Restraint in II Thessalonians 2

When I was a Futurist my position on the removal of Restraint in II Thessalonians 2:6-7 was that it corresponds to Revelation 9.  

Now in the context of my Post-Millennial Partial Preterism I’m thinking it refers to Revelation 20:7. Views that argue Revelation Chronologically starts over at least could make both these Abyss releases the same event, but I don’t want to get into the complexity of something like that right now.

The assumption of Futurists and sometimes Full Preterists that II Thessalonians 2’s “Man of Sin” is the same as the Abomination of Desolation of Matthew 24:15 and Mark 13:14 is refuted by the observation that the Abomination of the Olivet Discourse passages Stands where it ought not while in II Thessalonians 2 the Man of Sin “sits” in the Temple of God.

I have for a while now come to agree with the Historicist reading that this “Temple of God” is The Church, The Body of Christ.  I have however resisted making that specifically about the Papacy tendency to instead make it more broadly all Episcopal Polity and Christian Monarchy.  But for this post I shall be different.

In Paul’s Epistles “Naos of God” is only used of The Church.  Other places where English Bibles use the exact three word phrase “Temple of God” are Matthew 21:12 where the word for Temple is Hieron, Matthew 26:61 where it’s Jesus’ false accusers misquoting what he said in John 2. And Revelation 11 where it appears twice and its Revelation 10 context verifies the Temple in Heaven is the Temple being referred to, which is thematically tied to the Church-Temple in my view.

A particular Sub-Doctrine of Papism is Papal Infallibility, and a concept heavily tied to that is Ex Cathedra (From the Chair) referring to the so-called Chair of St Peter in St Peter’s Basilica.

This doctrine first truly begins to form with a document attributed to Pope Gregory VII 1073-1085.  Then came some ideas of Peter John Olivi in the late 1200s. And controversies from the time of Pope John XXII 1316-1334 who himself opposed the doctrine actually as well as the Beatific Vision.

In 1336 Pope Benedict XII affirmed the Beatific Vision in a pronouncement considered to be Ex Cathedra.

The Romanus Pontifex of 1455 is perhaps also worth noting.

However the Doctrine really took on its current form during the 17th Century Post-Counter-Reformation, largely from Dominican Scholars at the University of St Thomas Aquinas. They made arguments that because Jesus said He would Pray for Peter that this Authority was uniquely for Peter not all the Apostles or Church, which is silly because Jesus also clearly Prays for all of us.

This Doctrine makes the person of the Pope effectively equivalent with Jesus and God.  And it looks like over a thousand years after when I think the Millennium started is when it really takes off. 

As far as how this ties into my last post on Revelation 20, it could make verses 8 and 9 the later phase of the 30 years war, and maybe extend into the 7 years war and Napoleonic Wars or even WWI.

Optimistic Eschatology

A lot of other Post Millennial Partial Preterists are really invested in branding our eschatology as more Optimistic than any other, especially Premillennialism.

All Christians have an ultimately Optimistic worldview, we all believe Jesus wins in the end, in fact I’d dare say Optimism is an inherently Christian invention.  In my view how Optimistic a Christian is has more to do with Soteriology than Eschatology.  I believe in Universal Salvation and that is objectively the most Optimistic Soteriology, a Premillennial Futurist who agrees with me on that shares my Optimism more than a fellow Post Millennial who’s an infernalist or annihilationist.

The gist of the idea that Partial Preterist Postmillennialism is the most Optimistic Eschatology is believing that there is no inherent expectation that things will from where we are now get worse before they get better, that could happen but it’s not Biblically required to.

But that really depends on where exactly in Revelation Chapter 20 you think we currently are.

The first 6 verses are what definitely all Post Millennial Partial Preterists believe has already happened.  But a belief that nothing Bad has to happen between now and the Parousia would require believing even verse 10 is already in the past, or at least verse 9. 

I still favor a fairly literal interpretation of what a Thousand Years means, even though some of how I view other details of this same chapter can be considered less than strictly literal.  So if we entered the Millennium at any point in the first 1024 years of the Gregorian Calendar then verse 7 has already happened.  And currently the latest point I have considered for starting the Millennium in during the reign of Heraclius in the first half of the 7th Century.  But I’ve also considered as early as the Crisis of the Third Century and am preparing to consider even a Second Century model. 

It is tempting in that context to look at the Turks and/or Mongols of the late middle ages as Gog and Magog.  But as someone who’s a Revivalist not Reconstructionist I prefer not to look at the conflict in view here in Ethno-National terms. 

I view the Camp of the Saints and Beloved City as all Separatist Congregational Polity Christians not a specific Geographical Location.  While my Baptism of The Beast view has me viewing High Church Christianity as the Beast and False Prophet currently in the Lake of Fire.

So basically whether or not verses 8-10 have fully already happened I am undecided on.  But when trying to favor the most Optimistic view possible I tend to view real world evidence of the loosing of Satan as the rise of modern Capitalism which is Atheistic in Nature.  But I've also been speculating on a connection between all this and a Historicist reading of II Thessalonians 2.

There is nothing Unoptimistic about being prepared for bad things to come.  As the last episode of the English Dub of Futari Wa Pretty Cure said "The Night is Darkest just before The Dawn".

Babylon in Egypt

The existence of a place called Babylon in Ancient Egypt, not poetically or spiritually but as it's literal official name, is a pretty fascinating subject.  Babylon in Egypt was also the embryo of the city now known as Cairo, the Capital of Modern Egypt and religiously important to both Muslims in Egypt and Coptic Christianity.

Speculation that this could be relevant to Biblical uses of the name Babylon mostly focus on 1 Peter 5:13's usage, since Marcus/Mark is said to be with him in the same verse and tradition says Mark went to Egypt.  But I'm as skeptical of the Mark in Egypt traditions as I am the Peter in Rome and John in Ephesus traditions.  My theory is the Christian Community of Alexandria was largely founded in the late 1st or early 2d century by Christians from Cyprus and their particular interest in Mark and Barnabas comes from their connection to Cyprus.  I think Peter and Mark were in Seleucia on the Tigris when that Epistle was written.

For New Testament relevance I've actually become very interested in Babylon in Egypt possibly explaining the use of the name in Revelation.

The main argument against this that isn't more an argument for Babylon being somewhere else would be that the only explicit reference to Egypt in Revelation is calling the "Great City" Spiritually Sodom and Egypt in chapter 11, with "Spiritually" in a context like this being presumed to be mutually exclusive to literally or geographically, and elsewhere The Great City is explicitly Babylon.  I have two responses to that.

1st from a certain POV you could almsot argue actual Egypt was only still Egyptian Spiritually by this point, the land had been increasingly colonized by the various Empires of Daniel 2&7 and their native languages were on the decline being largely only still used for Religious purposes, yet Egyptian Paganism still thrived both in Egypt and throughout the Empire.

2nd is that I feel the relationships between certain key terms in Revelation are not as geographically synonymous as a casual reading assumes, and that some relate to each other more abstractly.  The Babylon Fortress was from 30 BC onwards a Roman Military fortress, it was central to how Rome enforced it's military might in the region.  The fact is a significant number of the Roman troops involved in the 66-73 AD Jewish-Roman War were probably troops who had been stationed in the Babylon Fortress before it started.

So this view need not conflict with arguments for Babylon being Rome, the Seven Hilled City of Revelation 17 I still believe refers to the Seven Hills of Rome.  I stand by my argument for how the Great City of Revelation 11 could be Rome and for the Roma Cult argument that the Woman of Revelation 17 is the people of Rome no matter where they dwell.  The Beast is definitely still the Roman Empire.  Or "Great City" could refer to different cities in different contexts, sometimes Jerusalem, sometimes Rome and sometimes Babylon in Egypt.

But before I return to Revelation I want to speculate on how even some Hebrew Bible references to Babylon could be this Babylon in Egypt.  

The origins of there being a settlement in Egypt called Babylon do predate the Roman Fortress and possibly go back to Babylonian Refugees in Egypt during the time of Assyria's Conquests contemporary with King Hezekiah of Judah and thus also the Prophets Micah and Isaiah.  Based on the conclusions of my Languages of the Table of Nations theories the language of the Babylonians was a Canaanite Language, so Babylon in Egypt could be one of those Five Cities from Isaiah 19.

The Biblical chapter divisions we're used to aren't in the original text, the famous Bethlehem Prophecy of Micah 5 is actually in the context of Micah 4 which refers to the Migdal Eder and Zion.  Micah 4:10 has the Daughter of Zion after giving birth go to Babylon, well Christians know this was actually fulfilled by going to Egypt, both with Mary in Matthew 2 and then the people as a whole after being conquered by Titus, Josephus says Titus stopped at Alexandria with his Captives on the way to Rome and then once at Rome started his Triumph in the Temple of Isis.  Latter after the Fall of Masada the surviving Zealots go to Egypt to rile things up there.  This arguably also fulfills the prophecy of Israel returning to Egypt in Hosea 8:13-9:3.

In the time of Isaiah this Babylon in Egypt was possibly a settlement of ethnic Babylonians (like a little Italy or a Chinatown) so Isaiah could have referred to them in Ethnic terms, he could have called them the Daughter of Babylon for the same reason he called Tyre the daughter of Sidon.

Ezekiel 20:36 justifies calling the land of Egypt a wilderness fitting the third verse of Revelation 17.  And Ezekiel 23 associated Egypt with the theme of Israel's Idolatry as Spiritual Whoredom/Adulatory which is another theme Revelation 17 is drawing on.

What really compels me though is the possibly of the Babylon of Isaiah 13-14 being a Babylon in Egypt thus justifying placing the Seat/Throne of Satan in Egypt.  I've already talked on this blog about how I now view the King of Babylon of Isaiah 14 as having never been a mortal ruler but always a title of Heylel ben Shachar.

