St. John tells us that “every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is that spirit of Antichrist, which even now already is in the world.” It was the characteristic of Antichrist, that he should openly deny our Lord Jesus Christ to be the Son of God come in the flesh from heaven. So exactly and fully was this description to answer to him, that to deny Christ might be suitably called the spirit of Antichrist; and the deniers of Him might be said to have the spirit of Antichrist, to be like Antichrist, to be Antichrists. The same thing is stated in a former chapter. “Who is the Liar, but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? he is the Antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father;” [1 John ii. 22, 23.] from which words, moreover, it would appear that Antichrist will be led on from rejecting the Son of God to the rejecting of God altogether, either by implication or practically.
I shall now make some further observations on the characteristic marks of the predicted enemy of the Church; and, as before, I shall confine myself to the interpretations of Scripture given by the early Fathers.
My reason for doing so is simply this,—that on so difficult a subject as unfulfilled prophecy, I really can have no opinion of my own, nor indeed is it desirable I should have, or at least that I should put it forward in any formal way. The opinion of any one person, even if he were the most fit to form one, could hardly be of any authority, or be worth putting forward by itself; whereas the judgment and views of the early Church claim and attract our special regard, because for what we know they may be in part derived from traditions of the Apostles, and because they are put forward far more consistently and unanimously than those of any other set of teachers. Thus they have at least greater claims on our attention than those of other writers, be their claims little or great; if they are little, those of others are still less. The only really strong claim which can be made on our belief, is the clear fulfilment of the prophecy. Did we see all the marks of the prophecy satisfactorily answered in the past history of the Church, then we might dispense with authority in the parties setting the proof before us. This condition, however, can hardly be satisfied, because the date of Antichrist comes close upon the coming of Christ in judgment, and therefore the event will not have happened under such circumstances as to allow of being appealed to. Nor indeed is any history producible in which are fulfilled all the marks of Antichrist clearly, though some are fulfilled here and there. Nothing then is left us, (if we are to take up any opinion at all,—if we are to profit, as Scripture surely intends, by its warnings concerning the evil which is to come,) but to go by the judgment of the Fathers, whether that be of special authority in this matter or not. To them therefore I have had recourse already, and now shall have recourse again. To continue, then, the subject with the early Fathers as my guides.
1.
It seems clear that St. Paul and St. John speak of the same enemy of the Church, from the similarity of their descriptions. They both say, that the spirit itself was already at work in their day. “That spirit of the Antichrist,” says St. John, “is now already in the world.” “The mystery of iniquity doth already work,” says St. Paul. And they both describe the enemy as characterized by the same especial sin, open infidelity. St. John says, that “he is the Antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son;” while St. Paul speaks of him in like manner as “the adversary and rival of all that is called God, or worshipped;” that “he sitteth as God in the Temple of God, setting forth himself that he is God.” In both these passages, the same blasphemous denial of God and religion is described; but St. Paul adds, in addition, that he will oppose all existing religion, true or false, “all that is called God, or worshipped.”
Two other passages of Scripture may be adduced, predicting the same reckless impiety; one from the eleventh chapter of Daniel: “The king shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished … Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the Desire of women, nor regard any god—for he shall magnify himself above all.”
The other passage is faintly marked with any prophetic allusion in itself, except that all our Saviour’s sayings have a deep meaning, and the Fathers take this in particular to have such. “I am come in My Father’s Name, and ye receive Me not; if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive.” [John v. 43.] This they consider to be a prophetic allusion to Antichrist, whom the Jews were to mistake for the Christ. He is to come “in His own name.” Not from God, as even the Son of God came, who if any might have come in the power of His essential divinity, not in God’s Name, not with any pretence of a mission from Him, but in his own name, by a blasphemous assumption of divine power, thus will Antichrist come.