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/50

 the same chapter (Dan. viii. 21), and we shall find all these figures interpreted by the angel Gabriel. The he-goat is declared to be the Greek or Macedonian monarchy; the notable horn, which came up between the eyes of the he-goat, is the first king or founder of this monarchy,—that is, Alexander the Great, the rapidity of whose conquests is aptly figured by the expression of the Prophet, that the he-goat "touched not the ground;" and we are then informed by the same angelic interpreter, that immediately upon his death, his empire should be subdivided into four portions or kingdoms, of which his four principal generals became the four first kings respectively: all which, history informs us, was literally accomplished upon the death of Alexander, when the mighty dominions of this extraordinary conqueror were subdivided amongst his four generals; Antipater taking possession of Macedonia; Lysimachus of Thrace and the Hellespont; Ptolemy of Egypt and its dependencies; and Seleucus of Syria, including Babylon, part of Arabia, Persia, and the other Asiatic provinces of the old Medo-Persian empire.

Having described this, the Prophet at once proceeds to the subject of Antichrist; for so St. Jerome assures us that the tradition of primitive interpreters understood the Prophet's