Although all the prophets bear witness to Christ as one who was to come into the world, nevertheless none so determined the time when He would come as did Daniel in chapter 9, where he says:
“Seventy weeks are shortened upon your people and upon your holy city, that transgression may be consummated and sin receive an end; that iniquity may be blotted out and everlasting justice brought in; that vision and prophecy may be fulfilled and the Holy of Holies anointed.
“Know therefore and take heed: from the going forth of the word that Jerusalem be built again unto Christ the leader, there shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. And the street and the walls shall be built again in straitness of times.
“And after sixty-two weeks Christ shall be slain, and the people who will deny Him shall not be His. And a people with a leader who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and its end shall be devastation, and after the end of the war the appointed desolation.
“But He shall confirm the covenant with many in one week, and in the middle of the week victim and sacrifice shall fail. And in the temple there shall be the abomination of desolation; and until the consummation and the end, desolation shall continue.” This is in the text.
Although many say evil and various things concerning this prophecy, nevertheless all expound it of Christ who was to come in the flesh. Bede and Africanus begin to enumerate these years from the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, who gave Nehemiah permission to return to Jerusalem and construct its walls, and they extend them to Christ’s Passion.
It is true that they take these weeks—which are not weeks of days but of years, each containing seven years—as lunar years. A lunar year consists of twelve lunations and hence is shorter by eleven days than a solar year, which contains twelve months. Seventy weeks of years are 490 years. If these are taken as lunar years, they amount to 475 solar years.
But Nicholas of Lyra, upon Daniel, rejects this interpretation of Bede, namely that it is understood of lunar years. Bede took it from the words “seventy weeks are shortened,” so that this shortening would refer to the lunar year, which is eleven days shorter than the solar year, as was said.
Yet, as Nicholas himself says, in the Hebrew, where we have “shortened,” the text has “precisely,” as if it said: that time is determined and fixed by God. Thus the shortening signifies not a diminution of time but a determination. Hence the Jewish expositors make no mention here of lunar years, but of solar years. Nor elsewhere in the Old Testament is a computation made by lunar years. Therefore these are weeks of solar years, that is, 490 solar years.
To make this evident, this computation by years must be taken according to Josephus, whose history is more authoritative among Jews and Catholics. We cannot compute through the biblical text, because from the return from the Babylonian captivity to Christ’s conception no certain reckoning of time is found in Sacred Scripture. Recourse must therefore be had to Josephus.
He says that, after the seventy years of the Babylonian captivity, the returning people were governed by priests until Antiochus the emperor, and that principate lasted 414 years. From then the Maccabees, whom Josephus calls Asmoneans, assumed the principate. That principate lasted 127 years, until Herod the foreigner under whom Christ was born, as is evident in Matthew 2. Thus Josephus says in Book 20 of the Antiquities.
After the death of Antigonus—who was the last of the Maccabees to hold the principate—Herod ruled twenty-eight years until Christ’s Nativity. It is no objection that some histories say Christ was born in Herod’s thirty-second year. Those histories reckon Herod’s kingdom from the time when the kingdom was granted to him by the Romans, which was four years before Antigonus’s death, as is evident in the Scholastic History and in Josephus. Thus it is true that Herod ruled twenty-eight years after Antigonus’s death.
From Christ’s Nativity until His baptism by John there were twenty-nine complete years, as is found in Luke 3. From Christ’s baptism until four years after Christ’s Passion, seven years elapsed. Therefore the foregoing years from the return from the Babylonian captivity until the fourth year after Christ’s Passion are found to total 605 years, as is evident by joining the aforesaid parts.
It must further be considered that the reckoning of the seventy weeks ought to begin from the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, when permission was given to Nehemiah to rebuild Jerusalem, as is found in 2 Esdras. This is expressly said in the text: “Know and take heed, from the going forth of the word that Jerusalem be built again.” Then the angel begins to reckon the weeks, for then the word concerning the rebuilding of Jerusalem went forth. Cyrus had earlier given permission to rebuild the temple only.
It is therefore evident from the foregoing that, from the 605 years just mentioned, when the time that elapsed from the return from the Babylonian captivity to the twentieth year of Artaxerxes is removed, only 490 solar years remain, which make seventy weeks of years.
It remains now to prove what has been assumed: namely that, after subtracting the time that elapsed from the return from the Babylonian captivity to Artaxerxes’s twentieth year, precisely 490 years remain. This is proved as follows. In Cyrus’s first year permission was given to return and rebuild the temple. He reigned thirty years. After him his son Cambyses reigned eight years. After him two brother Magi reigned seven months, which are reckoned as one year because they constitute the greater part of a year.
