No one in America thought Hitler was The Antichrist (a follow up post)

 This is a follow up to this post.

https://midseventiethweekrapture.blogspot.com/2019/08/did-anyone-actually-think-hitler-was.html

I've done some more research on this topic largely thanks to a book called Naming The Antichrist: The History of an American Obsession which focuses on the history of popular Antichrist views among Futurist Americans.

In that prior post I talked about the Mussolini theory existing at the time, and well it wasn't just a couple people, the popular mainstream view among most Futurist Evangelicals especially the Dispensationaliists was that he would be either Mussolini or rise to power via the League of Nations, and of course some combined those views.

The reason none of these Christians who were anti-Communist looked to Stalin or the USSR is because they viewed Magog as Russia.  And while occasionally some have tried to make Gog and the Antichrist the same person they've generally been viewed as separate, and it turns out at this time it was popular to view Gog and the Antichrist as being adversaries.  So yeah the anti-Bolshevism of the Fascists in that context further helped make them an Antichrist candidate agaisnt Stalin as Gog.

But what about the fringe minorities who broke from standard Dispensationalist orthodoxy?  Well only one alternative approach to Bible Prophecy of this era was considered worth noting by this book anyway, and that was the views of William Dudley Pelley and other members of his Silver Legion of America commonly called The Silver Shirts.  They were the progenitors of what we today know as the Christian Identity Movement, an Antisemtic offshoot of British Israelism (which was Philosemitic originally).

The internet talks a lot about Post-War American Neo-Fascism, but the Silver Legion of America was the actual American Fascist Party of the Fascist era.  However they were distinct from their European Counterparts in the way they incorporated aspects of traditional American Fundamentalist Apocalypticism.  Pelley said different seemingly contradictory things about the Identity of The Antichrist.  He accused The Jews, Communists, FDR and Bernard Baruch.  What's interesting is that what he said about Hitler makes him the opposite of The Antichrist.  

There is no real basis in Revelation for some good mortal political leader who'll be opposed to or precede the Antichrist, but Extra-Biblical traditions have constantly tried to create one, from the Last Roman Emperor to the Great Catholic Monarch to the Islamic Mahdi tradition to Mormonism's Rider on the White Horse prophecy. Back when people thought Napoleon was the Antichrist this role was given to Tsar Alexander and maybe also Wellington. Among those turn of the Millennium Evangelical End Times movies there were two that gave some role like this to a Last President of the United States Megiddo: The Omega Code 2 and Left Behind: World At War.  The Silver Shirts opposed the then current President however, Pelley was such a fan of Hitler that he seemed to be all for giving this unofficial Prophetic role to Hitler.

This was a very minority fringe belief however, Pelley ran in the 1936 Presidential Election but couldn't even get close to 0.03% of the vote.  Most Americans who had Futurist views of Bible Prophecy couldn't see Hitler as positioned to be relevant at all.

You may think, "if Hitler's geographical position as leading a country seemingly not mentioned in The Bible is a reason he wasn't eligible then how has accusing US Presidents been so popular?".  I think part of it is a logic similar to the Uncanny Valley, Germany was close enough to the Biblical World that the Prophets could have had a frame of reference to identify it, but the American Continents are so far removed that of course they couldn't have explained them to people living in Judea 2000 years ago.

But also American Exceptionalism has caused American Christians to ignore all logic when it comes to their wanting America to be in Bible Prophecy.  

Historicists of the era focused on the Vatican as they always do, and that never fit the Nazis who were quite Anti-Catholic.  But while Mussolini was also anti-Clerical originally he did wind up making a deal with the Vatican that has made him stay relevant to Historicism to this day.

The only people who might have seen Hitler as the Antichrist were Catholics in Germany and the countries Hitler invaded.  Maybe also the descendants of the Husites in Bohemia.  But I don't even know how to begin investigating that topic in English.

It's also possible some Jews of the time may have identified him with Armilus.  But I also know no Muslims called him the Dajjal because the Nazis actually made a cozy alliance with the radical Muslims in their war agaisnt The Jews.

Why do I want to talk about this subject so much?  Because the commonly unsourced claim that people thought Hitler was the Antichrist encourages a bad stereotype of Futurists, that we can see the Antichrist anywhere.  But the fact is at least during this era they knew certain requirements were necessary besides just being Popular or Evil enough.

Did anyone actually think Hitler was The Antichrist?

