Eschatology views Tier Ranking

I'm going to rank various positions on Eschatology in terms of how I personally feel about them at the time of my writing this post on Saturday November 13th of 2021.

S Tier: The Position(s) I currently favor.

I'm currently a Pre-Millennial Futurist with a Rapture Position that can be called "Mid-Trib", but not what many assume Mid-Trib means in that what The Rapture is I view mostly the same as Post-Tribbers, it is the Second Coming, and from my position's own POV the Tribulation by definition ends at The Rapture.  And The Last Trump is the Seventh Trumpet.

I also consider some Idealist readings of Revelation also true, it is also a symbolic summery of The Entire Biblical Meta narrative, but that doesn't conflict with it also being future events, because that's what every good final episode of a saga should be.

A Tier: Positions I'm currently very open to being converted to.

Historicism in it's Pre-Millennial form, Partial-Preterism and Revivalist post-Millennialism, or something that combines elements of those. 

I kind of want to be convinced of something like that now given other things I believe.  But it wouldn't be likely to be any in their current most well known forms, since my hypothetical Preterism wouldn't be 70 AD focused (not for Matthew, Mark or Revelation anyway) and my Historicism would be less fixated on The Vatican viewing Christian Monarchy in general as the Abomination of Desolation.

If I did abandon Futurism I would probably retire this blog and start a new one.

B Tier: Views I consider firmly wrong but not in any way heretical.

Middleism, only in that separating Matthew's Olivette Discourse from Revelation I view as untenable, whichever time period one is about so is the other.

Also any views where my only or main objections come down to not interpreting Revelation as Chronologically as I do.  But thus far everyone I've seen doing that is also guilty of something down below, (It's mainly associated with Post-Trib, Chris White's Pre-Wrath and Preterism).

C Tier: Views I consider tied to Heresy but merely minor ones

Dispensationalism (Pre-Trib, some forms of Mid-Trib, the Pre-Wrath view of Chris White), Supersecessionism (Most forms of Post-Trib, probably some hypothetical forms of Mid-Trib, and also today most Non Futurists).

And also Domminionism which mainly manifests as Reconstructionist Post-Millennialism but can be made compatible with other views.

D Tier: Views heretical in their rejections of core doctrines of the Faith.

Any view that denies a literal bodily Resurrection of The Dead.  Which is firmly required for Full Preterism and Amillenialism.

F Tier: Basically not even really Christian at all anymore.

Any view that identifies the Satan of The New Testament with YHWH The God of The Hebrew Bible.  Like Marcionism and the most well known forms of Gnosticism.

Often goes hand in hand with throwing out Revelation altogether as a False Prophecy.  But they may also selectively use stuff from Revelation.  Also these people are generally also doing the D Tier Heresy.

I'm considering a very unique hunch on The Temple's Location

[This theory I'm abandoning for now Update October 2020]

I have a controversial new take on the Fall of Rome, it didn’t.

It only changed.  And no I don’t just mean by that the Eastern Empire’s continuation.

During what everyone agrees qualifies as Roman history it’s form of government changed multiple times, regimes were replaced by military force, it divided into separate smaller states, it’s religion changed, it’s capital moved (not just the big move to Constantinople, eventually Rome was no longer even the regional capital of Italy), in one half it’s language changed, and we also saw the overall ethnic makeup of the citizenry shift via the assimilating of conquered peoples and immigrants.

So with that understanding of how flexible and changeable what Rome is can be, there is no real reason to refuse to accept the Ottoman Empire’s claim to simply being a change in religion and administration of the Eastern Empire.  And the Tsar’s claim is just as valid since they replaced the Eastern Emperor’s role in the Eastern Orthodox Church, then WWI and it's aftermath saw those successor states’ forms of government change again back to being Republics, in name at least.

But even before the 1454 changes the Islamic states could already be viewed as Roman offshoots.  After all I’ve become convinced the original Mecca was really Petra and it was in the Roman Province of Palaestina Salutaris or Arabia Petrea.  And what we now think of as Islamic architecture clearly evolved out of Byzantine architecture.  Arabs were already becoming a fixture of the Eastern Roman Empire even before Muhammad, just look at the history involving Mavia.  And pre Constantine an Arab had become the actual first Christian Emperor, Philip the Arabian.  People who study coins are also aware that prior to Abd Al-Malik the Arabs were still minting Byzantine style coins in the former Roman provinces (and Sassanid coins in Persia) using the same mints.  So there is plenty of reason to view the Arab empire as also another Roman splinter state.  We've also now discovered that Trajan had conquered more of Arabia then we used to think, extending to include Madain Selah, Dumat and Tayma.

But it’s not just the Eastern Empire that didn’t actually fall.  Thersites The Historian has a video on how various elements of Feudalism basically evolved from the privatization of Roman Offices, Duke/Dux and Count/Comte both come from Roman titles. .The Senate continued to meet well after the Western Empire’s “Fall” into the 600s.  Liberius was a roman Prefect in Fifth Century Gaul.  The Pope and other Bishops had become Pontiffs so they carried on the Roman state religion clerically.  Latin remained the language of the ruling class right on through the Reformation and has influenced multiple younger languages.  Right on the Wikipedia Page for Sardinia it says "Early medieval Sardinian political institutions evolved from the millennium-old Roman imperial structures with relatively little Germanic influence.".

And Justinian’s reforms of the Roman law code are the foundation of Europe's legal system to this day.  Certain history YouTubers have made a point out of how Rome's sense of Law and Justice was what they viewed as their defining characteristic over any other features of their culture.  So how much the Laws of Europe are still Roman can be viewed as the strongest argument that Rome never fell.

In 800 AD Charlemagne was crowned the new Western Emperor by The Pope.  The Holy Roman Emperors were the successors to his Principate, as later were the Habsburgs, Napoleons and Kaisers.  WWI caused the end of four different Principates, but also a rise of new Republics.

And now the European Union is seeking to bring these disparate provinces back together.

Update 9/5/2020: here's a fun YouTube Video from Jack Rackman with the same premise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcxMiQhLITY

Update May 2022:  I made about how according to Genesis 10-11 The Bible defined Nations largely by their languages.  Well the Language of Rome being Latin is in it's ancient from still the Liturgical Language of the Roman Catholic Church.  But more importantly the languages as commonly spoken continued to change and evolve and split up into the modern Romance Languages, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Catalan in the west as well as Romanian in Eastern Europe.  And then while English is classified as a Germanic Language half our vocabulary comes from Latin.

My Ancestry of Charlemagne post among other things documents how Charlemagne descended from a lot of Ancient Romans, including specifically Gallo-Roman Aristocracy.

Update Ocotber 2022: Here's another Video on the Subject.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqoHvTMNCsY

Mystery Babylon as an Adulteress

The more technical arguments for making Mystery Babylon Jerusalem don't hold up at all.  What does hold up are the more thematic connections to themes in the Hebrew Bible about her as a wife of YHWH engaged in Harlotry with The World.

The problem is a lot of Christians are uncomfortable with accepting that that could be us, we think The Church is supposed to the one people of God who won't fall into the same pitfalls that Samaria and Jerusalem fell into.  Even when more fringe elements are criticizing the mainstream Church it's usually in the context of wanting to deny that they actually count as The Church, as legitimately part of the Body and Bride of Christ.

So Protestants and Evangelicals and Torah Keepers point out the ways in which Mystery Babylon can apply to the Catholic Church, but are unwilling to see how we've been guilty of the same basic sins in our own way.

I'm not an Historicist in remotely the traditional sense.  But I do think it's fascinating how the clues in Revelation about Mystery Babylon both point to Rome and to her being either The or A Church.  Meaning on some level however indirectly this book that even the most skeptical critics can't date to later then the mid second century predicted Rome becoming Christian.

The Revelation is drawing on Old Testament imagery, but it's directed at The Church, at Seven Churches in Asia Minor.  And the Jezebel of Thyatira is associated with a lot of the same imagery as the Harlot of Revelation 17.

However the time when Rome became Christian is also the time when OG Rome on the Tiber River ceases to be the only candidate for who Rome is, because that is when Constantinople was founded.

In my view the only cities eligible to be considered candidates for the Seven Hilled city of Revelation are ones that define themselves that way as a positive because they want to be seen as an heir to Rome.  The main three candidates are modern Rome, Constantinople/Istanbul and Moscow.

God's judgments are for correction, this Harlot no matter who she is should not be seen as being permanently rejected, this all goes back to Ezekiel 16.

I have to admit I've spent much of the last year or two trying to be convinced of a form of Post-Millennialism, The Revivalist form however is the only form I'd accept.  I don't want to be a Prophet of Doom predicting this world has to get a lot worse before it can get better.

And I understand the Post-Mil and Partial Preterist arguments about Revelation 20.  But in my look at Church History I see the Church as fitting the Revivalist Post-Mill interpretation of that Chapter for a lot less then a Thousand years, not more.  We were a Camp set apart and separate from The World not even three hundred years.  Only the Ancient Church of the East (often misleadingly called Nestorians) even came close to being like that for a full thousand years.

What I have become more open to are elements of Historicism, but not the Day=Year theory, so if someone has a form of it that works without that nonsense, point me to it and I'll give it a shot.

How much Patristic support is there for Preterism?

I ultimately don't actually care what the "Early Church Fathers" thought on anything.  I'm true Sola Sciprtura, and my exact views on Bible Prophecy are not 100% in agreement with any interpretation known to have been expressed in antiquity.  If aspects of what I believe genuinely didn't exist before a guy named Darby in the 1800s then so be it, all I care about is what conclusions the Scriptures lead me to.

But preterists both full and partial, amillenials and post-millennialism in all it's forms don't have that option even when they are nominally protestant.  If the history of The Church is the fulfillment of the Thousand Years refereed to in Revelation 20 and/or New Jerusalem, then we should have known that from the start.

