In the Sibylline Oracles 652 sqq.) there seems to be a reference to Simon as a god-sent king who will put an end to evil war. From the standpoint of the Erythrean Sibyl, Simon may lie said to be a king, sent 'from the sun,' even as Cyrus is called a king from heaven' (iii. 286). The passage was probably written in the time of Ptolemy 1X., Euergetes 145-117). Neither the apocalypse in Isaiah xxiv.-xxvii., written c.128 B.C., nor Enoch i.-xxxvi., written later in the reign of John Ilyrcanus (n.c. 135-105), contains any allusion to a king. and Ethiopic Enoch xc. 37, 3S seems to be a late ad dition to the book lxxxiii.-xe., which apparently was written e.106 B.C. An elaborate eschatology had thus been developed before the Roman pe riod in which the 'Messiah, according to this view, held no place. But the way was prepared by veneration for the anointed ruler of the State, loyalty to the old dynasty, and speculation about the world's future. Roman oppression caused a fusion of these elements. The anointed king that was needed must be a genuine son of David, and as no claimant to the throne of the legitimate line presented himself, he necessarily belonged to the future. The Roman yoke was all the more galling as the Jewish people had for a century indulged in a dream of empire and imagined it self in the midst of the actual conquest of the world. But even this cruel disenehantment could not queneh the spark of ambition. The Pharisees saw the cause of the calamity in the AS1110/11Pall usurpation of the throne of David, as the Psalter of Solomon shows. and looked to God to provide the genuine 'Son of David,' strengthening their faith by the prophetic word. They understood the Psalms of David to he indited by the great monarch. and naturally interpreted the lan guage in whieh the actually reigning, King had been referred to as prophecies of the coming :Mes siah. Similarly the words of ancient prophets originally referring, to their contemporaries of the Davidic family or to the dynasty itself were explained as divine announeements of the coning deliverer. But in spite of this support in the popular exegesis of the Bible, the hope seems to have heel cherished only in limited circles. Whether the idea was influenced at the outset by Alazdayasnian thought is doubtful; in its later development it may have borrowed some features from the Saoshyant (q.v.). This Per sian _Messiah has no political character. lie was expected to raise the dead and to renew the world (1 ash], xix. 92 sqq.). The idea seems to have had little hold upon the Alexandrian Jews. It is not certain that the translators of Isaiah ix. 5 and Psalin ex. 3 had the .Messiah in mind; in Numbers xxiv. 7 the Davidie house is meant, and the rendering of fenesis xlix. 10, 'he is the expectation of the nations,' is not like ly to be original. It is doubtful whether Sibyl line Oracles iii. 75-92 belongs to the time of the First Triumvirate and Cleopatra, or to the time of Gallia, Otho• and Vitellius: in the latter ease the 'widow' is IZome,and the 'holy ruler' may be none else than the 'immortal God' and `great king' mentioned in the same connection. The Book of Wisdom contains no allusion to the :Messiah. Philo declare, that the Israelites shall return to Palestine 'led by a divine o• more than human apparition' (Dc Execrationibus, iii. 437), and that if the future kingdom of peace shall be disturbed a man will conic, according to the promise, to subdue the nations, God granting to the pious auxiliaries in psychic lamer and physi cal strength (De I'rrr•mii.s et Puns, ii. 421-428). 1:ut he seems to have thought of the divine glory and of deliverance through manly qualities rather than through a man. The Slavonic Enoch knows nothing of a :Messiah. The same silence concern ing this figure is found in such Palestinian works as Ecelesiastes, written c.30 n.C.; the Assumption of Moses (i.-vi.), written in the beginning, of our era: the Book of Jubilees; and the original Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. it is held by many that aside from the Psa/ter of Solomon there is no unmistakable reference to the Mes siah in any literary production that can be dated with certainty as earlier than the time of Jesus. But the description given in this work (xvii., xviii.) of the coming king shows with sufficient clearness that some men in Israel in the first century me. looked forward to the appearance of a descendant of David, who would be a con queror of nations and a righteous ruler and whom they called the 'Messiah. According to Matthew xxii. 15, 16 xii. 13) there was a party of 'the Ilerodians; TertuIlion declares that 'the Herodians said Herod was the Christ' (Th-a-ser. 451. It is not improbable that the king who built the most splendid temple Jerusa lem had ever had and restored the Davidic king dom, even though it was by the favor of Rome, was thus looked upon as the promised :Messiah by his courtiers. Judah of famala in falilee seems to have been regarded as the _Messiah by many and underlumk an insurrection in A.D. 7. (See .1_)Am OF I :Al.H.FE.) 111` was supported by Zadok. a diseiple of Shommai. The immediate rause of the rebellion was the census of Ouirinius on the accession of .\rehel,•urs. Ile was put to death, but his continued as a seet (Jo'eplms• 11",trs, ii., 11S).