Everytime I see someone ramble about how all kinds of famous people have been accused of being The Antichrist throughout history they always throw Hitler into the list.  But was he though???

I have an interest in studying past theories about Bible Prophecy that turned out to be wrong, knowing the history of how people have read Revelation and other Bible Prophecies is useful.  And frankly....

I've had trouble finding any evidence that people at the time thought Hitler was the Antichrist.  A google search on the subject brings up a lot of websites that have all the key words but aren't about that at all.  As well as the Nostradamus predicted Hitler stuff that misleadingly uses the word Antichrist.  And there is a site listing The 7 most popular contenders for the title 'Antichrist' that says on the Hitler entry "For obvious reasons" and nothing else, no elaboration or sources at all.

It wasn't difficult for me to find the documentation on Napoleon being believed to be The Antichrist at the time, even though that subject also has the Nostradamus distraction.  It is well documented that Tsar Alexander and many people in Britain thought he was, even though their reasons for why and what that meant reflected very different basic views of Eschatology.  In fact people thinking Napoleon was the Antichrist is actually a major plot point in the novel War and Peace but all the film adaptations have left that out.  And while I was looking into the original Napoleon by pure accident I stumbled upon a book written during the reign of Napoleon III arguing he was The Antichrist, which repackages a lot of the original Napoleon arguments.

What's interesting is I found pretty quickly evidence of people in the 20s and 30s thinking Mussolini was the Antichrist.  Here is one book written back then.
https://www.amazon.com/Mussolini-Antichrist-Introductory-Chapters-Nebuchadnezzars/dp/B00088FFCM
And apparently some American missionaries met with Mussolini and talked with him in person about it.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/evangelical-history/the-day-missionaries-met-with-mussolini-to-show-him-the-bible-predicted-him-as-the-antichrist/

Mussolini was literally trying to restore the Roman Empire, so he fits the Biblical scenario in a way that Hitler didn't (the revived Roman Empire view isn't purely a product of anti EU hysteria, it was part of the Napoleon argument as well since he was very much a new Caesar).  He offered to give Italian Jews a homeland in Ethiopia, which implies to me if he'd had control of the Holy Land he may have been willing to offer it to the Jews.  He wasn't as blatantly anti-Semitic as Hitler.

That's the thing, Hitler being blatantly Anti-Semitic from day one was a pretty big argument against it being him.  Almost all Futurist Premillenial Christians expect The Antichrist to at least start out as a friend of the Jews, Dispensationalists and some others think he'll betray them eventually, but few expect him to be obviously their enemy from the beginning.

What's really disturbing is how popular it was to think FDR was the Antichrist.  American Evangelicalism was taking it's anti-Progressive form a lot earlier then people realize.

Maybe it was more of a thing within Germany, stuff not written in English?  Thing is most Continental European Protestants held a Historicist view of Bible Prophecy that insisted on the Antichrist being the Pope, and the Pope excommunicated the Nazis.  Maybe the Catholics of Germany and Austria considered it, but modern Catholics in general have been not as interested in End Times subjects.

I have seen writers decades later try to argue that the Antichrist will be Hitler somehow risen from the dead, the "Mortal wound was healed", because no Resurrection could shock the world more then that.  But that's just it, Hitler didn't get his current most obviously Evil person ever reputation over night, it really didn't fully happen till he had been dead for awhile already, after the full extremity of the Holocaust was shown to the world at the Nuremberg trails.  Before that he was just one of many historical tyrants who the allies didn't necessarily hate any more then they hated the Kaiser during WWI.

Maybe I'm wrong, I can't claim I've read every book or article or sermon on Bible Prophecy from the 1920s, 30s and 40s.  But I'd expect the traces of it to be easier to find online.  If anyone has any information I don't please let me know in the comments.

Those who receive The Mark of The Beast will have been deceived

Revelation 19:20.

"And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone."

I had completely overlooked this in many past studies on this Blog where I was adamant in saying the deception is over when The Abomination of Desolation happens.

This was something that was a product of Chuck Missler's influence.  How he said those who took the Mark were making a conscious decision to knowingly choose The Beast over Jesus.

This however strengthens another premise on this Blog.  The Antichrist may not be as Popular as we assume.  Where I suggested the possibly that The Beast's system may be a form of Torah observance.  Because as far as The Bible is concerned the only Deception it's worried about is something masquerading as true Biblical Worship.

