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/30

 St. Jerome, commenting (Hieronymi Comment, in Daniel, e. vii. torn. v. p. 584, ed. Basiliensis) upon this vision, thus interprets it: "I understand by the four winds of heaven, four angelical powers, to whose guardianship the principal kingdoms of the world are committed, as we read in the book of Deuteronomy:  ' When the Most High divided the nations asunder, when he separated the children of Adam, He constituted the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the angels of God; but the Lord's portion is His people, yea, Jacob is the boundary of His heritage? '  By the sea is signified the world, or the secular state of mankind, tossed to and fro with the billows of human passions; as our Lord interprets the same figure in His parable of the net cast into the sea. Hence the dragon is called the king of all that moves in the waters, and, according to David, his heads are bruised in the sea.―(Psal. Ixxiii.) And we read in the Prophet Amos (Amos ix.) : '' ' Though he go down to the depth of the sea, there will I command the dragon, and he shall devour him? ' '' But as for the four beasts that arose from the sea, and were different one from the other, if we listen to the angel's interpretation, we may know the meaning of the vision. These four great beasts, says he, are four kingdoms, that shall arise