01-27-2021, 11:15 PM
Antichrist According to Saint Paul's Epistles
In 2 Thess. 2 :3-12 Saint "Paul merely recalls here, with a few allusions, some features of his oral preaching. He takes it for granted that the Thessalonians are familiar with these ideas, for the instructions given to the neophytes always included a chapter on the last things associated with the parousia. (1) The Apostle contents himself with refreshing their memory of them. He formerly taught orally, and now he repeats in writing -but in terms the conciseness of \vhich makes them enigmatical fer us -that the last day is to be preceded by two great crises -the apostasy and the appearance of Antichrist. He speaks of both as of things well known which do not need explanation.
"The apostasy indicates certainly a religious defection, a revolt against God or his representatives. It appears to be closely connected with the acts and wonders wrought by the great adversary. The latter, formally distinguished from Satan, who lends him his aid and uses him as an agent, is described with the traits and characteristics of the persons of whom he is the antitype. He will lift himself up above all that is God or is called God, like Antiochus Epiphanes; he will give himself out for God and will wish to be treated as God, like the Prince of Tyre in Ezechiel and the King of Babylon in Isaias; he will sit in the very Temple of God, like the abomination of desolation predicted by Daniel.
"These reminders are not so much new prophecies as allusions to old texts; it is not necessary to expect the literal verification of them, they are symbols realizable according to a law of proportion unknown to us. When we read that the Lord Jesus 'will destroy the wicked one with the spirit
(breath) of his mouth,' these words recall to us the way in which the Son of David, according to Isaias, is to destroy impiety; but what can we conclude from them as to the real way in which those things will take place? What is said, aside from figures cf speech, is that Antichrist will work false miracles, signs and wonders, will seduce a great many souls, and also cause a schism in the Church, but that he will finally be conquered, and that his fall will be the signal for the parousia.
"In one point only does Paul go beyond his predecessors. He speaks of an obstacle which hinders the immediate coming of Antichrist, and gives us the following description of it: It is a person or something personified (masculine), and at the same time a physical or moral force (neuter). The obstacle is already active and it checks the mystery of iniquity; it prevents the advance of the wicked one. As soon as this obstacle disappears the field will be open to Antichrist whose appearance seems likely to precede but shortly the appearance of the Son of God. What is this obstacle? The Thessalonians had learned what it is from the mouth of the Apostle, but we are ignorant of it now, and everything leads us to suppose that we shall always be ignorant of it. The proverbial obscurity of this passage has given rise to innumerable solutions.
"With brotherly unanimity, Albigenses, Waldenses, Hussites, the disciples of Wyclif, of Luther and Calvin, and ancient and modern Anglicans, down to the nineteenth century, have seen in Antichrist the Pope and in the obstacle which opposes the triumph of the former, first the Roman Emperor and later the German Emperor. In 1518, when the first ideas of revolt were fermenting in him, Luther had a slight suspicion that the Pope might indeed be Antichrist; in 1519, he was almost sure of it, and at the end of that year, when the rupture with Rome was complete, he had become entirely certain of it. Ten years later, he was indignant that the Augsburg confession had made no mention of such a fundamental article of faith. The mistake was remedied at Smalkalde, where it was declared that 'the Pope is the true Antichrist who has elevated himself against Christ and above Him.'
"The only divergence among the Protestants is that some have admitted two Antichrists -one for the East, namely Mohammed and Islam; the other for the West, the Pope and the Papacy. One balder commentator has even discovered that if the Pope is always Antichrist, of course the mystery of iniquity is Jesuitism, while the temple of God is the pure Lutheran doctrine, and the obstacle which resists the advent, not of Antichrist, as the text of St. Paul requires, but of Jesus, is still the Pope. It is not long since the Lutherans, Calvanists and Anglicans gave up this exegesis, which was for them more sacred than the most solemn definition of faith is for us. So difficult to uproot are the prejudices of sect and caste, strengthened by habit and education!
"As for the rationalists, they all declare that the prophecy of St. Paul has not been fulfilled and never will be. It is only a dream of the Apostle. But when they try to say precisely what the object of this dream is, they are so divided that it is impossible to find two of them with the same opinion.
"Nor can we say that Catholic commentators are any more agreed. However, in spite of infinite divergences of detail, they almost all regard the parousia as the personal return of Jesus Christ coming to judge the living and the dead; they see in Antichrist an individual, although St. Augustine thinks rather of a tendency; in the apostasy they see a defection and a revolt, either religious or political, or both at the same time; in the mystery of iniquity, either Nero and the persecutors, or heretics and schismatics; in the temple of God, either the Temple of Jerusalem rebuilt or the Christian Church; finally, in the obstacle, they see either the Roman Empire or its heir, the Christian State. But what State today constructs a dyke against the invasion of evil? In despair of finding any other solution, some are forced to hold that it is the faith still living in many hearts or the command to preach the Gospel throughout the world.
"Not only is the 'obstacle' not yet found, but we doubt whether it has ever been looked for in the right direction. Paul keeps to the ideas of Jewish and Christian eschatology. Like Daniel and St. John, he describes a conflict between good and evil, which has its echo on the earth, but the scene and principal seat of which are elsewhere. It is, in fact, Satan who begins it and maintains it, helping his tool with all his might. The antagonist must be a power of the same order. In the prophecy of Daniel it is the commander of the heavenly hosts, the chief of the people of God, Michael, who takes up the cause of the holy nation, especially at the time of the great tribulation and on the eve of the resurrection of the dead. In St. John it is still Michael at the head of his angels who fights against the Dragon, the old Serpent, Lucifer, the Devil, Satan, and who finally wins the victory for Christ.
"The struggle between Michael and Satan goes on through the centuries. There is no need of interrogating the Apocrypha -the Book of Enoch, the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, or the Apocalypse of Moses -to know what a leading role the Archangel Michael is to play at the last day. It is he, according to St. Paul -the thing is scarcely doubtful -who will give the signal for the resurrection and the judgment. Will it not be also he -the protector first of the Synagogue and then cf the Church -. who with his legions will bar the passage of the powers of hell until the fullness of time? All the features of Paul's description are applicable to him; a personal being, he commands an army and represents a force; he is immortal, and his fight against Satan, begun in the apostolic epoch, runs on through history to its final climax. If his momentary disappearance signified a defeat or a destruction this character would not be applicable to him, but the Apostle's words do not mean this, and need not be thus understood. Until the baffled exegetes have found a better solution it is here that we shall seek for the mysterious 'obstacle' that retards the appearance of Antichrist." (Fernand Prat, S.J., The Theology of St. Paul, 1927. Vol. I, pp. 79-83).
(1) Second coming of Christ.