minimise the Messianic expectancy, admits this. Indeed, every devout Jew prayed, day by day: 'Proclaim by Thy loud trumpet our deliverance, and raise up
a banner to gather our dispersed, and gather us together from the four ends of the earth. Blessed be Thou, O Lord! Who gatherest the outcasts of Thy people Israel.' [2 This is the tenth of the eighteen (or rather nineteen) benedictions in the daily prayers. Of these the first and the last three are certainly the oldest. But this tenth also dates from before the destruction of Jerusalem. Comp. Zunz, Gottesd. Vortr. d. Juden, p. 368.] That prayer included in its generality also the lost ten tribes. So, for example, the prophecy [b Hos. xi. 11.] was rendered: 'They hasten hither, like a bird out of Egypt,' - referring to Israel of old; 'and like a dove out of the land of Assyria' - referring to the ten tribes, [c Midr. on Cant. i. 15, ed. warshau, p. lib] [3 Comp. Jer. Sanh. x. 6; Sanh. 110 b: Yalk. Shim.] And thus even these wanderers, so long lost, were to be reckoned in the field of the Good Shepherd. [4 The suggestion is made by Castelli, II Messia, p. 253.]
It is worth while to trace, how universally and warmly both Eastern and Western Judaism cherished this hope of all Israel's return to their own land. The Targumim bear repeated reference to it; [5 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.] and although there may be question as to the exact date of these paraphrases, it cannot be doubted, that in this respect they represented the views of the Synagogue at the time of Jesus. For the same reason we may gather from the Talmud and earliest commentaries, what Israel's hope was in regard to the return of the 'dispersed.' [6 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.] It was a beautiful idea to liken Israel to the olive-tree, which is never stripped of its leves. [d Men. 53 b] The storm of trial that had swept over it was, indeed, sent in judgment, but not to destroy, only to purify. Even so, Israel's persecutions had served to keep them from becoming mixed with the Gentiles. Heaven and earth might be destroyed, but not Israel; and their final deliverance would far outstrip in marvellousness that from Egypt. The winds would blow to bring together the dispersed; nay, if there were a single Israelite in a land, however distant, he would be restored. With every honour would the nations bring them back. The patriarchs and all the just would rise to share in the joys of the new possession of their land; new hymns as well as the old ones would rise to the praise of God. Nay, the bounds of the land would be extended far beyond what they had ever been, and made as wide as originally promised to Abraham. Nor would that possession be ever taken from them, nor those joys be ever succeeded by sorrows. [1 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. Schottgen, Horae Hebr. i. p. 359; and Wunsche, 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.] In view of such general expectations we cannot fail to mark with what wonderful sobriety the Apostles put the question to Jesus: 'Wilt Thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?' [a Acts i.6]
Hopes and expectations such as these are expressed not only in Talmudical writings. We find them throughout that very interesting Apocalyptic class of literature, the Pseudepigrapha, to which reference has already been made. The two earliest of them, the Book of Enoch and the Sibylline Oracles, are equally emphatic on this subject. The seer in the Book of Enoch beholds
Israel in the Messianic time as coming in carriages, and as borne on the wings of the wind from East, and West, and South, [b Book of En. ch. lvii.; comp.xc.33] Fuller details of that happy event are furnished by the Jewish Sibyl. In her utterances these three events are connected together: the coming of the Messiah, the rebuilding of the Temple, [c B. iii. 286-294; comp. B. v. 414-433] and the restoration of the dispersed, [d iii. 732-735] when all nations would bring their wealth to the House of God. [e iii. 766-783] [2 M. Maurice Vernes (Hist, des Idees Messian. pp. 43-119) maintains that the writers of Enoch and Or. Sib. iii. 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.] The latter trait specially reminds us of their Hellenistic origin. A century later the same joyous confidence, only perhaps more clearly worded, appears in the so-called 'Psalter of Solomon.' Thus the seventeenth Psalm bursts into this strain: 'Blessed are they who shall live in those days, in the reunion of the tribes, which God brings about.' [f Ps. of Sol. vxii. 50; comp. also Ps. xi.] And no wonder, since they are the days when 'the King, the Son of David,' [a Ps. Sal. xviii. 23] having purged Jerusalem [b v. 25] and destroyed the heathen by the word of His mouth, [c v. 27] would gather together a holy people which He would rule with justice, and judge the tribes of His people, [d v. 28] 'dividing them over the land according to tribes;' when 'no stranger would any longer dwell among them.' [e vv. 30,31]
