CHAPTER IV.

THE TIMES OF CHRIST.

A. D. 1 to A. D. 70.

Among the circumstances which most powerfully tended to prepare the way of the Lord, was the diffusion of members of the Hebrew family over the surface of the world, as a consequence of the internal expansive power of the Hebrew polity, and, externally, of the conquests of Alexander and the establishment of the Roman dominion. In all the great centres of thought at the time of Christ, there existed Jews who, in virtue of their convictions, formed a point of transition between the old perishing systems of Judaism and Heathenism and the new and living doctrine proclaimed by the Prophet of Nazareth. And as the Greek language was then a general medium of communication, it was comparatively easy for new thoughts to be disseminated, and for lively and ennobling sympathies to be set in action and to be kept in vigour.

This favourable state of the public mind was promoted and sustained by the prevalence of the Hebrew Scriptures in a Greek translation that emanated from Alexandria in Egypt, one of the great schools of ancient learning which possessed special power in the times of which we speak. It was owing to a consequent acquaintance with the contents of the Hebrew Scriptures, especially with the predictions of its prophets, that wise and good men in and before the reign of the emperor Augustus had been led to desire and expect the appearance of some great teacher, who with divine sanctions should throw light on many painfully dark points, and give relief to the weary heart desiring yet not knowing how to find union and peace with God.

These elevated spiritual anticipations were clothed in the language and often adorned with the sublime embellishments of poetry. The prophet, the poet, and the minstrel, among the Hebrews, were in many cases one. The true prophet always spake as he was moved by the Holy Spirit. Hence arose an elevation of strain, which far transcended the highest efforts of the Greek and Roman muse, and which, beyond a doubt, won the hearts of men whose taste required to be satisfied ere their minds could receive light, while it could not fail to excite the strongest moral sympathies in all good and religiously-disposed persons.

Before the downfal of the Hebrew monarchy, the religious system of the nation, under the control of self-seeking priests, and sacrifices, the spiritual import of which was lost from sight or misrepresented, became almost exclusively a mere routine of forms,

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the tendency of which was to make the intellect narrow, and the heart cold and hard. There ensued a state of mind adverse to progress, and dull, if not nearly dead, to true spiritual influence. One effect was the closing of the mental eye to all except one class of scriptural ideas. Mere earthly grandeur men of this temper could estimate and value. Hence they dreamed of national ascendency, and their Messiah was to chase the Romans from Palestine and set up a universal empire, with Jews for his ministers and favourites. Meanwhile, they left on one side or utterly misread passages which clearly and fully speak of a period of darkness, suffering, and death, through which the Messiah was to pass ere he entered into his glory. In this omission was the fatal cause why they rejected and crucified the Son of God, in whom they found no form or comeliness (Is. liii.).

That fatal mistake was rendered the more easy by the existence, in the time of Jesus, of certain sects or parties who, in the pursuit of their unwise, narrow, or selfish objects, agitated the people, exasperated them against so true, honest, and disinterested a teacher as was the Christ, and eventually, under the predominance of the wicked hate felt by the priests, conspired together to induce the Roman governor, Po'ntius Pilate, to crucify him whom God in his mercy had sent to turn them away from their unrighteous courses.

Among the evils of the Babylonish exile was the infection of the Israelites with notions and desires derived from human traditions and of an impure tendency, yet rank in their growth. Hence the circle of ideas which surrounded the strict monotheism of the Mosaic faith became more numerous, more definite, but also less true and less beneficial. The doctrine of two principles, one good and the other bad, who, ruling the universe with divided empire, were each served by a great number of good or bad spirits, ranged in order one above another, and, as the ministers of the will of God or the Devil, possessing great power in human souls and over earthly affairs, was derived by the Jewish exiles from the Persian mythology and forced into union with their native faith on and after their return from Babylon. So great a change could not be brought about without a struggle. The new opinions became fashionable under the guise of philosophy, which thus offered to improve the old and enrich the barren ideas of the fathers. No few, however, preferred to remain faithful to the simple but divinely-sanctioned ideas of primitive times, and could not be prevented from resisting the advance of the offensive and corrupting novelties.

