Four centuries of silence; or, From Malachi to Christ

Front matter

The Library University of California, Los Angeles

THE CHRISTIAN'S PLEA AGAINST MODERN UNBELIEF.

A HANDBOOK OF CHRISTIAN EVIDENCE.

Preface

I

V. n^HE aim of this volume, it will be understood

^ from the title, is to characterise a period,

rather than to set forth a history. The author

_ has no claim to be refjarded as havincr thrown

iy any new light, by inclependent researches, on

^questions, some of which are involved in much

I obscurity. But he has brought together, within

^ a limited space, a number of facts, which will

^ serve to confirm the faith of those who accept

the authority of Scripture, while they illustrate

Q the wonderful method of Divine Providence, in

s-j preparing the way for the higher revelations of

- Christianity.

Too little attention has been given by the students of revelation to the deeply interesting subjects briefly sketched in these pages. The author has been led by this consideration to write these chapters, which appeared as separate papers in a monthly periodical.^ He publishes

^ Tlie HomHetic Magazine.

283646

VI ' PKEFACE.

tliem now, in a collected form, in the hope that they will open the way, in some minds, to a deeper study of the state of the Jewisli Church during the long period intervening between the Old and New Testaments. He is not without the conviction that such a study will do much to promote the cause of Truth. The whole question of revelation is one of profound and momentous interest in the present day. It is one which will never be firmly and finally settled on any other than an historical basis.

Pdtnet, July 13, 1885.

Contents

CHAP. PAGE

I. THE LAST OF THE PROPHETS 1

II. THE JEWISH PONTIFICATE , . . . . .16

Chapter I. ' The Last Op The Prophets

npHE two volumes which now stand side by side in our Bible, preserve, in their separate titles, the memory of a great gulf of time, dividing the old from the new. Four hundred years is a long period in the history of any nation. They were eventful years in the annals of the Jewish people. Is it possible, we naturally ask, that during all that time no gleams of Truth should have come forth upon the sky ? There was once, in the age of the great prophets, a bright glow of spiritual glory spreading along the horizon ; faith and hope and love flaming in the souls of lofty-minded men, full of patriotic ardour, and ecstatic visions of the future, breathing the highest strains of poetic rapture, and lifting up the people of God into a prayerful expectation of the coming day.

That wonderful evening sky continued to cheer true hearts through centuries of trouble and change. The captives of Israel and Judah, scattered over Eastern lands, divided from one another, mourning over the desolation of their homes, and bitterly repenting the ages of unfaithfulness which had culminated in so gloomy a destiny of judgment, still, through the long sad years of exile, kept before them the lovely tints of prophetic radiance ; they spoke to them of a rising Sun of Righteousness, which should bring with it the day of salvation. ITie seventy years of Judah's banishment went by. The time of restoration arrived. Band after band of exiles returned to Palestine. For a hundred years the history of the Jewish people was the history of a reawakening nationality. But the sky was not again lighted up with the same brilliancy. The colours seemed to fade. There were prophets still sent to accompany the work of restoration. Zeruhhahel had his Zechariah and his Ilaggai. But the glow of the prophetic inspiration was rather declining than increasing. At last the New Jerusalem seemed to be complete. The energetic measures of the Persian cup-bearer, Nehemiah, filled with zeal for his beloved land, had raised up the fallen city, and re-established the neglected Temple service. The land had rest; and the people could look away from the sphere of their earthly environment to the heaven of their hopes. Once more, as the faithful reformer (Nehemiah) set his diligent hand to the building up of their civil and religious establishment, there was a new light shooting across the sky, and brightening the horizon with fresh colours of Divine appeal and invitation. It was not so rich and glowing as that which flamed like a fire three hundred years before, but which had since so much faded from the view of the people. But it was still beyond all doubt a heavenly gift. And after that eveuiug of prophecy there followed a night of four hundred years ; during which it was only here and there that the sky was faintly illuminated by some star of wise, devout reflection, borrowing its light from the past, but pointing on very distinctly to the future.