I don't necessarily expect the reverse to be true though, the whole point of Pre-Millennialism is that we consider the age of Grace to be one where the follows of the true God are just as capable of getting things wrong as we were before, even at the earliest stage, The Apostles themselves kept misunderstanding Jesus while He was right there correcting them.

So I'm not even making this investigation because I think it could be the ultimate death nail to other views.  It's because I care about history being represented properly, and because I do respect the early Christians, even the ones I most disagree with, and so don't want to see their views misrepresented for the sake of an ideological argument by anyone on my side or agaisnt it.

First let's talk about what does not inherently make someone a Preterist in their view of Revelation.

1. Referring to what happened in 70 AD as being foretold by Jesus.

There seems to be some straw-manning of Futurism going around where some think any acknowledgment that Jesus "not one stone" comment refers to 70 AD is incompatible with Futurism.  When the truth is I've rarely seen that connection denied by even the most extreme futurists.

First of all I don't think we even need the three "Olivte Discourse" chapters to find Jesus foretelling it, in Luke especially he refers to it a lot.  I personally see 70 AD in more prophecies then most of my fellow Futurists.  Of the the three chapters in question I only have a definitively futurist stance on Matthew 24.  However there is also a position called Middleism which takes a Preterist view of Matthew 24 but a Futurist view of Revelation, these terms didn't exist in antiquity but it looks to me like that position was a common one in the Early Church.

2, Viewing the 70th Week of Daniel as already fulfilled.

Lots of Post-Trib Futurists and Historicists (who are generally Pre-Mill and so more akin to Futurism on what I think matters most then Preterism) also view the 70th Week as already fulfilled.  My own view is that the 70th week was 30-37 AD, so on that issue I'm more preterist then the people who obsess over 70 AD.

Basically those are the two most prominent examples of a more general fact that what someone says about other prophecies proves nothing about their view of Revelation.

Yes your view of Revelation will effect how you view other things because it's referencing older Prophets all the time.  But there is no consistency even within a basic view to what conclusions believers will make from those connections.  In my own view sometimes Revelation is claiming to be what that older Prophecy was actually about all along, but sometimes it's more like history repeating itself and/or making an analogy to help us understand what it's talking about.

3. Identifying The Church as now the true Israel in some capacity.

Like the 70th Week example it seems a lot of people opposing Futurism treat it as if Pre-Trib Dispensationalism is the only form Futurism comes in.  Post-Tribbers pretty much all take this view in some way, and I as a form of Mid-Trib hold a position between the extreme Dispensationalism of Chuck Missler and the extreme conflation of Post-Tribers.

There are multiple non Dispensational views on how The Church and Israel relate.  Two-House theology is predicated on specifically equating The Church or at least the "Gentile" Church with Ephraim.  Mormonism is actually based on a form of that view but it's also popular in the Hebrew Roots/Torah Observant movements.

Rob Skiba likes to call "Replacement Theology" a straw man, he says the Dispensationalists are the true Replacement theologists.  He stresses how even in The Torah citizenship in the Nation of Israel was not predicated solely on bloodlines, people not biologically descended from Jacob or even Abraham could be counted in as long as they got Circumcised and kept the Torah.  To him it's about us being the continuation of Israel.

But that's not a Strawman when applied to 70 AD Preterism.  I was recently watching a Partial Preterist's video on Revelation 11 and the Two Witnesses and he made it explicitly clear, God divorced one wife to replace her with another, there will be no redemption for the divorced wife.  This view is known as Supersessionism.  And make no mistake there are Post-Trib Futurists who also see it that way not Rob Skiba's way.  And the sad thing is that seems to be the way the "Early Church" talked about this issue and is the main reason I have no real desire to agree with them, Anti-Semitism creeped into the Greek Speaking Church very early on.

Even when someone is talking specifically about Revelation some things are simply not as inherently Preterist as Preterists looking for support will assume.

4. Identifying Mystery Babylon with Jerusalem isn't inherently Preterist either.

Chris White is a "Pre-Wrath" Futurist who wrote a book on Babylon being Jerusalem, and he was willing to do that even though he's just as much of a Dispensational Zionist as the Pre-Tribbers.  When he says he intends nothing Anti-Semitic by it I believe him, he's simply misguided.  Among the openly Anti-Semitic Conspiracy theorists there are people like Texe Marrs who was Post-Trib from what I've read.

This 4th example I kinda didn't need to include because I'm currently aware of no early Patristic support for it, though I certainly could have missed something.  In fact from what I've seen so far Babylon as Rome is the only Mystery Babylon view I've seen among them.  Instead the Anti-Semitism of the Early Church manifested in viewing the "Antichrist" as a Jewish Messiah claimant The Jews will accept.  So literally the polar opposite of the standard modern Preterist view on the bad guys of Revelation.

Now onto specific claims.

A website called Preteristarchive has pages devoted to a number of early fathers where they concede the Futurist stances of some but spend a lot of time engaging in the above distractions and other tactics to mislead people.  It does not have pages for Tertullian or Methodius and wrongly classified Ambrose of Milan and Eusebius as Ante-Nicene.

Froom is the name of a Historicist who wrote a book called The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers that you can find online.  He generally avoids trying to make anyone sound more in agreement with his views then they actually were, instead trying to speculate on why they were sometimes wrong in his view.  His one mistake in that area was claiming Tertullian made a connection he didn't actually make regarding The Temple of God as The Church and the Temple in II Thessalonians 2.  While I don't always agree with him his book was a key source in the research I did for this post.

An interesting thing about the most popular forms of Historicism is during the Pre-Nicene and even early post Nicene era their view on at least The Antichrist would have still been a pretty Futurist one.  None the less there were still things you could believe back then pretty incompatible with proper Historicism.

His book documents pretty well how Pre-Nicaea it was pretty much only the Alexandrians and maybe Victorinus of Potiou who entertained any position other then Pre-Mill on Revelation 20.

Justin Martyr is the oldest definitely known example of anyone referencing The Revelation at all.  Maybe The Didichae had Revelation 12's description of The Dragon in mind when it says "the world deceiver", if so that was a futurist application inserted into what seems like a futurist application of Matthew 24 (it's very possible Matthew was in fact the only NT writing the Didichae used at all).

The Preteristarchive has a page on Justin Martyr, and it takes a lot of things he said out of context to make it seem like he's explicitly rejecting Pre-Mill, but they exist in the context of him debating with a Jew about the Rabbinic Jewish Sabbath Millennium concept.  Today many Dispensationalists and Hebrew Roots types like identifying the Revelation 20 Millennium with that Rabbinic concept, but Justin clearly didn't.  I myself have come to not like defining the Millennium as a "Sabbath" Millennium because 1 Corinthians 15 defined it as a period that isn't a "rest" at all.

They failed however to quote the one and only time Justin explicitly refers to The Revelation.  I shall provide it here.

Dialogue with Trypho 81.4 "And further, there was a certain man with us, whose name was John, one of the apostles of Christ, who prophesied, by a revelation that was made to him, that those who believed in our Christ would dwell a thousand years in Jerusalem; and that thereafter the general, and, in short, the eternal resurrection and judgment of all men would likewise take place."

Pretty clearly and unambiguously a Pre-Mill interpretation.

More then one website and blog trying to paint the Early Church as non Pre-Mil as possible will inevitably concede the Pre-Mill Futurism of Hippolytus of Rome and to some extent also his "mentor" Irenaeus.

The problem with conceding him and trying to paint him as the ONLY one is NOT their alleged connection to John which I feel is overstated and don't care about.  It's that only he actually wrote in depth on Bible Prophecy at all, it was really not a major priority of the surviving writings we have from the Early Church especially Pre-Nicaea.  It mostly comes up when refuting Gnostics and Origen on The Resurrection, in which context it frequently comes across that the "Proto-Orthodox" clearly seem Pre-Mil when stressing a literal Bodily Resurrection.  Only Hippolytus wrote an entire book on specifically the subject of The Antichrist.  And in so doing expressed many views on the matter I no longer and/or never did agree with, but his view on the matter was definitely a Futurist one.  And he was not speaking as if he was massively breaking with the norm, he spoke as if some of his specific details may be new but the gist was basically what everyone already agreed on..

And when the only unambiguous counter example(s) to pre-mill are Origen and some other Alexandrians linked to Origen, then your side is on the shakier ground since he was condemned as  a Heretic at a Synod in the 540s.  He's connected to a lot of Heresy, but none of his earliest critics like Methodius of Olympus ever objected to his Soterology, it was his Pre-Existence of Souls doctrine and how that effected his view of The Resurrection that was the core issue.

I'm not an Origen apologist the way most of my modern fellow Universal Salvation proponents often are, because I know that Soteorlogy was also supported by many others who shared none of Origen's issues, and a few condemned for going in the opposite direction on the literal/allegorical dichotomy.

I actually feel like 70 AD Preterism is far more incompatible with a God of Love who Saves ALL then Futurism, because as I stressed above they are adamant on YHWH's refusal to forgive Israel, they make YHWH's promises to never permanently cast Israel aside into bold faced LIES.

Origen's view of Revelation was probably more Idealist then 70 AD focused Preterism given his approach to Scripture in general.

On both Tertullian and Hippolytus one Amill blog admits they were Pre-Mill but says "not like modern Premillenialism", by which they mainly must mean not being Pre-Trib Dispensationalists.  Hippolytus was clearly Post-Trib on his timing of the Parusia, though he did support the gaps in Daniel 9 and 11 that are today usually typical of Dispensationalism.  I myself even in how I view The Millennium's nature am not like most modern pre-Millers, but my disagreement puts the Patristics I've looked at as closer to them then to me.

Tertullian was influenced by the Montanists and so occasionally viewed with suspicion by later generations of The Church, but still not as much suspicion as Origen.  Again Froom tried to paint him as the one Pre-Nicene father who seemed compatible with his Historicism, and indeed Tertulian is the earliest example I've seen of explicitly identifying Babylon with Rome.  But he also clearly identified The Two Witnesses with Enoch and Elijah.

