PREFACE<\/p>\n
The writing of this work is due to my having been appointed to give the Hulsean lectures of 1879. At the time when I was choosing a subject for those lectures, I was much impressed with the thought that the historical evidence for the truth of the facts involved in the Christian Faith, though not taken by itself sufficient to awaken faith, was nevertheless fitted, if fairly considered, to compel deeper inquiry into the grounds of Christian belief on the part of the many intelligent men who, at the present time, are satisfied to drift, apparently, into an utterly vague or sceptical position, with so few signs of an amount of trial and reflection commensurate with the importance of the subject for their own lives, and with their responsibilities in regard to the moulding of prevalent opinion. I was also convinced, after some reading of the chief works which set forth mythical or rationalistic theories of the rise of the Christian Faith, that the best foundation for a carefully constructed system of the historical evidences of Christianity lay in the claim of Jesus to be the Messiah. For here was a fact almost universally conceded even by the most destructive critics; and it remained only to inquire what was the meaning and significance of this claim on His part. To this point the short course of lectures above referred to was mainly devoted, though one lecture treated very superficially of the relations of Jewish and Christian eschatology. During the six years that have elapsed since, I have devoted whatever leisure I could obtain, among many duties of a pressing nature, to a much fuller study of the whole subject of the relations of Jewish and Christian Messianic doctrine. And not only have many topics not before touched been treated, but even what was then most fully discussed has been amplified, and the whole re-written.
\nMany works have appeared in recent years on Jewish Messianic doctrine, as the subjoined list will show. And though most of them are foreign, there has been one satisfactory English work, The Jewish Messiah, by Mr. Drummond. I am happy to be in general accord with Mr. Drummond both as regards the character of the documents and my view of the Messianic belief among Jews at the Christian era. For not a little that has been included in this book on these points, I might have simply referred to him, were it not that it was necessary for me to enter into the discussion, in order to make sure of the ground on which the subsequent argument was to proceed. I think also that some points in regard even to Jewish belief at this epoch are made clearer from being studied in connexion with early Christian belief. But while so much attention has been bestowed upon Jewish Messianic belief, the present work may, I think, claim to be the first attempt either in England or on the Continent to examine systematically and thoroughly the historical relations of Christian Messianic beliefs to Jewish, and to appreciate their significance, whether from a naturalistic point of view or that of the Christian believer. Colani has, indeed, dealt with a portion of the subject, but his work is very superficial, and Vernes claims to have been the first to treat it as a whole; he is, however, even more superficial and slight than Colani.
\nMy method of study in general has been to examine first, for myself, the sources of evidence, and to come to my own conclusions; in turning afterwards to what has been written by others I have found my own views often, I am happy to say, confirmed, often, also, corrected, completed, and rendered clearer. Having proceeded thus, however, it is impossible to acknowledge all obligations with precision; but I have endeavoured to do so as far as I have been able. The apocalyptic, apocryphal, and similar Jewish literature and the early Fathers, as well as the writings of the New Testament, I have carefully studied for myself. But I have been dependent upon others for the examination of and quotations from the Rabbinic literature, especially upon the works of Castelli and Weber. On some points I have also consulted Dr. Schiller-Szinessy, Reader in Talmudic in the University of Cambridge, who met me with his well-known generosity and kindness, and to whom I tender my best thanks. I have also to express my sincere thanks to Dr. William Wright, Professor of Arabic in the University of Cambridge, for the kindness with which he has corrected, by the Ethiopic, my translations from Dillmann\u2019s German translation of the Book of Enoch. Dillmann appears to be regarded by Ethiopic scholars as very reliable; but it seemed a pity to add another translation to the series of translations through which we most of us know this work, without referring back to the earliest in the series which now exists. Lastly, I would record my debt, though it is one of the least which I owe him, to my dear friend and, till recently, brother-fellow, the Rev. A. J. Mason, Canon of Truro and Vicar of All-Hallows-Barking, for having read and corrected the proof-sheets.
\nThe following list of works does not pretend to be complete; but I do not think anything of much importance has been omitted. As regards editions of documents, I have named only those mainly used by me.
\nV. H. S.
\nJuly 20, 1886.<\/p>\n
BOOKS ON JEWISH MESSIANIC BELIEF.<\/p>\n
SCH\u00d6TTGEN\u2014Hor\u00e6 Hebraic\u00e6 et Talmudic\u00e6 in Theologiam Jud\u00e6orum Dogmaticam Antiquam et Orthodoxam de Messia impens\u00e6. 1742.
\nBERTHOLDT\u2014Christologia Jud\u00e6orum Jesu Apostolorumque \u00e6tate. 1811.
\nHILGENFELD\u2014Die J\u00fcdische Apokalyptik in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwickelung. 1857.
\nANGER\u2014Vorlesungen \u00fcber die Geschichte der Messianischen Idee (pub. after the author\u2019s death, 1873).
\nCASTELLI\u2014Il Messia Secondo gli Ebrei. 1874.
\nDRUMMOND\u2014The Jewish Messiah. 1877.<\/p>\n
SECTIONS OF BOOKS, ARTICLES, OR SHORT TREATISES.<\/p>\n
GFR\u00d6RER\u2014Das Jahrhundert des Heils, 2te Abtheil, c. 10. 1838.
\nBRUNO BAUER\u2014Kritik der Evangelischen Geschichte der Synoptiker, vol. i. pp. 391\u2013416. 1841.
\nZELLER\u2014Theologische Jahrb\u00fccher for 1843, pp. 35\u201352.
\nL\u00dcCKE\u2014Versuch einer vollst\u00e4ndigen Einleitung in die Offenbarung des Johannes (4th vol. of Commentary on Writings of St. John), pp. 17\u2013212. 2nd ed. 1852.
\nR. YOUNG\u2014The Christology of the Targums. 1853.
\nOEHLER\u2014Art. \u201cMessias,\u201d in Herzog\u2019s Real-Encycl. 1858.
\nJOST\u2014Geschichte des Judenthum und seiner Sekten, i. 309, 396\u201397. 1857\u20139.
\nWESTCOTT\u2014Introduction to the Study of the Gospels, chap. ii. \u201cThe Jewish Doctrine of Messiah,\u201d 1860, 4th ed. 1872.
\nW. LANG\u2014\u201cDie Messias-ideen der Juden,\u201d art. in Zeitstimmen aus der reformirten Kirche der Schweiz, 1865. (This I have not been able to see.)
\nNEUMANN\u2014Die Messianischen Erscheinungen bei den Juden. 1865.
\nLANGEN\u2014Das Judenthum in Pal\u00e4stina zur Zeit Christi, p. 331 to end; also discussion of documents. 1866.
\nHOLTZMANN\u2014\u201cDie Messias-idee zur Zeit Jesu,\u201d in Jahrb\u00fccher f\u00fcr deutsche Theologie, Band 12, Heft 3, pp. 389\u2013411. 1867.
\nSCHENKEL\u2014Arts. \u201cMessias\u201d and \u201cMessianische Weissagungen\u201d in Bibel-Lexicon, 1871.
\nW\u00dcNSCHE\u2014Die Leiden des Messias. 1870.
\nEWALD\u2014Many notices scattered throughout History of Israel, and in vol. vi. pp. 103\u2013121 of Eng. trans., The Messianic Hope of Israel in the Time of our Lord.
\nKEIM\u2014Life of Jesus of Nazara, pp. 314\u2013327, Eng. trans., German ed. 1867.
\nHAUSRATH\u2014New Testament Times: The Time of Jesus, Eng. trans. 1878, from 2nd (enlarged and altered) German ed. 1873, vol. i. pp. 191\u2013206.
\nSCH\u00dcRER\u2014Lehrbuch der Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte, 1874, and (very much enlarged) the second part of the new ed., entitled Geschichte des J\u00fcdischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi, pp. 417\u2013466 and 609\u2013661, 677\u2013682. 1885. (An English translation of this very valuable work has also already appeared, pub. by T. & T. Clark.)
\nKUENEN\u2014Religion of Israel, iii. 259\u2013273.
\nWEBER\u2014System der Altsynagogalen Pal\u00e4stinischen Theologie aus Targum, Midrasch und Talmud, 4te Abtheil, pp. 322\u2013386. 1880.
\nE. G. KING\u2014The Yalkut on Zechariah, translated with Notes and Appendices. Appendix A, pp. 85\u2013108, on Messiah Ben-Joseph. 1882.
\nEDERSHEIM\u2014The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, Book ii. c. v., What Messiah did the Jews expect? 1883.
\n[Articles, etc., on special documents will also be found in the notes, especially in chap. ii.]<\/p>\n
BOOKS AND ARTICLES DEALING WITH SOME PART OF THE RELATIONS OF JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN MESSIANIC DOCTRINE.
\nCORODI\u2014Kritische Geschichte des Chiliasmus. 1781.
\nHELLWAG\u2014\u201cDie Vorstellung von der Pr\u00e4existenz Christi in der \u00e4ltesten Kirche,\u201d Theol. Jahrb\u00fccher, von Baur und Zeller, 1848, pp. 144\u2013161, 227\u2013240.
\nCOLANI\u2014J\u00e9sus-Christ et les Croyances Messianiques de son temps, 2nd ed. 1864.
\nRIEHM\u2014Messianic Prophecy; its Origin, Historical Character, and Relation to New Testament Fulfilment. Three articles published 1865 and 1869, republished and translated into English (T. & T. Clark), 1876.
\nWITTICHEN\u2014Die Idee des Reiches Gottes. 1872.
\nHAUSRATH\u2014(as above) ii. pp. 93\u2013end.
\nVERNES\u2014Histoire des Id\u00e9es Messianiques, depuis Alexandre jusqu\u2019\u00e0 l\u2019empereur Hadrien. 1874.
\nS. DAVIDSON\u2014The Doctrine of Last Things contained in the New Testament compared with the notions of the Jews and the statements of Church Creeds. 1882. [I did not fall in with this work till the following pages had all been printed; this will explain why there are no references to it in Part II. chap. iii. I may remark that it is mainly occupied with a comparison of different writings of the New Testament; the comparison with \u201cthe notions of the Jews\u201d is very slightly done.]
\nCANDLISH\u2014The Kingdom of God, biblically and historically considered. T. & T. Clark, 1884.<\/p>\n
EDITIONS OF SOME OF THE CHIEF DOCUMENTS.<\/p>\n
Das Buch Henoch, uebersetzt und erkl\u00e4rt, von Dr. A. Dillmann. 1853.
\nOracula Sibyllina, Alexandre. 1869.
\nLibri Apocryphi Vet. Test. quibus accedunt Pseudepigraphi selecti, Fritzsche. For Psalms of Solomon, Fourth Book of Esdras, the Apocalypse of Baruch, and the Assumption of Moses. 1871.
\n\u201cDas Buch der Jubil\u00e4en oder die kleine Genesis; aus dem Aethiopischen \u00fcbersetzt,\u201d von Dr. A. Dillmann, in Ewald\u2019s Jahrb. der Bibl. Wissenschaft, 1850, 1851.<\/p>\n
PART I<\/p>\n
INTRODUCTORY<\/p>\n
CHAPTER I<\/p>\n
THE SCOPE OF OUR INQUIRY, AND ITS BEARING UPON MODERN THEORIES OF THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITY<\/p>\n
The subject with which we shall be occupied in this volume is one of which the importance has only been realized in this generation, and its scope may not be at once apprehended by those whose attention has not been much turned to discussions regarding the Rise of Christianity. The most familiar difficulties connected with Messianic doctrine relate to the interpretation of prophecy in the Old Testament and its fulfilment in the New. The reader must not look for any exhaustive discussion of these here, though incidentally we may be able to point out what is the true principle of their solution. There are, however, questions of a still more vital nature with which we shall be directly concerned. Let me state the problem with which we are to attempt to deal. Certain facts are patent. It was undoubtedly in a large measure by virtue of the conviction that Jesus was the Messiah who had been foretold that the Christian Church took root and spread in the first days; and Messianic conceptions are ineffaceably stamped upon her Creed. We are thus compelled to ask what were the exact historical relations of Messianic belief to the Rise of Christianity. We desire to ascertain the attitude of Jesus Himself to it; to understand truly the character of the transformation which it underwent in His hands and those of His followers; to measure the part which, so transformed and connected with His Person, it played as a force in the early progress of the Christian Church; to trace, and to estimate the significance of, its influence in moulding her Creed; and to determine whether to any extent it has, as some have alleged, coloured her account of the facts of her Founder\u2019s life.
\nThese questions have met with a measure of recognition, as they could hardly fail to do, from most recent writers on the Life of Christ or the Early History of the Christian Church, and from the better commentators on books of the New Testament; and light has been thrown upon them by much valuable research. Yet what has been done has been for the most part of a fragmentary character, and comprehensive treatment is needed in order to deal satisfactorily with some even of the separate points involved.
\nWe are to discuss a problem in the history of thought which is closely bound up with the most momentous epoch in the general history of mankind. Even the more direct effects in the realm of thought alone, in prevalent feeling and views of the world and human life, of the transformation which we shall be tracing are most striking, and ought to give a permanent living interest to the investigation in the eyes of all. And for the Christian believer the question will at many points present itself, what is the true meaning for us Christians of to-day of this whole order of Messianic ideas which held such a prominent place in the early Church, in what respects does it supply us with a language for the expression of truths which could not be so well expressed otherwise, how far may it be right that we should adopt a different point of view from Christians of the first age. In addition, the subject has great importance in view of the character of recent objections to the Christian faith, while it also, as I believe, when duly studied, supplies positive evidence, of a convincing kind, of the truth of that faith. Its significance in the former aspect will be appreciated if we take a rapid review of the recent theories which attempt to account for Christianity on naturalistic principles.
\nThe earliest of these which still retains any considerable influence is the mythical theory of Strauss. The appearance of his Life of Jesus in 1835 undoubtedly made a new epoch. And whatever else it may have succeeded in effecting, it certainly effected the overthrow of the school of \u201cRationalists,\u201d specifically so called, who, in the narratives of the miraculous in the Gospels, accepted the bare facts substantially as related, but endeavoured to give a \u201crational\u201d explanation of the phenomena.
\nThe opportunity for a better theory than theirs, as Strauss considers, had offered itself in consequence of the critical researches that had been going forward. On the one hand, doubts had been thrown upon the authenticity and early date of many of the New Testament writings. On the other, they had been submitted to an exacting internal criticism. Much prominence had been given to discrepancies in the Gospels, and especially to differences between the Synoptists and St. John, and there had been a plentiful crop of hypotheses as to the origin of the Gospels and their relative historical value. Strauss held that it had been proved that our Gospels were not the writings of eye-witnesses, or even of those who had received the narratives from eye-witnesses. And he argued that it was legitimate to regard them as possessing a legendary character in a way which the rationalists did not feel at liberty to do, acquiescing as they did \u201cin the common belief as to the proximity of the writers to the time and place of the occurrences.\u201d Room had, it was supposed, been made for the growth of legend before the time when our Gospels were written.
\nStrauss\u2019s own elaboration of the mythical theory of the evangelical history in his Life of Jesus and New Life of Jesus, which differ in method, but not essentially in principle, remains to this day the most complete and systematic statement of it. Much space is devoted by him, more especially in the earlier work, to purely destructive criticism, with the view of proving alike the untrustworthiness of the Gospel records and the untenableness of the rationalist explanations. But turning to that mythical theory with which his name is identified, we find the prevailing Messianic ideas of the Jews alleged as the chief cause of the mythical growth. The followers of Jesus, it is argued, having come to regard Him as the Messiah, as a consequence unconsciously attributed to Him deeds which He never performed but which He ought to have performed, and words which He never spoke but which He ought to have spoken, according to their conception of the Messiah. This, be it remarked, is an essential element of the theory. To explain the genesis of so unique a myth as the Christian no ordinary causes will suffice; a very special condition of thought in the quarter where it was generated must be assumed.
\nThis theory presented itself with all the strong recommendation that an analogy is able to give. For speculations had been rife as to the mythical origin of heathen religions and of the early histories, so full of the marvellous, of Greece and Rome, and even of parts of the Old Testament; and the subject of the genesis of myths had acquired a more or less scientific form. It was further contended, not without justice, that this theory gave more dignity and value to the evangelic narrative than did that of the rationalists. It was indeed a loss that greater uncertainty seemed to be cast upon the real character of Jesus and His teaching. But, on the other hand, the poetical and religious thoughts of a people clothed in the symbolical form of a miraculous narrative were something far nobler and more calculated to command attention than the mere narratives of individual writers, full of such puerile mistakes of the natural for the supernatural, as had been imagined.
\nYet again the Hegelian philosophy came in to give, in the eyes of those who held it, a still higher importance and even a certain lofty kind of truth to the supposed Christian myth. For it appeared to them the most momentous step in that process by which the world-spirit is attaining to self-consciousness. Thoughts of this nature, I feel sure, also make many less reluctant than they would otherwise be to surrender belief in the historical truth of Christianity, and to accept the mythical view of its origin, especially among those upon whose minds Christianity has had at one time or other some real hold. They feel that the mythical theory allows them still to recognise, not only the part which Christianity has played in the moral and spiritual training of men, and what it may still do in this respect for those who are able to believe in it, but also its permanent beauty and instructiveness. And I am far from wishing to make light of the value which Christianity may have even for those who so regard it. Yet I must observe that its value as a revelation, as a Divine assurance to man of the love of God and of the eternal and glorious destiny of man, depends on its historic truth. And it is this view of Christianity which has been the secret of its power in the past. Nor do we seem to have got beyond the need of such a revelation in this age of ours. Rather we seem to need it if possible more than ever in the presence of our deepened sense of the sorrows and mischiefs of the world and the apparent cruelty and heedlessness of natural law, and of so much which lends impressiveness to materialistic theories of the universe and of man.
\nBut to return to our historical review. There appear to be some whom the mythical theory still satisfies. Generally speaking, however, it has never among thorough students, even of the naturalistic school, been accepted as final. In describing the progress of criticism since the publication of Strauss\u2019s Life of Jesus, it is fitting to mention first, as partaking most of the nature of a supplement to his theory, the views of F. C. Baur, the father of the so-called T\u00fcbingen school. Baur, who was already a professor of high repute at T\u00fcbingen and the author of important works, when in 1835 Strauss\u2019s Life of Jesus appeared, had his attention turned by it to the critical questions connected with the Gospels. He felt that Strauss\u2019s treatment of his subject was defective, inasmuch as he had dealt with the contents of the Gospel records without a sufficient examination of the character of the records themselves. Hence the result of his criticism had been purely negative. He had not only given a mythical explanation of all that was supernatural in the Gospel narratives, but he had thrown doubt upon those narratives as a whole, seeing that nothing could be trusted where a mythical element was shown to be present in such large measure. He seemed to have left no worth to the Gospels at all, for he had neither supplied a test by which anything historical in their testimony could be distinguished from the unhistorical, nor had he exhibited them as monuments of the times of their composition. It was the aim of all Baur\u2019s work in this field to supply this defect, without which he held there could be no adequate setting forth of the history of the Rise of Christianity. In doing so he was following out lines of thought which were beginning to open to him before the publication of Strauss\u2019s famous book, but in his prosecution of which that event gave him a powerful impulse.
\nThe consequences of Baur\u2019s criticism and that of his school as regards the form of the naturalistic explanation of the origin of Christianity, may be briefly described as twofold. (1) Owing to his more comprehensive method of treatment, other influences besides that of the Messianic expectation received fuller recognition, the share of each in bringing the Christian creed to its ultimate form being assigned. Thus, for example, a prominent place was given to a spirit of Universalism which was stirring and budding in the Greek and Roman world and the Judaism of the Dispersion, and was introduced into Christianity mainly through St. Paul, though it is suggested that it may even have influenced the mind of Jesus. (2) While the more or less unconscious formation of myth in the mind of the Christian community at large was still allowed a place, there was brought forward in aid of it the hypothesis of an intentional moulding of the narrative in the interest of special dogmatic views by the several evangelists, the invention by them of new incidents, or of particulars in their narration of the old ones, designed to set forth allegorically truths which, owing to their individual characters or the section of the Church to which they belonged, or the juncture at which they wrote, they felt to be important. In common with the other New Testament writings and the Christian literary remains of succeeding generations which have come down to us, the Gospels are made to illustrate the different sides and stages in that deep and far-reaching conflict between Jewish and Pauline Christianity, and the reconciliation of these two principles which, according to the view of Baur and his school, make up the history of Christianity for the first century and a half of its existence. Such, briefly, is the famous theory of \u201ctendency.\u201d Nevertheless, the influence of Jewish Messianic ideas, in spite of all supplementary causes that were adduced, had lost scarcely any of its importance as regards the first stage in the formation of the Christian creed and legend on Jewish-Christian ground. \u201cIt was in the Messianic idea,\u201d says Baur in one of his latest works, \u201cthat the spiritual contents of Christianity were clothed upon with the concrete form in which it could enter on the path of historical development.\u201d
\nThe principle of invention by the writers of the narratives themselves, which the T\u00fcbingen school used in aid of the assumption of a mythical growth, has been pushed to all lengths by two eccentric critics, who find in it the sufficient explanation of all that is supernatural in the contents of the Gospels, and of much besides. Already before F. C. Baur\u2019s views had been published or fully formulated, Bruno Bauer put forward the theory just indicated in opposition to the mythical theory. Founding upon the critical views of Weisse and Wilke, who saw in the Gospel according to St. Mark the original Gospel which had been utilised by the other two Synoptists, Bruno Bauer attributed to the author of this Gospel the first embellishment of the purely human facts of the life of Jesus.
\nVolkmar dislikes being connected with Bruno Bauer, yet for the purpose of this brief sketch at least, we must put them together. Superior as are the tone and spirit of the later writer, his fundamental positions are entirely the same. Nor has he supported them with any better grounded reasoning. He claims for his own criticism that it is \u201cabsolute,\u201d in opposition to that of the T\u00fcbingen school, which deals in hypotheses and probabilities. But the whole history both of past and contemporary criticism shows the baselessness of this strange self-confidence. The chief difference between him and Bruno Bauer, besides that of tone and spirit, is that he has utilized the view of the T\u00fcbingen school in regard to the early history of the Church, to set forth as they do the origin and relation to one another of the Gospels in their connexion with the general history of the Rise of Christianity, though like Bruno Bauer, and in contrast with the T\u00fcbingen school, he regards St. Mark as the original evangelist.
\nThe general theory of these two critics has commended itself to very few, and is not likely to win many adherents. Yet it at least serves the purpose of a criticism on the mythical theory. And their position also has its special interest in relation to our subject. Bruno Bauer seeks to cut away the ground from under the mythical theory by proving that no developed Christology, or even firmly established Messianic expectation, existed among the Jews before the Rise of Christianity; and in this again Volkmar closely resembles him. According to them, the relations of Jewish and Christian Messianic belief were the reverse of what is ordinarily supposed. Messianic belief is mainly an example of the creative power of Christianity; its development even among Jews is traced to a large extent to an impulse thence given. This is a rude challenging of the assumptions alike of old-fashioned orthodoxy and of the mythical school. But it is not only this. If it had to be accepted to the full, the idea of the Old Dispensation as a preparation for the New would be seriously impaired.
\nIt remains only to speak of a disposition among naturalistic writers which, I think there can be no question, has manifested itself increasingly, to allow as much truth as they can to the Gospel narratives consistently with their fundamental naturalistic hypothesis. It was indeed felt very soon, and almost universally, that in the first statement of the mythical theory the effect produced by the personality of Jesus Himself had been too little considered; and a clearer presentation of the historical Jesus was demanded. The mode of treating his subject adopted by Strauss in his New Life of Jesus, in which he first sets before the reader what he holds to be historically ascertainable, and then proceeds to speak of mythical accretions, was probably a concession to this feeling. Renan gave a far fuller portraiture than Strauss, though the character he depicts is not one which we can consider even altogether admirable; and artistic instincts rather than any serious perception of either the moral or historical deficiencies of previous explanations appear to have prompted his endeavour to impart an air of life and reality to the narrative. Volkmar again, though his theory is so destructive of the character of the evangelists as historical witnesses, labours to set forth the person and teaching of Jesus as the beginning of new life for the world. We now also observe among distinguished disciples of Baur signs of a movement in the direction I have indicated. But it is especially apparent in a class of writers who make it their aim on the one hand indeed to satisfy what they conceive to be the claims of science, but on the other to set forth an image of Jesus and His work in as full accord as possible with the actual records and adequate to the impression He has made on all subsequent ages. They are impelled to this most of all, no doubt, by the impression made by the character of Jesus upon themselves, but also consciously or unconsciously by the air of simplicity and truthfulness in the Gospel records; and by the difficulty which they perceive in placing the date of their composition so late by several decades as Strauss and Baur did. Critics of this temper there have been at all times. Such, for example, was Weisse, whose work on the Gospel history appeared three years after Strauss\u2019s Life of Jesus. In recent times we have had Schenkel, Hausrath, and above all Keim.
\nIn connexion with these writers, we may also mention the author of Philochristus and Onesimus. His conception, indeed, of the Person of the Lord seems to approach nearer by far to that of the Church; perhaps it is substantially the same as that of the Church. But we see in him the same combination of a desire to do justice to what religious faith perceives in Christ with concessions to the modern feeling as to the complete dominion of natural law even over Him in His earthly life. In writers of this class we observe a tendency to use to a limited extent a method of explanation in principle the same as that of the old rationalists. With this they combine some application of the theory that Messianic belief promoted mythical growth. But what is of more importance, they are compelled, acknowledging as they do so much truth in the representation of the character and teaching of Christ in the Gospels, to give prominence to the most vital question of all, that of His own attitude to the expectation of a Messiah.
\nThus, apart from the intrinsic interest of an examination of the relations of Jewish and Christian Messianic doctrine, its desirability must be evident even from this slight review of modern theories.
\nAll discussions of the history of the Rise of Christianity must be affected by the view taken of the admissibility of belief in the supernatural, which (be it remembered) includes the unique and Divine personality of Jesus Christ, as well as miracles ordinarily so called. The desire to escape from the necessity of this belief has been the main motive of the successive theories of which a sketch has been given, as well as of those which preceded them, while it is even asserted that any view must be more credible than one which involves it. Yet no proper discussion of so large a subject can be attempted here. It will not, however, be therefore profitless for those who are at issue with us on this preliminary point to join in the following inquiry. To say the least, they ought to find it helpful in testing the strength or weakness of their own theories to follow reasoning in which their own preliminary assumption is not made, and which is conducted, if you will, with a bias, but an opposite bias. And if it is not to be expected, or even to be wished, that those who have hitherto refused to admit the possibility of the supernatural should surrender to historical evidence alone, it would seem that they ought nevertheless to feel compelled to reconsider the bases of their thought, if the naturalistic theories which have been put forward to account for the rise of the Christian faith are proved on historical grounds to be untenable or inadequate. There are also many to whom belief in the supernatural is indeed difficult, but who would not assert that valid grounds for it might not conceivably exist. This difficulty all are likely to experience in some measure who have come to any considerable extent under the power of modern scientific and literary culture; while, from various complex causes, some minds will feel the influence of this scientific spirit in the region of their religious faith more strongly than others. Yet there seem to be considerations capable of bringing the supernatural again, so to speak, within the sphere of the credible, and even the probable, in spite of all that may be urged in regard to unbroken experience of the uniformity of nature; and in spite also of the majesty and dignity of that uniformity as a general characteristic of the Divine government and the part it bears in our moral discipline, with which the progress of science has anew impressed us. If God be indeed a God of providence, a true heavenly Father to the human race, it is surely not to be accounted strange that He should give man a knowledge of His existence and His love more certain and more clear than that which is to be obtained from nature, or from the groping instincts of the heart of man. And if we can perceive that in Christ there is such a revelation of God, and associated with its reception the gift of a power by which man may be redeemed from his moral weakness and sin and raised to a higher life, and if the miracles recorded in the Gospels both help to certify this revelation, and are themselves a means through which in part it is made, and a pledge of our final restoration and victory over sin and disease and death, we seem justified in supposing that the record may be true, that God really may in this instance have departed from His ordinary methods of working. The object and the result were alike worthy of a special interposition:\u2014dignus vindice nodus. Now for those who know something of all this, or who even recognise the possibility that they might come to do so, historical evidence tending to prove the substantial truth of the Gospel narrative may have the most profound meaning.
\nBut it will be said historical evidence is out of the question, if belief in the supernatural element in the Gospel narratives is held to be admissible. The study of history is based upon the existence of uniformity,\u2014of the natural. It assumes the permanence of human characteristics, owing to which the period under investigation can be interpreted by what is known of the present and other periods.
\nAs I have said that we are to deal with a historical problem, and have nevertheless implied that I adhere to the orthodox faith regarding the Person of Jesus Christ, and the miraculous accompaniments of His manifestation, it may in a peculiar manner concern me to say a few words on the objection just stated. Let me first observe that a difficulty, precisely analogous to that which is here raised in regard to the knowledge of anything supernatural in the past, would apply to any knowledge of it whatsoever. If we imagine ourselves, with our modern mental habits of thought, transported into the age when any supernatural event happened and eye-witnesses of it, we shall feel that our almost irresistible instinct would be to refuse to believe that it could not be brought under some general law. But to admit that such a conclusion must necessarily be right, would be to say that nothing unique can possibly be known, and this amounts to an \u00e0 priori assertion that revelation is inconceivable, since the very idea of revelation implies a communication of fuller and higher knowledge of truth than our unaided natural faculties could attain to. We may well challenge the grounds for such dogmatism. The fact is that the same kind of considerations regarding the character and end of that which appears unique, may justify belief in it either to the eye-witness, or to those who view it through a historical medium.
\nNevertheless the practical difficulty remains, how we are to conduct historical investigation under such exceptional circumstances. In order that we may see the question in its true light, it is important not to exaggerate the difference between this and the study of other departments of history. It is unquestionably the highest function of history to trace causation, and it will ever be the bent of the true historical investigator to discover links of cause and effect where he can. Yet he is often compelled by the complexity of phenomena, the influence of great men upon the course of events, and the difficulty of determining the relation of their characters to general causes, or for other reasons, to leave his work incomplete, and to acknowledge the presence of the inexplicable. It is seldom possible for any sober thinker to imagine that his theory of any great period or movement of history is in all points complete; but none the less he will apply his scientific methods to the ascertainment of facts, and will endeavour to trace chains of causation where he is able.
\nNow this may suggest to us the way in which the believer in the supernatural character of Christianity may still find a use, though a limited one, for scientific method in investigating the history of its origin. He may begin humbly with examining evidence as to facts, just as any other sound historical investigator should do. As the result of this process, he may perchance become convinced that the facts can only be explained by assuming the presence of that which is supernatural. Kingsley in a noble passage says of physical investigators: \u201cWhat are they finding, more and more, below their facts, below all phenomena which the scalpel and the microscope can show? A something nameless, invisible, imponderable, yet seemingly omnipresent and omnipotent, retreating before them deeper and deeper, the deeper they delve, namely, the life which shapes and makes.\u2026 More and more the noblest-minded of them are engrossed by the mystery of that unknown and truly miraculous element in nature, which is always escaping them, though they cannot escape it.\u201d Just so our sifting of historical evidence may bring us face to face with mystery. Should we reach such a point, it must influence the spirit in which all further investigations are conducted. If we are driven to believe the union of the Divine and human in Jesus Christ to have been absolutely unique, we shall certainly not dare to give the reins to conjecture in studying even His human character. Still there will be room for discriminating observation in tracing as it were the line of contact between the Divine and the human even in Him. And when we pass from Him to His disciples and the growth of the Church at large, we shall have still more scope for ordinary human reasoning. The influence of prevailing circumstances and ideas now becomes a more important factor. Nor can we be utterly at fault in trying to understand the effect of supernatural influence and of the knowledge of supernatural facts on men like ourselves. And if an attempt is made at forming a constructive view of the whole history, we shall indeed find it impossible to treat Christianity as merely a development from an antecedent set of circumstances; but we may employ ourselves in noting the manifold preparation for the coming of the Christ, in endeavouring to enter into the large meaning of the apostle\u2019s phrase, \u201cthe fulness of time,\u201d and in distinguishing the successive stages in the unfolding of the Divine purpose. And though the scientific instinct which is disposed to demand an explanation of everything will not thus be at every point gratified, the philosophic instinct will be, which loves to follow the working out of a great and comprehensive scheme.
\nThe temper, then, in which I approach this inquiry is that of one convinced of the presence of a unique Divine Power in the Old Testament Dispensation, and in still larger measure in Christianity, but who at the same time recognises that in its working it did not set aside, but gave an impulse to the natural faculties of men. If such was the general method in which the Divine Life and Truth were communicated, it is evident that the Life was manifested under human conditions, and that the Truth would be but gradually apprehended, and that its expression through each mind or in each age must have been relative to the stage reached. It may serve to make the point of view clearer if I refer to the example of one who has rendered it illustrious. Not to name any living man, it is that of the great Neander. Without holding myself in any way pledged to any of his particular opinions, or those of any other of the great theologians and scholars whose principles of thought have resembled his, I desire to follow out in the same spirit one line of inquiry in that great field for reverent study, the Rise and Early History of Christian Faith and Life, so many portions of which have been illuminated by their labours. Naturalistic thinkers have accused them, and if this book is deemed worthy of notice I shall no doubt be accused, of an intellectual cowardice which is desirous of effecting a mere compromise between Orthodox Faith and the advancing spirit of Science. Such an accusation cannot move us, because it fails wholly to do justice to our state of mind. Inconsistencies in our thought may be pointed out, and instances of vagueness of language which are taken as indicative of a kind of mental bewilderment. In excuse it is to be remembered that the problem to be solved seems to us incomparably vaster and more complex than it does to naturalistic writers. It is easy to be clear in your exposition if you ignore half the facts. But the real ground of our position is that we are as deeply convinced that a Power is manifested in the Scriptures and in the Life of the Church which is unique and Divine as we are of our own existence. For myself I may say, that whatever else I have at any time doubted, it has always remained clear to me that the naturalistic accounts of the Rise of Christianity do not account for it, chiefly because they show no true perception of the nature of Christianity itself.
\nA few words it may be well to add, in order to prevent misunderstanding, as to the course to be pursued in regard to questions related more or less indirectly to our main subject. There are results, and among them some of very great importance, which I hope to establish by strong historical evidence. But points will also necessarily present themselves, the satisfactory determination of which is impossible unless we were to travel considerably beyond our chosen field of study. We may arrive at a certain measure of probability for one view or other, while confining ourselves to our own province. And yet it may be clear that this probability needs to be confirmed by probabilities drawn from other provinces, and that it might be wholly countervailed by them.
\nThis complexity of the issues raised is a difficulty to which every one is now in a peculiar manner exposed who would treat of the early history of Christianity. Not only has the whole history been reconstructed on divers theories differing in principle, or in many details where the principle is the same; but it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that every writing from which any direct evidence as to that history can be drawn, has given rise to a literature. It is thus impossible for any writer to deal in a thorough manner with more than a part of the whole subject. The limits to human labour, the fear of overtaxing the patience of readers, the desire to avoid the mere repetition of much that has been said by other writers, combine to forbid it. Yet, at the same time, many of the questions which have been raised more or less vitally affecting the faith of the Church cannot receive an adequate answer from the study of any single part separated from the rest. Thus there may be a strong temptation at times to try to complete the proof of some point one desires to establish by the rapid enumeration of arguments, which nevertheless cannot, without devoting more space to them than can be afforded, be exhibited in a way to satisfy any one not predisposed to admit their force. In the actual condition of controversy, however, and the uncertainty in regard to almost every part of the faith felt by many intelligent minds, it seems to be eminently necessary to lay very sure foundations, and to ask that conclusions may be accepted only when it has been possible to set forth the reasonings by which we arrive at them in a full and convincing manner, and on this principle I desire to act in the present work. It involves as a consequence that not a few points should be left in suspense. On some of these I may permit myself to indicate my own conviction and the nature of the considerations which influence me, referring the reader to what seems to me a satisfactory statement of them where I am able to do so; or I may offer him a possible explanation of what on my own view is a difficulty. But I shall not ask him in such cases to agree with me without fuller inquiries; nor must I be supposed to imagine that the mere explanation of difficulties and answering of objections is tantamount to proof.
\nA word of explanation as to the arrangement of the matter in this book. It has been my desire to place something like a continuous argument before the reader so far as is possible in treating of a subject including many subordinate topics, and to mark clearly alike the distinction and the relation of its several portions. This aim has dictated both the three Parts and the order of the chapters within those Parts. The divisions and the order will, to a considerable extent, speak for themselves, or the reasons for them will appear as we proceed. One or two remarks, however, may be advisable here. It has been necessary to include in this First (or Introductory) Part, a fairly comprehensive Sketch of Jewish Messianic doctrine and of the Christian transformation of it, in order to save us from losing ourselves afterwards in the details, and also to enable us to appreciate the argument of some following chapters. But it will be inevitable that in these preliminary chapters some points should be touched which cannot be fully expounded, and to which we must afterwards recur. Yet I hope that it will be found that in the earlier place the foundations are sufficiently laid, even if the proofs cannot always be fully exhibited; and, on the other hand, that there is no undue amount of repetition in later notices.
\nIt may be thought difficult to maintain the distinction implied in the headings of Parts II. and III., between the attitude of Jesus to Messianic beliefs and Messianic doctrine in the Early Church. On the one hand, it may be said by orthodox believers, Was not the content of the faith of the Church identical with the teaching of Jesus? Others again will suggest that we know the teaching of Jesus only through the medium of the views of the early Christians. Nevertheless, certain cardinal points in regard to the Messianic claims which, as matter of history, He made, are capable of being, and have commonly been, treated separately, and there are also certain peculiarly characteristic Messianic features in His doctrine; while a comparison of the Gospels with the other writings of the New Testament shows that Messianic doctrine underwent a development, in form at least, in the hands of His disciples after His Resurrection.
\nThe conclusions of the chapter on the Use of the Old Testament in the Early Church will not be required till we come to the Third Part, and it has been a question with me whether it should not be placed at the beginning of that Part. Its subject seems, however, to fall most properly under the head of introductory matter, and on the whole I have thought it best to give it its present position. The question of the alleged influence of Messianic belief on the details of the Gospel narratives is reserved till the last, because the question of the faith in Jesus as a supernatural Christ is logically prior to it; and the rise of this faith must also to a great extent have in fact preceded such a mythicizing process, if it really took place.<\/p>\n
CHAPTER II<\/p>\n
THE DOCUMENTS<\/p>\n
As a first step in our investigation it is necessary that we should ascertain our sources of information, and consider somewhat carefully to what extent they are severally to be relied upon, and the use to be made of them. This is important especially with respect to the Messianic beliefs of the Jews; those of the earliest Christians, which are to be compared with theirs, are less open to question.
\nWe desiderate the evidence of writings which may with probability be assigned to a date prior to the rise of Christianity, but not so long before that they cannot fairly be taken as an index of opinion at that time; or of Jewish writings subsequent to its rise, which there is good reason to think have not been influenced either by sympathy with or hostility to the new faith. Clearly we must beware of arguing from the Messianic passages of the Old Testament as interpreted by the Christian Church to the beliefs even of the most spiritually enlightened Jews before the Coming of Christ. When, indeed, we have direct evidence that a certain aspect of the Messiah\u2019s Person and Work was present to the minds of Jews at or shortly before the Christian era, we may refer to the passages of the Old Testament which seem to set forth this aspect in order to gain a more vivid sense of the way in which it would be apprehended; because we should have reason to believe in the case supposed, that these passages must have been received and meditated upon as Messianic by Jews of the time. But we can do this only on the ground of the contemporary evidence as to the conception of the Messiah and His times at the era in question.
\nThe earlier Targums, the Talmud, and the older Midrashim will, I think, first suggest themselves to many readers as likely to meet our want. The Rabbinic literature has been commonly regarded as the great storehouse of illustrations of Jewish beliefs and customs in New Testament times. And on many points, no doubt, rightly so, but unhappily even its oldest portions can only be of very qualified use for the subject we have in hand. At best they can only be accepted as witnesses of a secondary order. The evidence drawn from them may be held to have a confirming force when it agrees with other evidence of a more direct kind; while, if it should be found to differ, an explanation of the divergence may be demanded.
\nThe Mishnah, which was the first great collection and arrangement of Rabbinic tradition in written form, and the oldest we possess, was the work of the second century. It was brought to a conclusion by R. Jehuda about the end of the century. A somewhat similar collection, the Tosephta, which, however, did not attain to the same authoritative position, has come down to us from the third century. Of the two \u201ccompletions\u201d of the Mishnah, the Palestinian and Babylonian Gemaras, the embodiment of the former may with probability be referred to about the year A.D. 350, and that of the latter to the middle of the sixth century. The older Midrashim (Mechilta, Siphra, and Siphri) are held to be of the same age as the Mishnah.
\nWith respect to the date at which the two oldest of the Targums, those of Onkelos on the Pentateuch and Jonathan on the Prophets, were reduced to writing, there is much difference of opinion. Many eminent Rabbinic scholars of the present day assign them both to the first century and to the time before the destruction of Jerusalem. Others have placed their composition in the third and fourth centuries of our era respectively, or later still. In the present state of the question it would be unwise to build upon the earlier date.
\nUndoubtedly the Targums preserve paraphrases which had already become traditional, and the Rabbinic writings record the teachings of masters of an older generation than that in which these works were put into writing. Thus assuming that the old can be surely detected, it is conceivable that we might find in these sources the evidence which we seek. And it will further, no doubt, be said that in the reverence for ancient authority which we associate so closely with the idea of Rabbinism, we have a guarantee that the spirit of older belief would in any case be preserved intact.
\nNow, without pretending to any but a second-hand knowledge of Rabbinic doctrine, I must venture gravely to question the soundness of this view. Such artificial views and methods as those of Rabbinism could only be the result of a gradual growth. And unless a period can be fixed when that growth had ceased, we may be altogether out in attributing opinions of later Rabbis to those of an earlier time. Again, is it not the fact that the iron yoke of traditionalism, which pressed so heavily in the minutest details of ceremonial observance, never made itself felt in the same way in the sphere of belief? A very slight acquaintance with the history of Jewish religious thought will suffice to suggest to the mind that there has continued all along to be great liberty of speculation, internal development, susceptibility to external influences.
\nMoreover, in the period before the editing of the Mishnah, and the Targums also if the later dates assigned be the true ones, causes had been in operation powerful enough to overcome the strongest desire to adhere to traditional views.
\n1. Throughout the Jewish world a great struggle had been taking place, a struggle long protracted, a struggle of the nature of a civil war, dividing friends and families, between Judaism and the new society which had been born in its midst, the heir of its best spirit and its promises, the Christian Church. The history of this struggle is hidden for us in a darkness relieved but slightly by a few indirect notices in contemporary writings. And this may account for the small extent to which its existence and the effects it must have produced seem generally to be realized. Great prominence has indeed of late been given to the struggle between Jewish and Pauline Christianity. But I speak now of a wider conflict, of which that between the more narrow-minded Jewish and more liberal Christians may be regarded\u2014from certain points of view\u2014as a subordinate episode. For the relations of Jewish to other Christians and of different parties among Jewish Christians to one another must have been affected in various ways by the attitude of Jews proper to Christians.
\nMeagre as our information is, we can hardly be mistaken either as to the intensity of this struggle of which we speak, or as to the general course which it must have followed; for all the evidence we possess and the necessities of the case point one way. For some time, perhaps all along, those Christians among whom St. Paul became foremost, who saw the significance of the work of Jesus Christ in abrogating the Mosaic law, and desired to admit Gentiles to full communion without circumcision, had to bear the brunt of Jewish persecution. But these, too, it must be remembered, were Jews, and as such would be regarded as traitors to the national faith. From the Jews and from proselytes, or men and women on their way to become proselytes of Judaism, the great majority of the members even of the so-called Gentile Churches were at first drawn.
\nWhat was the attitude of the more conservative Jewish Christians, or of different sections of them, during the earlier stages of the struggle we will not now inquire. The fact that they shared\u2014to say the least\u2014many of the beliefs of the more advanced, must have provoked resentment towards them on the part of strict Jews. And in time the separation between all Jewish Christians and the rest of the Jewish community was completely effected. That it was gradual, that for a while it seemed possible to some Jewish Christians and to their compatriots that they should exist as a more or less tolerated sect in the nation, would tend to make the effects of the final severance all the deeper.
\nWe have indications of the contentions with which, in the progress of this great change, the synagogues were filled; of the attempts to suppress the new sect by the synagogue discipline; of the tumults that were provoked, and which would have gone to greater extremities had it not been for the strong arm of the Roman master. Every town and village in Palestine, every community of Jews dispersed through the world, must have been convulsed thereby; nor is it hard to imagine amid what pain and bitterness, and searchings of heart, and revulsions of opinion and feeling, it must have been accomplished.
\nIs it possible then that we should put implicit confidence even in the Talmud,\u2014the oldest portion of which is allowed not to have been brought to its final form before the close of the second century,\u2014not to say in later Rabbinic writings, for a true representation of the Messianic doctrine before and at the Christian era? Or can we trust that Jewish paraphrases of the Scriptures\u2014of those very Scriptures to which the Christians were wont to appeal so much in argument\u2014should not have been affected by the controversy, if it is true, as some competent critics hold, that they had not been written down, or at least had not in their written form been generally accepted as authoritative, till that controversy had long proceeded?
\n2. But during the period under our consideration another cause came into operation which combined in various ways with that of which we have just been speaking. An event happened of vast significance, the actual effects of which are not less certain than in the last case, though the evidence of them is even more indirect. The fall of Jerusalem greatly helped forward the complete emancipation of the Christian Church from the trammels of Judaism. It also left a lasting impression upon Jewish theology and religion. A change of view and feeling which is to be observed from the time of the captivity in Babylon, especially among Jews of the Dispersion, was now carried to its completion. When the temple with its services had been destroyed, the Book of the Law became in quite a new way an object of devotion. When the last vestiges of a Jewish state were gone, the idea of a Church had to take the place completely of corporate national life.
\nBut what is of most consequence for us is the influence which this event must have exercised in regard to Messianic doctrine. The effect was mainly of two kinds, differing according to the temper of men\u2019s minds. A fiercer spirit of vengeance would at once shape and intensify the Messianic hopes of some. With others the figure of the Messiah would more and more recede into the background, now that it had become so much harder to believe in the restoration of the kingdom under a descendant of David.
\nWhatever, therefore, may be the value of the Targums and the Talmud for the illustration of earlier Jewish thought on points on which belief would not be influenced by the circumstances I have described, it is evident that they can only be used with great caution for the main purpose of our present investigation. If their evidence is to be rightly estimated, we ought in every case to take into account the possible action of the influences of which I have spoken. But this it is even more difficult to do than may at first be imagined. It may be thought that hostility to Christianity might cause Jewish writings to be silent on points of Messianic doctrine before received, if Christians laid great stress on them; but that where they give a view of the Messiah corresponding to the Christian one, the agreement must be due to the pre-Christian origin of the belief. Controversy with Christians might, however, have an opposite effect upon their Messianic conceptions without convincing them of the truth of Christianity. The Christian interpretations of the prophecies, uncritical as many of them may be thought now, would in that age be found hard to resist, the principles of interpretation of sacred records which prevailed on all sides being what they were. It might often seem the easier course to admit the meaning put upon the language of the Old Testament by Christians so far as the character of the Christ was concerned, and simply to deny that it was fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth. Nor is this mere conjecture. Justin expressly tells us that this was a position which, when it suited them, Jewish teachers were ready to assume.
\n3. There is yet another reason for distrusting these documents as witnesses of pre-Christian Messianic belief. It is clear that during the early centuries of our era there was in Judaism as well as among Christians an active study of the Old Testament guided by allegorical principles of interpretation, and that a development of Messianic doctrine was thus promoted. We have only to compare any collection of the Rabbinic applications of Old Testament Scriptures to the Messiah and His times with those of the New Testament, or with the Messianic doctrine of earlier Jewish writings, in order to feel convinced of this. Not a few passages of the Old Testament receive a Messianic interpretation in the Rabbinic writings, which do not even among the abundant citations in the New Testament. And not only so, but there is a marked difference in the comments and applications themselves. I do not allude simply to the triviality and frivolity of many of them. Even those which are most beautiful and significant have a character of their own. This fact has not been sufficiently recognised, and has often been completely ignored, in arguments as to Jewish Messianic belief; but I venture to assert that no one to whom it has once been pointed out will easily doubt it.
\nOur review in the next chapter of the history of Messianic doctrine will suggest that the first century itself was a period of rapid growth. And if so, even on the assumption of the earlier date of the Targums, the value of their evidence is thereby affected, as also is that of some other documents with which we shall be concerned.
\nIt still remains to consider some other points in regard to the critical use of the Rabbinic writings. Christian Rabbinic scholars from Martini to Sch\u00f6ttgen sought to prove that all the great facts of the manifestation of the Christ as fulfilled in the life and resurrection of Jesus, and the whole conception of His Person held by Christians, were implied in the Messianic doctrine of the Rabbis. As against Jews, to whom the argument is addressed in that famous work of Medi\u00e6val Apologetics, the Pugio Fidei of the Dominican Raymund Martini (circ. A.D. 1264), the conclusion in favour of the truth of Christianity might, at least in that day, have had force. To the present generation it will rather seem that the Christian theologian would have proved too much for his own purpose. He would seem to have shown that Christianity contained no new revelation, and to have rendered it more probable that its narrative of the life of Jesus and its Christology were a mere adaptation of contemporary ideas. No one, however, would now accept this account of the Messianic doctrine of the Rabbis as true without very large deductions. No little doubt hangs even over the genuineness of some of the passages quoted. But the unsoundness of the argument lay chiefly in mistaken interpretation. It is often obvious to the reader on inspection that the words quoted do not bear, or at least do not necessarily bear, the sense imputed to them. One special source of error may be made clear by noticing the following principle of Sch\u00f6ttgen. According to him, the original Jewish doctrine about the Messiah is to be found, not in the Talmud, which represents the Pharisaic spirit, bitterly hostile to Christianity and ready to suppress the truth, lest it should put a weapon into the hands of its adversary, but in Haggadistic and especially Cabbalistic works, which belong for the most part to a later age. There may be an element of truth in this theory, but it is evident that any conclusions as to Jewish beliefs before and at the Christian era founded on these later works alone, must be extremely precarious. The fuller doctrine of Messiah, which does in reality exist in the latter, may be due to the longer operation of those causes of development which have been described above. But over and above this, the mystic style of these writings has made it easier for the Christian interpreter to read his own meaning into the words. In particular, much rests upon an identification of the Schechinah and Metatron with Messiah, which appears to be wholly unwarrantable. If the evidence of the Rabbinic writings is gathered with the caution which the various foregoing considerations suggest, it is found to agree substantially with all the other evidence as to pre-Christian Messianic belief.
\nWe turn, however, first to inquire for Jewish works, if such there are, from which the nature of the Messianic hope a little before or at the time of the Christian era may be more directly inferred, and the first to be considered are the extra-canonical Apocalypses, our acquaintance with which is largely due to comparatively modern discoveries. I will not detain the reader with a description of the characteristics and the history of the development of this form of literature. But before discussing the question of the date and Jewish or Christian character of separate writings, it will be well to examine an objection which is made to the testimony of the whole class. Eminent Rabbinic scholars have thrown discredit upon the idea of looking to the apocalyptic literature for a representation of Jewish belief, on the ground that these writings have never been regarded as authoritative, or indeed of much value, in the Rabbinic schools. To this it might be sufficient to reply with Mr. Drummond, that in the study of religious thought we do not usually confine ourselves to authoritative documents, and that any which reveal prevalent opinions and the yearnings of the heart of the people may be most important. And this we may certainly believe that the apocalyptic literature does to no inconsiderable extent. The mere fact that there are several writings of the class goes some way to prove it. The phenomenon of a whole literature marked by strong and peculiar characteristics, and yet standing in no relation to the general condition of thought in the age and people where it flourished, would be unexampled. Moreover, the whole character of the writings is such as to convince us that they were designed to produce, and that at the time they were written they were likely to produce, a profound impression upon many hearts.
\nBut whatever may be the evidence or want of evidence as to the amount of favour which the Jewish Apocalypses met with among Jews, there is no question whatever that they were held in high consideration, and that they exercised no little influence, in the Christian Church during the first few centuries. This undoubted fact alone makes them important for us in our present inquiry. But that is not all. The difference of position accorded to these writings in the early Church and in the Rabbinic schools may perhaps be a result of that great conflict of which I was just now speaking. The Christians, especially the Jewish Christians,\u2014for the influence of the apocalyptic literature is most marked upon the most Jewish section of the Church,\u2014took possession, as it were, of this literature largely, no doubt, because of its Messianic element, and therefore the Jews relinquished it.
\nThe Sibylline Oracles, which it is usual to take first (under the head of apocalyptic literature among extra-canonical writings), are wanting in several of its general features. It would be truer, perhaps, to describe them as displaying a similar spirit to that of the apocalyptic writings under a somewhat different form. They take the same wide view of human history; they foretell in the same kind of language the judgments coming upon the earth, and the destined triumph of the kingdom of God; and standing for the illustrious person of ancient sacred history fitted by character to be the recipient of supernatural knowledge whom we find in the Apocalypses more strictly so called, there are the Sibyls famous among Gentiles. Yet, apart from all other differences, the very fact that the prophecies are put into the mouth of Gentile Sibyls, and that they are given in Homeric hexameters, leads to differences in the style of prophetic language adopted.
