Alan Fimister

“According to the majority of the Fathers, “what” and “he” who restrains the “lawless one” (unanimously identified by the Fathers as the Antichrist of whom John speaks in 1 John 2:18–22 and 4:3) is the Roman empire and the Roman emperor.220 St Thomas considers in his commentary on this epistle how it could be that the Antichrist has not come by his own time when it would seem that the Roman empire has perished. “The Roman Empire has not perished,” he explains, “but passed from the temporal to the spiritual order.” The revolt of which St Paul speaks will be against the faith and government of the Holy Roman Church.221”
― Alan Fimister, The Iron Sceptre of the Son of Man : Romanitas As a Note of the Church