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7. τὸ γὰρ μυστήριον ἤδη ἐνεργεῖται τῆς ἀνομίας. For the mystery is already working (or set in operation)—(that) of lawlessness. For ἐνεργεῖται, see note on 1Th 2:13. 2Th 2:7 explains (γάρ) 2Th 2:6; at present the Lawless One is held back till the fit time, “for he is already here in principle, operative as a mystery awaiting revelation, and checked so long as the withholder stands in the way” (see notes on 2Th 2:6). Νῦν is nunc, now, at this time; ἤδη, jam, already, by this time; ἄρτι, in prœsenti, just now or then, at the moment: for ἤδη, cf. further 1Co 4:8; 1Co 5:3; Php 3:12; 2Ti 2:18; 2Ti 4:6; 1Jn 4:3. The sentence identifies the present hidden with the future open and unrestrained working of the forces embodied in ὁ ἄνομος.
Τὸ μυστήριον, correlative with ἀποκαλυφθῆναι (as in Rom 16:25; 1Co 2:7-10; 1Co 14:2; Eph 3:3; Eph 3:9 f.; Col 1:26; Rev 1:1; Rev 1:19 f.), is, like that, a term proper to the things of God and the manifestation of Christ, appropriated here to the master-work of Satan and the appearing of the Man of Lawlessness; cf. note on 2Th 2:3 (ἀποκαλυφθῇ). Τὸ μυστήριον, in St Paul’s dialect, is not something strange and hard to understand; nor is it some secret reserved, like the Mysteries of Greek Paganism or of Jewish Alexandrian or Essenic esoteric systems, for the initiated few; it denotes that which is by its nature above man’s reason, and is therefore known only as and when God is pleased to reveal it (2Th 2:6; 2Th 2:8); 1Co 2:6-16 sets the Pauline use of the word in a full light: see the Note ad rem in J. A. Robinson’s Ephesians, pp. 234 ff. In the Book of Daniel, μυστήριον (LXX: rendered “secret”) first appears in its distinct Biblical sense; then in Wis 2:22; Wis 6:24, &c. In the Gospels (Mat 13:11 and parallels) the word is once cited from the lips of Jesus, referring to the truths conveyed to disciples but veiled from others by His parables. So monstrous and enormous are the possibilities of sin in humanity, that with all we know of its working the character of the Man of Lawlessness remains incomprehensible beforehand. The history of Sin, like that of Divine Grace, is full of surprises.
μόνον ὁ κατέχων ἄρτι ἕως ἐκ μέσου γένηται: only (there is) the withholder for the present, until he be taken out of the way. Again a hiatus in the Greek, as in 2Th 2:3, an incoherence of expression very natural in a letter written by dictation, and due seemingly to the excitement raised by the apparition of ὁ ἄνθρωπος τῆς ἀνομίας before the writer’s gaze. Ἄρτι qualifies ὁ κατέχων: the restraint at present in exercise holds down (κατέχω, as in Rom 1:18) lawlessness, and veils its nature by limiting its activity, until ὁ καιρὸς τοῦ ἀνόμου (2Th 2:6) shall arrive. Ἄρτι (see note on ἤδη above; also on 1Th 3:6) indicates a particular juncture, or epoch; it suggests a brief transitional period, such as St Paul, without claiming certain knowledge, was inclined to suppose the current Christian dispensation to be; see note on 1Th 4:15, also 1Co 7:29, &c. Ἕως and synonymous conjunctions, often in classical Greek and more often than not in the N.T., dispense with ἄν in governing the subjunctive of contingency,—perhaps after the analogy of ἵνα; see Winer-Moulton, p. 371, A. Buttmann, N. T. Grammar, pp. 230 f. For ἐκ μέσου, cf. 1Co 5:2; 2Co 6:17; Col 2:14 (ἐκ τοῦ μέσου, classical); and contrast 1Th 2:7.
On ὁ κατέχων, see note to τὸ κατέχον, 2Th 2:6. While the restrainer and the object of restraint are each expressed in both personal and impersonal form, it is noticeable that the former appears as primarily impersonal, while the latter is predominantly personal: the writers contemplate the power of lawlessness in its ultimate manifestation, as embodied in a supreme human antagonist of Christ; whereas the restraint delaying Antichrist’s appearance appears to be conceived as an influence or principle, which at the same time may be personally represented. It is better therefore to render ὁ κατέχων “he that restraineth,” rather than “one that restraineth” (R.V.); the expression seems to signify a class, not an individual: cf. Eph 4:28.
