ily
flourishing during the period of the rise of Islam and of the Crusades.
To these belong the apocalypses in Arabic, Ethiopian and perhaps also in
Syrian, preserved in the so-called _Liber Clementis discipuli S. Petri_
(_Petri apostoli apocalypsis per Clementem_), the late Syrian apocalypse
of Ezra (Bousset, _Antichrist_, 45 &c.), the Coptic (14th) vision of
Daniel (in the appendix to Woide's edition of the _Codex Alexandrinus_;
Oxford, 1799), the Ethiopian _Wisdom of the Sibyl_, which is closely
related to the Tiburtine Sibyl (see Basset, _Apocryphes ethiopiennes_,
x.); in the last mentioned of these sources long series of Islamic
rulers are foretold before the final time of Antichrist. Jewish
apocalypse also awakes to fresh developments in the Mahommedan period,
and shows a close relationship with the Christian Antichrist literature.
One of the most interesting apocalypses is the Jewish _History of
Daniel_, handed down in Persian.[12]

This whole type of prophecy reached the West above all through the
_Pseudo-Methodius_, which was soon translated into Latin. Especially
influential, too, in this respect was the letter which the monk Adso in
954 wrote to Queen Gerberga, _De ortu et tempere Antichristi_. The old
Tiburtine Sibylla went through edition after edition, in each case being
altered so as to apply to the government of the monarch who happened to
be ruling at the time. Then in the West the period arrived in which
eschatology, and above all the expectation of the coming of Antichrist,
exercised a great influence on the world's history. This period, as is
well known, was inaugurated, at the end of the 12th century, by the
apocalyptic writings of the abbot Joachim of Floris. Soon the word
Antichrist re-echoed from all sides in the embittered controversies of
the West. The pope bestowed this title upon the emperor, the emperor
upon the pope, the Guelphs on the Ghibellines and the Ghibellines on the
Guelphs. In the contests between the rival powers and courts of the
period, the prophecy of Antichrist played a political part. It gave
motives to art, to lyrical, epic and dramatic poetry.[13] Among the
visionary Franciscans, enthusiastic adherents of Joachim's prophecies,
arose above all the conviction that the pope was Antichrist, or at least
his precursor. From the Franciscans, influenced by Abbot Joachim, the
lines of connexion are clearly traceable with Milic of Kremsier
(_Libellus de Antichristo_) and Matthias of