LETTER TO DR. HURD.
Sir,
Some months ago it was reported, that Dr. Hurd was preparing to expound the Apocalypsis, and once more to prove the Pope to be Antichrist. The public were amazed. By the gay and by the busy world, the very attempt was treated as an object of ridicule. Polite scholars lamented, that you should be prevailed on to give up your more solid and liberal studies, for such obscure and unprofitable researches. Your own brethren of the church hinted, that it would be far more prudent to observe a respectful silence with regard to those awful and invidious mysteries. A more than common share of merit was requisite to surmount such adverse prejudices. Your Sermons, Sir, have been perused with pleasure by many, who had the strongest dislike to the name and subject. Every one has admired the vastness of the plan, the harmony of the proportions, and the elegance of the ornaments; and if any have remarked a weakness in the foundations, it has been imputed to the nature of the ground; and the taste of the Patron has been arraigned rather than the skill of the Architect.
Since you have undertaken the care and defence of this extensive province, I may be allowed, less as an opponent than as a disciple, to propose to you a few difficulties; about which I have sought more conviction than I have hitherto obtained. From the general cast of your writings, I flatter myself that I am speaking to a candid critic, and to a philosophical divine; whose first passion is the love of truth. On this pleasing supposition, let me venture to ask you, “Whether, there is sufficient evidence that the Book of Daniel is really as ancient as it pretends to be.” You are sensible, that from this point the Golden Chain of Prophecy, which you have let down from Heaven to earth, is partly suspended.
There are two reasons which still force me to with-hold my assent. I. The author of the Book of Daniel is too well informed of the revolutions of the Persian and Macedonian empires, which are supposed to have happened long after his death. II. He is too ignorant of the transactions of his own times. In a word, he is too exact for a Prophet, and too fabulous for a contemporary historian.
I. The first of these objections was urged, fifteen hundred years ago, by the celebrated Porphyry. He not only frankly acknowledged, but carefully illustrated the distinct and accurate series of history, contained in the book of Daniel, as far as the death of Antiochus Epiphanes; for beyond that period, the author seems to have had no other guide than the dim and shadowy light of conjecture. The four empires are clearly delineated, the expedition of Xerxes into Greece, the rapid conquest of Persia by Alexander, his untimely death without posterity, the division of his vast monarchy into four kingdoms, one of which, Egypt, is mentioned by name, their various wars and intermarriages, the persecution of Antiochus, the prophanation of the Temple, and the invincible arms of the Romans, are described with as much perspicuity in the prophecies of Daniel, as in the histories of Justin and Diodorus. From such a perfect resemblance, the artful infidel would infer, that both were alike composed after the event. This conduct has supplied St. Jerom with a fund of learning, and an occasion of triumph; as if the philosopher, oppressed by the force of truth, had unwarily furnished arms for his own defeat. Yet, notwithstanding Jerom’s confidence, and in spite of my inclination to side with the father, rather than with the adversary of the church; the reasoning of the latter may I fear be justified by the rules of logic and criticism.
May I not assume as a principle equally consonant to experience, to reason, and even to true religion; “That we ought not to admit any thing as the immediate work of God, which can possibly be the work of man; and that whatever is said to deviate from the ordinary course of nature, should be ascribed to accident, to fraud, or to fiction; till we are fully satisfied, that it lies beyond the reach of those causes?” If we cast away this buckler, the blind fury of superstition, from every age of the world, and from every corner of the globe, will invade us naked and unarmed.
The eager trembling curiosity of mankind has ever wished to penetrate into futurity; nor is there perhaps any country, where enthusiasm and knavery have not pretended to satisfy this anxious craving of the human heart. These self-inspired prophets have strove by various arts to supply the want of a divine mission. Sometimes adapting their conjectures to the present situation of things, and to the passions and prejudices of those, for whom their oracles were intended, they have involved themselves in the mystic veil of dark, general, and ambiguous metaphors: and embracing an indefinite space, they have trusted to time and fortune for the accomplishment of their predictions, or to the industry of kind commentators for a favourable interpretation of them. Sometimes they have commenced prophets, and even true prophets at a very easy rate, by delivering the narrative of things already past under the name of some celebrated character of a distant age. As the series of events gradually unfolds itself, those which the supposed ancient could have read only in the book of fate, are transcribed by the more enlightened modern from any common history.
