THE MORNING STAR IX THE GOSPELS. 



265 



serve specially well for the groundwork of parables at that 

 particular time. The harmonies connected with the Sabbatic year 

 are all fulfilled if A.d. 29 is taken as the date of the Crucifixion ; 

 but they are not fulfilled if any other date, historically possible, 

 is assumed. May I add that these and other harmonies will be 

 fully considered in a small book shortly to be published, which will 

 be entitled, Suggestive Gospel Harmonies. 



In reply to Professor Orchard, it was an ancient figure of speech 

 for the non-setting stars to typify the powers of darkness destroyed 

 by the shining of the rising sun — type of supreme power. I can 

 see no objection to the wicked or lawless one (2 Thess. ii, 8) being 

 spoken of under the figure of a star, since a star, in figurative 

 language, is an emblem of one who is powerful, irrespective of good- 

 ness or badness, Jude 13, Rev. viii, 10, 11, etc. I leave scholars 

 to say whether the meaning which I have suggested in Nahum iii, 

 16, 17, is possible or not. If it is not possible the general employ- 

 ment of this figure of speech by the ancients and the inferences found 

 from the passage in the Epistle to the Thessalonians remains 

 untouched. It is true, as the Professor says, that non-appearance 

 is not the same as decrease, but an exact definition cannot be closely 

 pressed when figurative language is considered ; the utterance is 

 expressed in the dual method so common in Hebrew {e.g., Prov. 

 X, 1, xi, 5, etc.). We might have used the words " altogether 

 absent," instead of " decrease," but then the Hebraic balance would 

 have been lost. Though the morning star was absent, it may still 

 have been said to have been decreasing at the time when John 

 was speaking, as the planet was receding farther and farther away 

 from its position as the morning star, and it was consequently 

 increasing its angular distance from the sun as the evening star, 

 until a little after the following midsummer. 



The question as to whether the ancients saw the horns of Venus by 

 aided or by unaided vision is full of interest ; but both assumptions 

 point to the fact that the heavens were watched with care, and 

 that very great attention had been bestowed on the planet by the 

 easterns of old. 



"With reference to our chairman's observations, Venus is an interim 

 planet and is never at a greater angular distance from the sun than 

 about forty-three degrees ; it may consequently be said to accompany 

 the sun as its attendant, in mythological language, to the under 



s 2 



