12. Another passage, which, though of post- Christian date (probably A.D. 81-96), seems to show no traces of Christian influence (see vol. ii. p. 766"), and deserves to be quoted in the same connexion, is 2 (4) Es IS-'""-. Here Ezra is repre- sented as seeing in a dream the sea disturbed by a wind, and a 'man,' who is declared afterwards (v.^") to be God's appointed judge and deliverer (i.e., though tlie word itself is not used, the Messiah), ascending out of it —
' And 1 beheld, and, lo, this wind caused to come up from the midst of the sea as it were the likeness of a man, and I beheld, and, lo. that man Hew with the clouds of heaven [cf. l>n 71-*] : and when he turned his countenance to look, all things trembled that were seen under him.' In the se()uel, the same ' man that came up out of the sea,' ns he is termed (v. 5, cf. vv.28. Bl), destroys by a ' flaming Ijreatii,' jiroceeding out of his mouth, the multitudes which assemble against him, and calls bock to the land of Israel the ten tribes (vv.lOf. la. 39-4U).
Here then at least the Messiah is described, with evident reference to Dn 7'^ as a ' man.'
Dr. Charles has called attention also to 4 Es 61 In the Syr., Eth.,and .\rab.t versions (the world to be judged finally— first by (Arab, on account of) a 'man' [Syr. KCjnD T3],— or, to judge from the Eth. vers., by a ' son of man,'— and afterwards by Ood : see ililgenf. Mrss. Jud. pn. 22;t. 27o, 334); but the stateilient is inconsistent with Vfi, and is open to the suspicion of being a Christian interpolation (cf. llilgenf. p. .04 n.).
13. In spite, however, of the usage of the ' Sim- ilitudes,' and of 2 Es IS'"-, it seems clear that ' the Son of man ' was no generally accepted title of the Messiah in the days of Christ. Dalm. (Die IVurle Jesu, 197-204) shows that nothing exists in Jewish authorities in favour of such a supposition. The same conclusion is supported by the testimony of the Gospels. ' It is inconceivable that the Eord should have a<iopted a title which was pojiularly held to be synonymous with that of Alessiah, while He carefully avoided the title of Messiah itself (Westcott). The reply that Ho used it enigmatically is not to the point ; for though He
• The Eth. zeku and ur't'tn not infrequently, in translatlonf from the Oreek, represent the tlreek art. (Charles, I.e. ; Dillra. yJilh. Li-x. col. 1067, 919). They are not, however, used In the Eth. NT in the tr. of i wJt toD itOfirai. (Dr. Charles, in his tr. of 60'Ji'. 29. '.» 701, has not ri|>rcsented the Eth. 'that').
t The Arab ?ersion published bv Ewald (Dot vifrtt EzrcUfUch 1863) : that published by Uildcmeister (1877) Is different.
584
SON OF MAN
SOK OF MAN
might have sitrnified by it Bomethiiis difrerent I'lom the popular conception of tlie Messiah, it would still {ex hi/p.) havr liecn the Messiah, wliicli those who heard Him would have uiulerstood llini to mean. Upon the same supposition, moreover, His use of it could not but have excited the hos- tility of the Jews, of which, however (in this con- nexion), the Gospels atlord no trace: the 'blas- phemy' of Mt 2U''' = Mk 16"* consisted evidently not in His use of this title, but in the Divine prerogatives predicated of Himself as the bearer of it. The most that might be supposed is, that though not generally current as a title of the Messiah, it was familiar in that sense in the particular circle to which the ' Similitudes ' be- longed (above, vol. ii. 622'', cf. 616").
14. In considering the meaning of the title, it ought to be clearly understood that it is not any- where explained in the NT, so that whatever view of it be adopted must be a matter of conjecture and inference. To the same cause is due what is generally allowed to be the great difficulty of the question, and also the wide divergence of the con- clusions which have been reached regarding it. The question is further complicated l^y the fact that there are two possible starting-points for the investigation; is the name a mere title, taken, as it were mechanically, from Dn 7", and so a mere periphrasis for ' Messiah ' ? or does the significance of the title lie in the four words of which it con- sists, and is the meaning which our Lord intended to convey by it to be ascertained by an analysis of these words ? Or may the interpretations suggested by these two opposite points of view be in any way combined ? Or, on the other hand, whichever of these interpretations be adopted, does it logically render the other unnecessarj' and superfluous [cf. §20.12]? Still further difficulties arise when the details of its usage in the Gospels are considered, as, for instance, the very ditierent predicates associated with it ; and further divergent con- clusions are arrived at, corresponding to the view taken by the individual critic of the chronology of our Lord's discourses, and other questions of Gospel criticism. ,
15. Two main views may be said to have been advocated. According to one view, the title has no meaning of its own,* it is intended simply to point to the ' one like unto a .son of man ' in Dn 7'^t and so to express, directly and distinctly, tlie Messiahship of Jesus. According to the other view, the title, though it may have been chosen with an eye to Dn 7", expressed primarily the thought that Jesus was, in .some special sense, a man above other men, the supreme representative of humanity, and only indirectly, especially towards the close of His ministry, sugge.steu in addition the thought of His Messiahship. Higli authorities can be quoted for both these views. Thus lloltzmann writes [NTTheol. 1897, p. 247), 'The title certainly originates in Dn 7". Jesus adopts Daniels view of the future kingdom : close beside this is in Daniel the figure of tlie "one like unto a son of man" who receives the kingdom from God, and in whom therefore it was natural for Jesus to see Himself pre- figured : even though in Daniel the figure synihol- ized only the kingdom (and not its head), still here was the person who would establish it : Jesus, by His adoption of the title, implied that it would not be established apart from Himself.' He did not, however, this being the sense of the title, use it before Peter's confession (pp. 250 top, 260, 263