Virgil (the example is innocent and unexceptionable) has left us specimens of both these prophetic arts: I have often wondered at the rashness of critics who have tryed to ascertain the subject of the fourth Eclogue, and to point out the wonderful infant, the restorer of a golden age. That modest and judicious Poet would not surely have risked the smallest part of his reputation, on the miscarriage of a woman, or the precarious life of a child. The picture is richly, nay profusely coloured; but the design is traced with so vague a pencil, that it might adapt itself to any events or to any interpretation; that it might equally suit a literal or an allegorical sense; the son of Pollio, of Antony, or of Augustus; the restoration of liberty, or the tranquillity of the world under one master. Far different are the prophecies delivered to Æneas concerning the fate and fortunes of his descendants. The Trojan hero is indulged with a full and distinct view of the most remote futurity; and the visionary prospect is closed by the mournful apparition of a youth, who would have rivalled the greatest of his ancestors, had not the gods envied such virtues to Rome and to mankind.
From this single remark, we should think ourselves authorized to infer, that Virgil lived in the Augustan age; and that the sixth book was composed during the yet recent grief for the loss of young Marcellus. The Poet indeed meant not to deceive us: like the author of the Persian Letters, or of the Moral Dialogues, his only aim was to convey important truths under the pleasing cover of fiction. But had Virgil seriously pretended, that his sketch of the Roman history was a faithful transcript from an old Sibylline oracle; had Augustus from motives of policy favoured the deceit, and had the Romans adopted it with religious respect; would any man of sense want better evidence of the pious fraud, than the very clearness and precision of the prophecy? The unanimous judgment passed on the yet extant collection of the Sibylline Oracles affords an easy answer to this question. Every critic who has observed that their prophetic light ceases with the reign of Hadrian, has pronounced them without hesitation to be a forgery of that period.
However, as no Christian can dispute the reality of Divine Inspiration, nor any philosopher deny the possibility of it; the suspicion, that a prophecy too clear and precise was composed after the event, though extremely strong, is capable of being removed by still stronger positive evidence. Without insisting on any fanciful or impracticable conditions, we have (I think) a right to expect, that the existence of such a prophecy prior to its accomplishment should be proved, by the knowledge of it being generally diffused amongst an enlightened nation, previous to that period; and its public existence attested, by an unbroken chain of authentic writers. Till such evidence is produced, we may fairly sit down in a calm and well-grounded scepticism.
I have endeavoured to form something like this chain of witnesses in favour of the Book of Daniel; but without being able to carry it higher than the first century of the Christian æra. Josephus seems to expatiate with pleasure on the praises of that great man; whose character, in some instances, he proposed as a model for his own. He celebrates the various merit of Daniel, as a statesman, a prophet, and even as an architect. His prophetic writings (says Josephus) which are still extant, evince his familiar intercourse with the Deity, and his perfect knowledge of futurity. He even possessed some material advantages above the rest of his inspired brethren; not contented with declaring future events, he ascertains the time when they were to happen; and instead of announcing calamities, he is most commonly the messenger of good news. The rise and fall of successive empires so clearly described and so punctually accomplished, ought to convince the disciples of Epicurus, that human affairs, instead of being left to the blind impulsion of chance, are pre-ordained by an all-directing Providence. Nothing can be desired fuller or more honourable for Daniel than this testimony of the Jewish historian. I am only concerned that he did not publish his Antiquities till the ninety-third year of the Christian æra; two hundred and fifty-seven years after the death of Antiochus Epiphanes, and more than six centuries later than the time, in which the Prophet is supposed to have flourished.
II. The Book of Daniel is partly of the prophetic and partly of the historic kind. With the account of his visions, the author mixes the memoirs of his life; which lies the more open to our inspection, as it was spent, not like those of the other Prophets in caves and deserts, but in the courts of princes and the great transactions of the world. Three incidents are more particularly mentioned: that he was educated with many other captive youths, among the Eunuchs of Nebuchadnezzar; that he was promoted by that prince to the government of Babylon for the interpretation of a dream; and that, under the reign of Darius the Mede, he was appointed the first of the three ministers or vizirs of the empire; and was soon after exposed to the most imminent danger, by the malice of his enemies, the impudence of his sovereign, and his own pious constancy. To the first of these incidents I am so far from forming any objection, that it seems to me, in the true style of the oriental customs in war and government. But the two last are embarrassed with difficulties, from which I have not been able to extricate myself.
