[359] The suggestion is made by Castelli, Il Messia, p. 253.
[360] Notably in connection with Ex. Xii. 42 (both in the Pseudo-Jon. And Jer. Targum); Numb. xxiv. 7 (Jer. Targ.); Deut. xxx.4 (targ. Ps.-Jon.); Is xiv. 29; Jer. xxxiii. 13; Hos. xiv. 7; Zech. x. 6. Dr. Drummond, in his Jewish Messiah,' p. 335, quotes from the Targum on Lamentations. But this dates from long after the Talmudic period.
[361] As each sentence which follows would necessitate one or more references to different works, the reader, who may be desirous to verify the statements in the text, is generally referred to Castelli, u. s. pp. 251-255.
[362] Men. 53 b.
[363] The fiction of two Messiahs - one the Son of David, the other the Son of Joseph, the latter being connected with the restoration of the ten tribes - has been conclusively shown to be the post-Christian date (comp. Schöttgen, Horæ Hebr. i. p. 359; and Wünsche, Leiden d. Mess. p. 109). Possibly it was invented to find an explanation for Zech. xii. 10 (comp. Succ. 52 a), just as the Socinian doctrine of the assumption of Christ into heaven at the beginning of His ministry was invented to account for St. John iii. 13.
[364] Acts i.6.
[365] Book of En. ch. lvii.; comp. xc.33.
[366] B. iii. 286-294; comp. B. v. 414-433.
[367] B. iii. 732-735.
[368] B. iii. 766-783.
[369] M. Maurice Vernes (Hist. Des Idées Messian. pp. 43-119) maintains that the writers of Enoch and Or. Sib. 3 expected this period under the rule of the Maccabees, and regarded one of them as the Messiah. It implies a peculiar reading of history, and a lively imagination, to arrive at such a conclusion.
[370] Ps. of Sol. vxii. 50; comp. also Ps. xi.
[371] Ps. Sal. xviii. 23.
[372] v. 25.
[373] v. 27.
[374] v. 28.
[375] vv. 30, 31.
[376] Book of Jub. Ch. i.; comp. also ch. xxiii.
[377] St. John ii. 19.
[378] The doctrinal part of IV. Esdras may be said to be saturated with the dogma of original sin, which is wholly foreign to the theology alike of Rabbinic and Hellenistic Judaism. Comp. Vis. i. ch. iii. 21, 22; iv. 30, 38; Vis. iii. ch. vi, 18, 19 (ed. Fritzsche, p. 607); 33-41; vii. 46-48; viii. 34-35.
[379] It almost seems as if there were a parallelism between this book and the Epistle to the Romans, which in its dogmatic part, seems successively to take up these three subjects, although from quite another point of view. How different the treatment is, need not be told.
[380] Vis. vi. ch. xiii. 27-52.
[381] The better reading is in tempore diei ejus. (v. 52).'
[382] Prophet. et Ass. Mos. iv. 7-14; vii. 20.
[383] Ap. Bar. xxvii. 22.
[384] In Sanh. 110 b we read, Our Rabbis teach, that the Ten Tribes have no part in the era to come, because it is written "The Lord drave them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land." "The Lord drave them from their land" - in the present era - "and cast them into another land," in the era to come.' In curious agreement with this, Pseudo-Baruch writes to the nine and a half tribes to prepare their hearts to that which they had formerly believed,' least they should suffer in both eras (ab utroque soeculo),' being led captive in the one, and tormented in the other (Apoc. Bar. lxxxiii. 8).
[385] Thus, for example, the assertion that there had been individuals who fulfilled the commandments of God, Vis. i. ch. iii. 36; the domain of reason, iv. 22; v. 9; general Messianic blessings to the world at large, Vis. i. ch. iv. 27, 28; the idea of a law within their minds, like that of which St. Paul speaks in the case of the heathen, Vis. iii. ch. vi. 45-47 (ed. Fritzsche, p. 609). These are only instances, and we refer besides to the general cast of the reasoning.