Nicolae Jetty Carpathia | |
---|---|
Constituency | Global Community |
Personal details | |
Born | February 16 Cluj County, Romania |
Died | February 16 Har Megiddo, Israel |
Nationality | Romanian |
Profession | Politician |
Nicolae Jetty Carpathia is a fictional character and the primary antagonist in the Left Behind book series written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. Within the series, Carpathia is the Antichrist, and leader of the Global Community, a world government which he ultimately marshals against the followers of Jesus Christ.
According to the plot, born in Cluj County, Romania, Carpathia was the product of genetic engineering and artificial insemination. His mother, Marilena, was unwittingly convinced by a group of Luciferians whose group she joins, to become the mother of a child who, they assured her, would change the face of the world. Marilena stayed with her husband, Sorin, until the baby was born, insisting that her son keep the strong Carpathia name. (In the prequel novels, it is explained that the name "Nicolae", when translated, means "victory of the people", although this is far from Carpathia's actual goals.)
Through his parents, Carpathia possessed a unique bloodline, dating back to Ancient Rome, so he could actually claim to be a Roman descendant. This references both the early Christian belief that the Antichrist would come in the form of a Roman emperor, as well as the current Pre-Millennialist Christian view that the Antichrist will emerge from a "New Roman Empire".
As a young child, Carpathia showed remarkable intelligence and athletic ability, and also proved to be extraordinarily manipulative, able to bend others to his will with relative ease. His handlers arranged for his mother to be eliminated, and Nicolae himself eventually demanded the dispatch of his "father," a key to his rise to power. With his advisers and counselors, Carpathia formed a successful import-export business, which quickly made him a millionaire. After he became a millionare, he is then taken by a demon to a desert, probably the Judaean Desert, where he is forced to live without food and water for forty days. In contrast to Jesus's temptation, Nicolae falls for all three temptations, thus fully confirming that he will soon be the Antichrist. After that, he is then returned to Romania. Next, he quickly grew bored with business and finance and, guided by the "kingmaker" Leon Fortunato, set his sights on politics.