CHAPTER XVIII APOCALYPTIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE MESSIANIC HOPE ECCLESIASTES Shows a rationalising tendency at work on the religion of Israel, and it is a question whether Greek thought was not undermining the distinctive beliefs embodied in the Jewish Scriptures. What might have happened had there been no violent attack on those beliefs (and the practices which went with them) we cannot tell. What actually took place is clear to us. The persecution of Antiochus kindled the zeal, not to say fanaticism, of the observers of the Law and gave to Legalism a new and stronger hold on the affections of the faithful. The conflict with the Syrian monarchy showed that a considerable party in Jerusalem sympathised with the desire of the king to "civilise" his subjects, as he phrased it. These men were not moved altogether by a desire to secure court favour. Some of them were attracted by Greek ideals. They were to be found among the more educated of the nation and were in any case only a minority. Opposed to them were the strict observers of the Law, and the course of the struggle showed that these were divided into two parties. One we may call the Maccabeans, adherents of the heroic family which led the revolt. They were at first moved only by the determination to resist tyranny, but as they achieved success they indulged hopes of restoring the politicial independence of their nation. The other fraction consisted of the Asideans, the Pious, as they called themselves. They would take no part in political affairs, believing that Yahweh would set up his kingdom in his own time by an act of miraculous intervention. Until that time should come, the duty of the loyal Jew, as they believed, was to obey the Law to the letter, and wait upon God. This party did, indeed, make common cause with the Maccabeans when the possibility of keeping the Law was threatened, but as soon as they were again allowed to observe their customs without interference they withdrew from the struggle. We have seen the importance which the Messianic hope assumed in postexilic Judaism. What now interests us is the intensity with which the hope was held in the time of persecution. It is only in accordance with human nature that the expectation of divine intervention should rise to fevered heat in proportion as persecution becomes more bitter. At such times believers argue that God cannot long leave his people to be a prey to the wicked. In the history of the Christian Church expectation of the Second Coming becomes acute at those times in which the puritan party is oppressed by worldlings. So in the Jewish Church the Messianic hope was kindled into flame when persecution arose. It then took new and fantastic forms, and the more ardent spirits even ventured to calculate the time of the end and to revive the spirits of their coreligionists by specific promises that the day was just at hand. The evidence is found in a group of books to which we give the name apocalypses. The author of an apocalypse conceives of prophecy as essentially predictive the miraculous revelation of what is to come to pass. But the older books of prophecy very imperfectly conform to this ideal. The predictions which they contain are much less definite and specific than the believer would like to have them. This defect is remedied in the apocalypse. On the basis of a tradition or of visionary experiences, or of both, the author sets forth the divine plan as he conceives it. And since this plan embraces the past as well as the future, he dates his work in the past, ascribing it to some ancient worthy. This name will carry weight with the reader. The predictions embodied in the work are really history under the guise of prophecy, and they are usually couched in the form of vision, that being the traditional means of revelation. In the theory of the book the ancient seer to whom it is ascribed had the course of human history unrolled to him in trance from his own time until it reached its end with the triumph of the Kingdom of God. The representative apocalypse in the Hebrew canon is the book of Daniel, in which all these points are fully illustrated. It has, however, precursors in some older fragments. Ezekiel has distinctly apocalyptic features. It was he who first set forth the scheme adopted by later writers, according to which there would be a miraculous annihilation of the heathen world-power, followed by an equally miraculous rebuilding of the temple. In the other prophets we have similar utterances. Thus Habakkuk describes the coming of Yahweh to judgment: "Yahweh comes forth to judge his people; his presence shakes the earth, dries up the streams, causes the sun to forget his rising, and the moon to cease her shining" (Hab. 3). Several passages now included in the book of Jeremiah have the apocalyptic colouring, and with them we may class the little book of Joel. This example is especially instructive, for it shows how any extraordinary event in nature may awaken the expectation of