This small volume on prophetic times, according to H. Heiks a comprehensive book will follow, seeks to provide historical sources supporting the historicist (Seventh-day Adventist) interpretation of the 1260, 1290, and 1335 day prophecies in the book of Daniel. In his preface Heiks claims, “All of the objections raised by those who have tried to move the 1260-, 1290- or 1335–year dates to some time in the future, or renounced them altogether instead of calculating the longest of the prophetic periods of Daniel to the autumn of 1844, can now by documentation be officially refuted.” (p. x). By documentation he means primary sources like the Corpus Iuris Civilis of emperor Justinian or the Lex Romana Visigothorum and quotations from reputable historians like Charles J. Hefele.

Thus, the book is largely a collection of quotations from different sources with explanatory notes. The book has sixteen chapters, seven of which deal with the date 508, the beginning of the 1290 and 1335-year prophecy, which hitherto has been the most difficult date to substantiate historically. The importance of the date lies in the fact that in that year the amalgamation or union of church and state took place (pp. 25, 31) which in prophecy was the setting up of “the abomination that makes desolate” (p. 31). Heiks dates the conversion of Clovis to 508, historians, however, are divided on this. Most historians date his conversion to 496 rather than 508. Christian Pfister in the Cambridge Medieval History says the king allowed his children to be baptized but he did not make up his mind until after his first victory over the Alemanni. He “defeated his adversaries in a bloody battle (A.D. 496), but was unable to reduce them to subjection. He began to perceive at this time what strength he would gain by embracing Christianity. . . . It was doubtless from such considerations of policy, rather than from any profound conviction, that he decided to be baptized. The ceremony, to which numerous persons of note were invited, took place at Rheims, whatever some modern historians may say to the contrary. It was celebrated on Christmas day of the year 496” (2:112). The ancient sources do not indicate in which year Clovis was baptized, they only mention that it happened in connection with his fight against the Alemanni. The main battle against the Alemanni was in 498, a smaller skirmish took place in 508. Then there is the question, would Clovis have led his army in a “holy war” against the Visigoths in 507 as a non-Christian? Whatever the case, the issue for the date 508 as the beginning of the 1290 and 1335-year prophecy is not the baptism of Clovis but the cooperation between the papacy and the Franks, i.e., the union of church and state.

Traditionally, Seventh-day Adventists have stated that the 1260-year rule of the little horn in Daniel 7:25 began in 538 with the removal of the Ostrogothic kingdom, the third of the three horns uprooted by the little horn. Heiks correctly states that although a decisive battle was fought in 538, which broke the siege of Rome by the Ostrogoths, the Ostrogothic kingdom did not end until 553 (p. 43). Heiks, therefore, concludes that the fall of the three Arian kingdoms “is not the prophetic marker associated with A. D. 538” (p. 44). In its place he puts the Sunday law of the third council of Orleans in 538 as an expression of the rise of the little-horn power and the beginning of the 1260-year period (p. 48). The third Synod of Orleans, in A.D. 538, issued a Sunday law which concluded with the threat, “If anyone be found doing the works forbidden above, let him be punished, not as the civil authorities may direct, but as the ecclesiastical powers may determine” (p. 49). While Heiks claims that the Synod of Orleans was “not merely a provincial synod” (p. 48), there is no historical evidence that its decrees had any impact beyond the borders of the Frankish kingdom.

In 1798 the “deadly wound” of Revelation 13:3 was inflicted on the papacy with the removal of the papacy from Rome by the army of Napoleon. This event is correctly seen as the terminal point of the 1260 and 1290-year prophecies. Adding 1335 years to 508 brings us to the year 1843 in which the Millerites expected the Second Advent and which, according to Heiks, indicates the commencement of the events of Revelation 10. “Without this prophecy of Revelation chapter ten, we, as a people, would be at a loss for a definitive date to identify the termination of the 1335-year prophecy and, in turn, the beginning of the prophetic fulfillment of the events in Revelation chapter ten” (p. 83).

Heiks distinguishes between the fulfillment of the 1335-year prophecy in 1843 and the fulfillment of the 2300-year prophecy of Daniel 8:14 in 1844. In support he quotes (p. 83) from Leroy Froom’s magnum opus The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers which says, “There were two major phases of the Millerite movement – the initial, or “1843,” phase, and the later and larger “1844” phase, in which it reached its climax” (Le Roy E. Froom, The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1-4 [Washington: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1950], 4:445). Froom, however, ends the 1335-year period in 1844 (see his chart in Prophetic Faith, 4:1128-1129), possibly because the last year of the 2300 year-prophecy extended from the fall of 1843 to the fall of 1844, overlapping the last year of the 1335-year prophecy.

While the book provides some very interesting and important historical sources to bolster the historicist interpretation of the time prophecies in Daniel and Revelation, some items await further clarification. It is hoped that the comprehensive book, which Heiks has promised, will do just that. In the meantime, every Adventist interested in the historicist interpretation of the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation will do well to take note of this book.