Sixth Period, First Half

SIXTH PERIOD.

FROM THE EXILE UNTIL THE APPEARANCE OF JESUS CHRIST. THE FIRST HALF OF THIS PERIOD IS CHARACTERIZED BY THE DAWNING RECOGNITION OF THE MEDIATOR AND THE LOGOS.

§ 69. The Characteristics of this Period.

AS on the sixth day of the hexahemeron the organic creation in its progressive individualization finally attained its goal in the person of man created in God's image, so the essential part of this sixth period is that out of the corrupted mass (massa perdita) of entire Israel a congregation is separated, which is in truth Jehovah's flock (Ps. lxviii. 5) and "turtle-dove" (Ps. lxxiv. 19), and whose typical peculiarity is completed in the man who is unique in his personality and in his likeness to God. . There has always been indeed a congregation of Jehovah; but its breach with fleshly Israel now becomes deeper, its solidarity with the people as such looser, its calling in the present more important, and its significance for the future greater than ever. The Church of Jehovah now emerges in a less mixed, less confined, but more spiritual form. Wellhausen makes a fundamental mistake when he affirms that the post-exilic priestly codex first set the congregation pnj? or rviy) in the place of the people. The subject of the worship was from the very beginning the congregation of the people, to which Israel through the Sinaitic legislation was raised, and the New Testament Church is not the continuation of this national congregation, but its transformation into a spiritual congregation, whose members are not only united through flesh and blood, but also through the bond of the new birth. It is true that in proportion as the people in the exile were deprived of the unity of the fatherland and the unity of the state, the religious unity occupied the foreground, but still only upon a national basis. In the New Testament Church, on the contrary, the national element is removed—in Christ there is neither Greek nor Jew, but Christ is all and in all (Col. iii. 11).

§ 70. The Significance of the Exile for the Redemptive History.

It is the natural course of the divine wisdom in the tutorial progress of revelation, that everything new which is to be developed must first lie enveloped in temporary embryogenic coverings. This progress is from limitation to non-limitation, from the state of the chrysalis to the breaking through of the psyche, from particularism to universalism, from guardianship and childhood to freedom and majority. So the Israel of the exile is removed from its local bound

THE SERVANT OF JEHOVAH AMONG THE EXILES. 141

aries, and is loosed from its political community; its unity is almost exclusively reduced to the unity of faith and confession, for the sojourn "outside of the Holy Land" occasioned a partial suspension of the law. Israel was in the exile not only without a king, but also without a sacrifice (Hos. iii. 4). And yet, so far as their God now took the place of the temple (Ezek. xi. 16), they attained something higher than ever before. They were placed in the midst of the execution of their world-wide calling, and found themselves in a preparatory school for the New Testament worship of God in spirit and in truth.

§ 71. The Servant of Jehovah among the Exiles.

The mass of the people of Israel fell into heathenism. The Book of Ezekiel shows how the Babylonian exiles sought to unite the service of idols and that of Jehovah, and adopted the idolatrous worship of the Chaldseans as old Israel did that of the Egyptians (Ezek. xx. and elsewhere). Still deeper views into the circumstances of the exile are afforded by Isa. xl.-lxvi. The national consciousness and the love of their countrymen were almost extinguished in the majority of the exiles. The younger generation pursued the same course as the older one which had occasioned the exile. But there were also those who did not follow their own way, but the way of Jehovah, and mourned for Zion. They Were hated and persecuted. Their heathen brethren made common cause with their Babylonian oppressors. Under the form of a servant, and the misery of the deepest humiliation, this true congregation of Jehovah carried the salvation of their people and of the heathen on their hearts. The conception of the Servant of Jehovah in Isa. xl.-lxvi., with respect to its lowest broad basis, is entire Israel; with respect to its centre it is the congregation remaining true to God, which in the midst of the dispersion is the scattered seed of the future congregation growing together from Israel and the heathen. From this centre the conception becomes personal. Its pyramidal apex is the future Christ, in whom the sufferings of the congregation of Jehovah are reproduced and culminate, and by whom Israel's redemptive calling is completed.¹

§ 72. The Idea of the Servant of Jehovah as the Concentration of hitherto scattered Elements.

All forms of the previous prefiguration of salvation are united in the conception of the Servant of Jehovah.

(1) The consolatory book (Isa. xl.-lxvi.) begins at once with the announcement that all flesh shall see the unveiled glory of Jehovah, of God the Eedeemer (Isa. xl. 5, compare lix. 20; Matt. iii. 3; Eom. xi. 26). The name Jehovah is at the very point of giving birth to the name Jesus (Isa. lxii. 11, xlix. 6).

(2) The Servant of Jehovah is the One in whom the sure mercies of David are fulfilled (Isa. Iv. 3). THE SERVANT OF JEHOVAH. 143

¹ Compare Messianic Prophecies, \vp. 84, 85.

He is the Seed of Abraham (Isa. xli. 8); nay, the prophecy concerning Him has a background reaching to the seed of the woman in the protevangelium (Isa. xlix. I,¹ compare the reference to the serpent, lxv. 25).

(3) He is a prophet (Isa. xlii. 4); He is a priest, for He offers Himself and atones for sins (Isa. liii.). He is King, for all kings do Him homage (Isa. lii. 15). The Deuteronomic prophecy concerning the great Prophet, the Messianic prophecy since Balaam, and the prophecy of David concerning a King after the order of Melchizedek, here find a living embodiment.

(4) He takes the burden of the guilt of His people upon His heart and conscience, and God allows Him to suffer and die for them, that in Him, the Beloved, He may make His people a justified and sanctified congregation. The riddle of the accommodated permission of animal sacrifice, and the connection of the atonement (^1^?) with the blood, finds its explanation here in the depths of the divine decree of salvation (Isa. liii. 6, 10); and the longing look of the Israel of the exile back to the sacrificial worship, is here directed to the One who is the truth and end of all sacrifice. The Psalms and Prophets have until now symbolically depreciated the value of the sacrificial worship, without explaining it typically. Here first in Isa. xl.-lxvi . the type of the sacrificial blood, which was previously dumb, begins to speak.

¹ Professor Delitzsch considers it significant that no mention is made of a father in this passage.—C.

§ 73. The Idea of the Servant of Jelwvah as a new Source of Knowledge.

The one-sided Messianic image of the king, which previously had only been supplemented by the type of David, is now removed. The Servant of Jehovah ascends through death and the grave to glory (status duplex^). The connecting line is drawn between the prophet, the king, and the priest of the future. The Servant of Jehovah is all three at the same time (munus triplex), and after the idea of the Messiah is merged in the conception of Israel as the Servant of Jehovah, there arises, since the Messianic idea reascends personally from this national basis, a new, deeper, and so to speak, more organic relation of the Future One to Israel (unio mystica). He is called Israel,² because Israel's being is concentrated in Him, like the union of the separate rays of light in the sun. The Church is His body, and He is its head. In addition to this, the redemption is chiefly considered as a redemption from sin, and the substance of the redemption is understood as an atonement and as a reconciliation, but principally as a reconciliation of the divine justice with the divine love. Jehovah causes the storm of Hi3 wrath to go over His Servant, who brings Himself to Him as a trespass-offering (^D?'ⁱJ), that is, as a vicarious satis

¹ Status exinanitionis and status exaltationis.

