성경 주석서

형제들아, 우리 주 예수 그리스도의 강림으로 말미암아 이제 우리가 너희에게 구하노니 - "강림으로 말미암아"라는 표현은 우리 번역자들이 생각한 듯이 여기서 엄숙한 맹세의 형식이 아니다. 성경에서 어떤 사건을 근거로 엄숙한 맹세를 하는 것은 흔하지 않으며, 설령 그런 경우가 있다 하더라도, 여기의 문맥은 이 표현에 다른 의미를 부여할 것을 요구한다. 그것은 그의 강림에 관하여라는 뜻이다. 바울의 생각은 이러하다. "내가 이전 서신에서 너희에게 말한 그 큰 사건, 곧 구주의 강림에 관하여, 그것이 곧 일어날 것처럼 근심하지 말기를 너희에게 구한다." 그의 견해가 오해되었거나 잘못 전해졌기 때문에, 그는 이제 그들에게 참된 교리 안에는 그가 곧 나타나실 것처럼 두려움을 일으킬 만한 것이 없음을 보여 주려 한다.

또 우리가 그에게로 함께 모임에 관하여 - 여기에는 첫째 서신 1 Thessalonians 4:17의 말씀, "그 후에 우리 살아 남은 자들도 그들과 함께 구름 속으로 끌어 올려"라는 말에 대한 분명한 암시가 있다. 그 의미는 이러하다. "우리가 그에게로 모이는 일에 관하여, 그 사건이 가까운 것처럼 마음이 흔들리지 말기를 너희에게 구한다."

우리가 너희에게 구하노니 - 우리 주의 강림하심으로 - 속았거나 거짓된 교사들에게 자극받은 데살로니가 사람들이, 심판 날에 관하여 첫째 서신의 말, 곧 데살로니가전서 4:15 이하에서 잘못된 의미를 끌어냈다는 것은 분명하다. 그리고 그들은 그날이 가까이 이르렀다고 결론 내리게 되었으며, 이 일은 교회 안에 큰 혼란을 낳았다. 이 오류를 바로잡기 위해 사도는 그들에게 이 둘째 편지를 보냈고, 그 안에서 그날은 반드시 멀리 있어야 함을 보인다. 그날이 나타나기 전에 큰 일이 먼저 이루어져야 하기 때문이다.

그는 일반 심판의 날에 대해 전에 말하면서, 그것이 밤에 도적같이, 곧 기대하지 않을 때 올 것이라고 하였다. 그러나 그는 그 때를 정하려 하지 않았고, 그것이 가까이 있다거나 멀리 있다고 암시하지도 않았다. 그러나 이제 그는 그날이 반드시 멀리 있어야 함을 보인다. 그것이 오기 전에 반드시 일어나야 할 큰 사건들이 있기 때문이다.

Now we beseech you, brethren,.... The apostle having finished his first design in this epistle, which was to encourage the saints to patience under sufferings, proceeds to another view he had in writing it, and that is, to set the doctrine of Christ's coming, as to the time of it, in its proper light; and this is occasioned by what he had said concerning it in the former epistle, which was either misunderstood or misrepresented; and as he addresses the saints with a very affectionate appellation as his "brethren", so by way of entreaty "beseeching", and yet in a very solemn manner:

by the coming of our Lord Jesus: which is to be understood not of the coming of Christ in the flesh, to procure the salvation of his people; nor of his coming in his kingdom and power to take vengeance on the Jewish nation, for their rejection of him as the Messiah; but of his coming to judge the quick and dead, than which nothing is more sure and certain, being affirmed by angels and men, by prophets and apostles, and by Christ himself, or more desirable by the saints; wherefore the apostle entreats them by it, that whereas they believed it, expected it, and wished for it, they would regard what he was about to say: so that the words, though an entreaty, are in the form of an adjuration; unless they should be rendered as in the Ethiopic version, as they may, "concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ"; and so express subject matter of the discourse now entering upon, with what follows:

and by our gathering together unto him; which regards not the great gatherings of the people to Christ the true Shiloh upon his first coming, and the preaching of the Gospel to both Jews and Gentiles, when there were not only great flockings to hear it, but multitudes were converted by it; nor the greater gatherings there will be in the latter day, at the time of the conversion of the Jews, and when the fulness of the Gentiles shall be brought in; nor the conversion of particular persons, who are gathered in to Christ, and received by him one by one; nor the assembling of the saints together for public worship, in which sense the word is used in Hebrews 10:25 but the gathering together of all the saints at the last day, at the second coming of Christ; for he will come with ten thousand of his saints, yea, with all his saints, when their dead bodies shall be raised and reunited to their souls, and they with the living saints will be caught up into the air, to meet the Lord there and be ever with him; when they will make up, complete and perfect, the general assembly and church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven: this will be the gathering together of all the elect of God; and so the Arabic version reads, "the gathering of us all"; and which, as it is certain, is greatly to be desired; it will be a happy meeting and a glorious sight; by this the apostle entreats and adjures them to regard what follows.

2 Thessalonians 2:1 Paul warneth the Thessalonians against the groundless

surmise that the day of Christ was near at hand,

2 Thessalonians 2:3-12 showing that it would be preceded by a great apostacy,

and that the man of sin would be first revealed, and

by his wicked impostures draw many into perdition.

2 Thessalonians 2:13-14 He repeateth his good hopes concerning them,

2 Thessalonians 2:15-17 exhorting them to stand fast in his doctrine, and

praying God to comfort and stablish them in all goodness.

