The Great Tribulation

Now that we have identified both the Antichrist and Mystery Babylon, we can utilize this contextual understanding to inform our interpretations of the warning signs God has provided to us about the harsh period of Christian persecution known as the Great Tribulation.

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The Length of the Great Tribulation

The Bible describes the length of the Great Tribulation in three different ways: “a time, times, and a half time,” “forty-two months,” and “1,260 days.” We are told the duration of the Great Tribulation would be “a time, times, and half time” in Daniel 7:25, 12:7, and Revelation 12:14. A “time” is almost universally interpreted by Biblical scholars to mean a year, so “a time, times, and half time” would mean “a year, two years, and half year.”

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The Old Testament Hebrew administrative calendar had a 360-day year, so three and a half years equals 1,260 days.[i] This calendar also had thirty-day months, so by doing the math, forty-two months would also equal 1,260 days. Whether the length of the Great Tribulation was written as three and a half years, forty-two months, or 1,260 days, the length of time described is the same under the Hebrew administrative calendar used in antiquity.

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The key to understanding the Biblical day-year principle was revealed when Jesus Christ’s arrival fulfilled the Seventy Weeks Prophecy. Since the Antichrist would have the power to persecute Christians for 1,260 prophetic days, applying the day-year principle to the Tribulation shows that this time of persecution would last 1,260 calendar years.

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The Jews regularly adjusted their lunar calendar to align with the solar year to avoid seasonal creep caused by an annual difference of about 11.24 days. On Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot, agricultural crops were brought to the Temple as tithes to God. If the Jewish calendar were not adjusted, these springtime holidays would quickly occur at a time of year when there would be no crops to offer.[ii] The same is true of the administrative calendar, which needed an adjustment of about 5.24 days.

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Although forty-two prophetic months equals 1,260 calendar years, the events that fulfill those 1,260 years must include the adjustments made to the Hebrew calendar. This is because, while the Hebrew calendar was based on the moon’s phases, the year was regularly adjusted to begin at the same point in the solar year. Whereas the Hebrew administrative calendar’s year had 360 days, the average year with these adjustments was still 365.24 days. Although calculations in prophetic time, such as the conversion of three and a half years to 1,260 days, are based on the 360-day administrative calendar, identification of the prophecies’ fulfillments cannot ignore these adjustments and must be based on the solar year.

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The Timing of the Tribulation

While we have removed some of the misconceptions about the Great Tribulation’s length, we did not discuss when it occurred—occurred—in the past tense. For anyone terrified about the potential of having to live through an unprecedented period of Christian persecution, the good news is you will not have to. Biblical scholars unanimously agree that the Antichrist would be the driving force behind the Great Tribulation. So, when did the papacy lead a severe persecution of Christians?

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The Byzantine emperor Justinian I cooperated with several popes to use Roman law as an instrument of persecution against non-Catholic Christians. His Novellae Constitutiones contains several examples of this weaponization of the law. Justinian’s legal code defined a heretic as anyone who did not receive the sacraments from a member of the Catholic priesthood, particularly if they professed to be a Christian. Novellae Constitutiones XXXVII pronounced, “A heretic shall not confer the rite of baptism, or discharge the duties of a public office, and a catechumen shall not circumcise anyone. No heretic shall, under any circumstances, have a house of worship, or a place of prayer.” Novellae Constitutiones CIX similarly disqualified heretics from holding public office or working for the government. Novellae Constitutiones LXVII prohibited true Christians from holding private gatherings in their homes for worship.

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Novellae Constitutiones CXLIV declared Christians could not pass on an inheritance unless given to a Catholic. It also sentenced any Christians who kept the Jewish Sabbath to exile. Justinian declared, “If any Samaritan, after having proved himself worthy to receive baptism, should return to his former error and be detected in observing the Sabbath, or in doing anything else which proves that he was only baptized through simulated conversion, We order that he shall be proscribed, and sentenced to exile for life.”[iii]

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The Start of the Great Tribulation

Justinian’s expansion of civil law to encourage the persecution of non-Catholics would also allow for a gradual power shift from the government of the Byzantine Empire to the Catholic Church. After his 533 letter to John II giving the bishop of Rome full temporal authority over Christendom was codified in Codex Justinianus 1.1.4, the only limitation on papal power was the Ostrogothic occupation of Rome. Once the Byzantine army drove the Goths from the city in 538, the series of laws that Justinian enacted during his reign wildly expanded papal temporal supremacy to the point of unrestricted power to persecute true Christians.

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From 538 onward, papal persecutions magnified rapidly. Popes tortured and killed many Christians whom they considered to be heretics, convened the Inquisition, started wars against Protestant nations primarily on religious grounds, and ordered the executions of many who translated or published the Bible.

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Now that we have identified 538 AD as the plausible starting point for the Great Tribulation, an equally significant event must have occurred 1,260 years later for 538 to be the correct start date. So, the question becomes: what event occurred in 1798 that could be considered the end of the Antichrist’s Great Tribulation?

