Introduction: The 1260 Prophetic Years Problem

The prophetic time period of “times, time, and a dividing of time,” introduced in Daniel 7:24-26, has been historically understood by Adventists as comprising the period of 1260 years of papal supremacy and persecution during the middle ages. Prior to the French Revolution, Christian thinkers gave a range of views about when the period started and ended. But with the rise of Napoleon, and the exile into captivity of the Pope by French general Berthier, there was a rare moment of near prophetic unanimity among Protestant expositors, who declared that this period ended in 1798 AD. It was a matter, then, of running the period backwards from that point to find the starting point, which would be 538 AD.¹

This was where a fly appeared in the otherwise clear, prophetic ointment. After the shock and clarity of the events of the 1790s subsided, some scholars could not see as obviously a decisive an event in 538 AD to match the clarity of the concluding event of a Pope being exiled and dying in jail. Some thought that the opening of this period was signaled by the third horn of Daniel 7 being uprooted, which was the defeat of the Ostrogoths by Justinian’s general Belisarius in 538. The trouble was that the decisive “defeat” appeared a little anti-climactic, as it involved the breaking of the Ostrogoth siege of Rome by Belasarius. This event seems just one stage in an ongoing conflict that actually continued for at least two decades more. The Ostrogoths regained Rome in the 540s, and needed to be dislodged again by Belisarius. The Ostrogoths were not fully defeated until about 553 AD. So what made the 538 battle so much more prophetically significant and decisive than similar victories in the 540s and the final battle in 553?²

The lack of a clear answer to this question about the significance of 538 has caused some expositors to argue that 538 has no inherent significance, and that it has merely been chosen because of its convenient relationship to the decisive ending in 1798. This has caused some scholars to move away from viewing the 1260-year prophecy as having a literal, historical application, and as being more of a symbolic number. Adventists have not been unaffected by this shift, and some scholars are arguing that these numbers should be understood generally and symbolically, rather than as referring to particular periods of historical time. This approach has also gained ground in relation to some other prophetic time periods, such as those found in the Fifth and Sixth trumpets of Revelation.

It is the argument of this author that a move away from military events, and a move towards those surrounding the implementation or dissolution of legal authority structures, provides a firmer basis for these prophetic periods of time. Such an approach can put the traditional historicist approach on a firmer footing. An approach to these periods based on legal, rather than military events, is supported from within the biblical text itself.

Adventist Approaches to the Terminal Points of the 1260 Years: Primarily Militaristic and Political

As early Adventists adopted the prophecy as part of the historicist heritage, most prophetic expositors tied the timing of the beginning of the 1260 years with military victories of Rome in the final uprooting of the three horns by the little horn of Daniel 7:8, 20, 24. For example, Uriah Smith recorded the uprooting of the three horns as being the “Heruli, A.D. 493, the Vandals, in 534, and the Ostrogoths finally in 553.” He argues, however, without much real explanation, that effective opposition to Justinian’s proclamation of the supremacy of the Roman bishop ceased in 538.³

In discussing this prophecy, Smith does not directly reference the Justinian Code, but rather refers to the “decree” or “edict” by which Justinian made the pope head of all the churches.⁴ He dwells on the “army of Belisarius, the general of Justinian,” who is “hailed as deliverers” by “Catholics everywhere.”⁵ The overall affect is to place the emphasis on military events, rather than the profound legal changes instituted by the Code.

Further, in discussing the end of the period, Smith also focuses on the militaristic. “In the year 1798, Berthier, with a French army, entered Rome, proclaimed a republic, took the pope prisoner, and inflicted a deadly wound upon the papacy.”⁶ He makes no mention of the cessation of the Justinian Code. Neither does he remark on or reference the implementation of the secular, Napoleonic code, which displaced the religious/political legal framework that the Justinian Code had superintended for more than 1200 years.

