The Christmas motto and the old prophetic presages of a coming golden era of peace;

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The

Christmas Motto,

and the

Old Prophetic Presages of a Coming
Golden Era of Peace

an flnqutri^

BY

ISAAC SCHWAB, Ph. D.,

Author of ' The Sabbath in History,' Etc.

St. Joseph, Mo.:
Press of Combe Printing Company.

Copyrighted December, 1S97,
By the Author.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

Discussion of the origin and primitive meaning of tlie
Christmas Motto, " Peace on earth, good-will among
men," and the author's own view on this point 1

CHAPTER 11.

Extension of the argument of chapter 1 24

CHAPTER III.

An effort to set right the faimous prop^hetic visions,
passing as predictive of a glorious, golden (Mes-
sianic) era 'of abiding peace, Tby an independent
examination, with new light thrown upon different
questions of this subject Tby the aid of advanced
theological science 33

NOTES.

1-40 65-121

EXCURSUS.

Treating critically of the prophetic enthusiasm about
a blessed Messianic future, by illus'trations from
modern Assyriology, and partly with reference to
Virgil 122

PREFACE.

My aim in tlie present Avork is to set in the liglit of
critical inquiry the famous Christmas legiend, "Peace on
Earth, Good-will lamong Men," -with the other half of
the subject, as presented in the title, "The Old
Prophetic Presiages of a coming Grolden Era of Peace."
This legend carries an overwhelming significance to
human society. In theory it is inestimable. But as
yet it is a theory only; charming, captivating, effective
in sense and exprtession, but yet a theory, wiaiting to be
put into action. The same is the case with those pro-
phetic forecasts of a glorious future of peace. They
have thus far remained unfulfilled. They shared in the
fate of all exalted and surpassing expectations for the
future, wdiich shine as castles with brigh'test hues along
the horizon, but defy the human grasp. And the nearer
to them people at times believe that they are, the farther
they will in sober and thoughtful hours really find them-
selves to be. The happy and magnificent goal prognosr
ticated in those olden prophets was never reached,
however lanxiously the friends of peace and kindly
humanitarians were pining for it. Their ardent hope
would never bring them nearer to it, nor bring it nearer
to them. Were they thus disappointed? Certainly they
must have been. But the repeated failure of theoir fond
outlook did not weary and dispirit them enough to give
it up in 'despair. This is, too, quite in the nature of
hope. "It builds," as Pope says, "as fast as knowledge
can destroy." Or, as Browning renders the thought:
"All men hope, and see their hopes frustrate, and gi'ieve
awhile, and hope again." No disappointment could

VI

Preface.

ever throw the firm Jewish Messiah-believers or
Christian Millenarians oil tJheir trade of hope, though
they were disillusioned a thousand times.

As to the evangelical theory, "peace on earth," which
has never yet been verified, it can surely not be said
that this was due to the fault of its tenor. The trouble
lies elsewhere. It is the nations of the world that set
themselves against it and hinder its realization. They
ever were and still are loth to incorporate it into their
rules of conduct and mutual relations. They even
refuse to be guided by one of the leading doctrines of
the jSTew Testament, which has equally with that
theory been standing out clearly and distinctly enough
these nineteen centuries past — ^the condemnation of war-
fare on the ground of the great virtues of forbearance
and non-resistance. Strauss, in "The Old and the ]^ew
Faith," relates that Renan had written him during the
late Franco-GeiTnan war: "JSTeither in the Beatitudes
nor any^vhere else in the gospel there is found one
word promising Heaven for tbe possession or exhibition
of martial virtues." This was undoubtedly a sort of
sarcastic protest against the bloody war in which that
great savant's nation was then involved. Who will
deny that this protest was correct and well applied?

Formally, indeed, the nations accept that leading
Christian doctrine. So do they avow the bdauty and
grandeur of the Christmas theory. But practically they
do not heed the great lesson these excellent precepts
teach. Tliey have not the will determining them to carry
this teaching into effect in their political interrelatious.
A further impediment to such accomplishment, even if
all nations would consent in principle — as the more
advanced ones really seem to do — ^would be the
troublesome question. Who will make the first step and
establisih the precedent for such pacific course? It is
evidently the solid concert of the nations in regard to t!he
great end of universal peace and, in especial, an adequ'ate

Preface. vii

awe-sti-iking aiit'liority to guard >tliis concert effectuallj
from any wanton breiadi, that are sadly wanting. Pos-
sibly, too, sucih concert and efficient autliority will never
be attained.

It is no less notable a jurist tlian the eminent lord
chief justice of England, Lord Kussell, who, in an
address delivered last year at Saratoga, rested his
diffidence against the creation of a tribunal of interna-
tional arbitration on that very ground.

"While he strongly champions the idea of such arbi-
tration, he yet urges this want as seriously hindering the
cause of universal peace. In view of this circumstance,
and also the point marked by him, that "most of the
nations are armed," he is of opinion that a more sure
advancement of this cause than might be looked for
from any legal institution of arbitration, is to be
expected*^ from these more natural influences: the
steadily growing and spreading public opinion with its
condemnation of warfare and peaceful predilections, the
ever increasing moral and intellectual culture of man-
kind, and in particular the pacifying factors of com-
merce, trade and travel between nations.

Assuredly, this view of the great English jurist,
which we may, moreover, hold as largely representative
of English sentiment at home, is not encouraging for the
prospect of an authoritative and, thus, efficient tribunal
of international arbitration being brought forth in the
near future. However the people in general may favor
it, it is their leaders and beads who, from a martial tem-
per or selfish and sinister motives, take either an an-
tagonistic or at least a dilatory stand in regard to the
question. Too sanguine a hope may even not be advis-
able for us as to the point of arbitration yet at issue
between the two great English speaking nations of the
world. And concerning the other members of the
family of nations, well — their standing amiies are a
standing menace to the peace and well-being of human

viii Preface.

society, so that at present little relief can be expected
from a standing court of international arbitration, were
it even that its creation was easy of acco-mplishment.

Nor, we have to fear, will all the peace leagues or
congresses that may be held in the present days or in
all future, help forward the cause of international arbi-
tration and peace to any considerable extent. All such
theoretical agencies will have little effect upon the
absolutely warlike nations of the world. These will
simply spurn or ridicule the idea of such theoretical
bodies attempting to meddle in their own 'blood and
iron' affairs. Highly praiseworthy as the well-meaning
efforts of these associations truly are, their efficiency for
practical good in a universal respect is surely question-
able.

It is here in point to- cite once more the above-noted
writer, Strauss. Refemng ironically tO' thei notorious
peace congTess held in Lausanne, in September, 1871,
he observes: "The famous orators, both male and
female, who aired their sentiments at that gathering,
should be reminded of Horace's suggestion, that the
fashioner of men, Prometheus, mixed up the substance
of the human heart with a portion of the fury of the
grim lion." Then, taking up the point of modem
evolution, he argues: "This scientific notion alone
should have led those orators to the same conclusion.
For, if man reially descends aboriginally from the
animal kingdom, he is i^rimarily an irrational being.
Accordingly, nature, cupidity and angry passion will,
despite the progress of reason and science, reitain great
power over him."

Now that fable of the lionly admixture of the human
heart need certainly not give us any concern. Dif-
ferent it is with tliat scientific problem of evolution.
It certainly must set us pondering, and just in the direc-
tion poiiuted out by that unrelenting German critic. It
cannot be denied that evolution opens a rather melan-

Preface, ix

oliolj view of the outlook for universal peace. It
inevitably suggesits the thought th'at the gi^acious
Christmas theory will, until a much "farther off" time,
have to content itself \vith being a pious wish, a poetical
longing. Tliis time, too, mil consistently have to be
taken as coextensive with tilie indefinite and problematic
period when humanity will have "thrown off the brute
inheritance," which dates from the primitive, pre-
social state of mankind with its peculiar military charac-
ter. Whether or no the evolutionary conclusion can be
verified, that "rivalry and conflict is the law of life,"
this much seems open to no doubt, tlhait there is yet too
much of the "ape and tiger," or, to speak with Horace,
of the lion, in main's constitution, tO' let us expect a
great deal from the modern expedient of a universal
tribunal ()f arbitration.

"Man is not yet finished." Until he be finished,
we may look in vain for the accomplishment of
the old Hebrew oracle, that the time will come
when war will be annihilated, and the nations
will put away their tools of feud, vengeance or conquest
and turn them into agricultural utensils. Until then,
also, it will be illusory to expect a realization of the
grand Christmas theory. It is readily seeai and will as
readily be conceded by all, that present and immediately
prospective conditions jar yet too much with its sweet
notes. Blessings of peace cannot be insured to mankind
until the curse of war in the world be rooted out. That
it is a curse, an unmitigated evil, despite siome tempor-
arily enjoyable inflation and a certain degree of progress
in the sphere of human intelligence, no true mian and
well-wisher of society will dispute. Warfare is by all
means a barbarous use, a relic of barbarity, which we
otherwise so boastfully claim to have shaken off, and its
cost, in every sense of the word, is incompensable.
Until that happy eveilt of evolution, when "man will be
finished," there will indeed always be seasons of peace,

X Preface.

jet its abiding golden age will not arrive till "men-
murdering Ares" will be utterly put down and replaced
by I&aiali's "prince of peace" (Isa. IX. 5) — in the
transfigured sense of princely peace. Until then, too,
there will also be breatihingnspaces in the lives of
nations, in which old sunny dreams of universal peace to
come will be resmscitated with keen delight, and even
lovely buds of springing peace appear to burst into
bright and fragrant flowers. But soon enough tliey will
prove themselves only feeble half -blossoms, doomed to
ruin by new chilling blasts of cruel ihuman temper passr
ing over them, or scorched to death by the heat of
warlike passion.

And yet must we not despond. On the contrary,
we will indulge the hope tlmt better days are in store
for mankind, when within the realm of civilization the
"fury goddess" will no more be permitted to be
unchained and " march through prosperous lands, bear-
ing terror and disaster in her course," but forced to be
sitting forever upon the fierce arms, bound fast mth
brazen chains (see page 139 of the present treatise). We
Avill confidently look forward to the' happy tune, however
far off, in which fierce, cruel w^ar will not be waged any
more between members of the family of nations, but be
held in abhorrenoe under the universally accepted
sanction that it is "murderous to islay a brother man,"
in Avar no less than in peace; and when even crowned
heads mil no more be tempted, in their intoxication of
power, to meiasure physical force's with other potentates,
but will themselves shrink back with horror from bloody
conflict as an unatonable crime.

It is noit wise to offer a presage of the future.
To gaze into its mazes with cle^ar perception and
desciry what lies hidden in it, is given to no
man. 'But at leiast an encouraging glance of what is
ahead of mankind, we may catch by the way of reason-
able inference from the present aspect of things in

Preface. xi

civilized .human society. There is, we hold, strongest
ground for the belief thait moral and intellectual culture
alike will henceforth advance steadily, and meet no
more relapses into barbarity or half-barbarity, as was
the case in the march of previous civilizations. There
seems no possibility of suoh relapse in this our eleictrical
age or henceforth. The present high development of
culture and refinement of feeling must inspire us
with confidence that its moral basis will never be
shaken more within the civilized world. We may further
take heart for the uninterrupted progress of the high and
blessed cause of peace, from the present movement for
international arbitration. jSTever before were tiie intel-
ligent classes of society so zealously intent on avoiding
bloody contests as they are now. Never before was the
question of international arbitration discussed with suoh
native fervor and pure enthusiasm as in our day. The
Venezuelan dispute, more than any other previous
American complication, has opened the eyes of the
public to the necessity of allaying mutual national
difiiculties not at the voracious mouth of the cannon,
but by the venerable, ancient canon of "and thou shalt
love they neighbor as thyself" (Leviticus XIX. 18).
This sacred maxim, they feel, is and ought to be powerful
enough to induce dissenting nations to meet and compose
their differences by peaceful means and ways, and fair
and lawful arrangement. Since then the question of
interaational arbitration has not subsided in \dgor or
lost in interest. On the contrary, it has gTown and
expanded more and more. The principle of such arbi-
ration has found its noble embodiment in an existing
treaty between England and America. All hail to the
wise and patriotic diplomats who brought it about!

From this narrower compass of the great question
we may enlarge our vista, and fairly regard it as the
auspicious harbinger of that more general, even univer-
sal improvement of the times, when the law of love will

^^^ Preface.

practically be infused into the so-oalled law of nations,
and tlieee will of tbeir own accord abolish perni-
cious warfare, and uniformly pursue a policy of
peace and agreement, or amicable adjustment in
threatening tensions 'of national feeling. Towards the
attainment of this glorious, golden end all of us, individ-
ually and imitedly, must work with our best powers.

Let, then, no melancholy misgiving disturb our
hopeful sentiment, but Idt us trust that humianity will
henceforth and forever "move upward, working out the
beast and letting the ape and tiger die;" and that all
fierce rivalry will more and more decrease within civil-
ized society, and only peaceful competition prevail, the
password being no more, strive to hurt and wound, but
"strive and thrive."

The present treatise deals with the problem of peace
in human society, in connection with pertinent sacred
texts. May it meet with many congenial readers ready
to accord it a generous appreciation. It has been
written in the spirit of fairness, and in the service of
pure science merely. Dogmatic bias or prejudice never
entered deliberately into its fabric. In return it expects
from the public the same spirit of fairness in receiving
and judging upon it. Looking forward to the good-will
of the public, I now send it forth, commissioned to per^
form its task of helping to clear up important questions
ever of interest to earnest Jewish and Christian minds
alike.

THE AUTHOR

CHAPTER L

"Eing out, ye crystal spheres!
Once bless our human ears.

If ye have power to touch our senses so; . . .

For, if such holy song
Enwrap our fancy long.

Time will run back, and fetch the age of gold; . . .

Yea, Truth and Justice then
Will down return to men,
Orb'd In a rainbow;" . . .

(Milton, 'Ode on the Nativity.')

The beautiful Christmas legend, "Peace on earth,
good-"\vill among men," taken from Luke, chapter 11.14:,
may fitly be compared to the glittering crest of a wave.
It is delic'litful and fascinating to view, but when it
subsides again into its even run it will necessarily
partake of the nature of the pallid or turbid body of
water from which it has risen. The same may be said
of that sentence which popular thought and parlance
have seized upon and appropriated as practically con-
veying the lesson of good-fellowship and charity for
and on the acce^Dted day of the ISTativity. The sentence
is indeed in its superficial aspect brimful of brightness
and cheer. It carries a momentum of sweetness and
grace. But when we examine it in its proper place
and logical context, it appears at once as something
different from what it is currently held to be — a well-

2 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

rounded Christmas lesson. While it will even then not
lose its exquisite beauty inherent in its abstract percep-
tion, it can yet no longer appeal to the sentiment with
the rapture of a splendid phenomenon, or be held
reducible to a maxim incorporated by the evangelist
with the intention of instruction or admonition. As
such, however, it passes with the unreflecting and
uninquiring mind. It readily assigns the first clause
to the doxology proper, and is content to take the rest
as a call to mutual "peace and good-will," which the
festive recollection of the I^ativity is presumed to
awaken on the annual day of its celebration. But upon
thoughtful reading and search the relative text of the
Christmas sentence as it occurs in the gospel, far from
being a clear, sunny saying, proves to be one of the most
obscure passages of the ISTew Testament writings.

As regards its direct and only purport in the gospel,
it is a representation of an angelic song alleged to have
been intonated in the night of the birth of Jesus in the
presence of some Jewish shepherds near Bethlehem.
The song is one of praise to God from the beginning
of the verse to its end. All its parts are organically
coherent and bear exclusively on the historical point of
the ISTativity, as which alone Luke can be supposed to
have embodied it in his gospel. And his only purpose
can have been to produce an angelic testification and
at the same time glorification of the new-born Jesus
as the Messiah and Savior. This is indeed, for all we
know, in substance the concurrent opinion of all the
theological expositors who ever set themselves to deal
with the refractorv Greek text of our sentence which,

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 3

moreover, has been delivered to us in essentially
divergent readings.

That consequently, let us say, a decided difference
exists between the learned expositors in the construction
of the sentence, is very natural. We cannot go into
an extensive survey of the expository opinions that text
has called forth in the past. It ever proved a real
'crux' for the interpreters, and offered a wide battle-
ground for the display of exegeitical contention. We
propose anon to present our own conjecture which, we
trust, will not unprofitably swell the already existing
large fund of speculation on the content of the doxology.

Preliminarily we feel tempted to say that we ought,
on the whole, not to go with it into too stern a critical
judgment. We should bear in mind — what we declare
as so very important foir the right estimate of texts of
the kind — >that it belongs on the one hand to the age
of miracles and, on the other, to the age of uncritical
use of and illogical reference to Hebrew Scripture
passages.

The stupendous apparition and proclamation of
angels would, truly, as the reported fact of Luke's
gospel, offer no difficulty whatever to its writer or the
simple-minded shepherds who are in it quoted as sole
witnesses to that marvelous incident. Yet the sober
thought of our scientific and reasoning age can meet it
at best but wdth a reverent skepticism, and will conse-
quently have to forbear treating it with the earnestness
it is wont to bring to points of inquiry, verifiable or to
be made probable at least by some sort of evidence.

Even in regard to the wording of Luke's doxology.

4 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

which, is withal to be set down as having been drawn in
some manner from Hebrew Scriptural patterns, our
temper of investigation ought to be mild and indulgent.
That the various writers of the ISTew Testament were by
no means particular with the form in which they
reproduced old Scripture texts, can be proved by
numerous instances. All they were concerned with
was, to give authority and prestige to their owa asser-
tions or accounts by means of some accommodation to
anterior accredited Scripture. However slight and
insignificant this accommodation would appear to our
modern analytical temper and judgment, it was to them
all-sufficient for their present purpose, even for the
general requirements of their time as well. And if the
transmitted text would in its actual phraseology yield
no support to their arguments or representations, they
hesitated not to take the license of altering it to suit
themselves. In this respect they went even far beyond
the Rabbinic scholastics of those centuries, who would
shrink with terror from the thought of practically
altering any portion or relation of extant Scripture,
even for the most pressing or most holy argiimentative
object. All they did whenever they wished to urge an
important or curiously wise point was, to suggest
hypothetically, and merely for argument's sake, "do not
read (as it stands), but (as proposed instead)." A
more common practice Avith them was to lean a prop-
osition freshly brought out, against a few words or only
one word of a Scriptural clause, however alien to their
argument the literal and internal import of their
quotation was.

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 5

In the 'New Testament writings we are multifa-
riously confronted with Hebrew Scripture references
which the authors thought fit to change, in the one way
or the other, for the particular object they then
mentally pursued and for which they sought authentic
confirmation. Akin to this mode of proceeding there
was another, which we wish to point out in support of
our foregoing observation, that we ought not to apply a
strict standard of criticism to Luke's doxology, as it is
of a kind which does practically not bear it. We mean
the formation of a sort of new texts from single stray
passages of Hebrew Scripture, if no old one was ready
to hand or could prove available to cover the point the
respective writer would happen to urge.

We will in a separate note^^^ illustrate this novel
mode by some striking instances, and those of a character
intimate with the Christmas sentence under discussion.
Here we will state provisionally that we take this very
sentence also as such an accidental new formation,
gleaned from Hebrew Scripture passages that floated
before the writer's mind, and then cemented together
for the particular use of his narrative. How it may
have come about in the mind and from the pen of Luke,
(or the original writer from whom he drew) will later
be presented. To judge of it thus leniently, instead of
submitting it to a sharp exegetical scrutiny, we would
candidly advise as the manner of treatment best adapted
for it. This manner we must at all events declare
preferable to the Sisyphus labor of coercing the text into
unusual indications, to meet the various requirements of
grammar and dogma combined.

6 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

Decidedly preferable it must be pronounoed to the
mode so general witliin conservative Protestant tlieology,
to let tlie angels have forestalled the Pauline doctrine of
Atonement or reconcilation of men to God through the
death and blood of Christ. At this rather prevalent
interpretation we now want to take a glance. We ^vill
first bring forward the exposition of Alford, the erudite
English divine, whose Greek Testament edition enjoys
an authoritative influence with the generality of our
theologians. "We have before us his sixth edition of the
Testament. He divides, Avith many moderns, ^^^ the
doxology into two clauses only, having adopted — since
1862, as he states in a note — the reading "eudokias," in
the genitive. The "only admissible rendering" of the
last words of the sentence is to him: "Among men of
God's good pleasure." This good pleasure is however
not to be understood as that which God has in men as
such, but as that which he had "in Christ, by which he
reconciles the world to himself in him (2 Cor. V.19),"
The men of "good pleasure" are in other words, and
those literally used by Alford himself, the "elect people
of God." It is, then, not Israel as a body and a nation
who were by the angels held in view as the beneficiaries
of the ISTativity, in so far that ^peace' (or reconciliation)
between them and God would fall to their lot through
Christ. 1^0, the angels particularized in favor of the
elect. And who are those elect? Obviously not even
the generality of the future believers in Jesus'
Messiahdom as such, as understood in Matt. XXIV. 22,
but those predestined for salvation before the foundation
of the world, in accordance with Paul's fatalistic position

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 7

set forth in Eph. I. (cp. Rom. IX.) The upshot of
Alford's intei-pretation inevitably is, that Luke made
the angels from the outset discriminate deliberately,
though only by implication, for the benefit of those who
would eventually believe in the atoning merits of the
death of the then new-born Jesus, that is to say, the elect.
But, let us ask, is such studied and rigid dogmatic
discrimination compatible with the bright and pompous
pronunciamento, as which Luke's doxology must strike
every unbiased reader? Further, it must be objected,
what imaginable good could it have done to the
understanding of the shepherds to hear a heavenly host
speak mysteriously in a language foretokening Paul',"?
dogmatic teaching? They were undoubtedly with all
the rest of their orthodox countrymen hopefully looking-
for a Messiah as the successful Redeemer from the yoke
of foreign oppression. But we must emphatically
dispute their capacity for making out the angel's
supposable enigmatic allusion to Paul's later dogma.
Their uninitiated minds could but have been puzzled
by it, and even become worse confounded, if the point
of election should additionally have been implied in the
angelic proclamation. Xo, we protest, this construction
of the angels having forestalled in their song Paul's
twofold dogmatism of Atonement and election, has no
reasonable foundation in the text. ISTot even the bare
reference to the Atonement, without the sharp edge of
predestined election, can be fitly imputed to the angels'
song, for even that would imply a limitation to those who
would eventually have unquestioning faith in the
reconciling merits of the death of Jesus.

8

The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

The angels, we aver, cannot consistently, from the
whole texture of the story, be thought to have particu-
larized in their song. This becomes more especially
clear beyond any dispute when we take the doxology
together with the preceding context, v. 11. Here the
single angel who was first on the scene announced "good
tidings of great joy to all the people," that is, the people
of Israel — as Alford himself insists that the construction
must be. jSTow the message of the single angel was
avowedly and concededly for the behoof of the Jews as
a body. Is it then in any manner reconcilable with such
antecedent announcement that "the multitude of the
heavenly host," who immediately joined that individual
celestial messenger, should have differed from him so
directly and glaringly as to use a language which implied
proclamation of peace only to the elect few or the smaller
number of "men of good pleasure," and these called so
only potentially, in respect to their choice of belief in
Paul's later developed dogmatic theory?

We will yet mention another popular theological
work, in which the same dogmatism is presumed to
have impliedly been forecast in the doxology. We
mean Lange's Bible Commentary. In it the eminent
American theologian, Philip Schaff, comes to decide
substantially,^'^ after some longer discussion, on the
same exposition with Alford. He too ultimately
determines upon the reading "eudoldas," for the
"weightier authority" it has for itself. And he con-
strues the sentence: "Glory to God in the highest
and peace (or salvation) on earth among men of His
good pleasure." These are to him , God's chosen

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 9

people" — Alford's "elect." To them, lie reasons, God
feels good-will or gracious pleasure, for tlieir (eventual)
reconciliation to Himself by Christ. For this senti-
ment he, like Alford, refers to 2 Cor. V.19.

The learned Farrar, in 'The Life of Christ,' keeps
on the same line of Pauline dogmatic forecast, coincides
in the reading of "eudokias," and translates: "and on
earth peace among men of good will." Upon which
Geikie, in 'Life and Words of Christ,' I. p. 560, observes
very forcibly and pertinently : "the introduction of the
idea of the elect as those to whom only the message of
the Saviour is proclaimed by the angels is equally
opposed to the declarations of God's loving the world,
and to the grandeur of Christ's mission." We note this
commendable opposition to the ordinary run^*^ of
conservative Protestant exegesis as a gratifying offset to
the widely prevailing self-conscious pretension that the
doxology admits only of the narrow Pauline construc-
tion.

jSTo, we insist, with such dogmatic turn and aim
the doxology would stand out as a graceless, forced,
even harsh sentence, entirely incongruous with the
circumstances into which it is set by the gospel
writer. The scene as recorded purports to be one of
angelic epiphany, at which unlettered Jewish shepherds
were the only attendants. They could not possibly, we
assert again, have fathomed the dogmatic mystery
developed by Paul at a later stage. ISTay, we fear no
sensible contradiction in declaring, that no other Jew in
the wide land of Palestine could have interpreted the
doxology, when published by the shepherds, in a Pauline

10 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

tiinij as no one was then able to prognosticate this
apostle's subsequent theory of Eeconciliation as the aim
and end of the life of Christ. Is^ot that the angels them-
selves had not the gift or power of such prescience. To
supernatural beings to whom fhe most unnatural things
are possible, such foreknowledge, too, must have been
a matter of course. Eegarding the angels by themselves
they could, then, certainly be most safely credited with
a Pauline construction of their song. But as their
message was intended for the understanding of the shep-
herds, and, subsequently, other plain folk, it must
consistently have been couched in words which they
could readily grasp and with the substantial drift of
which they were familiar.

But yet from another point of view this internal
difficulty might promptly be lifted. This is, that Luke's
whole narration be supposed as having undergone at his
hands a transformation peculiar to his own dogmatic
position. Looked at in this light, it would indeed be
quite conceivable that the doxology should bear a
Pauline trend. Luke was unquestionably a Paulinist.
He is therefore consistently expected to have written in
the style, tone, and train of thought of the apostle whose
system he had embraced. Paul's avowed doctrine was
that peace of men with God was won back by Christ's
sacrifice. This he laid down prominently in Eom. Y,
1 sq. The theory is propounded in a twofold bearing in
Eph. II. 14-18, where Paul dwells first on the peaceful
effect of the sacrifice on the cross in drawing Jews and
Gentiles into one, united, new body, and, again, on the
reconciliation to God of this body of Christians newly

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 11

made t'liroiigli that very sacrifice. On the supposition,
then, that as a Pauline votary Luke created his doxology
from his own mind so doctrinated, its sense woukl be
about thus: "Glory (be or is) to God in the highest,
and peace (with God is) on earth (viz., in men's
spiritual relations, and in respect to their sinful state),
good pleasure (from God is) among men." The last
clause would suit well enough as a sort of amplifying
parallel of the second. "Good pleasure" could be taken
as corresponding to the Hebrew word chen "grace" or
"favor," as used in Pro v. III. 4.

ANOTHER PPvOVISIOXAL HYPOTHESIS.

Having thus allowed provisionally for a Pauline
dogmatic apprehension of Luke's doxology, it is pertinent
to broach in this place the hypothesis of yet another
doctrinal implication of that sentence, ere we bring
forward our own interpretation of it. Let us remember
— what is presumed by excellent modern authorities —
that both Luke and Acts come from one and the same
writer. Xow when we compare the speech assigned to
Peter in Acts X. 34 sq., we meet with an expression
which bears also on the sinful state oi man, yet is utterly
free from the specific Pauline stamp of Atonement.

Peter is there introduced as speaking of God having
announced "good tiding-s of peace through Jesus
Christ." ^^^ These "good tidings" are, from the plain
import of the context, no other than Jesus' preaching,
from the outstart of his public career, of the same call
which his relative, John the Baptist, addressed to the
people: "Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at
hand."

12 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

Peter, we propose, may in his speech have understood
the "peace" preached by Jesus either as the personal
peace one has with his own soul, or, what is more likely,
the peaceful relations with God coming through the new
faith. In either respect he must have held before his
mind, judging from his otherwise recorded doctrinal
standpoint, the remission of sins^^^ as giving such peace.
And in either case, too, the peace attained through the
message and mission of Jesus is, viewed conclusively,
kindred to Paul's reconciliation theory: the difference
between both apostles being only, that Paul makes the
suffering and death of Jesus the means of salvation, while
Peter sees Jesus' surpassing agency of salvation both in
his life and death; for while living he preached repent-
ance to his countrymen, and in his sainted state he
continued to work remission of sins (see also ib. 43 and
V. 31).

jSTow we think it supposable at least that Luke
alluded in the doxology tacitly to the "good tidings of
peace," preached by Jesus, and that accordingly his
doxological phrase "on earth peace" (of which the
subsequent clause is easily accounted as a germane
parallel), bears the dogmatic sense of peace coming
to sinners through Jesus, the new-born Messiah. To
be sure, not much would be gained by such
interpretation. It would be merely a substitution of
Petrine in place of Pauline dogmatism. Against it,
too, there would lie the same objection stated before —
that the angels would appear as dogmatic reasoners, and
with a message so ill-suited to the unprophetic mental
capacity of the shepherds. This grave difficulty, again.

