ie Sees — ee i a eae it .% | a ee ee oe sat ; Division. ft im pemets me ys ‘ MMEO? Digitized by the Internet Archive In 2022 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library https ://archive.org/details/lostprophecyfoun00vanb The Lost Prophecy Found In Ancient Foreshadowtngs of The Coming One Instruction — Reassurance— W arnin io Reserved for the Needs of To-day An Exposition by James Turley van Burkalow, Ph.D. New York Cuicaco Fleming H. Revell Company LONDON AND EDINBURGH Copyright, 1924, by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY New York: 158 Fifth Avenue Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. London: 21 Paternoster Square Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street PREFACE HE sacred scriptures here unfolded are unique— but only in the scale on which the well-known mode of revelation they exemplify and the once favorite and still familiar literary devices they employ have been conceived and carried out. It is of the nature of every oracular utterance, of every apocalypse, as also of the parables of our Lord, to conceal for a season in order to reveal the more effectively in the denouement; and these scriptures simply register the high-water mark of the oracular in divine revelation. Being so preeminently enigmatic, they have required methods of interpretation that are very different from the right and proper procedure of ordinary exegesis; but none of them is without the warrant of precedent even in the Bible itself—as will duly appear—and so their justification here depends only upon the results obtained. Are they worth while? Do they form a consistent whole? Do they function harmoniously in the cycle of Messianic prophecy? Do their historical and doctrinal implica- tions correspond with the truth as already known? And finally, do they offer such credentials as may reasonably be expected of oracles so long unrecognized and held in reserve? It is pertinent also to ask whether in each case the exposition legitimately represents the message in- tended, or whether something has not been read into the text by the interpreter. The answer to this inquiry is conditioned, however, by the fact that we are dealing with the Word of God, and not merely with s 6 PREFACE the truth as it was apprehended by the inspired writer. Divine inspiration, as has been well said, “makes a man a vehicle of deep-lying forces so that he builds better than he knows. He may think that he is writing for a society or even for an individual, when he is really writing for future ages, and to meet needs of which he is unconscious.”’ * Even so, through many cooperating and often un- witting human agencies, Divine Providence and the Spirit of Revelation have worked together to provide in the hid treasures here disclosed a message that meets the spiritual needs of this Great Day as the hidden stores of coal and oil have met its material needs, a message to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile. Israel according to the flesh has been in exile, even as predicted by Moses, ever since they “walked contrary unto”’ the truth as it was revealed in Jesus; but though the centuries have multiplied into mil- lenniums and though the exile has involved Ghetto and Pale and Pogram, they have maintained their identity and their ancient faith, sustained by the gracious assurances with which all the prophets conclude their oracles in the confident expectation of the ultimate restoration under Messianic auspices of all that Zion means to them; and now, just as their long deferred hope seems actually about to be realized even in its most literal application under Christian auspices, this message brings them timely warning of the name in which alone they can put their trust, the categorical testimony of the Scriptures they revere to the fact * Prof. P. Gardner, ‘‘Cambridge Biblical Essays,” p. 417.— Quoted by Prof. William Sanday, ‘‘Christologies Ancient and Modern,” p. 231. PREFACE 7 that the despised Nazarene was indeed the Messiah, and that he whom they rejected as the Suffering Servant is coming again as the Conquering Christ and the Judge inexorable—a testimony that in its method and form is the reason-satisfying fulfilment of the groping promise of the Kabbala, the search for mystic “‘acceptances’’ or “‘correspondences”’ in which they have been so persistently interested. The Spiritual Daughter of Zion, too, has been in sad exile—persecuted like Israel according to the flesh by the Dragon and his brood, hidden in the “‘wilderness,”’ and seemingly content with the smallest of the con- tinents as the field of her service to God and humanity —but now these wilderness wanderings are revealed in a new light, as indeed a providential preparation for the task assigned. Our Great Commission, for- gotten and seemingly held in abeyance for so many centuries, now presents itself with an insistent and immediate imperative. The Church and Christian Civilization have come to the parting of the ways, must arise forthwith and purge themselves of every treason, and must then go forth to conquer the world in this generation—and the Voice of the Day of Jehovah proclaims the promised Presence of the Captain under whom alone such a task can be accom- plished, the Joshua of the New Covenant. Some have pictured the Second Coming of the Lord in colors that are altogether supernatural and beyond the range of human sympathies, while in reaction others have “‘spiritualized”’ it into practical unreality. This mighty event is indeed most supernatural—and so was the First Advent; but the prophecies of the Coming of the Messiah do not need to be spiritualized to apply to Jesus of Nazareth, and neither did they 8 PREFACE require him to appear otherwise than as perfectly natural. The truth is that the distinction between the natural and the supernatural is purely subjective. Nevertheless, until Faith shall be lost in Sight, this distinction must continue to be a vital factor in human thought and feeling, a factor that Divine Wisdom could never disregard. God’s revelations appeal to the heart, therefore, in the realm of the natural and to the mind, as occasion requires, in the realm of the supernatural. Only they who have persuaded themselves to believe in the sufficiency of human nature as it is, and who consequently have small use for any religion at all, can consistently deny the need of a Way of Salvation, the necessity of a Revelation of that Way and the indispensability of supernatural credentials of such a Revelation. Cer- tainly any Revelation that claims to do more than merely to announce such truths as can be tested by reason in the light of experience—reason that, alas! is so often sophisticated and experience that at best is so utterly inadequate—needs some such attestation as Gideon asked—and received. Accordingly in this message that hails the imminent advent of the Living Word—no longer ‘‘incarnate’’ only, but also ‘glorified ’’—there is found in unstinted measure the necessary authentication of the super- natural; but for the event itself, supernal and alto- gether beyond the comprehension of our present inexperience though it must necessarily be at the zenith of its glory in the final consummation, colors are suggested that blend on the horizon with the ordinary landscape of nature, so that the Church may think of it as she thinks of all the previous chapters of the History of Redemption, watch for it intelligently and with glad anticipation—and be ready. PREFACE 9 Finally, in order that there may be neither undue expectations nor needless apprehensions with regard to it, let us add that this message offers no novelties to replace, or to be superimposed upon, “the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints.’’ There is here simply—and sufficiently—the turning, as it were, of a hitherto unobserved adjustment that brings the instrument of God’s revelation into such a relation to the eyes of today as to give clearer definition to the old truths made known from the beginning and enable us, ‘‘upon whom the ends of the ages are come,’’ to recognize indubitably the fulfilment of their foreshadowings. J Da VAN) B. CONTENTS PART I. ST. MATTHEW'S CLUE—FORE- SHADOWINGS AND PROLEGOMENA ibe, LOST! PROPHECY tir hie ie tis 15 A Clue Concealed in a Forgotten Solin Ty er amas Nort true ie 15 II. THe Hip TREASURE—FOUND IN AN EMENDED LBD ee aya eee: 27 III. FoRESHADOWINGS IN HEBREW HIsToRY. 35 1. Jesus of Nazareth Foreshadowed in Israel’s National Hero......... 35 2. The Nazarene Revealed as the Sun of Righteousness—His Enemies Foreshadowed in the Ancient Canaanite Worshippers of Saturn 38 3. The Rest that Remaineth for the People of God; and the Righteous Remnant through whom the Joshua of the New Covenant will take possession of it in behalf of ELUMaAn Eye ore ieusni dy Cano ania 62 4. A Foreshadowing of the Final Armageddon that is at last to deliver the Church from all the oppressions of the Worshippers Of De CU Oe ur N nei a, 66 5. The Prophetic Name in full. IV. EcHors in CHurRCH HISTORY......... a7 ve CONTENTS THEO ENDVOR (THE CIDITE Ue Crean | The First Messianic Prophecy—Its Final Fulfilment Foreshadowed in the Recovery of the Lost Proph- PART (TT) “THE HID PREASURES Oe VI. VII. VIII. IX. re XII. ZEPHANIAH THE PROPHET AND His NEw Book.... THE GREAT DAY OF JEHOVAH........ The Prophet’s Message to his Con- CEMPOTALLES Te aims eects THE! First: ADVENT) Hijet ao hens The Prophecy as it was read by St. Matthew suite Me Ca (cra The Message of the Lost Prophecy Reserved for the Times of its RECOVEry gies ed ietcie Cann sas THE SEVEN, PROPHECIES... 6 0)0. 0..0004 Portents of the Second Advent and of the Binding of the Great Ad- VELSAL Yi fate net a fit gy AN CeO THE DEVENVORALS 100 (Ue enue Uw Si A Dramatization of the Protevangel revealing the Nature of the Savior’s Final Victory; the Church overcomes the World that so long has seemed triumphant in the Great’ Apostasy) i/n ai THE SEVEN COUNTERSEALS........... The Consummate Example of the Church Conformed to the World 88 97 119 119 124 124 133 133 146 146 171 171 IQI CONTENTS distinguished from the true Church in its divergence both in doctrine and in practice with re- gard to the one memorial symbol instituted by the Master himself 191 PU a EOS TIGMAEAN Ka hep Luna enn gh ataiee aise 203 The Seal of the Living God and its Counterfeit, The Mark of the east ae nee NM etre a IY GH CDs 203 XIV. THE LITTLE BooK OF THE GREAT NAME 225 PART III. THE INTERPRETATION XV. VTHE PROMISED: PRESENCE). 6002/00). 