\nOf the collection of Sibylline Oracles in fourteen books which has come down to us, by far the larger part is of Christian origin. But there are two considerable fragments, making up together nearly the whole of the third book, which are generally regarded as Jewish, written in Egypt, and before the Christian era. The older and longer of these, vv. 97\u2013807 (or perhaps a few verses more), contains distinct allusions to Ptolemy VII., surnamed Physkon, and the events of his reign, but none to any later time. He reigned in conjunction with his brother Ptolemy [VI.] Philometor, B.C. 170 to 164, and alone, B.C. 145\u2013117. Hence the fragment in question is to be referred to some date between B.C. 170 and 117. Ewald and Hilgenfeld have been led by indications which they discover in it to fix upon B.C. 124 and 140 respectively as the date. It is not necessary for me to discuss these views, as the slight differences between them are of no importance for the purposes of the present work. Suffice it to say that the whole character of the fragment as well as the allusions it contains point to its Jewish and pre-Christian origin; and as to this critics almost without exception are agreed. The other of the two fragments above referred to, vv. 36\u201392, is assigned by the majority of critics to the time of the Second Triumvirate (40\u201330 B.C.). Its allusions certainly seem to connect it with that period, and I shall assume this to be the true view, though Ewald and Alexandre are in favour of a post-Christian origin.
\nIt is very striking to trace the influence of the Dispersion in this willingness to employ the Sibyl of Gentile mythology as a \u201cpersona\u201d through whom to express Jewish aspirations. The interesting suggestion has also been made that the adoption of this character was the easier and the more suitable, because the idea of the Sibyl was little mixed up with ordinary heathen superstition, and was connected with a belief in the Divine present in nature. There was, moreover, the definite object of bringing over the heathen among whom they lived to the true God. In subsequent times Christians were found who worked the same vein with their own differing purpose. Thus eventually the various Sibyls came to be recognised figures in Christian art. Even some Christian Fathers of high character too credulously accepted these oracles as the genuine utterances of heathen prophetesses. The Greek apologists of the second century appeal to them against idolatry and polytheism in some of their genuine writings; but the allusions to Sibylline prophecies which foretold points of Christian faith occur for the most part in works admitted to be spurious or of doubtful authenticity. Soon, however, both these oracles of Christian origin and the older fragments ceased to be much thought of in the East. In the West they attained to a somewhat higher and a more enduring reputation.
\nIn the Jewish pre-Christian fragments of which I have spoken, occur unquestionable allusions to the expected theocratic kingdom, as also some (though this is not undisputed) to the Messiah. To these we must hereafter turn.
\nThe Book of Enoch, which it will be most suitable to notice next, is more truly an example of an Apocalypse than the Sibylline Oracles, and has even a more curious history. It is often quoted or alluded to by the Fathers both of East and West during the first few centuries; but all direct knowledge of it had in the West been lost during the Middle Ages. Nor did the opening of the literary treasures of the East at the Revival of Learning bring to light more than some not very considerable fragments preserved in the Chronographia of Georgius Syncellus, a Byzantine work of the latter part of the eighth century. The book as a whole appeared to be irrecoverably lost, when in 1773 the traveller Bruce, on his travels in search of the source of the Nile, discovered an Ethiopic version of it in Abyssinia. He brought home three copies, two ancient manuscripts and a transcript from them, and others have been brought from the same quarter since. With the exception of the Greek fragments and the quotations already alluded to, it is solely through this Ethiopic version, made, it is thought, from the Greek, which was itself probably a translation of an Aramaic original, that we now know the book. It contains the words given as Enoch\u2019s by St. Jude, and the greater part of the Greek fragments in Syncellus, and on the whole corresponds well with the allusions of the Fathers.
\nVery various views have been taken of the composition of the Book of Enoch. It is generally admitted that at certain points there is a want of connexion, and that there are some differences of origin. But whereas some have held that the book as we now have it represents in the main what was from the first a complete whole, in which certain not very considerable interpolations only have been made, it is the view of others that a number of fragments were combined together to form the present work. The relation also to one another of the several parts both as to time and character, and their dates or the approximate date of the whole, have been diversely taken. Some of the points raised have so much importance for our proper inquiry that I must, to a certain extent, engage in the discussion. Before doing so I will give a sketch of the contents of this highly interesting book, which, though brief, will, I hope, make the inquiry intelligible and not unattractive to the reader.
\nAn Introductory Section (chaps. i.\u2013v.), consisting of an address by Enoch, serves to combine to some extent the very diverse topics which are treated in the course of the book. In this address Enoch summarizes the visions of future judgment upon the wicked and bliss for the righteous, which had been granted him \u201cnot for that generation, but for far-off generations.\u201d He alludes also to what he had learned of natural phenomena, about which there is so much in some portions of the book; and from them he draws a lesson for man. Sun, moon, and stars do not depart from their appointed courses, winter and summer preserve their special characteristics, the trees bring forth their leaves in their season; but ungodly men have transgressed the law of their being.
\nImmediately after this introduction there commences abruptly an account (chaps. vi.\u2013xvi.) of the angels who fell through lusting after the daughters of men. To their evil counsels, the communication by them of harmful knowledge and the violence of their giant brood, the corruption and misery of mankind in the period before the Flood are attributed. Angels of the highest rank then receive behests from God with respect to the warning to be conveyed to Noah of the Flood that was coming, the punishment of the fallen angels and their offspring, and the purification of the earth. Azazel, who, though not originally mentioned as the leader of the angels in their sin, is treated as the chief offender, apparently as having been foremost to communicate mischievous arts, is to be chained and placed in a dark hole dug for him in the wilderness, and there to be covered with sharp stones; at the great day of judgment he will be east into the lake of fire. The giants are to be incited to internecine strife; and the rest of the angels when they have seen their offspring exterminated before their eyes are to be imprisoned under the hills of the earth, there reserved for seventy generations for a similar final doom to that of Azazel. Then shall all wickedness come to an end, and the earth be a place of happiness and long life for the righteous. In this passage of the book as well as in some others, much more about the angels, good and bad,\u2014their names and orders and functions,\u2014is embodied.
\nBefore the time when God gave these injunctions to the angels, Enoch had been \u201chid,\u201d and \u201cduring his lifetime all his converse was with the holy ones and the watchers.\u201d They now send him to announce to the fallen angels the judgment awaiting them and their children; and he is in turn employed by these to supplicate God in their behalf. When he spreads their petition before Heaven, he is vouchsafed, in sleep, a vision of the abode of the Most High, of which a very fine poetical description is given. He is told at the same time to announce again to the fallen angels that the judgment already threatened will certainly befall them.
\nAll the fragments in Syncellus (with the exception of one which is not contained in the Ethiopic Book of Enoch at all) are found in these sixteen chapters, and he notes them all as taken from \u201cthe First Book of Enoch, concerning the Watchers.\u201d By this name, \u201cthe Book concerning the Watchers,\u201d we may call the section.
\nWe have next two narratives, a shorter and a longer one (chaps. xvii.\u2013xix. and xx.\u2013xxxvi.), of journeyings of Enoch under the guidance of angels through earth and middle air and lower heaven, and the same objects mainly are described in each. We conclude that the former of these is an interpolation in the original Book of Enoch, because both of the summarizing character of the description and of the abruptness of its beginning and end. It will be sufficient if I give an account of the second and fuller one.
\nIn this narrative Enoch is taken first to a place where, in mere space, neither overarched by high heaven, nor with firm earth beneath, he saw seven imprisoned stars, looking like huge flaming mountains. They were stars which had transgressed the commandment of the Lord in that they came not forth at their appointed time. Then he saw another still more terrible place, where a great, leaping, blazing fire burned; and it was bounded by a vast abyss into which columns of fire were for ever falling. When Enoch saw this place it was untenanted; but he was told that it would hereafter be the prison-house of the fallen angels to eternity. Next he is shown, in the west, four great plains where the several classes of souls of the dead assemble to await the judgment-day. He also sees in the west the never-failing fiery stream out of which the lights of heaven have their fires replenished. Journeying on he saw\u2014it would seem in the south\u2014a fine mountain-range, consisting of seven mountains, the highest in the midst. From it God, in the end of the world, will judge and dispense blessings to mankind. Upon these mountains many odoriferous trees were growing, and one, the \u201ctree of life,\u201d will be from thence on that day transplanted to Jerusalem, the future abode of the righteous. To the site of Jerusalem, in \u201cthe centre of the earth,\u201d as yet uninhabited, Enoch is next taken. And here the valley of Hinnom, though not named, is clearly indicated by description as destined to be the scene of God\u2019s great judgment upon the wicked and of their punishment. Among other spots visited after this was the Garden of Eden, to the northeast. Lastly, he was shown secrets of nature, wonders of the heavens,\u2014the doors in the vault of heaven out of which the winds blow, those whence the stars rise and into which they set.
\nAt the thirty-seventh chapter a new portion is introduced with the heading, \u201cThe Second Vision of Wisdom which Enoch saw.\u201d It would thus appear that when the Book of Enoch had its present shape given it, the whole of what we have been hitherto considering was intended to be regarded as one part.
\nThe prophetic standpoint, so to speak, is now changed. Before, Enoch was carried through the earth and the lower air to see, just as they were in his own time, places which were afterwards to be occupied and famous. Now, he sees visions of the distant future, or, taken into the highest heaven, sees persons and objects as yet hidden there, reserved for the latter days. This portion is marked by several peculiarities both of doctrine and phraseology, and is held by the majority of critics to be of different origin from the rest of the present Book of Enoch; a judgment in which I fully concur. Most important is the difference in its Messianic doctrine. But there are also lesser points, such as its use of names for God which do not occur in the rest of the book,\u2014most often the \u201cLord of spirits,\u201d but also \u201cthe Ancient of Days.\u201d
\nThis is the portion of the Book of Enoch which is the most interesting and important to us by far. But as we must recur to it almost immediately in considering the dates of the several parts of the book, and also in a later chapter, we need not dwell on it further here. Suffice it to say that according to its own division it contains three parables; and by the name the \u201cBook of the Three Parables,\u201d the section may be denoted. It may also be mentioned in passing that there occur in the course of it some manifestly interpolated fragments in many of which Noah and not Enoch is evidently the seer, and which are marked by other peculiarities. It is customary to regard them as taken from a lost Apocalypse of Noah.
\nThere follows a kind of treatise upon the courses of the heavenly bodies and other natural phenomena, embodying the knowledge communicated to Enoch by the angel Uriel. It is devoid of poetic\u2014not to say scientific\u2014value. Dillmann discovers in these and other explanations of natural phenomena in the Book of Enoch a desire to systematize the ideas about nature scattered through the Old Testament in order to oppose them to the ideas of heathen origin with which the Jews were brought in contact by their intercourse with foreign nations. If we could feel sure of this purpose it would give a historic interest to the insipid and childish notions; but the indications of it which are adduced are very slender.
\nThe combination, however, of reflections on the order of nature and the moral government of the world is undoubtedly a striking characteristic of the Book of Enoch. And there is a consciousness of connexion between the two in the mind of the writer or writers.
\nBefore the close of this \u201cBook on the Lights of Heaven,\u201d it is mentioned that Enoch was shown the \u201cheavenly tablets\u201d on which all the future history of mankind was written. He is commissioned to communicate to his son Methuselah and to the rest of his kindred what he has read in these tablets, and they are repeatedly alluded to in the sequel. First, however, we have the narration of two dreams by Enoch to Methuselah. The former he had when a child, and its subject is the Flood. The second, which he had still \u201cbefore he took a wife,\u201d professes to be a forecast of the whole course of human history to the coming of the Messiah. It is in symbolical form, animals standing for men and nations. There is nothing which calls for remark in the earlier part of this dream. The Scripture history is pretty closely followed, except in the treatment of the Fall of the Angels, through lusting after the daughters of men, which has the same importance assigned it as in other parts of the Book of Enoch. But for the period stretching from the Chaldean invasions of Jud\u00e6a to the Coming of Messiah we have a representation which is both in itself highly interesting and very important in connexion with the determination of the date of the book. The \u201cLord of the sheep\u201d\u2014this is the name for God, the sheep being the chosen people\u2014calls seventy shepherds and commits to them the punishment of the sheep, telling them how many and which they are to kill. At the same time He foresees that these shepherds will go beyond what He has commanded, and He charges \u201canother\u201d (apparently an angel) to note down in a book every particular in which they exceeded their commission.
\nIt is natural to see in this representation an attempt to solve difficulties with which the minds of Jews appear to have been much exercised after a period of seventy years had elapsed from the time of the first leading into captivity. Jeremiah had spoken of seventy years to the restoration of Jerusalem, and no doubt the number had at first been literally understood, and a complete restoration expected immediately on the conclusion of that period. But the restoration had been very partial and very gradual, and there had been new miseries and oppressions in subsequent generations. Some other interpretation of the seventy years of Jeremiah than the purely literal one was called for. Moreover, the punishment of the Chosen People was thought to be in excess of their sins, and a theory seemed to be required as to the cause of this excess and the way in which it would be rectified.
\nThe seventy shepherds rule successively each for a time and are divided into four series, comprising the first, twelve; the second, twenty-three; the third, twenty-three; and the last, twelve. During the dominion of these last twelve, the sheep bore little lambs, who presently began to open their eyes and to cry to the sheep, but in vain. And the ravens attacked these lambs and carried off one of them and devoured the sheep. Then horns grew on the foreheads of the lambs; but they had little success in fighting against their enemies, till a great horn grew on one of those sheep, and their eyes were opened. The contest then by degrees assumes wider and more terrible dimensions. All the birds of prey flock together, and along with \u201cwild sheep\u201d (false Jews) attack the great horn; while he who noted down the excesses of the shepherds comes to his aid, and assures him that he will receive help from above. At length the Lord of the sheep Himself comes down in wrath. And so we pass to the overthrow of the enemies of Israel, and the great day when God will sit upon His throne and hold a final judgment. After this will a white bullock appear, whom all the beasts of the field and birds of the air will fear and pray to for ever. By this white bullock the Messiah seems undoubtedly to be meant.
\nWe may feel considerable confidence in tracing the chief historical allusions intended in this symbolism. The four successive series into which the seventy shepherds are divided stand for the dominations of, in the main, (1) Assyrio-Babylonian; (2) Persian; (3) Gr\u00e6co-Macedonian; (4) Seleucid kings. The birth of the little lambs who open their eyes, which marks the beginning of the fourth and last period, is the religious awakening under the Maccabees. The lamb who was carried off by the ravens is Jonathan, the youngest son of Mattathias, youngest brother of the great Judas Maccab\u00e6us; the horns that Were in time overthrown are Mattathias and his sons; and the great horn, which at last grew, is John Hyrcanus. The description of the gathering together of all the enemies of Israel to fight against this great horn passes into a general description of the things of the end. We may therefore conclude that the reign of John Hyrcanus was the time of the composition of the vision. When the narration of these visions that we have been discussing is concluded, Methuselah is told to call all his brothers; and Enoch then exhorts them all to walk in the paths of righteousness, and warns them of the wrath in store for the wicked. This occupies xci. 1\u201311. At this point there occur some verses (12\u201317 or 12\u201319) which belong after xciii. 14. This is most likely a purely accidental displacement.
\nThe account of these two dreams, with the appended exhortation, may or may not be an independent document. There appears to be a new beginning made at chap. xcii.; while the contents from this point onward are of the kind we were led to expect in chap. lxxxi., that is to say, they are of a hortatory character. Near the beginning, however, there occurs another sketch of the world\u2019s history divided into periods. The division is into ten weeks. The days of these weeks no doubt represent separate \u201ctimes,\u201d so that the world\u2019s history from the lifetime of Enoch to the Last Judgment is comprised in seventy times, which agrees with what we read in v. 12 as to the period (the so-called seventy generations) which will intervene between the first and last judgments upon the fallen angels. The first week is the period before the Flood; the second is occupied with the spread of iniquity, the Flood, and the covenant with Noah; the third ends with the call of Abraham; the fourth with the giving of the law through Moses; the fifth with the building of Solomon\u2019s Temple; the sixth with the leading into captivity. Then in the seventh week, we are told, an evil generation will arise, and many will be its iniquities, and at the end of it \u201cthe elect and righteous who are sprung from the eternal plant of righteousness will be rewarded, in that sevenfold instruction will be given them concerning his whole creation.\u201d The remaining three weeks are occupied with the Last Things, the order in which they will happen being here described with more detail than in the conclusion of the vision of the seventy shepherds.
\nWe have less to guide us as to the date of the vision in this case than in the last. But the \u201csevenfold instruction concerning the whole creation\u201d refers, no doubt, to the lore about natural phenomena, of which there is so much in the Book of Enoch itself; and if so, the seventh week is evidently the time of composition. The description given of the first part of this week suits well with the era beginning from Antiochus Epiphanes. And thus we are brought to about the same epoch by this vision as by that of the seventy shepherds.
\nBut the degree of importance which the indications of date thus far noticed will have for us must depend on the view we take of the relation to one another of the several parts of the book. If we could regard the present form of the book as the original one, as Dillmann at first did, certain not very considerable insertions being alone excepted, or if we were sure that the different portions must have been the product of one age, we might well content ourselves with the date just obtained as a sufficiently approximate date for the whole. But reasons have already been given enough to show that with regard to one long and important section at least we can feel no such security.
\nYet, again, if we could adopt Ewald\u2019s theory of the relations to one another of the different portions of the book\u2014though he is the critic who most decomposes it\u2014the indications of date in the two visions above described would scarcely lose any of their value. According to him, chaps. lxxxix., xc., in which the vision of the seventy shepherds occurs, are part of \u201cthe third Enoch book\u201d; and the vision of the ten weeks belongs to \u201cthe second Enoch book,\u201d composed some ten years earlier than the third; while chaps. xxxvii.\u2013lxxi. are, with the exception of fragments, later inserted from the \u201cNoah book,\u201d the earliest work. A terminus ante quem is thus in his view fixed for the date of composition of this important section. At the same time he holds that neither can its date have been much earlier, nor that of the remaining fragments much later than those of the second and third books. The date of the Book of the Three Parables cannot be determined, as that of the two visions which we have just been considering can with a high degree of probability be, by means of allusions to external history. One such allusion which it contains is of too doubtful meaning. The question must therefore be one of internal criticism. Ewald\u2019s grounds for regarding the section of the Three Parables as the earliest are mainly\u2014(1) the freshness and vigour of its thought and style, proving, as he thinks, that we have here the work of the original author which the writers of the other portions of the book imitated; (2) the difference between the classes of sinners against whom woes are denounced in this section and the rest of the book. Here external heathen enemies alone seem to be in mind, whereas in the other parts there is mention of the faithless within the nation itself; and the former point of view he thinks belongs quite to the commencement of the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, before a renegade party among the people of Israel had been formed.
\nI find it impossible to attach any weight to either of these considerations. As to the first, it is surely not the case that the writer who first treats a theme or adopts a certain literary form is always and necessarily the one who displays most vividness of conception and force in presentation. We shall see that in the present instance this greater vigour may be satisfactorily explained on a totally different hypothesis as to date of authorship. So also may the difference between this and other portions of the book in regard to the foes contemplated, which is Ewald\u2019s other chief argument for his theory. For instance, Hilgenfeld sees in it a sure indication that it was written after the fall of Jerusalem. Differences of this kind might, however, well be due simply to the individual characters of the different authors.
\nThe reasoning of Ewald must then be pronounced wholly insufficient. And, indeed, he stands alone among those who have given much attention to the subject, save that he has made a convert of Dillmann, to whose labours and scholarship we are so largely indebted for our knowledge of the Book of Enoch, but of whose critical acumen we cannot think highly, since he at first regarded the Book of the Three Parables as the work of the same author as most of the remainder of the book in spite of their marked peculiarities.
\nK\u00f6stlin has pointed out that the manner in which the section begins presupposes the existence of some books of Enoch into which it was to be introduced. But, indeed, there is good reason to regard it as in origin not only not the earliest, but the latest portion of the Book of Enoch. Its Messianic doctrine shows relatively to other portions of the book, and indeed to Jewish doctrine generally, a very high degree of development. The Messiah is called repeatedly by the name \u201cthe Son of Man,\u201d which is nowhere else found in any Jewish writing, and seems to have been unknown as a Messianic title to the Jews of our Lord\u2019s time. The language used in it concerning His prerogatives and glory also resembles Christian rather than Jewish doctrine. One particular point which may be mentioned is the judgeship assigned to the Messiah. It is hard to imagine how the other apocalyptic fragments combined in the Book of Enoch and other writings of a like nature belonging to the first century or two before Christ should fall so markedly below the definite and exalted doctrine of this section, if they followed it or were contemporary with it. Even Jewish Apocalypses belonging to the latter part of the first century only reveal a movement in the same direction without going nearly so far. As illustrating the difference between it and other portions of the book, and supplying another argument for its later origin, we may adduce the nature of the relation of the Book of Jubilees to the Book of Enoch. In the Book of Jubilees there are many traces of acquaintance with the earlier and later portions of the Book of Enoch, or with the ideas and myths contained in them, but none with any of the peculiarities of the Book of the Three Parables.
\nThus the question seems to be whether we have here an advanced type of independently Jewish doctrine, or whether the writing either in its original form or in the form in which we have it was not partly Christian. In either case we should naturally refer its composition to the latter part of the first century. Critics have been much divided on the question of the Jewish or Christian character of this work. But I believe the latter alternative will commend itself the more, the more Jewish and Christian Messianic doctrine are studied and compared. At the same time this view is not without its difficulties. In a document of Christian origin we might naturally have expected to meet with expressions which should serve to bring its Messianic predictions more clearly into connexion with the Messiah who had come and suffered. One such there is in which the name \u201cthat Son of Woman\u201d for the Messiah must at any rate be of Christian origin. In the same passage in which this phrase occurs, after it has been said that kings and mighty ones will pay Him honour, we are told that \u201cbefore was He, the Son of Man hidden, and the Highest has preserved Him through His might, and revealed Him to the elect.\u201d Other traces are more doubtful.
\nTwo theories suggest themselves as a means of accounting for the contradictory phenomena. The Messianic passages, or the most Christian sounding of them, may be held to have been inserted into an older work\u2014\u201ca Christian Apocalypse having been worked into the tissue of an earlier Jewish production.\u201d Yet this hypothesis only partly meets the case. For if so much was inserted, why not a little more, pointing more distinctly to the facts of the life of Jesus? A more complete explanation seems to be that the document in the form in which we now have it emanated from Jewish Christians whose minds were absorbed with the thought of the Coming of the Messiah in glory, while they had very imperfectly understood the meaning of His humiliation; or it may be from some still Jews who had so far been susceptible of the influence of Christian teaching that they had thus learned to attribute higher prerogatives and greater majesty to the Messiah. Because many Jews were bitterly hostile to everything Christian, it does not follow that all were so. Indeed, from indications in the New Testament and from the history of Jewish Christianity itself, we should infer that men stood in varying relations to it. There are, moreover, in the Book of Enoch traits of an Essene character, more especially the lore about angels. This fact falls in with the suggestions just made, since Jewish Christians and Essenes seem to have come specially into contact.
\nI have as yet said nothing as to the date of the first section, the two narratives of the journeyings and the concluding exhortations. It is clear that these portions are in character purely Jewish; and this is the most important point for us. They are remarkable for their silence about the Messiah. In their eschatology, if they can be considered to leave room for the Messiah at all, it is certainly not in such a position as Christians would assign Him. It is not necessary for me to enter into a discussion of their relations to one another and to other sections. It is likely that they all belong to the earlier composed portions, though both the narratives of the journeyings can hardly proceed from the same hand.
\nTwo other Jewish Apocalypses are works of extreme interest on many accounts, and will be repeatedly referred to in our subsequent investigations, the Fourth of Esdras and the Apocalypse of Baruch. It will be desirable that some description of them should be given, but they need not detain us nearly so long as the Book of Enoch has done. We shall not meet here with the difficulties which arose in the latter case from the uncertainties as to the relations to one another of different portions of the book. Each of these works has an organic unity, proving that it is one whole, and that we have it substantially at least in its original form. And, again, although it would be of service in regard to the history of the development of Jewish Messianic doctrine if we could determine the date of both these works with certainty, no question of the same moment depends upon it as in the case of the Enochic Book of the Three Parables.
\nIt is natural to take the Fourth of Esdras and the Apocalypse of Baruch together, from their general resemblance in form, in the nature and arrangement of their subject-matter, and in their Messianic and eschatological doctrine. Their doctrinal similarity will appear in future chapters. But to contrast them now for a moment with the Book of Enoch in respect to more general characteristics:\u2014in addition to their unity of plan, we observe that the apocalyptic seer, instead of being a mysterious personage in the far-distant past, is a character in one case of the times of the Captivity, in the other of the Return. Allied perhaps with this point of difference there is another: the seer is not rapt through the universe to see the secret places of nature and abodes of the dead and persons and objects which are being kept in reserve to play a part in the great future, but remains on earth, all the Divine communications that are vouchsafed being made through descriptions and visions. An air of greater probability is thus imparted. It is also to be noted\u2014and this may even be a point of doctrinal significance\u2014that they contain no vision of God in heaven, like that in the 14th chapter of the Book of Enoch. At the same time, each is marked by features belonging to the individualities of the different writers. There is a more intense sadness in the Fourth Book of Esdras. The author is a man of deeper nature, and has felt more profoundly not only the miseries of his people, but the sin of man and its eternal consequences, and his own nothingness in the presence of the Most High. On the other hand, the Apocalypse of Baruch has the advantage in point of picturesqueness. He names the spots, and they are interesting ones, where he fasted, received Divine revelations, assembled his friends, or the elders of the people, and so forth. Other differences might also be indicated.
\nThe fourth of Esdras has not come down to us in its original language, which most critics suppose to have been Greek. But versions of it exist in five languages, Latin, Syriac, Ethiopic, Arabic, and Armenian. Quotations from it also occur several times in the Fathers, including some of considerable length by St. Ambrose, especially in his De Bono Mortis. Except for one or two passages, where it is important to compare the other versions, the translations we give will be from the Latin version, as edited by Fritzsche, who pronounces the Latin to be the most trustworthy of all. Chaps. 1; 2; 15 and 16 of the work as it stands in the Vulgate (and in our English Apocrypha, where it is translated from the Vulgate) are allowed to be additions, and generally supposed to be Christian; they are wanting in all but a Latin version. It is also to be mentioned that till recently there was an evident hiatus between vv. 35 and 36 of the 7th chapter in the Latin MSS., which had to be supplied from other versions; but this missing fragment of the Latin has now been discovered. When we refer to IV. Esdras we shall always mean chaps. 3\u201314 of the Latin (or English) with this fragment introduced.
\nThis Apocalypse gives really very powerful expression to the oppression and gloom which may be felt by the human spirit in the presence of the mysteries of Providence. At the outset, that subject of deepest difficulty and perplexity to the pious Jew is stated, to which the whole book is intended to be an answer\u2014the long-continued desolation of Zion and misery of the people of God, while their enemies, who are certainly guilty of as great sins, are prosperous and mighty. A narrow Jewish exclusiveness is manifested throughout; but within the limits thus made, many of the questions propounded show great depth of thought and feeling. Even from an artistic point of view the work has high merit as a representation of such a state of mind as I have indicated. Of the seven parts into which it is divided, by periods of mourning and fasting duly interposed and designed to prepare Ezra to receive the Divine communications, the first and the commencements of the second and third are occupied with the prophet\u2019s lamentations and yearnings to have his perplexities resolved, together with replies which are calculated simply to impress more deeply upon him his human weakness and ignorance. Moreover, it is only gradually that throughout the book the revelations vouchsafed are unfolded. And his stubborn sadness is very slow to yield, and only at the end of the sixth part gives place to an ascription of praise. For us, too, the sadness is heightened by the narrow theology so unable to meet the darkest of the forebodings which find utterance. The expectation that only a few even in Israel will be saved is the thought which weighs most heavily upon him. And the only answers supplied are such as these, that \u201cthe Most High made this world for many, but the world to come for few,\u201d and that the proportion of saved to lost is like that of the quantity of precious stones in the world to the quantity of clay.
\nThe contents of the book may for the rest be briefly summarized as follows. Before the close of the second part the signs are indicated which will precede the coming of the end of the world. These again are somewhat more fully detailed in the third part, where some description is also given of the Messiah\u2019s reign, the Last Judgment, and future punishments and rewards. After this in each of the three succeeding parts the revelation is made in the more sublime form of a vision, accompanied by an explanation given by an angelic interpreter. In the fourth part the glorious renovation of the Holy City, now so desolate, is foreshadowed. In the fifth there is a vision of an eagle with twelve wings and three heads, which are successively lifted up, and to which various words and acts are attributed, the course of the history of the last world-power being thus indicated in true apocalyptic style, down to the time when the Messiah (who appears as a lion) may be expected. In the sixth we have a vision of the Messiah\u2019s appearing. In the seventh part Ezra, by Divine direction, instructs his countrymen then alive, and also through the illumination of the Holy Spirit, and with the aid of scribes, commits works to writing during forty days, for the instruction of posterity. Some of these, which appear to be the canonical Scriptures, lost and by him then restored, he is at once to make public; others, among which we may include the book itself, are to be committed to the secret keeping of the wise.
\nThe purely Jewish character of this book is admitted almost universally; and this is the most important point for our purpose. In 7:28 the name Jesus has no doubt been inserted. The Syriac and Arabic read in this place, \u201cMy Son Messiah;\u201d the Ethiopic, \u201cMy Messiah;\u201d and the Armenian, \u201cthe Anointed of God.\u201d The idea of the verse following, that the Christ will die after 400 years, just before the final judgment, is evidently not Christian. And the other versions have in their turn tampered with this part of the passage. Of the date of composition, very diverse views have been taken. I think, however, we may without hesitation fix approximately the time before which it must have been written by the following consideration. It was held in general esteem by the Christian Church from very early times, as we see both by quotations in early Fathers and the versions in so many languages. Consequently, being derived from the Jews, we must suppose it to have been current among the latter before the Jewish-Christian became fully separated from the purely Jewish community. And this separation, there is every reason to believe, was greatly accelerated by the taking of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, and must have been fully accomplished by the close of the first or beginning of the second century at latest. Moreover, those who, on the ground of their own interpretations of the internal evidence, assign the latest date to the book, scarcely any of them go much lower down than the period which would thus be reached. To some part of the last quarter of the first century most recent critics refer it, though Hilgenfeld is an able advocate of a pre-Christian date. He supposes it to have been written soon after the battle of Actium, B.C. 31. The more particular determination of the date turns on the interpretation to be put on the figure of the eagle with twelve wings and three heads in the fifth vision. Hilgenfeld takes the three heads to represent Julius C\u00e6sar, Antony, and Octavian; according to the advocates of a post-Christian date, they stand for the three Flavian emperors, Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian. The most various views are taken of the wings of the eagle, even by those who agree as to the general period. Amid such diverse views little light could be hoped for from the further discussion of this symbolism. There are, however, some considerations of a broader character which are in favour of the later date. In the Apocalypse of Baruch, it will be seen, there are indications connecting the work with the time of the fall of Jerusalem, and owing to the similarity between 4 Esdras and the Apocalypse of Baruch it is natural to refer them both to the same epoch. The deep gloom of the former would also suit that time far better than the latter part of the first century B.C. And further, the Messianic and eschatological doctrine of these two Apocalypses show a degree of development such as is altogether wanting in any writing certainly pre-Christian.
\nThe Apocalypse of Baruch, with the exception of its concluding Epistle to the nine tribes and a half, was unknown to the modern world till the discovery of a Syriac MS. of the whole work by Ceriani in 1866. Ceriani translated it into Latin, and this translation is given by Fritzsche with some emendations. The translations in English in the present book are from this edition of Fritzsche\u2019s.
\nSome points of likeness between this Apocalypse and that of Ezra have already been mentioned. Another is that it also is divided into seven parts, fasts of Baruch lasting generally seven days being interposed. The scene of the whole is laid at the time of the taking of Jerusalem by the Chald\u00e6ans. In the first part, while the army of the Chald\u00e6ans is still outside Jerusalem beleaguering it, Baruch, lifted up into the air, sees four angels standing at the four corners of the city with torches in their hands, ready to set it on fire. Then another angel comes down from heaven bidding them hold their hands till he has committed a deposit to the earth, as commanded by God. He proceeds to bury the veil of the sanctuary, the ephod, the mercy-seat, the two tables, the censer, the breastplate having the Urim and the Thummim, the holy garments of the priests, and all the sacred vessels, adding a solemn charge to the earth to guard them till the last days. After this, the four angels having the torches break down the corners of the wall and call to the enemies to enter, \u201cbecause He who used to guard the house has left it.\u201d Baruch is thus taught that the taking of the city is indeed a visitation of God, and that the enemies are only the executioners of the Judge for an appointed time. The second part is occupied with Baruch\u2019s lamentations over Zion, and threatening predictions to Babylon of the day when all will be reversed. In the third, Baruch\u2019s difficulties, caused by the seeming inequalities of God\u2019s dealings, are answered by the mention of the punishments and rewards of the future world, and reminders that all which comes to an end, as all things earthly do, is comparatively of small moment, and the assurance that the end is fast approaching. In the fourth, after a prayer by Baruch for his people, and various words from God to encourage him to fortitude and patience, the signs are described to him which will precede the coming of the Messiah. In the fifth he sees a vision of the overthrow of all enemies of Zion by the Messiah. To this vision reference will hereafter be made. In the sixth, Baruch, after again fasting and praying, receives further descriptions of the signs which will accompany the approach of the last times, and a vision with its interpretation, in which the successive crises in the history of the world from the beginning to the times of the end are marked out. The figure employed is a cloud, which rains alternately bright and dark waters twelve times, the last of which twelve is followed by a still heavier downpour of dark waters. And after this lightning fell and \u201chealed the regions where the last black waters had brought destruction.\u201d The eleventh of the showers (sixth of the dark ones) is the sacking of Jerusalem in Baruch\u2019s own time. The twelfth is the return from captivity and the rebuilding of Zion, though not as at first. After this will come another period of yet more awful calamities, to be followed by the Advent of the Messiah. In the seventh part Baruch instructs the people that remain at Jerusalem, and also writes two letters, one for the nine and a half tribes and the other to those who have just been taken to Babylon. Only the former of these is given at length.
\nThe time commonly assigned for the composition of the Apocalypse of Baruch is soon after the capture of Jerusalem by Titus, A.D. 70; and this has everything to recommend it. At such a time the famous capture by the Chald\u00e6ans would be very naturally selected as the most suitable to connect with an Apocalypse. The voice, too, heard proceeding from the temple, and calling the enemies to enter \u201cbecause He who used to keep the house has departed\u201d reminds of a well-known story of the time of the later taking of Jerusalem. This event is, moreover, distinctly pointed to in one passage: \u201cAfter a little time the building of Zion shall be shaken that it may be built again;\u201d but even that building shall not remain, but it shall be again overturned, and shall remain desolate for an appointed time.
\nA few words will suffice on the subject of the only two distinctly Jewish documents of an apocalyptic character which remain to be mentioned. The Book of Jubilees or Little Genesis consists mainly of an amplified account of the Biblical history from the creation of the world to the institution of the Passover related as revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai, the chronology being given in jubilees, weeks of years, and the number of years over, less than seven. Thus we have the employment of the persona of a famous ancient seer, as in other writings which we have been considering; and there is an angelic intermediary, the Angel of the Presence being charged to write down the revelation for him. The revelation, however, with the exception of a brief opening passage, is not of the future, but of knowledge of the past, and is interesting as an early instance of the problem presenting itself how Moses came to be able to relate the history of the Creation. The work appears to have been known to the author of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, and is referred to by Epiphanius and Jerome, and fragments had been preserved by Syncellus. It first became more completely known to us in modern times, like the Book of Enoch, through an Ethiopic version, a copy of which was brought to Europe in 1844. A Latin translation of the greater part of it has since been discovered by Ceriani in the Ambrosian Library at Milan. It is generally considered to have been written not earlier than the first century B.C. and not later than the Destruction of Jerusalem.
\nThe surest grounds for fixing its date are that on the one hand it shows familiarity with the Book of Enoch (excepting the Book of the Three Parables), and on the other it is itself known to the writer of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. The absence of any indication that the Destruction of Jerusalem had recently taken place, may also be held somewhat further to limit the terminus ante quem. The style of its thought seems also to agree with the period thus suggested. Its point of view seems not to be altogether that of orthodox Pharisaic Judaism, but there is no sufficient reason for attributing it either to Essenes or Samaritans.
\nThe same manuscript in the Ambrosian Library which contained the Latin translation of the Book of Jubilees, contained also a fragment of a Latin translation of the Assumption of Moses. There is reason to believe that this fragment is only about a third of the original work. It appears from the language of Origen, and from other references, that the lost portion contained an account of the conflict between Michael and Satan to which the Epistle of Jude alludes. The fragment we possess consists of a prophecy by Moses of the future history of Israel spoken just before his death to Joshua. There are what appear plain allusions to the reign of Herod the Great and to an expedition to Jerusalem by Varus in B.C. 4, which prove that the work must have been written after that date. Other allusions towards the close of the fragment would determine the date more precisely if we could be sure of their meaning, but they have been most diversely interpreted.
\nWe turn next to a work of an entirely different character, which has remarkably caught the tone of some of the noblest prophecies of the Old Testament\u2014the Psalms of Solomon. These psalms are generally regarded as the work of one author, on account of similarities of style and thought pervading them. Solomon appears to be personated in one passage, but only in one, and it is therefore somewhat strange that his name should have been associated with the whole collection. The Greek, in which language alone the book is extant, seems to show signs of translation from a Hebrew original. We may at least say that if originally written in Greek, the author must have been some very imperfectly Hellenized Jew.
\nThe main subject of the psalms is the desolation of Jerusalem and dispersion of the Jews, together with God\u2019s promises as to the future of the chosen people. Interspersed, however, are psalms whose theme is the discipline and sources of consolation of the suffering righteous man, or the ways and certain overthrow of the wicked; and these contain vivid portraitures of various features of moral character and spiritual experience. In speaking of the punishment of his people for their sins, the author\u2019s thoughts seem to travel back from his own time over the whole period of the Dispersion, beginning with the sack of Jerusalem by the Chaldees and the first leading into captivity.
\nThe return of a portion of the Jews from the exile had not ended the Dispersion, nor fully restored the glory of Jerusalem. But shortly before he wrote she had evidently experienced a fresh capture, and many of her inhabitants had been slain or driven out; and to this is due the intensity of his feeling even in his more comprehensive views of God\u2019s chastisement of His people and covenanted mercies. Two epochs are thus suggested as the time of composition, either that of the taking of Jerusalem by Antiochus Epiphanes in B.C. 170 and 168, or that of its being taken by Pompey in B.C. 63; for the nature of the allusions as well as the whole character of the psalms render it impossible to think of the taking of the city and destruction of the temple in A.D. 70 as the time referred to. Ewald adopted the earlier of the two times above specified; but the majority of critics is in favour of that of Pompey. And the arguments for this view certainly seem very strong.
\nThe portion of these psalms with which we shall be hereafter concerned is the great Messianic passage from 17:23 to the end of 18.
\nTwo other chief Jewish writers remain to be mentioned, Philo and Josephus, both of the first century. Philo manifests a firm belief in the future greatness and glory of his people, but in all his voluminous works there is hardly a trace of belief in a personal King. Lastly, though Josephus undertakes, with all the knowledge of a Jew born and bred in Palestine, to describe religious opinion among the Jews, he ignores altogether the national expectation alike of the Messiah and of a restored kingdom. But it is evident that he wrote with Roman readers before his mind, and that he wished to conciliate their favour for himself and his people. This being the case, it is not surprising that he should have kept those hopes in the background which were so peculiarly liable to arouse their suspicions. Yet even he is a witness, by what he is obliged to record of the popular risings in Palestine, how strong and general a hold those hopes had there.
\nWe shall need to use the books of the Apocrypha comparatively little, and it will be most convenient to speak briefly of their dates when I have to allude to them.
\nI turn to the unquestionably Christian documents, foremost and chiefest, of course, to the writings of the New Testament. It will not be necessary to speak of these here at all at the same length. The reasons which have led me to give the preceding description of Jewish documents and to discuss the questions connected with them evidently do not apply. I have wished to give my readers some idea of the character and contents of writings with which they may be unfamiliar, and to decide the broad question what we may appeal to for evidence of genuinely Jewish belief in regard to the Messiah before and at the Christian era,\u2014belief uninfluenced either by having been infused with a new Christian spirit or by the changed circumstances of the Jewish people, and hostility to Christianity. We have no similar reason for dwelling upon the class of writings to which we have now come, at least as regards the most important of them. They are familiar to us all, and their Christian origin is indubitable.
\nNor need I attempt to determine, as writers on the life of Christ have to do, the time of composition and the relations to one another of the Gospels, or the date and authorship of other New Testament writings which have been called in question. For, in the first place, it is evident that it may be profitable to compare the doctrine of books of the New Testament with Jewish doctrine, quite apart from any exact determination of the date of composition of the books. In addition to this, some of the most important historical conclusions in this book even as to the claims made by Jesus Himself, rest on evidence of a kind which can scarcely be said to be dependent on the authenticity of any document, and certainly of none which has commonly been called in question even by the most extreme critics.
\nI am very thankful to be able to avoid either discussing such questions or making assumptions with respect to them. The replies that have been made to objections against the genuineness and authenticity of the New Testament writings appear to me weighty and convincing. But opponents have as yet very partially acknowledged their cogency. And I am very anxious in the argument of the following chapter to start from premisses which all, or the great majority even of naturalistic critics will not dispute. Among other reasons for this there is the consideration that the subject of the Canon cannot be properly studied by itself. The full force of the evidence for the trustworthiness of the Gospels can only be perceived when viewed from the standpoint afforded by wider investigations into the history of the rise of Christianity and the life of the Church, such as that we are now engaged upon, and these ought therefore first to be independently conducted.
\nThere are, however, points with regard to certain of the New Testament writings which will be generally conceded. And a definite statement of these here may enable us to form a more precise estimate of the strength of the evidence for various conclusions at which we shall arrive.
\n1. It is generally known that there are four Epistles of St. Paul, the Epistle to the Galatians, the two to the Corinthians, and that to the Romans (or the greater part of it), which nearly all even of the most destructive critics have allowed to be genuine. The reason of this is, I need perhaps hardly say, that they are stamped as the work of a man of such unique character, and that character so entirely such as we should believe St. Paul\u2019s to have been, and that they are so full of personal allusions, that it has been found impossible to suppose them to be the work of a forger.
\n2. Another document, the early date of which will probably be admitted, while it represents a different type of Christian thought from St. Paul\u2019s, is the Apocalypse of St. John. In spite of the statement of Iren\u00e6us that it belongs to the close of St. John\u2019s life, and thus to the end of the reign of Domitian (A.D. 96), there is strong reason on grounds of internal evidence for placing the time of its composition before, though not long before, A.D. 70. In this critics of such different general views as the T\u00fcbingen school, Bleek and Dr. Westcott, all agree.
\n3. One more statement I will make, and it concerns the Gospels. It may be necessary to explain the grounds on which it is made a little more fully than in the last two cases. Yet I believe few will venture to dispute it, though some of those who show incidentally that they would not do so often practically ignore its importance. The proposition is that the synoptic Gospels, as regards all those points in which their narratives agree, embody a tradition which was generally current among Christians, at least before the destruction of Jerusalem. Such testimony with respect to events which happened less than forty years before that time must have very high historical value; and no one will wish to set aside any of its main features except for what may appear to him to be some very strong reason. Thus the naturalistic critic will think that he must attribute anything strictly supernatural to the early formation of myth or legend, but he will be anxious to be as sparing as possible of this hypothesis.
\nSome of the grounds for the statement I have made with respect to the synoptic narrative are very briefly these. During a large portion of the second century the literary remains of the Church are very scanty, but towards its close two writers, Iren\u00e6us and Tertullian, throw a flood of light upon its condition. The former and earlier of these, Iren\u00e6us, was personally connected with the Churches of Asia Minor and Gaul, and had also been on embassies to the Church of Rome. The latter is the leading figure in the Church of North Africa. The language of these writers enables us to say, though confirmatory evidence could, if there were need, be adduced in plenty, that throughout the whole Church, in all its branches, the four Gospels were at that time regarded not only as the work of the evangelists whose names they bear, but as the inspired word of God of fully equal authority with the Scriptures of the Old Testament. Now such a position they could not have attained if they had first made their appearance within the space of (we will say) two moderately long overlapping memories, nor even then if their contents had not been in accord with what had for a considerable period before that been accepted in the Church for truth. What makes it the more inconceivable that they should otherwise have done so, is that throughout this century the Church was engaged in a fierce conflict with Gnosticism, and that she only became fully aware of the treasure she possessed in her New Testament Scriptures through this conflict. If serious doubt could have been thrown upon the authority of the sacred writings which she used against her opponents, they would assuredly have done it. Again, we know that different portions of the Church at this time adhered tenaciously to their inherited local customs. A serious difference was created between the Churches of Rome and Asia Minor by the question of the exact day on which Easter should be kept. So assuredly one Church would have been slow to accept the sacred books which had first made a late appearance in another. A difference not, indeed, arising from this cause, but from causes of other kinds, did prevail for a long time between different portions of the Church in regard to two important writings of the New Testament, the Apocalypse and the Epistle to the Hebrews. But there is not a trace of such a difference in regard to the Gospels or most of the other writings contained in our present Canon. The absence of citations by name and of exact quotations from the Gospels in the scanty remains of the earlier part of the second century, may show that it took longer for the writings of the New Testament to be placed side by side with those of the Old than used till recently to be imagined. But it cannot suffice to countervail the arguments for believing in their existence and evergrowing recognition.
\nWhat I have urged applies to St. John as well as to the Synoptists. But for the reception of the common matter at least embodied in the latter we are taken back by such considerations to a very early date. And Justin Martyr, the chief among the witnesses brought forward against the Gospels, because of his silence as to their names, and because he is thought to quote from other records of the life of Christ, himself through these very quotations supplies proof that an account of His life substantially the same as that of the Synoptists was generally accepted.
\nThese few points with regard to writings of the New Testament will supply all the premisses we require for establishing the conclusions of the greatest importance. When more would be needed, it will always be possible to treat the explanations of difficulties or the probabilities suggested as provisional, that is, as a contribution of material for a final estimate, to be rejected if they will not fit in with the view for which there is the strongest evidence, yet capable in conjunction with a sufficiency of other evidence of establishing moral certainty. I shall claim no more than this for some of the inferences and explanations I shall make on questions connected with the authenticity and genuineness of books of the New Testament Canon and the history of the Rise of Christianity.
\nBefore leaving the subject of the use to be made of the New Testament writings, a word must be added on their evidence, or more specifically that of the Gospels, as to Jewish Messianic belief. The right so to use them has been questioned. But surely a valuable source of information is thus unnecessarily abandoned. It is true, and we must not omit to bear in mind that the books of the New Testament were written in a period during which there was a Jewish development going on parallel to the Christian one, and the Christian may have been affected by the Jewish as well as the Jewish by the Christian. This is a serious difficulty in the way of a full solution of the problem of the relations of Jewish and Christian Messianic doctrine. Nevertheless there is some clear evidence as to independent Jewish belief supplied by the New Testament writings. Let me instance, first, the picture that may be derived from the Gospels of the questionings and divisions among different classes of Jews which were excited by the work and teaching of Jesus,\u2014their measurement of His claim to Messiahship by the conception of the Messiah in their own minds. This will, I believe, be generally admitted to be so artless, so lifelike, and so entirely in accord with probability, that it can hardly be otherwise than true. If we found in any Jewish book allowed to be of as early date any statements about early Christian belief and practice which seemed to be made without rancour, and to agree with the rest of our knowledge, weight would certainly be claimed for them. It will, I think, also on reflection be conceded that the Psalms of Zacharias, Simeon, and Mary are genuine evidence of pre-Christian belief. Whether they are rightly put into the mouths of these actual persons we are not here concerned to inquire. But this much is plain, they are thoroughly appropriate to the time to which in the Gospels they are assigned\u2014the first dawn of the New Era. For their thought has not reached the Christian standpoint, and it is therefore most improbable that they should have been produced within the Christian community. Yet, at the same time, they represent the hope of the Divine salvation about to appear alike at its highest pitch of intensity and in its most spiritual form.
\nIt is to be added that some important indirect evidence in regard to Jewish belief is to be derived from considering the manner in which certain parts of the Christian conception of the Messiah at first presented themselves to the minds of the apostles.
\nAmong other early Christian writings which are useful for our purpose, Justin\u2019s Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, written probably about A.D. 150, deserves to be specially mentioned.<\/p>\n
NOTE ON VOLKMAR\u2019S THEORY OF DATE OF VISION OF SEVENTY SHEPHERDS IN BOOK OF ENOCH<\/p>\n
One well-known critic, G. Volkmar, has so interpreted this vision as to bring the time of its composition into the second century. If such were the date of this vision, there is no ground for supposing any part of the Book of Enoch to be pre-Christian, and our limited sources of information with regard to Jewish belief during the last period before the birth of Christ would suffer a serious diminution. Volkmar himself also builds upon his view of the book one more argument to prove the late date of books of the New Testament Canon and of other of our earliest Christian documents. This inference, however, would by no means necessarily follow, even should this date of the vision be conceded. Volkmar discovers in the language of this vision the views and feelings of a Jewish zealot of the time of Barcochab\u2019s rising (132 A.D.). And he is brought to this date alike by two methods of reckoning; first, by taking each of the times of the seventy shepherds at \u201cten years and somewhat over,\u201d and again by taking a time as exactly ten years, but regarding seventy as equivalent to seventy-two, which he is pleased to call \u201cthe great-seventy,\u201d or in another place \u201cthe high-seventy.\u201d His starting-point in either case is the year of the destruction of Solomon\u2019s temple, 588 B.C. The last twelve shepherds, according to him, correspond with the Roman emperors from Augustus, with whom the direct rule of Rome over Palestine began, to Hadrian in whose reign Barcochab\u2019s rising took place. Of the spirit of religious Jewish patriotism which breathes in the vision, suffice it to say that if it suits the time of Barcochab\u2019s rising, it equally well suits that of the Maccabees. On the reckoning of time we must stay somewhat longer. Volkmar shifts in a perfectly arbitrary manner from a time of ten years long to an \u201cEpiphanes-time\u201d of \u201cten years and something more,\u201d just as suits his convenience, in order to make the periods come right according to his own theory. His justification also for either one or the other factor being intended at all is of the slenderest kind. For the ten years\u2019 period, he quotes in his later essay on the subject a passage in Zechariah, where it is said, \u201cThree shepherds also I cut off in one month.\u201d But there is nothing to lead us to suppose that the seer in the Book of Enoch was thinking of this passage. Zechariah\u2019s month does not suit with anything in the Enoch-Vision. Nor does it lie on the surface of Zechariah\u2019s words to divide the month of which he speaks into three equal periods of ten days. In another paper he argues that the object of the subsequent vision of ten weeks was to show \u201cthat the number ten in his reckoning is the other factor besides seven.\u201d But obviously ten weeks are there mentioned because ten times seven days make Jeremiah\u2019s and Daniel\u2019s number seventy. Turning to his other length of a time, the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, it is surely a most Procrustean scheme to measure the times of all the shepherds by this one reign, however pre-eminent in its impiety and cruelty, and in the impression it left upon the memory of the Jewish nation, especially as he identifies the last twelve of the shepherds, if not others, with actual sovereigns. The only argument which Volkmar has to urge for doing so is that peculiar stress is laid upon the shepherd mentioned in chap. xc. 3, who, according to him, is Antiochus Epiphanes. But this would in any case be natural; and there is nothing whatever to show that the length of his reign is specially in mind. \u201cAnd I cried out and wailed in my sleep because of that shepherd who was over the sheep,\u201d are the seer\u2019s words. Another of Volkmar\u2019s eccentricities we must note. He adheres to the reading thirty-seven in chap. xc. 1, and is severe on Dillmann for emending it. The number thirty-seven is necessary to his theory in order that his periods may come right. But in the following verses the seer tells us that he sees twenty-three more shepherds succeed one another till they have completed fifty-eight times, each in his time. And we ask, How will Volkmar deal with this? for thirty-seven being retained in the former place we should here have had sixty. He sees in the contradiction a hint artistically given that the beginning of the final period lies between fifty-eight x ten years and sixty x ten years, i.e. between 8 B.C. and 12 A.D. The actual date in mind is 6 A.D. Whether this be art or not I will not dispute, though to me it seems very clumsy. But at any rate it is not apocalyptic art, which delights in symmetry, a symmetry which Volkmar in his whole scheme disregards. Yet again, as Dillmann has pointed out, the language of the vision is not consistent with the supposition that the destruction of Solomon\u2019s temple is the era from which the commission of the seventy shepherds begins. It is contemplated as beginning some time before this, with the oppression of the Jews by Babylon and possibly even by Assyria. Lastly, we hold that the time of each shepherd is not supposed to contain a definite and the same number of years. But supposing it to be so, seven would be a number more in accordance with apocalyptic usage, and would work out fairly well, certainly as well as Volkmar\u2019s reckoning, bringing us to the time which Hilgenfeld has assigned for the date of the book.
\nWe see then how weak are the reasons by which Volkmar supports his theory. But, further, there lie against it many objections. I forbear from detailing any but the most striking. It is not too strong to say that the following are absolutely fatal to it.
\n1. His interpretation misrepresents the history of the second century before Christ to an extent which a Jew of the second quarter of the second century after Christ could not have intended. The most ardent hater of Rome could hardly have regarded the eagles of Rome as \u201cfluttering over and leading the heathen hosts\u201d against Palestine as early as 218 B.C. But again, the beginning of the Maccabean uprising, according to Volkmar, is described in chap. xc. 3, \u201cAnd the sheep cried because their bodies were devoured\u201d\u2014\u201ccried,\u201d that is, he says, \u201craised a war-cry;\u201d while in the next verse and onwards the Has mon\u00e6an leaders and princes appear as \u201cdogs,\u201d the dogs of the eagles, that is, the mere tools of Rome. It is incredible that the whole manful struggle of Mattathias and his famous sons, issuing in the independent kingdom under his grandson John Hyrcanus, and covering a period of sixty years, the memory of which we know stirred the enthusiasm of Jewish hearts, should be thus treated by an ardently patriotic Jew, whatever he may have thought of the latest descendants of the Hasmon\u00e6an house.