The apostle now comes to refute the opinion that some at least of these Thessalonians had received, as if the day of Christ was near at hand. He having said, 1 Thessalonians 4:17: We which are alive and remain shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air, & c., then some might think his coming would be in the apostle’s time, or some other way they might fall into this conceit; and some do conceive this was the chief reason of the apostle’s writing this Epistle. And because this mistake might be of dangerous consequence, therefore he is very vehement and particular in refuting it: for hereupon they might be brought to question the truth of the whole gospel when this should not come to pass: they might be unprepared for the sufferings that were to come upon the church; their patience might fail in expecting this day, and their minds be doubting about the coming of Christ at all. This opinion also would much narrow their thoughts about Christ’s kingdom, and the enlarging of the gospel among other Gentiles; and the profane might abuse it to sensuality, as 1 Corinthians 15:32: Let us eat and drink, & c. That he might the better persuade, he calls them brethren, and beseeches them, &c. And next, conjures them, using the form of an oath, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, & c. We conjure men either by what they love, or by what they fear; as they would enjoy the one, or avoid the other. The coming of Christ was what they desired and rejoiced in, as that which would bring rest to them, and tribulation to their adversaries; and by this he doth therefore beseech or adjure them: and therefore we must understand this of Christ’s last coming, as the word parousia, in the text, is still applied to this coming, 1 Thessalonians 2:19 3:13, &c.; and not of his coming to destroy the Jewish church and state, for that coming was at hand.

And by our gathering together unto him; at his last coming, when the whole body of Christ shall be gathered to him, to meet him in the air, 1 Thessalonians 4:17. And then the sense is: As ye hope ever to see such a blessed meeting, and to be of that number, so take heed of this opinion. Yet some read the text otherwise, because in the Greek it is not dia, but uper thv parousiav, and so the same with peri, not

we beseech you by, but concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together unto him, as denoting only the subject matter treated of. I prefer the former; and so the apostle conjures them not to be soon shaken in mind, but to stand fast in the truth about the doctrine of Christ’s coming, which they had been taught, and very lately taught, and therefore it was the greater evil to be soon shaken; as the apostle upbraids the Galatians, Galatians 1:6, and God the Israelites, Psalm 106:13.

Verse 1. - Now; literally, but; a particle of transition. We beseech you. Passing from what he besought God for them to what he beseeches them. Brethren, by. Considered by some, as in the A.V., as a form of adjuration. Thus Calvin: "He adjures believers by the coming of Christ; for it is customary to adjure by those things which are regarded by us with reverence." But such a construction is unknown in the New Testament, and is besides unnatural. Others render the preposition "in behalf of" or "in the interest of," "as though he were pleading, in honour of that day, that the expectation of it might not be a source of disorder in the Church" (Jowett); but such a sense is too artificial. It is best to render it "concerning," or, as in the R.V., "touching." The coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Some (Whitby, Hammond) suppose that by the coming of the Lord Jesus was here meant his coming in spirit at the destruction of Jerusalem, and that the apostasy was the revolt of the Jews from the Romans; the restraining power being differently interpreted. But this is a forced and extravagant interpretation, and is completely overthrown by what the apostle says in the next verse, for the destruction of Jerusalem was imminent. Besides, the Thessalonians, who were chiefly Gentile converts, were too distant from Jerusalem to be much troubled by the destruction of that city. By the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, then, is here meant, as is the uniform meaning of the phrase in the writings of Paul, the second advent. And by (or, concerning) our gathering together unto him. The word translated "gathering together" occurs only once again in the New Testament, where it is used with reference to the assembling of Christians for worship (Hebrews 10:35). Here it is used with reference to the assembling of believers to Christ, when he shall be revealed from heaven; it refers, not to the raising of the dead, but to the gathering together of those who are then alive (see 1 Thessalonians 4:17).

(1) Brethren.—The Apostles have won a hearing for the true Advent doctrine by their sympathetic treatment of it in the former chapter; now they soften their correction of the false doctrine by using tender names.

By the coming.—Literally, for the sake of the coming, just as in English we adjure persons to do a thing “for God’s sake.” It is a stronger form of adjuration than the simple “by,” inasmuch as it implies that the thing or person adjured by will suffer if the action be left unperformed. The Coming of Christ and the meeting with the beloved dead would not be so bright, so perfect, perhaps so soon, if the Thessalonians allowed themselves to be misled with regard to it.

Our gathering together.—The peculiar Greek word is the same as that used in Hebrews 10:25 of the assembling to the Lord’s Supper, and nowhere else, so that some have interpreted it in the same sense here. In verb form it is thus used in 1Thessalonians 4:17. The close connection between the two “gatherings together” may be seen in 1Corinthians 11:26. The “our” means the meeting of the dead and the quick together.

1. Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ] Lit., But we beseech you, brethren, on behalf of the coming. The prospect of this Coming has been held out in language of ardent hope (ch. 2 Thessalonians 1:7; 2 Thessalonians 1:10, &c.); “but” the readers must not entertain wild and unreasonable notions respecting it. The preposition (touching, R. V.) signifies “in the interest of,” and not merely “with reference to;” for the confusion of mind and the alarm existing at Thessalonica upon this matter tended to discredit the Second Advent; they obscured the features of “the blessed hope” which the Apostle has just delineated (ch. 2 Thessalonians 1:10-12).