1. Although the most unfrequented paths have sometimes conducted the favourites of fortune to wealth and honours: yet I much doubt, whether any man has been appointed a great officer of state for his skill in divination. In the time of Chardin, the Persian astrologers possessed as much credit at the court of the Sophis, as the Chaldeans could possibly obtain in that of Babylon; and both king and people paid the most implicit obedience to their predictions. Two astrologers constantly attended the Royal Person; nor was any measure adopted, however trifling or however important, without the previous sanction of these ministers of fate; who cost the state annually above four millions of French money. But notwithstanding they were thus highly favoured and respected, they were still confined within their own province; nor is there any instance of the Sovereign chusing his ministers, his generals, or his judges, amongst that class of men; the best qualified, as it should seem, for action, since they were the best acquainted with the consequences of their actions. The common sense of mankind has constantly preferred the mere human accomplishments of courage, capacity, and experience. The Roman augurs indeed presided in the senate, and led forth the armies of the common-wealth; but in this single exception, the sacerdotal was grafted on the political character. The first citizens, after rising gradually through the honours, and great offices of their country, were at length admitted to play the most powerful engine of the aristocracy.
2. I am disposed to believe that the subsequent merit of Daniel might justify the Monarch’s caprice. I will allow, (on the credit of the story of Susanna and the elders) that there never was a Judge of hands more clean, or of a more discerning eye; and that, in his ministerial capacity, he was ever attentive to the public interest, and careless of his own. I cannot deny, that Daniel, as a favourite, as a stranger, and as an honest man, must have the whole court of Babylon for his enemies; and am very sensible, that in the administration of a great empire, the purest virtue and the most shining abilities may afford room for misrepresentation and calumny. How often must the great Sully have yielded to those arts of courts, had he not possessed a sure resource in the sound understanding and generous heart of his friend and master! The situation of the Jewish and of the Huguenot Minister were somewhat similar. Both were issued from an oppressed race of obstinate sectaries; and it might be deemed a very artful contrivance to invent some test, which must force them to relinquish their place, or their principles; to forfeit the favour of their prince, or the confidence of their party. Thus far the comparison is tolerably exact. But the French ministers were well assured that the fate and innocence of Sully would be left to the common order of providence. The courtiers of Darius must apprehend, that the piety of Daniel would be asserted by a miraculous interposition. The people of Babylon, not many years before, had beheld the wonderful deliverance of Daniel’s friends from the fiery furnace; and it would have been a strange project for these crafty statesmen, a second time to provoke the jealous God of Israel, to exalt the glory of their enemy, and to draw down destruction on their own heads.
This age indeed, to whom the gift of miracles has been refused, is apt to wonder at the indifference with which they were received by the ancient world. Instead of the instant terror, lasting conviction, and implicit obedience, we might rationally expect; the Jews as well as the Gentiles conducted themselves, as if they neither remembered nor believed the miracles to which they were witnesses. Although the hand of the Almighty was almost perpetually employed in tracing out those divine characters; they were no sooner formed, than they were obliterated from the minds of men. It may possibly be alledged, that faith was distracted by the multiplicity of false as well as of genuine miracles; whilst even the patrimony of the Lord was encompassed by rival deities.
——Who from the pit of hell,
Roaming to seek their prey on earth, durst fix
Their seats long after next the seat of God;
Their altars by his altar; Gods ador’d
Among the nations round; and durst abide
Jehovah thund’ring out of Sion, thron’d
Betwixt the Cherubim——
But this solution is more proper, I am afraid, to aggravate than to alleviate the pressure of the difficulty. Counterfeit money may pass current with the true; since both are coined by human hands and human industry: But I have always considered Salmoneus imitating Jove’s thunder by rattling with a brazen chariot over a brazen bridge, as the most contemptible legend in the whole compass of the Grecian mythology.