\n2. In the interpretation just referred to, violence is done to the language of the vision. According to all analogy and the whole context, the cry of the sheep in chap. xc. 3 is not a war-cry. Further, the dogs are not said to be the dogs of the eagles. And, moreover, according to the terminology of the vision, on the clearly defined character of which Volkmar himself insists, dogs in an earlier passage are undoubtedly Philistines. As Dillmann remarks in his note on chap. xc. 3, the scantiness of our information prevents us from saying what the writer had specially in mind; but he refers to a passage of Ecclesiasticus (50:26), from which we may infer that the hostility of the Philistines to Israel was active at the time of the composition of that work. It would not be unsuitable to interpret the term of some other non-Israelitish race inhabiting Palestine. But it is most improbable that Israelite leaders should be meant by it. The Israelites and their leaders appear as sheep, lambs, young rams; when they have erred from the true faith, or have not risen to their responsibilities, as \u201cwild sheep\u201d or \u201cblinded sheep.\u201d
\n3. Volkmar commits a similar act of violence with regard to \u201cthe ravens.\u201d With him as with other interpreters, the ravens in xc. 2 are Syrians under Antiochus the Great and his descendants. But from ver. 8 onwards they have, for the sake of his scheme, to be Roman legions which descend upon Palestine from Syria. Why the fact of having been stationed for a time in Syria should thus transform Roman legions passes comprehension.
\n4. Volkmar\u2019s interpretation being followed, the vision, though giving the history of the chosen people down to 130 A.D., passes over the siege of Jerusalem and destruction of the temple by Vespasian and Titus in complete silence. And all he has to say in justification of this is, that the temple, from the time of Cyrus onward, having been rebuilt by the aid of heathen, had no interest for the author. But he produces no evidence to show that any Jews did as a fact entertain such extreme and utterly unlikely feelings. Nor is that all. Actual words of the vision are irreconcilable with his view. The seer regards the temple as continuing to stand to the future age, and as needing to be removed in order to make way for the more glorious temple then to be brought from heaven.
\n5. We might understand how the Book of Enoch, though the work of a scholar of the great Rabbi Akiba, should not have been permanently held in esteem by the Jews, for the reason given by Volkmar, namely, that when Barcochab\u2019s rising was crushed the prophecy which it uttered concerning him was falsified. But it is hard, indeed, to understand how, written after a complete separation had taken place between Christians and Jews, and proceeding from a class of Jews who were most bitter in their hatred of Christians, it should come to be familiarly quoted in Christian writings within fifteen years or so of the year of its composition, even according to the very late date assigned by Volkmar to those writings.
\nOn the other hand, the difficulties in the older explanation which he makes so much of disappear, or almost disappear, when the degree of vagueness necessary in a pretended prophecy is borne in mind. With the references I subjoin I may leave the reader who cares to pursue the subject farther to judge whether it is not so. To Volkmar\u2019s imputation, that those who assign a pre-Christian date to the Book of Enoch have in view the credit of the Epistle of Jude, it might be retorted that he is biassed in maintaining his theory by the desire of proving that this Epistle and other early Christian writings are of later date than they have been usually supposed to be. He certainly lays himself open to such a charge by the eagerness with which he applies his conclusion to this end. But even if we were unable to investigate a critical question fearlessly without regard to its consequences, we should have no sufficient motive in the present instance to resist his interpretation if it appeared sound. For supposing he had proved the date of this vision to be circ. 135 A.D., he would not have proved that there was not a fragment of Enoch-myth previously in existence, from which the quotation in the Epistle of Jude was made, and which was subsequently embodied in the Book of Enoch as we have it.<\/p>\n
CHAPTER III<\/p>\n
GENERAL VIEW OF THE HISTORY OF MESSIANIC EXPECTATION AMONG THE JEWS TO THE CHRISTIAN ERA<\/p>\n
It will, I think, be useful if, before proceeding to the careful discussion of separate points, I endeavour to give a general view, in this chapter, of the history of Messianic expectation among the Jews down to the Christian era, and in the next of the nature of the transformation which it underwent among Christians.
\nWe can only take a brief glance at the history of its growth in Old Testament times, but this must not be altogether passed over if we would avoid confusion of thought in the treatment of the subject with which we are more especially concerned. Some Christian theologians have expressed themselves almost as though they thought that all Christian doctrine was clearly present to the minds of the prophets, and as though the Jews were severely to be blamed if they did not gather it from their prophecies alone. Such language few now consider to be warrantable. For, not to dwell on other reasons, it is evidently conceivable, and it is a view which none can consider derogatory to the inspiration of the prophets, that they may have been moved by the Spirit to utter language of which they themselves, not to say others of their time, could only very partially understand the significance. But indeed something more than this is now allowed by many devout and, in point of Christian faith, orthodox critics. It has come to be very generally recognised that illusion followed by the discipline of experience and disappointment played no unimportant part in the formation and definition of the clearest Messianic Hope of Israel. The language of the prophets in some of their loftiest flights of triumphant expectation is seen to have many points of connexion with the times when they wrote. They speak as though the era of perfect righteousness and peace would be finally ushered in with the overthrow of the oppressors and enemies of Israel that they knew in their own age. Again their aspirations after a truly righteous and victorious king would seem often to have been stirred by some immediate object of hope, as (for instance) by the birth of an heir to the throne. While they dreamed and thought they were speaking of these deliverances near at hand, the Spirit taught them to utter great words which would only find true fulfilment in a far more distant day. Then as time went on, after many disappointments in the case of individual men and individual deliverances, later generations of Israelites learned to transfer all these aspirations to one more definitely conceived as the Saviour of His people for whose coming they might have still to wait. But even to the end a very limited conception is formed of His work and offices. Such an account, I would observe, of the formation of the Messianic hope does not destroy the value of the testimony of prophecy to Christ, although it is not of altogether the same character as on the older view. The prophecies may no longer seem so wonderful regarded simply as predictions. Yet the actual purpose which the development of the Messianic expectation in Israel discharged should prove to any one who believes in the Divine ordering of the world\u2019s history that this expectation was designed by God as a preparation for the coming of Jesus; and if so, it is a testimony to His being divinely sent. For this is what we see. On the one hand, there is formed a most lofty spiritual hope, which is absolutely without a parallel among all other peoples, produced by a most singular national history, and the aspirations of a marvellous race of prophets. And then when Jesus comes and His apostles go forth, many hearts are found to receive their message among the Jews and the proselytes joined to them throughout the settlements of the Dispersion, having been made ready for it through this hope which they had learned to cherish; and they become the nucleus of the Christian Church. In other words, the historical fact of the influence of the Old Testament in preparing the world for the coming of Christ ought to convince us of its true connexion with the Gospel dispensation as part of one grand scheme in the counsels of Divine Providence.
\nOn the ground of this Divine intention, those who start from the full Christian idea of the Messiah are justified in noting as Messianic every element of thought in the Old Testament which was eventually taken up into the complete idea. This may be described as the point of view of the theologian. But we must be careful not to confuse by it the historical question how much of the idea had at different epochs been realized, or what preparation for it had been made in the current views of the Jewish people, or the human consciousness of the prophets themselves. We must keep distinct from the main and original conception of the Messiah as a God-given king the other ideals which were being formed alongside of it, but which were not combined with it till Christian times; and we must be ready to recognise the successive stages by which the main idea itself came to be clearly defined.
\nThe Messianic Hope had its roots in the faith that Israel stood in a special relation to Jehovah; it drew its strength from the conviction that the condition of the nation which would adequately correspond to God\u2019s covenant with them must at length be realized. And even to the time of the coming of Christ, the history of the hope of a personal deliverer cannot be rightly viewed if we do not bear in mind this vaguer but more widely-spread expectation. In the Old Testament itself it is this which attains the most full and clear expression, and occupies far the largest amount of attention. This ardent hope with respect to the nation, which existed in all true Jewish hearts, was directed into a more definite channel when they believed in a Messiah. And all the beliefs involved in or suggested by the vaguer hope naturally came to be connected more or less directly with the Messiah and His times. They may thus not unfitly themselves be called Messianic. The figure of the Messiah looms on the view of the Jewish people, gradually gathering more and more distinctness, against the background of such anticipations as these. And from all the ideas of strength and blessedness which had been associated with the future of Zion, glory was reflected upon His person.
\nWe must not therefore leave out of our view the progress in the more general hope in sketching the history of the hope of a Messiah. It may be allowable, however, to keep some special points distinct; in particular, we shall find it convenient to reserve for separate notice the doctrinal development connected with the judgments to precede the redemption. The history of the Messianic Hope begins then, if we are to attribute any truth to the Biblical record, from God\u2019s covenant with Abraham. During the remainder of the patriarchal period and the age of Moses and of the Judges, it was continually being advanced by fresh proofs and pledges of God\u2019s mercy to Israel, and by all that gave definiteness to the idea of the theocratic constitution of the nation. I forbear from reference to particular prophecies or institutions, so as not to raise questions as to the dates of different portions of the Pentateuch. That in some sense the foundations for the idea of the theocracy were laid during the period I have indicated none will deny. But the first great step towards the representation of a personal Messiah was taken when in the covenant with David through Nathan the type was set forth of the true theocratic king, who should be the representative of God to the people, appointed to give effect to the Divine will, and having his rule of action prescribed in the revealed law of God, to whom God\u2019s mercy should be pledged for ever, and who should walk with God as a son with his father. It is to be observed, however, that a line of descendants, not one pre-eminent individual, is thus far contemplated. It would seem, moreover, that in those psalms in which the covenant with David and the kingly ideal which it involved are so nobly celebrated, there is (at least generally speaking) primary reference to a sovereign reigning at the time.
\nThere is, indeed, a clear exception to this in Ps. 110, if its Davidic authorship be conceded. On this supposition David speaks of a king yet to come as \u201cmy Lord.\u201d Nor is it difficult to understand how he might do so. Knowing how far he had himself fallen below the standard of the true covenant-king, and how the glory and prosperity of his reign had been marred through the consequences of his own sins, he might thus in spirit pay homage to a greater descendant. We must also pause for a moment upon the words in this psalm, \u201cThou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.\u201d They were destined to play a great r\u00f4le Christian times. But standing as they do by themselves as the only words of the Old Testament which with any distinctness attribute a priestly character to the ideal king, it would not be fair to lay too much stress on them, when the question is how far it was perceived in the days of that elder covenant that the priesthood and the kingship must be united in one person. From speaking of the armies of the king as clad in holy vestments, and having in some sort a sacred character, the psalmist is led on to speak of the priestly character of the king himself. And along with what was given him by God\u2019s covenant with David through Nathan, he promises him all the prerogatives of that ancient king of Jerusalem who had met Abraham. Still, as he penned these words, he must have had some glimpse of the truth that the true king must also be the priest.
\nThe two oldest prophets who committed their prophecies to writing, and who were specially sent to the northern kingdom, Amos and Hosea, supplied a trait from the circumstances of their own ministry, which is referred to again in later prophets, and which maintained a place in the later Messianic expectation of the Jews. They proclaim that the northern tribes shall be reunited with Judah under the House of David. In these prophets we see for the first time how the Hope of Israel was deepened and strengthened amidst trial. There had come disunion in the Davidic kingdom, and a widespread apostasy from Jehovah in that portion which had separated from the king who reigned in Jerusalem. But faith has learned to believe that all this loss and sin will one day be done away.
\nIn Isaiah\u2019s prophecies, and in those of his contemporary Micah, the hope of Messiah may, so far at least as the Old Testament is concerned, be truly said to culminate. They speak of a king yet to appear, soon it may be, but nevertheless not yet reigning. Expectation is also fixed on an individual king, not merely on the glory of David\u2019s line; and the appearing of that king is to be itself the chief blessing of the glorious future. He is to be the instrument for dispensing the Divine mercy. Features are introduced in the description of his character which proved to be of the utmost significance. In one passage we are told how the Spirit of the Lord will rest upon him in fulness. In another, language is used to which only the person of a truly Divine Messiah could adequately correspond. Nevertheless, in the absence of other expressions which can fairly have such a meaning attributed to them in other parts of the Old Testament, and of all evidence of such a belief among the Jews, we cannot suppose that this was clearly understood by the prophet himself, much less by his people.
\nBefore leaving Isaiah and Micah we must notice in their prophecies a striking example of the way in which the teachings of history were divinely used for the development of the Messianic hope. It became one of the sublimest of Jewish beliefs that Jerusalem should hereafter be the source of the knowledge of God to all the world. All other nations would obey its influence and pay homage to it as the guardian of true religion. We find this belief expressed in one of the early prophecies of Isaiah in a very comprehensive manner, and almost in the same words in his contemporary Micah. These prophecies were uttered at the time when the northern Israelite kingdom was already feeling the power of Assyria, and the safety of Judah was menaced. It was becoming clear that the fate of Judah was involved in the fortunes of the great empires of the world. And from the first the glorious proclamation goes forth what should be the true supremacy of Zion. In another prophecy Isaiah foretells that Egypt shall know Jehovah. In later prophecies we again read of the recognition by all nations of the true God, and the mission of Israel to the world.
\nThe influences of the Dispersion were of a kind to foster this hope at least in men of large mind and a liberal nature. When Jews came to be intimately mixed up with the great and cultivated heathen nations of antiquity, they learned to take a wider view of the Divine government, and compassionating thoughts could hardly fail to find a place in the hearts of some at least towards those among whom they dwelt, especially when they saw not a few heathen impressed by the loftier and purer morality and faith of the Jew. They would begin to believe that \u201cthe Gentiles too,\u201d if I may adapt a saying in regard to Protestants by a great liberal French preacher speaking from the pulpit of N\u00f4tre Dame at Paris, \u201chad a place under the Sun of Divine Providence.\u201d To illustrate by a later document: The author of the Jewish Sibylline fragment, in denouncing woes upon sinful nations, lingers with regretful tones over the fate of Hellas, as though he had felt the spell of Hellenic culture. And in depicting the glorious future, he echoes and amplifies those passages of the prophets to which I have alluded, catching up those strains evidently because they came home to his feelings, owing to his own circumstances. The time is foretold when the heathen \u201cshall bend the white knee upon the all-nourishing earth to God, the Great King, the Immortal; and all works made with hands shall fall with flame of fire.\u201d Again, after describing how \u201call the sons of the Great God,\u201d i.e. the Israelites, shall dwell in security and prosperity round the temple, under the protection of God, who shall surround them as it were with a wall of fire, he proceeds,\u2014\u201cThen, moreover, all islands and cities shall say, \u2018How the Immortal loves those men; for all things are on their side and help them, heaven and God-impelled sun and moon.\u2019 And they shall utter a sweet word in hymns, \u2018Come, let us all fall upon the earth and pray to the Immortal King, the Great God, Most High. Let us send to His temple, since He alone is Ruler. And let us all pay heed to the law of God, Most High, which is the most just of all in the earth.\u2019 \u201d Once more, we have the assertion that \u201cGod made the earth common to all, and placed the best principles in all breasts.\u201d
\nIn considering the last feature we have been led on to the completion of the lesson under the influences of the Dispersion. We return to the point up to which we have followed the history in a more orderly manner. The captivity made a new demand for faith, upon which it may be well to pause for a moment, because it was of a kind which at a later time must have helped to give precision to the conception of the Messiah. Whereas, in the case of Isaiah, the expected king was to be the heir of a throne which, though menaced, still stood, Jeremiah foretold a glorious future restoration of David\u2019s line when the succession to his throne was about to be interrupted and the Jewish State overthrown. The very circumstance that the dynasty was to be revived in the coming of a king after a lapse of time served eventually, as will be more clearly seen farther on, to idealize the conception of that king\u2019s character. Jeremiah himself, however, seems to look for a glorious line of kings rather than for one pre-eminent king. We may observe in passing, that in Jeremiah are found some of the most spiritual foreshadowings of the New Dispensation.
\nThe near prospect of the return from captivity gave occasion to descriptions of the redemption of Zion of the loftiest order; they have been preserved in the latter part of the Book of Isaiah. But it is remarkable that among these the figure of the king scarcely appears. In place of it we have that of the Servant of Jehovah, which is specially characteristic of this portion of Scripture. It was applied to our Lord in the New Testament, and in combination with the kingly ideal, helped materially to win acceptance for the Christian conception of the Messiah. And I truly believe that it was by Divine appointment prepared for this end. But the prophet himself is unconscious of any connexion between this character and that of the ideal king. He appears to portray under this figure the faithful stock of Israel, just as in Hosea Israel is personified as God\u2019s son. This faithful stock was an example and instructor to others, and triumphed at length after enduring afflictions, which were in their nature not only personal and purificatory, but vicarious.
\nThe prophets Haggai and Zechariah celebrate the scion of David\u2019s house with an immediate reference to Zerubbabel. A true high priest occupies a place beside him, at once sharing and adding to his glory. But for the rest the hope of the king seems not to find expression from the time of the Return and for long afterwards. It has been inferred not without probability that this hope died out to a great extent for a long period following the reconstitution of the kingdom under the rule of high priests and elders, there being nothing to encourage it in this constitution, or in the successful struggles for independence under the priestly Hasmon\u00e6an family. The books of the Apocrypha are a striking illustration of this. Before, however, leaving the Old Testament Canon, there is a question of considerable importance to be discussed in connexion with the Book of Daniel. The vision of \u201cOne like unto a Son of Man\u201d in the 7th chapter has been supposed by some even of those who are accustomed to view Messianic prophecy in relation to its historical development, to have referred directly from the first to the Messiah. But it is to be observed, in the first place, that the context supplies an interpretation of the vision, which suggests that for the seer and his contemporaries the vision was an idealized representation of the final bestowal of glory and power on Israel restored and purified, the glorified human form standing for Israel as animal forms stood for the heathen powers. If the view we have adopted of the date of the Enochic Book of Three Parables and of 4 Esdras be correct, there is no evidence that the \u201cOne like unto a Son of Man\u201d of Daniel\u2019s vision was understood to be the Messiah before Christian times. Further, such a representation of Him at this period would have no connexion with the natural growth of the Messianic idea as we trace it in other prophets. It would not, indeed, be matter of surprise that an altogether new departure should have been made under the influence of the Divine Spirit. And if there were indications pointing to this conclusion, we should be ready to admit that such was the fact. But as the indications point in another direction, this consideration must have weight. On the other hand, the phrase \u201cthe anointed prince\u201d in the 9th chapter would be in entire accord with previous conceptions of the promised king. Nevertheless its Messianic reference in this place is disputed by many. This is a question which it is unnecessary for us to discuss. But whether the Book of Daniel contains direct, original references to the Messiah or not, it made an era in the growth of Messianic doctrine. For the apocalyptic form of prophecy of which it was the first great example and the model to subsequent generations serves to set forth with peculiar impressiveness the solemnity and finality of the Divine judgment by which power would pass from the last of the heathen empires which successively had held, or should hold, it to the kingdom of God, and the depth of the demarcation between the New Age which should then be ushered in and all the past.
\nThe silence of the books of the Apocrypha with regard to the Messiah has often been remarked upon. It will be sufficient here briefly to notice the teaching of some of the principal books.
\nIn Ecclesiasticus, which may have been written any time between the high-priesthood of Simon son of Onias and the Maccab\u00e6an rising, only the vaguer Messianic hopes\u2014if they are to bear the name\u2014find expression. The Book of Tobit, the time of the composition of which has been given variously as circ. 350 B.C. and the first century B.C., looks forward to the glorious restoration of Jerusalem and conversion of the Gentiles to the fear of Jehovah; but it says not a word of Messiah. Nor do the Books of Baruch and Judith, although their subjects would make it natural. In 1 Maccabees, probably written in the latter part of the second century or beginning of the first before Christ, the direction which hope takes is for the appearance not of the Messiah, but of a true prophet.
\nBut in other documents dating from about the time just mentioned we have signs of a revival of the hope in the coming of a king. Nor is it only a revival. Though we meet to a comparatively small degree with the rich spiritual characteristics which mark the conception in the Old Testament, there is in a certain sense an advance made in this period. The uniqueness of his office and work is more apparent than it has been hitherto, except at least in Isaiah and Micah. The Messiah has become more clearly separated in idea from all other successors of David. And this would naturally be due to a cause to which we have already alluded. The longer the time that the throne of David had remained unoccupied, the more remarkable, and the more suggestive of special Divine Providence and of the most wonderful issues, would the appearance be of another king of his line. Again, the restorations of the Jewish State which there had been so far, had been found by experience to be very incomplete. A final, perfect restoration was looked for, and was associated with the coming of this king. Hence its finality and perfection were reflected back upon the conception of his character. This was the case even with those who, adhering to the point of view of earlier times, did not look beyond a new era to a new world. But as the distinction came to be clearly drawn between \u201cthis world\u201d and \u201cthe world to come,\u201d the Messiah\u2019s reign was regarded as a kind of transition from the one to the other, the closing period of the present and introduction to the future, eternal world; and an unearthly light fell upon His own figure from His being placed here at this great division-line amid scenes so mysterious. Clear illustrations of this in Jewish writings appear first in works belonging probably to about A.D. 70. But we may imagine that men would have begun to feel it, and there are possibly indications of it even before.
\nWhat I am contending for is simply that in the Jewish Church during the period after prophetic inspiration had ceased, and especially during the century or century and a half before the time of our Lord, a defining process had gone on in regard to the doctrine of a Messiah, under the teaching of Providence. The person of the Messiah came to be conceived with more definiteness, His figure to be drawn with more distinctness of outline. The partial resuscitations of the nation\u2019s life, the many disappointments, the hope long deferred, the extension of the horizon of the future both of the people and of mankind, had not been in vain.
\nIn the most ancient fragment of the Sibylline verses, written probably, as we have seen, not later than B.C. 124, the poet, after sketching the fortunes of the chosen people and the larger history of the world down to his own times, and describing the deepening gloom which should precede the end, passes on to speak in a long concluding passage of the final overthrow of the wicked and the enemies of the people of God, the prosperity and bliss of the latter, and the conversion of the world to the worship of Jehovah. And he begins it thus:\u2014
\n\u201cThen shall God send a king from the Sun, who shall cause the whole earth to cease from wicked war, when he has slain some and exacted faithful oaths from others. Neither shall he do all these things of his own counsel, but in obedience to the beneficent decrees of the Most High.\u201d
\nIn the whole passage (Or. Sib. iii. 652\u2013794) there is indeed only this single reference to this king or his rule; but in spite of the slightness of the notice of him, it seems difficult to apply the language to any other. Some have supposed one of the Maccabees to be meant, Jonathan or Simon, or if a later date be adopted for the fragment, John Hyrcanus. But how should any one of these be even called a king, or be exalted so decidedly above the Hasmon\u00e6ans who preceded him? What is to be understood by the words \u201cfrom the Sun\u201d in this place must be considered hereafter; but whatever meaning the phrase bears, how could it be applied to one of the leaders just mentioned?
\nIn the Enochic Vision of the Seventy Shepherds an ideal chief appears after vengeance has been taken upon sinners, and Zion has been restored, and a new temple placed on the site of the old, not as in the last passage as himself the agent in bringing in the new order. Quite at the close of the vision we read:\u2014
\n\u201cAnd I saw that a white ox was born having great horns, and all the beasts of the field and all birds of the air feared him and prayed to him continually. And I looked till all their tribes were changed and became white oxen, and the first among them [was the Word and the same Word] was a great beast, and he had large black horns on his head; and the Lord of the sheep rejoiced over them and over all the oxen.\u201d
\nThe absence in the last two passages of any indication that the king or pre-eminent person whose coming is foretold should be the promised descendant of David, has left it open to doubt whether the Messiah is intended. Still it seems to me difficult to suppose the hope expressed not to be identical with the hope of a Messiah. But at any rate there can be no question about the meaning of the language of the Psalms of Solomon. This work, belonging, as we have seen, to the period following the overthrow, virtually final, of the last Hasmon\u00e6ans by Pompey, gives beautiful expression to the hope of the Messiah, and presents him under the form of that old prophetic ideal of the destined Son of David. This loyalty, so to speak, to the house of David appears also in an allusion, about the meaning of which we can hardly be mistaken, to the Hasmon\u00e6ans as men who had seized with violence upon the throne of David which God had not promised to them. Thus the writer seems to have seen in the national defeat received at the hand of the Gentile invader a preparation for the coming of the true King of Israel.
\nAnother very interesting point in regard to these psalms is that here, not excepting the Old Testament itself, we have the earliest clear examples of the specific use of the term \u201cthe Christ,\u201d the Messiah, or \u201cAnointed One,\u201d as the title of a single person yet to come. In later documents this use is common. There are two instances in the Targum of Onkelos, and it is common in that of Jonathan. It is evident also from the New Testament that it was perfectly familiar before the rise of Christianity.
\nOne more allusion to the Messiah occurs in the later pre-Christian fragment in the Sibylline Oracles. The author speaks of the advent of the Messiah as about to take place at the very era at which he was writing. \u201cBut when Rome shall rule over Egypt also, uniting it under one yoke, then indeed the supreme kingdom of the King Immortal shall appear among men. And there shall come a pure king, to hold the sceptres of the whole earth for ever and ever as time rolls on.\u201d With this prophecy of the unending duration of the Messiah\u2019s reign we may compare the words of the Jews in St. John: \u201cWe have heard out of the law that the Christ abideth for ever.\u201d Such language, however, be it remarked, does not necessarily imply a more developed or a more exalted view of the Messiah than that according to which His reign was definitely conceived to end with the ushering in of a new world. It is an earthly reign only which is meant in either case. But whereas the imagination was in the earlier view satisfied not to reach to the end of it, reflection subsequently fixed a term for it after the lapse of a period much longer\u2014such at least was the usual view\u2014than the ordinary length of human life.
\nThis completes the brief list of passages in un-canonical Jewish documents down to the Christian era which express hope in the coming of the Messiah. They suffice to show that the Messiah was a definitely conceived personality in the first century B.C. It is more difficult to form a just view of the extent to which the expectation of His coming prevailed. In the voluminous works of Philo, there are at most only one or two, and those very uncertain, traces of it. The influences of long residence in the Dispersion, and especially the spirit of Alexandrian Judaism, might be peculiarly unfavourable to this hope in some minds. In the Book of Wisdom and the Second Book of Maccabees we have two other, probably somewhat earlier, instances of its absence among Alexandrian Jews. But again the Book of Jubilees, if the common impressions as to the date and place of its composition are right, shows how it might be ignored among Palestinian Jews of the first century. So also there is no indication of belief in a Messiah in the fragment which we possess of the Assumption of Moses; and yet if the author had entertained the belief, it would naturally have found expression in the course of his description of the appearance of the Divine kingdom and felicity of Israel.
\nNevertheless, the fact that there was a fully developed and almost universal hope of Messiah among Jews of the second century and onwards is inexplicable if this hope was not already firmly rooted in pre-Christian times. It is one thing to suppose that the Jewish doctrine concerning Messiah may in its progress have been modified by the growth of the Christian Church. It is quite another to suppose that this hope could owe its existence among Jews to an impulse given by Christianity, or even that it could have first made its appearance in the face of the similar Christian movement. There would, at least for a long time, have been a strong opposition to it on the part of many Jews, of which there exists no trace, if it had originated in either of these ways. The parallel phenomena of the Messianic doctrine of the Christian Church and of its development in Judaism from the second century onwards, argue a common stock in a hope of Messiah which was in some measure flourishing before the rise of Christian faith. Added to this, it is impossible to believe that the representations of the New Testament on this subject can be throughout misleading. The narratives of the Gospels set before us, and the Epistles and accounts of the labours of the apostles everywhere assume, the existence of the hope of the coming of Messiah and some articles of belief respecting Him. Not only so, but the early history of Christianity would otherwise be unintelligible. I do not indeed think lightly of the original and formative power of Christianity. But there must have been some preparation for it; the forms must have been previously made ready which it quickened. And its progress in the world would have been slower than it was if it had not found many scattered throughout the world who already hoped for the coming of the Christ, so that it remained only to convince them that \u201cthis is He.\u201d
\nThe instances, therefore, of silence respecting the Messiah to which I have referred, may require us to form a more moderate estimate than has been common of the prevalence and eagerness of the expectation of His coming in the earlier part of the first century, but at most they only prove what would be true of definite religious convictions and high enthusiasms in every age, that there were many in whose hearts the hope of Messiah was very faint or practically non-existent.
\nThus far the evidence has been sufficiently clear. We need feel no uncertainty on the one hand that the hope of Messiah did flourish in the earlier part of the first century of our era, nor that, at least as regards the form in which it most generally prevailed, it was of the simple character which has been described. But thus we are brought to the verge of a problem of great intricacy and difficulty. Jewish documents of the latter part of that century, and still more those of a somewhat later time, show a conception of the Messiah with new characteristics and functions, together with a far more fully developed eschatology. And this fuller Messianic doctrine has points of resemblance with Christian belief not to be found in the earlier. At the same time we have no documents to serve as landmarks of the history of Jewish Messianic belief in its passage from its earlier to its later form. What, we ask in perplexity, are the relations between Jewish Messianic belief, such as we find it in those documents of the close of the first century and later, and Christian Messianic belief? When we find common elements, are we to assume that they must already have formed a part of Jewish faith before the rise of Christianity? Or were there two movements, a Christian and a Jewish one, proceeding in part on parallel lines? Or is it conceivable that Jewish thought should have been in any measure influenced by Christianity? Or do the New Testament writers in any respects reflect the comparatively late Jewish beliefs, rather than the earlier or than those to which they had been independently led? We must endeavour to answer these questions so far as we can in regard to the chief points of resemblance.
\n1. And first, did Jewish Messianic doctrine before or contemporary with the Rise of Christianity include the conception of a suffering Messiah? Some even recent writers have endeavoured to show that it did, but I must express my conviction that the evidence, taken as a whole, points very decidedly to the opposite conclusion.
\nThe more spiritually-minded among the Jews before the Coming of Christ looked, indeed, for the removal of the sins, the remedy of the disunion of the people; but it would not be by any means necessarily clear that this would have to be wrought out by the sufferings of the Messiah. Passages, therefore, which connect the remission of the sins of Israel with the Messianic era must not be quoted in proof that an expiation by the Messiah himself was expected. The idea of the Messiah\u2019s sufferings is not found in any Jewish document up to the close of the first century.
\nPassing to the second century, far too much has been made of an admission by Trypho in Justin\u2019s Dialogue, that the Scriptures evidently foretell a Messiah destined to suffer. If the whole context and character of the work be considered, it will appear most probable that this is simply a literary device of Justin\u2019s in setting forth his argument. But at most the passage would only show that this was a concession which some Jews at that time found themselves compelled to make under the stress of controversy with Christians.
\nIn the Targum of Jonathan on the fifty-third of Isaiah the promise of a Deliverer, who is to be the Messiah, is recognised; but the Sufferer is taken to be God\u2019s servant Israel, while by a still stranger shifting of the subject of the prophecy the enemies of Israel are understood under the figure of the sheep to be led to the slaughter. It is only in the later portion of the Talmud and subsequent writings that we meet with the view that the Messiah would suffer with the sufferings of His people. The well-known and striking saying of the Babylonian Talmud, that the Messiah would be found among the miserable beggars at the gates of Rome tending their sores and Himself squalid and full of sores like them, may be taken as an example. The idea of two Messiahs, a Messiah Ben-Joseph as well as a Messiah Ben-David, has been very commonly connected with the doctrine of the sufferings of Messiah. The characters of the sufferer and the triumphant deliverer are assumed to have been separated and assigned respectively to these two. But this appears to be erroneous, at least so far as the earlier history of the idea of two Messiahs is concerned. Messiah Ben-Joseph, the Messiah, that is to say, of the ten tribes, who prepares the way for Messiah Ben-David, is not according to the original conception of his character a sufferer, but a warrior. Though he falls, there is nothing specifically atoning in his death. Nor is the character of sufferer afterwards confined to him.
\nThe absence of this doctrine from the earlier Rabbinic writings might, however, well be accounted for by opposition to Christianity, and would not be sufficient to prove that it had thus far obtained no recognition among Jews. But the evidence of the New Testament is conclusive on the point in question. It is there revealed in the most ingenuous unconscious manner what an effort the apostles had found it to believe in a suffering and humiliated Christ, and also that repugnance to such an idea was the greatest difficulty they had to encounter in preaching to their countrymen. Evidently it was an entirely new thought to them when they discovered predictions of the Messiah\u2019s sufferings in the Old Testament, \u201cTheir eyes were opened to understand the Scriptures.\u201d In a word, the true place historically of these prophecies in relation to the faith in Jesus as a suffering Messiah, is not that they led in the first instance to this faith, but that they were found to remove difficulties in the way of its reception after it had been first suggested by the facts relating to Jesus and the claims made by Him. The elements which had been divinely prepared in such representations as those of the 53rd of Isaiah and the 22nd Psalm were then at length taken up into the idea of Messiah to make it complete and true.
\n2. But was the conception of \u201cthe Servant of Jehovah\u201d\u2014so far as it could be dissevered from the idea of suffering\u2014connected with the Messiah in pre-Christian teaching? This is very possible. The New Testament applies the title to Jesus with no sign that its Messianic sense was new. And the Targum of Jonathan, with the restriction I have named, also understands it of the Messiah. Indeed this is the chief addition supplied by the Targums to that simplest Jewish portraiture of the Messiah at which we have above arrived. The thought naturally suggests itself that the early disciples were not the first to interpret thus.
\n3. Whether the prophetic office of the Messiah, in a larger sense, had come to be recognised by the time of our Lord is another question which may be asked, and which it is not easy to answer decisively. Deut. 18:15\u201318 does not primarily speak of a single prophet, but promises that the people shall not be left without prophetic guidance. Nor elsewhere in the Old Testament do we find the fulfilment of this promise connected with the person of the theocratic king. After prophetic inspiration had for some time ceased, there arose a yearning expectation for the coming of a prophet. We have seen it in the First Book of Maccabees, and we trace it also in the notices of Jewish expectation in the Gospels. From the Synoptists we infer that it often took the form of a belief that one of the famous prophets of old time would reappear on the earth. It is, however, from certain passages of St. John that we learn most clearly that the coming of one pre-eminent prophet was expected, who was distinguished from the Messiah. John the Baptist is asked whether, if he is not the Christ, he is Elijah, or \u201cthe prophet.\u201d And in the questionings about Jesus towards the conclusion of His ministry in Galilee, some said, \u201cThis is of a truth the prophet. Others said, This is the Christ.\u201d On the other hand, at John 6:14, 15, \u201cthe prophet\u201d may seem to be identified with the Messiah. We read that on seeing the miracle of feeding the multitude, men said, \u201cThis is of a truth the prophet that cometh into the world.\u201d And the next verse proceeds, \u201cJesus therefore, perceiving that they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king.\u201d It is still possible, however, that the utterance of the conviction that He was the prophet, and the attempt to make Him king, may represent two movements among the people which were different though probably somewhat confused.
\nBut it has been supposed that the promise in Deuteronomy specially moulded the conception of the Messiah among the Samaritans, who only accepted the Pentateuch. Evidence of this is traced in the account of our Lord\u2019s conversation with the Samaritan woman, and some knowledge which has been obtained with respect to Samaritan belief at a considerably later time agrees with this. Their familiar names for Him whom they expected were found to be Hashab, the Converter, and Hathab, the Guide. If there be any truth in this view of the Samaritan Christology, there is surely something most pathetic in the thought of these few villages of people, remote from the high roads of the world, cut off from many of the spiritual privileges of the Jew, with a large admixture from a heathen stock, having very imperfect knowledge, not accepting the fuller teaching of the prophets of the Old Testament, yet for centuries yearning after the coming of One who would enlighten and lead them in regard to the things of God. And it is certainly possible that not having the grounds which the Jews had for cherishing the idea of the kingly character of the Messiah, they may have been the more easily able to give prominence to His prophetic office. But it is not easy to see how, before the way had been shown in Jesus, the prophetic and kingly ideals could have been clearly combined in thought. And consequently there is some difficulty in such words as we find in the mouth of Philip (John 1:45), \u201cHim of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write,\u201d where the prophet whose coming was inferred from Deuteronomy and the king portrayed in the prophets would appear to be identified. By the Rabbinic commentators of a later time the teaching office of the Messiah and the Divine illumination to be communicated by Him were more largely dwelt upon. It was natural that it should be so in the condition into which the Jews came subsequently to the destruction of the temple and the failure of Barcochab\u2019s revolt.
\nI may observe in passing that the priesthood of the Messiah was pre-eminently a Christian conception, Indeed, it does not seem ever to have been admitted in Jewish teaching. There was, I mean, no thought that the office of Aaron would be fulfilled in or shared by the Messiah. We find no trace of it in those writings before or during the first century with which we have been more especially concerned. The words of Ps. 110:4 are in one often repeated Rabbinic saying applied to the Messiah. But the idea of the priesthood is not dwelt upon. On the contrary, a vague meaning appears to be attributed to the term translated \u201cpriest.\u201d Nor is the priesthood of the Messiah fairly deducible from the Targum on Zechariah. And Sch\u00f6ttgen discovers the doctrine only by putting his own interpretation upon the language used. It will appear also in a later chapter that the priesthood of the Messiah could not have been an accepted Jewish tenet at the time of the Rise of Christianity, from the fact that it was not till the latter part of the Apostolic Age that even Christians perceived the applicability of the title \u201cpriest\u201d or \u201chigh priest\u201d to Christ.
\nThere is another point on which, as on that of the prophetic office of the Messiah, I must speak with some hesitation: the question whether a belief in the existence of the Messiah in a state of glory before His appearance on earth was pre-Christian.
\nAnd as there is often confusion of thought on this subject, it will be well first to say a few words as to the nature of the Pre-existence which is meant. I have referred to the fact that an old school of Christian controversialists have sought to prove, more especially from the language about the Shechinah and the Metatron in the Cabbalistic writings, that there existed among the Jews an anticipation of the doctrine of the Divine Pre-existence of the Christ before His incarnation, as it is held by Christians. This view appears to want altogether any sound foundation. And even if it could be shown that such was the intention of the Cabbalists, it would remain to be proved that they had not derived their doctrine from Christian thought. The germ indeed of the Cabbalistic doctrine regarding Shechinah and so forth may probably have existed in the time of St. Paul and St. John, and the inspired writers may have been aided by these forms of thought in setting forth the Christian Revelation, just as St. John was by the Jewish-Alexandrian doctrine of the Logos. And yet those ideas were, in all probability, originally no more connected with the Hope of Messiah than is the Logos in Philo.
\nThis, let me observe, whether the Christian faith on this subject has a counterpart in Jewish teaching or not, is not properly speaking a doctrine of the Pre-existence of the Christ.
\nThere is a Pre-existence of the Messiah, more properly so called, which we find described here and there in the Rabbinic writings. Some of the language indeed which seems at first sight to imply it has been explained as a mode of representing the Divine Predestination of the Messiah and preparation for His Coming. But it might also point to such a conception of His Personality and Manifestation as troubled the early Christian Church in the form of the Docetic heresy. There would not seem to be anything historically improbable in the supposition that there might be a tendency of thought among certain Jewish doctors to which Docetism was allied. But we also find the doctrine of the existence of the Messiah in a state of celestial blessedness before His expected manifestation harmonized with the ordinary belief that He must be of the family of David, by the supposition that a descendant of David was caught away from the earth long ago, when a child. We may compare this doctrine with the Christian doctrine of the present Heavenly Reign of Christ which began after His life here in humility. The Jewish doctrine in question was probably post-Christian. Even on the evidence of the Rabbinic writings alone it has been held to be comparatively late.
\nBut, indeed, of the idea in any definite form of the Pre-existence of the Messiah, we shall find but very doubtful traces among Jews up to the close of the first century. It may be thought that if Sib. Or. iii. 652\u2013656 is rightly interpreted of the Messiah, the words \u201cfrom the Sun\u201d imply an unearthly origin. But the notion that the Sun was the place of the Messiah\u2019s abode before coming to earth would be very strange, and the intention may be to describe the East as the quarter whence the Messiah would appear, a thought which to a Jew living in Egypt would be not unnatural.
\nThere was, however, by the time we have indicated, a growing sense of the mysteriousness which would surround the coming of the Christ. \u201cHowbeit, we know this man whence he is; but when the Christ cometh, no one knoweth whence He is,\u201d say the Jews in the Gospel according to St. John. The language of IV. Esdras and the Apocalypse of Baruch does not necessarily mean more than this. In a vision in the former book, a man is seen ascending from the heart of the sea, and flying with the clouds, and this is interpreted to be \u201che whom the Most High reserves for many times.\u201d The coming of the Messiah is also spoken of both in this book and in the Apocalypse of Baruch as a revelation. But none of these expressions necessarily involve the conception that the Messiah was existing in an angel-like condition before His appearing; and if that conception had been familiar to the writers of these Apocalypses, we should have expected some more clear indication of it. And in fact the use of the word \u201creserves\u201d in a preceding vision proves that it expresses only the Divine Predestination. All that can truly be said is, that they give signs of a movement of thought which might in time lead to such a conception. As the difference between this world and the world to come was more distinctly contemplated, His appearing which would usher in the new order seemed more full of wonder. An unearthly light rested upon His form, thrown by those strange and great events in the midst of which imagination placed Him.
\nThus far we have been considering the spread and formal contents of the pre-Christian conception of Messiah. But it is important also not to forget the different effect of the Hope of His coming upon different minds, according as they were most set on material or spiritual ends. Fiery patriots, who longed for the political independence of Israel, looked forward above all to the vengeance which the Messiah would execute upon the Gentile enemies of the Nation. And the imagination of the mass of the people was no doubt chiefly occupied with the prospect of the earthly prosperity which would accompany the establishment of His temporal sovereignty. It was to anticipations such as these that Barcochab and Rabbi Akiba appealed in the revolt of A.D. 117. But we see their workings even in the Gospel history of the Life of Jesus, when (for example) the people sought to make Him a king. Their existence also furnished a ground for the policy of the ruling priests in compassing His death. And His own conduct throughout, more especially the manner in which He put forward His claim to Messiahship, was conditioned by the danger of misunderstanding to which they gave rise. Such Messianic Expectation as this was a hindrance, not a help, to the spread of the gospel, and even stimulated a special hatred on the part of other Jews toward those who believed in the Messiahship of Jesus. Barcochab and Rabbi Akiba, for example, were bitter persecutors of their Christian countrymen because they would not join in the national rising. But there were some among the Jews, even if they were few and uninfluential, who were prepared to receive far otherwise the true Messiah. They did not, probably, differ greatly from others in their formal beliefs, but they did as regards the spirit in which they held them, and the features in the conception of the Messiah and His work which most occupied their thoughts. Deliverance of the nation from sin, and the burden of God\u2019s displeasure on account of sin, fuller knowledge of the Divine will, glad homage to Jehovah and good-will to Israel as His chosen people on the part of the nations of the earth, these had been traits in the prophetic descriptions of the times of the Redemption of Zion. And we have seen them in part reproduced in the Sibylline Oracles, and in the beautiful passage of the Psalms of Solomon on the king who should be the true guide and shepherd of the people. To the hope of these blessings pious hearts turned instinctively as the good things which they most desired. Such were Simeon, and Anna, and Joseph of Arimathea, and probably in some measure most of the first followers of Jesus. In them, at least, the Divine education of the race had had its designed effect. So it was in the preparation of the heathen world for Christianity. The tendencies, which in the great majority produced only a deep sense of inner discord and of despair, gave rise in such as Justin, or the character described in the opening of the Clementine Homilies, to a yearning for and earnest search after truth which disposed them to welcome the faith of Christ. At first sight we may think that in either case the training of so few hearts is an inadequate result of the long and complex discipline. Yet we cannot deny the fact\u2014and it is one full of deep instruction\u2014that by means of these few the Divine Word gained a lodgment among men, and was enabled in time to win its startling victories.
\nIn the course of this sketch of the history of the hope of Israel we have become more and more occupied with the figure of the Messiah, who, according to Christian Faith, came in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. But Christian Faith also offers to us the true fulfilment of the more original and widespread hope of the coming of the kingdom. Its fulfilment began, as we shall see more fully hereafter, with the coming of Jesus. But it will be sufficient now to notice more particularly how intimately all eschatological doctrine, Christian as well as Jewish, is bound up with this hope. The final triumph of the kingdom of God, which is the central thought of Christian eschatology, is the ancient faith of the Jew in the destined glory of Zion made spiritual and universal. And the various images of the prophets and of subsequent Jewish thought respecting that future bliss and the events accompanying its introduction, are the source from which the ideas of Christendom about the Last Things are to a large extent ultimately derived. A few of the elements thus contributed, and the chief stages in the development, can alone be indicated at this point. The expression \u201cDay of the Lord,\u201d which sometimes, and especially at first, is used generally of any time of Divine visitation, is specially applied to the judgment of the enemies of Zion and of the ungodly in the midst of her. The idea of such a \u201cday\u201d does not seem to have been originally taken from a judge holding court, but from a terrible triumphant conqueror executing vengeance in a day of battle and slaughter. The Lord\u2019s judgments were sometimes literally executed through the sword of human conquerors. In Joel 3:12 an addition is made to the conception, which was of the greatest moment in the history of the doctrine of judgment. The image of a great slaughter is still employed in that passage, but Jehovah is represented as sitting to judge while it is taking place. The valley in the mind of the prophet here when he speaks of \u201cthe valley of decision\u201d is most probably that same valley of Hinnom, where were seen in the vision of Isa. 66:24, the careases of those who had been slain in the great Divine visitation, and which furnished the name Gehenna to after-times. The doctrine of a final overthrow of living enemies\u2014enemies of Israel according to Jewish belief, enemies of God and His true kingdom according to the more spiritual view of Christians\u2014retained its place among the Last Things, as we shall see more fully hereafter, even when the doctrine of a universal eternal judgment upon every human being, dead as well as living, was added.
\nIn the fully formed doctrine of later times, we know a final judgment upon malignant spirits as well as men was included. There is a remarkable anticipation of this in a passage of Isaiah, \u201cAnd it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth. And they shall be gathered together as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days shall they be visited.\u201d These words have even been held to be the justification, or as others would say, to have afforded a basis for the later doctrine of a preliminary imprisonment of malignant spirits, after which they would be raised for the purpose of being judged. That the language of Isaiah may have helped in the formulation of the doctrine is very possible. But I would observe that in the Book of Enoch and the apocalyptic literature generally, as also in the allusions of the Epistles of St. Jude and 1 and 2 Peter, the committal to prison of the sinning angels had taken place in the past at the time of the Flood, and is not, as implied by Isaiah, a future thing. Nor is there anything elsewhere in the Old Testament to suggest what distinction could be meant between \u201cshutting up in the pit\u201d and a subsequent punishment of the host of the high ones and the kings of the earth. It would seem better therefore either (1) to regard the clause \u201cafter many days they shall be visited\u201d as parallel with the first, and as simply repeating the same idea in other words; or (2) to understand the word \u201cvisited\u201d in a favourable sense, the meaning of the whole verse being that their imprisonment would be a long one; only after many days would they be released.
\nThe predictions of judgment in the Old Testament are more especially directed against nations, and nations hostile to Israel. Nevertheless, the root of the conception of the universal, individual judgment is to be found in the sense of man\u2019s individual responsibility to God, and the conviction that God takes account of every man\u2019s actions, which is fully recognised in and was fostered by the Old Testament. We even find these truths set forth under the image of a judgment to which God summons men, as in the 50th Psalm. Still neither here nor elsewhere have we a judgment of men either immediately after death or at a great future day. A further step towards this was, however, made by the doctrine of the resurrection of the body. The passages in Isaiah and Ezekiel which speak of Resurrection have often been interpreted figuratively of the Jewish people,\u2014perhaps without sufficient reason. But whether this is so or not, no one will dispute the meaning of the well-known language on the subject of the Book of Daniel. The great motive, so to speak, for belief in the resurrection of the body among Jews\u2014it is traceable even to late times\u2014was that pious Israelites whose lives had deserved it, and who (it may be) had been cast upon evil times, might enjoy the blessings of the Messianic era upon earth. It is singular, however, that already according to the Book of Daniel there is to be a resurrection to condemnation as well as to life. \u201cMany of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt.\u201d Yet we do not seem even here to have a universal resurrection asserted.
\nThe oldest fragment of the Sibylline Oracles and the Psalms of Solomon give descriptions of the terrible overthrow about to fall upon the enemies of Israel, in which the Messiah appears as the agent, though somewhat more exclusively so in the latter than in the former. In the latter also we find the trait that the Israelites themselves shall be purified of the proud sinners in their midst.
\nBut it is in the older portions of the Book of Enoch that we meet for the first time with the distinct conception of a General Judgment of quick and dead. They contain frequent allusions to \u201cthe Great Judgment\u201d and \u201cthe Day of the Great Judgment.\u201d It is also called \u201cthe Great Day of Judgment,\u201d \u201cthe Great Day,\u201d \u201cthe Day of Judgment,\u201d \u201cthe Righteous Judgment,\u201d and still more expressly, \u201cthe Last Judgment for all Eternity.\u201d Then will judgment be passed upon the angels that fell, and the ungodly. Some, though not all classes of the dead, will be brought forth from the places where they are being kept for the intermediate period to receive their final doom. And the wicked who are prosperous in this world are warned that they are being reserved for that day. Then will everything be atoned and completed for all eternity. The Judge, however, is not the Messiah. \u201cThe Most High will exalt Himself in that day to hold the Great Judgment upon all sinners.\u201d
\nMany descriptions of and allusions to the Last Judgment upon the dead, as well as the living, might be quoted from subsequent Apocalypses, as well as from Jewish writings of a still later time. God Himself, not the Messiah, is always represented as the Judge.<\/p>\n
SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF THE LITERATURE ON THE SUBJECT OF JEWISH MESSIANIC DOCTRINE<\/p>\n
The history of the investigation of the subject of Jewish Messianic doctrine might fairly well be gathered from the notes scattered through this volume; but it may be useful here to give a brief sketch of it. The belief, represented especially by Sch\u00f6ttgen and cherished by many older theologians, that all Christian doctrine regarding the Office and Person of the Messiah had been clearly foreshadowed, or even formally held, among Jews, began to break down towards the latter part of the last century under the influence of the critical spirit. The first considerable work, however, to be noticed which exemplifies the application of historical method to the subject in question, deals only with a comparatively subordinate part of it, and stands aside from the main line of inquiry. The appearance of Corodi\u2019s Kritische Geschichte des Chiliasmus (1781) is nevertheless a significant phenomenon. He fails to do justice to the truths often clothed in material imagery, and is very lacking in appreciation for the sublimity of the great Christian Apocalypse, but he is right in his main contention as to the Jewish origin and character of Chiliastic (or as they are more commonly called) Millenarian beliefs. And this was a new thought when he wrote, and will be so to the majority still. The next work to be mentioned\u2014Bertholdt\u2019s Christologia Jud\u00e6orum Jesu Apostolorumque \u0153tate (1811), though a much slighter one, has wider aims; it is also marked by a very different spirit. The positions which he seeks to maintain are much the same as those of the older orthodox theologians; but he shows signs of a feeling that the subject needs to be investigated after a more historical method than they pursued.
\nSome years after this, a new impulse was given to the study of Jewish Messianic doctrine, and fresh materials for knowledge were supplied, when the Book of Enoch, which had been brought to Europe in 1773, was made accessible to other than Ethiopic scholars. Laurence\u2019s translation appeared in 1821, Hoffmann\u2019s (into German) in two parts, the first in 1833, the second in 1838. This brings us to the year of the publication of Gfr\u00f6rer\u2019s great work, The Century of Salvation, the first division of a larger one on the Rise of Christianity. In spite of defects, we cannot refuse it praise as the first systematic attempt, and one both comprehensive in plan and painstaking in execution, to investigate historically the actual beliefs and intellectual and religious temper of the Jews at the Christian era, and to trace their relations to Christian Faith. One long section of this work (Part II. chap. 10) he necessarily devotes to the subject of Messianic Expectation. With one important exception, he adhered substantially to the old view as to the extent of the beliefs respecting the Messiah held among Jews; but he used them to explain Christian beliefs in a rationalistic manner. At the same time he explained the inequalities and contrarieties which he recognised between different portions of the evidence by assuming that the Messianic Expectation had existed under separate forms or types. These were the common-prophetic, the Danielic, the Mosaic, and the mystical-Mosaic. Though existing apart in Judaism, they were united in the Christ of Christian Faith. The exception to which I have alluded was that he held that the doctrine of a Suffering Messiah was not pre-Christian. Shortly after this, Bruno Bauer (1841) went to the opposite extreme, almost totally denying the existence of a Messianic Expectation of any kind before the Rise of Christianity. There follows a man of greater name and genius than any of the foregoing, Heinrich Ewald. In addition to able and valuable articles on documents which bear on the subject of Messianic Expectation, he has in his History of Israel traced the growth of the Messianic Hope through the times covered by the writings of the Old Testament and also those following, and if we cannot always agree with him, we can always recognise the vividness of his conceptions and the power with which they are represented. L\u00fccke\u2019s Commentary on the Revelation of St John must also not be passed over. He is the first among commentators to show a perception of the importance of carefully examining Jewish apocalyptic literature with a view to the better understanding of the construction and symbolism of the great New Testament Apocalypse. It is in the second edition (1852) that this feature becomes most prominent, and he remarks upon the progress that had recently taken place in the knowledge of this class of literature which enabled him to write more fully than in his first edition. Hilgenfeld\u2019s Die J\u00fcdische Apokalyptik (1857) closes a series in which all the principal views as to the character of Jewish Messianic belief before or contemporary with the Rise of Christianity are represented.
