About the Antichrist

 

The Antichrist is an interesting figure.  It or he is referred in the New Testament of the Bible, but not in the Old Testament.  This shouldn't be surprising as there is no Christ in the Old Testament, though over the years those books of the Bible have been searched for references to Jesus which were duly found, but were less than clear and required inventive explanation.  The same may be said of the Antichrist.

The Antichrist is also mentioned by Paul of Tarsus and several of the Church Fathers, who found it necessary  or useful to describe it or him in more detail than appears in the Bible.  I don't know if the Antichrist is referred to in the many gospels which were excluded from the Bible, some of which refer to Jesus using his divine powers to kill those who annoy him and decribe him as quite different from the Jesus we know through those authors known as Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

As only makes sense, the Antichrist denies Christ, and works to induce others to do so as well.  It's unclear whether the Antichrist is to be a single individual or if there's to be more than one.  Many have been called the Antichrist over the centuries.  Nero was one of those named. So we're various Popes or the very office of the Papacy (by Protestants).  Mohammed was called the Antichrist, and so were some heretics like Arian.

Some have claimed the Antichrist is among those false prophets and wonder-workers we were warned of in Scripture. There were quite a few of those wandering around the Mediterranean while Jesus is claimed to have lived, like Simon Magus and Appollonius of Tyana. Appollonius' story is similar to that of Jesus in many respects--each performed the same kind of miracles, for example, like raising the dead.

The Antichrist is described as having various characteristics, some of which have a certain, or in some cases uncertain, basis in Scripture.  Others have been added over time.  Among other things the Antichrist is charismatic, a deceiver, considers himself divine, is worshipped as a god, controls the economy, and rules the world from Jerusalem of all places.  Various figures have been thought to to qualify over the centuries given this description; some are considered the Antichrist even now (I need not name them). But after a relatively short period of time the Antichrist is destroyed by Jesus.

Among the problems I have with the Antichrist is the fact that his death and defeat is inevitable according to all sources.  It may be that the Antichrist's followers would be stupid or ignorant enough to disregard the many prophecies of their leader's ruin, but presumably, the Antichrist would be aware of these sources, and know his fate.  Who or what would want to be the Antichrist given the destruction which awaits?

Difficulties arise when we believe that accounts which were intended to address contemporary or imminent events apply thousands of years later. So the end times, preceding the Second Coming of Jesus, which he himself said would take place in the lifetimes of his disciples according to the Gospel of Matthew, are still awaited by the credulous, although believers predicted they would take place many times already and have been disappointed as many times in the past.

So it should be no great surprise that we're so gullible, so easily misled, so completely bovine when those who wish to take advantage of us do so in these New Dark Ages.  We've been dupes for millenia.  

Apocalypse None

The Gospel of Mark is thought to be the oldest of the four Gospels which have been accepted by the Church and, it seems, Protestant churches as well.  As we know, there are other gospels which were unaccepted, if not purged, by the early Church and thus excluded from the canon.  The reasons for their exclusion makes an interesting study.

The Gospel of Mark is interesting in itself though.  In its original form, it didn't include what is included in other Gospels, particularly when it comes to appearances of Jesus after the Redemption.  It also includes statements it states were made by Jesus regarding what's generally described as the Second Coming and the commencement of the Kingdom of God which are considered troubling to many Christians.  Those statements are to the effect that it will occur during the lives of those to whom he spoke, or within a generation (e.g. Mark 9:1).

Early Roman critics of Christianity, such as Celsus, noted this and other peculiarities and inconsistencies  in the Gospels.  They also noted that at the time they wrote, those who heard Jesus speak these words and their generation had long since passed away, and the world continued on nonetheless just as it had for centuries.  They reasonably inferred from this that Jesus must have been a false prophet if not something worse.

No less a zealous apologist for Christianity than C.S. Lewis felt that this is most "embarrassing" passage in the Bible.  Earlier apologists were also well aware that the Gospel ascribed to Mark was a problem in various respects.  Origen wrote a book to refute Celsus, though it's thought he didn't do a very good job.

