Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Timothy 6:3

"If any man teacheth a different doctrine, and consenteth not to sound words, [even] the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness;" — 1 Timothy 6:3 (ASV)

But the Lord is faithful.—It must not be thought from this that the word “faith” in the previous verse meant “fidelity.” St. Paul, after his favourite manner, is playing upon two meanings of the word: “But whether men have faith or not, the Lord is faithful.” There is the same play of words in Romans 3:3. “The Lord” seems here to be used, as was said on 1 Thessalonians 3:12, without distinct reference to one Person of the Holy Trinity rather than another. This characteristic of God is named because God stands pledged to all who believe in Him.

Who shall stablish you.—How soon St. Paul reverts from his own needs to theirs! He does not continue, as we should expect, with “who will preserve us.”

Keep you from evil.—Rather (probably), from the Evil One, as in the Lord’s Prayer. Possibly, the word is used not without a reference to the word rendered “wicked” in 2 Thessalonians 3:2, with which in the Greek it is identical.

If any man teach otherwise.—Without confining the reference strictly to what had just been taught regarding the duty of Christian slaves, there is little doubt that some influential teaching, contrary to St. Paul's, on the subject of the behaviour and disposition of that unhappy class was in the Apostle's mind when he wrote the terrible denunciation contained in these three verses against the false teachers of Ephesus.

Schismatic and heretical preachers and writers in all ages have sadly hindered the progress of true religion; but in the days of St. Paul, when the foundation-stones of the faith were being so painfully laid, there seems to have been a life-and-death contest between the teachers of the true and the false.

In this passage St. Paul lays bare the secret springs of much of this anti-Christian doctrine. There is little doubt that at Ephesus a school then existed, professedly Christian, which taught the slave who had accepted the yoke of Christ to rebel against the yoke of any earthly lord. Hence the indignation of St. Paul. If any man teach otherwise, different from my interpretation of the rule of Christ, which instructs us to bear all with brave patience, with loyal fortitude.

And consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ.—The Apostle, no doubt, was referring to well-known sayings of the Redeemer, such as Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s, or Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth, or If any man will follow me, let him take up his cross daily, and follow me; But I say unto you, resist not evil, Love your enemies, pray for them which despitefully use you.

It was upon such sublime sayings as these—no doubt, current watchwords in all the churches—it was upon the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount that St. Paul based his teaching and grounded his advice to the slaves in the flock of Christ. But the false teachers, who would be Timothy's bitterest and most determined foes at Ephesus, would not consent to these wholesome words, though they were the words of the Lord Jesus Christ.

To the doctrine which is according to godliness.—These self-willed men, in not consenting to the sublime words of Christ, at the same time refused to acquiesce in the doctrine which insisted upon a holy life: for Christian truth is inseparable from purity, single-heartedness, self-forgetfulness, brave patience.

Let no man . . . by any means.—“Whatever device they may adopt—spirit, letter, or whatever else—they are deceivers or deceived; do not be duped by them.” The form of warning is a mark of St. Paul’s style. (Compare to 1 Corinthians 3:18; Ephesians 5:6)

For . . . except.—The words between are rightly supplied in our version. Probably, St. Paul’s first intention was to turn 2 Thessalonians 2:5 differently, as, for instance: “For, except that Man of Sin, etc., you remember that I told you the day would not come.” The length of the sentence made him break off (as he often does) without regard for grammatical completeness.

A falling away.—A great change in the purpose of the sentence will be felt directly “the” is substituted for “a.” Only one insignificant manuscript omits the definite article; the same article in our version is vigorously rendered “that” before “man of sin.” In both cases the purpose is by no means to utter a new, strange prophecy, or to add to the knowledge of the readers, but to remind them of careful teaching given during the first few weeks after their conversion.

“That falling away” must undoubtedly imply that the persons so apostatizing had formerly held (or, perhaps, still professed to hold) the Christian faith: men cannot fall from ground which they never occupied. This vast and dreadful Apostasy , so clearly and prominently taught to the ancient Church, and so mysterious to us, is further defined by the following words, as the Apocalypse or Manifestation of the Man of Sin.

Of this revelation of Antichrist the same word (apocalypsis) is used which is often used of Christ, as, for example, 2 Thessalonians 1:7; Luke 17:30; and three times in St. Peter; so that we may expect to recognize him when he comes as clearly as we shall recognize Christ. The conception of the Antichrist is not merely that of an opponent of the Christ, but of a rival Christ: there is a hideous parallelism between the two.

