Rembrandt van Rijn, Daniel's Vision, 1636. Public domain.
2 Thessalonians 2 and 1 John 2 · Doctrine · Featured Study
Antichrist, the Word and the Figure
A doctrine study of 1 and 2 John, 2 Thessalonians 2, Daniel 7 to 11 and Revelation 13.
The Lord Jesus will slay the lawless one with the breath of His mouth, and Paul tells the church so that it will not be alarmed.
Children, it is the last hour; and just as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have appeared. This is how we know it is the last hour.
- First taught
- 1 John 2:18 “…you have heard that the antichrist is coming,…”
- Fullest statement
- 2 Thessalonians 2:3 to 12 “Let no one deceive you in any way,…”
The Lord Jesus will slay the lawless one with the breath of His mouth, and Paul tells the church so that it will not be alarmed.
Summary
Antichrist is John's word for those who deny the Father and the Son, and the church has given it to the one figure Scripture says will come before Christ returns.
- Paul tells the church in Thessalonica that the Day of the Lord will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed.
- Daniel's little horn, the prince who is to come and Revelation's beast from the sea are read by many as the same figure under other titles.
- Futurist readers look for one man still to come, historicist readers have named the papacy, and preterist readers find the figure in Nero and the emperor cult.
- Some copies of Revelation give the number of the beast as 616 for 666, and Irenaeus already knew that reading in the second century.
The Word
John uses the word antichrist in four verses of two short letters
In three of the four verses the test is what a person confesses about Jesus, and it applies whether or not one figure is still to come.
Children, it is the last hour; and just as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have appeared. This is how we know it is the last hour.This verse is the first place the word antichrist stands in Scripture.
Who is the liar, if it is not the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, who denies the Father and the Son.The verse gives the word its first definition.
and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and which is already in the world at this time.Here the coming one and the present spirit share one name.
For many deceivers have gone out into the world, refusing to confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist.The second letter carries the same test to another church.
The Berean text of 1 John 4:3 reads "does not confess Jesus". The King James Version reads "confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh", in the wording of 2 John 1:7.
In three of the four verses the test is what a person confesses about Jesus, and it applies whether or not one figure is still to come.
Who is the liar, if it is not the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, who denies the Father and the Son.The verse gives the word its first definition.
and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and which is already in the world at this time.Here the coming one and the present spirit share one name.
For many deceivers have gone out into the world, refusing to confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist.The second letter carries the same test to another church.
The Berean text of 1 John 4:3 reads "does not confess Jesus". The King James Version reads "confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh", in the wording of 2 John 1:7.
2 John 1:7, 1 John 2:18
The Figure Under Other Names
Five titles in Daniel, Paul and Revelation that readers join to John's word
A table of five titles, each with the text that gives it and what that text says of the figure.
| Title | Text | What the text says |
|---|---|---|
| The man of lawlessness, the son of destruction | 2 Thessalonians 2:3 to 4 | A man revealed after the rebellion, who exalts himself above every so-called god and seats himself in the temple of God. |
| The little horn of the fourth beast | Daniel 7:8 and 24 to 25 | A king who rises among ten, subdues three, speaks against the Most High and oppresses the saints for a time, times and half a time. |
| The prince who is to come | Daniel 9:26 to 27 | A ruler whose people destroy the city and the sanctuary; the next verse tells of one who confirms a covenant with many for one week and ends sacrifice in the middle of it. |
| The king who exalts himself | Daniel 11:36 | A king who magnifies himself above every god and speaks monstrous things against the God of gods. |
| The beast from the sea | Revelation 13:1 to 8 | A beast with ten horns and seven heads, whose mortal wound is healed, given the dragon's power and authority to act for 42 months. |
The son of destruction2 Thessalonians 2:3 and John 17:12
Paul draws no further line from the man to Judas, and the shared title stands as an echo of the betrayer.
While I was with them, I protected and preserved them by Your name, the name You gave Me. Not one of them has been lost, except the son of destruction, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled.This is the only other place the New Testament uses Paul's second title, and Jesus uses it of Judas.
Two little horns in DanielDaniel 7 and 8
Daniel has two little horns. John Wesley in his Explanatory Notes, Hippolytus in his Commentary on Daniel and Jerome in his Commentary on Daniel name the horn of chapter 8 Antiochus IV Epiphanes.