Yahweh's coming. The extraordinary event in this case was a plague of locusts such as often visits the countries bordering the desert. The author describes what seems to him an unprecedented event and the description is in such terms that expositors have been in doubt whether a veritable swarm of locusts is intended or whether the author is picturing the approach of a hostile army: "A people has invaded my land mighty and without number. . . . Like heroes they run, like veteran warriors they climb the wall, they march every one in his way and they do not break their ranks" (Joel 1:6 and 27). The decision, however, cannot be doubtful; the author is describing an invasion of locusts pure and simple. It is significant of his point of view that his chief grief is that the desolating swarm has cut off meatoffering and drink-offering from the house of God (1 : 13). He is thoroughly priestly in his sentiment, and he shows this further by his view of the efficacy of fasting. It is only necessary that the people fast, the priests setting the example, in order that the grace of Yahweh may be manifested. Yahweh is moved for his people, the oncoming plague is driven back, the rain follows in its season, and the bountiful harvest of the new year more than makes good what has been destroyed by the invaders. All this is preliminary. The invasion of locusts is immediately followed by the supernatural phenomena of the Messianic age. The day of Yahweh is ushered in by great overturnings in nature and in the world of man. It is a time of clouds and thick darkness, of gloom and terror (2:1 f., 10). There are prodigies in heaven above and on earth beneath, blood and fire and pillars of smoke, the sun turned into darkness and the moon into blood. Among mankind, also, there are miracles. The spirit, the organ of revelation, will no longer be restricted to a few chosen members of the race, but will be poured out on all. Even slaves and maid servants will possess it or be possessed by it (3 : 1). This we may suppose will be true of Jews alone, for punishment is to be the lot of the other nations. Yet a chance of salvation is left for those gentiles who become proselytes and call upon the name of Yahweh. The final scene is the great day of judgment, described in terms that have influenced all subsequent thinking. After the gathering of Israel to its own land Yahweh will summon the nations to the Valley of Jehoshaphat (the Valley of Yahweh's Judgment), which the author doubtless located just under the walls of Jerusalem and in the immediate presence of Yahweh, who dwells in the temple. There the divinity will call them to account for their treatment of the exiled Israelites. The penalty will be their own sale into slavery by the Jews. The sentence will not be put into execution without a conflict, but Yahweh will be victorious: "He will roar from Zion and utter his voice from Jerusalem, so that heaven and earth shake; Yahweh will be a refuge to his people and a stronghold to the children of Israel; so shall you know that I am Yahweh your God, dwelling in Zion, my sacred mountain; then shall Jerusalem be sacred and no foreigner shall pass through her any more" (316 f.). The transformation of the land will follow so that the mountains will distil sweet wine, and the hills will flow with milk. Ezekiel's expectation of a fountain flowing from the temple mount and watering the waste places will be fulfilled, and, on the other hand, Egypt will be a desert and Edom will be desolate. The Messiah is nowhere mentioned. The dwelling of Yahweh himself in Jerusalem is supposed to make a human king superfluous. A very similar composition has found a place in the book of Isaiah (chapters 24-27). The author expects a day of judgment. Yahweh will lay the earth waste for the sinfulness of its inhabitants. The judgment will extend to the host of heaven on high-the first intimation that the angels will be punished for disobedience (Isaiah 24 : 21 f.). The same idea is apparently expressed in Yahweh's sword piercing Leviathan, the crooked serpent, the dragon (27: 1). Early mythological ideas seem here to be taken up by the Hebrew writer, for in Babylonian mythology there is a conflict between the chief of the gods and an opposing monster. The struggle with hostile powers will be followed by Yahweh's dwelling in Jerusalem, where he will make for all nations a feast of fat things; he will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away over all the earth (258). In this document, as in Joel, the human Messiah is not mentioned; he is made superfluous by the thought that Yahweh himself will dwell in the midst of his people. Here we meet for the first time the distinct assurance of a resurrection for Israel, the full significance of which will be seen when we look at the book of Daniel. Still another passage, which may be called apocalyptic in the larger sense, is now contained in the book of Zechariah 1 Whether more than one hand is discoverable in the section does not now concern us. |