The philosophy or theory that views relative historical events as the determinants of cultural values, institutions, and ideas, including those of historians and philosophers.

(according to Karl Popper) a label for those kinds of social philosophy which engage in sweeping historical prophesy and assert the inevitability of the prophesied course of history. (according to Isaiah Berlin) the view that "human thought and action are fully intelligible only in relation to their historical context"

The belief that the book of Revelation provides a prophetic and chronological outline of Christian history. Historicism was embraced by Martin Luther and John Calvin, and a rigid form of it is taught today by groups such as the Seventh-Day Adventists. There are valid elements and insights contained in historicism, and Catholics can benefit from them when they are studied with care and in the light of Church teaching.

Historicism relates the timing of the current church age through the day/year theory. The day/year theory takes numbers such as the 2,300 days (Daniel 8:14) and 1,290 days (Daniel 12:11) and declares them to be years. They also relate the seal, trumpet, and bowl judgments to major historical events that have occurred throughout the past 2,000 years. For example, the fifth seal in Revelation 6 may be identified as the martyrdom under Roman Emperor Diocletian (A.D. 284-304). The Pope is commonly looked at as being the Antichrist. Historicism is the view held by the Mormons, the Seventh-day Adventists, and the Jehovah's Witnesses.

Historicism in Christian eschatology is a school of interpretation of the eschatological prophecies of Daniel, Revelation and other passages are seen as finding literal earthly fulfillment through the history of the church age, and especially in relation to the Protestant- Catholic conflicts of the Reformation. A distinct feature of Historicism, which makes it very controversial, is the identification of the Antichrist (1 and 2 John), the Beast (Revelation 13), the Man of sin or Man of Lawlessness (2 Thessalonians 2) and the Whore of Babylon (Revelation chapter 17) with the Roman Catholic Church, the Papal system and each successive Pope himself (a common position held by protestants in the reformation, which is not prevalent today). The day-year principle, which is unique to historicism, is used to make this assertion.