Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (812 page)

* Vom Zweck Jesu und seiner Junger, s. 114 ff. 153 f.by the Evangelists. If, on the contrary, that idea was not diffused among his countrymen before the death of Jesus, it still remains possible that Jesus might arrive at that idea by his private reflection; but it is a prior possibility that the disciples were the first to adopt the characteristics of suffering and death into their conception of the Messiah, after they had been taught by the issue.

The question whether the idea of a suffering and dying Messiah was already diffused among the Jews in the time of Jesus, is one of the most difficult points of discussion among theologians, and one concerning which they are the least agreed. And the difficulty of the question does not lie in the interests of party, so that it might be hoped that with the rise of impartial investigation, the subject would cease to be perplexed; for, as Stäudlin has aptly shown,* both the orthodox and the rationalistic interest may alternately tend in each direction, and we in fact find theologians of both parties on both sides.† The difficulty lies in the deficiency of information, and in the uncertainty of that which we do possess. If the Old Testament contained the doctrine of a suffering and dying Messiah, it might certainly thence be inferred with more than mere probability, that this doctrine existed among the Jews in the time of Jesus: as, however, according to the most recent researches, the Old Testament, while it does indeed contain the doctrine of an expiation of the sins of the people to take place at the messianic era (Ezek. xxxvi. 25, xxxvii. 23; Zech. xiii. 1; Dan. ix. 24), has no trace of this expiation being effected by the suffering and death of the Messiah:
^‡
there is no decision of the question before us to be expected from this quarter. The apocryphal books of the Old Testament lie nearer to the time of Jesus ; but as these are altogether silent concerning the Messiah in general,§ there can be no discussion as to their containing that special feature. Again, if we turn to Philo and Josephus, the two authors who wrote soonest after the period in question, we find the latter silent as to the messianic hopes of his nation ;|| and though the former does indeed speak of messianic times, and a messiah-like hero, he says nothing of sufferings on his part.
^¶
Thus there remain, as sources of information on this point, only the New Testament and the later Jewish writings.

In the New Testament, almost everything is calculated to give the impression, that a suffering and dying Messiah was unthought-of among the Jews who were contemporary with Jesus. To the majority of the Jews, we are told, the doctrine of a crucified

* Ueber den Zweck und die Wirkungen des Todes Jesu, in the Göttingischen Bibliothek, 1,4, s. 252 ff.

† See the list in De Wette, ut sup. s. 6 ff. The most important voices for the existence of the idea in question in the time of Jesus, have been noticed by Stäudlin in the above treatise, I, s. 233 ff., and by Hengstenberg, Christologie des A. T., I, a, s. 270 ff., b, s. 290 ff ; for the opposite opinion, by De Wette, ut sup. p. I ff.

‡ Comp. De Wette, bibl. Dogm, § 201 f. ; Baumgarten Crusius, bibl. Theol. § 54.

§ Vid. De Wette, ut sup. § 189 ff.

|| Comp. De Wette, ut sup. § 193.

¶
Gfrörer, Philo, 1, s. 495 ff.Messiah was a
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and the disciples were at a loss to understand Jesus in his repeated and explicit announcements of his death. This does not look as if the doctrine of a suffering Messiah had been current among the Jews of that period; on the contrary, these circumstances accord fully with the declaration which the fourth Evangelist puts into the mouth of the Jewish
multitude,
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(xii. 34), namely, that they had heard in the
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that Christ abideth for ever
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* Indeed, for a general acceptation of the idea of a suffering Messiah among the Jews of that period, even those theologians who take the affirmative side in this argument do not contend;
but, admitting that the hope of a worldly Messiah whose reign was to endure for ever, was the prevalent one, they only maintain (and herein the Wolfenbüttel Fragmentist agrees with them)† , that a less numerous party, — according to Stäudlin, the Essenes;
according to Hengstenberg, the better and more enlightened part of the people in general — held the belief that the Messiah would appear in a humble guise, and only enter into glory through suffering and death. In support of this they appeal especially to two passages; one out of the third, and one out of the fourth gospel. When Jesus is presented as an infant in the temple at Jerusalem, the aged Simeon, among other prophecies, particularly concerning the opposition which her son would have to encounter, says to Mary:
Yea, a sword shall pierce through thine own soul also
(Luke ii. 35) ; words which seem to describe her maternal sorrow at the death of her son, and consequently to represent the opinion, that a violent death awaited the Messiah, as one already current before Christ. Still more plainly is the idea of a suffering Messiah contained in the words which the fourth gospel makes the Baptist utter on seeing Jesus :
Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world
(i. 29)! This, viewed in its relation to Isa. liii., would in the mouth of the Baptist likewise tend to prove, that the idea of expiatory suffering on the part of the Messiah was in existence before the time of Jesus. But both these passages have been above shown to be unhistorical, and from the fact that the primitive Christian legend was led, a considerable time after the issue, to attribute to persons whom it held divinely inspired, a foreknowledge of the divine decree with respect to the death of Jesus, it can by no means be concluded, that this insight really existed prior to the death of Jesus. In conclusion, it is urged, that at least the Evangelists and apostles refer to the idea of a suffering and dying Messiah in the Old Testament; whence it is thought warrantable to conclude, that this interpretation of the Old Testament passages connected with our present subject, was not unprecedented among the Jews. Certainly Peter (Acts iii. 18 f. ; I Pet. i. 11 f.) and Paul (Acts xxvi. 22 f. ; I Cor. xv. 3) appeal to Moses

