 28 : ^^ The day he shall make dark, and the night day ; the sun he shall turn aside whither he willeth, and before the spectators shall he show all the elements of the earth and of the sea absolutely obedient to the power of his display." ^ Moreover, special prominence is given to his miraculous cures ; but here again all his wonders are emphatically declared to be mere shams. Thus Sibyl III. 66 et seq. : And the dead he shall raise, and many wonders work For man ; but for him fruitless they shall be And deceptive, and surely many mortals he shall beguile.^ Pseudo-Hippolytus, xxiii. 106, 14 : '' And after all these things he shall signs perform, . . . but not real. WONDERS OF THE ANTICHRIST. 177 but in deceit, that lie may beguile those impious as himself." 24 : '^ The leprous cleansing, the palsied lifting up, driving out demons, raising the dead." ^ Apocalypse of Zephaniah, 125 : " The halt he shall cause to walk, the deaf to hear, the dumb to speak, the blind to see ; the leprous he shall cleanse, the sick shall he heal, and the spirits drive from the possessed." Ephr. Syr. : '^ He shall cry out to the leprous, and they shall be made clean ; to the blind, and they shall see the light : he shall call the deaf, and they shall hear ; the dumb, and they shall speak." ^^ Pse ado-Methodius, 99 : "^ The blind shall see, the halt shall walk, the demons shall be healed, . . . and in his false signs and fanciful portents." ^^ Andreas, Ivi. 27 : ^^ By whom [that is, the devil] he shall seem to raise the dead, to perform signs for those of distorted mental vision." ^^ The Armenian Apocalypse of Daniel, 239, 15 : ^' Of stones making bread, causing the blind to see, the maimed to walk." Elucidarium : "Fov he shall work such stupendous marvels, as to bid fire come down from heaven . . . and the dead arise." ^^ But in this stereotyped description, presumably based on Matthew xi. 2 et seq., and consequently of later introduction, it is often expressly remarked that the Antichrist fails to quicken the dead. Thus in Apocalypse of Zephaniah, 125 : " He shall do the things that Christ shall do, all but the awakening of the dead. Therein shall ye know that he is the son of lawlessness, that he hath no power over the soul." 12 178 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND. Eph. Syr., 9 : " For indeed many signs shall he do that our Lord hath done in the world ; but the departed he shall not raise because he hath no power over spirits."^* Diemer, Deutsche Gedichte Q' German Poems ") of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, 280 : But from the signs that he shall make No good shall anybody take, Nor shall he any dead awake. ^^ Qucestiones ad Antiochum Ducem^ 109 : ^^ Some say that after working all the other wonders the Antichrist could not raise a dead man." ^^ The tradition runs somewhat differently in Cyril, XV. 14 : ^^ For the father of deceit shall simulate the works of deceit, that the multitude may think it sees the dead raised that is not raised." ^^ Adso, 1293 D : " The dead forsooth [are] to be resuscitated in the sight of men, . . . [but they are lies and beside the truth] " ; ^^ with which compare Haymo on 2 Thessalonians ii. Elucidarium : '' He shall raise the dead, not verily, but the devil shall enter some [dead man's] body . . . and speak in him, that he may seem alive." ^^ In the late Jewish Historv of Daniel it is also stated emphatically that the Antichrist succeeds in working all the wonders demanded of him, but fails to quicken the dead. In Eph. Syr., chap, xi., say Elias and Enoch to the Antichrist : " If thou art God, call on the departed, and they shall arise ; for it is written in the books of the prophets and also by the apostles, WONDERS OF THE ANTICHBJ8Z 179 that, when He shall appear, Christ shall raise the dead from their graves." ^^ But here again quite a special tradition is preserved in Greek Ephrem, III. 138 E : Magnifying his miracles — performing his portents, Deceiver and not in truth — manifesting these things. In such fashion — the tyrant removeth The mountains, and simulates (?) — falsely and not truly While the multitude stands by — many nations and peoples Applauding him — for his illusions, ^i There follows a lengthy^acconnt of how the Antichrist removes mountains by fraud and only in appearance. Then we read (139 C): Again this same dragon — stretches out his hands And gathers the multitude — of reptiles and birds ; And likewise he moves over — the surface of the deep, And as on dry ground — he walks thereon. But he simulates all these things.^^ A perfect parallel to the first half of these details occurs in pseudo-Hippolytus, xxvi. 108, 19 et seq. With them may also be compared the pseudo-Johannine Apocalypse, chap, vii.. Cod. E : " The mountains and hills he shall move aside, and shall beckon with his polluted hands : Come hither to me all [of you] ; and by illusions and deception they assemble in the same place." ^^ A noteworthy parallel is found in the Apocalypse of Zephaniah, 125 : '^ He shall walk on the sea and on the rivers as on dry ground," 180 TBE ANTICHRIST LEGEND, It is noteworthy that very similar traits are found in the Simon Magns legend and its fabulous descriptions. In the Acts of Peter with Simon^ xxviii. et seq,, we have, for instance, a long account of how Simon Magus is able so reanimate a dead body, but only in appear- ance, and the charm vanishes as soon as he withdraws from the corpse, which is then really resuscitated by Peter. In the various sources the whole contest between Peter and Simon culminates in this incident of Simon's failure and of Peter's success in raising the dead. In the RecognitioneSj III. 47, Simon's wonders are thus related : " I have flown through the air ; mingling with the fire, I have been made one body with it ; I have caused statues to be moved ; I have reanimated the extinct ; I have made stones to bread ; I have flown from mountain to mountain ; I have crossed over upheld by angels' hands ; I have alighted on the ground." ^* Similarly the Homily ii. 32 : " Statues he causes to walk, and rolling in the fire is not burnt ; at times also he flies, and of stones makes loaves ; he becomes a snake, is changed to a goat ; puts on two faces." 33 : " Working wonders to astonish and deceive, not healing works unto conversion and salvation." ^^ To such parallels the patristic writers were often attracted. In his Commentary, chap, xxxvii. 58, 39 et seq., Andreas points out how in the presence of Peter Simon had almost raised a dead body, and infers that in like manner the precursor of the Antichrist (Revelation xiii. 11 et seq,) will also perform his signs and wonders. He also alludes, in connection WONDERS OF THE ANTICHRIST. 181 with Kevelation xiii. 3, to a wonderful resuscitation to be effected by Antichrist, and again (Ivi. 13) Andreas calls attention to the precedent of Simon Magus. So Eterianus, de Regressu Animarum Q' On Appari- tions "), 23 : '^ For by his magic art and illusions he will beguile men, as is supposed to have been done by Simon Magus, who seemed to do what he did not." ^® From Revelation xiii. 3 it was later inferred that in order to place himself completely on a level with Christ, the Antichrist will suffer death, and then raise himself from the dead. I find the earliest allusion in Primasius, and then in Gregory, Epistle^ xiii. 1.* Here Adso again calls attention to the parallel with Simon Magus : " By his magic art and deception he will deceive men, as Simon Magus deceived the man who, thinking to kill him, kills a ram instead." ^^ Here we see how both legends are merged in one, so that it becomes difficult to say to which belongs the priority. There is even a much earlier and interesting passage, which preserves the original representation from which the two cycles of legends became intermingled. In Homily ii. 17 Peter says : ^^Thus truly, as the true prophet hath told us, the false gospel must first come through the fraud of some one [that is, Simon], and then, after the destruction of the holy place, the true evangel is tobe secretly sent, . . . and thereafter towards the end again must the Antichrist first come, * From Primasius it is borrowed by Bede, pseudo-Ambrosius, Ansbertus, Haymo ; and it is also known to S. Hildegard cf. Malvenda, II. 125 et seq.). 182 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND, and tlien the very Christ onr Saviour shall appear, and after that, the eternal light having risen, all the deeds of darkness shall vanish." * It will here be worth while to sum up the results so far established. In the collective Christian tradition the Antichrist rule is not the Roman empire, which on the contrary is conceived as the '^letter," the obstacle that stands in the way, and this despite Revelation and the early history of Christianity. The Antichrist is the false Messiah appearing in the midst of the Jews in Jerusalem, working signs and wonders through the power of Satan, and seating himself in the Temple of God. As ruler of the Jews he is joyfully greeted by them. He is no peaceful monarch, no political personality, but a purely eschatological figure in every sense of the word. Thus is the concept already presented to us in the New Testament. According to Paul the " man of lawlessness " is the false Messiah, who is sent to the Jews to punish them for having rejected the true Messiah. So also John v. 43, while the clause inter- polated in Matthew xxiv. is drawn from the same * Cf. Rec.^ II. 60. Here Simon's wonders are compared with those which the evil one will have power to work in the last days. Simon performs merely useless miracles, whereas at the end of the world cures and such-like (resuscitations are not mentioned) will be effected by the powers of evil. Thus here also we have the Antichrist tradition standing in the background of the Simon Magus legend. In this connection it may further be mentioned that what we are told of Simon's miraculous birth (i?ec., II. 14) finds an echo in the Antichrist saga. Ä RETROSPECTIVE GLANCE, 183 apocalyptic tradition. The writer who imagined chap. xi. of Revelation could have had no difficulty in making the beast coming out of the bottomless pit appear in Jerusalem. When we more diligently examine the Revelation of S. John, where traces may to some extent still be met of the same eschatological tradition, attention is above all claimed by chap. xiii. 11 et seq. The idea of " the beast coming up out of the ground " is based originally on that of the Antichrist. He represents no hostile, foreign political power, but comes "like a lamb," and in the mind of the apocalyptic writer he is the false prophet not greatly to be distinguished from the false Messiah. He speaks " as a dragon " — here again another survival — an evidence that the figure of the Antichrist grew out of the Dragon myth. He works signs and wonders, which show a certain resemblance with those of the Antichrist as brought together just before. The specially characteristic trait of the " mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads," and the buying and selling in virtue of that mark, will find their explana- tion farther on in the Antichrist legend. This second beast comes out of the ground and appears in the land of Palestine,* whereas the first beast, the Roman empire or one of its Caesars, naturally rises out of the sea, comes over the sea. * Tli,is explanation, I think, suits better than that proposed by Gunkel, who traces both beasts in chap. viii. back to the old myth of two primeval monsters dominating the sea and the dry land. 184 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND, The apocalyptic writer, for whom the universal sway of Rome has become the manifestation of the Antichrist, and who expected the Antichrist in the Nero redivivus, could make nothing better of the old unpolitical and purely eschatological figure of the Antichrist than degrade him to the position of a servant of the first beast. But in the process the writer has naturally ascribed to the earlier figure all those characters in virtue of which the second beast is brought into association with the first.* We now also clearly see how Hippolytus, despite his extremely confused exposition, was able to hold that the second beast is the Antichrist, who appears after the fall of the first — that is, of the Roman empire. He was acquainted with the old legend, and in the second half of chap. xiii. still distinctly recognised the original figure of the Antichrist. Here we are in the presence of a decisive intro- spective view of the essence and growth of the whole myth in which we are interested. The Antichrist legend was evolved out of the old Dragon myth about the time of the New Testament writings. This legend thus again acquires political significance with reference to the Roman empire and the Nero redivivus. For reckless criticism alone will venture to deny that the picture of the Nero redivivus stands in the foreground of Revelation, chaps, xiii. and xvii. This picture is, in fact, so inextricably interwoven with the * Such are Rev. xiii. 12 ; 14 ; last clause of 15 (the first clause is drawn from the old saga) ; last clause of 17 ; 18. Ä RETROSPECTIVE GLANCE. 185 whole representation that it seems to me impossible to disentangle it from all the details. Especially in Jewish circles has this political application of the Antichrist legend retained all its freshness. It dominates the Sibylline literature pre- cisely in those parts which are directly due to Jewish influence. Thanks to the postponement of Nero's return for over a generation, the simple expectation of his reappearance with the Parthians became transformed to the fantastic belief in a Nero redivivus. Thus it came about that the elements of the old Dragon myth became incorporated in the Neronic saga, so marvellous is the tendency of such currents of legendary matter to merge in a common stream. In this form we already meet the Neronic saga in Revelation xiii. and xvii., but still more distinctly in the Sybilline docu- ments. Here Nero has become a python, a wrath- breathing dragon, a weird ghost-like demoniac being wafted through the air by the Fates. Nay, to me it seems not quite impossible that, as Gunkel holds, the enigmatic expression in Revelation xvii. 8 originally referred to the old Serpent, who, already once overthrown in his struggle with God, shall in the last days again revolt against God and His heavenly kingdom. Here we read of '^ the beast that was, and is not, and yet is " — that is, will again '^ ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition." Thus the writer would seem to have applied to Nero this dark passage, which presumably was scarcely any longer intelligible to himself. In the later Greek Apocalypse of Daniel 186 TBE ANTICHRIST LEGEND, we are even told that the slumbering Serpent shall again awake. Amongst the Jews this turning of the saga against the Roman empire was preserved, completely effacing its original form. The hatred cherished against Edom under the sway of Sammael survived till the seventh and eighth centuries, when the old Antichrist legend again came to the surface. But even so their un- dying hatred of Christian, as before of Pagan, Rome is betrayed in the very name of Armillus (Romulus) associated with the revived legend. Armillus, how- ever, is no Roman Caesar, but a ruler destined to come after the domination of the godly empire (Byzantium). Amongst the early Christians, thanks no doubt partly to their detestation of the Jews, the feeling of hostility against Rome, as expressed in Revelation, very soon disappeared, as is already to be seen in Tertullian. The Antichrist comes from the midst of the Jews, and is above all a satanic pseudo- Messianic figure — such is the universal belief. Never- theless this old conception displays such tenacity and persistence that a doubling of the Antichrist figure is the result, at least in a few writers amongst whom the application of the legend to the Roman empire survives under the influence of the Jewish Sybilline literature. In this connection Lactantius, Commodian, and S. Martin of Tours come under consideration. By all three the immediate precursor of the Antichrist (who appears with the fall of the Roman empire) is more or less distinctly identified Ä RETROSPECTIVE GLANCE. 187 with the Nero redivivas, whereas the second appear- ance, that is, the Antichrist proper, by whom Nero is overcome and killed, bears the familiar characters of the true Antichrist. And although he is not here represented as coming from the Jews, his power is nevertheless set up in Jerusalem, he is welcomed by the Jews as the Messiah, he works signs and wonders, and so on. Here we have a strange spectacle, the saga in course of time assuming a double and even a threefold aspect. But these separate aspects of the same figure become once more merged in one. The very remark above made in connection with Lactantius, Commodian, and S. Martin of Tours confirms in a striking manner the explanation of the two beasts given in our comments on Revelation xiii. Here, as there, we have a blending of the two streams of tradition ; only the old figure of the Antichrist, which in Revelation is made subordinate to its own shadow, to its political interpretation, is by those writers made predominant. Thus we also understand how the old and most distinct reference in Revelation to the Nero redivivus so soon disappears from the tradition of the patristic writers. Victorinus, with whom alone it holds its ground, has, however, left us a surprising jumble of the Jewish pseudo-Messiah and Nero redivivus, in which the latter actually appears as the Jewish Messiah. But Revelation is mainly interpreted in the light of the earlier eschatological traditions. And on the whole the further evolution of these traditions during the ensuing centuries has taken place under 188 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND. the influence, not of the Johannine Apocalypse, but of those earlier reminiscences. A close study of the effect of Eevelation on the Fathers, as seen in their expositions, almost pro- duces the impression that these writers possessed no living eschatological imagery, and that such imagery lay dormant till reawakened in mediaeval times. Thus the saga with which we are here occupied may be likened to the figure of Proteus ever shifting its form, and in its shifting phases even doubling itself. Revelation xii. and xiii. may be taken as its living material image. In xii. we have the old Dragon myth, in xiii. 11-18 the Antichrist legend, in xiii. 1-10 its political application. The three shifting forms of the legend are the three juxtaposed figures of the Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet that have been merged in one great eschatological picture I The Antichrist has in his service a host of devoted ministers. Hippolytus is already able to tell us (chap, vi.) that " the Lord sent His apostles unto all nations, and he [Antichrist] shall likewise send his false apostles." ^^ In Adso also we read (1293 C): " Thereafter shall he send his messengers and preachers to the whole world." ^^ From these sources the notion found its way into the miracle play of the Antichrist (W. Meyer, 27). Even more interesting parallels occur, as in the opening of the Homily in Greek Ephrem : MINISTERS OF THE ANTICHRIST. 189 For the shameless one — grasping authority Sends his demons — unto all the ends of the earth, To announce unto all — that a great king Hath appeared in glory — Come hither and behold. ^^ So also in Ephr. Syr., 9 : ^^ The lightnings shall be his ministers and signify his advent ; the demons shall constitute his forces, and the princes of the demons shall be his disciples ; to far-distant lands shall he send the captains of his bands, who shall impart virtue and healing." ^i p^üip the Solitary (816 B) : " Verily the demons shall he send unto the whole world to preach and commend him, saying. The great king has risen in Jerusalem. . . . Come ye all unto him." ^^ With the variants also Adso is familiar (1293 B) : '' And the evil spirits shall be his captains and associates ever and his counts." ^^ A clear retrospective light is shed by these passages on Irenaeus, V. 28, 2 : " Nor is it to be wondered at that, the demons and apostate spirits being his ministers, he shall through them work signs by which to beguile the dwellers on earth." ^* Again behind the figure of the Antichrist with his false apostles there stands the still more powerful embodiment of a superhuman evil spirit hostile to God, whose messengers are demons and wicked genii. And thus the legend again stretches back to New Testament times, and explains Revelation xvi. 13: '^ And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon. . . . For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to 190 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND. gather them to the battle." With this is to be com- pared the exposition of Ambrosiaster : " The three unclean spirits signify the disciples of Antichrist, who are to preach him throughout the whole world, who, although they are to be men, they are called unclean spirits and spirits of devils, because demons shall dwell in them and shall speak through their mouths." ^ CHAPTER XIII * Antichrist Ruler of the World — Drought and Famine — The Mark of Antichrist. FROM the foregoing passages we see that the Antichrist is not only to seduce the Jews, but also to gather round him the peoples from all the regions of the earth. This is fully described in Ephr. Gr., IL 138 B: To conciliate all — he plots craftily That he may be loved — soon by the peoples ; Neither gifts shall he accept — nor speak in anger, He shows himself not sullen — but ever cheerful. And in all these — well-planned schemes He beguileth the world — so long as he shall rule. For when the many peoples and nations — shall behold Such great virtues — fair deeds and powers, All of one mind — shall become And with great joy — shall crown (?) him. Saying one to another — Surely there is not found Such [another] man — so good and just.