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hopes of the later Isaiah fall into the background, and give way before the ambitions of Jewish particularism. The spirit of rigid exclusiveness fostered by the levitical Law displayed itself in an attitude of hatred and contempt towards the heathen world. Cornill observes that the stage was a necessary one in Israel's development, for the life and death struggle with Hellenism was yet to come1. The observance of the Law, which sharply separated Israel from the heathen. world, formed a kind of defensive armour, which the polished shafts of paganism could neither break nor penetrate. Judaism was a hard shell under which the kernel of true religion was preserved and transmitted unimpaired. Nevertheless, the effect of this period on prophecy was not altogether happy. The book of Joel seems to represent the temper of the new Judaism. Its tone is strongly nationalistic; it regards the heathen as objects only of vengeance, not of grace; it reflects the confidence of the Jew that Israel is a righteous people and the object of a divine favour, which is sufficiently secured by the care bestowed on the temple cultus. In fact, it has been thought, though the point is necessarily uncertain, that in the book of Joel we pass from the older type of prophecy to the class of apocalyptic literature, which has peculiarities and merits of its own, but cannot be fairly judged by the same standard as earlier prophetic writings. While prophecy is the mature fruit of ancient Israel's religion, apocalyptic writings are the characteristic product of Judaism. They bear witness, like the belief in the Bath Qôl, to the consciousness that Jehovah had ceased to speak immediately to His people 3.

1 Der Israelitische Prophetismus, p. 162.

2 Ibid. p. 163. The book of Obadiah seems to display a similar tendency.

On the distinctive characteristics of the apocalyptic literature see Riehm, ATl. Theologie, p. 389; Drummond, The Jewish Messiah, Introd.; Westcott, art. 'Daniel' in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible. The last writer points out that the exile 'supplied the outward training and the inward necessity for this last form of divine teaching; and the prophetic visions

The apocalyptic literature, in fact, arose as the result of that passionate aversion to heathenism and grief at its apparent triumph which came to a head in the Maccabaean struggle. The unfulfilled ideals of prophecy were studied afresh with the hope of finding a clue to the past course of history and the future prospects of the nation. With the peculiarities, however, of this literature we are not specially concerned. It is only necessary to remember that it also was used as a vehicle of divine teaching. Its contribution to the Messianic idea was, comparatively speaking, indirect. The apocalyptic writers occupied themselves with the prospects of the divine kingdom in its relation to the empires of this world, rather than with the personal glories of the promised Saviour. Consequently, their works reflect in their comparative silence as to a personal Messiah, the condition of the nation when it had lost its independence and had passed under the rule of a priestly hierarchy. In the extracanonical literature the Messianic king was generally depicted as a hero of whom it was confidently expected that he would re-establish Israel's national independence and inaugurate a world-wide dominion; but in regard to details old ideas and new were strangely intermingled. The rule of righteousness and peace was to involve 'the full triumph of the law and the law's religion'.' The universal kingdom of Messiah was destined to manifest the peculiar favour with God enjoyed by Israel.

Perhaps the most significant feature in later canonical prophecy is the stress laid on Messiah's humanity. The book of Daniel speaks of one like unto a son of man2, an expression which in its original context of Ezekiel form the connecting link between the characteristic types of revelation and prophecy.' On the book of Joel see Hunter, After the Exile, part i. ch. xii. Its apocalyptic character is noticed by Cornill, Einleitung in das A.T. p. 182.

1 See Montefiore, Hibbert Lectures, No. viii.

2 Dan. vii. 13. On the probable date and origin of Daniel see Cornill, pp. 176 foll. On the influence of the book see Riehm, ATI. Theologie,

P. 389.

seems to describe the characteristics of the ideal kingdom of the saints which is destined to supersede the heathen empires founded on brute violence and material force. It was apparently in a later apocryphal work-the book of Enoch-that the title was first restricted to a personal Messiah, but the passage in Daniel may be regarded as marking a new stage in the growth of the Messianic expectation. Apart from this isolated expression, the figure of the anointed prince in the book of Daniel is highly significant. The Messiah is numbered with the saints of the most high as their head and representative, exercising the universal dominion bestowed on him as his rightful heritage by Jehovah Himself. The conception of a specially close relationship between the Messiah and Jehovah is also found in the later chapters of Zechariah, which depict the expected Saviour as the rejected shepherd of his people, as the fellow of Jehovah, and as one in whom Jehovah Himself is pierced 3.