Smith at least acknowledged some of the messiness of the military story, noting that the Ostrogoths were not defeated until 553. But he does not reveal that the Ostrogoths retook Rome in 540s, and it had to be recaptured again by Belisarius’ forces.⁷ His lean towards the military story set the tone for future expositors, many of whom turned the story almost entirely into one of military conquest and timing.

An important exception to this trend is that of Ellen White. In the Great Controversy, she did not deal in detail with the events of the uprooting of the three horns, or of Justinian’s conquests or Code. Rather, she simply wrote that in the 6th century “the bishop of Rome was declared to be the head over the entire church. Paganism had given to the beast ‘his power, and his seat, and great authority.’ Rev. 13:2. And now began the 1260 years of papal oppression . . . . Dan. 7:25.” (G.C. 54). By focusing on the declaration of Rome’s supremacy, White focusses on the legal event, and indeed makes no mention of the military events surrounding it. But later Adventist authors tend to focus primarily, if not exclusively, on the military history of the uprooting of the three horns.

The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary on the book of Daniel, originally published in 1955, sets out the 1260-year framework as being bounded by military events. It first discussed the three horns being uprooted, arguing that while the Goths were not fully destroyed in 538, that it “marked the real end of Ostrogothic power, though not the Ostrogothic nation.”⁸ Buried in the discussion of military events, though, is a thoughtful paragraph on Justinian’s declaration of Papal Supremacy in 533 and its incorporation into the Justinian Code of 534. It is argued, then, that the victory of 538 is significant because the implementation of that earlier Code then becomes a reality. The discussion of the Napoleonic end of the period is even more cursory, however, and no mention is made of the Napoleonic Code.⁹ So while embedded in the discussion is a promising start on the significance of legal events and institutions, that discussion is not fully developed. One is left with the impression that the primary events of significance are military. At least this is the way that later expositors appear to have read it.

The books that arguably supplanted Smith’s Daniel and the Revelation as the standard popular Adventist reference works on biblical apocalyptic were the God Cares volumes I (Daniel) and 2 (Revelation). In these works, Adventist Seminary professor and church history scholar C. Mervyn Maxwell hewed close to the historicist framework set out by Smith, but made his own interpretive choices at various key points. One of these was that in his discussion of the 1260-year time period found in Daniel he focused almost exclusively on the military uprooting of the three horns. He asserted that the Heruli were defeated in 493, and that Justinian “exterminated” the Vandals in 534, and then “significantly broke the power of the Arian Ostrogoths in 538.”¹⁰ He then argued that the 1260-year period begins with the “date for the crushing of the Ostrogoths.”¹¹

Later, he acknowledged that the battle in 538 at Rome did not end the Ostrogoth peril, but that there were “skirmishes and battles” in Italy for a “number of years” until they were “annihilated,” at least all but “a couple of thousand.”¹² Maxwell does not give any dates on these further skirmishes and battles, and neither does he acknowledge that Rome was actually re-captured by the Ostrogoths in 546, which Belisarius had to retake himself in 547. Conventional chronology puts the end of the Ostrogoths in about 553. Maxwell simply does not address what was so significant about the end of a siege on Rome in 538, when the same power came and recaptured Rome again the next decade and had to be dislodged again.

A number of other Adventist expositors follow this course of merely citing to the Ostrogoth “defeat” of 538 as being the key element of the start of the 1260 years. Jacques Doukhan in his Secrets of Daniel, records that “Catholic forces . . . chased the Ostrogoths out of Rome in 538. The Italian peninsula was now free of Arian vestiges . . . .”¹³ Then, in relation to the end of the period, he asserts that “most important, in 1798 the French army under the commanding officer General Berthier would invade Rome, capture the pope, and deport him.” While Doukhan acknowledges that Napoleon “intended to eradicate papal and church authority,” no mention is made of the implementation or the demise of the Justinian Code, or the implementation of the Napoleonic Code.¹⁴