Christians and Christianity have struggled over the long years to account for the Gospel of Mark.  It was maintained at one time that this Gospel was a mere summary of the Gospel of Matthew, and less important.  Naturally, it couldn't be maintained that the Gospel of Mark was wrong, or inaccurate in any sense, if it was thought to be the Word of God.  But the fact that the available evidence indicates it was written before the other Gospels makes this explanation unhelpful.

And so rather than accepting that it's possible the words of the Gospel of Mark should be taken to mean what they clearly say, which would be to acknowledge that Jesus was wrong and so could not be God, those words have been the subject of interpretation.  For example, it's been claimed that what Jesus spoke of according to Mark was something different from the real Second Coming, but a spiritual one resulting from his death on the cross or his Resurrection, or was somehow intended to refer to the destruction of the Jewish Temple by the Romans in 70 C.E.

The Romans certainly destroyed the Temple.  I've now seen "with my own eyes" the Arch of Titus and the relief on it showing men of the legions marching in triumph holding the riches of the Temple. But it isn't clear to me why Jesus wouldn't simply have said that was what he was referring to, nor do I see how the Kingdom of God came to be established due to the sacking of Jerusalem.

Ancient writings, such as those of the obliging pet of the Flavian emperors, Josephus, tell us that the  Roman world and especially Palestine were host to a number of men who worked miracles and taught that the end of the world was coming.  Jesus thus was not unique in that respect.  It appears such men are not unique in our history, as there have always been those who proclaim the end of the world is nigh for one reason or another.  There are such men today, in fact, and like their successors they've found that they have admirers enough to keep them happy, and even wealthy though not wise.

I don't know enough of religions besides Christianity to say whether this ecstatic belief that the world will end and only certain of us will be saved is characteristic of religious belief everywhere, or limited to the various kinds of Christians.  Christians, though, have too often believed someone to be a prophet and have anxiously awaited the end of others, but not themselves.  Periodically they venture to some place or other, gathering at the appropriate time to witness the Second Coming, only to be disappointed.  Their prophet generally explains thereafter that he was wrong in his count, or misinterpreted signs given, and comes up with another date which in turn is found not to be the day the world ends or Jesus comes again.

This isn't all that surprising.  But what is surprising is that the people disappointed in their expectation of annihilation blithely accept explanations offered and believe that the end will come at whatever new date is selected by their erring leaders.

This kind of faith, if it may be so called, is difficult to explain.  The faith in an apocalypse must be very stubborn to survive continuing disappointment and the relentless survival of the world and its sinning inhabitants.  Mere stupidity can't provide the only explanation.  The hope for an end of the world must be extreme.

The world is a difficult place to live, but it's probably now a less cruel place than it was for the poor and disaffected of the Roman Empire nearly 2,000 years ago.  What is it in some of us that provokes such an enormous discontent, such a fervent dissatisfaction with the world and with other people, that we hope and pray that the world will be destroyed and most of us swept away by an angry god?t

The Gospel of Mark makes me wonder about how the early Church grew and Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire.  As those who expected the Kingdom of God to commence while they were still alive noticed that it had not arrived, did they come to question whether Jesus was God?  There are statements in Paul's letters which indicate he was aware of this possibility and spoke against it, even as he spoke against those followers of Christ who were too Jewish to accept that he was the (self-proclaimed) apostle appointed by God.  Is the Christianity we know that of Paul and not that of Jesus?  That isn't a new notion by any means.

 

Would Christianity have spread if Jesus was portrayed only as he is in the Gospel of Mark, in its original form?  In other words, would it have come to dominate the Western World without the later Gospels, the Acts, and the writings and travels of Paul, who never knew him while he was alive?  Or would it remain what pagans thought it was initially, a Jewish sect?

Regardless, we can see in this expectation of and hope for the end of the world, the thirst for martyrdom, and the reverence for the relics of saints which began very early, why educated Romans (like Marcus Aurelius) thought the Christians to be irrational and irresponsible, and even insane,  and why the Emperor Julian and others thought Christianity to be a death cult.