We learn much from the study of that remarkable silence of prophecy in Israel. We are able to distinguish all the more clearly the voice of God when it did certainly speak. We call on the Jews themselves to be our witnesses, that in putting the New Testament beside the Old we are not dishonouring the fathers, but giving them their true place, while we are hailing the risen glory of the day of grace. There were many writers after the time of the Old Testament. But there was no prophet after him whose words were placed by the Jews themselves at the end of their Scriptures. Why did they thus distinguish between their prophets and their scribes ? "Was it not because there arose no messenger whose words and ministry seemed to them at all like those who had gone before ? The sacred volume of the Old Testament was put together by the labours of Ezra, Nehemiah, and others of their contemporaries. And the reverence which immediately gathered about the collection of sacred writings became a "Aec/^e" about it, not to be broken through. From that time nothing but the surpassing claims of an inspired teacher, who manifestly came from God, would lift up any of his words into the sky. And alas ! the formalism of the schools, the cloudy disputations of the Eabbis, the mists of earthly disorders and national decay floating upwards, obscured more and more the light of the horizon, until the time of the sunrising came, when there was again the morning glow that " prepared the way of the Lord."

Let us, then, first take our stand at that point of time which is indicated by the close of the Old

Testament canon ; and let us look at that evening sky of the Jewish Chuixh, lighted up as it was by the last gleam of prophetic inspiration in the words of the Prophet Malachi.

Although the fiery trial of the Babylonish captivity completely removed from the Jewish nation all the dross of idolatry in the form of pagan rites and worship of pagan deities, it by no means delivered them from the temptation to which they were still exposed, to put their trust in that which was a means of grace, but not necessarily grace itself The Levitical Eestoration brought back the law of Moses into its place of supremacy. The rebuilding of the Temple, and recommencement of Temple services and national festivals, renewed in the minds of the people the sense of their peculiar vocation as a consecrated and holy natiou, to offer sacrifices continually unto Jehovah, acceptable in His sight because of His gracious election. But while the first glory of the reformation glowed, no doubt, very brightly through all the land, and hopes were kindled afresh iu all hearts that the time of their triumph was approaching, generation followed generation, and the climax was still delayed. We can easily imagine that the first zeal of the newly-founded nation began to grow cold ; the legal prescriptions faded out of recollection, and the Temple lost somewhat of its attraction. The children of those who surrounded Zerubbabel were less enthusiastic than their fathers. The grandchildren began to grow weary in their religious services. And when Nehemiah, in the century following that of the return of the captives, rebuilt the ruins of Jerusalem, he found it necessary to take stern and even fierce measures to enforce the observance of the law, and to purify the Temple from defilers.

During his absence in Persia the people had fallen back into disorder. " And I came to Jerusalem, and understood of the evil that Eliashib did for Tobiah in preparing him a chamber in the courts of the house of God. And it grieved me sore : therefore I cast forth all the household stuff of Tobiah out of the chamber. Then I commanded, and they cleansed the chambers : and thither brought I again the vessels of the house of God, with the meat offering and the frankincense. Then contended I Avith the rulers, and said. Why is the house of God forsaken ? " (Neh. xiii. 7-9, 11). As a result from this laxness in religious observance, the social bonds of the people were being loosened. For it must be remembered that for the Jews to become careless of their Temple and of their law was not to rise above that legal economy, but to fall below it. Just as there is many a man still, .who forsakes tbe accustomed place of worship, not because he is living a more spiritual life and is able to dispense with an external form, but because the sense of the Divine, the need of an outlet of worshipping feelings, is gone. So, a hundred years after the restoration of the Mosaic system under Zerubbabel, Ezra and Nehemiah found that the moral life of the Jews was sinking rapidly, in the decay of religious institutions. There was one survival of the captivity, however, which, though it was scarcely likely that the zealous reformers should appreciate all its importance, contributed much to preserve the spiritual element of the people. That was the practice of meeting together in synagogue. It had grown up into a oreneral and well-established religious institution, during the time of exile ; though it doubtless took a fresh start in the new circumstances of the restoration, especially during the time of Ezra, when the study of the ancient Scriptures, and their diflfusion among the people, induced many to seek the public assembly and the exposition of God's Word by wise and learned men. Thus " the Word of God and prayer" came to be regarded as the substance of religion. There are indications, as early as the time of Elisha the prophet, that the people gathered together, on occasion, to listen to exhortations elsewhere than in the Temple. The long suspension of the Temple services during the Captivity would call out such, occasional services into more regular observance. And the large number of psalms attributed to the same period cf the exile, points to the congregational worship as that which then prevailed. Thus, at the close of the fifth century before Christ, the two facts meet us in the history : on the one hand, the general decline of religious observance and moral health among the people ; and on the other, the appearance of a congregational worship which, while it promoted the growth of the Eabbinical spirit, and the class of scribes and learned doctors, did yet, at the same time, nourish the development of individual piety, and knowledge of the Word of God.

