In the book of the prophet Daniel, this false prophet is described as a king (the eleventh horn on a terrible beast) who would wage war against the Jews and would change the Law — including the calendar and the holidays (Daniel 7:8, 25).
Daniel 7
(8) I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another horn, a little one, before which three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots; and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things.
(25) And he shall speak words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High; and he shall think to change the seasons and the law; and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and half a time.
Changing the Sabbath to Sun-day, in honor of the 'venerable day of the sun', changes YHWH's Law regarding the 4th Commandment. The papacy changed all that with their revision of the Julian calendar, which became the Gregorian calendar. Under the Gregorian calendar, the New Year is changed and is no longer in the spring as God commanded. (Changed the season) Passover was changed to Easter and of course the Sabbath was changed to SUN day. That, along with starting the "day" at midnight, made their "change of times and seasons" complete.
Let all judges and all city people and all tradesmen rest upon the venerable day of the sun. But let those dwelling in the country freely and with full liberty attend to the culture of their field; since it frequently happens that no other day is so fit for the sowing of grain or the planting of vines; hence, the favorable time should not be allowed to pass, lest the provisions of heaven be lost. Quoted in Blakely, p. 269
On the venerable Day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed. In the country, however, persons engaged in agriculture may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits; because it often happens that another day is not so suitable for grain-sowing or for vine-planting; lest by neglecting the proper moment for such operations the bounty of heaven should be lost. (Given the 7th day of March, Crispus and Constantine being consuls each of them for the second time [A.D. 321].) Source: Codex Justinianus, lib. 3, tit. 12, 3; trans. in Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol. 3 (5th ed.; New York: Scribner, 1902), p. 380, note 1.
For the Jews the 1st month is Nissan, (March/April-[spring]) and its Gregorian equivalent is January (winter). The Jewish calendar has certainly had no effect on their Sabbath. Unlike the changes via papal bulls, and decrees of Constanine and Pope Gregory where we get a change not only in when the New Year was to begin, but a change of the 4th Commandment. Not to mention the disappearance of Passover and the adoption of Astarte/Ishtar (Easter), a pagan holiday named for the pagan godess well known at the time.
The Gregorian Calendar is a revision of the Julian Calendar which was instituted in a papal bull by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. The reason for the calendar change was to correct for drift in the dates of signifigant religious observations, (primarily Easter/Astarte/Ishtar) and to prevent further drift in the dates.
The important effects of the change were:
Adoption of the new calendar was essentially immediate within Catholic countries. In the Protestant countries, where papal authority was neither recognized nor appreciated, adoption came more slowly. More information on the Gregorian calendar.
Exodus 12
1 And YHWH spoke unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying:
2 'This month shall be unto you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you.
This was commanded by YHWH to Moses at the time of the Passover, which always comes in spring.
In accordance with its ancient beginnings (right from The Seven Days Of Creation when light was created after the darkness), Bible calendar days were, and are, determined to begin and end at sunset e.g "from evening to evening shall you keep your sabbath" (Leviticus 23:32 )
Genesis 1
5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
Leviticus 23
32 It shall be unto you a sabbath of rest, and ye shall afflict your souls: in the ninth day of the month at even, from even unto even, shall ye celebrate your sabbath.
Yup. That’s a great example of the similitude I noted.
When the real deal shows up, though, expect a hand-in-glove fit for every descriptive element in every single verse.
Antichrist will meet all of the following criteria:
He will rise from among ten leaders of the Fourth Beast, which will be the fourth of four great kingdoms. Eleventh, he will depose three predecessors. He will be little, which could mean physically small, or young, or it could be figurative; indicating inexperience or obscure origin. He will be brash and boastful. He will be a zealous anti-evangelist speaking out continually and vehemently against YHVH. He will wear down the saints; possibly meaning both in number (by turning some from faith, or taking their lives), and in capacity to answer his multitudinous accusations and lies about them. He will intend to change the “times” and “the law”. He will war against the saints and prevail for “time, times, and half a time.” YHVH will judge, and this ruler’s dominance will fade, then meet a sudden, final end.
One or more Popes may match some of these descriptors; none match all. None were The Antichrist; The Man of Sin.
But look yet further, and consider the Fourth Beast, itself. For Daniel describes it as “dreadful and terrible, exceedingly strong. It had huge iron teeth; it was devouring, breaking in pieces, and trampling the residue with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns.”
You can stack every single abuse that has emanated out of every branch and twig of the Roman Catholic root, and you will not build a heap of horror to match the violence, persecution, and destruction of even one of the monumentally wicked rulers of Earth in the all the centuries since Daniel.
Hitler: all told, 42 million victims. Includes his atrocities, plus 28M civilian, and 14M military casualties in the European Theater of his war.
Stalin: most diligent researchers now agree between 20 and 30 million victims.
Mao: between 45 and 58 million victims.
None of the kingdoms led by these men were “the Fourth Best,” and aside their heaped up victims, the bloodshed of all Catholicism sits utterly overwhelmed.
Finally, at the end of the reign of the Eleventh Horn, the Fourth Beast is killed and utterly destroyed in the fire.
Rome hasn’t been on fire since Nero, and there are plenty of Catholics around to prove it wasn’t roasted to a crisp at any point during the ensuing years.
So, like I noted, “similitude” can be drawn between the Antichrist and some of the abuses of Rome, but “exactitude”; sameness in all things? No. Not even close.