The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

28 THE GENTILE TIMES RECONSIDERED
prophetic interpretations. During the following centuries
innumerable dates were fixed for Christ’s second advent, most of
them built upon the year-day principle. At the time of the
Reformation (in the sixteenth century), Martin Luther and most of
the other reformers believed in that principle, and it was largely
accepted among Protestant scholars far into the nineteenth century.
The principle applied to the Gentile times
As we have seen, Joachim of Floris applied the year-day principle
to the 1,260 days of Revelation 11:3. The preceding verse converts
this period into months, stating that “the nations . . . will trample
the holy city underfoot for forty-two months.” (Revelation 11:2,
NW) Since this prediction about the “holy city” closely parallels
Jesus’ words at Luke 21:24 that “Jerusalem will be trampled under
foot by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled”
(NASB), some of Joachim’s followers soon began to associate the
“times of the Gentiles” with this calculated period in which the
1,260 days became 1,260 years.
However, because they believed that Revelation 11:2, 3 and 12:6,
14 dealt with the Christian church, Jerusalem or the “holy city”
usually was interpreted to mean the church of Rome. 11 The period
of the “times of the Gentiles,” therefore, was thought to be the
period of the affliction of the church, the end of which affliction
was originally expected in 1260 C.E.
Others, however, believed the “holy city” to be the literal city of
Jerusalem. The well known scholastic physician, Arnold of Villanova
(c. 1235–1313), identified the Gentile times with the 1,290 days of
Daniel 12:11, converting them from 1290 days to 1290 years.
Counting these from the taking away of the Jewish sacrifices after
the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 C.E., he
expected the end of the Gentile times in the fourteenth century.
The Crusades were still being waged in his day and Arnold linked
them with the hoped-for expiration of the Gentile times in the near
future, arguing that, unless the end of the times of the Gentiles was
near, how could the “faithful people” regain the Holy Land from
11 Ibid., pp. 717, 723, 726, 727. The information here is based on the work De
Seminibus Scripturarum, fol. 13v, col. 2 (as discussed in Froom), which was
written in 1205 A.D. The manuscript is known as Vat. Latin 3813.
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