Shownotes Transcript
Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today's video, we're going to discuss the Antichrist. First we're going to dive into a treatise written in the 10th century that details the Antichrist's entire life; it was a seminal work, and though short, it's packed with information, taking from scripture, of course, but also from many other works written by philosophers and theologians in previous centuries. Second, we're going to spend a little time on eschatology, specifically, at the various lenses of interpretation comprised by it, and how one of them, futurism, is in large part the reason the Antichrist remained so relevant for so long, as people would attempt to prognosticate when he would return or would weaponize the name, labeling people they disliked or disagreed with it, much as women were called witches. Third, we're going to look at a second century work that features the Antichrist throughout, our purpose here being to show one of the first steps in the progression that would culminate in more elaborate writings of the middle ages that centered on the Antichrist. And finally, we're going to the source itself, scripture, namely, the Epistles of John, the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, and, of course, the Book of Revelation, which details the apocalypse of the Christian Bible.Let's get into it. The Antichrist, as conceptualized as the son of the Devil and the archenemy of Jesus, has remained such a prominent figure today in large part because of the the many texts that discuss him, that supplement what's written in the bible with additional insight and explanation, written by philosophers and theologians over the last 2,000 years.In the 10th century, Adso of Montier-en-Der, a monk and abbot, wrote a treatise about the Antichrist in a letter he sent to Queen Gerberga of France. It became the standard medieval reference work on the Antichrist, and it's the perfect work to explore in this video because it covers the Antichrist's entire life, drawing on a number of other works: scripture, of course, but also other exegesis still extant from centuries past. For the next while, we're going to focus on what this treatise has to say.