called himself "the Lord's messenger," who spoke "in virtue of the Lord's message," and the younger Zechariah referred to the Messiah as "the man whose name is the branch." Malachi announced that before the coming of the Lord to his temple. on the day of judgment (Jehoshaphat?), God will send a "messenger of the covenant," of the new and spiritual covenant first announced by Jeremiah. For that messenger Israel sought and longed for, and with him comes "the sun of righteousness," for those who "fear his name" (or Spirit). We shall explain this to mean, that the messenger of the spiritual covenant will convince men of the presence of the Spirit of God in man, through which the Law will be written on the tables of the heart. The Old Testament closes with a yet unfulfilled prophecy of a prophet Elias, as is implied, in his spirit and power, who shall "turn the hearts of the fathers," that is, of the Israelites, "to the sons," or nations, and the hearts of the sons to the fathers." Elias will bring about that union between Israelites and people of other nations which according to Messianic prophecies is to precede the glorious days of Zion.

In the Book of Daniel the most important of all Messianic prophecies is transmitted as a vision sent unto Daniel (born B.C. 608), and which refers to the raising to heaven of one "like a son of man." It is "the Son of man" whom Asaph the seer and Psalmist had described as Israel's representative, as the vine which God brought out of Egypt (or caused to "break up from Egypt "), as "the Son of man"

whom God "made strong unto himself," and as the man of God's "right hand." Since the days of Asaph this expression "the Son of man" was understood as referring to the expected Messiah, and we shall point out that Jesus called himself "the Son of man" with reference to this Psalm. Before we consider Daniel's sublime vision, it is important to point out under what circumstances Daniel has seen it. He was at Babylon, where he had been instructed, from his youth, in the language and wisdom of the Chaldeans. He must, therefore, have known the Persian religious myth of Sraosha the Angel-Messiah, in which the transmitted dream of Nebukadnezar seems to have originated. For to the astrological myth of Sraosha-Serosh, who is preceded by four ages of gold, silver, steel, and iron, the vision in the Book of Daniel of the great image evidently refers, where the Messianic kingdom, exactly like that of the Angel Sraosha, is said to follow the fourth kingdom.

Yet the stone not moved by men's hands has a very important Messianic meaning, perhaps borrowed from the 118th Psalm, of unknown authorship, and which, on high authority, need not have been written after the Exile. We have here first to point out that in the Danielic vision nothing is said of a descent of the Son of man from heaven, nor of the transition of a heavenly person to a terrestrial one. "I saw in the night visions, and behold there came with the clouds of heaven one like unto a son of man, and he came even to the Ancient of Days, and he was brought near before him. And there

was given him dominion, honour, and a kingdom, and all peoples, nations, and languages served him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which never passes away, and his kingdom is never destroyed."

Nothing excludes the supposition that here the Son of man, believed to be the Messiah, is designated as the human messenger of God who, according to prophecies, is to bring the promised new and spiritual covenant. We must not prejudge the question whether the elevation of the Son of man with the clouds of heaven implies a miracle, or whether Daniel's vision is a figurative representation of the continuity of man's individual life after death. The vision refers to the time when a universal and enduring kingdom will be given him. The representative of Israel, of the vine which God has planted, the Son of God's "right hand," or Spirit, we hold to be the chosen human instrument of the Spirit, the man anointed by the Spirit of God. It is indicated, we submit, that the Messianic mission of the Son of man, whom God, through the Spirit, made strong unto himself and raised to his right hand, begins on earth and continues in heaven.

We do not see that anything further is needed in order to explain why Jesus called himself " the Son of man," nor to explain the distinction mystically implied by prophets between the Messianic office of "the messenger of the covenant," whom we explain as having come with Jesus, and the Messianic office of the prophet Elias, yet to come.

We shall try to render probable, farther on, that Jesus referred to the coming of Elias in his great prophecy about Israel's house ceasing to be "desolate" when they would welcome him "that cometh in the name of the Lord," and when they would "see" Jesus.'

But it is still believed by some interpreters of Biblical prophecy, especially in England, but also by a few in Germany, that the announcement of the seventy weeks recorded in the Book of Daniel is a prophecy revealed during the Captivity, by which the time of the birth and death of Jesus is foretold. The utter fallacy of this proposition has here to be proved, partly by new arguments.

The composition of the Book of Daniel was not closed before B.C. 169. According to the same the seventy years' captivity recorded in the Book of Jeremiah ought to have been fulfilled by seventy Sabbatical years or year-weeks. Historically those seventy years began in B.C. 586 and ended, 516, with the consecration of the Temple. This led to new contentions. We need not assume, however, that already then or at any time before Antiochus Epiphanes the enlargement of the seventy years. into seventy year-weeks was thought of. In the seventh year of this prince the rising of Mattathias, the ancestor of the Maccabees, had taken place. In this year appeared the Book of Daniel. From the accession of Epiphanes exactly sixty-two year-weeks had elapsed since the rightly calculated fourth year

1 Matt. xxiii. 39.

of Jehoiakim, B.C. 609-608.' The "troublous times" of the text refer with historical exactness to the time from 609 to 175; for during that time Jerusalem was under foreign sway, first under Babylonian, then under Persian, then under Macedonic-Syrian dominion. After the sixty-two weeks

an anointed one shall be cut off, and there shall be none belonging to him; then rules a prince who with his train comes overflooding; and he shall make with many a covenant for one week, and the half week will he suspend sacrifice and oblation.”

This was fulfilled by Antiochus Epiphanes, whose brother, Seleucus IV., had been murdered by Heliodorus, after that he had liberated Antiochus Epiphanes, kept as hostage in Rome. The anointed and cut off Seleucus had none belonging to him, no son who might have succeeded him. But Epiphanes expelled the usurper Heliodorus, excluded Demetrius, and became King of Syria 175. "At first he was satisfied with receiving from his Jewish favourites the pledge of introducing Greek civilization and the promise of large presents, beyond the high tribute. But in the sixth year, led by the criminal interloper into the high priesthood, the Jewish Menelaos, he enters the temple and plunders it, after having filled the city with blood, which had been opened by the assistance and associates of Menelaos."

1 "The Chronology of the Bible," p. 96.

2 Holtzmann in Bunsen's "Bibelwerk," vi. 851-854. Comp. Geschichte des Volkes Israel und der Entstehung des Christenthums," von Weber und Holtzmann.