That man of sin.—It is not absolutely certain from the Greek, but the context makes it tolerably clear that the “Man of Sin” is the head and center of the Apostasy itself, and does not form a separate movement from it. The “Man of Sin,” then, will have at one time formed (or will still profess to form) part of the Christian Church, and the Apostasy will culminate in him.

Thus, for instance, the requirements of the passage would not be fulfilled by (with Hammond) interpreting the Apostasy to mean the early Gnostic movement, followed up by the independent appearance of Nero as the Man of Sin. The phrase, “the Man of Sin,” might, perhaps, be only a poetical personification of a movement, or of a class of men, or of a succession of men (as, for example, Psalms 89:22; Revelation 2:20; Revelation 17:3); but the analogy of the parallel passages in Daniel 8:11 leads rather to the supposition that St. Paul looked for the coming of some actual individual man who should be the impersonation of the movement of Apostasy. The genitive (see Note on 1 Thessalonians 1:3) is like a forcible epithet: “A man so wicked that, bad as other men are, wickedness should be his mark by which he is distinguished from all others; a man who belongs to sin, in whom the ideal of sin has become realized and incarnate.” What kind of sin will be most prominent in him is not expressed in the word itself; but the context points clearly to that which is, in fact, the crowning sin—spiritual pride and rebellious arrogance (Ephesians 6:12).

The son of perdition.—The phrase which is used, in John 17:12, of the false Apostle; it suits well with the description of the Man of Sin, who, like Judas, will have “fallen away” from high Christian privileges: according to one popular interpretation, like Judas, from the privileges of the Apostolate itself. The expression signifies one who belongs by natural ties to perdition—who from his very birth chooses evil, and in such a sense may be said to be born to be lost (Matthew 26:24; 2 Peter 2:12). Both his malignity and his doom are thus implied in it.

On verses 3-12

EXCURSUS ON THE INTERPRETATION OF THE PROPHECY, 2 Thessalonians 2:3–12

In order to deal fairly with this difficult passage, it will be necessary sternly to exclude from our view all other passages of the New Testament which speak of a final manifestation of evil, and, reviewing the words simply as they stand, to consider what St. Paul himself meant when he so assiduously (2 Thessalonians 2:5, Note) taught the Thessalonian Church on the subject, and what the Thessalonian Church was likely to gather from his Letter. For though such a passage as Hebrews 6:2 shows that the whole Apostolic Church was definitely at one in the eschatological instruction given to its converts at a very early stage of their Christian life; and though the language of 1 Timothy 4:1; James 5:3–7; 2 Peter 3:1–2; 1 John 2:18; 1 John 4:3; Jude 1:17 (not to mention the Apocalypse)—passages representing the most different schools of thought in the early Church—fully bring out this agreement, so that Christians may fairly use those passages to explain each other.

Yet, on the other hand, we need to put ourselves in the position of the young Church of Thessalonica, which was expected by St. Paul to make out the significant hints of his Letter with no other help than the recollection of his oral teaching and the observation of events. We, therefore, ought to be able similarly to catch the same significant hints by a like knowledge of the history of the world at that time, and of the sources from which St. Paul was likely to draw his doctrine of the “Last Things.”

I. Sources of the Apostolic Doctrine of the Last Things.—The prophecy of St. Paul does not appear to be—at least, exclusively—the result of a direct internal revelation of the Spirit. Such direct revelations were, when necessary, made to him, and we have seen him claim that kind of inspiration in 1 Thessalonians 4:15. But God’s ordinary way of making prophets seems to be different. He gives to those who are willing to see an extraordinary insight into the things which lie before the most ordinary eyes; He throws light upon the meaning of occurrences, or of words, which are familiar to everyone externally (see Maurice’s Prophets and Kings, pp. 141-145).

Even for doctrines like those of the true divinity or the true humanity of our Lord, or of the indwelling of the Spirit, or the Church’s mission, the Apostles do not rest solely on direct revelation made to their own consciences, but rather dwell on the significance of historical facts (for example, Romans 1:4; 2 Peter 1:17), or, still more frequently and strongly, on the interpretation of Old Testament Scriptures (for example, Hebrews 1:8; Hebrews 2:12–13; 2 Peter 1:19). If, therefore, we can find material in the Old Testament which, taken in conjunction with our Lord’s own words, could have supplied St. Paul—or rather, the catholic consent of the early Church—with the doctrine of the Last Things as we find it stated in the apostolic writings, we shall be justified in using those Old Testament materials in the explanation of the New.

