; "Alter erit tum Tiphys, et altera quæ vehat Argo So it was most natural for the prophets to think that the sec ond period of glory would be preceded by a second period of disaster, and the captivity in Egypt be matched by a second captivity in Egypt, or in the nations of the East. The proph. ecy of a captivity in Egypt is confined to Hosea and the elder Zechariah, and was never fulfilled. Ewald remarks that the future of Isaiah is seemingly divided into three stages: first, deliverance from the inconsiderate attack of the allied kings; second, severe suffering under an Assyrian captivity; third, a restoration by the Messiah. 1 But so far we have not touched, except by implication, upon one of the most important notions in this circle of Messianic thought. The notion is that of a purifying and probationary time. It is something about which one must say a great deal, or a very little: we choose the latter course. How did this notion arise? Between the glorious fact of what this people had been, and the bright hope of what they were to be, lay the dark gulf of what they really were. And then the Hebrew had his dogma of retributive punishment, his "so much for so much;" his "What will you have?" "Quoth God, Pay for it and take it." Put this and the previous thought together, and we have "The Day of the Lord." What were this people in days of prophetism? Read the chapters of the first Isaiah, and see, - careless, disobedient, mean, degraded, sensual, oppressive, beastly. God would indeed save his people, but could the "Lord's rest," the joys of the Messianic kingdom, be for such as these? Surely they could not. They must be tried as the gold of the refiner, beaten upon the threshing-floors of God. This was the valley of affliction through which the nation must go, before it could stand upon the mountains of vision; this was the travailing of the woman with child. The imagery of terror is exhausted in depicting the horrors of this dreadful time. "On that day a man shall cast his idols of silver and his idols of gold to the moles and the bats, and enter into the clefts of the rocks, and hide himself in the dust, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty." The prophet summons every natural terror to his aid; there should be drought, pestilence, famine, leprosy, the curse of wild beasts and of locusts; and, what was worse than death or any pestilence, subjugation and a bondage, galling and ignominious, in the land of the alien. The moral earnestness of the prophet lends wings to his fancy; for many of these curses are conditional, and can be avoided by timely reform; and the prophet would not have them incurred from any injustice to their dreadfulness on his part.* But there came a time when that which they greatly feared came upon them, aye, and worse, if possible, — the miseries of Babylon. The prophecy and its fulfilment did their work almost too well; and, had not God raised up the bravest singer that ever blessed a people, not even a remnant would have returned. But in the fulness of time, that singer came inthe person of the unknown author of the latter part of Isaiah. "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God; speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and declare to her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned; for she hath received at the Lord's hand double for all her sins."† He bound up the wounds of a people smitten in every part. What word of comfort, joy, or promise, did he leave unspoken? How grand was his prophecy! So grand, alas! it never was fulfilled. In concluding this notice of the prophetic period, let us remark three things. First, the personal Messiah, though at times quite prominent, occupies a subordinate position. The Messianic age is the one great fact. Second, a spiritual or supernatural Messiah is nowhere hinted at. The contemplated mediation never exceeded the limits of human agency. This is true, even if we accept Isaiah ix. as Messianic. The expressions "Mighty God" and "Everlasting Father" offer no objection. Third, the work of the Messiah was the re-estab * Vide Dr. Noyes's Lectures on Prophecy. † See Dr. Noyes's notes on the passage. † Isa. xl. 2. lishment of the theocratic kingdom, on the basis of the Mosaic code. There is not a whisper of distrust. The conversion of the heathen did not imply any thing like yielding, any thing like toleration. But the Messianic hopes of the prophets were never realized. "The Day of the Lord" came and went, and there was no Messianic kingdom. Zerubbabel, who led back from Babylon the few who availed themselves of the privilege of return, was indeed hailed by Zechariah and Haggai as Messiah; but this was dreadful mockery. We know little of what took place in the three following centuries. Such sufferings as make men curse God and pray for death must have been bound up in them. Weary with waiting, and sick with disappointment, this Messianic longing must have almost perished in the midst of them. But it did not die. At worst it slept: a dreadful nightmare sleep no doubt. But at the end of this time it awoke. We proceed to consider the transition from the Messianic hopes of the Hebrew to the Apocalyptic be'iefs of the Jew. Of course it did not take place in a day. The seeds of such transition were no doubt in the captivity itself. For, in the writings