Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ or Messiah promised under the Old Testament. That he professed himself to be that Messiah to whom all the prophets gave witness, and who was, in fact, at the time of his appearing, expected by the Jews; and that he was received under that character by his disciples, and by all Christians ever since, is certain. And if the Old Testament Scriptures afford sufficiently definite marks by which the long announced Christ should be infallibly known at his advent, and these presignations are found realized in our Lord, then is the truth of his pretensions established. From the books of the Old Testament we learn that the Messiah was to authenticate his claim by _miracles_; and in those _predictions_ respecting him, so many circumstances are recorded, that they could meet only in one person; and so, if they are accomplished in him, they leave no room for doubt, as far as the evidence of prophecy is deemed conclusive. As to MIRACLES, we refer to that article; here only observing, that if the miraculous works wrought by Christ were really done, they prove his mission, because, from their nature, and having been wrought to confirm his claim to be the Messiah, they necessarily imply a _divine attestation_. With respect to PROPHECY, the principles under which its evidence must be regarded as conclusive will be given under that head; and here therefore it will only be necessary to show the completion of the prophecies of the sacred books of the Jews relative to the Messiah in one person, and that person the founder of the Christian religion. The time of the Messiah’s appearance in the world, as predicted in the Old Testament, is defined, says Keith, by a number of concurring circumstances, which fix it to the very date of the advent of Christ. The last blessing of Jacob to his sons, when he commanded them to gather themselves together that he might tell them what should befall them in the last days, contains this prediction concerning Judah: “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be,” Gen. xlix, 10. The date fixed by this prophecy for the coming of Shiloh, or the Saviour, was not to exceed the time during which the descendants of Judah were to continue a united people, while a king should reign among them, while they should be governed by their own laws, and while their judges should be from among their brethren. The prophecy of Malachi adds another standard for measuring the time: “Behold, I send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me; and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall come suddenly to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of Hosts,” Mal. iii, 1. No words can be more expressive of the coming of the promised Messiah; and they as clearly imply his appearance in the second temple before it should be destroyed. In regard to the advent of the Messiah before the destruction of the second temple, the words of Haggai are remarkably explicit: “The desire of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of Hosts. The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, and in this place will I give peace,” Hag. ii, 7. The Saviour was thus to appear, according to the prophecies of the Old Testament, during the time of the continuance of the kingdom of Judah, previous to the demolition of the temple, and immediately subsequent to the next prophet. But the time is rendered yet more definite. In the prophecies of Daniel, the kingdom of the Messiah is not only foretold as commencing in the time of the fourth monarchy, or Roman empire, but the express number of years that were to precede his coming are plainly intimated: “Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people, and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sin, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy. Know, therefore, and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem, unto Messiah the Prince, shall be seven weeks and threescore and two weeks,” Dan. ix, 24, 25. Computation by weeks of years was common among the Jews, and every seventh was the sabbatical year; seventy weeks, thus amounted to four hundred and ninety years. In these words the prophet marks the very time, and uses the very name of Messiah, the Prince; so entirely is all ambiguity done away. The plainest inference may be drawn from these prophecies. All of them, while, in every respect, they presuppose the most perfect knowledge of futurity; while they were unquestionably delivered and publicly known for ages previous to the time to which they referred; and while they refer to different contingent and unconnected events, utterly undeterminable and inconceivable by all human sagacity; accord in perfect unison to a single precise period where all their different lines terminate at once,--the very fulness of time when Jesus appeared. A king then reigned over the Jews in their own land; they were governed by their own laws; and the council of their nation exercised its authority and power. Before that period, the other tribes were extinct or dispersed among the nations. Judah alone remained, and the last sceptre in Israel had not then departed from it. Every stone of the temple was then unmoved; it was the admiration of the Romans, and might have stood for ages. But in a short space, all these concurring testimonies to the time of the advent of the Messiah passed away. During the very year, the twelfth of his age, in which Christ first publicly appeared in the temple, Archelaus the king was dethroned and banished; Coponius was appointed procurator; and the kingdom of Judea, the last remnant of the greatness of Israel, was debased into a part of the province of Syria. The sceptre was smitten from the tribe of Judah; the crown fell from their heads; their glory departed; and, soon after the death of Christ, of their temple one stone was not left upon another; their commonwealth itself became as complete a ruin, and was broken in pieces; and they have ever since been scattered throughout the world, a name but not a nation. After the lapse of nearly four hundred years posterior to the time of Malachi, another prophet appeared who was the herald of the Messiah. And the testimony of Josephus confirms the account given in Scripture of John the Baptist. Every mark that denoted the time of the coming of the Messiah was erased soon after the crucifixion of Christ, and could never afterward be renewed. And with respect to the prophecies of Daniel, it is remarkable, at this remote period, how little discrepancy of opinion has existed among the most learned men, as to the space from the time of the passing out of the edict to rebuild Jerusalem, after the Babylonish captivity, to the commencement of the Christian era, and the subsequent events foretold in the prophecy. The predictions contained in the Old Testament respecting both the family out of which the Messiah was to arise, and the place of his birth, are almost as circumstantial, and are equally applicable to Christ, as those which refer to the time of his appearance. He was to be an Israelite, of the tribe of Judah, of the family of David, and of the town of Bethlehem. That all these predictions were fulfilled in Jesus Christ; that he was of that country, tribe, and family, of the house and lineage of David, and born in Bethlehem, we have the fullest evidence in the testimony of all the evangelists; in two distinct accounts of the genealogies, by natural and legal succession, which, according to the custom of the Jews, were carefully preserved; in the acquiescence of the enemies of Christ in the truth of the fact, against which there is not a single surmise in history; and in the appeal made by some of the earliest Christian writers to the unquestionable testimony of the records of the census, taken at the very time of our Saviour’s birth by order of Cæsar. Here, indeed, it is impossible not to be struck with the exact fulfilment of prophecies which are apparently contradictory and irreconcilable, and with the manner in which they were providentially accomplished. The spot of Christ’s nativity was distant from the place of the abode of his parents, and the region in which he began his ministry was remote from the place of his birth; and another prophecy respecting him was in this manner verified: “In the land of Zebulun and Naphtali, by the way of the sea beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations, the people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined,” Isaiah ix, 1, 2; Matt. iv, 16. Thus, the time at which the predicted Messiah was to appear; the nation, the tribe, and the family from which he was to be descended; and the place of his birth,--no populous city, but of itself an inconsiderable place,--were all clearly foretold; and as clearly refer to Jesus Christ; and all meet their completion in him. But the facts of his life, and the features of his character, are also drawn with a precision that cannot be misunderstood. The obscurity, the meanness, and the poverty of his external condition are thus represented: “He shall grow up before the Lord like a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form or comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. Thus saith the Lord to him whom man despiseth, to him whom the nation abhorreth, to a servant of rulers, Kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship,” Isaiah liii, 2; xlix, 7. That such was the condition in which Christ appeared, the whole history of his life abundantly testifies. And the Jews, looking in the pride of their hearts for an earthly king, disregarded these prophecies concerning him, were deceived by their traditions, and found only a stone of stumbling, where, if they had searched their Scriptures aright, they would have discovered an evidence of the Messiah. “Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not this the son of Mary? said they and they were offended at him.” His riding in humble triumph into Jerusalem; his being betrayed for thirty pieces of silver, and scourged, and buffeted, and spit upon; the piercing of his hands and of his feet; the last offered draught of vinegar and gall; the parting of his raiment, and casting lots upon his vesture; the manner of his death and of his burial, and his rising again without seeing corruption, were all expressly predicted, and all these predictions were literally fulfilled, Zech. ix, 9; xi, 12; Isaiah l, 6; Psalm xxii, 16; lxix, 21; xxii, 18; Isaiah liii, 9; Psalm xvi, 10. If all these prophecies admit of any application to the events of the life of any individual, it can only be to that of the Author of Christianity. And what other religion can produce a single fact which was actually foretold of its founder? The death of Christ was as unparalleled as his life; and the prophecies are as minutely descriptive of his sufferings as of his virtues. Not only did the paschal lamb, which was to be killed every year in all the families of Israel, which was to be taken out of the flock, to be without blemish, to be eaten with bitter herbs, to have its blood sprinkled, and to be kept whole that not a bone of it should be broken; not only did the offering up of Isaac, and the lifting up of the brazen serpent in the wilderness, by looking upon which the people were healed, and many ritual observances of the Jews, prefigure the manner of Christ’s death, and the sacrifice which was to be made for sin; but many express declarations abound in the prophecies, that Christ was indeed to suffer. But Isaiah, who describes, with eloquence worthy of a prophet, the glories of the kingdom that was to come, characterizes, with the accuracy of a historian, the humiliation, the trials, and the agonies which were to precede the triumphs of the Redeemer of a world; and the history of Christ forms, to the very letter, the commentary and the completion of his every prediction. In a single passage, Isaiah lii, 13, &c; liii, the connection of which is uninterrupted, its antiquity indisputable, and its application obvious, the sufferings of the servant of God (who under that same denomination, is previously described as he who was to be the light of the Gentiles, the salvation of God to the ends of the earth, and the elect of God in whom his soul delighted, Isa. xiii, 10; xlix, 6) are so minutely foretold, that no illustration is requisite to show that they testify of Jesus. The whole of this prophecy thus refers to the Messiah. It describes both his debasement and his dignity; his rejection by the Jews; his humility, his affliction, and his agony; his magnanimity and his charity; how his words were disbelieved; how his state was lowly; how his sorrow was severe; how he opened not his mouth but to make intercession for the transgressors. In diametrical opposition to every dispensation of Providence which is registered in the records of the Jews, it represents spotless innocence suffering by the appointment of Heaven; death as the issue of perfect obedience; God’s righteous servant as forsaken of him; and one who was perfectly immaculate bearing the chastisement of many guilty; sprinkling many nations from their iniquity, by virtue of his sacrifice; justifying many by his knowledge; and dividing a portion with the great and the spoil with the strong, because he hath poured out his soul in death. This prophecy, therefore, simply as a prediction prior to the event, renders the very unbelief of the Jews an evidence against them, converts the scandal of the cross into an argument in favour of Christianity, and presents us with an epitome of the truth, a miniature of the Gospel in some of its most striking features. The simple exposition of it sufficed at once for the conversion of the eunuch of Ethiopia. To these prophecies may, in fact, be added all those which relate to his spiritual kingdom, or the circumstances of the promulgation, the opposition, and the triumphs of his religion; the accomplishment of which equally proves the divine mission of its Author, and points him out as that great personage with whom they stand inseparably connected.

