CHRONOLOGY FROM CLOSE OF THE CANON OF THE OLD TESTAMENT TO THE CHRISTIAN ERA 332. Jerusalem submits to Alexander the Great. This ends the Persian Do 201. Colonies of Jews from Babylon transplanted to Asia Minor. mination, which began 169. Antiochus Epiphanes pro B.C. 536 at the fall of 320. Palestine subject to Egypt. fanes the Temple at Jerusalem. 168. The Daily Sacrifice is taken away. 167. Matthias the Maccabee revolts. Dominion of Asmoneans, B.C. 167-63. 166. Victory of Judas Macca bæus. 165. Re-dedication of Temple. 161. Asmonean line begins. 146. Greece becomes a Roman Province. 109. First mention of Pharisees and Sadducees, the Pharisees representing strict Hebraism, the Sadducees the extreme of Hellenism. 63. Pompey takes Jerusalem. Dominion of Idumean Antipater and Herod, B.C. 63- 4. 47. Julius Cæsar appoints Antipater procurator of Judæa. Antipater appoints his son Herod to be governor of Galilee. 40. Herod made king of Judæa. 39. Horace born. 31. Augustus, Emperor. 4. Herod dies at Jericho soon VII. Witness of Jewish Tradition T would be a great mistake to suppose that we can IT pass at once from the Old to the New Testament. Between them there is a gap of nearly four centuries, and it is the knowledge of the beliefs that took definite form during that period that alone can enable us to gauge the meaning of much of the teaching given to the world by Jesus Christ and His Apostles. But in order to trace the influence that moulded the traditional belief prevalent at the time of the Incarnation we must follow the political history of the Jews. We must trace the influence of the Gentile world upon Judaism, and see how God used this influence to prepare the Jew for the fuller knowledge of the Gospel, and out of the national exclusiveness of Judaism brought the worldwide unity of the Catholic Church. All that we are concerned with here, however, is a brief summary of the theories as to the future life more or less current among the Jews at the time of the Incarnation. The Persian dominion over the Jews, which had lasted for 230 years, was brought to an end by the submission of Jerusalem to Alexander the Great, who had already overthrown the power of Media and Persia. The European and Asiatic races were united by Alexander under one Empire; this led to the diffusion of the Greek language, first as the common vehicle of communication in the East, and ultimately throughout the whole civilised world. But it was more especially in the foundation of Alexandria-destined to become the centre of the three continents of the old world, and the meeting-place in which Hebrew religion and Greek philosophy were to be united-that Alexander most profoundly affected the history of Judaism and even of Christianity. We have seen how in the Old Testament there is but a vague and shadowy teaching as to the survival of the spirit after the death of the body; how, when the future life is spoken of, the spirit is represented as dwelling in a dim and joyless place, wrapped in something like an unquiet sleep, deprived of all that could make existence worth having-neither enjoying rewards nor suffering penalties. This teaching was, however, in consequence of Greek influence, greatly modified in the deuterocanonical books. About the time when Malachi uttered his prophecy and gave to Jerusalem the last of the canonical Scriptures of the Old Testament, Greece was also given the sublime teaching of Socrates. "In studying the character and life of Socrates we know that we are contemplating the most remarkable moral phenomenon in the ancient world; we are conscious of having climbed the highest point of the ascent of Gentile virtue and wisdom; we find ourselves in a presence which invests with a sacred awe its whole surroundings. We feel that here alone, or almost alone, in the Grecian world, we are breathing an atmosphere, not merely moral, but religious, not merely religious (it may be a strong expression, yet we are borne out by the authority of the earliest Fathers of the Church), but Christian. . . . Not only in the hope" expressed in the Hebrew annals "of a Prince of the House of David, or an Elijah returning from the invisible world, who should set right the wrong and deliver the oppressed, but in the still small voice that was heard by the Ilissus or on the quays of the Piræus was there a call for another Charmer who might come when Socrates was goneeven amongst the Barbarian races-one who should be sought for far and wide, 'for there is no better way of using money than to find such an one.' Not only in the Man of Sorrows, as depicted by the Evangelical Prophet, but in the anticipations of the Socratic dialogues, there was the vision, even to the very letter, of the Just Man, scorned, despised, condemned, tortured, slain, by an ungrateful or stupid world, yet still triumphant. And yet a higher strain is heard. No doubt the Egyptian monuments speak of another life, and the Grecian mythology and poetry spoke of Tartarus and Elysium and the Isles of the Blessed. No doubt the Hebrew Psalmists and Prophets contained aspirations for a bright hereafter, and also dim imagery of the underworld of the grave. But in the dialogue. of Socrates in the prison, the conviction of a future existence is urged--whatever may be thought of the arguments-with an impressive earnestness which has left a more permanent mark on the world, and of which the Jewish mind, hitherto so dark and vacant on this momentous topic, was destined henceforth to become the ready recipient and the chief propagator."2 The signs of this influence of the great Grecian Prophet and of his disciple Plato upon Judaism are found, partly in the deutero-canonical writings that to some extent fill the gap between the Old and New Testaments, and partly in the traditions embodied in the other sacred books of the Jews.3 The association of the deutero-canonical books with the Scriptures of the Old Testament only became possible when the students of Alexandria under Ptolemy Philadelphus had given to the world the Septuagint Greek version of the canonical books. Hebrew literature had almost ceased, and any attempted additions to the sacred writings were neces1 Phado, Plato. 2 The Jewish Church, STANLEY, vol. iii., pp. 220, 226. 3 It is remarkable that, after the close of the Canon, it is in the Gentile rather than in the Jewish literature that we find hope of a Deliverer and Example of righteousness, and the coming of the Golden Age. There is no reference to the hope of a Messiah in the Apocrypha. About a century before Christ this hope was indeed revived, as is witnessed by the Book of Enoch, the Psalms of Solomon and the Sibylline Oracles. The "books of Moses" were probably translated first, as these books were considered inspired in a more full sense than even the Prophets. Gradually and at intervals the other books were translated. The Pales |