Eusebius of Caesarea was agaisnt the Millennium but because of that questioned the Canonocity of Revelation altogether. Thing is a lot of writers at this time saw the Diocletian Persecution and it's relief under Constantine as the fulfillment of the future Kingdom happening then not back when The Church was founded.  Constantinople was in turn viewed as the New Jerusalem as much as it was a New Rome.

 Athanasius, Ambrose, Hilary and Jerome all spoke about things like The Antichrist in ways that show a futurist understanding of that issue, even Gregory of Nysaa the one time he mentioned The Antichrist clearly viewed him as yet future.  Both versions of the Nicene Creed rule out at least Full Preterism by clearly defining the Parusia as having not happened yet..  

Aphrahat one of the oldest Syrian Fathers also definitely taught Premillenialism and a Literal Resurrection.  His Eschatology can be considered a from of Historicism, but does not have the Antichrist view typical of Protestant Historicism.

In 380 Ticonius published a Revelation commentary that became the foundation of Post Millenialism as we know it today, and was in turn the basis for Augustine of Hippo's eschatology.

Over the course of the next few centuries the leadership of the Church became increasingly either Post-Mill or not Prophecy concerned at all as now Jesus overthrowing the current world system became no longer desirable to them.  However the Popular literature of this era implies Futurism was still the preferred eschatology of the masses, like the Apocalypse of Pseudo Methodius and other texts related to The Last Roman Emperor tradition.  Meanwhile The Book of The Bee shows that understanding of Prophecy continued to thrive among the "Nestorians" into the 13th Century.

Also identifying The Two Witnesses with Enoch and Elijah seemed pretty universal when they came up all.

Revelation was written to Seven Churches in Asia

70 AD Preterists make the argument in terms of time period that the book must have been for the people who first read it, yet they don't apply that geographically.  If you're going to downgrade the scale of Revelation to not being the entire world but just a local region, then it should be about the region it was written to.  After all Revelation 22:16 says in the Greek and the YLT "these things concerning the Churches".

But Preterists are blind on that fact.  In response to my sharing of my last post on Facebook someone basically mused to themselves why it was written to these churches when it's obviously about Jerusalem???????

I was watching more videos from one of those Partial Preterists, and I began to notice another way in which preterists are oddly exactly like Pre-Trib Dispensationalists.  They can't wrap their heads around the idea of Revelation not being about the same geographical region most of the Old Testament is about, utterly ignoring everything prior New Testament books taught us about how now The Temple is The Church, now the true Holy City or Beloved City is the community of believers not a specific geographical piece of land, what Hebrews taught about the true Jerusalem and Zion being the heavenly one.

They get all those doctrines for how they apply to the present of course.  Their problem is they push back to 70 AD the spiritual changes that happened in 30 AD.  Jesus said the Law and the Prophets were until John (referring to The Baptist), Paul said we were already in the Age of Grace in Galatians written before 62 AD, Stephen was stoned for teaching God already doesn't dwell in a Temple made by human hands.  You see in Christian theology the physical destruction of the Temple is an after thought, a foot note, it was spiritually rendered null and void on The Pentecost of 30 AD at the latest.

Revelation only mentions Jerusalem by name when referring to New Jerusalem, and only says Zion of a location that is seemingly in Heaven in chapter 14.  I just made a post on The Great City.  These preterists don't take as literal geography things that point to Mesopotamia like Babylon and the Euphrates, but any excuse to say this is obviously Jerusalem in Judea they will cling to.

The Temple in chapter 11 is always referring to The Temple in Heaven, it exists in the context of what was just going on in chapter 10, the Angel who speaks about the Witnesses is that Angel, and at the end of the chapter we're explicitly told The Temple in Heaven is the one who's Ark is seen.  Likewise chapters 21-22 clarify that The Holy City is New Jerusalem, which is still in Heaven during the prior chapters.  New Jerusalem's size if you take it literally is large enough that if you put it's center at terrestrial Jerusalem it would encompass the entire region of the Seven Churches.  And Philadelphia is promised to be a Pillar in The Temple of New Jerusalem.

A lot of imagery and terminology later in the book is drawing back on things in the specific messages to the Seven Churches.  Satan's Seat is first in Pergamon but later becomes the Seat of The Beast, fitting it being the center of the Imperial Cult and Apollo's Seat in The Iliad where Aeneas mortal wound was healed.

At this point I feel like doing what I've sometimes done with Historicism, and play devil's advocate for what a proper Preterist interpretation of Revelation should look like.

We could begin within a century of when Revelation was written and look at Alexander The False Prophet, a person who's life was fictionalized by Lucian.  He was based in Asia Minor, he made an Idol of Aeskleius called Glycon that he made it appear to be speaking.  And he was the real driving force behind Christian persecutions that happened during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, Aurelius himself actually tried to oppose the persecution of the Christians.  As interesting as that is it won't fully hold up.

The truth is the only real Great Persecution Christians faced under Pagan Rome was the Diocletian Persecution which was really masterminded by Galerius.  Early Nicene Christians simply started imagining the intensity of that Persecution into the entire Pre-Milvean Bridge era.  We have ancient sources testifying that many Apostatized during this persecution, which is why Donatism was an issue after it ended so that can be the Apostacy of II Thessalonians 2.  It also lased exactly 10 years from February of 303 to February of 313 which means you could apply a Day=Year theory application to the ten days of persecution alluded to in the message to Smyrna.

Then Constantine rose to power in 311-313 and virtually overnight the Empire went from trying to annihilate Christians to being ruled by one.  This era is when Post-Millennial and Partiral Preterist interpretations of Prophecy rose in popularity, with Constantinople being founded to serve as a New Jerusalem in addition to a New Rome, it's original main church was the Hagia Irene, Holy Peace, Irene is basically the Greek translation of Salem.

The region of the Seven Churches remained firmly in Eastern Roman/Byzantine control long past when most of the empire fell to the Ishmaelites, nor did they fall under Latin control after the Fourth Crusade, they remained firmly in the Greek Empire of Nicaea.  However in 1308 is when this region fell under Muslim Turkish control.  So for this region it was about exactly a Thousand Years of Christianity being the politically dominant religion allowing you to argue we are now in verse 8 or 9 of chapter 20.

However that was rhetorical, my view of State Sponsored Christianity is more amendable to Historicism then it is to Post-Millennialism.

Revelation Chapter 6 and the Non Signs

I apologize that this post shall in some sense be repeating some stuff I covered early in the Blog's history, but it shall also reflect some things I've changed my mind on and is a good reintroduction to how to refute the "Pre-Wrath" view of Chris White.

The basic error of their view is identifying The Parousia in Revelation using the characteristics of it from the Olivte Discourse that are the least unique to the Parousia and also least important to defining what the Parousia is.

The thesis of this post is that all of Revelation Chapter 6 (the first 6 seals) correlates to the "Non Signs" or "Beginnings of Sorrows" portion of the Olivite Discourse.

Matthew 24:4-8, Mark 13:5-8 and Luke 21:8-11 is what Chuck Missler liked to call the "Non Signs" portion of the Olivite discourse.  Jesus specifically said "that ye be not troubled: for all [these things] must come to pass, but the end is not yet."  Chris White however continues to obsess over insisting these are End Times specific events (he specifically argues they are the first half of the "70th Week").  But that is willful disregard of what Jesus specifically told us.

In Matthew 24 the persecution refereed to happens after the era of these non signs, in Luke 21 it is said to happen before them (Luke's I believe is about the Jewish in origin persecutions depicted in Acts) and in Mark 13 this persecution seems to be happening at the same time.  Mark is about the many persecutions Christians have faced in the last 2000s years, (even after the West became Christian in other regions persecution continued, especially for the "Nestorian" Church.)  Only Matthew is about a specifically End Times global persecution that might be carried out by the "Antichrist" but it might be the "Antichrist" will present himself as "saving" Christians from it.  And that is how I feel the Fifth Seal factors in.

I used to disagree with associating the Non Signs with the Four Horsemen because I understood this fact and I used to believe the Four Horsemen are specifically end times.  But I have come to take what can be considered a Historicist view of Revelation 6.  My overall view of Revelation remains Futurist because, well I'm open minded on the first 4 Trumpets (chapter 8 is more plausible to interpret histrionically then chapter 9) but the Seventh is definitely yet Future, the Seventh Trumpet is the Last Trump, that I still strongly believe.  But one element of the Non Signs is missing when you make them just the Four Horsemen, the Earthquakes.

The "Pre-Wrath" view of Chris White and some other views I've seem argued for, insist the Sixth Seal is the Rapture because Matthew 24:29 refers to an Earthquake and the Sun being darkened and stars falling from heaven.  In Revelation the Sixth Seal is the first time those three things happen but it's not the last.  And in Matthew 24 this is NOT the first reference to Earthquakes.  Also The Sixth Seal doesn't talk about lighting or thunder.

The Earthquake of Matthew 24:29 I view as the Earthquake of the Seventh Trumpet in Revelation 11:19, and maybe the Ark being seen in Heaven is the Sign of the Son of Man of Matthew 24:30.  The stars falling from Heaven is what the Dragon's tail does in Chapter 12, the start of Chapter 12 is also what I believe Luke's "Signs in the Sun, Moon and Stars" refers to.  And the Sun and Moon were already darkened in the 4th Trumpet.

Actually I have now realized Matthew 24:29 does NOT even refer to an Earthquake, that word is in the three Olivte Discourse passages only during the Beginnings of Sorrows.  At the Parousia it's the powers in heaven that are shaken, which I think is an allusion to Revelation 12's War in Heaven.  I do believe an Earthquake happens at the time of the Parousia because of where I place it in Revelation, but there is in fact no Olivte Discourse basis for that.

Revelation 11 also clearly tells us that Wrath does NOT come till after the Seventh Trumpet.  So when the Kings of the Earth think Wrath has arrived in Revelation 6:15-17 they are wrong and mistaken and indeed not heeding what Jesus said about the Non Signs.

