The Historicist view follows a straight line of continuous fulfillment of prophecy which starts in Daniel's time and goes through John's writing of the Book of Revelation all the way to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
Daniel 5 tells how Belshazzar holds a great feast and a hand appears and prophetically writes on the wall that his kingdom will be given to the Medes and the Persians.
Apocalyptic prophecy is the other, and focuses on the distant future or the end time events relating to the Second Coming.
The whole country between the Alps and the Pyrenees, between the Rhine and the Ocean, has been laid waste by hordes of Quadi, Vandals, Sarmatians, Alans, Gepids, Herules, Saxons, Burgundians, Alemanni, and—alas for the commonweal!—even Pannonians.
[11]In his Commentary on Daniel, Jerome noted, "Let us not follow the opinion of some commentators and suppose him to be either the Devil or some demon, but rather, one of the human race, in whom Satan will wholly take up his residence in bodily form.
[12]Jerome used the application of the year-day principle to the seventy weeks as made by others and refers to the interpretations of Eusebius, Hippolytus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and “the Hebrews”.."[13] Historicism was the belief held by the majority of the Protestant Reformers especially in identifying the Antichrist, from the time of Wycliffe.
In his treatise The Parable of the Wicked Mammon, he expressly rejected the established Church teaching that looked to the future for an Antichrist to rise up, and he taught that Antichrist is a present spiritual force that will be with us until the end of the age under different religious disguises from time to time.
The fifth round of talks in the Lutheran-Roman Catholic dialogue notes, In calling the pope the "antichrist," the early Lutherans stood in a tradition that reached back into the eleventh century.
Not only dissidents and heretics but even saints had called the bishop of Rome the "antichrist" when they wished to castigate his abuse of power.
Isaac Newton's religious views on the historicist approach are in the work published in 1733, after his death, Observations upon the Prophesies of the Book of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St.
[28] Many Protestant Reformers were interested in historicism and the day-year principle, assigning prophecies in the Bible to past, present and future events.
[33] George Whitefield, Charles Finney, C. H. Spurgeon, Matthew Henry, Adam Clarke, Albert Barnes, and Bishop Thomas Newton also are considered as advocates of this view.
[38]Daniel 9:25 The starting point identified with a decree by Artaxerxes I in 458/7 BCE to provide money to rebuild Jerusalem and its temple.
The period starts with the gold head personified by King Nebuchadnezzar, then the next one of the silver is Medo-Persia, with the brass is Greece, and with iron or Rome which deteriorate all the way to being poorly mixed with clay.
Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces.
Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth."
The territory ruled by the 10 horns (ten kings) that grow out of this last beast, are the same European kingdoms that rose up from the ruins of the Roman empire, the mixture of iron and clay from the image of Daniel 2.
Historian Niccolò Machiavelli lists the ten successor kingdoms to the Roman Empire in Western Europe as the Heruli, Suevi, Burgundians, Huns, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Vandals, Lombards, Franks, and Anglo-Saxons.
And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it: and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh.
The Papacy arose at this time and was given status as a temporal (King/Bishop) by Charlemagne, and held political and spiritual power until the French Revolution.
In the historicist view of the 70 weeks (generally interpreted as 490 years according to the day-year principle), Antiochus IV Epiphanes is considered irrelevant, and the period is instead applied to the Jewish nation from about the middle of the 5th century BCE until not long after the death of Jesus in the 1st century CE.
[46][47][48] Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.
The vision depicts the struggle by the powers which affect God's people, which becomes in verse 11:31-35 "The abomination that maketh desolate”.