CHAPTER XII
THE SANCTUARY CYCLE.
A SECOND long period of time, "2,300 days," or years, is, in
the third vision of Daniel (#Dan 8.), announced by the "wonderful
numberer" who makes the revelation. It was given in reply to a question
with regard to the duration of that taking away of the restored daily
sacrifice, and that casting down of the restored sanctuary which had just
been foretold as destined to take place, and to continue until "the
time of the end," or "the last end of the indignation";
that is, until the period of Divine wrath against the Jewish people should
terminate, until the close of the present Gentile age. The question and
answer are recorded as follows;
"How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, and
the transgression of desolation, to give both the sanctuary and the host
to be trodden under foot? "And he said unto me, Unto two thousand
and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed. . . . Understand,
O son of man: for at the time of the end shall be the vision. . . . And
he said, Behold, I will make thee know what shall be in the last end of
the indignation: for at the time appointed the end shall be" (#Dan
8:13-19).
In order to the clearer comprehension of the nature of this predicted
period, its position in the book of Daniel must be borne in mind. It is
one of the later and not one of the earlier group of visions; one belonging
to the days of the Persians, not to those of the Babylonians; to the restoration
era, not to the captivity era.
It is a remarkable fact that the book of Daniel is written in two different
languages.
It opens in Hebrew; but from #Dan 2:4 to the end of chapter vii. is Aramaic
in the original, the remainder of the book reverting to the Hebrew. Thus
the prophecies of the "times of the Gentiles" are given in Gentile
Chaldee, and the employment of Hebrew in the remaining predictions seems
to indicate that the events foretold in them are viewed from a more Jewish
standpoint, and that the revelation has a mere direct reference to the
Jewish people and the Holy Land. On examination such is found to be the
case. The "times of the Gentiles" have of course a certain relation
to the Jews, as they measure the twenty-five centuries of their subjection
to Gentile power; but their details are given from a distinctly Gentile
point of view. They start with the literal, and end with the spiritual
Babylon, and have to do mainly with the four great Gentile monarchies,
and in the fourth, with the western and not the eastern empire of Rome.
The kingdom of God in which they terminate embraces of course both Jews
and Gentiles, each in their separate sphere, as we learn from other Scriptures.
But with the three last prophecies of Daniel the case is somewhat different.
The first-the celebrated prophecy of the seventy weeks in chapter ix.-foretells
the events of history from a decidedly Jewish point of view. The Redeemer
of mankind at large was recognised and anticipated by the Jews principally
as their Messiah. He was to be the Consolation of Israel, the Lion of
the tribe of Judah, the Prince of the house of David; and in this prophecy
He is mentioned harmoniously as "Messiah the Prince." The destruction
of Jerusalem by Titus, and the long desolation of Judea, are predicted
at the close of the prophecy; the establishment of the new covenant, or
new testament, with many is also foretold; but there is no intimation
of the fact that it was to be established with Gentiles as well as with
Jews, for the calling of the Gentiles was to be a mystery until the days
of Paul (#Eph 3.).
The two later visions of Daniel, in the first of which occurs the period
we are now considering, are similarly sketched from Jewish, and not Gentile,
standpoints. The western empire of Rome is scarcely alluded to. Eastern
history and the eastern apostasy are the subject matter of the predictions.
Gentile action is of course abundantly described: the conquests of Medo-Persia,
the wars of Xerxes and Alexander the Great, the cruelties of Antiochus,
the struggles of the Seleucidæ and the Ptolemies. Eastern rather than
western events are foretold in detail, but all in their relation to the
Jewish people and their sanctuary, the Holy Land and city and temple of
Jerusalem. The people of God contemplated are mainly the Jews, in their
dispersion and in their restoration; and the eastern empire of Rome and
the Moslem power replace in these visions the Papal power, which figures
so largely in the "times of the Gentiles."
We may not pause here to justify these statements, though it were an easy
task to do so, as we are not writing an exposition of the book of Daniel,
but have limited ourselves in these pages to an elucidation of the chronological
rather than of the historical portion of the prophecy, the portion which
it is especially stated "the wise shall understand" in these
last days. But it is needful to premise thus much, as regards the scope
of these later visions, in order to introduce in its place this most important
period, connected with the still future restoration of Israel, when the
sanctuary shall be cleansed.