Sobek was often depicted as with Isis healing the murdered Osiris.  Sobek's association with Ra which became his main form during Ptolemaic and Roman times could explain why The Dragon of Revelation 12 is Red since Ra is usually depicted as a Red Sun rather then Yellow.  And that association with The Sun also provides relevance to the Babylon fortress being in the area of Heliopolis.

When people say the reason Rome is called Babylon in Revelation was to try and hide what they were talking about from Romans who might happen to read it I get annoyed.  What makes Babylon in some sense Rome is entirely Rome's own self identification, no Patriotic Roman reading the text would see chapter 17 refer to a City on Seven Hills with Seven Kings and fail to recognize that. It is attempts to find an alternate Sola Scriptura explanation for those symbols that leads one away from Rome and to Daniel 7 and other prophecies referencing the same animals or symbolic Harlots.  It is studying the Hebrew Bible references being drawn on that points one to Egypt as the secret actual focus of the narrative, if it's not as straight forward as simply being Babylon or more broadly Iraq.

And then there is how this could back up my Last Pharoah Theory.

https://materialisteschatology.blogspot.com/2023/10/the-last-pharoah-of-egypt.html

Laodicea’s Sin was their faith in worldly success

There are three different types of Eternal Security based on how one deals with the question of backslidden or apostate Believers.

Those who say the backslidden or apostates simply never were “Truly Saved”, Calvinists are among those.  This to me isn’t actually Eternal Security at all because it offers no Assurance of Salvation, a Believer who thinks this is how it works ultimately has the same fear that believing Salvation can be lost carries.

Free Grace Eternal Security is based on a belief that believers will face a post Resurrection Corrective Punishment for our Sin, but are Saved regardless as seen in 1 Corinthians 3.  This was my soteriology before I became a Universal Salvation believer, and the gist of it is very much what I still believe, I now simply recognize that ALL Punishments God meets out are for Correction or Purification and never retributive.  I in fact now more then ever believe people can feel Eternally Secure in their Salvation.

Hyper Grace is the form of Eternal Security that rejects any type of Afterlife or Eschatological punishment for believers and insists any consequences a believer faces for their sins are limited to during this life.  A Free Grace believer does not entirely rule out facing consequences during this life playing a role, but Jesus warned against assuming bad things happening to a believer are always a punishment, as does The Book of Job.

Hyper Grace is most popular in the Charismatic Movement which is also where Prosperity Theology originated, and it’s easy to see how those two ideas can go together.  These are Christians who feel how much wealth they have proves they have God’s favor.

And that way of thinking is exactly what Laodicea was rebuked for.

Revelation 3:17-18 Because thou sayest, "I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing," and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.

This is in contrast to the Smyrnaean Christians who were Poor by Earthly Standards but in Truth Rich.

However the correct conclusion that a type of Eternal Security is a factor in Laodiceanism will be used by some against all forms of Eternal Security. Assurance of Salvation is what’s promised to the Overcomer in each of these messages.  But there are also consequences.

Limne refers to a Body of Water

This is a follow up of sorts to the post on my main theology Blog about how The Lake of Fire is the Baptism of Fire, which was also relevant on this Blog to the Baptism of The Beast.

A fellow believer in Universal Salvation on YouTube who’s channel is titled Total Victory of Christ has made a big deal of arguing that Lake is an inaccurate translation of Limne, and in terms of what the word Lake implies about size to a modern English reader he may be correct.  However the word definitely inherently refers to a Body of Water.

Its number in the Strongs Concordance is G3041 and the only other NT author to use it is Luke where it’s always tied to the Lake of Galilee.  His theory that this refers to a specific Harbor rather than the Sea as a whole seemed plausible to me at first, but Luke 8:22-23 is a big problem for that.  But ultimately even if that theory is true it’s still a body of water.. 

Limne appears in the LXX three times, in Psalm 107:35 and 114:8 where it’s used for what the KJV calls Standing Water, and in Song of Songs 7:4 where it’s “Fishpools” in the KJV.  The Hebrew words behind them are different but both are words always used of bodies of water and get translated into English words like “pool” and “pond”.

Luke also uses the closely related word Limen G3040 in Acts 27:8-12 for harbors on Crete which the KJV translates Haven. Limen’s one appearance is the LXX was in Psalm 107:30 which is also Haven in the KJV. 

I agree that the metal refining imagery of Isaiah 48:10, Zechariah 13:9, Malachi 3:2-3 and Proverbs 17:3 & 27:21 has a role to play in understanding The Lake of Fire, but we can’t use symbolism to justify a translation decision when we know there were actual Greek words for refining pot or crucible that John could have used.  

In response to the argument that no one translated it “lake” before Tyndale, well no one wrote a Modern English Bible before Tyndale so there’s a lot of words no Bibles used before him.  But the Vulgate uses stagnum which means pool or pond so still a body of water. Researching what exactly was used in the Wycliffe Bible isn’t proving easy but it seems he too used Middle English synonyms for pond or pool.

The Greek word Baptize means to immerse or wash typically in water.  So I believe a word for a body of water is used here to guide readers to conclude this is the Baptism of Fire spoken of by John The Baptist.  It’s conveying the idea of Baptism without using the word.

Now I could likewise try to translate the verse in a way that would bias readers towards my interpretation by rendering it Baptistry or Mikveh to appeal to the Hebrew Roots people, but I’ve ultimately decided not to.  I could let my Weeb tendencies take over and suggest Chozuya.

My only issue with Pool is there is a different Greek word translated Pool in the KJV used in John 5 for the Pool of Bethesda and John 9 for the Pool of Siloam. That word has an etymology that could more specifically be translated Siwmingpool, though both these Pools were notably used for ritual bathing.  These two words do seem synonymous enough to justify translating into the same English word. 

However the traditional view that the 4th Gospel and The Apocalypse have the same author makes it hard for some to accept they’re using different words for the same kind of thing.  However I’ve become convinced that the Beloved Disciple can’t be a son of Zebede and is either Lazarus or his sister Mary Magdalene. Using Limne over Kolumbertha isn’t the only way I’ve observed Revelation to be more inline with Luke then the 4th Gospel in terms of vocabulary.

The size of this body of water isn’t the reason infernalists think these passages support them, lots of people being in it clearly makes it larger than a normal “refining pot”.  You could translate it as Lake or Sea or Ocean it doesn’t matter, what matters is getting people to understand that the fire is God’s Purging Fire.

So the more I think about it the more I come back to thinking Tyndale had it right.  Lake is perfectly fine.  God is using this Lake as a giant refining pot.

The Churches of Asia

 In verses 4 and 11 of the first chapter of The Book of Revelation the phraseology can be interpreted as saying these Seven Congregations account for all the Congregations in the Roman Province of Asia.

“John to the seven churches which are in Asia”

“and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia”

But some others are seemingly known to have existed very early.  How do we explain this?

Well first of all not every place Paul visited in Acts (in Asia or elsewhere) was a place a Church was planted.  Some may have produced converts but they likely joined Churches elsewhere or became traveling companions of Paul.  For example the only reference to Miletus in Acts is 20:15-17 where Paul met with the Elders of the Church of Ephesus. So when you break it down Acts doesn’t definitively plant any Church in Asia other than Ephesus. 

Colossians is actually the only solid Biblical Evidence for other Churches in Asia besides those named in Revelation, the audience of the letter itself in Colosse and Hierapolis is mentioned in 4:13.  Both of these cities are very near Laodicea, in a subregion of the province that Laodicea was the regional capital of. 

All three of those cities are often referred to as part of Phrygia but there is some confusion with Phrygia as a geographical term.  The part of the Province of Asia sometimes called Phrygia is a smaller lesser Phrygia, every appearance of that name in Acts seem to be to the larger greater Phrygia that was in the same Roman Province as Galatia not Asia.

Colosse is referred to by Paul as a place he hasn’t personally visited yet, and the same may be implied about Hierapolis and Laodicea.  So that explains their absence from Acts.

I want now to point out something about how the Churches are addressed in their letters.  For Smyrna through Philadelphia each is called the Church in (name of city).  However for Ephesus it’s the Church of Ephesus and for Laodicea it’s the Church of the Laodiceans. The Church of the Laodiceans is also used in Colossians 4:16.  

The only other Church referred to by Paul in such a manner is The Church of the Thessalonians in the first verses of both those Epistles.  And when going back to the origin story of that Church in Acts 17 most of Paul’s missionary success wasn’t in Thessalonica itself but in nearby Berea, so the people addressed by those Epistles are likely to include sounding cities like Berea.  Meaning the Laodiceans could be the same, they could include Hierapolis and Colosse in how Jesus addressed them.  Though Paul in Colossians 4:16 is seemingly distinguishing Colosse from the Laodiceans but that could be a matter of context.

There are two other Asian Churches that seem to pop up pretty early but aren’t mentioned in The Bible.  Tralles and Magnesia which both received letters from Ignatius of Antioch. Now in my view the earliest possible date for the Ignatian letters is the mid 140s so these Churches could have been brand new and non-existent yet when Revelation was written during the reign of Hadrian.

However if these did exist longer it’s worth noting that both are very near Ephesus, closer to Ephesus even then Miletus, and since Ephesus is the other Church addressed with an “of” rather then an “in” maybe it too could include the Christians of some smaller nearby cities.

Were there Jews in Smyrna and Philadelphia?

The two references in Revelation 2-3 to “them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan” is commonly interpreted as referring to Non Christian Jews partly on the authority of John 8:44.

