On the identity of the Antichrist:

On the identity of the Antichrist:

Prophetic Oracle has been a tool used throughout history to find the way when paths are unknown. The Sumerian world bestowed oracular powers on the priestess who awaited the coming of Baal in the chamber atop the Ziggurats. The Egyptians sought the advice of Ammon. The Greeks sought their most ancient oracle at Dodona in Epirus, the conduit for Zeus's advice. There the rustling leaves of oak trees in the sacred grove were interpreted by priests. The most famous oracle in the Greek World was at Delphi and was dedicated to Apollo. But there were many others. The Roman state kept a book of Oracles called the Sibylline Books in a vault in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus and these were referred to in time of crisis right up till the year 405 when Flavius Stilicho, the Valentin Beria of his day, had them burned in an excess of Christian zeal, purportedly because they foretold the end of Rome.

Prophets speak for God, revealing and interpreting God's will. Mohammed stated there had been 200,000 prophets but only six of them brought new laws and dispensations. Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Mohammed himself.

Christ was a prophet as well as the son of God. And the doctrine of compassion, of love, of communistic disbursement of wealth Christ spread was as revolutionary in its day as that which Lenin or Mao spread nineteen hundred years later. The mindset of classical man was of conquest and violence, rape and enslavement, retribution and revenge. These were normal and proper and were enshrined in the doctrines of the Old Testament and the epic sagas which described the morality of their respective civilizations. Prophets were the interlocutors of Divine will. The notion of the False Prophet was entrenched in Hebrew lore and spurred the charges levelled at Christ. Paul in his second letter to the Thessalonians, (2, 1-12) restates the coming of the Evil One. But it was John in the first Epistle (II,18 and 22) who gave a name to this force and that name was the AntiChrist, the Beast whose number is 666. He stated that the arrival of the Antichrist preceded the second advent. It was a notion that stuck and ignored the metaphorical nature of prophecy. The power of the parable.The charge Antichrist has been levelled at emperors, Nero among them, popes; Silvester II and Paul Vand kings; Frederick II of Prussia. Napoleon. Reformers like Luther and Lenin. It has burned many innocents at the stake.

Michel Nostradamus is probably the best known of the prophets of recent times. Certainly it is his prophecies that have been most widely popularised. Though arguably the likes H.G. Wells could well fit the bill of prophet given the widespread popularity and hence the profound effect he and other science fiction writers of his ilk have had on technical developments of this century.

Nostradamus wrote in the middle years of the sixteenth century. As we draw to the end of the millennium we have seen and will continue to see recurring waves of interest in Nostradamus' oracular powers. Nostradamus systematcially set out his prophecies in sets of quatrains, covering twelve centuries of precognostication. Nostradamus only names the Antichrist once and that is in quatrain 62 of the second century. The name he gives the Evil one is Mabus, M-a-b-u-s.

Pope Innocent III declared a crusade on the Cathars, christian purists, who used Christ's Sermon on the Mount as the their pivotal doctrine. These people made no bones about their opposition to the papacy, explicitly naming the Pope Anti Christ and his Church the Kingdom of Evil. In the general slaughter at Beziers, a Cathar stronghold in Southern France in 1209 the papal legate, a man named Arnaud was asked whether the Catholics in the town should be spared. His answer, "Kill them all, God knows his own." Now, given the record of papal immanity by way of the inquisition and it various crusades to proselytise the faith, its dogmatism and weddedness to secular powers and wealth one would have to wonder who in fact was the Evil party.

For that matter if we look at the Old Testament and see the vengefulness of God, the pestilences and plagues brought onto the heads of those that did not follow the faith one could be forgiven again for seeing that this God was the very antithesis of the God of peace and Love that Christ preached. And given the content of Revelations and the odious retributions visited on disbelievers as each of the Seven Seals is opened by the Lamb of God one would have to ask the question where is the mercy, the gentleness, the forgivness for which Christ is synonymous? Everything described could easily be seen as nothing but anti the christian message. All these things pose serious questions for those that believe in the Christian precepts. No real Christian would wish eternal damnation on anyone, let alone those who were demonstrably so weak as to wander from the path.

But let us allow for a moment that Nostradamus might have been onto something. That John for that matter was onto something. That these prophets in their ecstasies tapped into some pool of universal knowledge. Interpreting Nostradamus one can easily sea the bones of past events in his words. The quatrains are metaphors. Open to intrepretation in any manner at all. Yet by the same token there are some unnerving resonances. References to Il Duce and Franco. To newspapers and fission bombs. And missiles and flying machines described in Revelations. Scary shit.

So in these days, as the Millennium draws to a close minds turn to prophecies from the past. Jews and Muslims are dragged out of society's closets for drubbings, being the most conspicuous non christians. Fundamentalists speak their narrow interpretations of what was meant, liars mount the podiums of self interest and broadcast their so called truth. Tensions rise, and here and there innocents are denounced as AntiChrist. This is where Nostradamus may have done us the greatest service. He names the AntiChrist as this Mabus, and according to the cognoscenti this Anti Christ is alive now.

Mabus shall come and soon after shall die,

Of people and beasts shall be a horrible destruction,

Then on a sudden the vengeance shall be seen,

Blood, hand, thirst, famine, when the comet shall run.

What if Nostradamus was referring not to an individual but to an ethos, a system, a culture. Our world is largely the product of the fusion between capital and religion. It teeters irresolutely between the doctrines of the free market and social justice. In neither one or the other. Balance the record of Capital against the Christian vision and then the record of the Church against the same vision. Neither comes off looking very good. And as we are the products of this fusion of two systems then consider our history, our impact in the first world on the rest of the planet.

Besides Nostradamus may have forseen a different usage for the name Mabus. Give this name the be bop spelling popularised in names like INXS and Me D 8, and ask the question, Who is the Anti Christ? The answer would be, it Ma B Us. Scary thought, huh?