The idea that the improvement and the happiness of the human race is progressive, and that the succeeding age is always to be superior to the present, appears to have prevailed in every clime and in every age of the world. Such a sentiment seems indeed to be interwoven with our very nature and constitution; and the words of the Poet are true, not only of each individual of the species, but also of every successive generation:—
When we take an extensive review of the past, we also find that there have been ages of the world previous to our own, in which mankind enjoyed a length of days, and a degree of innocence and happiness, now altogether unknown. All have, in fact, heard of the blessedness of the Paradisaical state, and all sigh for its return. The restoration of man to this state, has been the subject of promise, and the theme of prophecy and song; the sentiment has been found in all countries, and under every Dispensation; and many of the Divine appointments, both of nature and of Providence, seem to have had an express reference to the accomplishment of this glorious and benignant purpose. The Septenary division of time was impressed on the human mind from the era of creation; it was perpetuated in the Mosaic institutions; and a constant succession of Septennial changes in the frame of man himself from his birth to his death, has tended to keep alive the idea that the Great period of the Restoration of all things is measured by the number Seven. Hence, arose the universal opinion, corroborated by tradition, that the World was to continue for Six successive ages, appointed ages of trial and probation, and that the Seventh age would be a state of never-ending felicity and joy. Poets and philosophers, always the most sanguine of our race, have in every nation seized upon this idea, and by the splendid efforts of their genius, engrafted it upon the early history of their respective countries. Thus, compositions which were at first admired only as the production of superior intellect, became early incorporated with the popular creed, and were at last admitted by all as the true records of antiquity.[53]
The Jews, with whose forefathers no doubt the true ideas concerning the various ages of the world originated, had, as we have seen, divided the Grand Interval from Creation to the time assigned by prophecy for the coming of the Messiah, into six subordinate periods, the true extent of which we have already determined. More than a thousand years, however, before the latter event took place, the great Hebrew Warrior and King prophesied in Sacred Song, concerning the only begotten Son of God, who was to receive the Heathen for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the Earth for his possession; concerning Him who was to be fairer than the children of men, and whose throne, like that of the Eternal, was to be for ever and ever; whose dominion should be from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth; and before whom all kings should fall down and worship, and whom all nations should serve and call the Blessed and only Potentate; Psalms ii., xlv., lxxii. About three centuries later than the time of David, Isaiah received his Divine Commission to deliver the prophecy concerning Him of whom Moses and the Prophets did write, in which He was described as “the Wonderful Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Prince of Peace, and the Father of the Future or Everlasting Age.”[54] During the Fifth or Monarchal Age, therefore, the idea had spread abroad, not only among the Jews, but among all nations, that the Renovation of the World would be accomplished in the Sixth or succeeding age, and that the Great King, called in Scripture, Σωτηρ or Saviour, would then set up his kingdom in eternal justice, and establish his dominion with everlasting peace; and nation should no longer lift up the sword against nation, neither should they learn the Art of War any more.
According to the Jews, however, who lived in the time of our Saviour, the grand object of the mission of the promised Messiah was not to be consummated till the Seventh age, when should commence, to use the words of the Apostle, who applied them very differently, the keeping of the eternal “Sabbatism which remaineth for the people of God.” This notion of a Seventh age was not entirely unknown to the Heathen, for we find some traces of it in their writings; but it seems to have originated in the mysticism or glosses of those who at that period, had made “the word of God of none effect through their traditions.” It is of great importance to our argument, to give some instances of this mysticism, as it incidentally proves that the Jews originally held the longer computation. One of the reasons assigned by their Rabbins for the tradition of the Seven ages, from time immemorial, is that because the Hebrew letter א Aleph, which (pointed) stands with them for a thousand, is found to occur six times in the 1st verse of the 1st chapter of Genesis; therefore, the world is to last in its corrupt or fallen state for six thousand years; and that then it is to be restored and purified as at the beginning! Another reason, to which indeed, we have already adverted in our First Part, is that because God employed six days in the work of Creation, and rested on the Seventh day; therefore, there are to be Seven ages of the World, each containing a thousand years! Such notions as these appear to have been current among both Jews and Christians in the days of the Apostles; and we find them transmitted with even a higher degree of mysticism, to the first age of Apostolical Succession! Irenæus, who flourished A. D. 170, in commenting on the number of the Beast, endeavours to connect the Six ages of the world, with the number Six, which occurs in the units, tens, and hundreds of that number, and adds, “For in as many days as the world was made, in so many thousand years is it being brought to an end”. And on this account, the Scripture says—and the heavens and the earth were finished and all their garniture; and on the Sixth day, God finished the works which he made; and on the Seventh day, God ceased from all his works—but this is a narration of the prototypes of things, and a prophecy of things that shall come to pass; for the day of the Lord is as a thousand years: but in Six days the creation was finished; it is manifest, therefore, that its consummation is the six thousandth year.[55] In this curious passage, it is evident that the disciple of John, the beloved Apostle, has followed the ideas of the Jews rather than those of his inspired Master, and has mingled up the mystical notions of the Rabbins with the sacred truths of Revelation.
