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A certain individual on this Forum has questioned my personal info about my French Huguenot family's roots, simply because I refuse to buy into men's leaven doctrines about the Antichrist which my French Huguenot ancestors wrongly believed to be about the pope in their era.

Now I very much believe what my Huguenot ancestors believed about the errors of the Roman Church, just not their belief that a pope could be the coming Antichrist, at any time, simply because a pope claiming to be a Christian would never be accepted as the Jew's Messiah, which is who the coming Antichrist will actually claim to be, as per Lord Jesus' warning.

The French Huguenots were French Protestants that followed the doctrines of the Protestant Reformation in 16th-17th century France, and suffered persecution by the Roman Catholic Church, even war. My French ancestors left 16th century France because of the persecutions, and that's how they came to the American Colonies eventually in the early 1600's. The Protestant Reformers, especially the Lutherans, believed then that the Roman pope was the Antichrist of The Bible.

The early Church fathers, like Hippolytus (2nd century A.D., even PRIOR to there being a 'pope' office in Rome), knew per Bible Scripture that the Antichrist which is to come at the end of this world will come from the circumcision (i.e., Jews), and will sit in a JEWISH stone temple in JERUSALEM, and proclaim himself as king and as Messiah...

Hippolytus (170-235 A.D.):

"Now as our Lord Jesus Christ, who is also God, was prophesied of under the figure of a lion, on account of his royalty and glory, in the same way have the scriptures also beforehand spoken of Antichrist as a lion, on account of his tyranny and violence. For the deceiver seeks to liken himself in all things to the Son of God. Christ is a lion, so Antichrist is also a lion. Christ is a king, so Antichrist is also a king. The Savior was manifested as a lamb, so he too in like manner will appear as a lamb without; within he is a wolf. The Savior came into the world in the circumcision [i.e., the Jewish race], and he will come in the same manner. . . . The Savior raised up and showed his holy flesh like a temple, and he will raise a temple of stone in Jerusalem" (The Antichrist 6 [A.D. 200]).


What Hippolytus said above is what The Bible actually teaches about the final Antichrist to come at the END of this present world.

The prophecy about the coming pseudo-Christ which Jesus pointed to in His Olivet discourse is about the false one that will appear in JERUSALEM for the end, NOT Rome. And Lord Jesus said that coming false one will work "great signs and wonders" that IF it were possible, would deceive even His very elect (Matthew 24:23-26). The KJV has the phrase "false Christs" in the Matthew 24:24 passage from Greek pseudochristos. But the actual context of that Matt.24:23-26 Scripture is about a SINGULAR false-Christ appearing in JERUSALEM to do that working.

How can we 'know' Jesus was pointing to JERUSALEM with that Matthew 24:23-26 prophecy about the false one appearing at the end of this world?

1. Because Lord Jesus linked that event with the coming time of "great tribulation" at the END of this world per the previous SIGNS He gave in that Matt.24 chapter.

2. Because the "abomination of desolation" prophecy from Daniel 11:31 is about the "vile person" prophecy of Daniel 11 which is about "a small people" (small group of Jews in power in JERUSALEM that will setup that "vile person" as king there), and that "vile person" will be against "the holy covenant", meaning the old covenant which MUST be restored by those Jews at the end in Jerusalem, WITH a new 3rd stone temple, AND old covenant style worship again. Then that "vile person" will end... those Jew's restored daily sacrifices, and instead place the "abomination of desolation" in that new stone temple there in... JERUSALEM for the end.

3. Because Lord Jesus quoted the "abomination of desolation" prophecy from Daniel 11 about two hundreds years after... Antiochus Epiphanes had almost fulfilled that "vile person" prophecy back in 165 B.C.

4. Because the Orthodox Jews in JERUSALEM are expecting their Messiah of Old Testament Bible prophecy, and NOT a pope who claims to be a Christian!

5. Because per the Zechariah 6 prophecy about The BRANCH (Jesus), the Scripture points to Messiah will build the temple (in JERUSALEM) when He comes. Thus the actual coming Antichrist will involve the Jews in today's JERUSALEM with helping them to build their future 3rd temple, which those Jews today already have the materials ready to build it. This means the whole operation will involve an ORTHODOX JEWISH event, and their CLAIMED Messiah, and not a Christian pope which no orthodox Jew would bow to as their Messiah.

6. Because once again, Lord Jesus prophesied in Matthew 24 and Mark 13 that the coming Antichrist will be a FALSE-CHRIST in JERUSALEM, which means proclaimed as the Messiah of The Bible, and not some fancy clothed man in Rome.

7. Because the "temple of God" which Apostle Paul was pointing to in 2 Thessalonians 2 is about the coming pseudo-Christ to JERUSALEM to sit in a Jewish stone temple which Lord Jesus had ALREADY warned about in His Olivet discourse for the coming time of "great tribulation" at the end of this world.

8. Because of unawares crept into the Church that were passing false letters as if they were written by the Apostles about the event of Christ's coming, Apostle Paul was having to REMIND the Thessalonian Church about the timeline for Christ's coming and gathering of the Church. That 2 Thess.2:4 event, what Paul also called a "strong delusion" later in that chapter, will involve the setting up of a false-Messiah by the false Jews in JERUSALEM for the end of this world as the Antichrist. So no way would that ever be a pope that claims to be a Christian.

My Huguenot ancestors believed the pope then was the coming Antichrist because like those still on those old Reformer doctrines today, don't study their Bible for themselves, but just believe whatever their denominations preach from old traditions.

And one of the MOST telling evidences that those today who push that old Antichrist Reformer doctrine, is how Bible prophecy about the coming Antichrist is for the LAST GENERATION that will actually experience Christ's future appearing and gathering of His Church. So ask yourself, were the old Protestant Reformers of 16th and 17th centuries Europe that LAST GENERATION that saw Christ's return?? Any Christian that studies their Bible ought to be able to answer that in a heartbeat!

This is an ancient prediction of an Antichrist who came into power and was destroyed in the Jerusalem temple back in AD 66.  You are far too late with your prediction for a future Antichrist.

There is absolutely no need for a third physical temple to be built in order to fulfill this Antichrist prediction. Paul wrote that the Antichrist / Man of Lawlessness was already in existence back in his own days, along with his restrainer (who was then murdered by the Antichrist individual in AD 66).

But kudos to you for not falling into the delusion of the Pope as the Antichrist, which the Reformers were mistaken in connecting with each other.  In spite of all the RCC's corrupted doctrine and practices and persecution of believers, at the very minimum they DO acknowledge both the Father and the Son, and they DO teach that Jesus has already come in the flesh, (in fulfillment of Daniel's prophecy about the AD 30 coming of Messiah the Prince). 

These two things define what characterizes an antichrist, in 1 & 2 John.  And they do not fit the Papacy or Catholicism. 

Quote from: 3 Resurrections on Sun Feb 25, 2024 - 13:57:39This is an ancient prediction of an Antichrist who came into power and was destroyed in the Jerusalem temple back in AD 66.  You are far too late with your prediction for a future Antichrist.

There is absolutely no need for a third physical temple to be built in order to fulfill this Antichrist prediction. Paul wrote that the Antichrist / Man of Lawlessness was already in existence back in his own days, along with his restrainer (who was then murdered by the Antichrist individual in AD 66).

But kudos to you for not falling into the delusion of the Pope as the Antichrist, which the Reformers were mistaken in connecting with each other.  In spite of all the RCC's corrupted doctrine and practices and persecution of believers, at the very minimum they DO acknowledge both the Father and the Son, and they DO teach that Jesus has already come in the flesh, (in fulfillment of Daniel's prophecy about the AD 30 coming of Messiah the Prince). 

These two things define what characterizes an antichrist, in 1 & 2 John.  And they do not fit the Papacy or Catholicism. 

Brethren in Christ, the above statements are PROPAGANDA from the 'false Jews' of the "synagogue of Satan" which have crept into the Church which are preparing deceived in JERUSALEM for the coming of the false one there that they... worship.

Jesus rebuking the Jew's Leadership...

John 5:42-47
42 But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you.

43 I am come in My Father's name, and ye receive Me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive.

44 How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?

45 Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust.

46 For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed Me: for he wrote of Me.

47 But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe My words?
KJV


Did you know brethren, there was even a non-believing Jewish Bible scholar like Bruce Metzger on the later Bible revision committees serving in the American Bible Society and United Bible Societies, involved in the revision of The New Testament?

And Dr. James White, a Baptist theologian, believes it doesn't matter if a Bible scholar actually BELIEVES The Bible to be true or not, but only the 'science' of translating is what is important. God's Word was given via The Holy Spirit to holy men, i.e., believers. How can someone who does not... believe receive the proper interpretation required by unction of The Holy Spirit? How God's Word was written often TRANSCENDS mere secular ideas by unbelievers.
(documentation of this in Bridge To Babylon)

Name-calling won't prove your points, dpr. 

This prediction for the Antichrist was never said to apply to the "last generation".  You are making up that phrase which does not appear in scripture as applying to the Antichrist. 

The Antichrist was going to be a character "coming in his own name", which Christ accused the Pharisees of being willing to accept.  This was a phenomenon that the Pharisees themselves were going to be dealing with, according to Christ. They would be more than willing to accept a person coming as a "false christ" King of Israel in his own name, rather than Jesus the true Christ who came in His Father's name. 

Quote from: dpr on Tue Feb 27, 2024 - 09:59:27Brethren in Christ, the above statements are PROPAGANDA from the 'false Jews' of the "synagogue of Satan" which have crept into the Church which are preparing deceived in JERUSALEM for the coming of the false one there that they... worship.

Please don't call people names (even Biblical ones) or imply they aren't Christians.

It's against the rules... but more importantly it's just not very nice.

Quote from: Wycliffes_Shillelagh on Wed Feb 28, 2024 - 12:31:29Please don't call people names (even Biblical ones) or imply they aren't Christians.

It's against the rules... but more importantly it's just not very nice.

You mean Jesus pointing to the false Jews of the "synagogue of Satan" is name calling?

That's all I did, was point to a false doctrine of theirs.

Quote from: dpr on Sun Feb 25, 2024 - 11:10:33A certain individual on this Forum has questioned my personal info about my French Huguenot family's roots, simply because I refuse to buy into men's leaven doctrines about the Antichrist which my French Huguenot ancestors wrongly believed to be about the pope in their era.

Now I very much believe what my Huguenot ancestors believed about the errors of the Roman Church, just not their belief that a pope could be the coming Antichrist, at any time, simply because a pope claiming to be a Christian would never be accepted as the Jew's Messiah, which is who the coming Antichrist will actually claim to be, as per Lord Jesus' warning.

The French Huguenots were French Protestants that followed the doctrines of the Protestant Reformation in 16th-17th century France, and suffered persecution by the Roman Catholic Church, even war. My French ancestors left 16th century France because of the persecutions, and that's how they came to the American Colonies eventually in the early 1600's. The Protestant Reformers, especially the Lutherans, believed then that the Roman pope was the Antichrist of The Bible.

The early Church fathers, like Hippolytus (2nd century A.D., even PRIOR to there being a 'pope' office in Rome), knew per Bible Scripture that the Antichrist which is to come at the end of this world will come from the circumcision (i.e., Jews), and will sit in a JEWISH stone temple in JERUSALEM, and proclaim himself as king and as Messiah...

Hippolytus (170-235 A.D.):

"Now as our Lord Jesus Christ, who is also God, was prophesied of under the figure of a lion, on account of his royalty and glory, in the same way have the scriptures also beforehand spoken of Antichrist as a lion, on account of his tyranny and violence. For the deceiver seeks to liken himself in all things to the Son of God. Christ is a lion, so Antichrist is also a lion. Christ is a king, so Antichrist is also a king. The Savior was manifested as a lamb, so he too in like manner will appear as a lamb without; within he is a wolf. The Savior came into the world in the circumcision [i.e., the Jewish race], and he will come in the same manner. . . . The Savior raised up and showed his holy flesh like a temple, and he will raise a temple of stone in Jerusalem" (The Antichrist 6 [A.D. 200]).


What Hippolytus said above is what The Bible actually teaches about the final Antichrist to come at the END of this present world.

The prophecy about the coming pseudo-Christ which Jesus pointed to in His Olivet discourse is about the false one that will appear in JERUSALEM for the end, NOT Rome. And Lord Jesus said that coming false one will work "great signs and wonders" that IF it were possible, would deceive even His very elect (Matthew 24:23-26). The KJV has the phrase "false Christs" in the Matthew 24:24 passage from Greek pseudochristos. But the actual context of that Matt.24:23-26 Scripture is about a SINGULAR false-Christ appearing in JERUSALEM to do that working.

How can we 'know' Jesus was pointing to JERUSALEM with that Matthew 24:23-26 prophecy about the false one appearing at the end of this world?

1. Because Lord Jesus linked that event with the coming time of "great tribulation" at the END of this world per the previous SIGNS He gave in that Matt.24 chapter.

2. Because the "abomination of desolation" prophecy from Daniel 11:31 is about the "vile person" prophecy of Daniel 11 which is about "a small people" (small group of Jews in power in JERUSALEM that will setup that "vile person" as king there), and that "vile person" will be against "the holy covenant", meaning the old covenant which MUST be restored by those Jews at the end in Jerusalem, WITH a new 3rd stone temple, AND old covenant style worship again. Then that "vile person" will end... those Jew's restored daily sacrifices, and instead place the "abomination of desolation" in that new stone temple there in... JERUSALEM for the end.

3. Because Lord Jesus quoted the "abomination of desolation" prophecy from Daniel 11 about two hundreds years after... Antiochus Epiphanes had almost fulfilled that "vile person" prophecy back in 165 B.C.

4. Because the Orthodox Jews in JERUSALEM are expecting their Messiah of Old Testament Bible prophecy, and NOT a pope who claims to be a Christian!

5. Because per the Zechariah 6 prophecy about The BRANCH (Jesus), the Scripture points to Messiah will build the temple (in JERUSALEM) when He comes. Thus the actual coming Antichrist will involve the Jews in today's JERUSALEM with helping them to build their future 3rd temple, which those Jews today already have the materials ready to build it. This means the whole operation will involve an ORTHODOX JEWISH event, and their CLAIMED Messiah, and not a Christian pope which no orthodox Jew would bow to as their Messiah.

6. Because once again, Lord Jesus prophesied in Matthew 24 and Mark 13 that the coming Antichrist will be a FALSE-CHRIST in JERUSALEM, which means proclaimed as the Messiah of The Bible, and not some fancy clothed man in Rome.

7. Because the "temple of God" which Apostle Paul was pointing to in 2 Thessalonians 2 is about the coming pseudo-Christ to JERUSALEM to sit in a Jewish stone temple which Lord Jesus had ALREADY warned about in His Olivet discourse for the coming time of "great tribulation" at the end of this world.

8. Because of unawares crept into the Church that were passing false letters as if they were written by the Apostles about the event of Christ's coming, Apostle Paul was having to REMIND the Thessalonian Church about the timeline for Christ's coming and gathering of the Church. That 2 Thess.2:4 event, what Paul also called a "strong delusion" later in that chapter, will involve the setting up of a false-Messiah by the false Jews in JERUSALEM for the end of this world as the Antichrist. So no way would that ever be a pope that claims to be a Christian.

My Huguenot ancestors believed the pope then was the coming Antichrist because like those still on those old Reformer doctrines today, don't study their Bible for themselves, but just believe whatever their denominations preach from old traditions.

And one of the MOST telling evidences that those today who push that old Antichrist Reformer doctrine, is how Bible prophecy about the coming Antichrist is for the LAST GENERATION that will actually experience Christ's future appearing and gathering of His Church. So ask yourself, were the old Protestant Reformers of 16th and 17th centuries Europe that LAST GENERATION that saw Christ's return?? Any Christian that studies their Bible ought to be able to answer that in a heartbeat!

I did not question your ancestral connection to the Protestant Huguenots, I asked why you identify yourself with the Protestant Huguenots, when you do not believe as they did. You believe they were wrong, I believe they were right as the largest portion of all Protestants did up until perhaps the middle of the 1800's. When Jesuit inspired interpretations of biblical prophecy along futurist and or Preterist lines began infiltrating Protestant thought.

What is the source of your following quote, which I have already rebuffed on another thread, as I will on this topic as well, and in more detail.

QuoteThe early Church fathers, like Hippolytus (2nd century A.D., even PRIOR to there being a 'pope' office in Rome), knew per Bible Scripture that the Antichrist which is to come at the end of this world will come from the circumcision (i.e., Jews), and will sit in a JEWISH stone temple in JERUSALEM, and proclaim himself as king and as Messiah...

Please share where you got this quote, thank you. Your single quote from Hippolytus, is just that, a single quote. A far cry from giving the position of all the early church "fathers". I will repost my response to your seemingly false claims on another thread in my next post, which contradicts your claims. After which I will share a great many more details regarding the development of the historicist school of prophetic interpretation, employed by a great many of the past.

Shortly I will begin an examination of the history of the Huguenots as well, to determine whether they had good reason to believe the pope and church of Rome to be Babylon the Great and or a system of antichrist as well. Which they most certainly did.

