Section Fourth. On The Import And Use Of Certain Terms, Which Express An Antagonistic Relation To Christ’s Person And Authority, ψευδοδιδάσκαλοι, ψευδοπροφήταιν,ψευδόχριστος, ἀντίχριστος.
IT is more especially the last two of the terms just mentioned which call for particular investigation; but as the other two are nearly related to them, and belong substantially to the same line, we shall in the first instance direct some attention to them.
1. The two may be taken together, as they appear to be used in senses not materially different. So early as in the Sermon on the Mount, we find our Lord warning His disciples against false prophets: προσέχετε ἀπὸ τῶν ψευδοπροφητῶν (Matthew 7:15;) and the test He suggests to be applied to them is one chiefly of character; “They come,” says He, “in sheep’s clothing, but within they are ravening wolves. The warning is again given in our Lord’s discourse respecting the last times, “And many false prophets shall arise and deceive many” (Matthew 24:11;) and further on at verse Matthew 24:24, He returns to the subject, coupling false prophets with false Christs, who, He said, “should arise, and give great signs and wonders, so as to deceive, if it were possible, even the elect.” From these intimations, we are led to understand, that the appearance of such characters in considerable numbers was. to form one of the precursors of the dissolution of the Jewish state, and was also to be a characteristic generally of the time of the end. As to the precise import, however, to be attached to the terms, we must bring under review one or two of the passages, in which they are mentioned as actually appearing. Thus in Acts 13:6, the Jew, Barjesus, who was with Sergius Paulus, the proconsul of Cyprus, and who there withstood Paul’s preaching, is called ψευδοπροφήτης; and partly in explanation of this designation he is styled Elymas the magos—̓Ελύμας ὁ μάγος—two words of different languages expressing substantially the same meaning; Elymas (from âlim) in the Arabic or Aramaic, and μάγος in the Persian, wise—wise, however, in the Eastern sense, that is, given to learned pursuits and the skill of hidden and sacred lore. It did not necessarily denote what is now commonly understood by the term, magician or sorcerer; but comprehended also the better wisdom of that higher learning, which was cultivated in the East, with its attendant fancies and superstitions. In the Gospel age, however, this learning had become so much connected with astrology, and kindred arts, that too often—and in the case particularly of the Barjesus mentioned above—it did not materially differ from what is denominated magic or sorcery. The persons who bore the name of Magi, in the districts of Syria, were for the most part mere fortune-tellers. It was such, who swarmed about Rome, and are celebrated in the Latin classics, as “Chaldean astrologers,” “Phrygian fortune tellers,” “dealers in Babylonian numbers,” etc.; (Hor. Sat. I. 2, 1; Od. I. 11, 2. Juv. Sat. III. 6.) rushing in amid the decay of the old faith, with their delusive arts of divination, to play upon the credulity of an age alike skeptical and superstitious. It is clear from the allusions of the ancient satirists and historians, that those pretenders to the secrets of the gods and the knowledge of futurity drove a very lucrative trade, and had the ear of men, as well as women, high in rank, and by no means deficient in intellect. Marius is reported by Plutarch to have kept a Syrian witch or prophetess in his camp, and to have been much guided by her divinations in regulating his military and political movements. Tiberius is described by Juvenal (x. 93, sq.,) sitting on the rock in Caprese, “surrounded by a flock of Chaldeans.” Even such men as Pompey, Crassus, Cicsar, appear to have had frequent dealings with them; for Cicero speaks of having heard from each of them many things, that had been said to them by the Chaldeans, and, in particular, of the assurances they had received, that they should not die, excepting in a ripe age, at home, and in honour (De div. ii. 47.) Certainly, most fallacious predictions! and calculated, as Cicero justly remarks, to destroy all confidence in such prognostications! Yet it failed to do so; for men must have something to repair to for support and comfort in the hour of need; if destitute of the true, they inevitably betake to the false; and infested as Rome was with the elements of religious darkness and moral evil, the soothsayers were a class that, according to the profound remark of Tacitus, were sure to be always shunned, yet always retained (genus hominum, quod in civitate nostra et vitabitur semper et retinebitur.)
