" shining more and more unto the perfect day" (Prov. iv, 18), it is yet enough to suggest to us how great must have been the longing for their Deliverer which such persistent and progressive promises were likely to ex- cite in the hearts of faithful men and women.
The expectation of a golden age that should return upon the earth was, as we have seen, common in hea- then nations (Hesiod, Works and Days, p. 109 ; Ovid, Met. i, 89; Virgil, Ed. iv; and passages in Eusebius, Prcep.Ev. i, 7; xii, 13). It was doubtless inspired by some light that had reached them from the Jewish rev- elation. This hope the Jews also shared, but with them it was associated with the coming of a particular per- son, the Messiah. It has been asserted that in him the Jews looked for an earthly king, and that the existence of the hope of a Messiah may thus be accounted for on natural grounds and without a divine revelation. But the prophecies refute this: they hold out not a King only, but a Prophet and a Priest, whose business it should be to set the people free from sin, and to teach them the ways of God, as in Psa. xxii, xl, ex; Isa. ii, xi, liii. In these and other places, too, the power of the coming One reaches beyond the Jews and embraces all the Gen- tiles, which is contrary to the exclusive notions of Ju- daism. A fair consideration of all the passages will con- vince us that the growth of the Messianic idea in the prophecies is owing to revelation from God. The wit- ness of the N. T. to the O.-T. prophecies can bear no other meaning; it is summed up in the above-cited words of Peter (2 Pet. i, 19-21 ; comp. the elaborate es- say on this text in Knapp's Opusciilu, vol. i). Our Lord affirms that there are prophecies of the Messiah in the O. T., and that they are fulfilled in him (Matt, xxvi, 54 ; Mark ix, 12; Luke xviii, 31-33; xxii, 37; xxiv, 27; John V, 39, 46), The apostles preach the same truth in Acts ii, 16, 25 ; viii, 28-35; x,43; xiii, 23,32; xxvi, 22, 23; 1 Pet. i, 11, and in many passages of Paid. Even if internal evidence did not prove that the prophecies were much more than vague longings after better times, the N. T. proclaims everywhere that although the Gos- pel was the sun, and O.-T. prophecy the dim light of a candle, yet both were light, and both assisted those who heeded them to see aright; and that the prophets in- terpreted, not the private longings of their own hearts, but the will of God, in speaking as they did (see Knapp's Essay for this explanation) of the coming kingdom.
5. The period after the close of the canon of the O. T. is known to us in a great measure from allusions in the N. T. to the expectation of the Jews. From such pas- sages as Psa. ii, 2, 6, 8 ; Jer. xxiii, 5, 6 ; Zech. ix, 9, the Pharisees, and those of the Jews who expected the Mes- siah at all, looked for a temporal prince only. The apostles themselves were infected with this opinion till after the resurrection (Matt, xx, 20, 21 ; Luke xxiv, 21 ; Acts i, 6). Gleams of a purer faith appear (Luke ii, 30 ; xxiii, 42; John iv, 25). On the other hand, there was a sceptical school which had discarded the expectation altogether. No mention of the Messiah appears in the Book of Wisdom, nor in the writings of Philo ; and Jo- sephus avoids the doctrine. Intercourse with heathens had made some Jews ashamed of their fathers' faith.
It is quite consistent with the prospects which, as we have seen, the prophecies were calculated to raise, that we are informed by Luke of the existence of what seems to have been a considerable number of persons "that, looked for redemption in Israel" (ii, 38). The demean- or of these believers vtas exhibited in a close and con- scientious adherence to the law of Moses, which was, in its statutes and ordinances, at once the rule of pious life and the schoolmaster to guide men to their Messiah (Gal. iii, 24). As examples of these "just and devout" persons, the evangelist presents us with a few short but beautiful sketches in his first and second chapters. Be- sides the blessed Mary and faitliful Joseph, there are Zacharias and Elisabeth, Simeon and Anna — pictures of holiness to be met with among men and women, mar- ried and unmarried, whose piety was strongly toned
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