HORAE APOCALYPTICAE,
OR
A COMMENTARY ON THE APOCALYPSE,
CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL;
INCLUDING
ALSO AN EXAMINATION OF
THE
CHIEF PROPHECIES OF DANIEL.
ILLUSTRATED
BY AN APOCALYPTIC CHART, AND ENGRAVINGS
FROM
MEDALS AND OTHER EXTANT MONUMENTS
OF
ANTIQUITY.
WITH APPENDICES,
CONTAINING, BESIDES OTHER MATTER,
A
SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF APOCALYPTIC INTERPRETATION, CRITICAL REVIEWS OF
THE
CHIEF APOCALYPTIC COUNTER-SCHEMES, AND INDICES.
BY THE REV. E. B. ELLIOTT, A. M.
LATE
VICAR OF TUXFORD, AND FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.
FIFTH EDITION,
CAREFULLY
REVISED, CORRECTED, ENLARGED, AND IMPROVED THROUGHOUT;
AND
WITH MANY ADDITIONAL PLATES, AND A NEW PREFACE
VOL. IV.
SEELEY,
JACKSON, AND HALLIDAY, 54 FLEET STREET, LONDON.
MDCCCLXII.
1862
APPENDIX
PART III
CHAPTER I
THE ADAMIC WORLD'S CHRONOLOGY, ACCORDING
TO THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES, AND PROBABLE NEARNESS TO ITS SEVENTH MILLENNARY.
THE fact of
the Jewish pre-christian church having long and fixedly entertained the opinion
that Messiah's kingdom of blessedness would occupy the seventh millennium of
the world, agreeably with the type of the seventh day's sabbatism of rest after
the six days of creation, is well known. {1} And as I have observed in the
preceding part of my Book, St. Paul's use of the word sabbatismov, sabbatism,
to designate the saints' expected glorious time of rest with Christ, might also
perhaps be construed that it was Hebrew Christians whom he was then addressing;
and that by them the word thus chosen could not but be almost necessarily
associated, from long national usage, with some chronological septenary {1a}
---------------
1. So the
Rabbi Eliezer, cap. xxviii. p. 41: - "The blessed Lord created seven
worlds; (i.e. aijw>na?, ages) [Editor: McClintock & Strong's: - From the same as (104) (ajei>); properly
an age; by extension perpetuity (also past); by implication the world;
specially (Jewish) a Messianic period (present or future): - age, course,
eternal, (for) ever (-more), [n-]ever, (beginning of the, while the) world
(began, without end). Compare (5550) (cro>nov).] -- but one of them is all
sabbath and the rest is life eternal." "Where," observes Dr.
Whitby on Heb. iv. 9, "he refers to their (the Jew's) common opinion that
the world should continue 6000 years, and then a perpetual sabbath begin,
typified by God's resting the seventh day, and blessing it." (For
perpetual Whitby should have perhaps said a millennial sabbath; it being
aiwniov in the sense in which the aiwnev, ages, before mentioned, were each millennial.
So in the Midras Till. p. 4, the same Rabbi Eliezer says, "The days of
Messiah are 1000 years."1) - Similarly the Bereschith Rabba, quoted also
by Whitby; "If we expound the seventh day of the seventh thousand years,
which is the world to come, the exposition is, 'He blessed it,' because that in
the seventh thousand all souls shall be bound in the bundle of life. . . So our
Rabbins of blessed memory have said in their Commentaries on 'God blessed the
seventh day,' that the Holy Ghost blessed the world to come, which beginneth in
the seventh thousand of years." - Again, Philo is copious on the same
subject: stating that the sabbaths of the law were allegories, or figurative
expressions. With which view we may compare St. Paul's declaration in Col. ii.
16, 17; "in respect of the sabbath-days, which are a shadow of things to
come:" akia twn mellontwn.
The general
opinion of the Jews was, that the world was to be 2000 years without the law,
2000 under the law, and 2000 under the Messiah. This is still called by the
Jews" a tradition of the house of Elias," an eminent Rabbi that lived
before the birth of Christ: - who also taught that in the seventh millennary
the earth would be renewed, and the righteous dead raised, no more again to be
turned to dust: and that the just then alive should mount up with wings as
eagles: so that in that day they would not need to fear, though the mountains
(Psalm xlvi. 2) should be cast into the midst of the sea. Mede, Book iv.
{1a} So
Whitby says on Heb. iv. 9, that "the apostle by changing the word
anapausin, rest, into sabbatism, clearly leads us . . to the spiritual sabbath
of which the Jewish doctors speak so generally as the great thing signified by
their sabbath." Similarly Osiander, about the time of the Reformation.
"De quà requie sempiteruà ad Hebræos, cap. 4, ita loquitur Apostolus, ut
hoc ipsum mysterium nobis, veluti digito, commonstrare videatur."
Mr. Brown
disputes this from the etmology of the word sabbath, as simply meaning rest:
(see p. 95, Note 809, suprà:) but the meaning conveyed to the Hebrew mind by
the word cannot surely be with reason overlooked. So much were sabbath and
septenary associated together in it that, as Schleusner observes on the word
Sabbiaton, the Septuagint translators sometimes render the Hebrew word by
ebdoman.
It is a word
applied to the seventh year of the rest in the Mosaic law, as well as to the
seventh day of rest. See Lev. xxv. 4, &c.
[Editor: We
have included Strong's Numbering of these terms for the reader, so that
hopefully he may distinguish them more easily: -
Lev. 25:4
But in the seventh <7637> year <8141> shall be a sabbath
<7676> of rest <7677> unto the land <776> , a sabbath
<7676> for the LORD <3068> : thou shalt neither sow <2232>
thy field <7704> , nor prune <2168> thy vineyard.
[1]. Seventh
year 7637; "{7637} y[iybiv] - shbiy`iy, sheb-ee-ee'; or Y[IBIV] shbi‘iy,
sheb-ee-ee'; ordinal from 7657; seventh: - seventh (time). click to see {7657};
µy[ib]vi - shib`iym., shib-eem'; multiple of 7651; seventy: - seventy, threescore
and ten (+ -teen). click to see {7651}; [b"v, - sheba`, sheh'-bah; or
h[;b]vi (masculine) shibrah, shib-aw'; from 7650; a primitive cardinal number;
seven (as the sacred full one); also (adverbially) seven times; by implication,
a week; by extension, an indefinite number: - (+ by) seven(-fold),-s, (-teen,
-teenth), -th, times). Compare 7658. click to see {7650} click to see
{7658}".
[2.] Sabbath
of rest for the LORD unto the land, 7676; "{7676} tB;v" - shabbath,
shab-bawth'; intensive from 7673; intermission, i.e (specifically) the Sabbath:
- (+ every) sabbath. click to see {7673}; {7673} tb"v; - shabath,
shaw-bath'; a primitive root; to repose, i.e. desist from exertion; used in
many implied relations (causative, figurative or specific): - (cause to, let,
make to) cease, celebrate, cause (make) to fail, keep (sabbath), suffer to be
lacking, leave, put away (down), (make to) rest, rid, still, take away. .
In fact
among the Christian fathers that succeeded on the apostolic age, this view of
the matter was universally received and promulgated. 2a Which being so, the
chronological question as to what may be the world's present age, dated from
Adam's
2a. I may
specify more particularly the pseudo-Barnabas, a writer of unquestionably a
very early age in the Church; 2 - Which being so, the chronological
[Editor: In
Elliott's original manuscript we have it written in Greek. Fortunately I have
English Translations of Barnabas' writings in my possession which will replace Elliott's Greek: -
1. Barnabas.
Further, also, it is written concerning the Sabbath in the Decalogue which [the
Lord] spoke, face to face, to Moses on Mount Sinai, "And sanctify ye the
Sabbath of the Lord with clean hands and a pure heart." And He says in
another place, "If my sons keep the Sabbath, then will I cause my mercy to
rest upon them." The Sabbath is mentioned at the beginning of the creation
[thus]: "And God made in six days the works of His hands, and made an end
on the seventh day, and rested on it, and sanctified it." Attend, my children,
to the meaning of this expression, "He finished in six days." This
implieth that the Lord will finish all things in six thousand years, for a day
is with Him a thousand years. And He Himself testifieth, saying, "Behold,
to-day will be as a thousand years." Therefore, my children, in six days,
that is, in six thousand years, all things will be finished. "And He
rested on the seventh day." This meaneth: when His Son, coming [again],
shall destroy the time of the wicked man, and judge the ungodly, and change the
sun, and the moon, and the stars, then shall He truly rest on the seventh day.
Moreover, He says, "Thou shalt sanctify it with pure hands and a pure
heart." If, therefore, any one can now sanctify the day which God hath
sanctified, except he is pure in heart in all things, we are deceived. Behold,
therefore: certainly then one properly resting sanctifies it, when we
ourselves, having received the promise, wickedness no longer existing, and all
things having been made new by the Lord, shall be able to work righteousness.
Then we shall be able to sanctify it, having been first sanctified ourselves.
Further, He says to them, "Your new moons and your Sabbath I cannot
endure." Ye perceive how He speaks: Your present Sabbaths are not acceptable
to Me, but that is which I have made, [namely this,] when, giving rest to all
things, I shall make a beginning of the eighth day, that is, a beginning of
another world. Wherefore, also, we keep the eighth day with joyfullness, the
day also on which Jesus rose again from the dead. And when He had manifested
Himself, He ascended into the heavens.
[Editor:
Likewise we have taken the liberty to include for your inspection some excerpts
taken from Irenæus which relate to his mind on the Jewish Sabbaths: -
2. Irenæua. Moreover, we learn from the Scripture
itself, that God gave circumcision, not as the completer of righteousness, but
as a sign, that the race of Abraham might continue recognizable. For it
declares: "God said unto Abraham, Every male among you shall be circumcised;
and ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskins, as a token of the covenant
between Me and you." This same does Ezekiel the prophet say with regard to
the Sabbaths: "Also I gave them My Sabbaths, to be a sign between Me and
them, that they might know that I am the Lord, that sanctify them." And in
Exodus, God says to Moses: "And ye shall observe My Sabbaths; for it shall
be a sign between Me and you for your generations." These things, then,
were given for a sign; but the signs were not unsymbolical, that is, neither
unmeaning nor to no purpose, inasmuch as they were given by a wise Artist; but
the circumcision after the flesh typified that after the Spirit. For
"we," says the apostle, "have been circumcised with the circumcision
made without hands." And the prophet declares, "Circumcise the
hardness of your heart." But the Sabbaths taught that we should continue
day by day in God's service. "For we have been counted," says the
Apostle Paul, "all the day long as sheep for the slaughter;" that is,
consecrated [to God], and ministering continually to our faith, and persevering
in it, and abstaining from all avarice, and not acquiring or possessing
treasures upon earth. Moreover, the Sabbath of God (requietio Dei), that is,
the kingdom, was, as it were, indicated by created things; in which [kingdom],
the man who shall have persevered in serving God (Deo assistere) shall, in a
state of rest, partake of God's table.
Thus, then, in the day that they did eat, in
the same did they die, and became death's debtors, since it was one day of the
creation. For it is said, "There was made in the evening, and there was
made in the morning, one day." Now in this same day that they did eat, in
that also did they die. But according to the cycle and progress of the days,
after which one is termed first, another second, and another third, if anybody
seeks diligently to learn upon what day out of the seven it was that Adam died,
he will find it by examining the dispensation of the Lord. For by summing up in
Himself the whole human race from the beginning to the end, He has also summed
up its death. From this it is clear that the Lord suffered death, in obedience
to His Father, upon that day on which Adam died while he disobeyed God. Now he
died on the same day in which he did eat. For God said, "In that day on
which ye shall eat of it, ye shall die by death." The Lord, therefore,
recapitulating in Himself this day, underwent His sufferings upon the day
preceding the Sabbath, that is, the sixth day of the creation, on which day man
was created; thus granting him a second creation by means of His passion, which
is that [creation] out of death. And there are some, again, who relegate the
death of Adam to the thousandth year; for since "a day of the Lord is as a
thousand years," he did not overstep the thousand years, but died within
them, thus bearing out the sentence of his sin. Whether, therefore, with
respect to disobedience, which is death; whether [we consider] that, on account
of that, they were delivered over to death, and made debtors to it; whether
with respect to [the fact that on] one and the same day on which they ate they
also died (for it is one day of the creation); whether [we regard this point],
that, with respect to this cycle of days, they died on the day in which they
did also eat, that is, the day] of the preparation, which is termed "the
pure supper," that is, the sixth day of the feast, which the Lord also
exhibited when He suffered on that day; or whether [we reflect] that he (Adam)
did not overstep the thousand years, but died within their limit, - it follows
that, in regard to all these significations, God is indeed true. For they died
who tasted of the tree; and the serpent is proved a liar and a murderer, as the
Lord said of him: "For he is a murderer from the beginning, and the truth
is not in him."
These are
[to take place] in the times of the kingdom, that is, upon the seventh day,
which has been sanctified, in which God rested from all the works which He
created, which is the true Sabbath of the righteous, which they shall not be
engaged in any earthly occupation; but shall have a table at hand prepared for
them by God, supplying them with all sorts of dishes. ]
3. Quæst. et
Respons. which go under the name of Justin Martyr. - No 71: [Editor: We are
unable to read the scanned treatise with regard to this excerpt, and further,
we cannot find any reference in the writings of Justin Martyr which relates to
the chronological aspects of Elliott's discussion.]
4. Cyprian. "Ut primi in dispositione divinà septem
dies annorum septeim millia continentes." De Exh. Murt. 11. flae sexti
millesimi anni malitia omnis abolcatur è terrà, et regnet perannos mille
justitia." vii. 14.
5.
Lactanius. "Quoniam sex diebus euneta Dei opera perfecta sunt, per secula
sex, id est annorum sex millis manere in hoc statu mundum necessu est. . . Et
rursus quoniam perfectis operibus requievit die septimo, eumque bettesixit,
necease est ut in fiae sexti millesimi anni malitia omnis aboleatur è terrà, et
regnet per annos mille justitia." vii. 14.
