light was to bring the Gentiles out of idolatry.

The juncture of time favoured him but whilst he ascribed to Vespasian, what Jacob had said of the Christ, the bigots, that defended Jerusalem, arrogated it to themselves. It was on this only foundation, that they promised themselves the empire of the world, as Josephus relates *; they were more reasonable, however, than he, in that they did not at least go out of the nation, to find the accomplishment of the promises made to their fathers.

How was it that they did not open their eyes to the abundant fruit, which was from that time brought forth among the Gentiles by the preaching of the Gospel, and to that new empire which JESUS CHRIST established throughout the world. What could be more glorious than an empire in which piety reigned, in which the true God triumphed over idolatry, and eternal life was made known to infidel nations? Was not the empire of the Cesars itself a vain pomp in comparison of this? But this empire was not sufficiently splendid in the eyes of the world.

But how we must be disabused of human grandeur, in order to know JESUS CHRIST! The Jews knew the time: the Jews saw the nations called to the God of Abraham according to the oracle of Jacob, by JESUS CHRIST and his disciples, and yet they mistook that JESUS, who was declared to

Joseph. de Bell. Jud. lib. vii.

them by so many tokens. "And although both in his life-time, and after his death, he confirmed his mission by so many miracles, those blind people rejected him, because he had nothing in him but solid greatness, void of all pageantry which strikes the senses, and came rather to condemn than to gras tify their blind ambition.

And yet, forced by the juncture and circumstances of the time, in spite of their blindness, they seemed sometimes to abandon their prejudices. Every thing was so disposed at the time of our Lord's coming, for the manifestation of the Messiah, that they suspected St. John the Baptist might possibly be him *. His 'austere, extraordinary, astonishing man'ner of life struck them: and though without worldly grandeur, they seemed willing at first to content themselves with the eminence of a life so surprising. The simple and ordinary life of JESUS CHRIST shocked these gross and proud spirits, who could only be taken by the senses, and who besides were so far from sincere conversion, that they would admire nothing but what they looked upon as inimitable. So that St. John the Baptist, whom they judged worthy to be the CHRIST, was not believed when he pointed out the true CHRIST; and JESUS CHRIST, who was to be imitated when believed in, appeared to the Jews too humble to be followed.

However, the impression they had re

* Luke iii. 15. John i. 19, 20.

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ceived, that the CHRIST was to appear at this time was so strong, that it remained nearly a century amongst them. They thought that the accomplishment of the prophecies might have a certain extent, and was not always confined to one precise period; insomuch that for near an hundred years there was nothing to be heard of among them but false Christs, who procured themselves followers, and false prophets, who proclaimed them. Former ages had seen nothing like this, nor did the Jews employ the name of CHRIST, either when Judas Maccabeus gained so many victories over their tyrant, or when his brother Simon freed them from the yoke of the Gentiles, or when the first Hyrcanus made se many conquests. The times and other marks did not agree; nor was there, till the age of JESUS CHRIST, the least talk of all those Messiahs. The Samaritans, who read in the Pentateuch the prophecy of Jacob, made Christs to themselves, as well as the Jews, and a little after JESUS CHRIST they acknowledged their Dositheus. Simon Magus, of the same country, boasted also that he was the Son of God, and Menander, his disciple, styled himself the Saviour of the world*. In the life-time of JESUS CHRIST, the Samaritan woman had believed that the Messiah was about to come: so prevalent was the opinion in the nation, and among all those who read the ancient oracle of Jacob,

* Orig. Tract. 27. in Matth. tom. 14. cont. Cel. Iren. i. 20, 21. pxelas, John iv. 25.

that the CHRIST was to appear in those. days.

When the time was so far past, that there was no longer any thing to expect, and the Jews had found by experience, that all the Messiahs they had followed, far from delivering them out of their calamities, had only sunk them deeper into them; then they were a long time without any new Messiahs appearing among them, and Barchochebas was the last whom they acknowledged as such in those first ages of Christianity. But the old impression could not be utterly effaced. Instead of believing that CHRIST had appeared, as they had done even in Hadrian's time; under the Antonines his successors, they took it into their heads to say, that their Messiah was in the world, although he did not yet make his appearance, because he waited for the prophet Elias, who was to come to consecrate him. Such language was common in St. Justin's time, and we find also in their Talmud the doctrine of one of their most ancient masters, who said, "that the

CHRIST was come, as pointed out in the *prophecies, but that he kept himself con"cealed somewhere at Rome among the poor mendicants *"

Such a wild conceit could not gain much ground; and the Jews, forced at last to confess that the Messiah was not come in the time they had reason to expect him ac

* Justin, adv. Tryphon. R. Juda filius Levi. Gem. San. xi.

cording to their ancient prophecies, fell into another abyss. They were within a small matter of renouncing the hope of their Messiah, who had not kept his time; and many followed a famous rabbi, whose words are still to be found preserved in the Talmud. This man seeing the term so far past, concluded that "the Israelites had no more

any Messiah to expect, because he had "been given them in the person of king "Hezekiah*."

Indeed, this opinion, far from prevailing among the Jews, was detested by them. But as they no longer know any thing about the times signified in the prophecies, and are at a loss which way to get out of this labyrinth, they have made an article of faith of that expression, which we read in the Talmud, "All the terms that were fix"ed for the coming of the Messiah, are "past;" and have pronounced with one consent," Cursed be they who shall com

pute the times of the Messiah † :" as we behold in a storm, which has driven the ship too far out of its course, the despairing pilot quits his reckoning, and goes wher ever chance carries him.

From that time, their whole study hath been to elude the prophecies, in which the time of the CHRIST was pointed out: they did not care if they overthrew all the traditions of their fathers, provided they could but deprive the Christians of those wonder

* R. Hillel. ibid. Is: Abran. de cap. fidei. † Gem. San. c. x. Moses Maimon. in Epit. Talm, Is. Abran. de cap. fidei.