attached to the spiritual side of Jewish history, the emptiness of formal ceremonies, were thoughts not originated by Paul, but heard from the lips of Stephen on the day of his trial. When Paul was before the synagogue at Antioch, he secured the attention of the Jews by adopting the historical method, precisely as Stephen had done before the Sanhedrim. Stephen, in his speech, asserted his attachment to the principles of the Mosaic religion. Paul saw the truthfulness and advantages of this, and adopted the same course with great effect before King Agrippa. Stephen spoke plainly of the temple and the nature of the true worship of Jehovah. Paul saw the strength and beauty of this thought and followed it in his speech at Athens. We would not argue from these facts that Paul was a mere copyist, but that Stephen was strictly his predecessor and one of his ablest instructors. ART. V.—THE 1260 YEARS OF ANTICHRIST. THE chronology of the Apocalypse is the vexed question of unfulfilled prophecy. The chief difficulty of explaining and applying prophetic symbols would be removed if we could identify their archetypes in the facts of history; and this again would be more easily accomplished if we could settle the dates and periods of the Apocalypse in their true order. An important step is gained by settling the true scope and scheme of the book itself. Indeed, till this be done we may say of the writer, "he walks on in darkness." We have not space here even to enumerate the various theories, but must content ourselves by simply stating our own, which is, that the design of the book of Revelation is to sketch an outline of the history of the Church from the time of John down to the final judgment day--giving her struggles, her sufferings, her triumphs, her final success and glorious reward, together with the bloody type and the everlasting doom of her enemies. As one object of prophecy is to "forewarn and forearm the Church," it has ever been the method of Divine Wisdom to keep before the eye of faith and "the mind that hath wis dom" some intimations of the providential future relating to. the holy seed, including with greater or less clearness, a description, not only of, the more important facts which were to transpire, but some hints also as to time. Thus the bondage of the Hebrews in Egypt and Babylon, the first advent of Christ, the destruction of Jerusalem, with numerous other events, are examples of this kind. Inquiry, therefore, into the providential future of the Church is both relevant and important when reverently and discreetly made by the light of prophecy and the facts of history. As to time, different methods of notation are adopted in Scripture. The simplest is to put down the period in solar years. But, except in a few instances, chiefly the "four hundred years" " captivity of the Hebrews in Egypt, (Gen. xv, 13,) and their "seventy years"" captivity in Babylon, (Jer. xxv, 11, 12,) there is scarcely a mention made of solar time for the measurement of prophetic cycles. Another mode, of greater frequency, is by symbolic time, or where a lesser period is put for a greater, as a day for a year, a week for seven years, a month for thirty years, or a year of three hundred and sixty days for three hundred and sixty years. Thus, the "seventy weeks" of Daniel (chap. ix, 24) are 70 weeks × 7-490 years. The "forty-two months" of John (Rev. xi, 2) are 42×30=1260 years-always reckoning in symbolic time 30 days to a month. So, also, the "time, times, and a half time," or "time, times, and the dividing of time," (Dan. vii, 25; Rev. xii, 14,) are a year, two years, and a half year, which, reckoning 360 days to a year, and counting each day as the symbol of a year, (as in Ezek. iv, 6,) make 1260 years. The "thousand two hundred and threescore days" (Rev. xi, 3) are, in like manner, 1260 years. Two other methods are resorted to, and are by far the more common, whereby to give a clue to the question of time, namely: the ORDER OF EVENTS, and the NATURE and DESCRIPTIVE CIRCUMSTANCES of events. These are brought out with great prominence in the Apocalypse; the former only giving a general idea of time prior to the event, but both being of indispensable value in connection with other methods. For instance: where events are described serially, it is obvious that if the first, or any subsequent link of the series, can be identified in history, it is easy to trace the connection progress ively or regressively, as the case may be; particularly if, midway of this chain, an important chronological link becomes indisputably recognizable, a large gain is made toward the unfolding of the subsequent periods. Now, such a recognizable link is found in the 1260 years of Antichrist. We are guided in our searchings after this important date by the frequent notations of symbolic time, by the general law of serial order and relation, and by the light of descriptive circumstances. To fix the date of this period has been a focal point to which criticism and investigation have been directed with no common zeal and diligence. If this can be done, the present status of the Church can be clearly defined, and its more immediate future forestalled. The period of the reign of Antichrist, including an account of his downfall, has received greater formality and fullness of description, and a bolder outline of chronological limitation, than any period of the Apocalyptic visions, filling one third the entire book of Revelation. The struggles of the Church. with pagan Rome, with the northern barbarians who disrupted the Western empire, together with the overflowing scourge of the Mohammedans, embracing the periods of the entire first six seals, and six of the trumpet periods under the seventh seal, were dismissed, in