II. The Book of Daniel

Such materials we find, not only in the general threatenings of Joel, Zechariah (Zechariah 14), and Malachi, but most clear and definite in the Book of Daniel. Into the question of the date of that book it is not necessary here to inquire. It suffices for the present purpose to know that it was much older than St. Paul’s time, and was accepted as prophetic in the ordinary sense.

In fact, there was, probably, no other book of the Old Testament which received so much attention among the Jews in the apostolic age (Westcott, in Smith’s Dict. Bible, Art. “Daniel”). It was regarded with full reverence as an inspired revelation; and our Lord Himself (according to Matthew 24:15 and Mark 13:14) either drew from it (humanly speaking) His own doctrine of the Last Things, or at least used it emphatically for His disciples’ benefit as a corroboration. The taste for apocalyptic literature was at this time very strong, and the prophecies of Daniel attracted especial attention, inasmuch as the simplest interpretation of some of the most explicit of them pointed unmistakably to the time present at that time.

Tacitus (Hist. v. 13) and Suetonius (Vesp. chap. 4), as is well known, speak of the certainty felt through the whole East, about that time, that universal empire was on the point of passing into the hands of men of Jewish origin. This belief, says Tacitus, was “contained in the ancient literature of the priests”—that is, in the Scriptures, kept and expounded by them; and there can be no doubt that first and foremost of those Scriptures (for this purpose) stood the Book of Daniel. For every reason, then, we may well try to find what a believing Jew of the apostolic age would understand from the visions of Daniel, in order to throw light on this passage of St. Paul.

III. The Five Monarchies

Now, in the Book of Daniel there are four main predictions of what was at that time the future history of the world. These predictions are contained in Daniel 2:7, Daniel 2:8, Daniel 2:11. The first two visions, granted to Nebuchadnezzar and to Daniel respectively, both describe Five Monarchies, which were successively to arise and flourish in the world.

Amidst considerable controversy, three facts remain agreed upon by all:

1. That the Five Monarchies of the one vision are intended to correspond to the Five Monarchies of the other, each to each;

2. That the earliest of these five represents the Babylonian empire, standing at that time, with Nebuchadnezzar at its head;

3. That the last of the series portrays the establishment of the Theocracy in its full development—that is, the “Kingdom of God” (which had been the main subject of St. Paul’s preaching at Thessalonica), or the visible government of the world by the Christ.

IV. The Fourth Monarchy

But the question which most directly concerns us now is how to identify the Fourth of these monarchies. In Nebuchadnezzar’s vision it was to be “in the days of these kings”—that is, the kings of the Fourth Monarchy, while the Fourth Monarchy was still standing—that the Kingdom of Heaven was to come (Daniel 2:44). In Daniel’s vision this Fourth Monarchy (or rather, its continuation and development) was to exist side by side with the saints of the Most High, and between them and one outgrowth of the Fourth Monarchy a struggle was to take place before the final establishment of the Kingdom of the Saints (Daniel 7:25).

What, then, was this Fourth Monarchy intended by the Seer (or by “the Spirit of the Christ,” 1 Peter 1:11) to represent? Or, to be still more practical, what was in St. Paul’s own time, among his own countrymen, the received interpretation of this part of Daniel’s prophecy?

The question is not hard to answer. With irrefutable clearness Dr. Pusey has proved, in the second of his Lectures on Daniel the Prophet, the plausibility and minuteness with which the words concerning the Second and Third Monarchies may respectively be applied to the Medo-Persian and the Macedonian empires; and if even this point be established, there can be no hesitation in naming the Fourth. It can only be the empire of Rome. But Dr. Pusey shows, with the same force, how applicable the description itself is to the Roman empire. Whether, however, this interpretation has any ground in the original intention of the Prophet, or of Him who, we believe, spoke by him, is for our present purpose a matter of secondary importance.

We have already mentioned an indisputable piece of evidence furnished by two great Roman historians. It was in their days a “long-established and uniform belief,” entertained not in Judea only, but “in the whole of the East,” and drawn from the Jewish literature, that a great Jewish empire was destined to appear. But that is not all. Such a belief might have been drawn from Numbers or Isaiah. But Suetonius adds, Eo tempore, “at that time;” Tacitus adds, Eo ipso tempore, “at that very time.”