No account of the Olvite Disocurse refers to the Moon becoming Blood, Blood is a BRIGHT shade of Red so the Moon being darkened CANNOT be the same thing.  Only three verses of Scripture refer to the Moon becoming like Blood, the Sixth Seal, Joel 2 and Acts 2 when Peter quotes Joel 2.

Joel 2 says the Sun will be darkened and the Moon become like Blood BEFORE the Day of the LORD, not on or during but BEFORE.  And Peter is referring to this prophecy as having already been fulfilled in some way by Pentecost, presumably by the Earthquake and Darkening of the Sun associated with the Crucifixion.

So I don't think the Sixth Seal is about a singular event, it's a Prophecy of every-time people mistakenly think the End is Nigh because of perfectly common events like Earthquakes, shooting stars and Eclipses.  Earthquakes are often accompanied by volcanoes and there are accounts of volcanic eruptions making the Sun look dark and the Moon look red.

I've seen an argument that these kings of the Earth saying "hide us from the face of Him that sits on the Throne" is proof they are seeing the Parousia right now.  But again Jesus warns of there being people who will think the Parousia has happened or is happening but it isn't.  The fact that a lot Christian are forgetting to factor into all this is that now over half the world's population believes in the Biblical God and Jesus in some capacity at least nominally.

So again we can't build doctrine on the testimony of fallible mortals.

The Vicar of Christ

The title "Vicar of Christ" as a title for the Bishop of Rome aka The Pope is a major factor in Papal Antichrist arguments, both among Historicists and Futurists who want to make a Papal Antichrist view work within Futurism.  The title in the various ways it's been translated implies being a mortal representative of Christ who has all of Christ's authority.

One Biblical pillar of the argument is viewing the Temple that Paul refers to in II Thessalonians 2 as being The Church not a Temple Building, and thus the true "Abomination of Desolation" is a Mortal Human within the Church claiming the authority of Christ.  That is an issue I've discussed a lot in the past and may discus more in the future.

The other is interpreting the term "Antichrist" in John's Epistles as meaning "in place of Christ" rather then "opposed to Christ", thus suggesting "Vicar of Christ" can be viewed as a direct Latin translation of that term.  My looking in the Strongs Concordance at other Biblical Greek words with the anti- preffix shows that it seems to be used with both meanings.  But the context of what John was saying about "Antichrists" and the "spirit of Antichrist" supports the "opposed to Christ" meaning.  Everything John says to define what makes one "an Antichrist" is about what they say Jesus is not rather then what they say they are.

I'm a Futurist who has been trying to be very open minded to forms of Historicism, but all while trying to make it less dependent on specifically the Papal view of The Antichrist.  So what I want to explore here is how the Pope's claimed authority is not the only "Vicar of Christ" heresy within the Church.

The kernel of truth in the Vicar of Christ doctrine is that spiritually Jesus has given some of His Authority to All Believers.  What I consider inherently dangerously heretical (whether or not it's relevant to Bible Prophecy) are two sometimes overlapping extensions of that.
1.  Any individual or group or office within the Church claiming Christ like Authority even over other believers, that's the Doctrine of the Nicolatians.
2.  Using this Authority to justify setting up any kind of Christian Theocracy, Christians seeking to rule over non-believers when Christ's Earthly Kingdom has not yet been inaugurated.

To an extent the Vicar of Christ idea is what justifies all ecclesiastical hierarchy, even Independent Baptists talk about the local Pastor as being an "Under Shepherd".

However the "Divine Right of Kings" doctrine is also based on claiming Kings are Earthly Vicars of Christ.  But contrary to popular opinion forms of that idea predated the Protestant Reformation.  The Biblical basis for the Medieval "Royal Touch" idea was Mark 16, again claiming specifically for the King something every Believer is theoretically capable of.

It used to be for the Eastern Orthodox Church the Eastern Roman Emperor (Byzantine Emperor in many modern history books) was their Vicar of Christ, that's discussed right on the Wikipedia page.  This YouTube Video about Greek Orthodoxy reveals how even today they have the Emperor enthroned within their Churches.  This is really creepy when you remember that claiming Caesar as their King was what those who called for Christ's Crucifixion did.  In the sense that I view the Orthodox Church as Pergamon in Revelation 2-7, that Throne is Satan's Seat.

Even in the Old Testament human kings are viewed as mortals usurping authority that belongs to God, YHWH said through Samuel that Israel was rejecting Him as King when they asked for a Human King like the heathens had.  Some Biblical Kings wound up being decent leaders, but the overall meta-narrative is still Anti-Monarchy.  I personally believe that especially in The Torah "Moloch" should always be translated "King" and "Milcom" should read "Kings", the passages condemning their worship are actually condemning the worship of Human Kings.  This also comes up in Ezekiel 28 and Acts 12 which I've argued elsewhere may be key to understanding what the Abomination of Desolation is.  There is also an anti Monarchy theme to the story of Gideon and his sons.

Some Preterists (and secular scholars) think the Temple Paul was talking about in II Thessalonians 2 was a Temple of the Imperial Cult that existed in the city.  Not every city had any particular Imperial Cult presence (in Asia the two Churches with specific references to Martyrdom in Revelation 2-3 were the two Imperial Cult centers of the Province), archaeologically we know Thessaloniki was an Imperial Cult center, so that could be relevant.  

Galerius the chief architect of the greatest Roman persecution the Church faced, built a Rotunda in Thessaloniki that scholars are still unsure what it was for, the popular theory it was intended to be his Mausoleum though he wound up being buried in Serbia.  At first glance that theory would seem to conflict with a Christ usurper within the Church theory.  But in the future the Roman Emperors did transition from claiming to be Pagan gods to claiming to be the Vicar of the Christian God.  It is connected to the Arch of Galerius which like other Triumphal Arches has imagery that basically Deifies the Emperor for whom it is named.

What's fascinatingly coincidental is how Thessalonica played an important role in that transition.  The Edict that made Christianity the state religion of the Empire is known as the Edict of Thessalonica because that's where it was issued, in fact Theodosius I was also Baptized in Thessalonica by it's local Bishop.  And he turned Galerius's unused Rotunda into a a Church.

Christian Emperors were having Messianic Mojo applied to them even before then however, just look at how Eusebius talked about Constantine.

I made a post focused on the reign of Justinian arguing for the Eastern Roman Empire being The Little Horn of Daniel 7.

One thing kind of well known about the Roman Empire is that all through Antiquity it never officially admitted to being a Monarchy, they adamantly denied that the Emperors were Kings and never formally called them Rex in Latin or Basileus in Greek.  Now it's popular to rather dismissively mock that, but I want to say as an American that I feel it's hypocritical to say obviously the Caesars were Kings but United States Presidents are not.  There were limits on the Emperor's authority, they did often have to fight with the Senate.  Their near Monarchical power came from combining offices that were usually separate under the old Republic.  Princeps is literally the Latin word that President comes from (same with Premier and Prime).  Imperator basically means "Commander in Chief of the military", and the President's Veto power gives him the power of a Tribune of the Plebs.  The only meaningful difference is the U.S. President doesn't serve for life, but they would have if Alexander Hamilton had his way.

What's not so well known is that at a certain point this denial of Kingship stopped.  Emperor Heraclius (who possibly descended from the Armenian Arascid Dynasty and thus the Seleucids) abandoned the title Imperator and took the title Basileus in September of 629 AD, he also took the Persian title "King of Kings".  So he can very literally be called the Eight King of Rome.

Leaving aside the symbolic political significance that had for Rome and looking at the above theological significance in light of what I've talked about in this post.  He was not the first Christian to formally hold a title of Kingship, but none before him ruled a Kingdom nearly as large as his, and none before him ruled Jerusalem or the land of the Seven Churches that Revelation was written to, or Thessalonica.

On December 12th 627 AD Heraclius was wounded in battle at Nineveh but didn't die and then destroyed another important Persian capital. He also made a Covenant with the Jews that he broke in the Spring of 630 AD.

And like Justinian his relationship with the Miaphysite churches was complex.

When Constantinople fell in 1453 AD they had three claimed Emperors in Exile and then a number of states started claiming to be successor states to Constantinople.  The one that's relevant to this discussion of the Eastern Empire however is Russia's Claim, the theological position the Emperor had in the Eastern Orthodox Church wound up being inherited by the Tsars.  Meaning the Orthodox Church didn't cease to have an Emperor serving as their Vicar of Christ till the deaths of Tsar Nicolas II and his family in July of 1918.

I've said before I don't like the logic of the Day=Year theory.  But I shall briefly play Devil's Advocate for it's potential applicability here.  On the Biblical Hebrew Calendar the year that Heraclius proclaimed himself Basileus started in March or April of 629.  If we viewed that as the first year of a calendar, it's 1290th year would have been Spring 1918- March 1919, the year that Tsar Nicolas II died.

The Wikipedia Page for 647 refers to certain events that happened to the Byzantine Empire as "fatally" wounding it.  The actions of Constans II in 658 to early 659 could be viewed as the healing of that "fatal" wound.  1260 years from then takes us to the same time period just discussed, the end and aftermath of WWI.  Tsarist Russia wasn't the only Byzantine successor state to end (or change it's form of government) then, that was also when the Ottoman Empire ceased.  It also ended two successions of Western Emperors in Austria and Germany.

Putin has not formally claimed this aspect of the Tsar's old authority yet.  But his relationship with the Russian Orthodox Church suggests he may want to.

Four of the Seven Churches of Revelation don't seem to be mentioned elsewhere in The Bible.

Which is surprising considering how much of Acts is dedicated to Paul's time in this same region, and his Epistles sometimes further mentioning other cities near or related to the city of the Church being addressed.

