this principle, the Jews, in the interpretation of the older Scriptures, instead of direct and sensible communication from the one great Deity, had interposed either one or more intermediate beings, as the channels of communication. According to one accredited tradition alluded to by St. Stephen, the law was delivered by the disposition of angels (1); "-according to another, this office was delegated to a single angel, sometimes called the angel of the Law (2), at others the Metatron. But the more ordinary representative, as it were, of God to the sense and mind of man, was the Memra, or the Divine Word; and it is remarkable, that the same appellation is The Word. found in the Indian (3), the Persian (4), the Platonic, and the Alexandrian systems. By the Targumists, the earliest Jewish commentators on the Scriptures, this term had been already applied to the Messiah (5); ; nor is it necessary to observe the manner in which it has been sanctified by its introduction into the Christian scheme (6). From this remarkable uniformity of conception, and coincidence of language, has sometimes been assumed a common tradition, generally disseminated throughout the race of man. I should be content with receiving it as the general acquiescence of the human mind, in the necessity of some mediation between the pure spiritual nature of the Deity, and the intellectual and moral being of man, of which the sublimest and simplest, and therefore the most natural development, was the revelation of God in Christ-in the (1) Compare LXX. Transl. of Deut. xxxiii. 2., where the angels are interpolated. Ημῶν τὰ κάλλιστα τῶν δογμάτων καὶ τὰ ὁσιώτατα τῶν ἐν τοῖς νόμοις δι' ἀγγέλων παρὰ τοῦ Dε μatévτæv. Joseph. Ant xv. 5. 3. Compare Chiarini, i. 307. And on the traces of the Judæo-Alexandrian philosophy in the LXX. Dähne, Judisch-Alexandrianische Religions Philosophie, part ii. pp. 49-56. (2) Compare Gal. iii. 19. Deus Mosen legem perculsus est, ut omnium oblivisceretur. Deus autern statim Jesifiam, Angelum legis, vocavit, qui ipsi legem tradidit bene ordinatam et custoditam, omnesque angeli amici ejus facti sunt. Jalkut Ruben, quoted by Wetstein and Schoetgen, in loco. See also Eisenmenger, 1-56. Two angels seem to be introduced in this latter tradition, the angelus Metatron, and Jesifya, angelus Legis. docuit cum autem descenderet, tanto timore Philo, de Præm, rationalises further, and con siders the commandments communicated, as it were, by the air made articulate, ii. 405. (3) It appears in the Indian system: Vach signifying speech. She is the active power of Brahma, proceeding from him she speaks a hymn in the Vedas, in praise of herself us the supreme and universal soul. (Colebrooke, in Asiatic Researches, viii. p. 402.) La première parole que proféra le Créateur, ce fut Oum: Oum parut avant toutes choses, et il s'appelle le premier né du Créateur. Oum ou Prana, pareil au pur éther renfermant en soi toutes les qualités, tous les élémens, est le nom, le corps de Brahm, et par conséquent infini comme lui, créateur et Verbe divin y trouva l'eau primitive. Oupnek- Origen, or rather the author of the Philoso- According to a note, partly by M. le Normant, Honover is by no means consistent; strictly (5) It is by the latter, as may be seen in the (6) Dr. Burton (in his Bampton Lectures) acknowledges, of course, the antiquity of the term, and suggests the most sensible mode of reconciting this fact with its adoption into Christianity. Future State. the inadequate language of our version of the original “ the brightness of (God's) glory, and the express image of his person (1)." No question has been more strenuously debated than the knowledge of a future state, entertained by the earlier Jews. At all events it is quite clear, that before the time of Christ, not merely the immortality of the soul, but what is very different, a final resurrection (2), had become completely interwoven with the popular belief. Passages in the later prophets, Daniel and Ezekiel, particularly a very remarkable one in the latter, may be adduced as the first distinct authorities on which this belief might be grounded. It appears, however, in its more perfect development, soon after the return from the captivity. As early as the revolt of the Maccabees, it was so deeply rooted in the public mind, that we find a solemn ceremony performed for the dead (3). From henceforth it became the leading article of the great schism between the traditionists and the antitraditionists, the Pharisees and the Sadducees and in the gospels we cannot but discover at a glance, its almost universal prevalence. Even the Roman historian was struck by its influence on the indomitable character of the people (4). In the Zoroastrian religion a resurrection holds a place no less prominent, than in the later Jewish belief (5). On the day of the final triumph of the Great Principle of Light, the children of light are to be raised from the dead, to partake in the physical splendour, and to assume the moral perfection of the subjects of the triumphant Principle of Good. In the same manner, the Jews associated together the coming of the Messiah with the final resurrection. From many passages, quoted by Lightfoot, I, select the following: "The righteous, whom the Lord shall raise from the dead in the days of the Messiah, when they are restored to life, shall not again return to their dust, neither in the days of the Messiah, nor in the following age, but