Ezekiel, Zechariah, and Joel.  Each of these prophets looked forward to the time when Jehovah would miraculously overthrow their heathen foes, restore his scattered people, and establish for them a world-wide, eternal kingdom.  In the closing chapters of the book of Daniel this form of belief attains its fullest expression in the Old Testament.  In the Similitudes of Enoch (37-71), which come either from the latter part of the Maccabean era or else from the days of Herod, these messianic hopes are still further developed.  Instead of Israel’s guardian angel Michael, represented as coming on the clouds from heaven and in appearance like a son of man, a heavenly Messiah is introduced.  He is known by the title of the Messiah, the Elect One, and the Son of Man (probably taken from the book of Daniel).  In Enoch the term Son of Man has evidently become, as in IV Esdras, the title of a personal Messiah.  He is described as pre-existent and gifted with the divine authority.  When he appears, the dead are to rise, and angels, as well as men, are to be tried before his tribunal.  The sinners and the fallen angels he will condemn to eternal punishment.  All sin and wrong shall be driven from the earth.  Heaven and earth shall be transformed, and an eternal kingdom shall be established in which all the righteous, whether dead or living, shall participate.  This was evidently the type of messianic hope held by the Pharisees as well as the Essenes.  As the result of the teaching of the Pharisees it was held widely by the Jews of the first Christian century.  It was clearly in the minds of Jesus’ disciples when he made his last journey to Jerusalem.  It was both the background and the barrier to all his work.  It is the key to the interpretation of Paul’s conception of the Christ, or the Messiah, for he had been educated a Pharisee.  This apocalyptic type of messianic hope powerfully influenced the life and thought of the early Christian Church and even permeated the Gospel narratives.  The question of how far Jesus himself was influenced by it is one of the most vital and difficult problems of early Christian history.

IV.  The Ethical and Universalistic Type of Messianic Prophecy.  Far removed from the kingly, messianic hopes of the people and the supernatural visions of the apocalypses were the plain, direct, practical ideals of Israel’s great ethical prophets.  Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Jeremiah all united in declaring that the realization of Jehovah’s purpose in history depended primarily upon the response of his people.  They regarded the kingdom of God as a natural growth.  It represented the gradual transformation of the characters of men under the influence of God’s truth and spirit working in their minds.  They hoped and labored to see the nation Israel living in full accord with the demands of justice, mercy, and service.  The ii Isaiah, under the influences which grew out of the destruction of the temple and the closer contact with the heathen world, voiced