2 Thessalonians 2:3

A falling away; a great apostasy from the faith and practice of the gospel.

That man of sin; the words "man of sin" are to be understood not of any single person, but of a wicked system presided over and directed by a succession of wicked men. The words of the apostle clearly describe that great system of spiritual tyranny and wickedness of which the papacy has ever been the central power.

Be revealed; show himself, and be made manifest in his true character.

The son of perdition; the very words applied by our Saviour to the apostate Judas. They describe the man of sin as notoriously wicked and doomed to final destruction. See the histories of popes John II. and John VIII.; of Marcellinus; of Honorius, of whom the council of Constantinople say, "We have caused him to be accursed"; of Eugenius, whom the council of Basle call "a simonist, a perjurer, a willful heretic"; of John XIII.; of Sextus IV.; of Alexander VI., who, as a papal historian says, was "one of the greatest and most horrible monsters in nature"; and of many others. See Guicciardini, Ciaconius, and other papal historians.