third year of Jehoiakim, and on this account to have been a great while extant before the wars of Antiochus Epiphanes. Thus, he tells in one place, after mentioning the honours which Daniel received from Darius upon his miraculous prefervation in the den of lions, Thef books which he wrote are read among us untill now; and we have been confident from them, that Daniel had intercourse with God.' And having quoted from them the prediction about the ram and the goat, with the interpretation thereof, in which it makes a part, that a certain king would arise from the Greeks, who fhould conquer the Jewish nation, overthrow their laws, deftroy their polity, plunder their temple, and make the facrifices cease to be offered three years, he adds, These things indeed our nation‡ fuffered under An6 tiochus Epiphanes, as Daniel wrote and faw would come to pass many years before.' Again, he makes Jaddua to have produced the book of Daniel to Alexander* the king of Macedon, at his vifit to Jerufalem, which must have been 160 years prior to Antiochus's time, The book of Daniel having been 'fhewed to the king, in which he discovered, that one of the Greeks would destroy the empire of the Persians, he rejoiced, imagining himself was the 'perfon intended.' Once more he acquaints us,

+ Antiq. 10. 11. 7. Τα fαρ βιβλια όσα δη συγγραψάμενος και ταλελοιπεν αναΓινώσκεται παρ' ημιν ετι και vur, &c.

† Ibid. Και δη ταυτα ήμων συνεβη τω εθνει παθειν ὑπ' Αντιοχή το Επιφανες καθώς ειδεν ὁ Δανιηλος και πολλοις ετεσιν εμπροσθεν ave spate.

* See ibid. 11. 8. 5. and compare Part 1. fect. 5. p. 28.

That the defolation of the temple by Antiochus, ⚫ and the Macedonians, was foretold in Daniel's pro

phecy 408 years before it happened.' So full is he about the book of Daniel's being genuine, or written by the person whose name it bears, and in the age which it pretends.

Yet there is not wanting other teftimony to the fame point; for in the first book of Maccabees, (to omit the use of the phrafe, the abomination of defolation,' by the writer of it, chap. i. 54. which hath been thought to be taken from Daniel; because I apprehend there is little or no force in the argument from it to confute Porphyry's hypothefis, though it hath been sometimes urged with that view, as the writer lived after Antiochus's wars,) Mattathias, who was coeval with this enemy of the Jews, commemorates in a speech to his fons, chap. ii. 50-6. Daniel's deliverance for his innocency from the mouth of lions, and the preservation of Ananias, Mishael, and Azarias, amidst the flaming fire, which are events recorded in the book of Daniel, when he profeffes

* Ibid. 12. 7. 6. Κατα την Δανιηλο προφητειαν προ τετρακοσίων και οκτω Γενομενην ετων. I may obferve likewife, that in his Antiq. 10. 10. 6. having recited fome things which are in the book of Daniel, he adds, he mentioned them as he found them in their 'antient books,' and that he had profeffed in the beginning of the work, to translate only the books of the Hebrews into the Greek tongue, Proem. fect. 2. Moreover, in his first book againft Apion, fect. 8. he fpeaks of the books of the prophets, among which this of Daniel was one, as comprehending things which happened in their own refpeftive times, τα κατ' αυτος πραχθεντα, from the age of Mofes until that of Artaxerxes, which is altogether inconfiftent with Porphyry's date of the book in Antiochus's time, fince Artaxerxes was long dead before Antiochus Epiphanes reigned, even almoft 250 years.

to bring to their remembrance The facts done by 'their fathers, in their time, through zeal for the • Lord;' And Eleazar again recites both hiftories in his prayer in the third book, vi. 7.8. But thefe allufions or references afford no contemptible evidence, that the book of Daniel was known before Antiochus's oppreffion of the Jews, and the miferies they fuffered at his hands. And furely after fuch proof, I need not infift upon that which arifes from the works of the Chriftian fathers. Porphyry then fpoke against the general confent of the world about the matter, when he threw out that heavy charge above quoted: wherefore he deferved no credit, unless he had brought irrefragable reasons from the book itself, to destroy its pretenfions to that original which it claims. But did he offer fuch unanswerable objections to its genuineness? Or have they been advanced fince, by Spinoza, Collins, and others who adopted his fentiments? I think not; as will appear from the following short remarks upon the moft fpecious and plausible of them.

