interrogator means by God's Son, the world-forming porwer which has gone forth from God and which is servicable to Him, the same which in chapter VIII is called wisdom, and is described as God's dear child. He might know God the creator of the world, and His Son the mediator of its creation in their being, but who could name them? The being of the Godhead transcends human knowledge! While Schultz, Alttestamentliche Theologie, Frankfort on-the-Main 1878, p. 513 holds that the question: "And who is His Son?" is to be understood as a proverb, Ewald acknowledges, Die Lehre der Bibel von Gott, Leipzig 1871-1876, vol. III, p. 82, that here the doctrine of the Logos as the first begotten and only Son (πρωτότοκος and μονογενής) is proclaimed. Wisdom and Word (hoyos) are mutually immanent ideas where we have to do with the medial cause (causa media) of the world's creation.

Remark. A remarkable parallel to Prov. XXX, 4 is found in Rigveda, Book I, Hymn 164, 4, where according to Haug's translation (Sitzungsberichte der bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, München 1875, vol. II) we read: "Who has seen the first-born? who saw that one without a body bears one with a body? who was probably the life, blood, and soul of the earth? who went to the wise One to ascertain it."

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The Wisdom in the Sophia of Solomon.

We need not be surprized to find that the development of this idea of Wisdom and the Logos is continued in the Palestinian Apochrypha and Targums, but especially in the Alexandrian book 'of Wisdom (VII-IX). Wisdom is here called a breath (atμís) from God's strength, a pure effluence (anóppola) from the glory (da) of the Almighty, a reflection (anaúɣaoua) of the eternal Light (VII, 25), a sharer (nápeopos) of God's throne (IX, 4), as taking part in the creation of the world (IX, 9, compare VIII, 3—4). The author prays to her (IX, 10 etc.), as omniscient, as the right leader and guide.

Remark. The book of Wisdom (Zopía Zaλwp.óv) was composed before the time of Philo. We do not yet find in it the representation of the Logos as an intermediate being between God and the world. The word is personified in XVIII, 15 etc., but not differently than in Ps. CVII, 20.

$ 87. Philo's Logos.

It

The real founder of the doctrine of the Logos is Philo. grew up in his writings from biblical roots, but not without the influence of Platonism and especially of the Stoa (compare Heinze, Lehre vom Logos in der griechischen Philosophie, Oldenburg 1872). Philo may be reckoned, to a certain extent, as belonging to the period before christianity was founded, for when he came to Rome at the head of an embassy of Alexandrian Jews which were sent to Caligula (40 A. D.) he was an old man (yέpwv), so that he must have been born about 20 B. C. We need not be surprised that his doctrine of the Logos finds an echo in John's and Paul's writings. The divine origin of christianity is not thereby lessened. Christianity not only realized the Spirit of the Old Testament revelation, but also manifested itself as the transfiguration and consecration of the elements of truth and the Hellenistic forms which were commonly employed for its expression. Philo's Logos is hypostatic, or as Zeller says, is suspended midway between personal and impersonal being. It is by no means a mere personification. He is God's son. He becomes a shepherd, leader, teacher, physician of the soul, but the thought of an incarnation of the Logos is absolutely incomprehensible for Philo. Matter and Godhead are for him such sharply contrasted antithises, not only physically, but also ethically, that he would be compelled to reject the thought of a union of both. Moreover in his system the Messiah occupies a very subordinate position, hence the Messianic hope is a heterogeneous matter of secondary importance.

Remark. All the promises requisite to John's conception: "The word became flesh" (1, 14 ó λóyos càp éyéveto) are wanting in Philo; for (1) he lacks the insight into the fact of the fall and into the necessity of a divinely wrought redemption; (2) according to his doctrine man as man is sinful and the body as such is a source of evil; (3) the idea of the Logos and of the Messiah are never blended in his writings, not even when he refers avatoλń (Zech. VI, 12) to the Logos. Once Philo expresses exactly the opposite of ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο in the book entitled: Quis rerum divinarum haeres, 487, ed. Mangeу: τò πрòs dεòv où xatéßy πρὸς ἡμᾶς, οὐδὲ ἦλθεν εἰς σωματικὰς ἀνάγκας, “That which was with God neither descended to us, nor came into bodily necessities", compare his book de profugis 415: ὁ ὑπεράνω πάντων λόγος εἰς ἡμετέραν οὐκ ἦλθεν ἰδέαν ἅτε μηδενὶ τῶν αἰσθητῶν ἐμφερὴς ὤν; “The Logos who is exalted over all has not entered our form, since he has nothing to do with the things of sense". Philo is the precursor of New Testament cognitions, without anticipating them, since he lacked, as we have observed the necessary premises.

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The Machabean Insurrection and the Messianic hope.

