We have now traveled, in our survey of the pictures drawn by the pen of prophecy, from Egypt to Babylon, and have touched upon almost the whole area covered by sacred story. Everywhere, in the nationalities which remain as well as in those which have passed away, we have met with marvels which form an array of evidence in favor of the old belief regarding the words of Scripture, the value of which it would be hard to overestimate.
But, as we read the story of the past, our attention is attracted not only to lands and peoples. There are also great movements which more properly form the material of history, and give to it unity and interest. The story of peoples becomes in this case the history of man. We observe the great empires of the ancient world sweeping away the barriers which separated race from race, and welding together ever more perfectly widely-scattered nationalities. Each empire, which succeeds to the coveted dominion, succeeds also to the work of uniting what the past had scattered and the ages had more and more widely sundered. We have now to notice that these developments did not escape the observation of the thought which breathes in this Word, and that the whole of them have been MAPPED OUT AND DESCRIBED.
The book of Daniel, with which we have now to deal, has been one of the greatest stumbling-blocks in the path of those who have difficulty in believing the miraculous. It consequently holds quite a singular place in the story of the attacks which have been made upon the authenticity and the inspiration of the Scriptures. It was to it that Porphyry first applied the principles and methods of what has been called “the higher criticism.” Many of the prophecies had been so strikingly fulfilled that, to evade their force, they were set down as history, and the date of the composition of the book was fixed at a point from which the predictions seemed to become less distinct and clear. When the modern school sprang into being, it was against Daniel that the attack was again pressed with the greatest determination and assurance. The mounds raised in the former siege still remained. These were now seized and crowned with all the appliances of modern warfare. The result has been, in the estimation of the critics, one of the most signal and satisfactory kind. The demonstration that Daniel neither penned nor saw the book which has so long claimed him for its author, has been, says Bunsen, “one of the finest triumphs and most useful achievements of modern criticism.”
But the triumph did not meet with universal recognition. The result was objected to on various grounds. For one thing, the moral sense was outraged. It has been often urged that the Scriptures must either be received as the Word of. God or be held to be the most unblushing and blasphemous of falsehoods; and that, if the contentions of “the critics” were admitted, there would be left us neither moral books nor, in the writers of them, honest men. But while fully admitting that, in their view, the writer of Daniel was not honest, the critics maintained that he should nevertheless be regarded as admirable! Bunsen speaks of him as “a pious man” and “the pious author.” “At this juncture,” he says, “a pious man resolved to avail himself of the traditions regarding Daniel, and apply them to the circumstances of his own time, and, in the name of that prophet, proclaim words of admonition and prophecy to the faithful around him.” The necessities of the critical position must surely be painfully great when honorable men have to justify supposed pious frauds, the like of which, were they to disgrace the history of their own times, they would visit with the most unqualified condemnation and scorn.
The verdict was doubted, however, upon other grounds as well. Historians felt that the picture given of the times was such as could have sprung only from a personal and intimate acquaintance with them. Heeren gladly availed himself of the light thrown by the book upon the arrangements of the Babylonian-Chaldæan empire; and even Schlosser, thoroughly identified though he was with the critical school, was compelled to say: “In Daniel we think we possess the only remains of the modes of thought and the manners of the Babylonian period.” The inferences of the historians have now been completely vindicated by the advance of modern discovery. The inscriptions of Nebuchadnezzar have been read; we are now, by the aid of contemporary documents, brought face to face with the times in which he lived; and these are the times and the man with whom we have been long familiar in the pages of Daniel, “It is curious to notice,” says Lenormant, “that the three parts composing the great work on magic, of which Sir Henry Rawlinson has found the remains, correspond exactly to the three classes of Chaldæan doctors which Daniel enumerates. The further we advance in the knowledge of the cuneiform texts, the greater does the necessity appear of reversing the condemnation much too prematurely pronounced by the German exegetical school against the writings of the fourth of the greater prophets.”
We now propose to go further than any confirmation of the historical character of the book can possibly carry us. It contains prophecies which professed to unveil the then
FAR-OFF FUTURE.
In one of them we have a forecast of the world’s entire history, brief, indeed, but clear and well-defined; its grand epochs are carefully marked, their nature distinguished, their number and the order of their occurrence fixed. Have the more than two thousand years which have passed since the prophet wrote, anything to say as to whether these are the words of God? What stamp has Time, the unerring and impartial judge of every such pretension, set upon this book?
That is the question: let us now turn to the answer. In the last days of the Assyrian Empire, Nabopolassar, king of Babylon, had proclaimed himself independent, and, in conjunction with the Medes, had crushed what remained of the Assyrian power by the capture of Nineveh. Necho, king of Egypt, had meanwhile possessed himself of the western dominions of Assyria, and was engaged in the siege of Carchemish on the Euphrates. Nabopolassar sent his son Nebuchadnezzar to sweep back the Egyptian hosts Necho received a crushing defeat under the walls of Carchemish, and the entire territory from the Euphrates to the borders of Egypt was the reward of the victory. Nebuchadnezzar followed hard upon the heels of the retreating foe, and was engaged in the siege of Pelusium when the tidings reached him of his father’s death. Making a hasty peace with Necho, he sped back to Babylon to assume possession of the kingdom. He ascended the throne without opposition, and now in this the second year of his reign his sway was fully established alike over the old conquests and the new.
But the warrior’s spirit cannot rest. The power he holds is not something to be enjoyed; it is something to be used; it is a means, and not an end. He has retired to rest, but the busy brain pursues its all-absorbing fancy. Whither will he turn his arms? and in what way may he most effectually break the power he means to attack? When he and his stand alone in the earth, what then? The dominion has returned again to Babylon, the ancient mistress of the kingdoms; but will it remain here? Sleep at last seals the senses, but from the unresting sea of thought wave after wave is flung. In dreams he still pursues ambition’s path. The ever changing fancies sweep through the soul in their swift, unending flight; but at last their aimless career is checked, and, built out of the dreamer’s “thoughts upon his bed,” a vision rises, clear, consistent, terrible. The conqueror’s spirit is bowed with awe; and when he has gazed and pondered, the vision fades and disappears. The unbridled thoughts sweep over his soul again, and blur, though they cannot efface, the deep impression of the dream.
This dream was to bear upon it the stamp that it was sent from God, and so, though it was given to the king, his lips were not permitted to tell it. The vision was to be related to him by one whose words, awakening his own slumbering recollection, were to be to him a demonstration of the interpreter’s prophetic mission. The Babylonian diviners were astonished by the monarch’s demand not only to furnish an interpretation, but also to make known a forgotten dream. The story of how Daniel saved them, as well as his companions and himself, from destruction has been familiar to us from the days of our childhood. He begged for time. He betook himself to prayer; and he did not plead in vain. The next morning saw him stand in the king’s presence. He reminded Nebuchadnezzar how he had seen a colossal image whose “brightness was excellent” and whose “form was terrible.” He had then marked that though the image was a unity, it was constructed of various materials. The head was of gold, the arms and the breast of silver, the belly and the haunches of brass, the legs of iron, and the feet and toes partly of iron, and partly of that which, though in appearance like iron, has nothing of its strength or power of resistance—brittle earthenware. Then there was a change. This image, with its terribleness and splendor was crushed beneath an overwhelming vengeance. He had seen a stone cut out of the mountain side (the emblem of the Eternal, Patient, Strength); he had seen it cut out and fashioned without hands. And now this stone, miraculous in its origin, fell upon the toes of the image and crushed and ground it to powder, till the iron, and the clay, and the brass, and the silver, and the gold became as “the chaff of the summer threshing-floors, and the wind carried them away that no place was found for them, and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth” (Dan. 2:3535Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth. (Daniel 2:35)).