The three that are mentioned are Ephesus which comes up a lot actually, perhaps more then any other location outside the Promised Land.  Thyatira which is the home town of Lydia who Paul met at Philippi in Acts 16, and Paul visits unnamed cities in the same general area.  And then Laodicea is mentioned in Colossians 2:1 and 4:13-16, and it's probably among the cities of Phrygia alluded to in Acts.

But Smyrna, Pergamos/Pergamon, Sardis and Philadelphia are not mentioned, by those names at least, anywhere but in Revelation.

Studies of the Seven Churches often see symbolic or poetic significance in the names used to refer to these cities.  That is a potential reason why some of them might be called by different names then what other ancient writers including other NT writers would call them.

In the case of Pergamos, it's not even that name's real etymology sited but the idea that it can be reinterpreted to mean "perverted marriage" because it's a Church that married the World.

Pergamos has a tendency to be the most mysterious to me, even if purely symbolic/spiritual a city being said to be where Satan's Throne is located is a pretty big deal.  And by secular standards Sardis and Pergamon were two of the most important cities of the region, so their being missing in Acts is much more of an enigma then Smyrna or Philadephia, or for that matter Thyatira and Laodicea being mentioned pretty rarely.

I argued in the past that the Martyrdom of Anitpas makes the Serapeum most likely to be the Pagan Temple Jesus had in mind, not the more popular Altar depicting the Gigantarchy.

But what's interesting is that as I was doing more research into this I discovered that The Illiad mentions a Citadel in Iliom called Pergamos.  In fact that Citadel is said to have a Seat for Apollon.

Homer, Iliad 7.17 ff :
"Now as the goddess grey-eyed Athene [on Olympos] was aware of these two [the Trojan princes Hektor (Hector) and Paris] destroying the men of Argos in the strong encounter, she went down in a flash of speed from the peaks of Olympos to sacred Ilion, where Apollon stirred forth to meet her from his seat on Pergamos, where he planned that the Trojans should conquer. These two then encountered each other beside the oak tree, and speaking first the son of Zeus, lord Apollon, addressed her : ‘What can be your desire this time, o daughter of great Zeus, that you came down from Olympos at the urge of your mighty spirit? To give the Danaans victory in battle, turning it back? .

Since I know from my past Revised Chronology interests that many question the traditional site of Troy, I decided to see if any have argued that Troy and/or Iliom was actually Pergamon.  And in so doing found this website.
http://thetroydeception.com/

I don't think I can agree with the claim that this mistake was a deliberate conspiracy, it's probably the same as many other mistaken identifications I've dealt with regarding locations in Israel, it just happened because of details being lost to time and people reading these texts who don't live there making assumptions.  The Dardanians role in the story could be part of the issue  I should maybe mention here my support for the theory that Homer was contemporary with Gyges of Lydia.
[Update: I've since learned others have proposed the same theory in different ways.  Like Troy: The World Deceived by John Lascelles.]

How does this relate to the issue of Pergamon being missing from Acts?  Because Acts does mention Troas in chapter 16, arriving there in verses 7&8 and leaving in verses 10&11.  Troas is placed in Mysia there which is also mentioned on the above site and on Pergamon's Wikipedia page as being where Pergamon was.  

It's important to the timeline of Acts as the narrative voice changing from third person to first person here leads many to conclude this is where Luke joined Paul's party.  Pergamon as a cult center of Aesculapius was a place many Physicians would have visited regularly.

Now at first glance the website I linked to above might be skeptical of the Acts 16:11 Troas being their real Troy since it's against thinking Troy was right by Samothrace.  But Luke doesn't actually say they were that close, in fact they possibly stopped at a Neapolis first, which could well be the Neapolis of Lesbos which as the above link says was just west of Mysia.  Or even if this Neapolis is a place reached after Samothrace, Luke says they set a course to Samothrace, there is no indicator of how far away it was.  Maybe people misunderstanding Act 16 is the real origin of the error that Troy was near Samothrace?

Troas is visited again in Acts 20:5-12, and there it is seemingly nearer to Lesbos (Mytilene) then Samothrace, in fact they would not have sailed to Assos if they were leaving from the Hisarlik site, that trip would have been much shorter by land.

If the Seat of Satan Jesus refereed to was chiefly the Serapeum, the mythological memory of Apollo's seat could still have also been in mind.  Hellenic comparative mythology I'm pretty sure often identified Serapis with Apollo.  Aesculapius was a son of Apollo who also had a Temple near by.

The Seven Church Ages theory of the Seven Churches promoted by many Protestant Historicists and some Futurists tends to see the message to Pergamos as partly a Prophecy of when The Church married Rome, the era of the Ecumenical Councils.  Well Rome in John's time saw themselves as the successor of Troy via Aeneas, the Aeneid written to celebrate that identification also used Pergamos as synonymous with Troy.  In fact the Illiad itself mentions Aeneas in connection to Apollo's temple at Pergamos.

Homer, Iliad 5. 445 ff (trans. Lattimore) (Greek epic C8th B.C.) :
"Apollon caught [the wounded] Aineias (Aeneas) now and away from the onslaught [of the battle], and set him in the sacred keep of Pergamos (Pergamus) where was built his own temple. There Artemis of the showering arrows and Leto within the great and secret chamber healed his wound and cared for him."

Wow, that's really interesting given what happens later in Revelation, with a Head of the Beast having a mortal wound that is healed and being given Satan's Seat.  Aeneas was a son of Aphrodite/Venus as I mentioned in the post I made yesterday. Still I have my skepticism of the seven ages theory.  Also the context of this wounding in the Iliad is not with a sword or to the head but a boulder to the thigh.

I've learned while researching this that Pergamon's Serepeum wasn't built till the reign of Hadrian, so the tradition about that being where Antipas was killed must be false since Revelation was written well before then

Pergamon became a center of the Imperial Cult under Augustus in the late 1st century BC.  Augustus deification of himself involved associating himself with Apollo, while also claiming descent from Aeneas.  So like Smynra the Imperial cult is probably the real backstory behind Martyrdom being mentioned here.  I wonder if those books about Pergamon being Troy have a specific theory about where Apollo's sanctuary was?  If the text of the Iliad can be interpreted as implying it's the highest peak, that would be where Trajan built his Temple, further tying it to the Imperial Cult. Did Trajan simply build over where Augustus and other prior Emperors had been worshiped?  And did Augustus in turn choose the site of an ancient Temple to Apollo? But then Trajan preferred to associate his deification with Zeus rather then Apollo?

Later in Revelation 13 Satan gives his Seat to The Beast, and The Beast is often viewed as being in some way Rome or a Roman Emperor.

Pergamon was a known cult center of Aesculapius going back to the fourth century BC according to Pausanias.  But the surviving remains near the Serapeum like the Serapeum itself are mainly a 2nd century AD construction.

I've decided I can't agree with the Fullness of the Pergamon was the original Troy theory because of how Young Pergamon is archeologically, one of these Pergamon theory books date the fall of Troy to  811 BC but Pergamon was founded later then that.  But I do think locals in Pergamon saw themselves as the real Troy all through antiquity and that belief influenced some aspects of the Iliad.

I'm not today going to propose any theories about Smyrna or Sardis. [Update: in light my newer theories about the Latest Date for The Revelation I now think Smyrna and Sardis didn't have Christian communities till the Second Century.]

I do have some interesting thoughts on Philadelphia.

Philadelphia was the name of several cities in antiquity and could easily have been a nick name to many more.  The Philadelphia traditionally identified with the Philadelphia of Revelation is the city today called Alasehir.  But Alasehir was still a predominantly Pagan city well into the sixth century with it's major Church not being built till 600 AD.  That's not what I'd expect from the Christian legacy of one of the two most praised Churches in Revelation.

Ammia in Philadelphia is the designation of a Prophetess mentioned by Eusebius in Ecclesiastical History Book 5 Chapter 17 quoting a Miltiades criticizing the Montanists.  Montanus and his women claimed to have inherited their Prophetic gifts from Quadartus and Ammia in Philadelphia.  Quadartus is also mentioned in Book 3 Chapter 37, it's possible he too was in or from Philadelphia but not certain.  Eusebius and Miltiades considered these Prophets valid, it's the Montanists' claim of succession from them they're rejecting.

What's interesting is that when Montanus and his women claimed to have inherited their Prophetic gifts from Ammia and Quadartus, it was supposedly a line of succession they got from the Daughters of Philip from Acts 21:9.  And Montanus and his women were from Phrygia.  The exact locations of Pepuza and Tymion where Montanus claimed New Jerusalem would descend and thus made his head quarters are also a mystery, we just know they were in Phrygia.  I've come to suspect they may have been simply Montanus's personal pet names for cities usually known by other names.

I believe that Philip one of the Twelve Disciples and Philip the Deacon aka Philip the Evangelist are in fact the same person, no NT passage mentions both by name together.  I get why people assume Acts 6 allows no overlap between the Twelve and the Seven.  But remember in John chapter 12 the Philip who is of the Twelve serves as the contact between Greek Speaking Jews interested in Jesus message and the Twelve, so Acts 6 could just be him still playing that role.  And Stephen is mentioned first even over one of the Twelve because he became the first Martyr, while when Acts was written Philip's own Martyrdom probably hadn't even happened yet.  Deacon was not meant to be a rank in the NT Church, it was a word meaning "servant", Jesus, Peter and Paul intended for the Church's Elders and Overseers to see themselves as servants.

Polycrates of Ephesus records some traditions I think are wrong like identifying a John with The Beloved Disciple when I view them as different and if either was ever in Ephesus it wasn't John.  But he doesn't call that John one of the Twelve.  The only one of the Twelve whom Polycrates mentions is Philip, he says this Philip was one of the Twelve and had at least three daughters, Philip and two of his daughters fell asleep and were buried in Hierapolis in Phrygia.  Eusebius in Book III chapter 31 also cited another source for Philip and his Four Daughters who were Prophetesses coming to Hierapolis in Phrygia.

