2. The Antichrist as represented by our Lord and his Apostles.
1. Here, we naturally look first to the discourses of our Lord; but as these were chiefly intended to lay the foundations, as to doctrine and duty, of the Christian church, and unfold the calling and prospects of her real members, they contain comparatively little that bears on our present subject. Not unfrequently they point, though in a quite general way, to the difficulties and dangers through which his genuine followers should have to pass, the violence and oppression they should have to meet, and the corruptions and counterfeits that should rise up in the midst of them and continue till the time of the end. Such, in particular, are the parables of the tares and the wheat, the labourers in the vineyard, and the importunate widow. Almost the only information of a more specific kind contained in our Lord's discourses regarding the usurpation of the world upon the church, is to be found in what he says of the false pretenders to divine light and power, and the dangerous ascendency they were to acquire. A warning on this head had been thrown out in the Sermon on the Mount: "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheeps' clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves" (Matt. vii. 15). But it is repeated, and more pointedly pressed in the discourse respecting the last times in Matt, xxiv.; first at ver. 11, "and many false prophets shall arise, and deceive many;" and again at ver. 24, "There shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect." From the connection in which the words are spoken, there can be no doubt, that they taught the disciples to look for the appearance of such characters among the signs of the approaching downfall of the old Jewish constitution; and from the relation which this bore to the time of the end, in the more extended sense, we are warranted to expect, that the sign would repeat itself in the latter stages of the world's history. Both points, however, are so much more fully brought out by the apostles of our Lord in their addresses and epistles, that we pass at once to what proceeded from them upon the subject.
2. There is an historical passage, which it is not unimportant, at the outset, to notice, since it serves to throw some light on the import of one of the terms used by our Lord. In Acts xiii. 6, the Jew, Barjesus, who was with Sergius Paulus, the proconsul of Cyprus, and who there withstood the preaching of the gospel, and sought to turn him from the faith, is called a false prophet (***). And in still farther explanation of his real character, he is called Elymas the magos—two words, indeed, of the same import, only the one Aramaic (or Arabic) and the other Greek—Greek, at least by adoption, though originally Persian. Elymas (from âlim, wise), and magos, both alike denote the man of wisdom in the Eastern sense; that is, a person addicted to the study of philosophy, and furnished with the skill of secret lore. It did not necessarily convey the sinister meaning of our magician or sorcerer, but comprehended also the better wisdom of that higher learning, which was the common pursuit of eastern sages. In apostolic times, however, this learning had become so much identified with astrology and the magic arts, that too often, as evidently in the case of this Barjesus, the persons who professed it were mere soothsayers and sorcerers. Prophets of this low and reprobate description swarmed in the countries around Judea; and notwithstanding the strong denunciations in the law against all magical arts and false divinations, they were found also in great numbers among the Jews. It was, indeed, one of the crying sins of the times, a proof of great hardness of heart and depravation of manners; and there can be no doubt that the wonders wrought by Jesus and His disciples would, with a certain class of minds, give a fresh impulse to the evil. Such a singular manifestation of the true wisdom, with its attendant power, could not fail to produce a general fermentation and excitement, which would give occasion to the display of the false; and as our Lord foretold, so it happened, that many false prophets arose, and deceived many.
The account we have in Josephus of the last crimes and troubles of Judea, serves also to show, how large a part prophetical delusions played in that fearful tragedy. But the spirit of error did not work altogether without the territory of the church: it was always striving to press inwards. The apostle John even speaks of great numbers having been misled by it. "Beloved," he says, "believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world" (1 John iv. 1). He does not precisely say, that they had proceeded from within the Christian community; but it is clear from what follows, that he had chiefly in view the false teaching, which had begun to appear partly within, and partly, also, on the outskirts of the church. For, he presently states, that those spirits are not of God, which do not confess Christ to have come in the flesh, and that such also are of the spirit of antichrist that was to come. So that, according to this apostle, false prophets, unsound teachers, and antichrist, belonged to the same category, and were but different forms or operations of the same spirit. Indeed, as regards the Christian church, the false prophesying warned against, could have found no great scope for its exercise excepting in the form of teaching untrue or corrupt doctrines. Hence, it was the prevalence of false teachers (***) in New Testament times, corresponding to false prophets in the Old, of which the apostle Peter so earnestly admonished believers in his Second Epistle (chap. ii.), and whose disastrous influence he so strikingly portrays. It was of the same, also, that St Paul spake in his address to the elders of the church of Ephesus, when he announced it as certain, that after his departure "men should arise from among themselves, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them; that grievous wolves also should enter in among them, not sparing the flock" (Acts xx. 29, 30); and many parts of his epistles bear evidence to the same apprehensions and foresight of evil pressing upon his mind. The only question, therefore, is, how far, or in what respects this false prophesying or corrupt teaching in the church coincided with the false Christs and the spirit of antichrist also predicted to arise?