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 13

could only be overcome by tlie view already above
advanced, that Luke created tlie doxology from his own
mind. Upon this idea, indeed, a Petrine no less than a
Pauline tendency could safely be assigned to it.

OUE FIXAL COXSTRUCTIOX.

After this preliminary discussion we will proceed
to our own explanation of the doxology. We believe
it to be a much more unlabored construction of its
tenor, and to harmonize so much better with the
temporal and circumstantial postulates of the whole
narrative of our synoptic. We suggest in the first place,
that this WTiter drew^ it from an original Jewish
Christian source, ^^^ in which the event of the birth of
Jesus was described in a brilliant and majestic style
commensurate ^^dtll the signal event itself. In it the
epiphany of angels proclaiming the occurrence and
intoning a momentous anthem in its honor, was the
point of eclat which should prominently address itself
to every hearer to whom the happy tidings would be
communicated, and as well to every future reader of its
record. The depiction of the scene proper, we remark,
offered no difficulty at all. Yet a Hebrew Scriptural
parallel, for which the author was doubtless looking as
a model upon which to form his 0"\vn composition, was
not so ready to hand. While pondering to what suitable
Hebrew illustration he might turn for the supply of a
fit descriptive setting, he was, we surmise, suddenly
struck with the adaptation to his purpose of Ps.
CXLYIII. The leading antithesis, in this psalm, of
heaven and earth being called upon to praise God, would

14 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

offer an apt outline for his own brief doxological contrast
of heaven and earth. For this first clause — the sum-
mons of the angels to themselves to give "Glory to God
in the highest" — ^^^ verse 1 of the psalm could be
turned to good account. Then he would pass in his
mind to the analogy of the psalmist's call upon the
things and creatures of the earth, in verse 7, to also
offer praise to the Lord. The contrast of the earthly
praise the evangelist w^ould consequently bring out in
the two succeeding clauses of the doxology. The second
clause would, conformably to that verse, have to be
understood: "and (glory to God be) on earth (i. e.
from all its creatures, for there is — incipiently — on
earth) peace." The third clause would range fitly with
the second, having likewise, as we will immediately
show, a direct Messianic import. "Men" are here
specified as the chief or rather, considered prosaically
and practically, the only creatures from whom praise
was due to God.

Let us, before w^e go on, state summarily that it is
impossible for us to assume for the entire sentence any
other reference than merely the birth of Jesus in his
Messianic character, and in its Jewish national point of
view.^^^ It is, we affirm confidently, a Messianic
hallelujah, and purported originally to be nothing else.
With this apprehension agrees perfectly the choice of the
words "peace" and "good pleasure." The Messianic
bearing of both is completely warranted in Hebrew
Scripture, or, to speak more accurately, in that Scrip-
tural phraseology customarily construed as Messianic.

"Peace" was in old prophetic passages as wtII as in

Presages of a Coining Golden Era of Peace. 15

the minds of later Messianic hopers, directly and closely
combined with the reign of Messiah as Israel's future
world-ruler, or generally with the longed-for golden
era to be. How far Luke may have aimed to extend in
his doxology the significance of the original Hebrew
word shalom "peace," we have no means of ascertain-
ing. On the other hand, it may be worth while to
observe that the word bore with the ancient Hebre-^vs
a most comprehensive meaning. It signified so much
more than a mere cessation of warfare or negation of
strife. It denoted good health; freedom from care,
chiefly a condition and feeling of security (cp.
especially Isa. XXVI. 3); peace in every sense of the
word; also kindliness, friendship and good-will; further-
more, as it seems, even jDeace of the soul in regard to
himian sinfulness (cp. Isa. LYII. 19); and lastly,
prosperity. ^^^^ The root-essence of the word "shalom"
is total and thoroug"]! happiness in all respects of human
life. It more often signifies weal or welfare than peace,
in the sense commonly attached to this word.

Respecting eudokia "good pleasure" of the third
clause, we think the original writer alluded to some such
expression as the Hebrew shenath ratson "the acceptable
year," or " year of grace," in Isa. LXI. 2,^^^^ In this
place ratson "grace" has unquestionably an exclusively
Messianic, or, to give it more correctly, redemptive
bearing. The implication of the third clause would then
be : as chief among the creatures of the earth, men are
called upon to give praise to God, for wdth the birth of
Jesus as the Messiah there begins a new era of God's
"good pleasure in (or tow^ards) men." The determining

16 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

idea of the terse statement of this third clause is, that
God has at last had loving compassion on Israel. He
has relented to them in regard to the score of past sins/^^^
his mercy prevailing over the stern sense and rigid
measure of condign judgment. Moved by his mercy,
he has now sent the long-expected Messiah. "With his
coming the eternal "year of grace" — the interminable
golden age — opened for Israel.

That the tacit reference to sin should have been at
the root of the leading thought of the third clause of the
doxology is a supposition for which there could be
adduced multifarious authentic evidence, alike from
Rabbinic and I^ew Testament literature. Let us
remark, further, tli^at according to our exposition the
third clause would not really be an amplifying parallel
of the second, but a kind of new argument explanatory
of all that preceded in the sentence. The explanation
consists in the point of view inherent in the expression
"good pleasure," namely, that God, having now
vouchsafed it to Israel, made it possible that the
Messianic "peace" era, marked in the second clause, could
at last arrive. Following out the words of the delivered
text of the clause, we would have it understood : "(for)
among (or in regard to) men (there is God's) good
pleasure."

The whole sentence would thus prove to be a
purely Messianic one. The angels were chanting God's
praise and also calling upon the whole terrestrial creation
to chime in with or follow them in his glorification, for
the great event of the arrival of the Messiah which
secures "peace" and betokens God's "good pleasure."

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of_ Peace. 17

The stress of the whole sentence rests however, we
maintain, on the middle clause, which represents "peace"
as the paramount signature of the reign of the new-born
Messiah. Peace, truly, marked out pre-eminently
Israel's hope for the Messianic empire. It was the very
pith of their national expectations for the future. Its
meaning was, as aforesaid, most comprehensive, and was
above all that of security, ^-^^^ in particular, security
from external enemies and the intermeddling and
oppression of foreign powers. As such it formed, as it
were, the key-note of the pathetic Messianic melody
which resounded so intensely and fervidly in the
unfortunate stages of Israel's history, when they were
troubled by foreign invasions or became subject to
foreign tyranny. As 'peace' was innermost in the
consciousness of the people at large and cherished by
them with fondest craving, so it became foremost also
in the orations of their prophets, who were their spiritual
guides and the exalted and sympathetic interpreters of
their national feelings and hopes. We meet with it in
the prophetic portraitures of the Messianic era to come,
or the rule in it of the ideal king, as the predominant
view of those inspired seers. They Avould inseparably
associate it with the auspicious configuration of that
fancied futurity, as its genuine and chief characteristic.

It will not be too much to bring for it some suitable
Scriptural illustrations. We select purposely relative
utterances of three contemporary prophets, as we believe
that they are not only truly classical specimens of
prophetic effusion, but otherwise best adapted to
elucidate the point, that peace was the leading Israelitish

18 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

conception of tlie character of Messiali and the Messianic
era. Yet before we consider those prophetic passages
we must briefly anticipate that we will later (in the third
chapter) make out conclusively, and we regret to add,
also disenchantingiy, that the notion of the Messiah's
role and rule of peace must essentially be modified, to
be made to accord even with the innermost and rational
presuppositions of its very prophetic exponents
themselves.

JSTow when we wish to take a glance at the prophetic
peace prospects of futurity, there naturally occurs first
the well-known and often rehearsed picture of the golden
age of universal peace. Both contemporary prophets,
Isaiah and Micah, have so beautifully, nay gorgeously,
with little divergence from each other, portrayed that
ideal futurity in chapts. II. 2-4 and IV. 1-5 respectively.
A delightful vision that was indeed. Possibly it existed
already before their time in a fairly settled formula,
and they adopted it for temporary purposes of teaching
and lifting up the courage and hope of their countrymen.
Fiirst (Hist, of the Bibl. Lit. II. 302), following other
notable commentators (Hitzig and Ewald), assigns that
vision as the production of the much older prophet,
Joel, ^^*^ and holds that those later prophets took their
glowing picture of futurity from this already previously
extant source.

ISTow the essence of their prediction is, that Zion-
Jerusalem would be the terrestrial center of Jehovah's
world-dominion, a dominion carried on by the mysterious
means of revealed judgments and instructions, issuing
forth ever newly, as each case might require, from that

Presages of a Coming Golden Em of Peace. 19

central abode of his Presence. The revealed instructions
— "Torah" in Hebrew, and probably apprehended in the
double sense of commanding and teaching — would
address themselves respectively to all nations of the
world. These nations would, partly self-impelled and
partly overawed by the majestic dominion of Jehovah,
be moved to consult those Jerusalemite peace oracles.
Consequently, implements and instruments of war would
be useless and out of place in those elysian days of the
future. (For a restricted sense, accurately to be put on
the meaning of that bright picture of future peace
according to the ultimate view of the prophet Micah, we
refer to our note 14.)

The same sentiment is substantially implied in
those prophecies in which an ideal Davidide kino- is
expressly promised to come. Only that in these
distinctly personal Messianic presages it is the Davidic
potentate himself who will exercise the various central
governmental functions. But, on the other hand, he is
not to be understood as doing it entirely from his own
mind and will. No, ohe wisdom and power of God pass
to him by virtue of his sacred ordination (the outpouring
of the ritual oil symbolizing the outpouring of God's
spirit — and this spirit conceived in the intensity of
immediate emanation and prophetic capacity.) This
ordination, too, makes him God's plenipotentiary
representative on earth. There arises thus between the
terrestrial and the heavenly n,iler a certain spiritual
solidarity and mystical union, rendering the former's
judicial and political proceedings as one in quality and
substance with God's own decrees and acts.

20 The Clirisimas Motto, and the Prophetic

Conformably to this settled notion we find in I.
Zechariali^-^^^ (cli, IX,) the peace role of arbitration,
assigned to the ideal Davidide king, assimilated in its
features to that of which the two before-quoted prophets,
Isaiah and Micah, speak in their picture of the halcyon
days to come. As in this picture it is God himself who
as supreme Judge issues from his Zionite central seat
his sanctions of arbitration between nations (Isa. II. 4),
so will his representative Anointed of the future "speak
peace to the nations" (Zech. IX. 10), from his central
court in Jerusalem. This means that, his authority
being world-wide, as it will reach "from sea to sea and
from the river to the ends of the earth" (ib. v. 10),^^^^
his decisions of arbitration between quarrelling nations
will prove as inviolable as God's own relative decrees
are infallible and final. ^^^^ And those decisions, too,
are all inspired by his love of peace (or, what come^ to
the same thing, his principle of righteousness, as peace
is by the same prophet (Isa. XXXII. 17) most truly said
to be the outcome and product of righteousness). His
pacific disposition is even remarkable in his public
appearance, for he comes entering his capital horseless
and chariotless,^-^^^ devoid of any appurtenances
suggestive alike of warfare and loftiness. In fact, all
warlike implements would at that time be entirely
extinct from the whole territory of Israel (ibid. 9, 10).

Let us view another kindred representation. The
prophet Micah, a younger contemporary of I. Zechariah,
who like him witnessed the disastrous Assyrian invasions,
held out the coming of a new Davidide king "great unto
the ends of the earth/' ^^^^ who would be strong enough

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 21

to cope successfully with Israel's arch-enemy, Assyria,
and be himself "peace" (V. 4) — that is to say, his very
name would stand for peace (cp. also Judges VI. 24).
This ideal monarch would raise Israel into a mighty
nation, dreaded by all others, so that they would no more
have to tremble for fear of foreign intrusion and
oppression. Eventually, then, horses and chariots and
fortifications would no more be needed in the Jewish
land, as all the aggressive foes would be cut off and all
would-be hostile powers held in check and at a com-
pulsory distance. Serene peace and sweet security
would prevail at home under the potent sway of that
august ruler (V. 1-10).

The prophet Isaiah, living in the same gloomy and
troublous times of the Assyrian invasions, promised
likewise not only an era of peace and rest from foreign
hostilities, but the coming of an ideaLDavidide king,
endowed in the manner set forth in XL 1-10. On the
much disputed point whether Isaiah had here before his
mind his greatly admired and highly exalted kingly
friend, Hezekiah,^^^^ we cannot dwell. What we wish
to mark here is, that the prophet delineated the glorious
future Davidide as a marvel of a wise and powerful
sovereign, under whom peace would flourish universally,
even in the animal kingdom. In ch. IX. 5,^^^^ that
prospective ruler is, among other illustrious appellations,
denoted "prince of peace." It is further enunciated,
that his dominion would be boundless alike in power
and peace (v. 6).

The preceding illustrations may be sufficient to show
authentically that the principal feature in the character

22

The CJiiistmas Motto, and the Frophetic

of the ideal Anointed was held to be peace. The
prophets had rendered it so, and there can be no doubt
that the people fell in Avith them in those exalted hopes
for the future. As time went on and political misery
and social suffering engendered all the more intense
cravings for deliverance, that fundamental feature must
have presented itself and pressed forward so much more
vividly, and laid so much stronger hold on the popular
mind. Is it accordingly not fair to presume that
likewise in the time of Jesus when, as we maintain on
incontrovertible grounds, the high Messianic fervor had
already run a course of well-nigh a century, the figure
of the prophetic "prince of peace" — Israel's very
'pacifer' — stood out in the fancy of thousands of
Palestinian Jews (the Sadducees, Zealots and, possibly,
theosophic Essenes excepted) with the brightest hues of
comfort and consolation, gleaming with quickening
force over their national plight and misery? It was
naturally the Messianic consolatory traits of peace, at
which we might well imagine the desperate thoughts
of the Jewish people would anxiously grasp in the woeful
Herodian-Eoman epoch of misrule, repressions and
exactions. Peace — in the deep and extensive bearing
the Hebrew word "shalom" had in the sentiment of the
Jewish people — was never more needed than at that
hapless epoch. Luke, then (or the original writer whose
record he used), will only have given utterance to the
very substratum of the Jewish Messianic hope, when
he introduced in the doxology the thought of the newly
begun reign of Messiah under the fonnula, "and on
earth peace."

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 23

It proclaimed in substiince that the long budded
Messianic hope had at last flowered out with brightest
bloom into that precious peace, which was the salient and
all-important burden of prophetic promise in centuries
of Yore.

This our opinion that Luke made in the doxology
no other but a mere Messianic allusion, and in the
traditional point of view, may be supported yet by
another circumstance. We refer to the expression,
"gospel of peace" in Acts X. 36. That it has an
identical meaning with Luke's gospel of the "kingdom
of God" is, we remark, all but accidental. It signifies
to us that in the thought of the evangelic author of Luke
and Acts the one concept was merged into the other,
so that the 'kingdom of God' could stand interchange-
ably for 'peace.' By this kingdom was meant the
Messianic. Under the technical appellation 'kingdom
of God' (or 'Heaven') the reign of Messiah passed
currently on the lips of every orthodox Jewish person
in the century of Jesus. Peace, then, which was so
markedly and generally identified with the reign of
Messiah, presented itself so very naturally as the leading
point of Messianic consideration also to the author of the
doxology. The role and rule of Messiah were by
traditionary conception settled to be those of peace.
The doxology, for its part, gives expression to it too.
We can consistently see in the whole sentence nothing
but a proclamation bearing the Jewish national type.
There will accordingly be no need of having recourse
to the later theology of either Paul or Peter, to supply
its internal motive.

24

Tlie Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

CHAPTEK 11.

We liave in this connection to settle yet another
difficulty wliioh offers itself to the careful reader of the
New Testament. This is, that Matthew X. 34 sq.
(compare Luke XII. 51-53) apparently runs counter to
the peace role of the Messiah which, as set forth in the
foregoing, is readily discoverable in Luke's pithy
doxology. In Matthew (1. c.) there occurs the well-
known passage: ''Think not that I am come to send
peace on earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword,
g|-g »(22) rpi^jg sounds surely like a warlike avowal! It
must puzzle and confound the ordinary reader who,
from his general knowledge of prophetic lore, can
associate with the Messiah nothing but the rule of peace
and tranquillity. Xay, more; it appears in sharp
opposition to the picture otherwise portrayed in the
gospels q| the character and principles of Jesus. He
passes notoriously in those writings as mild and meek
and all but the bringer of the men-destroying sword.
A glance at the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. V. 38-42)
is sufficient to satisfy every one that a mission of strife
and discord cannot consistently be imputed to Jesus
as characteristic of his ethical position. And certainly
is the application to Jesus of Isa. XLII. 1-4, made in
Matthew XII. 17-21, strong enough evidence that the

Presages of a Coming Golden Em of Peace.

25

writer of tliis gospel had conceived of tlie Master as
called only to the beneticent career of peace, and not to
the agency of the tnmult and violence of war.^^^^

And yet is Jesus in the before-noted passage alleged
to have announced himself openly and directly as a
bringer not of peace but of the sword! How is this to
be reconciled with the general portraiture of Jesus as the
mild and peaceful Teacher? How does it particularly
agree with the postulate, stereotyped in old Judaism and
also strongly reflected, as we aimed to show, in Luke's
angelic doxology, that the Messiah would be a iTiler of
peace, and its very personification? We can allay those
glaring contrasts only by separating in our mind Jesus'
ethical principles and the consciousness of his real,
glorious Messiahdom, to be consummated coextensively
with his second advent, ^^'^^ from his then preparatory
career of the Messianic kingdom.

Difficult as it is to draw a strict line of division
between the being and the coming of the Messianic
empire — the Kingdom of God or Heaven — in the
various relations in Avhich Jesus dilates on this his lead-
ing theme,^^^^ we may at least logically, mark off the one
from the other. There seems indeed, in the face of
those contradictory characteristics, no alternative but to
make that distinction. We could then say: Jesus as
the initiatory Messiah shared in the settled Jewish tradi-
tion— a tradition to be later illustrated — ^that discord is
to prevail as a prelude to the Messianic dominance proper,
but Jesus as the future and real Messiah could still pass
as the coming peace ruler, and this according to the
other prophetically derived Jewish stock conception, that
the Messianic reign is that of thorough and lasting peace.

26 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

But, tlie reader will ask, can such distinction, involv-
ing the sharp opposites of strife and peace for the
introduction and accomplishment of the same object, be
at all sustained? Is it possible that a notion could
develop in Judaism, showing forth the necessity of
those flagrant contrasts succeeding each other in eventual
history, in order to achieve the supposed Providential
purjDose of ultimately adjusting the national destiny of
Israel ? It would indeed seem, upon common reasoning,
impossible, nay unnatural to presume a Providential
design requiring grewsome contentions first, that sweet
abiding peace might follow. But, in very fact, there
is here really not the question of wise Provi-
dential disposition so much as that of arbitrary forma-
tion of dogmatic notions, propped by Scriptural refer-
ences, however flimsy and far-fetched they might be.
Who should think, we concede preliminarily to the
inquiring reader, that a national body anxious for a long
hoped-for mighty and glorious deliverer and restorer
of ancient independence and prosperous enlargement,
should have been driven to the extremity of cherishing
that brilliant hope but in the gloomy shroud of dread
disorders preceding its realization? But yet the Mess-
ianic problem has practically brought forth such remark-
able incongruity. What we cannot reconcile in our
minds has actually been welded together in the earlier
centuries of anxious Messianic yearning. Thus it came
that the image of a golden era of peace and bliss to come
has been obscured by the dire specters of violent dis-
ruptions, both in society and nature, destined to occur
antecedently to it. These in their nature mutually

Presages of a Coming Golden Eva of Peace. 27

exclusive notions once formed, it was a slight matter,
especially in times of desperate hope of Messianic
accomplishment, to lean them severally on superficially
construed would-be JMessianic statements.

The incompatibility of these contrary notions may
however, let us yet say, be somewhat reduced and
moderated by the view, which we propose to make clear
in the next chapter in a full and extensive discussion,
that the whole expectation of everlasting peace attached
to the Messianic government to come, had even no
authentic and consistent support in the very prophetic
compositions which bore the striking semblance of its
indubitable and unconditional prediction. This point
we have to waive here, as we desire first to show the
probable cause which may have originated Jesus' utter-
ance: "Think not that I am come to send peace on
earth, etc."

This utterance, we suggest, was a sort of apology for
his course of gaining disciples and adherents with
apparent disregard of family ties and obligations.
Whether or not he met with express reproaches for this
proceeding in his Messianic career we have no means of
deciding. But it undoubtedly involved a reproach,
which we think lie sought to extenuate in the discourse
contained in Matt. X. 34-39. He did so mainly by
advancing, in w. 35, 36, the conventional Jewish
assumption, that the Messianic times are to be
ushered in by violent family disunion. This assump-
tion, shared in alike by the orthodox Jews and Jesus,
had its innocent source in the misapprehension of Micah
Vil. 0. In both the Talmud and the gospels this

28 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

prophetic verse is utilized as tlie pretended signature o£
the Messianic prelude. Bewildering as it is to the
modern critical mind to note the utter intenability of
tracing a reference to Messiah or the Messianic period in
that passage of Micah, it is nevertheless a fact that old
Messianic believers resorted to it as a very mine of latter-
day revelation. But the prophet's words contain
positively no scintilla of such reference.

They are merely part of a scathing reproof the
prophet was dealing to his contemporaries for their
deplorable demoralization. Their degeneracy, as he
indicates, had gone so far that faith had fled within the
closest associations, and hostile attempts were made by
the nearest of kin upon one another. Therefore the
prophet held out to his countrymen the threat of an
exemplary and decisive Divine judgment, — the "day of
the (prophetic) watchmen, the visitation" (v. 4). :N'ow
Messiahists who scented eschatological presages in every
prophetic rhetorical threat of a day of Divine chastise-
ment uttered in the far past, seized also upon that pas-
sage of Micah and put on it the stamp of an oracular
disclosure of a state of family dissensions to occur at the
beginning of the far-off Messianic period. The testi-
mony of such misinterpreting proceeding is supplied in
both the gospels and the Talmud. Jesus had entered
upon that commonly accepted notion, as is evident from
the cited passage of Matthew.

It stood him in good stead, we propose, in accounting
for or defending once for all his mode of acquiring fol-
lowers. This was, his habitual demand to relinquish
family relations and surrender wholly to himself and
his cause. His repeated insistence on w^ould-be disciples

Presages of a Coining Golden Eva of Peace. 29

breaking away from the connections of kinship woukl,
as already suggested, either directly draw on him or at
all events imply the reproach of attempting to sunder
deliberately the tender and affectionate bonds of family,
and thus weaken the wholesome moral foundation of
society. The defense of this his course we find unmis-
takably, though only implicity, intended in the cited
passage of Matthew, X. 34-36. The trend of that entire
discourse of Jesus, wdiich runs to v, 39, w'e hold to be
concentred in his reproduction and adoption of that
passage of Micah, given in vv. 35, 36. And here, too,
he stood on a Messianic track, well-beat-en and familiar
to his countrymen. He could readily be understood by
his Jewish hearers. For, doubtless, the notion that the
signature of the initial Messiahdom was domestic discord
and disruption, was already then a settled tradition and
a current orthodox formula. Jesus needed but to plant
himself upon it to be promptly understood by Messianic
hopers. And we assume that he purposely had recourse
to it in the quoted gospel passage, to account practically
for the peculiar manner of his propaganda. He meant
to convey in that discourse of his, that his urging upon
others to leave their families that they might "follow"
him and help forward the kingdom of God — his own
Messianic kingdom — by preaching it broadcast (see
Luke IX. 60), ranged itself consistently with that fixed
Jemsh traditional presumption, that domestic strife w^as
indispensably precursory to the Messianic empire. The
warrant for his calling upon people to follow him regard-
less of family connections was thus given. It was
in this sense that he declared that his (preparatory)

30 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

Messianic mission was one of the 'Word" and not of
"peace."

That he not only theoretically advanced the neces-
sity of subordinating all love and attachment for parents
and nearest of kin to the exclusive concern for his Mess-
iahdom, as we learn from Matt. (1. c. v. 37), but
practically urged the abandonment of family for his
Messianic work, is irrefutably attested in Matt. VIII.
22.(26) rpi^.g i^.g exceptional position, then, he sought to
attenuate by bringing f orwai-d that passage of Micah and
implicitly referring to the current Jewish tradition
based upon it. Surely, this tradition was not to the
effect that the Messiah himself should by his speech and
action bring about hostile estrangement in families and
a renunciation of the tender ties that bound their mem-
bers together. Yet Jesus referred to it nevertheless in
his effort, as we suppose, at justifying his peculiar
propagandist course.

As to this tradition, preserved in old Rabbinical
lore, we are of opinion that it originally coincided sub-
stantially with the tenor of that passage of Micah, and
that it only received changes and additions at different
times according to the political-national condition of the
Palestinian Jews. In the Talmud, treatise Synhedrin
f. 97 (compare Sotah f. 49), we find already a consider-
ably enlarged picture of the alleged dismal signs of the
initial Messianic era : "In the latter days beginning the
reign of Messiah," it is said there, "insolence will grow
apace; human worth be debased; wine be dear despite
its abundance (for the increasing debauchery) ; the whole
(Roman) empire (including the Jewish land) turned
to idolatry (or polytheism), with no one to check or

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 31

correct it; Rabbinical colleges will be converted into
houses of lechery; Galilee be devastated and the rest of
Palestine desolated; the people of the country will
wander about homeless from to^vn to town, no one taking-
pity on them; the pious will be despised, and truth be
wanting; youth will shame age, the son dishonor his
father"— then follows literally Micali vii. 6.

This talmudical relation bears intrinsic evidence that
it was gotten up into the present form in consequence
of the woeful religious persecution of Hadrian and his
strong efforts at paganizing the Jewish land. We may
therefore safely date it at about the middle of the second
century C. E. — when the remnant of the leading Judean
theologians had settled in (lalilee for preserving and
cultivating the science and practice of Judaism. It is
plainly seen that that talmudical relation is quite exten-
sively spun out from its spiritual origin and stock
passage, ]\Iicali VII. 6. But this does not concern us
here. What we wished to demonstrate was that the
latter source served alike to the Jewish doctors and Jesus
as a sort of canon applied to the initial part of the
Messianic times. In the Talmud a general picture of
social confusion and perversion is elaborated from it,
while Jesus has limited himself to its bare quotation for
a countenance and, in a measure, for a plea of a
prophetic precedent to his peculiar missionary
proceeding.

On the whole, we may say summarily that the
feature of family discord — Jesus' bringing of the sword
— prevailing at the beginning of the Messianic period,
was as much a dogmatic notion as the whole established
trust in the eventual Messianic peace realm, so fervidly

32

The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

looked for on the strength of other prophetic announce-
ments. Both were current side by side, and, though
glaringly incompatible in spirit, were yet on curiously
constructed prophetic grounds considered seriously and
dogmatically as joint parts of one same scheme of expec-
tation and belief.

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 33

CHAPTER III.

Here we have come to a pass when we wish to settle
once for all, for the better and more correct understand-
ing of ancient Messianic presages, a most important
point. This is that all those glittering peace predictions
of a so-called Messianic future, w'hich we encounter in the
olden prophets and which are yet in our days so very dog-
matically construed as pregnant with the sense of the
necessary ultimate cessation of warfare, were but
problematic utterances of poetic enthusiasm and elation
of spirit, with no more foundation of probability than
what every other glowing hope for a better future
supplies to their authors or cherishers. They were, let
us say it emphatically, not inspired by any principle or
motive of religious faith. They were in their nature
and purpose national, and religious only in so far as
nationality within the ancient Hebrew polity was never
severed from religion. Yet while they bore such a
national stamp merely, they are on the other hand to be
credited with a high and excellent ethical merit of their
own, in that those seers' true sympathy with the lot of
their countrymen actuated mainly their prophetic
imagination and intuition to produce and proclaim them.
IMuch as the judgment of those worthy national-religious
"watchmen" was, that their compatriots had themselves
brought on the distress and misfortune with which thev

34 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

were now and then visited tlirongli their own deliberate
waywardness and nngratefnl disregard of their dntie^^
towards the God of their fathers, there burned yet in
their heart of hearts the brisk and inextinguishable
flame of patriotic and fraternal pity. This was so
profound and ardent that it ever newly enkindled their
zeal for lifting up the depressed spirits of the people,
stimulating their despondency, and allaying their fears
for the future, by holding up as offsets against indispen-
sable vehement monitions and denunciations for
evildoins", bright forecasts of prosperous conditions yet
to come and be established.

It was, too, in a most unique manner that those
prophetic preachers joined the threat of Jehovah's blast-
ing visitations with brilliant visions of a restoration, even
in multiple proportions, of former happiness and national
greatness. This may have been partly modelled from
tlie old Mosaic record, in which promises and threat-
enings alternate frequently in local position. Yet the
mode employed by the prophets stands out as most
peculiar in that both contraries are often not marked
off from one another in a clear and readily perceptible
way. At times they would even frame their severe
threats by a sort of prologue and epilogue of such
blandishing restorative contents (compare Isa. 11. 1-4
and lY. and see Fuerst, 1. c. p. 45).^^'^ In some
instances, as will later be shown, those presages of peace
and bliss to come were uttered even in the face of grave
political situations and social perils imminent on all
sides. They could consequently mean nothing else
than that such blessed times had to be bought at the cost
of tremendous previous struggles.