These remarks will prepare the way for a brief account of the mission of Malachi. It is remarkable that there should be no personal allusion throughout the four chapters which compose this last book of the Old Testament, by which we should be able to refer it to any one author. The title, which is, of course, of later origin than the book itself, seems to be purposely ambiguous. We are left in doubt whether the name Malachi is to be taken as the name of a prophet, or refers to the nature of the message itself. " Malachi " may be a shortened form for Malachijah (cf. LXX.), " Angel of the Lord ; " or it may be translated, " My angel." The title may, therefore, read, " The Book of the Word of the Lord to Israel by my angel," or, " by the angel of the Lord," or, " by the hand of Malachi " (the prophet). But it is well to bear in mind the remark made by Ewald that, seeing the very word "Malachi" is employed (chapter iii. i) to denote the Divine messenger, "Behold, I will send my messenger," no prophet would have ventured to take such a name upon himself. Perhaps the book was named the " Book of the Angel," as containing the prediction ; and then afterwards, when the early title was lost, it was supposed to be written by a prophet named Malachi. It has been attributed to Ezra himself, and to Nehemiah ; but the authorship remains quite undecided. Internal evidence leads to the conclusion, that it was a message sent to the contemporaries of the two reformers ; and that it was the last of the Jewish canon, because, after the time of Nehemiah, there would be great hesitation on the part of the Jews in adding to the Scriptures.

Casting a look over the pages, we are struck first with the element of condemnation and the threat of judgment which runs through them.

The priesthood is corrupt. The services of the Temple are fallen into disorder. The whole religious ceremonial has become a weariness and a loathing. There is scepticism eating away the heart of piety. Immorality is increasing in the land. Domestic life is like a withered flower. The "proud" are " called happy," and "they that work wickedness are set up." Sorcery, adultery, false swearing, oppression of the hireling in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, and the turning aside of the stranger from his right. Such are the flagrant sins which defile the land. And the allusion, at the end of the book, to the alienation of the children from their fathers, doubtless refers to the sceptical, rationalistic, innovating spirit, which broke out in such sayings as, " The table of the Lord is contemptible." "Behold, what a weariness is it ! " " Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and He delighteth in them." "Where is the God of judgment?" " It is vain to serve God, and what profit is it that we have kept His ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of Hosts ? " We have not far to go to find the parallel of such sayings. They are the scum of pride and irreligion floating on the top of a great seething mass of unbelief and worldliness in a time of transition ;

such as was the time of Ezra, and such as is the time in which we live. With such a state of mind and manners to deal with, how did the prophetic voice appeal to the people ?

The keynote is Love. " I have loved you, saith the Lord" (verse 2). The whole of the message comes out of this. What is their present state but an ungrateful rejection of Divine love, and dishonouring of the Divine covenant ? It is but an unfoldincr of the original covenant of love that is set forth in the third chapter, as a bright glow of promise on the horizon of the true Israel. " Behold, I will send my messenger." " The Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to His Temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in : behold, He shall come, saith the Lord of Hosts" (iii. i). There is something especially inspiring to the people in the promise that the same Angel of mercy who had been at the head of Israel aU through the history of the past should reappear ; and that to be their delight and their glory. True, it would be- a terrible time for sinners. The " day of His coming " would hum like fire. The brightness of His face would purge their lives like "fullers' sope." But the subsequent purity and pleasantness was a prospect for all that feared the Lord and waited for Him to keep before them.

12 FOUR CENTUHIES OF SILENCE.

The spiritual renovation and revival would inaugurate a period of general prosperity. "All nations phall call you blessed : for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of Hosts."

Another striking feature in the book is the very emphatic recognition of the Church within the Church, of the germ of a new Israel in the midst of the decay and rejection of the old. " Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another, and the Lord hearkened and heard it : and a book of remembrance was written before Him for them that feared the Lord and that thought upon His name. And they shall be Mine, saith the Lord of Hosts, in that day when I make up My jewels, and I will spare them, as a man sparetli his own son that serveth him. Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth Him not" (iii. 16-18). This doctrine of a true Israel, as distinguished from a merely fleshly Israel, which was brought out so distinctly by the Apostle Paul, in his Epistle to the Eomans, was the constant theme of the prophets : no doubt it was nominally accepted by the people, but practically it remained in abeyance until the time came when it was conspicuously revealed in the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ.

