Procopius adds, that on hearing these words, Justinian became greatly alarmed, and speedily sent them all away to Jerusalem, to be divided among the Christian churches of that city. Hence Gibbon admits, with more than his usual reverence when speaking on such matters, that—

"The holy vessels of the Jewish Temple, after their long peregrination, were respectfully deposited in the Christian Church of Jerusalem." 8

This is the last authentic account which history has handed down of the golden vessels which, originally made for the Tabernacle in the wilderness, so long adorned the Temple on Mount Zion. The Rev. William Knight, in his interesting treatise on the Arch of Titus, refers to the work of an obscure writer of the name of Adrichomius, who followed Procopius after an interval of a thousand years, though necessarily for condemnation, and who gravely informs his readers that the ark of the covenant, the tables of the law, the rods of Moses and Aaron, and some portions of the shewbread, were in his days to be seen in the church of St. John Lateran in Rome." Though, of course, such are only idle fables of the dark ages, just as they show to this day in the church of St. Augustine at Rome, among other relics-a wing of the archangel Gabriel, which Gregory VII. had obtained as a gift from the angel by his prayers; the beard of Noah; and the steps of the ladder which Jacob saw in his dream, on which the heavenly host were ascending and descending! This last, however, can be almost paralleled by a theory which is strongly maintained by a party of Protestants called "Anglo-Israelites" in the present day, in which they affirm that the coronation chair in Westminster Abbey contains the identical stone on which Jacob rested his wearied head, when he saw that same ladder reaching from heaven to earth. But it is difficult to conceive how such a spiritual essence as the ladder of a dream could be transformed into the material substance of wood shown in the church. dedicated to the pious St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippoo, at

& Decline and Fall, c. xli.

9 Adrichomius, Theatrum Terra Sanctæ, § 77.

Rome. Credulousness, however, laughs at difficulties. Hence the famous Dr. J. H. (now Cardinal) Newman writes—

"I think it is impossible to withstand the evidence which is brought for the liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius, and for the motion of the eyes of the pictures of the Madonna in the Roman states. . . . . . I firmly believe that portions of the true cross are at Rome and elsewhere, that the crib of Bethlehem is at Rome, and the bodies of St. Peter and St. Paul also. Many, when they hear an educated man so speak, will at once impute the avowal to insanity, or to an idiosyncracy, or to imbecility of mind, or to decrepitude of powers, or to fanaticism, or to hypocrisy. They have a right to say so, if they will; and we have a right to ask them why they do not say it of those who bow down before the Mystery of Mysteries, the Divine Incarnation ?"!!! 1

Of all the innumerable relics which have been shown in the churches of every country in Christendom, and of which a large number survive to this day, there is only one single one of which there is a shadow of any thing like evidence as to its present existence; and that is the ARK OF THE COVENANT, which, as we have seen, Adrichomius, a writer of the 16th century, declares was in his day enshrined in the Church of St. John Lateran at Rome; but which certain enthusiasts of our own time among the Anglo-Israelite party assert is buried with other Hebrew relics in the Hill of Tara, in Ireland; having been brought thither by Jeremiah, when he made his escape from Egypt with his secretary the prophet Baruch, and one of King Zedekiah's daughters, the lovely Princess Tea Tephi, who, they say, married one Heremon, an Irish chieftain, and became ancestors of a race, which is now represented by Her Majesty Queen Victoria, and by which her claim to the throne of David is successfully established! Unfortunately for this romantic legend, nearly contemporary history does give some clue to the whereabouts of the ARK OF THE COVENANT, which it may be well to remember. In the second book of Maccabees, written in the second century B.C., we find this testimony concerning the ark originally made by Moses in the wilderness ::

1 Newman's Apologia, Appendix, p. 57.

F

"It is also found in the records that Jeremiah the prophet, being warned of God, commanded the tabernacle and the ark to go with him, as he went forth into the mountain, where Moses climbed up and saw the heritage of God. And when Jeremiah came thither, he found an hollow cave, wherein he laid the tabernacle, and the ark, and the altar of incense, and so stopped the door. And some of those that followed him came to mark the way, but they could not find it: which when Jeremiah perceived, he blamed them, saying, 'As for that place it shall be unknown until the time that God gather His people again together, and receive them unto mercy. Then shall the Lord shew them these things, and the glory of the Lord shall appear, and the cloud also, as it was shewed under Moses, and as when Solomon desired that the place might be honourably sanctified." 2

It should not be forgotten, however, that Maccabees is only an apocryphal book, and therefore of no sufficient authority to decide a case of this nature. Moreover, it seems to conflict with the testimony of the real Jeremiah as certified in Holy Writ, where we find him, when alluding to the restoration of Israel, saying as follows:

"It shall come to pass, when ye be multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, saith the Lord, they shall say no more, The ark of the covenant of the Lord: neither shall it come to mind; neither shall they remember it; neither shall they visit it; neither shall that be done any more." 3

67

CHAPTER V.

THE TIMES OF THE GENTILES.

It is clear from our Lord's prophecy respecting Jerusalem, that it would be "trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled," 3 i.e., after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, Gentile nations, whether Christian or otherwise, would bear rule in the once holy city of Zion for a period until the conversion of the Jewish people to the Gospel of Christ, and the flowing in of all nations to that same Jerusalem, which shall again became "the joy of the whole earth."4 And we know how literally this has been accomplished within the last eighteen centuries, during which the Romans in their heathen condition, the Greeks of the Lower Empire, the Saracens after they had embraced the religion of Mohammed, the Crusaders, and the Turks, have one after another borne rule in Jerusalem from the time of Titus' conquest even to the present day.

In addition to the treading down of Jerusalem by Gentile nations, we have our Master's solemn assurance that before the Gentile rule shall cease, and the children of Israel be restored to that land which God gave to Abraham and his seed, “this Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come."5 And the apostolic teaching on this point is set forth by St. Paul in the eleventh chapter of that famous epistle, which Coleridge, no mean judge, is reported to have said was the finest and greatest composition that ever proceeded from the pen of man. Hence the apostle sums up his teaching in

3 Luke xxi. 24.

Psalm xlviii. 2.

Matt. xxiv. 14.

these words, "I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in." From which the early Christian fathers have deduced the doctrine of the conversion of the Jewish people in their nationality at the expiration of the times of the Gentiles, as Chrysostom expresses it, "When the fulness of the Gentiles is come, then all Israel shall be saved, at the time of Christ's second coming, and the consummation of all things; or as Augustine explains the text, that "the carnal Israelites of the blood of Abraham, who do not now believe, shall hereafter be brought so to do."

We may easily understand the force of the apostle's argument by considering the history of the Christian Church since the day of Pentecost. "If," says St. Paul, "the fall of them (the Jews) be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness? If the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead ? "8 Contrast for a moment the effect of a sermon preached by a converted Jew at the time when the casting away of the Jews commenced in all its stern reality, with the comparatively little effect which has followed all Gentile effort in proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the heathen world. St. Peter's sermon at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost produced no less a number then 3000 converts, who "continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers." The early Church of Jerusalem was formed exclusively of Israelite converts; and probably many other Churches, such as the Roman and the Galatian Churches were, if not exclusively, to a very great extent composed of converts from Judaism. The result was, that in a com

6 Rom. xi. 25.

9

Augustine, De. Civ. Dei., lib. xviii., c. 28; Justin Martyr, Dial cum Trypho, c. xlix., &c.; Origen Contr. Celsum, lib. vi.; Chrysostom Com. Rom., c. xi., v. 11.