The Antichrist Tradition in Antiquity: Antimessianism in Second Temple and Early Christian Literature

Mateusz Kusio traces and investigates the references to the Antichrist across ancient Jewish and Christian literature. Beginning with a reception-historical study of a number of eschatological and oracular texts in the Hebrew Bible, he goes on to discuss texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls, the New Testament, biblical pseudepigrapha and Apocrypha, and Patristic writings. The study reveals an anti-messianic tradition involving a variety of eschatological antagonists in conflict with diverse messianic actors that stretches across both Jewish and Christian corpora and revolves around a set of similar motifs, ideas, and core Biblical texts.