Researched by the Ignaria Editorial Team · Published 2026-03-12
The New Testament contains both language of imminent expectation and passages that anticipate delay (Matthew 24:36, 2 Thessalonians 2), and the early Church navigated this tension without fully resolving it. By the second and third centuries, writers like Tertullian interpreted contemporary upheavals as active fulfillment of the prophesied signs, deepening the sense of imminent judgment rather than alleviating it. Hippolytus gave systematic shape to the Antichrist figure who must appear before the end, providing believers a framework for recognizing the climactic precursor. The Church lived as if the return could be at any moment without claiming certainty about when.
What the primary sources show
"Wars, and kingdom against kingdom, and nation against nation, and pestilence, and famines, and earthquakes... all which things are suitable for a severe and terrible God" — Tertullian reads the signs of the Olivet Discourse as actively unfolding in his own day, interpreting contemporary upheaval as evidence of divine judgment drawing near.
Describes the Antichrist sending commands "throughout every government by the hand at once of demons and of visible men" — the early church's most systematic account of the final deceiver who must appear before Christ's return, giving concrete shape to the "do not be deceived" warnings of the Gospels.