260 NING CONCERNING (ZION ih ahem rimg icc iC 290 AYSion On the Pimes cy Me On Ze, 290 DOV LO Op TH CHURCH oni aay a eae Ge 301 PAS SUNINONS' A iawela deta fel un tere iahabe Ra) obs 301 y i. eae PART I Seo VS Ei SOUT FORESHADOWINGS AND PROLEGOMENA NINN I THE LOST PROPHECY A CLuE CONCEALED IN A FORGOTTEN SPELLING HAT has become of St. Matthew’s Lost Prophecy? Students of the Word today confess that they can not find it anywhere in the Bible; but the apostle seems to have found it in more than one oracle, for he tells us that Jesus was brought up in a city called Nazareth ‘‘that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophets, that he should be called a Nazarene’’—Matt. 2: 23. St. Jerome suggested that when he wrote these words he had in mind the Messianic title Branch, one of the Hebrew words for which is Netser, 183; but Netser is used in this sense in only one passage, Isa. I1: I, the usual term for the Messianic Branch being Tsemach, M28; and most scholars, while they acknowl- edge that Netser might very well have been prophet- ically used as a suggestion by word-play of the name Nazarene, nevertheless hesitate to underwrite this word as in itself a sufficient basis for the Apostle’s argument. The only alternative, therefore, to the inadmissible hypothesis that the Apostle is here chargeable with either incompetence or gross careless- ness would seem to be the assumption that, with the oracles of the Branch, there was associated in his thought at least one other prophecy, a more specific prediction that has now been lost. Some have conjectured that this prediction was perhaps that of some prophet now forgotten; but this | 15 16 ST. MATTHEW'S CLUE disposal of the question is altogether inconclusive, and its implications are contrary to the usage of St. Matthew, who appeals in all his other arguments to Scriptures recognized as canonical and still extant. No one will deny, however, that it is entirely possible for a lost prophecy, the prophecy in question, to lie hidden in the Bible as we have it now, unrecog- nized because blurred by corruption of the text, for such a prophecy would almost certainly be obscure in itself, and so would naturally be wide open to mistakes of the copyist. Furthermore our search for this particular prediction is complicated by the fact that we do not know how the expression ‘A Naza- rene’? ought to look in Hebrew. ‘The first step, therefore, in the recovery of this lost prophecy must be to determine the original Hebrew spelling of Nazareth. In the Greek of the New Testament the name of the city where Jesus lived is written Nafapé0, Natapar and Nafapa; and in the Arabic of today it is called En Natsarah, which is also the spelling handed down in the Syriac. The adjective Nazarene comes to us in two forms Nafwpatos and Natepyvés. An inspection of these variants makes evident the fact that the ending -ath, or -eth, was not an integral part of the name; for it is not always found in the Greek render- ings of the noun, it is never found in the forms of the adjective, and it is not represented in the modern name of the place. It would seem indeed to stamp Nazareth as of questionable standing in Israel, for in this usage as a suffix it is Canaanitish rather than Hebrew,* and in the Old Testament it is added as a * So Schroeder, Phoen. Sprache, p. 170; and Gesenius, Gram. § 80. Rem. 2. a. THE LOST PROPHECY Li variant only to the names of foreign cities—viz. Atlon and Aulath, Betach and Tibhchath. Here was the sting, perhaps, in the Savior’s enigmatic de- nunciation of Nazareth: “I tell you there were many widows in Israel ... when the Heaven was shut up three years and six months . . . and to none of them was Elijah sent, but only to Zarephath in the land of Sidon, to a woman that was a widow.” Itis difficult to see why the people of Nazareth were so desperately enraged at this speech unless they felt that it was as much as to say: “It was not because there were no cities in Israel that I was brought up among you, ye Nazarethites, who have proved your- selves altogether worthy of your name. And now, after having despised the exceptional favor so long accorded you, would you make it the ground of a demand for others?”’ In the second place, it is evident—as we shall see in- dubitably exemplified later (in Chap. III.)—that the name ended with some Hebrew consonant represented in the Greek only by its vowel effect. Otherwise we should have Nazer instead of Nazera, Nazorios in- stead of Nazoraios, and Nazernos instead of Nazerenos. There are several Hebrew letters that might have such an effect:—Aleph, Vav, Cheth, Yod and ‘Ayin. The letter He might also be thought of in this connection, especially as it would afford a Hebrew explanation of the ending -eth or -ath; but, in the adjective forms, He would either require this same -aih—in Hebrew, ‘ns3; in Greek, Naftwpafios; and in English Nazarethite (Cf. *nyai from myai)—or else it would be dropped altogether, leaving no effect (Cf. °20n from A2n, and ward from Wa). Aleph is in this case also impossible because it pro- 18 ST. MATTHEW'S CLUE vides no root from which the name may be derived; and the same thing is true of Vav and Yod. We must choose, therefore, between Cheth and ‘Ayin as the final radical of the root we are seeking; and we are confronted with a like dilemma with regard to the first radical, for the imitial “‘N’’ of the name—there being no quadriliteral to account for it—must be regarded as a preformative, and the “Z”’ that repre- sents the first radical in the Western transcriptions may stand for either a Zayin or a Tsade in the original. We have, accordingly, the four Semitic roots MA, yn, may and yoy from which, so far as its form is concerned, Nazareth may be derived. The first two of these roots, those beginning with Zayin—Zarach, which connotes the glory of the sun- rise, and Zara‘, which means ‘‘to sow, to plant’’—we may dismiss at once. In the first place, their mean- ings do not fit the locality and its reputation—for we may be certain that its evil reputation could never have become proverbial among such realists as the ancient Semites unless its name also was capable of an opprobrious suggestion, or at least was not of the Opposite import; in the second place, the evidence of the prophetic word-play, Netser, 183, is in favor of Tsade; and finally and conclusively, Tsade is found in the name as it is represented in both Arabic and Syriac. There remain therefore only the two alterna- tives, Tsara‘, a8, and Tsarach, Mv. Tsara‘ was obsolete in Biblical Hebrew, but its meaning as gathered from the cognate languages was “to throw down, to prostrate” and also ‘‘to humble one’s self.’’ Its Hebrew derivatives signify “‘leprosy”’ and ‘‘hornets’”’ and doubtless furnished many a jest in harmony with the evil reputation of Nazareth. THE LOST PROPHECY 19 Zorah, *Y8, the birth-place of Samson, derived its name from this root, evidently because it was at the “Going-down”’ from the hill country into the plain (cf. Josh. 15: 33). It commanded the pass at its lower extremity (cf. 2 Chron. 11: 10). Nazareth, on the other hand, though it is in a little valley, is nevertheless high up among the hills. Tsarach, n\8, represents two distinct roots. I. Tsarach, Arab. @3°, “to shout aloud,” ‘to pro- claim,’ could hardly furnish a name for a town. It is, however, as we shall find, the source of a wonder- fully appropriate word-play that is most skilfully utilized in the great oracle that sets forth the name of the Nazarene. II. Tsarach, Arab. @53°, was obsolete in literary Hebrew; and in fact it has only recently gained the recognition of Hebrew lexicographers. In the cognate language it means “‘to excavate, to rend open,’ and from it is derived the Arabic word for “Sepulcher,”’ Tsarich. Its only Hebrew derivative is also Tsariach, m¥, which doubtless had the same meaning originally, but which is applied to “‘cave-like hiding places”’ in the two Bible passages where alone it occurs. In Judges 9: 46 & 49, it is associated with a heathen temple—apparently the dark and cavernous and tomb-like interior of the temple itself in which the inhabitants of the town took refuge. In I. Sam. 13:6, it is mentioned in connection with the “caves’’ and “thickets”? and “rocks’’ and “pits”? in which the people hid themselves, and the Revised Version renders it ‘‘covert.’’ Moreover, as shown in the Arabic, the final radical of II. Tsarach is the soft Cheth that easily disappears in a lengthened vowel or a breathing.* * Cf. Apes from DIM in the Sept. of Judg. 8: 13; and the variant 20 ST. MATTHEW'S CLUE This root, therefore, furnishes a derivation for the name of Nazareth that accounts for the obscuration of the spelling and that fits in its meaning both the situation and the reputation of the city, hidden as it is in a crater-like valley high up among the hills above the rich plain of Esdraelon and commanding all the great highways of that cross-roads of ancient com- merce—just the place for the covert of a gang of out- laws. The artificial caves, or sepulchers, excavated in the lime-stone spur that juts into the valley over against the town from its eastern mountain wall are also in accordance with this derivation—very sug- gestively so, as we shall see later. It would seem then that the Hebrew spelling of Nazareth was M¥3—or, with its Canaanitish suffix, nnoy2—and if later on we find reason to believe that this was not the original form of the name, we will still be able to find in the fitness of its meaning as derived from II. Tsarach the reason why it became the finally persisting form. Certainly, with this derivation, Nazarene, even apart from the nuance in which it accords with the reproach cast upon him, was peculiarly prophetic of the life of Jesus; for he was born in the cave of Bethlehem, he dwelt in the City of Nazareth, the hiding-place of his immaturity foretold, as we shall see, by the prophet whose name means “‘ Jehovah hides’’; and he was buried in a rock- hewn sepulcher that was rent open, M¥3, when he rose “from the grave.” To these indications that the true spelling of Nazareth has been found—the spelling in the days of Jesus, at least—is added the confirmation of a series renderings of Timnath-Serach in Greek set forth in Chap. III. . following. THE LOST PROPHECY 21 of rapier-like word-plays that gleam even through the double veil of the translations in the story of the Calling of Nathaniel told in the First Chapter of the Gospel according to St. John.* “Behold an Israelite indeed in whom there is no *In view of the fact that to the Jews Hebrew was in New Testament times, as it is now, the widely studied classic and- sacred language of school and synagogue, of Scripture and hymn and prayer, the completeness of the word-plays revealed by it is sufficient warrant for the reconstruction of these conversations in pure Hebrew rather than in the problematical Hebrew-Aramaic Palestinian dialect of those times. With sufficient knowledge granted to the speakers, the exigencies of the paronomastic repartee would account for their use of the classic tongue; and besides, that Jesus should address Nathanael in Hebrew would be in line with his whole appeal to the man whom he characterized as intensively an Israelite, for certainly the Messiah would be supposed to be conversant with the language of the Law and the Prophets—and that Jesus was in fact a Master of the Hebrew is strongly evidenced by his reading from the réle of the Prophets in the synagogue service (Luke 4: 17) and by his controversial use of *“‘It is written,’’ which would have full weight with his opponents only as his quotations were adduced in the original. (See Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, 1. 