The non-canonical Ascension of Isaiah presents a detailed exposition of the Antichrist as Belial and Nero. However, his readings of the Antichrist were more in broader theological terms rather than within a historical context. This would correlate to the Talmudic view of the Jewish Messiah coming from the tribe of Dan on his maternal line. Additionally, he stated that the antichrist would be of the tribe of Dan, evoking Jeremiah 8:16. In his exegesis of Daniel 7:21, he stated that the ten horns of the beast will be the Roman empire divided into ten kingdoms before the Antichrist's arrival. Some names that he loosely proposed were "Evanthos", "Lateinos" ("Latin" or pertaining to the Roman Empire). In Book V of Against Heresies he addresses the figure of the Antichrist referring to him as the "recapitulation of apostasy and rebellion." He uses " 666", the Number of the Beast from Revelation 13:18, to numerologically decode several possible names. 202) wrote Against Heresies to refute the teachings of the Gnostics. His use of the term Antichrist follows that of the New Testament in not identifying a single personal Antichrist, but a class of people. 155) who warned the Philippians that everyone who preached false doctrine was an antichrist. The only one of the late 1st/early 2nd century Apostolic Fathers to use the term is Polycarp (c. Little children, it is the last hour: and as you have heard that Antichrist cometh, even now there are become many Antichrists: whereby we know that it is the last hour. The articles "the deceiver" or "the antichrist" are usually seen as marking out a certain category of persons, rather than an individual. The five uses of the term "antichrist" or "antichrists" in the Johannine epistles do not clearly present a single latter-day individual Antichrist.
However, Bernard McGinn conjectures that the concept may have been generated by the frustration of Jews subject to often-capricious Seleucid or Roman rule, who found the nebulous Jewish idea of a Satan who is more of an opposing angel of God in the heavenly court insufficiently humanised and personalised to be a satisfactory incarnation of evil and threat. The concept of an antikhristos is not found in Jewish writings in the period 500 BCE–50 CE. The similar term pseudokhristos ("False Messiah") is also first found in the New Testament, but never used by Josephus in his accounts of various false messiahs. The Greek term antikhristos originates in 1 John. Whether the New Testament contains an individual Antichrist is disputed. " Ἀντί" means not only anti in the sense of "against" and "opposite of", but also "in place of". In Greek, Χριστός means "anointed one" and the word Christ derives from it. 3.7.3 As "being in league with other figures"Īntichrist is translated from the combination of two ancient Greek words ἀντί + Χριστός (anti + Christos).3.5 Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.2.4 Pre-Reformation Western Church accusers.Three other images often associated with the singular Antichrist are the "little horn" in Daniel's final vision, the " man of sin" in Paul the Apostle's Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, and the Beast of the Sea in the Book of Revelation. In Matthew ( chapter 24) and Mark ( chapter 13), Jesus alerts his disciples not to be deceived by the false prophets, who will claim themselves as being Christ, performing "great signs and wonders". The similar term pseudokhristos or "false Christ" is also found in the Gospels. The Antichrist is announced as the one "who denies the Father and the Son."
The term Antichrist (including one plural form) is found five times in the New Testament, solely in the First and Second Epistle of John.
In Christian eschatology, the Antichrist or anti-Christ refers to people prophesied by the Bible to oppose Jesus Christ and substitute themselves in Christ's place before the Second Coming. The Devil whispers to the Antichrist detail from Sermons and Deeds of the Antichrist, Luca Signorelli, 1501, Orvieto Cathedral.