Daniel 7, the 11th Horn, part 4
“a time and times and the dividing of time.�?(verse 25)

Symbolic or Literal?

This precise period of time that we find here in Daniel 7 is found a total of 7 times in the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation - and it is expressed in three different ways. Three time it is expressed in terms of a number of years or “times�?as here in Daniel 7. Twice it is expressed in terms of months, and twice again in terms of days. And all, preterits, historicist and literalist agree -- whether you are counting up years or months or days, they all add up to the same length of time. 1260 prophetic days.

“Time�?as used in Daniel is a prophetic year. Thus “a time and times and the dividing of time.�?would represent three and a half prophetic years. A prophetic year is an idealized year consisting of 12 months of 30 days each, for a total of 360 days.

Now the question is: Is this time span to be interpreted literally or symbolically? Preterits and literalist say literally. Historicist say symbolically. Who is right?

A prophetic year of 360 days is neither a Jewish calendar year, which was a lunar year of variable length, or a solar calendar year of 365.25 days. A 360 day year is a idealized representation of a year - thus not literal, but symbolic. Hence its 360 days are symbolic, not literal.

Also it should be noted that these time expressions often occur in the midst of highly symbolic prophecy. So it would be a pretty safe bet to say that this 1260 days is to be taken symbolically.

So now the question is, how long is a day in symbolic prophecy? The principle given us in the Bible is, that when a day is used in symbolism, it stands for a year. In symbol, God uses one day to equal to one year of real time. There are over 120 examples of this symbolic usage in the scripture, of which I show three examples below.

Numbers 14: 34 - After the number of the days in which you searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall you bear your iniquities, even forty years.

Ezekiel 4: 6 - ... lie down on your right side, and you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed you each day for a year.

Genesis 29: 27 - Fulfill her week, and we will give you this also for the service which you shall serve with me yet seven other years.

Both Jews and Christian from the earliest times have understood this concept of prophetic time. The day/year principle of interpretation is a most ancient and solid principle of exegesis.

So these 1260 prophetic days (however they are expressed) represent 1260 literal years that this persecuting power was to rule.

When does it Begin?

Now the question is: Is there anything in the history of the papacy that answers to the 1260 prophetic days/years? And the answer is a most decided yes.

If so, then when did these 1260 years begin? Daniel tells us. It was rise of the ten horns, the division of the Roman empire into ten kingdoms, and the subsequent fall of three of those horns that effectively unleashed the papacy. This has been acknowledged by the popes themselves, as Pope Pius IX virtually tells us in this little passage from his Apoltolic Letter, Cum Ectholica Ecclesia, dated March 26, 1860. In it he writes:

"[The Catholic Church] must possess liberty such that she cannot be subject to any civil power in the execution of her sacred ministry. �?It is, therefore, by a particular decree of Divine Providence that, at the fall of the Roman Empire and its partition into separate kingdoms, the Roman Pontiff, whom Christ made the head and center of his entire Church, acquired civil power." - Pius IX, Apostolic Letter, Cum Ectholica Ecclesia, March 26, 1860. “Papal Teachings: The Church, selected and arranged by the Benedictine Monks of Solesmes,�?translated by Mother E. O'Gorman, R.S.C.J., Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart, St. Paul Editions, par #225, page 160

And this is precisely what we have been studying in the previous postings. Pope Pius IX probably did not have Daniel’s little horn prophecy in mind when he wrote this, but it makes a nice little summary statement of the historical rise of the little horn (papacy) at the time of imperial Rome’s division.

To briefly review, after the breakup of the empire, the Catholics in Rome found themselves wholly under the dominion of Arian powers, first the Heruli and then the Ostrogoths. In fact, the Catholics were so fully under the dominion of their Arians masters that under both Heruli and Ostorgoth rule, that by law no man could be elected Pope without the approval of the king.

In 533 Justinian, the Catholic emperor of the eastern remnant of the empire, issued a decree establishing the Bishop of Rome (the Pope) as the supreme head over all Christianity. But the popes were hardly in the position to exercise dominion over all Christianity when their Arian masters reserved for themselves the right to decide the outcome of any papal election.

