The Church Fathers, Origen, and Augustine on Antichrist

Statue of Ireneaus (from St. Madeleine’s in Paris)

The Church Fathers

The earliest Christian documents which mention the Antichrist contain slight theological reflection, apart from a brief mention of him in connection with a particular biblical passage. Over time, the short-shrift given him begins to change. Some tie Antichrist to heresy (appealing to the epistles of John). Others speak of him in connection to the persecution of the church. Some think he will be an apostate Jew who would appear at the time of the end in a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem while introducing destructive heresies. Other focus upon his role as a deceiver. Some follow the biblical texts closely (i.e., Daniel 7, 2 Thessalonians, the Epistles of John, and Revelation 20), while a number indulge in more fanciful speculations. In other words, the church fathers, Origen, and Augustine have diverse views on the subject, many quite similar to interpretations offered in our own day.

The Epistle of Barnabas (4:1-5), written soon after the close of the apostolic age, identifies the fourth beast of Daniel 7 as the Roman Empire, while specifically referring to the beast as Antichrist.[1] A similar reference surfaces in the writings of Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, who was born about AD 70 and likely martyred about AD 156 A.D. In 7.1 of his Epistle to the Philippians (written about AD 135), Polycarp quotes from 1 John 4:2-3 and 2 John 2:7 and contends that Antichrist is the spirit of heresy.[2] This is the same emphasis found in John’s epistles, to the effect that the threat from Antichrist arises from within the church, takes the form of apostasy and heresy, and is not connected to state-sponsored persecution like that of the beast of Revelation 13.[3]

In his Dialog with Trypho, Justin Martyr (who was put to death in Rome about AD 165) speaks of the appearance of the “man of apostasy” who speaks “strange things against the Most High” and ventures to “do unlawful deeds on the earth against us Christians” (Dialog with Trypho, 110). Justin is clearly alluding to 2 Thessalonians 2:3, but does not specifically speak of this individual as Antichrist.[4]

One of the most important early discussions of Antichrist is found in the work of Irenaeus, who was born in Asia Minor where he met Polycarp when still a young man.[5] Irenaeus later became Bishop of Lyon in Gaul. In his work Against Heresies (about AD 180),[6] Irenaeus set forth the notion that Antichrist will be a Jew, a notion which had come from Papias (another writer from Asia Minor whose work remains largely fragmentary).[7] Appealing to the best manuscripts and eyewitnesses (probably a reference to Polycarp), Irenaeus believes Antichrist recapitulates the same sort of apostasy which occurred in the beginning with Adam and Eve, which could be seen in the gnosticism of his own age, and which would appear again at the time of the end.[8] Just as Christ, who is the word made flesh, recapitulates all that is good, so too, Antichrist must come in the flesh to recapitulate all that is evil.[9]

In addition, Irenaeus believed that the Roman Empire eventually would be divided among ten kings[10], and at the end of time Antichrist will arise and lead a final apostasy (in fulfillment of 2 Thessalonians 2:3; Matthew 24:15; Daniel 7:8; 8:23). The Antichrist’s rule will complete the six thousand years of world history (i.e., a Sabbatical pattern), followed by a millennial age, where Christ reigns upon the earth.[11] While Irenaeus cautions his reader against undue speculation in this regard, he identifies 666 with Latreinos, the current Roman emperor, or with Teitan–a royal name for a tyrant. He believes that Antichrist will be an apostate Jew, sitting in the temple in Jerusalem, demanding to be worshiped as God.[12] Irenaeus connects Paul’s prophecy of a Man of Sin (2 Thessalonians 2:1-12) to the prophecies in Daniel 8:12 and Daniel 9:27, the fulfillment of which is assigned to the time of the end.[13]

The first Christian writing specifically dealing with Antichrist was composed by Hippolytus, himself a student of Irenaeus. Hippolytus served as an elder in the church in Rome for nearly thirty-five years and died a martyr in AD 235.[14] In his treatise On Antichrist (AD 200), which is part of a larger work on Daniel and the earliest surviving Christian commentary on any book of the Bible,[15] Hippolytus builds upon the earlier work of Irenaeus, although there are a number of distinctive elements.[16]

