JERUSALEM; ROME; REVELATION - The Preterist Archive

other hand, Historicalism sees it as the Romish Papacy from the beginning of the seventh
century onward. That is the same time when also the False-Prophet Muhammad emerged.
Both the Papacy and Islam are still very much alive today, and may yet co-operate together
against the true Biblical Religion of Consistent Protestantism. Needless to say, to the
Protestant Reformation and its supporters, Historicalism alone is consistently Biblical.
375. Indeed, the Bible itself so teaches - prelapsarianly; postlapsarianly; and
ultralapsarianly. Especially so, the great eschatological books is Holy Scripture - viz.: Daniel;
Paul’s Second Epistle to the Thessalonians; and the Book of Revelation. For full particulars
of the claims in these sections 372 to 380, see my Biblical Predictions not Preterist but
Historicist (www.dr-fnlee.org).
376. Most of the Bible-believing authorities throughout Church History - in the Early
Church; the Mediaeval Church; and the Reformation Church - were Historicalists (whether
amillennial, postmillennial or premillennial). They did not believe with the Preterists that
Nero was the Antichrist, but rather that the Antichrist would arise only centuries after the
Apostolic Age. Thus the A.D. 99 Barnabas, the A.D. 150 Justin Martyr, and the A.D. 190
Clement of Alexandria - and so too the later Origen, Cyprian, Dionysius, Pseudo-Sibyl,
Victorinus, Lactantius, Eusebius, Athanasius, Apostolic Constitutions, Cyril, Hilary, Ambrose,
and Tichonius.
377. The A.D. 185 Irenaeus and the A.D. 200 Tertullian and the A.D. 220 Hippolytus
believed that the Antichrist would be a later Roman power. Even after the nominal
christianization of the Roman Empire in A.D. 313-321f, the A.D. 386 Chrysostom and the
A.D. 400 Jerome and the A.D. 416 Augustine believed that the Antichrist would be revealed
only after the christianized Roman Empire disintegrated subsequently to their own day and
age. Cf. Daniel 7:7-25. Even the A.D. 590f Bishop of Rome Gregory the Great believed that
the Antichrist was only then soon to appear - and himself rejected the offered title of ‘Sole
Pope’ alias ‘Universal Father’ (which he rightly regarded as a mark of the Antichrist).
378. Now in the Mediaeval Church - after the simultaneous rise of the A.D. 606-666f
Islamic False-Prophet and the Papal Antichrist and the historicalistic testimonies of Andreas
of Caesarea, Pseudo-Methodius, and Arethas of Caesarea - all subsequent successors of
Gregory in the Overseerric of Rome gloried in the title of ‘Pope.’ Such included Popes
Sabinianus, Boniface, Gregory II & III, Zachary, Stephen, Gregory VII (alias the infamous
Hildebrand), Adrian, and the very much misnamed Innocent III.
379. However, even during those awful times, the False-Priesthood of the Papacy was
considered to be the Antichrist and/or the second lamb-beast by: Walafrid Strabo; Haymo of
Rheims; Theophylact of Achrida; Richard of St. Victor; Waldo and his Waldensians; Joachim
of Fiore; Eberhard of Salzburg; Robert Grosseteste of Lincoln; Matthew Paris of St. Albans;
Pierre d’Olivi of France; Ubertino of Casale; Arnold of Villanova; the Franciscan Spirituals,
Dante Alighieri; Michael of Cesena, John Rupescissa, and Petrarch. Exactly the same
position was taken also by: Jan Milicx; John Wycliffe of Cumbria or Yorkshire; Walter Brute
of Wales; Sir John Oldcastle of Hereford; John Purvey of Oxford; Girolamo Savanorola of
Florence; Matthias of Janow; and Jan Huss of Bohemia.
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