"He is not a man as I am that I should answer him, and that we
should come together in judgment. Neither is there any daysman
that might lay his hand on both of us."
It was for this Mediator, both divine and human, who should
interpret the silence of God to man, who should be his Word to his
creatures, that all humanity was sighing. Therefore it was that the
first vague promise was a seed of hope, not only in the Jewish race,
but in all other nations of the earth.
One of the earliest and most beautiful prophecies of the coming
Messiah is from the heathen astrologer, Balaam:--
"Balaam the son of Beor saith,
The man whose eyes are open, saith,
He which heard the word of God
And knew the knowledge of the Most High,
Which saw the vision of the Almighty,
Falling into a trance and having his eyes open:
I shall see HIM, but not now.
I shall behold HIM, but not nigh.
There shall come a STAR out of Jacob,
A sceptre shall rise out of Israel.
Out of Jacob shall come HE that shall have dominion!"
Of late there has been discovered in Nineveh a large work on the
system of magic of the Chaldee soothsayers, written on tiles of
baked clay, in the "arrow-head" characters. Here we have a minute
account, of the Chaldeans--the astrologers and the sorcerers
spoken of in Daniel--with specimens of their liturgic forms and
invocations. M. Lenormant, who has issued a minute account of this
work with translations of many parts of it, gives an interesting
account of the religious ideas of the Chaldees in the very earliest
period of antiquity, as old or older than that of the soothsayer
Balaam.
He says the supreme divinity, whom they called EA, was regarded as
too remote and too vast to be approached by human prayer, and that
he was to be known only through the medium of another divinity,
his first-begotten Son, to whom is given a name signifying the
Benefactor of Man. The prayers and ascriptions to this divinity
remind us of the Old Testament addresses to the Messiah. The Hebrew
poet says:--
"Of old hast thou laid the foundations of the earth,
And the heavens are the work of thy hands."
The ancient invocation upon the tiles of Nineveh addressed to the
Mediator runs thus:--
"Great Lord of earth! King of all lands,
First-begotten Son of Ea,
Director of heaven and earth,
Most merciful among the gods,
Thou who restorest the dead to life."
. . . . . . . .
We see here the reflection of a Being such as the contemporaries of
Abraham in the land of the Chaldees must have looked forward to--an
image of that diffused and general faith which pervaded the world
in the days when the patriarch was called to be the Father of a
peculiar people.
In the Zendavesta--begun about the age of Daniel--also are traces of
the same Being, with prophecies of his future appearance on earth to
restore the human race to peace and goodness.
In one of the Zend books we have a passage strikingly like some of
the prophetic parts of Daniel. As Nebuchadnezzar saw the future
history of the world under the form of an image, made of four
precious metals, so Zoroaster was made to see the same under the
image of a tree in which four trunks proceed from a common root. The
first was a golden, the second a silver, the third a steel, and the
fourth an iron one.
In the same manner as in Daniel, these trees are interpreted as
successive monarchies of the earth. The last, the iron one, was to
be the dominion of demons and dark powers of evil, and after it was
to come the SAVIOUR, or SOSIOSCH (a _Zend_ word), who was to bring
in the restitution of all things from the power of evil, and the
resurrection of the dead.[4]
[4] These passages are quoted and commented on by Hilgenfeld on
the _Apocalyptic Literature of the Hebrews_, and Lücke on the
_Apocalypse of St. John_.
The same ideas were expressed in the Sibylline oracles. The story
of the Sibyl who offered her books to Tarquin, in the early days
of Rome, is known to every child who studies Roman history. From
the remains of these writings, still extant, they appear to contain
predictions of the world's future, much resembling those of Daniel
and Isaiah. They predict the coming of a Great Deliverer of the
human race, a millennium of righteousness, a resurrection of the
dead, and a Day of Judgment.
About forty years before the birth of Christ, Virgil wrote his
beautiful Eclogue of Pollio. The birthplace of Virgil was near the
town of Cumæ, where lived the Cumæan Sibyl, and her traditionary
history and her writings must have deeply impressed his mind.
Possibly he only thought of them as a poet thinks of a fine theme
for the display of poetic imagery; and possibly he may have meant
to make of this eclogue a complimentary prophecy of some patron
among the powerful of his times. But when we remember that it
was published only about forty years before the birth of Christ,
and that no other historical character corresponding to this
prediction ever appeared, it becomes, to say the least, a remarkable
coincidence.
