The Cradle of the Christ Part 1

The Cradle of the Christ.

by Octavius Brooks Frothingham.

PREFACE.

The literary intention of this volume is sufficiently declared in the opening paragraph, and need not be foreshadowed in a preface; but as the author's deeper motive may be called in question, he takes the liberty to say a word or two in more particular explanation. The thought has occurred to him on reading over what he has written, as a casual reader might, that, in his solicitude to make his positions perfectly clear, and to state his points concisely, he may have laid himself open to the charge of carrying on a controversy under the pretence of explaining a literature. Such a reproach, his heart tells him, would be undeserved.

He disclaims all purpose and desire to weaken the moral supports of any form of religion; as little purpose or desire to undermine Christianity, as to revive Judaism. It is his honest belief that no genuine interests of religion are compromised by scientific or literary studies; that religion is independent of history, that Christianity is independent of the New Testament. He is cordially persuaded that the admission of every one of his conclusions would leave the inst.i.tutions of the church precisely, in every spiritual respect, as they are; and in thus declaring he has no mental reserve, no misty philosophical meaning that preserves expressions while destroying ideas; he uses candid, intelligible speech. The lily's perfect charm suffers no abatement from the chemist's a.n.a.lysis of the slime into which it strikes its slender root; the grape of the Johannisberg vineyards is no less luscious from the fact that the soil has been subjected to the microscope; the fine qualities of the human being, man or woman, are the same on any theory, the bible theory of the perfect Adam, or Darwin's of the anthropoid ape.

The hero is hero still, and the saint saint, whatever his ancestry. We reject the inference of writers like G.o.dfrey Higgins, Thomas Inman, and Jules Soury, who would persuade us that Christianity must be a form of nature-wors.h.i.+p, because nature-wors.h.i.+p was a large const.i.tuent element in the faiths from which it sprung; why should we not reject the inference of those who would persuade us that Christianity is doomed because the four gospels are p.r.o.nounced ungenuine? Christianity is a historical fact; an inst.i.tution; it stands upon its merits, and must justify its merits by its performances; first demonstrating its power, afterward pressing its claim; vindicating its t.i.tle to exist by its capacity to meet the actual conditions of existence, and then asking respect the ground of good service. The church that arrogates for itself the right to control the spiritual concerns of the modern world must not plead in justification of its pretension that it satisfied the requirements of devout people of another hemisphere, two thousand years ago. The religion that fails to represent the religious sentiments of living men will not support itself by demonstrating the genuineness of the New Testament, the supernatural birth of Jesus, or the inspiration of Paul. Other questions than these are asked now. When a serious man wishes to know what Christianity has to say in regard to the position of woman in modern society, a quotation from a letter to the christians in the Greek city of Corinth, is not a satisfactory reply. Christianity must prove its adaptation to the hour that now is; its adaptation to days gone by, is not to the purpose.

The church of Rome had a glimpse of this, and revealed it when it took the ground that the New Testament did not contain the whole revelation; that the source of inspiration lay behind that, used that as one of its manifestations, and constantly supplied new suggestions as they were needed. Cardinal Wiseman did not hesitate to admit that the doctrine of trinity was not stated in the New Testament, though undoubtedly a belief of the church. It would have been but a step further in the same direction, if Dr. Newman should declare that the critics might have their way with the early records of the religion, which, however curious as literary remains, were not essential to the const.i.tution or the work of the church. Strauss and Renan may speculate and welcome; the mission of the church being to bless mankind, their labors are innocent. A church that does not bless mankind cannot be saved by Auguste Nicolas; a church that does bless mankind cannot be injured by Ernest Renan.

Leading protestant minds, without making so much concession as the church of Rome, have practically accepted the position here maintained.

It is becoming less common, every day, to base the claims of Christianity on the New Testament. The most learned, earnest, and intelligent commend their faith on its reasonableness, confronting modern problems in a modern way. St. George Mivart quotes no scripture against the doctrine of evolution. No one reading Dr. McCosh on the development hypothesis, would suppose him to be a believer in the inspiration of the bible. He reasons like a reasonable man, meeting argument with argument, feeling disposed to confront facts with something harder than texts. The well instructed christian, if he enters the arena of scientific discussion at all, uses scientific weapons, and follows the rules of scientific warfare. The problems laid before the modern world are new; scarcely one of them was propounded during the first two centuries of our era; not one was propounded in modern terms.

