fore he gives an historical explication of that, among the past events."

We admit, that the setting up of the Roman empire was a past event. But if Josephus could speak of this as such, he could, certainly, in the same manner, speak of the setting up of the earlier empires. For aught, then, that yet appears, he may here have spoken in accordance with what we think to be the meaning of the prophecy.

Upon any supposition, three of the four empires included in the vision had passed away. If the fourth, too, had passed away, we see not how this could alter the case in respect to the people who might still dwell upon the earth. The earth remained. And the dominion indicated by the stone (cut out of the mountain), respecting which Josephus refrains from speaking, was to fill the whole earth, subduing the opposition, and surviving the ruin of the proudest empires, whether they were particularly brought to view, or not, in these visions of the prophet.

Josephus often mentions the Jews as fulfilling the predictions of their prophets in bringing on themselves the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. In one place,* he mentions Daniel as having written concerning the Romans; but it is manifestly in respect to what, in his day, had become a past event, the desolation of his country. After explaining the vision in the eighth chapter of Daniel, and saying, "Our nation suffered these things under Antiochus Epiphanes, according to Daniel's vision, and what he wrote many years before they came to pass," he adds, "In the very same manner Daniel also wrote concerning the Roman government, and that our country should be made desolate by them. All these things did this man leave in writing, as God had showed them to him, insomuch that such as read his prophecies, and see how they have been fulfilled, would wonder at the honor wherewith God honored Daniel."

But

The reflections which the Jewish historian here proceeds to make are worthy of a considerate and religious man. if his intelligence preserved him from some of the errors into which most of his countrymen fell, we have, in another passage, melancholy evidence that even highly intelligent men are often under influences of which they are hardly aware.

*Antiq. B. x. c. 11, § 7.

Speaking of the Jews, he says: "But now what did the most elevate them in undertaking this war, was an ambiguous oracle which was found also in their sacred writings, that, about that time, one from their country should become governor of the habitable earth.* The Jews took this prediction to belong to themselves in particular, and many of the wise men were thereby deceived in their determination. Now," he adds, "this oracle certainly denoted the government of Vespasian, who was appointed emperor in Judea"!

This learned writer may have been unsettled in his own views respecting some of the prophecies, and especially respecting what was indicated by the stone cut out of the mountain. Sometimes he probably perceived a meaning which he was unwilling to utter, lest he should offend the Romans; and, at other times, considering other passages, he was inclined to pay a splendid compliment to his powerful patron, the Roman emperor. However the fact may be accounted for, it seems to be certain that he has left the paragraph in the second chapter of Daniel about as clear and about as dark as he found it; and thus he has made his readers liable to think that he favors the opinion which they themselves are predisposed to adopt.

But whatever may have been the opinion of Josephus, it is altogether probable that, in his time, many of the Jewish rabbies regarded the fourth beast as indicating the Roman empire. Their circumstances, as we have already remarked, would naturally predispose them to such a view. So, the circumstances of a later period predisposed R. Aben Ezra, who flourished about the middle of the twelfth century, to regard the fourth beast as indicating the Turkish empire; for in the latter part of the century immediately preceding, the Turks had taken Jerusalem from the Saracens, subdued all Asia Minor, and filled the world with the terror of their

arms.

In the time of Josephus, too, and subsequently, the views of those Jewish rabbies may have seemed to be not a little confirmed, if they were not first suggested, by the passages, on which we have already animadverted, from Jonathan Ben Uzziel and from Dionysius of Halicarnassus.

* See Micah 5: 1; Dan. 9: 24-27; and Num. 24: 17.

Besides, the Jews expected for themselves the grandeur of an earthly universal kingdom, and the complete overthrow of their enemies, in connection with the coming of the Messiah, which they believed to be near. But of this kingdom as already set up they discerned nothing. They were still groaning under a foreign power; and that foreign power was the Roman. Hence, while they strengthened themselves in the confidence that the Messiah had not come, they identified the slaying of the fourth beast with the slaughter which, they supposed, would be connected with their deliverance from the Roman power.

Many of the Jews, upon becoming convinced that Jesus. was the Christ or Messiah, and yielding their hearts sincerely to his sway, it is well known, did not leave behind them all their national errors and prejudices. They brought with them into the Christian church many conceptions which needed to be corrected, and, especially, much of the erroneous Jewish mode of explaining prophecies. This some of the earliest ecclesiastical writers after the time of the apostles intermingled with what was truly Christian; and thus gave currency to the whole among their successors; for they were venerated as holy and most ancient fathers, closely connected with the apostles, and, perhaps, crowned with the glory of martyrdom.

