Nicholas P. Miller
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 proposed 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. It was a matter, then, of running the period backward from that point to find the starting point, which would be AD 538.1
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 an event in AD 538 that was obviously decisive enough to match the clarity of the concluding event of the 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 AD 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 Belisarius. This event seems to be 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 AD 553. So what made the AD 538 battle so much more prophetically significant and decisive than similar victories in the 540s and the final battle in AD 553?2
The lack of a clear answer to this question about the significance of AD 538 has caused some expositors to argue that it has no inherent significance, and was chosen merely 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 argue 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.
This study argues that a move away from military events and toward 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.
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.”3 He argues, however, without much real explanation, that effective opposition to Justinian’s proclamation of the supremacy of the Roman bishop ceased in AD 538.4
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.5 He dwells on the “army of Belisarius, the general of Justinian,” who is “hailed as deliverers” by “Catholics everywhere.”6 The overall effect 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.”7 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 1,200 years.
Smith at least acknowledges some of the messiness of the military story, noting that the Ostrogoths were not defeated until AD 553. But he does not reveal that the Ostrogoths retook Rome in the 540s, and it had to be recaptured again by Belisarius’ forces.8 His lean toward 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 G. White. In The Great Controversy,9 she does not deal in detail with the events of the uprooting of the three horns or of Justinian’s conquests or Code. Rather, she simply writes that in the sixth 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.’ Revelation 13:2. And now began the 1260 years of papal oppression… . Daniel 7:25.”10 By focusing on the declaration of Rome’s supremacy, White focuses on the legal event, and indeed makes no mention of the military events surrounding it. However, 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 discusses the three horns being uprooted, arguing that while the Goths were not fully destroyed in 538, it “marked the real end of Ostrogothic power, though not the Ostrogothic nation.”11 Buried in the discussion of military events, though, is a thoughtful paragraph on Justinian’s declaration of papal supremacy in AD 533 and its incorporation into the Justinian Code of 534. It is argued, then, that the victory of AD 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.12 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 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 1 (Daniel) and 2 (Revelation). In these works, Adventist seminary professor and church history scholar C. Mervyn Maxwell hews close to the historicist framework set out by Smith, but makes his own interpretive choices at various key points. One of these is that, in his discussion of the 1260-year time period found in Daniel, he focuses almost exclusively on the military uprooting of the three horns. He asserts that the Heruli were defeated in AD 493, and that Justinian “exterminated” the Vandals in 534 and then “significantly broke the power of the Arian Ostrogoths in 538.”13 He then argues that the 1260-year period began with the “date for the crushing of the Ostrogoths.”14
Later, he acknowledges that the battle in AD 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.”15 Maxwell does not give any dates on these further skirmishes and battles; neither does he acknowledge that Rome was actually re-captured by the Ostrogoths in AD 546, which Belisarius had to retake himself in AD 547. Conventional chronology puts the end of the Ostrogoths in about AD 553. Maxwell simply does not address what was so significant about the end of a siege on Rome in AD 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 the Ostrogoth “defeat” of AD 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.”16 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 demise of the Justinian Code or the implementation of the Napoleonic Code.17
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 AD 538. He also acknowledges the importance of the AD 533 declaration of the Roman bishop being head of the church, combined with that becoming effective in “practical terms” in AD 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.”18
Somewhat puzzlingly, Pfandl 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 the 1260 years could end in 1870, which would put the starting point at about AD 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 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 AD 538 starting point.19
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 AD 538, and recognizes that they were not eliminated until AD 555. He asserts, however, that the Justinian decree of papal supremacy came into effect in AD 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.20 Shea’s work on this issue was more popular than scholarly, 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 appear 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 are moving away from being overly concerned with specific beginning and ending dates. A good example of this is found in the first edition of Ranko Stefanovic’s Revelation commentary.