But if Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah, in that character his Deity also is necessarily involved, because the Messiah is surrounded with attributes of divinity in the Old Testament; and our Lord himself as certainly lays claim to those attributes as to the office of “the Christ.” Without referring here to the Scriptural doctrine of a Trinity of divine Persons in the unity of the Godhead, (see _Trinity_,) it is sufficient now to show that both in the Old and New Testament Scriptures, the Messiah is contemplated as a divine Person. In the very first promise of redemption, his superiority to that great and malignant spirit who destroyed the innocence of man, and blighted the fair creation of God, is unquestionably implied; while the Angel of the Divine Presence, the Angel of the Covenant, who appears so prominent in the patriarchal times, and the early periods of Jewish history, and was understood by the early Jews as the future Messiah, is seen at once as a being distinct from Jehovah and yet Jehovah himself; bearing that incommunicable name; and performing acts, and possessing qualities of unquestionable divinity. As the “Redeemer” of Job, he is the object of his trust and hope, and is said to be then a “living Redeemer;” to see whom at the last was to “see God.” As “Shiloh,” in the prophecy of Jacob, he is represented as having an indefinitely extensive reign over “the people” gathered to him; and in all subsequent predictions respecting this reign of Christ, it is represented so vast, so perfect, so influential upon the very thoughts, purposes, and affections of men, that no mere creature can be reasonably supposed capable of exercising it. Of the second Psalm, so manifestly appropriated to the Messiah, it has been justly said, that the high titles and honours ascribed in this Psalm to the extraordinary person who is the chief subject of it, far transcend any thing that is ascribed in Scripture to any mere creature. But if the Psalm be inquired into more narrowly, and compared with parallel prophecies; if it be duly considered, that not only is the extraordinary person here spoken of called, “the Son of God,” but that title is so ascribed to him as to imply, that it belongs to him in a manner that is absolutely singular, and peculiar to himself, seeing he is said to be begotten of God, verse 7, and is called, by way of eminence, “the Son,” verse 12; that the danger of provoking him to anger is spoken of in so very different a manner from what the Scripture uses in speaking of the anger of any mere creature, “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way when his wrath is kindled but a little;” that when the kings and judges of the earth are commanded to serve God with fear, they are at the same time commanded to kiss the Son, which in those times and places was frequently an expression of adoration; and, particularly, that, whereas other Scriptures contain awful and just threatenings against those who trust in any mere man, the Psalmist nevertheless expressly calls them blessed who trust in the Son here spoken of;--all these things taken together make up a character of unequivocal divinity: and, on the other hand, when it is said, that God would set this his Son as his King on his holy hill of Zion, verse 6, this, and various other expressions in this Psalm, contain characters of that subordination which is appropriate to that divine Person who was to be incarnate, and engage in a work assigned to him by the Father. The former part of the forty-fifth Psalm is by the inspired authority of St. Paul applied to the Christ, who is addressed in these lofty words, “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever; a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.” In the same manner Psalm cii, 25–29, is applied to Christ by the same authority, and there he is represented as the Creator of all things, changing his creations as a vesture, and yet himself continuing the same unchanged being amidst all the mutations of the universe. In Psalm cx, David says, “Jehovah said unto my Lord, (_Adonai_,) Sit thou upon my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool.” And in Isaiah vi, the same Adonai is seen by the prophet “seated upon a throne, high and lifted up,” receiving the adoration of seraphs, and bearing the title, “Jehovah, Lord of Hosts,” of which passage St. John makes a direct application to Christ. Isaiah predicts his birth of a virgin, under the title of “Immanuel, God with us.” The same prophet gives to this wonderful child the style of “the Mighty God,” the Everlasting Father,” and the “Prince of Peace;” so that, as Dr. Pye Smith justly observes, “if there be any dependence on words, the Messiah is here drawn in the opposite characters of humanity and Deity,--the nativity and frailty of a mortal child, and the incommunicable attributes of the omnipresent and eternal God.” Twice is he called by Jeremiah, “Jehovah our righteousness.” Daniel terms him the “Ancient of Days,” or “The Immortal;” and Micah declares, in a passage which the council of the Jews, assembled by Herod, applied to the Messiah, that he who was to be born in Bethlehem was “even he whose comings forth are from eternity, from the days of the everlasting period.” Thus the prophetic testimony describes him, as entitled to the appellation of “Wonderful,” since he should be, in a sense peculiar to himself, the Son of God, Psalm ii, 7; Isaiah ix, 6; as existing and acting during the patriarchal and the Jewish ages, and even from eternity, Psalm xl, 7–9; Micah v, 2; as the guardian and protector of his people, Isaiah xl, 9–11; as the proper object of the various affections of piety, of devotional confidence for obtaining the most important blessings, and of religious homage from angels and men, Psalm ii, 12; xcvii, 7; and, finally, declares him to be the eternal and immutable Being, the Creator, God, the Mighty God, Adonai, Elohim, Jehovah. In perfect accordance with these views, does our Saviour speak of himself. He asserts his preëxistence, as having “come down from heaven;” and as existing “before Abraham;” and as being “in heaven” while yet before the eyes of his disciples on earth. In the same peculiar manner does he apply the term “Son of God” to himself, and that with so manifest an intention to assume it in the sense of divinity, that the Jews attempted on that account to stone him as a blasphemer. The whole force of the argument by which he silenced the Pharisees when he asked how the Messiah, who was to be the Son of David, could be David’s Lord, in reference to the passage in the Psalms before quoted, arose out of the doctrine of the Messiah’s divinity; and when he claims that all men should honour him as they honour the Father, and asserts that as the Father hath life in himself, so he has given to the Son to have life in himself, that he “quickeneth whom he will,” that “where two or three meet in his name he is in the midst of them,” and would be with his disciples “to the end of the world;” who does not see that the Jews concluded right, when they said that he made himself “equal with God,”--an impression which he took no pains to remove, although his own moral character bound him to do so, had he not intended to confirm that conclusion. So numerous are the passages in which divine titles, acts, and qualities, are ascribed to Christ, in the apostolical epistles, and so unbroken is the stream of testimony from the apostolic age, that the Deity of their Saviour was the undoubted and universal faith of his inspired followers, and of those who immediately succeeded them, that it is not necessary to quote proofs. The whole argument is this: If the Old Testament Scriptures represent the Messiah as a divine Person; the proofs which demonstrate Jesus to be the Messiah, demonstrate him also by farther and necessary consequence to be divine. Yet, though there is a union of natures in Christ, there is no mixture or confusion of their properties: his humanity is not changed into his Deity, nor his Deity absorbed by his humanity; but the two natures are distinct in one Person. How this union exists, is above our comprehension; and, indeed, if we cannot explain how our bodies and souls are united, it is not to be supposed that we can comprehend the mystery of “God manifest in the flesh.” So truly does Christ bear the name given to him in prophecy,--“Wonderful.”