While we admit, however, that the followers of Christ and his Apostles had erroneous views respecting the Jewish tradition, which we have thus traced to its real source, we cannot adopt the opinion of Dr. Russell, p. 103, vol. i. of his “Connection,” that the apostles themselves wrote under the influence of such views, or that it formed any part of their theological system, although it entered deeply into those “of the age which witnessed the introduction of our holy faith.” They wrote under the influence of that Spirit which Christ promised to send, in order to lead and to guide them into all the truth; it is impossible, therefore, to imagine, that the Apostles Paul and John in their writings, “partook of those impressions relative to the speedy arrival of the first resurrection, and the beginning of the Messiah’s reign, which prevailed among their countrymen;” nor, can we agree, as he does, “with Grotius, who hesitates not to state that St. Paul thought it possible that he might be alive at the time of the general judgment,” as we see no evidence for such a statement in any part of the New Testament. The reply of our Saviour, while yet on earth, to the inquiry put by his disciples,—“When shall these things be, and what the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?”—sufficiently points out their mistake in supposing, as the unbelieving Jews did, that the first advent of the Messiah and the consummation of all things, were contemporaneous or approximate events: and clearly shows that instead of the “general judgment” after or upon his advent, there would only be a particular one, namely, the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, and that it would be fulfilled in the experience of that generation, for their rejection of the true Messiah, as the filling up of the measure of the iniquities of their fathers. So much hold, however, had the tradition in question taken on the minds of the Jews as a nation, that we find the words of Paul, in 1 Thess. iv. 15–17, respecting the resurrection of the dead, and the Second Advent of Christ, were either misunderstood or misinterpreted by some of those to whom they were addressed. Hence, he was obliged to address them a second time, in the following words; 2 Thess. ii. 1: “Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.” The rest of the Apostle’s warning advice in this chapter, plainly indicates that many ages were to elapse before the epoch of the Second advent, and the arrival of the end of the world. The time, indeed, necessary for the fulfilment of the prophecies, of both the Old and New Testament, especially those contained in the books of Daniel and the Revelation of John, must have clearly evinced to the minds of well-informed Christians, as well as those of the Apostles themselves, that many predicted events had yet to receive their accomplishment; and, that God’s controversy with the nations, and particularly with his ancient people Israel, required a longer interval than that which the Judaizing teachers among them had dared to assign, and which, to give it greater currency, it appears that they were desirous to father upon the great Apostle of the Gentiles.
Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that a very considerable degree of plausibility might attach to such sentiments among the early Christians, from the occurrence of such expressions as the following in the writings of the Apostles: 2 Peter iii. 8, “One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” This expression, however, merely exhibits in words suited to our ordinary conceptions, the great truth which should ever be present to our minds, that all time appears but as a single moment to the eternal Jehovah, who sees the end from the beginning, and to whom the ideas both of space and time, as they exist in our finite understandings, are altogether unknown. The same sublime sentiment, similarly expressed, is also to be found in one of the Psalms, the authorship of which is ascribed to Moses, the man of God: thus, “a thousand years in thy sight, are but as yesterday, when it is past, and as a watch in the night.” It is evident, therefore, from the extreme generality of the expressions employed, that no specific conclusion can be drawn from these and similar passages of Scripture, respecting the true period of the world’s duration. Their simple intent is to convey to our minds an idea of the eternity of the Almighty, and they are of the same import as the following, which proves the eternal Divinity of our Lord; namely, “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.” Hence, it is plain that the idea, entertained by many divines, of the duration of the world for a period of only Seven thousand years, (a period, which, in fact, as we have shown in our First Part, it has already passed) is a figment of the human imagination, which has no foundation in real tradition or prophecy, and which is contrary to the express revelations of Scripture. In a note to this paragraph, consisting chiefly of references to the authors who have treated of or touched upon the opinion of Irenæus and the whole Christian church after the Apostolic times, the learned reader will find sufficient ground for the belief that the longer or Septuagint chronology was universally held by ancient writers both before and after the Christian era.[56] We proceed to notice the evidence on this point, which may be gathered from the testimony of the Heathen.