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.”21 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, saying 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.”22
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 leans toward making the qualitative meaning the primary meaning. He mentions neither AD 538 nor 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 asserts that “these time designations in Revelation have more qualitative rather than quantitative significance.”23
These comments tend toward 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 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.24 In light of these works, Stefanovic modified his language in the second edition of his book, published in 2009. Here, he acknowledges the traditional Adventist view of AD 538 to 1798, and changed the line about having “more” qualitative than quantitative meaning to having qualitative “as well” as quantitative.25
Other expositors may not be as diligent and responsive as Stefanovic. There is already an indication that some are moving toward 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 individuals, institutions, and empires. Such an approach to the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation would certainly be very different from that expressed by our pioneers or exhibited by Ellen G. White in her discussion of these prophecies in The Great Controversy.
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 primarily legally rather than militarily. Once this legal framework is understood and given its due weight, it becomes clearer how the AD 538 event relates to the 1798 event. In a nutshell, the Justinian Code, which was completed in AD 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.26
This Code, however, did not become legally promulgated and enacted on the ground until the siege of Rome was lifted in AD 538. Justinian’s General Belisarius had entered Rome unopposed at the end of AD 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.27 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, as has been previously mentioned, with Rome falling again to them in AD 546, and Belisarius had to return to dislodge them. The Ostrogoths returned again in AD 549 and recaptured the city, and were not finally driven out until another general of Justinian, Narse, killed or exiled the remaining Goths in AD 553.28
But these later battles and sieges did not negate or nullify the papalcentered legal system that had been put into place in AD 538. As Jean Zukowski notes, 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.”29 The papal system, placed at the head of Christendom 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 eleventh and twelfth centuries, forming the legal scaffolding of many modern states30—that is, until the secular revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth 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 religiously centered 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.”31
This study asserts 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 Daniel 7:25, which says that the saints shall be “given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.”32 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 [zemân] and law [dât]” speak for themselves with their direct legal reference, dât being the Aramaic word for decree or law.33 The word “dominion,” which is taken away at the end of this period, is in the Aramaic šâletân, a specifically legal term for “sovereignty,” or legal oversight, that rulers exercise over their “realm,” which is where their legal authority runs.34 This legally oriented reading is also supported by the parallel usage in Revelation 13. There, it talks of the persecuting power’s “authority [exousia] to act for forty-two months” with arrogance and blasphemy (Rev 13:5). While exousia can have a range of meanings that include “ability” or “capacity,” in the context of political relations it means “authority,” “jurisdiction,” “power,” and “strength.35
Christ did not promise the church exousia on earth. Rather, He promised spiritual power, or dynamis. When His disciples asked when He would restore Israel, He said, “You shall receive power [dynamis] when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you shall be My witnesses” (Acts i:7–8). Exousia, however, was given to the church by the ruling powers. The Justinian Code, 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.36
This authority came to the Roman Church through a combination of legal, ecclesiastical, and military events. The Goths held Rome and Italy prior to AD 536 and the arrival of Belisarius. The pope, Silverius, had been chosen by the Gothic king, Theodahad. Justinian, at the urging of Theodora, handpicked a Roman deacon, Vigilius, to be pope. In AD 537, Belisarius sent Pope Silverius into exile, and eventual death, and put in place Vigilius. Pope Vigilius was the first pope with unquestioned loyalty to Justinian and his new code, which in AD 538 became meaningfully effective for the first time.
Multiple sources attest to AD 537 as being the year of Pope Silverius’ exile and Pope Vigilius’ reign, though Silverius did not die until AD 538.37 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 of a religious legal code, the Justinian Code—one that elevates the Roman Church to official, legal priority—and ends with the installation of the Napoleonic Code, a secular system that rejects the idea of a special place for the church.
This study shows 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 between the 470s and 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 AD 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. Belisarius removed the old pope, and put in place Pope Vigilius, and then instituted a new, religiously centered legal code that exalted the Roman Church and pontiff. Berthier, 1260 years later, also removed a pope, and terminated the Justinian Code as a legal system. He put into its place the secular Napoleonic Code, which removed all legal authority or significance from the church and religion.