Like his mentor, Hippolytus believes that Antichrist will be a Jew and a counterfeit of the true Christ. Antichrist will be born in Babylon and will come from the tribe of Dan–he is spoken of in Genesis 49:9 and Deuteronomy 33:22 as a lion’s cub and therefore cunning and deceptive.[17] As a false redeemer, Antichrist will persuade the Jews that he is the Messiah. The forerunners of Antichrist are also identified as several Old Testament figures: the Assyrian king (Isaiah 10:12-19), the Babylonian king (Isaiah 14:4-21) and the prince of Tyre (Ezekiel 28:2-10). As Hippolytus puts it, “For a deceiver seeks to liken himself in all things to the Son of God. Christ is a lion, so Antichrist is also a lion; Christ is a king, so Antichrist is also a king. The Savior was manifested as a lamb; so he too will in like manner, appear as a lamb, though within he is a wolf.[18]

Hippolytus also states that Antichrist will rebuild the temple in Jerusalem and will deceive Christians, who are symbolized by the two witnesses which preach against him before being killed.[19] Three and a half years of tribulation will follow, before Christ returns to destroy him (On Antichrist, 43). The two beasts of Revelation 13 are yet future and will rule in the manner of Caesar Augustus, “by whom the empire of Rome was established.”[20] Hippolytus also sets forth a rather bizarre chronology of the end. Christ would not come at the end of the six thousand years of world history–the schema of history set forth by Irenaeus–but instead, Christ will return in the middle of the final thousand years marking some 500 years between Christ’s return in humility and his return in glory.[21]

According to the historian Bernard McGinn (who has written what some consider to be the definitive history of the doctrine), Hippolytus is the “earliest witness to what later became known as the `refreshment of the saints,’ a brief period between the Antichrist’s defeat and Christ’s return when the surviving faithful were supposed to live in peace while awaiting the manifestation of the kingdom of God.”[22] While many have seen in this a kind of proto-premillennarianism (chiliasm), recent studies, such as that by Charles Hill, have shed new light on this assumption, pointing out that Hippolytus believed that the first resurrection takes place when the soul of a martyr joins Christ in heaven, not when Christ returns to raise the dead–a position inconsistent with premillennialism.[23]

The belief that Antichrist will be a Jew who will preside over a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem, and then proclaim himself as Israel’s Messiah is, according to Bousset, “the universal belief” of the church. A few men (Lactantius, Commodian, and Martin of Tours) identified this false Messiah who will deceive the Jews and commandeer their temple as a Nero redivivus.[24] The former view was taken up by the French monk Adso and widely popularized in the tenth century.[25] Adso’s views were adopted and modified by the two great scholastic theologians, Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, thereby giving them great credence and influence.[26]

Origen and Augustine

A most influential figure in the early church and a contemporary of Hippolytus, Origen (AD 185-254) is another important contributor to the development of a doctrine of Antichrist, especially in his so-called “spiritualizing” method of interpreting biblical texts. In what many consider to be the first attempt to write a systematic theology (On First Principles), Origen takes issue with those who attempt to understand those biblical texts which speak of the reign of the saints upon the earth in a literal way.[27] Those who understand the biblical passages which speak of eating and drinking in the kingdom, of an earthly city of Jerusalem and so on, in a literal way, “are of the opinion that the fulfillment of the promises of the future are to be looked for in bodily pleasure and luxury . . . [and are] not following the opinion of the Apostle Paul regarding the resurrection of a spiritual body (2:11).”[28] For Origen, it seems, there is always a deeper meaning to a text.

Not surprisingly, this spiritualizing method carries over into Origen’s understanding of Antichrist. According to Origen, there are two great extremes–virtue and its opposite. Perfection of virtue dwells in the person of Jesus, while that one who rejects virtue “embodies the notion of him that is named Antichrist.” Virtue is found in the Son of God, while “the other, who is diametrically opposite, be termed the son of the wicked demon and of Satan, and of the devil.”[29] According to Origen Antichrist is not a person, but a spiritual principle. He is not a man to be feared, but a falsehood to be opposed.

In his Commentary on John, Origen restates this idea that Antichrist is merely a spiritual principle. Alluding to 2 Thessalonians 2:8, where Paul speaks of Jesus destroying the lawless one with the breath of his mouth, Origen understands this to be a reference to the wisdom of God in Christ destroying the lie by means of the truth. “For that which is destroyed by the breath of the mouth of Christ, Christ being the Word and Truth and Wisdom, but the lie?”[30] When discussing the Olivet Discourse in his Commentary on Matthew, Origen identifies the abomination of desolation as a false word which stands in the place of Scripture, so that Antichrist is anything which pretends to be true but is not.[31] Origen’s spiritualizing of the text mutates the Antichrist from a personal eschatological foe into a principle of evil.