Quote from: Amo on Wed Feb 28, 2024 - 14:33:04I did not question your ancestral connection to the Protestant Huguenots, ...
....

Yeah you did, you questioned MY BELIEFS based on what my French Huguenot ancestors of the 16th century believed as early Protestant Christians.

The following is a response to dpr from another thread.

I'll find your quote from Hippolytus, and check it out. Meanwhile the following testimony from H. Grattan Guiness, an Irish Protestant, refutes your above claims. Even citing Hippolytus as supporting historicist interpretation over futurist interpretation. Therefore will it be necessary to go to Hippolytus' writings themselves to determine the truth of the matter.

Your continued false claim that the Roman church being identified as Babylon the Great and a system of antichrist by Protestants didn't pan out, is just that. Protestants didn't have to wait for these truths to pan out, they lived under the persecutions and abuses which were the evidences themselves. They Protested these abuses they were suffering, hence their name. Lest any forget, they were all originally Catholic's, excommunicated from that church for daring to complain about her abuses. Being named Protestants later, for refusing to stop their protest against her abuses and eventually found out false teachings.

In any case, the following is testimony which refutes your own. According to it, the "Fathers", looked for antichrist to be established after the fall of the Roman Empire. Which history testifies was succeeded by the Holy Roman Empire.

QuoteROMANISM AND THE REFORMATION
by H. Grattan Guiness

LECTURE 5
INTERPRETATION AND USE OF THESE PROPHECIES IN PRE-REFORMATION TIMES

5. The Fathers held that the Roman empire was the "let," or hindrance, referred to by Paul in 2 Thessalonians, which kept back the manifestation of the "man of sin." This point is of great importance. Paul distinctly tells us that he knew, and that the Thessalonians knew, what that hindrance was, and that it was then in existence. The early Church, through the writings of the Fathers, tells us what it knew upon the subject, and with remarkable unanimity affirms that this "let," or hindrance, was the Roman empire as governed by the Caesars; that while the Caesars held imperial power, it was impossible for the predicted antichrist to arise, and that on the fall of the Caesars he would arise. Here we have a point on which Paul affirms the existence of knowledge in the Christian Church. The early Church knew, he says, what this hindrance was. The early Church tells us what it did know upon the subject, and no one in these days can be in a position to contradict its testimony as to what Paul had, by word of mouth only, told the Thessalonians. It is a point on which ancient
tradition alone can have any authority. Modern speculation is positively impertinent on such a subject.

What then was the view of the early Church? Look at the words of Tertullian. Quoting Thessalonians, he says: "Now ye know what detaineth that he might be revealed in his time, for the mystery of iniquity doth already work; only he who now hinders must hinder until he be taken out of the way. What obstacle is there but the Roman state; the falling away of which, by being scattered into ten kingdoms, shall introduce antichrist ..that the beast antichrist, with his false prophet, may wage war on the Church of God?" (Tertullian: "On the Resurrection," chaps, 24,25) In his magnificent "Apology," addressed to the rulers of the Roman empire, Tertullian says that the Christian Church — not himself, mark, but the Christian Church — prayed for the emperors, and for the stability of the empire of Rome, because they knew "that a mighty shock impending over the whole earth — in fact, the very end of all things, threatening dreadful woes — was ONLY RETARDED by the continued existence of the Roman empire. " (Apology, Section 32)

Read the words of Chrysostom in his "Commentary on 2 Thessalonians": "One may first naturally inquire what is that which withholdeth, and after that would know why Paul expresses this so obscurely. . 'he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.' That is, when the Roman empire is taken out of the way, then he shall come; and naturally, for as long as the fear of this empire lasts, no one will readily exalt himself; but when that is dissolved, he will attack the anarchy, and endeavor to seize upon the government both of men and of God. For as the kingdoms before this were destroyed, that of the Medes by the Babylonians, that of the Babylonians by the Persians, that of the Persians by the Macedonians, that of the Macedonians by the Romans, so will this be by antichrist, and he by Christ."

Then, accounting for Paul's reserve in alluding to this point he adds: "Because he says this of the Roman empire, he naturally only glanced at it and spoke covertly, for he did not wish to bring upon himself superfluous enmities and useless dangers. For if he had said that, after a little while, the Roman empire would be dissolved, they would now immediately have even overwhelmed him as a pestilent person, and all the faithful as living and warring to this end." (Chrysostom: Homily 4., "On 2 Thessalonians 2.)

From Irenaeus, who lived close to apostolic times, down to Chrysostom and Jerome, the Fathers taught that the power withholding the manifestation of the "man of sin" was the Roman empire as governed by the Caesars. The Fathers therefore belong to the historic, and not to the futurist school of interpretation; for futurists imagine that the hindrance to the manifestation of the man of sin is still in existence, though the Caesars have long since passed away.

6. The Fathers held that the fall of the Roman empire was imminent, and therefore the manifestation of antichrist close at hand Justin Martyr, for example, one of the earliest of the Fathers, in his "Dialogue with Trypho," chapter 22, says: "He whom Daniel foretells would have dominion for 'time and times and a half ' is already even at the door, about to speak his blasphemous and daring things against the Most High." Cyprian, in his "Exhortation to Martyrdom," says: "Since..the hateful time of antichrist is already beginning to draw near, I would collect from the sacred Scriptures some exhortations for preparing and strengthening the minds of the brethren, whereby I might animate the soldiers of Christ for the heavenly and spiritual contest." (Treatise 11.)

7. The Fathers held that the "man of sin" or antichrist, would be a ruler or head of the Roman empire. A striking illustration of this is the interpretation by Irenaeus and Hippolytus of the mysterious number 666, the number of the revived beast, or antichrist. Irenaeus gives as its interpretation the word Latinos. He says: "Latinos is the number 666, and it is a very probable (solution), this being the name of the last kingdom, for the LATINS are they who at present bear rule. " (Irenoeus: "AgainstHeresies," book 5, chapter 30.)

Hippolytus gives the same solution in his treatise on "Christ and Antichrist."

8. The Fathers held that the Babylon of the Apocalypse means Rome. On this point they were all agreed and their unanimity is an important seal on the correctness of this interpretation. Tertullian, for example, in his answer to the Jews, says:
"Babylon, in our own John, is a figure of the city Rome, as being equally great and proud of her sway, and triumphant over the saints" (chapter 9.). Victorinus, who wrote the earliest commentary on the Apocalypse extant, says, on Revelation 17: "The seven heads are the seven hills on which the woman sitteth — that is, the city of Rome."

Hippolytus says: "Tell me, blessed John, apostle and disciple of the Lord, what didst thou see and hear concerning Babylon? Arise and speak, for it sent thee also into banishment."(Treatise "On Christ and Antichrist,"Section 36.) You notice here the view that Rome which banished the Apostle John is the Babylon of the Apocalypse. Augustine says, "Rome, the second Babylon, and the daughter of the first, to which it pleased God to subject the whole world, and bring it all under one sovereignty, was now founded." (City of God," book 18, chapter 22.)

In chapter 28, he calls Rome "the western Babylon." In chapter 41 he says: "It has not been in vain that this
city has received the mysterious name of Babylon; for Babylon is interpreted confusion, as we have said elsewhere." It is clear from these quotations that the Fathers did not interpret the Babylon of the Apocalypse as meaning either the literal Babylon on the Euphrates, or some great city in France or England, but as meaning Rome. And this is still the interpretation of the historic school, though for the last 800 years events have proved Babylon to represent Rome, not in its pagan, but in its Papal form.

LECTURE 5

As to the "let" or hindrance to the manifestation of the "man of sin" referred to in 2 Thessalonians 2, Mr. Elliott says: "We have the consenting testimony of the early Fathers, from Irenoeus, the disciple of the disciple of St. John, down to Chrysostom and Jerome, to the effect that it was understood to be the imperial power ruling and residing at Rome." — Horae Apocalypticae, vol. 3., p. 92.

Irenaeus held that the division of the Roman empire into ten kingdoms would immediately precede the manifestation of antichrist. In his work, "Against Heresies," book 5, chapter 30, he says, "Let them await, in the first place, the division of the kingdom into ten; then, in the next place, when these kings are reigning, and beginning to set their affairs in order and advance their kingdom, (let them learn) to acknowledge that he who shall come claiming the kingdom for himself and shall terrify those sons of men of whom we have been speaking, having a name containing the aforesaid number (666), is truly the abomination of desolation." Thus, according to Irenaeus, the manifestation of antichrist required the previous overthrow of the then existing Roman empire.

"Tertullian's Apology" thus describes the habit of the Christian Church of the second century to pray for the security of the Roman empire, in the knowledge that its downfall would bring the catastrophe of the reign of antichrist and the ruin of the world. Addressing the "rulers of the Roman empire," he says: "We offer prayer for the safety of our princes to the eternal, the true, the living God, whose favor, beyond all others, they must themselves desire..Thither we lift our eyes, with hands outstretched, because free from sin; with head uncovered, for we have nothing whereof to be ashamed; finally, without a monitor, because it is from the heart we supplicate. And without ceasing for all our emperors we offer prayer. We pray for life prolonged; for security to the empire.. With our hands thus stretched out and up to God, rend us with your iron claws, hang us up on crosses, wrap us in flames, take our heads from us with the sword, let loose the wild beasts upon us — the very attitude of a Christian praying is the preparation for all punishment. Let this, good rulers, be your work, wring from us the soul, beseeching God on the emperor's behalf. Upon the truth of God and devotion to His name put the brand of crime ..There is also another and a greater necessity for our offering prayer in behalf of the emperors, nay, for the complete stability of the empire, and for Roman interests in general. For we know that a mighty shock impending over the whole earth — in fact, the very end of all things, threatening dreadful woes — is only retarded by the continued existence of the Roman empire. We have no desire then to be overtaken by these dire events; and in praying that their coming may be delayed, we are lending our aid to Rome's duration." — "Apology," Sections 30-32.

Quote from: dpr on Wed Feb 28, 2024 - 14:37:43Yeah you did, you questioned MY BELIEFS based on what my French Huguenot ancestors of the 16th century believed as early Protestant Christians.

Yes, I did and do question your beliefs, not your ancestral connection to the Huguenots. No reason to doubt that. There are a great many descendants of the Huguenots in these United States.

Quote from: Amo on Wed Feb 28, 2024 - 14:42:34The following is a response to dpr from another thread.

I'll find your quote from Hippolytus, and check it out. Meanwhile the following testimony from H. Grattan Guiness, an Irish Protestant, refutes your above claims. Even citing Hippolytus as supporting historicist interpretation over futurist interpretation.
....

And there you go with falseness again; Hippolytus lived in the 2nd century A.D.! Man's doctrines of FUTURISM did NOT even exist yet at that time!

So with your claims by some words by that Irish Protestant, you just believed what he said hook-line-and-sinker, without even THINKING for yourself. And what does that show about trusting what you say? It means you are determined to believe an AGENDA from men's doctrines even against history about the early Church fathers like Hippolytus!

Quote from: Amo on Wed Feb 28, 2024 - 14:46:37Yes, I did and do question your beliefs, not your ancestral connection to the Huguenots. No reason to doubt that. There are a great many descendants of the Huguenots in these United States.

And that is what I said you did.

So what really is your problem? You obviously think the doctrines of men that you follow are authentic when they are not. There is NOTHING written in Revelation about a Catholic pope being the coming Antichrist. The haters of the Christian Church and especially the Catholic Church, are the Orthodox Jews and Communists. And just so happens believe it or not, a lot of non-believing Jews are Communists.

Quote from: Amo on Wed Feb 28, 2024 - 14:42:34....

In any case, the following is testimony which refutes your own. According to it, the "Fathers", looked for antichrist to be established after the fall of the Roman Empire. Which history testifies was succeeded by the Holy Roman Empire.

Furthermore, you might make a more serious attempt at studying your Bible about the things which the early Church father Hippolytus declared about the coming Antichrist. The doctrines of men you have latched onto instead, with the claim that the Catholic pope is the Antichrist, doesn't work Biblically, nor historically.

Hippolytus wasn't in the Bible so why should his word be taken as authoritative?

Quote from: Texas Conservative on Wed Feb 28, 2024 - 15:04:21Hippolytus wasn't in the Bible so why should his word be taken as authoritative?

Because 'when'... the Bible student checks out what he said about Bible prophecy regarding the coming Antichrist, they discover he was closely aligned with God's written Word. So it does not matter that Hippolytus lived in the 2nd century A.D., nor any other early Church father that kept to what God's Word says as written.

Thus the actual matter is... is it God's Word or not?

Only way to find that out is to check it out in God's Word.

Quote from: dpr on Sun Feb 25, 2024 - 11:10:33
The early Church fathers, like Hippolytus (2nd century A.D., even PRIOR to there being a 'pope' office in Rome), knew per Bible Scripture that the Antichrist which is to come at the end of this world will come from the circumcision (i.e., Jews), and will sit in a JEWISH stone temple in JERUSALEM, and proclaim himself as king and as Messiah...

WAIT JUST A MINUTE. I WANT SCRIPTURE, CHAPTER AND VERSE FOR THIS

knew per Bible Scripture that the Antichrist which is to come at the end of this world will come from the circumcision (i.e., Jews), and will sit in a JEWISH stone temple in JERUSALEM, and proclaim himself as king and as Messiah.

Otherwise it is unreliable information that is pure conjecture based on personal interpretation.

As to your relatives and belief of the Pope. They are not far wrong. That office is one of anti-Christ... just not the anti-Christ.

Quote from: dpr on Wed Feb 28, 2024 - 14:47:56And there you go with falseness again; Hippolytus lived in the 2nd century A.D.! Man's doctrines of FUTURISM did NOT even exist yet at that time!

So with your claims by some words by that Irish Protestant, you just believed what he said hook-line-and-sinker, without even THINKING for yourself. And what does that show about trusting what you say? It means you are determined to believe an AGENDA from men's doctrines even against history about the early Church fathers like Hippolytus!

No, actually I have read a great many books written by the Protestant Reformers, and books about them by later Protestants who believed their testimony. This is why I understand that they had excellent reasons for believing the Pope to be antichrist, which reasons still hold tru today. Not to mention far more than just a little time studying the development of prophetic bible interpretation over the centuries. I am not making things up, nor do I depend on a single or just a few sources in my determinations.

There is no way of keeping track of all that has been believed over the centuries concerning biblical prophecy. To the effect that none have had futurist views along the way. But there is very much information regarding the development of the historicist interpretation along the way. Some of which I will share. The history of Jesuit authored counter interpretations such as Futurism and Preterism is also recorded as I have already shared.

You are of course free to accept or reject whatever you wish. 

Quote from: dpr on Wed Feb 28, 2024 - 14:26:29You mean Jesus pointing to the false Jews of the "synagogue of Satan" is name calling?

That's all I did, was point to a false doctrine of theirs.

You're not Jesus.

Be nice, or begone.  Up to you.

Quote from: dpr on Wed Feb 28, 2024 - 14:51:40And that is what I said you did.

So what really is your problem? You obviously think the doctrines of men that you follow are authentic when they are not. There is NOTHING written in Revelation about a Catholic pope being the coming Antichrist. The haters of the Christian Church and especially the Catholic Church, are the Orthodox Jews and Communists. And just so happens believe it or not, a lot of non-believing Jews are Communists.

No, there isn't. Nor is there anything in scripture specifically stating that he will be Jewish, though such could make good sense. There is an awful lot however, that biblical prophecy points out regarding antichrist and Babylon, which the history of the Roman Catholic church and the pope fulfills very well. As our Protestant ancestors rightly determined, and pointed out. Many do not consider them nearly was ignorant, as you do.

As far as Communism goes, you might find the article at the following link interesting.

https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2019/07/23/catholic-case-communism

https://earlychristianwritings.com/text/hippolytus-christ.html

I found HIPPOLYTUS OF ROME, TREATISE ON CHRIST AND ANTICHRIST, at the above link. Which some may find of interest. He did indeed believe that the antichrist would be a Jew of the tribe of Dan. He expected antichrist to appear after the Roman empire which was the fourth metal of Daniel 2's vision, being the little horn if I remember correctly, arising out of the ten kingdoms which arise after or out of the Roman empire. Which many others correctly believed as well, including Protestant Reformers later, as time progressed and the papacy developed more power after the fall of the Roman empire.

Quote from: Rella on Wed Feb 28, 2024 - 15:31:14

Quote from: dpr on Sun Feb 25, 2024 - 11:10:33The early Church fathers, like Hippolytus (2nd century A.D., even PRIOR to there being a 'pope' office in Rome), knew per Bible Scripture that the Antichrist which is to come at the end of this world will come from the circumcision (i.e., Jews), and will sit in a JEWISH stone temple in JERUSALEM, and proclaim himself as king and as Messiah...

WAIT JUST A MINUTE. I WANT SCRIPTURE, CHAPTER AND VERSE FOR THIS

knew per Bible Scripture that the Antichrist which is to come at the end of this world will come from the circumcision (i.e., Jews), and will sit in a JEWISH stone temple in JERUSALEM, and proclaim himself as king and as Messiah.

Otherwise it is unreliable information that is pure conjecture based on personal interpretation.

