Mahometanism in its Relation to Prophecy/Chapter 2
PROPHECIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT CONCERNING ANTICHRIST.
We read, in the seventh chapter of the book of Daniel, the following words (verses 1 to 14):—
"1. In the first year of Balthassar, king of Babylon, Daniel saw a dream; and the vision of his head was upon his bed: and writing the dream, he comprehended it in few words; and relating the sum of it, in short he said:
"2. I saw in my vision by night, and behold the four winds of heaven strove upon the great sea:
"3. And four great beasts, different one from another, came up out of the sea.
"4. The first was like a lioness, and had the wings of an eagle: I beheld till her wings were plucked off, and she was lifted up from the earth, and stood upon her feet as a man, and the heart of a man was given unto her.
"5. And behold another beast like a bear stood up on one side, and there were three rows in the mouth thereof, and in the teeth thereof; and thus they said to it, Arise, devour much flesh.
"6. After this, I beheld, and lo ! another like a leopard, and it had upon it four wings as of a fowl, and the beast had four heads, and power was given unto it.
"7. After this, I beheld in the vision of the night, and lo ! a fourth beast, terrible and wonderful, and exceeding strong; it had great iron teeth, eating and breaking in pieces, and treading down the rest with its feet: and it was unlike to the other beasts, which I had seen before it, and it had ten horns.
"8. I considered the horns, and behold another little horn sprung out of the midst of them; and three of the first horns were plucked up at the presence thereof: and behold eyes, like the eyes of a man, were in this horn, and a mouth speaking great things.
"9. I beheld, till thrones were placed, and the Ancient of Days sat: his garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like unto clean wool; his throne like flames of fire; the wheels of it like a burning fire.
"10. A swift stream of fire issued forth from before him: thousands of thousands ministered to him; and ten thousand times a hundred thousand stood before him: the judgement sat, and the books were opened.
"11. I beheld, because of the great words, which that horn spake: and I saw that the beast was slain, and the body thereof was destroyed, and given to the fire to be burnt.
"12. And that the power of the other beasts was taken away; and that times of life were appointed them for a time and a time.
"13. I beheld therefore in the vision of the night, and lo ! one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven, and he came even to the Ancient of Days; and they presented him before Him.
"14. And He gave him power, and glory, and a kingdom: and all peoples, tribes, and tongues, shall serve him; his power is an everlasting power that shall not be taken away: and his kingdom that shall not be destroyed."
In these sublime and mysterious words, does the Prophet Daniel lay open to us the whole mystery of God, containing the prediction of all the principal events from his own time even unto the end of the world. All commentators agree that the four beasts signified the four great monarchies or empires, which were destined to arise on the earth, successively holding dominion over all nations. In fact this interpretation was revealed to Daniel along with the vision itself, as we find stated in the same chapter, from the 16th to the 28th verse. That great father and doctor of the Church, St. Jerome, commenting (Hieronymi Comment, in Daniel, e. vii. torn. v. p. 584, ed. Basiliensis) upon this vision, thus interprets it: "I understand by the four winds of heaven, four angelical powers, to whose guardianship the principal kingdoms of the world are committed, as we read in the book of Deuteronomy: 'When the Most High divided the nations asunder, when he separated the children of Adam, He constituted the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the angels of God; but the Lord's portion is His people, yea, Jacob is the boundary of His heritage?' By the sea is signified the world, or the secular state of mankind, tossed to and fro with the billows of human passions; as our Lord interprets the same figure in His parable of the net cast into the sea. Hence the dragon is called the king of all that moves in the waters, and, according to David, his heads are bruised in the sea.―(Psal. Ixxiii.) And we read in the Prophet Amos (Amos ix.) : 'Though he go down to the depth of the sea, there will I command the dragon, and he shall devour him?' But as for the four beasts that arose from the sea, and were different one from the other, if we listen to the angel's interpretation, we may know the meaning of the vision. These four great beasts, says he, are four kingdoms, that shall arise from the earth. But the four winds of heaven, that strove on the great sea, are termed winds of heaven, because each angel striveth with God for the kingdom that is committed to his guardianship. And we must remark, that by the term beasts is signified the brute force and cruelty of the several kingdoms. But in the vision, the first was like a lioness, and it had the wings of an eagle: this was the kingdom of Babylon, and it was symbolized by a lioness, rather than a lion, on account of its savage cruelties, as well as its luxury and beastly lust." We may here remark, to interrupt for a moment the commentary of St. Jerome, that our own illustrious traveller Layard has discovered in his laborious investigations of the ruins of the old Assyrian power at Nineveh, and in the territory