The most important Christian theologian in the first one-thousand years of church history is St. Augustine (AD 354-430). Augustine addressed the subject of Antichrist in several places, and yet in doing so managed to avoid much of the kind of speculative discussion found in Hippolytus and Irenaeus. In the opinion of Bernard McGinn, Augustine “was cool to legendary accretions to the story of Antichrist, [but] the bishop was still a major channel for the transmission of sober traditions concerning the Final Enemy to the Latin West.”[32] In other words, when it came to Antichrist speculation, Augustine’s focus was upon the exegesis of particular texts. This concern not to go beyond the biblical text enabled him to emphasize the significance of present and imminent threats to the church, rather than locating this threat exclusively to the time of the end as many earlier writers had done.[33]

In the City of God (AD 413-425), Augustine affirms that Jesus Christ will destroy Antichrist at the time of the second advent, before going on to affirm the impossibility of knowing when, exactly, this will occur. He cautions that human conjecture cannot add anything to Scripture.[34] According to Augustine, Paul’s discussion of the “Man of Sin” is a reference to Antichrist and the time of final judgment, but he’s not sure what Paul means when he mentions the temple (the Jerusalem Temple or the church). He goes on to describe a number of views, including the Nero redivivus theory, which he dismisses. Augustine says what is clear from the biblical text is that Antichrist will not appear until Satan is loosed from the Abyss (Revelation 20:1-10), for this is what gives Antichrist his power to deceive.[35] This, says Augustine, is what Daniel predicted, for the kingdom of Antichrist will assail the church before Christ returns to rescue his people. The ten kings and kingdoms mentioned by Daniel may or may not refer to Rome, but more likely symbolizes the entirety of the inter-advental age (City of God, 20.23). Augustine also finds it reasonable to believe that the Roman Empire must fall so that Antichrist might be revealed.[36]

In his sermons (Homilies) on 1 John, delivered in AD 415, Augustine speaks directly to the nature and character of Antichrist.[37] Antichrist is “contrary to Christ.” This means that antichrists are “all heretics, all schismatics [who] went out from us, that is, they go from the Church.” Since this is the case, Augustine asks, “each person ought to question his own conscience, whether he be an antichrist” (Homily 3.4). Antichrists are liars and deny that Jesus is the Christ. The test as to whether one is an antichrist or not is not their confession “Christ is Lord,” since even a liar can utter these words. The test is someone’s deeds. “A more lying antichrist is he who with his mouth professes that Jesus is the Christ, and with his deeds denies Him. A liar in this, that he speaks one thing, and does another (Homily 3.8).”[38]

McGinn draws the conclusion from this that Augustine believes that “the real Antichrist is anyone of us,” and takes this as an indication of Augustine’s rejection of apocalyptic eschatology.[39] But Augustine is very clear in the City of God that the mystery of lawlessness of which Paul speaks in 2 Thessalonians, which is currently restrained by God, is somehow tied to John’s assertion that many antichrists have already come because it is the last hour. The series of antichrists, of which John speaks, will indeed culminate in a final Antichrist. “As therefore went out from the Church many heretics, whom John calls `many antichrists,’ at that time prior to the end, and which John calls `the last time,’ so in the end they shall go out who do not belong to Christ, but to that last Antichrist, and then he shall be revealed.”[40]

While Augustine cautions against undue speculation about the end-times, his view that Antichrist is both a present/imminent threat as well as finally revealed at the end of the age reflects the tension found in Scripture. This is not, as McGinn contends, Augustine’s belief that Antichrist is merely a refection of the personal evil within each of us. While we all may be found liars whose deeds do not match our profession, the final Antichrist clearly falls in a different category, since he is empowered by Satan and is to be revealed at the end of the age.

Conclusion:

Much as in our day, the church fathers, Origen, and Augustine, held diverse views—some quite speculative, some more closely developed from their exgesis of particular biblical texts. Here we see the wisdom in the caution given us by Geerhardus Vos in regard to Antichrist speculation—“2 Thessalonians belongs among the many prophecies, whose final and best exegete will be the eschatological fulfillment, and in regard to which it behooves the saints to exercise a peculiar kind of eschatological patience.” (Pauline Eschatology, 133)

My Vos to English translation goes like this. “Many of the things we speculate about won’t become clear to us until they happen. We’ll know it when we see it. Until then, we must wait patiently!” The doctrine of Antichrist certainly falls into this category.

