Passing, for the moment, the fallacy of the latter suggestion—when checked, for example, with scholarship's popular denial of the conclusive Sabbath and sanctuary evidence—we have felt it our duty, because of the possession of facts and materials not commonly accessible, to tabulate what the expositors of the historical school of interpretation have taught upon this point. The historical school, it should be explained, embraces practically all the Reformers and their immediate successors, who held to the progressive and continuous fulfillment of prophecy from the time of Daniel, Paul, and John on to the second advent—through the various paralleling prophetic lines of the seven churches, seals, and trumpets, and the procession of powers symbolized by the beasts, and their corresponding time periods.
Unfortunately, there is a tendency on the part of some to be overawed and confused by the dicta of modern scholarship. The ease with which some would turn away from the express statements of the Spirit of prophecy to echo the assertions of the modern skeptical scholars of Babylon, is indeed disquieting. We have had to break with the virtually united positions of scientists over the evolution hypotheisis, and with theologians concerning the Sabbath and the innate immortality of man. Why should a different situation be expected in the modern interpretation of prophecy? Modernism has turned from the old paths. Only the older interpreters, before the inroads of higher criticism, support the relatively few who still hold to the earlier prophetic interpretation. We shall often find ourselves in conflict with the modern wise men of the theological world, but we must not waver or capitulate here. To do so would spell both ruin and betrayal of truth.
We have therefore listed the record of the expositions of the time phase of the fifth and sixth trumpets, extending the survey back through the years to the beginning of the application of the year-day principle to the longer prophetic periods initiated by Joachim of Floris in 1190. The results of this investigation are here presented. Other writers will deal with the propriety of the Greek idioms involved, and the historical certainty and sanction of the 1299 date. Certain explanations concerning the listing, and a few observations on the historical phase, are in order, and should prove helpful in catching the significance of this tabulation. A few conclusions from the evidence presented will then round out this survey.
Significance of the Tabulation
I. Sources for the Tabulation.—This list is based, first, upon expositions of the book of Revelation collected over a period of years from the libraries of Europe and America, which form a part of the Advent Source Collection here at headquarters ; and second, upon the examination of 549 treatises on the Apocalypse as found on the shelves of the Library of Congress. This latter list comprises all volumes of this category in the designated section (BS 2825, 26, 27) on the Apocalypse, both in the stacks and in the Rare Book Room. (Others have dated these periods, and we are still seeking their precise statements.)
2. Joachim Applies Year-Day to "Five Months." —Joachim, abbot of Floris, in Calabria, Italy, was thefirst to extend application of the year-day principle to the prophetic "five months" of Revelation 9 :5, to, explicitly interpreting this fifth trumpet time period as 150 literal years. He lived, significantly enough, in the very epoch when history and the Ottoman prophecy were about to meet. In his day the Seljukian Turks were already overrunning the Near East. Moreover, he arose as the most significant Middle Age spokesman concerning the virtually forgotten inspired calendar of prophecy. He is recognized by scholars as the first to flout the traditions that had been the foundation of the distorted medieval apocalyptic interpretation. The unfolding prophetic interpretation of pre-Reformation and Reformation times started with him. The importance, therefore, of Joachim in initiating this long line of witnesses is not to be overlooked. Moreover, Joachim recognized the prophesied locusts as symbolizing men, and applied the figure to the Mohammedans. This was back in 1190.
3. Majority of Expositors Silent.—The noted scholars of the critical, rationistic school, now known as Modernists, have virtually all adopted the preteristic school of interpretation, which confines nearly all applications of the apocalyptic prophecies to the overthrow of pagan Rome and the Jewish church in the early centuries. They rather uniformly deny the application of the year-day principle to the various symbolic time periods, such as the 1260 and 2300 days—and consequently to "the hour, day, month, and year" of Revelation 9 :15. In most instances it is part of a general denial.
Modernists likewise deny that the little horn of Daniel 7 refers to the Papacy, usually applying it to Domitian or Nero, or perhaps to Antiochus Epiphanes. Consistently, then, with such a philosophy of interpretation, these expositors almost to a man contend that the "hour, day, month, and year" simply indicates a point of time, and not a period of time in the Middle Ages, as some had it, or extending into the nineteenth century as others came to place it. There are also expositors who seek to straddle the fence, holding partly to the historical school, and partly to certain preteristic positions.