It was, then, to this fraudulent and essentially profligate class of persons, that Barjesus belonged; he was a false prophet of that low and reprobate caste. But he had evidently acquired a certain sway over the mind of Sergius Paulus, much as the other leading men of the age yielded themselves to the spell of a like delusive influence. It may well seem strange, that there should have been found Jews addicting themselves to such magical arts and false divinations, considering the express and solemn condemnation of such things in the law of Moses. But there can be no doubt of the fact: not this man alone, but vast numbers of the Jews in apostolic times, plied .sorcery and divination as a regular trade. It was one of the clear proofs of their sunk condition, and a presage of approaching doom. Jewish females are represented by Juvenal (Sat. 6:542,) as emerging from their lurking places in the woods, and for the smallest pittance whispering into the ear of Roman matrons some revelation of Heaven’s secrets. But such were only the lower practisers of the art. There were others, like Barjesus, who made loftier pretensions, who insinuated themselves by their apparent learning and divine insight into the counsels of the powerful; and their number, we can easily conceive, as well as the disposition to give heed to their fallacious arts, would acquire considerable accession from the fame of the wonderful deeds performed by Christ and His immediate followers in Judea. The manifestation of the true, in the knowledge of Divine mysteries and the exercise of super natural power, with the mighty fermentation it produced, created, as it were, a new field for the display of the false; whence, as our Lord foretold, many false prophets arose, deluding the ignorant, and even seeking to press into the Christian fold. (It is well known, also, that the last struggles and convulsions in Judea were accompanied with prophetical delusions. Josephus speaks of “a great number of false prophets” playing their part, and notices one in particular. (Wars, VI. 5, § 2, 3.)) The apostle John, who lived to the close of the first century, testifies that many such prophets had already appeared. In 1 John 4:1 of his first Epistle, he says, “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets are gone out into the world” (ͅὅτι πολλοὶ ψευδοπροφῆται ἐξεληλύθασιν εἰς τὸν κόσμον.) He does not say, that they had found their way into the Church, but merely that they had made their appearance in the world, and were there making such pretensions to supernatural insight, that believers in Christ, as well as others, had need to stand on their guard against them. They might partly be the subtle and audacious diviners, of whom we have just spoken, who went about deceiving the simple and the crafty by their vaunted ability to explore the depths of futurity. That class may certainly be included in the description of the apostle; but from what follows in the Epistle, it is clear, that he more especially points to the false teaching, the antichristian forms of error, which were springing up, if not actually within, yet on the borders of the Christian Church. For, he presently states, that the spirits are not of God, which do not confess Christ to have come in the flesh; and “this,” he adds, namely, the denial of Jesus as the incarnate Son of God, “is that of the antichrist, of which ye have heard that it comes, and even now is it in the world.” This apostle, therefore, virtually identifies the false prophets with false teachers, and both with the spirit of antichrist.
It may, indeed, be affirmed generally, so far as regards the manifestation of error in reference to the early Christian Church, that the ψευδοδιδάσκαλοι were scarcely to be distinguished from the ψευδοπροφῆται or that false prophesying chiefly assumed the form of false teaching. The more arrant impostors the astrologers and fortune-tellers—the false prophets in that sense, were rather to be looked for beyond the pale of the Church; as they could only be found in persons, who either ignored the authority of Jesus, or set up their own in rivalry to His. But within the Church, the spirit of falsehood would more naturally show itself in assuming the name of Christ to teach what was inconsistent with the character and tendency of His Gospel. It is evidently of such—rather ψευδοδιδάσκαλοι than ψευδοπροφῆται in the ordinary sense of the term—that the Apostle Paul speaks, in Acts 20:29-30, as sure to arise, after his departure, among the converts at Ephesus—“grievous wolves,” as he calls them, “not sparing the flock;” some of them also from their own number, “speaking perverse things, and drawing away disciples after them.” In his epistles, also, it is false teaching, chiefly, with which he had to struggle, and in regard to which his warnings were more particularly uttered. And Peter, in his second Epistle, at the commencement of the second chapter, draws thus the parallel between Old and New Testament times: “But there were false prophets also among the people (i.e. ancient Israel,) even as there shall be false teachers among you;” the latter now, as the former then. And in the description that follows of the kind of false teachers to be expected, he gives as their leading characteristics the introduction of heretical doctrines, tending to subvert the great truths of the Gospel, and the encouragement by pernicious example as well as by corrupt teaching, of licentious and ungodly behaviour. To do this was, no doubt, to act the part of false prophets, since it was to give an untrue representation of the mind of God, and to beget fallacious hopes of the issue of His dealings with men on earth; but, as it did not necessarily involve any formal predictions of the future, it was more fitly characterized as false teaching than false prophesying, while the place its apostles were to occupy in New Testament times should virtually correspond to that of the false prophets in the Old. In general, therefore, we may say in respect to these two terms, that while the false prophets were also false teachers, and the two were sometimes viewed as nearly or altogether identical, the first term usually had more respect to the pretenders to prophetical insight outside the church, the other to the propagators of false and pernicious doctrinal views within the church. The same persons might, and, doubtless, occasionally did sustain both of these characters at once; yet by no means always, and never necessarily so; since there might be the most heterodox doctrine and corrupt behaviour without any attempt at divination; and in certain cases the art of divination might be carried on as a traffic by itself.