Careful students of Scripture, who have reflected at all on these topics,
must have observed that in the book of Revelation there is comparatively
little about the Jews and their restoration, that subject having been
fully treated in the Old Testament. The Saracenic invasion and the Turkish
overthrow are indeed predicted in Revelation, for the fifth and sixth,
trumpets are universally recognised as prefiguring the sore "woes"
which were inflicted on the apostate Christian Church of the East by these
desolating powers. But the Mohammedan conquests are there viewed in connexion
with the Christian Churches of the East, and not in connexion with Syria
and the Jews. Yet they stand in a most important relation to Israel also,
and in this connexion they are presented in Daniel viii. It is as the
desolater of Jerusalem, and the ruler of Judæa for twelve centuries, that
this Moslem power principally affects Israel; it occupies the Holy Land
and treads down Jerusalem, and has done so ever since AD. 637, when the
Caliph Omar first brought the country under subjection to Mohammedan despotism.
Now just as the Papacy could not be developed while the emperors were
ruling at Rome, so the Jews cannot be restored while the Turks are masters
in Jerusalem; the one power must needs fall before the other can rise.
The promised land must be freed from Moslem occupation before it can revert
to its lawful heirs, the seed of Abraham. Hence the Mohammedan power has
a double relation: it has been, and is, the cruel foe of Christians; it
has been, and is, the obstacle in the way of Israel’s restoration.
Its removal, under Divine judgment, must therefore figure prominently
in prophecies of Jewish restoration in the last times; just as largely
as the removal of the Papal apostasy, under similar judgments, in the
predictions of the deliverance of the Gentile Church, prior to the establishment
of the kingdom of God on earth.
The Moslem power has merited judgment as much as the Roman apostasy. Its
cruelties, its corruptions, its massacres and its oppressions, its opposition
to the truth, its persecutions, its wide dominion and long duration make
it a marvellously suitable companion to the Papacy. But its sphere is
the East, and not the West; its city is Constantinople, and not Rome;
and its destruction bears a closer relation to Jewish questions than to
Christian ones.
It should be noted further that both in Daniel and in Revelation this
foe is represented as destroyed, not by the brightness of Christ’s
coming, not suddenly in an hour like "Babylon the Great," but
as perishing by inherent decay- "he shall be broken without hand";
"he shall come to his end, and none shall help him"; and under
the symbol of the Euphrates, "the waters thereof were dried up."
This, as is well known, is, and has been, the characteristic fate of the
Ottoman empire. Europe would fain arrest its decay if she could; she will
not suffer any enemy wantonly to attack Turkey; she will not permit it
to be roughly overthrown in selfish aggression. From motives of policy
she would fain uphold it in its present position, but finds it impossible.
Corruption and death are working in the body politic; vitality is failing
at the centre; and Ottoman dominion must, in spite of every effort, soon
cease to exist. It is like a patient already drawing his last breath;
it has still a name to live politically, but it is virtually dead. One
by one its own provinces are dropping off, and it is becoming evident
to all politicians that nothing can arrest its ultimate extinction. The
historian Lamartine long since perceived this, and wrote:
"I wish that Turkey may not perish, that an extensive empire may
not be trampled down to nothing, or driven into the deserts of Asia. But
what is the state of the case? Plains without ploughs, seas without vessels,
rivers without bridges, lands without possessors, villages built with
mud and clay, a capital of wood, ruins of desolation on all sides, are
what constitute the Ottoman empire. In the midst of this ruin and desolation
which they have made, and make daily, some thousands of the Turks in each
province-all concentrated in the towns, drowsy, discouraged, never working,
living miserably upon the spoils of Christian and laborious races- constitute
the inhabitants and masters of the empire; and that empire is alone worth
the whole of Europe. Its sky is finer, its earth more fertile, its ports
more extensive and more safe, its productions mere precious and mere varied,
than these of any other country; it contains 60,000 square leagues. You
see by this rapid sketch that the Ottoman empire is no empire at all;
that it is a misshapen agglomeration of different races, without cohesion
between them, without mutual interests, without a language, without laws,
without religion, and without unity or stability of power. You see that
the breath of life which animated it-religious fanaticism-is extinct;
you see that its fatal and blind administration has devoured the very
race of conquerors, and that TURKEY IS PERISHING FOR WANT OF TURKS!"
