The early church fathers wrote about the Antichrist.
The early church fathers and the Antichrist:
When I say ‘early church fathers,’ I’m referring to the disciples of the first disciples. In the Bible, we read about the twelve disciples who followed Jesus. There were many others in the crowds who followed, but not as closely. They were called disciples at times as well. After Jesus died, rose again, and left for heaven, the church began to tell others what happened. The first twelve disciples of Jesus, (not including Judas), were the first church fathers, and all but one of them died as a martyr. The Apostle John died an old man.
Some of the disciples of the first church fathers became well-known for their writings. Many of those writings are becoming available to us as great work is being done to discover and translate their work. This allows us to know what those early Christians believed about important doctrines.
Hippolytus, an early Church father
In this article, I’m going to include a small portion of one of those writers. His name was Hippolytus, and he was one of the more prolific writers of his time. He was born around 170 A.D. and died around 236 A.D. This placed him possibly less than one hundred years from the time of John, the beloved disciple. He would have been very familiar with the original biblical documents and the first disciples.
I have a question for anyone to consider. What did those early church fathers say about the Antichrist? They presumably first heard about this idea from John the Apostle. John wrote something about this person or idea in his writings.
1 John 4:3
but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.
We could ask, Is the Antichrist a person or just an ideology? If he is a person, where will he come from? Will he come from Italy, Spain, England, or some other European nation? What about somewhere in the Middle East? Could he perhaps be of Jewish descent?
There are a lot of questions about this mysterious person. Some see him as a ‘boogeyman’ or the result of wild imaginations from Bible students. John did refer to ‘it’ as the spirit of antichrist. He didn’t say it was a man.
I’m not going to address any of those questions. Instead, I want you to read some of what Hippolytus wrote on this subject over 1700 years ago.
The question at hand
But as time now presses for the consideration of the question immediately in hand, and as what has been already said in the introduction with regard to the glory of God, may suffice, it is proper that we take the Holy Scriptures themselves in hand, and find out from them what, and of what manner, the coming of Antichrist is;
The coming of Antichrist
on what occasion and at what time that implores one shall be revealed; and whence and from what I tribe (he shall come), and what his name is, which is indicated by the number in the Scripture, and how he shall work error among the people, gathering them from the ends of the earth; and (how)
He shall stir up tribulation
he shall stir up tribulation and persecution against the saints:
and how he shall glorify himself as God, and what his end shall be, and how the sudden appearing of the Lord shall be revealed froth heaven, and what the conflagration of the whole world shall be, and what the glorious and heavenly kingdom of the saints is to be, when they reign together with Christ, and what the punishment of the wicked by fire.
The TREATISE ON CHRIST AND ANTICHRIST.
In the original manuscript, the above portion was section ‘five’ out of 67 in a letter called the TREATISE ON CHRIST AND ANTICHRIST.
As you can see by his words, he believed a person would arrive. That person would fit the biblical description. He believed that person would stir up tribulation and persecution against the saints.
Not a fan of heretics
He mentions interesting observations about the name and number of the person. Also, he dives further into these topics and gets very specific. As a result, many Bible students are surprised when they read his conclusions. His conclusions differ greatly from the teachings on the subject in the modern era. We should ask ourselves something very important — what he right? And remember, he was less than one hundred years removed from the Apostle John’s death. One thing that stood out about Hippolytus was his strong defense of the truth and his attack on those he defined as heretics. He would be very cautious to avoid writing about, preaching, or teaching anything that was considered heretical.
Not a fan of false teachers, he would consider many of today’s Christian theologians to be heretics. He was a fanatic about teaching the truth as he learned it from those first disciples and early Church fathers.
Enough for now
I’m going to leave things here for now. But I’ll bring out more of his thoughts in the coming months. It’s fascinating for me to look back and see what Christians believed then.
1 John 2:22
Who is the liar, if it is not the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, who denies the Father and the Son.
2 John 1:7
For many deceivers have gone out into the world, refusing to confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist.
2 Thessalonians 2:8
And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will slay with the breath of His mouth and abolish by the majesty of His arrival.
In Search of Antichrist
The mysterious man called the Antichrist struck fear in me the first several times I heard about him. The Exorcist movie was in the theatres around that time and I was foolish enough to watch it on the big screen. Since I was scared of the Antichrist before then, I was terrified after watching that sickening girl’s head spin around on her neck, spewing vomit, and cursing those ill-equipped priests who were in over their heads against the forces of darkness.
Yes, I was afraid, but so were a lot of us.
When I first heard about the Antichrist I was a young Christian attending Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa California. The Pastor, Chuck Smith, was an older man who had a strong appeal to the growing masses of young believers who were attending his church. I liked his teaching style as did a lot of us teens and young adults. Every week the church was full of young people like me who flocked to the church.
Let me know what you think.