2. We proceed now to the two other, and more peculiar terms of this class, which must also, in great measure, be taken conjointly. In regard to ψευδόχριστοι there can be little doubt; it can only indicate false pretenders to the name and character of Messiah. Precisely as false prophets are such as laid claim to gifts that did not belong to them, by false Christs must be meant those who assumed to be what Jesus of Nazareth alone is. In the strict sense, therefore, false Christs could only arise outside the Christian Church, and among those who had rejected the true. In so far as they did arise, there was in their appearance the fulfilment of another word of Jesus,—“I am come in My Father’s name, and ye receive Me not; if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive,” (John 5:43.) The most noted example of the kind, as well as the earliest, was that furnished by Barchochbas—Son of a star, as he chose to call himself, with reference to the prophecy of Balaam, which he would have his followers to believe was going to find its fulfilment in his victorious struggles, and his establishment of a Jewish dominion. False expectations of a similar kind have often been raised among the Jewish people, and reports of persons answering to them, circulated; but they have never reached such a height as they did in the pretensions and the exploits of Barchochbas.
It would scarcely be right, however, to limit the declaration of our Lord respecting false Christs to such Jewish pretenders; the more especially as the place where He made it was in a discourse addressed to His own disciples; and for them the danger was comparatively little of being misled by such manifestly wandering stars. There was a danger in that direction, near the beginning of the New Testament Church, for persons, whose leanings might be on the side of Christianity, but who were very imperfectly enlightened in their views, and strong in their national predilections. Such persons might, amid the tumults and disorders, the false hopes and fermenting excitement, which preceded the downfall of the Jewish State, have for a time caught the infection of the evil that was at work, and even, in some instances, have precipitated themselves into the general delusions. But such cases would certainly be rare; and we cannot suppose that our Lord looked no farther than that; we are rather to conceive, in accordance with the whole structure of His discourse, that He wished them to regard what was then to take place but as the beginning of the end—a beginning that should be often in substance, though under different forms, repeating itself in the future. It matters little whether persons call themselves by the name of Christ, or avowedly set up a rival claim to men’s homage and regard, if they assume to do what, as Christ, He alone has the right or the power to perform; for in that case they become in reality, if not in name, false Christs. Should any one undertake to give a revelation of Divine things, higher than and contrary to Christ’s; to lay open another way to the favour and blessing of Heaven, than that which has been consecrated by His blood; or to conduct the world to its destined state of perfection and glory, otherwise than through the acknowledgment of His name and the obedience of His gospel; such a one would be as really acting the part of a false Christ, as if he openly challenged the Messiahship of Jesus, or explicitly claimed the title to himself. There is, therefore, a foundation of truth in the statement of Hegesippus, in which, after mentioning the Menandrians, Marcionites, Carpocratians, and other Gnostic sects, he says, that “from these spring false Christs, false prophets, false apostles, the persons who, by their corrupt doctrines against God and against His church, broke up the unity of the church,” (Euseb. Hist. Eccl., iv. 22;) although they could hardly be said to bring division into a body, to which they did not themselves strictly belong. The tendency of the doctrines, however, propounded by those advocates of heresy and corruption, undoubtedly was to supplant or supersede Christ, and the spiritual doctrines of the gospel. While paying a certain deference and respect to the name of Jesus, their teaching in reality breathed another spirit, and drew in another direction than that of Christ. And the same, of course, may be said of many authors and systems of later times,—of all, indeed, in every age, that have