ABSTRACT
Truth and falsehood in doctrine and practice were not to be defined by the authority of men, but by reference to the unchanging will of God laid down in the biblical text. As Peter Marshall has noted, debates over the authority of extra-scriptural tradition could themselves become the subject of scriptural exegesis. The prophecies contained in the Old Testament book of Daniel lent an apocalyptic edge to the persecution of the faithful, with those passages that related to the king Antiochus Epiphanes most often understood as a reference to Antichrist. In 1520, Wynkyn de Worde published an edition of Adso's tenth-century Libellus de Antichristo, a representation of Antichrist as a single, future, figure of evil, whose deeds and character embodied the antithesis of the Christian faith. Melanchthon's gloss on Daniel 11:37 was extensive but measured, and conceded that the passage had been subjected to numerous interpretations.