That was the Divine parable. The colossal image, with its splendor and terribleness, was a fitting emblem of the human sovereignty which men have not only feared, but have also regarded with enthusiastic admiration. In the 7th chapter of Daniel we have a parallel vision. The same empires pass before the prophet’s sight; but there they are represented as beasts of prey. Grotius has pointed out that the imagery of the visions is varied in accordance with the character of the men to whom they are sent. The prophet, with a heart which bleeds for human woe, sees the kingdoms as they pass on through blood and suffering; they arise to kill and to devour. He, on the other hand, whose heart is fired with the lust of glory, sees only the realized ideal of human ambition—a god-like man and things that are precious and strong—fine gold and silver and brass and iron.
But we have more than the symbolism of the vision: the parable is fully explained. The image, which in its completeness represents the entire sovereignty of man over his fellows, is divided into four parts. The first, the head of gold, is identified with the Babylonian empire (Dan. 2:3838And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold. (Daniel 2:38)). After this there was to arise “another kingdom inferior to” the first, “and another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth. And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron.” This was to endure in its latter stage of subdivision till the hour of vengeance should have struck, and “the God of heaven” have “set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed” (2:39, 40, 44). Numbered in this way, and the first of the kingdoms being so plainly designated, the student of history can find no difficulty in the interpretation. But we have every needed help furnished by the Scripture itself. In another vision the second and third kingdoms are identified respectively with the empire of Persia and the empire of Greece (Dan. 8:20, 2120The ram which thou sawest having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia. 21And the rough goat is the king of Grecia: and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king. (Daniel 8:20‑21)). The fourth kingdom, though more fully described than any other, is not named; but ere the Scripture story is finished, this kingdom too stands plainly before us. We open the New Testament and find the Roman power bearing rule in Judea. As to “the stone,” the figure is applied to Christ again and again, and His own words will be remembered: “Did ye never read in the Scriptures, ‘The stone, which the builders rejected, the same was made the head of the corner?’... he that falleth on this stone shall be broken to pieces; but, on whomsoever it shall fall, it will scatter him as dust” (R. V. Matt. 21:42, 4442Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes? (Matthew 21:42)
44And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder. (Matthew 21:44)). These last words are an evident reference to Dan. 2:3535Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth. (Daniel 2:35).
The four empires are therefore determined by the Scripture itself. They are the Babylonian, the Persian, the Grecian, and the Roman. The fifth is the dominion of Christ. Dealing only with fulfilled prophecy, we do not enter upon the latter part of the prediction; and confining ourselves to the prophecies fulfilled at or since the beginning of the Christian era, there is much of the earlier which also lies outside of range. I shall simply point in passing to what everyone knows to be true, that the dominions named succeeded each other in this very order. The Babylonian power was followed by the Persian under Cyrus; this was overturned by the Grecian under Alexander; and the Grecian was in like manner supplanted by the Roman. But the marvels of this prophecy are not confined to that portion of it whose accomplishment lay nearest to the prophet’s time. For example, the Roman was to be
THE LAST
of the great world-empires. There was to be no other. It is to endure in its subdivision till the kingdom of God is established in the earth. It must he admitted that this part of the prophetic picture is striking, if not startling. Had the writer lived at the beginning of our era and seen the Roman power at the summit of its glory, it would still be inexplicable on any natural grounds how the notion could have occurred to him that this should be the last of the dominions of man. There had been other human dominions before it; why, then, should there not be also other human dominions after it? If experience had been asked to guess the secrets of the future, the answer would certainly have been that the revolutions of the past would be repeated in the time that was then to come. As the Babylonian dominion went down before the Persian, the Persian before the Greek, the Greek before the Roman, so the Roman might also with certainty have been expected to pass on the scepter to some other. But what of the fact? What have the nineteen centuries which have elapsed since the beginning of the Christian era to say regarding the prediction? The man who then received this as the word of God looked down the ages and said there would be no other world-dominion of man; and we who now look back through these ages have to confess that there has been no other. The fierce, rude warriors of the north poured like a flood against the western empire in the fifth century, but the dominion of the world was not given to them. In the seventh century the Arab hordes, sweeping out from the desert, assaulted the empire on the East. They assaulted it also on the West, and it seemed for a time as if the Caliphs might ascend the throne of the Caesars. But the storm spent its strength, and the Arab had not been made the heir of the Roman. Tartars and Turks swept over the East. They knocked loudly at the gates of the West, and men trembled lest the desolation which had followed in their train might overspread Christendom as well; but to neither was the dominion given. The dream of universal empire has fired the breast of king and warrior, and among them one of the mightiest geniuses whose hand has ever grasped the sword. But not even to Napoleon was it given to weld once more the broken fragments of the Roman Empire into one. There has been, as this prophecy said there should be, a fourth dominion of man;
AND THERE HAS BEEN NO OTHER.
Is it not strange that, during these last 1500 years, in which the world has been brought more together than it ever was before and has been waiting, as it were, to hail the conqueror and give him a sway fuller than man has ever yet wielded, no one has seized upon the prize? And is it not still more strange than these words should have told us this, and said that the world should look and wait, but that there should be no other till He should come whose right it is to reign? Go no further than this—place only these things together, and then say whether any man need ask where he may find the word of the living God, or where he may obtain the conviction that His hand has been working through all those changes and hastening the salvation for which the whole earth cries.
But the prophecy abounds with marvels.
THE CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH KINGDOM
is fully described. The Roman Empire was the furthest removed from the prophet’s time and yet it is more clearly depicted than any of the others. To begin with he is struck by its
SINGULARITY.
in the vision given to the prophet himself, “the fourth beast was diverse from all the beasts that were before it” (7:7). The marked difference between the Roman Empire and those which preceded it is again referred to. It is spoken of as “diverse from all of them” (7:19). The full meaning of those words we shall afterward see. Meanwhile it may be enough to say that in every aspect Rome was diverse from each of the dominions which preceded it. It was an utterly new development in history. Formerly attention was Axed upon conquerors and kings whose will was obeyed and whose plans were executed by the peoples whom they ruled and led. But here our attention is fixed not upon the one but upon the many. It is the people who plan and triumph. Their dominion does not perish, nor is even their progress arrested, because of the fall of their leaders.