The most universal of them, like poverty, vice, the relations of the strong and the weak, present an aspect which neither church, Father, nor Apostle would recognize. Whatever bearing Christianity has on these questions must be timely if it is to be efficacious.

The doctrine of christian development, as it is held now by distinguished teachers of the christian church, implying as it does incompleteness and therefore defect in the antecedent stages of progress points clearly to the apostolic and post apostolic times as ages of rudimental experience, tentative and crude. Why should not the entertainers of this doctrine calmly surrender the records and remains of the preparatory generations to antiquarian scholars who are willing to investigate their character? No discovery they can make will alter the results which the centuries have matured. They will simply more clearly exhibit the process whereby the results have been reached.

We may go further than this, and maintain that the unreserved abandonment to criticism of the literature and men of the early epochs would be a positive advantage to Christianity, for thereby the religion would be relieved from a serious embarra.s.sment. The duty, a.s.sumed by christians, of vindicating the truth of whatever is found in the New Testament imposes grave difficulties. It is safe to say that a very large part of the disbelief in Christianity proceeds from doubts raised by Strauss, Renan, and others who have cast discredit on some portions of this literature. Christians have their faith shaken by those authors; and doubtless some who are not christians are prejudiced against the religion by books of rational criticism. The romanist, failing to establish by the New Testament, or by the history of the first two centuries, the primacy of Peter, the supremacy of Rome, the validity of the sacraments, the divine sanction of the episcopacy, loses the convert whom the majestic order of the papacy might attract. The protestant, failing to prove by apostolic texts his cardinal dogmas, pre-destination, atonement, election, must see depart unsatisfied, the inquirer whom a philosophical exposition might have won. The necessity of justifying the account of the miraculous birth of Jesus repels the doubter whom a purely intellectual conception of incarnation might have fascinated; and the obligation to believe the story of a physical resurrection is an added obstacle to the reception of a spiritual faith in immortality. Scholars.h.i.+p has so effectually shown the impossibility of bringing apostolical guarantee for the creed of christendom, that the creed cannot get even common justice done it while it compromises itself with the beliefs of the primitive church. The inspiration of the New Testament is an article that unsettles. Naturally it is the first point of attack, and its extreme vulnerability raises a suspicion of weakness in the whole system. The protestant theology, as held by the more enlightened minds, is capable of philosophical statement and defence; but it cannot be stated in New Testament language, or defended on apostolical authority. The creed really has not a fair chance to be appreciated. Its power to uphold spiritual ideas, and develop spiritual truths; its speculative resources as an antagonist of scientific materialism, animal fatalism, and sensualism, are rendered all but useless. Powerful minds are fettered, and good scholars.h.i.+p is wasted in the attempt to identify beginnings with results, roots with fruits.

This is a consideration of much weight. When we remember how much time and concern are given to the study of the New Testament for controversial or apologetic purposes, to establish its genuineness, maintain its authority, justify its miracles, explain away its difficulties, reconcile its contradictions, harmonize its differences, read into its texts the thoughts of later generations, and then reflect on the lack of mind bestowed on the important task of recommending religious ideas to a world that is spending enormous sums of intellectual force on the problems of physical science and the arts of material civilization, the close a.s.sociation of the latest with the earliest faith seems a deplorable misfortune. If there ever was a time when the purely spiritual elements in the religion of the foremost races of mankind should be developed and pressed, the time is now; and to miss the opportunity by misplacing the energy that would redeem it is anything but consoling to earnest minds.

Thus might reason a full believer in the creed of christendom, a devoted member of the church; Greek, Roman, German, English. The man of letters viewing the situation from his own point, will, of course, feel less intensely the mischiefs entailed by the error; but the error will be to him no less evident. It is sometimes, in war, an advantage to lose outworks that cannot be defended without fatally weakening the line, drawing the strength of the garrison away from vulnerable points, and exposing the centre to formidable a.s.sault. The present writer, though no friend to the christian system, believes himself to be a friend of spiritual beliefs, and would gladly feel that he is, by his essay, rather strengthening than weakening the cause of faith, by whatever cla.s.s of men maintained.

I.

FALSE POSITION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.

