JOHN GEREE (1601?-1649), English Puritan, pastor of Tewkesbury, and prebendary at St. Albans, Hertfordshire, in his The Down-Fall of Anti-Christ, based on 2 Thessalonians 2:8, contends at the outset that “Prophesies cease to be Mysteries, when by accomplishment they became Histories,” and proceeds to show how the identity of Antichrist, which was as yet unknown to the early church, became clear when fulfilled by the “succession of the Popes of Rome. 1John Geree, The Down-Fall of Anti-Christ: or, The Power of Preaching, to Pull Down Popery, sig. A, r, v. PFF2 559.3