Jesus of Nazareth was erucified by Pontius Pilate as a political criminal claiming. in de lionce of the authority of Rome, to be 'king of the .hews.' 11 is believed by some that he never claimed himself to be Ihe Messiah. The Synoptic Evongelisls believed, indeed, that be was the Messiah. But this belief may have been based on his resurrection from the dead. For a time at any rate lie avoided assuming any distinctive Messianic title, and on several occasions forbade his disciples to say that he was the Mcssiati. From their point of view• they could explain this attitude only as a persistent attempt to keep Ins Messialiship a secret. This secret was known to fod. who might in due time reveal it. and to the demons, who were punished for prematurely an nouncing it, but not to men. The disciples seem, however, to have regarded the term 'Son of Man' as a self-designation of Jesus by which he in- I tended to hint at his Messianic claims without directly disclosing them. But this belief, it is argued. may have been erroneous, and so in definite a term as 'man' cannot have been a Messianic title /1 Dil is not found in 'Jewish Inert'. ture as such. The life and teaching of Jesus offended all influential parties in the na tion, while the enthusiasm and indiscretion of his disciples readily furnished immediate excuse for a false accusation. Pilate could scarcely avoid regarding him as a disturber of the peace, and executed him on the ground of the loose charge preferred against him. Similarly there
is no evidence that John the Baptist regarded himself as the Messiah, though his disciples at a later time seem to have considered him as such.
It is only just, however, to state that from the traditional Jewish and Christian standpoint. the Messianic belief was imbedded in Hebrew history and interwoven with the deepest life of the people. The promises which formed and fed it are thought to reach back to the earliest Jewish annals and the belief itself is thought to rest upon sacred traditions coeval with the origin ' of the human race. According to this view the Messianic idea was inseparably connected with the provision for the redemption of man after the fall and was gradually unfolded through the history of the chosen people of foul. The hope of a Messiah was centred in a single race. With I the establishment of the kingdom came nt once an enlargement of the conception of the Anointed One's person and work and a narrower Illuitation of the stock from which he w•as to spring. One family was selected from the chosen tribe and the 'sceptre' fell to the House of David. With the later development of the kingdom and the idolatrous faithlessness of the people came the clearer conception of :Messianic. teaching. The captivity completed the circle of Alessi:ink hopes by turning the eyes of the people to the divine glory of the coming king and the universal extent of his kingdom. The son of David acquired the wider title of 'the S011 of Man' and his kingdom appeared as the last, but. 114'1100SL Of the mon archies of the world.