of the great Babylonian empire, numerous remnants of vast colossal statues of winged lionesses, some of which are now deposited in our own British Museum. These figures probably symbolized the Assyrian power, and in that case it was very natural that in the vision that empire should be so represented to the prophet. And it is evident that those statues must have had a symbolical meaning, which was well understood by the people amongst whom they were erected. The lioness would signify a mighty people, emerging from the desert of barbarism, and the wings that aided it in its flight would signify the arts and appliances of civilization, which enabled it to soar above the low and grovelling pursuits of savage life, while the nature and character of the lioness would express the moral and physical qualities of that people. But let us listen to St. Jerome: " ' And it had the wings of an eagle/ By this I understand the pride of that most powerful kingdom, for Esaias the Prophet, speaking of the prince of pride, saith, ' I will place my throne above the stars of heaven, and I will be like unto the Most High.' (Isaias xli.) And in another place it is said of him: 'Yea, though thou be lifted up on high like an eagle, yet will I drag thee down from thence.' Moreover, as the lion amongst beasts, so the eagle hath a sort of royalty amongst birds. And as the eagle is said to live to a great age, so it may be said that the Assyrian monarchy subsisted for many centuries. But when the prophet tells us that its wings were plucked off, whether from the lioness or the eagle, that refers to the other kingdoms which that empire ruled over, and by which it soared over the rest of the world. And when it is said that it was taken from the earth, the words evidently refer to the destruction of the Chaldean empire; and what follows—'That it stood on its feet like a man, and the heart of a man was given to it:' if we apply it to Nabuchodonosor, it is evident that at one period he was deprived of his royal state, and was afterwards restored to it, so that he learnt he was a man, and not a savage beast; and he took back the heart which he had lost in his dreadful humiliation. But if we interpret it in general of the Chaldean kingdom, it would mean, that when Balthassar was slain, and the Chaldean dominion was overthrown by the Medes and Persians, the men of Babylon learnt that they were frail, and liable to fall like other men. We must also remark the order observed by the prophet in this vision, and we shall find that it exactly coincides with that which we have already seen in the great metallic statue in the dream of Nabuchodonosor. What in DaniePs vision is described as a lioness with eagles' wings, is there called the head of gold;" [and both the one and the other signify the Babylonian or Assyrian monarchy.]
"But the Prophet continues, 'and behold a second beast like unto a bear. This relates to the power, of which it is said in Nabuchodonosor's dream of the statue; he and his breast and his arms were of silver. The Medo-Persian empire is compared to a bear, on account of the strength and fierceness of that power." And here we may interrupt for a moment the commentary of St. Jerome, to observe, that there also may be some allusion on the part of the prophet to the geographical position of the two empires in question. The Assyrian monarchy was in a more southern latitude, nearer the tropics, and so it is compared to a lioness, for such animals abound within its territory; while Persia, situated much further to the north, and diversified with great mountains, abounded with bears; and so it is not unaptly symbolized by that very animal. But to return to St. Jerome: "Moreover the habits of the Persians were hardy and frugal, like what we read of the Lacedaemonians, and as we may see detailed at length by Xenophon in his 'History of the Education of the elder Cyrus,' and when it is said 'that it stood up on one side,' the Hebrews thus interpret it, that the Medo-Persians never did anything to persecute Israel. Hence by Zachariah the Prophet they are called 'white horses.' But ' there were three rows in the mouth and in the teeth thereof.' This has been interpreted of the three principalities into which the Medo-Persian empire was subdivided, as we read in the (Hebrew characters) of Baltasar and Darius, that there were three princes, each of whom presided over one hundred and twenty satrapies. But others have made it refer to three kings, who reigned after Cyrus over the Persian empire, but without telling us which they refer to. But as we find from history, that after Cyrus, who reigned for thirty years, there followed Cambyses and his brothers the Magi, and then Darius, under whom the restoration of the Temple of Jerusalem was commenced; and then the fifth king, Xerxes, the son of Darius; Artabanus, the sixth; the seventh, Artaxerxes, surnamed Longimanus, or long-handed; Xerxes, the eighth; Sogdianus, the ninth; the tenth, Darius, surnamed (Hebrew characters); the eleventh, Artaxerxes, who was called (Hebrew characters), that is, 'the Rememberer;' the twelfth, another Artaxerxes, who was surnamed Ochus; the thirteenth, Arses, the son of Ochus; the fourteenth, Darius, son of Arsamus, who was conquered by Alexander, king of Macedon. How then can it be true to say there were but three kings of the Persians, unless indeed there were three who were specially conspicuous for their cruelty, which I do not find from history to have been the case. The 'three rows' then in the mouth of the Persian beast, and in the teeth thereof, must signify