As to the Greek etymologies or derivations of words, whence Porphyry concluded the book of Daniel * must have been the forgery of fome Greek

Hieronym. pr. ad explanat. in Daniel. tom. 3. 1071.—' Grae⚫ ci fermonis effe commentum, quia in Sufannae fabula contineatur, di* cente Daniele ad preflyteros, Απο το σχινα σχισαι, και απο το wire pit, quam etymologiam magis Graeco fermoni convenire quam Hebraeo; cui et Eufebius, et Origenes, et Apollinaris pari 'fententia refponderunt, Sufannae, Belifque ac Draconis fabulas non ⚫ contineri in Hebraico.nec fe debere refpondere Porphyrio pro ⚫his, quae nullam Scripturae Sanctae auctoritatem praebeant.' See Sufanna, v. 44---59. See alfo Hieronym. Praefat. in Danielis versionem apud Bibl. Vulgat. Daniel apud Hebraeos nec Sufannae habet histori

writer, these are not to be found at all in the book which was received by the Hebrews, and which from them is admitted into our canon; but only in the apocryphal ftory of Sufanna, where indeed the allufions between and σχίσαι, πρινος πρισαι Occur in the speech to the elders, which that prophet is there made to deliver.

σχίνος

and

Daniel might be a young man in the third year of Jehoiakim's reign, when he was chofen by Afhpenaz mafter of the eunuchs, to ftand before Nebuchadnezzar, Dan. i. 3. and yet might have all that reputation for wisdom and piety, and favour or acceptance with God, which he is fuppofed to have in the book of Ezekiel, chap. xiv. 14. and xxviii. 3. For Ezekiel uttered these prophecies only in the fixth and eleventh years of Jehoiachin's captivity, (which appears by comparing the dates of thefe different revelations from God, wherein Daniel is celebrated, as they are to be learned from chap. viii. 1. and xxvi. 1.) by confequence, when Daniel in respect of the laft of Ezekiel's encomiums, had been about eighteen, and in refpect of the former of them, had been about thirteen years famous, on account of his declaration of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, and of the meaning of it, after he himself had forgotten it, and all the Chaldean wife men had been unable to find it out; feeing this happened in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin's predeceffor, whose reign ex

am, nec hymnum trium puerorum, nec Belis Draconifque fabulas,⚫ audivi ego quendam de praeceptoribus Judaeorum, cum Sufannae de• rideret historiam, et a Graeco nefcio quo eam diceret confictam, illud opponere, quod Origeni quoque Africanus oppofuit, etymologias has 270 т, &c, de Graeco fermone defcendere,'

tended to eleven years in whole, 2 Kings, xxiii. 31. and xxiv. 8.

Though the Greek verfion of Daniel which we now have be Theodotion's, who is generally allowed to have publifhed his Greek tranflation of the Old Teftament, fo late as the reign of Commodus the Roman emperor, about the year of our Lord 192, there was a more antient Greek version of it, as well as of the other Jewish Scriptures. This is evident from Juftin Martyr, Clemens Alexandrinus, Eufebius, and Jerome, who alfo, in his preface to his tranflation of the book of Daniel, discovers to us that it passed under the name of 'The tranflation according 'to the Seventy,' and bears witness, at the fame time that he owns his ignorance of the reason, why the churches of Christ did not read it, but Theodotion's, that it was with justice discarded because it varied much from the original.

Is it faid, there is no Chaldee paraphrase of this book by Jonathan, as there is of the other prophets? not to infift from the teftimonies quoted by Bishop Chandler, that there was an antient + Targum on

* Praef. in Danielem, fub fin. Vulg. verf. Danielem prophetam post 70 interpretes Domini Salvatoris Ecclefiae non legunt, utentes • Theodotionis verfione, et hoc cur acciderit nefcio;-hoc unum affirmare poffum, quod multum a veritate discordat, et recto judicio repu 'diatus fit.' To the fame purpofe he likewife writes,, in his commentary on Daniel, cap. 4. Judicio magiftrorum ecclefiae editio 70 re'pudiata eft, et Theodotionis vulgo legitur, quae et Hebraeo et cete'ris tranflatoribus congruit.' That more antient version of Daniel more over had a column allotted to it in Origen's Hexapla.

He fays there is a paffage in the Mishna Tract. Iadim five De Lotione Manuum, c. 4. fect. 5. which infinuates, that before our Sa viour's time, there was a Targum on Daniel. I lay it before the reader