maintained, or rested in the sufficiency of nature to win for itself a position of safety before God, or to acquire a place of honour in His kingdom. These, in reality, disown the name of Jesus, and set themselves up in His room as the guides and saviours of the world. And we cannot fail to perceive an indication of the varied forms such characters were to assume, and the many different quarters whence they might be expected to appear, in the warning of our Lord respecting them:—“If they shall say unto you, Behold he is in the desert, go not forth; behold ho is in the secret chambers, believe it not.” But in what relation, it is proper to ask, does ψευδόχριστος stand to the ἀντίχριστος? Is this last but another name for the same idea of assumption, in some form or another, of Christ’s peculiar office and work? Or, does it denote contrariety and opposition of a different kind? The word ἀντίχριστος was not used by our Lord Himself; nor does it occur in any of the writings of the New Testament, except those of the apostle John. There are descriptions which virtually indicate what the word, as used by him, imports; but the word itself is found only in his writings; and there it occurs altogether four times—thrice in the singular, and once in the plural. Before looking at these, let us first endeavour to determine the force of the preposition ἀντί in the word. There are some who hold that it necessarily denotes contrariety or opposition to, and others who with equal tenacity contend for the sense of substitution, in the room of: If the former were the proper view, the antichrist would necessarily be the enemy of Christ; but if the latter, it would be His false representative or supplanter. The original meaning of the preposition is over against, and all its uses, whether alone or in composition, may be traced without difficulty to this primary idea, and express but different shades of the relation it involves. What is over against may be so in one of three different respects: in the way (1.) of direct antithesis and opposition; or (2.) of substitution, as when one takes the place which belongs to another; or (3.) of correspondence, when one thing or person answers to another an image or counterpart. This last aspect of the relation, involved in the ἀντί, cannot, of course, come into consideration here. But it is not unknown in New Testament Scripture, either as regards the simple or the compound use of the preposition. Thus, at John 1:16, “Of His fulness we all have received, and grace for grace”—χάριν ἀντὶ χάριστος—i.e., grace corresponding to grace—grace in the believer becoming the counterpart of Christ’s—line for line, feature for feature. So also in composition, when occurring in such words as ἀνταπόδοσις, a giving back in return, a recompense; or ἀντιτύπος, the correspondence to the τύπος.
This, however, is the less common form of the relation denoted by the ἀντί; and of the other two, we find instances of both in Scripture. In such words as ἀντιλογία, άντίθεσις, ἀντικείμενος, the relation of formal opposition is denoted; as it is also in ἀντινομία, contrariety to law, ἀντίδικος, an adversary in. a suit, ἀντίχειρ, what is over against the hand, the thumb. But there is another class of words, in which the idea of substitution, or contradistinction, in the form of taking the place of another, whether by deputy or as a rival, is also indicated; for example, ἀνθύπατος, the substitute of the consul, pro-consul; ἀντιβασιλεύς, pro-rex, or viceroy; ἀντίλυτρον, substitute or equivalent for a forfeit, ransom. It is plain, therefore, that the single term ἀντίχριστος cannot of itself deter mine the precise meaning. So far as the current use of the preposition is concerned, it may point either to contrariety or to substitution; the antichrist may be, indiferently, what sets itself in opposition to Christ, or what thrusts itself into His room—a ψευδόχριστος—and it is only by the connexion in which the word is used, and the comparison of the parallel passages, that we can determine which may be the predominant or exclusive idea. In the first passage where the word occurs, 1 John 2:18, the literal rendering of which is, “Little children, it is the last hour (or season;) and as ye heard, that the antichrist cometh, even now many have become antichrists (ἀντίχριστοι πολλοὶ γεγόνασιν;) whence we know it is the last hour.” Here, there is no precise definition of what forms of evil are included in the