Not until after A.D. 590 was the Bishop of Rome ever called the sole 'pope' or universal father of the church. According to Calvin in his Institutes of the Christian Religion,12 Bishop Gregory of Rome then repudiated that new title B saying that anyone who accepted it, was the forerunner of Antichrist.
Calvin on Daniel's predicted centuries of papal oppression ere the Reformation
In the last chapter of Daniel (12:1-12), there are important predictions anent the first advent of Christ and the resultant gradual advance of the cause of His Church. The latter would certainly occur — after and in spite of troubles stretching over very many years. For the Church would need to struggle forward, down the centuries, toward the prosperity to be inaugurated by the Protestant Reformation.