The doctrine of the Deity of Christ derives farther confirmation from the consideration, that in no sound sense can the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments be interpreted so as to make their very different and often apparently contradictory statements respecting him harmonize. How, for instance, is it that he is arrayed in the attributes of divinity, and yet is capable of being raised to a kingdom and glory?--that he is addressed, “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever,” and yet that it should follow “God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows?”--that he should be God, and yet, by a human birth, “God with us?”--that he should, say, “I and my Father are one,” and, “My Father is greater than I?”--that he is supreme, and yet a servant?--that he is equal and yet subordinate?--that he, a man, should require and receive worship and trust?--that he should be greater than angels, and yet “made lower than the angels?”--that he should be “made flesh,” and yet be the Creator of all things?--that he should raise himself from the dead, and yet be raised by the power of the Father? These and many other declarations respecting him, all accord with the orthodox view of his person; and are intelligible so far as they state the facts respecting him; but are wholly beyond the power of interpretation into any rational meaning on any theory which denies to him a real humanity on the one hand, or a real and personal divinity on the other. So powerfully, in fact, has this been felt, that, in order to evade the force of the testimony of Scripture, the most licentious criticisms have been resorted to by the deniers of his divinity; such as would not certainly have been tolerated by scholars in the case of an attempt to interpret any other ancient writing.