The question however remains.  How is this Compatible with II Thessalonians 2, and part of Revelation 13, describing The Beast as speaking against The God of The Bible?  I don't know exactly.  Maybe they're not as literal as I took them, claiming to be God is speaking against God.  Maybe it's a heresy with a Gnostic aspect of separating Elohim from Yahuah to it.  There are a few aspects to consider.  Or given the emphasis on Blastphemeing His Name, maybe it's about the deception that YHWH is a Pagan name added to the Torah by later scribes.  Or maybe the Name being Blasphemed is Yeshua/Iesous/Jesus not YHWH.

But the big thing about taking The Mark being defined as a deception.  Is how that fits in the context of Revelation 14 guaranteeing all who take The Mark go into the Lake of Fire.

I finally noticed what I overlooked here well before I made this post.  Because you see I was uncomfortable with this before I became a Universalist.  That these people are defined as not fully knowing exactly what they were doing, yet are eternally damned anyway.

But now that I no longer view the Lake of Fire as Eternal Damnation, but merely a purging fire that will not be the same for all who enter it.  It no longer feels as inherently illogical.

The Tiburtine Sibyl and The Last Roman Emperor Constans

A Prophecy attributed to the Tiburtine Sibyl in 380 AD forms the embryo of the Last Roman Emperor tradition.

Of all the false prophecies I view as Antichrist seeds, The Last Roman Emperor is perhaps the most directly like the Biblical Antichrist, being defined as Greek and Roman at the same time, since it developed largely in the Byzantine Empire, it easily reconciles the way Daniel points to both Rome and Greece as the nations the Antichrist will rule.  And in some of the 7th century apocalypses he's said to conquer both Syria and Egypt, which is interesting if you still think Daniel 11:40 is about the Antichrist.

Usually, when dealing with these false prophecies my view is that the Antichrist figure within said Prophecy is in the role of a Decoy Antichrist.  And that is certainly the case with the later elaborations of the Last Roman Emperor tradition.

But this is short, and it's attributed to a pagan Oracle.  Oracles usually give cryptic prophecies, that could have two potentially opposite meanings, or an unexpected meaning that in hindsight should have been obvious.  "A Prophecy that misread could have been"-Yoda, Revenge of The Sith.

So let's look at what this Prophecy says closely.

THE LATIN TIBURTINE SIBYL
Then will arise a king of the Greeks whose name is Constans. He will be king of the Romans and the Greeks. He will be tall of stature, of handsome appearance with shining face, and well put together in all parts of his body. His reign will be ended after one hundred and twelve years. In those days there will be great riches and the earth will give fruit abundantly so that a measure of wheat will be sold for a denarius, a measure of wine for a denarius, and a measure of oil for a denarius. The king will have a text before his eyes that says: "The king of the Romans will claim the whole Christian empire for himself." He will devastate all the islands and the cities of the pagans and will destroy all idolatrous temples; he will call all pagans to baptism and in every temple the Cross of Christ will be erected. "Then Egypt and Ethiopia will be eager to stretch their hands to God." ~ Whoever does not adore the Cross of Jesus Christ will be punished by the sword. When the one hundred and twelve years have been completed, the Jews will be converted to the Lord, and "his sepulchre will be glorified by all." In those days Judah will be saved and Israel will dwell with confidence. At that time the Prince of Iniquity who will be called Antichrist will arise from the tribe of Dan. He will be the Son of Perdition, the head of pride, the master of error, the fullness of malice who will overturn the world and do wonders and great signs through dissimulation. He will delude many by magic art so that fire will seem to come down from heaven. The years will be shortened like months, the months like weeks, the weeks like days, the days like hours, and an hour like a moment. The unclean nations that Alexander, the Indian king, shut up (i.e., Gog and Magog) will arise from the North. These are the twenty-two realms whose number is like the sand of the sea. When the king of the Romans hears of this he will call his army together and vanquish and utterly destroy them. After this he will come to Jerusalem, and having put off the diadem from his head and laid aside the whole imperial garb, he will hand over the empire of the Christians to God the Father and to Jesus Christ his Son. When the Roman empire shall have ceased, then the Antichrist will be openly revealed and will sit in the House of the Lord in Jerusalem. While he is reigning, two very famous men, Elijah and Enoch, will go forth to announce the coming of the Lord. Antichrist will kill them and after three days they will be raised up by the Lord. Then there will be a great persecution, such as has not been before nor shall be thereafter. The Lord will shorten those days for the sake of the elect, and the Antichrist will be slain by the power of God through Michael the Archangel on the Mount of Olives.
Translated from the edition of E. Sackur, Sibyllinische Texte und Forschungen. pp. 185—86.