This study argues 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 Adventist pioneers as having a historical application to the end of the Ottoman Turkish empire. Josiah Litch famously predicted events surrounding the surrender of the Ottomans to Western forces, a prediction that appears to have been endorsed quite strongly by Ellen G. White.38
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.39 But if one focuses on the religious identity of the empire as expressed in its laws, there was an event in Litch’s predicted year that moved the Turkish Ottomans from their religious-based Sharia system to one based in part on 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 was 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.40
It is beyond the scope of this study, but one could support the basic prophetic time period proposed by Litch, and endorsed by 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 regarding 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 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 previously discussed, and the same word found in the discussion of the 42 months in Revelation 13. When it comes to the sixth trumpet, the key word is luō, meaning literally to “loosen” or “release”41 the angels and mounted horseman to “kill a third of mankind” (Rev 9:14–18). While 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.42 These forces of evil, it is indicated, are now given legal room to act with their own authority and power.
These observations are offered as reference pointers for future investigations of the trumpets and their time periods. There is not enough time or space to develop them here. But the important point, as discussed earlier, is to respond to a move among some Adventist prophetic expositors to symbolize, idealize, or spiritualize away these time periods—to detach them from having historical significance in terms of actual time and place. The Adventist prophetic story has had its power precisely because of its engagement with history, which anchors the message to the real world. To turn one’s back on this historicist and historical approach would weaken the 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.43
__________
1 Ernest R. Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1978), 6–7, records the event in this manner: “As the unbelievable events of the 1790s unfolded, students of this apocalyptic literature became convinced (in a rare display of unanimity) that they were witnessing the fulfillment of the prophecies of Daniel 7 and Revelation 13. The Revolution brought the cheering sight of the destruction of the papal power in France …; the final act occurred in 1798 when French troops under Berthier marched on Rome, established a republic, and sent the pope into banishment. Commentators were quick to point out that this ‘deadly wound’ received by the papacy had been explicitly described and dated in Revelation 13. Although prophetic scholars had previously been unable to agree on what dates to assign to the rise and fall of papal power, it now became clear, after the fact, that the papacy had come to power in 538 A.D.”
2 This historical story can be found described in some detail in Will Durant, The Age of Faith (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1950), 108–110.
3 Uriah Smith, The Prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation (Nashville, TN: Southern Publishing Association, 1944), 128.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid., 127, 145.
6 Ibid., 127.
7 Ibid., 145.
8 Ibid., 128.
9 Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press, 1950).
10 White, Great Controversy, 54.
11 Francis D. Nichol, ed., The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 4 (Washington, DC: Review and Herald, 1955), 826–828.
12 Ibid., 827.
13 C. Mervyn Maxwell, God Cares, vol. 2, The Message of Revelation for You and Your Family (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press), 123–124.
14 Ibid., 2:124.
15 Maxwell, God Cares, 2:140.
16 Jacques B. Doukhan, Secrets of Daniel (Nampa, ID: Pacific Press, 2000), 107, 109.
17 Ibid., 110–111.
18 Gerhard Pfandl, Daniel: The Seer of Babylon (Hagerstown, MD: Pacific Press, 2004), 64–66.
19 Pfandl, 64–66.
20 William Shea, Daniel 7–12, The Abundant Life Bible Amplifier (Boise, ID: Pacific Press, 1996), 141.
21 Ranko Stefanovic, Revelation of Jesus Christ: Commentary on the Book of Revelation (Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 2002), 338.