From what Jewish literature could the date have been ascertained, except from the calculation of the Seventy Weeks in Daniel? And as the same prophecy spoke of a world-wide empire, in the days of whose kings this new Jewish power was to arise, that same “long-established and uniform belief” must have recognized in the Roman empire the Fourth Monarchy which was to be shattered by it. Hence, doubtless, the hopefulness with which insurgent leaders one after another rose in rebellion against the Roman arms. It was not only that they themselves were the Lord’s own people.

Was not this vast system, “dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly,” definitely doomed in Scripture to utter extinction before their arms? But we have, besides, a less indirect testimony than the preceding. The Jew Josephus (Ant. x. 11, § 7) speaks at length of the prophecies of Daniel, and how he himself was watching their gradual verification. After mentioning the prophecy about Antiochus Epiphanes and its complete fulfillment, he adds: “In the very same manner Daniel also wrote concerning the empire of the Romans, and that our country should be made desolate by them.”

He then passes on to speak of the comfort afforded by seeing so plainly the Providence of God, with true Jewish irony not disclosing that his comfort lay in the promised revenge upon Rome as well as upon Antiochus. In another place (Ant. x. 10, § 4) he is recording the vision in the second chapter of Daniel, and after describing the universal dominion of the Iron Kingdom, he proceeds: “Daniel also declared the meaning of the Stone to the king, but this I do not think proper to relate, as I have undertaken to describe things past and present, not things that are future.

Yet if anyone is so very desirous to know truth as not to set aside such curious points, and cannot restrain his desire to understand the uncertain future, and whether or not it will come to pass, let him take care to read the Book of Daniel, which he will find among the Holy Scriptures.” No doubt can be entertained that this writer understood the Fourth Monarchy to be the Roman empire, and did not wish to be suspected of encouraging sedition by speaking openly of its predicted downfall. This, then, was the common interpretation which St. Paul must have learned from a child: that Daniel’s Fourth Monarchy, which was to break up before the Kingdom of God, was the Roman empire.

V. The Fifth Monarchy

We may then assume that St. Paul believed Daniel to foretell the coming of the Kingdom of God in the days of the kings of the Roman empire. In one sense, indeed, the prophecy was already fulfilled. The Kingdom was already come. Heralded by the Baptist (Matthew 3:2 and following), and expounded by our Lord (Matthew 9:35 and following), it had been established by the Resurrection, the Ascension, and the Mission of the Holy Spirit, while the Roman empire actually stood (Psalms 2; Acts 5:31; Acts 13:33). St. John regards the world as already virtually subdued in his own lifetime (1 John 5:4, Note). But the Church as at present constituted does not answer completely to Daniel’s prophecy of the Kingdom of the Saints.

To the Christian there are two comings of the Kingdom, not only one. In the Prophets the two are fused into one. We may almost say the same of the words of Christ Himself. Even the apostolic writers do not separate the two so sharply as God has historically taught later ages of the Church to separate them. The early Church lived in a daily expectation of the return of Christ. For them, therefore, there was no difficulty in interpreting Daniel’s prophecies as applying at the same moment to the First and Second Advent. It would not be unfair, therefore, to assume that St. Paul expected the Second Advent to take place, as the First had done, “in the days of these kings” of the Fourth or Roman Monarchy.

VI. What withholds.—Turning now to the statement of St. Paul, we see that he is cautioning the Thessalonians not to expect the Second Coming of Christ immediately, because, as they can see, a certain great power is still in the world, which (as they have been carefully taught) must be removed before the way for Christ’s return is open. This great power—with the aspect of which his readers are perfectly familiar, though they may have forgotten its significance (“You know that which withholds”)—is summed up in a person who wields it. This person is “he who withholds.”

His removal “out of the middle” is still a matter of the future, yet assuredly destined to take place; and the date, though unknown to men, is fixed. The great opponent, who cannot develop so long as “he who withholds” remains, is to be revealed “in his time”—that is, at the time which Divine Providence has assigned to him. It seems impossible to doubt that this great opponent is the same as the “Little Horn” of Daniel (whose “time” is very definitely marked out in Daniel 7:25), and that the power which withholds his development is the Fourth Monarchy of Daniel, and, therefore, the Roman empire. A few considerations will make the latter point clearer:—

1. There was only one power in the world at that time, represented by a single person, in “the middle,” before all eyes, of sufficient importance to restrain the development of Antichrist. It was the Roman empire and the Roman emperor.