.\cco•ding to tins traditional view the evalw Hon of the Messianic idea may lie traced through four• distinct epochs. three within the limits of the Hebrew C:111011 and the fourth outside it. The first of these ends with Moses. In tho protevangelium we have the primal prom ise. 'The seed of the woman' is to bruise the serpent's head. This promise takes shope in the family of Abraham. in whose seed all the nations of the earth are to be blessed. Saint Paul aunties in I: al. iii. 10 that the `seed' is a personal Ilis charaeteristies are gradually int folded in the 'Shiloh' of the dying Jacob (fen. xlix. 101, in the 'Star' of Balaam (N11111. XN1V. and the 'prophet' of Moses (Dent. xviii. 18, IN. who was to be the lawgiver, teacher, and deliverer of Israel. The second period centres in the reigns of David and Solomon; the promise of a kingdom to David and his house 'forever' could not he literally fulfilled by any mere con tinuation of his dynasty on an earthly throne. It implied a superhuman royalty of which we have a series of pictures in the Messianic psalins,which are believed to be pervaded with the expectation of a coining deliverer, based on definite promises of God and confirmed by His repeated assuranees. In Ps. ii., xlv., lxxii., and ex., for instance. we have depicted not only the Messiah's inheritance and the blessings and extent of his kingdom, hut the King himself reigning among men and bring ing to his subjects righteous judgment. salvation, and redemption. He is both priest and king. Ile is David's Lord as well as his son. His empire is spiritual. Its rule is world-wide and time embracing. lie is to reign until his enemies be come his footstool. These Psalms, as is widely contended, cannot be applied exclusively to Solo mon or any temporal ruler without exegetical violence and the New Testament interpretation of the regal triumph over the rebellious heathen (1leb. i. S) referred it to the anointed Saviour. The third period extends to the close of the Hebrew canon and includes, according to tradi tion, the richest mine of prophecy in the Old Testament. Messiah, as the 'servant of God,' is the central figure of Isaiah's prophecies. This expected king, this 'root of Jesse,' will 'stand for an ensign of the people.' He will be the rallying-point of the world's hopes, the true centre of its government (Isa. xi. 10). He is portrayed as 'the mighty God. the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace' ( Isa. ix.) The picture of the suffering Messiah in the fifty-third chapter is so accurate in its prophetic anticipations of the events in the judgment hall of Caiaphas and be fore Pilate's bar as to have given Isaiah the title of the 'Evangelical prophet.' Jeremiah depicts the future deliverer as a king executing judgment and justice in the earth (Jer. xxiii. 5) and Zechariah paints him as an enthroned priest (Zech. vi. 13). Daniel is taught that at the anointing of the most holy, God will 'make reeon eiliatian for iniquity' and 'bring in everlasting righteousness' (Dan. ix. 24). In chapter vii. he applies, according to this view, to the coming Messiah the title 'Son of Alan,' whose dominion is 'an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away.' Finally Malachi speaks of him as 'the angel of the covenant' whom Israel was seeking and who would 'suddenly come to his temple' (Mal. iii. I). The fourth epoch extends from the close of the Hebrew canon to the beginning of the Gospel era. Among the Jews of Alex andria the Messianic hope at this time is sup posed to have deteriorated, while among the Palestinian Jews it survived and flourished. The Hellenized peoples would naturally be absorbed in the current speculations regarding the Sophia and the Logos and long absence from Palestine, and a hesitancy to avow startling beliefs among unfriendly critics would tend to quench all inter est in the future of Jewish nationality. Never theless the expectation of a Messiah was a promi nent feature of both the popular and the intel lectual mind at the beginning of the Christian Era. The Galilean peasantry and the Pharisees alike expected the fulfillment of the national hopes. An oppressed and suffering people natu rally looked for a secular prince who would free them from the heathen yoke, and when Jesus entered upon his public ministry, Alessiah ship meant to the masses and the classes of Jewry simply emancipation from Roman rule. But Jesus did not lend himself to this narrow and perverted type of Alessialiship. He claimed to be the divine Alessiah of Davia and Isaiah. At Ccesarea Philippi ( Alatt. xvi.; Mark viii., Luke ix.) he clearly accepted the recognition of himself as the Alesodah-King of the Old Testament. The term 'Christ' or Anointed is synonymous with Messiah, and Saint Peter's confession "Thou art Christ—the Christ. of God (Luke). the Son of the living God (Matt.)" ex presses in unmistakable language the supernat urally imparted recognition of Jesus as the Mes siah. The same designation of him was used by the Samaritan woman (John iv. 25, 26) and accepted by Jesus, and Andrew said to his brother Simon: "We have found the Messiah, which is, being interpreted, the Christ'' (John 41 sqq.).