The Antichrist You Were Taught About Doesn't Exist in the Bible
Ancient Faith Explained | 3 July 2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLrxFr917GE
2:40 "four authors" ...
I take the Johannine Letters to have the same human author as Apocalypse.
"no where does the Bible"
So, what about Tradition equating Man of Lawlessness, Beast from the Sea, Little Horn?
There are genuinely two Bible passages which Darbyists attach to him and which certainly or probably do not belong.
The Rider on the White Horse is probably Christ, reappearing in that role in Apocalypse 19, and "will sign a Covenant with many" is also Christ, also already mentioned in phrases of the ongoing sentence, and refers to the Covenant Christ signed on His last Seder and on Calvary. Many meaning "not just ethnic Jews" ...
But the three individual figures you mention as such are by quite a lot of Church Fathers taken as being one and the same, and the gematria "Apostates" = 666 places that man into the category "an antichrist" of the Johannine letters.
- Ancient Faith Explained
- @AncientFaithExplained
- The Fathers who equated the figures were making a theological synthesis the video's point is that the Bible itself never makes that equation explicit. Your gematria point on "Apostates" = 666 is exactly the kind of patristic interpretation the video says was happening. Worth a full video on the Fathers' readings alone.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @hglundahl
- @AncientFaithExplained Thank you.
Fr. Jason Charron of the Ukrainian Church has already done a series of videos.
Bible.
Fathers.
Scholastics / Medievals.
Private Revelation.
3:46 Polycarp's observation has sth to do with St. Thomas rationale for the Inquisition.
St. Thomas Aquinas states that heretics, by being such, are preparing the way for "The Antichrist" (the other three figures taken as one) and considered it as a function of the Inquisition (in this regard, outside pure internal housekeeping like telling a Converso not to Judaise and what constitutes this) to delay this.
- Ancient Faith Explained
- Aquinas's connection between heresy, the Inquisition, and delaying the Antichrist is one of the more striking pieces of medieval eschatology not something the video could fit, but genuinely worth noting. God bless.
4:35 I stop the video again.
I look up "chrysostom antichrist" in the google and find Homily 4 on Second Thessalonians.
It's too long to quote integrally, but one key passage stands out:
One may naturally enquire, what is that which withholds, and after that would know, why Paul expresses it so obscurely. What then is it that withholds, that is, hinders him from being revealed? Some indeed say, the grace of the Spirit, but others the Roman empire, to whom I most of all accede. Wherefore? Because if he meant to say the Spirit, he would not have spoken obscurely, but plainly, that even now the grace of the Spirit, that is the gifts, withhold him. And otherwise he ought now to have come, if he was about to come when the gifts ceased; for they have long since ceased. But because he said this of the Roman empire, he naturally glanced at it, and speaks covertly and darkly. For he did not wish to bring upon himself superfluous enmities, and useless dangers. For if he had said that after a little while the Roman empire would be dissolved, they would immediately have even overwhelmed him, as a pestilent person, and all the faithful, as living and warring to this end. And he did not say that it will be quickly, although he is always saying it — but what?
Homily 4 on Second Thessalonians
https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/23054.htm
Well, that brings us to 1918. The Eastern Emperor was killed in Yekaterineburg. The Western Emperor left Hofburg and a Karl Renner drafted a law to ban him from returning.
Austro-Hungarian Empire was divided into ten parts. Constituting or enlarging the following:
1) German Austria (which became the First Austrian Republic)
2) First Hungarian Republic which became the Hungarian Soviet Republic, subsequently briefly restored and replaced by the Hungarian Republic, ultimately transformed into the Kingdom of Hungary
3) First Czechoslovak Republic ("Czechoslovakia" from 1920 to 1938)
4) Second Polish Republic, contested by the short-lived proto-states of Tarnobrzeg Republic and Polish Soviet Socialist Republic
5) State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs and the Kingdom of Serbia, both later absorbed into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes
6) Greater Romania
7) Kingdom of Italy
8) the short-lived Ruthenian (Ukrainian and Rusyn) proto-states of West Ukrainian People's Republic (later absorbed into Ukrainian People's Republic), Hutsul Republic, Lemko Republic, Komancza Republic and the Galician Soviet Socialist Republic; all were ultimately absorbed mostly into Poland, but also into Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia.
Oh, I said ten?
9) Switzerland, lost in 1648
10) Germany, lost in 1806 and 1866.
Yes, I said ten.
