the Talmud. But apart from the fact that the borrowing attributed to the Jews is very doubtful and a contested point, it is evidently one thing to borrow a single custom,-which might have been done almost insensibly, since all that was needed was to give a more precise and limited character to the custom in existence already,-or a single sentence, which bore an Old Testament character, and therefore might easily be regarded as common property, and a very different thing to adopt a doctrine which was altogether foreign to those they had hitherto held, and presented no attractions to a carnal mind, and which formed, in addition to this, the very centre of the system of doctrines held by the opponents. This is certainly a case, if ever there be one, in which we may apply the rule laid down by Schmidt in his Christol. Fragm., p. 6, for testing the antiquity of Jewish dogmas: "Messianic modes of thought, which are as remote from those of the Jews, in which the Messiah is represented as a political monarch, as they approximate to those of Christians, and which it is evidently a very difficult matter for modern Jews to bring into harmony with the rest of their notions, are ancient, and were already current in the time of Christ."

2. It is impossible to adduce any analogy from the Christology of the Jews in support of this assertion; on the contrary, it is in every respect at variance with it. The whole of the Christology of the Jews rests upon an Old Testament basis, though very frequently it is founded upon a thoroughly erroneous interpretation of the prophecies. We refer here simply to the doctrine of" the pangs of the Messiah," un an, which, as De Wette himself observes (p. 61), is connected with the doctrine of a suffering and atoning Messiah, and the Old Testament origin of which he also acknowledges. Even in the case of the most distinct Messianic ideas, they may be traced to some interpretation, either true or false, of the Old Testament, or at least to the attempt to bring the apparently discrepant statements of the Old Testament into harmony, by means of certain intermediate ideas. In this way, for example, the fable of the leprosy of the Messiah arose out of a false interpretation of Is. liii. 4, as we may see from the passage of the Talmud quoted in vol. ii. p. 311.

3. If the Jews derived the doctrine of a suffering, atoning, and dying Messiah from the Christians, it is difficult to see why they

should not at the same time have adopted, what the Christian religion also offered them, the readiest means of reconciling this doctrine with that of a Messiah in glory. The apparent discrepancy between the passages in the Old Testament, in which these two doctrines are found, is removed in the easiest and most natural manner in the Christian system, by the doctrine of a twofold coming of the Messiah, first in poverty and then in glory, and a twofold condition, viz., that of humiliation and that of exaltation. The Jews, on the contrary, resort to the most remarkable and unfounded hypotheses, for the purpose of removing the apparent discrepancy, and prove thereby that they have elaborated the doctrine of a suffering, atoning, and dying Messiah from the prophecies of the Old Testament, without the slightest influence on the part of Christianity, whilst at the same time, for want of the light which is shed upon these prophecies by the fulfilment, they were necessarily involved in great obscurity. The principal hypotheses of this description are the following:

(1). The doctrine of the Messiah ben Joseph, and the Messiah ben David. The former of these is to be slain in the war with Gog and Magog, whilst the latter is to complete the deliverance of the covenant nation, and to live and reign for ever. The origin of this fiction was evidently the inability to remove the discrepancy, which is so easily overcome in our case by the doctrine of the two natures of Christ, and by his resurrection from the dead, -and the consequent inference, that such passages as spoke of the death of the Messiah necessitated the belief in a twofold Messiah. Of this the following proofs may be adduced. That the origin of this doctrine is to be found in Zech. xii. 10 will be very apparent, if we compare a passage from the Gemara of Jerusalem (probably compiled about the year A.D. 230 or 270) with the Gemara of Babylon (probably belonging to the sixth century). In the former the following words occur with reference to Zech.

1 That this doctrine is of recent date has been proved by Gläsener, de gemino Judaeorum Messia (Helmst. 1739 p. 145 sqq.), Schittyen (p. 359), and De Wette who borrows from them, from the fact that the earliest paraphrasts, Jonathan (on the prophets) and Onkelos (on the Pentateuch) refer to Messiah ben David, all the passages which the more modern writers apply to Messiah ben Joseph.

xii. 10, "there are two different opinions as to the meaning of this passage; some suppose it to refer to the lamentation of the Messiah, others to lamentation on account of the existence of innate sinful desires." In the second passage (in the Tractate Succoth, fol. 52, col. 1, copied into Glaesener's de gem. Jud. Messia, p. 46) we find these remarks on Zech. xii. 12, "And the land will mourn, every family apart. Why will this

mourning take place? R. Dusa and the doctors are not agreed on this point. According to one opinion, on account of Messiah ben Joseph, who is to be put to death. Peace be with him, who supposes the passage to refer to the death of Messiah ben Joseph. To him does Zech. xii. 10 refer, and they will mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son." In the first passage Zech. xii. 10 is interpreted without reserve, as relating to the dying Messiah; and yet there is a sign of perplexity and uncertainty in the opinion that the lamentation has reference, not to the Messiah himself, but to the sin which has caused his death. (For the meaning of the passage in the Talmud compare the remarks on Zech. xii. 10). In the second the knot is cut by the fiction of a Messiah ben Joseph. That the origin of this doctrine is to be traced to the passage, which we have quoted from Zechariah, is still further apparent from the fact that the Jewish writers constantly base it upon this, and mention it in connexion with words taken from the verse in question. (Compare the passages in Glaesener l. c. p. 56, 57, 147, append. p. 9). Lastly, the doctrine of the Messiah ben Joseph has completely the character of a doctrine, invented for the simple purpose of getting rid of a difficult passage in the Bible, which is afterwards laid on one side, as being no longer needed. All that is done with the Messiah ben Joseph is that he is made to die, after the help of another prophecy (Ezek. xxxvii.) has been called in, and a possible occasion for his death discovered. Beyond that no further questions are asked, as Glaesener has correctly observed (p. 91): "Altum nunc est in scriptis Judæorum de Messia ben Joseph silentium. Postquam enim cum reliquis a Messia ben David et Elia a mortuis excitatus fuerit, nihil de eo ulterius deprehenditur. Nulla ei praerogativa prae reliquis Israelitis in regno Messiae ben David conceditur, nullumque praemium pro

