The life and work of St. Paul

723 APPENDIX.
and similar widely-accredited impostors. Nero became to the Christian Church some
years afterwards the veiy impersonation of their ideal Antichrist.
But to form any conception as to St. Paul's meaning, besides being guided by his
belief of the probable nearness of the Advent, and by the necessity that what he said
should have some meaning and value to his hearers, we must consider (a) the views of the
age ; (P) the symbols he uses ; and (y) his own subsequent language when he alludes to
any similar topic.
Turning, then, to these, we find that (a) St. Paul was fully aware that, in the then
present dispensation, the triumph of Christ was not to be final or complete. He may
well have heard of Christ's solemn question, "Nevertheless, when the Son of Man
cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?" 1 Even thus early in his career his prescient
eye may have observed the traces of that Judaic and Antichristian faction which waa
to undo so much of his work, and embitter so many years of his life, and to whom he
applies tke sternest language. Already he may have noticed the germs of the various
forms of Gnosticism, of which, in his Epistle to Timothy, he describes the " devilish
doctrines " in language which recalls some of his expressions in this 2
place. And the
views of the early Christians, as expressed by other Apostles, were all founded on warnings
which Christ had uttered, and all pointed in the same direction. 3 That St. Paul
should have throAvn his forebodings into the concrete was natural to one so familiar with
Old Testament prophecy, 4 so given to personification, and so trained to the expectation
of a Messiah who should be the personal victor over all iniquity in the person of the
Arch-foe, the KashA, the Antichrist. That this personification should also in part have
taken its colour from the monstrous wickedness and blasphemous follies of emperors like
Tiberius and Caligula, was exactly what we should have expected ; and, indeed, the
hopes and fears of the Jews had acted on the world of heathendom, which in its turn
reacted upon them. It is a most interesting confirmation of this fact that the Jews gave
to Antichrist the name of Armittus (D^-IN)-
Thus> in the Targum of Jonathan on Isa.
xi. 4, we " **
find, With the breath of His lips shall He destroy the wicked Armillus ; and
In the Jerusalem Targum on Numb. xt 26, and Deut. xxxiv. 2, we are told of Armalgus
the Impious. This seems to be an allusion to the bracelets (a/rmiMce) which, with utter
defiance of all public dignity, were worn in public by Caligula. 6 "We see, then, what
St. Paul's anticipations at this moment were. He thought that ere long the Roman
Empire, so far at any rate as it was represented by the reigning Emperor, would be swept
away; that thereupon the existing tendencies of iniquity and apostasy, whether in
Judaism or in the Church itself, would be concentrated in the person of one terrible
opponent, and that the destruction of this opponent would be caused by the personal
Advent of the Lord. At this time portents and presages of the most direful character
were in the air. The hideous secrets of the Imperial Court were darkly whispered among
the people. There were rumours of monstrous births, of rains of blood, of unnatural
omens. 6 Though Claudius had been the last to learn the infamous orgies of his wife
Messalina, and perhaps the last to suspect the murderous designs of his wife and niece
Agrippina, yet by this time even he was not unaware that his life hung on a thread. Little
was as yet known of Nero in the provinces, but it might have been anticipated, before
the illusive promise of the early part of his reign, that the son of such a father and auch a
mother could only turn out to be the monster which bis father expected, and which he
did ultimately turn out to be. If St. Paul anticipated that the present condition of the
Luke xvliL 8.
1 Tim. Iv. 1 (cf. 2 Tim, 1. 15 ; 111. 19 ; Col. IL 8, 16 19 ; Acte xx. 29).
Luke xviii. 8 ; 1 John iv. 3 ; 2 Pet. 11. 1, 2 iii. ; 3 ; Rev. xiii. and passim ; and the Epistle of
*
.
Ezek. xxxviii. 16, 17.
Suet. CBH0. 6. " AroiiOattu in publicum processit" (Hitzig., Gesch. Is. 583). The anniversary
of his death was observed as a festival (Derenbourg, Palest. 208). Others, however, connect
Armillits with tm^Aaos, or " Romulus " (Hamburger. Talm, Worterb, a. v.).
* Tac. Ann. xii. U : Soot. Claud. 43 : Dion Cass. be. 84. 86,