The Roman Empire stands alone also in its wide and abiding influence. It did not merely conquer the nations; it impressed its own character upon them. It imparted its own institutions, laws, and spirit. The external dominion has long since passed away, but Rome still rules the nations. In its nature and in its work it was diverse from all that were before it. It is wonderful to notice how the features which strike the mind of the prophet are those which also arrest the attention of the historian. Guizot speaks of Rome as “the most extraordinary dominion that ever led captive and oppressed a world.” “Now for the first time,” says Heeren, “appears on the page of history the fearful phenomenon of a great military republic.” “I confess that my own imagination,” writes Mr. Merivale, “is most powerfully excited by the visible connection between moral influence and material authority which is presented, to an extent never realized before or since, by the phenomenon of the Roman Empire.” Niebuhr expresses still more fully the same sentiment. “The history of Rome has the highest claims to our attention. It shows us a nation, which was in its origin small as a grain of corn; but this originally small population waxed great, transferred its character to hundreds of thousands, and became the sovereign of nations from the rising to the setting sun. The whole of western Europe adopted the language of the Romans, and its inhabitants looked upon themselves as Romans. The laws and institutions of the Romans acquired such a power and durability, that even at the present moment they still continue to maintain their influence upon millions of men. Such a development is without a parallel in the history of the world. Before this star all others fade and vanish.”
The prophet is also struck with
THE TERRIBLENESS,
as well as with the singularity, of the fourth empire. The fourth beast was “terrible, terrible exceedingly” (vii. 7, 19). In touching upon this I am taking the features of the picture in the order in which they stand in the prophecy. I am not making selections but repeating in detail the words of this portion of Scripture. Is it not wonderful then to observe that history merely reproduces the picture previously drawn in the prophecy? I have already quoted Heeren’s words about “the fearful phenomenon” presented by Rome. Schlegel speaks of the “fearful” rapidity of its progress, and Mommsen of its “fearfully strict military discipline.” Merivale confesses that he contemplates the swift progress of the Roman arms “with awe and astonishment.”
The cause of this astonishment will be more apparent as we proceed. The prophet speaks next of
THE STRENGTH
of the fourth empire. It was “powerful and strong exceedingly” (6:7); “The fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron” (2:40). Here again we have one of the great outstanding features of the Roman Empire. Menzel speaks of it as “a colossal empire of force.” “In practiced vigor and constancy under every privation,” says Schlegel, “the Roman infantry, with the vigorous masses of its legion, surpassed all military bodies that have ever been organized.” And again, “When even Hannibal, the most formidable adversary the Roman republic ever had to encounter, and the one who had most deeply studied its true character and the danger threatening the world from this quarter; when even he, after the many great victories which, in a long series of years, he had obtained over the Romans in the second Punic war, though he shook the power, was unable to break the spirit of this people: when this was the case one might regard the great political question of the then civilized world as settled; and it could no longer be a matter of doubt that that city, justly denominated STRENGTH, and which, even from of old, had been the idol of her sons (who accounted everything as naught in comparison with her interests): that that city, I say, was destined to conquer the world and establish an empire, the like whereof had never yet been founded by preceding conquerors.” Even Gibbon accepts the language of the prophecy as the truest description of the unparalleled might of Rome. “The arms of the Republic, sometimes vanquished in battle, always victorious in war, advanced with rapid steps to the Euphrates, the Danube, the Rhine, and the ocean; and the images of gold, of silver, or brass, that might serve to represent the nations and their kings, were successively broken by the iron monarchy of Rome.”
The more closely we look the more do we recognize the truth of the prophetic picture. Behind the iron strength there was an iron nature. Its mark is everywhere. It is seen in their stern self-control. Laws were passed and enforced, for example, against the spread of luxury. Rufinus, who had held the high office of consul, was struck off the list of censors because he possessed silver plate to the value of these laws entered even into the house of mourning, and prescribed how much might be spent in affording grief the melancholy satisfaction of showing honor to the dead. Mommsen speaks of their “stern and energetic morality.” The iron was seen also in the discipline, to which the armies willingly submitted. Improvements were made in arms and in tactics, but there was no change in the stern discipline of Rome. “The old, fearfully strict, military discipline remained unaltered. Still, as formerly the general was at liberty to behead any man serving in his camp, and to scourge with rods the staff officer as well as the common soldier; nor were such punishments inflicted merely on account of common crimes, but also when an officer had allowed himself to deviate from the orders which he had received, or when a division had allowed itself to be surprised, or had fled from the field of battle.”
In the history of no other people do we find this union of stern, vigilant, authority, and voluntary, intelligent, submission. Nowhere besides do we mark the strength which this union gave. From the circumference to the center of this people’s life, from the far-off camps and battlefields to the home, there is no alloy. It is the iron kingdom, standing alone through all history in its terribleness and grandeur. But when we have marked its peerless strength, we have to remember that from of old this word said it should be so: “the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron;” it shall be “powerful and strong exceedingly.”
But the prophet also notes
THE TYRANNOUS USE
which was made of the iron strength. “The fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that crusheth all these (that is—gold, silver, and brass) shall it break in pieces and crush” (Dan. 2:4040And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise. (Daniel 2:40)). And, again, the fourth beast “devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with his feet.” This later vision was thus interpreted to the prophet. “The fourth beast shall be a fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all the kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces” (Dan. 7:7, 237After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns. (Daniel 7:7)
23Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces. (Daniel 7:23)).
The Romans were conscious of their mission. Virgil represents Æneas as thus addressed by the shade of Anchises—
Others belike with happier grace
From bronze or stone shall call the face,
Plead doubtful causes, map the skies,
And tell when planets set or rise:
But Roman, thou, do thou control
The nations far and wide:
Be this thy genius—to impose
The rule of peace on vanquished foes,
Show pity to the humblest soul
And crush the sons of pride.
In connection with these lines, Bunsen remarks that the Romans “regarded the ruling of the world as a vocation entrusted to them by the gods, for the suppression of injustice upon the earth, and the obtaining of redress for the oppressed, the latter of course being those who appealed to the Romans for defense. Those who preferred independence were rebels, seditious. All who set themselves in opposition to the will of the civilizing, law-dispensing, divinities were regarded as barbarians.”
How they fulfilled what they believed to be their vocation, the whole world knows. Rome ever held her head on high as if she felt she was the world’s Queen. She would make no peace with a victorious foe: she might be sore bestead, but she never acknowledged weakness. When Hannibal had shattered her dominion in Italy itself and was threatening her very existence, the donations sent by the king of Syracuse and the Greek cities of Italy were declined courteously, but with unbending haughtiness. A more terrible trial awaited her. Her last army was annihilated at Cannae. On that fatal field 70,000 of her choicest sons lay cold and stiff, and her power seemed to have perished with them. But even then Rome would not despair nor give way to a moment’s weakness. The cheek might pale, but the head was still erect, the step was firm. Only one of the generals escaped, the Consul Varro, the author of the disaster; “and the Roman senators met him at the gate and thanked him that he had not despaired of the salvation of his country.... The senate preserved its firm and unbending attitude while messengers from all sides hastened to Rome to report the loss of battles, the secession of allies, the capture of posts and magazines, and to ask for reinforcements for the valley of the Po, and for Sicily at a time when Italy was abandoned and Rome almost without a garrison.... The time of mourning for the fallen was restricted to 30 days that the service of the gods of joy, from which those clad in mourning were excluded, might not too long be interrupted—for so great was the number of the fallen that there was scarcely a family which had not to lament its dead.” Such was the scarcity of men fit for the field that, while calling out all above boyhood, Rome had to arm besides her debtors and criminals and slaves: yet at this very time when “Hannibal offered a release of captives at the expense of the Roman treasury it was declined, and the Carthaginian envoy who had arrived with the deputation of captives was not allowed to enter the city: nothing should look as if the senate thought of peace. Not only were the allies to be prevented from believing that Rome was disposed to enter into negotiations, but even the meanest citizen was to be made to understand that for him, as for all, there was no peace, and that safety lay only in victory.”