1. It never describes Constans as actually fighting the Antichrist, the enemy he goes to war with is Gog and Magog.

2. Although the Antichrist is mentioned while Constans is still reigning, it's not till after Constans puts down his Crown in Jerusalem that the Antichrist is "openly revealed", and reigns in the House of God in Jerusalem.  Same place we were just told Constans was.

I think this prophecy, even as it's author originally intended, is open to a reading where Constans and The Antichrist are the same individual.  That he will "give up" his authority to beings that present themselves as being God and Jesus but are perhaps actually Satan and The False Prophet.

Constans is an interesting name, it's a diminutive form of Constantine and Constantinius (but a few lesser known Emperors are known by that name exactly).  The seventh century Syrian elaborations on the Last Roman Emperor figure didn't give him a name.  And the Western Catholic tradition of the Great Catholic Monarch removed the Greek affiliation altogether saying he'll descend from Clovis, the Merovingian.  However...

When Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453 AD.  Emperor Constantine XI removed his royal garments on the battlefield when he knew it was lost so no one could tell who he was.  After the battle was over the Turks identified a body as his and marched it around the city in victory, but the people failed to recognize it as Constantine.  No body was ever indisputably identified as Constantine.  A rumor spread that an Angel had saved him and turned him into a marble statue and hid him beneath the wall of Constantinople, and that one day God would revive him to drive out the Turks.  The legacy of this legend remained important to the Greeks ever since, it was rekindled during their War of Independence in the 1800s and lingers to this day.

You may be thinking of course, "How can the same person be both  King of the Greeks and a Prince from the Tribe of Dan?"

Ezekiel 27 speaks of Dan and Javan having a connection.  And indeed Greek mythology speaks of the Danoi.  This further leads to speculation about connecting Dan to the Tutha de Dannan who in Irish mythology came from Northern Europe.  I'm highly skeptical of most British Israelism claims, but the Tribe of Dan is very interesting.

Britam identifies Dan with Denmark (which is the only Britam identification I kinda agree with). The Royal family of modern Greece from George I on are also Danish Royalty by virtue of their direct Pater-lineal descent from Christian IX of Denmark.  Every modern King of Greece (King of the Hellenes as they call themselves) is also officially a Prince of Denmark.  King of the Greeks and Prince of Dan.

I discus the genealogy of George I of Greece and Christian IX of Denmark on a different blog.  That information can be overlapped with my Genealogy of The Antichrist study to show that they descend from the Seleucid Dynasty. as well as probable Merovingian descent from Clovis.  This family is also taking over the British Royal family, involving a few of the lines different people have in different ways sought to connect to the House of David.

The current King in exile is Constantine II and is often called by his supporters Constantine XIII, viewing the modern Greek Kingdom as heir to the Byzantine Empire, and evoking the mythology about Constantine XI.

Constantine II has 4 children, Pavolos the oldest son is the Crown-Prince.  Pavolos has 5 children, 4 of whom were born in the United States.  Princess Maria-Olympia, Prince Constantine-Alexios, and Prince Achileas-Andreas all three of whom were born in New York.  Prince Odysseus-Kimon and Prince Aristidis-Stravos who was born in Los Angeles.

The pieces are in place for some charismatic leader of this royal family to bring together the Byzantine Last Roman Emperor tradition, the Great Catholic Monarch Tradition, and the British Israelite understanding of Messiah Ben-Joseph and/or the Talmudic tradition that says Messiah Ben-David will also be half Danite, like how Samson was half Danite and half Judean.

Modern Greece had 7 Kings when it was a Kingdom.  Now that is certainly not what the 7 Kings of Revelation mainly mean as I've firmly shown elsewhere, but it's interesting how patterns repeat.

Long ago when I hadn't settled on my current view of the 7 heads, when discussing a possible connection to the Kings of Rome, I argued that the 7th reigning a little while might not be about reign length so much as implying being driven from his position rather then reigning till he died as a King normally does.  Which also happened to Constantine II.

From there it is interesting that it was during the reign of the Sixth King that Israel was reestablished in 1948.

