ed close." The
writer of the book of Daniel looked for the immediate arising of
some inspired hero and servant of Jehovah to overthrow this wicked
despot, this persecuting monster, and avenge the oppressed Jews on
their Gentile tyrants. When subsequent events postponed this
expected sequel, the opposed parties in it, the Antichrist and the
Christ, were thrown forward together in ever dilating proportions
of gloom and brightness: the fierce countenanced king in Daniel
becomes the Man of Sin in Paul and the Beast drunk with the blood
of saints in the Apocalypse. And in the Rabbinical books of the
Jews the belief in Antichrist, under the name of Armillus, is
developed into a mass of mythological details, afterwards adopted
quite in the gross by the Mohammedans. Terrible signs will precede
the appearance of the Messiah, such as a dew of blood, the
darkening of the sun, the destruction of the holy city, with the
slaughter and dispersion of the Israelites, and the suffering of
awful woes. The Messiah shall gather his people and rebuild and
occupy Jerusalem. Armillus shall collect an army and besiege that
city. But God shall say to Messiah, "Sit thou on my right hand,"
and to the Israelites, "Stand still, and see what God will work
for you to day." Then God will pour down sulphur and fire from
heaven, and consume Armillus and his hosts. Then the trumpet will
sound, the tombs be opened, the ten tribes be led to Paradise to
celebrate the marriage supper of the Messiah, the aliens be
consigned to Gehenna, and the earth be renovated.

As the doctrine of the functions of the Messiah, in this finished
form, is not stated in the Old Testament, but was familiar in the
Christian Church, it is commonly supposed to be exclusively a
later Christian development from the Jewish germ. It did, however,
exist in the Jewish mind, before the birth of Christ, in the
mature form already set forth. It is found clearly laid down and
drawn out in Jewish apocryphal books dated earlier than the
Christian era. It is likewise explicitly and minutely detailed in
the Talmud, where its subsequent adoption from the Christians must
have been impossible to the bigoted scorn and hate of the Jews for
the Christians; while the historic affiliation of Christianity on
Judaism made the Christians avowedly adopt all the vital doctrines
of the older creed. The gradual growth of the Christian doctrine
of the connection of the Messiah with the final judgment, out of