As marked a feature as her refusal to make peace with a victorious enemy was her inability to bear the existence of a rival. Cato’s “Delenda est Carthago” (Carthage must be blotted out), was simply a statement of the deliberate policy of Rome. Foes must be beaten: rivals must be crushed. Cato’s decree was carried out by Scipio, one of the most humane Romans of his time, and this is the way in which the deed was done: “For seventeen days the city was in flames, and the numbers that were exterminated amounted to 700,000 souls, including the women and children sold into slavery: so that this scene of horror served as an early prelude to the later destruction of Jerusalem.... Whenever Roman interests were at stake, all mankind, and the lives of nations, were considered as of no importance.” “Scipio’s letter to the senate is said to have contained no more than these words: ‘Carthage is taken. The army awaits your further orders.’ The tidings were received at Rome with uncommon demonstrations of joy. The victors recollecting all the passages of their former wars, the alarms which had been given by Hannibal and the irreconcilable antipathy of the two nations, gave orders to raze the fortifications of Carthage, and even to destroy the materials of which they were constructed.”
Whatever Rome touched with a finger, was certain to be crushed at last beneath her feet. Judea is a familiar instance. Sorely pressed by the Greco-Syrian power, she placed herself in 160 B. C. under Roman protection. Not a hundred years after, in 63 B. C., Pompey, at the head of a triumphant army, is appointing whom he pleases to the throne and to the high-priesthood. In the year 7 A. D. the shadow of its independence has gone, and it is made a province of the Roman Empire. In 70 A. D. resistance is crushed by deluging the land with blood and turning it into a desert. The same policy was pursued in Greece. The Romans came as the enemies of tyrants and the restorers of the ancient freedom. That was, however, only the beginning of the story; it ended thus: “Rome, amid the rising hatred, did not deem herself secure until by one blow she had rid herself of all opponents of any importance. Above a thousand of the most eminent of the Achæans were summoned to Rome to justify themselves, and there detained seventeen years in prison without a hearing... The ultimate lot, both of Macedon and Greece, was decided by the system now adopted at Rome, that of converting the previous dependence of nations into formal subjection. The insurrection of Andriscus in Macedonia, an individual who pretended to be the son of Perseus, was quelled by Metellus, the country being constituted a Roman province; two years afterward, at the sack of Corinth, vanished the last glimmer of Grecian freedom.” “It is curious to observe,” says Arnold, “how, after every successive conquest, the Romans altered their behavior to those allies who had aided them to gain it, and whose friendship or enmity was now become indifferent to them. Thus, after their first war with Philip, they slighted the Ætolians; after they had vanquished Antiochus, they readily listened to complaints against Philip; and now the destruction of Macedon enabled them to use the language of sovereigns rather than of allies to their oldest and most faithful friends, Eumenes, the Rhodians, and the Achæans.... Let it be forever remembered that, by a decree of the senate, seventy towns of Epirus were given up to be plundered by the Roman army, after all hostilities were at an end; that falsehood and deceit were used to prevent resistance or escape; and that in one day and one hour seventy towns were sacked and destroyed, and one hundred and fifty thousand human beings sold for slaves.”
Wherever Rome imagined her interests were threatened she pursued the same terrible policy. “Two nations, the Teneteri and Usipetes, who had been driven out of their country by the Suevi, crossed the Rhine and demanded land from Caesar, who, unwilling to tolerate so many warlike German tribes in Gaul, resolved to make a fearful example of them in order to deter others from crossing the frontier, and, treacherously seizing the German leader.... suddenly attacked his unsuspecting followers and drove them into the narrow tongue of land at the conflux of the Maes and the Rhine, where the greater part were either slaughtered, drowned, or taken prisoners.”
The Romans had suffered considerable annoyance and loss from the irruptions of the Tyrolese. A great power could not be expected to endure such insults with meekness. We should look for reprisals severe enough to prove that its friendship was more to be desired than its enmity. But the reader will hardly be prepared for the following tale of vengeance. “The Romans advanced from the Bodensee into the mountains and systematically exterminated the inhabitants. Every man fell sword in hand, and the women, maddened by despair, flung their children into the faces of the enemy. The Roman historian turns with horror from the monstrous crimes that blacken the page in which the destruction of the ancient inhabitants of the Tyrol by Tiberius, afterward Emperor of Rome, is recorded.”
One of the noblest struggles for freedom was that carried on in Spain by Viriathus, “a simple Spanish countryman—whom after six years’ war she could only rid herself of by assassination. The war nevertheless continued after his death against the Numantines, who would not be subjected, but were at last destroyed by Scipio Aemilianus.”
And let it not be supposed that these were incidents, the real nature of which the Romans sought in any way to conceal from public view. Such tales of bloodshed formed the special glory of their public men. It was inscribed in Pompey’s honor on the temple of Minerva that he sunk, or took, 846 ships; reduced 1,538 towns and fortresses; and vanquished, slew, or led into captivity 2,183,000 men. Herder speaks of “the blood-drenched soil of Roman glory,” and sums up Roman history in two words— “Ravage and destruction.” “It was,” he says, “as if the iron-footed god of war, Aradivus, so highly revered from of old by the people of Romulus, actually bestrode the globe and at every step struck out new torrents of blood... There can be no doubt that if the Roman history were divested of its accustomed rhetoric, of all the patriotic maxims and trite sayings of politicians, and were presented with strict and minute accuracy in all its living reality, every humane mind would be deeply shocked at such a picture of tragic truth, and penetrated with the profoundest detestation and horror.”
The prophecy also notes that the hold of Rome upon the nations was not to be relaxed till their
SUBJUGATION WAS PERFECTED.
The fourth dominion was not only to devour and break in pieces: it was also to stamp the residue with its feet. Rome was resolved not only to conquer, but also to absorb, the whole world Her colonies were planted in the conquered countries, breaking up their strength for resistance, and forming centers whence her language and her laws were forced upon the peoples. Her military highways, constructed with such solidity and skill that many of them remain to the present time, connected Rome with her most distant conquests and enabled her to pour in her legions wherever her safety or her honor might be threatened. And what her generals began her proconsuls and praetors perfected. “The highest military and civil powers,” says Heeren, “were united in these governors; a principal cause of the horrible oppression which was soon felt. Troops were always kept up in the provinces, and the Latin language everywhere introduced (except only where Greek was spoken) that the inhabitants might be made as much like Romans as possible.” In a word, she devoured, and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with her feet.
Here, as elsewhere, prophecy becomes the truest and tersest of all possible descriptions. The eye which here looked onward saw clearly and read deeply. But we are now to touch upon something still more wonderful. Those ancient words picture the political condition of
OUR OWN TIMES!
It will be observed that the prophecy professes to tell the history, as well as the character, of the fourth kingdom. We notice first that, though it was one dominion, it was nevertheless represented in the figure as twofold. In the case of the second dominion, represented by the arms and the breast of silver, it was indicated that the power originally twofold should, in process of time, become one. This was literally fulfilled in the Medes and Persians becoming one people. But in the part of the figure, which was the symbol of the Roman power, this process appears to be reversed. What was originally one becomes two. It might be supposed that in pointing out this feature we are laying ourselves open to the charge of straining the words of Scripture, if not of profaning sacred things by childish trifling. Should any one view the matter in this light, let me remind him of one fact, before passing on. The Empire, originally one,
DID BECOME TWOFOLD.