From one of these horns a little horn emerged and grew extensively toward the south and the east and toward the Beautiful Land.This horn grows out of the Greek kingdom, which sets it apart from the horn of chapter 7.
Jerome and Theodoret, each in his Commentary on Daniel, read the horn of chapter 7 as the Antichrist still to come. Jerome takes Antiochus as his type and reports that the pagan critic Porphyry made the horn Antiochus himself.
“Hence the need of prophecy to prepare them for Antiochus. The struggle of the Maccabees was a fruit of Daniel's prophecy (1 Maccabees 2:59). He is the forerunner of the final Antichrist, standing in the same relation to the first advent of Christ that Antichrist does to His second coming.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible · on Daniel 8:9Reformed
The prince and the covenantDaniel 9:26 to 27 and Matthew 24:15
Wesley and Adam Clarke, in their commentaries on Daniel 9:26, read the prince as Titus, whose Roman army destroyed the city and the sanctuary. Hippolytus, in his Commentary on Daniel, reads him as the Antichrist.
And he will confirm a covenant with many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of the temple will come the abomination that causes desolation, until the decreed destruction is poured out upon him.”This verse holds the covenant of one week that futurist readers give to the coming prince.
So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination of desolation,’ described by the prophet Daniel (let the reader understand),Jesus speaks of Daniel's abomination of desolation as still to be seen.
The king of Daniel 11:36Daniel 11:36 to 45
Theodoret, in his Commentary on Daniel, reads the king who exalts himself as Antiochus. Hippolytus, in his Commentary on Daniel, reads Daniel 11:36 to the end of the chapter as the Antichrist, the prophecy turning from what had already happened to the end of times.
“And so these things the prophet described in this way concerning the Antichrist, as he will be shameless and warlike and a tyrant daring to exalt himself over every god, who boasts in his own power and pillages the fortresses of cities, and bearing lofty things in gold and silver and precious stone, he shall speak immoderate words against God, wishing that he himself alone be worshiped as God. Concerning him all Scripture is not silent and the prophets announced beforehand his coming for the destruction of many, and the Lord has testified to these things, and the apostles taught these things concerning him, and John in the Apocalypse mystically revealed his name through a number. The Lord displayed this abomination of desolation and the apostle taught that this son of the devil arrives according to the working of Satan. This one, having struck the city of Tyre, will also desolate the land of Egypt, having waged war he will extend and destroy all the land of Libya, and he shall ruin the kingdom of the Ethiopians with his might in the slaughter of the sword. He, being lifted up over every king and every god, shall build the city of Jerusalem and he shall raise the converted Temple, he shall restore both all the land and its borders to the Jews, and having summoned their people from the slavery of the nations, he shall exhibit himself to them as king, and at this the faithless shall worship him as God and shall bend the knee to him, considering him to be the Christ, not apprehending what was spoken by the prophet, how he is a deceiver and not truth. […]”
Hippolytus of Rome · Commentary on Daniel 4.49.1-7 · on Daniel 11:36 to 45Patristic
The beast and the false prophetRevelation 13 and 19:20
Revelation joins the features of three of Daniel's beasts in one (Revelation 13:2), and a second beast from the earth serves it (Revelation 13:11 to 17). Bede, in his Commentary on Revelation, reads the healed wound as the Antichrist imitating Christ, the true head, who died and rose.
But the beast was captured along with the false prophet, who on its behalf had performed signs deceiving those who had the mark of the beast and worshiped its image. Both the beast and the false prophet were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur.The signs and the mark name the false prophet as the second beast of Revelation 13:13 to 17, and the two share one end.
The man of lawlessness and John's Antichrist2 Thessalonians 2:3 and 1 John 2:18
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, in their Commentary on 2 Thessalonians 2:3 (1871), name Paul's man of lawlessness as John's Antichrist, first in mystery and afterwards revealed, and so join the titles above to John's word.
The Man of Lawlessness
2 Thessalonians 2:1 to 12 answers a church told that the Day of the Lord had come
Someone had alarmed the Thessalonians by a spirit, a message or a letter seeming to come from Paul, saying that the Day of the Lord had already come (2 Thessalonians 2:2). John Chrysostom, in his homilies on 2 Thessalonians, thought a forged epistle was going about in Paul's name, and Paul answers with an order of events.
1. The rebellion comes first2 Thessalonians 2:3
The Greek word for the rebellion, apostasia, is defined in Strong's lexicon as defection from truth.
