John Calvin's Commentaries On Daniel 1- 6 E-Book

John Calvin

• Herausgeber: Jazzybee Verlag
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 921

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

This is the annotated edition including * an extensive biographical annotation about the author and his life Calvin produced commentaries on most of the books of the Bible. His commentaries cover the larger part of the Old Testament, and all of the new excepting Second and Third John and the Apocalypse. His commentaries and lectures stand in the front rank of Biblical interpretation. THE PROPHECIES OF DANIEL are among the most remarkable Predictions of THE ELDER COVENANT. They are not confined within either a limited time or a contracted space. They relate to the destinies of mighty Empires, and stretch forward into eras still hidden in the bosom of the future. The period of their delivery was a remarkable one in the history of out race. The Assyrian hero had long ago swept away the Ten Tribes from the, land of their fathers, and he in his turn had bowed his head in death, leaving magnificent memorials of his greatness in colossal palaces and gigantic sculptures. The Son of the renowned SARDANAPALUS, the worshipper of ASSARAC and BELTIS, had already inscribed his name and exploits on those swarthy obelisks and enormous bulls which have lately risen from the grave of centuries. The glory of NINEVEAH, passed away, to be restored again in these our days by the marvelous excavations at KOYUNJIK, KHORABAD, and NIMROUD. Another capital had arisen on the banks of the Euphrates, destined to surpass the ancient splendor of its ruined predecessor on the banks of the Tigris. The worshipper of the eagle-headed NISROCH - a mighty leader of the Chaldean hordes - had arisen, and gathering his armies from their mountain homes, had made the palaces and halls of NINEVE a desert, had marched southwards against the reigning PHARAOH of Egypt - had encountered him at CARCHEMISH - hurried on to THE HOLY CITY, and carried away with him to his favorite capital the rebellious people of the Lord. Among them was a captive of no ordinary note.

Leseprobe

Commentaries On Daniel 1- 6

John Calvin

Contents:

John Calvin – A Biography

Commentaries On Daniel 1- 6

Translator’s Preface

Authenticity Of The Book Of Daniel

The Divines Of Germany

False Systems Of Scripture Exposition

English Philosophical School

The Recent Eastern Discoveries

Ancient Assyrian Remains

Ancient Babylonian Remains

Persian And Egyptian Antiquities

Positive Evidence

Jewish Testimonies — Sinaitic Inscriptions

The Contents Of The Book Of Daniel.

The Seventy Weeks.

Tiie Praeterist, Anti-Papal,

Calvin Prophetic Scheme.

Oecolampadius, Zuingle, And Bullinger.

Grotius

Maldonatus.

Joseph Mede.

Method Of Exposition.

Contemporary Events In France.

The General Synod

Edict Of Poissy.

Parallel Between The Protestants In France Andthe Jews In Babylon.

Arrangement Of The Present Work.

To The Pious Reader.

Dedicatory Epistle.

Chapter 1

Lecture Second

Lecture Third.

Lecture Fourth.

Chapter 2

Lecture Fifth.

Lecture Sixth

Lecture Seventh

Lecture Eighth

Lecture Ninth

Lecture Tenth

Lecture Eleventh

Lecture Twelfth

Chapter 3

Lecture Thirteenth

Lecture Fourteenth

Lecture Fifteenth

Lecture Sixteenth

Chapter 4

Lecture Eighteenth.

Lecture Nineteenth.

Lecture Twentieth

Lecture Twenty-First.

Lecture Twenty-Second.

Lecture Twenty-Third.

Chapter 5

Lecture Twenty-Fourth

Lecture Twenty-Fifth

Lecture Twenty-Sixth.

Lecturer Twenty-Seventh.

Chapter 6

Lecture Twenty-Eighth.

Lecture Twenty-Ninth.

Lecture Thirtieth.

Lecture Thirty-First.

Dissertations

Dissertation 1

Dissertation 2

Dissertation 3.

Dissertation 4

Dissertation 5

Dissertation 7.

Dissertation 8.

Dissertation 9.

Dissertation 10.

Dissertation 11.

Dissertation 12.

Dissertation 15.

Dissertation 16.

Dissertation 17.

Dissertation 18.

Dissertation 19.

Dissertation 20.

Dissertation 21.

Dissertation 22.

Dissertation 23.

Dissertation 24

Concluding Remarks.

Footnotes

Commentaries On Daniel 1- 6, John Calvin

Jazzybee Verlag Jürgen Beck

86450 Altenmünster, Germany

ISBN: 9783849620578

www.jazzybee-verlag.de

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John Calvin – A Biography

By William Barry

This man, undoubtedly the greatest of Protestant divines, and perhaps, after St. Augustine, the most perseveringly followed by his disciples of any Western writer on theology, was born at Noyon in Picardy, France, 10 July, 1509, and died at Geneva, 27 May, 1564.

A generation divided him from Luther, whom he never met. By birth, education, and temper these two protagonists of the reforming movement were strongly contrasted. Luther was a Saxon peasant, his father a miner; Calvin sprang from the French middle-class, and his father, an attorney, had purchased the freedom of the City of Noyon, where he practised civil and canon law. Luther entered the Order of Augustinian Hermits, took a monk's vows, was made a priest and incurred much odium by marrying a nun. Calvin never was ordained in the Catholic Church; his training was chiefly in law and the humanities; he took no vows. Luther's eloquence made him popular by its force, humour, rudeness, and vulgar style. Calvin spoke to the learned at all times, even when preaching before multitudes. His manner is classical; he reasons on system; he has little humour; instead of striking with a cudgel he uses the weapons of a deadly logic and persuades by a teacher's authority, not by a demagogue's calling of names. He writes French as well as Luther writes German, and like him has been reckoned a pioneer in the modern development of his native tongue. Lastly, if we term the doctor of Wittenberg a mystic, we may sum up Calvin as a scholastic; he gives articulate expression to the principles which Luther had stormily thrown out upon the world in his vehement pamphleteering; and the "Institutes" as they were left by their author have remained ever since the standard of orthodox Protestant belief in all the Churches known as "Reformed." His French disciples called their sect "the religion"; such it has proved to be outside the Roman world.