6. Ambrose.
"Quia cum septimo die requieverit Deus ab omnibus operibus suis, post
hebdomadam istius mundi quies diuturna promittitur." in Luc. viii. 23.
For notices
to the same effect from Jerome and Augustine see my Vol. i. p. 396, 397.
Besides the passage there cited Augustine speaks of it also in his C. D. xx. 7.
1.
7. So too,
as Feuardentius observes in his Notes on the passage quoted above from Irenæus,
Hilary on Matt. xviii.
It is to be
observed that the anti-premillennarian fathers of the fourth and fifth
centuries explained the sabbatical seventh day as typical, not of a seventh
sabbatical Millennium of rest, but an eternal sabbath: -a view generally
adopted afterwards. In the pseudo-Barnabas' view (ibid.) it seems to have been
rather the Christian sabbath on the "eighth" day that typified the
saints' eternal rest; the Jewish seventh-day sabbath the millennial.
creation,
and when the termination of its sixth millennary becomes one of real interest.
Nor is there wanting the evidence requisite for our attaining a near probable
approximation to this notable epoch; and finding, as the result of our
inquiries, that according to the chronology of our Hebrew copies of the Old
Testament, which cannot but be looked to a priori as our most authoritative
guide on the subject, we are at this present time fast (perhaps very fast)
approximating to it.
Mr. Flynes
Clinton, in his Essay on the Hebrew Chronology, appended to the third volume of
his late learned work entitled Fasti Hellenici, has greatly elucidated the
subject. For, setting aside the many comparatively leaseless mundane
chronologies, such as Hales has enumerated, he lays down as indisputable the
opinion just expressed that our appeal on the question must be to Holy
Scripture, and primarily to the Hebrew text of Scripture: then proceeds thus to
illustrate and argue out the point; including at the commencement in his review
a notice of the chronological differences of the Samaritan Pentateuch and Greek
Septuagint translation from the Hebrew.
It is on the
Patriarchal chronologies that the differences (and great they are) first occur.
And, on the disputed question, whether it be the Hebrew text with its shorter
chronology that has by fraud been robbed of eleven centuries, or the Septuagint
with its longer, that has had them fraudulently added, {1a} (for that the
difference in the result of design is a thing evident, and long since noted by
Augustine, {2b} as also whether its authority is to be set aside from respect
to the Samaritan text, and its smaller variations, the answer seems on every
account to be in favor of the Hebrew text: - considering, first, the superior
reverence and almost superstitious care with which the Hebrew text was watched
over, as compared with the Septuagint; {3c}. - next, the wonderful uniformity
of the numerals of the Hebrew text, in all its multitudes of manuscripts
existing in different parts of the world, contrasted with the varieties and
uncertainty of the numerals in the Septuagint and Samaritan; {4d}-considering,
further, the general agreement of the Samaritan with the Hebrew in the
chronology of the antediluvian Patriarchs, {5e} and its thus fixing the fraud
in that table at least, and by probable consequence in the postdiluvian table also, on the Septuagint: Septuagint;
{6f}- considering moreover the better agreement of the historical fact with the
Hebrew than with the and the more easily supposable object with the Septuagint
translators {7g} - than with the keepers of the Hebrew text, as well as better
opportunity, {8h} for falsifying in the matter.
---------------
{1a} The
following tabular schemes exhibit the variations: the numbers expressing the
parent's age at the son's birth, except in the cases of Noah and Shem; and
Abraham's birth assigned to Terah's 130th year, the true date. (See Note † p.
709. infrà.) [Editor: We are unable to find this note (†) on page 709, however,
hopefully, with God's help, we will transcribe pg. 709 'The Scripture
Chronology of the Word,' when we view pg. 709.]
{2b}In the
Antediluvian Table (where the question is between the Hebrew and Josephus ),
the years before the son's birth and the residence agree in all cases with the
totals of the lives; except that in the Samaritan the residence in the sixth,
eighth, and ninth are shortened, to adapt them to the shorter period between
Jared and the Flood. Thus,
in the
Hebrew and Samaritan Adam has 130 + 800
- 930.
Septuagint
and Josephus 230 + 700 - 930.
And in the
Hebrew and Samaritan Seth has 105
+ 807 - 912.
Septuagint and
Josephus 205 + 707 - 912.
This can
only have been by design. So Augustine Civ. Dei, sv. 13.1; "Videtur habere
quamdam, si diei potest, error ipse constantiam; nee casum redolet, sed
industriam." And so Mr. Clinton.
{3c} The
Jews even counted the letters of their Bible.
{4d}
Professor Baumgarten, of Halle, in his Remarks on Universal History, observes;
"Both the Samaritan copy and the Greek version abound in various readings,
with respect to their different chronologies, and frequently contradict themselves:
whereas the Hebrew is uniform and consistent in all its copies." And Mr.
Kennedy, in his Chronology of the World, says, that in examining the Hebrew
Text he "was not able to discover one various reading in that multitude of
numeral words and letters which constitute the scriptural series of years from
Creation to the death of Nebuchadnezzar."
I quote this
from a Paper on the subject in the Christian Observer for May, 1802, p. 287;
and, in further illustration of the uniformity of the Hebrew copies in respect
of their numerals, may add from it that the Chaldee Paraphrase of Onkelos,
written probably near about the time of Christ, agrees with the Hebrew
chronologies, and that the same are recognized in the two Talmuds; - also that
Dr. Wolff informs me that "in the ancient manuscripts which he saw at
Bokhara, the chronological notices were exactly according to the received
Hebrew text, though the letters of the manuscripts resembled Samaritan."
As regards
the Samaritan, it is to be observed that the manuscript from which our
Samaritan Pentateuch was published, being written about A.D. 1400, was
consequently not nearly so old as many Hebrew manuscripts. And in earlier
existing copies of it we know that there were certain variations to the
numerals, more accordant with the Hebrew. So the English Universal History,
referred to in the Christian Observer. See Note 5a infrà.
Of the
errors of the Septuagint numerals in many copies a notable example is given by
Augustine, C.D. xv. 11. For it seems that in almost all the copies then extant
Methuselah was made to have begotten Lamech at the age of 167, and to have
lived 802 years after: that is, fourteen years after the Flood, according to
the Septuagint chronology itself; though we know that no man but Noah, and his
three sons Shem, Ham, and Japhet, were preserved alive through it.
{5e} Viz. in
the cases of all but the sixth, eighth, and ninth Patriarchs. Here the
Samaritan residues are shortened to adapt them to the shorter period, made by
the shorter genealogies corresponding between Jared and the Flood; to the
intent that these Patriarchs might not be thought to have been involved in it.
But we are told by Jerome (so the compilers of our English Universal History
have remarked) that in his time there were some Samaritan copies which made
Methuselah's and Lamech's ages, at the birth of their sons, the same as the
Hebrew.
{6f} On the
two points alleged in their own favor by the advocates of the Septuagint
Chronology, Mr. Clinton quite turns the tables against them. - 1. As to the age
of the paioogonia, which these writers have placed after the lapse of one third
of life, Mr. C. says that it appears from Scripture to have been in the
Patriarchal age as early as it is now; Judah being at forty-eight a
great-grandfather, - Benjamin having, under thirty, ten sons, &c. - 2. As
to the Dispersion at Babel, which the Septuagintarians say implies a mundane
population such as could not have been according to the Hebrew postdiluvian
chronology, Mr. C. answers, that under favorable circumstances, even now, it
has been known where it has doubled for short periods in less than thirteen
years; and that in older cases of the Israelites in Egypt, and later of certain
parts of the North American colonies, the population doubled itself in fifteen
years: - that the circumstances of the first families after the Flood were
precisely the most favorable to increase of population, with all the arts of
the antediluvian world, unoccupied land to a boundless extent before them, and
lives extended to 500, 400, and 200 years: - that thus we may reasonably assume
twelve years, at the most, as that of the population doubling itself: on which
assumption the population of the earth, derived from the stock of six parents,
would in 276 years amount to above fifty millions, and in 300 years to two
hundred millions. Even at the rate of fifteen years it would have reached two
hundred millions in 373 years from the Flood; i.e. in the twenty-fourth year of
Abraham. - Now at the time of the Dispersion, had the world's population then
amounted to many millions, men would have been forced by their wants to
disperse; whereas the Sacred History tells us that it took place contrary to
the wishes of men, who desired all to dwell together. A population of about
50,000 would just answer the probabilities of the case. And this number must
have been reached within 100 years from the Flood; i.e. about the thirtieth
year of Peleg (according to the Hebrew chronology); in whose days it is said,
Gen. x. 25, that the Dispersion occurred.
\-
ANTIDELUVIAN PATRIARCHS
Hebr. Samr.
lxx. Joseph.
1. Adam ............. 130 130 230
230
2. Seth ............. 105
105 205 205
3. Enos
............. 90 90
190 190
4. Cainan
........... 70 70
170 170
5. Mahalaleel ....... 65
65 163 165
8. Jared ............ 162 62 162
162
7. Enoch ............ 65 65 165
(1)65*
8. Methuselah ....... 187 67 187
187
9. Lamech ........... 182 53 188
182
10.
Noah (at the flood) 600 600 600
600
Total.. 1656 1307
2262 2256
-------------------------
*
165 is doubtless the correct reading.
-------------------------
POSTDILUVIAN PATRIARCHS
Hebr. Samr.
lxx. Joseph.
11.
Shem (aged 100 ?
at the Flood).. 2
2 2 12
12.
Arphaxad .... 35 135
135 135
[Cainan spurious 130 ..]
13.
Salah ............. 30 130
130 130
14.
Heber ............. 34 134
134 134
15.
Peleg ............. 30 130
130 130
16.
Reu ............... 32 132
132 130
17.
Serug ............. 30 130
130 132
18.
Nahor ............. 29 79
79 120
19.
Terah ............. 130 130
130 130
(Gen. xi:32, xii:4.)
So to Abraham .... 352
1002 1002 1053
\+
Jerom (Vol.
ii. p. 573) In his Letter to Evangelius about Melchisedek, thus gives and
reasons on the numerals.
\-
They say that
Shem was 390 years when Abram was born. For
Shem at
100 begot Arphaxad, and lived 500 years after.
Arphaxad.. 35 .... Salem.
Salem .... 30 .... Eber.
Eber...... 34 .... Phaleg.
Phaleg.... 30 .... Rehu.
Rehu...... 32 .... Saleg.
Saleg..... 30 .... Nahor.
Nahor..... 70 .... Abram, Nahor, and Horan.
And
Abraham died at 175. Therefore Shem overlived him 35 years.
\+
{7g} Jackson
allows that it is difficult to see the motives of the Jews in shortening the
patriarchal genealogies. On the other hand the Septuagint translator's had an
obvious motive for enlarging the chronology. The Chaldeans and Egyptians (whose
histories were about this time published by Borosus and Manetho) had claim to a
remote antiquity. Hence these translators of the Pentateuch might have been led
in a spirit of rivalry to augment the amount of the generations of their
ancestors, alike by the centenary additions, and by the interpolation (as Hales
himself allows it is) of the second Cainaan.
{8h}
Augustine, whose four chapters on this subject (C. D. xv. 10-14) well deserve
attentive perusal, has put this point very strongly. Which, says he, is most
credible, - that the Jews, dispersed over all the world, should have conspired
together to defraud their scriptures and themselves of truth, the exclusive
possession of which is so much their boast; or that the seventy Greek
translators, united together in conclave by King Ptolemy, should have managed
to falsify the numerals? He adds, 13.2,) as his own solution of the matter,
that it was after all probably not the translators, but the first transcriber
of the manuscript from the original in the royal library, that introduced the
error; "Scripture tribustur errori qui de Bibliothech supradleti Regle
codicem describendum primus accepit:" and concluses thus: "El lingus
polise erodatur unde est lu aliam per iuterpretes facta translatia." -
Augustine's testimony is the more valuable and remarkable because he was
himself originally (see my Note Vol. i. p. 307) a Septuagintarian in
chronology. At the conclusion of the C. D. however he measures the six periods
of the world proceeding its septenary period, or sabbath, by æras, not millennaries;
the 1st to the Flood, 2nd to Abraham, 3rd to David, 4th to the Babylonish
Captivity, 5th to Christ, and 6th that after Christ. C. D. xxll. 30. 5.
This point
settled, {9a} than there remain but two
chasms in the Hebrew chronology to fill up, and one doubtful point to settle,
arising from a difference between the Old Testament statement and one in the
New Testament, in order to the completion of our chronological table. The
chasms are, 1st, that from Moses' death to the first servitude; {9b} 2ndly,
that between Samson's death and Saul's election to the kingdom:{9c} of neither
of which could the length be much longer or shorter than thirty or forty years.
{9d} - The doubtful point alluded to concerns the same period of the Judges: it
being whether the reckoning given in 1 Kings vi. 1, of the interval from the
Exodus the building of Solomon's temple at 480 years be the correct one, {9e}
or that by St. Paul, in Acts xiii. 18-22, at about 580. {9f} Mr. Clinton (but
here Usher and other eminent chronologists, as I shall have soon to observe
again, who take the Hebrew text of SS. as the basis of their chronology, differ
from him) prefers the latter. {9g} And thus, completing his table, he makes the
date of the Creation to be about 4138 B.C.; and consequently the end of the
6000 years of the world, and opening of the seventh Millennium, by
approximation, about A.D. 1862: - the same year, very nearly, that we before
fixed on the epoch of the full end of the 1260 years, on quite different data,
and so the commencement at least of the time of the end. I subjoin a precis of
his Mundane Chronology, from the Creation to Christ.
