§ 1. The Chaldean text has ויתיהבון, “they will be delivered,” because divine providence permits it. A kingdom and power are delivered to him, which he then abuses against the saints. Junius and Tremellius translate thus: “For a time and times and a small part of a time”; but they say that this small part of a time is ten days. That is, they say, for three years and ten days. They prove it because this was accomplished on the fifteenth day of the month Kislev in the one hundred forty-fifth year of the kingdom of the Seleucids, 1 Maccabees 1:57; but afterward, on the fifth day of the month Kislev in the one hundred forty-eighth year, the lawful worship of God was restored, 1 Maccabees 4:52. For this reason the first word, “time,” signifies an incomplete year, or one consisting of parts of two different years; “times,” a full two years; and the small part of a time, ten days.
The foundation of this interpretation is that they think the passage treats of the profanation of the temple committed by Antiochus, and the Chaldean text does not contradict it, for פלג means “division of a time” and “a part.” For although it more frequently signifies a half, Joshua 10 and Judges 9, and is customary as the Syriac פלגא in the titles of the Gospels, it nevertheless does not reject this signification. Pagninus also translates “a part of a time.”
All the Doctors refute this opinion by silence, and no one among the moderns follows it. For even Münster, Luther, Pellican, and Castellio—heretics—follow the ancient Greek version, which has ἥμισυ, “half.” Indeed Bruchthon, who elsewhere is accustomed to follow the common Calvinist version, here translates, “and half a time.” “And ‘time,’” he says, “here signifies a year, just as χρόνος; ‘a time and times and half,’ that is, half a week—forty-two months—as Josephus testifies.”
Finally, the following fact stands against this opinion: in chapter 12:7 the words “a time, times, and half a time” are accepted in the same manner, and yet in the Hebrew there is not פלג, “division,” but חצי, “half,” just as in Revelation there is ἥμισυ, “half.” Accordingly, these words are most correctly spoken of Antichrist: “half a time,” where “time” signifies a year.
§ 2. From this passage Bellarmine, book 3, chapter 8, On the Pontiff, argues as follows. Antichrist will reign for three and a half years—that is, a time, times, and half a time; but the Pope’s reign is much longer; therefore the Pope is not Antichrist. The minor premise is beyond controversy; the major is proved because “a time, times, and half a time” are three and a half years. For so the ancients from Papias himself onward interpreted them, as Pareus’s jubilee commentary on Revelation acknowledges at chapter 11, verse 2.
Then it is proved from Revelation 11:2, where Antichrist treads the temple and city for forty-two months. But forty-two months are three and a half years. Pareus himself acknowledges that the same time is being treated in chapter 12, verse 14:
“But how long will the woman be an exile in the wilderness? A TIME, TIMES, AND HALF A TIME. This threefold designation of time is taken from Daniel 7:25 and 12:7, where Antiochus, bearing the type of Antichrist, is said to be about to trample the saints for a time, times, and half a time. What it means here is evident from verse 6: ‘They will feed her there for 1,260 days.’ These days were mentioned in chapter 11:2. There it was the time of the prophecy of the two witnesses. Here it is the time of the woman’s exile in the wilderness. The same time of forty-two months was there the trampling of the holy city; and it will be, in chapter 13:5, the beast’s raging against the saints. At the same time, therefore, the Church will be exiled in the wilderness, the holy city will be trampled by the Gentiles, the two witnesses will prophesy, and the beast will pursue the saints by war. These events will therefore proceed with equal steps, and this observation will illuminate the prophecy greatly. For from one thing better known, the others less known will become clear.”
§ 3. That old man made Bellarmine’s argument invincible against himself and all the Pope’s calumniators. For Antiochus afflicted the Church for a time, times, and half a time, as he himself teaches; and the same is the time of Antichrist’s raging. Therefore Antichrist will not reign longer. How, then, does Pareus make Antichrist’s reign much longer? I answer: because he does not know what he is saying and does not remember what he has said; the many errors of many men, but most of all his own, have reduced him to madness. These are his words on chapter 11, verse 2:
“(For forty-two months.) Here is wisdom. That the time of the Antichristian persecution is designated is manifest by the consent of nearly all interpreters. But what kind of time and how much it is, where the beginning and where the end must be fixed, is obscure to me and to other interpreters, and perhaps hidden from human investigation. For as far as the times are concerned, the Spirit wished us to investigate certain things rather than to know them, which the Lord also intimated when he said to the disciples who wished to know the hidden time: ‘It is not for you to know the times and opportunities which the Father has placed in his own authority,’ Acts 1:7.”