The family name, spelt in many ways, was Cauvin latinized according to the custom of the age as Calvinus. For some unknown reason the Reformer is commonly called Maître Jean C. His mother, Jeanne Le Franc, born in the Diocese of Cambrai, is mentioned as "beautiful and devout"; she took her little son to various shrines and brought him up a good Catholic. On the father's side, his ancestors were seafaring men. His grandfather settled at Pont l'Evêque near Paris, and had two sons who became locksmiths; the third was Gerard, who turned procurator at Noyon, and there his four sons and two daughters saw the light. He lived in the Place au Blé (Cornmarket). Noyon, a bishop's see, had long been a fief of the powerful old family of Hangest, who treated it as their personal property. But an everlasting quarrel, in which the city took part, went on between the bishop and the chapter. Charles de Hangest, nephew of the too well-known Georges d'Amboise, Archbishop of Rouen, surrendered the bishopric in 1525 to his own nephew John, becoming his vicar-general. John kept up the battle with his canons until the Parliament of Paris intervened, upon which he went to Rome, and at last died in Paris in 1577. This prelate had Protestant kinsfolk; he is charged with having fostered heresy which in those years was beginning to raise its head among the French. Clerical dissensions, at all events, allowed the new doctrines a promising field; and the Calvins were more or less infected by them before 1530.

Gerard's four sons were made clerics and held benefices at a tender age. The Reformer was given one when a boy of twelve, he became Curé of Saint-Martin de Marteville in the Vermandois in 1527, and of Pont l'Eveque in 1529. Three of the boys attended the local Collège des Capettes, and there John proved himself an apt scholar. But his people were intimate with greater folk, the de Montmor, a branch of the line of Hangest, which led to his accompanying some of their children to Paris in 1523, when his mother was probably dead and his father had married again. The latter died in 1531, under excommunication from the chapter for not sending in his accounts. The old man's illness, not his lack of honesty, was, we are told, the cause. Yet his son Charles, nettled by the censure, drew towards the Protestant doctrines. He was accused in 1534 of denying the Catholic dogma of the Eucharist, and died out of the Church in 1536; his body was publicly gibbeted as that of a recusant.

Meanwhile, young John was going through his own trials at the University of Paris, the dean or syndic of which, Noel Bédier, had stood up against Erasmus and bore hard upon Le Fèvre d'Etaples (Stapulensis), celebrated for his translation of the Bible into French. Calvin, a "martinet", or oppidan, in the Collèege de la Marche, made this man's acquaintance (he was from Picardy) and may have glanced into his Latin commentary on St. Paul, dated 1512, which Doumergue considers the first Protestant book emanating from a French pen. Another influence tending the same way was that of Corderius, Calvin's tutor, to whom he dedicated afterwards his annotation of I Thessalonians, remarking, "if there be any good thing in what I have published, I owe it to you". Corderius had an excellent Latin style, his life was austere, and his "Colloquies" earned him enduring fame. But he fell under suspicion of heresy, and by Calvin's aid took refuge in Geneva, where he died September 1564. A third herald of the "New Learning" was George Cop, physician to Francis I, in whose house Calvin found a welcome and gave ear to the religious discussions which Cop favoured. And a fourth was Pierre-Robert d'Olivet of Noyon, who also translated the Scriptures, our youthful man of letters, his nephew, writing (in 1535) a Latin preface to the Old Testament and a French one — his first appearance as a native author — to the New Testament.

By 1527, when no more than eighteen, Calvin's educatlon was complete in its main lines. He had learned to be a humanist and a reformer. The "sudden conversion" to a spiritual life in 1529, of which he speaks, must not be taken quite literally. He had never been an ardent Catholic; but the stories told at one time of his ill-regulated conduct have no foundation; and by a very natural process he went over to the side on which his family were taking their stand. In 1528 he inscribed himself at Orléans as a law student, made friends with Francis Daniel, and then went for a year to Bourges, where he began preaching in private. Margaret d'Angoulême, sister of Francis I, and Duchess of Berry, was living there with many heterodox Germans about her.

He is found again at Paris in 1531. Wolmar had taught him Greek at Bourges; from Vatable he learned Hebrew; and he entertained some relations with the erudite Budaeus. About this date he printed a commentary on Seneca's "De Clementiâ". It was merely an exercise in scholarship, having no political significance. Francis I was, indeed, handling Protestants severely, and Calvin, now Doctor of Law at Orléans, composed, so the story runs, an oration on Christian philosophy which Nicholas Cop delivered on All Saints' Day, 1532, both writer and speaker having to take instant flight from pursuit by the royal inquisitors. This legend has been rejected by modern critics. Calvin spent some time, however, with Canon du Tillet at Angoulême under a feigned designation. In May, 1534, he went to Noyon, gave up his benefice, and, it is said, was imprisoned. But he got away to Nerac in Bearn, the residence of the Duchess Margaret, and there again encountered Le Fèvre, whose French Bible had been condemned by the Sorbonne to the flames. His next visit to Paris fell out during a violent campaign of the Lutherans against the Mass, which brought on reprisals, Etienne de la Forge and others were burnt in the Place de Grève; and Calvin accompanied by du Tillet, escaped — though not without adventures — to Metz and Strasburg. In the latter city Bucer reigned supreme. The leading reformers dictated laws from the pulpit to their adherents, and this journey proved a decisive one for the French humanist, who, though by nature timid and shy, committed himself to a war on paper with his own sovereign. The famous letter to Francis I is dated 23 August, 1535. It served as a prologue to the "Institutes", of which the first edition came out in March, 1536, not in French but in Latin. Calvin's apology for lecturing the king was, that placards denouncing the Protestants as rebels had been posted up all over the realm. Francis I did not read these pages, but if he had done so he would have discovered in them a plea, not for toleration, which the Reformer utterly scorned, but for doing away with Catholicism in favour of the new gospel. There could be only one true Church, said the young theologian, therefore kings ought to make an utter end of popery. (For an account of the "Institutes" see ) The second edition belongs to 1539, the first French translation to 1541; the final Latin, as revised by its author, is of 1559; but that in common use, dated 1560, has additions by his disciples. "It was more God's work than mine", said Calvin, who took for his motto "Omnia ad Dei gloriam", and in allusion to the change he had undergone in 1529 assumed for his device a hand stretched out from a burning heart.

A much disputed chapter in Calvin's biography is the visit which he was long thought to have paid at Ferraro to the Protestant Duchess Renée, daughter of Louis XII. Many stories clustered about his journey, now given up by the best-informed writers. All we know for certain is that the Reformer, after settling his family affairs and bringing over two of his brothers and sisters to the views he had adopted undertook, in consequence of the war between Charles V and Francis I, to reach Bale by way of Geneva, in July, 1536. At Geneva the Swiss preacher Fare, then looking for help in his propaganda, besought him with such vehemence to stay and teach theology that, as Calvin himself relates, he was terrified into submission. We are not accustomed to fancy the austere prophet so easily frightened. But as a student and recluse new to public responsibilities, he may well have hesitated before plunging into the troubled waters of Geneva, then at their stormiest period. No portrait of him belonging to this time is extant. Later he is represented as of middle height, with bent shoulders, piercing eyes, and a large forehead; his hair was of an auburn tinge. Study and fasting occasioned the severe headaches from which he suffered continually. In private life he was cheerful but sensitive, not to say overbearing, his friends treated him with delicate consideration. His habits were simple; he cared nothing for wealth, and he never allowed himself a holiday. His correspondence, of which 4271 letters remain, turns chiefly on doctrinal subjects. Yet his strong, reserved character told on all with whom he came in contact; Geneva submitted to his theocratic rule, and the Reformed Churches accepted his teaching as though it were infallible.

