Dispensationalist Only Explicit Teachings of Dispensationalism in Ancient Documents

Daniel Marsh

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The early Christian writers were futurists. This was so all pervasive that, even as late as the fifth century, Jerome wrote:

"We should therefore concur with the traditional interpretation of all the commentators of the Christian Church, that at the end of the world, when the Roman Empire is to be destroyed, there shall be ten kings who will partition the Roman world amongst themselves. Then an insignificant eleventh king will arise, who will overcome three of the ten kings, ..." (Jerome’s comments on Daniel 7:8, as found in “Jerome’s Commentary on Daniel,” translated by Gleason L. Archer, Jr., published by Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, 1958.)

In addition, almost all of the early Christian writers were also pre-millennial.

But neither of these is the subject of this thread, which is explicit teachings of Dispensationalism in ancient Christian documents.


Jerome's full quote:

Verse 8. "I was looking at the horns, and behold, another small horn rose up out of the midst of them, and three of the earlier horns were torn away before it. And behold, there were in that horn eyes like unto human eyes, and a mouth uttering overweening boasts." Porphyry vainly surmises that the little (p. 531) horn which rose up after the ten horns is Antiochus Epiphanes, and that the three uprooted horns out of the ten are (A) Ptolemy VI (surnamed Philometer), Ptolemy VII (Euergetes), and Artaraxias, King of Armenia. The first two of these kings died long before Antiochus was born. Against Artarxias, to be sure, we know that Antiochus indeed waged war, but also we know that Artarxias remained in possession of his original kingly authority. We should therefore concur with the traditional interpretation of all the commentators of the Christian Church, that at the end of the world, when the Roman Empire is to be destroyed, there shall be ten kings who will partition the Roman world amongst themselves. Then an insignificant eleventh king will arise, who will overcome three of the ten kings, that is, the king of Egypt, the king of [North] Africa, and the king of Ethiopia, as we shall show more clearly in our later discussion. Then after they have been slain, the seven other kings also will bow their necks to the victor. "And behold," he continues, "there were eyes like unto human eyes in that horn." Let us not follow the opinion of some commentators and suppose him to be either the Devil or some demon, but rather, one of the human race, in whom Satan will wholly take up his residence in bodily form. ". . .and a mouth uttering overweening boasts..." (cf. II Thess. 2). For this is the man of sin, the son (668) of perdition, and that too to such a degree that he dares to sit in the temple of God, making himself out to be like God.

St. Jerome, Commentary on Daniel (1958)  pp. 15-157

Where these events accurate with the end of the nation of Roman Government?
 
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Biblewriter

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Jerome's full quote:

Verse 8. "I was looking at the horns, and behold, another small horn rose up out of the midst of them, and three of the earlier horns were torn away before it. And behold, there were in that horn eyes like unto human eyes, and a mouth uttering overweening boasts." Porphyry vainly surmises that the little (p. 531) horn which rose up after the ten horns is Antiochus Epiphanes, and that the three uprooted horns out of the ten are (A) Ptolemy VI (surnamed Philometer), Ptolemy VII (Euergetes), and Artaraxias, King of Armenia. The first two of these kings died long before Antiochus was born. Against Artarxias, to be sure, we know that Antiochus indeed waged war, but also we know that Artarxias remained in possession of his original kingly authority. We should therefore concur with the traditional interpretation of all the commentators of the Christian Church, that at the end of the world, when the Roman Empire is to be destroyed, there shall be ten kings who will partition the Roman world amongst themselves. Then an insignificant eleventh king will arise, who will overcome three of the ten kings, that is, the king of Egypt, the king of [North] Africa, and the king of Ethiopia, as we shall show more clearly in our later discussion. Then after they have been slain, the seven other kings also will bow their necks to the victor. "And behold," he continues, "there were eyes like unto human eyes in that horn." Let us not follow the opinion of some commentators and suppose him to be either the Devil or some demon, but rather, one of the human race, in whom Satan will wholly take up his residence in bodily form. ". . .and a mouth uttering overweening boasts..." (cf. II Thess. 2). For this is the man of sin, the son (668) of perdition, and that too to such a degree that he dares to sit in the temple of God, making himself out to be like God.

