CHAPTER V.

THE LITTLE HORN.

THE symbol of the little horn has been explained of almost every remarkable personage, or of every startling phenomenon, which has agitated the world from the days of Daniel to the present time. Intense hatred of a cognate church has driven the majority of Protestant interpreters to apply the symbol to the church of Rome, that ecclesiastical bug-bear which is immediately suggested to some minds as often as the word "beast" is met with in the Scriptures. A statement of the so-called arguments on which this, aud similar theories, are supposed to be founded, would require a volume of greater dimensions than the present; but perhaps the enumeration of them is less to be regretted when it is remembered that the interpretations are mutually destructive one of another. Others, again, have applied the symbol to Antichrist, and have explained the figures descriptive of the struggle between the Jewish patriots and their Syrian oppressors of some future contest between the Church and the powers of evil. This interpretation would seem to be purely arbitrary, and to have its origin in an attempt to divest the book of Daniel of its historical character. With equal disregard of exegetical consistency, it has been attempted to separate verses 35-45 of chapter xi.

from the preceding subject and to refer them to an Antichrist yet to be revealed; in forgetfulness of the context which is occupied with the history of Antiochus until his miserable death at the end of the chapter. The late date which we have adopted precludes this system of capricious interpretation and confines the field of inquiry within the chronological horizon of the writer. If such limitation increases the difficulty of finding a suitable meaning, it also adds, if it can be found, to its conclusiveness; for to obtain within a given cycle a more satisfactory interpretation than that for which long periods have been vainly exhausted is a strong presumption in favour of truth.

In our own opinion the symbol of the "little horn " can only represent the great oppressor of the Jewish nation, Antiochus Epiphanes. It would, we think, be simply difficult to find another who could answer to the character and fulfil the description given of him by Daniel. And in order to maintain this view there is no necessity, as is sometimes thought, to press the question of a Maccabean date; for even on the supposition that the book of Daniel is a genuine work of the time of the captivity, no other interpretation could be seriously entertained. This opinion is firmly held by Moses Stuart.

1 "The critics of both schools are almost unanimous in referring the 'little horn' of chapter viii. to Antiochus Epiphanes. He was a Syrian, and naturally took his rise from the Græco-Macedonian dynasty. On no supposition could he be said to have sprung from the Roman empire. And if his portrait be accurately drawn in chapter viii. it is equally so in chapter vii. To apply one description to one prince, and another to a second, is met by the prima facie objection that it destroys the unity of the book and is contradicted by an evident similarity of details. A comparison of the passages vii. 8, 11, 20, 21, 24-26, and viii. 9-12, 22-25, will leave no other impression on the mind of an unprejudiced person than this: that they pourtray but one character under differences due to a gradual and successive revelation, and permissible through probable intervals of composition."--REV. J. M. FULLER, p. 240.

"From this dynasty (the divided Grecian dominion) springs Antiochus (vii. 8, 20), who is most graphically described (v. 25) as one who shall 'speak great words against the Most High and shall wear out the saints of the Most High." He is supported in this view by nearly every writer of consideration who has given his thoughts on this subject to the world. In endeavouring to maintain this position we shall first cite the passages in which the persecutor, and the qualities ascribed to him, are set forth; and then show from contemporaneous and subsequent history their fulfilment in the person and circumstances of Antiochus Epiphanes.

I. THE RISE OF ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES.

"I considered the horns and behold there came up among them another little horn" (vii. 8).

"Another (horn) shall rise after them and he shall be diverse from the first" (vii. 24).

"And out of one of them (the four notable ones) came forth a little horn" (viii. 9).

"In the latter time of their kingdom (the four notable ones) when the transgressors are come to the full (ubi compleverint peccatores peccata sua), a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up" (viii. 23).

"And in his estate (Seleucus Philopator) shall stand up a vile person (Antiochus Epiphanes) to whom they shall not give the honour of the kingdom" (xi. 21).

Antiochus Epiphanes, the second son of Antiochus the Great, sprang from the stock of the Syrian inheritors of the Macedonian conquests. "Out of them (the four potent successors of Alexander) arose another lesser horn, Antiochus Epiphanes" (Ant. x. 11). This direct testimony of Josephus is confirmed by the writer of the first book of Maccabees. "There came out of them (the ser

vants of Alexander who all put crowns upon themselves) a wicked root (pia àμapтwλós), Antiochus, surnamed Epiphanes, son of Antiochus the king" (1 Macc. i. 10). He is described as a "little horn" (parvis initiis); less than the four notable ones who succeeded the Macedonian conqueror, or the ten Syro-Egyptian horns, whilst the surname "Epiphanes," although common to other kings, was given to him on account of the unenviable notoriety which he acquired as the persecutor of the holy people.

The time of his appearance on the scene of Jewish affairs is distinguished as one of great national apostacy. The conquests of Alexander had introduced Greek customs and modes of thought among the inhabitants of Palestine, and it required but slight external pressure to draw away a people half ashamed of their eccentric habits and the peculiarities of their burdensome ceremonial from the faith of their forefathers. Grecian games were already in vogue at Jerusalem, and the foreign appellations of Jason and Menelaus were assumed by the highpriests, Jesus, and Onias themselves (Ant. xii. 5). Citizens of Jerusalem were not ashamed to call themselves Antiochians, or to send special messengers "to the sacrifice of Hercules" at Tyre (2 Macc. iv. 9-19). In the language of Daniel, "transgressors were come to the full," and the time had arrived when the wicked should "do wickedly against the covenant" (viii. 23; xi. 32); or, as it is elsewhere described, when "wicked men persuaded many. ... and made themselves uncircumcised and forsook the holy covenant" (1 Macc. i. 1115). The accession of Antiochus to the Syrian throne at this critical period, while it greatly favoured the designs

of the Hellenizing party, prepared the way, as in former periods of Jewish history, for the punishment of the national wickedness; and, to use the language of the prophet, "an host (the Jewish people) was given (to be destroyed) against-together with the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression" (viii. 12). The same idea is insisted upon by the Maccabean writer-"Not setting by the honours of their fathers, but liking the glory of the Grecians best of all, by reason whereof sore calamity came upon them; for they had them to be their enemies and avengers whose custom they followed so earnestly, and unto whom they desired to be like in all things" (2 Macc. iv. 1516). Thus their sin became their punishment, and their desertion of the sanctuary was avenged in the pollution of the sanctuary itself. It has already been observed that the epoch which introduces Antiochus is defined to be "the latter time of the kingdom" of the four notable successors of Alexander, an epoch at the same time subsequent to and contemporaneous with the "ten horns." This description corresponds harmoniously with the circumstances of the rise of the Syrian persecutor; and possibly of no other could it be affirmed with equal fitness, that he should arise "among" and "after" i.e. contemporaneously, yet subsequently to the ten kings, as well as "out of" and "in the latter time of the kingdom" of the four potent successors of Alexander.