Christopher Hill, one of Britain's most distinguished historians, here reconstructs the significance of Antichrist during the revolutionary crises of the early seventeenth century. Radical Protestant sects applied the term--a name synonymous with repression and persecution--to those Establishment institutions of which they disapproved; in particular, the Pope. Then, with that revolution in thought which resulted in the separation of religion from politics, the figure of Antichrist lost its significance.