the fulfilment of the promises of God in his kingdom.

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The next chapter of this Epistle proceeds as follows: "Let us wait then hourly for the kingdom of " God in love, (charity,) and righteousness: for as "much as we know not the day of the manifestation « of God. For the Lord himself, being inquired of by some one, when his kingdom should come, an“swered, ὅταν (leg. ὅτε) ἔσται τὰ δύο ἓν, καὶ τὸ ἔξω ὡς τὸ ἔσω, καὶ τὸ ἄρσεν μετὰ τῆς θηλείας οὔτε ἄρσεν οὔτε θῆλυ!.” The original of this passage was to be found in the Gospel according to the Egyptians, as we learn from Clemens Alexandrinus: and the party who was supposed to be speaking to our Lord was Salome; the same who in the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark took part in the petition of James and John. A rather fuller account of the conversation is given by Clemens, in another passage ", as follows: Οἱ δὲ ἀντιτασσόμενοι τῇ κτίσει τοῦ Θεοῦ διὰ τῆς εὐφήμου ἐγ κρατείας, κἀκεῖνα λέγουσι, τὰ πρὸς Σαλώμην εἰρημένα, ὧν πρότερον ἐμνήσθημεν· φέρεται δὲ, οἶμαι, ἐν τῷ κατ' Αἰγυπτίους εὐαγγελίῳ. φασὶ γὰρ, ὅτι αὐτὸς εἶπεν ὁ Σωτὴρ, Ἦλθον καταλῦσαι τὰ ἔργα τῆς θηλείας . . . ὅθεν εἰκότως περὶ συντελείας μνήσαντος τοῦ Λόγου, ἡ Σαλώμη φησί. Μέχρι τινὸς οἱ ἄνθρωποι ἀποθανοῦνται ; διὸ καὶ παρατετηρημένως ἀποκρί νεται ὁ Κύριος" Μέχρις ἂν τίκτωσιν αἱ γυναῖκες.

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1 Something like this occurs in the Epistle of Barnabas, no doubt from some apocryphal production, which is nevertheless called the work of a prophet. Ομοίως πάλιν περὶ τοῦ σταυροῦ ὁρίζει ἐν ἄλλῳ προφήτῃ, λέγοντι, καὶ πότε ταῦτα συντελεσθήσεται; καὶ λέγει Κύριος· ὅταν ξύλον κλιθῇ καὶ ἀναστῇ, καὶ ὅταν ἐκ ξύλου αἷμα στάξη. Cap. xii. p. 9. m Operum i. 553. Strom. iii. 13. Cf. 532. 811. Strom. iii. 6: ii. 985. Excerpta Theodoti, 57. ■ Operum i. 539. 42, sqq. Strom. iii. 9.

The doctrine of a reign of the saints as such, seems to be plainly implied in the following passage of the Pastor of Hermas°. Ecce Deus virtutum, qui invisibili virtute, et magno sensu suo, condidit mundum, et honorifico consilio circumdedit decorem creaturæ suæ, et fortissimo suo verbo confixit cœlum, et fundavit terram super aquas, et virtute sua potenti condidit sanctam ecclesiam suam, quam benedixit ; ecce transferet cælos ac montes, colles ac maria; et omnia plena fient (margo plana) electis ejus; ut reddat illis repromissionem quam repromisit cum multo honore et gaudio (si margo) servaverint legitima Dei, quæ acceperunt in magna fide.

In the next vision, the book is supposed to be written in the time of Clemens, no doubt the same who was bishop of Rome; though this is no proof that it was so. The antique fragment quoted in the Reliquiæ Sacræ, speaks of a Pastor composed by Hermas or Herma, at Rome, not long before the time of the writer, when Pius, brother of this Herma, was bishop of Rome; consequently about A. D. 140-150. Yet it must be observed that the work which has descended to posterity under the name of the Pastor or Shepherd, has been ascribed by many ancient and by many modern authorities, to a much older person, the Hermas mentioned by St. Paul, Rom. xvi. 14.

There is a singular passage in Vopiscus' life of the emperor Florianus, whose reign comes in the short interval, between the death of Tacitus, his brother, and the accession of Probus, A. D. 276.

o PP. Apost. 36. lib. i. Visio ia. cap. 3. P Page 37. cap. 4.

q Vol. iv. 5. 1. 21-24.

which seems to me to be founded ultimately on the doctrine of the Christian millenary kingdom. The reader will find it below.