^ An almost literal parallel occurs in pseudo-Hip- polytus, chaps, xxiii. and xxiv. ; while we read in * For Notes ^ to ^^ of this chapter, see Appendix, p. 285. 191 192 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND, pseudo-Ephrem : " For towards all shall he be craftily complaisant, refusing bribes, preferring no one, pleasant to all, calm in all things, neither seeking friendly gifts, [but] making show of courtesy to- wards his neighbours, so that all may bless him, saying. This is a just man." Chap. vii. : " Then shall all flock to him in Jerusalem from all quarters."^ In Hippolytus, Ivi. 28, 24, we already read : " He therefore having everywhere gathered the people that had become disobedient," etc.^ And in imitation of Jeremiah xvii. 11* he compares the Antichrist to the partridge which with crafty voice entices the young brood that belongs not to her. So in pseudo-Ephrem, 5 : ^' Who like the partridge gathers to herself the offspring of confusion, . . . and calleth whom he hath not begotten." * Ephr. Syr., 10 : " The peoples shall be gathered, and they shall come that they may see God, and the crowds of the peoples shall cleave to him, and all shall deny their own God and invite their fellows to praise the son of perdition, and one on another they shall fall and with swords each other destroy." A similar notion is presupposed (though here not actually expressed) in the Apocalypse of Zephaniah. See the descriptions on p. 128. Still more important are the following passages, going back, as they do, to a far older tradition. * So in the Vulgate, " Perdix fovit quae non peperit " ; ^.e., " The partridge cherisheth the chicks she has not hatched," having enticed them, etc. The passage in the EngHsh Author- ised Version makes nonsense. ANTICHRIST RULER OF THE WORLD. 193 Hippolytus, XV. 8, 8 : " But saith another prophet also : He shall gather all his power from the rising of the sun to the setting thereof ; whom he hath called and whom he hath not called, they shall go with him. He shall make white the sea with the sails of his ships, and make the plain black with the shields of his heavy-armed, and whoso shall stand up against him in war shall perish by the sword." ^ Commodian, 891 et seq. : Again shall arise unto this Nero's destruction A king from the East leading four nations thence, And summon to himself very many peoples to the city, And they shall bring aid, though he be most powerful ; And the sea he shall fill with ships many a thousand. And whoso shall oppose him shall be slain with the sword. ^ It has already been pointed out that both of these passages must be referred back to a common source, which is already quoted by Hippolytus as a " prophet." Such a postulated source certainly shows a strong kinship with Daniel, although we cannot yet say that it really derives from him. The conjecture might rather be hazarded that Daniel himself was already drawing on an earlier apocalyptic tradition at the end of chap, xi., where he foretells the fate of Antiochus in language that has hitherto defied all historical explanation. With the above-quoted passages may be compared 4 Ezra xiii. 5 : '^And thereafter I saw, and lo ! there was gathered a multitude of people, of whom there was no 13 194 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND, number, from the four winds of heaven, that they might war down the man who had come up from the sea." '^ No explanation has hitherto been offered of the statement in Revelation xi. 9 that " they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations " of the whole world shall assemble in the vicinity of Jerusalem and take part in the scene there taking place. Such language cannot very well be applied to the Roman legions, who could feel little interest in the final overthrow of the two witnesses by the Antichrist. Hence the reference was originally rather to those multitudes who had been drawn together from all lands and had assembled round the Antichrist. But the greatest confusion has been introduced in the picture by the writer of Revelation xi., who connected the old Antichrist legend with a prediction about the capture of Jerusalem by the Roman army at that time marching on the city (xi. 1,2). Thus was the passage xi. 7 still understood by Andreas, who says of the assembled peoples (46, 56) that " they of the Jews and of the Gentiles [were] once prepossessed by the false portents of the Anti- christ, having indelibly inscribed on their hearts the abominable name of him." ^ Elsewhere also Revelation betrays a knowledge of this feature of the tradition, an echo of which is again found in the gathering of the kings and peoples at Armageddon. Now with this gathering of the peoples about the Antichrist is associated the expectation of the coming of the nations of Gog and Magog. Their appearance BROUGHT AND FAMINE. 195 is usually made to precede that of the Antichrist, as in Commodian, 809, where they are identified with the Goths, who are represented as coming before the appearance of the first Antichrist.* In nearly all the Jewish apocalypses of the Antichrist Gog and Magog are also the forerunners of Armillus, and it is further stated that the Messiah ben Joseph is to perish before their coming, as has been more fully described farther back. As the appearance of Gog and Magog is so intimately associated with the Antichrist in all traditions, it may also be conjectured that from these sources was taken Revelation xx. 7-10, where distinctly Jewish char- acters are betrayed. Only here the Antichrist is brought into direct relation with Gog and Magog, and the whole scene made to come after the millennium. A long drought together with a terrible famine is with great unanimity described as the chief plague that is to prevail in the Antichrist period. In the foreground here again stands the series of documents grouped around the same of S. Ephrem. Thus Ephr. Gr., I. : The sea is stirred up — [and ?] the land parched ; The skies rain not — plants pine away. ^ * To the Goths reference is also made by Ambrosius in de Fide ad Gratianum, ii. 16, with which cf. Jerome, Proo&mium in Ezech.^ xi. (Malvenda, I. 555). See also Ephr. Syr., 6, where the reference is, not to the Goths, but to the Huns ; pseudo- Ephrem, 4 ; Andreas, who also applies Revelation xx. 8 to the Huns ; pseudo-Methodius ; Adso, 1296 ; Bede's Sibyl and Usinger (?) ; Ezra, Syr. Apoc, 12. 196 THE ANTICHBJST LEGEND. 139 F:* Then the skies no longer rain, the earth No longer beareth fruit, The springs run out, [The] rivers dry up, Herbs no longer sprout, Grass no longer grows, Trees wither from [their roots] And no longer put forth fruits. The fishes of the sea And the monsters therein Die out, and thus [They say] a fetid stench Emits [the] sea With fearful roar, that Men shall fail and perish Through terror. ^^ Then follows in another measure : And then in dread shall moan and groan — all life alike. When all shall see — the pitiless distress That compasseth them — by night and eke by day And nowhere find — the food wherewith to fill themselves.^^ Exact parallels occur in pseudo-Hippolytus, xxvii, 109, 9 et seq. J IQ et seq. * The edition based on two Greek codices (Vatican, 438 and 562) gives this passage awkwardly appended to the continuous text, which concludes with 139 D. ,Here the Latin version shows the proper connection. In the Greek the interruption 139 D to E 1 yivaxTKovaiv should be struck out, being merely a duplicate of what goes before. Nor does the longer ending occur in the Munich MSS. collated by W. Meyer. But that is DROUGHl AND FAMINE, 197 Pseudo-Ephrem, 8 : '^ The sky shall withhold its dew, for no rain shall fall on earth, . . . for all the rivers shall dry up and the fountains, . . . the torrents shall run out in their beds because of the intolerable heats, . . . and infants shall waste away at their mothers' breasts, and wives on the knees of their husbands, having no food to eat, ... for in those days there shall be dearth of bread and water." ^^ Pseudo-Johannine Apocalypse, 6, Cod. E. : '' God seeing the unrighteousness of him sendeth from heaven his angel Bauriel, saying, Come away, blow the trump, [they shall ?] control the rain ; and the earth shall be made arid, and the herbage shall languish ; and he shall make the sky brazen, that it yield no moisture to the ground, and hide away the clouds in the bowels of the earth, and curb the horn of the winds, that no wind be gathered on the face of all the land."^^ Apocalypse of Zephaniah, 128 : ^^ In those days shall the earth fall into unrest, the birds shall fall dead on the ground, the land grow arid, the waters of the sea dry up." Ephr. Syr., 12 : " The sea shall roar and become dry, and the fishes shall die therein."^* But here these things are deferred to the day of judgment. Then we have a much earlier parallel from 4 Ezra no argument against its authenticity, which is proved to evidence by the parallels following farther on from the Epliremite group of writings. Unfortunately the text of the codices on which the edition is based is so corrupt that I must give up the attempt to restore the rhythmic measure throughout. The Latin version shows great differences. 198 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND. V. 6, where are enumerated all the signs of the Antichrist times : '' The sea of Sodom [the Dead Sea] shall cast up its fishes, and at night utter a voice which many understand not, but all shall hear the voice of it." ^^ Compare also Lactantius, VII. 15, 635, 23 : '' For the air shall be infected and become corrupt and pestilent, now by rains, now by baneful drought ; . . . nor shall the earth yield fruits for man, . . . the springs also with the rivers shall become dry ; wherefore shall four-footed creatures fail on the land, and fowls in the air, and fishes in the deep." ^^ On Revelation vi. 5 Victorinus remarks (1252 E) : " But in strictness the saying extends to the times of the Antichrist, since there is to be a great hunger, of which all shall sufi'er." ^^ Ambrosius on Luke x. 18 : " Then [shall come] the false prophets, then famine, . . . and then . . . thou shalt behold the dryness of the earth, . . . [and] at last the just man in the wilderness and the impious in power." ^^ Armenian Apocalypse of Daniel, 239, 21 : '' There shall be a great stress of hunger ; from heaven shall no rain fall, nor the earth yield any green thing." Greek Apocalypse of Daniel, 103 : " And the waters shall be dried up, and no rain be given to the earth." ^^ Ethiopic Apocalypse of Peter : '' In that day shall the Lord God stem the rain from heaven, and the earth shall be without dew or fog ; . . . nor shall the springs yield any welling water, and the sea shall be dried up." DROUGHT AND FAMINE. 199 Book of Clement, 82, 30 : '' And all his stores shall be wasted by many, and there shall be a great scarcity of fruits, and a fierce gale shall prevail." ^^ Another variant, however, is able to tell us that shortly before the Antichrist's time there is to be an nnusual yield of crops.* This recalls vividly the well- known statement handed down by Papias, as uttered by the Lord : '^ Then the ear of wheat shall yield half a choinix [about three-quarters of a pint], and the bend of the vine-twig a thousand bunches of grapes, and the bunch half a jar of wine."^^ Can these ^^ words of the Lord " have possibly formed part of the original Antichrist legend ? A parallel to the above-mentioned tradition is obviously presented by Revelation xi., and it will be seen farther on that the tradition here under considera- tion is more original than that of Revelation xi. Meanwhile it may here be remarked that the whole body of tradition in question treats this plague im- pending on the world quite apart from the appearance of the two witnesses, to whom in Revelation the power is given (xi. 6) to ordain this very plague. As will be seen, the appearance of the two witnesses acquires in our tradition quite a different significance. In any case an interesting parallel may here be quoted from the Bahman Yast, II. 48 : " And a dark cloud makes the whole sky night, and the hot wind and the cold wind arrive, . . . and it does not rain, * So in pseudo-Johan. Apoc, 5 ; Dan. Apoc. Gr., 77 et seq. ; Adso, 1296 B ; ßede's Sibyl, with which compare the Sahidic (Coptic) recension of Zeph. Apoc, p. 124, etc. 200 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND. and that wliicli rains also rains more noxious creatures than water, and the water of rivers and springs will diminish." Compare also the description given farther on of the effect of the want of rain on the animal kingdom. In this dire distress the Antichrist through his subordinates beguiles the inhabitants of the earth to accept his mark. Under this condition alone are they allowed to buy bread. Ephr. Gr., 140 B : For stern governors of the people — shall be appointed each in his place, And whoso bears with him — the seal of the tyrant May buy a little food.''' Pseudo-Ephrem, 8 : " And no one can sell or buy of the wheat of decay, except those only who shall have the mark of the Serpent in the forehead and in their hand."^^ This tradition may now be traced farther. Lactantius, VII. 17, 639, 9: ^'Whosoever shall believe and gather to him shall be marked by him like cattle." ^^ Armenian Apocalypse of Daniel, 239, 18 : ^^ Woe to those that believe in him, and receive his mark. Their right hand shall be bound fast, so that they return not to him in whom they had before put their hope." * Cf. pseudo-Hippolytus, xxviii. 110, 1, and Phil. Solitarius, 816 D. It should be noted that both add that whoever is marked with the sign of the Beast can no longer receive the sign of the Cross. Cf. Eph. Gr., III. 143 A. THE MARK OF ANTICHRIST. 201 Adso, 1297 A : " And whoso shall believe in him shall receive the mark of his character in their forehead" ;^* with which compare psendo-Johannine Apocalypse, 7, Cod. E : ''' And he brands their right hands that they may dwell with him unto the fire everlasting."''^^ Here, then, fresh light is thrown upon the last- remaining enigmatical trait in Revelation xiii. IQ et seq. It was above pointed out that the Antichrist legend lay at the basis of this very passage, and Revelation xiii. 16, 17 is now to be explained as a simple appro- priation from this legend, which stands as a parallel tradition independent of the Johannine text. For, in the first place, direct mention is here made of the sealing of the believers by the Antichrist, whereas in Revelation the sealing is done by the second beast in the name of the first. Secondly, the statement that only the sealed shall be allowed to buy (and sell) stands in easy and natural connection with the context, whereas in Revelation it presents a complete puzzle. Obviously the writer borrowed it without more ado from the oral tradition, though in doing so he may have had the imperial currency of Rome in his mind. Specially important in this connection is the detail in pseudo-Ephrem, who speaks of a " mark of the Serpent." It is such a mark that is branded by the Antichrist on the forehead and hand of his adherents, and thus the Dragon myth is again revived. We thus also understand why Ephrem, III. 143 A, opposes the sign of the Cross to that of Antichrist. When the writer of Revelation xiii. 17 introduces the laboured 202 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND, clause " save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name," it becomes very probable that it was he who first added the reference to ^Hhe name of the beast." And thus the original Antichrist legend is presented to us in Kevelation xiii. in almost all its details. Then follows in the same connection the statement in Ephr. Gr., 141 C,* that with the ever-increasing famine the mark of the Antichrist is of no use to his adherents, who appeal to him in their distress, but are scornfully spurned from his presence, he having him- self become helpless. I mention this later picturesque addition, because a striking parallel occurs in the Apocalypse of Zephaniah, p. 128 : '' Sinners shall lament on earth, and say. What hast thou done unto us, thou son of lawlessness, when thou saidst, I am the Christ, and yet art the devil ? Thou canst not rescue thyself, and so rescue us. Thou hast worked signs before us until thou hast alienated us from Christ. Since we have hearkened unto thee, behold now how full we are of misery and distress." * Also pseudo-Hippolytus, chap. xxxi. 112, 3 ; and Phil. Soli- tarius, 818 A. CHAPTER XIV * Enoch and Elias— The Flight of the Faithful. USUALLY the two witnesses, who are also men- tioned in Revelation xi., appear before, though often after the incident of the flight of the faithful to the wilderness. With almost absolute unanimity the tradition identifies them with Enoch and Elias, and in this tradition their appearance has quite a diflPerent and more significant meaning than in Revelation xi. Our survey may begin with Ephr. Syr., chap. xi. : " But when the son of perdition shall have attracted the whole world to his cause, Enoch and Elias shall be sent to convict the wicked one by a question full of gentleness."^ Thereupon they ask him: "If thou art God, tell us what we ask thee " ^ — i.e. respecting their own hidden residence, which in patristic litera- ture passed for a great mystery (Malvenda, II. 144). Then they demand of him the test of the raising of the dead, whereupon "the impious one shall be enraged against the saints, and seizing a sword the most nefarious one shall sever the necks of the just";^ * For Notes ^ to *^ of this chapter, see Appendix, p. 288. 203 204 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND. after which the prophets are resuscitated by Michael and Gabriel. Pseudo-Ephrem, 9 : " God, seeing the human race endangered and wavering under the breath of the frightful Dragon, sends them a consoling exhortation through His servants the prophets Enoch and Elias ; and when these just ones shall appear, they shall indeed confound their adversary, the Serpent, with his cunning, and bring back the faithful elect to God, that from his wiles"* [gap in the codex]. Then again follows the resuscitation of the prophets. Ephr. Gr., III. 142 : But before these things be — the Lord sendeth Elias (?) the Thesbite — and Enoch [the ?] compassionate, That they may proclaim — -reverence to the race of men, And openly announce — unto all the knowledge of God, That they believe not nor obey — the false one through fear Crying out (?) and saying — A deceiver, O men, is he ; Let no one believe in him.^ Then a few lines farther on : But few are those — who shall then obey And believe in the words — of these two prophets.^ Then immediately follows an account of the flight of the faithful, without any mention being made of the death of the two prophets ; whereas the parallel passage in pseudo-Hippolytus (xxix. Ill, 4) concludes with the statement : ^' And on that account he shall slay them [not you], and with the sword shall smite them." ' ENOCH AND ELIAS. 205 Pseudo- Johannine Apocalypse, 8 : " And then I shall send Enoch and Elias to convict him, and they shall show him to be a liar and a deceiver, and he shall slay them on the altar." ^ With this is to be compared Philip the Solitary, 816 B. The fragment of the Syriac Apocalypse of Peter begins : '' The accursed Antichrist. And they shall rebuke and denounce him as a liar, and he shall know (?) them by their bodies, and the son of perdition shall speak and say to them, I am the expected Messiah. But they shall convict him of falsehood, and say to him. Thou, a liar art thou, and thou art not the Messiah ; then shall he be enraged against them and kill them, and their bodies shall lie four days in the streets of Jerusalem ; and after that I will command by means of My power, and Enoch and Elias shall again be alive, and rise up with their bodies." Ethiopic Apocalypse of Peter : " Thereafter shall Enoch and Elias come down ; they shall preach and put to shame that oppressive foe of righteousness, the son of lies. Therefore soon shall they be beheaded, and Michael and Gabriel shall resuscitate them." Pseudo-Methodius, 99 : '' And without delay he shall send his ministers, both Enoch and Elias, and Joannes [John], son of thunder, who before all the peoples shall convict him of fraud and prove him a liar to all men, and that he hath come for the destruc- tion and deception of the many. But he being sorely convicted and being by all despised in his wrath and fury shall make away with those saints."