antichrist; there is merely the assumption of a fact, that the idea expressed by the term had already passed into a reality, and that in a variety of persons. This, however, is itself of considerable moment, especially as it conveys the information, that while the name is used in the singular, as of an individual, it was not intended to denote the same kind of strict and exclusive personality as the Christ. Even in the apostolic age, John finds the name of antichrist applicable to many individuals. And this, also, may so far help us to a knowledge of the idea, since, while there were numbers in that age who sought within the Church to corrupt the doctrine of Christ, and without it to disown and resist His authority, we have yet no reason to suppose, that there were more than a very few, who distinctly claimed the title of Christ, and presumed to place themselves in Messiah’s room. The next passage occurs very shortly after the one just noticed, and may be regarded as supplementary to it; it is in 1 John 2:22. The apostle had stated, that no lie is of the truth; and he then continues, “Who is the liar (ὁ ψεύστης, the liar by pre-eminence,) but he who denieth that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, who denieth (or, denying) the Father and the Son.” Here it is the denial of the truth concerning Christ, not the formal supplanting of Christ by an impious usurpation of His office, to which the name of antichrist is applied. Yet it could not be intended to denote every sort of denial of the truth; for this would have been to identify antichristianism with Jewish infidelity or with heathenism, which certainly was not the object of the apostle. The denial of the truth by the antichriat was denial after a peculiar manner, not as from a directly hostile and antagonistic position, but under the cover of a Christian name, and with more or less of a friendly aspect. While it was denied that Jesus was the Christ, in the proper sense of the term, Jesus was by no means reckoned an impostor; His name was still assumed, and his place held to be one of distinguished honour. That this was the case is evident, not only from the distinctive name applied to the form of evil in question, but also from what is said in 1 John 2:18-19, of the origination of the antichrists. “Many,” says the apostle, “have become antichrists;” they were not so originally, but by a downward progress had ended in becoming such. And again, “They went out from us, but were not of us;” that is, they had belonged to the Christian community, but showed, by the course of defection they now pursued, that they had not formed a part of its living membership, nor had really imbibed the spirit of the Gospel. When, therefore, the apostle says, in the verse already quoted, that those whom he designated antichrists denied Jesus to be the Christ; and when, in another verse, he says, “Every spirit that confesseth not Jesus Christ as having come (ἐληλυθότα) in the flesh, is not of God; and this is that spirit of antichrist whereof ye have heard, that it cometh, and is even now in the world” (1 John 4:3;) and, still again, when he says, “For many deceivers have entered into the world, who confess not Jesus Christ having come in flesh (ἐρχόμενον ἐν σαρκί;) this is the deceiver and the antichrist” (1 John 5:7.) In all these passages, it can only be of a virtual denial of the truth, that the apostle speaks. He plainly means such a depravation of the true doctrine, or abstraction of its essential elements, as turned it into a lie. And when, further, he represents the falsehood as circling around the person of Jesus, and disowning Him as having come in the flesh), we can scarcely entertain a doubt, that he refers to certain forms of the great Gnostic heresy—to such, as held, indeed, by the name of Jesus, but conceived of Him as only some kind of shadowy emanation of the Divine virtue, not a personal incarnation of the Eternal Word. Only by taking up a position, and announcing a doctrine of this sort, could the persons referred to have proved peculiarly dangerous to the Church—so dangerous, as to deserve being called, collectively and emphatically, the Deceiver, the embodiment, in a manner, of the old serpent. In an avowed resistance to the claims of Jesus, or a total apostacy from the faith of His Gospel, there should necessarily have been little room for the arts of deception, and no very pressing danger to the true members of the Church.