There is a difference in the chronological, as well as in the linguistic
and historic features of the two portions of Daniel. The characteristic
measure of the "times of the Gentiles," "seven times,"
does not appear in this prediction of the cleansing of the sanctuary in
the eighth chapter; we find instead this other period of 2,300 years,-a
period 220 years shorter than the duration of the "times of the Gentiles,"
but one which nevertheless expires at or very near the same point as the
earlier, the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth. How is this?
These twenty-three centuries begin later. They measure the history of
events in the three last empires only. They start, not from the beginning
of the kingdom of Babylon, but from the earlier years of Medo-Persia;
they commence, not with the era of Nabonassar, nor with the captivity
era, but with the
RESTORATION ERA OF EZRA AND NEHEMIAH..
In this vision of the ram and the he-goat (#Dan 8:3), the first action
described- the starting-point of the prophecy- is the pushing of the ram
against the goat; in other words, the celebrated invasion of Greece by
Xerxes. Not the lion-like Babylon, but the massive, heavy, ram-like Medo-Persia,
is the first empire here; and it was at the point where this latter empire
succeeded the Babylonian that Jewish restoration commenced.
The predicted 2,300 years must consequently date from some point in the
restored national existence and ritual worship of the Jews, and they include,
not only the whole of that period-the whole of the "seventy weeks,"
or 490 years to Messiah-but also the whole duration of the present second
dispersion, accompanied by a second desolation and defilement of the sanctuary.
This second dispersion commenced with the fall of Jerusalem under Titus,
and was completed by Hadrian, at the close of the Jewish war, AD. 135.
The whole period has lasted therefore, not only through nearly five centuries
before Christ, but through all the eighteen centuries since; and as eighteen
and five are twenty-three, must be very near its close.
The intended terminus a quo is not very distinctly assigned, but as both
the 2,300 years of chapter viii. and the seventy weeks of chapter ix.
start from the Persian period of Jewish history, in other words, as they
both date from the RESTORATION ERA which followed the Babylonian captivity,
their starting- points must he either identical or closely related, chronologically.
Now there is, and can be, no question that the two years, B.C. 457 and
B.C. 444, the dates of the two restoration decrees of Artaxerxes, are
the starting-points of the 490 years to Messiah the Prince, because the
fulfilment of that prophecy has demonstrated the fact. We may therefore
safely take them as two of the starting-points of the longer period also.
But one earlier and two later dates are also indicated by the vision.
Its opening events are, not the restoration decrees of Artaxerxes, but
the wars and victories of Xerxes, the pushing westward and northward and
southward of the Persian ram. What point in this monarch’s career
of conquest is the most marked and critical? Unquestionably his celebrated
invasion of Greece, with an army, according to Herodotus, of five millions
of men-the greatest of his military exploits, and at first a victorious
one. It is true that in its results it brought about the ultimate ruin
of his empire, but its beginning must nevertheless be regarded as the
climax of his career; when he captured Athens he reached the farthest
point of his advance into Europe, and the height of his glory. Napoleon’s
Russian campaign similarly brought about his ruin; but historians agree
that the climax of his greatness was just before he started on that ill-fated
expedition. "Earthly state had never reached a prouder pinnacle,"
says Dr. Arnold, "than when Napoleon, in 1812, gathered his army
at Dresden, that mighty host unequalled in all time, and there received
the homage of subject kings." ["Lectures on Modern History,"
p. 177.]
Xerxes’ invasion of Greece took place in the year B.C. 480, and this
date may be taken, consequently, as the first commencement of the sanctuary
cycle, or period of 2,300 years, to intervene before the full and final
cleansing of the sanctuary. The first stage of Jewish restoration under
Cyrus had already taken place at this time.
On the other hand, the edict given in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes
did not conclude the restoration era, for it was not until the thirty-second
year of that king’s reign that Nehemiah accomplished the work of
reformation described in chapter xiii.6 of his book; while the first "seven
weeks," which are distinguished by the angel from the rest of the
"seventy," [#Dan 9:25.] as the restoration era-as the time of
the reconstruction of the Jewish city and polity-did not terminate in
their earliest form till the reign of Darius Nothus, called "Darius
the Persian" (#Neh 12:20). Forty-nine years, or "seven weeks,"
from B.C. 457, the decree of the seventh of Artaxerxes, expired B.C. 408;
and the same period, reckoned from B.C. 444-the Nehemiah edict of the
twentieth of Artaxerxes- expired thirteen years later, in the time of
Artaxerxes Mnemon, in B.C. 395. These two dates may consequently be taken
as marking the two latest termini of the Persian restoration era of Ezra
and Nehemiah.
