Ethnarch; that of king being reserved as a reward for future good conduct. His reign of nine years was, however, stained from the beginning with the greatest injustice and cruelty; at the end of which, while sitting at a banquet, Archelaus was suddenly summoned by Cæsar to Rome. There he was formally tried, his brothers, as well as his subjects, being his accusers. He was condemned to banishment to the city of Vienne in Gaul; his estates were confiscated, and Judæa was reduced to a Roman province. And thus, as a distiguished historian observes

"The sceptre finally departed from Judah; the kingdom of David and Solomon, of the Asmonean princes and of Herod, sank into a district, dependent on the prefecture of Syria, though administered by its own governor, a man usually of the equestrian order."9

There is a valuable chronological testimony in confirmation of this view, which I have never seen noticed by any writer, but which I venture to think affords some strong evidence to the truth of this Messianic prophecy. There are certain prophecies respecting the appearance of the promised SHILOH in the Temple on Mount Zion which seems to throw some light on this important subject.

The prophet Haggai, who wrote in the reign of Darius, about twenty years after the return from Babylon, delivered this prophecy :

"Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth; and I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts" (ii. 6, 7). As a difficulty has been raised by some in applying this to the promised SHILOH, because in the phrase, "the desire of all nations shall come," the verb is in the plural number, as all the ancient MSS. so write it, I would notice some reasons for accepting the usual Christian interpretation of this text, viz., that it is a direct prediction of our Lord's presence in the Temple of Jerusalem, which had been originally built by Solomon, destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, rebuilt by Zerubbabel

9 Dean Milman's History of the Jews, vol. ii., p. 104.

1

after the return from Babylon, and five centuries later restored with great magnificence by Herod the Great, and to "the goodly stones" of which the disciples called Christ's attention, when He delivered His memorable prophecy respecting its complete destruction. Although the LXX. render "the desire of all nations" by the plural τà éкλEKTά, "desirable," or "precious things," for the Hebrew singular, which merely proves that they had no proper understanding of the prediction, the context is adduced by the inspired writer of Hebrews xii. 26— "Whose voice then shook the earth; but now He hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven," the exact words of Haggai ii. 6. Moreover, viewing the text critically, we may suppose that this Hebrew singular nominative with a plural verb may be parallel with Genesis i. 1, where the plural nominative properly rendered by "God," not Gods, agrees with the singular verb "created.” Bishop Wordsworth thinks that the plural verb in this passage, "the desire of all nations shall come," may be explained by the fact that its antecedent the singular nominative involves the idea of Christ's twofold nature, His Deity as well as His humanity.

Christ is the

This longing for "the desire of all nations" increased amongst the devoted children of Israel as the time drew nigh, when the promised SHILOH should come, as we find in the case of Simeon, who was "waiting for the consolation of Israel, when the Holy Ghost was upon him," and also in that of one Anna, a prophetess, of the tribe of Aser," who was at the same time "looking for redemption in Jerusalem." So is it now with the faithful in the true Catholic Church. desire of all holy souls, who long for nothing please Him daily, to love Him more, and to worship Him better, and who are thus said by St. Peter to be "looking for and (by that act of faith, hope and love) to be hasting (not "unto," as in the Authorized Version) the coming of the day of God, when He will come whose right it is to reign, to "make up His jewels" and to take His bride home.

2

else than to

Malachi's prophecy-" Behold, I will send my messenger, 1 Matt. xxiv.; Mark xiii.; Luke xxi.

2 2 Pet. iii. 12.

and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in " (iii. 1), has been variously interpreted by the modern Jews. Some regard it as an angel; others of the prophet Malachi himself; others again of their ideal Messiah Ben Joseph, whom they think will precede the Messiah Ben-David. But one very learned Rabbi Tanchum (quoted by Pococke) declares the opinion of the most ancient Jews to have been that "my messenger" referred to Elijah the Tishbite, of whom the last words of Malachi are spokenBehold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord." 3 "This," says Rabbi Tanchum, "is without doubt a promise that there should appear a prophet in Israel a little before the time of the appearance of the Messiah; and some of the learned do think that he is Elijah himself... Others think it meant some great prophet like him in degree, and therefore called by the name of Elijah." So Jerome, who flourished in the fifth century, mentions in his Commentary on Malachi, that the Jews of his time "understood the prophecy of Elias the prophet." "4

It is evident from the synoptic Gospels that John the Baptist was to be acknowledged by the faithful as the fulfilment in a spiritual sense of Malachi's prophecy concerning Elijah; though our Lord's words, "If ye will receive it, this is Elijah, which was for to come,' 95 seem to show that we are to look for a more complete fulfilment in the appearance of the literal Elijah, previous to the Jew's recognition of the true Messiah, at the time of Christ's second advent.

