I. Relation To The Older Messianic Hope

I. RELATION TO THE OLDER MESSIANIC HOPE
The hope of a better future was already with the prophets of the Old Testament an essential element of their religious consciousness. Nor was it ever entirely lost by the people, though it was not always as lively as it again became in an increasing degree after the Maccabaean rising. In the course of time however this hope of the future experienced many changes. There was indeed far greater freedom of movement in the sphere of faith than in that of action. While legal precepts were binding to their very smallest details, and must therefore be handed down unaltered from one generation to another, comparatively freer play was permitted to faith, and provided certain fundamentals were adhered to, the individual need could here come forward more freely (see above, § 25. III. Halachah and Haggadah). Hence too the hope of the future was developed in very various manners. Still certain common ground lines may here be observed, by which the later Messianic hope is on the average characteristically distinguished from the older. The older Messianic hope virtually moves within the boundary of the then present circumstances of the world, and is nothing else than the hope of a better future for the nation. That the nation should be morally purified from all bad elements, that it should exist unmolested and respected in the midst of the Gentile world, whilst its enemies were either destroyed or forced to acknowledge the nation and its God, that it should be governed by a just, wise and powerful king of the house of David, and that therefore internal justice, peace and happiness would prevail, nay that all natural evils would be abolished and a state of unclouded prosperity would appear—this may be said to have formed the foundation of the future hope among the older prophets, This picture however underwent very important alterations in the consciousness of a subsequent age, partly in the times of the later prophets, but especially in the post-canonical period.
1. And first, the view became more and more extended from the nation to the world: the eye was fixed not only on the future of the nation, but on the future of the world. While in the former vision the heathen nations were only objects of consideration, so far as they stood in some kind of relation to Israel, the expectation of after times fixed its gaze more and more decidedly upon the fate of all mankind, nay of the whole world. The judgment was originally a visitation by which either Israel was purified or its enemies destroyed; it subsequently became the judgment of the world, in which the fate of all men and all nations will be decided, and that either by God Himself or by His Anointed, the Messianic, King of Israel. The ideal kingdom of the future does not, according to former expectation, extend beyond the actual limits of the Holy Land; according to the later view, the future kingdom of God comprises all mankind, who willingly or by compulsion are united under the sceptre of Israel into a universal monarchy. Thus the Messiah is the judge and ruler of the world. Nay even the irrational creation, heaven and earth, and therefore the whole universe in the strict sense, is transformed, the old destroyed and a new and glorious one made in its stead. This extension of the idea of the future was partly brought about by the extension of the political horizon. The more the small separate states were absorbed by the great universal monarchies, the more obvious was it to view the ideal kingdom of the future also as a universal monarchy. After the overthrow of the last heathen universal monarchy God Himself assumes the sceptre and founds a universal kingdom, which He, the heavenly King, rules by means of His people. But still more important than the enlargement of the political horizon in the development of the Messianic idea, was the enlargement of the notion of God and of the view of the world in general. In the original view Jehovah is only the God and King of Israel. He is subseqently more and more decidedly and evidently regarded as the God and King of the world. With this again is connected the ever increasing hold upon the consciousness of the nation of “the world” as a single whole comprising all existence. The growing universalism of the expectation of the future was virtually conditioned by this enlargement of the religious consciousness in general.
