The problems of verifying research — part two

Yesterday I posted an article beginning the deconstruction of one of my posts from 21 May. That article had been on the Rapture and claimed that the Rapture pre-dated the Dispensationalists and that, in fact, it had been begun as a Jesuit post. The article itself was a port–with permission–from another website. One of my alert readers pointed out that one of the facts was impossible, as the Pope that had supposedly approved the conspiracy (Leo X) had, in fact, died several years before such an event would have been possible. Beginning with that discrepancy, I began to deconstruct the post only to find out, to my dismay, that much of the article was inaccurate. I posted yesterday on the discrepancies found in the claims about the 1500’s and thought that I was done. Unfortunately, I began to look further after that post was written only to find that information from the 1700’s and 1800’s was similarly distorted or inaccurate. So, let’s go on.

In the post it claims that Fr. Ribera’s book was ordered buried by the Pope himself. Not only can I not find any such history, that is outside of blogs posts devoted to the end-times controversy, but the Catholic Encyclopedia online (New Advent) lists Fr. Ribera as one of the esteemed Spanish Jesuits of that time period! But, the post goes on to claim that one S.R. Maitland was appointed Keeper of the Manuscripts at Lambeth and came across Fr. Ribera’s tome in the process of his duties, liked it and published it in 1826, with follow-ups in 1829 and 1830. I must assume that the original writer of the piece was referring to The Rev. Samuel Roffey Maitland, D.D., who was appointed as a librarian and keeper of the manuscripts at Lambeth Palace. However, he was appointed in 1838, 12 years after the original article claims that he was appointed, and held the office until 1848.

But it gets worse. The article says that supposedly The Rev. John Nelson Darby (an Anglican clergyman who left his orders and did help to found the Plymouth Brethren) became “a follower of S.R. Maitland’s prophetic endeavors.” This is rather startling when one considers that The Rev. Samuel Roffey Maitland published several pamphlets AGAINST the Irvingites and thoroughly disagreed with their prophetic theology. Among the various pamphlets he published were:

• ‘An Enquiry into the Grounds on which the Prophetic Period of Daniel and St. John has been supposed to consist of 1,260 Years,’ 1826; 2nd edit., pp. 72, 1837. [Ed. note — this is the 1826 date to which the original article refers, but it is an anti-Irving tract, not a pro-futurist tract. You can find it online here.]
• ‘A Second Enquiry,’ pp. 175, 1829.
• ‘The 1,260 Days, in Reply to a Review in the “Morning Watch,” No. 3, p. 509,’ 1830.
• ‘An Attempt to elucidate the Prophecies concerning Antichrist,’ 1830; 2nd edit. 1853.
• ‘A Letter to the Rev. W. Digby, A.M., occasioned by his Treatise on the 1,260 Days’ (Gloucester, 25 Oct.), 1831.
• ‘The 1,260 Days, in Reply to the Strictures of William Cunningham, Esq.,’ pp. viii and 118, 1834

Then these anti-Irvingite efforts which supposedly encouraged John Nelson Darby to be for that type of thinking are conflated with the Tractarian writings of 1833. However, on at least one occasion, The Rev. Maitland wrote a pamphlet questioning one of the Tracts!

But, the article goes on to name another influence on the prophetic movement, another Jesuit priest named “Emmanuel Lacunza.” This would be Fr. Manuel Lacunza Díaz. Remember that in Spanish the father’s last name goes before the mother’s last name. Supposedly, Fr. Manuel embraced and wrote about a pre-tribulationist viewpoint. Now, it is true that both John Darby and Edward Irving were aware of Fr. Manuel’s work, for they both discussed it in their pre-1830 writings. And it is true that his writings were published under a Jewish pseudonym because they had been banned by the Inquisition. However that he supported a pre-trib rapture is another matter. And, it seems that he did not, for instance, Tim LaHaye’s 1992 book “No Fear of the Storm” (alias “Rapture Under Attack,” alias “The Rapture”), p. 169, admits that “Lacunza never taught a pre-Trib Rapture.” What is true is that he had a millenarian view of the near future and did publish tracts on that subject. In other words, he was indeed a futurist. And his works were widely, and secretly, published and distributed throughout South America and Spain, even though he was writing from Italy at the time. But, there is a very odd fact. In September of 1824, twenty-three years after his death, Pope Leo XIII placed his writings on the Index of Prohibited Books. This must be the Pope Leo to which the original article was alluding. But, not only was this Leo NOT alive at the time of the Counter-Reformation, he was trying to suppress, not encourage, futurism, the very opposite of the conspiracy claim made in the original article.

Moreover to conflate Irving and Darby and make a claim that modern Pentecostalism comes from Irving’s movement and that Darby went to hear Margaret McDonald speak and became a pre-tribulationist as a result is probably not accurate. It is true that both movements flowered around the same time. However, one led to a Catholic-like church with apostles, bishops, priests, and deacons, while the other led to a church with no ranks of any type. Even elders were temporarily appointed and not permanent offices, per se. The first movement did indeed have the Pentecostal-like gifts, while the second movement was dispensationalist but very anti-gifts. The two movements are actually polar opposites in many ways.

Rather, it is true that during Church history, various groups have sprung up which speak in tongues or have ecstatic manifestations which they claim come from the Holy Spirit. To link all of these groups together is not historically sound. American Pentecostalism seems to have sprung up on its own. In fact, those involved in the Azusa street movement would neither have read some of the people quoted above, nor would they have really known about Irvingites, etc. What is true is that Wesleyan theology became the structure by which their experiences were understood, not either Plymouth Brethren or Irvingite theology, which further seems to point to there being no connection between the earlier movements in Scotland and Ireland and the later movements in the USA.

Finally, the original article which I quoted appears to not simply be an article full of historical misunderstandings, but an article which could only be true if viewed through the same type of lens used by either Chick Tracts or the writer of the Da Vinci Code. When possible, historical facts are connected by the simple expedient of being either geographically close or temporally close. When impossible, facts are simply made up. When all else fails, lack of proof is itself proof that the “real” history has been suppressed by some almost all-powerful group.