The original purpose of this little volume was to indicate the place of the New Testament in the literature of the Hebrew people, to show in fact how it is comprehended in the scope of that literature. The plan has been widened to satisfy the demands of a larger cla.s.s of readers, and to record more fully the work of its leading idea. Still the consideration of the New Testament literature is of primary importance.

The writer submits that the New Testament is to be received as a natural product of the Hebrew genius, its contents attesting the creative power of the Jewish mind. He hopes to make it seem probable to unprejudiced people, that its different books merely carry to the last point of attenuation, and finally exhaust the capacity of ideas that exerted a controlling influence on the development of that branch of the human family. To profundity of research, or originality of conclusion, he makes no claim. He simply records in compact and summary form, the results of reading and reflection, gathered in the course of many years, kept in note books, revised year by year, tested by use in oral instruction, and reduced to system by often repeated manipulation. The resemblance of his views, in certain particulars, to those set forth by German critics of the school of Strauss or of Baur, he is at no pains to conceal. His deep indebtedness to them, he delights to confess. At the same time he can honestly say that he is a disciple of no special school, writes in the interest of no theory or group of theories, but simply desires to establish a point of literary consequence. All polemic or dogmatical intention he disavows, all disposition to lower the dignity, impair the validity, or weaken the spiritual supports of Christianity. His aim, truly and soberly speaking, is to set certain literary facts in their just relation to one another.

It has not been customary, nor is it now customary to a.s.sign to the New Testament a place among the literary productions of the human mind. The collection of books bearing that name has been, and still is regarded by advocates of one or another theory of inspiration, as of exceptional origin, in that they express the divine, not the human mind; being writings super-human in substance if not in form, containing thoughts that could not have occurred to the unaided intelligence of man, neither are amenable to the judgment of uninspired reason. To read this volume as other volumes are read is forbidden; to apply to it ordinary critical methods is held to be an impertinence; to detect errors or flaws in it, as in Homer, Plato, Thucydides, is p.r.o.nounced an unpardonable arrogance. A book that contains revelations of the supreme wisdom and will must be accepted and revered, must not be arraigned.

Criticism has therefore, among believers chiefly we may almost say solely, been occupied with the task of establis.h.i.+ng the genuineness and authenticity of the writings, harmonizing their teachings, arranging their contents, explaining texts in accordance with the preconceived theory of a divine origin, vindicating doubtful pa.s.sages against the objections of skeptics, and extracting from chapter and verse the sense required by the creed. Literature has been permitted to ill.u.s.trate or confirm points, but has not been called in to correct, for that would be to judge the infinite by the finite mind.

In accordance with this accepted view of the New Testament as a miraculous book, students of it have fallen into the way of surveying it as a detached field, unconnected by organic elements with the surrounding territory of mind; have examined it as if it made no part of an extensive geological formation, as men formerly took up an aerolite or measured a boulder. The materials of knowledge respecting the book have been sought within the volume itself, neither Greek, Roman, German nor Englishman presuming to think that a beam from the outside world could illumine a book

Which gives a light to every age, Which gives, but borrows none.

The rationalists it is needless to say, avoided this error, but they betrayed a sense of the peril arising from it, in the polemical spirit that characterized much of their writing. In Germany, the tone of rationalism was more sober and scientific than elsewhere, because biblical questions were there discussed in the scholastic seclusion of the University, in lectures delivered by learned professors to students engaged in pursuits purely intellectual. The lectures were not addressed to an excitable mult.i.tude, as such discourses are, to a certain extent, in France or England, and particularly in America, and consequently stirred no religious pa.s.sions. The books published were read by a small cla.s.s of specialists who studied them as they would treatises in any other department of ancient literature. Nearly half a century ago the disbelief in miracles, portents, and supernatural interventions, was entertained and published by German university professors; stories of prodigies were discredited on the general ground of their incredibility, and the books that reported them were set down as untrustworthy, whatever might be the evidence of their genuineness. A miraculous narrative was on the face of it unauthentic. Efforts were accordingly made to bring the New Testament writings within the categories of literature. Criticism began the task by applying rules of "natural"

interpretation to the legendary portions, thus abolis.h.i.+ng the supernatural peculiarity and leaving the merely human parts to justify themselves. The method was the best that offered, but it was unscientific; "unnaturally natural;" confused from the necessity of supplementing knowledge by conjecture, and faulty through the amount of arbitrary supposition that had to be introduced. Attention was directed to the historical or biographical aspect of the books, and only incidentally to their literary character, as productions of their age.