St. Jerome, Commentary on Daniel (1958) pp. 15-157

Where these events accurate with the end of the nation of Roman Government?

What Jerome, and probably most of the "commentators of the Christian Church" that he referred to, could not have known, was that the Roman empire would be destroyed long before "the end of the world." Therefore they missed the fact that it would be revived in the end times.

Even the earliest Christian commentators had many errors about many things. One reason for this, of course, was that the Bible had not yet been reduced to a single book. and the scrolls which contained the individual books were both bulky and expensive. So many of them may not have even had the entire Bible at their disposal.

But as time went on, the reliability of these early writers grew less and less, rather than greater and greater, as the church, as a whole gradually descended into the gross deception of the medieval times. It did not take long until even the basic and fundamental truth of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, was lost. And once that has been lost, we are no longer reading the comments of great Christians led by the Holy Spirit, but the comments men who were most certainly not led by the Spirit of God.
 
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Copperhead

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I ran across a book not too long ago dedicated to this subject that I'm currently reading through. It's called, 'Dispensationalism Before Darby: Seventeenth-Century and Eighteenth-Century English Apocalypticism', by William C. Watson. It more than adequately crushes the idea that dispensationalism began with Darby.

Even one of the greatest minds of all time, and a prolific commentator on scripture, especially latter days events, had this to say a full century before Darby was born:

"About the time of the end, a body of men will be raised up who will turn their attention to the prophecies of the Bible and insist on a literal interpretation in the midst of much clamor and opposition" - Sir Isaac Newton.

It is a privilege to be associated with such men of stature and knowledge. Newton wrote more commentaries on scripture than he wrote on mathematics and physics.
 
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Biblewriter

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Yes, Newton and many other very old commentators said many things that have been largely forgotten today. There was a particular flurry of such commentaries in a half century period beginning shortly after the first publication of the King James version of the Bible in 1611. But these writers laid foundations which continue to have effect today.
 
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Daniel Marsh

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What Jerome, and probably most of the "commentators of the Christian Church" that he referred to, could not have known, was that the Roman empire would be destroyed long before "the end of the world." Therefore they missed the fact that it would be revived in the end times.

Even the earliest Christian commentators had many errors about many things. One reason for this, of course, was that the Bible had not yet been reduced to a single book. and the scrolls which contained the individual books were both bulky and expensive. So many of them may not have even had the entire Bible at their disposal.

But as time went on, the reliability of these early writers grew less and less, rather than greater and greater, as the church, as a whole gradually descended into the gross deception of the medieval times. It did not take long until even the basic and fundamental truth of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, was lost. And once that has been lost, we are no longer reading the comments of great Christians led by the Holy Spirit, but the comments men who were most certainly not led by the Spirit of God.


Jerome died in 420 AD, the Canon of the NT was established in 399.
 
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Biblewriter

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Dispensational Publishing House just published a book dealing at length with the subject matter of this thread. Its title is "Ancient Dispensational Truth," by James C. Morris.
 
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Copperhead

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Dr. Ken Johnson specializes in ancient writings and has published many books that some include many statements of early Church writers teaching a dispensational, pre-trib concept.

One can find support not only for a dispensational teaching, but almost every other teaching also. One has to keep in mind, that the Church in general could not even get out of the 1st century before it was starting to get into trouble. If one doesn't believe that, they haven't read the Bible.

For instance, in general the Church held to a amillennial teaching concept for a thousand years until the reformation kicked in and there was a "back to the Bible" mentality. So it would make sense that many writings prior to the reformation period would favor amillennial centered writings. But that is not sound basis for determining that another position is errant. We all know the Church leadership itself was pretty errant for over 1000 years. That is why that period included the "Dark Ages".
 