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 35

Peace, and peace in the ample sense of its equivalent
Hebrew word, was to tliose devout preachers really but
an indefinite eventuality, whether pictured with the
vague outlines of the expression "in later (or "in the
latter") days" — an expression most elastic and allowing
of as much latitude of time as fancy might be disposed
to clothe them with — or represented in some similar
indeterminate manner. The fervor of tenacious and
buoyant hope, cherished despite the most uncertain,
even calamitous actual state of things, did not take into
clear and serious account the possible distance of that
consummation or the difiiculties which had to be over-
come in order to reach it. The consummation would
consequently appear near enough at hand in the feelings
of those prophets, though not in reality. Yet an
indefinite eventuality, with an unbanishable element of
precariousness beneath the surface of its prediction, this
projective i>eace era must always have been to the most
enthusiastic of those prophets.

An earnest and thorough inquiry will prove convinc-
ingly that the Messianic peace presages of the leading
prophets Zechariah I., Isaiah I., and Micah, who lived
and wrought in the troublous times of the Assyrian
invasions, the second half of the eighth century B. C,
had in the background a vast amount of warlike com-
plications which lurked there menacingly and left little
margin for the otherwise so ingratiating and enchanting
fancy of a brilliant and enduring peace era yet to come.
The Messianic king was in fact but a problematically
eventual peace ruler. And no other construction can
be put on the mere presages of an ultimate theocratic
peace reign, in which no express mention of that ter-

36 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

restrial vicegerent of Jeliovali is made (thougli tliis
relationship and condition were doubtless always lield
to be implied in tbem). These presages, too, could liave
bad but the meaning of an ultimate eventuality, before
the realization of Avhich there was ample cause for
apprehending a various range of warlike miseries and
fatalities.

Let us, to sustain our assertion, first cast a glance at
presages of the latter kind. We have already above
noted them. They are the famous peace prophecies of
Isaiah 11. 1-4 and Micah IV. 1-4. Precious sentiments
those! Are they not? Yet we have to say, when we
look at those charming lines in their local connection,
they must lose all re-assuring effect by the contrast of
war and its dire circumstances and effects threatened
in the context.

Those of Isaiah are preceded and followed by vig-
orous denunciating arraignments of Israel^^^^ for their
various unmitigated perversities (while, as remarked
before, the denunciations of chapters II. and III. may,
again, be considered as set off by the solacing
epilogue of chapter IV.) A fearful judgment "day of
the Lord" is threatened the Judeans in ch. II. 12, for
their false worship, practice of sorcery, overwhelming
self-confidence, and profligacy. This judgment God is
to execute, as is indicated in ch. III. 25, by the visitation
of destructive war.

While Isaiah pointed presumably in the denuncia-
tory oration of ch. I. at the disastrous invasion of Judah
by the allied Israelitish (Ephraimite) and Syrian
armies under king Aliaz, about 738-34 B. C, which
calamity was yet aggravated by the simultaneous hostile

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 37

incursions of Edomites and Pliilistines (see 2 Cliron.
VIII. 17-18), there is, on tlie other hand, good reason
to believe that in the denunciations of chapters II. and
III. that calamity is not the only one to which allusion
is made. The threat of that awful "day of the Lord"
can have already implied in the prophet's mind the
apprehension of the terrible scourge of an Assyrian
invasion, supposably indicated in ch. V. 26-30, and
expressly brought forward in ch. YII. 17, 20-25, and
again in ch. YIII. 6 sq. That this apprehension was
already then not distant from his thought may be judged
from the circumstance, that he had witnessed from a
youth the avalanche-like increase of the Assyrian great-
power, especially under the "destroyer of nations,"
Tiglath-Pileser.^^^^ Whether or not it can be made out
from several extant cuneiform inscriptions that the
Judean king Uzziali was an eminent participant in the
war of coalition against that mighty lord beyond the
Tigris, in the year B. C. 742,^^°^ (which had a disastrous
issue for all the confederates, though Uzziah may have
preserved his independence), yet this much we can set
down as certain that Isaiah had already at an early
period been impressed with the grave perils to which all
the western Asiatic countries, including Israel-Judah,
were exposed from the ambitious and rapacious "Assur."
That this impression had gTadually gained hold of his
mind is evident from his free statement, that Assur was
the "rod of the ■\\Tath" of Jehovah (X. 5), appointed
as instrument to chastise all who would incur it, Heath-
ens and Israelites alike. ^^^^

'Now as we may, further, fairly assume with the
learned lexicographer and commentator Gesenius, that

38 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

chapter V.of Isaiali was written about tlie same time witli
tlie preceding ones (see also our note 28), we are all the
more justified in detecting already in tlie threat of the
"day of the Lord" in ch. II. 12, an allusion, in a general
manner, to punishing warlike aggressions of Judah by
Assyria. Unquestionably, however, a definite reference
can rationally be fixed only to the earlier trouble which
came upon Judah from this source, that is, the oppressive
tributary dependence on the great-king Tiglath Pileser,
into which king Ahaz brought his country by calling
him to assistance against the before-noted Israelitish-
Syrian allies, ca. Y34. While Tiglath-Pileser came as
an ostensible friend of the Judean king, yet the
relief he tendered was a most dear acquisition. It was
purchased at an enormous price, as the Assyrian despot
exacted a stupendous compensation which was attended,
too, by Ahaz' sacrilegious spoliation of the temple and its
closing to the worship of the God of Israel (2 Chr,
XXVIII. 20 sq.) Surely, these sad occuiTences, so far
as they are attributable to the great-king, cannot in the
least be taken as coinciding with the sense of Isa. III.
25, where actual war is threatened. This Tiglath-
Pileser did certainly not attempt upon Judah. Yet
while they may not be accounted as under the head of
that war threat, they can fitly be considered as coming
Avithin the range of the judgment "day of the Lord," in
ch. 11. 12. Por a severe and heavy enough visitation
they were indeed, as can clearly be seen from 2 Chr. 1. c.
Gesenius (Commentary p. 270) suggests already proper-
ly, that the misery resulting from Ahaz' appeal to Tig-
lath-Pileser for assistance was similar to woes of war, as
the "tributary dependence on Assyria was the signal for

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 39

a series of calamitous events." Yet for all that a definite
reference can, as already remarked, be discovered in
Isaiah's denunciatory orations of chapters II. and III.
only to the ruinous invasion of Judah by the before-
mentioned allies. The havoc they made all over the
Judean land was enormous (see Isa. VII. 2; 2 Kings
XVI; 2 Chr. 1. c.) The hostile onsets of the Philistines
and Edomites who turned its sad plight to account, added
only to the general suffering and distress. Jerusalem
only was spared (compare Isa. I. 8), and this probably
because the opportune arrival of the Assyi'ian auxiliary
forces averted its siege.

We have in the foregoing tried to track out as much
as might be, and thus necessarily at some length, the
compass of the mental attitude and vision of the prophet
in conceiving and framing the denunciatory oracles of
chapters II. and III., and, in particular, the main threat
of the judgment "day of the Lord," directly denounced
in ch. II. 12. Tor on the establishment of the greater
extent of this threat than would appear on the surface,
and its gTeater intensity, will depend the strength of our
argument to be immediately brought forward.

Now we have seen, let us state it summarily, as
admitting of no question, that that threatened judgment
pointed to the dire calamity of the Syro-Israelitish war.
But we believe to have also made very probable that this
together with the threat of a fatal war to be visited on
the Judeans, in ch. III. 25, involved besides, in the
prophet's apprehensive intuition at least, warlike tribu-
lations to be inflicted by Assyria.

The picture, then, reflected to us from the prophet's
denunciatory chapters II. and III. is a decidedly and in-

40

The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

tensely gloomy one of terrible war and destruction.
When we in the survey of this picture combine with its
definite awful strokes the more or less indistinct, yet, as
we think, fairly traceable hints of woe threatened to be-
fall the Judeans, and then hold over against it the bright
and pompous enunciation of a coming era of theocratic
power, peace and bliss, at the head of chapter II., what
a glaring and utterly irreconcilable contrast meets our
view! (^2) Gainsay it^ if you ^\^ll, but we for our part
cannot but insist that these precious sentiments of
splendid and proud promise uttered before Judean
hearers must, as the oration advanced, have been
pitifully drowned in the dismal din of the weird denun-
ciations, in particular the startling prophetic forecast of a
destructive war (or wars) impending upon them.
Jehovah himself, who is supposed to have inspired that
initial sweet oracle, is later represented (in chapters Y.
26, VII. 18, and VIII. 7, which are surely connected
in sense and more or less in time with chapters II. and
III.), as having purposed to rouse foreign powers to war-
like visitations upon his people. But aside from this
later representation, the mere threat of coming war
could not consistently with the settled principles of
Hebrew religious faith be understood as other than
designed and directed by Jehovah, — as his Providence
was from of old, in written -and in spoken words, taught
to comprise every event, even the minutest accident.
And when we further and particularly consider that in
the apprehensive vision of the prophet there stood
vividly already when he brought forth and delivered
the denunciatory discourses of chapters II. and III, the
dread and blasting scourge of Assyria's great-power,

Presages of a Corning Golden Era of Peace. 41

what an exceedingly cruel contrast is offered in them
with that sparkling peace paragraph at the head ! After
listening for a few moments to these few luring lines,
the Judean hearers must have been suddenly seized with
poignant amazement and shaken to the very depth of
their souls, when the prophet started thence upon his
opposite line of denunciatory declamations. They must
have thought to themselves that that previous glowing
promise was but a hazy apparition, purposely held out
to vex and abash them, and a striking travesty rather
than a quickening reassurance. For there could be no
possible rcconcilation of the contrast, created by those
contrary sentiments in their minds.

It may be objected that the prophet had not spoken
of that bright and happy era as coming immediately or
after a short time, but had chosen the indefinite expres-
sion of "later (or "latter") days," and these might be
far off. But, we must reply, had the hearers really con-
strued those words of big promise as bearing upon the
far or farther future, the contrast must have been no less
sharp and chafing. For, they must have reasoned, what
boots it that suoh glorious and blissful times will be
ahead for the nation as such, if we, the present genera-
tion, are doomed to severe, even ruinous visitations?

But we have not done our questioning. There lies
another grave objection against that initial peace para-
graph, which rises unavoidably as we are to estimate
clearly its acceptibility in a rational view, or only judge
of it as having had any real meaning at all. We ask,
Who of the Israelites are to be consistently presumed
to have been told that they would enjoy that pretended
glorious future? Surely, not the wicked part. For

42 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

they, as the prophet foreshows in his denunciation,
would fall a prey to the sword of the invaders. It was
only the just that would be spared and survive (ch. III.
10). They were the "remnant" assigned for salvation,
and they with their posterity would be deemed worthy
of the restoration of the tutelary relations between
Jehovah and Israel (ch. IV. 2-6). N'ow while, in the
rigid view of condign Divine recompense as maintained
in many parts of Scripture, ^"^^ it would indeed be quite
conceivable to attribute to the prophet the intention of
particularizing in favor of the smaller portion of the
Judeans — that very "remnant" — and pronouncing them
alone as destined to share in the prospective Messianic
bliss, we can yet not bring ourselves to ascribe such
exclusive meaning to the tenor of that brilliant forecast.
Its tone is altogether too general and generous for that.
There is, considering the paragraph in itself, such a
genuinely and broadly national scope impressed
on it, that to impute to it any partiality for the righteous
and pious minority of Israel would be almost preposter-
ous. But yet, w'hen we view it logically and in the
context of the whole range of denunciations contained
in the before-noted sequel, there is nothing left for us
but to infer that the prophet meant really to declare the
large, part of Israel shut out from the prospective realm
of bliss.

Yet our question must assume a still more striking-
force under the following aspect. Can we hold it for
one moment consistent with the national self-conscious-
ness or lofty patriotic pride of the prophet, to have par-
ticularized in that brilliant forecast in favor of the just
"remnant" of Israel, when we notice him at the same

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. •iS

timo to have foretold that "all the nations" would at that
g-lorions eventuality be drawn to the illustrious centre of
peace-inspiring theocracy, Jerusalem? (See ch. II. 2-4).
Must his national pride not have forbidden him to so
discriminate against the general body of his o^vn people
as to assign the enjoyment of the future blissful era to
a just and pious remainder only? AVe can indeed well
conceive and reconcile in our mind that an Israelitish
prophet would adjudge to converted pagans an equality
of spiritual advantage with his own nation. This is
even illustrated in Isa. LVI. 1-8. Yet it exceeds our
comprehension that a national Israelitish preacher should
have meant to award to pagan converts a superiority
of divine favor above any part of Israel, however
grievous their backsliding and defection from their God,
and however severe he had otherwise to be in his
animadversion of their wrongs. ISTo, such insinuation
must, on general principles, be repulsed. This repulsion
is, in very fact, fully supported by the view above noted,
that the tone of that peace paragi-aph is alike too general
and generous to allow of its discriminating limitation
to a just "remnant." But yet, on the other hand, this
limitation would be glaringly established in view of the
logical and contextual conclusion also above noticed.

How then, let us ask, must those luring phrases of
a coming golden era of peace at the head of Isa. ch. II.
impress us? Surely, as inconsistent, not only with the
whole context but also with itself — if the premise of
the exclusion of the majority of ill-deserted Israel from
the realm of bliss holds, as it logically and contextually

must.

This positive contextual inconsistency would even

44

The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

practically tempt, nay prompt us to assume, as the
inevitable upshot of our questioning, that Isaiah's
famous peace paragraph came by its present position
through some literary or editorial mischance. Isaiah,
we readily concede, may have adopted it from an older
source for use at some public oration. But, we have to
say emphatically on the other hand, he could certainly
not have spoken it in the same strain with the previous
and subsequent context, which is so utterly contrary to
it in texture and tendency. Even if it were supposable
that he spoke it nevertheless in the connection in which
it is found, because the signature of "latter day" is
attached to it which renders the prediction but as
eventual, yet this at least cannot reasonably be gainsaid
that the sharp contrast of that actual juxtaposition must
have sorely jarred the ears and feelings of his hearers.
This contrast must necessarily have made of no avail
the whole soothing and uplifting purpose he might have
associated with it in his mind. Unless, therefore, we
could suspect that the prophet was of such a careless
temper as to jump in a breath from the one extreme of
glowing promise of bliss to the other of terrible and
stunning denunciation of divine vengeance, or that he
was so unconcerned about the order of his own writings
as that in collecting them he took no heed at all of tlieir
logical consecution, we have to account for that strangest
of all juxtapositions by assigning it not to the prophet
himself, but to a later transcriber or editor. ^^^^ Such a
one, in the simple piety and regard for the extant com-
positions of the gi-eat and renowned prophet, Isaiah,
would subordinate every sensible concern for consistency
to the reverent motive of preserving intact every

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. -iS

sentence and word accredited to the prophet, for the
hereditary sacred possession of IsraeL Thns it may have
come that he placed the questionable peace paragTaph
where it now stands, indifferent to the simple require-
ment of logical arrangement and consecution, and
indifferent, also, to the future charge, by more critical
readers, of his most uncritical proceeding.

This .seems the only alternative by which we could
reduce and mitigate the objections, which stand out
against that celebrated Isaianic passage of brightest
national hope for the futufe/^^^

Let us now consider the almost identical Messianic
peace predictions in the prophet Micah, ch. IV. 1-4. It
will disclose to us the same enormous incongruity of
context. We invite attention to the contrast of chapter
III. with TV. 1-4. In the former place the prophet had
put forth the most scathing reproof of his countrymen
for their various iniquity. In the last verse, 12, he
denounced in punishment of it the most direful and
startling national calamity: "Therefore shall Zion for
your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall
become heaps (viz., of debris), and the mountain of the
house as the high places of the forest." The denuncia-
tion must have made an uncommonly striking and
wounding impression, judging from the reference to it
in Jeremiah XXVI. 18 sq. The threat that the wick-
edness of the Judeans had brought on them an
impending doom of the total destruction and annihi-
lation of Jerusalem with its temple, was indeed not
accomplished. Its non-accomplishment is Providenti-
ally accounted for in Jeremiah 1. c. ver. 19. But this
does not immediately concern us here. What we have to

46 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

urge, and urge as most vexatious and utterly incompre-
hensible is, tbat immediately upon that fatal threat the
prophet bursts suddenly forth into the other extreme of
the golden vision of an elysian future. In this glowing-
picture Jerusalem with its temple, the abode of Jehovah,
passes as flourishingly existent, and towards this sanctu-
ary there is, as the presage there reads, to be attracted
the whole world to draw from it instruction for guidance
and conduct; also, peace would be universal, and Israel
enjoy blessed security — the very consummation of peace
in their traditional conception of the corresponding
Hebrew term. There occurs in the whole paragraph
not the least intimation that the "latter days'" blissful
condition would be of a kind that might be construed
as compatible with that paralyzing close of chapter III.,
namely, that it would ensue after the catastrophe
denounced here. The prophet strikes in those initial
lines of ch. IV. the most serene notes of bright hope-
fulness, as though that last sentence of the preceding
chapter with its dire forecast had not been "written or
uttered at all. Is this not a most iiTeconcilable con-
trast? There are certainly no sharper opposites than
penal ruin and glorious happiness. Yet these are placed
in Micah's prophecies close upon each other! That a
line of capitular division separates them in form, does
not in the least alter the flagrant contradiction of both
those utterances. It matters nothing that they are
separated by such outward marks, as long as they are
proved or supposed to come from the same author who
apparently gave both of them forth in all earnest. If
he did at both times mean what he said — and we have
certainly no right to suspect that he was trifling with

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 47

the good sense and good faith of his hearers or readers —
we must at least cliarge hiui with the most faulty
memory, which would not serve him even beyond the
vanished breath of a directly preceding sentence, into
the immediately following one of another chapter. Yet
as this, again, would be too curious a psychological
phenomenon to be seriously entertained, we have to try
to lift the difficulty of their irreconcilable contrast in the
same manner we did with the difficulty offered by the
kindred peace paragTaph of Isaiah: that is, we have to
declare Micah's peace prediction, too, out of place in the
context in which it is found, and attribute its fixed
incoi-poration to a redactor who proceeded thoughtlessly
in arranging the remaining literary productions of the
prophet.

The latter had doubtless, like his contemporary,
Isaiah, appropriated and assimilated in his fond soul that
glowing picture of futurity which had come down from
an anterior period. And he, like this contemporary^,
had unquestionably cherished it for some oratorical
purpose of captivating the ears of his hearers, which he
would accomplish at a time when they would be deserv-
ing of a bright outlook being held out to them. But
never, we aver, could either prophet have uttered that
peace paragraph before the people, when he was in the
excited mood of indigTiation, which prompted him to
hurl at their conscience grave charges and bitter
denunciations, such as are found in the last verse of
chapter III. of Mioah, or in the orations of Isaiah from
chapter II. to lY.

ISTor could such brilliant peace predictions ever have
counterbalanced the hard and heavy realities of unrest.

48 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

tumult and struggle with which the life of the nation
of Israel was beset in those ancient prophetic times.
They were, strictly viewed, no more than thin gossamers
floating in the air, doing at best the momentary good of
soothing the people's hearts, which smarted alike from
oppressive outward conditions and the stings of moni-
tions and rebukes with which the same prophets treated
them again and again.

We see, then, how frail the mere literal and logical
foundation of those almost identical peace paragraphs
of Isaiah and Micah is. When we hold yet in mind the
irrepressible rational judgment, that all such bright fore-
casts of bliss and glory were in their nature nothing but
a fabric of fancy, sweet at the moment of their
conception and utterance, but bitter in the sequence, as
the indefinitely long delayed realization must have sorely
harassed the hearts of those to whom they were
addressed, we have to insist that their merit of
temporarily counteracting the popular depression
of spirit must have been very precarious indeed.
The present evil and the fear of equally hard
or still worse impending evil was, we have
to judge, too heavy a weight on their minds to allow
them to be carried away with the prophets' ow^n actual
or ostensible enthusiasm.* And it is this circum-
stance, too, that forbids us rating those peace predictions
too high, or resorting to them in any serious manner, and
especially attaching to them any dogmatic importance
for those times or any other time.

Dogmatism, that is, the positive religious-like
assumption based on those prophetic messages, that a

*See Excursus.

Presages of a Comhuj Golden Era of Peace. 49

Messianic peace reign to come was or is part of God's
pro^'iclential design for the farther future, must, on the
Avhole, recede with abashment before the stern fact of
their becoming meaningless by the mere contextual
relations in which they stand in either Isaiah or Micah.
^or will an}^ rational reader contend that a prophet
could, because of his exalted state of mind, have also
exalted himself above the ordinary prerequisite of
straight logic. A prophet, like Micah, for instance, no
more than any other human being, could sensibly defy
the cogent argument that the denunciation of ch. III.
12, and the promise of IV. 1-4, are irreconcilable
opposites, mutually exclusive and never tractable
enough to be made to join hands. Only one of those
opposite propositions could be thought as real or capable
of being realized.

Close and critical examination, then, brings out
clearly and irrefutably the circumstance, that those
Messianic peace forecasts not only partake of the
suspended nature of any promise resting on no founda-
tion presently justifying it, but show, besides, a glaring
unreality in the very contexts in wdiich they appear.

Still more striking instances of the problematic
character and suspense adherent to those peace presages
for nearer or farther-ofP times, we have to produce.
"\Ve shall now deal with direct announcements of an
expected personal (Messianic) ruler. By the way
of anticipation we will state at once as the result of this
inquiry, that the concept of prosperous futurity to be
construed from them can be none other than 'through
bloody war to sweet Messianic peace.'

4

50 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

We will refer first to Micali ch. V. The feature of
the golden age to come, in which all nations would quit
warring and peace would universally dominate, so
charmingly presented in ch. IV. 3, receives additional
exultant illustration in the promise of the rise of an
illustrious king in that next chapter. Of this predicted
ideal monarch we have already treated above. He is
portrayed as of egregious sway and as the very incarna-
tion of peace in the intense and extensive meaning of the
equivalent Hebrew word "shalom," especially as to its
combined implication of abiding national and individual
happiness. But this, we must say, is only a glaring
veneer covering over stark realities and gloomy con-
ditions, for a momentary end of captivating and sooth-
ing the hearers. That lustrous "consummation devoutly
to be wished" must to the practical and cool observer
of the political complexion of the Jewish State as it
then was, have seemed far and possibly farther distant
than ever before.

The prophet himself who painted that brilliant
picture of futurity could not suppress the jarring sftrokes
of exceeding difficulty to be overcome antecedently to
that happy eventuality. These were, that the potent
future peace-king would have plenty of bloody work to
do to beat back and defeat hostile invaders. The
possibility, in particular, of new warlike attempts upon
the Jewish land by the much dreaded, all-conquering
great-power, Assyria, mth her "army which was always
on a war footing" (so Maspero, 'Struggles of the
ISTations', p. 620), looms up fatally from the background.
The apprehension of a new Assyrian invasion, advanced
in ch. V. verses 4, 5, puts a strongly disilluding damper

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 51

upon the whole bright and fascinating Messianic vision.
All the God-given gTeatness and power of the prospective
Messiah did not preclude, even in the prophet's o^^^l
exalted mind and speech, such fatal chances over-
hanging the nation's horizon. In fact, the golden state
of final disarmament of Israel, so gracefully depicted in
ch. V. vv. 9, 10, could, by the prophet's own implied
admission, not be realized until previously, with lion-
like force and ferocity, the overpowering hand of Israel
would have subdued and destroyed all their enemies (see
w. 7, 8), and this with the miraculous aid of Jehovah,
as the Hebrew word "yikkarethu" used in v. 9, seems to
indicate .

This shows conclusively enough that neither was
the outlook at the time of those prophetic utterances
propitious enough for a realization of the glorious
Messianic peace-empire, nor could the prophet himself
in his clear and collected thought have consistently con-
ceived of any realization of it, before the manifold
oppressive and ruinous power of Israel's foes was entirely
undone. What stuj^endous and heroic warlike measures
and enterprises would be required to accomplish this end,
no sensible prophet of the eighth century B. C, which
was so very calamitous for all Israel,could have concealed
in his own mind. Neither a Zechariah, nor an Isaiah,
nor a Micah, who were contemporary witnesses of that
convulsive period in Israel's history, could reasonably
shut his eyes to the fierce menace to wliich the Jew^ish
land was then incessantly exposed. If they nevertheless
came before the people with their bright promises of a
marvelously happy and glorious future, they acted
mainly, as already repeatedly suggested, from a motive

62 The Clirisimas Motto, and the Prophetic

of svmiDatliy with their doAvncast and despairing- com-
patriots, stimulating their courage to bear up under the
visitations and steeling them for as much resistance as
they could muster.

They were also, doubtless, themselves enthusiasts,
bred and imbued with the then already traditionary
notion of a halcyon era to come to Israel, which lifted
their own minds above the stress and distress of the
actual wretched conditions of the nation. The first
bright ray of light and relief from foreign oppression,
the first calm, untroubled hours after a long and hard
tumult of national anxiety, were enough to stir their
own hearts again with the high national hopes of the
past. Fancy w^ould then promptly step in, "flinging
for them an airy bridge" across the present chasm, and
thromng its connecting spans out and back into the
reign of David, the palmy days of which passed in
tradition as excelling in true prosperity any other period
in the national history. What was, they would
imagine, could, under God, be again. Jehovah might
let rise again a mighty and illustrious Davidide, who
Avould marvelously fill the present chasm with his and
the nation's power and glory. It is, there is good
reason to suppose, ^in those temporary lulls of foreign
menace or aggression that there may be discovered
the origin of most, if not all the gorgeous predictions
of peace, security, splendor and might, which came
from their high-flown minds and inflated lips. "We
will make this view most plausible by a reference to
the very significant and notorious prophecies written
or delivered immediately or soon after king Hezekiah's
accession. This we attempt to do in the separate Excur-

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 53

siis. Here we aim to furtlier show with convincing
force that the predictions of a coming glorious peace era
littered by the prophets of the Assyrian epoch, could
mean only, if they were to mean anything at all, the
attainment of peace, after wading first through vast
streams of blood shed in terribly destructive warfare.

Let us look at the remarkable passage of Isaiah
XI. 1-10. It is like the previously noted one of Micah,
a typical Messianic forecast. And it is, too, of the
same tyi^e with it in the prediction of a God-endowed
Davidic ruler to come (compare Micah V. 3 with Isa.
XI. 2), only more elaborate in the description of his
qualities and the blessed efficiency of his dominion.
That it is organically connected with ch. IX. 5, 7, is
to us open to no question. This point of view we have
marked already above (note 21). It deserves, indeed,
an ever newly reiterated assertion, in the face of the
apparently never ending mysticism in which it is, in
some of its parts at least, so persistently folded up for
the purpose of a one-sided dogmatic scheme.

The oracle of ch. XI sets off the coming ruler's
chief trait of character as that of consummate righteous-
ness— the basal condition, indeed, of any government's
peaceful and prosperous progTcss.^'^^ Profound peace
will prevail under him (compare also IX, 5, 6), both
by his own disposition and the dispensation of Jehovah,
who will cause even the noxious beasts to lose their
ferocious bent and become tame and mild towards the
rest of the animals (verses 6-0). ^^'> He will be the
central banner towards which all peoples will tend in
homage and adoration: thus eminent and illustrious

54 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

Avill be the coming Jerusalemite Messiali and world-
ruler.

Yet soon tlie propliet tones doAvn again liis over-
drawn strains of promise. As tliougli lie had suddenly
awaked from a teasing and abortive dream, he reflects
again upon the sordid and sorrowful realities and dangers
that actually subsisted, contravening the brilliant out-
look he had so blandishingly held out to his hearers.
As though the previous happy prediction had not at all
been made, he reasons again in an anxious and warlike
tone. His grandiose oracle having spent its dazzling
sparkles, he falls back again upon the actual dreary
present with its various perils threatening the nation.

When he in the sequel, vv. 11-13, predicts a
re-gathering of all the exiled Israelites from the four
ends of the earth, ^^^^ to be firmly cemented together
again as one, undivided nation, and thus unitedly to
enjoy the blissful government of the God-endowed
Anointed, we are fain to expect the illustration drawn
out subsequently, that then all those returned and
brotherly confederate masses of Israel would have to
do nothing but indulge the sweet consciousness of
re-acquired national bliss, and, in the proud feeling of
themselves, look on self-complacently how other
nationalities would come and offer allegiance to their
Anointed and approach them, the newly elevated, great
and commanding nation, in a submissive attitude,
craving suppliantly their favor and good- will. But no;
this would not ensue. At any rate, the prophet has not
opened such perspective. What he practically indi-
cates is, that the Messianic-'theocratically united Israel
would then stand shoulder to shoulder — to engage in

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 55

the bloody business of war. The previously pictured
universal peace was therefore but an airy hypothesis.
It meant at best, as to Israel, an armed peace — such as
European nations present yet in our day — a peace
resting- on and combined with the alleged illimitable
and insuperable power of the Messianic king, (compare
IX. 6). By this combination would, on the one hand,
Israel's enemies be held in awful check and, on the other,
Israel themselves be enabled to take dire vengeance
on and make bloody conquest of the various Palestinian
nationalities, wdio were of an ever hostile temperament
and attitude against them. If the Israelitish hearer
or reader of those sweet delineations of promise, in vv.
1-10, was rocked into the happy dream that with the
arrival of the ideal ruler all would be peace and rest,
he was suddenly shaken out of it again by the picture of
the stern eventuality of having to reduce by warlike
enterprises the different hateful neighboring national-
ities. Surely, Israel under those imagined ideal
conditions would easily be able to cope with them.
Yet the prospect of bloody warfare can never leave
any, even the most powerful nation, in a calm and
unruffled mood of mind.

