2 Thessalonians 2:4Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Yet whether this is a temporary temptation, bear it, good athletes of Christ. For if all creation will be subjected to dissolution and the form of this world will pass away, is it astonishing that we, who are part of creation, should suffer in the common suffering and be handed over to afflictions? Martyr's crowns await us, brethren. The choirs of confessors are ready to stretch out their hands to you and receive you into their number.

Therefore he will go up into the very temple of God, to sit and show himself that he is as though God. How, then, will he show that he is the true God? Besides the glory and honor with which he will be clothed, he will show it still more by the hostility he will wage against heretical sects. Since he will not incline toward any heresy, through his feigned love for the children of the Church he will make people think that he loves them as true children of the Church. He will come into their temple and sit there as in the temple of truth, to show that he is God. He condemns hypocrisy in pretense, pretending, and puts on the mask of truth deceitfully. He will feign so skillfully that he will capture the people by bodily things and rule the Church under the mask of truth. Since the Savior, intending to save the human race, was born of a Virgin and in human form trampled the enemy by the holy power of His Godhead, so he too devised to assume the form of His coming and deceive us. Our Lord will come to earth on light-bearing clouds, like terrible lightning. But the enemy will not come in this way, because he is an apostate. Truly, his instrument will be born of a defiled virgin. But this does not mean that he will be incarnate. The all-defiled one will come like a thief, in such a form as to deceive all. He will come humble, meek, a hater, as he will say of himself, of unrighteousness, turning away from idols, preferring piety, kind, loving the poor, exceedingly beautiful, steadfast, and gentle to all. He will especially honor the Jewish people, because the Jews will be expecting his coming.

He will try to prove from Scripture that he is Christ.

16. Desolation will draw near when the majority fall into error and renounce true divine worship. Then the day of the Lord will come. The Apostle clearly bears witness to this, calling us to be watchful, as though the day of Christ were already approaching.

"Let no one deceive you in any way, for that day will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition. Who opposes and exalts himself above everything called God or holy, so that he sits in the temple of God as God, presenting himself as God" (2 Thess 2:2-4), and so forth.

17. He will sit in the inner temple of those Jews who will reject Christ. This is not an unshakable temple, but one subject to corruption. It will either be destroyed by unbelief, shattered by the force of wrath, or burned by the fire of passions.

This is the time when the day of the Lord will come, but the days will be shortened for the sake of the elect (Mt 24:22). The first coming of the Lord is for the redemption of sins. The second is for the cessation of sin, to reduce the number of those who have fallen away into the error of unbelief.

18. This is the time of false prophets. This is the time of famine. Remember the days of Elijah, and there you will find the prophets of confusion, Jezebel, famine, and drought. On the history of the Prophet Elijah, see 3 Kgs 17:1-19; 18; 3 Kgs 21:17-28; 4 Kgs 1:3-17; 4 Kgs 2:1-18.

For what reason? Because of the increase of lawlessness and the cooling of love (Mt 24:12). This is the time when the righteous man is in the wilderness, and the impious man is on the throne.

19. There is also another antichrist, the teacher of the first, the devil. With the legions of his army he tries to conquer my Jerusalem, that is, my soul, a soul truly belonging to God, a soul that builds peace.

"Our warfare is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the world rulers of the darkness of this age" (Eph 6:12). Apostasy consists in this: the soul renounces itself. Then even thoughts of the Lord bring it trembling and confusion.

At the time when this antichrist restrains, until he is taken out of the midst (2 Thess 2:7), righteousness is in exile, and lawlessness reigns. Faith will become so rare that the Lord Himself asks, as though in doubt: "When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on earth?" (Lk 18:8).

This may refer either to our lands or to the whole universe. So also elsewhere: "The Lord looked down upon the sons of men, to see if there were any who understood or sought God" (Ps 13:2). God did not doubt. Rather, faith was so rare among men that, humanly speaking, one could doubt its existence.

20. When the devil is in the center of the temple, then, according to the Prophet Daniel, the abomination of desolation comes (Dan 9:27). But when Christ's presence illumines those who struggle spiritually, the adversary flees.

Then righteousness begins to reign, casting out every tyranny from pious souls.

21. There is also a third antichrist. This is Arius, Sabellius, and all who lead us astray by perverse interpretations. "Let the reader understand!" (Mt 24:15). The discerning man will not err and will not accept falsehood for truth.

He will not be like the Jews, who rejected the true Christ but accept the false one. Nor will he be like the Arians, who deny in Christ what they acknowledge in the antichrist.

He called him the son of perdition because he himself will perish and will become for others a cause of perdition. For the destroyer of men imitates the becoming man of our God and Savior. As the Lord, having taken human nature, accomplished our salvation, so he, choosing a man able to receive all his activity, will attempt through him to deceive all men. He will call himself Christ and God, exposing the falsehood of the so-called gods whom he himself supported in past ages. By the church of God the Apostle means the temple in which the antichrist will seize the chief seat, attempting to present himself as God. This also the divine Daniel foretold, for he said: He will not understand the gods of his fathers, and he will glorify the god of Ma'ozim in his place (Dan 11:37-38). That is, he will call himself the mighty God. Then the Apostle, showing that he is not offering them a new teaching, adds: Verse 5. Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things?

