Christians up till then 19th century understood the “he” of Daniel 9:27 to be Jesus Christ, and “the covenant” to be the covenant of grace through faith that God made with Abraham, the same covenant mentioned in verse 4 of the same chapter of Daniel. Francesco Ribera, in order to take Protestants eyes off the papacy as the Antichrist, cooked up a doctrine which is called Futurism, the name of the school of interpretation that puts most of the prophecies in the Book of Revelation as yet unfulfilled.