their flesh shall remain upon them (6)." Jewish Out of all these different sources, from whence they derived a notion of knowledge of a future state, the passages of their prophets in their Messiah. own sacred writings (among which that in the book of Daniel, from its coincidence with the Zoroastrian tenet, might easily be misapplied), and the oriental element, the popular belief of the Palestinian Jews had moulded up a splendid though confused vision of the appearance of the Messiah, the simultaneous regeneration of all things, the resurrection of the dead, and the reign of the Messiah upon (1) Απαύγασμα τῆς δόξης καὶ χαρακThρ TUS UTоσTáσews avrou. Hebrews i. 3. (2) It is singular how often this material point of difference has been lost sight of in the discus. sions on this subject. (3) 2 Macc. xii. 44. (4) Animasque prælio et suppliciis peremptorum æternas putant. Tac. Hist. v. 5. (5) Hyde, de Vet. Pers. Relig 537. and 293. Beausobre, Hist. du Manicheisme, i. 204. Avaβιώσεσθαι κατὰ τοὺς Μάγους τοὺς ἀνθρώπους καὶ ἔσεσθαι ἀθανάτους. Theopomp. apud Diog. Laert. Kleuker's Zendavesta and Anhang. part ii. p. 110. Boundehesch, xix. xxxi., etc. Compare Gesenius on Isaiah xxvi, 19. (6) Lightfoot, v. 255. x. 495. xi. 353. earth. All these events were to take place at once, or to follow close upon each other. In many passages, the language of the apostles clearly intimates that they were as little prepared to expect a purely religious renovation, at the coming of the Messiah, as the rest of their countrymen; and throughout the apostolic age, this notion still maintained its ground, and kept up the general apprehension, that the final consummation was immediately at hand (1). It is no doubt impossible to assign their particular preponderance to these several elements, which combined to form the popular belief: yet, even if many of their notions entirely originated in the Zoroastrian system, it would be curious to observe how, by the very calamities of the Jews, Divine Providence adapted them for the more important part which they were to fill in the history of mankind; and to trace the progressive manner in which the Almighty prepared the development of the more perfect and universal system of Christianity. national. For, with whatever oriental colouring Jewish tradition might Messiah, invest the image of the great Deliverer, in Palestine it still remained rigidly national and exclusive. If the Jew concurred with the worshipper of Ormusd in expecting a final restoration of all things through the agency of a Divine Intelligence (2) that Being, according to the promise to their fathers, was to be intimately connected with their race; he was to descend from the line of David; he was to occupy Sion, the holy city, as the centre of his government; he was to make his appearance in the temple on Mount Moriah; he was to re-assemble all the scattered descendants of the tribes, to discomfit and expel their barbarous and foreign rulers. The great distinction between the two races of mankind, fell in completely with their hereditary prejudices: the children of Abraham were, as their birthright, the children of light; and even the doctrine of the resurrection was singularly harmonised with that exclusive nationality. At least the first resurrection (3) was to be their separate portion (4); it was to summon them, if not all, at least the (1) Compare 2 Esdras vi. 24, 25. (2) The Persians long preserved the notion of a restoration of the law of Zoroaster by a kind of Messiah. "Suivant les traditions des Perses, rapportées dans la Zerdouscht-namneh et dans le Djamaspi-nazem, Pashoutan, l'un des personnages destinés à faire refleurir la religion de Zoroastre, et l'empire des Perses dans les derniers temps, demeure en attendant ce moment dans le Kanguédez, pays qui paraît répondre en partie au Khorassan. Il en sortira à l'ordre qui lui sera apporté par un ized (i. e. spiritus celestis) nommé Sérosch, et reviendra dans l'Iran. Par l'efficace des paroles sacrées de l'Avesta, il nettra en fuite les barbares qui désolaient ce pays, y rétablira la religion dans toute sa pureté, et y fera renaître l'abondance, le bonheur et la paix. Silvestre de Sacy, sur div. Ant. de la Persc. P. 95. (3) 2 Esd. xi. 10-31. All Israelites (says the Mischna. Tract. Sanh. c. xi. 12.) shall partake (4) It is good (says the martyred youth in the Judæo Grecian more righteous, from Paradise, from the abode of departed spirits; and under their triumphant king, they were to enjoy a thousand years of glory and bliss upon the recreated and renovated earth (1). We pass from the rich poetic impersonations, the fantastic but system. expressive symbolic forms of the East, to the colder and clearer light of Grecian philosophy, with which the Western Jews, especially in Alexandria, had endeavoured to associate their own religious truths. The poetic age of Greece had long passed away before the two nations came into contact; and the same rationalising tendency of the times led the Greek to reduce his religion, the Jew the history of his nation, to a lofty moral allegory (2). Enough of poetry remained in the philosophic system, adopted in the great Jewish Alexandrian school, that of Plato, to leave ample scope for the imagination: and indeed there was a kind of softened Orientalism, probably derived by Plato from his master Pythagoras from the East, which readily assimilated with the mystic interpretations of the Egypto-Jewish