He can therefore determine nothing concerning this matter, because he cannot know the times and moments. The ancients, such as Hippolytus, Irenaeus, Jerome, Augustine, and the others whom Bellarmine cites, are of our opinion. Junius, Tremellius, and Bruchthon, Calvinists, agree with them, as does Münster, a man of his own judgment and not bound to Luther.
§ 4. Then no one answers in such a manner that he does not collide with very many falsehoods and ἀσύστατα, inconsistent assertions. Chytraeus, cited by Bellarmine, says that the time is uncertain; Pareus proves the same and concludes: “Concerning the forty-two months I have nothing to determine.” But since Daniel and John determine it in so many ways, we ought not to assert that it is uncertain, since all the ancients have expounded it to us as certain.
§ 5. Third, however we interpret these things, they cannot fail to show that the Pope is innocent. For Pareus prophesies that there are 1,260 years, that they began in the year of Christ 606, when Boniface III presided over the Church, that it has thus far been trampled for 1,003 years, and that it must still be trampled for 257 years, until the year of Christ 1866. Yet he admits that this boundary is uncertain to him and will be shortened by God on account of the elect. But other considerations refute him, and especially the fact that Christ calls the time of that persecution very brief. It is not very brief if it is 1,260 years, which is longer than the period for which Satan is bound; for his malice is constrained for a thousand years, and afterward he rages, knowing that he has a short time, Revelation 12. After he has been bound for a thousand years, he must be released for a short time. Certainly a time of release is not short if it is longer than the time for which Satan is bound.
For although a thousand years are like one day before God, before men they are nevertheless a long time, and here it is in no manner brief, because
it is called a short time in comparison with a thousand years.
§ 6. Fourth, those who describe this time most precisely stray in the foulest manner. Conrad Graser, on Revelation 12, page 73: “It signifies definite periods of years: one time from the Babylonian captivity to Christ; two times to the sixteenth century; half a time from the beginning of the sixteenth century, when the papacy began to collapse.” These monsters never entered Luther’s mind; for even amid the swiftest contagion of errors, spread abroad in a few years, he did not think that so long a life and reign of the Pope would endure. And rightly so, for this opinion contradicts all interpreters—Jews, Greeks, Latins, and the sectarians themselves.
Second, nowhere in sacred or profane writings, in no calculation, does “a time” signify five hundred years and “times” a thousand years.
Third, these things have no relation to the Babylonian captivity. For this horn is upon the fourth beast, but in the time of the captivity Chaldaea reigned, and the Persian beast—namely Cyrus—ended the captivity. Accordingly, the Leopard then held power. But the little horn is not upon the head of the Leopard, but of the fourth beast. But if he imagines the fourth beast to be the kingdoms of the Seleucids and Lagids, not even thus will he be able to weave together his fable without betraying himself by its incoherence. For how does that horn, crushed by the Romans, finally come to life again in the year of Christ 500?
Graser proceeds: “John understands three πεντακοσιάδας, periods of five hundred years, after Christ’s birth, by ‘a time and times,’ and from the year 1500 reckons 250 years.” But he contradicts himself, because he had asserted that Daniel and John speak of the same matter; now he assigns different material to each, since he begins Daniel’s “time” from the Babylonian captivity but John’s from the birth of Christ. Then the months and days can in no manner be accommodated to this matter, much less to the apocalyptic beasts, which must be treated afterward.
§ 7. Behold, in a most grave matter by which the whole Christian world already existing from Christ’s birth is condemned—for I showed above that the first Pontiffs are called Antichristian by many—there is dissension among them all. No one can fit his opinion to the text. From a most obscure matter an article of faith is forged, namely this: “The Pope is Antichrist.”
