[1301] Tos. Set. xiv.
[1302] St. John vii. 50-52.
[1303] St. John xi. 47-50.
[1304] Jos. Jewish War vi. 2. 2.
[1305] I do not, however, feel sure that the word high-priests' in this passage should be closely pressed. It is just one of those instances in which it would suit Josephus to give such a grandiose title to those who joined the Romans.
[1306] This only in St. Luke.
[1307] St. John xi. 49.
[1308] St. John xviii. 13.
[1309] Wieseler has, I think, satisfactorily established this. Comp. Beitr. pp. 191-194.
[1310] 779 a.u.c.
[1311] St. Luke speaks of Christ being about thirty years old' at the time of His baptism. If John began His public ministry in the autumn, and some months elapsed before Jesus was baptized, our Lord would have just passed His thirtieth year when He appeared at Bethabara. We have positive evidence that the expression about' before a numeral meant either a little more or a little less than that exact number. See Midr. on Ruth i. 4 ed. Warsh. p. 39 b.
[1312] Here tradition, though evidently falsely, locates the Baptism of Jesus.
[1313] St. Luke iii. 3.
[1314] St. John i. 28.
[1315] In reference not only to this point, but in general, I would refer to Bishop Lightfoot's masterly essay on the Essenes in his Appendix to his Commentary on Colossians (especially here, pp. 388, 400). It is a remarkable confirmation of the fact that, if John had been an Essene, his food could not have been locusts' that the Gospel of the Ebionites, who, like the Essenes, abstained from animal food, omits the mention of the locusts,' of St. Matt. iii. 4. (see Mr. Nicholson's The Gospel of the Hebrews,' pp. 34, 35). But proof positive is derived from Jer. Nedar. 40 b, where, in case of a vow of abstinence from flesh, fish and locusts are interdicted.
[1316] 2 Kings i. 3.
[1317] Our A.V. wrongly translates a hairy man,' instead of a man with a hairy (camel's hair) raiment.' This seems afterwards to have become the distinctive dress of the prophets (comp. Zech. xiii. 4).
[1318] Keim beautifully designates it: Das Lieblingswort Jesu.
[1319] Rom. xvi. 25, 26; Eph. i. 9; Col. i. 26, 27.
[1320] If, indeed, in the preliminary dispensation these two can be well separated.
[1321] I confess myself utterly unable to understand, how anyone writing a History of the Jewish Church can apparently eliminate from it what even Keim designates as the treibenden Gedanken des Alten Testaments' - those of the Kingdom and the King. A Kingdom of God without a King; a Theocracy without the rule of God; a perpetual Davidic Kingdom without a Son of David' - these are antinomies (to borrow the term of Kant) of which neither the Old Testament, the Apocrypha, the Pseudepigraphic writings, nor Rabbinism were guilty.
[1322] xiv. 9.
[1323] And the Lord shall be King over all the earth: in that day shall there be one Lord, and His Name one.'
[1324] vii. 13, 14.
[1325] I saw in the night visions, and, behold, One like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought Him near before Him. And there was given Him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve Him: His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.'
[1326] St. John xvii. 33-37.
[1327] Occasionally we find, instead of Malkhuth Shamayim (Kingdom of Heaven'), Malkhutha direqiya (Kingdom of the firmament'), as in Ber. 58 a, Shebhu. 35 b. But in the former passage, at least, it seems to apply rather to God's Providential government than to His moral reign.
[1328] The Talmud (Shebhu. 35 b) analyses the various passages of Scripture in which it is used in a sacred and in the common sense.