2. The word rendered “withholds,” or “hinders,” does not necessarily imply that the obstruction actively, consciously, or designedly obstructs the way. His presence in the middle is quite sufficient for the requirements of the word. Indeed, it would, perhaps, not be necessary that Antichrist’s delay should even be directly caused by the obstruction; St. Paul might only mean that in prophecy the one thing was destined to come first, and that, therefore, so long as the first thing existed, it (in a manner) kept the second back. Now if Antichrist is the Little Horn of Daniel, and the obstruction the Fourth Monarchy, we get exactly what we want; for (unless the prophecy is to be falsified) before the Little Horn can spring up the Fourth Monarchy must have so totally changed its appearance as to have passed into ten simultaneous kingdoms: therefore, so long as the solid empire stood it was a sign that Antichrist must wait.

3. Notice the extreme reserve with which St. Paul begins to speak on the subject. He does not teach, but prefers appealing to their memory of words already spoken: “Do you not remember?” His clauses become intricate and ungrammatical—in strange contrast with the simple structure which characterizes these two Epistles. He names nothing, only hints. Nor can we account for this sudden ambiguity by saying that St. Paul is adopting the prophetic style; for his purpose is entirely practical, and he wishes not to awe his readers, but to recall to them plain facts which they knew and ignored.

   Now recall the similar reticence of Josephus in speaking of the destiny of the Roman empire when it comes in contact with the Messianic Kingdom, and it will be felt almost impossible to doubt the truth of St. Chrysostom's shrewd observations: “A man may naturally seek to know what ‘that which hinders’ is; and after that, what possible reason St. Paul had for putting it so indistinctly.

   What, then, is ‘that which hinders’—that is, hinders—him from being revealed? Some say the grace of the Spirit, others the Roman empire. Among the latter I class myself. Why so? Because, had he meant to say the Spirit,’ he would not have said it indistinctly, but plainly; that now he is restrained by the grace of the Spirit, that is, the supernatural gifts [presumably that of discerning of spirits in particular; compare to 1 John 4:1–3].

   Otherwise, Antichrist should have presented himself before now, if he were to present himself at the failure of those gifts; for, as a matter of fact, they have long failed. But seeing that he says this of the Roman empire, he naturally put it enigmatically and very obscurely, for he had no wish to subject himself to unnecessary hostilities and unprofitable perils. For had he said that shortly after the Roman empire would be dissolved, they would soon have transfixed him for an evildoer, and all the believers with him, as living and fighting for this end.”

   Was it not, indeed, for expounding this very prophecy that he had fled for his life from Thessalonica? “These all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another emperor, Jesus.” Does not the history give startling point to his question, “Do you not remember that when I was with you I told you these things?”

VII. The Man of Sin

We have stated our belief that “the Man of Sin” is not only to be identified with Daniel’s “Little Horn,” but that St. Paul consciously drew the doctrine from that passage. But it may be objected that some of the words in which St. Paul most narrowly describes him are taken, not from the description of the Little Horn in Daniel 7, but from that of the Little Horn of Daniel 8:5, which represents quite a different person, namely, Antiochus Epiphanes.[7] It might be thought, therefore, that St. Paul was only borrowing Daniel’s language, and not adopting his prophecy. The answer is, that even those prophecies of Antiochus in many points do not suit Antiochus at all; and not only so, but the Jewish expositors themselves held that Antiochus had not exhausted the meaning of the prophecy.

They themselves applied it to some Antichrist, whose coming should precede, and be defeated by the Christ’s. Even in St. Jerome’s time, “From this place onwards” (he is commenting on Daniel 11:36) “the Jews think that Antichrist is spoken of, that, after the little help (Daniel 11:34) of Julian, a king shall arise who shall do according to his own will, and lift himself up against all which is called God, and speak great things against the God of gods, so that he shall sit in the Temple of God and make himself god, and his will be performed, until the wrath of God be fulfilled: for in him shall the end be. Which we, too, understand of Antichrist.”