Update Feb21st2016: Another option I just considered re-reading the Oracle is maybe the "Antichrist" there is really The False Prophet.

Is it appropriate to use the tern Antichrist how we use it?

I'm going to keep using it because it's casual usage is so ingrained in our society.  And I want even readers of my blog who aren't Prophecy experts and won't recognize easily all his other titles to follow the discussions.

But I'm growing more and more skeptical it's Biblically appropriate to use that word of the coming future world leader.

I'm NOT denying there is a future world leader.  I believe the two beasts of Revelation 13 are literal individuals.  The Beast of the Sea is certainly more then an individual, it's his Kingdom, but the Eight King is also The Beast.  It is two individual persons who are cast alive into the Lake of Fire.  And I believe info about those individuals does exist elsewhere in Scripture like in II Thessalonians 2 and Daniel 7.  And I believe that is yet future.

The word Antichrist is used 5 times in 4 verses.  1 John 2:18, 2:22, 4:3 and 2 John 1:7.  It is well known that most of those are about there being many antichrists and the spirit of antichrist, and how any denial of Jesus divinity or Jesus as the Son of God come in the Flesh is the an antichrist heresy.

But the insistence exists that the first reference does allude to a future individual.  Well here is what John said.

Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.

He said "ye have heard".  Throughout The Gospels Jesus contrasts "it is written" with "you have heard it said".  "It is written" refers to what's Written in The Scriptures, while "heard it said" refereed to the oral traditions of the Pharisees that Jesus was rebukeing.  By the time John wrote his Epistles, the Christian community was already developing their own oral traditions it seems.

It proves the belief in a coming Antichrist was there already, but John was repudiating that belief.

An individual is coming, but he is not equal in power and importance to Jesus, or Jesus' Evil Counterpart, he's not the manifestation of all wickedness.  He's just a sinful man who is going to become very powerful, who wants to believe he's that important, but he really is not.  He's not really much different then any other tyrant who has persecuted God's People throughout history.

At the very least John is saying not to get so caught up in the future one that you forget to concern yourself with the contemporary adversaries of The Gospel.  And I feel the obsession with connecting every contemporary evil to the future Beast is itself a distractionary counterproductive way to deal with those evils.  Just oppose them on their own merits.  Not to mention people doing this with things I don't agree are evil. I deal with those things mostly on the SolaScurpturaChristianLiberty blog.

The Desire of Women

Daniel 11:37, is nearly universally agreed by Pre-Millennial Futurists to be about The Antichrist.

"Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all."

What is meant by "the desire of women" here is perhaps the most cryptic mystery of this verse.  No identical phrase seems to appear anywhere else in Scripture.

There are two very popular wrong views about this phrase, which derive from a similar bad reading.  That it means he's a Homosexual, or that it means he's a Misogynist.

The latter is usually only argued for by those focused on a Mahdi theory, but even back when I was leaning towards the Madhi view I never considered that argument plausible.  The former happens to fit in with the other great Boogeyman modern Evangelical Christians are afraid of, western liberals.  There are of course LGBT individuals and supporters who are politically "Conservative" in other areas, like Log Cabin Republicans, and Libertarians.

Even if the phrase implied a lack of sexual desire for Women, that doesn't leave Homosexuality as the only option, it could also mean Asexual.  But that's not what the phrase means.  If it was meant to say that it would have said he doesn't desire women.

The grammar is about something women desire, which equally invalidates both those false conclusions.

I agree with both Chuck Missler and Chris White that "The Desire of Women" is a Messianic Title.  And with White that "the God of His Fathers" is The God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob.  I agree with White's Antichrist Theory in terms of the first half of the 70th Week, but not the second half and his related Pre-Wrath suppositions.  The Willful King will disregard the True Messiah by claiming the title for himself.

The word "Desire" being used in a title for The Messiah has a precedent in Haggai 2:7 "And I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the LORD of hosts."

The beginning of Messianic Prophecy, in fact all Prophecy, is Genesis 3:15

And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

The promise of The Seed of The Woman. 

Later we have Isaiah 7:14

Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Luke 1:41-45

 And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost: And she spake out with a loud voice, and said, "Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.  And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?  For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.  And blessed is she that believed: for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord."

And at the center of this theme is Revelation 12, where The Woman gives birth to The Man Child.

And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.  And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.  And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.  And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne. 

So "The Desire of Women" is clearly Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.