Such was the stranger whom Farel recommended to his fellow Protestants, "this Frenchman", chosen to lecture on the Bible in a city divided against itself. Geneva had about 15,000 inhabitants. Its bishop had long been its prince limited, however, by popular privileges. The vidomne, or mayor, was the Count of Savoy, and to his family the bishopric seemed a property which, from 1450, they bestowed on their younger children. John of Savoy, illegitimate son of the previous bishop, sold his rights to the duke, who was head of the clan, and died in 1519 at Pignerol. Jean de la Baume, last of its ecclesiastical princes, abandoned the city, which received Protestant teachers from Berne in 1519 and from Fribourg in 1526. In 1527 the arms of Savoy were torn down; in 1530 the Catholic party underwent defeat, and Geneva became independent. It had two councils, but the final verdict on public measures rested with the people. These appointed Farel, a convert of Le Fevre, as their preacher in 1534. A discussion between the two Churches from 30 May to 24 June, 1535 ended in victory for the Protestants. The altars were desecrated, the sacred images broken, the Mass done away with. Bernese troops entered and "the Gospel" was accepted, 21 May, 1536. This implied persecution of Catholics by the councils which acted both as Church and State. Priests were thrown into prison; citizens were fined for not attending sermons. At Zürich, Basle, and Berne the same laws were established. Toleration did not enter into the ideas of the time.

But though Calvin had not introduced this legislation, it was mainly by his influence that in January, 1537 the "articles" were voted which insisted on communion four times a year, set spies on delinquents, established a moral censorship, and punished the unruly with excommunication. There was to be a children's catechism, which he drew up; it ranks among his best writings. The city now broke into "jurants" and "nonjurors" for many would not swear to the "articles"; indeed, they never were completely accepted. Questions had arisen with Berne touching points that Calvin judged to be indifferent. He made a figure in the debates at Lausanne defending the freedom of Geneva. But disorders ensued at home, where recusancy was yet rife; in 1538 the council exiled Farel, Calvin, and the blind evangelist, Couraud. The Reformer went to Strasburg, became the guest of Capito and Bucer, and in 1539 was explaining the New Testament to French refugees at fifty two florins a year. Cardinal Sadolet had addressed an open letter to the Genevans, which their exile now answered. Sadolet urged that schism was a crime; Calvin replied that the Roman Church was corrupt. He gained applause by his keen debating powers at Hagenau, Worms, and Ratisbon. But he complains of his poverty and ill-health, which did not prevent him from marrying at this time Idelette de Bure, the widow of an Anabaptist whom he had converted. Nothing more is known of this lady, except that she brought him a son who died almost at birth in 1542, and that her own death took place in 1549.

After some negotiation Ami Perrin, commissioner for Geneva, persuaded Calvin to return. He did so, not very willingly, on 13 September, 1541. His entry was modest enough. The church constitution now recognized "pastors, doctors, elders, deacons" but supreme power was given to the magistrate. Ministers had the spiritual weapon of God's word; the consistory never, as such, wielded the secular arm Preachers, led by Calvin, and the councils, instigated by his opponents, came frequently into collision. Yet the ordinances of 1541 were maintained; the clergy, assisted by lay elders, governed despotically and in detail the actions of every citizen. A presbyterian Sparta might be seen at Geneva; it set an example to later Puritans, who did all in their power to imitate its discipline. The pattern held up was that of the Old Testament, although Christians were supposed to enjoy Gospel liberty. In November, 1552, the Council declared that Calvin's "Institutes" were a "holy doctrine which no man might speak against." Thus the State issued dogmatic decrees, the force of which had been anticipated earlier, as when Jacques Gouet was imprisoned on charges of impiety in June, 1547, and after severe torture was beheaded in July. Some of the accusations brought against the unhappy young man were frivolous, others doubtful. What share, if any, Calvin took in this judgment is not easy to ascertain. The execution of however must be laid at his door; it has given greater offence by far than the banishment of Castellio or the penalties inflicted on Bolsec — moderate men opposed to extreme views in discipline and doctrine, who fell under suspicion as reactionary. The Reformer did not shrink from his self-appointed task. Within five years fifty-eight sentences of death and seventy-six of exile, besides numerous committals of the most eminent citizens to prison, took place in Geneva. The iron yoke could not be shaken off. In 1555, under Ami Perrin, a sort of revolt was attempted. No blood was shed, but Perrin lost the day, and Calvin's theocracy triumphed.

"I am more deeply scandalized", wrote Gibbon "at the single execution of Servetus than at the hecatombs which have blazed in the autos-da-fé of Spain and Portugal". He ascribes the enmity of Calvin to personal malice and perhaps envy. The facts of the case are pretty well ascertained. Born in 1511, perhaps at Tudela, Michael Served y Reves studied at Toulouse and was present in Bologna at the coronation of Charles V. He travelled in Germany and brought out in 1531 at Hagenau his treatise "De Trinitatis Erroribus", a strong Unitarian work which made much commotion among the more orthodox Reformers. He met Calvin and disputed with him at Paris in 1534, became corrector of the press at Lyons; gave attention to medicine, discovered the lesser circulation of the blood, and entered into a fatal correspondence with the dictator of Geneva touching a new volume "Christianismi Restitutio," which he intended to publish. In 1546 the exchange of letters ceased. The Reformer called Servetus arrogant (he had dared to criticize the "Institutes" in marginal glosses), and uttered the significant menace, "If he comes here and I have any authority, I will never let him leave the place alive." The "Restitutio" appeared in 1553. Calvin at once had its author delated to the Dominican inquisitor Ory at Lyons, sending on to him the man's letters of 1545-46 and these glosses. Hereupon the Spaniard was imprisoned at Vienne, but he escaped by friendly connivance, and was burnt there only in effigy. Some extraordinary fascination drew him to Geneva, from which he intended to pass the Alps. He arrived on 13 August, 1553. The next day Calvin, who had remarked him at the sermon, got his critic arrested, the preacher's own secretary coming forward to accuse him. Calvin drew up forty articles of charge under three heads, concerning the nature of God, infant baptism, and the attack which Servetus had ventured on his own teaching. The council hesitated before taking a deadly decision, but the dictator, reinforced by Farel, drove them on. In prison the culprit suffered much and loudly complained. The Bernese and other Swiss voted for some indefinite penalty. But to Calvin his power in Geneva seemed lost, while the stigma of heresy; as he insisted, would cling to all Protestants if this innovator were not put to death. "Let the world see" Bullinger counselled him, "that Geneva wills the glory of Christ."

