vicious humour is drawn together, and breaks out at length in one abscess.
VII. The apostasy and the mystery of iniquity are a great evil.
—The description of the evil in the abstract and concrete has
different parts, and these mutually explain each other. Apos
tasy is a falling away from the faith, and is clearly described,
1 Tim. iv. 1. This apostasy is not determined in its extent by
any particular place ; — as widely as the faith extended, so widely,
for the most part, does the apostasy extend ; — yet it prevailed in
the greatest degree among the Jews. There is also the apos
tasy of those to whom faith had been offered, although they did
not receive it. Some of those who had received it ldreiv back
[" departing from the living God"] : comp. Heb. iii. 12. The
people is treated as equivalent to one man, whether regard is
had to the Divine grace, which offers itself, or to man's refusal
of it, under whatever circumstances. It was apostasy in the
people who refused to enter into the promised land, LXX. Num.
xiv. 31. The bitterness of the Jews was excessive, especially at
Thessalonica, Acts xvii. 5, 11, 13 ; and Judaism at Rome occa
sioned great damage to Christianity. In like manner, iniquity,
the mystery of which was then already working, is not ini
quity of any kind whatever, although it be manifold, Matt.
xxiv. 12, but that from which the Iniquitous one (' Wicked :' 0
avo/j,os) himself is denominated, ver. 8, with which comp. ver.
3, 4. The mystery of this iniquity was then already working
(comp. Dent. xxxi. 21, 27), and was so concealed, that it crept
in among men almost without themselves being conscious of it,
and went on increasing for many ages. But even yet it is
working, until the working of Satan shall bring forth the
Iniquitous one himself (" that wicked") : ver. 9. Judaism, infect
ing Christianity, is the fuel ; the mystery of iniquity is the spark.
VIII. The Iniquitous one ('Wicked?) himself is the greatest evil.
— He is the Man of Sin, the son of perdition, opposed to and exalted
above all that is called God, or that is worshipped ; so that he
tits himself as God in the temple of God, and declares himself to
be God (a god). He is the very Iniquitous (* Wicked9) one,
1 Perhaps the italicised resilierunt of Beng. refers to the i and vTfoaro-hi) of Heb. x. 38, 39, which see; also Psalm Ixxviii. 57.— ED.