The crucial question of theology, however, is not the form in which the doctrine (so to speak) of the Messiah was held by the Jews. All rational students of Scripture, whether " orthodox" or "heterodox," now admit that its growth was gradual, and that it acquired precision and definiteness of outline in the course of ages from its first rude phase, among the pastoral princes of the Syrian wilderness, down to that sublime yet shadowy personality—the Man of Sorrows—that continually floats before the vision of the " I ounger Isaiah." The grand question is, Was this doctrine essentially a divine inspiration, an objective truth of God, or only a lofty conception of the religious soul? The strict rationalistic theologians maintain—and endeavor to prove by an analytic .examination of the Gospels--that Jesus assumed the dig-nity of Messiah either to accom modate himself to a rooted conception of his countrymen, or partly because he had come to believe it himself—a conclusion, it is said, at which he might arrive quite honestly, since he felt that the truth. which he taught was the real and only "kingdom of God," and that therefore he was justified in applying to himself all that was said (tropically) by the prophetic poets in old times concerning him who should usher in this " golden age" of the world's faith. The mass of orthodox theologians, on the other hand, regarding the so-called -Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament as positive, divinely suggested (per haps, even on the part of their author conscious) predictions of Jesus Christ, repudiate the principle of accommodation, or even spiritual application, and try to show that the Savior accepted the Messianic prophecies as literally and exclusively applicable to him.
'The historico-spiritual school, represented in Germany by men like Neander, Rothe, Tholuck, etc., and in England, generally speaking, by the divines of the " broad 'church " party, occupy It middle position between these two extremes: with the ration alists, they hold that the Old Testament doctrine of the Messiah was gradually developed, contains many human elements, and does not imply any knowledge of the historical Jesus on the part of those who announce it; with the " orthodox," on the other hand, they assert that the doctrine is the expression of a fact, not of a sentiment--that Jesus of Nazareth was actually the Son of God, the appointed Messiah, and that in him the so-called Messianic prophecies were fulfilled in a far higher sense than ever the prophets could have dreamed. It will thus be seen that the rationalists resolve the doctrine of the Messiah into a merely subjective religious idea; while the orthodox, and also the historico -spiritual school of theologians, hold that the doctrine was the expression of a divine fact —the substance of a heavenly faith.