^ 206 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND. Ezra, Syr. Apocalypse, 14 : ^^ And then shall the lytng Messiah appear and display his destructive power and the onslaught of his wickedness. And he shall drag Enoch and Elias to the altar, and shed their blood on the ground with great suffering." Bede's Sibyl : '^ There shall go forth the two most glorious men Enoch and Elias to announce the advent of the Lord, and them shall the Antichrist slay, and after three days shall they be resuscitated." ^^ Adso, 1296 C : '' Then shall be sent into the world the two great prophets Elias and Enoch, who shall forearm the faithful with godly weapons against the attack of the Antichrist, and they shall encourage and get them ready for the war. . . . But after they have accomplished their preaching, the Antichrist shall rise up and slay them, and after three days they shall be raised up by the Lord." ^^ The same tradition, quite independent of Revela- tion xi., occurs also in John of Damascus ; Ambro- siaster on 1 Corinthians iv. 9; Bede, de Ratione Tern- poruMy 69 ; and Elucidarium. The distinctive character of this independent tradition lies in the fact that Enoch and Elias do not appear till after the beginning of the Antichrist's sway. The idea that Elias and Enoch are the two witnesses of the last days is so widespread that it would be superfluous to adduce any more evidence. It may, however, be mentioned that the idea is already known to Irenagus (V. 5, l)5as well as to Hippolytus, xliii. 21, 8, and Tertullian, de Anima (and elsewhere) : " Enoch and Elias were translated, nor were they found dead^ ENOCH AND ELIAS. 207 but their death deferred, though they are reserved to die, that they may extinguish the Antichrist in their blood." ^2 It will suffice to notice the few deviations in the tradition. The original Jewish expectation, as is still to be seen in the Gospels, was for the return of Elias alone (Malachi iv. 1) ; and this seems to have held its ground in the Sibylline literature (cf Sibyl II. 187). Justin knows only that Elias is to precede the second coming of the Lord.* The influence of this tradition is also seen in Lactantius, VII. 17., who knows of but one witness, which is all the more remarkable since, in other respects, he adheres more closely to Revelation than any of the other authorities hitherto adduced. Commodian, as we have above seen, hesitates between one and two witnesses ; while the later Jewish apocalyptic literature speaks of one only, that is, Elias, except where this prophet is thrust aside by the Messiah ben Joseph — compare, for instance, the History of Daniel. It is noteworthy that in the Old High German poem Muspilli there is also mention only of a conflict between Elias and the Antichrist. Of course the patristic writers often speak of the return of Elias alone, but not in their full descriptions of the last days, f In the Gospel account of the Transfiguration the two witnesses are already introduced, but here iden- tified with Elias and Moses, just as the writer of Revelation xi. may also probably have assumed Elias to be one and Moses the other of his two * Dialogus cum Tryph., 49. t Cf. Malvenda, II. 151. f 208 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND, witnesses. Nevertheless, so far as I am aware, this interpretation is expressly found amongst the early authorities only in Hilarius on Matthew xx. 10, although it is somewhat frequently stated that Moses (like Elias) had not yet seen death.* The same exposition occurs in the Commentary of Victorinus, although, strange to say, Victorinus himself elsewhere identifies the two witnesses with Elias and Jeremiah. The notion that, besides Elias and Enoch, a third witness is also to come in the person of S. John the Baptist occurs, not only in the quoted passage from Methodius, but also in the Commentaries of Andreas and Aretha (on Revelation xi. 3), and in several other authorities.! Then it was adopted by Abbot Joachim in his Exposition of Revelation, and passed to many other writings composed under his influence. If we now compare with Revelation xi. our inde- pendent tradition, and bear in mind its amazing persistence, as set forth in the foregoing pages, we shall discover the following points of difference. 1. In Revelation the two witnesses are probably assumed to be Elias and Moses, whereas in our tradition they are invariably called Elias and Enoch. 2. Elias and Enoch appear after the Antichrist towards the end of his rule, while in Revelation the beast comes up from the bottomless pit after the prophets have completed their testimony. 3. The * Malvenda, II. 155. t Ambrosius on Psalm xlv. 10 ; Theophylactus and Euthy- mius on Revelation xxi. 20 ; pseudo-Hippolytus, xxi. 104, 13 ; Simeon Metaphrastes, Vita Johannis, YII, 2. THE PROBLEM OF THE TWO WITNESSES. 209 plague of absolute drought, which in Revelation is brought about by the two witnesses, is in the tradition regarded as a punishment of God for the apostasy to the Antichrist. 4. The prophets appear to take up the conflict against the Antichrist, to instruct the faithful on his true character, and exhort them to rise against him ; whereas in John the witnesses stand in no relation to the Antichrist. In John also the witnesses rise again after three days, and are carried up to heaven. This last trait has found its way only into a few of the above-quoted authorities^ and also into Bede's Sibyl, the Syriac Apocalypse of Peter, and Adso. The variant that the witnesses are to be resuscitated by Michael and Gabriel is found in Ephr. Syr., in the Ethiopic Apocalypse of Peter, and pseudo- Ephrem (?) ; but not Ephr. Gr., pseudo-Hippolytus, the pseudo-Johannine Apocalypse, 8, Philip the Solitary, Ezra's Syriac Apocalypse, pseudo-Methodius, Eluci- darium (or Muspillilf). As in all the sources the death of the witnesses is immediately followed by the last judgment, this incident has also no place in our tradition. There can now be no doubt on which side lies the original account. It was above pointed out that in Revelation xi. everything remains obscure and dis- jointed ; we cannot make out who are the two witnesses, why they threaten the plagues, in what kind of relation they stand to the beast, or why the beast kills them. But all these puzzles are cleared up when we survey the subject in connection with the Antichrist legend. The same legend also supplies an 14 210 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND. answer to the difficult question, whence the peoples and nations come, and why they rejoice over the death of the witnesses. Nor should this solution any longer appear too hazardous. We now clearly see how the writer of Revelation set to work in his treatment of chap. xi. The account of the Antichrist, already located in the district of Jerusalem, is by him transferred to the time when this city is being threatened by the Roman legions, in whom he may have recognised the '' kindreds and tongues and nations." We are unable, however, to understand why he deviates in certain details ; possibly he was himself no longer acquainted with the tradition in its original form. But it is clear that he is person- ally responsible for the incident about the resurrection of the witnesses after the third day ; and from the incident itself it is evident that the writer of Revela- tion, chap, xi., was a Christian, and in fact a Jewish Christian. Still, with all this, one point remains unexplained — the origin of the idea of the two witnesses. There can scarcely be a doubt that it cannot have emanated from a Jewish source. Here the return of Elias is expected, while the expectation of the two witnesses would seem to have never been more generally diffused, as is shown by the later Jewish tradition. Hippolytus, who bases all the details respecting the expectation of the return of Elias on the Old Testament, has not a single word on the other witness. Gunkel promises a solution of the riddle, and it is to be hoped he may succeed. Meanwhile what has here been brought together PERSECUTION OF THE FAITHFUL, 211 suffices in my opinion to explain the composition of Revelation xi.* Possibly in its further development the tradition went on to relate that through the preaching of the two witnesses many of the faithful were again con- verted to God, and had therefore to suffer persecution. Irengeus is already able to tell us that during the sway of the Antichrist a great persecution is to take place (V. 29, 1). He appeals in support of the state- ment to the words of the Lord in Matthew xxiv. 31, which words henceforth constantly recur in the de- scriptions of these last things. f In his exposition (Y. 25, 3) of the parable in Luke xviii. 1 et seq.^ he identifies the unjust judge with the Antichrist and the widow seeking vengeance with the earthly Jerusalem : ^' The ' afterward ' [ver. 4] also means the time of his oppression, in which time the saints shall be put to flight." ^^ After him Hippolytus (chaps. Ivi. et seq.) follows much in the same direction, and gives even fuller details, as in chap. Iviii. 30, 6 : '^ And he, being puffed up by them [the Jews], beginneth to send out missives against the saints, that all refusing to adore and worship him as God are everywhere to be de- stroyed."^* Ephrem, Cyril, and others tell us how the * I may incidentally call attention to the two witnesses Neriosang and Srosh, who in the Bahman Yast precede the Messiah. In the apocalyptic compilation Onus Ecdesice I find (chap. Ixi.) the enigmatic remark, " Sibylla nuncupat eos duo Stellas" — that is, "The Sibyl calls them [the witnesses] two stars." t Cf. Malvenda, II. 145. 212 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND. Antichrist, who first appeared in the character of a deceiver, throws aside his mask, and assumes the part of a hard and cruel oppressor. Characteristic is the account of the flight of the faithful in Ephr. Gr., 142 C : Many therefore of the saints — as many as are then found, So soon as they shall hear — of the coming of the man of corruption, . . . Shall most speedily flee — to the deserts And lie hid in the [deserts and mountains] — and in caves through fear, And strew earth and ashes [dust] — on their heads, Destitute and weeping — both night and day, With great humility — And this shall to them be granted — by God the Holy One, And grace shall lead them — unto the appointed places. ^^ Ephr. Syr., 10 : ^^ But the elect shall flee from the face of him to the tops of the mountains and hills ; some shall fly to the burial-places and hide themselves amid the dead." ^^ Pseudo-Johannine Apocalypse, 7, Cod. B: "But the just shall be hid away, and shall flee to the moun- tains and caves." ^'' These details may again be followed far beyond the Ephremite legendary writings. Thus Hippolytus (Ixi. 32, 21) applies to the Church the words of Kevelation xii. 6 : ^' And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place pre- pared of God." Lactantius, VII. 17, 639, 21 : " When these things THE FLIGHT TO THE DESERT. 213 shall come to pass, then the jnst and followers of truth shall sever themselves from the wicked, and shall fly to the solitudes." ^^ Commodian, 937 et seq, : Meanwhile at last he displeaseth the Jews themselves, Who murmur together, for that they have been beguiled by fraud ; They likewise cry unto heaven with weeping voice. That the true God may come to their aid from above. ^^ Apocalypse of Zephaniah, 126: ^^ They shall take their gold and flee to the rivers, and say, Take us over to the wilderness." With this compare what follows about the protection of the faithful in the desert, and about the renewal of the struggle with the Antichrist, and further the parallel passage in the Jewish Apocalypse of Daniel. Andreas (li. 51) on Revelation xii. 6 : "And it is probable that the visible desert [shall] save those through the machinations of the apostate and false Christ taking refuge in the mountains and caves and fissures of the ground." ^^ Armenian Apocalypse of Daniel, 239, 26 : " But those alone who dwell on the mountains, in caves, in the clefts and hollows of the ground, shall be able to escape until the second coming of Him who was born of the Holy Virgin." Here may again be quoted the above restored text of the Ascensio Jesaice^ IV. 13, where special mention is made of the Antichrist's rule : " And he shall hold sway three years and seven months and days twenty 2H THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND, and seven." Then farther on : " And many of the faithful and of the saints [shall there be], who on seeing Wm they expected [not] shall be fugitives from desert to desert, awaiting the advent of him [God?]." The parallel to the tradition, such as we find it elsewhere in the Ascensio, is a fresh confirma- tion of the correctness of our critical emendation. The same incident of the flight drawn from such essentially Jewish sources as those at the disposal of Lactantius, Commodian, and the Ascensio occurs in all the later Jewish apocalypses mentioned farther back. The material so far collected is exceptionally in- teresting, and gives rise to a series of observations. To begin with, it is now clear that, as already conjectured by us, Matthew xxv. 15 et seq, is really a fragment of some apocalypse of the Antichrist. The " abomination of desolation ... in the holy place " is the Antichrist; while the flight to the mountains foretold to follow thereafter is the flight from the Antichrist. It has long been recognised that it was straining the text somewhat violently to apply the abomination of desolation to the Eoman army before the walls of Jerusalem. Nor are matters much improved by the present favourite application of the expression to Caligula (see above, p. 22). On the other hand, everything becomes easy and natural by recourse to the Antichrist legend. Even the " catch- word" borrowed by Matthew xxiv. 21 from Daniel reappears here in the description of the last tribulation under the sway of the Antichrist. CONVERSION OF THE JEWS, 215 Specially important is, moreover, tlie above-quoted passage from Commodian. It clearly shows that those flying to the desert were originally the faithful Jews, who had discovered the Antichrist's treason. In equally clear language Lactantius (VII. 17) still describes the persecution of the Jews : " Then shall he attempt to raze the Temple of God and persecute the just people ; he also shall entangle the just men with the books of the prophets, and so consume them." -^ Now this incident, which emanates from a Jewish source, is inextricably interwoven with the eschato- logical tradition with which we are here concerned. It gives us the explanation of the widespread belief in the conversion of the Jews precisely in the last days of the Antichrist. Christianity adopted the tradition in a form in which Jews and believers had acquired equal importance. Victorinus remarks on Kevelation xii. 6 : '' That Catholic Church in which in the last days a hundred and forty-four thousand of the people of Elias shall believe. So also saith the Lord in the Gospel, Then let them which be in Judeea flee into the mountains." ^^ The whole context with the incidental remark can have no meaning except on the assumption that amongst the converted and fugitives of the last days Victorinus had the Jews mainly in view.* * With Malvenda, II. 200, 1 may refer further to Hilarius on Matthew x. 14, etc. ; Austin, de Civitate Dei., XX. 29 ; Gregory on Ezekiel, Homily xii. 7 ; Chrysostom on Matthew, Homily Iviii. 1 ; Theodoretus on Daniel xii. 1 and on Malachi iv. 1 ; S. John of Damascus ; Adso, 216 THE ANTICHBJST LEGEND, But most significant is it that we can now under- stand how Paul (Eom. ix. 26) came to speak of a conversion of Israel in the last days. This was no self-invented hope with which to console himself, but was adopted from the body of the early Jewish tradition. And thus is cleared up the obscure passage in Romans xi. 12 : " Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles ; how much more their fulness ? " This is precisely the great benefit that converted Israel is to confer on the Christian Church of Gentile origin, that Israel will take the lead in the opposition to and struggle with the Antichrist. Revelation vii. 1 et seq. also is naturally to be understood in the same sense. The stereotyped number 144,000 appears to have formed part of the original legend. When we are told that 12,000 from each of the twelve tribes, with the exception of Dan for the reason above set forth, are to be saved, or to be '^ sealed," it might doubtless be inferred from this very enumeration of the twelve tribes no longer surviving that the incident itself could not really be of Jewish origin. But it already occurs in Reve- lation and in a passage which appears to be obviously borrowed. And it should be remembered that at a very early date the expectation of the return of the twelve tribes was already grafted on to the Antichrist legend (see above, p. 102). So Victorinus expressly interprets the passage : ^' Therefore he also indicates the very number of the Jews to be converted, and of the Gentiles ' a great multitude ' (Rev. vii. 9)." CONVERSION OF THE JEWS. 217 Compare Andreas also on the same passage. Thus at last the 144^000 sealed of God are presented as a natural contrast to those sealed of Antichrist, of whom we are often expressly told that they cannot receive the seal (mark) of God (Christ), because they have accepted that of the Antichrist (see above, pp. 201-2). From the literary point of view it is also interesting to note that in the Greek Ephrem is met a character- istic account of the distress and of the general flight and disorder of the Antichrist period. Thus II. 223 : But all those dwelling — in the east of the earth [Shall] fly to the west — through their great fear, And again those dwelling — under the setting sun Unto its rising — shall fly in trembling. ^3 CHAPTER XV.* The Shortening of the Days — The Last Stress— The Deliverance — The Doom of the Antichrist. WE read in Matthew xxiv. 22 : " And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved : but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened." A fuller tradition on this subject occurs in the most diverse ramifications of our legend. Lactantius (VII. 17, 636, 17) already tells us that 'Hhen shall the year be shortened and the month lessened and the day contracted."^ So the Apocalypse of Zephaniah, 128 : " Then shall the shameless one . . . say, Woe unto me, for my time hath passed away. I said. My time shall not pass away, and, lo ! my years have become as the months, my days have fleeted away, like the dust that is wafted away." The pseudo-Johannine Apocalypse, 8 : " Three years shall be those times, and the three years shall I make as three months, and the three months as three weeks, and the three weeks as three days, and the three * For Notes ^ to ^' of this chapter, see Appendix, p. 291. 