² Isa. xlix. 3: "Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified."

Ezekiel's New Tora. 145

faction,¹ that He may prepare a free way for His love.

§ 74. Ezekiel's New Tora.'

We now contrast Ezekiel's prophecies concerning the last things with Isa. xl-lxvi., which is more like a New Testament than an Old Testament book. The closing chapters of Ezekiel (xl.-xlviii.) seem to stand in glaring contradiction to everything of a New Testament character, such as we rejoice to find in DeuteroIsaiah. As in the New Testament Apocalypse the Church, which during the tribulations from Antichrist is blended together, and again made complete through the first resurrection, still has to endure a final storm from the heathen world; so there follows in Ezekiel, upon the great vision of the reawakening and restoration of Israel as a reunited people (Ezek. xxxvii.), the prediction of the march of Gog against the people of God, and the destruction of the army of this northern people, in which world-power and world-hatred finally close on each other. This prediction is immediately connected with the great tableau of the new worship of God, and of the new religious and political state of entire Israel. It is the post-exilic, final period, in which the prophet sees, in a vision, a new temple outside of the circuit of the city, and a land equally divided in oblong parts among the twelve tribes, and

¹ The idea of the sin-offering is that of expiation, and the idea of the trespass-offering is that of satisfaction, that is, a covering of a debt, which is considered as gnilt, by an equivalent.

K

a new Jerusalem inhabited by citizens of all the tribes, as the capital of the people now dwelling exclusively on this side Jordan. These nine chapters form one of the greatest Biblical riddles. The Synagogue is here helpless, for the new order of things stands in the sharpest contradiction to all parts of the Mosaic law. And the Church is involved in embarrassment through the prospective renewal of the sacrificial worship. The allegorical method of interpretation affords no help. It cannot even be carried through in respect to the fountain which flows from the threshold of the east door of the temple (Ezek. xlvii. 1-12).

Eemark.—The closing chapters of the Book of Ezekiel (xl.-xlviii.), according to the latest theory of the Pentateuch, furnish the real key to the history of its origin, and especially to its final stadia. The Tora of Ezekiel is regarded as a transition to the legislation of the Elohistic Tora; and since this is the foundation of Jewish legalism,¹ Smend² assigns to the prophet Ezekiel the doubtful honour of being the father of Judaism. Nevertheless we still consider it as certain that the Elohistic Tora is older than that of Ezekiel,³ and that the Tora of Ezekiel stands in a dependent relation to the Elohistic Tora, simplifying and remodelling its contents. Thus, for example, in the holy place (sanctum) of Ezekiel's temple there is

¹ See chapter i. on Nomismus, in Weber's System der A Usynagogalen Palaeatinischen Thtologie, Leipzig 1880.

^s Der Prophet Ezechiel, Leipzig 1880.

¹ Compare Delitzsch, Pentateuch-KritiscJie Studien, in Luthardt's Zeitschrifi, Leipzig 1880, pp. 279-290.

THE TRUE SIGNIFICANCE OF EZEKIEL'S REPUBLIC. 147

no candle, and no table of shew-bread, but instead of the golden altar of incense, only a simple wooden table (Ezek. xli. 22), that is, an altar; for as Ezekiel here calls the altar of incense a table, so in xliv. 16, like Malachi (i. 7), he designates the altar of burntoffering as a table. The removal of all non-Israelites from the external service of the sanctuary, the abolition of the high-priesthood, the regulations concerning the position of the prince as such, and as the leading member of the Church,—all this and much more is to be explained by the antagonism in which the new order of things stands to the unforgotten abuses and corruptions of the past.

§ 75. The true Significance of Ezekiel's Republic.

What shall we say then? Is Ezekiel a dreamer, and is his picture a Utopia? No, it is a prophecy, but one which has remained unfulfilled, and which, in its present form, never will be fulfilled, because the development of the history of salvation has run past the fulfilment. The fulfilment is connected with a condition¹ which did not take place after the expiration of the exile. The prophet beholds the final period and the end of the exile, according to the law of perspective ² together. The Israelitic community, in its ecclesiastical and civil character, takes on a form for Ezekiel after the exile, as here described, under the condition and presupposition that the Israel of both kingdoms will return from foreign lands with a renewal of their first love. But since this did not take place, this great prediction is overtaken by the history of the fulfilment, which, instead of the stone temple, has placed the spiritual temple of the Church as the body whose head is Christ. It is characteristic of this picture that the second David has no place in it. Hence it is only relatively eschatological and more ceremonial, external and peripheral, than evangelical, spiritual, and central. Nevertheless it is an important link in the chain of prophecy which prepares the way for the New Testament, because—

¹ Ezek. xliii. 10 sq.: "Thou Son of man, show the house to the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities; and let them measure the plan, and if they be ashamed of all that they have done, show them the form of the house," etc.

* The following quotations from C. A. Crusius (b. 1715, d. 1775), and Bengel (b. 1687, d. 1752), as given by Delitzsch, Die biblisch pro

phetiscJie Theologie, etc., Berlin 1845, p. 99 sq., may serve to illustrate what is intended by the law of perspective: '' The prophets behold the future, by means of the light of divine illumination, as we do the sidereal heavens. To us the stars appear as if they were on one level; we do not distinguish their distance from us, and from one another."— Grusius. Compare a part of Bengel's comment on Matt. xxiv. 29: "Prophetia est, ut pictura regionis cujuspiam, quae in proximo tecta et calks et pontes notat distincte; procul, valles et monies latissimepatentes in augustias cogit." "Prophecy is like a picture of a certain region, which indicates the houses, paths, and bridges near at hand distinctly, but compresses the valleys and mountains extending very far away into a narrow compass."

(1) It is a testimony in the midst of the Old Testament against the unchangeable character of the Tora, and, so to speak, a shattering of its stone letter.

(2) It is a step forward from the variegated character and splendour of the Old Testament worship to the New Testament worship of God in spirit and in truth.

THE PERSIAN WORLD-EMPIRE. 149

§ 76. Transition of the World-Empire to the Persians.