As to your relatives and belief of the Pope. They are not far wrong. That office is one of anti-Christ... just not the anti-Christ.

What Hippolytus said that the Antichrist would come from the circumcision (Jews) is easy to prove per Bible Scripture. Only someone not studied in God's Word could miss it. And it does require Bible discipline.

1. Lord Jesus pointed to the coming Antichrist for the End of this world:

Matt 24:15-21
15 When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)

16 Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains:

17 Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house:

18 Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes.

19 And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!

20 But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day:

21 For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.
KJV


Jesus linked the placing of the "abomination of desolation" idol per the Book of Daniel with the time of "great tribulation" at the end of this world, and with the coming Antichrist. And He showed it will involve a STANDING JEWISH TEMPLE IN JERUSALEM (i.e., "stand in the holy place").


Matt 24:23-26
23 Then if any man shall say unto you, "Lo, here is Christ, or there"; believe it not.
24 For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.
25 Behold, I have told you before.
26 Wherefore if they shall say unto you, "Behold, He is in the desert"; go not forth: "behold, He is in the secret chambers"; believe it not.
KJV

Christ's above warning is definitely NOT about a pope, nor any other than a false one that appears in JERUSALEM at the end of this world, and many proclaim that "Christ" is there. In verse 24 above, the Greek word pseudochristos is used, which is made of 2 Greek words, pseudo which means false, and christos which means Christ, singular. Dr. James Strong in his Strong's Exhaustive Concordance defined that pseudochristos as "a spurious Messiah". So when that idea of MESSIAH is used, that is pointing directly to Jesus Christ Who was born of the circumcision, of the tribe of Judah, of the house of David, through Mary's lineage (see Luke 3 if you doubt Jesus' bloodline lineage from Judah, and also Hebrews 7:14 and Revelation 5:5). NONE of this can fit any pope of the Catholic Church.

2. Jesus Quoted the Abomination of Desolation Prophecy Long After Antiochus Had Been Dead:

The Daniel 11 events about the "vile person" is for the final Antichrist at the end of this world. This is where Jesus was quoting from in His Olivet discourse. Some wrongly attempt to say Antiochus IV fulfilled this back in 165 B.C., but Jesus' quote from Dan.11 around 200 years later proves it is not about Antiochus, but about the final Antichrist at the END of this world, still future to us even, because the Signs Jesus gave with it are for the future time of "great tribulation" which is not happened yet today.


Dan 11:21-24
21 And in his estate shall stand up a vile person, to whom they shall not give the honour of the kingdom: but he shall come in peaceably, and obtain the kingdom by flatteries.


Antiochus IV in 170 B.C. came to power in Jerusalem using an army, not peace. The final Antichrist at the end will take Jerusalem using PEACE and flatteries. By that "obtain the kingdom" idea means the 1st beast of Revelation 13:1 which represents a 'beast kingdom' over the whole earth. That is the world kingdom the Antichrist will setup from Jerusalem at the very end of this world.


22 And with the arms of a flood shall they be overflown from before him, and shall be broken; yea, also the prince of the covenant.

23 And after the league made with him he shall work deceitfully: for he shall come up, and shall become strong with a small people.

24 He shall enter peaceably even upon the fattest places of the province; and he shall do that which his fathers have not done, nor his fathers' fathers; he shall scatter among them the prey, and spoil, and riches: yea, and he shall forecast his devices against the strong holds, even for a time.
KJV


The Antichrist will become strong (politically) with "a small people" in JERUSALEM, meaning a small group of Jewish leaders. They will help make the Antichrist king in Jerusalem for the end.


Dan 11:28-39
28 Then shall he return into his land with great riches; and his heart shall be against the holy covenant; and he shall do exploits, and return to his own land.
29 At the time appointed he shall return, and come toward the south; but it shall not be as the former, or as the latter.


The Antichrist "shall be against the holy covenant". That is pointing to the return of old covenant worship by the Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem for the END. That reveals it will exist during the time of Antichrist's reign as king in JERUSALEM at the time of "great tribulation." Otherwise, the Antichrist could not be against that holy covenant as written here if it was not already going on at that time. For him to end the daily sacrifices they have to be instituted at the end of this world again at some point, this is just common sense.


30 For the ships of Chittim shall come against him: therefore he shall be grieved, and return, and have indignation against the holy covenant: so shall he do; he shall even return, and have intelligence with them that forsake the holy covenant.
31 And arms shall stand on his part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate.


That Daniel 11:31 verse is where Lord Jesus was quoting from about the "abomination of desolation" for the END. Antiochus Epiphanes did serve as a TYPE for that event, but only as a TYPE blueprint, for Antiochus took Jerusalem with an army, but not by PEACE. What Antiochus did per the Jewish historian Josephus, in 170 B.C., he took Jerusalem with an army, ended the Jew's sacrifices, and went inside the 2nd temple in Jerusalem and sacrificed swine upon the altar and spread its broth around inside the temple, and then setup an IDOL abomination on an altar in that temple to Zeus, and demanded that all bow to it or be killed. But remember again, Jesus quoted that abomination prophecy around 200 years after Antiochus had done that, and applied it for the end of this world just prior to His future return.

Therefore, to FULFILL that "abomination of desolation" prophecy that Jesus quoted for the END, THERE MUST BE A STANDING JEWISH STONE TEMPLE IN JERUSALEM FOR IT TO HAPPEN, AND THE JEWS OLD COVENANT AND SACRIFICES MUST BE RE-ESTABLISHED THERE.

The "image of the beast" at the end of Revelation 13 will be the IDOL abomination which the coming Antichrist will setup in the new stone temple at JERUSALEM for the "great tribulation".


32 And such as do wickedly against the covenant shall he corrupt by flatteries: but the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits.
33 And they that understand among the people shall instruct many: yet they shall fall by the sword, and by flame, by captivity, and by spoil, many days.
34 Now when they shall fall, they shall be holpen with a little help: but many shall cleave to them with flatteries.
35 And some of them of understanding shall fall, to try them, and to purge, and to make them white, even to the time of the end: because it is yet for a time appointed.
36 And the king shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done.
37 Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all.
38 But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces: and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things.
39 Thus shall he do in the most strong holds with a strange god, whom he shall acknowledge and increase with glory: and he shall cause them to rule over many, and shall divide the land for gain.
KJV


That Daniel 11:37 verse is a link to the "man of sin" which Apostle Paul warned of in 2 Thessalonians 2:4 that is to set himself up in the "temple of God" and proclaim himself as God, and over all that is called God, or that is worshiped. That "temple of God" is about the future new temple in Jerusalem for the Jews to start up their old covenant worship again, with sacrifices. Some orthodox Jews in today's Jerusalem have already been doing passover sacrifices on a hill overlooking the Temple Mount. And they already have the cornerstone cut for their new temple, and also have many of the temple worship artifacts already prepared in Jerusalem.

It is just a matter of time when the REAL Antichrist for the END shows up, and ends all wars and instead creates a type of world peace on earth, and allows the Jews to go forth with building their 3rd stone temple and restart their old covenant worship, because they are still waiting for the coming of MESSIAH, not a pope.

Quote from: dpr on Wed Feb 28, 2024 - 21:08:48What Hippolytus said that the Antichrist would come from the circumcision (Jews) is easy to prove per Bible Scripture. Only someone not studied in God's Word could miss it. And it does require Bible discipline.

1. Lord Jesus pointed to the coming Antichrist for the End of this world:

Matt 24:15-21
15 When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)

16 Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains:

17 Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house:

18 Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes.

19 And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!

20 But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day:

21 For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.
KJV


Jesus linked the placing of the "abomination of desolation" idol per the Book of Daniel with the time of "great tribulation" at the end of this world, and with the coming Antichrist. And He showed it will involve a STANDING JEWISH TEMPLE IN JERUSALEM (i.e., "stand in the holy place").


Matt 24:23-26
23 Then if any man shall say unto you, "Lo, here is Christ, or there"; believe it not.
24 For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.
25 Behold, I have told you before.
26 Wherefore if they shall say unto you, "Behold, He is in the desert"; go not forth: "behold, He is in the secret chambers"; believe it not.
KJV

Christ's above warning is definitely NOT about a pope, nor any other than a false one that appears in JERUSALEM at the end of this world, and many proclaim that "Christ" is there. In verse 24 above, the Greek word pseudochristos is used, which is made of 2 Greek words, pseudo which means false, and christos which means Christ, singular. Dr. James Strong in his Strong's Exhaustive Concordance defined that pseudochristos as "a spurious Messiah". So when that idea of MESSIAH is used, that is pointing directly to Jesus Christ Who was born of the circumcision, of the tribe of Judah, of the house of David, through Mary's lineage (see Luke 3 if you doubt Jesus' bloodline lineage from Judah, and also Hebrews 7:14 and Revelation 5:5). NONE of this can fit any pope of the Catholic Church.

2. Jesus Quoted the Abomination of Desolation Prophecy Long After Antiochus Had Been Dead:

The Daniel 11 events about the "vile person" is for the final Antichrist at the end of this world. This is where Jesus was quoting from in His Olivet discourse. Some wrongly attempt to say Antiochus IV fulfilled this back in 165 B.C., but Jesus' quote from Dan.11 around 200 years later proves it is not about Antiochus, but about the final Antichrist at the END of this world, still future to us even, because the Signs Jesus gave with it are for the future time of "great tribulation" which is not happened yet today.


Dan 11:21-24
21 And in his estate shall stand up a vile person, to whom they shall not give the honour of the kingdom: but he shall come in peaceably, and obtain the kingdom by flatteries.


Antiochus IV in 170 B.C. came to power in Jerusalem using an army, not peace. The final Antichrist at the end will take Jerusalem using PEACE and flatteries. By that "obtain the kingdom" idea means the 1st beast of Revelation 13:1 which represents a 'beast kingdom' over the whole earth. That is the world kingdom the Antichrist will setup from Jerusalem at the very end of this world.


22 And with the arms of a flood shall they be overflown from before him, and shall be broken; yea, also the prince of the covenant.

23 And after the league made with him he shall work deceitfully: for he shall come up, and shall become strong with a small people.

24 He shall enter peaceably even upon the fattest places of the province; and he shall do that which his fathers have not done, nor his fathers' fathers; he shall scatter among them the prey, and spoil, and riches: yea, and he shall forecast his devices against the strong holds, even for a time.
KJV


The Antichrist will become strong (politically) with "a small people" in JERUSALEM, meaning a small group of Jewish leaders. They will help make the Antichrist king in Jerusalem for the end.


Dan 11:28-39
28 Then shall he return into his land with great riches; and his heart shall be against the holy covenant; and he shall do exploits, and return to his own land.
29 At the time appointed he shall return, and come toward the south; but it shall not be as the former, or as the latter.


The Antichrist "shall be against the holy covenant". That is pointing to the return of old covenant worship by the Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem for the END. That reveals it will exist during the time of Antichrist's reign as king in JERUSALEM at the time of "great tribulation." Otherwise, the Antichrist could not be against that holy covenant as written here if it was not already going on at that time. For him to end the daily sacrifices they have to be instituted at the end of this world again at some point, this is just common sense.


30 For the ships of Chittim shall come against him: therefore he shall be grieved, and return, and have indignation against the holy covenant: so shall he do; he shall even return, and have intelligence with them that forsake the holy covenant.
31 And arms shall stand on his part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate.


That Daniel 11:31 verse is where Lord Jesus was quoting from about the "abomination of desolation" for the END. Antiochus Epiphanes did serve as a TYPE for that event, but only as a TYPE blueprint, for Antiochus took Jerusalem with an army, but not by PEACE. What Antiochus did per the Jewish historian Josephus, in 170 B.C., he took Jerusalem with an army, ended the Jew's sacrifices, and went inside the 2nd temple in Jerusalem and sacrificed swine upon the altar and spread its broth around inside the temple, and then setup an IDOL abomination on an altar in that temple to Zeus, and demanded that all bow to it or be killed. But remember again, Jesus quoted that abomination prophecy around 200 years after Antiochus had done that, and applied it for the end of this world just prior to His future return.

Therefore, to FULFILL that "abomination of desolation" prophecy that Jesus quoted for the END, THERE MUST BE A STANDING JEWISH STONE TEMPLE IN JERUSALEM FOR IT TO HAPPEN, AND THE JEWS OLD COVENANT AND SACRIFICES MUST BE RE-ESTABLISHED THERE.

The "image of the beast" at the end of Revelation 13 will be the IDOL abomination which the coming Antichrist will setup in the new stone temple at JERUSALEM for the "great tribulation".


32 And such as do wickedly against the covenant shall he corrupt by flatteries: but the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits.
33 And they that understand among the people shall instruct many: yet they shall fall by the sword, and by flame, by captivity, and by spoil, many days.
34 Now when they shall fall, they shall be holpen with a little help: but many shall cleave to them with flatteries.
35 And some of them of understanding shall fall, to try them, and to purge, and to make them white, even to the time of the end: because it is yet for a time appointed.
36 And the king shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done.
37 Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all.
38 But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces: and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things.
39 Thus shall he do in the most strong holds with a strange god, whom he shall acknowledge and increase with glory: and he shall cause them to rule over many, and shall divide the land for gain.
KJV


That Daniel 11:37 verse is a link to the "man of sin" which Apostle Paul warned of in 2 Thessalonians 2:4 that is to set himself up in the "temple of God" and proclaim himself as God, and over all that is called God, or that is worshiped. That "temple of God" is about the future new temple in Jerusalem for the Jews to start up their old covenant worship again, with sacrifices. Some orthodox Jews in today's Jerusalem have already been doing passover sacrifices on a hill overlooking the Temple Mount. And they already have the cornerstone cut for their new temple, and also have many of the temple worship artifacts already prepared in Jerusalem.

It is just a matter of time when the REAL Antichrist for the END shows up, and ends all wars and instead creates a type of world peace on earth, and allows the Jews to go forth with building their 3rd stone temple and restart their old covenant worship, because they are still waiting for the coming of MESSIAH, not a pope.

Like I said... no proof... only a quasi-assumption based on personal understandings.

In any even I am not the one who ever said Frankie or another Pope would be "the" antichrist.

But with the Romans going after the Jews and the temple in 70AD... that is a natural assumption, and not too far afield that if the Romans were at odds with God's original chosen... that they still are, to some extent.

You say " Only someone not studied in God's Word could miss it."

And I see someone who twists in the wind to make something out of nothing to fill the ideas he has and refuses to consider another.

Quote from: Rella on Thu Feb 29, 2024 - 11:12:18Like I said... no proof... only a quasi-assumption based on personal understandings.

No proof - but the argument is a little stronger than you're letting on.

Quote from: Rella on Thu Feb 29, 2024 - 11:12:18In any even I am not the one who ever said Frankie or another Pope would be "the" antichrist.

THE antichrist?  Probably not.

But every Pope holds the title Vicarius Christi, which is Latin for "Anti Christ," er... I mean, "Vicar of Christ. "
   Yeah, that sounds way better. 

Quote from: Rella on Thu Feb 29, 2024 - 11:12:18You say " Only someone not studied in God's Word could miss it."

I think it's pretty easy to miss it, and that it probably requires going outside of the Protestant Bible to really establish the point.  Some of the biggest clues are in Maccabees.

But I think the conclusion that THE Antichrist must be Jewish IS correct.

-Jarrod

https://www.gracecentered.com/christian_forums/index.php?topic=113245.0

For those interested, the above link is to a new topic concerning the history of the Huguenots. To built upon as time allows.

Quote

THE EXTANT WORKS AND FRAGMENTS
of HIPPOLYTUS

[translated by the rev. s. d. f. salmond.]
Part I.—Exegetical

FRAGMENTS FROM COMMENTARIES ON VARIOUS BOOKS OF SCRIPTURE

ON DANIEL
II

The interpretation by Hippolytus, (bishop) of Rome, of the visions of Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar, taken in conjunction.

1. In speaking of a "lioness from the sea," he meant the rising of the kingdom of Babylon, and that this was the "golden head of the image." And in speaking of its "eagle wings," he meant that king Nebuchadnezzar was exalted, and that his glory was lifted up against God. Then he says "its wings were plucked off," i.e., that his glory was destroyed; for he was driven out of his kingdom. And the words, "A man's heart was given it, and it was made stand upon the feet of a man," mean that he came to himself again, and recognised that he was but a man, and gave the glory to God. Then after the lioness he sees a second beast, "like a bear," which signified the Persians. For after the Babylonians the Persians obtained the power. And in saying that "it had three ribs in its mouth," he pointed to the three nations, Persians, Medes, and Babylonians, which were expressed in the image by the silver after the gold. Then comes the third beast, "a leopard," which means the Greeks; for after the Persians, Alexander of Macedon had the power, when Darius was overthrown, which was also indicated by the brass in the image. And in saying that the beast "had four wings of a fowl, and four heads," he showed most clearly how the kingdom of Alexander was parted into four divisions. For in speaking of four heads, he meant the four kings that arose out of it. For Alexander, when dying, divided his kingdom into four parts. Then he says, "The fourth beast (was) dreadful and terrible: it had iron teeth, and claws of brass." Who, then, are meant by this but the Romans, whose kingdom, the kingdom that still stands, is expressed by the iron? "for," says he, "its legs are of iron."