* A passage to this effect out of the
law
(
n
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m
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V
) properly so called, would be difficult to find: De Wette, de morte, p. 72, refers to Isa. ix. 5; Lücke, in loc. to Ps. cx. 4; Dan. vii. 14, ii. 44.

† Yom Zweck Jesu und seiner Jünger, s. 179 f.and the prophets as annunciators of the death of Jesus, and Philip, in his interview with the Ethiopian eunuch, interprets a passage in Isa. liii. of the sufferings of the Messiah: but as those teachers of the church spoke and wrote all this after the event, we have no assurance that they did not assign to certain Old Testament passages a relation to the sufferings of the Messiah, solely in consquence of that event, and not by adopting a mode of interpretation previously current among their Jewish cotemporaries.*

If, according to this, the opinion that the idea in question already existed among the countrymen of Jesus during his lifetime, has no solid foundation in the New Testament; we must proceed to inquire whether that idea may not be found in the later Jewish writings. Among the earliest writings of this class now extant, are the Chaldee paraphrases of Onkelos and Jonathan; and the
Targuml
of the latter, who, according to rabbinical tradition, was a pupil of Hillel the elder,† is commonly cited as presenting the idea of a suffering Messiah, because it refers the passage, Isa. lii. 13-liii. 12, to the Messiah. But with respect to the interpretation of this passage in the
Targum of Jonathan,
it is the singular fact, that while the prophecies which it contains are in general interpreted messianically, yet so often as suffering and death are spoken of, either these ideas are avoided with marked design, and for the most part by some extremely forced expedient, or are transferred to a different subject, namely, the people of Israel: a significant proof that to the author, suffering and violent death appeared irreconcilable with the idea of the Messiah.‡ But this, we are told, is the commencement of that aberration from the true sense of the sacred text, into which the later Jews were seduced by their carnal disposition, and their hostility to Christianity: the more ancient interpreters, it is said, discovered in this passage of Isaiah a suffering and dying Messiah. It is true that Abenezra, Abarbanel and others, testify that many ancient teachers referred Isa. liii. to the Messiah:§ but some of their statements leave it by no means clear that those more ancient

interpretations are not as partial as that of Jonathan; and in relation to

¹²
Vid. De Wette, de morte Chr, p. 73 f.

¹³
Comp. Gesenius, Jesaias 2, Th. s. 66 ; De Wette, Einleitung in das A. T. § 59, 3te Ausg.

¹⁴
Literal translation according to Hitzig, liii. 4:- As many were
amazed
at
him, so disfigured, not human, was
his
appearance, and his form not like that of the children of men, etc. liii.4 But he
bore
our infirmities, and
charged himself with
our sorrows, and we esteemed
him
stricken, smitten of God and afflicted.

Targum of Jonathan: Quemadmodum per multos dies ipsum exspectarunt Israëlitae, quorum contabuit inter gentes adspectus et splendor (et evanuit) e filiis hominum, etc.
Idcirco pro delictis nostris ipse deprecabitur, et iniquitates nostrae propter eum condonabuntur, licet nos reputati simus contusi, plagis affecti et afflicti.

Origen also relates, c, Celsus, i, 55, how a person
esteemed a wise man among the Jews
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maintained, in opposition to his Christian interpretation of the passage in Isaiah,
that this was prophesied concerning the whole nation, which had been dispersed and afflicted, in order that many might become proselytes,
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