Being, therefore, not only “a teacher sent from God,” but the divine Son of God himself, it might be truly said by his wondering hearers, “Never man spake like this man.” On our Lord’s character as a teacher, therefore, many striking and just remarks have been made by different writers, not excepting some infidels themselves, who, in this respect, have been carried into admiration by the overwhelming force of evidence. This article, however, shall not be indebted to a desecrated source for an estimate of the character of his teaching, and shall rather be concluded with the following admirable remarks of a Christian prelate:-- “When our Lord is considered as a teacher, we find him delivering the justest and most sublime truths with respect to the divine nature, the duties of mankind, and a future state of existence; agreeable in every particular to reason, and to the wisest maxims of the wisest philosophers; without any mixture of that alloy which so often debased their most perfect production; and excellently adapted to mankind in general, by suggesting circumstances and particular images on the most awful and interesting subjects. We find him filling, and, as it were, overpowering our minds with the grandest ideas of his own nature; representing himself as appointed by his Father to be our Instructer, our Redeemer, our Judge, and our King; and showing that he lived and died for the most benevolent and important purposes conceivable. He does not labour to support the greatest and most magnificent of all characters; but it is perfectly easy and natural to him. He makes no display of the high and heavenly truths which he utters; but speaks of them with a graceful and wonderful simplicity and majesty. Supernatural truths are as familiar to his mind, as the common affairs of life are to other men. He revives the moral law, carries it to perfection, and enforces it by peculiar and animating motives: but he enjoins nothing new beside praying in his name, mutual love among his disciples, as such, and the observance of two simple and significant positive laws which serve to promote the practice of the moral law. All his precepts, when rightly explained, are reasonable in themselves and useful in their tendency: and their compass is very great, considering that he was an occasional teacher, and not a systematical one. If from the matter of his instructions we pass on to the manner in which they were delivered, we find our Lord usually speaking as an authoritative teacher; though occasionally limiting his precepts, and sometimes assigning the reasons of them. He presupposes the original law of God, and addresses men as rational creatures. From the grandeur of his mind, and the magnitude of his subjects, he is often sublime; and the beauties interspersed throughout his discourses are equally natural and striking. He is remarkable for an easy and graceful manner of introducing the best lessons from incidental objects and occasions. The human heart is naked and open to him; and he addresses the thoughts of men, as others do the emotions of their countenance or their bodily actions. Difficult situations, and sudden questions of the most artful and ensnaring kind, serve only to display his superior wisdom, and to confound and astonish all his adversaries. Instead of showing his boundless knowledge on every occasion, he checks and restrains it, and prefers utility to the glare of ostentation. He teaches directly and obliquely, plainly and covertly, as wisdom points out occasions. He knows the inmost character, every prejudice and every feeling of his hearers; and, accordingly, uses parables to conceal or to enforce his lessons: and he powerfully impresses them by the significant language of actions. He gives proofs of his mission from above, by his knowledge of the heart, by a chain of prophecies, and by a variety of mighty works. “He sets an example of the most perfect piety to God, and of the most extensive benevolence and the most tender compassion to men. He does not merely exhibit a life of strict justice, but of overflowing benignity. His temperance has not the dark shades of austerity; his meekness does not degenerate into apathy. His humility is signal, amidst a splendour of qualities more than human. His fortitude is eminent and exemplary, in enduring the most formidable external evils and the sharpest actual sufferings: his patience is invincible; his resignation entire and absolute. Truth and sincerity shine throughout his whole conduct. Though of heavenly descent, he shows obedience and affection to his earthly parents. He approves, loves, and attaches himself to amiable qualities in the human race. He respects authority, religious and civil; and he evidences his regard for his country by promoting its most essential good in a painful ministry dedicated to its service, by deploring its calamities, and by laying down his life for its benefit. Every one of his eminent virtues is regulated by consummate prudence; and he both wins the love of his friends, and extorts the approbation and wonder of his enemies. Never was a character at the same time so commanding and natural, so resplendent and pleasing, so amiable and venerable. There is a peculiar contrast in it between an awful greatness, dignity, and majesty, and the most conciliating loveliness, tenderness, and softness. He now converses with prophets, lawgivers, and angels; and the next instant he meekly endures the dulness of his disciples, and the blasphemies and rage of the multitude. He now calls himself greater than Solomon, one who can command legions of angels, the Giver of life to whomsoever he pleaseth, the Son of God who shall sit on his glorious throne to judge the world. At other times we find him embracing young children, not lifting up his voice in the streets, not breaking the bruised reed, nor quenching the smoking flax; calling his disciples, not servants, but friends and brethren, and comforting them with an exuberant and parental affection. Let us pause an instant, and fill our minds with the idea of one who knew all things heavenly and earthly, searched and laid open the inmost recesses of the heart, rectified every prejudice, and removed every mistake, of a moral and religious kind, by a word exercised a sovereignty over all nature, penetrated the hidden events of futurity, gave promises of admission into a happy immortality, had the keys of life and death, claimed a union with the Father; and yet was pious, mild, gentle, humble, affable, social, benevolent, friendly, affectionate. Such a character is fairer than the morning star. Each separate virtue is made stronger by opposition and contrast; and the union of so many virtues forms a brightness which fitly represents the glory of that God ‘who inhabiteth light inaccessible.’ Such a character must have been a real one. There is something so extraordinary, so perfect, and so godlike in it, that it could not have been thus supported throughout by the utmost stretch of human art, much less by men confessedly unlearned and obscure.” We may add, that such a character must also have been _divine_. His virtues are human in their class and kind, so that he was our “example;” but they were sustained and heightened by that divinity which was impersonated in him, and from which they derived their intense and full perfection.

