;?. ^lore particularly, therefore, in arbitrating between the Pneterists and the Futurists, we are led by the analogy of other prophetic announcements, as well as by, the language of the passage itself, to take a middle course. Neither is wholly right, and yet both are, to a certain extent, right. It is the special characteristic of prophecy to sjieak of the distant future through the present and immediate. The persons and events falling within the horizon of the prophet's own view are the types and representatives of greater figures and crises far oflF, and as yet but dimly discerned. Thus the older prophets, wiiile speaking of a delivery from the tempo- rary oppression of Egypt or Babylon, spoke also of Mes- siah's kingdom. Thus our Lord himself, foretelling the doom which was even then hanging over the holy city, glances at the future judgment of the world as typified and |)ortrayed in this; and the two are so interwoven that it is impossible to disentangle them. See Double Sknsk. Following this analogy, we may agree with the Pr.Tterists that Paul is referring to events which fell under his own cognizance ; for indeed the Restrain- cr is said to be restraining now, and the mystery of in- iquity to be already working; wliile, at the same time, we may accept the Futurist view, that the apostle is describing the end of all things, and that therefore the proplieey has not yet received its most striking and complete fulfilment. This commingling of the imme- diate and partial with the final and universal manifes- tation of (iod's judgments, characteristic of all proph- ecy, is rendered more easy in Paul's case, because he seems to have contemplated the end of all things as possibly, or even probably, near at hand; and therefore the particular manifestation of Antichrist, which he witnessed with his own eyes, would naturally be merged in and identified with the final Antichrist, in which the o])position to the Gospel will culminate. See Escha-
TOI.OOV.
4. If this view be correct, it remains to inquire what particular adversary of the (Jospel, and what particular restraining influence, Paul may have had primarily in view. But, before attempting to approximate to an ex- planation, we may clear tlie way by laj'ing down two rules. (1.) The imagery of the passage must be inter- preted mainly by itself, and by the circumstances of the
time. The symbols may be borrowed in some cases from the Old Test.; they may reapjiear in other parts of the New. But we cannot be sure that the same im- age denotes exactly the same thing in both cases. Tlie language describing the Man of Sin is borrowed, to some extent, from the representation ofAiitiochus Epiphanes in the Book of Daniel, but Antiochus cannot be meant here. The great adversary' in the Revelation seems to be the Roman power, but it may be widely different here. There were even iu the apostolic age '• many antichrists;" and we cannot be sure that the Antichrist present to the mind of Paul was the same with the Antichrist contemplated by John. (2.) In all figura- tive passages it is arbitrary' to assume that a person is denoted where we find a personification. Thus the Man of Sin here need not be an individual man ; it may be a body of men, or a power, a spiritual influence. In the case of the Restrainer we seem to have positive ground for so interpreting it, since in one passage the neuter gender is used, "the thing which restraineth" (to KaTixov}, as if synonymous. (See Jowett, Essay on the Man of Sin, i, 178, rather for suggestions as to the mode of interpretation than for the conclusion he arrives at; also Cowles, in the Biblioth. Sacra, xxix, G23.) See Man ok Sin.
5. When we in(iuire definitely, then, what Paul had immediately in view when he spoke of the IMan of Sin and the Restrainer, we can only hope to get even an approximate answer by investigating the circumstances of the apostle's life at this epoch. Now we find that the chief opposition to the Gospel, and especially to Paul's preaching at this time, arose from the Jews. The Jews had conspired against the apostle and his compan- ions at Thessalonica, and he only saved himself by se- cret flight. Thence they followed him to Beroea, which he hurriedly left in the same way. At Corinth, whence the letters to the Thessalonians were written, they per- secuted him still further, raising a cry of treason against him, and bringing him before the Roman proconsul. These incidents explain the strong expressions he uses of them in these epistles: "They slew the Lord Jesus •and the prophets, and persecuted the apostles; the}' are hateful to God; they are the common enemies of man- kind, whom the Divine wrath (>'/ opy/;) at length over- takes" (I Thess. ii, 15, 16). With these facts in view, it seems, on the whole, probable that tlie Antichrist, in its primary aspect, is represented especially by Judaism. With a prophetic insight the apostle foresaw, as he con- templated the moral and political condition of the race, the approach of a great and overwhelming catastrophe. And it is not im|irobable that our Lord's predictions of the vengeance which threatened Jerusalem blended with the apostle's vision, and gave a color to this pas- sage. If it seem strange that " lawlessness" should be mentioned as the distinguishing feature of those whose very zeal for " the law'' stimulated their ojiposition to the Gospel, we may appeal to our Lord's own words (Matt, xxiii, 28) describing the Jewish teachers, " with- in they are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness (nj'oyi/i'ai;)." Corresponding to this view of the Antichrist, we shall probably be correct, as already suggested, in regarding the Roman empire as the restraining power, fop so it was taken by many of the fathers, though without alto- gether understanding its bearing. It was to lionian justice and Roman magistrates that the a|iostle had re- course at this time to shield him from the enmity of the Jews, and to check their violence. At Philippi, his Roman citizenship extorted an ample apology for ill- treatment. At Thessalonica, Roman law secured him fair play. At Corinth, a Roman proconsul acquitted him of frivolous charges brought by the Jews. It was Old}' at a later date under Nero that Rome became the antagonist of Ciiristendom, and then she also, in turn, was fitly portrayed by John as the type of Antichrist. Whether the Jewish opposition to the Gospel entirely exhausted Paul's own conception of the "mystery of lawlessness" as he saw it "alreadv working" iu his own