He adds and our gathering together unto Him, remembering what he has written in 1 Thessalonians 4:17; 1 Thessalonians 5:10 concerning the reunion of the living with departed saints at Christ’s coming. The corresponding verb appears in the promise of Jesus (Matthew 24:31; Mark 13:27): “He shall gather together His elect from the four winds;” comp. the echoes of our Lord’s sayings on the Last Things noted in 1 Thessalonians 4:13 to 1 Thessalonians 5:11. The intense sorrow of the Apostle at his separation from the Thessalonians (1 Thessalonians 2:17; 1 Thessalonians 3:6; 1 Thessalonians 3:11) may also have prompted this thought; comp. note on “rest with us” ch. 2 Thessalonians 1:7.

On beseech (or ask) see note to 1 Thessalonians 4:1.

Section III. The Revelation of the Lawless One Ch. 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12In this Epistle, as in the former, the specfic object of the letter comes into view at the beginning of the second chapter, so soon as the introductory prayer and thanksgiving have been offered. The Thessalonians were too eager and positive in their expectation of the Parousia, and the Apostle begs them “for its sake” to be cautious (2 Thessalonians 2:1). Some of their teachers declared that “the day of the Lord was already come;” and it was reported that Paul himself had written to this effect (2 Thessalonians 2:2). The Church was in danger of falling into mischievous deception (2 Thessalonians 2:3). That they may “prove the prophesyings” addressed to them on this subject (1 Thessalonians 5:20-21), the Apostle gives them a token or omen of the Second Coming, which indeed he had already supplied in his previous ministry (2 Thessalonians 2:5). He foresees that before Christ’s return in judgement there must be a supreme manifestation of evil (2 Thessalonians 2:3-12). This development, as he indicates, will be twofold—producing (1) within the Church “the apostasy;” and (2) the “revelation” of “the Man of Lawlessness” (or “Sin”), a personage in whom the sin of humanity will be consummated, reaching its furthest possibilities and taking on an absolutely Satanic character (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4; 2 Thessalonians 2:9-10). This gigantic impersonation of evil is exhibited as the personal antagonist and antithesis of Christ, in such a way that though the Apostle does not himself give to his conception the name of Antichrist, yet it is probable that the designation, afterwards made familiar by St John’s use of it in his great Epistle, was derived in the first instance from the passage before us. Meanwhile, we are told, there exists a “withholding” influence, that delays the appearance of Antichrist, although the lawlessness which in him will reach its climax “is already actively at work” (2 Thessalonians 2:6-7). When the revelation of the “mystery” at last takes place, while on the one hand it will herald the return of the Lord Jesus (2 Thessalonians 2:8), on the other it will prove to be for His rejecters a signal means of judgement, captivating by its magical delusions all who are not armed against them by “love or the truth” (2 Thessalonians 2:10-12).

This paragraph is the most obscure to us in St Paul’s Epistles. It is written in a reserved and elliptical fashion, and bears reference throughout to the Apostle’s oral communications, without which, in fact, he did not expect what he wrote to be fully understood. In their recollection of the writer’s words the Thessalonian Church had a key to his meaning not transmitted to our hands. We must grope for it as best we can. We find, however, considerable light thrown on this dark passage by its relation to other prophetical teachings of Scripture, and to the history of the Apostle’s own time. Yet this added light casts its shadows over the field. We shall return to the subject in the Appendix attached to these Notes, on “The Man of Lawlessness.”

APPENDIX

The Man of Lawlessness (or Man of Sin)

2 Thessalonians 2:1-12To give a full account of the interpretation of 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12 would be almost the same thing as to write a history of Christendom. This is one of those dark passages of Scripture which in ordinary Christian teaching, and in peaceful and prosperous times, receive little attention; they are traversed with hasty step, and willingly dismissed as things hard to be understood. But in seasons of conflict and danger, such as those which gave them birth, and when some critical struggle arises between the kingdoms of God and Satan, the Church turns to these neglected prophecies; from their obscurity there breaks out a new and awful light; again she hears in them the “voices and thunders” that “proceed out of the Throne” and the shout of His coming Who “brings forth judgement unto victory.” To such epochs we must look for the interpretation of these words of destiny. History is the expositor of Prophecy. For the seeds of the future lie in the past; and not the seeds alone, its buddings and beginnings, its leaves and blossomings are there, if we had eyes to see them. “First the blade, then the ear,” said Jesus,—“then the full corn in the ear.” The growth is continuous, until full ripeness.

Let us endeavour, therefore, to trace in its historical outline the development of the doctrine of Antichrist—first, as it appears in Scripture; and secondly, as it has been unfolded in the belief and teaching of the Church.

1. The Apocalypse of Daniel

We must go back to the Book of Daniel[9] for the origin of St Paul’s conception of the Man of Lawlessness, as well as for that of the kindred visions of St John. Daniel’s Apocalypse has its starting-point in the dream of Nebuchadnezzar (ch. 2): the Fourfold Metal Image, with its feet of mixed iron and clay, broken in pieces by the “Stone cut out of the mountain without hands.” This dream takes another and enlarged form in Daniel’s first Vision, that of the Four Wild Beasts (ch. 7). Amidst the “ten horns” of the fourth Beast there springs up “a little horn,” before which “three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots,” having “eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things” (Daniel 7:8). In a moment the scene is changed: the “thrones” of the Last Judgement are placed; “the Ancient of Days” is beheld sitting; and there is “brought near before Him” the “One like unto a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven,” whom the Lord Jesus at the High Priest’s tribunal identified with Himself. To Him the prophet assigns universal and everlasting dominion (Daniel 7:9-14). As the judgement is proceeding, and before the appearance of the glorified Son of Man, the fourth Beast is slain and “his body destroyed, and given to be burned with fire” (Daniel 7:11), “because of the voice of the great words which the little horn spake.” The idea is here presented of a cruel, haughty and triumphant military power, to be overthrown suddenly by the judgement of God, whose fall, apparently, gives the signal for the establishment of the kingdom of heaven, which is to be ruled by one like unto a son of man yet sharing the Divine attributes.