The Emperor Diocletian, who improved upon the persecuting policy of his predecessors, and waged war against the Scriptures, ordering them to be searched for and destroyed, became the unconscious instrument by which this prediction was fulfilled. Feeling that the empire, whose destinies he guided, called for more than one man’s thought and strength, he associated Maximian with himself in the government. Maximian received the western provinces, while Diocletian retained the eastern for himself. This division was made in 287 A. D., and was continued with but slight interruption till the western empire was overthrown by Odoacer in 476 A. D. The eastern finally fell in the capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453. The best comment on this part of the prophecy is found in the division which all historians recognize. The one dominion of Rome becomes at length the empires of the East and of the West.
But there was to be a further subdivision. As we have already seen, it was predicted that the fourth kingdom was not to be supplanted by any other dominion of man, but was
TO ENDURE IN ITS FRAGMENTS
till the time of the end. Attention is directed in the vision given to Nebuchadnezzar to the toes of the image. “The toes of the feet” are spoken of as kings or kingdoms—which “shall not cleave one to another,” and in whose days “shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, nor shall the sovereignty thereof be left to another people” (Dan. 2:41-4441And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters' clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay. 42And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken. 43And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay. 44And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever. (Daniel 2:41‑44)).
Now we know that this word has remained unaltered and untouched since the beginning of the Christian era. We know also that for well-nigh five centuries afterward the word was unfulfilled. There were two empires, but there was no further subdivision. We know, too, that for ages the prediction has been fulfilled to the very letter. The two have become many. It has not been a merely temporary condition. Neither wars, nor intermarriages, nor alliances, tried though they have all been, have availed to re-unite the fragments and restore the ancient unity of the empire. The manifold division has proved to be a permanent condition, and the historical development of the fourth dominion has proceeded exactly as this prediction foretold it should do.
Were it possible to explain this away as merely a strange coincidence, there is more that calls for notice and explanation. The prophecy
TEACHES US TO READ OUR OWN HISTORY.
We may know much regarding the various nationalities scattered over what was once the Roman Empire, without having any right conception of our and their relation to ancient Rome. It may seem to us that the empire has been supplanted by the nations, and has passed utterly away. The prophecy, on the other hand, declares that the fourth dominion still abides, that Rome still lives. The separate dominions are only its development; the nations are its fragments, partaking of its nature and continuing its existence.
We need not argue as to which of these views is correct. The testimony of those who have studied the history of the past is that Rome lives on. “The public reason of the Romans has been silently or studiously transfused into the domestic institutions of Europe, and the laws of Justinian still command the respect or obedience of independent nations.” Even the outward continuity remained unbroken. “Gothic and other chiefs gave themselves the name of Roman Patricians, and at a later date the Roman Empire was restored.” Clovis received from Constantinople the titles of Consul and Patrician, and by that means reconciled the people of his Roman conquests to his sway. Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of Rome by Leo III., the Roman bishop. And this was no unmeaning form. “A seal,” says Hallam, “was put to the glory of Charlemagne when Leo III., in the name of the Roman people, placed upon his head the imperial crown. His father, Pepin, had, in Boo, borne the title of Patrician, and he had himself exercised, with that title, a regular sovereignty over Rome. Money was coined in his name, and an oath of fidelity was taken by the clergy and the people. But the appellation of Emperor seemed to place his authority over all his subjects on a new footing. It was full of high and indefinite pretensions, tending to overshadow the free election of the Franks by a fictitious descent from Augustus. A fresh oath of fidelity to him as Emperor was demanded from his subjects.” The Church, by this time thoroughly Romanized, rose into power as the Empire fell, and, along with the faith which it gave to the conquerors, handed down the Roman culture. Roman law continued its hold, and Roman institutions lived on among the people. “Considering attentively,” says Hegel, “how many of the old institutions continued to subsist, and studying the feelings of that time, as they are faintly preserved in its scanty records, it seems hardly too much to say that in the 8th century the Roman empire still existed in the West; existed in men’s minds as a power, weakened, delegated, suspended, but not destroyed.”
To these I may add a more recent and not less weighty testimony. “If the historian of Rome,” writes Freeman, is bound to look back, still more is he bound to look onwards. He has but to cast his eye on the world around him to see that Rome is still a living and abiding power. The tongue of Rome is the groundwork of the living speech of southwestern Europe; it shares our own vocabulary with the tongue of our Teutonic fathers. The tongue of Rome is still the ecclesiastical language of half Christendom; the days are hardly past when it was the common speech of science and learning. The law of Rome is still quoted in our courts and taught in our Universities; in other lands it forms the source and groundwork of their whole jurisprudence. Little more than half a century has passed since an Emperor of the Romans, tracing his unbroken descent from Constantine and Augustus, still held his place among European sovereigns, and, as Emperor of the Romans, still claimed precedence over every meaner potentate. And the title of a Roman office, the surname of a Roman family, is still the highest object of human ambition, still clutched at alike by worn-out dynasties and by successful usurpers. Go eastward, and the whole diplomatic skill of Europe is taxed to settle the affairs of a Roman colony, which, cut off alike by time and distance, still clings to its Roman language and glories in its Roman name. We made war but yesterday upon a power whose badge is the Roman eagle, on behalf of one whose capital has not yet lost the official title of New Rome. Look below the surface, and the Christian subjects of the Porte are found called and calling themselves Romans; go beyond the Tigris, and their master himself is known to the votary of Allah simply as the Roman Caesar.”
The kingdoms of today are, therefore, as this prophecy pictured them, divisions and continuations of the Roman Empire. There are two other features in the picture which, to say the least, are certainly not less noteworthy.
THE NUMBER OF THE KINGDOMS
as they will be found at “the time of the end” is definitely stated. These are represented, as we have seen, by “the toes” of the image, and in the second vision the fourth beast is pictured as having “ten horns.” The horn in the Old Testament is the symbol of power, and the meaning of this part of the figure evidently is that the fourth dominion would finally develop into ten “powers.” That this is the meaning is placed beyond doubt by the explanation— “As for the ten horns, out of this kingdom shall ten kings arise” (Dan. 7:2424And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings. (Daniel 7:24)).
As we look back over the recent history of Europe we must be struck by the fact that this part of the prophecy is being rapidly
FULFILLED IN OUR OWN TIMES.
The fragments of the fourth dominion are assuming their final shape. The last line of division between the eastern and western empires passed along what is now the western boundary of Austria, down through the Adriatic, and across the Mediterannean, striking the coast of Africa to the west of Cyrene. If we are to follow the indications of the first vision, we shall expect to find five kingdoms in each of the two empires. What then is their present condition?