Let no one deceive you in any way, for it will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness—the son of destruction—is revealed.The Thessalonians' mistake is answered by what must happen first.
2. He seats himself in the temple2 Thessalonians 2:4 to 5
He will oppose and exalt himself above every so-called god or object of worship. So he will seat himself in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.Of the five titles, this verse makes the plainest claim to be God.
Paul reminds them that he taught them this in person (2 Thessalonians 2:5), so the letter assumes teaching the church had already heard.
3. What restrains him2 Thessalonians 2:6 to 7
The Thessalonians knew what restrains the man of lawlessness, and Paul does not name it. Chrysostom, in his fourth homily on the letter, took the restrainer to be the Roman empire and reports that others took it to be the Spirit.
For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, but the one who now restrains it will continue until he is taken out of the way.Paul sets the present and the future side by side, as John does.
4. The Lord slays him2 Thessalonians 2:8
And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will slay with the breath of His mouth and annihilate by the majesty of His arrival.Paul tells the figure's end before he describes his coming.
5. False wonders and the delusion2 Thessalonians 2:9 to 12
Paul adds a judgment to the deception: God sends a powerful delusion on those who would not love the truth (2 Thessalonians 2:11 to 12).
The coming of the lawless one will be accompanied by the working of Satan, with every kind of power, sign, and false wonder, and with every wicked deception directed against those who are perishing, because they refused the love of the truth that would have saved them.Paul names the power behind the lawless one before he names the judgment on those who follow him.
Already and Still to Come
John uses the word both ways in one passage, 1 John 2:18 to 19
ALREADY: MANY, AT WORK NOW
Many antichrists have already appeared, and John says they went out from his churches; he calls them liars and deceivers.
STILL TO COME: ONE FIGURE
John's readers had been taught that the antichrist is coming, one figure ahead of them in time.
Who the many antichrists wereIrenaeus and Hippolytus on Cerinthus
Hippolytus, in The Refutation of All Heresies, sets out Cerinthus's teaching. In it Jesus was an ordinary man on whom the Christ came as a dove after his baptism and whom the Christ left before he suffered.
“There are also those who heard from him that John, the disciple of the Lord, going to bathe at Ephesus, and perceiving Cerinthus within, rushed out of the bath-house without bathing, exclaiming, ‘Let us fly, lest even the bath-house fall down, because Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is within.’ And Polycarp himself replied to Marcion, who met him on one occasion, and said, ‘Dost thou know me?’ ‘I do know thee, the first-born of Satan.’ Such was the horror which the apostles and their disciples had against holding even verbal communication with any corrupters of the truth; as Paul also says, ‘A man that is an heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject; knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself.’”
Irenaeus · Against Heresies Book III · on Titus 3:10Patristic
Set beside that teaching, two of John's tests read plainly: the confession of Jesus Christ come in the flesh (1 John 4:2) and the coming by water and blood (1 John 5:6).
John names nobody, so the name Cerinthus rests on the church's testimony, one generation removed from the apostle.
The many and the oneAugustine on those who went out
John does not say how the many antichrists relate to the one who is coming.
“For hear and see. Certainly all who go out from the Church, and are cut off from the unity of the Church, are antichrists; let no man doubt it: for the apostle himself hath marked them, ‘They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us.’ Therefore, whoso continue not with us, but go out from us, it is manifest that they are antichrists.”
Augustine of Hippo · Ten Homilies on 1 John 3 · on 1 John 2:19Patristic
The World Behind the Texts
One king of Syria and three emperors of Rome
A timeline of four rulers the readings of the figure and the dating of Revelation look back to, each with the date and what the ruler did.
- Second century BCAntiochus IV Epiphanesa Seleucid king who stopped the sacrifices at the temple in Jerusalem
- About AD 39 to 40Gaius Caligulaa Roman emperor who ordered his statue set up in the temple, which the Jews refused
- AD 54 to 68Neroa Roman emperor whose persecution of the church Jerome counts as the first
- AD 81 to 96Domitiana Roman emperor whose persecution of the church Jerome counts as the second
Where the Texts Stop
Three matters the texts leave open
No text that speaks of the figure names him, names the people he comes from or gives the year of his coming, from the little horn of Daniel 7 to the beast of Revelation 13.