[9] See the article in Smith’s Bible Dictionary, by Bishop Westcott, on the Book of Daniel. There is nothing written on the subject, within our knowledge, more penetrating and suggestive.

In the next vision, ch. 8, of the duel between the Ram and the He-goat the Little Horn reappears, and takes on a distinct personal shape. He becomes “a king of fierce countenance and understanding dark sayings,” who will “destroy (or corrupt) the people of the saints … and stand up against the Prince of princes; but shall be broken without hand” (Daniel 8:22-25). The third vision, ch. 11—of the wars of North and South—leads up to a further description of the great Oppressor, in which his atheism forms the most conspicuous feature: “Arms shall stand on his part, and they shall profane the sanctuary … and they shall set up the abomination that maketh desolate … And the king shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods: and he shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished” (Daniel 11:31-36). This series of tableaux gives a continuous view of a polity or empire evolved out of the warring kingdoms of this world, from which emerges at last a monster of wickedness armed with all earthly power and bent on the destruction of Israel’s God and people, in whose person the realm of evil receives its decisive judgement.

2. The Messianic Times

Antiochus Epiphanes[10], it is agreed, was the primary subject of Daniel’s visions of judgement. In his overthrow, and in the Maccabean revival of the nationality of Israel, this Apocalypse had its verification; it received a fulfilment adequate and appropriate to the age. But when the period of the Maccabees was past, and no further sign appeared of the Messiah, it grew plain to believing readers that the revelation had a further Import. In this faith the sufferings of the Jewish people under the Herodian and Roman oppression were endured, as “birth-pangs of the Messiah;” it was felt that Israel’s hope was nigh at hand, even at the doors. Our Lord by assuming the title Son of Man appealed to and justified the expectations of those who in His day “looked for Israel’s redemption,”—expectations founded to no small extent upon the Apocalypse of Daniel, and coloured by its imagery. Again “the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet,” was to “stand in the Holy Place” (Matthew 24:15); and the “sign of the Son of Man” would be “seen in heaven,” and at last the Son of Man Himself, “coming with the clouds of heaven” (Matthew 24:30; Matthew 26:64).

[10] Antiochus IV., or Antiochus Epiphanes—i.e. the Brilliant, called also in mockery Epimanes, the Madman—was the seventh king of the Græco-Syrian dynasty of the Seleucids, and reigned from 175 to 164 b.c. His father was Antiochus III. (called the Great), after whose defeat by the Romans (188 b.c.) he was given to them as a hostage, and brought up at Rome. He returned to take his father’s throne, full of wild ambition and of reckless impiety and prodigality. On the character and career of Antiochus Epiphanes see Stanley’s History of the Jewish Church, vol. iii; Ewald’s History of Israel, vol. v. (Eng. Trans.); Smith’s Bible Dictionary.

But the Messianic anticipations of our Lord’s time, being drawn from this source, could hardly fail to be attended with their counterpart in the image of Daniel’s Antichrist. In later Judaism Antichrist was known as Armillus (or Armalgus), under which name he figures largely in the Jewish fables of the Middle Ages, the Rabbinical conception being developed in forms partly analogous and partly hostile to the Christian doctrine. Armillus appears already in the Targum of Jonathan upon Isaiah 11:4, the passage quoted by our Apostle in 2 Thessalonians 2:8 above: “With the breath of His lips shall He (Messiah) slay Armillus, the wicked one.” This interpretation was traditional, and may have been older than Christianity. The existence of an earlier Jewish doctrine of Antichrist, in however incipient a form, would make it easier to understand the rapid development which this conception receives in the New Testament, and the manner in which it appeals to the mind of the Apostolic Church.

The words of Christ fixed the attention of His first disciples upon Daniel’s prophecies, and supplied the impulse and starting-point from which proceeded the revival of the O.T. Apocalypse in the teaching of SS. Paul and John. Besides His express citations of Daniel, there were other traits in our Lord’s picture of the Last Things—the predictions of national conflict, of persecutions from without and defections within His Church (Matthew 24:3-13)—which reproduced the general characteristics of this prophet’s visions, and lent emphasis to the specific and most solemn references that He made to them. His use of this obscure and suspected Book has raised it to a position of high honour and importance in the regard of His Church.

3. Antichrist in the Book of Revelation

St Paul treats the subject in the passage before us in an incidental fashion, and nowhere in his extant Epistles does he again advert to it. His language, so far as it goes, is very positive and definite. There is scarcely a more matter-of-fact prediction in the Bible. While he refuses to give any chronological datum, his description of the personality of Antichrist is vividly distinct; and he asserts the connection between his appearance and Christ’s return from heaven with an explicitness that leaves no room for doubt as to his meaning. But John’s Apocalypse was cast in a different mould. Like that of Daniel, his revelation came through visions, received apparently in a passive and ecstatic mental state, and clothed in a mystic robe of imagery through which It is difficult and indeed impossible altogether to distinguish the body and substance of truth, which one feels nevertheless to be everywhere present underneath it. St John’s visions border upon those “unspeakable things” of “the third heaven,” which it may be lawful for the human soul in rare moments of exaltation to see and hear, but not “to utter” in clear discourse of reason (2 Corinthians 12:2-4).

