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lead his people to victory and rule over them in justice and peace (Jer. xxx. 9; Isa. ix. 6-7). God shall be present with his people and sin and evil shall vanish. This shows a tendency toward transcendence, although Zion is yet in this world (Isa. ii. 2, iv. 5). There is to be no world cataclysm and renewal, although there shall be signs and wonders. No universal resurrection is implied, the passages so taken merely representing additions (Isa. xxvi. 19; Dan. xii. 2), as well as that expressing a unique expectation of a new heaven and a new earth (Isa. Ixv. 17 sqq., lxvi. 22). The average consciousness in the Old Testament implies no dual theory, no dual world; hence no ground for a dual Messianic revelation.

A decided change first appeared in the century before the birth of Christ. More and more distinctly the apocryphal and apocalyptical literature created a transcendent picture of the end of the world, until the rabbinical writings after Christ produced a finished system of eschatology. As the

s. Jewish older earthly hopes for Israel and JeruApocrypha salem continue, an ellipse, so to speak, and Apoc- with two foci appears; one is the center alypses. of a group of Messianic expectations here, the other of more strictly deduced new transcendent and more individualistic ideas. This led ultimately to a double revelation, parallel to the Christian view. The judging of the nations appears according to the older prophetic style. The Messiah shall redeem Israel, and as judge shall punish, and be king after God's own heart. The New Jerusalem shall be created by God and transferred from preexistence into the world; yet it has a mundane character, and its inhabitants have not eternal but long and peaceful life. Above all this is erected a transcendent world, not only by the later apocalypses, which, surpassing the Book of Daniel, employed themselves with the background of an earthly history and the conflicts of a spirit world, not only at a later stage, by identifying the Messiah with the Son of Man of Daniel and regarding him as a preexistent Being; but ir_ early times, the claims of an individual personality appear alongside of the national Messianic hope. The hope of a common blessedness in this world is transferred to another, after death, involving the individual resurrection of the just for life eternal. Two eons are recognized, separated by the day of Yahweh, which after a universal resurrection shall determine the deserving fate of the blessed and the damned. Beyond is a new heaven and a new earth. The individual interest, not content with the transcendent blessedness of the single personality, regains coalescence with history and totality. Yet the picture is variously shortened by particularisms: redemption is not universal like that of Joel and the New Testament; the saved are to be at most the Jews only "in this country"; the Messiah gains no universal significance and has no place in the final judgment, except in the Book of Enoch, where the Son of Man ascends the throne in glory and chooses among men. This, however, was the result of Christian influence. According to IV Esdras vii. 28 sqq. the Messiah dies, after reigning 400 years, together with all men. Then the new eon opens with resurrection and judg-

ment, paradise and gehenna. The tendency was generally to restrict the function of the Messiah in this world and dilate upon the eon of the next world at the termination of the Messianic period, in which eon the Messiah has no longer any part.

It was otherwise in Christianity. The dual conception of the universe was assumed; the division between the "the present eon" and the "eon to come" is the inseparable assumption of Christian thought (Matt. xii. 32; Luke xvi. 8).

3- flew But the Old Testament's Messianic

Testament. idea, which served to give value to the personality of Jesus, is employed in undiminished force with reference to the final goal beyond. The inheritance of the Old Testament is clothed in apocalyptic transcendental form. The Messiah does not perform an earthly work, which can not be transferred to the beyond, but reveals in his person the personality of the Father. The basis of salvation hence is not membership in the nation from which the Messiah is descended, but personal relationship to the Messiah, who gathers about him his nation of believers. The mother of the Christians is no longer an earthly Jerusalem, but that city above which is identical with the congregation of the perfect (Gal. iv. 26). The personality of Jesus acquires eternal significance; those who belong to him belong for time and eternity to God.

The central position of the personality of Christ leads to the conception of a double Messianic revelation, the end of which, however, is not, as in the Jewish apocalyptic system of thought, an exaltation of the kingdom of the Messiah, first

4. The Two- established upon earth, into the fold Con- heavenly world, but a return of Christ ception. from the kingdom beyond into the midst of conceivable reality. For no earthly Messianic kingdom was established at the first coming of Christ. On the contrary, he was rejected by his people. If he is nevertheless to re main the Messiah, the basis of his kingdom must be a transcendent one, centering in himself as a personality secured in God, and conserving other personality with his own. Jesus himself certainly lays claim to an actual reign. He will come as the Son of Man in the clouds and will establish the king dom which shall absolve all earthly kingdoms (Mark xiii. 26, xiv. 62). But the same title is used of him in expressions that declare that Jesus is homeless upon the earth, that he sows only for the future, that he suffers in order to rise hereafter, that he serves in order to give his life as a sacrifice for sin, that his authority upon the earth is to for give sins, and that he has come to seek the lost (Mark ii. 10, viii. 31, x. 45). Thus the purely per sonal character of the Messiahship of Jesus is harmonized with the apocalyptic transcendental plan. Personalities constitute the materials of the transcendent structure of which the personality of Christ is the cornerstone (Mark xii. 10; Eph. ii. 20 sqq.). The resurrection of Jesus was not that coming again; for he appeared personally only to the disciples and later exists in spiritual continuity. For Israel and the world, there began another period of waiting, during which the words of his witnesses are at work bringing about repentance and faith.