If that theory is true the way it’s used by Antisemitic Christians is still invalid.  In the 1st and 2nd Centuries AD Judaism was still a more privileged Religion then Christianity.  Jews were exempted from the legally mandated worship of the Imperial Cult because the Romans considered them an Ancient Religion.  Christians were included in that exception when they were perceived by outsiders as a sect of Judaism which they almost always were before the Bar Kochba Revolt and even often for a while after.  

The only thing that may have prevented them from being so exempted is if the prominent Jews told the Roman authorities they don’t count as Jews.  So the theory is some Jews (probably a minority of them) in Asia were doing that and so Jesus is simply responding to that by saying no you are the ones who’ve forfeited your Jewishness.

Today it's the Christians who have the political Privilege and need to learn to see Jews as brethren, fellow children of Abraham, regardless of where we diverge.

But moving on, the problem with that assumption about the Synagogue of Satan is the two cities whose Messages to their Churches include this reference are ones with a severe lack of any evidence of any Ancient Jewish presence independent of this interpretation of Revelation.

For Smyrna even the Encyclopedia Judaica has only Revelation and the Martyrdom of Polycarp to go on for any claim of an Ancient Jewish presence in the City, otherwise they have no records of Jews in Smyrna till 1605.

And the Martyrdom of Polycarp is not a reliable source, it was written long after the events it depicts and depicts an event almost always dated later than even my very late date for Revelation.  And it wouldn’t be an independent source, the authority may well be imagining Jews to have been involved because of what they assumed about Revelation. Polycarp’s own Epistle makes no reference to Jews.  

With Philadelphia also we only have this possible Revelation reference. If you Google it the AI Review will say they’re also referenced in Ignatius of Antioch’s letter to the Philadelphians, but no he’s just talking about Christian who still observe Jewish Laws, and is arguably only warning about the theoretical possibility of his readers encountering them not really confirming there already are any in Philadelphia.

And it’s not as if the entirety of Jewish presence in Greco-Roman Asia was undocumented. We have a lot of references to the affairs of Jews in Ephesus from Josephus to The Book of Acts and same with Miletus.  It’s also well documented how Antiochus III Megas settled Jews in both Laodicea and Hierapolis.  Josephus also records the existence of a Jewish community in Sardis.  Pergamon and Thyatira however do seem to share Smyrna and Philadelphia lack of Ancient Jews, though the Lydian woman of Thyatira in Acts 16:12-15 seems to be implied to be Jewish or at least a Proselyte.

Philadelphia was a pretty small city today viewed as important only because of its Revelation significance, the message to Philadelphia in Revelation 3 arguably alluded to this being a small insignificant church in a small insignificant town.  So the idea that the affairs of its Jewish population would be overlooked even by Josephus I could consider plausible. (But it's possible no Jews even settled there because it was so small and insignificant they never heard of it.)

But Smyrna was important, it was the birthplace of the Roma Cult and thus equal to Pergamon as a provincial center of the Imperial Cult.  There’s no way if they had a Jewish Population they did nothing  worth noting by Josephus.  Maybe they avoided settling in Smyrna and Pergamon precisely because of their cult center status?  

What Alternative interpretation of the Synagogue of Satan is there then?  Well early forms of Supersessionism were popping up shockingly early.  

I’m not Dispensationalist but I still reject the notion that Jews are completely abandoned.  Saying “All Israel shall be Saved” in Romans 11:25-26 is a meaningless statement if you define Israel as only being the Saved.  It's not about whether The Church and Israel are separate Tents, it's about how big the Tent is.

The Two Witnesses as Jewish rather then Christian leaders

First I want to say that given Revelation 11 prior to the Seventh Trumpet is specifically what the Angel of Revelation 10 is saying as opposed to the normal mode of John narrating what he sees.  I'm willing to consider that even within my generally highly Chronological reading of Revelation this material could be chronologically displaced. 

An Atheist Website called Vridar.org agrees with me on Revelation being written during the reign of Hadrian.  But for them that means what Revelation is claiming to foretell also happens then while I see that fulfilment as mostly much further in the future. 

But it’s possible Revelation 11 prior to the Seventh Trumpet could be a more immediate future then most of this vision.  Or it could be further in the Future, given my current Post-Millennial view on the Bodily Resurrection this could be at least in part after the Millennium.

There are two particular Vridar Articles I’m interested in here.

https://vridar.org/2022/08/20/the-two-witnesses-of-revelation-11-part-a/

https://vridar.org/2022/08/21/the-two-witnesses-of-revelation-11-part-b/

They argue that the Two Witnesses are Jewish but not Christina leaders and are political figures of sorts not mere homeless Prophets preaching doom in the Streets.  Specifically that they are figures in Military conflict with Rome being represented by The Beast.

The argument has a lot to do with the quoting of Zechariah 4 comparing them to Zerubbabel and Jeshua.  But also the fact that The beast “makes war” on them.  But also how their power and authority seem to come from the Chapter 10 Angel not God directly.

They also hold the view that verses 11-13 were not in the original text.  I’m not inclined to agree with that but the sudden switch in tense here is an issue I don’t have an answer for yet.  What I am considering is a way to justify arguing their Resurrection doesn’t happen immediately, which is only viable if I can argue the three and a half days of verse 11 are different from the earlier three and a half days.

There has been much speculation about the text in the Greek using singular language to describe the two witnesses, with appeals to John 8:17-18 and 2 Corinthians 13:1 making a single person more then one witness, as well as how the two offices represented by Zachariah 4's Olive Trees are to Christians united in Jesus.  I don't think that'll be too important to what I suggest here, but it's worth noting.

Now for Vridar's time frame that means arguing they are Simon bar Kochba and Rabbi Akiva.  And I am currently open to that possibility as well.

But 70 AD Preterists could instead look at Rebel leaders of the First Jewish-Roman War.  Simon bar Giora is the one we know for certain was killed in Titus’s Triumph, but I do think at least one of the others was as well, maybe John of Gishchala or maybe Eleazar ben Simon.  

If you watch the Historia civillis YouTube video on The Roman Triumph and then read Josephus’s description of Titus and Vespasian’s Triumph in celebration of Conquering Judea in Wars of The Jews Book 7 Chapter 5 Section 5-6, the possibility that Revelation 11:7-10 could be describing that Triumph with the Two Witness representing executed leaders of the Jewish Revolt will be become quite compelling.

 I read an article about how Josephus while an eyewitness to Titus's Triumph also drew in his description on prior literary accounts of Triumphs.  In that context I think when describing the execution itself Josephus focuses on just Simon because standard older Triumphs focused on a singular enemy leader, regardless he had earlier told us there were two leaders in the procession, Simon and John.

Going back to the Hadrianic period however.  We do not have a complete list of every Roman Triumph that happened.  So while no known Triumph celebrating the defeat of the Bar Kochba Revolt is recorded one could have happened.  Maybe Hadrian had an unconventional Triumph that wasn’t in Rome but in the newly founded Aelia Capitolina and killed Bar Kochba and Akiva at the site of one of its newly consecrated Temples?  One of which would come to believed by local Christians to be where Jesus was Crucified.

But going further into the future there are more options.  The Jewish Revolt against Constantius Gallus also had two leaders, Isaac of Diocaesarea and Patricius aka Natrona. 

Then comes that often overlooked history of Samaritan Revolt during the late 5th through much of the 6th Century.  

The Justa Revolt’s history is interesting for how it’s inciting incident parallels the Hasmonean Revolt, including dumb Secular Historians who want to deny that this Greek Gentile Ruler was actually oppressing these Semitic YHWH Worshipers and claim they brought it on themselves.

I'm gonna repeat here what I said in some comments on Thersites the Historian's Zeno video.

On the subject of the Samaritan Revolt I find the desire of modern scholars to say no the Persecution came after the Revolt to be an offensive Revision.  Just like the revisions people try to do regarding the Hasmonean Revolt.  The Empire had been increasingly trying to standardize Christianity as the only legal religion in the Empire for a Century by this point, it's absurd to suggest the Samaritans revolted for no reason after being perfectly content for centuries.  

We also know archaeologically that the Marian Church he built at Gerizim is similar to others being made at the same time like the Church of Mary's Seat north of Bethlehem.

Much of their argument is based on when Zeno could have been there personally.  The Problem is I don't think the Samaritan account actually intended us to think he was there personally, these kinds of Semitic Texts frequently treat a King and his Kingdom as inseparable entities.  I don't think Antiochus Epiphanes personally performed a big sacrifice in the Jerusalem Temple, a detail not even in the books of Maccabees, but I do believe his policies resulted in an Idol of Zeus being set up on the Brazen Altar in December of 167 BC.  So I don't think Zeno was ever personally in Samaria, it was the actions of his Regime.

A Church of specially Mary Theotokos being built at this time was probably tied to the whole Henotikon thing, Emperors trying to reunify with the Miaphysites loved to scapegoat the Nestorians and stress their common support of calling Mary Theotokos.  And 482-484 is the timeframe for that being a priority.

But the Bar Sabar revolt under Justinian is the most compelling, it's connected to the building of the Nea Ekklesia of the Theotokos which Porcipius describes in ways that make it sound like a rebuilding of Solomon’s Temple.  I no longer think its location is where The Temple actually was, but I do think a Tabernacle housing the Ark briefly before Solomon’s Temple was finished may have been there.  Its construction seems to have started in 531 and been completed in 543.

Justinian also sent The Menorah and other treasures of Herod’s Temple back to Jerusalem to be placed in Christian Churches after Belisarius’s Triumph in 534.  Which is notable considering The Menorah’s role in how Revelation 11 relates to Zechariah 4.

The 556 revolt could be of interest too, for in that one alone it seems Samaritans and Jews worked together, Judah and Joseph, and thus there could have been a leader for each.