Gerhard Pfandl in his Daniel The Seer of Babylon at least acknowledges the uncertainty of the end of the Ostrogoths, with their tenure extending beyond 538. He also acknowledges the importance of the 533 declaration of the Roman bishop being head of the church, combined with that becoming effective in “practical terms” in 538. Still, no mention is made of the extensive religious system implemented by the Justinian Code. Further, he asserts that the end of the 1260-year period came when “Berthier entered Rome and took Pope Pius VI prisoner.”¹⁵

Somewhat puzzlingly, Pfandle says that a measure of secular, political power was restored in 1815, and was not finally lost until 1870, when Victor Emmanuel II entered Rome. This would suggest that 1260 years could end in 1870, which would put the starting point in about 610, though no suggestion is given as to what event might have happened then. No mention is made of either the Catholic-centric Justinian Code, or of the secular Napoleonic Code. There is a recognition, however, that looking purely at military or even political matters leaves one with a variety of date possibilities. But no solution is given as to how to shore up the 538 AD starting point.¹⁶

One expositor who does take into account some of the historical messiness, and the importance of the legal decrees, is William Shea. In his commentary on Daniel 7-12, he acknowledges the incomplete victory over the Ostrogoths of 538 Ad, and recognizes that they were not eliminated until 555 AD. He asserts, however, that the Justinian decree of papal supremacy came into effect in 538, and was not voided by subsequent events. He also discusses the events under Napoleon and Berthier, where an “atheistic” regime replaced the Papal government in Rome. But while on the right track, these events are cursorily discussed in less than a page, and no explicit mention is made of Pope Vigilius, the Justinian Code or the Napoleonic code.¹⁷ Shea’s work on this issue was more at a popular than a scholarly level, and his comments seem to have had little impact on the scholarly dialogue.

This uncertainty and vagueness on the part of Daniel scholars on the historical events surrounding the 1260-year period appears to have bled over into how some prophetic expositors of Revelation now approach that period. Some Adventist scholars are starting to think of the 1260-years in terms of general or even symbolic periods of time, and moving away from being overly concerned with specific starting and ending times. A good example of this is found in the first edition of the Revelation commentary by Ranko Stefanovic, entitled Revelation of Jesus Christ.

There, Stefanovic acknowledges that “the most plausible interpretation understands these [1260] time designations as referring to the prophetic period of more than twelve centuries, known as the Middle Ages.”¹⁸ But he then quotes Leroy Froom as observing that “Protestant Historicists differed considerably as to when to begin and when to end the 1,260 day period.” He then approvingly quotes Hans LaRondelle that it is best not to be “dogmatic about precise date-fixings in church history,” noting that the period appears to have “qualitative as well as quantitative significance.”¹⁹

The qualitative meaning of the 1260-day period evokes, according to Stefanovic, the three-and-a half-year period of Elijah’s witnessing during the persecution of Jezebel, as well as the same period of Christ’s ministry and suffering. Thus, the faithful of church history will suffer and witness in a similar manner, for a similar period, at least symbolically. Certainly, one can appreciate the likelihood of this qualitative meaning adding to a richer appreciation of the 1260-year period. But Stefanovic leaned towards making the qualitative meaning the primary meaning. He mentioned neither 538 AD or 1798, nor the historic events associated with these dates. Rather, on top of his earlier language emphasizing the uncertainty of the beginning and ending periods, he asserted that “these time designations in Revelation have more qualitative rather than quantitative significance.”²⁰

These comments tend towards suggesting that this period of time has symbolic or idealistic significance, and one should not engage too much with history in trying to nail down actual historical connections. In Stefanovic’s defense, he had sought greater historical data to buttress the traditional Adventist position, but had difficulty obtaining any from Adventist Old Testament scholars. After his book was published, there was some pushback on his handling of the 1260-year period, and some works by some Adventist scholars, unpublished at the time of his first edition, were brought to his attention.²¹ In light of these works, Stefanovic modified his language in the 2nd edition of his book published in 2009. Here, he acknowledged the traditional Adventist view of 538 to 1798, and changed the line from having “more” qualitative than quantitative meaning to having qualitative “as well” as quantitative.²²