Nor does this calumny assail only the Pontiffs, but all martyrs, confessors, Doctors, and churches which communicated with the Pontiffs. But it is no marvel if such things concerning the Pontiff are vaunted by men for whom that great angel, John the Baptist, is a heretic.
§ 8. Yet they object—for a pretext is never wanting to garrulous wickedness—“The three and a half years are a dream of the monks,” say Chytraeus and Powell, and after them the jubilators.
I answer: first, this is the opinion of the most ancient and most learned Doctors of the Church, as Pareus acknowledges. Second, what they say is blasphemous against sacred Scripture. Daniel and John say that there are a time and times and half a time, forty-two months, and 1,260 days, during which the witnesses prophesy and the woman is fed in the wilderness. These things, spoken so distinctly, we accept in the manner in which they were spoken. For forty-two months are three and a half years; 1,260 days are three and a half years and several days, during which the Church will flourish after Antichrist has been killed. Who, therefore, is so tyrannically imperious that he calls me a dreamer when I say the same things which the Prophets and Apostles say, while by his own monstrous dream and uncertain opinion he condemns the Pontiff to every punishment?
§ 9. Pareus objects: “The things which are said of Antichrist cannot be accomplished in so short a space; therefore the space is not so short.” Let us hear the words of Pareus:
“It does not agree with itself, because the things which they imagine their Antichrist must accomplish can no more possibly be completed by him within the space of three and a half years than a snail can crawl over the entire globe of the earth in the space of three days. He must be acknowledged as Messiah by the Jewish nation dispersed throughout the whole world. He must sit in the temple at Jerusalem, which has lain in ashes for so many centuries. He must butcher three kings of Egypt, Libya, and Ethiopia; subjugate seven other kings; restore Rome after it has been burned by those ten kings; cast out the Pontiff and sit there as Monarch. He must persecute the Christian religion throughout the whole world, destroy the Church, and finally bring the empire of the whole world under his power, and so forth. Who, I ask, would dream in a fever that these things will happen in less than four years? What Mercuries, therefore, will Antichrist send to announce suddenly to the Jews dispersed throughout the whole world the coming of their Messiah and persuade them of it? He will evidently rebuild in three days the temple which Solomon, with all the materials prepared, completed in seven years, and which Zerubbabel could scarcely restore in forty-six years. This four-year-old Antichrist will, of course, in a moment expel the Turk from Syria, the Persian from the East, the Khan from the North, and Prester John from the whole South. What could be more trifling? Will all the Christian Emperors and Kings snore so deeply that all of them together are suddenly oppressed by one man? Will the Roman Pope and his Cardinals so keep watch that Rome becomes pagan from Catholic, and all Christians rashly give their hands to the coming Antichrist? O theatrical trifles! This fiction, therefore, in no way agrees with itself.”
I answer: the sectarians fight against phantoms. No one has said that all those things must be done by Antichrist within the space of three years and six months. No one ascribes so many deeds to less than four years. First, he will be the little horn; when he has subjected three kings, won the Jews to himself, built the temple, and cast down the empire, then, exalted by so many victories, his heart will speak great things. Alexander did not wish to be God until he had been inflated by many victories. Then that persecution will rage, when he appears to have established his power; for at the beginning and during his progress he has need of a reputation for clemency.
Antiochus himself acted less tyrannically in the first six years, for although he treated Jerusalem cruelly in the sixth year of his reign, he had nevertheless not yet climbed to the summit of malice. For he both wept on account of the murder of Onias, remembering the dead man’s sobriety and faithfulness, and avenged his death. But in the eighth year he seriously enacted the type of Antichrist and violated all things. Accordingly, that desolation must be begun from the eighth year of Antiochus, not from the beginning of his reign. In the same manner, the times of Antichrist growing and of Antichrist established at the summit must be distinguished.
Accordingly, in this matter Pareus shows himself a boy, and so does that entire νεκυία, necromantic farce, of the sectarians. For Antichrist will gradually conquer different men one after another, and he will use victory so that he proceeds from one to others until he oppresses them all. Meanwhile, these things are the most certain proof that the prophecy does not treat of the Pontiff. For he is not accepted by the Jews as Messiah, does not sit in the temple at Jerusalem, did not butcher three kings, and did not do the remaining things; therefore he is not Antichrist.