“The belief of this singular notion, concerning the Seven ages,” says Dr. Russell, p. 76, vol. i. of his Connection, “has been detected in the writings of Heathens, Jews, and Christians. It is traced in the Sybilline oracles, in Hesiod, in the work ascribed to Darius Hystaspes the King of the Medes, and in Hermes Trismegistus, the celebrated founder of Egyptian learning and science. Plato quotes from Orpheus the same mystical doctrine; handing down to more recent times the persuasion of the first generations of the human race, that the earth, which was given to them for a habitation during Six ages, was doomed in the Seventh to be consumed by fire.”[57] Dr. Russell discovers in the prevalence of these opinions and expectations, however ill-founded and absurd they may seem, the principal motive which actuated the Jews about the beginning of the Second century, in their attempt to vitiate the most ancient of their chronicles. “Their rejection of Christ,” says he, “rendered necessary an extensive change in their dates and calculations; and if we may trust to the assertions of Justin Martyr and other primitive apologists for our holy faith, we cannot doubt that their fraudulent purpose was realized to a considerable extent. ‘I entreat you to remember,’ says the Father now named, when addressing Trypho the Jew, ‘that your Rabbis have taken away entirely many texts of Scripture from that version which was made by the Elders who were at the court of Ptolemy, in which it was declared, that Jesus who suffered death upon the cross was both God and man: and wherein it was also predicted that he was to be crucified and submit to the power of the grave. These texts, because I know that your nation now rejects them, I will not insist upon in the course of our inquiries, but shall content myself with appealing to those prophecies and descriptions respecting the divine power, which are still allowed to remain in your sacred books.’ After quoting a passage from Jeremiah, which the Christian author applies to the point in discussion, as an argument in favour of the views adopted by the Church, he reminds his antagonist, that the text now in question was still found in certain copies of the Old Testament which continue to be read in the Synagogues; for, says he, this portion of Holy Writ has been but lately expunged by your doctors; and that on account of the unanswerable demonstration founded upon it, in regard to the conduct of the Jews towards Christ, against whom it was predicted that they would take counsel, and afterwards put him to death.” Archbishop Usher, in reference to this passage of Justin Martyr, says, in his “Syntagma,” pp. 44, 45, that this Father produces four testimonies concerning Christ the Saviour which he affirms were abstracted from the version of the Seventy Elders: the second of which is still found entire in all our books, namely, Jeremiah xi. 19. But the first, abstracted from the book of Ezra, chap vi., which is testified by Lactantius, lib. 4. Institut. cap. 18, is as follows: And Ezra said unto the people, This passover is our Saviour and our Refuge; and if ye did consider, and it came up into your heart, that we shall humiliate him in a sign, and if afterwards ye shall believe upon him, this place shall never be left desolate, saith the Lord of Hosts; but if ye will not believe on him, nor hearken to his preaching, ye shall be a laughing-stock to the Heathen. The third testimony, which is found in Irenæus, lib. 5, cap. 26, is said to have been cut out of Jeremiah: But the Lord God of Israel remembered his dead who slept in the land of heaps, and descended to them to declare unto them the good news of his salvation. The fourth and last is taken from Psalm xcv. (or xcvi. according to the Hebrew) v. 10, where the reading should be, Declare among the Heathen, The Lord reigned from the tree; the words “from the tree” are said to have been erased by the Jews, although they are to be found in the ancient editions of the Latin Psalter, and are cited by several ancient authors whose names and works the Archbishop enumerates.
The best proof, however, that the Jews have tampered with some passages of Scripture, is to be found in the discrepancy which exists between most of the passages which are cited in the New Testament out of the Old, and which agree more nearly with the Septuagint, mutilated as it has been, than with the present Hebrew Text. The most striking case of this kind is to be found in the passage cited by Paul, Hebrews x. 5, from Psalm xl. 6; where instead of the words “mine ears hast thou opened” as in the Hebrew, we have “A body hast thou prepared me,” as in the Septuagint. The straining of commentators to make these totally different readings signify exactly the same thing is perfectly astonishing, when we consider that the simple admission of the corruption of the Hebrew text in this passage at once solves the difficulty! Another remarkable case is the passage cited by the same Apostle, Romans iii. 10–18, from Psalm xiv. 3, where the greater part of the quotation, from v. 13 to v. 18 inclusive, is entirely omitted in the present Hebrew text, but is to be found verbatim in the Septuagint, Vatican edition. The reason assigned by Dr. Wall for its insertion in this edition, and its omission in the Alexandrine MS., is not at all satisfactory; because it does not in the least account for the full quotation of the passage by the Apostle; it does not at all answer the question, where did St. Paul get the verses? A third case is that of the celebrated passage in Psalm xxii. 17, where, instead of the words “they pierced my hands and my feet,” as in the Septuagint, the Hebrew has to this day, the reading “as a lion my hands and my feet;” but as this passage had no sense or meaning, the English translators were fain to avail themselves of the reading of the Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate. But it is unnecessary to multiply discrepancies of this kind; enough has been adduced to show that implicit reliance is not to be placed on the present Hebrew text. As to the discrepancy in Gen. ii. 2, between the Hebrew and Septuagint, regarding the day on which “God ended his work,” it can only be accounted for on one or other of the following principles: either a mistake has been committed in transcribing the Hebrew text; or, a change has been wilfully introduced into that text. For it is quite inconsistent with the fact, and with the preceding context, to say that God ended his work on the Seventh day! In that context, Gen. i. 31, we are told that “God saw ALL that He had made, and behold it was very good; and the evening and the morning were the Sixth day.” It is manifest that to end work on the Seventh day, would be to perform a part of it on that day; and, consequently, the whole of the Sabbath could not be said to have been devoted to rest, nor wholly blessed and sanctified on this account. It is easy to see that a loop-hole is thus given, by an error in that text and in our translation, we fear more wilful than accidental on the part of the Jews, to the partial observance of the Sabbath, and to the notion acted on by many in former ages, and by multitudes in the present, that it is only that part of the Sabbath devoted to religious services in public, which is to be accounted sacred; the remainder of the day being devotable either to work, to literary pursuits, or to sensual enjoyment. Mankind, both Jews and Christians, has in all ages been too anxious to throw off the strict and unalterable obligation of keeping the Sabbath holy to the Lord; but the true Christian, he who is a “Jew inwardly,” though “not outwardly,” feels his highest enjoyment in the Scriptural employment of that Holy Day, considering it as a foretaste and an earnest of the glorious and eternal Sabbath in Heaven.
