Preliminary Remarks

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

TT is undeniable, and is universally recognised, that in the Scriptures of the Old Testament, One divinely anointed, a Messiah, who is to go forth from Israel, is promised and hoped for, who makes His people victorious and powerful, and who from them extends His dominion to a world dominion. The Jews still look for this Messiah; Christianity—and to a certain extent also Islam—sees the promise fulfilled in Jesus. This Jesus is regarded by us Christians as the promised Christ, i.e. the Messiah.¹ Christianity is the

¹ Sadly morbid exceptions to this Christian recognition of Jesus as the Christ are made in Konynenburg's investigations concerning the nature of the Old Testament prophecies respecting the Messiah, who entirely denies the existence of Messianic prophecies, which have been fulfilled, or are to be fulfilled,¹ since he considers the expectation which the Jews entertain of an ideal King as a product of moral perversity: also by Lord Amberly, who declares that the rejection of Jesus as Messiah is fully justifiable, since it is an astonishing assumption on the part of Gentile Christians, that they are more competent than the Jews themselves to give an opinion, as to what the name of the Messiah signifies and requires.²

¹ Konynenburg, Untersuchungaber die Natur der Alttestamentl. Weissagungen auf den Messias cms dan Uollandisehen viersetzt, Lugen 1759, 395 ff.

² An Analysis of Religious Belief, London 1876, vol. i. p. 388 f.

same as the religion of the Messiah, the religion which has the Christ, who appeared in Jesus, as its principle and centre.

Hence the name Christianity indicates that it claims to be the religion which is being prepared in the history and word and writing of the Old Testament. Even when we call it the New Testament religion, we thus recognise that it is the religion of a covenant which has taken the place of the old, but not without having the old as a first step, and not without standing in connection with it as the fruit with the tree, the child with the mother.

Hence Christianity in the Old Testament is in the process of development. "With the same propriety we can say: Christ, through the Old Testament, is in the act of coming. Is is true that the man Jesus has a temporal beginning, beyond which His existence as a man does not extend. But in this fact, that He appeared in the fulness of time, God's counsel was fulfilled; and since Jesus is certainly the man who above all others had God dwelling in Himself, the approach of God, who proposes to reveal Himself and perfect the work of salvation through Him, is at the same time an approach of Jesus. His coming in the Old Testament is therefore something more than merely ideal

These are views which Christians hold in common —indisputable propositions which, from a Christian standpoint, express a historical fact without presupposing any closer dogmatic statements. We emphasize this intentionally, in order to attract as far as possible the circle of those to whose sympathy we appeal for the following investigations. How much we should rejoice, if we could also secure the sympathy of those belonging to the Jewish confession who are seeking after the truth. It is indeed worth the while for such to see how Christianity justifies itself as the religion of fulfilled prophecy; and this all the more, since the self-testimony of Christianity, in the present condition of the investigation of the Scriptures, and in view of the restless sifting and decomposition of almost everything which has hitherto been accepted, must be more thoroughly revised, more exact, more many - sided, in many respects different, from that which was usual in earlier centuries, and which has been handed down even to the later missionary literature.

It is a delightful theme, a joyful work, in which we propose to be absorbed.¹ The Lord is in the process of coming in the Old Testament, in drawing near, in proclaiming His appearance, and we design to transport ourselves into this Old Testament period, and follow the steps of the One who is coming, pursue the traces of the One who is drawing near, seek out the shadows which He casts upon the way of His Old Testament

¹ This view, indeed, was not held by Schleiermacher, who, in his second Sendschreiben to Lucke, Theologische Studien u. Kritiken, Hamburg 1829, vol. ii. p. 497, says: "I can never consider this effort to prove Christ out of the Old Testament prophecies a joyful work, and am sorry that so many worthy men torment themselves with it."

history, and especially seek to understand the intimations of prophecy respecting Him.

The old theology made scarcely any distinction between the time of His coming and His entrance into the actual domain of history. The historical mode of view is a charism, granted to the Church in the period after the Eeformation. We have reason to rejoice on this account. The Old Testament may be compared to the starry night, and the New Testament to the sunny day, or, as we may also say, the New Testament period, in its beginning, is related to the Old Testament as the coming of spring to winter. The spring in the kingdom of God suffered itself to be long waited for; and when at length spring days seemed to announce the end of the darkness and coldness of winter, the winter soon made its presence felt again. Then, however, when the Lord appeared, it became spring. He was indeed predicted as the embodiment of spring. "Would, then, that in the following interpretations of Old Testament prophetic images there might also be fewer traces of the winter of life in which I stand, than of the spring-like freshness, of the living power, of the pentecostal nature of the subject of which I treat!