Justinian then began waging open war with the Arians. Belisarius, Justinian’s top general, first destroyed the Arian Vandals in 534. Then turning north, he moved upon Rome so quickly he took the Ostrogoths by surprise, and with only a 5000 man army marched into the city of Rome in December of 536. In March, the following year (537), Belisarius, under the direction of the emperor, deposed and exiled Pope Silverius who had been installed by Theodhad, the last of the Ostrogoth kings, who had bullied the Catholic clergy into electing this pro-Gothic pope. Belisarius then installed Vigilius, (who reigned until 555) as the Pope in March of 537. Meanwhile, the Ostrogoths counter attacked and laid siege to Rome. The siege was broken and the Ostrogoths defeated on March 12, 538. Rome was now fully under Catholic control, and the church headed by a truly Catholic pope. And so it was on March 12, 538, that Emperor Justinian’s Decree declaring the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome over the Church could finally be implemented. And so begins the prophetic 1260 years of temporal rule by the papacy.

“The providence of God permitted a succession of irruptions, Gothic, Lombard, and Hungarian, to desolate Italy, and to efface from it every remnant of the Empire. �?And from the hour of this providential liberation, when, by a Divine intervention, the chains fell off from the hands of the successor of St. Peter, �?no sovereign has ever reigned in Rome except the Vicar of Jesus Christ.�?xxiix, xxix.

“I say, then, that it was God's own act which liberated His Vicar upon earth from subjection to temporal power; and that for twelve hundred years the Bishops of Rome have reigned as temporal princes. �?They are the first example of a Christian monarchy, the first seed of Christian Europe, the first roll of Christian princes. When France was yet distracted by conflicting races, when England was divided by the Heptarchy, when Germany was a forest, and when Spain was a desolation, the Vicar of Christ already reigned as a sovereign prince in Rome.�?pages 16, 17.

The Temporal Power of the Vicar of Jesus Christ, by Henry Edward Manning, D.D. (appointed Archbishop of Westminster in 1865 and Cardinal in 1875), second edition,1862.

When does it end?

While Daniel tells us when the 1260 years begin, we must turn to Revelation to find its end. In previous postings we have already noted the link between Daniel 7 and the seven headed dragon beast of Revelation 13. Of particular interest right now is verse 3.

If as has been proposed here, the 1260 years began in 538, simple arithmetic tells us that the 1260 years must then terminate in 1798.

In 1798 the papacy received a stroke, a deadly wound, that was deliberately intended to terminate the papacy forever. On February 15, 1798, just mere days before the 1260th year expired, General Alexander Berthier issued a proclamation in Rome informing Pope Pius VI and the people of Rome that the pope should no longer “exercise any function.�?

"The object of the French directory was the destruction of the pontifical government, as the irreconcilable enemy of the republic. They urged their general to drive the pope and cardinals out of Rome. Bonaparte proposed to give the Eternal City to the King of Spain, on condition of his recognizing the French republic. Failing in this, he resorted to a system of pillage which exhausted its resources, and finally a democratical demonstration was got up at Rome in the accustomed manner, in which one of the French envoys was killed by the fire of pontifical troops. This misfortune afforded the desired pretext. The French army pouring in under Berthier planted the tri-color on the Capitol, while their Roman confederates displaying the famous insignia, S. P. Q. R., shouted for liberty. The aged pope [Pius VI] was summoned to surrender the temporal government; on his refusal, he was dragged from the altar, and the soldiers plundered the Vatican in presence of its owner. They stripped his own chamber: when he asked to be left to die in peace, he was brutally answered that any place would serve to die in. His rings were torn from his fingers, and finally, after declaring the temporal power abolished, the victors carried the pope prisoner into Tuscany, whence he never returned (1798)."

"The Papal States, converted into the Roman Republic, were declared to be in perpetual alliance with France, but the French general was the real master at Rome. The citizens groaned under his terrible exactions, Churches, convents, palaces, were stripped to the bare walls. The works of art were all carried off. The territorial possessions of the clergy and monks were declared national property, and their former owners cast into prison. The papacy was extinct: not a vestige of its existence remained; and among all the Roman Catholic powers not a finger was stirred in its defence. The Eternal City had no longer prince or pontiff; its bishop was a dying captive in foreign lands; and the decree was already announced that no successor would be allowed in his place."

