SECT. 14, 15.] COMING OF THE MESSIAH. 361
good memory heard this, he thought the whole world should be destroyed. He went, therefore, and finding O18 32, men ploughing and sowing, he said unto them, ‘The holy, blessed God is angry with the world,’ (or ‘all this generation,’) odin 55, ‘and will destroy his house, and send his children into captivity among the nations of the world, and you are solicitous about this temporal life? yp n2 came forth again and said unto him, ‘ Let them alone, for unto Israel is born a Saviour.’ He said unto the Voice, ‘ Where is he?’ The Voice said unto him, ‘In Bethlehem-Judah.” He went, and found a woman sitting in the door of her house, and her child lying in its own blood before her. He said unto her, ‘My daughter, hast thou born a son?’ She said unto him, ‘ Yea.’ He said, ‘ And why doth it lie so long in its own blood?’ She said unto him, ‘ Because of the great evil; for on this day wherein he is born the house of the sanctuary is destroyed.’ He said unto her, ‘My daughter, be of good courage, and take care of the child, for great salvation shall be wrought by his hand.’ And she was straightway encouraged, and took care of him.” In the process of this story, they tell us that this child was carried away by the four winds of heaven, and kept in the great sea four hundred years; of which afterwards. I doubt not but this tale is hammered out of the second of Luke, about the appearance of the angels to the shepherds, and their find- ing his mother in a stable. All the use that I intend to put this concession of theirs unto, is to urge the present Jews with a convic- tion and acknowledgment of their forefathers that the Messiah was to be born under the second temple.
15. Again; they have a tradition out of the school of one Elias, a famous master amongst them of the Tannarei or ante-Talmudical doctors, which they have recorded in the Talmud. Tractat.. Sanhed. Distinct. Chelek, about the continuance of the world, which is as follows: ‘3 inn Dabs aw oda vn mw Deas new wmdx O27 son mwp my ppbs wr mn oDox;—“It is a tradition of Elias, that the world shall continue six thousand years; two thousand void,” (which the gloss of Rabbi Solomon Jarchi reckons from the creation of the world unto the call of Abraham,) “ two thousand to the law,” (from thence to the destruction of the second temple,) “and two thousand to the days of the Messiah.” It is incredible how the later rabbins are perplexed with this tradition of their masters, which is recorded in the Talmud as sacred. In the account they give in Shebet Jebuda of a disputation they had with one Jerome, a converted Jew, before the bishop of Rome, they know not how to disentangle themselves from the authority of it. The sum of their answer is, that the next words in the tradition are, that that time 1s elapsed because of their sins; but as others have already manifested that that gloss is no part of the tradition, but an addition of the
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362 JEWS’ TRADITIONS ABOUT THE [EXERC. XVI.
Talmudists, so we shall immediately manifest the vanity of that pretence. Others of them say that it sufficeth to maintain the truth and credit of the tradition, if the Messiah come at any time within the last two thousand years. But besides that even these also are now drawing towards their period, not a fifth part in their computation of that space of time remaining, this gloss is directly contrary to the very words of the tradition; for as two thousand years are assigned tothe world before the law, and two thousand to the law, which they reckon from the call of Abraham to the ruin of the second temple, so the two thousand years allotted to the time of the Messiah must begin with his coming, as the other por- tions do one of them with the creation, the other with the call of Abraham, or else the space of time (above sixteen hundred years) between the expiration of the second two thousand years and the third must be left out of the computation, and the time limited for the duration of the world extended above sixteen hundred years beyond what is allotted unto it in their tradition.
16. Many other the like concessions and acknowledgments hath the evidence of truth wrested from sundry of them, which, having been collected by others, we shall not trouble the reader with their recital; those that have been insisted on may and do suffice to make good the argument in hand. And so we have fully demonstrated the second thing proposed unto confirmation,—namely, that the true Messiah is long since come, and hath finished the work allotted unto him. Now, whereas we have in our passage vindicated the testimonies insisted on from the particular exceptions of the Jews, it remaineth, for the closing of this discourse, that we consider the general answer which they give unto the whole argument taken from them all.
17. That which they principally insist on is a concession, with an exception, rendering, as they suppose, the whole useless to our pur- pose. They grant, therefore, that the time fixed on was determined for the coming of the Messiah, but add withal, it is prolonged be- yond the limited season because of their sins; that is, that the pro- mise of his coming at that season was not absolute, but conditional, —namely, on supposition that the Jews were righteous, holy, and worthy to receive him, Thus, unto the tradition of Elias before mentioned, determining the coming of the Messiah upon the end of the second two thousand years of the world’s duration, they add in the Talmud. Tractat. Sanhed, Distinct. Chelek, cap. x1, these words as an exception: IN¥W }1> IN yw wMIIy21;—“ Because of our sins, those days have exceeded the time all that is past.” And again they add in the same place: xbx bn ran ps ta pyp 52> 29 WON OID wy Hawna;— Rabbi said, All times appointed are finished, and this matter is not suspended but upon-account of repentance and good works.” And nothing is more common with them than |