"The only rule given us in the Bible is, that when a day is used as a
symbol, it stands for a year. Eze.4:6; Num.14:34. The ordinary Jewish year, which must be used as the basis of reckoning, contained three hundred and sixty days. Three years and a half contained twelve hundred and sixty days. Each day standing for a year, we have twelve hundred and sixty years for the continuation of this horn.
saints were in reality in the hands of this power. From this point did the papacy hold supremacy for twelve hundred and sixty years? Exactly.
Did the papacy possess dominion that length of time? The answer again is Yes.
The edict of the emperor Justinian, dated A.D. 533, made the bishop of Rome the head of all the churches. But this edict could not go into effect till the Arian Ostrogoths, the last of the three horns that were plucked up to make room for the
papacy, were driven from Rome, and this was not accomplished till A.D. 538. The edict would have been of no effect had this latter event not been accomplished; hence from this latter year we are to date, as this was the earliest point where thesaints were in reality in the hands of this power. From this point did the papacy hold supremacy for twelve hundred and sixty years? Exactly.
At the close of the long period of its blasphemous and bloody rule, judgment finally sits upon the papacy. The time had come for the prophetic words of Rev.13:10, to be fulfilled: “He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity; he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Revelation 13:10” From A.D. 538, the clearly defined date for the commencement of this prophetic period, measures 1260 years, and we are brought to A.D. 1798, when Berthier, a French general, entered Rome, proclaimed a Republic, took the pope a prisoner, and for a time abolished the papacy. And it has never since enjoyed the privileges and immunities which it possessed before."
The Judgment: or, The Waymarks of Daniel to the Holy City p.7 James White