A strong argument against the accuracy of the present Hebrew text, is derived, as we have seen, from the different accounts of the census of the Hebrew Patriarchs and their families, at the epoch of their migration into Egypt, to be found in the Old and New Testaments. In Acts vii. 14, we find that the martyr Stephen, in his defence before the High Priest of the Jews, gives this census, including the grandsons and great grandsons of Joseph, who, as well as his sons, had previously migrated in their father’s loins, as amounting in all to “threescore and fifteen,” or “75 souls.” On referring to the Mosaic narrative, Gen. xlvi. 27, we find, according to the Hebrew text, that this census amounts only to “threescore and ten,” or “70 souls;” but, according to the Septuagint, that it amounts to “75 souls.” Here, assuredly, the authority of the Septuagint must be reckoned superior to that of the Hebrew text, inasmuch as that version not only perfectly agrees as to the census with the reckoning of St. Stephen in the place now cited, but in the same chapter, it enumerates the names of the three grandsons and the two great grandsons of Joseph, making up the five persons whose names are totally omitted in the Hebrew. The census of the Septuagint also agrees with that of the New Testament, in other places where Moses has occasion to remind the Israelites of the smallness of their number when their fathers went down into Egypt; see Exodus i. 5; and Deuteronomy x. 22. It is proper to remark, however, that the number in the latter citation agrees with the Hebrew, in the Vatican edition of the Septuagint; but, not in the Alexandrine codex, or the Grabian edition, where it is correctly given as in the other places which have been cited. Dr. Hales, in his “Analysis,” vol. ii. p. 159, has grievously mistaken the composition of the census in question; for, he includes in it, the wives of Jacob’s sons, amounting to nine persons in all, according to his account. The Sacred text, however, includes Jacob, and Joseph with his two sons, in the number 70; now if the nine wives were also included, the census would amount to the number 79; because the names of the 70 men are all distinctly enumerated even in the Hebrew text itself. In order, therefore, to get rid of this difficulty, and reduce the number from 79 to 75, the Dr. excludes the four men just mentioned, and includes the nine women, whether they are kindred or not kindred! His solution, however, does not agree with the express words of Scripture, which, in fact, excludes the women, the words being according to the Septuagint, χωρὶς τῶν γυναικῶν, “without the wives;” and includes the men, in the number 75, the words of Stephen being “his father Jacob, and all his kindred,” descended, ἐκ τῶν μηρῶν ἀυτοῦ, “out of his loins.”
In reference to the numerical statements of the Hebrew text, the disingenuity of modern commentators renders the following remarks necessary, for the sake of truth and common sense. It is well known that the numbers which occur in the Old Testament are always expressed in words at length, and not in abridged characters or arithmetical symbols; hence, the possibility of transcribers mistaking one character or symbol for another, in consequence of the similarity of the letters, is completely removed. It is an unfair inference, therefore, to say, because the Jews employed the letters of their alphabet to denote numbers in their later writings, or to indicate chapters and verses in the sacred writings, and because some of these letters are extremely similar, though they denote very different numbers; that numerical errors might arise from this cause in those parts of the Scriptures where no such arithmetical characters or symbols were ever used. Among unfair reasoners of this class, may also be placed those who maintain that all knowledge of the ancient Hebrew is lost, because forsooth it has been preserved in Chaldaic characters, and mystified by the Masoretic points! It does not follow, however, that the language itself is lost, because the characters are changed in their form, even supposing this to be the fact. If so, then we might as well assert that the English language is lost, because we have changed the Old English character for the Roman; that it has become utterly unintelligible to us by the change; or that the accented, punctuated and misspelt words of Orthoëpists must render every genuine English word of doubtful meaning! Moreover, it has likewise been gravely said that because some Hebraists choose to assert that the same word in Hebrew signifies both to bless and to curse; therefore, all or most of the words of that language may be translated so as to mean any thing you please; this is at least the conclusion which would be drawn from such random assertions on the part of Lexicon writers and compilers of Hebrew dictionaries. We ask such persons, if they know any thing at all of Hebrew, to arrange the names of the Antediluvian Patriarchs in one line, so as to form a Hebrew sentence, and to try whether, among the “thousand and one” varieties of rendering of which it is affirmed the words are capable, it will not bear the following translation, demonstrative of the fact that the Antediluvians were, during the days of God’s grace, and in addition to the tradition of Enoch’s prophecy, taught the knowledge of a Divine Saviour, even by the symbolical names which the Patriarchs were directed by the Spirit of God, to impose upon their children:—
‘.אדם—“Man was appointed miserable and wretched, but the blessed God shall descend, teaching that his death shall send to the afflicted, Rest.” The consolation which a sentence like this was calculated to give to the Patriarch Noah, and to his family, in the near prospect of the “end of the world that then was,” may be more easily conceived than described; nor let it be forgotten that in continuation of this Divine nomenclature, the Patriarch was instructed to call his son, who was to be the progenitor of the wonderful Being whose coming is predicted in this sentence, by the name of Shem, in prophetic anticipation of the future development of that glorious Name, in which both Jews and Gentiles were afterwards to trust, and on which the salvation of both worlds was suspended.