129, 130, 252.) Like the Messiah himself, a man who could be called an ‘‘ Ezrach”’ would quite certainly be familiar with the ancient tongue of his fathers; and tradition, as reported by St. Augustine and St. Gregory in their Commentaries on John’s Gospel (See McClintock and Strong, Vol. VI, p. 859d), represents Nathanael as a man learned in the Law of Moses. In that case his brother, Philip, would doubtless not be altogether without such learning—and in any case, the fact is that neither in vocabulary nor in construc- tion would the simple Hebrew here set forth present any diff- culties even to the merely average Palestinian Jew of those days. The possible question concerning I. N83 is answered by the fact that Netser, the Messianic BRANCH, was undoubtedly well known to every Israelite; while II. "83, though written %%3 in Biblical Aramaic, as also sometimes in Biblical Hebrew, is found written 83 both in Old Aramaic and in the so-called New Hebrew. 22 ST. MATTHEW'S CLUE guile,” said Jesus—or rather, so St. John parphrases what Jesus said when Nathaniel was presented to him. Nathaniel was naturally surprised at such a greeting from a stranger—he was more than surprised ; his answer was a startled question, “ Whence knowest thoume?” His reception by the Prophet of Nazareth was amazingly and uncomfortably reminiscent of his recent conversation with Philip and of the reception he had given Philip’s joyful assurance, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” Na- thaniel had discounted it utterly, and had disposed of it with the witty rejoinder, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” Now the context shows that he did not pronounce the name of that city of proverbial evil repute as if it were derived from 3 ¥, Tsara‘’—when the force of his question would have been merely the cheap sneer, “Can any good thing come out of that pestiferous place?’’—but that, using the full Canaanitish form of this name, he gave it a twist that faced it squarely against the claim that Jesus was the Messiah, pro- nouncing it as if it were Netsur-Cheth, nn“). This was as much as to say, “‘What! Could the Messiah be reared amid the guile of the heathen?’’ For, though Netser (¥3 from IT. 9¥3) is Isaiah’s term for the Messianic Branch, these same radicals pronounced Netsur ("¥2 from I. 983) suggest the idea of “guile,” something ‘‘hidden’’—cf. Prov. 7: 10; while Cheth, nn, was the eponym of the Hittites, the mightiest of the Gentile inhabitants of Canaan. And now Jesus hails Nathaniel as no Hittite, no heathen of any sort, no guileful denizen of Netsur-ach, but as an “Israelite in- THE LOST PROPHECY 23 deed,” an ’Ezrach, M's, in whom there is ‘‘no guile,” no Nefsur. Let us note in passing that by this same word-play ‘m3, “‘Nazarene,’ becomes Natsura ‘i, “suileful,’? whence the otherwise inexplicable form Nafwpatos, Nazoratos.* Nathaniel had rejected the prophet whom Philip characterized by the happy word play: ; Han WNetser-acht, *nsx7n—a play on the name Nazarene—and the measure of Nathaniel’s rejection is to be seen in the fullness of his brother’s confession; for with Netser, the Messianic BRANCH, set forth and emphasized in its enunciation, Philip’s character- ization becomes: “‘Jesust the Son of Joseph is the Netser, O my brother.’’ That these two apostles, Philip and Nathaniel (or Bartholomew), were in fact brothers is no new suggestion, but is a widely accepted inference from this incident and from the fact that they are always listed together in the Gospels, just as are Peter and Andrew, and James and John. Jesus, notwithstanding his evident knowledge of this conversation, accepts Nathaniel, but does so with the pointedly suggestive salutation: Hen ’Ezracht, 11837, which is literally, “‘ Behold an Israelite indeed!’ The term ’Ezrach is the equivalent of our expression “To the manor born,’ and is therefore the exact antithesis of Nathaniel’s implied aspersion of “The Nazarene.” In the * This more derisive form of the adjective was the one finally accepted by the followers of the Nazarene as a name of reproach gladly shared with their Master—Cf. the Natwpato. of the fourth century. The Jews then reverted (See the Talmud) to the matter of fact form Nagepnvds, which, aside from some evidently erroneous MSS. of Luke 24: 9, occurs in the New Testament only in the earliest of the Gospels, that of St. Mark, who uses it exclusively. } This is the order in the Greek of John 1: 45. 24 ST. MATTHEW'S CLUE Septuagint, and also in Lucian’s version, the adjective form ’Ezrachi, regarded as a surname or distinctive epithet, is rendered ‘‘The Israelite” (I. Kings 5: 11; and the superscription of Ps. 88 and 99); and this fact, regardless of the question of the propriety of such a meaning as applied to Ethan and Heman, must be taken as reflecting a current usage in which this form of the word had the force of “Israelite indeed.”’ Nathaniel had stated his objection to Jesus thus: Mah tobh min-Netsur-Cheth?—‘What good thing (can come) from (Nazareth) the guile of Cheth?”’ Jesus’ commendation of Nathaniel could therefore very well be: Mah tobh! Min-netsur chath’’—" How good he is! ‘““From guile he turns away in dismay.’”’ For nnn construed with j®, see Isa. 31:4,9; 51:7, etc. For the interpretation as a pregnant construction, see Davidson, Heb. Syntax, § 101. Imagine the perplexity of this guileless Israelite! How could it be possible that Jesus had heard his conversation with Philip—or was Philip right, and was this indeed the Messiah? Could heaven-born Wisdom have countered his cavil more completely? Then, too, as we learn from the Master’s allusion to it (John 1: 50, 51), Nathaniel had just been meditating in his hour of devotion upon the story of the peculiarly reprehensible guile with which the young Jacob who was afterward to become Israel had supplanted his brother Esau, and of the divine mercy that sought and found the fleeing transgressor in the memorable vision at Bethel—and the words of Jacob as he awoke and realized the significance of his dream are very sugges- tive in this connection: ‘‘And Jacob awaked out of THE LOST PROPHECY 25 his sleep, and he said, Surely Jehovah is in this place; and I knew it not’’ (Gen. 28: 16). Moreover, as is now universally acknowledged, Nathaniel is to be identified with the apostle who is called in the Synoptic Gospels by his surname, or patronymic, Bartholomew, 2n-3, a name that literally interpreted means “‘Son of the Furrow.” The salutation with which Jesus ° received this “‘Israelite indeed,’’ Hen ’Ezracht, carries, therefore, a suggestion, is indeed radically a synonym, of this more familiar surname; for ’Ezrach, when it also is literally interpreted, signifies, as it is phrased by Brown-Driver-Briggs (p. 280), ‘One arising from the soil.’””. When, therefore, in reply to the startled question—‘‘ Whence knowest thou me?’’—Jesus an- swered his heart-searchings as well with the astonish- ing declaration, ‘‘ Before Philip called thee when thou wast under the fig-tree I saw thee,’’ Nathaniel had abundant reason for his unreserved confession, “Rabbi, thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel.’’ It is in accordance with the place of these word- plays in the incident that the Savior’s answer to Nathaniel’s question carried his knowledge of the questioner back only far enough to include the colloquy that he had just echoed so convincingly, and back to the devotions under the fig-tree “‘ before Philip called,”’ in order to foil any suspicion of irony in the commenda- tion of nobility of character that served at the same time as a chastisement of perversity of opinion, and in order also to set forth the truth that in the Nazarene is to be found the fulfilment of the promise to Jacob that Nathaniel had just been reading—‘“In thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the Earth be blessed”? (Gen. 28: 14)—the fulfilment indeed of the 26 ST. MATTHEW’S CLUE glorious hope revealed in the vision at Bethel; for Jesus answered and said unto him, “Because I said unto thee, I saw thee underneath the fig-tree be- lievest thou? Thou shalt see greater things than these.” And he said unto him, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye shall see the heavens opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man” (John 1: 50, 51). iI THE HID TREASURE FOUND IN AN EMENDED TEXT HE Story of the Calling of Nathaniel does indeed afford a striking confirmation of our conclu- sions concerning the spelling of Nazareth; but at the same time, it makes very clear the fact that Nathaniel, like the Jews of that day generally,* and like the translators of the Septuagint as well, knew of no prophecy that the Messiah ‘should be called a Nazarene.” It is not surprising, therefore, that even now, when we are convinced that we have learned how to look for it, we still have to admit that the Hebrew text of today does not seem to contain the word Nazarene or any equivalent phrase. It does not follow, however, that this was true of St. Matthew’s copy of the prophets, for in his day the Masorites had not standardized the text and there were as many differences between Hebrew manuscripts then as there are between the Masoretic text and the Septu- agint now. It is entirely reasonable to assume, therefore, that St. Matthew gives us a rendering of the true text of an Old Testament passage in which both the Seventy and the Masorites followed mistaken variants; that possibly he interprets for us a prophecy whose full significance had not been understood before, an oracular prediction whose double meaning was perhaps never intended to be apprehended before the * Cf. John 7: 42 and 52. 27 28 ST. MATTHEW'S CLUE event. Such “‘ dark sayings ”’ are peculiarly liable to be distorted by the copyist—but He who inspired them is able to preserve them, and is able also, even by such means as that of St. Matthew’s seeming in- advertence, to provide the clue that in due season will lead to the discovery of the hidden treasure. Now it is evident that such a passage as this could not have been couched in the entirely obvious terms that seem to be implied in St. Matthew’s citation as it is rendered in the Authorized Version—" that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.’ The fact is, how- ever, that, as we shall see in the denouement, as the apostle himself takes pains to indicate, and as is re- flected in the more accurate translation of the Revised Versions—‘‘ that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophets, that He should be called a Nazarene ’’—we have here, not a literai quotation of one particular prophetic utterance, but a statement of the general import of several foreshadowings en- tirely different in their modes of expression. The references to the ancient scriptures that are found in St. Matthew’s records of the sayings of the Master, and in his reports of the answers of the Scribes and of the suggestions of the Tempter, naturally reflect the style of the several speakers; but in his own appeals to the authority of the written word, * the apostle expresses himself with the precision of a mathematical formula, yet not without the allevia- tion of a saving measure of variety. The full pattern of his thought in the introduction of a specific quota- * Matt. 15) 17523 IV Taye Vile Pail Le tg oe cece XXI. 4; XXVII. 9. See also XXVII. 35. St. Matthew’s formula has also been faultily imitated by the interpolator in Mark XIII. 14. Cf. Matt. XXIV. 15. THE HID TREASURE 29 tion is to be seen in the expression, ‘‘ that it might be fulfilled which was revealed* by the Lord through the prophet, who said’’ (Chap. II, v. 15). This expression is elsewhere shortened, and is sometimes varied by the notation of the name of the prophet; but, with two exceptions—and these exceptions are exactly such as to prove the rule—there is everywhere © found the unmistakable core, 70d pnbéy . . . dat rod mpogentov déyovtos, ‘ which was revealed through the prophet who said.”’” One of these seeming exceptions is found in a reference to the eighteenth verse of the Twenty-second Psalm—“ that it might be fulfilled which was spoken byf the prophet, They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots’? (Chap. XXVII, v. 35). Here in- deed déyorzos, “who said,” is omitted before a specific quotation; but this passage is now acknowledged to be an interpolation, and is not retained in the Revised Versions. The other deviation from the regular formula is to be seen right here in connection with the Lost Prophecy, which the apologists would have deleted long ago if they could—but here there is no lapsus either of the copyist or of the author himself. This is the only prediction that St. Matthew cites on the authority of more than one prophet. Accordingly * That ‘‘revealed,”’ rather than merely ‘‘spoken,’’ was the force of 70 pnftv in the mind of St. Matthew, is evident from his use of it with reference to the abomination of desolation “‘ which was revealed through Daniel the prophet,” 76 pybey 6a Aavujd 70d mpognrov (Matt. 24: 15). This passage, in which he renders the thought of the Master himself into Greek, indicates perhaps the genesis of the Apostle’s own formula of scripture reference. t In Matt. 2: 17, some MSS. give ind, ‘‘by,’’ instead of 6:4, “‘through,’’ which is of course a clerical error. This obtuse blunder is invariable, however, in the interpolated passages, Matt. 27: 35, and Mark 13: 14. 30 ST. MATTHEW'S CLUE the formula with which he introduces it becomes, To pnbev dia Tv rpogntwr éti, ““ which was revealed through the prophets, that.’’ Instead of the participle Neyovrav, “‘ who said,’ which could only introduce a direct and specific quotation, we find here the con- junction éri, “‘ that,” which prepares us for an in- direct and ad sensum citation such as is required in a reference to several variant foreshadowings. That this is really the force of the change in the formula here is substantiated by the fact that such a master of Greek as St. Jerome, to whom indeed it was a living language, could suggest the pictures of the Messianic Branch as perhaps the repositories of the prophecy to which the Evangelist referred. What we are to look for, then, is an oracle that for some good reason was devised for the purpose of con- cealing as well as revealing, that has perhaps been still further obscured by corruption of the text, and that, when it is properly interpreted, will be found to declare, not in the set phrase ‘‘ He shall be called,” but nevertheless with equal explicitness, that the Messiah was to be known as a “ Nazarene.” We have a right, furthermore, to expect that this oracle will be found in a passage that can be legitimately construed as a Messianic prophecy when once it has been divested of its habiliments of disguise. Just such an oracle is now disclosed in the fourteenth verse of the first chapter of the Book of Zephaniah, a passage that is indeed most appropriate, for it strikes the key-note of a prophecy that tells of the rejection of the Mighty-to-save—which is the connotation of the name “ Nazarene’’—and an emendation, the slightest possible, and one altogether reasonable, dis- closes an oracle that answers the requirements of the THE HID TREASURE 31 Lost Prophecy of St. Matthew in every respect. Com- mentators have generally regarded the text here as hopelessly corrupt, and emendations the most radical have been suggested ;* but to bring the verse back to self-consistency and into full accord with its context, we only need to restore a Nun, “‘N ,’ that has been mistaken for a Resh, ‘‘R’’; and we can do this with- - out violence because, while these two letters are quite different in the later Square Character when it is carefully written and as it is printed to-day (vz. 3 and 1), in the older forms of the alphabet they were sometimes very much alike—as, for instance, on Old Hebrew coins—and even in the Square Character as written by the Rabbins they are sometimes repre- sented by crescent figures that only the context can discriminate. f Such a confusion between these letters is exemplified in the name of one of the companions of Zerubbabel, who is called Rechum, Dinn, in the Hebrew and in the Alexandrine MS. of the Septuagint of Ezra 2: 2; while his name is given as Nechum, o\n3, in Lucian’s version of Ezra 2: 2, and in both the Hebrew and Septuagint of Neh. 7: 7. On the same principle, Wellhausen would read ‘9m instead of *91N3 in Hos. 11:8. (See these words in Brown-Driver-Briggs.) The text as it stands reads: 133 OY MY W-— Dy 3p and the American Revised Version translates it, © “The great day of Jehovah is near, it is near and hasteneth greatly, even the voice of the day of Jehovah; *Cf. J. M. Powis Smith, The International Critical Com- mentary.—Micah, Zephaniah & Nahum, pp. 194, 203, 204, 209, 210. +See Table of Semitic Alphabets in Mitchell’s Gesenius, Rev. Ed. B32 ST. MATTHEW'S CLUE the mighty man crieth there bitterly.” In effect, therefore, the revisers gave up the attempt to interpret this passage. As amended it reads: 133 OY MII) OY asp which, with ov pointed nv instead of the Masoretic hw, may be rendered: “ The Great Day of Jehovah is near, it is near and hasteneth greatly. (Hark!) The Voice of the Day of Jehovah! What is pro- claimed? The Name of the Mighty One.” (Cf. Chap. 3: 12.) Now by a most perfect paranomasia, “‘ the name of the Mighty One ”’ is literally contained n “‘ What is proclaimed ’’; for n7y2, which we have taken as equivalent to mys, ‘‘ What is proclaimed,”’ may also be regarded as equivalent to myxjo,* Min Natsarach, ‘‘Of Nazareth,’ or ‘‘Nazarene.”’ Con- struing it thus, we may read the passage as St. Matthew evidently did: ** (Hark!) The Voice of the Day of Jehovah, ‘NAZARENE IS TO BE THE NAME OF THE MIGHTY ONE.’”’ If this is a legitimate construction of Zephaniah’s Oracle of the Great Day of Jehovah, it unquestionably brings to light just such a prediction as is implied in St. Matthew’s Lost Prophecy—and we shall see that it is indeed an integral part of the book, that it is in fact the corner-stone of its whole structure and fits into the prophet’s message, not only as it may be con- strued in application to the times of St. Matthew, but also as it must have been construed by the prophet’s contemporaries. We shall see, too, that even more *So ON? nap fay, ‘‘Ibzan of Bethlehem,” Jud. 12: 4; etc. Cf. also "Inooty rév ard Nagapéé, ‘‘ Jesus of Nazareth,’ ’ Acts 10: 38; John 1: 45; Matt. 21:11. THE HID TREASURE 33 circumstantially and with the certification of a highly and symmetrically organized background of in- dubitable marks of design, this prophecy, lost for so many centuries, fits into a message for the very day of its recovery, a message that is peculiarly appropri- ate to the oracle that carries it and to the prophet in whose book it has been hidden so securely. In truth the Lost Prophecy has been found just when and where the inevitable after-thought would recom- mend the search for it—in the midst of the unprec- edented conditions of this hour of crisis, conditions that must be mended and that can never be allowed to recur if irretrievable disaster is not to ensue; and in the theme-oracle of Zephaniah, the Prophet of the Last Day. ‘ Moreover, like the Voice from the burning bush, the oracle of the name of the prophet himself speaks in confirmation of the providential nature and prophetic import of the seeming loss and opportune recovery of the key-word of his book. It has long been recognized that the names of the prophets whose oracles are enshrined in the Canon of Sacred Scripture are them- selves oracular and suggestive of the outstanding characteristics of the message or commission with which each was intrusted. Jsaiah, for instance, de- lights to speak of the “‘Salvation of Jehovah,’’ which is both the meaning of his name and the theme of his prophecies. So too Nahum alternately brings his people words of “consolation ’’ and in contrast paints the retribution that is to come upon their enemies. Jeremiah was the prophetic statesman fitted for the times whom “Jehovah appointed’”’ even before he was born (Jer. 1: 15). Ezekiel’s task is likewise specifically stated in terms of the meaning of his name 34 ST. MATTHEW'S CLUE (Ezek. 2:4; 3:7, 8,9); and Micah himself appeals to the oracle of his name—‘"‘ Who is like Jehovah? ’’—as confirming the gracious offer of pardon with which he was commissioned (Mic. 7:18). This element in the apparatus of divine revelation is emphasized by the direct intervention of the heavenly messenger to determine both the personal name of Jesus and his place-name Nazarene, as also to give the name John, ‘“‘Jehovah is gracious,’ to him who was to be the Voice in the Wilderness announcing the First Advent. It is therefore altogether in accordance with the analogy of prophecy and an indication of the im- portance of the Lost Prophecy that the prophet in whose book its treasures have been hidden and pre- served so long should bear the aptly suggestive name of Zephaniah, m:b¥, ‘* Jehovah hides, preserves, treasures up’’—and we shall find that these hid treasures are indeed abundantly worthy of the emphasis thus placed upon them and of all that has been involved in their preparation and preservation against the day of their need. ii FORESHADOWINGS IN HEBREW HISTORY 1. JEsuS OF NAZARETH FORESHADOWED IN ISRAEL’S NATIONAL HERO HE vindication of St. Matthew would hardly 4p seem entirely satisfactory if it rested only on the one specific prophecy of Zephaniah and the uncertain implications of Isaiah’s reference to the Messiah as a Netser, a ‘‘ Branch,’ a ‘‘Tender Shoot’’; for he says that the prediction of the place-name of Jesus “‘was spoken through the prophets ’’—using the plural; but another unquestionable foreshadowing of the fact that Jesus, the Joshua of the New Covenant, was to be called a Nazarene, is now to be seen in the name of the place chosen as his portion in Canaan by Joshua, the Son of Nun, the type of him who was to lead Spiritual Israel into the Promised Land—cf. Heb. 4: 8. Here will be found not only a striking con- firmation of Muin- Natserach, ms, as the Lost Prophecy of the name of the Mighty One, but prec- edents also for the peculiarities of its interpretation. This place is first mentioned in Joshua 19: 49 and 50: “So they made an end of distributing the land for inheritance by the borders thereof: and the Children of Israel gave an inheritance to Joshua the Son of Nun in the midst of them; according to the Com- mandment of Jehovah they gave him the city which he asked, even Timnath-Serach, Mmo-nian, in the hill- country of Ephraim; and he built the city and dwelt therein.” 