Dissolution of Austria-Hungary
Immediate aftermath of World War I
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_Austria-Hungary#Immediate_aftermath_of_World_War_I
6:01 It so happens, St. John doesn't say the antichrist denies that Christ has come in the flesh, but that He is coming in the flesh.
Calvinism denies that Christ comes in the Eucharist. So do Islam and Judaism.
Leopards are sufficiently like lions to fools some non-zoologists they are such ... I think this is three of the four leopard heads if we compare Daniel and Apocalypse 13.
6:25 I have as a child read two books by the Lutheran abbess (not sure if she or her community converted later) Mother Basilea Schlink.
One was of angels, specifically guardian angels.
The other was on the Apocalypse, as in the dictatorship of the Antichrist. This was before the computer chip was thought of, so I grew up thinking of the mark of the beast as a tattoo with three sixes.
One more creepy detail. Devils are let loose during that period.
7:05 Before the story.
Where exactly does it say the Antichrist will be deceiving because he looks like he has solutions and looks good?
Not meaning the Bible, but early Church.
7:57 Oh, you took Zosima as "early Church" ...
I suppose you mean this one?
Zosimas of Solovki (Russian: Зосима Соловецкий; died 1478) was a Russian hermit. He was one of the founders of the Solovetsky Monastery,[1] which was established on the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea of northern Russia. He is venerated as a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church.
Because, I just went through all mentions of St. Zosimas of Palestine in Life of St. Mary of Egypt, and this episode is not mentioned there.
Life of Our Venerable Mother Mary of Egypt
https://stmaryofegypt.org/files/library/life.htm
- Ancient Faith Explained
- The video says "a story passed down from a Russian monastery" not the early Church specifically. Zosima of Solovki is medieval, which is fair to note. God bless.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @AncientFaithExplained What about this sentence?
The early church gave [music] an answer and it is the most sobering sentence I have ever read on this subject.
- Ancient Faith Explained
- @hglundahl The "early Church" line introduces the theological principle the saints' understanding of the danger. Zosima is then cited as one who expressed it. But the transition is ambiguous enough to be misleading, and you're right to flag it. God bless.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @AncientFaithExplained " the theological principle the saints' understanding of the danger."
OK, do you have an earlier actually early Church example than Zosima?
- Ancient Faith Explained
- @hglundahl The transition in the video was ambiguous "early Church" introduced the principle, but Zosima is medieval not early Church. That's a fair criticism.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @AncientFaithExplained Indeed.
That's why I'm asking if you have an early Church example saying the same thing?
8:22 Indeed, Jesus will certainly not come again and sit before a computer trying to make a living as a writer.
However, if someone behind my back makes a mockery of my poverty and pretends it's my nobility, and then presents me as "Christ" in order to trigger the spider sense of people who have heard that word by Zosima, does that make me or the liar the or even an antichrist?
9:59 A coming de facto world ruler is in fact in the Bible.
Not necessarily dictator from UNO or similar. He might be in one country and yet have influence in all the others.
And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them. And power was given him over every tribe, and people, and tongue, and nation
[Apocalypse (Revelation) 13:7]
If John Kyriakou decides to and uses his influence with CIA and intelligence services to persecute Catholics for believing in an individual Antichrist, it could be John Kyriakou ... unless he lacks the gematria. But it makes more sense if it's actually someone with open power.
And all that dwell upon the earth adored him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb, which was slain from the beginning of the world
[Apocalypse (Revelation) 13:8]
Doesn't sound like John Kyriakou. Who knows, but doesn't sound like him at all.
If you define "dictator" as illegal or paralegal transitioner from "democracy" or "constitution" to de facto real monarchy with neither inheritance of a throne nor election for elective thrones, that's not necessarily in the Bible, except perhaps the "not duly elected" part (Daniel).
And there shall stand up in his place one despised, and the kingly honour shall not be given him: and he shall come privately, and shall obtain the kingdom by fraud
[Daniel 11:21]
Bishop Challoner takes this as already fulfilled in Antiochus Epiphanes:
"One despised": Viz., Antiochus Epiphanes, who at first was despised and not received for king. What is here said of this prince, is accommodated by St. Jerome and others to Antichrist; of whom this Antiochus was a figure.
OK, also the case for Antichrist.
11:34 It so happens that it's more possible to check a chart and a gematria than one's own heart.
The heart is perverse above all things, and unsearchable, who can know it?