Where then are we to look, amongst the influences dominant at the time and known to the readers, for the check and bridle of lawlessness? where but to law itself,—Staat und Gesetz (J. A. Dorner)? For this power the Apostle Paul had a profound respect; he taught that αἱ οὖσαι ἐξουσίαι were ὑπὸ θεοῦ τεταγμέναι (Rom 13:1-7). Silvanus and himself were citizens of Rome, and had reason to value the protection of her laws; see Act 16:35-39; Act 22:23-29; Act 25:10-12. About this time he was finding in the upright Proconsul Gallio a shield from the lawlessness of the Jewish mob at Corinth; the Thessalonian “politarchs” at least made some show of doing him justice (Act 17:5-9). St Paul’s political acumen, guided by his prophetical inspiration, was competent to distinguish between the character and personal action of the Emperor-god and the grand fabric of the Roman Empire over which he presided.
As head of the civil State, the reigning Augustus was the impersonation of law, while in his character as a man, and in his assumptions of deity, he might be the type of the most profane and wanton lawlessness (witness Caligula, Nero, Elagabalus). Roman law and the authority of the magistrate formed a breakwater against the excesses of autocratic tyranny as well as of popular violence. The absolutism of the bad Cæsars had after all its limit; their despotic power trampled on the laws, and was yet restrained by them. Imagine a Nero master of the civilized world and adored as a god, with all respect for civil justice destroyed in the action of the powers of the State, and St Paul’s “mystery of lawlessness” would be amply “revealed.” Despite τὸ κατέχον ἄρτι, the reign of Nero, following in a few years the writing of this Letter, showed to what incredible lengths the idolatry of a wicked human will may be carried, in the decay of religion and the general decline of moral courage which this entails. This monster of depravity, “the lion” of 2Ti 4:17, stood for the portrait of “the wild beast” in St John’s Apocalypse, which carried forward St Paul’s image of “the lawless one,” even as the latter took up Daniel’s idea of the godless king impersonated in Antiochus Epiphanes. Döllinger, seeing in Nero St Paul’s ὁ ἄνθρωπος τῆς ἀνομίας, regarded Claudius, the reigning emperor, as ὁ κατέχων—scil. preventing, while he lived, Nero’s accession—because of the resemblance of his name to claudens, a Latin equivalent for κατέχων: but this ascribes to the Apostle an unlikely kind of foresight; and it credits him with a pun (made in Latin too, though he is writing in Greek) quite out of keeping with the solemnity of the subject. (Askwith identifies Claudius and his policy with ὁ κατέχων, τὸ κατέχον, inasmuch as he rescinded the edict of Caligula.) Nero fell; and the Roman State remained, to be the restrainer of lawlessness and, so far, a protector of infant Christianity. Wiser rulers and better times were in store for the Empire. Through ages the κατέχον of the Apostolic times has proved a bulwark of society. In the crisis of the 8th century “the laws of Rome saved Christianity from Saracen dominion more than the armies.… The torrent of Mohammedan invasion was arrested” for 700 years. “As long as Roman law was cultivated in the Empire and administered under proper control, the invaders of Byzantine territory were everywhere unsuccessful” (Finlay, History of Byzantine Empire, pp. 27 f.). Nor did Roman Law fall with the Empire itself, any more than it rose therefrom. It allied itself with Christianity, and has thus become largely the parent of the legal systems of Christendom. Meanwhile Cœsarism also survives, a second legacy from Rome and a word of evil omen, the title and model of illegal sovereignty. The lawlessness of human nature holds this “mystery” in solution, ready to precipitate itself and “to be revealed at the last season.” The mystery betrays its working in partial and transitional manifestations, until “in its season” it crystallizes into its complete expression. Let reverence for law disappear in public life along with religious faith, and there is nothing to prevent a new Cæsar becoming master and god of the civilized world, armed with immensely greater power. For other interpretations given to ὁ κατέχων, see the Appendix.