5) 36 ST. MATTHEW'S CLUE The relationship between the name of this city and that of Nazareth or WNatserach, the city of Jesus, becomes apparent if it is written as one word Tim- natserach mipnion (=nms20n)—and this method of writing it was always employed by the translators of the Septuagint, in which it is found in the two forms Oauvacapax and Oayuvafcapa. ‘The same construction is frequently followed in the Latin of the Vulgate also, where the name appears as either Thamnath-Saraa or Thamnatsare. In these transcriptions not only do the elements of the name show a tendency to coalesce as they have in the name as it developed in its application to the sister city of Nazareth, but it is to be observed also that the final guttural is usually dropped, leaving its effect in the lengthening of the vowel, exactly as was assumed in our search for the spelling of Nazareth. It may be accepted then that the name of the city where Jesus was brought up is fundamentally the same as that of the city of Joshua—and this assump- tion will meet unfailing confirmation. It is readily seen that, with the northern Canaanitish or Phcenician suffix -eth added to it, Timnatserach(eth) must strongly tend to become Muatserach-eth—especially in view of the fact that Munath, nod, is a close synonym of Timnath—and that this in turn would certainly be shortened to Natserach-eth. There has been considerable speculation concerning the original form and etymology of the name of Joshua’s city, and also some uncertainty as to the location of his portion in Israel. Two sites have been proposed, Kefar Cheres, nine miles south of Nablus, and Jubneh, seventeen miles west of north from Jerusalem. The latter was first suggested by Dr. Eli Smith* and is now accepted by Buhl (Geog., * Bib, Sacra., 1843, p. 478 ff. FORESHADOWINGS IN HEBREW HISTORY 37 p. 170) and by Brown-Driver-Briggs (p. 5846). Both sites are notable for the remarkable tombs found near them, but at Tibneh especially there is an ancient and extensive cemetery just south of the tell and on the north side of a high mountain, doubtless the ‘ Moun- tain of Gaash”’ mentioned in Josh. 24: 30, and Judges 2:9, where the sepulchers are comparable only to the ° tombs of the Kings near Jerusalem. Whatever the original form of the name may have been, therefore, and regardless of its true derivation, Timnath-Serach, map nj9n, was certain to be associated in the oriental mind of that day, prone as it was to a punning popular etymology, with the peculiarly appropriate homo- phone Timna(th)-Tserach, mosinison, “Place of Sepulture’’—from f0n, “region,’”’ and II. my, ‘‘to excavate,’ from which is derived the Arab, Tsarich, “‘Sepulcher,’’ and from which comes also the Heb. Tsariach, which doubtless had originally the same meaning (See Chap. I.). The name thus rendered blends suggestively with the fact that the old warrior was far past the four score years that is the exceptional allotment of human life when he chose this region as his inheritance in the Land of Promise. It is indeed as his burial place rather than as his dwelling-place that Timna(th)- Tserach is remembered; and on the background of a meaning of such seeming ill-omen, the pronunciation of the name Joshua used in choosing this town as his portion in Israel shines out as a most glorious prophecy of faith and hope—it bears witness also to his own self- denial. Timnath-Serach, mo-n3on, in which Tsade is resolved into T and S, may mean “‘ The Portion that is left over ’—which strikingly underscores the fact that Joshua, who might have had the first choice, 38 ST. MATTHEW'S CLUE was the last to receive his inheritance and was content with a comparatively barren region to the north of Mt. Gaash, ‘‘The Quaking Mountain,” a region noted only for its ravines (Cf. II. Sam. 23: 30 and I. Chron. II: 32) and its cemetery. But Zimnaih-Serach may also mean *‘ A Boundless Portion,” a portion spiritual and eternal, an inheritance beyond the grave. It is the old hero’s confession that even after having re- ceived his portion in Canaan, he was still a stranger and a pilgrim on the Earth and was on his way to ‘fa better country, that is, a heavenly,’’ even to “‘the city that hath the foundations, whose architect and builder is God”’ (Heb. 11: 9-16). 2. THe NAZARENE REVEALED AS THE SUN OF RIGHT- EOUSNESS, THE HOPE OF THE AGES—HIS ENEMIES FORESHADOWED IN THE ANCIENT CANAANITE Wor- SHIPPERS OF CHERES- SATURN The name of Joshua’s city is therefore indeed a prophecy of the Hope of Israel, attested by the very signature, nN, of the Nazarene, M¥, who rose “from the grave.’ It is the first recorded whisper of the Great Name; and in the changes rung upon it, there are exemplified the same peculiarities of construction that were later employed, as we shall see, in the Book of Zephaniah. We have just noted the significant play upon Ysade and its phonetic equivalents in Aap "n2oN and my2[on], and now we must consider the equally significant metathesis of the distinctive ele- ment of Timnath-Serach; for in Judges 2: 9 and also in I. Makk. 9: 50, it is written DIN“nIDN, Timnath- Cheres, ‘‘The Place of the Sun.” Some, regarding FORESHADOWINGS IN HEBREW HISTORY 39 this as the original form of the name and assuming that the place was a center of sun-worship, would explain the reverse reading Serach, MD, as occasioned by an effort to avoid the idolatrous suggestion of Cheres, DIN. It may be unreservedly accepted that Timnath- Cheres was indeed the original form of the name of this place, for Cheres was unquestionably the © name of a solar deity—that it was sometimes used as a synonym of Shemesh, the more familiar name of the sun-god, is indicated in Judges 1: 35 and Jer. 19: 18 (some MSS.); but that the author of the Book of Joshua could have been offended by any idolatrous suggestion in this name, when he had no scruples against writing Beth Shemesh (Cf. Josh. 15: 10 and 15 other times), is altogether unthinkable; and that he was not at all tinctured with the later aversion to the mere mention of the heathen deities is witnessed by his frequent use, for instance, of such a name as Baal Gad (Josh. 11: 17 etc.). We may be assured, therefore, that we have in the metathesis of this name, not an example of euphemism, but another example of the paronomasia that played such a prominent part in the religion of the ancient Semites. It would seem, then, that in the days of Canaan’s apostasy, ZJimnath-Cheres—like Kutha, the famous Babylonian “City of Adoration’? with its great temple E. SHID. LAM., ‘The House of Shadow ’’— was devoted to the worship of the Sun, the hot Sun of the afternoon, the Sun in his might going down into the Realm of Darkness, but only to return victoriously inthe morning. For Cheres was the “ Burning Sun’’;* * That Charas, DIM and wan, the root from which Cheres is derived, which is not found as a verb in extant Hebrew literature, signified ‘“‘to burn,” is evident from (1) Cheres, ‘‘the Afternoon AO ST. MATTHEW'S CLUE and Nergal, the patron deity of Kutha, was the Babylonian god of the sun in his fiery might, a de- stroyer, the war-god, the god of pestilence and the lord of the Realm of the Dead. And right here is doubtless to be found the decisive factor in the origin of the peculiar anagrammatic word- play on the name of the place. We are warranted in assuming that, like E. SHID. LAM. in Kutha, the temple of Cheres-Nergal in Timnath-Cheres repre- sented the realm he ruled, the realm of the grave; and we are further warranted in the conclusion that its characteristic feature was a Tsertach, a sepulchral chamber, for that such a chamber was sometimes a feature of temple structure in this very region is witnessed by the TYsertach of ’El Berith, or Baal Berith,* in which the people of the tower of Shechem Sun’’; (2) Cheres, ‘‘an incurable inflammation” (Deut. 28: 27); and (3) Cheres, ‘‘ pottery ’’—so called, not because made of ‘‘clay,” as has been supposed, but because ‘“‘burnt’’ in the kiln, as is clear from Jer. 19: 1, when this passage is read in the light of Jer. 18: 1-4and 19: 11. For the whole force of the prophet’s figure depends on the assumption that the Cheres he uses as a symbol of Jerusalem is not mere ‘‘clay,’’ which might still be plastic, but is pottery that has been “‘burnt’’ and made hard so that when broken it ‘‘can not be made whole again.’”’ Compare MIDIN WY in this same passage (Jer. I9: 2) as herein elucidated (see p. 72 following); and also (Ww Nn—wsn— DN, “hot east wind”’ (So H. Steiner), Brown-Driver-Briggs, p. 362 a. *’E] Berith, ‘‘God of the Covenant,’’ is of course a title rather than a name. It is found only in this passage and in the preceding chapter (Judg. 8: 33), where it is applied in the form Baal Berith to the false god of Israel’s apostasy after the death of Gideon. The Tserfach in his temple would indicate that he is to be identified with Cheres-Molech; and that Molech was wor- shipped by the inhabitants of Shechem is suggested by the name of Abimelech, whose mother was one of them. It would seem, FORESHADOWINGS IN HEBREW HISTORY 4I took refuge from the vengeance of Abimelech (Judg. 9: 46 and 49). It would be natural for such a city to bestow un- usual care upon the burial of its dead; and that the original inhabitants of Timnath-Cheres did so, or, at any rate, that they were indeed worshippers of Cheres, is witnessed by the Hebrew tradition con- cerning the tomb of Joshua; for it was regarded as exceptionally worthy of mention, and the rabbins relate that upon it was carved a figure of the Sun, which they describe, in apt paronomy, asa Temtinath- Cheres and characterize as an appropriate reference to the Great Captain’s authority even over the Sun, as recorded in the Book of Jasher. We may becertain, however, that Israel never carved a lemtinath of any- thing in the Heaven above or on the Earth beneath, or in the waters under the Earth, upon the tomb of Jehovah’s champion. It would seem, rather, that, as with his greater namesake, ‘‘they made his grave with the wicked, and with a rich man in his death”’ (Isa. 53: 9), and buried him in the sepulcher of some princely devotee of Baal Cheres—or perhaps in the Tseriach of Baal Cheres himself. This tradition concerning the tomb of Joshua agrees, therefore, with the notable sepulchers at Tibneh in their witness to the nature of the cult practised at Timnath-Serach, or Timnath-Cheres, that it was in- deed such as is so aptly characterized in the explana- tion of the origin and meanings of the forms of its name that suggests itself in connection with the kindred name of Nazareth; and their testimony is confirmed by that of the almost equally remarkable then, that this early apostasy was after the familiar pattern— an attempt to assimilate Jehovah to Cheres-Molech. 