\nIt remained, however, for an English scholar to place the whole subject in a light which had been too much disregarded. Dr. Westcott, in the chapter on \u201cThe Jewish Doctrine of Messiah\u201d in his Introduction to the Study of the Gospels (1860), was not only able to give an adequate exposition of the subject from a full acquaintance with the literature upon it, and with the original documents, but he shows that free historical inquiry and a frank acknowledgment of facts are not inconsistent with a reverent recognition that a Divine inspiration and discipline were through all the successive experiences of the chosen race fashioning the faith which was to find its fulfilment in Jesus. Meanwhile it is a striking illustration how ignorant the majority of English Biblical students still were of the investigations which had been so keenly pursued in Germany, that even after this English work had appeared, in the article on Messiah in Smith\u2019s Dictionary of the Bible (1863), the whole history of the growth of the Messianic Hope subsequent to the close of the Old Testament Canon, the period which in some respects is the most significant of all, is left an absolute blank, saving a passing allusion to the silence of the Book of Wisdom and Philo on the subject of the Messiah. Of all the questions raised by the Book of Enoch and other examples of apocalyptic literature, of the evidence afforded by such writings as the Jewish Sibylline fragment and the Psalms of Solomon, there is not a word.
\nThe views of the more recent writers cannot be here particularly described. Suffice it to say, that on the crucial question of the Jewish or Christian character of the Christology of the Enochic Book of Three Parables, K\u00f6stlin, Langen, Schenkel, Wittichen, Anger, Sch\u00fcrer are on the former side, while Oehler, Volkmar, Colani, Holtzmann, Keim, Kuenen, Vernes, Tidemann, Drummond are on the latter. The former class, however, differ as to the length of time before the Christian era that they place it. On the more general question of the extent to which Messianic Hope had assumed a definite shape before the Christian era, Volkmar takes up a position closely resembling that of Bruno Bauer, and Holtzmann has gone a considerable way in the same direction.
\nSome additional examples of Jewish apocalyptic literature have also been brought to light. A translation of the Book of Jubilees from an Ethiopic manuscript brought from Abyssinia had been published by Dillmann in 1850 and 1851. A Latin translation of a considerable portion of it was also discovered in the Ambrosian Library at Milan, and published in 1861 by Ceriani. At the same time he also published a considerable fragment of a Latin translation of the Assumption of Moses, and a few years later (1866) one of the Apocalypse of Baruch, found in the same library, and thus first made known to the modern world.
\nSome attempts have also been made to re-establish older views of Jewish Messianic doctrine, as by W\u00fcnsche, and less decidedly by Edersheim.<\/p>\n
CHAPTER IV<\/p>\n
GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE CHRISTIAN TRANSFORMATION OF THE IDEA OF THE MESSIAH<\/p>\n
The Jewish idea of the Messiah, as we are all more or less familiar with it, and as it appears to be on such a general outside view as we have taken in the last chapter, is so different from the Christian that we may naturally inquire whether Christians have any right to use the title, whether the meaning they attach to it preserves any part of the original idea. It is well that this question should be asked and its answer sought with the utmost pertinacity. All should be anxious to ask it who cannot be content with the vague use of traditional phrases. The attempt to answer it may be expected to bring before us some of the most distinctive characteristics of the Christian Faith. It will also, I believe, lead to important conclusions tending to establish the truth of that Faith.
\nWe must return for a moment to the subject of Jewish Messianic Expectation, the general history of which has been briefly sketched, to inquire wherein consisted the essence of the idea of the Messiah from the time that the conception had attained a certain amount of definiteness. It will be found on reflection in the following particulars. They differentiate His kingliness from that of all other kings. They are evidently everywhere more or less distinctly present to thought when He is spoken of.
\n1. First, the Messiah would be in an altogether special sense God\u2019s minister, God\u2019s gift to His people, the God-appointed Saviour. His very name betokened this. The \u201cAnointed One\u201d is but an abbreviation of \u201cthe Lord\u2019s Anointed One.\u201d He would be the perfect realization of the character of the theocratic king. He would stand in a peculiar relationship of union with and dependence upon Jehovah. The stamp of God\u2019s authority would be visibly upon Him; the favour of God would be manifestly with Him.
\n\u201cI will be His Father, and He shall be my Son.\u201d Such are the words of the original promise through Nathan to David of a son to sit upon his throne; or as it is given still more expressively in Ps. 89, \u201cHe shall call me, Thou art my Father, my God, and my strong salvation, and I will make Him my first-born, higher than the kings of the earth.\u201d It is implied also in the 2nd Psalm, \u201cThou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee.\u201d It is indeed very doubtful whether the Jews ever distinctly used the title the \u201cSon of God\u201d of the Messiah. But whether the title had become current or not, it is certain that the idea of a special relationship to Jehovah is essentially contained in that covenant with David which shaped the conception of the Messiah.
\n2. But, again, in the Messiah the heart\u2019s yearnings would find absolute satisfaction. His coming was the goal of Hope; in it would be found the final fulfilment of all that had been promised to the fathers. Each successive prophet only pointed to Him; each righteous and successful king only typified Him; but men did not dream of looking beyond Him and His times. \u201cArt thou He that should come, or do we look for another?\u201d was the question in effect put to Jesus not by John the Baptist only, but by the multitudes who gathered round Him. If He was the Christ, they were not to \u201clook for another.\u201d The long vista of expectation was closed with His form.
\nEven those who took, as one may say, a purely naturalistic view, who looked forward simply to the restoration of the kingdom to more than the glory of the days of David and Solomon under a merely human descendant, did not extend their thoughts beyond Him to other objects of desire. He would inaugurate a new and blessed era which would be eternal, or to the end of which at least they did not look. \u201cHis name should endure for ever; His name should remain under the sun among the posterities which should be blessed through Him.\u201d
\nThis completeness, this character of finality, attributed to the work of the Messiah appears also strikingly, if we may quote the Gospel according to St. John, under another form in the Messianic expectation among the Samaritans, among whom, it has been thought, special prominence was given to His prophetic office. Though a prophet, He would differ from other prophets in that He would resolve every doubt. \u201cSir, I perceive that Thou art a prophet.\u2026 I know that Messiah cometh; when He is come, He will declare unto us all things.\u201d
\n3. To the two points already mentioned must be added the supremacy of the Messiah over all kings and nations of the earth. This idea of supremacy attached to the expected kingdom, where it alone without the king was the object of hope. But it attached also to the Person of the Messiah wherever men believed in a Messiah. The nature of this supremacy might be conceived in a more or less spiritual or carnal manner. The noble anticipation of some was, as we have seen in the last chapter, that all men would at length come to render a willing homage at Jerusalem from recognising the hand of God and the force of truth. Others simply thought of the Messiah as crushing all His enemies and forcing all nations to serve Him. But in one form or the other the trait of which I am speaking was universal.
\nThese characteristics constituted, I say, the essence of the conception of the Messiah for the Jew. And these remained, when all accidents belonging merely to the character of a Jewish sovereign were stripped off, to constitute its essence for the Christian. He to whom this title was given received it because all their hope was centred upon Him, and they believed Him to be the God-given Saviour, God\u2019s vicegerent, under God\u2019s special protection, who had come to set up a kingdom which all men should acknowledge and which should never fall. And we must keep fast hold of these points if we would really understand the power which the confession \u201cJesus\u201d is \u201cthe Christ\u201d contained.
\nNew elements were introduced into the conception of the Messiah; or traits of His character scarcely noticed before were now among Christians familiarly recognised. Passages speaking of the sufferings and gentleness of the Messiah were now for the first time discovered in the prophets. The whole idea of His work underwent a spiritualizing process. Perhaps no more striking illustration of this could be chosen than the change in the meaning of the word \u201csalvation;\u201d and it is, moreover, one peculiarly fitted to impress upon us how widely ramifying is the connexion between Christian theology and Messianic doctrine. So different does the idea of the salvation pictured by the prophets seem to be from that proclaimed by the apostles of Jesus and in all truly evangelical preaching, that we rarely, perhaps, in our thoughts connect the one with the other. For national deliverance from anarchy and oppression we have a deliverance to be apprehended by individuals, one by one, in a purely moral and spiritual manner, and consummated at the resurrection. Nevertheless the one conception is undoubtedly the transfiguration of the other. Once more, the belief in the universal dominion of Zion, now leaving far behind the most exalted and spiritual form in which it had ever hitherto been held, issued in the doctrine of the Catholic Church to which Gentiles had as full right to be admitted as Jews had.
\nIt is necessary to remember all this, but there is probably more danger at the present time of the fact being overlooked that it was owing to the union of these new traits with that which had always been the essential idea of the Christ that they exercised their spell over mankind. The new religion did not spread, the new kingdom was not founded, simply or chiefly through the fascination exerted by the moral beauty of the character and teaching of Jesus, but by virtue of the faith that \u201cthe Christ\u201d was such an one, that as \u201cthe Christ\u201d Jesus had said and done and endured what He did.
\nHe upon whom the eyes were to be fixed, to whom the heart\u2019s allegiance was to be given, who was the chosen of God, who was to exercise universal sway, was found in the meek and lowly of heart, the friend of the ignorant and erring, the Man of Sorrows. He had saved the world, but it was by dying. He had founded a society into which men were initiated by a rite symbolizing purification from sin, and a change of nature like that of becoming once more little children; a society whose true members were the poor in spirit, the pure in heart, those who hungered for righteousness; whose law, requiring that love to others should be the ruling principle of life, reached down to the thoughts of the heart and the motives of actions; and which was to spread slowly and secretly by the employment only of moral and spiritual weapons in its warfare, while it submitted unresistingly to the oppression of earthly governments. But this society, at first sight so weak, was none other than the promised kingdom which God Himself would establish, which would claim the homage of all men and endure for ever.
\nWhen the Jew grasped this new ideal, transferred his trust and hope to this King and Deliverer so unlike what he had expected, whose perfection and beauty were of an order so spiritual, it made him a new creature. That passionate hope, that conviction in this little people possessed of so narrow a territory, which adversity and subjection instead of crushing seemed only to cause to flourish more vigorously, that God would one day give them a King perfect alike in power and righteousness, and raise their kingdom to a position of supremacy in the whole earth, must, altogether unique as it is in the history of the world, be regarded from whatever point we view it as a marvellous phenomenon. But now all that soaring hope, all that stored up capacity of devotion to a divinely-sent leader, finds in Jesus, for such of the nation at least as could receive it, an object of altogether unlooked-for character. The capacity for love and loyalty and faith in a God-sent King were ready; they had expected to bestow them on quite another, but none of the long training was lost. The preparation, indeed, was strange and wonderful, but far more wonderful was the change brought to pass in the moral and spiritual principles and aspirations of humanity when Jesus of Nazareth was discovered to be the end and object of it.
\nHere, indeed, men had a revelation. Believing \u201cJesus\u201d to be \u201cthe Christ,\u201d they believed all His work to have been divinely authenticated, and wrought according to the eternal purpose which must prevail. He had told the things of God which He knew as no other could know them. In all that He had done for the recovery of a world estranged from God by sin, the Father was seen reconciling the world to Himself. The Cross of Jesus was indeed \u201cthe power of God unto salvation.\u201d In Him men had been certified beyond the possibility of doubt that \u201cGod is Love.\u201d And self-sacrifice had been crowned not simply in the admiration of mankind, whose judgments are subject to continual revision, but by God. The Creator Himself, \u201cin whose likeness after whose image\u201d men were made, and by whose standards they would at last be judged, had as it were taken in His hand and held before their eyes the Ideal after which He would have them strive as the end of their being.
\nBut this is not all. The ideas of a God-given commission and might not only remained and gave to the humiliation of the Christ its significance, and were the secret of the spell it exercised over the hearts of men. They themselves put on a more exalted form. Let the loftiest Jewish ideas about the Messiah, or such as can by any possibility be imagined to be Jewish, be supposed to be pre-Christian or to have arisen contemporaneously with Christianity, but independently of it. Still neither do the general impression given of His nature and glory nor the precise functions attributed to Him reach the sublimity of those of the Christ of Christian Faith. If I am right as to the traces of Christian influence in the Enochic Book of the Three Parables, the Christ is nowhere on Jewish ground regarded as the future Judge of quick and dead; nor does He in His heavenly condition before His appearing stand in that living relation to men, and exercise any of those offices toward and on behalf of them, the thought of which in Christian Faith is so prominent. And even in that section of the Book of Enoch, though the future judgeship of quick and dead is assigned Him, His present relation to men is very slender; while at the same time we derive an impression of a distance between Him and the Most High which is in marked contrast with that given by the most Jewish of New Testament writings.
\nThat the Christian idea of the Messiah had by an early period attained substantially the form that has been indicated, and that the secret of its power lay in its uniting the old elements of Divine power and authority with the new ones of tenderness and suffering cannot be contested. It is unnecessary to give particular proofs. The evidence both of the writings of the New Testament generally, and of all other earlier Christian documents, and of everything which we know about early Christian history, conspires to establish the fact.
\nWhatever inferences it may or may not be right to draw from this, it is important in the interests of history, vital for a true representation of the rise and spread of Christianity, that it should be fully recognised. As matter of history it should be acknowledged, that it was by virtue of faith in a supernatural Christ that Christianity won its place in the world.
\nBut it can also, I believe, be shown that such was the idea of the Christ among Christians not only from an early time, but from the first; that there was not a more original Christianity than this in which the conception of the Christ was purely human. Let care be taken to observe what, precisely, I am now maintaining. I do not say that Christians had generally from the first apprehended the equality of His Godhead with that of the Father, or the relation of the Divine and human natures in His Person, as they are set forth in some of the Pauline Epistles and the Fourth Gospel, and as they were subsequently formulated by the Catholic Church; nor that the conception of Christ\u2019s Person in the four (practically) undisputed Epistles of St. Paul is so fully developed as in some of the later Epistles, the authenticity of which is called in question. I shall hereafter have an opportunity of saying something as to the right view to be taken of such differences between earlier and later language. What I am now insisting upon is that from the first the conception of the Christ was of a Being strictly supernatural; one who had been \u201cdeclared to be the Son of God with power;\u201d who occupied a most mysterious and unique relation to man and the whole created universe; who had been invested with glory certainly second only to that of the Father, \u201cexalted to God\u2019s right hand,\u201d and who was to come again very speedily as they expected to judge both quick and dead. Let us first consider the evidence of the four Epistles of St. Paul which are generally admitted to be genuine.
\nI would premise that in regard to the point now in question the importance of the evidence which these documents supply as to early Christian beliefs is not confined to what they prove as to St. Paul\u2019s own belief. It is indeed a strange theory which supposes that the Judaizers of St. Paul\u2019s time or the Jewish Christian sects of a later period, whose faith was manifestly poor and meagre by comparison with that of other Christians, and which showed little power of conquering men\u2019s hearts and gradually died away, were an adequate representative of original Christianity. There must, we feel, have been this difference at least between them and the apostles of the circumcision and all the best of the early disciples, that the former had positively emasculated Christianity of principles which were latent in the faith held by, and not without practical effect upon, the latter. Moreover, St. Paul\u2019s own manner of writing, if it is that of one who is drawing to light consequences not always perceived which are involved in the common faith of all Christians, is not by any means that of one who is contributing new elements to the faith.
\nBe this, however, as it may, these four Epistles throw light upon the attitude of the Judaizers themselves, as regards the doctrine of our Lord\u2019s Person at the period when they were written, in a way which may at first be unsuspected, but which seems undeniable. In one of these four Epistles, that to the Galatians, St. Paul is conducting a very keen polemic against Judaizing teachers and those who are inclined to follow them. They failed to perceive that Christ had brought in a Dispensation of the Spirit, and that men were to be saved through faith without keeping the Law of Moses; and he most earnestly and with the utmost plain speaking attacks their error. But though they did not truly understand the significance of the work of Christ, he nowhere implies that they erred in their conception of the Person of Christ. This he almost certainly must have done had their teaching on this head openly and expressly differed from his own. For he could not but regard a right faith in this respect as of the utmost importance on general grounds, and it had a distinct bearing on the questions of which he does treat. It seems then a safe inference to draw from the silence of the apostle, that differences in regard to the Person of Christ had not thus far become formulated among Christians, however vagueness of language might allow of differences in thought and feeling.
\nWe proceed then to a brief examination of the Christology of these Epistles with the conviction that they tend to show us to a considerable degree what were the Christological beliefs generally admitted at that time among Christians. We may combine in one picture traits furnished by all the four Epistles. For there is every reason to suppose that they were all written at no very long intervals of time. If, then, there are points which appear in some and not all of them, it is because the course of the apostle\u2019s thoughts did not lead in each case to their being introduced.
\nI might dwell upon the sense which we derive from these Epistles as a whole that Jesus Christ is naturally the central object of the thoughts and affections of Christians, that the life of the Church is rooted in Him, that all the blessings of the New Dispensation have reached men through Him. But let us confine ourselves to more definite points. In the first place, He is in the opening salutation of all four Epistles joined with God the Father as the source of grace and peace. In another passage \u201call things\u201d are said to be \u201cfrom\u201d the Father and \u201cthrough\u201d Jesus Christ. He is also spoken of as \u201cthe Son of God,\u201d and God is called His Father, in a sense evidently quite unique. There are again many references to His resurrection. It is, moreover, implied that our hope of resurrection and salvation are mysteriously connected with this risen life of His. In one place allusion seems clearly to be made to His ascension. He now rules over His Church, being the true source of any authority that is exercised in it, and disciplining, assisting, and guiding His servants with an effectual providence. All things are ultimately to be brought under His sway, and He will be the Judge of all. Lastly, quite by the way, in a most pathetic touch, St. Paul gives Christ\u2019s self-abnegation in leaving for our sakes His pre-existent (or at any rate essential) state of glory in order to become man as a motive for Christian charity.
\nIt is in entire accord with what we have thus far observed that in the Epistle to the Colossians, which all will agree in regarding as later, though we who hold it to be a genuine Epistle of St. Paul only allow it to be later by a few years, and in the Epistle to the Hebrews, the composition of which there is good reason to place at about 70 A.D., the doctrine of our Lord\u2019s Person is treated with an emphasis and system which suggest that there were dissidents in view. By this time, then, an unwillingness to recognise the true significance of Christ\u2019s work had led to the more open expression of a lower faith concerning His Person than that held by the majority of Christians. In each case, at any rate, we see a low view of the Person of Christ connected with a clinging attachment to Jewish forms.
\nThe Epistle to the Colossians shows that the Christian Faith of those addressed was in danger of being corrupted by Judaism of an Essene type which had affinities for the spirit and principles that afterwards manifested themselves more fully in the Gnostic sects. On the other hand, the readers in view in the Epistle to the Hebrews seem to have been in danger of relapsing through the stress of the more ordinary temptations to apostasy to which Jewish converts were peculiarly exposed, and especially at the era to which I have above assigned the Epistle.
\nI have urged that the four universally acknowledged Epistles supply us with evidence of much more than the faith of St. Paul and his own followers in regard to the Christ. But we may further appeal to the Apocalypse of St. John. This writing, which, as we have seen above, is now very generally thought to have been written a little before 70 A.D., also bears marks of Jud\u00e6o-Christian feeling; and the T\u00fcbingen critics eagerly endeavour to trace in it a strong anti-Pauline bias. If, then, it is found to display a lofty Christology, the fact will be all the more striking on this account.
\nI would again remind the reader how much exactly I am at present contending for. It is possible that the Apocalypse may leave an impression on the minds of some that the Christ is not viewed by the writer as of Co-equal Divinity with the Father. But however this may be, and whatever interpretation, if it be really the case, we may put upon it, the Apocalypse plainly bears witness to such a faith regarding the Christ as I above stated.
\nFrom beginning to end the book is one long poem to the praise, together with the Father, of the Crucified One who is now exalted. In the magnificent opening vision He is revealed to us, glorious in His beauty and might, as through death the Victor of death\u2014\u201cI am the Living One, and I was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore; and I have the keys of Death and of Hades.\u201d And in the later visions as they unfold, we seem as we proceed to be gaining fuller and fuller views of His glory, and to be catching more and more clearly the strains of the hymns of heaven which are raised to Him. It is the \u201cLamb that hath been slain,\u201d \u201cthe Lion that is of the tribe of Judah, the root of David,\u201d who alone prevails to break the seals of destiny. And indeed the office of prophecy is ever to point to Him: \u201cThe testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy.\u201d He is declared \u201cworthy to receive the power, and riches, and wisdom, and might, and honour, and glory, and blessing.\u201d He is \u201ccoming with the clouds, and every eye shall see Him;\u201d He will overthrow all the kings and great ones of the earth, for He is \u201cruler of the kings of the earth;\u201d \u201cKing of kings and Lord of lords;\u201d \u201cupon His head are many diadems;\u201d \u201cthe kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ.\u201d \u201cThe armies which are in heaven followed Him.\u2026 Out of His mouth proceedeth a sharp sword, that with it He should smite the nations; and He shall rule them with a rod of iron: and He treadeth the winepress of the fierceness of the wrath of Almighty God.\u201d Nay more, He is \u201cthe Lamb which is in the midst of the throne.\u201d The child destined \u201cto rule all the nations with a rod of iron,\u201d whom the dragon sought to destroy at His birth, has been \u201ccaught up to the throne of God\u201d\u2014\u201cthe throne,\u201d it is even called jointly \u201cof God and of the Lamb.\u201d He is joined with God as an object of adoration. Those who have part in the first resurrection shall be \u201cpriests of God and of Christ.\u201d Jointly with the Lord God Almighty He is the temple and light of the New Jerusalem.
\nIt may be urged that the writer of the Apocalypse, unlike St. Paul, held God, not the Christ, to be the Judge in the final judgment of quick and dead. The description of the judgment opens with the words, \u201cI saw a great white throne, and Him that sat upon it.\u201d In the next verse, according to the Textus Receptus, the dead are said to stand before God; but \u201cbefore the throne\u201d is the right reading. \u201cHe that sat upon the throne\u201d is, however, in other passages the Almighty, in accordance with the visions of Isa. 6 and Dan. 7 Now, supposing it to be shown that St. John here thinks of God and not of Christ as the Judge, it would not follow that He never thought of Christ as the immediate agent in the universal judgment. St. Paul, for example, who speaks of \u201cthe judgment-seat of Christ,\u201d speaks also of \u201cthe judgment-seat of God.\u201d And the two conceptions have been retained to this day in Christian theology. But indeed it seems probable that in the very passage before us St. John may have had distinctly in his mind the thought of Christ as the sharer in the Last Judgments. The vagueness of the expression \u201cstood before the throne\u201d encourages us to think so, when coupled with the fact that the throne is so soon afterwards called, as we have observed, \u201cthe throne of God and of the Lamb.\u201d We note also that in two passages language is put into the mouth of the Christ which seems to imply that He will be the universal Judge. If in the former the exercise of His function might be thought to be restricted to the Church, this cannot be said of the latter. What is described in these two passages seems also evidently different from the execution of wrath upon the living enemies of God\u2019s people. Lastly, the saved are said to be those whose names are \u201cwritten in the Lamb\u2019s book of life.\u201d
\nThese prerogatives of authority and glory are, indeed, all such as the Christ has entered upon since His earthly life and victory over death, or such as remain yet to be realized. But they are of a kind which could only be communicated to one essentially Divine. And the book, moreover, contains expressions which distinctly refer to that previous and essential Divinity. When He is called \u201cthe Beginning of the creation of God,\u201d He is plainly identified with that Eternal Divine Wisdom of which it is said in the Book of Proverbs, \u201cthe Lord created me in the beginning of His ways.\u201d He claims to be \u201cthe First and the Last,\u201d which is a description of Jehovah in the Old Testament, and near the close He takes to Himself in full the titles, \u201cI am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.\u201d
\nThe practical warning and comfort and encouragement which the reader is intended to draw from the book correspond with the new object of adoration. The rectification in future bliss of the evil lot to which the righteous are often exposed in this world, and the punishment of the ungodly who have so often violently used them, is a theme much dwelt on in the Jewish Apocalypses; but they are the righteous according to the purely Jewish conception of the character who are spoken of. Here, on the contrary, it is the martyred for Jesus whose death waits to be avenged. The saved are those who have been redeemed unto God by Jesus, and have been purified by faith in His atoning death. \u201cThey washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb,\u201d and He has made them a kingdom and priests unto God. Hereafter, He Himself shall be their shepherd, and shall guide them unto fountains of waters of life. The Apocalypse itself has been obtained by Him from God for the support of His servants; and He sees to its being conveyed to them, \u201csending it by His angel to His servant John.\u201d He watches over and cares for His Church. In the opening vision and in the Epistles to the Seven Churches we see Him moving in the midst of the lamp-stands, tending, trimming the lamps and holding them in His hand. And the marriage-supper, the image under which the felicity of the days of the kingdom of the Messiah had been familiarly represented, would be held for the Lamb and the Church His bride. Meanwhile also new and strongest, tenderest ties have sprung up between those who together suffer as Jesus suffered, but who look to share the joy of that day. \u201cI John,\u201d writes the apostle to his fellow-Christians, \u201cyour brother and partaker with you in the tribulation and kingdom and patience which are in Jesus.\u201d On the other hand, the earthly Jerusalem once \u201cthe joy of the whole earth,\u201d the \u201choly city,\u201d the \u201ccity of the great king,\u201d has become in spiritual figure \u201cSodom and Egypt,\u201d because there \u201ctheir Lord was crucified.\u201d And it shall be the most awful of the reversals of the Judgment Day that they which pierced Him shall see Him in His glory, and shall mourn because of Him. Amid all the difficulties of interpretation which beset parts of the book, its highest and chiefest lesson for every reader is to be derived from noticing this its grand purport and effect; and he who runs may learn it. In the great Christian Apocalypse, everything is turned to the glory of Jesus and the consolation of those who believe in Him.
\nThe evidence of these writings of the New Testament seems clearly to show that the Ebionites of the next century were in no sense the representatives of original Jewish Christianity, and that while they were the true successors of the Judaizers of apostolic days, they had departed farther in their Christology from what had always been the faith of the generality of Christians. The increasing number and weight of the Gentile converts to Christianity, together with such events as the Fall of Jerusalem, and the unsuccessful rising under R. Akiba and Barcochab, and Hadrian\u2019s policy as regards Jerusalem, were eminently calculated to drive the more narrow-minded and bigoted among the Jewish Christians into a sectarian position. And separation from other Christians and the natural effects of opposition would serve to accentuate their doctrinal tendencies in such a way as to alter the general complexion of their views. Moreover, as they had never really perceived what was involved in the faith that Jesus is the Christ, their faith respecting Him would inevitably shrink.
\nThe view just given of the history of the Ebionite sects is confirmed by all the other evidence which we possess. Iren\u00e6us, Hippolytus, and Origen award only a brief and passing notice to the doctrines of the Ebionites, which they could not have done if they had been an important body. The still earlier writer Justin, in his Dialogue with Trypho, which is admitted to have been written about A.D. 150, after speaking of some Christians who believed Jesus to be the Christ, but who, according to the common Jewish view of the nature of the Messiah, regarded Him as simply \u201ca man, and of ordinary human birth,\u201d proceeds to say that such was not the belief of the great majority. Moreover, he could not have expressed himself as he does if those who held the lower view of the Person of Christ had been more numerous and important within living memory. Much has been made of the point that Justin does not refuse to give the name of Christian to these misbelievers, and that he thinks it worth while to press Trypho to accept what they believed, even if he is not convinced of the Divine nature of Jesus. But this only shows that Justin took large views, and was a wise disputant. It would be in itself a gain to get it believed that Jesus was the Christ in any sense; and it might be a step to fuller faith. At the same time it is probably true that the limits of the Christian Church were not so clearly defined in Justin\u2019s age as afterwards.
\nI have endeavoured to show how groundless is the notion that the Ebionites were true representatives of original Christianity. But it is further to be observed that the Christology of the Ebionites, defective as it was, bears witness to the Faith of the Church. This is true, even if we consider only those Ebionites who took the lowest view of the origin and Messiahship of Jesus, and of whom Justin appears to speak. They held him to be born in the ordinary way, and to have become the Messiah without ceasing to be mere man, being anointed by a Divine illumination of His spirit, and selected for the high dignity simply because of His eminent virtue; but they seem to have believed Him to have been in the end practically deified, exalted to the right hand of God there to reign, and destined thence to return as the Judge of the world. The silence both of Justin and of the writers on Heresies from Iren\u00e6us downwards as to any errors of the Jewish sects in regard to these points seems to prove this. The tendency of the writers on Heresies was to make the most of the divergences from the Christian creed of sectaries and heretics. There can hardly be a doubt that if these cardinal articles of faith had been denied they would have commented on the fact. In this connexion it is also interesting to adduce the language of James the Just, and of the grandsons of his brother Jude, recorded by Hegesippus, as the evidence of so early a Jewish Christian writer respecting the teaching of some of the most honoured Jewish Christians. \u201cWhy,\u201d James is related to have said just before his martyrdom, \u201cquestion ye me concerning Jesus the Son of Man? He indeed sitteth in heaven on the right hand of the Great Power, and is about to come on the clouds of heaven.\u201d And the grandsons of Jude when brought up before Domitian and interrogated concerning the Christ and His kingdom, explained that \u201cit was not of this world nor earthly, but heavenly and angelic, and that it would be established at the end of the age, when He would come in glory and judge quick and dead, and render to every man according to his works.\u201d The language of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs may also be referred to. But another section of Judaizers seem to have displayed a strong Docetic tendency. They held that the Christ was a heavenly being, an \u00c6on, to use the term brought into use by Valentinus, who, as some imagined, had manifested Himself under the phantom form of a man, or who, according to the view of others, had chosen for temporary abode from the baptism to just before the Passion the actual person of a man, Jesus of Nazareth. Now the artificial character of these theories suggests to our minds that they were an attempt to escape from the doctrine of the Person of Christ already held by the Church.
\nMy reason for entering even at this point into the discussion of the earliest Christology of Christian believers at the length I have done will appear in the third chapter of the next part. In a still later chapter we shall have to examine more fully different portions of the Christian conception of the Christ, and the influences under which they were shaped.
\nThe relation of Jewish to Christian eschatology will also be considered. We shall find that Christianity took the current Jewish eschatological ideas and ennobled and spiritualized them. We shall also observe that many of the same descriptions, or class of descriptions, in the Prophets, which had afforded a starting-point for the development of Jewish eschatological doctrine, became the germ of a new growth, being used to set forth the actual blessings of the Christian Dispensation.<\/p>\n
CHRISTOLOGY OF THE ENOCHIC BOOK OF THE THREE PARABLES<\/p>\n
Names for the Messiah in this Writing<\/p>\n
The Righteous One (xxxviii. 2, liii. 6).
\nThe Elect One (xlv. 3, 4, xlix. 2, li. 3, liii. 6, etc.).
\nIt is noteworthy that these two names are brought into a connexion, which is evidently intentional, with the same names for the godly. Thus at xxxviii. 2: \u201cWhen the Righteous One shall appear before the eyes of the elect righteous.\u201d See also passage quoted below.
\nThe Christ (xlviii. 10, lii. 4).
\nThe Son of Man (xlvi. 2, xlviii. 2, etc.).
\nSon of the Woman (lxii. 5).<\/p>\n
His Pre-existence<\/p>\n
Chap. xlvi. 1\u20133: \u201cAnd there saw I one, who had a head of many days, and His head was white like wool; and with Him was another, whose countenance was as the appearance of a man; and His countenance was full of grace, like one of the holy angels. And I asked one of the angels, who went with me, and showed me all the hidden things about that Son of Man, who He was and whence He was, why He went with the Head of Days? And he answered me, and said to me: \u2018This is the Son of Man, who has righteousness, with whom righteousness dwells, and who reveals all the treasures of that which is hid, because the Lord of Spirits hath chosen Him, and His lot hath surpassed every other before the Lord of Spirits through uprightness for ever.\u2019 \u201d
\nChap. xlvi. 4\u20136: \u201cAnd this Son of Man, whom thou hast seen, will lift up kings and mighty ones from their couches, and the strong from their thrones, and will loosen the bridles of the strong, and break the teeth of sinners. And He will hurl the kings from their thrones and from their kingdoms, because they do not exalt Him and praise Him, nor humbly and thankfully recognise whence dominion is given them. And He will reject the countenance of the strong, and shame will fill them. Darkness will be their habitation, and worms their couch; and they will have no hope of rising from their couches, because they do not extol the name of the Lord of Spirits.\u201d
\nChap. xlviii. 1\u20133 and 6, 7: \u201cAnd in that place I saw a spring of righteousness, which was inexhaustible; many springs of wisdom were about it all round, and all the thirsty drank of them and were full of wisdom, and had their abodes with the righteous and holy and elect. And at that hour was that Son of Man named in the presence of the Lord of Spirits, and His name before the Head of Days. And before the Sun and the Signs were created, before the Stars of heaven were made, was His name named before the Lord of Spirits.\u2026 And therefore\u201d (because of what He is hereafter to be and to do) \u201cwas He chosen and hidden before Him before the world was created, and to eternity (will He be) before Him. And the wisdom of the Lord of Spirits has revealed Him to the holy and righteous, for He watches over the lot of the righteous, because they have hated and despised this world of unrighteousness, and have hated all its works and ways in the name of the Lord of Spirits; for in His name will they be delivered, and He will be the avenger of their life.\u201d
\nChap. xlviii. 4, 5: \u201cHe will be a staff to the righteous and the holy, so that they may lean upon it and not fall; and He will be the light of the peoples, and the hope of those who are afflicted in heart. All who dwell on the earth will fall down and worship before Him, and will bless, and praise, and sing unto the name of the Lord of Spirits.\u201d
\nChap. xlix. 1\u20133: \u201cFor wisdom is poured out like water, and glory ceases not before Him for ever and ever\u201d (the reference seems from the context to be to the Messiah; see preceding chapter). \u201cFor He is mighty in all the secrets of righteousness, and unrighteousness will pass away like a shadow, and have no place, because the Elect has risen before the Lord of Spirits, and His glory is for ever and ever, and His might to all generations. And in Him dwells the spirit of wisdom and the spirit of Him who gives insight, and the spirit of instruction and of might, and the spirit of those who are fallen asleep in righteousness.\u201d
\nThe effect of the absence of any clear indications of His having already been on earth upon the conception of His Pre-existent state is to be noted. The impression at least is given that the human form belongs to Him from the beginning. It is attributed to Him much in the same way as it is to angels in popular imagination. His nature indeed appears to be angelical.
\nThere are, I say, no clear indications of His having already been on earth. The revelation of Him to the holy and righteous, spoken of in the last passage but one, may possibly refer to a belief that He has already come. Compare the revelation to the elect spoken of in lxii. 7 and xiii. 1, 2. But the words of xlviii. 1, 2 suggest that this revelation may be to the righteous departed, or again it may, as Dillmann in loc. holds, be a making known through prophecy.
\nThe only respect in which, according to the above descriptions, the Son of Man enters into relations with men in the interval before His future coming, seems to be that the treasures of wisdom are in His charge to reveal to the elect, xlvi. 3. Compare Apoc. 1:1. Dillmann supposes the Messiah to be the subject in the latter part of the last passage but one, quoted above, xlviii. 7; but the run of the passage seems more to favour the view that God is the subject.<\/p>\n
His future appearing<\/p>\n
He will execute vengeance upon sinners, and all the mighty of the world will pay Him homage. He will judge the dead as well as the living, and fallen spirits as well as men. He will be the joy of the righteous, and it shall be their blessed privilege to dwell in intimate communion with Him. All these points may be noted in the following passages:\u2014
\nChap. li.: \u201cAnd in those days will the earth give back that which has been entrusted to it, and Sheol will give back that which has been entrusted to it, which it has received, and Destruction will give back what it owes. And He will choose the righteous and holy from among them, for the day is come that they should be delivered. And the Elect One will in those days sit upon His throne, and all secrets of wisdom will come forth from the thoughts of His mouth; for the Lord of Spirits hath given it to Him, and hath glorified Him. And in those days will the mountains leap like rams, and the hills shall spring like lambs that are satisfied with milk, and they will all become angels in heaven. Their countenance will shine with joy, because in those days the Elect One has risen, and the earth will rejoice, and the righteous dwell upon it, and the elect shall go to and fro upon it.\u201d \u201cHe,\u201d near the beginning of the above passage, appears to be the Messiah (cf. Dillmann in loc.), both from the context and also from comparing the following words in the introduction to the whole vision (xlv. 3): \u201cIn that day will the Elect One sit upon the throne of glory, and will make choice among their deeds and their mansions without number.\u201d
\nChap. lv. 4: \u201cYe mighty kings, who shall dwell on the earth, ye shall see mine Elect One, how He sits upon the throne of my glory, and judges Azazel and all his company and all his hosts in the name of the Lord of Spirits.\u201d
\nChap. lxi. 8, 9: \u201cAnd the Lord of Spirits made the Elect One sit upon the throne of His glory, and He will judge all the works of the holy ones in the height of heaven, and weigh their doings in the balance. And when He shall lift up His countenance to judge their hidden ways according to the word of the name of the Lord of Spirits, and their path according to the way of the righteous judgment of the Most High God, then will they all speak with one voice, and bless and praise and extol and laud the name of the Lord of Spirits.\u201d Again, of the righteous it is said (lxii. 14): \u201cAnd the Lord of Spirits will abide over them, and together with that Son of Man will they dwell and eat, and lie down and rise up, for ever and ever.\u201d Cf. also lxi. 4.
\nChap. lxii. 1, 5\u20139: \u201cAnd then the Lord commanded the kings, and the mighty and the lofty, and those who dwell on the earth, and said, \u2018Open your eyes, and lift up your horns, if ye are able, to recognise the Elect One.\u2019 \u2026 And pain will seize them when they see that Son of the Woman sitting upon the throne of His glory. And the kings, the mighty, and all who possess the earth, will praise, and bless, and extol Him who rules over all, who was hidden. For before was the Son of Man hidden, and the Most High has preserved Him before His might, and revealed Him to the elect, and the congregation of the holy and elect will be sown, and all the elect will stand before Him at that day. And all the mighty kings, and the lofty, and those who rule the world, will fall on their face before Him, and worship, and set their hope upon that Son of Man, and pray to Him, and beg mercy from Him.\u201d
\nChap. lxix. 26\u201329: \u201cAnd it was a great joy to them, and they blessed and praised and extolled Him, because that to them the name of that Son of Man had been revealed. And He sat upon the throne of His glory, and the sum of the judgment was given to the Son of Man, and He let sinners and those who had led astray the world pass away and perish from the face of the earth. With chains will they be bound, and in their gathering-place of corruption will they be shut in, and all their works will pass away from the face of the earth. And from this time forward there will be nothing that perishes, because that Son of Man has appeared and sits upon the throne of His glory, and everything evil will pass away from before His face, and depart, but the word of that Son of man will prevail before the Lord of Spirits.\u201d
\nLofty as much of this language is, we yet are impressed, and it is felt still more clearly on reading the Book of Three Parables as a whole, with a distance between the Messiah and God, such as we do not feel in reading, say, the Apocalypse of St. John.
\nOn the whole, the Christology of this fragment occupies a strange middle position between genuine Jewish and genuine Christian doctrine.<\/p>\n
CHAPTER V<\/p>\n
THE USE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE EARLY CHURCH<\/p>\n
The relation of the language and thought of the Old Testament to the Christian Faith will be present to our minds throughout our inquiry, and we must have as accurate an idea as possible of the influence they exercised upon the life of the early Church. Let us then endeavour to picture to ourselves as vividly as we can what the Old Testament was to the first Christians.
\nIn the first place, they drew from it their weapons for controversy. The argument from prophecy, as it has been called,\u2014that is to say, the argument based on the coincidence between prophetic descriptions in the Old Testament on the one hand, and on the other features and incidents of the life of Christ and characteristics of the New Dispensation,\u2014was the one formal method of proof they employed. In a history of Christian Apologetics this method of argument would be the subject of the first chapter. Reasoning of this kind would come home with peculiar force to Jews who acknowledged the Divine authority of the Scriptures. But even in addressing Gentiles it was used, and probably not without effect. They would feel it to be a striking fact that \u201cancient oracles\u201d contained such a forecast. Hence, too, in time evidence of the same kind was sought in oracles better known and acknowledged by the heathen. And some Christians, we are ashamed to add, forged oracles, professing to be by ancient heathen Sibyls, and containing distinct predictions of the life and work of Christ, which we cannot but fear were intended to supply the demand for evidence of this kind. Thus arose the larger part of the so-called Sibylline collection. The quarter, however, of the Christian world from which they emanated was but an obscure one, and Christians generally were not taken in by them and did not use them.
\nBut the value of the Old Testament for the edification of believers was also felt in the first days in a manner not less special. Before the books of the New Testament were written, and after they were written but before they had come to be enthroned by the common judgment of the Church as sacred writings by the side of those of the Old, the latter had a kind of importance which they inevitaby lost, and discharged functions which ceased to be required of them, when once the Canon of the New Testament had been approximately formed. I do not allude to the employment of Old Testament precepts and examples to inculcate moral and religious lessons which were to be found fully taught there, as when St. Peter adduces the example of Sara and other holy women of old time, or quotes the 34th Psalm. The Old Testament is still, even to the present day, and perhaps as much as ever, a great storehouse for such lessons as these. Though at the same time it is specially interesting to observe even this use of it in the New Testament writers, because we thus trace historically one of the many links between the New Dispensation and the Old. In thus applying the ancient Scriptures, they were but continuing the habits of their own earlier years when they had been devout Jews. But what was so special in the case of the one or two earliest generations of Christian believers was the way in which they relied on the Old Testament for the enforcement of distinctively Christian truth. Faith and love were nourished to an extent which the modern Christian who believes the most implicitly in the prophetic character of the Old Testament can but faintly realize, as the heart, engaged in devout meditation on the books of Moses, or the Psalms and the Prophets, could trace there the lineaments of the Saviour\u2019s character and work. His low estate and sufferings, so repellent to Jewish prepossessions, ceased to be a stumbling-block when these elements were discovered in the descriptions of the Messiah there. Thence, too, the Christian teacher drew forth the principles of Christian doctrine for the benefit of those whom he had to instruct, at once proving his lessons and endeavouring to fix them in the minds of his hearers by the aid of the familiar and sacred words. The quotations themselves from the Old Testament in the New and in the early Fathers are evidence of all this. But we may also appeal to direct statements. Let me take one, which is perhaps the most striking. St. Paul reminds Timothy that \u201cfrom a babe he has known the sacred writings, which are able to make wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.\u201d The sacred writings are, of course, those of the Old Testament; and he asserts in fact that the Old Testament, if read with eyes enlightened by faith in Jesus, might supply the knowledge of that Way of Life which Jesus had opened. It might, in short, be turned into a text-book of Christian instruction. We have another indication to the same effect in the position assigned to the reading of the Prophets in early Christian worship. There is a relic of it, where, on certain days, a portion from the Prophets is appointed in place of the Epistle at the highest act of the Church\u2019s worship still.
\nThe allegorical, spiritualizing mode of interpretation, which was carried farthest and systematized most completely at Alexandria, but which in some form or degree prevailed so widely and for so long a time in the Church, was in part a continuation and exaggeration of that use to which the Old Testament had been put in the first age. A new motive had, however, by this time been introduced. The Gnostics represented the Old Testament as the inspiration of an imperfect or even wicked being, inferior to the Supreme God; while, on the other hand, the Church teachers had not yet attained to that point of view from which all such objections as those of the Gnostics could be answered; they had not learned to regard it as the history of a progressive Divine education of a race of men. Hence their only resource was to explain away whatever seemed trivial or below the Christian standpoint and unworthy of a book divinely inspired, by the plentiful employment of allegory.
\nI have endeavoured to place in a clear and strong light the peculiar position which the Old Testament held among the Christians of the earliest days, first, because it is matter of historical fact, but also because it is important to recognise how in the Providence of God the Old Testament prepared the way for the reception of Christian truth. But what has been said may also well seem to lend impressiveness to objections made against the writings of the New Testament, or the Christian Faith itself, with which my readers will doubtless be more or less familiar. The quotations from the Old Testament in the New have been a source of difficulty to many minds in connexion with the inspiration of Holy Scripture. And the more fully we take account of the purposes which the Old Testament was made to serve, the greater may this difficulty appear to be. Controversy and desire for edification will be thought so little favourable to correctness of application, as to make it unnatural to look for any other explanation of references to prophecy which seem critically unsound than the uncritical temper of the writers. But a still graver question suggests itself. According to the Mythical Theory, the growth of myth, it will be said, was due to the very causes the existence of which has here been acknowledged. This subject\u2014at least so far as it relates to the accounts of the life of Christ, to which almost exclusively the author of the theory applied it\u2014will be considered in a separate chapter; while the influence of the Old Testament on the doctrinal conceptions and language of the Christian Church will come before us repeatedly in the course of our investigations. But on the question of the validity of that appeal to prophecy which is made or implied in so many New Testament citations, I must make a few remarks before concluding this chapter.
\nFirst, however, we must endeavour to obtain a more complete view of the facts. I will begin by classifying the quotations in the New Testament from the Old in the manner which I think will most assist us in our main purpose in this book, that of discussing the alleged influence of the interpretation of prophecy upon the Christian Creed and the Gospel narrative. It will be natural to separate quotations applied to the characteristics of the Christian Dispensation from those applied to Christ. But again, among the latter it will clearly be well to distinguish between those relating to the external facts of His life and those used to set forth the doctrinal significance of His work and Person. Yet again we shall find it desirable to divide between the citations or parallels in the case of the general features, and the particular events or circumstances of His life. In addition to exhibiting the present fulfilment in the Christian Dispensation of what had been promised in the Old Testament, we must also show the connexion between New Testament eschatology and the language of the Old Testament. I have also given separately any seemingly direct evidence supplied by the New Testament of the Messianic interpretation of prophecy among Jews.
\nI have arranged the references in the table, which will be found at the end of the volume, according to the classification just indicated. This table will, I hope, be found fairly accurate and complete, and it should (I think) enable the reader easily to obtain a comprehensive view of the character and extent of the Messianic application of the Old Testament by New Testament writers.
\nIn cases where a quotation is introduced with such words as \u1f35\u03bd\u03b1 or \u1f45\u03c0\u03c9\u03c2 \u03c0\u03bb\u03b7\u03c1\u03c9\u03b8\u1fc7 there can be no doubt as to the intention with which it is made. But where a vaguer formula is used, such as \u1f61\u03c2 \u03b3\u03ad\u03b3\u03c1\u03b1\u03c0\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9, it is sometimes not possible to feel sure whether the words quoted were regarded as having predictive force, or whether they are simply cited for purposes of illustration. Again, where phrases from the Old Testament occur without any express mark of quotation, we may be called to decide whether there is an allusive appeal to prophecy, or whether their occurrence is due to the fact that the familiar words were running in the mind of the writer, perhaps even with no very distinct consciousness of their source. The former alternative will seem the most probable, if the phrase or phrases appear to be quoted with special emphasis; or if they are themselves words or portions of a passage in which it was customary to see a Messianic reference; or if the circumstances of the speaker at the time of quoting them, or the connexion of the argument, favour the view. Of the first of these I may give as an example Matt. 10:35: \u201cFor I came \u2018to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man\u2019s foes shall be they of his own household.\u2019 \u201d Of the second we have instances in parallels with the language of the 22nd Psalm occurring in the accounts of the Crucifixion. Of both the second and third, in the reply of Jesus to the disciples of the Baptist when asked, \u201cArt thou he that cometh, or look we for another?\u201d There are also cases, especially in the Gospels, in which it is important to take into account expressions which may possibly have originated in direct quotation from the Old Testament, though this view of them does not appear to have been present to the mind of the actual writer. Sometimes in another part of the New Testament the direct quotation is made. I have been anxious not to omit any important sign of the influence of the Old Testament which could be alleged. Moreover, extended study, from impressing the mind with the degree to which the use of the Old Testament was carried, disposes one to trace a connexion where at first it might be questioned.
\nAmid all this profusion of quotations from the Old Testament, it is noteworthy that there is little of that allegorical interpretation which flourished so much among the Rabbis and in the writings of Christian writers of sub-apostolic and later times. The most striking instance is the deduction by St. Paul of the characters of the two covenants from the mothers of Isaac and Ishmael, and identification of Hagar with Mount Sinai in the Epistle to the Galatians. To this the argument in the same Epistle from \u201cseed,\u201d occurring in the singular, is to be added. Again we have this method of interpretation used in 1 Cor. 9:9, where the right of the ministers and missionaries of the Church to payment is enforced by a regulation of the Mosaic Law with regard to oxen. It is argued, \u201cIs it for the oxen that God careth?\u201d In other words, the obvious sense cannot be the only or the most important one; some deeper principle must lie hidden in it. In the next chapter we have an allegory of another kind in the Rock which was Christ. Perhaps a similar view should be taken of the \u201cmystery\u201d in Eph. 5:31; that is to say, perhaps the \u03bc\u03c5\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd is not so much marriage, regarded as something in itself symbolic and sacramental, but rather the words about marriage which have just been quoted from the Book of Genesis, they being held not only to institute marriage, but also to foreshadow the union of \u201cChrist and His Church.\u201d The treatment of the character of Melchizedek in the Epistle to the Hebrews is analogous to these. The words of the writer himself, in introducing it, suggest this when he says that this character stands in need of much interpretation, which is hard to give because of the spiritual dulness of those whom he is addressing. There is, however, the distinction to be drawn, that the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews does not explain the history of Melchizedek as if it were directly allegorical. He examines it in order to draw out the full meaning of the expression in the Psalm\u2014\u201cpriest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.\u201d
\nI may here very naturally pass on to make a few remarks on the closely related subject of Typology in the New Testament. The word \u201ctype\u201d is in the New Testament used three times, and \u201cantitype\u201d twice in the theological sense, as implying a relation of figure and reality. But the meaning of the former in two of the passages and of the latter in one is the exact inverse of that which it bears in common theological language now. In the Epistle to the Hebrews and in St. Stephen\u2019s speech in the Acts \u201ctype\u201d stands for reality, \u201cantitype\u201d for shadow. On the other hand, in the Epistle to the Romans the First Adam is spoken of as the \u201ctype\u201d of the Second, and in the First Epistle of St. Peter baptism is called the antitype of the Flood. The former use of the word is based on the charge to Moses, \u201cSee that thou make them after their pattern (LXX. \u201ctype\u201d), which hath been shewed thee in the Mount.\u201d Among many of the Jews a very material conception was formed of this heavenly archetype. A temple, with all its appointments, was supposed to exist in heaven, which had been shown to Moses in order that he might imitate it. Whether such a conception lingered at all in the mind of the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews it would be hard to say. He would seem if so to have learned to transform it, after the spirit of Alexandrian Judaism, into something more analogous to the Platonic notion of heavenly ideas. But his employment of it is at all events most spiritual and impressive. He implies an identity between the life of reconciliation and worship to which Christians have been introduced through Christ, His sacrifice and ascension, and those \u201cheavenly things themselves,\u201d the Divine principles inherent in which were feebly reflected in the earthly tabernacle and its ordinances.
\nThe next most distinct instance of typology in the New Testament is perhaps the idea suggested alike in the First Epistle to the Corinthians and in the Gospel according to St. John, that Jesus Christ is the true Paschal Lamb. In the comparison also in the 6th chapter of St. John, of Moses giving the manna, with Jesus and the true heavenly bread, something of a typical character appears to be attributed to the former. Indeed the essential idea of what a type is underlies St. John\u2019s use of the word \u201ctrue,\u201d both here and in other places. As regards the First and the Second Adam, though St. Paul calls the former \u201ca type of Him that was to come,\u201d he seems to dwell most on the complete contrast between the two. The only point of similarity between them seems to consist in the fact that each is the head of a race. The appearance of the First may indeed be regarded as necessitating that of the Second; not, however, as foreshadowing Him, but only because the ruin caused by the First had to be repaired by the Second, according to the counsels of Divine Mercy. In the comparison of Moses and Aaron with Christ in the Epistle to the Hebrews the writer does not himself put forward the idea that they were types, though, owing to the general nature of the argument of the Epistle, this thought cannot but present itself.
\nOne point it is very important to observe in regard to the treatment of these characters, Moses and Aaron and Melchizedek, in the Epistle to the Hebrews; and it holds of the New Testament in general. The characters of the Old Testament are made typical of Christ solely as regards His office, not as regards works or incidents of His life. And it is also in the idea of the office and functions of the Old Testament personages that the type is seen. For instances of typology of that other kind, in which some theologians and religious schools have largely indulged, we should have to go beyond the New Testament to patristic writers.
\nIt is an allied question to what extent parallels between the life of Christ and Old Testament heroes were present to the minds of the New Testament writers when not expressly referred to by them. This will be most conveniently considered in direct connexion with the subject of the mythical growth in which these parallels are supposed to have been a factor. They can have no right to be placed under the heading of the present chapter. They are not an instance of the use of the Old Testament by the early Christians, not by those at least whom the New Testament represents. They are not adduced and appealed to as needing fulfilment, in the way that prophecies and the general spirit and idea of the institutions of the First Covenant are.
\nIt would be interesting to compare the interpretation of the Old Testament in Philo and in the Rabbinical writings with that in the New Testament. For an exhaustive discussion of the latter this would indeed be necessary. It would serve to illustrate some points which are to our minds strange, while none could fail to be struck by the superior simplicity and force of the applications in the New Testament writers, as well as the greater sublimity of the thoughts which it is their object to set forth. We will content ourselves with comparing the use of the Old Testament in early Christian extra-canonical writings. The very fact that they so much more resemble the writings of the New Testament, will make the differences between them the more significant. As is the case with the writings of the New Testament, there are great diversities among them in respect to the extent of their use of Old Testament prophecy, for which the same causes, the varying purport of the writings and the different education or cast of mind of the writers, may be assigned. Those in which it is most marked are the Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, the Epistle of Barnabas, and the two Apologies and Dialogue with Trypho of Justin Martyr. The aim of the writer in the first of these being hortatory, he quotes chiefly in order to enforce practical lessons, such as the duties of repentance; but he makes also several applications of prophecy to points of the Christian Faith. The other writings just mentioned are of a controversial character, and consequently they supply us with a far larger number of illustrations of the kind of use of the Old Testament with which we are concerned. In the works of Justin especially, being more extensive, may be found very many of the same applications of prophecy as those made in the New Testament and a multitude besides.
