3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;



Ver. 3. Except there come a falling] Gr. áðïóôáóéá , an apostasy, viz. of people from the truth, when the whole world went a wondering and a wandering after the beast, Rev_13:3. To the fathers these prophecies of Antichrist were riddles. The prophecy is sealed to the end, Dan_12:9, till unsealed by event. Austin saith ingenuously, he understood not this text. And herein he did better than those other of the Latin Fathers that interpreted it of the falling away of various nations from the Roman empire. Daniel set forth Antichrist typically, in that little Antichrist, Antiochus; Paul topically, in this chapter. John writeth the mystery of Antichrist, in his Revelation; Paul sets a commentary upon him, and graphically describeth him, calling him apostasy in the abstract here, as some will have it; and in the next verse, "that man of sin," that is, meram scelus, sheer wickedness, as Beza hath it.



And that man of sin] That breathing devil, so portentously, so peerlessly vicious, Ut eius nomen non hominis, sed vitii esse videatur (as Lipsius saith of one Tubulus, a Roman praetor), that sin itself can hardly be more sinful.



The son of perdition] Destined to destruction, even to be cast alive into the "lake of fire burning with brimstone," Rev_19:20. Well might Pope Marcellus II strike his hand upon the table, and say, Non video quomodo qui locum hunc altissimum tenent, salvari possunt, I see not how any pope can be saved. (Onuph. in Vita.) When I was first in orders (said Pope Pius Quintus) I had some good hopes of salvation; when I was made a cardinal, I doubted; but now that I am pope, I do almost despair. (Cornel. a Lapide in Num_11:11)