To return from this lengthened digression; it is manifest that there is great reason to suspect that the numbers contained in the Hebrew text which have reference to dates and to the age of the world, have been systematically and extensively altered. Dr. Russell cites a passage from the celebrated Abulfarajius, in which he asserts that the Jews, believing it to have been foretold that the Messiah was to have been sent in the last times, altered the chronology in order to be able to produce a reason or apology for their rejection of Jesus Christ. Thus they made it appear by their new computation, that Christ was manifested in the very beginning of the fifth millennium, near to the middle of the period to which the duration of the earth was to be limited, that is, according to their glosses upon Scripture, not more than 7000 years in all. But the computation of the Septuagint, he observes, showed that Christ did actually come in the sixth millenary age of the world; the very time at which the prediction of the Old Testament led mankind to expect his advent. The learned Dr. refers also to the candid Augustine, who states that the Jews were suspected of having corrupted their copies of the ancient Scriptures, and particularly of having altered the generations and lives of the Antediluvian patriarchs, out of dislike to the Christians, and in order to weaken the authority of the Septuagint, which was used not only in their churches during divine service, but also in their writings and controversies with the Jews. Though Augustine saw that the temptation to vitiate the sacred text lay with the Rabbins, and that the Greek translators had no inducement to alter the original, he was unwilling to believe that either party could have intentionally altered the Scriptures; thinking it more probable that the differences between the Hebrew and the Septuagint, had originated in the wish entertained by an early transcriber, to render the generations of the patriarchs more natural, and less disproportioned to the total length of their lives.[58] This disproportion, as we have remarked in our First Part, was only partial in the Hebrew, and the discrepancy in this respect is a strong argument in favour of the more natural proportion of the Septuagint. But men in all ages have endeavoured to reduce the Antediluvian standard of human life and generation, without regard to the actual record of Holy Scripture. Some curious specimens of reasoning on this point will be found in Usher’s “Syntagma,” cap. ii. p. 13 et seq. What, for instance, can be more ridiculous than the following remark on this subject by the learned Dr. Isaac Barrow? “No one,” says he, “can pretend to assert, as a certainty, that the age of Methusalem [Methuselah!] himself, who lived a thousand years wanting one, [999 instead of 969!] was really longer than that of a man, who now dies at a hundred! Why might not the Sun, being then younger and more vigorous, have performed his periods ten times sooner than at this time?” See his “Geometrical Lectures,” translated by Stone, 1735. Credat Judæus!
Dr. Russell states that Augustine was not aware that 400 years had elapsed from the time when the Septuagint version was made, before any discrepancy between the Greek and the Hebrew Scriptures was ever imagined to exist; and that there flourished in that interval, the chronographers Demetrius, Philo, Euphorus, Eupolemus, and Polyhistor, in whose writings, compiled from the books of Moses, we find the events, numbers, dates and proper names, agreeing with the Septuagint, but differing from the modern Hebrew. The ignorance of this early Father in reference to these writers, though it were admitted, for which however we see no good reason, and his want of reference to the works of Josephus, form no ground of objection whatever to the facts of the case; nor can we conclude from his silence regarding their testimony that he was not biassed in favour of the Jewish system of chronology in consequence of the high authority of Jerome in the Christian Church. Dr. Russell gives a very full and clear account of the manner in which this system originated. He states that the publication of the Seder Olam Rabba in A.D. 130, may with certainty be regarded as the epoch at which the Jews altered their genealogies and changed the dates of the great events which are recorded in their Sacred Books; and that Theophilus, bishop of Antioch, was the first Christian chronologer who attempted to compute the age of the world from the facts and dates only which are contained in the Bible. He judiciously remarks that the bishop must have possessed a copy of the Hebrew Scriptures or at least of the Pentateuch, which had escaped the innovations of the Jews; for his dates of the deluge and the birth of Abraham differ from both the Hebrew and the Septuagint.[59] Moreover, we find that Eusebius, in the middle of the fourth century, who was well aware of the discrepancies between the Hebrew and the Septuagint in the matter of chronology, still writes as follows: “On all sides therefore the version of the Seventy, being demonstrated to have been translated from an ancient, as it appears, and a correct copy of the Hebrew, we have with reason made use of it in the present chronography, and the more especially since the church of Christ spread through the whole world adheres to it alone, the Apostles and disciples of our Saviour having from the beginning delivered that it is to be used.”[60] Dr. Kennicott, in his “Dissertatio Generalis,” Sect. 83, p. 37, also cites the words of Ephrem Syrus, who flourished near the end of the same century, in which he charges the Jews with having abstracted 600 years from the generations of the Antediluvian patriarchs in order that their own books might not convict them concerning the coming of Christ, who had been predicted to appear for the deliverance of mankind after 5500 years.
