The Arabic version contained in MS Vaticano arabo 158 (fols. 99v111v) of the Apocalypse of Ps.-Athanasius is part of a homily attributed to the Patriarch Athanasius of Alexandria (d. 373 AD) in the festivity of the archangel Michael (F.J. MARTINEZ, Eastern Christian Apocalyptic in the Early Muslim Period: Pseudo-Methodius and Pseudo-Athanasius, Washington, 1985, p. 248-274). This MS could probable be dated in 715 AD / 96 H (R. G. HOYLAND, Seeing Islam as others saw it: a survey and evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian writings on early Islam (Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam 13), Princeton, 1997, p. 285), within the chronological spectrum in which a series of Syriac texts of this literary genre is inscribed in the Palestinian and Mesopotamic milieu as a reaction against the Arabic-Islamic expansion (H. SUERMANN, Einige Bemerkungen zu syrischen Apokalypsen des 7. Jhds., in H.J.W. DRIJVERS, R. LAVENANT, C. MOLENBERG, G.J. REININK (eds), IV Symposium Syriacum 1984. Literary Genres in Syriac Literature (Groningen – Oosterhesselen 10-12 September) (Orientalia Christiana Analecta 229), Roma, 1987, p. 328-329; F.J. MARTINEZ, The Apocalyptic Genre in Syriac: The World of Pseudo-Methodius, in H.J.W. DRIJVERS ET AL. (eds), IV Symposium Syriacum 1984, p. 337-352). The importance of this apocalypse is evident due to the supplying of facts of very varied nature offering, beside the variations included in the development of a genre that in the Coptic milieu, for centuries, knew a very interesting literary and ideological treatment in the outline of the anti-Muslim works.
Introduction
ˆAntíxristov is a nom. masc. sing. noun, a technical term typical of the epistles of John,17 where it has been used in order to appoint those apostate Christians (ântíxristoi = 1Jn 2:18b) or a mysterious personality hiding behind them (ântíxristov = 1Jn 2:18; 2:22; 4:3; 2Jn 7). The concept is also used in the New Testament apocryphal literature (ActPi, Greek rec. XXV), a work to which the Apocalypse of PseudoAthanasius also seems to be related. In Mt 24:24 and Mk 13:22 we find a similar term, ceudóxristov. Paul, on his part, mentions this figure (2Thes 2:3-10) with the expression ö ãnomov (“the one with no [Mosaic] law”), which is the translation of the Rabbinic formula בלי על into which the rabbies translated the term בליל: cf. Sanh 111b; SifDeut 92. However, although Paul seems to mention an eschatological-type Antichrist, his meaning does not seem to be clear enough, as he starts from Old Testament assumptions (Job 9:13; Ps 74:13; 89:10-11; Isa 51:9; Ezek 28:2; Dan 11:36). In Rev 17:7-14 the terminology is also different. The concept of the Antichrist, in the Synoptic Gospels and in Rev, refers to a group of beings coming about opposite to the church faced with the imminent parousía, but it is individualized as figure in the New Testament apocryphal literature: ApEl 33:1-8; Ps.Mth A2; HistJosCar(boh) XXX:10; and the Casanatensis version of GBart IV:42.44.51, where it is synonym of Satan.
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