---------------
\-
B. C. A. M. Years
4138
Adam
2482
- 1656 The Deluge
1656
2130
- 2008 Birth of Abraham
352
2055
- 2083 The Call
75
1625
- 2513 The Exodos
430
1585
- 2553 Death of Moses
40
1558
- 2580 First Servitude (by conjecture)
27
1128
- 3010 Death of Eli
430
1096
- 3042 Election off Saul (by conjecture)
32
1056
- 3082 David
40
1016
- 3122 Solomon
40
976 - 3162 Rehoboam 40
587 - 3551 Zedekiah’s Captivity 389
\+
{9a} It is to be observed, as Clinton remarks, p.
203, that the question is not an indefinite one, from want of testimony, so as
in the case of the early chronology of Greece. The uncertainty is one arising
from two different distinct testimonies. We have only to decide which is the
genuine and authentic copy. Either the space before the Flood was 1656 years,
or it was 2256. Either the period from the Flood to the call of Abraham was 352
years, or it was 1002. "These periods could not be greater than the
highest of these numbers, or less than the lowest."
{9b} This
period is that comprehended in Josh. xxiv. 31; "And Israel served the Lord
all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that overlived Joshua,
and which had known all the works of the Lord that he had done for
Israel."
{9c} Compare
Judg. xv. 20, xvi. 31, and 1 Sam. iv. 1, vii. 13, xii. 2.
{9d} Mr.
Brooks, in the Preface to his late history of the Jews, p. xiii., argues that
the interval from Moses' death to Joshua's most probably have been longer,
because of Joshua being called r["n" a young man, in Exod. xxxiii.
11, and Numb. xi. 28, with reference to the second year after the Exodus. But
this Hebrew word is used to designate servants also (compare Gen. xxiii. 3,
&c.); and Joshua is called in the places above cited as the servant of
Moses. (So Kimchi explains this appellative of Joshua, in Zech. ii. 7: and so,
I may add, Ambrose comments on Gen. xxiv. 2: "Etiam
senioris ætatis servuli pueri dicantur à dominis.") Thus the appellation can no more be argued
from than the French word garcon or English postboy. - Moreover, at the time of
the division of the land, seven years after Moses' death, (Josh xiv. 10) Joshua
is said (ibid. xiii. 1) to have been "old and stricken in years." -
Thus Mr. Clinton seems fairly to have estimated Joshua's age at the time of the
spies at about forty; it being the then age of his associate Caleb also, who
overlived him. See Judg. i. 1, 9-12. If so, as Joshua was 110 years at his
death, (see Josh. xxiv. 29,) the interval must have been 110-(38+40)=32.
{9e} 1 Kings
vi:1; "It came to pass in the 480th year after the children of Israel were
come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over
Israel, that he began to build the house of the Lord."
{9f} Acts
xiii. 18; "Forty years suffered he their manners in the wilderness: and
when he had destroyed seven nations in Canaan, he divided their land to them by
lot: and after that, he gave unto them judges about the space of 450 years, and
Samuel the prophet. And afterwards they desired a king: and God gave them
Saul."
{9g}
Because, argues he, the servitudes must be included in the periods of rest, on
the shorter system; which inclusion seems directly contrary to the tenor of the
Scripture statements.
So Mr. Fynes
Clinton. On the other hand, as before observed, the Hebrew Chronology about the
time of the building of the temple may by many not unreasonably be deemed of
the greater weight. - Mr. C.'s chronological table of this period, formed from
the express declarations in the Book of Judges, is given below: - it being
premised that Chushan's oppression followed (Judg. iii. 7) on Israel's first
apostasy to the worship of Baalim, on the death of the elders that overlived
Joshua. 9h this last Philistinian servitude of forty years appears to have
included the judgeships of both Samson and Eli: the former being said (xv. 20,
xvi. 31) to have judged Israel "in the days of the Philistines;" and
the latter to have died from grief at their defeat of Israel, and capture of
the ark. Their supremacy continued until Samuel's defeat of them near Mizpeh,
of which the stone Ebenezer was the record, 1 Sam. vii. 12: after which Israel
had rest "all the days of Samuel;" (ib. 13;) until he was old, (viii.
1, xii. 2) and anointed Saul king.
Thus the
time of Judges, exclusive of Joshua and Samuel, appears from these numbers to
have been 390 years: and, if we add 30 years for Joshua and the Egypt-born
elders that overlived Joshua, reckoned from the time of the conquest and
division of Canaan, (about 7 years having intervened between the event and
Moses' death,) and 30 years more for Samuel's judgeship after the Philistine's
defeat, it exactly makes up St. Paul's "about the space of 450
years." Add 7 for the conquest of Canaan, 40 for the wilderness, 40 for
Saul, and 40 for David: and then the 4th year of Solomon comes to about the
580th year from the Exodus; instead of the 480th, as the Hebrew text defines it
in 1 Kings vi. 1. - Taking this view of the chronology, therefore, the only
solution of the difficulty from 1 Kings vi. 1 that I see is by supposing a
mistaken reading in our Hebrew copies of 480 for 580.
\-
Servitudes years Rests and Judges years
1st.
Chusan (Judg. iii:8.) 8
lst Rest (Judg. iii:11.) 40
2nd.
Eglon (Judg. iii:14.) 18
2nd . . .
(Judg. iii:30.) 80
3rd.
Jabin (Judg. iv:3.) 20
3rd . . . (Judg. v:31.) 40
4th.
Midian (Judg. vi:1.) 7
4th (" the days of Gideon," Judg. viii:28.) 40
Abimelech's judging (Judg. ix:22.) 3
Tola's do. (Judg. x:2.) 23
Jair's do. (Judg. x:3.) 22
5th.
Ammon (?. d.) 18
Jepthah do. (xii.:7.) 6
Ibzan, Elon,
Abdon, (xii:8-?4.) 25
6th.
Philistines (Judg. xiii:1.) . 40 [Samson 20 years, and
Eli.]
--------- ---------
111 279
\+
On the other
hand, if we adapt the Hebrew numeral in 1 Kings 6:1, St. Paul's 450 years will
have to be explained either, as Whitby prefers, by reference to the then
current Septuagint chronology; or possibly, as Archbishop Usher, by supposing
it the measure of the time from Abraham to the division of the lands, not from
the division of the lands to Samuel. {1} Then, of course, the world's
chronology will be near 100 years less advanced then on Clinton's hypothesis,
and we have yet to wait near that time (not very different from the 75 years of
Daniel's time of the end) for the end of the world's sixth millennary,
according to the Hebrew Scriptural data, and beginning of the world's
sabbatism.{2}
{1}
On the fly-leaf is appended a Tabular Scheme of this Scripture Chronology, with
the Scriptural authorities in brief; drawn up by the Rev. C. Bowen, Rector of
St. Thomas, Winchester.
So
too Calmet, quoted to that effect by Dr. A. Clarke - In order to this
construction of the passage, from near the beginning of verse 17 to the end of
verse 19, in Acts xiii. must be constructed parenthetically thus: -[Editor: The
Greek copy in my possession is very difficult to read, so my transcription of
the following may be faulty.]
‘O qeov tou laou toutou Israhl
exelexato toue patepav hmwn. (Kai ton laou ufwsen en th paroikia
en gh lh Aiguptw, kai meta bracionov
ufhlou axhgagen autouv ex autohv. Kai wv tessakontaeth cronon etropaforhsin
autouv en th erhmw. Kai, kaqelwn, equh epta en gh canaan kuteklhronorhsen
autoiv thn ghn autwn.) Kai meta tauta, wv etedi tetrakosioiv kai penthkonta,
adwke kritav ewn Eamsuhl tou profhtou.
In
order to make out the 450 years on this view, the chronological epoch of God’s
choosing the fathers of the Jewish people, referred to in verse 17, is fixed at
the birth of Isaac; from which to the division of the land by lot is by some
chronologists (not by Mr. Clinton) made 452 years. No doubt with many the
necessity of dating from Isaac’s birth, instead of Abraham’s call, in order on
any chronological system to make out the time from the “choosing of the
fathers” to the division of Canaan not more than 450 years, constitutes a
primary objection to the solution of the passage. Besides that the meta tauta, “after these things,” in the plural, seems to make it most natural
that we should date the 450 years from the end of the succession of events that the apostle had just been
particularizing, not from the one
event of the choice of the fathers first mentioned. - Thus the case is one in
which we have to make a choice of difficulties.
{2} In the Jewish Calendar, as lately edited by Mr. Liude, (a publication
replete with Jewish learning, and sanctioned by the Chief Rabbi in London,
Solomon Hirschell,) there appear several most material variations from the
above Chronological Table; involving a difference from Mr. Clinton’s in the Æra
of the World altogether of 340 years. The following are the points of
variation.
1.
Agreeing with Mr. C. in dating the Deluge, A.M. 1656, it makes the birth, and
consequently the call too, of Abraham sixty years earlier. This arises from the
supposition of Abraham’s being the eldest
of Terah’s three sons, born when Terah was seventy years old, Gen. xi. 26:
- a supposition quite unnecessary: as Abraham’s first mention among the three sons no more implies his primogeniture than Solomon’s last mention among Bathsheba’s four
sons, 1 Chron. iii. 5, his being the youngest;
or Shem’s first mention, Gen. x. 1,
among Noah’s three sons, his being eldest;
(for Japhet is in Gen. x. 21 expressly declared eldest;) and which is
directly contradicted by the statement, Gen. xii. 4, that Abraham was 75 years
old when he left Haran; compared with Acts vii. 4, which says that it was at
Terah’s death in Haran at the age of 205 years. - 2. There is in it the further
difference of 100 years less between this event and Solomon’s completion of the
Temple; a difference grounded mainly on the circumstance of the Jews
calculating by the chronological statement in 1 Kings vi. 1, noted by me in the
text. - 3. The Jewish Calendar shortens the interval between Solomon and
Zedekiah’s captivity 15 years: - and 4thly, that between Zedekiah and the
Christian Æra yet 165 years. By the latter most gross and extraordinary
falsification of a period as well ascertained as that between our Richard the
First and the time now present, the Jewish Rabbis make the interval between the
first destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, and second by the Romans,
just about 400 years.
Let
me add that the early Reformers noticed, and were struck with, the last
mentioned strange error in the Jewish chronology; and referred it to the Jew’s
Identification of Darius Hystaspis (father
of Xerxes) with the later Darius conquered
by Alexander; and the obliteration from their calendar of all the Persian Kings
intervening. So Melancthon on Dau. ix., and Osiander, De Ult. Temp. ch. 1.
But
why this abbreviation? I have nowhere seen a reason stated. Since however by it
the interval between the first destruction of the temple and the second is
reduced to about 490 years, the equivalent of the period of Daniel’s 70
hebdomads, in the prophecy which speaks of the Jewish temple’s desolation, it
may have been the abbreviator’s object to make those two periods correspond;
and in fact, as I have been told by a Jew, the interval is spoken of by Jews as
one of 70 hebdomads, by a kind of memoria
technica.
-------------------------
THE SCRIPTURE CHRONOLOGY OF THE WORLD
\-
A.M.
1 Creation of Adam to the birth of Seth 130 years #Ge 5:3 "Adam lived 130 years and begat a
son, ... and called his name Seth."
130 Seth born to the birth of
Enos 105 years #Ge 5:6 "Seth lived 105 years, and begat
Enos."
235 Enos born to the birth of
Cainan 90 years #Ge 5:9 "Enos lived 90 years, and begat
Cainan."
325 Cainan born to the birth of
Mahalaleel 70 years #Ge 5:12 "Cainan lived 70 years, and begat
Mahalaleel."
395 Mahalaleel born to the birth of Jared 65 years #Ge 5:15 "Mahalaleel lived 65 years, and
begat Jared."
460 Jared born to the birth of
Enoch 162 years #Ge 5:18 "Jared lived 162 years, and begat
Enoch."
622 Enoch born to the birth of
Methusela 65 years #Ge 5:21 "Enoch lived 65 years, and begat
Methuselah."
687 Methuselah born to the birth of Lamech 187 years #Ge 5:25 "Methuselah lived 187 years, and
begat Lamech."
874 Lamech born to the birth of Noah 182 years #Ge 5:28,29 "Lamech lived 182 years, and begat a
son, and he called his name Noah."
1056 Noah born to the Flood 600 years #Ge 7:6 "Noah was 600 years old when the flood of waters was
upon the earth."
1656 The Flood to the birth of Arphaxad 2 years #Ge 11:10 "Shem begat Arphaxad 2 years after
the Flood."
1658 Arphaxad born to the birth of Salah 35 years #Ge 11:12 "Arphaxad lived 35 years, and begat Salah."
1693 Salah born to the birth of Eber 30 years #Ge 11:14 "Salah lived 30 years, and begat
Eber."
1723 Eber born to the birth of Peleg 34 years #Ge 11:16 "Eber lived 34 years, and begat
Peleg."
1757 Peleg born to the birth of Reu 30 years #Ge 11:18 "Peleg lived 30 years, and begat Reu."
1787 Reu born to the birth of Serug 32 years #Ge 11:20 "Reu lived 32 years, and begat
Serug."
1819 Serug born to the birth of Nahor 30 years #Ge 11:22 "Serug lived 30 years, and begat
Nahor."
1849 Nahor born to the birth of Terah 29 years #Ge 11:24 "Nahor lived 29 years, and begat
Terah."
1878 Terah born to his death 205 years #Ge 11:32 "The days of Terah were 205
years:and Terah died." (#Ge 12:1) "Now the Lord," etc.
2083 The Covenant made with Abram to the giving of the Law
430 years #Ga 3:17 "The
Covenant ... the Law, which was 430 years after, cannot disannul."
2513 The Giving of the Law to the return of the Spies 1 years #Nu 10:11
(Compare #Ex 19:1)
2514 Promise to Caleb on return of Spies to division of the
Land 45 years #Jos 14:10 "These 45 years, ever since the Lord
spake this word unto Moses."
2559 The division of the Land to Samuel the Prophet
450 years #Ac 13:20
"After that, he gave unto them Judges, about the space of 450
years, until Samuel."