The restoration era, from which these twenty-three centuries date, is
consequently that lying between Xerxes’ invasion of Greece, B.C.
480, and the completion of Nehemiah’s cleansing of the sanctuary,
B.C. 395. It includes the following dates:
B.C.
480. Grecian expedition of Xerxes. Starting-point of vision (#Dan 8.).
457. The Ezra decree in the 7th of Artaxerxes.
444. The Nehemiah commission in the 20th of Artaxerxes.
432. Nehemiah’s second commission, in the 32nd of Artaxerxes.
408. End of the " seven weeks" from the Ezra decree.
395. End of "seven weeks" from Nehemiah’s commission.
This last date may be considered to mark the end of Old Testament history,
and the closing incidents recorded are all, it will be observed, of the
nature of a cleansing of the sanctuary (#Neh 13.).
At a distance of twenty-three centuries from the earlier of these six
dates of the restoration era we may expect to meet incipient and then
fuller stages of the final and everlasting "cleansing of the sanctuary,"
and at the same distance from the latest of these dates we may look to
see the full accomplishment of the process. The restoration of Israel,
and the cleansing of the sanctuary, accomplished during this era under
the patronage of the Persian monarchs, were imperfect and temporary. Antiochus
Epiphanes, the Seleucidæ, and the Romans, one after another defiled the
sanctuary again, even during the course of the "seventy weeks"
to Messiah the Prince; and forty-one years after His cutting off, the
Roman armies under Titus overthrew Jerusalem, burned the temple, and took
away both the place and nation of the Jews, inaugurating thus the present
long dispersion of the people and desolation of their sanctuary. The subsequent
Jewish war, under Hadrian, completed the exile of the remnant of the Jews
in AD. 135, after which it was made illegal for any Jew even to set foot
on the soil of Palestine.
That imperfect and temporary cleansing of the sanctuary in the days of
Darius was however typical of the true and everlasting restoration yet
to come, and now close at hand; and this chronological prophecy of twenty-three
centuries was given to measure the interval to this latter-the great antitypical
reality.
Now, first, let it be noticed that this period of 2,300 years is a most
exact and beautiful cycle, as was discovered by a Swiss astronomer, M.
de Cheseaux, last century; a very wonderful cycle, and of a kind that
had long been unsuccessfully sought for by astronomers; a cycle thirty
times longer than the celebrated cycle of Calippus, and having an error
which is only the seventeenth part of the error of that ancient cycle.
It is a period as distinctly marked off as a unit of time, as is a month
or a year. Yet in the days of Daniel this fact cannot of course by any
possibility have been known, as there were no instruments in existence
capable of measuring solar revolutions with sufficient accuracy to reveal
its cyclical character.
The selection and employment of this period consequently in this place
is an unanswerable proof of the inspiration of the book of Daniel, and
was felt to be such by M. de Cheseaux when he discovered the astronomic
nature of this period. It would be a million chances to one that such
a cycle could have been employed by accident. If selected intentionally
as a cycle, it must have been by Him who timed the movements of the sun
and moon in their orbits. [See the account of the remarkable discoveries
of this astronomer in the "Approaching End of the Age," pp.
400-406.]
The question now arises, Where does this long period run out? and to what
events does its termination lead? We may reply, first, generally.
It runs out like the "seven times," both on the lunar and solar
scales, and its various termini fall within "the time of the end";
that is, in the period that has already elapsed since the middle of last
century. It leads to several of the dates we have already considered as
stages in the downfall of the Mohammedan power, as well as to others which
have not yet come before us. One of the measurements is exactly bisected,
just as one of the measurements of the seven times was, by the Saracenic
capture of Jerusalem. In fact, this period may, in a certain sense, be
considered as simply a briefer form of "the times of the Gentiles";
it covers the same period chronologically, omitting the first of the four
empires. Starting as it does, not from the Babylonian captivity era, but
from the Persian restoration era, it includes the last twenty-three only
of the twenty-five centuries of the great Gentile dispensation.
Its lunar measurements run out in the years AD. 1753, 1776, 1789, 1808,
1825, and 1838; while its solar termini extend to the years 1821, 1844,
1857, 1876, and the two still future years 1893 and 1906. The annexed
diagram will show the relation of these dates, all included in "the
time of the end" to their respective termini a quo, in the Persian
restoration era.