three kingdoms—those of the Babylonians, the Medes, and the Persians, which were fused into one kingdom. And whereas the prophet continues, ' And thus they said unto it: Arise, devour much flesh; ' that may refer to the period of Assuerus, whom the Septuagint names Artaxerxes, when Aman exhorted him in one day to slay all the Jews. We must observe the prophet does not say, that the beast devoured much flesh, but that they said unto it, ' Arise and devour much flesh;' signifying that the thing would be planned, but not executed." And here we may add to the exposition of St. Jerome, that these words may also refer to the unsuccessful expeditions of Darius, and subsequently of Xerxes, against Greece, when the wonderful bravery of the Greeks overthrew the almost countless hosts of the Persians in the memorable battles of Marathon, Thermopylae, Artemisium, and Salamis. But St. Jerome continues: " 'After this I beheld, and lo ! another beast, like unto a leopard.' The third kingdom, of which it is said, in the corresponding vision of Nabuchodonosor's statue, 'his belly and his thighs of brass.' This kingdom is that of the Macedonian Greeks, and it is compared to a leopard, one of the swiftest of beasts, and (Hebrew characters): to signify its headlong course of conquest. And it had four wings; signifying the wonderful rapidity with which Alexander the Great won victory after victory, from the Illyrian and Adriatic Sea even to the Indian Ocean and the Ganges; so that in six years he subdued a large portion of Europe and the whole of Asia. That it had four heads, is to be understood of the subdivision of Alexander's empire, immediately after his death, between his four principal generals, viz. : Ptolemy, Seleucus, Philip, and Antigonus." St. Jerome then proceeds in his commentary to the fourth beast. "'After this,' saith the Prophet, ' I beheld in the vision of the night, and lo! a fourth beast, terrible and wonderful, and exceeding strong; it had great iron teeth . . . . . and it had ten horns: I considered the horns, and behold another little horn sprung out of the midst of them: and three of the first horns were plucked up at the presence thereof: and behold eyes like the eyes of a man were in this horn, and a mouth speaking great things.' This fourth beast signifieth the Roman empire, which now governs the whole world; and it corresponds with that part of Nabuchodonosor's statue, of which it is said, 'its legs were of iron, but the feet part of iron and part of potter's clay:' in this place it is only the iron that is referred to, the Prophet witnessing 'that it had great iron teeth.' And here I wonder not a little, that whereas the Prophet had compared the three former empires to beasts, the habits of which we are acquainted with, such as the lioness, the bear, and the leopard, he compares the Roman empire to no known animal, but simply terms it a beast exceeding strong and terrible. What can be the meaning of this? possibly to excite a still greater fear of the power and fierceness of the fourth empire, by giving it no definite name; as if to insinuate, that whatever there was of such fierceness and strength in all other beasts, we might expect to find all this combined and united in the Roman empire. But what Daniel passes over in silence, the Hebrew interpreters think is supplied by David in the Psalms, where he saith, 'the wild boar from the forest hath devoured her,' which is read thus in another version, 'all the wild beasts of the field have devoured her,' which would refer to the fact that the Roman empire was an agglomeration of all nations and kingdoms, seeing that the Roman beast either devoured them all, or reduced them to tribute and subjection: in reference to which Daniel here says of this beast, that it devoured all things, and trampled them under its feet. . . . ." St. Jerome here refers to the interpretation which Porphyrius had given of this prophecy, and especially of the horns, in which he understood the little horn to signify Antiochus Epiphanes. But St. Jerome rejects this as utterly untenable,—the fourth beast referring to the Roman empire, and not to the kingdoms into which Alexander's empire was subdivided; and, after declaring this, he winds up with these remarkable words: "Let us therefore say, what hath been handed down to us by all ecclesiastical writers: that in the latter days of the world, when the Roman empire shall have been destroyed, ten kings shall arise, who shall parcel out the Roman territory between themselves: after which an eleventh king shall arise, small in his beginnings, who shall subdue three of those other kings." And here St. Jerome adds (what he could only have learnt from the same remarkable tradition, which he tells us prevailed in the early Church), that the three kings referred to, were " those of Egypt, Africa, and Ethiopia, or the interior of Asia." How remarkably this has been fulfilled we shall show more at large in a subsequent chapter. "'And behold,' says the Prophet, 'there were as it were the eyes of a man in that horn to show that he was not the devil or an evil spirit as some have thought, but a man, in whom Satan would dwell with his whole force;' and he had a mouth speaking great things:' for he is the same, as the Man of Sin, the Son of Perdition [spoken of by St. Paul in his second Epistle to the Thessaloniaus], who sitteth in the Temple of God, making himself as it were God." Thus ar have we quoted the words of the great St. Jerome, we shall have to refer to them again later, as well as to the prophecy of Daniel, to which they relate.