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1798 and the Deposing of Pope Pius VI

During the War of the First Coalition, Napoleon pushed the Austrians out of northern Italy in 1796. After a siege of Mantua, the Austrian garrison surrendered on February 2, 1797. With France’s path to his city no longer blocked, Pius VI was forced to agree to France’s peace terms to prevent an invasion of Rome. Under the Treaty of Tolentino, Pius ceded Avignon, the nearby Comtat Venaissin region, and the Italian Romagna region to France. Eight months after the treaty was signed, the war ended in a French victory.

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A fragile European peace lasted from the end of the war on October 17, 1797, until the French general Mathurin-Léonard Duphot was killed amid a late-December riot in Rome. Enraged and eager for retribution, Bonaparte ordered the French Army of Italy to march on Rome.

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Due to the weakened condition of the papal armies, France’s General Louis-Alexandre Berthier entered the city unopposed on February 10, 1798, and occupied the Vatican complex. Five days later, Berthier organized a new Roman Republic and demanded that the pope relinquish his temporal power. When Pius refused to capitulate—claiming he received his authority directly from God—the French general deposed and exiled him on February 20.[iv]

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This event was tremendously significant in Christian, Catholic, and world history. The removal of temporal power from the papacy in 1798 had a direct impact on the Roman Catholic Church’s ability to persecute Christians. While a form of temporal power was restored during the papacy of Pius VII, it was significantly limited. This also “shortened” the Great Tribulation as predicted by Jesus in the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24:22 and Mark 13:20.[1]

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We have already discussed several Bible passages that describe how the Antichrist persecutes Christians. Daniel 7:21 says the prophet watched as the Antichrist “made war with the saints, and prevailed against them.” Four verses later, we are told that the Antichrist “shall wear out the saints of the most High.” Revelation 13’s description of the Antichrist explains, “It was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them.”

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The Bible not only cautions us that the papal Antichrists would persecute Christians, but that Mystery Babylon would as well. John wrote of the false church, “And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus,” in Revelation 17:6. In Revelation 19:2, John predicts that God will bring his judgment upon her and “avenge the blood of his servants at her hand.” The apostle also prophesied that the church would be judged by God for its treatment of Christians following its destruction, which still has not occurred.[2]

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A close examination of the Biblical evidence shows the Antichrist and Mystery Babylon would persecute Christians for 1,260 years, not 1,260 days, during the Great Tribulation. A review of the historical record shows these verses conclusively describe the tyrannical actions of the papacy between 538 and 1798 AD in a way that is impossible for Catholic apologists to dispute.

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This is the Historicist reading of the Great Tribulation. Historicism views the Tribulation as 1,260 years across history, not just a fabricated three-and-a-half-year period. It interprets Revelation’s prophecies, including the seven seals, seven trumpets, seven vials, and the papal persecution of 538-1798, as a single prophetic continuum fulfilled by real-world events.

 

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Timeline of prophecies of Daniel and Revelation, along with their historical fulfillments.

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Summary

• ​The Bible lists the length of the Great Tribulation in three different ways:​​

  • A time, times, and a half time—or three and a half years (Daniel 7:25, 12:7, Revelation 12:14)

  • Forty-two months (Revelation 11:2, 13:5)

  • 1,260 days (Revelation 11:3, 12:6)

• The Old Testament-era Hebrew administrative calendar had a 360-day year and thirty-day months, which means three and a half years, forty-two months, and 1,260 days are all equivalent lengths of time

• 1,260 prophetic days converts to 1,260 calendar years

• Byzantine emperor Justinian I declared the bishop of Rome “the head of all the Holy Churches” in 533 AD

  • Justinian’s letter elevated the bishop of Rome to the administrative head over the entire Catholic Church

  • This letter was codified in Roman law in the Codex Justinianus

• The pope used his new authority to obtain temporal power in Rome after the Ostrogoths fled the city in 538 AD

• The pope retained temporal power for 1,260 years—from 538 AD until France’s General Berthier deposed Pope Pius VI in 1798

  • During these 1,260 years, the papacy persecuted true Christians

  • The papacy never regained full temporal power after 1798

 

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[1] Matthew 24:22 And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.

Mark 13:20 And except that the Lord had shortened those days, no flesh should be saved: but for the elect’s sake, whom he hath chosen, he hath shortened the days.

[2] Revelation 18:24 And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.

 

[i] Ben-Dov, Jonathan. 2021. “A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account.” Harvard Theological Review 114, No. 4 431-450. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/harvard-theological-review/article/360day-administrative-year-in-ancient-israel-judahite-portable-calendars-and-the-flood-account/8F5696178CD94A096EA16DC811FC787D.

[ii] Gilad, Elon. 2014. The Hebrew Calendar: A Marvel of Ancient Astronomy and Math. September 25. Accessed January 23, 2023. https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/2014-09-25/ty-article/.premium/the-secrets-of-the-hebrew-calendar/0000017f-db3f-df62-a9ff-dfff86dd0000.

[iii] Ahn, Keum Young, et al. 2017. “538 A.D. and the Transition from Pagan Roman Empire to Holy Roman Empire: Justinian’s Metamorphosis from Chief of Staffs to Theologian.” In International Journal of Humanities and Social Science 7 (1): 44-85.

[iv] McClintock, John, and James Strong. 1894. “Pius VI.” In Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, Vol. VIII, 245-246. New York: Harper & Brothers.