4. The following Jewish and Christian authorities will go far to establish what I have said respecting the above doctrines: Ita enim legitur in Gemara Sanhedrin, Perek Chelek. Dixit R. Ketina, Sex annorum millibus stat mundus, et uno vastabitur: de quo dicitur, Et exaltabitur Dominus solus die illo. Sequitur paulo post, Traditio adstipulatur, R. Ketinæ: sicut e septenis annis septimus quisque annus remissionis est: ita e septem millibus annorum mundi, septimus millenarius remissiones erit: quemadmodum dicitur,[1] et exaltabitur Dominus Solus die illo. Dicitur item[2] Psalmus canticum de die sabbati; id est, de die quo tota quies est. Dicitur etiam[3] Nam mille anni in oculis tuis velut dies hesternus. Traditio Domûs Eliæ: Sex mille annos durat mundus; bis mille annos inanitas, (seu vastitas תוהו tueu,) bis mille annis lex: denique bis mille annis dies Christi.[4] None of the Fathers have written more clearly respecting the Millenium than Irenæus, and he expressly declares that, after it, the world shall be destroyed by fire, and that the earth shall be made new after its conflgration.[5] Here is the admission of the identical renewal of worlds held by the oriental nations. Irenæus,[6] Quotquot diebus hic factus est mundus, tot et millenis consummatur…… Si enim dies Domini quasi mille anni, in sex autem diebus consummata sunt qua facta sunt: manifestum est, quoniam consummatio isporum sextus millesimus annus est. Lactantius,[7] Quoniam sex diebus cuncta Dei opera perfecta sunt: per secula sex, id est, annorum sex millia, manere in hoc statu mundum necesse est. Dies enim magnus Dei mille annorum circulo terminatur……Et ut Deus sex illos dies in tantis rebus fabricandis laboravit, ita et religio ejus et veritas in his sex millibus aunorum laborare necesse est, malitiâ prævalente et dominante. Mede’s works,[8] where several other Christian authorities may be found.
St. Augustin had an indistinct view of the true system. He says, that the fifth age is finished, that we are in the sixth, and that the dissolution of all things will happen in the seventh.[9] He evidently alluded to the thousands, not the Neroses; and that the world should be burnt and renewed.[10] Barnabas says, “In six thousand years the Lord shall bring all things to an end.” He makes the seventh thousand the millenium, and the eighth the beginning of the other world. Ovid quotes the expected conflagration:
Quo mare, quo tellus, correptaque regia cœli
Ardeat, et mundi moles operosa laboret.”[11]
Nothing astonishes me more than the absolute ignorance displayed in the writings of the ancients, of the true nature of their history, their religious mythology, and, in short, of every thing relating to their antiquities. At the same time it is evident that there was a secret science possessed somewhere, which must have been guarded by the most solemn oaths. And though I may be laughed at by those who inquire not deeply into the origin of things for saying it, yet I cannot help suspecting, that there is still a secret doctrine known only in the deep recesses, the crypts, of Thibet, St. Peter’s, and the Cremlin. In the following passage the real or affected ignorance of one of the most learned of the Romans is shewn of what was considered as of the first consequence
- ↑ Isai. ii. 11, 17.
- ↑ Psal. xcii.
- ↑ Psal. xc.
- ↑ Capentarius Com. Alcinoum Platonis, p. 322; Mede’s Works, pp. 535, 894. In the same page of Mede several other Jewish authorities may be seen for the existence of the 6000-year period.
- ↑ Floyer’s Sibyls, p. 244.
- ↑ Lib. v. Cap. xxviii.
- ↑ De Divino Præmio, Lib. vii. Cap. xiv.
- ↑ P. 893.
- ↑ Civ. Dei, Lib. xxii. Cap. xxx.; Ouseley, Orient. Coll. Vol. II. No. ii. p. 119.
- ↑ Floyer’s Sibyls, p. 245.
- ↑ For prophecies of a Millenium, see Isaiah xxvi. 19, lx. 1, 3, 11, 12, 19, 21, lxv. 17, 18, 19, 25, lxvi. 12, 23; Ezekiel xlvii. 12; Joel iii. 18, 20; Isaiah xxiv. 23, xxv. 7; 2 Esdras viii. 52, 53, 54.