The method pursued by Strauss was strictly scientific and literary, though on the surface it seemed to be concerned with biographical details. By treating the narratives of miracles as mythical rather than as legendary, as intellectual and dogmatic rather than as fanciful or imaginary creations, and by tracing their origin to the traditionary beliefs of the Old Testament, he ran both literatures together as one, showing the new to be a continuation or reproduction of the old. The construction, otherwise, of the New Testament literature concerned him but incidentally. The first "Life of Jesus," published in part in 1835, was devoted to the discussion of the gospels as books of history. The second--a revision--was published in 1864, contained a much larger proportion of literary matter in the form of doc.u.mentary discussion, made frequent references to Baur, and other writers of the Tubingen School, and attached great weight to their conclusions. In the "Old and the New Faith," published nearly ten years later, the main conclusions of Baur are adopted as the legitimate issue of literary criticism, though without attempt at formal reconciliation with his own original view.

Baur's method was original with himself. He finds the key to the secret of the composition of the first three Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles and portions of other books, in the quarrel between Paul and Peter feelingly described in the second chapter of the letter to the Galatians. The "synoptical" Gospels, he contends, and with singular ingenuity argues, are the results of that controversy between the broad and the narrow churches; are not, therefore, writings of historical value or biographical moment, but books of a doctrinal character, not controversial or polemical,--mediatorial and conciliatory rather than aggressive,--but written in a controversial interest, and intelligible only when read by a controversial light. Baur called his the "historical" method, as distinguished from the dogmatical, the textual, the negative; because his starting point was a historical fact, namely, the actual dispute recorded, in language of pa.s.sionate earnestness, by one of the parties to it, and distinctly confessed in the att.i.tude of the other. But Baur's method has a still better t.i.tle to be called literary, for it is concerned with the literary composition of the New Testament writings, and with the dispute as accounting for their existence and form. His studies on the fourth Gospel, and on the life and writings of the Apostle Paul, are admirable examples of the unprejudiced literary method; by far the most intelligent, comprehensive and consistent ever made; simply invaluable in their kind. They contain all that is necessary for a complete _rationale_ of the New Testament literature. These, taken in connection with his "History of the First Three Centuries," his "Origin of the Episcopate," his "Dogmengeschichte," put the patient and attentive student in possession of the full case. But Baur lacked constructive talent of a high order, and has been less successful than inferior men in embracing details in a wide generalization.

Renan adopts the method of the early rationalists, but applies it with a freedom and facility of which they were incapable. He takes up the Gospels as history, and sifts the literature in order to get at the history. He claims to possess the historical sense, by virtue of which he is able to separate the genuine from the ungenuine portions of the Gospels. It is a point with him to show how the character of Jesus was moulded by the spirit of his age, and by the literature on which he was nurtured; but his treatment of the evangelical narratives as a ma.s.s of biographical notes reflecting, with more or less correctness, the personality of Jesus, is not quite compatible with a rational or even a literary treatment of them as a continuation of the traditions of the Hebrew people. The constructive force being centred in Jesus himself, the full recognition of the creative genius of the Hebrew mind, which was ill.u.s.trated in Jesus and his age, was precluded. Renan is in a measure compelled to make Jesus a prodigy--an exceptional person, who baffles ordinary standards of judgment; and in so doing distorts the connection between him, the generations that went before, and the generations that came after. Strauss does more justice to the New Testament literature, in attempting only its partial explanation. Baur does more justice to it in seeking a literary explanation of the writings as they are. Renan picks and chooses according to our arbitrary criterion, which capriciously disports itself over a field covered with promiscuous treasures.

Lord Amberley's more recent attempt reveals the weakness of the common procedure. Without the learning of Strauss, the perspicacity of Baur, or the brilliant audacity of Renan, he strays over the field, making suggestions neither profound nor original, and rather obliterating the distinct impressions his predecessors have made than making new ones of his own. His chapter on Jesus will ill.u.s.trate the confusion that must issue from a false method, which does not deserve to be called a method at all.

