348 Elbert N. S. Thompson 
wickedness opposed to the purposes of God. In this spirit Daniel 
foretold the coming of that “fourth kingdom,” the kingdom of 
Antiochus, that should “devour the whole earth,” and the might 
of the Romans, by which the righteous should “fall by the sword, 
and by flame, by captivity, and by spoil. Thus the legend was 
modified by the hardships and humiliations that the Jewish nation 
experienced. But Daniel, like Ezekiel, still expected the oppression 
of Antichristian might to come, not from a single Satanic individual, 
but from some neighboring heathen kingdom or kingdoms. 
This the first stage in the Biblical treatment of the prophecy was 
greatly modified as the Jewish people were taught to await the 
advent of a personal Messiah. For if God, instead of coming in 
person to relieve them, was to send his son as Saviour, then nat- 
urally Satan would be expected to delegate his powers to a lieutenant 
in all respects the counterpart of the Messiah.2 Consequently, if 
the Messiah was conceived as a victorious king, an Antichrist was 
foreseen who should assail Israel in armed battle. When, however, 
the prophetic, law-giving character of the Messiah was emphasized, 
the popular conception of Antichrist underwent a corresponding 
change. Moses and Balaam, the false prophet, became then the 
types of Christ and Antichrist. And when the Jews finally ex- 
pected not simply a king or a prophet, but a heavenly being, then 
Antichrist became to them an emanation of the Devil.2 Such an 
understanding of the nature of Antichrist was made easy by the 
prominence given in the prophecies to Gog and Antiochus as 
leaders of heathen foes; it was rendered inevitable by the faith in 
a personal Messiah. 
This belief, that the world immediately before the second com- 
ing of Christ was to be dominated by the terrible will of an Anti- 
christ, is carried by the writers of the New Testament through its 
third and final stage. The most characteristic feature of the second, 
to be sure, was retained by the author of the Apocalypse, who 
predicted that Antichrist would come in the form of Nero, or some 
one Neronic emperor, and by Paul, who, whether or not with any 
historical personage in mind, thought always in the singular of “the 
man of sin.” But even here the influence of Christianity left its 
impress in an intensifying of the antithesis between the Messiah and 
his great opponent. In other respects the New Testament made 

1 Daniel, 7. 23; 11. 33. Also chap. 8. 
2 Realencyklopedie. 3 Schneckenburger, 408-11. 
4 Realencyklopedie. 
