The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

VI. Thube Asserts Papal Wound of 1798 to Be Healed

CHRISTIAN GOTTLOB THUBE was pastor at Baumgarten, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, in Germany. In 1789 Thube looked forward to a great day of vengeance for the papacy in 1836—influenced by Bengel’s curious mode of calculation. ³⁹ In 1796, in Ueber die nachslkommenden vierzig Jahre (Something About the Next Forty Years), Thube recorded a sermon preached by request before the duke of Mecklenburg in 1775, in which he predicted that a great revolution would break out within fifteen years, ⁴⁰ and which actually began in France in 1789. PFF2 777.1

1. PAPACY IDENTIFIED AS BEAST AND BABYLON

Thu e held the Papacy to be the prophesied Beast and Babylon-citing Revelation 13 2 Thessalonians 2, Daniel 7 and 11:36-45—“whom I consider to be all one and the same person, whom I call the Antichrist.” ⁴¹ PFF2 777.2

2. USUAL VIEWS ON LEADING PROPHECIES

In his book on Daniel, Thube offers a new translation of Daniel from the original. The standard view of the four kingdoms of Daniel 2 and 7 is held. ⁴² However, concerning the Little Horn of Daniel 7, Thube develops an unusual theory. He anticipates its appearance in the immediate future, and sees in the French Revolution a forecast of its disastrous powers. Like Bengel, he believes that world events would reach their climax in 1836. The judgment sitting in heaven takes place while this tyrant rules upon earth. ⁴³ The ending of the seventieth week he places in A.D. 37, with the crucifixion in A.D. 30, ⁴⁴ and 1836 as the great year of crisis. ⁴⁵ PFF2 777.3

3. WOUNDING OCCURRING BEFORE OUR EYES

Thube then deals with the French Revolution, and all the infidelic and atheistic excesses attendant, closing with these words: PFF2 777.4

“The most remarkable thing is that the French compelled the pope to make peace under the most oppressive conditions. The prophecy concerning the wounding of the beast, which we find in Revelation 13:14, is being fulfilled before our eyes. This wound, however, shall sooner or later be healed again. Then will come to pass what has been written in Revelation 13:11-17.” ⁴⁶ PFF2 778.1

4. TIME PERIODS ON BENGEL’S YEAR-DAY BASIS

In 1799 Thube published a work on the book of Revelation, which dis cusses in detail the prophetic time periods of the Apocalypse. ⁴⁷ These are all reckoned on the prophetic-day principle in which he follows Bengel’s fractional modifications. ⁴⁸ The pure woman is the true church in the wilderness and the Babylonian woman is the false church; the Papacy is also the beast from the sea.” ⁴⁹ PFF2 778.2

He also thought, like some writers before him, that the Papacy received a preliminary wound when Pope Gregory VII died in misery away from Rome and later counter-popes were battling each other. He likewise believed that under Urban II, the originator and promulgator of the Crusades, the early wound was healed. ⁵⁰ PFF2 778.3

5. WOUND BY THE SWORD TO BE HEALED

The French Revolution stroke against the Papacy is stressed as only a wound that would be healed, not as the extinction of the Papacy, as some anticipated. Thus: PFF2 778.4

“The beast has received a deadly wound, Revelation 13:12. It received the wound by the sword, verse 14. PFF2 778.5

“This was fulfilled by the French who with sword in hand banished the pope and his cardinals from Rome, dissolving the Papal States and erecting a so-called Roman Republic. PFF2 778.6

“The present condition of the Papacy is the following: it received a wound by the sword and yet it is alive. How long this condition will continue and under which form this still continuing life will exist, is not yet to be decided with certainty. The deadly wound will be healed, but whether it will take a short or long time we do not know; nor do we understand now in which manner and by which process it will come to pass.” ⁵¹ PFF2 778.7