The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 267

years the teaching of the Roman Church had been tending.
The suppression of the Scriptures during the period of papal
supremacy was foretold by the prophets; and the Revelator points also
to the terrible results that were to accrue especially to France from the
domination of the “man of sin.”
Said the angel of the Lord: “The holy city shall they tread underfoot
forty and two months. And I will give power unto My two witnesses, and
they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed
in sackcloth.... And when they shall have finished their testimony, the
beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against
them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. And their dead bodies
shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom
and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.... And they that dwell
upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send
gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that
dwelt on the earth. And after three days and a half the Spirit of life from
God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell
upon them which saw them.” Revelation 11:2-11.
The periods here mentioned—“forty and two months,” and “a
thousand two hundred and threescore days”—are the same, alike
representing the time in which the church of Christ was to suffer
oppression from Rome. The 1260 years of papal supremacy began in
A.D. 538, and would therefore terminate in 1798. (See Appendix note
for page 54.) At that time a French army entered Rome and made the
pope a prisoner, and he died in exile. Though a new pope was soon
afterward elected, the papal hierarchy has never since been able to wield
the power which it before possessed.
The persecution of the church did not continue throughout the entire
period of the 1260 years. God in mercy to His people cut short the time
of their fiery trial. In foretelling the

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