Again, as it is acknowledged that the Koran of Mahomet is made up in a great measure of matter derived from the Old and New Testaments respectively; the resemblance between the paradise of Mahomet and the millennium of Cerinthus, or other Christian heretics who entertained the same gross and carnal opinions of it, is presumptively an argument that the first idea of his peculiar paradise was borrowed by its author from this source; and that the paradise of the Arabian impostor is, in fact, nothing more than the millenary dispensation of Cerinthus, Valentinus, and other heretical Christians.

Lastly, as the doctrine of a future restoration of the Jews to their own country, was shewn by me, General Introduction, chap. xii. part ii. p. 359-365, to be intimately connected with that of the millennium; I would observe upon this subject

r Two statues had been erected to Tacitus and Florianus, at Interamna: Sed dejectæ fulmine, ita contritæ sunt ut membratim jaceant dissipatæ ; quo tempore responsum est ab aruspicibus, quandoque ex eorum familia imperatorem Romanum futurum, seu per fœminam, seu per virum, qui det judices Parthis ac Persis: qui Francos et Alemanos sub Romanis legibus habeat qui per omnem Africam Barbarum non relinquat: qui Taprobanis præsidem imponat: qui ad Romanam (Casaubon would read Britanniam) insulam proconsulem mittat: qui Sarmatis omnibus judicet: (perhaps, judicem det:) qui terram omnem quam oceanus ambit, captis omnibus gentibus, suam faciat postea tamen senatui reddat imperium, et antiquis legibus vivat ipse, victurus annis cxx. et sine herede moriturus. futurum autem eum dixerunt a die fulmine præcipitatis, (forsan fulminis præcipitati,) statuisque confractis, post annos mille. Vopisci Florianus Imperator, 2.

that to the fact of the expectation of such a restoration, as entertained by any good and pious persons of the old dispensation, who had witnessed their captivity, we may add the testimony of the Book of Tobit, which it would be improper to call apocryphal, as it does not profess to be inspired, and yet, in all the circumstances of its allusions to contemporary history, so far as we have the means of judging of them, seems to be a very authentic and credible

account.

The subject of the history of this book was one of those who had been carried away captive, by Enemesar, or Shalmaneser, king of Assyria; and was living afterwards through the reigns of Sennacherib, and Sarchedonus or Esarhaddon, his successors, and later-down to the time immediately preceding the siege of Nineveh, B. C. 609 : i. 15. 21. xiv. 1. 4. 11. Cf. my Dissertations, Appendix iii. vol. iii. p. 262, 263.

He had witnessed then the captivity of the ten tribes; and he speaks by anticipation of that of the two; and of their returning after a time, and rebuilding their city and temple; xiv. 4, 5. It is manifest, therefore, that in his apprehension the return from captivity of the two tribes merely, and the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the temple consequent upon it, were quite distinct from another return of his brethren on a much larger scale, and of the effects to ensue upon that, commensurate to the occasion in grandeur and extent, of which he speaks, xiv. 4-7, and therefore must be supposed to have spoken, in the still more express and particular description thereof, xiii. 5-18.

It is observable that Tobit professes to expect all

these things, not of his own knowledge or inspiration, but because they had been predicted by the prophets. If he was born about B. C. 766, and lived to about B. C. 609, he might be acquainted with the predictions of the prophets; most of whom flourished in the intervening period, especially Micah and Isaiah; and have left descriptions on record relating to a restoration of the long-lost people of God, and the glories of a new Jerusalem, which the advocates of the millennium consider never, as yet, to have been fulfilled. It is surely to such as these that Tobit also must be supposed to allude, as the groundwork of his faith in a future event, the hope and expectation of which constituted more than any thing else the proper support and consolation of himself and his children, in the land of their captivity. And Tobit's testimony to the meaning of such prophecies, it should be remembered, is the testimony of a contemporary; whose faith too, in this article of his belief, so interesting to his nation in general, and so dear to every patriotic breast among his countrymen in particular, it would not be easy to deny, was as sober and rational, as it was firm and unwavering.