Other expositors may not be as diligent and responsive as Stefanovic. There is already an indication that some are moving towards an idealistic or symbolic position regarding the time periods of Revelation. Such a step begins to disconnect Revelation from actual history, beyond its general repudiation of tyrannical, evil behavior, and applause for patient, righteous virtuous behavior, by both individuals, institutions, and empires. Such a method would certainly be a very different approach to the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation than that expressed by our pioneers, or exhibited by Ellen White in her discussion of these prophecies in The Great Controversy.

Considering a Primarily Legal Framework for the Terminal Points of the 1260 Years

A careful study, however, of Daniel 7:24-26, and some related prophetic passages reveals that the decisive events of the terminal moments of the 1260 years should be understood, in my view, primarily legally, rather than militarily. Once this legal framework is understood and given its due weight, it becomes clearer how the 538 event relates to the 1798 event. In a nutshell, the Justinian Code, which was completed in 534, “enacted orthodox Christianity into law,” placed the Pope as the formal head of Christendom, “ordered all Christian groups to submit to [his] authority,” and gave him civil power of life and death over heretics.²³

This Code, however, did not become legally promulgated and enacted on the ground until the siege of Rome was lifted in 538. Justinian’s general Belisarius had entered Rome unopposed at the end of 536, but shortly thereafter, the Ostrogoths came and laid siege to Rome. After about a year, the siege was broken, and Belisarius had control of Rome and its environs.²⁴ It was then that the provisions of the Code elevating the papacy could actually be implemented by Belisarius beyond the borders of Rome itself. The Gothic Wars continued on, as has been previously mentioned, with Rome falling again to them in 546, and Belisarius had to return to dislodge him. The Ostrogoths returned again in 549 and recaptured the city, and were not finally driven out until another general of Justinian, Narse, killed or exiled the remaining Goths in 553.²⁵

But these later battles and sieges did not negate or nullify the papal-centered legal system that had been put into place in 538. As Jean Zukowski has noted, even when Rome fell again later to the Goths, they did not control the papacy, as at that time it was operating outside Rome. “After 538,” Zukowski observes, “the papacy never came back under the control of the Ostrogothic kings.”²⁶ The Papal system, placed at the head of Christiandom and given the power of life and death over heretics by the Justinian Code, continued with significant influence in the east until Constantinople fell in 1453. It endured in the west for more than a thousand years, being given a great boost in the legal revolutions of the 11th and 12th centuries, forming the legal scaffolding of many modern states.²⁷ That is, until the secular revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries, where the Code and its religious character were explicitly rejected.

These secular revolutions began with the French Revolution, which soon led to the capture and exile of the Pope by Berthier in 1798. But again, more significant than the military/political event of the capture and exile was the replacement of the religious-centric Justinian Code by the secular Napoleonic Code. The secular code was implemented by the famous Bill No. 8 of February 15, 1798, where General Berthier declared Rome an independent Republic and “in consequence, every other temporal authority emanating from the old government of the Pope, is suppressed, and it shall no more exercise any function ”²⁸

I believe that this focus on the legal, rather than the military, is justified and even required by the biblical passages surrounding the 1260-day period of time. While the uprooting of the three horns is certainly relevant and connected to the rise of the little horn, those military events are not given by the Bible as being decisive in the timing of the 1260-year period. Rather, the key verse is 7:25, which says that the saints shall be “given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.” The key moment related to the time period is not something the little horn does to conquer or assert itself; rather the focus is on the time that the little horn is “given” certain authority and dominion. This would best be fulfilled by a legal act of another bestowing authority, which is precisely what the Justinian Code did.

