Works, Book 4 · Letter 24
EPISTLE XXIV.
Mr. Mede's Third Letter to Dr. Meddus, touching the explanation of some obscure passages in Daniel, mentioned in the foregoing Letter of Dr. Twisse.
SIR,
I Have nothing upon the seventh of Daniel but what you have seen in those two Discourses, viz.*See Epist. VIII. The purport of the four Kingdoms in Daniel; and secondly,‖See Epist. XV. The Description of the Great Day of Iudgment, Dan. 7. Both which I sent you written with my own hand, to be communicated to Dr. Twisse; and the latter being sent me back to take a Copy for my self, I returned it again unto you.
As for those three Chapters of the Apocalyps, I have not yet done a word; and see so much business now coming upon me, that I know not when I shall begin. For I can do nothing in those things but in silence, and security of not being distracted. In the mean time I must desire my friends to content themselves with those short Specimina concerning those Chapters which they had at the beginning of my communication of my Meditations on these things. And it may be, if I had not communicated them to so many till they had been more full and perfect, I had been ere this time more forward than I am.
Concerning your three Questions, I have chosen to make answer to them this Festival-week; not knowing after it be past when I shall have so much leisure again. And first I will begin with the two last.
Quaest. 1. If the Horn with eyes and mouth, speaking words against the most High, &c. in Daniel, or the fourth Beast ruling in that Horn, be the same with S. Iohn's Bestia novissimi capitis; and consequently the ten Horns, amongst which that Horn ruled, the same Kingdoms which S. Iohn saw typed by the like number of Horns; as the Church from her infancy believed: how can S. Iohn, who saith,*Revel. 17. that his ten Kings receive their kingdoms at the same time or hour with his Beast, be reconciled with Daniel, who *Dan. 7. 24.saith, the wicked Horn rose up after them?
Resp. I translate not foreign in Dan. 7. 24. After them, but, Behind them, as the Greek doth, foreign and take the meaning implied to be, that the ten Kings were not aware of the growing up of the little Horn, till it overtopped them. The learned in the Tongues know that foreign signifie as well*Vid. Gen. 22. 13. Behind in place, as After in time; and the first as often and frequently every whit as the latter: So also Post in Latine is indifferently either Loci or Temporis. Exod. 14. 19.The translation cannot be excepted against,Iosh. 8. 2. as either new or strained: The sense is obvious and most agreeable to the event;2 King… 9. 18. and so we shall not need seek any other way to avoid the appearance of contradiction.2 Chro. 13 13. Otherwise it were not impossible to expound [After them] to be in order of number, Ezck. 3. 12. & alibi.and not in order of time, which we in English would express, And another shall rise up besides them, that is, besides the ten, and so make the eleventh. But we shall not need so harsh and unusual a way. Besides, it might be granted, that the little Horn, in respect of his foreign and height of dominion, was after the ten Kings, though his beginning were at the same time when they began.
Quaest. 2. What were those three Kings which the little Horn is said to have displanted, (Dan. 7. 8.) or, as the Angel interprets, (v. 24.) brought down or humbled, foreign, which the Vulgar turns humiliabit; the Greek foreign Irenaeus, deminorabit, vel (ut in alio exemplari) dehonorabit; Vatablus, opprimet; Iunius, deprimet?
Resp. In my larger interpretations of the Trumpets (in Rev. 8) you have at the end of the second Trumpet a*See Book III. pag 463. & pag 661. Table of Ten Kings or Kingdoms whereinto the Roman Empire was divided about Anno 456 and forward: The off-spring of which Nations, through many alterations, (partly by the inconstancy of humane things, partly occasioned by the further enlargement of the Christian Faith) are the body of most of the Kingdoms and States of Christendom at this day. Look upon the Table, and then I answer you thus.
The three Kings which Daniel saith the Antichristian Horn *In another … of Mr. … to Mr. Tho… Iohnson, of Rochdale in Lancashire, Novemb, 9. 1636. (…here much of … letter is trans…rib…d, in answer to the like D…ubt) is …is added [The A…ichristian H…rn with eyes and mouth, that is, qui cum revera Comu tant…m sit, pro Cap…e tamen sese …erit, cujus est proprtum o… & oculos habere]should depress and displant, to advance himself, were those whose Dominions extended into Italy, and so stood in his light.
First, That of the Greeks, *In the Letter to Mr. T. I. this is add d, [now …fter the division and dilaceration of the Empire, but one of the Kingdoms.whose Emperor Leo Isaurus, for the quarrel of Image-worship, ‖[The Horn.]he excommunicated, and made his subjects of Italy revolt from their allegiance.
Secondly, That of the Longobards, (successors to the Ostrogoths) whose Kingdom he caused by the aid of the Franks to be wholly ruined and extirpated, thereby to get the Exarchate of Ravenna (which since the revolt from the Greeks the Longobards were seised on) for a Patrimony to S. Peter.
Thirdly, The last was the Kingdom of the Franks it self, continued in the Empire of Germany; whose Emperors from the days of Henry the fourth*[this proud domineering Horn.] he excommunicated, deposed and trampled under his feet, and never suffered to live in rest, till he made them not only to quit their interest in the Election of Popes and Investitures of Bishops but that remainder also of Iurisdiction in Italy, wherewith together with the Roman name he had once infeoffed*[and invested] their Predecessors.
These were the Kings by displanting or (as the Vulgar hath) humbling of whom the Pope got elbow-room by degrees, and advanced himself to that height of Temporal Majesty and absolute greatness, which made him so terrible in the world. See in the Table 3, 9, 10.