The visions of the Wild Beast, contained in Revelation 13-20, do nevertheless present a tolerably distinct and continuous picture; and it is just in this part of John’s Apocalypse that it comes into line with the Apocalypses of Daniel and Paul, and, as at least It seems to us, into connection with the course of secular history then proceeding. It accords with the nature of the two Revelations that St John’s mind is possessed by the symbolic idea of the Horned Wild Beast of Daniel (chh. 7, 8), while St Paul reflects in his Man of Lawlessness the later and more definite form which Daniel’s conception of the great enemy of God assumes in ch. 11. But the representations of the two Apostles coincide in their essential features. The first Beast of St John, seven-headed and ten-horned, receives the “power and throne of the Dragon and great authority,” from “him that is called Devil and the Satan, that deceives the whole world” (Revelation 12:9; Revelation 13:1-2), just as St Paul’s Lawless One comes “according to the working of Satan” and “in all deceit of unrighteousness” (2 Thessalonians 2:9-10). He “opens his mouth in blasphemies against God, to blaspheme His name and tabernacle” and everything Divine; and “all that dwell in the earth worship him,” whose names were “not written in the book of life;” and “torment” is promised to them, who “worship the Beast and his image” (Revelation 13:5-8; Revelation 14:11): so the Man of Lawlessness “exalts himself against all that is called God or worshipped,” he “takes his seat in the temple of God, setting himself forth as God;” and men are found to “believe the lie,” who will be “judged” for their “pleasure in unrighteousness” and are of “them that perish” (Revelation 14:4; Revelation 14:10-12). Again, the authority of the Wild Beast is vindicated by means of “great signs,” through which “they that dwell on the earth are deceived” (Revelation 13:13-14): similarly, in our Apostle, Satan’s great emissary “comes with all power and signs and wonders of falsehood” (Revelation 13:9-10). This token of false miracles was furnished by our Lord as the sign of “false Christs and false prophets” generally (Matthew 24:24). Finally, having “come up out of the abyss,” the Wild Beast “goes into perdition” (Revelation 17:8), like the Lawless One, with his Satanic coming, who is “the son of perdition” (Revelation 17:3; Revelation 17:9).

The ten-horned Beast of John is set forth as the secular antagonist of the Man-child, son of the Woman[11], who was born “to rule all the nations,” as His would-be destroyer and the usurper of His throne; by Whom at last when He appears as Conqueror upon the “white horse[12],” the Beast is taken and cast with his followers “into the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone” (comp. Revelation 12 with 13, and then see ch. Revelation 19:11-21). This conflict translates Into an expanded picture the antagonism between the Lord Jesus and the Lawless One, Christ and Antichrist, which breathes in every syllable of St Paul’s condensed and pregnant lines. The outlines etched in rapid strokes by Paul’s sharp needle, are thrown out upon the glowing canvas of the Apocalypse in idealized and visionary shape; but the same conception dominates the imagination of the seer of Patmos which haunts the writer of this sober and calm Epistle.

[11] Mr W. H. Simcox with good reason sees the woman who brings forth the Man-child, and then “flies into the wilderness unto her place” till the appointed time, in the Jewish Church: see his notes, in Cambridge Bible for Schools, on Revelation 12. Comp. Romans 9:5, “of whom is the Christ according to flesh.”

[12] In the Conqueror’s name of Faithful and True, and in the “righteousness” with which “He judges and makes war,” and “the righteous acts of the saints”—the “fine linen, clean and white” which clothes His army—we may see another antithesis to the moral picture given in Revelation 19:10-12.

The first Wild Beast of Revelation 13 is the centre of a group of symbolic figures. There “comes up out of the earth another Beast,” kindred to him, and called afterwards the “false prophet,” who acts as his apostle, re-establishing his power after the deadly wound he received, and performing the “signs” by which his worship is supported and enforced. To this second actor, therefore, a religious part is assigned, resembling that of a corrupt Church serving a lawless, despotic State. The False Prophet supplies a necessary link between the Apostasy and the Lawless One of a 2 Thessalonians 2:3; by his agency the “lying miracles” of 2 Thessalonians 2:10 are provided, and superstition is enlisted in the service of atheism.

While the Beast has the False Prophet by his side for an auxiliary, he carries on his back the Harlot-woman, the antithesis of the Church, Christ’s Bride. She is identiied in the plainest manner with the imperial city of Rome. On her forehead stands written the legend, “Mystery, Babylon the Great, the mother of the harlots and the abominations of the earth.” This is but Paul’s “mystery of iniquity” writ large and illuminated. What Babylon was to O.T. prophecy, that Rome became to the prophets of the New, being the centre of the world’s evil and the nidus of its future development. And the imperial house of Rome—Nero in particular for St Paul, and Domitian, probably, as Nero redivivus for St John—held to the prophetic spirit of the Apostles a relation similar to that of the Syrian monarchy and Antiochus Epiphanes toward the prophecy of Daniel, serving as a proximate and provisional goal of its anticipations, the object around which the secular forces of evil were about to gather and the fittest type of their further and ultimate evolution. But as history pursued its course and the Church passed beyond its Apostolic horizon, the new Apocalypse was found like the old to have a wider scope. The Wild Beast survived many wounds; it survived the fall of the great city, mistress of the earth,—the Woman whom John saw riding upon its back. The end was not yet; the word of prophecy must run through new circles of fulfilment.

