wanting in it. But the Jews superstitiously confine themselves to the number of five particulars in this reckoning. For, in the eighth verse of the first chapter of Haggai, where God saith of the second temple, I will take pleasure in it, and will be glorified, the Hebrew word Aicabedha, i. e. I will be glorified, being written without the letter He at the end of it, which it ought to have been written with, they make a mystery of it, ask if this letter, (which is the numerical letter for five,) were there left out for this purpose, that the want of it might denote the five things of the first temple that were wanting in the second; and therefore will not add a sixth. But, however, there are some among them, who, to make room for it, contract the Shechinah and the spirit of prophecy under one and the same head, and, instead of them two, (which are two of the particulars abovementioned,) put the Holy Spirit, as reckoning them no other than different manifestations of the same Holy Spirit of God, the one in a place, and the other in a person, and thereby, without altering the number of five in the reckoning up of these defects, have given the holy anointing oil a place among them; and therefore name them as followeth: 1. The ark of the covenant, with the mercy-seat; 2. The holy fire; 3. The Urim and Thummim; 4. The holy anointing oil; and, 5. The Holy Spirit. And these, as well as many other particulars of the glory of the first temple, being wanting in the second, there was reason enough for those to weep at the rebuilding of the second temple who remembered the first. But all these wants and defects were abundantly repaired in the second temple,' when the desire of all nations, the Lord, whom they sought, came to this his temple, and Christ our Saviour, who was the truest Shechinah of the divine majesty, honoured it with his presence: and, in this respect, the glory of the latter house did far exceed the glory of the former house. And herein the prophecies of the prophet Haggai, m which foretold it should be so, had a very full and thorough completion. k Talmud Hierosol. in Taanith, c. 2. Mal. iii, 1. Hag. ii, 7. m Hag. ii, 9. An. 534. Cyrus 3. The Samaritans, hearing that the Jews had begun to rebuild the temple of Jerusalem, came" thither, and, expressing a great desire of being admitted to worship God at the same temple in joint communion with them, offered to join with them in building of it; telling them, that, ever since the days of Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, they had worshipped the same God that they did. But Zerubbabel and Jeshua, and the rest of the elders of Israel, made answer to them, that they, not being of the seed of Israel, had nothing to do to build a temple to their God with them; that Cyrus' commission being only to those of the house of Israel, they would keep themselves exactly to that, and, according to the tenor of it, build the house to the Lord their God themselves, without admitting any other with them into the work. The reason of this answer was, they saw they intended not sincerely what they said, but came with an insidious design to get an opportunity, by being admitted among them, of doing them mischief. And, besides, they were not truly of their religion: for although, from the time that they had been infested with lions in the days of Esarhaddon, they had worshipped the God of Israel; yet it was only in conjunction with their other gods, whom they worshipped before, and therefore, notwithstanding their worship of the true God, since they worshipped false gods too at the same time, they were in this respect idolaters: and this was reason enough for the true worshippers of God to have no communion with them. At which the Samaritans being much incensed, they did all they could to hinder the work; and although they could not alter Cyrus' decree, yet they prevailed, by bribes and underhand dealings with his ministers, and other officers concerned herein, to put obstructions to the execution of it, so that for several years the building went but very slowly on; which the Jews resenting, according as it deserved, this became the beginning of that bitter rancour which hath ever since been between them and the Samaritans; which, being improved by o 2 Kings xvii, 3. n Ezra iv. p Ezra iv, 5. Joseph. Antiq. lib. 11, c. 2. other causes, grew at length to that height, that nothing became more odious to a Jew than a Samaritan; of which we have several instances in the gospels; and so it still continues. For, even to this day, a Cuthean (that is, a Samaritan,) in their language, is the most odious name among them, and that which, in the height of their anger, by way of infamy and reproach, they bestow on those they most hate and abominate. And by this they commonly call us Christians, when they would express the bitterest of their hatred against us. By these underhand and subdolous dealings, the work of the temple being much retarded, and Cyrus' decree in many particulars defeated of its effect, this seems to have been the cause, that in the third year of Cyrus, in the first month of that year, Daniel did give himself up to mourning and fasting for three weeks together. After this, on the twenty-fourth day of that month, he saw the vision concerning the succession of the kings of Persia, the empire of the Macedonians, and the conquests of the Romans; of which the three last chapters of his