It has to be borne in mind that the northern limits of the Roman dominion were the Rhine and the Danube. Russia, Norway and Sweden, Denmark, and Holland, are, therefore, excluded from our reckoning. A few years ago we should have looked in vain in the empire of the West for the five powers of the prophecy. But Germany, which was previously divided into five kingdoms, and numerous principalities, has latterly become one empire; and Italy, which was similarly subdivided, is now also a single kingdom. These changes, which have been among the surprises of modern history, give us in the old empire of the west eight kingdoms—Great Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Italy. Three of these, Belgium, Switzerland, and Portugal, will no doubt soon cease to exist as separate powers, and we shall then have the five “powers” foretold by the prophecy. Recent changes have also paved the way for its fulfillment in the eastern division of the empire. We can already mark the lines of a fivefold division there. There are Austria, the Danubian Principalities, Greece, Turkey, and Egypt. Is it not marvelous that we should now have, not only the indication of a tenfold division of the fourth dominion, but also of five kingdoms in each of the two great divisions of the old Roman Empire?
All these marvels are excelled, however, by another, which I may describe as a miracle of insight. The parts of the image which represent the four dominions regularly
INCREASE IN STRENGTH.
The gold is softer than the silver, the silver than the brass, the brass than the iron. Special attention is directed to this feature in the case of the fourth kingdom. It “shall be strong as iron; forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things, and as iron that crusheth all these, shall it break in pieces and crush” (Dan. 2:4040And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise. (Daniel 2:40)). But the kingdoms also sustain another relationship to each other. They as regularly
DECREASE IN VALUE.
Attention is called to this fact in the case of the second kingdom. The prophet said to the king, “Thou art the head of gold. And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee” (Dan. 2:3939And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee, and another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth. (Daniel 2:39))
It will be evident that the statement of this double relationship indicates discrimination of a most thorough-going character. We know that in the case of the Greek and Roman kingdoms, at any rate, the prediction was fulfilled. The brass was stronger than the gold and the silver; and the iron was also stronger than the brass. And this, it need hardly be remarked, was not a necessity. It was not necessary that each succeeding kingdom should be stronger than that which went before it. A great kingdom may, in the hour of its weakness, fall a prey to one which, in the fullness of its vigor, it would have regarded as a contemptible adversary. But this was not to be the story of the future. The kingdoms were to increase in strength, and the last was to be the strongest of them all. We are now met, however, by the startling paradox that these dominions as they increase in strength will decrease in value, and that the strongest of them all will be the least precious! It has been already pointed out that, in the king’s vision, history is read from the viewpoint of ambition. We see the future as it is scanned by a Nebuchadnezzar or a Napoleon. Our eye rests on the mighty prizes which lie in the pathway of conquest. But, while this explains why the kingdoms are described in regard to their strength and their value, it increases our difficulty. Surely, we say, to the ambitious man the stronger kingdom must necessarily be the more valuable, and the strongest the most precious of all. Yet, instead of this, the silver of the second is explained as indicating an inferior dominion to the first, and consequently the iron of the fourth must be taken as indicating that the last and strongest was the least precious of the four.
This point seems to have quite escaped the notice of commentators, and there is no help to be had in consulting them. Turning again to the prophecy the meaning is plain. The dominions so differ in character that he, who possesses the first, holds what will yield to ambition a fuller satisfaction than can be known in the possession of any of the others. To the man of ambition—the man who lusts after lordship over his fellows—the first dominion is more precious than the second, the second than the third, the third than the fourth. But, while the meaning is plain, its plainness does not remove our difficulty. Why should the strength of the dominions be in inverse ratio to their value? Why should those qualities not increase or decrease together?
When my attention was first attracted to this feature in the prophecy, it seemed to me that light might be found in the writings of those who dealt with Universal History, and of such especially as dealt with it philosophically. The search which was then entered upon was not in vain. There is one book for which we are indebted to one of Germany’s deepest thinkers, and which deserves, beyond any other that has ever been written, the name of a “Philosophy of History.” Its merits have been widely recognized, and have been as freely admitted by the opponents, as they have been loudly proclaimed by the disciples, of the writer. I refer to the well-known work of Hegel. Morell says of it: “Hegel has given us many views of great originality. His ‘Philosophy of History’ is especially valuable, as containing investigations into the peculiar characteristics of the different ages of the world, that throw great light upon the intellectual progress of civilization.” Emil Palleske gives it still higher praise. He refers, in his life of Schiller, to Kant’s treatise on “Ideas for a Universal History considered in a cosmopolitan light,” and says: “Kant in this compares himself to Kepler, and wished that he might have a Newton as a successor. Hegel became this Newton.”
Turning now to his “Philosophy of History,” we find that it covers the entire field described in the prophecy. It contains no reference whatever, it may be said, to the words of Scripture, and there is in Hegel’s mind apparently not the remotest thought of them. But the problem, if we may so call it, is the same. Hegel contemplates the History of man as a whole. He sees in those successive dominions, or rather in the conception of human freedom which each embodies, the advancing steps of a continuous development. The first thing which strikes us is that the number of these stages is identical with that in the Book of Daniel. There are five developments. There is the childhood, the boyhood, the youth, the manhood, and the old age of history, the last not being weakness, but full maturity. Then these five are divided exactly as in the prophecy. There are four dominions of man, and one of God in man. Hegel saw that in Christianity civilization had reached a stage which it never had attained before, and that, when Christianity shall have done its work and permeated all social and political relationships, the last and highest stage of man’s development will be reached.
Even these coincidences are astonishing. They prove that the Scripture looking forward and the philosopher looking back have seen the same things. But we have not exhausted Hegel’s testimony. He deals with kingdoms, not because he desires to trace their conquests or record the influence which they exerted over mankind, but merely because it is only when men have been gathered into states that the march of civilization begins. It is with this civilization that he concerns himself. What were the ideas which lay beneath it, and molded it, and gave it its distinctive form? As Hegel looked back over the past he saw one form emerging ever more fully from surrounding darkness and mist; it was the form of Freedom. Men did not at first realize—at least, as we find them congregated together in states—all that they were as men. The state was in the beginning merely an enlargement of the family. Sovereignty was looked upon as invested with all the rights, and hedged round about with all the sanctity of fatherhood. The king was the father in whose care all confided, whose frown they dreaded, and in whose smile they rejoiced. He alone was free; the duty of every other was submission to his will.
That was
THE CHILDHOOD OF HISTORY.
Hegel finds the fullest illustration of it in China. The ancient economy of Babylon was almost wholly unknown in Hegel’s time, and he makes only a passing reference to it; but I shall show that every feature, which he notes in the condition of China has its parallel in that of the Assyrio-Babylonian monarchy. And we now understand the reason of the similarity. Recent investigations have shown that the Chinese are the descendants of the Accadians to whom Babylonia owed its civilization. Hegel dwells upon the slavery of the family relations in China: “The duties of the family are absolutely binding and established and regulated by law. The son may not accost the father when he comes into the room; he must seem to contract himself to nothing at the side of the door, and may not leave the room without the father’s permission.” With this compare the following: “A tablet in the British Museum contains a fragment of the civil war, in a double text—Turanian-Chaldæan and Semitic-Assyrian—on the subject of the rights and reciprocal duties of husbands and wives, fathers and children. From this we find that the Assyrian family was constituted on the basis of the most absolute and uncontrolled power of the husband and the father.” Then of China Hegel says: “The patriarchal relation is predominant, and the government is based upon the paternal management of the emperor, who keeps all departments of the State in order.... He is the patriarch, and everything in the State that can make any claim to reverence is attached to him... The emperor, as he is the supreme head of the State, is also the chief of its religion.” Lenormant, referring to the king’s humility in the presence of the gods, says, “But this man, who was so humble in the presence of the gods, held in his hands, with regard to other men, the double power, spiritual and temporal; he was both a sovereign pontiff and an autocrat; he was called the vicegerent of the gods on earth; and his authority, thus emanating from a divine source, was as absolute over the soul as over the body.”
