The portion of the two Testaments which contains this description is generally taken to be a separate Apocalypse. In each case it is followed by matter of a quite different kind, in the Testament of the Lord by rules of ecclesiastical practice, in the Testament in Galilee by an Epistle of the Apostles. It does occur separately in Syriac in a Cambridge MS. edited by Arendzen (in Jour. Theol. Stud., ii., 1901, p. 401). The only notable variant in the description of Antichrist which this presents is at the end ("his feet broad and his little finger large as a sickle—that is, the sickle of desolation"), and this is probably a mistake.
Cap. XI. of this Apocalypse deals with the misfortunes of individual countries—Syria, Cilicia, and so on (this is omitted in Arendzen's text), and as Arendzen remarks in his preface (see also Bidez in his edition of Philostorgius), the description comes very close to that given by Philostorgius in his Church History of the actual events of the early part of the fifth century. The Apocalypse is not, in any case, as a whole, very early in date, and there is no reason to doubt that it incorporated older material, and that some of this came from the Apocalypse of Elias.
The description of Antichrist which we have here is but one of many. The late Greek Apocalypses of Esdras and of John edited by Tischendorf contain another, or rather two others (one in MSS. of both Esdras and John, the other in a Venice MS. of John), which may as well be given:
| Esdras-John | John (Venice MS.) |
| The likeness of his face is dark. | |
| The hairs of his head sharp as arrows. | The hairs of his head like sharpened arrows. |
| His eyebrows like a field. | His teeth a span long. |
| His right eye like the morning star. | His legs like a cock's. |
| The other immovable (or like a lion's). | The sole of his feet two spans long. |
| His mouth about a cubit long. | His eyebrows full of all foulness and roughness. |
| His teeth a span long. | |
| His fingers like sickles. | On his forehead a writing: Antichrist. |