Further support for this is the fact that Daniel speaks in terms of “times and law” and “dominion” in relation to times, time and half time. (Dan. 7:24-26.) Again, these are words full of legal significance. “Times [ָמן ְז/zemân] and law [ָּתד/ḏâṯ]” speaks for itself with its direct legal reference, תדָּ /ḏâṯ being the Aramaic word for decree or law.²⁹ The word “dominion,” which is taken away at the end of this period, is in the Aramaic “ְלָטןשָׁ šâleṭân,” a specifically legal term for “sovereignty,” or legal oversight, that rulers exercise over their “realm,” which is where their legal authority runs.³⁰ This legally oriented reading is also supported by the parallel usage in Revelation 13. There, it talks of the persecuting power’s “authority [ἐξουσία/exousia] to act for forty two months” with arrogance and blasphemy. (Rev. 13:5). While ἐξουσία/exousia can have a range of meanings that includes ability or capacity, but in the context of political relations it means “authority,” “jurisdiction,” “power,” and “strength.”³¹

Christ did not promise the church ἐξουσία/exousia on earth. Rather he promised spiritual power, or δύναμις/dynamis. When his disciples asked when he would restore Israel, He said “you shall receive dynamis when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you shall be My witnesses . . . .” (Acts 1:7-8). Exousia, however, was given to the church by the ruling powers. The Code of Justinian which was compiled and revised between 528 and 534 “enacted orthodox Christianity into law. It began by declaring for the Trinity It acknowledged the ecclesiastical leadership of the Roman Church, and ordered all Christian groups to submit to her authority Manicheans or relapsed heretics were to be put to death; Donatists, Montanists, Monophysites and other dissenters were to suffer confiscation of their goods It differs most from earlier codes by its rigid orthodoxy, its deeper obscurantism, its vengeful severity.”³²

This authority came to the Roman church through a combination of legal, ecclesiastical, and military events. The Goths held Rome and Italy prior to 536 and the arrival of Belisarius. The Pope, Silverius, had been chosen by the Gothic king, Theodahad. Justinian, at the urging of Theodora, hand-picked a Roman deacon, Vigilius, to be Pope. In 537, Belisarius sent Pope Silverius into exile, and eventual death, and put in place Vigilius. Pope Vigilius is the first pope with unquestioned loyalty to Justinian and his new code, which in 538 becomes meaningfully effective for the first time.

Multiple sources attest to 537 as being year of Pope Silverius’ exile and Pope Vigilius’ reign, though Silverius did not die until 538.³³ There is a clear and parallel symmetry to the 1260-year period starting with a Pope being exiled and replaced with one hand-picked by the emperor under the auspices of a new legal code, and ending with a Pope being exiled by an emperor and a religious code replaced by a secular rule. The symmetry is underscored and strengthened by the fact that it starts with the practical implementation a religious legal code, the Justinian Code—one that elevates Roman church to official, legal priority—and ends with the installation of the Napoleonic Code, a secular system with rejects the idea of a special place for the church.

Conclusion: Focus on Legal Rather than Military Events

I believe that a careful, historical understanding of the history of church and state is exceedingly helpful to an understanding of prophecy. While the uprooting of three horns is a historical process over a period of time, from 470s to 550s, legal enactments can provide a more precise time boundary for relating to historical developments, and the Bible often seems concerned with legal enactments when dealing with historic powers in prophecy.

Viewed through the legal prism, the 538 event now stands as a true bookend to the 1798 event. Both events involve monarchs and their generals removing Popes, and implementing new law codes. Belisarious removes the old Pope, and puts in place Pope Vigilius, and then institutes a new, religiously-centered legal code that exalts the Roman Church and Pontiff. Berthier, 1260 years later, also removes a Pope, and terminates the Justinian Code as a legal system. He puts into its place the secular Napoleonic code, that removes the Church and religion as having any legal authority or significance.

