Daniel 12:11 & 508 AD

In the latter part of the 5th century A.D., the Western Roman Empire was in its death throes. With Rome’s official defeat at the hands of the Germanic general Odovacar in 476, the inhabitants of the many territories conquered by the Romans now began to assert their independence. But it looked as though Christianity itself might be in danger. While many of the tribes and groups of people in Western Europe had assimilated various aspects of Roman civilization, most of them still believed in pagan gods. If Christianity had not become more strongly rooted in Europe, the fall of the Roman Empire would have brought about another wave of spiritual darkness.

One of the influential groups of people in Europe was the Franks, and they lived in the northern area of Gaul, now known as France. Eventually, the Franks would become one of the more dominant peoples of Western Europe. More importantly, though, God would use these people as a means of keeping Christianity alive throughout the Dark Ages. But the Franks’ rise to power and acceptance of Christianity could not have come about without a great leader. God gave them one, a young man named Chlodovocar, more commonly known as Clovis.

Clovis became chief of his tribe in 481, when he was around the age of sixteen. In spite of his youth, he proved a savvy leader and a powerful warrior. He was also very ambitious, and he soon managed to depose and eliminate other chiefs and seize control of their tribes. By uniting the well-armed and skilled Frankish warriors under his command, Clovis now had the opportunity to wage war against the other peoples of Europe.

In 486, Clovis began his campaign to expand his rule by wiping out the remnants of Roman control in Gaul. He smashed the army of the Roman general Syagrius near the city of Soissons. Having occupied Soissons, Clovis had achieved solid control of Northern Gaul, and now could declare himself king of the Franks. However, in order to remain king, he would have to fight off the other tribes who bordered his territory. In 496, the Allemanni, an alliance of warriors from Germany gathered together and invaded Gaul.

At this time, the Franks worshipped the gods of Norse mythology. In fact, Clovis belonged to a family believed to have descended from Wotan, the highest of these gods. In light of this impressive lineage, it is not a great surprise that Clovis did not initially desire to embrace Christianity. The very crux of his rule had depended thus far on the Frankish belief in the Pagan gods, and he had no reason to throw this away for what he probably perceived as a foreign Roman deity. But God had plans for Clovis, and He prepared the king of the Franks for the acceptance of an even greater power. This process began with the influence of Clovis’s wife, Clothilde (Clotilda). She was the niece of the King of Burgundy, and more importantly, a strong believer in the one, true God. Many times she attempted to convince her husband of the truth of Christianity, but he maintained his belief in the gods of his people. All of this changed, however, when Clovis fought the forces of the king of the Allemanni. When the battle began to turn against the Franks, Clovis prayed, not to the gods he had worshipped since his youth, but to the God of his wife, the Christ. He swore he would devote his life to God and become a believer if He would help him vanquish his enemies. According to historians, the Alemanni immediately fell under a deadly fear, and soon their king was killed, prompting their surrender. Awed by this incredible display, Clovis finally chose to become a believer in the God of his wife, the God of the Bible.

When he returned from the battle, he made good on his promise, becoming baptized, even encouraging his people to do likewise. Beyond that, he became very devout in his new faith, destroying the idols of the gods he had once worshipped. Another accomplishment was the building of the Church of St. Genevieve in Paris, the city which he had made his capital. The borders of Clovis’s kingdom grew wider as he drove back the Allemanni to the east and the Visigoths to the west. Soon the Frankish Kingdom included nearly all of France, the northeastern part of Spain, and a great part of Germany. Already God was blessing Clovis and granting him and his kingdom prosperity.

In 511, Clovis died, leaving his kingdom to be split up between his sons. But his legacy of the large Frankish kingdom lived on. The line of Clovis became known as the Merovingian Dynasty, and the establishment of Frankish power prepared Europe for other great leaders, such as Charles Martel and Charlemagne. Most importantly, God used Clovis so that Christianity would not only survive, but thrive and flourish throughout the Dark Ages. The Franks became the French and it was not until the later part of the 18th century that Christian influence decreased in the region where Clovis once reigned.

Now, let us consider how the date 508 AD became the point of fulfillment of the 1290 days prophecy spoken of in Daniel 12:11.  As mentioned above, Clovis became a Catholic through the influence of his wife, Clothilde (Clotilda).  Many historians believe that Clovis’ main reason for his change of faith was political because Christianity constituted a bridge between the Franks and the Roman population. The Franks were a tiny minority (150-200K) and there was a limit to what they could accomplish by force.  The church bishops had a lot of power and so Clovis shrewdly found ways to win their support to his side.  Clovis' conversion to Catholic Christianity made him the FIRST barbarian king to do so. 