It was Jesus alone who foretold the appearance of false Christs. By such can only be understood false pretenders to the name and character of Messiah. Precisely as false prophets are those who laid claim to gifts they did not really possess, false Christs must denote such as would assume to be what Jesus of Nazareth alone was. In the strict sense, therefore, false Christs could only arise outside the Christian church, and among those who had rejected the true; and in so far as they did so, they verified the word of Christ, "I am come in my Father's name, and ye received me not; if another should come in his own name, him ye will receive" (John v. 43). The most noted example of the kind, as well as the earliest, was the case of Barchochbas (the son of a star), as he chose to designate himself, with reference to the prophecy of Balaam, and who drew multitudes after him to destruction. False hopes and pretensions, however, of a similar kind have been ever re newing themselves among the Jews, though circumstances have not admitted of their reaching such an imposing magnitude, and entailing such a common disaster.
But we cannot altogether limit our Lord's declaration respecting false Christs to such merely Jewish pretenders, especially as it was a declaration made more immediately for the instruction and warning of His own disciples, and for them the danger of being seduced by persons of that description must have been comparatively little. We are rather to conceive that in this, as well as in other things noted in His discourse of the latter times, He wished them to regard the immediate future as but the beginning of a remoter end—a beginning that should in substance be often repeating itself, though the particular form might undergo many alterations. It matters little, any one may perceive, whether men might or might not call themselves by the name of Christ, and openly set up a rival claim to the faith of mankind. If they should assume to be, or to do what by exclusive right and appointment belongs to Him, they then become, if not in name, at least in reality, false Christs. Should any one undertake to give a revelation of divine things higher than that communicated by Christ, and different from His—to propound essentially other terms to the favour and blessing of heaven than those which proceed on the foundation of His perfect atonement—or to conduct the world to its destined consummation in light and blessedness otherwise than through the acknowledgment of His name and the obedience of His gospel—such an one would as really act the part of a false Christ as if he openly disallowed the claims of Jesus, and challenged to himself what rightly belongs to the Son of God. Hegesippus, therefore (in Eusebius' Eccl. Hist. iv. 22), had perfect right to include, among the false Christs predicted by our Lord, the early heresiarchs and their followers—the Simonians, Marcionists, Valentinians, Basilidians, etc.—"from whom," he says, "sprung the false Christs, and false prophets, and false apostles, who divided the unity of the church by the introduction of corrupt doctrines against God, and against His church." While, in the teaching of such parties, a certain deference was paid to Christ, and some elements of the truth of His gospel were embraced in their views, yet in the general aim and tendency of these views they undoubtedly sought to supersede Christ and contravene the spirit of his gospel. And the same substantially may be said of not a few persons and systems of later times—such as Mahomet, and the advocates in every age of nature's sufficiency to reach for itself a position of acceptance with God, and of honour in His kingdom. These, in reality, disown the claims 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 should assume, and the many different quarters whence they might be expected to arise, in the warning of our Lord respecting them, "If they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert, go not forth; behold, he is in the secret chambers, believe it not."
