Yes, what I stated was opinion, as fsr as you are conerned. but it is actual memory for me.
"Actual memory" for you is opinion for everyone else.
And the context of this entire discussion, on your part, has always been a futurized Antichrist, as you choose to all it. But you have consistently claimed that this concept is "dispenational futurism." The truth is that all futurists, dispensational or otherwise, believe the Antichrist is a future individual. And many of them are not even remotely dispensational.
Every dispensationalist is a futurist who believes in a futurized antichrist. The expression
"dispensational futurist" is entirely legitimate.
I've never denied that belief in a futurized antichrist existed in early Church history up to the Reformation. But it is indisputable that such belief had disappeared within the Reformation during its era. Not a one of your quotations is from a recognized Reformer, nor are any of them acknowledged by a recognized Reformer, nor are any of your quotation authors acknowledged by a recognized Reformer. Any who wrote during the Reformation era, and espoused a futurized antichrist, would have been essentially closet papists, as was Samuel Maitland some two centuries later.
And you have admitted that the opinion that Ribera was amillennian was "highly likely." This, if correct, is hard proof that Darby's work was far more likely to be based on Way's work, than upon Ribera's.
"Way's work" is nonexistent, so Darby's work could not be based upon it.
But I would point out two things. First, that this was not, as you seemed to imply, an exchange of letters between Darby and Maitland, but was an open debate, being carried out in widely circulated publications of the day.
My words were "exchanging communications". Since when are letters to a publication not communications?
And you did not seem to notice that, rather than getting his ideas from Maitland, Darby was DEBATING Maitland. At this point in time, beginning four years after Maitland had published about Riberar's work, (And Darby flatly stated that he had read Maitland's two publications) Darby was still defending the historicist interpretation.
Where do you see that "Darby flatly stated that he had read Maitland's two publications"? I must have missed it.
Darby was historicist before embracing futurism. He was still historicist at that time.
Maitland authored a large number of publications. Ribera's is not mentioned in their communications exchanges. We have no idea what two publications he read.
So Darby's conversion to futurism was not based on Ribera's work, but on a study of what the scriptures actually say.
OPINION.
But the letters you have posted clearly prove that Darby did not simply read about Ribera's work and take that position for his own.
You're correct; he didn't that day.
But his final conclusions waeresimply not based on Ribera's work. For, after examining it, he remained unconvinced for a significant period of time.
In 1831 he began display evidence of his conversion to futurism. There is no evidence of exactly when he became aware of Ribera's work, so the period of time during which he remained unconvinced cannot be ascertained. But the change from unconvinced to convinced appears to have been relatively rapid, hardly an uncommon phenomenon.