Page:Mahometanism in its relation to prophecy - or, an inquiry into the prophecies concerning antichrist, with some reference to their bearing on the events of the present day (IA mahometanisminit00philrich).pdf/246

 year of our Lord 1938, exactly coincides with the conclusion of the period of 2300 days, assigned in the eighth chapter of the same prophecy, and the fourteenth verse, for the duration of the vision recorded in that chapter as closing with what the Prophet there terms "the cleansing of the sanctuary:" for dating the commencement of that period from the triumph of the Macedonian he-goat over the Medo-Persian ram, which was accomplished when Alexander the Great conquered Darius in the famous battle of Arbela, which Blair, in his accurate chronology, fixes at the year 331 before Christ; I say, dating from this year the whole period of the 2300 prophetic years, and deducting from the same number five days for every year, we find that it would conclude exactly at the same date after Christ as that which we have just above assigned for the conclusion of the other periods given in the thirteenth chapter of Daniel, viz., about the year of our Lord 1938: thus making the "blessed period" and "the cleansing of the sanctuary" coincide.

But we must here observe that we do not attach too much importance to this calculation, as the period would be earlier, if we date the commencement of the 1260 years from the birth of Mahomet, while it would be very