The ''katechon'' (from

Greek Greek may refer to: 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 of all kno ...

: , "that which withholds", or , "the one who withholds"), also known as the restrainer, is a biblical term referring to something that must be removed before the arrival of the "

man of sin The man of sin (, ''ho anthrōpos tēs hamartias'') or man of lawlessness (, ''anomias''), man of rebellion, man of insurrection, or man of apostasy is a figure referred to in the Christian Bible in the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians. He is ...

." Mentioned in the New Testament, the ''katechon's'' uncertain identity has been debated amongst Christian scholars. Common interpretations for the identity include the government, the church, and the

Holy Spirit The Holy Spirit, otherwise known as the Holy Ghost, is a concept within the Abrahamic religions. In Judaism, the Holy Spirit is understood as the divine quality or force of God manifesting in the world, particularly in acts of prophecy, creati ...

Term

The term is found in in an

eschatological Eschatology (; ) concerns expectations of the end of present age, human history, or 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 negative world ...

context: Christians 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 (86,400 seconds). As a day passes at a given location it experiences morning, afternoon, evening, and night. This daily cycle driv ...

would happen tomorrow, since the son of perdition (the

Antichrist In Christian eschatology, Antichrist (or in broader eschatology, Anti-Messiah) refers to a kind of entity prophesied by the Bible to oppose Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ and falsely substitute themselves as a savior in Christ's place before ...

of 1 and 2 John) must be revealed before. The author of Second Thessalonians then adds that the

revelation Revelation, or divine revelation, is the disclosing of some form of Religious views on truth, truth or Knowledge#Religion, knowledge through communication with a deity (god) or other supernatural entity or entities in the view of religion and t ...

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 In linguistics, a grammatical gender system is a specific form of a noun class system, where nouns are assigned to gender categories that are often not related to the real-world qualities of the entities denoted by those nouns. In languages wit ...

in Greek, τὸ κατέχον; and verse 7 the masculine, ὁ κατέχων.

Proposed identifications

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

New American Bible The New American Bible (NAB) is an Bible translations into English, English translation of the Bible first published in 1970. The 1986 Revised NAB is the basis of the revised Lectionary. In the Catholic Church it is the only translation approved ...

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

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...

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

Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire, also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, was a polity in Central and Western Europe, usually headed by the Holy Roman Emperor. It developed in the Early Middle Ages, and lasted for a millennium ...

. Other scholars suggest that the ''katechon'' is the

or the

Church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a place/building for Christian religious activities and praying * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian comm ...

. The last two interpretations are usually believed by Christians supporting a pretribulation rapture. Finally, the

Great Apostasy The Great Apostasy is a concept within Christianity to describe a perception that mainstream Christian Churches have fallen away from the original faith founded by Jesus in Christianity, Jesus and promulgated through his Twelve Apostles. A bel ...

of the

within the believers and the Roman Catholic hierarchy is predicted by the

Catechism of the Catholic Church The ''Catechism of the Catholic Church'' (; commonly called the ''Catechism'' or the ''CCC'') is a reference work that summarizes the Catholic Church's doctrine. It was Promulgation (Catholic canon law), promulgated by Pope John Paul II in 1992 ...

(CCC 675-677).

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, author, and political theorist. Schmitt wrote extensively about the effective wielding of political power. An authoritarian conservative theorist, he was noted as a critic of ...

suggested 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 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 14 May 1952) is an Italian philosopher, semiologist and a figurehead for the Italian Marxist movement. Implicated in belonging to illegal social movements during the 1960s and 1970s, Virno was arrested and jailed in 1979, ...

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 ...

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

Big Brother (Nineteen Eighty-Four) Big Brother is a 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 sake" over ...

. 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.

In the canon law

In the

Canon law of the Catholic Church The canon law of the Catholic Church () is "how the Church organizes and governs herself". It is the system of religious laws and canon law, ecclesiastical legal principles made and enforced by the Hierarchy of the Catholic Church, hierarchical ...

does not provide for any special rules for governing the Church if the truth of faith of the

and Katechon is realised within it. The

1917 Code of Canon Law The 1917 ''Code of Canon Law'' (abbreviated 1917 CIC, from its Latin title ), also referred to as the Pio-Benedictine Code,Dr. Edward Peters accessed June-9-2013 is the first official comprehensive codification (law), codification of Canon law ...

repealed the part of the ''

Decretum Gratiani The , also known as the or or simply as the , is a collection of Catholic canon law compiled and written in the 12th century as a legal textbook by the jurist known as Gratian. It forms the first part of the collection of six legal texts, whic ...

'' that allowed the

people of God ''People of God'' () is a term used in the Hebrew Bible to refer to the Israelites and used in Christianity to refer to Christians. In the Bible Hebrew Bible and Old Testament In the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament, the Israelites are referred ...

to depose a

heretical Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, particularly the accepted beliefs or religious law of a religious organization. A heretic is a proponent of heresy. Heresy in Christianity, Judai ...

pope. This procedure of deposition in cases of heresy was never accepted in the history of the

Magisterium The magisterium of the Catholic Church is the church's authority or office to give authentic interpretation of the word of God, "whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition". According to the 1992 ''Catechism of the Catholic Church'' ...

of the Church.

References

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

Term

Proposed identifications

In scholarly works

In the canon law

See also

References