We need say nothing of some passages in the epistle ascribed to Barnabas,* nor of writings and oral instructions, which, in their time, exerted a powerful influence, but which have long since been forgotten. It will, we hope, be sufficient just to mention two of the earliest and most considerable of the Christian fathers, Justin Martyrt and Irenaeus, the one a little before, and the other a little after, the middle of the second century. They taught, or, rather, they assumed, that the fourth kingdom indicated, in the seventh chapter of Daniel, by the fourth beast, was the Roman; and they adapted their conceptions of it to the state and prospects of the Christians, persecuted by that idolatrous power, and looking for deliverance only in connection with the second and glorious coming of our Lord.

We would not speak lightly of these venerated men.

* Wake's Version, 3: 1-6, but IV, in Cotel. Apost. Fathers, Tom. I, p. 58.

+ In his Dialogue with Trypho, p. 31.

: Advers. Haeres, Lib. V, c. 25, 26.

Would that their virtues were more generally known, and their martyr-spirit cherished by all who profess and call themselves Christians. But we would not be dazzled by the splendor of their reputation. And we do not believe that any unprejudiced theologian, at the present day, who has read all that they have written, can think them safe and skilful guides in the explanation of the Hebrew Scriptures.

From the manner in which succeeding fathers treat the subject, it is manifest that they relied on the tradition of their predecessors. Thus Cyril of Jerusalem contents himself with saying, "But that this is the empire of the Romans the ecclesiastical interpreters have handed down."* Even Jerome himself, in whom we might have expected to find a noble exception, does not put in requisition his distinguished scholarship; but, after showing the difficulties of some of Porphyry's explanations, he readily casts himself upon the current of ecclesiastical tradition: "Therefore," he recommends, "let us say what all the ecclesiastical writers have transmitted, that in the end of the world, when the kingdom of the Romans is to be destroyed, there shall be ten kings who shall divide the Roman world among themselves; and that an eleventh, a little king, shall arise, who shall overcome three of the ten kings, that is, the king of the Egyptians, the king of Africa, and the king of Ethiopia, as, in the sequel, we shall show more clearly." And the renowned Augustine, in his immortal work, on the city of God, gives his sanction by commending Jerome. Some," he says, "have explained those four kingdoms to be that of the Assyrians, that of the Persians, that of the Macedonians, and that of the Romans. But let such as desire to know how suitably this has been done, read the presbyter Jerome's very carefully and learnedly written book on Daniel."‡

In view of the facts to which we have adverted, and of

* Ταύτην δὲ εἶναι τῶν Ῥωμάτων δι ἐκκλησιαστικοὶ παραδεδώκασιν nynai.-Catechesis, XV., c. 13.

+ Ergo dicamus quod omnes scriptores ecclesiastici tradiderunt: in consummatione mundi, quando regnum destruendum est Romanorum, decem futuros reges, qui orbem Romanum inter se dividant; et undecimum surrecturum esse regem parvulum, qui tres reges de decem regibus superaturus sit, id est, Egyptiorum regem, et Africae, et Ethiopiae; sicut in consequentibus nianifestius dicemus.-Opera., Tom. III, 1101.

: Quatuor illa regna exposuerunt quidam Assyriorum, Persarum, Macedonum, et Romanorum. Quam vero convenienter id fecerint, qui noscere desiderant, legant presbyteri Hieronymi librum in Danielem, satis diligenter eruditeque conscriptum.-De Civitate Dei, Lib. X, c. 23.

others which might be mentioned, we cannot feel ourselves bound by the authority of "the Jewish synagogue," nor of "the ancient ecclesiastical fathers." And in the absence of any special decision by Christ and his apostles, our only proper resort seems to be to a candid and careful examination of those passages, in the sacred text, which we have already explained, and of others which may shed light upon the subject.

The "Two Thousand and Three Hundred Days."

A deeply interesting inquiry is presented in the thirteenth verse of the eighth chapter of Daniel: "Then I heard one saint speaking, and another saint said unto that certain saint who was speaking, How long shall be the vision," that is, How long shall that continue which the vision indicates, "concerning the daily sacrifice and the desolating impiety, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot?"*

In the next verse we have the reply: "And he said to me, Unto two thousand and three hundred times of sacrifice, evening and morning; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed."

The sense which we have here expressed,-times of sacrifice, evening and morning,—is favored by what precedes and by what follows in this chapter.

1. By what precedes, in the eleventh and twelfth verses; where, among other atrocities, our attention is called especially to the taking away of the daily sacrifices. These were regarded as being of peculiar importance. We need here only refer to the original statute in Exodus 29: 38, 39: "Now this is that which thou shalt offer upon the altar; two lambs of the first year, day by day, continually. The one lamb shalt thou offer in the morning, and the other lamb thou shalt offer at even."

2. By what follows, in the twenty-sixth verse; where we find the phrase, the vision of the evening and the morning,—that is, the vision which has been mentioned in the course of this chapter; a vision which might well be designated as it is, since

The double ? in the Hebrew phrase is equivalent to the double or repeated conjunction, et et, in Latin: both the sanctuary and the host. See Gen. 36:

24. Ps. 76: 7. and Jer. 32: 20.