documents, might to an intelligent mind be safely rested. The three first Gospels, unless written at a very early period, could scarcely have escaped the controversial, or at least argumentative tone, which enters into the later Christian writings, and with which the relation of St. John is imbued (1). The plan then which the author will pursue, will be to presume, to a certain degree, on the reader's acquaintance with the subject on which he enters he will not think it necessary to relate at length all the discourses or even all the acts of Christ, but rather to interweave the historic illustration with the main events, disposed, as far as possible, in the order of time, and to trace the effect which each separate incident, and the whole course of the life of Jesus, may be supposed to have produced upon the popular mind. In short it will partake, in some degree, of the nature of an historical comment, on facts which it will rather endeavour to elucidate, than to draw out to their full length. Herod the of Anti The days of the elder Herod were drawing to a close; his pros- State of perous and magnificent reign was ending in darkness and misery, Judea.such as the deepest tragedy has rarely ventured to imagine. His Great. last years had revealed the horrible, the humiliating secret, that the son, at whose instigation he had put to death the two noble and popular princes, his children by Mariamne the Asmonean, had almost all his life been over-reaching him in that dark policy, of which he esteemed himself the master; and now, as a final return for his unsuspecting confidence, had conspired to cut short the brief remainder of his days. Almost the last, and the most popular exercise of Herod's royal authority, was to order the execution of the perfidious Antipater. Fearful times! when the condemnation of Intrigues a son by a father, and that father an odious and sanguinary tyrant, and death could coincide with the universal sentiment of the people! The pater attachment of the nation to the reigning family might have been secured, if the sons of Mariamne, the heiress of the Asmonean line, had survived to claim the succession: the foreign and Idumean origin of the father might have been forgotten in the national and splendid descent of the mother. There was, it should seem, a powerful Herodian party, attached to the fortunes of the ruling house; but the body of the nation now looked with ill-concealed aversion to the perpetuation of the Idumean tyranny in the persons of the sons of Herod. Yet to those who contemplated only the political signs of the times, nothing remained but the degrading Herod. alternative, either to submit to the line of Herod, or to sink into a Roman province. Such was to be the end of their long ages of national glory, such the hopeless termination of the national independence. But, notwithstanding the progress of Grecian opinions and manners, with which the politic Herod had endeavoured to See Appendix II., on the Origin of the Gospels. Sons of General tion of the counterbalance the turbulent and unruly spirit of the religious party, the great mass of the people, obstinately wedded to the law and the institutions of their fathers, watched with undisguised jealousy the denationalising proceedings of their king. This stern and inextinguishable enthusiasm had recently broken out into active resistance, in the conspiracy to tear down the golden eagle, which Herod had suspended over the gate of the temple (1). The signal for this daring act had been a rumour of the king's death; and the terrific vengeance, which, under a temporary show of moderation, Herod had wreaked on the offenders, the degradation of the high-priest, and the execution of the popular teachers, who were accused of having instigated the insurrection, could not but widen the breach between the dying sovereign and the people. The greater part of the nation looked to the death of Herod with a vague hope of liberation and independence, which struck in with the more peculiar cause of excitement predominant in the general mind. : For the principle of this universal ferment lay deeper than in the expecta impatience of a tyrannical government, which burdened the people Messiah. With intolerable exactions, or the apprehension of national degradation, if Judæa should be reduced to the dominion of a Roman proconsul it was the confidence in the immediate coming of the Messiah, which was working with vague and mysterious agitation in the hearts of all orders (2). The very danger to which Jewish independence was reduced, was associated with this exalted sentiment; the nearer the ruin, the nearer the restoration of their Theocracy. For there is no doubt, that among other predictions, according to the general belief, which pointed to the present period, a very ancient interpretation of the prophecy, which declared that the sceptre, the royal dominion, should not depart from the race of Israel, until the coming of the Shiloh, one of the titles uniformly attributed to the Messiah, connected the termination of the existing polity with the manifestation of the Deliverer (3). This expectation of a wonderful revolution to be wrought (4) by the sudden appearance of some great mysterious person, had been so widely disseminated, as to excite the astonishment, perhaps the jealousy of the (1) Hist, of the Jews, vol. ii p. 124. (2) Whoever is curious in such inquires, will find a fearful catalogue of calamities, which were to precede, according to the Rabbinical authorities, the coming of the Messiah, either in Lightfoot's Harmony, vol. v. p, 180. (8vo. edit.), or in Schoetgen, Hora Hebraica, vol. ii. p, 509., or Eisenmenger, das entdecktes Judenthum, ii, p. 711. The notion may have been grounded on the last chapter of the Prophecy of Daniel. Compare Bertholdt, c. 13.