CHAP. V.

Reasons of Mr. Irving and Mr. Frere for altering the reading of the Prophetic number in Dan. viii. 14. considered and answered. A conjecture proposed concerning the true era of the commencement of the Two thousand three hundred days.

IN entering upon the discussion of Mr. Irving's reasons for rejecting the reading of the authorized version of the Bible in Dan. viii. 14. and substituting the number two thousand four hundred for two thousand three hundred, I feel myself somewhat at a loss where to begin, since in point of fact Mr. Irving's reasoning includes in it no less than three positions which I must regard as entirely gratuitous.

The first of these positions is, that the little horn of Dan. viii. 9-12. is a symbol of the Mahomedan power. Now, though I am well aware of the respectable authorities by whom this opinion is upheld, yet, as it is controverted by names at least equal in weight, Mr. Irving is not entitled to take it for granted in the argument respecting the true reading of Dan. viii. 14. In order, however, that may not be charged with pertinaciously resisting what so many respectable writers of the present day account the true interpretation of this symbolical horn, I proceed to offer the following reasons against it, some of which are new, and others were

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advanced in the Christian Observer nearly twenty years ago, and have never yet, as it appears to me, received any satisfactory answer.

The theatre of the whole vision of Dan. viii. will, it is presumed, on all hands be acknowledged to lie wholly within the territories of the second and third empires of Daniel, as they were possessed by Alexander the Great and his successors.

Now, the geographical position of the empire of Mahomed in its infant state, does not, in its relation to the territories of the goat,* correspond with that which the prophetic description assigns to the little horn. The kingdom of Mahomed having sprung up in Arabia, which was never included in the empire of Alexander, could not become a horn of the goat, till it obtained possession of at least one of the provinces composing its territories. This was effected by the conquest of Syria between the years 632 and 638. The conquests of the little horn are characterized as being towards the south, the east, and the pleasant land; and the advocates of the scheme which I am opposing, commonly explain its conquests in the south, in reference to these of Mahomed himself in Arabia Proper. But then, at the date of these conquests, the Mahomedan power was not, in any sense of the word, a horn of the goat. Further, as Arabia Proper is without the limits of the prophetic thea

* Dan. viii. 21.

tre, these conquests are necessarily excluded from the vision. Mr. Frere, indeed, explains this part of the prophecy in a somewhat different manner. He asserts, that the successors of Mahomed first entered on the prophetic earth in the upper part of Arabia, which is the southern part of the Macedonian empire. On consulting Gibbon, I accordingly find, that one of the provinces of Syria to the eastward of Jordan, had, by Roman vanity, been decorated with the name of Arabia, and that its capital city, Bosra, was taken by the Saracens in the year 633. But even then the Mahomedan power had not yet become a horn of the goat, and therefore the conquest of Bosra does not, for the reason to be offered below, correspond with the prophetic description. Moreover, when we speak of a kingdom, or to use a prophetic term, a horn, making conquests to the south, we naturally mean south in respect of its own geographical position. Now it happens unfortunately for Mr. Frere's argument, that the province of Syrian Arabia, instead of being south in respect of the then proper position of the Mahomedan power, was directly north of it. If, again, we inquire into the progress of the Mahomedan power at a later period, when by the possession of Syria it had become a kingdom or horn of the goat, we indeed see that it obtained possession of Egypt, which, in respect of Syria, might justly be termed a conquest to the south. But how could it wax great towards the pleasant

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land, when it had, by the taking of Jerusalem in the year 637, already obtained possession of that land while in the very act of establishing itself in the prophetic theatre and becoming a horn of the goat. The prophetic description in Dan. viii. 9. evidently implies, that the power symbolized by the horn, having previously established itself in the territories of the goat, afterwards made extensive conquests, first, to the south, secondly, to the east, and lastly, towards the Holy Land. Now such a progress will in vain be sought for in the history of the empire of the Saracens.

For these reasons, which have been penned with De l'Isle's excellent map of the empire and expedition of Alexander the Great spread out before me, and which to my own mind at least appear wholly unanswerable, I must acquiesce in the observations of Sir Isaac Newton, (no common place thinker) as quoted by Bishop Newton.-" This "horn, therefore, as Sir Isaac Newton justly ob"serves, was to rise up in the north-west part of "those nations which composed the body of the

goat, and from thence was to extend its domi"nions towards Egypt, Syria, and Judea." The bishop then proceeds to show how all these particulars were verified in the history of the Roman conquests, and dominion, and actions, within the territories of the he-goat, in respect of which, the Romans were constituted a horn by the overthrow of the last of the Macedonian kings, in the year

A. C. 170, and finally by the reduction of Macedon into a Roman province in the year A. C. 148. Following the exact order of the exploits of the little horn, which waxed great towards the south, the east, and the pleasant land, the Romans reduced. Greece (lying south of Macedon) to a Roman province in the year A. C. 146-Bithynia in A. C. 76 -Syria in A. C. 65; and they took the city of Jerusalem in A. C. 63, on which occasion Pompey slew some of the priests engaged in the sacrifices, and entered the holy of holies.

. My next objection to the application of this little horn to the spiritual empire of Mahomed, is of a chronological nature. The expounding angel informs Daniel, that the power typified by this

horn, was to arise om

n at the end of

their reign,* viz. the reign of the four horns which arose out of the kingdom of Alexander the Great. But Mahomed did not appear till near seven hundred years after the overthrow of the last of these kingdoms. Mr. Faber gives a double answer to this objection, first, he would render the foregoing Hebrew phrase "in the futurity of their kingdom," i. e. some period subsequent to the four Greek kingdoms; and secondly, he affirms that the phrase D'Yan on which he renders "when the revolts are completed," necessarily ties down the rise of the horn to a period when the apostacy of the Jewish church had been completed by the rejec❤

* Dan. viii. 23.