As to the _terminus ad quem_, it is open to any commentator to say that the prediction may point to many subsequent and analogous fulfilments; but no competent and serious reader who judges of these chapters by the chapters themselves and by their own repeated indications, can have one moment's hesitation in the conclusion that the writer is thinking mainly of the defilement of the Temple in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes, and its reconsecration (in round numbers) three and a half years later by Judas Maccabæus (December 25th, B.C. 164).
It is true that from B.C. 588 to B.C. 164 only gives us four hundred and twenty-four years, instead of four hundred and ninety years. How is this to be accounted for? Ewald supposes the loss of some passage in the text which would have explained the discrepancy; and that the text is in a somewhat chaotic condition is proved by its inherent philological difficulties, and by the appearance which it assumes in the Septuagint. The first seven weeks indeed, or forty-nine years, approximately correspond to the time between B.C. 588 (the destruction of the Temple) and B.C. 536 (the decree of Cyrus); but the following sixty-two weeks should give us four hundred and thirty-four years from the time of Cyrus to the cutting off of the Anointed One, by the murder of Onias III. in B.C. 171, whereas it only gives us three hundred and sixty-five. How are we to account for this miscalculation to the extent of at least sixty-five years?
Not one single suggestion has ever accounted for it, or has ever given exactitude to these computations on any tenable hypothesis.[635]
But Schürer has shown that _exactly similar mistakes of reckoning_ are made even by so learned and industrious an historian as Josephus.
1. Thus in his _Jewish War_ (VI. iv. 8) he says that there were six hundred and thirty-nine years between the second year of Cyrus and the destruction of the Temple by Titus (A.D. 70). Here is an error of more than thirty years.
2. In his _Antiquities_ (XX. x.) he says that there were four hundred and thirty-four years between the Return from the Captivity (B.C. 536) and the reign of Antiochus Eupator (B.C. 164-162). Here is an error of more than sixty years.
3. In _Antt._, XIII. xi. 1, he reckons four hundred and eighty-one years between the Return from the Captivity and the time of Aristobulus (B.C. 105-104). Here is an error of some fifty years.
Again, the Jewish Hellenist Demetrius[636] reckons five hundred and seventy-three years from the Captivity of the Ten Tribes (B.C. 722) to the time of Ptolemy IV. (B.C. 222), which is seventy years too many. In other words, he makes as nearly as possible the same miscalculations as the writer of Daniel. This seems to show that there was some traditional error in the current chronology; and it cannot be overlooked that in ancient days the means for coming to accurate chronological conclusion were exceedingly imperfect. "Until the establishment of the Seleucid era (B.C. 312), the Jew had no fixed era whatsoever";[637] and nothing is less astonishing than that an apocalyptic writer of the date of Epiphanes, basing his calculations on uncertain data to give an allegoric interpretation to an ancient prophecy, should have lacked the records which would alone have enabled him to calculate with exact precision.[638]
And, for the rest, we must say with Grotius, "_Modicum nec prætor curat, nec propheta_."