It is Christ alone, however, as we have said, who speaks of false Christs. Elsewhere, we read of antichrists or the antichrist, and have various descriptions given us of the corrupt and pestilential power which the term denotes. What, then, precisely does it denote? Does it imply that the power or party indicated by it should, in some form or another, arrogate Christ's peculiar office and work, or does it simply express a spirit of contrariety and opposition to His doctrine or kingdom? Nothing, in this respect, can be gathered with certainty from the word itself, for the preposition (***), which is here used in composition with Christ, alike expresses formal opposition to an object, and the supplanting of it by taking its place; and there is a series of compounds, in which the one idea, and a series in which the other idea, is embodied. [12] It is only, therefore, by the usage of the word, and the comparison of parallel passages, that we can determine in what specific sense it is to be understood, and what kind of contrariety to the truth of Christ it was meant to designate. The first passage in St John's Epistle, by whom alone the word is used, stands literally thus: "Little children, it is the last hour (or season); and as ye heard that the antichrist cometh, even now many have become antichrists (*** *** ***), whence we know it is the last hour" (chap. ii. 18). Here there is no precise definition of what the term antichrist imports, but the assertion chiefly of a fact, that the idea involved in it 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 the 22nd verse. The apostle had stated that no lie is of the truth; and he then continues, "Who is the liar? (***, 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 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 heathenism, and Judaism, and unbelief generally, which was certainly not the meaning of the apostle. The denial of the truth by the antichrist was made in 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 ver. 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, still further, "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 (chap. iv. 3), he says, "Every spirit that confesseth not Jesus Christ come (***) in the flesh, is not of God; and this is that spirit of antichrist whereof ye have heard that it should come (literally, cometh), and now already is it in the world;" and still again, when he says in his Second Epistle, ver. 7, "For many deceivers have entered into the world, who confess not Jesus Christ coming in flesh (***); this is the deceiver and the antichrist." 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 truth, or abstraction of its essential elements, as turned it into a lie. And when farther 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 unmistakeable 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 generally by 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. Ixxiii. 13, and referring to 1 John iv. 3, asks, "how can they do spiritual and divine things, who were enemies of God, and whose breast the spirit of antichrist has possessed." On the same passage, Ecumenius 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 John Damasc. 1. 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, in answer to the question, whom did the apostle call antichrists? though he extends the term to comprehend every one who is contrary to Christ, and is not a true member of His body, yet he places in the first rank, as most directly meant, "all heretics and schismatics." It is plain, indeed, that the existing antichrists of John, the abettors and exponents of the ***?, or lie, under a Christian profession, the deniers of what is emphatically the truth, belonged to the very same class with the grievous wolves and false brethren of Paul, of whom he so solemnly forewarned the Ephesian elders, and of whom also he wrote in his Epistles to Timothy (1st Ep. iv. 1, 2nd Ep. iii. 1), as persons who should depart from the faith, teach many heretical doctrines, and bring in upon the church perilous times. 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 the future growth. The one announced the evil as coming, the other declared it had already come; reminding believers also of their having previously heard (with reference, doubtless, to the prophetic utterances of Paul), 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. In so far, they might 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. [13]
Assuming this, however, the question still remains, whether we are to regard the idea of the antichrist as exhausted in those heretical corrupters of the gospel in the apostolic age, and their successors in future 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 and wickedness 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. The Fathers generally were of opinion, that those were but preliminary exemplifications of some far greater embodiment of the antichristian spirit, and commonly thought of a monarch (like Antiochus) of heaven-daring impiety, and unscrupulous disregard of everything sacred and divine, who, after pursuing a course of appalling wickedness and violence, should be destroyed by the personal manifestation of Christ in glory. The Fathers, however, were in an unfavourable position for taking a comprehensive view of this, as well as of other points belonging to unfulfilled prophecy. [14] And this view, besides, was founded, not simply, nor even chiefly, upon the passages above referred to in the Epistles of John, but (along with what is written in the Apocalypse) on the words of St Paul, in 2 Thess. ii. 3-10. Amid many crude speculations and conflicting views upon this passage, none of them doubted, as Augustine states (De Civ. Dei, xx. 19), that it referred to antichrist, who was understood to be indicated by "the man of sin," and "the 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 (***, ver. 3); by which we can only think 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 connection with the church's degeneracy. Nor was the commencement of the evil in this case, any more than in 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 forewarned the disciples concerning it (ver. 5, 7); 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 entirely opposed to Christ's cause; so in the passage before us, the power personified and described, is designated the opposer (6 ***, ver. 4), one who sets himself against God, and arrogates the highest prerogatives and honours. 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"—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 have to their view the semblance of the truth, but in reality should be its opposite. Not only so, but the temple of God is represented as the theatre of this impious, artful, and wicked ascendency (ver. 4); and in respect to the Christian church, the apostle Paul knows of no temple but that church itself, nor can any other be understood here, as even Augustine did not fail to perceive. [15] It is the only kind of temple usurpation in Christian times, which can 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 assorting 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 us) can be more certain on exegetical grounds, than that they cannot be made to harmonize with the Romish opinion—which Hengstenberg and others in the Protestant church have been seeking to revive—the opinion that would find the evil 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 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 church or temple of God, and usurp religious homage there, the attempt, as is well known, did not succeed; nor did it even assume 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 proper supremacy. In the operations of that power also we perceive nothing that could fitly be designated "a mystery of iniquity"—the iniquity 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; failing, as it does, to establish the necessary correspondence between the leading features of the description and the supposed realization in providence.