The Messiah in Philo is a king, through whom earthly relations are revolutionized for the better. But he is not, as a divine mediator, the originator of a radical, and above all, of a spiritual transformation. In general the Messianic hope, after the last prophetic voices, seems to die away and does not assume the spiritual character which was rendered possible, but becomes external, so that when the Messiah appeared in Jesus, the unspiritual character of this hope rendered the mass of the people incapable of recognizing in Him the promised One, and made it uncommonly difficult even for those who believed in Him to be reconciled to the manner of His appearance and working, without being scandalized by it. The reform, instituted by Ezra and Nehemiah sought to make the Mosaic law the ruling power of the people's life. This effort was crowned with unparalleled success. But the result was, that the spirit of the law involved in its letter was lost, and that prophecy as the authentic interpretation of this spirit was neglected. The elevation of the Machabees contributed to increase this ceremonial character of Judaism. It is indeed true that, if the Jewish people had not then preserved their national and religious independence, Messianic prophecy would have lost the basis for its realization. But since the struggle pertained to the external fulfilment of the law, and centered in circumcision and laws concerning food and worship, it brought with it the danger of considering these externals as of chief importance. It is characteristic, that even under Jonathan (160-143 B. C.), the youngest brother of Judas Machabaeus, the contrast between Phariseeism and Sadduceeism arose (Josephus, Antiquitates XIII, 5. 9), and that at the time of John Hyrcanus I (135-105 B. C.) it had already invaded the history of the people. The Saducees were the antitraditional, Hellenizing, aristocratic party; the Pharisees were the democratic party of legally minute observances, and of the national religion, who had the merit of maintaining the independence of Judaism, although by a lifeless system of ceremonials. It was also unfavorable for the maintenance of the Messianic hope in its purity, that now for the first time a priestly family stood at the head of the state and that the people out of gratitude appointed Simon, the elder brother of Jonathan, as high priest and prince forever (ýyoúμevov xal

áрxiepéa eis tòv aiova 1 Mach. XIV, 41), “until a reliable prophet should arise and give other information" (140 B. C.). The first union of both offices, which has even misled christian interpreters, so that they have regarded it as the historical foundation of Ps. CX (Hitzig, Olshausen), was an untimely anticipation which encroached on the redemptive fulfilment of the prophecy. And since under John Hyrcanus the Jewish people experienced a time of freedom, of prosperity, and of an extension of territory, such as had not been enjoyed since the time of David and Solomon, the consciousness of its spiritual calling to the entire world fell into the background before its political self-consciousness, and as after Hyrcanus the star of the Hasmonean dynasty gradually went down in tyranny and fratricidal war, and was outshone by Antipater and his son Herod, an adherent of Rome, the people then hoped for scarcely anything more in the Messiah than a king who would likewise liberate it with iron weapons from the Roman yoke as the Machabees had freed it from that of the Seleucidae.

Remark. The relation of the Pharisees to the Sadducees has been made clear by Wellhausen (Die Pharisäer und die Sadducäer. Eine Untersuchung zur inneren jüdischen Geschichte, Greifswald 1874), following the precedent of Abraham Geiger (d. 1874). Compare Schürer's review of this treatise in Jenaer Literaturzeitung, 1878, No. 28.

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The popular Literature and the Messianic Hope.

We now possess for the most part, and in consequence of new discoveries, written memorials of Judaism, of a lyric, midrashic and apocalyptic character, which variously confirm the fact, that in the time of the Machabees and later in that of the Herods the future Messiah belonged to the contents of the national belief and hope. The Sibylline Oracles proclaim (Book III, ver. 652—794) a divinely sent king, who after Israel has been revenged on the heathen, and these have become subject to the law of God, raises an eternal kingdom of peace among mankind. In the book of Enoch (XC, 37-38) the Messiah appears under the image of a white bullock, for white is the color of the theocratic line. All the heathen pray to him and are converted to the Lord God. In Solomon's Psalter, of which Ps. XVII is the most pregnant and beautiful acknowledgement of the Messiah in the time of the Machabees, the Messiah is

expected as a righteous, divinely instructed, and sinless king, who unites Israel and the heathen under his peaceful sceptre:

"Blessed are they who will be borne in those days to see the happiness of Israel in the reunion of the tribes, which God will create." Even a younger portion of the Sibylline Oracles (III, 36-92) announces the future of a holy ruler, who in the time which is hastening on will bring the entire earth under his sceptre.

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The Recession of the Messianic Hope.

On the other hand however we find in the Apocalypse of the Alexandrian Codex the acknowledgement of an everlasting kingdom, which was promised to the house of David (compare Sirach XLVII, 11; I Mach. II, 57), but the person of the second David is nowhere mentioned. Even the Assumptio Mosis, which arose about the commencement of the christian era, prophesies indeed the beginning of a divine kingdom which will be realized among all creatures, and from which the devil and all pain will be banished, but without the Messiah. And the book of Jubilees indulges in descriptions of the everlasting glory, but the ruler is the church of the Servant of God, and entire silence is preserved with reference to the Messiah. This is not surprising, for the dominant representation of the Messiah was not in accordance with every one's taste. The Messiah was thought to be merely a king sent by God, who through bloody conflict should prepare the way for everlasting peace. The time of the Machabees threw the hope of the Messiah back to the one-sided image of the king, as it appears in the stadium before Deutero-Isaiah, Zechariah, and Malachi. Nor is it otherwise in Philo, although his doctrine of the Logos contains thoughts, which, blended with the image of the Messiah, were fitted to breathe into it a new life.

Remark. We leave out of account here: (1) the apocalypse of Baruch, published by Ceriani in Latin 1866, and in Syriac 1871, it is later than the Roman catastrophe; (2) the fourth book of Ezra, the most widely circulated of all the Jewish apocalypses; it was probably not written before the time of Domitian; (3) the Ascensio Isaiae, issued in Ethiopic by Dillmann 1877, and in Latin by Oscar von Gebhardt in Hilgenfeld's Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Theologie, Leipzig, vol. XXI, 3. Its character is Jewish-Christian and it has the physiognomy of the second century after Christ.