We live in an age, in which the Christian view of the world, through which the antique heathen view was overcome, threatens on its side to be overcome by the modern view of the world, which recognises no system of the world except that which is in accordance with natural laws, and no free miraculous interference of God in it. Christian truth, as it is attested in the Holy Scriptures, will also outlast this crisis. But since it must maintain its position against ever new antagonistic principles of advancing civilisation, culture, and science, it will be itself drawn into the process of development; for it stands indeed as firm as a rock which is not shaken by any dashing of the waves, yet not motionless as a rock, but it is living, and therefore, as regards the kind of life, is ever supplementing itself anew. It cannot be otherwise; since in Christ, as the apostle says, lie hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, hence the history of Christianity must be the history of the constant raising of these treasures. Christianity remains the same in its essence, but it is all the while more occupied with the depth of its essence, and ever coins new forms of thought and expression. Even in the age of Darwinism, and of his great discoveries in natural science, it will retain its unfading and inexhaustible power of life.

There is a crisis in the domain of the Bible, and especially in that of the Old Testament, in which the evening of my life falls. This crisis repels me on account of the joy of its advocates in destruction, on account of their boundless negations and their unspiritual profanity; but also this crisis, as so many crises since the time of the apostles, will become a lever for progressive knowledge, and it is therefore incumbent [upon us] to recognise the elements of truth which are in the chaos, and to gather them, out; for as the primitive creation began with chaos, so in the realm of knowledge, and especially of spiritual life from epoch to epoch, that which is new goes forth from the chaos of the old. It is indeed not the business of an individual to complete this work of sifting and of refining and of reorganization. Nevertheless, we take part in it, although with a small degree of strength.

It is a depressing observation that Judaism has strong support in modern Christian theology, and that its literature is like an arsenal, out of which Judaism can secure weapons for its attack on Christianity. Nevertheless, in the midst of the present confusion we can be comforted with the consideration that this resource does not suffice for the maintenance of Judaism. For whether one takes with reference to Christianity the unitarian or trinitarian, the rationalistic or supernaturalistic standpoint, it is established that Christianity, as contra-distinguished from Judaism, is the religion of consummated morality, and that Jesus is the great holy divine man whose appearance halves the world's history. Christianity and the person of its founder are more to us than this, but we rejoice nevertheless in this firm position, which can bid defiance to all the attacks of Judaism, and in whose defence all who bear the name of Christ stand together. For every Christian as such, however he may understand the relation of the divine and the human in the person of Jesus, recognises in Jesus the end of Old Testament development, and in Christianity the completion of the religion of Israel.

We must admit that the treatment of our subject -will vary, according as the one who treats it answers the question which Jesus once raised: "What think ye of Christ; whose son is He?" For the understanding of the process of becoming is dependent upon the conception of the goal; the understanding of the Old Testament process of becoming is dependent upon the truthful valuation of the person of Jesus. It is indeed just in this respect that we Christians are distinguished from the Jews: we do not expect any other; Judaism also does not really expect any other. Its hope of a Messiah, since the rejection of Jesus, the Christ of God, has sunk to a fantastic image of worldly patriotism, which has no power to warm the heart. We consider Jesus, on the contrary, as the end of the law, the goal of prophecy, the summit of Old Testament history, and with respect to the mystery of His twofold existence and work as mediator, we hold to His utterances respecting Himself, and to the testimony of His apostles; for a Christianity torn loose from these authorities, and otherwise understood, is only a scientific abstraction, an arbitrary excerpt according to a self-made pattern, an artificial product according to the demands of the spirit of the age. We are, so far as we are concerned, persuaded that gospels and epistles harmonize most intimately. We are certain of this, that in all essential points they admit of a reciprocal control. In the preparation for the New Testament in the Old, however, we are concerned with such essential points, the recognition of which is dawning, and which sometimes also breaks through like lightning. The noble ones in Beroea subjected even the word of the apostle to the test according to the Holy Scriptures which they had in their hands. We too shall see whether prophecy and the apostolic word reciprocally correspond and promote each other, so, indeed, that the Old Testament word of prophecy in relation to the New Testament dawu is only as the apostle says (2 Pet. i. 19): like "a lamp shining in a dark place."

