ager to return to Palestine, to
rebuild State and Temple under the leadership of the heir to the throne of
David. But when their hope had failed that Zerubbabel would prove to be
the "shoot of Jesse,"(1186) the prophetic elegy was referred to the
Messiah, and the belief gained ground that he would have to suffer before
he would triumph.(1187) Thus many a pseudo-Messiah fell a victim to the
tyranny of Rome in both Judaea and Samaria,--for the Samaritans also hoped
for a Messiah, a redeemer of the type of Moses.(1188) Finally a belief
arose that there would be two Messiahs, one of the house of Joseph, that
is, the tribe of Ephraim, who would fall before the sword of the
enemy,(1189) and the other of the house of David, who was to conquer the
heathen nations and establish his throne forever.(1190)

The Church referred the pathetic figure of the man of sorrow to her
crucified Messiah or Christ. Yet he who was to be a world-savior bore
through his followers damnation to his own kinsmen, and thus was rendered
the chief cause of the persecution of the martyr-race of Israel.

6. We learn, however, from Origen, a Church father of the third century,
that Jewish scholars, in a controversy with him, expressed the view that
the Servant of the Lord refers to the Jewish people, which, dispersed
among the nations and universally despised, would finally obtain the
ascendancy over them, so that many of the heathen would espouse the Jewish
faith.(1191) Most of the medieval Jewish exegetes, including Rashi, who
usually follows the traditional view, refer the chapter likewise to the
Jewish people. As a matter of fact, the earlier chapters which speak of
the Servant of the Lord can have no other meaning, while many points in
the description of the suffering hero, especially the reference to his
seed after his death, do not fit the Nazarene at all. Hence all
independent Christian scholars to-day have abandoned the tradition of the
Church, and admit that Israel alone is declared by the prophet to be the
one singled out by God to atone for the sins of the nations, to arouse all
humanity to a deeper spiritual vision, and finally to triumph over all the
heathen world.(1192)

7. Thus the strange history of the martyr people is put in the right light
and the great tragedy of Israel explained. Israel is the champion of the
Lord, chosen to battle and suffer for the supreme values of mankind, for
freedom and justice, truth and humanity; the man of wo