The same great revelation had already been made to King Nabuchodonosor, as we find in the second chapter of the same prophecy (Dan. ii. 31–45), under the figure of a vast statue, composed of four different materials, answering to the four beasts in Daniel's vision, as we have already had occasion to see pointed out to us by St. Jerome in his commentary on that vision. The only difference between the two visions consists in this,—that the second contains a fuller development of future events than the first; the groundwork of both being evidently the same. In the sequel we shall observe that still fuller developments of the mighty events, connected with these four empires, and subsequent to them, are revealed to the Prophet.
We have already seen, from the quotations given from St. Jerome, what was his interpretation of the four beasts, and in this interpretation we may safely affirm that all other commentators agree with him. For if any have ventured to dissent from the general explanation, they are really too insignificant to be seriously dealt with. We may therefore lay it down, as the tradition of the Church, that the four beasts, and the four metals of Nabuchodonosor's statue, undoubtedly signify,—
1st. The Assyrian-Babylonian empire;
2nd. The Medo-Persian empire;
3rd. The Macedonian-Greek empire founded by Alexander the Great;
4th. The Roman empire, which these prophecies clearly indicate as the most powerful of them all.
But, besides these four empires, the Prophet speaks of a fifth, which he clearly intimates should be different from all the rest, which should be the kingdom set up by Almighty God Himself; and that its first establishment should take place before the expiration of the period allotted to the four empires, which we have just named. This is revealed to us in the forty-fourth verse of the second chapter of Daniel in these words: " But, in the days of those kingdoms, the God of Heaven shall set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed."
What kingdom is this, but that spiritual one of Jesus Christ, His Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church ? that kingdom, of which He declared "my kingdom is not of this world" of which He laid the first foundations on that blessed day when, just before His glorious Ascension into Heaven, He thus addressed His apostles, giving them the mighty commission to found it: "All power is given to me in Heaven and on Earth, going therefore Teach Ye all nations : baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; Teaching them to observe all things, whatsoever I have commanded you : and behold I am with you, all days even to the consummation of the world." This was the kingdom which Daniel had declared, so many hundred years before, the God of Heaven would set up, which Jesus Christ the God of Heaven actually did set up, and which He set up " in the days of those kingdoms," that is, while the Roman empire, ruling as it did over the territory of all the other monarchies, still swayed the destinies of the earth, and of which Daniel declared "that it should never be destroyed;" while Jesus Christ, its founder, affirmed that He Himself would abide with it "for ever, even to the end of the world."
The Prophet having described the foundation of this fifth kingdom, which was God's own kingdom, a spiritual kingdom, of which in the same chapter it is said "a stone was cut out of the mountain without hands" (Dan. ii. 34), as well to signify that no human force would be used for its foundation, as to denote the supernatural birth of its Founder Jesus Christ, he goes on to describe the foundation of another kingdom, the distinctive characteristic of which would be, that it would make war with the saints of God, that is, according to the language of Scripture, the people of God,—in other words, with the fifth kingdom, or the Catholic Church.