A great deal has been written concerning the form, beauty, and stature of Jesus Christ. Some have asserted, that he was in person the noblest of all the sons of men. Others have maintained, that there was no beauty nor any graces in his outward appearance. The fathers have not expressed themselves on this matter in a uniform manner. St. Jerom believes that the lustre and majesty which shone about our Saviour’s face were capable of winning all hearts: it was this that drew the generality of his Apostles with so much ease to him; it was this majesty which struck those down who came to seize him in the olive garden. St. Bernard and St. Chrysostom contend in like manner for the beauty of Jesus Christ’s person; but the most ancient fathers have acknowledged, that he was not at all handsome. _Homo indecorus et passibilis_, says Irenæus. Celsus objected to the Christians, that Jesus Christ, as a man, was little, and ill made, which Origen acknowledged in his answer to have been written of him. Clemens Alexandrinus owns, in several places, that the person of Jesus Christ was not beautiful, as does also Cyril of Alexandria. Tertullian says plainly, _vultu et aspectu inglorius_; that his outward form had nothing that could attract consideration and respect. St. Austin confesses, that Jesus Christ, as a man, was without beauty and the advantage of person; and the generality of the ancients, as Eusebius, Basil, Theodoret, Ambrose, Isidore, &c, explain the passage in the Psalms, “Thou art fairer than the children of men,” as relating to the beauty of Jesus Christ according to his divinity. This difference in opinion shows that no certain tradition was handed down on this subject. The truth probably is, that all which was majestic and attractive in the person of our Lord, was in the _expression_ of the countenance, the full influence of which was displayed chiefly in his confidential intercourse with his disciples; while his general appearance presented no striking peculiarity to the common observer.