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Biblewriter

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Dr. Ken Johnson specializes in ancient writings and has published many books that some include many statements of early Church writers teaching a dispensational, pre-trib concept.

One can find support not only for a dispensational teaching, but almost every other teaching also. One has to keep in mind, that the Church in general could not even get out of the 1st century before it was starting to get into trouble. If one doesn't believe that, they haven't read the Bible.

For instance, in general the Church held to a amillennial teaching concept for a thousand years until the reformation kicked in and there was a "back to the Bible" mentality. So it would make sense that many writings prior to the reformation period would favor amillennial centered writings. But that is not sound basis for determining that another position is errant. We all know the Church leadership itself was pretty errant for over 1000 years. That is why that period included the "Dark Ages".
There can be zero doubt that this is correct. From its pure doctrine as received from the Apostles, the church quickly devolved into the doctrines of man, until by the eighth century there was only an outline of real Christianity to be found in most of their writings. That is, more of what they wrote was pure opinion than was actually based on scripture.
 
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Daniel Marsh

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In the book I mentioned in post 12, the author cites a 1479 work by Denys van Leeuwen where the both the pre-trib rapture and the Tribulation itself is mentioned. So, I'm guessing it wasn't developed a century later.
link to that book please
 
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Daniel Marsh

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That is a most excellent work, well documented by a true expert in the subject, as he was already a professor of seventeenth and eighteenth century English literature before he started this work.

But I rarely quote him because I avoid using secondary sources. Unless I state otherwise, almost everything I post about ancient documents is something that I have personally read, and therefore, that I personally know is not only accurately quoted, but is also quoted in its correct context.

On page 45, he listed fifteen writers from the 1500s and 1600s who taught that the Jews would return to their ancient homeland. And he omitted William Lowth, who very clearly and repeatedly stated this in the very early 1700s, and from whom I have quoted extensively. And on page 280 he listed forty writers from the 1500s through the 1700s who were either lovers of Israel or who expected the restoration Israel.

On page 130 he listed no less that 40 writers from the 1500s through the 1700s, who clearly referred to dispensations.

On page 177 he listed 19 teachers from the 1300s through the 170s, that spoke of the Lord's taking his own as being "rapt" or called it a "rapture," as well as six more from the 1600s and 1700s who spoke of those "left behind" when this happened.

On page 178 he listed eleven writers from the 1600s and 1700s who spoke of separate resurrections well before the destruction of the earth, and fourteen more from the same era who spoke of the saints being taken to heaven to escape troubles on the earth.

And all this was only summaries. He filled approximately 300 pages with explicit detail about all this.

What is the title and link to it, please
 
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Daniel Marsh

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dis·pen·sa·tion
/ˌdispənˈsāSH(ə)n,ˌdispenˈsāSH(ə)n/
Learn to pronounce
noun
plural noun: dispensations
1.
exemption from a rule or usual requirement.
"although she was too young, she was given special dispensation to play two matches"
synonyms: exemption, immunity, exception, exclusion, exoneration, freedom, release, relief, reprieve, remission, relaxation, absolution; More
permission to be exempted from the laws or observances of the Church.
"he received papal dispensation to hold a number of benefices"
2.
a system of order, government, or organization of a nation, community, etc., especially as existing at a particular time.
"scholarship is conveyed to a wider audience than under the old dispensation"
synonyms: system, order, scheme, plan, arrangement, organization
"minorities have a special voice in the new constitutional dispensation"
(in Christian theology) a divinely ordained order prevailing at a particular period of history.
"the Mosaic dispensation"
ARCHAIC
an act of divine providence.
"the laws to which the creator in all his dispensations conforms"
3.
the action of distributing or supplying something.
"regulations controlling dispensation of medications"
synonyms: distribution, provision, providing, supply, supplying, issue, issuing, passing round, passing out, giving out, handing out, dealing out, doling out, sharing out, dividing out, parcelling out; More
Origin

late Middle English: from Latin dispensatio(n- ), from the verb dispensare (see dispense).
 