Afterward Darius Hystaspes reigned thirty-six years. Under him Zerubbabel came again to Jerusalem in the second year of his reign to complete the work of rebuilding the temple begun under Cyrus but prohibited from being continued. After Darius Hystaspes, his son Xerxes reigned twenty years. Afterward Artabanus reigned seven months, which are reckoned as one year for the reason given above. Afterward Artaxerxes reigned nineteen full years up to the permission given to Nehemiah concerning the rebuilding of Jerusalem, namely in the twentieth year of his reign.
Note that the times of these kings up to Artaxerxes can be proved partly, but not completely, through the biblical text. Recourse must therefore be had to Josephus and the Scholastic History, which set down the times of these kings as stated and took them from the histories of the Persians and Medes.
If the foregoing years from Cyrus’s first year to Artaxerxes’s twentieth are added together, they are found to be 115 years; and Bede and Africanus assign just so many years in a computation of this kind. Therefore, if 115 years are subtracted from the aforesaid 605 years, it is evident that only 490 solar years remain. These are the seventy weeks “shortened,” that is, precisely—neither more nor less.
Approaching the exposition of the text, it must be noted that Daniel was praying for the deliverance of his people from the Babylonian captivity, considering that the end of the seventy years of that captivity, which Jeremiah had prophesied, was drawing near.
As Jerome says upon Daniel, he did this not as though doubting God’s sentence foretold through Jeremiah, but because it makes him more solicitous lest security engender negligence, and negligence offense, whence they would deserve that their deliverance be deferred, in On Penance, distinction 1, He had foretold.
But the angel Gabriel, for his consolation and that of others, revealed not only deliverance from that temporal captivity, but the deliverance of the whole human race from the spiritual captivity of the devil and sin to which the world was held subject. This came through Christ’s Passion, which the angel foretold.
He divided the determined time in which this would be fulfilled, namely those seventy weeks, into three parts: seven, sixty-two, and one. This was because special works were done for the Jewish people in these parts of the number. In the first seven, the people rebuilt the city with great labor and held it against the surrounding nations that harassed them, because with one hand they did the work and with the other held a sword to defend themselves against their enemies, as is evident in Nehemiah 4.
In the other weeks, namely sixty-two, the people sometimes had prosperity and sometimes adversity, especially in the time of the Maccabees. In the one final week, which begins with Christ’s baptism and ends in the fourth year after Christ’s Passion, the mysteries or works of our salvation that are expressed here are fulfilled.
Coming therefore to the exposition, the angel says: “Know therefore, Daniel, and take heed,” that is, attend diligently to how these things are to be understood.
These seventy weeks are “from the going forth of the word that Jerusalem be built again,” namely from the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, who sent Nehemiah to rebuild Jerusalem, “unto Christ the leader,” that is, unto the manifestation of the anointing of the Holy of Holies, who is truly Christ—interpreted “anointed”—and the leader of the faithful.
There shall be seven weeks in which the people laboriously built and held the newly rebuilt city, and sixty-two weeks in which the people would now sustain prosperity, now adversity. These seven and sixty-two weeks, set down separately here but joined together, make 483 years. Just so many years elapsed from the twentieth year of Artaxerxes’s reign to Christ’s baptism, at which His anointing was declared through the fullness of the grace of the Holy Spirit appearing above Him in the form of a dove, and through the Father’s testimony from heaven, “This is My beloved Son,” Matthew 3.
“And Jerusalem shall be rebuilt.” This refers to the time of those seven weeks. “And its street and walls in straitness.” He says this because during those seven weeks of years they labored greatly and built the city, its walls, and its houses. Afterward they dwelt in it for sixty-two weeks, namely until Christ’s baptism received from John the Baptist followed.
From then, namely at the baptism, began the final week of the seventy, in which Christ preached and suffered. This is what the text says: “After sixty-two weeks”—namely beyond the seven previously named—and in the final week, in the third year and three months, “Christ shall be slain,” because after He had preached for three years and a part of a fourth, He suffered.
“And the people who will deny Him shall not be His,” because from then the Jews who denied Him before Pilate were not Christ’s people, but Christians are His people. “And a people,” namely the Roman people, “with a leader who is to come,” namely Titus, “shall destroy the city,” namely Jerusalem, “and the sanctuary,” that is, the temple.