\nOn comparing generally the quotations in these extra-canonical writings with those of the New Testament, we feel, what so many other considerations indeed show us, how truly the Church was guided in forming her Canon. I should be grieved to be thought to speak slightingly of these extra-canonical writings. They are pervaded by a genuine, single-hearted Christian feeling, and even apart from their high historical interest are among the most precious works in the rich treasure-house of the Church\u2019s literature. But the higher our sense of their excellence, the more do we appreciate the transcendent character of the New Testament. We may note now in particular that they contain a class of fanciful types and artificial allegorical interpretations which are absent from the latter. Let me give one or two illustrations. Clement and Justin regard the scarlet thread, which was a sign between the spies and Rahab, as signifying the Atonement to be wrought through the blood of Christ. With the author of the Epistle of Barnabas and Justin, Moses with his arms extended during the conflict with Amalek teaches salvation through the cross. They both also work out at length and with emphasis the type of the brazen serpent in a manner which contrasts with the mere comparison indicated in St. John. With both, again, Joshua is a type of Jesus Christ; once more, they treat the two goats of the Day of Atonement as a type of the Lord\u2019s two comings.
\nThe above are each singly types; let me give two or three examples of passages allegorically interpreted. In the first it will be observed with what entire disregard of grammatical sense and connexion meanings are twisted out of different clauses or words. Commenting on the words in the blessing on Joseph in Deuteronomy, \u201chis horns are the horns of a unicorn,\u201d Justin infers, first, the shape of the cross with the horns of the cross-piece fastened to the one horn of the upright piece; then further, the projecting peg in the middle of the cross which helped to support the body. The words which follow, \u201cwith these He shall attack the nations even from the extremity of the earth,\u201d he proceeds to apply to the compunction produced among all nations by the cross. The next, also from Justin, exemplifies how whatever men fancied to be unworthy of the Scriptures in its plain sense had a higher sense imported into it. Lest licence should be defended by the polygamy permitted to the patriarchs, he shows that in Leah and Rachel, and Jacob\u2019s service of Laban to win them, the character of the Jews and the Christian Church and Christ\u2019s work were mystically represented. To these from Justin let me add one from the Epistle of Barnabas. I select it not as more extravagant than some others which might be given, but as an instance of a different kind: \u201cUnderstand then, children of love, concerning all things richly, that Abraham, who first gave circumcision, circumcised, looking forward in the spirit unto Jesus, having received the ordinances of three letters. For he saith, \u2018And Abraham circumcised of his household eighteen males and three hundred.\u2019 What, then, was the knowledge that was given unto him? Understand ye that he saith the eighteen first, and then, after an interval, three hundred. In the eighteen, \u03b9\u03b7, thou hast Jesus. And inasmuch as the cross was destined to show forth grace in the sign \u03c4, he adds three hundred. So then he showeth forth Jesus in the two letters, and in the single one the cross. He knoweth it who hath put within us the engrafted gift of His doctrine; no man hath learned of me a truer instruction, but I know that ye are worthy.\u201d
\nOne more point in Justin\u2019s interpretation of the Old Testament is to be mentioned, the teaching he connects with what are known as the Theophanies. He sees in these the appearance of the Son of God, and endeavours to establish the point by an elaborate exegesis. We do not find this view in the New Testament.
\nAll these features of the interpretation of the Old Testament in these early Fathers are unmistakeable evidence of a development since the times of the writings of the New Testament. They are too marked and pervading to be attributed solely to the idiosyncrasies of individual writers. The fact, too, that particular types or interpretations recur in different writers, strengthens the impression that they had become current in the Church. There is far more artificiality; the fancifulness to be found already in full bloom at the time of the apostles in the writings of Philo, and no doubt also among the Rabbis, has now far more largely invaded the circle of Christian thought. New kinds of interpretations have come into vogue; even where an application, in principle the same, is made in the New Testament, it is worked out more elaborately, and much more stress is laid upon it. Thus early as these writings are, those of the New Testament are thrown back by this as by other indications upon which we shall light to a time still earlier.
\nIn conclusion, I will make a few remarks, as I have undertaken to do, upon the justice of that appeal to prophecy which the New Testament writers make. The kind of view which I shall take may be inferred from what has been already said in the sketch I have given of pre-Christian Messianic doctrine; but it will be desirable, notwithstanding, to enter into the question somewhat more fully. Dismissing all idea that the passages cited can be justified as literal predictions, or attempt to conceal from ourselves the fact that the applications which the New Testament writers make have sometimes been affected even by manifest linguistic misinterpretations, let us ask whether they were influenced by nothing but caprice and the perception of fanciful resemblances, or whether they were not guided by true and profound principles, however little they might themselves have been able to state them. Our attention must be mainly directed to the chief phenomenon, the citations of prophecies; and for the purpose of the remarks which I have to make, I can best arrange these in three classes. The types and allegories will be noticed in passing. (1) I take first the quotations relating to the general characteristics of the Messiah\u2019s Person and Work and of the Christian Dispensation, which in their original context refer primarily to some reigning Jewish sovereign, or it may be to the ideal theocratic king, the truly worthy successor of David; or in which the prophet speaks of God\u2019s dealings with himself, or with Israel personified, or describes the return of the Jews from captivity, or the deliverance of Jerusalem. To this class belong most of the quotations in the first, third, and fourth columns of the subjoined table. They make up by far the largest portion of the whole number of quotations. To these the theory may be held to apply, which has come into vogue with many orthodox commentators in recent times, of a first and second intention in the language of the prophecy. That theory appears to me to approach near to the right view, but it is unfortunately expressed. It wears too much the appearance of a mere compromise between orthodoxy and criticism. It seems, moreover, to imply that the second intention was present to the mind of the prophet in the same sense as the first, whereas of this we can have no proof. What we may, however, venture to suggest, for it may at least conceivably be verified by the facts that lie open before us, is that the New Testament writers in their applications of the language of the prophets to Christ and His Church pointed out the true fulfilment of what the prophets dreamed in the deepest sense of the word fulfilment, that is, the complete realization of the essential idea of what they aspired after; while, at the same time, the fact that the aspirations of the prophets did actually in God\u2019s Providence prepare the way of Christ by training men in the expectation of Him and His kingdom, in itself gives an authority to such an interpretation of their language. I have somewhere seen what I imagine to be the view just described, referred to as the \u201ctypical theory of prophecy.\u201d And I know of no better phrase to use as a compendious name for it, though it is hardly clear without explanation, and may cover some differences of view. What I mean by it is that in the ideal of the theocratic king, or in the experience of some saint of God, or in God\u2019s relations to Israel as His child, or (in one instance) in the Psalmist\u2019s conception of the true destiny of man, features were shadowed forth, however dimly, which were recognised as existing in Jesus in their most perfect manner. So, in like manner, in the hope of a redeemed Zion, there was a faint anticipation of the glories of the Church of Christ.
\nA certain school of interpreters even to the present day look for a more literal fulfilment of the last-mentioned expectation in the restoration of the Jews to Palestine. But whether such a restoration should be brought about or not, it is surely true that the happiness and glory of no earthly state could adequately correspond to the language of the prophets; and that such a fulfilment must fall far below that which this language has already, according to the applications of New Testament writers, received. Would not St. Paul apply to these interpreters the words which, though in a different connexion, he addresses to the Galatians, \u201cHaving begun in the spirit, would ye now be made perfect in the flesh?\u201d
\nAs regards the types (more specifically such) employed in the New Testament, it is evident from what we have observed as to their character, that their fitness might be shown in much the same way as that of the class of applications of prophecy of which we have thus far been speaking. In the few cases of allegorical interpretation to be found in the New Testament, the typical character of the incidents or words out of which the Christian truth is drawn by the New Testament writer is not so clear. They were not essential features of the economy which was divinely ordered in preparation for the coming of Christ, nor is the analogy of idea itself of the same deep kind. For the most part, it is not clear that the writer himself attributes to them any argumentative force. Where, however, St. Paul reasons in adducing the precept about the ox, \u201cIs it for the oxen that God careth, or saith He it altogether for our sake?\u201d he seems to show that he shared the view so common, and which harmonized with habits of thought which prevailed so widely at that time and for long afterwards, that over and above the obvious and literal meaning of the words of the ancient Scriptures, there was, especially where the language seemed to fall below the dignity of the Scriptures, a spiritual meaning which even more than the literal and historical meaning was the true one. It is a view which, in the form in which they held it at all events, we cannot but regard as unfounded. Yet, entering as it does to so small an extent into the New Testament writings, their value for us is not thereby at all diminished. And the fact that this peculiar and temporary mode of thought, which affected so largely many writings Jewish, Christian, and even pagan of that and succeeding ages, has been suffered to appear so little in the New Testament, is one circumstance which has made the latter a book for all time.
\n(2) I pass on to a small but highly interesting class of quotations in which words spoken by or of Jehovah are referred to Christ. Was it, as some have asserted, because Christians were misled by the word \u03ba\u03cd\u03c1\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2 in the LXX., which they were so constantly accustomed to use as a title for Christ, that they so applied these passages? In order to answer this question we will ask another, Might any other passages in which God speaks or is spoken of, have been with equal point transferred to Christ? On examination it appears that the passages in question speak of manifestations of God in Creation or Judgment or loving dealings with His people for their recovery. Now, even many Jews at the Christian era recognised the principle that God could be manifested only through the Eternal Wisdom or Logos. And among the New Testament writers, some undoubtedly had learned to believe that the Divine Wisdom was present in and personally one with the Christ. Three of the most marked quotations of the class we are considering in fact occur in the Epistle to the Hebrews, the writer of which was certainly familiar with this principle; and we can hardly doubt that it must have been more or less consciously present to his mind when he seized on these particular passages. Their application to Jesus Christ would have real cogency for the minds of Christians then, as it must have for all Christians still.
\n(3) I have lastly to speak of a class of applications of prophecy which it does not seem easy to account for on any such clear and satisfactory principle as in the last two cases. I refer to those in which the New Testament writer traces in the Old the prediction of individual and minute facts in the life of our Lord, circumstances of time and place, single utterances and actions. These clearly cannot be explained as general traits may on the \u201ctypical\u201d theory, as it has been stated above. In some instances Jesus Himself may in His words and actions have had the particular passages in mind, and may have intended thus to make an indirect claim to Messiahship. Of this we seem to have a clear example in the mode in which He chose to make His triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Or again, His mind may have been so full of the ancient language, that He expressed His own feelings in their very words. Of this we seem to have an illustration in some of His words on the Cross. For the rest, it is evidently possible that God may have providentially ordered that there should be these correspondences, even of a minute kind, between incidents of the life of Jesus and the language of ancient Scriptures, for the express purpose of being so many finger-posts pointing Him out as the Christ, for men to whose minds such indications would appeal, and who needed to be thus helped to recognise Him. And those who believe in Christ, and in a Divine Providence which prepared the way for His coming, can, it seems to me, hardly help holding this opinion. But the only way, so far as I can see, in which it could by external proof be justified, would be by showing that the correspondences were altogether more remarkable and more numerous than could reasonably be attributed to general causes. We must, however, feel that this would be but a precarious method of proof; moreover, it could not establish the design in individual cases.<\/p>\n
PART II<\/p>\n
THE ATTITUDE OF JESUS TOWARDS MESSIANIC BELIEFS<\/p>\n
CHAPTER I<\/p>\n
THE TEACHING OF JESUS CONCERNING THE KINGDOM OF GOD<\/p>\n
In turning to consider the attitude of Jesus towards Messianic beliefs, it will be natural that our attention should first be fixed upon His teaching concerning the Kingdom of God. For the hope of the coming of the Kingdom of God undoubtedly belongs to the order of Messianic ideas; and of this Kingdom and its appearance among men Jesus certainly spoke openly and publicly from the beginning of His ministry in a way that He did not of His own Messiahship. The genuineness of this one or that one of His sayings or parables concerning the Kingdom may be questioned, and it may be doubted whether this or that feature was made quite so prominent by Him as it is in the representation of the evangelists. But on the whole it will be admitted that these sayings form such a strongly marked feature of the teaching attributed to Jesus by the strongest testimony, and that they display a depth and fulness and breadth so peculiar, as to warrant the confidence that in substance they are original.
\nLet us make sure from the outset that we realize the extraordinarily prominent position which the subject of the Kingdom of God occupies in the Gospels, more especially in the Synoptists. This is essential if we would form a true conception of the nature of Christianity. The preaching of the Kingdom appears already as a feature of that ministry of the Baptist, some account of which was regarded by the early preachers of Christianity and by the evangelists as a necessary preface to the narrative of the ministry of the Lord. The fact that John the Baptist spoke of the Kingdom is confirmed by a striking saying of our Lord: \u201cFrom the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the men of violence take it by force.\u201d Josephus, indeed, who writes at some length of the Baptist, ignores this element of His preaching. But that he should do so is of a piece with his general attitude towards Messianic hopes. Moreover, the motive which Josephus assigns for his being put to death by Herod Antipas, namely, that Herod feared the commotion which the gathering of the multitudes to hear John, and his influence over them, might create, accords well with the fact that He proclaimed to them the approach of the Kingdom.
\nSt. John taught that the Kingdom was near at hand. He also believed that its appearance would be accompanied on the one hand by terrible judgments, and on the other by an outpouring of the Spirit. Herein he followed the teaching of former prophets; nevertheless he spoke with new inspiration. Once more he employed the thought of the Coming of the Kingdom with its grace and terror as a spiritual power for turning men to repentance. But whether he set forth in his teaching, or himself had any clear conception of, the nature of the Kingdom, we do not know. It has been supposed that the preaching of the Kingdom by the Baptist helped materially to form in the mind of Jesus the belief in and longing for it, and to define His own aims. And from the fact that St. Matthew represents Jesus as taking up the Baptist\u2019s cry, \u201cRepent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,\u201d from the moment of the Baptist\u2019s imprisonment, it has been inferred that the thought that the preaching of the Kingdom had received a check through the imprisonment of its first proclaimer impelled Jesus to public action. But this seems to represent that which was so essential in the Lord\u2019s teaching, too much as if it were something accidental.
\nIt is, however, a significant point that Jesus should, according to St. Matthew, step forth in Galilee at this moment and take up this proclamation. Again, in His words concerning the Baptist\u2019s works, to which we have already referred, He marks the new era which the Baptist ushered in as characterized by the preaching of the Kingdom; and when He sends out the twelve apostles, two and two, to go through some district apparently not as yet visited, or but little visited, by Himself, He charges them \u201cas they go\u201d to proclaim the nearness of the Kingdom. To the seventy disciples sent out on a similar mission He gives a like injunction. His own teaching He describes as \u201cthe word of the Kingdom,\u201d and the making known of the mysteries of the Kingdom. Once more, in indicating in His last discourses the work to be accomplished by His disciples after He had left them, He says, \u201cThis gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a testimony unto all nations.\u201d
\nThe significance of these passages is that they seem to give in a few words the purpose and scope of the work of Jesus on earth as He Himself viewed it, His \u201cplan\u201d as it has been called. But the actual amount of space devoted to this topic, if all that bears upon it be put together, will be found to be not less remarkable. Indeed it may be said, with but little exaggeration, that descriptions of the characteristics of the Kingdom, expositions of its laws, accounts of the way men were actually receiving it, forecasts of its future, make up the whole central portion of the synoptic narrative.
\nWhat may be especially striking to us is to notice the way in which teaching is connected with this central subject which we in our ordinary treatment and thoughts have come to dissociate therefrom. For instance, we regard the Sermon on the Mount simply as a collection of beautiful ethical precepts; probably it seldom occurs to us to think of it as a promulgation of the Code of the New Kingdom. Yet on a careful reading we see that such in reality is its character. Again, we have in the remarks of Jesus upon different men who came in contact with Him, or in His more general sayings, many most vivid and discriminating and penetrating portraitures of different types of moral and spiritual character. And we for the most part take them simply as such portraitures. We overlook the fact that in Christ\u2019s view it is their attitude to the Kingdom which reveals what is in them.
\nBut in spite of this abundant teaching it is not easy to arrive at a clear idea of what Jesus meant by the Kingdom of God. The variety of the aspects under which the subject is presented is itself a cause of difficulty, and very diverse definitions and expositions of what the Kingdom of God is have been given, especially by modern writers, some seizing upon one aspect to the exclusion of the rest, some becoming vague in their attempt to combine the different ones. Cross-lights are also often thrown by the preconceptions derived from later systems of theology. Only by carefully studying the language of Jesus and taking account of all in the beliefs of His time that can illustrate it, can we hope to attain to an adequate view.
\nAnd first, it will be well to say a few words on the relation of the two names, \u201cKingdom of God\u201d and \u201cKingdom of heaven.\u201d The latter of these is, it will be remembered, by far the commoner in St. Matthew\u2019s Gospel. But \u201cKingdom of God\u201d occurs also a few times in that Gospel, and is uniformly used in St. Mark and St. Luke, and also, though occurring less frequently, in the remaining books of the New Testament. There does not seem to be any important difference of meaning between the two names. The words \u201cof heaven\u201d cannot imply, as they may be thought to do by the unreflecting, and as has been maintained even by some able writers, that heaven is the seat of the Kingdom. This form is not confined to one section of the sayings concerning the Kingdom, which would bear out the meaning in question. Moreover, the view of the Jew, a view not discouraged by the New Testament, was that a regenerated earth would be the scene even of future bliss. This much seems certain; but it is more difficult to determine the precise meaning with which the words \u201cof heaven\u201d were used. Some have held that \u201cheaven\u201d is simply an equivalent for God in Hebrew usage. But the nature and source of the Kingdom may perhaps rather be indicated. Thus the difference between the two names would be much the same as between \u201cKingdom of God\u201d and \u201cDivine Kingdom.\u201d In either case, there is a very close correspondence in meaning between the two names; and this is what we should expect, seeing they are used by St. Mark and St. Luke on the one hand, and St. Matthew on the other, in sayings otherwise entirely or essentially the same.
\nBut how are we to explain this difference of usage? Which name is the original? Some of those who support strongly the view that the Gospel according to St. Mark is the original Gospel, or the first edition of it, have held that the phrase \u201cthe Kingdom of heaven\u201d was of St. Matthew\u2019s introduction. But it seems far more likely that the opposite was the case. \u201cKingdom of heaven\u201d corresponds to what would be in all probability the Hebrew usage. This would be the form which our Lord, speaking in Aramaic, would employ. And the Gospel according to St. Matthew, which was pre-eminently the Gospel for the Jew, and which probably bears some relation to a Hebrew original, would naturally preserve it. But those who preached to and wrote for Gentiles, in order to guard against misunderstanding, substituted in all cases \u201cKingdom of God,\u201d which was, we have seen, practically an equivalent. I may add, that I can discover no law in the use of the two terms in St. Matthew\u2019s Gospel such as might indicate diverse sources of the narratives, or a principle in the mind of the evangelist himself. I shall, in general, unless in quotation, employ the form which has been consecrated for use in the Gentile world.
\nAfter this preliminary observation on the two names, let me observe that we shall be at a loss if we endeavour to form our conception of the Kingdom solely from the sayings and parables about it. The former do not give any definition of it; and the latter usually begin with the formula, \u201cThe Kingdom of heaven is like unto,\u201d where more precisely it might have been said, though we shall feel how much weaker this would have been, \u201cA law of the Kingdom of heaven is as follows,\u201d or \u201cone feature in the manifestation of the Kingdom of heaven will be this.\u201d The fact is, our Lord was able to presuppose some notion of what He meant by the Kingdom of God in the minds of those whom He addressed. Now it is true the exact phrase \u201cKingdom of God,\u201d or \u201cKingdom of heaven,\u201d does not occur in the Old Testament or the apocalyptic literature, and that its use in the Rabbinic literature, as will be presently seen, seems studiously to keep out of sight its connexion with the great national hope. But if the exact phrase did not occur, there were passages in the prophets which would naturally lead to its use to describe the great object of hope, and more especially in the Book of Daniel, a book which seems to have exerted a profound influence in the time preceding our Lord\u2019s coming. We have also such an expression as \u201cthe kingdom of the Immortal King\u201d used distinctly in a Messianic sense in the Sibylline Oracles. It may be added also that the phrase occurs in the Gospels in the mouth of the Jews themselves, and plainly in the Messianic sense. Moreover, the whole manner of Christ\u2019s preaching of the Kingdom is of one declaring or promising the fulfilment of that which His hearers were looking or hoping for. And in speaking of the Kingdom which was the subject of His proclamation, He repeatedly employs imagery which, from the writings of the prophets and subsequent Jewish use, had become associated with the thought of the future glories of Jerusalem.
\nWhat, then, was the conception of the Kingdom of God which the training of Israel and the teaching of the prophets suggested? It will not be necessary to dwell long on this point, especially after what has been said in an earlier chapter. The Jews believed, and rightly believed, that God had been in a special sense the King of their nation. They had been made to feel in a way that other nations had not, that they were indeed under the Government of a righteous and merciful God. His Name was known among them. Other nations might also attribute the institutions of their early lawgivers to the inspiration of gods, but the Jews might justly feel that their Law, which was, as they believed, an express revelation of the Divine Will, was something infinitely higher than anything to be found elsewhere. God\u2019s Providence had, moreover, in a very conspicuous manner called them into being as a nation, guided them amid difficulties, punished them for wrong-doing, and again and again restored them. The reality of this Divine Government is represented as having been in some respects most plain in the earlier periods of their history under Moses and the Judges. And the nation\u2019s demand for a king is treated by Samuel as an act of treason, because \u201cthe Lord their God was their king.\u201d But God was not in the event driven farther off from them by this change in their constitution. When David, \u201cthe man after God\u2019s own heart,\u201d ascended the throne, he and his descendants were taught to regard themselves, and the people were taught to regard them, as God\u2019s viceroys, reigning by God\u2019s appointment, sitting on what was in reality God\u2019s throne, and having for their appointed task themselves to obey and to secure obedience from others to the holy and righteous Will of God, so that the kingdom of Israel or Judah should be indeed God\u2019s kingdom. Even under the best reigns this ideal was very partially realized. But the prophets all along, and with increasing clearness as the times grew worse, held out the promise of a perfect realization of this kingdom of God, a state in which the majesty and goodness of God would be revealed to men, and His presence felt by them, and in which God\u2019s will being completely done, there would be universal righteousness and peace, while there would be that fulness of outward prosperity and freedom from all ills which should be the accompaniment of the removal of sin. This ideal had been sadly disfigured in the popular imagination, but its nobler features had always been present to some minds, and in a lower or higher form it had inspired the nation in its most patriotic struggles, and was still the object of ardent hope. Jesus, in proclaiming the gospel of the Kingdom, promised that in some wonderful, undreamt-of way this hope should be realized.
\nIt will be very instructive if, before going farther, we compare the recorded sayings of the Rabbis concerning the Kingdom of God with the teaching of Jesus. In many of these the phrase simply denotes the Divine Government which has been from the beginning and will continue for ever, but the existence and nature of which had been specially revealed to the Jew. Men are, moreover, said \u201cto take upon them the kingdom,\u201d or \u201cthe yoke of the kingdom,\u201d by yielding conscious obedience to that Government. Hence also these latter phrases come to be technical terms for the recitation of the Shema,\u2014beginning with the words of Deut. 6:4,\u2014which may be called the Creed of Judaism.
\nIt is very doubtful whether this use of the term was the common one among the Rabbis of our Lord\u2019s time. The Pharisees at any rate of that time seem to have shared in the ardent hopes of the people. The change of sense, if such there was, would be satisfactorily explained by considerations of the kind which I urged when discussing the value of the evidence of the Rabbinic literature in regard to pre-Christian Messianic doctrine. And it may be in reality an illustration of the operation of the forces of which I then spoke. A strong inclination would be felt within the circle of pure Judaism to withdraw from anything even in its own previous theological conceptions which might appear to favour specifically Christian ideas. The terms \u201cKingdom of God\u201d and \u201cKingdom of heaven\u201d had been in their Messianic sense too completely appropriated by Christ to allow of their being used in that sense any longer by Jewish Rabbis. Again, the fall of Jerusalem and loss, after a still later struggle, of the last vestige of Jewish independence, must have tended to crush out the national hope and to drive Jews to take refuge in religious conceptions of a more general kind. Such an effect captivity and dispersion had already had during an earlier period on the minds of many Jews; and such has been the effect upon Jews of their subsequent history.
\nBut however this may be, the contrast between this Rabbinic use of the phrase and that of Jesus is most significant. The moral and religious nature of the Rabbinic doctrine, when taken at its best, may perhaps lead us to imagine that the teaching of Christ is more nearly allied to it than to the popular national hope. Yet apart from all other differences there is this great difference, which explains to us not only the amount of popular attention which the preaching of Jesus at once aroused, but also to no small extent the secret of the power which He gained over the hearts of true disciples. The Rabbis in those sayings which we have been noticing, and which were very characteristic of their spirit, simply looked back to a revelation in the past. They had nothing new to tell about God, and no new Divine aid to promise. Christ, on the other hand, spoke of a new Divine Dispensation, a work of the Most High Himself which He was doing in their days. He wholly transfigured, indeed, the idea of the future kingdom which the national hope cherished, but He promised it true fulfilment.
\nThe manner in which we have approached the subject of the kingdom of God may have served to represent it as an Idea, the Idea of a full and effectual recognition of the Divine Sovereignty, so that God should become \u201call\u201d to the finite will, and that in thought and action the Divine Will should be perfectly carried out. It is only by starting from this Idea that we can combine the various aspects under which the Kingdom is spoken of, so that they may be seen to belong to one entity. But it is important to note that Jesus never contemplates it as an idea apart from realization. To an actuality which even partially corresponded to the idea He will give the name of the Kingdom, but never merely to the abstract idea. Again, connexion with the Old Testament preparation and Jewish hopes furnishes a complete answer to those who would translate \u201cReign\u201d instead of \u201cKingdom\u201d of God. Kingdom includes both ideas, that of His royal authority and of the realm over which He rules; and both should be included. The conception to which the whole previous history led was that of a realm of men in which God\u2019s will would be done and upon which His blessing would rest. It must at the same time be always borne in mind that Jesus never speaks of the kingdom as something which men could constitute for themselves; it must come to them.
\nBut in a measure at least it was to be realized at once; He had brought the kingdom. That He taught this there ought really to be no doubt. He does indeed at the opening of His ministry repeat the Baptist\u2019s cry, \u201cThe Kingdom of heaven is at hand,\u201d but only at the opening. He never again takes this proclamation for His own. He tells His disciples to make it when He sends them forth two and two on their first missionary journey, but it is as a preparation for His own coming. And there are sayings in which He expressly speaks of the Kingdom as even then, when He was speaking, a present reality for men. Such especially are the following: \u201cAmong them that are born of women there hath not arisen a greater than John the Baptist; yet he that is but little in the Kingdom of heaven is greater than he. And from the days of John the Baptist until now the Kingdom of heaven suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.\u201d \u201cIf I by the Spirit of God cast out devils, then is the Kingdom of God come upon you,\u201d \u201cThe Kingdom of God cometh not with observation; neither shall they say, Lo, here or there! for, lo, the Kingdom of God is within (or, in the midst of) you.\u201d
\nIt is as a present thing that He calls men to an individual apprehension of the Kingdom, just as the philosopher may speak of the Highest Good, which should be the chief end of human thought and labour. He has this in view when he says, \u201cThe Kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hid in the field; which a man found and hid, and in his joy he goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field. Again the Kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a merchant seeking goodly pearls; and having found one pearl of great price, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.\u201d So also when He bids His disciples seek first God\u2019s Kingdom and righteousness, and cast upon their Heavenly Father all anxiety respecting earthly things, even to food and raiment, their provision for which may be endangered by their devotion to the Kingdom and its cause. If we ask who, as a matter of fact in the days of our Lord\u2019s ministry on earth, found and possessed themselves of the Kingdom of God, to whom He Himself would have pointed as its members then, undoubtedly they were those\u2014most of them men and women of the people and not a few outcasts\u2014who embraced His teaching with more or less perception of its meaning, but above all who attached themselves with their whole hearts to His Person, and knew that He would give them all that in their inmost souls they longed for. They were the nucleus of the Kingdom. They were united into a body by common attachment to Christ and by continual or frequent fellowship with one another while together listening to Him or following in His train. They had received and surrendered themselves to the new Revelation of God, and inspired and governed by the mysterious influence of Christ, they were beginning to manifest in their lives the Divine righteousness and love.
\nBut there was to be a more definite realization of the Kingdom of God after the death of Jesus. It was clearly His intention that His followers should form a society; and this society He must have regarded as a realization, even if still a very imperfect one, of the Kingdom of God, a realm in which the Divine Will would be acknowledged as the supreme law, and men would feel themselves bound to one another, and would act in their relations to one another, as fellow-subjects and children of the Great King. The whole tenour of Christ\u2019s teaching would point to the conclusion that this was in His mind. But He expressly called that Society the Kingdom of heaven in committing to St. Peter the government over it. And on another occasion, according to St. John in his account of the conversation with Nicodemus, He alluded to the external form of admission into the Christian Society as one condition of entering the Kingdom of God. That He viewed the Kingdom as a visible society, then or soon to be established, is seen also from the Parables of the Tares among the Wheat and the Draw-net, in which He describes it as embracing bad as well as good.
\nThat the Kingdom of God was not only something to be manifested in the future, also appears from the parables describing its gradual spread. Doubt has been thrown upon the genuineness of these by some critics. They have held them to be inconsistent with the belief that He would speedily return, which they suppose Him to have entertained. But for two or three generations, at least, the belief in the almost immediate return of Christ was general among Christians. And if Jesus Himself was not able to conceive a gradual growth of the Kingdom of God, who else could have done so in the period within which the Gospels must on any view have been committed to writing?
\nThis view of the Kingdom as a thing of the present, now to be received and in process of extension, is one side, one half (so to speak), of the teaching of Jesus concerning the Kingdom. But the Kingdom of God is also one day to be perfectly realized; and there is another great side of His teaching which refers to this future Kingdom. Sometimes the Kingdom at the end of the world is spoken of as if that were its first appearance. In a far larger number of passages, even where the perfect kingdom is most in view, there is nothing to prevent our regarding it as in some sense the outgrowth of the struggling, imperfect kingdom of the present.
\nThe question of the genuineness of this portion of the teaching of Jesus in the Gospels is bound up with that of His use of the title \u201cthe Son of Man\u201d with associations of glory, which will be considered in the next chapter. It must suffice here to remark that our faith in God demands a final absolute triumph of righteousness. The prospect of this is one of the primary needs of our moral being, placed as we are among the disorders of this world, and the \u201cGospel of the kingdom\u201d would have been wholly incomplete without the promise of it. In some of Christ\u2019s language on this subject we may perhaps feel that we are taken into a world of ideas quite different from that of the spiritual and ethical teaching we have hitherto been considering, a world of Jewish and early Christian eschatological conceptions. But it is to be remembered that it is impossible to speak of a state so removed from our present earthly conditions except by the aid of symbolism. Nor are the representations of the gradual growth of the kingdom and the catastrophic character of its final triumph irreconcilable. It is not implied that the growth would be such as to leave no evil to be destroyed in a great time of judgment. And our actual experience of the general history of human society shows how the two may be combined. For the most part there has been a slow but real improvement in the condition of human society. But the world has also passed through great crises, and on the whole that which was sound and good in human institutions has been preserved through these crises, and has in consequence of them attained to a freer development.
\nIt is to be observed, too, that in Christ\u2019s use of Jewish images of the future, the more sensuous features are, comparatively speaking, little dwelt upon, while the spiritual are brought into great prominence. Thus the Beatitudes, which on the one hand characterize the members of the Kingdom by their different qualities, on the other hand express the blessedness of which they are the heirs under its different aspects; and among these are \u201cseeing God,\u201d and having the hunger and thirst after righteousness satisfied. Again, what more noble and spiritual description of the great consummation could be given than this: \u201cThen shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the Kingdom of their Father\u201d? So, again, a thoroughly spiritual view is given of the resurrection-state.
\nThe enjoyment in the future kingdom of all that can delight, though little dwelt on by our Lord, is not entirely passed over. He has allowed for the instincts of our sentient natures, which yearn for happiness. And though the removal of physical ills is always treated by Him as secondary to the deeper work upon men\u2019s hearts and characters, it is from the first an accompaniment and sign of the bringing in of the Kingdom. \u201cIf I by the Spirit of God cast out devils, then is the Kingdom of God come upon you.\u201d And the other classes of miracles are placed in a similar light in His answer to the message of the Baptist.
\nWe have yet to consider how Christ viewed His own relation to the Kingdom of God. This is manifestly important in connexion with His Messianic claims; for if He was the Messiah, He must have been in some sense God\u2019s Vicegerent in the Kingdom. Now it is only in the passages referring to the future Kingdom, spoken for the most part to His disciples and during the last months of His life, that His position as King clearly appears. He indicates it at most once or twice in His earlier and public teaching. And there was good reason why He should not do so, considering how easily His meaning might have been mistaken. Nevertheless, it is plain even in this portion of His teaching, much as He keeps His own Personality and office in the background, that He knows Himself to be the bringer of the Kingdom; and when we remember that He manifestly regarded the Kingdom of God which He brought as the Divine Dispensation which all the prophets had foretold, we feel how tremendous a claim this was.
\nMy main object in this chapter has been to set forth the teaching of Jesus Himself on the Kingdom of God. But in order that we may appreciate its significance, we must glance for a few moments at the remainder of the New Testament, and then at subsequent Theology. The subject of the Kingdom of God is nowhere at all so prominent as in the Synoptic Gospels. In the Acts of the Apostles, Christ Himself is said to have taught His disciples about it after His resurrection; the missionary work of Philip the Evangelist and St. Paul is also described in terms like those applied to the preaching of Jesus, as \u201cpreaching good tidings concerning the Kingdom of God,\u201d and by similar expressions. But none of their teaching about the nature of the Kingdom is given, unless we should except the words of St. Paul and St. Barnabas on their first missionary journey. In this case the Kingdom is a future one. In the Epistles the exact phrase \u201cKingdom of God\u201d is found only in those of St. Paul, and most frequently in the future sense. And \u201cKingdom\u201d occurs in the other Epistles three times only, once apiece in the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Epistle of St. James, and the Second Epistle of St. Peter. We can understand why St. Paul especially should have seized upon this conception. In the Apocalypse we have also \u201cKingdom of our God\u201d once, and similar expressions in two or three other passages. Already in portions of the New Testament the Church has taken the place of the Kingdom of God as the name of the Society of Christians, while other expressions have come to be used to designate future bliss. Whatever may have been the cause or causes of this change of language, the facts we have noticed seem to furnish a striking illustration of the trustworthiness of the Synoptic Gospels. The writers of these Gospels record a form of teaching and a usage of language which had ceased to be common at the time they put together their records. This they would not do without solid grounds of personal knowledge or tradition. Thus there is good reason to believe in the accuracy of their records of this portion of the teaching of Jesus; and, at the same time, every sign which we find in them of an endeavour to preserve a true record necessarily adds to their general credibility. Another piece of evidence of a similar kind will meet us in the next chapter.
\nA particular application of the idea of the Kingdom of God was made during the Middle Ages, and one which was in many respects erroneous and mischievous. Christendom was held to be already a Theocracy, in which the supreme authority over all persons, and in all causes, secular as well as religious, resided in its spiritual head, the Bishop of Rome. In Protestant Theology, till quite recent times, all this portion of the teaching of Jesus was suffered to drop very much out of sight. Latterly, however, it has in many quarters attracted attention; partly, as Dr. Candlish observes, because the New Testament Theology has come to be studied more historically, that is to say, more effort is made to get at the original meaning of the language and ideas. But there has been also a deeper reason. It has been felt more or less clearly that from the teaching of Christ on this subject the lessons may be drawn regarding the nature and principles of Christianity, which may best correct that one-sided individualism, which has been perhaps the most radical weakness and error of the theology current amongst us.
\nLet us consider briefly, (1) the place of the idea of the Kingdom of God in Christian Theology, considered as a system; (2) its bearing on the conception of the Church; (3) its ethical aspect and relation to social progress.
\n1. The truths set forth in the idea of the Kingdom of God\u2014God\u2019s sovereignty and the fellowship of men bound together as His subjects\u2014may at first sight seem so simple as to exclude the very thought of most of what is ordinarily understood as Theology, and there are not a few minds to which it will be welcome for this very reason. But the case is not really so. For in the first place, as I have already observed, Christ did not call men to create the true Theocracy themselves by practising humility and purity and justice. This must be acknowledged, even if the object were simply to give a historically true representation of the teaching of Jesus. As He ever speaks, and as all prophets had spoken before Him, the Kingdom must come to them as a Divine gift. It rested with them simply to welcome it, to enter it, and having entered it to fulfil the obligations it imposed. We have here the essence of the doctrine of the need of Divine Grace. To speak more particularly, if the Kingdom of God is to be a reality, man needs to have God revealed to him, and to have life in God made possible to him, which by reason of his sin and weakness it is not without Divine aid. Manifestly in this way the doctrine of the Kingdom of God may open out into the whole of Christian Theology. It is not my business here to justify any of the statements and conceptions of Theology. I would simply point out that the idea of the Kingdom leaves room for these, and occupies this place in regard to them. The whole work of Christ, in revealing God to man and reconciling man to God, through His life and teaching, His death and resurrection, together with the gift of the Spirit to His Church, may be fitly regarded as means to the realization of the Kingdom.
\n2. It cannot but be perceived that the idea of the Kingdom has an intimate relation to that of the Church; but it is not strange that difficulty should often be felt in conceiving clearly what the relation is, when we consider the differences and confusions of thought that prevail as to the nature of the Church.
\nLet me premise that I think the distinction cannot be maintained, which was first introduced by the theology of the sixteenth century, between a visible and invisible Church in this world, the latter consisting only of the truly godly. Not only is such a distinction uncountenanced by Scripture, but the very idea of a Church is that of a Society which has its officers and organization. It is a contradiction in terms to call a number of individuals a Church who are not united together in a body. The moment they do begin to unite, by virtue of their supposed common characteristic of genuine godliness, they cease to be invisible. There have been such attempts to form a pure Church; but history and the warnings of our Lord Himself have taught most of us what to think of them. There is indeed a Church rightly called Invisible, because invisible to us. It is the Church of the redeemed in the spiritual world, but they enjoy perfect fellowship with one another, as well as with their Lord. I must add that if the idea of the Church as a visible society is to be adequately fulfilled, it must be a society maintaining its connexion with the past through sacraments and a common faith, and the preservation of legitimate authority, and through treasuring in more or less fulness the heritage of the Church\u2019s life and experience in former ages; while in the present, though it may be divided into different portions for purposes of government and close co-operation, according to divisions naturally suggested by differences of locality, or race, or language, all the portions should be in communion with one another.
\nI can well understand how this idea of the Church may not only seem to be visionary, but also cruelly to ignore the position of multitudes of Christians. Of the three chief branches of the Church which can claim to have a historic connexion with the Church of the earliest centuries, the Eastern, the Roman, and the Anglican, we see the first, if report speaks truly, sadly apathetic and ignorant, and the second encouraging gross superstitions at least in her popular teaching, and arrogantly requiring the acceptance of late and unfounded dogmas as conditions of communion with her, and the third only just awaking to the consciousness of her heritage; while outside there are multitudes who, having received Christian baptism, are as individuals thus far members of the Church, but whose organizations cannot be reckoned as parts of it, seeing that they exist in direct defiance of the fundamental principles and idea of a visible Church. And yet these very organizations have been, and are, the means of training souls for heaven and spreading in the world true religion and virtue, often where the Church has utterly failed. But the question is, what Christians should hold before them as their aim. God may make up for the errors of men by blessing them when they ignorantly but sincerely follow ways which are not fully according to His design. But our desire should be to know and to carry out His design in its integrity. Now I do not think there ought to be a doubt here as to what Christ taught. He speaks, indeed, only once of the Church in the sense of the Church Universal; but there can be no doubt that He meant the society of His disciples to be a realization of the Kingdom of God. He expressly gave it the name, and the name implies that it should have the characteristics of a body corporate, a social organism. That is to say, there should be an effective union between all its members, and a true connexion between its present and its past, according to laws of vital identity and organic growth.
\nBut this is not the only lesson to be learned concerning the Church from the teaching on the Kingdom of God. Often those who insist most strongly that the Kingdom of God in the present is or is meant to be the Church, having asserted this identity drop at once the less familiar idea of the Kingdom and pass on to the more familiar one of the Church. Or at most they are satisfied with drawing that inference respecting the nature of the Church as a true society upon which we have just been dwelling. If only the thought were kept constantly before the mind, that if the Church is the Kingdom of God, this means that it is a realm in which all should be done to the glory of God, and the Divine will should be fully performed, and the Divine character exhibited by men in all their relations, what power would not this have to regenerate Church-life! But in fact if the names the Church and the Kingdom describe the same body, they serve to make different characteristics of it prominent. The name, the Church, suggests separation from the world, and even a measure of opposition to it. It is composed of those who have been \u201ccalled out.\u201d On the other hand, \u201cthe Kingdom of God\u201d claims by its very name to be extended through every realm of thought and action. The conception of the Church may be enlarged to include such a result, as it is in the sublime language of the Epistle to the Ephesians. But by derivation and usage it will more commonly convey a different impression. We need both names. It is inevitable that sincere Christians should often feel estrangement from the world as it is; and necessary also with a view both to the purity of the Church and for the sake of that world which it is the mission of the Church to regenerate, that they should clearly perceive the difference in principles and standards of conduct, in hopes and aims, between themselves and the children of this world. Yet we well know the accompanying dangers. Believers in the Church according to the Roman definition or that of the ancient creeds, and religious souls among Protestants who have been without faith in the Visible Church, have alike shown themselves liable to these. History has illustrated them in countless ways, and we may observe them in our own day, although not in such startling forms. Where there is not an endeavour to sever oneself from the common life and ordinary interests of men, impossible to be carried out by the majority of men consistently either with their own good or that of the world, there may yet be a far too narrow view of the sphere of religion in relation to human life. The hours that can be wholly given up to religious emotions, or employed for some manifestly religious end, may seem the only ones really worth living. The direct endeavour to save souls may be the only idea of work for God.
\nHere appears the value of the doctrine of the Kingdom of God according to the large and true conception of it. There is a nobler ideal than those whom I have been describing dream of;\u2014the true sanctification of the whole of human life in undiminished fulness, the purification and consecration of every faculty and art of man and of all his knowledge, by carrying into all things a true recognition of God, and by expelling every impure and selfish element.
\nTo effect this for the world, to exhibit it in type among her own members, is the true work of the Church. Therefore she must realize that no genuine human interest can be alien to her. The force of circumstances or a wise prudence may require her to abstain at a particular time from interfering in this or that sphere. But she must never forget that her proper mission is to exercise an ennobling and purifying influence in all. We are thus led to the ethical aspect of the doctrine of the Kingdom and its relation to social progress, which deserves some separate consideration.
\n3. For a man to see himself a member of the Kingdom of God is to learn in one all-comprehending formula his true relations alike to God and to his fellows. It is a great root-concept from which all duties may be deduced, and in which is to be found at the same time the most binding motive for their performance. Hence the naturalness of such manifold ethical teaching being associated in the Gospels with the doctrine of the Kingdom of God. We see, too, how it supplies a social basis for morality, the desire for which has been shown in recent systems. And not only so, but it seems to meet half-way the prevailing aspirations after social progress, and to point out that which can alone really satisfy them. It teaches that there can be no adequate and lasting union of men, except as they are bound together in the consciousness that they are fellow-subjects of the Great King, children of the one Heavenly Father. And while it gives the certain promise of the removal of many physical ills and the increase of outward wellbeing in proportion as it is accepted, yet, unlike many social reformers, those who lay its principles to heart will ever view the physical as subordinate to the moral. The effort to extend advantages which we may possess to less fortunate classes always contributes to a moral end; for it is a proof of love, and the material good so communicated becomes a sacrament of brotherhood. Further, great as are the uses of adversity for moral discipline, there are also elements of material wellbeing which are extremely helpful, and sometimes almost necessary, to moral improvement. Labour for the material progress of human society pursued in this spirit and directed to these ends is labour for the advance of the Kingdom of God. And it is our privilege to regard it as possessing even an eternal value by virtue of our conviction that the future triumphant Kingdom is truly the maturity of the struggling Kingdom of God now. We have learned, many of us, to believe that the discipline and grace experienced in this life leave a mark upon individual character which death shall not destroy, so that for the individual the future life will be a true blossoming of this one. We must apply this thought to a greater organism. Already, indeed, the principle is thoroughly familiar, that the germs of the political institutions and the social state of one age are to be traced in those of preceding ages. But we must extend the idea of this connexion across the boundary which separates this world from the world to come. That future, perfectly manifested, perfectly glorious Kingdom of God will be the true product of what God is working even now. Even now amongst us the spiritual walls are rising of the heavenly City of God. At length when the scaffolding of the Material Order is removed, they shall be seen in their full strength and beauty.
\nConsiderations such as these are far removed from the common thoughts of most of those who dream of and labour for social good. And yet there is much in the prevailing temper of men\u2019s minds which should at least dispose them to listen to the preaching of the Kingdom. For earnest men, belonging to \u201cthe people\u201d more particularly, questions of social regeneration, the removal of social injustices, the improvement of the general conditions of human existence, are all-absorbing, and at the same time there is very general hopefulness as to the future of the world. It is to be remarked especially among the working-classes. With the best minds among them, \u201cthe good time coming\u201d may be said to form an article of religious faith. And indeed the majority of men, however gloomy may be the anticipations entertained in regard to the nearer prospect, have, I believe, a deeply rooted conviction that right and truth must in the long run triumph, and that the sum of human happiness will increase, or at least that the causes of the more unbearable forms of human misery will be removed. Virgil expressed what seems to have been the general feeling of heathen antiquity when he sang,\u2014<\/p>\n
\u201cOmnia fatis
\nIn peius ruere ac retro sublapsa referri.\u201d<\/p>\n
That prevailing among ourselves is strikingly different. Is it that the advances in civilisation already made have bred in us an assurance of indefinite progress yet to be achieved? Or is it that the hopefulness of the one nation of antiquity \u201cwhich placed its golden age in the future and not in the past,\u201d has through the slowly wrought effect of Christianity upon the mind become our common possession?
\nYet again there is among the people a strong instinct for fellowship. Different classes have their special virtues and vices. This is one of the virtues of the working classes, though it may often seem to be rather a dream of choice spirits amongst them than a reality; or as actually realized it may be of very limited scope, and be disfigured by class-feeling. Moreover, the minds of many thoughtful men of other classes, disgusted with the strong development of self-interest in the capital-holding and trading classes, and the general effects of unlimited competition, are much occupied with theories as to other forms of society in which mutual help and common interests may have fuller play. Science, too, has been setting before us with new vividness how many are the links which bind us to the past and to the future, how truly former generations still live in us, and how serious and even awful is our duty to posterity. To all such thoughts and feelings as these the Gospel of the Kingdom of God should speak. It seems fitted once again to arouse attention as it did when proclaimed by John the Baptist and our Lord in Palestine. Men have not, indeed, been prepared to listen by such a national history as that of Israel, or by a long line of national prophets; but they are by their aspirations and some deeply-rooted convictions. The ideal, and the means by which the end is to be attained, which the teaching of Christ will set before them, may be not a little different from those which they themselves have dreamed of, yet not more different than they were from the anticipations of the Jew.<\/p>\n
CHAPTER II<\/p>\n
THE USE BY JESUS OF THE TITLE \u201cTHE SON OF MAN\u201d<\/p>\n
Another phrase not less characteristic of the teaching of Jesus in the Gospels than that which we have last considered is the title \u201cthe Son of Man.\u201d That He did apply this name to Himself has not been and will not, I think, be disputed; and abundant reasons for feeling convinced of the fact will appear as we proceed. But do those sayings really proceed from Him, in which, with manifest reference to the vision in Dan. 7, the image of the Son of Man is surrounded with supernatural glory and dominion, as well as those in which it seems, at first sight, only to express His own dependent condition and profound sympathy with man as man? And if the former are really His as well as the latter, what meaning had He in making use of this imagery? The full bearing of these questions, and even the full evidence for answering them, can only become apparent when we treat generally of His claim to be the Messiah. It will be advisable, however, for us in this chapter to bestow some preliminary consideration on these points, and to decide them so far as we can.
\nWe shall naturally ask first, What interpretation was commonly put by Jews in the time of our Lord on the language of Dan. 7:13? We have seen that in the mind of the prophet the Israelite nation was probably intended by the figure of \u201cone like unto a Son of Man.\u201d In the context the heathen powers are clearly symbolized by various beasts, and the chosen people would seem to be symbolized, in contrast with these, by the noble human form. And with this agrees the explanation of the vision given in the latter part of the same chapter, where the collective body of \u201cthe saints of the Most High\u201d exactly takes the place of the \u201cone like unto a Son of Man.\u201d In time, however, in the case of this as of other prophecies, the exalted language of the seer would be seen still better to fit the Messiah, the true representative of the race. But how early was this application made?
\nNot to mention later Rabbinic writings, the words in question are interpreted as referring to the Messiah in the Talmud. Again, in iv. Esdras, which it will be remembered is usually assigned to the close of the first century, in a vision which appears to be moulded on that in Dan. 7, a man who rises from the sea and flies with the clouds of heaven, represents the Messiah. Nevertheless, the evidence of the Gospel appears to be conclusive that \u201cthe Son of Man\u201d was not popularly understood as a title of the Messiah in the time of our Lord. Not only is it never used as such by Jews, but they show that they were perplexed by Christ\u2019s use of it. \u201cWe have heard out of the Law,\u201d say the multitude at Jerusalem during the last week, \u201cthat the Christ abideth for ever; and how sayest thou, that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this\u2014\u2018the Son of Man\u2019?\u201d Our Lord\u2019s own employment of the term seems to point to the same conclusion. It will hereafter be seen that up to the end of His Galilean ministry He avoided making any open declaration of His Messiahship. But He publicly applies to Himself the title the Son of Man during this period. He does so indeed more sparingly, and generally without the same plain intimations of His predestined glory which accompany His use of it in the later part of the history. Yet He could not during that earlier period have made such use of it as He does, consistently with the principle to which I have just referred, if it had already been familiarly known among the people as a title of Messiah. Once more, if His question, which led to St. Peter\u2019s confession, was asked in the form given by St. Matthew, even His apostles cannot up to that time have apprehended the Messianic import of the term. It is true that, as will be shown more fully in the next chapter, the eminent faith of St. Peter displayed on that occasion consisted not so much in making a discovery that Jesus was the Messiah, as in the admission of the claim which Jesus implicitly made for Himself, the perception of the valid grounds on which it rested, although there was so much in the character and actions of Jesus to offend him. But it is inconceivable that Jesus should in the very moment of asking the disciples for an individual confession of their faith, have taken away all their independence of judgment, and compelled them directly to contradict Him if they did not recognise Him as the Messiah. This He would have done by the question, \u201cWhom say ye that the Son of Man is?\u201d if it was already axiomatic with them that \u201cthe Son of Man\u201d was another name for the Messiah.
\nThere is not, then, evidence of such a contemporary Jewish use of the title as might have helped us to fix the sense in which Jesus employed it. We turn, however, to consider the facts as to its use among early Christians. And first as to the New Testament. It is noteworthy that though it occurs so frequently in the recorded words of Jesus, the evangelists themselves never once use it in their own remarks. Moreover, in other parts of the New Testament we find it but once used distinctly as a name, in the mouth of St. Stephen. There are besides two passages of the Apocalypse in which the Christ is seen as \u201cone like unto a Son of Man,\u201d where evidently allusion is made to the prophecy of Daniel; while in the interpretation of the eighth Psalm in a profound passage of the Epistle to the Hebrews, Christ\u2019s use of this name may possibly be in the writer\u2019s mind.
\nOutside the New Testament, in unquestioned Christian writings, we have the following instance occurring in a fragment of the early Jewish Christian writer Hegesippus, preserved in Eusebius. He is relating the martyrdom of St. James, and he is giving no doubt the account of it which had been handed down in the Palestinian Church, on whose unwritten tradition, among other sources, he is said to have drawn in the compilation of his work. The scribes and Pharisees, he tells us, knowing the influence of St. James with the people, endeavoured to intimidate him into openly denying Jesus, whereupon he \u201canswered with a loud voice, Why do ye ask me concerning Jesus the Son of Man? He too sits in heaven at the right hand of Almighty Power, and is about to come on the clouds of heaven.\u201d In addition we have the repeated occurrence of this title for the Messiah in the portion of the Book of Enoch, the peculiarities of which we have said may on the whole most probably be attributed to Christian influence. If so, this is another piece of evidence of the currency of the name for a time in the Palestinian Church.
\nIf I have correctly observed, the title is not elsewhere used in early Christian literature, unless in actual quotations of Christ\u2019s own words, though the vision of Dan. 7 is repeatedly referred to and applied to Christ. It would seem then that the title, \u201cthe Son of Man,\u201d though it was employed for a time among early disciples, especially those of Palestine, having been learned probably from the Master Himself, nevertheless soon passed out of use. Perhaps the most probable explanation of this change is, that as the consciousness of the Church became more and more completely engrossed with the subject of the essential Divinity of Christ, this name, in spite of its association with images of majesty, failed to express the thoughts which were uppermost in men\u2019s minds.
\nBut the early disuse of this name is not only an interesting fact in itself, it has also an important bearing on the trustworthiness of all those sayings of our Lord recorded in the Gospels in which it occurs. In recording these, they could simply be embodying a tradition early-fixed, or the contents of early documents. What we here observe also tends to give us a favourable impression generally of their fidelity. Though the title \u201cthe Son of Man\u201d was not in familiar use in the circles in which any of them, unless it were St. Matthew, wrote, they have duly preserved it in the language of Christ.
