Who is the Antichrist?

Polycarp of Smyrna c. 69–c. 155 ADLetter to the Philippians 7.1

Everyone who does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is antichrist.

Following 1 John: "antichrist" for false teachers already present.

Irenaeus of Lyons c. 130–c. 202 ADAgainst Heresies 5.29.2; 5.30.2

And for this reason, in the beast who is to come, there is a summing up of all iniquity and every deceit, so that all apostate power, flowing together into him and shut up in him, may be cast into the furnace of fire. ... Jeremiah, however, made known not only his sudden arrival but also the tribe from which he will come, saying: From Dan we shall hear the sound of the speed of his horses; at the sound of the neighing of his horses at the gallop the whole earth will tremble; and he will come and devour the earth and its fullness, the city and those who dwell in it.

Irenaeus closes his long argument on the beast (5.25 to 30): the coming man sums up (recapitulat) all apostasy in himself. He adds, in the sentence after the Jeremiah quotation, that this is why the tribe of Dan is not numbered in the Apocalypse among those who are saved (5.30.2).

Irenaeus of Lyons c. 130–c. 202 ADAgainst Heresies 5.30.1, 3

For the number that is called six, kept the same throughout, shows the summings up of all the apostasy: the apostasy that was at the beginning, that was in the middle times, and that will be at the end. ... The name Lateinos has the number six hundred and sixty six, and it is very likely, since the last kingdom has this name, for the Latins are the ones who now rule.

The number itself Irenaeus treats as certain: it stands in all the ancient and approved copies, and is attested by those who saw John face to face (5.30.1). For the name he offers candidates and affirms none; Teitan is the other name he judges most credible (5.30.3), but that sentence would not verify cleanly against the Harvey scan, so it is not quoted here.

Hippolytus of Rome c. 170–c. 235 ADOn Christ and the Antichrist 6

For the deceiver wants in every way to make himself like the Son of God. Christ is a lion, and the Antichrist too is a lion. Christ is a king, and the Antichrist too is an earthly king.

From the first treatise devoted to the Antichrist. Hippolytus continues the matching point by point: the Saviour was shown as a lamb, and he too will appear as a lamb, though he is a wolf within. The library holds this work only in Achelis (1897) in a poor archive.org OCR scan, where theta is often misread; the passage is quoted only where its words check strongly against that scan.

Cyril of Jerusalem c. 313–386 ADCatechetical Lectures 15.11

As the devil, before Christ's first coming as God born of a virgin, slandered it beforehand by idol stories of false gods born of women, so before Christ's second coming the adversary, using the hope of the simple and especially of the circumcised, brings forward a certain man, a magician, most skilled in the deceitful arts of sorcery and spells, who will seize for himself the power of the Roman empire and falsely call himself Christ, and by the name of Christ deceive the Jews who expect the anointed one.

Cyril goes on: he will rebuild the Jerusalem temple and reign three and a half years.

Augustine of Hippo 354–430 ADCity of God 20.19.2

No one doubts that he said this of the Antichrist ... But in which temple of God he will sit is uncertain: whether in the ruin of the temple built by King Solomon, or in the Church. ... Hence some want the Antichrist here to mean not the leader himself but, in a way, his whole body, that is, the multitude of people who belong to him together with their leader.

Augustine admits he does not know what Paul meant by "what restrains" (2 Thessalonians 2:6).

Martin LutherSmalcald Articles Part Two, Article 4

This teaching shows forcefully that the Pope is the very Antichrist, who has exalted himself above, and opposed himself against Christ, because he will not permit Christians to be saved without his power, which, nevertheless, is nothing, and is neither ordained nor commanded by God. ... This is, properly speaking to exalt himself above all that is called God as Paul says, 2 Thess. 2:4.

Luther wrote the Smalcald Articles in 1537 for the council the pope had called to Mantua. The charge is precise: a headship over the Church claimed by divine right, which will not let Christians be saved without obeying it, is the self-exaltation Paul describes in 2 Thessalonians 2, so the Antichrist is identified in an office and its claim, in present history.

Westminster ConfessionConfession of Faith 25.6

There is no other head of the Church but the Lord Jesus Christ; nor can the Pope of Rome, in any sense, be head thereof; but is that Antichrist, that man of sin, and son of perdition, that exalteth himself in the Church against Christ, and all that is called God.

This is the original 1646 wording. The American Presbyterian revision of 1903 removed the identification of the pope as Antichrist, which is why modern American printings of the Confession do not have it.