There is no need to extend our survey of Messianic prediction beyond the limits of the Old Testament, since the permanent elements that contributed to the conception of Messiah are already contained in the Hebrew Canon itself. The subsequent period is of great importance in so far as it throws light on the expectations of our Lord's own contemporaries; but this subject lies outside the range of our inquiry. Accordingly, it only remains to point out briefly how the work of Christ, the history of His Church, and the experience of His saints unfold and develope the significance of those great principles which prophecy had learned to trace in Israel's history.

For we have seen that the prophetic visions of the

1 See Stanton, op. cit. p. 110; Drummond, op. cit. bk. ii. ch. 7. 2 Dan. ix. 25, 26.

3 Zech. xi. 15 foll.; xiii. 1-9; xii. 10. On the date of Zech. ix-xiv see Cornill, p. 166.

4

See Schürer, The Jewish People in the time of Christ (Eng. Tr.), § 29; Westcott, Introd. to the Study of the Gospels, pp. 94 foll.; Stanton, op. cit. pp. 111 foll.

future were for the most part inspired by reflection on the history of the past. The Messianic hope had its roots in the faith that Israel had been originally brought into a special relationship to Jehovah. The expectation even of a personal Redeemer was coloured by vague anticipations that Israel itself would ultimately realize the ideal foreshadowed in the original covenant established with its ancestors. The personal advent and work of the true Messiah only inaugurated the fulfilment of the earliest and most widespread hopes of the nation'. Thus the idea of salvation as a work of divine grace visiting the afflicted, or as a victory by which a captivity was carried captive, had been visibly illustrated in the exodus from Egypt; the idea of a kingdom of God had its foundations laid in the polity organized, at least in rudimentary form, by Moses, and was further developed and consolidated by the institution of the Hebrew monarchy; the conception of a people of God charged with a priestly mission to mankind had probably never been entirely absent from the highest spiritual thought of the people. The place, meaning, and function of suffering had from the first been suggested by the recorded experience of righteous men from the dawn of history: Abel had been slain by Cain; Isaac had been laid on the altar of sacrifice; Jacob had been a wanderer ready to perish; Joseph had been rejected by his brethren and the iron entered into his soul ere he could become the saviour of his kindred and of Egypt; Moses had been a fugitive and exile before he was raised up to be a captain of salvation over Jehovah's people and to fill the desert with songs of deliverance; David had been a persecuted outlaw before he became the light of Israel. Yes; the heralds of salvation, the bearers of God's mercy, have to pass through suffering and death before they win salvation for themselves and others "." So in later days each of the goodly fellowship of the prophets was in his measure a man of sorrows and

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acquainted with grief. Finally, the remnant of Israel in exile recognized itself as the suffering servant of Jehovah prepared to fulfil its unique mission by meek endurance of affliction. Thus prophecy is faith's interpretation of the past; in the temporary conditions and circumstances of Israel's history lay concealed eternal thoughts of God, which in Jesus Christ were to receive their perfect elucidation'. In His passion, death, resurrection and exaltation to the right hand of God, St. John contemplates the supreme triumph which the seed of the woman was from the first destined to achieve2; and the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews points to Him as one in whom the destiny of our race is potentially accomplished. Thou hast put all things under his feet. Such is the promise; now however we see not yet all things put under him. But we see Jesus. In the triumph of the ascension man may behold a pledge of the fulfilment of his own appointed destiny.

Again, in the moral reign of Jesus Christ over the hearts of the faithful we recognize the transfigured kingdom of David; we see the spiritual counterpart of those great ideas which the age of Solomon foreshadowed a world-wide empire over the souls of men and a universal religion—a catholic Church and a catholic Creed. In the action of the Holy Spirit upon society and individual men, consecrating the peculiar endowments and gifts of each to divine uses, we welcome the fulfilment of prophetic visions of a righteous people of Jehovah sprinkled with clean water, and drawing near to God in acceptable service. Finally, in the overthrow of Israel's enemies Christian faith sees the removal from the true kingdom of God of all things that offend, and them which do

1 There is a valuable chapter on 'the use of the Old Testament in the early Church' in Mr. Stanton's Jewish and Christian Messiah, with an exhaustive table showing the Messianic use of the Old Testament in the New Testament.

2 Rev. xii; cp. Heb. ii. 6 foll.

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