False Interpretations of Divine Prophecy

This is the continuation of the series, Antichrist And His Ten Kingdoms – By Albert Close and the previous post in the series, The Meaning of 666 in Revelation Chapter 13.

Jesuit Origin of the Futurist and Preterist Interpretations of Daniel and Revelation

Both John Foxe (1516-1587 and Thomas Brightman (1562–1607), the able post-Reformation Commentators (1601 A.D.) state, that for some time following the Reformation the Romish priests fought shy of the subject of Babylon and Antichrist as revealed in the books of Daniel and Revelation. At length, as the century was advancing to a close, two stout Spanish Jesuits, and one Italian Jesuit took up the gauntlet, and published their respective but quite counter interpretations, the one, Ribera, a Jesuit priest of Salamanca, who in 1591 published his commentary, which was on the grand points of Babylon and Antichrist, the Futurist scheme; the other, Alcasar, also a Spanish Jesuit, of Seville, the Preterist; i.e. that the Revelation prophecies have all been fulfilled in the fall of Pagan Rome and in the calamities to the Jews. Either suited the great object of the Jesuit writers equally well; viz., that of setting aside all application of the prophecies of Antichrist from the existing Church of Rome, and of mixing up the whole Protestant ministry: Ribera by making it over-leap almost altogether the immense interval of time which has elapsed since the prophecy was given, and plunge in its pictures of Antichrist into a yet distant future just before the end of the Age; the other, Alcasar, by making it stop entirely short of the Papacy at the Fifth Century.

Ribera unfolds the Book of Revelation as if it were nothing else but certain commentaries upon our Lord’s prophecy in Matthew 24, he makes it begin with the early period of the Church. So his first Seal’s White Horse and rider signify the gospel-triumphs of the apostolic era; his 3rd Seal’s black horse and rider, heresies; his 4th Seal, the violence of Trajan’s persecutions of the Church and multitude of deaths of Christians under it by sword, famine, wild beasts, etc. At length in the 6th Seal Ribera explains it as meant of the signs before Christ’s Second Coming spoken of in Matthew 24 and Luke 21; and construes the sealing vision too, with all that follows in the Revelationlypse, to have reference to the times of a future Antichrist. The 144,000 of Revelation 12 he makes to be the Jews converted to Christ at the consummation, though inconsistently afterwards explaining the 144,000 in Revelation 14 of both Jews and Gentiles under Antichrist and taking the number 144,000 literally. In Revelation 10 the descending Angel is the same that proclaimed about the book in Revelation 5, and who swears that, because of men’s not having been led to repent by the six previous Trumpet-plagues, the end of the world and last judgment are now at hand. In Revelation 11 alike the Temple and Holy City figured the Church: and the city’s being given to be trod by Gentiles meant that it would be captured and occupied by Antichrist with armies of heathenish men. Ribera’s Slaughter-place for the Two Witnesses, when slain by Antichrist, or the Beast from the abyss, is the city of Jerusalem, their 3 1/2 days of death denoting Antichrist’s 3 1/2 years.

In Revelation 12, Ribera teaches that the Woman is the Church travailing in the last times, just before the 3 1/2 years of Antichrist; seeing that her 3 1/2 years in the wilderness coincides with those of Antichrist’s reign: for he identifies the Dragon with the Beast Antichrist. Then, as to the Beast and his great city Babylon, in Revelation 13 and 18 here is the main point in Ribera’s system. He admits that the Woman in Revelation chapter 17 is Rome, Papal Rome; and argues from verse 16, that shortly before the consummation the Ten Kings, figured in the Beast’s ten horns, shall overthrow Rome, this being probably before the coming of Antichrist.

In Revelation 16 the seven plagues are expounded literally, as those on Egypt. In Revelation 18 Rome’s burning is explained to be in judgment on the sins both of old Pagan Rome, and of Rome apostatized at the end of the Age.

Bellarmine, the great Jesuit controversionalist, followed Ribera in most points.

Alcasar’s Preterist Interpretation A.D. 1614.

Alcasar’s Commentary was the original of the Preterist system of Grotius, and the Modernist German expositors. Alcasar’s general argument is that the Revelation describes a twofold war of the Church; one with the Synagogue or old Jewish religion, the other with Paganism, and a two-fold victory and triumph over both adversaries. More particularly the development of the subject was thus:—

1. From Revelation 1 to 11 the rejection of the Jews, and desolation of Jerusalem by the Romans in A.D. 70.

2. From Revelation 12 to 20, both inclusive, the overthrow of Paganism, and establishment of the empire of the Roman Church over Rome and the whole world the judgment of the Great Whore, and destruction of Babylon, being effected by Constantine and his successors. Great numbers of Protestant Theological Colleges are teaching this today.

3. In Revelation 21, 22, under the type of the Lamb’s Bride, the New Jerusalem, a description of the glorious and triumphant state of the Roman Church in Heaven.
These two interpreters, Ribera and Alcasar, have led uncounted multitudes astray in interpreting Divine Prophecy.

(Continued in British Government Hides Vatican War Treachery From Empire. )