-The Rabbins deliver, " In the first year of that week (of years), that the Son of David is to come, shall that be fulfilled, 'I will rain upon one eity, but I will not rain upon another.'" Amos, iv. 7.-"The second year the arrows of famine shall be sent forth. The third, the famine shall be grievous, and men and (3) Casaubon exercit., anti-Baron, ii. Romans, whose historians, Suetonius and Tacitus, as is well known, bear witness to the fact, "Among many," writes the latter, "there was a persuasion, that in the ancient books of the priesthood it was written, that at this precise time, the East should become mighty, and that the sovereigns of the world should issue from Judæa (1)." "In the East, an ancient and consistent opinion prevailed, that it was fated there should issue, at this time, from Judæa, those who should obtain universal dominion (2).” in the Yet no question is more difficult than to ascertain the origin, Nature of the extent, the character of this belief, as it prevailed at the time the belief of our Saviour's coming;-how far it had spread among the sur- Messiah. rounding nations; or how far, on the other hand, the original Jewish creed, formed from the authentic prophetical writings, had become impregnated with Oriental or Alexandrian notions. It is most probable, that there was no consistent, uniform, or authorised opinion on the subject: all was vague and indefinite; and in this vagueness and indefiniteness lay much of its power over the general mind (3). Whatever purer or loftier notions concerning the great The ProDeliverer and Restorer, might be imparted to wise and holy men, phets. in whatever sense we understand that "Abraham rejoiced to see the day" of the Messiah, the intimations on this subject in the earlier books of the Old Testament, though distinctly to be traced along its whole course, are few, brief, and occurring at long intervals. But from the time, and during the whole period of the Prophets, this mysterious Being becomes gradually more prominent. The future dominion of some great king, to descend from the line of David, to triumph over all his enemies, and to establish an universal kingdom of peace and happiness, of which the descriptions of the golden age in the Greek poets are but a faint and unimaginative transcript: the promise of the Messiah, in short, comes more distinctly forward. As early as the first chapters of Isaiah, he appears to assume a title and sacred designation, which at least approaches near to that of the Divinity (4); and in the later prophets, not merely does this leading characteristic maintain its place, but under the splendid poetical imagery, drawn from existing circumstances, there seems to lie hid a more profound meaning, which points to some great and general moral revolution, to be achieved by this mysterious Being. But their sacred books, the Law and the Prophets, were not the Tradition, (1) Tac. Hist. v. 13. (2) Suet, Ves. p. 4. The Jewish opinions concerning the Messiah have been examined with great diligence and accuracy by Professor Bertholdt, in his Christologia Judæorum. Bertholdt is what may be called a moderate Rationalist. To his work, and to Lightfoot, Schoetgen, Meuschen, and Eisenmenger, I am indebted for most of my Rabbinical quotations. (4) Such is the opinion of Rosenmüller (on Isaiah, ix. 5. Compare likewise, on Psalm xlv, 7.). On a point much contested by modern scholars, Gesenius, in his note on the same passages, espouses the opposite opinion. Neither of these authors, it may be added, discuss the question on theological, but purely on historical and critical grounds. Foreign tions of clear and unmingled source of the Jewish opinions on this allabsorbing subject. Over this, as over the whole system of the law, tradition had thrown a veil; and it is this traditionary notion of the Messiah, which it is necessary here to develop but from whence tradition had derived its apparently extraneous and independent notions, becomes a much more deep and embarrassing question (1). It is manifest from the Evangelic history (2), that although there was no settled or established creed upon the subject, yet there was a certain conventional language: particular texts of the sacred writings were universally recognised, as hearing reference to the Messiah; and there were some few characteristic credentials of his title and office, which would have commanded universal assent. There are two quarters from which the Jews, as they ceased to connec be an insulated people, confined in the narrow tract of Palestine, the Jews. and by their captivity and migrations became more mingled with other races, might insensibly contract new religious notions, the East and the West, Babylonia and Alexandria. The latter would be the chief, though not perhaps the only channel, through which the influence of Grecian opinions would penetrate into Palestine (3); and of the Alexandrian notions of the Messiah, we shall hereafter adduce two competent representatives, the author of the Book of Wisdom and Philo. But the East no doubt made a more early, profound, and lasting impression on the popular mind of the Jews. Unfortunately in no part does history present us with so melancholy a blank, as in that of the great Babyloniam settlement of the lonia. people of Israel. Yet its