And what were the events of these different terminal years? From the nature
of the period we are considering we should expect them to be critical,
especially in connexion with the modern Jewish emancipation movement,
and the fall of Mohammedan power. But as the French Revolution was also
a principal factor in the liberation of the Jews, we need not be surprised
to find it also indicated. THE FIRST CLOSE, the middle of last century,
is recognised as a marked turning- point in Jewish history by its own
distinguished historian, Prof. Griitz.
"So clearly and indubitably does the middle of the last century mark
a turning point in this respect in the history of the Jews, that the eminent
Jewish historian, Prof. Gratz, in his great work on ‘The History
of the Jews,’ dates the beginning of the fourth and last of the.
periods into which he divides Jewish history from A.D. 1750, and introduces
that part of his work with the following words-words which, in the light
of the present argument, are very suggestive: "‘Can a nation
be born in a day? or can a nation he born again? Yet in one nation a new
birth appears, a resurrection out of a state of death and apparent corruption;
and that in a race which is long past the vigour of youth, whose history
numbers thousands of years. Such a miracle deserves the closest attention
of every man who does not overlook all wonderful phenomena. Mendelssohn
had said at the beginning of this period, "My nation is kept at such
a distance from all culture, that one might well doubt the possibility
of any improvement." And yet she arose with such marvellous quickness
out of her abasement, as if she had heard a prophet calling unto her,
Arise! arise! Shake off the dust. Loose the bonds of thy chains, O captive
daughter of Zion." [Dr. Kellogg: "The Jews," p. 144.]
The year 1753 witnessed the first Jewish emancipation act in England,
an act which, although it was repealed the following year, yet indicates
the beginning of a movement which has never since been arrested. This
was the period of the rise of the distinguished Jewish writer Moses Mendelssohn,
who prepared the way for the great change that was so soon to pass over
his people. Of the influence of Mendelssohn Dr. Kellogg writes;
"Mendelssohn prepared the way for the great change that was so soon
to pass on Israel, both by his influence on his own people, and by the
effect of his life and work upon the sentiments and prejudices of the
Gentile peoples of Europe. Till his day the Jews, in a proud isolation,
had held themselves in a great measure aloof from the thought, and even
from the language, of their merciless oppressors. . . . It was Mendelssohn,
first of any among the German Jews, who ventured to enter the profane
precincts of Gentile literature. While none the less familiar with his
native Hebrew, he became a master of the classic German; and so by his
writings brought the German Jews for the first time into contact with
the Gentile life and thought of which the German language was the channel.
. . . Thus, after an isolation of centuries, they began to feel the full
force of the influence of German thought and culture, and so were gradually
brought into a position to exert in turn a mighty influence on the Gentiles.
Besides this, Mendelssohn, by his notes upon and translation of the Pentateuch,
and also by his constant protest against the authority of the synagogue
to interfere with the right of individual opinion in religious matters,
initiated a great movement against the old rabbinical Judaism, which had
for so long a time stood as an impassable barrier between Jews and Gentiles.
Thus, quite without intention of his own, he became the immediate author
of all that deadly rationalistic tendency which has now so great prevalence
and power among the Jews. As Mendelssohn did so much to bring his people
in various ways nearer in sympathy to the Gentiles, so, on the other hand,
he did scarcely less to enlist Gentile sympathy for the Jews. His rare
intellectual endowments, together with the singular attractiveness of
his personal character, did very much among the influential circles of
Europe to diminish that indiscriminating prejudice of ages, which could
believe no good thing of a Jew. How much he influenced Gentile thought
and action we can appreciate, when we recall his intimate relations with
such men as Lessing, Goethe, Chancellor Dohm, and Mirabeau; and the active
influence of Mendelssohn dates from the same decade which sew the initial
act of Jewish emancipation in England."
This, it will also be remembered, was the decade of the commencement of
Voltaire’s anti-Christian influence in Europe, which provoked the
French Revolution..
THE SECOND LUNAR CLOSE is the year A.D. 1776, the date of the American
declaration of independence, which was indirectly one of the causes of
the French Revolution; and the other two lunar closes are, as will be
recognised at a glance, leading crises of that great Revolution itself.
But what has the French Revolution to do with Jewish emancipation, or
the cleansing of the sanctuary?