3009 Saul anointed to the death of Saul 40 years #Ac 13:21 "Afterward ... God gave unto them Saul ... by the space
of 40 years."
3049 David began to reign to his death 40 years #1Ki 2:11 "The days that David reigned over
all Israel were 40 years."
3089 Solomon began to reign to his death 40 years #2Ch 9:30 "Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over
all Israel 40 years."
3129 Rehoboam began to reign to his death
17 years #2Ch 12:13 "He reigned 17 years in
Jerusalem."
3146 Abijah began to reign to his death 3 years #2Ch 13:2 "He reigned 3 years in
Jerusalem."
3149 Asa began to reign to his death 41 years #2Ch 16:13 "As a ... died in the 41st year of
his reign."
3190 Jehoshaphat began to reign to his death
25 years #2Ch 20:31
"He reigned 25 years in Jerusalem."
3215 Jehoram began to reign to his death
8 years #2Ch 21:20 "He reigned in Jerusalem 8
years."
3223 Ahaziah began to reign to his death 1 years #2Ch 22:2 "He reigned 1 year in
Jerusalem."
3224 Athaliah’s usurpation to her death 6 years #2Ch 22:12 "He (Joash) was with them hid in the
house of God 6 years:and Athaliah reigned."
3230 Joash began to reign to his death 40 years #2Ch 24:1 "He reigned 40 years in
Jerusalem."
3270 Amaziah began to reign
to his death 29 years #2Ch 25:1 "He reigned 29 years in
Jerusalem."
3299 Uzziah began to reign to his death 52 years #2Ch 26:3 "He reigned 52 years in
Jerusalem."
3351 Jotham began to reign to his death 16 years #2Ch 27:1 "He reigned 16 years in
Jerusalem."
3367 Ahaz began to reign to his death 16 years #2Ch 28:1 "He reigned 16 years in
Jerusalem."
3383 Hezekiah began to reign to his death 29 years #2Ch 29:1 "He reigned 29 years in
Jerusalem."
3412 Manasseh began to reign to his death 55 years #2Ch 33:1 "He reigned 55 years in
Jerusalem."
3467 Amon began to reign to his death 2 years #2Ch 33:21 "(Amon) reigned 2 years in
Jerusalem."
3469 Josiah began to reign to his death 31 years #2Ch 34:1 "He reigned in Jerusalem 31
years."
3500 Jehoahaz began to reign to his deposition 0 years #2Ch 36:2 "He reigned 3 months in Jerusalem."
3500 Jehoiakim began to reign to his death 11 years #2Ch 36:5 "He reigned 11 years in
Jerusalem."
3511 Jehoiachim began to reign to his deposition
0 years #2Ch 36:9 "He reigned 3 months and 10 days in
Jerusalem."
3511 Zedekiah began to reign to the Captivity 11 years #2Ch 36:11 "(Zedekiah) reigned 11 years in Jerusalem."
3522 The Captivity to the proclamation of Cyrus 70 years #Jer
25:11 "These nations shall
serve the king of Babylon 70 years." (See #2Ch 36:22)
3592 The Decree of Cyrus to the birth of Christ 536 years According to the commonly received Chronology
4128 The Christian Æra to the present year 1851 years According to the commonly received Chronology
————————
5974 The present year A.D. 1846 5974 years since the Creation of
Man
This chart brings the end of 6000 years to the year 1872 A.D.
\+
CHAPTER II
PROPHETIC
GROUNDS FOR EXPECTING MESSIAH'S SECOND COMING AT NO GREAT DISTANCE OF TIME FROM
THE PRESENT, COMPARED WITH THE PROPHETIC GROUNDS THAT EXITED FOR EXPECTING
MESSIAH'S FIRST PROMISED COMING AND MANIFESTATION IN HUMAN FLESH ABOUT THE TIME
OF JESUS OF NAZARETH'S BIRTH AND LIFE, IN THE REIGNS OF THE ROMAN EMPERORS
AUGUSTUS AND TIBERIUS. {5}
THE question
often and often recurs to my mind; Is there really reason for supposing, as
many do, that the Lord's second coming is not probably very far off: - that
coming at the brightness of which, according to the concurrent prophecies of
Daniel, St. Paul, and St. John, {6} the Man of Sin, or Antichrist, is to be
destroyed and Christ's own glorious kingdom to supervene?
And, in
answer to this question, when I retrace the prophetic evidence on which such
expectations have been grounded, it appears to me certainly very strong and
consistent. Yet, notwithstanding, I must confess
-------------------------
{5} This Paper was drawn up
originally, and delivered in the Hanover Square Rooms as a Lecture, at the
request of a London Prophetic Association.
{6} Dan. vii. 11-13, 2 Thess. ii.
8, Rev. xix. 11-20.
to
experiencing the greatest difficulty when I try to realize the fact. In part
this may arise from the evident want of sympathy in the feeling on the part of
men in general, and even of Christian men: in part to the great differences of
opinion among prophetic students, respecting much of that prophetic evidence
which to my own judgment appears the strongest of all to the point in question,
and most convincing. But, doubtless, yet more the surpassing great and
wonderful nature of the event to be expected, excites and strengthens my
instinctive skepticism on the matter. "Can it really be the fact," I
say again and again to myself, "that that glorious consummation is
probably near at hand, for which the whole creation has been groaning and travailing
ever since the fall?" So that the present generation, or the next
following, may see it?
But is
skepticism reasonable on these accounts? May I not so fall under somewhat of
the same condemnation for unbelief with them of whom St. Peter tells us, asking
in the latter day, "Where is the promise of his coming? for, since the
fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were since the beginning of
the creation?"{7} It becomes me, surely, well to take heed against this.
And, in order to satisfy my mind as to the truth on this great question, and to
direct and confirm my faith, as well as that of others who find themselves
stumbling at similar doubts and difficulties, I know not what I can do better
than what the present Essay proposes: - viz. to turn their thoughts, and my
own, to that æra and event in the world's past history, which beyond all others
offers the nearest parallel to that which we look for in the coming future, - I
mean the æra and event of Christ's first coming: and to compare the prophetic
evidence which in those earlier times led the Jews very correctly, as well as
generally, to suppose it near at hand, with that which leads not a few in our
own day to look for Christ's second coming as now not very far distant;
consideration being had of the objections and difficulties, as well as of the
evidence, in the one case and in the other. A fairer standard of comparison
cannot, I think, be imagined; nor one better fitted to guide the judgment
aright, amidst the conflicting opinions of these latter times.
-------------------------
{7}
2 Peter 3:4.
§ 1. PREMONITORY INDICATIONS
ABOUT THE TIME OF AUGUSTUS AND TIBERIUS
OF THE NEAR APPROACH OF MESSIAH'S FIRST
COMING
It is to be
remembered, then, as a fact notorious in history, and one moreover very
remarkable, that expectations of Messiah's speedy coming and manifestation were
wide spread among the Jews, both in Palestine and elsewhere, near about those
times when Jesus of Nazareth lived and died, in the reigns of the Roman
Emperors Augustus and Tiberius.
Evidence of
this abounds in the contemporary Gospel narratives of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and
John; and we must well take heed that our familiarity with it do not cause us
to overlook, or to forget, the very remarkable nature of the fact.
Thus about
the time of Jesus Christ's birth, in the 27th year of the sole reign of
Augustus, {8} we read of Simeon, that "he was a just man and devout,
waiting for the consolation of Israel;" {9} the last a well-known Hebraic
phrase among the Jews for the Messiah; {10} and of Anna the prophetess, that
she spoke of the child
-------------------------
{8}
Dated from the defeat of Antony at Actium, see Note 2593 below.
{9} Luke ii. 25
{10}
So, says Whitby ad loc., the Targum on Isaiah iv. 3.
Jesus in the
temple, "to all those that were looking for redemption in Jerusalem."
{11} Nor as regards the angelic revelation made to Zechariah about a son to be
born to him in his old age, who was to be Messiah's immediate forerunner, or
that which was made to the Virgin Mary about Messiah's own birth into this
world, do we find any wonderment expressed in reference to the declared
imminence of his coming; whatever wonderment, and in Zachariah's case unbelief,
there might have been respecting other points in the statements of the revealing
Angel. The same, pretty much, as regards the shepherds at Bethlehem, when it
was told them by the leader of the angelic choir, "Unto you is born this
day, in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Messiah the Lord." And,
when the wise men came to Jerusalem shortly after, under some supernatural
guidance, to make inquiry after one just born, who was in fact, they affirmed,
no other than the great predicted King of the Jews, Messiah, we read that all
Jerusalem, both priests and people, was stirred from its depths at the news and
the inquiry: not, clearly, as if they considered it a suggestion absurd or
incredible; but rather, as may be inferred from the priest's answer to Herod
about the destined place of Messiah's birth, (and mark hence that it was an
actual incarnation of Messiah in true human flesh which they then expected,)
because it was one on which the general expectation was intensely alive and
excited. - Such was at that time the general state of expectancy, as depicted
in the Gospel narratives.
And, passing
on with them from this epoch to one some 30 years later, corresponding with the
15th year of the reign of the Roman Emperor Tiberius, {12} when in the land of
Judæa John the Baptist began his public ministry; the fact of the same general
expectancy of Messiah's manifestation at that time, on the part of the Jewish
people, is stated or implied in the sacred history just as strikingly. Thus,
concerning John, we read how all the people mused in their hearts whether he
were the Christ or not; and, moreover, how they sent priests and Levites from
Jerusalem expressly to question him on the subject. {13} The same shortly
after, in the history of the ministry of Jesus himself. "We have found the
Messiah," said Andrew to Peter, after converse with Jesus {14} And
Nathanael, on hearing from him those words of supernatural knowledge about
himself, "When thou wast under the fig-tree I saw thee," addressed
him not as a mere prophet, but as Israel's Divine expected King of
Israel." {15} After this, and as the wonderful drama of the life of Jesus
was advancing, we read again and again of the Jews speculating and asking
questions, on the disputed fact of his being the very Messiah. "How long
makest thou us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly." {16}
"And some said, This is the Christ. But others said, Shall Christ come out
of Galilee? So there was a division among the people because of him." {17}
- And as among the Jews, so too among the Samaritans. "We know that the
Messiah cometh," said the woman of Sychem. And her townsmen's ready
-------------------------
{11} Luke
ii. 38.
{12} Luke
iii. 1. He seems in this to have dated from Tiberius' association in the Empire
with Augustus, which was two years before Augustus' death, and the beginning of
Tiberius' sole reign. See the authorities in my Warburton Lectures, Appendix,
p. 458.
{13} Luke
iii. 15; John i. 19.
{14} John i.
41.
{15} Ib. 49.
{16} Ib. 24.
{17} Ib.
vii. 41, 43: also verse 26.
acknowledgement
of Jesus shortly after, in that character, showed that the time then present
was that at which they were quite pre-disposed to expect his coming. {18}
And this
further is to be well observed, especially, because of its being an index, as
we shall hereafter see, to the source of the expectation, that it seems to have
been always in connection with the introduction on this earth of some kingdom,
called the kingdom of God, or kingdom of heaven, that Messiah was looked for.
John the Baptist spoke language that was evidently familiar to the Jewish mind,
when he preached that "the kingdom of heaven was at hand:" and it was
with the same language that Jesus himself opened his ministry; as also the 70
disciples whom he sent forth to preach in his name. {19} The question was asked
him afterwards by the Pharisees, as St. Luke tells us, {20} "when the
kingdom of heaven should come." But this not as respecting an event which
in their opinion might be far distant. For we read shortly after, in the same
Evangelist, that Jesus Christ spoke a parable in correction of the expectation
then generally prevalent, "that the kingdom of God would immediately
appear;" {21} that is, appear (as was evidently meant) in the glory of its
triumphant establishment.
The
expectation of Messiah continued rife and strong among the Jews, after their
rejection of Jesus of Nazareth's claims to the Messiahship, down to the Jewish
war, some 30 or 40 years later, and consequent destruction of Jerusalem. It was
this evidently which led them so readily to give credence to the pretensions of
one and another false Christ that rose up in the interim; {22} this too which
armed them in fine with such desperate fanaticism of confidence and courage in
their war against the Romans. So Josephus, their national historian, expressly
tells us. "What did most encourage them to the war was an oracle,
ambiguous indeed, but which was nevertheless found in the sacred books, that
about that time some one from their country should obtain the empire of the
world. This they understood to belong to themselves, and many of their wise men
were mistaken in their judgment of it." {23} The same fact is mentioned in
their notices of the breaking out of the Jewish war by the Roman historian
Tacitus and Suetonius. Says the former; "The persuasion was entertained by
very many (i.e. of the Jews), that in the ancient books of the priests it was
predicted that at that very time the East would prevail, and that some one
going forth from Judaea would gain the empire of the world." {24}
Suetonius adds, that "the rumor was an old and abiding one, and that it
prevailed throughout the whole East." {25}
-------------------------
{18} John
iv. 25, 29, 42.
{19} Matt.
iii. 2; iv. 17; x. 7, &c.
{20} Luke
xvii. 20.
{21} Luke
xix. 11.
{22} See
Josephus on this point.
{23}
[Editor; Again, I have had great difficulty reading Elliott's reproduction as
the Greek lettering is almost unreadable.] Joseph. de Bel. vi.
5. 4. O de eparan autuv malieta pron ton pulemen hn cphsmuv amfebolov dmoiwv en
toiv iepoiv eurhmenov grammadin, wv kata tun kairou ekeinon apo tnv cwpav tiv
autwn upxei thv ukkamenhv.
{24} Pluribus persuasio inerat untiquis sacerdotum
literis contineri eo ipso tempore fore ut valesceret Oriens, profectique Judaea
rerum potirentur." Tacit.
Hist. v. 13.
{25}
"Percrebuarat Oriente toto vetus et constans opinio esse in fatis ut co
tempore Judaea profecti rerum potirentur." Suet. in Vespas, c. 4.