This was not fulfilled then immediately after Christ’s death, but forty years later. Nevertheless, it is placed here immediately after Christ’s death, not to designate that it would happen then, but because it was in punishment for so great a crime perpetrated by them. “And its end shall be devastation,” and so forth, because it was totally destroyed.
After the city’s destruction in punishment for Christ’s death has been foretold, the prophet returns to speak of what else will occur in the final week, saying: “But He shall confirm the covenant with many in one week.” The new law, that is, the evangelical law, was given and preached by Christ during that final week, namely for three years and three months, and through His death and miracles the evangelical law was confirmed.
It is called a covenant here because, after the Passion, when the Holy Spirit had been sent upon the apostles, they were strengthened and publicly preached that law without fear, whence many were converted. Thus in the three years and three months in which Christ preached, and in the other three years and three months in which the apostles preached after the Passion, the evangelical law was confirmed and sufficiently spread in the hearts of the faithful.
That the evangelical law is called a covenant is found in Jeremiah 31. It is called a covenant because God appears to make a pact with man that He will give eternal life to the one who observes it and damnation to the one who transgresses it.
“And in the middle of the week victim shall fail,” because when Christ suffered, which was in the middle of the final week, then all legal observances and sacrifices became dead and useless for salvation.
“And in the temple there shall be the abomination.” This is said because of the image of Caesar that Pilate placed in the temple to be venerated; the Jews called an idol an abomination. Or it is because Gaius was sent there so that his image might be adored. Or because at a later time a statue of Hadrian was placed where the ark of the Lord had formerly been. “And until the end and consummation,” namely of the world, “desolation shall continue.”
But the Jews, in order to evade this ray of truth that convicts them of their error in still awaiting the Messiah, give another exposition, which belongs to Rabbi Solomon, their doctor. He says that these seventy weeks of years comprise the time from Nebuchadnezzar’s destruction of the city and temple to its second destruction by Titus, which he says is precisely a period of seventy weeks of years, that is, 490 years.
Within this time they sometimes had prosperity and sometimes adversity. But at the second destruction, namely that wrought by Titus, they entered a perfect captivity. In this captivity, as this Rabbi Solomon says, the Lord leaves them so that they may be corrected and punished for their iniquities, and may thereby merit that the visions and prophecies concerning the Messiah be fulfilled. They vehemently believe that through Him they are to be freed and that the Jewish people are to be exalted over others temporally and spiritually; but He whom they will receive as Christ will be Antichrist.
Nicholas of Lyra and others show by many reasons that this exposition is false and distorted; these are omitted for the sake of brevity. Among other things, when the text says “unto Christ the leader,” this Rabbi Solomon expounds it of Cyrus, king of the Persians. And afterward, when it says “Christ shall be slain,” he calls King Agrippa Christ.
Nicholas of Lyra, upon Daniel, says that he had followed the aforesaid common exposition of the doctors, beginning to enumerate the weeks from the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, who sent Nehemiah to rebuild the city walls, as was said in a certain exposition upon Daniel. But afterward, when he undertook to expound the whole Bible and came to Daniel, he began and ended the reckoning of these seventy weeks differently.
For he says that it must begin not from Artaxerxes’s twentieth year but from the fifth year of Zedekiah, king of Judah, who was led captive to Babylon. When the people of Jerusalem, induced by the preaching of false prophets, had been led to hope for the return of King Joachim with the other captives from Babylon to Jerusalem and for deliverance from Nebuchadnezzar’s hand, Jeremiah asserted the contrary. Hence he wrote letters to the captive Jews in Babylon that they should not believe the words of the false prophets, because they were to remain in that Babylonian captivity for seventy years.
Jeremiah then adds in chapter 29, speaking on the Lord’s behalf: “When seventy years begin to be fulfilled in Babylon, I shall visit you and raise up My good word over you, and I shall lead you back to this place,” and so forth.
Nicholas says that the weeks must therefore be enumerated from this time because the angel said, “From the going forth of the word that Jerusalem be built again,” that is, from the first word proceeding from the Lord’s revelation concerning Jerusalem’s rebuilding. This first occurred when it was revealed to Jeremiah and spoken by him on God’s behalf.
He ends these seventy weeks at Christ’s Passion and, according to the history of the Hebrews, reckons precisely seventy weeks of years, that is, 490, within that time. From this it follows that the first exposition—in which the reckoning of the weeks begins from Artaxerxes’s twentieth year according to the more common computation of the Latin historiographers, which Nicholas also held earlier—seems more worthy of being held than this latter one, which follows the computation of the Hebrews.