Much every way. Louis XVI. sent his French troops under Lafayette to assist
the United States in their struggle for freedom and independence. When
that struggle was crowned with success, these French officers and troops
returned to France, carrying with them seed-germs of republican ideas,
which, while they developed beneficently and gloriously in the virgin
soil of a new and unpeopled continent, produced, on the contrary, in the
exhausted soil and amid the old world institutions of Catholic Christendom
a poisonous and destructive harvest. The force engendered a few years
later on by these revolutionary notions induced the destructive volcanic
action which shook into ruins the governments and institutions of Europe,
and desolated all its countries with sanguinary and long- continued wars.
In the midst of the great upheaving and dislocation of society which resulted,
Israel obtained her emancipation. The fetters fell everywhere from the
limbs of the long oppressed and long suffering Jew, and before the revolutionary
earthquake subsided he was no longer the slave of the Gentile, but a free
man among his fellows. The new-born United States were the first nation
to embody the principle of Jewish equality before the law in the fundamental
statutes of their new constitution of 1776.
Nor was this all. The fearful judgments which in these years crushed all
the Catholic nations of Christendom, had two other unlooked-for and most
important results. They established the military and maritime supremacy
and the vast colonial empire of Great Britain, which went into the revolutionary
wars a dwarf and emerged from them a giant; and they established also
a new power in Europe, the mighty military empire of Russia, which now
rules a non-Catholic empire extending from the walls of China to the Baltic
Sea, and from the Arctic Ocean to the Himalayan Mountains. This is the
power to which has been allotted the task of overthrowing Mohammedan rule
in Europe and Asia; its greatness has ever since grown exceedingly, year
by year, and it has yet a most momentous part to play in the near future.
Russia is the great foe of Islam, and Britain is the great friend of the
Jews, because the great protector of the oppressed; both are strongly
anti- Catholic, and Russia is in addition strongly anti-Mohammedan. The
French Revolution movement, which unintentionally placed these two nations
in the forefront of the family of European peoples, must needs be regarded,
therefore, as an all-important one in connexion with the fall of the Papal
and Mohammedan apostasies, and in the contemporaneous liberation of the
Jews and cleansing of their sanctuary. Though called the French Revolution,
because it happened to originate in France, that great movement really
ran on into a European one, the duration of which was not limited between
the convocation of the states-general and the entry of the allies into
Paris, but reaches back to the middle of the eighteenth century for its
commencement, and continues as to its consequences to this day.
THE THIRD LUNAR CLOSE AD. 1789, which terminated twenty-three centuries
from the Nehemiah starting-point, was in the West the year of the destruction
of the Bastile in Paris, marking the actual outbreak of the French Revolution;
and in the East, that of a most disastrous war between Turkey and the
Empress Catherine of Russia in alliance with Joseph of Austria,-a war
which resulted in a decided advance in the downfall of the Porte.
THE FOURTH LUNAR CLOSE, A.D. 1808, witnessed the foundation of the first
society for the evangelization of the Jews. And the FIFTH, 1825, fell
in the midst of the Greek War of Independence, and coincides with the
point at which the Porte, "tired and terrified with a struggle in
which its armies had been swallowed up during three successive years without
any result." [ "Turkey, Old and New," p.
362. Menzies] was driven to call in the aid of. Egypt, a step which afterwards
led to its loss of that country also.
THE SIXTH AND LAST LUNAR CLOSE, 1838, was marked by the outbreak of the
Egyptian insurrection of Mehemet Ali, which led to the independence of
Egypt.
THE SIX SOLAR CLOSES of the period of twenty-three centuries from the
six starting-points of the restoration era are the years A.D. 1821, 1844,
1857, and 1876 in the past, and 1893 and 1906 in the future. All the four
first, as we have previously shown, brought most marked crises in the
fall of Turkey, and ought consequently to be regarded as so many stages
in the cleansing of the sanctuary. A.D. 1821 was the year of that insurrection
in Greece which ended in its total liberation a little later on. Greece
had always been regarded by the Porte as one of its most important and
valuable provinces, and vehemently did it strive to avert Greek independence.
