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/53

 the number of the forty days, wherein you viewed the land: a year shall be counted for a day.' And again we read in the Book of Ezekiel the Prophet (Ezek. iv. 5, 6): "And I have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. And when thou hast accomplished this, thou shalt sleep again upon thy right side, and thou shalt take upon thee the iniquity of the house of Juda forty days: a day for a year, yea, a day for a year have I appointed to thee. It is true that the term day has not always, in all cases, been so interpreted by Christian interpreters, many having taken it in a literal sense; but it always appeared to me that the argument in favour of the symbolical and conventional meaning of the term is far stronger than any argument on the other side. In this view, the majority of Protestant commentators agree, and the ablest treatises on prophecy from Catholic authors take the same view also. The ruble Father Bartholomew Holtzhauser, of Bingen, so interprets the 1260 Apocalyptic days. The learned Church historian, the Abbe Rohrbacher adopts the same view, as may be seen in the tenth volume of his "Ecclesiastical History," where he treats at