Thus, according to the current explanation of the Jews, Antiochus was looked upon as a type of the Antichrist, whom they expected to arise (in fulfillment of Daniel 7:8) at the overthrow of the Roman empire, whose coming was to precede the Christ’s. The only change made by the Christian Church is to apply to the Second Advent a prophecy which the Jews applied to the one Advent which they recognized. It is impossible not to do so when, in Daniel 12:2, we have the Resurrection made to follow close upon the development of this Antiochus-Antichrist. So far, then, as St. Paul’s date is concerned, the doctrine is drawn from Daniel 2:7; traits of character are added (in accordance with Jewish interpretation) from Daniel 8:11.

[7] See Daniel 8:11-12; Daniel 8:23–25, and more particularly Daniel 11:36-37; Daniel 11:36–37.

VIII. St. Paul’s probable Personal Expectation

Dr. Lightfoot argues, with great probability (Smith’s Dict. Bible, Art. “II. Thessalonians”), that, as a personal matter, St. Paul expected to witness in his own time the development of the Antichrist (whose “secret working” was already visible to him), and that he saw in the Jews the makings of the foe to be revealed. Theirs was the apostasy—professing to cleave to God and to Moses, but “departing from the living God, through an evil heart of unbelief,” and “making the word of God to be of none effect through their traditions.” Theirs was the lawlessness—setting at naught the will of God in the self-willed assertion of their privilege as the chosen people, and using the most unscrupulous means of checking those who preached the more liberal gospel of St. Paul.

And if to St. Paul the final Antichrist was represented by the Jews, the Roman Government, which had so often befriended him, might well be called the withholder or restrainer. If such was the personal expectation of St. Paul, it was, indeed, literally frustrated; but if the Judaic spirit, of exclusive arrogance, carnal reliance on spiritual promises, innovating tradition, should pass into the Christian Church, and there develop largely, St. Paul’s expectation would not be so far wrong.

IX. The Development of the Horns

The question naturally arises whether the prophecy has not been falsified. The Roman empire has disappeared, and Antichrist is not yet revealed. We do not need to answer with some interpreters that Roman law still rules the world. A closer observation of the two passages of Daniel already mentioned would in itself suggest the true answer.

In Nebuchadnezzar’s vision, indeed, the Roman empire simply comes into collision with the Catholic Church, and falls before it. There is no hint of a protracted struggle between them. The long duration of the Roman empire is perhaps suggested by the words, “Thou wast gazing until that a stone” (Daniel 2:34); the division into the Eastern and Western empires may be symbolized by the two legs of the colossal figure; the ten toes may bear the same interpretation as the ten horns of the later vision: these points, however, are not the most obvious or prominent points of the dream.

But in Daniel’s vision all is quite different. There, the final triumph of the Church is won only after a long struggle, and that struggle is not with the Roman empire itself. Though the Beast which symbolizes the Roman empire is said to continue throughout (Daniel 7:11), it is only in the same sense, apparently, as the three other Beasts are said to have their lives prolonged (Daniel 7:12).

The empire itself has altogether changed its form, and developed into ten kingdoms, among which, yet after which (Daniel 7:8; Daniel 7:24), an eleventh has arisen, dissimilar from the other kingdoms, and uprooting some of them. With this power it is that the struggle which ends in the Church’s final victory takes place, and not with the old imperial power of Rome. If, therefore, the dream of Nebuchadnezzar may be said to have been fulfilled in the first coming of Christ, in the days of the Roman emperors, the vision of Daniel must wait for its fulfillment until the Roman empire has passed away into an even more different form than it has at present reached.

X. Characteristics of Antichrist

1. He is a human being. The title “Man of Sin” excludes Satan, as Chrysostom remarks: Satan acts through the man (1 Thessalonians 2:9) to the full extent of his power—“enters into him,” as he entered into an earlier “Son of Perdition”—but does not destroy his humanity.

2. He is a single person. This, too, is involved in the phrase “Man of Sin,” especially when followed by the “Son of Perdition.” It is not to be denied that poetically the first title, at any rate, might be a personification of a movement, or (as the “kings” in Daniel mean “kingdoms”) the title of a wicked power, the head of which might even be more innocent than his subjects.

