Before answering this question, we need to consider some quotes recorded in the Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, volume 4. On page 853 we find: “Among the main obstacles that presented themselves to papal Rome in its rise to political power were the Heruli, the Vandals, and the Ostrogoths.” On page 854, it is recorded: “In 538, for the first time… the city of Rome was freed from the rule of an Arian kingdom. In that year, the kingdom of the Ostrogoths received its mortal blow.” On page 853 it is stated: “Their retreat from Rome in 538 marked the true end of Ostrogothic power…”. The previous quotes reveal two different events but related to each other. 1- The end or mortal blow of the Ostrogothic kingdom in the year 538. 2- The beginning of papal supremacy in that same year, which lasted 1,260 years until the year 1,798 when Pope Pius VI was removed from Rome by French troops.
It is important to highlight that on page 853 of the same volume, the following is recorded: “It is true that in 540 the Ostrogoths, reentered the city for a very short period”; than other historians report that it was for 40 days. What the Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary does not record is that the Ostrogoths returned to take and plunder Rome in the years 546 and 550. In 546, the Ostrogoths, under the command of King Totila, not only tore down the walls of the city of Rome and dissolved the senate, but also minted coins where he appeared dressed in imperial clothing. Regarding the second event, that is, the beginning of the 1,260 years of papal supremacy in the year 538, we encounter the historical inconvenience that Pope Vigilius, who held the pontificate in that year, was captured and sent to Constantinople seven years later by order of the Emperor Justinian, who kept him captive until the year of his death in 555. The Catholic Church considered him a martyr, so no other Pope was appointed during his captivity.
Faced with the previously considered historical inconsistency, some scholars, in past decades, have affirmed that the 1,260 years of papal supremacy were a progressive process of papal power, which did not necessarily have to start precisely in the year 538. The previous assertion encounters the following inconveniences: 1- The biblical revelation is categorical in mentioning a precise period of time in which the saints would be broken by the little horn that has a beginning and an end. 2- To specifically point out the year 1,798 as the year of the end of the prophecy, with the capture and exile of Pope Pius VI to France, but not being able to identify the year of its beginning – “because it was a progressive process of papal supremacy” – is inconsistent. The previous statement is because we cannot reconcile our interpretation that the prophecy began in the year 538 with the end of Ostrogothic power; with what history records, in the sense that this barbarian kingdom definitively succumbed twenty-seven years after the mentioned year. At this point, it is important to highlight that, at the beginning of the 19th century, many religious denominations held the same interpretation that we have maintained for over 170 years, which they have been discarding due to the aforementioned historical inconsistency. 3 – We cannot claim temporal indefiniteness at the beginning of the prophecy of the 1,260 days of papal supremacy in Daniel 7, but we must have millimeter precision in the beginning of the prophecy of the 2,300 evenings and mornings (457 B.C.); in its middle with the baptism of the Lord Jesus (27 A.D.); and in its end, where we point out the year, month and day (10-22-1,844); when both prophecies are parallel, and the little horns recorded in them represent the same persecuting power of the saints, according to our traditional interpretation.
It should not surprise us that in the year 538 the Ostrogoths were not defeated, nor that papal supremacy began that year, because that year arises from a forced calculation, posteriorly, by subtracting 1,260 years from the year 1,798, an interpretation that was in vogue after the French Revolution. After considering and confirming that the Ostrogoths were not completely defeated in the year 538 because they returned to take and plunder Rome in the years 540, 546, and 550; and that the Pope in office in 538; could not initiate papal supremacy, because instead of becoming a persecuting power, he who was persecuted, humiliated, and kept in captivity in his last 10 years of pontificate was him; we must ask ourselves: Did the prophecy of the 1,260 days of Daniel 7 begin in the year 538? Blessings.
Comments