128 130 144 626 624 610 607 ages son of Cyaxares, took Chinaladan in A. R. B. C. Nineveh, destroyed that great city, so long the mistress of the East, and seated himself on the throne of his ancestor. Under a prince so ambitious Babylon swelled with pride. Judea, whose impiety increased be yond measure, had every thing to fear. The holy king Josiah, by his profound humility, suspended for a little while the punishment his people had deserved; but the 45 evil became greater under his children. Nebuchadnezzar II. more terrible than his 147 father Nabopolassar, succeeded him. This prince, bred up in pride, and continually excrcised in war, made prodigious conquests both in the East and West; and Babylon threatened the whole earth with slavery. Its menaces soon took effect with regard to the people of God. Jerusalem was given up to this haughty conqueror, who took it three several times: first, in the beginning of his own reign, and in the fourth year of the reign of Jehoiakim, from whence begin the seventy years of the Babylonish captivity mentioned by the prophet Jeremiah*: the second time under Jechonias, or Jehoiachin, son of Jehoiakim; and the last time under Zedekiah, when the city was razed to the ground, the temple reduced to ashes, and the king carried captive to Babylon, with Seraiah the high-priest, and the greatest part of the people. The most eminent of those captives were the prophets Ezekiel and Daniel. Among them likewise are to * Jer. xxv. 11, 12. xxix. 155 156 599 598 A. R. B. C. be counted the three young men, whom 156 598 160 176 188 192 578 Nebuchadnezzar could neither force to worship his image, nor destroy by his fire. Greece was now flourishing, and the seven wise men rendered themselves illustrious. 594 Some time before the final desolation of Jerusalem, Solon, one of these seven sages, gave laws to the Athenians, and established liberty upon the foundation of justice: the Phocians of Ionia carried their first colony to Marseilles. Tarquin the old king of Rome, after having subjected part of Tuscany, and adorned the city of Rome with 566 magnificent works, ended his reign. In his time the Gauls, conducted by Bellovesus, possessed themselves of all the countries of Italy adjacent to the Po, while Segovesus his brother led another host of the same nation a great way into Germany. Servius Tullius, the successor of Tarquin, instituted the Census, or numeration of the citizens disposed into certain classes, by which that great city was regulated like a private family. Nebuchadnezzar beautified Babylon, which was enriched by the spoils of Jerusalem and the East: it did not long enjoy 562 them. That king, who had adorned it with so much magnificence, saw upon his death-bed the approaching ruin of the haughty city*. His son Evilmerodach, rendered odious by his debaucheries, had not reigned long when he was slain by Neriglissor his brother-in-law, who usurped the kingdom. Pisistratus usurped also the sove * Abyd. apud Euseb. 1. ix. Præp. Ev. c. ult. 194 195 560 559 reign authority in Athens, which he found A. R. B. C. means to maintain for thirty years, amidst a number of vicissitudes, and which he even left to his children. Neriglissor could not suffer the power of the Medes, who were aggrandising themselves in the East, and therefore declared war against them. While Astyages, son of Cyaxares I. was preparing for resistance, he died, and left the war to be carried on by Cyaxares II. his son, called by Daniel Darius the Mede. This last nominated as general of his army, Cyrus, the son of Mandane his sister, and of Cambyses king of Persia, which was subject to the empire of the Medes. The reputation of Cyrus, who had signalized himself in divers wars under Astyages his grandfather, united most of the kings of the East under the standards of Cyaxares. He took Cresus king of Lydia in his capital city, and made himself master of his immense riches: he subdued the other allies of the kings of Babylon, and extended his dominion not only over Syria, but even very far into the Lesser Asia. At last he marched against Babylon, took it, and subjected it to Cyaxares his uncle; who, no less touched with his fidelity than his exploits, gave him his only daughter and heiress in marriage. In 217 the reign of Cyaxares, Daniel, already honoured under the preceding reigns with several heavenly visions, wherein he saw in manifest figures so many kings and empires pass before him, learned by a new revelation those seventy famous weeks, in which the times of the CHRIST, and the destiny of the 206 549 211 543 216 53S 537 217 218 537 536 A. R. B. C. Jewish people are unfolded. These were weeks of years, so that they contained 490 years: and this way of reckoning was common among the Jews, who observed the seventh year, as well as the seventh day, with a religious rest. Some time after this vision, Cyaxares died, as did also Cambyses the father of Cyrus; and this great man, who succeeded them, joined the kingdom of Persia, till then obscure, to the kingdom of the Medes, so vastly enlarged by his conquests. Thus was he peaceable master of the whole East, and founded the greatest empire that had ever been in the world. But what is most material to the connexion of our epochs, is, that this great conqueror, in the first year of his reign, gave a decree for rebuilding the temple of God at Jerusalem, and re-established the Jews in Judea. We must stop a little at this period, which is the most intricate of all ancient chronology, from the difficulty of reconciling profane with sacred history. You will doubtless, SIR, have already observed, that what I relate of Cyrus, is very different from what you have read of him in Justin; that he does not speak a word of the second kingdom of the Assyrians, nor of those famous kings of Assyria and Babylon, so renowned in sacred history; and that, in short, my account agrees very little with what that author tells us of the three first monarchies; namely, that of the Assyrians which finished in Sardanapalus, that of the Medes which ended in Astyages, the grandfather of Cyrus, and that of the Persians, began by Cyrus, A. R. B. C. and destroyed by Alexander. To Justin you may join Diodorus, with most of the Greek and Latin authors whose writings remain, who relate those histories in a different manner from that which I have followed. As to what regards Cyrus*, profane authors are by no means agreed about his history: but I have thought it better to follow Xenophon with St. Jerom, than Ctesias a fabulous author, whom most of the Greeks have copied, as Justin and the Latins have the Greeks, and even rather than Herodotus himself, although a very judicious writer. What determined me to this choice was, that the history of Xenophon, more coherent and more probable in itself, has this additional advantage, that it is more conformable to Scripture, which from its antiquity, and the connexion of the affairs of the Jewish nation, with those of the East, would deserve to be preferred to all the Grecian histories, although we did not moreover know, that it was dictated by the Holy Spirit. As to the three first monarchies, what most of the Greeks have written of them, has appeared doubtful to the wisest men of Greece. Plato † shows in general, under the name of the priests of Egypt, that the Grecians were profoundly ignorant of antiquity: and Aristotle ‡ has ranked among the fabu * Hieronym. in Dan. + Plat. in Tim. 218 586 |