INTRODUCTION.

§ 1. The Twofold Character of the Problem expressed by the Name.

TN all intellectual productions much depends upon finding the right name; for the name designates the goal, and indicates at the same time the way by which it is proposed to reach it. A suitable designation in itself would be: History of the Preparation for the Appearance of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament Consciousness; but the exegetical side of our problem does not in this way find the desired expression. Nor do we say " Old Testament Christology," because this designation leads us to expect a systematic rather than a historical and exegetical treatment. We therefore choose the title: "Messianic Prophecies in Historical Succession," because it affords expression both to the exegetical and historical side of the problem. It is true that our doctrinal material does not consist merely in predictions in the strict sense of the term, but the promises and hopes which have reference to the future salvation may be included under the conception of prophecy, for the promises of God are indeed pledged predictions, and the hope is established upon such sure prospects. The designation "Messianic" also appears to be too narrow, for in the domain of our theme are all such predictions which speak of the future salvation, without mentioning a human mediator by the side of the God of salvation. But in a wider sense we may nevertheless, as we shall see, call all those predictions Messianic which refer to the completion of the divine work of salvation, and of the divine kingdom in the Messianic age.

§ 2. The Historical Significance of that which is
apparently isolated.

But can we from the passages of Scripture which lie before us form a history of the Messianic expectation of Israel with respect to a future salvation? These passages of Scripture are, indeed, like isolated points without connecting lines, and they are testimonies, not of the people, but of individuals among the people, so that we are not able to determine their effect upon the belief and hope of the mass. This doubt must be considered, but disappears on a further investigation of the subject. All progress in civilisation in the human race is accomplished through individuals, whose new discoveries and attainments become new impulses for the advancing dominion of man over the world of nature, and for their advancing spiritual culture. This is also true of religious progress; in every place where this takes a new turn, it has been men who were far beyond their age within whom this new turn has been accomplished. All religions which deserve this name, as express representations of Deity, and the right mode of worshipping Him, are to be traced back to single individuals who have founded them or transformed th$m. That which has finally become common property was first a possession of individuals; but it will never be common property to the extent, that it will penetrate all the members of the people, or of the religious society in complete purity and original power. We need not be surprised if the Christological development, which goes through the Old Testament, is like a path of light, which consists of rays of light proceeding from single points of light. Moses, David, Isaiah—these are, above all others, the three whose profound natures, filled by the Spirit, were the source of the light of the Old Testament religion. We know, indeed, and if we did not know it, we must presuppose it, that the vital cognitions which went out from them were adopted only by the kernel of the people in consciousness and life. The condition of the mass was like a dark cloud which was irradiated by the light of revelation, but was not absorbed by it. But this is not prejudicial to the historical character and the execution of our task. We shall describe the gradual rising of the light as we represent the Christological development, whose essence is not conditional through a successful result; for as the true light appeared the darkness did not comprehend it.

§ 3. The Indispensableness of Literary and Historical Criticism.

Those great personalities of the history of revelation have no other way of being known to us than in the Old Testament Scriptures. The knowledge of them is mediated, partly through writings which relate concerning them, partly through writings which go back to them. In the former case we must raise the question, to what period the accounts belong, and whether they are credible; in the latter case, whether the works in question are authentic, that is, really have those persons as authors to whom they are ascribed. The course of development of the Christological views cannot therefore be mediated without the co-working of literary criticism and historical criticism, and all critical questions even here give way in significance in comparison with the Pentateuchal question, which in all directions is the fundamental and chief question of the Old Testament. We shall not avoid the influence of modern criticism in unwarranted selfconfidence or in childish fear—we shall also use criticism, but without employing the grounds of decision which are now common, and which from principle deny objective reality to everything that is supernatural, and especially to the spiritual miracle of prophecy.