2. After this, then, what remains, beloved, but the toes of the feet of the image, in which "part shall be of iron and part of clay mixed together?" By the toes of the feet he meant, mystically, the ten kings that rise out of that kingdom. As Daniel says, "I considered the beast; and, lo, (there were) ten horns behind, among which shall come up another little horn springing from them;" by which none other is meant than the antichrist that is to rise; and he shall set up the kingdom of Judah. And in saying that "three horns" were "plucked up by the roots" by this one, he indicates the three kings of Egypt, Libya, and Ethiopia, whom this one will slay in the array of war. And when he has conquered all, he will prove himself a terrible and savage tyrant, and will cause tribulation and persecution to the saints, exalting himself against them. And after him, it remains that "the stone" shall come from heaven which "smote the image" and shivered it, and subverted all the kingdoms, and gave the kingdom to the saints of the Most High. This "became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth."

3. As these things, then, are destined to come to pass, and as the toes of the image turn out to be democracies, and the ten horns of the beast are distributed among ten kings, let us look at what is before us more carefully, and scan it, as it were, with open eye. The "golden head of the image" is identical with the "lioness," by which the Babylonians were represented. "The golden shoulders and the arms of silver" are the same with the "bear," by which the Persians and Medes are meant. "The belly and thighs of brass" are the "leopard," by which the Greeks who ruled from Alexander onwards are intended. The "legs of iron" are the "dreadful and terrible beast," by which the Romans who hold the empire now are meant. The "toes of clay and iron" are the "ten horns" which are to be. The "one other little horn springing up in their midst" is the "antichrist." The stone that "smites the image and breaks it in pieces," and that filled the whole earth, is Christ, who comes from heaven and brings judgment on the world.

4. But that we may not leave our subject at this point undemonstrated, we are obliged to discuss the matter of the times, of which a man should not speak hastily, because they are a light to him. For as the times are noted from the foundation of the world, and reckoned from Adam, they set clearly before us the matter with which our inquiry deals. For the first appearance of our Lord in the flesh took place in Bethlehem, under Augustus, in the year 5500; and He suffered in the thirty-third year. And 6,000 years must needs be accomplished, in order that the Sabbath may come, the rest, the holy day "on which God rested from all His works." For the Sabbath is the type and emblem of the future kingdom of the saints, when they "shall reign with Christ," when He comes from heaven, as John says in his Apocalypse: for "a day with the Lord is as a thousand years."2 Since, then, in six days God made all things, it follows that 6,000 years must be fulfilled. And they are not yet fulfilled, as John says: "five are fallen; one is," that is, the sixth; "the other is not yet come."

5. In mentioning the "other," moreover, he specifies the seventh, in which there is rest. But some one may be ready to say, How will you prove to me that the Saviour was born in the year 5500? Learn that easily, O man; for the things that took place of old in the wilderness, under Moses, in the case of the tabernacle, were constituted types and emblems of spiritual mysteries, in order that, when the truth came in Christ in these last days, you might be able to perceive that these things were fulfilled. For He says to him, "And thou shalt make the ark of imperishable wood, and shalt overlay it with pure gold within and without; and thou shalt make the length of it two cubits and a half, and the breadth thereof one cubit and a half, and a cubit and a half the height;" which measures, when summed up together, make five cubits and a half, so that the 5500 years might be signified thereby.

6. At that time, then, the Saviour appeared and showed His own body to the world, (born) of the Virgin, who was the "ark overlaid with pure gold," with the Word within and the Holy Spirit without; so that the truth is demonstrated, and the "ark" made manifest. From the birth of Christ, then, we must reckon the 500 years that remain to make up the 6000, and thus the end shall be. And that the Saviour appeared in the world, bearing the imperishable ark, His own body, at a time which was the fifth and half, John declares: "Now it was the sixth hour," he says, intimating by that, one-half of the day. But a day with the Lord is 1000 years; and the half of that, therefore, is 500 years. For it was not meet that He should appear earlier, for the burden of the law still endured, nor yet when the sixth day was fulfilled (for the baptism is changed), but on the fifth and half, in order that in the remaining half time the gospel might be preached to the whole world, and that when the sixth day was completed He might end the present life.

 Hippolytus of Rome, "Fragments from Commentaries on Various Books of Scripture," in Fathers of the Third Century: Hippolytus, Cyprian, Novatian, Appendix, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, trans. S. D. F. Salmond, vol. 5, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1886), 178–179.

From the above quoted works of Hippolytus, we understand the greater context of what he believed, in relation to the claims postulated by the opening post of this topic. Rather than being a supported or proponent of the present futurist interpretations of biblical prophecy, Hippolytus fully expected the appearance of Antichrist after the dissolution of the Roman Empire into ten other kingdoms represented by the ten horns of the fourth beast of Daniel 7. Which beast he contended was the Roman empire of his day. He also believed as expounded upon in points 4-6 of the above quoted, that the end would come 500 years after our Lord's first appearing. Not more then, than between two to three hundred years from his own day.

As is obvious, he was wrong about when the end would come. The details of history which have unfolded reveal that he was also no doubt wrong concerning exactly who Antichrist would be. A great many of his day and throughout history up to the present, have and do agree with his interpretations regarding the four metals of the image of Daniel 2, and the four beasts of Daniel 7. Those Christians which survived him, and long past the time he determined the end would come, rightly corrected these errors by adjusting prophetic interpretations in line with actual historical events.

These later Christians kept the predictions of Hippolytus which ended up being correct. As in, the dissolution of the Roman empire into ten smaller kingdoms represented by the ten horns of the fourth beast of the book of Daniel. They also kept the prediction by Hippolytus, that the little horn which would arise among the other ten, would in fact be Antichrist. Which these later Christians and eventually Protestants, rightly determined was the rise of the Holy Roman Empire and the papacy which it established as the supreme authority of the day. Pointing to the Pope of Rome himself, as the man of sin, whom Paul predicted would set himself up in the very temple of God on earth, declaring that he himself was God.

These Christians and Protestants rightly concluded that the temple Paul spoke of was the church of Christ, as both our Lord and the Apostle Paul taught in NT scripture, and not a literal building.

Jhn 2:18 Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things? 19 Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. 20 Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? 21 But he spake of the temple of his body. 22 When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said.

Rom 12:3 For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. 4 For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office: 5 So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.

1Co 3:16  Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? 17 If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.

1Co 6:19  What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? 20 For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.

2Co 6:16 And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, 18 And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.

Eph 2:19 Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; 20 And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; 21 In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: 22 In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.

2Th 2:3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; 4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. 5 Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things?

Therefore did they continue the Historicist school of prophetic interpretation which Hippolytus and so many others throughout history also maintained. That is the continuing unfolding of the fulfillment of biblical prophecy throughout history, as evidenced by the facts and events of history itself. Adjusting erroneous interpretations, as time and event revealed flaws, and or new details which could not be considered in the past. Correctly abandoning both the end of the world when Hippolytus predicted, and the idea that antichrist would need a literal temple in Jerusalem to preside over. To the contrary, coming to understand that any single person or institution claiming to stand in the place of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as the visible head of His church, was indeed verily Antichrist. The papacy itself most strikingly fulfilling these details far more than any other.

This they rightly determined concerning not only the place of our Lord's authority over the church, but the very ministry our Lord claims to be performing from the courts and or temple in heaven. That is our mediation through Him concerning prayer and the forgiveness of our sins. As the papacy points its adherents to look to their priests for confession and forgiveness rather than our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who ever liveth to make intercession for us. Directing them also to seek mediation from the dead saints, between them and God in their prayers. Rather than leaning on our Lord Jesus Christ Himself who lived and died as one of us for this very purpose. To give each and everyone of us direct access to the throne of God the Father in and through the name of God the Son Jesus Christ. Amen.

Act 4:10 Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole. 11 This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner. 12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

   

The following posts are reposts of mine from a different topic, which I had forgotten the location of, which are relevant to this topic as well.

DEVELOPMENT OF VIEWS CONCERNING THE LITTLE HORN OF DANIEL 7 AS THE PAPACY

Unless otherwise specified, the following quotes and references are taken from one of the four volumes of THE PROPHETIC FAITH OF OUR FATHERS, by Le Roy Edwin From. Emphasis is mine, references in blue.
All quotes below may be viewed at link provided.

https://m.egwwritings.org/en/book/956/toc

QUOTES FROM THE PROPHETIC FAITH OF OUR FATHERS, VOL. 1

CHAP 19 HERALDS OF THE NEW FULFILLMENT

III Jerome Last Comprehensive Witness Before the Eclipse

10. BARBARIC DIVIDERS OF ROME NAMED

Jerome (Jerome 340-420) lists Rome's dividers at that time, and bares his anxiety" over the imminent Antichrist:

"He that letteth is taken out of the way, and yet we do not realize that Antichrist is near. Yes, Antichrist is near whom the Lord Jesus Christ 'shall consume with the spirit of His mouth.'... Savage tribes in countless numbers have overrun all parts of Gaul. The whole country between the Alps and the Pyrenees, between the Rhine and the Ocean, has been laid waste by hordes of Quadi, Vandals, Sarmatians, Alans, Gepids, Herules, Saxons, Bergundians, Allemanni, and—alas for the commonweal!—even Pannonians. For 'Assur also is joined with them.' The once noble city of Moguntiacum [now Maintz] has been captured and destroyed. In its church many thousands have been massacred. The people of Vangium [now Worms] after standing a long siege have been extirpated. The powerful city of Rheims, the Ambiani, the Altrebatae, the Belgians in the skirts of the world, Tournay, Spires, and Strasburg have fallen to Germany: while the provinces of Aquitaine and of the Nine Nations, of Lyons and of Narbonne are with the exception of a few cities one universal scene of desolation." (Jerome, Letter 123 (to Ageruchia), in NPNF, 2d series, vol. 6, pp. 236, 237. It is interesting to note that he lists ten tribes, though he is not attempting to set forth the ten divisions of the fourth empire of Daniel 7. It is well known that there were many more than ten tribes which first overran Western Rome, but they were always merging and shifting as they settles down not kingdoms. The prophetic interpreters who in later times made their various lists of ten seem to have named the ten kingdoms which they regarded as significant in establishing themselves in the territory of Western Rome, thus forming the foundations of the later nations of Europe.)

11. LITTLE HORN ANTICHRIST, NOT ANTIOCHUS

Stoutly refuting Porphyry's application of the Little Horn to Antiochus, Jerome gives the remarkable assurance that "all ecclesiastical writers" of the past agree in expecting Rome's division into ten kingdoms before the Little Horn can appear. He places the three uprooted horns in Africa.

"Porphyry places the two latter beasts, representing the Macedonians and the Romans, in the one kingdom of the Macedonians, and divides it: he wishes the leopard to be understood as Alexander himself; the beast which is different from the other beasts, to be four successors of Alexander, and thereafter he enumerates ten kings even to Antiochus surnamed Epiphanes.... In vain Porphyry surmises that the little horn, which arose after the ten horns, is Antiochus Epiphanes, and of the ten horns three were rooted up: Ptolemy the sixth surnamed Philometor, Ptolemy Euergetes the seventh, and Artaxerxes king of Armenia, whose forefathers died much before Antiochus was born. We indeed know that Antiochus really fought against Artaxerxes, but that the latter remained in his former kingdom. Therefore we say what all ecclesiastical writers have handed down: that in the end of the world, when the kingdom of the Romans must be destroyed, there will be ten kings who divide the Roman world among themselves, and the eleventh will be raised up, a little king, who will overcome three kings of the ten kings, that is, the king of the Egyptians, and of Africa and of Ethiopia, as we shall point out more plainly in what follows." Translated from Jerome, Commentaria in Danielem, chap. 7, verses 7, 8, in Migne, PL, vol. 25, cols. 530, 531.)

12. JUDGMENT FOLLOWS LITTLE HORN'S REIGN

Describing at considerable length the judgment scene of Daniel 7:9 and related texts, Jerome parallels similar scenes in the Apocalypse and Ezekiel, with God as judge, and the books of judgment involved. Ibid., verses 9-27, cols. 531-534

13. JUDGMENT IS FOLLOWED BY SECOND ADVENT

Jerome sees the judgment sent because of Antichrist's pride and blasphemy, for "the Roman kingdom will be destroyed, because that horn spake great things." "In the one Roman kingdom," he says, "all the kingdoms must be destroyed at one time. He expects this to herald the advent, for there will never be an earthly kingdom, but the fellowship of the saints, and the coming of the triumphant Son of God in the clouds of heaven." For the advent he cites the stone in the dream of Nebuchadnezzar and Acts 1:9—II. Ibid., verses 11, 13, col. 533.

CHAPTER 32 ANTICHRIST A SYSTEM, NOT AN INDIVIDUAL

IV. Eberhard Interprets Papal System as Little Horn

In the midst of this tremendous struggle between the emperor and the pope one great ecclesiastical figure towers conspicuously. It is EBERHARD II, archbishop of Salzburg (1200-1246), chief spokesman for the emperor among the German bishops, and one of Frederick's chief counselors.

Frederick had conquered nearly all the states of the church when the pope summoned a council to meet at Rome in 1241. In a summons requesting Salzburg to be represented at the papal council—a document which is still preserved in the Salzburg ecclesiastical office—Eberhard was ignored by the Roman Curia. As a countermove Eberhard appeared at a diet in Verona, called by Frederick. Some clerics sided with the papal party, but Eberhard took his stand by the side of the emperor, though it brought him many vexations. His whole position toward Rome was endangered, not because of doctrinal controversies, but because of his fidelity to the emperor. Josef Hirn, "Erzbischof Eberhards II. von Salzburg Beziehungen zu Kirche und Reich," Jahresbericht des k.k. Ober-Gymnasiums in Krems (1875), pp. 30, 31.

EBERHARD II, FIRST TO APPLY LITTLE HORN TO HISTORICAL PAPCY

Eberhard II, thirteenth century archbishop of Salzberg, chief supporter of Fredrick II and initial expounder of the little horn of Daniel 7 as the historical papacy; Aentinus' annals of Bavaria, in which this remarkable exposition of the prophecy of Daniel 7 appears.


1. SETTING OF EBERHARD'S "LITTLE HORN" INTERPRETATION

His boldest statement, however, was made at a synod of Bavarian bishops held at Regensburg, or Ratisbon, in 1240 or 1241; where he gave utterance at the same time to a new interpretation of some lines of prophecy. Here, during this council, Eberhard, in a brilliant oration preserved by Aventinus, or Turmair, in his noted Bavarian Annals, clearly sets forth this identification of the prophecy of the Little Horn. In this striking presentation Eberhard not only openly calls the pope a wolf in shepherd's garb, the Son of Perdition, and Antichrist, but also gives his revolutionary exposition of the pope as the Little Horn of Daniel 7.19 Eberhard is not named in the record, but is referred to as the Archimysta. In the well- known medieval Latin dictionary Glossarium . . . Mediae et Infimae Latimtatis, by Charles Dufresne du Cange, the term "archimysta" is set forth as an expression of Aventinus, used as a synonym for archbishop.

As to the reliability of these Annals, Johann Turmair. better known as Aventinus (1477-1534), the "Father of Bavarian History," studied at the universities of Ingolstadt, Vienna, Krakow, and Paris. After tutoring for Prince William IV, he was appointed histori¬ ographer of the royal court of Bavaria. Thus he was enabled to gather the materials for his Annales Boiorum, completed in 1521. Their antipapal tone hindered publication, as Aventinus openly confessed sympathy for Luther's doctrines. Arrested in 1528, then released, he lived a rather unsettled life until he died in Regensburg in 1534. (Patricius Schlager, "Thurmayr, Johannes," The Catholic Encyclopedia , vol. 14, p. 713; Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. 2, p.
794, art. "Aventinus.")

Eberhard returns to a neglected exposition taught before Augustinianism had crowded the earlier views out of the current belief—the interpretation of the breakup of the fourth kingdom as the division of the Roman Empire among the barbarian kingdoms. Only now, instead of looking forward to the coming of an unidentified individual Antichrist as the prophesied Little Horn, Eberhard looks back over the centuries since Rome's dismemberment and sees in the historical Papacy, as a system or line of succession, the fulfillment of the predicted Little Horn, coming up among the ten divisions of Rome, and uprooting three. Such is the bold outline.

Eberhard's Regensburg Council speech, in 1240 or 1241, came at approximately the same time that the pope attempted to convoke the Council of Rome, which was thwarted by Frederick. And at the First General Council of Lyons (1245) the emperor was again excommunicated by the pope; Eberhard was excommunicated subsequently, and died under the ban in 1246. Burial in consecrated ground being refused, he was buried in common ground in an annex of the parish church in Radstadt. Some forty years later, in 1288, his remains were transferred to the consecrated ground of the Salzburg Cathedral. Joseph Rainier, "Salzburg, Archdiocese of," The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 13, p. 412. In the Annals of Convent Garsten his obituary states that he was "a man of great learning" who "ruled his see most nobly forty-six years." Hans Widmann, Geschichte Salzburgs, p. 351. Let us examine the details of his statements.

