The life and work of St. Paul

IBB MAN 07 snr 727
the growth of heresy ; or () individually, Nero, or some Roman Emperor, Simon Magus,
or Simon the son of Gioras ; and they see " the check " generally in the Roman Emperor,
or the Jewish Law, or spiritual gifts, 1 or the time appointed by Qod ;* or individually in
some Emperor ( e.g., Claudius=qui claudit=4 jearlx")>* or James the Just, 4 or in St.
Paul himself I
(ii.) Those who have taken the distantly prophetical view of the passage explain tho
Apostasy of the Man of Sin to be, (a) generally, the Papacy, or the Reformation, or
Rationalism, or something as yet undeveloped ; or (P) individually, Mahomet, or Luther,
or Napoleon, or some future personal Antichrist; while they see " the check" either, aa
above, in the Roman Empire, or in the German Empire, or, more generally still, in the
fabric of human polity.
(iii.) Finally, those who take an entirely broad and subjective view of the passage, see
'
in it only a vague forecast of that which finds its fulfilment in all Christian, and, indeed,
in all secular, history, of the counter working of two opposing forces, good and evil,
Christ and Antichrist, the Jctser tSbh and the Jetser-ha-rd, a lawless violence and a
restraining power.
Now, of all these interpretations one alone can be regarded as reasonably certain
namely, that which views "the check" as the Roman Empire, 5 and "the checker" aa
the Roman Emperor. This may be regarded as fairly established, and has received the
widest acceptance, first, because it fulfils the conditions of being something present and
intelligible ; secondly, because we see an obvious reason why it should have been only
hinted at, since to express it would have been a positive danger both to the writer and
the community;' and, thirdly, because, as Bishop Wordsworth has pointed out, the
Epistle was from the first publicly read, and the Thessalonians must have attached a
meaning to it, and that meaning has been handed down to us traditionally from the
earliest times.? Whatever may have been the wild vagaries of theological rancour,]
expressing itself in the form of Biblical commentary, the early Fathers, at least, were
almost unanimous in regarding "the restraining power" as being the Roman Empire, 9
and the " restrainer " as being some Roman Emperor. 9 And it seems obvious that one
main feature in the blasphemous self-exaltation and opposition to God which is to be a
mark of the Man of Sin is suggested by the insane and sacrilegious enormities of Caligula
(A.D. 40) thirteen years earlier, as well as by the persecutions of Antiochus Epiphanes.
Other traits may have been suggested by the pretensions and sorceries of Simon Magus
1 Chrysostom. Theodoret (i rov Ceou Spot). '
'1
iif feUJ -j
Hitzig very precariously. ... Wieseler, Chrm. 268278.
"
Qufi nisi Ilomanus status T " (Tort. De Beiurr. Cam.
"
24). Clausulam saeculi acerbitates
horrendas comminentem Roman! Imperil commeatu scimus ratardarl" (Id. Apol. 82). This was all
the more natural, because the Roman Empire was regarded aa the Fourth Kingdom of Daniel. Prof.
Jowctt objects (1) that he could not have expected it to be so soon swept away ; and (2) that it is
not in pari matend. But for (1) see 1 Thess. L 10 ; v. 4 ; 1 Cor. xvi. 22, &c. ; and (2) St. Paul daily saw
the bearing of the Empire on the spread and position of Christianity.
i
'. St. Paul had already found this by experience, even though his conversation with the Thessalonians
had been comparatively private. But when the Church grew, and heathens dropped not unfrequently
into its meetings, It would have been [most compromising to them to speak of the
destruction of the Roman Empire contemplated as a near event.
i The Rabbis held a similar view. One of them "
said, The Messiah will not come till the world
Jias'become all white with leprosy (Lev. xiii. 13) by the Roman Empire embracing Christianity."
\Sanhedrin, t. 97, 1 ; Soteh, f. 49, 2 ; (Amsterd. ed.).
8 So Tert. De Resurr. Carnit, 24 ; Ireii. v. 25, 26 ; Aug. De Civ. Del. xx, 19 ; Jer. Qu. xL ad Algat;
Lact. vii. 15, &c.
i Claudius was Emperor when the Epistle was written, early in A.D. 54. Whether there is any
Allusion to his name in the word KCLTC'XCO I am not prepared to say. Kern believes that Nero ia
intended by "the Lawless," and[therefore (seeing that the first five years of Nero were that "goldea
quinquennium," which Roman writers so highly praise) concludes that the Epistle is spurious.
iRev. xvii. 10, 11, refers to a later time, and possibly to the strangely prevalent notion that Nero was
not really dead, but would in due time re-appear. The expressions used are evidently coloured by
the picture of Antiochus Epiphanes in Dan. xL He is called " a man of sin " (arrjp apaprwAfc) in
1 Mace, ii 48, 02.