Apocalypse Part: Where Preterism, Idealism, or Literal Historicism don't Work

[spauline]

Apocalypse Part: Where Preterism, Idealism, or Literal Historicism don’t Work

Apocalypse cannot always be just a vague parable, not in all places

There are simply some few places in apocalypse that cannot be merely ideealistic, that is, applying to any age of history, this verse especially:

Apocalypse 17, near verse 8:

*And the seven heads of the beast are seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come, but when he does, he must continue a short spa**ce. And the beast which was and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goes into perdition.
*
Again, clearly, this cannot just be a parable of how “evil” keeps coming back to the Church again and again, over and over.

Because there is no way that in every stage of trouble for God’s People, five things fall, one is then present, and perhaps two follow. That is nonsense. That is way too specific for every general age of sin in God’s Plan.

Hence, something of a broader mystical and definitive context exists here.

And sorry, Roman Emperors is silly. How many pagan rulers precede St John’s visions, how many reign during his writing, and how many follow, is simply non-consequential. For all those Roman Emperors have the same spiritual characteristic: they think they are almighty God and wrathfully persecute the Church.

But how many of them precede the writing of apocalypse, and how many follow, is of no consequence, such details will not alter the age of this martyrdom and pagan misunderstanding. Such data is arbitrary, and could be fudged without changing the general nature of the age of persecution that commenced Church history.

What else is left, therefore, except a profound spiritual historicism, as St. Hippolytus suggested, eight ages of human history.

Yes, if these ages had theological reasoning behind them, then a great mystery is present here, and not just a secondary verse of a handful of arbitrary Roman Emperors.

Indeed, in my book, I show this verse may be one of the deepest of the apocalypse itself, and of all of Scripture, revealing a profound reason and theology for God’s Overall Plan of history.

Apocalypse 17, near verse 8:

*And the seven heads of the beast are seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come, but when he does, he must continue a short space. And the beast which was and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goes into perdition.
*
Further analysis, a historicist interpretation of some Fathers, cited in Douhay Rheims and Channoler Rheims Catholic Translations, sees them as literal kingdoms:

Five have fallen:

Egypt
Assyria
Babylon
Persia
Greece

One is:

Rome

Other has not yet come:

Antichrist’s Kingdom

Problem with this, again, is, Christ said, for kingdom shall rise against kingdom, and nation against nation, but the end is not yet.

New Testament Revelation transcends mere geography. The issue is rather the psychology of the general fall in human history.

Hence, the “kings” of the beast should surely, if any depth is there, deal with spiritual ages that are theologically ordered and necessary. Else we could ask, why did merely FIVE kingdoms of sin fall before Christ came? Why not six? Or three? Or 17?

Herein is a rigorous, meaningful five ages before the Christ:

The Jews before Christ’s first coming, and Catholic Church before the second coming, themselves seem veritably to journey through a three great darkness process, not arbitrary, for the way of the saint is not arbitrary:

**Purgation: **sting the body, that it may obey the spirit: the dark night of senses
**Illumination: **sting the soul, that is my trust God’s truth when all seems lost, the dark night of the soul
**Union: **rest the body and soul and offer them up in utter sacrifice in death, martyrdom

Hence, three kings of Old fall right before Christ:

1. The Old Testament king of the dark night of senses, Egypt
2. The Old Testament king of the dark night of soul, supreme Jewish apostasy before Exile
3. The Old Testament King of martyrodm, Antiochus, maccabees

Three kings of New fall after Christ:

1. The New Testament king of the dark night of senses, pagan Rome
2. The New Testament king of the dark night of soul, the modern minor apostasy
3. The New Testament King of martyrodm, Great Apostasy and future NT Antichrist

As for the other two kings of Old before Egypt, there are two great lies of the fall, two horns for the False Prophet:

1. The king of the first great lie of the fall is anti-Baptism, no faith, no repentance, Noah’s day, and it was slain by a Baptism, the Flood
2. The king of the second great lie of the fall, anti-Marriage toward God, materialism (world chooses superficial partner in the CreaTION as opposed to spouse in CreaTOR), the Tower of Babel, is slain by God through confounding, after which He MARRIES a remnant, the Hebrew People through Abraham.

 

[dmar198]

Your interpretation seems very carefully thought out and it looks like a serious and not-heretical attempt to infer something relevant to our timeline from the Book of Revelation. For that, it should be praised. It reminds me of many of the attempts by the Church Fathers to infer similar things.

I will say these two things in criticism: first, don’t be surprised if it’s wrong, because most of the Church Fathers who inferred a literal timeline were wrong too. Second, the mindset you started out with seems problematic, and I see that especially in your denial of the possibility of the very common “recurring-persecution” interpretation. It seems you are denying it based on the specificity of the numbers. That seems like a terrible reason to throw it out. Numerologically the numbers used are significant in Scripture, and that verse can be shown to be compatible with the “recurring-persecution” interpretation by comparing it with common numerological systems of the time.

