God” by means of καὶ τοῦτὸ ἐστιν τὸ τοῦ ἀντιχρίστου (“and this, moreover, is the [spirit] of antichrist”).11 Whether one understands the sentence to mean, “just this, i.e., the annulling of Jesus, is the essence of the antichrist,” or whether one supplies πνεῦμα after τό (“this is the [spirit]”), the content remains the same. For, in any case, the false teaching is traced back to the antichrist, who, as already stated in 2:18*, is at work in the heretical teachers. The mythological figure