\nIt is further to be observed that the Gospels appear (in spite of the fact that their arrangement of sayings and discourses cannot be regarded as always chronological) to be on the whole fairly self-consistent in respect to the manner in which the utterances of Jesus in question are distributed. The majestic aspect of the name is veiled to the multitude, and even to the disciples is shown with any degree of plainness at most on two occasions in St. Matthew and three in St. John, before the great turning-point in His self-revelation when He drew forth St. Peter\u2019s confession; whereas after that time, especially in the Synoptists, it is constantly presented. This self-consistency, so far as it extends, is another mark of truth.
\nWhatever, then, be the view taken of the date of our Gospels, there is a high degree of authority for the whole class of sayings under consideration, those describing the glory of the Son of Man as well as those which seem chiefly to speak of His lowliness and true humanity. After an early date and outside the Church of Palestine they could not have been invented, because they were in no special harmony with prevailing language; and before that date and within that Church they could not, because the teaching of the Lord was still fresh in the recollection of numbers of living persons.
\nBut the very phrase itself, and those instances of its use of which the genuineness is on all hands admitted, seem also to point to the authenticity of those sayings in which the title is undisguisedly one of glory. For, in the first place, whatever was the original meaning of the passage in the prophet Daniel, and whatever its customary interpretation in the time of our Lord, it is difficult to suppose that men\u2019s thoughts were not intended to turn to that prophecy on hearing of \u201cThe Son of Man.\u201d And it is surely not too much to say that by prefixing the definite article, as with an exception which is no exception our Lord invariably does, He claimed His humanity in a unique sense. The use of \u201cSon of Man\u201d in the Book of Ezekiel, where the prophet is several times so addressed, and in other parts of the Old Testament not uncommonly as a synonym for man, specially expressive of his frailty, has been compared with Christ\u2019s favourite name for Himself; but in these cases the article is absent, and this evidently makes all the difference. It is clear that Christ by His phrase represented Himself as the head, the type the ideal of the race. And this view appears to be fully borne out by those passages which are appealed to in proof of the purely human character of Christ\u2019s claims. When, in reply to a scribe who offered to follow Him where-soever He went, He said, \u201cThe foxes have holes, and the birds of the heaven have nests, but the Son of Man hath not when to lay His head,\u201d this does not mean simply, \u201cBut I, a man, have not where to lay my head.\u201d That a man, indeed, to whom God gave authority over the rest of His creatures should be without a home on the earth, which even the most vagrant creatures have, presents a striking and pathetic contrast. But more than this must be intended, a deeper contrast, in a reply to one who desired to become His disciple. It is He in whom all the rights of the race in the highest sense reside, who is thus destitute. Again, in the words, \u201cThe Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath; wherefore the Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath,\u201d the context makes it impossible to regard \u201cThe Son of Man\u201d in the last clause merely as a Hebraic periphrasis for \u201cman\u201d used in the preceding clauses. The common use of the phrase as a title for Himself must fix its meaning here. Now the complaint of the Pharisees was not against His conduct, but against that of His disciples whom He ought to have controlled. And His argument in the context is, first, that ceremonial observance ought to bend to human necessities; but again, that the attendance of His disciples upon Him itself justified an exception. Hence in asserting the lordship of the Son of Man over the Sabbath, because \u201cthe Sabbath was made for man,\u201d He seems to assert a right to set aside even a Divine institution designed for man\u2019s good on the ground of that headship of the race which had been given Him. Let us examine one more passage. An attempt is made to explain the words of Jesus in absolving the paralytic of his sins as being no more than any other holy man would have a right to utter; though in proportion to the measure of Divine Power in a man would be the effect with which he would speak the absolving word. But there is no trace of such a thought in the whole passage, and the justification which Jesus offers for what He had done, \u201cThe Son of Man hath authority on earth to forgive sins,\u201d evidently claims something special to Himself. We seem, in short, to have here the assertion of a prerogative which belongs to Him strictly as God\u2019s Vicegerent in judgment. And we may compare the words recorded in St. John, \u201cHe hath given Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man.\u201d
\nThere appears, then, to be real though subtle correspondence between these passages and those in which the title \u201cthe Son of Man\u201d occurs in descriptions of dominion and glory. And this correspondence, for the very reason that it is subtle, has the more force in disposing us to believe that the evangelists may rightly attribute the latter as well as the former to Jesus.
\nI have not yet observed that these sayings which speak of the Coming of the Son of Man in glory belong to the common tradition found in all the first three Gospels. For this reason, as well as for another which will appear in the next chapter, not a few naturalistic writers have felt compelled to admit that there is a considerable amount of truth, some allowing more, some less, in their attribution to Jesus in the Gospels. They endeavour to explain His having thus spoken, either by supposing that He expected speedily to return to earth to finish the work which the martyr\u2019s death, seen by Him to be imminent, would cut short; or by regarding them as in some way an expression of His consciousness of the power of that principle which His life and work embodied.
\nIn any warnings against taking the imagery in a too materialistic sense I should be very glad to join, if that did not seem to be in the present day almost superfluous. But the sense given to it by the above-mentioned writers makes its use incompatible with the sobriety and truthfulness of Jesus. If He indeed used such language, He must have intended to assert thereby that His living personal sovereignty over His Church would not end with His death, and that the world would in some way be forced to recognise fully hereafter this living sovereignty. In short, the words must mean that He possessed a nature and prerogatives which make it fitting that we should still give Him the devotion of our hearts, and address to Him prayers and worship as to a conscious Divine King, and that we should hope for His fuller, His perfect manifestation.
\nFrom the point of view of Christian Faith it is easy to see how the association of the phrase \u201cthe Son of Man\u201d with the vision of majesty and glory in Daniel\u2019s prophecy on the one hand, and on the other its relation to humanity which in itself it implied, combined to fit it for His purpose, and to make up its attraction for Him. And the fact that it had not before become current in popular religious language, made it all the more pliable and capable of receiving the new meaning and application that were to be given to it.<\/p>\n
CHAPTER III<\/p>\n
THE CLAIM MADE BY JESUS HIMSELF TO BE THE CHRIST<\/p>\n
The subjects of which we have been treating in the last two chapters have a manifest bearing on the Messianic claims of Jesus. The Messiah, if there was to be one, must certainly have some place in the Kingdom of God; He must in some sense be its King. Again the name \u201cthe Son of Man,\u201d even in its more humble aspect, clearly expressed a unique relation to the human race, and it is therefore, even according to this use of it, to be reckoned as a Messianic title; while there is another class of sayings in which it has associations of celestial majesty. It is time now to consider more directly the application to Jesus, above all the application by Jesus to Himself, of the most comprehensive title the Messiah, for which the way has thus been prepared.
\nIn our examination of the general relation of the Christian idea of the Messiah to the Jewish, we traced a true connexion between the conception of the Person and Office of the Christ in the Early Church and that prevalent among the Jews, and yet a marvellous change. In the faith of Christians the original lineaments were preserved but glorified. The mission of the Divinely-sent King was believed to have vaster issues, His Kingdom to be more wide-reaching and enduring, His Majesty to be more Divine; while at the same time the manner of the appearing of Him who was recognised as the Christ gave a radically new view of the ways of God and of the true ends for human hope and labour, and was most fruitful in effects upon conduct. Both parts of this twofold change sprang from the fact of the Messianic Hope having found its object in Jesus.
\nBut there arises the question,\u2014How did One in many aspects of His work and character so unlikely, One who disappointed so many fond expectations, come to be selected for it? Those who believe in the Gospel narratives have an explanation which is abundantly adequate to account for this. The testimony of the Baptist and of the voice from heaven declared Him to be the Christ; His own marvellous works encouraged the belief; and His own express language claimed the title, in a sense not one whit less supernatural and glorious than that in which it was afterwards understood; and, finally, when the hopes of His followers seemed to be utterly extinguished by His death, they were revived\u2014were enlarged and purified and invested with altogether new power\u2014by His resurrection. And it appears to me that without the co-operation of the two main causes here indicated, first the impression made by the personality of Jesus, His works and His claims for Himself, before His Crucifixion, and then the evidence which convinced His disciples of His Resurrection, faith in Him as a supernatural Christ could not have been established so universally, from the first, as we have seen it to have been among His disciples. His Resurrection by itself could not have done it; for its force as a witness to His Messiahship consisted in the circumstance that it set a seal to what He had previously said and wrought. On the other hand, His own declarations and works would probably have failed to implant this faith, if they had not been divinely vindicated in His Resurrection. The latter should not perhaps have been necessary. The loftiness and purity and humility of His character should have been enough to prove that He only spoke what was true. And now that we have been meditating for nineteen centuries upon that character, this argument appeals to us with a force which at first would not have been so apparent. Men will find it difficult to disbelieve His right to any prerogative of authority and glory which He can be clearly shown to have claimed. But the first disciples could hardly have recovered from such a shock to all their prejudices and their most cherished hopes as His death caused, had it not been for His Resurrection. Nay, it may not be too much to say, that mankind could not have been expected to accept a Revelation of such tremendous import as that made through Jesus Christ except on this double ground of assurance. To quote His own words: \u201cYea, and in your law it is written that the witness of two men is true. I am He that beareth witness of Myself, and the Father that sent Me beareth witness of Me.\u201d And that witness of the Father, according to the view of the apostles themselves, was borne pre-eminently in His raising Him from the dead.
\nWe are here concerned with the historical reality of one of these, the alleged witness of Jesus to Himself; and with but a part of this, the fact that He claimed to be the Messiah, and what He implied by it. In short, we desire to know what was \u201cthe relation of Jesus to the idea of the Messiah.\u201d But though our inquiry is thus limited, it is, I believe, of cardinal importance. For in regard to this the evidence is comparatively simple, and it seems possible to arrive at a clear result. If so, we shall thus obtain a starting-point from which to deal more safely with more complicated questions.
\nUp to a certain point the majority of naturalistic critics will here admit our facts. It is very generally conceded that Jesus must have applied to Himself in some sense the title of Messiah. \u201cJesus held and expressed the conviction that He was the Messiah: this is an indisputable fact,\u201d says Strauss in his original Life of Jesus. \u201cThe fact that His disciples after His death believed and proclaimed that He was the Messiah, is not to be comprehended, unless, when living, He had implanted the conviction in their minds.\u201d He does not, I think, in his New Life of Jesus, make any assertion quite so clear and positive to the same effect. Yet he says, for example, in his discussion of the narratives of the Entry into Jerusalem in that work, that Jesus \u201ccertainly did not wish in all respects to disclaim the character of Messiah.\u201d Renan, again, says that Jesus believed Himself to be the Messiah, though he speaks in terms which have given just offence, and which betray his own incapacity for appreciating lofty moral character, of the manner in which He accommodated Himself to the Messianic ideas of the disciples.
\nThe same point might be substantiated by references to other writers. Volkmar is indeed an exception. In his view the title the Christ was probably first given by St. Peter not during the lifetime of Jesus, but on an appearance to him in glory of \u201cthe spiritually-risen\u201d Jesus. Thus, according to this critic, belief in the Messiahship was not the parent of belief in the Resurrection; but the Resurrection\u2014which he clearly regards and must regard as an objective fact, even if it did not include the resurrection of the crucified body,\u2014was the parent of the recognition of Him as Messiah. But we may well ask:\u2014If appearances of the Risen Lord are believed in of such objective reality and with such accompaniments of glory as would be capable of creating this new faith concerning His Person, what sufficient ground can there be for such an upturning of the Gospel records, and for making assumptions respecting the course of events for which there is no historical evidence. This notice of Volkmar\u2019s hypothesis will only make it more clear why naturalistic critics as a body feel it necessary to allow that Jesus must Himself during His lifetime have encouraged His disciples to regard Him as the Messiah.
\nThey have then (1) to account for the fact of Jesus having taken this title, or at the very least suffered it to be given Him, and to explain the sense in which He took or accepted it. And (2) they have to explain how that conception of the Messiah, which they suppose Jesus would have admitted to be applicable, came to be transformed into that glorious image with which we are familiar in the Faith of Christians. Their attempts to deal with these two points we must now consider.
\nNow orthodox Christians, no less than naturalists, recognise that Jesus did not correspond to the Jewish idea of Messiah. But to us this is no difficulty. The Israelitish hope, though mingled with illusions, was a true preparation for the Christian fulfilment. Jesus was, and is, as we believe, truly a King, truly God\u2019s Vicegerent. But the assumption of the title by Him must necessarily be a serious difficulty to naturalistic writers; and it is felt by them to be so. How could He take the title, since in its purely Jewish sense it so ill represented His functions and work in His earthly life? It would seem that to do so, but for that Divine kingship in which the Church believes, was both incompatible with the spiritual character of His aims, and not to be justified consistently with His personal truthfulness.
\nThe motives and thoughts with which He is supposed to have made the claim may be described somewhat as follows. I combine together the suggestions of different writers so far as they are compatible, and may serve to strengthen one another. For the object is not to gain a dialectic victory over individual writers, but to know what is the strongest theory which we can conceive constructed as a rival to our own. He knew, then, on the one hand, that no one properly answering to the hoped-for Messiah was to be expected, and that it was desirable to prevent His disciples from looking for such, or to use the expressions of another writer, that it was \u201cthe only way to penetrate at least a portion of Israel with his thoughts, and to accomplish the purpose of his calling.\u201d At the same time, in further justification of His appropriation of the title for Himself, He was conscious of being the bringer-in of the final, absolute religion, the true spiritual chief in the kingdom of God, in whom were faultlessly, perfectly exhibited the true relations of man to God and to His brother man.
\nWhat is here said in recognition of the unique moral and spiritual greatness of Jesus we most heartily welcome, though we are compelled to observe that to attribute this perfection and finality to Him and His work, and to suppose that He knew that these characteristics belonged to Him, seems logically inconsistent with the naturalistic point of view. He is already thereby withdrawn from the dominion of ordinary human laws. It being admitted, however, that He was all this, a part, and an important part, of His Messiahship is thus described. But, as those whose views we are considering would themselves allow, there are essential elements of the original conception which are left wholly unrepresented. And if He regarded His Messiahship as limited to this sense, we should certainly expect to find indications that such was His view; and not only so, but also that He was training some at least among His followers to think of His Person and Work in the way which He well knew was alone true.
\nIt has been maintained that there are such indications. The key to what Jesus meant by His claim to be the Messiah is found in His not having made it till near the close of His career. Time is supposed to be thus allowed for Him to have attained to an entirely new conception of the title Himself, and also for an endeavour so to modify the idea of the character in the minds of His disciples as to make it not unsuitable for Him to assume it. Now the question of the time from which Jesus openly offered Himself to the faith of men or to the faith of His disciples, must obviously be of great importance when the object is to obtain a clear and comprehensive view of the unfolding drama of His life and work. In connexion with it interesting discussions have also arisen regarding the consistency of the narrative of the Synoptists with itself and with that of St. John. I shall make a few remarks on these points before I conclude the chapter. But the time at which Jesus declared Himself to be the Messiah can have but little weight in determining the sense in which He intended it, apart from direct traces that He designed to modify the meaning of the name in a particular way. For a satisfactory explanation may be given on the orthodox Christian view of His Person and work, for His having deferred to make known His Messianic character till a comparatively late period. We all, as I have said, recognise that the conception of the Messiah\u2019s Person and Office which He had Himself, and which He wished to convey, was something quite different from that which existed among the Jews. His disciples\u2014we can well understand\u2014would need to be gradually prepared for apprehending such new thoughts. It is even clearer that His work would have been seriously impeded and marred, if He had, in the early days of His Galilean ministry, allowed Himself to be fixed upon by the populace as the Messiah, the views of national glory and of the means by which it was to be gained, which were associated with the coming of the Messiah, being what they were. In the necessity of guarding against this danger alone, we have an abundantly sufficient motive for His checking the open recognition of His Messiahship which those possessed with evil spirits are said to have been disposed to accord Him, as well as for His stern command, so frequently given to those whom He had healed, not to spread abroad His fame. Though, indeed, as regards the former, it would be natural under any circumstances that He should shrink from receiving acknowledgment from such a quarter.
\nSupposing, therefore, it could be shown that up to a certain late point in His career Jesus made no claim to Messiahship, this could have little weight apart from traces of a change of view in the mind of Jesus, or, at least, of specific efforts to convey to the disciples the limited sense in which He used the term. The only expression which can, I think, be adduced as implying that Jesus did not at the first regard Himself as the Messiah is that He, like the Baptist, began His ministry with the proclamation, \u201cthe Kingdom of heaven is at hand.\u201d The meaning of these words in His mouth has already been considered. And, at any rate, it is clear that a solitary expression of this kind cannot, by virtue of a particular explanation which men may choose to put upon it, countervail the profound impression which the narratives of all the evangelists produce upon us of a perfect unity in His whole life, of a mission the scope of which was completely realized from the time of His baptism at least, and in the fulfilment of which each step was taken with the calmness of clear and unwavering conviction.
\nAs regards the training of His disciples, the points chiefly urged are His adoption of the title \u201cthe Son of Man,\u201d which throughout was His favourite name for Himself, and His announcements of His sufferings, which became especially plain and frequent after St. Peter\u2019s confession at C\u00e6sarea Philippi. These are adduced as evidence that if He claimed to be the Messiah, He intended to shear the conception of all ideas of might and dominion. His use of the title \u201cthe Son of Man\u201d has already been discussed, and we have seen that in reality it tends to support my main contention. With respect to the announcements of the sufferings of the Messiah, it must suffice to observe that instead of necessarily lowering the essential concept of His character, they would rather require that His majesty and power should in some way be more fully vindicated afterwards, as according to the belief of the Church was actually the case.
\nBut a passage remains to be noticed in which there may seem to be clearer signs of a desire on the part of Jesus to sever Himself radically from Jewish Messianic expectation. He is recorded to have on one occasion, after quoting from the 110th Psalm, propounded to the Pharisees the question, \u201cIf he (David) call Him (the Christ) Lord, how is He his son?\u201d It is argued that His object was to destroy the belief that the Christ must come of the lineage of David, and with it also the idea of His being a king.
\nNow the passage is undoubtedly a very difficult one. It is hard to determine the drift of the argument, or the interpretation of the words of the Psalm which is meant to be suggested. It is not, however, necessary for us to discuss these difficulties here. For at all events that view is heavily burthened with improbabilities which sees in the words an intention to deny the descent of the Messiah from David. This is to assume that Jesus set Himself not only against one of the most universally accepted points in the Messianic doctrine of His day, but one which could not but be deduced from the Old Testament itself, if Messianic prophecy were recognised there at all, and which continued to be fully believed among His disciples.
\nIt is, moreover, evident that, whatever be the exact drift of the argument, its effect is to exalt the glory of the Messiah. For it turns upon the point that the Christ is acknowledged by David himself to be some one greater than himself. \u201cDavid calls Him Lord,\u201d although titles of honour and respect are not naturally paid to a descendant by a progenitor.
\nI have endeavoured to notice every indication of any force that can be alleged for the view we are considering; and we have seen, I think, that none will stand examination. But we have still to refer to the simple and broad consideration which shows most convincingly its impossibility. If it were true, then Jesus would have had in the first age of Christianity not a single true disciple. For in the faith of no section of Christians, and of no individual Christian of whom we know in the first century and a half at least, is the Christ of modern Unitarianism foreshadowed. It is not to be found, we have seen, in the Apocalypse or in the Jewish-Christian opponents against whom St. Paul wrote; nor in the Deified Man of Ebionism. Jesus cared so little for truth, or He taught so ill, that not to one faithful disciple more able and more thoughtful than the rest did He impart His own conception of His Person and Office.
\nIt is a striking comment upon the inadequacy of the explanation which has thus far occupied us, that some naturalistic writers have felt it necessary to attribute ideas of establishing a temporal sovereignty to Jesus. This was the theory of some of the early rationalists; and Vernes has made it his principal criticism on Colani, whom he in the main follows, that he has not done justice to this political element. He does not, however, show how such an aim was compatible with the general character of His teaching and life. This theory, that Jesus in claiming to be the Messiah showed that He expected to reign over Israel as an earthly king, is not in its cruder forms worthy of refutation. More attention is due to the manner in which Keim has worked it out. According to this writer, Jesus from the very opening of His ministry thoroughly believed Himself to be the Messiah, knowing that He had the secret of a moral and spiritual knowledge to communicate to Israel, which (if received) would bring about the establishment of the expected theocratic kingdom. And He was convinced that God would turn the hearts of the people as a whole to Him as their king. When it began to appear probable that He would succumb to the plots of His enemies, then there arose within Him the belief that God would speedily bring Him back from the grave in order that this result might be achieved. But even on His last entry into Jerusalem a week before His death, He still hoped against hope that Israel would recognise its Messiah, and that the kingdom would be established without further delay. This view is, however, not only unsupported by, but directly irreconcilable with the Gospel records of His teaching, and inconsistent with His character. From first to last He shows that His preaching and Person will be a source of division and judgment as well as of peace, and that the progress of His kingdom will be but slow. He avoids popular commotion. Even in His work among the masses He singles out individuals; and He bestows His chief care upon the spiritual education of a few chosen followers.
\nOver and above this it is impossible that one who displayed such marvellous sobriety of feeling and moral discrimination should have allowed Himself to walk in such a land of dreams as is here represented; that He should have been so entirely at fault as to the moral and spiritual forces at work around Him, and that He should have confidently declared that He was destined to play a r\u00f4le so unique, when He had so little real ground for expecting it.
\nNaturalism appears then to be wholly unable to give a satisfactory account of the assumption by Jesus of the title the Messiah. Not, however, now to insist further on this point, let us pass on to consider its attempts at explaining the transformation of that idea of His Messiahship which they think they can allow Jesus to have entertained into that conception which is cherished in the faith of Christians.
\nHow hard it is to explain the faith of the first generation of Christians in Jesus as a supernatural Christ, on any other than the Christian view, is shown by the wavering theories of successive naturalistic writers. One, in order to save, as he thinks, the character of Jesus for honesty and sobriety, denies the genuineness of, or explains away, every word of His in the Gospels which could be taken to imply the possession of powers or a destiny surpassing those of ordinary human nature. Another, feeling the difficulty which must then arise of accounting for the faith of Christians, makes bold to attribute to Jesus utterances which directly caused the mistaken beliefs of His followers. The whole history of the naturalistic hypotheses on this subject may be described as an endeavour on the part of their authors to avoid on the one hand the Scylla of doing discredit to the truth and self-knowledge of Jesus, and the Charybdis of being left without an adequate explanation of the growth of the Christian Church and its Faith. To us it appears that if any escape the one danger, they fall into the other; and the most part in their uncertain course suffer from both. Those who strive to allow as little as they think possible of the claims alleged to have been made by Jesus, yet allow what is irreconcilable with the simplicity and truthfulness of His character, if He was merely man; while even those who allow most do not allow enough to account for the faith of His disciples.
\nLet us first consider the tenableness of the theory, that from the simple conviction that Jesus was the Messiah, which title He had Himself in some modified sense adopted, and the confidence that this being so His work could not fail, sprang the faith that He was still living, in a state of celestial glory, that He had been seen after He had risen, that He would return to judgment, and hence also the whole doctrine of His Divine Personality.
\nTo take the later stages in this alleged growth, I would remark that the accounts of the appearances of Christ after His resurrection do not suit with the idea that they originated in the need of proving His continued life. With the exception of two to St. Stephen and St. Paul, they are confined to the first forty days. We should have expected, especially if they were the consequence of belief in His present life or regarded as confirmations of this, that there would have been numerous other alleged instances of appearances. Many an ardent believing soul during the first years of Christianity would have been convinced that in some moment of peril, or spiritual need, or exalted devotion, he had seen the Lord.
\nBut even if the belief in His risen life and the supposed evidence of it could thus be explained, how were the next steps taken? Why was He invested with celestial power and glory second only, if even second, to those of the Father? Why should fancied appearances of a dead teacher, even if they were far more remarkable than any other supposed appearances of the departed have ever been, have this transforming effect upon their conception of Him? No other instance at all comparable has ever happened. His returns to them, real or imaginary, would be a touching proof that He was still thinking of them, but what evidence could they supply either that He was essentially divine or that He had been deified?
\nBut do not, perhaps, Jewish ideas of a Messiah living in a state of celestial glory before His appearance to execute His mission on earth supply the necessary element, as in a chemical combination, to account for the growth of the new faith? We have seen that it is more than doubtful whether such an idea existed among Jews of the first century except in the most incipient form. But to take the supposition most favourable to the theory in question. Suppose the Enochic \u201cBook of the Three Parables\u201d is genuinely Jewish, and suppose the one or two passages in the Talmud which describe the heavenly state of the Messiah represent a view handed down from a much older time, have we here a sufficient cause? The ideas that the Christ exercises a true sovereignty from heaven, and that He will come as the future Judge of the world, are not to be found at all in the latter, and not with clearness in the former. Whence did the Christian Faith derive these? And how did a notion so little prevalent and so thin and pale comparatively, as that of the Pre-existence of the Messiah was among Jews, give birth to the conviction which we find to be so firm and ardent and universal among Christians? Contemporary Jewish views may possibly explain some of the outer form and colouring of Christian conceptions in this as in other parts of Messianic doctrine, but here more than anywhere they will be unable to explain the essential principles and living power.
\nIs there an explanation afforded by supposing that words of Jesus did give at least a certain measure of encouragement to the belief in His heavenly glory and return to judgment? We have seen, indeed, that many naturalistic critics are most anxious to deny utterly the genuineness of this whole class of sayings attributed to Jesus in the Gospels, and from their point of view they have good reason to do so. Others, however, have felt compelled to allow them more or less of truth. It will be sufficient if we examine the argument of one who, in assuming that Jesus looked forward to His own return, seems to have had most directly in view the necessity of accounting for the Christian Faith, and who at the same time has endeavoured to confine within the narrowest limits possible the illusion that he finds it necessary to attribute to Jesus. When once it had become evident to Jesus, so Zeller argues, that He would be put to death, He could not regard Himself as the Messiah unless there appeared some way in which His cause would triumph; and that in His own hands. Announcements He might thus have been led to make might then, it will be said, have assisted the growth of the more supernatural conception of Christians. The view we are considering does not necessarily attribute to Him the idea that He would return with accompaniments of glory,\u2014that would compromise too much His true human worth,\u2014but that instead of rising at the commencement of the Messianic era like other dead Israelites, He would rise and return to earth in order to carry on that gradual work of establishing a true spiritual kingdom which His death would interrupt. It seems sufficient to reply that there is no trace of such having been His belief, and that, minimize it as you may, this would be a unique privilege which no sane man, who was merely man, could persuade himself that he would enjoy. It would find no real support in current Jewish beliefs; for so to rise would be something altogether different from having part in a general resurrection.
\nThese explanations of the origin of the Christian conception of the Messiahship of Jesus each severally labour under many difficulties. But there remains to be mentioned the following fatal objection which lies against them all. There was no time for the mythical growth which each supposes. Strauss has necessarily rested the possibility of the mythical theory on the assumption of a late date for the Gospels. Patient and candid study is making it more and more apparent that they cannot be placed so late as he supposes. But be this as it may, when he makes much of this point, he reasons apparently in entire oblivion that there is any other evidence than that of the Gospels, or anything else to be explained, except certain miraculous incidents related in them. If Jesus did not during His earthly life claim a supernatural kingship, and did not rise from the dead, some considerable period would be as much needed for the genesis of belief in a supernatural Christ as for that of any (supposed) mythical incident. Strauss and other naturalistic writers have never really faced the fact that within a few years of the death of Christ such a faith certainly flourished, and allowing for the different degrees in which the new view of the Person and Office of the Messiah was apprehended, was accepted by all His followers.
\nIf Jesus Himself encouraged belief in His superhuman prerogatives, then it is natural that His resurrection should turn the attention of His disciples upon all that He had said having this tendency. But on no other supposition can we understand the Faith of the Church of the First Days. The facts as to the Faith of Christians confirm the view which we may gather from the Gospels. Jesus, though He undoubtedly desired to include in the idea of the Christ elements which were altogether wanting in the popular conception, and to transfigure those which it did contain, did not wish to explain away the essential meaning of the name. Without attempting first to modify the concept \u201cthe Christ,\u201d He forced the individual subject \u201cJesus of Nazareth\u201d into connexion with it. And His conduct in so doing must remain an insoluble enigma if He wished to be regarded only as a great prophet, or the greatest of the prophets. But it is intelligible enough if, in the sense He wished to give to the name \u201cthe Christ,\u201d and in which He claimed it for Himself, there was to be a real transfiguration of the idea of the God-ordained king; if He intended to preserve all the most essential ideas previously contained in the conception, and to give them a vaster meaning; if He was conscious that there was that finality about His work which does not belong to that of any mere man, that He stood in an altogether unique relation to God, and in the specific relation of being God\u2019s Vicegerent, and that His dominion was a Universal one over all races and generations of mankind, He would then have no reason to wish that the old prophetic language about the Messiah as the Divinely-appointed king should be forgotten. At the best, indeed, it foreshadowed Him but dimly, and gross, materialistic notions were often associated with it. But there was need only that men should learn to use it as symbolically expressing a far more Divine reality.<\/p>\n
So far we have been occupied with the general fact that Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, and with the sense in which He did so. I have been anxious to keep these points separate from all others because of their importance, and because of the strength of the evidence for the conclusions at which we have arrived. But we cannot leave the subject of the claim by Jesus to be the Christ without some consideration of the manner in which, and the times when, and the persons to whom He made it. In regard to these, it may not indeed be easy to form a picture in all respects self-consistent from the Gospel narratives. And it would not be profitable to attempt a full discussion of the difficulties, except as part of a general estimate of the purpose and character of the Gospels and their relations to one another. But we may note certain broad indications of fact in the Gospels in regard to the point in question. If I offer any explanations of such statements in their narratives as are apparently inconsistent with these broad indications, they must be taken simply for what they are worth, and not as though I supposed them to be in themselves conclusive.
\nLet us state to ourselves the problem, if we may venture to call it so without irreverence, with which Jesus was confronted. He knew Himself to be the Messiah, and faith in Himself as such had to be imparted to at least some minds, that it might be the foundation of His Church. But the minds of His contemporaries were possessed with a false conception of the Messiah, and no good, nothing indeed but mischief, could follow from their believing Him to be the Messiah simply of their expectation. He must, even while teaching men to believe in Himself as the Messiah, transform the conception, and transform it in a certain way which we have already ascertained. How was He to act in order to achieve the double end? This is a point which must attract the thoughtful student of the Life of Christ. To naturalists it would wear a different appearance from that which it does to us. Their view of the transformation which Jesus meant the idea of the Messiah to undergo is different. The question also becomes with them one as to the history of His own consciousness of Messiahship, as well as of His unfolding of it. But what I ask my readers to consider now is whether, the end being such as I have stated, the Gospels represent Jesus as having acted in a reasonable manner for achieving it. We must carefully distinguish between our Lord\u2019s revelation of Himself to the multitudes and to the chosen few. There are obvious reasons why He should have dreaded a too early adoption of belief in His Messiahship among the masses of the Jewish people. Nothing related in the Evangelists appears to be seriously out of harmony with this principle of conduct. His mighty works, and many of His utterances from the first, were indeed calculated to arouse in their minds the surmise that He might be not only a great prophet, but the Messiah Himself, and they are said actually to have done so. But then He forth with repelled them by other utterances and parts of His conduct, and so reduced them again and again to a state of the greatest perplexity. To speak generally, it might be inferred from the Synoptists that He was not by any Divine sign pointed out unmistakeably to the people as the Messiah, and that He did not by word or deed Himself plainly claim the title before them, till His Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem.
\nWhen we turn to the Gospel according to St. John, we meet with narratives at first sight inconsistent with this plan of conduct. But they may not be so in reality. For the Synoptists up to the last Journey to Jerusalem speak only of the ministry in Galilee, where (we know) there was peculiar reason to avoid giving occasion to popular patriotic commotion; whereas the instances in question in St. John occurred elsewhere. The first instance recorded by him of our Lord\u2019s making Himself known, or being made known, directly as the Messiah to others than the most intimate disciples is at Sychar, in Samaria. Cut off as the Samaritans were from the general life of the Jewish people, there would not be the same reason to fear that dangerous consequences would follow from such a belief amongst them. Moreover, if the view not uncommonly taken of the conception of the character and office of the Christ among the Samaritans is correct, its special deficiencies were not of a kind to encourage revolt against the civil power. I think, too, there will be felt to be something not only very beautiful, but very characteristic of our Lord, in His declaring Himself with greater plainness of speech than He had Himself hitherto done even to the Twelve, to this dark-minded and sin-stained woman, whose spiritual nature was just awakening to life under His presence and His words.
\nWe again find our Lord using language which can hardly fail to have been understood to involve a claim to be the Messiah, at Jerusalem at the time of the Jewish feast to which the fifth chapter relates. This feast was before the Passover (referred to in the sixth chapter) which preceded that at which He suffered; but it may not have been long before. The words seem to have been addressed to His special opponents and enemies, members of the party of the priests and Pharisees; and they may have been heard only by them and His own disciples. It is to be added that His language on this occasion, as on subsequent ones according to St. John, would sound so strange, that lofty as were the claims implied in it, they would not readily lay hold of the minds of His hearers or stir their national enthusiasm, even if they were disposed to be so moved by Him.
\nThe position of the immediate disciples of Jesus was altogether different from that of the masses of the people. There were not the same reasons for reticence before them; and Jesus might well be endeavouring to form a belief in His Messiahship among them while He dreaded it among the multitude. Even His chief apostles, it is true, to the end of His life shared to a great extent the low and mistaken hopes of their fellow-countrymen. Yet He might safely unfold Himself more fully to them, because He had them always under His eye, so that He could stop at once any wrong steps they might be disposed to take. And they had at least a truer faith in Him than others, and knew that they must wait for Him to declare Himself openly in the manner and at the time which He deemed best.
\nWhat course then was pursued with them? It is held by many of the free critics of the New Testament, that the Gospels themselves unsuspectingly show in their accounts of St. Peter\u2019s Confession that Jesus had not been made known as the Messiah even to the Twelve before that time. Whether this is really so we shall presently see. It is, however, to be clearly recognised that this incident constitutes a great epoch in Christ\u2019s self-revelation. Up to this point they were for the most part left to surmise that He was the Christ from His mysterious utterances, from His mighty works, from the fact that He did not deny that He was \u201cthe Son of God\u201d when the possessed called Him so, but only forbade them to make Him known, and that in like manner He did not rebuke His disciples themselves when they gave Him the same title after the stilling of the storm.
\nThe exceptions in the Synoptic Gospels are the passage already referred to in the Sermon on the Mount, and His explanation of the parable of the Tares given privately to the Twelve, in which He still more plainly speaks of Himself as the future Judge of the world.
\nIn the fourth Gospel we read in addition that some of them had heard the testimony of John the Baptist, and thereupon followed Jesus, having before been disciples of John. Belonging to the same period also there are confessions on the part of several of belief in His Messiahship. Andrew tells his brother Simon, \u201cWe have found the Messias.\u201d Philip again says to his friend Nathanael, \u201cWe have found him of whom Moses and the prophets did write;\u201d and Nathanael acknowledges Him as the Son of God, the King of Israel, and Jesus accepts the homage. After that early time there is no direct claim on the part of Jesus to be the Christ in the hearing of His disciples, or ascription of the title to Him on their part, during the period which we have been already considering in the Synoptic narrative.
\nBut just when He was about finally to leave Galilee the Synoptists relate that He elicited from St. Peter, as the spokesman of the Twelve, a definite confession of belief that He was the Christ, and in the most solemn manner pronounced a blessing upon Him for it. And from that point forward prophecies of His approaching suffering accompanied by the plainest announcements of His glory are repeatedly recorded in the narratives. A similar confession of St. Peter about the same epoch is related in St. John. It is somewhat difficult to adjust its relations to the other, but the description of the circumstances of the time is entirely accordant and even more vivid in St. John. The confession itself, however, recorded in the Synoptists is a more marked incident, and upon it we may mainly fix our attention. It undoubtedly constitutes a chief crisis in the Life of Christ. As we come to it in the pages of the Synoptists we are ever newly impressed with the sense that we are reading an unfolding drama. Artless, indeed, and simple as their narratives are, we yet on attentive study discern in them signs of a consciousness of the progressive march of events and of intentional structure in the arrangement of their materials, which we may not at first have suspected. The very omission by them to mention any visits of Jesus to Jerusalem after that in His boyhood till the last one, though such, we should say, there must naturally have been, apart altogether from the testimony of St. John, serves to give the impression of an orderly development. They thus undoubtedly simplify the narrative, but at the same time they convey to us with great truth and force, in grand outline, the progress of His life and work. More than once, also, at some important point they throw in some phrase to mark the new departure. So St. Matthew does immediately after the incident which we have under consideration.
\nThe moment was a singularly suitable one for the commencement of a new stage in His revelation of Himself. He and His disciples were in \u201cthe coasts of C\u00e6sarea Philippi,\u201d at the extreme point of their northward journey. They were turning their faces southward; the ministry in Galilee was almost closed; every day they would be continually journeying nearer to Jerusalem. There must always be a peculiar solemnity, a peculiar tension of feeling, in taking the first steps towards a probable scene of responsibility and peril or pain. Jesus may truly be said to have been then entering upon the Via Crucis. The vision of suffering, the place of suffering, still far away in the distant south, would daily be brought nearer, and brought nearer too by His own deliberate resolve. It was most natural that He should have chosen such a moment for beginning to deepen and strengthen the faith of His disciples in Himself in a way that He had never done before.
\nBut the narratives of the incident near C\u00e6sarea Philippi which occurred at this crisis are asserted to be inconsistent with the truth of the accounts of earlier announcements of His Messiahship by Jesus, and recognition of Him as Messiah by His disciples. It is urged that if it had already before been declared to St. Peter that Jesus was the Christ and confessed by him and others, such an ardent blessing could not on this later occasion have been pronounced upon his faith; and more especially that the words could not have been used, \u201cFlesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father which is in heaven.\u201d I believe, however, that we shall not think that there is any great inconsistency, if we endeavour to enter with a true historical imagination into the circumstances of the time at which St. Peter\u2019s Confession was made and take due account of common characteristics of the human mind.
\nThe nature of the crisis I have already briefly indicated. The effects of our Lord\u2019s Galilean ministry had already developed themselves. The saying was being proved true there, as it was to be in still more awful form at Jerusalem, \u201cFor judgment came I into this world.\u201d The most diverse opinions about Him had become rife; on all hands the greatest perplexity had been caused by His words and conduct; men whose patriotic and other hopes had been stirred had now fallen away; the most part even of His disciples were keenly disappointed, and many who once followed Him went no more with Him. The same national prejudices and other causes of perplexity which were felt by the Jews generally, affected the minds of St. Peter and the rest of the Twelve. The very fact that so many were turning back would in itself be a trial to their faith.
\nMoreover, because once and again the conviction had flashed upon their minds before, that some utterance of Jesus or some great work implied that He was the Christ, it does not follow that they should be able to retain this conviction always. We know with what difficulty the mind really familiarizes itself with any new and great truth, and how hard it is to keep hold of any spiritual truth whatsoever, amid the thronging impressions of sense. We have had in some hour of great need, perhaps, or perhaps of exceptional calm and stillness, an overwhelming conviction of the certainty of some such truth. But as days and months filled with the ordinary occupations of life pass by, the impression of it fades, and we find ourselves not merely forgetting it, but even doubting its reality. The very fact, too, that Jesus had not since become more explicit, and had done and said many things which to the Twelve, not less than other Jews, would seem inconsistent with His being the Messiah, and even like an express resistance to such a view on His own part, would be calculated to make them doubt what they had believed before. To be able then, under such circumstances, to say with the utmost seriousness and ardour of conviction, \u201cThou art the Christ,\u201d meant infinitely<\/p>\n
PART III<\/p>\n
MESSIANIC IDEAS IN THE EARLY CHURCH<\/p>\n
CHAPTER I<\/p>\n
THE DOCTRINE OF THE OFFICE OF THE CHRIST IN THE EARLY CHURCH<\/p>\n
The nature and meaning of the claim to Messiahship made by Jesus, which were discussed in the last Part, form a subject in itself of primary importance. The results obtained also supply a necessary step towards studying the history of the doctrine of His Messiahship in the early Church, to which it is time now to turn. A sketch of the view which the first Christians took of His Messiahship has already been given, because without this it would not have been possible to estimate adequately the evidence as to the claims made by Jesus Himself. But the chief points in the conception have to be examined more in detail.
\nThe operation of two main causes in giving it its distinctive character must be allowed by all, though different degrees of importance would be assigned to them. They are, first, the impression produced by the personality of Jesus, all the facts known or believed about Him, and His own express announcements; and, secondly, the influence of Old Testament prophecies which had already been referred to the Christ, or which were now seen to apply to Him. We must endeavour to determine the true place of each of these; and the discussions of preceding chapters should enable us to do so. We must also bear in mind the possible influence of Jewish conceptions. These will have a large place in a subsequent chapter; but they are, I believe, comparatively unimportant in relation to the subject of the present one, and we may most conveniently at once dismiss their consideration with a few words.
\nWe have noticed in an earlier chapter that there is a degree of similarity between the Christian conception of the present heavenly state of the Christ and representations of His Pre-existence in some Rabbinic passages, as well as in a portion of the Book of Enoch, of which it may be held doubtful whether it is of Jewish or Christian origin. And this might argue a dependence of the Christian upon the Jewish doctrine. If, however, the conclusions reached in earlier parts of this work be sound, this belief among Jews as to the Pre-existence of the Christ in an angelic condition had not arisen till a time too late for it to have promoted the formation of the article of Christian belief in question.
\nWe may with more probability trace the influence of a Jewish belief in the Messiah\u2019s Pre-existence in the Docetic conception of the Person of the Christ. For the time when the latter arose, the latter part of the first century, makes the connexion more possible, and the doctrine is in itself more analogous. I may remark that the idea of the Pre-existence of the Christ as an angel, is irreconcilable with that of a true incarnation. Those who have thought of the Christ as essentially an angel, have never in fact conceived, and could not conceive, His human life to be real. A whole and complete human nature could not be united to another finite being, whether angel or man, as it could be united to, and could become the perfect organ of, God. Wherever then we find a belief in the real human nature of Jesus Christ, there we may confidently say the idea formed of His superhuman pre-existence and personality is not as of an angel. But such was in all probability the idea of the Messiah\u2019s pre-existent state held among the Docet\u00e6. Whether, however, they had derived it from a Jewish source, or whether their doctrine was due simply to a misapprehension of purer Christian Faith we have scarcely, I think, the means of deciding. It is in favour of the former view that the early Docet\u00e6 appear to have manifested Judaizing tendencies.
\nWe may now proceed to consider how the doctrine of the office of the Christ in the early Church was moulded by the revelation made in Jesus, and by the language of the Old Testament. It is with the doctrine of His Office rather than of His Person that we are concerned, because \u201cthe Christ\u201d is eminently the title for the former. At the same time we cannot forget that the functions and prerogatives of His Office derive significance from His Divine Personality. We have a striking example how impossible it is to dissociate the two in the use of the name \u201cthe Son of God.\u201d This name is a title of Messiahship. It is doubtful indeed whether it was so used by the Jews. Some passages in the Gospels might induce us to suppose that it was. But if so, it was afterwards discarded. We do not find any instance of its being used in a Jewish writing, either before or after the Christian era. And Origen, writing in the first half of the third century, comments on the ignorance of the heathen opponent of Christianity, Celsus, because he had put into the mouth of a Jewish interlocutor in his dialogue the assertion that the coming of the Son of God had been prophesied; whereas what the Jews do say is that \u201cthe Christ of God shall come.\u201d Nevertheless, in the New Testament the name must at least at times bear reference to the promise to David of a descendant who should call God His Father, and whom God will call His first-born. But it could not with them be a mere title of Messiahship. They felt that the ideal of the king which had been shadowed forth, had through His essential Godhead received a more wonderful fulfilment than they could have dreamed of.
\nBut to turn now more distinctly to His Office. We will take first the Exaltation and Return to Judgment of the Christ, and in connexion with the former, His Resurrection. The belief in the Heavenly Reign of the Christ could not, as we have seen, have sprung from belief in His Resurrection, nor that in His Resurrection from His Heavenly Reign. Nevertheless, there is an intimate doctrinal connexion between the two which is not always perceived. The Resurrection was not only a necessary antecedent to His Glory, but actually its beginning. The body with which He rose had been transformed in death. While marvellously connected with that which He had before, it was endued with new powers, no longer subjected to the same laws. It was, in short, a \u201ccelestial,\u201d a \u201cspiritual body.\u201d He had already entered upon a life in which the disciples could not as yet share; and even on the occasions during the forty days on which He made His presence most vividly felt and held the most intimate converse with them, He yet referred to the time before His death, by contrast with the present, as \u201cthe time while I was yet with you.\u201d
\nThe prophecies which Christians quoted to prove that Christ should rise were not of that definite kind\u2014no one pretends that they were\u2014which could have suggested the belief in the first instance. It will not be necessary to go through them in detail here. One of them, however, from the second Psalm,\u2014which was already by Jews understood of the Messiah, though neither then nor afterwards with the same meaning,\u2014is of special interest. The words, \u201cThou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee,\u201d served to interpret doctrinally the significance of the Resurrection. They expressed the thought that the Resurrection was the setting of a Divine seal upon the Messiahship of Jesus.
\nProphecy discharged a function not less remarkable, though different, as regards the form in which Christ\u2019s life was conceived in that invisible world which we can think of only by the aid of sensible images. The opening words of the 110th Psalm were understood by Jews to be spoken of the Messiah. Christian believers found in the sacred language a figure under which the Heavenly Majesty of the Christ might be represented. There is every reason to believe that this application of the words was original in Christian Faith\u2014not, I mean, derived from Judaism. For it was possible to take the words to mean no more than that God would in a peculiar manner extend His protection to the Messiah and support Him in all His work. When understood more literally, they were still referred to the future day of manifestation.<\/p>\n
The Messiah as Judge<\/p>\n
We pass to the subject of the Last Judgment by the Messiah. We have seen in an earlier chapter that the doctrine of the final Universal Judgment was formulated during the period between the close of the Old Testament Canon and the Christian era; but that the Judge in that Last Judgment is on Jewish ground nowhere the Messiah. The assignment of this office to Him is the most significant new feature in the Christian doctrine of the Messiah. It implies the whole revolution which had taken place in the conception of His Person. What makes it the more remarkable is that support was not sought even in prophecy for attributing to Him this tremendous new prerogative. At least no citations from the Old Testament are distinctly made in connexion with it. We know of no origin which it could have had save the declarations of Jesus Himself. We have already noticed the evidence that the Judgeship of the Messiah formed part of the Faith of Christians from the first. But it will be worth while to dwell a little further upon the chief passages in the New Testament which speak of the Risen and Exalted Jesus as the Future Judge. It will be observed that they connect this office with His Messiahship. The Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of St. Paul supply the most precise and emphatic statements. But each class of writings contains more or less clear examples. \u201cHe (Jesus) charged us\u201d (says St. Peter in the Acts) \u201cto preach unto the people, and to testify that this is He which is ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead.\u201d And again St. Paul in the Acts, on Mars Hill, \u201cThe times of ignorance therefore God overlooked; but now He commandeth men that they should all everywhere repent; inasmuch as He hath appointed a day, in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom He hath ordained; whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead.\u201d Again, in the Epistle to the Romans, he speaks of \u201cthe day when God shall judge the secrets of men, according to my gospel, by Jesus Christ.\u201d And once more, in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, \u201cWe must all be made manifest before the judgment-seat of Christ; that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he hath done, whether it be good or bad.\u201d
\nWe turn to the more Jewish writings. In the Gospel according to St. Matthew, we have the description of the Son of Man sitting on the throne of His glory and judging all nations. Again, in the Epistle of St. James, Christ is called the Judge. For the words \u201cthe Judge standeth before the door,\u201d can, in view of the prevailing expectation among the early Christians of the speedy return of Christ, and the words preceding, \u201cthe Coming of the Lord is at hand,\u201d only refer to Christ. The language of the Apocalypse has already been considered. In the Gospel according to St. John, there is no description, or mention, of the Last Judgment, but the prerogative of universal Judgeship is said to belong to the Son of Man.<\/p>\n
The common Threefold Division of the Offices of the Messiah<\/p>\n
It is customary to speak of the Messiah as \u201cProphet, Priest, and King,\u201d and the great aspects under which the work and office of the Christ are now known to us are rightly comprised in these three names. We must not, however, suppose this threefold conception of the Christ to have been already formed before the coming of Jesus. It has been partly in order to guard against misapprehension on this point that I have delayed the consideration of those two offices which are usually named first till now that His royalty has been fully treated.
\nWe have seen that a prophet was expected who was distinct from the Messiah; and generally, if we ought not to say more, the r\u00f4le of a prophet was not attributed to the Messiah. The identification of the Prophet with the King was perhaps almost as much the work of Christianity as the identification of the suffering servant of Jehovah with the King.<\/p>\n
The Messiah as Prophet<\/p>\n
He whom Christians believed to be the Christ, had been known as the Prophet of Nazareth, and had Himself taken the name of Prophet. His simplest and most popular teaching was cherished as a precious tradition among His followers. They proclaimed that among the prophecies fulfilled in Him was the promise of Deuteronomy. They recognised in His whole life and teaching a supreme revelation of all that it most concerned men to know, both as to the Father\u2019s character and will and their own destiny. Other earlier and more partial revelations were also to be traced to Him. The Spirit of Christ testified beforehand in the prophets. He was the Eternal Word from whom all Divine knowledge proceeds. Such was the view of the Prophetic Office of the Christ among the great body of believers, faithfully held without its being allowed to overshadow other aspects of His Person and Work. Some, however, there were who even gave it an undue prominence while they conceived His prophetic function after a fashion of their own. According to the Christology of the Clementine Homilies\u2014that strange Essene Ebionite work belonging to the middle of the second century\u2014the Prophet of Truth who has appeared more than once before in the history of the world, notably in Adam, and who would seem to be a kind of heavenly Spirit, has been manifested in a supreme manner in Jesus.<\/p>\n
The Messiah as Priest<\/p>\n
The idea of the Priesthood of the Messiah was, we have said, wanting among the Jews. Elements of thought had indeed been prepared which should hereafter make it easier to apprehend it. Such, more especially, was the image in the fiftieth chapter of Isaiah, of Him who should suffer for His brethren, and in whose triumph His brethren should share. But these thoughts had still to be incorporated with the idea of the Christ, even in the apprehension of religious souls. Even in the Haggadistic writings there is scarcely a trace of the priesthood of the Messiah. The Schechina and the Metatron and the Archangel Michael are indeed each called \u201chigh priest.\u201d But there is no ground, with Sch\u00f6ttgen and other of the older theologians, to suppose that the Messiah was intended under these names, any more than in the case of Philo, when he gives the title of high priest to his Logos. It also seems doubtful how far the passage of the Old Testament which was adduced by Christians to prove the Priesthood of the Messiah was ever by the later Jews so applied. That it had not been before the Rise of the Christian Faith is evident; for if it had, it would have been more generally thus used from the first by Christians.
\nThe Priesthood of the Christ was then a more distinctively Christian conception even than His Prophetic Office. It proceeded from the most startling combination in the Christian Faith, namely, that of His humiliation and suffering with His exaltation. At the first, the minds of believers in Jesus would be mainly occupied with assuring themselves and proving to others by the aid of prophecy the conceivableness of a suffering Christ, who shall only after humiliation and death enter into His glory. Countless instances might be given from the New Testament. In this thought such points were included as the union with mankind into which Christ entered, His reconciling us to the Father, His intercession for us\u2014all functions or characteristics of the true priest. Yet these acquired a new prominence, and much else in regard to the work of Christ, and the relation of the New to the Old Covenant received a new illumination when the name \u201cour Great High Priest\u201d was first uttered. To this, again, the language of the Old Testament interpreted by Christian Faith was the guide. It was found farther on in the very psalm, the opening words of which had for some time been taken to represent His present heavenly state, \u201cThou art a Priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedek.\u201d The words had passed over the mind before without producing any definite impression. But Christian hearts now saw realized in Jesus Christ the full meaning of this royal and eternal priesthood.
\nWas it the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews alone who in the first instance taught men this name for the Christ? Or were many Christians being led to it about the same time, through a similar course of reflexion, and stimulated by the same outward circumstances,\u2014the evident near approach of the destruction of the Jewish temple with its worship, or the actual catastrophe,\u2014though none was inspired to grasp the thought so clearly or to give so sublime an exposition of it as he? This we cannot know. But whether derived directly from him from whom, as the only New Testament writer who employs the title, the Church of later centuries has learned it, or arrived at more or less independently by many, this conception undoubtedly made a deep impression on Christian minds during the last years of the first and the first half of the second century. The Christian writings which have come down to us from that time, scanty as they are, abundantly attest it.<\/p>\n
CHAPTER II<\/p>\n
COMPARISON IN DETAIL OF JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN ESCHATOLOGY<\/p>\n
The historical connexion between Jewish eschatological conceptions and the hope of Israel has already been indicated in an early chapter. But it remains that we should make a detailed comparison of Jewish and Christian eschatology. In that former chapter we considered especially the origin of its representations in the Old Testament, and their later growth was referred to only in the briefest manner. We shall now, on the other hand, be concerned with the more fully developed eschatology of the Jews, and the stages by which it reached that fuller form. It will, I think, tend to clearness of thought in the following discussion, if I begin with a few words on the order of \u201cthe last things.\u201d
\nAccording to the simplest idea of that succession among the Jews, there would be great troubles before the end, the nations hostile to the people of God would gather together and fight against them; they would be utterly overthrown either by the Messiah Himself or by the Most High, to prepare for the coming of the Messiah; then would follow the Messiah\u2019s reign. This was further developed in two ways. The slaughter of enemies before the Messianic era would be at once consummated by a universal judgment, or something very like it, on men and fallen angels; or else the course of events up to the Messiah\u2019s reign continuing to be conceived as before, the length of its duration was fixed, and the universal judgment was placed at the conclusion of it, after which would follow finally \u201cthe world to come.\u201d The latter, which is the most fully elaborated view, is commoner in the Jewish books with which we are acquainted than the former. It will also furnish the order which, with some further sub-division, will be followed in this discussion. We shall see how Christian views of the succession of events stand related to those we have described.<\/p>\n
The Length of Time to the End<\/p>\n
The Book of Daniel contains a scheme of the dominions which would succeed one another, ending with the establishment of the kingdom of the saints of the Most High. On this model the later Jewish Apocalypses formed symbolical representations of the periods of the world\u2019s history, and indicated the approach of the close of the present and the beginning of the future age. They also contain numerical determinations of the time to the end in imitation of Daniel\u2019s seventy weeks.