§ 4. The Reasonableness of the Supernatural. While we recognise the supernatural factor in the Old Testament history of redemption and in the history of the recognition of redemption, we proceed from the presupposition that the supernatural would be subject to the suspicion of that which is mythical and purely subjective if it merely belonged to the past and had no present. There is not only a kingdom of nature in which the natural laws of the system of the world have sway, but also a kingdom of freedom, that is, the reciprocal working of God and of the free creatures, in which a moral system of the world, which interferes in the course of nature and makes it serviceable to itself, has sway. The ultimate goal of this divinely-ordained reciprocal relation can be inferred. If a difference exists between the absolute God and all other beings as His creatures, the history of finite personal beings can have no other true and final goal than an ever deeper entrance into a living communion with God. A continuance in this way is, however, not possible without an actual interchange between God and these His creatures. Man must direct words and deeds to God which He understands; and, on the other hand, God must make Himself known to men in disclosures and acts which he distinguishes in the midst of the course of the laws of nature as the free inworking of the absolute God. The divine necessity of this reciprocal relation follows with necessity from the universal impulse of mankind to prayer; and the reality of this reciprocal relation is proved to every man who stands in living relation to God, through his experiences in prayer, and through the admonishing, warning, comforting voices of God, which he perceives in himself.

§ 5. The Redemption a Logical Necessity.

But man is caught in the toils of sin; not only individuals of the race, but also the race as a species, has incurred the penalty of sin and death, and has been driven from their moral duty of a continual approach to God into alienation from Him. If, nevertheless, mankind is to attain the end of their creation, it cannot take place without their being released from the labyrinth of their lost condition through sin, and without their being brought again into the path which leads to the goal of their creation. The work of salvation concerns mankind, and is designed for every individual, so that all who wish to be saved can be. The conclusion is not mathematically certain that this is to be the course of human history, for God is absolutely free, and He is under no law except His own will. But nevertheless it is logically necessary for us, that the final end for which God has created man can in no way be frustrated. He is indeed the omniscient One. As such He has foreseen that man would fall through sin from his vocation. We must therefore suppose, that if He had not determined to raise man again from his fall, He would not have created him at all. These are thoughts whose logical necessity is apparent, but which would not come into our minds if we did not know from the

Holy Scriptures, as the record of the will and way of God, that God the Creator is also God the Eedeemer, who, on account of His decree before the foundation of the world, nevertheless brings human history, in spite of sin, to its culmination.

§ 6. Messianic Prophecy with and without mention of the Messiah.

The religion of revelation is the religion of redemption, planned by God the Creator from eternity. The Old Testament religion is the religion of the redemption believed and hoped for as future, and the New Testament religion is the religion of the redemption which was fundamentally consummated by the Mediator who appeared in the fulness of time. Faith is, in both Testaments, faith in God the Creator and Eedeemer. The recognition of human mediation, through which God accomplishes the redemption, came only gradually about by means of an intricate process of development. But that the redemption is to be mediated in a human way is even in itself to be presupposed. God's help in behalf of the multitude of men is ever to make individuals, or one an instrument for many, as appears in the fact that God elected a people from the midst of the peoples, as a mediator, in attestation of Himself, and of the redemption of mankind from the labyrinth of idolatry. It must be admitted that this nationalizing of the religion obstructed and endangered the recognition of the universal and spiritual character of the work of redemption. The opposition in which Judaism until the present day remains to Jesus the Christ, actually proves how great a danger this unavoidable nationalizing brought with it. But the history of the Messianic prophecies, which we shall describe, is designed to show, that in spite of appearances to the contrary, the Saviour who has gone forth out of Israel in the person of Jesus is the end of Old Testament leadings, and the fulfilment of the deepest pre-Christian hopes and longings.

§ 7. Messianic Prophecies in the Narrowest
Signification.