The deliverance prophesied by Jeremiah, DeuteroIsaiah, and Ezekiel, from the Assyrio-Babylonian servitude and exile, was prepared by the fall of Nineveh, and subsequently by that of Babylon. After Cyaxares and Nebuchadnezzar had conquered Nineveh, and so bad made an end of the Assyrian empire (606 B.C.), there existed for a time by the side of the Babylonian a not less powerful Median empire; and this became through Cyrus, who was from the Persian family of the Achsemenidse, and who dethroned Astyages the Mede (549 B.C.), a Persian empire which had dominion from the Hindoo Koosh Mountains to the iEgean Sea, and even over Egypt. The fall of Babylon (538 B.c.) under its last ruler Nabonid, whose son was Belshazzar, as is attested by inscriptions, became the deliverance of Israel from its imprisonment. Cyrus gave the exiles their freedom (537 B.C.), of whom at first about one hundred and fifty thousand from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, and who were to a large extent of Levitical and priestly extraction, returned home under the leadership of the prince Zerubbabel, and of the high priest Joshua, with the permission to rebuild the temple.

§ 77. The Contrast between the Period of Eestoration and the Prophet's Vision.

When, after the first year of Cyrus' monarchy (537 B.C.), a part of the people reassembled upon domestic soil, it soon appeared that prophecy was not only divine, but human. Both the expansion of the prophet's vision, which is wrought by the Holy Spirit, as well as the natural limitation of his vision, which the Spirit does not remove, serve the divine plan of redemption; for if prophecy had possessed and afforded a definite chronological knowledge concerning the course of the future, it would have cut off all desire to press toward the goal of the offered prize. It is therefore precisely what we might expect, that the prophets of the exile behold the consummation of all things in close connection with the end of the exile, and that those who return hope to experience this consummation, or something of it. Hence such psalms as cxviii. are full of exultation, of glory, and of triumph. But when, in the second year of the return, the foundation of the new temple was laid (534 B.C.), there was mingled with the shout of joy loud weeping on account of the miserable beginning (Ezra iii. 12); and as even under Cyrus, until PseudoSmerdis, the building of the temple was discontinued, the people were still caused to feel all the while their servile dependence.

§ 78, The Progress in the Building of the Temple under the Co-operation of the Prophets.

The preparation for the building prospered in the second year of the return until the laying of the foundation, but the Samaritans induced Cyrus to put

PROGRESS IN THE BUILDING OF THE TEMPLE. 151

a stop to the enterprise; and this hindrance continued under Catnbyses (529-522 B.C.) and the usurper Fseudo-Smerdis (522-521 B.C.). But in the second year of Darius Hystaspis (520 B.C.), the prophets Haggai and Zechariah succeeded in inciting the people and their officers to the resumption of the building. At this time the undertaking was not only allowed, but was also favoured from Ecbatana. When Malaclii appeared, the temple had long since been completed (516 B.C.), namely in the sixth year of Darius, on the third of Adar, or March (Ezra vi. 15). The friendly feeling of the Achsemenidsean rulers still continued. In the seventh year of Artaxerxes I. Longimanus (465-424 B.C.), Ezra came with a new company of exiles to Jerusalem (458 B.C.); and as Ezra the scribe, so Nehemiah the provincial governor (tirshata) laboured for the restoration of the Jewish community upon the basis of the Mosaic Tora. As Ezra read the Tora in the year 444 B.C., Nehemiah was present (Neh. viii. 1-12), who in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes (445 B.C.) had come to Jerusalem while it was still lying in ruins, and first after twelve years of public service returned to the court of Artaxerxes (433 B.C.). Malachi's activity, in a similar reformatory spirit, falls at the time when Nehemiah had returned to the Persian court. He is one of the prophets whose relation to Nehemiah (Neh. vi. 7) was calumniously misrepresented. Nehemiah returned once more to Jerusalem (comp. Neh. xiii. 6); but we cannot determine from this passage whether his return was under

Artaxerxes or under Darius n. Nbthus, who reigned from 423 to 404 B.C. The immorality of the mixed marriages (Ezra ix., x.) had already gained ground (Neh. xiii. 23), and, moreover, a heathen rabble had found quarters among the Jewish people (Neh. xiii. 1-3, compare Deut. xxiii. 4—6).

Eemark.—Since Joel presupposes the legal existence of the worship in the central sanctuary at Jerusalem, he is brought down by the adherents of the Eeuss-Graf theory of the Pentateuch to the post-exilic period. Merx¹ holds that he is to be assigned to the time after the accomplishment of Nehemiah's reform, and that he represents the transition from the prophets to the scribes. Stade, in his University Programme? concludes that Joel belongs to a late age because he mentions the Ionians. But Obadiah, Joel, and Amos, in their relation to the unfortunate event under Joram which became the real beginning of a Jewish exile (galuth), form an inseparable trilogy.

§ 79. Daniel, the Confessor and Seer.

Daniel and his three friends, concerning whom a narrative is found in the book which bears his name, belong to the servants of Jehovah who mourned in the exile for Zion, and were ready to seal their faith with their blood. The Book of Daniel is divided into narratives (i.-vi.) and visions (vii.-xii.). The

¹ Die Prophetie des Joe!, Halle 1879.

² De populo Javan, Giessen 1880.

DANIEL, THE CONFESSOR AND SEER. 153

historical character of his person is attested by Ezekiel, who mentions him as pre-eminent for his righteousness (xiv. 14, 20), and for his wisdom in regard to mysteries (xxviii. 3). As Isaiah xl.-lxvi. is a consolatory book for the Babylonian exiles, so the Book of Daniel is a book of consolation for the confessors and martyrs of the time of the Seleucidse. This book which bears his name does not indicate that it was written by him. But nothing prevents us from supposing that there were traditional Babylonio-Persian narratives and traditional prophecies of Daniel, which the author of the book has digested in order to strengthen his contemporaries in their faith through instructive examples and comforting prospects. The visions of Daniel, since he stands over against heathen astrologers and magicians, are of such a kind as his personality would lead us to expect. Nor should we be surprised, in view of his surroundings, that his prophecies have a mantic¹ character, and that his words correspond in their horizon and their political significance to his honourable position as a statesman, and to the universal range of vision which he thereby enjoyed. He can only be compared with Balaam, whose last words (Num. xxiv. 23 sq.) correspond to the horizon of the Book of Daniel; for the ships of Chittim,² through which the Eoman worlddominion is announced, are also the farthest point of Daniel's perspective, which extends until the appearance of the Eoman fleet before Alexandria with the ambassador Caius Popilius Leenas, who compelled Antiochus to leave Egypt and to restore Ptolemseus Philometor (168 B.C.). But weighty reasons are favourable to the composition of the Danielian apocalypse, as we now have it, about the year 170 B.C., and hence it is one of the latest books in the Old Testament. 'Its narrative portion is advantageously contrasted with the Book of Esther. It cannot be regarded as ceremonial narrowness that Daniel and his friends observed the laws of the Tora concerning food (Dan. i.). But besides, he was, with his friends, a model of heroic faith, and knew how to combine fidelity in the service of his human master with fidelity to the true God. The last date of his history is the third year of Cyrus, probably the year in which, through the intrigues of the Samaritans, the building of the temple ceased. We shall return later to the visions of the book, and only affirm here that Daniel in his doing and suffering is a worthy representative of those servants of Jehovah whom Deutero-Isaiah renders conspicuous above the mass, as the kernel of Israel,' and as the heirs of salvation.