3. The law of the Medes and Persians is represented as a constitutional sanction, which put it out of Darius’s power to revoke his rash edict. Such legal restraints are the natural offspring of free governments; but ill suit with the genius of Asiatic despotism. From the inaccessible solitude of a seven-fold palace the king of the Medes disposed without controul of the lives and property of his subjects: nor does there exist a more dreadful act of authority, than the retaliation inflicted by Darius on Daniel’s enemies; who, to the number of a hundred and twenty, were cast, with their wives and children, into the den of lions. If the Persians enjoyed any degree of freedom among their mountains, they became at the same time slaves and conquerors; and a formal determination of their judges stands recorded by Herodotus. “That it was lawful for the king to do whatever he pleased. There are indeed some instances, where a wise despot will check himself, and a foolish one will find himself checked by the nature of things. Such institutions as are derived from Divine authority, ancient custom, or general opinion, cannot be shaken without endangering the foundations of his own throne. But it would be truly unaccountable, that his cooler reason should not be permitted to correct the passion or surprize of a moment; and that the occasional declarations of his pleasure should not be annihilated by the same authority, which produced them. May I not assert, that the Greek writers who have so copiously treated of the affairs of Persia, have not left us the smallest vestige of a restraint, equally injurious to the monarch, and prejudicial to the people?”
4. The edict of Darius, “that during thirty days, whosoever should ask any petition of either god or man, save only of the king, should be cast into the den of lions,” implied an almost total suspension of religious worship; which consists much more in prayer than in thanksgiving. Such an extraordinary interdict, by depriving the people of the comforts, and the priests of the profits of religion, must have diffused a general discontent throughout his empire; which might easily have been inflamed into sedition and civil war. With what colours could the ministers of Darius gloss over a measure big with every mischief, and destitute of the smallest advantage? In what language could they address themselves to the reason, or even to the passions of their Sovereign; who is described to be of an advanced age, and a lover of justice and moderation? But is there any character, which, with the utmost latitude of supposition, may account for this edict? An irreligious prince may be indiscreet enough to treat with ridicule whatever is held sacred by his subjects; but he will entertain too great a contempt both for the people, and for popular superstition, ever to think of forcibly separating them from each other. The bigot is actuated by a warmer principle than the infidel; but his attachment to his own mode of worship rises in proportion to his hatred of all others. Had Darius, as a disciple of Zoroaster, shut up the temples of the idolaters, he would have directed the fires of the Magi to have blazed with redoubled ardour. Even those tyrants who, destitute of human virtues, have aspired to divine honours, have grafted their pretensions on the established religions. To be seated between Castor and Pollux, to obtain the embraces of the Moon, to confer with Jupiter of the Capitol, and to place his image in the temple of Jerusalem, would have gratified the wildest ambition of Caligula. But to suspend during thirty days the most universal propensity of mankind, is a strain of wanton despotism unparalleled in the history of the world; for the interdicts of the Popes were of a quite different nature. They were not the arbitrary prohibitions of a temporal monarch; but a chastisement, inflicted by the vicegerent of Christ, who excluded the offenders from the benefits of Christianity, till they had satisfied the Deity, offended in the person of his ministers.
5. There yet remains a stronger, or at least a more palpable objection, against the veracity of the author of the book of Daniel: “The high probability that Darius the Mede never existed; or, what amounts to the same, that no prince of that name or nation reigned at Babylon, between the time of Nebuchadnezzar and that of Cyrus.” It would be to little purpose to expatiate on the uncertainty of ancient history, and the careless vanity of the Greek writers. The outlines of the history of Babylon are known to us with uncommon precision. The Canon of Ptolemy contains the stories of its kings, deduced from authentic records, attested by astronomical observations, and confirmed by the fragments of Berosus, which are still extant in Josephus. Berosus describes the conquests and buildings of Nebuchadnezzar, and only omits to mention the metamorphosis of that monarch into an ox. His three immediate successors, were of his own family; the fourth, Nabonadius, was a Babylonian raised to the throne by the conspirators who murdered his predecessor; and cast down from it by the victorious arms of Cyrus king of Persia. In this close series of the Babylonian and Persian dynasties, there cannot be found the smallest interval, which will admit a Median prince.
Of the various expedients devised to elude this difficulty, there is one only which can deserve our notice; both as the most tolerable in itself, and as having been embraced by the chronologists of the most distinguished merit and reputation; by Usher, Prideaux, Sir Isaac Newton, &c. In their extreme distress, the Cyaxares of Xenophon offered himself to their imagination, as the properest person to support the character of Darius the Mede. For this purpose, they have supposed that he reigned two years over the Babylonian empire; after it had been subdued by the arms of Cyrus, his nephew and his lieutenant. Such is their hypothesis, which falls to the ground if the Cyropædia is a romance; and is overthrown by it, should that noble performance be received as a genuine history.