What Antichrist Means
One Greek word built from a prefix and a title
Strong's lexicon glosses antichristos as an opponent of the Messiah and the prefix anti as opposite, instead of. The word can carry both senses: one who stands against Christ, and one who stands in his place.
Jesus' word for the deceivers of Matthew 24:24 is pseudochristos, a false Christ.
For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders that would deceive even the elect, if that were possible.The false Christs of Jesus' warning deceive by signs, as the lawless one does.
How the Church Has Read Him
Five teachers of the early church, from the second century to the seventh
died 155 · Polycarp of Smyrna
Polycarp applies John's test to the false teachers of his own day, in nearly John's words.
“‘For whosoever does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, is antichrist;’ and whosoever does not confess the testimony of the cross, is of the devil; and whosoever perverts the oracles of the Lord to his own lusts, and says that there is neither a resurrection nor a judgment, he is the first-born of Satan. Wherefore, forsaking the vanity of many, and their false doctrines, let us return to the word which has been handed down to us from the beginning; ‘watching unto prayer,’ and persevering in fasting; beseeching in our supplications the all-seeing God ‘not to lead us into temptation,’ as the Lord has said: ‘The spirit truly is willing, but the flesh is weak.’”
Polycarp of Smyrna · Epistle to the Philippians 7 · on 1 John 4:2Patristic
died 202 · Irenaeus
Irenaeus reads the number of the beast as the sum of every apostasy gathered into one man.
“And there is therefore in this beast, when he comes, a recapitulation made of all sorts of iniquity and of every deceit, in order that all apostate power, flowing into and being shut up in him, may be sent into the furnace of fire. Fittingly, therefore, shall his name possess the number six hundred and sixty-six, since he sums up in his own person all the commixture of wickedness which took place previous to the deluge, due to the apostasy of the angels.”
Irenaeus · Against Heresies 5.29.2 · on Revelation 13:18Patristic
died 430 · Augustine of Hippo
Augustine is sure Paul means Antichrist and is unsure which temple Paul means.
“No one can doubt that Paul is here speaking of Antichrist, telling us that the day of judgment (which he calls the day of the Lord) will not come without the prior coming of a figure whom he calls the Apostate, meaning, of course, an apostate from the Lord God. And if this appellation can rightly be attached to all the ungodly, how much more to him! There is, however, some uncertainty about the ‘temple’ in which he is to take his seat. Is it the ruins of the temple built by King Solomon, or actually in a church? For the apostle would not say ‘the temple of God’ if he meant the temple of some idol or demon. For that reason some people would have it that Antichrist means here not the leader himself but what we may call his whole body, the multitude, that is, of those who belong to him, together with himself, their leader.… For myself I am much astonished at the great presumption of those who venture such guesses.”
Augustine of Hippo · City of God 20.19.2 · on 2 Thessalonians 2:3 to 4Patristic
died 458 · Theodoret of Cyrus
Theodoret of Cyrus counts the three uprooted horns of Daniel 7 as three kings the Antichrist will overpower.
“Here he alludes to the antichrist, who arises among the ten horns, and he states that the antichrist will pluck out root and all three horns before himself. This means that he will overpower three kings of the ten who would reign at that time. …”
Theodoret of Cyrus · Commentary on Daniel 7:7-8 · on Daniel 7:8Patristic
died 614 · Andreas of Caesarea
Andreas of Caesarea leaves the name behind the number to time and experience.
“For the sober-minded, time and experience will reveal the actual significance of the number and the truth of whatever has been written about it. For, were it necessary, as some of the teachers say, that such a name be clearly known, the seer would have …”
Andreas of Caesarea · Commentary on the Apocalypse 13:18 · on Revelation 13:18Patristic
Augustine of Hippo, Theodoret of Cyrus, Andreas of Caesarea
The Identification Question
Four readings of who the figure is, with the temple clause, the number of the beast and three objections to the Nero reading
One man at the end of the ageIrenaeus, Hippolytus, Cyril of Jerusalem, Robert Anderson, Chuck Missler
This reading looks for a single person still to come, worse than any antichrist before him, who confirms and breaks a covenant (Daniel 9:27) and is destroyed only at Christ's coming (2 Thessalonians 2:8). Irenaeus in Against Heresies 5, Hippolytus in his Commentary on Daniel and Cyril of Jerusalem in Catechetical Lecture 15 taught it. Robert Anderson, in The Coming Prince (1881), made the prince of Daniel 9:26 its centre, and Chuck Missler teaches the same frame in his article Daniel's 70 Weeks.