The prophet holds out that those rejoined masses of
Israel would under the leadership of their august Mes-
sianic monarch "fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines,
spoil all the children of the east, lay their hand upon
Edoni and Moab, and the children of Amnion shall be
reduced to dependence" (v. 14).^^^^ Even the miracu-
lously striking "rod of mouth and breath of lip" of the
Messiah will not suffice to subdue and conquer those
nationalities. He will not only be "girded with right-

56 Tlie Christmas Motto, and the Proplietic

eousness," but will have eventually to gird on his real
sword and don the rest of his steel annor, to lead on his
Israelitish troops in bloody assaults upon tliese nation-
alities— ^a fierce warrior, again, instead of a gentle peace
ruler. How can this latter statement, we ask, be made
to accord with the previous lines, also with eh. IX. 6,
and especially with ch. IT. 1-4, predictive of universal
peace?

Delitzsch, too, in his commentary in loco, makes
the same kind of observation. He says: "But how
does this warlike outlook tally with the preceding
promise of a paradisean peace, which presupposes an
entire cessation of war, as foreshadowed in Isa. ch.
II. 4? It is a contradiction which can be solved only
from the point of view that the contents of ver. 14 are
only images taken from the warlike present, but typi-
fying the future dominion of united Israel over the
neighboring nations by means of spiritual weapons."
!N"ow, we contend against that most learned exegetist,
this shift of declaring as typical what cannot stand the
test as a real and literal representation, meets in the
present days of rational and critical interpretation of
Scripture certainly with but few adherents. We at
any rate repel as the most daring venture and dubious
dealing with old sacred texts, any such attempt at
symbolizing relative expressions in instances which
show on their face and from all internal reasons that
they can bear a literal meaning only. We freely admit
that the old prophets used at times, and at times
rather prominently, a figiirative language. But, we
hold, there are but few cases in which the intention
of the respective "\mter can, to a scholar versed in

Presages of a Cnuii)if/ Golden Era of Peace. 57

the whole Bible, remain doubtful. He will generally
almost imfailingly be able to make out from the
tenor and drift of the composition, whether the
^Arriter thought to convey a literal or figurative sense.
In the case in point v\^e would vouch for and stake
our reputation for knowledg-e on the proposition,
that Isaiah never meant there aught but to advance
to his Israeli tish hearers the relieving prospect,
that in the times of Messiah those hateful neighboring
nationalities would be coped with in regular warlike
fashion, with bow and spear and other material weapons
of destruction, should they further undertake, as they
so often did before, to molest and make havoc among
Israel. The terms used in ver. 14 are those of actual
warlike assaults upon insidious Palestinian foes, and
nothing else. Nor has the prophet intimated with one
word or in any manner imaginable, that in the blessed
farther future the people of Israel would handle
"spiritual weapons." The Messianic king himself is,
truly, pictured as spiritually gifted, and to an almost
supernal degree. But as to the mass of Israel we can
find no trace in the whole context of that passage that
the prophet wished to foreshadow them, too, as thus
gifted, so that they might, as Delitzsch would have it,
smite the pagan Palestinians with their superior spirit-
ual weapons. ISTot that it is foreign to an old prophet to
predict the eschatological spectacle of intense, even
supernatural enlightenment among the multitude of
Israel. Xo, such an instance is really offered in the
prophet Joel (ch. III. 1 sq). Even passages like Isa.
LIX. 21, may allow of such an over-^vTought construc-
tion (Ibn Ezra at least puts such construction

58 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

upon the last-cited passage). But this cannot off-
set the real textual and contextual sense of the
prophecy in point. Here material weapons only could
be meant. The Philistines and Edomites, Israel's arch-
enemies, would care very little for the eventuality of the
Israelites possessing a high spirit, even a prophetical
temper. They would continue to defy the spirit, and
mock at the supposed prophets, as they were wont to
do formerly, and inflict all possible mischief upon Israel
in the future as they did in the past, unless a miracle
should prevent their doing so. By a miracle, indeed,
Jehovah could curb and restrain the violence aimed by
those foes at his people. But then the miracle would
be directly God's and not his people's.

We, for our part, can find a solution of that contra-
diction— and one for which we claim by no means any
merit of indisputability — only in either of the two fol-
lowing suppositions. We may uphold the theory of
Fiirst, mentioned above, that the first ten verses of
Isaiah XL were also, like ch. IX. 1-6, borro^ved from
an older prophet. Isaiah may accordingly be supposed
to have incorporated those verses here to make up an
oration for a certain purpose. And it may have been,
further, that in the process of welding the matter
together, the logical gap thus created was simply blurred
over. Or the contradiction may be solved in this man-
ner, and agreeably with our position, that none of those
bland and sweet Messianic presages of the prophets are
to be taken strictly in their literal import. They were
substantially no more than flashes of poetic fancy,
flashes focused and conserved that they might occasion-
ally irradiate and solace downcast hearts, and therefore

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 59

never to be judged of according to standards of truth
or religion; or, if they came from the somewhat con-
vinced hearts of the prophets and were to pass in a
literal sense, they could certainly have implied nothing
but that the ultimate era which Avas to dawn and break
for Israel would be achieved only after having first
disposed summarily of all hostile nationalities from
whom attacks were constantly feared.

This view is best instanced by the above-quoted
passage of Micali ch. V. 7-10, which may really be
regarded as a foremost illustrative specimen marking
out the intrinsic merit of all other kindred prophetic
uMcrfinces as well. In that passage the real and endur-
ing peace-footing of the nation of Israel is manifestly
enough prefigured as to take place no earlier than
the time when they would utterly have vanquished
and prostrated their various, ever menacing foes.
This time, freely we say it, never came, and never could
come, considering the unfortunate geographical and
numerical conditions in which Providence placed that
nation.

We see, then, that Isaiah, too, cannot be understood
but as conceiving the fond traditionary notion of a
future golden era of peace, to be other than the issue of
an all around subjugating, sanguinary warfare against
those peoples who were and would be ever ready to break
in turbulently upon the even course of Isra'cl's calm and
prosperous state. This would be virtually equal to the
proposition — impossible almost of expression — through
incessant icar to lasting peace. This being so, abiding
peace could not possibly be predicted in all earnestness
and according to facts which universal human his-

60 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

tory supplies. Eveiy day miglit bring to Israel new
complications and disturbances. How, then, could sucli
blissful consummation be presaged in advance, and in
particular for the whole length of the future time of the
princes of the Davidic line, which was to re-open again
with the 'Messiah' and be peipetuated in the unbroken
succession of these illustrious rulers? Again, could any
prophet know beforehand even so much as that the
Messiah's own presumptive heir and successor would
be held worthy enough in the sight of God to really
follow his father on the throne and body forth the
theocratic idea and cause in the imagined Jerusalemite
center of the divine vicegerency? The prophets, as it
seems to result from different Scriptural indications,
truly flattered themselves with such fond hope. Yet
they could, on the other hand, nowise be certain about
its accomplishment, nor be warranted in speaking of it
in positive tones of necessary fulfillment. Unless it
could be imagined that any one prophet held the
curious, vain notion that the hoped-for Messiah was
immortal^*°^ and would reign for ever, we have to
declare that none of them was able to predict lasting
peace and prosperity for Israel in the supposed
Messianic era to come. For while the illustrious
coming shepherd of Israel might indeed succeed in
establishing an exemplary government of surpassing
justice, and signal, enviable happiness among the nation,
there was yet no guaranty that this blessed state would
unbrokenly endure even under him, much less that it
would safely and unfailingly attend all the coming
governments of his Messianic successors.

Now we must not be too critical on points like these.

Presages of a Coining Golden Era of Peace. 61

AVe oTig'lit to, and we readily do, allow for the prophet's
emotional conditions into wdiich we of a late generation,
and perhaps too sober habits of mind, can no more put
ourselves. Further, those mellow and fascinating peace
predictions were, on the one hand, but rehearsals of tra-
ditionary notions, and, on the other, designed to relieve
and soften the effect of the sharp rebukes which
those ancient preachers of Israel were nrompted to deal
to their people. To offset the smart of their
rebukes, the other extreme of picturing their future in
most roseate colors, if they should repent and return to
the pure service of God and to righteousness, was
resorted to. All this was an emotional proceeding
merely. It rested not on a condition full of such high
promise for the future and justifying the forecast.

Both extremes just noted are strikingly illustrated
in the prophet Hosea. He lived in the early
part of the eighth century and witnessed the terri-
ble and coi-rupt state of tlie northern kingdom,
his own native land. He poured out his righteous
indignation unsparingly and with scathing threats of
utter ruin and desolation of country and people. Yet
almost in the same strain which dealt tke heaviest blow
of reproof to his countrymen, he predicted that, if they
would bethink themselves and repent, they would be
re-accepted into Grod's favor, and as a result of it God
would make an end of the hurtful beasts, of war and its
baneful instruments, and let them live in security —
peace, indeed — and the enjoyment of plenty. See
Hosea II. 16-25.

There is certainly no cogent conclusion from such
extravagant orations that the prophets themselves

62 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

believed religiouslj in tlie advent of a golden future of
peace, much as tliey had themselves imbibed the
tradition of its expected coming and doubtless indulged,
from a patriotic and sympathetic feeling, such expecta-
tion with all the rest of the people. At best, the
promises of such glorious consummation rested but on
emotional grounds. They were not substantial enough
to be accoimted as involving the probability of realiza-
tion. Unfortunate realities might at any coming
moment belie the promise and thwart the realization.
However this may be, and in what manner soever we
may judge of the prophetic predictions of an ulterior or
ultimate era of peace, this much can never be disputed,
that they could not mean aught but to point to an
eventuality ensuing after intense and immense warlike
struggles. This results inconteetably from internal
evidences, laid open by a clear investigation of the
respective prophetic texts and contexts.

And this was, too, let us add in conclusion, the inter-
pretation which later apocalyptic and apocryphal Mess-
ianic writers put on those predictions. One of those
writers, upon whom the spirit of the old prophecies
seems tr have been breathed most genuinely and
freshly, the author of the apocryphal Psalms of Solomon,
composed after Pompey's conquest of Judea, about the
middle of the first century B. C, reasons in this strain.
The expected "Messiah, the son of David," will enter
upon his dominion of power, peace and prosperity, after
having destroyed the heathen invaders of Jerusalem
(and the Jewish land) and smitten Israel's foes with the
awe of his dread sway, so that they would no more
attempt any hostility against his nation (Ps. XVII).

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 63

He will indeed not be a warlike ruler (ibid, ver, 37). His
true force will consist in his implicit trust in almiglity
God, who is ever able to keep Israel's enemies in check,
if he choose to do so. Yet for all that, the "iron
scepter" cannot be spared wherewith he would cast down
and "shatter" Israel's foes (ver. 26). Their forcible
reduction, in order to render them permanently innoc-
uous, is here necessarily presumed. Truly, again, that
Psalmist holds firmly, though not expressly, to the
expectation that war will, with the strong establishment
of the Messiah's empire, cease forever. Yet in order
that such high end of stable peace and security be
attained, previous sweeping martial enterprises are
indispensable — as we have to judge from the whole tenoi*
of the psalm to have been the writer's supposition. It
is only when the Messiah will practically be possessed of
almightiness, that he will overawe and terrorize the
enemies of Israel with the "word of his mouth" (w.
27, 39; and this doubtless in accommodation to Isa.
XL 4).

The Sibylline Oracles, too, holding out an era of
peaceful and prosperous univei'sal theocracy to be,
cannot get away from the notion that war is to precede
that blessed ultimate state. In the famous passage,
III. 652 sq., the prospective saintly and heroic lord is
said to "make the whole earth cease from evil war, killing
some and accomplishing faithful covenants to others."
This shows conclusively that even this writer of glowing
promise for the future could not perceive the golden era
of universal peace and good-will under the Zionite
theocracy as other than preceded by the violence of
destructive war. Xay, even further onsets against the

64

The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

Jewish land are, despite the presumption of a coming
theocratic peace government, anticipated there (see 663-
697). God, it is foretokl, will deal with those furious
enemies of Israel by "war and the sword," amidst other
ruinous physical catastrophes. It is only afterwards
that "the children of God will live in rest and peace,
the hand of the Holy One protecting them" (698-709):
even the era of universal peace will then have begun
(743-760).

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 65

NOTES.

(1). We aim to make it clear by the following-
reference to the gospel account of Jesus' triumphal
entry into Jerusalem. That the multitude acclaiming
Jesus on that occasion should have shouted before him
"Hosanna," and also "Blessed is he that cometh in the
name of the Lord" (Matt. XXL 9), is in itself indeed
credible enough. The latter sentence is extracted from
Ps. CXVIII. 26, in which verse it constitutes a clause.
The former expression is readily discerned to have also
been taken from that context, viz., v. 25. Yet. we have
\o say, it does not occur there in such apocopate and con-
tracted form. There is, moreover, no Scriptural evi-
dence that even in its longer structure it ever served as
aught but an invocation of the Deity. (Alford, in loco,
observes that "Hosanna" was "a formula originally of
supplication, but conventionally of gratulation." But
he fails to quote any external source from which he
could have derived the latter assertion. For aught we
know, it would be most difficult, nay impossible to bring
such support). But for all that we hold it possible that
it w^as already in the days of Jesus vulgarly employed in
that shorter form in which we see it practically used in
the account of Jesus' triumphal entry. We know that
the medieval Rabbinism adopted "hoshana" as a technical

5

^6 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

designation of tlie ritualistic willows of the seventh day
of the Feast of Tabernacles, and even as a particular
name of this day itself, which was the "great hoshana."
It is therefore not unreasonable to suppose that that
popular contraction of the phrase had already been
accomplished in Jesus' time, and been used freely for the
same ceremonial denotations. From the use in connec-
tion with ceremonial objects it may have been extended,
too, as an expression of acclaim and homage, in the
manner in which it appears also in the gospels. Yet for
all that we have to declare it utterly inconceivable that
the same multitude, consisting doubtless mostly of
unlearned folk, should have newly coined, and on the
spur of the moment, the additional phrase, "Hosanna in
the highest," which is also put into their mouth in the
above-noted gospel. There was, w^e assert, no analogy
for it anywhere in Hebre^v Scripture. No celestial
anthem is in its entire volume represented under such
foi-m. We have therefore no alternative but to assume
that the gospel writer created it anew from his own mind,
accomplishing it by way of discursive reference to the
cited psalm verse. In Luke the case is still more
agg-ravated. He enlarges the acclaim, "Blessed, etc.,"
by inserting "king" — a new formation again — and
attributes to the multitude the further exclamation:
"peace in heaven and glory in the highest" (XIX. 38).
The latter phrase, we remark, is evidently stereotyped
with Luke, as would appear from the parallel of ch. 11.
14, which is the subject proper of our disquisition. The
phrase is, truly, fitting enough, though it is not borne out
by any direct and exact Hebrew Scriptural analogy.
As we have set forth elsewhere in our text, it is likely

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 67

to have been substantiallj drawn from Ps. CXLVIII. 1.
Yet, we have curiously to ask, how did Luke come to
combine with it the other phrase, "peace in heaven?"
We cannot possibly detect in it any intelligible import,
and certainly no sense appropriate to the occasion. It
may be accounted for, though, as a random formation
from Job XXV. 2. This passage may have been present
to Luke's mind when he put do^vn that account. But
then we have to conclude that he thought fit to utilize it
in his own way, -without stopping to reflect upon the
organic meaning it has in that context of Job, a meaning
entirely inapplicable, in fact, to the event of Jesus'
entry. Moreover, the phrase as produced by Luke is
liable to be understood as an imputation that God had
until then lacked peace, which was now fairlv assured
and firmly established for evermore. If it be said that
this is not a necessary deduction from Luke's plirase, we
reply, that we marvel what other reasonable construction
could at all be placed on it.

(2). Such as Bleek, Olshausen, Ewald, Tischendorf,
etc. The last-named defends it on the ground, that the
^'hymn is most fitly divided into two clauses, of which
the first reaches to "Theo," and the other contains
the rest." We, for our part, have to own that we
fail to see wherein that fitness should subsist. It can be
made out the less, when w-e bear in mind that the
amalgamation of all that ensues upon "Theo" into
one clause, requires the construction of the genitive,
^'eudokias." This construction, however, gives in our
opinion no tolerable sense. Our objections to it are set
forth at length in the text of our essay. Let us yet
note, that Keim, to us the foremost and most competent

68 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

of all tlie -writers of the Life of Jesus, accepts also the
reading "eudokias," in the genitive. "Otherwise," he
observes, "there are three members in the sentence, only
one for God, two for man, and these moreover opposed
to each other without real antithesis."

Here we deem it in place to present that eminent
scholar's observations on the entire respective passage of
Luke. Contrasting (in 'The History of Jesus of Nazara',
11. 79 ff.) Matthew's brief notice of the birth of Jesus,
he says of Luke : "Luke and his Ebionite authority have
provided more extensive scenery for the birth itself —
signs in heaven and on earth, etc. . . . Luke's Ebionite
informant has to tell of blinding glory from heaven, of
a watch both human and angelic which welcomes the
new comer with warmth and solemnity combined. An
angel of the Lord appears (here he remarks in a note:
"Luke is elsewhere full of ideal allusions"). In Beth-
lehem he arouses none from slumber it is true; but he
makes his way to the shepherds, .... and declares
to them instead of fear, gTeat joy for the whole people,
"for unto you is born this day, etc," And while he
names to them the sure sign (v. 12), a heavenly host
surrounds him rejoicing in the deed of God, congratu-
lating these representatives of humanity on the gracious
advent, "Glory be to God in the heights and welfare upon
earth to men in whom he is well pleased." The heavens
retired from view, the shepherds hastened, sought
and saw the child, etc."

In this connection it may not be amiss to bring for-
ward Strauss' relative judgment. In 'Life of Jesus'
(4th ed., transl. by George Eliot) he dilates first on
Luke's chronological incongimities (as to the census, etc.).

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 69

and on his design to "accommodate the time and circum-
stances attending the birth of Jesus to his pleasure." He
produces then the various constructions put on those
circumstances by different expositors. First he men-
tions the supranaturalistic construction, then the attempt
at a natural explanation, and lastly he gives his 0"\vn
interpretation. This is, that the vi^hole narrative of
Luke's is entirely mythical. He advances: "The mythi
of the ancient world more generally ascribed divine
apparitions to countrymen and shepherds; the sons of
the gods and of great men were frequently brought up
among shepherds." (He might have cited as parallel
also the legendary circumstances attending the birth of
Buddha.) He insists, conclusively, that "historical truth
is not to be sought either in chapter II. or I. of Luke."

(3). Before arriving at this final decision he had
entered into Lange's own construction of the sentence,
concurring in it in the main, not only in regard to the
reading "eudokia," in the nominative, but also as to his
assumption that the "theme and motive" of the whole
angelic song was to be sought in that very word. He
could only not subscribe to Lange's interpretation of
"eirene" as "praise and honor." According to this Ger-
man commentator the sense of the doxology would be:
"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth praise,
(because there is) good-will (of God) towards men,"
namely, through the reconciling power of the (eventual)
death of Jesus, then come into being.

(4). Blobmfield, in his commentary, in loco, gives
implicitly the same dogmatic turn to the doxology. He
contends though for the received reading "eudokia,"
also for the grammatical division of the sentence into

'^0 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

tliree members. We infer from liis observations tbe
following sense to be put on the doxology: "Glorj to
God in the liigliest, (for) on eartli (there is) peace (viz.,
with God), among men (God's) good pleasure." The
two last clauses he takes as containing the cause and
motive for the doxology proper.

(5). It would seem to us that among the early
Christ-believers there w^as the habit of denoting
technically any prophetic Messianic presage, either
traditionally regarded as such or newly invested with
such ultimate bearing, as "good" or "glad tidings."

It strikes us further as probable, that Christianity
itself had originally received as title that favorite expres-
sion, the "good tidings (or gospel) of peace." At its
very beginning, when it consisted only in the preaching
of the approaching Kingdom of God, this preaching
itself passed under that attractive name. At the later
point, when Paul had advanced his own theological
system, it is patent from Rom. X. 15 that he applied,
mentally at least, that appellation to Christianity as he
had himself construed it.

The phrase, it is deserving of notice, points to Isa.
LII. 7, as ils source of derivation. While Kahum II.
1, has the same expression "gospelling of peace," yet the
stronger probability is that its Christian adoption was
from the former place. We base it on the consideration
that a certain partiality to the prophecies of the Second
Isaiah, alike by Jesus and the early Christological
writers, can variously be traced and proved to have been
settled in Christianity already at its earliest time. It
is especially the local environment of that phrase in
Isaiah which was exploited with set purpose and marked

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 7 1

fondness for Christian evidences. That the notorious
sequel, beginning with Isa. LII. 13, was by Christian
Messiahists eagerly seized and treated for doctrinal
objects, is easily provable and will by no competent
inquirer be called in question. If, then, the votaries of
the new creed sought for a suitable name which they
might give it, they had not to search long for it. It
offered itself promptly from the same chapter with which
they were so well familiarized.

We remark additionally that there is all the greater
probability that the phrase in point was taken from
Isaiah and not from Nahum, when we recollect that
Paul, in reflecting on the preaching of the Christian
system as the "glad tidings," in Rom. X. 15, 16, quoted
the whole verse of Isa. LII. 7 (the final clause excepted),
of which that phrase forms a part.

It is yet to be noted, however, that its appropriation
with a Messianic meaning was but arbitrary, and had no
countenance from the logical sense it bears in the
prophetic passage. In neither passage of Isaiah or
Xahum, we aver, the '"gospelling of peace" can be given
out as really or even figuratively referable to Messiah.
The Messiah is not mentioned or thought of in either
place. It is God himself who is represented as dealing
with Israel's foe — Assyria in the one and Babylonia in
the other prophet. The announcement of slialom
"peace" to Israel was thought by those prophets exclu-
sively as being in consequence of the overthrow of the
hostile power by God himself — the Messiah having
nothing to do with it.

(6). Repentance and remission are named together
as the combined theme of the preaching in the name of

72 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

Jesus; see Luke XXIY. 47. The association of both
those concepts in the mind of the author of Lnke and
Acts was so strong and tenacious, that in the latter book
Jesus is mentioned, even in his heavenly abode, where he
is Prince and Saviour, as "giving to Israel repentance
and remission."

(7). See 'Acts' by Zeller, who holds that the greater
part of the first two chapters of Luke is of Jewish-
Christian origin. He otherwise assumes, however, that
the author of the gospel bearing Luke's name was not a
Jew.

(8). The summons may fairly be construed as
inclusive of that part of the heavenly host which were
not present at the scene, and possibly likewise of the
celestial bodies generally, just as in the cited psalm, v. 2.

(9). To assert again and again a genuinely and
strictly Jewish base for the original Christology is cer-
tainly not gratuitous, considering the great diversion
from it by a more or less contrary dogTuatic maze in
which it had been involved soon after the lifetime of
Jesus, and in which it rests yet to a preponderant degree.
The time is not yet come for a more general free and
right historical estimate of the claim and aim of Jesus.
But come it will, with the rapidly advancing clear and
untrammeled search into all facts of history. We for
our part seek to bring out those remarkable and weighty
points into full light, in our yet manuscript work, 'The
Messiah of the Jews'. We hope to be able to give it to
the world next year.

The base we mentioned is the Jewish national.
Jesus' consciousness was irrefutably that of a national
Jewish Messiah. That it was essentially affected by the

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 73

(apocalyptic) Enochic exalted notions of Messiahism,
which partly altered the traditional and popnlar Jewish
conception of Messiah, is trne ; also that Jesus' religio-
ethical system, if as such the various respective utter-
ances attributed to him in the records may be fixed,
partook largely of the Essenic body of doctrines and
precepts, is no less verifiable. Yet for all that must his
life, character and claim never be considered away from
that national Jewish foundation. It admits of no ques-
tion that national Messiahism was the keynote of his
self-feeling from the earliest time of his known public
life, and his prime advent — his birth — could accordingly
have been celebrated in the oldest sources only as that
of a purely and exclusively Jewish Messiah. The Jew-
ish national element predominates e. g. in Matt. XIX.
28, though it appears here suffused with what we may
fitly call the Enochic theory. It came practically and
unmistakably forward in the decisive event of his noted
entry into Jerusalem (ibid. XXI). And it outlasted his
life, as it is most strikingly and convincingly evident
from the passage of Acts I. 6, 7.

Let us adduce two great representative and accredited
writers of the Life of Jesus who, with a number of other
independent and unbiased Christological scholars, look
at Jesus' claim as Messiah in about the same light of
Je\vish national consideration.

Keim (1. c.) in his discussion of the 'Kingdom of
Heaven' advances: "All existing evidence goes to prove
that his kingdom of heaven was a kingdom on earth."
It was only later that he "created for his Messialiship,
which was threatened by his death, the new, transcend-
ent, eschatological heavenly support." A "material

'^i The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

Messianic feature" Keim discovers at least "in the
initial attitude of Jesus," tliougli lie allows for the
'^spiritual and moral fundamental character of his min-
istry." But for all that Jesus "never transformed, by
so-called advancement, the material idea of the Messiah
into a purely spiritual one." He "preached a terrestrial
kingdom and taught a Messiah who was to return to his
terrestrial kingdom." He did not "repudiate the Mess-
ianic expectations of the age," though he gave a different
turn to the current "conception of the terrestrial king-
dom" of Messiah in its application to his own claim, and
"never sought to set up such kingdom himself or by the
power of the sword."

Strauss' summary view (1. c.) on the Messianic
endeavor of Jesus is as follows: "Thus we conclude
that the Messianic hope of Jesus was not political, nor
even merely earthly • . . ; as little was it a purely
spiritual hope : but it was the national theocratic
hope, spiritualized and ennobled by his own peculiar
moral and religious views."

(10). In the meaning "prosperity," shalom is
frequently paralleled by tobh "good." See Jer. VIII.
15; XIV. 19. Isa. LII. 7. Consistently, we find often
the opposite of shalom noted as raah "evil;" see Ps.
XXVIII. 3; Isa. XL V. 7.

(11). Compare also "time of grace" (Isa. XLIX. 8)
which, as is clear from its parallel "day of salvation,"
has the same Messianic (or rather redemptive) import.
A Christological turn it received already by Jesus, Avho
in his supposably first public self-avowal as Messiah,
applied it, together with its preceding context, to his
own Messiahdom; see Luke IV. 18. That this account,

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 75

at any rate so far as Jesus' self -attribution of tliat con-
text is concerned, is genuine, there can be no doubt. It
is fully attested by Matt. XI. 4, 5. It is then, seeing
that that Isaianic passage with its shenath ratson
"acceptable year," had been fully received and firmly
domesticated within the Christian body, not at all strange
that Luke should in his gospel, in the doxology, have
alluded to that Hebrew term "ratson," rendering it
with "eudokia." It will appear the less strange when we
further remember chat this same writer of Luke-Acts
produced in Acts X. 38, the identical application of that
l)assage of Isaiah to Jesus. This proves clearly that this
passage was fixed in his thought as a Jesulogical staple
reference. We hold it consequently most plausible that
the "eudokia" of the doxology was by Luke meant to
refer to Isaiah's "year of grace" or "accepted year,"
which expression had from the earliest days of Chris-
tianity been employed as evidence for the truth of Jesus'
Messiahdom.

That "eudokia" is not the rendering of that expres-
sion in the Septuagint, can be no valid objection. The
intrinsic sense at any rate of both the word employed
in the latter place and of 'eudokia' is identical, meaning
"divine acceptability."

It may not be amiss to remark yet, that with our
explanation even the genitive, eudokias, would not
conflict, provided it could be made probable that in the
transcription or translation from the original record a
suitable word, governing eudokia, dropped out acci-
dentally or was designedly eliminated for the sake of
conciseness. AYe could then think of "year," as in Isa.

'76 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

LXI. 2, or "time," as ib. XLIX. 8, being understood as
the governing word.

(12). Sins of Israel prevented the coming of the
Messianic redemption — this view predominates in the
old Rabbinic literature, as we illustrated in "The Sabbath
in History," II. 153 sq. We there endeavored also to
make out that John the Baptist's and Jesus' cry of
repentance had for motive the same traditional notion,

(13). For the sublime estimate placed in Israel on
shaloni "security," see Isa. XXVI. 3, and compare Zech.
II. 8, 9. Akin to the concept in the latter passage are
Jer. XLIX. 31 and Ez. XXXVIII. 11.

(14). The first commentator who suggested this ori-
gin was the noted German theological scholar, Hitzig.
He based it on some parallelisms with the prophet Joel.
His conjecture is that the passage in question which now
stands in Isa. II. and Micah IV., had its place originally
at the end of Joel's extant oracles. Yet he uttered this
supposition of a Joelic origin without any assurance, as
he admitted that there were objections against it.
Nevertheless, Ewald, in his 'Prophets of the O. T.,' has
approved and appropriated it. Fiirst too adopted it in
his 'Hist, of the Bibl. Lit.' Knobel, and others (cited by
Steiner, the more recent editor of Hitzig's Commentary
on the Minor Prophets, p. 214) urged .the gi-ave objection
against it, that such generous universalism as is embodied
in that passage runs counter to the express tendency of
Joel.