One more twofold quotation will complete the picture: “Besides the imperial dignity there is properly no elevated rank, no nobility among the Chinese; only the princes of the imperial house and the sons of the ministers enjoy any precedence of the kind, and they rather by their position than by their birth. Otherwise all are equal.... And though there is no distinction conferred by birth, and everyone can attain the highest dignity, this very equality testifies to no triumphant assertion of the worth of the inner man, but a servile consciousness—one which has not yet matured itself so far as to recognize distinctions.” Of the Assyrio Babylonian civilization Lenormant speaks in exactly similar terms: “In Assyria there were no castes, nor even rigorously defined classes, no hereditary or established aristocracy. There was complete social equality, such equality as despotism desires and establishes as most favorable to its own existence—an equality with a common level created by the yoke that bears equally on all, where there is no superiority but that of offices established by the will, often by the caprice, of an absolute master.”
This, then, is what Hegel has well described as the Childhood of history, when all is simple and trustful. Here all right and power center in the monarch. “Individuals remain as mere accidents. These revolve round the monarch, who as patriarch... stands at the head.... All the riches of imagination are appropriated to that dominant existence in which subjective freedom is essentially merged; the latter looks for its dignity not in itself, but in that absolute object.” Could there be a finer comment on the words, “Thou, O king, art this head of gold;” or on these others, “The most high God gave Nebuchadnezzar... a kingdom, and majesty and glory and honor, and for the majesty that he gave him, all people, nations and languages, trembled and feared before him: whom he would he slew; and whom he would he kept alive; and whom he would he set up, and whom he would he put down” (Dan. 5:18, 1918O thou king, the most high God gave Nebuchadnezzar thy father a kingdom, and majesty, and glory, and honor: 19And for the majesty that he gave him, all people, nations, and languages, trembled and feared before him: whom he would he slew; and whom he would he kept alive; and whom he would he set up; and whom he would he put down. (Daniel 5:18‑19))? On the one side there was the most despotic sway, on the other the deepest reverence, the most willing and unlimited obedience. To the lust of ambition what nobler prize ever presented itself than to press back the boundaries of such a dominion till they were conterminous with the world, and thus to become the center of all earthly power, the source of all earthly beneficence, the one object of human reverence, whose thoughts to all men were wisdom, whose will was unquestioned law? He who swayed this scepter ruled as a god upon the earth. He received as a spontaneous offering from men, in the childhood of their history, what afterward the world’s wealth could not buy, nor the terrors of the sword compel. This was the prize of “fine gold.”
The Persian dominion constitutes
“THE BOYHOOD OF HISTORY,
no longer manifesting the repose and trustingness of the child, but boisterous and turbulent.” The consciousness of freedom, or rather of human equality, begins to dawn. In the comparatively pure religion taught by Zoroaster another mighty presence was recognized, before whom king and subject had alike to bow. “Ormuzd is the Lord of Light... He is the excellent, the good, the positive in all natural and spiritual existence.” The result of this purer faith was twofold. It was seen in the toleration of the Persian Empire. The kingdoms are left with their own religions, institutions, and laws, and there is no longer any attempt to make the king the temporal and spiritual head of all mankind. Nebuchadnezzar commands men of all nationalities to fall down and worship the image which he sets up, and is quite unable to comprehend the scruples of the few pious Jews who refuse their adoration while Cyrus and succeeding Persian kings assist in rebuilding the Jewish Temple. The King was therefore less to the subject nations in this second than he had been in the preceding dominion.
But there was another result—the relation between the monarch and his own people was changed. “The Persians,” says Hegel, “stood with one foot on their ancestral territory, with the other on their foreign conquests In his ancestral land the king was a friend among friends, and as if surrounded by equals.” The king had therefore become less to his own people than the Babylonian monarch had been among his. But, while this was so, it was as yet only the boyhood of the race. The glorious form of liberty was but dimly seen, and the spirit of slavery and tyranny was still unexpelled. “The subject nations,” says Heeren, “were treated as property, and were called slaves, in contrast with the Persians, who on their side were called freemen. Such was the relation of the nations towards each other: towards the king the Persians were as little free as the others.” But the hand now laid upon the nations was mightier than that which they had felt before; for this was, in a word, government by a dominant race, whereas in the previous case it had been government by a dominant personality. The provinces were now held by Persian satraps. The nations were led into battle, not by their own princes, but by Persian generals. The monarch no longer stood among all the peoples and tribes of his dominion the one central power and splendor. He was king of the Persians, and they controlled for him the rest. Even to his own he was not the gorgeous personality which the Babylonian king had been. This second throne was still a great prize for ambition, but it was less than the first. And yet, as the king was thus multiplied, so to speak, into a nation, the one into the many, it necessarily held the dominion with a firmer grasp. It was the silver, less precious, but stronger, than the gold.
The third era—the Grecian—is
THE YOUTH OF HISTORY.
“The Greek world may be compared,” say Hegel, “with the period of adolescence, for here we have individualities forming themselves.” Freedom had its birth among the Greeks, and their tenacious grasp of this principle lay at the root of their glory and strength. Union and subordination were to some extent necessary in their predatory excursions, and in their contests with neighboring cities and states; but they jealously guarded the gift of freedom. Their hatred of a master still breathes its scornful defiance in that word “tyrant,” which they have bequeathed to us. Here it was no longer THE ONE who was free, but THE MANY. Among such men the king could only be a general; and even this rank he could hold only in virtue of his kingly nature. “The relation of princes to subjects,” says Hegel, “we learn best from Homer.... Their subjects obeyed them, not as distinguished from them by conditions of caste, nor as in a state of serfdom, nor in the patriarchal relation, nor yet as the result of the express necessity for a constitutional government, but only from the need, universally felt, of being held together and of obeying a ruler accustomed to command. The prince has just so much personal authority as he possesses the ability to acquire and to assert.” It was the commanding intellect alone that could be monarch here, for from feeble hands the reins would soon have been torn. Even under Alexander, the Grecian armies were remarkable for their insolence and insubordination. The strength, however, which lay in this consciousness of freedom was immense. Nothing could daunt its proud and noble daring. He who held this dominion controlled a power which was then irresistible; for he led an army of men. But his glory was less than that of the world conquerors who had preceded him; for he ruled, not over sons, but brothers; not over slaves, but freemen. The brass was stronger, and yet less precious, than the silver and the gold.
We come now to
THE MANHOOD OF HISTORY,
the Roman State. In the Grecian idea of freedom there was caprice, and, consequently, turbulence and disorganization. Each man was a law to himself. This idea sufficed for the youth; but upon the man there now broke the majestic vision of a LAW outside man’s will, to which the will must be subjected, and by which, in return, freedom was guarded. Speaking of this distinction, Hegel says: “The Romans completed this important separation, and discovered a principle of right which is external; that is, one not dependent on disposition and sentiment.” We know how law was reverenced among them. “In order to obtain a nearer view of this spirit, we must,” says Hegel again, “pay particular attention to the conduct of the plebs in times of revolt against the patricians. How often, in insurrection and anarchical disorder, were the plebs brought back into a state of tranquility by a mere form, and cheated of the fulfillment of its demands, righteous or unrighteous!”