We do not have exact dates for the terms of any of the Samaritan High Priests during this period.  So one of them being executed alongside a Civil Leader of one of these Revolts is possible.

Interestingly there is a potential Samaritan Revolt not listed on the main Samaritan Revolts Wikipedia page, and that's one implied to have happened in the time of Babba Rabba traditionally dated to 308-328.  

Constantine contrary to Eusebius and his modern critics did across the board advocate Religious Tolerance so the source of any Samaritan Persecution during this time period couldn't be him.  But perhaps the persecutions of Monotheistic religious minorities under Diocletian, Galerius and Maximinus Daza could be relevant, or even Licinius who's alleged relapse into pro Pagan Persecution is controversial.  It's possible his traditional dates are off and that the references to Constantinople were originally Nicomedia.

One source places Babba Rabba's death in 362 during the reign of Julian, but he didn't persecute anyone either.  So basically the exact timing of Babba Rabba is highly unclear.

The Tyrant of Babba Rabba's rebellion being called Pharoah of Egypt fits in well with my Maximianus Daza thesis.

Finally there was the Revolt against Heraclius which I discussed in my main Heraclius Post.  It too had two prominent leaders, Nehemiah ben Hushiel and Benjamin of Tiberias.  And the Sefer Zerubbabel has some compelling parallels to Revelation 11 in how it talks about Nehemiah ben Hushiel.

Valerian as The Beast of Revelation

Eusebius in his Church History Book VII Chapter 10 talks about the Valerian Persecution primarily using an older source named Dionysius.  And Dionysus quotes Revelation 13:5 as being about this persecution.

The Decian Persecution was the first truly Empire wide persecution of Christians, but it didn’t last nearly 42 months.  However the Decian Persecution did result in the Novatian Schism because it was the first time the Church had any significant Apostasy, making it possibly relevant to II Thessalonians 2.

This account of the Valerian Persecution also presents two possible False Prophet candidates.  First the leader of “the Magi from Egypt” who definitely sounds like a Pagan mystic of some kind in-spite of the translation misleadingly using the word “Synagogue”.  However another option is Macrianus who is likely the figure Wikipedia calls Macrianus Major who was placed in charge of the Economy under Valerian but was also a Military Commander according to the Historia Augusta.  Macarianus’s two sons could be who the second beast’s two horns represent.

The rider on the White Horse or Red Horse could be Shapur I’s invasion of Syria.  Or just the Red Horse with the White Horse being my Smyrna reading. 

The Debasement of the Denarius and other Imperial Currencies greatly escalated during the mid 3rd Century which could explain the Black Horse.

The Plague of Cyprian could be connected to the Chlorus Horse.

Brining in my prior post arguing the Image of The Beast is his Son.  That could be Gallienus who was a co-ruler during Valerian’s reign.

It is also known that at least some of the Martyrs during the Valerian Persecution were specifically Beheaded like Bishop Sixtus II of Rome on the 6th of August 258.

262 is the year Pergamon was sacked by Goths and destroyed in an Earthquake.  An argument can be made that in a local scale interpretation of Revelation the city of Pergamon is Babylon (derivative of the Rome as Babylon argument because Pergamon was Rome within Asia as the Seat of Imperial Worship). This was the end of Pergamon as it was known to the original audience of Revelation. 

The first ever Edict of Toleration directed mainly at ending a Persecution of Christians was actually the Edict of Gallienus which ended this Persecution.  Now there is some dispute about the exact time of that Edict, some sources like Eusebius made it sound like it was made immediately after Valerian was captured by the Persians, but it seems more likely that some time did pass. If the edict of Persecution was made in 258 then 42 months later would be in 261 or 262. 

That would in this model be the beginning of The Baptism of The Beast.

Vespasian as The Beast of Revelation

I'm a Post Millennial Partial Preterist and Semi-Historicist who still largely looks to much later then AD 74 for when I think Revelation 6-19 and the start of chapter 20 happened.

But I decided it would be fun to see if I could argue for a 70 AD Fulfillment of Revelation better than actual believers in that timeframe do.  And perhaps elements of how I make this argument could prove Typologically useful to us advocates of more niche forms of Preterism that are less focused on the 1st Century.

First of all I have come to take the language of Revelation 17:11 as saying that the 8th King is the Individual person The Beast passages are about even when still during the reigns of the first 7.  

Caesarea Maritima means Caesarea “by the sea”, and it was also a very sandy location.  It was always the Roman Provincial Capital of Judea and as such played an important role in the 66-73 AD War including as a location Vespasian used as a base of operations.  

The Seven Heads are further explained in Revelation 17 as being Seven Kings.  Roman Emperors didn’t like to admit they were Kings but we see in John 19:15 that Jews in Judea didn’t care about their semantics.  Why Kings would be represented as Heads is perhaps explained by the language of Bible Verses like 1 Corinthians 11:3, Ephesians 5:23 and Colossians 1:18 where Christ is The Head of The Church and God The Father is the Head of Christ, but there's also Hebrew Bible precedent for Kings as Heads in 1 Samuel 15:17 and Isaiah 7:8-9.  Your "Head" is a person who holds authority over you, hence why the 8th King which is The Beast isn’t an 8th Head.

Vitellius from the year of the 4 Emperors was never recognized in the East, the Roman Armies of the East chose Vespasian as soon as Otho was dead.  So for example when looking at the Archaeological record of the Roman Pharaohs we see that Vespasian was the 8th and the first 7 were Augustus, Tiberius, Calgiula, Claudius, Nero, Galba and Otho who did indeed have the shortest reign.  Vespasian was born during the reign of Augustus so each of those 7 had also personally been Vespasian’s Head.

I no longer believe the 6th King being associated with the present is meant to be a clue to when Revelation was written, rather for this theory I think it has to do with Revelation 17’s point in the narrative following the 7th Bowl of Wrath.  There was a major Earthquake during the reign of Galda which Suetonius refers to having been considered an Omen of his coming demise, that could be identified with the Earthquake of the 7th Bowl.  

On December 19th of AD 69 the major Temple to Jupiter in Rome was burned down during the war between Vitellius and Vespasian.  So one could see that as Revelation 18 in a Babylon=Rome reading.

Back to where we left off in chapter 13.  The 10 Horns, Leopard, Bear and Lion imagery are evoking Daniel 7.  Daniel 7 was primarily fulfilled by Intertestamental History, Revelation is picking up later with a Rome that has annexed most of the Greek Empire and portions of Babylon and Persia.  The 10 Horns we also know represent lesser kings allied with the Beast, these are likely various local Client Kings and Tribal Leaders who assisted Vespasian in the Conquest of Judea like Antiochus IV Epiphanes of Commagene.

The Mortal Wound being Healed could have multiple meanings.  Vespasian did suffer a serious wound during the Siege of Yodfat that Josephus makes a big deal out of.  But it’s seemingly associated with one of the specific Seven Heads, most of them died violently but Vespasian presented himself as the Heir of Otho.

For Revelation 13:5 the YLT says “Make War” where the KJV says “Continue” and I think that is more accurate to the Greek.  This is about the Authority Vespasian was given to carry out the War against Judea.  There are two ways we could count the 42 months, we could begin them with when Vespasian was first formally placed in charge of the Campaign on September 22nd 66 AD ending it in March of 70 AD.  In April of 70 the War continued but now with Vespasian fully established as sole Emperor and his son the one actively carrying out the Campaign in Judea.  Or we could say the 42 months started when Vespasian actually arrived in Judea seemingly in Spring of 67 then continued to September of 70 AD when the Siege of Jerusalem was fully completed.

Vespasian was in Alexandria when he was proclaimed Emperor, and as such was the only Roman Pharoah ever consecrated by proper Egyptian Ceremonies, much of which symbolically Deified him.

Verse 7 of chapter 13 repeats language from chapter 11 verse 7.  If you watch Historia civillis YouTube video on The Roman Triumph and then read Josephus’s description of Titus and Vespasian’s Triumph in celebration of Conquering Judea in Wars of The Jews Book 7 Chapter 5 Section 5, the possibility that Revelation 11:7-10 could be describing that Triumph with the Two Witness representing executed leaders of the Jewish Revolt will be become quite compelling.

Revelation 13:10 is about Captivity which is obviously relevant to 70 AD.

The Beast out of The Earth called elsewhere The False Prophet I think could have been Tiberius Julius Alexander.  Many have argued “out of the Earth” in contrast to “out of the Sea” implies a Jewish background for the second Beast as opposed to the Gentile Background of the First, and Alexander fits that even though he was considered an Apostate.  He had formerly been a Governor of Judea but was Prefect of Egypt when this War started and was vital to Vespasian becoming Emperor due to the control that position gave him over the Empire’s Food Supply.  And he was involved in that Ceremonial Deification of Vespasian as Pharaoh as well which did include performing False Miracles.

When the Image of The Beast is introduced in verse 14 many translations wrongly say the Image was “made”, but the Greek doesn’t use a word for Create here, it should read that they Set Up the Image, meaning the Image could be something that already existed.

In Genesis 5:3 Seth is called the Image and Likeness of Adam as his son.  Multiple New Testament passages further connect Jesus as the Image of God to Him being The Son of God, like Romans 8:29 and Colossians 1:15.  So there is Biblical Precedent for a person’s Image being their Son.

The Image of The Beast in this model would be Titus the Son of Vespasian who had the same full name and was also elevated by Tiberius Julius Alexander who joined him in the Conquest of Judea where he was proclaimed Imperator after destroying Jerusalem.