We arrive, then, at the conclusion, that in St. John’s use of the term antichrist, there is an unmistakable reference to the early heretics, as forming at least one exemplification of its idea. Such, also, was the impression derived from the apostle’s statements by many of the Fathers; they understood him to speak of the heretics of the time, under the antichrists who had already appeared. For example, Cyprian, when writing of heretics, Ep. lxxiii. 13, and referring to 1 John 4:3, asks, “How can they do spiritual and divine things who are enemies to God, and whose breast the spirit of antichrist has possessed?” On the same passage Œcumenius says, “He declares antichrist to be already in the world, not corporeally, but by means of those who prepare the way for his coming; of which sort are false apostles, false prophets, and heretics.” So, too, Damascenus, L. iv. orth. fid. 27, “Every one who does not confess the Son of God, and that God has come in the flesh, and is perfect God, and was made perfect man, still remaining God, is antichrist.” And Augustine, in the third Tractatus on 1 John, speaking to the question, “Whom did the apostle call antichrist? extends the term, indeed, so as to make it comprehend every one who is contrary to Christ, and is not a true member of His body, but places in the first rank, as being the characters most directly meant, “all heretics and schismatics.” It is manifest, indeed, that the existing antichrists of John, the abettors and exponents of the lie, or deniers, under a Christian name, of what was emphatically the truth, belonged to the very same class with the grievous wolves and false brethren of St. Paul, of whom he so solemnly forewarned the Ephesian elders, and of whom he also wrote in his epistles to Timothy (1 Timothy 4:1; 2 Timothy 3:1,) as persons who should depart from the faith, teach many heretical doctrines, and bring in perilous times upon the Church. St. John, writing at a later period, and referring to what then existed, calls attention to the development of that spirit, of which Paul perceived the germ, and described beforehand the future growth. The one announced the evil as coming, x the other declared it had already come; and with reference, no doubt, to the prophetic utterances of Paul, reminded believers of their having previously heard that it was to come. So that the antichrists of John are found to coincide with one aspect of our Lord’s false Christs; they were those who, without renouncing the name of Christians, or without any open disparagement of Jesus, forsook the simplicity of the faith in Him, and turned His truth into a lie. They might, so far also be said to supplant Him, as to follow them was to desert Christ; yet, from the circumstances of the case, there could be no direct antagonism to Jesus, or distinct unfurling of the banner of revolt.
We cannot, therefore, concur in the statement of Dean Trench (New Testament Synonyms, p. 120,) that ‘resistance to, and defiance of, Christ, is the essential mark of antichrist.” Defiance of Christ betokens avowed and uncompromising opposition, which was the part, not of deceivers, who had corrupted, the truth by some specious lie of their own, but of undisguised enemies. We concur, however, in the other part of his statement, that, according to St. John’s representation of the antichrist, there was not the false assumption of Christ’s character and offices—no further, at least, than in the modified sense already explained, of committing one’s self to a kind of teaching, which was virtually subversive of the truth and authority of Christ.
It is still, however, a question, whether we are to regard the Scriptural idea of the antichrist as exhausted in those heretical corrupters of the Gospel in the apostolic age, and their successors in apostolic times; or should rather view them as the types and forerunners of some huge system of God-opposing error, or of some grand personification of impiety andwickedness, to be exhibited before the appearing of Christ? It was thought, from comparatively early times, that the mention so emphatically of the antichrist bespoke something of a more concentrated and personally antagonistic character than the many antichrists which were spoken of as being already in the world. These, it was conceived, were but preliminary exemplifications of some far greater embodiment of the antichristian spirit, some monarch, probably (like Antiochus of old) of heaven-daring impiety, and unscrupulous disregard of every thing sacred and divine, who, after pursuing a course of appalling wickedness and violence, should be destroyed by the personal manifestation of Christ in glory. This view, however, was founded, not simply, nor even chiefly, upon the passages above referred to in the Epistles of John, but on the representation of St. Paul, in 2 Thessalonians 2:3-10, (taken in connexion with certain portions of the Apocalypse.) Amid many crude speculations and conflicting views on this passage, none of the Fathers appear to have doubted, as Augustine expressly states, (De Civ. Dei, xx. 19,) that it referred to antichrist, under the names, “Man of Sin,” and “Son of Perdition.” And, beyond all question, the evil portrayed here is