I don't have such a bigoted opinion (you Anglos seem to share that quality). Though mostly Preteristic, I'm also a conglomeration of all four views, there's some merit to be found in all of them.
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Not bigoted, but following history .
FUTURISM
Francisco Ribera (1537-1591) was a Jesuit doctor of theology, born in Spain, who began writing a lengthy (500 page) commentary in 1585 on the book of Revelation (Apocalypse) titled
In Sacrum Beati Ioannis Apostoli, & Evangelistiae Apocalypsin Commentarij, and published it about the year 1590. He died in 1591 at the age of fifty-four, so he was not able to expand on his work or write any other commentaries on Revelation. In order to remove the Catholic Church from consideration as the antichrist power, Ribera proposed that the first few chapters of the Apocalypse applied to ancient pagan Rome, and the rest he limited to a yet future period of 3 1/2 literal years, immediately prior to the second coming. During that time, the Roman Catholic Church would have fallen away from the pope into apostasy. Then, he proposed,
the antichrist, a
single individual, would:
- Persecute and blaspheme the saints of God.
- Rebuild the temple in Jerusalem.
- Abolish the Christian religion.
- Deny Jesus Christ.
- Be received by the Jews.
- Pretend to be God.
- Kill the two witnesses of God.
- Conquer the world.
Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, one of the best known Jesuit apologists, published a work between 1581 and 1593 entitled
Polemic Lectures Concerning the Disputed Points of the Christian Belief Against the Heretics of This Time, in which he also denied the day = year principle in prophecy and pushed the reign of antichrist into a future period of 3 1/2 literal years.
Recently reprinted:
A treatise of Antichrist. Conteyning the defence of Cardinall Bellarmines arguments, which inuincibly demonstrate, that the pope is not Antichrist. Against George Downam by Michael Christopherson priest ..., Volume 1 of 2 by Michael Walpole (1570-1624?), a 1974 reprint of a 1613 edition, by Scolar Press Limited, Ilkley, England, ISBN 0859672042.
Manuel De Lacunza (1731–1801), a Jesuit from Chile, wrote a manuscript in Spanish titled
La Venida del Mesías en Gloria y Magestad ("The Coming of the Messiah in Glory and Majesty"), under the pen name of Juan Josafa [Rabbi] Ben-Ezra about 1791. Lacunza wrote under an assumed Jewish name to obscure the fact that he was a Catholic, in order to give his book better acceptance in Protestantism, his intended audience. Also an advocate of Futurism, Lacunza was deliberately attempting to take the pressure off the papacy by proposing that the Antichrist was still off in the future. His manuscript was published in London, Spain, Mexico and Paris between 1811 and 1826.
La Venida del Mesías en Gloria y Magestad online at the National Library of Chile (in Spanish).
Edward Irving (1792-1834), a Scottish Presbyterian and forerunner of the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements, translated Lacunza's work from Spanish into English in a book titled
The Coming of Messiah in Glory and Majesty with a Preliminary Discourse, published in London in 1827 by L.B. Seeley & Sons, which included Irving's own lengthy preface. Here are excerpts from Irving's translation:
Lacunza asserts that Antichrist would appear near the end of time:
PRETERISM
Another counter-interpretation to the Historicism held by Protestantism was proposed by the Spanish Jesuit
Luis De Alcazar (1554-1613), who also wrote a commentary called
Investigation of the Hidden Sense of the Apocalypse, which ran to some 900 pages. In it he proposed that it
all of Revelation applied to the era of pagan Rome and the first six centuries of Christianity. According to Alcazar (or Alcasar):
- Revelation chapters 1-11 describes the rejection of the Jews and the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans.
- Revelation chapters 12 - 19 were the overthrow of Roman paganism (the great harlot) and the conversion of the empire to the church.
- Revelation 20 describe the final persecutions by Antichrist, who is identified as Cæsar Nero (54-68 A.D.), and judgment.
- Revelation 21 -22 describe the triumph of the New Jerusalem, the Roman Catholic Church.
Again, Alcazar found no application of prophecy to the middle ages or to the papacy. That his interpretation differed so greatly from that put forth by Francisco Ribera or Cardinal Bellarmine, mattered little. Catholicism, the supposedly divine and infallible interpreter of scripture, was presenting two vastly different and quite incompatible interpretations of prophecy in a desperate effort to counter the claims of the reformers.
THE GREAT CATHOLIC DIVERSION REVEALED
The intent of both Futurism and Preterism was to be diversionary, to counter or offset the Protestant Historical interpretation, and present alternatives, no matter how implausible they might be. The result is evident from the following chart, which illustrates the three schools of interpretation regarding antichrist:
THE REIGN OF ANTICHRIST
ANTICHRIST IS MOVED EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD IN TIME
Ribera's Futurism Puts the Antichrist Into A Future Three and One-half Literal Years.
Alcazar's Preterism Identifies the Antichrist as Nero.
Both of Them Put Antichrist Outside the Middle Ages and the Reformation Period,
Identified by Protestant Historicists as Antichrist's Reign of 1260 Prophetic Years.
Now the truly amazing part of all this is that the Futurist theory dominates Protestant teaching today. About all you hear or read about today is the yet-to-appear antichrist, who will be unveiled in the last 3 1/2 years of Daniel's 70th week, when he declares himself to be God in a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem. That scenario, as you can now see, is directly traceable back to the pen of the Jesuit Francisco Ribera. Note what one Protestant writer had to say over
one hundred years ago:
Next we come to consider the time of the rise of the
Futurist system as we now have it, and the occasion which led to it.
So great a hold did the conviction that the Papacy was the Antichrist gain upon the minds of men, that Rome at last saw she must bestir herself, and try, by putting forth other systems of interpretation, to counteract the identification of the Papacy with the Antichrist.
Accordingly, towards the close of the century of the Reformation, two of her most learned doctors set themselves to the task, each endeavouring by different means to accomplish the same end, namely, that of diverting men's minds from perceiving the fulfilment of the prophecies of the Antichrist in the Papal system. The Jesuit Alcasar devoted himself to bring into prominence the
Preterist method of interpretation, which we have already briefly noticed, and thus endeavoured to show that the prophecies of Antichrist were fulfilled before the Popes ever ruled in Rome, and therefore could not apply to the Papacy. On the other hand the Jesuit Ribera tried to set aside the application of these prophecies to the Papal Power by bringing out the
Futurist system, which asserts that these prophecies refer properly not to the career of the Papacy, but to that of some future supernatural individual, who is yet to appear, and to continue in power for three and a half years. Thus, as Alford says, the Jesuit Ribera, about A.D. 1580, may be regarded as the Founder of the Futurist system in modern times.
It is a matter for deep regret that those who hold and advocate the Futurist system at the present day, Protestants as they are for the most part, are thus really playing into the hands of Rome, and helping to screen the Papacy from detection as the Antichrist. It has been well said that "Futurism tends to obliterate the brand put by the Holy Spirit upon Popery." More especially is this to be deplored at a time when the Papal Antichrist seems to be making an expiring effort to regain his former hold on men's minds. Now once again, as at the Reformation, it is especially necessary that his true character should be recognized, by all who would be faithful to "the testimony of Jesus."