You ought to have started out by proposing your interpretation as one possibility among many; you seem to have started by charging all previous interpretations with error and announcing your solution. And that seems to be the wrong mindset to start out with.

 

[spauline]

Your interpretation seems very carefully thought out and it looks like a serious and not-heretical attempt to infer something relevant to our timeline from the Book of Revelation. For that, it should be praised. It reminds me of many of the attempts by the Church Fathers to infer similar things.

I will say these two things in criticism: first, don’t be surprised if it’s wrong, because most of the Church Fathers who inferred a literal timeline were wrong too. Second, the mindset you started out with seems problematic, and I see that especially in your denial of the possibility of the very common “recurring-persecution” interpretation. It seems you are denying it based on the specificity of the numbers. That seems like a terrible reason to throw it out. Numerologically the numbers used are significant in Scripture, and that verse can be shown to be compatible with the “recurring-persecution” interpretation by comparing it with common numerological systems of the time.

You ought to have started out by proposing your interpretation as one possibility among many; you seem to have started by charging all previous interpretations with error and announcing your solution. And that seems to be the wrong mindset to start out with.

i understand> Should have clarified, didn’t mean to say that many other parts of apocalypse can be idealistic. The general beast and tribulation for example. What i meant was, that the five one, two more thing cannot apply to every single age itself. that would be kind of dumb

 

[spauline]

Let us get more specific about God’s Historical Plan

The short short version:

Auggie: Old Dispensation, New Dispensation

More detail

Preeminent Man
Prefiguring Covenant
New Covenant

More detail:

Preeminent man tries to digest lies of Fall, prompting Positive Divine Discipline

Formation of Prefiguring Covenant, Prefiguring Ones Journey to Spiritual Maturity

Incarnate One Comes, forms Church

Church journeys to Spiritual Maturity to Redeem World

Incarnate One Returns

More detail:

There are only two great reasons we exist, no more no less:

To know love and serve God in this life (Baptismal Disposition)
To marry God forever in the next (Martial Disposition toward God)

So there are only two great lies of the fall:

Anti-Baptismal Disposition, No regard to know and love God,
Anti-Marital Disposition toward God, Living for this world, the CreaTION, rather than next world, CreaTOR, materialism

So Preeminent stages are only two:
One for the first lie, one for the second lie

The way of the saint is intrinsically three stages:

Sting the body that it may obey the Spirit
Sting the soul, that is may trust God in darkness
Rest the body and soul, then offer them in death and suffering, martyrdom

Hence, the HISTORICAL way of spiritual maturation for the Peoples of God, both the New People and the Prefiguring, should be three stages, a purgative stage, an illuminative stage, and a unitive stage. Hence, the deeper Divine Plan, has eight total subages:

Preeminent Stages:

1. Anti-Baptism, the Fall, Noah’s day, Flood
2. Anti-Marriage: Tower of Babel, Confounding of Tongues, Gd’s marriage to Hebrew People

Prefiguring Covenant: The Way of Spiritual Maturation

1. Purgative way: Egyptian enslavement
2. Illuminative way: Mosiac Law, Prophets, dark night of soul just before Exile in peak Jewish wickedness
3. Unitive way: Exile, Repentance, Restoration, Martyrdom in Maccabean Struggle

Incarnate One comes (Five are the ages of the Old Law, St Augustine, St Methodius of Olympus, Five [beast kings] have fallen, Apocalypse 17:9)

The New Covenant: : The Way of Spiritual Maturation

1. Purgative Way: Pagan Rome Persecutes (Apocalypse 17:10, One is)
2. Illuminative Way: Church develops doctrine, converts world first time, desolations against Her teachings divulge to dark night of soul, the modern minor secular apostasy (Apoclaypse 17:10-11, and the other has not yet come, and when he does, he must continue a short space)
3. Unitive Way: Minor Chastisement, Reunion of Christians, Renewal of Gentiles, Our Lady’s Great Age of Peace, fullness of Gentiles, divulges toward Great Apostasy, NT Antichrist (Apocalypse 17:11: and the beast which was and is not, even he is the eighth and is of the seven, and goes into perdition. The Gospels: As it was in Noah’s day, so shall it be in the days of the Son of Man, in first stage, God destroyed the world by water, in the last day, the Great Apostasy, the world shall be destroyed by fire, 2 Peter 3…the eighth day, brings us back to the first day, on the eighth day, Christ rose from the dead, in the eighth light of human history, Christ shall return to raise all men to their eternal recompense):

Second Coming

Eight greater ages in the Divine Plan, eight kings of the beast in apocalypse 17, perfectly partitioned according to the ages (five have fallen, five ages are the Old Law), eight days of Creation

Profound, huh?