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or preach on the subject of the Antichrist. Nonetheless, in Germany, Switzerland, England, France,
Denmark and Sweden, the truth about the Antichrist continued to be preached with power and con-
viction by ministers of various Protestant churches. The scriptures, after a long hiatus, were getting
into the hands of the common people. Thousands came to see, within the pages of the Bible, that the
Papacy was indeed the Antichrist -- a teaching which dealt havoc to the church of Rome.

The Roman Catholic Church quickly came to realize that it must produce a counter inter-
pretation or lose the battle. Records the Encyclopedia Britannica, "Under the stress of the Protes-
tant attack there arose new methods on the papal side" -- special mention being made of the Jesuits
Ribera and Lacunza, who founded the futurist school of interpretation.

Francisco Ribera (1537-1591) published a 500 page commentary on the grand points of
Babylon and Antichrist, the object being to set aside the Protestant teaching that the Papacy is the
Antichrist. In his commentary, Ribera assigned the first chapters of Revelation to the first century.
The rest he restricted to a literal three and a half years at the end of time. He also taught that the
Jewish Temple in Jerusalem would be rebuilt by a single, individual Antichrist who would abol-
ish the Christian religion, deny Yeshua, pretend to be YEHOVAH, and conquer the world. When
Thomas Brightman (1562-1607), a Protestant scholar and reformer, first saw a copy of Ribera's
futurist commentary, he was aroused to indignation and fury. Scathingly he proclaimed: "Once they
would not suffer any man to scarce touch a Bible, now they produce a commentary to explain it --
to point men away from the Papal Antichrist"!

For the next few centuries the Jesuit futurist view of the Antichrist was summarily rejected
by the Protestant churches. Then, in 1826, Samuel R. Maitland (1792-1866), librarian to the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, became the first Protestant to accept Ribera's and Lacunza's futurist interpre-
tations. States George Ladd: "This futurist interpretation with its personal Antichrist and three and
a half year tribulation did not take root in the Protestant church until the early nineteenth century.
The first Protestant to adopt it was S.R. Maitland" (The Blessed Hope, p. 38).

LeRoy Froom sums it up in these words --

In Ribera's Commentary was laid the foundation for that great structure of Futurism, built
upon and enlarged by those who followed, until it became the common Catholic position.
And then, wonder of wonders, in the nineteenth century this Jesuit scheme of interpreta-
tion came to be adopted by a growing number of Protestants., until today Futurism, am-
plified and adorned with the rapture theory, has become the generally accepted belief of
the Fundamentalist wing of popular Protestantism! (op cit., Vol. 2, p. 493).

Because of the flood of books promoting the futurist point of view that are widely circu-
lated today, there is much speculation regarding which world leader will soon emerge as the Anti-
christ of Bible prophecy. Many in the Churches of God are totally unaware of the old, standard,
Protestant (and Church of God) interpretation of the Reformers; that the MAN OF SIN rose to
power following the breakup of the Roman Empire; that he seated himself above all others
(including YEHOVAH) in the church of the falling away; that these things have all found fulfill-
ment in the Papacy of the Roman Catholic Church.

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