A Brief History of the Antichrist

Daniel Burke, via the Dish:

Revelation, which never actually uses the word "Antichrist," is one of the first Christian texts to cast its rivals as Satan's spawn. Many scholars say phrases like "the mark of the beast" and "666" are coded references to the Emperor Nero, who persecuted Christians.

For many early Christians, however, the Antichrist was not a particular person. It was spiritual figure who lurked in the hearts of all believers, luring them toward sin and heresy, said Shuck.

By the 12th century, the Antichrist – often seen as a human inhabited by Satan – had become a tool for identifying an enemy, fomenting fear and assembling an army.

"The Antichrist moves a long way from Augustine's view of something that we all face inside us," Shuck said, "to being very much an external battle with concrete figures."

Popes used the Antichrist to rally Crusaders. Reformers used the Antichrist to battle popes. Northerners saw the Antichrist in the slave-holding South, and Southerners saw the same specter in the abolitionists.

In the modern era, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, U.S. presidents, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, England's Prince Charles, and even megachurch pastor Rick Warren have all made the Antichrist list.

Apocalyptic Christianity always needs an enemy, scholars say, and the Antichrist is nothing if not adaptable.

So it went from something within each of us to whatever Democrat becomes President?  Or just about anybody else some rural folks find scary, or brown? People make me laugh.