Antiochus and the Antichrist
“This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang but a whimper.” Thus did the modernist poet T. S. Eliot conclude his melancholy poem, The Hollow Men. Many are convinced this description will likely be close to reality—that the earth will finally roll to a meaningless stop, and the world of men will simply shuffle off into a quiet oblivion. But Eliot was wrong. The world will end not withGet More Articles—Subscribe Today!
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I have some interesting facts from 1 Maccabees about a general of Antiochus named Seron (prince of On, a pagan deity, aka Osiris or the sun, perhaps, he was Syrian) who says something interesting that will remind you of a certain builder of the Tower of Babel, supposed to be Nimrod.
Genesis 11:4
Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us MAKE a NAME FOR ourselves;… ”
No longer shall your name be Abram, but your nameshall be Abraham; for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations.
Here God makes Abraham a new name. And Sarah :God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name.”
1 Maccabees
13 When Seron, the commander of the Syrian army, heard that Judas had gathered a large company, including a body of faithful soldiers who stayed with him and went out to battle, 14 he said, “I will MAKE a NAME for MYSELF…”
Seron does not do so well. In fact:
23 When he finished speaking, he rushed suddenly against Seron and his army, and they were crushed before him. 24 They pursued them down the descent of Beth-horon to the plain; eight hundred of them fell, and the rest fled into the land of the Philistines. 25 Then Judas and his brothers began to be feared, and terror fell on the Gentiles all around them. 26 His fame reached the king, and the Gentiles talked of the battles of Judas.
In Hebrew “Shem” or “name” can also mean “fame or renown.”
1 Maccabees 5:57
Joseph son of Zechariah, and Azariah, the commanders of the forces, heard of their brave deeds and of the heroic war they had fought. 57 So they said, “Let US also MAKE a NAME for OURSELVES; let us go and make war on the Gentiles around us.” 58 So they issued orders to the men of the forces that were with them and marched against Jamnia. 59 Gorgias and his men came out of the town to meet them in battle. 60 Then Joseph and Azariah were routed, and were pursued to the borders of Judea; as many as two thousand of the people of Israel fell that day. 61 Thus the people suffered a great rout because, thinking to do a brave deed, they did not listen to Judas and his brothers. 62 But they did not belong to the family of those men through whom deliverance was given to Israel.
63 The man Judas and his brothers were greatly honored in all Israel and among all the Gentiles, wherever their name was heard. 64 People gathered to them and praised them.
Joseph and Azariah “were routed, and were pursued to the borders of Judea; as many as two thousand of the people of Israel fell that day. 61 Thus the people suffered…”
Even though they were on the side of the good guys they were unsuccessful. Apparently God doesn’t like this phrase.
Also, Antiochus actually executed Israelites who did not become Hellenes, I can quote 1 Maccabees again. I believe you did not include this fact.
“After the death of the great Greek …”
Greece was created in the 1800’s and was never the name of an actual country before or after Alexander who was not great at all.
Alexander or Philip actually annexed the several independent kingdoms that were where the very modern nation of Greece sits today. Before that there were no “Greeks” as Christians always associated the Hellenes with paganism because that’s exactly what they were. There was no Hellas or Greece unless you count a neighborhood in Dodona, Epirus according to Homer and Aristotle or southern Italy “Magna Grecia” and there is no proof that the words even mean the same thing. Nobody knows the meaning of either word.
Aristides of Athens quit the Hellenes to be a Christian. He did not quit quit being Athenian. Clement of Alexandria. Tatian the Assyrian.
Some Romans were Hellenes. Some weren’t. But Christians did not mind the identity of “Roman” even if they spoke “Greek” like in the Eastern Roman Empire. They spoke the language of the Hellenes but there were no Hellenes after the 5th or 6th century and few after Constantine. They were pagans and abominable. And their philosophy is terrible and not even original. Their ideas were all borrowed. They can be pretended to be a European culture though so European Academia exalts these terrible tyrants and pagan perverts.
Greek. Lol
I was just reading that Epiphanes means “(God Manifest) although the alternative” Illustrious, I am familiar with, it is obviously incorrect.
How do you miss the etymology? Anti-Christ is from the “Greek” New Testament and uses a word that is the opposite of “Ante” and so he is “Anti Ochus” or after Ochus and not against.
Pseudochrist makes more sense.
Obviously it is a deliberate reference to that typical false messiah from a long line of false messiahs, Alexander the Macedonian (Hellene by religion not ethnicity there was no Hellas even scholars who would rather not do admit this fact, he was no Greek) claimed to be the son of Ammon who to him was “the god” that would later be called Zeus and Jupiter but not by Alexander the “son of Ammon.”
How’d you miss all the most interesting facts?
Professor why do you write Antiochus the IV (fourth) and not Antiochus the III (third)?
In other sources Antiochus is labled as the third.
So interesting if we believe in God but the kinder, gentler New Testament. There is weird, scary stuff for people back then. And that horn with a face on it should be bothering Antiochus not Christians and good Jews.