less than half the space, in the four preceding chapters. The tenth chapter of Revelation marks an interval in the prophecy, and must be regarded as a formal prelude to the grand and terrific cycle which was to follow. It was the moment of a solemn announcement. The most terrible enemy the Church would ever be called to grapple with now presented himself. When Daniel had beheld him in the remote distance, "he was grieved in his spirit, the visions of his head troubled him," and "his countenance was changed." (Dan. vii, 15, 28.) The period was to be long, and the conflicts of the Church mighty; and now, lest it should be inferred that because the seventh seal had been opened, and six of the trumpet periods under that seal already passed, the end of the Church's warfare had come and the time of her sufferings over, a " mighty angel" descended from heaven, and with one foot upon the sea and the other upon the earth, and with his hand lifted toward heaven, "swore by him that liveth for ever and ever, ότι χρονος οὐκ ἐστι ἐτι, that the time is not yet, but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall sound,* the mystery of God should be finished." Immediately after this prologue contained in the tenth chapter, follow various independent representations of this antichristian power, its nature, its enormous expansion, its malignant persecutions of the faithful, its corruptions and blasphemy, and its everlasting downfall. From the beginning of the tenth chapter to the eleventh verse of the nineteenth chapter, the descriptions are entirely engrossed with the history and doom of Antichrist, and events connected therewith. After the downfall of Antichrist the thread of the prophetic narrative is resumed only at chapter xix, 11. As the principal object of this article is to determine the date of this antichristian period, as nearly as may be by solar measurement, we hasten to this point. In seven different places, by the varied computation of "days," "months," and "times," the years of the reign of Antichrist are put down at just 1260. (Daniel vii, 25; xii, 7; Revelation xi, 2, 3; xii, 6, 14; xiii, 5.) Is there no moral significance in this fact? Is the question of time a matter of simple curiosity? We think not. If, then, Antichrist is to reign 1260 years, and is then, according to the explicit statements of prophecy seven times recorded, to fall to rise no more, it is apparent that to fix the date of this period, to determine where the 1260 years begin, is to supply new matter of consolation and hope to an afflicted and struggling Church, and new motives for patient activity and perseverance. Where, then, do the 1260 years begin? This question can be answered only by a careful attention to descriptive circumstances involving the character, form, and proportions of Antichrist. We arrive at the solution by a sort of inductive process. For instance, when all the characteristics of Antichrist, as laid down in prophecy, are brought together and submitted, then the historic power, or agency, which is found *This is certainly the true rendering. It is well known that μɛλhw is often used to express simple futurity, as in Matthew xi, 14; Luke ix, 31; John xi, 51, et al. The angel evidently intended only to declare the time yet future when "the mystery of God should be finished," that is, God's mysterious providence toward the Church, in allowing her thus to be persecuted. The sequel shows that this "mystery of God" was not finished till late in the period of the seventh trumpet. to embody in itself all these, and to fall within the historic. order and relation of time and sequence indicated, must be assumed to be the real and historic prototype and impersonation of these prophetic symbols and delineations. In no other way could the question be solved from the nature of the case. We have not space for the details of the argument, but must generalize our statements under two heads: the moral character and the external form of Antichrist. It is only by its outgrowth, or external form, that we are able to trace and fix the true chronos of its existence. 1. The Antichrist of prophecy is an apostate Christian Church. Paul says, "The day of the Lord shall not come except there come алоσтασia, THE APOSTACY first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped." So also John describes the same power under the image of a "harlot," the standing symbol of an apostate, idolatrous Church. (Rev. xvii. See Ezek. xvi, xxviii.) The merchandise of mystic Babylon was in the σοματων και ψυχας ανθρωπων, "bodies and souls of men." (Rev. xvii, 13.) She trafficked in the temporal and eternal interests of mankind. 2. Antichrist was to be the great persecutor of the saints, the terror of the Church. "He shall wear out the saints of the Most High," says Daniel, and shall "make war with the saints and prevail against them," "and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people." (Dan. vii, 21, 25; viii, 24.) John saw the "harlot" "drunken with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus," and in "Babylon" was found "the blood of the prophets and of saints." Rev. xvii, 6; xviii, 24. John abounds in the descriptions of Antichrist as a persecuting power. 3. Antichrist is a temporal and spiritual autocracy. Daniel says "he shall think to change times and laws," (chap.vii, 25,) a phrase which exactly denotes the absolute prerogative of God as the supreme ruler of human affairs, as the same prophet himself teaches, (chap. ii, 21:) "And he [God] changeth the times and the seasons; he removeth kings and setteth up kings." Paul says that "he [the man of sin, Antichrist,] as God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God." (2 Thess. ii, 4.) These and such like passages |