A number of other eminent expositors of both prev-
ious and more modern days, while they discountenance a
Joelic origin of the passage, hold the general view that

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 77

it belong-s originally to some unknown prophet older
than either Micah or Isaiah.

Chejnc, 'Introduction to the Book of Isaiah,' says
that he had formerly embraced Hitzig's hypothesis, but
surrendered it since in favor of a post-Exilic date of the
passage. He maintains also that Isaiah II. 2-4 is taken
from Micah IV. 1 sq. He quotes, further, Kuenen's
notion that it was a prophetic fragment of an older
contemporary of Isaiah and Micah. (To Kuenen we
will later recur). He also mentions Duhm's view which
agrees with Kuenen's in the estimate that the passage
is an older fragment, only that it is to be assigned to
Isaiah himself. The prophet, Duhm presumes, wrote
it in his old age, in which he laid down his "highest and
most sublime ideas" about the future.

Like Cheyne, Nowack,'The Minor Prophets,' assumes
a later origin of the passage than the times of Isaiah and
Micah, though he does not ultimately decide on a post-
Exilic date. Yet he differs from him on the question
of the priority of the verses as between Isaiah and Micah.
He disputes the possibility of Isaiah having borrowed
them from Micah, on the ground that chapts. II.-IV. of
Isaiah can scarcely be set down as of a later date than the
reign of Ahaz, while the principal activity of Micah fell
admittedly, from rather sure evidence, in the days of
Hezekiah. (Both these scholars by the bye seem to have
influenced our own Professor Toy ('Judaism and
Christianity') to incline even to as late a date of Isa. II.
2-4 as the fifth century B. C.) The determining motive
in Nowack's argument (in Micah IV.), which made him
fall in with the modern critical theory that the passage
is of a later date and was by a later hand wrought in the

78 The Christmas Motto, and tlie Prophetic

two places where it now stands, was that part of it which
deals \\dtli the supposed idea of the conversion of the
heathens (Isa. II. 2, 3; Micah lY. 1, 2). Though he
allows that the Hebrew literature of the Assyrian epoch
offers some analogies for the thought of a peace empire
to be established in the Messianic times, yet he claims
that no parallel is found in it for the other part which has
for its subject the universal conversion of the Gentiles
to the religion of Jehovah. He admits that "the root
of this idea" occurs otherwise in Isaiah, yet in all pas-
sages of this kind, he insists, Judah and Jerusalem are
always the center: there is no such broad universalism in
them as in the passage at issue.

jSTow this discrimination of ISTowack's is absolutely
hanging in the air. As though Jerusalem were not
everywhere, where the idea of an ethnical attraction to
Jehovah is celebrated, either stated or understood as the
center! Moreover, Kuenen has already refuted his
hypercritical position, that a universalistic temper was
entirely wanting to the writers of the earlier times, and
also that the earliest date in which those verses of Isa. II.
and Micah TV. can have fallen, was that of the Exile.
He controverts this modem exegetical extravaganza with
very close arguments in his 'Hist.-Crit. Introd. to the
Books of the O. T.,' p. 38. It is, in fact, Stade, its
spiritual author, whom he calls to task for it. His
argumentation applies of course as well against I^owack
who follows in Stade's track, as likewise, let us add,
against Cheyne who has joined these critics in his more
recent exegesis given in 'Introd. to the Book of Isa.'
The last-named expositor avows there a change of view
from previous time and maintains now that the passage

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. '<'9

of promise in those two prophets ''is the work of a post-
Exilic imitator of the older prophets."

It was, we remark, in the first volume of the Zeit-
schrift flir die alttest. Wiss.' (1881), that Stade urged
that novel proposition. A later writer, he suggests, who
moved in the mental sphere of the Second Isaiah, may
have inserted those verses in both places, in Isaiah and
Micah. He marks in objection against an Isaianic or
Micaic origin and employment of the verses — and in this
objection we too share most earnestly and emphatically;
see our third chapter of the present disquisition —
that in both places, especially in Micah, there
is such a decided clash between them and the
other context. He declares it utterly improbable
that Micah, judging by Jer. XXVI. 17 ff., should have
weakened (rather invalidated) the impression of his
prophecy contained in ch. III. 12, by an immediately
subsequent prediction of its sheer opposite. He then goes
on to say that the verses show no relationship at all with
the kind of prophecy that prevailed in the Assyrian
epoch. Especially does he point out that the univer-
salistic spirit picturing a "concourse of nations coming
to Jerusalem to worship," does not fit in with that
anterior period, but comports rather with the prophetic
tendency of the Exile, such as meets us in Isa. LXVI.
23 (cp. ibid. LX.) and Zechariah XIV. 16-19 (which last
he assigns to the period after Ezekiel, even after the
Exile). He also observes that the situation in which
Jerusalem is depicted in the verses of promise in Micah,
differs so essentially from that apparent in the previous
chapters I.-III. ; and insists, further, that the sentimental
expression in Micah IV. 4, has its direct analogue only

80 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

in late Scriptural utterances. Accordingly, he con-
cludes, we can set down as the earliest possible date of
the composition of those verses, Isa. II. 2-4 and Micah
IV. 1-4, the period of the Exile.

Stade developed this theory further in subsequent
parts of the ^Zeitschrift.' These were however not
readily accessible to us. Kuenen (1. c.) is sponsor for
the summary opinion, collected from all of Stade's dis-
cussions of that subject, that this exegetical critic holds
that "the prophets of the eighth century had in their
eyes always one people or certain distinct nations and
that, though they bring forward now and then an homage
rendered to Jehovah by one or more foreign nations, jei
the idea of a conversion of "many nations" or "all
nations" (compare Isa. II. 2 with ibid. 3, and Micah IV.
1, 2), was yet foreign to them and the ante-Exilic
prophecy generally. Against this hypothesis Kuenen,
pronouncing it mildly enough as bordering on the hyper-
critical, adduces an array of ante-Exilic prophecies in
which he claims that that idea of Gentile conversion is
more or less clearly embodied. (His claim is by the
bye only partly justified/ however). He concludes by
saying: "Unreservedly we admit that that idea became
only general, and as well part of the popular belief, dur-
ing and after the Exile. But this is no ground for
denying that already in the eighth century a single
prophet may have elevated himself to it."

We fully agree with him in this judgment and reject
as totally unfounded that extravagant notion represented
by Stade and ISTowack.

But we decidely call in question no less the whole
pivotal point upon which the latter rests his argument

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 81

for a late date of the verses under discussion. He is dis-
posed to let the question of their date stand or fall with
the one problem, whether the early prophets Isaiah and
Micah were already advanced enough to forecast a gen-
eral conversion of the Gentiles to the religion of
Jehovah. As he has to negative such possibility, he
determines ultimately upon the late composition of the
verses.

Now we diifer positively on the view that a religious
conversion of the heathens was alluded to there. We
cannot bring ourselves to detect in that prophetic pas-
sage of promise any such purport at all. To find with
Cheyne, who also takes the respective sentences of that
passage in the sense of conversion, in the "ways" of
Jehovah (Isa. II. 3) "the rules of moral and religious
conduct," and in the issue of teaching from Zion (ibid.)
"the revelation of divine truth," is to us an imputation
to the prophet of a mental association for which there is
no reasonable support in the construction of the whole
passage. Not that a universalistic standpoint, including
the spiritual hope of a universal acceptance of the true
faith of Jehovah by many or all nations of the world,
was foreign to the poet-preachers of the eighth century
B. C. By no means. We hold them just as capable of
having formed such conception as the prophets of and
after the Exile. But we maintain, on the other hand,
that the context of the passage at issue does not in the
least call for such interpretation. Nay, we would even
regard it as violence to put such meaning upon it. Let
us state it as our conviction that the two leading themes
of that passage, the homage owned and rendered to
Jehovah by the other nations in Jerusalem, his sacred

82 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

abode and Israel's national center, and the general (or
nniversal) reign of peace, were intended to bear on Israel
only and redound to their benefit and happiness. Care
about the welfare of the heathens was not the motive
or one of the motives of holding out such an ideal picture
of the future. Much less did the thought of their spirit-
ual well-being enter the mind of the prophet, whoever
he was that uttered these sentiments first. What he was
concerned about in his Hebrew patriotic mind was not
the Gentile conversion to true religion, but their con-
version to a pacific attitude to his people, Israel. He
may, for aught we know, have felt for them in his heart
of hearts and wished them all spiritually safe. But the
question in our famous passage of promise was not that
of the pagans' religious faith, and for their own sal-
vation. It was the question of peace and welfare for
Israel in the future which stood uppermost, nay exclu-
sively, before the prophet's vision on putting forth such
glowing outlook. It alone made up the basal character
of the entire passage. Words of promise that should
come home to the real, innermost feeling of the ancient
Israelite must have been fraught with the burden of
shalom "peace and w^elfare" for himself and his nation.
All that would conduce to and insure this "shalom" was
eagerly and supremely desired : even the pagan nations'
recogTiition of Israel's God, in so far, that is, that they
would come and consult His oracles in Jerusalem, the
seat of His supreme sovereignty, administered tempo-
rally by His Anointed Prince, together with His
appointed priests and prophets. That they Avould to
this end and on such occasion also bow down at His
shrine and offer worship to Him, was a self-evident

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 83

supposition, for local adoration was in all oracular seats
of the world part of the consultation. But this did not
necessarily involve a consistent and stable turn of mind
from polytheism or idolatry to Israel's true faith and
worship. Those nations might persist — for all the ordi-
nary Israelite cared substantially — in their respective
national creeds and worships, as, for instance, the cured
Syrian, JSTaaman, was frank enough to ask for the privi-
lege of making obeisance to Rimmon by the side of his
new faith in Jehovah (2 King-s V. 17, 18). Further-
more, a clenching proof of this our view is supplied by
the writer of Micah lY. 1-5 himself. Apart from the
modern critical question of the authorship of that dis-
course, there will unavoidably strike the unsophisticated
reader the bare fact, that the writer or editor of those
iive successive verses never for a moment stumbled over
the striking inconsistency — if such there really was, as
there must have been according to the conversion theo-
rists— of verse 5 with w. 1, 2. The sense in which
that verse appears is undoubtedly: "let all the other
nations continue to follow their own gods; we will for
ever adhere to Jehovah, our G^od." But, we say, there
was no such inconsistency felt in the mind of that
exponent of Hebrew sentiment. If the condition would
once be such that each Israelite could "sit safe and pros-
perous under his vine, etc." (v. 4), as he had to fear
no more any pagan dependence and hostilities,
then the consummation of earthly happiness was
reached for him and, for the matter of that,
the prophet as well. Those pagans might worship
whomever they pleased, if they would only be awed by
Israel's God into abstaining from troubling and harming

84 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

His people. This interpretation is indeed in our percep-
tion compelled by tlie context of Micali at least. The
plain sense is: Jehovah's supreme sovereignty once
ostensibly recognized by the continuous concourse of
other peoples in Jerusalem for receiving oracular reve-
lations in all their politico-social affairs (this is chiefly,
if not wholly, the meaning of "Torah" and of the "word
of Jehovah" in Micah IV. 1-3), these peoples would
accordingly cease all invasions and assaults upon Israel.
Even the re-conversion of their weapons into agri-
cultural implements held out in this prophecy, had not
as ultimate view the universal cessation of warfare — for
the benefit of the whole world. We freely allow that
the prophet mil have been large-hearted enough to wish
for universal concord and amity between all the nations
of the world. But, we protest, he did not mean to convey
such sense here. We, for our part, keep firmly to the
leading sense of the whole passage of Micah IV. 1-4 —
and Micah will after all have to be taken with Gesenius,
Hitzig and others, despite a certain chronological objec-
tion, as the original source from which the kindred pas-
sage in Isaiah was transcribed. This sense we find
incontrovertibly indicated in the last of the four verses
of the passage. It gives, in our opinion, unmistakably
the determining logical point of the three preceding
verses, in the words, "And they (the Israelites — as no
other nation can, from the peculiar choice of phraseo-
logy, have been alluded to here) shall sit every man
under his vine and under his fig tree, etc." The aim of
the whole prediction for the future was, accordingly, no
other than Israel's peace and security. This, the
prophet suggested, would be insured by the turning, in

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 85

tlie after-days, of bloody weapons into utensils of
husbandry. And altlioug'li lie adds immediately,
"nation shall not lift up a sword against nation," this
cannot have been meant, from the sure, single drift of
the entire poetical passage, as the ultimate, or even only
dominant view the prophet had in mind in this context,
however fondly he may, as aforesaid, have otherwise
cherished such ideal consummation upon genuine
principles of humanity. The reduction and disuse
of arms by the Gentile nations would, surely,
prevent their warring with one another — and this would
be a high blessing for all of them. But the prophet
had not here held such blessing in view. He only
thought in the main of that blessing which would
redound to Israel through such discarding of military
instruments by the Gentile peoples.

It was, we aver, neither the peace of the Gentile peo-
ples for their own happiness nor, surely, their religious
conversion that was here the object which the prophet
had in view. The Torah "instruction" they would seek
in "Zion," was no other than the oracular disclosure as to
all their cases and causes of a national anxiety. The
express expectation was (ibid. 3), that Jehovah would be,
with his terrestrial representatives residing in Jerusalem,
the warless arbiter in all their feuds and quarrels,
mutual as well as, and pre-eminently so, with Israel. It
is thus seen that of the two above-noted themes of the
prophetic passage in question^ the one holding out endur-
ing peace was paramount, and the other only secondary
and subsidiary.

Would we say that the religious element was entirely
excluded from this prophecy? By no means. More or

86 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

less of religious "instruotion" would inevitably go along'
Avitli and be attendant on the relations painted by the
prophet. To own fealty to a heavenly over-lord and his
mundane substitute, means necessarily to heed their
combined commandments and rules, both politico-econo-
mical and religio-ethical. Moreover, naitional and
religious considerations were in antiquity never held
apart, but were intensely and densely interwoven with
one another. But what we wished to urge above all
was that the conversion of the heathens was in that
passage no dominant and independent thought at all, in
the sense in whidh Stade, Nowack and Cheyne con-
strue it.

It thus results, too, that, if Nowack's reasoning were
right that there was no other real exegetical obstacle in
the way of assigning the passage in point to a prophet
of the Assyrian epoch, than the subject of the conver-
sion of the Gentiles alleged to be contained in it organi-
cally and conspicuously, it could stand firm and solid as
such early prophetic production. The difficulty would be
relieved and the older authorship vindicated.

Let us remark that our own view, presented in the
foregoing, is apparently shared by Robertson Smith, in
his Troph. of Israel,' pp. 289 and 291.

]^ow to return, in conclusion, to Kuenen and his own
construction of Isa. II. 2-4 and Micali IV. 1-4. He
maintains that neither prophet can be supposed to have
copied from the other. He strongly assumes, too, that
the passage in either prophet comes from an older origi-
nal which is, however, not traceable in the extant
literary history of Israel. Its author is unknown. He
may have been an older contemporary oT Isaiah. Kue-

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 87

nen suggests, furtlier, that while there is a possi-
bility that Isaiah took and incorporated it into liis
own oracles as an introductory discourse, yet, as
there is a clashing of context between it and
the sequel, it is improbable that the passage should
be attributable to Isaiah, even only as an adoption from
a prophetic predecessor. He prefers to think accord-
ingly, that it was inserted by the compiler of the subject-
matter of Isa. II. if.

(15). That we marked "I. Zechariah" should in the
present day scarcely need an explanation. Yet for those
unfamiliar with the advanced theological research wc
remark, that upon fairly indisputable grounds chapters
I. to VIII. of Zechariah have been shown to belong to a
different author from those of the rest of the book.
Upon this the critical scientific theology of modern times
is perfectly agreed. A difference of opinion exists only
on the latter portion of the book. Some divide it again
into two parts with separate authors, while others ascribe
it all to one. The tripartite notion is represented by
Hitzig, Ewald, Bleek, Reuss, Duhm and others (see
Kuenen, 'Introd. to the Books of the O. T.,' II. p. 387).

Stade has developed an independent theory, accord-
ing to which all the chapters from IX. to XIV. belong
to one author only. He is followed by Wellhausen,
Rob. Smith and Cheyne (Kuenen, 1. c.) Stade, in an
essay on the "Second Zechariah," in 'Zeitschr. flir die
alttest. Wiss.' (1881), declares the criticism which
assigns a pre-Exilic date to chpts. IX.-XIV., erroneous.
He assumes that these chapters come from one author.
Chpts. IX. and X. he adjudges "in general as post-
Ezekielic, and in particular as post-Exilic." Ch. XL he

88 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

holds connected in sense with XIII. 7-9. Ch. XII. 1-

XIII. 6, form to him one oracle. Ch. XIV. he repre-
sents as a doublet of ch. XII. 1-14 and XIII. 1-6. On
the whole, he sets down all the chapters from IX. to

XIV. as a "post-Exilic product, a book younger even
than Joel." (The latter has also by modern critics been
given such a late date. Kuenen, 1. c, p. 331 ff., decides
upon it, relegating the book of Joel even into a period
later than the middle of the fifth century B. C.)

(16). "We will never be certain about the real geo-
graphical boundary the Hebrew writers held in view
when they attributed to the ideal king an extent of his
sovereignity "to the ends of the earth." It is fair to
presume that they actually meant in their heart no
farther stretch than the Jewish land had gained under
David. Consequently, it may only be due to an extra-
vagance of diction when they mapped out the ideal
king's rule and possessions, as our prophet did, to reach
"from sea to sea (i. e. not only from the Dead to the
Mediterranean Sea, but from the Persian Gulf to the
Red Sea), and from the Euphrates (this to be understood
as a modification of the preceding clause respecting the
eastern boundary) to the ends of the earth." The latter
terminus may even not have been intended to convey
more than merely the Red Sea, implied already in the
previous expression, as the western boundary of the
Messianic realm. The reiteration of the identical west-
ern boundary in other words, would be easily account-
able by the manner of Hebrew parallelism.

(17). We admit that the prophet's expression,
"speaking peace to the nations," may fairly be construed
in a different sense. Upon the analogy of Psalms

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. S9

LXXXV. 9, it may mean, that the ideal king would
be so pacific in temper and disposition, that
lie would generously decide upon "peace for (i. e. in
behalf and for the benefit of) the nations." The ex-
pression would then yield the sense, that he would
make it his unshaken policy to leave all other nations
alone and undisturbed and involve them in no bloody
struggles by any attempt at territorial aggrandizement,
or from any other warlike motive. It may even, we
suggest additionally, have the bare meaning, that the
ideal king would put forth his conciliatory efforts at
mediating between contending nations and bringing
about mutual arrangements, from his pure love of peace,
and without asserting ostensibly his authority for dir-
ecting such peaceable ends. This view too is admissible.
However we may understand the phrase, it is in any case
testifying of the ideal king's pacific character. As a
congenial counterpart to Zechariah's picture of the
future Anointed's pacific rule, we may fitly set down
Isa. XLII. 1-4. Whoever that mysterious "servant"
whose traits are there depicted may be — Cyrus, Israel, or
the representative prophet (the Targum and Matthew
conceive of him as the Messiah) — we find his traits
largely concurrent with those of Zechariah's prospective
royal personage. The "servant" too is marked by a
mild and modest temperament. He also speaks forth
judgments to the nations and gives instructions to the
farthest parts of the world. And when he does exercise
these functions, he is inspired by a candor (emeth, in
Hebrew) which may be taken to imply at once an equit-
able and affectionate regard for the welfare of those
nations.

90 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

(18), Even if the Hebrew word "ani" (v. 9) should
here only mean "lowly," this would not detract from the
main, pacific, interpretation of the ideal king's character.
Both qualities, meekness and peaceableness, are cognate
and are most often found joined together in truly
humane and gentle natures. If we give the word "ani"
the sense of "lowly," we have to take the prophet's words
as representing that ideal king so meek in temper that
he would from his inmost heart eschew, even disdain
the magnificence of high station and wealth displayed,,
according to old Scriptural criterions (see Jer. XVII.
25), in the use of horses and chariots.

(19). "We refer for the proper appreciation of this
hyperbole, which was apparently stereotyped with the
prophets when they discoursed before the common peo-
ple on the supremacy of the ideal king to come, to
note 16.

(20). Fiirst, (1. c. p. 467; cp. ibid. p. 302) repudi-
ates positively the idea of the prophet's reference to
Hezekiah. The ground he takes is that the golden era
of a universal Theocracy with universal peace had not
really come with that king of Judah. But this is, to say
the least, a most slender argument. As though every
prophetic prediction uttered in moments of mental and
emotional exaltation had unfailingly to come true!
There would indeed be little difficulty to trace in the
prophets many more unfulfilled presages than accom-
plished ones. But with this problem we are not here
concerned. We may refer for an intrepid statement
of that fact, at least as far as Isaiah is concerned, to
various places in Gesenius' commentary on this prophet.
As very instructive and suggestive on this point we have

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 91

to pronounce Bertlieau's excellent essay on 'The O. T.
Prediction of Israel's Imperial Glory in tlieir own Land'
(in 'Jahrb. for German Theology/ 1859). It yet merits
notice here that modern half-conservative theology has,
in view of that incontrovertible circumstance, contrived
the shift of distingnishing between the intrinsic spiritual
truth of a propliecy or its potential truth at the time of
its utterance, and its real fulfillment. The latter was
not an indispensable requisite, and its apparent failure
does not alter the authenticity of the prophecy. What
this evasive position pushed to a close conclusion
amounts to in effect need not be said.

Fiirst regards, further, the picture of the ideal king
drawn by Isaiah in ch. XL as a mere "product of fancy,"
and assumes that the prophet adopted for his purpose
the whole respective sketch from an older oracle, that
of Joel, just as he imputes the passage of Isa. IL
2-4 to this prior source.

Of the more recent views on that prophetic predic-
tion Cheyne's may be quoted. There is to him "noth-
ing to indicate that he (Isaiah) thought of Hezekiah, or
of any of the children of Hezekiah." He firmly holds
that the prophet is alike in ch. IX. and XL "unrolling a
picture of the future" (The Prophecies of Isa., 5th ed.,
revised).

(21). It may, we believe, be most confidently stated
that there is a solid, organic connection between this
passage and Isa. XL 1-10. Robertson Smith ('The
Proph. of Isr.,' p. 305) completely identifies them. On
p. 309 ibid,, he even ranges with them in import the
promise of Isa. II. 2-4.

Kuenen (1. c.) declares the passages of Isa, IX. and

92 The Christmas Motto, a7id the Prophetic

XL as '^accordant" with each other (p. 52). In a note (p.

54) he says that, considered hj themselves, they appear
as coincident in time. It must, however, be remarked
that that profound critic adduces in the former place
several reasons for the assumption that the contents from
ch. X. 5 to XI. 1-9 are, partially at least, spurious. He
claims that in their present form they came from the pen
of a later revising imitator of the body of those Isaianic
prophecies.

Cheyne, too, concedes the harmony between the
passages of Isa. IX. and XI. In 'Introd. to the Book of
Isa.' he calls ch. XL 1-9 the "companion passage" of
ch. IX. 1-6. In 'The Proph. of Isr.' (as above) he says,
"the prophecy of XL 1-9 supplements the vague predic-
tions in chpts. VII. 14-16; IX. 6-7," foreshowing the
Messiah as coming from the family of David.

(22). This declaration formed, according to Keim
(1. c.) part of Jesus' last conversation with his disciples,
before his final journey to Jerusalem, in the year 35.
That writer gives the notion that the "energetic sword
sermon," with the sentence, namely, "Think not that I
am come to send peace, etc.," was spoken by Jesus more
to outline his disciples' position than to define his own.
Jesus, he says, wished in that sermon to "equip" them
"for their independent future campaign." This con-
struction put on that conversation has the ostensible
purpose of mollifying the harshness of Jesus' saying.
But we object, it does violence to the direct import of the
text. Keim's interpretation is by no means supported
by the plain, unequivocal phraseology employed in it.
This was, we aver, a reference to and explanation of

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 93

Jesus' o^vll public work. While we allow readily, as we
must, that the words of that conversation which precede
and follow the text in point applied to the disciples, it
must on the other hand be consistently owned that the
words of this text itself could have been used by Jesus
for himself only. Keim's reflections on the motive of
that conversation of Jesus, which we -will immediately
reproduce, hold, indeed, in regard to various other occa-
sions, and also in regard to the utterances made here
antecedently and subsequently to the text of the "sword
sermon" ; but they are ill-applied to this veiy text itself.
He observes: "Jesus is compelled to check again and
again the sang-uine anticipations of the disciples, who . .
. . . are ever inclined to dream of the Davidic kingdom,
of a kingdom of peace upon earth, of mere rest, joy and
blessing, by reminding them of the approaching
struggle, and of those sacrifices which they, his suc-
cessors, must share."

(23). It is curious to notice the various alterations,
in Matthew's quotation of that Isaianic passage, of the
original Scripture text. The Septuagint have already
some deviations from it. Yet our synoptist leaves the
Greek version far behind in his effort at recasting it.
This is, be it said in passing, but one out of numerous
instances in N". T. writings, in which the transmitted
Hebrew texts or their equivalent in the delivered Sep-
tuagint have unhesitatingly and arbitrarily been re-
framed for tendency. Space forbids to enlarge on this
matter. "VVe can even not discuss the diiferent attempts
made by our synoptist at mending the text in question.
One of his changes we will however set out, as it is im-
mediately in point. Instead of "He shall not cry," as

94 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

the perception of the Hebrew original is also in the
Septuagint, he has seen fit to render, "He shall not
strive." The purpose which induced him to substitute
for the unequivocal Hebrew word that expression from
his own mind, was doubtless no other than to bring a
pretended authentic confirmation of the principle and
aim of his gospel, to find Jesus' pliable temper and utter
opposition to all strife typified in Hebrew Scripture.
We are yet to observe that we purposely left out in
our text the reference to Matt. XI. 29,"for I am meek and
lowly at heart." It was for the reason that we hold this
expression open to two objections. The first is, that it
strikes us as inexact. Doubtless, we assume, it has been
imitated from Isa. LXVI. 2. But we hold it no less
unquestionable, that in the process of formation after
this Isaianic model it underwent a peculiar alteration and
transposition. The phrase in Matthew differs from the
Septuagint (in loco), in that tapeinos "lowly" is drawn
to "heart," while in the Greek version, corresponding to
the Hebrew text, it stands alone and the word expressive
of the Hebrew "necheh ruach" (Isa. ib.) is "hesychios,"
which does not occur in the gospel at all. The Hebrew
"necheh ruach" denotes there either "downcast," viz.,
in the consciousness of sin, or "humble," in a general
sense, as humility passes in 'Scripture frequently as a
human virtue so very acceptable to God. The gospel
writer has chosen as the first epithet the Greek word
"praos" — as used (radically) in the Sepuagint of Zech-
ariali IX. 9, for the Hebrew "ani" — instead of
"tapeinos," according to the Greek version of Isa. LXVI.
2, where this word is employed to render the same
Hebrew term. This would, indeed, in itself not make

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 95

inucli difference, as all those concepts are kindred and
merge into one another. We could even account for the
gospel writer's twofold adoption from the Greek version
of words rendering the Hebrew ''ani" in this point of
view, which is so well borne out by K. T. sources, that
this Hebrew term was deep-settled in the minds of Chris-
tian believers as being the proper signature of the Mes-
siah. Yet we cannot reconcile in our mind that, if the
phrase, as it appears in the gospel, was really used by
•Tesus, he should have purposed to change the exact
phraseology of the Isaianic text which, as aforesaid, he
doubtless had in his thought when employing the phrase
according to the gospel.

If this objection should appear too nice, we will bring
forward another which, wo think, cannot consistently
be considered so. We mean, that Jesus' self-assertion
of the above-cited traits of character conflict, in very
substance, with the otherwise so variously and, let us
also say, authentically attested "meekness and humility"
peculiar to his nature and temper of mind. It is not
well conceivable that Jesus should have lauded himself
in that manner. He would by it have almost negatived
the true essence of his character for those virtues. That
the gospel writer should have wished to thus carry out
the character of Jesus we can readily understand. For
such description would answer to the Christianly pre-
dominant view on the Messiah construed from that pas-
sage of Zechariah, also from Isa. XLII. 1-3. But in the
mouth of Jesus, and applied to himself, the expression,
"I am meek and lowly at heart," must sound too strange
altogether. If the synoptist had recounted the affirma-
tion by Jesus: "for I am he of whom it is said, "I am

96 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

meek and lowly at heart" (alluding to Isa. LXV. 2 and
Zecli. IX. 9 combined), viz., the Messiah, we could
promptly assent to the representation imputed to him in
the gospel. For, as already indicated, such idea was
integrantly woven up in the Messianic texture held by
Jesus and those others who put an utter self-renouncing
meaning on that phrase of Zechariah. But against the
account as it actually stands in the gospel we have the
irrepressible objection, that it jars too decidedly with the
ordinary conception of real human meekness and
humility.

We may further remark in this place that the sense
of resignation is not at all implied in that picture of the
Messianic king produced by Zechariah. He is there,
truly, characterized as lowly, yet none the less also as a
mig^hty sovereign with a world-wide dominion. That
this dignity had to be supported by a commensurate
superior tone and attitude, and that it required a most
active, even aggressive policy and procedure, goes with-
out saying. A passively and piously resigned kingly
personage could not possibly have done justice to the
tremendous task adjudged to the Messiah according to
his real portraiture given by the prophet, that he,
namely, had to prove himself a valiant conqueror of the
Gentiles and, then, an imperial arbiter.