218 THE SHORTENING OF THE BAYS. 219 days as three hours, and the three hours as three seconds." ^ Here again we see the fragmentary character of the New Testament tradition. By the " shortening of the days," however, must be understood a definite period of time, which, in fact, is indicated in the parallel tradition as the three and a half years of the Anti- christ's sway. Against those fleeing to the wilderness the Antichrist sends his army. But the faithful in the wilderness are now delivered in a wonderful way, and the power of the Antichrist broken. Thus Lactantius^ VII. 17, 640, 2 : '' On hearing this the impious one, fired by rage, shall come with a mighty ];iost, and drawing up all his forces shall encompass the mountain on which the just tarry to capture them. But they, seeing them- selves hemmed in and enclosed on all sides, shall cry unto God with a loud voice, and implore the heavenly aid ; and God shall hearken unto them and send a great king from heaven, who shall rescue and deliver [them], and disperse all the impious with fire and sword." ^ This tradition is also known to Victorinus (on Revelation xii. 15 et seq.): ''The water that the Serpent casts out of his mouth means that by his order the army pursueth her [that is, the faithful fleeing to the wilderness] ; and the earth that opened her mouth and swallowed up the flood [means] the vengeance openly taken on those present." ^ In Zephaniah's Apocalypse the Antichrist calls out : 220 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND, " Now fly [hasten (?)] to the desert, seize them, . . . kill them, the saints bring hither." Very characteristic are the words that follow : '^ Then shall he take his fiery wings and fly after the saints, and again contend with them." According to Zephaniah the deliverance is brought about by angels, who take the believers on their wings and bear them to the " holy land." It is noteworthy that the same tradition is preserved by pseudo-Hippolytus, who seems here for the first time to take an independent position ; at least I have failed to find the incident in any of the Ephremite writings : '' Then to the mountains and caverns and clefts of the earth shall he send the legions of devils to spy out those hidden from his eyes, and bring them to the worship of him, and those obeying to seal with his seal, and inflict punishment on those refusing to yield."''' Similarly Adso, 1297 A : " Then pursuing the rest of the faithful he shall smite (?) with the sword or make them apostates, and those who shall believe in him shall receive his mark on their forehead." ^ Lastly, Beatus, 541 : " Inaccessible places are there, whither the saints shall flee and there lie hid, and Christ shall find them alive in the flesh." ^ Consequently the believers fleeing to the desert are there to find their deliverance, for hither is God to send them the Messiah. Here a clear light is shed on Matthew xxiv. 26 : ^' Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert ; go not forth." * * Allusion may here be made to the historical appearance of false Messiahs in the wilderness (Acts xxi. 31 ; Josephus, Arch,^ XX, viii. 6 ; Bellum Judaicum, YII. xi. 1), FLIGHT OF THE WOMAN. 221 Possibly also we have here the solution of the puzzling words that follow: "Behold, he is in the secret chambers ; believe it not." For in Isaiah xxvi. 20 we read : " Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee : hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indig- nation [the wrath of the Lord] be overpast." In some of our sources these very words are referred to the flight of the faithful to the wilderness. Thus the Ethiopic Apocalypse of Peter : " And they shall flee to the mountains, the hollows and the fissures of the ground and hide themselves, as saith the prophet Isaiah, Uome, my people, into thine house and hide thee a little while, until the anger of the Lord be overpast." To me it seems not impossible that this interpretation of Isaiah may be very old. If so, we shall have a parallelism between the two expressions " behold he is in the desert" and "behold he is in the secret chambers." It must now be evident that the second half also of Revelation, chap, xii., comes in contact with our legend. As the text stands at present (compare especially ver. 17), the flight of the woman is no doubt referred to some distinct contemporary event. But, so far at least as the New Testament period is concerned, by the woman pursued by the Serpent was originally understood the Church — in other words, the congre- gation of Jewish believers in the last days. Such is the exposition of nearly all patristic writers,* beginning with Hippolytus and Methodius ; only for * See Malvenda, 147. ^2 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND. them the woman is of course the Christian Church. In his interpretation Victorinus also may in some of his details have hit off what the author of the passage may have wished to express by his eschato- logical imagery. It is another question (and this affects the special difficulty presented by the exposition of Revelation, chap, xii.) whether, and how far, the several fantastic details are borrowed from the context of an earlier myth. Hitherto Gunkel himself has failed to adduce any convincing parallels or satisfactory explanations. It is no doubt probable enough that the apocalyptic writer borrowed his '' local colouring " from the Dragon myth and from the body of legendary matter associated with it. But until the point is proved the possibility remains that the writer who expanded chap. xii. of Revelation described the eschatological conception of the Antichrist's persecution of the faith- ful in colours harmonising with that first part of the chapter which is really borrowed from the Dragon myth. But even so much I am willing to leave as an assumption, while gladly welcoming further light. But a still more difiicult passage of Revelation has here to be considered. Quite enigmatic is the judg- ment described in xiv. 14-20. Who is the person that carries out this judgment ? Apparently the Messiah, one that like the Son of man is seated on a cloud. But then in ver. 15 there is a question of "another angel " ; and in any case he does not execute the judg- ment alone, but by him stands almost in a superior position this other angel, who likewise sits in judgment. BATTLE BETWEEN THE DEMONS AND ANGELS. 223 And, moreover, on whom is judgment held? The reference is only (ver. 20) to much bloodshed " with- out the city." Perhaps we may here receive further help from Lactantius, who (VII. 19, 645, 11) describes the overthrow of the host sent by Antichrist to persecute the faithful : " And the power of the angels shall deliver into the hands of the just that multitude which had encompassed the mountain, and blood shall ÜOW like a torrent^ and the impious one alone shall escape after the destruction of all his forces."^ With this is to be compared Victorinus on the same passage : '' And blood shall come out ' even unto the horse bridles' [means that] vengeance shall be poured out on the princes of the people — that is, the rulers, whether the devil or his angels ; in the last conflict the vengeance of bloodshed shall be poured out." ^ In pseudo-Hippolytus we are told that the faithful in the wilderness are pursued by demons ; and Commodian writes (983) somewhat obscurely that, as the rebels against God rush forward with their hosts, they are strewn on the ground by the angels in battle.^^ And the Apocalypse of Zephaniah (128) adds after the above-quoted passage : ^^ The angels shall hearken to it, and come down and fight a battle of many swords with him." It is highly probable that in Revelation xiv. 14-20 we had originally a description of the battle, which was to be fought by the angels against the hosts of the Antichrist, by whom the faithful are pursued in the wilderness. This battle takes place without the walls 224 TEE ANTICHRIST LEGEND, of the city, that is, Jerusalem, headquarters of the Antichrist. If this be the correct interpretation, then the person seated on the cloud like the Son of man is to be regarded only as an angel. And thus one also under- stands why at the beginning of chap. xiv. the Lamb appears with the 144,000. These are the steadfast believers who have fled to the wilderness, and who now appear with the Lamb, God having sent the Messiah to them in the wilderness (see Lactantius above). The statement that they dwell on the mountain derives from the same tradition, only the writer seems to have added that this is Mount Zion. The destruction of the Antichrist by the Saviour is already announced by Paul, who describes his over- throw after Isaiah xi. 4. The Lord slays him by the breath of His mouth, and shall destroy him utterly when he appears on His return. This idea that Christ Himself is to vanquish the Antichrist continued to be widely diffused,* although in many descriptions the scene almost entirely dis- appears in the background. It is given in detail by Lactantius (see below) ; by pseudo-Ephrem, 10 ; and many others. f But it is specially remarkable that the * Cf . Ephr. Gr., 143 B ; pseudo-Hippolytus, xxxvii. ; Phil. Solitarius, 818 C ; pseudo-Johannine Apocalypse, xvi. et seq. ; D. A. Gr., 116, and Arm., 240. t Pradentius, CatJiemerinon, 6, " Qui de fureiite monstro pul- chrum refert trophseum " (" Who gains a glorious triumph over the raging monster ") ; Cyril, xv. 10 ; Jerome, ad Algasiam^ 11 ; P. A. Syr. ; John of Damascus ; Adso ; Haymo ; Elucidarium ; ANTICHRIST SLAIN BY THE MESSIAH. 225 Messiah, Son of David, kills Armillus by the breath of His month in snch Jewish sources as the Midrash, the Mysteries of Eabbi Yokhai, and the History of Daniel, although in this last it is not quite clear whether it is Armillus or the Messiah ben Joseph that gets killed. Hence, even on this point, Paul's refer- ence to Isaiah does not seem to be made independently, but to have been handed down to him through the general Jewish tradition. In later times the idea that the Antichrist is over- thrown by the Messiah Himself prevailed to the exclusion of all others. It probably gave rise to an important transformation which the Christian eschato- logy underwent in mediseval times. In Jerome (on Daniel xii. 11 e^ seq,) the notion is already established that between the destruction of the Antichrist and the last judgment an interval occurs answering to the forty-five days of Daniel xii. 11, 12 — that is, the differ- ence between 1290 and 1335.* To me it seems highly probable that the legend had much to do with this application, and that in the Middle Ages people again ventured, against the decision of the Church, to revive millennium theories. Under the influence of Joachim of Fiore hopes began to spread, especially amongst the circles subject to the teachings of the Franciscan friars, and already in Jewish sources, such as the Testament urn XII. Patr. (Dan v.), the Midrash va-Yosha, the Mysteries of Eabbi Yokhai, and the Jewish History of Daniel. The reference to Isaiah xi. 4 also recurs in pseudo-Ephrem, Cyril, Jerome, John of Damascus, Adso, and Haymo. * Malveuda, II. 243, 15 226 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND, that a golden age was again to come on earth — an age identified with the sway of the Holy Ghost, the reformation of the Church, and the predominance of monastic institutions. Then we hear in this connection of a second coming of Christ, in contradistinction to His third and final advent at the last judgment.* To be sure this second coming is for the most part treated only in a spiritual- istic sense ; nevertheless Christ now overthrows the Antichrist (a conception interpreted in the most diverse ways) — the advent is preceded by Elias and Enoch, two religious orders ! — and the conversion of the Jews is now accomplished. In all this the influence of the Antichrist legend is clearly seen. But we should need a separate work to follow up all the points of contact, which can here be indicated only in a general way. But traces are also perceptible of an earlier form of the saga, in which the Messiah can scarcely have held a clearly defined place. Thus in Ascensio (on Isaiah iv. 14) we read, not of the Messiah, who is here called the Beloved, but of God, that ^Hhe Lord shall come with His angels and the powers of the saints from the seventh heaven, with the glory of the seventh heaven, and deliver Berial into Gehenna and his powers also." ^^ So also in Sibyl III. 73 it is said of God that * Thus Joachim and his numerous followers, Ubertinus dc Casalis, the German prophetesses, and apocalyptic writers down to the author of the Onus Ecclesice, MICHAEL THE ARCHANGEL, 227 " He shall Beliar consume and all the overbearing men who shall have pnt faith in him." ^^ Pseudo-Methodius less clearly: "And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man with much glory, and He shall come on the clouds of the earth, and the Lord shall take him off with the breath of His mouth/' ^^ where the Latin has, " God shall kill him." ^* Here the whole account of the Antichrist's end produces a disjointed and abrupt impression. With it may be compared the notion given farther on from Bernardus Senensis, inspired by the mention in Methodius of Michael the Archangel. But the state- ment is not to be rejected off-hand, because it also occurs in Adso, who is closely connected with pseudo- Methodius. Possibly we no longer possess the con- cluding part of Methodius in its original form. But with these references is connected a series of others, in which has been preserved a distinctly earlier tradition. According to this tradition it is the arch- angel Michael who overcomes the Antichrist, and in these earlier sources the Messiah takes no part in the incident, while God, not Christ, appears as the Judge of the world. Before giving these references, I may be allowed another general observation. It would be in every respect extremely interesting to make a connected survey of the speculations in- dulged in by the later Jewish writers on the subject of Michael the Archangel. We should find, I imagine, that here, if anywhere, Jewish speculation has been the prototype for the development of Christological 228 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND. teachings. In the later Jewish world of thought the archangel Michael takes an amazingly high position precisely as the angel of the people. Even in Daniel xii. 1 et seq, Michael is already represented as the great hero of the last days, when he is to champion the cause of his nation. But the most important point is that here his figure already quite thrusts that of the Messiah aside, and even acquires Messianic significance. We should expect that in this, as in all other respects, Daniel's influence must have been much felt in eschatological speculations. Hence in my opinion the dominant place taken by Michael in Revelation xii. is the strongest argument for the Jewish origin of that document. It is he, and not the Child who is yet to be born and who is des- tined to rule the Gentiles with a brazen sceptre, that overthrows the Dragon when storming the heavens. Michael's position becomes still more commanding, if it can be assumed that in Revelation xii. was originally described the last and decisive assault of the Dragon on heaven, the revolt of the old Serpent and his final overthrow. In that case Michael would stand out, in the Jewish transformation of this figure, as the vanquisher of the Dragon in the great struggle of the last days. Now traces of this view still occur in various sources. Thus Ephr. Syr., 12 : " Then Gabriel and Michael, captains of the army, starting up shall come down and stir up the saints. But the evil one [Anti- christ] with his satellites shall be stricken with shame ; and forthwith the angels shall advance and seize the MICHAEL AND THE ANTICHRIST. 229 accursed one ; whereat the Lord shall cry out from the heaven and overthrow the accursed one with all his forces, and forthwith the angels shall thrust him into Gehenna." ^^ Here by " the Lord " is to be under- stood God, for Christ is afterwards called the " Son." The conquest of the Antichrist and the destruction of the world take place without His co-operation. So also in Codex E. of the pseudo-Johannine Apoca- lypse another trace is seen of this conception : '' When he hath been captured by Michael the Archangel, and deprived of his godhead — for I have sent out from the bosom of my father and have humbled the polluted one's head, and his eye has been quelled." ^^ Ezra's Apoc, xiii. : " And there shall God send against them [Gog and Magog] Michael, the fearful angel, and he shall destroy them without pity." Chap. XV. : '' And angels shall be sent, who thrust the son of perdition into the Gehenna of fire, and there [then] is the end." Bede, de Ratione Temporum^ 69 : ^'That son of per- dition being smitten either by the Lord Himself or by Michael the Archangel." ^' Bede's Sibyl : ^' And the Antichrist shall be slain through the virtue of the Lord by Michael the Archangel, as some teach." ^^ Adso, 1297 B : '' The doctors also teach, as saith Pope Gregory, that Michael the Archangel shall de- stroy him on Mount Olivet in his pavilion and seat, in that place whence the Lord ascended into heaven." ^^ Noteworthy also is the passage from Bernardus Senensis on the Universal Judgment, XL, quoted 230 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND. by Malvenda, IL 235 : " Anticlirist by command of Christ shall be thunderstruck through the ministry of Michael the Archangel, who shall also kill him according to Methodius." ^^ So also in the Jewish History of Daniel we read : " Thereupon shall they, Michael and Gabriel, slay him who hath given himself out as the Messiah, and [then] shall God appear from heaven."'^ An echo of this tradition is also presented by Ephr. Gr., 143E: And the tyrant is led — bound by the angels With all his demons— before the altar. ^i So also Victorinus on Revelation xv. 1 : " These seven bad angels [those having the seven last plagues] he sends to smite the Antichrist." ^^ A parallel pointing to a still earlier period is probably presented by the Assumption of Moses, X., where we read : " And then shall His [God's] kingdom appear in [unto] all His creatures, . . . and then Zabulus [the devil] shall come to an end. . . . Then shall be filled the hands of the messenger, who is appointed on high, who forthwith shall avenge them [Israel] on their enemies." ^^ There can scarcely be a doubt that here the reference is to the angel Michael. And when we read further, " For the heavenly being shall rise up from the seat of his kingdom," ^^ we again find God and Michael standing side by side in battle, though not with the Antichrist, but against * Theodoretus also shov/s himself familiar with the whole tradition in his comment on Daniel xii. 1 (Malvenda, II. 181). ANTICHRIST ON OLIVET AND SION. 231 the devil. Of course Michael could not originally have been placed in antagonism to Antichrist, i.e. the false Messiah, but, as here, to the devil, i.e. Belial or the Dragon (Revelation xii. 7).* Noteworthy is the assumption, apparently derived from Zechariah, that Antichrist is to meet his end on Mount Olivet. It would seem, however, that the idea cannot be with any certainty traced back beyond Jerome, on Daniel xi. 44 et seq. : '' Then shall come the Antichrist to the summit of that mount, . . . that is, the top of Mount Olivet, . . . and they assert that there shall Antichrist perish where the Lord ascended to heaven." ^^ In the Jewish History of Daniel also the Messiah ben David appears on the Mount of Olives. An earlier parallel is found in the Apocalypse of Baruch, xl. : " The last captain, who shall survive after the multitude of his congregations has been destroyed, shall be bound, and they shall take him up to Mount Sion, and my Messiah shall convict him of all his wickedness, and thereafter shall slay him " ^^ (see also 4 Ezra xiii. 34). A specially archaic variant occurs in Lactantius, VIL 19, 645, 16 : " Antichrist shall battle with the truth, and when overcome shall escape, and shall often renew the war and often be overthrown, until in the fourth conflict . . . being vanquished and captured he shall at last pay the penalty of his crimes " ^^ (cf. Commodian, 937 et seq.). * On Michael, the Dragon- slayer, and his analogy to Horus, vanquisher of Typhon, and to Apollo, the python-killer, see Dietrich, AbraxeSy 122 et seq. CHAPTER XVI * The Sign of the Son of Man— The Time of His Advent — The Destruction of the World by Fire— The Four Winds— The Sounding of the Trump— The Last Judgment. IN Matthew xxiv. 30 it is foretold that " then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven." What is this sign of the Son of man ? Expositors scarcely ask the question, and yet the point must be raised. In the patristic writings the most diverse fancies are expressed on the subject. Probably the sign of the Son of man is to be conceived as some manifestation in the heavens, perhaps a flaming sword that is to flash before the face of the Messiah descending from heaven. Thus is the tradition presented in Lactantius, VII. 19, 645, 8 : " Suddenly a sword shall fall from heaven, that the just may know that the leader of the holy army is about to descend," ^ But besides this we find the most varied interpre- tations. Thus Commodian, 903 : '' Then also shall be seen a fiery chariot and a brand streaming through the stars to forewarn the peoples of the fire."^ * For Notes Ho ^ of this chapter, see Appendix, p. 294. 282 THE SIGN OF THE SON OF MAN, 233 Ephr. Syr.5 chap. xii. : " Then shall the Lord come down, . . . and between heaven and earth shall His chariot stand still." ^ Sibyl IV. 172: "A mighty sign with sword and trump at the rising of the sun."'^ So also Sibyl V. 158: "There shall from heaven come a great star down to the dread salt sea, and shall burn up the deep ocean." ^ And Sibyl XIV. 158 : "And then surely a great sign shall God from heaven display unto speaking- mortals with the revolving years, a portent (?) of the evil war impending." ^ The Book of Clement, 81, 21: "Then shall be signs in the sky ; a bow shall be seen, and a horn and a brand." '' Bede's Sibyl speaks in more general terms : " The sign of the doom ; the earth shall be moist with sweat ; from heaven the king shall come to reign for ever." ^ The Jewish History of Daniel : " And the banner of the Messiah shall be seen." On the other hand, the sign of the Son of man is already at a very early period referred to the Cross that is again to appear.