¹ Compare Delitzsch's Messianic Prophecies, pp. 17-20, 23. ¹ See ibid. p. 41, Rem. 1.

§ 80. The Conclusion of Prophecy.

It is evident from Isa. xl.-lxvi., more than from Jeremiah and Ezekiel, what a mighty revolution the exile was intended to produce in Israel's view of

THE CONCLUSION OF PROPHECY. 155

itself and in the Messianic hope. Israel is thereafter in a position to know that it is not to conquer the world with iron, hut with spiritual weapons. Haggai comprehends the blessing of the Messianic age in the one word "peace" (^f). Israel, which in a strange' land became a congregation of confessors and martyrs, can now recognise that the way of the congregation of Jehovah, which forms the kernel of the mass, passes through tribulation to glory, and that therefore the way of the Mediator of salvation, in whom Israel's history is recapitulated and culminates, can be none_; other. Zechariah continues the great passional, Isa. lii. 13-liii. The Messiah dies, slain by His own people, who in the last days penitently desire to return to Him whom they have ignominiously ignored.¹ Israel now knows that in order to become perfect it needs a fresh manifestation of the divine presence in its midst, as in the days of the Mosaic legislation. Malachi prophesies the parousia of the Lord Himself, who comes to His temple. He comes in His messenger, the angel of the covenant, in whom the angelophanies, since Gen. xv., have been fulfilled. The spiritual glory of the king, the human form, the unity of Godhead and humanity, attain in these three postexilic prophets an expression which terminates the development of the Messianic hope.

Eemark 1. — Subsequently to the Assyrio-Babylonian exile, Israel never again, for any great length of time, became a completely independent and politi¹ Compare Delitzsch's Messianic Prophecies, p. 104 sqq.

cally united nation, but remained in subjection to the kingdoms of this world. Its masters have only changed their names. From this servitude it was designed to develop the knowledge in Israel that its true greatness was not political, but spiritual.

Eemark 2.—Subsequently to the exile it became clearer than ever, that not the entire people of the law and of the circumcision as such is God's people, but a congregation within the entire people, which is persecuted by the Israelitic as well as the heathen world unto blood. It followed from this, that if a mediator of redemption was to arise out of Israel, he would share the form of a servant of the persecuted Church (ecclesia pressa), and would ascend through suffering to glory.

Eemark 3.—Subsequently to the exile, Israel must know that human help is of no avail, and that no man has provided the longed-for redemption. God Himself must redeem them a second time, as in the days of the deliverance out of Egypt. The angelophanies of the primitive period must attain their goal in a humanly mediated theophany.

§ 81. The Judaism of Hue Booh of Esther.

Between the sixth year of Darius (516 B.c), the year of the completion of the temple, and the seventh year of Artaxerxes I. Longimanus (458 B.C.), the year of the arrival of Ezra and his train, falls the reign of THE JUDAISM OF THE BOOK OF ESTHER. 157

Xerxes (485-465 B.C.). During his reign the history of the Book of Esther seems to have taken place, which is designed to explain and glorify the Purim festival. Since this book has throughout a Persian stamp, without the least trace of Grecian influence, whatever one may think about its historical character, it is certainly a mirror of the form of Judaism among the dispersion of the second half of the Persian period. The edict secured by Haman, which ordered that all the Jews of the Persian empire should be destroyed on the thirteenth of Adar (March), had to yield to an edict obtained by Esther and Mordecai, which gave the Jews the liberty on the same day to gather together for the preservation of their lives, to destroy their enemies, and to plunder their possessions. On the thirteenth of Adar the massacre began, in which the Jews were assisted by the royal officers. In Susa alone they killed five hundred men, besides the ten sons of Haman; but they did not take any plunder. On Esther's petition, the concession granted to her countrymen is extended to the fourteenth of Adar, at which time three hundred men fell again in Susa. The book reckons those that fell in the provinces outside of Susa at seventy-five thousand. Hence the hunting down of the Jews planned by Haman was revenged through the same bloodthirsty treatment of the Persians. It was not a combat on an open battlefield, it was not a purely defensive combat, but it was a taking of the offensive in accordance with the edict. Although the name of God does not occur in the Book of Esther,¹ yet it is not wanting in religious characteristics: belief in providential guidance, prayer, and fasting. But beyond these it reminds us of what Jesus uttered in His criticism of the Old Testament law and morality (Matt. v. 44): "Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy: but I say unto you, Love your enemies, and pray for them that persecute you." The command, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour," is found in Lev. xix. 18; the second command, "Thou shalt hate thine enemy," thus formulated, is not found anywhere, but it is the reverse side of the passage just quoted, since by " thy neighbour" one of the same nationality is intended; and the Book of Esther is a dreadful commentary in confirmation of the hatred of enemies, which the old Judaism claimed as its right. When the edict was published, there arose in Susa and everywhere festive rejoicings on account of it, which have been continued in the celebration of Purim as a Jewish carnival until the present day. In thi3 festival the self-testimony of the old religion, concerning its relative character, culminates. It is not the absolute religion, for neither is the true, full will of God revealed in it, nor is the love of the neighbour recognised as a duty of man to man as such. In the Book of Esther we perceive nothing of the impulses which the exile was to give to the people in the

¹ Compare the reference iv. 14: "For if thon art entirely silent at this time, then deliverance and escape shall arise to the Jews from another place " [that is, from God], etc.

THE RELIGIOUS WAR OF THE SELEUCID^. 159

direction of the New Testament, nothing of prophetic afflation.

§ 82. The Eeligious War in the Time of the Seleucidce.

