The meaning attached to this word has been greatly modified by the controversies of various churches and sects. In Scripture, however, and the early Christian writers, it has an application sufficiently distinct from partial interpretations. Antichrist, according to St John, is the ruling spirit of error, the enemy of the truth of the Gospel as it is displayed in the divinity and holiness of Christ. This is the primary meaning of the term, and we are led at once to consider it as the proper title of Satan. But the same apostle speaks of the existence of many antichrists; whence we learn that it is applicable to any being who opposes Christ in the high places of spiritual wickedness. St Paul speaks of "the man of sin" as not yet revealed, and it is supposed by most interpreters that antichrist is to be understood as the object alluded to by the apostle; but if we attend strictly to his words, the antichrist of whom he spoke must have been then, and at the time when he was writing, "opposing and exalting himself above all that is called God," although awaiting some distant season for the open display of his power and wickedness. Justin Martyr, in his Dialogue with Tryphon, describes him as exercising his wrath against Christians with especial fury in the period immediately preceding the Second Advent. Cyril of Jerusalem represents him as reigning three years and six months preparatory to the entire destruction of his dominion at the second coming of Christ. The same Father says that he will deceive both Jews and Gentiles; the former, by re- presenting himself as the Messiah; the latter, by his magical arts and incantations. St Chrysostom observes, on the passage in the 2d Epistle to the Thessalonians, that antichrist will not lead men to idolatry, but will rather abolish the worship of false gods as well as that of the true God, commanding the world to worship himself alone as the only Deity.

These views of the early writers, as well as the expressions of Scripture, have been perverted by many men of warm imaginations to the worst purposes of controversy. The effects of general corruption have often been charged upon offices and individuals; and the appellation of anti-christ as readily applied to them as if it had actually been coupled in Scripture with their name and titles.