4. THE GREAT APOSTASY AND ANTICHRIST.—The “great apostasy,” i. e. a tremendous defection among the faithful, is described partly as the cause and partly as an effect of the appearance of Antichrist. Both events may be reckoned among the signs that are to precede the Last Judgment, because it is certain that either before or after the conversion of nations and of the Jewish race there will be a great revolt, led by Antichrist, which will reduce the number of the faithful.
a) That a great apostasy will occur before the end of the world we know from St. Paul’s Second Epistle to the Thessalonians.
The congregation at Thessalonica had taken alarm at a spurious letter purporting to come from the Apostle, “as though the day of the Lord were near.” To prove the genuineness of the present epistle, and as a precaution against forgery, St. Paul inserts the following words in his own handwriting: “I, Paul, [send you] this greeting with my own hand. That is the sign in every letter; thus I write.” His references to the end of the world appear rather obscure to us because he adverts to certain things which he had told the Thessalonians by word of mouth and of which we have no knowledge: “Do you not remember that while I was still with you I used to tell you these things?” On one point, however, he is quite clear, viz.: that the “day of the Lord” (ἡ ἡμέρα τοῦ κυρίου
will not come “unless the apostasy first befall, and the man of lawlessness be revealed, the son of perdition.” “Apostasy” (ἡ ἀποστασία, discessio) in this connection can scarcely mean a political revolution, for the whole movement is described as “a mystery of iniquity,” a satanic “seduction to evil for them that are perishing, because they have not entertained the love of the truth unto their salvation. And therefore God sendeth them a working of error, that they should believe that lie, in order that all may be judged that have believed the truth, but have acquiesced in unrighteousness.”
It is true that some older exegetes understood this text as foreshadowing, at least secondarily, a great political upheaval, in particular the fall of the Roman Empire. But neither this catastrophe, nor the Protestant Reformation (1517), nor the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire (1806), have proved to be the discessio predicted by the Apostle.
b) In the passage quoted above St. Paul mentions another sign among those preceding the day of the Lord, viz.: the revelation of the “man of sin,” the “son of perdition,” who is usually called Antichrist.
α
The name Antichrist is not found in the Epistles of St. Paul, but in 1 John 2:18, 22; 4:3; 2 John 7 St. John speaks of “antichrists” in the plural number, but there can be no doubt that he believed in a personal Antichrist. Cfr. 1 John 2:18: “Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist cometh, even now there are become many antichrists: whereby we know that it is the last hour.” This personal Antichrist is to be preceded by messengers who will prepare the way for him and inaugurate his reign. Cfr. 1 John 4:3: “And every spirit that dissolveth Jesus, is not of God: and this is antichrist, of whom you have heard that he cometh, and he is now already in the world.” The Greek text is more definite: καὶ τοῦτό ἐστι τὸ τοῦ ἀντιχρίστου [the work of Antichrist], ὃ [not ὅς] ἀκηκόατε ὅτι ἔρχεται, καὶ νῦν ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ ἐστὶν ἤδη. Evidently the Antichrist predicted by St. John is not merely a pretender, but the incarnate antithesis of our Divine Saviour, and therefore His deadly enemy. Whether “Antichrist” is merely a collective name for certain persons and tendencies, or whether it designates one particular person, a human individual of flesh and blood, cannot be concluded with certainty from the Johannine text. St. Paul, however, is positive on this point. He speaks of Antichrist as “the man of lawlessness,” “the son of perdition,” who “shall oppose and exalt himself against all that is called God” and “seat himself in God’s sanctuary, giving himself out as God.” “And then shall the lawless one be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the breath of his mouth and bring to nought by the manifestation of his coming. But that other’s coming is through Satan’s working [attended] by every [kind of] feat and sign and lying wonder, and by every seduction to evil for them that are perishing.” This graphic description cannot be applied to a mere personification, but points to a concrete individual, and hence we may safely reject the figurative interpretation of “Antichrist,” though it is not necessarily contrary to Catholic teaching.
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