§ I. Daniel and His Visions
Daniel, therefore, of the royal stock of Judah, was led captive to Babylon in his youth with Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael. By the king’s ordinance they were instructed in all the learning of the Chaldeans.
As Jerome says: “Those who refused to eat from the king’s table and drink his wine lest they be polluted certainly would never have consented to learn what was unlawful for them, if they had known the wisdom and teaching of the Babylonians to be sin. But they learn, not to follow, but to judge and convict. They therefore learn Chaldean doctrine with the same intention with which Moses learned all the wisdom of the Egyptians,” distinction 37, Those who from the table.
Because of their continence and abstinence, and also their obedience to the divine law—for they refused to use the foods of the Gentiles with which the king had ordered them fed from his table, but used vegetables and water—they were found in a short time wiser and more beautiful than the others. God gave to Daniel especially the understanding of all visions and dreams.
Ten visions are set down in the book. The first, in chapter 2, concerns the statue that Nebuchadnezzar saw. Its head was gold; its breast with the arms, silver; its belly and thighs, bronze; its shins, iron; and its feet mixed with earth. He saw a stone cut from the mountain strike the statue on its feet and reduce it to ashes. This signified the four successive monarchies of the world: those of the Assyrians; the Persians and Medes; the Greeks; and the Romans. The stone, that is, Christ, subjected these to His empire through faith.
The second vision, in chapter 3, concerns the fourth one like the Son of Man, whom Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, saw with the three who had been cast into the furnace—Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael—because they refused to adore the statue he had made.
The third vision, in chapter 4, concerns the very tall tree Nebuchadnezzar saw cut down, signifying his transformation into a beast.
The fourth according to the order of the book concerns the writing that Belshazzar, son of Rodath, son of Nebuchadnezzar, saw formed on the wall by three fingers of a hand: “Mane, Thecel, Phares.”
The fifth vision, in chapter 5, occurred when Darius, king of the Medes and Persians, saw Daniel remain unharmed among the lions by the power of his God after Daniel had been cast into the lions’ den because he daily adored his God contrary to the statute made by Darius at the insistence of Daniel’s rivals.
The sixth, in chapter 6, occurred when Daniel saw four beasts come out of the sea one after another: the first like a lioness; the second like a bear; the third like a leopard; and the fourth terrible, having iron teeth and ten horns, among which a little horn arose. The four beasts signify the four aforesaid monarchies. In the fourth, which is that of the Romans, the ten horns signify ten divisions of the empire. The little horn signifies Antichrist, whose deeds are treated there.
The seventh, in chapter 7, is that in which Daniel first saw a ram and afterward a he-goat killing it. When the he-goat’s horn had been broken, four arose from it, and from one of them another little horn, which signifies Antichrist, whose deeds are set down there. The ram signifies the empire of the Medes and Persians, and the he-goat Alexander the Great, whose empire was divided into four after his death.
The eighth, in chapter 8, is that in which he saw Gabriel revealing, while Daniel persisted in prayer and fasting for his people’s deliverance, both their coming deliverance from captivity and, moreover, the deliverance of the human race through Christ after seventy weeks of years from the day permission would be given by Cyrus for the rebuilding of Jerusalem.
The ninth, in chapter 9, is that in which he saw an angel clothed in linen whose form is described. At his appearance Daniel fell, but, comforted by him, recovered his strength. This angel was attending to the people’s deliverance, but the prince of the Persians, namely an angel, resisted him for twenty-one days. Michael helped him; the prince of the Greeks, namely an angel, had also encountered him.
Daniel’s tenth vision, in chapter 10, concerns the kingdom of the Medes and Persians, which then flourished, and Alexander, king of the Greeks, and how he would subject it to himself; afterward it concerns the king of the south and the king of the north fighting one another. There are many obscure things there, where Antichrist is foretold.
Chapter 12 concerns Michael, the great prince, and the final resurrection and the time after Antichrist, though obscurely. Afterward come the stories of Susanna, Bel, and the dragon. The story of Susanna is not found among the Hebrews, but the Church nevertheless receives it.
Daniel, judging the elders who unjustly accused Susanna, figures Christ in the Judgment condemning the scribes and Pharisees, who accuse the Church of spiritual adultery, namely because she believes in Christ. This is found in cause 2, question 7, in the section When Balaam.