The problems of verifying research — on the Rapture

[Ed. Note: I have decided to remove identifying information as to where my original post in May came from, as a variation of my 21 May reposting can be found online at various sites.]

Back on 21 May, I published a post on the origins of the Rapture doctrine, given that the Rapture predicted by Harold Camping had not come. In that post, I quoted in its entirety–and with permission–an article found in the XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXX website which tracked down the supposed origins of the Rapture doctrine. I say supposed because of a simple contradiction that someone pointed out to me in a comment just made yesterday. The person first quoted a part of the article and then added one terribly significant fact:

“It is less well known that Pope Leo X authorized three Jesuit Priests to reinterpret Daniel’s 70 weeks of prophecy”

Pope Leo X was dead before the “three Jesuits” supposedly commissioned were even born, and before the Society of Jesus was formed.

She is quite correct! I had not personally checked the details of the article because it came from a known source. So, I began checking and here is what I found. The two possible popes, given the time period of the article, were Pope Gregory XIII or Pope Sixtus V for the submission in 1585, and Pope Clement VIII for Fr. Ribera’s published work. While the date of the published work cited is two years after Fr. Ribera’s death, permission to publish the work was given on 3 February 1590, when Fr. Ribera was still alive. What is interesting is that his two supposed collaborators were younger, did overlap with Fr. Ribera, but also were alive during the reign of Pope Leo XI, so there might have been a misprint as to which Leo was intended. Nevertheless, it was impossible for either Leo to have commissioned the study. There is no doubt that Fr. Ribera was a member of the Society of Jesus, as it so states in the actual preface of the book and the approval of the book, see below.

So, this brought up a conundrum. If the Pope mentioned in the article was the wrong Pope, then how much else might not be fully accurate in the article? When I searched, I found that some version or other of the article published has been making the rounds for many years. I noticed that in many versions of the story there was no mention of any Pope. Thus, the mention of Pope Leo X in the article I quoted appears to be a gloss which changes the story from a report stating that a form of Rapture theology dates to the Counter-Reformation to a report about a conspiracy theory starring the favorite target of many non-Catholic conspiracy theorists, the Society of Jesus.

I then began to do some further checking. One of the first places I went was the website of the Bodleian Library to see whether the book mentioned in the article actually existed and whether a copy of it is actually in that library. I am relieved to be able to confirm that both facts are true. The author and the full name of the book make a lengthy entry, as follows. Francisci Riberae Villacastinensis … In sacram beati Ioannis Apostoli & Euangelistae Apocalypsin commentarij. : Cum quinque indicibus … His adivncti svnt, quinque libri de Templo, & de iis quae ad Templum pertinent. Ad multorum locorum, tam Apocalypsis, quam reliquorum librorum intelligentiam cum primis vtiles. A physical copy of the book is found in the library of Wadham College which is part of Oxford University. [Let me mention that I did a Summer Programme in Theology at Christchurch College which is also part of Oxford University many years ago.] Should you wish to actually view the book, you can go to the HathiTrust Digital Library, which hosts a photographed copy of the book found at La Universidad Complutense de Madrid, or you can simply click here.

But, of course, this brings up the problem as to whether there was any truth in the article. Short of attempting to read the original work in its medieval Latin, here I had to rely on other sources. But, the various other historical sources do agree that Fr. Ribera did indeed say in his commentary that part of his intention in writing the book was to remove the possibility of the Roman Catholic Church as being the whore of Babylon and the Pope being the Antichrist. He did propose that the first few chapters of the Apocalypse (the Book of Revelation, as it is called in English) applied to ancient pagan Rome while the rest applied to a future 3½ year period that occurred immediately prior to the Second Coming. So, that much of the article is true. Oddly enough, he does propose that during that time that the Roman Catholic Church will have fallen into apostasy and will fall away from the Pope. And, he did propose many of what have now come to be associated as Protestant doctrines, such as that the Antichrist would: persecute and blaspheme the saints of God, rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, abolish the Christian religion, deny Jesus Christ, be received by the Jews, pretend to be God, kill the two witnesses of God, and conquer the world. Does this all sound familiar, and have you always associated it with Dispensationalism?

As to whether Cardinal Roberto Bellarmine (Roberto Francisco Romolo Bellarmino) and Fr. Luis de Alcazar were collaborators of Fr. Ribera is probably unlikely. You see, Fr. Luis de Alcazar was a preterist while Fr. Ribera was a futurist with regard to the Book of the Apocalypse. The only thing they agreed on was that the historicist and anti-Roman Catholic interpretation of the Book of the Apocalypse, which was the common interpretation of the Protestant Reformers, was not accurate. But, otherwise their books disagreed with each other on the interpretation of the Book! Should you wish to see Fr. Luis de Alcazar’s book, you can click here. The full title of his book is: Reu. Patris Ludouici ab Alcasar … Vestigatio arcani sensus in Apocalypsi : cum opusculo de sacris ponderibus ac mensuris.

So that leaves Cardinal Roberto Bellarmine. How did he get into the mix? I can understand both Fr. Ribera and Fr. Alcazar, since they both were writing non-historicist versions of the Apocalypse, being confused as collaborators since they were both Spanish and Jesuits. but what about Cardinal Bellarmine, who is Italian not Spanish, Jesuit, and who is considered by the Roman Catholic Church as both a Saint and a Doctor of the Church? As it turns out, he was a fine theologian and an excellent writer. To this day some of his Counter-Reformation writings still stand as hallmarks with which non-Roman Catholics have to deal. This is particularly true of his multi-volume Disputationes de Controversiis Christianae Fidei. The nearest place that I have found a copy is at McGill University in Canada. Again, it appears to me that he was brought in simply as a hated figure who was a Jesuit and who disputed with the Protestants on their historicist interpretation of the Pope as the Antichrist. But that was not the main focus of his writings in any way.

So to summarize, was the article accurate? Most of it was not. It was accurate that Fr. Ribera did propose a futurist interpretation of the Book of the Apocalypse centuries before it was picked up by the dispensationalists. But, there is no extant evidence of any Papal orders whatsoever. Nor is there any evidence of collaboration, as Fr. Alcazar actually disagreed with Fr. Ribera and proposed a preterist interpretation of the Book of the Apocalypse. Meantime, Cardinal Bellarmine had bigger fish to fry, and he fried them quite well. It appears that most of the article that I quoted is not accurate, the only truth being that a futurist theology of the Book of the Apocalypse predates Protestant dispensationalism by centuries. The only irony is that this interpretation was originally an interpretation by a Roman Catholic priest which was designed to show that the Protestant interpretation was wrong. Nowadays it is a Protestant interpretation which is rejected by Roman Catholic and Orthodox alike.

I failed to check the “facts” in the article before I published. Then I got caught because I had not followed through on verifications. Shame on me!

[Editors Note: I have done some further digging on the original article and found some more discrepancies. === MORE TO COME ===]