[Jeremias (Jeremiah) 17:9]
Perverse doesn't mean "wicked" as some Protestant Bibles translate this verse, but more like "handicapped" ... something like a limp or shortsightedness or being lefthanded when wielding tools made for the right handed and so one.
But "unsearchable" and "who can know it" (except God) are pretty clear.
You can not search your heart for knowing for certain that you know the real Christ well enough so the false Christ cannot fool you. Jesus Himself said:
For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders, insomuch as to deceive (if possible) even the elect.
[Matthew 24:24]
So:
1) the people deceived (at least momentarily or on levels not jeopardising their own salvation) will include elect, that is people who certainly know the real Christ well enough to be saved:
2) and Antichrist is not the only false Christ who will (momentarily or on levels not jeopardising their salvation) deceive them.
So, your test is impossible.
St. Robert Bellarmine did give a chart, and part of it was the "destruction of the Roman Empire" ... which has happened, roughly 100 years ago.
But you mentioned a false kingdom as in an earthly utopia. Now, there are certainly false utopias like Sweden saying "everyone can love everyone, getting children is optional even if you have sex" and things like that. But from your list, sth which sounds good to a Christian could, apart from being a utopia and that shouldn't sound good to a Christian, by itself be a warning flag. Let me quote Chrysostom again:
Why then, you say, did God permit this to be? And what dispensation is this? And what is the advantage of his coming, if it takes place for the ruin of our race? Fear not, beloved, but hear Him saying, In them that are perishing, he has strength, who, even if he had not come, would not have believed. What then is the advantage? That these very men who are perishing will be put to silence. How? Because both if he had come, and if he had not come, they would not have believed in Christ; He comes therefore to convict them. For that they may not have occasion to say, that since Christ said that He was God — although He nowhere said this openly — but since those who came after proclaimed it, we have not believed. Because we have heard that there is One God from whom are all things, therefore we have not believed. This their pretext then Antichrist will take away. For when he comes, and comes commanding nothing good, but all things unlawful, and is yet believed from false signs alone, he will stop their mouths. For if you believe not in Christ, much more ought you not to believe in Antichrist. ...
Did you note "commanding nothing good, but all things unlawful"?
Doesn't sound like the kind of utopia a Christian could find attractive, unless he were very heretical (as some are).
11:34 bis On the folly of "searching your heart" to know if you know the real Christ well enough ...
For if our heart reprehend us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things
[1 John 3:20]
The test actually is (to a great degree) external:
Dearly beloved, if our heart do not reprehend us, we have confidence towards God And whatsoever we shall ask, we shall receive of him: because we keep his commandments, and do those things which are pleasing in his sight And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ: and love one another, as he hath given commandment unto us And he that keepeth his commandments, abideth in him, and he in him. And in this we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us
[1 John 3:21-24]
Your heart can tell a secret illwill behind an overtly generous gesture you do, but "commandments" refers to a mostly external checklist.
Now, whether the 3 and 1/2 years of Enoch and Elijah are prior to or concurrent with Antichrist's 42 months, I don't know. But as long as Enoch and Elias have not yet come I don't think the world wide misrule is yet here and might be waiting 3 1/2 years before that too.
That doesn't mean he isn't on the scene.
11:49 Again, be as good at theology as you like, but there actually are checklists for the Antichrist and one of them is a gematria and it's not that of "Apostates" since that's not a name of a person.
I saw a video by a former recruiter for the US Marines yesterday. He knows a good marine when he sees one and knows good marine material when he sees one.
But he actually does have a checklist.
And as it is likely that the Antichrist will at first not be asking to be taken for Christ (that will come later), the checklist is not just against Christ, it's also against the actually Christian politician.
And while this may seem very counterintuitive to some, my list of Christian politicians after 1918 involves more than one Fascist.
My favourite works in Fascist economics are:
- Quadragesimo Anno (which I have read)
and - Wirtschaftsethische Lehre der Kirchenväter (which I haven't read). Monsignor Ignaz Seipel.
Lots of the idea behind "Antichrist will promise a kingdom on earth" is basically "if you criticize Capitalism, that could mean you are it" ... which is false.
- Rerum Novarum (which I have also read).
I hold with Chesterton that Capitalism and Communism aren't opposed evils, except "opposed teams" sense of opposed, but rather twin evils. 1850 on Ireland or 1933 in Ukraine were both manmade starvations. Both took wheat out of hands of those who had grown it, until they died, because they wanted a name for themselves, for their businesses as landlords or for their Soviet miracle as dictator loyals, even if it meant someone other, who was less enthusiastic, had to die.