Having described the fourth great monarchy, or the Roman empire, under the figure of a beast "terrible and wonderful (Dan. vii. 7, 8), and exceeding strong, having great iron teeth, with which it devoured and brake in pieces, treading down the rest with its feet' the Prophet adds, " that it was unlike the other beasts, and that it had ten horns." Now what can this mean, except that the Roman empire was not to be supplanted, like the other great monarchies, by another universal monarchy, but that when the period of its dissolution should arrive, it should be subdivided into ten kingdoms ? In the sixth verse of this same chapter (Dan. vii.), the third monarchy, or the Greek empire of Alexander, had already been described as having four heads; and in the eighth chapter (Dan. viii. 8), the same Macedonian Greek empire is described as a he-goat with a notable horn and four lesser horns; and the four heads in the first vision and the four horns in the latter, symbolized the subdivision of Alexander's empire after his death amongst his four generals, who founded four distinct kingdoms out of it; so here, in the seventh and eighth verses of the seventh chapter, we find the Roman empire dissolved into ten kingdoms, which the Prophet foresaw under the symbolical figure of ten horns. What ensues thereupon? Listen to the Prophet: "I considered the horns, and behold, another little horn sprung out of the midst of them: and three of the first horns were plucked up at the presence thereof: and behold eyes, like the eyes of a man, were in this horn, and a mouth speaking great things." And a little further on, in the eleventh verse, he continues: "I beheld, because of the voice of the great words which that horn spake; " and again, in the twenty-first verse: " I beheld, and lo! that horn made war against the saints, and prevailed over them; " and again, in the twenty-fourth verse: " And another horn shall rise up after the other ten horns, and he shall be mightier than the former, and he shall bring down three kings, and he shall speak words against the High One, and shall crush the saints of the Most High; and he shall think himself able to change times and laws, and the saints shall be delivered into his hand, until a time, and times (in the dual number, meaning, therefore, two times), and half a time; after which," concludes the Prophet, " judgment shall sit, that his power may be taken away, and be broken in pieces, and perish even to the end."
Now, who is this little horn, of which such great and terrible things are here foretold? The holy fathers of the Church, with one consent, declare that it is that great opponent of God and of His Church which, in the language of the New Testament prophecies, is denominated Antichrist; and in this interpretation all later commentators, whether Catholic or Protestant, agree. The only question agitated between them is, "Who is this Antichrist?"
It is true that Mr. Faber, the rector of Long Newton, has laboured, in a work entitled "The Sacred Calendar of Prophecy," to establish a distinction between Antichrist and the Man of Sin; but, speaking generally of Protestant commentators since the first period of their separation from the Catholic Church, it is true that they agree with ourselves in regarding the Little Horn of Daniel, the Man of Sin of St. Paul, the Antichrist of St. John, and the False Prophet of the Apocalypse, as the same personage. It is with such who agree in holding this view that we are specially concerned in this treatise, although indirectly we have to do with others also, as will be seen in the sequel.
It is not the place, as yet, to answer the question, "Who is the Antichrist?" we shall do this in another chapter: here we confine ourselves to the consideration of some of the characteristics of Antichrist, as they are foretold in this prophecy of Daniel, reserving it for our interpretation of other prophecies, both in Daniel and elsewhere, fully to develop who the great Antichrist really is.
In the prophecy before us, this, at least, seems quite clear, that Antichrist was not to appear in the world until after the dissolution of the Roman empire, and its consequent subdivision into ten kingdoms; that he was to rise up amongst these, and to subdue three of them; that he was to speak great things against God and against His saints; in other words, against God, as the revealer and founder of the Christian Church, which was, as we have already seen, the kingdom of the saints, or the fifth monarchy, which the Prophet told us God would found "in the days of those kingdoms" (Dan. ii. 44); that is, during the period allotted for the duration of the four monarchies; in other words, before the dissolution of the Roman empire: that is, Christ was to found His kingdom before the dissolution of the Roman empire, Antichrist was to found his after its dissolution. Finally, this prophecy contains a prediction of the period for which this kingdom of Antichrist was to last, — namely, for the mystical period of a time, times, and half a time, — that is, for one year, for two years (the word times, both in the Hebrew and Greek versions, being in the dual number), and for half a year; that is altogether, for three years and a half. What is meant by this symbolical period of three years and a half, we shall discuss later. In fine, in these two prophecies of Daniel, contained in the second and seventh chapters, we have the prediction of Christ's kingdom, and of Antichrist's kingdom; that the former was to be founded, as we have just observed, before the dissolution of the Roman empire, the latter shortly after that dissolution; that the former was to last for ever, and that the latter was to last for the symbolical period of three years and a half.