The Greek and Roman Poets borrowed their sublime ideas concerning the Ages of the World, from the Sacred writings and traditions of the Jews; and alas! they transmuted the fine gold of Mount Sion into the base metal of Helicon and Parnassus. Hence arose the Poetical appellations of the first Six ages which are to be found in the most ancient and celebrated writings of the Heathen. The distinct recognition of the Seventh age appears not to have been very general, at least among the poets; or rather, it seems to have been frequently confounded or identified with the Sixth age. The following, however, is an enumeration of the Poetical ages which is clearly to be traced in the writings of the oldest authors; to each, we have added the names of the corresponding Scriptural Ages, for the sake of comparison and connection. First, the Golden Age which corresponds to the Antediluvian; Second, the Silver Age, to the Postdiluvian; Third, the Brazen Age, to the Patriarchal; Fourth, the Heroic Age, to the Critarchal; Fifth, the Iron Age, to the Monarchal; and Sixth, the Last or Cumæan Age, to the Hierarchal. In this enumeration, we do not mean, of course, to convey the idea that each of the Poetical Ages is precisely limited by the epochs which serve to fix and determine the Scriptural Ages of the Jews; but merely to indicate that there is such a connection between them as serves to prove their common origin, and to establish the chronology of both on a secure and authentic foundation. There seems, however, to our mind, such a striking analogy between the real and the feigned events ascribed in history to the different periods above mentioned, as to justify us in drawing the parallelism close, and in allotting to the various ages of the world, the appellations which have been ingeniously assigned to them by the poets and historians of Greece and Rome. One of the oldest Heathen writers, whose authentic works have reached our times, is the poet Hesiod, who, according to some authorities, was the contemporary of Homer, and who, according to Mr. Clinton, flourished from 859 to 824 B. C. His description of the Six Ages contained in the poem entitled Ἐργα καὶ Ἡμέραι, or Works and Days, is in many parts unquestionably borrowed from Scripture History. Dr. Hales has advanced and defended this opinion in his “Analysis,” vol. i. pp. 38–46; after having shewn, in pp. 35–38, that Sir Isaac Newton has mistaken, and consequently misrepresented Hesiod’s ages, in his “Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms,” by confounding the word γένος, a race, employed by the poet to denote an age, with γενεὰ, the usual word for a generation; and that this error has not only deranged all his dates of Grecian history, but has vitiated his entire system of ancient chronology. With the opinions of Dr. Hales on the subject of Hesiod’s Ages of the World, we in general coincide; but we think that he has neither carried out the above mentioned analogy sufficiently far, nor applied it in so clear and distinct a manner as he might have done, to the illustration of the connection between Sacred and Profane Chronology. It may be of some importance, therefore, to enlarge a little upon this interesting point.
The description of the First or Golden Age given in the Works and Days, extends from v. 108 to v. 126,[61] and as Dr. Hales justly remarks, bears no relation at all to Grecian history. It refers to the time when “The immortal gods and mortal men were as members of the same family, and (μερόπων) partook of the same likeness; when Saturn (Κρόνος, quasi χρονος, Time) reigned in Heaven, and men lived as gods, with minds free from care, without labour and sorrow, or the feebleness of old age; and always the same (πόδας καὶ χεῖρας) in strength and activity, they enjoyed continual feasting, free from all evils, rolling in wealth, and beloved by the blessed gods; they died as overcome by sleep; to them, all things were good; and the fertile field spontaneously brought forth varied and abundant fruit; seeking only their own ease, they mingled their operations with innumerable pleasures; and when (γαῖα) the green sod covered their bodies, they became good angels, by the will of mighty Jove, and were confined to the earth, as the guardians of mortal men; they became observers of good and bad actions, and inhabiting the aerial regions, they everywhere roamed through the earth, the dispensers of riches; such indeed was the royal honour which they obtained.” This description is a curious admixture of the traditions concerning the Antediluvian age to be found in the early history of all ancient nations, and of the lofty but extravagant imaginings of the Poet derived from the absurd mythology of ancient Greece. It evidently alludes to the creation of man in the likeness of God, and to the Sacred communion which Adam held with his Creator in the garden of Eden; to the wonderful length of human life, amounting in the case of the Patriarchs, in general, to nearly a thousand years, when indeed Time might be said to reign, and Death for ages to be disappointed of his prey; to the generation of sons and daughters to a late period of the lives of mankind; and to the piety of the righteous generations of the line of Seth, who were called the “Sons of God,” some of whom had communion with God, and received peculiar marks of his favour. The description of the “royal honour” of the happy dead, seems to have had its origin also in the Scripture record of the frequent appearance of angels in the likeness of men in the Postdiluvian and Patriarchal ages, and of the promises which God gave to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, regarding the number, the wealth and the glory of their seed; and of the appearance of Samuel to Saul, when he predicted his speedy fall and admittance to Hades: of the divine appearance to Solomon, when he was promised riches and honour, so that no king was like to him: and of the divine vision of the young man in Samaria, who saw the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha: with many others of the very singular and preternatural phenomena which were divinely vouchsafed to the chosen people of God in all ages, before that in which the Poet himself flourished. Hesiod is also cited by Josephus among the ancient writers who before his time recorded that the men of the first age of the world lived a thousand years; but Dr. Hales observes that this statement is “no where to be found in his present [extant] works.”