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Daniel Marsh

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What Jerome, and probably most of the "commentators of the Christian Church" that he referred to, could not have known, was that the Roman empire would be destroyed long before "the end of the world." Therefore they missed the fact that it would be revived in the end times.

Even the earliest Christian commentators had many errors about many things. One reason for this, of course, was that the Bible had not yet been reduced to a single book. and the scrolls which contained the individual books were both bulky and expensive. So many of them may not have even had the entire Bible at their disposal.

But as time went on, the reliability of these early writers grew less and less, rather than greater and greater, as the church, as a whole gradually descended into the gross deception of the medieval times. It did not take long until even the basic and fundamental truth of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, was lost. And once that has been lost, we are no longer reading the comments of great Christians led by the Holy Spirit, but the comments men who were most certainly not led by the Spirit of God.

A first period extends to his sojourn in Rome (382), a period of preparation. From this period we have the translation of the homilies of Origen on Jeremias, Ezechiel, and Isaias (379-81), and about the same time the translation of the Chronicle of Eusebius; then the "Vita S. Pauli, prima eremitae" (374-379).

A second period extends from his sojourn in Rome to the beginning of the translation of the Old Testament from the Hebrew (382-390). During this period the exegetical vocation of St. Jerome asserted itself under the influence of Pope Damasus, and took definite shape when the opposition of the ecclesiastics of Rome compelled the caustic Dalmatian to renounce ecclesiastical advancement and retire to Bethlehem. In 384 we have the correction of the Latin version of the Four Gospels; in 385, the Epistles of St. Paul; in 384, a first revision of the Latin Psalms according to the accepted text of the Septuagint (Roman Psalter); in 384, the revision of the Latin version of the Book of Job, after the accepted version of the Septuagint; between 386 and 391 a second revision of the Latin Psalter, this time according to the text of the "Hexapla" of Origen (Gallican Psalter, embodied in the Vulgate). It is doubtful whether he revised the entire version of the Old Testament according to the Greek of the Septuagint. In 382-383 "Altercatio Luciferiani et Orthodoxi" and "De perpetua Virginitate B. Mariae; adversus Helvidium". In 387-388, commentaries on the Epistles to Philemon, to the Galatians, to the Ephesians, to Titus; and in 389-390, on Ecclesiastes.

Between 390 and 405, St. Jerome gave all his attention to the translation of the Old Testament according to the Hebrew, but this work alternated with many others. Between 390-394 he translated the Books of Samuel and of Kings, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Canticle of Canticles, Esdras, and Paralipomena. In 390 he translated the treatise "De Spiritu Sancto" of Didymus of Alexandria; in 389-90, he drew up his "Quaestiones hebraicae in Genesim" and "De interpretatione nominum hebraicorum." In 391-92 he wrote the "Vita S. Hilarionis", the "Vita Malchi, monachi captivi", and commentaries on Nahum, Micheas, Sophonias, Aggeus, Habacuc. In 392-93, "De viris illustribus", and "Adversus Jovinianum"; in 395, commentaries on Jonas and Abdias; in 398, revision of the remainder of the Latin version of the New Testament, and about that time commentaries on chapters 13-23 of Isaias; in 398, an unfinished work "Contra Joannem Hierosolymitanum"; in 401, "Apologeticum adversus Rufinum"; between 403-406, "Contra Vigilantium"; finally from 398 to 405, completion of the version of the Old Testament according to the Hebrew.