4. PRIESTS OF BABYLON SIT IN TEMPLE OF GOD

Connecting Babylon and Antichrist with the Man of Sin sitting in the temple of God, Eberhard reaches his climax when he connects these symbols of Antichrist with the Little Horn and its lawless proclivities—its flouting of established law and its ordination of its own laws—all revealed in the secrets of the Holy Writings to those who will understand. Of the popes he says:

"Those priests [flamines] of Babylon alone desire to reign, they cannot tolerate an equal, they will not desist until they have trampled all things under their feet, and until they sit in the temple of God, and until they are exalted above all that is worshipped. He who is servant of servants, desires to be lord of lords, just as if he were God. He speaks great things as if he were truly God. He ponders new counsels under his breast, in order that he may establish his own rule for himself, he changes laws, he ordains his own laws, he corrupts, he plunders, he pillages, he defrauds, he kills—that incorrigible man (whom they are accustomed to call Antichrist) on whose forehead an inscription of insult is written: 'I am God, I cannot err.' He sits in the temple of God, and has dominion far and wide. But as it is in the secrets of the holy writings, let him that readeth understand: the learned will understand, all the wicked will act wickedly, neither will they understand." Ibid.

The significance of Eberhard's expression should not be lost—that men were "accustomed" in his day, to call the pope "Antichrist." He was but voicing dramatically what had become a widespread conviction and open declaration.

5. PAPAL HORN ARISES AMONG ROME'S DIVISIONS

The historical dismemberment of the Roman Empire, so strangely ignored in the preceding centuries, not only because of Augustinianism but also because of creation of the Holy Roman Empire, which was meant to be its successor, is put in its rightful place by Eberhard. The ten divisions of Rome that he listed differ from later enumerations, as is also the case with the three horns, but it is the first attempt of its kind of which we have record. And Eberhard's conclusion from the outline is, "What is more clear than this prophecy!" Note it:

"Ten kings exist at the same time, who have divided the circle of the earth, formerly the Roman empire, not for ruling but for destroying. There are ten horns, that which seemed incredible to divine Aurelius Augustine; the Turks, the Greeks, the Egyptians, the Africans, the Spaniards, the Gauls, the English, the Germans, the Sicilians, the Italians possess the Roman provinces and have cut off the Roman colonists in these parts. And a little horn has sprung up under these, which has eyes and a mouth speaking great things; he reduces to order the three most powerful kingdoms of Sicily, Italy, and Germany, and compels them to serve him; with an unendurable lordship he plagues the people of Christ, and the saints of God; he mingles divine and human things, he sets in motion the abominable and the detestable things. What is more clear than this prophecy! All the signs and wonders which that heavenly teacher of ours pointed out to us (unroll the chronicles) have been fulfilled long ago." Ibid., p. 685.

It must be apparent that Eberhard's building upon earlier prophetic interpretation on this point of the dissolution of the Roman Empire had an important bearing on his attitude toward the Papacy. If the Roman Empire had not yet fallen, the Antichrist and the Little Horn could not have come; if, as Eberhard said, the dissolution of Rome had occurred centuries ago, these prophesied powers could be looked for in history.

V. The Revolutionary Implications of Eberhard's Interpretation

Why was this such a revolutionary idea? Why was the church so slow to realize that the Roman world power was a thing of the past? During the barbarian invasions Jerome had cried out that the Roman world was falling, See page 445. but he had not lived long enough to see the accomplished fact. Indeed, long after his lifetime men could not bring themselves to believe that Rome had fallen. The spell of the Eternal City was upon even her conquerors, and after a lapse of several centuries Charlemagne made the unsuccessful attempt at restoring it. The fiction of the "Holy Roman Empire," which, to repeat the cliché, was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire, was never a restoration, much less a continuation, of the real Roman power....

Further, the formation of a concept of the Little Horn or Antichrist as a long growth of a religio-political empire emerging from gradual apostasy in the church would necessarily be a late development.

(1) The conviction of the imminence of the end would not have allowed the earlier expositors to imagine such a long period, even if the initial stages of such a process had been recognized.

(2) The popular traditions of an individual Antichrist—a Jew, an unbeliever, or a semi-demon-ruling for a short period as despot and persecutor, although derived largely from non-Christian sources, See pages 293-301, would tend, in combination with the expectation of the speedy dissolution of all things, to condition the early church against an interpretation involving Antichrist's long development in history.

(3) In the nature of things, such a fulfillment could never be perceived until a long time after it had begun to develop, for not until its maturity could a system of that kind fill the specifications of the prophecy.
 
(4) Probably the most powerful influence that would prevent the earlier development of a historical interpretation of the Little Horn and the Antichrist was the Augustinian view, which completely changed the direction of prophetic interpretation and dominated the church from Augustine's time on. See pages 473 ff. The concept of the millennium as fulfilled in the earthly church and of the hierarchy as rulers of the kingdom of God On earth blinded men to the departures of the church and made it seem all the more unthinkable that the bishops of Rome, the most venerated prelates of Christendom, could so depart from the original faith as to be represented by such prophetic symbols.

2. EBERHARD SEES PEAK OF PAPACY

Not until the apostasy and corruption in the church became more and more evident, and the pride and power of the pontiffs of Rome had grown until it not only used the temporal sword on dissenters, but even sought to make vassals of kings and emperors, could the accusation be raised that the pope was exhibiting the traits of Antichrist. Not until a Gregory VII had claimed to be Vicar of Christ with authority over kings, and an Innocent III had set himself up as Vicar of God over the whole world, wielding the two swords of spiritual and civil penalties over great and small, See chapter 27., did Eberhard stand forth to level his finger at the Papacy as the Antichrist and the Little Horn "speaking great words against the most High."
 
He could not have made that application in the infancy of the Papacy. The claim to primacy, the imperious tone, and the political influence were already growing in the time of Gregory I, but the prophetic expositors of that day could hardly have applied to him the epithet with which he denounced the pride of a fellow prelate. In spite of Gregory I's denunciation of the claim to universal bishopric as a manifestation of Anti- Christian spirit, See chapter 22., the application was not made to the Roman popes when they afterward assumed the same dignity.
 
The modern conception of religious liberty had not developed, and its early gleams in the pre-Constantinian church had been lost in the deceptive glitter of political power under the Christian emperors; consequently the sinister aspect of the persecution of minorities was lost on the church. Not until the papal sword, after centuries, had been wielded with increasing ruthlessness upon multiplied victims, did the description of the Little Horn wearing out the saints become attached in men's minds to the Roman See.

3. THIRTEENTH-CENTURY DISILLUSIONMENT

But in the thirteenth century the corruptions of the hierarchy had long been apparent. Men had become weary of the worldliness of the clergy, the avarice, the simony, the injustice. The failure of the monastic reforms to cure the corruption of the church increased the protest of the laity against the contrast between the life of the clergy and the Christian ideal of self-renunciation and service, a protest which expressed itself variously, in the voluntary poverty of various lay groups, such as the Waldenses, in the wistful dreams of Joachim, and in the original zeal of the Franciscan and Dominican friars. These ideals, even among those loyal to the pope, such as Joachim, inevitably threw the worldly Papacy into an unfavorable light by contrast—at least for many who had eyes to see.

It was natural that Eberhard in Germany, in contact with the emperor, saw more clearly than did Joachim in Italy the menace of the Papacy's struggle to control both spiritual and civil power, and doubtless there he had more opportunity to hear the pontiff called Antichrist in the contest with Frederick. But his "Little Horn" application was not merely name-calling. He was not an enthusiast for voluntary poverty, for he was an influential archbishop; nor was he a disillusioned Joachimite, for Joachim's writings—genuine or pseudo-had not yet spread so far. But he was in a position to see three things: (1) that Rome had fallen long ago when her domain was divided into barbarian kingdoms; (2) that the Little Horn rising out of the divided successors to the empire, growing "among them" and coming into power "after them," was connected with the breakup of Rome, which no illusion of a Holy Roman Empire could push into the future; and (3) that the description of the Little Horn, with "eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things," "whose look was more stout than his fellows"—a kingdom among kingdoms, yet diverse from the rest, and at the same time a religious power, speaking "great words against the most High," and a persecuting power wearing out the saints—fitted the Papacy most remarkably. And the reader of medieval history as it is written today—even allowing for bias on the part of a supporter of Frederick—can see that the picture is not overdrawn.

Eberhard's historical interpretation of the Little Horn and the Antichrist doubtless had less circulation in Italy, and especially in papal circles, than in Germany. The Joachimites at first looked to Frederick as the Antichrist, and not until the Spirituals had experienced persecution do we find the application of the term "mystic Antichrist" to a future pseudo pope and then an individual, actual pope.

Eberhard was not the first to call a pope Antichrist, for he says that he was accustomed to that. Gerhoh of Reichersberg a century earlier had applied the term to the worldliness in the church and to the contest between pope and emperor. But Eberhard was a pioneer in seeing in the Little Horn, which sprang out of the divided kingdoms of the fourth prophetic empire, the Roman Papacy, which had slowly emerged to world power out of the breakup of the Roman Empire many centuries in the past.

Both true and false concepts of the continuance of Rome powerfully influenced not only churchmen but statesmen, but the position taken by Eberhard in 1240—that the breakup of Rome gave rise to a group of smaller kingdoms, among whom afterward came up the religio-political power of the historical Papacy' as the Little Horn—became the standard interpretation of fourteenth-century Wyclif in Britain, 33 then of sixteenth-century Luther and most of his associates, and next of Cranmer, Knox, and the bulk of the British Reformers. 34 Practically all the post-Reformation writers on the Continent and in Britain and America declared the same.35 Even the Jewish expositor Don Isaac Abravanel of Spain, in 1496, made a like explanation, 36
33 See Prophetic Faith , vol. 2, p. 55.
34 Ibid., cnart on p. 528.
35 Ibid., p. 784. under "Little Horn 55 ; also vol. 3, p. 252, under "Little Horn."
36 Ibid., vol. 2, p. 228.

This Reformation view was the sort of belief which helped to nerve men to withstand the powerful forces under the command of the Papacy, and to go to the stake rather than yield to her spiritual despotism; for Protestant martyrs dared not obey her injunctions or follow in her apostasies, and thus incur the displeasure of Heaven. Therefore they no longer feared her anathemas.

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX: SUMMING UP THE EVIDENCE OF VOLUME I

VII. "System" Concept Gradually Supplants "Individual" View of Antichrist

Indeed, aside from the impetus given to the historical approach, to prophecy,, the most noticeable element of prophetic interpretation from the thirteenth century on into the Reformation was the progressive identification of the Roman church with Babylon and of the Papacy with the multiple prophetic symbols of the Antichrist, the Little Horn the Beast, and the Man of Sin. It was, in fact, the logical outcome of the restoration of historical interpretation, but it was a gradual growth, which could have been established only by the testimony of the passage of time.

1. ANTICHRIST ENTHRONED IN CHURCH

It was inevitable that Antichrist should at the beginning be anticipated simply as an individual, and that the 1260 days should likewise be regarded as literal time (three and a half years) consistent with the life of a single person. The Antichrist was early connected with these other prophetic figures, but the historical identification of this power was not made until between the tenth and thirteenth centuries—the climax of the multiple application coming with the dramatic accusations of Archbishop Eberhard of Salzburg, in 1240. Yet the finger of accusation and identification had long been pointed in the direction of ecclesiastical Rome.

To begin with, Tichonius, out of his Donatist experience, saw the secularized church as Babylon, and Augustine mentioned the possibility that the Man of Sin would sit in the temple of the church, but these interpretations were not followed up. In the late ninth century, Berengaud's identification of the ten horns of Revelation 17 and Daniel 7 as the kingdoms which divided the Roman Empire, such as the Goths, Vandals, et cetera, was a step toward placing the Little Horn in the past also, but it seems to have been unnoticed.

Then in 991 Arnulf, bishop of Orleans, sounded his battle cry against the degradation of the church, in which he described the proud pope as "Antichrist sitting in the temple of God, and demeaning himself as a god," and declared that "the mystery of iniquity is begun." .........

3. EBERHARD SEES PAPACY AS MULTIPLE ANTICHRIST

But Eberhard's interpretation, if it did not penetrate to the Joachimites in Italy, was significant as the forerunner of later pre Reformation and Reformation positions. It was natural for persecuted minorities like the Franciscan Spirituals, the Albigenses, and the Waldenses, to use such terms as Babylon and Antichrist to describe their oppressors, but Eberhard, a learned archbishop and man of affairs, had nothing in common with them. Neither was his characterization of the Papacy merely the rhetoric of controversy. It came in the setting of the contest between pope and emperor, but it was true prophetic exposition based on a keen analysis of the Little Horn of Daniel and the parallel prophecies, and a keen insight into history. Eberhard applied to the religio-political empire of the Papacy the threefold description of the Beast, the Man of Sin, and the Little Horn.......

5. LONG DEVELOPMENT OF LITTLE HORN

This religio-political principle, which had existed in embryo in the time of the early church, said Eberhard, became an empire in the time of Hildebrand. The Little Horn, which had burrowed its way up among the divisions of the Roman Empire during the fourth, fifth, arid sixth centuries, and which had enthroned itself in the church, was not only domineering the saints but presuming to control the state. Its reign was thus announced as an accomplished fact. It is one that should be pondered by every Christian student......

6. FULFILLMENT DECLARED ONLY AFTER LONG CENTURIES

We have seen how the time finally came when prophetic intetpretation pointed out that a religio-political power answering to this description had gradually grown up in the established church" in the old seat of empire and patterned upon its lines. But this historical identification was not made, of course, until long after the early church period. No one could see such a development from the early trends until centuries afterward. Eberhard did not point to the rise of the Little Horn as a contemporary fulfillment, but as one which had taken place long ago. At the time when the Papacy was enthroned in the church, men could not see in it the upthrust of the Little Horn among the ten horn kingdoms. With minds fascinated by the dominant Augustinian theory of a then-present millennium, with all its spiritualizing and allegorizing involvements, and by the extra Biblical traditions of Antichrist, they had their eyes fixed upon a future tyrant to appear briefly at the end of the indeterminate thousand years of the church's present reign.

Gregory I set the course for the ship of the church of Rome, amid the succeeding popes strove to fulfill Augustine's dream of the city of God.—the millennium established on earth, the world ruled by divine precepts dispensed by God's duly ordained representatives. As they increasingly succeeded in realizing their, ambitions, their expanding power was accompanied by worldliness and corruption, And when the pinnacle was reached in a papal empire, the Antichristian characteristics became plain enough to see, and accusations were increasingly leveled at the Papacy.

The dominant hierarchy intermingling the world amid the church, persecuted the dissenters, who sought to perpetuate the pristine purity of the early gospel. The latter were not a single group; they were scattered widely; and varied in character, often flourishing in secluded spots that offered shelter and possible refuge from the raging storm of persecution that sought to overwhelm them. In the, history of the church we find the perpetual conflict between the dominant, worldly church and the underground streams of varied and persistent antisacerdotal or reforming schisms and heresies.

When this conflict came to a head, from about the time of Eberhard and onward, we find systematic persecution developing, and irrepressible dissent breaking forth in spite of it, until finally the pre-Reformation movements were to merge into the mighty Protestant revolution. And the identification of the papal system from Scripture prophecy was the militant rallying cry in the great struggle for spiritual freedom.

https://m.egwwritings.org/en/book/1579/toc

THE PROPHETIC FAITH OF OUR FATHERS VOLUME 2
CHAPTER 2 WYCLIFF EXPANDS EXPOSITION OF LITTLE HORN

V. Wyclif s Remarkable Expositions of Daniel's Prophecies

As might be expected, Wyclif (John Wyclif 1324-1384)reached his conclusions relative to the Papacy on the basis of the prophecies of Daniel, Paul, and John, just as did the Waldenses of the valleys, Eberhard of Salzburg, and Milicz and Matthias of Janow in Bohemia. By these inspired symbols he was guided and nerved for conflict in the battle and break with Rome. His expositions, however, are not commonly known, as they are in Latin, with no complete English translation thus far available.

1. FOUR PROPHETIC EMPIRES OF Daniel 2 ENUMERATED

Naming Assyria (Babylon), Medo-Persia, Grecia, and Rome as the four world powers of prophecy, Wyclif brings in the Medo-Persian ram, the Grecian goat and Alexander as the notable horn of Daniel 8, to establish the identity and sequence of the second and third empires.

"The second prophecy is that ... in the second chapter of Daniel relating to the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, to whom appeared the image consisting of four parts, signifying four monarchies, so that the head of gold represents the kingdom of the Assyrians, as Daniel explains in the same place, the second kingdom represented by the breast and arms of silver, was the kingdom of the Persians and the Medes, and the third kingdom, represented by the belly and thighs of brass, was the kingdom of the Greeks. For in the eighth chapter of Daniel we read, how he saw a ram, brandishing his horns toward the west, toward the north, and toward the south, and how all beasts were unable to resist him, or to be freed from his hands. And afterward Gabriel explains this as related to the king of the Persians and Medes, and the vision in which he saw the he-goat with one notable horn conquering the ram; Gabriel explains as relating to the king of the Greeks, which he had proved after the occurrence of the event, as is shown in the eighth chapter of Daniel and the first of the Maccabees concerning Alexander the Great. Moreover the fourth part of the image, represented by the feet of iron, is explained concerning the kingdom of the Romans, which by civil law and by wars overthrew the four horns coming forth from Alexander."