The description of the Second or Silver age, extends from v. 127 to v. 142, and refers to the time after the flood, when as the Poet says, “the men were much inferior to those of the Golden age, being unlike them both in body and mind; then, indeed, the boy of a hundred years was brought up by his careful mother, as a child, passing much of his time at home; but when he grew up and reached the age of puberty, his life was speedily shortened, being embittered by ignorance; for they manifested injurious pride towards each other, and refused to serve the immortal gods, or to sacrifice at their sacred altars, which was the customary rite among civilized people; these, therefore, Jupiter the son of Saturn buried, being incensed because they honoured not the blessed gods who inhabit Olympus; and when the green turf had covered their bodies, then the blessed dead confined to the earth, were called Secondary angels; thus, they also had their share of honour.” This description contains internal proof that it refers to the Postdiluvian age, in opposition to the sentiments of some modern writers, who have supposed that the Golden age referred solely to the Paradisaical state, and the Silver age to that which immediately succeeded it. The Golden age must have evidently included the Post-Paradisaical state, because the Poet contemplates men as mortal, which they had become in consequence of their loss of perfect innocence, and speaks of them as having increased in numbers, or in other words, become “multiplied on the face of the earth,” which took place only after the expulsion of the great progenitors of the race from Paradise. The Silver age must have been after the flood, because the usual period of human life had not been diminished till after that event, but had in fact been rather increased just immediately before it, as in the case of Methuselah; and Noah himself the connecting link of both worlds, was longer lived than Adam. Moreover, the Poet’s account of the Antepaidogonian age of mankind, corresponds in a very remarkable degree to the statements of the Septuagint, the Samaritan Text, and Josephus, on this point, and proves almost to a demonstration that the Hebrew Text originally contained the longer computation; for the traditions concerning the Postdiluvian age were, of course, known to Hesiod, about Six centuries before the Septuagint was in existence. The causes assigned by the poet, for the shortening of human life, seem clearly to refer to the breaking up of the ecclesiastical polity of Nimrod at Babel; and the destruction of the impious, to the later event, the overthrow of the “cities of the plain,” and the formation of the Lake Asphaltites. The distinction drawn between the fate of the good, and the fate of the bad in this age, evidently refers to the selection of a few among mankind, as the depositories of Sacred Revelation, and to the appointment of others as the friends of God, and the Fathers of the faithful to all generations. Such statements as these plainly indicate a belief in the immortality of the soul, or, at least, its existence after death in a separate state, and forcibly remind us of the argument which our Saviour held with the Sadducees, in proof of the resurrection of the dead: “Have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake to him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living: ye, therefore, do greatly err;” Mark xii. 26. The conclusion was indeed manifest; Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are still alive, as to their souls; therefore, their souls are immortal. Because God lives, they live also; for he is still their God. But life and immortality were brought to light by the Gospel; and because Christ rose from the dead, they shall also rise from the dead; for he has become the first-fruits of them that slept. From the preceding remarks, it is evident that Dr. Hales is in error, both when he limits the “termination of the Silver age to the days of Peleg;” and when he refers the latter clause of the Poet’s description to the “first and purest Patriarchs of this age;” for the upright and blessed Job lived in the latter part of it; and the divinely honoured Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees at its close.
That Hesiod’s description of the three subsequent ages appears to relate entirely to the history of Greece, is the opinion of Dr. Hales. Without disputing the general accuracy of this opinion, we still think that we can perceive traces of the history of other countries. The allusions to Scripture are, it is true, more obscure in this part of the poem; but they are not wholly imperceptible. Indeed, the ingenuity of the “cunningly devised fables” which it contains, would not be deemed complete without the admixture of some sacred truth, without the addition of some egregious perversion of the Inspired records. The description of the Third or Brazen age, extends from v. 143 to v. 155, and refers to the time when the men, “wholly unlike those of the Silver age, were strong and mighty in the use of the spear, rejoicing in war and deeds of rapacity; they ate not (σιτον) the food of culture, but, unyielding in their disposition, they had minds as hard as adamant; possessing immense force and unpolished hands, nature furnished them with powerful limbs, from the shoulders downwards; they had brazen armour, brazen houses, and they worked in brass; for iron was not yet in use; these, indeed, slain by their own hands, went to the dark domains of gloomy Pluto, unrecorded in song; for sable death seized them, though mighty in strength, and they left the shining light of the Sun.” This passage seems very clearly to describe the state of the world in the days of Abraham. The battle of the four kings against five in the Vale of Siddim (Destruction), the slaughter of the kings and the sacking of their cities, the capture of Lot and all his family and property, as recorded in Genesis xiv., is a sufficient proof of the warlike and rapacious character of this age; and then, no doubt, originated the migration of those marauding parties which, proceeding from Assyria, Phenicia, and Egypt, spread themselves over Greece and her islands for colonization and settlement, and founded the early kingdoms of Sicyon and Argos. The testimony of the Greek historians Herodotus and Thucydides, respecting the state of society during this period, confirms the description of the Poet; and, according to Dr. Hales, the rape of Io, the daughter of Inachus, which was followed more than a century afterwards by that of Europa, the daughter of Agenor, king of Tyre, are instances of the wicked conduct of those whom Jove is reported to have sent a flood to destroy, at the close of the Brazen age. Dr. Hales, however, is in error when he refers this flood to the age of Deucalion; it appears more clearly to belong to that of Ogyges, who was earlier than Deucalion by more than two centuries, and in whose reign, according to Dr. Russell,[62] the inhabitants of Bœotia were compelled to leave the plains of their native country, which was that of our poet, and to seek an asylum in the mountains of Attica.
