IV. THE LEGENDS GENERALISED.
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If we examine well the account in the Zendavesta of the paradise wherein Yima walked with Ahuramazda, and that in Genesis of Eden where Enoch walked with Elohim, we can hardly fail to recognise in them the germ of the Messianic dream. The visions of the renovated earth described by Philo, and in the Sibylline Oracles, and in the Apocalypse of Baruch, are but realistic expansions of those happy retreats of the holy ones who were not supposed to taste corruption.[14] In this idealised earth were gathered the beauties and joys of many Gulistans.
And, similarly, he who was to reign over the imparadised in this perfected earth was to be an immortal king returning from his Avalon, invested with the attributes of all the incorruptible. These had been gradually raised into an abstract personality—the “Angel-Messiah,” to which Mr. Ernest de Bunsen has given such patient research with many interesting results—who, however, was purely a terrestrial being, a Son of Man.
The phrase “Ancient of Days,” used three times in Daniel vii., and the snow-white hair there ascribed to that being, who gives dominion to the Son of Man brought before him, convey the idea of a being that has lived through all changes, a memory and consciousness in which the ages broken up to mortal eyes are knit together, and therefore able to be a providence and a retributive judge. Viceroy of this Ancient of Days is the immortal man in whose unbroken consciousness all history is embodied: he is the earthly providence. Before Abraham was, he is. He abides with the Ancient in his earthly dwelling, but goes forth at appointed periods for certain purposes. He is the “Son of Man” as distinguished from the sons of Kings; reigns not by succession but by election of the Deity manifested in signs and marvels, such as the carrier dove bringing the divine sanction to emperors who break the order of legitimacy. No incarnation was imagined; the avatars of this Son of Man are the Apparitions of one always in the earth, but able to render himself invisible, or who assumes an humble disguise. This disguise may be thrown off occasionally in some solitary place, for a select few who are charged with secresy.
This Messiah gathered up in his person the powers and glories of past saints and heroes, and it was expected that these would attend him at the supreme scene of his coronation on earth. Elias was to appear as his herald. In Seder ’Olam Rabbah it is said, “In the second year of the reign of Ahaziah, Elias became hidden, [to be] seen no more until King Messiah shall come, when he will be again seen, and hidden a second time, and not seen again until Gog and Magog come. And now he writes down the work of all the generations.” It was asked of John the Baptist “Art thou Elias?” and next “Art thou that prophet?” Who was this prophet popularly thus associated with Messianic expectations? Professor Drummond suggests that it was Jeremiah, and cites the vision of Judas Maccabæus, in which he saw, beside Onias the high-priest, “a man with grey hairs and exceeding glorious,” who was declared to be Jeremiah, “who offers many prayers for the people and the holy city.” Jeremiah gave Judas a golden sword, and told him to wound the adversaries.
On the nether side of this Messianic dream we find a pit or underworld—some region which could not mar the fair face of the perfect earth—which is an outcome of the wilderness of Dendain, Cain’s Land, every weird desolation. And the king of this region sums up in himself the line of eternal evil wanderers—Cain, Lamech, Esau, Samuel—in a personification of hostility to the Messiah. This generalised Opposition—called Armillus among the Jews, Al Dajjail by the Mussulmans—corresponds exactly with Antichrist among the early Christians. It was said Armillus was to be born out of a marble statue in a church at Rome (the ne plus ultra of earthly infernalism to a race detesting graven images and victimised by Rome), and that Christendom would worship him until the true Messias (Ben David) should appear, and, as says the Targum (Isa. xi. 4) “By the word of his mouth the wicked Armillus shall die.”