The ''katechon'' (from

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

: , "that which withholds", or , "the one who withholds") is a

biblical The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...

concept which has subsequently developed into a notion of

political Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...

philosophy. The term is found in in an

eschatological Eschatology (; ) concerns expectations of the end of the present age, human history, or of the world itself. The end of the world or end times is predicted by several world religions (both Abrahamic and non-Abrahamic), which teach that nega ...

context:

Christians Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...

must not behave as if the

Day of the Lord A day is the time period of a full rotation of the Earth with respect to the Sun. On average, this is 24 hours, 1440 minutes, or 86,400 seconds. In everyday life, the word "day" often refers to a solar day, which is the length between two ...

would happen tomorrow, since the son of perdition (the

Antichrist In Christian eschatology, the Antichrist refers to people prophesied by the Bible to oppose Jesus Christ and substitute themselves in Christ's place before the Second Coming. The term Antichrist (including one plural form) 1 John ; . 2 John . ...

of 1 and 2 John) must be revealed before.

Paul the Apostle Paul; grc, Παῦλος, translit=Paulos; cop, ⲡⲁⲩⲗⲟⲥ; hbo, פאולוס השליח (previously called Saul of Tarsus;; ar, بولس الطرسوسي; grc, Σαῦλος Ταρσεύς, Saũlos Tarseús; tr, Tarsuslu Pavlus; ...

then adds that the

revelation In religion and theology, revelation is the revealing or disclosing of some form of truth or knowledge through communication with a deity or other supernatural entity or entities. Background Inspiration – such as that bestowed by God on the ...

of the Antichrist is conditional upon the removal of "something/someone that restrains him" and prevents him being fully manifested. Verse 6 uses the neuter gender, τὸ κατέχον; and verse 7 the masculine, ὁ κατέχων. Since Paul the Apostle does not explicitly mention the katechon's identity, the passage's interpretation has been subject to dialogue and debate amongst Christian scholars.

Proposed identifications

The

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

and

Eastern Orthodox Eastern Orthodoxy, also known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity, is one of the three main branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholicism and Protestantism. Like the Pentarchy of the first millennium, the mainstream (or "canonical") ...

traditions consider that the Antichrist will come at the End of the World. The katechon - what restrains his coming - was someone or something that was known to the Thessalonians and active in their time: "You know what is restraining" (2:6). As the Catholic

New American Bible The New American Bible (NAB) is an English translation of the Bible first published in 1970. The 1986 Revised NAB is the basis of the revised Lectionary, and it is the only translation approved for use at Mass in the Latin-rite Catholic dioces ...

states: "Traditionally, 2 Thes 2:6 has been applied to the

Roman empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...

and 2 Thes 2:7 to the Roman emperor ..as bulwarks holding back chaos (cf Romans 13:1-7)" However, some understand the ''katechon'' as the

Grand Monarch Great king, and the equivalent in many languages, refers to historical titles of certain monarchs, suggesting an elevated status among the host of kings and princes. This title is most usually associated with the ''shahanshah'' (shah of shahs, ...

or a new Orthodox Emperor, and some as the rebirth of the

Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire was a Polity, political entity in Western Europe, Western, Central Europe, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, dissolution i ...

. Other scholars suggest that the katechon is the

Holy Spirit In Judaism, the Holy Spirit is the divine force, quality, and influence of God over the Universe or over his creatures. In Nicene Christianity, the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost is the third person of the Trinity. In Islam, the Holy Spirit acts as ...

or the

Church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * C ...

In scholarly works

In ''Nomos of the Earth'', German political thinker

Carl Schmitt Carl Schmitt (; 11 July 1888 – 7 April 1985) was a German jurist, political theorist, and prominent member of the Nazi Party. Schmitt wrote extensively about the effective wielding of political power. A conservative theorist, he is noted as a ...

suggests the historical importance within traditional Christianity of the idea of the katechontic "restrainer" that allows for a Rome-centered Christianity, and that "meant the historical power to restrain the appearance of the Antichrist and the end of the present eon." The ''katechon'' represents, for Schmitt, the intellectualization of the ancient '' State of the Roman Empire'', with all its police and military powers to enforce

orthodox Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to: Religion * Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pa ...

ethics. In his posthumously published diary (the ''Glossarium'') the entry from December 19, 1947, reads: "I believe in the Katechon: it is for me the only possible way to understand Christian history and to find it meaningful". And Schmitt adds: "the Katechon needs to be named for every epoch of the past 1948 years. The place was never unoccupied; otherwise we would no longer be present."

Paolo Virno Paolo Virno (; ; born 1952) is an Italian philosopher, Semiotics, semiologist and a figurehead for the Italian Marxism, Marxist movement. Implicated in belonging to illegal social movements during the 1960s and 1970s, Virno was arrested and jail ...

has a long discussion of the ''katechon'' in his book ''Multitude: Between Innovation and Negation''. He refers to Schmitt's discussion. Virno says that Schmitt views the ''katechon'' as something that impedes the coming of the Antichrist, but because the coming of the Antichrist is a condition for the redemption promised by the

Messiah In Abrahamic religions, a messiah or messias (; , ; , ; ) is a saviour or liberator of a group of people. The concepts of ''mashiach'', messianism, and of a Messianic Age originated in Judaism, and in the Hebrew Bible, in which a ''mashiach'' ...

, the ''katechon'' also impedes the redemption. Virno uses "katechon" to refer to that which impedes both the War of all against all (''

Bellum omnium contra omnes ', a Latin phrase meaning "the war of all against all", is the description that Thomas Hobbes gives to human existence in the state-of-nature thought experiment that he conducts in ''De Cive'' (1642) and ''Leviathan'' (1651). The common modern E ...

'') and totalitarianism, for example the society in Orwell's

Big Brother (Nineteen Eighty-Four) Big Brother is a fictional character and symbol in George Orwell's dystopian 1949 novel ''Nineteen Eighty-Four''. He is ostensibly the leader of Oceania, a totalitarian state wherein the ruling party, Ingsoc, wields total power "for its own s ...

. It impedes both but eliminates neither. Virno locates the ''katechon'' in the human ability to use language, which makes it possible to conceive of the negation of something, and also allows the conceptualization of something which can be other than what it is; and in the bioanthropological behavior of humans as social animals, which allows people to know how to follow rules without needing a rule to tell how to follow a rule, then a rule to tell how to follow that rule, and so on to infinity. These capabilities permit people to create social institutions and to dissolve or change them.

References

{{Doomsday Christian eschatology Prophecy in Christianity Christian terminology New Testament Greek words and phrases

Proposed identifications

In scholarly works

See also

References