After Alexander the Great had made an end of the Persian empire (330 B.C.), the government of his successors (BidBoxoi) began, who struggled for the inheritance of the conquered countries. Seleucus I. Nicator obtained possession of Syria. His capture of Babylon on the 1st of October 312 B.c. is the beginning of the era of the Seleucidse. Palestine was under the dominion of the Ptolemies from 301 to 198, but not without fluctuations. In the year 198, Antiochus in. the Great (223-187) slew the Egyptians at Paneas, and took from them Palestine. The possession of this country was uncertain for a time, but in the age of Antiochus iv. Epiphanes (175-164), it stood uncontested under the Syrian sovereignty. Antiochus Epiphanes was the second son of Antiochus the Great. During the reign of his eldest brother, which lasted eleven years, Seleucus iv. Philopater (187-176), he was present as a hostage in Eome, whence he returned after Heliodorus had poisoned Seleucus, and had snatched away the dominion. He sought to enlarge his kingdom at every price through the annexation of Egypt. When finally the Romans in the year 168 commanded him to cease making war upon Egypt, and he was unwillingly compelled to leave the country, he gave vent to his anger by sending a part of his army against Jerusalem under Apollonius. The worship of Jehovah, the observance of the Sabbath, and circumcision, were interdicted; the temple at Jerusalem was consecrated to Jupiter Olympius, and the Jews were commanded to serve the same gods as the Greeks. Then Mattathias the priest arose, with his five sons, John, Simon, Judas, Eleazar, and Jonathan, in the little city of Modin, north-west of Jerusalem, in defence and support of the Israelitish religion. The family was named from its ancestor the Hasmonean; and Judas, who was the real hero of the Maccabean elevation, designated himself as Judas »3"3D p, which, according to the initial theory of the

o

origin of the name Maccabee, is equivalent to fWinp

o o p

Jjnv }a jna, •• Mattathias, the priest, son of Johanan." But perhaps there is united with the name an allusion to the resemblance of his military character to a hammer² (Pi??), like Charles Martel.

He began the struggle for freedom — in which Mattathias died 166 B.C. before any success had been WORLD-MONARCHIES OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 161

¹ Compare Antiquitates, xii. 6. 1.

⁸ Both of these derivations seem to me to be improbable. The name with such an origin as is indicated by the above initial theory would no more belong to Judas than to the rest of his brothers. The other derivation is not favoured by Old Testament usage. Although the figure of dashing in pieces is used several times to represent a conqueror, yet the word 3pO, which indicates an instrument of medium

size, is never employed in this way, but the word B^tSS Jiammer,

sledge (Jer. i. 23), which is also common in Aramaic and in Rabbinical Hebrew. Compare Curtiss, The Name Machabee, Leipzig 1876, pp. 16, 21-24.—C.

attained—with four victories over Apollonius, Seron, Gorgias, and Lysias, and on the 25 th of Kisleu (December) 16.5 B.c. restored the worship of Jehovah to the temple. The Book of Daniel arose before this event, in commemoration of which the Chanucca festival is still celebrated (John x. 22), and before the death of Antiochus, who died after an unsuccessful campaign in interior Asia, in the Persian city of Tabas (164 B.c). If the Book of Daniel is really a product of the time of the Seleucidse, the year 168 is the latest date to which its origin¹ can be assigned—the time of the invasion of Jerusalem by Apollonius, which was followed by the attempt to make the Jews adopt heathen customs.

§ 83. The Four World-Monarchies of the Book
of Daniel.

The Book of Daniel reckons four world-empires, since it distinguishes in chapters ii. and vii. between the Median and Persian empire, which it combines in chapter viii . The fourth world-empire is the Grecian, founded by Alexander the Great. First, on the extreme horizon of the book, the Eoman world-empire ascends behind the empire of Alexander's followers (BidBoxoi). The law of perspective and the interpenetration of human barriers and divine illumination

¹ For a full statement of Professor Delitzsch's views on the origin of this book, see his article "Daniel," in Herzog and Plitt's RealEncyklopadie, vol. iii., Leipzig 1878, pp. 469-479.—C.

to which prophecy even here is subject, relieve us of the task of ensuring the Book of Daniel the honour of a complete map of the world's history. According to xi. 2, it knows only four kings of Persia,—compare the four heads of the leopard (vii. 6),—since Xerxes and Darius Codomannus are blended in one person; and although we are not able to recount the ten horns (Dan. vii. 24, compare vers. 8 and 20) exactly, yet this is certain, that the eleventh small horn, which raises itself against the Most High, and persecutes the holy people unto blood, is Antiochus Epiphanes. The book does not know an antichrist of a final period beyond Antiochus Epiphanes, but everywhere the utmost tribulation continues for three years and a half (vii. 25, ix. 27, xii. 7; compare viii. 14, where the time is reckoned from the degradation of the high priest Onias, in August 171). These three and a half years are confirmed chronologically, for until the fifteenth of ELisleu (December) of the year 145 of the Seleucidsean era, the tribulation increased until the pollution of the temple by Antiochus Epiphanes, who set up in it a statue of Jupiter Olympius;^l and on the twenty-fifth of Kisleu of the year 148 (that is, 164 B.c.) the purified sanctuary was reconsecrated (1 Mace. iv. 52). Daniel beholds the final antitypical distresses together with those of the time of the Seleucidse. He does not behold both apart, and the tribulations of the time of the Seleucidse are concentrated in his view in the last

¹ The phrase pYikuy/tx ipn/i^nus (1 Mace. i. 54) alludes to this event. —C.

KECOGNITION OF REDEMPTION IN DANIEL. 163

years of Antiochus, although the death of Antiochus has not yet become the end of the religious war.

§ 84. Eecognition of Eedemption in the Book of Daniel.

I. THE STATE OF THE MESSIANIC HOPE.

In the vision of the seventy weeks (Dan. ix.) the high priest is called Messiah (O'E'D), the world-sovereign prince C¹"??), and the Christ of God Messiah-Prince (TM rrB'D), _as the One who combines the dignities of the anointed priest and king in Himself. On the contrary, the stone which shatters the image of the four monarchies (Dan. ii. 44) is referred to the . imperishable kingdom of the final period; and, moreover, in ver. 18, in the interpretation of the One who "like a Son of man" was brought upon the clouds of heaven before "the Ancient of days'" (Dan. vii. 13), who gives him the everlasting dominion over all the world, only the saints of the Most High are mentioned, not expressly the One who with reference to this prophecy called Himself the Son of man (vio? avdpmirov). In chapter ix. Daniel prophesies the person of the Messiah, but in chapters ii. and vii. he combines Him with the people which is His kingdom, as in Deutero-Isaiah the conception of the Messiah is merged in the conception of the people as the servant of Jehovah,¹ and rises again from it. "We recognise, too, the influence of Deutero-Isaiah in the description of

¹ Compare Delitzsch's Messianic Prophecies, Edinburgh 1880, p. 87. -C.

the future salvation (Dan. ix. 24). The hope of salvation from evil, atonement for sin, provision of an eternal righteousness, stand here in close connection with the Messianic hope.

n. THE ANTICHRIST.

Hitherto the fact has only been hinted at, that the enmity of the world against God and His Church will finally be concentrated in one person, and will end in a deadly struggle (Ps. lxviii. 22, ex. 6; Isa. xi. 4; Hab. iii. 13). The Book of Daniel prophesies this at first¹ in a most concrete way, since it indicates the antichrist as opposed to the Christ of prophecy, and describes the struggle out of which the christocracy of the final period is to go forth.