The high priest is called an anointed one in the Pentateuchal Torah, because he, and only he, not the other priests, was set apart for his office by anointing —that is, through the pouring of oil upon the head (Lev. viii. 12, cf. v. 30). The expression rwen jn3n Lev. iv. 3 [the anointed priest], signifies the same as [n3n [the great priest]. The post-Biblical language (perhaps also even in Dan. ix. 26, if Onias III. is there intended, after whose removal, 171 B.c., Antiochus Epiphanes plundered the temple) also calls him simply nw, as when, in Horayoth 8^a, there is a discrimination between W, K^J, rw°o, private man, prince, and high priest. But outside of the Torah it is the king of Israel who is called the anointed, and indeed the anointed of Yahweh, e.g. Saul, 1 Sam. xii. 3 ; David, Ps. xviii. 51, 2 Sam. xxiii. 1; Zedekiah, Lam. iv. 20; also Cyrus is honoured in Isa. xlv. 1 with the title of an anointed one of Yahweh, because Yahweh has brought about his elevation as king, and has chosen him as His instrument. For n^o signifies not only to anoint {i.e. to pour oil upon, or to apply oil in some other way), but has, aside from the external ceremonial completion of the anointing, the further meaning of anointing through word and deed (1 Kings xix. 16; Ps. cv. 15). In the time of the Judges, in which there was no united government of the entire people, it was a divinely-anointed king to whom hope and promise were directed; and when in the time of the Kings the kingdom went counter to its divinelydetermined end (as, for example, in the time of Ahaz), promise and hope were directed all the more earnestly to a divinely-given righteous and victorious king. Messianic prophecies in the narrowest signification are accordingly such prophecies, as connect the hope of salvation and the glory of the people of God with a future king, who, proceeding from Israel, subjects the world to himself. This ideal king—-that is, the one who completely actualizes the theocratic idea—is as such fnrP rpE>p; but this is not yet the distinguishing characteristic name in the Old Testament. It is, for example, questionable whether in Hab. iii. 14, refers to the present king or to the great One of the future; and in general there is no Old Testament passage in which n'aip indicates the future One with eschatological exclusiveness (not even Dan. ix. 25, where, as it appears, "WJ Itpo is intended of the

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priestly king of the future).¹ This only can be certainly held, that even the congregation of the exilic period understood by the divinely-anointed One in Ps. cxxxii. and Ps. ii. the King of the final period.

§ 8. The New Testament Glorification of the Conception of the Messiah.

First, in the doctrinal language of post-Biblical Judaism the future One is called, almost with the significance of a proper name, W>®, Greek Meaaia<;,² after the Aramaic form of the name n'B'n, or with the post-positive article Nnw. Although the royal dignity is involved in n'e>p when this word is used as a noun, the Targums and the literature of the Talmudical period prefer the designation nrwo n3bo, Heb. rbg rPBisn (when both are blended together like a proper name, as in rnttyi nw •]sd_, Zech. xiv. 16 f.); but sometimes simply n'B>D, Aramaic fVBTp, is found.³ In the

¹ Luther translates Dan. ix. 25: "Until Christ the Prince," and also ver. 26: "And after sixty-two weeks Christ will be destroyed."—This is the only place in the Old Testament where he has used the name of Christ.

² De Lagarde holds that Miaaietg is the Greek form of ITE'D, a trans-Jordanic Arabic nominal form like I'VE' for "VytJ>. It is, however, the Greek form of Nitu>d; the n remaining unexpressed between the two long vowels as in /tila = KTflD) Neh. vii. 54, and Mcv/ce; or "iltu<n'u; was written like 'Afimahiifi or 'Afiviaukap., since through duplication greater stability was given to the short vowel.

³ See e.g. Lev. rabba c. xiv.: "The Spirit of God brooded over the waters rPCDrI ibo be nn PIT." And without the article Pesachim 54% according to which rPE'D IDE? belong to the

so-called Psalms of Solomon, which were written in Hebrew about the year 48,—the year of the battle of Pharsalias,—and which have been preserved for us in a Greek translation which is to some extent difficult to understand, the future One is called (xvii. 36, xviii. 8) X/awTTo? icvpio<; (as in Luke ii. 11; Hebrew tfiNn iTBTp). Even in the Septuagint Xpiaros is the translation of the Hebrew While, however, the

New Testament designation of Jesus is coextensive with the Hebrew and Jewish WD philologically, it is not really; for, since the name Xpiaros becomes the name of Jesus, it gives to the personality of Jesus its Old Testament stamp, not, however, without at the same time receiving a new stamp from Him. The name Xpiaros receives a wider, deeper, more exalted meaning. It experiences in the light of the Saviour a metamorphosis (glorification). The royal idea which it expresses is not removed, but it is relieved of its one-sidedness. It indicates the Son of God and the Son of man, who, as the reward of His priestly self-sacrifice, receives the royal crown instead of the crown of thorns, and as the risen and exalted One rules the world, hence in a manner worthy of God, at whose right hand He sits.