* In the pseudo-Methodius (and Usinger's Sibyl) the last Roman emperor lays his crown on the Cross, which is then borne crown and all heavenwards. " It [the Cross] shall appear at the advent before His face unto the conviction of the unbelieving Jews." ^ * Thus pseudo-Ephrem, 10 ; Cyril, xv. 22 ; pseudo-Chry- sostom ; pseudo-Hippolytus, xxxvi. 115, 4 ; D. A. Gr. Cod. (see Klostermann, 120, Anmerkung) ; Elucidarmm. 234 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND. Less distinct are the statements of Greek Ephrem. In de Äntichristo the mention of the Cross occurs only in the Latin version. But, on the other hand, a fuller account is found in the description of the Advent, which is extant in five different traditions. Here I give the Recension I.,* where, as I believe, the incident is written in tetrasyllables, although the text cannot everywhere be restored : '^ When (?) we behold the sign of the Son of man appearing in the sky, as said the Lord when (?) He was voluntarily nailed to the cross for us ; then all those gazing upwards [shall behold the dread and holy sceptre ?] appear of the great king. [Then] each of us shall recognise [and] remember the word of the Lord foretelling that the sign of the Son of man should appear in the sky and that [thereafter the king shall appear ?]."^^ With these passages we are plunged into the absolutely fathomless depths of the traditions re- garding the Cross. I feel nevertheless compelled to deal briefly with the subject. The belief in the reappearance of the Cross at the last judgment has, as is well known, played a great part, especially amongst the Eastern Churches. With this belief are also assuredly associated the manifold legends of apparitions of the Cross, of which that mentioned in the Constantine saga is the best known. Others are referred to by Zezschwitz, 56 et seq. But if the Cross was expected to come from heaven, then it must also be supposed to have first gone * See above, p. 40, after III. 145 and II. 193. LEGEND OF THE CROSS, 236 thither. And thus, in this connection, is intruded upon us the narrative in the Petrine Gospel, which afterwards became famous, and according to which- the Cross was borne to heaven with Christ at the Ascension.* Later this cycle of thought became involved with another, according to which S. Helena, mother of the emperor Constantine, was stated to have discovered the true Cross. In the times when the kingdom of God was supposed to have begun on earth with the conversion of the empire to Christianity, the Cross was naturally no longer expected from heaven, but was venerated on earth as a holy relic. Thus origi- nated the above-mentioned legend, as we see it in Methodius (and Usinger's Sibyl). The last Byzantine emperor at his abdication lays his crown on the Cross, which is then borne on high with the crown in order thence to return in the last days. Thus is confirmed the view above advanced against Zezschwitz (p. 47) that this relation of Methodius regarding the de- position of the crown is of later date and more complicated than that occurring in Adso and Bede's Sibyl. But quite a special version of the legend survives in the pseudo-Johannine Apocalypse, chap. xvi. '' And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man from heaven with power and great glory ; and then the worker of unrighteousness himself shall * The same idea occurs in Sibyl VI. 26-28, and in Chrysostom, de Cruce et Latrone, Horn. ii. 4 (Zezschwitz, p. 56, and Anmer- kung 83, etc.). 236 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND. behold [it] with his ministers, and he shall gnash his teeth vehemently, and all the foul fiends be put to flight." 1^ Here the Cross, the sign of the Son of man, seems to completely usurp the place of the Son of man Himself. That this is no delusion is shown by a glance at the corresponding material symbolism of early Christendom, for a reference to which I have to thank Dr. Achelis. Here is seen in numerous representations the development of the process by which the Cross, symbol of Christ, takes the place of the Crucified. And in the mosaic of S. Clement's in Kome depicting the scene of the Transfiguration we have the picture that corresponds to the account in the pseudo-Johannine Apocalypse. Nothing is here shown except a cross appearing in the sky (with a medallion of Christ crucified). Still more eloquent is a passage in the Elucidarium (1166), where Christ is made to appear '^to the elect in that form which appeared on the mountain, but to the reprobate in that which was suspended on the Cross." ^^ But it is to be a luminous cross '^ brighter than the sun." Compare Meyer's tentative translation of Völuspd, 46 : " The Saviour shineth on that Rood of old renown." A still more involved picture is lastly presented by the Lower Sahidic recension of the Apocalypse of Zephaniah, 124, which with its parallels has already been discussed (p. 90). In Michelangelo's Last Judgment also we see the Cross borne by the angels by the side of the Judge, TIME OF THE ADVENT, 237 where again is made evident the astounding persist- ence of such eschatological representations. A definite time for the advent of Christ and the overthrow of the Antichrist is already presented by Lactantius, YII. 19,644, 8: ^^Then shall be opened the mid-heaven in a stormy and dark night, so that in the whole world may appear the light of God descend- ing like a coruscation as the Sibyl hath expressed in these words : When He cometh There shall be a murky fire at black midnight. This is the night that it is our privilege to celebrate for the coming of our King and God ; and for this night there is a twofold reason, to wit, that He both regained life when He suffered, and thereafter is to regain the kingdom of the whole world." ^^ Although this expectation appears to be distinctly Christian, the source drawn on by Lactantius is in all probability a Jewish sibyl. Hence it is that Lactan- tius continues to declare with such strong emphasis that " He is the Liberator and Judge and King and God whom we call Christ."^* On the other hand, it may probably have been a Jewish expectation that, in the night when once the people of Israel were liberated frona the land of Egypt, in the same night would come to pass the great deliverance from Antichrist. In the Elucidarium^ III. 12, we further read : ''At midnight in the hour when the angel made Egypt desolate, and when the 238 TEh ANTICHRIST LEGEND. Lord despoiled hell, in the same hour He shall deliver His elect from this world." ^^ In the Jewish Book of Zorobabel we are likewise told that Menakhem, son of Ammiel, shall suddenly appear on Mount Nisan. A trace of this old expectation of Christ's return on Easter eve (Holy Saturday) still survives in a popular custom. In the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem the Easter fire still annually appears, not indeed at the hour of midnight, but for practical reasons * at noon, as my colleague Dr. Achelis in- forms me. God or Christ, surrounded by the angelic hosts, comes to sit in judgment, and before Him rushes a fierce, fiery storm which burns up the world. Ephr. Syr., chap. ii. : " Then shall the Lord come down from on high in the dread glory of His angels, . . . the sea shall roar and be dried up, . . . the heavens and the earth shall be dissolved, and darkness and smoke shall prevail. Against the earth shall the Lord send fire, which lasting forty days shall cleanse it from wickedness and the stains of sin." ^^ Ephrem III. 145 (text restored from the five recen- sions, but substantially that of III. 145) : How may we then endure — my beloved brethren, When we shall see the fiery — river coming out In fury like the wild — seething ocean, And the hills and the valleys — consuming, and all The world and the works — therein ; then, beloved, '^ To stop the unseemly scenes formerly witnessed at these midnight celebrations. THE SECOND COMING. 239 With that fire (?) — the rivers shall fail, The springs shall vanish — the sea dry up, The air be agitated — the stars (?) shall fall out, From the sky the sun — shall be consumed, the moon Pass away, the heavens — rolled up like a scroll.^'^ Ephr. Gr., III. 143 B: In the end like the lightning — flashing from heaven Shall come God, our King — and deathless Bridegroom, In the clouds with glory — unimaginable (?), And before His glory shall run — the serried hosts Of angels and archangels — (all breathing fiery flames ?) And a river full of fire — with frightful crash i^)P Psendo-Ephrem, 10: '^And the Lord coming forth shall appear with great power and much majesty ; with all the powers of the heavens, and the universal choir of saints." ^^ Psendo-Johannine Apocalypse, 14 : '' Then shall I send My angels before the face of all the earth, and they shall consume the earth cubits eight thousand and five hundred, and they shall consume the lofty mountains, and all the rocks shall be fused, . . . and all plants and all cattle shall be burnt," etc.^^ Pseudo-Johannine Apocalypse, 18 : " [Then] shall fall the stars from heaven, . . . the moon shall be hid and no light be in it, . . . the light of the sun shall be suppressed (?), . . . half of the sea shall fail, . . . Hades shall be disclosed." ^^ Cyril, XV. 10 : '' [He shall come] attended by myriads of angels " ; xv. 21 : "A river of fire rushing on, searching [the hearts] of men (?)."^^ 240 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND. Pseudo-Chrysostom : '' A river of fire filled with a restless worm." ^^ This tradition goes far back. Thus Sibyl III. 71 : But when the threats of the great God shall draw nigh, And the fiery power shall come with overflow (?) on the earth, Then surely the universal elements Of the world shall be dissolved, when God dwelling in the firmament Shall roll up the heaven, [which] like a scroll shall be put away (?), And all the many-shaped vault of heaven shall fall on the vast earth, And on the deep shall flow a ceaseless torrent of glow- ing fire. And shall consume the earth, consume the sea. And the pole of heaven, the nights, the days, and e'en the creation. And fuse all in one and set apart unto purification — And no longer [shall bide] the buoyant spheres of the luminaries. Neither night nor dawn, nor the many days of sorrow, Neither spring nor winter, nor yet summer nor the harvest-tide. 2^ Sibyl II. 197 : [The fire] from heaven shall flow and all consume, The earth, the great ocean and pale green sea. Lakes and rivers, both springs and pitiless Hades, And the vault of heaven ; but the heavenly lights Shall run together in one all-desolate form, THE CRACK OF DOOM. 241 206: Then shall all elements of the Cosmos fail, Air, earth, sea, light, the pole, days and nights. ^^ Greek Apocalypse of Peter (Macarius, IV. 7) : '' And all the power of heaven shall melt away, and all the stars shall fall as the leaves falleth off from the vine, and as a falling fig from the fig tree." ^^ Lactantius, VII. 19, 645, 10 : " And He shall come down to mid-earth with His attendant angels, and an unquenchable flame shall go before Him." ^'^ Commodian, 1005 : At the given sign the plague shall fall from all the ether, With a crash of thunder the raging fire shall descend. ^^ Ascensio Jesaice^ IV. 1 et seq, : " God shall come with His angels and with the powers of His saints " ; IV. 18 : '' Then in wrath shall the voice of the Beloved rebuke this heaven and this dry [land], and the mountains and the hills, the cities and the desert, . . . and from it shall the Beloved cause fire to rise, and [it] shall consume all the wicked." ^^ Apocalypse of Zephaniah, 129 : " On that day it shall come to pass that the Lord shall hear it, and in great wrath the heaven and the earth shall be com- manded, and they shall cast forth fire, and the flame shall encompass of the earth seventy and two ells, and tlie sinners devour and the devils like stubble." Greek Apocalypse of Daniel, 109 : ^' But after fulfil- ment of the three times and one half God shall rain 16 U2 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND, down fire on the earth, and the earth shall be con- sumed thirty cubits ; then shall the earth cry unto God, I am a virgin, Lord, before Thy face." ^^ Ezra (Tischendorf, xxix.) : " Then shall I burn the heaven eighty cubits and the earth eight hundred cubits." ^^ Armenian Apocalypse of Daniel, 240, 13 : ^' Then shall the sun be darkened and the moon changed to blood. The stars shall fall down like leaves, and heaven shall be rolled up like a scroll, . . . and all things shall be scorched and parched by the wind. Fiery angels shall come down from heaven, and fire shall flare up throughout the whole world." Syriac Apocalypse of Peter : '^ And fire shall eat into the earth from above, and the ocean and the great sea round the globe shall become dry. The light of sun and moon shall grow dark, the stars be scattered and fall down, and the heaven rolled up like a sheet of paper." Ethiopic Apocalypse of Peter : '^ And the sun shall suff'er eclipse and the moon become blood, and the stars fall from heaven through the greatness of God's wrath over mankind and the Messiah." Bede's Sibyl : Fire shall burn up earth and sea and heaven, . . . The springs shall fail (?), and the everlasting flame con- sume ; . . . [He] shall cast down the hills, and raise up valleys from the depths, . . . From the heavens shall fall both fire and a sulphur stream ! 2- THE CRACK OF DOOM. 243 Elucidarium : " With all the hierarchies of the angels shall He come, ... all the elements shall be stirred by the mingled storm of fire and frost raging on all sides." ^^ Muspilli : '' When the blood of Elias — drippeth on the ground — then shall the mountains burn — no tree stand on all the earth — The waters shall grow dry — the meres be sucked up — slowly glows the heaven aflame — The moon falls and burns up the mid-earth — no stone stands firm — then cometh the day of ven- geance on the land — cometh with fire men to search —Then can none of kin each other help — before the world's doom — when the broad rain shall all consume — and fire and air sweep all away." ^* A strong position is held in our tradition by the brief account of the last days in Isaiah xxxiv. 4 : '^ And all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll : and all their host shall fall down, as the leaf falleth off" from the vine, and as a falling fig from the fig tree." The passage is found imbedded in a connected tradition of the Antichrist in Sibyl III. 82 et seq., and in the earlier Petrine Apocalypse, and also occurs in later sources, where, however, it is referred to the fore- warnings of the end of the world,* and is similarly treated in Revelation vi. 12 et seq. It need, I suppose, scarcely here be assumed that Revelation vi. formed itself the concluding part of a shorter eschato- logical document. But at all events it may be rightly inferred that, in his description of the earthquake, the * Cf. Ephr. Gr., D. A. Arm., P. A. Syr., P. A. ^tli. 244 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND. apocalyptic writer borrowed from the current tradition imagery which belonged originally to a description ot the end of the world. The fact that we meet with the same description in Matthew xxiv. 29 et seq. merely affords another proof that in this chapter the writer has made use of the Antichrist legend. Characteristic is the final conflagration which is found constantly associated with the same tradition. No doubt the idea that a fiery tempest is to be let loose by God emanates from Daniel vii. 10. Nevertheless the distinctly expressed view that the world is to perish by fire seems to have been originally drawn from our tradition both by Jewish and Christian writers. But I will not venture to decide whether the idea itself derives from the Stoic school, or was developed under Oriental influences in late Jewish times. Such a question cannot be settled off-hand, without first exploring the ground inch by inch. It is significant that, although the idea already prevailed, the Book of Revelation does not speak of a destruction of the world by fire. In fact this belief, which was afterwards universally accepted, is mentioned in the New Testament once only — that is, in the Second Epistle of Peter iii. 6, 7 : ^^ Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished : but the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men." Even here we again see how little the whole body of the New Testament writings, compared with our single tradition, has contributed to determine the THE MILLENNIUM, 246 eschatological views of Christendom. The account of the last conflagration has been handed down from age to age with wonderful persistency, so that it stands out clearly in all its fulness in the Sibylline literature as well as in the Old High German Muspilli lay. It is indeed surprising how we are everywhere told with the fullest details that the last fire is to consume the ocean, the rivers, and the springs ; while the words " and there was no more sea " are the only echo of all these details found in Revelation (xxi. 1). May it be assumed that in the mention of these particulars a lingering reminiscence survives of the belief that the old Serpent who revolts in the last days was originally the marine monster, who contends with the God of creation ? In one of our earliest sources, the Syriac Ephrem, we still read how " God shall rebuke the sea and it shall dry up." And we are further told that at the end of time the sea shall utter a frightful roar.* When again the description of the end is compared with the sketch in Revelation, it becomes extremely surprising that in the whole tradition not a trace is anywhere to be found of the idea of a millennium. From this it may be inferred that the common source of the Jewish and Christian tradition of our saga goes back to a time when, in the Jewish eschatology, there was not yet developed this further detail of the system, as it occurs about the close of the first century in 4 Ezra, Baruch, and Revelation. There was a time in the Christian Church also when the * Cf. Ephr. Gr., 4 Ezra, Book of Clement, 246 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND. milleDTiium view was dominantj thanks to the inflnence of Revelation. Justin, Irenseus, Lactantins, Tertul- ian, Victorinas, were all believers in a millennium. But then it is difficult to understand how, despite Revelation and the patristic tradition, the millennium theory came at last to be rejected as a Jewish super- stition. The difficulty, however, may in a measure be cleared up by remembering that Christendom had at its disposal an early eschatological tradition which knew nothing of a golden age to last for a thousand years. The essentially Jewish character of these views, and consequently also of the parts of Revelation dealing with them, is seen in the consideration that in the Jewish sources of the Antichrist legend the idea of the interregnum suddenly reappears (compare especially the History of Daniel), while the usual description of the end of the world is thrust aside. A special trait in the description of the end is the letting loose of the winds for the purifying of the world. This last echo of a myth, which has already all l)ut disappeared from Daniel (vii. 1, etc.), occurs in the pseudo-Johannine Apocalypse, 15 (Gunkel, 323 et seq,) : " Then shall I throw open the four parts of the east, and there shall issue forth four great winds, and they shall thoroughly winnow the face of all the earth, . . . and the Lord shall scatter sin like chaff from the earth, and the earth shall be made white as snow, . . . and she shall cry unto Me, saying, I am [as] a maid before Thee."^-^ THE FOUB, WINDS 247 Syriac Apocalypse of Peter : '' Thereupon shall I order the four winds, and they shall be let loose one in the direction of the other." Armenian Apocalypse of Daniel : " From heaven storms shall hither come." Pseudo-Hippolytns, viii. 97, 1 : " Fierce gales of wind shall agitate the earth and the sea without measure." ^^ The same idea is also prevalent in the Sibylline literature, as in Sibyl VIII. 203 : And the sun shall appear darkling by night, And the stars quit the sky, and with great fury a hurricane Shall lay waste the earth, and [then] shall be the resur- rection of the dead.