they were common in both the older and younger Haggadah. These
national expectations were expressed in the liturgy by the Eighteen
Benedictions, composed by the founders of the Synagogue, the so-called Men
of the Great Synagogue; here the prayers for "the gathering of the
dispersed" and the "destruction of the kingdom of Insolence" precede those
for the "rebuilding of Jerusalem and the restoration of the throne of
David." But the mystic speculations on the origin, activity, and sojourn
of the Messiah, which were a favorite theme of the apocalyptic writers and
the Haggadists during the pre-Christian and the first Christian centuries,
gave way to a more sober mode of thought, in the disappointment that
followed the collapse of the great Messianic movements. On the one hand,
the Church deified its Messiah and thus relapsed into paganism; on the
other, Bar Kochba, "the son of the star," whom the leading Jewish masters
of the law actually considered the Messiah who would free them from Rome,
proved to be a "star of ill-luck" to the Jewish people.(1216) "Like one
who wanders in the dark night, now and then kindling a light to brighten
up his path, only to have it again and again extinguished by the wind,
until at last he resolves to wait patiently for the break of day when he
will no longer require a light," so were the people of Israel with their
would-be deliverers, who appeared from time to time to delude their hopes,
until they exclaimed at last: "In Thy light alone, O Lord, we behold
light."(1217) Samuel the Babylonian, of the third century, in opposition
to the Messianic visionaries of his time, declared: "The Messianic age
differs from the present in nothing except that Israel will throw off the
yoke of the nations and regain its political independence."(1218) Another
sage said: "May the curse of heaven fall upon those who calculate the date
of the advent of the Messiah and thus create political and social unrest
among the people!"(1219) A third declared: "The Messiah will appear when
nobody expects him."(1220) Most remarkable of all is the bold utterance of
Rabbi Hillel of the fourth century, a lineal descendant of the great
master Hillel and the originator of the present Jewish calendar system. In
all likelihood many of his contemporaries were busy calculating the advent
of the Messianic time according to the number of Jubilees in the
world-eras, whereupon he said: "Israel need not await the advent of the
Messiah, as I