It is my belief that a similar, legal-prism approach can help clarify some other prophetic time periods, including the time periods found in the fifth and sixth trumpets of Revelation 9, including “the hour and day and month and year” prophecy associated with Islam and the Turks. This prophecy was taken very seriously by our pioneers has having a historical application to the end of the Ottoman Turkish empire. Josiah Litch famously predicted events surrounding the surrender of the Ottoman’s to western forces, a prediction that quite strongly appears to have been endorsed by Ellen White in The Great Controversy. (GC 334-335.)

The difficulties, however, of assigning a date to a military or political defeat of the Ottoman empire are quite profound. Historians differ by decades over when the Ottoman empire actually ended, often a date as late as the early 1920s is cited.³⁴ But if one focusses on the religious identity of the empire as expressed in its laws, there is an event that occurs within the same year that Litch predicts, that moves the Turkish Ottomans from their religious-based, Sharia system to one based in part on, wait for it, the secular Napoleonic Code.

In November of 1839, only about nine months prior to Litch’s prophetic date, the Ottoman ruler promulgated the Hatti Serif of Gulhane (“Noble Edict of the Rose Chamber”). This famous decree is considered the foundation stone of the modern Turkish legal system. Among its provisions provision for a new code of Justice that asserted the equal status of Muslims, Jews, and Christians before the law. It modernized the military services of the country, and began implementing French legal principles from the Napoleonic Code to supplement and eventually replace Sharia law in civil and criminal matters.³⁵

It is beyond the scope of this paper, but I believe that one could support the basic prophetic time period proposed by Litch, and endorsed by Ellen White, by supplementing the events they considered with a discussion of the change of the Turkish legal system from a religious-centered regime, to one based on secular principles. The submission of the question of the control of the negotiations with Egypt over the Turkish fleet to the western powers was perhaps the first public and most obvious expression of the new secular, legal outlook—a posture of the Ottoman government that had been established a few months earlier. Thus, we need not see this negotiation event as not something decisive politically or militarily itself, but as the first publicly visible expression of an underlying, fundamental change in the legal orientation of the Ottoman Empire.

Again, this focus on the issue of legal authority is supported by the biblical text itself. In Revelation 9, there are two time periods found in the fifth and sixth trumpets. The first one is a period of “five months” when “power” is given to locust like creatures to “hurt people.” (Rev. 9:7-10). Interestingly, the word “power” here is “exousia,” with all the implications of legal, coercive authority that we previously discussed, and the same word as found in Revelation 13’s discussion of the 42 months. When it comes to the sixth trumpet, the key word is λύω/luō, meaning literally to “loosen” or “release” the angels and mounted horseman to “kill a third of mankind.” (Rev. 9:14-18)³⁶ While λύω/luō has a range of semantic meanings, it can carry the sense of releasing in a legal manner. For example, releasing a husband and wife through divorce, or releasing the bounds or bonds of the law or legal constraint.³⁷ These forces of evil, it is indicated, are now given legal room to act with their own authority and power.

I offer these observations as reference pointers for future investigations of the Trumpets and their time periods. I certainly do not have time to or space to develop those here. But the important point, as discussed earlier, is to respond to a move among some Adventist prophetic expositors to symbolize, or idealize, or spiritualize away these time periods; to detach them from having actual, time and place historical significance. I believe that our prophetic story has had its power precisely because of its engagement with history, which anchors our message to the real world. To turn our back on this historicist and historical approach will, I fear, weaken our message. Thus, firming up these historical periods is of great importance to the study of prophecy and last-day events.

It is not that military events and battles are irrelevant, it is that their relevance is primarily that of helping begin or end particular legal and governmental regimes. And is this not an appropriate principal and focus for a Book and a God concerned less with force and coercion, and more with displays between contrasting forms of governance and jurisdiction? As the old hymn reminds us:

And there's another country, I've heard of long ago,
Most dear to them that love her, most great to them that know;
We may not count her armies, we may not see her King;
Her fortress is a faithful heart, her pride is suffering;
And soul by soul and silently her shining bounds increase,
And her ways are ways of gentleness, and all her paths are peace.³⁸