Paul had taught, Antichrist was destined to appear in Jerusalem, seated upon the mount where Solomon in ancient times had built his temple, “proclaiming himself to be God.”1Yet it was the sublime character of Scripture that its meaning, even when to the unlearned it appeared precise, could be interpreted by the wise on many levels. Much had happened since the apostle had delivered his prophecy. The Temple of the Jews had long since been overthrown and destroyed utterly – even as churches had spread across the world. How, then, was the “temple” in which Antichrist would take his seat best to be understood? “Does it mean the ruins of the Temple built by King Solomon, or might it actually mean a Christian place of worship?”2 It was this question, put by St. Augustine many centuries before the Millennium, that had haunted Wulfstan in the wake of the St. Brice’s Day massacre, and led him to see, in the rubble of a desecrated church, a possible proof of Antichrist’s imminence.
