II. This will teach us, what St. John meant, when he told the primitive Christians, that even at that early period there were many antichrists, and that the spirit of the Antichrist was even then already in the world '.

He alluded, no doubt, to the Gnostics under all their various modifications: for the beginning of the monster was in the apostolic age, though it is now that we have beheld his adolescence in the practical development of the spirit of Infidelity. Some of these heretics contended, that Christ was a mere phantom, and that he had never any corporeal existence. Others maintained, that the man Jesus was the natural offspring of Joseph and Mary, that a celestial spirit descending from the pleroma became the temporary inhabitant of his body, and that this spirit deserted him at the time of the crucifixion; thus denying Jesus to be the Christ, according to the doctrine of his incarnation and divinity as set forth in Scripture. Others again, deeply infected with the speculations of heathen theology, asserted, that Christ was an avatar or incarnate descent of the great Universal Father of Paganism, denominated throughout the East Mithras or Buddha or Fo; a notion, wild as it is, gravely advanced again in our own days, with equal ignorance and impiety, by a well-known sage of the French atheistical school. And others, such as Simon Magus in the time of St. John, and as

1 1 John ii. 18. iv. 3.

Terebinthus and Manes and their successors after his time, gave out, that they themselves respectively were incarnations or avatars of that same principal hero-god, who (as it was pretended) had once revealed himself in the person of the man Jesus1.

Thus did all these heretics introduce what St. Paul truly calls another Jesus, whom he had not preached and, in order that they might effect their purpose, they audaciously rejected the whole of the Hebrew Scriptures as the work of the evil principle, and threw aside as interpolations all those parts of the New Testament which bore witness against their impieties3.

III. Such were the individual antichrists, who flourished in the apostolic age: such was that spirit of the Antichrist, which St. John declared to be already in the world. However modified and diversified, it was essentially THE SPIRIT OF INFIDE

LITY.

This spirit may prompt one man to deny the incarnation, another man to deny that Jesus is the Christ, a third man to deny the Son altogether as an impostor, and a fourth man to deny both the Father and the Son: but, however such a spirit may operate in different persons and in different ages, it is still, according to St. John, THE SPIRIT OF THE ANTICHRIST ; and, while there may be many

1 See my Hora Mosaicæ, book ii. sect. 2. chap. 2. 2d edit.

2

3

2 Corinth. xi. 4.

See my

Hora Mosaicæ book ii. sect. 2. chap. 2. 2d edit.

insulated and individual antichrists, what the Apostle emphatically denominates THE ANTICHRIST is a kingdom or body corporate, already predicted by Daniel under the character of AN INFIDEL KING, and known by the distinguishing badge of A DENIAL OF

THE FATHER AND THE SON.

IV. The chronological manifestation of this extraordinary Power is not specifically determined by St. John, though its actions are very copiously described by him in the Apocalypse as performed during the blast of the seventh trumpet and as mainly constituting the third great woe: but the prophet Daniel, to whom he refers when he sets forth the character of the Antichrist, plainly enough teaches us, that the Power in question was not to be revealed under his predicted cha→ racter of an infidel king, until after two successive persecutions pagan and papal, and until the latter three times and a half shall have very nearly expired'.

'See below book iii. chap. 4. § III. 4.

CHAPTER VI.

RESPECTING THE TRUE DATE OF THE LATTER THREE

TIMES AND A HALF, OR OF THE 1260 YEARS ALLOT

TED TO THE TYRANNY OF THE LITTLE ROMAN HORN.

As the period of the latter three times and a half, or that second moiety of the grand calendarian period of seven times which like the first moiety comprehends 1260 natural years, is the period allotted for the tyrannical reign of the little Roman horn; it is a matter of no small importance to ascertain the true date of that period. The importance of such an inquiry is increased also by this circumstance: if the date of the latter three times and a half can be ascertained, we shall have a key to the whole chronological arrangement of the larger period of seven times; for, as the date of the second smaller period is the bisecting point of the larger period, that date being once known, we shall readily learn from it the precise date both of the commencement and of the termination of the larger period.

In general terms we may say, that the seven times must have commenced at some point between the years 658 and 646 before Christ; because those times are the age of the great metallic image, and because the life of that image must be computed

from the birth of its golden head Nebuchadnezzar. Accordingly, as we have seen, this loose date of the seven times will give, for the loose date of its latter moiety of three times and a half, some point between the years 603 and 615 after Christ.

Yet, although we have thus ascertained the epoch about which the latter three times and a half must have commenced, the precise era of their commencement still remains to be determined. Our business, therefore, at present, is, to fix precisely the date of that famous period: if, upon any legitimate and intelligible principles, it can be so fixed.

I. Independently of many subordinate notes which will be found perpetually to present themselves, three grand tests are laid down in prophecy, by a conjunction of which the date in question is to be determined.

1. The first of these tests is proposed to us in Daniel's vision of the four great beasts.

By that vision we are taught, that the times and the laws and the saints of the Most High shall be given into the hand of the fourth beast's little horn until a time and two times and the dividing of a time. But this period of three prophetic times and a half is equivalent, as we have seen, to 1260 natural years: and the little horn of the fourth or Roman beast, as we shall hereafter find and as our ablest commentators unanimously agree, is the