Philadelphia isn't mentioned at all in Polycrates discussion of Asian Churches observing Passover on the 14th.  It's not the only city from Revelation 2&3 missing, but Hierapolis is the only Church mentioned that doesn't appear to be one of the Seven.  Thyatira and Pergamon he might have left out since they were specifically associated with bad doctrines in Revelation, but if Philadelphia's Church kept Passover on the 14th that is something he'd want to mention, and perhaps try to explain away if they didn't.

Hierapolis means Holy City, as in a sacred city with an important Temple(s), because it had a lot of pagan temples.  The message to Philadelphia is the one that speaks of the City of God which is New Jerusalem and the Temple of God.   In Revelation 3:12 Jesus promises to make the Overcomer a Pillar in the Temple of God, Paul refers to the Apostles in Jerusalem as Pillars in Galatians 2:9.  Revelation 21:14 says the Twelve Apostles are the Foundations of New Jerusalem, and in Ephesians 2:20 Paul says the Apostles are the Foundations of The Temple of God.  Based on Polycrates I think Philip was the only one of the Twelve who fell asleep in Asia. 

New Jerusalem is called the Holy City in Revelation 21:2 though it's a different Greek word for Holy, Hagias/Hagian.  However the word for Holy that is the first part of Hierapolis happens to look like the beginning of how Jerusalem is spelled in Greek.  Greek was often a very precise language, but I think Hieros and Hagios were understand as synonyms, or at least that mostly anything which can be described as one can also be described as the other.  Also the only time either of these words for Holy appears in Revelation 2-3 is the beginning of the message to Philadelphia.

Philip is a name derived from the same Greek word for Love as the first syllable of Philadelphia. The meaning of Philadelphia is often said to be "brotherly love" but Greek was unlike English in that the words for Brother and Sister used in the New Testament are just slight variations on each other, and so the last part of Philadelphia is almsot arguably closer to the word for sister since city names often wind up mostly feminine in form.  So maybe there is some wordplay going on here where the name also suggests the sisters who were daughters of Philip?  The first Hellenistic Monarch given the epithet Philadelphos was Ptolemy II who was given it in reference to his love for his Sister, so yes it absolutely can mean Sisterly Love.

One of the most famous sites in Hierapolis is the Ploutonion, a ceremonial gateway to Hades, the Underworld.  Jesus introduced himself in the message to Philadelphia as one who is Holy and as He who openeth and shutteth and has the Key of David.  In the other messages the titles for Jesus used here are references back to titles from chapter 1, but David isn't mentioned in chapter 1 and the only Keys mentioned in Chapter 1 are the Keys of Hades and Death.  Sheol comes up in some Davidic Psalms, including one Peter quoted in Acts 2.  The Key of David and the talk of opening and shutting also comes from Isaiah 22:22, and the context there can maybe also be inferred to relate to the Resurrection.

Some people see in the message to Philadelphia possible allusions to the city having a history of Earthquakes, well it was the same for Hierapolis, being damaged by Earthquakes in 17 AD and 60 AD.  As Colossians 4:13 indicates, Hierapolis was close to Laodicea, so that could be why they're next to each other in Revelation chapter 3.  Hierapolis was between Laodicea and Alasehir but much closer to Laodicea, and some think Hierapolis hot springs provide context to understanding the lukewarm water of Laodicea, Jesus is definitely contrasting Laodicea and Philadelphia spiritually.

Antiochus III aka Antiochus The Great settled 2,000 Jews in Phrygia in the early second century BC, by 62 BC the Jewish population in Hierapolis was 50,000.  Jews from Phrygia were at Pentecost according to Acts 2:10, Paul was there in Acts 16:6 before heading to Mysia/Troas and then returned there in Acts 18:23.  Alasehir in contrast does not seem to have ever had a Jewish population.

Based on John 8, those who say they are Jews but are not but are of the synagogue of Satan, probably refers to non Christian Jews.  It's unfortunate that today some people use that to justify their Antisemitism, these privileged Jews were being criticized for persecuting those with different beliefs, modern Jews living in America and Europe are in no position to be the persecutors, at least not to Christians.  Today it is if anything many Christians committing the sins of the Pharisees in John 8 and the Synagogue of Satan.

Philadelphia is presented in Revelation as a city where Christians aren't facing the immediate threat of death for their faith the way they were in Smynra due to the presence of the Imperial Roma cult.  But while Christians were the minority everywhere this city is one where it seems to have been particularly not easy to be a Christian culturally.  How many Pagan Temples Hierapolis had could be the reason for that.

If Montanus knew full well that the Philadelphia of Revelation was in Phrygia, that could make sense of his ability to develop a belief that Phrygia was where New Jerusalem would descend by ignoring how New Jerusalem being referenced in that message isn't about Geography. In fairness to Montanus however, Revelation 21 makes New Jerusalem large enough that if you place it's exact center at Jerusalem and/or Bethlehem and/or Bethel, it would include all of Phyrgia.

Papias is also said to have spent time in Hierapolis. And it should also be noted that Apolinarius a chief early critic of the Montanists was a Bishop of Hierapolis, so they had opposition in Phrygia as well.  Indeed there was a Bishopric in Hierapolis that existed all through Pre-Nicene and Post-Nicene Early Church History, while the one for Alasehir doesn't appear till the time of Nicaea.  And in the Fourth Century Hierapolis became a majority Christian city very quickly, unlike Alasehir.

My Philadelphia theory is not one I'm gonna promote as strongly because I lack any independent evidence that Hierapolis was also known as Philadelphia.  But even if I can never find that smoking gun, I'm willing to consider that this city might have been called that only by it's Christian population, perhaps as a pun on the name of the Disciple who was buried there.

Update 2023: Both these theories I have become inclined towards.  

For Pergamon I do still think people in that believed they were Troy and that may have influenced what's said in Revelation, but Toas in Acts probably refers to the Troad region and not a single city.

For Philadelphia I realize I was missing the point by making such a point out of the Philadpehian Church's seeming insignificance.  The message about them being the smallest and weakest Church by Secular Standard but the truest in their faith.  But also maybe Eusebius couldn't give a list of Bishops because they never accepted Episcopal Polity before Nicaea.  And maybe a Pro-Montanist could argue the Montanists were the legacy of Philadelphia.

Some of the circumstantial stuff I mentioned could still be interesting.  Polycrates letter only accounts for 3 of Philip's 4 daughters, so maybe the remaining one settled in Philadelphia where she became the Sempai of Ammia.  

And some of these regions terms within the Province of Asia were flexible and so maybe Alasehir can be considered part of Phyrgia even though it's usually classified as Lydian.  The location of Pepuza is known now, and was when I first wrote this, I had simply been influenced by outdated information.  It is arguably closer to Alasehir then it is to the Laodicea/Hierapolis/Colossae area.

Was Bible Prophecy fulfilled around 500 AD?

A few 2nd/Early 3rd Century AD Church Writers predicted that the Millenium would begin about 500 AD [Strandberg, Todd; James, Terry (June 2003). Are You Rapture Ready. New York City: Dutton.].  I don't think that happened, but I am open to unconventional understandings of how Daniel 2 and 7 relate to Revelation which could include more quasi Preterist/Historicist interpretations of those Chapters.

The basis for Irenaeus, Hippolytus of Rome and Julius Africanus predicting around 500 AD was that for reasons based on Septuagint chronology they felt the time of Christ was 5500 years from Creation and that the Seventh Millennium would begin about 500 years later.  So I’m going to allow a range here.  It’s interesting that all three had passed away before 250 AD and so were not making predictions based on a bias for wanting it to happen in their lifetimes.

The earliest possible date for The Birth of Jesus is 25 BC, 500 years from which would be 476 AD, but more popular dates are about 5-4 BC which takes us to the 490s AD.  From here on the start date is already AD so just put a 5 in-front of it to get the end date.

I place The Crucifixion, Resurrection and Pentecost in the Spring of 30 AD.  Others have proposed dates all over the time Pilate was Governor (26-36 AD).  The latest possible date is 37 AD, which year is also when I place the end of the 70 Weeks of Daniel so definitely an important year.  But there is also room to argue the history of the First Advent isn’t fully done till we reach the end of the narrative of Acts (62-64 AD), or the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD in the midst of the Jewish Revolt that spanned from 66-73 AD.

So what was the End Time scenario predicted by our 500 AD date setters?  Irenaeus and Hippolytus wrote in depth on Bible Prophecy more then any other Pre-Nicene writers.  Their model predicted that the Roman Empire would collapse, than 10 Kingdoms would arise in its place, and then after that would come The Little Horn commonly identified with The Antichrist. 

This was a pretty standard view of Bible Prophecy prior to Nicaea.  But when Constantine happened things changed, many started thinking Rome’s fall wasn’t something to look forward to anymore, and so Amillennial and Post-Millennial interpretations rose in popularity, and then the Last Roman Emperor tradition developed, which turned the one who would restore Rome after it’s collapse into a Hero rather then a Villain.

So it’s Ironic that even though the Church stopped believing in what those early Eschatology teachers predicted, what they predicted at least partially did happen pretty much exactly when they predicted it would.  Basically everything but The Second Coming itself.

476 AD is one of the dates commonly cited as when the Western Empire fell, along with 480 and 488 AD.  Chris White talked about how Daniel 2 can be viewed as being fulfilled in the late 400s AD, which I talked about when critiquing his very different view of Daniel 7.

Much of the 500s were dominated by the reign of Justinian, an emperor popular with History YouTubers like Extra Credits.  Seventh Day Adventists and other Protestant Historicists have a long history of viewing Daniel 7 as being fulfilled in the time of Justinian, with the 10 Horns being the Barbarian Kingdoms that rose to power in the West as Rome Fell.  I’m going to link to a Playlist that is mostly videos an Atheist YouTuber called NumberOneSon made critiquing various SDA teachers on what they get wrong about Justinian’s history.
History Versus Playlist.  Note, There is at least one video on the Playlist not about this subject.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL95E6667F8E19F8B0

His critiques are mostly correct. (He does confuse Monophysite and Miasphyte theology by calling Theodora a Monophysite, she was a Miasphyte and so did believe Jesus was both Fully Human and Fully Divine, and it was only Miasyphtes not proper Monophysites Justinian wanted to make peace with, but that confusion is common.)  However the details these SDAs get wrong don’t change that, yes, what happened then looks an awful lot like what Daniel 7 predicted as it was interpreted by pre-Nicene Christians.