"I Will Destroy the Wisdom of the Wise"

St. Paul quotes these words in a letter to "the Corinthians"; those Christians residing in Corinth.  It appears the Corinthians were being unduly quarrelsome, or at least too quarrelsome for Paul, who modestly described himself as "called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God."  But I wonder just what was going on, in addition to quarrels, as in this letter Paul indulges in something of a tirade against wisdom, something not normally the subject of anger or disdain.

The words used by Paul which make up the title of this post are borrowed from the cheerful works of the prophet Isaiah, and are attributed to God.  God, it seems, wants to destroy the wisdom of the wise.  It's unclear why he would.  Paul adds to this, stating that God made foolish the wisdom of the world, apparently because the wise failed to understand Jesus was God before Jesus was born and that failure continues as Paul writes.

According to Paul, the wise did not come to God through wisdom, and God choose instead to save those who believe through the "foolishness" of his message.  Greeks, says Paul, seek wisdom, and think the preaching of "Christ crucified" is foolishness.  But the foolishness of God, writes Paul, is greater than the wisdom of the wise.

It's possible I suppose that Paul was being ironic in his use of "foolishness" here, though the Christians of that time and for centuries later were (and are now) not notably ironic in their proselytizing of, or apologies for, Christianity.  They were generally in grim earnest.  So, it's at least possible that Paul thought God's message, and Christ crucified, as establishing the existence of the true God or as signs of it, were ostensibly foolish.  This is a remarkable claim for a believer to make, or at least for a thinker to make.  Wisdom is inadequate to bring us to God--it's foolishness that does the trick, or at least that which is to all appearances foolish.

Given this curious use of language on Paul's part, I'm given to suspect that his supposed encounters or debates with pagan philosophers may not have gone as well for him as we've heard.  Perhaps he was unable to rebut claims that Christian beliefs were foolish, and so was compelled to take the position that if they are in fact foolish, that's the way God wants it.  Being God, the fact that he choose foolish means to bring the truth to fools, rather than the wise, has the result that fools and foolishness are greater than the wise and wisdom.

Regardless, though, such language and such claims regarding the wisdom of the world and the wise, when taken to be the words of God or God's agents, doing his bidding, can have serious consequences.  I think they did have serious consequences indeed when the religion which adopted such claims came to dominate the Roman Empire, as it became part of the doctrine of the state as well as the prevailing religion that the wisdom of the world and of the wise was nothing, the "foolishness" of God everything.

Perhaps it began with the repression of paganism and persecution of pagans during the reign of the Christian emperor Theodosius I.  It's said that Justinian closed the last surviving pagan schools of philosophy some 200 years later.  Perhaps the "triumph" of Christianity wasn't entirely at fault, and that the view that the world is insignificant and truth to be found outside the world which we find in Plato prompted the Western world to turn away from life and the first efforts towards science we see among the ancient Greeks.

It's been maintained that what are called the Dark Ages weren't nearly as dark as they've been claimed to be, and I'm willing to believe that is the case.  But it seems beyond dispute that little in the way of new knowledge was acquired in Europe during those times, and that what passed as knowledge was primarily if not exclusively what was found in the Bible or in the works of the Church Fathers.  The standard of living fell far below that of the Roman Empire, even as to the great of the time.  And why not, the world in which we live being without value?   In a way, the Church if not God did indeed destroy the wisdom of the wise, if that wisdom related to how to live well and flourish in the world, and to the value of learning of the world and its wonders.

For a time, at least.  It's true that Europe gradually became aware of the wisdom of the ancient wise, and even valued it after a fashion.  The Church, which was at the time the only institution having any interest in books and writing, is to be thanked for the dissemination of the old knowledge it has so ruthlessly suppressed.  That began to take place, though, roughly 600 years after Justinian.  And the Church was grudging, even miserly, in its disclosure of what was lost.  It was another 200 years or so before the Renaissance was possible.

It's fun to speculate what would have happened had wisdom not been destroyed.  But we seem to live in a time when the pursuit of knowledge of the world is once more mistrusted and even under attack in some parts of the world.  Religion is once again involved in this, or at least religious fanaticism.  Let's hope historians of the future won't refer to a "New Dark Ages."