2. PAPAL ANTICHRIST IS LITTLE HORN OF DANIEL 7

Striking at the popular Catholic fallacy of a future Antichrist, Wyclif, in England, applies the lawless, persecuting Little Horn to the papal Antichrist, as did Eberhard in Austria, and the ten horns to "the whole of our temporal rulers." Here is Wyclif's clear depiction:

"Why is it necessary in unbelief to look for another Antichrist? Hence in the seventh chapter of Daniel Antichrist is forcefully described by a horn arising in the time of the fourth kingdom. For it grew from [among] our powerful ones, more horrible, more cruel, and more greedy, because by reckoning the pagans and our Christians by name, a lesser [greater?] struggle for the temporals is not recorded in any preceding time. Therefore the ten horns are the whole of our temporal rulers, and the horn has arisen from the ten horns, having eyes and a mouth speaking great things against the Lofty One, and wearing out the saints of the Most High, and thinking that he is able to change times and laws."

After quoting Daniel 7:8, 25, concerning this Little Horn "having eyes and a mouth speaking great things against the Lofty One," Wyclif expressly states: "For so our clergy foresee the lord pope, as it is said of the eighth blaspheming little head."

And after quoting Zechariah 3:8, 9, Wyclif applies to Christ the very words that for centuries had been usurped by the pope—"Serves servorum" (servant of servants).

"It seems to me that this scripture cannot be more soundly or more fittingly understood than concerning our Jesus, who was servant of servants, coming forth from high heaven."

3. APPLIES YEAR-DAY PRINCIPLE TO PROPHETIC TIME

After discussing the relationship of the lunar and solar years, concerning which there is "varied exposition," Wyclif clearly sets forth the year-day principle (a prophetic day equals a year) for prophetic time, citing the experience of Laban and Jacob in Genesis 29.

4. LITTLE HORN'S THREE AND HALF TIMES COVERS CENTURIES

Concerning the "period" that has been "assigned" to Antichrist for his "despotic rule, according to the prophetic sense," Wyclif apparently expounds the first "time" of Daniel 7:25 as covering some three centuries, evidently from Constantine's endowment to Mohammed, the two "times" as the period from Mohammed forward to the period when the clergy exercise their powers of excommunication, and the "dividing of time" as the last segment. That Wyclif understood these "times" to be precise prophetic years is doubtful. But here are his words.

"By a time Daniel understands the whole period in which the church apostatizes, from the time of its first endowment even to the time in which Mahomet prevailed; and by times he understands the diversity of times from this time up to the time when the secular rulers compute harmoniously their gifts which they bestow upon the poor; and by half a time he under stands the residue of time during which the clergy by the deceit of their excommunication and the thunderbolt of their censures against those who do good to them, foolishly kick back by taking away the remedy of their sin."

The remarkable advance in this application lies in the fact that it is applied to the period assigned to the papal Little Horn, and that it contravenes the popular fallacy of three and a half literal years at the end of the age, just as truly as it controverts the concept of a yet future Antichrist. It is a truly Protestant interpretation, as clear as could be expected for the time. It is an indirect application of the year-day principle, reaching back across the centuries and tied to the historical Papacy..........

CHAPTER 15 SWISS REFORMERS PARALLEL GERMAN INTERPRETATIONS

JOHANN OECOLAMPADIUS (1482-1531), leading figure of the Reformation in Basel, was born at Weinsberg.

1. DENIES ANTIOCHUS IS LITTLE HORN OF DANIEL 7

In his commentary on the book of Daniel, which he believed contains the divine timetable, Oecolampadius gives the usual interpretation of chapter 2-Babylonia, Persia, Macedonia, and Rome—with the kingdom of God, which is compared to a stone, finally crushing the whole image. The four beasts of Daniel 7 represent the same four powers of prophecy, with the ten horns as ten kingdoms of Europe, including Spain, England, France, Bohemia, and Hungary." 11 On the Little Horn he takes issue with Polychronius' fifth-century view that Antiochus is the power symbolized, holding rather that it is the Antichrist (the same as the two-horned beast of Revelation 13, and Paul's Man of Sin)-the triple-crowned pope and Mohammed, although Antichrist includes whoever, sitting in the place of God, blasphemes His name and persecutes the church.12

11 Johann Oecolampadius, In Daneilem Prophet, pp. 73-75.
12 Ibid., pp. 76, 77, 92, 132, 133. On Polychronius, see Volume 1 of Prophetic Faith.

IV. Bullinger-Little Horn Is Papacy, Not Turk

HEINRICH BULLINGER (1504-1575), of Zurich, one of the greates prophetic expositors of his time, was the intimate friend of Zwingli, whom he succeeded as chief pastor in 1531..........

Deeply impressed by Luther's tractates, especially his Babylonian Captivity, Bullinger was persuaded that the Papacy-was hopelessly corrupt, and so abandoned the idea of becoming a priest. Receiving his M.A. degree in 1522, he resolved to teach. He obtained a position in the Cistercian Monastery at Cappel as lecturer on the New Testament, which vocation he held until 1529. But from 1523 on, together with Juda, he began preparing tracts to spread the Reformation in Switzerland, an act which led to considerable Catholic hostility.

7. LITTLE HORN IS ROMAN KINGDOM OF POPE

In his commentary on Daniel he is explicit that the Papacy is the Little Horn of chapter 7, which power begins to blossom forth under Gregory and Boniface:
 
"By the little horn many understand the kingdom of Mohammed, of the Saracens and of the Turks.... But when the apostolic prophecy in 2 Thessalonians 2 is more carefully examined, it seems that this prophecy of Daniel and that prophecy of the apostle belong more rightly to the kingdom of the Roman pope, which kingdom has arisen from small beginnings and has increased to an immense size."

45 Translated from Bullinger, Daniel Sapientissimus Dei Prophetd (Daniel the Most Wise Prophet of God), chap. 7, fol. 78V.

CHAPTER 18 ANGLICAN LEADERS CONTINUE THE PROPHETIC EMPHASIS

V. Jewel Logical Expositor of Prophecies on Antichrist

9. APPEARS AS LITTLE HORN AMONG ROME'S DIVISIONS

In substantiation Jewel (John Jewel 1522-1571) cites Irenaeus, Joachim, Bernard, and John of Paris. The climax and sum of the argument, however, is based on the Little Horn of Daniel 7.

"This whole matter is also expressed in the seventh of Daniel: 'The fourth beast was fearful and terrible and very strong: it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue under his feet; and it was unlike to the beasts that were before it; for it had ten horns.' 'And, behold, there came up among them another little horn ... which had eyes like a man, and a mouth speaking presumptuous things.' This beast is the empire of Rome, the greatest empire that ever was. It was divided into ten, or into sundry kingdoms; as | shewed you, and as we see this day. The little horn is antichrist. The empire shall be divided and weakened: then antichrist shall come. 'He shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall consume the saints of the Most High, and think that he may change times and laws; and they shall be given into his hand.' Daniel saith, 'He shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall think he may change times and laws; and they shall be given into his hand.' Wherein he sheweth not only the pride and presumption of antichrist, but that he shall also prevail for a time. Such a one there hath been, and yet is. He blasohemeth God, murdereth the saints, hath changed times and laws, the laws of God and the laws of nature. He is antichrist."

56 Jewel, An Exposition Upon the Two Epistles of St. Paul to the Thessalonians, in Works, vol. 2, P. 918.

CHAPTER 20 KNOX AND NPIER NOTABLE SCOTTISH EXPOSITERS

III. Knox's First Sermon a Comprehensive Prophetic Exposition

3. PROOF BASED ON BEASTS AND LITTLE HORN OF DANIEL 7

Knox ( John Knox 1505-1572) consented, and the next Sunday was accordingly appointed for Knox to "expresse his minde in the publike Preaching place." On that memorable day Knox-

"took the Text written in Daniel, the seventh Chapter, beginning thus: And another King shall rise after them, and he shall be unlike unto the first, and he shall subdue three Kings, and shall speak words against the most High, and shall consume the Saints of the most High, and thinks that he can change Times and Lawes: And they shall be given unto his hands untill a time, and times, and dividing of times, &c. In the beginning of his Sermon, he shewed the great love of God towards his Church, whom he pleased to forewarne of dangers to come, so many yeers before they come to passe. He briefly treated of the state of the Israelites, who then were in bondage in Babylon, for the most part, and made a short discourse of the four Empires, The Babylonian, The Persian, That of the Greekes, And the fourth of the Romanes; in the destruction whereof, rose up that last Beast, which he affirmed to be the Romane Church; for to none other power that ever liath yet beene, do all the notes that God hath shewed to the Prophet appertain, except to it alone; And unto it they do so properly appertaine, that such as are not more then blinde, may cleerly see them."

Knox, The History of the Reformation Religion Within the Realm of Scotland, book 1, pg. 76.

4. LITTLE HORN SAME AS MAN OF SIN AND BABYLON

But that was not all. Knox next showed that Daniel's "little horn" was identical with Paul's "man of sin" and John's "Whore of Babylon'— three paralleling descriptions of one single Antichrist.

"He shewed that the Spirit of God in the new Testament gave to this King other new names; to wit, The man of sin, The Antichrist, The Whore of Babilon. He shewed, That this man of sin, or Antichrist, was not to be restrained to the person of any one man only, no more then by the fourth Beast, was to be understood the person of any one Emperour. But by such names the Spirit of God would forewarne his chosen of a body and a multitude, having a wicked head, which should not only be sinfull himself, but also should be occasion of sin, to all that should be subject unto him (as Christ Jesus is the cause of Justice to all the Members of his Body) and is called the Antichrist." Ibid.

CHAPTER 24 KING JAMES I TURNS PROPHETIC EXPOSITOR

II. Downham Expounds Stone, Daily, Turkish and Papal Periods

1. POPE TAKES AWAY DAILY TILL PROPHETIC PERIOD ENDS.
Downham (George Downham 1634) gives the standard interpretation of Danie 2, with the following listing of the divisions of Rome—"Britons, Saxons, Franks, Burgundions, Wisigothes, Sueves and Alans, Vandals, Alemans, Ostrogothes, Greeks," and cites a number of reasons why the Little Horn of Daniel 7 is "Antichrist, or the Pope of Rome."George Downham, A treatise Concerning Antichrist, pp. 6, 15. This power in Daniel 6 Downham presents as the exceeding great horn that takes away the "daily," which he defines as the "true Doctrine and Worship of God according to his Word," and which point is repeated and emphasized as the other characteristics of the Papacy are outlined; this interference with the "daily," he contends, would last to the end of the 2300 evening-mornings, or 1150 "complete days," and these "days are years" Ibid., pp. 45, 49, 133.(reaching to the Protestant Reformation).

CHAPTER 25 SIMILAR EXPOSITIONS IN VARIOUS PROTESTANT GROUPS

VII. More Sustains Historical School Against Innovation

1. DENIES PROPHETIC "ABSURDITIES" PERMEATING PROTESTANTISM

More (Henry More 1614-1687) refuted the "follies" and "absurdities" of both Ribera's Futurist and Grotius' Preterist interpretations, and sustained Mede and the Historical system with its papal Antichrist and year-day principle on the prophetic periods, a millennium yet future, and a literal resurrection.15Denying that the Little Horn of Daniel 7 is Antiochus, and insisting that it symbolized the Papacy, More said:

"These things are so plain that nothing can be plainer. Wherefore the little Horn in the Seventh Chapter is a part of the Roman Empire, a Power there whose Reign cannot be circumscribed within the Compass of Three Years and a half, but these Years must be resolved into 1260 Days, and these 1260 Days into so many Years, or no Sense can be made of the Prophesie.16

2. CLEAR ON PAPAL ANTICHRIST AND YEAR-DAY

In his exposition of Daniel he gives the standard historical interpretation of Daniel 2 and 7, with Rome the fourth kingdom divided into ten kingdoms. The Little Horn is the Papacy, with blasphemous claims, which is similarly portrayed in Revelation 13 and 17. 17 The 490 years of Daniel 9 were "cut out" for the Jews. 18 And the power of Daniel 11:37, 38 is the same Antichrist that Paul describes in 2 Thessalonians 2, with the Turk indicated in the last few verses as the king of the north coming to his end.19
                                                          15 Henry More, A Modest Enquiry Into the Mystery of Iniquity, book 2, chaps. 1-3, 7-10; An Antidote Against Idolatry, book 5, chaps. 15, 16; book 6, chap. 1, in The Theological Works of Henry More.,16 An Antidote Against Idolatry, book 5, chap. 15, p. 120., 17 More, A Plan and Continued Exposition of... the Prophet Daniel, pp. 4-54., 18 Ibid., p. 105., 19 Ibid., pp. 203-215.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE: Eighteenth Century Marked by Contrasting Developments

VI. Isaac Newton Employs Scientific Approach to Prophecy

SIR ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727), mathematician, philosopher, and outstanding genius of his age in the realm of scientific research, was born in Lincolnshire, and grew up in a religious atmosphere. Attending grammar school at Grantham, he was conspicuous for his mechanical ingenuity with windmills, water clocks, and sundials. In 1665 and 1668 respectively, he received a B.A. and an M.A. from Trinity College, Cambridge. His early interests centered in mathematics.........................

3. LITTLE HORN MUST BE WEST OF GREECE

Daniel 7 introduces "several new additions"—the lion's two wings, the three ribs in the mouth of the bear, the leopard's four heads, the fourth beast's eleven horns, and the Son of man coming to the Ancient of Days, sitting in judgment.60The identity of the same four kingdoms—Babylon, Persia, Grecia, and Rome—is stressed, together with the fact that the ten kingdoms arising out of Rome are to be sought in the Western Roman Empire—in the nations to the west of Greece. 61

4. LITTLE HORN IS SEER, PROPHET, AND KING

The ten kingdoms are listed by Newton as follows: (1) Vandals and Alans, (2) Suevians, (3) Visigoths, (4) Alans in Gallia, (5) Burgundians, (6) Franks, (7) Britains, (8) Huns, (9) Lombards, (10) Ravenna. 62The eleventh horn, as a horn in the Latin empire contemporaneous with the division of Western Rome, occupies chapter 7. Its unique characteristic is portrayed thus:

"But it was a kingdom of a different kind from the other ten kingdoms, having a life or soul peculiar to itself, with eyes and a mouth. By its eyes it was a Seer; and by its mouth speaking great things and changing times and laws, it was a Prophet as well as a King. And such a Seer, a Prophet and a King, is the Church of Rome.
 
"A Seer ... is a Bishop in the literal sense of the word; and this Church claims the universal Bishoprick.
 
"With his mouth he gives laws to kings and nations as an Oracle; and pretends to Infallibility, and that his dictates are binding to the whole world; which is to be a Prophet in the highest degree.63

5. CHARACTERISTICS AND CHRONOLOGY OF LITTLE HORN

The Papacy's attempt to change times and laws is the burden of chapter 8, together with the plucking up of the three horns (Ravenna, the Lombards, and the principality of Rome) 64the embracing of the Roman religion by the remaining kingdoms, and the achieving of temporal dominion. 65The three and a half times are declared to be "1260 solar years" in fulfillment, on the basis of a prophetic year of 360 days.66
 
60 Newton, Observations, p. 28., 61 Ibid., p. 73., 62 Ibid., p. 47; for detailed data and evidence, see pp.47-73., 63 Ibid., p. 75., 64 Ibid., pp. 76-84., 65 Ibid., pp. 90-113.

CHAPTER THIRTY Advances in Exposition; Lisbon Earthquake Noted

I. Lowth The 2300 Years Extend to Antichrist's End

1. DATES PAPAL HORN PERIOD FROM BONIFACE (606)

Lowth's (William Lowth 1660-1732) Commentary Upon the Larger and Lesser Prophets interprets the Little Horn of Daniel 7 as the Papacy, exercising ecclesiastical as well as temporal power, the three kingdoms subdued being the Exarchate of Ravenna, the Greeks in Italy, and the Franks. Daniel 7 is paralleled by Revelation 13 and 2 Thessalonians 2. The papal attempt to abrogate divine as well as human law is stressed, and the three and a half times, or forty-two months, is 1260 year-days from Boniface III, in 606. 2 The papal rule will be destroyed, Lowth contends, when the destruction of the present state of affairs ends at our Lord's coming.