I'm willing to consider the Prophetic use of the round number 10 a detail that doesn’t need to be fulfilled exactly literally.  You can say that’s convenient, but I say it’s just the nature of the number 10.  But still there are ways to justify making it exactly 10 kingdoms if you wanted to. And I lean towards viewing the three Kingdoms Justinian uprooted as being the Vandals, Alans and Ostrogoths.  I know the Alans and Vandals are technically viewed as being the same kingdom by this point, but I still think it's valid to view them as separate in the context of fulfilling this prophecy.

Also I’m not a Historicist (not properly anyway) so don’t accept any Day=Year arguments and therefore won't turn around and make this about Napoleon and The Roman Question.

But the big difference between what I’m considering possible here and the SDAs is I don’t make the Little Horn into The Pope.  Instead I think the Little Horn is basically the Eastern Empire.

Some Prophecy teachers will try to say the Ten Toes need to be 5 on each Leg, thus 5 for the Eastern Empire.  The problem is in the context of Daniel 7 the Eastern Empire is the land of the first three Beasts (Mainly the Leopard).  Making it the Eastern Empire can make the Little Horn of Daniel 7 the same as the Little Horn of Daniel 8 without rejecting that the Fourth Beast is Rome.  I have already argued in an early Seleucid Dynasty post that the Daniel 8 Little Horn can be viewed as the Seleucid Empire as a whole, and the Ptolemaic Kingdom is the horn it grew out of.  The legacy of the Seleucid Empire, both genealogically and culturally, was absorbed into the Eastern Roman Empire.  If the Eastern Empire had a Capital prior to Constantinople being founded it was Antioch, that’s where Germanicus operated from when he was placed in charge of the East.  And it remained important after, with Constantius Gallus operating there when he was the number 2 man in the Empire, and the Bishop of Antioch always being one of the top Bishops in the Imperial Church.

So when the Eastern Empire is uprooting certain Barbarian Kingdoms during the 6th Century AD, that could be the Little Horn uprooting three of the ten.  Also in Daniel 7 the "Little Horn" is never directly called a King, that could be relevant here since in Jsuitnian's time the Roman Emperors were still officially claiming they weren't kings.

Chris White argued The Stone from Daniel 2 is The Church being established.  Given my argument that Daniel 2 and 7 should be understood in the geographical context of Mesopotamia, the Assyrian Church would fit best as being that Stone.  And the Nestorians were the branch of Christianity Justinian was pushing out.

And because I've considered more complicated nuanced views of how Daniel and Revelation relate to each other, the 3 uprooted horns may not be permanently uprooted, or since 10 is a symbolic number they get replaced once the Little Horn's role is over.  And so the Barbarian Kingdoms have become the WEU nations or something like that.

The Eight King of Revelation 17 can be viewed as different from the Little Horn, the Little Horn uproots three horns, but the Eight King is someone the Ten Horns more willingly give their power to.  Maybe you can still make that the Papacy, but then comes the other problems traditional Historicism has. 

My Olive Branch to Historicists

I've laid already why I can't accept The Day=Year Theory.

One Historicist argument I can relate to is their rejecting the idea that God's Prophetic calendar simply paused from 30 or 70 AD till some time still in the future.

I do think The Beasts of Daniel 7 and Revelation 13 are Kingdoms that exist in some form right now and always have.  I don't see Gaps in Daniel 2 and 7 just as I don't see any in Daniel 9 or 11 anymore.

In Revelation I think chapters 2-3 are about the conditions of the Church Age, but I have rejected the Seven Church Ages version of that.  In every period I feel there have been Churches that can fit into each of those Seven basic types.

I also view the "Non Signs" portion of the Olivite Discourse as a description of the entire period between 70 AD and when the End Times scenario will truly begin.  And maybe the first 5 Seals can also correlate to that.

It's once you reach Revelation chapter 9 that arguing these conditions are either already fulfilled or in the process of fulfillment I view as completely not workable.

Pre-Tribbers mis-quoting old Historicists

A lot of the attempts of Pre-Tribbers to claim there were Pre-Tribbers before Darby involve a lot of mis-quoteing old Historicists, people who weren't even Futurists.

All these quotes tend to involve references to a "Great-Conflagration", that old Historicists like Joseph Mede, John Gill and Cotton Mather tended to place between the fulfillment of 1 Thessalonians 4 and the start of the Millenial Kingdom.

This "Great-Conflagration" is probably based on 2 Peter 3's talk of a coming destruction of the Earth by fire.  One thing I've been struggling with is how this particular prophecy of Peter's does not at face value have an obvious place where it happens in Revelation.

Morgan Edwards was not a Historcist however, there are a couple sites out there trying to claim he was but that is easily refutable. I wanted to believe Edwards might have been Mid-Trib, but was forced to admit he was Pre-Trib, just not giving the Trib a full Seven Years.

It would be absurd to suggest any Historcist view on the timing of the Rapture is analogous to Pre-Trib, since they definitely place the Seals and Trumpets before the Rapture, and from examples I've seen also the Bowls of God's Wrath.

That of course is why a Post-Tribber might feel inclined to say that these Historicists were essentially Post-Trib.  Well it's complicated, since not all these Puritan Historicists were even Pre-Millenial, at least a few flirted with Post-Millenialism.

But even when they are Pre-Millenial.  Based on how I've defined my Midway Point Rapture model.  It can be fair to say this "Great-Conflagration" equates to the idea of the Wrath not happening until we are taken out.  Plus there is my past arguments (I'm now less sure on but kind of still lean towards) that the Church remains in Heaven until the descent of New Jerusalem.

A doctrine being new is not an argument against it being valid. Strangely enough I thought I'd already done a post specifically on that, but I guess I didn't.  I'm gonna have to get to that.  Update: Here it is.

Additional Update April 2020:  Imminence

What I failed to get at the time is how being Hisotricist can allow you to be functionally exactly like Pre-Tribbers on Imminence.  They technically agree with what Post-Tribbers and Pre-Wrath and my view says must come first, but to them those things have already happened.

Were Increase and Cotton Mather Pre-Trib?

This isn't me asking only to then answer myself, I honestly don't know.  The easy to find online for free versions of their writings have not had their texts modernized and so are difficult to read.  I tried once and gave up.

I've seen a number of websites cite Cotton Mather as being a Pre-Darby Pre-Tribber.  Some may also mention his father Increase Mather, but not always.  And I've never seen Increase mentioned without Cotton.  So there is always Cotton and sometimes there is Increase.

However they have never actually quoted them, or even said what book of theirs they said it in.  The only person I've seen actually quote them talking about The Rapture is a commentator on an article that didn't mention them at all citing them among people who they say were clearly not Pre-Trib.

Increase Mather (1639-1723): “That part of the world [Europe] was to be principally the Seat of the CHURCH of Christ during the Reign of Antichrist” (Ichabod, p. 64).

Cotton Mather (1663-1728): “…that New Jerusalem, whereto the Church is to be advanced, when the Mystical Babylon shall be fallen” (The Wonders of the Invisible World, p. 3).

The quote from Cotton there I don't see how it'd be Rapture relevant at all.  The Increase quote is definitely not compatible with Pre-Trib but it could fit Mid-Trib or Pre-Wrath.

The thing is, it's mainly people who are opposing Pre-Trib (and I would assume implicitly any other non Post-Trib view) who are citing them as such.  It used to be the Post-Tribbers clung strongly to the not before Darby narrative, but there is a trend now of people willing to push it back to the Puritan era.

A lot of views on The Bible began or arguably were revived in the English Speaking world in the 17th Century.  England was the largest and most prosperous nation where Protestantism had become the mainstream religion.  It took a while for that issue to be settled, but by the Reign of King James England finally found peace, and early in his reign finally settled on what would for awhile be the default English Bible.

The Levelers and Diggers and others were the source of a lot of modern Biblical Based political theories that I'm certain many of these Post-Tribbers revere.  Not to mention Roger Williams inventing the modern notion of Religious Liberty.  So only if you're Catholic would you reject the idea that that is naturally a time to expect new Biblical ideas to be discovered or rediscovered.  Back  before the 19th Century, Historicism was the standard Eschatology of the Protestant world, though some early Protestants followed Augustinian Amillenialism.

The agenda behind associating Pre-Trib with Cotton Mather is to then engage in a guilt by association smear campaign against Pre-Trib.  Because both father and son Mathers were involved with and sometimes partly blamed for the Salem Witch Trials.  Only a few of these sites mentioned that association, but I suspect they all know that a Wikipedia search for their names will lead to that coming up.  Especially since some even say outright they were the first Pre-Tribbers.

The thing is every doctrine has some guilt by association with it.  If you hold the Calcedonian position of how Christ's Divinity and Humanity relate to each other (which is the presumed position of all major Western Denominations, I personally am undecided), or the Miaphsyte one.  Then you subscribe to a doctrine that was popularized by Cyril of Alexandria, Emperor Theodosius II and his sister Pulcheria.  Who were involved in persecuting Jews and other non-Christians including the murder of Hypatia.

But on the subject of the Salem Witch Trails, the Mathers believed in the supernatural and thought what was going on was supernatural, which was hardly rare.  But they actually felt things got out of hand and opposed using "Spectral Evidence" as the sole basis for convictions.  Increase said something that reminds me of a quote of Voltaire I used to cite a lot, "It were better that ten suspected witches should escape, than that one innocent person should be condemned".

Still I do not approve of what they did.