^^ This wide diffusion of the tradition leaves no doubt that the enigmatic fragment of Revelation vii. 1 et seq. was taken from this very source by the apocalyptic writer, who draws from the same authority his previous description of the incidents that follow the opening of the sixth seal (vi. 12-17). In 1 Thessalonians iv. 16 Paul is able to tell us that " the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God." He shows his dependence on the same apocalyptic tradition as in 2 Thessalonians, and by the expression " the word of the Lord " in ver. 15 Paul does not mean any particular utterance of the Lord, but rather has in mind this old and vener- ated tradition. The great day of judgment is ushered 248 THE ANTICHB.IST LEGEND. in with '' the voice of the archangel," which is to be taken as a perfect equivalent to '' the trump of God." This sounding of the trump by Michael the Archangel, which proclaims the divine judgment, is a constant feature of our tradition, a faint echo of which lingers in Matthew xxiv. 31. Lactantius (VII. 16, 637, 1) expressly quotes a sibyl as saying that '' a trumpet blast shall send forth from heaven a sound of much wailing." ^^ Bede's Sibyl : " But from on high a trump sends down a moaning sound." ^^ This literal parallelism shows how old is the tradition in this document. Commodian, 901: " Meanwhile the trump suddenly gives out a fearful blast from heaven, and lo ! it rings harsh through the firmament, everywhere with rever- berating note." ^^ Ethiopic Apocalypse of Peter : '' And thrice shall the horn be sounded by Michael the Archangel. . . . At the third blast of the horn shall the dead instantly rise up." Pseudo-Chrysostom : " And before His face Michael the Archangel sounds the trump, and awakens those slumbering from Adam unto the consummation of all time."^^ Pseudo-Johannine Apocalypse, 9 : " And Michael and Gabriel shall come out from heaven and sound the trump." *^ That there should also be frequent mention of several angelic trumpeters was naturally to be expected from Matthew xxiv. 31. But the sounding of the trumpet by Michael the Archangel, as already THE LAST JUDGMENT. 249 known to Panl, is peculiar to our tradition, and has been preserved with it. It is no longer possible to state in quite clear language how the Antichrist legend concluded. But in any case we should apparently reject the descrip- tion of the last judgment which is given under the influence of Matthew xxv. 41-46 in greatest detail by Greek Ephrem ; in Hippolytus, Ixiv. ; in the parallel part of pseudo-Hippolytus (39 et seq.); and elsewhere.* Here we have probably an inter- polation, which was evidently based on Matthew, and which is perhaps not earlier than Ephrem. At the same time it is not altogether impossible that in Matthew xxv. itself we have some older eschatological material. But with the account drawn from Matthew another is connected, which is even more widespread and per- sistent. Here we read how in a vast hall of justice all the generations of men from Adam are gathered before God — the various nations, Jews as well as Gentiles, the diverse ranks and classes of the peoples. Such is the form taken by the legend in Greek Ephrem, in pseudo-Hippolytus, and in the pseudo-Johannine Apocalypse, where it is seen in its most genuine aspect. Lactantius also (VII. 20 and 24) appeals to Sibylline authority, where a similar scene seems to occur. Compare the line : " They shall all of them * Cf . Cyril, xv. 24 ; P. A. JEth. and Syr. ; Eterianus, xxv. 217 D ; and the Elucidarium ; traces also occur in D. A. Gr. and J. A. 25, 250 THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND. come unto the altar of God the King." *^ With all this should also be compared the great judgment scene in the opening of the Talmudic document Abodah Sarah translated by Ewald (4 et seq.). Widely diffused is the introduction to this scene, where we are told how all generations since Adam appear before God. Thus in the Jobannine Apocalypse, 10 : "Those, Lord, who have died since Adam unto this day, and the dwellers in Hades from all time, . . . whence shall they rise again ? " ^* Ephr. Syr., 12 : " Thereupon the angels going forth shall gather the sons of Adam." ^'^ Syriac pseudo-Apocalypse : " And all the children of Adam shall appear before Me, trembling with fear." Pseudo-Chrysostom : " Awakening those who had fallen asleep from Adam unto the end of time." '^^ Another trait constantly recurring in this tradition is the description drawn from Daniel xii. 3, re- specting the appearance of the righteous and of the unrighteous on the last day. Thus pseudo-Johannine Apocalypse, 23 : " For the just shall shine as asters and as the sun, and the sinners stood wrapped in gloom." ^'^ Pseudo-Hippolytus, xxxix. 116, 21 : " Then the just shall shine as the sun, but the sinners shall appear abashed and sullen." ^^ Syriac Apocalypse of Peter : " Hail to him whose works are good, for his face shall beam and he shall rejoice and be glad. But woe to him whose works are evil, for he shall be sad and his face black." THE OLD SAXON APOCALYPSE. 251 Hildegard, Scivias, III. 12 : ^^ The good shining in brightness, and the bad appearing in blackness." -^ Lactantius, YII. 26 : '' And God shall change men to the likeness of angels, and they shall be white as snow." ^^ Perhaps we have here an eschatological tradition connected with Matthew xiii. 43, for Daniel xii. 3 is not quite parallel. That in the pitiless doom of God the mutual suppli- cations of the next akin shall avail naught is already insisted upon in 4 Ezra vii. 41 et seq. Compare also Commodian, 1035 et seq,, and the allied passage in the Syriac Apocalypse of Peter. In conclusion, without attempting to deal with the influence of the Antichrist legend on the Germanic peoples in the medieeval times, I may here refer to an interesting fragment of the old (Continental) Saxon Genesis, to which my attention has been directed by Herr Lueken. The passage (vers. 136-150) has reference to Enoch's translation and return to eartli, concluding with the fate of the Antichrist : ^' Him [Enoch] heaven's ruler took up and placed him where he must ever dwell in bliss until He [God] send him again into the world, heaven's high warden to the children of men, unto the teaching of the peoples. Then cometh also the evil one, the Anti- christ, [and] destroyeth all nations, when he with the sword shall be the murderer of Enoch with sharp cutting. By the strength of his [the Antichrist's] hands wanders the soul [of Enoch] the ghost on the 262 THE ANTICHBI8T LEGEND. good way, and God's angel cometh and on Mm the malefactor wreaks vengeance. Of Ms life shall the Antichrist be bereft, the foe felled, [and] the people led to God's Mngdom, the throng of men a long while. And thereafter ariseth the new earth, the sound land." AN OLD ARMENIAN FORM OF THE ANTICHRIST SAGA* BUT after this the liberation of all the lands of Christendom from the Aryan hosts shall be wrought by the Romans. And then the earth shall repose in goodly paths for long epochs, and shall become like a garden full of all things. But the lawless shall be repulsed, and shall fall under the yoke of slavery to the Romans. And men will lament the past, and the goods which then failed them. After that shall be manifested the son of perdition, the Antichrist.! Whilst then 1 1^ am still in the flesh I declare unto you * Translated by Mr. F. C. Conybeare, from a Life of S. Nerses published in 1853 at San Lazaro, Venice, as Vol. VI. of the Sopherk series, from four MSS. of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The Life of S. Nerses was compiled soon after the Frankish conquest of Jerusalem, mostly from materials as old as the fifth century. Mr. Conybeare remarks that "these predictions about the Anti- christ are put into the mouth of the dying saint. For the Temple at Jerusalem the compiler substitutes the Christian Church, and introduces some other Christian touches. But on the whole he presents us with a fairly primitive and complete form of the legend so confirming what Bousset says as to the stability of the myth in its main outlines, no matter how fluctuating the events which men sought to explain by means of it '' (^Academy, October 19th, 1895). f The Armenian equivalent for Antichrist {nerJiTi) can be nothing else but a transliteration of v^ptav. X Le. Nerses Parthevi, a patriarch of the Armenians in the fourth century. 253 254 AN OLD ARMENIAN FORM OJ^ [him], whofee advent is by the inspiration of Satan. But he ruleth not over Turks or Persians or Gentiles, but over the votaries of the all-victorious cross. For he is very son of perdition of those who fell from their glory. But yonder abomination shall be for the refutation of the Jews, since they it is who give ear to the deceiver. But do ye instruct your children, and your children their children ; and let them write it down and keep the record until the approach of the abomination, in order that they may be ready against the snare and may not be swallowed up in his snare. . . . The sign then of the manifestation of the Antichrist is this. When the earth shall be filled with tumult, after the good time, and the sovereignty be taken away from the Romans ; as was made known to Daniel concerning the four beasts : the he-lion, that is the Kingdom of the Medes ; and the bear, which is that of the Babylonians; and the leopard, which is that of the Persians ; and the fourth, which was manifested terrible and wondrous, which devoured and brake in pieces the earth, which is the Kingdom of the Eomans. For as at the coming of Christ the rule of Israel was destroyed, so likewise the manifesting of the abomination will destroy the rule of the Pomans. But three kingdoms were annihilated, and the fourth stood firm, which is the Kingdom of the Pomans, which is destroyed by the Anti- christ. To begin with, cruelty shall flourish, and love be dried up, and droughts occur and earthquakes and plagues. Brother shall betray brother unto death and father son. This was declared by the Lord, as ye know. And the earth shall be overshadowed. For that which they will sow, they shall not reap; and that which they shall have planted, they shall not eat ; and many presages shall there be of the manifestation of the Antichrist. Think ye not how- ever that he is Satan, or a devil from among his hosts. No, but a man lost in mind and soul of the tribe of Dan, THE ANTICHRIST SAGA. 265 and he is born in Chorazin, a village of the people of Israel ; and his name is Hromelay, and his mother's name Nerlimine.* And her name is Hrasim. And he is born of virgins and goeth unto Byzantium and is great in name according to the greatness of the Greeks. Then the kingdom of the Greeks is divided into ten sceptres ; and Antichrist himself shall be one of the kings ; and he shall slay the three kings, and bring the rest into subjection unto himself, and himself be lord over all. He shall reign for three times and a half of times; and he destroyeth the earth in his wrath, and he beareth in himself the entire livery of Satan, and his coming is at the inspira- tion of Satan. And he will work signs and wonders daring a thousand and two hundred and sixty days. But blessed is he who shall endure and arrive at the days of our Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. Then if there be grinding two in one mill, the one shall be taken and the other left. And there shall shoot forth the leaf of the fig tree, which is the Antichrist. The branches shooting up are his ministers. The mill is this life, and the taking is the discrimination of good from evil. The Son of Perdition therefore shall sit in the church of God, and shall begin to blaspheme God. And he demands that worship should be paid him as if to God j and showeth himself off as God, and boasteth in pride over all so-called gods. But he will permit himself alone to be reverenced in place of God, filling the earth with evils and with foulness. Then sendeth God the two prophets, Enoch and Elias, for the salvation of men ; and they warn the faithful and * So the most complete twelfth -ceutury MS. ; but two other uncial sources have the one Melitene and the other Nelitene — of. Sibyll., III. 63 (cited by Bousset) : e/c de Zeßaarrjvuv ij^ei BeXiap ixeroiriadev, I render the Armenian as it stands ; but we should evidently read : '' But his mother is of Melitene, and her name is Hrasim." Romelay = Romulus. 256 AN OLD ARMENIAN FORM OF turn again the hearts of the fathers unto their children, even as the Lord also declared, saying, Elias cometh and shall prepare my way. As then in the first coming John was the forerunner of Christ, so also in the second coming Elias is reserved to be forerunner along with Enoch. They shall therefore both come and say : Believe ye not in the abomination which is in the holy place ; for he is the great dragon and crafty serpent. With his guile he tricks you and with his false miracles. Go ye not nigh unto him, but flee unto the mountains ; and be patient yet a little while. He is a false Christ, and by means of false prophets would fain deceive the worshippers of the cross. He is the in- spiration of many a madness. But pray ye day and night, since the time of trouble is short, but the bliss unending. Christ of a verity is not on earth, but in heaven in unspeakable glory; and he shall consign him yonder to outer darkness and pitiless tortures. Nor doth Christ come before Pilate for judgment, but himself judgeth the earth. This and the like thereto do Enoch and Elias preach unto men. Then the earth waxeth foul and fetid with the stench of the dead; and it is contaminated on all sides, and all the faces of men are sick with the stress of famine and of thirst for water. Gold and silver and all sorts of raiment are thrown down,* but no one desireth them in the peril which is imminent in the evilness of the time. Then do men remember their outrageous deeds, the mul- titude namely, that accepted on their brows the foul sign of madness, " Give us aid in our straits, for we perish all together." But he will not succour them, but only tricks them with vain hope. Even then Enoch and Elias are taken by his hand, and that abomination tortureth them with terrible blows and blasphemeth God with many words. But when the holy prophets yield not to his chicanery and * Le. in would-be payment for meat and drink. THE ANTICHRIST SAGA. 257 false signs, he will slay Enoch and Elias before the eyes of many. And there is rejoicing among the false prophets, when they behold the death of the true prophets. Then doth the great dragon himself, the son of perdition, cry aloud in the hearing of all, and say : Behold ye my mighty power. Since for many a year they had been immortal, and no others can be rescued from my hands.* And no one hath been able to overcome my might. And yet more doth his wickedness flame up in the land, whom the Lord Jesus shall utterly destroy with the breath of his mouth. And he multiplies his blasphemies against the most high in the hearing of many. But even while he continueth to speak in such wise, on a sudden in the twinkling of an eye there cometh a shock of terrible thunder ; and at the selfsame moment the ministers of the foul Antichrist are consumed and melt away. Then doth appear in brilliancy the royal sign unto the strengthening of those that took refuge in him unto the glory of the just ones, for that they bound themselves in his love. The parts of the all-victorious cross flash with light, and the hosts of holy church, and \or also] take their full growth along with the Lord's cross ; and full of light they are [yet] eclipsed by its light, f Let the nations mourn, for he cometh to judge them that were not sealed therewith, them that knew it not, the sign of the Lord. Then there cometh from heaven in unspeakable glory the king of glory. The heavens are shrivelled up and are con- sumed like wax before the fire. Bivers running free and full of gloom pour down from on high, purifying the earth from all lawlessness and foul deeds. There are heard the voices of the army of light. There stir the hosts of heaven, and the great trumpet sounds among the tombs. Arise ye * This sentence is obscure. t The punctuation of the Armenian text seems to be wrong. ? Remove comma after '• church." 17 258 AN OLD ARMENIAN FORM OF dead, to meet the bridegroom ! For he is here, he is come in his father's glory. Arise, just ones and sinners, and receive your reward ! Then with grief inconsolable shall mourn the creation that is not ready [or creatures that are not]. And in haste they don their bodies that are indestructible. Then the sinners appear in sombre and shadow-like bodies, for they are tinged with the works of their wickedness. Foremost walk in person the elect in resplendent bodies; they are lifted up from earth in clouds of light to meet Christ, and the heavenly ones wonder at them and say : What have they done upon earth, for they come in a crowd unto the Lord full of joy ? The Lord will make answer and say to them : These are my good soldiers, who denied themselves, and renounced the earth and crucified themselves along with their passions and desires for their love of me. Now therefore I will give them joy unending. And when the angels shall hear this, they will say : Ye are blessed by the Lord ; rejoice ye therefore in your gladness. Then the king of glory shall sit down on his throne ; and angels with awe minister unto him. And first of all Satan is bound without inquisition, and is dispatched into the abyss of Tartarus. And with cruel torments are bound his hosts on the left hand, for they taught men evil works. They do not deserve to be brought to judgment, since they have no defence to make before his tribunal. And without delay they are removed out of his sight. But the just shall stand on his right hand in hope of the good reward. The sinners also stand there in great shame, each for retribution for his deeds. The assize is met and the books are opened ; they are bound together in sheaves like the tares and are cast into the unquenchable fire. But unto some also are shut the doors of the blissful wedding, so that they cannot see and look upon the heavenly bridegroom ; and because they have not lit the torches of pity, he saith unto them : THE ANTICHRIST SAGA. 259 I know you not, get ye out of my sight. But before this the king bestoweth the heavenly crown upon the worthy, saying unto them : Come ye blessed ones of my Father, and inherit the kingdom made ready for you from the beginning of the world. The heavens are made new, the earth is made new ; it is green and puts forth leaves in gladness. And the kingdom is thirtyfold, as also the garden sixtyfold, and the heavens hundredfold. And there shall not be on earth any toil or sweat ; no crafty serpent nor beguiling woman ; but there shall be trees that fade not with their fruit, and all pain and sorrow shall be removed, and there shall be only joy and delight. And to some he will give a kingdom upon earth ; but for the martyrs there gleam scarlet crowns and robes and glory. With them are the virgins, who polluted not themselves on this earth ; along with the virgin Mary shall they receive the adornment of the crown of glory, transfigured. Like the sun among the stars, even so shall excel the glory of the virgins amidst the wedded ones. And do ye, my children, take note of all this, that ye may be saved from the meshes of the pursuer. . . . APPENDIX, APPENDIX. GREEK AND LATIN TEXTS. CHAPTER II. ^ To Sc ov;( a/xa Travres tVaorti/, ov yap iravTisw iravra, 2 Forte quoniam apud Jiidseos erant quidam sive per scripturas profitentes de temporibus consummationis se scire sive de secretis, ideo haec scribit docens discipulos suos ut nemini credant talia profitenti. ^ De quo pauca tarnen suggero quae legi secreta. CHAPTEE III. ^ Et in his omnibus bella Persarum sunt — in illis diebus veniunt [venient ?] ad regnum Romanum duo f ratres et uno quidem animo prsesunt (?), sed quoniam unus prsecedit alium, fiet inter eos scidium. 2 Aoyos els rrjv TTapovcriav tov Kvpiov koL irepX crwreXetas tov Kocrpiov /cat cts rrjv Trapovcriav tov ^ Kvtl^iö-tov, ^ Hept T?5s (JWTcActaS tov KOOrfJLOV KOL Trepl tov ^AvTL)(pLO-TOV, ^ Tov ay iov ^Y^c^palfx Xoyos ets tov ^AvTi\piaTov, ^ Adyos TTcpl TOV (TTavpov, ^ Adyo5 €ts TYjV SevTepav TrapovaLav tov Xptcrrov. ^ 'EpwT^crcis Ktti dwoKpLaeLS* ^ n.€pl TOV a-yjfxeLov tov cTTavpov, 263 264 APPENDIX. ^ Aoyog €19 Tov Tifxtov kol ^ojottolov crravpov kol cts rrjv Scvripav irapovcriav koX Trepl ayd7rrj<; kol iXer)/JiO(Tvvr]S. ^^ CIS T7]v Sevripav Trapovcriav tov k. rj* 1, Xp. ^^ 'EpcoTTycret? kol aTroK/otcras. ^^ Uepl rrjf; KOivrj'; avao-Tacr^cjJS kol />t€rai/otas kol ayaTrrjs* ^^ UepL dTToray^? cpcarTjcretg. ^^ Ilept /jLeravota^ kol fcptcrews kol cts rrjv ScvTepav Trapovcriav. ^^ MaKaptcr/xot erepoL. ^^ UepL rrj^ (rwreXcta? tov Kocfxov kol Trcpt tov ' AvTL)(pLcrTov K(u €t5 Tr]V Sevripav Trapovcrtav tov KVpCov rjfXihv 'I-qo'ov Xptcrroi). ^^ Et9 TTyv ScLTcpav irapova-iav tov KvpLOV rjfxwv ^I. Xp. koi Trepl 4X€r)fxocrvvr]s- CHAPTER lY. ^ De illo tunc debet rex procedere de Bizantio Romanorum et Grsecorum babens scriptum in fronte, ut vindicet regnuni Christianorum, qui subiciet filios Hismabel et vincet eos et eruet regnum Cbristianorum de jugo pessimo Sarracenorum. Tn illis diebus nemo poterit sub coelo regnum superare Cbris- tianorum. Postea gens Sarracenorum ascendet per 7 tempora et facient vmiversa mala in toto orbe terrarum perimentque pene omnes Cbristianos. Post bsec surget regnum Roma- norum et percutiet eos. et erit post bsec pax et regnum Cbristianorum usque ad tempus Anticbristi. 