Let me, ere
passing onward to trace this expectation to its source, add an illustration of
the fact of the expectation from the writings of the greatest of the Roman
poets, in the reign of Augustus; - a quarter where, a priori, one might least
have expected to find it. I allude to Virgil's famous 4th Eclogue. It is
inscribed, as its title imports, to a Roman nobleman named Pollio, and makes
reference to the year of his consulship, B.C. 40, {26} as one marked by the
birth of a child of most extraordinary and felicitous destinies. He speaks of
him in glowing prophetic stain, as of heavenly origin, and born to be the
introducer of the world's final golden age, so as had long previously been
foretold by the Cumæan Sibyl: {27}- a golden age which was to have its dawn and
partial beginnings with his childhood, but only to come to its perfectness as
he rose into manhood.{28} He goes on to describe how that then would be the
reign of universal justice and universal peace; wars rage no longer, the lions
and the flocks feed together, and the venomous serpent no more exist: how that
the uncultivated earth would then bring forth abundance; human toil be no more needed,
and corn and wine and oil grow spontaneously: - moreover, that men would then
live life of heroes; heaven and earth be reunited, as in primeval times; and
men and gods again mix in intercourse together. {29}
There can be
little doubt, I think, that the child intended by Virgil was Marcellus, son to
Claudius and Octavia, Augustus' sister; {30} whose birth occurred in Pollio's
consulship, just after the peace of Brundusium between Augustus and Antony; and
who, on marriage, at the age of 18, to Augustus' daughter Julia, was destined
to be Augustus' successor in the empire; a destiny the realization of which was
only prevented by his sudden and premature death shortly afterwards. For we
know the high expectations entertained of him by the Roman people; especially
from those exquisite lines of funeral eulogy on him, written soon after his
death by Virgil, in the 6th Book of the Æneid. {31} And probably the various,
and in some points rather difficult, chronological conditions of the Eclogue
will be found best satisfied by supposing it to have been composed by Virgil
after Marcellus had been adopted by Augustus, and when all those fond
expectations were entertained respecting him; the reference to the child's
birth, and to Pollio's year of consulship, being by a not very uncommon poetic
license retrospective. {32} - But, however, this may be, what at present
concerns us is the fact of Virgil's having sung
-------------------------
{26} i.e. 40
years before the vulgar Christian aera. Jesus Christ's actual birth, as is well
known, may be proved to have been 4 years before it.
{27} The
poem opens thus: -
Ultima Cumæi venit jam earminis ætas:
Magnus ab integro sæelorum nascitur ordo,
Jam redit et Virgo; redeunt Saturnia regna;
Jam nova progenies coelo demittitur alto,
Tu modo nascenti puero, quo ferres primum
Desinet, ac
toto surget gens aurea mundo,
Casta cave
Lucina.
{28} . . .
ubi jam firmata virum to fecerit ætas.
Hence the
poet speaks of the necessity of his own life being prolonged to old age, in order
to his participation in the coming golden age, v. 54.
{29} Ille Deûm vitam accipiet, divisque videbit
Permixtos heroas, et ipse videbitur illis.
{30} So
Heyne and other commentators.
{31} Si quà fata
aspera rumpas
Tu
Marecellus eris.
{32} Various
things predicated of the child's youth and early manhood might seem
sufficiently accordant with certain events in the correspondent part of
Augustus' reign, allowing for the adornment of a poet's and a courtier's fancy.
The particular Eclogues may have been inserted in the long previously published
book of Virgil's Eclogues, on a new edition of the book.
of the
destined coming of the world's golden age within some 20 or 30 years from the
date of Pollio's consulship, as the subject of one of the Cumæan Sibyl's
prophecies, and this in strains singularly similar to those of Isaiah,
respecting the blessings of the reign of Messiah. And, as we know that about
those times multitudinous verses were widely circulated and read at Rome as the
Sibyl's which were in fact of Eastern, and many of Hebrew, origin, {33} there
seems reason in Bishop Lowth's opinion that it is to such an original that we
are to refer this prophecy: and that consequently we may regard it as an echo
of the expectation of Messiah, and Messiah's blessed kingdom, then prevalent in
Judæa and the far East; though reproduced by Virgil in Roman form, and with the
intermixture of courtly flattery to the family of Augustus.
2. And now
then I revert to the question, Whence may we suppose that the Jews' expectation
of Messiah and Messiah's kingdom about this time came to prevail? - And in a
general way it is obvious alike from what we read in the Gospel narratives, and
from the agreeing testimonies of Josephus, Tacitus, and Suetonius, that it arose
from prophecies in the Jews' sacred books; {34} i. e. as compared, of course,
with the existing signs of the times. Nor can we well err in chiefly referring
it to Daniel's prophecy of the 70 weeks; that in the same prophet, respecting
the four great mundane empires, figured in the quadripartite image seen by
Nebuchadnezzar; and further, the more ancient prediction respecting Shiloh's
coming delivered by the patriarch Jacob.
I ought not
indeed here wholly to omit notice of the famous tradition, as it is called, of
the house of Elias, founded on a typical view of the six days of creation, and
seventh of rest, as related in the Book of Genesis: to the effect that the
world was to be 2000 years before the law; (the law; and then 2000 under
Messiah, prior to the sabbatism of the 7th millennary. {35} For Elias is said
to have been a Rabbi, that lived shortly before the time of Jesus Christ. And
it is likely that this notion, whether the type were at all really intended or
not, may have had a certain influence, when the 2000 years from Abraham were in
the Jewish chronology drawing to a close, to increase expectation in the minds
of some at least amongst the Jews, on the subject of the probably speedy coming
of Messiah. {36}
But
doubtless far more influential to this effect, and with better reason, were the
three direct inspired prophecies that I have just before particularized.
Thus first,
and specially, as to the seventy weeks' prophecy in Daniel. "Seventy
weeks" (or hebdomads) said the angel Gabriel, "are determined upon
thy people to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sin, and to make
reconciliation for iniquity, and to anoint the most holy." But measured
from that epoch or event? "Know that from the going forth of the
commandment to restore and rebuild Jerusalem unto Messiah, the Prince, shall be
7 hebdomads and 62 hebdomads: the street shall be built
-------------------------
{33} It is
mentioned among the reforming acts of Augustus, on entering upon the office of
Pontifex Maximus, B.C. 12, that he caused multitudes of prophetic books to be
collected, which were then widely circulated and read at Rome, and excited much
vain hope or fear in the minds of the people respecting the coming future; and
had most of them burnt, to the number of 2000 volumes; reserving those only
which bore the names of some of the Sibyls as their authors. Suetonius in
Octav. c. 31.
Now the
Sibylline verses then known at Rome had been chiefly collected at Erythræ in
Ionia, by order of the Senate, in the year B.C. 83; after the burning of the
Capital, and the old books then kept there, in the civil wars of Sylla and
Marius. Thus they had almost altogether an Eastern origin. See on this,
Prideaux, Part ii. B. 9.
It is
observed by Heyne in his Preface to the Eclogue, that we are not to wonder at
the similarity of much that we find in it to the sacred Hebrew prophecies;
seeing that "in magno illo Sibyllinorum oraculorum numero multa esse
debuisse à Syris et Judæis hominibus propagata."
{34} See the
citations, p. 337, suprà.
{35} See the
citation from the Gemara in Mede's Works, B. iv. Ep. 22.
{36} So the
ancient Universal History, Vol. x. p. 459, Note 3.
again, and
the wall, even in troublous times. And after 62 hebdomads shall Messiah be cut
off, though not for himself . . . And he shall confirm the covenant with many
for one hebdomad; and in the midst of the hebdomad (or in the half part, the
last half part, of the hebdomad) he shall cause the sacrifice and oblation to
cease."
Now, without
entering very particularly into the details of this prophecy, thus much seemed
clear enough as to its purport: - that, measured from some notable decree for
the Jews' restoration from Babylon, and Jerusalem's rebuilding, (and we all
know there would elapse respectively unto Messiah's manifestation and the term
of his earthly ministry; these being hebdomads of years apparently, (whether in
imitation of Ezekiel's year-day precedent, {37} or otherwise,) because 70 times
7 days would seem far too small a space of time for all that was predicated as
to take place within its range. Accordingly, when the periods of 69 times and
70 times 7, i.e. of 481 or 490 years, measured from Cyrus' decree for the Jews'
restoration from Babylon (the earliest of all such decrees) , were now about to
reach their endings, then, and on this account, learned Jews seem to have begun
to think it time for looking and lifting up their heads, in expectancy of
Messiah's manifestation. And, when nothing then happened in Judæa
correspondingly, they would naturally measure from Darius's decree of similar
purport to that of Cyrus, but some seventeen or eighteen years later: - and,
when disappointment again ensued, then from one or other of the 60 or 70 years
still later decrees of the 7th and 20th of Artaxerxes; the former, I doubt not,
the decree really intended in the prediction.{38} For it is to be observed
that, with all the numeral definiteness of the prophecy, there was yet, from
the circumstance of its various possible commencing dates, a considerable range
of time within which expectation might doubtingly speculate.
In proof
that it was very mainly from calculation of Daniel's 400 years' prophetic
period that that strong expectancy of Messiah arose among the Jews which was
shown at the time spoken of, I might refer to what the Talmud reports, as a
tradition of the olden times, that "in Daniel is-delivered to us the end
of Messiah," i.e. as R. Jarchi interprets the phrase, the time when
Messiah ought to appear. {39} Yet more this will appear, I think, from the fact
that in such historic records as we have of the Jews in times somewhat
preceding the earliest possible epoch of the 69 and 70 hebdomads; for example,
the Maccabean Books, which carry down that history from about 174 to 135 B.C.,
no such lively expectation of Messiah's speedy coming is at all discernible. I
pray the reader to run through those books (the First Book of Maccabees more
especially, as being the most authentic) with the special object of noting the
state of Jewish feeling there indicated on the point referred to.{40} It will
be well worth his while to do so. - On the other hand, so soon as 490 years had
elapsed from Cyrus's decree, so soon, as before said, the expectation seems to
have begun. We are told by Grotius {41} of a learned Rabbi, named Nehemiah, who
lived 50 years before Jesus Christ, or near about the time of the expiration of
490 years calculated from the decree
-------------------------
{37} Ezek.
iv. 5, 6. See on this my Horæ Apocalypticæ, Vol. iii. p. 268 (5th edition).
{38} The dates
of the four decrees were B.C. 530, 510, 457, and 411 respectively.
{39} So the
article on Messiah in Kitto's Biblical Cyclopædia.
{40} 1 Macc.
xiv. 41, says that in gratitude to Simon, brother of Judas Maccabeus, they
appointed him their governor and High Priest for ever; (i.e. himself and his
posterity; Lowth on Zech. vi. 13;) until there should arise a faithful prophet,
or till the faithful prophet should arise; meaning the Messias. Lowth.
{41} De Ver. Christ. Rel. v. 14. - "In Jesum tempus (sc. of the 70 weeks)
tam bene convenit, at magister Hebræus Hehumias, qui annis quinquaginta cum
præcessit, apertè jam tum dexerit non posse ultra cos quinquaginta annos
protrabi tempus Messiah a Daniele significatum." - One cannot but regret
with Le Clere that Grotius did not give his authority for this statement. But
both his well-known extensive and accurate learning, and the fact of his having
made Jewish religious opinions and writings a special subject of investigation,
as he himself tells us at the opening of his book i. l, furnish a guarantee to
us of its trustworthiness.
of Cyrus; by
whom it was declared that the time fixed by Daniel for Messiah could hardly go
beyond 50 years further.{42} And we have seen from the Gospel histories, alike
at the birth of Jesus Christ, and to the end of the 30 or 35 years of his
subsequent life, how general, strong , and continuous was then the Jews'
expectation of the Messiah; all which period was comprehended, as is evident,
between the end of the 490 years, as measured from the 1st of Darius, and that
from the 7th of Artaxerxes. - If the same feeling of expectation continued
after their rejection of Jesus Christ's claims to the Messiahship, this might
have seemed for a while warranted on the ground of this same prophecy, by
measuring from the fourth and latest of the Persian king's decrees for
Jerusalem's restoration, that of the 20th of Artaxerxes, the same that was
signalized by Nehemiah's return. Nor is it inconsistent with my hypothesis, or
to be wondered at, that it should have remained yet later, even down to the
Jewish war and destruction of Jerusalem, considering the Jews' unwillingness to
abandon their long fondly cherished hopes of a Messiah, who in his here
predicted character of Prince and King would lead them on to triumph and
dominion, especially against their Roman oppressors. And this indeed the
rather, as the two other prophecies that I have referred to, compared with the
signs of the times, might have seemed still to favor such expectancy.
For, as
regarded the one, viz. Daniel's prefigurative image of the four great empires,
thus much was clear from it: - that it was whilst under the fourth, or last
empire of iron, that the image was to be broken to shivers by the stone cut out
of the mountain without hands: itself evidently an emblem of Messiah's kingdom;
and which was thereupon to become a great mountain, and to fill the whole
earth. Now who in those times, that was at all acquainted with history, could
doubt but that the Roman Empire was the fourth empire; it being that which had
taken the supremacy from the Greeks, as the Greeks had taken it from the
Persians, and they from the Babylonians; which Babylonians, and their then
reigning king, the Angel declared to be the head of gold? And well indeed did the
very iron of the symbol suit the Romans, so as it had suited no other
conquering people; and, as such, was adopted in a manner by the Roman poets
themselves for a national emblem. {43} No doubt the prophetic symbol
represented the fourth empire as a ten-divided state, correspondingly with the
image's ten toes of mixed iron and clay, at the time of the stone's smashing it
to pieces. But might not some such division occur any day to the Roman Empire,
even though for the present united under Augustus' rule, from some great
internal or external revolution?