These preterists, be it further noted, are the men whose writings are prominently on the reference shelves of most libraries, colleges, and seminaries. Having sprung up subsequent to Eichhorn's innovation in 1791, they were therefore brought forth after that great body of Reformation and post-Reformation witnesses during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. As a matter of historical fact, they have simply adopted in modified form the Roman Catholic counterinterpretation of the Spanish Jesuit Alcazar, promulgated in 1603, whose teachings had, in turn, been deliberately adopted by the pro-Catholic Protestant, Hugo Grotius, of Holland, and then later, perhaps unwittingly, taken over by the rationalistic group of higher critics of Germany, England, and America. However, comparatively speaking, these expositors—though conspicions—are relatively few in number as compared to the interpreters of the earlier Reformation group. But they have gained ascendency in the scholarly world, and the world blindly follows them.
4. Fundamentalists Make Trumpets Rapture.—Another group of Protestants who are prominent in prophetic interpretation are the . vociferous Fundamentalists, who likewise reject the application of the year-day principle to the 1260 years and similar periods, contending that they constitute literal time that is still future, and applying the prophecies concerning antichrist to an infidelic Jew, to reign but three and a half literal years at the end of the age.
These Fundamentalists likewise throw the sixth trumpet into the future and usually apply it to a point of time, or at least to a brief literal period.
This school of exposition is similarly built—though perhaps unwittingly—upon the Roman Catholic counterinterpretation of the Spanish Jesuit Ribera, projected in 1585. They have, in their application, tragically departed from the Reformation historical school platform, and cannot be followed with any greater safety or soundness than in the contrasting case of modernistic Protestants. However, these Fundamentalists are all nineteenth and twentieth century men, and their position is an .-;iviously modern invention and fundamental departure. And again, relatively speaking, these men are few in number as compared with the hundreds of Reformation and post-Reformation expositors of the historical school.
5. Scholarly Competency of Historicists. —The scholarly competency of the historical school of expositors of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth, and the first third of the nineteenth centuries, who were the spokesmen for God's true church of the hour, are comparable in scholarship to those modernists cited against them, not a few being conspicuous authorities in Greek and Hebrew. They constituted the leading Protestant scholarships of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and comprised those who refused to be led away by the sponsors of the compromising Roman Catholic interpretations that split Protestant scholars into two opposing and neutralizing camps. Incidentally, the historicists here tabulated, embrace a majority of the older expositors of England, Germany, and America. It is not too much to say that the people proclaiming the third angel's message have in large part been raised up as the expositors of prophecy today because of the fatal twofold departure just sketched.
6. In Good and Scholarly Company.—The British advent heralds and the Millerite advent leaders of the nineteenth century were in actuality the restorers, or perpetuators, of the Reformation and post-Reformation expositors, who, when writing upon this prophecy, nearly all held that "the hour, day, month, and year" was a specified period allotted to the Turks. We are therefore in good and scholarly company—more than a hundred strong. We are aligned with the right Reformation school of interpretation, as well as having the express support of the Spirit of prophecy. We need to be ever on our guard lest we stray from the right to the wrong group of expositors. Before one seriously considers any position that may counter a Spirit of prophecy statement, a most thorough canvass of historical and philological evidence should be made. As we have tested out in many instances, such reverent research will be found to substantiate the Spirit of prophecy declarations, which number of expositors. 124 have increasingly proved to be of divine origin.
7. Diversity of Dates Immaterial—The diversity of the beginning and ending dates of the 391 years, and of the Iso years, as found in the series here presented, is no greater than is revealed by a tabulation of the suggested beginning and ending of the 1260 years, before the historical episode of 1798 settled the matter. Until both ends of any prophetic period can be seen in historical perspective, it is difficult for men to determine with certainty the beginning date of a prophetic period. This variance was conspicuously true with the 1260-year period, and still exists on the part of many.