Again, a modest peace ruler the Messiah will in the
sense of the prophet be indeed, yet he will doubtless also
guard his supreme mundane sovereignty with the un-
yielding persistence suitable to it. His high self-cons-
ciousness Avill never foresake him.

Nor can we by any means concur in the more modern
critical exegesis which detects in the ani "lowly" of

Presages of a Coming Golden Em of Peace. 07

Zecli. IX. 9, a monarch who will come from the "class
of the oppressed pious" (so ISTowack, in loco, after Well-
hausen), or that the figure of the expected Messiah was
in that passage raised into that of a "spiritual personage,"
with the character of a real "king almost disappearing"
(Giesebrecht, in Xowack). Xo; w^e have positively to
repudiate such hypercritical notion, fabricated in con-
formity with the new-fangled allegation of those
scholars, that the passage is to be fixed at a much later
date than the lifetime of the real prophet, I. Zechariah.
"We are wearied by the headlong exegesis of those
modern 'higher critics.' They, many of them, are at any
time ready to construct a line of novel premises and then
deduce from them any notion, set against authentic
statements, or local or analogous evidences to the con-
trary. The most accredited matter of fact of Scripture,
believed as such for centuries, and that not only of
unthinking credulity, but of subsequent rational judg-
ment as well, they treat often as a mere fabric of ancient
ignorance or deficient knowledge, if not of wilful,
though disguised, deception. The motive for all this
can be no other than a scientific whim which goads them
on to their dazzling innovations. When their deduc-
tions are accomplished, then the process of Scriptural
reconstruction begins — to end nowhere, or in chaos. It
is curious to observe how they deal with refractory oppo-
sites which confront them, and often very obdurately, to
make them fit into their logical schemes. But to our
subject. We remark that among the 'higher critics' of
more recent times the eminent writer, Stade, stands out
in the instailce in point as its most correct exponent,
proving for this once at least a conservative leaning. In

7

98 The Christmas Motto, and the Proplietic

the 'Zeitsclirift fiir die alttest. Wiss.'(1881), lie discovers
riglitly in Zechariah. IX. 9, the picture of a victorious
Messianic conqueror of the Gentiles, who at the same
time choses to dispense with all external magnificence
before his own people. This ideal king is a pacific ruler,
which he can well be, after having brought under all the
pagan principalities.

Of the older critical expositors, Hitzig's rather iden-
tical view deserves notice. He finds the same ideal king
understood in that passage of Zechariah whom Micah
celebrates (ch. V). Jehovah, he interprets, has succored
this Messiah in the sweeping warfare against those heath-
ens, carried on by him as the national captain under the
heavenly leader. This he finds expressed in the two
conjoined predicates tsaddik wenosha "just and having
salvation." The immediately following representation
is to him also closely combined in sense. This is, that
the Messiah proves himself an "ani," viz., he mani-
fests a gentle and pacific disposition. Of this he gives
public evidence by riding on the patient and modest
animal of peace, and not on the proud, martial horse.

This is indeed the only tenable apprehension of the
passage in question. As resting upon this only sound
foundation of logical thcught and provable analogy, the
critics ought for ever to leave it alone. And why should
a servilely self-abnegating spirit, or a lowly, passi-
vely enduring personal and social attitude be forced
upon that ideal king of Zechariah? Because this
prophet choses to deviate from the idea other prophets
had of the dignity becoming the sublime monarch of the
future? (Compare Jer. XYII. 25; XXII. 4; Isa. IX.
5.) If Zechariah, as it may well be supposed, could not

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 99

find in his heart to swing the ideal king into the awful
height into which the exuberant fancy of Isaiah exalted
him, even to the degree of apotheosis; if our prophet
recognized it as a higher merit that the Messiah should
move on a footing with the multitude of his subjects and
pass on the lowly level of a rider on donkey back, is it
not at once reasonable and fair to allow him the privilege
of having formed such distinct idea of his own? This
idea would even prove much more attractive to us than
that assumed by other prophets. A mighty monarch
who disdains stateliness and splendor and prefers dis-
creet simplicity, enlists our sympathy so much more
readily and sincerely. A ruler who holds it enough to
represent the divine rule of right rather than aifect the
divine right of rule, wins the admiration of his' people
and of the world. However this may be, Zechariah was
assuredly as much entitled to his notion on the Messiah,
as other prophets were to theirs. His depiction varied,
indeed, from theirs in the respects we mentioned. Yet,
on the other hand, Avhat Zechariah would not deviate
from was, we contend, the indigenous, historically in-
alienable Hebrew idea that the Messiah was to be a pow-
erful monarch from the family of David, with a proud
dominion — for all his disdain of domestic splendor —
expanded "unto the ends of the earth." On this com-
pare our previous note 18.

(24). That the second advent was the paramount
end of his Messianic endeavor, and that he laid on it the
greatest stress, must never be doubted. This point can
be supported by the most convincing N. T. evidences.
It is true that his present activity was by him repre-
sented as already forming part of the impending

100 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

stupendous manifestation of liis Messianic government,
at liis coming again. It was in this sense, too, that he
announced the kingdom as already come (see Matt. XII.
28; Luke XVII. 21), though he was then actually but
preparing it. Yet it is open to no question that the
principal proof and the very pith of Messianic power
and glory consisted in his mind in the event of his Mess-
ianic return, which he was all along sternly avowing as
from an all-engrossing motive of his soul.

(25). See on this important point Keim (1. c. II.
291 sq. and IV. 50 sq.). He proposes, on the whole,
that at an earlier phase Jesus announced the kingdom
yet as future, while later, when success had strengthened
his position, he proclaimed a present kingdom (as he
declares apparent from Matt. IV. lY and XII. 28); also,
that Jesus "kept the kingdom suspended between the
future and the present." This view may commend
itself best to the earnest inquirer who seeks to form an
adequate judgment on the point in question.

(26). There is no concealing the fact that there is
in this calling away of disciples from their families,
which meant in the mind and words of Jesus unques-
tionably a total and unconditional self-surrender to him,
a marked extremity which we with our modem habits of
mind can scarcely estimate aright. It is best
accounted for by the glow of his Messianic con-
sciousness and the unflinching determination with
which he pursued his Messianic end. To these mental
and emotional conditions is, we think, also attribut-
able Jesus' demand, repeatedly put to his would-be
followers, to dispossess themselves of all material
goods, that they might acquire a claim to the

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 101

kingdom (or to "salvation ;" see Matt. XIX.
25). The motive for sucli demand was either
that they would secure such claim by the merit of
the voluntary dispossession itself (as it is very difficult
for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven: Matt.
XIX. 23), or by the supererogation of selling what they
had and giving the proceeds to the poor. The latter
motive seems to have been predominant, possibly exclu-
sive, in Jesus' thought, whenever he urged others to sell
their earthly belongings and follow him, even where he
did not expressly mention the disposal of the price to the
poor, as we find it, for instance, in Matt. XIII, 44.
Here the advice to "give to the poor" may have to be
supplied from ch. XIX. 21. On this point, most inter-
esting though it is, we cannot dwell. What we wish to
mark here particularly is, that the renunciation of
material possessions asked by Jesus was presumably due
to the same ardent Messianic self-feeling which made
him obtain followers at the cost of severing family ties.
Renan, 'Life of Jesus,' speaks of this as "throwing
down defiance to nature." In whatever light we may
view it, we have to admit that it involved a grave ques-
tion. For, as already above noted, the abandonment of
families commanded the disciples by Jesus was absolute
and unqualified (see especially Luke IX. 59-62). It
was, too, confessedly accomplished by all the twelve
apostles (see Matt. XIX. 27). Jesus had held out to
them for such sacrifice the transcendent compensation
that they would be his coadjutors at the Last Judgment
which he would conduct at the coming 'renewal' of
things. Likewise he promised exceeding reward, here

102 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

and hereafter, to every follower wlio would for liis
name's sake part from liis nearest of kin (ibid. 28, 29).

The position Jesus maintained on this problem was,
that the disciple must own no other relationship but to
him, and that affection, undivided and undiverted, was
due to him alone. For further illustrations marking out
Jesus' temper and disposition in the manner of acquiring
disciples we refer to Luke XIV, 26, and Matt. XVI.
24, 25. To this range of sentiments belong also the
"strong words" — the phrase is Alford's — of Matt. VIII.
22 (compare Luke IX. 59, 60), and likewise Matt. XIL
46-50.

(27.) Fiirst (1. c.) says in regard to the "great
threatening oracle" running through chapters II-IV
of Isaiah : "Framing his lofty oracle with these foreign
(i. e. borrowed) fragments (viz., ch. II. 2-4 and IV. 2-6)
as prologue and epilogue, Isaiah mshed to keep awake
the beautiful theocratic hopes and prospects, to console
ftlic people) beforehand on the imminent judgment he
had to preach." The same view is substantially held by
Gesenius (Commentary on Isaiah, p. 173 ff.) who con-
tends, moreover, for the whole intervening oracle being
of one cast. Reuss too ('History of the Sacred Writings
of the O. T.') coincides in that view. He summarily
denotes the prologue (ch. II. 2-4) as the "prospect of a
peaceful federation of the nations on Mt. Zion," and
says that "this perspective recurs again, in a somewhat
different form, at the end (ch. IV. 2 ff.). The "utter-
ances between those bright initial and final passages,"
he observes, "were depictions of the moral depravity of
the present which deferred the coming of the better
times."

Xow as to verses 2-4 of ch. II., which most if not

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 103

all expositors regard as the heading of the following
oration — and we ourselves, too, understood it so in the
present treatise — we are tempted to suggest the possi-
bility that they were, at least originally, not intended as
such exordium, but as the ending of ch. I. In the
latter part of this chapter, vv. 21-31, a ten'ible chas-
tisement is denounced — though it pui'ports to be a par-
tial one only. It is in fierceness comparable to that
threatened by Micali III. 12, which had notoriously (see
Jer. XX YI. 18) struck such profound dismay into the
hearts of the hearers. (See on this Stade, 1 c.) It is
accordingly quite conceivable that the prophet or his
editor chose those mitigating words of promise to set
them off against the previous discourse of threatening.
Let us say here that such proceeding would, on the
whole, have been quite in keeping with the general
prophetic wont. This was, to attach words of conso-
lation to the threatenings they were impelled to pro-
nounce. Even Gesenius, who, as above noted, holds
that the passage in point is a prologue, remarks other-
wise, that "the Messianic representations ahvays termi-
nate, never commence, the oracles; and, withal, they
stand rarely alone." It is indeed provable from many
portions of the prophetic writings that it was with them
a sort of canon to close their severe monitions and
threatenings with some consolatory words. We will
quote one parallel, and a very significant one, in several
respects. It is Amos, ch. IX. 8, 15. The prophet
threatens Israel's deportation by enemies and the
destruction of the wicked of them in the exile, but holds
out also a happy restoration under a Davidic king, in
whose reign prosperity and plenty will prevail. Cer-

104 The Christmas JSlotio, and the Prophetic

tainly, tlie supposition must here be supplied from a
parallel occurring in Micali V. 6, 7, that the exiled
wicked would in the enemy's country fall by the
sword, so that the restoration would be the lot of the
deserving remnant only. Yet this does not immedi-
ately bear on the point we wish here to mark. We
aim to produce one out of many evidences illustrative
of what may safely be called a settled motive of the
prophets' sentiment, to conciliate on the spot the jarred
feelings of the hearers to whom they had to address
themselves with gloomy messages of impending divine
retribution. But, we maintain, it was with them not
a matter of sentiment only. It was part of their mode
of reflection and line of thought generally. Hitzig
remarks most properly (in his commentary on Malachi),
that "the prophetic principle was, that immediately
upon the catastrophic judg-ment they pronounced, there
would ensue the Messianic government."

In view of all these points of consideration it would
appear not at all strange if the verses of Isa. II. 2-4 had
originally been intended as the close of ch. I. By such
construction we would, too, be able to relieve essentially
the sharp contrast of those verses with the context,
which we bring forward at a later point of our text and
pursue there with that logical precision which a close
inquiry into those prophecies necessitates.

As the prophet had in his oration of ch. I. 21-31,
clearly and distinctly predicted the divine chastisement
as inexorably decreed only upon the irreclaimable
wicked, principally the unscrupulous and corrupt
rulers (ibid 24, 28); as he had expressly indicated in v.
25 (as in 6h. TV. 4) a sifting judgment, that is, one

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 105

to be visited on the supposably incorrigible class only,
while he held out exDressly to the righteous and the
penitent middlings that they would be spared and saved
(v. 27): it would seemingly suit so much better to take
the words of promise which are now found in ch. II.
2-4, as a consolatory appendage to the preceding
chapter.

The feelings of the hearers, who almost all of them
belonged doubtless to both the last-named classes, could
not have been seriously jarred by the denunciation of a
judgment which would not be visited on them person-
ally, as the prophet had declared them, some directly,
and others conditionally, exempt from it. They could
consequently construe the words of promise used by the
prophet immediately afterwards, as affixed for their own
benefit, and even take them in the sense of restriction
to their own enjoyment (or that of their equally deserv-
ing posterity). They might have judged so, however
general a stamp of national prosperity that bright
passage of promise bears in an independent point of
view and from its unqualified language and tone. We
hazard the entire foregoing hypothesis and submit it
for the judicious pondering of those interested in the
subject.

(28.) Gesenius, whom we may confidently follow
as one of the most scientific and at the same time
unbiased commentators of Isaiah, puts chapter I. at
the time of the ruinous invasion of Judah by the
armies of the allied kings of Israel and Syria, 738-734
B. C. (Commentary, p. 147). Chapters II. and III. he
dates almost with it, assuming only a "somewhat anterior
time" for them (ibid. p. 176). He proposes that their

106 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

contents fit alike into the reign of Uzziah and Jotliam,
and also into the earlier years of Ahaz' reign. To the
latter point of time he fixes that Syro-Israelitish war (p.
268). Even chapter V. he sets down as synchronizing
with the previons ones. The incisive threat of chastise-
ment through foreign powers set forth in it he fitly con-
strues as alluding to Assyria. This great-power passed
as the penal instrument appointed by Jehovah to visit it
upon the Judeans for their irreligion and depravity. He
does it upon the analogy of ch. VII. 20-25 and VIII.
6-8, where the Assyrian is expressly mentioned. This
great-power was to him supposably implied in the
prophet's foreboding of ch. V. 26-30.

Let us say that it becomes all the more likely that
the prophet had in ch. V, thought of Assyria as the
power which was to inflict the penal visitation upon
Judah, as we learn, further, from the ve'hement
expostulation he had with king Ahaz (ch. VIL 17, 20-
25), that that foreign power was in those days upper-
most in his mind. In the last place, as in ch. VIII.
6-8, it is expressly designated. The threatened warlike
invasion pictured in ch. V. did indeed not oome about.
Assur came not as Judah's foe to reduce and ruin him.
He came as a friend to offer him relief. Yet the non-
fulfillment of that threatening does not signify aught
against the decided prevalence in Isaiah's mind of the
grave possibility of its realization, and this because of
his clear and wise insight into the political constellation
of that time.

29. See also Sayce, 'The Times of Isa.,' p. 42,
where he observes: "Isaiah was not very old before
Judah had reason to know that a new and terrible

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 107

power had arisen on the banks of the Tigris." He
refers to the presnmed alliance of the Judean king
Uzziah with Haniath, in 742, which he accepts as a
certain event; compare onr note 30. Cheyne, 'Introduc-
tion to the Book of Isaiah/ says (on ch. VII.):
"Isaiah came forward as a young prophet (according to
ch. VI. 1) in the year of the death of Azaria'h, that
warlike and enterprising monarch, who ventured to
defy Ass\Tia by heading a confederacy of discontented
Syrian powers."

(30). Sayce, 'Life and Times of Isaiah,' treats of
the alliance between Uzziah and Hamatli against
Assyria, in the reign of Tiglafch-Pileser III., in B. C.
742, as an indubitable fact (p. 42). So do some other
Assyriologists. They find their main support for this
historical assumption in an extant cuneiform inscription
Avhich has been discovered intact on a tablet of Tiglath-
Pileser himself. From it they decipher the name of the
Judean king Azariah-Uzziah. However, Winckler
('History of Israel in single Essays,' 1895) disputes the
identity of that name in the document, and declares the
conclusion drawn from it erroneous.

Into the question of the authenticity or probability
of the entire hypothesis of Uzziah's coalition with
Hamath against Assyria, we cannot enter, nor do we
feel ourselves competent enough to deal with it. Suffice
it to observe in this place that there is no Biblical
reference for it, nor any chance of making it plausible
from any portion of Hebrew Scripture, as little as any
Scriptural support can be brought for the other cunei-
form account of Hezekiah's coalition with Ashdod
against Assyria in the reign of Sargon, in B. C. 711.

108 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

To verify these suppositions from external sources which
have to speak for themselves, comes within the province
of Assjriologists only. We must modestly forbear to
decide or even suggest whether they can stand their
ground in the face of utter Scriptural silence. It may
yet be noted that Sayce gives it further on (p. 72), that
the Judean king, Uzziah, had to buy Tiglath-Pileser ofP
'T^y the offer of submission and the payment of tribute."
That the issue was really such is not concurred in by
some other Assyriologists. We judge of this by the
remark of Hildebrandt, in his excellent monograph,
'Judah's Relation to Assyria in Isaiah's Time,' p. 10. He
says there — upon the authority of the earlier Assyriolo-
gists— that "king Azariah himself was not subjected to
the great-king."

(31). The dread of the Assyrian, it is important to
notice, was in the air, and had been so already before
Tiglath-Pileser's campaign of B. C. 734.

See Kuenen on Amos, whose prophetic activity he
puts at B. C. 760-750, the last half of Jeroboam II.'s
reign. He explains that the prophet's prediction of a
fearful judgment impending on Isreal, alluded to the
warlike Assyrian "approach" to Palestine already then
attempted. In this view Robertson Smith ('The Proph.
of Isr., p. 130) also coincides. He says: "It is plain
that Amos has Assyria in his mind, though he never
mentions the name. It is no unknown danger that he
foresees; Assyria was fully within the range of his
political horizon."

(32). We are not alone in setting out emphatically
the harsh contrast of Isa. II. 2-4, and the kindred
prophetic passages, with their respective contexts.

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 109

Kuenen (1. c. p. 36-38) urges it also, though only in a
general way. "All attempts/' he says, "to construe a
coherence between the bright picture of the future given
in those verses of Isaiah and the subsequent denuncia-
tions have failed." It is for this reason that he assumes
their later insertion by a compiler who, as he further
suggests, gave them the eminent place they occupy in
the transmitted text, in the supposition that they came
from Isaiah, and attributed to them, as he well might,
such great importance.

It is this scrutiny of Kuenen's that dealt likewise
with a similar passage of promise in the same prophet.
It is the noted and often discussed prospect of restoration
immediately subsequent upon the dismal threatening of
Isa. ch. XXXII. In this place the ruin of the land is
pronoimced, and close upon it, in v. 15, the quickening
hope of restoration, by miraculous intervention, is held
out. This is to Kuenen too incongruous to be
tolerated, if an Isaianic origin of the passage were to be
maintained. To meet this difficulty he fixes upon its
different authorship, and declares it as spurious (ibid,
p. 81).

Robertson Smith (1. c.) passes lightly over this
"mingling" of opposite pictures of stern rebuke and
bright promise of "peace and felicity." Commenting
upon Isa. XXIX.-XXXII., which chapters bear upon the
imminent crisis of Sennacherib's invasion of Judea, he
advances this sentiment: "And so he (Isaiah) draws
once more the old contrast between the immediate pros-
pect of a land desolated by invading hosts and

the days of Israel's restoration" (the latter he does in
ch. XXXII. 15). This is, we own, a very pleasant

110 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

reflection. But we liave at the same time to declare it
in no way adequate to help clearing off the difficulty
before us. It is too uncritically sentimental. We can
not hold the old contrast any more reasonably justifiable
than the new.

In an interesting, even charming way, Greorge Adam
Smith ('The Book of Isaiah') dilates on the opposites in
question. He ascribes the lines of ch. II. 1-5 to Isaiah,
the Id<^alist, and ch. II. 6 — IV. 1, to Isaiah, the Realist.
He says, under the former head, that it is peculiar to
"all men who have shown our race how great things
are possible," that they "have had their inspiration in
dreaming of the impossible. . . . Isaiah was no excep-
tion to this human fashion. His first vision was that of
a Utopia. . . . He lifts up to us a very gTand picture of
a vast commonwealth created in Jerusalem. . . . The
prophet's own Jerusalem shall be the light of the world,
the school and temple of the world; the seat of the judg-
ment of the Lord, when he shall reign over the nations,
and all mankind shall dwell in peace beneath Him. It
is a glorious destiny. . . It seems to the young prophet's
hopeful heart as if at once that ideal would be realized,
as if by his own word he could lift his people to its ful-
fillment. But that is impossible, and Isaiah perceives
so as soon as he turns from the far-off horizon to the city
at his feet, as soon as be leaves to-morrow alone and
deals with to-day. The next verses of the chapter —
from V, 6 onwards — stand in strong contrast to those
which have described Israel's ideal." He sets forth
these contrasts at some length, and then brings out Isaiah
under the other head, "The Realist," in reference to ch.
11. 6-IV. 1.

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. Ill

!N^ow while we have to accord these agreeable lines
the merit of unusual suggestiveness, it is, on the other
hand, plain that they do not help us in any way over the
grave difficulty of the opposites of sense afforded in the
orations of Isaiah under discussion. It is impossible for
us to improve his distinction between ideal and real, as
we have to deal with the positive contrast confronting us
there. We cannot possibly and sensibly say, that
Isaiah's mood and tendency of mind were to-day, when
he gave forth the piercing denunciations, overcome by
the impression of present sad realities, and to-morrow
again elated to the eminences of ideal vision. It is
utterly inconceivable that one is at a certain period of
his life both an idealist and realist within a few
days apart from one another. This is not borne out by
the experience of men.

We know of no reasonable means by which those
contrary utterances could be reconciled, so long as they
continue in their delivered sequence to be credited to the
prophets under whose literary names they appear. Even
the expedient of finding a mitigation of such contrast
in the theory that the promise of a brilliant national
future applies only to a saved remnant after the threat-
ened doom will have been executed, does in our view
not hold, at least not in regard to expressions such as are
used in Isa. II. 2-4, and the like prophetic oracles (see on
this, our text). In that passage of Isaiah a gorgeous
outlook for the future is wedged in between penal
denunciations and the threat of a judgment to be visited
on the Judeans. That the prophet meant every word
he spoke, is not to be doubted. The language he used
is too marked to be mistaken. The best commentators

112 The Christmas Motto, and the Provhetic

are agreed upon this. There is a settled consensus
among them that Isaiah had firmly rooted in his mind
the necessary infliction of a penal calamity on his com-
patriots by the mighty Assyrian ever since the reign of
Ahaz, and down to the time of Sennacherib's invasion.

It is in particular Stade ('History, etc.') who asserts
in the most positive manner that Isaiah's and Micah's
conviction until then was, that the fatal day of visitation
would irrevocably befall the land and its capital.
Similarly Sayce and Robertson Smith assume. The
latter says, that "Isaiah alone (of all the other non-
prophetic Judean people) was during these thirty
years (which elapsed since his notable interview with
king Ahaz) assured that no combination could stem
the tide of (Assyrian) conquest." And it is in view of
this indisputable circumstance of the prophet's sure
foreboding of that eventuality, which clasihes, however,
so very sharply with his alleged coextensive promise of
a golden era coming, that we dwell in our treatise so
decidedly upon the proposition that that bright passage,
like the similar ones of other Hebrew poetic preachers,
is well-nigh rendered of no effect, nay meaningless,
either in an historical, exegetical, or dogmatic respect.

The same objection holds of the contrast in Micah
lY. 1-4, a contrast against which Stade objects, as
already noted elsewhere, that it is "utterly improbable
that the prophet should have weakened the impression
of his oracle of ch. III. 12 by another of just the con-
trary import. Kuenen (1. c.) attempts to meet Stade's
objection by distinguishing between the written and the
spoken word of Micah. He frankly owns that if the
oration were to be set down as a spoken one it would

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 113

certainly have to be declared self-contradictory. Yet
he claims that the prophet only committed it to writing,
and this makes the difference as to the weight of that
contrast. He reasons thus : ''It is impossible that
Micah should have stopped short at the threatened fall
of Jerusalem, viz., in ch. III. 12. He necessarily must
also have given voice to the expectations he cherished
for the future." We cannot but wonder at such feeble
argument produced by that eminent critic, as well as
at his most arbitrary distinction between those oracles
of the prophet. Where has he found it certified, or
how can he even make it probable?

Before we close this argument we remark, that the
Messianic hopers of aU ages were apparently never
troubled by the contrast of l^ose prophetic utterances.
The strict and unquestioning aTHi^erence to the notion
that the Messiah was yet to come at some future time
according to a pretended plan of Providence for Israel,
shuts out any critical inquiry into relative texts. So
it was in old time and in the Middle Ages, and so it is
yet among the oppressed Jews of the world generally.
Those clinging to the Messianic hope would never dare
to approach analytically the essence of this problem,
nor be put out by the uncertain or questionable pass-
ages of Scripture, which have been traditionally fixed
as designating that hazy creation of old Israelitish fancy.

As illustrative of this position, we will quote a few
observations from the commentary of Ibn Ezra on
Isaiah. This great Toledan of the twelfth century
C. E., who is mostly famous as grammarian and
Scripture commentator, treats the noted passage of Isa.
II. 2-4, in this wise. He lays down as premiss the

114: The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

assTirance that in the "after days" of v. 2, reference can
be bnt to the future "days of Messiah" proper. That
the prophet could have held in mind no other, previous
period as the subject of his forecast, appears, he reasons,
from the "fact that there never was a time after Isaiah
in Avhich the Israelites were not subject to the ill fate
of Avarfare, carried on against them. For it is variously
recorded that even all along the Second Polity of Israel,
such warfare had not ceased."

And here he brings forward in a sort of satiric
humor: "Even our text itself bears witness to this
circumstance, for it says (v. 4), "and they (viz., the
Gentile nations) will not learn war any more." What
this piquant and enigmatic commentator wished to con-
vey here is not difficult to make out. He imdoubtedly
aimed to impute to that expression — though scarcely in
exegetical earnest — the sense that "they (the Gentiles)
will (or do) not need to learn war any more," just
because they were keeping themselves in continual
practice of it (in their hostility against Israel). That
such constraction is not really in the spirit of the
prophet's phraseology, and that it cannot in the least be
taken to bear such meaning, is patent enough, and was
imquestionably as clear to Ibn Ezra as it is to us.
Yet he found it suitable and gTatifying to his gloomy
Israelitish mood, and thought it congenial to other
Scriptural inquirers for whom he wrote his commen-
tary, to tinge his exposition with a pathetic allusion to
the hapless fate of Israel in the past and as well in

his own days.

(33). As most instructive in regard to the question
of discriminating divine judgment in the prophetic

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 115

literature, we have to name the book of Amos. It
affords interest to follow this prophet through ch. v.
27, VI. 14, VIII. 8, where his denunciation appears jet
in a general tone, to ch. IX., in which the destruction of
the wicked Israelites is pronounced and the rescue of
the better ones at the same time judiciously guarded.
Yet his conclusion was, that the catastrophe of the fall
of the Ephraimite State with an attending woeful cap-
tivity was divinely determined and had inevitably to
befall the good along with the impious. Even the
restorative means of gTace, national repentance, seems
to have passed in his mind as unavailable at that
advanced stage of gTiiltiness. The implication of ch.
VIII. 9, 10, at least appears to be, that God would not
allow any more that the catastrophe, penally incurred,
should somehow be eventually averted. (See on this
Hitzig, in loco; also Robertson Smith, I. c, p. 141.)

For the period of the Exile, Ezekiel, ch. XX., is very
illustrative on the point of Divine discriminating pro-
cedure. The prophet teaches a very close judicial
separation in vv. 34-38. The same idea is bodied forth
in the Second Isaiah, ch. LXV; LXVI. 24.

A like line of thought and teaching appears in the
still later prophet, Malachi. In him the additional
element of a "refining" procedure is brought forth.
This judicial test is to be applied to each individual
[Levite] (ch. III. 2, 3; compare Zech. XIII. 9), whilst
a most crushing, dread judgment awaits the (irreclaim-
able) wicked.

There is in all those cited prophetic passages matter
for further thought, which we can, however, not pursue
in these pages.

116 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

(34). The notion that Isa. II. 2-4 ( and likewise
Micah IV. 1-4), were inserted by a later compiler of the
chapters from II. onwards, is represented by Kuenen
(1. c. p. 36-38). Their composition he ascribes to an
older contemporary of Isaiah and Micah.

Cheyne, who, with a number of other more recent
'higher critics,' declares it "imprudent to defend the
antiquity of the passage," has concluded to attribute it
to an editor of Isaiah, and one who lived after the Exile.
The authorship itself he fixes as the "work of a post-
Exilic imitator of the older prophets" (Tntrod. to the
Book of Isa.').

