Historicist interpretations of the Book of Revelation

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Historicism is a method of interpretation in Christian eschatology which associates biblical prophecies with actual historical events and identifies symbolic beings with historical persons or societies; it has been applied to the Book of Revelation by many writers. The Historicist view follows a straight line of continuous fulfillment of prophecy which starts in Daniel's time and goes through John of Patmos' writing of the Book of Revelation all the way to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.[1]

One of the most influential aspects of the early Protestant historicist paradigm was the assertion that scriptural identifiers of the Antichrist were matched only by the institution of the Papacy. Particular significance and concern were the Papal claims of authority over the Church through Apostolic Succession, and the State through the Divine Right of Kings. When the Papacy aspires to exercise authority beyond its religious realm into civil affairs, on account of the Papal claim to be the Vicar of Christ, then the institution was fulfilling the more perilous biblical indicators of the Antichrist. Martin Luther wrote this view into the Smalcald Articles of 1537; this view was not novel and had been leveled at various popes throughout the centuries, even by Roman Catholic saints.[2] It was then widely popularized in the 16th century, via sermons, drama, books, and broadside publication.[3] The alternate methods of prophetic interpretation, Futurism and Preterism were derived from Jesuit writings, whose counter-reformation efforts were aimed at opposing this interpretation[4][5][6][7] that the Antichrist was the Papacy or the power of the Roman Catholic Church.[8]

  1. ^ History of the Church of God, pp. 252, 253 (1876)
  2. ^ Burgess, Joseph A.; Gros, Jeffrey (1989). Building Unity: Ecumenical Dialogues with Roman Catholic Participation in the United States. Paulist Press. ISBN 9780809130405.
  3. ^ Tinsley, Barbara Sher (1 January 1992). History and Polemics in the French Reformation: Florimond de Raemond, Defender of the Church. Susquehanna University Press. p. 80. ISBN 978-0-945636-29-8.
  4. ^ "Jesuit scholarship rallied to the Roman cause by providing two plausible alternatives to the historical interpretation of the Protestants. 1. Luis de Alcazar (1554-1630) of Seville, Spain, devised what became known as the 'preterist' system of prophetic interpretation. This theory proposed that the Revelation deals with events in the Pagan Roman Empire, that antichrist refers to Nero and that the prophecies were therefore fulfilled long before the time of the medieval church. Alcazar's preterist system has never made any impact on the conservative, or evangelical wing of the Protestant movement, although in the last one hundred years it has become popular among Protestant rationalists and liberals. 2. A far more successful attack was taken by Francisco Ribera (1537–1591) of Salamanca, Spain. He was the founder of the 'futurist' system of prophetic interpretation. Instead of placing antichrist way in the past as did Alcazar, Ribera argues that antichrist would appear way in the future. About 1590 Ribera published a five hundred page commentary on the Apocalypse, denying the Protestant application of antichrist to the church of Rome." M.L. Moser, Jr., An Apologetic of Premillennialism, p.27
  5. ^ M.L. Moser, Jr., An Apologetic of Premillennialism, pp.26, 27.
  6. ^ H. Grattan Guinness, Romanism and the Reformation From the Standpoint of Prophecy, p. 268 (1887)
  7. ^ Rev. Joseph Tanner, Daniel and the Revelation, pp. 16, 17.
  8. ^ The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 4 [4BC], 42.)