At the news of the outbreak in the Morea, the ferocity and fanaticism
of the Ottomans were aroused, and the Greeks in Constantinople were mercilessly
massacred, the churches pillaged, the patriarch hanged at the door of
his own palace, while three archbishops, eighty bishops, and numbers of
other members of the synod shared the same fate. In Thrace, Macedonia,
Thessaly, and all parts of the empire, peaceable and defenceless Greeks
were pillaged and slain, and the cruelties and enormities perpetrated
roused all their fellow-countrymen at home to desperation. One wealthy
man alone contributed five millions towards the cost of the war. ["Turkey
Old and New," p. 359. Menzies.] The insurrection made progress; the
Turks were beaten; and in their fierce indignation they committed a suicidal
act in commanding the massacre of the male population of the island of
Scio. Ten thousand Asiatic Moslems landed on its shores, and in a brief
time, out of one hundred thousand inhabitants, only nine hundred remained!
This action raised a cry of horror throughout Europe, and the maddened
Greeks took a startling vengeance. They set fire to the Turkish fleet,
half of which was destroyed, beat enormous armies of Turkish soldiers,
and continued to struggle till they gained their complete liberation from
the Turkish yoke.
Of the year 1844 we have before spoken, as it is indicated by other periods
than the one we are now considering. This year brought no military defeat,
but one of a far more important character, both as marking the loss of
the independence of the Porte, and the liberation of its Jewish and Christian
subjects. It was the year in which the united powers of Europe obliged
the Turkish Government to cease the practice of execution for apostasy;
in other words, to cease persecuting on religious grounds. This, being
contrary to the fundamental principles of Mohammedanism, would never have
been conceded, until all power of resistance had failed. The grand vizier,
in a correspondence with the English Government on this subject, says:
"The laws of the Koran are inexorable as regards any Mussulman who
is convicted of having renounced his faith. No consideration can produce
a commutation of the capital punishment to which the law condemns him
without mercy." The only reply was: "Her Majesty’s Government
require the Porte to abandon once for all so revolting a principle. If
the Porte has any regard for the friendship of England, it must renounce
absolutely and without equivocation the barbarous practice which has called
forth the remonstrance now addressed to it." Russia wrote with similar
distinctness, "We positively expect no longer to witness executions
which excite the indignation of all Christendom." Even after similar
appeals from all the great powers the Porte would have put them off with
the statement that "the law did not admit of any change," but
the ambassadors would not receive it. At last a concession was obtained
with the greatest difficulty, and only by the firmest resolution, and
the following official declaration was published: "The Sublime Porte
engages to take effectual measures to prevent henceforward the execution
and putting to death of the Christian who is an apostate. Henceforward
neither shall Christianity be insulted in my dominions, nor shall Christians
be in any way persecuted for their religion."
This decree was published in the 1260th year of the Hegira. It is dated
March 21st,
1844. This date is the first of Nisan in the Jewish year, and is exactly
to a day twenty-three centuries from the first of Nisan, B.C. 457, the
day on which Ezra states that he left Babylon in compliance with the decree
given in the seventh year of the reign of Artaxerxes.
Of the year 1856-7 we have spoken fully elsewhere; it marked the close
of the Crimean war, and the adoption of the EUROPEAN CONCERT ON THE EASTERN
QUESTION, by which the five great powers undertook conjointly to regulate
the dissolution of the Ottoman empire-the date of the Treaty of Paris.
And lastly, the year 1876 witnessed, as we know, the commencement of the
recent Russo-Turkish war, the result of which would have been the total
overthrow of the Ottoman empire but for the action of England. By the
Conference of Berlin the larger part of the remaining portion of the Turkish
dominions in Europe was rendered independent of the Porte, and England
established a protectorate over the Asiatic dominions of the sultan. Of
the last two solar closes, A.D. 1893 and 1906, both still future dates,
we will speak later on.
It is evident that the 2,300 years of the sanctuary cycle indicate, not
so much a closing year as a closing era, not so much a point of time as
a process. Of a garden it might be said, "Let it lie fallow for the
winter months; then shall it be cleansed and cropped." In the early
weeks of March there might be few signs that the prediction would be fulfilled,
though labourers might be digging and levelling here and there. An observer
might say, "Spring has come, but the garden is not cleansed and cropped."
Gradually, however, appearances change; plot after plot is brought into
order and duly sown. Presently the seeds begin to spring, and by the end
of May the garden is clad in verdure, it is cleansed and stocked. Thus
the expression, "unto 2,300 years, then shall the sanctuary be cleansed,"
seems to mean, then shall the cleansing process begin, not then shall
it come to an end. Jewish restoration is going on gradually and by stages,
as Jewish decline and fall did 2,520 years ago, and as the former Persian
restoration did 2,300 years ago. The process is naturally a slow one.