importance in the religious, and even in the civil, affairs of the nation cannot but have been very considerable. It was only a small part of the nation which returned with the successive remigrations under Ezra and Nehemiah to their native land; and, though probably many of the poorer classes had remained behind at the period of the Captivity, and many more returned singly or in small bodies, yet on the other hand it is probable, that the tide of emigration, which at a later time was per Baby Bertholdt, p. 8. The brief intimations in the Gospels are coincidence, where their expressions are similar to those of the Christian records, there seems so manifest an improbability that these should have been adopted after the two religions had assumed an hostile position towards each other, that they may be fairly considered as vestiges of an earlier system of opinions, retained from ancient reverence, and indelible even by implacable animosity. It is far more likely that Christianity should speak the current language of the time, than that the Synagogue should interpolate their own traditionary records, with terms or notions borrowed from the Church. (3) Even as early as the reign of Antiochus the Great, certain Jews had attempted to introduce Grecian manners, and had built a Grecian school or gymnasium at Jerusalem. I Mac. i. 71. 16. 2 Marc. ii. 4. 11, 12. petually flowing from the valleys of Palestine into Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, and even more remote regions, would often take the course of the Euphrates, and swell the numbers of the Mesopotamiam colony. In the great contest between Alexander and the Persian monarchy, excepting from some rather suspicious stories in Josephus, we hear less than we might expect of this race of Jews (1). But as we approach the era of Christianity, and somewhat later, they emerge rather more into notice. While the Jews were spreading in the West, and no doubt successfully disseminating their Monotheism in many quarters, in Babylonia their prosely les were kings; and the later Jewish Temple beheld an Eastern queen (by a singular coincidence, of the same name with the celebrated mother of Constantine, the patroness of Christian Jerusalem) lavishing her wealth on the structure on Mount Moriah, and in the most munificent charity to the poorer inhabitants of the city. The name of Helena, queen of the Adiabeni, was long dear to the memory of the Jews; and her tomb was one of the most remarkable monuments near the walls of the city. Philo not only asserts that Babylon and other Eastern satrapies were full of his countrymen (2), but intimates that the apprehension of their taking up arms in behalf of their outraged religion and marching upon Palestine, weighed upon the mind of Petronius, when commanded, at all hazards, to place the statue of Caligula in the Temple (3). It appears from some hints of Josephus, that during the last war, the revolted party entertained great hopes of succour from that quarter (4); and there is good ground for supposing that the final insurrection in the time of Hadrian was connected with a rising in Mesopotamia (5). At the same period the influence of this race of Jews on the religious character of the people is no less manifest. Here was a chief scene of the preaching of the great apostle (6) : (1) There may be truth in the observation of St. Croix: "Les Grecs et les Romains avaient tant de haine et de mépris pour le peuple juif, qu'ils affectaient n'en pas parler dans leurs écrits." (Historiens d'Alex. p. 555.) This, however, would apply only to the later writers, which are all we now possess; but if in the cotemporary historians there had been much more, it would probably, at least if to the credit of his countrymen, have been gleaned by Josephus. (2) See on the numbers of the Jews in the Asiatic provinces, particularly Armenia; at a later period (the conquest of Armenia by Sapor, A. D. 367.) St. Martin's additions to Le Beau's Hist. du Bas Empire. The death of this valuable writer, it is to be feared, will deprive the learned world of his promised work on the History of the Birth and Death of Jesus Christ, which was to contain circumstantial accounts of the Jews heyond the Euphrates. Of the different races of Jews mentioned in the Acts, as present in Jerusalem, four are from this quarter-Parthians, Medes, Elamites, dwellers in Mesopotamia. (3) Leg. ad Caium, vol. ii. p. 578. Edit. Mang. (4) Dio (or Xiphilin) asserts that they received considerable succours from the East. L. lxvi. c. 4. Hist. of Jews, iii, 108. etc. (6) Nothing but the stubborn obstinacy of controversy could have thrown a doubt on the plain date in the first Epistle of St. Peter (v. 13.). Philo, in two places (ii. p. 578. 587.), Josephus in one (Ant. xviii. 9. 8.), expressly name Babylon as the habitation of the great Easter settlement. It is not certain whether the city was then entirely destroyed (Gesenius on Isaiah, xiii. 22.), but in fact the name was extended to the province or satrapy. But it was equally the object of the two great conflicting parties in Christianity to identify Rome with Babylon. This fact established, the Roman Catholic had an unanswerable argument to prove the contested point of St. Peter's residence in the Western metropolis; Babylon therefore was decided to mean pagan Rome. The Protestant at once concurred, for if Rome was Babylon, it was the mystic spiritual Babylon of the Apocalypse. The whole third chapter of the second Epistle appears to me full of Oriental allusions, and the example of Balaam |