That leads us to the matter of Jerusalem as Babylon.  The arguments for it are well known but in the past my issue with holding that view at the same time as The Beast being Rome was that I misunderstood Revelation 17 as implying Babylon held power over The Beast, but I now know the text doesn’t describe her as Riding the Beast.  Berenice in her affair with Titus seems frankly like a good personification of the Harlot.  The word “kill” isn’t actually used in Revelation 17 or 18 (and with Jezebel in chapter 2 only her children are killed), the City is destroyed by the people represented by The Harlot still live on to, in my view, eventually become the Bride of chapter 19 and Lamb’s Wife of Chapter 21.

Revelation 17 also strictly speaking says the Ten Horns hate Babylon and destroy her with fire not the Beast himself.  This could be relevant to how Vespasian was in Rome when the final Siege happened but also Titus himself did not want to Destroy the Temple, his troops and allies got out of control.  

I have also considered that because of how the word “Wilderness” is used in Revelation this final destruction of Babylon refers to the fall of Masada.

The main issue is that I can't figure out how to make Vespasian or this False Prophet candidate fit my Baptism of The Beast premise, we are still far from Rome's Christianization.

A Third Jewish Temple was built in the 7th Century

 I'm Copy/Pasting below something I wrote back when I was still a Futurist, but it has obvious potential relevance to the new kind of Partial Preterism I've been developing on This Blog.

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I have been looking into theories about reconstructing the history of the 7th Century and the origins of Islam.  I however do believe the traditional Biography of Muhammad is fairly grounded in real history, unlike Jay Smith.

And the thesis I shall provide here doesn't even matter much to if the early Arab Empire was already distinctly "Muslim" or not, my theories on that I get into elsewhere.  This is just specifically about what they did on The Temple Mount.

The current Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque were both originally built by Abd al-Malik the third Umayyad Caliph between 690 and 705 AD, that's pretty indisputably agreed on by everyone.  The question of whether or not the Arabs built some kind of earlier Mosque on the Temple Mount is difficult to answer since everything written on the subject from the Muslim POV is centuries later, including that account of Umar and Sophronius which many Gihon Spring Temple location supporters misunderstand.

There are however some contemporary 7th Century Christian sources, and one Jewish source.  Here is a link quoting a number of them gathered together by Hoyland in 1997.

 https://web.archive.org/web/20210211093519/http://www.christianorigins.com/islamrefs.html

There are Four primarily I want to quote, but first let me provide some context.

Byzantine Christians of Late Antiquity, and probably all the other mainstream types of Christians who existed at that time, on the subject of the possibly of a Third Jewish Temple being built had the exact opposite opinion of modern Dispensationalist Evangelicals.  They not only weren't expecting it but they believed God would never allow it.  So if they saw it happening they would have to either deny it, or interpret it as inherently negative.  Like how today many Anti-Semitic Post Tribbers pretty much believe the Third Temple itself will be the Abomination of Desolation.

Meanwhile I have on my other Blog documented that the Quran is actually a Zionist book, it affirms Israel's right to the Promised Land and expects their return.  The parts that seem Anti-Semitic exist in the context of the Arabs' conflict with Jews living in Arabia.  I believe Muhammad probably never intended his united Arab state to expand west of the Jordan River (or East/North of the Euphrates for that matter).  None the less when Umar did conquer Judea, even under the most traditional view of what happened he allowed The Jews to live in Jerusalem again after 500 years of Rome (both Pagan and Christian) banning them from the city.

Also on the use of the word "Mosque" in these passages, if that even is an accurate translation.  It should be remembered that in the Quran itself the word Mosque does not mean the specific type of Muslim worship building we're used to today, but rather just means a Sacred site.  The most popular interpretation of the Night Journey Sura is that the "Farthest Mosque" is the site of the Temple in Jerusalem even though no building of any kind stood there at the time.

So let's start with the witness of Sophronius the Patriarch of Jerusalem who died in 638 AD.

[In a work originally composed by John Moschus (d. 619), but expanded by Sophronius (d. ca. 639), actually found only in an addition of the Georgian translation, the following entry appears, concerning a construction dated by tradition at 638, i.e., soon after the capture of Jerusalem ca. 637. It appears in a portion concerning Sophronius as recounted on the authority of his contemporary, the archdeacon Theodore, and may have been written down ca. 670.]

the godless Saracens entered the holy city of Christ our Lord, Jerusalem, with the permission of God and in punishment for our negligence, which is considerable, and immediately proceeded in haste to the place which is called the Capitol. They took with them men, some by force, others by their own will, in order to clean that place and to build that cursed thing, intended for their prayer and which they call a mosque (midzgitha). (Pratum spirituale, 100-102 [p. 63])

I notice how hostile the Christians are to their Arab conquerors seems to depend on their sect of Christianity, the "Nestorians" like Ishoyahb and John bar Pankaye got along with them just fine.  At any rate this reference doesn't tell us much about what's being built, but by "the Capitol" he almsot certainly means the City's highest peak, The Temple Mount, after all Hadrian's Temple bult there was called the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus.

The second reference shall be the Coptic Apocalypse of Pseudo-Shenute from about 644 AD.

The Persians . . . will go down to Egypt and much killing will accompany them. They shall seize the wealth of the Egyptians and sell their children for gold, so harsh is the persecution and oppression of the Persians. Many masters will become slaves and many slaves masters. Woe to Egypt on account of the Persians. Many masters will become slaves and many slaves masters. Woe to Egypt on account of the Persians, for they will take the church vessels and drink wine from them before the altar without fear or anxiety. They will rape the women before their husbands. There shall be great distress and anguish, and of those that survive a third will die of grief and misery.

Then after a while the Persians will depart from Egypt and there shall arise the Deceiver, who will enter upon the king of the Romans and will be entrusted by him with headship of both the military commanders and the bishops. He shall enter Egypt and undertake many tasks; he shall take possession of Egypt and its provinces, and build ditches and forts, and order that the walls of the towns in the deserts and wastelands be [re-]built. He shall destroy the East and the West, then he shall combat the pastor, the archbishop in Alexandria entrusted with the Christians resident in the land of Egypt. They will expel him and he will flee southwards until he arrives, sad and dispirited, at your monastery. And when he comes here, I shall return him and place him on his seat once more.

After that shall arise the sons of Ishmael and the sons of Esau, who hound the Christians, and the rest of them will be concerned to prevail over and rule all the world and to [re-]build the Temple that is in Jerusalem. When that happens, know that the end of times approaches and is near. The Jews will expect the Deceiver and will be ahead of the [other] peoples when he comes. When you see the [abomination of] desolation of which the prophet Daniel spoke standing in the holy place, [know that] they are those who deny the pains which I received upon the cross and who move freely about my church, fearing nothing at all. (Ps.-Shenute, Vision, 340-41 [pp. 280-281])

Since the King of the Romans here is certainly Heraclius, my first instinct was that the "Deceiver" being referred to was Sergius Patriarch of Constantinople being condemned for the Monothelite controversy, but the Coptic perspective made me doubt that.  Since the author would have considered Benjamin I the legitimate Bishop of Alexandria this Deceiver could fit Cyrus of Alexandria who was indeed given both Ecclesiastical and Military authority in Egypt.  John of Niku was another Egyptian of the period who tied his hostility towards Cyrus into how he talked about the Arab conquest.

The last detail of that account could sound like it's saying the Arabs of this time already said Jesus didn't die on The Cross.  But in the context of how Divine Impassability was what largely drove Nestorius to develop his view of the Incarnation, this could make sense to me as a criticism of Nestorianism.  Just as Ishoyahb III saying "those who say that God, Lord of all, suffered and died" is a Nestorian criticism of Cyrilian Christianity and not opposition to the doctrine of the Crucifixion or Incarnation.  

Arculf a pilgrim from the 670s.

In that famous place where once stood the magnificently constructed Temple, near the eastern wall, the Saracens now frequent a rectangular house of prayer which they have built in a crude manner, constructing it from raised planks and large beams over some remains of ruins. This house can, as it is said, accomodate at least 3000 people. (Adomnan, De locis sanctis 1.1.14.186 [p. 221])

However the most crucial witness to my theory is the Jewish one, Simon bar Yohai in the 680s.

The second king who arises from Ishmael will be a lover of Israel. He restores their breaches and the breaches of the Temple. He hews Mount Moriah, makes it level and builds a mosque (hishtahawaya) there on the Temple rock, as it is said: "Your nest is set in the rock." (Simon ben Yohai, Secrets, 79 [p. 311])

Not only did some Christians see this as a rebuilding of the Temple from a hostile POV, but Jews also celebrated it as a rebuilding of The Temple.  Meanwhile the Rectangular shape shows this was being built more like Solomon's Temple then like the Octagonal Dome we see there now.

This witness has actually effected my opinion on the Dome of the Rock being the Temple Site.  Having a Jewish pre Dome of the Rock witness to The Temple being on a Rock really lessens how unlikely I found that possibility previously.

Still technically it is the Al Aqsa Mosque that is in it's name claiming to be the "Farthest Mosque" of the Night Journey.  And the Crusaders called that Mosque the Temple of Solomon and the Dome of the Rock the Temple of The Lord.

However archeologically we know that where the Al Aqsa Mosque is was Herod's southern expansion of The Temple complex, the Royal Stoa, so the least likely place on the Mount for the The Temple itself to have been.

When was Jesus's Not One Stone Prophecy fully fulfilled?

You might think the answer to that is obvious and well known, but you'd be surprised.  First I'm going to quote the account of the Prophecy from Mark 13:1-2 since I think it's the most complete account of exactly what Jesus in this case.

And as he went out of the temple, one of his disciples saith unto him, "Master, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here!" And Jesus answering said unto him, "Seest thou these great buildings? there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down".

Notice that it isn't JUST about The Temple, it's about all the buildings, plural.  