Books have been written about the New Testament by the thousand--libraries of books; but they merely supplant and refute one another. Each is ent.i.tled to as much consideration as the rest, and to no more. The old materials are turned over and over; the texts are subjected to new cross-examinations; the chapters and incidents are shuffled about with fresh ingenuity; new suppositions are started; new combinations are made; but all with no satisfactory result. Whether it be Auguste Nicolas, who reconstructs the Gospels to justify the predispositions of Romanism; or Edmond de Pressense, who does the same service for liberal Protestantism; or Henry Ward Beecher, who constructs a Christ out of the elements of an exuberant fancy; or William Henry Furness, who is certain that "naturalness" furnishes the touchstone of historical truth; the conclusion is about equally inconclusive.

The literary method avoids the dogmatical embarra.s.sments incident to the supernatural theory; offers easy solutions of difficult problems; connects incidents with their antecedents; interprets dark sayings by the light of a.s.sociation; and places fragments in the places where they belong. An exhaustive application of this treatment would probably explain every pa.s.sage in the New Testament writings. A partial application of it like the present will indicate at least some of the capacities of the method.

The literary treatment differs from the dogmatical represented by the older theologians who used the New Testament as a text book of doctrine; from the purely exegetical or critical, which consisted in the impartial examination of its separate parts; from the destructive or decomposing treatment pursued by the so-called "rationalism;" and from the "historical," as employed by Baur and the "Tubingen school." It is in some respects more comprehensive and positive than either of these, while in special points it adopts all but the first. Every other method presents a controversial face, and is something less than scientific, by being to a certain degree inhospitable. This consults only the laws which preside over the literary expression given to human thoughts.

It has been customary with christians to widen as much as possible the gulf between the Old and the New Testaments, in order that Christianity might appear in the light of a fresh and transcendent revelation, supplementing the ancient, but supplanting it. The most favorable view of the Old Testament regards it as a porch to the new edifice, a collection of types and foregleams of a grandeur about to follow. The Old Testament has been and still is held to be preparatory to the New; Moses is the schoolmaster to bring men to Christ. The contrast of Law with Gospel, Commandment with Beat.i.tude, Justice with Love, has been presented in every form. Christian teachers have delighted to exhibit the essential superiority of Christianity to Judaism, have quoted with triumph the maxims that fell from the lips of Jesus, and which, they surmised, could not be paralleled in the elder Scriptures, and have put the least favorable construction on such pa.s.sages in the ancient books as seemed to contain the thoughts of evangelists and apostles. A more ingenuous study of the Hebrew Law, according to the oldest traditions, as well as its later interpretations by the prophets, reduces these differences materially by bringing into relief sentiments and precepts whereof the New Testament morality is but an echo. There are pa.s.sages in Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, even tenderer in their humanity than anything in the gospels. The preacher from the Mount, the prophet of the Beat.i.tudes, does but repeat with persuasive lips what the law-givers of his race proclaimed in mighty tones of command. Such an acquaintance with the later literature of the Jews as is readily obtained now from popular sources, will convince the ordinarily fair mind that the originality of the New Testament has been greatly over-estimated. Even a hasty reading of easily accessible books, makes it clear that Jesus and his disciples were Jews in mind and character as well as by country and race; and will render it at least doubtful whether they ever outgrew the traditions of their birth. Paul's claim to be a Hebrew of the Hebrews, a Pharisee of the Pharisees, "circ.u.mcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin," is found to be more than justified by his writings; and even John's exalted spirituality proves to be an aroma from a literature which Christianity disavows. The phrases "Redemption," "Grace," "Faith," "Baptism," "Salvation,"