Now let us proceed to the eighth chapter of Daniel. In this chapter the Prophet relates a vision which he had concerning two of the four great monarchies, the four monarchies which formed the subject of the vision related in the last chapter. It may perhaps here be asked, of what use could it be to show the Prophet so many visions concerning the same thing? The reason is obvious; the Prophet does, or rather the Holy Spirit deals with the Prophet, as a skilful artist treats any subject, of which he would convey to persons at a distance an accurate idea: he presents his subject to them in different points of view, first giving them a general view of it, and then in successive sketches afterwards he displays all its different details. By and by we shall see the exceeding value and force of these different details, in establishing the date as well as the locality of Antichrist. Thus in the seventh chapter we have the vision of the four great monarchies, of the establishment of the Catholic Church, related still more emphatically in the second chapter, forty-fourth verse, and of the kingdom of Antichrist in opposition to it; whilst in the eighth chapter, we have the vision of two out of those four monarchies, together with the establishment of Antichrist's kingdom as coming out of the second of these two monarchies, namely, out of the Grecian beast, though, as the Prophet says (viii. 23), not until "after their reign."
Let us now consider this prophecy contained in the eighth chapter. The Prophet tells us that this vision was revealed to him in the castle of Susa, in the third year of King Balthassar's reign. "And I lifted up my eyes," says Daniel, " and saw: and behold a ram stood before the water, having two high horns, and one higher than the other, and growing up."—(Dan. viii. 3.) The interpretation of this verse is given by the angel Gabriel in the twentieth verse of this same chapter, in these words: "The ram, which thou sawest with the horns, is the king of the Medes and Persians." In other words, the ram is the Persian monarchy, and the two horns are the two great nations coalescing together in the formation of that empire, viz., the Medes and Persians, and the horn, which was the higher of the two, is evidently the Persians, who took the lead in regard to the Medes in forming the empire. In the fifth verse, the Prophet describes the vision of another beast, which he saw under the form of a he-goat: "And behold a he-goat came from the west on the face of the whole earth, and he touched not the ground, and the he-goat had a notable horn between his eyes." The Prophet then describes the violent combat, which took place between the he-goat and the ram: in the seventh verse he declares that the he-goat overcame and destroyed the ram, but in the eighth verse he describes the breaking of the notable horn already mentioned, in the place of which four other horns arose. Now before we proceed further, let us look at the twenty-first verse of the same chapter (Dan. viii. 21), and we shall find all these figures interpreted by the angel Gabriel. The he-goat is declared to be the Greek or Macedonian monarchy; the notable horn, which came up between the eyes of the he-goat, is the first king or founder of this monarchy,—that is, Alexander the Great, the rapidity of whose conquests is aptly figured by the expression of the Prophet, that the he-goat "touched not the ground;" and we are then informed by the same angelic interpreter, that immediately upon his death, his empire should be subdivided into four portions or kingdoms, of which his four principal generals became the four first kings respectively: all which, history informs us, was literally accomplished upon the death of Alexander, when the mighty dominions of this extraordinary conqueror were subdivided amongst his four generals; Antipater taking possession of Macedonia; Lysimachus of Thrace and the Hellespont; Ptolemy of Egypt and its dependencies; and Seleucus of Syria, including Babylon, part of Arabia, Persia, and the other Asiatic provinces of the old Medo-Persian empire.
Having described this, the Prophet at once proceeds to the subject of Antichrist; for so St. Jerome assures us that the tradition of primitive interpreters understood the Prophet's words. (Hunc locum plerique nostrorum ad Antichristum referunt. Hieronymi in Dan. c. viii. torn. v. p. 589.) "And out of one of them came forth a little horn, and it became great against the south, and against the east, and against the strong; and it was magnified even unto the strength of heaven, and it threw down of the strength, and of the stars, and trod upon them: and it was magnified even unto the prince of the strength; and it took away from him the continual sacrifice, and cast down the place of his sanctuary, and strength was given him against the continual sacrifice, because of sins: and truth shall be cast down on the ground, and he shall do and shall prosper." In the thirteenth verse, which follows, Daniel hears a saint, who was present in the heavenly vision, asking another saint, how long should be the vision unto the end of the desolation, and of the dominion of the little horn, concerning which such terrible things are here predicted? To which question the following answer is returned: "Unto evening and morning two thousand three hundred days; and the sanctuary shall be cleansed." This prophecy is, perhaps, one of the most important in the whole book, as it gives us the clue for calculating the period when Antichrist shall perish, and the sanctuary of God, that is, the Holy Land and Jerusalem, if we understand it literally, shall be freed from his pollutions, and if we take it mystically, when the Holy Catholic Church shall be delivered from the defiling contact of his impious conflict. By the term two thousand three hundred days, we understand symbolical or prophetic days, that is, according to the interpretation given to the word day, in the prophecy of the seventy weeks of days. (Dan. ix. 24) . Days, which signify and symbolize years. That in the prophecy of the seventy weeks a day symbolized a year, no