essentially of the same character as that spoken of in the passages already considered, only with the characteristic traits more darkly drawn, and the whole mystery of iniquity more fully exhibited. As in the other passages, the antichristian spirit was identified with a departing from the faith, and a corrupting of the truth of the Gospel; so here the coming evil is designated emphatically the apostacy—ἡ ἀποστασία—by which we can think only of a notable falling away from the faith and purity of the Gospel; so that the evil was to have both its root and its development in connexion with the Church’s degeneracy. Nor was the commencement of the evil in this case, any more than the other, to be far distant. Even at the comparatively early period when the apostle wrote, it had begun to work; and in his ordinary ministrations he had, as he reminds his disciples, (2 Thessalonians 2:5, 2 Thessalonians 2:7,) forewarned them concerning it; plainly implying, that it was to have its rise in a spiritual and growing defection within the Christian Church. Then, as the term antichrist evidently denoted, some kind of antithesis in doctrine and practice to Christ—a certain use of Christ’s name, with a spirit and design utterly opposed to Christ’s cause—so, in the passage under consideration, the power personified and described is designated the opposer, ὁ ἀντικείμεμος—one who sets himself against God, and arrogates the highest prerogatives and ho nours. Yet, with such impious self-deification in fact, there was to be nothing like an open defiance and contempt of all religious propriety in form; for this same power is represented as developing itself by a “mystery of iniquity;” i.e., by such a complex and subtle operation of the worst principles and designs, as might be carried on under the fairest and most hypocritical pretences; and by “signs and lying wonders, and all deceivableness of unrighteousness,” beguiling those who should fall under its influence, to become the victims of “a strong delusion,” and to “believe a lie,”—viz., to believe that which should, to their view, have the semblance of the truth, but in reality should be at complete variance with it. Not only so, but the Temple of God is represented as the chosen theatre of this impious, artful and wicked ascendency, (2 Thessalonians 2:4;) and in respect to Christian times, the Apostle Paul knows of no temple but the Church itself. Nor can any other be understood here. It is the only kind of temple-usurpation which can now be conceived of as affecting the expectations and interests of the Church generally; and that alone, also, which might justly be represented as a grand consummation of the workings of iniquity within the Christian community. So that, as a whole, the description of the apostle presents to our view some sort of mysterious and astounding combination of good and evil, formally differing from either heathenism or infidelity—a gathering up and as sorting together of certain elements in Christianity, for the purpose of accomplishing, by the most subtle devices and cunning stratagems, the overthrow and subversion of Christian truth and life. It is, therefore, but the full growth and final development of St. John’s idea of the antichrist. Of the descriptions generally of the coming evil in New Testament Scripture, and especially of this fuller description in the Epistle to the Thessalonians, nothing (it appears to me) can be more certain on exegetical grounds, than that they cannot be made to harmonize with the Romish opinion—which Hengstenberg and a few others in the Protestant Church have been attempting to revive—the opinion that would find the evil spoken of realized in the power and influence exerted in early times by Rome, in its heathen state, against the cause and Church of Christ. In such an application of what is written, we have only some general coincidences, while we miss all the more distinctive features of the delineation. If it might be said of the heathen power in those times, that it did attempt to press into the temple or Church of God, and usurp religious homage there, the attempt, as is well known, was successfully repelled; and it never properly assumed the appearance of an actual sitting, or enthroning one’s self there (as the words import,) for the purpose of displacing the true God and Saviour from their rightful supremacy. Nor, in the operations of that power, do we perceive any thing that could fitly be designated “a mystery of iniquity”—the iniquity practised being that rather of palpable opposition and overbearing violence—in its aim transparent to every one, who knew the Gospel of the grace of God, and involving, if yielded to, the conscious renunciation of Christ. As to the signs and lying wonders, and deceivableness of unrighteousness, and strong delusions, which the apostle mentions among the means and characteristic indications of the dreaded power, there is scarcely even the shadow of them to be found in the controversy which ancient heathenism waged with Christianity. On every account, therefore, this view is to be rejected as wanting in the more essential points of correspondence between the apostolic description and the supposed realization in Providence.