2 William Lowth, A Commentary Upon the Larger and Lesser Prophets (3d ed., 1730), p. 382.

VIII. Gill-Stalwart Defender of Historic Positions

  JOHN GILL (1697-1771), eminent Baptist expositor and Orientalist, was born in Northamptonshire. Ordained in 1718, and well trained and thoroughly versed in Hebrew and Latin, he settled as pastor at Horsleydown, where he preached for fifty years. A Wednesday evening lectureship was formed for him in 1729, which he held till 1756. In 1748 he was granted the D.D. degree at Aberdeen. Author of numerous works, especially ex positions on prophecy—and on Hebrew vowel points and ac cents—Gill held the outpouring of the seven vials to be still future in his day. He maintained the usual teaching on the trumpets. He also held that the kingdom of God would be established only after His enemies—including Antichrist—are destroyed, and Satan bound. The millennium will be bounded by the two literal, corporeal resurrections, and the eternal kingdom is to be on earth, not in heaven.54

The swirl of current controversy over conflicting schools of interpretation, Christian and Jewish, can be felt in these clear and powerful writings. The pages are heavily and accurately documented with reliable sources. For example, the Little Horn of Daniel 7 is "not Titus Vespasian, as Jarchi; nor the Turkish empire, as Saadiah; nor Antiochus Epiphanes, as many Christian interpreters; for not a single person or king is meant by a horn, but a kingdom or state, and a succession of governors."55 Thus he concludes:
 
"And since no other has appeared in the Roman empire, to whom the characters of this horn agree, but antichrist, or the pope of Rome, he may well be thought to be intended."56

1. INCLINES TO 1260 YEARS FROM 606-1866

Under 2 Thessalonians pagan Rome's restraint is dwelt upon, retarding the manifestation of Antichrist's usurpation of the seven hills until the empire's breakup.57And in his Revelation the identity of the Beast of Revelation 13 with the Man of Sin and the Little Horn is impressively portrayed—the seat (Rome) given by the removal of the capital to Constantinople. The blasphemous claims and titles of the "Romish antichrist" are recited, and the period of his power is discussed. Catholic defenses are duly noted.58 Concerning the 1260 year-days, we note his impressive statement:

"Hence it appears, that 1260 prophetic days, that is, years, contain the whole period of antichrist's reign and continuance; so that could we tell where they began, it might be exactly known when his reign will end; but for want of knowing the former, the best of calculators have failed in the latter: but seeing the time when he was made universal bishop by Phocas, bids fair for the time of his open appearance, and the beginning of his reign, and of his blasphemy, which was in the year 606, to which, if we add 1260, the expiration of his reign will fall in the year 1866; so that he may have upwards of an hundred and twenty years yet to continue; but of this we can't be certain; however, the conjecture is not improbable."59

54John Gill, An Exposition of the Revelation, p. 232, 55 John Gill, An Exposition of the Prophets, on Daniel 7:8, vol. 6, p. 306., 56 Ibid., 57 Ibid., on 2 Thess. 2:5, vol. 9, pp. 242, 243., 58 Bishop Walmesley, writing under the fictitious name of "Signer Pastorini," launched his General History of the Christian Church From Her Birth to Her Final Triumphant State in Heaven (1771), soon translated not Latin, German, and French. He divided the New Testament era into seven ages, answering to the seven seals, trumpets, and vials-with the fourth age, from 620-1520, marked by the rise of Mohammedanism, and the Greek schism, with the fall of Constantinople as a judgment upon the latter; and the fifth age beginning with the "apostasy" of Luther and the Protestant locusts to last five prophetic months, or 150 years (p. 154 in 1834 ed.), and with sixth and seventh ages still future., 59 John Gill, Exposition of the Prophets, on Revelation 13:5

Continued in next post.

https://m.egwwritings.org/en/book/1579/toc

X. De la Flechere-2300 Years Expiring; French Revolution Impending

1. IRON DIVISIONS; MINGLED WITH PAPAL CLAY

As the basis for such a conclusion, La Flechere (John William Fletcher 1729-1785) cites the four empires of Daniel 2, and the division of the fourth-the Roman Empire "divided into ten kingdoms, these were still united together by the Clay, i.e. the Pope's erroneous religion and idolatrous worship." The next event, then, is the coming of the stone kingdom. Next, from Daniel 7, he presents the same four kingdoms, the division of the fourth, and the divisions' names—with the Little Horn as the obtruding Papacy, uprooting Lombardy, Burgundy, and the Vandals. His persecution and his allotted period, soon to expire, ends with his destruction.75

2. CLEANSING OF SANCTUARY TO END DISFIGURED WORSHIP

Third, La Flechere presents Daniel 8, with its Persian, Macedonian, and Roman powers—the bishop of Rome waxing exceeding great, casting down kings and emperors, and taking away the daily sacrifice, that is he "abolished or quite disfigured the true worship of God and Jesus, and cut down the truth to the ground, with his army." To the question, "How long the church should be thus corrupted and desolate?" the answer was, "Till the end of the 2300 days, and then the sanctuary should be cleansed.76

3. 2300 YEARS END IN PRESENT OR NEXT GENERATION

Stressing the importance of this number that fixes the beginnings of things to come on the earth, La Flechere insists that the 2300 are prophetic days, signifying whole years. He then states that they must start with the time of the vision, about 550 B.C.—giving considerable data in behalf of this year—and so leading to A.D. 1750, when the cleansing of God's church should take place; then he expatiates on the pollution of the sanctuary by the Papacy's doctrine of justification by works and outward performances.77 And, noting the variation in chronologies, he adds and puts down 1770, with this impressive word:

"Chronologists may mistake in a few years, but cannot err upon the whole; and as God is true and faithful, so it is manifest, that the prophecy of 2300, must be fully accomplished in our days, or those of the next generation. 78

4. YEAR-DAY PRINCIPLE APPLIED TO ALL TIME PERIODS

Denying that this cleansing had anything to do with the time of Judas Maccabaeus or Antiochus Epiphanes, or even the time of Luther, he applies it to the time of the "end"—"the word end signifies plainly, the catastrophe of God's drama, the last act of the wicked tragedy men have been acting for near 6000 years. 79He then argues that the "latter days" of Daniel 10 and the "end" of chapter 8 mean the same; the 2300 days form a "compleat proof." But he surveys the 1260 years, under the three and a half times, forty-two months, and 1260 days—putting 360 days to the "prophetic year," and touches the 1290 and 1335, and the time of their reckoning. 80

75 Posthumous Pieces of the Late Rev. John William de la Fletchere.....to Which Is Added a letter Upon the Prophecies, Never Before Published (3d ed.). pp. 370, 371., 76 Ibid., p. 372., 77 Ibid., pp. 373, 374., 78 Ibid., p. 375., 79 Ibid., 80 Ibid., pp. 377, 378.

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE: Pietism's Advances Counterbalanced by Rationalism's Inroads

IX. Wood Begins the Periods Simultaneously

3. PAPAL ANTICHRIST FOLLOWS IMPERIAL ROME

Hans Wood (died c. 1803) pious layman of Rosemead, Ireland.

The four empires of Babylonia, Medo-Persia, Grecia, and Rome are set forth as the foundation for the papal phase of Rome under the first beast of Revelation 13 90 The second beast signifies Constantinople, the seat of Roman dominion after the empire in the West had fallen. 91 The papal Antichrist is coupled to the "Anti-christian woman" of Revelation 17. The seven heads are forms of Roman government, one of them being the imperial; and the eighth head is the "Universal Bishop." 92 In Revelation 20the millennium follows the "resurrection of the just." 93

4. LITTLE HORN PAPACY; TURK IN Daniel 11

In chronological sequence the four beasts of Daniel 7 are portrayed in detail and identified, according to the Historical School, with the eleventh horn-coeval with the ten-as the Papacy, having the character of Seer, and dominating for three and a half prophetic years; the Ottoman power is described in Daniel 11:44, 45.94

5. DAILY TAKEN AWAY BY INNOVATIONS IN WORSHIP

Wood declares the 1290 years are to be dated from the taking away of the daily sacrifice, which he defines as the substituted innovations in "divine worship" brought forward by the eleventh horn, and resulting in the "profanation of the temple. "And the activity of the image of the beast and the expulsion of the woman to the wilderness is just at the end of these prophetic periods.95

90 Wood, op. cit., pp. 176,177., 91 Ibid., p. 191, 92 Ibid., pp. 178, 179, 230., 93 Ibid., p. 324, 94 Ibid., pp. 364ff., 470,471., 95 Ibid., pp. 476, 477.

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE: French Revolution Leads to Papal Wound

X. Priestley-French Revolution Is Earthquake in Action

1.CALAMITOUS TIMES TO AFFLICT PAPAL NATIONS

[color=blueJOSEPH PRIESTLEY, L.L.D., F.R.S. (1733-1804), English clergyman, philosopher, and scientist.[/color]

His famous sermon, titled The Present State of Europe Compared with Ancient Prophecies, preached at the Gravel Pit Meeting in Hackney, was based on Matthew 3:2, "Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Priestley contended that "great calamities such as the world has never yet experienced," were to precede the coming of the kingdom of Christ. In this sermon, preached during the height of the French Revolution, he stated further:

"These calamities will chiefly affect those nations which have been the seat of the great antichristian power; or, as all Protestants, and I believe justly, suppose, have been subject to the see of Rome. And it appears to me highly probable, as I hinted in my last discourse on this occasion, that the present disturbances in Europe are the beginning of those very calamitous times."34

2. PAPAL LITTLE HORN TO BE DESTROYED BY ADVENT

Bidding his hearers to "look back to the ancient prophecies and compare them with the present state of things," he showed that the Little Horn of Daniel 7 was "the Papal power," to be destroyed when the judgment shall sit. After mentioning the awful period of trouble of Daniel 12:1, Priestley averred that the New Testament prophecies on the fall of Antichrist, such as 2 Thessalonians 1:7, corresponded with those of the Old Testament, and were to be accomplished suddenly by the second coming of Christ and not before.35

3. REVOLUTION IN FRANCE THE PREDICTED EARTHQUAKE

Citing Sir Isaac Newton, Whiston, and Clarke, on the part the "prevalence of infidelity" was to play in putting a stop to the papal tyranny, Priestley said:

"This great event of the late revolution in France appears to me, and many others, to be not improbably the accomplishment of the following part of the Revelation, chap 11:3. And the same hour there was a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain of men (or literally, names of men) seven thousand, and the remnant were affrighted, and gave glory to God. '

"An earthquake, as I have observed, may signify a great convulsion, and revolution, in states; and as the Papal dominions were divided into ten parts, one of which, and one of the principal of them, was France, it is properly called a tenth part of the city, or of the mystical Babylon." 36

4. KINGDOMS ELEVATING PAPACY TO OVERTHROW HER

"It is farther remarkable, that the kings of France were those who gave the Popes their temporalities, and the rank they now hold among the princes of the world. And it is foretold, Revelation 17:16, that 'those kings who gave their power and strength unto the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire. For God has put it in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree to give their kingdoms unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled. '

34 Joseph Priestly, The Present State of Europe Compared With Ancient Prophecies, p. 2., 35 Ibid., pp. 2, 8, 9., 36 Ibid., pp. 25, 26.

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE: End of Period Recognized and Proclaimed

When the stroke had fallen, and the pope had been taken captive, a chorus of voices in England, Continental Europe, and America witnessed to the ending of the 1260-year era of the Papacy. In rapid succession some of the typical and impressive testimony uttered at the time will be noted.

II. Vaply Proclaims 1798 in Sermon to Reading Association

RICHARD VALPY, D.D., F.S.A., MRSL (1754-1836)

1. END OF 1260 YEARS FIXED FOR 1798

Declaring that "God has never left Himself without witness," and that "history is indeed but a record of the completion of prophecy," Valpy comments on the "present awful events" that involve the world, and the "disastrous revolution, which have plunged Europe into blood." He declares, "The hand of God is filling up, by instruments of the most fearful execution, the great outline, which he had traced before by his Prophets and his Apostles."16 Then comes this luminous declaration:

"Among the Prophecies, which must have excited your attention, are those, which relate to the present state of Rome. If with all Protestant Commentators, we understand the Roman Pontiff to be represented under the figurative emblems of Daniel, and the Author of the Revelations, and by the still clearer description of St. Paul, we must be struck with the completion of the prophecy. Daniel and St. John mention the period of 1260 years from the establishment to the extinction of that government. In the year 538, the empire of the Goths was abolished in Rome, and from that time the Pontifical power advanced with rapid strides, until it became, by its influence and its authority, the most extensive dominion in Europe. If this epoch be admitted, the period mentioned by Prophets fixes the destruction of the Pontifical authority to the present year, in which the Pope has been forced to fly from Rome by the arms of France."17(Fac simile on page 768.)

2. BEGAN WITH GOTHIC EXPULSION AND PAPAL ELEVATION

In added notes, in the published sermon, Valpy adds:

"In the year 538, the Goths were driven from Rome, and at that time the aspiring Vigilius, by his secret intrigues with the artful Theodora, was promoted to the Pontifical dignity, which he purchased with 200 pounds of gold: an unequivocal proof of the character of a man of sin.
"During the Pontificate of Vigilius, the pretensions of the successors of St. Peter to a general superiority began to be openly asserted; and shortly after, their supremacy was publicly acknowledged. It was at this time that the Pope assumed the title of Vicegerent of Jesus Christ.... Now too celibacy was more generally enjoined. The use of Holy Water was first publicly recommended by Vigilius in 538."18

3. EXPULSION OF POPE DRAWS ATTENTION TO PROPHECY

Valpy then traces the growth of papal power and the growing acquisition of "strength and of territory." He discounts the temporary exiles occasionally suffered by the pontiffs, and mentions Bishop Newton's observation that we must see the conclusion before we can precisely ascertain the beginning of this notable period. Then he adds, "If we have now witnessed the fall of the Pope's temporal dominion, it cannot be an unprofitable task to endeavor to trace its origin."19Valpy then remarks significantly that "on the expulsion of the Pope from Rome, the attention of many contemplative persons was turned to the prophecies relating to that power."20

4. INCREASE OF KNOWLEDGE Is OF PROPHECIES

In the same notes "On the Prophecies Relating to the Fall of Rome," he says:

"It is not therefore a subject of wonder that many should run to and fro in tracing these events to the designs of the Almighty declared in Prophecy; for thus knowledge shall be increased; and thus we may prepare to meet our God." 21

Valpy quotes from leading expositors, such as Newton, Faber, Woodhouse, and Kett, who had shed light on prophecy. He especially mentions King—"of extensive erudition and ingenuity, and of accurate Biblical knowledge"—who, he notes, likewise begins the 1260 years in 538, 22 and so ends them in 1798.

16 Richard Vaply, Sermons Preached on Public Occasions, vol. 1, pp. 144-146., 17 Ibid., pp. 146,147.,  18 Ibid., p. 258., 19 Ibid., pp. 260, 261., 20 Ibid., p. 262., 21 ibid., p. 254., 22 Ibid., pp, 253-269.

V. Simpson 1260 Years Accomplished Before Our Eyes

DAVID SIMPSON (1745-1799), theologian and religious writer.

1. COMPREHENSIVE SKETCH OF LITTLE HORN

Simpson sketches Daniel 7-the ten divisions of the Roman Empire, the arising of the Little Horn among the ten, subduing three of the ten and usurping their dominion, and increasing in power until it had obtained a peculiar kind of power and jurisdiction overall the seven other horns.33 This dominion was to continue three and a half times (a time being a year of 360 days) or a total of1260 years, at the end of which it would be destroyed. Then he traces the accomplishment—the Roman Empire was dismembered, the bishop of Rome arose, and three of the ten states("the senate of Rome, the kingdom of Lombardy, and the exarchate of Ravenna; three governments all in Italy") were subdued, the pope assuming a triple crown.34

2. 538 BEGINNING ACCORDS WITH 1798 ENDING

Simpson next discusses the dates fixed by some for beginning the 1260 years—606 (from Phocas), 666 (the apocalyptic number), and 756 (when the pope became a temporal prince). The time of Gregory I is also mentioned. But he adds this footnote:

"There is some reason, from the present appearances of things, to suppose, that the 1260 prophetical years must be calculated from a period somewhat earlier than the commencement of the seventh century. The year of our Lord 538 accords with the downfall of the Pope's temporal do minion A.D. 1798."35

3. FULFILLING THIS DAY BEFORE OUR EYES

Referring then to the signs of the approaching end, Simpson asks pointedly:

"Are not abundance of these predictions fulfilling at this day before our eyes?...

"Does it not seem that those 1260 years are upon the point of expiring?"36

4. BEAST'S CLAWS CUT AND TEETH DRAWN

Expatiating on the prophesied changes that had taken place, and on how the nations that "for so many ages had given their power unto the Beast" were to "turn against that Beast, and use means for its destruction," Simpson then asks:

"Is not this part of the prophecy also, in a good degree, fulfilled at the present moment? Have not all the CATHOLIC powers forsaken his HOLINESS of Rome in the time of his greatest need? And is not He, who, a few ages ago, made all Europe tremble at the thunder of his voice, now become weak like other men? Are not the claws of the Beast cut, and his teeth drawn, so that he can no longer either scratch or bite? Is he not already, in our own day, and before our own eyes, stripped of his temporal dominion?"37

5. PRESENT FULFILLMENT POWERFULLY CONFIRMS TRUTH

Now comes this climactic declaration:

"Is it not extremely remarkable, and a powerful confirmation of the truth of Scripture prophecy, that just 1260 years ago from the present 1798, in the very beginning of the year 538, Belisarius put an end to the empire of the Goths at Rome, leaving no power therein but the Bishop of that Metropolis?
 