Another pause, and we reach the time when Jesus the Messiah appeared. Knowing the characteristics of that time, we scarcely wonder that the Book of Jubilees, which dates from that period, should have been Rabbinic in its cast rather than Apocalyptic. Yet even there the reference to the future glory is distinct. Thus we are told, that, though for its wickedness Israel had been scattered, God would 'gather them all from the midst of the heathen,' 'build among them His Sanctuary, and dwell with them.' That Sanctuary was to 'be for ever and ever, and God would appear to the eye of every one, and every one acknowledge that He was the God of Israel, and the Father of all the Children of Jacob, and King upon Mount Zion, from everlasting to everlasting. And Zion and Jerusalem shall be holy.' [f Book of Jub. ch. i.; comp. also ch. xxiii.] When listening to this language of, perhaps, a contemporary of Jesus, we can in some measure understand the popular indignation which such a charge would call forth, as that the Man of Nazareth had proposed to destroy the Temple, [g St. John ii. 19] or that he thought merely of the children of Jacob.
There is an ominous pause of a century before we come to the next work of this class, which bears the title of the Fourth Book of Esdras. That century had been decisive in the history of Israel. Jesus had lived and died; His Apostles had gone forth to bear the tidings of the new Kingdom of God; the Church had been founded and separated from the Synagogue; and the Temple had been destroyed, the Holy City laid waste, and Israel undergone sufferings, compared with which the former troubles might almost be forgotten. But already the new doctrine had struck it roots deep alike in Eastern and in Hellenistic soil. It were strange indeed if, in such circumstances, this book should not have been different from any that had preceded it; stranger still, if earnest Jewish minds and ardent Jewish hearts had remained wholly unaffected by the new teaching, even though the doctrine of the Cross still continued a stumbling-block, and the Gospel announcement a rock of offence. But perhaps we could scarcely have been prepared to find, as in the Fourth Book of Esdras, doctrinal views which were wholly foreign to Judaism, and evidently derived from the New Testament, and which, in logical consistency, would seem to lead up to it. [1 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.] The greater part of the book may be described as restless tossing, the seer being agitated by the problem and the consequences of sin, which here for the first and only time is presented as in the New Testament; by the question, why there are so few who are saved; and especially by what to a Jew must have seemed the inscrutable, terrible mystery of Israel's sufferings and banishment. [1 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.] Yet, so far as we can see, no other way of salvation is indicated than that by works and personal righteousness. Throughout there is a tone of deep sadness and intense earnestness. It almost seems sometimes, as if one heard the wind of the new dispensation sweeping before it the withered leaves of Israel's autumn. Thus far for the principal portion of the book. The second, or Apocalyptic, part, endeavors to solve the mystery of Israel's state by foretelling their future. Here also there are echoes of New Testament utterances. What the end is to be, we are told in unmistakable language. His 'Son,' Whom the Highest has for a long time preserved, to deliver 'the creature' by Him, is suddenly to appear in the form of a Man. From His mouth shall proceed alike woe, fire, and storm, which are the tribulations of the last days. And as they shall gather for war against Him, He shall stand on Mount Zion, and the Holy City shall come down from heaven, prepared and ready, and He shall destroy all His enemies. But a peaceable multitude shall now be gathered to Him. These are the ten tribes, who, to separate themselves from the ways of the heathen, had wandered far away, miraculously helped, a journey of one and a half years, and who were now similarly restored by God to their own land. But as for the 'Son,' or those who accompanied him, no one on earth would be able to see or know them, till the day of His