It reads Paul's verbs in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 and 2:8 as future. The objection is that John says many antichrists are already present, and the word in his letters names a present danger.
An Antichrist from the eastJoel Richardson
Joel Richardson, in Mideast Beast: The Scriptural Case for an Islamic Antichrist (2012), sets his reading against the classical dispensational expectation of a revived Roman Empire in the West. From Daniel 7 and Revelation 13 and 17 he reads the empire in view as centred on the Middle East and Israel, the Islamic successor of the eastern empire.
Both sides expect one man destroyed at Christ's coming and differ on the land he rises from. The objection is that Daniel and Revelation name no Islamic empire.
The papacyJohn Wesley, Matthew Henry, Albert Barnes
Matthew Henry and Albert Barnes, in their commentaries on 2 Thessalonians 2:4, read the temple of God as the church, Paul's own image in 1 Corinthians 3:16. The man who sits there is then a church leadership claiming divine authority over it. Henry applies the verse to the bishops of Rome, and Barnes writes that no Protestant will doubt it describes the papacy.
John Wesley also applies Paul's two titles for the figure to the Pope in his Explanatory Notes. The objection is that Paul describes one man revealed before the Day, and Wesley grants that the man of lawlessness in the full sense has not yet come.
Nero and the emperor cultJohn Chrysostom, F. F. Bruce, Adam Clarke, Victorinus, Augustine, Richard Bauckham
John Chrysostom, in his fourth homily on 2 Thessalonians, reads the mystery of lawlessness already at work (2 Thessalonians 2:7) as Nero, a type of the Antichrist. He gives the reason that Nero too wished to be thought a god.
F. F. Bruce, in his commentary on 1 and 2 Thessalonians (1982), sets Caligula's order to place his statue in the temple behind Paul's words in 2 Thessalonians 2:4.
Adam Clarke, in his Commentary on Revelation 1:9, holds that John was most probably exiled under Nero. Victorinus, in his Commentary on the Apocalypse, joins the beast that is of the seven kings (Revelation 17:11) to Nero, who reigned before those kings.
“Then as for the words, ‘And now ye know what withholdeth,’ i.e., ye know what hindrance or cause of delay there is, ‘that he might be revealed in his own time;’ they show that he was unwilling to make an explicit statement, because he said that they knew. And thus we who have not their knowledge wish and are not able even with pains to understand what the apostle referred to, especially as his meaning is made still more obscure by what he adds. For what does he mean by ‘For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now holdeth, let him hold until he be taken out of the way: and then shall the wicked be revealed?’ I frankly confess I do not know what he means. I will nevertheless mention such conjectures as I have heard or read. Some think that the Apostle Paul referred to the Roman empire, and that he was unwilling to use language more explicit, lest he should incur the calumnious charge of wishing ill to the empire which it was hoped would be eternal; so that in saying, ‘For the mystery of iniquity doth already work,’ he alluded to Nero, whose deeds already seemed to be as the deeds of Antichrist. And hence some suppose that he shall rise again and be Antichrist. Others, again, suppose that he is not even dead, but that he was concealed that he might be supposed to have been killed, and that he now lives in concealment in the vigor of that same age which he had reached when he was believed to have perished, and will live until he is revealed in his own time and restored to his kingdom. But I wonder that men can be so audacious in their conjectures. […]”
Augustine of Hippo · The City of God, Book 20 · on 2 Thessalonians 2:6Patristic
Richard Bauckham, in The Climax of Prophecy (1993), joins that expected return of Nero to the head of the beast whose mortal wound was healed (Revelation 13:3).
The first objection is that Paul ends the figure at the Lord's own coming (2 Thessalonians 2:8), and the emperors of the first century died before that coming.
The temple of God2 Thessalonians 2:4
The readings divide over one clause. Cyril of Jerusalem, in Catechetical Lecture 15, takes the temple of God as the temple of the Jews, which the Antichrist will honour in order to deceive them.
John Chrysostom says in his third homily on the letter that the man will sit in the temple in Jerusalem and also in every church.
The 616 reading and the name of NeroRevelation 13:18
Spelled in Hebrew letters as nrwn qsr, Nero Caesar sums to 666, and spelled without the final n it sums to 616. Some copies of Revelation 13:18 read 616.
