A Brief Candle: Macbeth as an Antichrist Figure

Even now there are many antichrists. ~ 1 John 2:18

The final battle in William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Macbeth witnesses an exchange, before swords strike, between Macduff and the corrupted main character, Macbeth, that reveals Macbeth to have devolved into an antichrist figure.

The exchange between Macduff and Macbeth causes a turn in Macbeth, from fearless to fearful. He realizes that he can, in fact, be killed; the invincibility, the immortality, dangled before him by the witches, was merely smoke. Understanding that he entrusted himself to deceivers, Macbeth calls those necromancers: “juggling fiends no more believed/ That palter with us in a double sense,/ That keep the word of promise to our ear/ And break it to our hope” (V.IIIV.23-26). Macbeth, as a consequence of learning that he is mortal, tells Macduff, “I’ll not fight with thee” (V.VIII.26). Macduff offers Macbeth an opportunity for surrender, “Than yield thee” (V.VIII.27). But the opportunity for surrender entails both repentance and a justice that includes humiliation: “Than yield thee, coward,/ And live to be the show and gaze o’th’time./ We’ll have thee, as our rarer monsters are,/ Painted upon a pole, and underwrit/ ‘Here may you see the tyrant.’” (V.VIII.26-31). Macduff calls Macbeth a coward, a stinging accusation today for anyone. Macduff also calls Macbeth a tyrant. And rather than cut Macbeth down there, Macduff prescribes a public shaming: bring the tyrant before those he’s wronged, and let them make vocal their judgment of the man; then execute that man. Ben Florman translates “Painted upon a pole and underwrite” as “We’ll put a picture of you on a sign, right above the words” tyrant. The Pelican Shakespeare edition of the play offers a footnote for this line that translates it as “depicted on a signboard” (98). In their book Shakespeare’s Words, authors David Crystal and Ben Crystal translate the word “painted” as the following: 1) colourful, multicoloured; 2) unreal, artificial, superficial; 3) feigned, counterfeit, disguised; 4) depicted, represented [as on a sign]; 5) frozen, motionless [as in a painting]. They provide examples from certain plays to demonstrate each meaning, but none of the examples come from Macbeth. However, definition #4 meshes with Florman’s translation. The Basildon Upper Academy published an analysis for this scene that claims that Macduff “compares Macbeth to something that might be displayed to be mocked.” The Folger Library version of the play says, “[Macbeth] fights with Macduff only when Macduff threatens to capture him and display him as a public spectacle.” Again, the translations provided seem in agreement with one another. 

While the interpretations favor a sign, similar to a Most Wanted poster, of Macbeth, perhaps even a cartoonish rendition, Macduff’s words also draw up, leave room for, another possibility that seems apt, that of a public execution, even a crucifixion.

Crucifixion wasn’t practiced in Scotland in the times in which Macbeth’s story is placed. Hanging, quartering, and beheading, among other methods, were employed to destroy criminals. However, Macduff’s language seems allusory to the Bible account of Jesus’s crucifixion. Crucify means “to put to death by nailing or affixing to a cross”; the word comes from the Late Latin crucifigere, which combines the word crux, meaning “cross,” with the word figere, meaning “to fasten, fix.” From the prophets to the gospel writers, the Bible contains passages describing the humiliating death by crucifixion that Jesus Christ unjustly endured. Sinless, Jesus died as one “numbered with the transgressors” (Isaiah 53;12). He suffered a crucifixion, a “painting on a pole” as it were, and had placed over his head a sign that read, “King of the Jews.” Jesus was mocked by many who witnessed his execution. “The rabble’s curse” flew at him like slings and arrows (V.VIII.34). Paul the Apostle says that Jesus “ being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in the fashion as of a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:6-8). 

For sure, Macbeth is to face execution. Before that, though, the public will be permitted time to ridicule and scorn Macbeth for his murderous tyranny. Perhaps a poster with his likeness will be “screwed to the sticking place” in all the villages and cities throughout Scotland, so that people can see Macbeth’s face and know that he is a “rarer monster.” But it’s likely, too, that Macbeth will be required to bear witness to all the witnesses against him. (It’s possible that Banquo’s ghost might even walk among the crowd on that day.)

 The justice Macbeth would experience may also include public submission to Malcom, the rightful king of Scotland, the man whose father was the king and was killed by Macbeth’s hands. Macbeth refuses Macduff’s sentencing. “I will not yield/ To kiss the ground before Malcom’s feet/ And to be baited with the rabble’s curse” (V.VIII.32-34). Public reproach and submission to rightful authority, which are an admission of sin, prove too thorny a crown for Macbeth. Though death unsettles him, the need to confess sin and seek absolution undoes him. “I will try to the last. Before my body/ I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff,/ And damned be him that first cries, ‘Hold! Enough!’” (V.VIII.37-39).

A clear Biblical definition is given for anti-Christ by John the Apostle, who is credited with writing the Book of the Revelation, the Gospel According to John, and the three other New Testament letters. John says an antichrist is: “he who denies the Father and the Son”; those “who confess not that Jesus is come in the flesh” (I John 2:18; II John 1:7). Macbeth never makes such a claim. He is, then, not an exact match. However, in addition to refusing the rightful Justice he deserves, Macbeth also usurps authority because he thinks he wants the crown, and to want a thing is to be owed a thing. Furthermore, the book The Revelation of Jesus Christ, placed as the final text in the Biblical canon, describes the Anti-Christ as one who refuses surrender, one who fights to the death, in spite of his entire kingdom being brewed in witchcraft, lies, and bloodshed. Macbeth also lusts for more power after he steals the throne and, when his world begins to collapse, Macbeth declares a nihilistic perspective concerning human existence. “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player/ That struts and frets his hour upon the stage/ And then is heard no more. It is a tale/ Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury/ Signifying nothing” (V.V.27-31). John’s gospel record claims that Jesus is life, and that his life is the light of men (John 1:4). Such a light cannot be meaningless. Our lives, then, cannot be meaningless. To teach nihilism, to carry on as though our entire existence has no meaning, while we perpetuate the satisfaction of our own desires no less, is to hold forth an antichrist doctrine. 

Returning to the main point of this essay, when outmatched by Justice, Macbeth first attempts avoidance, then he refuses to accept Justice’s claim. Justice, nevertheless, has its way with Macbeth, bringing this antichrist figure to an end. Macbeth, strutting and fretting his hour on the stage; Macbeth, full of sound and fury; Macbeth, who says life is nothing and refuses to humble himself, cannot elude or defeat “even-handed justice” (I.VII. 10). His candle burns hot, and his wreckage runs high for a time; yet in “dusty death” the antichrist figure Macbeth is swept off the stage because Goodness, Truth, and Beauty never abdicate their throne.   

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