THE BASIC BELIEFS OF IRENAEUS AND HIPPOLYTUS ON THE ANTICHRIST

 

Since we have been discussing the Tribulation period, I thought I’d post this short article concerning Irenaeus and Polycarp’s view on the subject.

 Irenaeus was a disciple of Polycarp, who had been a disciple of the Apostle John. Both he and Polycarp believed they had been accurately taught the apostolic tradition. Irenaeus wrote this of his teacher Polycarp:

 “But Polycarp also was not only instructed by apostles, and conversed with many who had seen Christ, but was also, by apostles in Asia, appointed bishop of the Church in Smyrna, whom I also saw in my early youth, for he tarried (on earth) a very long time, and when a very old man, gloriously and most nobly suffering martyrdom, departed this life, always taught the things which he had learned from the apostles, and which the Church has handed down, and which alone are true. (Against Heresies, III, 4)

 Hippolytus was a disciple of Irenaeus. He too believed he had been accurately taught those things the apostles received from Jesus Christ by revelation. Irenaeus and Hippolytus agree on all the basic points regarding the advent of Christ and the Antichrist, although Hippolytus provides more details. The beliefs they held in common can be briefly summarized as follows:

 1. Satan will appear as a man in the person of the Antichrist because he seeks to reign as king over mankind and desires to focus the worship of God on himself.

 2. The Antichrist will be a Jew, and will achieve his stated objectives by being accepted as the Christ, the messianic king of the Jews, taking his seat in the rebuilt temple in Jerusalem, pretending to be God Himself, and thereby becoming the “abomination of desolation” spoken of by the prophet Daniel and also by Jesus. Dan 12.11, Matt 24.15

 3. The Antichrist is the “little horn” of the fourth beast mentioned in Daniel 7. He will slay three of the other horns and reign as an eighth with the remaining seven. (Hippolytus explains the three horns are Egypt, Libya, and Ethiopia.)

 4. The Antichrist will achieve his objectives in the middle of the final seven year period of this age. At that time he will be proclaimed the messianic king of the Jews, and will take his seat as God in the rebuilt temple in Jerusalem. He will reign for three and one-half years.

 5. The Antichrist, during his reign, will deceive the majority of people living on the Earth at the time into believing he is God. However, he will persecute those who refuse to worship him because they are able to see through his delusion.

 6. Jesus Christ will return to Earth at the end of the three and one-half year reign of the Antichrist, destroying Satan’s kingdom. The resurrection of the just will occur at that time.

The conviction of these two early fathers came from the knowledge that they had received an accurate explanation of the Apostle’s understanding of the message of Scripture which had been handed down by the Apostle John to Polycarp. We should all seriously consider the basis for our own beliefs, rather than hastily discarding these sources.

 Sources:

 http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/hippolytus-christ.html

 http://www.gnosis.org/library/advh5.htm - start at chapter XXV