Source: Rome: From the Fall of the Western Empire by Rev. George Trevor, M.A., London: The Religious Tract Society, 1868, pgs. 439, 440

About a century later, Joseph Rickaby, a Jesuit priest, observed that when Pope Pius VI passed away as a French prisoner, “half of Europe thought �?that with the Pope the Papacy was dead.�?/FONT> Napoleon had closed down the Catholic Church and the Papacy, and it's power was thought to be forever broken. But as Revelation 13:3 goes on to say, the deadly wound was healed, and as a result all the world would marvel or wonder after the beast.

“And he shall �?think to change times and laws�?(verse 25)

In the previous post I mentioned briefly how in fulfillment of this prophecy the papacy claims the authority to change even divine laws. And indeed, the Roman Catholic Church actually boasts of having made changes in God’s law. But our emphasis now is not on the changing of laws, but on the Catholic church’s attempt to change divinely appointed times.

It is the 16th century, and the Protestant Reformation is on a roll, and hundreds of thousands of people are leaving the Roman church to join the Protestant movement. The Reformers all used the Historicist method of interpreting prophecy, as it was for all intents and purposes the only game in town when it came to prophetic interpretation. And it was because of this method to interpreting prophecy that they identified the Roman church as being the beast of Revelation 13, the little horn of Daniel 7, Babylon, etc.- - in short they said, based on their Historicist understanding of prophecy, the papacy was the antichrist of Scripture, and loudly proclaimed it to all who would listen.

Now as noted in previous posts, that the Papacy was anti-Christ, the little horn of Daniel 7, the man of sin of 2 Thessalonians 2, etc., was something of an open secret within the Roman hierarchy. But having this knowledge as an insider secret was one thing. Having it shouted to the world from the roof tops was quite another.

Obviously the Roman church did not appreciate it when the Reformers let their little insider secret out. But the Roman church had no alternative to offer the people as the Historicist approach was pretty much the only game in town. And so the Roman church (as part of the counter reformation effort) made a deliberate decision to reinterpret the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation. To reinterpreted the prophecies concerning the little horn and the beast, etc. A reinterpretation that would take the heat off the Roman Catholic Church. In the course of time two Spanish Jesuits rose to the challenge, Louis de Alcasar (1554-1613) of Seville and Franciso Rivera (1537-1591) of Salamanca.

Their strategy was, (in a nutshell), one of reapplication and diversion, yet they went in opposite directions. Alcazar revived and more fully developed the old Preterist approach, which was originally developed by ancient pagans in the early Christian era in an attempt to undermine the Christian church. But it was Rivera who hit the jackpot with a Futurist (aka: Literalist) approach.

If all the prophecies the Reformers were using to identify Rome with the harlot, the beast, the anti-Christ, etc., were fulfilled in the past (Preterist) then they could not possibly refer to the Roman church. Likewise, if they were all yet to be fulfilled at some indefinite future date (Futurist) they also could not refer to the Roman church.

Thus the origins of our modern Futurist and Preterist systems of prophetic interpretation dates back to the counter reformation, a deliberate attempt by the Roman Church to undermine and destroy the Protestant Reformation.

Initially both of these approaches to prophecy went over like lead balloons in the Protestant world. But there were some radical fringe elements that were attracted to them, and in time, with some modification, they were eventually made more attractive to Protestants in general.

Both of these approaches required a modification or change in how prophetic time was to be understood. Historicist had taken the time elements in the prophecies of Daniel and Revelations symbolically, adapting the age old year/day principle. For the Preterist and Futurist systems to work, these time elements would have to be taken literally. Also, to make this work, in the case of Futurism the last week of the 70 in Daniel 9 had to be severed from the others and drifted into some indefinite and safely distant future age. And so to protect itself the Roman Catholic Church tampered with the prophetic time lines, and changed them in such a manner as to void any possible reference to itself. And it has been so successful that most modern Christians not only cannot see the Roman Church in these prophecies, but cannot even find Christianity anywhere beyond chapter 3 in Revelation.

And so it can be said that the current infatuation of the Christian world with either the Preterist or Futurist (aka: Literalist) systems of prophetic interpretations is itself a direct fulfillment of prophecy. “And he shall �?think to change times and laws�?(verse 25)