While Matthew and Luke's account of this in their main Olivet Discourse chapters downplay the inclusion of other buildings, Luke 19:44 also refers to not one stone being left, with The Temple not even being the focus, that Prophecy is about the entirety of Jerusalem.

The 9th of Av in AD 70 (presumed to be August 4th on the Roman Calendar) as recorded in Josephus Wars of The Jews Book VI Chapters 4-5 is the day The Temple was destroyed in the sense of not being able to be used as a Temple anymore.  Remember what happened to the Notre Dame Cathedral a few years ago?  The worst case scenario people were fearing that day is basically what happened to The Temple on the 9th of Av.  The next day however as recorded by Josephus in Wars Book VI Chapter 6 there are clearly still standing ruins.  

The beginning of Book VII is when Titus demolishes even those ruins and thus this is where most Christians talking about AD 70 via Josephus (both Preterists and Futurists) say the Not One Stone Prophecy was fulfilled.  Except Josephus tells us there were three towers that Titus left standing, in my view as long as those three towers were still standing this Prophecy of Jesus was incomplete.

In AD 131 Emperor Hadrian while visiting Jerusalem after ending his extended stay in Egypt announced his plans to rebuilt Jerusalem as a Greco-Roman City with a Temple to Zeus being built over the former site of The Temple.  I think the early stages of that project is when even those three remaining towers were torn down.  

Then after Hadrian left the Near East for Asia Minor in 132 the Bar Kokchba Revolt broke out.  That probably stalled the reconstruction project even though the Rebels never held Jerusalem during that war.  Then after the revolt was put down in 135 the project restarted.

Thousand Years as a Day

The hyper literal face value understanding of the "surely I come quickly" verses that Full Preterism is built on is naturally incompatible with taking the Thousand Years of Revelation 20 at equally face value.  If EVEYTHING in the book must surely happen quickly, then clearly two of those events can't be separated by a full Millennium.

I specify Full Preterist here because Partial Preterist and Post Millenialists tend to make the Thousand years longer not shorter.  I have become a believer in those as a opposed to the Futurist Pre-Millennial I was when I wrote the first version of this on a different Blog..

The problem with the Full Preterist understanding of the Millennium is that even a not exactly literal use of "Thousand years" is still clearly meant to imply a long time, it's meant to imply we shouldn't expect it to end within a mortal lifetime.  

So Full Preterists cling to the "Thousand years as a day and a day as a thousand years" verses.  When you engage in very unscholarly proof texting yeah those seem like they give you the excuse they need to make a Thousand utterly meaningless.  

But when you read them in context, when you read the entirety of Psalm 90 and 2 Peter 3, the point being made, the Impression being given, is clearly all about how what can seem like endless ages to humans is nothing to God.  They are clearly conveying the opposite of what Full Preterists want, they give us every reason not to take "surely I come quickly" at face value and no reason to think a promised Earthly Millennium will end in a day.

2 Peter 3 is especially clear on this, because earlier that chapter is foretelling how people in the future will lose faith in the promised Coming because the "fathers fell asleep" and nothing has changed.  The whole point of the passage is specifically that Jesus did not "surely come quickly" by a mortal understanding of time, but we should none the less have faith that God is not slacking off but delaying only to give the heathens more time to repent.

1 Peter may have been written before 70 AD, but 2 Peter certainly came after, Peter never went to Rome and the Neronian persecution didn't happen.

Even without this understanding of the "Thousand Years as a Day" verses, Greek scholars understand that this kind of language used in Revelation 22 was often used euphemistically to mean "certainly will come to pass" and are not inherently meant to be literally taken as timing statements.  Hebrews 10:36-37 is similar, on the one hand it seems to say "soon" but also says "awhile" and tells us to be patient.

Honestly part of the problem with preterist interpretations of passages like Hebrew 10:36-37 is modern individualism which runs contrary the the more collectivist thinking of all first century people Pagan, Jewish and Christian.  They are speaking as if the audience reading this will be there when it happens because they are speaking to the Church and/or Israel (depending on how you prefer to look at it) as a collective not the specific individuals who were the very first to ever read it.

The "this Generation" statement of Matthew 24 exists in the context of what Jesus said before, "this" is grammatically applied to the generation that sees the signs.  Now understand that I am not a conventional Futurist, I have my doubts "this Generation" began when most Dispensationalists currently think it did.  I think the key sign to look for is The Abomination of Desolation.

And it doesn't matter how many other times "this generation" means the people listening to Jesus right now, "this generation" is a phrase that doesn't automatically always mean the same generation every time it appears, the context of where it's said determines it.

And the "there be some standing here" verses always directly proceeds the Transfiguration for a reason.  The "Son of man coming in his kingdom" wording of Mathew 16:28 is in fact peculiar and in my opinion should not be interpreted as specifically about the Parousia, not even just because that word itself isn't used in the Greek, it's about Him glorified having the qualities of the Kingdom.  But if you aren't satisfied by it being fulfilled just by the Transfiguration then it could also apply to just seeing the risen Jesus which all but one of the 12 got to.

Also "some" is a misleading translation, the YLT says "certain" instead and other versions don't feature an equivalent word there at all which actually does better match the Greek.  So no the text of this verse does not imply inherently a minority of the audience being referred to.

Mark Antony and Daniel 11:36-45

I said before that I'm fluctuating between different views on this passage, and the Mark Antony theory is one I figure I better make my case for.

Daniel 11:36-39 as about Mark Antony kind of perfectly lines up with Octavian’s propaganda against Antony.  Describing him as acting like a King and discarding the gods of his fathers and his good Roman wife to worship strange foreign gods and even seemingly deifying himself.  But The Bible’s worldview is even more strict than Rome’s about what kind of behavior only God should engage in, as well as the wrongness of divorcing one woman simply because you like your new "exotic" girlfriend more.

Also when you understand how the Hebrew word for “divide” used in verse 39 does not always refer to splitting one thing into smaller things but can rather refer to a reforming or reshaping, it fits as describing Antony’s reorganization of The Roman East pretty well.

Remembering the context that this section follows verses 32-35’s account of the rise and fall of the Hasmoneans, verses 40-41 being about the finishing off of Hasmonean independence in 37 BC seems logical.  The King of the Negev (South) is Mattathais Antigonus and the King of the North is Antiochus I Theos of Commagene.

Verses 42-43 however is where this seems like the opposite of how people usually see Mark Antony’s relationship with Egypt.  

Here’s a reality that the common romantic fictionalizations of this time period waters down, no matter how you view the personal relationship between Antony and Cleopatra, Egypt was a subject state to Rome already before she was born or her father took the throne. In reality she is a client monarch of Rome taking a side in a Roman Civil War just as much as Herod was.  Acknowledging this need not affect one way or the other whatever opinion you have of Cleopatra as a person or her competence as a leader.  Yet I still wish those who want to romanticize an African Queen resisting Rome would pay more attention to the Kandake of Kush who reigned during the following decades just a little farther south.

Verse 44 would be about Antony’s attempt to conquer Parthia in 36 BC.

“And he shall plant the tents of his palace between the seas in the glorious Holy Mountain” in verse 45 is kind of the core of this whole theory.

I have a long history of feeling this is about the Antonia Fortress, even way back when I had a standard Futurist/Antichrist view of this passage I felt the Antonia Fortress was relevant to this typologically as the symbol of Roman oppression within Jerusalem.  And then I argued this referred to the Antonia Fortress when building my old argument for this being about Augustus even though it made no sense for Augustus to name a fortress after Antony.

When exactly the Antonia was built is a bit unclear, none of Josephus’s references to it are to when it was first built.  There is an assumption it was built with Herod’s renovations of the Temple because of it being defined as something built to protect The Temple.  But that started years after the death of Mark Antony, Herod wouldn’t be naming something after Antony during that time.

The Antonia fortress was definitely named after Mark Antony.  So it being built by or for Mark Antony in like 36 or 35 BC is the most logical explanation for its origin.

The last thing said in this section is “yet he shall come to his end and none shall help him”.  Once again I admit this can be made to fit a lot of people, but with Antony it sure does seem like the entire drama of his final days is about all his allies abandoning him, maybe even Cleopatra depending on how you interpret her actions.

And after Antony’s death the Biblical World is ruled by the man who is identified as ruling it when Jesus was born in Luke chapter 2 verse 1, with Herod's Kingship also reaffirmed for Luke 1:5 and Matthew 2.  Meaning we are in The New Testament era for Daniel 12.

Rome was an Empire long before it stopped being a Republic

The Political upheavals of the “Late Roman Republic” that eventually lead to the Principate are at the absolute earliest usually said to begin with the Tribunate of Tiberius Gracchus in 133 BC.  Any full study of his political program and the issues/circumstances that made it necessary fully demonstrate how Rome was already an Empire.

The word Empire does not refer to a form of Government but to one Nation or State wielding power over other nations or states, most stereotypically via military force but there are other ways.  Only when talking about Rome and people named Napoleon is that fact forgotten and the word Empire gets mistaken as meaning “ruled by an Emperor''.

Polybius was a Greek Historian who died before Caesar was born or Marius was ever Consul.  He wrote a book called The Histories that is sometimes renamed for modern editions something like “History of the Rise of the Roman Empire”.  It covers 264-146 BC, but the bulk of the focus is on 220-167 BC and Polybius’s argument that in only 53 years Rome went from just being Italy to a Superpower.

The Wikipedia page for 220 BC has a map of the Mediterranean world in that year and Rome is basically modern Italy minus Piedmont and Syracuse but plus Corsica.  However the next year the Second Punic War would start, then would come their first war with Macedon.  