§ 10. Pareus proceeds: “It also variously contradicts the sacred Scriptures. These teach that Antichrist will come only through a universal apostasy from the faith, 2 Thessalonians 2:3 and 1 Timothy 4:1, while at least the elect marked upon the forehead are preserved. But who would say that all Christians, even the Bishops together with their Pontiff, can be led away from the faith within four years?”
I answer: they were not led away from the faith within four years; rather, many have already suffered shipwreck of the faith. Many heresies have gone before so as to bring about the general apostasy; Antichrist himself will complete it. Thus also the abomination which existed in the time of Antiochus had preparations and causes. First Maccabees 1:11:
“There came out of them a sinful root, Antiochus the Illustrious, son of Antiochus the king, who had been a hostage at Rome; and he reigned in the one hundred thirty-seventh year of the kingdom of the Greeks. In those days there came out of Israel sons of iniquity, and they persuaded many, saying: ‘Let us go and establish a covenant with the nations which are around us, because since we departed from them many evils have found us.’ And the speech appeared good in their eyes. And some of the people determined to do it and went to the king; and he gave them power to enact the justice of the nations. And they built a gymnasium in Jerusalem according to the laws of the nations, and they made foreskins for themselves, and they departed from the holy covenant, and were joined to the Nations, and were sold to do evil.”
§ 11. So also now, if we behold the multitude and foulness of the heresies, we shall easily find that all things are prepared for apostasy. For if we consult Pareus, how small a part of men acknowledges and follows the rigid Calvinism into which he himself was initiated; and within that very Calvinism how great are the dissensions! And among those who appear more sincere, scarcely one in ten, in Calvin’s judgment, is not a hypocrite.
At last he concludes thus against Daniel and John:
“Scripture testifies that the day, month, and year of the Lord’s final advent are hidden from all creatures and known to God alone; but that the Lord will come suddenly like a thief in the night, when the world says, ‘Peace, and all things are safe.’ Yet according to the opinion proposed, the day, month, and year of judgment would by no means be hidden. For from the rise of Antichrist to his death three and a half years would remain, and from his death forty-five days until judgment. For Bellarmine writes explicitly that after Antichrist’s death there will be only forty-five days until the end of the world. Since, therefore, a falsehood follows from the opinion proposed, the opinion itself must necessarily be false.”
I answer. Bellarmine says that it is established because, according to a probable interpretation of Daniel, certain men reason in this manner: Daniel 12:12 reads, “Blessed is he who waits and arrives at one thousand three hundred thirty-five days,” as though the recompense of the good will then occur. But that interpretation is not certain and will be unknown to most men. Then, if they substitute years for days, the matter too will then be certain, and that day will be foreknown. For Pareus also prophesies that the Church must be trampled until the year of the Lord 1866; and since he thus disputes concerning a time and times and forty-two months, there can be no doubt that with an equal degree of certainty he conjectures concerning half a time. Braubomus certainly proposed all the years to us in the Flaminian Flowers and boasted that he had known them, although the soul of Christ did not know them.
Third, he who survives to that time can be called blessed, because then, after Antichrist’s death has been very swiftly announced in the principal parts of the world, the persecution will cease, and the agents who believed dead the man whom they had believed immortal will waste away with horror.
Let us therefore rather hear Jerome speaking in this manner:
“A time signifies a year; ‘times,’ according to the peculiarity of the Hebrew language—for the Hebrews themselves also have a dual number—prefigure two years; but half a time, six months, during which the saints are to be permitted to the power of Antichrist, so that the Jews may be condemned who, not believing the truth, received a lie.”
It must be noted, I say, that what he says concerning the dual is the case neither here nor in chapter 12, for in both places the number is plural; and the Jews generally use the dual only in things naturally paired—unless this is a convention by which, when they utter “a time, times, and half” without qualification, they understand “times” as a dual. Jerome does not say this because the form either here or in Daniel 12 is dual, for the Hebrews generally use that only in things naturally paired. But because that age lacked vowel points, he could read מוֹעֲדַיִם, moʿadayim, in the dual, just as readily as מוֹעֲדִים, moʿadim, in the plural; for there is no difference in the letters, but only in the points.