"last time" extends from the first to the second advent oi Christ. This long period lay as one scene before the minds of the prophets. And they tell what was given them to see, not as though they were writing a history, and unfolding events in their historical order, but as describing the figures which they saw, as it were, represented on the same canvass. As Isaiah describes the redemption from Babylon and the redemption by the Mes- siah as though they were contemporary events, so Joel, in almost the same sentence, connects the effusion of the spirit which attended the first advent of Christ with the great elemental changes which are to attend his second coming. How long the period between the first and second advents of the Son of God is to be protracted is unrevealed. It has already lasted nearly two # thousand years, and, for what we know, may last two thousand more. As this long period, crowded with great events, was pre- sented as a whole to the minds of the prophets, it is not sur- prising that, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, one should fix on one prominent feature in the scene, and others upon another. Under the divine guidance granted to these holy seers, there could be no error aud no contradiction, but there could hardly fail to be great variety. It would not, therefore, inval- idate the account given of Paul's description of Antichrist, if it should be found to differ in some respects from the antichrists of Daniel and of the Apocalypse.
The Antichrist of Daniel.
The reader of the prophecies of Daniel has, at least in many cases, the advantage of a divine interpretation of his predictions. The prophet himself did not understand the import of his visions, and begged to have them explained to him ; and his request was, in a measure, granted. Thus in the seventh chapter we read : "I saw in my vision by night, and behold, .... four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another. The first was like a lion ; .... a second like to a bear ; another like a leopard ; (and) a fourth beast dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly, .... and it had ten horns .... And behold there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots : and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things."
These beasts were, as the explanation states, the symbols of four kingdoms, the Babylonish, the Medo-Persian, the Greek,
824 PART IV. Ch. in.— the second advent.
and the Roman. This last was to be divided into ten kingdoms. That kings in this prophecy mean kingdoms, not individuals, but an organized community under a king, is plain from the nature of the predictions and from the express declaration of the prophet ; for he says, in verse 17, that the four beasts are four kings ; and in verse 23, that the fourth beast is the fourth kingdom. King and kingdom, therefore, are interchanged as of the same import, After, or in the midst of these ten kingdoms signified by the ten horns, there was to arise another kingdom or power symbolized by the little horn. Of this power it is said : (1.) That it was to be of a different kind from the others. Perhaps, as they were civil or worldly kingdoms, this was to be ecclesiastical. (2.) He was to gain the ascendancy over the other powers ; at least three of them were to be plucked up by the roots. (3.) He was to» speak great things, or be arrogant in his assumptions. (4.) He was to set himself against God ; speaking " great words against the Most High." (5.) He was to persecute the saints ; prevail against them and wear them out; and they shall be given into his hands. (6.) This antichristian power was to continue until the judgment, i. e., " until the Ancient of Days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the Most High." (Dan. vii. 22.) In all these particulars the Antichrist of Daniel answers to the description given by St. Paul in 2 Thessalonians. In one point, however, they appear to differ. According to Daniel, the power of Antichrist was to last, or at least his persecution of the saints, only " a time and times and the dividing of a time ; " that is, three years and a half. (Compare Rev. xiii. 5, and xi. 2, 3.) This is the interpretation generally adopted. Calvin adopts the principle that in the prophecies definite periods of time are used for periods of indefinite duration. In his Commentary on Daniel he makes the little horn spoken of in the seventh chapter to be Julius Caesar, and says : " Qui annum putant hie notari per tem- pus, falluntur meo judicio .... Annus sumetur figurate pro tempore aliquo indeterminato." * He significantly says : " In numeris non sum Pythagoricus."
There are two answers to this difficulty. The word antichrist may be a generic term, as it seems to have been used by St. John, not referring exclusively to any one individual person, or to any one organization, but to any and every antichristian power, having certain characteristics. So that there may be, as
i In Danielem vii. 20, 25 ; Works, Amsterdam, 1667, vol. v. pp. 109, 113. 2 In Danielem xii. 12; Ibid., p. 205 b.