Accordingly, sentence was pronounced 26 October, 1553, of burning at the stake. "Tomorrow he dies," wrote Calvin to Farel. When the deed was done, the Reformer alleged that he had been anxious to mitigate the punishment, but of this fact no record appears in the documents. He disputed with Servetus on the day of execution and saw the end. A defence and apology next year received the adhesion of the Genevan ministers. Melanchthon, who had taken deep umbrage at the blasphemies of the Spanish Unitarian, strongly approved in well-known words. But a group that included Castellio published at Basle in 1554 a pamphlet with the title, "Should heretics be persecuted?" It is considered the first plea for toleration in modern times. Beza replied by an argument for the affirmative, couched in violent terms; and Calvin, whose favorite disciple he was, translated it into French in 1559. The dialogue, "Vaticanus", written against the "Pope of Geneva" by Castellio, did not get into print until 1612. Freedom of opinion, as Gibbon remarks, "was the consequence rather than the design of the Reformation."

Another victim to his fiery zeal was Gentile, one of an Italian sect in Geneva, which also numbered among its adherents Alciati and Gribaldo. As more or less Unitarian in their views, they were required to sign a confession drawn up by Calvin in 1558. Gentile subscribed it reluctantly, but in the upshot he was condemned and imprisoned as a perjurer. He escaped only to be twice incarcerated at Berne, where in 1566, he was beheaded. Calvin's impassioned polemic against these Italians betrays fear of the Socinianism which was to lay waste his vineyard. Politically he leaned on the French refugees, now abounding in the city, and more than equal in energy — if not in numbers — to the older native factions. Opposition died out. His continual preaching, represented by 2300 sermons extant in the manuscripts and a vast correspondence, gave to the Reformer an influence without example in his closing years. He wrote to Edward VI, helped in revising the Book of Common Prayer, and intervened between the rival English parties abroad during the Marian period. In the Huguenot troubles he sided with the more moderate. His censure of the conspiracy of Amboise in 1560 does him honour. One great literary institution founded by him, the College, afterwards the University, of Geneva, flourished exceedingly. The students were mostly French. When Beza was rector it had nearly 1500 students of various grades.

Geneva now sent out pastors to the French congregations and was looked upon as the Protestant Rome. Through Knox, "the Scottish champion of the Swiss Reformation", who had been preacher to the exiles in that city, his native land accepted the discipline of the Presbytery and the doctrine of predestination as expounded in Calvin's "Institutes". The Puritans in England were also descendants of the French theologian. His dislike of theatres, dancing and the amenities of society was fully shared by them. The town on Lake Leman was described as without crime and destitute of amusements. Calvin declaimed against the "Libertines", but there is no evidence that any such people had a footing inside its walls The cold, hard, but upright disposition characteristic of the Reformed Churches, less genial than that derived from Luther, is due entirely to their founder himself. Its essence is a concentrated pride, a love of disputation, a scorn of opponents. The only art that it tolerates is music, and that not instrumental. It will have no Christian feasts in its calendar, and it is austere to the verge of Manichaean hatred of the body. When dogma fails the Calvinist, he becomes, as in the instance of Carlyle, almost a pure Stoic. "At Geneva, as for a time in Scotland," says J. A. Froude, "moral sins were treated as crimes to be punished by the magistrate." The Bible was a code of law, administered by the clergy. Down to his dying day Calvin preached and taught. By no means an aged man, he was worn out in these frequent controversies. On 25 April, 1564, he made his will, leaving 225 French crowns, of which he bequeathed ten to his college, ten to the poor, and the remainder to his nephews and nieces. His last letter was addressed to Farel. He was buried without pomp, in a spot which is not now ascertainable. In the year 1900 a monument of expiation was erected to Servetus in the Place Champel. Geneva has long since ceased to be the head of Calvinism. It is a rallying point for Free Thought, Socialist propaganda, and Nihilist conspiracies. But in history it stands out as the Sparta of the Reformed churches, and Calvin is its Lycurgus.

COMMENTARIES ON DANIEL 1- 6

TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE

THE PROPHECIES OF DANIEL are among the most remarkable Predictions of THE ELDER COVENANT. They are not confined within either a limited time or a contracted space. They relate to the destinies of mighty Empires, and stretch forward into eras still hidden in the bosom of the future. The period of their delivery was a remarkable one in the history of out race. The Assyrian hero had long ago swept away the Ten Tribes from the, land of their fathers, and he in his turn had bowed his head in death, leaving magnificent memorials of his greatness in colossal palaces and gigantic sculptures. The Son of the renowned SARDANAPALUS, the worshipper of ASSARAC and BELTIS, had already inscribed his name and exploits on those swarthy obelisks and enormous bulls which have lately risen from the grave of centuries. The glory of NINEVEAH, passed away, to be restored again in these our days by the marvelous excavations at KOYUNJIK, KHORABAD, and NIMROUD. Another capital had arisen on the banks of the Euphrates, destined to surpass the ancient splendor of its ruined predecessor on the banks of the Tigris. The worshipper of the eagle-headed NISROCH — a mighty leader of the Chaldean hordes — had arisen, and gathering his armies from their mountain homes, had made the palaces and halls of NINEVE a desert, had marched southwards against the reigning PHARAOH of Egypt — had encountered him at CARCHEMISH — hurried on to THE HOLY CITY, and carried away with him to his favorite capital the rebellious people of the Lord. Among them was a captive of no ordinary note. He was at that time a child, yet he lived to see this descendant of the hardy Chasdim grow great in power and fame — to hear the tale of the fall of TYRE, and “the daughter of the ZIDONIANS,” and of the triumph over PHARAOH HOPHRA, whom modern researches have discovered in the twenty-sixth dynasty of Egypt’s kings. At length the haughty conqueror returns, and dreams mysteriously. This forgotten prisoner becomes the only interpreter of wondrous visions of Empires about to arise and spread over distant centuries. The dreamer is at length gathered to his fathers, yet the interpreter lives on through the reign of the grandson, and explains a mysterious writing on the palace wall, amidst revelry which ends in the city’s overthrow. Cryus and his Persians, Darius and his Medes rise rapidly to power, and the Prophet rises with them — till envy throws the aged Seer into a lion’s den. But he perishes not till he has seen visions of the “future history of mankind. The triumphs of Pitasia and MACEDON are revealed — the division of ALEXANDER’S Empire — the wars of his successors — the wide-spread dominion of ROME — the overthrow of the Sacred Sanctuary by Titus — and THE COMING OF MESSIAH to regenerate and to rule the world when the seventy weeks were accomplished.

