"R. Jose the Galilean, heal me!"''82 and R. Ishmael b. Elisha was a great Aggadist and was by later ages regarded as the author of the Hekalot and Shi'ur Koma.

That the Rabbis of the latter half of the first and those of the early half of the second centuries actually believed that the redemption from the yoke of Rome and the restoration of the people to political independence would take place in the proximate future is also apparent from the many Talmudic passages which give a definite Messianic content to the political and social conditions of their times. The Rabbis regarded the demoralization which set in the life of the people as a result of the fall of Jerusalem, the unsuccessful rebellion of Bar Kochba, and the subsequent persecutions, as the heble Mashiaḥ, the travail pains of the Messianic Age. These teachers, in the passages which we are about to quote, were not describing theoretically, in an academic vein, the conditions which would prevail at some future time when the Messiah would come. They were concretely depicting the unprecedented conditions which actually were existing in their own time, and they were sincerely anticipating a swift change through the advent of the Messiah. That these conditions actually did prevail is clear from a reading of the tragic catalogue found in the Mishnah Sotah IX 12-15: "From the day the Temple was destroyed the 'Shamir' (a worm that cuts stones with its glance) ceased to exist, and the 'Nofet Zufim' (honeycomb) as well as the men of faith.. From the day the Temple was destroyed there is no day which does not bring with it a curse; the dew never descends for a blessing, the taste is gone from the fruit, even the fat from the crops. . . . From the day the Temple was destroyed the Haberim (scholars living under a rigid regime of Levitical purity) and the men of excellence have been put to shame, the men of action have been impoverished, but the men of violence and slander have become powerful and no one seems to seek or inquire after God.. From the day the Temple was destroyed the Ḥakamim 82 See Pinsker, pips, App. p. 32,

83 M.K. 28b.

(the sages) have become like the Soferim (scribes), the Soferim like the Hazzanim (teachers of children), the Ḥazzanim like the 'Ame ha-Arez, (the unlettered ones), and the 'Ame ha-Arez are growing poorer and poorer. It is only after the enumeration of this list that the Mishnah sharply and significantly turns to a catalogue of the conditions which will prevail just prior to the coming of the Messiah 'be'ikbata di-Meshiḥa'-conditions which are the exact parallel "in extenso" of those just given. The Tosefta Sotah, describing the condition of the times, makes no mention of the Messiah at all.

These conditions ushering in the Messiah, enumerated in the Mishnah, are given anonymously. In San. 97a they are attributed to three rabbis, all three of the second century.

1. Rabbi Judah (2 c.) said: "In the generation when the son of David will come, the scholars' meeting place will be turned into a place of debauchery. Galilee will be destroyed, the Gablan (Gabalene-very fertile land) will be desolate, and its men will wander helplessly about from city to city, and the wisdom of the scribes will be held in ill repute, and sin-fearing men will be disdained, and the face of the generation will be like the face of a dog, and truth will nowhere be found."84

2. Rabbi Neḥorai (2 c.) said: "In the generation when the son of David will come youths will put old men to shame, and old men will be compelled to stand in the presence of youths, and a daughter will rise up against her mother, and a bride against her mother-in-law . . and a son will not respect his father."

3. Rabbi Nehemiah (2 c.) said: "In the generation when the son of David will come, insolence will increase and high prices will prevail, the vine will yield abundantly but the price of wine will be high, and the whole kingdom will be

84 See also II Baruch 70.3-5. The interpretation of the "last black waters": "And they shall hate one another, and provoke one another to fight, and the mean shall rule over the honorable, and those of low degree shall be extolled above the famous. And the many shall be delivered into the hands of the few, and those who were nothing shall rule over the strong, and the poor shall have abundance beyond the rich, and the impious shall exalt themselves above the heroic, and the wise shall be silent, and the foolish shall speak,"

converted to apostasy (minut) and no amount of censure will avail."

A similar opinion is expressed by Rabbi Eleazar ben Simon (2 c.): "The son of David will not come until all judges and officers have disappeared from Israel."85 An anonymous Baraita reads: "The son of David will not come until the acts of informing (delivering a man over to the government) will increase, the number of students will decrease, and the last coin will disappear from the purse, and men will begin to despair of redemption."86

Palestinian teachers of the third century, like Rabbi Ḥanina ben Ḥama and Rabbi Yoḥanan ben Nappaḥa, and those who, like Rab and Samuel, came under the Palestinian influence, retained this tradition, but only as a general feature of Messianic times

C. 175 c. E.-500 c. E.

Following the frustration of the Messianic hope in the second century, the next Messianic date seems to have been generally, though not exclusively, placed about four hundred years after the destruction, somewhere in the fifth century. The Rabbis no longer pointed to a date in the near future, but projected it into a relatively distant future. The Bar Kochba disaster had taught them a bitter lesson. The figure 400 was quite naturally fixed upon as it corresponded with the number of years of the first exile-the Egyptian.87 The principle was laid down that the final redemption would be exactly like the first redemption.88

1. Rabbi Dosa (2-3 c.) stated that the Messiah would come at the end of 400 years. He derived his figure from a comparison of Ps. 90.15 with Gen. 15.13: "And they shall afflict them 400 years.'

