ntion to an
important fact generally overlooked or disregarded by expositors.
The 1,260-year period not only marks the time of triumph by the
beast-power, but also _measures the period during which the woman, or
true church, was to be secluded in the wilderness_. Two parallel lines
of prophetic truth--respecting the true church and a false church--are
therefore set forth as coexistent and in contrast with each other.
The correct starting-stake can not, therefore, be when the papacy
had obtained complete ascendency, for this would be too late to
consistently begin to measure the decayed state of the true church.
The date selected must be consistent with both lines of prophecy.
The apostasy did not take place suddenly, however, but was a gradual
decline, a "falling away"; and the papacy, on the other hand, did not
rise to great power suddenly, but grew up by degrees. It was at
first "a little horn," but finally his "look was more stout than
his fellows." Paul says that the "mystery of iniquity"--the seed of
apostasy--was already working in his day and that later "that Wicked"
should be revealed in all its terrible features (see 2 Thess. 2:3-8).
We therefore have to deal with a sliding-scale, a gradual decline on
the part of the true church, and a constant increase of that false,
apostate power which finally culminated in the full-grown papacy.

Bearing in mind that the 1,260-year period measures both phases, we
are obliged to select for our beginning a time about half way between
both extremes, a time when, we might say, the "falling away" from the
pure apostolic truth and standard was about half completed and when
the papacy was about half developed. While the woman was secluded in
the wilderness, the beast-power occupied the public view; and this
was exactly the reverse of apostolic times, when the woman was exalted
above all and before all, "clothed with the sun and with the moon
under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars." In other
words, the extreme of darkest night succeeded the light of glorious
day.

The period of the first apostles was the period of the church's purity
and triumph. In their hands the cause was safe and the pure truth
shown forth in beauty and power. But with the close of the apostolic
era, the apostasy came on at a rapid rate, as the extant writings of
the early church fathers show.

By the middle of the fifth century the light of the gospel was
eclipsed in the darkness of Roma