Concerning him the Apostle says in the second epistle to the Thessalonians: Until the apostasy comes first and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above everything called God or worshiped, so that he sits in the temple of God, presenting himself as though he were God (2 Thess 2:3-4). The Apostle clearly shows his apostasy from God and that he will exalt himself above everything called God or worshiped, that is, above every idol. For those called gods among men are not gods. He will tyrannically strive to present himself as God. Moreover, the Apostle also revealed that in Jerusalem the temple was built by command of the true God. For the Apostle, speaking in his own person, called no one God except the true God, the Father of our Lord. By His command the temple in Jerusalem was built. In it the opponent will sit, striving to present himself as Christ. So also the Lord says: When you see the abomination of desolation, spoken of through the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place, let the reader understand. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let the one on the housetop not go down to take anything from his house. For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, nor ever shall be (Mt 24:15-17, 21).

Therefore all the stones will be scattered. I am not speaking of the outer enclosure of the temple, but of the inner temple, where the Cherubim were. Then the antichrist will come with all signs and lying wonders. He will arm himself against all idols. At first he will hypocritically display love for mankind, but afterward he will show cruelty, especially against the saints of God. For Daniel says: I beheld, and that horn made war with the saints (Dan 7:21). And again in another place: There will be a time of distress, distress such as has not been since a nation existed on earth until that time (Dan 12:1). The beast is terrible, a great dragon, unconquerable by men and ready to devour. Much would need to be said about him from Divine Scripture. For now, because time is short, this is enough.

Saint Chrysostom calls him an antitheos, one who opposes God. Both names signify the terrifying feature of the final lawless one. He will act lawlessly, not merely through passionate infatuation and forgetfulness of God, as all sinners do, but consciously and intentionally, like the devil.

He will oppose Christ.

2. Second, he will be a prideful man who crushes everything, filled with diabolical malice and denial of everything "called God or holy." This quality of the antichrist is the direct consequence, or visible manifestation, of the preceding quality.

In his conscious opposition to God, he will acknowledge nothing holy. He will submit to no order established by God. He will not wish to know the word of God, and will mock even the authority of God Himself.

3. Third, he will be an insolent and openly brazen man in his pride, "so that he sits in the temple of God as God." By temple, Slavonic "church," one must understand nothing metaphorical, but precisely a temple as a building.

Moreover, this should be understood collectively. The antichrist will not sit in only one temple, but in all temples. One interpreter, Bishop Theophan, reasons: "There will be somewhere a central place of the antichrist's activity.

"There will, of course, be a definite moment when he reveals himself as deity. The Apostle has in mind the chief temple of that place. In this temple the antichrist will sit as God.

"In the others, he will attest his sitting in some other manner. In the Apocalypse there is mention of the image of the beast. Will they not set it up everywhere in the churches?

"Of course, he will take the churches into his possession together with the people. For he will produce in them the broadest apostasy from religion and from God."

As for the incomprehensible boldness of the antichrist in declaring himself god, this is more fittingly explained as god-opposing audacity, not as the antichrist's sincere conviction of his own divinity.

There are, of course, such examples in human history. A man may apparently imagine himself to be God, as Nebuchadnezzar, Antiochus Epiphanes, Caligula, Nero, and others did.

But this unnatural self-conceit has always been marked either by mental limitation or by outright mental disorder. This cannot be admitted in the antichrist.

Like the devil, he will only seek, and will obtain, the terrible pleasure of usurping divine honors from men. In his God-fighting soul he will have the fearful and desperate awareness that he is only God's adversary, and by no means God.

The antichrist's sitting in the churches will probably consist in this. During certain liturgical rites performed in his honor, perhaps issued and composed by himself, he will be carried out on a magnificent throne if he is personally present.

Where he is absent, his image will replace him.

But how can one imagine that people will agree to deify a man, for all his visible power and all his splendor? For this, it would seem, they must utterly lose both head and mind.

With regard to superstitious and undeveloped people, of whom there will probably be many even in the last times, this is not hard to imagine and understand. Because of the antichrist's abundant signs and false wonders, they may sincerely consider him God.

The others, of course, will be insincere and hypocritical in their deification of the antichrist. They will do it partly from fear and terror before his cruelties.

They will also do it partly from servility and slavish flattery, for the advantages and honors with which the antichrist will probably shower his worshipers. In every case, it will come from men's complete loss of all fear of God.

4. Fourth, the antichrist will be a magical or sorcerous deceiver, not only presenting himself as god, but also showing himself to be god. "He will surround himself with such splendor in the temple.

