Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (813 page)

¹⁵
Vid. Schöttgen, 2, s. 182 f.; Eisenmenger, entdecktes Judenthum, 2, s. 758.all of them it remains uncertain, whether the interpreters of whom they speak reach as far back as the age of Jonathan, which is highly improbable with respect to those parts of the book
Sohar,
wherein the passage in question is referred to a suffering Messiah.* The writing which, together with that of Jonathan, may be regarded as the nearest to the time of Jesus, namely, the apocryphal fourth book of Esdras, drawn up, according to the most probable computation, shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem under Titus,† does indeed mention the death of the Messiah: not however as a painful one, but only as a death which, after the long duration of the messianic kingdom, was to precede the general resurrection.‡ The idea of great calamities, the birth-throes, as it were, of the Messiah ([
Heb. letters
]
KhBLY HMShYKh
, comp.
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,
Matt. xxiv. 8), which would usher in the messianic times, was undoubtedly disseminated before Christ;
^§
and equally early there appears to have been placed in the front of these ills, which were to press upon the people of Israel in particular, the
Antichrist,
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,
whom the
Christ,
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would have to oppose ( 2 Thess. ii. 3 ff. ) :
^||
but since he was to annihilate this adversary in a supernatural manner,
with the spirit of his mouth
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this involved no suffering for the Messiah. Nevertheless, there are to be found passages in which a suffering of the Messiah is spoken of, and in which this suffering is even represented as vicarious, on behalf of the people:
¶
but first, this is only a suffering, and no death of the Messiah; secondly, it befalls him either before his descent into earthly life, in his pre-existence,* or during the concealment in which he keeps himself from his birth until his appearance as Messiah:
^†
lastly, the antiquity of these ideas is doubtful, and according to certain indications, they could only be dated after the destruction of the Jewish state by Titus.‡ Meanwhile, Jewish writings are by no means destitute of passages, in which it is directly asserted that a Messiah would perish in a violent manner: but these passages relate, not to the proper Messiah, the offspring of David, but to another, from among the posterity of Joseph and Ephraim, who was appointed to hold a subordinate position in relation to the former. This Messiah
ben Joseph
was to precede the Messiah
ben David,
to unite the ten tribes of the former kingdom of Israel with the two tribes of the kingdom of Judah, but after this to perish by the sword in the battle with Gog and Magog: a catastrophe to which Zech. xii. 10 was referred.§ But of this second, dying Messiah, any certain traces are wanting

* Ap. Schöttgen, 2 S. 181 f.

† De Wette, de morte Chr. expiatoria, ut sup. s. 50.

‡ vii. 29.

§ Schöttgen, 2, s. 509 ff. ; Schmidt, Christologische Fragmente, in his Bibliothek, I, s. 24 ff. ; Bertholdt, Christol. Jud., § 13.

|| Schmidt, ut sup. ; Bertholdt, ut sup., § 16.

¶
Pesikta in Abkath Rochel, ap. Schmidt, s. 48 f.

* Sohar, P. II. lxxxv. 2, ap. Schmidt, § 47 f.

† Gemara Sanhedrin, f. xcviii.
I
;
ap. De Wette, de morte Chr., p. 95 f., and ap. Hengstenberg, s. 292.

‡ Sahar, Po II. f. lxxx.ii. 2; ap. De Wette, s. 94:
Cum Israëlitae essent in terra sancta, per cultus religiosos et sacrificia quae faciebant, omnes illos morbos et poenas e mundo, sustulerunt ; nunc vero Messias debet auferre eas ab hominibus.

§ Vid. Bertholdt, ut sup. § 17.before the Babylonian
Gemara,
which was compiled in the fifth and sixth centuries after Christ, and the book
Sohar,
the age of which is extremely doubtful.*

Although, according to this, it cannot be proved, and is even not probable, that the idea of a suffering Messiah already existed among the Jews in the time of Jesus : it is still possible that, even without such a precedent, Jesus himself, by an observation of circumstances, and a comparison of them with Old Testament narratives and prophecies, might come to entertain the belief that suffering and death were a part of the office and destination of the Messiah; and if so, it would be more natural that he should embrace this conviction gradually in the course of his public ministry, and that he should chiefly have confined his communications on the subject to his intimate friends, than that he should have had this conviction from the beginning, and have expressed it before indifferent persons, nay enemies. The latter is the representation of John; the former, of the synoptists.*

In relation also to the declarations of Jesus concerning the object and effects of his death, we can, as above in relation to the announcement of the death itself, distinguish a more natural, from a more supranatural point of view. When Jesus in the fourth gospel likens himself to the true shepherd, who lays down his life for the sheep (x. 11, 15) : this may have the perfectly natural sense, that he is determined not to swerve from his office of shepherd and teacher, even though, in the prosecution of it, death should threaten him (the moral necessity of his death) ;
^†
the foreboding expression in the same gospel (xii. 24), that
except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone, but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit,
admits of an equally rational explanation, as a figurative representation of the victorious power which martyrdom gives to an idea and conviction (the moral efficacy of his death) ;
^‡
lastly, that which is so often repeated in the Gospel of John, — namely, that it is good for the disciples that Jesus should go away, for without his departure the
comforter,
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will not come to them, who will glorify him in them, — may be supposed to express the perfectly natural consideration of Jesus, that without the removal of his sensible presence, the hitherto so material ideas of his disciples would not be spiritualized (the psychological efficacy of his death).§ The words of Jesus at the institution of the sacramental supper, belong more to the supranaturalistic mode of view. For if that which the intermediate Evangelists make him say on this occasion — that the cup presented is
the blood of the new testament,
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(Mark xiv. 24), and
the new testament in his blood
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(Luke xxii. 20), — might appear to signify no more than that, as by the bloody sacrifice at Sinai was

sealed the covenant of this ancient people with God, so by his (the Messiah’s)

* De Wette, de morte Chr., p. 112; comp.
53ff.

† Hase, L. J. § 108.

‡ Ibid.

§ Ibid. and § 109.blood would be sealed in a higher sense the community of the new covenant, gathering round him: in the account of Matthew, on the contrary, when he makes Jesus add, that his blood will be shed for many
for the remission of sins,
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the idea of the covenant sacrifice is blended with that of expiatory sacrifice: and also in the two other Evangelists by the addition:
which is shed for many,
or
for you,
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the transition is made from the covenant sacrifice to the expiatory sacrifice. Further, when in the first gospel (xx. 28) Jesus says, he must
give his life a ransom for many,
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, this is doubtless to be referred to Isa. liii., where, according to a notion current among the Hebrews (Isa. xliii. 3; Prov. xxi. 18), the death of the servant of God is supposed to have a propitiatory relation to the rest of mankind.