prophecies contain an account. And, by what is written in the conclusion of the last of them, he seems to have died soon after; and his great age makes it not likely that he could have survived much longer. For the third of Cyrus being the seventy-third year of his captivity, if he were eighteen years old at his carrying to Babylon (as I have shewn before, is the least that can be supposed,) he must have been in the ninety-first year of his age at this time; which was a length of years given to few in those days. He was a very extraordinary person both in wisdom and piety, and was favoured of God, and honoured of men, beyond any that had lived in his time. His prophecies concerning the coming of the Messiah, and other great events of after-times, are the clearest and the fullest of all that we have in the holy Scriptures, insomuch that "Porphyry, in his objections against them, saith, they must have been written after the facts were done: for it seems they rather appeared to him to be a narration of matters afore q Dan. x. r Hieronymus in Prooemio ad Comment. in Danielem. X transacted, than a prediction of things to come; so great an agreement was there between the facts, when accomplished, and the prophecies which foretold them. But, notwithstanding all this, the Jews do not reckon him to be a prophet; and therefore place his prophecies only among the Hagiographa: and they serve the Psalms of David after the same rate. The reason which they give for it in respect of both is, that they lived not the prophetic manner of life, but the courtly; David in his own palace, as king of Israel, and Daniel in the palace of the king of Babylon, as one of his chief counsellors and ministers in the government of that empire. And, in respect of Daniel, they further add," that, although he had divine revelations delivered unto him, yet it was not in the prophetic way, but by dreams and visions of the night, which they reckon to be the most imperfect manner of revelation, and below the prophetic. But Josephus, who was one of the ancientest writers of that nation, reckons him among the greatest of the prophets; and says further of him, that he had familiar converse with God, and did not only foretel future events, as other prophets did, but also determined the time, when they should come to pass; and that, whereas other prophets only foretold evil things, and thereby drew on them the ill-will both of princes and people, Daniel was a prophet of good things to come, and, by the good report which his predictions carried with them on this account, reconciled to himself the good will of all men. And the event of such of them as were accomplished, procured to the rest a thorough belief of their truth, and a general opinion that they came from God. But what makes most for this point with us, against all that contradict it, our Saviour Christ acknowledgeth Daniel to be a prophet; for he so styles him in the gospel. And this is a sufficient decision of this matter. s Hieronymi Præfatio in Danielem. Maimonides in Morch Nevochim, part 2, c. 45. t Vide Grotium in Præfatione ad Comment. in Esaiam, et Huetii demonstrationem Evangelicum, prop. 4, c. 14, sec. de propheta Danielis. u Maimonides, ibid. David Kimchi in Præfatione ad Comment. in Psalmos. x Antiq. lib. 10, c. 12. y Matt. xxiv, 15. But Daniel's wisdom reached not only to things divine and political, but also to arts and sciences, and particularly to that of architecture. And Josephus tells us of a famous edifice built by him at Susa, in the manner of a castle (which he saith was remaining to his time,) and finished with such wonderful art, that it then seemed as fresh and beautiful, as if it had been newly built. Within this edifice, he saith, was the place where the Persian and Parthian kings used to be buried; and that, for the sake of the founder, the keeping of it was committed to one of the Jewish nation, even to his time. The copies of Josephus that are now extant, do indeed place this building in Ecbatana in Media; but a St. Jerome, who gives us the same account of it word for word out of Josephus, and professeth so to do, placeth it in Susa in Persia; which makes it plain, that the copy of Josephus, which he made use of, had it so: and it is most likely to have been the true reading; for Susa being within the Babylonish empire, the Scripture tells us, that Daniel had sometimes his residence there; and the common tradition of those parts hath been for many ages past, that Daniel died in that city, which is now called Tuster, and there they shew his monument even to this day. And it is to be observed, that Josephus calls this building Baris, which is the same name by which Daniel himself calls the castle or palace at Shushan or Susa. For what we translate,d at Shushan in the palace, is, in the original, Beshushan Habirah, where, no doubt, the Birah of Daniel is the same with the Baris of Josephus; and both signify this palace or castle there built by Daniel, while he was governour of that province: fore there he did the king's business, i. e. was governour for the king of Babylon. Part of the book of Daniel is originally written in the Chaldee language, that is, from the fourth verse of the second chapter to the end of the seventh chapter: for there the holy prophet treating of Babylonish affairs, he wrote of them in the Chaldee or Babylonish z Antiq. lib. 10, c. 12. a Comment. in Dan. viii, 2. |