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deny or suspect. We proceed to compare his statements with the prophecies in question.

1. Let us begin with those events which the Saviour foretold as signs of approaching desolation. Thus

it is written, "Take heed that no man deceive you; {1}

for many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ, and shall deceive many." Here are two distinct predictions—many pretenders to the character of the Messiah, and their success in deceiving many. As the prophecy draws nearer to the chief event, it enlarges on this particular sign: "There shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders." Here it is intimated, that as the great catastrophe should approach, these deceivers would multiply; and that they would pretend to signs and miracles. The very places where they would appear, and whither they would lead their followers, are also pointed out. "If they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not."t

Now, it is worthy of note, that until the day when these words were uttered, there had been no events in Jewish history in any manner corresponding with those which they describe. Two years,

however, had not elapsed before their fulfilment began. Simon Magus, very soon after the crucifixion, was heard boasting himself as the Son of God, deceiving the people of Samaria with sorceries; to whom they all gave heed, saying, This man is the great * Matt. 24:4, 5.

↑ Matt. 24:26.

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power of God. Another, named Dositheus, a Samaritan, pretended that he was the Christ foretold by Moses. In about the tenth year after the death of Christ, appeared one Theudas, who assured the people that he was a prophet, promising to show a miracle in dividing the waters of Jordan. "By such speeches," says Josephus, in the very words of the prophecy, "he deceived many." As we approach nearer the final event, A. D. 55, these deceivers multiply. "The country was filled with impostors who 2deceived the people," and "persuaded them to follow them into the wilderness; where, as they said, they should see manifest wonders and signs." Not only were the people thus seduced into the deserts,

* Acts 8:9, 10.

The impostor mentioned above must not be confounded with him of the same name, spoken of by Gamaliel, Acts 5:36. There were two noted characters of the name of Theudas. The one referred to by Gamaliel appeared about thirty years prior to the time of the council which that learned Pharisee addressed. But he was a mere insurrectionist, making no pretension to any of the honors of that great prophet whom the Jews were expecting. The person referred to in the text appeared in Judea in the time of Cuspius Fadus the governor, and professed to be inspired, to be a prophet, and to have the gift of miracles. Judas of Galilee, or the Gaulonite, mentioned also by Gamaliel, was a political partisan, in opposition to the enrolment made by Cyrenius in Judea, whose doctrine was, that the Jews were free and should acknowledge no dominion but that of God. Neither he nor the elder Theudas can, with any propriety, be numbered among "false Christs" or "false prophets," such as the Saviour spoke of in the prophecy under consideration. See Lardner, vol. 1, pp. 221-225.

+ Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews, b. 20, ch. 5, sec. 1.
Ibid. ch. 8, sec. 5.

but also into "the secret chambers." The inner apartments of the temple were the secret chambers referred to in the prophecy. Josephus relates that a {4} great multitude whom the Roman soldiers destroyed in the "cloisters" of the temple, had been led there by a false prophet, who had made a public proclamation that very day, that God commanded them to get upon the temple, and that there they would receive miraculous signs for their deliverance. At that crisis, there was a great number of false prophets." Thus have we all the particulars of the prophecy, so far as it has been quoted: many false Christs and prophets, deceiving many, pretending to signs and wonders, leading their followers into the deserts and secret chambers, and multiplying as the destruction drew

near.

2. "Ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom."t At this time, the Jews were at peace among themselves and with all nations. To human view, there was so little reason to expect a war, that even some years after, when the emperor Caligula ordered his statue to be set up in the temple, and there was danger of slaughter on account of the resistance of the Jews, Josephus remarks, that "some of them could not believe the stories that spoke of a war." Nevertheless, such became in a short time the rumor of

*

Josephus' Wars of the Jews, b. 6, ch. 5, sec. 2, 3. + Matt. 24:6, 7. + Wars, etc., b. 2, c. 10, sec. 1.

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war, that the fields remained uncultivated on account
of the public anxiety. The country was soon filled
with violence. In Alexandria, Cæsarea, Damascus,
Ptolemais, Tyre, and almost every other city in which
many Jews and heathens were mingled, fierce con-
tentions arose, and dreadful slaughter ensued. In the
words of the Jewish historian, "The disorders all

over Syria were terrible. For every city was divided
into parties armed against each other; and the safety
of the one depended on the destruction of the other.
The days were spent in slaughter, and the nights in
terrors."*
In addition to these calamities, the Jew-
ish nation rebelled against the Romans; Italy was
convulsed with contentions for the empire; and as a
proof of the troublous and warlike character of the
period, within the brief space of two years four em-
perors
of Rome suffered death.*

3. Another class of signs was predicted, as follows:
"There shall be famines and pestilences and earth-
quakes in divers places." These, together with the
signs previously mentioned, the Saviour said would
be "the beginning of sorrows." There came a fam-
ine not long before the war, which extended all over
the country of the Jews, and lasted with severity for
several years. Both before and after this there were
famines in Italy, which are mentioned by historians of
those days." Pestilences raged in various places, as the
full time for Jerusalem's cup of trembling drew nigh.¶
Ant. b. 3, ch. 15, sec. 3.
¶ Lardner, vol. 3, p. 499.

* Wars, b. 2, ch. 18, sec. 1, 2.

+ Keith on Prophecy.

+ Matt. 24:7, 8.

Acts 11:27-30; Ant. b. 20, ch. 2, sec. 6; ch. 5, sec. 2.

Josephus speaks of one at Babylon. Five years before the destruction of the holy city, there was a great mortality at Rome, while various parts of the empire were visited with similar calamities. Earthquakes were also among the signs of the times. Of these, the hea} then historians, Tacitus, Suetonius, Philostratus, etc., speak of many. Crete, Italy, Asia Minor, and Judea were visited at different times, and some of them repeatedly, with earthquakes. Josephus describes

one in Judea, as so extraordinary in its awfulness, that "any one might easily conjecture that these wonders foreshowed some grand calamities that were coming."+

4. To the signs already mentioned, we find in Luke's account of these prophecies the addition of "fearful sights, and great signs from heaven." These sights and signs Josephus sets himself to the work of narrating with as much particularity as if he had been specially bent upon making good the words of Christ. He relates that just before the desolating war, "a star resembling a sword stood over the city, and a comet that continued a whole year." At the feast of unleavened bread, and "at the ninth hour of the night, so great a light shone round the altar and the holy house, that it appeared to be bright daytime; which light lasted for half an hour." "The eastern gate of the inner court of the temple, which was of brass and vastly heavy, and had been with difficulty shut by twenty men, and had bolts fastened very deep into the firm floor, was seen to be opened of its Lardner, vol. 3, p. 499. ↑ Wars, etc., b. 4, c. 4, sec. 5.

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