immediately subsequent, we see that the process of degeneration has already commenced. In Ezekiel, we have a doctrine of angels before unknown. We have also a Satan, a Prince of evil." A weak symbolism usurps the place of loftier methods. In Zechariah we have none of that opposition to formalism which marked the elder prophecy; rather, the gems of that slavish method which ultimated in Talmudism itself. The character of the Apocryphal books is, for the most part, such as to shut out from them the consideration of the Messianic problem, or we might have in writings, what there must have been in thought, - a gradual development of the prophetic circle of Messianic ideas into the Apocalyptic beliefs which we encounter, for the first time, in the book of Daniel. At the time of its writing, the Jews were weighed down by the heaviest yoke they had borne since the earlier days of the captivity. The pious Jew was driven, by threatenings of the most terrible punishment, to do the things which most his soul abhorred. He must work upon the sabbath, eat of swine's flesh, surrender circumcision.* No doubt it was a laudable thing in the false Daniel to encourage the hearts of this stricken people; but had he offered his predictions on his own responsibility, his fate would not have differed from Cassandra's: he would have been cursed with the incredulity of his hearers. In looking about for some one through whose lips he should speak, he was most happy in choosing Daniel, whose name had been revered for many hundred years, whose firm adherence to his country's worship in the days of the captivity could not be forgotten. But, although there is much in the uncompromising tone of this patriotic composition which challenges our admiration, it is not difficult to perceive what an immense gulf yawns between it and the productions of the earlier prophets. The difference between Daniel and Isaiah, is the difference between Paul and Hermas. Prophecy has become prediction. The impulse to look beyond the horizon of the present is no longer justified by the moral purpose to which the knowledge of the future had once been applied. If the spiritual consciousness of the people justified such expression, that consciousness had become depraved. Let us note two or three peculiarities of the new phases of belief, for we have not time to do more. First, and most important, the Messiah is no longer a descendant of David, no longer a man at all, but a superhuman being of the most exalted character. The Messiah of the prophets was to be born in Bethlehem; the Messiah of Daniel is to come in the clouds of heaven. Second, it may be possible that in the earlier prophets, we have only an apparent reference to universal dominion. Hyperbolical expression may account for the whole of it; and at any rate, if the idea is there, it is very general and indistinct. Not so in Daniel: four great monarchies are to pass away, and then Messiah shall come and establish a fifth, which shall be universal. Far less than in the elder prophets is this dominion to result from any recognition of the glory of Jehovah, and the beauty * In 175 в.с., in the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes. of his law. Third, the predictions in regard to time are much more definite. There is, indeed, an attempt at exact numerical prognostication. It would be tiresome to discuss this point more fully. The time for Messiah's coming was during the reign of Antiochus. Again, instead of the symbolic resurrection of Isaiah and Ezekiel, we have a resur rection which is literal beyond doubt. Can we account for any of these changes? Some are ready to account for them all by the supposed influence of Persian thought. This may go a great way, but does not seem sufficient. But such external influence as there was, must have been Persian rather than Grecian, Egyptian, or Babylonian, as Nicolas clearly shows. The Alexandrian tendency was plainly hostile to such im agery. The book of the Sibyl only shows that a Jew went to Alexandria with Eastern notions. During the captivity the antagonism was too strong for the faithful Jew at least, to adopt many Chaldaic views. He could not so well resist the insidious influences of a protracted intercourse with the Persian. From him, no doubt, came much of the form which these opinions assumed, and perhaps no little of their substance. "Change the names of the actors in this grand Ma gian drama," says Nicolas, "and you seem to read a Jewish Apocalypse." The fifth monarchy of Daniel is not unlike the fifth dynasty to be founded by the Persian liberator; nor his prince of evil heading the idolatrous enemies of Jehovah, unlike Ahriman, hurling the legions of darkness against Ormuzd, the prince of light. The thousand years of the Messiah are matched by the period which shall precede the coming of the Persian hero. Finally, in the eschatology of both, we have a resurrection of the dead, and the proclamation of a new law. But without doubt the Jew would have had his Apocalypse, had he never come in contact with the Persian. His altered circumstances demanded change in almost every direction; and, to suit them, a modification of his Messianic views was in the highest degree necessary. In the first place, a supernatural Messiah was demanded by the apparent impossibility of relief through any human agency. A con |