167 BC is the year their last war with Macedon ended thus ending Macedon’s independence, and then Lucius Amelius Paulus went and conquered Epirus just casually on the way back home.  

146 BC is itself a notable year because that’s when Rome finally finished off both Carthage and the Achaean League.  Rome became complete master of both the Western Mediterranean and Greece. It was that year Lucius Mummius destroyed Corinth leaving the city only minimally inhabited for over a Century till Julius Caesar re-founded it shortly before his Assassination in 44 BC.

Rome was also already interfering in the affairs of those they didn’t directly control and spreading their influence.  The Roma Cult in Smyrna was founded in 195 BC long before Rome annexed any of Asia.  The Cleopatras BBC miniseries from the 80s starts it's narrative in 145 BC and one background plotline is the growing interference of Rome.

And in 133 BC the King of Pergamon died leaving his kingdom to Rome in his will, that is what gave Gracchus his opportunity and it’s how the cities housing the Seven Churches of Revelation became part of the Roman Empire.

I’m not posting this on my main Politics Blog because no Breadtuber is going to disagree with me that Rome was already doing Imperialism, the YouTube Channel Tribunate has videos getting into the Materialist Analysis of how the Republic's Imperialism helped lead to the Civil Wars and the Principate.

Its relevance to Bible Prophecy is my annoyance at those who seek to remove Rome from the Prophecies of Daniel.  I am a believer so I don’t view The Book of Daniel as Prophecy written after the fact and I’ve already argued Daniel 7’s climax happens in the 6th Century AD.  But even if I were an Atheist who wanted to believe in an early Hasmonean era context for all of the book of Daniel, Rome as the next Empire was already apparent.  Even in the part of Daniel 11 few disagree on, verses 1-35, the emergence of Rome is felt.  Verse 19 is usually seen as alluding to the Roman-Seleucid War of 192-188 BC.  Verse 30 is about when Gaius Popillius Laenas on Cyprus stopped Antiochus Epiphanes from conquering Egypt in 168 BC.  

Antiochus Epiphanes himself had been a hostage in Rome before he was King, in fact early on he was viewed as very Romanized.  In 173 BC he sent money to Rome to secure their support and affirm the treaty of Apamea, helped by him having the support of Rome’s ally Eumenes II. Rome was also holding as hostage Demetrius the firstborn son of Antiochus’s older brother.  So there are many reasons Antiochus couldn't defy Laenas in 168 BC.

I firmly believe Daniel 11:36-45 is about a Roman ruler, but my mind vibrates back and forth between a few different theories.  My oldest Roman theory is Augustus which I originally wrote for a different blog but reposted here.  I very recently posted a Pompey theory but with acknowledgment of some of its weaknesses.  And now I’m even considering Mark Antony which I will make a separate post about if I’m able to perfect that hypothesis.

Pompey The Great and Daniel 11:36-45

Previously I have argued for this part of Daniel being about Augustus, and I’m not abandoning that theory, but as I've been learning more about Pompey’s history I’m starting to find an argument for him being the focus of this passage compelling.  I currently have no idea if anyone before me has ever attempted to argue this.

First I should address the fact that many do not believe Pompey to have been a King.  It’s pretty uncontroversial to acknowledge that the rulers of the later Roman Principate were considered Kings by people in the East regardless of their official denial of that status.  Well I’d argue that to the people in The East conquered by Pompey denying he was a King was just as absurd.  The Roman Triumph very much revolved around treating the Triumphator as ceremonially King for the Day.  Pompey had already had two Triumphs before his career brought him to Judea.  

Similar to that is the matter of how Pompey is not considered to be someone who deified himself.  But again from The Hebrew Bible POV I’d argue everything about the Triumph was a self deification, calling yourself “The Great” was a deification, and making Statues of a person is a deification. 

Speaking of which, Pompey began being called Magnus/The Great by his soldiers as early as 80 BC.  And they did so specifically to compare him to Alexander The Great, which is interesting because when Daniel 11:36 says “do according to his will” it is repeating the language of verse:3 a passage all scholars agree is about Alexander The Great.  And then verse 36 goes on to say in the same sentence “and he shall exalt himself, and magnify”, the English Word “magnify” coming from the same linguistic root as Magnus.

Verses 37-39 are the most difficult to justify applying to either Pompey or Augustus, there are ways to interpret these passages that aren’t a very face value reading.

The rest could be all about Pompey’s actions in the Near East during the later phase of the Third Mithridatic War leading up to his famous capturing of Jerusalem except the very last statement jumping forward to his end.  The only issue is the exact chronology.

The “Tents” detail fits very vividly with how Josephus describes the Roman Military Encampment setting itself up on The Temple Mount.  Pompey never military invades Egypt but they were involved in all this and we want to basically extort all most of Egypt’s Wealth from Ptolemy XII.   And he did redraw the borders of the region” dividing the land for gain”.

“He shall meet his end and none shall help him” is an admittedly vague description that could be made to fit a lot of things.  But the Vibe I feel fits Pompey’s final fate being killed by people he thought were allies in Egypt more than it does Antiochus Epiphanes or any Julio-Claudian Emperor.

Sulla and 666

My last post on the 666 issue should be read before this one, the main point of that, the argument against it referring to Nero stands, and my final theory about Iapetos is still my main theory, but I felt the need to share this observation.

Ancient Pagan Rome had primarily two ways of identifying a year, identifying it by the names of the Consuls of that year was the more standard method, so it seems like the Ab urbe condida (In the year since the city’s founding) date was mainly used to answer the question of when someone was Consul.  In other words it’s a non Gematria/Isopsephy way of associating names with numbers.

The year 666 Ab urbe condita was The Year of the Consulship of Sulla and Rufus and is the year known on our calendar as 88 BC.  Sulla is listed first for formal reasons independent of his being the more well known of these two persons to us Roman history buffs centuries later.  And yet a big part of why Sulla is one of the most infamous Romans of his generation is because of something he did during this year, he was the first Roman General to march his armies into the city, 39 years before Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon.  

This was also the first Consulship not only of this Sulla but of anyone with that name. That point is key, this is obviously not an argument for The Beast being this person who died still in the BC era, but for associating it with his name.  Or perhaps more politically with his actions???  

Sulla was a reactionary not just in the context of his time but by any time, he marched on Rome interfering in the Social War taking a fundamentally xenophobic stance against the expansion of Roman citizenship.  Expansion of Citizenship to those not by blood descendants of a nations’ founding tribe is a key theme of The New Testament, principally about Citizenship in The Kingdom of Israel being expanded to include Gentiles.  However the comparison to this ongoing Roman issue is arguably there in the subtext, Paul evokes his Roman Citizenship, The Philippians had Lus Italicum. None of that could have happened if Sulla got his way in the long term.  In fact Pontius Pilate himself may very well descend from a Samnite tribal leader of The Social War named Pontius Telesinus.

Many of the Italian Tribes seeking enfranchisement during the Social War were based in Southern Italy, somehow them being looked down on by northerners is a problem still to this day after getting tied into Scientific Racism in the 19th Century.  [Sicily it should be noted wasn't even part of the Social War, the Sicilians gained Roman Citizenship with the help of Fulvia decades later.]

Something else Sulla sought to gain from these actions was an appointment as a leading General in the First Mithridatic War.  From which position he burned Athens to the ground in 86 BC.  This is one of many reasons why what New Atheists blame on Rome's Fall should really be blamed on Rome's Rise.  I'm skeptical of the common origin story you hear for the Altar of the Unknown God in Acts 17, maybe it's really there because the Athenians felt there were ancient gods who they may have been forgotten after Sulla's massacre and destruction?

Romans with the same name are documented to have still existed into the early 3rd Century.  Sulla had a son named Faustus Cornelius Sulla who served under Pompey who was the first over the wall of Jerusalem in 63 BC and married Pompey’s daughter Pompeia Magna.  His last confirmed direct descendent was a Faustus Cornelius Sulla Felix who spent his later life in exile in Southern France, he was also a descendent of Antonia Major.

Ephesus and the Novatians

In Revelation 2-3 there are two Churches with nothing bad said about them and two with nothing good said about them.  Of the three that have mixed reviews a casual assumption is often that Pergamon and Thyatira are little better then the two with nothing good said while Ephesus leans towards being a more positive review.

I feel that’s an oversimplification, I don’t necessary want to argue for looking at it the exact opposite, but what I find notable is that with Pergamon and Thyatira it’s really only some of them who have the problem, the Church as a whole is judged a bit for not dealing with them but it’s mainly just these sub groups who have the bad doctrine and so the prophecy of judgment is also on just them.  With Ephesus however it is the community as a whole who has “left thy first love” and thus the community as a whole who will have their Candlestick removed if they don’t repent.

What is the sin of Ephesus then? The clues the immediate context itself gives us are unclear, “left thy first love” and not doing what they did in the beginning can be interpreted as referring to a lot of things.

The only other verse of the KJV that uses the words “first love” in sequence like that is 1 John 14:19 which uses them grammatically differently and so I don’t think can solidly be assumed to be talking about the same thing.  

The virtue of Ephesus is that they care about being doctrinally sound, they may not actually be more doctrinally sound then anyone else, but they strive to be.  That’s why they rejected the Nicolaitans and False Apostles.  Maybe their vice is something that often has a risk of going with their virtue.  Maybe in their zeal to reject those heretics they’ve accidentally rejected some they were meant to welcome?

In the message to Pergamon there apparently is good reason in the Greek for interpreting the Doctrine of the Nicolaitans and the Doctrine of Baalam as different names for the same doctrine.  So that would mean Ephesus is in part being praised for their not engaging in Idolatry or even compromising on the subject.