III. THE CHRONOMETRY.

The nearer the fulness of times approaches, the more careful prophecy is with reference to the measurement^ of the time. In Daniel, however, prophecy and chronology are united in a way heretofore unparalleled. The prophetic chronology of the Book of Daniel is connected with the seventy years of Jeremiah (Dan. ix. 2; compare Ezra i. 1), which are extended for him in chapter ix. to seventy weeks of years; and when after their expiration, reckoning from the fourth year of Jehoiakim (605 B.c), the final ¹ Compare Delitzsch's Messianic Prophecies, pp. 68,102-103.—C.

RECOGNITION OF REDEMPTION IN DANIEL. 165

redemption had not yet come, it remained as a riddle referred to faith and investigation.

IV. DEMONOLOGY.

The participation of the realm of angels in human history is peculiar to the visional part of the Book of Daniel (vii-xii.). This new phenomenon is not unconnected with the transplantation of Israel into the heathen world; for in general the stimulating elements in the progress of the redemptive history, not only the external, but also the internal, come from the heathen world. Polytheism is as such demoniacal, and therefore demonological, and not only theoretically directed to an interior view of the world of spirits, but also practically to breaking through the barriers between the world of men and spirits. It could not be otherwise than that the Israel of the exile, moved by the enchantment of heathen mythology, the glimpses of heathen mantic into futurity, and the wonders of heathen magic, should become more observant than ever before of the superhuman powers which were active in heathenism. The enrichment of the Israelitish angelology and demonology followed as a matter of course. The real advantage of this consisted especially in a deeper view of the origin of evil. But this new turn was not merely such in consciousness. There now began, where Israel and the heathen stood over against each other, not only as warring powers, but also as two religions contending for existence,

that conflict which is to culminate in the struggle of the Son of Man with the prince of the world, and which is to result not only in the salvation of Israel, but also of the heathen.

§ 85. The Significance of the Book of Ecclesiastes for the Eedemptive History.

If the Book of Daniel, in its present form, is a product of the time of the Seleucidse, then the Book of Ecclesiastes is certainly much older. There are many indications which show that it arose under Artaxerxes n. Mnemon (405-359 B.C.), who summoned the assistance of the Athenian Conon against the Lacedemonians. The poor wise man who through his wisdom saved the small city against the great king, is perhaps Themistocles, who in the year 480 B.c. decided the defeat of the Persians in a naval battle, and compelled them to retreat. When we first discuss the Book of Ecclesiastes here, it is not an anachronism, which is detrimental to our view of the historical development; for the apocalypse of Daniel is a late fruit of the prophecy which has been dumb since the time of Nehemiah, and the Book of Ecclesiastes is a late product of the canonical chokmaliterature, and takes throughout an isolated position. There is no other Biblical book which has a like individual and subjectiye character. It is a jeremiad upon the transitoriness and nothingness of all earthly things, the mysteriousness of this world, the JEWISH HISTORY AFTEK ANTIOCHUS. 167

insufficiency of human knowledge, and the divinely determined limitation of man. But even this book is significant for the redemptive history, since the old covenant closes here with the actual confession of its inability, and furthermore since the author saves himself from his pessimistic view of the world in the expectation of a final judgment which concerns man personally, and solves the riddle of the present world.

§ 86. Course of the Jewish History after the Death of Antiochus.

The end of Antiochus was not yet the end of the persecuted Church. After Antiochus' death, 164 B.C., Lysias secured the throne. He vanquished Judas in a dreadful battle at Beth-Zacharias, but made peace when he saw that his son was threatened at home by Philip, the guardian of the son of Antiochus. He maintained his power for a time, and then was put out of the way by Demetrius, a nephew of Antiochus, who came from Bome. Under this Demetrius I., surnamed Soter, the religious persecution began again. His general, Bacchides, placed Alcimus in the highpriesthood, who was friendly to the Greeks; but Judas regathered a band, who, bidding defiance to death, put Alcimus to flight. Upon this Demetrius sent Nicanor with a great army against Judsea, and Judas smote the Syrians in two decisive battles. The thirteenth of Adar is the Nicanor day of the Jewish calendar. He then made a treaty with the Bomans; but before they could come to his assistance, he was defeated by Bacchides at Elasa (160 B.C.), and there died a heroic death. His youngest brother, Jonathan, took his place, to whom Alexander Balas, the rival king of Demetrius, granted the crown and the highpriesthood (152 B.C.). Jonathan was murdered (143) by Tryphon, another rival king of Demetrius. His successor was his eldest brother, Simon, who joined the party of Demetrius, and in the year 142 was freed from tribute. This was the first year of the era of Simon the high priest. He was assassinated, with two of his sons, by his son-in-law Ptolemy, in the year 135. The further succession of the Maccabean priestly kings is as follows:—John Hyrcanus I. (135-106), who subjugated the Idumeans, and compelled them to be circumcised; Aristobulus I., the eldest son of John Hyrcanus (105-104), who through the murder of his mother seized the temporal dominion; Alexander Jannai (104—78), brother of Aristobulus, a cruel ruler, who quarrelled with the Pharisees, and was afterwards their open enemy, but without being able to break their dominion; Alexandra, his wife (78-69); Aristobulus Ii. (69-63), who carried on war with his brother Hyrcanus Ii., and who sought the help of Pompey. In the year 63 Jerusalem fell into the hands of Pompey. Aristobulus in the year 61 adorned his entrance into Eome, marching before the triumphal chariot of the conqueror. Hyrcanus n. was appointed high priest by Pompey, without the title of king. From that time the Eoman dominion dated, which

JEWISH HISTORY AFTEK ANTIOCHUS. 169

was continued in the vassal kingdom of the Herods. In the time of Pompey the eighteen psalms arose which received the arbitrary title, Psalterion Salomonis, and which have been known since 1626 through an Augsburg manuscript. The stranger (av6pwiro<; aXkorpiof), the profaner of the sanctuary, who, according to xvii. 9, removed the legitimate Jewish prince, is Pompey, for whom a disgraceful end is prophesied upon the mountains of Egypt (ii. 30). The seventeenth of these psalms is the most beautiful Messianic avowal of the Maccabean age. The Messiah appears there as a righteous, sinless, divinely instructed king, who unites Israel and the heathen under his peaceful sceptre. Eemakk.—Pharisees and Sadducees are two parties, of which the former leaned especially upon the people, the latter upon the nobility of the nation, particularly the priestly nobility. The Pharisees were called as such D^evis, separated, because, in distinction from the people, they made a stricter asceticism their duty; but they were strong not only through their legalism, but also through their politics. Judas Galilseus (Acts v. 37) and the later zealots were Pharisees, although they were ultra-Pharisees. The Sadducees have their names especially as members of the house of Zadok, who in Ezekiel appear as the favoured bearers of the pontificate. Their political standpoint was the Maccabean, that is, they held to the Hasmonean ruler, even at the expense of national freedom.¹

¹ Compare Wellhausen, Die Pharisaer und die Sadducder, Greifswald 1874.