"Regeneration," "Son of Man," "Son of G.o.d," "Kingdom of Heaven," are native to this literature, and as familiar there as in gospel or epistle. The symbolism of the Apocalypse, Jewish throughout, with its New Jerusalem, its consecration of the number twelve,--twelve foundations, twelve gates, twelve stars, twelve angels,--points to deeper correspondences that do not meet the eye, but occur to reflection. We remember that the New Testament constantly refers to the Old; that great stress is laid on the fulfilment of ancient prophecies; that Jesus explicitly declares, at the opening of his ministry, that he came not to destroy the law or the prophets, but to reaffirm and complete them, saying with earnest force "till heaven and earth pa.s.s, not one jot or t.i.ttle shall in any wise pa.s.s from the law until all be fulfilled." We discover that his criticisms bore hard on the casuists who corrupted the law by their glosses, but were made in the interest of the original commandment, which had been caricatured. In a word, so completely is the s.p.a.ce between the old dispensation and the new bridged over, that the most delicate and fragile fancies, the lightest imagery, the daintiest fabrics of the intellectual world are transported without rent or fracture, across the gulf opened by the captivity, and the deserts caused by the desolating quarrels that attended the new attempts at reconstruction, while the ma.s.sive ideas that lie at the foundation of Hebraic thought, wherever found, are landed without risk or confusion in the new territory. Between the Jewish and the Christian scriptures there is not so much as a blank leaf.

If this can be made apparent without over-stating the facts, everything in the New Testament, from the character of Jesus, and the const.i.tution of the primitive church, to the later development by Paul, and the latest by John, must be subjected to a revision, which though fatal to Christianity's claim to be a special revelation, will restore dignity to the Semitic character, and consistency to the development of historic truth. Better still, it will heal the breach between two great religions, and will contribute to that disarmament of faiths from which good hearts antic.i.p.ate most important results. Of all this hints only can be given in a short essay like this; but if the hints are suggestive in themselves or from their arrangement, a service will be rendered to the cause of truth that may deserve recognition.

II.

THE MESSIAH.

The period of the captivity in Babylon, which is commonly regarded as a period of sadness and desolation, a blank s.p.a.ce of interruption in the nation's life, was, in reality, a period of intense mental activity; probably the highest spiritual moment in the history of the people.

Dispossessed of their own territory, relieved of the burden and freed from the distraction of politics, their disintegrating tribal feuds terminated by foreign conquest, living, as unoppressed exiles, in one of the world's greatest cities, with opportunities for observation and reflection never enjoyed before, having unbroken leisure in the midst of material and intellectual opulence, the true children of Israel devoted themselves to the task of rebuilding spiritually the state that had been politically overthrown. The writings that reflect this period, particularly the later portions of Isaiah, exhibit the soul of the nation in proud resistance against the unbelief, the disloyalty, the worldliness, that were demoralizing the less n.o.ble part of their countrymen. The duty was laid on them to support the national character, revive the national faith, restore the national courage, and rebuild the national purpose. To this end they collected the traditions of past glory, gathered up the fragments of legend and song, reanimated the souls of their heroes and saints, developed ideas that existed only in germ, arranged narratives and legislation, and constructed an ideal state. There is reason to believe that the real genius of the people was first called into full exercise, and put on its career of development at this time; that Babylon was a forcing nursery, not a prison cell; creating instead of stifling a nation. The astonis.h.i.+ng outburst of intellectual and moral energy that accompanied the return from the Babylonish captivity attests the spiritual activity of that "mysterious and momentous" time. When the hour of deliverance struck, the company of defeated, disheartened, crushed, to all seeming, "reckless, lawless, G.o.dless" exiles came forth "transformed into a band of puritans." The books that remain from those generations, Daniel, the Maccabees, Esdras, are charged with an impetuous eloquence and a frenzied zeal.

The Talmud, that vast treasury of speculation on divine things, had its origin about this period. Recent researches into that wilderness of thought reveal wonders and beauties that were never till recently divulged. The deepest insights, the most bewildering fancies, exist there side by side. The intellectual powers of a race exhausted themselves in efforts to penetrate the mysteries of faith. The fragments of national literature that had been rescued from oblivion, were pondered over, scrutinized, arranged, cla.s.sified, with a superst.i.tious veneration that would not be satisfied till all the possibilities of interpretation had been tried. The command to "search the scriptures"

for in them were the words of eternal life, was accepted and faithfully obeyed. "The Talmud" says Emanuel Deutsch, "is more than a book of laws, it is a microcosm, embracing, even as does the Bible, heaven and earth.

It is as if all the prose and poetry, the science, the faith and speculation of the old world were, though only in faint reflections, bound up in it _in nuce_." The theme of discussion, conjecture, speculation, allegory was, from first to last, the same,--the relation between Jehovah and his people, the nature and conditions of salvation, the purport of the law, the bearing of the promises. The entire field of investigation was open, reaching all the way from the number of words in the Bible to the secret of infinite being. No pa.s.sage was left unexposed with all the keenness that faith aided by culture could supply; and when reason reached the end of its tether, fancy took up the work and threaded with unwearied industry the mazes of allegory.