I. The word Jesus is the form assumed in Latin by the Greek Iesous, which is the transliterated form of the Hebrew Jehoshua, Jeshua, or Joshua, meaning “Jehovah is salvation.” In one or other of its forms the name is found in many passages of the Old Testament. It was not, however, borne by any person who rose to historic eminence between the days of Joshua the son of Nun and the high priest Joshua who was the colleague of Zerubbabel at the return from the exile. The prominent position held by Joshua in the later prophetic books seems to have made the name popular. We find frequent traces of it after the exile. During the Hellenizing period, which excited so deep an indignation among patriotic Jews, many of the bearers of the name preferred to adopt the purely Greek analogon Jason, and the name occurs in this form in the New Testament also. Later on it became one of the commonest Jewish names which we find in the New Testament, and again and again in Josephus. There is some reason for believing that the name of Bar Abbas was also “Jesus,” although it may have disappeared from the chief manuscripts, partly from feelings of reverence, partly from the mistaken fancy of Origen that we find no sinner among all those who had borne the name. But the name, though common, was meant to be deeply significant of the work for which Jesus was born into the world—namely, to save His people from their sins; and for this reason, in the account of the Annunciation, as given by St Luke (i. 31), His mother is expressly bidden to call her babe by this name.

On the other hand, the word Christ was not originally a name but a title. In the Gospels we scarcely ever read of Christ, but always of “the Christ.” It was only after the resurrection that the title gradually passed into a name, and “Jesus Christ,” or later still “Christ Jesus,” becomes one designation. The Greek word means “anointed,” and is a translation of the Hebrew “Messiah.” The coming Deliverer for whom the Jews had yearned for so many centuries was spoken of as the “anointed one,” with special reference to the prophecies of Isaiah (lxi. 1) and Daniel (ix. 24-26), which again referred backward to the language of the Psalms (ii. 2, xx. 6, xlv. 7). The anointing of Jesus was the special outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon Him, not only throughout His life (Acts x. 38), but specially at His baptism (John i. 32). Unction was the recognized mode of consecrating any one to the offices of priest (Ex. xxix. 29; Lev. iv. 3) and king (1 Sam. x. 1, ∑xiv. 6); and prophets were supposed to be anointed by God’s grace for the fulfilment of their task (Isa. lxi. 1). The Messiah combined in His office the threefold dignity. He was a prophet to reveal (John vi. 14; Matt, xiii. 57; Luke xiii. 33, xxiv. 19), a king to reign and to judge (Luke xxiii. 2; Acts xvii. 7; 1 Cor. XV. 24; Rev. xv. 3), and a high priest to offer up the sacrifice of Himself (Heb. ii. 17 and passim).

Since these, however, were distinctively J ewish conceptions, it was natural that they should be but little understood by the Greeks and Romans. The word “anointed” conveyed to them no sacred conceptions, and it was restamped (surfrappe) by them into accordance with their own notions. They fancied that the real name of the founder of the new religion must be Chrestzιs or “excellent,” and they constantly spoke of the Christians as “Chrestians.” Suetonius says that the Jews were expelled from Rome by Claudius because they were raising seditions at the constant instigation of “Chrestus”; and he cared so little to inform himself on the subject that he made no distinction between Jews and Christians, and seems to have imagined that “Chrestus” was some leader of sedition then living at Rome. On the other hand the Christians in no wise objected to the mistaken designation. “If you call us Christians,” said Tertullian, “you bear witness to the name of our master; if you call us ‘ Chrestians,’ you testify to the blamelessness of our lives.”

II. The designation of “the Christ” given to Jesus shows that His followers saw in Him the long-promised Messiah of Judaism; and the rapidity with which the title developed into a name proves the strength and permanence of this conviction. And this much at least is conceded by all, that Jesus more than fulfilled the conditions for which the Jews had hoped in the Deliverer of whom so many prophets had spoken, and that He fulfilled them in a manner transcendently wider, deeper, and more permanent than even the prophets had fully foreseen. Even the most advanced sceptic cannot deny that by His life and teaching He has altered the entire current of human history, and raised the standard of human morality. He was, says Renan, “the individual who had made the species take the greatest step towards the divine.” But as His life was passed and His work accomplished, not in a corner, but on the open stage and under the full light of a civilized epoch, it becomes a matter of great importance to estimate the value of the sources from which our knowledge of His life is derived. Those sources are (1) heathen, (2) Jewish, and (3) Christian.

1. The knowledge derivable from heathen sources, if much smaller than we could have desired, or a priori expected, is not smaller than is fully accounted for in the •simple and unsophisticated narratives preserved for us by the evangelists and apostles. They show us that Christianity began from the most humble origin, and was regarded by the whole non-Christian world—alike Jewish and pagan— with unconcealed hatred, largely mingled with a contempt which ultimately passed into terror and exasperation. They faithfully record for us the obscure position, the extreme poverty, the persecuted lives, the unlearned training of the apostles, and the disdain to which they were on all sides subjected. The silence of contemporary Gentile and Jewish writers, which would be otherwise inexplicable, finds its undesigned explanation in the New Testament itself, which never attempts to conceal the contemptuous indignation of the Jewish aristocracy, and the lordly indifference of the higher Gentile authorities.