"Read these things in the prophetic Scriptures; compare them coolly with the present state of Europe, and then, I say again, deny the truth of Divine Revelation, if you can. Open your eyes, and behold these things accomplishing in the face of the whole world. This thing is not done in a corner."38

33 David Simpson, A plea for Religion, p. 134., 34 Ibid., pp. 134, 135., 35 Ibid., p. 138., 36 Ibid., pp. 164, 165., 37 Ibid., p. 165.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX: Summing Up the Evidence of Volume II

II. Conclusion Deducible From Volume II

In evaluating the evidence assembled in Volume II we may therefore logically conclude that the two major points of emphasis in prophetic interpretation, which stand out predominantly in the period covered, are (1) the well-nigh universal identification of the Papacy as Antichrist, and (2) the allotted time, chronology, and recognized close of its special prophetic period-and all in relation to the divine plan of the ages.

The church of the early centuries looked simply for an individual Antichrist, to whose exploits a literal three and a half years was then most naturally and logically assigned. To these early Christians all future time was foreshortened, because they expected the end of the age to come soon. Although their view reached beyond the actual breakup of Rome, it was circumscribed by the fact that Antichrist had not yet developed historically, and so could not possibly be identified in advance with certainty.

In later centuries the conviction developed that the Antichrist of prophecy was an extended system of organized apostasy, already long established within the church. As the centuries passed and the corruptions in the dominant church became more and more evident, the cry was increasingly raised that the various prophetic symbols of Antichrist-the Little Horn, Beast, Babylon, Harlot, Man of Sin, Mystery of Iniquity, and so forth—fitted Romanism just as a custom-made shoe fits the foot.

The sequence, the timing, and the character of the papal Little Horn seemed inescapable. First, Rome had come as the fourth prophetic empire; next, Rome's breakup had followed; and then, after Rome's partitioning, the Antichrist, or Little Horn, had appeared, pushing its way up through these permanent divisions of Roman territory and meeting all the specifications predicted. The logic of the reasoning seemed invulnerable. So it came to be commonly recognized that the concurrent "1260 days," assigned for Antichrist's special exploits, were obviously in prophetic or symbolic time, as verily as the other specifications of the Antichrist were symbolic. Understood in this way, the time feature became clear and consistent, and the conclusion inescapable.

It is likewise to be noted that all the great time periods of prophecy have been progressively discerned. They have always been recognized during the process of contemporary fulfillment. Thus, as noted in Volume I, the 70 weeks were seen by the Jews, writing in the third century before Christ, to be weeks of years. And it is known that there was widespread expectancy of the Messiah about the time of Jesus. In fact, Jesus Himself came saying, "The time is fulfilled," with the acknowledged fulfillment appearing in His own life and death.

In the early centuries of the Christian Era the 1260 days were believed to center on the still future Antichrist. But until its actual appearance, and the long extent of its duration came to be recognized, the year-day principle was not extended to include this period. From Joachim (1190) onward, however, the 1260 prophetic days, as symbolizing years, were increasingly recognized by Jew as well as Christian, and by Catholic and non-Catholic alike. And beginning with Arnold of Villanova (1297), Walter Brute (1393), and Nicolas Krebs of Cusa (1440), the 1290, 1335, and 2300 days of Daniel were similarly seen to represent years.

With the Reformation came the full chorus of Protestant voices, hundreds strong, declaring the contemporary fulfillment of prophetic symbolism in the Papacy. Although some made supplemental application of one or two of the prophecies to the Turks, and there was a variety of timing in the attempt to locate the 1260 years, the unanimity of conviction concerning this rapidly expiring segment in the career of the Papacy was most significant.
 
During the Reformation and post-Reformation periods, the predominant Historical School system of prophetic interpretation took on impressive proportions, based on the accepted fulfillment of the anticipations of earlier times-the historical interpretation of the symbolic prophecies, and the year-day time periods—with the Papacy fitting inescapably into the continuous sequence of unfolding history. That sequence was not only historical but logical and inexorable—the four empires without a break between them; the disintegration of the Roman fourth empire, likewise without a gap following Rome; and then the appearance, among the still shifting fragments, of the Little Horn Antichrist in the early Middle Ages, similarly without a parenthesis, or blank space, intervening after Rome's breakup.

It was the Jesuit countersystems of Futurism and Preterism that deliberately injected the scheme of a great gap of centuries, for the obvious purpose of shielding the Papacy from uncomfortable scrutiny and censure, by shifting the application to the remote future or the distant past. The obvious inconsistencies of these two systems have been duly noted. Protestants did not at first accept these Catholic counterinterpretations. Nevertheless, the device succeeded to an unanticipated degree, and con fusion ensued.

Meanwhile, the focal point of prophetic emphasis shifted to the closing date of the 1260—year period. Many had searched back to earlier times, seeking to assign the beginning of the era of the Little Horn to some point in the fifth, sixth, or seventh centuries. Now many began to look forward, endeavoring to compute the approaching end of the 1260 years. The story has been unfolded of how a sizable number proclaimed the ending of the time in the aftermath of the French Revolution, and declared the capture of the pope in 1798 the exact counterpart of the prophetic demand. Clearly another epoch had been fulfilled in the sweep of prophecy, and was contemporarily recognized and declared.

Quote from: dpr on Sun Feb 25, 2024 - 11:10:33A certain individual on this Forum has questioned my personal info about my French Huguenot family's roots, simply because I refuse to buy into men's leaven doctrines about the Antichrist which my French Huguenot ancestors wrongly believed to be about the pope in their era.

Now I very much believe what my Huguenot ancestors believed about the errors of the Roman Church, just not their belief that a pope could be the coming Antichrist, at any time, simply because a pope claiming to be a Christian would never be accepted as the Jew's Messiah, which is who the coming Antichrist will actually claim to be, as per Lord Jesus' warning.

The French Huguenots were French Protestants that followed the doctrines of the Protestant Reformation in 16th-17th century France, and suffered persecution by the Roman Catholic Church, even war. My French ancestors left 16th century France because of the persecutions, and that's how they came to the American Colonies eventually in the early 1600's. The Protestant Reformers, especially the Lutherans, believed then that the Roman pope was the Antichrist of The Bible.

The early Church fathers, like Hippolytus (2nd century A.D., even PRIOR to there being a 'pope' office in Rome), knew per Bible Scripture that the Antichrist which is to come at the end of this world will come from the circumcision (i.e., Jews), and will sit in a JEWISH stone temple in JERUSALEM, and proclaim himself as king and as Messiah...

Hippolytus (170-235 A.D.):

"Now as our Lord Jesus Christ, who is also God, was prophesied of under the figure of a lion, on account of his royalty and glory, in the same way have the scriptures also beforehand spoken of Antichrist as a lion, on account of his tyranny and violence. For the deceiver seeks to liken himself in all things to the Son of God. Christ is a lion, so Antichrist is also a lion. Christ is a king, so Antichrist is also a king. The Savior was manifested as a lamb, so he too in like manner will appear as a lamb without; within he is a wolf. The Savior came into the world in the circumcision [i.e., the Jewish race], and he will come in the same manner. . . . The Savior raised up and showed his holy flesh like a temple, and he will raise a temple of stone in Jerusalem" (The Antichrist 6 [A.D. 200]).


What Hippolytus said above is what The Bible actually teaches about the final Antichrist to come at the END of this present world.

The prophecy about the coming pseudo-Christ which Jesus pointed to in His Olivet discourse is about the false one that will appear in JERUSALEM for the end, NOT Rome. And Lord Jesus said that coming false one will work "great signs and wonders" that IF it were possible, would deceive even His very elect (Matthew 24:23-26). The KJV has the phrase "false Christs" in the Matthew 24:24 passage from Greek pseudochristos. But the actual context of that Matt.24:23-26 Scripture is about a SINGULAR false-Christ appearing in JERUSALEM to do that working.

How can we 'know' Jesus was pointing to JERUSALEM with that Matthew 24:23-26 prophecy about the false one appearing at the end of this world?

1. Because Lord Jesus linked that event with the coming time of "great tribulation" at the END of this world per the previous SIGNS He gave in that Matt.24 chapter.

2. Because the "abomination of desolation" prophecy from Daniel 11:31 is about the "vile person" prophecy of Daniel 11 which is about "a small people" (small group of Jews in power in JERUSALEM that will setup that "vile person" as king there), and that "vile person" will be against "the holy covenant", meaning the old covenant which MUST be restored by those Jews at the end in Jerusalem, WITH a new 3rd stone temple, AND old covenant style worship again. Then that "vile person" will end... those Jew's restored daily sacrifices, and instead place the "abomination of desolation" in that new stone temple there in... JERUSALEM for the end.

3. Because Lord Jesus quoted the "abomination of desolation" prophecy from Daniel 11 about two hundreds years after... Antiochus Epiphanes had almost fulfilled that "vile person" prophecy back in 165 B.C.

4. Because the Orthodox Jews in JERUSALEM are expecting their Messiah of Old Testament Bible prophecy, and NOT a pope who claims to be a Christian!

5. Because per the Zechariah 6 prophecy about The BRANCH (Jesus), the Scripture points to Messiah will build the temple (in JERUSALEM) when He comes. Thus the actual coming Antichrist will involve the Jews in today's JERUSALEM with helping them to build their future 3rd temple, which those Jews today already have the materials ready to build it. This means the whole operation will involve an ORTHODOX JEWISH event, and their CLAIMED Messiah, and not a Christian pope which no orthodox Jew would bow to as their Messiah.

6. Because once again, Lord Jesus prophesied in Matthew 24 and Mark 13 that the coming Antichrist will be a FALSE-CHRIST in JERUSALEM, which means proclaimed as the Messiah of The Bible, and not some fancy clothed man in Rome.

7. Because the "temple of God" which Apostle Paul was pointing to in 2 Thessalonians 2 is about the coming pseudo-Christ to JERUSALEM to sit in a Jewish stone temple which Lord Jesus had ALREADY warned about in His Olivet discourse for the coming time of "great tribulation" at the end of this world.

8. Because of unawares crept into the Church that were passing false letters as if they were written by the Apostles about the event of Christ's coming, Apostle Paul was having to REMIND the Thessalonian Church about the timeline for Christ's coming and gathering of the Church. That 2 Thess.2:4 event, what Paul also called a "strong delusion" later in that chapter, will involve the setting up of a false-Messiah by the false Jews in JERUSALEM for the end of this world as the Antichrist. So no way would that ever be a pope that claims to be a Christian.

My Huguenot ancestors believed the pope then was the coming Antichrist because like those still on those old Reformer doctrines today, don't study their Bible for themselves, but just believe whatever their denominations preach from old traditions.

And one of the MOST telling evidences that those today who push that old Antichrist Reformer doctrine, is how Bible prophecy about the coming Antichrist is for the LAST GENERATION that will actually experience Christ's future appearing and gathering of His Church. So ask yourself, were the old Protestant Reformers of 16th and 17th centuries Europe that LAST GENERATION that saw Christ's return?? Any Christian that studies their Bible ought to be able to answer that in a heartbeat!

They had the truth, only now has the devil succeeded in spreading the deception and confused many as we see.

Quote from: dpr on Sun Feb 25, 2024 - 11:10:33A certain individual on this Forum has questioned my personal info about my French Huguenot family's roots, simply because I refuse to buy into men's leaven doctrines about the Antichrist which my French Huguenot ancestors wrongly believed to be about the pope in their era.

Now I very much believe what my Huguenot ancestors believed about the errors of the Roman Church, just not their belief that a pope could be the coming Antichrist, at any time, simply because a pope claiming to be a Christian would never be accepted as the Jew's Messiah, which is who the coming Antichrist will actually claim to be, as per Lord Jesus' warning.

The French Huguenots were French Protestants that followed the doctrines of the Protestant Reformation in 16th-17th century France, and suffered persecution by the Roman Catholic Church, even war. My French ancestors left 16th century France because of the persecutions, and that's how they came to the American Colonies eventually in the early 1600's. The Protestant Reformers, especially the Lutherans, believed then that the Roman pope was the Antichrist of The Bible.

The early Church fathers, like Hippolytus (2nd century A.D., even PRIOR to there being a 'pope' office in Rome), knew per Bible Scripture that the Antichrist which is to come at the end of this world will come from the circumcision (i.e., Jews), and will sit in a JEWISH stone temple in JERUSALEM, and proclaim himself as king and as Messiah...

Hippolytus (170-235 A.D.):

"Now as our Lord Jesus Christ, who is also God, was prophesied of under the figure of a lion, on account of his royalty and glory, in the same way have the scriptures also beforehand spoken of Antichrist as a lion, on account of his tyranny and violence. For the deceiver seeks to liken himself in all things to the Son of God. Christ is a lion, so Antichrist is also a lion. Christ is a king, so Antichrist is also a king. The Savior was manifested as a lamb, so he too in like manner will appear as a lamb without; within he is a wolf. The Savior came into the world in the circumcision [i.e., the Jewish race], and he will come in the same manner. . . . The Savior raised up and showed his holy flesh like a temple, and he will raise a temple of stone in Jerusalem" (The Antichrist 6 [A.D. 200]).


What Hippolytus said above is what The Bible actually teaches about the final Antichrist to come at the END of this present world.

The prophecy about the coming pseudo-Christ which Jesus pointed to in His Olivet discourse is about the false one that will appear in JERUSALEM for the end, NOT Rome. And Lord Jesus said that coming false one will work "great signs and wonders" that IF it were possible, would deceive even His very elect (Matthew 24:23-26). The KJV has the phrase "false Christs" in the Matthew 24:24 passage from Greek pseudochristos. But the actual context of that Matt.24:23-26 Scripture is about a SINGULAR false-Christ appearing in JERUSALEM to do that working.

How can we 'know' Jesus was pointing to JERUSALEM with that Matthew 24:23-26 prophecy about the false one appearing at the end of this world?

1. Because Lord Jesus linked that event with the coming time of "great tribulation" at the END of this world per the previous SIGNS He gave in that Matt.24 chapter.

2. Because the "abomination of desolation" prophecy from Daniel 11:31 is about the "vile person" prophecy of Daniel 11 which is about "a small people" (small group of Jews in power in JERUSALEM that will setup that "vile person" as king there), and that "vile person" will be against "the holy covenant", meaning the old covenant which MUST be restored by those Jews at the end in Jerusalem, WITH a new 3rd stone temple, AND old covenant style worship again. Then that "vile person" will end... those Jew's restored daily sacrifices, and instead place the "abomination of desolation" in that new stone temple there in... JERUSALEM for the end.

3. Because Lord Jesus quoted the "abomination of desolation" prophecy from Daniel 11 about two hundreds years after... Antiochus Epiphanes had almost fulfilled that "vile person" prophecy back in 165 B.C.

4. Because the Orthodox Jews in JERUSALEM are expecting their Messiah of Old Testament Bible prophecy, and NOT a pope who claims to be a Christian!

5. Because per the Zechariah 6 prophecy about The BRANCH (Jesus), the Scripture points to Messiah will build the temple (in JERUSALEM) when He comes. Thus the actual coming Antichrist will involve the Jews in today's JERUSALEM with helping them to build their future 3rd temple, which those Jews today already have the materials ready to build it. This means the whole operation will involve an ORTHODOX JEWISH event, and their CLAIMED Messiah, and not a Christian pope which no orthodox Jew would bow to as their Messiah.

6. Because once again, Lord Jesus prophesied in Matthew 24 and Mark 13 that the coming Antichrist will be a FALSE-CHRIST in JERUSALEM, which means proclaimed as the Messiah of The Bible, and not some fancy clothed man in Rome.

7. Because the "temple of God" which Apostle Paul was pointing to in 2 Thessalonians 2 is about the coming pseudo-Christ to JERUSALEM to sit in a Jewish stone temple which Lord Jesus had ALREADY warned about in His Olivet discourse for the coming time of "great tribulation" at the end of this world.

8. Because of unawares crept into the Church that were passing false letters as if they were written by the Apostles about the event of Christ's coming, Apostle Paul was having to REMIND the Thessalonian Church about the timeline for Christ's coming and gathering of the Church. That 2 Thess.2:4 event, what Paul also called a "strong delusion" later in that chapter, will involve the setting up of a false-Messiah by the false Jews in JERUSALEM for the end of this world as the Antichrist. So no way would that ever be a pope that claims to be a Christian.

My Huguenot ancestors believed the pope then was the coming Antichrist because like those still on those old Reformer doctrines today, don't study their Bible for themselves, but just believe whatever their denominations preach from old traditions.

And one of the MOST telling evidences that those today who push that old Antichrist Reformer doctrine, is how Bible prophecy about the coming Antichrist is for the LAST GENERATION that will actually experience Christ's future appearing and gathering of His Church. So ask yourself, were the old Protestant Reformers of 16th and 17th centuries Europe that LAST GENERATION that saw Christ's return?? Any Christian that studies their Bible ought to be able to answer that in a heartbeat!

As you can see the Pope is sitting with the world leaders and everyone is seeing how the prophecy is coming to realiazitation..