22 Stefanovic, Revelation of Jesus Christ, 338.
23 Stefanovic, Revelation of Jesus Christ, 379, emphasis supplied.
24 These include Alberto R. Timm, “A Short Historical Background to A.D. 508 and 538: As Related to the Establishment of the Papal Supremacy,” in Prophetic Principles: Crucial Exegetical, Theological, Historical & Practical Insights, ed. Ron du Preez, Scripture Symposium 1 (Lansing, MI: Michigan Conference, 2007), 207–231 and Jean Carlos Zukowski, “The Role and Status of the Catholic Church in the Church-State Relationship Within the Roman Empire from A.D. 306 to 814” (PhD diss., Andrews University, 2009).
25 Ranko Stefanovic, Revelation of Jesus Christ: Commentary on the Book of Revelation, 2nd ed. (Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 2009), 346, 387.
26 Durant, 112. Durant, 114, notes that the Code “differs most from earlier codes by its rigid orthodoxy, its deeper obscurantism, its vengeful severity.”
27 Ibid., 109.
28 Durant, 111.
29 Zukowski, 160.
30 Ibid., 114.
31 Constitution of the Roman Republic, Translated From the Authentic Italian Edition (1798) is a “Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man and of Citizens,” with a tabulated series of Articles of Rights and Duties, followed by the text of the Roman Constitution. (Original title: Constituzione della Repubblica Italiana, adottata per acclamazione nei comizj nazionali in Lione. Anno I., 26 Gennajo 1802.)
32 All biblical quotations are from KJV, unless otherwise indicated.
33 James Strong, Strong’s Expanded Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2009): s.v. 
h1882 (Aramaic) corresponding to 1881; decree, law.
34 Ibid., s.v. 
h7985 (Aramaic) from 7981; empire (abstractly or concretely): — dominion. AV (14) - dominion 14; dominion, sovereignty-dominion, sovereignty-realm.
35 Ibid., s.v. “ἐξουσία,” g1849, from 1832 (in the sense of ability); privilege, i.e., (subjectively) force, capacity, competency, freedom, or (objectively) mastery (concretely, magistrate, superhuman, potentate, token of control), delegated influence: — authority, jurisdiction, liberty, power, right, strength.AV (103) - power 69, authority 29, right 2, liberty 1, jurisdiction 1, strength 1; power of choice, liberty of doing as one pleases leave or permission physical and mental power the ability or strength with which one is endued, which he either possesses or exercises the power of authority (influence) and of right (privilege) the power of rule or government (the power of him whose will and commands must be submitted to by others and obeyed) universally authority over mankind specifically the power of judicial decisions of authority to manage domestic affairs.
36 Durant, 112–114.
37 That Vigilius appears to have been installed as pope in AD 537 is not of real concern. Vigilius’ first year of rule under the Justinian Code would have been in AD 538. His sovereignty, as a practical matter, does not take effect until after the breaking of the siege in AD 538. It is only then that he can exercise his first real temporal authority as leader of the Christian Church generally, and the Justinian Code can be enforced outside of Rome. Even though Rome again fell to the Ostrogoths at least one more time in the future, the papacy continued to operate under Justinian’s oversight (Zukowski, 160). No one effectively opposed the pope’s newly authorized temporal and spiritual authority in Western Christendom. Thus, these later battles, while relevant to the question of the uprooting of the third horn, do not bear decisively on the question of when the pope gains and implements his new powers of life, death, and central supremacy.
38 White, 334–335.
39 Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, “The empire from 1807 to 1920,” https://www.britannica.com/place/Ottoman-Empire/The-empire-from-1807-to-1920#ref44405 (February 28, 2020).
40 Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, “The empire from 1807 to 1920,” and Ishtiaq Hussain, The Tanzimat: Secular Reforms in the Ottoman Empire (n.p., Faith Matters, 2011), http://faith-matters.org/images/stories/fm-publications/the-tanzimat-final-web.pdf (accessed February 27, 2020).
41 William Arndt, Frederick W. Danker, and Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 606.
42 Arndt, Danker, and Bauer, 606–607.
43 Cecil Spring Rice, “Urbs Dei” (“The City of God”), ca. 1912, set to music by Gustav Holst as “I Vow to Thee, My Country.”