2. With this enlargement of the future hope is combined however, on the other hand, a far more decided reference of this hope to the individual. This too is connected with the development of the religious consciousness in general. Originally Jehovah is the God of the nation, who directs with His mighty hand the woe or weal of the people. The lot of the individual was hardly thought of. But as the religious consciousness deepened, the individual could not but more and more feel himself the object of God’s care. Each individual knew his fate to be in the hand of God, and was sure that God would not forsake him. The strengthening of this individual belief in providence gradually resulted in a more individual hope of the future. This was indeed comparatively very late, as it cannot be pointed to till the time of Daniel. The form in which it was first manifested was that of a belief in the resurrection. The pious Israelite being certain, that his personal and indeed his enduring and eternal salvation is the will of God, expects, that he and all the godly will have a share in the future glory of the nation. He then who is seized by death before this is realized, may hope, that he will one day be raised up again by God and transplanted to the kingdom of His glory. According to this the object of the resurrection is a participation in the glorious future of the nation, and the basis of faith in the resurrection is the ever more powerfully developing interest of personal salvation. But not only did the interest of salvation take an individual form, but reflection was more and more directed to the future fate of the individual in malam partem also. God keeps in heaven an account of the deeds of each individual, at least of each Israelite. And decision will be given at the judgment on the ground of what is contained in these heavenly books, and reward or punishment meted to each exactly according to his merits. The result of this again was, that the expectation of a resurrection was now that of a general resurrection: not only were the righteous, but the unrighteous also to rise, to receive their sentence at the judgment. This expectation however never attained general acceptance, many looking only for a resurrection of the just. Lastly however the individual interest was no longer satisfied with a resurrection for the purpose of participation in the Messianic kingdom. This was no longer regarded as the ultimate and supreme felicity, but a higher, an eternal, a heavenly happiness expected afterwards, even an absolutely glorious state in heaven; as on the other hand for the wicked, not merely an exclusion from Messiah’s kingdom, but eternal torment and punishment in hell.
3. These last particulars are already connected with a further peculiarity, by which the hope of the future entertained in later, is distinguished from that of older times; for it had now become more and more transcendent, and was more and more trausferred to the supernatural and supermundane. The older hope kept within the range of present circumstances. A destruction of the enemies of Israel, a purification of the people and their glorious future, were expected. However ideal the representation of this future prosperity, it still remains within the circle of present circumstances. In the later view the present and the future became more and more pure contrasts, the gulf between the two ever deeper, the view ever more dualistic. With the appearance of Messianic times a new course of the world, a new עוֹלָם, is to begin. This future course of the world (עוֹלָם הַבָּא) is however in all respects the entire contrast to the present course of the world (עוֹלָם הַוֶּה). The present is under the rule of the ungodly powers of Satan and his angels, and therefore sunk in sin and sorrow. The future is under the rule of God and His Anointed: and only righteousness and happiness prevail therein. There can scarcely be any connection between the two. By a miraculous act of God the one will be destroyed, the other called into existence. However much this view may be supported by the former representation, the contrast between now and then is much more sharply drawn than in the former view. The latter sees far more the gracious government of God in the present time also. According to the later representation it might almost seem, as if God had for the present given over the government to the Satanic powers, and had reserved for the future world the full exercise of His sway. Accordingly the future salvation is also more and more regarded as purely transcendental. All the benefits of the future world come down from above, from heaven, where they had pre-existed from all eternity. They are kept there for the saints as an “inheritance,” which will one day be bestowed upon them. In particular does the perfect, the glorious, new Jerusalem, which will at the time of the consummation of all things descend to earth in the place of the old, exist there already. So too the Messiah, the perfect King of Israel, chosen by God from eternity, is already there in communion with God. All that is good and perfect can come only from above, because all that is earthly is in its present condition the direct contrary to the divine. At last therefore the hope of the future outsteps altogether the limits of earthly existence. The final happiness is not even found in the kingdom of glory upon the renewed earth, but in an absolute state of glory in heaven. As the salvation itself, so also is the manner of its realization more and more transcendentally conceived of. The judgment is a forensic act, in which, without the intervention of earthly powers, the fate of men is decided simply by the verdict of God, or of His Anointed; and the execution of this sentence is effected only by supernatural powers, by a miraculous act of God, which destroys the old and calls the new order of things into existence.