That portion of Malachi's prophecy which relates to the appearance of the Messiah in the Temple on Mount Zion, which was standing in its beauty when Malachi wrote, at the very time when Daniel's prophecy respecting the rebuilding of Jerusalem was accomplished, is thus recorded-"The Lord, whom ye seek, shall

3 Malachi iv. 5.

4 Quoted by the Bishop of Winchester, On the Prophecies of the Messiah, p. 47, from Pococke's Com. on Malachi iv. 5.

5 Matt. xi. 14; xvii. 11, 12; Mark ix. 12, 13; Luke i. 15-17.

suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in : behold, he shall come, says the Lord of hosts." 6 There are three comings of Christ into the Temple specially mentioned by the evangelists. 1. When brought by His earthly parents to be circumcised, and thus admitted into covenant with God, according to the law of Moses. 2. When He was found by His parents "in the Temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions."7 3. When "Jesus went into the Temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the Temple, and said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves." 8 The true dates for these three appearances of Christ in the Temple, as we shall endeavour to prove in the next chapter, are respectively, B.C. 7-6; A.D. 5—6; and A.D. 29. The second appearance, when Jesus was "twelve years old," A.D. 5—6, is the one to which apparently the prophecy points, as that was the very year when Archelaus, the son of Herod the Great, was deposed by the Emperor Augustus Cæsar, when the sceptre may be said to have finally departed from Judah; when the Jews were deprived of the power of life and death; when the kingdom of David was reduced to a Roman province, and the last semblance of independence passed away for ever from the guilty tribes of the house of Israel. Then the promised SHILOH "suddenly," or unawares, appeared in the Temple on Mount Zion.

6 Malachi iii. 1. The decree for rebuilding Jerusalem was given to Nehemiah, B.C. 454, and the first "seven weeks," or a period of forty-nine years, appears to have been allotted to the rebuilding of the city; and this must have been finished B.c. 405, the exact time when Malachi wrote.

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CHAPTER XV.

MESSIANIC PROPHECY-THE DEATH OF THE MESSIAH.

THAT the Jews were in expectation of the promised Shiloh at the epoch of our Saviour's appearance in the Temple is evident from the assertions of their two principal historians, whose works have come down to us. Thus Philo-Judæus of Alexandria, who was born в.c. 25, comments on Exodus xxiii. 20, where the Angel of God is spoken of as follows:

"God as the Shepherd and King conducts all things according to law and righteousness, having established over them His right Word, even His only begotten Son, who, as the Viceroy of the great King, takes care of and ministers to the sacred flock. For it is written, Behold I AM, and I will send my Angel before thy face to keep thee in the way." 9

So Josephus, who was born about sixty years after Philo, and who took so leading a part in the war which ended so disastrously for his nation, when relating the history of Pontius Pilate's government of Judæa, says—

"Now there lived at this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to Him many, both Jews and Gentiles. This was the Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those who loved Him at the first did not forsake Him; for He appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousands other wonders concerning Him. And the Christians, so named after Him, are flourishing at this day. 1

It is cited by all the copies

9 Phil. Jud. de Agricult., vol. i., p. 308; Mangey's edit. 1 Joseph., Antiq. xviii. 3, § 3. Although the genuineness of this passage has been disputed, the evidence in its favour is very strong. Eusebius, Jerome, Rufinus, and others, and is found in of Josephus' works now extant, whether in MS., or printed. the ancient Hebrew version, preserved in the Vatican library, which Cardinal Baronius (Annal Eccl., A.D. 134) notices was marked with an obelus, and which only could have been done by a Jew.

It is found in