But returning to the subject at hand.  I don't know when they placed the Parusia.  I do vaguely remember them being Zionists from when I tried to read them before, which post-Darby has been strongly linked to Pre-Trib and least popular among Post-Trib.  But I don't know for certain.

Update: Well I have found a link to read Cotton Mather's The Threefold Paradise. For one thing their views were rather Historicist, but Cotton wound up developing something rather unique.

Without even getting to the book itself yet, the Introduction makes clear where the basis for a Pre-Trib accusation lies.  It's actually quite interesting reading it's analysis of how Mather's views changed over time.

Ironically he developed his belief that the Saints would be taken to Heaven to escape a "Great Conflagration" at the same time he abandoned his long held belief in a coming mass conversation of The Jews.  Making him certainly not compatible with modern Pre-Tribulationism, if it's accurate to call it Pre-Trib or even Pre-Wrath at all.

It seems one of the issues he struggled with was a basis for a popular hypothesis that a Supernatural Appearance of Christ would trigger their mass conversion.  He should have considered the option that when Jesus comes to take the Saints to Heaven, is that appearance.

Indeed I feel like maybe if I could have explained my basic Midway Point Rapture view argument to him, that it could have solved this confusion and made this rather contrived "Golden Key" of Bible Prophecy he developed unnecessary.

I was also surprised to learn there was a time when the Duel Fulfillment argument was considered insufficiently literal, and something that supposedly existed only to help the New Testament.  Judaism has it in some contexts as well, in fact if you reject it there is no basis for a coming Messiah Ben-David at all, cause Nathan's Prophecy in II Samuel 7 was clearly first fulfilled by Solomon.

Isaac Newton's Historicism connected the End TImes to 2016

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Isaac_Newton#2016_vs_2060

2016 vs 2060

However, between the time he wrote his 2060 prediction (about 1704) until his death in 1727 Newton conversed, both first hand and by correspondence, with other famous theologians of his time. Those contemporaries who knew him during the remaining 23 years of his life appear to be in agreement that Newton, and the "best interpreters" including Jonathan Edwards, Robert Fleming, Moses Lowman, Phillip Doddridge, and Bishop Thomas Newton, were eventually "pretty well agreed" that the 1,260-year timeline should be calculated from the year 756 AD.^[48]
F.A. Cox also confirmed that this was the view of Newton and others, including himself:

“The author adopts the hypothesis of Fleming, Sir Isaac Newton, and Lowman, that the 1260 years commenced in A.d. 756; and consequently that the millennium will not begin till the year 2016.”^[49]

Thomas Williams stated that this timeline had become the predominant view among the leading Protestant theologians of his time:

“Mr. Lowman, though an earlier commentator, is (we believe) far more generally followed ; and he commences the 1260 days from about 756, when, by aid of Pepin, King of France, the Pope obtained considerable temporalities. This carries on the reign of Popery to 2016, or sixteen years into the commencement of the Millennium, as it is generally reckoned.”^[50]

In April of 756 AD, Pepin, King of France, accompanied by Pope Stephen II entered northern Italy, forcing the Lombard King Aistulf to lift his siege of Rome, and return to Pavia. Following Aistulf's capitulation, Pepin gave the newly conquered territories to the Papacy by means of the Donation of Pepin, thereby elevating the Pope from being a subject of the Byzantine Empire to head of state, with temporal power over the newly constituted Papal States.
The end of the timeline is based on Daniel 8:25 which reads "...but he shall be broken without hand" and is understood to mean that the end of the Papacy with not be caused by any human action.^[51] Volcanic activity is described as the means by which Rome will be overthrown.^[52]

"Antichrist will retain some part of his dominion over the nations till about the year 2016." "And when the 1260 years are expired, Rome itself, with all its magnificence, will be absorbed in a lake of fire, sink into the sea, and rise no more at all for ever*."^[53]

In 1870 the newly formed Kingdom of Italy annexed the remaining Papal States, depriving the Popes of any temporal rule for the next 59 years. Unaware that Papal rule would be restored, (albeit on a greatly diminished scale) in 1929 as head of the Vatican City state, the historicist view that the Papacy is the Antichrist, and the associated timelines delineating his rule rapidly declined in popularity as one of the defining characteristics of the Antichrist (i.e. that he would also be a political temporal power at the time of the return of Jesus) were no longer met.
Eventually, the prediction was largely forgotten and no major Protestant denomination currently subscribes to this timeline.
Despite the dramatic nature of a prediction of the end of the world, Newton may not have been referring to the 2060 date as a destructive act resulting in the annihilation of the earth and its inhabitants, but rather one in which he believed the world was to be replaced with a new one based upon a transition to an era of divinely inspired peace. In Christian theology, this concept is often referred to as The Second Coming of Jesus Christ and the establishment of Paradise by The Kingdom of God on Earth.^[43]

I reject the Day=Year theory this was dependent on.  But it's amusing given how many feel about 2016 now that someone Predicted it to be Apocalyptic Centuries ago.

The Day-Year theory

This theory is pretty much vital to Historicism as traditionally understood, that model largely can't work without it.

The cited Biblical precedent comes from Numbers 14:34 and Ezekiel 4:6.  In both cases a literal period of days did happen.  Numbers connected the 40 days of spying to the 40 years in the wilderness.  And Ezekiel is told to do something for a period of days to represent a period of years.

This is not consistent with how the theory gets applied to the numbers in Daniel and Revelation.  Neither verse justifies saying when God predicts a period of days will happen it really means years.

Even IF I conceded that flawed argument, that doesn't change the verses that refer to 42 months or a "time times and half a time".  You don't get to just say "a month is 30 days" because it actually isn't universally.

In both Hebrew and Greek the words used for month were also forms of their words for Moon.  While I believe the 42 months and 1260 days are referring to roughly the same periods, I don't believe what's specifically said of the months (one of which is the time period of the Beast's reign) has to be calculated to the day, it just means 42 New Moons will happen.  The Bible would not have used this terminology if it didn't want us keeping the Moon in mind for deciphering it.

What I'm saying is, unless you can find a way to make 30 years or about that also relevant to The Moon, the Historicist position on 42 months simply can't work.

And it is 42 Months that Revelation 13 defines the reign of The Beast as lasting, as well as the Holy City trodden under foot of The Gentiles in Revelation11.

Of the three ways this time frame is described in Revelation/Daniel, I think the "time times and half a time" is the easiest to interpret differently.  But Daniel 4 uses a similar concept where if the "seven times" aren't years they are probably shorter periods rather then longer ones.

And even if I conceded all that.  It doesn't change that the clear chronology of Revelation does not allow the 1260 days of Revelation 11 to be the same as the 1260 days of Revelation 12, the latter can't begin till the former ends, and that transition point is where The Rapture happens.

But even following all of that flawed logic.  Every model I've seen (which are all The Papacy is the Antichrist models) has the mortal wounding of the Beast ending the 42 months (usually with Napoleon's conquest of the Papal States).  While I feel the logical reading of Revelation 13 is that 42 months is the time the Beast is allowed to continue following the Wound being healed.  As well as that the wounding was specifically to one of the Heads.

This Historicist argument tends to be the only time when the fraudulent Donation of Constantine is actually treated as real by Anti-Catholics, as it is sometimes used to determine the start date.

Interestingly enough though, the Day-Year theory doesn't remove Three and a Half years from Bible Prophecy altogether, because Revelation 11 gives us Three and a Half days from the Deaths of the Two Witnesses till their Resurrection and Rapture.

Has any Historicist ever addressed the Five Months affiliated with the 5th Trumpet in Revelation 9?  I believe their purpose is partly to echo the timeline of The Flood narrative.

I can't entirely condemn their desire to see the 6th head as not actually contemporary with when John wrote Revelation since I've argued for that myself in the past though it's not my current main view on the Seven Heads.  But I've never seen a strong Papal View argument for why this was expressed to the John from that viewpoint.  Mostly it seems to be expressed now days with Pope John Paul II as the 6th head, the contemporary Pope while many modern Day-Year theorists defined their views.

I feel if we accept that 6th Head as not actually when Revelation was written it must be either a time already in the Past when John wrote, something contemporary readers could have seen as significant.  Or the 6th is during the Eschatological Week, perhaps reigning as it starts.  As far as an already past modern historical time goes, only the founding of Israel in 1947-1949 is a remotely viable option.

The Papal fixation is dependent on the "Temple in II Thessalonians 2 is really The Church" error.

It's interesting how Historicism seems to have the least variety in it's Antichrist views.  Even Preterism occasionally has options besides being a Roman Emperor.

I could hypothetically devise a Non-Papal view that can be just about as consistent with all the flawed arguments made above.  It focuses on the Eastern Roman Empire rather then Western, and thus on Eastern Orthodox Christianity as the Harlot.

It begins with arguing that the Split of the Empire really happens in 193 AD in April when Pescennius Niger was proclaimed Emperor in Syria.  Then the 1260 days ends with the fall of Constantinople in 1453 AD.  Then, since Modern Greece views itself as a successor to that state, it's Seven Kings were the Seven Heads, and in that case the 6th was reigning in 1948.  I considered that idea from my purely Futurist perspective here.

But again, that view would have mostly the same problems.

Historicists tend to share the bias Futurists have for wanting to believe the Millennium will start within our lifetime.  And since they tend to feel the start of these periods needs to be after Revelation was written.  It'll be awhile before any are willing to suggest there are two 1260 years periods, with the second starting about where the first will end.  To me the plain reading of Revelation does not allow the two periods to be happening at the same time.

Historicism is not as inherently objectionable to me as Full Preterism, or Amillenialism.  Since it does not require denying a literal Bodily Resurrection of believers.

And I am kind of rejecting the Individual Antichrist as it's usually defined.  But the Abomination of Desolation I will always see as a specific event three and a half or seven years before the Millennium starts.

If you want to convince me of an Historicist model, you need to find a way to make it work without the Day-Year Theory.