In the forementioned Letter to Mr. T. I. upon the same argument, there is this additional Observation.
[And here note, it is one thing for the Ten Kings to give their power and authority unto the Beast capitis novissimi, (as S. Iohn speaks Rev. 17.) that is, voluntarily to subject themselves and yield homage to him as their Head and Principal, and another thing for the same Beast or Antichristian Horn to displant, depress or humble them. The first should be common to all the Ten, (as was revealed to S. Iohn:) the latter proper to Three of them, (as was shewed to Daniel.) For observe, that as in the History of our Saviour's Acts penned by the four Evangelists one relates that which another omits, and è contra; so is it in these Prophetical descriptions of the Fourth Beast by Daniel and Iohn.]
Quest. 3. How those words in Dan. 7. ver. 12. are to be interpreted and applied, viz. As concerning the rest of the Beasts, they had their dominion taken away; yet their lives were prolonged for a season and time.
Resp. Before I answer, it must be known and remembred, that for that [As concerning] there is nothing in the Original but the Copulative Vau, which, as the sense requires, is to be translated not only copulatively, but disjunctivè, adversativè, causaliter, ordinativè, and sometimes as a particle of similitude, and the like; it being of it self as a Materia prima. In the latter part of this sentence it is translated adversativè, viz. Yet, [Yet their lives, &c.] for which in the Original is nothing but the same Conjunction Vau.
This premised, I answer,
First, If Beasts here be meant of the*Verse 4, 5, 6. three first Beasts, it is to be taken by way of a Parenthesis, implying a tacite answer to a question: For Daniel having spoken so largely of the destruction of the Fourth Beast, and nothing of the other, it might be asked, Yea, but what became of the former three? He answers, As concerning them also, they had their dominion taken away; but their lives were prolonged for a time and a season; that is, they reigned their time, and then had their dominion taken away. And thus our Translators seem to have understood it, and accordingly to have sitted their translation, by turning Vau [As concerning.] This is an easie and smooth interpretation, nor do I see any sufficient reason why it should not satisfie.
Secondly, But some of the Hebrew Commenters understand not Beasts here of the three Beasts forementioned, but of other Beasts, that is, other States and Kingdoms then reigning in the world, at what time the fourth Beast should be destroy…d; That these also, as well as the Fourth Beast and his limmes, should have their Kingdoms taken away, though not at the same instant, yet some time after. And so Vau shall not need be translated [As concerning,] but [Also;] Also the rest of the Reasts, &c As for the word Beasts to be taken here for other Kingdoms as well as the Four great ones, it needs make no scruple. For we shall find it so in the next Chapt. where it i… said of the Medo-Persian Ram (verse 4.) that no Beasts might stand before him, that is, no S…ate or Kingdom was able to resist his power: So here may The rest of the Beasts be the States and Kingdoms contemporary with the fourth Beast. And this interpretation would sound well with the words of S. Iohn in the end of the 19. Chapter, where it being said that the Beast and False Prophet were cast into the fire (as Daniel saith of hi… fourth Beast, chap. 7. v. 11.) it followeth, And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sate upon the horse, &c. as if he had meant to express this of Daniel, And the rest of the Beasts had their dominion taken away, &c. But the difficulty then will be, how the latter part of the words should be taken, viz. Yet (or And, or But) their lives were prolonged for a season and time. The Rabbins take it for some season and time after the fourth Beast was destroyed; and R. Solomen, at the time of the war of Gog and Magog, which they look for soon after then … stitution, upon the destruction of the fourth Beast. But whether can this stand with S. Paul's assertion, that the fourth Beast terminating in the Man of sin shall be destroyed at the foreign or appearing of Christ's coming? How should any Beasts lives be prolonged for a season and time after that coming? Or should we expound this season and time of a thousand year after, when the last and final execution of Christ upon his enem…e is to be? But Daniel seems to joyn the appearance of Christ in the clouds to receive a Kingdom with this destruction of the rest of the Beasts together with the fourth Beast, and so not to admit of such a distance. Let others judge.
Thirdly, But I will not conceal that I have suspected there might possibly be a third Interpretation far…d …ering from them both, and which would make the Vision fully to agree with the Angel's interpretation: But the words then must be construed much otherwise than they use to be: viz. Daniel in the former verse mentioning precisely the Body of the Beast to be given to the flames, it should follow thus; And as the Body was burned and destroyed, so the rest of the Beast (viz. the t…n Horns and ruffling Horn) had their dominion (at the same time the Body was burned) taken away; and prolongation of life was given them for a season and time, viz. until I saw one like to the Son of man coming in the clouds, &c. that is, they reigned till the Son of man came in the clouds, &c. The reason why I thought of this Interpretation is, because the word which we tra…slate here plurally, is, as it is pointed in the Original, of the singular number, namely foreign; whereas if it were the plural, it should be foreign; for that, say the Chaldee Grammarians, is the difference between the singular and the plural Emphatick, that the one hath Scheva[…] in the penultima, the other hath Camets[…] And so we render foreign with Scheva in this Chapter singularly [Beast,] twice in the following verses of this Chapter; viz. verse 19, & 23. The reason which moved the Interpreters to translate it here plurally was, because the Affixes following are all plural, [their dominion, their lives.] But this may be because that remainder of the Beast under the Horns consisted of many Kingdoms, and in that respect the dominion and duration thereof is expressed with plural Affixes, as of many.
March 31. Yours, Ioseph Mede.
Post-script.
My paper streightens me and my time; and I have been a 3. or 4. times troubled while I was writing this last way of Interpretation; which made me so blurr and blot, and scarce know what I did. I should else have expressed my self more plainly and fully.