In the last period of his life, from 405 to 420, St. Jerome took up the series of his commentaries interrupted for seven years. In 406, he commented on Osee, Joel, Amos, Zacharias, Malachias; in 408, on Daniel; from 408 to 410, on the remainder of Isaias; from 410 to 415, on Ezechiel; from 415-420, on Jeremias. From 401 to 410 date what is left of his sermons; treatises on St. Mark, homilies on the Psalms, on various subjects, and on the Gospels; in 415, "Dialogi contra Pelagianos".
CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: St. Jerome

It was this that as Richard Bentley, writing to Archbishop Wade, declares, "obliged Damasus, then Bishop of Rome, to employ St. Jerome to regulate the last revised translation of each part of the New Testament to the original Greek and to set out a new edition so castigated and corrected." This St. Jerome did, as he declares in his preface "ad Graecam Veritatem, ad exemplaria Graeca sed Vetera."
CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Revision of Vulgate

CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Canon of the New Testament
 
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Copperhead

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The big problem we have in this discussion is that many who did proclaim a pre-millennial and even a pre-trib view, many times they were branded as heretics by the institutional church and burned alive along with their writings. It really wasn't until the printing press came into being that multiple copies could be made and disseminated around so that it would be near impossible to banish them.

We really have no true idea of how many did espouse a pre-millennial view or even a pre-trib view. The evidence is there that it was a concept held by some long before Darby came on the scene. It was not out of the mind of some goofy Scottish girl named MacDonald. I challenge anyone to get a copy of what she really said and prove that it had anything to do with the pre-trib idea and show us. She never did. Even critics of the pre-trib position have had to admit that MacDonald said nothing in regards to the pre-trib idea.

Just went back and read it again myself. Nix, Nein, Nada on the pre-trib by little Maggie MacDonald. Actually, some of her ramblings seem to suggest a post-trip view. At most, that it is pre-millennial. Yet folks will continue to claim that Darby got the idea from this little lass. Goebbels was right... if you tell a lie long enough it eventually becomes the truth.

I am pre-trib but want to thank the Preterit Archive folks for providing MacDonald's vision to us to show us all that there is not one bit of pre-trib in her vision...... even though they call it her pre-trib vision. Wonder if they actually took the time to read it?

http://www.preteristarchive.com/dEmEnTiA/1975_macpherson_incredible-coverup.html
 
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You requested links to several articles mentioned earlier.

Most of them can be found in one of the other of the two following books:

"Dispensationalism Before Darby, by William C. Watson, Lampion press, 2015, ISBN #978-1-942614-03-6.

Ancient Dispensational Truth," by James C. Morris (me,) Dispensational Publishing House, 2018, ISBN #978-1-944774-29-4.

Some are also included in my new book, now available for pre-publication order, "Keys to Bible Prophecy," by James C. Morris, Dispensational Publishing House, 2019, ISBN# 978-1-945774-33-1.
 
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Copperhead

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I have to do some more digging to get the information on this guy, but there also was a secular writer in 1894, published by Harvard University Press, that also outlined that dispensational teaching preempted Darby. At least back to 1600 and probably further.
 
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Daniel Marsh

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The big problem we have in this discussion is that many who did proclaim a pre-millennial and even a pre-trib view, many times they were branded as heretics by the institutional church and burned alive along with their writings. It really wasn't until the printing press came into being that multiple copies could be made and disseminated around so that it would be near impossible to banish them.

What is your proof? from primary sources only with links, please.
 
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Daniel Marsh

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You requested links to several articles mentioned earlier.

Most of them can be found in one of the other of the two following books:

"Dispensationalism Before Darby, by William C. Watson, Lampion press, 2015, ISBN #978-1-942614-03-6.

Ancient Dispensational Truth," by James C. Morris (me,) Dispensational Publishing House, 2018, ISBN #978-1-944774-29-4.

Some are also included in my new book, now available for pre-publication order, "Keys to Bible Prophecy," by James C. Morris, Dispensational Publishing House, 2019, ISBN# 978-1-945774-33-1.

thanks requesting from library
 
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