Even Demosthenes, by virtue of a statesman's thoughtful experience, can describe it as his office and duty "to see events in their beginnings, to discern their purport and tendencies from the first, and to forewarn his countrymen accordingly." Yet the power of Demosthenes was as nothing compared with that of an Isaiah or a Nahum; and we may safely say that the writings alike of the Greek orator and the Hebrew prophets would have been comparatively valueless had they merely contained anticipations of future history, instead of dealing with truths whose value is equal for all ages--truths and principles which give clearness to the past, security to the present, and guidance to the future. Had it been the function of prophecy to remove the veil of obscurity which God in His wisdom has hung over the destinies of men and kingdoms, it would never have attained, as it has done, to the love and reverence of mankind. IV. Another unique and abnormal feature is found in the close and accurate _chronological calculations_ in which the Book of Daniel abounds. We shall see later on that the dates of the Maccabean reconsecration of the Temple and the ruin of Antiochus Epiphanes are indicated _almost to the day_. The numbers of prophecy are in all other cases symbolical and general. They are intentional compounds of seven--the sum of three and four, which are the numbers that mystically shadow forth God and the world--a number which even Cicero calls "_rerum omnium fere modus_"; and of ten, the number of the world.[170] If we except the prophecy of the seventy years' captivity--which was a round number, and is in no respect parallel to the periods of Daniel--there is no other instance in the Bible of a _chronological_ prophecy. We say no other instance, because one of the commentators who, in writing upon Daniel, objects to the remark of Nitzsch that the numbers of prophecy are mystical, yet observes on the one thousand two hundred and sixty days of Rev. xii. that the number one thousand two hundred and sixty, or three and a half years, "has _no_ historical signification whatever, and is only to be viewed in its relation to the number seven--viz., as symbolising the apparent victory of the world over the Church."[171]