one, who compares the event with the prediction, will for a moment deny. Seventy weeks would amount to four hundred and ninety days, and it was precisely at the close of four hundred and ninety years from the time specified to the Prophet, that our Lord's advent took place; the conclusion, therefore, of all Christian interpreters has been that the term week in that prophecy must signify a period of seven prophetic days, each day symbolizing a year. And if in one prophecy the event has proved the necessity of this interpretation, there is every reason from analogy to conclude that the same method of interpretation is to be observed in regard to the meaning of other prophetic periods also. And what tends still further to corroborate this are the words of God Himself to Moses, recorded in the Book of Numbers (Numb. xiv. 34); "according to the number of the forty days, wherein you viewed the land: a year shall be counted for a day.' And again we read in the Book of Ezekiel the Prophet (Ezek. iv. 5, 6): "And I have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. And when thou hast accomplished this, thou shalt sleep again upon thy right side, and thou shalt take upon thee the iniquity of the house of Juda forty days: a day for a year, yea, a day for a year have I appointed to thee. It is true that the term day has not always, in all cases, been so interpreted by Christian interpreters, many having taken it in a literal sense; but it always appeared to me that the argument in favour of the symbolical and conventional meaning of the term is far stronger than any argument on the other side. In this view, the majority of Protestant commentators agree, and the ablest treatises on prophecy from Catholic authors take the same view also. The ruble Father Bartholomew Holtzhauser, of Bingen, so interprets the 1260 Apocalyptic days. The learned Church historian, the Abbe Rohrbacher adopts the same view, as may be seen in the tenth volume of his "Ecclesiastical History," where he treats at length the prophecy of Daniel in reference to Mahomet and the Mahometan apostacy. The same view is also maintained in a learned work, published at Paris in 1844, and dedicated to the late Pope Gregory XVI., entitled, "La Fin des Temps." The same is upheld in another most admirable treatise, entitled, "Preuves Incontestables de la Vérité de l'Eglise Catholique déduites de l'Apocalypse." In the prophecy, therefore, which we are now considering, "Unto evening and morning, two thousand three hundred days, and the sanctuary shall be cleansed," we understand that from the date symbolized by the word evening, to that symbolized by the word morning, a period of two thousand three hundred years was to elapse; at the end of which the event signified by the cleansing of the sanctuary will take place.
And here we must observe a very important remark made by the great St. Jerome; he tells us that in some versions of the Book of Daniel, the words are not written "two thousand three hundred," but "two thousand two hundred days." "Quidam pro duobus millibus trecentis, duo millia ducentos legunt." (Hieron. in Dan. tom. v. p. 589.) And this we apprehend to be the truer reading, because it seems to us to agree better with the prophecy of the 1260 days, of which, if we are correct in dating it from the year of our Lord 622, the conclusion would be somewhere about the year 1882, or earlier, if the years be not natural years, but prophetic periods of 360 days each, which we are inclined to believe that they are.
But now the question naturally presents itself, from what period are we to date the commencement of the two thousand two hundred days, or two thousand three hundred days, whichever be the corrector reading? In answer to this, I have no hesitation in replying, that I should date it from the period when Alexander the Great began to reign, that is, from the moment when the he-goat commenced his struggle with the ram: because it is out of the precincts of Alexander's empire that the little horn is said to spring; and consequently, when the vision describes the period of the desolation occasioned by the little horn, and the taking away of the daily sacrifice, concluding with the glorious event of the cleansing of the sanctuary, it not unnaturally dates back from the very commencement of Alexander's reign, that being the commencement of the symbolical he-goat, for out of the geographical limits of his empire it was, that this little horn was destined to rise. It may, however, perhaps be objected here, that the period assigned would seem to belong to the dominion of the little horn, and the taking away of the daily sacrifice, and that, if so, the period of desolation assigned to the little horn, in the eighth chapter of Daniel, is very much longer than that assigned in the preceding chapter (Dan. viii. 25) to the dominion of the same little horn, when described as issuing out of the Roman beast, into which the kingdoms of Alexander's he-goat were ultimately destined to be absorbed by conquest, before this little horn emerged from them. But this difficulty is cleared up, by a reference to the twelfth chapter of Daniel, which contains a still fuller revelation of the events foretold in the eighth chapter: if we look there, we shall find it is again predicated of the dominion of Antichrist, that it shall be for a time, and times (in the dual number), and half a time.—(Dan. xii. 7.) So that it is clear, that in this place, where the Prophet is speaking of a period of 2300 days, he does but include the period of three times and a half, or 1260 days, dating back from a period antecedent to the commencement of these 1260 days, and onwards, perhaps to a period subsequent to the conclusion of the same 1260 days, probably to that glorious period, of which it is said: "Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh unto a thousand three hundred and thirty-five days."—(Dan. xii. 12.) For these words of the angel would seem fitly to refer to the glorious event, which was revealed to the Prophet as the closing act of the 2300 days—"And the sanctuary shall be cleansed."
