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Tell me ANYTHING said by Papias in his five volumes, other than that he was a chiliast.Then Find me one ECF who wrote about the Olivet who did NOT teach that Matthew 24 found fulfillment in the first century.
We KNOW that books were written that were NOT preserved. This is HARD PROOF that it is sheer nonsense to claim that ANY particular idea was NEVER taught.
My point was the gross foolishness of your claim. But in addition to be grossly foolish, it was flat out wrong. Irenaeus wrote about Matthew 24, clearly teaching that it was about a future (future from the time of his writing, which was around 186-188 A.D.) coming of the Antichrist.Then Find me one ECF who wrote about the Olivet who did NOT teach that Matthew 24 found fulfillment in the first century.
He taught this at length, but an example is:
"Now I have shown in the third book, that no one is termed God by the apostles when speaking for themselves, except Him who truly is God, the Father of our Lord, by whose directions the temple which is at Jerusalem was constructed for those purposes which I have already mentioned; in which [temple] the enemy shall sit, endeavouring to show himself as Christ, as the Lord also declares: 'But when ye shall see the abomination of desolation, which has been spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (let him that readeth understand), then let those who are in Judea flee into the mountains; and he who is upon the house-top, let him not come down to take anything out of his house: for there shall then be great hardship, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, nor ever shall be.'"
"Against Heresies," by Irenaeus, book 5, chapter 25.
And not long after that time Hippolytus wrote the same concerning the future Antichrist in section 62 of his "Treatise on Christ and Antichrist," saying,
"The Lord also says, 'When ye shall see the abomination of desolation stand in the holy place (whoso readeth, let him understand), then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains, and let him which is on the housetop not come down to take his clothes; neither let him which is in the field return back to take anything out of his house. And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck, in those days! for then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved.' And Daniel says, 'And they shall place the abomination of desolation a thousand two hundred and ninety days. Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand two hundred and ninety-five days.'"
And even as late as the fifth century, Jerome called futurism "the traditional interpretation of all the commentators of the Christian Church." (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.)
So the truth is that the early ECF's were more uniform in applying the Olivet discourse to their future, than in applying it their past. That is, the truth is exactly the opposite of what you mistakenly claimed.
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