Similarly Stade judges (in Zeitschr., 1881, as above).
Yet, while he disallows positively lihe old date of the
Assyrian epoch, he is not so dogmatic about the lateness
of its origin. He cannot decide as to this question, but
inclines to an indefinite date of its writing and incor-
poration, holding it possible that it succeeded the life-
time of Ezekiel, but no less possible that it may have to
be put earlier.

(35). It is proper to remark that if our proposition,
presented in note 27, should hold, the contraries of the
gloom of denunciation and glow of promise, closely
joined to one another in Isaiah's oration, could be recon-
ciled without much difiiculty. This proposition is, that
the vers^ 2-4, were an epilogue to the antecedent
chapter. Having discussed it there at some length, we
need only briefly refer to it here.

(36). Where righteousness is the guiding principle,
there peace must necessarily result or subsist, as the same
prophet has so beautifully said in ch. XXX. 17, "and
the outcome of righteousness will be peace." The ideal

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 117

king will go forth to govern, "girded with, righteous-
ness" (ch. XL 5). Thus he will not need to smite with
the sword. His mere word will be the rod of rule,
and as well of chastisement of the refractory element.
His mere breath \vill penally strike down the incorrigible
evildoer (v. 4). This is, truly, totally different from the
ordinary human discipline. It is a sort of supernatural
judicature. But then is not the illustrious vicegerent
of Jehovah otherwise divinely gifted? Will he not
possess the divine-like capacity of not having to judge
by appearance or decide upon auricular evidence, but
be able to unravel, with penetrating insight into the very
core of the accused, the clear and true facts of each
criminal charge? (v. 3; compare 1 Sam. XVI. 7).
And surely — as we have to infer from the cognate and,
as we think it indisputable, also connate passage, ch. IX.
5, 6, — the prophet must have wished to apply this sort of
immaterial procedure of the ideal Anointed to his ex-
ternal judicature as well. As his sovereign sway is
"unlimited," all the other nations will be amenable to
his world-tribunal located in the Judean capital, Jeru-
salem, where he will execute justice to them in the same
spiritual manner in which he judges his own people.

It will be pertinent to add here the remark that the
apocalyptic IV. Ezra has given forth the sentiment,
that the Messiah will need no arms, but be able to des-
troy whole armies of enemies arrayed in battle against
him, with his fiery breath, and the flames and sparks
shooting from his lips and tongue. It admits of no
question that the Isaianic expression of ch. XL 4, under-
lies that mystical writer's Messianic description. He
elaborated it, putting in the effective stroke of the

118 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

spiritual ^mitrailleuse.' It is, we are yet to observe, a
fact wliicli must strike every inquirer into the
apocalj'ptic books of Enoch and IV. Ezra, that both
these "writers drew substantially from oh. XL of Isaiah,
which served as a model for ^far-off' mystical imagery
to other old inquirers as well.

(37). The Second Isaiah has borrowed the image
of the pacification of the brutes in the blessed future,
in ch. LXV. 25. Yet he left out the second clause of
V. 9, "for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the
Lord, as the waters cover the sea." About this omis-
sion we bring no complaint. On the contrary, it seems
quite proper. For in connection with the brutes, it can
easily be seen, the knowledge (and acknowledgment)
of God is not readily conceivable. The only acceptable
sense of this connection would appear to be that in which
Delitzsch (Commentary, in loco,) construes it, viz., that
Jehovah will in that happy and glorious Messianic future
turn the fierce temper of all the noxious beasts, as their
quality of doing injury as a penal visitation upon sinners
will then not be needed any more, the presumption being
that all the inhabitants of the "land" (of Israel) will
"know" him and, consequently, serve him with steadfast
purpose. But this is, we object, too forced a meaning.
The second clause, taken as an explanation of the first
in such indirect bearing, is thus not at all plain. It
needs a philosophical interpreter to make its sense clear.
The prophet, we hold, cannot reasonably be supposed to
have spoken thus enigmatically.

The more natural implication would indeed be, that
God would at that future happy time infuse a certain
degree of intellect and suitable understanding into the

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 119

nature of the animals, so that they would by their own
discretion live in peace mutually and towards men. But
why, then, express such improvement of the rudimentary
animal intelligence under the phrase of "knowing
Jehovah?" And yet there seems no alternative but to
take the whole picture of animal pacification in this
point of view. Jehovah would then be represented as
newly capacitating the brutes to comprehend his will,
which would be, that they should all be tame and mild
and do no more hurt of any kind.

That this sense is not so foreign to an old prophet, is
shown by the analogue of the prophet Hosea. He holds
out to Israel a period of blissful restoration coming, in
which they would live again secure and free from fear.
God would eventually not only "break the battle" with
its deadly instruments "out of the land," but also "make
a covenant" for the behoof of re-accepted Israel "with
the beasts of the field, etc.," that is, bind them, as it
were, by oath to abstain from every injury to his people
(ch. II. 20). In the figurative language of Scripture,
this means that Jehovah ^^dll not only transfoi-m, by his
creative and fashioning power, the violent nature of the
wild beasts into a milder one, but will even personally
interpose his address to them and direct them how they
shall henceforth conduct themselves. That Jehovah
does not reject such mode of approaching animals for
certain ends of his government and providence, can be
supported by various Scriptural examples.

Upon the point of the many parallels in external
literature of features of the gentle, peaceable, even
friendly disposition of animals in idyllic pictures of the
golden age past and expected to be again, also those

120 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

still more fabulous ones of a golden age ever present —
at the distant terrestrial Islands of the Blessed — we
cannot dwell, however desirable it might be to do so.

(38). For this, by the way, there was a scant pros-
pect. The exile of the masses from the ruined kingdom'
of Israel was then already accomplished. It was not
at all likely that the all-powerful Assyrian would give up
the Israelitish captives at the mandate of any Messianic
ruler of Jerusalem.

(39). Kuenen (1. c. p. 53) remarks, too, that the
prospective sanguine vengeance upon Israel's hostile
neighbors "ill harmonizes with Isaiah's uniformly ideal
^perception of the future."

(40). Oheyne, The Prophets of Isr., (1895), brings
forward the two possible alternatives of meaning to be
put on Isaiah's description of the everlasting perman-
ence of the domination of Messiah: the one, that he
would have "an uninterrupted succession," and the
other, that he would be "immortal." He inclines to the
latter construction, as being "more in accordance with
the general tenor of the description." We cannot go
along with him in this estimate. It is true, Isaiah has in
both places, here and in ch. XI., given to the portraiture
of Messiah transcendent enough colors. One expression
at least, as to the ideal king's name, is positively too
exorbitant a sublimation to be countenanced even
in a prophet, viz., "the mighty God" (or "a mighty
God"). And it is only in this view, too, that
we may partially allow for it, that it is, namely, but
metaphorical and applied simply to the name and not
the nature of Messiah. Yet against the assumption
that the Messiah's immortality, that is, his undying state

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 121

on earth, was intended in oiu* passage, there stand out,
first, numerous instances in Scripture in which the ever-
lasting endurance of a Hebrew monarch on his terres-
trial throne is asserted, all of which can imply only an
endless succession in his family. Again, we can, for all
Isaiah's extravagant designation of the ideal king's
qualities and dignity, never bring ourselves to suppose
for one moment that he aimed to represent him as really
to be transformed from a human into a supernal being,
with the unnaturally distinct prerogative of having an
undying nature. Lastly, we hold it inconceivable that
Isaiah should, even for once, have set himself against the
organic conception and fundamental principle of
Hebrew Scripture, which is, that every man, however
high or holy, must die: see Gen. III. 19, 22; Ps.
LXXXIX. 49. This principle stands too strongly and
decidedly in the way of taking Isa. IX. 6, as indicative
of immortality, were it even otherwise admissible to give
it such a meaning. It alone would be enough to con-
fute Cheyne's so very singular preference of interpre-
tation.

We are yet to remark that the question of later,
apocalyptic apprehensions of the Messiah's deathless
immortality on earth, cannot enter into the rational con-
sideration of an old prophetic expression like Isa. IX.
6. On this point we cannot enlarge. For details on it
we refer to the significant passage of John XII. 32;
also Volkmar's 'Introd. to the Apocr.,' II., IV. Ezra,
p. 398, and Langen, 'Judaism in Palestine in the Time
of Christ,' p. 416.

122 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

EXCUESUS.

While on tlie subject of prophetic enthusiasm and
excitement of brightest hope for the national future of
Israel at particular auspicious points of time in their
history, it occurred to us that as a most suitable instance
the passage of Isa. IX. 1-6 may be noted. As great
importance has ever been attached to this passage by
Messianic inquirers, we deem it proper to reflect upon
it at length, that we may draw from it such pertinent
illustration as a rational apprehension of its entire text
may enable us.

As to the vexed question what personage the prophet
may have alluded to, we freely declare that it is to us
satisfactorily enough settled. We hold it incontestably
certain that the prophet thought of none other than
king Hezekiah. The other point, what immediate
occasion and time may have inspired those lines, is not
so easy of solution. Let us say that an interesting key
to it has been furnished in a meritorious monograph
written by Hildebrandt, ^Judah's Relations to Assyria in
Isaiah's Time,' 1874. jSTow wdiile we will ultimately dis-
agree with him on the chief part of his hypothesis, viz.,
that the noted passage was written not long after king
Hezekiah's accession, and that the exultant lines of
verse 3 had direct reference to his revolt against Assyria,
yet his suggestions are so very striking and applicable

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 123

in spirit that we ma}^ safeh^ reproduce tlieni in tlie main
for the purpose of the desirable illustration. Moreover,
we mil subsequently adduce the remarks of a distin-
guished theological scholar which accord with his senti-
ments on the point we wish to bring out in this place.
Hildebrandt has gone critically into the modernly dis-
covered and improved Ass}T.'ian sources, by the aid of
which he endeavored to set right various doubtful or
conflicting accounts of the Biblical record. Hezekiah's
revolt * is by him, ajs by most Assyriologist interpreters

*Tli'at this was the first actual revolt of Heziebiah ruuiy be
taken for granted on the strength of this argument of Kuenen's
alone ('Introduction to the Books of the O. T.', II. p. 30 ff. and
p. 53), that 'there is in the numerous inscriptions from Sargon's
time but one that mentions 'Judiah,' and this means nothing
else than the Judean king's vassialage to Assyria, but not his
reduction by force of arms. Had this been accomplished there
would, as that writer most seusibly argues, have certainly
been left a trace of it in those numerous Assyrian documents.
But this is not the ease. Kuenen maintains this position ex-
pressly against Cheyne ('Prop'hecies of Isaia'h') who, he says,
"assumes wrongly that Hezekiah had been at war with Sar-
gon." Stade too ('History of the People of Israel') holds that
Hezekiah was, from the silence of Assyrian inscriptions about
Palestinian affairs in the reign of Sargon, acquiescent under
this greait-king. Amomg more recent Assyriologists, Winckler
('History of Israel in single Essays' p. 182) contends however
for a general Palestinian uprising, and one lasting for three
years, from B. C. 713 to 711. It was headed by the Phitistian
state of Ashdod. He infers— making ibis own interpretation
of respective Assyrian data (p. 224), that all Philistia, Judah,
Edom and JNIoab bad joined in the Ashdod revolution. He
assigns it as fomented by a domestic Egyptian party. Heze-
kiah, he advances, "could not resist either the temptation or
coei'cion to take part in the insun^ection undertaken in the
trust in Egyptian succor." Sayce too, in 'The Times of Isaiah,'
assumes a Sargonic-Judean conflict in B. C. 711, despite the

124 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

of the respective circumstances,* connected witli the
time of Sennacherib's accession, B. C. 705. It was
after the assassination of his father and predecessor, the
great-king Sargon, that many vassal states east, north
and south moved sympathetically to revolt from Assyria
and throw off the chafing yoke of tributary dependence
upon it. The reduction of Merodach-Baladan, of
Babylon, had occupied Sennacherib's activity till about
B. C. 701, when be decided to mardh forward to south-
western Asia to re-subject the revolted countries.f He

utter silence about it in the Hebrew records. He iavenits
an allusion to it in chapter X. and XI. of Isaiah. Tlie
prophecy of these chapters he conu'ectures as haTing been
called forth by Sargon's supposed movement against Jerusa-
lem. Pursuantly to this hypothesis ihe 'has to propose an alter-
ation of the text of 2 Kings XVIII. 13, where "the twenty-
fourth year" is to be substituted for "'the fourteenth lyear."
We cannot here enter upon a diseusstion of this entire ihypoth-
esis of that great English scholar. Eobertso'n Smith (1. c. p.
296, sq.) brings very valid arguments against it, proving Its
"extreme improbability."

A sort of middle view is upheld by Rawlinson (as above),
who leaves it uncertain "whether Hezeliiah was engaged per-
sonally in this war." Yet he accredits the relative Assyrian
inscription isufflciently to judge therefrom that Hezeliiah
"appears to have (then) been prepared to cast ofiC the Assyrian
yoke." He decides, though, that "it seems most probable that
there was no actual conflict between Assynia and Judaea
until after the accession of iSennaoherib" (p. 187).

*See also Winckler, 1. c.

t Whether or how far Egypt had abetted and co-operated
in this wide-ispread anti- Assyrian uprising is regarded
disputable by Winckler, ibid. p. 97. Other writers, among
them Rawlinson and Stade, consider it unquestionable
that Egypt had actively and eagerly joined in the gen-
eral movement against Assyria. Tihe latter writer holds
firmly that back of all these Palestinian states was Egypt,
which had in B. C. 704 got in Tirhakah an energetic ruler.

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 125

made war upon Phoenicia, Pliilistia, and, lastly, Judea.
King Hezekiali is presumed to have led this western
revolution (so Stade, Winckler and others).^

N^ow Hildebrandt advances the proposition that
Hezekiah, who was so surpassingly celebrated by the
prophet Isaiah, having awakened great rejoicing among
the pious Judeans by his vigorous undoing of the mis-
chief his idolatrous father, Ahaz, had %vrought in the
country, made also the devout prophet's heart "exult
loudly over this great triumph of Jehovah, who had by
his grace made an end, even without striking a blow, of
the thirty years' ser\dtude (to Assyria), and thirty years'
idolatry," He lets the prophet utter, in his rapturous
estimate of his august friend's coming government, the
famous lines 'of Isa. IX. 1-6, which held out the glorious,
blissful era at hand, of which former poet-preachers
had dreamt and which had doubtless become tradi-
tionally settled as an invaluable oracle of bright and
lofty re-assurance for the future. That blessed far-off
event, marked in the prophecy of Isa. II. 2-4, was or
was about to be realized now. The bliss of the four
Messianic p's, peace, prosperity and proud power, was in
the prophet's vision really attained with the reign of the
marvellously God-endowed Judean king. To such a
high pitch of happy anticipation the prophet's imagina-
tion was raised!

But, alas, he became very soon — according to Hilde-
brandt, who puts Hezekiah's revolt indefinitely between
B. C. 705 and 701 — sorely disappointed in his fond and
brilliant vision. To his poignant regret he had found
out that idealistic longing was one thing, but that an all-
powerful over-lord's practical, summary dealing with

126 The Christmas Motto, and the Pronhetic

a rebellious vassal was quite another. Instead of glori-
ous independence from Assyria and a firm establishment
of Jehovah's^ theocratic government in Jierusalem, con-
ducted bj his vicegerent, the Davidic world-eraperor,
with the Judean capital as the center of gravity for
univei'sal rule and universal direction of affairs, there
came a sadly blighted hope. Hezekiah had to submit
himself to the Assyrian — a submission which brought
back the hard feudatory conditions of Judea, and lasted
unaltered during all the rest of his lifetime, even that
of his son, Manasseh. "The events in Mesopotamia," re-
marks Hildebrandt pointedly, "soon taught the prophet
that the time of eternal peace for the nations of the
earth had not taken its so warmly hoped-for beginning."
The lesson was indeed a dismal one for the prophet,
the king and the people alike. Tor — so we are in-
formed by the relative inscriptions which are substan-
tially upheld by the most competent Assyriologists —
Sennacherib proceeded with ruthless purpose against
Judah, carried by storm the fortifications of the rural
towns, and led captive to Assyria many thousands of
their inhabitants. A number at least of those towns
were cut off from Hezekialf s domain — the bombastic
cuneiform inscriptions give out, all — 'and given to the
Philistian vassals who had remained faithful to their
suzerain.* Jerusalem had indeed held out gallantly,
and her brave and dauntless defenders had successfully
beaten back the enemy's fierce onsets, though they could

*So Winekler and Hildebrandt. Stade maintains, however:
"Yet it seems tliat be (Hezekiali) did not yield to the giving
over of Judean territory to Philistian cities, nay that he even
enlarged his own land at their cost."

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 127

not prevent the battering of the north gate of the city,
and the breach made in it.* The Judean capital was
saved with its king and its people, f but a heavy ransom
had to be paid for the deliverance, and submission to
the oppressive Assyrian vassalage was the final issue.

The prophet's enthusiastic forecasts of a high and
glorious Messianic era approaching, given forth in the
cognate passages of Isa. 11. 2-4, IX. 1-6 and XL 1-9,

*Staae says that the legends of 2 Kings XVIII., XIX., err
in that they assume that Jerusalem was not at ail assailed,
and the officials of Sennacherib had come to the gates of tlie
city only for delivering his messages. Yet 'he concedes a
partial agreement, in other respects, of 'both the relative
Hebrew and Assyrian accounts. The very conservative theo-
logian, Delitzsch, (in Herzog and Plitt's Cyclopedia, article
Sennacherib) says: "What 'the book of Kings jointly with the
book of Isaiia-h says concerning these occurrences, is without
difficulty reconcl'lable with the cuneifo'iim account." Yet he
points out, on the one side, the desiigned concealment in this
account of the fatal Issue visited upon 'the division of Senna-
cherib's army which had besieged Jerusalem, and also a
palpable misrepresentation in regard to Hezekiah's tribute;
while on the other side he intimates the possibility of having
to place an iuterrogation point after the num'ber 185,000 of the
Biblical narrtative (2 Kings XIX. 35; Isa. XXXVII. 36), as well
as 'he suggests that the item in Sennacheriib's cuneiform ac-
count of his deportation of 200,150 Judeans i'nto captivity
"seems to deserve greater attention than has so far been given
to it." It lies beyond onr present purpose to enter at any
length into the interesting question of the various apparent
divergences and possible agreements between the Biblical and
cuneiform niarration^s of events and incidents bearing on that
most important portion of Israel's tiistory.

fStade observes that, though Juda'h was deprived of a large
part of population, the bulk of iher martial men were doul>tless
concentrated in Jerusalem and were thus saved.

128 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

were soon enough confounded and frustrated by the
most gloomy and disastrous realities. The turbulence
and convulsions Judea sustained by Sennacherib's in-
vasion were, despite the rescue of Jerusalem, a dreadful
offset against the earlier vision of the dawn of a bright
and golden era of peace being at hand. To see the
formerly so highly exalted, beloved king lowered again
from tJic high pedestal of glorious world-rule upon
which Isaiah had set him in his transport of personal
admiration for him and high hope for the nation, must
have given this lofty seer a most humiliating sensation.
Like a dissolving view that happy vision of the past had
now vanished, with abashing delusion left behind. The
labor of love spent on the dual Messianic message of
chpts. IX. 1-6 and XL 1-9, proved to be wasted already
after a short interval, with the re-subjection of the crest-
fallen Judean king, its central figure and glorified hero.
And, however exemplary Hezekiah's government may
have been in regard to the furtherance of pure religion
and Hebrew literature, however great his merits in every
patriotic respect, yet the fancied Messianic glory which
Isaiah >had prefigured for his reign remained utterly
unfulfilled.

Let us here yet quote a kindred remark, and one, as
aforesaid, made by a recognized scientific authority. It
is Stade, the learned Avriter of the 'History of the People
of Israel,' who, narrowing his similar observations to
Isa. II. 2-4, expresses the following sentiments: "The
prophet, having strongly and deeply cherished the
fundamental expectation that in the "after-days," in
which the danger from Assyria would b© taken away,

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 129

the Messianic empire would be usliered in,"' understood
practically the failure of the Assyrian attempts upon
Jerusalem as such removal of danger. Yet in this he
deceived himself. And the more time went on from
that decisive year, 701 B. C, the more clearly it was
shown that the Messianic empire had not come. In
the Judean State the old conditions continued. jSTay
the disaster which befell the Assyrians in that year,
signified all but their destruction through Jahve's power,,
which Isaiah had predicted. ... It is true, Jerusalem
was not conquered, yet it became dependent again upon
the Assyrian great-king, who continued to dominate in
Nineveh as the lord of the world." "The king Ileze-
kiah," says Stade in another part of his history, was
indeed "not totally vanquished, he was only reduced.
Yet he had to own homage and pay tribute again to the
Assyrian over-lord as before." Things had fallen out
so differently from the glowing imaginations of the
prophets !

In particular had Isaiah's oracular trilogy — if we

*A'bout the same sentiment Robertson Smitli (1. c. p. 300 sq.)
expresses In regard to the Messiianic picture of Isa. XI. 1-9.
Suggesting as date for its coimpositioin about B. C. 720, when
the Assyrian had accomplis'hed the fall of 'Samaria and the
destructio'n of the .Syrian principalities, and wihen his further
movement would be to execute judgment as Jehovah's instru-
iment upon Judah as well, lie lets the prophet foreshow, as
ensuing upon that divine judgment, days of blessing under '^a.
new sapling that springs from the old stock of Jesse" (Isa.
XI. 1). The "blessings of this Messianic time" would be en-
joyed, as eoexteusive with the fall of tlie Assyrian, by the
"remnant of Israel," (ibid. X. 20) which, thus delivered,
would henceforth be awarded the benefits of a "reign of peace
and order," as painted an Isa. XI. 1-9.
9

130 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

may call so tlie at least spiritually interconnected pas-
sages of cli. II. 2-4, IX. 1-6 and XI. 1-9— signally failed
of accomplisliment. The brig'lit hope of seeing the
Messianic empire inaugurated with Hezekiah, the
monarch after the prophet's heart, who was from the
start of his principate so full of promise for a Davidic
restoration, was now woefully betrayed. Doubtless,
it had at the time found a living echo also in the hearts
of the rural Judeans. Yet presently they were crushed
beneath the weight of (partial) Assyrian conquest.
And the Jerusalemites — ^\vell, they had gained nothing
but the transient feeling of relief from the perils of the
siege. At best there was mixed with it a proud con-
sciousness of military valor which proved itself so suc-
cessful in the unflinching defence of the citizens' homes.
But for all that they had no real victory before them.
Reduced again as they were to feudal relations with the
Assyrian suzerain, they must have felt their success to be
but a phantom achievement. Practically, it was a worse
defeat than "Sennacherib's signal overthrow*" (so Sayce,

*Tliat the direct aim of Sennaoherib's campaign of B. C.
701 was Anterior Asia, is the generally accepted notion of
those modern sicholars who follow the relative cuneifo'rm
documents. Reuss ('The History of the Holy Writ of the O.
T.') holds, that "the huge armies whicih Sargon and Senna-
cherit) led into the field, were not directed against impotent
Judaih," but against Egypt. This is also the positive view of
Keil (Conimentary, on 1 Kings XVIII. 13), and is in accord-
anee with Herodotus whom he cites there. Keil endeavors to
support Herodotus' representation by 2 Kings XIX. 24 and Isa.
X. 24. The latter passage seems indeed rather conclusive in
favor of this position. He also finds further evidence for it
in Tirhaka's military movemeujt to meet Seinnacherilb's army
in battle, recounted in 2 Kings XIX. 9.

Yet, again, there is in onr day a difference of view on this

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 131

1. c). For lie could soon recover again; but for tlie hap-
less Judeans there had been newly forged the chafing
chains of hard foreign dependence. If they should
before have been carried along by the prophet's eloquent,
poetic promises, their spirits were again subdued and
cowed, as though those bright oracles had never been
spoken. Their charm was broken. The Judeans were
now again in as bad a way and as far off from the ideal,
Messianic goal as they were before. The oracles, con-
sidering the then actual situation, were valueless: for,

very movemeat. Winckler (1. e.) diiscoiinects him entirely with
the war Oif B. C. 701. He a&suimes another, later expedition of
Sennacherib against Palestine and Egypt, wihioh he puts at B.
O. 689-81. He contends that the Tirhalia of S'cripture belongs
to the time of this la;ter Assyrian expedition, and that its fatal
issue — which he of course accounts for as the natural affliction
of pestilence befaMing the army— is chronologically to be in-
terpreted accordingly.

This assumption would, we remark, be in good stead to the
©mailer number of critics who reject the naiTatives alike of
Herodotus, II. 141, and Isaiah XXXVII. 36 and 2 Kings XIX.
35, even if stripped of the miraculous features, as in-econeil-
able wdth the cuneiform accounts, and therefore as mythical.
They rest their position upon these Assyrian inscriptions as to
the decisive battle of Altaku (Eltekeh) and the subsequent
military actions of Senuac'hei'ib. According to Winckler's new
view, the latter' s first expedition could be taken as truly vic-
torious and unmarred by any fatality. The sudden departure
of Sennacherib from the besieged city of Jerusalem, again,
could be set down as tiavrng been caused 'by the breaking our
of new d'istui''bances in Babylonia (w'hietn Winkler reially
suggests). At the saime time the Biblical story of the Assyrian
fajtaliity could, in the main, be saved — an endeiavor whidh even
some Assyriologists have not disdained to miake. In conclu-
sion we refei' the student to Winer's discussion, in BLbl. ReaJl-
worterbuch, s. v. Hezekiah. He offers there a rather plausible
solution of the questions involved in the whole subject.

132 Tlie Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

having once failed, tliey must have failed forever. This
is an indisputable truism. And we should, too, keep
it always before our eyes in judging of the true merits
of those and similar prophetic utterances.

Even if we should distinguish with Robertson Smith
(1. c.) between "poetic and ideal constructions," (such as
he pronounces Isaiah's "concrete pictures of the future,
in which he embodied his faith and hope, to have been
from the necessity of the case") and "literal forecasts
of the future," which those pictures were not (as he
presumes), we would obtain no better results of adjust-
ment of the question. We would not thereby get be-
yond the sober fact that Isaiah's predictions of the Messi-
anic empire to start up with the princely "child" (ch.
IX. 6) of the renowned house of David, had at and
through Sennacherib's invasion been brought to naught.
The evasive construction put upon them that they were
nevertheless Providentially designed to be realized 'in
good time,' does not bear the touch of clear, investigating
thought. If Providence refused their accomplishment
all through the good time of the good king Hezekiah,
he cannot consistently be supposed to be more favorably
inclined to any other time for the consummation of that
national hope of Israel.

At this point we are recalled to Hildebrandt's com-
mentation of Isa. IX. 1-6. We followed his argument
to a considerable degree, and along the line of his
apprehension of those verses. But we did so as to the
sentiments he devolves from them rather than the his-
toric-exegetical construction he assumes for their subject-
matter. Por we differ essentially from him both as
regards the principal motive of this his construction, the

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 133

chronological one, and tlie manner of interpreting the
relative text. His assumption is — and in this he was
guided by the position of some earlier eminent Assyrio-
logists — that Hezekiah's reign began B. C. 706-5, about
contemporaneously with Sennacherib's accession, which
is authoritatively fixed at T05. Pursuantly he conjec-
tures that Hezekiah's revolt against Assyria fell at a
point of time "when he had not long been on the throne,"
that is, within 705-1. As evidence for the latter hypo-
thesis he adduces 2 Kings XVIII. 7, to which he adapts,
as supposably yielding the same chronological sense, Isa.
IX. 3-6. Xow, we have to object, not only are these
passages by themselves not in the least "decisive" con-
formably to his hypothesis, there stands out against it
the more v/eighty point, that a much earlier date of
Hezekiah's accession is warranted by the consensus of the
best modern Assyriologists and theological scholars*

*The ibeg'innmg of HezekiatL's irergn is variously d'ated all
the way from 728 to ca. 705 B. C. The imost competent modern
scholars determine upon a ehronology yiedding a long enough
space of time for a well setltle-d istate of prosperity in the
Jewish land under itha,t noted monarch. More or less of a
quarter-century of happy development 'and splendid prospect
for the future may thus be gained. All this seems pei-fectly
consonant, too, with the principal facts of Hezekiah's reign
which Hebrew ti-adi'tion hias preseiwed, aind which are only
intelligiiWe if a solid and s^e'ttled peaceable progress is to be
presumed as haVing markeid out the earlier part of his reign.
A ibrief .space of four years at the most, Wihi'ch would result
according to Hildelbrandt land those few others who incline to
synchronize Sennacherib's and Hezekiah's accessions, could
not consistently suffice to create that bright, almost
dazzling sign of the times reflected from the pages of
sacred history which treat of the events of Hezekiah's
reign. The assumption, then, of a fairly long interval

134 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

Ingeniously enough, it is true, does lie expound tlie
passage of Isa. IX, 1-6*. Yet contrary chronological
assurance, and lack of demonstrative evidence -as to the
textual indication of 2 Kings XVIII. 7, invalidate his
sagacious exegetical attempt.

Xow when we gain, as we do according to that array
of more recent authority, an interval between Hezekiah's
accession and his later revolt, which ranges all along
from B. C. 728 to 705 or thereabouts, we can easily

between its beginning and the revolt against Assyria
with its following crisis, is well justified, and we
unqualifiedly aidhei^e to it. As a typical Davldiic-Miessianic
age that quarter-century m'ight accordingly have well pasised
in the exalte'd vision of the prophet Isaiah who, as we hold,
has drawn in those famous passages of Chpts. II., IX. and XL,
brilliant pictures of Wappinesis and glory whiCh, whilie they
os'tensiMy fores'hadow an ideal prospect into futurity, were
effectually shadowing forth the 'bappy aspect of the present.

