upon an authoritative tradition, held at the time of the destruction: "The majority were deeply impressed with a persuasion that it was contained in the ancient writings of the priests that it would come to pass that at that very time, that the East would renew its strength and they that should go forth from Judea should be rulers of the world."'34 So also Seutonius: "A firm persuasion had long prevailed through all the East that it was fated for the empire of the world at that time to devolve on someone who should go forth from Judea. This prediction referred to a Roman emperor, as the event showed, but the Jews applying it to themselves broke out into rebellion."35 With the final collapse of the state, the destruction of the Temple, and the tragic dispersion of the people, Messianism assumes preeminence in the national consciousness. In it the race voices its invincible hope of survival and Redemption. It should be borne in mind that Messianism was essentially a political ideal. It was bound up with the restoration of the Davidic dynasty and with the reconstitution of the independence of Israel. Certain eschatological and supernatural features were combined with it, but essentially it was and remained a this-world, temporal, national ideal. B. 70 c. E.-175 C. E. The century following the destruction-the age of the Hadrianic persecutions and the Bar Kochba revolution— witnessed not only a remarkable spread of the Messiah idea among the people, but also many definite speculations as to the time of his advent. 1. Yohanan ben Zakkai (1 c.), just before his death, turned to his disciples and said: "Remove all vessels lest they be rendered unclean, and prepare a throne for Hezekiah, king of Judea, who is come."36 King Hezekiah, whom the Rabbis held in highest regard as defender and champion of the Torah3, was regarded by some of them as the Messiah. This is clearly the meaning of Rabbi Hillel's dictum: "Israel no longer need expect the Messiah, for he was already consumed (he already appeared) in the days of Hezekiah.”38 Another teacher, Bar Kappara of Sepphoris (2-3 c.), indicates, that this belief was held by some of his colleagues: "The Lord wished to make Hezekiah Messiah, but Justice protested and said, 'Master of the Universe, David, King of Israel, who sang so many songs and praises unto thee, Thou didst not make Messiah. Hezekiah, in whose behalf Thou hast already performed so many miracles, and who did not sing praises unto Thee, wilt thou make him Messiah?' Wherefore it (the letter in ob [Is. 9.6]) was closed."39 Ben Zakkai, who died about a decade after the destruction of the Temple, expected the Messiah, then, in the immediate future (c. 80 c. E.). 2. Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus (1-2 c.) believed that the "days of the Messiah" (nm) would last forty years. His belief, according to one Baraita, was based on Ps. 95.10: "For forty years was I wearied with that generation." According to another Baraita, on a combination of Deut. 8.3: "And he afflicted thee and suffered thee to hunger and fed thee with manna" (40 years in the wilderness); and Ps. 90. 15: "Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us."40 According to Midrash Tehillim 90.17, it was Rabbi Akiba, whose faith in the restoration never wavered" and who heroically championed the cause of Bar Kochba, who entertained this belief.42 It is, of course, difficult to establish exactly what the 38 San. 99a. 39 San. 94a. Geiger suggests that the Hezekiah here mentioned is identical with Hezekiah the Galilean, who was killed by Herod and whose son Judah was the founder of the party of the Zealots. Judah's son Menahem played an important rôle in the revolt of 66. This family may have claimed Davidic descent and entertained Messianic ambitions (see Jüdische Zeitschrift, VIII, pp. 35 ff.) 40 San. 99a. See discussion of this passage in Bacher's 'n nimas, I, pp. 102-3 and notes. 41 Makkoth 24a, b. 42 See also Pesik. Rab. I, ed. Friedmann, p. 4a. Rabbis meant by "the days of the Messiah." There is not only a difference of opinion among them as to the duration of these days, but also as to their character. It is clear that some Rabbis understood by it the years following the appearance of the Messiah, and continuing up to the establishment of the New Order-the Millennium. Others took it to mean the period of Messianic travail immediately preceding the coming of the Messiah. Still others included in it the whole epoch from the preparatory period prior to the appearance of the Messiah to the destruction of the world at the end of the Millennium. This may account in part for the wide disparity as to the supposed length of these "days of the Messiah” varying from forty years to two thousand years.43 It is of interest, however, to note that the Rabbis of the first and the early part of the second centuries-those who lived during the destruction of the Temple, and those who lived before, during or immediately after the Bar Kochba revolution-all gave a comparatively brief term to the Messianic age: Rabbi Eliezer ben Hycranus, 40 years; Rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah, 70 years; Jose the Galilean, 60 years. Whereas those who lived after the Bar Kochba revolution, and in the succeeding centuries, gave comparatively long terms to the Messianic age: Rabbi Dosa, 400 years (600 years); Judah ha-Nasi, 365 years. Even longer terms are attributed to Samuel, Naḥman bar Isaac, and to the anonymous Tanna debe Eliyahu. The explanation may lie in the fact that the earlier Rabbis took the "days of the Messiah" to mean the days of travail immediately preceding the advent of the Messiah, and they expected the Messiah to appear in the very near future. The Bar Kochba revolution shattered these Messianic hopes and brought tragic disillusionment into the hearts of the people, so that the Rabbis who lived after this fateful apocalyptic debacle sought to project the Messianic hope to a more distant future, thereby discouraging, if possible, a recrudescence of such intense hopes in the immediacy of the Messiah's advent. 4 See San. 99a; also Pesiķ. Rab. chap. 1. Rabbis and laymen of the first and the early half of the second centuries generally believed that they were living at the close of the fifth millennium-the last millennium before the thousand years of peace which were to close this mundane cycle. This fact seems generally to have been overlooked by scholars who unconsciously employ the present Creation calendar, which did not make its appearance until considerably later. There are but two references to the Creation calendar in the Talmud, 'Ab. Zar. 9b (4231 A. M.) and San. 97b (4291 a. M.) The latter date is given in connection with R. Joseph bar Ḥiyya (4 c.). The next mention of a Creation date is found in the Baraita of R. Samuel, where the date 4531 a. M. or 771 c. E., is given.44 The Messianic hopes were rife in Israel at this time, not only because the people were suffering under Roman oppression, but also because their chronology led them to believe that they were on the threshold of the Millennium. There did not, of course, exist as yet a fixed and authoritative tradition regarding the age of the world. For some centuries thereafter this subject was debated, among Jews as well as among Christians, but it is evident that the men of the first and the early part of the second centuries had an approximate idea of the place of their age in the creation cycle. They were very near the year 5000! The Rabbis generally believed on the basis of the Biblical Creation week, that "The world will last 6,000 years and will be in chaos 1,000 years."45 The thousand years prior to the destruction of the world (5000-6000) would be the years of consummation and universal blessed ness. The closing chapter of the apocalypse IV Ezra gives a very explicit date: "And I did so in the seventh year of the sixth week of 5,000 years of the creation, and three months and twelve days." The author of this apocalypse 44 See Bornstein's article "" in the прлп, IX, рp. 222 ff. and Mahler's Handbuch der jüd. Chronologie, p. 156. 45 San. 97a. 46 14.48. anticipated the swift approach of the "consummation of the times." The writer of the original source of IV Ezra, living just 35 years after the destruction," believed in the imminent collapse of the Roman Empire and the speedy restoration of Israel. In answer to the preplexed Salathiel (Ezra), who could not reconcile Israel's suffering with the justice of God, the angel replies: "If thou survive, thou shalt see, and if thou livest long, thou shalt marvel, for the age is hastening fast to its end."48 The final redactor of IV Ezra, living in the early reign of Hadrian (c. 120 C. E.) expected the Messiah to come during or directly after the reign of this emperor.49 II Baruch, a composite work of the latter half of the first century, clearly expresses this same thought regarding the age of the world, and the expectations of an early denouement: "For truly my redemption has drawn nigh, and is not far distant as aforetime." 50 "And at that time, after a little interval, Zion will again be builded."51 "For the youth of the world is passed, and the strength of the creation already exhausted, and the advent of the times is very short... and the pitcher is near to the cistern, and the ship to the port."52 In 28.2 the writer seems even to give a cryptic date, which, however, is undecipherable: "For the measure and reckoning of that time are two parts a week of seven weeks." Josephus, too, gives clear indication that the men of his generation took their age to be at the close of the fifth millennium. His Antiquities, which give an historical account from Creation to the year 66 c. E., cover an itemized period of approximately 5,000 years. He wrote the first book of his Contra Apionem (93 c. E.) to substantiate his claim of the great antiquity of the Jewish people. He 47 3.1. See Charles, The Apocalypse and Pseudepigrapha, II, p. 552. 48 4.26. See also verses 44-50: "The fire and the rainstorm have already gone by, only the smoke and the drops remain"; and 5.55: “The creation is growing old." 49 12.27-32. 50 23.7. 51 68.4. 52 85.10. |