give us so little help in regard to the characteristic detail of the eschatology of Jesus and His contemporaries.
A further point to be noticed is that the eschatology of the time of Jesus shows the influence of the eschatology of the ancient prophets in a way which is not paralleled either before or after. Compare the Synoptic eschatology with that of the Psalms of Solomon. In place of the legal righteousness, which, since the return from the exile, had formed the link of connexion between the present and the future, we find the prophetic ethic, the demand for a general repentance, even in the case of the Baptist. In the Apocalypses of Baruch and Ezra we see, especially in the theological character of the latter, the persistent traces of this ethical deepening of apocalyptic.
But even in individual conceptions the apocalyptic of the Baptist, and of the period which he introduces, reaches back to the eschatology of the prophetic writings. The pouring forth of the spirit, and the figure of Elias, who comes again to earth, play a great role in it. The difficulty is indeed, consciously felt of combining the two eschatologies, and bringing the prophetic within the Danielic. How, it is asked, can the Son of David be at the same time the Danielic Son-of-Man Messiah, at once David's son and David's Lord?
It is inadequate to speak of a synthesis of the two eschatologies. What has happened is nothing less than the remoulding, the elevation, of the Daniel-Enoch apocalyptic by the spirit and conceptions belonging to the ancient prophetic hope.
A great simplification and deepening of eschatology begins to show itself even in the Psalms of Solomon. The conception of righteousness which the writer applies is, in spite of its legal aspect, of an ethical, prophetic character. It is an eschatology associated with great historical events, the eschatology of a Pharisaism which is fighting for a cause, and has therefore a certain inward greatness. [1] Between the Psalms of Solomon and the appearance of the Baptist there lies the decadence of Pharisaism. At this point there suddenly appears an eschatological movement detached from Pharisaism, which was declining into an external legalism, a movement resting on a basis of its own, and thoroughly penetrated with the spirit of the ancient prophets.
The ultimate differentia of this eschatology is that it was not, like the other apocalyptic movements, called into existence by
- ↑ The fact that in the Psalms of Solomon the Messiah is designated by the ancient prophetic name of the Son of David is significant of the rising influence of the ancient prophetic literature. This designation has nothing whatever to do with a political ideal of a kingly Messiah. This Davidic King and his Kingdom are, in their character and the manner of their coming, every whit as supernatural as the Son of Man and His coming. The same historical fact was read into both Daniel and the prophets.