\nIn some passages in the Talmud the actual number of years from some past event to the coming of Messiah is fixed without enigma or ambiguity. It is said, for example, that He will come in 4231 years after the Creation, or 400 years after the wars of the false Messiah, Bar Cochba, and so forth. The number of years chosen is apparently often, as in the case of modern prophecies of a similar kind, one which in the author\u2019s age would bring the end soon. Another calculation was that the world would last a week in which each day should consist of 1000 years, the last or Sabbath day being the period of the Messiah\u2019s reign. More sober-minded teachers, however, among the Rabbis, especially after more than one of the terms fixed upon had elapsed, pronounced that the time of Messiah\u2019s advent could not be known beforehand, and that it was even sinful to speculate upon it. Some gave a practical bearing to this uncertainty by saying that when Israel once adequately repented, or kept the law, or reformed in this or that particular, Messiah would come. Yet herein they showed the absolute opposition between the legalist spirit so common in Judaism and that of the gospel. Repentance had been preached by the Baptist to prepare for the kingdom, not to hasten it, and the apostolic Christian longed eagerly and prayed for the Lord\u2019s appearing, but he never dreamed that either he or the Church at large could by their own efforts win the redemption it would bring. That \u201cthis Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a testimony unto all the nations,\u201d is the only parallel to such conditions of Messiah\u2019s advent in the New Testament.
\nThere are no numerical predictions of the time of the end in the New Testament. A period of 1260 days, or three years and a half, occurs in the Apocalypse, as also of three days and a half, that is, half a week. They appear to be allusions to the \u201ctime, times and a half,\u201d and the weeks of Daniel, but they describe only the duration of a particular phenomenon among the last things. With the former class of more vague determinations of the time of the end may be compared the Beast with Seven Heads and Ten Horns in the Apocalypse of St. John. Even of this class we have not any other example.
\nIt is, however, to be observed that in descriptions of the succession of events no long interval between the nearer catastrophe\u2014the Fall of Jerusalem in the Apocalyptic Discourse in the Synoptists, the Fall of Heathen and Persecuting Rome in the Apocalypse of St. John\u2014and the Coming of Christ appears to be contemplated. Speaking generally, the writings of the New Testament undoubtedly witness to the belief among Christians of the apostolic age, that \u201cthe time would be short.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Signs of the Last Times<\/p>\n
But whether the time still to run could be marked out or not, it would be well to know the characteristics of the period itself which would usher in the Coming of the Messiah, and if possible some precise event or phenomenon from which it might be inferred to be very near at hand. Of this desire we have instances in the New Testament. The discourse in Matt. 24; 25 and the parallel passages is made in answer to a request for such signs on the part of the disciples. Moreover, a special omen is granted, on seeing which they were to flee from Jerusalem. And He speaks also of the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, though what this should be is not explained, nor does there appear to be anything in Jewish writings which enables us to determine the precise meaning.
\nThere are descriptions in the Jewish Apocalypses and in the Talmud of the general state of the world at the time Messiah would come, and there are points of resemblance between them and those in our Lord\u2019s discourse and other parts of the New Testament. In both, derangement of the powers of nature, and wars and confusions and abounding iniquity among men, are prominent features. They are \u05d7\u05b6\u05d1\u05b0\u05dc\u05b5\u05d9 \u05d4\u05b7\u05de\u05b8\u05bc\u05e9\u05b4\u05c1\u05d9\u05d7\u05b7, the \u1f60\u03b4\u1fd6\u03bd\u03b5\u03c2, or birth-pangs of the Messiah\u2019s coming. But the descriptions of the New Testament refrain from detail, and maintain a far more uniform level of dignity and sublimity. It is also to be noted that the originals of many of the phrases used are to be found in the Old Testament. In the Talmud we also find premonitory signs of the special sort,\u2014they are strangely childish.<\/p>\n
The Forerunner<\/p>\n
It was expected, in accordance with the prophecy of Malachi, that Elijah would come before the appearance of Messiah, and by the fancy of later Rabbis a r\u00f4le of extraordinary importance was assigned him. If we are to believe Justin Martyr, Jews of his day supposed that Elijah was to reveal His Messiahship to the Messiah Himself, and to make Him known to the world. Subsequently, it was held that he would raise the dead. Moses was also, according to some Jews, to come as a herald of the Messiah. The Early Church seems to have believed the prophecy of Malachi to have been adequately fulfilled in the person of John the Baptist, the suffering forerunner of the suffering Christ, and not to have looked for a triumphant Elijah as the forerunner of Christ\u2019s Second Advent.<\/p>\n
The Last Enemies<\/p>\n
It had long been believed that before the end the enemies of Israel would gather together and attack the chosen people with peculiar violence, and that a great rout and slaughter of them would ensue. I have already quoted passages from the prophets descriptive of this day of vengeance as the nearest approximation in the Old Testament to the doctrine of a final judgment. But the expectation of this last effort of the enemies of the people of God and their overthrow, founded on the description of the prophets, continued as a separate article of faith even when the doctrine of the Universal Judgment of Quick and Dead took shape. We shall further observe that the Messiah occupies a different relation to this last contest in different documents. It is either concluded before He, the King of Peace, appears; or His appearing, and the new hope and prosperity He brings to Israel, incite the attack. Again, in this latter case He is more manifestly regarded by some as the agent in their destruction, and the Most High Himself by others. The importance of the part assigned to the Messiah grows with the later age of the document. Further, only one combination of the enemies and victory over them seems to have been contemplated according to earlier views. According to later and more elaborate views, there would be more than one such attack and overthrow. It will be well to deal with all of these before leaving the subject of the Last Enemies, although we shall thus be carried forward to the close of that Messianic reign of which we shall afterwards speak.
\nTo turn first to the Book of Enoch. In a passage which was discussed when we were considering the composition and date of that document, the enemies of Israel are described as leaguing together against him for a final onslaught, with the most disastrous result to themselves; but the person against whom the attack is made appears to be John Hyrcanus. After this, and it would appear speedily after, follows the reign of the Messiah.
\nAccording to the Messianic passage in the Jewish Sibyl, the kings of the Gentiles are moved to invade the Holy Land through envy, when they see the prosperity of Israel under Messiah. They encamp about the Holy City, each sacrificing to his gods, and each setting up his throne there. Then a fiery and terrible destruction falls upon them from the presence of the Lord, through which even the powers of nature are shaken. After this the era of bliss will at length in truth begin.
\nIn the vision of the Fourth Book of Esdras the nations of the world are represented as leaving the wars in which they are engaged, \u201cregion against region, tribe against tribe, kingdom against kingdom,\u201d as soon as the Messiah appears, that they may unite in innumerable multitudes to fight against Him. And He, when He sees them approaching, neither lifts up His hand nor holds a spear nor any implement of war; but He sends forth from His mouth a tempestuous blast of fire, and it falls upon the multitude which was prepared to fight, and burns them all up; or, as this is explained in the interpretation of the vision, \u201cHe shall destroy them without effort by a law which is like unto fire.\u201d
\nThere is no indication in the Jewish Apocalypses that there would be a second attack of the enemies. Their representations lead us to suppose that they will be speedily and completely overthrown. A strange view occurs in comparatively late Rabbinic writings in conjunction with the doctrine of the two Messiahs. Messiah Ben-Joseph effects the first defeat of the enemies of Israel, and for a time reigns prosperously. The enemies, however, attack again, and he is killed; whereupon the greater Messiah, the Son of David, appears and completely vanquishes them. He also raises Messiah Ben-Joseph from the dead; but the latter henceforth occupies quite a subordinate position. But there are also Rabbinic passages which imply that there will be another gathering together of enemies at the close of the Messianic era before \u201cthe world to come\u201d is ushered in. This is interesting in connexion with the imagery of the Apocalypse of St. John. It is to be added that the names of Gog and Magog for the enemies of Israel, derived from the prophet Ezekiel, and which we meet with in the Apocalypse of St. John, occur frequently in the Targums and Talmud.
\nThere are several passages of the New Testament in which the simpler and earlier view seems to be followed of a final destruction of the wicked at the beginning of the Messianic era on the occasion of the first and only attack. Thus we read in the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians of \u201cthe revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with the angels of His power in flaming fire, rendering vengeance to them that know not God, and to them that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus; who shall suffer punishment, even eternal destruction from the face of the Lord, and from the glory of His might, when He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be marvelled at in all them that believed (because our testimony unto you was believed) in that day.\u201d Both from this language itself and from other expressions in the Epistle, it is evident that the final overthrow of iniquity is here described, upon which follows the perfected bliss of the righteous, both living and dead.
\nIn the Apocalypse of St. John the description of the enemies of the people of God and of Christ\u2019s dominion is far more elaborated; and there we read of two great attacks, one before the Thousand Years\u2019 Reign, the other at its conclusion, immediately before the end of this world and the Last Judgment. I will briefly summarize the representations of the Vision. What view should be taken of the first of these attacks\u2014whether we are to regard it as having already taken place or not\u2014we shall be better able to judge when we have considered what is meant in the Apocalypse of St. John by the Thousand Years\u2019 Reign of Christ.
\nIn the time of the sixth of the seven last plagues, \u201cthree unclean spirits, as it were frogs,\u201d go forth from the mouths of the Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet to deceive the kings of the earth by false miracles, and so \u201cgather them together unto the war of the great day of God, the Almighty.\u201d Then in the time of the seventh plague, after the fall of heathen Rome, the Beast (who seems to be an abstract representation of the world-power, for the power of the Harlot, heathen Rome, rested upon the Beast, and yet he does not perish when she does), and the kings of the earth, and their armies, make war against Him who sat upon the horse, and whose name is called the Word of God, and His army. The Beast and the False Prophet are cast into the Lake of Fire, and the rest are slain, and the birds of prey feed themselves to the fill upon their carcases. In expectation of this \u201cgreat supper of God,\u201d the birds had already been called together by an angel from every quarter of heaven. After this Satan is bound for a thousand years, and the reign of Christ and His martyrs and confessors begins. But when the thousand years are finished, Satan is again loosed out of his prison, and goes forth to deceive; and at his instigation the nations that are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, assemble for the war in countless hosts, and surround \u201cthe camp of the saints and the beloved city, and fire came down out of heaven and devoured them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Antichrist<\/p>\n
Before leaving the subject of the Last Enemies we must touch upon the belief that there would be one pre-eminent opponent of the Christ at the time of His Second Coming, the Antichrist. The allusions in St. John\u2019s Epistles seem to prove that such an one was expected by the early Christians, while St. John\u2019s own treatment of the subject, the way in which he extracts the essential meaning of the belief without directly contradicting its narrower form, is most instructive: \u201cLittle children, it is the last hour, and as ye heard that Antichrist cometh, even now have there arisen many antichrists, whereby we know that it is the last hour.\u2026 Who is the liar, but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? This is the Antichrist, even he that denieth the Father and the Son.\u2026 Every spirit which confesseth not Jesus is not of God, and this is the spirit of the Antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it cometh, and now it is in the world already.\u201d And again in his Second Epistle, \u201cFor many deceivers are gone forth into the world, even they that confess not that Jesus Christ cometh in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the Antichrist.\u201d
\nNo one of the figures in the Apocalypse appears exactly to correspond to the idea of the Antichrist; his characteristics are divided between the Beast and the False Prophet. The place in the New Testament where a belief in his destined appearance seems most distinctly implied, is that concerning \u201cthe man of sin\u201d in the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians. But the language there is confessedly mysterious.
\nIn a passage of the third book of the Sibylline Oracles, one Beliar is mentioned who appears to be a kind of antichrist, but its genuine Jewish origin, or at any rate pre-Christian date, seems doubtful. In the Apocalypse of Baruch we read of a \u201clast leader\u201d of the enemies whom Messiah should slay. In the Rabbinic writings we meet with a monster named Armilus, who would be foremost in the last attack. In all these, however, it is to be observed we have one who is the warlike captain of the host of enemies, rather than an impersonation of spiritual wickedness, which is the Christian idea of Antichrist. And this gives us occasion to note an important difference of a general kind between the Christian and the Jewish representations. In the descriptions contained in the New Testament of the miseries of the latter times, moral, spiritual, and mental traits, the prevalence of deception and error and doubt, assume far greater prominence.<\/p>\n
The Reign of Messiah on Earth before the end of the present World<\/p>\n
We pass to the reign of Messiah on earth before the end of the present world. In order to understand the history of opinion on this subject, it is necessary again to recall the fact, which we have already had occasion more than once to note, that according to the earlier conceptions, the Judgment was a slaughter and subjugation of the nations hostile to Israel, while the imagination did not travel beyond the prosperity which would follow this to a new world. We have a very clear example of this view in the Sibylline Oracle. After the destruction of the enemies who have gathered together on the appearance of the Messiah, follows a description of earthly happiness which is on the whole beautiful and dignified, and little more than a paraphrase of the language of prophets and psalmists. The people of Israel, who are the sons of the Most High, shall dwell around His Temple; all the nations of the earth shall send presents to it, and join in His worship with His own people. Sun and moon and earth shall be propitious to them; there shall be the greatest abundance of all good things. Perfect peace will reign among men and in nature also; the wolf will lie down with the lamb. The Sibyl\u2019s vision closes with this picture of the future, mingled with exhortations to the idolatrous Gentile nations to repent.
\nTurning to the Book of Enoch, we find a want of clearness and consistency on this subject even in its undoubtedly Jewish portions. In the Vision of the Ten Weeks there is a period of happiness for the righteous preceding the Last Judgment. The wicked are delivered into the hands of the righteous in the eighth week, that vengeance may be executed upon them, and \u201cat the end of it the righteous will acquire houses through their righteousness, and a house shall be built to the Great King for a praise for ever.\u201d Then, in the ninth and tenth weeks the Judgment for Eternity will be held, and the present heaven will vanish away and a new heaven will appear. There is, however, throughout no mention of the Messiah. On the other hand, in the Vision of the Seventy Shepherds nothing is said of a time of peace and prosperity before the Day of Vengeance. After the wars preceding the end, the stars, that is, the angels who fell, are first cast into a fiery abyss, and the seventy shepherds, the Gentile rulers, into the same place with them, and the blinded sheep into a similar fiery abyss. This done, a new and more glorious temple is brought and set up by the Lord of the sheep, and all nations pay homage to the sheep; at last a white steer, the Messiah, is born. At first sight we may be disposed to identify the Judgment described at the beginning of this passage with the Last Judgment as it came to be ultimately conceived. One trait of the Universal Judgment, the consignment of the fallen angels to their place of eternal torment, finds a place. But another is wanting: the general resurrection of men in order that they may be judged. Again, the language used regarding the happy time to follow accords far better with the conditions of the present world, than of that mysterious future world which would be ushered in by the Last Judgment, as men came to think of it when the strong demarcation and essential differences between the present and the future were once clearly recognised. Thus, in spite of some differences, this last representation seems on the whole to approximate to that of the sibyl.
\nIt may also be worth while to quote the two following more general descriptions of the future lot of the righteous from the Book of Enoch. Although they make no allusion to the Messiah, and do not mark out the millennium as a distinct period before the present world comes to a close, they nevertheless, like the foregoing passages, illustrate the ideas which lay at the basis of the doctrine of a millennium, and the imagery which was employed regarding it. \u201cIn those days,\u201d it is said to the wicked, \u201cyou will give your peace in exchange for a perpetual curse by the righteous; and they will evermore curse you, the sinners, even you together with the sinners. But to the elect there will be light and joy and peace, and they will possess the earth; but to you, the ungodly, there will be a curse. And wisdom will then be given to the elect, and they will all live, and not again fall into sin either through forgetfulness or through pride; but they in whom is wisdom shall humbly praise God, and shall not sin again. And they will not be punished all the days of their life, neither will they die by plague or by (God\u2019s) wrath, but the number of the days of their life will they accomplish, and their life will become old in peace, and the years of their happiness will be many in joy and in peace for ever, in all the days of their life.\u201d
\nIn the next passage it is difficult to feel sure whether the time intended to be referred to is that immediately following the Deluge, or whether the mind of the writer is running on, without having made this clear for his readers, to the end of the world. But even in the former case the prevailing ideas as to the character of the future age of blessedness are evidently reflected in the language. To the archangel Michael God says, when charging him with the punishment of the sinning angels, \u201cDestroy all violence from the face of the earth, and let every wicked work come to an end, and the plant of righteousness and of justice shall appear, and the work [of men\u2019s hands] shall be for a blessing; with joy shall righteousness and justice be planted for ever. And now will all the righteous humbly pray, and will remain in life till they beget a thousand [children], and all the days of their youth and of their sabbath will they fulfil in peace. And in those days the whole earth will be tilled in righteousness, and the whole of it will be planted with trees, and will be full of blessing. All pleasant trees will they plant upon it, and vines will they plant upon it; and the vine which shall be planted upon it shall bear fruit in abundance, and of every seed that is sown thereon, one measure will produce ten thousand, and one measure of olives will give ten vats of oil. And do thou purge the earth of all violence, and of all wrong, and of all sin, and of all ungodliness, and of all impurity, which is done upon the earth; make them to vanish from upon the earth. And let all the children of men be righteous, and let all peoples be worshipping me and praising me, and all of them shall bow down to me. And the earth shall be purified from all corruption and from all sin, and from all punishment and from all torment, and I will never again send a Flood upon it unto all generations even for ever. And in those days I will open the storehouses of blessing which are in heaven, in order to let them descend upon the earth, upon the work and upon the labour of men. Peace and justice shall be coupled throughout all the days of the world and throughout all generations of the world.\u201d
\nIt is in the Fourth Book of Esdras and the Apocalypse of Baruch that we first meet with a clear conception of a finite period, before the close of the present world, and distinct from the bliss of the world to come, during which the Messiah would reign on earth. A restored Jerusalem would be the centre of the Messianic kingdom. \u201cLo! the time shall come, and it shall be when the signs shall happen which I foretold thee, that the betrothed city which is about to appear shall appear, and the land which is now in subjection shall be exalted, and every one who has been set free from the foretold evils shall see my wonders.\u201d The next verse has been tampered with by a Christian hand, but apparently only that verse. For the passage as a whole evidently does not harmonize with Christian beliefs: \u201cFor my Son Jesus shall be revealed with those who are with Him, and those who are left shall have joy for four hundred years. And it shall come to pass, that after these years my Son Messiah shall die, as also all men who breathe. And the world shall be turned to its ancient silence for seven days, as at its first beginning, so that no man shall be left. And it shall come to pass that after seven days the world which hitherto sleeps shall be awakened, and the perishable world shall die.\u201d Then follows the general resurrection and judgment. Again in the vision of the coming of Messiah in the same book, the return of the ten tribes, and their being united once more to Judah, appears as another feature of the Messianic era: \u201cSince thou sawest Him (the Messiah) gathering to Himself another peaceable multitude, these are the ten tribes which were carried away captive from their land in the days of King Osea, whom Salmanazar, king of the Assyrians, led captive.\u201d In the Apocalypse of Baruch we are told of the different manner in which Messiah shall treat different nations: \u201cEvery people which knows not Israel, and has not trodden down the seed of Jacob, he shall live; and this because men of every nation shall be made subject to thy people. But all those who ruled over you or knew you, they shall be delivered to the sword.\u201d The writer goes on to paint a really beautiful picture of the happiness of the earth in the Messianic age, which he regards as a kind of period of transition between this world and the next, \u201cthe end of that which is corruptible, and the beginning of that which is incorruptible.\u201d
\nThe Rabbinic writings convey in different passages somewhat conflicting impressions as to the relations of the Coming of Messiah to the \u201cworld to come.\u201d The view of the two documents just noticed, that Messiah\u2019s reign would precede the beginning of the \u201cworld to come,\u201d is found there. And in picturing the features of that time, they give the utmost licence to a grotesque and generally insipid fancy. One additional particular is to be noted. All Israelites would be raised at the beginning of the period in order to enjoy its happiness. This resurrection, according to one strange fancy, would take place solely in the Land of Israel, and Israelites who had been buried elsewhere would have to roll underground\u2014not without suffering pain\u2014till they reached the sacred soil. But another view was that the Future World would begin with the Coming of Messiah. And we see how these different views might equally be developed from the earlier ideas. As men\u2019s minds came to be occupied more than in an earlier age with the question of the spiritual and eternal world, this Future World might be placed after the Messianic age, the general conditions of which had been conceived, and would on this scheme continue to be conceived, as resembling those of the present order. But the Messiah and His Advent were also, as we have observed, invested more and more with a supernatural character; and in consequence of this, it might still be possible, as in former times, to make the Coming of Messiah the great era of the Future, which the other later view did not do, and yet at the same time to gratify in a measure the need, which in earlier times had not been felt so keenly, to imagine eternity. In addition to this we must remember, in comparing different utterances, how natural it is that there should be vagueness of thought and language on these unknown and mysterious subjects.
\nWe turn to the subject of the belief in a reign of Christ on earth before the close of the present world among early Christians; and we will take first the New Testament.
\nThe great majority of passages on the Second Advent in the New Testament manifestly harmonize best with the view that it will be the beginning of the world to come. They contemplate no considerable interval between it and the Last Judgment. Those which employ only the vaguer conceptions as to the destruction of the wicked at Christ\u2019s appearing, still suggest that it is a final and complete destruction. One passage only can be quoted as directly favouring the doctrine of a millennium. It is the well-known one in the Apocalypse which speaks of the devil being bound for a thousand years, during which those who have part in the First Resurrection reign with Christ.
\nWe cannot satisfactorily carry the discussion of such a passage far without some ascertained principles of Scriptural interpretation. The facts should, however, in any case be borne in mind, that no Coming of Christ before the binding of Satan has been described by the seer beyond His going forth on a white horse as leader of the armies of heaven, and that it is not said where those who have part in the First Resurrection reign with Him. Further, those only are expressly mentioned as enjoying this privilege who \u201chad been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the Word of God, and such as worshipped not the beast, neither his image, and received not the mark upon their forehead and upon their hand,\u201d\u2014a description which would especially suit the martyrs and confessors in the early persecutions. These points being observed, it does not seem improbable that even for St. John himself the vision may have meant the curbing of the power of Satan and reign of the saints, due to the first great triumphs of the Cross. It must, however, always remain peculiarly difficult in the case of a book so full of symbolism as the Apocalypse, to determine what was the actual thought present to the mind of the seer. If we have been led to believe in the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, we shall ask not only what in any particular passage the writer meant, but what it was the mind of the Spirit that the Church should learn. And in this inquiry we shall seek for guidance in the general harmony of Scripture. The comparison of Scripture with Scripture has been always more or less recognised as a true rule of interpretation. Those who believe that the form under which the Divine Thought was expressed in part belongs to the individual through whom and the time in which it was uttered, are driven to rely upon this rule more fully than those who hold what is called Verbal Inspiration. We ought also in a case like the present to bear in mind the laws of prophetic utterance and the highest purposes of prophecy, so far as we can discern them, more especially through the use made of Old Testament prophecies by apostles and evangelists. If we approach in this way the consideration of the passage before us, we shall, I believe, recognise that the present reign of Christ over the world is its intended fulfilment. And such was the explanation of the imagery by the great Fathers of the Church subsequently to the second century, and has been the most common one, if the testimony of the Church of all ages and of East and West be taken. We shall only differ from the interpretation of former times in not confining the period to a literal thousand years.
\nBefore leaving the subject of the language of the New Testament in regard to the Messiah\u2019s kingdom, we must note that the imagery attributed to our Lord in the Gospels, and the ideas found there in the minds of the disciples and of Jews of the time, accord with the simpler and earlier representations of the future, according to which the Messianic age was not distinguished from \u201cthe world to come,\u201d while it was also described as a period of earthly felicity.
\nIt would weary the reader if I were to discuss them at length successively, but I have appended references to them in a note. It will, I think, appear on consideration that a spiritual interpretation of them is not unnatural. And at least it must be admitted by all that in these passages, as in that from the Apocalypse which I have just discussed, there is an absence of details of place and circumstance, and of descriptions of the sensuous delights of that time, which presents a marked contrast with what we find in the Jewish writings, and as will be seen, with the Millenarian views found in Christian writers of the second century. The latter, like the Jews, taught that there would be a reign of the saints in peace and plenty in and about the earthly Jerusalem. The points of difference were that Jesus would be the king, and that believers on Him of every race and generation would all be gathered there together with the godly of Israel; and also that they had much stricter notions than the Jews as to the number who had a right to be classed as godly. But they do not seem to have felt any more than the Jews the difficulty of imagining how room could be found in the city, however enlarged, or in Palestine itself, for so great a multitude; and they indulged in the same grotesque descriptions of plenty. They interpret passages of the prophets, such as Isa. 11, of that time. They also refer to the millennium not only the passage in the Apocalypse, but also words of our Lord where no hint is given of any such fixed period. But they do not profess to derive what they believe on this subject primarily from the New Testament. Papias, in his work, Expositions of Oracles of the Lord, now lost, in which he made it his object to collect all the floating traditions he could about Christ\u2019s life and teaching, or anything which he thought would illustrate it, set down apparently as our Lord\u2019s a very materialistic description of the earthly felicity of the Messianic age. Such is Eusebius\u2019 account, and he was acquainted with Papias\u2019 book. Iren\u00e6us also, in quoting the passage in question, gives an account which is substantially the same. We can see how precarious such a source would be; and the language quoted agrees so fully with descriptions in the Book of Enoch and other Jewish Apocalypses, that it might have been taken from them. It was in all probability taken from one of them, or from some document or current stock of imagery, from which they also borrowed. It is not clear that the passage in question was Millenarian in the strict sense; its author may not have regarded the Messianic age as a limited period preceding \u201cthe world to come.\u201d But Papias would seem to have given it a Millenarian application. Eusebius regards him as the author of these opinions in the Christian Church, the writers who came after him having been misled \u201cby the antiquity of the man.\u201d This may be true of Iren\u00e6us; but it is doubtful whether it can be taken as a general account. There is no trace that Justin owed his Millenarianism to Papias. The large Jewish element among the early Christians, which explains how Papias may have come by the language on the subject which he records, explains also their existence in the case of Justin and others. Both from the last-mentioned writer and from Iren\u00e6us, we infer that in that age they were very prevalent. Justin in one passage speaks as if this was the belief of all orthodox Christians; in another his language is less sweeping, but from it also we should suppose that the dissentients were a minority. Nor does a concession made by Iren\u00e6us amount to more than this.
\nThat the Christian Millenarianism of the second century had its roots in the connexions of the Church with Judaism is to be acknowledged. But it is manifestly unsound to infer from it the prevalence of Ebionism. For two of the three men who are the representatives to us in this century of Millenarianism\u2014the only two with whose general view we are acquainted, Justin and Iren\u00e6us\u2014were anything but Ebionites. We have, on the other hand, a question to ask. If, as some would have us believe, a large part of the New Testament is the product of the second century, and represents in varying degrees the different tendencies of Christian thought in that century, how did it remain so free from the Millenarianism which in such definite shape was rife at that period? How is it more particularly that the eschatological conceptions which we should infer from the Gospels to have been prevalent in the time of our Lord\u2019s ministry were of a distinctly early type, which gave place before the end of the first century to a more elaborate one?
\nThe subsequent general rejection of Millenarian doctrine by the Church from the third century onwards is to be traced to the influence of the great Greek theologians, and notably of Origen, while at the same time Millenarian views were brought into discredit through their espousal by Montanists.<\/p>\n
The Last Judgment<\/p>\n
The order of events brings us now to the Last Judgment itself. Those, indeed, who did not distinguish between the Messianic age and the \u201cworld to come,\u201d placed the Last Judgment at the time of, or soon after, the Messiah\u2019s appearing; and the conception of the Last Judgment had, as we have seen, itself grown out of that of the great overthrow of enemies of Israel which would precede His coming, or in which He would Himself be the agent. But when a period was marked off for the Messiah\u2019s reign before the \u201cworld to come,\u201d the Last Judgment was naturally supposed to come at the end of that period as the transition to eternity.
\nSomething has already been said on the subject of this doctrine in connexion with that of the Person of the Judge. There remain, however, points in regard to its character and accompaniments which need further elucidation. We need more especially an answer to the question whether all the dead should rise then to receive their final doom, or whether any receive it at death; or, in other words, to what extent the condition of any of the dead before the Last Judgment is strictly an Intermediate State?
\nAs closely connected with the answer to this question, and as forming a fitting introduction to its consideration, we will first notice the use of the term Gehenna in Jewish writings. The history of the word Gehenna would lead us to expect that it would be connected with the things of the end, and not with a present abode of wicked souls. It is in the G\u0113 Hinnom, the Valley of Hinnom, according to the description which closes the Book of Isaiah, that Jews and those of all nations who come to worship the God of Israel shall, in the period following the restoration of Jerusalem, see the enduring signs of the vengeance that had fallen upon the enemies of God\u2019s people. Even then, when the idea was enlarged by supposing that the entry to a subterranean place of torment was in that valley, or made still more unearthly, it would be not unnatural to reserve its use for the place of punishment at the great future day of wrath. The Jewish Apocalypses are true to this distinction in their use of the word. Thus Enoch, in his first journey, was taken to Jerusalem, and saw there the Valley of Hinnom, and with respect to it was told: \u201cThis accursed valley is for those who are accursed for ever. Here shall be gathered together all those who speak with their mouths unseemly words against God, and speak impudently concerning His majesty. Here shall they gather them together, and here is their place of punishment. And in the last time will the spectacle of a righteous judgment upon them be given before the righteous, for ever and ever.\u201d
\nAgain, in the parable of the Seventy Shepherds, after the angels that sinned and the seventy shepherds have been cast into a deep place, full of flaming fire and of pillars of fire, \u201ca deep like unto it was opened in the midst of the earth, which was full of fire, and they brought those blinded sheep, and they were all judged and found guilty, and cast into that fiery deep, and burned. Now this deep was to the right of that house\u201d (the Temple). Gehenna is also thus described in connexion with the Day of Judgment in the Fourth Book of Esdras: \u201cThe gulf of torments shall appear, and opposite to it the place of rest; the furnace of Gehenna shall be revealed, and opposite to it again the paradise of pleasures. And then shall the Most High say to those peoples when raised from the dead, Look and see whom you denied, or whom you did not worship, or whose precepts you spurned. See, then, in face of you; here are joys and delights, and there fire and torment; these things shall He say to them in that Day of Judgment.\u201d This point may be further illustrated from the manner in which the same writings speak of the present state of wicked souls. The Book of Enoch speaks of two classes of these. Those upon whom judgment had not fallen in their lifetime are being reserved in torment till the great Day of Judgment; those, on the other hand, who had come to an untimely end, and who had thus in part expiated their guilt, would not be slain on the Day of Judgment, nor yet taken out from the place where they now are. Again, in the Fourth of Esdras, one way in which the souls of the wicked are at present tortured is that \u201cthey know and understand the punishment which is reserved for them at the last day.\u201d In the Apocalypse of Baruch a very vivid realization is shown of the difference between the present condition of any of the dead and the future judgment. \u201cWhy,\u201d asks Baruch, \u201cdo we mourn over those who die? or why do we weep over those who depart into Hades? Let our lamentations be reserved for the beginning of that future torment, and our tears be laid up for the coming of that time of destruction.\u201d We shall have occasion to add a little more on this head farther on.
\nThe distinctive use of Gehenna as the place of punishment, not while this age lasts, but at its termination, is not maintained in the Rabbinic literature. And to this difference there corresponds a diminution in the importance assigned to the Last Judgment. Even in a well-known passage ascribed to R. Akiba, the wicked are said to be consigned to Gehenna at death; it is also the place to which the great majority of Israelites and the righteous among the Gentiles go at death as to a purgatory of comparatively brief duration. Other language might be quoted to similar effect. Speaking generally, the wicked would not be taken out of Gehenna at the Day of Judgment; they had already received their doom.
\nThis change of language and ideas is not hard to account for. Time would tend to obliterate the recollection of the meaning of the metaphor implied in the term Gehenna. The human mind also finds a difficulty in distinguishing between a doom at death and one reserved till the Last Day. We may compare popular conceptions on these subjects amongst ourselves. A distinction between the Intermediate State and that to be awarded at the Judgment Day is professed as a formal article of belief; but no difference is practically acknowledged, at least as regards the wicked, and often not even as regards the righteous.
\nThe fact that, according to Rabbinic doctrine, Israelites would be raised at the commencement of the Messiah\u2019s reign, in order to have part in its felicity; in another way detracted from the universality of the Last Judgment. In short, the Last Judgment became simply a trial of the nations of the earth, which (it will be remembered) were supposed still to exist, even while the Messiah was ruling over His own people. On the contrary, the Apocalypses of Esdras and Baruch and the Book of Jubilees clearly contemplate a universal, individual Judgment; and up to a certain extent the Book of Enoch goes with them. The exception in respect to one class of sinners in the Book of Enoch has appeared in a passage already quoted. The language already quoted from the Fourth of Esdras and the Apocalypse of Baruch point to a Universal Judgment. A few more sentences may here be given. In a passage of the Fourth of Esdras, the burden of which is that at the Day of Judgment no man will be able to deliver his brother, we read that \u201cit will show to all the mark of truth,\u201d and that \u201call will then bear individually their own righteousness or their own iniquity.\u201d And again, in the same book we read, \u201cA judgment will come after death, when we shall rise again, and then shall the names of the just appear, and the deeds of the wicked be made manifest.\u201d And in the Apocalypse of Baruch, \u201cCorruption shall have those who belong to it, and life those who belong to it. And the dust shall be summoned, and it shall be said to it, Give back that which is not thine, and restore all which thou hast guarded against its time.\u201d And once more in the Book of Jubilees.
\nThough the Apocalypses of Esdras and Baruch place the Messianic period before the \u201cworld to come,\u201d their authors do not seem to have expected a resurrection of Israelites or others at the beginning of that period. And at all events the Fourth of Esdras says, that at the end of it even the Messiah shall die, and all who have breath, so that all would need to be raised again for the final Judgment.
\nLet us now turn to the New Testament. Its language on the points which have been mentioned has affinities with that of the Apocalypses rather than of the Rabbinic literature, that is to say, with the order of ideas which, both from their intrinsic character and from the date of the documents in which they appear, may be safely pronounced the earlier. To begin with the use of the term Gehenna. It is named in six, or possibly seven passages of the New Testament\u2014all of them in the Synoptic Gospels\u2014as the place of future punishment. In one or perhaps two others it stands for the power of evil. Its special connexion with the Future Age may not be at first sight so obvious as in the passages from the Book of Enoch and the Fourth of Esdras quoted above; nevertheless, it is, I think, certain. Being cast into Gehenna is repeatedly contrasted with \u201centering into life,\u201d and \u201cinto life eternal,\u201d which, according to all analogy, must describe not the condition of the blessed dead in Hades, but participation in the bliss of the world to come after the Messiah\u2019s appearing. Again, men are spoken of as entering Gehenna with their bodies, implying that it is after the Resurrection. One or two other passages also deserve consideration where the word Gehenna does not occur, but where it is suggested, owing to the imagery which was familiar in connexion with Gehenna. In the parable of the Sheep and the Goats in Matt. 25, it is at the Judgment Day that the wicked are committed to \u201cthe eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.\u201d Again, in the Apocalypse, the \u201clake of fire\u201d at last receives Death and Hades, and \u201cwhosoever was not found written in the book of life.\u201d The only distinct reference in the New Testament to a place of punishment before the Judgment Day is in the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. It is to be observed that the Rich Man is said to be in Hades, not in Gehenna. I may remark that, according to the imagery of the parable, Abraham and Lazarus seem to be in another division of Hades, within sight of the Rich Man who is in torment, though an impassable barrier separates them. This imagery may be illustrated by the description in the Book of Enoch of the place of the departed in the Intermediate State, with its impassable divisions. In the parable in St. Luke no allusion is made to a Judgment yet to come, but it seems unwarrantable to conclude that the conception of a further doom yet to fall upon the rich man is inconsistent with the representation there given.
\nThe doctrine of the Intermediate State does not directly belong to our subject; it is not grounded in Messianic beliefs. To a certain extent, however, it has been necessary to discuss it so far as the wicked are concerned; and I may here in passing compare very briefly the Jewish language in regard to the lot of the righteous at death with that of the New Testament. In the Book of Enoch the seer is shown a general abode for the souls of the righteous, near two abodes for two classes of the wicked. As something quite distinct, he is taken to visit Paradise, which is evidently regarded as the identical garden of Eden, still occupying the same site on earth as at the beginning. Here only some select souls are privileged to abide till the Judgment Day; Enoch himself was translated thither. Fourth Esdras describes the \u201cstorehouses\u201d of souls, the righteous being kept apart from the wicked, though near them. No mention is made of Paradise, or the Garden of Eden, in this work. The term and idea are variously applied in Rabbinic usage. There is a Paradise where are a few who have never seen death, and among whom the Messiah is living and awaiting the day of His manifestation. But the name is also given to the general abode of righteous souls after death, and its features are enlarged upon. In the words of our Lord upon the cross to the penitent thief, Paradise is clearly used as a name for the place to which the souls of the blessed are taken at death. St. Paul\u2019s allusion to Paradise does not throw light on the question who are now there, but it appears to be spoken of as if in the heavens. In the single mention of it in the Apocalypse of St. John, it only appears as the place whence the tree of life is hereafter to be transplanted into the New Jerusalem. Most touching and most consoling is St. Paul\u2019s entirely new description of the faithful dead who await the Resurrection, which tells least, and yet most, \u201cthose that are fallen asleep in Christ.\u201d
\nThe doctrine of a universal, individual Judgment at the last day does not distinctly appear in all the passages where we might expect to find it. Some of its descriptions of the last things, as we have seen, seem formed on a different type of imagery, in which the \u201cwrath to come\u201d is not preceded by a formal trial. In the great picture of the twenty-fifth chapter of St. Matthew, there is no mention of a general resurrection to precede the judgment; we are told simply that \u201call nations should be gathered\u201d before the Son of Man. The judgment is, however, plainly not a national one, but an individual one. In the Apocalypse the dead, small and great, stand before the Throne. Those who reign with Christ for a thousand years are perhaps to be supposed withdrawn from this trial, but certainly only they. The language of St. Paul in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians is the most unqualified: \u201cWe must all be made manifest before the judgment-seat of Christ; that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he hath done, whether it be good or bad.\u201d
\nWe must here consider a question which has been brought into prominence through a recent controversy. What was the Jewish belief in the time of our Lord in regard to the duration of future punishment, and how does it bear upon the meaning of His language? In spite of all that has been so learnedly written on this subject, I think that some points have not been put with sufficient clearness. Arguments have also been used on both sides which do not seem to me to bear the stress laid on them, and it may be worth while to attempt a review of the evidence. It is hard in a matter of this kind to prevent the mind from being biassed in its view of the facts either, on the one hand, by the desire to establish the truth of what has been commonly held among Christians, or, on the other, to remove a difficulty from Holy Scripture which may sorely trouble our own faith or that of others. Yet we may be saved from allowing such a bias to affect us by reflecting that nothing of the nature of special pleading can, in this generation at least, avail any cause long.
\nIn estimating the Jewish language on this subject, it is important to bear in mind the connexion in the history of dogma of the doctrine of the doom upon the wicked at the beginning of the Future Age with that of the destruction of the enemies of Zion in the day of her triumph. Expressions which, if we approached them with later beliefs only in our minds, might speak of eternal torments, will then seem to speak of complete annihilation. This may be observed in the Psalms of Solomon. To take the passages which may with most reason be referred to a future Great Day of Retribution, nothing more than annihilation seems to be implied when it is said that \u201csinners shall perish for ever in the day of the Lord\u2019s Doom;\u201d or that they shall be \u201crequited for evermore;\u201d or that \u201csinners shall be snatched away unto perdition, and their memorial shall no more be found,\u201d in contrast with the life of the righteous being for ever. Speaking generally, this is also, I think, true of the descriptions in the Book of Enoch. More than this may not be meant by such words, for example, as these: \u201cIn the last time will the spectacle of a righteous judgment upon them be given before the righteous for ever and ever;\u201d and again, \u201cthey shall perish in wrath and in the mighty damnation which lasts for ever.\u201d There would be no recovery, no rising again, from the fate which would then overtake them. On the other hand, the description of the Intermediate State in another early portion of the same book implies the continued life of the souls of the wicked after the death of the body. One class of sinners would not be taken out of their prison-house at the future day, because they had already met with a violent death. The rest would be raised in order to undergo a similar doom. To perish in such a way seems to be regarded as the specially dreadful punishment. The prison-houses of the souls of these two classes of sinners, though very far from joyous abodes, do not appear to be places of actual torment.
\nIt is the belief, as we have already said, of the Fourth of Esdras and the Apocalypse of Baruch that there shall be a general resurrection of the wicked as well as the righteous, and the chief part of the present punishment of wicked souls consists in their expectation of their doom at the last day. Most of the expressions used do not necessarily imply everlasting torture; but no better hope than that of annihilation can be extracted from them, and one in the Apocalypse of Baruch seems to require the supposition of a continuance of sentient being.
\nThe Book of Judith and the Fourth Book of Maccabees speak more distinctly of the everlastingness of punishment. It is directly predicated of the torments which, according to the former book, the nations who oppressed Israel, in the latter, the tyrant who caused the seven brethren to be tortured, should endure. Josephus adapts his accounts of Jewish doctrines so much to the ideas of the Gentile readers for whom he wrote, that no great reliance can be placed upon his testimony. But so far as it goes, it makes for the view that both Pharisees and Essenes believed in the everlasting continuance of punishment.
\nThe terms Gehenna and the Second Death are used in several places in the Targums; but there seems nothing in the passages quoted to show that those who used them expected the endless torments rather than the utter destruction of the wicked. The Second Death, a phrase which occurs also, it will be remembered, in the Apocalypse, might, no doubt, mean only the destruction of the body, in which some had been raised in order to have their part in the Judgment. But considering that the ideas of the Jews at an early time were fixed and clear as to a necessary immortality of the soul apart from the body, it is possible that the destruction of the soul may have been included.
\nIn the Rabbinic writings there is a looseness\u2014as we have already had occasion to point out\u2014in the use of the term Gehenna. It is not only the place of judgment and punishment at the end of this world, but souls are said to be consigned to it at death; and in this latter case they often are detained there but a short while. If, however, we fix our attention upon the question, what shall be the nature of the doom passed on sinners at the Great Day of Judgment, a fairly clear conclusion may be drawn from all the passages of Rabbinic teaching and statements of accomplished Rabbinic scholars which have been adduced on various sides. It does not appear that the punishment which the wicked are then to undergo is one from which they would be able after a time to escape. But, on the other hand, the language used about that punishment is often vague, and admits or even encourages the interpretation that a speedier or later annihilation of the wicked is what is contemplated. As regards the value of these two classes of witnesses, the Apocalyptic and Apocryphal and the Rabbinic writings, for determining the sense of New Testament language, the former have the advantage in point of date; and we have also noted a correspondence between them and the New Testament in respect to the more precise use of the term Gehenna. Yet we have also noticed important differences between their eschatology and that of the New Testament, showing that they can by no means be relied on implicitly as guides in the interpretation of the latter.
\nThe general effect, however, of the testimony to Jewish belief on the subject under consideration at the Christian era, seems to be unaffected by the more or less weight which we ascribe to one or other class of witnesses. The evidence is too scanty to enable us to speak positively; but it would appear that somewhere about the time of the Christian era, though here and there it may be a good deal earlier, the belief in a general future punishment of the wicked of all generations at the end of the present age was acquiring definiteness. But that this punishment would consist in everlasting torture, was never held with that clearness and consistency among Jews which it has assumed among Christians. No prospect, however, was held out that the punishment, for those who were consigned to it at the Judgment Day, would be a temporary one. The only question is whether what was expected was not annihilation? What has been observed with regard to Jewish belief, seems to suggest two cautions to be borne in mind in the interpretation of New Testament language on the subject of future punishment. First, in proportion to the probable vagueness and unsettled condition of the conceptions as to the nature of future punishment which were current at the time, must we be careful not to suppose that the New Testament sanctions more definite conceptions, where it does not actually give expression to such. Silence does not imply acquiescence with respect to views not already clearly formulated. The second is even more important. The source of the eschatological conceptions which we meet with in the New Testament was not directly the Old Testament, nor were they originated by our Lord Himself or His Apostles. It cannot then be maintained that the outward form is matter of revelation. The use made of these current ideas in the New Testament is such as to give them an altogether new moral and spiritual effect. The broad lessons of the punishment for sin in a future world, and man\u2019s individual accountability, and the summing up of the whole life of mankind in a final crisis at the end of this world-period, irrespective of all race distinctions, come out with a clearness and power in the New Testament which they never did among Jews. But it may well be that no particular stress was intended to be laid upon particular points in the descriptions derived from the common stock of imagery.
\nWe proceed to examine the language of the New Testament for itself. And first, there are words of our Lord which declare unequivocally that some, at all events, who would be punished at the Day of Judgment would receive only a limited penalty, in a way which I do not find in any Jewish document. Speaking of the time when the Lord of the servants should come, He says, \u201cThat servant which knew his Lord\u2019s will, and made not ready, nor did according to His will, shall be beaten with many stripes; but he that knew not, and did things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes.\u201d The \u201cmany stripes\u201d for the worst offenders seems a feeble description of endless torment. But however this may be, it seems impossible to explain the \u201cfew stripes,\u201d either by any notion of a hell whose fires are endless, though moderated, or of annihilation. There is another passage which certainly does not forbid the theory of a terminable punishment (though whether at death or at the Future Day does not appear), and it is the more significant because its main intention is to give a very solemn warning: \u201cAgree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art with him in the way; lest haply the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence till thou have paid the last farthing.\u201d For it is not surely legitimate to give a tone of bitter irony to these words of Jesus, by reading in between the lines, as some theologians would do, the argument,\u2014the sinner\u2019s suffering can never expiate his sin, the last farthing of the debt never can be paid, and therefore the imprisonment must be endless. And if we do not do this, they certainly suggest that the punishment, regarded under the image of a debt, is finite, and they mean that the full amount due shall be surely exacted. Again, the words regarding a very exceptional kind of sin, that it shall not be forgiven, either in this world or in that which is to come, unquestionably suggest that there will be a forgiveness for some sins subsequent to the doom of the Judgment Day. Again, the statements of St. Paul in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, and the Apocalypse, that the dead shall be judged \u201caccording to their works,\u201d may suggest such a diversity of punishments.
\nWe pass to the passages which may with most reason be held to teach the future consignment of some to everlasting punishment. Gehenna in the New Testament, we have seen, is in all probability always to be understood to mean the place of punishment which will be called into requisition at the Judgment Day. It is also to be identified with the eternal fire. In one place Gehenna and \u201cthe eternal fire\u201d are used as convertible terms. We have again the phrase \u201cthe Gehenna of fire.\u201d We read also that the wicked are to be cast into \u201cthe eternal fire prepared for the Devil and his angels;\u201d and the language of the Apocalypse is similar. It has been urged by some of late that the word \u03b1\u1f30\u03ce\u03bd\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2 need not mean everlasting. Now, it is perfectly true that both it and such expressions as \u03b5\u1f30\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u1f7a\u03c2 \u03b1\u1f30\u1ff6\u03bd\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03b1\u1f30\u03ce\u03bd\u03c9\u03bd, which we translate \u201cfor ever and ever,\u201d may mean no more than indefinitely long time, and that early nations, like young children, form vague notions of duration of time. Still such considerations can hardly be urged here; for it remains true that not a word is said of any ultimate extinction of the fire or release of the wicked. Nor even, if the justice of the explanation were admitted, can it really be of much service to those who shrink from the horror of the ordinary views of hell; for the word in question would still picture the longest period that the human imagination can conceive. It is of more importance to note that the eternity is not generally predicated of the torments of the wicked themselves, but of the fire into which they are cast. No hope of their escape from it is, indeed, held out. But it seems perfectly compatible with the language used, when all its associations are borne in mind, to suppose an utter annihilation of the wicked to be intended, though the soul might for a time outlast the body. When Death and Hades are cast into the lake of fire in the Apocalypse, it seems evidently from the whole context to be for their destruction. The image of burning up the chaff and the words of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the fierceness of fire which shall devour the adversaries, also seem rather to favour such a view. Nay, in one passage such an annihilation is expressly implied to be the punishment in store. \u201cBe not afraid of them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.\u201d It may be lawful to take the whole of this latter clause metaphorically as descriptive simply of a terrible retribution upon sin. But it is not lawful to take one half of it metaphorically and the other half literally;\u2014to say, \u201cdestroy the body\u201d\u2014this is the death of the resurrection body, analogous to the death of the body here;\u2014\u201cdestroy the soul,\u201d this does not mean literally \u201cdestroy,\u201d it means \u201cvisit with everlasting woes.\u201d There are some passages, however, which expressly speak of the continuance, and one or two which may seem to imply the everlastingness, of the torments of the wicked. Let us take first the description of Gehenna in Mark 9:48, \u201cWhere their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.\u201d We may remark that the words do not, according to the most approved reading of the passage, recur three times, as they do in the Textus Receptus. If the latter were right, they would seem to have been used with a more special emphasis than can actually be attributed to them. They are quoted from the description in the Book of Isaiah, to which reference has already been made, of the slaughtered enemies of the people of God, whose carcases are being consumed in the Valley of Hinnom hard by Jerusalem. They may, then, well have been intended simply to add a vivid touch in the allusion to the material Gehenna, and not to bear any precise meaning as regards the immaterial things typified. But even supposing an exact force ought to be given to this trait in the imagery, it can hardly be that it denotes the endlessness of the torment. Those who have always been accustomed so to understand the words may find it difficult to disabuse their minds of the impression that this is the only natural meaning. Yet surely its interpretation should be determined by the use of the phrase in the passage of Isaiah from which it is quoted. There the prophet, by this phrase, marks the unceasing energy of the gnawing worm and of the fire till the carcases are utterly consumed. Other passages in the Gospels implying a sentient pain of the lost continuing after the Judgment Day, but not necessarily endless, are those which speak of \u201cthe weeping and gnashing of teeth,\u201d of those in \u201cthe outer darkness,\u201d outside the Messiah\u2019s kingdom, or of those represented by the tares in the parable.
\nThe only expressions more definite than these are in the Apocalypse. There we find torments unending or of indefinitely long duration predicted for (1) \u201cthose that worship the beast and his image, and whoso receiveth the mark of his name;\u201d (2) \u201cthe devil, the beast, and the false prophet.\u201d The former of these only, it will be seen, applies to wicked men, for the beast and the false prophet are probably both impersonations. The language of the former passage is peculiarly terrible from the fact that it is said that the torment shall be \u201cin the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb.\u201d It is right that we should bear in mind what may be the effect of a perfectly righteous indignation against sin; but it is impossible for us to understand how such a sight could be compatible with heavenly happiness.
\nIt may be well briefly to compare the teaching of Holy Scripture, which we have been examining, with current views and teachings on the subject, Roman and Protestant. It appears to me undeniable that there are differences of real importance. In place of the idea that every soul at death which does not enter heaven, or, as the better instructed would say, Paradise, is cast into hell, destined only to be taken thence at the Judgment Day, in order to be committed to it again for ever, the New Testament contains language which unequivocally points to very different degrees of punishment. The apportionment of these diverse punishments, however, it connects, so far as any distinct utterances go, with the Judgment by the Messiah, and not, as is the case in the formulated doctrine of Purgatory, with the Intermediate State. Again, it does not appear that the most terrible doom will be incurred by any but the worst class of sinners, the utterly hardened, rebellious, and abominable. Some passages distinctly encourage the idea that this most terrible doom will consist in utter annihilation; and none, if we except the Apocalypse and one in the twenty-fifth chapter of St. Matthew, are difficult to reconcile with such a supposition.
\nInto wider considerations with respect to this subject it is not my province in this book to enter. Yet to guard against misunderstanding it may be well to add a few words. I am very far from wishing to prove, by the facts I have stated, that the Intermediate State may not be to many a time of great awakening to spiritual things and of loving discipline through which they may even be brought to God and peace, nor do I desire to furnish an argument in favour of annihilation and the doctrine of conditional immortality. On the contrary, what I am most anxious for is that the symbolic character of all such representations should be recognized. They are used to teach practical lessons which should affect our immediate conduct; but we must beware of turning images into positive statements with respect to that other world about which it is impossible for us to understand more than so very little. I am unable to see that the meaning of the word \u201ceternal\u201d in such a phrase as the \u201ceternal fire\u201d of Matt. 25:41 must be the same as in the teaching characteristic of St. John\u2019s Gospel regarding that \u201ceternal life\u201d which is to know God. Rather, it seems to me, that in the more popular teaching our Lord was still using those time-symbols which \u201cour weakness shapes,\u201d and through which, consequently, it was necessary for Him to set forth the truth to us. But nothing has done so much towards enabling us to rise above those symbols as that teaching in the Gospel according to St. John which I believe to be the Lord\u2019s no less than the other.
\nI might urge also that there are other passages of the New Testament which imply the complete triumph of redeeming love and true subjugation of all things in the whole universe of being to God. And in order to reconcile with such language as this that other language which we have been reviewing, I might suggest that the time for making generally known that glorious hope had not come in the days of our Lord\u2019s public preaching in Galilee and Judea. But it may suffice if the curtain of our human ignorance is allowed to fall over the mysterious future.