   But not only is it simpler to understand the phrases themselves (especially the second) of a single person, but the sharp dramatic contrast between the Christ and the Antichrist seems to require a personal exhibition of evil. The Antichrist is to have a coming (2 Thessalonians 2:9) and a manifestation (2 Thessalonians 2:3), so as to be instantly recognized, and will display himself by significant acts (2 Thessalonians 2:4), which all require a person. Besides, the types of him—Antiochus, Caligula, Nero, etc.—could hardly be said, according to Scriptural analogy, to be “fulfilled” in a mere headless movement. The application of the name “Man of Sin” to any succession of men (as, for instance, all the Popes of Rome) is peremptorily forbidden by the fact that the detection and destruction of the Man of Sin by the Advent of Christ follows immediately upon his manifestation of himself.

3. This person, though single, heads a movement. He is the captain of “the Apostasy.” He has a large and devoted following (2 Thessalonians 2:10). Indeed, though his dominion is “diverse” from other kingdoms, yet he is almost called a king in Daniel 7:24: the word, however, is (perhaps) carefully avoided. The diversity between his monarchy and theirs might, for instance, consist in its not being, like theirs, territorial or dynastic; it might be a spiritual or an intellectual dominion, interpenetrating the territorial kingdoms.

4. The movement of Antichrist is not atheistic. The Man of Sin superexalts himself, indeed, against every God, true or false, but it is not by denial of the Divine existence. On the contrary, he claims himself to be the true God, and exacts the homage due to the true God; thereby acknowledging the existence and working of God, which he asserts to have become his own.

5. The antichristian movement does not even break openly with the Catholic Church. It is an “apostasy,” indeed, but the same Greek word is used in Hebrews 3:12, and in 1 Timothy 4:1, in neither of which cases will it suit the context to understand the word of an outward leaving of the Christian Church. The persons must at any rate have been Christians, or they could not be apostates. And the apostasy is all the more terrible if, while the forms of the Church are kept to, there is a departure from the inward spirit. And in this case several points seem to indicate an apostasy within the Church. In the first place, as we have seen above, the movement is distinctly not an atheistic movement, like the German Socialism.

   Then, the act of session in the “Temple of God” cannot mean anything else than an attempt to exact divine homage from the Christian Church, which, of course, could only be hoped for through adopting Christian forms. The account of the Satanic miracles which the Man of Sin will work in attestation of his claim shows that the persons who follow him are duped into believing that he actually is the Lord. An atheistic materialism would deny miracles altogether. Now we may venture to say that, even if St. Paul had not (as Bishop Wordsworth supposes) St. Luke’s Gospel in his hands, yet he was familiar with the eschatological discourses of our Lord contained in the Synoptic Gospels. In these (which so frequently use the language of the Book of Daniel) our Lord holds up as the greatest terror of the last days, the constant danger, waiting even upon the “elect,” of being seduced into mistaking certain pretenders for Himself.

   An Antichrist (in its full meaning) expresses more than an opponent of Christ; like the compound Anti-Pope, it implies a rival claimant to the honors which he himself acknowledges to be due only to Jesus Christ. Antichrist pretends to be actually Jesus. Such pretensions would, of course, be meaningless and ridiculous to all except believers in Jesus Christ and His Church. (Matthew 24:10–12; Matthew 24:23; Matthew 24:26, and the parallel passages in Mark and Luke.) The same would even appear, on close inspection, to be the teaching of the Book of Daniel itself. The Church is “given into his hand” (Daniel 7:25), a much more powerful expression, supposing the Church to be constitutionally bound to him, and not accidentally subject as to a Decius or a Galerius.

6. Daniel’s Antichrist is characterized by ecclesiastical innovation. “He shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws” (Daniel 7:25)—not to stamp Christianity out altogether, but arbitrarily to alter the Church’s worship (see Pusey, p. 81) and traditional constitution. The same departure from primitive tradition characterizes him in Daniel 11:37: “Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers: a God whom his fathers knew not shall he honour.”

   The constant interpretation of “new gods” among the primitive Fathers is “new doctrines”: for, as a matter of fact, whatever materially alters our conception of God may be said to make us worship a different Being: the God of the extreme Calvinist, for instance, who creates millions of immortal beings for the express purpose of being glorified by their endless pains, can hardly be called the same as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And this arbitrary innovation is, in fact, the very feature which St. Paul selects. It is the “lawlessness” or “rebellion” which marks both his movement (2 Thessalonians 2:7) and himself (2 Thessalonians 2:8)—which lawlessness, or self-will, is perfectly compatible with exaggerated external reverence for laws and discipline, as is proved by Dr. Lightfoot, who thinks that St. Paul had the Jews specially in mind (Smith’s Bible Dict., Art. “II. Thessalonians”).