Bishop Lowth says that the mystery of this eclogue has never been
solved, and intimates that he would scarcely dare to express some of
the suppositions which it has inspired.
May not Virgil, like Balaam, have been carried beyond himself in the
trance of poetic inspiration, and seen afar the "Star" that should
arise out of Israel? He too might have exclaimed:--
"I shall see him, but not now.
I shall behold him, but not nigh."
The words of Virgil have a fire and fervor such as he seems to have
had in no other composition, as he sings:--
"The last age of the Cumæan song is come.
The great cycle of ages hastens to a new beginning.
Now, too, returns the reign of Justice.
The golden age of Saturn now returns.
While thou, Pollio, art consul,
This glory of our age shall make his appearance.
The great months begin to roll.
He shall partake of the life of the gods,
And rule the peaceful world with his father's virtues."
Then follow a profusion of images of peace and plenty that should
come to the world in the reign of this hero. All poisonous and
hurtful things shall die; all rare and beautiful ones shall grow and
abound; there shall be no more toil, no more trouble. Then, with
a fine burst of imagery, the poet represents the Fates themselves
as singing, to the whirring music of their spindles, a song of
welcome:--
"Ye ages, hasten!
Dear offspring of the gods, set forward on thy way to highest honors;
The time is at hand.
See, the world with its round weight bows to thee.
To thee bow the earth, the regions of the sea and heaven sublime.
See how all things rejoice at the approach of this age!
O that my life might last to see and sing thy deeds!"
The close of this eclogue has a mysterious tenderness. The poet
predicts that this sublime personage, for whom the world is waiting,
should be born amidst the afflictions of his parents and under a
cloud of poverty and neglect:--
"Come, little boy, and know thy mother with a smile.
Come, little boy, on whom thy parents smile not,
Whom no god honors with a table,
No goddess with a cradle."
It would seem as if the sensitive soul of Virgil, in the ecstasy of
poetic inspiration, acquired a vague clairvoyance of that scene at
Bethlehem when there was no room for Joseph and Mary at the inn, and
the Heir of all things lay in a manger, outcast and neglected.
Not in Virgil alone, but scattered also here and there through all
antiquity, do we find vague, half-prophetic aspirations after the
divine Teacher who should interpret God to man, console under the
sorrows of life, and charm away the fears of death. In the Phædo,
when Socrates is comforting his sorrowful disciples in view of
his approaching death, and setting before them the probabilities
of a continued life beyond the grave, one of them tells him that
they believe while they hear him, but when he is gone their doubts
will all return, and says, "Where shall we find a charmer then to
disperse our fears?" Socrates answers that such a Charmer will yet
arise, and bids his disciples seek him in all lands of the earth.
Greece, he says, is wide, and there are many foreign lands and even
barbarous countries in which they should travel searching for Him,
for there is nothing for which they could more reasonably spend time
and money.
And in the discourse of Socrates with Alcibiades, as given by Plato,
the great philosopher is represented as saying, "We must wait till
One shall teach us our duty towards gods and men."
Alcibiades asks, "When, O Socrates, shall that time come, and who
will be the Teacher? Most happy should I be to see this man, whoever
he is." The Sage replies, "He is One who is concerned for thee. He
feels for thee an admirable regard."
When one reads these outreachings for an unknown Saviour in the
noblest minds of antiquity, it gives pathos and suggestive power to
that emotion which our Lord manifested only a few days before his
death, when word was brought him that there were certain _Greeks_
desiring to see him. When the message was brought to him he answered
with a burst of exultation, "The hour is come that the Son of man
should be glorified! Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and
die, it abideth alone, but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit,
and I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me!"
He was indeed the "Teacher" who had been "concerned" for Alcibiades,
who had cared for Socrates. He was the "Charmer" whom Socrates bade
his disciples seek above all things. He was the unknown bringer
of good for whom Virgil longed. He was the "Star" of Balaam, the
"Benefactor" of the Chaldee astrologers, the "Saviour" predicted by
the Persian Zoroaster. He was, it is true, the Shepherd of Israel,
but he had a heart for the "other sheep not of this fold," who were
scattered through all nations of the earth. He belonged not to any
nation, but to the world, and hence aptly and sublimely did the last
prophecy proclaim, "The desire of all nations shall come!"