2 Sib. Beda. ^ Adso. Et tunc exsurget rex Tempore prsedicti regis, nomine et animo constans. cuius nomen erit C, rex Ro- ll! e idem constans erit rex manorum totius imperii. . . . Romanorum et Greecorum. ^ Et ipse rex scripturam Hie semper babebit prai babebit ante oculos dicen- oculis scripturam ita dicen- tem : tern : Rex Romanorum omne sibi vindicet [vindicat] regnum APPENDIX. 2«5 terranim [Christianorum]. Omnes ergo insulas et civitateß [paganorum] devastabit et universa idolorum templa destruet et omnes paganos ad baptismum convocabit, et per omnia templa crux Christi [Jesu] erigetur. ^ [Et postea rex] veniet [in] Jerusalem et ibi deposito [capitis] diademate [et omni habitu regali] relinquet Deo patri et filio eins Chr. J. regnum Christianorum [regnum Christianorum Deo patri relinquet et filio eins J. Chr.]. Adso adds the words, et erit sepulcrum eius gloriosum. ^ Kai /x€t' avTOV ßacnXevcreL €Tepo<; ef avrov errj iß . Kai oSto9 TTpoiSojv Tov Bdvarov avrov Tropevßyj €ts ra lepocroXvfxa, tVa TrapaSiDorrj rrjv ßacriK^iav avrov rw ©ew (Klostermann, Analecta, 116, 81). ^ Kat 6 fxeyaq^cXLTTTTO^ fjL€rayXü)(rcr(x)v SeKaoKro) /cat crvva)(^ drjaovraL iv rrj 'l^TrraXoKJxo Kai (jvyKporrjCOvcTL ttoXc/xot/. ' Tore ßov;cn/Aov ßaö-iXevo'f.L yvvy] fxtapa iv TTJ cTrraAdc^u) kol fjnavrj tol ayta tov ®€0v OvcnaaTqpLa kol cTTaOcLcra cr /iccro) t^s €7rTaXoi^Tov Aavc^X, 7]TL^ 8ia TOV iv aytois Trarpos -^fxthv MeöoScov HaTapwv i(j}av€' pwOrj rjiMv {Cod. Pseudepigr, Vet. Test., I. 1140). ^ De egressu iilii Dan maledicti, qui est Antichristus et de descensu Eliae et Enoch, quodque hos ille interfecturiis est et prodigia magna ac miracula multa editurus. CHAPTER VI. 1 Exsurget iterum in istius clade Neronis Rex ab orient e[m] cum quattuor gentibus inde Invitatque sibi quam multas gentes ad urbem, Qui ferant auxilium, licet sit fortissimus ipse, Implebitque mare navibus cum milia multa ; Et si quis occurrerit illi, mactabitur ense ; Captivatque prius Tyrum et Sidona subactas. ^ To Se opfJLTjfjia avTov TrploTOv kaTac kirt livpov Kat ^rjpvTov. ^ Ipsum denique Neronem ab Antichristo esse peri- mendum. ^ ^ißXiov KX-^/x-cvTos 7rpix)T0v to KaXovjm€vov Siaöi^ kt) tov Kvpiov rjfJiCiv Irjaov l^ptcrTov» ^ '^yepOrjo'eTai Sk /cat iv ttj Svcret ßaatXevf; äXX6(j>vXo<;, ap\(jiv p.ri^avrj'i ttoXXtj^ aOco^ dv6po)7roKT6vo<; ttXolvo^ . , . fXLcroiv tov<; TTLCTTov^, 8tcüKT>79. Thou (82, 40) : ndre iXcvcreTaL 6 vlo^ ttj^ aTTwAetas 6 avTCTraXos Kai vx^/ovfx^vo^ kol €7ratpd/x€vo6ßio cfXTrpocrdev rov Tvpdwov^ ßoa yap iv tcr^ut dXXdrjfJLOvvTO)V avTov dSiTjyYjTOis v/xvoL<;y Kal iKXdjjLTrtüv uicnrcp <;6ws 6 rrjs (TKOTias KXrjpovo/Jiog, Kai 7roT€ fieu cts ovpavov^ dvnrrafJLCvo^, 7roT€ Se iirl r^s y>}s Karep^^o/xcvos iv So^rj fxcydXrj, ttotI Bk kol ws dyyiXova^ ivaXdcrcreiV wcrre ycvccroat avrov i$aL(l>vr)<; TratStW koL fxer oXiyov yipovra aXKore 8c koX veavLO-Kov . . . KOL ißoLK-^evev vrrovpyov e)(^iüv rov StdßoXov. Cf. also chap. xxii. : cts tovtov Se rov St/xwi/a Svo ovcrtaL ctcrt]/ äv9p(x)7rov Koi SiaßoXov (" in this Simon are two beings, [those] of man and the devil ''). 2^ Quin et figurarum et colorum conversionibus omnino instar Protei alius ex alio . in sublime volans ut angelus [imo ut daemon] et terrores ac prodigia ad deceptionem effingens. ^^ Kat iraihiov ytVerac koL ycpwi/, koX ixrjSels avr<3 TTtcrrcvct, ort icrriv 6 vtos fiov 6 dyaTn^rds. ^^ M.vp€o Koi av Kd/oti/öc rov iv croi Xvypov oXcOpov, r)VLKa yap crrpcTTTatcri fXLTOi7]V a^ovcTLV /JL€Ti(jt)pov^ eoos ^crtSwcnv aTrayrcs. ^^ Uvpcjiopos ocTcre SpaKwv ottot av iirl K-vfiaonv ^XOy yacTTipi TrXrjöo^ €)((ji)v kol OXtxprj creto to. rc/cva kcraofxeuov Xljjlov re Kai ifJicf>vXov ttoX^julolo, eyyi»s /xev KoarfjLOLO riXos koL ecrxarov rjjxap. ^^ K(ü/xa^€6 C?) ßovXycTi Tov iyKpycfyirjo-L Xo;^€tats* 'AcrtSos €K yatT/s cttI TpcotKoi/ dpfji hnßdvTa OvfJiov €)(OVT aW(j)vos' or av 8' iaöfJiov BtaKoif/Yj TrairraLViov ctti rravra^ Iwv TreXayos 8ta/xcti/^a9, Kal TOTC drjpa fxeyav ix^reXevcr er at at/xa KcXaLvov. ^ IIci/TTyKOi/Ta 8' o Tt9 KepatYjv Xd^^, Koipavoq co-rat 8c IV OS o<^ts 4^V(T(x)v TToXejjLov ßapvv . . . Kal TfJi7j^€L TO SUvfJLOV OpOS Xv6p(D T€ TToXd^El, 276 APPENDIX, aXX' ccrrac Kat atoro? 6 Xotytos. ctr' avaKafxxp^i Icrd^iDV ODcw avTov, Ikiy^ei 8' oi; /;ttv coi/ra, ^^ 'O 'Avrt^^ptcTTOs 6 ef< rcoi/ cr/coreti/cuv koX ßvOiov Tq^ yrjq -)(0)pLwv €^ta)F, €1/ ots 6 ScdßoXo^ KaraSeSiKaaTai. ^^ ... Et postquam conöiimmatum est, descendet Berial angdus niagnus rex huius muDdi, cui domiiiatur ex quo exstat, et descendet e firmamento suo [in specie hominis regis im* quit at is matricidse . hie est rex huins mundi] . . . hie angelus Berial [in specie istius regni] veniet, et venient cum eo omnes potestates huius mundi et andient eum in omnibus quae voluerit. ^^ UvevjjiaTa tov BeXt'ap. ^^ Kat atiTO? TTOirjo-ei Trpo? rbv BeXtap TroXcfjiOv kol T'^v iKSiKrjcTiV TOV viKov<; S(x)(r€i Trepacnv vfxüyv. ^^ Et ascendimus in firmamentum, ego et ille, et ibi vidi Sammaelera eiusque potestates, et erat magna pugna in eo et sermones ^atanici, et alius cum alio rixabatur ... et dixi[t] angelo : quse est hsec rixa? Et dixit mihi : ita est, ex quo hie mundüs existit, usque nunc, et hsec pugna donec veniet is, quem tu visurus es, eumque delebit. ^^ To ^Xho^i TOV 7rpo(ru)7rov avTov oxret dypov, 6 6<^öaX/xoOV€VT(x)V 'loi^StttW. ^^ Kai TTpa^et öav/xacrra koL rrapaho^a irpayfiara kol /xeya- Xvvei Tois 'lovSatov^i, ^^ Nostri autem et melius interpret an tur et rectius, quod in fine mundi hsec sit facturus Antichristus, qui consurgere habet de " modica gente," i. e. de populo Judaeorum. Cf . also Yictorinus, 1247 D : Synagoga sunt Satanse quoniam ab Antichristo colliguntur (" The synagogues are Satan's since they are gathered together by him "). 21 Tunc ad eum concurrent [omnes Judsei] et existimantes se recipere Christum recipient diabolum. Cf. Haymo on 2 Thessalonians ii. : " Then shall all the Jews flock to him " ; Ehccidarmm : Tunc Judsei ex toto orbe venientes summo voto suscipient {'' Him the Jews coming from the whole world shall receive with loud applause "). Even in the Arabic tradition the Antichrist is king of the Jews (see above). ^^ tjv TrepLTOfxr) o crixJTrjp yAuev cts tov Kocrfiov^ /cat avTos 6/xota)s iXevoreTai. 33 ^' Desideria mulierum non cognoscet, cum prius fuerit impurissimus et nullum Deum patrum cognoscet," non enim seducere populum poterit circumcisionis nisi legis vindicator. 3^ Tum complebitur illud eloquium Danielis prophetae : et deum patrum suorum nescibit neque desideria mulierum cognoscet. 35 Nova consilia in pectore suo volutabit ut . . . denique immutato nomine atque imperii sede translata confusio ac perturbatio humani generis persequetur, 3^ Et circumcidet se et filium Dei omnipotentis se esse mentietur; and elsewhere, 1296 A: Hierusalem veniens circumcidet se dicens Judaeis : ego sum Christus vobis 2S0 APPENDIX. repromissus, qui ad salutem vestram veni, ut vos qui dispersi estis congregem et defendam. ^^ Et cum venerit Hierosolymam, circumcidet se dicens Judseis : ego sum Christus vobis promissus. ^^ Denique et sanctos non ad idola colenda revocaturus est, sed ad circumcisionem colendam, et si quos potuerit seducere, ita demum faciet, ut Christus ab eis appelletur. Cf. also S. Martin of Tours, 444 : Antichristus enim cum venerit legem priscam et circumcisionem annuntiabit ; and 445 : ipse enim Antichristus, cum impurissimus sit, castitatem et sobrietatem prsedicaturus est ; quia neque potator vini erit neque ullum genus mulierum ad eum accessum — habebit. ^^ Ncpcoi/ cTttcv : ovKovv Kcd 2t/x(ji)i/ 7r€pi€.Tixrj9'q ; II crpo? cTttci/* ovSl yap aXX(i)S rjSvvaro aTrarrjcrai ij/v)(as, et /jlt] 'IovSolov eTvac eavTov v7r€KpLveT0 kol tov tov 0€o9 vofxov SiSd^ai eTreSeiKVVTo. ^^ 'Ev (Tx^fxaTL 8e rovTOv rj^u 6 Trafx/xiapos (A)s KXiirTTjs ij/evSevXaßrjS, aTrarrjcrai cri;/>t7ra^ra, raTretvos koL ycrvxos, pacTiov cf>rj(TiV olSikojv, ä7roa-Tp€avLa<5 ro) Acm VTraKOvaovTac, tov 7rapeSpev€tv toIs utots Aem, TOV Trotetv arrows i^afiapTavetv ivcowiov Kvptov. CHAPTER XII. ^ Kat orr>}o'£t op^oiv vif/os, dTrjcru 8e ödXaacrav, 'HcXtov TTvpoevTa fxiyav XafXTrpdv re o'eXTyi/?;!/. ^ Et eius verbo orietur sol noctu, et luna quoque ut sexta hora appareat, eificiat. ^ Et relucescet subito sol noctu et luna interdiu. ^ Jubebit ignem descendere a coelo et solem a suis cursibus stare. 282 , APPENDIX. ^ Tunc incipiet ostendere signa mendacia in coelo et in terra, in mari et in arida, advocabit pluviam et illa descendet. ^ Mcrao-T/oei/^ct tov rjXiov eis crKorog Kai rrjv creX-qvi^v cts aifjba, ^ Iloii^(T€i Trjv rjfJiipav (TKotos koI ttjv vvKTa rj/mipav, tov 7]Xiov /xeracrrpei/^et birov ßovXerai^ koX aira^airXihs iravra ra arocx^la rrjs yr]<; kol t^s OaXd(T(Tr]^ iv 8wa/x€6 rrjs (pavTacrcas avTOv iv(i)7nov T(x)v 6eo}povvT(i)v dvaSetfci virrjKoa. ^ Kai veKvas (TTiqcrei kol crYjfJiaTa iroXXa Troirjo-et dvöpcoTTOts* aXXa ov^t reXecrc^opa ecrcreT iv avTM, dXXa TrXdva, kol Srj fxipoiras ttoXXov^ t€ irXavqcreL. ^ Merd 8e rourcov airdvTiüv (rrjpi^ia CTTtreXecrct . . . d/\A' ovk dXyjOrj, dXX' iv TrXdvrj, ottcüs TrXavrjdrj tov^; o/jlolovs auraJ dcrc^ets. 24 : XeTrpov? Kadapit,(i)v, TrapaXvrovs eyetpcoi/, SacfJiovas aTreXavvmv . . . V€KpOVavYja€Tat. 13 Faciet enim tarn stupenda miracula, ut jubeat ignem de coelo descendere ... et mortuos resurgere. The de- ceptive nature of the Antichrist's wonders is also dwelt upon by Irenöeus, Y. 28, 2 ; Cyril, xv. 10 ; Jerome, ad Algasiarn, 11 ; Chrysostom on 2 Thessalonians ii. ; John of Damascus ; Bede's Sibyl. 1* Faciet nempe omnia signa, quae fecit Dominus noster in mundo, defunctos autem non suscitabit, quia non habet potestatem in spiritus. 1^ Aver diu zeichen, diu er tut, I ' Diu ne sint niemen gut ; Er ne kuchet niht den toten. APPENDIX. 283 ^^ AiyovcTi Tti/es, on ov Swarat 6 ^ KvTi^pKjTOf; veKpov av- 6p(üTT0V dvacTTrjcrai, cttci wavra tol Xolttcl (rrjfjieia Trotet. ^^ 'O yap Trarrjp tov xj/evSov^ tol tov xj/evSovs epya 4>^VTacrto(T- KOTTUj ha Ta^TrXrjdrj vopiicrrj öecDpetv veKpbv iycLpofx^vov tov fxrj ky€ip6fJi€vov. 1^ Mortuos scilicet in conspectu hominum resuscitari . . . [sed et mendacia erunt et a veritate aliena], 1^ Suscitabit mortuos non vere, sed diabolus . . . corpus alicuius intrabit ... et in illo loquetur, ut quasi vivum videatur. 2^ Si tu es Deus, voca defunctos et resurgent . scriptum est enim in libris prophetarum et etiam ab apostolis, quod Christus quando apparebit, mortuos a sepulcturis suscitabit. ^^ M.eyaXvv(x)V (Trjp.ua TrXrjövviov ra cj^oßrjrpay {j/evBos Kai ovK a\r)6€.Lav ravra ivSeLKvvfJLCvos. TOiovTco Se TpoTTo) /xcötcTTa 6 Tvpavvos ra opr]y 8ws Kai ovk aXrjöaa Twv TrXrjßojy Trapecrrwrcov XaC)v ttoXXCjv Kai hrjp.o)v Kai €vcl)Y}fjLo-uvT(i)v avTOV Slol ras c^ai/rao-tas. Of. Philippus Solit., 816 C : Terrores ac prodigia ad deceptionem effingens, ut inconsideratis mentibus montes transferre videator (" Portents and prodigies simulating unto deception, so that to thoughtless minds he may seem to remove mountains "). ^^ mdXiv avTo<; 6 SpaKijjv vcfiaTrXowvet ras ^ctpas Kal avvdyet to ttXtjOos epTreTiov Kal TrcTeuviov' 6/>Lot(os 8' i7rißaiV€L iirdvo) ttJs dßvdcrov Kal {ü}s 6aXd(T(T7}6ßoV. ^^ Tore OprjV€L Scti/oj? opLov iracra \j/v)(rj kol crTevd^ciy or' av Travrcs OedcrovTat OXiif/Lv aTrapapivOrjTov TTju irepu^ovcrav avTOVi\as eh ra tyKara rijs y^s Kol KaTa(TT€i\Y} Kcptts Twv oivifJLOJv, Lva fJLT] avcfxos crvcTTfi irrl TTpofraiTTOv 7raorr]taT09 iK(f>V€L ^(tXtOVS ßoTpVa^, KOL 6 ßoTpVS iK(f>VCL rjfXLaTafxvov oTvov, 288 APPENDIX. ^^ Et nemo potest venundare vel emere de friimento caducitatis, nisi ql^i serpentinum signum in fronte aut in manu habuerint. ^^ Quicunque crediderint atque accesserint ei, signa- buntur ab eo tamquam pecudes. ^^ Et qui in eum crediderint signum characteris eius in fronte suscipient. ^^ Kat ypax Koi 'HAtW 7r/3os eXey^ov avrov Koi oLTToSei^ovaLV avTov (//"cvor^v /cat irXdvov kol ävcXei avTov'^ CTTt TO 6v(na(TTrjpL0v. ^ Kat oLTroorTeXu iv crvvTOjjirj tov^ avTOv Ocpairovras tov T€ 'Ev6ßov Kai\ 6pe(TL Koi 7rd(T(TOVcrL y^v /cat iirl rrjv Kea\rjV avTiov CTTToSoV fxera KkavOpiOv Seo/xevoL vvKTOjp re kol fJL€&* rjfjiipav iv TToWrj Taireivoya-u, Koi Swpctrat avrot? tovto Trapa 6cov tov ayiov, Koi oSrjyei avTOvs r) X^P^^ els tottovs tovs uipicrpiivovs. With this compare pseudo-Hippolytus, chap, xxxii. 112, 26. ^^ Fugient autem electi a facie ejus ad vertices montium et collium, fugient aliqui in sepulchra et occultabunt se inter mortuos. 01 Se SiKaLOi Kpvßrjcrovrai koI vyü)(nv iv opeo't Koi evyov(TiV Ik tt]^ ttoAX-^S SctXto,?, Kol TrdXiv 8e ol ovres €7rt Svcr/xwi/ rjXiOv cTTt Tr]V avaroXrjV (fyevyovcn juctol rpofJiov. Quite a similar account occurs in pseudo-Ephrem, chap. iv. ; pseudo-Hippolytus, xxxiii. 113, 8; Dan. Apoc. Arm., 239, 24; pseudo-Methodius, xcix. ; Adso, 1293 C; Philippus Solitarius, 817 A, and the Arabic tradition in Tabari (see above, p. 116). CHAPTER XY. ^ Tunc annus breviabitur, et mensis minuetur, et dies in angustum coarctabitur. ^ Tpta €77] eaovrat ol Kaipol e/ceti/ot, kcll Troiyjo'Ut) ra rpia err] a)S rpets pJrjva^ kcll tovs rpets fxrjva'S 0)5 Tpeis iopad\ayya6a\jxü)v avTov KOL TTpoo-ayayelv avTOv<; eis TrpocTKvvqcnv avTov kol toi>9 fjiev Tretöofxivovs aiurw cr(f>payi(rei Tjj cr(f>payi^i avrov. rov? 8e fmrj ßovXofxivov^ auTw vTraKovaat Ti/xwpta? . . . avaX(i)Xi^€i kol vTrcpc^taXov? avOpoJirov^ Travra?, oaot Tovno ttkttiv ivcTroirjcravTO. ^^ Kai TOT€ avrj(T€Tai ro a-qfx^iov rov vlov tov av6paXr]v avTOv tov yutc/xta/xerov, /cat ia-ßiö-Or] 6 o<^öaX/>tos avTov). Of. also chap, ix., where Michael and Gabriel bring about the resurrection of the dead; and also P. A. ^th. Here Michael and Gabriel awaken Elias and Enoch. ^'^ Percusso autem illo perditionis filio sive ab ipso Domino sive Michaele archangelo. ^^ Et occidetur virtute Domini Antichristus a Michaele archangelo ut quidam decent. ^^ Tradunt quoque doctores, ut ait Gregorius Papa, quod Michael archangelus perimet ilium in monte Olive ti in papilione et solio suo, in loco illo de quo Dominus ascendit ad coelos. This according to Adso and Haymo on 2 Thes- salonians ii. 2^ Antichristus de mandato Christi fulminabitur per ministerium archangeli Michael, qui etiam interficiet eum secundum Methodium. ^^ Kat aycrat 6 Tvpavvo^ ScSc/x-eVos vtt ayyiXuiv crvv aTracrt rots Sat/utoo'tT/ ivwinov tov ßi^/xaTos* ^2 Hos angelos males Septem ad percutiendum Anti- christum mittit. 23 Et tunc parebit regnum illius [sc. dei] in omni creatura illius ... et tunc Zabulus [diabolus] finem habebit. . . . Tunc implebuntur manus nuntii, qui est in summo con- stitutus, qui protinus vindicabit illos [sc. Israel] ab inimicis eorum. 2* Exsurget enim Ccelestis a sede regni sui. 294 APPENDIX. 2^ Tunc veniet Antichristus usque ad summitatem montis eius ... id est verticem montis Oliveti ... et asserunt ibi Antichristum esse periturum, unde Dominus aseendit ad coelos. Beatus (542), Adso, and the Elucidarium make the same statement, but on the authority of Jerome; so also Theodoretus in his Commentary on the same passage in Daniel. ^^ Dux ultimus qui tune reliquus erit vivus, cum vasta- buntur multitudo congregationum eius, et vincietur, et adducent eum super montem Sion, et Messias meus arguet eum de omnibus impietatibus eius. — et postea interficiet eum. '^^ Antichristus . . . contra verum dimicabit et victus efi'ugiet et bellum ssepe renovabit et ssepe vincetur, donee quarto prcelio . . . debellatus et captus tandem scelerum suorum luat poenas. CHAPTER XVI. ^ Cadet repente gladius e coelo, ut sciant justi ducem sanctse militise descensurum. 2 Yidebitur et tunc ignea quadriga per astra Et facula currens, nuntiet ut gentibus ignem. ^ Tunc descendet Dominus ... et consistet currus eius inter coelum et terram. ** . . . (T^/xa fxiyiCTTOv pofKJyairj doXinyyi 6 äfJL rjeXiia aviovTL, ^ "H^cfc 8' ovpav66ev acTTTjp /xeyas eis a\a Scivrjv koI \i$€i TTOVTOV T€ ßadvV. . . • ^ Kat Tore Sr] jxiya arj/xa 0€os /x,€/307r€crcrt ßporoicriv ovpavoOev Seilet TrepireWojxivots ivLavTOi^ d\Kr]v i(r(TOfjL€VOLo ripas TroXifioLO KaKoto, ^ Tore €0-Tat iv tw ovpav<^ a-rjjxeia* to^ov of^d-qo-^rai koX K€pa^ Kat Xa/XTras, APPENDIX. 295 ^ Judicii Signum^ telkis sudore madescet, E ccelo rex adveniet per ssecla f uturus. ^ Aiurog /xcAXct ipatvecrOai Iv rrj Trapovcrca €fjL7rpocr6€v avTov €ts eXcy^^oi/ Twv a7rL(TT(ji)v ^lovSaccav, ^^ ''Orav (?) t8ü)/)t€v TO arnxuov tov vlov rov av6pi07rov iv TCO ovpaviß cfyavkvf Kotöcos etTrev 6 Kr-ptos, iv aiv€(T- 6ai 6 ßao-iXcv^, ^^ Kat TOT€ (^avT^crcrat to arjfjiuov tov vlov tov dvOpioTrov CLTTO TOV ovpavov yLtcTot 8i;i/a/x€(os Kat So^rjs ttoXX'^?. /avL^ovTat, rj odXaacra ^TjpaLVcraL, o drjp o-vyK\ovL^€TaL, (?) ra ddTpa iKirecrovo'LV, €K TOV ovpavov 6 rjXio^ o-ßeG-OrjcreTai, rj acXrjvr) irapip^erai, o ovpavbs, eXtcro'CTat ws ySt^Xtoi/. ^^ "Hfct XoiTTOV 0)5 dorr/oaTrry do-TpaTTTOVcra c^ ovpavov ©COS rjfjiwv ßaa'iXcvs kol vufxcfyLOS aöavaros iv V€(f>iXaLS /Acra 80^179 dv€tK:ao-TOV (?) 7rpoTpe)(ovT(ji)v cvwTrtoi/ SoErjs avTov t(ov TaypLOLTdiv dyyeXu)v /cat dp;!(ayy€A.cüi/ 6vT€S TrdvTCS X6yes Trvpos. KOL TTora/Aos irXrip-qs 7rvpbopovfJi€vo<5. X\\ 21 : TTorafxov rrvpos eXKOVTOs SoKifJbacrTiKov rcoi/ dvöpcüTrcov. ^^ üoTa/ios TTvpos ye/xcor re (rKU)X.rjKos dKoi/JirjTOV. ^^ 'AXX' oTTOT av (xeyaXoLO &eov TrcXdaaxjiv OLTreiXai Koi Svvafjiis cjiXoyoecrcra 8i' oiS/xaros is ycuav rj^ei. 80 : TOT€ S"^ o-TOt^eta TTpoTravra ^^rjpevcrei Koo'fxoVj ottot är ®eos aWipi i/atW ovpavov elXi^Yj, KaO direp ßißXiov etXctrat. Kttt Trecrcrai TroXvjxopcfyos oXos ttoÄos ei/ ;(öoi/t Str; Kttt TTcXdyci p€ü(r€L Sc irvpos jmaXcpov KaTapdKTr]^ OLKd/xaros, cjyX^^eL 8e yatav, (pXe^ec Se ödXao-o-ai/ Kttt TToXoi/ OVpdvLOV VVKT ^/XttTtt fCttt KTiCTLV aVTTJV, €ts €1/ ^ü>v€vo'€t Kttt €ts Kaöapov StaXi^^i, KovK eri (jt)crTrip(i)v acfyacpwfxaTa Kay)(aX6(ji)VTa, ov vv^ OVK rjibs OVK y]pLaTa iroXXa jji€pL/jivr](i)o-TYJp€s eis €V crvppr)^ov(Ti Kai ct9 /xopcjSr/i/ TraveprjfjLov. 206 : Kai t6t€ x^p^vcr^i Koo-fxov a-roi^eta TrpojnavTa drjp yata OdXao'O'a cjidos ttoXos y^fiara vvKres' 212 : dXX d/xa TravTa €19 €v ^wvcvo-ct Kai eis KaOapov StaXi^et, Cf. also Sibyl lY. 172 ei5 seq. ; Y. 155 et seq. ^^ Kat raKTyo'erat Traaa hvvapas ovpavov koX irdvTa rd darpa. Treo-ctrai, ü)5 0T;XAa €^ dfiTriXoVy Kai ws TTtWct <^i;AA,a dTro o-v/c^s. Cf. Hippolytus, Ixiv. 34, 7 : "Os iird^et rrjv iKTrvpuio-cv (^^ Who shall bring about the conflagration "). iKTrvpoioris is doubtless a term of Stoic origin (Dietrich, JVekyia, 199). 298 APPENDIX. '^'^ Et descendet comitantibus angelis in medium terrae, et antecedet eum flamma inextinguibilis. 2S Cuius signo dato pestis ruet sethere toto, Cum strepitu tonitrui descendet impetus ignis. 2^ Veniet Deus cum angelis suis et cum potestatibus sanctorum e septimo coelo. IV. 18, tunc vox Dilecti incre- pabit in ira hoc coelum et hanc aridam [terram] et montes et colles et urbes et desertum ... et Dilectus surgere f aciet ignem ex ipso et consumet omnes impios. Cf. Sibyl III. 73, and the description of the end of the world in Assumptio Ilosis, 10. ^^ Mera Se rrjv (TVjxirXripoidiv twi/ r/otcov kol q^jucn) ^povwi/ ßpiieL 6 0€os irvp ctti tyjv yyjv Kal Kar aKarjCT erat rj yy 7rri)(^€LS rpiOLKovTa . Tore ßoi^cret rj yrj irpos rov ©cov irapOevo^ el/XL, KVpL€, iviOTTiOV (TOV, ^^ Tore TOV ovpavov Kavcroi 7rrj-^a<; oySo'qKovTa Kal rrjv yrjv Trrj^ag OKTaKOortas. ^2 Exuret terras ignis pontumque polumque ... Tradentur fontes, seternaque flamma cremabit . . . Dejiciet colles, valles extollet ab imo . . . Eecidet e coelis ignisque et sulphuris amnis. ^^ Cum ordinibus omnibus angelorum ad judicium veniet . . . omnia elementa turbabuntur tempestate ignis et frigoris mixtim undique furente. 3^ so daz Eliases pluot in erda kitriufit, so inprinnant die perga, poum ni kistentit, enihc in erdu, aha artruknent, muor varsuuilhit sih, suilizot lougiu der himil, mano vallit prinnit mittilagart, sten ni kistentit. verit denne stuatago in lant, verit mit diu vuiru viriho unison, dar ni mac denne mak andremo helfan vora demo muspille. denne daz preita uuasal allaz varprennit, enti vuir enti luft iz allaz arf urpit. APPENDIX. 299 ^^ Tore air OCT K^iracroy tol ricrcrapa fJiiprj rrjs avaroX?