4. Lastly, the Messianic hope received an entirely new colouring in later times from the fact that it, like the whole circle of religious ideas in general, was increasingly dogmatized by the diligent labour of the scribes. In place of vigorous religious productiveness came the learned investigation of the prophetic writings, by which the details of the Messianic picture of the future were dogmatically settled. The task of the scribes was indeed at first the settling and treatment of the law. But they then, according to the same method, worked at and settled in detail the whole circle of religious ideas, and especially the Messianic expectations. Thus the poetic picture became learned dogma. While in the ideal imagery of the prophets the boundary of the literal and figurative meaning is evidently a fluctuating one, the sacred text of the prophets is taken at its word by the scribes of a later age, the poetic image is stiffened into dogma, and the character of the whole picture of the future becomes thereby increasingly an externally transcendental one. Not only moreover were all the existing details collected and dogmatically arranged, but new details were elicited by their learned combination, after the manner of Haggadic Midrash (see above, § 25. III.). For the sake of obtaining new disclosures, the most heterogeneous passages were with the utmost ingenuity brought into relation with each other, and the details of Messianic theology thereby more accurately and comprehensively determined. It cannot be denied however, that such learned material also fluctuated, for it never became really binding like the details of the law. Thus the individual was at liberty to appropriate now more now less of it, and to fashion it according to his own perceptions, so that the Messianic hope was always fluctuating and is met with in very different forms among different individuals.
It must moreover be also remarked, that the peculiarities of the later Messianic expectation here described are by no means equally found everywhere. Even in later times, the old hope of a glorious future for the nation maintained the supremacy. This forms even in the later view of the future the determining ground-plan of the picture. And just as upon this foundation the characteristic peculiarities of the later view have stronger or weaker influence, and produce this or that alteration, is the old image now more now less, now in one way now in another, specially modified and supplemented.
But did this hope, we would next inquire, always continue active among the people ? Did it not itself die out with the dying out of ancient prophecy, and revive to new life through the Christian movement? The latter has been frequently asserted, especially so far as the Messianic idea in its narrower sense of the expectation of a Messianic King is concerned. It is thought, that this was again stirred up by the appearance of Jesus Christ, and that it was thereby revivified even in the circles of Judaism. This assertion has been made in a summary manner by Bruno Bauer and Volkmar, in a more enlightened one and with better foundation by Holtzmann. The statements adduced by the latter are about these. After the almost total extinction of the Messianic idea in the last centuries before Christ, it was reconstructed in the way of scholarship “by means of mere literary investigation.” This process of new formation had in the time of Jesus been already entered upon, but did not receive its completion till the Christian period and under the partial influence of Christian ideas. The Messianic idea was in the time of Christ by no means an active one in the popular consciousness. An essential distinction between the later scholastic and the former prophetic idea of the Messiah was, that the prophets did not expect His appearance till after God Himself had in a decisive battle destroyed the hostile powers, while according to the later dogmatic the Messiah was to come to hold a judgment, and that a judgment in a forensic form. Setting aside for the present the latter point, we may sum up our verdict on Holtzmann’s view by saying, that he is decidedly in the right, when he insists on the scholastic character of the later Messianic idea, but in the wrong, when he as good as denies the Messianic idea to the last centuries before Christ, and represents it as not yet transferred to popular consciousness during the life of Jesus. The latter is in opposition to the gospel history, and the former he can only maintain by either entirely disregarding evidence to the contrary (as Henoch, xc. 37-38; Orac. Sibyll. 3:46-50; Philo, de praem. et poen. § 16), or casting doubt upon the time of its composition (as the Psalterium Salomonis), or explaining it away in an arbitrary manner (as Orac. Sibyll. 3:652 sqq., which is said to relate to Simon the Maccabaean). In truth the Messianic idea never quite died out at least not in its more general form of the hope of a better future for the nation. In any case it was again very active in the last centuries before Christ, and especially in the time of Christ, as the course of the gospel history shows. It there appears as thoroughly alive among the people, without Jesus doing anything to revive it; and indeed it appears as a rule in the last centuries before Christ, not only in its general form as the hope of a better future of the nation, but also in its special form as the hope of a Messianic King. This will appear as we present in the following pages: (1) The development of the Messianic idea in its historical course; and (2) give a Systematic view of Messianic dogmatics.