Janow. For Wycliffe and his
adherent John Purvey (probably the author of the _Commentarius in
Apocalypsin ante centum annos editus_, edited in 1528 by Luther), as on
the other hand for Hus, the conviction that the papacy is essentially
Antichrist is absolute. Finally, if Luther advanced in his contest with
the papacy with greater and greater energy, he did so because he was
borne on by the conviction that the pope in Rome was Antichrist. And if
in the _Augustana_. the expression of this conviction was suppressed for
political reasons, in the Articles of Schmalkalden, drawn up by him,
Luther propounded it in the most uncompromising fashion. This sentence
was for him an _articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae_. To write the
history of the idea of Antichrist in the last centuries of the middle
ages, would be almost to write that of the middle ages themselves.

AUTHORITIES.--See, for the progress of the idea in Jewish and New
Testament times, the modern commentaries on Revelation and the 2nd
Epistle to the Thessalonians; Bousset, _Antichrist_ (1895), and the
article "Antichrist" in the _Encyclop. Biblica_; R.H. Charles,
_Ascension of Isaiah_, Introduction, li.-lxxiii. For the history of
the legend of Nero, see J. Geffcken, _Nachrichten der Gottinger
Gesellschaft der Wisscnschaft_ (1899), p. 446 &c.; Th. Zahn,
_Zeitschrift fur kirchliche Wissenschaft und kirchliches Leben_
(1886), p. 337 &c.; Bousset, _Kritisch-exegetisches Kommentar zur
Offenbarung Johannis_, cap. 17, and the article "Sibyllen" in
Herzog-Hauck, _Realencyklopadie fur Theologie und Kirche_ (3rd ed.),
xviii. 265 &c.; Nordmeyer, _Der Tod Neros in der Legende_, a
_Festschrift_ of the Gymnasium of Moos. For the later history of the
legend, see Bousset, _Antichrist_, where will be found a more detailed
discussion of nearly all the sources named; Bousset, "Beitrage zur
Geschichte der Eschatologie," in _Zeitschrift fur Kirchengeschichte_,
xx. 2, and especially xx. 3, on the later Byzantine prophecies;
Vassiliev, _Anecdota Graeco-Byzantina_, i. (Moscow, 1893), which gives
the texts of a series of Byzantine prophecies; E. Sackur,
_Sibyllinische Texte und Forschungen_ (1898), containing (i)
_Pseudo-Methodius_, Latin text, (2) _Epistola Adsonis_, (3) the
_Tiburtine Sibylla_; V. Istrin, _The Apocalypse of Methodius of Patara
and the Apocryphal Visions of Daniel in Byzantine and Slavo-Russian
Literature_, Russian (Moscow, 1