tion in the course of such a contest, on both sides: and though spirits as spirits cannot contend carnally like flesh and blood, yet they may stir up the arms of flesh and blood, they may work upon human passions, and by human passions, in cooperation with themselves, and make the free agency of men instrumental to their own proper purposes, whatsoever they be. And this, which Scripture would teach us to believe, is the rule of proceeding where spiritual agents are concerned in conjunction with human, in other instances, there is no reason to suppose might not have been the case in the present instance: nor consequently, why one mode, in which the Prince of Persia might have carried on his hostility against Gabriel and Michael to the prejudice of the people of Daniel, might not have been, what bishop Horsley supposes, the stirring up enemies against them in the court of Persia; and so impeding and delaying the final restitution and settlement of the country: which indeed appears to have been more or less the effect, by whatever means brought to pass, from the time of Cyrus to that of Nehemiah, through a period of nearly ninety years.

As to the further question, what particular reason there might be, why the Prince of Javan or Greece also should be described as making common cause with the Prince of Persia, in the third of Cyrus, against Gabriel and Michael; that too is one of the secrets of Satan's kingdom, and of the mode of its administration at present, about which we are not competent to give an opinion. We may, however, presume, that among the various members of such a kingdom and under such an head, it is reasonable to suppose there should be the closest union of purpose, and sympathy of feeling; and that as to Greece and Persia in particular, they were countries especially conjoined in the counsels of the Di

vine Providence, and in the future destinies of the world, as well as of the Jewish or Christian church; the Persian empire being to be succeeded by the Grecian, and the Grecian to exercise a considerable influence both for good and for bad, first over the fortunes of the Jewish church, and ultimately over those of the Christian; if, as it would appear from the prophecies of Daniel themselves, Antichrist, the great persecutor of the church of Christ, and antagonist of Christ himself, yet to come, is destined to arise out of that part of the world which was once subject to the empire of the Greeks, and which must be still considered, if any part of the world can still be considered, to represent the Grecian empire itself. And lastly, we may observe that if the true political situation of Persia and Greece, relative to each other, in the third of Cyrus, B. C. 534, were fully known; it is not improbable it would actually be found to throw light upon the reasons of this connection of the mention of Greece and Persia, in the tenth chapter of Daniel, with that period in particular.

I shall conclude these observations, then, with one or two more remarks; which will complete what I have to say on the chronology of the Book of Daniel.

The prophet Daniel was brought away captive from Judæa in the third or fourth of Jehoiachim, B. C. 606. At that time he is called a child; but the Hebrew idiom applies the name of child, at any time of life under the age of manhood; and it is morally certain, that when Daniel was appointed ruler of the province of Babylon, and chief of the governors over all the wise men in Babylon, (that is, as bishop Horsley expresses it, president of the college of Magi,) in the second of Nebuchadnezzar, ii. 1. 48, only three or four years after his arrival in Babylon, he was nearer thirty than twenty years of age. Let us suppose him however to

have been only twenty, in the second of Nebuchadnezzar, B. C. 603. He would be eighty-nine in the third of Cyrus, B. C. 534. That he did not accompany the Jews on their return to Judæa, B. C. 536, is certain; and that one reason of this might be his advanced age at the time, is not improbable. Yet we may justly presume that the return itself, at the precise period marked out by prophecy, in the first of Cyrus, might be due in part to the station of Daniel in the court of Persia, to his reputation in the reign of Darius, before Cyrus' accession, and to his influence with Cyrus himself; the language of whose proclamation or decree, giving permission to the Jews to return, is such, as could scarcely have been dictated by any but Daniel himself *. See 2 Chron. xxxvi. 23: Ezra i. 2, 3.

If the age of Daniel was more than twenty, B. C.

*Josephus relates, Ant. x. xi. 7, that after the accession of Darius the Mede, and the deliverance of Daniel, recorded in chapter v. the latter built a tower or Bápis, at Ecbatana in Media, of wonderful art and beauty; which still existed in his own time, and had been used ever after as the regal sepulchre of the kings of Media, Persia, and Parthia, successively; and from the first was specially confided to the keeping of a Jewish priest.

I know not on what authority this statement is made. But it is a singular coincidence, that, according to the Book of Ezra, vi. 2, when search was commanded to be made in the second of Darius, B. C. 521, for the original record of the permission of Cyrus to the Jews to return-a roll was found, it is

said, at Achmetha, in the palace, that is in the province of the Medes, containing the decree in question. The Septuagint renders this, ἐν Εκβατάνοις τῇ βάρει τῇ ἐν Μηδείᾳ χώρα: and Josephus recognises the antiquity of this reading by transferring the same statement to his Antiquities, xi: iv. 6. καὶ εὑρέθη ἐν Εκβατάνοις, τῇ βάρει τῇ ἐν Μηδίᾳ, βιβλίον, κ', τ. λ. If this was the original roll, and kept in a Bápis or tower at Ecbatana, it would go far to authenticate the tradition that Daniel built a Bápis there; and that this was the tower in question. It must be observed, however, that the word in the Hebrew, which answers to the Greek, does not properly denote a citadel, or tower, in that language, but a palace: not arx or turris, but regia.

603, he would be proportionally older, B. C. 534, at the date of the last of his visions. In the natural course of things, it cannot be supposed that he would long survive his ninetieth year and upwards. And if we were to conjecture that he died soon after the date of this vision, we should have apparently the countenance of the last words of this prophecy itself; which are such as almost to intimate that the time of his death was at hand. Ch. xii. 9. " And he said, Go thy way, Daniel; for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end." And again, xii. 13: And again, xii. 13: "But go thou thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days." In this case, the absolute length of time embraced by the Book of Daniel, will be from B. C. 606, to B. C. 534: or seventytwo years in all.

APPENDIX.

DISSERTATION XIII.

Further Consideration of the Opinions of the most ancient Christians upon the preceding topics.

Vide Dissertation xiii. vol. i. page 451. line 8-465. last line. JUSTIN MARTYR-The date which Cassiodorus assigns to the presentation of the first Apology of Justin Martyr, is confirmed by the further testimony of Prosper of Aquitaine; who places it in Chronico", U.C. 899. That this year was the date of the consulate of Clarus and Severus, may likewise be shewn by the following coincidence.

The emperor Severus was born vi (corr. iii.) Ides of April (April 11.) Coss. Erucio Claro ii. et Severo b. Dio agrees with Spartian as to the day of his birth c; but he makes him at the time of his death to be sixtyfive years, nine months, and twenty-five days old. Spartian, on the contrary, as his text stands uncorrected, tells us he did not live one year more than eighty-nine years; a manifest error in the statement or reading. The truth is, as he died early in the month of February, (Feb. 4,) U. C. 964, Dio meant to say that he was sixtyfour years, nine months, and twenty-five days old; and had he survived to the eleventh of April, he would have been sixty-five complete. In this case, his birthday was April 11, U. C. 899, which was consequently the year of the consulate of Clarus and Severus.

If we institute a search for notes of time, into the d Vita, 22.

a Operum 712. b Spartian, Severus, 1. c lxxvi. 17. Yet Pescennius Niger, 5. the same statement is repeated.