42 ST. MATTHEW'S CLUE tombs to be seen, as already noted, at Kefar-Cheres, a “‘town’’ that was also devoted to Cheres. This testimony is still further substantiated by that of a third witness, Kerak, with which Kir Cheres, #in-p, the Moabite “City of the Burning Sun,” has been identified; for it too is exceptional in the character and number of its sepulchral caverns.* We would accordingly seem to be warranted in the conclusion that the original name of Joshua’s city was Timnath- Cheres, which signified that it was the “Sacred Territory of Cheres-Nergal, the Lord of the Realm of the Dead”’; that from this name there was formed by metathesis the very apt and suggestive word- play Timna(th)-Tserach, ‘‘Place of the Tseriach of Baal Cheres,’”’ and ‘‘Region of Sepulture,” or “‘ Place of the Grave”’; and that finally this name of ill-omen was replaced by the happy equivoke ZJimnath-Serach, “Region of Abundance,”’ or ‘‘Boundless Portion.” We are warranted also in concluding that these plays on the name of the city Joshua chose as his inheritance were already long familiar at the time of the Con- quest—and the possibility suggests itself that, like the mystic Tav, the Cross, with which they are marked in both Timnath-Serach and Nazareth, they may be echoes, broken and perverted somewhat by the Apostasy through which they come to us, of the primitive revelation that centered in the Protevangel. The History of Religion, like all other earthly his- tories, exhibits the interaction of the opposing forces of growth and decay. This interaction is abundantly seen in the history of Christianity, and it was equally * Berkhardt, ‘‘Travels in Syria,” pp. 379-387. For the sug- gestion that Kutha also was anciently regarded as possessed of special sanctity as a burial place, see Morris Jastrow, Jr., Religz- ous Belief in Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 107, 108. FORESHADOWINGS IN HEBREW HISTORY 43 evident in the history of the mother cultus, the Religion of Israel; and remembering this fact, we may expect to find the roots of the truth in the very deepest strata of antiquity and some branches, some lingering indications of the truth, amid the wild growths and the degeneracy of the most perverse paganism. And we shall indeed discover that many foreshadowings of the promised Seed of the Woman are to be found in the ancient cult that gave its prophetic name to the chosen city of Joshua, the type of Jesus of Nazareth— but we need not be told that they had long lost their true significance in all the many versions of this ancient apostasy. Cheres, the sun-god worshipped at Timnath- Cheres, was, as we have seen, the Palestinian equivalent of the Babylonian Nergal, the Master of the Realm of the Dead, the Burning Sun, the Destroyer, the war-god. He is to be identified, therefore, with the Latin Mars, “The Bright and Burning One,”’ and the Greek Ares. In fact, it would seem that the name of this Greek deity, like that of many another member of the Greek pantheon, was of Semitic origin, was derived indeed from Cheres. The possibility of this identification, so far as the names are concerned, is indicated by the fact that in the Septuagint (Judg. 8: 13) Cheres, Dvn, is transliterated ’Apes, which is the stem of ’Apys. Furthermore the name has no certain etymology in Greek, and among the Greeks themselves this deity was acknowledged to be an importation; and finally and conclusively, the characteristics ascribed to Ares are those of Cheres- Nergal; ‘‘He is a god of storms, a god of light, or a solar god; a chthonian god, one of the deities of the subterranean world, who could bring prosperity as well as ruin upon men, although in time his destructive qualities obscured the others.’’* *Encyclop. Britt. 11th Ed., Vol. II, p. 455 0. 44. ST. MATTHEW'S CLUE Through his divinely appointed place-name, there- fore, the Prince of Peace is given the war-gods of the greatest of the conquering nations as the supporters of his prophetic blazonry; and there is here indeed an element of truth that some would like to forget, but that the prophets of the Day of Jehovah were especially commissioned to emphasize, the truth that Jehovah merciful and gracious is also Jehovah of Hosts, the Mighty One to avenge as well as the Mighty One to save. The Day of the Lord is a Day of Wrath—even of the Wrath of the Lamb, who is also the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. He is the Prince of Peace who came “to bring a sword.’ He is the King of Righteousness who will ride forth as a flaming warrior for the utter destruction of Evil. He is to be the Judge Inexorable. Cheres-Ares-Mars-Nergal was, however, as just noted, not always nor primarily a destroyer. Even among the Romans, ‘Father Mars’’ was originally worshipped as a protector of culture against the wild, and we may be certain that if the records were such as to give us an adequate picture of his cult, or of any other cult of the ethnic religions, in prehistoric times, it would indeed be recognized as a version of the original revelation whose central truth was first enunciated in the Protevangel and whose full signif- icance is to be seen in the Gospels and in “The Revela- tion of Jesus Christ.’’ That this is so is proved con- clusively by the providentially opportune recovery of just such a picture in the lore of the ancient Euphra- tean sun-god Nergal—a picture that has been pre- served from the double and age-long perils of perver- sion and oblivion most marvelously, whose outlines we can see, therefore, almost as clearly as if we were FORESHADOWINGS IN HEBREW HISTORY 45 living in those early times, and whose meaning we can understand far better, interpreting it now in the light of its fuller unfoldings and of the partial fulfil- ment of its promises. The records in which we find this picture have escaped the oblivion of intervening millenniums be- cause they were inscribed upon enduring tablets of burnt clay (Cheres, wn), and have been hidden in the bosom of Mother Earth; and they escaped the previous millenniums of devastating apostasy because they were enshrined in traditional idiographs and handed down in the venerated formularies of a sacred language. It is therefore what would seem to be a thoroughly trustworthy presentation of the salient features of the primitive revelation that is to be found, preserved like rock-imbedded fossils, in the old Sumerian idiographs of Cheres-Nergal; and not only do these formulas of the cult of the Burning Sun present characterizations of the Mighty One of whom “the sun when he goeth forth in his might’’ is Nature’s least inadequate mirror,* but they are even found to be exactly the familiar pictures used by Hebrew prophet and Christian apocalyptist to tell of Him whose significant place-name, “The Nazarene,’”’ was first foreshadowed in Timnath-Serach, the anagram- matic equivoke of Timnaih-Cheres, ‘Sanctuary of Cheres-Nergal,’’ the original name of the city Joshua prophetically chose as his portion in Israel. } These prophetic word-pictures are in truth such as to set before us an almost complete outline of the work of the Redeemer, and such especially as to distinguish and emphasize his two advents, as does the Protevangel. Furthermore, the reference of these * Cf. Emanuel Swedenborg, Apocalypse Explained, n. 926, 46 ST. MATTHEW'S CLUE idiographs to the two advents is made indubitable and the outlines of their pictures are filled in convincingly by two myths—the only myths of the Nergal cult as yet recovered—that have come down to us from remote antiquity. The first, The Story of Nergal and Eresh-Kigal, is one of the treasures of the Tell el Amarna Tablets,* which were written in the fourteenth century before Christ; while the second, the Dibbara Legend, was among the Babylonians regarded with as much veneration as was the Torah among the Jews. “It was to be taught by the father to the son. The scribes were enjoined to teach the story to the people. The poets were to make it the subject of their songs, and kings and nobles were not exempt from the obligation to listen to the tale.’ Like the Law of Moses, it was to be written ‘‘on the doorposts of the house’’; and accordingly there are in the British Museum “‘two specimens of tablets on which a portion of the Dibbara Legend is inscribed and which are pierced with holes in such a manner as to leave no doubt that they were to be hung up in houses.” f Many other parallels with the religion of the Bible are naturally to be found in the religious traditions and practices of the land that nurtured Abraham the Father of the Faithful; but it is beyond our province * It is worthy of note in this connection that these treasures of Tell el Amarna originally belonged to that most remarkable of the Pharaohs, Amenophis IV., or as he later called himself, Akhen-Aton, ‘‘Venerator of the Sun,” who attempted to do away with all the multitudinous cults of polytheistic Egypt and estab- lish in their place a monotheism whose only ikon should be the solar disk, Aton. His evident regard for this myth of Cheres- Nergal is therefore very suggestive. Tutankh-Amen (originally Tutankh-Aton), whose magnificent tomb has just been discovered, was the apostate son-in-law of this ancient reformer. ft Morris Jastrow, Jr., Relig. of Bab. and Assyr., pp. 536, 537- FORESHADOWINGS IN HEBREW HISTORY 47 to discuss the whole subject here. Neither is this the place to consider the caricature of the Holy Family-—afterwards reproduced in the Serapeum of Alexandria and in the worship of Babylon the Great— that is to be seen in Marduk and Zerpanit and their divine son Nabu, for it is very evidently a late de- velopment of Babylonian apostasy. The thesis before - us calls only for the traces of man’s most ancient religious convictions that are to be found, not in the Euphratean religion as a whole, but in the cult of Cheres-Nergal, to which the prophetic names Tim- nath-Serach and ‘Timnath-Cheres directly point. And, as we have said, it will be discovered that, notwithstanding the later polytheistic disintegration of the original sun-symbolism, in which, for instance, the royal prerogatives of the Mighty One were more specifically assigned to Marduk while Shamash be- came more particularly the all-seeing Judge, the major features of Messianic prophecy, and especially the distinguishing characteristics of the two advents, are retained in the lore of Nergal, the Babylonian god of the Burning Sun, whom the Western Semites called Cheres. It is to be observed, however, that all the gods had many local names and general titles in the Semitic world, and that sometimes these titles and by-names were endowed with a quasi-independent personality, or even became separate deities. We find accord- ingly that, while Nergal was the outstanding name of the Burning Sun among the Babylonians and As- syrians, he was known also by such names and titles as Nin-Girsu and Ninib, and that sometimes these names are grouped together in the same text in such a way as to suggest that they were different gods. 48 ST. MATTHEW'S CLUE This is especially the case with the name Nzinzb; but that Ninib, or rather NIN. IB.