And then,
further, as to that ancient prediction by Jacob, that "the sceptre should
not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh
came," it might well serve to strengthen the expectation. For Shiloh was
expounded in the Targum of Onkelos, and by Jonathan Ben Uzziel, {44} and other
Rabbis of the age pretty consistently to be the Messiah. And, though it might
seem difficult absolutely and precisely to fix the time when the power of the
sceptre and the law departed from Judah, yet was it evident that from the time
of the domination of Herod and Idumæan, Augustus' protégé, {45} and during the
subsequent encroachments by Roman procurators' on the independent rule of High
Priest and Sanhedrim, there was more and more an approximation to the state so
described in Jacob's prophecy; and consequently a sign that, according to it,
Messiah must either have come ere the end of Augustus' reign,
-------------------------
{42} It was
shortly after this, viz. B.C. 40, that the birth of Octavia's son Marcellus
occurred: to whose youth and riper manhood, as I have before stated, the
so-called Sibyl had assigned the world's coming golden age.
{43} Ataue omnis Latio quæ seervit purpura ferre. So Lucan vii. 228.
{44}
Jonathan Ben Uzziel is generally said to have been one of the most
distinguished of the eighty disciples of Hillel, and Onkelos another: Hillel
himself being grand-father to Gamaliel at whose feet sat Saul of Tarsus. This
fixes the date to a short time before Jesus Christ's birth.
{45} In
Kitto's article on Messiah it is stated that, on Herod the Idumæan setting
aside the Maccabees and the Sanhedrim, the Jews were said to have shaved their
heads, put on sackcloth, and cried, "Woe to us, because the sceptre is
departed from Judah, and a law-giver from between his feet." - It is added
that other later Jews date the fulfillment of that predicted fact not till the
time when Vespasian and Titus destroyed Jerusalem.
or at that
time not be very far off. {46} It is to be observed that the two prophecies
last referred to well harmonized together, from the circumstance that it was
the fourth or Roman Empire that not other nations' freedom alone, but also
Judah's self-governing power of the sceptre and the law was taken away. And
hence indeed that bitter feeling of the Jews against the Romans, which
quickened their general interest in the prophecies referred to; and longing for
the Messiah, in whom they erroneously expected to find their earthly triumphant
chief and avenger.
On the whole
so rotted, it appears, was this expectation among the Jews of the first and
second centuries, and as derived from their Scripture prophecies, that after
rejecting Jesus of Nazareth, and when no one else came that could really
support his pretensions to the Messiahship, they fell into two opinions: -
either that the Messiah had come, but was concealed, so as we find it stated in
the Targum on Mic. 4; or else that the time of his coming had been deferred on
account of their sins. Both of these opinions will be found hinted in Justin
Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho in the second century. {47}
3. But let
not the reader think that the Jews were altogether unanimous in this expectancy
of a personal Messiah, or this interpretation of the prophecies. Objections and
objectors we have reason to suppose there were even then, on various grounds,
and with various counterviews, to each and every particular of the
above-mentioned prophetic evidence; and difficulties too raised against one and
another of the prophetic arguments, such as were hard sometimes to answer.
Thus, first,
as regarded Jacob's prophecy, (for Elias' tradition would hardly be much
insisted on,) besides those Rabbis who affirmed that the sceptre had departed
from Judah on Herod the Great's supersession of the Maccabees and Sanhedrim, it
was open to others to argue, and not without much plausibility, that the
sceptre had departed from Judah long previously, at the time of the Babylonish
captivity, however it might have been restored afterwards: and that the
circumstance of no Messiah, in the highest sense of the word, having come
previous to that overthrow of its self-government, nor indeed previous to
Herod's supersession of the Sanhedrim, was sufficient to weaken all argument
for expecting Messiah's speedy coming on the establishment of Augustus' or
Tiberious' dominion over Judæa, drawn from that prophecy by Jacob.
Again, as
regarded Daniel's prefigurative image of the four empires, a question might
have been raised whether it was so certain that the fourth empire prefigured
was the Roman: seeing that this could hardly but be the same with the fourth
empire figured in the vision of the four wild beasts; and that then the fourth
empire would seem to be that of the Seleucidæ, if, as many Jews thought, the
little horn out of it, that domineered over the ten horns, was a symbol of the
blaspheming tyrant Antiochus Epiphanes. {48} In which case all argument for
speedy expectation of the Messiah after the establishment of Roman domination
over the Jews, drawn from this prophecy, would also be a delusion; and indeed
doubt thrown on the Messianic exposition itself of the symbol of the stone cut
out of the mountain without hands. Nowhere was learning more cultivated by the
Jews of the first century than in the Jewish Alexandrian school. And Philo, the
most famous of the Rabbis of that rationalistic school, taught that all such
prophecy should be understood allegorically, and a golden age looked for in the
general ascendancy of
-------------------------
{46} Let me
refer on this point to Mede's eighth discourse, the subject of which is this
prophecy of Jacob.
{47} Whitby
remarks on this in the General Preface to his New Testament Commentary.
{48} See the
diverse interpretations of this prophecy of Dan. vii in Pole's Synopals. And
compare Dr. S. R. Maitland's doubts (strange doubts surely) as to the fourth
empire figured being the Roman.
Jewish
ideas, and the Jewish religion; independent of the coming of any such
heaven-sent personal king and saviour. {49}
Yet again as
regarded Daniel's seventy weeks' prophecy, various and many may be supposed to
have been the objections made by certain of the learned Jews against the
exposition generally received among the people at the opening of the Christian
æra; especially when urged a little later by the apostles and early disciples
of Jesus of Nazareth.
A Jewish
Scripture literalist might tauntingly have asked for some precedent in the
sacred Hebrew Books, where the word Shabua used by itself, and without any
genitive of specific measure of time following, was meant of a septenary [or
century] of years, or any other than a septenary of days. {50} And, in the
confessed want of this, he might have denounced the year-day principle, whereby
alone it could be made a prophecy of 490 years from Cyrus, or Artaxerxes, to
Messiah: and sought some solution of it as a prophecy of 490 days; whether in
Jewish anointed chief's, like Ezra and Nehemiah, of the distant past; or in the
indefinite possibilities of some new Jewish captivity, and new royal decrees
for the captivity's return in the distant future.{51} In which exception
against the year value, generally attached to the hebdomads, the Jewish
objector might have been joined by some casually intervening Roman philosopher;
- "Why but to suit a purpose is the prophecy construed of years, nor
days?" {52} - Another, of a different school, might have argued with later
Jews {53} for septenaries [or centuries] of Jubilees; so putting off the time
for Messiah's first coming to a future far distant date: and yet another have
urged that the prophetic numbers were simply symbolic; the sevenfold multiples
of septenaries in Daniel being only meant to signify a sacred but indefinite
number. - While Rabbis fresh from the Pharisaist school of Hillel {54} might
have protested against all appeal to profane heathen learning, and all the
intricate chronological calculations based on it, in order to make out the
fulfillment of the prophetic period (even though admitted to be 490 years) as
reaching from Artaxerxes' decree to Tiberius. {55} "Ought not a devout
Scripture student entirely unacquainted with the details of profane history, or
the vicissitudes of political and ecclesiastical affairs, during the five or
six preceding centuries, to be expected to understand Scripture prophecy, in so
far as it concerned Messiah in his relations to Israel, equally with the most
learned?" {56}
And what as
to skeptical critics of the Sadducean school? How might they, before Jesus
Christ's birth, have noted sarcastically the proved failure of calculations of
the prophetic period, as made first from
-------------------------
{49} See
Neander's Church History (Clark's Edition), Vol. i. pp. 88, 89, on Philo's
views on this matter; also pp. 78, 79, about Philo generally.
{50} Besides
the instances of this chapter of Daniel, on which the question arises, there
are some 19 passages in other parts of Scripture where the noun is used either
in its singular or other forms, and always in the sense of a hebdomad of days.
See the Paper on this point by the Rev. C. J. Elliott, in my Vol. iii. pp. 604
to 608.
{51} So,
even now, Drs. Todd and Burgh.
{52} Says
Gibbon, in a Note near the conclusion of his fifteenth chapter: - "If the
famous prophecy of the seventy weeks had been alleged to a Roman philosopher,
would he not have replied in the words of Cicero, 'Quæ tandem ista auguratio
est, annorum potius quàm aut mensium aut dierum?'"
{53} See
Pole's Synopsis on Dan. ix. p. 155.
{54} Hillel
is said to have been the grandfather of Gamaliel, at whose feet sate Paul of
Tarsus.
{55} See a
statement and descussion of all the various opinions and calculations on this
point in Pole's Synopsis, Vol. iii. col. 1537 to 1550.
{56} I have
here used the language of the writer of Plain Papers on Prophecy: a volume
lately published, on the futurist scheme of prophetic exposition.
Cyrus'
decree, and then from that of Darius, as its commencing epoch; no Messiah have
appeared at the end of 490 years, so calculated! Whence an inference as to the
folly of all such calculations, whatever the ephemeral popularity of the
expositors propounding them; and the anticipated necessity, when calculations
from the 7th of Artaxerxes should have been similarly falsified by the event,
of a new exposition, reckoning from some later decree, for the silly believers
in such comments. Moreover, even after Jesus Christ's coming, and the
fulfillment in him of the prophecy in respect of its chronological period,
measured from the 7th Artaxerxes, they might have pointed sneeringly to the
differences of the calculations made by Christian writers, in order to suit its
application to Jesus of Nazareth; {57} and, with a view to giving greater
effect to their sarcasm, have drawn out tables, like our modern Tyson,
exhibiting to the eye those multitudinous differences. "Would it not be
better, instead of such fanciful and mutually inconsistent calculations, to
wait till Elijah come, before urging on the people Messiah's first coming as
imminent or fulfilled? That is, till Elijah the great prophet of Ahab's time
comes in person, as predicted by the prophet Malachi? For as to any such
spiritualizing sense as that by which the Christians made the prophecy to have
been fulfilled in John the Baptist, as being a man of Elijah's spirit and
character, it was but an explaining away of Scripture, and mere
subterfuge."
-------
So, I say,
might the Jewish objectors, one and another, have argued against the more
generally received meaning of those prophecies on which the expectancy of
Messiah by the Jews of the time of Augustus and Tiberius was mainly founded.
And probably, had I lived at that time, the objections would not have been
without their influence to deaden my own expectation. - But much more, I
suspect, would such skeptical tendency have fixed itself in my mind from the
marvelous nature of the fact which I was called to look for; it being nothing
less than the incarnation of Jehovah Himself, the ETERNAL SELF-EXISTENT ONE, in
the whole history of the world, but in itself astounding, even so as to seem to
faith itself all but incredible. - And this the rather because of the total
want of thought and interest about it on the part of mankind in general; alike
among the rich and poor, the statesmen, merchants, military men, philosophers,
in every part of the great Roman Empire, Judæa alone excepted. Mark, for
instance, in Rome itself, the metropolis of the empire, the absorption of all
that rushing tide of population in the common earthly pursuits and interests of
life; alike at the time of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, and afterwards
during the whole progress of his eventful life in the Judæan province! Listen
to their eager talk about the politics, pleasures, or commerce of the day, the
games of the circus, the monthly dole of bread to the citizens, the every-day
fresh tales of vice and scandal, the rising or falling of the markets, the news
from the frontier camps, whether of victory or disaster; anything, everything,
but what was then passing in Judæa. Is it possible, I might then have thought
within myself, that in a world so utterly thoughtless, and indifferent to the
mighty fact, the Creator God can either be just on the point of becoming
incarnate, or else already born into and ministering in it, in fulfillment of
the grand work of man's redemption, as predicted in the old Hebrew prophecies?
- Yes! though the groans of all nature without me, and the groans of my own
soul within me, in its conscious and sad sense of separation from its Maker,
might have been felt as absolutely crying out for the coming of the promised
Redeemer, again to reconcile together fallen man and God, yet! do I suspect
that skepticism, under all these wrong influences, would have sorely battled
against the better feelings of faith at that eventful epoch, and not only have
shut my mind against all realizing expectancy of Him prior to His coming, but,
even after it, except through a miracle of God's interposing and enlightening
grace, have prevented my recognition of him in the humble form of Jesus of
Nazareth.
-------------------------
{57} See
Pole's Synopsis, ubi suprà
But, however
that might have been, and whatever the indifference of the world in general,
and the counter-speculations and many objections of skeptical or philosophizing
Jewish Rabbis, yet did the prophecies about Messiah's first coming in human
form have their fulfillment, in respect of the time of that great event, as
well as of all else: albeit not so clearly or definitely as absolutely to
exclude all controversy, or difference of opinion, on that point. As the
sceptre was passing out of the hand of Judah into that of the great fourth or
Roman Empire, and as the 490 years of Daniel, measured from the decree of the
seventh of Artaxerxes, whereby first the Jewish restored remnant from Babylon
was reconstituted into a nation, were advancing near towards their term, -
just, I say, at that time Jesus, the true Messiah, was born into our world.
And, when the period of 490 years, so calculated, had actually reached its completion,
in that self-same month of April, as well as in that self-same year, according
to the most authentic historic evidence, {58} Jesus Christ, after about some
four years of public ministry, expired on the cross at Golgotha: thereby
completing the work of redemption for which he had come into the world;
fulfilling, and so abrogating, the types of the Jewish ceremonial law; making
reconciliation for iniquity, and bringing in for all that should believe on
him, just as Daniel had predicted he would, everlasting righteousness.
§ 2. PREMONITORY INDICATIONS
AT THE PRESENT TIME
OF THE NEARNESS OF CHRIST'S SECOND COMING.
And now,
secondly, I turn from the Scriptural prophetic evidence, which in the times of
Augustus and Tiberius seemed to warrant the Jews' general expectancy of
MESSIAH's first coming and manifestation in human flesh, to the prophetic
evidence which has been judged by many to point to his second coming as even
now not very distant: - that coming at the brightness of which the Antichrist,
or Man of Sin, of Daniel, St. Paul, and St. John, is to be destroyed, and
Messiah's own glorious kingdom thereupon to have its establishment in this our
fallen world.
