Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.

org/wiki/Apocalypse_of_Pseudo-Methodius The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius is a 7th-century apocalypse that shaped the e schatological imagination of Christendom throughout the Middle Ages. The work wa s written in Syriac in the late 7th century, in reaction to the Islamic conquest of the Near East, and is falsely attributed to the 4th-century Church Father Me thodius of Olympus. It depicts many familiar Christian eschatological themes: th e rise and rule of Antichrist, the invasions of Gog and Magog, and the tribulati ons that precede the end of the world. A new element, probably adopted from the Tiburtine Sibyl, was a Messiah-like Las t Roman Emperor, who would be a central figure in apocalyptic literature until t he end of the medieval period. It was translated into Greek soon after its compo sition, and thence into Latin (by the eighth century), Slavonic, Russian, Armeni an, and Arabic. Its precise date is difficult to ascertain; dates proposed by recent historians fall within the range 644 - 691 AD (Palmer 1993:225).