—for we have here in reality an idiograph whose full meaning and true pronunciation are both unknown—was originally a title, rather than a name, is indicated by its element NIN, ‘‘Lord of,’ and that he was indeed identical with Nergal is evident from the fact that some sign- groups may represent either the one or the other. In fact we have in Nergal-Ninib an illustration of one of the processes by which the gods of polytheism were multiplied—a process that in this case was never completed, for to the end Ninib was never clearly differentiated either in characteristics or function from Nergal.* The tendency of the differentiation was doubtless, as Jensen} maintains, to regard Ninib as the Morning Sun and leave the Afternoon Sun as the more particular province of Nergal; but Ninib never lost the fiery characteristics of Cheres, the Burning Sun. His late origin is indicated by the fact that, as distinct from Nergal, he was more prominent in the Assyrian pantheon than in the Babylonian. The following study of the cult of Nergal is of course intended to be nothing but a sketch sufficient to set forth the original symbolism that ancient apostasy perverted into sun-worship, and to reveal its true significance as the first unfolding of the promises of the Protevangel, in the light of their further unfolding in Hebrew prophecy and of their final fulfilment in the Sun of Righteousness, who first appeared among men as the Prophet of Nazareth (Mmy31)) and who is coming again as the King of Glory. * Morris Jastrow, Jr., Relig. of Bab. & Assyr., pp. 217, 218. German Ed., pp. 227, 228. + P. Jensen, Kosmologie, pp. 457-475. FORESHADOWINGS IN HEBREW HISTORY 49 THE FIRST ADVENT OF THE SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS FORESHADOWINGS FULFILLED IN THE NAZARENE 1. Nergal was known as ?'" BAR. BAR., or MASH. MASH. (B.L.* 1846), which is to be rendered: Asharedu, *‘The First of All,’”? ‘‘The Supreme.” And he who became the Nazarene is called ‘‘the beginning of the creation of God”’ (Rev. 3: 14). Of him it is said also, ‘In the beginning was the WORD and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him; and without him was not anything made that hath been made. In him was life and the life was the light of men’’ (John 1: I-4). | The features of the sun-symbolism that picture the Son of God as Creator were in the later Babylonian polytheism assigned to Marduk; but in the older mythology all the divine powers collaborate in the general work of creation while the creation of mankind is attributed to Ea, the personification of the Great Deep, who was always regarded as the god of humanity above all others—and the god of the Burning Sun, Nergal-Ninib, was represented as the first-born son of Ea. 2. Another characterization of Nergal was SHISH. GAL. (B.L. 5452), ‘‘ The Elder Brother ”’ —and Jesus is ‘‘the first-born among many brethern.”” It is of course but an implication that we find here of the truth that “‘the Word became flesh *B.L. = R. E. Brunnow’s ‘A Classified List of Cuneiform Idiographs.’’ Dingir 50 ST. MATTHEW'S CLUE and dwelt among us’’; but it could not be expected that the incarnation should be any more explicitly foreshadowed in these old formulas than it was in the words of the Hebrew prophets. By this same idiograph, construed as URI. GAL., Nergal. is represented also as the Urigallu, *‘ The Great High Priest’’—and in Jesus ‘““we have a Great High Priest who,’ being our Elder Brother, is “touched with a feeling of our infirmities” (Heb. 4: 14 and 15). 3. Like the Redeemer, of whose most glorious symbol he is the personification, Nergal is represented as the offering as well as the priest. Glorious as is the sun in his might, it is still an altogether inadequate mirror of God intervening in the affairs of Earth. Accordingly in the primitive revelation as set forth in the picture writing of the stars,* all the heavenly hosts were mustered into the service of the truth, and with the sun in his ever-circling supervision of the life of Earth were associated the planets, his comrades on the path of the Eclyptic. The favorite conception of the sun and the planets was that of a “shepherd” and his ‘‘sheep,’? and red Mars was regarded as “the sheep par excellence,’ } which in religious sym- Dingir * The investigations of W. F. Warren and of Hugo Winckler and his disciples, chief among them Alfred Jeremias, have empha- sized the fact that astral concepts had a fundamental place in the religious thought of the ancients. That the Hebrews shared these concepts is witnessed, for instance, by the Zodiacal figures in the furnishings and decorations of the temple (Ex. 25: 18 ff; 26: 1 ff; Ezek. 41: 18 ff; I Kings 7: 23 ff;) and in the Biblical theophanies (Ezek. 1: 5 ff; Rev. 4: 6 ff). It was only their polytheistic, idolatrous and occult perversionsthat were denounced by the prophets. + Morris Jastrow, Jr., Relig. of the Bab. and Assyr., pp. 459, 460. FORESHADOWINGS IN HEBREW HISTORY 51 bolism can only mean the sheep for the altar. This conclusion is confirmed by the fact that the ‘‘house’’* anciently assigned to Mars as the Zodiacal synonym of War in its heroic aspect was the Constellation Artes, which in its proper significance is the Little Lamb for the Altar. The planets were, however, at the same time peculiarly identified with the Sun in- its several phases; and, as we have seen, the alter ego of Cheres, the “Burning Sun,” was this Ares, or Mars, the sheep for the altar. With Nergal-Ninib was associated also the planet Saturn, | which, in accordance with a feature of the Babylonian as well as of the Hebrew ritual and in accordance also with the extreme ill-fortune everywhere and always attributed to this planet, we may perhaps regard as the sheep for Azazel.{ 4. Of special interest in relation to his worship at Kutha and at Timnath-Serach, or Timna(th)-Tserach, * To Mars, as to all the planets, were assigned two ‘‘houses.”’ War conceived as a destroyer was identified with the Scorpion; while the warrior regarded as a sacrificial hero was identified with Aries, the Lamb for the Altar. + Muss-Arnolt, Assyrian Dictionary, p. 727. t See ‘‘ The Scapegoat’’ in Rogers’ Cuneiform Parallels, p. 196. For orig. text, see Dhormein Revue d’Assyriologie et d’Archeologie Orientale, VIII, pp. 41 ff. The two planets evidently correspond to the double function of the god as belonging to both the Upper- and the Under-World pantheons, red Mars representing him as the god of War and livid Saturn as the Lord of the Realm of the Dead, to whom the scape-goat was an offering. That this was indeed the significance of Saturn is shown by the fact that the two “‘houses’’ he ruled were the constellation of Capricorn, the goat-fish, in which was the Gate to the Realm of the Dead, and that of Aquarius, who is pictured as sustaining by the stream from his urn the Under-World life represented by the Southern Fish—See Hastings’ Encyc. of Relig. and Ethics, p. 446 a— S. Langdon. 52 ST. MATTHEW'S CLUE ‘““The Place of Sepulture’’ of Joshua and the witness to his anticipation of ‘‘a Boundless Heritage’’ in the better Canaan, is the sign-group, 2?" NE. URU. GAL. (B.L. 92030), in which Nergal is represented as ‘‘The Conqueror of the Grave.” The sign NE., which is often rendered ‘Ruler,’’ really pictures the foot that treads down, the foot of the conqueror; and that Nergal was not conceived as the original Plu- tonian “‘Lord of the Great City,” the Realm of the Dead, but as having daringly invaded it and overcome it, is reflected in The Story of Nergal and Ereshkigal.* This is one of the most usual of Nergal’s idiographs, and it portrays him in his most characteristic signif- icance, and it is either a remarkable example of paronomasia or the original form of the name WNergal, for which no other etymology has as yet been dis- covered. 5. As we have observed, the temples of Cheres- Nergal were naturally suggestive of the realm whose conquest was his most glorious exploit. They repre- sented Aralu, the vast empire he had wrested from fearful Allatu or Evesh- Kigal, which the Babylonians often called ‘‘the land from which there is no return,’’ the Hebrew Sheol, the Grave. Accordingly his shrine at Timnath-Cheres—and so at Nazareth also—was a Tseriach, “‘a Sepulchral Chamber’’; and this tomb- temple, by a felicitous word-play, even gave a new form to the name of the place, Timnath-(T)Serach, which at the northern shrine of Cheres became (M) Na(th)-Tserach. At Kuthain Babylonia the same principle is manifest; for the very name of that ancient city became a synonym for the Under-World, and his *See R. W. Rogers, Cuneiform Parallels, p. 131 ff. Cf. Morris Jastrow, Jr., Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 584 ff. FORESHADOWINGS IN HEBREW HISTORY 53 famous temple there had the poetically suggestive name E. SHID. LAM., ‘‘The House of the Shadow.”’ E. SHID. LAM. is therefore the Sumerian equiv- alent of the Canaanite Beth-Tseriach; and Muinne- Tseriach, ‘‘From the Tomb,” the prophetic equivoke of ‘‘Nazarene,’’ m¥30, finds an exact parallel in the idiograph, ?”" SHID-LAM-TA. UD-DU-A., * in which Nergal as the conqueror of the grave is called ‘‘ The One who rises up out of SHID-LAM ”’ —out of the ‘‘ Land of the Shadow of Death.”’ The same idea is expressed in the name of the “ship”’ or ‘‘ark”’ of Nin-Gir-Su, which is the title of the sun-god, Ninib-Nergal, as the patron deity of the old Sumerian center, Gir-Su or Su-gir7, the Biblical Shinar. This ship was called KAR-NUNA-TA. UD-DU-A.,+ the ship of ‘‘ Him who rises up out of the dungeon of the Deep.” These characterizations of Nergal as The First of All, as the Elder Brother, as the Great High Priest, and as the Conqueror of the Grave, the one who rises from the Realm of Shades, unite with the picture presented by red Mars of the Sheep for the Altar and with the myth preserved in The Story of Nergal and Eresh-Kigal, to set forth consistent foreshadowings, not of the whole of the First Advent, of course, but of such of its features as could be represented in a manner that would not be too much out of character with the war-god in whose lore they have been treasured and handed down. It will be observed, however, that these are indeed just the features that are of supreme importance; for even the sacrificial * TV. Rawlinson, 35, No. 2,1. See Jastrow, Relig. of Bab. and Assyr., p. 65. ¢ Inscriptions of Gudea, D. Col. III. 1-2. Cf. Jastrow, Relig. of Bab. and Assyr., p. 654. 