8. Propriety of Application Indicated.—The tabulation of apocalyptic expositors—for whose important interpretations we have precise documentation—was not collated to indicate when the Turkish periods of prophecy be: gan, and therefore when they ended. That is a matter outside the immediate scope of this project. Our purpose here is simply to show that we are overwhelmingly supported by the competent historical school of scholarship in holding (a) that "the hour, day, month, and year" is a period allotted to the Osmanli Turks ; and (b) that this concept prevailed even with many non-Adventist interpreters during the latter two thirds of the nineteenth century, after the time of Miller and Litch, and even persisting into the twentieth century. Various expositors, it might be added, in the course of years of study, revised their dates. This explains some seeming contradictions. These adjusted dates we have placed in parentheses.
9. 391 amd 396 Meant the Same.—The diversity in the length of "the hour, day, month, and year" period, taken by various expositors—whether of 391 or 396 years—should not confuse us, nor should the fact of variation be exaggerated. Those who held that the prophetic year was composed of the allotted 360 days, had 360-1-30+1, or a total of 391 years. Those who took the length of an ordinary year of 365 days for the measurement, and applied it to the propretic period, had 365+30+1, or 396 years. Both groups recognized and applied the year-day principle to Revelation 9:15 as a time period, but one group of interpreters failed to employ the true prophetic year of 360 days, though they really meant the same. A parallel is to be found in the varying 1843, 1844, and 1847 terminal years of the 2300 years by the early Adventists, on both sides of the Atlantic, some of whom missed the B. C. 4 factor for the birth of Christ in their calculation, and thus missed the right year for the close. As to the 150 years, Isaac Newton and a few others doubled the number, making it 390—because the period is mentioned twice, in the fifth and tenth verses. Conclusions From the Tabulation
We draw the following conclusions from the sum total of evidence brought before us in the tabulation of apocalyptic expositors:
(I) That the prophetic "hour, day, month, and year" as a time period of 391 years and is days is overwhelmingly supported by the historical school of apocalyptic interpretation with a galaxy of over one hundred precedents in four nations and two continents-71 before Miller's, or 78 before Litch's interpretation, as well as following thereafter.
(2) That the reason we find ourselves out of harmony with both higher critical preteristic Modernists and ultra-Protestant futuristic Fundamentalists today, is that both groups have departed from the historic Protestant faith to follow the divergent fallacies of the Catholic Counter-Reformation, devised to split and neutralize Protestantism's prophetic interpretation —and succeeding to a tragic degree. And denial of the year-day principle for all save the seventy weekS is a common canon of each.
(3) That the wide diversity in the dating of the 391-year and I50-year periods is no more perplexing or neutralizing than the heavy diversity in the dating of the 1260 years back in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Accuracy and soundness of placement come only with the historical fulfillment of the period. This could not be expected in centuries past, before the time of fulfillment.
(4) That William Miller was the first to connect, consecutively, the 150 and 391 year periods of Revelation 9, and that the two must be tied together in order to ascertain the fifteen days' involvement. This position others had not taken prior to Miller, and his exposition antedated Litch by seven years, and Uriah Smith by thirty-four years.
(5) That Josiah Litch was not the first, nor even the first Millerite, to place the terminus of the 391 years in the nineteenth century, as at least eight men before Miller and some before Litch had previously done so—two in the seventeenth, and seven in the nineteenth century.
(6) That the 391 and 396 year period . lengths, as calculated, were meant to represent the same prophetic period—half the expositors failing to note that the prophetic "year," as a time measure, is but 360 days in symbolic length, and each prophetic day corresponds in actual time to a literal solar year.
(7) That Mrs. E. G. White sustained a sound, logical, historical interpretation when she commented as follows in 1886-1887 with reference to the Turkish prophecy in Revelation 9:
"In the year 1840, another remarkable fulfillment of prophecy excited widespread interest. Two years before, Josiah Litch, one of the leading ministers preaching the second advent, published an exposition of Revelation 9, predicting the fall of the Ottoman empire. According to his calculations, this power was to be overthrown 'in A. D. 1840, sometime in the month of August' ; and only a few days previous to its accomplishment he wrote: 'Allowing the first period, 150 years, to have been exactly fulfilled before Deacozes ascended the throne by permission of the Turks, and that the 391 years,.fifteen days, commenced at the close of the first period, it will end on