\nWe have been occupied thus far with the Last Judgment as it relates to men, which is necessarily its most important aspect. But before leaving the subject of the Last Judgment, we must notice ideas respecting the sentence then to be pronounced upon wicked spirits. The angels who fell by lusting after the daughters of men in the age before the Deluge are a prominent topic in Apocalyptic literature, and notably in the Book of Enoch. The judgment upon them and upon the offspring of their sin in the Deluge derives much of its significance from being regarded as a foretaste of the final judgment,\u2014the partial emergence, as it were, of an event which, as the cycle of the ages runs its course, will be repeated on a grander scale, and therefore a parable pregnant to a singular degree with warning for the sons of men. The places of punishment to which they were, immediately after their fall, consigned were only for the time intervening. \u201cBind Az\u00e2z\u00eal\u201d (the leader of the sinning angels), it is said in the Book of Enoch,\u2014\u201cbind Az\u00e2z\u00eal hand and foot and cast him into the darkness; and cleave the desert which is in Dud\u00e2\u00eal, and cast him therein. And cast upon him rough and sharp stones, and cover him with darkness, and let him abide there for ever, and cover his face that he see not the light. And at the great day of Judgment he shall be cast into the fire.\u201d And of the rest, farther on: \u201cBind them fast under the hills of the earth for seventy generations, till the day of their judgment and their consummation, till the Last Judgment shall be finished for ever and ever. In those days they shall lead them away into the fiery abyss. In torment and in prison shall they be shut up for ever and ever.\u201d In the Apocalypse of Baruch also, speaking of the time of the Deluge and of these angels, it is said they \u201cwere tormented in chains.\u201d
\nThe allusions to this belief in the New Testament are few and slight. It would seem, however, that St. Peter must be referring to it when he writes, \u201cFor if God spared not angels when they sinned, but cast them down to hell, and committed them to pits of darkness to be reserved unto judgment;\u201d and likewise St. Jude in the words, \u201cangels which kept not their own principality, but left their proper habitation, he hath kept in everlasting bonds under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.\u201d That the Book of Enoch and kindred writings may rightly be adduced to determine the meaning of the language of St. Jude here, and of that which is so similar to it in the Second Epistle of St. Peter, is evident from the fact that St. Jude quotes from the Book of Enoch a few verses lower down. As occurring in the same context, we shall also naturally connect \u201cthe wandering stars for whom the blackness of darkness hath been reserved for ever\u201d with those disobedient luminaries which Enoch saw imprisoned in a horrible place. It should further be noted that St. Peter passes immediately from the angels who sinned to the Deluge. No other account of a fall of angels, such as that with which Milton has familiarized us, is met with in this age.
\nSatan and his angels would also be consigned to their final punishment at the Judgment Day. Satan would be bound during the thousand years of Christ\u2019s reign, according to the Apocalypse; but far worse awaits him at its close. In the Book of Enoch the place of punishment to which the wicked angels are to be sent is distinct from, though similar to, that for wicked men. The New Testament here again shows that absence of particularity which is characteristic of it in dealing with these subjects.
\nThe doctrine of the fall of the angels who sinned in the period before the Flood, which is so slightly touched in the New Testament, is prominent in Fathers of the latter half of the second century. This, like their Millenarianism, may be regarded as evidence of an influence which did not affect Christian thought at or quite near its source, but at a point some little way down its course, after the New Testament was written. If not this it is, at all events, one indication out of many of that Divine oversight which prevented any serious intrusion into the New Testament of elements which would detract from its spiritual power and sublimity.<\/p>\n
The World to come<\/p>\n
After the Judgment and the execution of their doom upon the fallen angels and all the ungodly, the new eternal world will be ushered in. The term \u201cthe world to come\u201d in the Jewish Apocalypses, so far as it occurs in them, and in the instances of its occurrence in the New Testament, is used of that final change. In the Rabbinic writings, on the other hand, there is ambiguity in its use. It denotes at times the state into which souls pass at death, and again the time of Messiah\u2019s reign before the Final Judgment, as well as the world to follow it. This is an example, like others which we have had, of a looseness of phrase which naturally grew up about these subjects, to which there have been parallels in the history of Christian religious language, and it is another proof of the later character of the Rabbinic teaching as compared with that both of the Jewish Apocalypses and of the New Testament.
\nThe Book of Enoch, as we have already seen, does not know of any distinction between the Messianic period which would now be called the Millennium and the New World. Yet \u201cafter the Judgment for eternity,\u201d it is said in the Vision of the ten weeks, \u201cthe great eternal heaven will sprout forth from the midst of the angels, and the former heaven shall pass away, and a new heaven shall appear, and all the powers of heaven shall shine with tenfold brightness.\u201d There is nothing, however, in this vision, or in other language in the pre-Christian portions of the book, to show that men will become immortal, but indeed the contrary. But in the Apocalypse of Baruch, where a distinction is recognized between the Messianic age and the World to come, it is described as a world \u201cwhich shall not turn to corruption those who have once reached its threshold, and which shall not have to bewail men going to their doom, and shall not bring to perdition those who live in it.\u201d
\nIn that new world, to use the words of Enoch\u2019s Book of Three Parables, \u201cthe elect and holy children shall come down from heaven, and their race shall unite itself with the children of men.\u201d After the Messianic judgment\u2014Dillmann thus well gives the idea of the words just quoted, and of many similar expressions\u2014\u201cthe present partition-wall between heaven and earth vanishes, and heavenly and earthly unite to form one great community.\u201d It is to be observed that, according to the view of the Jewish books, the righteous do not at any time enter heaven. After the final judgment they will dwell in a renovated world, which will indeed be interpenetrated with the light and joy of heaven, but which will nevertheless not be heaven as men are wont now to conceive it. The same is true with regard to the New Testament. The very idea of \u201cthe regeneration\u201d and \u201cthe restitution of all things\u201d seems to involve this. And in the Apocalypse we read of \u201cnew heavens and a new earth,\u201d and the New Jerusalem is said to come down out of heaven from God, and God to come and dwell with men, not men to be taken up to dwell with God. It is not uninstructive to note this difference that has arisen between current language and the imagery of Holy Scripture. The image of a regenerated world is not only a more natural one, but it suggests more plainly a connexion between the life of mankind here and that other world. It must, moreover, be salutary to notice, as we have had occasion to do before, how ideas different from those of Holy Scripture are able to establish themselves and to hold their ground even in the theology of those who are constantly reading it and appealing to it. This regeneration, however, it is plain, is no mere rectification of present ills and improvement of the ordinary powers of nature. It is the introduction of a new and spiritual order. And to this new order that \u201cspiritual body\u201d will be adapted, in which, according to the teaching alike of our Lord and of St. Paul, men will rise. Such a conception of the Resurrection is in marked contrast to the Jewish and the Millenarian doctrine of a resurrection with the same bodies which we now bear to a strictly earthly life. This materialism marks the Jewish view of the condition of human nature even in the eternal \u201cworld to come.\u201d
\nThe point at which in the Apocalypse the New Jerusalem appears is worthy of special note. According to Jewish views, and also that of the Christian Millenarianism of the second century, the New Jerusalem is a feature of the Messianic era before the close of this world. In the Apocalypse of St. John, though a reign of Christ with His saints is briefly touched upon, the New Jerusalem is not introduced till after the present heaven and earth have passed away. Again, according to both the former, there can be no question that a material city was contemplated; whereas in St. John there are many indications that to the seer himself the New Jerusalem was but an image of the Church finally redeemed and purified. Such are the allusions to it as \u201cthe Bride, the Lamb\u2019s wife;\u201d and the combination of the names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb on its twelve foundations, with those of the twelve tribes of Israel on its twelve gates, setting forth the unity between the Church under the Old and the New Covenant. There is one more point of difference between the Jewish representations and the Apocalypse which is of the deepest significance. The more fully we have realized the relations of Christianity and Judaism, and the crisis through which both were passing in the third quarter of the first century, the better shall we understand it. While in the former the new Temple is the most prominent object, St. John expressly says, \u201cI saw no temple therein; for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are the temple thereof.\u201d He puts here in his own way that which is the essence of the teaching of the Epistle to the Hebrews,\u2014the thought that, according to the ideal of Christian worship, direct communion with Christ and God must take the place of the ancient forms.
\nThe foregoing examination has directed our attention to precise points of resemblance and difference between Jewish and New Testament eschatology, rather than to broad features. Yet even from it we must, I think, have been impressed with the superior simplicity and dignity of the latter\u2014a refraining from dwelling on details for the sake merely of gratifying a curious fancy. And if the passages of the Jewish books be read at length, and the generally brief references or descriptions of the New Testament also read in their context, this will be still more evident. And the most striking contrast will appear in the practical effect\u2014the manner in which lessons of encouragement and consolation are brought home to individual consciences.
\nMore than this, Holy Scripture itself teaches us to rise above its own imagery. We have noticed differences between various New Testament writings. Some present less developed, some more developed eschatological ideas. This cannot but impress upon us the comparative unimportance of the mere form. Finally, in the later teaching of St. John\u2014in his Gospel and Epistles\u2014the images drop away altogether, and the essential truths stand out in their purity.<\/p>\n
NOTE ON EXCURSUS V. OF DR. FARRAR\u2019S ETERNAL HOPE; CHAP. VIII. OF HIS MERCY AND JUDGMENT; AND PP. 48\u2013105 OF DR. PUSEY\u2019S WHAT IS OF FAITH AS TO EVERLASTING PUNISHMENT?<\/p>\n
I confine myself to the question of Jewish belief and its bearing upon Christian, which is treated in the portions of these works above specified. It will be seen by those who have read Dr. Farrar without prejudice, that I agree substantially with him in his interpretation of the language of Scripture; but some of the arguments on which he has laid special stress will not, I think, hold good. And it is worth while to sift carefully the arguments in such a matter, for the breaking down of an argument or two is apt to turn off attention from the sound reasons which may remain for admitting the truth of the main contention. (1) Dr. Farrar seems to me greatly to underrate the value of the Apocalyptic and Apocryphal writings for determining what Jewish opinion was at the Christian era, more especially in so far as it may have affected Christian thought and language, and greatly by comparison to overrate that of the Rabbinic writings. The reasons I have already given, pp. 30\u201340. By the way, it may be observed that it is to little purpose that he corrects Dr. Pusey as to the date assigned by critics to the Book of Enoch (M. and J. p. 186), since the portions in which the passages in question occur are held by most of these to be pre-Christian. (2) He has omitted to distinguish between Gehenna as a place to which souls are sent at death, and as the place of punishment at the Judgment Day. This affects the language of R. Akiba, on which he rests so much. (3) In the case of the Targum on Isa. 33:14, he is hardly justified in arguing as to what the Targum must mean from what in his opinion according to the context in Isaiah it ought to mean (M. and J. p. 198). And that on Isa. 66:24 seems to speak of a pause in the slaughter of the wicked, rather than of the punishment of those doomed. Dr. Pusey conducts his argument in a very masterly manner. Still there are two criticisms I would venture to make. Reverence for a great man who has not many years been taken from us, does not require that we should refrain from a candid examination of what he has written. (1) He has quoted many passages on the future punishment of the wicked, as if they necessarily meant everlasting punishment, which are (to say the least) compatible with the idea of annihilation. (2) In order to weaken the testimony of the passage of R. Akiba, he has urged considerations similar to those which I have employed in chap. ii. But he holds that the forces at work were sufficient to produce a revolution in thought. All that I have maintained is, that they modified it when it had still not attained the consistency which it afterwards had. Moreover, it seems utterly contrary to the evidence to suppose that in our Lord\u2019s teaching the doctrine of everlasting punishment held a position of special prominence, so as to provoke a reaction. And Dr. Pusey is practically engaged in cutting away the ground for this assertion in all that he adduces to prove that Jews did hold it. Moreover, what he urges in regard to R. Akiba is double-edged as regards the purpose to which he applies it. For if he had a motive to make the future prospects of Israelites as bright as possible, he had equally a motive for darkening to the utmost those of Gentiles.<\/p>\n
CHAPTER III<\/p>\n
MESSIANIC PROPHECY AND THE MYTHICAL THEORY<\/p>\n
The influence of Messianie belief and Old Testament teaching upon Christian thought has been continually present to our minds in considering the points of Christian faith which have come before us. We have seen them facilitating the reception of what was otherwise hard to understand, helping to supply a form under which to represent to the mind and to express deep convictions, furnishing a point of view from which the significance of certain great spiritual facts might be duly apprehended. But a more considerable effect than this has, according to a famous modern theory, been exercised upon the actual narratives of the life of Christ; and this subject must now occupy our attention. It has been deferred to the present late stage in our investigations for reasons which have been already given.
\nIn discussing this question it is more difficult to dispense with a view of the date and authority of disputed New Testament writings than we have found to be the case hitherto. The beliefs which we have been examining are themselves facts of the highest interest. It might indeed conceivably be of great moment to know the date of writings containing such beliefs, for the sake of ascertaining at what time or in what quarter those beliefs first existed. As it happens, however, the chief of those beliefs with which we have been concerned are proved by evidence which can hardly be gainsaid to have been universally prevalent among Christians during the lifetime of the first generation of Christian believers. But the time of the composition of the Gospels has necessarily an important bearing on their character as witnesses to the historical truth of the records they contain. Their late date is, we have seen, necessarily assumed as a condition of the mythical origin of the narrative. It would be impossible to examine, as it were parenthetically, so complicated a subject as the date of the Gospels. While, however, we pass over this line of investigation, it must not be forgotten that it might, and I believe\u2014the evidence being fairly considered\u2014would, establish a date and authority for the Gospels which would tell fatally against the mythical theory, or at least against any but the slenderest application of it.
\nMy argument will be incomplete in another way. The suggestion of a mythical origin for a large part of the Gospel history has been supported not only on the general ground of the presence in it of the supernatural element, but also by a minute criticism of the narratives with the view of proving inconsistencies and improbabilities unfavourable to their historical character. For a full treatment, therefore, of the subject it would be necessary to consider what validity these strictures have; or whether they do not lose most of their force when the narratives are read with a truer historical as well as spiritual discernment, and a more just recognition of their fragmentary character. The principles by the due consideration of which this, as I believe, truer point of view may be attained, have, however, been abundantly indicated by devout modern scholars. Individual objections have also been dealt with in commentaries and \u201cLives of Christ,\u201d and to such works I may refer my readers. But it appears to me desirable that the probabilities of the hypothesis of mythical growth, considered in and by itself, should be carefully scrutinized. And to this task, more especially in its connexion with Messianic beliefs, I now apply myself.
\nThere are still some preliminary remarks which remain to be made even on approaching this limited subject of inquiry. And first our attitude of mind must unavoidably be influenced throughout by the fact that one article of supernatural belief, the belief in a supernatural Christ, cannot (if our reasoning in a previous part of this work has been sound) be explained as a mythical or legendary growth. The mythical theory cannot therefore achieve that for which it has been devised, the complete removal of the supernatural. Moreover, believing in a Christ whose personality is supernatural, we cannot think it so incredible that events of a supernatural order should have accompanied His earthly manifestation.
\nBut coming to the mythical theory itself I question whether, even on the assumptions most favourable to the mythical theory which are at all consistent with indisputable facts, a length of time can be secured sufficient for the growth of myth. The substance of the Gospel narrative must, on the most extreme view, have been approximately fixed not later than the closing years of the first century. Many naturalistic critics will, as I have said, admit that this point was reached some thirty years earlier than this. For external evidence makes it quite impossible to place the composition of the first three Gospels far on in the second century; and evidently the narrative of facts, in respect to which these three so closely resemble one another, must already have been for some time before this in substance received in the Church in order to be thus embodied by different writers, representing, moreover, as they are said to do, different sections of Christians. The extreme limit of the time by which the common contents was fixed must also on another ground be placed before the close of the first century, if not earlier. Whatever may have been the case while the great majority of believers were of Jewish nationality or education, it is impossible that mythical development due to ardent Messianic beliefs and a strong bias to a free Old Testament exegesis can have gone on when once the Christian faith had begun to make any considerable progress among the heathen. For the necessary conditions were wanting which would have made them either ready themselves to imagine, or willing to receive, additions from this source to the Gospel they had once received; and they must thus have checked the tendency among Jewish Christians, if it existed there. It can hardly be doubted that early in the second century, at least, there was a considerable number of converts from heathenism to Christianity.
\nNow we know little or nothing of the time required for the formation of myths among primitive peoples, or the process in other respects;\u2014all the conditions were so different from those under which we live. But it would seem that even among them a period of little more than two generations (as ordinarily computed), a period covered by the memory of old persons, would be all too short, I do not say for the addition of this or that mythical embellishment, but for the transformation of the narrative of a completely natural human life into one pervaded throughout with the supernatural. Much more is this so in the case of the age we have now under consideration, the First Century of our era. It was, it is true, an age credulous of the supernatural in a way in which ours is not. And this character may perhaps be specially predicated of the simple-minded Jews who formed the greater number of the first believers in Christianity. Nevertheless the growth of the Christian myth, if such it was, took place under the eyes of a world partly hostile, partly coldly critical. And if in the class from which the early disciples were mainly drawn, literary habits of mind were rarely found, the writing of history and the careful sifting of evidence for that purpose had already reached a high degree of excellence in the world which surrounded them. Is it conceivable that honest men, professing a special regard for truth, and relying upon the historic truth of what they related as the very ground of their hope, however enthusiastic they might be, should have succeeded in imagining and propagating such a series of illusions, to a large extent even while still living amid the scenes where the alleged facts had taken place, in spite of all the influences which were calculated to unmask their self-deception to their own minds?
\nBut there are also direct indications of a spirit and of circumstances which would be favourable to the faithful preservation of history by an oral tradition. The manner in which St. Paul, in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, writing probably not much more than twenty-five years after the death of Christ, and referring to the time of his first visit to Corinth some years earlier, speaks of the historic faith which he had delivered to them as he had himself received it, shows how sacred he held the deposit to be. Let us also consider again the relations to one another of the three Synoptists. I have said that the fact that all three, in spite of many differences, follow, to a great degree, a common outline in narrating the life of Christ, proves that this outline had been received in the Church for some time anterior to the writing of their Gospels. But it proves more than this; it proves a disposition to adhere to a fixed traditional form. Further, in the Acts of the Apostles it is represented as being the special function of the Twelve to bear witness to the great historic Gospel; and the brief outline of it which is given agrees with that followed in the Synoptic Gospels. Whatever view be taken of the date of the Acts of the Apostles, this is unquestionable evidence of an impression as to the work and office of the Apostles existing not long after their deaths. Moreover, it is clear in the nature of things that in the Christian Church there was this great check against the growth of error in respect to the life of Christ:\u2014the twelve Apostles and original disciples of the Lord, who best knew the truth, and who would most feel responsibility for preserving it intact, were precisely the persons who had most authority and influence, who would be most appealed to for their opinion, and whose utterances would be most cherished.
\nThe foregoing considerations apply to the possibility in general of a mythical or legendary origin of the Gospel narratives. Our proper task, however, is an examination of the possible influence of Messianic beliefs in the formation of myth. Lest the interest of this question should seem to any too limited, I would remind the reader that, as was pointed out in the first chapter, they supply a factor essential to the theory. For it is admitted by the advocates of the mythical theory that some unique condition must be presupposed to account for a growth so unique, and this condition is found in the prevalent Messianic expectation.
\nWe proceed then to ask what evidence there is of the operation of this chief alleged cause of mythical formation. For clearly the mere fact that prophecies are largely applied to Jesus and His kingdom in the New Testament, does not prove that events and characteristics were imagined in order that the prophecies might be fulfilled. A free and often, as we should say, uncritical mode of exegesis is adopted by the New Testament writers; and upon this fact has been based an objection to their inspiration. I have explained my views on this subject in an earlier chapter; but, at all events, this characteristic of the quotations from the Old Testament in the New does not itself furnish ground for calling in question the substantial truth of the Gospels. A disposition might well exist to adopt a very liberal interpretation of prophecies in order to make them accord with facts, and yet there might be no disposition to invent facts which would fulfil the prophecies. Indeed, the very existence of the former would in some sort make the latter unnecessary.
\nThe case for the supposed myth-producing influence of prophecy is also very materially weakened by the consideration that, as regards by far the larger number of the prophecies connected by the New Testament with particulars of the life of Christ, there is no evidence that they were understood in a Messianic sense in pre-Christian times. This remains true even if we accept the testimony of the Rabbinic writings. Three or four at most of the prophecies quoted for points of this kind in the New Testament are applied to the Messiah in the latter. These few instances will be indicated presently; and I am disposed to believe that already before the Christian era they were so taken. The correspondence between the New Testament and the Rabbinic writings in their Messianic application of the Old Testament is mostly in respect to passages bearing on the more general characteristics of the Messiah and His times.
\nIn addition to prophecy strictly so called, parallels drawn between the deeds and history of Moses, Elijah, Elisha, and other Old Testament heroes, and the deeds and history of the Christ, are supposed to have had an effect upon the narrative. Since the Christ\u2014such is the argument imagined to have been latent in men\u2019s minds\u2014was greater than any of these, He must have performed works as great or greater. He, like them, must have fed the famishing and raised the dead. It will be convenient to say a few words on this subject first. In support of the view that this tendency existed to see types of the Christ in the lives of the great men of the Old Testament, passages are adduced from the Rabbinic writings which draw a parallel more especially between Moses and the Messiah, and two or three of which intimate that the Messiah will work miracles like those of Moses. But in order to decide what were the habits of thought on a point of this kind in the circles in which the Christian legend (if such it was) arose, we must turn to the New Testament writings. If the desire to find the Antitype of Old Testament heroes in Jesus had led to the invention of features in His life and character, it would also, we should expect, have manifested itself in an anxiety to point the moral. If it is inferred from the use made of the Old Testament in the New, that Messianic belief caused the growth of myth, the nature of that use must, at least, define the limits of the possible operation of this cause. There might well, as we have said, exist a disposition to search for prophecies or for types of events which had actually happened, without any tendency to imagine events which would fit supposed prophecies and types. But it is scarcely conceivable that the latter should exist without the former; that the spirit of invention should have been stimulated, but that there should have been no spirit of application, with a view to which invention had taken place. Now, throughout all the constant use of the Old Testament in the New, types of the kind in question are not pointed out. The discovery of such types in the Old Testament has been a favourite exercise of the ingenuity of Christian Fathers and theologians from an early age. And when Strauss and others have used these types as a means of accounting for the mythical origin of Gospel narratives, they have in fact snatched a weapon from the hands of the theologians who had fashioned it, to turn it against them. But the only types employed in the New Testament are, as we have seen, of an altogether different and higher, more rational and more instructive kind. Attention is called to the offices of lawgiver, and priest, and king in the Old Testament as shadowing forth the offices of the Christ. The following are, I think, the only instances in the New Testament of comparison between the works of Christ and of Old Testament prophets. On the occasion of the early visit to Nazareth recorded by St. Luke, Christ justified His not working miracles among them on the same principle of Divine selection and mission as was to be observed in the histories of Elijah and Elisha. On a later occasion, also recorded by St. Luke, the disciples want Him to call down fire from heaven, \u201cas Elijah did,\u201d upon a Samaritan village; but they are rebuked. In the Textus Receptus words are added which may be thought to contrast, however vaguely, His works of mercy with ancient miracles of vengeance. These words are, however, apparently not part of the original text. Once more, the spiritual food given by Christ is, in St. John\u2019s Gospel, contrasted with the manna given at the prayer of Moses. Even in the first of these, which is perhaps most in point for the purposes of the mythical theory, the aim is to prove a general principle of Divine action; attention is not directed to particular features.
\nNor do we, in the actual narratives of miracles or other incidents, discover many points of correspondence with Old Testament parallels which can fairly be reckoned as traces of their influence. But few phrases or marked features occur in them which suggest such a derivation. And be it remarked, some correspondences there would almost certainly be, whatever be the true account of the Gospel miracles. I have yet to observe that there is one striking instance where, if anywhere, the tendency supposed should have made itself felt, if it existed. If there was any man who, on the principle of parallelism with Old Testament prophets, ought to have performed miracles, it was John the Baptist. The early Christians believed Him to be the \u201cElijah which was to come.\u201d It was essential almost to their faith in Jesus Himself as the Christ that He should be so regarded. For it was a recognised point of Messianic expectation that a return of Elijah to earth should usher in the Messianic age. And the Christians had to prove to doubting and hostile Jews that though John the Baptist was not personally identical with the ancient prophet Elijah, yet the predicted return of Elijah had been fulfilled by the coming of John in his \u201cspirit and power.\u201d Thus there was undoubtedly a parallel in their minds between John the Baptist and Elijah, which there was not between the Christ and Elijah. Now, no prophet of the Old Testament had wrought more miracles than Elijah. Yet in the Gospels no miracles are attributed to the Baptist; and one evangelist expressly tells us that men said, \u201cJohn did no miracle.\u201d
\nPlausible, then, as the theory we have been considering at first sight appears as a means of accounting for some at least of the Gospel miracles, it seems that at any rate we have not here a vera causa in the sense of logicians. Supposing the cause adequate to account for the phenomena if it were present, it has not been shown that it was present, or rather there is strong reason to believe that it was absent at the time when those who rely upon it must suppose it to have been in operation. But not to press this reasoning to the full extent which seems justifiable, and allowing the most favourable view to be taken of the theory which is at all possible in view of the facts we have noticed, it can go but a very little way towards explaining the Gospel miracles with their rich variety of incidents.
\nI proceed to discuss the applicability of the mythical theory where more or less explicit reference to prophecy is made in the Gospels in connexion with particulars in the life of Christ. The following are in brief outline the points affected. Jesus is born of a virgin; He is descended from David, and Bethlehem is the place of His birth. The Wise Men are led to Him by a star supposed to be suggested by \u201cthe star that should arise out of Jacob.\u201d Having been taken into Egypt, He, God\u2019s Son, is \u201ccalled\u201d thence. Meanwhile the Massacre of the Innocents at Bethlehem fulfils a prophecy of Jeremiah. His public ministry is ushered in by the preaching of John the Baptist, the \u201cElijah who was to come.\u201d At His baptism the voice from heaven proclaims who He is in the language partly of the second Psalm, partly of the forty-second chapter of Isaiah. He cleanses the temple both near the beginning and at the close of His Ministry. In a passage of Isaiah is to be found an enumeration of several classes of miracles performed by Him. He enters Jerusalem \u201criding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass,\u201d and as He does so is hailed with hosannahs. In the words on the Cross, as well as in other incidents of the Betrayal and Crucifixion which will be referred to more in detail hereafter, there are many correspondences with the twenty-second Psalm and other passages of the psalms and prophets. And lastly, the day on which He rises is the third after His crucifixion. I will arrange the cases to be considered according to the measure of probability there may seem to be for the mythical view.<\/p>\n
Slight Differences between one Account of an Incident and others, which accord with Prophecy<\/p>\n
The case to be noticed first is that in which we have two accounts of the same fact, and in one of them a touch is introduced, wanting in the other, which serves to bring out a fulfilment of prophecy. It may be thought more likely that this trait should (there being a motive) have been added in the one narrative, than that (being a true incident) it should have been omitted in the other. Such a view will be generally taken of the particulars alluded to by Justin, but not contained in our Gospels. Thus he describes the place in which Jesus was born and found by the Magi at Bethlehem as \u201ca cave,\u201d and refers to the LXX. version of Isa. 33:16, \u201cHe shall dwell in a high cave of a strong rock.\u201d Again, he states that the foal of an ass which the disciples fetched for Jesus to ride upon in His triumphal entry into Jerusalem was standing \u201cbound to a vine,\u201d in accordance with the words of Jacob concerning Judah, \u201cbinding his foal to the vine.\u201d Once more\u2014it will seem to those who believe in Jesus as the God-ordained Judge of the world, that the incident if it really happened was hardly less tragic than the Crown of Thorns,\u2014he relates that the soldiers in their mockery of Jesus, \u201cas said the prophet, dragged Him and seated Him on the Judgment-seat, and said, \u2018Be our Judge,\u2019 \u201d where he seems to allude to Isa. 58:2, \u201cthey demand of me just judgment.\u201d Whence Justin derived these particulars it is impossible to say with certainty. He can hardly himself have imagined them, though it is on the ground of his allusions to prophecy that we are led to suspect them. He probably derived them from Apocryphal Gospels or from current tradition. The first of them is found both in extant Apocryphal Gospels and in other early ecclesiastical writers. But in the uncertainty as to the quarter whence and the time when additions, like those which have been preserved in Justin or elsewhere, were made, if additions they were, no very reliable inference can be drawn from them as to a process of the same kind having affected the accounts embodied in the four Gospels. At most they only give evidence of a force capable of adding very slight embellishments. We must compare the Gospels on their own account. The following are the cases most nearly analogous. St. Matthew, in describing the Triumphal Entry, unlike the other Evangelists, speaks of two animals, an ass and her foal, and refers to the words of the prophet Zechariah. Again, in the account of the Betrayal, he gives the sum paid to the traitor, which is not mentioned by the other Evangelists, and in doing so alludes to another passage of Zechariah. The relation of St. John\u2019s account of the division of the clothes of Jesus among the soldiers to that of the other Evangelists is similar to that of St. Matthew to the rest in regard to the animals. Whereas St. John distinguishes a casting lots for the tunic (\u03c7\u03af\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd) from a partition of the other garments, and seems to regard this double act as intended in the prophecy, the others speak only of a partition of the garments in general, and apply the casting of lots to the whole. Again, St. Matthew, who in common with St. Mark and St. John mentions the offering of the vinegar, or sour wine, speaks also of \u201cwine mixed with gall\u201d being given Him just before He was crucified, and gall is named in the sixty-ninth Psalm. On the other hand, St. John alone relates that the cry, \u201cI thirst\u201d (uttered, he says, in order that prophecy might be fulfilled), preceded the giving of the sponge full of vinegar.<\/p>\n
Incidents given only in one or two Accounts, for which Prophecy is quoted<\/p>\n
The above are merely touches peculiar to one writer in the relation of a fact of which an account is given also by others. In another class approximating to this one, though not identical, we may place the addition of separate facts which accord with prophecy. Of these we have, in St. Matthew\u2019s narrative of the Infancy, the Star which guided the Magi, the Flight into Egypt, and the Massacre of the Innocents; in the accounts of the Crucifixion, the First Word on the Cross given by St. Matthew and St. Mark, not by St. Luke or St. John; the Last Word given by St. Luke alone; while St. John alone tells that the legs of Jesus were not broken but His side pierced, and St. Matthew alone that He was buried in the grave of the \u201crich\u201d Joseph of Arimath\u00e6a. The distinction of this from the preceding class may at first sight seem too subtle; and it is a little difficult to decide whether some of the points may most properly be included under one or the other head. Yet I think it will be clear on reflection that there is a real difference at least between the bulk of the latter and the former. In the narration of an incident a touch might unconsciously be transferred to the narration of the incident from the language of the prophecy which was commonly connected with it. But the more considerable the addition would be, the more difficult is it to suppose that it could be made unconsciously.
\nThe correspondence with prophecy is thought in itself to render these suspicious. Yet even if we put aside all thought of a Divine ordering of the minuter circumstances of the life of Jesus Christ with that wise and merciful purpose which has been suggested in an earlier chapter, it must be acknowledged that, remembering what strange coincidences often happen, it would be rash to pronounce the points enumerated above unhistorical, for such a reason. And some of them are in themselves very probable. What would be more natural, as we have had occasion to say in the chapter just referred to, than that Jesus should have used those words from the Psalms? Or again, to take one of the instances which I have placed in the former class, than that He should have cried \u201cI thirst\u201d in the midst of His agony, and that this should have prompted the act of presenting to His parched lips the sponge filled with some of the common wine which stood by for the use of the executioners.
\nThe credibility of the above traits and incidents must depend on whether we may regard the Gospels according to St. Matthew and St. John as really giving us the testimony of these eye-witnesses. But if all be put together, and if all were allowed to be doubtful, it is to be observed how little they amount to. Supposing them subtracted, not a single important feature in the life of Christ or vital article of the Christian Faith would be thereby affected.<\/p>\n
Fulfilments of Prophecy which are more strongly attested<\/p>\n
I pass to the case of parallels with prophecy where the fulfilments are more strongly attested. Among these we will consider first the four\u2014there are only four\u2014which involve the supernatural. The attitude of our minds towards the question of the supernatural must here be an important factor in determining the view taken of the mythical explanation. There are those to whom any explanation will seem more probable than the assumption that the facts are true. Nevertheless, it is worth while to consider what force such explanations have, apart from any presupposition in their favour. Singularly enough, in two out of the three cases, the first and the last of them, the chief representatives of the Mythical theory themselves lay but little stress on Messianic beliefs. The four are, the Birth from a Virgin, a general enumeration of several classes of the miracles of Christ, and His Resurrection the Third Day, and His baptism by His forerunner, which I have placed last because the supernatural element enters only in the adjuncts to the main incident.<\/p>\n
The Miraculous Conception<\/p>\n
The Birth from a Virgin is related in the narratives of the Infancy both by St. Matthew and St. Luke, which differ in so many points. But there is nothing in the Gospel histories which to many minds will more wear the appearance of legend than this. The chief ground, I may be permitted to say, on which thoughtful Christian believers are ready to accept it is that, believing in the personal, indissoluble union between God and man in Jesus Christ, the miraculous birth of Jesus seems to them the only fitting accompaniment of this union, and so to speak the natural expression of it in the order of outward facts. The Docetic view of that Union cannot be entertained, because the ends would not thereby have been attained for which alone it could have taken place. And as we perceive this, we recognise how necessary was \u201cthe admirable beginning of that conjunction\u201d (to use Hooker\u2019s phrase) which is set forth in the Gospel narratives. It may be rejoined that the very fact of its necessity from a doctrinal point of view would tend to the formation of the legend. We are, however, thus only again thrown back upon the consideration how extremely early the true Divinity of Jesus was believed. But to pursue the investigation which properly belongs to us here. Strauss refrains from tracing the account to the words of Isaiah, which St. Matthew quotes as a prophecy of it, because this meaning had not been given to the passage by Jews. This objection does, in fact, tell very seriously against the mythical theory, both in the present instance and over the larger part of the field in which it has been employed. Strauss does not give the grounds of his statement in this case in which he admits the objection, nor does he make it in such strong terms as might fairly be done. Not only is the prophecy in question not thus interpreted in the Rabbinic writings, which proves little considering the motives there were for silence; but a passage of Justin\u2019s Dialogue with Trypho shows that even in his day Jews were not known to have so interpreted it. For Justin is endeavouring to prove to Jews that the \u201cprophecy had been spoken not with reference to Hezekiah as ye were taught, but to this my Christ.\u201d If Jewish interpreters had changed its application, or if any school among them had held the Messianic view, he would certainly, judging by charges he brings in many cases, have made the most of the fact.
\nBut to return for a moment to Strauss. Feeling compelled in this instance to acknowledge the insufficiency of the theory of the myth-producing influence of Messianic belief, he takes refuge in a hypothesis of greater irreverence and offensiveness. He traces this article of the Christian Faith to a heathen influence. But this theory is as improbable, I will even venture to say as impossible, as it is offensive. For any such idea would have been alien and repugnant in the extreme to the minds of the Jewish portion of the Church. And it would not have been less so to the Gentile portion. For there is abundance of evidence that the spiritual conception of God to be found alike in Judaism and in Christianity was a great attraction which drew men out of heathenism.
\nIt is to be added that the familiar difficulty in regard to the application of the prophecy of Isaiah in question to the miraculous conception, that the Hebrew \u05d4\u05b8\u05e2\u05b7\u05dc\u05b0\u05de\u05b8\u05d4 does not necessarily mean more than \u201cthe young woman\u201d was known from a very early time. It was urged by Jews in controversy with Christians, as we learn from the context of the passage of Justin which has just been referred to. This itself would tend to prevent the propagation of a myth from the prophecy. It is an instance in which the principle would hold, that it would be more easy to suppose the meaning of prophetic language to have been strained to fit facts, than that facts should have been invented to correspond with prophetic language. The term \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b8\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 in the LXX. might indeed be the source of mistake, and according to Justin, Jews complained of it, asserting that the word used ought to have been \u03bd\u03b5\u1fb6\u03bd\u03b9\u03c2. But the birth from a virgin must already have been an article of belief among the generality of Christians in days when they were still not wholly dependent upon the LXX., and while they were still continually brought into conflict with those who could appeal to the original.<\/p>\n
Miracles of the Christ<\/p>\n
The words from the thirty-fifth chapter of Isaiah to which our Lord Himself refers in His message to John the Baptist, are regarded as the chief foundation of the narratives of miracles worked by Christ. These words are, however, supplemented from another source, from the histories of Elijah and Elisha. The suggestion is thus found for two classes of miracles attributed to Christ in the Gospels, not enumerated in the passages of Isaiah.
\nIt is difficult to decide whether miracles of the kind attributed to Jesus were expected of the Christ among the Jews at the Christian era. The Rabbinic passages usually quoted, even apart from their late date, do not prove it. In the one the miracles which the Messiah was to work correspond to those of Moses, and do not at all resemble those of Jesus. In the other the works are not attributed to the Messiah; it is God who, in the Messianic days, raises the dead and opens the eyes of the blind. The words of the Jews in St. John do, however, seem to show that miracles were expected of the Christ. \u201cWhen the Christ shall come,\u201d they ask, \u201cwill He do more signs than those which this man hath done?\u201d Yet they are not very definite; and it is not easy to see what room there would be for individual miracles of mercy in connexion with such a Coming of Christ as was ordinarily expected. That there was a difference between the wonder-working attributed to Jesus and the wonders that would accompany the appearance of the Messiah according to Jewish expectation will be admitted. But it will be said the peculiar character of the Gospel miracles was due to the special genius of Christianity; and they were also offered simply as a foretaste of more wholesale wonders at the second Coming to meet the objection that the signs of the Christ had not been seen in Jesus. Still, the greater the difference between the actual Gospel miracles and the works which the Jews looked for in the Messiah, the less ground is there for supposing that the former were suggested by the latter.
\nBut not to urge this point farther, the language of the passage in Isaiah, even when helped out by the Old Testament parallels to which we have alluded, seems quite inadequate to account for the rich variety of the Gospel miracles. Nor does it offer a probable explanation of the introduction of the working of miracles as a general characteristic of the Life of Jesus. The evidence for individual miracles may not be considered strong, apart from the grounds there may be for putting confidence in the truth of the Gospels. But the evidence for the general fact that Jesus did work miracles is as strong as it is well possible for historical evidence to be. It is most difficult to conceive how, within so short a time as was certainly the case, miracles were so plentifully attributed to Jesus if He did not work any; or even how He could have been credited with classes of miracles of a kind dissimilar to any which He performed.<\/p>\n
Resurrection the Third Day<\/p>\n
Though the New Testament writers assert that the Resurrection of Jesus was a fulfilment of prophecy, and quote prophecies in connexion with it, the representatives of the mythical theory do not, for reasons that have been indicated in an earlier chapter, trace the belief in the general fact mainly to this origin. Indeed, they derive thence little beyond the time which He was supposed to have lain in the grave. But the evidence that such an application of prophecy was made as could have suggested even this minor point is surely slight. St. Paul indeed writes that Jesus \u201chath been raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.\u201d But it does not follow that the words \u201caccording to the Scriptures\u201d are to be read closely with \u201con the third day\u201d rather than with the main proposition. Jesus is recorded to have said, \u201cAs Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.\u201d But the time here defined does not agree closely enough with that which according to the common account of all the Gospels Jesus lay in the grave, for the one to have suggested the other. There is a passage of the prophet Hosea which, as to the period marked, fits somewhat more nearly, and which has often been applied to the Resurrection of Jesus by Christians: \u201cAfter two days will He revive us; in the third day He will raise us up, and we shall live in His sight.\u201d But it is nowhere adduced in the New Testament, nor, I believe, in the Apostolic Fathers or Justin.<\/p>\n
The Baptism of the Christ<\/p>\n
I pass to the narratives of the Baptism of Jesus.
\nThe prevalence of the conviction that the Coming of the Messiah would be preceded by that of Elijah is written on the face of the New Testament itself. Somewhat later, also, we have evidence of the existence among the Jews of the belief that it would be the office of Elijah to anoint the Messiah, and so make known to men and even to reveal His Mission to Himself. \u201cAs for Christ,\u201d these are the words put by Justin into the mouth of Trypho, \u201ceven if He has been born and is anywhere He is unknown, and He neither yet Himself knows Himself nor has any power, until Elias come and anoint Him and make Him manifest to all.\u201d
\nIt is also stated in the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Ex. 40:10, that Elijah would restore the sacred oil, the composition of which was unknown in the Second Temple, and anoint therewith the Messiah. Now the Evangelists\u2014all of them more or less, and in an especial manner St. John\u2014do represent it as having been the office of John the Baptist to recognise Jesus as the Christ, and to point Him out to others. The Baptism of Jesus was also, in a certain sense, His anointing, His ordination to His Public Ministry. The words which the Baptist heard remind us of the second Psalm and of a passage of Isaiah. They set a Divine seal upon His office as towards men; while the form as of a hovering dove was a sign of the gift of the Spirit for the special work upon which He was entering. This representation, I may remark in passing, is not inconsistent with the doctrine of the essential union of Deity with human nature in Jesus from His birth. His expanding human nature, and the fresh activities upon which He was entering, offered, so to speak, fresh points of contact for the Divine. This, we believe, was the truth shadowed forth in the sign of the gift of the Spirit at that time.<\/p>\n
The Office of the Forerunner<\/p>\n
It is conceivable that certain dogmatic beliefs, together with the general character of John\u2019s ministry, working upon the material of the previous expectation, might have added those particulars to the incident of the Baptism which made it more clearly a consecration of the Messiah to His work. But, on the other hand, be it observed these particulars are found without essential differences alike in the common tradition embodied by the Synoptists and in St. John. So that they are among the most strongly attested points in the Life of Christ.<\/p>\n
The Messiah\u2019s Descent from David<\/p>\n
There are two remaining points in which there is undoubtedly a correspondence between the Evangelic history of Jesus and contemporary Jewish expectation\u2014His descent from David and His triumphal entry into Jerusalem. But their truth is supported by strong evidence, and I think it should be allowed that they are not in themselves improbable.
\nThat the Messiah should be descended from David must undoubtedly also always have been expected by the Jews; and it may well be that no one not satisfying this condition, or supposed to satisfy it, could be held to be the Messiah. And this might have acted as a motive with those who believed Jesus to be the Messiah for imagining such a lineage in His case. Yet, even supposing they could thus have imposed upon themselves, it seems very unnecessary to make such an hypothesis; for the fact is surely in itself not improbable, and it happens to have strong evidence in its favour, in addition to the statements of the Gospels. It must be remembered that it is nowhere asserted that Jesus was heir to David\u2019s throne in the sense which we should give to the term\u2014the eldest representative of the eldest line. No such precise idea of rights of royal succession existed in ancient peoples. The sovereign was chosen from one family; but a younger son or a brother of the late king was on occasion preferred to the eldest son. And all that we learn from the Gospels is that Joseph, whose adopted son Jesus was, was of the family of David; while St. Paul speaks of Jesus as \u201cof the seed of David according to the flesh.\u201d Considering what attention was paid to genealogy even in Old Testament times, it does not seem unlikely that there should have been families even in the first century who could trace their pedigree to David.
\nAs regards the evidence, the words from the Epistle to the Romans just quoted show what was the belief in the first generation of Christians. And the incident recorded by Hegesippus in the passage quoted by Eusebius, of the relatives of our Lord who, as being of the family of David, were sent for and questioned by the suspicious tyrant Domitian, and only released on the ground of their manifest simplicity of character, is proof of that of a generation later. On the other hand, the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem, as it is, comparatively speaking, a detail, and as the prophecy from Micah, which in St. Matthew is quoted for it, might have suggested it, and as it might have been intended to emphasize the Davidic descent, does not rest on such strong grounds.<\/p>\n
The Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem<\/p>\n
Once more, the application to Messiah of the words of Zechariah, \u201cBehold, thy King cometh unto thee: He is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass,\u201d would be so obvious that we cannot doubt that even in the time of our Lord and before, it must have been commonly made. It is so understood also in the Rabbinic writings. But this does not seem a sufficient reason for questioning the incident of the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem; for not only is it related by all four Evangelists, but it will be allowed to be extremely probable, since Jesus undoubtedly did claim to be Messiah, that He should have publicly put forward His claim by this expressive act, when the end was so near at hand.
\nI have endeavoured in the above review to appreciate fully any probabilities which may fairly be urged for the mythical explanation of any point in the Gospel narratives by the aid of Messianic beliefs. The conclusion to which I am led is that a probable case for the alleged influence of prophecy upon the narrative can only be made out in regard to certain unimportant features; and that these do not happen to be of a supernatural character, or such that on any ground their truth is difficult of reception. In the graver cases the argument for such a mythical influence is feeble, or there is on the other hand strong evidence for the truth of the point in question. And all this we assert even without taking into account those considerations indicated at the outset of this chapter, which serve to show that the conditions were not such as to allow at most of more than a very limited mythical growth.<\/p>\n
EPILOGUE<\/p>\n
We have been occupied in this book with a momentous portion of the history of Christian doctrine, which is so bound up with the greatest of all changes in the life of humanity, that none can question its importance, or (one would think) can fail to feel in some measure its interest. But there have been so many problems to discuss, so many diverse views to take account of, it has so often been necessary to investigate evidence and to examine points of minute detail, that it has been impossible to follow consistently the method of orderly historical narration. Yet I hope that the reader will have been able to form a tolerably clear view of the history as a whole. We have marked the great epochs in the preparation made during the times in which the books of the Old Testament were written. We have traced the process of defining the conception of the Christ and of the allied eschatological ideas in the period which intervened between the close of the Old Testament Canon and the time of our Lord\u2019s Ministry. We have noted the grand effects of the claim of Jesus to be the Messiah, which began to tell from the first, in that the conception of the nature and prerogatives of the Messiah was immeasurably raised, while at the same time a new ideal of human life was presented to men. We have traced to its completion the new shaping of the conception of the Messiah; and we have seen what new elements were introduced into the idea of the Messianic era under the influence of two forces, to each of which we have endeavoured to assign its due,\u2014meditation upon the words and work of Christ, and the reading of the Old Testament Scriptures with newly enlightened eyes. We have seen, too, how at first Jewish eschatological ideas were refined and spiritualized in Christian thought; and then a period supervened, in which materialistic Jewish notions recovered too much sway over Christian minds, a movement the effects of which were afterwards partially corrected, but only partially, some of them remaining to the present day. We are thus brought to the end of the Second Century. This completes the history so far as it has been our object to investigate it. Long before this, from the time of the rise of Christianity, the history of Jewish Messianic doctrine branches off and has an independent course. To certain points in it I have made allusion, but it may be read in more completeness elsewhere. But from the latter part of the Second Century onward, the Messianic Hope is no longer an active principle of doctrinal development\u2014a source of fresh thought\u2014in the Christian Church. In respect to the conception of the Person of the Messiah, it had indeed ceased to be so by the close of the First, and before that of the Second it had also as regards eschatology. After this epoch the historian of Christian doctrine must be more exclusively occupied with the place of other forms of thought in aiding the expression of Christian truth. It was natural that the attention of Christian believers should first be turned upon His Office to be exercised towards them and towards all men, and that the need of careful definitions as to His own essential Personality should only in course of time arise. His Office is comprehensively described by the title and the idea \u201cthe Christ.\u201d His Divine and human natures combine to fit Him for that office; and their effects commingle in all His discharge of it. It is almost always His Office that the New Testament writers contemplate; at least this seems never far out of sight. Hence they rarely, if ever, isolate (so to speak) for special consideration His Divine or human natures, or the relations between them.
\nBut within the New Testament itself, as we have seen, there are not a few differences;\u2014varieties of language, more and less fully developed conceptions in some portions than in others. In some the change of standing-ground in passing from Judaism to Christianity, the transformation of all Jewish ideas, is more complete than in others. Yet in spite of all such differences, there is an inner unity which is most real. It is so in regard to the conception of the Christ. At first sight nothing may seem more unlike than the representation of the Christ as ruling and guiding the Church and the world from the Right Hand of the Father, and as coming again to execute vengeance upon the enemies of God, and to hold the Last Judgment, is from most of the language about Him in the Gospel and Epistles of St. John. Yet in both one and the other He is set forth as God\u2019s Vicegerent, appointed both to reveal God\u2019s character and will to men and to judge them. So again as regards eschatological ideas. Their treatment by St. Paul and in the Gospel and Epistles of St. John may be thought wholly alien from the point of view of the seer of the Apocalypse. Yet the theme of all alike is the same, the struggles and triumph of the kingdom of Jesus; and the former also supply the true interpretation of the symbolism of the latter, the interpretation which, as is shown by many indications, the seer himself intended. This sameness of the dominating ideas in Christian language even of the most diverse kinds is very striking. The more fully one recognises the individual varieties of the New Testament writers and the different degrees of doctrinal development which they represent, the more carefully one traces the lineage of the diverse terms and ideas they use to varying external influences, so much the more, as it seems to me, does one become impressed with the wonder of the complete essential harmony of their thought. Such a unity amid diversity as this could only have been produced by the fact of a Revelation known to all alike, which had completely taken possession of the minds of all, and become \u201cthe master-light of all their seeing,\u201d and an inspiration proceeding from one and the same Spirit, which filled all with a common life.
\nIt has been necessary in many parts of this book to be controversial. I have endeavoured to show that Jesus must have claimed to be the Christ in a sense involving His Divinity; and I have adduced various considerations tending to establish the substantial truth of the Gospel records. I have based my argument only on the evidence of undisputed documents, or broad facts respecting the life of the early Christian Society and the common traditions received in it. We are thus able to establish a great deal which is of the highest moment without first entering into a complicated argument to prove the authenticity of the Gospels. Such a method is urged upon us, as I have observed, by the state of opinion existing in many quarters; but it is also, I believe, the truly logical order in dealing with the history of the Rise of Christianity, marked as it is by unique and supernatural characteristics. Finding that the substantial truth of its supernatural element must be admitted, we approach the consideration of the truth of individual narratives which involve the supernatural, as well as that of the authenticity of the documents containing them, without that adverse prepossession which we might otherwise have. There will even be to start with a general probability in their favour. We have to proceed, if I may be pardoned the use of a mathematical illustration, by a method of approximations. Just as when, if the position of a planet has been roughly determined, this approximate determination is made the means in the planetary theory of a more exact determination, so, having established the general truth of the Christian Faith and the New Testament Scriptures, we can from the vantage ground thus gained go on to their more exact truth.
\nTo establish the truth of that which is most essential in the Christian Faith has been my dearest object, both in order to meet the doubts and difficulties of others and to deepen and quicken my own convictions. But our subject has also suggested warnings for Christian believers. Let me conclude with a lesson which seems to arise out of the whole of our investigation. It is that of the necessity of a spirit of reverent caution and willing acceptance of profound ignorance with regard to the future dispensations of God, and the manner in which as well as the time when the words of prophecy will find their accomplishment. If natural good sense does not teach us to distrust the ideas we form for ourselves from the prophetic parts of Holy Scripture, we ought to learn it from a comparison of the anticipations of the Christ which were formed before His first coming with their fulfilment. The prophets, we know, uttered words the full significance of which they themselves could not measure. Often it has been the prerogative of genius to use language containing truth which could not be rightly understood by any man at the time, but which subsequent time has marvellously unfolded and confirmed. Much more did the prophets who, under the special guidance of the Providence of God and Inspiration of His Spirit, spake before of His great salvation, use language vastly greater than their own thought. Yet even this language did not disengage itself completely from the conditions of age and country under which it was spoken; the bliss of the time to come and the Deliverer Himself were seen under the form of the highest national types of felicity and greatness. And then, further, we observe the strong tendency in the Jewish Church of later times to materialize the images of the prophets, to seize upon what was most concrete and cast away what was spiritual, and so reduce the whole promise to dimensions in which an earthly imagination could grasp it. And we know how the false preconceptions thus created hindered men from receiving the Christ when at length He came; and how for long they hung as a veil over the hearts even of loving disciples, making them unable to comprehend the words and actions of the Lord. Now we hold a position with regard to Christ\u2019s Second Coming analogous to that which the Jews under the Old Covenant did to His First Coming. Yet how little do we lay to heart the practical lessons of this great historical parallel! Doubtless even the predictions of Scripture give us very dim and partial glimpses of the Return of Christ and the times of the end, conveying them to us in the only way possible, through figures of an earthly nature, as was the case in the Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah. Is it not possible also that men have through their own perversity and dulness misunderstood these dark images, materializing what ought to have been taken spiritually, making definite what was vague; and that thus false and unworthy views may have at times become dominant in the Church, as was the case in the Jewish Church before the time of our Lord? Of this at least we may be sure\u2014just as the fulfilment in the First Coming infinitely surpassed in wealth of true spiritual glory all that had been anticipated and foretold, so will our most soaring hopes be surpassed, and the language of Scripture itself receive a fulfilment different from anything we could have dreamt of, and infinitely more Divine.
\nThe things that have been revealed\u2014the Work and Person of our Saviour, the manifestation in Him of the Love of the Father, the Way into the Holiest through His blood, the new hope and strength and aspiration which He gives\u2014belong to us and to our children to make fully our own. But the things that are yet to come God holds in His own keeping. Only He has assured us of the final triumph of His love and righteousness over every obstacle, and that should be enough.<\/p>\n
,
\ntitle The Jewish and the Christian Messiah: A Study in the Earliest History of Christianity
\nauthor Stanton, Vincent Henry<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PREFACE The writing of this work is due to my having been appointed to give the Hulsean lectures of 1879. At the time when I was choosing a subject for those lectures, I was much impressed with the thought that the historical evidence for the truth of the facts involved in the Christian Faith, though … <\/p>\n