** This material is taken from my book, The Man of Sin (Baker, 2006), 136-141 and revised for publication here

__________________________________

[1] “Epistle of Barnabas” 1:4-5, quoted in J. B. Lightfoot, J. B. and J. R. Harmer, The Apostolic Fathers, reprint ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1984), 239-242.

[2] Polycarp, Epistle to the Philippians, 7:1.

[3] F. F. Bruce, “Excursus on Antichrist,” in 1 & 2 Thessalonians, Word Biblical Commentary, Vol. 45 (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1982), 183-184.

[4] Justin Martyr, “Dialogue with Trypho” in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1, ed., Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1979), 253-254.

[5] See the surveys in: Bruce, “Excursus on Antichrist,” 184; Bernard McGinn, Antichrist: Two Thousand Years of the Human Fascination with Evil (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 58-60; Vincent Miceli, The Antichrist (Harrison NY: Roman Catholic Book, 1981), 50-55; and Jeffrey Burton Russell, Satan: The Early Christian Tradition (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1892), 80-88.

[6] Irenaeus, Against Heresies, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1, ed., Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1979), 315-567.

[7] Bruce, “Excursus on Antichrist,” 184.

[8] Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 5.30.1.

[9] McGinn, Antichrist, 59.

[10] Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 5.30.2.

[11] Ireneaus, Against Heresies, 5.28.3.

[12] Ireneaus, Against Heresies, 5.30.4.

[13] Ireneaus, Against Heresies, 5:25.4.

[14] A. Cleveland Coxe, “Introductory Notice to Hippolytus,” in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 5, ed., Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1979), 3-7.

[15] Hippolytus, “Treatise on Christ and Antichrist” in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 5, ed., Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1979). 204-219.

[16] Bruce, “Excursus on Antichrist,” 184; McGinn, Antichrist, 60-62; Johannes Quasten, Patrology: Vol II, The Ante-Nicene Literature after Irenaeus (Westminster MD: Christian Classics, 1990), 170-171.

[17] Hippolytus, On Antichrist, 207.

[18] Hippolytus, Commentary on Daniel, 2.39, quoted in Fragments from Commentaries, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 5, ed., Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1979), 184.

[19] Hippolytus, On Antichrist, 212-214.

[20] Hippolytus, On Antichrist, 206-207.

[21] Hippolytus, Commentary on Daniel, 2.4-6, quoted in Fragments from Commentaries, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 5, ed., Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1979).

[22] McGinn, Antichrist, 62.

[23] Charles E. Hill, Regnum Caelorum: Patterns of Millennial Thought in Early Christianity, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2001), 160-169.

[24] Wilhelm Bousset, The Antichrist Legend: A Chapter in Christian and Jewish Folklore, trans. A. H. Keane (London: Hutchison and Co., 1896), 186.

[25] Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), 79; McGinn, Antichrist, 100-103.

[26] Christopher Hill, Antichrist in Seventeenth-Century England (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971), 179.

[27] Origen, “De Principiis” in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 6, ed., Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1979), 239-382.

[28] See the discussion of this section of “On First Principles” in Hill, Regnum Caelorum, 176-180.

[29] Origen, “Against Celsus” in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 4, ed., Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1979), 395-669.

[30] Origen, Commentary on John, 2.4, in the The Ante-Nicene Fathers, , Vol. 10, ed., Allen Menzies ((Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1979), 279-408.

[31] McGinn, Antichrist, 64.

[32] McGinn, Antichrist, 76.

[33] McGinn, Antichrist, 76-77.

[34] Augustine, City of God, 18.53; 20.12, in Philip Schaff, ed., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 2, St. Augustin’s City of God and Christian Doctrine (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1979), 1-511.

[35] Augustine, City of God, 20.19, 20.23.

[36] Miceli, Antichrist, 71-72.

[37] Augustine, “Homilies on the First Epistle of John” in Philip Schaff, ed., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 7, St. Augustin: Homilies on the Gospel of John; Homilies on the First Epistle of John; Soliloquies (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1979), 460-529.

[38] Augustine, “Homilies on the First Epistle of John,” 3.4, 3.8.

[39] McGinn, Antichrist, 77.

[40] Augustine, City of God, 19.19.