The Pulpit Commentary — Daniel — Section 256

himself, thia is easily explicable. Only, if irnportnnco is the way numbers are, used ae this cxplane.tion ho gmntccl, there is no marks by which identities aro indicated. ncccl for ple.cing Daniel so Into 11s the clays Thus in Rcvclnti<,n the clrngon, the b,,o,st of the Macco.beos. If the scheme of history that came out of the waters, o.nd the scar!,,t ho unfolds o.pplios to centuries beyond the beast on which the womo.n sat, a.re ree,,,,_ daya of tho Macco.beos, these event,e ao nized to he all symbols of one and the s,w~~ portmyccl beforeho.ncl would ho o.s invisible antichristie.n power-Rome, by the fort tli»t to tho critico.l pscuclo-Danicl living B.O. 160 al ways we have the seven heads and ten as to the rce.l Daniel living n.o. 5G0. horns prominent. Towards God it is Wo ought not scientiflce.lly to e.ssume, diabolism, towards the saints it is a devour- without proof, the.t prophecy the.t foretells ing beast, ancl to the world at large the is impossible. Yet this is the assumption "harlot." On the other hand, the beast of the critical school. If the critics do that came out of the earth, that had two venture to te.ke up tho.t position, they have horns, is different. to explain tho universal belief in something If we apply this principle to Da.niel, we nkin to thia foretelling prophecy. Herbert can me.into.in the identity of the two visions Spencer explo.ins instinctive beliefs of this -before us: fust, because each had /mf' kind ns the inherited result of experience. members; next, we can identify the fourth If we apply this to the belief in prophecy, kingdom in each series by the facts that then we must me.intain that some earlier there are ten toes to the feet of the image, generations he.ve had experience of fore- and ten horns upon the fourth beast-the telling prophecy. If, then, prophecy dicl prominence of the number ten proves the exist e.t one time, we may not assume its identity of the two. The second empire in non-existence o.t any given time. We find the image has duality as its ruling mark- from Dent. :xviii. 22 that the J ewe believed there are the two shoulders ; and the bear in foretelling prophecy. "When a prophet raises itself up on one side, implying the spee.keth in the name of the Lord, if the other. This twofoldness is intensified in thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the vision of the "ram" and "he-goat ; " the thing which the Lord bath not spoken, the ram has two horns. The third monarchy but the prophet hnth spoken it presumptu- he.s no number prominent in the image- ously." The early Christians believed in vision, but has four wings as the third beast. prophecy that foretold; their whole argu- When we pass to the next vision, we find ment age.inst the Jews was the recital of that, when the "he-goat" loses his notable what the prophets had spoken. To deny horn, four others spring up. And in the that prophecy foretells is to assert that eleventh chapter the empire of AlexBDder Christiimityis founded on a gigantic blunder. wns divided to the four winds of heaven. Closely connected with this is the belief While this is an affirmative principle, it that the prophets did not necessarily com- is also e. negative one. On the ground of prehend the meaning of their own words, the identity of prominent numbers, we m::iy as iu I Pet. i. 11 we are told that they had assume the identity of the thing symbolized, to" see.rob what, and what manner of time though symbolized by diverse symbols; on the Spirit which was in them did signify." the other hand, where prominent numbers This is involved in the primitive idea of are diverse, notwithstanding a general prophecy( and inspiration, as may be seen resemble.nee, we ca.n assume a diversity in by the oracles. The priestess that ge.ve the the thing eymbolized. ThllS the little horn enigmatic answer at Delphi was not supposed of the eighth chapter is very like, super- to know what was the meaning of her own ficially, to the eleventh horn of the seventh words. The whole criticnl e.senmption that chapter; but the difference of numericnl the words of a prophet were absoluttly con- relntions compels us to regard them as ditioned by his environment, is utterly un- symbols of different things. It was the scientific, ae all unproved assumptions are. identity here assumed that led Delitzsch to On the ground of that gratuitous assumption, abandon the traditional view of the foruth critics have no right to assert that no more monarchy, and give in his adhesion to the cnn be in e. prophecy tho.n the prophet who critical view. When, however, we look a.t uttered it could have fully understood. the numerical relations of the two, we find We would make nnother preliminary they are wholly different. In the seventh observation. Apocalypse was a mode of chapter the eleventh horn does not belong composition of which we have many to any of the previous horns, and dispossesses examples-one other besides Daniel being three of them; on the other hand, the little ce.nonical. To understand Daniel, then, hom of the eighth chapter aprings out from we ought to apply tho ea.none of interpre- one of the /ouf' horns-it is not e.n inde- tation which may be deduced from other pendent horn, but e. sprout from one of the apocalypses, espccie.lly from the Book of exto.nt horns. Further, there are no horns lteycMiop. Ope of these thnt is of special disvassesscd or Ufrooted before i~- ',!.'hese 222 'l'HE BOOK OF DANIEL. [ou. vu, 1-28.