Another view, however, has of late been rising into notice, which, if well founded, would equally save the Romish apostacy from any proper share in the predicted evil; and which, we cannot but fear, if not originated, has at least been somewhat encouraged and fostered by that softened apologetic hue, which the mediaeval and antiquarian tendencies of the present age have served to throw around Romanism. The view we refer to would make the full and proper development of the antichrist an essentially different thing from any such depravation of the truth, as is to be found in the Papacy—a greatly more blasphemous usurpation, and one that can only be reached by a Pantheistic deification of human nature. So Olshausen, who, on the passage in Thessalonians, thus writes, “The self-deification of the Roman emperors appears as modesty by the side of that of antichrist; for the Caesars did not elevate themselves above the other gods, they only wanted to have a place beside them, as representatives of the genius of the Roman people. Antichrist, on the contrary, wants to be the only true God, who suffers none beside him; what Christ demands for Himself in truth, he, in the excess of his presumption, claims for himself in falsehood.” Then, as to the way in which he should do this, it is said, “Antichrist will not, as Chrysostom correctly remarks, promote idolatry, but seduce men from the true God, as also from idols, and set himself up as the only object of adoration. This remarkable idea, that sin in antichrist issues in a downright self-deification, discloses to us the inmost nature of evil, which consists in selfishness. In antichrist all love, all capability of sacrifice and self-denial, shows itself entirely submerged in the making of the I all and all, which then also insists on being acknowledged by all men, as the centre of all power, wisdom, and glory.” The proper antichrist, therefore, according to Olshausen, must be a person, and one who shall be himself the mystery of iniquity, as Christ is the mystery of godliness—a kind of embodiment or incarnation of Satan. He can regard all the past manifestations and workings of evil, only as serving to indicate what it may possibly be, but by no means as realizing the idea; and he conceives, it may one day start forth in the person of one, who shall combine in his character the elements of infidelity and superstition, which are so visibly striving for the mastery over mankind. Some individual may be cast up by the fermentation that is going forward, who shall concentrate around himself all the Satanic tendencies in their greatest power and energy, and come forth at last in impious rivalry of Christ, as the incarnate son of the devil. Dean Trench seems substantially to adopt this view, though he expresses himself more briefly, and also less explicitly, upon the subject. With him, the antichrist is “one who shall not pay so much homage to God’s word as to assert the fulfilment in himself, for he shall deny that word altogether; hating even erroneous worship, because it is worship at all; hating much more the Church’s worship in spirit and in truth; who, on the destruction of every religion, every acknowledgment that man is submitted to higher powers than his own, shall seek to establish his throne; and for God’s great truth, God is man, to substitute his own lie, man is God. “(Synonyms, p. 120.) It may be admitted, with reference to this view, that there are tendencies in operation at the present time, fitted, in some degree to suggest the thought of such a possible incarnation of the ungodly and atheistic principle; but nothing has yet occurred, which can justly be said to have brought it within the bounds of the probable. At all events it is an aspect of the matter derived greatly more from the apprehended results of those tendencies themselves, than from a simple and unbiassed interpretation of the passages of Scripture, in which the antichrist is described or named. Such an antichrist as those authors delineate, the impersonation of unblushing wickedness and atheism, has everything against it, which has been already urged against the view, that would identify the description with the enmity and persecutions of heathen Rome. Instead of seating itself in the temple of the Christian Church as its own, and arrogating there the supreme place, an anti-Christian power of that sort could only rise on the ruins of the temple. And whatever audacity or foolhardiness there might be in the assumptions and proceedings of such a power, one cannot, by any stretch of imagination, conceive how, with such flagrant impiety in its front, it could present to God’s people the appearance of a mystery of iniquity, and be accompanied with signs and wonders and deceitful workings, destined to prevail over all who had not received the truth in the love of it. Conscience and the Bible must cease to be what they now are, cease at least to possess the mutual force and respondency they have been wont to exercise, ere so godless a power could rise to the ascendant in Christendom. It may even be said, the religious susceptibilities of men, in the false direction as well as the true, would need to have sustained a paralysis alike unprecedented and incredible. And, besides, the historical connexion would be broken which the passages, bearing on the antichristian apostacy, plainly establish between the present and the future. In what already existed the apostles descried the germ, the incipient workings of what was hereafter more fully to develop itself; while the antichrist now suggested to our apprehension, if it should ever attain to a substantive existence, would stand in no proper affinity to the false doctrine and corruptions of the apostolic age. It would be a strictly novel phenomenon.
It were out of place, however, to prosecute the subject further here, where exegetical investigations are what chiefly demand attention. For those who wish to see the subject viewed more in its doctrinal and historical aspects, I must refer them to Prophecy, Viewed in Respect to its Distinctive Features, etc., p. 359, sq., from which some of the last preceding pages have been mainly taken. It will be enough here to state my conviction which may be readily inferred from the preceding remarks, that the conditions of the Scriptural problem respecting the antichrist, have met their fullest, and incomparably most systematic and general fulfilment in the corruptions of Popery. And, in as far as any other forms of evil, either now existing, or yet to arise, may be comprehended under the same designation, it can only be because they shall contain a substantially similar disfiguration of the truth, and undue exaltation of the creature into the place and prerogatives of Godhead.
