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rity, before Darius was firmly established on the throne.

And as to the opposition of the Prince of Persia, which had begun so long before this time, there is no reason why it might not continue long after it also; and it appears in fact that it was actually continuing in the third of Cyrus, five years later than the first of Darius, at least; for the Angel tells Daniel that even after discharging his commission to him, he should return to war with the Prince of Persia, that is, to renew the same contest as before. If the third of Cyrus is rightly to be understood of the third of his reign, dated from the death of Darius, the Jews had been restored two years at least before this time. But we know that even in the reign of Cyrus, very soon after their return, attempts were made by their enemies, both to stop the building of the temple, and to impede the peaceable settlement of the country, and the final restoration of their government and laws. Their adversaries, we are told at Ezra, iv. 5, in particular, hired counsellers against them, that is, persons to injure and impede their interests, by bringing them into discredit with the reigning monarch, all the days of Cyrus himself, as well as afterwards, through the reigns of Cambyses and Smerdis (see Ezra, iv. 6. 7.) unto the days of Darius king of Persia. If there was such an opposition in the reign of Cyrus, it might already have begun to work, by the third of his reign, notwithstanding the favour extended to the Jews in his first; and it might be his knowledge of that fact, and his grief at the success of the enemies of his countrymen, that gave occasion to the fasting and mourning of Daniel, alluded to at the outset of his tenth chapter.

It is time, however, that we should pass to the consideration of a question, which will be readily allowed

to be the most difficult part of our subject; viz. What we are to understand by the Prince of Persia, mentioned in verse 13 and 20, and by the Prince of Grecia, mentioned in verse 20? I am well aware that the opinion, which I ventured to express upon this subject, page 513, supra, though going no further than the statement of a belief in the personal existence and personal agency of beings of some kind, so called, is apparently opposed to the authority of bishop Horsley, in his sermon on Daniel iv. 17; where he takes occasion to review the doctrine of tutelar or guardian angels, and to examine the passages in the Book of Daniel, which might seem to give countenance to it. The judgment which he pronounces upon the rest of these passages will be found in the sermon in question; but as to these texts in particular, he gives it as his opinion, that "the Princes of Persia, in the Book of Daniel, are to be understood of a party in the Persian state, which opposed the return of the captive Jews, first after the death of Cyrus, and again after the death of Darius Hystaspis :" and, "the Prince of Grecia," in like manner, "of a party in the Greek empire, which persecuted the Jewish religion after the death of Alexander the Great, particularly in the Greek kingdom of Syria." Horsley's Sermons, third edition, 1812. vol. ii. p. 378.

With respect to the doctrine of tutelar or guardian angels, if understood in the sense in which bishop Horsley opposes it, and labours to confute it, I do not think it is properly concerned in the solution of the question, what is to be understood by the Prince of Persia or the Prince of Grecia, in the present instance. Upon the truth or the falsehood of that doctrine, therefore, the reader is at liberty to concur with the bishop, or to dissent from him, as he thinks best. But with

regard to the decision of this particular question, as stated in the above extract from his sermon, much as the authority of bishop Horsley deserves to be respected, and much as we are bound to defer to his deliberate opinion upon any point which concerns the interpretation of the Old or New Testament, I cannot hesitate to declare my conviction, that nothing can be more unsatisfactory, than this method of solving the difficulties of scripture, nothing more vague and indefinite, than this mode of explaining its language.

For in the first place, it is not the Princes of Persia, as the representation of the bishop would imply, of whom the Angel speaks at Daniel x. 13 and 20, but the Prince of Persia. He speaks, it is true, of the Kings of Persia, at verse 13; but under a different name from that which he gives to the Prince of Persia, and not in the singular, as there, but in the plural. Nor let any one imagine that this objection is merely verbal, and a captious exception against an unguarded use of words; or that it proceeds on the supposition of a distinction without a difference. The use of words in speaking upon this subject should be regulated by the language of scripture; which gives us authority for speaking of the Prince of Persia, but none for speaking of the Princes of Persia. And as to the supposition of a distinction without a difference-the truth may turn out to be, that between the Kings of Persia and the Prince of Persia, in the language of scripture, there may be the widest difference; and how many soever these Kings of Persia might be, there could be only one such Prince.

In the next place, supposing the Prince of Persia, in this instance, and the Prince of Grecia, in the next, to denote a political party of some kind or other, the one in Persia, the other in Greece; what shall we under

stand by the Prince of Tyrus, apostrophized in Ezekiel xxviii. 2-19? The Prince of Tyrus is a mode of speaking analogous to the Prince of Persia, or the Prince of Grecia; and if that mode of speaking is scriptural language for a faction or party, in either of these instances, it seems only reasonable to conclude that it must be scriptural language for a faction or party in the other. True it is, that Ezekiel uses a different word, xxviii. 2, to describe this Prince, from that which is employed, Daniel x. 13 and 20, to designate the Prince of Persia, or the Prince of Greece; but a word which denotes Prince as much as that, and is translated pxwv by the Septuagint version, in Ezekiel, as much as the other by Theodotion, in the book of Daniel. Now what faction or party can possibly be intended by Ezekiel's apostrophe to the Prince of Tyrus, ch. xxviii. 2-19? or as he is there also denominated, the anointing and covering cherub? If so, the Prince of Tyrus in this passage of Ezekiel, is not scriptural language for a political party; and by parity of consequence, neither the Prince of Persia nor the Prince of Grecia, in Daniel: for the one is precisely analogous to the other; and in the stated use of terms, the one must mean something analogous to the other. Bishop Horsley, indeed, has not considered this text; because it was not one of those which occurred in the Book of Daniel. But that it might obviously have been suggested by those which do occur there, and that if it presented itself, it was deserving of a few words of explanation to reconcile it with them, no one, perhaps, will deny.

Again, it is a singular violence to the common use of words, and a singular departure from the established modes of speech, to call a party or faction the Prince of Persia, or the Prince of Grecia; especially when we

consider the word which is employed in each of these instances. This word in the original is w: which the Septuagint renders by Tраτnyòs, Theodotion and others of the Hexapla by äpxwv: and it properly denotes a captain, commander, or governor. But what propriety would there be in calling a party or faction the στρατηγὸς or ἄρχων of Persia, or the στρατηγός or apxwv of Greece, particularly when it appears that this faction or party was not dominant or ruler in either; but that Persia at least, if not Greece, had its king or its ruler, strictly so called, and distinct from this faction or party, all the time?

But again, that we may waive the objection from the use of language altogether, what shall we say to the singular anachronism, involved in the bishop's opinion, that a Prince of Persia, and a Prince of Greece, whether some one person or a party of persons, whom the angel Gabriel so plainly describes as existing, and acting in their proper capacity, at least as early as the third of Cyrus, should neither begin to exist, nor to act, until 48 years later than the third of Cyrus, in one of these instances, and 211 years later in the other? For between the third of Cyrus, B. C. 534, and the death of Darius Hystaspis, B. C. 486, which the bishop assumes as the date of the rise of one of these parties, the interval is 48 years; and between the same date and the death of Alexander, B. C. 323, which he assumes as the date of the rise of the other, the interval is 211.

Again, if the Prince of Persia and the Prince of Grecia are to be understood of a party or faction, the one in Persia and the other in Greece; then these terms, instead of denoting a person or persons in either of these instances, denote an abstraction in both for that a party or faction, as opposed to a personal agent,

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