It is only in the barest outline that we may pursue the subsequent history of the doctrine of Antichrist[13]. It has passed through four principal stages.

[13] For the history of this question, see the Article Antichrist, Vol. i. (2nd ed.) of Smith’s Bible Dictionary, also Herzog’s Real-Encyklopädie (2nd ed.). There are valuable dissertations on “The Man of Sin” by Lûneroaon (Meyer’s Handbook), Riggenbach (Lunge’s Commentary), and Olshausen ad loc., also in Alford’s Prolegomena to the Epp. Döllinger elucidates the subject with great learning and exactness in Appendix I. to his First Age of the Church (translated by Oxenham); and Eadie in the Appendix to his Commentary on Thessalonians. For the interpretation of the parallel texts in the Apocalypse, see Simcox’s Notes in this Series and his most interesting and valuable Introduction. As to the bearings of the subject on the doctrines of Eschatology at large, see the profound remarks of Domer in his System of Christian Doctrine, vol. iv., 373–401 (Eng. Trans.). We find ourselves in general agreement with Dorner, Olshausen, Rigeenbach, Alfard, Ellicott, Eadie; and, to a large extent, with Hofmann.

4. Antichrist in the Early Church

In the age of the early Church, ending with the conversion of the Empire and the Fall of Rome (410 a.d.), one consistent view prevailed upon this subject,—viz. that Antichrist was an individual destined one day to overthrow the Roman Empire and to establish a rule of consummate wickedness, which would quickly be terminated by the appearing of the Lord jesus from heaven. Chrysostom probably represents the popular belief when he speaks of Nero as “a type of Antichrist,” and “the mystery of iniquity already working.” In the earliest times men associated with this tradition the expectation, long current in the East, of Nero’s return and re-inthronement.

Many of the Fathers, after the manner of 1 John 2:18-22, pointed ont the workings of Antichrist in the various forms of heresy. It was frequently inferred from 2 Thessalonians 2:4 that the Jewish Temple would in the last days be rebuilt in Jerusalem, and made the seat of Antichrist’s empire and worship. In connection with this opinion, a Jewish origin (from the tribe of Dan, Genesis 49:17) was assigned to the Man of Sin. Others regarded the Church, either in a spiritual or local sense, as “the temple of God” signified by St Paul (see note on 2 Thessalonians 2:4).

“The withholder” was commonly understood to be the Roman Empire, with its fabric of civil polity,—Romanus status, as Tertullian says; its downfall imported the end of the world to the Church of the first three centuries. By some the withholding influence was seen in the Holy Spirit, or in His miraculous gifts.

5. Antichrist in the Middle Ages

The Western Empire was submerged under barbarian invasions. But the fabric of society still held together; and out of the chaos of the early Middle Ages there gradually arose the modern polity of the Romanized European nations, with the Papal See for its spiritual centre, and the revived Roman Empire of Charlemagne—magni nominis umbra—holding the leadership of the new world (800 a.d.). Meanwhile the ancient Empire maintained a sluggish existence in the New Rome of Constantino on the Bosphorus, where it arrested for centuries the destructive forces of Mohammedanism, until their energy was comparatively spent. This change in the current of history, following upon the union of Church and State under Constantine, disconcerted the Patristic reading of prophecy. And the interpretation of Scripture, along with the general cultivation of the human mind, fell into decline after the fourth century. Things present absorbed the energy and thought of the Church to the exclusion of things to come. The Western Church was occupied In converting and assimilating the Barbarian hordes, the Eastern Church was struggling for its very existence against Islam; while they contested with each other for supremacy. For the most part, the teaching of the Fathers respecting Antichrist was repeated by medieval divines, and embroidered with their fancies.

Gradually new interpretations forced themselves to the front. The Greeks naturally saw “the lawless one” in Muhammad, and “the apostasy” in the falling away of so many Eastern Christians to his delusions. In the West, the growing arrogance of the Bishops of Rome and the traditional connection of Antichrist with Rome united to suggest the idea of a Papal Antichrist. This view has high Papal authority in its favour; Gregory I. (or the Great, 590 a.d.), denouncing the assumptions of the contemporary Byzantine Patriarch, wrote as follows: “Ego autem fidenter dico quia quisqnis se universalem sacerdotem vocat, vel vocari desiderat, in elatione sua Antichristum præcurrit;” he further styles the title of Universal Priest “erroris nomen, stultum ac superbum vocabulum … nomen blasphemiæ.” By this just sentence the later Roman Primacy is marked out as another type of Antichrist.

In the 13th century, when Gregory VII. (or Hildebrand, 1073–1085 a.d.) and Innocent III. (1198–1210 a.d.) had raised the power of the Roman See to its highest point, this doctrine was openly declared by the supporters of the Hohenstaufen Emperors; and the German State resumed the office of the Roman State as “the restrainer” of the Man of Sin. This century witnessed a general revival of religious zeal, of which the rise of the Waldenses, the theology of Thomas Aquinas, the founding of the Dominican and Franciscan orders, the immortal poem of Dante, and the widespread revolt and protest against the corruptions of Rome were alike manifestations. This awakening was attended with a renewal of Apocalyptic study. The numbers of Daniel 12:6-13, Revelation 12:6, &c., gave rise to the belief that the year 1260 would usher in the final conflict against Antichrist and the end of the world; while the invasion of the Mongols and the intestine divisions of Christendom threatened it with destruction. In the East, by adding 666, “the number of the Beast” (Revelation 13:18) to 622, the date of the Hejira, it was calculated that Mohammedanism was about to meet its doom. This crisis also passed, and the world went on its way. But it remained henceforth a fixed idea, proclaimed by every dissenter from the Roman See, that Antichrist would be found on the Papal throne. So the Waldenses, Huss, Savonarola, and our own Wickliff taught[14].