The Roll of the Book, containing all these surprising announcements, has naturally excited the attention of the Scholars and Divines of all ages. Among the voluminous Comments of the laborious Calvin, none will be received by the British public with more heartfelt interest than his Lectures upon Daniel. The various illustrations of Daniel and the APOCALYPSE with which the press has always teemed, display the hold which these Divine Oracles have taken of the public mind. Various theories of interpretation have been warmly and even bitterly discussed. The Praeterist, and the Futurist, the German Neologian, and the American Divine, have each written boldly and copiously; and the public of Christendom have read with avidity, because they have been taught that these predictions come home to our own times, and to our modern controversies. Abstruse arguments and historical discussions have been rendered popular, through the expectation of seeing either Pope or Turk, or, perhaps, the Saracen in THE WILLFUL KING, and THE LITTLE HORN. If Napoleon the First, or Napoleon the Second, if an Emperor of Russia, or a Pharaoh of Egypt, can be discovered in the King of the South, pushing at the King of the North — then the deep significance of the Prophecy to us is at once acknowledged, and the intensity of its brightness descends directly upon our own generation. If the “twelve hundred and ninety Days” of the twelfth Chapter be really years, then the blessing of waiting till “The Time of The End” seems to be upon us, since THE French Revolution, and the waning of the Turkish sway, and the Conquests of Britain in the East, are then foretold in these “words” which have hitherto been “closed up and sealed.”

Whether any of these theories be true or false, they have exercised a mighty power over the imaginations of modern Writers on Prophecy, and have so attracted the minds of Theologians to the subject, as to give force to the inquiry, What was Calvin’s view of these stirring scenes? Without anticipating his COMMENTS, it may be replied, that he disposes of the important question in a few lines. “In numeris non sum Pythagoricus,” is the expression of both his wisdom and his modesty. In attempting, however, a solution of these great problems in Prophecy, the opinions of THE REFORMERS are most important, and among them all none stands higher as a deep and original thinker than the Author of these Explanatory LECTURES. It is enough for this our Preface to remark, that the bare possibility of the contents of this Book corning home to the daily politics of Europe and the East, adds a charm and a zest to the following pages, which no infirmity in the Commentator can destroy.

In these INTRODUCTORY REMARKS, we shall allude to the present state of opinion respecting the Genuineness and Authenticity of the Book itself, touching upon some of the conjectures advanced since Calvin’s time to the present, and adverting to the skepticism of German Neology and the bold speculations of the amiable ARNOLD. In confutation of all Infidel Objections, we shall next give a general sketch of the History of ASSYRIA and BABYLON, as it has been lately disentombed by the labors of MM. BOTTA and LAYARD, and rescued from the intricacies of the Cuneiform Inscriptions by HINCKS and RAWLINSON. By these means, the Nimrod Obelisk in the British Museum — the palatial chambers of KHORSABAD and KOYUNJIK — the Winged Bull of PERSEPOLIS — the statue of Cyrus, Moorghab — and the magnificent sculpture of DARIUS at Behistun — all become vocal proofs of the truthfulness of DANIEL’S predictions. A visit to the East India House in London will make us acquainted with the Standard Inscription of NEBUCHADNEZZAR, containing a list of “all tire temples build by the king in the different towns and cities of BABYLONIA, naming the particular gods and goddesses to whom the shrines were dedicated: f1 a journey from Baghdad to the Bier’s Nimrod, would shew us every ruin to be of the age of NEBUCHADNEZZAR:” the testimony of experience is here decisive. “I have examined the bricks in situ,” says Major Rawlinson, “belonging, perhaps, to an hundreds of towns and cities within this area of about 100 miles in length, and thirty or forty in breadth, and I never found any other legend than that of Nebuchadnezzar, the son of Nabopalassar, king of Babylon. f2 These interesting researches into THE TIMES OF DANIEL will be followed by some criticism or THE BOOK OF DANIEL Here we might enlarge to an overwhelming extent, but we are necessarily compelled to confine our remarks to CALVIN’S method of interpreting these marvelous Prophecies. It will next be desirable to point out how succeeding Commentators have differed from our Reformer, while we must leave the reader to form his own opinion of his merits when he has compared his views with those of his successors. We shall present him, however, with sufficient data for making this comparison, and by references to some modern Writers of eminence; and by short epitomes of their leading arguments, we hope to render this edition of these celebrated LECTURES as instructive and as interesting as the limit of our space will allow.

AUTHENTICITY OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL

THE THIRD CENTURY Of Christianity had scarcely commenced, when the Authenticity of this Book was fiercely assailed by the vigorous skepticism of PORPHYRY; and it would be totally unnecessary to allude to so distant an opponent, had not his arguments been reproduced by the later scholars of Germany, and adopted by one of our noble spirits, whom in many things we delight to honor. Although the Jews admitted this Book into their Haiographa, and our Lord referred to its contents when predicting Jerusalem’s overthrow, yet these self-sufficient critics of our day have repeated the heathen objection which JEROME so elaborately refuted. If we inquire into the reason for the revival of such obsolete skepticism, we shall find it in the pride of that carnal mind which will not bow down submissively to the miraculous dealings of the Almighty. The Prophecies concerning the times of the Seleucidae and the Lagidae are found to be exceedingly precise and minute hence it is argued, “they are no prophecies at all — they are History dressed in the garb of Prophecy, written by some pseudo-Daniel living during their supposed fulfillment.” The Sacred words of Holy Writ become thus branded with imposture the testimony of the Jews and of our Lord to the integrity of the Sacred Canon is set aside, and the simple trust of the Christian Church both before and since the Reformation is asserted to be a baseless delusion. The judgment and labors of Sir Isaac NEWTON, the chronological acumen of FABER and HALES, are nothing but “the foolishness of the wise,” because BERTHOLDT and BLEEK, DE WETT, and KIRMIS, have repeated the cry “vaticinia post eventurn!” And why this eagerness to degrade this Book to a fabulous compilation of the Macabian times? Simply because its reception as the Word of God would overthrow the favorite theories of the Rationalists respecting The Old Testament. We cannot undertake to reply to such objections in detail; we can only furnish the reader with a few references to those Writers by whom they have been both propagated and refuted. We shall first indicate and label the poison. The proscenium of ROSEMULLER a furnishes us with a succinct abstract of the assertions of EICHHORNAS in his Einleit. in das A. T.,f3 of BERTHOLT in his Histor. krit. Einleit,f4 of BLEEK in his Theolog Zeitschr.,f5and of GRISSINGER in his Neue, ansicht der auffatze im Buche Daniel.f6 The antidote to these conjectures is contained in HAVERNICK’S article on DANIEL, in KITTO’S Cyclopmdia of Biblical Literature, and also in his valuable “New Critical Commentary on the Book of Daniel.” f7

