historicist interpretations of the Book of Revelation

Historicism is a method of interpretation in Christian eschatology which associates biblical prophecies with actual historical events and identifies symbolic beings with historical persons or societies; it has been applied to the Book of Revelation by many writers. The Historicist view follows a straight line of continuous fulfillment of prophecy which starts in Daniel's time and goes through John of Patmos' writing of the Book of Revelation all the way to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. One of the most influential aspects of the early Protestant historicist paradigm was the assertion that scriptural identifiers of the Antichrist were matched only by the institution of the Papacy. Particular significance and concern were the Papal claims of authority over the Church through Apostolic Succession, and the State through the Divine Right of Kings. When the Papacy aspires to exercise authority beyond its religious realm into civil affairs, on account of the Papal claim to be the Vicar of Christ, then the institution was fulfilling the more perilous biblical indicators of the Antichrist. Martin Luther wrote this view into the Smalcald Articles of 1537; this view was not novel and had been leveled at various popes throughout the centuries, even by Roman Catholic saints. It was then widely popularized in the 16th century, via sermons, drama, books, and broadside publication. The alternate methods of prophetic interpretation, Futurism and Preterism were derived from Jesuit writings, whose counter-reformation efforts were aimed at opposing this interpretation that the Antichrist was the Papacy or the power of the Roman Catholic Church. Origins in Judaism and Early Church The interpreters using the historicist approach for the Book of Revelation had their origins in the Jewish apocalyptic writings, such as those in the Book of Daniel, which predicted the future time between their writing and the end of the world. Throughout most of history since the predictions of the book of Daniel, historicism has been widely used. This approach can be found in the works of Josephus, who interpreted the fourth kingdom of Daniel 2 as the Roman empire with a future power as the stone "not cut by human hands", that would overthrow the Romans.