Accordingly, from heathen writers we do not learn a single new fact respecting Jesus Christ, while yet all that they do tell us, even when expressed in language of calumny and abhorrence, proves the historical reality of the facts which the Gospels record. If it be true that Napoleon once asked Herder whether Jesus ever lived at all, such a passing phase of incredulity is so perfectly unreasonable that it has long been abandoned even by the most destructive critics. Whether there ever existed any authentic census tables of Quirinius, or any official report of Pilate to the emperor Tiberius or not, Tacitus tells us with perfect accuracy that the founder of Christianity had been put to death in the reign of Tiberius by the procurator Pontius Pilate, and that his religion, which Tacitus calls a “deadly superstition,” “though crushed for a time, burst forth again, not only throughout Judaea, in which it sprung up, but even in Rome, the common reservoir for all the streams of wickedness and infamy.” He further tells us that Nero diverted from himself the odium of the burning of Rome by charging the crime upon the Christians; and, though he implies that their fate was not undeserved because of their universal misanthropy, he yet honestly admits that they were not guilty of this crime of incendiarism, on pretence of which they were subjected to the most awful forms of martyrdom. It is clear that Tacitus, in common with all his contemporaries, confounded the Christians with the Jews, only regarding them as being Jews whose belief was more than usually abject. How little information could be expected from this eminent historian appears from the credulity with which he accepted the most foolish legends and calumnies about the origin and early history even of the Jews. His contemporary Suetonius evidently held the same opinions. He seems to regard Nero as a public benefactor because he punished the Christians, “a class of men of a strange and pestilent superstition.” In his life of Claudius, as we have already seen, he ignorantly confuses Christ with some Chrestus whom he supposes to have been at that time living at Rome. From the younger Pliny, who wrote to the emperor Trajan for advice how to deal with Christians, we learn the valuable fact that they lived lives confessedly innocent, since he was unable to establish against them any crime beyond that of the belief which, like his contemporaries, he regarded as a perverse and extravagant superstition. We learn also from this celebrated letter that nothing could shake the allegiance of Christians to Christ, and that they were accustomed to meet early in the morning to celebrate Him as God with hymns of praise. Later in the 2d century the scoffer Lucian, in his Death of Pere grinus, and his Ρhilopseudes, Seo Philops., §§13, 16, which have been thought to imply ridicule of Christian miracles. b spoke with bitter sneers both of Christ and Christians. He alludes to the fact of the crucifixion of Christ, to His miracles, to the mutual love and help which prevailed among His followers, and their belief in Him as a divine person. Passing over the asserted allusions to Christ by Numenius, to His parables in Galerius, and to the earthquake at the crucifixion in Phlegon, we come to the “True Word” of Celsus the Platonist, towards the close of the second century. We only know this by the quotations and refutation of Origen, but it furnishes us with indisputable testimony that in his day the facts of the Gospels from first to last were current in the exact form in which we now possess them (see Celsus). Thus, from the scanty notices of heathens even, we can derive a confirmation of the main external facts in the life of Christ :—His miracles, His parables, His crucifixion, His claim to divine honour, the devotion, innocence, heroic constancy, and mutual affection of His followers, and the progressive victories won by His religion in despite of overwhelming opposition alike physical and intellectual.

2. From Jewish writers we can glean similar confirmation of the gospel story. Philo indeed is silent. The legends preserved by Eusebius —that Philo had met St Peter in Rome during his mission to the emperor Caius, and that in his book on the contemplative life he is describing not the life of the Essenes and Therapeutae, but those of the Christian church in Alexandria founded by St Mark —are valueless. It is extremely probable that Philo had scarcely heard either of Christ or of the Christians. He died-after 40 A.D., but at that period Christianity had hardly emerged into the recognition claimed by prominent historical phenomena. The writings of Philo are valuable, not for any light which they throw on the gospel histories, but for the evidence which they afford of prevalent modes of thought and phraseology, in which some even of the apostles shared. When, however, we turn to Josephus, we find in his writings, as now extant, no less than three allusions to events in the gospel history. Jt cannot be decided with certainty whether two of these passages are genuine as they now stand, but modern opinion tends to the view that in each of the actual allusions to Jesus there is a genuine basis with later Christian interpolations. The passage in which he speaks of the preaching and execution of John the Baptist is not disputed, and it is very important as showing that Josephus must have been perfectly well acquainted with the facts of Christ’s life, and that he has passed them over, in his usual unscrupulous way, with a reticence due only to dislike or perplexity. For in speaking of St John’s preaching he deliberately, and it must be feared dishonestly, excludes the Messianic element from which it derived its main power and significance. In another passage he mentions with strong disapproval the judicial murder by the younger Annas of James the Just, “the brother of Jesus, called the Christ.” The passage was early tampered with by Christian interpolators who wished to make it a more emphatic testimony in favour of Christ, but in its present form its genuineness is undisputed. Respecting the third passage, in which Josephus speaks directly of Jesus, the only question is whether it be partly or entirely spurious. Placing in brackets the words which are undoubtedly interpolated, it runs as follows :—

At this time appeared a certain Jesus, a wise man [if indeed He may be called a man, for He was a worker of miracles, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with joy], and He drew to himself many Jews [and many also of the Greeks. This was the Christ]. And when at the instigation of our chief men Pilate condemned Him to the cross, those who had first loved Him did not fall away. [For He appeared to them alive again on the third day, according as the holy prophets had declared this and countless other marvels of Him.] To this day the sect of Christians, called after Him, still exists.”