Now it is Delitzsch wbo fixes the date of Hezekiah's acces-
sion on B. C. 728. Eeuss assumes 727. Wbile this date is
suggested by 2 Kings XVIII. 10, yet Stade contends, contrarily
to this inference, that ibid. ver. 13 must be upiheld as para-
mount. He idecides, therefore, on B. C. 715-714 as the daJte to
be authentically set down for the commencement of Heze-
kiah's reign. Wellhausen and Ruenen concur lin this chrono-
logy. Cbeyne indlines to B. C. 724, and iSayce about the same.
The latter' s peculiar conjectural position, that the ttex't of 2
Kings XVIII. 13, is faulty and must be amended into the indi-
cation of the twenty-fourth instead of the fourteenlth yeiar, we
have elsewhere brought foi'ward. Winckler marks B. C. 720
as the suitable date.

*Hi'ldebranidt interprets Isa. IX. 5, as an exultation not
over the real inativity (of Hezekiah), but ihis 'royal' birth,
in the sense of formal induction into kingship. The phraseo-
logy, "For a child is born unto us," he takes, referring to Ps.
II. 7, as being a trope signifying G-od's solemn iinstallation of
the prince as Judean king upon his boly mountain.

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 135

adjudge likewise about the same extent of time in
which Isaiah's composition of ch. IX. 1-6 can have
fallen. Accordingly, we advance the following two
suppositions for the approximate date of this passage.

TWO SUPPOSITIONS.

Isaiah may have written it at ITezekiah's birth or
accession. In the former view we hold it quite possible
that he composed those lines to lighten his heart from the
heaviness of regret and dismay over the idolatrous enor-
mities of the princely child's father, Ahaz, and the gen-
eral state of in-eligion which then prevailed, as well as
the general distress into which this monarch had
plunged the country; see especially 2 Chron. XXIX.
8, 9. To the new-born prince he attaches his fond hope
of a thorough religious and moral improvement, as well
as the bright vision of regenerated power, glory and
welfare, which characterized traditionally the time of
David's reign, alleged and believed to have been exemp-
lary in all those respects. At the same time he magni-
fied the portraiture of his princely subject, overdrawing
it upon the model of a j^revious prophecy.

Let us bring what appears to us a very striking ana-
logy of prophetic exaltation of a great person connected
with his birth. It is from Virgil's Eclogues, IV. The
poet hails the birth of a son to the new consul, Pollio,
who had after a Ions' and fierce intestine strife and
intense misery of the Roman people brought about the
peace of Brundusium, in B. C. 40. He recognizes this
nativity as a propitious omen that the father's consulate
was designed to usher in the "great year," w^itli a new

136 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

and better physical order of things. By this great year
was meant the imagined re-birth of the whole universe
according to the Platonic and Stoic mystical notion pre-
valent in Rome, (ibid. 4, 5). With that notion of a
universal character there was combined the particular
one of a Roman national cycle, according to which there
was a brilliant prospect of the golden, Saturnian age
returning, the wretched iron age being then believed, as
it Avould appear from ibid. 6-10, to be drawing to its
close. Virgil holds out the assurance that the new-bom
son will once rule in his father's place, and adorned with
his father's virtues, over a peaceful Roman world (ibid.
17). The earth will offer to him — as a sign of the
advent of the golden age — various spontaneously grown
products; goats will give freely their milk, and they will
no more, either, fear the big lions; serpents and poison-
ous plants will have been entirely taken away from the
earth. When advancing in ^^ears the boy will witness
around him a rich fertility of the soil and an abundant,
even miraculous, production from it. In his manhood
the earth will bring forth everything spontaneously, and'
there will be no more need of agricultural toil, etc.

This blessed and splendid era the poet is confident
was decreed by Fate and already coming on apace, judg-
ing, as he observes, by a certain mysterious vibration of
the universe which he claims to feel, as being indicative
of "all things rejoicing over the arrival of the (golden)
age" (ib. 52).

In connection with this allegation from Virgil we
mention that it has been frequently suggested that the
Isaianic passage in Question may have crept into some
books of the manifold Sibylline literature, and that

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 137

Virgil may have partially adopted the motive and color-
ing of that charming fiction from this widely recognized
prophetic source. This is indeed all the more possible
as he directly refers in that very eclogue to the Cumean
Sibyl, then the most renowned. We cannot discuss our
point at greater length. Enough to have shown a very
suggestive analogy from anotlier literature of affixing
glowing promises to a new-born child from the higher
rank of society. By it the supposition will admittedly
gain stronger ground, that the prophetic lines discussed
may have originated at the early date of Hezekiah's
birth.

Still another proposition as to the probable date
of that prophetic utterance of Isaiah we will bring for-
ward. It is much more to our mind and inclines us to
urge it as deserving definite acceptance. It is, that we
may safely refer the composition to a point of time soon
after Ahaz' death and his son, Hezekiah's, succession.
It may upon this premise well fit into the occasion of this
young king's ardent and zealous stir anH effort to cleanse
away the base disorder and pollutions which his un-
worthy father had indulged and made common by his
depraved example, and to restore the national religion
again in its purity. This was to the prophet an assur-
ance that better days were at hand for Judah. God,
his thought was, would under such improved religious
conditions of the nation take pity and remove the dark-
ness of Assyrian oppression from the land (see ibid.
IX. 1) and cause by it great rejoicing to his people (v.
2); he would interfere for them with his miraculous
power and "break their yoke" — that forced on them by
the Assyrians— (v. 3), even annihilate the martial accou-

138 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

terments of this tyrannical power. These "later day"
blessings would be Providentially dispensed under the
new regimen of the God-endowed and God-beloved
Messianic sovereign Hezekiah {\y. 5, 6).

ISTow if the last supposition be upheld, we may safely
assume that the prophetic passage in point belongs to the
earliest or at least early days of Hezekiah's reign. Yet
another seeming difficulty may be raised against it in
view of the phraseology, "For unto us a child is born,
etc." Would such language, it may be asked, fit the
Judean king who, thougii he was then yet in his youth
or early prime of manhood, could not sensibly be called
a (newly) born child any more? To resolve this difii-
culty we advocate the following apprehension. The
prophet may have wished to present in a most solemn
style and with oracular impressiveness the idea, that
Jehovah's design of saving Israel and prospering them
again had already been spermatically enveloped in the
life ^of the new king when yet an infant, or, in other
words, been long ago predestined in the Divine counsel.
(As to the grammatical merits of the verb used in the
noted clause, which come in essentially in the case,
we have to refer to the subjoined note.)*

A suitable analogy of such literary form of ex-
pression can be adduced from the same above-quoted
Latin poet, Virgil, in Aeneid I. 286-296. Virgil intro-
duces there Jupiter as disclosing to his daughter,
Venus, the far-off future of the Trojan-Roman

*Gesenius, Commentary, in loco, p. 361-363, wavers between
tlie futuric and preterite apprehension of the verb ynllad "is
born." Yet he owns, nevertheless, that there can be no ques-
tion that the prophet attached his fond and strong hope
to Hezeliiah, when yet a lad, as the ideal liing coming.

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 139

race, tlie pitli of whicli oracle is the celebra-
tion of the birth of Caesar (Augustus) and the
glory and bliss of his reign. With the nativity
of this Caesar AVhose "empire will be bounded only by
the Ocean and whose fame will reach to the stars," the
hard ages will grow mild, as wars will then have come to
an end and be abolished. The ancient "faith" (also in
the sense of truth and honor), domestic virtues and har-
monious wise government will prevail (again). The
dread gates of war (the gates of the temple of Janus,
whic^h were since I^uma customarily open in time of war)
will be finnly and tightly closed, and "within (the
temple) the wicked fury (of war), sitting upon the fierce
arms and bound fast with brazen chains, will rage fright-
fully with its bloody jaw^s."

ISTow it seems quite reasonable to suppose that Virgil
gave forth those panegyric lines when his high patron^
the emperor Augustus, had really given good, solid
promise of a peaceful reign. Indeed were the war gates
closed at his order twice during his reign, in B. C. 29
and 25.* Such auspicious condition had not happened
for over two centuries previous. The Roman world
seemed placated in either one of those two years, and
Virgil may at one of these particular points of time have
written and dedicated that alleged oracle to his adored
imperial patron. He may himself have had and nursed
the illusion bodied forth in the oracle. The Julian one-
man rule may really have inspired his imagination with
the fascinating perspective that an era of peace was ahead
of the Roman nation. Weary with the past civil strug-
gles and the mutual contests of the political leaders of
Rome, ho with all the better people of his nation no

140 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

doubt longed anxiously for tlie golden era of peace and
prosperity which legend had always held in store for
some future times. Yirgil may have fancied to see it
dawn, even break soon after the accession of the new
Caesar. Or, it may be, he intended by that graceful
imagery merely to flatter his sovereign in his dis-
tingiiished ofiice of court-poet.

May Ave not consistently infer that a similar origin
can be ascribed to Isaiah's rapturous lines of ch. IX.
1-6, and also to those so closely related to them, ch. XI.
1-9? They resemble Virgil's pretended oracle so very
much. Both are alike in the prediction of unbounded
dominion and endless peace — the happy state of the
ideal era to come. (This the Romans connected with
the mythical Saturnian age of the dim past, and believed
in as re-prospective in the historical period of the
Empire. The prophets of Israel referred it, now
expressly and now tacitly, to the Jehovah-disposed
indefinite "latter" or "later days.")

The time and occasion for the composition of Isaiah's
noted verses suggest themselves as having been the
earliest or at least the earlier part of Hezekiah's reign,
when this monarch was putting forth such commenda-
ble zeal for pure religion.* It can at that particular

*!Modern criticism has ibrought forward some very grave
adverse opinions on tlie traditional p'iety of king Hezekiah.
As disputing the sipontaneity of liis pious zeal, we mention
Stade and Winekler. The formei" (in his 'History, etc.') avers
that his 1-emarka.ble religious refoi'mation can "scarcely be set
down as referrible to the beginning of Hezekiah's reign, but
explains itself naturally as a result of the sudden deliverance
from Sennac'herib's onset, under the invasion of B. C. 701."
Stade contends that until this fortunate occurrence, idolatry

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 141

time not liave been very miicli to set tlie prophet's
heart aglow with ardent admiration for his king, and
inspire him to make a vivid portrait of the ideal State
administered by an ideal ruler, in a word, a Messianic
portrait. The essential motive for it was none other
than to celebrate the reigning king, Hezekiah. For
the idea once justified in his mind and conscience of
apprehending and setting out this highly merited, pious
monarch as the representative of such idealistic premise,
it could not have been long in being seized upon by his
poetic muse as well. The muse impelled him, indeed,
to delineate the superb traits of his beloved royal friend
as those of a real Messiah. But he practically did so
only by the way of suggestion, presenting the happy and
glorious state with its all-excelling ruler as to he. The

existed among the Judeans. He even charges that Hezekiah
counteuaiuced the abominaible institution of Topheth, inaugur-
ated by his father, Ahaz. This he would infer from Isa. XXX.
33. The king's puritan religiousness and practical efforts at
a thorough reform of worship he puts as late as that happy
deliverance, which must bave wi'ought a radical change in his
mind and sentiment. About the same view is held by
Winekler (1. c).

iSayce, too, determines upon a late date of Hezekiah's refor-
mation, yet construes it m-uch more creditably to him. "When
Sennacherib threatened Jerusalem," he says in 'The Times of
Isiaiah,' "the reformis of Hezekiah were but just accomplished,
etc." Now the position of the two first-mamed critics we
must pronounce as uttei'ly inadmissible. Even Sayce's view
appears untenable in the face of this unquestioned fact, which
refutes on the whole all antagonistic judgments on the pious
temper of the Ju'dean king, Hezekiah. We refer to the invita-
tion which the latter sent to the people of the Ephraimite
kingdom to take active part in the Jenisalemite Passover
celebration (see 2 Ohr. XXX. 1-11). The genuineness of this
account cannot be disputed. It leaves no doubt, either, that

142 The Christmas Motto, and the Pro'phetic

real personage to be rendered in tlie picture retreated
into the back-ground under the careful touch of his
graphic pen. For his purpose was obviously to with-
hold the subject of his poetic exaltation from the distinct
ken of the public, though in his own vision this subject
stood out in a most vital and solid shape.

His heart was closely wrapt up in that of his great
royal friend. He had likely been Hezekiah's mentor
and tutor in his childhood and earlier youth, and was
possibly at the time of composing the glorifying lines,
Judean court-prophet (compare on this Kuenen, 1. c. p.
29), a court-prophet, though, who would not "cringe
around the throne," but aim sincerely and strenuously
to support it with his best religious and political counsel.
The current "far off" notion, fondly cherished also by
himself, of a coming era of happiness under the "prince

it happened toefore the fall of Samaria (B. C. 722-720). The
partial transjordanie deportation of Israelites of that kingdom
under Tiglath-Pileser (see 2 Kings XV. 29) bad indeed, accord-
ing to an express reference to it in that passage of Ohr. (vv.
6-10), been a matter of the past at the time of that invitation.
Yet the fatal issue of Samaria's fall was yet unaccomplished:
see ibid. v. 6. Is this not a conclusive and convincing proof
that Hezekiah's reform movement fell in the beginining of his
reign, and most likely in its year, just as the writer of
Chronicles reports?

We consider it too curioius that such eminent scholars as
Stade, Winckler and Sayce should have overlooked or pur-
posely ignored the patent evidence we just p'roduced, an
evidence com;pletely vindicating the Biblical traditions of
Hezekiah's true and active piety. It proves indisputably that
he had set forth for the holy task of religious reformation from
his own mind and a spontaneous motive; also that the
reformation itself is to be referred to the earliest period of his

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 1^3

of peace," witli liis boundless miglit and majesty, was
bodied forth accordingly in the verses of cli. IX. 1-6, tbe
identification of Ilezekiali Avitb it having been all but
expressly personal. This era the prophet held doubtless
near enough at hard to feel it in his warm imag-ination
as already present: it was at all events to be gradually
accomplished yet under Hezekiah's principate.

The figures used both in those verses and in ch. XI.
1-9, answered no doubt to his surpassing appreciation
of the beloved prince's worth and Messianic qualification.
These he could all the more magnify as he fixed in his
prophecy upon the vague mode of intimation. Intima-
tion allows in all instances, of good and evil alike, an
almost unlimited scope of exaggeration. As well as
cowardly malice may intrench itseK safely behind the
guard of impersonality and then, with impunity, give
vent to bitter abuse or sharp invective, so may an exalta-
tion to extreme proportions screen itself from the charge
of personal fawning, so apt to be made by discerning
outsiders, under the cloak of indirect address : the differ-
ence being, of course, that in the latter case the end in
view is a ready discovery by the subject of the flattery,
while in the former a total secrecy as to the subject of
the scorn is the only safeguard.

ISTow the intimation Isaiah chose Ave hold to have
been akin to that employed by Virgil. It consisted in
introducing an oracle pretended to have been vouchsafed
in the past. In both writers the intermingling of three
tenses, the past, present and future, by a mysterious
bound from an imaginary past to the application in the
present, which was, again, future f.t the time of the
alleged original revelation, characterizes the poetic utter-

14:4: The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

auces. Those three tenses blend in Isaiah in the verb of
the clause, "For nnto ns a child is born" (ch. IX. 6),
This expression in the uncertain Hebrew tense of its
verb, oscillating, as it may be considered to be, between
the future and past (see previous note page 138)
receives under our proposed construction even a triple
character as to tenses employed and understood. By
the turn the prophet, as we take it, gave to the alleged
revelation of the past in literarily divulging it for the
first time so late as the period of Hezekiah's actual reign,
Adz., "For unto us a child will be born," there is created a
threefold sense and tense, past, present ahd future.*

*We remark that alike the futuric sense of the entire dis-
course oif ch. IX, 1-6, anrl its allusion to Hezekiah, (become the
more apparent and well-nigh assured, as we turn our attentioin
to the analogue lof Isa. XIV. 29. The illustration this passage
yields we considei' as oif inestim'aMe exegebieal value. Its
purport is a pT'ophetic address to the Philistines, (bearing the
express date of the year of Ahaz' death: "Rejoice not thou,
whole Palestina, because the rod of Mm that smoite ithee is
broken (referring to the incursions for conquest under king
Ahaz and the temporary independence from Judah thus
gained; 'see 2 Ohr. XXVIII. 18): for out of the seiipent's root
shall come foiffch a cockatrice, and ihis fruit shall ibe a fiery
flying serpent." That no other (but Ahaz' son and successor,
Hezekiah, is here meant, admits of no question. The image
under Which he is represented is, that he came from a "root."
This is a phraseology similar to that of ch. XI. 1. The verb
yetse "shall come forth" is in the future tense proper, whereas
the sprout-^Hezekiah— was already on the active scene of life
and government, i^eady at any moment, as the propheit held
doubtless before his mind, to effect a deadly sting. iHe did
effect it, too, as we learn from 2 Kings XVIII. 8. The futuric
expression has here evidenitly the meaning of the present,
with the turn of an immedi^ately impending occurrence.

The same constiniction is, we hold, to l>e put on the term
weyatsa "shall come forth," in eh. XI. 1. It is grammatically

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 145

All tills was, we simiiise, resorted to that it might sub-
serve Ills single and lofty purpose of representing Heze-
kiali as the personificator of the Messianic idea as he con-
ceived it.

Let us say that in all probability the outward condi-
tions in the earlier period of Hezekiah's reign corres-
ponded to the glorious Messianic estimate of it held by
the prophet. Prosperity signalized his reign from
his accession to his ill-advised unfortunate revolt
against Assyria iinder Sennacherib. This inter-
val, perhaps in its entire length, was well adapted for
Isaiah's idealistic descriptions in the dual formula of ch.
IX. and XI. Stade, in his 'History of the People of
Israel,' repudiating the Assyriologist assumption of any
anti-Assyrian attempt having been made by Hezekiah

converted into (bearing a future sense, which wooild even,
judg-ing hy i'ts direct consecution upon eh. X. 34, he com-
manded ifrom this internal evidence (see Gesenius, in loco).
The "coming fourth" is, then, oscillating between the present
and the future. But, on the other 'hand, it has to be borne in
mind, that in neither passiage the sprout was actually one to
be generated. It existed already. The futurie form is in
both instances chosen merely to indicate a relative impend-
ing action. Now this 'sprout,' w'hether under the one figure of
ch. XIV. 29, or the other of cih. XI. 1, is to be uudersltood as no
other than Hezekiah. He was, is, and will be, respectively,
what the propheit designed 'him to be. And it is for this reason
that the tenses must in such discourse riot be pressed too
closely.

An additional support to our assumption that in both,
places king Hezekiah is alluded to, we find in this circum-
stance. In the contexts of both passages the assurance is
given to the "jwor," those wretched ones of is'ociety, figuring
in Scripture so often as violently treated and trodden down by
the powei'ful wealthy, that under the forthcoming sprout (as
ruler) they would meet with fair eoniS'ideration and dealing.

10

146 The Chrisiwus Motto, and the Prophetic

till that later revolt, suggests that not only was Judea in
all that interval free from grave disturbances, it even
enjoyed a marked degree of happy development and ex-
pansion— a state which conld easily be taken as symp-
tomatic of the Messianic bliss traditionally expected for
the future. Sagaciously Stade derives from Isa. II. Y,
that in those years of domestic tranquillity and welfare,
Hezekiah could even think of increasing his military
power.

But whether or no this supposition is really to be
traced in the quoted passage, this much seems very
probable, that prosperity characterized the Judean affairs
during all the interval between Hezekiah's accession and
the turbulence and catastrophe of the Assyrian inva-
sion.*

To this whole intervening time a composition like
that of the remarkable passages of Isa. IX. and XI.,
can fairly be held suitable, if we view them in the light
of an exaggerated reflection of the happy aspect of the
times — an apprehension we think so very justifiable.

According to Stade, fourteen years intervened from
the beginning of Hezekiah's reign to Sennacherib's
invading campaign, in 701 B. C. Other \mters bring
his accession, as already noted before, much farther up.
This would give us a still ampler time, to the whole range
of which that dual composition may reasonably be
referred.

*That the "early years" of Hezekiah's reign "appear to
have been very prosperous," is also Rawlinson's view, in 'The
Kings of Issrael and Juda'h.' He refers for it, among other
p'assages, to these more wedghty ones: 2 Kings XVIII. 7; XX.
12-15; 2 Ohron. XXXII. 27-30; XXXI. 5 sq.

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 147

That Hezekiah was once during this interval in-
volved in a warfare with the Philistines (2 Kings
XVIII. 8), cannot be regarded as standing out validly
against the assumption that prosperity then dominated
in the Judean land. For this contest may have been
only of a short duration, or it was possibly, as Winckler
(1. c. p. 220) maintains, not even waged with all Philis-
tine principalities. Again, such adversaries as the
Palestinian nationalities, were, m the prophet's eyes at
least, not big and dangerous enough to cause any serious
alarm to the Judean nation (compare Isa. XI. 14, and
see above p. 55). They were to him, according to the
expressions of the latter verse, no match at all for
Israel, especially if it should fall to the task of the all-
powerful Messiah to deal with them, and more especially
in the view, that Jehovah would always be disposed to
render aid to his people against those neighboring foes,
if they should prove worthy of it — a view so strongly
held and repeatedly affirmed by Isaiah. Furthermore,
as Hezekiah is reported to have been successful in that
campaign, ha\ang ''smitten" the Philistines, this warlike
incident could not consistently appear to Isaiah as a
real interruption of the even run of domestic welfare
under Hezekiah.

Of much more consequence were, indeed, the gTind-
ing tributary relations to Assyria, which were certainly a
most dispiriting offset against the peaceful and happy
aspect which Judah had otherwise offered in those days.
To be sure, while smarting under this hard yoke of
tributary dependence, peace and welfare were not com-
plete, however flourishing, in all other respects, the
domestic institutions of Judah mav then have been.

148 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

This dependence was trying and vexatious enougt. to
depress tlie spirits of even tlie strongest optimists among
the Judeans. Yet Isaiali excelled in regard to this
most troublesome and cheerless jDolitical condition of the
country. It could not irritate, warm and noble patriot
though he was, his balance of mind. He remained calm
and untroubled, and wished and urged his people to be
so, too, in the firm reliance in God's ever ready assist-
ance. It did in no manner disturb his buoyant outlook
for a bright future. For is not everything possible to
Jehovah, the Almighty? He can and will — this is our
interpretation of ver. 3 in Isa. IX. (see above p. 137) —
break that hard and degrading yoke, which pressed so
heavily upon his people, and was so ominously and
obstructively in the way of their true welfare and
the pros"nective verification of the inherited and Script-
urally inherent promise of Messianic bliss and power.*

*TMs jnterpreitiatron is perfectly admiisslible from a Hebrew
gi'amimatical point of view. For it is notoriouis that in the
proplietieal diction the past tense may have as well a future,as
it ordinarily ihas a past and a present meaning inter-
changeably. This is borne out by internal evidences.
See Gesenius, 'Lehrgeibilude' p. 764. In the present instance
it is yet particularly confirmed by the following note-
wortliy circumistanee. We refer to Isia. X. 27. This passage
is a most significant and at the same time illustrative coun-
terpart of ver. 3 in question. iContentS' and bearing are in both
places sub'Stanti'ally the sam#. Yet in the former the prophet
employs the real future tense. Is this mot conclusive enough
that the verb in eh. IX. 3, too, was meant in the future sense?
As to the identity oif imeaning in both passages, it is clear
beyond any dispute. In eiither passage the idea is given forth
that it 'is anxiously expected, that Jehovah ^"^1 deal effedtually
with the 'Cruelly oppressive Assyrian king, and in a supernat-
urally eatastropbic way. The latter is shown by the reference

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 149

And he will, too, accomplish it — under snch a pious
ruler as king Hezekiah.

Probably, too, the prophet assigned in his mental
vision the partial execution of this Providential catastro-
phe to the Messianic king — his own Messianic king,
Hezekiah. A close co-operation of the Messiah in the
Divine procedure is always presupposed in the prophets.

ISTow this consummation, doubtless the very crown
of Israel's fond longing for the great Messianic future,
we hold to be obscurely indicated in ch. IX. 1-6, and
that, too, as we construe it by the way of analogy to the
Aeneid (1. c), under the allegation that the event had

in botli chiaptei-s to .Tehovah's ajstounfliing in'tereession for liis
people aigaiinistt the M'idiiiariite® of old (see Judges VII.) By
this referenoe 'the prophet seeks to sxipport his hope that Grod
would now once more voiuohsafe a sudden, miiiaeulous inter-
ference for his people, to deliver them fr'om their present
tyrannical over-lord, the Assyrian. Fire — Jehovah's own pecu-
liar essence — is this time held in view in the prophet's imagina-
tion for the destruction of the ruthless oppressoi'.

We are ye't to remarli that our above-presented 'aji>prehen-
sion of ch. IX. 3, can not only be made out in a gi'ammati<?al
respect, it is even provably co'nformable to Isaliah's religious
principle and mode of reflection. This was, the avoidance of
all imprudent and ifash attempts at human self-help, when it
has to set itself against a supei'ior worldly power, as was the
case in the relation iof Judah with the AssijT.'ian over-lord.
In all such plights a passive attitude, with a pious waiting
upon Jehovah's assistance and relief was the only wise and
right proceeding. See especially Isa. XXX. 15. The theory is
that of non-resistance — only with a sti'ong and intense relig'i-
ous base.

Accordingly, we deem it proper to add in this place, that
to speak of Isaiah's "soldier-spirit," as Hackmann (quoted by
Clieyne, 'Inbrod., etc.') does, is a dowm'ight misrepresentation
of the prophet's true character.

150 Tlie Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

been predestined by the Deity already when the "child
was born" (or even earlier) — this having now for the
first time been prophetically disclosed. That Isiaiah
quite confidently looked forward to such consummation
we have no doubt. He would, consistently with his pro-
found piety and trust in God, base such expectation on
the king's own pious devotion, so exemplarily manifested
in the restoration of the pure worship of Jehovah.

The beatific Adsion of the prophet was not realized.
While he was "dreaming the dream and held it true,"
he certainly derived from it a deep delight and sooth-
ing of soul. Yet the happy enlargement and splendor
of the Messianic time failed to appear. Hezekiah did
not turn out to be the Messiah. Inste^ad of enlargement,
there came curtailment of territory (this, however, only
on the faith of Assyrian documents). The idealistic
figures of Isa. cli. IX. 5, 6, remained unverified. They
may at best be classed as psychical facts, present to the
prophet's ardent imagination, while "rapt into future
times." Yet Assur was so much stronger than Isaiah's
fiction, and fiction will never stand its ground when
fronted by and matched with hard fate.

A foretaste of Messiahdom, only, the Judeans had
during Hezekiah's reign, and that in the prosperity
which prevailed till the calamitous Assyrian invasion.
In this respect, too, it is measurably true what an
eminent Eabbi of the fourth century C. E., Hillel, is
reported to have openly avowed : "There is no Messiah
to come more, as Israel enjoyed him (his blessings)
already in the days of Hezekiah" (Talmud, treatise
Synhedrin f. 98; compare ibid. f. 94, and Berachoth f.
28). Yet it was only a brief span of Messianic bliss.

Presages of a Coming Golden Era of Peace. 151

The following blight of the Assyrian invasion must have
taken away the impression of gratification and delight
that happy condition had wrought upon the minds of the
Judeans. The nations did not, either, stream in mass to
Jerusalem, his seat of government, much less did they
become subservient to his rule. Far from it. He
himself became again, as the result of Sennacherib's
invasion, Assyria's tributary and remained such till the
end of his life. jSTor did under him, or from his time
on, the nations quit their mutual contests. Warfare
with its manifold atrocities, its incalculable destruction
of life and property, went on in the world as before.
The clash of arms between impassioned nations has not
even been broug'ht to an end at the present highly
enlightened period of the outgoing nineteenth century.

But, let us say as we close, would it really have been
a boon for Inmi'anity, if with Hezekiah the line of the
Jewish Messiahs had been opened, to end no more in all
the succeeding history of the world ? Would a onfe-man
rule with his throne established in Jerusalem have been
a real blessing to the human family? This, and this
alone, is the important question. We negative it.
Frankly we declare that it was so much more desirable,
even already in the earlier civilization of Isaiah's time,
that the Gentile nations should with the Judeans become
fiiendly fellow-members of the "Federation of the
world," than feudal dependents on a would-be Messianic
ruler.

Such fellow-members all humanity should indeed be.
All men should feel themselves bound together by the
true sentiment of human brotherhood, with law as king

162 The Christmas Motto, and the Prophetic

to rule and direct life. Law as Messiali is good enough
for all humanity and at all time: one imperative law,
organic for all earthly pilgrims, who walk along the
same high-road of life, share in conimon in the struggle
for existence, as well as in the end on earth, mortality.
This law is, the eternal principles and precepts of right-
eousness and love. In such combination as this, law
may safely be trusted with imperial governance, joined,
as it must be', with the faith in one God, as the all-
controlling supreme Power. In his service all men sihall
devotedly stand, feeling themselves equals and one. — in
the gTave sense of duty to promote the best, blessed ends
of society.