1989

2. According to a Baraita in San. 99a, Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi (c. 135-220 c. E.), the redactor of the Mishnah, believed that the Messiah would come 365 years after the

85 San. 98a.

86 San. 97a.

87 Gen. 15.13.

88 Mid. R. Num. 11.3.

89 San. 99a.

destruction (i. e. c. 435 c. E.). The number corresponds to the number of days in the solar year, and the ground for his opinion he finds in Is. 63.4: "For the day of vengeance that was in My heart and My year of redemption are come," that is, one year for every day in the solar year. An anonymous Baraita 90 states that the Messiah would come 354 years after the destruction (i. e. c. 425 c. E.), according to the number of days in the lunar year.

3. Rabbi Hanina (3 c.) likewise believed that the Messiah would appear 400 years after the destruction. "If 400 years after the destruction a man says to you 'Buy my field, which is worth one thousand dinars, for one dinar,' do not buy it."91 The Messiah will appear that year, and land will be distributed free to everybody. A Baraita is also quoted there to the same effect: "If in the year 4231 A. M. (c. 470 C. E.) a man says to you 'Buy my field, which is worth a thousand dinars, for one dinar,' do not take it."

4. The legend of the mysterious scroll found in the archives of Rome seems to point to a similar Messianic date. Rabbi Hanan ben Taḥlipa sent word to Rabbi Joseph (4 c.): "I happened upon a man who had in his possession a scroll written both in Assyrian and Hebrew script (i. e. in square characters and in the Hebrew language). I asked him where he got it, and he told me that he had hired himself out as a servant in the Roman army, and that he had found this scroll in the archives of Rome. In it is written: 4291 years after Creation the present order of the world will come to an end. The Wars of the Serpents will then take place, and the Wars of Gog and Magog, following which the Messianic age will set in."92 It is probable that the figure originally read 4231 (i. e. c. 470 c. E.). 93

90 Mid. Tehil. ed Buber. Ps. 90.17, note 93.

91 'Ab. Zar. 9b.

92 San. 97b.

93 The Wars of the Serpents are an echo of the Tehom-myth, whose classic expression in the Bible is found in Is. 27-1 (see W. O. E. Oesterley, The Evolution of the Messianic Idea, Chap. V.) Gog and Magog are the legendary enemies of Israel. They will lead the hosts of the heathen nations in their final attack upon Israel, but they will be utterly discomfited,

5. A similar prediction is contained in the revelation made to Rabbi Judah, brother of Rabbi Sela Ḥasida, (3 c.) by Elijah himself: "The world will endure no less than 85 jubilees (4250 years), and in the last jubilee the son of David will come" (i. e. between 440 and 490 c. E.). Rabbi Judah inquired whether he would come toward the beginning or the end of that period, or at the very end, but Elijah replied that he did not know.

Rab Ashi, who lived in the beginning of the fifth century -the Messianic century-sought to avert any evil consequences which might follow upon the failure of the Messianic hope, by interpreting this statement of Elijah to mean, "Before the 85th jubilee you need not expect him at all. After the 85th jubilee you may expect him."94

6. A teacher of the school of Elijah expressed the belief that the Messiah could have come as early as 240 c. E., but the sins of the people delayed his coming. "The world will exist 6000 years. The first 2000 years were those of chaos (without the Torah), the second 2000 years were those under the Torah, and the last 2000 years are the Messianic years. But because of our many sins there have already elapsed the years which have gone by (and the Messiah has not yet come)."95 According to this belief those living after 240 c. E. are definitely within the Messianic cycle and may expect his coming at any time, provided the people are prepared through repentance and selfpurification to receive him.

As the fifth century approached the Messianic expectation became vivid and intense. That century witnessed the final scenes in the decline and fall of Rome, mistress of the world for six hundred years. It was a distraught and turbulent century, seething with unrest, marked with the swift movements of barbarian peoples upon Rome; the invasion of Alaric, king of the Visigoths, and the sack of Rome (410 c. E.), the migration of the Vandals through Spain and their conquest of Africa under Gaiseric (430 c. E.), a second sack of Rome by these Vandals (455

94 San. 97b.

* San. 97a, b; 'Ab. Zar. 9a.