In that face, deformed by hatred of philosophy, I saw for the first time the portrait of the Antichrist, who does not come from the tribe of Judas, as his heralds have it, or from a far country. The Antichrist can be born from piety itself, from excessive love of God or of the truth, as the heretic is born from the saint and the possessed from the seer. Fear prophets, Adso, and those prepared to die for the truth, for as a rule they make many others die with them, often before them, at times instead of them. Jorge did a diabolical thing because he loved his truth so lewdly that he dared anything in order to destroy falsehood.

In the Bible, the word antichrist is only used as a description of people who don’t believe in the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. He is not described as one satanic entity — as the beast of Revelation which many people believe — but as a person, any person, who deviates from the Christian orthodoxy. But through years of myth-making and fear-sowing, Christianity metamorphosed antichrists into a single Antichrist, an apocalyptic villain and Christian bogeyman used to scare people much as Santa Claus is used to regulate children’s behavior.

But through years of myth-making and fear-sowing, Christianity meta-morphosed antichrists into a single Antichrist, an apocalyptic villain and Christian bogeyman used to scare people as much as Santa Claus is used to regulate children's behavior. After years of studying the concept, I began to realize the Antichrist is a character — a metaphor — who exists in nearly all religions under different names, and maybe there is some truth in it, a need for such a person. But from another perspective, this person could be seen as not a villain but a final hero to save people from their own ignorance. The apocalypse doesn't have to be fire and a brimstone. It could happen on a personal level.

It is prophesied that the Antichrist will present himself to the whole of humanity like a pacifist, animalist, ecologist, vegetarian, ecumenist, biblical exegete, philanthropist, as a person who has faith in the progress of science and in universal forgiveness.

Since Jesus came to the earth the first time 2,000 years ago as a Jewish male, many evangelicals believe the Antichrist will, by necessity, be a Jewish male. This belief is 2,000 years old and has no anti-Semitic roots. This is simply historic and prophetic orthodox Christian doctrine that many theologians, Christian and non-Christian, have understood for two millennia.

There is a tremendous misunderstanding about the anti-Christ, certainly among Christian groups... The anti-Christ is not a man, as Christians believe, who will come out before the Christ, and could even be mistaken for the Christ. The idea comes from the Revelation of St. John: the beast, 666, is unchained for a time, and then chained down for a time and half a time. This refers to the release of the energy we call the anti-Christ. It is not a man but an energy, a destructive force which is deliberately released to break down the old order, the old civilization. It was released in John's own day, through the Emperor Nero, to bring about the end of the Roman dispensation, to prepare the way for Christendom. It was released again in our time through Hitler, a group of equally evil men around him in Nazi Germany, together with a group of militarists in Japan and a further group around Mussolini in Italy. These three groups, the Axis powers in the war from 1939 to 1945, embodied the energy we call the anti-Christ. That destructive force was released to prepare the way for the return of the Christ to the world now...

This error of free will is a special doctrine of the Antichrist.

I am entirely of the opinion that the papacy is the Antichrist. But if anyone wants to add the Turk, then the Pope is the spirit of the Antichrist, and the Turk is the flesh of the Antichrist. They help each other in their murderous work. The latter slaughters bodily and by the sword, the former spiritually and by doctrine.

If you please to give me leave I shall give you the ground of what I know to be true. Being much troubled to see the falseness of the constitution of the church of England, I had like to have turned separatist; whereupon I kept a day of solemn humiliation and pondering of the thing; this scripture was brought unto me — he that denies Jesus Christ to be come in the flesh is antichrist — This I considered of and in considering found that the papists did not deny him to be come in the flesh nor we did not deny him — who then was antichrist? . . . The Lord knows that I could not open scripture; he must by his prophetical office open it unto me. . . . I bless the Lord, he hath let me see which was the clear ministry and which the wrong. Since that time I confess I have been more choice and he hath let me to distinguish between the voice of my beloved and the voice of Moses, the voice of John Baptist and the voice of antichrist, for all those voices are spoken of in scripture. Now if you do condemn me for speaking what in my conscience I know to be truth I must commit myself unto the Lord.

Lenin was the antichrist [...] All Russia's great troubles stemmed from Lenin.

I want you to hear me tonight, I am not saying that President Obama is the Antichrist, I am not saying that at all. One reason I know he's not the Antichrist is the Antichrist is going to have much higher poll numbers when he comes. President Obama is not the Antichrist. But what I am saying is this: the course he is choosing to lead our nation is paving the way for the future reign of the Antichrist.

The spirit of contempt is the true spirit of Antichrist; for no other is more directly opposed to Christ.

I was born a heretic. I always distrusted people who know so much about what God wants them to do to their fellows.

I was born a heretic. I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires. Susan B. Anthony, U.S. reformer and suffragist