"Indeed it was," said the preacher. "The chief minister of large
cities obtained control of the ministry of that city and surrounding
towns. These chief ministers were called diocesans. Ministers in still
more prominent places came to have a still wider authority and
were called metropolitans, those over large districts were called
patriarchs, and so the grasping for supremacy went on. When
the Mohammedan conquest had reduced the importance of the other
patriarchates, the conflict for supremacy lay between the Patriarch
of Rome and the Patriarch of Constantinople. At last the Patriarch of
Rome gained the greater prestige and authority and was called pope,
and became supreme head of the Western or Roman Catholic Church.
"The great apostasy lasted twelve hundred and sixty years, or until
A.D. 1530. This time was foretold in Rev. 12:6; 14-17, where the
woman, under which figure the church is presented, fled into the
wilderness for 1260 days or 'a time, and times, and half a time,' and
in chapter 13:1-10, the beast, under which figure Roman Catholicism is
represented, had power to continue 'forty and two months,' (forty-two
months) or 1260 days, which, taking the usual Biblical method of
interpreting prophetical time (see Dan.
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