But Rome went further. The will was bowed to one abstraction—Law: the whole passion and strength of the Roman nature were given to another—the State. “True manhood acts neither in accordance with the caprice of a despot, nor in obedience to a graceful caprice of its own, but works for a general aim—one in which the individual perishes, and realizes his own private object only in that general aim. Free individuals are sacrificed to the severe demands of the national objects to which they must surrender themselves in this service of abstract generalization.” The Roman did not give up his liberty to a master, but he resigned it willingly to the State.
It may be well to notice how fully all this is borne out by the great master of Roman history, who had as little thought of supporting Hegel as of supplying materials for a comment on Scripture. The Romans, says Mommsen, were “A free people, understanding the duty of obedience, disowning all mystic ideas of Divine right, absolutely equal in the eye of the law and one with another.” “Wherever in Hellas a tendency towards national union appeared, it was based, not on influences directly political, but on games and art: the contests at Olympia, the poems of Homer, the tragedies of Euripides, were the only bonds that held Hellas together. Resolutely, on the other hand, the Italian surrendered his own personal will for the sake of freedom, and learned to obey his father that he might know how to obey the State. In such subjection as this, individual development might be marred, and the germs of fairest promise in man might be arrested in the bud; the Italian gained instead a feeling of fatherland and of patriotism such as the Greek never knew, and, alone among all the civilized nations of antiquity, succeeded in working out national unity in connection with a constitution based on self-government—a national unity, which at last placed in his hands the supremacy, not only over the divided Hellenic stock, but over the whole known world.” “Life, in the case of the Roman, was spent under conditions of austere restraint, and, the nobler he was, the less he was a free man.... But, while the individual had neither the wish nor the power to be ought else than a member of the community, the glory and the might of that community was felt by every individual citizen as a personal possession to be transmitted along with his name and his homestead, to his posterity.”
This voluntary self-surrender became a worship. The highest praise which the Roman coveted was to have it solemnly declared that he had deserved well of his country. Kings, consuls, tribunes, emperors were but the servants of the state. Their individual glory was absorbed in the surpassing glory of that abstraction: the man was overshadowed by the thing.
Even the glory of the Emperors had to be veiled: “The Caesar was in truth,” says Dr. Freeman, “an absolute monarch. But in theory he was only a citizen, a senator, a magistrate. The Emperor gave his vote in the Senate like another Senator, as Prince of the Senate he gave the first vote; but it was open either to patriots or to subtle flatterers to vote another way. His household was like that of any other Roman noble; he mixed with other Roman nobles on terms of social equality; he had no crowns and scepters, no bendings of the knee, no titles of Majesty or Highness.... He was a monarch who reigned without a particle of royal show.” It is well known how fully Augustus recognized the fact that personal pretensions would be utterly destructive of this enormous power, and how assiduously he cast away everything which would proclaim him the world’s master. “The emperors,” writes Hegel, “conducted themselves in the enjoy merit of their power with perfect simplicity, and did not surround themselves with pomp and splendor in Oriental fashion. We find in them traits of simplicity which astonish us. Thus, for example, Augustus writes a letter to Horace, in which he reproaches him for having failed to address any poem to him, and asks him whether he thinks that that would disgrace him with posterity.” He ordered a palace, which had been built by his daughter Julia, to be pulled down because of its splendor.
“It was not individual genius,” says Mommsen, “that ruled in Rome, and through Rome in Italy, but the one immovable idea of a policy—propagated from generation to generation in the Senate. Immense successes were thus obtained at an immense price. In the Roman commonwealth nothing specially depended on any one man, either on soldier or general, and under the rigid discipline of its moral police all the idiosyncracies of human character were extinguished. Rome reached a greatness such as no other state of antiquity attained; but she dearly purchased her greatness at the sacrifice of the graceful variety, of the easy abandon, and of the inward freedom of Hellenic life.” It was no longer their fellow-creature whom men served and for whom they sacrificed themselves; it was ROME. The highest place left for ambition was simply to be the first and greatest servant of the State. But the power which the stern, deep, devotion of the strong Roman soul placed in that servant’s hand was the mightiest and most terrible the world had ever seen. There was nothing it would not dare; there was nothing it could not do. Though less precious to ambition, the iron was stronger than the gold, and the silver, and the brass.
So far the agreement is remarkable, but Hegel renders it absolutely complete. He notes a fifth and last stage in the development, which he calls
THE OLD AGE OF HISTORY.
He explains himself thus: “The old age of nature is weakness; but that of the spirit is its perfect maturity and strength.... The fourth phase” —it must be remembered that Hegel’s fourth is our fifth, as he reckons the first and second stages, his own “childhood” and “boyhood” of history, as one— “the fourth phase BEGINS WITH THE RECONCILIATION PRESENTED BY CHRISTIANITY BUT ONLY IN THE GERM, WITHOUT NATIONAL OR POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT.” When Christianity has permeated the national and political life, the fifth kingdom will be established; in other words, the crowning development of history, the “germ” of which is already with us, is “the kingdom of God.” It only remains to add that, as is implied in the prophecy which pictures the stone falling not only upon the iron but also upon the brass, the silver, and the gold, the various forms of past civilization still remain. Their hour of might has passed away, but they themselves still exist. The gold has still its representative in China and elsewhere; the silver in such countries as Russia and Turkey; the brass in such a republic as Switzerland; the iron in those commonwealths where, in addition to Grecian freedom, there is the Roman unity and subordination.
This, it will be observed, is not the testimony of distinguished opinion, but of facts. The facts were there though it needed genius to discern and make them manifest to us. But what of the Book in which all was written from of old? How was it that, more than three-and-twenty centuries before Hegel was born, and when the past he was afterward to read had just begun to be, Time’s entire story was already written, its developments numbered, its epochs clearly marked, and their inmost meaning declared? By whom was it that the future was so deeply searched and so fully made known? There can be but one reply. In a dull and cloudy day the very light around us, subdued though it be, compels the belief that the sun, though we do not see him, is shining in the sky. But when the veil of clouds has been rolled away, and his full radiance is poured upon us, there is no more room for inference or argument: every eye must note his glory. And so here we behold in unveiled splendor that full inspiration of the Divine Spirit, the presence of which we feel in every one of those words that search the hidden things of man’s heart and the deep things of God—an inspiration which no lowly heart will ever try to explain away, and which, in the face of these “abiding miracles of prophecy,” no honest mind will seek to deny. And not only does it demonstrate the full inspiration of Scripture it proves that God reigns in the earth and guides it on to good. It reminds us that, as the past has accomplished His will, so the present and the future will hasten the world’s salvation. The stone, miraculous in its origin, cut out of the mountainside without hands, will yet smite the toes of the image and grind the whole of it to powder. Christ will come again, and righteousness and love and peace will bless the earth, which man’s dominions have mocked and scourged. Let us interpret the earth’s need and lift the cry, “Thy Kingdom come”! Let us yield ourselves, and let Him reign in us now, so that when He does come, it may not be with condemnation but with joy.