Of the things the Early Church was doing in the beginning, the two that were most explicitly their mission statement were spreading The Gospel and whatever Matthew 16:19 is about.  But I don't think “spreading The Gospel” means what most Evangelicals think it means, we were told to Be a Witness.  

In Matthew 16:19 Jesus quotes Isaiah 22:22, the Key that He gives Peter here is the Key of David.  To Catholics this is the source of Papal Authority, to the Orthodox and High Church Protestants this goes to all of the Clergy, not just one leader at the top.  But to those of us who take seriously the Priesthood of All Believers this is an authority inherited by All Believers, by all who Confess what Peter confessed in verse 16.

I am a Continuationist on the issue of the Spiritual Gifts, but I do feel many Pentecostals and Charismatics are making a mistake in seeing the Binding and Loosing that this verse talked about as being mainly about Spiritual Warfare, binding or losing Demons.  There is something else Jesus says in The Gospels that echos Matthew 16:19 in a way that I feel clarifies it, and that’s John 20:23 “Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.”  It’s about our authority to forgive Sins.

In the mid Third Century after the Decian Persecution had subsided there was a controversy in the Church, principally in Italy and North Africa about the issue of readmitting those who had lapsed during the persecution.  The mainstream Church sided with allowing readmittance after a penance had been done while the Novatians refused to allow any to be readmitted.  Later in the Fourth Century after the Diocletian Persecution and Edict of Milan this issue emerged again but the Donatists were not as extreme as the Novatians for them the focus was simply on allowing a formally Lapsed Christian to be part of the Clergy. 

It amazes me that anyone who read The New Testament considered this issue open for debate.  Peter himself lapsed, three times, and was under less immediate risk of losing his life then anyone who lapsed during the Decian or Diocletian Persecutions. His penance for these denials is recorded in John 21:15-19, Peter is forgiven and his position of leadership is reaffirmed.

Those who today sympathize with the Novatian position will cite passages from Hebrews 6 or others that are the same ones used by those who say Salvation can be lost, but Hebrew 6 is the core passage.  The context of Hebrews 6 is about explaining why some Apostates don’t repent, using it to prove a claimed repentance is insincere misses the point.  There are some people The Holy Spirit will for the time being leave where they are (I don’t believe The Spirit gives up on anyone permanently). 

[Update May 22nd: Also check out this YT video on Hebrews 6.]

1 Corinthians 12:3 proclaims that no one can confess Jesus is Lord except it be by The Holy Spirit.  1 John 14:15 says anyone who confesses that Jesus is The Son of God, God dwells in Him. Later 1st John 5:4-5 says that anyone who believes Jesus is The Son of God overcomes The World because they are Born of God.

Fake Christians can theoretically exist in the most literal sense, someone can simply lie about what they believe, but the concern so many Conservative Christians have about the existence of people who think they are Christians but are not is invalid, The New Testament assures us such people can’t exist.

Revelation's Criticism of Pergamon and Thyatira are of engaging in idolatry not refusing to forgive those did so.  Pergamon is urged to Repent while Jezebel had refused to Repent, both cases affirm that Repentance of this Sin is possible.

So the Novatians were wrong, and even the milder position of the Donatists was wrong.  And I think wrong in a way that is at least similar in spirit to how the Church of Ephesus in Revelation was wrong.  

Since I’ve connected them spiritually can I also connect them historically?

The Catholic Encyclopedia says John Chrysostom shut down some Novatian Churches active in Ephesus in his time.  Could it be that it was those Churches who more directly descended from the Christian Community of Ephesus the book of Revelation was addressing?

The Carthaginian origin of the Donatists (as well as there being Novatian sympathizers there and being influenced by Tertullian) makes it interesting that one proposed founder for the Carthaginian Church is Epentus who became a Christian in Ephesus.

Hippolytus of Rome was not a student of Irenaeus, that claim first pops up with Photios of Constantinople in the 9th Century.  Hippolytus taught some similar ideas to Irenaeus especially on Eschatology, but he could have come to them independently or just read Irenaeus. 

Hippolytus was probably not born into a Christian family since his name isn't Biblical but comes from a character in Pagan Greek Mythology.  The Pagan Hippolytus being associated with Artemis I'm willing to consider circumstantial evidence that Hippolytus of Rome may have had family ties to Ephesus, the ancient center of Artemis worship.

I bring this is up because Hippolytus alongside Tertullian are considered the Proto-Novatians.  How to deal with the Lapsi isn't something they directly address, but they held similar Rigorist views often associated with Novatian and Donatist tendencies as well as by the modern Landmarkists who identify with them.  If Novatian was born in 200 as traditionally assumed he could have been a student of Hippolytus in his youth.

The main group of Christians active today who desire to claim the Novatians and Donatists were right are the Landmark Baptists.  I do not believe in any actual historical continuity between Ancient Novatians or Donatists and contemporary Baptists of any kind, but that the Landmarkists desire to identify with them on this issue means they share their Ephesian vice.  So I shall devote the rest of this post to dealing with historical misconceptions about these groups that the Landmarkists perpetuate.

First I should cite someone before me who did similar work.  Tyler Robbins on the Wordpress Blog The Eccentric Fundamentalist.  But I don’t actually agree with him on everything.

https://eccentricfundamentalist.com/2018/03/04/were-the-novatians-early-baptists/

The main thing I disagree with is that I do believe the Novatians were Credo-Baptists.  Socrates records that they did not observe the Sacrament of Confirmation which only makes sense if they were Credo-Baptists. It’s well known that Novatian was heavily influenced by Tertullian who argued against Infant Baptism but for the wrong reasons as it is tied to his own belief in a type of Baptismal Regeneration, the idea that Sins committed after Baptism are what can’t be forgiven.

The Church in Rome may have been practicing Infant Baptism already, but it wasn’t yet the rigid Dogma it would become, it wasn’t till the late 4th Century that a belief in Unbaptized Babies being damned to endless punishment in hell began to be popularized by Catholics like Augustine and Pelegius and Cyril of Alexandria. So Novatian could have disagreed with the practice without really seeing it as something that worth arguing about.

Robbins himself quoted something that contradicts his assertion of Infant Baptism being already Universal, if Novatian himself wasn’t Baptized till  a time he thought he was about to die then he wasn’t Baptized as an infant.  And if he was a convert he wasn’t Baptized as soon as he converted either.  It sounds very in agreement with Tertullian's position.

The Apostolic Traditions are not the solid evidence he thinks it is either, there is increased scholarly skepticism it was even used in Rome and certainly that it was the standard universal form.  The earliest references to Infant Baptism existing are Origen and Tertullian, Origen defends it and Tertullian is against it but both speak of it in a way that only makes sense if it’s a new custom.

The error of Baptismal Regeneration came first and then Infant Baptism came from that, not the other way around.  

But Robbins is very correct in pointing out the ways in which Novatian was certainly not a Congregationalist.  Novatian was quite Authoritarian and Undemocratic.  Of course I often criticize contemporary Baptists for being pretty Episcopal in their own way, but that doesn't seem to be quite the same as Novatian's issue.

However while I oppose Novatianism I’m not as entirely in agreement with Cyprian as Robbins seems to be.  You see Cyprian was actually the centrist in this dispute, while Novatian disagreed with him from the right, others like the confusingly similarly named Novatus disagreed with Cyprian from the left. Based on my understanding of John 20 every Believer has the authority to forgive sins not merely the clergy, and based on John 21 the penance for lapsing is pretty simple actually.  Cyprian believed people insincere in their repentance were obvious and easy to spot, I fear even Cyprian would have rejected people he shouldn’t have.

The Landmarkists love to treat Novatians and Donatists as if they were simply different names for the same group, and the fact that many in the Mainstream Roman Church of the 4th and 5th Centuries who viewed both as heretics lumped them together in their attacks helps them do that.  But the Donatists were huge fans of Cyprian, they saw themselves as the more faithful followers of Cyprian then the mainstream Church.  Augustine of Hippo when criticizing the Donatists confirms they held to the same Church Polity as the mainstream Church. 

The Donatists were condemned for doing Rebaptisms, and that’s another source of confusion.  Because the 16th Century Protestant Anabaptists were doing all their Rebaptisms mainly because of their belief that Infant Baptisms were invalid, these Landmarkist pseudo-historians assume that must always be the reason for Rebaptism.  

Cyprian however was a supporter of Infant Baptism but who did call for Rebaptizing those who had been Baptized by people he considered heretics, like the Novatians, I'm sure the Donatists expanded this to include anyone Baptized by the Mainstream Church.  Augustine of Hippo when arguing with Donatists said Cyprian was wrong on that issue, and the then contemporary Bishop of Rome Stephen the First also disagreed with Cyprian on this issue.

Since who you place your Faith in at Baptism is Jesus not an organization I'm also inclined to agree that Cyprian was wrong on this reason for Rebaptism.  Adult Baptisms of people Baptized as Infants is the only Rebaptism I consider necessary.  But since Water Baptism is only symbolic doing a new one I'm not gonna call bad either.

The problem with claiming any groups to later pop up in Europe descend from the Donatists is that they never left North Africa.

The Montanists are also sometimes viewed as Proto-Novatians and thus also part of the Landmarkist theorizing.  However on their Wikipedia page the source for them opposing forgiving the Lapsi isn't a primary source, and other traits mentioned are the opposite.  Expanding the authority to forgive sins beyond just the Clergy is a trait of those who were to the Left of Cyprian and Rome not Novatians.

A lot of confusion about the Montanists comes from Tertullian's association with them.  Not everything Tertullian taught he got from the Montanists and some of it seems in conflict with what other sources imply about the Montanists.  He was clearly influenced by the Montanists but was awkwardly mixing some of their ideas with others he got from other sources.