§ 8 7. Hindrances in the Attainment of the New
Testament Goal.

In other respects, however, the Messianic hope, after the last voices of the prophets had died away, does not manifest itself in that inward character which had become possible, but rather in that intellectual externality which, when the Messiah appeared in Jesus, made the mass of the people incapable of recognising in Him the promised One, and which rendered it uncommonly difficult, even for those who believed in Him, to accommodate themselves to the manner of His appearance and activity, without taking offence at it. The reform under Ezra and Nehemiah aimed at making the Mosaic law the ruling power of the people's life. This was attained, but not without the result, that with the letter of the law its spirit gradually passed from the consciousness of the people, and that prophecy, as the authentic interpreter of this spirit, was neglected. The Maccabean age made its contribution toward increasing the ceremonial and legal character of Judaism; for the struggle at that time concerned the external fulfilment of the law, and turned upon circumcision and regulations respecting food and worship, and involved the danger that these outward signs would be considered as of chief importance. It is characteristic that already under Jonathan (d. 143 B.C.), the youngest brother of Judas Maccabseus, the contrast between Pharisaism and Sadduceeism arose,¹ and that ¹ Josephus, Antiquitates, xiii. 5, 10.

ATTAINMENT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT GOAL. 171

at the time of John Hyrcanus I. (135-105 B.c.) it had already penetrated the people's life. Although Pharisaism possessed the ..merit of having maintained the independence of Judaism, yet it did so through a mummiform legalism. It was also unfavourable for the retention of the Messianic hope in its purity, that now for the first time the priestly family became the head of the people, and that out of gratitude they appointed the elder brother of Jonathan, Simon (143135 B.C.), a prince and high priest for ever, until a faithful prophet should arise and should give another decision (1 Mace. xiv. 41). This first union of both offices in the year 140 was an antagonistic anticipation of the course of redemptive history, and forestalled the fulfilment of prophecy. And since under John Hyrcanus the Jewish people enjoyed a period of freedom, of prosperity, and extension of territory, such as they had not experienced since the time of David and Solomon, the recognition of their spiritual worldcalling fell into the background before their political consciousness. When, after John Hyrcanus, the star of the Hasmonean dynasty gradually went down through tyranny and civil war in blood, and was outshone by the tools of the Eomans, Antipater (d. 43 B.c.) and his son Herod (3 7-4 B.C.), the people hoped to find in the Messiah only a king who would free them from the Eoman yoke, in the same way as the Maccabees had freed them from the Seleucidse.

Eemark.—Together with the expression of the Messianic hope in the seventeenth psalm of Solomon's Psalter may be classed the Messianic passages of the Sibylline book iii. 652-794; also a younger passage of the Sibyllines, iii. 36-92, announces the future of a sacred ruler, who will quickly bring the entire earth under his sceptre. But no Messianic word can be discovered in the Apocrypha of the Alexandrian codex. It is only said that an eternal kingdom is promised to the house of David (Sirach xlvii. 11,1 Mace. ii. 5 7.) The Assumptio Mosis prophesies indeed a kingdom of God, but without the Messiah; and the book of Jubilees indulges in descriptions of the glory of the final period, but the ruler is the congregation of the servants of God, and nothing is said respecting the Messiah. This need not surprise us, for the prevailing representation of the Messiah was not according to every one's taste. The Messiah was conceived of solely as a king sent by God, who through a bloody struggle breaks the way to everlasting peace, not, as might have been expected from the final prophetic voices, as the bodily presence of God, not as the One who offers Himself that He may become the Mediator of redemption. The age of the Maccabees threw the Messianic hope back again into the stadium of the one-sided royal image, which appears as surpassed in Deutero-Isaiah, Zechariah, and Malachi. In Philo, too, it is not otherwise, but his doctrine of the Logos contains thoughts which were fitted to breathe a new life into the image of the Messiah, a life corresponding to the spirit of prophecy.

NEW TESTAMENT GERMS IN BOOKS OF WISDOM. 173

§ 88. New Testament Germs in the Post-Canonical Boohs of Wisdom.

The Book of Ecclesiastes stands midway between the canonical literature of the chokma, which it completes, and that which is apocryphal and post-Biblical. The fundamental idea of this literature is wisdom itself. Already in the addresses of the Book of Proverbs (i.-ix.) an hypostatic existence is attributed to it, which approaches personality. Even the comparison that wisdom is equivalent to God's Son appears to be drawn already in Prov. xxx. 4,¹ as well as in the expressions concerning God's word (Ps. cvii. 20, cv. 19; Isa. lv. 10 sq.), and thus prepares the way for hypostasizing the word. The development of the idea of wisdom is continued in the Palestinian Apocrypha, for example in Sirach xxiv., compare li. 10, but especially in the Alexandrian Book of the Wisdom of Solomon. When here in chaps. vii.-ix. "an only-begotten Spirit" (irvevfm fiovoyevqv) is assigned to wisdom (sophia), when she is called the "effulgence of the eternal light" (airavyaa-fia <£wto? aleoviov), and "the image of his goodness" (eiKmv Tt)$ aya06rr]ro<{ avrov), it is easy to see whither this development is tending, for wisdom (sophia) appears as a participant in the creation of the world (Sirach ix. 9); she is called a sharer of God's throne,

¹ "Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended? who hath gathered the wind in His fists? who hath bound the waters in a garment? who hath established all the ends of the earth? what is His name, and what is His Son's name, if thou canst tell?"

(Sirach ix. 4, irdpeBpoi); and the author of the book prays that God will send her to him, that she may be with him, work with him, and make known God's will to him (Sirach ix. 10 sq.). Word (X070?) and wisdom (aocpia) are even here synonyms (Sirach ix. 1 sq.; compare xxiv. 3). According to x. 17, it was wisdom which led Israel in the pillar of cloud and of fire. In the Targums the constant expression for God in His revelation of Himself to the world is the "word of Jehovah" (ninn N^p'P), and even in the Palestinian theology "word" and "wisdom" are cognate ideas; but it was Egypt rather than Palestine where the way for the Christological conception was prepared. Eemark.—The Targum uses the expression Word of God instead of God, (1) when mention is made of God's feelings in an anthropopathic way, for example, Gen. vi. 6, "It repented Jehovah," which Onkelos renders, "Jehovah changed His mind in His Logos ;" (2) when revelations of God in the world are related, for example, Gen. iii. 8, "They heard the voice of Jehovah Elohim," for which Onkelos has, " They heard the voice of the Logos of Jehovah." For N'WD the word tott is found in the Jerusalem Targum; for example, Num. vii. 89, according to which it was the Word (wron) which spoke with Moses from the covering of the ark of the covenant. A related and almost similar conception is the synagogal Shekinah. (nyac*), that is, the dwelling of God with His people in this world, His gracious presence, and especially His presence in the temple between the cherubim