Professor HENGSTENBERG f8 of Berlin has ably refilled the Neologian objections of his predecessors the American reader will find the subject ably treated in the Biblical Repertory of Philadelphia; f9 and the English student may obtain an abstract of the points in dispute from the elaborate “Introduction” of Hartwell HORNE. f10 The various theories of these Neologists imply that the Book was written during the Machabean period, by one or more authors who invented the earlier portions by mingling fable with history in inextricable confusion, and by throwing around the history of their own age the garb of prophetic romance! The reception of any such hypothesis would so completely nullify the whole of Calvin’s Exposition, that we feel absolved from the necessity of entering into details. No disciple of this school will even condescend to peruse these LECTURES. It is enough for us to know, that these unworthy successors of the early German Reformers have been met with ability and research by LUDERWALK, STAUDLIN, JAHN, LACK, and STEUDEL. The unbelief of a SEMLER, and MICHAELIS, and a CORRODI, will seem to the follower of CALVIN the offspring of an unsanctified reason which has never been trained in reverential homage to the inspired. Word. The keenness of this perverse criticism has attempted to explain away two important facts; first, that EZEKIEL mentions DANIEL as alive in his day, and as a model of piety and wisdom, (Ezekiel 14:20, and Ezekiel 28:3, f11) and secondly, that the Canon of the Hebrew Scriptures was finally closed before the times of the Maccabean warriors. HAVERNICK also treats with the greatest erudition the linguistic character of the Book as a decisive proof of its authenticity. He reminds us that the Hebrew language had ceased to be spoken by the Jews long before the reigns of the Seleucid, that the Aramaean was then the vernacular tongue, and yet still there is a difference between the Aramaean of DANIEL and the late Chaldee Paraphrases of the Old Testament. Oriental scholars have pronounced this testimony to be decisive. Interesting as his illustrations are, the numerous subjects which demand our immediate notice will only admit of our referring the reader to the Professor’s “New Critical Commentary on the Book of Daniel.” f12

Happily there exists a strong conservative protection against the injury arising from such speculations. They are perfectly harmless to us when locked up in the obscurity of a foreign language and of a forbidding theology. But it grieves the Christian mind to find a writer worthy of being classed among the boldest of Reformers giving the sanction of his authority to such baseless extravagances. There are many points of similarity between the characters of ARNOLD and CALVIN. Both were remarkable for an unswerving constancy in upholding all they felt to be right, and in resisting all they knew to be wrong. Both were untiring in their industry, and marvelously successful in impressing the young with the stamp of their own mental rigor. Agreeing in their manful protest against the impostures of priestcraft, they differed widely respecting the Book of Daniel. Our modern interpreter, in a letter to a friend, f13 writes as follows concerning “the latter chapters of Daniel, which, if genuine, would be a clear exception to my canon of interpretation, as there can be no reasonable spiritual meaning made out of The Kings of the North and South. But I have long thought that the greater part of the Book of Daniel is most certainly very late work, of the time of the Maccabees; and the pretended Prophecy about the Kings of Grecia and Persia, and of the North and South, is mere history, like the poetical prophecies in Vigil and elsewhere. In fact, you can trace distinctly the date when it was written, because the events up to the date are given with historical minuteness, totally unlike the character of real prophecy, and beyond that date all is imaginary.” It is not difficult to detect the leading fallacy of this passage in the phrase “my canon of interpretation.” This original thinker, with a pertinacity equal to that of CALVIN, had adopted his own method of explaining Prophecy, and determined at all hazards to uphold it. As the writings of this accomplished scholar have been very widely diffused, it will be useful to notice the arguments which he has employed. His “Sermons on Prophecy” contain the dangerous theory, which has been fully and satisfactorily answered by Blake in his chapter on “The Historical Reality of Prophecy.” f14

Dr. ARNOLD’S statements are as follow Sacred Prophecy is not an anticipation of History. For History deals with particular nation, times, places, and persons. But Prophecy cannot do thief, or it would alter the very conditions of humanity. It deals only with general principles, good and evil, truth and falsehood, God and his enemy. It is the voice of God announcing the issue of the great struggle between good and evil. Prophecy then, on this view, cannot be fulfilled literally in the persons and nations mentioned in its language, it can only be, fulfilled in the person of Christ. Thus, every part is said to have a double sense, “one Historical, comprehended by the Prophet and his own generation, in all its poetic features, but never fulfilled answerably to the magnificence of is language, because that was inspired by a higher object the other Spiritual, the proper form of which neither the Prophet nor his contemporaries knew, but fill-filled adequately in Christ, and his promises to his people as judgment on his enemies. “It is History which deals with the Twelve Tribes of Israel; but the Israel of Prophecy are God’s Israel really and truly, who walk with him faithfully, and abide with him to the end.” Twice the Prophecies have failed of their fulfillment, first in the circumcised and then in the baptized Church. “The Christian Israel does not answer more worthily to the expectations of Prophecy than Israel after the flesh. Again have the people whom he brought out of Egypt corrupted themselves” and hence Predictions relating to the happiness of the Church, both before and since the times of the Messiah, have signally and necessarily failed. We cannot undertake the refutation of this general theory, we must refer the reader to the satisfactory arguments of Birks. We can only quote his clear exposition of the manner in which the Visions of Daniel confute these crude speculations — “Instead of a mere glimpse of the sure triumph of goodness at the last, we have most numerous details of the steps of Providence which lead to that blessed consummation. The seven years madness of NEBUCHADNEZZAR, and his restoration to the throne; the fate of BELSHAZZAR, and the conquests of the MEDES and PERSIANS; the rise of the Second Empire, the earlier dignity of the Medes, and the later pre-eminence of the Persians over them; the victories of Cyrus westsyard in Lydia, northward in Armenia, and southward in Babylon; the unrivaled greatness of his Empire, and the exactions on the subject provinces; the three successors of CYRUS, CAMBYSES, SMERDIS, and DARIUS; the accession of XERXES, and the vast armament he led against Greece, are all predicted within the time of the two earlier Empires. In the time of the Third Kingdom a fuller variety of details is given. The mighty exploits of ALEXANDER, his total conquest of Persia, the rapidity of his course, his uncontrolled dominion, his sudden death in the height of his power, the fourfold division of his kingdom, and. the extinction of his posterity; the prosperous reign of the first PTOLEMY, and of the great SELEUCUS, with the superior power of the latter before his death; the reign of PHILADELPHUS, and the marriage of BERENICE his daughter with ANTIOCHUS THEUS; the murder of ANTIOCHUS and BERENICE and their infant son by LAODICE; the vengeance taken by EUERGETES, brother of BERNICE, on his accession to the throne; his conquest of Seleucia, the fortress of Syria, and the idol gods which he carried into Egypt; the earlier death of Callinicus; the preparations of his sons, SELEUCUS, CERAUNUS, and ANTIOCHUS the Great, for war with Egypt, are all distinctly set before us. Then follows the history of ANTIOCHUS. His sole reign after his brother’s death, his eastern conquests and recovery of Seleucia; the strength of the two rival armies. and the Egyptian victory at Raphia; the pride of PTOLOMY PHILOPATER and his partial conquests, with the weakness of his profligate reign; the return of ANTICHOUS with added strength after an interval of years, and with the riches of the East; his victories in Judea and the capture of Sidon; the overthrow of the Egyptian forces at Panium, the honor shewn by ANTIOCHUS to the Temple, and his care for its completion and beauty; his treaty with Egypt, the marriage of his daughter CLOPATRA with PTOLEMY PHILOMETOR, and defection from her father’s cause; his invasion of the Isles of Greece; his rude repulse by the Roman Consul, and the reproach of tribute which came upon him through his defeat; his return to Antioch and speedy death, are all described in regular order. Then follow the reigns of SELEUCUS and ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES, given with an equal fitness of prophetic detail, and close the narrative of the Third Empire. Even in the time of the Fourth and last Kingdom, though more remote from the days of the Prophet, the events predicted are not few. We find there, distinctly revealed, the iron strength of the Romans, their gradual subjugation of other powers, their fierce and warlike nature, their cruel and devouring conquests, the stealthy policy of their empire, and its gradual advance in the direction of the East, southward and eastward towards the land of Israel, till it had cast down the noblest Kings, and firmly ingrafted its new dominion on the stock of the Greek Empire., We have next described its oppression of the Jews, the overthrow of their City and Sanctuary by TITUS, the Abomination of Desolation in the Holy Place, and their arrogant pride in standing up against Messiah, the Prince of princes.” f15