The former class of philosophic innovators, affecting singular wisdom and sanctity, which in their own estimation separated them from the multitude, took the name of Pharise'es, or separated men, and, with the aid of native traditions as well as imported corruptions, formed an almost new system of religious doctrine and prac

tice, which we may name Judaism, and which stands embodied in the great collection called the Talmud. The new system, which to a great extent was in substance and spirit foreign to that of Moses, they endeavoured to make coalesce with it by such resources as learning and ingenuity could supply. These qualities of mind they perverted, in order, by forced and arbitrary interpretations, to make the law and the prophets lend a sanction to ideas and deeds of which they in truth knew nothing. The obtrusion of mere human notions had the natural effect of causing God's laws to lose their prominence. The weakening of their sanction prepared the way for fresh novelties. Hence, in their laxity, the Pharisees became inclined to Hellenism, or Greek influence, which, however, was not without effect in enlarging the mind for the reception of the gospel. Men of this complexion of thought we find in Nicode'mus, Gama liel, and his distinguished scholar, Saul of Tarsus. The general body, however, of the Pharisees were divided into two schools; one, who held Judaism in all its fulness and with a spirit of rigour as the only true faith of a son of Abraham, had for their head Rabbi Shammäi'; the other, whose opinions were less determinate and whose spirit was less rigid, followed the guidance of Rabbi Hillel. Both parties, wedded to their opinions, to which they falsely ascribed a divine sanction, disregarded holiness of heart and an upright life, and, in the pride which naturally ensued from their fancied privileges, they looked with scorn and contempt on the people.

This feeling of disregard was shared by the Sadduce ́es, the opponents of the Pharise'es, who, adhering to the letter of the Mosaic law, disallowed the diverse materials which had been mixed with its teachings, and consequently denied the Pharisaic doctrine respecting angels, spirits, and a resurrection. While the Pharisees were the more popular as well as numerous, the Sadducees, found chiefly among those who prided themselves on their birth or opulence, stood in a haughty attitude, at a distance from the moving interests of the day, or took a cold part in them, so far as they were prompted by self-interest. Resolved to uphold the ancient Hebrew system to the exclusion of every thing modern, they had no sympathy with and no aid to render to even useful movements in advance.

Their strong and exclusive attachment to forms of opinion and laws which society was fast outgrowing, had its opposite in the system of the Esse'nes, a kind of Jewish monks, who, around the shores of the Dead Sea and the Lake Mareo'tis in Egypt, where they bore the name of Therape'uta'e, or healers, lived at a distance from their fellow-men in separate communities, without marriage, employing themselves in agriculture and other useful labours, not without efforts of practical benevolence. Finding their hearts ill at ease, after all that the prevalent forms of religion had done, the Essenes sought, in a secluded life of mixed con

templation, industry, and self-denial, to supply what Judaism wanted, and so offered a resource for men who were darkly seeking a means of reconciliation with God, and encouraged spiritual tendencies which aided in preparing a field for the seed of the heavenly word, scattered over the soil by the hand of Christ. As their Hebrew name, Essene, and their Greek name, Therapeutae, indicate, they aimed to exert a healing influence over their own minds, wounded and bruised under the hand of sin, of whose operation they had a dim but painful consciousness.

The views of the Pharisees and Sadducees were entertained by the ruling classes of society. They formed the mind and guided the conduct of the scribes and lawyers, two classes of learned Jews who were professionally occupied with transcribing, explaining, and administering the law of the land in its mixed and corrupt condition. From this body of learned men was formed the Sanhedrim or chief council, the Jewish parliament, which, consisting of seventy members, framed laws and administered justice under the guidance of the high-priest. The limits of the power of the Sanhedrim, when regarded in view of the royal prerogatives on one side and the Roman authority on the other, are not very clearly defined. Use aided in determining what the law left unsettled, yet did there not fail to remain points which occasioned jealousy and conflict.