[14] We must distinguish, however, between an Antichrist and the Antichrist. A sincere Roman Catholic might assign to this or that unworthy Pope a place amongst the “many Antichrists,” adopting St John’s expression in Revelation 13:18; as indeed Romanists have done in the case of Luther and others of their opponents, without supposing the Apostle’s prophecy to be in this way absolutely fulfilled.

6. The Lutheran Doctrine of Antichrist

Martin Luther’s famous protest adversus execrabilem bullam Antichristi inaugurated the Protestant Reformation (1520 a.d.). It was one of his firmest convictions, shared by all the great Reformers, that the Papal system was the Antichrist of prophecy; Luther expected that it would shortly be destroyed by Christ in His second advent. This belief was made a formal dogma of the Lutheran Church by the standard Articles of Smalkald (1537 a.d.)[15]. It has a place in the English Bible; the translators in their address to King James I. credit that monarch with having given, by a certain tractate he had published, “such a blow unto that Man of Sin, as will not be healed.” Bishop Jewel’s Exposition of the Thessalonian Epistles, delivered in the crisis of England’s revolt from Rome, gives powerful expression to the Lutheran view. In the 17th Century, however, this interpretation was called in question amongst English Divines. Amongst its recent advocates, the late Bishop Wordsworth, in his Lectures on the Apocalypse and Commentary on the Greek Testament, has supplied a learned and most earnest vindication.

[15] Melanchthon admitted a second Antichrist in Muhammad. He distinguished between the Eastern and Western Antichrists. The conjunction of Pope and Turk was common with our Protestant forefathers.

This theory has impressive arguments in its favour, drawn both from Scripture and history. It contains large elements of truth. But many reasons forbid us to identify the Papacy with the Man of Lawlessness. Two must here suffice. (1) St Paul’s words describe, as the early Fathers saw, a personal Antichrist; they cannot be satisfied by any mere succession of men, or system of Antichristian evil. (2) His Man of Lawlessness is to be the avowed opposer and displacer of God. Now, however gross the idolatry of which the Pope has been made the object, and however daring and blasphemous the arrogance of some occupants of the Papal Chair, one must seriously weaken and distort the words of the Apostle to adjust them to the Romanist pretensions. It is not true, in any strict sense of the words, that the Bishop of Rome “exalts himself against every one called God and every object of worship.” The Roman Catholic system has multiplied, instead of abolishing objects of worship; its ruling errors have been those of superstition, not of atheism. At the same time, its exaltation of the Pope and the priesthood has debased the religious instinct of Christendom, and has nursed the spirit of anthropolatry—the man-worship, which St Paul believed was to have in the Man of Lawlessness its supreme object. Romanist teaching has prepared a fruitful soil for the seeds of atheism. It enervates the conscience, and loosens the bonds of moral obligation[16].

[16] Whatever is said In condemnation of the Romanist system, is said in remembrance and joyful recognition of the fact that within the Roman communion there are multitudes of sincere and exemplary Christians.

7. Antichrist in Modern Times

It would occupy several pages merely to state the various theories promulgated upon this mysterious subject in recent times.

Not the least plausible is that which saw “the apostasy” in the later developments of the French Revolution, with its apotheosis of an abandoned woman in the character of Goddess of Reason, and which identified Napoleon Buonaparte with the Man of Sin. The Empire of Napoleon was essentially a restoration of the miliary Cæsarism of the first century. He came within a little of making himself, Iike Julius Cæsar, dictator of the civilized world. To our minds, this unscrupulous despot, with his superb genius and insatiable egotism—the offspring and the idol, till he became the scourge of a godless democracy—is in the true succession of Antiochus Epiphanes and Nero Cæsar. He has set before our times a new and commanding type of the Lawless One.

Nor is godlessness wanting in a bold and typical modern expression. Following upon the negative and destructive atheism of the last century, the scientific, constructive and humanistic atheism of this century has built up for itself an imposing system of thought and life. The theory of Positivism, as it was propounded by its great apostle, Auguste Comte, culminates in the doctrine that “Man is man’s god.” God and immortality, with the entire world of the supernatural, this philosophy abolishes in the name of science and modern thought. It sweeps them out of the way in order to make room for le grand être humain, or collective humanity; which is to command our worship through the memory of its heroes and men of genius, and in the person of woman, adored within the family. This scheme of religion Comte worked out with the utmost seriousness, and furnished with an elaborate hierarchy and ritual, based on the Roman Catholic model. Although Comte’s religion of humanity is disowned by many of his followers, it is a phenomenon of great significance and interest. It testifies to the persistence of the religious instinct in our nature; and it shews the direction which that instinct is compelled to take when deprived of its rightful Object (see the Apostle’s words in Romans 1:23). Comte would carry us back, virtually, to the Pagan adoration of deified heroes and deceased Emperors, or to the Chinese worship of family ancestors. Moreover, Positivism provides in its Great Being an abstraction which, so far as it takes possession of the human mind, must inevitably tend to realise itself in concrete personal shape. It sets up a throne of worship which the man of destiny will be forthcoming “in his season” to occupy.