}?, Kai i^iXOoyaiV riaaapes avepiOL /xcyaXoi /cat eKXiKpirj er overt irav to TTpoG-diTTOv Trj^ y>}s . . . Koi cKkiKpufjo-ei KvpLO<; Trjv apLapTtav oltto TTJs yyjs, Kol X^vKav6rj(T€TaL rj yrj cü(nr€p yidiv . . . kcu ßorjcru TT/oos /x€ Xiyovcra' wapOevo^ elpl iviOTriov crov Kvpios» ^^ KaraiytScs ävipuov r^v yrjv koL tyjv OoXacrcrav d/xeVpws €KTapa(T(Tov(rai, Cf. also E. A., 8 : ^'And then shall the four winds of the heaven be stirred up " ; and pseudo-Chrysostom : AXXayrjcrovTai roivvv ol ovpavol koI rj yrj Kevrf ycvqa-^Tai ("Therefore shall the heavens be changed and the earth made void "). ^' HeXtos fcev ap^avpa ßXiirijyv vvKnop ava(paLV€L, XcLij/eL 8' acrrpa ttoXov ttoXXtJ Se re XatXaTrt ruf^wv yaiai/ iprjfKxxreLy veKpwv 8e avdcrrao'L^ co'rat. ^^ '^dXiriy^ ovpavoOev r]cr€L, ^^ Sed tuba per sonitum tristem demittit ab alto. ^^ Interea fremitum dat tuba de ccelo repente. Ecce canit coelo rauca sed ubique resultans. ^^ Kat €/X7rpo rov ovpavov /cat a-aXTrtcrova-t Mt;(ar/A /cat FaßpL-^X. Cf. also the Othoth of the Messiah, where Michael sounds the trump and awakens the dead ; the History of Daniel, where Elias is the trumpeter; Völuspd (47), where Heimdall blows the horn before the great conflagration. ^^ ''H^ovcrt 8' €7rt ßrjpia @€ov ßacnXrjos aTravrcs. Cf. also Commodian, 1026 et seq., and 4 Ezra vi. 32. ^^ Kvptc ot aTToöavovTCS aTro rov 'ASa/A P^^XPf '''^'^ a-i]pL€pov Kol ol KaroLKovvres iv tw "AtSr) diro tov atwi/os . . . iroTaTTol dvaa-nqdovrai ; ^5 Exeuntes illico angeli congregabunt filios Adam. ^^ Kat i^vTTVL^oiv Tovs K(.Koipfqp,ivov7crovrat. ^^ Boni in claritate fulgentes et mali in nigredine apparentes. ^^ Et transformabit Dens homines in similitudinem an- gelorum et erunt candidi sicut nix. INDEX Abaddon, meaning of the term, 152, 153 Abassides, apocalyptic refer- ences to, 73 Adso, his Sibylline document, 47 ; relations to pseudo- Me- thodius, 54 ; its source, 62 Advent of Christ, 226; cometh in the night, 237 Agog. See " Gog and Magog " Alexander legend, its relation to Antichrist, 63 Alexandre, on Sibyl III., 95 Ambrosiaster, Commentaries, 92, 142 Ambrosius, Commentaries, 92 Andreas, his Apocalyptic Com- mentaries, 58 note, 92 *' Another prophet" quoted by Hippolytus, 28, 193 Antichrist, referred to in Rev. xi., 21; is the "son of perdition" of 2 Thess. ii., 22 ; his appear- ance in Jerusalem, 24; is of the tribe of Dan, 26; is the second beast with the two horns, 26; his first exploits, 28; his temptations, 64; his double form, 84; is the Nero redivivus of Victorinus, 84 ; is the emperor Decius in the Vislo Jesai(By 85 ; is the Dragon of Babylonia, 99 ; is Armillus, 105 ; is the Dajjat of Tabari, 116, 117; forewarnings of his Advent, 121 et seq.-, Jewish origin of, 133 ; his name, 136 ; his relations to the devil, 138-145 ; to the Babylonian Dragon, 144, 145, 146 ; to Simon Magus, 147-149 ; described as a human monster, 156, 157 ; his first victories, 158-160; is seated in the Temple, 160-162 ; rebuilds the Temple, 162, 163 ; is the false Messiah ; 166-169 ; his kingdom, 167; claims to be the Son of God, 168-170; comes from the tribe of Dan, 171-174; his signs and wonders, 175-181; rises from the dead, 181; his ministers, 188-190; simulates virtue to deceive, 191 ; ruler of the world, 192, 193; his mark, 201, 202; per- secutes the faithful, 211-214; his hosts overthrown by the angels, 223 ; is destroved by Christ, 224, 225 ; and also by Michael and Gabriel, 227-231 ; seated on Olivet and Sion, 231 Antichrist legend, its signifi- cance, 5 ; its persistence, 7 ; its relation to the Dragon myth, 13 ; Slavonic text, 44 ; its varied aspects in later times, 131, 143; general survey, 182- 188 301 302 INDEX. Apocalypse of Daniel, Greek, QQ ; its source, 68 Apocalypse of Elias, 90, 91, 108, 156 Apocalypse of Ezra, 156 Apocalypses Apocryplice, 42, 156 Apocalypses of Peter, 72 Arabic Apocalypse of Peter, 72, 73 Aretha, his Commentary, 92 Armenian Antichrist saga, 253 Armenian Vision of Daniel, 66 ; its source, 68 Armillus, identified as Eomulus, 53, 103, 186 Arne, the Dragon, 73 Arnobius, on Simon Magus, 148 Aacensio Jesaice^ 87, 101 ; refer- ence to Belial, 153; to Sammael, 154 Assemani, his edition of the Ephremite writings, 36 Austin, S., City of God, refer- ence to Kev. xi., 127 B Babylon of the seven hills, 68 Babylonian myths and Kev., 8, 13. See also "Dragon Myth" Baethgen, his edition of Syriac Apocalypse of Ezra, 59, 75 Bahman Yast Apocalypse, 115; its two witnesses, 211 note Baruch, Book of, 100, 147 Beasts of Eev., their relations to the Antichrist saga, 183-185 Beatus, on the deliverance of the faithful, 220 Bede, his Sibyl, 45; relations to pseudo-Methodius, 54 ; its source, 62; relations to the other Sibyls, 100 Belial (Beliar), the Antichrist, 96, 136 ; comes from the Sebastenoi, 96; described in Sibyl II., 97; numerous re- ferences to, 136, 187 Belial legend, history of, 153- 156 Bellarmine, eschatological re- ferences, 132 Bet-ha-Midrash, its Apocalypse of Elias, 91 Bonwetsch, his translation of the Slavonic Apocalypse, 69 Bratke, on the Arabo-Ethiopic Pe trine Apocalypse, 3 ; on the Book of Clement, 72 C Caligula, not referred to in 2 Thess. ii., 22 ; his relations to the Antichrist seated in the Temple, 164, 214 Caspari, his pseudo-Ephrem, 33 on Ephrem and pseudo-Me- thodius, 58 Chosroes, apocalyptic references to, 76, 77 Christ, destroys the Antichrist. 224 Christians, persecutions of, 80 Chrysostom, on the Advent, 43 ; Commentaries, 92; on Anti- christ as the devil, 139 Clement, Book of, 72; First Book of, 83 Cleopatra, referred to by the Sibyls, 99 Commodian, his Carmen A polo- geticum, 31, 79, 80 ; its date, 81 ; its reference to the ten tribes, 102 Constans, Sibylline allusions to. 46, 49, 62, 63 Coptic Apocalpyse of Zephaniah, 87, 88 ; relation to Lactantiuis, 89 Corrodi, History of the Milleii- 7iium, 3 Cross, the, apocalyptic references to, 233-236 Cyprian, on Antichrist, 65 note Cyril of Jerusalem, his fifteentti catechetical lecture, 43 ; on the last days, 125 INDEX. 303 Dajjat, the Antichrist in Taba- ri's Chronicle, 116, 117 Damascus, destroyed in the last days, 73, 76 Dan, tribe of. Antichrist comes from, 26, 171, 172; Testament of, 101, 173 Daniel vii. and xi., connected with Kev. xvii., 28 Daniel, Armenian Apocalypse of, 156 Daniel, Greek Apocalypse of, 51, 63, 66 Daniel, Persian History of, 109, 110, 111 Decius, Roman emperor, the Antichrist, 85 Demons, ministers of Antichrist, 189 Devil, the, relations to Anti- christ, 138-146 Diemer, Deutsche GedicMe, 178 Dietrich, on Jewish and Christian eschatology, 16, 117 note Dragon myth, Babylonian, traced back to primitive man. Pro- logue, passim ; source of the Antichrist legend, 13 ; its in- fluence on Rev., 13-14 ; its re- lations to Antichrist, 144, 145, 150, 164, 165, 183-185, 223 Drought and famine in the last days, 195-200 Ebert, on Commodian, 79 Edda, E.H. Meyer, on its mj^tho- logy, 16. See also " Völuspä " Eisenmenger, on the Othoth ha- Mashiakh and the Book of Zorobabel, 106 Elias, one of the two witnesses, 27, 58 ; Apocalypse of, 90, 108 ; his return in the last days, 203-208 Enoch, one of the two witnesses, 27, 58 ; reappears in the last days, 203-208, Ephrem, S., his apocalyptic writ- ings tabulated, 37-39; his me- trical system, 37 ; relations to Rev., 40; his hymns and discourses, 56 ; his Syriac Dis- course, 59 ; its date, 61 ; refer- ence to Antichrist as Batan, 141 ; and as the Dragon, 146 Epiphanius, reputed author of the Vitcs Pro2)lietaTuin, 71 note Eschatological literature, Gunkel on its persistence, 7 ; is inde- pendent of New Testament, 129 ; its varied aspects, 131 Esoteric oral tradition, 7, 31 Ethiopic Apocalypse of Peter, 72 Eucherius, Commentaries, 92 Euthymius, Commentaries, 92 Ezra, Syriac Apocalypse of, 59, 75 Ezra, 4, reference to Heraclius and Chosroes, 77 : relation to Book of Clement, 86 ; its es- chatological predictions, 101, 102 F Fabricius, Last Vision of Daniel, 72 Faithful, the, persecuted by Antichrist, 211 ; fly to the desert, 212, 213 ; their delivery, 219, 220 False Messiah, the Antichrist, 166, 169, 182, 206 Famine and drought in the last days, 195-200^ Fathers of the Church, their teaching on Antichrist and Rome, 27 ; references to Anti- christ as the devil, 139-142 Firmicus Maternus, on the devil and Antichrist, 140 Flight of the faithful, 212, 213 ; of the woman in Rev. xii., 221 Fore warnings of the last daySy 121 et seq. Friedlieb, on the Sibyls, 98 304 INDEX, Gabriel, S., resuscitates the two witnesses, 205 ; slays the Anti- christ, 223, 224 Genesis xlix., reference to Dan, 26 Godfrey of Viterbo, his Pantheon, 45, 63 ; on Gog and Magog, 103 Gog and Magog, referred to by Adso and Bede, 48 ; by pseudo- Methodius, 50, 54 ; by Jerome, 55 ; identified as the Huns, 57, 92 ; relations to the Antichrist, 195 Graetz, on the Mysteries of Simon ben Yokhai, 105, 106 Gunkel, his Scliöpfung und Chaos, 5 ; his laws of interpretation, 6 ; on Rev. and Babylonian myths, 8 ; on Eev. and historic events, 10; on Rev. and the Dragon myth, 13 ; his traditional method of exegesis, 14; his theory of the Antichrist legend, 143, 144 Gutschmid, on Adso and Bede, 49 ; on pseudo-Methodius, 50 H Haymo, on 2 Thess., 139 note Heraclius saga, 55, 77 Hildegard, S., Predictions, 93; on the death of Antichrist, 149 Hippolytus, his work on the Antichrist, 25 ; identifies Anti- christ, not with Rome, but with the two-horned beast, 26 ; quotes ''another prophet" on the Antichrist, 28 ; on esoteric teaching, 31 ; on the Little Daniel, 71 ; on the devil and Antichrist, 140 Honorius of Autun, Elucidarium, 93 ; its relation to the Völuspä, 112 Hugo Eterianus, de Begressu, etc, 93 Huns, identified as Gog and Magog, 55, 59, 60 Irenaeus, Adv. Hcereses, 92; on the last days, 123, 124 Isaiah xxvi. 20 explained, 221 Isldm, apocalyptic references to, 72-78 Isolin, on Rev. and the Syriac Apocalypse of Ezra, 3 Israel, ten tribes of, 102 ; re- ference to, in the Sibyls and in Commodian, 102, 103 ; relation to the Gog and Magog myth, Jacob of Edessa, on the last davs, 125 Jellinek, on Jewish apocalyptic writings, 106 Jeremiah one of the two wit- nesses, 208 Jerome, ad Oceanum, 55 ; on Dan. xi., 64 ; ad Algasiam, 92 ; on the devil and Antichrist, 140 Jerusalem, referred to in Rev. xi., 20 Jewish apocalyptic literature, 96 Jews, converted in the last days, 215-217 Joachim, Abbot, on the third witness, 208 • John of Damascus, "E/c^ec-ts, 93, 139 note John the Baptist, a third witness, 208 John the Theologian, his conten- tion with Antichrist, 70 Judas Iscariot, reference to, by Papias, 157 Judgment, the last, 249 Justin, on Zech. xii., 103 Kalemkiar, his Armenian Vision of Daniel, 66 INDEX 805 Klostermann, his edition of the Greek Apocalypse of Daniel, 66 Kozak, on the Slavonic Apoc- rypha, 69 Lactantius, Institut. Divined, 79, 81 ; relation to the Sibyls, 81, 124 Lagarde, his edition of pseudo- Hippolytus, 41 ; his Reliquiae Juris, 83 Lamy, his edition of Ephrem's hymns and discourses, 56 Lightfoot, on the Little Daniel, 71 Little Daniel, Apocalypse of, 71 Ludus de Antichrisfo, 47, 64 Luke xxi. 21 connected by Vic- torinus with Bev. xii., 29 M Malvenda, dc Anticlio'isto, 55, 91 ; eschatological references, 132 Mark xiii., on the Second Coming, 22 Mark of the Antichrist, 201, 202 Martin of Tours, his oral teach- ing on the Antichrist, 31 Matthew xxiv., on the Second Coming, 22, 218 Mekhithar, his list of Apochry- pha, 66 Messiah, the, delivers the saints, 220 ; overthrows Antichrist, 225 Messiah ben David, 107, 108 Messiah ben Joseph, leader of the ten tribes, 104 Messiahs, Jewish and Christian, 103, 104; their origin, 104; their history, 107 Meyer, E. H., on the mythology of the Edda, 16. See also " Völuspä " Meyer, Edward, on Gunkel's SchöjjfuQig und Chaos, 12 Meyer, W., on Ephrem's homilies, 37 ; his edition of the Ludus de Antichrist 0, 47 Michael, S., resuscitates the two witnesses, 205 ; slays the Antichrist, 227 Midrash va-Yosha, on the two Messiahs, 106 ; on Antichrist as a monster, 156, 157 Migne, Patrol. Grceca: the Dioptra, 43; Chrvsostom on the Advent, 43 ; Bede's Sibyl, 45 ; Ludus, 47 ; Qucestiones ad' A7itioch., 93 ; Elucidarium. 93 ; Eterianus, 93 Mikweh Israel, on the ten tribes, 104 Millennium precedes the Anti- christ, 195 ; apocalyptic refer- ences to, 245, 246 Ministers of Antichrist, 188-190 Monumenta Patrum Orthodoxo- grapha, 50 Moses, one of the two witnesses, 207 JIuspilli, its relation to the Antichrist legend, 115 Mysteries of Rabbi Yokhai, 225 N Neriosang and Srosh, the two witnesses in the Bahman Yast, 211 note Nero, referred to in Rev. xi., 20 ; in Commodian, 80; in the Sibyls, 97, 185 Nero redivivus, 79, 80, 128-130, 184 Nerses, S., Armenian Antichrist saga, 253 Nicephorus, his Stichometry, ^Q Nicoll, Bib. Bod. Cod. JISS. Orient. Catalog., 73 Number 66Q, Gunkel's explana- tion of , 8, 11 O Ommiades, apocalyptic refer- ences to, 72-74 20 306 INDEX. Origen, his ^^'arning against false prophets, 31 Palladius, his Slavonic Anti- christ legend, 4i Papias, on Judas Iscariot, 157 Paulinus of Nola, apocalyptic poem, 90 Pelagius, Commentaries, 92 Persecution of the faithful, 211-214 Peter, S., Arabic, Ethiopic, and Syriac Apocalj^pses of, 72, 74 ; relations to pseudo-Methodius, 75 Philip the Arab, apocalyptic references to, 80 Philip the Solitary, his Dioptra, 43; reference to Antichrist, 150, 151 Pirke of Elieser, 105 note Primasius, on the resurrection of Antichrist, 181 Prosper Aquitan., de Promiss, et PrcedictionWus^ 92, 142 Prudentius, on the triumph of Christ over the Antichrist, 224 note Pseudo-Ephrem, Latin homily, 33 ; its relation to the Eph- remite writings, 35 ; its date, 35 ; reference to Gog and Magog and the Huns, 56 ; on the last days, 125 Pseud o-Hippolytus on the last things, 41 ; relation to Hip- polytus and Ephrem, 41 ; on the devil and Antichrist, 140 Pseudo-Johannine Apocalypse, 42 Pseudo-Methodius, Greek and Latin texts, 50; probable date, 51, 52; general contents, 53 ; relations to Adso and Bede, 54 ; to Ephrem, 58 R Resurrection of Antichrist, 181 Revelation, its relation to Baby- lonian myths, 8 ; qualifications needed for its interpretation, 9, 17 ; chap, xi., problems pre- sented by, 19-21 ; chap. xiii. explained by Victorinus, 30 ; its reference to Rome and the last things, 126, 127, 183-188 ; written by a Jewish Christian, 210 ; chap, vii., its reference to the 144,000 saved, 216; chap. xii. 15 explained, 219 ; its relation to the Antichrist saga, 221, 222 ; chap. xiv. 14-20, explanation of, 222, 223 Ribeira. eschatological writings, 132 Roman empire, fall of, before the last days, 123 et seq., 184 Romans xi. 12, explanation of, 216 Rome, referred to in Rev. xx., 184 Romulus, identified as Armillus, 53, 186 S Sammael (Samael), relations to Belial, 154, 155 Satan, relations to Antichrist, 138-145 Sebastenoi. See " Belial " Second Coming. See " Advent " Shortening of the days, 218-220 Sibylline apocatyptic literature, 44, 70, 81, 82, 95 ; relations to Commodian and Lactantius, 82 ; relations to the Antichrist andNeronic sagas, 84 ; eschato- logical predictions, 97-99, 124; references to the Dragon, 151 Sign, the, of the Son of man, 232, 233 Signs of the Messiah, 106, 157 Simon ben Yokhai, his Mysteries, 105, 106, 108 INDEX. 307 Simon Magus legend, its rela- tions to Antichrist, 147-150, 180, 181 Slavonic Apocrypha, 44, 69 Spitta, on Eev. xi., 19 Stern, on the Apocalypse of Zephaniah, 87, 88 Sulpicins Severus, 31, 83 Sylburg, his edition of Andreas, 58 note Syriac Apocalypse of Peter, 72, 74 Tabari, his reference to the Antichrist saga, 116 Tertullian, on the last days, 124 Testaments of the Twelve Patri- archs, 101 Theodoretus, Commentaries on Daniel, 92; Hceret. Fabulce, 92 Theophylactus, Commentaries, 92 Thess. (2) ii., its esoteric charac- ter, 21 ; refers to Rome, 27, 127, 128 Ticonius, his spiritualistic inter- pretations, 91 Tischendorf, his AjwcalyjJses Apocryphoß, 42; his Greek Apocalypse of Daniel, 66 Tribes, the ten. See " Israel " Trumpet, the last, 247, 248 U Usinger, his Forsclmngen^ 45, 46 Uziel, the Messiah ben Joseph, 108 Valens and Valentinian, referred to in pseudo-Ephrem, 34 Victorinus, his Commentary on Rev. xii., 29 ; upholds the Neronic interpretation, 29 ; connects it with the false prophet of Rev. xiii., 29; on the Neronic saga, 84 Visio Jesaice, 84, 85 Vision of Daniel, Armenian, 66 Völuspä of the Edda, E. H. Meyer's comments on, 16, 93, 112; its relations to the Antichrist saga, 113 Vossius, G., his edition of Ephrem, 36 W Winds, the four, 246, 247 Witnesses, the two, are Elias and Enoch, 27, 203 ; Elias and Moses, 207; Elias and Jere- miah, 208; resuscitated by Michael and Gabriel, 205 ; John the Baptist a third witness, 208 Woman, the, of Rev. xii., ex- planation of, 221, 222 Wonders of the Antichrist, 175- 181 World, destroyed by fire, 238- 245 Wright, Catalogue of St/riac 3ISS., 71 Z Zahn, on the Greek and Ar- menian Apocalypses of Daniel, 66 Zechariah xii., its Messianic in- terpretation, 103 Zephaniah, Apocalypse of, 87 ; its date, 88 ; relations to other apocrypha, 90 Zezschwitz, on Adso and Bede, 47; on pseudo-Methodius, 50, 51, 54; on Godfrey of Viterbo, 63 Zorobabel, Book of, 106, 107 ; its relation to Rev., 108; reference to Antichrist as a monster, 157 Zotenberg, his translation of the Persian History of Daniel, 109 PiilNTED BY HAZELL, WATSON, AND VINEY, LD. 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Each in large crown Svo, containing fro?n 500 to 700 pages, half -bound leather and gilt ; or in cloth, fully gilt, as gift book. Price 5^. per volume. THE FIRST VOLUME. Natural History* Mammalia Reptilia . Amphibia Pisces . . Aves . . Anthropoda . . Cephalochordata Urochordata Hermichordata Mollusca . . . Echinodermata Vermes . . . Coelenterata. . Protozoa . . . Bryozoa . . . {Mammals) . {Reptiles). . {Frogs, Toads, etc.) {Fishes) . {Birds) . . {/bisects) . {{Lancelet, Sea j Squirt, etc.) BY R. LYDEKKER, F.L.S.. ETC. F.R.S., f BY \ {Snails, etc.) {Star Fish, etc. ) ( Worms) . . . {Corals, etc.) {A7iimalculcB) . {Moss Animate ulce) BY R. Nearly *]qo pages, zvith R. BOWDLER SHARPE, LL.D., F.L.S., ETC., ETC. BY W. F. KIRBY, F.L.S., ETC. fBY W. GARSTANG. M.A., 1^ F.G.S., ETC. r BY R. B.WOODWARD, F.G.S. , • \ F.R.M.S., F.L.S. . BY F. A. BATHER, F.G.S. . BY R. J. POCOCK. • |bY H. M. BERNARD, F.L.S. KIRKPATRICK. about i^oo illustrations specially drawn for this work. The aim of the Pubhshers in inaugurating this series is to provide a library of volumes on great subjects, which will contain in a concise form a wealth of exact information which can be thoroughly relied upon by the student, and yet will be in such a popular form as to meet the needs of the general reader. Each volume will be in the convenient large crown 8vo size, with the text specially arranged and a full Index for easy reference. SECOND VOLUME. In Preparation. BY AGNES M. CLERKE, AUTHOR OF "THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY DUR- ING THE NINETEENTH CENTURY." BY A. FOWLER, F.R.A.S., DEMONSTRA- TOR OF ASTRONOMICAL PHYSICS TO THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE. BY AGNES M. CLERKE. BY J. ELLARD GORE, F.R.A.S., AUTHOR OF " THE SCENERY OF THE HEAVENS," " THE WORLDS OF SPACE," ETC. Ftilly Illustrated* THE Astronomy* History of Astronomy. Geometric Astronomy. The Solar System. The Stellar universe. LONDON: HUTCHINSON c\: CO., PATERNOSTER ROW. A SERIES OF COMPLETE NOVELS, In cloth gilt, 2s. ; in artistic paper ^ \s, 6d, BY A. GARRY. Out of Bounds^ Being the Adventures OF AN Unadventurous Young Man. WITH FRONTISPIECE AND TITLE-PAGE IN COLOURS. BY JULIAN STURQIS. A Master of Fortune* BY THE AUTHOR OF " A COMEDY OF A COUNTRY HOUSE," " JACK-A-DREAMS," ETC. WITH FRONTISPIECE AND TITLE- PAGE IN COLOURS. ©tber Dolumes of ''Ube Zz\U(5c\5V' Xibrar^. BY L. DOUQALL. The Zeit=Qeist. fourth edition. With Coloured Frontispiece and Title-Page. BY **QYP." Chiffon's Marriage, third edition With Portrait of the Author and Autograph Letter. BY FRANKFORT MOORE. The Sale of a Soul, third edition. With Coloured Frontispiece and Title-Page. BY THE AUTHOR OF '*A YELLOW A5TER." A Comedy in Spasms, fourth edition By "Iota." With Coloured Frontispiece and Title-Page. BY NORA VYNNE. A Man and His Womankind, second edition With Coloured Frontispiece and Title-Page. LONDON : HUTCHINSON & CO., PATERNOSTER ROW. A NEW TRAVEL BOOK ON A NEW DISTRICT. In the Volcanic EifeL A Holiday Ramble. BY KATHARINE S. AND GILBERT S. MAC- QUOID, AUTHORS OF "THROUGH NOR- MANDY." "IN THE ARDENNES," etc. WITH THREE MAPS AND 56 ILLUSTRATIONS BY THOS. R. MACQUOID, R.I. In small demy %vo^ cloth gilt, *]s. 6d. Extract from Introductory Chapter. — " Few persons seem to know where the Eifel is. In recommending it as a resort for travellers it is better to say that it lies between the valley of the River Rohr on the west, and the Moselle valley on the east ; or, broadly speaking, between the Luxemburg Ardennes and the Rhine from Remagen to Coblenz, and the Moselle from Coblenz to Treves. Northwards it includes the Ahr valley, the Brohlthal, and other places ; on the south it extends to Treves. This southern part, which reaches as far north as Gerolstein, is called the Volcanic or Vorder Eifel, and it was in this beautiful region that we spent most of our time." SECOND LARGE EDITION. Miles^s New Standard Elocutionist* COMPRISING A TREATISE ON THE VOCAL ORGANS BY LENNOX BROWNE, F.R.C.S. ; A CHAPTER ON MUSICAL ACCOMPANIMENTS BY CLIFFORD HARRISON; AN ESSAY ON ELOCUTION AND A SELECTION OF UP- WARDS OF 500 PIECES FROM THE BEST AUTHORS BY ALFRED H. MILES. In large croivn Svo, half-hotind leather gilt, 640 pages, y, 6d. Natural History in Anecdote* ILLUSTRATING THE NATURE, HABITS, MANNERS, AND CUSTOMS OF ANIMALS, BIRDS, FISHES, REPTILES, ETC. ARRANGED AND EDITED BY ALFRED H. MILES. In crown Si/o, cloth gilt, 400 pages, 3i". dd. SECOND EDITION One Thousand and One Anecdotes* ILLUSTRATIONS, INCIDENTS, EPISODES, YARNS, STORIES, ADVENTURES, PRACTI- CAL JOKES, WITTICISMS, EPIGRAMS, AND BON MOTS, GATHERED FROM ALL SOURCES, OLD AND NEW. EDITED AND ARRANGED BY ALFRED H. MILES. In crown Svo, handsome bevelled cloth gilt, 35". dd, LONDON : HUTCHINSON & CO., PATERNOSTER ROW.