Literature Review

The rise of the papacy as supreme power was presented in a book and paper by Frances Dvornik in 1961. 

Byzantium and the Roman Primacy. The American Ecclesiastical Review 289-312. Online available 12th of June 2016 at http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=1355.

 

The Collectio Avellana is a prime source for research of this type. These 244 manuscripts dealt with heresies and schism and how the papal and imperial powers approached the issues. 

It ends with the last letter written by emperor Justinian to pope

Vigilius on the 14th of May 553. 

 

The Corpus Novellae of Justinian is an ingredient part of this research.

 

The Liber Pontificalis is another source that is essential for a study like this. It originated in the year 510 in the days of the primacy of the papacy insistence pope Homisdas and the intention was to illustrate the role of the popes.

 

D. Deliyannis, (2014). The Roman Liber Pontificalis, Papal Primacy, and the Acacian Schism. Viator Vol. 45/2: 1-16. For
the date of its compilation as between 514-530 see Liber Pontificalis by Duchesne 1886: XLV. Duchesne knows of two manuscripts Parisinus 5140 and Vaticanus 3764 (Duchesne 1886: XLVII).

 

The popes with whom Justinian and Theodora dealt that are relevant here are pope Johannes II (533-535); pope Agapetus (535-536); pope Silverius (536-537); Vigilius (537-555).

 

A helpful source for those who struggle to get access to the originals or good translations thereof of the papal letters to Justinian and other pertinent sources mentioned in this writing, is the Source Book Vol. 2 on AD 538 by Heidi Heiks (2010). 

 

For a helpful chronology of Justinian, the Gothic kings, the Vandals as well as the year from Creation as calculated by Jerome, see the Chronica Minora edited by T. Mommsen 1894.

 

Newton all calculated the 1260 days of Revelation and Daniel as 1260 years.

He felt that any period that indicated a division of the Roman Empire is a candidate for this event starting the 1260 years.
Bishop Newton apparently said that if one is to find the ten kings, one has to look at the broken pieces of the Roman Empire” 

For Frere the starting date for the 1260 years is 536.

Faber wanted it to start before 325 A.D. and Cuninghame suggested the thirteenth century.

Maitland used Frere and Cuninghame to argue against Faber that the date is not 606 but 533 with the Edict of Justinian.

For Mede the prophetic persecution started in 456 A.D.23 

Frere was in search for the year the Edict was published.

Hales suggested 620 A.D. Bishop Newton in 727 A.D. and Lowman in 757A.D. 

These are the times given for the ‘saints given in the hands of the beast’ as predicted by Daniel and Revelation. Maitland himself seems to say the event took place sometime in the fifth, sixth, seventh or eighth centuries. He called on all researchers of the 1260 days as 1260 years to cite their sources with accuracy and check
whether the source was correctly used and cited.
W. Spicer (1918) wrote on the 1260 years. In his diagram he dates it either between 533 to 1793 or between 538 to
1798. Spicer said that in 533 came the recognition of the supremacy of the pope and in 538 the sword came to Rome.

He found from secondary sources that used the originals that a turning point was in the year 538 when Vigilius became pope in the place of pope Silverius. He was removed in 537 but Justinian intervened and he was kept until 538.

H. S. Prenier, (1919), “on the 1260 days” Andrews University, James White library, Adventist Research Center lower floor.

In 1854 T. M. Preble wrote a manuscript which is a review of the argument to prove that the 1260 years started in 519 A.D.

A Millerite F. H. Berick (1853) wrote a research on 1260, 1290 and 1335. An article appeared on the opic of the end of the 1260 years in 1843. W. Digby, (1831), also wrote on the 1260 years. K. van Wyk, (1992), presented a devotional on new aspects surrounding the historicity of 538 regarding numismatics and Justinian.

 

Revelation 13:12 says that the “dragon gave him his power, his seat and great authority”... then the actions of Justinian, Belisarius answering the call of the pope to come to Rome with his military for defense, the coin change of Justinian in 538, his public announcement to the whole empire that he is a theologian and not a

soldier in 538 on his coins, his ecumenical and theological interest in Systematic Theology recognized by pope Johannes in his 533 letter to Justinian, Justinian’s emphasizing the supremacy of the papacy in his letter to Johannes, all these factors point to a paradigm shift in the history of that time: that is to say, the fall of the Pagan Rome Empire and the Ascendancy and development of the papacy to form the Holy Roman Empire. 

--With the seat of Justinian symbolically “vacant” as emperor, the “symbolic power gap” was there for the papacy to take it. Augsburger (1952) indicated that it was the church who fed the people after 538 A.D. described as disastrous years. 

--Diehl wrote “In this hour which marks for her (Rome) the end of ancient times, she was taking on the aspect that she was to keep during the whole Middle Ages and upon the debris of the palaces of the Caesars was slowly rising the authority of the popes.”

--Gregory the Great described the rise of the church on the ruins of Rome of the Gothic wars Gregory described very eloquently the summary of the churches’ rise to power “Amid the frightful storms of the Gothic War classical civilization perished in Rome and throughout Italy. In cities burnt, desolated and mutilated, ruins remained the sole evidence of former splendor. 

The prophecy of the Sybil was fulfilled. The night of barbarism had descended on the Latin world, a darkness in which no light was visible other than of the tapers of the church and the lonely studentlamp of the monk brooding in his cloister.”

--George Butler in 1885, as a president of the Seventh Day Adventist church, cites a speech of a bishop at the Ecumenical Council in
1870 which said: "Pope Vigilius, A.D. 538, bought the papacy from Belisarius, agent of the Emperor Justinian; though to be sure he broke his promise, and paid nothing Is this mode of gaining the tiara canonical?" (Vatican Council 1870: 189 cited in George Butler 1885: from the American Tract Society Pamphlet with the title: "The
Speech of a Bishop in the Vatican Council"). 

Butler listed many outside scholars who already understood the 1260
years prophecy, the fall in 1798 and the beginning in 538. 

It was not an invention by Seventh Day Adventists since it is historical and Biblical, recognized earlier by many commentators and historians.