1. Without insisting on the opinion of Plato and Tully, I would rather appeal to your own feelings; as I cannot doubt your familiar acquaintance with the writings of the Attic Bee. Compare the Anabasis with the Cyropædia; and feel the difference between truth and fiction; between the lively and copious variety of the one, and the elegant poverty of the other. A few general incidents, thinly scattered through a diffuse work, and destitute of any notes of geography or chronology, compose the life of Cyrus; which seems lost in a multitude of speeches, councils, reflections, and familiar episodes. Xenophon was a philosopher and a soldier; and if we unravel with any care the fine texture of the Cyropædia, we shall discover in every thread the Spartan discipline and the philosophy of Socrates. The only part which has the air of real history, is the judicious digression, where Xenophon compares the degeneracy of the modern Persians with the wise institutions of their founder. He possessed the best opportunities of examining both the one and the other, whilst he served in the camp of the younger Cyrus, and traversed, with the immortal ten thousand, the greatest part of the provinces of Artaxerxes. The first Cyrus was confessedly a great man. The conquest of Asia is a sufficient testimony of his abilities; and the name of Father given him by the Persians after his death, must stand as the surest evidence of his virtues. But the hero of the Cyropædia is drawn as a perfect character; a monster as fabulous, and less interesting than those of Ariosto. His wise councils are never, in a single instance, seduced by passion, misled by error, or disappointed by accident. Xenophon labours to establish the empire of prudence; his countryman Herodotus had entertained himself with displaying the tyranny of fortune; and both writers, whilst they inculcate the moral precept, seem alike, though by opposite paths, to deviate from historic truth.
2. But if the Cyropædia be admitted as a genuine history, Darius the Mede is still excluded from the throne of Babylon, since Cyaxares himself never ascended it. When the Cyrus of Xenophon besieged that great city, he had gradually shaken off all dependance on his uncle, and assumed to himself the supreme command, and exclusive advantages of the war. The strength of his army consisted of seventy thousand natural Persians, solely attached to their hereditary prince, from every motive of duty, gratitude, and interest. He was followed by a various train of nations, allies and subjects, all subdued by his arms and policy. About forty thousand Medes, who served under his banners, had long since been taught to despise the weakness, and to disobey the commands of their sovereign. After the conquest, Cyrus was solemnly inaugurated king of Babylon, with every circumstance of pomp and greatness, which could dazzle the eyes of the multitude. Some time afterwards he visited his uncle at Ecbatana, presented him with rich gifts, the spoils of Asia, accepted his only daughter in marriage, and very politely told the King of the Medes, that he had set apart for him, one of the finest palaces of Babylon; that whenever he should chuse to come to that city, he might find himself, as if he were still in his own dominions.
If these observations are founded in truth and nature; it will follow, that the author of the Book of Daniel has entertained us with incredible stories, which happened under an imaginary monarch. So much error and so much fiction are incompatible with an inspired, or even with a contemporary, writer. But if the prophecies were framed three or four centuries after the Prophet’s death, it was much easier for the counterfeit Daniel to foretel great and recent events, than to compose an accurate history or probable romance of a dark and remote period.
The question is curious in itself, important in its consequences, and in every light worthy the attention of a critical divine. This consideration justifies the freedom of my address, and the hopes I still entertain, that you may be able and willing to dispell the mist, that hangs, either over my eyes, or over the subject itself. On my side, I can only promise, that whatever you shall think proper to communicate, shall be received with the candor which I owe to myself, and with the deference, so justly due to your name and abilities,
I am, Sir,
with great esteem,
your obedient humble servant,
——
P.S. You will be pleased, Sir, to address your answer To Daniel Freeman, Esq. at the Cocoa Tree, Pall Mall: but if you have any scruple of engaging with a mask, I am ready, by the same channel, to disclose my real name and place of abode; and to pledge myself for the same discretion, which, in my turn, I shall have a right to expect.
I had neither leisure nor inclination to enter into controversy with this stranger (for which there was the less occasion, as he had disputed no principle or opinion advanced by me in the Sermons); but, as I knew, whoever he was, that he would complain, or rather boast, of being wholly unnoticed by me, I sent him this answer.