If the latter portion of these predictions were really written previously to the, events, they must be inspired; and if a writer of the Maccabaean period could thus accurately predict the Conquests of Rome in the East, the whole question is decided there is no reason whatever why the events of the Second and Third Empire should not have been foretold as clearly as those of the Fourth. Thus the very existence of the Book before the Jewish Canon was closed is fact which proves all that is required. These Visions then become “the voice of Him who sees the end from the beginning, and pronounces in his secret, council, even on the destiny of the falling sparrow. They are designed to stoop to the earthly estate of the Church, while they exalt her hopes to the glory that shall be revealed . They range through everlasting ages; but they let fall in passing a bright gleam of light that discovers to us the ass’s colt, tied at the meeting of their ways, on which the Lord of glory was to ride into Jerusalem . Every step in the long vista of preparation lies before them, from the seven months reign of SMERDIS and the marriage of BERENICE with ANTIOCHUS, (Daniel 11:2-6,) to the seven months burial of (corpses) in days to come in the land of Israel, and the marriage supper of the Lamb . They touch, as with an wand, the perplexed. and tangled skein of human history, and it becomes a woof of curious and costly workmanship, that; bespeaks the skill of its Divine Artificer an outer hanging, embroidered by heavenly wisdom, for that glorious tabernacle in which the God of heaven will reveal himself for ever.” f16

THE DIVINES OF GERMANY

Throughout this PREFACE and the subsequent DISSERTIONS the reader will find frequent reference to The DIVINES or GERMANY. Some of these have proposed explanations of our Prophet which appear to the English readers manifestly erroneous, that he may fancy we have spent too much space in confuting them. But he who would keep pace with the Theological Investigations of the day, may derive improvement from perusing the hypothesis of BERTHOLDT and DE WETTE, and rejoice that they have elieked the able replies of HAVERNICK and HENGSTENBERG. In truth, the reader Of DANIEL must put aside for a while the laudable prejudices which he has been taught to cherish from his earliest days, and descend into the arena where the contest is fiereest, — whether our Prophet was contemporary with NEBUCHADNEZZAR or ANTIOCHUS. To many the question itself is startling, and that we may be prepared to meet it, thoroughly furnished with available armory, let us glance over the wide field of Continental Rationalism as far as it concerns the Authenticity of Daniel.

The system under review is a melancholy off-shoot from the teaching of LUTHER and his intrepid followers. They led men away from form, and ceremony, and imposture, to rely upon one BOOK as their Rule of Faith and Duty. They did more — they sifted the chaff from the wheat, and by discarding the APOCRYPHA, placed before the eager attention of mankind the pure word of heaven. LUTHER and CALVIN held very distinct ideas about Revelation and Justification, and enforced very boldly their views of the only Books which were written by the penmanship of the Almighty. Theirs was a work of purification and of reconstruction on the assertion of the existence of a Divine Revelation, of its being contained in the Old and New Testaments, and of these documents being the only Inspired Records of what we are to believe, and how we are to live. In process of time, each Boole became the subject of separate study — its history, its criticism, and its preservation were respectively examined with intense eagerness — and a vast amount of information was collected, which was totally unknown to the Early Reformers. It soon became apparent that the Reformed Churches were living under a totally different state of things from theft described in the Old Testament. The events, for instance, of this Book of DANIEL all seemed so mingled and so intertwined; the ordinary occurrences of every-day life are so interlaced with marvelous dreams and visions, and the conduct and passions of monarchs seem so singularly controlled by an unseen Mind, that the question occurs, Is all this literally true? Did it all actually come to pass exactly as it is recorded? Or, Is it allegorical, or a historical romance, or only partially inspired by Jehovah, and tinged in its style and diction with the natural exaggeration of Oriental imaginary? Such inquiries shew us how the mind seeks to fathom the mysteries of what is offered to its veneration, and have led to the conclusion, that the Sacred Books of the Hebrews are not all pure revelation, but that they contain it amidst much extraneous matter. f17 The writers to whom we refer have ever since the sixteenth century been attempting to define how much of the Hebrew Scriptures is the pure and spiritual Revelation of the Divine Mind to us, and how much is the unavoidable impurity of the channel through which it has been conveyed. With the names of some later critics, the modern Theologian is familiar. GESENIUS, WEGSCHEIDER, AND ROHR, yet retain a powerful influence over the minds of later students, while SCHULTZ at Breslau, GIESELER at Gottingen, ALLMANN at Heidelberg, BRETSCHNEIDER at Gotha, DE WETTE — lately deceased — at Basle, hare at Jena, and WEINER at Leipsic, are writers who worship irreverently at the shrine of human reason, and either qualify or deny the Inspiration of Revelation.

