XIII. 24-26.

In those days .... shall they see the Son of Man coming in

the clouds.

See above, pp. 112, 113.

XIV. 21.

The Son of Man indeed goeth, as it is written of him.

See above, pp. 117, 118.

XIV. 27.

It is written, "I will smite the Shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered."

See above, pp. 118, 119.

XIV. 49.

The Scriptures must be fulfilled.

See above, pp. 119, 120.

XIV. 61, 62.

The high-priest asked him, and said unto him, "Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?" And Jesus said, “I am": and ye shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.

See above, pp. 121, 122. — The passage illustrates the equivalence of the three titles, Christ, Son of the Blessed (that is, Son of God), and Son of Man. See above, pp. 50-53, 65-68.

XV. 28.

And the Scripture was fulfilled which saith, "And he was numbered with the transgressors."

The reference is to Isaiah liii. 12. 17 et seq., and comp. Luke xxii. 37.) nor John makes this quotation.

(See above, pp. Neither Matthew

XV. 34.

Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"

See above, pp. 126, 127.

Mark reports Jesus as using a Syriac form for "My God." Eli (in Matthew) is pure Hebrew. Eloi occurs in the Septuagint (Judges v. 5).

SECTION III.

GOSPEL OF LUKE.

I. 5.

A certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia.

See 1 Chron. xxiv. 5, 10.

I. 17.

He shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared

for the Lord.

Mourning over the sinful practices of his time, Malachi had said (iv. 6) that it seemed as if Jehovah would have to send another Elijah, another restorer of the Law, to "turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers." The angel who spoke with Zechariah is here represented as applying the words, in an inaccurate quotation of them (comp. Mal. iii. 1), to John, the forerunner of the new Christian dispensation. John, with a spirit and power like that of the great ancient reformer, was to be the Lord's herald in introducing the coming kingdom. (See above, pp. 74, 75, and comp. "Lectures," &c., Vol. III. p. 502.)

I. 19.

The angel answering said unto him, "I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God, and am sent to speak unto thee, and to show thee these glad tidings."

6

"The mythology of a divine council of seven angels is believed to have had its origin in the attendance with which the Persian king, Darius Hystaspis, surrounded his throne. (Eich. Einleit. in die Apokryph. Schrift.,' s. 408, Anm. h.) But however this might be, it was a doctrine of the Persians (Bertholdt, 'Einleit.,' § 582; Corrodi, Versuch,' Band I. ss. 89-91), with which people the Jews had no intimate relations till the time of the capture of Babylon by Cyrus; and several generations must be supposed to have passed before the Jews incorporated into their own popular faith an article so peculiar, and so foreign to their national theology." ("Lectures," &c., Vol. IV. p. 363.) The Jews brought with them from Babylon the names of the seven chief angels (comp. Apoc. viii. 2), on their return from the captivity. So testify the Rabbins with one accord. (See Wetsten. "Nov. Test." in Luc. i. 19.) The later Jewish books present the names of four of them; viz. Gabriel (Dan. viii. 16, ix. 21), Michael (Dan. x. 13, 21, xii. 1; comp. Jude 9, Apoc. xii. 7), Raphael (Tobit iii. 17, v. 4, viii. 2, ix. 1, 5, xii. 15), and Uriel (2 Esd. iv. 1, v. 20).

And now, in his narrative of events connected with the birth of Jesus, the Evangelist Luke relates that the miraculous apparition which foretold to Zacharias the birth of his son "said unto him, 'I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God.'' How are we to understand this? Are we to take it as corroborative of the truth of that doctrine concerning angels which the Jews, in the feeble days of their exile, had imbibed from a Pagan source? Are we to consider God as

here confirming the dreams of the Persians? Does the language of Luke convert the speculations of the times of and after Darius Hystaspis into articles of Christian faith, and establish the doctrine that there is a superhuman being, privileged to "stand in the presence of God," and bearing the name of Gabriel?

We naturally think, in the first place, of the evidence upon which the knowledge of this transaction, with all its particulars, has reached us. Zacharias was the only eye and ear witness to it; and him it is not in the slightest degree probable that Luke ever saw. At the time to which it belongs, Zacharias was already "well stricken in years" (Luke i. 7), so as to have given up the hope of posterity. It was thirty years after that, before Jesus began to call disciples, and we do not know even that Luke became a disciple during his personal ministry. (Comp. Luke i. 1, 2.) The account must have been transmitted from Zacharias to him through intermediate hands (comp. Luke i. 65); and we can scarcely rely so confidently on its having been transmitted with verbal exactness, as to feel certain that the words "I am Gabriel" were actually used by the supernatural appearance, when that part of the narrative would, in the course of transmission, be so likely to take such a form, from the current superstition respecting the hierarchy of angels. And this idea gains strength, when we remember that the Evangelist Matthew, who may be supposed to have been better acquainted than Luke with the mother of Jesus, does not name Gabriel in his account of these transactions. (Matt. i. 20, 24; ii. 13.) Luke says (i. 65, 66) that "all these sayings were noised abroad throughout all the hill-country of Judea; and all they that heard them laid them up in their hearts." May we not understand him as here indicating the source

of his information; viz. common report, which always improves upon a story?

But let us suppose the words, after floating in tradition for more than half a century, to have been at length recorded by Luke precisely as they had been spoken to Zacharias, what inference is it necessary to deduce from them in respect to the existence of a superhuman being, named Gabriel? Undoubtedly, it would be altogether extraordinary, and contrary to the doctrine of chances, that a heathen or even a Jewish speculation should have hit so exactly right as to guess that very name of a superhuman being which revelation afterwards declared to be his true name. Very clear and strong evidence would seem to be requisite to establish a fact so singular.

I take it to be quite unnecessary to resort to so violent an interpretation of the words, even supposing them to be recorded precisely as they were spoken by the supernatural messenger. Ex vi termini, in the Old and New Testament sense, an angel meant simply a messenger, an errand-bearer, any medium of communication or action whatever, and this equally between man and man or between God and man. Such is the meaning of the corresponding Hebrew and Greek words ( and ayyeλos). The angel, or instrumentality, may be inanimate, sentient, or human, or it may be a superhuman manifestation or creation, whether temporary or permanent. (See "Lectures," &c., Vol. I. p. 104.) In the case before us, a superhuman messenger bore God's errand; and, taking the words "I am Gabriel" to have been used by him just as they are recorded, I understand the natural construction of them to be, that he used a language significant to Zacharias, as being borrowed from the current conceptions of the time. When he said, “I am