Since the time of Hugo Grotius (1583–1645 a.d.), the famous Dutch Protestant scholar, theologian, and statesman, numerous attempts have been made to demonstrate the fulfilment of N.T. prophecy within the Apostolic, or Post-apostolic age. This line of interpretation was adopted by Catholic theologians, as by Bossuet in the 17th century and Döllinger[17] in our own times, partly by way of return to the Patristic view, and partly in defence against Protestant exegesis. These præterist theories, restricting the application of St Paul’s prediction to the first age of the Church, in various ways strain and minimize his language, in attempting to make it square with actual events. Or else they assume, as rationalistic interpreters complacently do, that such prophecies were incapable of real fulfilment, and have been refuted by the course of history. Almost every Roman Emperor, from Caligula down to Trajan—some even of later times—has been adopted in turn for the Man of Sin or the Restrainer by one or other of the commentators. Nero figures in both characters; so does Vespasian. Others hold—and this view is partly combined with the last, as e.g. by Grotius—that Simon Magus, the traditional father of heresy, was the Lawless One; while others, again, see “the mystery of iniquity” in the Jewish nation of the Apostle’s time. Outside the secular field, the power of the Holy Spirit, the decree of God, the Jewish Law, the believing remnant of Judaism, the Christian Church, and even Paul himself have been put into the place of “that which withholdeth,” by earlier or later authors. But these fancies have never obtained much acceptance.

[17] Döllinger sees “the Lawless One” in Nero, in the first instance; and “the Withholder”—or, as he prefers to render the word, “the Occupier” (viz. of the seat of power)—in Claudius, Nero’s predecessor; the latter a very improbable identification. He does not suppose the meaning of the prophecy exhausted by this first fulfilment, but expects a second at the end of the world, All intermediate applications he regards as speculative and illegitimate.

Like other great prophecies of Scripture, this word of the Apostle Paul has, it appears to us, a progressive fulfilment. It is carried into effect from time to time, under the action of Divine laws operating throughout human history, in partial and transitional forms, which prefigure and may contribute to its final realization. For such prophecies are inspired by Him Who “worketh all things after the counsel of His will;” and they rest upon the principles of God’s moral government, and the abiding facts of human nature. We accept, with Chrysostom, an earnest of the accomplishment of St Paul’s prediction in the person of Nero. We recognize, with the later Greek Fathers and Melanchthon, that there are plain Antichristian tokens and features in the polity of Muhammad. We recognize, with Gregory I. and the Protestant Reformers, a prelude of Antichrist’s coming and conspicuous traits of his character in the spiritual despotism of the See of Rome; and we sorrowfully mark in the history of the Church how the tares ever grow beside the wheat, and in what manifold forms “the apostasy” which prepares the way of Antichrist and lays the foundations of his rule, has continued its baleful working. We agree with those who discern in the Napoleonic idea an ominous revival of the lawless absolutism and worship of human power that prevailed in the age of the Cæsars; while Positive and materialistic philosophy, with sensualistic ethics, unless we are much deceived, are making for the same goal[18].

[18] The following extract from Comte’s Catéchisme Positiviste is a striking proof of the readiness with which scientific atheism may join hands with political absolutism: “Au nom du passé et de l’avenir, les serviteurs théoriques et les serviteurs pratiques de L’Humanité viennent prendre dignement la direction générale des affaires tesrrestres, pour construire enfin la vraie providence, morale, intellectuelle, et matérielle; en excluant irrévocablement de la suprématie politique tous les divers esclaves de Dieu, Catholiques, protestants, ou déistes, comme étant à la fois arrières et perturbateurs.”—The true Pontifical style! It Is not a very long step from these words to that which the Apostles intimate in 2 Thessalonians 2:4 and Revelation 13:16-17, &c. It is significant that Comte issued this Catechism of the new religion Just after the coup d’ état of Louis Napoleon, whom he congratulates on “the happy crisis”! In the same preface he does homage to the Emperor Nicholas of Russia, as “the sole truly eminent chief of whom our century can claim the honour, up to the present time.” Comte’s ignorance of politics is some excuse for these blunders; bat the conjunction remains no less significant. Faith in God and faith in freedom are bound up together. See Arthur’s Physical and Moral Law, pp. 231–237; and his Religion without God, on Positivism generally.

The history of the world is one; the first century lives over again in the nineteenth. All the factors of evil co-operate, as do those of good. There are, in truth, but two kingdoms, of Satan and of Christ; though to our eyes their forces lie scattered and confused, and we distinguish ill between them. But the course of time quickens its pace, as if nearing some great issue. Science has given an immense impetus to human progress in all directions, and moral influences propagate themselves with greater speed than, heretofore. There is going on a rapid interchange and interfusion of thought, a unifying of the world’s life, and a gathering together of the forces on either side to “the valley of decision,” that seem to portend some world-wide spiritual crisis, in which the glorious promises, or dark forebodings of revelation, or both at once, will be anew fulfilled. But still Christ’s words stand, as Augustine said, to “put down the fingers of all the calculators[19].” It is not for us to know times or seasons. What backward currents may arise in our secular progress, what new seals are to be opened in the book of human fate, and through what cycles the evolution of God’s purpose for mankind has yet to run, we cannot guess.

[19] “Omnes calculantium digitos resolvit:” on Matthew 24:36.

The first disciples deemed themselves to live already in the dawn of the world’s closing day. We in its later hours keep watch for the Lord Who said, “Behold, I come quickly,”—yet seems to tarry. Be it ours, none the less, with unwearied love and faith to repeat the cry which has never ceased from the lips of the Church, the Bride of Christ:

COME, LORD JESUS!