Bemark 1.—Within the course of the evangelical history the Lord is called 'Iyaovs. Pirst after God

seven things which preceded the Creation. And Sarihedrin 93^b, says Simeon, called Bar-Cochba: fCWQ tOK. Targ.jer. to Gen. xlix. 11 may serve as a proof passage for KITE5>D SO^D, which occurs frequently in the Targums: "How beautiful is &o^o NITCD, who shall one day rise from the house of Judah!"

raised Him from the dead, and, as is said in Acts ii. 36, made Him both Lord and Christ, He receives in addition to the proper name 'Ii?o-o0? the designation of honour, which has likewise become a proper name, Xpiaros. Within the Gospels, however, except in John i. 17, xvii. 3, this double designation occurs only in Matt, i. 1, 18 (but here with the article prefixed Tov 'Irjaov Xptcrrov); Mark i. 1. Aside from John xvii. 3 the evangelists write this double designation over the gates of their Gospels like a summary or emblem of the entire following history, with a similar signification as when the Torah prefixes the double designation nvr to Gen. ii.—iii. Both names express everything. In the name Jesus the idea of salvation predominates; in the name Christ, that of glory. We can say: the course in the Old Testament leads from Christ to Jesus, the course in the New Testament from Jesus to Christ.

Remark 2.—In spite of the one-sidedness of the royal image the royal dominion still remains one side in the image of the future One; and far from denying the royal dignity of His Messiahship, Jesus answers the question of Pilate (Mark xv. 2): crv \eyeis, and over His cross stands: 6 fiao-iXevs T&v 'IovZaiav (Mark xv. 26), which the Jews would have liked to have changed, because He was not the King of the Jews, but said that He was (John xix. 21 f. Observe that this is the Gospel of John). But the kingdom which lies at the end of His course, while it embraces the world, is nevertheless not a worldly kingdom. He will one day be King of the Jews, and will again raise up the kingdom of Israel, but not before the Jewish people have subjected themselves to His sceptre in penitence and faith. As Yahweh became the King of Israel at Sinai when they accepted the law with the words ntW? Jf??^—we will perform and be obedient,—so Jesus will become King of Israel when, worshipping Him, they render Him homage; but even then He will not be a king in an external, earthly, narrow, and national way, as unspiritual natural pride dreams; for the kingdom of God in Christ is a fiaaikeia Twv ovpavwv, that is, of heavenly origin and heavenly nature.

§ 9. Messianic Prophecies in a Broader Signification.

Even in the Old Testament the royal image of the future Anointed One is proved to be one-sided and inadequate, since it is neither coextensive with the need of salvation, nor exhausts the expectation of salvation. But not this alone. Since the idea of the God-man is first announced in single rays of light, the Mediator of salvation, in general, does not yet stand in the centre of Old Testament faith, but the completion of the kingdom of God appears mostly as the work of the God of salvation Himself with the recession of human mediation. But we also classify these prophecies under the general conception of Messianic, because indeed in the history of fulfilment it is God in Christ who from Israel works out and secures for mankind the highest spiritual blessings. Our prayer to Christ is prayer to God revealed in the flesh. Therefore, from a historical point of view, we regard the prophecies concerning the ultimate salvation, which are even silent concerning the Messiah, as ChristologicaL

§ 10. Historical Sketch of the Subject.

The New Testament references to Old Testament prophecies are limited, rather accidentally than designedly, by the occasions afforded in the Gospel history and the apostolic trains of thought. Hence it has come to pass, that many Messianic passages of prime importance have remained unnoticed, e.g. Isa. ix. 5, 6 ; Jer. xxiii. 5, 6; Zech. vi. 12, 13. A richer and, to a certain extent, more systematic discussion of the predictions and representations concerning Christ in the Old Testament begins with the Epistle of Barnabas (71-120 A.D.), which is related to the Epistle to the Hebrews, but which stands far below it, and in Justin's Dialogue • with Trypho (d. about 163 A.d.). This is, to a certain extent, a missionary document, the only one of the ancient Church, which breathes a spirit of love that seeks the lost, of which we can discover but little in the First Book of Cyprian's Testimonies, adversus Judaeos¹ (d. 258), and in the Altercatio Simonis Judaei et Theophili Christiani? Justin is in so far inferior to his Jewish opponent, that he is acquainted with the Old Testament only through the secondary source of the Septuagint. On the other hand, Origen (d. 254), who, in his Eighth Book, written against Celsus

¹ See W. Faber in Saat auf Hoffnung, Erlangen 1887, vol. xxiv. pp. 26-29.