AVe must also notice tlie cosmopolitan tone of this last book of the Old Testament. While the priests and Levites are rebuked for their neglect of the Mosaic Law, there is no Jewish exclusiveness in the Divine message. On the other hand, the rejection of the fallen Israel is made the opportunity for the proclamation of a universal gospel. "I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of Hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand. For from the rising of the sun, even unto the going down of the same. My name shall be great among the Gentiles ; and in every place incense shall be offered unto My name and a pure offering : for My name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of Hosts " (i. lo, 1 1). There seems to be an allusion to this breadth of the gospel of salvation in the prediction of the "Day of the Lord," with which the book concludes. It is a day of judgment on the ungodly, which shall " hum up the wicked like stuhhle ; " but it is not a mere day of destruction, it is the rising of " the Sun of Righteousness " into the heavens. There is "healing in His wings." Surely those who read such a prediction would recall the language of the nineteenth Psalm, where the sun is described as lighting all the world : " His going forth is from the end of heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it : and there is nothing liid from the heat thereof." Some of the critics have made a great deal of the parting admonition to " remember the Law of Moses with the statutes and judgments," and the prediction of the advent of Elijah ; as though the spirit of Malachi were merely that of Levitical obedience and formalism.

They have certainly misapprehended the language. The meaning evidently is, that all true revival and restoration of Israel must proceed along the lines of faithfulness to JeJiovah and His covenant. The children will not be better than their fathers by despising and trampling under foot tbe old things ; but by developicg the germ which was in the old in the new ; putting " new wine into new wine-skins," but getting the new wine out of the old vineyard. Elijah was a great reformer ; but he was followed by Elisha, whose ministry extended over a much larger sphere, and was much more beneficent. The herald of the kingdom preached repentance; but the Messiah Himself baptized with the Holy Ghost, and sent forth His apostles to preach the Gospel ** to every creature." These, then, were the main features of that last message, which, like a glow in the evening sky, remained to keep alive the expectation of the rising day. The voice of a loving Father addressed them. They were invited to put away mere legalism and formalism, and live a spiritual life in fellowship with one another. They were pointed to the Temple, and bid to w^ait around it, in simple obedience and faith, until the Great Messiah should be revealed, and the Day of the Lord should come. We shall see, in the chapters which follow, how far this gracious appeal found a response among the Jewish people during those four loug centuries when, amidst many and -terrible trials, and much defection from the .old standards, they still preserved the Sacred Scriptures which had been handed down to them and put in order by Ezra and his fellow-labourers, but when no new message directly from God w^as heard in their midst. It w^as a time of degeneracy and spiritual decay. But here and there, as we shall see, a gleam of light appeared upon the horizon.

Chapter II. The Jewish Pontificate

rrHE Jewish Church, at the commencement of the fourth century before Christ, when the message of the last of the prophets, Malachi, was still fresh in their memory, held but few elements of spiritual growth and progress among them. The Scriptures were no doubt in common use, and their authority was clearly defined by the labours of Ezra, Nehemiah, and others of the religious leaders. The services of the Temple were restored, and for a time were punctually and carefully observed. The censures which were pronounced by the Prophet Malachi upon those who neglected the payment of tithes, who oflered unworthy offerings, and who offended against the marriage laws, are evidence that the obligations of the law of Moses w^ere publicly and universally recognised, and that the defections of the people from that law could not be excused either on the ground of their ignorance of what the law prescribed, or their doubt of its binding force. But there is no power in law alone to maintain the religious life of a people. The captives who returned from Babylon brought with them, in all probability, a very strong feeling of the necessity of repentance toward Jehovah, and of watchful care over their spiritual state in the future. For a hundred years a succession of eminent men, full of zeal for the law and a devout spirit, from Zerubbabel to Nehemiah, including many prophets, and some whose writings have come down to us, laboured to maintain the religious life of the new settlers in Palestine. But the external conditions of that life were very unfavourable. There was much disorder and confusion, which even the utmost patriotic efforts of the reformers were unable to remove. The spirit of the Persian rule, which under the great Cyrus had been protective towards the Jews, changed for the worse under his successor. The ambition which had sought for universal empire produced its usual pernicious fruits. Persia, under the weak-minded and vacillating Xerxes, hurled its forces against Eastern Europe under the leadership of Greece, was driven back with terrible loss and defeat, and sought to recover its prestige by attacks upon less formidable foes. The struggle for the complete subjection of Egypt went on for a considerable period in a number of separate expeditions. Judea suffered much by the passage of Persian armies through it. As an instance of this we may mention that, between the years 2i11 ^-C- and 374 B.C., there were two hundred thousand barbarian soldiers, besides twenty thousand Greeks, in their neighbourhood, of course making requisitions upon them, and otherwise burdening them ; at Acco were three hundred ships of war, besides store ships ; and the Persian army marched along the coast of Palestine to Egypt. It must have been very difficult, under such circumstances, to preserve anything like the order and regularity of religious life. The institutions of the Jews fell into decay.