Among the problems that challenged solution was the one touching the Messiah, his attributes and offices, his nature and his kingdom. This theme had inexhaustible capacities and infinite attraction, for it was but another form of the theme of national deliverance which was uppermost in the Hebrew mind.

The history of the Messianic idea is involved in the obscurity that clouds the early history of Israel; and this again is embarra.s.sed with the extreme difficulty of deciding the antiquity of the Hebrew scriptures. At what moment was Israel fully persuaded of its providential destiny? That is the question. For the germs of the Messianic idea were contained in the bosom of that persuasion. That the idea was slow in forming must be conceded under any estimate of its antiquity; for its development depended on the experiences of the nation, and these experiences underwent in history numerous and violent fluctuations. The hope of a deliverer came with the felt need of deliverance, and the consciousness of this need grew with the soreness of the calamity under which the nation groaned, as the character of it was determined by the character of the calamity. The national expectation was necessarily vague at first. It rested originally on the tradition of a general promise given to Abraham that his descendants should be a great and happy nation, blessing and redeeming the nations of the earth; that their power should be world-wide, their wealth inexhaustible, their peace undisturbed, their moral supremacy gladly acknowledged. "The Lord shall cause thine enemies that rise up against thee to be smitten before thy face; they shall come out against thee one way, and flee before thee seven ways. The Lord shall command the blessing upon thee in thy storehouses, and in all that thou settest thy hand unto; and he shall bless thee in the land which the Lord thy G.o.d giveth thee. The Lord shall establish thee an holy people unto himself, as he hath sworn unto thee, if thou shalt keep the commandments of the Lord, and walk in his ways; and all people of the earth shall see that thou art called by the name of the Lord."

As a promise made by Jehovah must be kept, the antic.i.p.ation of its fulfilment became strong as the prospect of it grew dim. The days of disaster were the days of expectation. The prophets laid stress on the condition, charged the delay upon lukewarmness, and urged the necessity of stricter conformity with the divine will; but the people, oblivious of duty, held to the pledge and cherished the antic.i.p.ation. When the national hope a.s.sumed the concrete form of faith in the advent of an individual, when the conception of the individual became clothed in supernatural attributes, is uncertain. Probably the looked-for deliverer was from the first regarded as more than human. It could hardly be otherwise, as he was to be the representative and agent of Jehovah, an incarnation of his truth and righteousness. The Hebrews easily confounding the human with the super-human, were always tempted to ascribe supernatural qualities to their political and spiritual leaders, believing that they were divinely commissioned, attested and furthered; and the person who was to accomplish what none of them had so much as hopefully undertaken, would naturally be clothed by an enthusiastic imagination, with attributes more than mortal. The poets depicted the stories of the future restoration in language of extraordinary splendor.

Joel, some say eight hundred years before Jesus, two hundred years before the first captivity, foreshadows the restoration, but without any portraiture of the victorious Prince. A century and a half later we will suppose, the first Isaiah speaks of the providential child of the nation, on whose shoulder the government shall rest, whose name shall be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty Potentate, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace; whose dominion shall be great, who shall fix and establish the throne and kingdom of David, through justice and equity for ever, and in peace without end; a lineal descendant from David, a sprout from his root.

"The spirit of Jehovah shall rest upon him, "The spirit of wisdom and understanding, "The spirit of counsel and might, "The spirit of knowledge and fear of Jehovah.

"Righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, "And faithfulness the girdle of his reins; "To him shall the nation repair, "And his dwelling place shall be glorious."

The second Isaiah, supposed to have written during the exile and not long before its termination, a.s.sociates the hope of restoration and return with king Cyrus, on whose clemency the Jews built great expectations, intimating even that he might be the promised deliverer.

"He saith of Cyrus: 'He is my shepherd; he shall perform all my pleasure.' He saith of Jerusalem: 'She shall be built;' and of the temple: 'Her foundation shall be laid.'"

