1. Karly Jevisk Opininns. — The portrait of an af- flicted and suffering Messiah is too minutely sketched by the Psalmist (Psa. xxii, xlii, xliii, Ixix », by Isaiah (ch. liii), l)y Zechariah (ch. xi-xiii), and Daniel (ix, 24- 27), to be ignored even by reluctant Jews; and strange is the embarrassment observable in Talmudic Judaism to obviate the advantage which accrues to Christianity from its tenure of this unpalatable doctrine. Long ago did Trv^iho, Justin Martyr's Jew, own the force of the prophetic Scriptures, which delineated jNIessiah as "a man of sorrows" (Justin. Dial. 89). In later times, after the Talmud of Babylon (7th century) became influen- tial, the doctrine of two Messiahs was held among the Je\ys. For several centuries it was their current belief I hat M(>>i;ih litn-Dnrld was referred to in all the proph- icii - w liiili >ii()ke of glory and triumph, while on Mes- siah Iiiu-.lnsipli (irK|iliraim fell all the predicted woes and sufferings. By this expedient they both gratifled tlieir traditional idea which exonerated their cliief Mes- siah, of David's illustrious race, from all humiliation, and likewise saved their nominal deference to the in- spired prophets who had written of the sorrows of Mes- siah. (For a popular sketch of this opinion of two Messiahs, the reader is referred to Smith's sermons On the Messianic Prophecies of Isaiah, p. 177-181 ; see also Buxtprf's Lexicon Talmud, s. v. IT^'w^^ p. 1126, 1127, and s. V. O^IP'^TS'^X; Eisenmenger's Kntdecktes Juden- thum, ii, 720-750; Otho's Lexicon Jtahhin.; Schiittgen, IJorce Ilth. et Rabbin, ii, 1-778.) All the references to a suffering jMessiah made by great writers, such as Ra- slii, Ibn-Esra, and D. Kimchi, are to "Messiah Ben- Jo- seph ;" wTiilc of the more than seventy quoir.tions cited by Buxtorf from the Targums, including Onkelos, not one refers to the iNIessiah as sufferinr/. This early Tar- gumistic literature (as distinguished from the latter I.'ab- biiiical) dwells on the glories, triumiihs, and piiwer of a conquering INIessiah. However absurd this distortion was, it was yet felt to be too great a homage to the plain interpretation of the prophetic Scriptures as given by Christian writers, who showed to the votaries of the Talmud that their earlier authors had applied to the Son of David the very passages which they were for re- ferring to the Son of Jose|)h. From tlie tenth and elev- enth centuries, therefore, other interpretations have been songlit for. jNIaimonidcs omits the whole story of ^Messiah Ben-Joseph in his account of the jMessiah ; see Pococke, Append, on Malarhi. The Messiah has been withdrawn al/o//etherfrom the. reach of all predicted suf- ferings. Such passages as Isa. liii, have lieen and still are applied to some persecuted servant of (iod, Jeremi- ah especially, or to the aggregate Jewish nation. This anti-Messianic exegesis is ju-evalent among the Neolo- gians of Germany and France, and their "free-hand- ling" disci|)les of the I^iglish school (sec Dr. Kowland Williams, Kssatjs andlicriews, p. 71-75 [edit. 2]). Thus Jewish sentiment has either reverted to that low stund- ard of mere worldly expectation which recognises no humiliation in JMessiah, but only a career of unmixed triumph and glory, or else has collapsed in a disappoint- ment and despair which forbid all speculation of a ^lessiah whatever ( lusenmenger, Kntdtcktes Judmth. i, G77). Jewish despair does not often resolve itself into Christian hope. Here and there affecting inst.inces of tlie genuine change occur, such as the two men- tioned by bishop Tliirlwall {l{<ply to ]>r. W.'s earuesllij respectful letter, p. 78) ; in tliQ second of whicli— that of Isaac da Costa— conversion arose from liis thoughtful reflections on the present dispersion of the Jewish race
MESSIAH
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MESSIAH
for its sins. His acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah solved all enigmas to him, and enabled him to esti- mate the importance of such prophetic promises as are yet unlultilled to Israel. But the normal state of Jew- ish Messianic opinion is that sickness of heart which comes from deferred hopes. This despair produces an abasement of faith and a lowering of religious tone, or else finds occasional relief in looking out after pretended Messiahs. Upwards of thirty cases of these have deluded the nation in its scattered state suice the destruction of Jerusalem. See Messiahs, False. The havoc of life and reputation caused by these attempts has tended more than any thing else to the discouragement of Mes- sianic hopes among the modern Jews. Foremost in the unhappy catalogue of these fanatics stands the formi- diible rebellion under Bar-Cocheba, in the 2d century. Eabbi Akiba, " the second Moses," the great light of the day in Jewry, declared before the Sanhedrim that Bar- Cocheba was the Messiah. Kabbi Jochanan alone made opposition, and said, '■ Grass, O Akiba, will grow out of thy jaws, and yet the Son of David not have come." AVe know not what was the fate of Bar-Cocheba (or Bar-Coseba, "the son of lying," as his disappointed dupes at length called him), but the gray-headed Akiba ■was taken by the Romans and executed. More are said to have perished in this attempt than in the previous war of Titus. Embarrassing as all these failures are to the Jews, they only add one more to the many proofs of the Messiahship of Jesus of Nazareth, who expressly foretold these delusions of "false Christs" (Matt, xxiv, 2-i; Mark xiii, 22), as oiie class of retributions which should avenge «n Israel the guilt of his own rejection. Not only, however, from the lowliness and suffering of the Christian Messiah, but in a still greater degree from his exalted character, there arises a difficulty of faith to the Jewish objection. The divinity of nature which Jesus claimed is perhaps the greatest doctrinal obstacle to his reception among the Jews.. See (ifrorer, Gesch. d. Urchristenihnms (Stuttg. 1838) ; Solani, Crotjances Messiuniques (Strasb. 18G4). See Son of God.