"He will provide himself such an arrangement through illusory signs that all who attach themselves to him will see in it manifestations as though of God. So once Herod, clothed in royal apparel and seated on the tribunal before the people, seemed to them something extraordinary.

"It appeared to them that even his voice was not human, but divine" (Acts 12:21-22). Saint Chrysostom says: "The antichrist will strive to show himself as god, for he will do great works and display great signs."

Antitheos may also mean one who puts himself in God's place. Likewise antichrist may mean one who presents himself in Christ's place. The Apostle's following words confirm this. In everything he will oppose God and Christ, and everything divine and Christian.

He will do this in order to put himself in their place, or to compel men to honor him as god and christ. Here are Saint Chrysostom's words: "He will be a kind of antitheos, one who opposes God. He will reject all gods and command men to worship himself instead of God."

Theodoret speaks more fully: "The destroyer of men, Satan, imitates the Incarnation of our God and Savior. As the Lord, having assumed human nature, accomplished our salvation, so he will choose a man able to receive all his activity into himself.

"Through him he will attempt to deceive all men, calling himself Christ and god. He will expose the falsehood of the so-called gods whom he himself had supported in former ages."

"Who exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship." Writing to the Corinthians, Paul used the expression "so-called gods" in the sense that they are called gods, though they are not gods.

There he had to set forth the truth that "there is no other God but one," and that "for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we unto Him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist" (1 Cor 8:4-6).

Here the Apostle has another purpose. He wishes to show, not the truth of the one God against all false gods, but the spirit of exaltation in the antitheos and antichrist over everything honored as god.

Therefore a so-called god here means every being whom men at that time will honor as god. Since at that time there will be true worshipers of the one God, worshiped in the Trinity, He too is included under the same concept.

Over all this the antichrist will raise himself. He will clearly imply that every honored god is nothing in comparison with him, and that he alone must be honored as God.

The Apostle could have borrowed these expressions from the Prophet Daniel, who writes: "He shall exalt and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak dreadful things against the God of gods... He shall not regard the gods of his fathers... nor shall he regard any god, for he shall magnify himself above all" (Dan 11:36-37).

An object of worship is something honored with reverent religious veneration. It is either honored as divine or honored for God's sake. It may be a deity, or a temple, sacred things and actions, and all that belongs to the external order of divine worship.

In the first sense, an object of worship is the same as a so-called god. The Apostle says, as it were, "exalting himself above every so-called god, or, what is the same, every object of worship."

In the second sense a new feature of his exaltation is given. The antitheos and antichrist will deem every form of divine worship that he finds among men unworthy of himself. He will despise and reject them all, and finally establish his own new worship.

For he will present himself as god, and there is no god without divine worship. The first thought is more fitting here, but the second should not be rejected. That he will sit in the temple as god is already part of the order of divine worship.

It seems to be the chief and guiding act, according to which everything else will be established. By it every other form of divine worship will be replaced.

"So that he sits in the church of God as God." Here "church" means a temple, naos, a building. What temple is this? Here are the answers of the ancient interpreters.

Saint Chrysostom says: "He will sit in the temple of God, not only in Jerusalem, but everywhere in the churches." Theodoret says: "By the church of God the Apostle means the temple in which the antichrist will seize the chief seat for himself, attempting to pass himself off as god."

Theophylact says: "He will sit in the temple, not specifically in Jerusalem, but simply in the churches of God and in every temple of God."

There will be some central place of the antichrist's activity. Certainly there will be a definite moment when he reveals himself as such. The Apostle has in mind the chief temple of that place.

In this temple he will sit as god. Afterward he will sit in this same meaning in every other temple that he personally encounters. Or perhaps he will personally sit in one temple, while in others he will attest his sitting by some other means.

In the Apocalypse there is mention of the image of the beast. Will they not set it up everywhere in the churches? It goes without saying that if he produces a broad apostasy from Christianity, he will take the churches along with the Christians.

After this, it will be inappropriate for the Christian order and rite to remain in them. They will establish something new, according to the spirit of the new god. The first place in this will be occupied by what signifies the antichrist's sitting in the temple.

Wherever he himself comes, there he will personally sit as god. In every way the Apostle's words foretell a fact, and do not express an idea. Therefore some think inappropriately that sitting in the temple means only that the antichrist will declare himself god and all will acknowledge him as such.

"Showing himself that he is god." He will surround himself with such pomp in the temple, and provide himself such an arrangement through illusory signs, that all who attach themselves to him will see in this manifestation something like a god.

So once Herod, clothed in royal apparel and seated on the tribunal before the people, seemed to them something extraordinary. It appeared to them that even his voice was not human, but divine (Acts 12:21-22).

Saint Chrysostom says: "He will strive to show himself as god, for he will do great works and display great signs." Oecumenius says: "He will use every attempt, by deeds, signs, and wonders, to show that he is supposedly god."