The feeling of want which was entertained by the Esse'nes was a naturally and divinely intended result of the Hebrew system, which made nothing perfect, and was but a schoolmaster to lead men to Christ (Gal. iii. 24). The law of Moses answered its purpose in planting in the mind a vivid knowledge of sin (Rom. iii. 20); but the sense of alienation from God which that knowledge occasioned could not be removed by the Jewish sacrifices, whose chief value lay in their directing men to look for and welcome the great spiritual atonement which was offered to the world in the Lamb of God, slain as our passover, by whom we have access to the Father with peace and sanctification (study the Epistle to the Hebrews).

Though the Hebrew was an exclusive system, yet did it, far more than any form of heathenism, contain elements of the utmost liberality. Its whole religious ritual and its entire polity tended to form a civil and spiritual union-one people, the people of God. This result was promoted by there being only one place where the law permitted sacrifices to be offered and worship to be paid. With great effect was this end furthered by the visits paid every year by each true Israelite to the temple at Jerusalem, at the time of the three great national festivals, namely, 1, at the Passover in spring (our Easter), intended to commemorate the fact that the destroying angel passed over the houses of the Hebrews when he destroyed the first-born in every Egyptian home, and therefore a token, a commemoration, and a

perpetual evidence of the deliverance of the Israelites from the yoke of Egypt (Exod. xii. 1-20; Levit. xxiii. 4-8; Numbers xxviii. 16-25; Deut. xvi. 1-8); 2, at the feast of Pentecost (fifty), called also the feast of Weeks (our Whitsuntide), held fifty days after the first day of the Passover, which was designed to be a public acknowledgment to Almighty God of his faithfulness and bounty in bestowing on man a fresh annual supply of ripened corn (Exod. xxiii. 16; Levit. xxiii. 15-21); 3, at the feast of Tabernacles, held on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when the natural year, now drawing to a close, had in full repaid human industry, and all the products of the soil had been gathered into the storehouse and the barn. This festival, which was a season of universal festivity, was celebrated with joy and thanksgiving in tabernacles, that is tents (hence the appellation), in commemoration of the booths or tents in which the children of Israel lived during their residence of forty years in Sinai (Exod. xxiii. 16; Levit. xxiii. 34-43; Deut. xvi. 13— 15). By the union, in the capital and around the national altar, of members of the various tribes, especially after the captivity at Babylon had caused distinctions to be less marked and influential, a unity of mind and heart was fostered which made Israel a community of brothers, the household of God. This spiritual oneness, when set free from the restrictions of place and time by the teachings and death of the Lord Jesus, expanded so as to embrace all men of all ages, climes, and lands,—and thus to make the family of the heavenly Father co-extensive with the family of man (Ephes. iii. 15).

From this expansion of the ideas and tendencies of the system of Moses, we may learn what in general is the view which we should take of the relation which Christianity bears to Judaism. That relation is in one respect a relation of hostility, inasmuch as the gospel superseded the law; and consequently, whatever in the latter is alien from the spirit and aims of the former, must be considered as abrogated (Matt. v. 17, seq.). Far more, however, is Christianity the development and natural product of the Law; so that Jesus is the true spiritual successor of Moses, and the Messiah completed what the legislator began, what the priest confirmed, and what the prophet enlarged and refined. Hence Christianity in one of its aspects is the perfection of Mosaism, whose essential principles, the unity of God and the religious education of man, it presents in full bloom and loveliness, as the flower exhibits the bud in all its expanded beauty of form, hue, and odour. And it is in consequence of this natural tie, which binds the gospel to the law as to its mother, that the speakers of the New Testament, in proclaiming the grace and truth that came by Jesus Christ (John i. 17), are studious to establish on scriptural grounds, then generally admitted to be valid, his claims to belief and obedience as the Messiah, the idea of whom was connected