2. -Another feature of equal importance, which l>egins to emerge in apocalyptic literature, left its impress on Messianic expectation, viz. the belief in the resurrection of the dead. The first clear intimations of this faith are to be found in Is '26", Dn V2-. In the older apocrj-pha (Sirach. Judith, Tobit, 1 Mac.) it is absent. In the later (2 Mac 79. 14. 3. a. »s 1.243. «) it is obviously present. In the Wisdom of Solomon it takes the torm of a happy life after death for the just (3'-* 4" 5'« 6^).* It is
• Schfirer, GJT^ ii. 50S.
174
MESSIAH
MESSIAH
hardly necessary to emphasize how profoundly this belief in the resurrection of the righteous (the most jirimitive form of the doctrine limited the resurrection to tliem) moulded the Christology of St. Paul. For to St. Paul, Christ is the Second Adam, endowed ■with the irveVfj-a ^wottolovi' (1 Co 15^), in whom all His faithful followers are made alive (v.--) ; cf. Ro 6^"'^. See Volz, Jiid. Eschaio- logie, pp. 237-248.
3. The prc-iiuindcuie existence of the Messiah was another mode of the larger transcendental mould of thought which apocal3'ptic reveals. Be- lief in the ante-natal existence of the Messiah was only part of a general tendency of Jewish specula- tion. The new Jerusalem, the Temple, and Para- dise existed before the creation of the world (Apoc. Bar -l^ oS-*, Assumpt. Mosis l'-*- 1"). The ^lidrash on Pr 8'-' even goes bej^ond this, and ex- pressly mentions the ]\Iessiah among the seven things created before the creation of the world, viz. the Throne of Glory, Messiah the King, the Torah, ideal Israel, Re]jentance, and Gehenna.* The pre-mundane existence of the ^lessiah is also certified in the Targ. on Is 9" and Mic 5'. In these metaphysical concejitions, stimulated, as we maj' with considerable probability believe, through the Platonic doctrine of archetyijal ideas whicli passed in the great stream of Hellenic influence over the Jewish Diaspora, we clearly discern wliat Charles aptly calls a Semitic philosophy of religion.f Bj- this doctrine of pre-mundane existence the things of God were lifted above the universal lot of change and decay, and brought into the I'ealm of adaman- tine permanence. As Baldensperger acutely re- marks, it became, in the minds of reflective and pious Jews, a guarantee against loss. J We need not labour to set forth how profoundly it aftects NT thought, especially Pauline and Johannine (2 Co 8^ Ph 2"; cf. 2 Co 4^ Col I', He 1- •I'^ Jn 11-3).
i. Messianic titles. — (a) Among the most sig- nificant for students of the XT is that of ' Re- storer,' which is probably involved in the epithet Ta'cb, which occurs in the apocaljpse of the Samaritan liturgy for the Day of Atonement. In the day of Tcicb it was believed that the sacred vessels of the Temple would reappear which had been concealed on INIount Gerizim,§ and it lias been conjectured that this same idea of Restorer under- lies the epithet Taxo (Greek ra-^uiv) in Assumpt. [Mosis 91. In the literature of the time of Christ we frequently meet with this conception of the Messiah. Thus in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (Test. Levi, 18), which may have originated about a centurj^ before Christ's birth, the Messiah is regarded as the coming restorer of the Paradise lost by Adam's transgression. In Ac 3-' tiie KaLpoi dTTOKaTaaTdaeojs clearly reflect this tradition. This function of ' restorer ' was evi- dently ascribed to the Messiah and not to God"s messenger Elias, referred to in Mai 3^- '^'- [Heb.].
{h) Other significant epithets, as 'Son of a woman,' prob. in allusion to Is 7''*, appear, if the text be sound, in the Book of Enoch (Similitudes) 62' (5929 J Xhis is of interest when we compare the Pauline 'son of a woman' (Gal 4^). On the other
* Edersheim, Life and Times of Jestts the Messiah, i. p. 175.
t Book of Enoch, Introd. p. 23, in his description of Apoca- lyptic generally. It is quite possible that we have a trace of it in that profoundly speculative Psalm, 139 (note vv.l516). With reference to the pre-existence of the Jlessiah (not His name only, as Volz seems to assume in Jiid. E^r.hatologie, p. 217), see Enoch 482-6, and cf. Charles' notes (and 62"). 'Name' here connotes existence as in the Babyl. Creation tablet (lines 1, 2). On the other side, as against the Jewish belief in Messianic pre-existence, see Dalman, Worle Jesri, p. 245.
X Selbstbewusstsein Jesu^, p. 89; Volz, Jiid. Eschatologie, p. 218.
§ Bousset, Religion des ■/ndenttims^, pp. 258, 267, 274.
II Here, however, it should be noted, in both passages Charles adopts the reading ' Son of Man.'
hand, the designation 'horned,' or 'two-horned' {B'/xshith Eabbd, 99), based ajiparently on Dt 33'', laelongs to Jewish literature subsequent to the 1st cent, and need not detain us here. Far more significant is the title which plays so large a part in the Sj'noptic Gosjiels, viz. :
(r) 'Sjn of Maa.' — The employment of this phrase as a Messianic title dates from the Macca- baean period, and in this specific sense meets us for the first time in Dn 7'^. Its earlier occurrence in the OT requires no exposition here. At the time Avhen the Book of Daniel was written, Jewish apocalyjitic was directed to the conception of a great final Divine judgment at the close of the present age, whereb3- the coming age w-as to be ushered in. We no longer see the figure of a Messianic King of Davidic descent. His place is taken \>y a mysterious symbolic portraiture which, as Yolz correcth- argues,* is not angelic. It stands con- trasted witli tiie four animal symbolical shapes previously described, and especially with the last beast with the ten horns, ' dreadful and exceedingly strong,' which had ' great iron teeth that devoured and brake in pieces.' In sharp distinction from these monstrous and bestial world-powers which are finally to be destroyed, we liave a mysterious figure in human shape. t In v.-" its significance is explained. It represents 'the peo]ile of the saints of tiie Most High.' As H. J. Holtzmann correctly observes, it is intended to express ' a world-emj^ire which is human and not brutal, whicii is ethical and noble and not immoral, whicli is like man, stamped with the likeness of fJod" (Gn 1-"). That this human and humane world-empire was to be Jewish and not Gentile, is obvious to the reader of Daniel's apocalypse.