In the book of Daniel, by some supposed to have been written during the captivity, by others as late as Antiochus Epiphanes (B. C., 175), the restoration is described in tremendous language, and the Messiah is portrayed as a supernatural personage, in close relation with Jehovah himself. He is spoken of as a man, yet with such epithets as only a Jewish imagination could use in describing a human being. Heinrich Ewald, in the fifth volume of his history of the people of Israel, devotes twenty-three pages to an account of the development of the national expectation of a Messiah, which he calls "the second preparatory condition of the consummation in Jesus." After alluding to Joel's fervent antic.i.p.ation, and Isaiah's description of the glory that was to come through the King, in whom the spirit of pure divinity penetrated, animated and glorified everything, so that his human nature was exalted to the G.o.d-like power, whose actions, speech, breath even attested deity, he says: "It is not to be questioned that this most exalted form of the conception of the antic.i.p.ated Messiah appeared in the midst of the latter period of this history, when before the great victory of the Maccabees, the eternal hopes of Israel were disturbed in their foundations along with its political prospects, and the advent of a King of David's line seemed wholly impossible. At this time the deathless hope became more interior and imperishable in this new, glorious, celestial idea, and the Messiah presented himself before prophetic vision as existing from all eternity, along with the indestructible prerogatives of Israel, which were thought of as existing in an ideal realm, ready to manifest themselves visibly when the hour of destiny should come. And we are able, on historical grounds, to a.s.sume that the deep-souled author of the book of Daniel, was the man who first sketched the splendid shape of the Messiah, and the superb outline of his kingdom, in his far-reaching, keen, suggestive, luminous phrases; while immediately after him the first composer of our book of Enoch developed the traits furnished him, with an equal warmth of language and a spiritual insight, not deeper perhaps, but quieter and more comprehensive." Ewald supposes the book of Enoch to have been written at various intervals between 144 and 120 (B. C.) and to have been completed in its present form in the first half of the century that preceeded the coming of Christ. The book was regarded as of authority by Tertullian, though Origen and Augustine cla.s.sed it with apocryphal writings. In it the figure of the Messiah is invested with super-human attributes. He is called "The Son of G.o.d," "whose name was spoken before the sun was made;" "who existed from the beginning in the presence of G.o.d," that is, was pre-existent. At the same time his human characteristics are insisted on. He is called "Son of Man," even "Son of Woman," "The Anointed," "The Elect," "The Righteous One," after the style of earlier Hebrew antic.i.p.ation. The doctrines of angelic orders and administrations, of Satan and his legions, of resurrection and the final judgment, though definitely shaped, perhaps by a.s.sociation with Persian mythologies, lay concealed in possibility within the original thought of ultimate supremacy which worked so long and so actively, though so obscurely, in the mind of the Jewish race.

The books of Maccabees, belonging, according to Ewald, to the last half century before Christ, contain significant hints of the future beliefs of Israel. In the second chapter of II. Maccabees, verses 4-9, we read: "It is also found in the records that Jeremy the prophet, being warned of G.o.d, commanded the tabernacle and the ark to go with him, as he went forth into the mountain where Moses climbed up and saw the heritage of G.o.d. And when Jeremy came thither he found a hollow cave wherein he laid the tabernacle and the ark and the altar of incense, and then stopped the door. And some of those that followed him came to mark the way, but they could not find it; which, when Jeremy perceived, he blamed them, saying: As for that place it shall be unknown until the time that G.o.d gather his people again together, and receive them unto mercy. Then shall the Lord show them these things, and the glory of the Lord shall appear, and the cloud also, as it was showed unto Moses." Is it a stretch of conjecture on the tenuous thread of fancy to find this reappearance described in Revelations XI., 19, in these words: "And the temple of G.o.d was opened in heaven, and there was seen in the temple the ark of his covenant; and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail?" In the twenty-first chapter the seer describes himself as "carried away in the spirit to a great and high mountain" and shown "that great city the Holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven, from G.o.d." And he heard a great voice out of heaven, saying: "Behold, the tabernacle of G.o.d is with men; He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and G.o.d himself shall be with them, their G.o.d." The heavenly Jerusalem that came from the clouds is the heavenly city, the germ whereof was carried up and hidden in the cloud by Jeremy, the prophet. The apocryphal books of the Old Testament lodge the ancient Hebraic idea in the very heart of the New.