THE JEWISH ALEXANDRINISM. 175

(Ps. xxvi. 8 ; 3 Mace. ii. 15 sq.; compare 1 Sam. iv. 21). The Targum uses this word, Gen. iii. 24; Ex. xvi. 7, where the glory of Jehovah (njrp 1133) is translated "the glory of His Shekinah." When the Gospel of John, i. 14, says, "The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us," it indicates Jesus Christ as the bodily Shekinah of God; and when in the Sayings of the Jewish Fathers, iii. 3, it is said, "Two that sit together and discuss the words of the Tora have the Shekinah among them,"1 this sounds remarkably like Matt. xviii. 20. The New Testament idea of the Logos is not new; but this is new, that Jesus is indicated as the Word who has become flesh, and as the wisdom of God which has appeared in human form. Everything which prophecy and the chokma-literature saw concerning God as historically revealed, in distinction from God as the transcendent primitive source, finds in Jesus Christ, according to Col. ii. 9, its final unity.

§ 89. The Jewish Alexandrinism.

The greater part of those who emigrated with Jeremiah may have fallen a prey to the judgments with which the prophet (Jer. xliv. 11-14) threatened them; but afterwards Alexander the Great attracted Jewish settlers to the city of Alexandria, which was founded by him. And Ptolemseus Lagi (311-285 B.C.), subsequently to the conquest of Jerusalem, again brought a multitude of Jews to Egypt. After Antiochus had ¹ Compare Taylor, Sayings of the Jewish Fathers, Cambridge 1877.

taken possession of Palestine (314 B.C.), many Jews went thither of their own accord. Although the possession of Egypt was for a long time in dispute between the Ptolemies and the Seleucidse, yet Palestine was mostly Egyptian; for it was again and again reconquered by the Ptolemies. The numerous colonies of Jews to Egypt are partially due to this fact. They lived there in happy circumstances. The prophecy of Isaiah xix. 18 sq. seemed to be realized. Here in Egypt under Ptolemy Philadelphus (284-247 B.C.), perhaps already toward the end of the reign of his father, Ptolemy Lagi, the translation of the Holy Scriptures into Greek began with the Tora. Thus arose the language of future Christianity, and the Old Testament Scriptures now preached, although with stammering tongue, to the heathen also. Here, through the collision of Judaism and Hellenism, the Palestinian chokma developed into a religious philosophy, which was brought to the highest stage of development by Philo, who lived contemporaneously with the beginning of Christianity, without becoming acquainted with it. This philosophy of religion lost in many things the Biblical truth through Hellenistic influences, and unfortunately introduced, for the reconciliation of Hellenistic and Israelitic modes of thought, the allegorical method of interpretation, which for a long time brought error into the understanding of the Scriptures; nevertheless it was recognised by Christianity itself as a link in the chain of its providential preparation. The Logos of Philo is hypostatic; he is God's Son,

THE JEWISH ALEXANDRINISM. 177

he is a being who enters into a real ethical relation to man, rescuing the soul sunk in sensuality through the power of the divine mercy, and giving himself as high priest, paraclete, teacher, and leader, physician, and shepherd. He is the angel of the Lord, standing above the angels; he is God, as he attested himself through the medium of angels in the life of the patriarchs, and in the history of Israel.

Eemark 1.—The thought of an incarnation of the Logos is absolutely inconceivable for Philo, and he positively denies, in several passages, that the Godhead and the sublime Logos can descend into bodily necessities.¹ Moreover, all the premisses are wanting in Philo which are necessary even for an anticipation of the mystery, " The Word became flesh," for—

(1) He has no insight into the fact of the fall, and into the necessity of the divine act of an objective salvation. He has nothing to say about a historical development of salvation by the reciprocal relation of God and man; he considers the relation of God to the world which is mediated through the Logos as always objectively the same.

(2) The Messiah remains in his system completely in the background. It is true that he firmly maintains the Messianic hope, and describes the time of the Messiah with sensuous colours; but that hope does not enter into connection with the doctrine of the Logos.

¹ See Delitzsch, Messianic Prophecies, Edinburgh 1880, p. 115, Eem., and his article "Johannes und Philo," in the Zeitschrift/ur die gesammte Lutherische Theologie, Leipzig 1863, pp. 219-229.

(3) A merging of the Logos in the flesh must necessarily horrify him, because from his point of view man as man is sinful, and the body as such is a source of evil.

Eemark 2.—The trinitarian conception of God is not a product of philosophical speculation, but the reflex, not only of New Testament, but also even of the Old Testament facts of revelation. God and the Spirit of God are already distinguished upon the first page of the Holy Scriptures, and between both the Angel of God stands as the Mediator of the covenant after Gen. xvi., and as the leader of Israel after Ex. xiv. 19; the Angel of His presence, according to Isa. lxiii. 9, is the Saviour (V^D) of His people.¹ But as God in the course of the Old Testament history represents Himself as God the Eedeemer in His Angel, so prophecy predicts a future man in whom God the Eedeemer represents Himself in bodily form. If now we add to God, who is the primitive source of all things, and to God's Spirit the immanence of God in His Angel, and in the New Testament sense in His Christ, we thus have a trinity in God's unity. Deuteronomy uses, instead of the expression the "Angel of His presence," simply "His presence" (Deut. iv. 37), as also the other Semitic religions distinguish God's face from the hidden God, that is, the manifestation of Himself with respect to the world. The doctrine of

¹ Jacob in his benediction upon Ephraim and Manasseh, Gen. xlix. 15, 16, says, "God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day, the Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads," etc.

THE THRESHOLD OF THE FULFILMENT. 179

the Logos is nothing else than the evolution of that which is involved in " His face." And the dogma of the trinity is an attempt to combine those facts and utterances of revelation by means of reflection, and to ensure them against becoming shallow and distorted.

§ 90. The Threshold of the Fulfilment.

Nothing is now wanting but that the Logos of God should step forth from the realm of human representation into historical reality, and in a way which was incomprehensible for Philo, that is, in a human body. Nothing is wanting but that wisdom which appears as a preacher in Proverbs i.-ix., which attests herself as a child of God, as a mediatress in the creation of the world, as a lover of man, should take on flesh and blood, by uniting herself personally with a son of David, and that this wisdom which has become man should work out the redemption which causes the shrill lamentations to cease, with which the old covenant in the Book of Ecclesiastes sings its own burial song. This begins to be fulfilled on the boundary of the second half of this sixth period. As in the second half of the sixth day of creation man was formed, so the Son of man proceeds from mankind, through whom the human history recommences. So long, however, as this divine Son of the woman, whom the Protevangelium has in view, is not yet born through death into the new life of glory, the old covenant is still dominant, and the Old Testament history of redemption still continues.