The Antichrist, According to Hippolytus of Rome

By Richie Cooley

This booklet explores the teachings of an early church father regarding the Antichrist and the end of the age.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richie Cooley
• Release date: Aug 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005082567

Richie Cooley

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The Antichrist,

According to Hippolytus of Rome

by Richie Cooley

Licensed by:

Richie Cooley (2022); edited: (December, 2022)

Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0 International

Table of Contents

I. The Second Time Around

II. On Christ and Antichrist

III. The Nature of Christian Worship

Citations

Works by Me

Before getting started, let’s review a few notes…

*Old Testament Scripture is taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE® (NASB), copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

*New Testament Scripture is taken from the English Majority Text Version. Translated by Paul Esposito. Copyright © 2011.

*British spelling is often used, except for the quoted material, which normally employs U.S. spelling.

*Divine pronouns are normally not capitalized, unless they appear that way in Bible versions or other quotes.

*As a general rule, words that appear in brackets within quotes are not found in the original texts, and were added by the translators or are my personal comments, etc.

* * *

I. The Second Time Around

The love of money is the root of all evil… This was penned by the translators of the King James Version and has become a bit of a platitude.

Most modern translators think that the King James overstepped the bounds somewhat, and so the phrase is normally lightened in newer publications. For example, the English Majority Text Version states…

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, of which some [by] aspiring have strayed away from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. -- 1 Timothy 6:10

This is probably Paul’s intention; for after all, in the very same letter he mentions love of money in a list of unrelated sins…

…not given to wine, not a bully, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not loving money… -- 1 Timothy 3:3

Being given to drunkenness or being frumpy has little to do with greed—at least directly. Yet (in my opinion) all sins are related indirectly, and money is actually a pretty good way to encapsulate this purple pill.

How so?

Well, looking at Paul’s short list again, someone is grumpy when they don’t want to spend their energy on being respectful and pleasant to another. Thus, the root of grumpiness is selfishness. The problem with drunkenness is that you are being a very poor steward of God’s property (in that all bodies belong to God, and not to men or women individually; as the old joke goes, get your own dirt) and also risk harming others due to the loss of control brought on by inebriation. Thus, the root of drunkenness is also selfishness. Your desire for feeling high outweighs your concern for God or man. The same can be said for sexual sins. Why is one faithful partner never enough? We want more domination, more notches on the belt, more replication of genes (subliminally)…the philanderer only truly loves himself.

Ultimately, financial greed is the physical form of selfishness; ergo, in my non-apostolic opinion, it is the physical form of the root of all sin. Hence, in more ways than one, I think it can be said that money is the root of all evil, more or less. In the midst of the weapons/tools of death/husbandry lies the pim (1 Samuel 13:21).

Changing gears abruptly, world religion is very simple. Although there are a million different belief systems, the roots number in the single digits. In terms of epistemology (i.e., book religions), you really only have Moses, the Vedas, and then numerous forms of syncretism. In the West, the Torah obviously became the foundation for Jews, Christians, and Muslims. In the East, the Vedas would eventually give rise to the Upanishads and then on to the all-important Bhagavad Gita. The Gita codified Eastern religion by and large.

So for example, what you will find in Asia is some type of syncretism between the Veda/Gita-strand—dealing with the ethereal/heavenly—and some type of more indigenous expression aimed at everyday life, such as Shinto myths or the teachings of Confucius.

Don’t get me wrong though, syncretism is huge everywhere.

The history of cults especially is doubtless the history of syncretism. Keeping with our theme of East and West, Eastern mysticism/monism has often been hijacked by some Christian catechumen in order to form a new religion. A great example of this would be the (now fairly deflated) sect of Christian Science (this is not the same as Scientology by the way).

Mary Baker Eddy was the hapless mother of this movement, and clearly tried to teach that God and man (instead of Brahman and the atman) are ultimately one…

1. There is…no intelligent sin, evil mind, or matter: and this is the only true philosophy and realism (No and Yes, 38).

2. There is