Clovis' adaption of the Roman Catholic version of Christianity and his victory over the VISIGOTHS in 508 contributed to establishing the Catholic religion as a state-sponsored church.  Listen to this quote from the New Catholic Encyclopedia (vol 4, page 809):

"Beyond encouraging individual bishops to play a vital role in his kingdom, Clovis sought to use their collective presence as a force to shape a ‘National’ church that would serve under royal direction to institute a common religious life throughout the realm.  His entire religious policy played an important role in bringing the Christian establishment into support for the new regime.  At the same time Clovis played a significant role in establishing a political and religious order which provided a framework in which the Germanic [10 horns] and Roman worlds [Little Horn] could join hands in shaping a new civilization in Western Europe.”

Did you get that? It was Clovis and Catholicism under royal or state direction, that instituted a National church, a state-sponsored religion.  What a powerful admission on the part of the church.

How was Daniel 12:11's 1290 day prophecy fulfilled in 508 AD? Where there was a historical trend leading up to 508 AD the year itself stands out uniquely. In 508 AD, the “daily” or the ministry of Christ was then legally usurped through legislation and cast down from heaven, jointly by Clovis (state) and the church (Catholicism) to the earth as had been foretold by the Scriptures and faithfully acknowledged and recorded by the Lex Romana visigothorum.

Clovis was coronated in 508, whereupon the law code that he embraced and enforced was implemented as the official law code in his provinces. That same law code remained in use until the twelfth century.

Thus there is indisputable historical confirmation and legislative documentation that the Catholic faith was set up or established as prophesied in Daniel 7.  With Catholic law serving as the rule of the land the bishops gained jurisdiction in state-church affairs. 

In this way, Clovis swayed the influence away from the Arian powers in favor of Catholic influence. He became the first Catholic king of the 10 symbolic horns of the Western Roman Empire dating from 476 AD when Rome fell as an empire.  Clovis’ ascension to the throne in 508 brought in its train the first instituted National religion.  All other faiths were outlawed.  This began the long-chain reaction in prophetic history leading to every European nation accepting the Catholic faith and following the example of the Franks in using civil power to enforce the church’s dogmas.

The Breviary of Alaric (Breviarium Alaricianum or Lex Romana Visigothorum) is a collection of Roman law, compiled by order of Alaric II, King of the Visigoths, with the advice of his bishops and nobles. It was promulgated on February 2, year 506. This law collection is often called the Lex Visigothorum, the law of the Visigoths. However, this code abolished the old tradition of having different laws for Romans and for Visigoths; all the subjects of the kingdom would stop being romani and gothi to become hispani (Spaniard). In this way, all the subjects of the kingdom were gathered under the same jurisdiction, eliminating differences between the social and juridical.  The laws combine the Catholic Church's Canon law, and have a strongly theocratic tone.

"In Daniel 8:11 “the daily” refers to Christ’s intercessory ministry which was usurped by the work of the priests through the mass and the confessional. By sacrificing Christ anew in every mass, the papacy has removed Christ’s heavenly ministry in the thinking of men. How long has this been going on? In May 1998, Pope John Paul II issued his pastoral letter Dies Domini in which he challenged Christians to "ensure that civil legislation respects their duty to keep Sunday holy." In the same letter he speaks about the attendance at Sunday mass, and states that particularly from the beginning of the sixth century on there were universal statutes which made it obligatory for the people to attend mass. As Seventh-day Adventists we say that in the sixth century the daily was taken away and the abomination of desolation was established. We begin the 1290 years with 508. Why? Primarily, because deducting 1290 from 1798, which is understood to be the end of the 1260 and 1290 years, brings us to 508.* What happened in 508? In 496 Clovis, king of the Franks became a Roman Catholic. All the other Germanic tribes who had dismantled the Roman Empire were Arians and therefore in opposition to the pope in Rome. Clovis defeated the Visigoths and became the first civil power to join up with the rising Church of Rome. France, therefore, is called the oldest daughter of the Roman Catholic Church. After his great victory over the Goths in 507 . . . Clovis came to Tours, probably in the middle of 508, to hold a victory celebration. There he met Byzantine envoys who presented to him the decree naming him an honorary consul.”11 The joining of the civil and the religious powers (Franks and papacy) at that time was an important step in “setting up the abomination of desolation,” which refers to the unscriptural teachings of the papacy and their enforcement through the union of church and state. It is one of the ironies of history that France, the power that helped the papacy at the beginning of the 1290 years, was the same power that brought about its demise at the end of this time period, when Napoleon in 1798 had Pope Pius VI taken prisoner."  [Source "Time Prophecies in Daniel 12", by Gerhard Pfandl, p. 7-9]

*In 1798 Pope Pius VII was taken into captivity.  Go back 1260 years and we come to 538 A.D.  To find the fulfillment date for the 1290 days [prophetic years] prophecy go back 30 more years and you arrive at 508 AD.