It was the policy of the Persian Empire, when its central strength was waning, to depend more and more on its representatives, in its various provinces or satrapies. The satrap, knowing himself virtually a monarch, deputed his power to his subordinates as his responsibility enlarged. The Persian governor of Syria was no doubt compelled to put more and more authority into the hands of the Jewish high priest, who, though professedly a religious ruler, soon became a kind of satrap within his own domain. The people themselves looked to him as their representative. And the high priest, in his turn, used bis religious position to exalt his authority. The moral corruption which ensued we can easily understand when we remember the history of the Papacy during the Middle Ages. Josephus relates an instance which reveals a fearful state of things. On the death of the high priest Joiada, Bagoses, the Persian general, who was in the neighbourhood at the time, nominated Joshua as a successor ; his brother John murdered him in the Temple, and left his dead body lying within the sacred precincts. Bagoses, hearing of the outrage, went in haste to Jerusalem, made his way into the sanctuary, and when the Jews exclaimed at his violation of the sanctity of the Temple, replied, "What, am I not as pure as the dead carcass of the murdered man which lies in your Temple "? " He laid a heavy fine upon the nation, which was rigorously exacted for seven years.

The high priests were not only political despots, they were, by their dissensions and worldly ambition, corruptors of the people and of their institutions. It was the result of their irreligious spirit that the nation was led away into ruinous adventures. Such was the attempt made by some to support the Phoenicians of Tyre in their rebellion against the Persian power, which led the Persian king, Darius Ochus, to lay siege to Jericho to capture it, and carry ofiP many of its inhabitants to Egypt, sending others to Hyrcania to people it. Jonathan, or John, the high priest, who murdered his brother, still retained the high priesthood, and continued in office until the year 340 B.C., when he was succeeded by Jaddua, the high priest who met Alexander the Great when he came to Jerusalem. Wlien the chief representative of a religion is corrupt, what can be expected ? The high priest Eliashib was rebuked by Nehemiah for his laxness in carrying out reforms, which he rather hindered than promoted ; and his successors in the office for nearly a century seem to have been worthless cliaracters. At the same time, the scene which occurred on the advent of the great Macedonian conqueror shows that the external pomp of worship, and the gorgeousness of the Temple rites, were maintained. The solemn procession suddenly emerged from the city : " The priestly tribe," says Dean Stanley, "in their white robes; the high priest, apparently the chief authority in the place, in his purple and gold attire, his turban on his head, bearing the golden plate on which was inscribed the ineffable name of Jehovah."

" ' Who are these ? ' said Alexander to the Samaritan guides, who had gained from him the promise of the destruction of the Temple, and the possession of Mount Moriah. ' They are the rebels who deny your authority,' said the rival sect. They marched all night, in two ranks, preceded by torches, and with the band of priestly musicians clashing their cymbals. It was the sunrise of a winter morning (December 21st), long afterwards observed as a joyous- festival, when they stood before the king. To the astonishment of the surrounding chiefs, Alexander descended from his chariot and bowed to the earth before the Jewish leader. None ventured to ask the meaning of this seeming frenzy save Parmenio alone. ' Why should he, whom all men worship, worship the high priest of the Jews?' 'Not him,' replied the king, 'but the God, whose high priest he is, I worship. Long ago, when at Dium in Macedonia, I saw in my dreams such an one, in such an attire as this, who urged me to undertake the conquest of Persia and succeed ! ' Hand in hand with the high priest, and with the priestly tribe running by his side, he entered the sacred enclosure, and ofifered the usual sacrifice ; saw with pleasure the indication of the rise of the Grecian power in the prophetic books ; granted free use of their ancestral laws, and specially, of the year of jubilee inaugurated so solemnly a hundred years before under Nehemiah ; promised to befriend the Jewish settlements of Babylonia

22 FOUK CENTURIES OF SILENCE.

and Media; and invited any who were disposed, to serve in his army, with the preservation of their sacred customs" ("Jewish Church," vol. iii. pp. 239, 240). There may be a large amount of exaggeration and fable in this account, which is taken from Josephus ; but it is certain that the priestly authority was high enough at that time to be so influential for the people, and that the ceremonial system was largely maintained by the Jews. Indeed the fact that there was a rival temple set up by the Samaritans, on Mount Gerizim, would itself warrant the belief that the people of Jerusalem would be careful to exhibit their own ritual as superior to that of the sectarians.