Figures of the Antichrist. The Apocalypse and Its Restraints in Contemporary Political Thought

The article studies the evolution of the idea of Antichrist starting from the New Testament texts up to the political philosophers of the XX century facing the problems of the totalitarian regimes. The most interesting figure on these topics is Carl Schmitt, who looked for a "katechon" (II Ts 2:6-7), the restraint capable to hold temporarily the Antichrist, but he failed in this task. The analyses of Hannah Arendt help us to understand that modern totalitarianism has some features of the old Antichrist, but with a new desacralized dynamism. The present globalized society show new dangers of a subtler and more technically efficient system of totalitarian control of societies. It would be necessary to use the instruments of critical reason in order to defend democracy.