And
certainly I think that very strong prophetic evidence does exist to this
effect; though not, however, without objections and objectors as before.
I. As to the
evidence, we shall find it to be of substantially the same character with that
which was considered under my former head; only more copious , clear, and
strong.
1st, then,
and as the very alphabet of prophetic knowledge on the great subject of
inquiry, there stands before us for contemplation that same wonderful
prefigurative image of the four great successive empires of the world, which
was seen by Nebuchadnezzar, and interpreted by Daniel. And, whereas the fourth
or Roman Empire, answering to the statue's legs of iron, had not in the times
of Augustus and Tiberius split into its ten toes of the mixed material of iron
and clay, we have in the subsequent history of the Gothic invasions of the
empire in the fifth and sixth centuries of the Christian æra, and the several
Romano-Gothic kingdoms supervening, seen the accomplishment of that great
revolution: and consequently seen the image brought into that decem-partited
state, (a state which has continued ever since,) in which the stone cut out of
the mountain without hands, the emblem of Messiah's church or kingdom, was at
some time or other to smite and shiver the image to atoms, and itself to become
a great mountain, and fill the whole earth.
2ndly, and
in inseparable connection with the primary prophecy of Daniel, there is to be
considered the prefiguration of the same four great successive empires of the
world, recorded in his seventh chapter, under the symbol of four great wild
beasts, (an indication of their being one and all persecutors of
-------------------------
{58} On this
let me refer to the notice of the subject in the Appendix to my volume of
Warburton Lectures.
the truth,)
the lion, bear, leopard, and ten-horned deino-therium: the last answering
evidently to the iron or Roman Empire of the previously seen statue, and its
ten horns to the statue's ten toes; but with these two most important
additional intimations respecting the later decem-regal form of the Roman
Empire; first, that the ten kingdoms would be connected together by the common
domination over them of a little horn, with eyes like the eyes of man; and
secondly, that the term of allotted duration to the supremacy of that little
horn was to be a time, times, and half a time, or three and a half years,
according to the well-known force of the phrase in the Hebrew language. And,
taking these three and a half years, or 1260 days, as the period is elsewhere
expressed to symbolize 1260 years, on somewhat of the same principle,
Scripturally considered, {59} as Daniel's 70 weeks, (and let me observe in
passing, as I shall hereafter have to show, {60} that the unbroken continuity
of the legs and ten-toed feet of the image will be found absolutely, and of
itself, to forbid our explaining the period as meant of simple days,) I say,
taking the little horn's destined time of supremacy to be 1260 years, there
will appear in regard of it, on comparison of the prophecy and the later Roman
history, the two facts following: - first, that a Roman power, singularly
answering to the characteristics of the little horn, came, after the
dissolution of the old Roman Empire, to hold supremacy over the Romano-Gothic
kingdoms of Western Europe, in the usurped and most extraordinary character of Christ's
Vicar on Earth; in which character, moreover, it has, beyond all preceding
powers of the world, been a persecutor of God's truth and people: - secondly,
that as measured (not indeed from its first possible epoch of commencement,
but) from an epoch of all others, apparently the most fit and probable, viz.
that of the ten Western kingdoms completed subjecting of themselves to the
Pope, as Christ's Vicegerent on Earth, whereby was constituted the Papal
Empire, {61} and that too of the Eastern Roman emperor's admission of this his
claim, {62} both which events date near about the close of the 6th century, - I
say that, as measured from this epoch, the Papal domination must have not very
nearly fulfilled its destined course of 1260 years. In which case the time must
also have nearly come for the Beast's being given, together with its little
horn, to the burning flame, according to the sequel of the prophetic imagery;
and (even though the 75 additional days, or years, of Dan. xii. be added as
still supervening) for Messiah's triumphant establishment of his glorious
kingdom, then solemnly to be committed to him by the hand of the Ancient of
Days. {63}
3rdly, We
have in St. John's Apocalyptic prophecy a yet additional and most strong
confirmation of this inference from the Old Testament prophetic evidence.
Seeing that that revelation of the coming future was given to St. John in
Domitian's reign, while the fourth or Roman Empire still existed under its
imperial regime, and when its only great remaining revolution, as foreshown by
Daniel, was that whereby it was to be broken up into ten kingdoms, under the
dominion of the little horn, it might a priori have been anticipated as
probable that that particular revolution, and both what would happen after
Domitian, introductorily to it, and what would happen subsequently under the
little horn's regime, would constitute its special subjects of prefiguration.
Nor do I doubt that such was actually the case. After the most elaborate
investigation of history, as compared with the Apocalyptic prophecy, the result
is this: (a result which hostile criticism, the most determined, careful, and
particular, has been unable to gainsay or deny:) -
-------------------------
{59} See pp.
340, 341 supra.
{60} See pp.
345, 346 infra.
{61} In the
Apocalypse the Beast's existence in domineering power, to which the duration of
1260 days is assigned by the prophecy, dates from his rise with the ten horns
attached to him.
{62} See on
this my Vol. iii. pp. 302-301 (5th Edition).
{63} Dan.
vii. 9-13.
that there
is found in it the most wonderfully exact, succinct, comprehensive, philosophic
sketch of the fortunes of the Roman Empire, previous to its predicted division
into ten kingdoms; and also of the character and chief changes of the Roman
Papal empire, after that division, including the Christian witness against it,
even to the present time; {64} to which Papal empire, it is to be observed,
there is attached by it the same period of three and a half times, or 1260
days, as was before attached by Daniel to the little horn. - Thus does our
reason for belief in the inferences from Daniel's prophecies seem to be
strengthened and confirmed; to the effect that we are indeed now approaching
very rapidly to the end of the 1260 years of Papal domination, and (whether the
additional 75 years be still supervening or not) to the time of Messiah's
destroying the anti-christian monster with the brightness of His own second
coming.
4thly, and
once more, there are various signs of the times, all which, various as they
are, Scripture prophecy speaks of in one or another place as signs of the
closing days of the present dispensation. Thus, first of all, in the last days
of this dispensation, and towards the close of the destined time, times, and
half a time of the man of sin's abomination standing in God's church or
sanctuary; it is intimated by Daniel that "many shall run to and fro, and
knowledge shall be increased:" {65} - increased, doubtless, with a view to
the better preparation of the whole world for understanding God's judgment in
the great coming catastrophe. Let me ask then, Do not many run to and fro now?
Is not knowledge of every kind increased and increasing now? Who knows not, if
at all adequately acquainted with history, that there has never been anything
like such an answering to the prophetic language in the whole course of the
world's history as at the present time?
Again, it is
foretold that at no great distance of time before the great catastrophe the
everlasting Gospel is to be sent forth and preached, for the completion of the
witness, to every nations under heaven. {66} Look, then, at what is now done,
done altogether within the present century, by our Bible Societies and
Evangelic Missionary Societies; and say whether this sign of the approaching
consummation seems not to be fulfilling.
Further, it
seems clearly intimated in Holy Scripture, that shortly before the time of the
end the Lord's people are to have their hearts turned in special feelings of
compassionate interest to the Jew. "The time, yea the set time is
come," says the Psalmist, that is, for the Jews' conversion and
restoration: "for thy servants think on Zion's stones, and it pitieth them
to see her in the dust." {67} Is not this very markedly the state of
feeling with Christians now, after near 1800 years of neglect, contempt, and
hardness of heart towards the Jew? If so, then remember that this, too, is a
premonitory sign of Jesus Christ's speedy second coming and manifestation. For,
in the throes of their national repenting for the rejection of Jesus, the Jews,
we know, are "to look on Him whom they have pierced:" {68} and that
when, thereupon, the Lord again builds Zion, "He will appear in His
glory." {69}- A prophecy this remembered probably, as well as
-------------------------
{64} On all
this I must beg my readers carefully to consider the argument as drawn out in
the Horæ Apocalypticæ. Without such a careful, thoughtful consideration it will
be impossible for them to do justice to it.
{65} Dan.
xii. 4, also verse 9, 11.
{66} Apoc.
xiv. 6. Compare Matt. xxiv. 14.
{67} Psalm
cii. 13, 14.
{68} Zech.
xii. 10.
{69} Psalm
cii. 16.
confirmed,
by St. Peter in his first sermon to the Jews after the day of Pentecost;
saying, "Repent and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out; and
that the times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and he may
send Jesus Christ, whom the heavens must receive unto the times of the
restitution of all things, spoken of by all the prophets." {70} And what shall
I say of the Euphrates drying up? - the drying up not of a political power
alone, but of the very heart, spirit, and life-blood of Mohammedanism itself in
the great Turkish Empire; especially as accelerated, just of late, by means and
in a manner so unexpected and wonderful? - The object in God's providence of
this its drying up, is stated to be "that the way of the kings from the
East (not of the East, as many wrongly state it) may be prepared:" {71}
whether meant of the light-bearing beams of Christ's coming with His saints,
{72} or perhaps of the converted Jews' re-establishment in their own country.
For there is a way, I think though as yet unnoticed by expositors, in which the
expression, kings from the East, may be
applicable to them; albeit that their gathering at the latter day is to be not
from the East alone, but alike from the East, and from the West, and from the
North, and from the South. I mean by reference to their Eastern first original
in Abraham; "the righteous man raised up and called from the East,"
as Isaiah emphatically designates him. {73}
Nor if it be
thought, as many think, that our Lord's prophecy on the Mount of Olives refers
at its close to the ending of the present dispensation, does that statement,
"This generation auth h genea shall not pass away till all these tings be
fulfilled," (Luke xxi. 32,) present any necessary obstacles to its
application to the present age. For auth h genea may mean that generation which
witnesses the signs in the sun and moon, &c.; those convulsions which may
have had their accomplishment in the French Revolution, agreeably with the use
of similar imagery in the Apocalypse and other Scripture. Then the force of the
saying will be, that ere a century or so elapse from that event, all having
perished that were alive at the time of its first outbreak, the end of his
second advent shall have taken place. {74}
Nor can I
altogether omit the fact that, according to the elaborate tables of one of the
most judicious and learned of our modern chronologists, the late Mr. Flynes
Clinton, the world's 6000 years would seem to be very near their ending; and
this, most remarkably, just about the self-same as the ending of the 1260 years
of the Papal Antichrist, so calculated, as I have stated before. {75} Nor if we
take Usher's somewhat
-------------------------
{70} Acts
iii. 19, 20. See on this most important passage the critical remarks in my
Horae Apocalypticae, Vol. iv. pp. 175-180.
{71} iva
etoimasqh h odov twn basilewn twn awo anatolwn hli?. Apoc. xvi. 12.
{72} Compare
the figure in Apoc. vii. 2: also Luke i. 78 and 2 Thess. ii. 1, 8; Apoc. xx. 4.
{73} Isa.
xli. 2. Compare Gen. xvii. 6, 16; Josh. xxiv. 2, 3.
{74} My
impression is, that the saying may have had a double reference, 1st, to the
fulfillment of the judgments on Jerusalem, ere the generation then alive should
have past away; 2nd, to the final judgment of the consummation, ere the
generation should have wholly past away that had witnessed the signs in the sun
and moon, &c. (verses 25, &c.), which signs I suppose to have begun at
the French Revolution. See my Vol. iii. p. 361, Note 1; also my Paper in the
Investigator, Vol. iv. p. 311.
It is to be
observed that the word auth, this, in the clause h genia auth, needs not
necessarily to be aspirated: as there were no aspirates in the unical
characters of the olden Greek MSS. And if without the aspirate, then auth would
mean that; . . " that generation shall not have passed away,
&c.;" with reference distinctly to the generation that was alive at
the time of the signs in the sun and moon, &c., appearing. But the view I
advocate does not depend on the absence of the aspirate. Because our Lord might
mean by "this generation," the generation of the time he was then
speaking of: just as in Luke xvii. 34, where, speaking of the time of his
second coming, he says, tauth th nukti, "On this night shall two be in one
bed; one shall be taken, &c.:" meaning thereby the night of his
coming; and so rendered in our English version, "In that night."
{75} See my
abstract of Mr. Clinton's chronological argument and tables in the Chapter
immediately preceding the present; and also my pp. 117-119 supra.
more
protracted Scripture chronology, and moreover consider that Daniel's 75 years
of the time of the end have to be added on to the completed 1260 years ere the
consummation, will the further postponement of the ending of the 6th millennary
be very long. And with the world's 6000 years ending, the world's sabbatism may
be drawing on?
In fine, and
on summing up, the more I consider it the more strong and convincing does the
prophetic evidence appear to me, in indication that Messiah's promised second
coming, - that coming at which Antichrist is to be destroyed, - is near at
hand. In order at all to realize its strength, it will be well to consider
separately and distinctly alike that evidence which results from the
demonstrated long and continuous agreement of historic fact and prophetic
figuration, respecting the four great successive empires of the world, from
certain known epochs of commencement, viz. that of the reign of the Babylonian
monarch Nebuchadnezzar, and time of St. John's seeing the visions in Patmos; a
parallelism whereby we are brought down in John's prophecy quite near to its
close in the consummation; - that which results from the near ending of long
prophetic chronological periods, dated from a commencing epoch which, within
certain narrow limits, may be fixed almost certainly; - and then again, that
which arises from what I have designated as the signs of the times; signs very
various, very marked, very peculiar to the present æra, and each independent of
the rest. Then let the cumulative force of the whole taken together be
considered; all tending, as it does, to one and the same result; - that namely,
as I have before said, of the nearness of Messiah's second coming. It seems
impossible to deny that it is evidence immensely stronger than that which, in
the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius, warranted the Jews of those days in their
conviction of the time for Messiah's first coming having then arrived. {76}
11. But now,
as to objections and objectors.