theology. The Alexandrian notions of the days of the Messiah are faintly shadowed out in the book "of the Wisdom of Solomon (3), " in terms which occasionally remind us of some which occur in the New Testament. The righteous Jews, on account of their acknowledged moral and religious superiority, were to judge the nations," and have "dominion over all people." But the more perfect development of these views is to be found in the works of Philo. This writer, who however inclined to soar into the cloudy realms of mysticism, often rests in the middle region of the moral sublime, and abounds in passages which would scarcely do discredit to his Athenian master, had arrayed a splendid vision of the perfectibility of human nature, in which his own nation was to take the most distinguished part. From them knowledge and virtue were to emanate through the universal race of man. The whole world, convinced at length of the moral superiority of the Mosaic institutes, interpreted, it is true, upon the allegorical system, and so harmonised with the sublimest Platonism of the Greeks, was to submit in voluntary homage, and render their allegiance to the great religious teachers and examples of mankind. The Jews themselves, thus suddenly regenerated to more than the primitive purity and loftiness of their Law, in which the Divine Reason, 66 (1) Tanchuma, fol. 255. Quot sunt dies Messia? R. Elieser, filius R. Jose, Galilæus, dixit Messiæ tempora sunt mille anni, secundum dictum Jer. xxiii, 4. Dies enim Dei mille est anno rum. Bertholdt, p. 38. The holy blessed God will renew the world for a thousand years-quoted by Lightfoot, iii. 37. If I presume to treat the millenium as a fable "of Jewish dotage," I may remind my readers that this expression is taken from what once stood as an article (the forty-first) of our church. See Collier for the Articles in Edward the Sixth's reign. Atque de hujus in his terris regno, mille annos duraturo, ejusdemque deliciis et voluptatibus, de bellis ejus cum terribili quodam adversario quem Antichristum dicebant, de victoriis denique earumque fructibus mirabilia narrabant somnia, quorum deinde pars ad Christianos transferebatur. Mosheim, ii. 8. This was the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom (2) Compare Bertholdt, ch. vi. Messiah, drian the Logos, was as it were embodied,) were to gather together from all quarters, and under the guidance of a more than human being, unseen to all eyes but those of the favoured nation (1) (such was Reign of the only vestige of the Messiah) to re-assemble in their native according land. There the great era of virtue, and peace, and abundance, to Alexanproductiveness of the soil, prolificness in the people, in short, of Jews. all the blessings promised in the book of Deuteronomy, was to commence and endure for ever. This people were to be invincible, since true valour is inseparable from true virtue. By a singular inference, not out of character with allegoric interpreters who, while they refine the plainest facts and precepts to a more subtle and mystic meaning, are apt to take that which is evidently figurative in a literal sense, the very wild beasts in awe and wonder at this pure and passionless race, who shall have ceased to rage against each other with bestial ferocity, were to tame their savage hostility to mankind (2). Thus the prophecy of Isaiah, to which Philo seems to allude, though he does not adduce the words, was to be accomplished to the letter; and that paradisaical state of amity between brute and man, so beautifully described by Milton, perhaps from this source, was finally to be renewed. And as the Jewish philosopher, contrary to most of his own countrymen, and to some of the Grecian sects, denied the future dissolution of the world by fire, and asserted its eternity (3), he probably contemplated the everlasting duration of this peaceful and holy state. ferent ac character of the Such, for no doubt the Alexandrian opinions had penetrated into Belief difPalestine, particularly among the Hellenist Jews-such were the cording to vast, incoherent, and dazzling images with which which the future teemed to the hopes of the Jewish people (4). They admitted believer. either a part or the whole of the common belief, as accorded with their tone of mind and feeling. Each region, each rank, each sect; the Babylonian, the Egyptian, the Palestinian, the Samaritan; the Pharisee, the lawyer, the zealot, arrayed the Messiah in those attributes which suited his own temperament. Of that which was more methodically taught in the synagogue or the adjacent school, the populace caught up whatever made the deeper impression. The enthusiasm took an active or contemplative, an ambitious or a religious, an earthly or a heavenly tone, according to the education, habits, or station of the believer; and to different men (1) De Execr. ii. 435, 436. (2) De Præm, ii. p. 422. (3) De Mundi incorruptibilitate, passim. (4) The following passages from the apocryphal books may be consulted; I do not think it necessary to refer to all the citations which might be made from the Prophets :-The "faithful prophet" is mentioned, 1 Macc. xiv. 41; the discomfiture of the enemies of Israel, Judith, xvi. 17; universal peace, Ecclesiast. I. 23, 24; the re-assembling of the tribes, Tobit, xiii. 13— 18. Baruch, ii. 34, 35; the conversion of many nations, Tobit, xiii. 11. xiv. 6, 7: see particu- "Thou madest the world for our sakes; as for |