² See Gebhardt-Harnack's Texten und Untersuehungen, Leipzig, i. 3.

(about 247), contends against the heathen and Jewish misrepresentations of the person of Christ and of Christianity, is acquainted with Hebrew, but his interpretation of the Scriptures suffers from his effort at that arbitrary allegorization in which the Alexandrian school is the successor of Philo. Nevertheless, the historical method of the Antiochian school brought about a reaction, which even referred direct Messianic prophecies like Micah v. 1 to Zerubbabel and in general to objects before Christ, and only, with reference to the result of their higher fulfilment, to Christ. Theodore of Antioch (d. 428), bishop of Mopsuestia, did this in a rash and offensive way. It was not taken into account by the ancient Church, down to the time of the Middle Ages, that there is in the Old Testament a preparation for the salvation in Christ through a connected and progressive history.¹ Nor was it taken into account in the time of the Eeformation, when the predominantly anti-Judaistic, apologetic , interest of the ancient Church was replaced by one which was predominantly dogmatic, and a spiritualistic interpretation took the place of an allegorical, which removed the national elements of the old prophecy by means of a symbolical or a mystical interpretation. First, Spener (d. 1705) and his school made way for a better understanding of the prophecies, while, with reference to Eom. xi. 25, 26, he recognised that which is relatively authorized in the national form of the Old

¹ In this connection special attention is called to Abelard's (d. 1142) Dialogm inter Philosophum, Judaewm et Christianum.

Testament prophecy. John Albert Bengel (d. 1752) and Christian Augustus Crusius (d. 1775) began to modify the stiff idea of inspiration, since they regarded the prophets not only as passive, but also at the same time as active instruments, and placed their range of view under the law of perspective. With Cocceius (d. 1669) began the method of treating the Old Testament in periods. But they were not able to divide this history into periods according to its internal development, in which chance and plan, freedom and necessity interpenetrate. When then rationalism, for which the way had been prepared by the Arminian Grotius (d. 1645), and Spinoza in his Tractatus theologico politicus (1670), and which was founded by Semler (d. 1791), degraded Jesus to a teacher of religion and morals, the Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament became almost entirely without an r object, until the gradual unfolding of the idea of the

. Messiah was recognised in them, and, as there was a return from a merely nominal Christianity to that established by documents, the gradual subjective prepara

^v tion of the essential salvation was acknowledged. This revolution was established by Hengstenberg's (d. 1869) Christologie des Alien Testaments (in three volumes, Berlin 1829-1835, second edition 1854-1857), which formed a new epoch in the treatment of the subject, followed in a spirit of freer criticism by Tholuck's (d. 1877) work, Die Fropheten und Hire Weissagungen, Gotha 1860, and by Gustav Baur in his Geschichte der alttestamentlicken Weissagung, Theil 1, 1861. The proper mean between conservatism and progress was taken by Oehler (d. 1872) in his articles "Messias" and "Weissagung" in the first edition of Herzog's Real-Encyklopadie, vols. ix., Stuttgart 1858, and xvii., Gotha 1863, and in his Theology of the Old Testament? which appeared after his death. The same praise is due to Orelli's work, The Old Testament Prophecy of the Completion of the Kingdom of God,² and to Briggs' ^ Messianic Prophecy.³ We should be guilty of inexcusable ingratitude if we were to make no mention of Hofmann's (d. 187 7) work, which still remains unique, entitled Weissagung und Erfilllung, in two parts, Nordlingen 1841-1844. This treatise is a companion piece to Hengstenberg's Christology. The Old Testament account is here reconstructed historically and exegetically in a masterly way as an organic whole, developed in word and deed until the time of Christ, with which the history of the fulfilment, as the other half, reaching to the end of the present dispensation, is joined together. Many views of truth which have come into the modern scriptural theology have sprung from this original work, whose main fault is the straining of the type at expense of the prophecy. In his conception of the prophecies concerning Israel's future Hofmann's standpoint is realistic. He leaves the conception of Israel in the national estimation of it, without understanding by it the Church gathered out of Israel and the heathen, nevertheless in such