   Other more obvious kinds of “sin” can hardly be said to characterize the Man of Sin; for (not to mention 1 Timothy 4:1, which refers expressly to Daniel) in Daniel 11:37 he is given an ascetic character. This spirit of innovation within the Church, implying as it does that his fiat is as good as God’s, which finally leads him to claim divine honors from the Church, is his characteristic sin.

7. It may be added that the teaching of the Apocalypse is evidently drawn from Daniel, thereby corroborating our belief that St. Paul’s is also, and that such an interpretation as is here suggested has almost the catholic consent of the early Fathers, who almost all teach that the fall of the Roman empire will usher in the Antichrist, and that the Antichrist will be professedly Christian. Their testimony is valuable, inasmuch as some of them seem not merely to be offering an exegesis of particular texts of Scripture, but recording a primitive tradition contemporary with the New Testament.

XI. Identification of the Man of Sin.—It is not solely a Protestant interpretation, but one which indirectly derives more or less support from several eminent names in past ages in communion with the Roman. See (for instance, St. Gregory the Great, and Robert Grosseteste), that the final Antichrist will be a Bishop of Rome. And the present writer does not hesitate to assert his conviction that no other interpretation will so well suit all the requirements of the case. This is by no means the same as the commonplace doctrine that the Pope—that is, any and every Pope—is the Man of Sin.

The Man of Sin has not yet made his appearance. But the diversity and yet resemblance between his kingdom and the kingdoms of the world; the firm hand over the Church; the claims made upon her homage; the unrecognized movement of rebellion against God while still He is outwardly acknowledged (the “mystery of lawlessness”); the restless innovation upon the Church’s apostolic traditions; the uncompromising self-assertion: all these are traits which seem to indicate a future Roman pontiff, more clearly than any other power which we could at present point to—and this, without having recourse to those more superficial coincidences which may be found in the Notes of Bishop Wordsworth’s Greek Testament, or Dr. Eadie’s Commentary on these Epistles.

To those who are familiar with the way in which modern Roman dogmas have been formed—exaggerations, at first condemned, becoming more and more popular, until they acquired the consistency of general tradition, and were then stamped with authoritative sanction—and who now watch the same process at work in the popular theology of Italy and France, there would be nothing surprising in the literal fulfillment of the prophecies of Antichrist in some future Pope.

Already one Divine attribute has been definitely claimed by and conceded to the occupant of the Roman See, in defiance of primitive tradition, and yet so plausibly as to suggest rather an implicit faith in God than an explicit denial of Him. Comparisons ex aequo between the Life and Passion of our Lord and that of Pius the Ninth formed a large proportion of the spiritual diet of foreign Roman Catholics towards the close of his pontificate.

Even eminent prelates of the Roman obedience are reported not to have hesitated already to apply to the Papacy such phrases as “Third Incarnation of the Deity”; and it would be only following analogies of “development,” if, in process of time, these last exaggerations also should be formulated into dogma, as has been the case with the dogma of Infallibility, and some Pope to come should in some way claim to be actually identified with Jesus Christ.

We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren.—The thanksgiving is regarded as a positive debt incurred, which it would be dishonest not to pay.

Because.—This assigns the reason for saying that it was “meet,” and does not merely follow after “thank God:” in which case, the words “as it is meet” would have been rather weak, as containing no more than is involved in “we are bound.” The best paraphrase would be: “We feel the obligation to give thanks for you; and, in point of fact, it is only fitting that we should, because,” and so on.

Groweth exceedingly.—An enthusiastic word in the original: “is out-growing all bounds.” It is a metaphor from vegetable or animal growth. This was one of the very points about which St. Paul was anxious the last time he had written: then there were deficiencies in their faith (1 Thessalonians 3:10).

Charity.—Here, too, St. Paul remembers what he had said to them in the last Epistle, in which he had devoted a whole section to the love of the believers “toward each other.” “Of every one of you all” is a very noticeable expression, as showing the individual solicitude of the Apostles for their converts. Just as the apostolic instructions were given to each Christian privately (1 Thessalonians 2:11), so news has been brought how each individual Christian is progressing. The differences which had called forth such passages as 1 Thessalonians 3:12; 1 Thessalonians 4:6–10; 1 Thessalonians 5:12–14, had apparently all ceased, and mutual love was multiplying.