clade perpessa imoque ipsa morte pro illis suscepta propositum."1 We must now turn to the objections brought by De Wette (p. 79) against this explanation of the origin of the doctrine. "If this fable," he says, "was merely invented with a view to get rid of the idea, that the Messiah ben David would endure suffering, how is it that we find the doctrine of the Messiah ben Joseph referred to by writers, who have no hesitation in speaking of the Messiah ben David as suffering and atoning, such for example as the author of the book Sohar and the Babylonian Gemarists ?" This objection only applies to such as Schmidt, Stäudlin, and many earlier writers, who maintain that the doctrine of the Messiah ben Joseph was invented, simply for the purpose of having some one, to whom it would be possible to transfer all the passages, which speak of a suffering and atoning Messiah; but it does not affect us, who merely trace the doctrine to the difficulty, which was felt, of believing in the death of the Messiah ben David. The former assertion is certainly incorrect. There is not a single instance, in which suffering and deep humiliation are spoken of in connexion with the Messiah ben Joseph previous to his dying, and, so far as we know, except in one passage which is quoted by Eisenmenger i. p. 720, and De Wette, p. 76, atoning efficacy is never attributed to his death. But this passage is taken from the book Shne Luchoth Haberit, a work of R. Jeshaia Horwitz, who died 1610 (vid. Wolf Bibl. 1, p. 703). It cannot, therefore, be taken into consideration here, on account of its recent date. On the other hand, in the earliest writings, such as the Sohar and Talmud, suffering and atonement are always attributed to the Messiah Ben David, most probably because the possibility of representation was supposed to be founded exclusively upon his higher, superhuman nature. But that it was just with this higher superhuman nature of the

1 It is true, Glaesener (append. p 11) has revoked this statement, and quotes two passages, in which the Messiah ben Joseph is represented as a kind of under-king in the Messianic kingdom; but he is wrong in this, for the passages in question belong to two very recent authors, Rabbi Meier Aldabi, and Menasse ben Israel, and therefore hardly come into consideration at all. In this instance, as in fact throughout his work, Glaesener lays himself open to the charge, brought against him by Sch ttgen (p. 366), of confounding together the doctrines of the ancient and modern Jews.

Messiah that his death was regarded as irreconcileable, and that it was this which led to the doctrine of a second Messiah of an inferior nature, is evident from a passage of the Sohar, in Sommer theol. Sohar, p. 91, "Illo ipso die proveniet Messias, proprietatibus vitalibus, perfectionibus et praerogativis convenientibus instructus. Quae tamen natura non relinquetur sola, sed adjungetur ipsi Messias alter, filius Josephi. Quia vero iste erit collis inferior, destitutus proprietatibus vitalibus, morietur hic Messias et occisus in statu mortis permanebit ad tempus, donec recolliget iterum vitam hic collis et resurget." "On this assumption," continues de Wette, "it is impossible to explain why the lower Messiah is called Messiah ben Joseph or ben Ephraim, and yet the name cannot have been given without any reason." But we must make a distinction here between the source of the doctrine of a Messiah ben Joseph generally, and the origin of the name. When the doctrine of a second Messiah had been once invented for a totally different reason, the attempt was made to secure another end by the name which was given him. The opportunity was embraced of paying a compliment to the ten tribes, by allotting to them at least the lower Messiah, whilst the higher, being a descendant of David, was to spring from the tribe of Judah. That this is the correct explanation of the origin of the name, is evident from the fact, that the lower Messiah is called ben Joseph and ben Ephraim interchangeably, not merely in later writings, but also in numerous passages of the Sohar (see, for example, Schöttgen 1. c. p. 551), and that there is a passage in Schöttgen p. 360, in which he is assigned to the tribe of Manasseh, whilst the Messiah ben David is also called Messiah ben Judah. (See Glaesener, p. 53).1 At the same time, that the wish to do honour to the ten tribes was not the principal motive for the selection of the name, but merely a subordinate one, is apparent from the fact that, as we have already shown, after the history of the Messiah ben Joseph has

1 The fact that the Messiah is called ben Joseph and ben Ephraim interchangeably, is a proof that the patriarch Joseph must be intended. This is a sufficient objection to the hypothesis suggested in Colln's bibl. Theol. i. p. 497, that the doctrine of a Messiah ben Joseph originated in a misunderstanding of certain New Testament expressions, especially in the fact that, in the New Testament, Jesus is not merely called the Son of David, but also the Son of Joseph, Luke iii. 23, and iv. 22.