LECTURE IV.'

DAN. viii. 25 (part) and 26.

"He shall also stand up against the Prince of princes; but he shall be broken without hand. And the vision of the evening and the morning which was told is true: wherefore shut thou up the vision; for it shall be for many days."

In two preceding Lectures we considered separately the first and second visions recorded in the book of Daniel; namely, that of the image seen by Nebuchadnezzar in the second year of his reign, and that of the four beasts revealed to the prophet himself in the first year of Belshazzar. In regard to both of these visions, I endeavoured to establish, against recent objections, the interpretation which, as we saw, had the almost unanimous consent of Antiquity, both Jewish and Christian, in its favour; and which has been adopted by the far greater number and the most approved of modern expositors-the interpretation which identifies the fourth kingdom, in either vision, with the empire of Rome. It appeared that, in the former vision, the power designated by the feet of iron and clay, was the Roman empire in its Pagan state, destined to fall before the kingdom and

1 Preached Nov. 27, 1842.

Vision of the Ram and the He-goat.

93

Church of Christ, denoted by the stone "cut out without hands." And in the latter vision, the fourth beast seemed to represent the same empire, re-appearing again in another form which carried on the history of the former,-a cluster of kingdoms delineated under the imagery of ten horns, the emblems of sovereignty and power, together with that other little horn, which came up among them, "diverse from the rest." And this, viewed by the light of other prophetic Scripture, seemed to foretel a new and strange dominion of pride and tyranny which was to have its origin and seat in the very city which was the capital, as well as in the countries which had been immediately subject to the sway, of ancient imperial Rome.

We now come to the third vision recorded in the book of Daniel, viz. that of the ram and the hegoat; a vision which, the prophet tells us, appeared to him "in the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar," two years, in fact, "after that which appeared unto" him "at the first "." him "at the first 2" Of this vision part is fully and explicitly interpreted by the angel Gabriel; who appeared to the prophet, and was bidden by the "man's voice" which he "heard between the banks of Ulai," to "make" him "to understand the vision "." The ram which he saw standing before the river, and which "had two horns; and the two horns were high; but one was higher than the other, and the higher came up last," represented "the kings of Media and Persia +" And the exact propriety and historic truth of the symbol, as applied to the Medo-Persian empire, has been well pointed out by many expositors; its victories and the growth

2 Dan. viii. 1.

3 Ver. 16.

1 Vv. 3, 20.

94

Persian and Macedonian Empires. [LECT.

of its power being accurately described by "the ram pushing westward, and northward, and southward; so that no beasts might stand before him, neither was their any that could deliver out of his hand; but he did according to his will, and became great3.” "And as I was considering," saith the prophet, “behold, an he goat came from the west on the face of the whole earth, and touched not the ground: and the goat had a notable horn between his eyes"." And this, in like manner, is interpreted by the angel;

"the rough goat is the king of Grecia; and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king"." And here again expositors have remarked the peculiar fitness of the symbol employed to represent the Macedonian empire, and the characteristic swiftness of Alexander's conquests. But the vision goes on to describe the conflict of the Macedonian and the Persian empires. "And he came to the ram that had two horns, which I had seen standing before the river, and ran unto him in the fury of his power. And I saw him come close unto the ram, and he was moved with choler against him, and smote the ram, and brake his two horns: and there was no power in the ram to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground, and stamped upon him: and there was none that could deliver the ram out of his hand "."

How graphically this description corresponds with Alexander's march and victories, Bishop Newton and others have shewn by a minute reference to the history'. "Therefore," saith the prophet, "the

5 Ver. 4. See Bp. Newton and others.

6 Ver. 5.

7 Ver. 21.

E.g.

9 Vv. 6, 7.

1 "One can hardly read these words without having some image of Darius's army

8 E. g. St. Chrysostom, sup. standing and guarding the river cit. p. 45, Note 6.

Granicus, and of Alexander on

IV.]

Division of Alexander's Empire.

95

he goat waxed very great: and when he was strong, the great horn was broken; and for it came up four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven"." Here again we have the inspired interpretation by the mouth of the angel, in the words following: "Now that [viz. the great horn] being broken, whereas four stood up for it, four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not in his power"." By the death of Alexander in the midst of his career, and the murder, within a few years, of all the representatives of his line, "the first 'horn' or kingdom was entirely 'broken.' The royal family being thus extinct," says Bp. Newton, "the governors of provinces, who had usurped the power, assumed the title of kings: and by the defeat and death of Antigonus in the battle of Ipsus, they were reduced to four, Cassander, Lysimachus, Ptolemy, and Seleucus, who parted Alexander's dominions between them, and divided and settled them into four kingdoms. These four kingdoms," he adds, "are the 'four notable horns,' which came up in the room of the first great horn; and are the same as the four heads of the leopard in the former vision*. 'Four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not in his power;' they were to be kingdoms of Greeks, not of Alexander's own family, but only of his nation; and neither were they to be equal to him in power and dominion. They were likewise," Bp. Newton continues, "to extend 'toward the four winds of heaven:' and in the partition of

the other side with his forces plunging in, swimming across the stream, and rushing on the enemy with all the fire and fury that can be imagined.”Bp.Newton, referring to Arrian,

...

96

Objections stated.

[LECT. the empire Cassander held Macedon, and Greece, and the western parts; Lysimachus had Thrace, Bithynia, and the northern regions; Ptolemy possessed Egypt and the southern countries; and Seleucus obtained Syria and the eastern provinces. Thus were they divided 'toward the four winds of heaven ".""

To this interpretation, however generally it has been received, objections have recently been made, grounded on the alleged difficulty of finding historic proof of this fourfold division of the Macedonian empire. We are told that "the truth is, that Alexander's empire was divided into many more than four petty sovereignties, which continued in a state of constant change for several years";" and "therefore that the statement usually made of the fourfold division of Alexander's dominions must be understood with some latitude, as asserting not that four kingdoms, and four only, stood up out of the nation, but that the four kingdoms now generally enumerated by modern expositors were, if not the only, at least the most eminent subdivisions of the original empire'." And, indeed, Sir Isaac Newton is quoted as asserting only that, when the last of Alexander's line was murdered, and the chief generals of his empire now "took upon themselves the title and dignity of kings, having abstained from this honour while there remained any of Alexander's race to inherit the crown;" "the monarchy of the Greeks, for want of an heir, was broken into several kingdoms; four of which, seated 'to the four winds of heaven,' were very eminent." The expression, it may be observed,