cutors have died the like death, by being smitten of God in the like manner in the secret parts. Thus died Herod, the great persecutor of Christ and the infants at Bethlehem; and thus died Galerius Maximianus, the author and the great persecutor of the tenth and greatest persecution against the primitive Christians; and thus also died Philip II. king of Spain, as infamous for the cruelty of his persecutions, and the numbers destroyed by it, as any of the other three. As to the manner of Herod's death, I shall have occasion to speak of it hereafter in its proper place; and, as to the death of the other two, that of Galerius is described by Eusebius" and Lactantius, and that of Philip II. by Mezeray; and to these authors I remit the reader for an account of them. Antiochus the Great, having attempted the like sacrilege in the country of Elymais, as Antiochus his son did in the city of Elymais, and perished in it, as bath been above related, this hath made some think, that the parity of names hath been the cause of this parity of facts being attributed to both, and that only one of them was guilty of this sacrilegious attempt which is related of both. And, on this supposition, Scaliger chargeth Jerome with a blunder, for saying, in his comment on the eleventh chapter of Daniel, that Antiochus the Great, fighting against the Elymeans, was cut off by them with all his army. For he will have it, that this was not true of Antiochus the Great, but only of Antiochus Epiphanes; and yet many other authors attest the same thing with Jerome, that Antiochus the Great was thus cut off in the sacrilegious attempt, and none say it of Antiochus Epiphanes; for he escaped from the baffle, though he lost many of his men in it, and died afterwards. So saith Appian, and so saith Polybius, as well as Josephus, and both b him reign twelve years. For the reconciling of this it must be said, that he began his reign in the ending of the 137th year, and ended it in the begin. ning of the 149th year of that era. u Hist. Eccl. viii, 16. x De Mortibus Persecutorum, c. 33. y History of France, under the year 1598. z Part 2, book 2, under the year 187. a In Animad. ad Eusebii Chronicon, sub No. 1825, p. 140. b In Syriacis. a In Excerptis Valesii, p. 144. the authors of the first and second books of the Maccabees. And although both the sacrileges were attempted in the country of the Elymeans, yet it was not upon the same temple that the attempt was made. That of Antiochus the Great was upon the temple of Belus, the great god of the East; and that of Epiphanes was upon the temple of Diana; and there was a Persian Diana, Tacitusd tells us; and, that this goddess had a temple among the Elymeans, is attested by Strabo,e who tells us also of it, and that it was very rich; for he saith, that it being afterwards plundered by one of the Parthian kings, f he took from it ten thousand talents. This temple, Strabo tells us, was called Azara, or rather, as Casaubons corrects it, Zara. Hence Diana was called Zaretish among the Persians. Antiochus Epiphanes having been a great oppressor of the church of God, under the Jewish economy, and the type of Antichrist, which was to oppress it in after ages under the Christian, more is prophetically said of him in the prophecies of Daniel, than of any other prince which these prophecies relate to; the better half of the eleventh chapter, that is, from the twentieth verse to the forty-fifth, which is the last of that chapter, is wholly concerning him; and there are several passages also in the eighth and twelfth chapters which relate to him. The whole may be divided into two parts, whereof the first is concerning his wars with Egypt, and the second is concerning the persecutions and oppressions brought by him upon the Jewish church and nation, and these were all fulfilled in the actions of his reign. And first, as to his wars with Egypt, what is said, (chap. xi, ver. 25, 40, 42, 43,) was accomplished in his second expedition into that country, and the actions done by him therein, which are above related. What is in ver. 26, was fulfilled by the revolt of Ptolemy Macron from king Philometor, and the treachery and mal-administration of Lenæus, Eulæus, and other ministers and officers employed under him. What is in d Annalium, lib. 3, c. 62. e Lib. 16, p. 744. f Strabo, ibid. g In notis ad p. 744, ver. 27, had its completion in the meeting of Antiochus and Philometor at Memphis, where the two kings, both in the time of the second and of the third expedition of Antiochus into Egypt, didi frequently eat at the same table, and conferred together seemingly as friends; Antiochus pretending to take upon him the care of the kingdom, for the interest of Philometor, his nephew, and Philometor pretending to confide in Antiochus, as his uncle, in all that he was thus doing. But both herein spoke lies to each other; for, in reality, they both intended quite the contrary; Antiochus' design being under the pretence abovementioned, to seize all Egypt to himself, and Philometor's to take the first opportunity to disappoint him of it, as accordingly at length he did by his agreement with his brother and the Alexandrians, as is above related. Whereon followed what is foretold, (ver. 29, 30,) of the same chapter. For Antiochus, on his hearing of this agreement, pulled off his vizard, and openly owned his design for the usurping of Egypt to himself, and, for the full executing of it, returned and came again towards the South, that is, into Egypt, in