And, no
doubt, there are learned Rabbis now, even as then, who with various views, and
on various grounds, deny, and seek to invalidate, more or less of the prophetic
evidence on which our inference has been grounded. - By some it is said that
the whole of the Apocalypse, and all too of Daniel's prophecies which I have
expounded as reaching in its range down to the present time, and yet beyond it,
was fulfilled centuries ago.{77} By others, on the contrary, it is contended
that all the Apocalypse, and whatever in Daniel's two prophecies concerns the
ten-toed division of the iron legs of the image, or ten-horned division, and
synchronic rise and dominancy of the little horn of the fourth Beast, still
waits its fulfillment
-------------------------
{76} I must
quote a remarkable passage to the same effect, from the late lamented Dr.
Arnold's Lectures on Modern History, (p. 38) which is the more interesting from
its consideration of the subject quite in a new point of view.
"Modern
history appears to be not only a step in advance of ancient history, but the
last step: it appears to bear marks of the fullness of time, as if there would
be no future history beyond it. For the last eighteen hundred years Greece has
fed human intellect: Rome, taught by Greece and improving upon her teacher, has
been the source of law and government and social civilization: and, what
neither Greece nor Rome could furnish, the perfection of moral and spiritual
truth has been given by Christianity. The changes which have been wrought have
arisen out of the reception of these elements by new races; - races endowed
with such force of character, that what was old in itself, when exhibited in them,
seemed to become something new. But races so gifted are, and have been from the
beginning of the world, few in number: the mass of mankind have no such power .
. . . Now, looking anxiously round the world for any new races, which may
receive the seed (so to speak) of our present history into a kindly yet
vigorous soil, and may reproduce it, the same and yet new, for a future period,
we know not where such are to be found. Some appear exhausted, others
incapable; and yet the whole surface of the globe is known to us . . .
Everywhere the search has been made, and the report has been received. We have
the full amount of earth's resources before us; and they seem inadequate to
supply life for a third period of human history. I am well aware that to state
this as a matter of positive belief, would be the extreme of presumption. There
may be nations reserved hereafter for great purposes of God's providence, whose
fitness for their appointed work will not betray itself till the work and the
time for doing it be come . . . But, without any presumptuous confidence, if
there be any signs, however uncertain, that we are living in the latest periods
of the world's history, that no other races remain behind to perform what we
have neglected, or to restore what we have ruined, then indeed the interest of
modern history becomes intense."
{77} So
first the Jesuit Alcasor, then with their various modifications the Germans
Eichhorn, Ewald, &c.; also Bossuet, and the American Moses Stuart. The
lastest Apocalyptic expositor of this class that I have seen is Mr. Desprez of
Wolvurhampton. I have noticed his work in a critique in the Appendix to my
Warburton Lectues, p. 518. The others are reviewed in the Appendix to this
fourth volume of my Horæ Apocalypticæ.
in the
future; {78} the 1260 days of the little horn's duration in power meaning
simply, say both, 1260 literal days. {79} And thus, though the present signs of
the times may be admitted by some of them as evidence tending to the conclusion
I have stated, yet that most convincing portion of the prophetic evidence, -
the same substantially in kind with some that greatly tended, doubtless, to
excite expectation among the Jews of Messiah's first coming as imminent in the
days of Augustus, - I mean that of a long-continued parallelism of prophecy and
history, reaching from a known commencing epoch, down nearly to the event
expected, - is set aside.
It is my
settled conviction, after much and careful thought, that each and either of
these prophetic counter-theories, the prætoristic and that of the futurists, in
any of the multitudinous and mutually contradictory forms of either, may be
shown to be self-refuting. Thus as regards the latter, and its fundamental
dogma of the Man of Sin being an individual yet future, who is to sit as God,
and have his image placed for worship, in some now-built Jewish temple at
Jerusalem, which they would have to be called God's temple in St. Paul's
prophecy, {80} though built in direct opposition to himself and the Son of His
love, {81} - I say as regards this theory of the futurists, construct but the
time-table of their Antichrist's 1260 days, and you will have there what will
of itself suffice to refute it. It is during the whole of these 1260 days, or 3
1/2 years, that he is, according to their interpretation of Daniel, to have his
abomination standing in the Jewish temple, {82} (these being the 3 1/2 years,
observe, which end in his destruction by Christ's appearing,) and during the
whole of them that the Gentiles, in subjection to Him, are to occupy the Holy
City. {83} Yet meanwhile he is, during part at least of the self-same 3 1/2
years, to be occupied in besieging Jerusalem from without, according to these
self-same theorists; {84} and, moreover, during part be busied sundry ways, in
connection with, and on the site of, the Roman seven-hilled city, or
Apocalyptic Babylon. {85} For vainly do they seek Scripture warrant for
assigning more than 3 1/2 years, or 1260 days,
-------------------------
{78} e. g.
Drs. S. R. Maitland and Todd, Mr. Molyneux, &c. &c. Mr. Molyneux's book
is critically noticed in my Warburton Lectures, p. 512: the others in the
Appendix to the present fourth volume of the Horæ Apocalypticæ. The Jesuit
Ribæra was, I believe, the first author, after the breaking up of the old Roman
Empire, of this system of prophetic exposition.
{79} 2 Thess
ii. 4.
{80} I have
vainly asked from advocates of these sentiments for any Scripture warrant for
such a designation of such a temple.
The
distinction is ever to be remembered between a temple originally founded in
opposition to God's will, and one originally founded in accordance with it, but
which may have become afterwards apostate. Even under Manasseh the old Jewish
temple might be called God's temple, though corrupted to heathen worship, (2
Kings xxi. 4, 5; 2 Chron. xxxiii. 4, 5, 7,) because originally instituted by
him. And similarly the symbolic temple of the Christian visible and professing
Church (compare 1 Tim. iii. 15) might still be so called under the Popes,
though then apostatized, because originally founded in his name, and according
to his will. This distinction is perpetually overlooked by futurist expositors.
{81} Some
futurist expositors, while disclaiming the year-day principle with reference to
the 1260 days' prophetic period, seem to admit and adopt it with reference to
the smaller Apocalyptic period of the 3 1/2 days of the two witnesses lying
dead. Apoc. xi. 9, 11. So "Eight Lectures on Prophecy," p. 154
(Dublin, 1853, 3rd Edition): "May not there 3 1/2 days be the very period
of the time, times, and half a time?" i. e. 3 1/2 years, or 1260 days. So,
also, many of the patristic expositors.
{82} Dan.
xi. 31, xii. 11, compared with 2 Thess. ii. 4. This has been asserted not long
since, as a certain fact, by two Christian ministers to large congregations in
London churches.
{83} Apoc.
xi. 2. "During Antichrist's reign Jerusalem will be occupied by his
followers; for they will tread under-foot the holy city forty-two months. There
he will slay the two witnesses; and set up the abomination in the holy place.
All prophecy agrees in pointing out Jerusalem as the seat of Antichrist's
kingdom." So the Rev. C. Maitland at p. 14 of his so-called Apostolic
School of Prophetic Interpretation; though with Apoc. xvii. before him.
{84} Zech.
xiv. 2. This is an essential part of the futurist theory.
{85} Apoc.
xvii. 3, 4, 5, 18.
(whether
construed literally, or on the year-day principle,) to his duration in power.
{86} - Again, admitting the iron legs of Daniel's image to signify the old
Roman Empire, as most of them do, they must, in order to the ten-toed feet
being yet future in their significancy, suppose the iron legs to have appeard
broken off at the ankle, and a vacuum, indicating some twelve or fourteen
unrepresented centuries, (unrepresented through the all-important times of the
Papacy!) to have separated in the vision between those imperial legs of iron,
and the feet and ten toes of mixed iron and clay. {87} - No; the evidence of
continuous prophecy as fulfilled in continuous history remains, I am well
persuaded, to us. Coincidences, great and small, running all down the line,
even to the present time, establish the connection between the one and the
other. And as, when travelling down by rail, as I have often done, to the westward,
I may feel sure that I am at length approaching the terminus at Torquay, not
simply because of seeing the fair valley of King's-Kerswell between Newton and
Torquay on either side of me, (for valleys similarly fair there are elsewhere
that resemble it,) but because I have seen past in succession all the several
intervening places along the line of route, - the towers of Windsor, the
red-brick buildings of Reading, the Didcot and the Swindon stations, the cities
of Bath, Bristol, and Exeter, and in fine the towns of Teynmouth and Newton,
each and every one with its own peculiar and distinguishing characteristics, -
just such is the convincing effect to my own judgment of the evidence of
continuously fulfilled prophecy from Daniel's time even to the present; and the
fact of the time now present being thereby shown, as well as by other signs of
the times, to be in very truth near the termination of the 1260 years, and
close consequently at least to the time of the end. Signs of the times, such as
we now see around us, furnish a powerful corroboration to our conclusion as to
the world's present position in the prophetic calendar. But they will not do by
themselves. By one well-known futurist expositor it has been confessed that, on
the evidence he has to offer, the destruction of Babylon and so Christ's second
coming, coincidently, may either be close at hand or ages distant.{88} And here
he speaks on his theory reasonably.
Nor, indeed,
are other objectors wanting. There are some so-called expositors who, explaining
the numerals of the great prophetic periods as simply typical, would make them
all but meaningless; and thus set aside all argument as to the world's present
position in the prophetic calendar drawn from them. {89} And some there are who
indulge themselves further in sneers at the disappointments of one and another
of earlier or more recent Protestant interpreters, who have calculated the 1260
years from some too early a commencing epoch, {90} have had their expectations
of Messiah's then coming to judgment falsified by the event: - whence a
suggestion as to the folly of such calculations altogether.
-------------------------
{86} This
duration is fixed alike by Dan. vii. 25, and Apoc. xiii. 5; and it is at the
end of the three and a half years of his sitting in the temple to receive
worship and oppressing the saints, that, according to Dan. vii., Apoc. xiii.,
and 2 Thess. ii., he is to be destroyed by the brightness of Christ's coming.
{87} Drs. S.
R. Maitland and Todd, as I have stated earlier in this work, Vol. iii. p, 298,
would have the whole of the iron legs future, as the symbol of a supposed
future Antichrist's future kingdom. They thus would have the gap in the statue
between the bottom of the brazen thighs, and the beginning of the iron legs; in
symbolization of some thirteen or twenty unrepresented centuries, according as
the third empire is made by them the Greek, or the Roman. I have ventured to
suggest that it might, perhaps, suffice to disabuse them of their
hallucinations on this point, if they would simply publish a lithograph of the
statue sketched according to this view of it; with the iron legs separated at a
distance by some empty void from the thighs of brass; or dangling suspended
from above the knee-joints by a long thin thread.
{88} The
Rev. C. Maitland in his so-called "Apostolic School of Prophetic
Interpretation," p. 104. "Of the yet remaining length of Rome's
career we know nothing certain from prophecy. It may be that the sorceress has
before her long ages of iniquity; it may be that we are now resisting her
latest arts." I have heard other futurists make the same confession.
{89} e. g.
very lately Hengstenberg. See p. 322 suprà.
{90} Mede,
Brightman, Cuninghame, &c. The sneering at such mistaken calculations of
prophetic times is very common.
About such
objectors, however, I little trouble myself: remembering the similar mistake of
dating the 70 weeks' commencing epoch from too early a decree, into which some
of the Jews, as we saw, may have probably fallen shortly before the time of
Jesus Christ's birth; and yet how, calculated from a later decree as the
commencing epoch, that famous prophecy was found to have its fulfillment in
respect of time, as well as in respect of all other particulars, in the coming,
life, and death of Jesus. - Nor, yet again, is my mind affected, nor are my
convictions of judgment disturbed, by the allegorizing system of our modern
Philos; {91} who would explain away the promised second coming itself of our
blessed Lord, with all its glorious accomplishments, as nothing persona, and
almost nothing real. The thing is too absurd, except on principles of direct
infidelity, which is disclaimed. - But there is another kind of difficulty in
the way of realizing its probable nearness (one to which I made allusion at the
opening of this Paper) which I confess does exercise on me, almost in spite of
myself, a most powerful influence towards the deadening of my faith in the
fact: i.e. the generally thoughtlessness, skepticism, and indifference of the mass
of men around me on the subject. Is it possible, I think with myself, that so
unparalleled an event in the world's history can be near at hand with all its
infinitely important results, and yet the world be so utterly unaware and
thoughtless about it? Then, however, I again resort to the parallel sketched in
this Paper. I bethink me of the world's general unpreparedness and
thoughtlessness about Messiah's first coming, when quite near at hand, and how,
mighty as may be that coming which we have now to expect, it cannot be an event
mightier, or more wonderful, than Messiah's first coming; seeing that that was
in truth nothing less than the incarnation in human flesh and blood of the
INFINITE SELF-EXISTENT ONE, THE CREATOR, THE INHABITER OF ETERNITY. Moreover, I
remember our Lord's own premonitory warning, to the effect that in the last
days the general careless state of the world before His coming would be just
such as that we see around us: that like as it was in the days of Noah, and
like as it was in the days of Lord, so should it then be with men: - eating and
drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, immersed in wordly business, wordly
politics, worldly pleasures; and with all going on just as usual. Just
agreeable with which, too, is St. Peter's prophecy: "There shall come in
the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the
promise of His coming? for, since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue
as they were from the beginning of the creation." It becomes me evidently,
and all who are conscious of similar weakness of faith, very earnestly to
battle against such skepticism. And, in order to this, after the most careful
consideration of Scripture prophetic evidence on this subject, and when the
judgment has been sufficiently satisfied with its consistency and strength,
then to ask the teaching of that Holy Spirit, who can alone savingly impress
upon the soul Scripture verities: Him who effectually taught Jesus Christ's
early disciples to recognize Messiah on his first coming, when the Jews
generally, in spite even of their previous expectancy, failed to recognize Him:
and who, on the subject of Messiah's promised second coming, is able now also
to lead the sincere inquirer into all truth.
THE END.
-------------------------
{91} The
Rev. B. Jowett, Greek Professor at Oxford, seems almost to aspire to this
character by his late publication on St. Paul's Epistles. See my brief notice
of his speculations on St. Paul's prophecy 2 Thess. ii. in the Appendix to my
Volume of Warburton Lectures.