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"The possession of the pontiffs, commences with the abandonment of Rome by the emperors"
(quoted by Clarence H. Hewitt in The Seer of Babylon, p. 113).

Finally in 476, the last Western Caesar, Augustulus, was forced out of office by the Goths.
With the fulfillment of this prophecy the mighty Roman Empire of the Caesars had passed from the
scene of human history. The "restraint" was now fully ek mesou -- "out of the way." According to
what Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, the stage was now cleared for the next scene in this im-
mense prophetic drama -- the rise to power of the man of sin. H. Grattan Guinness wrote --

The mighty Caesars had fallen; Augustus, Domitian, Hadrian, Diocletian, were gone;
even the Constantines and Julians had passed away. The seat of sovereignty had been re-
moved from Rome to Constantinople. Goths and Vandals had overthrown the western
empire; the once mighty political structure lay shivered into broken fragments. The impe-
rial government was slain by the Gothic sword. The Caesars were no more, and Rome
was an actual desolation. Then slowly on the ruins of old imperial Rome rose another
power and another monarchy -- a monarchy of loftier aspirations and more resistless
might, claiming dominion, not alone over the bodies, but over the consciences and souls
of men; dominion, not only within the limits of the fallen empire, but throughout the en-
tire world. Higher and higher rose the Papacy, till in the Dark Ages all Christendom was
subjected to its sway (op. cit., p. 61).

Once it is admitted that the Roman Empire under the rule of the Caesars was that which
was holding back the appearance of the Antichrist, it is clearly evident that the Papacy -- rising to
power at the time and place indicated -- met all the requirements of the prophecy. How, then,
can preachers and evangelists of the futurist viewpoint project this prophecy into the future? Inter-
estingly, these same people conveniently ignore all the evidence about the Roman Empire being the
"restraint" and promulgate nonsense such as the following --

"The hindering influence in this passage is, of course, the ministry of the Holy Spirit in and
through the lives of Christians today" (William W. Orr, Antichrist, Armageddon, and the End of
the World, p. 11). "This One who hinders the man of sin must be the Holy Spirit. At the rapture of
the saints, we believe, the Holy Spirit will be taken out of the way of the man of sin so that he may
be revealed" (John R. Rice, The Coming Kingdom of Christ, p. 125). These writers merely echo
the theory spread by Scofield -- who was influenced by the propaganda of the Jesuits -- that the re-
strainer "can be no other than the Holy Spirit in the Church, to be 'taken out of the way'" (Scofield,
Scofield Reference Bible, p. 1272). But as Oswald Smith has rightly pointed out in his book
Tribulation or Rapture -- Which? regarding the verse under consideration: "There is no mention
of the Holy Spirit at all. That is a Scofield Bible assumption. The Holy Spirit and the church re-
main to the end of the age" (page 8).

The Holy Spirit Is Not the "Restraint"

Most Christians recognize that Yehovah's holy spirit within the Church is a great force
against evil -- but this was not the restraint of which the apostle Paul wrote. He clearly told the
Thessalonians that the coming of Yeshua to gather the Church would NOT take place until after the
man of sin would be revealed -- see 2 Thessalonians 2:1-3. To then turn right around and say the
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