That Josephus wrote the whole passage as it now stands no sane critic can believe. Vespasian, not Jesus, was the Messiah of the “ambiguous oracle” of that apostate Jew. There are, however, two reasons which are alone sufficient to prove that the whole passage is spurious,—one that it was unknown to Origen and the earlier fathers, the other that its place in the text is uncertain. It is now found after the historian’s notices of Pilate, but the remarks of Eusebius show that in his time it was found before them. We must conclude then that Josephus preserved a politic silence respecting Christ and the Christians, confining himself to remote allusions; and this was quite possible, because he was writing mainly for Greeks and Romans who were profoundly ignorant of the whole subject. That Josephus knew a great deal more than he chose to say is evident. There is reason to suspect that his account of his own juvenile precocity before the leading teachers of his nation is borrowed from the Gospels, and that his account of his shipwreck on the journey to Rome is not un coloured by the facts of St Paul’s shipwreck about that very time. But the most striking indication of his hostile reticence is found in the chapter of his Antiquities which follows the supposed allusion to Jesus. He there breaks his narrative in the most arbitrary manner to drag in a disgusting story of a trick played by the priests of Isis on a Roman lady; and no one who is acquainted with the Jewish calumnies about the incarnation can doubt that in this story we have an oblique and malignant anticipation of the falsehood which ultimately took form in the Talmud and the anti-Christian writings of the later Jews.

From other Jewish sources not a single fact about Jesus can be gleaned. In the unexpurgated editions of the Talmud there are about twenty allusions to Christ and the Christians characterized by intense hatred. He is usually spoken of indirectly as “that man,” “the Nazarene,” “the fool,” “Absalom,” “the hung,” “the son of Stada,” “the son of Pandera.” Many allusions to Him are veiled in cryptographs of which the key is in the possession of but few. All the grossest fictions respecting him—that He was a seducer (mesιtli) who had learned magic in Egypt, and had been excommunicated by Rabbi Joshua ben Perachia in the reign of Alexander Jannaeus (nearly a century before His birth !), and that He was crucified at Lydda, because no one, during forty days, came forward to give any evidence in His favour—are collected in a miserable Jewish tract called the Toldoth Jeshu, which may be consigned to oblivion, because even the Jews now regard it with contempt and shame. It is, however, remarkable that from these intensely embittered Jewish sources we derive an absolute confirmation of Christ’s stay in Egypt, of His Davidic descent, of His miracles, of His disciples, of His excommunication by the Sanhedrin, of His crucifixion on the evening before the Passover, and even of His innocence, —for not a single crime but that of working miracles by magic, and claiming divine honour, is, even in these sources, laid to His charge. And thus even from pagan and Jewish enemies we derive all that we want and all that we could expect in the recognition of the historic personality of Christ, and of the chief facts in His outward life.

3. If we had nothing to help us but these allusions, the two great facts of Christianity and Christendom would be an inexplicable enigma. In the Christian sources of information all becomes intelligible. Of these we may dismiss for practical purposes all but the New Testament. From the fathers we derive surprisingly little. A few sayings—of which some are very dubious, and of which the most valuable are only variations of those in the Gospels— and one or two highly uncertain incidents, are all that we can glean from them. The Apocryphal Gospels help us still less. They are for the most part heavy fictions, the inventions of an indiscriminate curiosity, often grossly heretical, abounding in coarsely-conceived and even pernicious miracles, and dwelling chiefly on imaginary details of the nativity, the infancy, or the last scenes. Their chief value is to set forth by contrast the immeasurable superiority of the canonical Gospels, by showing us what these also might have been if they had been the products of human invention. But it is not the Gospels alone on which we have to depend. We have four works of which the authenticity has never even been assailed by any serious writer, namely, St Paul’s four epistles to the Galatians, Romans, and Corinthians. These may truly be regarded as a fifth Gospel, of which the testimony is all the more valuable because it is undesigned and incidental. It is also earlier than that of any Gospel, and is the testimony of one whose personality stands forth with absolute clearness in the light of history. Further than this, it is the testimony of a man of commanding intellect, and of the highest Jewish culture, who, after the death of Christ, was converted from the most bitter hostility to the most intense devotion, and who bears his witness within twenty-five years of the events respecting which he speaks. And yet, if we had the epistles of St Paul alone, we could find a contemporary testimony to almost every single fact of primary importance in the life of Christ,—His birth of the seed of David, His poverty, His Messiahship, His moral teaching, His proclamation of the kingdom of God, His calling of the apostles, His supernatural power, His divine claims, His betrayal, His founding of the Last Supper, His passion, crucifixion, burial, resurrection, and repeated appearances. If we add the testimony of the other epistles, we have further testimonies to almost every fact of importance in the Gospels, as we have also in the catholic epistles and in the Revelation of St John.

It is, however, from the Gospels that our fullest light is derived. They are not, and do not profess to be, full biographies written for the gratification of curiosity, but they preserve for us all that is necessary to explain the origin of Christianity in the life of its Founder. In the first three Gospels, called Synoptic, we have sketches of the life and teaching of Christ of which the latest was probably written within forty years of the crucifixion. No one has ever denied that the representation of Christ in these three Gospels is essentially the same. The view of Him presented in the Fourth Gospel, which was not published till towards the close of the 1st century, is more subjective. It is the spiritual Gospel, the Gospel for the church, and even...