The Holy Scripture - english version B.indd - Sabbat

Pre-Reformation Interpreters.323What then was the view of the early Church? Look at the words of Tertullian.Quoting Thessalonians, he says: „Know you know what detains that he mightbe revealed in his time, for the mystery of iniquity does already work; only hewho now hinders must hinder until he be taken out of the way. What obstacleis there but the Romans state; the falling away of which, by being scatteredinto ten kingdoms, shall introduce antichrist, ... that the beast antichrist,with the false prophet, may wage war on the Church of God?“ 1In his magnificent „Apology,“ addressed to the rulers of the Roman empire,Tertullian says that the Christian Church - not himself, mark, but the ChristianChurch - prayed for the emperors, and for the stability of the empire of Rome,because they knew „that a mighty shock impending over thewhole earth - in fact, the very end of all things, threatening dreadfulwoes - was only retarded by the continued existence of theroman empire.“ („Apology,“ § 32.)Read the words of Chrysostom in his „Commentary on 2 Thessalonians“:„One may first naturally inquire what is that which withholds, and after thatwould know why Paul expresses this so obscurely, ... ‚he who now lets will let,until he be taken out of the way.‘ That is, when the Roman empire istaken out of the way, the he shall come; and naturally, for as longas the fear of this empire lasts no one will readily exalt himself; but when that isdissolved, he will attack the anarchy, and endeavour to seize upon the governmentboth of men and of God. For as the kingdoms before this were destroyed, that ofthe Babylonians by the Persians, that of the Persians by the Macedonians, thatof the Macedonians by the Romans, so will this be by antichrist, and he byChrist.“Then accounting for Paul‘s reserve in alluding to this point he adds: „Becausehe says this of the Roman empire, he naturally only glanced at it and spokecovertly, for he did not wish to bring upon himself superfluous enmities anduseless dangers. For if he had said that, after a little while, the Roman empirewould be dissolved, they would now immediately have even overwhelmed himas a pestilent person, and all the faithful as living and warring to this end.“(CHRYSOSTOM: Homily IV., „On 2 Thessalonians ii.“)From Irenaeus, who lived close to apostolic times, down to Chrysostom andJerome, the Fathers taught that the power withholding the manifestation of the„man of sin“ was the Roman empire as governed by the Caesars. The Fatherstherefore belong to the historic, and not to the futurist school of interpretation;for futurists imagine that the hindrance to the manifestation of the man of sin iststill in existence, though the Caesars have long since passed away.6. The Fathers held that the fall of Roman empire was imminent, andtherefore the manifestation of antichrist close at hand. Justin Martyr, forexample, one of the earliest of the Fathers, in his „Dialogue with Trypho,“chap. xxxii., says: „He whom Daniel foretells would have dominionfor ‚time and times and a half‘ is already even at the door, about to speakblasphemous and daring things against the Most High.“Cyprian, in his „Exhortation to Martyrdom,“ says: „Since ... the hateful timeof antichrist is already beginning to draw near, I would collect from the sacred