FALSE SYSTEMS OF SCRIPTURE EXPOSITION

An important change was necessarily made on the minds of the successors of the Reformers, by the more general spread of Classical Literature, and a far better acquaintance with Hebrew philology. Here, we must allow, that some of the disciples of Luther and CALVIN were better furnished for the work of Interpretation than their more Christian-minded masters. ERNESTI, the learned philologer of Leipsic, in 1761 laid down “The Laws of a wise Interpretation,” and has ever since been considered as the founder of a scholar like system of Scriptural Exposition. His principles are now universally admitted, viz., that we must make use of history and philology of the views of the period at which each Book was written, and of all those appliances which improved scholarship has provided in the case of the Classical Authors of Greece and Rome. Every attentive reader of German Theology must perceive, that too many of their celebrated Critics have rested in this outward appeal to mere reason and. research. SEMLER and TITTMANN, MICHAELIS and HENKE, have pursued this system of accommodation so far, that they have destroyed the very spirit and essence of a Divine Revelation. In the Prophets, and especially in DANIEL, whom SEMLER includes among the doubtful Books, timre is a spiritual meaning only to be comprehended by the moral and religious faculties; and except this spirit be elicited, the merely outward form of prophetic dictation can effect no religious result. LET ROHR and PAULUS sneer as they please, at the mysticism and pietism of the Evangelic Reformers, we must still contend, that without a spirituality similar to theirs, all comments are essentially lifeless and profitless to the soul of man. The may display erudition, but they will not aid the spirit which hungers and thirsts after righteousness on its way towards heaven.

Every student who desires to become familiar with these discussions, may consult with advantage the Dissertations of HENGSTENBERG, who has written fully and ably on The Genuineness of our Prophet. He has sketched, historically, the attacks which have been made, and has answered every possible objection. The impurity of the Hebrew, the words supposed to be Greek, the silence of Siraeh, the disrespect shewn by the Jews, and the position in the Canon of Scripture, are all ably discussed. The miracles have been called “profuse in number and aimless in purpose;” historical errors have been asserted, and statements called contradictory, or suspicious, or improbable; many ideas and usages have been said to belong to later times. These and similar arguments are used to shew the Book to be the production of the times of ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES, but they have been fully treated by this orthodox Professor at Berlin. He discusses most ably, and with the most laborious erudition, those marvelous Prophecies of this Sacred Book, which have necessarily provoked a host of assailants. He reminds us that in the earliest ages, PORPHYRY devoted his twelfth book to the assault upon this Prophet, and that we are indebted to JEROME for a knowledge of his objections as well as for their refutation. He asserted that the Book was composed during the reign of ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES in Greek, “and that DANIEL did not so much predict future events as narrate past ones.” f18 Though the imperial commands condemned his works to the flames, yet EUSEBIUS of Caesarea, METHODIUS of Tyre, and APOLLINARIS of Laodicea, have ably refuted them. In later times, the first scholar-like attack upon the genuineness of various portions was made by J. D. MICHAELIS. COLLINS and SEMLER, SPINOZA and HOBBES, had each condemned the Book after his own manner but it was left for EICHORN f19 to lead the host of those later theologians who have displayed their vanity and their skepticism, by the boastfulness of their learning and the emptiness of their conclusions. HEZEL and CORRODI treat it as the work of an impostor; while BERTHOLDT, GRIESINGER, and GESENIUS, have each their own theory concerning its authorship and contents. Other Critics have followed the footsteps of these into paths most dangerous and delusive.

Having replied to the most subtle objections against the Genuineness of these Prophecies, HENGSTENBERG proceeds to uphold the direct arguments in its favor. He first discusses the testimony of the author himself, and then enters upon its reception into the Canon of the Sacred Writings. He comments at full length on the important passage in JOSEPHUS contra Apion. 1:8 , and shews the groundlessness of every assertion which impugns its Canonical value. He next proves that the declaration of our Lord assumes the prophetical authority of the work, and traces its existence in pre-Maccabaean times. The alleged exhibition of these Writings to ALEXANDER THE GREAT and the exposition of their contents to the Grecian Conqueror of the East, form a singular episode in the midst of profound criticism. The incorrectness of the Alexandrine Version and its rejection by the Early Church, who substituted that of Theodotion for it, is turned into an argument against the Maccabaean origin of the original; for certainly, a composition of which the author and the translators were nearly contemporary, might be better translated, than one separated by an interval of many ages. Then the peculiar features and complexion of the original language point out the exact period to which the writing is to be assigned. The historical accuracy, the apparent discrepancies, and yet the real agreement with Profane Narratives, all strengthen the assertion, that the writer lived during the times of the Babylonian and Persian Monarchies. Another argument, as strong as any of the former, is deduced from the nature of the symbolism used throughout the Book. The reasonings of HENGSTENBERG have now received. additional confirmation from the excavations of LAYARD. The prevalence of animal imagery, rudely grotesque and awkwardly gigantic, is characteristic of Chaldean times, and bespeaks an era previous to the Medo-Persian Sculptures at Persepolis.Summing up his reasonings, the Professor quotes the observation of FENELON: “lisez DANIEL, denoncant a Balthasar la vengeance de Dieu toute prete a fondre sur lui, et cherchez dans les plus sublimes originaux de l’antiquite quelque chose qu’on puisse comparer a ces endroits la!”

ENGLISH PHILOSOPHICAL SCHOOL

The speculations which we have hitherto discussed are not confined within the limits of unreadable GERMAN NEOLOGY they have been transfused into English Philosophy, and presented in a popular form to the readers of our current literature. In a learned and speculative Work, entitled “The Progress of the Intellect, as exemplified in the Religious Development of the Greeks and Hebrews,” the writer f20 has adopted the untenable hypothesis of the German Neologists. In his second section of a chapter on the “Notion of a supernatural Messiah,” he writes as follows; “During the severe persecution under ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES, when the cause of Hebrew faith in its struggle with colossal heathenism seemed desperate, and when, notwithstanding some bright examples of heroism, the majority of the higher class was inclined to submit and to apostatize, an unknown writer adopted the ancient name of DANIEL, in order to revive the almost extinct hopes of his countrymen, and to exemplify the proper bearing of a faithful Hebrew in the presence of a Gentile Tyrant. The object of pseudo-Daniel is to foreshow, under a form adapted to make the deepest impression on his countrymen, by a prophecy, half-allusive, half-apocalyptic, the approaching destruction of heathenism through the advent of Messiah. Immediately after the overthrow of the Four Beasts, emblematic of four successive heathen Empires, the last being the Macedonian with its offset, the Syrian; the kingdom would devolve to the ‘ Saints of the Most High,’ that is, to the Messianic Establishment of Jewish expectation, presided over by a being appearing in the clouds, and distinguished, like the angels, by his human form from the uncouth symbols of the Gentile Monarchies.” f21 He treats “Messiah” as a “title which hitherto confined to human anointed authorities, such as kings, priests, or prophets, became henceforth, specifically appropriated to the ideal personage who was to be the Hope, the Expectation, and the Salvation of Israel.” He discusses the Seventy Weeks as the fiction of the imaginary DANIEL, and terms the accompanying predictions “adventurous,” and as turning out “as fallacious as all that had preceded