We have thus laid before our readers those portions of Daniel's prophecy, which, according to St. Jerome, relate more especially to the coming of Antichrist under the symbol of the little horn. We have shown that the period of his coming would seem, by comparing these visions of Daniel together, to be one immediately following the destruction of the Roman empire, and its subdivision into the ten kingdoms foretold by the Prophet; we have shown that the prophecy relating to the he-goat, or the Macedonian-Greek empire, proves the locality of the little horn, or Antichrist, to be within the geographical limits of what constituted Alexander's empire; that the expression of the Prophet, that this little horn was to grow up within these limits after the time (Dan. viii. 23, "After their reign") allotted for the duration of the four monarchies into which Alexander's empire was to be subdivided (for how else can we interpret the expression "after their reign?"), warrants us in looking for the coming of Antichrist after these four portions of Alexander's empire should have ceased to be independent kingdoms, that is, after they should have been absorbed into the Roman empire, which is Daniel's fourth beast: whilst the other prophecy, that a little horn (of which Daniel predicates precisely the same things, as he had predicated of the little horn growing out of the Macedonian he-goat) should arise out of the ten horns or kingdoms of the subverted and subdivided Roman empire, fixes the period of his coming as clearly as the preceding prophecy of the he-goat had fixed his locality.
And here we are met by an objection, which Protestant commentators are not slow to advance. They deny the identity of the little horn of the Macedonian he-goat, with that of the Roman beast. They agree with us in all we have advanced about the period of the appearance of the little horn of the Macedonian he-goat, as they agree with us also in their personal application of that prophecy: but they do not agree with us in admitting the identity of this little horn, with the little horn, which the Prophet describes as issuing out of the subdivided Roman empire.
In maintaining this theory, in opposition to our's, which asserts the identity of the two little horns, Protestants seem to forget that the Roman beast must represent the whole Roman empire, and not alone the western half of it; that the empire of the Macedonian he-goat had already become a portion of the Roman empire, and consequently, in looking for the ten horns into which the Roman empire to be subdivided, that we must look for them not only in the western half, but in the eastern portion also of this same Roman empire: and consequently, that when the Prophet speaks of the little horn that rose up amongst the ten other horns of the Roman empire, it is altogether arbitrary and unreasonable to say that we are to look for this little horn only within the precincts of the western empire, and that he is not to be expected within the precincts of the eastern half of the Roman beast. If so, then how comes it, that the Prophet in describing, what Protestants gratuitously assume to be the western little horn, makes no mention whatever of that other little horn, which they themselves cannot deny was destined to arise in the east out of the precincts of the Macedonian he-goat? How comes it, I say, that the Prophet tells us of only one, instead of two little horns, issuing out of the Roman beast, if the Protestant theory be correct that there really were two such horns? Assuredly no satisfactory answer can be given to this question on the Protestant theory, whereas on our theory the answer is simple and obvious, because there was but one such little horn, and therefore but one is described as issuing out of the Roman beast. The prophecy of the eighth chapter had already prepared us to expect and to conclude this, for when the angel explained to Daniel the time of the coming of the little horn which he had seen issuing out of the Macedonian he-goat, he expressly assured him that it would be after the reign of the four kingdoms of the Macedonian he-goat, that is, after they ceased to be independent kingdoms, and after they had been absorbed within the limits of the Roman beast. All Protestants, as far as I know, admit that the little horn of the Macedonian he-goat did, in point of fact, not appear until after the breaking up of the Roman empire: I therefore conclude, peremptorily, that the little horn described by the Prophet as issuing out of the Roman beast is the little horn of the Macedonian he-goat, consequently that the Roman little horn is to be looked for within the precincts of the Eastern, not the Western Roman empire, that is, in other words, within the geographical limits of the domains of the Macedonian he-goat.