ses of Iran, for these are based upon the conflict between
Ahura-Mazda (Auramazda, Ormazd) and Angro-Mainyush (Ahriman) and its
consummation at the end of the world. This Iranian dualism is proved to
have penetrated into the late Jewish eschatology from the beginning of
the 1st century before Christ, and did so probably still earlier. Thus
the opposition between God and the devil already plays a part in the
Jewish groundwork of the _Testaments of the Patriarchs_, which was
perhaps composed at the end of the period of the Maccabees. In this the
name of the devil appears, besides the usual form ([Greek: satanas,
diabolos]), especially as Belial (Beliar, probably, from Ps. xviii. 4,
where the rivers of Belial are spoken of, originally a god of the
underworld), a name which also plays a part in the Antichrist tradition.
In the _Ascension of Moses_ we already hear, at the beginning of the
description of the latter time (x. 1): "And then will God's rule be made
manifest over all his creatures, then will the devil have an end" (cf.
Matt. xii. 28; Luke xi. 20; John xii. 31, xiv. 30, xvi. 11).[1] This
conception of the strife of God with the devil was further interwoven,
before its introduction into the Antichrist myth, with another idea of
different origin, namely, the myth derived from the Babylonian religion,
of the battle of the supreme God (Marduk) with the dragon of chaos
(Tiamat), originally a myth of the origin of things which, later
perhaps, was changed into an eschatological one, again under Iranian
influence.[2] Thus it comes that the devil, the opponent of God, appears
in the end often also in the form of a terrible dragon-monster; this
appears most clearly in Rev. xii. Now it is possible that the whole
conception of Antichrist has its final roots in this already complicated
myth, that the form of the mighty adversary of God is but the equivalent
in human form of the devil or of the dragon of chaos. In any case,
however, this myth has exercised a formative influence on the conception
of Antichrist. For only thus can we explain how his figure acquires
numerous superhuman and ghostly traits, which cannot be explained by any
particular historical phenomenon on which it may have been based. Thus
the figure of Antiochus IV. has already become superhuman, when in Dan.
viii. 10, it is said that the little horn "waxed great, even to the host
of heaven; and cast down some of the host and of the stars to the
ground." Similarly P