The description of the hardihood of the men of the Brazen age corresponds also to that of the King of Egypt, when he expressed his fears concerning the increase of the children of Israel. The very weak argument of Sir Isaac Newton against the longer computation, which he draws from the speech of Pharaoh, Exodus i. 9, respecting Egypt being “thinly peopled” before the birth of Moses, is very satisfactorily answered by Dr. Hales in his explanation of the succeeding verse; “Analysis,” p. 88. The correct translation, however, of the former verse, according to the Septuagint, which appears to have retained the true meaning of the passage, renders even Dr. Hales’ explanation unnecessary. Thus, “And he said to his nation, Behold the race of the sons of Israel is a great multitude, and their (bodily) strength is greater than ours!” This observation will appear both natural and just, when we consider that the Egyptians, as a nation, must have by this time reached a degree of luxury and refinement, the consequences of extensive empire and early civilization, which rendered them more effeminate or less robust than the hardy sons of Israel. The dread, therefore, of the increase of such a nation, which they held in cruel bondage, and which, though vastly fewer in numbers, was greatly superior to their own in individual and personal strength, was a sufficient reason for the precautionary policy announced from the throne, by which the rigour of the bondage of the Israelites was to be increased, in the expectation of thus diminishing their numbers. This policy, however, having failed, the king resorted to one still more cruel and sanguinary; but the very cause which he had assigned as a reason for the adoption of cruel measures towards an unoffending race, was wisely ordained, so as to render those measures completely abortive; and, we thus perceive, from its acknowledged truth, an additional force and beauty, in the simple defence made before the king, by those heroic females who bid defiance to his wrath, by refusing to become the detestable instruments of his cruelty; Exod. i. 19.
That the Greeks from a very early period were distinguished from other nations by the use of Brazen Armour is well known; and it is remarkable that in Scripture prophecy this characteristic is selected by the Spirit of God to point out the nation to which it belongs, and to predict the rise of that Universal empire which it once maintained over all the kingdoms of the known world. In the description of the different parts of the great Image which King Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream, Daniel ii. 31–45, and which prefigured the four Great Monarchies or Empires of antiquity, we find the Assyrian or Babylonian Empire denoted by the head of gold, the Medo-Persian by the breast and arms of silver, the Greek or Macedonian by the belly and thighs of BRASS, and the Roman by the legs and feet of iron. Moreover, the Greeks are commonly denominated by Homer in his Iliad, the χαλκοχίτωνες Αχαιοὶ, or Brazen-coated Achaians, that is, wearing brazen coats of mail; and they are described in Herodotus, according to the words of the oracle, as χαλκέων ἀνδρῶν ἐπιφανέντων, or men glittering in Brazen armour. Hence, it may be truly said with the poet, that they lived in brazen houses, and performed their works in brass; for, they spent all their time in deeds of arms, perpetually seeking to increase their wealth, and to form new settlements, at the cost of the native inhabitants of the soil, the natural consequence of such predatory incursions was premature death in battle; and until they had gained a complete footing in Greece, by a series of splendid victories, it could not be supposed that their names would be transmitted to posterity with renown. Thus the hosts of original adventurers belonging to this age, according to the poet, descended to the grave, Νώνυμοι (pro Ἀνώνυμοι,), without name and without fame, receiving no share of honour like the men of the former ages, but sinking into irretrievable oblivion, both in this world, and in the world of souls.
The description of the Fourth or Heroic age, which Dr. Hales remarks is included by Ovid in the Brazen age, extends from v. 157 to v. 174, and refers to the time when the men “spread over the boundless earth, were more upright and more just than those of the former age, and received the name of Demigods; these also, calamitous war and tremendous battle destroyed; some before the seven-gated Thebes, in the territories of Cadmus, fighting for the wealth of Œdipus: but others before the walls of Troy, having been transported across the broad sea in ships, on account of the fair-haired Helen: to the former, death brought final destruction; to the latter, father Jupiter, the son of Saturn, having granted life and a settlement apart from mankind, he planted them at the ends of the earth, far from the immortal gods, where Saturn reigns their king; and these happy heroes, having minds free from cares, dwell in the Islands of the Blessed, near the deep deep Ocean; to them, the fertile soil produces ripe fruit, as sweet as honey, three seasons of the year.” In this description there seems to be a very considerable want of incident, when we compare it with the history of Greece during the Heroic age. For, it was in this age, that the Kingdom of Athens was founded; that the flood of Deucalion took place; and that the chief founders of the Greek nation made their descent into the country itself, namely, Danaus, Pelasgus, Cadmus and Pelops. It was in this age also, that the events most celebrated in history and poetry took place; such as, the birth and the labours of Hercules; the expedition of the Argonauts; the wars at Thebes and the fall of Troy, which the poet has particularly noticed; the Return of the Heraclidæ; and the Æolic and Ionic Migrations. The meagreness of detail in this portion of the poem, therefore, would lead us to adopt the opinion of many critics, that it has not reached us in a perfect but in a fragmentary state; enough of it, however, remains to enable us to determine the limits of the poetical ages. We have seen that the flood of Ogyges was the event which, according to the testimony of the ancients, terminated the Brazen age, and of course, formed the commencement of the Heroic age; now, according to the testimony of Julius Africanus and others, this event was coeval with the Exodus from Egypt; and, according to the testimony of Eratosthenes and others, as expiscated by Mr. Clinton, the Ionic migration was a few years earlier than the foundation of Solomon’s temple, and may, therefore, be considered as the event which terminated the Heroic age, and not the fall of Troy, as stated by Dr. Hales, which, according to the best authorities, occurred about a century and a-half before the Scriptural era in question. No shorter period than this at least would be sufficient to settle all the mighty events which resulted from the ἰλιὰς κακῶν, or multitude of evils springing from the Trojan war, and the final catastrophe of the ancient city of Priam; and in no less a time, would the heroes who survived this great event, and who went in quest of new settlements and peace, far from the scenes of strife, be able, in the name and power of their posterity, to build cities and plant vineyards, and to form new states and create dynasties in foreign lands.