No anointed son of God would be allowed by Holy Spirit to indulge himself in excessive arguments in the form of diatribes against false gods, philosophies of men, or the State; and certainly not until becoming a useless obsession. Excesses of this sort only grieve Holy Spirit.

On the one hand, Augustine agreed with some of those teachers of philosophies with respect to some of their teachings, and on the other hand he attributes demons to their works of inspiration. But by recalling the multitudinous names of these men and their explanations to prove out his own arguments, he only weakened the appearance of the Word of God for the untaught and uninitiated reading his writings.

Besides his wild speculations, Augustine had rare flashes of accurate guesswork, mixed in with error, and in other passages even a measure of spiritual understanding. For instance, as to the latter, in Book XX Chapter 19, after quoting 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12 he attempts to reveal who the antichrist of 2 Thessalonians would be:

(Quote) 'No one can doubt that Paul is here speaking of Antichrist, telling us that the day of judgement (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. And they suppose that then it would be more correct to say, following the original Greek, that he 'takes his seat as the temple of God', instead of 'in the temple of God', purporting to be himself God's temple, that is, the Church: in the same way as we say, 'He sits as a friend', meaning 'like a friend''.

But Augustine mixes up the Antichrist (1 John 2:22) with the apostate "man of lawlessness". The Antichrist "denies the Father and the Son", not knowing either, which is the position of Trinitarians; whereas the apostate "man of lawlessness" are those who were believers in The Christ but who withdrew from God and proved this by removing those acting as a restraint, namely the last of The Christ's anointed brothers of his "body". However, he did understand the underlying principle, that it would involve many taking hold of the seat of authority in the temple of God.

Augustine goes on to speculate: 'However, there are others who think that 'you know what restrains' and 'the secret power of wickedness' refer only to the evil people and the pretended Christians who are in the Church, until they reach such a number as to constitute a great people for Antichrist; this they hold, is 'the secret power of wickedness' because it is, evidently, concealed. And they suppose the Apostle to be exhorting the faithful to hold on with perseverance to the faith they hold. In their view, he is saying, 'Only let him who holds hold on, until he is removed from the scene', meaning 'until the secret power of wickedness, now concealed, departs from the Church.'' (Book XX Ch.19).

The Church that will remain is the true anointed sons of God who were removed from the scene, but who hold on to their faith. Diatribes against the apostate "man of lawlessness" are fulfilling the scripture: "that wicked man whom the Lord Jesus will destroy with the breath of his mouth, and annihilate by the radiance of his coming". (2 Thess 2:8 NEB).

(Cont. on Next Page).

3/8/90.