of these books especially struck
him, namely, the Book of Daniel. This book, composed by an
enthusiastic Jew of the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, under the name of
an ancient sage,[1] was the _resume_ of the spirit of those later
times. Its author, a true creator of the philosophy of history, had
for the first time dared to see in the march of the world and the
succession of empires, only a purpose subordinate to the destinies of
the Jewish people. Jesus was early penetrated by these high hopes.
Perhaps, also, he had read the books of Enoch, then revered equally
with the holy books,[2] and the other writings of the same class,
which kept up so much excitement in the popular imagination. The
advent of the Messiah, with his glories and his terrors--the nations
falling down one after another, the cataclysm of heaven and
earth--were the familiar food of his imagination; and, as these
revolutions were reputed near, and a great number of persons sought to
calculate the time when they should happen, the supernatural state of
things into which such visions transport us, appeared to him from the
first perfectly natural and simple.

[Footnote 1: The legend of Daniel existed as early as the seventh
century B.C. (Ezekiel xiv. 14 and following, xxviii. 3). It was for
the necessities of the legend that he was made to live at the time of
the Babylonian captivity.]

[Footnote 2: _Epist. Jude_, 14 and following; 2 Peter ii. 4, 11;
_Testam. of the Twelve Patriarchs_, Simeon, 5; Levi, 14, 16; Judah,
18; Zab., 3; Dan, 5; Naphtali, 4. The "Book of Enoch" still forms an
integral part of the Ethiopian Bible. Such as we know it from the
Ethiopian version, it is composed of pieces of different dates, of
which the most ancient are from the year 130 to 150 B.C. Some of these
pieces have an analogy with the discourses of Jesus. Compare chaps.
xcvi.-xcix. with Luke vi. 24, and following.]

That he had no knowledge of the general state of the world is apparent
from each feature of his most authentic discourses. The earth appeared
to him still divided into kingdoms warring with one another; he seemed
to ignore the "Roman peace," and the new state of society which its
age inaugurated. He had no precise idea of the Roman power; the name
of "Caesar" alone reached him. He saw building, in Galilee or its
environs, Tiberias, Julias, Diocaesarea, Caesarea, gorgeous works of the
Herods, who sought, by these magnificent structures, to prove their
admirati