Another view, however, has of late been rising into notice, which, if well founded, would also 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 light, 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 says, on the passage in Thessalonians, "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 all 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 in 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—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 realising 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. Dr Trench appears substantially to adopt this view, though he expresses himself more briefly and also more vaguely on 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 is certainly not to be denied, 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; though nothing has yet occurred which can be said to have brought it within the bounds of the probable. But, 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 under consideration. Such an antichrist as that now depicted, the impersonation of unblushing wickedness and atheism, has every thing 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, that antichristian power 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 connection would be broken, which the passages, bearing on the antichristian apostacy, plainly establish between the present and the future. In what already was, the apostles descried the germ, the incipient workings of what was hereafter more fully to develope itself; while the antichrist now suggested to our apprehensions, 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 moral phenomenon altogether novel.
The tendency, we believe, on the part of evangelical writers, to fall into such mistaken views of the antichrist, has arisen in good measure from isolating too much some parts of the apostle's description (particularly 2 Thess. ii. 3, 4), and overlooking as well the agreements, as the necessary differences, between the ultimate and the typical antichrist. The part of the description more immediately referred to, consists almost entirely of Daniel's words and imagery; and when the two are viewed in their proper relations, considerable light is thrown on the import of the later revelation. In the first place, it holds alike of both, that the opposing and blaspheming power was to have its root and the occasion of its manifestation within the professing church. Even in the case of Antiochus, though he stood outside, yet the party whom he represented, and through whom alone he obtained the power and the opportunity to practise his enormities, had their place within; he merely gave a head to the evil that had been working in Israel, and brought it forth into full efflorescence. So also in the apostle's description all is connected with the rise and progress of iniquity in the church; viewed complexly it is "the apostacy," beginning in men's failure to receive the truth in love, and having pleasure in unrighteousness; so that the revelation of what is called emphatically "the wicked," or "the man of sin," can be nothing but the growth of the internal corruption to its proper magnitude—assuming, as it were, its head and crown. The distinctive characteristics, therefore, must have been the same throughout. Then, in regard to the more offensive part of these characteristics, the one power also was the prototype of the other; and in neither case is absolute atheism or utter irreligiousness meant to be ascribed to it. It was said of Antiochus, the typical antichrist, that he should do according to his will, should exalt himself, should magnify himself above every god, and speak marvellous things against the God of gods; though we know, that he did all as a professed and zealous religionist. His course is described, after the common manner of prophecy, not by its formal, but by its real character; so that his fiery zeal for Jupiter is resolved into its true source—his own arbitrary self-will and frenzied devotion to the false religion and corrupt manners of Greece, which only sought for itself a cover in an affected regard for the honour of a particular god. He really magnified himself above every god, because in the service of heathenism he did what was contrary to the genius of heathenism itself, as well as outrageously dishonouring to the God of heaven. And it is undoubtedly in the same way, that St Paul's application of those terms to the New Testament antichrist ought to be understood; they should be held descriptive of its real, rather than its formal character. The self-exaltation of this power above all that is called God or worshipped, so far from excluding a show of religion, might rather be expected to involve this as its necessary condition—the direct and naked exhibition of such a spirit being, from the nature of things, fitted to provoke indignation and ensure defeat. The more lofty and towering its pretensions, the more indispensable should it find a religious pretext to carry them out. And hence the scene of its operations is expressly laid in the temple of God, as something essentially significant of their nature: "So that as God he sits"—not simply "and he does sit," as a distinct part of his proceedings, or an aggravation of their impious character, but of necessity he takes this course, in order to make good his self-exalting projects: "So that, as God he sits in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God." In short, the church was the requisite sphere for such a power developing itself; in this alone could it reach the height of presumption and God-dishonouring worldliness it aspires after; and consequently, the opposition to God and assumption of divine prerogatives must be virtual only, and not formal or