his last expedition into that country. But he did not then prevail, as in the former and the latter, (i. e. in his two preceding attempts upon that country,) because of the ships that came from Chittim, (i. e. the country of the Grecians,) against him, which brought Popilius Lænas and the other Roman ambassadors to Alexandria, who made him, to his great grief, return out of Egypt, and quit all his designs upon that country. However, what is foretold, (ver. 42, 43,) of his stretching forth his hand upon the land of Egypt, and his having power over the treasures of gold and silver, and all other the precious things of that country, had its thorough completion; for he miserably harassed and wasted the whole land of Egypt in all his expeditions into it, carrying thence vast treasures of gold and silver, and other riches, in the prey and spoils taken in it by him and his followers. And there ended all the prophecies of Daniel which relate to the wars that were between the kings i Hieronymus in Dan. xi, 27. Vide Athenæum, lib. 5, p. 195. F. k of Syria, and the kings of Egypt; for in those prophecies, the kings of the North were the kings of Syria, and the kings of the South the kings of Egypt, as hath been above related. As to the other part of Daniel's prophecies of this king, which relate to the persecutions and oppressions which he brought upon the Jewish church and nation, what is said, (xi, 22,) of the Prince of the covenant being broken before him, foreshewed what he did to Onias the high priest, who was deposed and banished by him, and at length murdered by one of his lieutenants; for the high priest of the Jews was the prince of the Mosaic covenant. What is said, (ver. 28,) of his heart being set against the holy covenant, on his returning from Egypt, and of the exploits which he did thereon, foreshewed what he did to Judah and Jerusalem, on his return from his second expedition into the said country of Egypt, when, without a cause, he murdered and enslaved so many of the Jewish nation, and robbed the city and temple of Jerusalem of all their riches and treasure. What is said, (ver. 30,) foretold the grief with which he returned from his fourth and last expedition into Egypt, by reason of the baffle which he then met with from the Romans of all his designs upon that country, and the indignation and wrath which then, in his irrational fury, he vented upon the Jewish church and nation, in sending Apollonius to destroy Jerusalem, and make to cease the Jewish worship in that place. What is contained, (ver. 31,) and those that follow to ver. 40, agreeable to what was before prophesied, (viii, 9-12, 23-25,) foretold his taking away the daily sacrifice, and all else that he did for the suppressing of the Jewish worship, and the destroying of the whole Jewish nation, which is above related. The forty-fourth and forty-fifth verses of the same eleventh chapter, foretold his last expedition which he made, first into Armenia, and from thence into the East, and his there coming to an end, and perishing in that miserable manner as hath been related, having first planted the tabernacles of his palace, that is, his absolute regal authority, in the glorious holy mountain between the seas, that is, in Jerusalem, which stood in a mountainous situation between the Mediterranean sea and the sea of Sodom; for it was built in the mid way betwixt both, on the mountains of Judea. Never were any prophecies delivered more clearly, or fulfilled more exactly, than all these prophecies of Daniel were. Porphyry, who was a great enemy to the holy Scriptures, as well of the Old Testament as of the New, acknowledged this. And therefore he contends, that they were historical narratives, written after the facts were done, and not prophetical predictions foretelling them to come. This Porphyrym was a learned heathen, born at Tyre in the year of Christ 233, and there called Malchus;" which name, on his going among the Greeks, he changed into that of Porphyry, that signifying the same in the Greek language which Malchus did in the Phoenician, the language then spoken at Tyre. He being a bitter enemy to the Christian religion," wrote a large volume against it, containing fifteen books, whereof the twelfth was wholly against the prophecies of Daniel. These concerning the Persian kings and the Macedonian that reigned as well in Egypt as in Asia, having been all, according to the best historians, exactly fulfilled, he could not disprove them by denying their completion; and therefore, for the overthrowing of their authority, he took the quite contrary course, and laboured to prove their truth; and from hence alleged, that, being so exactly true in all particulars, they could not therefore be written by Daniel so many years before the facts were done, but by some one else under his name who lived after the time of Antiochus Epiphanes. For the making out of which, his main argument was, that all contained in the prophecies of Daniel relating to the times preceding the death of Antiochus Epiphanes was true, and that all that related to the times which followed after was false. The latter proposition he 1 Apud Hieronymum in Proœmio ad Comment. in Danielem. m Vide Holstenium in Vita Porphyrii, et Vossium de Hist. Græcis, lib. 2, c. 16. n Malchus, from the Phoenician or Hebrew word Melec, signifieth King, and Toppupos did the same in Greek, that is, one that wore purple, which none but kings and royal persons then did. o Hieronymus in Proœmio ad Comment. in Danielem. |