“Such, then, being the state of the case, and this number being found in all the most approved and ancient copies [of the Apocalypse], and those men who saw John face to face bearing their testimony [to it]; while reason also leads us to conclude that the number of the name of the beast, [if reckoned] according to the Greek mode of calculation by the [value of] the letters contained in it, will amount to six hundred and sixty and six; that is, the number of tens shall be equal to that of the hundreds, and the number of hundreds equal to that of the units (for that number which [expresses] the digit six being adhered to throughout, indicates the recapitulations of that apostasy, taken in its full extent, which occurred at the beginning, during the intermediate periods, and which shall take place at the end) — I do not know how it is that some have erred following the ordinary mode of speech, and have vitiated the middle number in the name, deducting the amount of fifty from it, so that instead of six decads they will have it that there is but one. [I am inclined to think that this occurred through the fault of the copyists, as is wont to happen, since numbers also are expressed by letters; so that the Greek letter which expresses the number sixty was easily expanded into the letter Iota of the Greeks.] Others then received this reading without examination; some in their simplicity, and upon their own responsibility, making use of this number expressing one decad; while some, in their inexperience, have ventured to seek out a name which should contain the erroneous and spurious number. Now, as regards those who have done this in simplicity, and without evil intent, we are at liberty to assume that pardon will be granted them by God. […]”
Irenaeus · Against Heresies (Book V, Chapter 30) · on Revelation 13:18Patristic
Two further objections to the Nero readingJerome and Victorinus
A full preterist reading needs Revelation written before Jerusalem fell in AD 70. Jerome, in On Illustrious Men 9, and Victorinus, on Revelation 17:10, place its writing in Domitian's reign, and that is the second objection.
The third objection is that counting letters yields more than one name, since Victorinus counted the same 666 as the Greek name Teitan and as the Latin Diclux.
The four schools applied to the whole book of Revelation stand at The Four Schools of Revelation.
Stand Firm
Paul's charge and John's assurance to the church after their warnings, 2 Thessalonians 2:15 and 1 John 4:4
Paul ends the chapter with the church, thanking God that the Thessalonians were chosen to be saved (2 Thessalonians 2:13), and John ends his warning about the spirits with the church as well.
Therefore, brothers, stand firm and cling to the traditions we taught you, whether by speech or by letter.The answer to the lawless one is to hold to the apostles' teaching.
You, little children, are from God and have overcome them, because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.The church overcomes the antichrists because Christ lives in it.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- King James Version.
- James Strong, Exhaustive Concordance (1890), G500, G473, G646, G5580.
- Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), on 2 Thessalonians 2:3 and Daniel 8:9.
- John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old and New Testaments, on 2 Thessalonians 2:3, Daniel 8:9 and Daniel 9:26.
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, on 2 Thessalonians 2:4.
- Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on 2 Thessalonians 2:4.
- Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, on Daniel 9:26, Matthew 24:6, Acts 9:31 and Revelation 1:9.
- Polycarp, Epistle to the Philippians 7.
- Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.3.4, 5.29.2 and 5.30.
- Hippolytus, The Refutation of All Heresies 7 and Commentary on Daniel 4.14, 4.26 and 4.49.
- Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture 15.
- John Chrysostom, Homilies on 2 Thessalonians 1, 3 and 4.
- Augustine, The City of God 20.19 and Ten Homilies on 1 John 3.
- Jerome, Commentary on Daniel 7:8 and 8:9; On Illustrious Men 9.
- Theodoret of Cyrus, Commentary on Daniel 11:36.
- Victorinus of Pettau, Commentary on the Apocalypse, on 13:18, 17:10 and 17:11.
- F. F. Bruce, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, Word Biblical Commentary 45 (1982), on 2 Thessalonians 2:4.
- Richard Bauckham, The Climax of Prophecy (1993), chapter 11, Nero and the Beast.
- Bede, Commentary on Revelation, on 13:3.
- Eusebius, History of the Church 3.32, the editor's dates of Domitian's reign.
- Sir Robert Anderson, The Coming Prince (1881)
- Joel Richardson, Mideast Beast: The Scriptural Case for an Islamic Antichrist (2012)
- Chuck Missler, Daniel's 70 Weeks (article)
- Andreas of Caesarea, Commentary on the Apocalypse 13:18.
- The Hebrew letter values: nun 50, resh 200, waw 6, qoph 100, samekh 60.
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