1. This blasphemous and persecuting power was to continue “forty and two months,” three and one half years, or 1260 days (thirty days making a month by the ancient Bible reckoning). In prophetic language a “day” signifies a year. Ezekiel 4:6 . The establishment of the Papacy as a kingdom possessing what it has ever claimed as its right-spiritual authority and temporal power-dates from the overthrow of the last of the temporal powers that opposed the claims of the Bishop of Rome, which was accomplished in A.D. 538. Previous to this the Emperor Justinian had declared the Bishop of Rome to be head over all the churches. But two Arian powers, the Vandals and Ostrogoths, still opposed the claims of the Papacy. A third Arian power, the Heruli, had been overthrown in A.D. 493. Justinian turned his arms against the two remaining powers, subduing the Vandals in 538, and the Goths, who held possession of Rome, in 538. BEST April 26, 1897, par. 16
    Thus was “taken out of the way” that which “hindered,” and “that wicked,” the “man of sin,” was “revealed,” and left in undisputed supremacy at Rome, where, ever since the removal of the seat of the empire to the East by Constantine, he had been centering upon himself, as its chief person, the glory and prestige which still clung to the “eternal city.” " BEST April 26, 1897, par. 17 ↩︎
  2. But Roman history did not end with the division. Daniel watched, “And, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before which there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots.” A new power, a power outside the empire is here represented by the little horn. The Margin three divisions which were plucked up were the Heruli in 493, the Vandals in 534, and the Ostrogoths in 538 A. D. Justinian, the emperor, whose seat was at Constantinople, working through the general Belisarius, was the power which overthrew the three kingdoms represented by the three horns, and the reason for their overthrow was their adherence to Arianism in opposition to the orthodox Catholic faith. The details of the overthrow, and the religious controversy which was the root of the trouble, are fully given by Gibbon in the “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” by Mosheim in his church history, and by others. SDP 94.2 ↩︎
  3. I believe that the Herulian, the Vandalian, and the Ostrogothic, three of the original Roman kingdoms, were subverted, and that then, by decree of Justinian, the Bishop of Rome became head of all the churches, in the year 538. This was the commencement of papal power, and since that time the pope has worn out the saints of the Most High, and had them in his hand, until, according to the Religious Encyclopedia, “it has been computed that fifty millions have suffered martyrdom by his authority.” I believe that the time, times, and dividing of time, should be reckoned, as a year, two years, and a half year, making 1260 days, reckoning 12 months in a year, and 30 days in a month; and that each of these days was designed to denote a year; so that time, times, and the dividing of time includes 1260 years. From 538, when the power of the pope commenced by decree of Justinian, 1260 years would terminate in 1798. I believe that in February of that year the pope was taken prisoner by Berthier the commander of a French army, and carried captive into France, where he died; that that, therefore, was the termination of the time, times, and dividing of time. Since that time there has been an attempted resuscitation of papal power; but the saints have never since that time been in the hands of that power,-but protestantism, contrary to the will of the pope, has been tolerated in all the kingdoms over which he formerly had sway. LJL 34.2 ↩︎