Adso of Montier-en-Der

Antichrist seated above Leviathan; with his spear he points to a quote from Adso's De antichristo. Illustration from the Liber Floridus.[1]

Adso of Montier-en-Der (Latin: Adso Dervensis) (910/920 – 992)[2] was abbot of the Benedictine monastery of Montier-en-Der in France, and died on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Biographical information on Adso comes mainly from one single source and has come under question, but the traditional biography depicts him as an abbot who enacted important monastic reform, as a scholar, and as a writer of five hagiographies. His best-known work was a biography of Antichrist, titled "De ortu et tempore Antichristi", which combined exegetical and Sibylline lore. This letter became one of the best-known medieval descriptions of Antichrist, copied many times and of great influence on all later apocalyptic tradition, in part because, rather than as an exegesis of apocalyptic texts, he chose to describe Antichrist in the style of a hagiography.

  1. ^ Lewis, Suzanne (2010). "Encounters with Monsters at the End of Time: Some Early Medieval Visualizations of Apocalyptic Eschatology" (PDF). Different Visions: A Journal of New Perspectives on Medieval Art. 2: 1–76. ISSN 1935-5009.
  2. ^ Omont, Henri (1881). "Catalogue de la bibliothèque de l'abbé Adson de Montier-en-Der". Bibliothèque de l'école des chartes. 42 (1): 157–60. doi:10.3406/bec.1881.447004.

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