weeks of years, and thus obtains 4,250 years for the duration of the first age.1 One is strongly tempted, however, to multiply by ten instead of seven, and thus reach a period of 5,000 years, of which the central point is marked by the death of Moses. The date assigned to Moses by the writer of this work is only slightly altered in the Book of Jubilees. In order to preserve the even fifty jubilees the 2,500 years from the Creation are reduced to 2,450.

Coming to the post-Christian period we find a continuation of the same kind of artificial division. The fourth book of the Sibylline Oracles divides the course of history into eleven generations,2 of which, however, no use is made in determining the duration of the present state of things. It is said that the judgment of the world will take place in the tenth' generation, according to the reading of the manuscripts, but probably we may adopt the emendation of Fabricius and Bleek, and read ' eleventh.' 4

In Fourth Ezra we are told that the age has been divided into twelve parts, and there have passed already ten and the half of the tenth part.'5 This is the reading of the Latin. The Ethiopic, however, reads as follows:For the world has been arranged in ten parts, and it has come to the tenth, and there remains half of the tenth.' This is certainly more intelligible, and Gfrörer pronounces it to be unquestionably correct. He is mistaken, how

1 Mess. Jud. p. 468.

2 Verse 20. See also 47, 50, 55, 66, 86.

4 See Friedlieb, S. xxxix. Anm. 2.

3 47.

5 xiv. 11. The reading hitherto has been, 'et transierunt ejus decimam et dimidium decimæ partis.' Mr. Bensly's new MS. A reads, however, 'decem iam,' and Mr. Bensly says that he can detect the erasure of an i before the a in cod. S (Missing Fragment, p. 29). I have, therefore, no hesitation in adopting decem jam' as the true reading.

Jahrh. d. H. ii. S. 204 Anm.

ever, in supposing that the division of Ezra would thus be brought into coincidence with the ten weeks of Enoch; for in the latter the eighth, ninth, and tenth weeks all belong to the ideal period. It is possible that the Greek text was corrupt, for the Syriac, Arabic, and Armenian all omit this verse; and the Ethiopic translator may have chosen his own way of rendering it perspicuous. The Latin becomes intelligible, if for half of the tenth part' we read 'half of the eleventh part.' With this correction Fourth Ezra is brought into complete agreement with the Apocalypse of Baruch, with which it has otherwise so close an affinity; for there the Babylonian captivity falls within the eleventh period.1 The time said to have already elapsed would then indicate, not, as Hilgenfeld supposes, the date when the work was composed, but, as we should expect, the date assigned by the author to the real Ezra. As we have already seen in noticing Baruch, the twelve divisions represent by no means equal periods.

Several opinions about the length of the first age are collected in the Babylonian Talmud: Rab Qatina says, The world [strictly age] will last for 6,000 years, and in 1,000 it will be destroyed, for it has been said, "And the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day."4 Abbayé says, For 2,000 years it will lie waste, for it has been said,5 " He will vivify us after two days, on the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight." The opinion of Rab Qatina is then supported as follows: As in the period of seven years there is one year of remission, so likewise in the age there will be a remission of a thousand years in seven thousand years, for it has been said, "And the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day," and it

1 Ch. lxvii. 4 Isa. ii. 11.

2 Mess. Jud. pp. 103-4.

5 Hosea vi. 2.

3 Synhed. 97a.

6 See Levit. xxv. 1-7.

has been said, "A psalm of singing for the sabbath-day," a day which shall be altogether sabbath, and it is said, "A thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past. "3 It was taught in the house of Eliyahu: Out of the six thousand years of the world two thousand years have passed in emptiness, two thousand years are [the time of] the Law, and two thousand years are the days of the Messiah 5 Eliyahu said to Rab Yehudah, brother of Rab Salla, the pious one, The age will not last less than eighty-five jubilees, [i.e. 4,165 years], and in the last jubilee the Son of David will come.' . . . Rab Chanan bar Tachalipha sent [word] to Rab Yoseph that he had met a certain man having in his hand a volume written in the excellent character and in the holy language, which was said to have been found among the treasures of Persia; and in this book it was written that after 4,291 years from the Creation, the world should cease; some of the intervening years should be spent in the wars of the dragons, and some in the wars of Gog and Magog, and the rest should be the days of the Messiah; and God would not renew the world except after seven thousand years. It is added, however, that Rab Acha bar Raba says, After five thousand years.' These extracts show that there was no settled opinion upon this point, even in the schools of the learned, and Rab went so far as to say, All the [prescribed] limits [of time] have ceased, and the thing depends only on penitence and good works.'

1 Ps. xcii. 1.

2 Ps. xc. 4.

3 See this argument fully given in the Epistle of Barnabas, xv., and in later Christian writers cited by Gfrörer, J. d. H. ii. S. 207 sq.

The meaning of this expression is disputed.

5 This last statement is also made in 'Abodah Zarah, 9a.

• Often translated' Assyrian,' but probably a word referring to the beauty of the character.

CHAPTER V.

SIGNS OF THE LAST TIMES.

FROM the survey in the preceding chapter it appears that the first age of the world was divided according to the fancy and the skill of each writer; and though the ground is here prepared on which the more precise, but equally fallacious, calculations found in the Christian Fathers were based, we have discovered no generally acknowledged system on which popular hope could be made to rest as on a secure foundation. It was the more natural, therefore, that the imagination should stray in quest of signs, whether mundane or supernatural, by which the approach of the last times might be recognised.

These signs in the Book of Daniel are not spoken of as such, and being derived from the circumstances of the writer's time can only be regarded as a basis for some of the later speculations. His historical sketch, leading up to the triumph of the people of God, can hardly come under this head, though there are features in it, such as the desecration of the Temple, which were easily translated into Messianic signs.1 In xii. 1 there is a more general statement, which was adopted as a characteristic of the approaching end:- There shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time.'2 In verse 7 the assurance is added,―

1 See Matt. xxiv. 15.

2 This also is adopted in Matt. xxiv. 21.

Р

When he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished.' Through this process of suffering many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.'1

2

The Sibyl, as becomes her poetic style, deals with more marvellous tokens:-'I will tell thee a very clear sign, so that thou mayest perceive when the end of all things is to come upon the earth. When swords are seen at night in the starry heaven towards the west, and towards the east, and dust is in a moment borne down from heaven to all the earth, and the light of the sun shall be eclipsed from heaven in the midst [of its course], and the beams of the moon shall appear and come again to the earth, and a sign shall arise from the rocks with blood and drops, and ye shall see in a cloud a battle of foot-soldiers and horse-soldiers, as a hunt of wild beasts, resembling mists; this end of war God who dwells in heaven will accomplish.' This book of the Oracles throughout regards the sins of various nations as productive of the calamities which are to be succeeded by the last great crisis in mundane affairs. A sufficient idea of its tone may be given by quoting the passage just before the description of this crisis :-'But do thou [O mortal] guard against the wrath of the great God, when the fulfilment of pestilence shall come upon all mortals, and being subdued they shall fall into fearful punishment, and king shall capture king, and take away his territory, and nations shall desolate nations, and tyrants [desolate] tribes, and leaders shall all flee into another land, and the land of mortals shall be changed, and a barbarous empire shall lay waste all Greece, and drain the fat land

1 xii. 10.

2 iii. 795 sq.