from those cherished by the contemporaries of Christ - two inferences seem evident.
First, the idea of a Divine Personality, and of the union of the two Natures in the Messiah,
seems to have been foreign to the Jewish auditory of Jesus of Nazareth, and even at first
to His disciples. Secondly, they appear to have regarded the Messiah as far above the
ordinary human, royal, prophetic, and even Angelic type, to such extent, that the
boundary- line separating it from Divine Personality is of the narrowest, so that, when the
conviction of the reality of the Messianic manifestation in Jesus burst on their minds, this
boundary- line was easily, almost naturally, overstepped, and those who would have
shrunk from framing their belief in such dogmatic form, readily owned and worshipped
Him as the Son of God. Nor need we wonder at this, even taking the highest view of Old
Testament prophecy. For here also the principle applies, which underlies one of St. Paul's
most wide-reaching utterance: 'We prophesy in part' 89 (εκ µερους προφητευοµεν).90 In
the nature of it, all prophecy presents but disjecta, membra, and it almost seems, as if we
had to take our stand in the prophet's valley of vision (Ezek. xxxvii.), waiting till, at the
bidding of the Lord, the scattered bones should be joined into a body, to which the breath
of the Spirit would give life.
89. See the telling remarks of Oehler in Herzog's Real-Encykul., vol. ix. p. 417. We
would add, that there is always a 'hereafter ' of further development in the history of the
individual believer, as in that of the Church - growing brighter and brighter, with
increased spiritual communication and knowledge, till at last the perfect light is reached.
90. 1 Cor. xiii. 9.
These two inferences, derived from the Gospel-narratives, are in exact accordance with
the whole line of ancient Jewish teaching. Beginning with the LXX. rendering of Genesis
xlix. 10, and especially of Numbers xxiv. 7, 17, we gather, that the Kingdom of the
Messiah91 was higher than any that is earthly, and destined to subdue them all. But the
rendering of Psalm lxxii. 5, 7; Psalm cx. 3; and especially of Isaiah ix., carries us much
farther. They convey the idea, that the existence of this Messiah was regarded as
premundane (before the moon,92 before the morning-star93), and eternal,94 and His Person
and dignity as superior to that of men and Angels: 'the Angel of the Great Council,'95 96
probably 'the Angel of the Face' - a view fully confirmed by the rendering of the
Targum.97 The silence of the Apocrypha about the Person of the Messiah is so strange, as
to be scarcely explained by the consideration, that those books were composed when the
need of a Messiah for the deliverance of Israel was not painfully felt.98 All the more
striking are the allusions in the Pseudepigraphic Writings, although these also do not
carry us beyond our two inferences. Thus, the third book of the Sibylline Oracles - which,
with few exceptions,99 dates from more than a century and a half before Christ - presents
a picture of Messianic t imes,100 generally admitted to have formed the basis of Virgil's
description of the Golden Age, and of similar heathen expectations. In these Oracles, 170
years before Christ, the Messiah is 'the King sent from heaven' who would 'judge every
man in blood and splendour of fire.'101 Similarly, the vision of Messianic times opens
with a reference to 'the King Whom God will send from the sun.'102 103 That a superhuman
Kingdom of eternal duration, such as this vision paints,104 should have a superhuman
King, seems almost a necessary corollary. 105