(6.) Clirist, like Moses, is a Lawgiver : " Him shall ye hear." His whole appearance as a Teacher, differing in much besitles, has this in common with Moses, unlike the other jirophets, that he lays down a code, a law, for his followers. The Sermon on the Mount almost inev- itably suggests the parallel of Moses on Jlount Sinai.
(c.) Christ, like Closes, was a Prophet out of the midst of the nation — " from their brethren." As Moses was the entire rejiresentative of his people, feeling for them more than for himself, absorbed in their interests, hopes, and fears, so, with reverence be it said, was Christ. The last and greatest of the Jewish prophets, he was not only a Jew by descent, but that Jewish descent is in- sisted upon as an integral i>art of his appearance. Two of the Gospels open witii his genealogy. "Of tlie Is- raelites came Christ after the llesli" (Hom. ix, 5). He wept and lamented over his countrj-. Ho confined him- self during Ills life to its needs." He was not sent "but unto tlie lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Matt. XV, 24). It is true that his absorption into the Jewish natiouidity was but a symbol of his absorjition into the far wider and deeper Interests of all humanity. But it is only by understanding the one that we are able to understand the other; and tlie life of Moses is the best means of enabling us to understand them both.
[2.] In Ileb. ill. 1-19 ; xli, 21-29 ; Acts vii, 37, Christ is described, though more obscurely, as the Moses of the new (lispciisatlon — as the Apostle, or ^Messenger, or Me- diator (if (ioil to the people— as the Controller and Ix'ad- er of the tlock or household of God. No other person
in the O. T. could have furnished this parallel. In both the revelation was communicated partly through the life, partly through the teaching; but in both the pro])het was incessant!}' united with the Guide, the Kuler, the Shepherd. See Mediatok.
[3.] The details of their lives are sometimes, though not often, compared. Stephen (Acts vii, 24-2H, 35) dwells, evidently with this view, on the likeness of Clo- ses in striving to act as a peacemaker, and in being misunderstood and rejected on that very account. The death of Moses, especially as related by Josejihus {ui sup.), immediately suggests the ascension of Christ; and the retardation of the rise of the Christian Church till after its Founder was withdrawn gives a moral as well as a material resemblance. But this, though dwelt upon in the services of the Church, has not been ex- pressly laid down in the Bible.
In Jude 9 is an allusion to an altercation between Michael and Satan over the body of Moses. It has been endeavored (by reading 'It](tov for Mwvaeiui:) to refer this to Zech. iii, 2. But it probably refers to a lost apocryphal book, mentioned by Origen, called the " Ascension or Assumption of Moses." The substaiue of this book is given by Fabricius, Cod. P^eu(l(»-jii'/r((/i/iits Vet. Test, i, 839-844. The "dispute of Michael and Satan" probably had reference to the concealment of the body to prevent iilolatry. (Jal. v, G is by several later writers said to be a quotation from the " Revela- tion of Moses" (Fabricius, ibid, i, 838). See Revela- tions, Sl^UKIOUS.
In later liistory the name of Moses has not been for- gotten. In the early Christian Church he appears in the Roman catacombs in the likeness of St. Peter, part- ly, doubtless, from his being the leader of the Jewish, as Peter of the Christian Church, partly from his con- nection with the rock. It is as striking the rock that he appears under Peter's name. In the Jewish, as in the Arabian nation, his name has in later years been more common than in former ages, though never oc- curring again (perhajjs, as in the case of David, and of I'eter in the papacy, from motives of reverence) in the earlier annals, as recorded in the Bible. Moses IMai- monides, ^Moses Mendelssohn, Musa the conqueror of Spain, are obvious instances. Of the first of these three a Jewish proverb testilies that "from Moses to ^Moses there was none like jNIoses." Numerous traditions, how- ever, as might have been expected, and as lias repeat- edly been indicated above, have been current respecting so celebrated a personage. Some of these were known to the ancient Jews, but most of them occur in later rabbinical writers (comp. Philo, J)e I'ila Jlosis, c. iii; Joseph. .1 nt. ii, 9 sq. ; Bartolocci, BiUiotheca Ruhhinirii, iv, 11.) sq.). The name of Closes is celebrated among the Arabs also, and is the nucleus of a mass of legends (comp. Hottinger, Ilistoria Orieiittilii, p. 80 sq. ; Abul- feda, Anteislain. p.31). These ^Mussulman traditions are chieriy exaggerations of the O.-T. accounts. But there are some stories independent of the Bible. One is the striking story (Koran, xviii, G5-80) on which is founded Parneli's Hermit. Another is the proof given by Muses of the existence of (iod to the atheistic king (Chardln, X, 83G, and in Fabricius, p. 830). The Greek and Roman classics repeatedly mention Closes (see Grotliis. ])e re- lit, rel. Chr. i, IG": Hase, in the Jiildioth. Brem. vi. 7G9 sq.), but their accounts contain the authentic Biblical history in a greatly distorted form. See the collection of Meier, Jiidtiiai, sen veterum iScriptonim pro/'avoritin lie Rebus .ludaicis Fnii/nienta (Jeniv, 1832); also those from Tacitus, by Midler, in the ,Stiid. u. Krit. 1843. p. 893-8. There are, likewise, as above intimated, tra- ditionally ascribed to Closes several apocrj-phal books, as " an Apocalypse, or Little Genesis." the " Ascension or Assumption of IMoses," and tlie " ^lysterious Books of Jloses," supposed to have been fabricated in the early ages of Cliristianity (see Fabricius's Codex I'smdinpi- f/rdphus Vet. Testiniieriti, and Winston's Colli ctiuii of A nthentic Records, i, 449-G5). Lauth {Moses der Ebrd-