2. Modern Jewish Vieivs. — The hope of a Messiah — the bounteous benefactor and inaugurator of a glorious reign on earth, firmly establishing forever and ever the greatness of Abraham's descendants — had prevailed even among the cliildren of Israel, but it required the days of trial and tribulation, such as came in the days of the exile, to create a yearning for the appearance of the King, the Conqueror, the God of Israel. "Within the domains of a foreign ruler, and subject to his rule, the Messiah became an ever-present being to the thoughts and to the visions of the Jews; and yet Avhen at last the Son of man came to his own, his own knew him not. But though they rejected him of whom jMoses and the prophets wrote, the faith in a Restorer of Israel for many centuries continued to knit together the nation in their dispersed condition. Of late only a change has come over them, and the Jewish camp may be truly said to have divided into three distinct branches: (1) the ex- treme right, (2) the extreme left, and (3) the centre.
(1) The Jews belonging to the first class are those ■who remain either («) orthodox in their adherence to the liberal interpretation of the Bible and tradition, or (i) who, though accepting both Bible and tradition, fa- vor a liberal construction of the traditional usages. This class of Jews continue to look for a personal reign of Messiah, and their restoration to the land of their fore- fathers. Their number is daily decreasing, however, and the time promises to be soon when they shall be counted among the things that were.
(2) To the second class belong those Jews generalh' denominated Reformed. They would sweep away Tal- mudism and the ceremonial law, claiming a complete emancipation from religious thraldom as their indefeasi- ble right. They question the propriety of interpreting the prophets as predicting a personal jNIessiah, and deny the possibility of a restoration of Israel as a nation of political entity. In ISiO they for the first time gave
public expression to their belief in a meeting at Frank- fort, when they declared that " a Messiah who is to lead back to Palestine is neither expected nor desired by the associated, and they acknowledge that alone to be their country to which they belong by birth or civil relation." In 18G9 a meeting of the educated Jews of Germany was held in the city of Leipsic, at which eighty-four different Jewish congregations were represented. Twen- ty-four of the attendants -were rabbis of high repute ; the lay members men who had secured the highest places in the gift of the nation, among them the late Dr. Filrst, then professor at the University of Leipsic, the learned Lazarus, of the University of Berlin, etc. In 1840 the gathering had been composed of a handful of rationalistic Jews ; in 18G9 the meeting at Leipsic was attended by Israel's ablest and most devoted adherents. Yet these men rejeded the belief in Israel's restoration, and passed the following resolution: "Those portions of our prayers which refer to the re-establishment of the annual sacrifices at the IMessianic period, or to the return of the Jews to Jerusalem, must be modified." How widespread the opinion represented at this meeting may be best judged if such a conservative journal as the London Jewish Chronicle is led to comment that "Al- though every Jew is bound to believe in a INIessiah, the question -whether that expression indicates a person or a time, and whether he or it has arrived or not, is, ac- cording to the Talmud, an open question."
(3) The main portion of modern Judaism consists of the moderate party, embracing those Jews who seek to develop a higher spirituality from the old form of Ju- daism. With them the ceremonial law is valuable only as a hedge to keep the people apart from other forms of religion till the times are fulfilled. Like Kimchi, Abra- banel, and other Jewish commentators, they apply the oracle in Isa. xi, 1-10 to the age of the Messiah, whose advent they place at the verj' time when the final gath- ering of the Jewish people is to be accomplished. " The one," says the Rev. Prof. INIarks {Jiicish Mess(nf,'(i; January, 1872), "is to be immediately consequent upon the other; or, rather, they are prophesied as synchro- nous events." Denjing the accuracy of Christian in- terpretation, which refers the 11th chapter to the first, ami the r2th chapter to the coming of Christ in the final day, they insist that the Hebrew Scriptures teach only 07ie Messianic appearance, and that chapter 11 war- rants no distinction in point of time between "the clear- ly-defined occurrences which are to mark Messiah's ad- vent ;" " and," continues Prof. Marks, " so far from repre- senting the complete regeneration of the moral world as the result of many centuries after the promised Messiah shall have appeared, the prophet of the text mentions the universal jJeace and harmony that shall pruail, as well as the infjatherin;/ of the dispersed of Jiidah and of Israel, as the especial events which are to characterize the inauguration of the Messianic age. The promised regenerator of mankind is to he hnomi hy the accomplish- ment of these his ajipointed tasks f and no one, according to the Jewish view of prophetic Scripture, is entitled to the name of ' the Messiah' who does not vindicate his claim to that high office by means of the fulfilment of the conditions which the word of inspiration has as- signed to his coming."