The dogma of the beast

Ishoʿyahb's first sight of the invaders was ... not favourable. 2 Thessalonians 2:7-8 which #38 cites is a pseudoPauline chronicle of the apocalypse. I expect similar notions ended up in his Easter sermon, which we can rest assured he wrote down, on account it underpinned #39 to the Catholicos also (implicitly) the draught appended to #49 to Mar Gabriel. Ishoʿyahb either mellowed out later or else the first invaders were replaced by reasonable occupiers; Saʿd by ʿUtba mayhap.

I figured, hey, I've been looking around for other accounts of contemporary personages in the episcopal archive; why not look around for contemporary Islamophobic slurs. To be exact: who's applying antichrist rhetoric to the Tayyaye in the late 10s / 630s / 940s?

My first stop was Walter Kaegi's "Initial Byzantine Reactions", although this had more interest in Daniel 2-7 than in Paul. (Few cite the Revelation in the seventh-century Orient.) Next stop was Robert Hoyland's Seeing Islam - actually, about all the stop we'll need.

The most famous post-Islamic apocalypses do not consider Muhammad the Antichrist himself. They tend to use some saint's corpse as a hand-puppet to predict the Saracens as a blip on the way to the Antichrist, and to Gog and Magog whilst they are at it. Sporadic here is Muhammad (who in early such texts isn't named) as herald of Antichrist, as John Damascene claimed. So also PseudoEphrem, a Miaphysite... who also recalls that the Arabs had come upon hearing of the Miaphysites' persecution. Hmm. The "herald" meme had legs; it's in Theophanes' "AM 6234" account of Peter of Capitolias, in John of Seville to Paul Albar... many such cases. These explicit examples are late, but widely distributed.

John of Nikiu refers to the "doctrine of the Beast" glossing, "Muhammad"... however. All we have is an Ethiopic translation of an Arabic copy, from an original assuredly penned in Coptic. Mind, we don't need Muhammad here; any leader of the Arabs will do, like ʿUmar or ʿAmr bin al-ʿAs. The reference might actually be more of interest as a rare use of the Revelation in Coptic Egypt.

Maximus before becoming Confessor was hanging out in North Africa, as George of Reshʿayna tells. Maximus worried in epistle #8 to Peter the Illustrious that Heraclius' conversion of the Jews in AD 632 might trigger 2 Thessalonians 2:3. By #14, a letter to another Peter governor of Numidia (now temporarily in still-Greek Alexandria), Maximus has heard of the desert people ravaging his home Palaestina and goes on a tear against, who else, the Jews who announce by their actions the presence of the Antichrist since they ignored that of the true Saviour.

About contemporary is the Doctrina (or Didaskalia) of Jacob newly-baptised, in this state because of Heraclius' edict. Through a Jew in the narrative (whom we do not need to believe was real) the author mused if, through the new Saracen prophet, Palaestinian Jewry was preparing to receive Antichrist.

PseudoSebeos, who finished writing in the AD 660s but probably tacked that ending upon a work extending only to AD 656, considers an Arab commander who treated with Theodore Rshtuni as "an ally of antichrist".

Preventing antichrist is the katekhon. Greek imperialists proclaimed that this was the Greek empire. John bar Penkaye argued the withholding power was just our Lord's providence. Ishoʿyahb #39 implies it's the church, in a flattery to his pope... implying, to readers of all his work, that in #38 he sheltered some doubts about that.

All this said, you know who else contemporary Christians thought was a herald of antichrist? Mar Athanasius, that's who. So Antiochus of Mar Saba (Hoyland 261-2 n. 9 from Pandecta homily #130, PG 89, 1844B-C). Over on the other side Pseudo-Shenute has several people he considers a "Deceiver" starting with (Chalcedonian) archbishop Cyrus down north in Alexandria.

After this survey, I find "herald of antichrist" nascent in the AG 940s as applied to the Tayy' ideology. It also was applied against the Had-Qnoma. Ishoʿyahb, dealing with an alliance between the two out of Tikrit, does not make a distinction. He worries in #38 more whether the katechon seal has broken.