IV. Eschatology. — The most striking feature in the epistle is the apocalyptic passage, announcing the rev- elation of the Man of Sin (ii. 1-12); and it will not be irrelevant to investigate its meaning, bearing, as it does, on the circumstances under which the epistle was written, and illustrating this aspect of the apostle's teaching. He had dwelt much on the subject; for he appeals to the Tiiessalonians as knowing this truth, and reminds them tiiat he told them these things when he was j'et with them. The following considerations may help to clear up this obscure subject.
1. Tiie passage speaks of a great apostasy which is to usher in the advent of Christ, the great judgment. There are three prominent figures in the picture — Christ, Antichrist, and the Restrainer. Antichrist is described as the Man of Sin, the Son of Perdition, as the Adver- sary who exalteth himself above all that is called God, as making himself out to be (iod. Later on (for appar- ently the reference is the same) he is styled the " mys- tery of lawlessness," "the lawless one." The Restrain- er is in one place spoken of in the masculine as a per- son (6 KUTix'^v), in another in the neuter as a power, an influence (to Karexov). The " mysterj' of lawlessness" is already at work. At present it is checked by the Restrainer; but the check will be removed, and then it will break out in all its violence. Then Christ will ap- pear, and the enemy shall be consumed by the breath of his mouth, shall be brought to naught by the splen- dor of his presence.
2. Many different explanations have been offered of this passage. Each generation and each section in the Church has regarded it as a prophecy of that particular power which seemed to them and in their own time to be most fraught with evil to the true faith. A good account of these manifold interpretations will be found in Liinemann's commentary on the epistle, p. 204, Schlusshem. zu ii, 1-12 (see also Alford, Proleg.). By 9ne class of interpreters it has been referred to circumstances which passed within the circle of the apostle's own ex- perience, the events of his own lifetime, or the period immediately following. Others, again, liave seen in it the prediction of a crisis yet to be realized, the end of all things. The former of these, the Praiterists, have identified the Man of Sin with divers historical char- acters, and have sought for a historical counterpart to the Restrainer in like manner. Among them may be mentioned Grotius, Wettstein, Whitby, Schottgen, Nos- selt, Krause, and Kern. Agreeing, however, in the main point of a past accomjilishment, these writers differ widely from each other in the details of interpretation. The Man of Sin was, according to Grotius, Caligula; according to Wettstein, Titus; according to Hammond, Simon Magus; by many (Whitby, Le Clerc, etc.) the Jewish people are thought to have been thus indicated in their opposition to Christianity and to the Roman power (to Kar^xof). Commentators of this class are, of course, compelled to consider the coming of Christ as already past, i. e. to interpret it of the destruction of Jerusalem ; and this alone seems to render the view un- tenable. For Paul's description of the parousia, or ap- pearance, of Christ (1 Thess. ii, 19) is far too exalted to correspond to any temporal event. The latter class of interpreters, the Futurists, have also given various ac- counts of the Antichrist, the mysterious power of evil which is already working. We hold, in general terms, that this view is substantially right, i. e. that the proph- ecy, however it may have been partially fulfilled in the past, j'et awaits its complete fulfilment. But among the advocates of the Futurist opinion also differences of opinion prevail. To the (ireek Church the Man of Sin was Mohammed, and the " mystery of iniquity" is Mohammedanism, which, it is held, will yet culminate in some fearfully Antichristian form. From the middle of the 11th century the pope began to be considered the predicted Antichrist, and this view, as might have been expected, became the prevalent one in all the Protes- tant churches. Bv ^vav of retaliation, Romanists main-
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tained that Luther and Protestantism are pointed at in the passage. This seems to sliow the danger of limit- ing the proplieey to any one form of Antichristian er- ror. Jolm writes that even in his time there were ••many anticlirists" (1 John ii, US) ; the one he specifies as denying that "Jesus Christ had come in the fiesh" is descriptive neither of iSIoliammed nor of the pope nor of Lutlier, hut of the Gnostics. Many of the feat- ures of Antichrist as portrayed by Paid no doid)t jjre- sent tliemselves in the papacy, but others hardly so. At any rate, the papacy, so far as it contains elements of impiety, seems to have reached its culminating jioint; ]ierhaps did so three hundred years ago, and yet Christ has not come. We are disposed, therefore, to adopt the view that there have been, since the prophecy was writ- ten, many partial manifestations of Antichristian error — the (inostics, the Judaizing tendencies of the 1st cen- tury. JMohammed, the jiapacy. the French Revolution, etc.; but that there still is in prospect some mystery of iniipiity which will coml)ine in itself the several evil tendencies wliich the Church has already witnessed, but in a greatly intensiticd form ; and probably that this tinal outburst of impiety will be embodied in a personal head or representative, the Man of Sin of our epistle. His ajipearance will be the signal for the sec- ond advent of Christ. As regards the Kestrainer (6 kci- rfywi', TO KUTtx"^^^ f^"^ ^''^^^ °^ ^^® fathers does not seem far wrong— viz. that Paul obscurely alludes to the temporal power (in his 'and their day the Roman em- pire), by which the excesses of lawless licentiousness are, to some extent, held in check. Hence, in Paul's view, tlie mission of the State as such was a divine one (Rom. xiii). Sec Anticiikist.