professed; there must needs be the show of religion, as well as the setting up of a standard, and the encouragement of practices, that are opposed to the spirit of the Bible. [16] Then, thirdly, considering the change which Christianity has introduced, and the differences subsisting between Old and New Testament times, while substantially the same acts are ascribed to the typical and the antitypical antichrist, the manner of their accomplishment must be understood to have not only allowed, but required some diversity. This is common to relations generally between Old and New Testament times. In the one, both the religion and the history partook much of the local, the outward, and the individual: while in the other, it is the inward, the general, the diffusive, which chiefly predominate; and hence things which might, while the old relations stood, have been transacted in a particular spot, or embodied in a single individual, must now, though occupying relatively the same place, be quite otherwise carried into execution. Since the Christian church, which is confined to no land or region, has taken the place of the ancient temple, and is called by its name, no individual could do in it precisely what was done by Antiochus at Jerusalem. The corresponding power, which is described as that of an individual, because it was to be informed and animated by one spirit, could admit of being so described, only by being viewed collectively; in reality, it could no more, than the temple it was to usurp, and in great part also occupy, be simply local and personal. And, indeed, even in former times, Antiochus was rather the exponent and representative of an evil, that had spread far and wide in Israel, than an independent power; but much more must this be the case with what should correspond to it in Christian times. So that, as antichrist was shown even in the apostolic age to be a collective designation, such terms as "the wicked," "the man of sin," "the son of perdition," must have been intended to bear a like extent of meaning. They all point back to the vision of Daniel, in which the divine kingdom had its representation in one like a Son of Man; and indicate, that this apostate power would strive to imitate the man-like appearance of the other—would profess to be what it really was; but so far from being, like it, the image of the spiritual and divine, should be rather the impersonation of the sensual and the devilish. It would be a son, indeed, but like Judas, a son of perdition; a manly rather than a beastly form, but one gathering up and garnishing with a deceitful show the worse elements of man's fallen condition, and so, incurring the doom of the heaviest condemnation. [17]
On the whole, then, the conclusion which forces itself upon our minds from a full and impartial consideration of the apostolic testimony, is that the antichristian apostacy cannot be identified either with the heathenism of ancient Rome, or with any conceivable form of infidelity or atheism yet to be developed. The conditions of the prophetical enigma are not satisfied by either of these views. So much for the negative side of the question. And in regard to the positive, if we may not say (as, indeed, we by no means think it can in truth be said) that in Romanism and the papacy the anticipated evil has found its only realization; yet we cannot for a moment doubt, that it is there we are to look for the most complete, systematic, and palpable embodiment of its grand characteristics. There, we perceive, as nowhere else, either to the same extent, or with the same firm determination of purpose, a mass of errors and abuses "grafted on the Christian faith, in opposition to, and in outrage of, its genius and its commands, and taking a bold possession of the Christian church." We see "the doctrines of celibacy, and of a ritual abstinence from meats, against the whole spirit of the gospel, set up in the church by an authority claiming to have universal obedience; a man of sin exalting himself in the temple of God, and openly challenging rights of faith and honour due to God; advancing himself by signs and lying wonders, and turning his pretended miracles to the disproof and discredit of some of the chief doctrines or precepts of Christianity; and this system of ambition and falsehood succeeding, established with the deluded conviction of men still holding the profession of Christianity." [18] All this meets so remarkably the conditions of St Paul's prophecy, and in its history and growth also from the apostolic age so strikingly accords with the warnings given of its gradual and stealthy approach, that, wherever else the antichrist may exist, they must be strangely biassed, who do not discern its likeness in the Romish apostacy. We may the rather rest in the certainty of this conclusion, as it is matter of historical certainty, that ages before the Reformation, and, indeed, all through the long conflict that was ever renewing itself on the part both of secular and spiritual opponents against Rome, the Pope was often denounced as the antichrist, and man of sin. But it is one thing to find a great and palpable realization of the idea there, and another thing to hold, that it is the only realization to be found in the past or the future. And if Romanists have made void the testimony of Scripture in rejecting the one application, we fear Protestants have too often grievously narrowed it by excluding every other. Of this, however, we shall have a fitter occasion to speak, when we have examined that remaining portion of New Testament Scripture, which treats of the same subject, and in a way peculiarly its own. We refer, of course, to the Apocalypse
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