The once mighty Ottoman empire could not be overthrown in a year, nor
in a decade, nor in a century. Empires that spring up gourd-like in a
night may perish in a night, as did the empire of Napoleon III.; but in
the ease of mighty and extended ones, consolidated by powerful bonds and
ages of duration, decay is as slow as growth. The oak, that is a century
in attaining maturity, and lives for many centuries, takes centuries also
to perish.
The terminal years of this great period, if we include its lunar measures,
take us back to the middle of last century; and if we confine our attention
to its principal solar closes, to the time that has elapsed since 1821,
covering thus the events in Jewish, Mohammedan, and Syrian history which
have occurred during the last sixty-five years. They have not brought
the cleansing of the sanctuary. They have brought many stages leading
to that great result; they have brought it perceptibly nearer; they have
shown the means by which it is likely to be at last accomplished-the gradual
rise of the Jews, and the gradual decadence of the Ottomans; they have
led us to a point at which the climax of the liberation of Syria and the
restoration of Israel may be said to have come within the range of practical
politics: but they have not brought the end. We are still some few years
distant from the close of the period when, according to prophecy, that
end is to come.
We have seen reason at a previous stage of our examination of these prophetic
periods, to anticipate that the very proximate year 1889 will see Jerusalem
liberated from Moslem tyranny. This sanctuary cycle points us on to two
other future dates, 1893 and 1906. What events are these years likely
to bring? We do not venture even to suggest, but may remark that the overthrow
of Ottoman rule in Syria, whenever it occurs, may, or may not, mark the
close of "the times of the Gentiles."
It is quite possible, and perhaps we may say probable, that when the Turks
first cease to exercise direct control in Palestine, the country will
be placed under a protectorate, either a joint protectorate of the western
nations, or possibly, as less difficult to work, under the protectorate
of one or two of them, or even of England only, as it already has a sort
of protectorate in these regions through the Anglo- Turkish convention
about Cyprus. In that case Turkish rule would be succeeded by another
Gentile power; Jerusalem would still be under Gentile rule, showing that
the "times of the Gentiles" were still running their course.
Such rule might be brief, and autonomy might, after a few years, be granted
to the people of the land under a Jewish governor, and so it might continue
to the end of the age. There seems to be no distinct revelation on this
point in Scripture prophecy, though it is clear, from the twelfth of Zechariah,
that there will be governors of Judæa in Jerusalem at the final crisis,
and that Israel’s God will defend them and their city against the
confederation of hostile allies who will apparently be besieging Jerusalem
at the time of the glorious advent of Christ with His saints.
It is, however, useless to speculate as to the detail of future events,
even when the occurrence of the events themselves is distinctly predicted,
and is near at hand. We may know that certain things will happen, because
the Scriptures distinctly predict them, and we may know when they will
happen, because the time of their occurrence has been revealed; but we
may yet be entirely ignorant as to how they will be brought about, because
the mode has not been revealed. That the sanctuary will be cleansed, or
Syria freed from Moslem domination, at the close of this cycle of twenty-three
centuries, there seems little room to doubt; but how the deliverance will
be effected, or with what immediate results, it is not for us or for any
one to say: time will declare. The ultimate result is clear: the rapid
restoration of a considerable number of the Jewish people to the land
of their fathers, where they will repent and be converted, led to say,
"Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord!" and be
thus prepared to welcome their long-rejected King, Messiah..
"Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people
round about, when they shall he in the siege both against Judah and against
Jerusalem. And . . I will make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people.
. . . I will smite every horse with astonishment, and his rider with madness.
. . . The Lord shall save the tents of Judah first, . . . and shall defend
the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and destroy all the nations that come against
Jerusalem.
Then shall the Lord go forth, and fight against those nations, as when
He fought in the day of battle. And His feet shall stand in that day upon
the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east. . .
The Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with Thee. . . . And the
Lord shall be King over all the earth: in that day shall there be one
Lord, and His name one" (#Zech 12:2 - 14:9).
What the interval between the cleansing of the sanctuary and this final
and glorious crisis is likely to be, we must learn from the chronology
of the times of the Gentiles. This cycle of twenty-three centuries from
the Persian restoration era leads no further than the deliverance of the
Holy Land from Gentile rule.
Index Preface 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Appendix A Appendix B