¹ First edition, Tubingen, 1873-74; second edition, 1882-85. ^s Edinburgh. ' ³ Edinburgh 1886.

a way as to exclude the restoration of all which cannot be harmonized with the Christian denationalizing of the religion and the doing away with the law. Also Bertheau in his lengthy article, "Die alttestamentliche Weissagung von Israel's Eeichsherrlichkeit in seinem Lande," in the fourth volume of the Jahrbucher fur deutsche Theologie, Gotha 1859, seeks to separate the present idea of the fulfilment from the particular national form. In like manner Eiehm (d. 18 8 8) in his work, Die Messianische Weissagung, Gotba 1875, which fails to do justice to the words of prophecy with reference to the conversion of Israel. The rationalistic standpoint, in which the historical method is carried out, is represented by Stahelin's work, Die Messianischen Weissagungen, Berlin 1847; Anger's lectures, published after his death (d. 1866), edited by Krenkel, Ueber die Geschichte der Messianischen Idee, Berlin 1873; Hitzig (d. 1875) in his Vorlesungen iiber biblische Theologie und Messianischen Weissagung des Alten Testaments, Karlsruhe, 1880, issued by Kneucher; and Kuenen's work, The Prophets and Prophecy in Israel, London 1877, which is distinguished more for its learning and sharp apprehension of the subject than for originality and genius, which, on principle, dismisses all that is supernatural as unhistorical, and regards ethical monotheism as the kernel of prophecy. Duhm's Die Theologie der Propheten, Bonn 1875, is peculiar in this respect, that he sets out with the proposition that the Old Testament literary prophets belong to an earlier age than the Mosaic law, and that in the writing of every prophet there is a special system of teaching, by means of which he hinders or helps the progress to greater freedom in religious things. In opposition to this rationalistic standpoint Edward König in his work, Den Offenbarung sbegriff des Alten Testaments, Leipzig 1882, defends the supernatural character of Old Testament prophecy.

A sketch of the history of the interpretation of Old Testament prophecy is given by Tholuck in his Das Alte Testament im Neuen, in the Supplement to his commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, and especially in the sixth edition, 1868; also in Oehler's article, entitled "Weissagung," in the first edition of Herzog's Real-EncyMo'pädie; and its progress since Bengel is given in Delitzsch's work, Die biblisch-prophetische Theologie, ihre Fortbildung durch Chr. A. Crusius und ihre neueste Entwickelung seit der Christologie Hengstenberg's, Berlin 1845. Many materials bearing upon the subject are afforded in Diestel's (d. 1879) Geschichte des Alten Testaments in der christlichen Kirche, Jena 1869.

Remark.—The representation of the course of development in prophecy will differ according as the supernatural factor of the history is recognised or not recognised by the writer as specifically different, and yet at the same time as historical, and Christianity as only the religion of perfect morality, or as the religion of redemption. But also aside from this, the representation will differ according to the position of the writer with reference to the results of modern literary historical criticism, and the new construction of the Old Testament history which is based upon it.

It is a postulate of our consciousness, that human history is engaged in a movement toward a definite end. This movement, far from being absolutely in a straight line, takes place under all kinds of deviations and retrogressons, and the valuation of that which is new is wont to be different, not only on the part of contemporaries, but also on the part of those who come later, since it does not treat of the things of nature, but rather of those of the spiritual life. Nevertheless there arises, in spite of all these devious ways, and notwithstanding the uncertainty of judgment, the demand for actual progress. And in view of the revolution which has taken place in the domain of Biblical investigation, the question is justified, what permanent religious advantage is to proceed from it.

All recognition of the truth is of a religious character, so far as God Himself is the truth, and the endless background of the recognition of all religious truth. Biblical questions, however, are immediately religious. I shall not presume to determine in advance that which in the year 2000 will be considered pure gold, which will have endured the smelting fire of criticism, and will have been won by means of it; but one thing we know, that the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments will be and will remain the document of the revelation of the one true God. And since the Old Testament religion is a pre¹ paration and a preliminary step for the New, we shall not take any offence if in the Old Testament Scriptures, which have the character of an effort to attain i. perfection, much appears more imperfect than before.