In other terms, was the anti-Christ another (rival) Christ recognized as before, in time, of the Christ of which they are talking?
if so, then the mention of an ante-Christ would be the indirect confession that the Christ of the ''heretics'' came first.
Was the Anti-Christ an ANTE-Christ?
Was the Anti-Christ an ANTE-Christ?
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Re: Was the Anti-Christ an ANTE-Christ?
I too have wondered if there was an ante-Christ or two (or 3) before Jesus-the-Christ-of-Nazareth (or even concurrently).
They might not be a Christ of the heretics: 'heretics' is, of course, a term of derision; a loaded term; a poisoning-the-well term.
- those labelled as 'heretics' may have genuinely not known about Jesus-focused Christianity.
- they may have just been following a different religion.
One candidate is Nero about whom first a legend expecting his return quickly developed after his death - the Nero Redivivus Legend that lasted a couple of centuries.
- See this thread here [on BC&H] - http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... 943#p71943
Nero Redivivus Legend was a belief popular during the last part of the 1st century that Nero would return after his death in 68 AD. The legend was a common belief as late as the 5th century. The belief was either the result or cause of several pretenders who posed as Nero leading rebellions.
Several variations of the legend exist, playing on both hope and fear of Nero's return. The earliest written version of this legend is found in the Sibylline Oracles. It claims that Nero did not really die but fled to Parthia, where he would amass a large army and would return to Rome to destroy it.
At least three Nero imposters emerged leading rebellions. The first, who sang and played the cithara or lyre and whose face was similar to that of the dead emperor, appeared in 69 during the reign of Vitellius. During the reign of Titus (c 79-81) there was another impostor who appeared in Asia and also sang to the accompaniment of the lyre and looked like Nero but he, too, was exposed. Twenty years after Nero's death, during the reign of Domitian, there was a third pretender. Supported by the Parthians, who hardly could be persuaded to give him up, the matter almost came to war.
Dio Chrysostom, the Greek philosopher and historian, wrote
- "seeing that even now everybody wishes [Nero] were still alive. And the great majority do believe that he still is, although in a certain sense he has died not once but often along with those who had been firmly convinced that he was still alive."
- "he now lives in concealment in the vigor of that same age which he had reached when he was believed to have perished, and will live until he is revealed in his own time and restored to his kingdom."
In later forms of the legend, among many early Christians, this legend shifted to a belief that Nero was the Antichrist --
The Nero-the-anti-Christ legend started and ran concurrently. Reflected in things like the Number of the Beast, 666; Nero as the second beast in Apocalypse/Revelation; and Nero as 'the anti-Christ ushering in the end of the world' in the Christian version of the Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah.
Suetonius is hostile to Nero in Nero 38.
The 'Acts of Pseudo-Linus' ('Martyrdom of the Blessed Apostle Peter'; which appears to be based on the Acts of Peter; known primarily via a Latin version, the so-called Actus Vercellenses) has several references to Nero as the AntiChrist - Peter is narrated as interacting with the AntiChrist Nero at the beginning; and at the end, as a vision.
Tertullian's Ad Nationes and Scorpiace may also reflect the Nero anto-Christ legend (and some aspects of the Jesus narrative)