54. 2 ST, MATTHEW'S CLUE death of the divine Hero has been unobtrusively but unmistakably brought into the picture through red Mars. It is foretold by implication also in the story of the god’s descent into Aralu, even in the redaction that has come down to us; and, as suggested by Jastrow,* the analogy of “Tammuz and of the other solar deities’’ would lead us to suspect that in the original version of the myth “‘Nergal was carried to the lower world,’’ a seeming victim of death. The elements of humility and helpfulness that are lacking in these First Advent foreshadowings are paradoxically and purposefully emphasized in the following idio- graph, which propounds the primary thesis of the Second Advent. THE SECOND ADVENT OF THE SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS ITS RELATION TO THE FIRST ADVENT AND ITS TWO ASPECTS 1. The phases of God’s interventions in behalf of fallen humanity that find their supreme manifesta- tions in the Advents of the Redeemer, first as the Suffering Servant and then as the Conquering Hero, are set forth in a double construction of the idiograph Ding’ MIR. (RA.) (B.L. 958); for this idiograph reads both Ardu, ‘‘Servant,’’ and Zzkaru, ‘‘Man, a true man, a Hero.”’ Ardu, ‘Servant,’ recalls “My Servant The BRANCH” (Zech. 3: 8), Tsemech (= Netser), which is among the Biblical foreshadowings of the lowly Nazarene—and also “The Suffering Servant” portrayed by Isaiah. It seems out of place among the epithets ig Relig. of Bab. and Assyr., p. 586. | FORESHADOWINGS IN HEBREW HISTORY 55 of Nergal, but it becomes entirely consistent when we remember that these characterizations were not original with the cult of the war-god of Babylon, but were taken over from the Great NE. URU. GAL., the Sun of Righteousness whose spiritual worship the veneration of the Burning Sun supplanted. It is the one element underemphasized in the First Advent pictures of the war-god’s idiograms; and its indis- soluble association here with Zzkaru is aptly sym- bolical of the necessary relationship between the lowliness and obedience, even unto death, of the First Advent and the glorious victory of the Second. Zikaru, ‘* The Hero,” is the equivalent of G2bdér, the term with which Zephaniah represents God as intervening in human affairs, as the “Mighty One’”’ of the Day of Jehovah (Zeph. 1: 14 and 3: 17); and Nergal was indeed above all others the Mighty One, the Hero, of the Euphratean pantheon. His fellow deities of the sun were ‘‘heroes,’’ but Nergal was ‘‘the great hero.’’* Of course both Zzkaru and Ardu belong intrinsically to one advent as much as to the other, as does the Hebrew Gzbb6r; but it is not so with regard to the outward appearances in which they are made manifest. The myth that unfolds and makes explicit and in- dubitable the Second Advent implications of Zikaru is the so-called ‘“‘Dibbara Legend.”’= In this legend as we have received it, the hero is represented by this very idiogram MIR. (RA.), which some have construed as a name, reading it variously Dibbara and Girra, but which was, as we have seen, an epithet applied to * See ‘‘Gods of the Months,’’ Rogers’ Cuneiform Parallels, p. 194. t See Morris Jastrow, Jr., Relig. of Bab. and Assyr., pp. 231 and 528 ff. In his German edition, Jastrow calls the hero Jra. 56 ST. MATTHEW'S CLUE Nergal, ‘‘the hero’’—and he is here portrayed as indeed the peerless Hero, the Gibbér, the Mighty One, of the Last Great Day. A fearful and unprecedented war is to involve all the nations of the earth and to continue until— ‘“‘ After a time thé Akkadian shall come,’’ ‘‘Overthrow all and conquer all of them.’’ The ‘‘Akkadian”’ has here ‘‘to a certain extent the character of a Messiah,’”’ as remarked by Jastrow, who says further: “It is by no means impossible that Hebrew and Christian conceptions of a general war- — fare which is to precede the golden age of peace are influenced by the Babylonian legend under con- sideration.”’* This remark we would amend only by pointing beyond the legend to the prophetic un- folding of the Protevangel of which it is a polytheistic redaction. 2. It is evident now that Nergal was the god of the Under-World because he was a perversion of the sun as a symbol of the Sun of Righteousness who is “‘the conqueror of the grave,’’ and that he was the god of War because he was a perversion of that same symbol as in its fiery midsummer might it represents the wrath of God destroying the works of unrighteous- ness. So in the Dibbara Legend, the Hero is made to say: “Listen all of you to my words.” “Because of sin did I formerly plan evil.” ““My heart was enraged and I swept peoples away.”’ It was therefore as an exponent of righteous judgment rather than as a personification of War that the Burning Sun was called 7" UGUR., which is Iu Namtsare, ‘* The God of the Sword ”—and Jesus, * Ibid., p. 533. | FORESHADOWINGS IN HEBREW HISTORY 57 “The Captain of our Salvation,’”’ who is Jehovah of Hosts incarnate and now glorified, is represented in St. John’s picture of his Second Coming as a mighty warrior of whom it is said, ‘“‘And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which (sword) proceeded out of his mouth”’ (Rev. 19: 21, cf. Rev. 1:16, etc.). Even in his First Advent - Jesus said, ‘‘I came not to send peace but a sword”’ (Matt. 10: 34). 3. The totem and colossus-symbol of Nergal was the royal lion, the WNergallu, UR. MACh. (B.L. 11270), ‘*The Exalted Lion’’—and the Messiah finally triumphant is represented as “‘The Lion of the Tribe of Judah’’ (Rev. 5: 5), which is, however, discovered to be ‘“‘a Little Lamb as it had been slain.”’ Just so fiery Nergal-Mars was also “the sheep for the altar.” 4. The two preceding figures, the Sword and the Lion, represent the Hero, the Mighty One of the Last Day, with relation to his foes, the foes of right- eousness. His relation to his own people, on the other hand, is represented by the idiograph 2” IGI. TUM. (B.L. 9339), which is to be rendered "Ahk machri, *‘ He who goes before as a leader and guide ’’—And Jesus said: ‘‘In my Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I come again and will receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also”’ (John 14: 1-2). Notwithstanding all its apostasy, therefore, the cult of Cheres-Nergal, the perverted ikon of the Sun of Righteousness worshipped at Kutha and Timnath- Serach, bears witness to the truths of the primitive 58 ST. MATTHEW'S CLUE revelation, the prophetic unfoldings of the Protevan- gel’s promises concerning the wounded but finally victorious Seed of the Woman. Little did his ad- versaries realize, when they called Jesus of Nazareth a “Samaritan’’ (John 8: 48), that they were emphasiz- ing the truth already proclaimed in the despised place- name of the rejected “‘ Nazarene,’ the truth that in him was to be fulfilled all the hopes that are the common heritage of humanity but that have been so sadly obscured in the perverted mysteries of heathenism and apostasy. They called him a “‘Ku- thean’’; for, because of the colonists from Kutha settled in Samaria by the Assyrians, this was the term for ‘‘Samaritan”’ in the Jewish vernacular of that day. THE ENEMIES OF THE SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS THE APOSTATE WORSHIPERS OF HIS IKON Unfortunately in its very apostasy the cult of Cheres- Nergal bears witness also, prophetic witness, to a fatal tendency in fallen humanity that has mani- fested itself in countless defections from the truth all through the ages, and that has reached its culmination in the Great Apostasy that the New Testament apocalypse calls Babylon the Great. In order that there may be no doubt about this final application of the prophetic type, the consummate apostates whom St. John describes as worshippers of the Beast are characterized, as we shall see, in the Hid Treasures of Zephaniah (Part II., Chap. X., Sixth Prophecy) as ““worshippers of Saturn’’—which identifies them un- mistakably as the antitypes of the devotees of Cheres- Nergal; for, as already noted, pallid Saturn,* equally * See Muss-Arnolt, Assyrian Dictionary, p. 727. FORESHADOWINGS IN HEBREW HISTORY 59 with the Burning Sun and bloody Mars, was wor- shipped as hisikon. And it is evident that these two planets aptly suggest the double réle of the God of War and King of the Realm of the Dead assigned him in the apostasy. Saturn in the later redactions of the mythology is associated with Ninzb; but, as already noted, the sign-group NIN. IB. originally represented ° Nergal, and the god Ninib never ceased to be a full equivalent of Cheres, the western god of the Burning Sun. ‘‘Worshippers of Saturn”’ is therefore an un- mistakably suggestive term for apostasy; and the prophet Amos mentions Sikkut-Melek-kem, ‘‘ Ninib- Nergal their King,” and Kaiwan-tsalmé-kem, “their Saturn-images,’’ which pictured ‘“‘the star of their god,”’ as the root of offending also in the final apostasy of the northern tribes of Israel (Amos 5: 26). How fearful the ancient apostasy represented by child-devouring Saturn really was, becomes evident when it is observed that Cheres-Saturn was none other than Molech,* the abomination of the Valley of Hinnom—a worthy type of the abominations of the Great Harlot. This shines out clearly in the passage just quoted from Amos, in which Ninib-Nergal is called Melek-kem, ‘“‘their King’’; for Moloch, or Molech, usually written with the article, is a title rather than a name, and, as universally recognized, is in reality The Melek, the ‘‘King,’’ the vowels of the later Jewish pronunciation of the word in this association representing the frequent Kert, or sub- stitute reading, Bosheth, ‘“‘The Shameful Thing.” The title has here, however, almost the force of a name; it always connotes that horror of horrors, the * See Encyc. Brit., 11th Ed., Vol. XVIII., p. 677 a, and the New Schaff-Herzog, Vol. VII., pp. 449, 451. 60 ST. MATTHEW'S CLUE sacrifice of children by fire; and the opinion is general that such offerings among the people of Jehovah, newcomers as they were in Canaan, were always reversions to the worship, the propitiation, of the original Baal of the land (Cf. Deut. 12:29 ff.). Now the supreme deities of the Phoenicians and Canaanites and of the surrounding peoples were with few ex- ceptions sun-gods of very similar characteristics; and it is very evident that the fiery exacter of these immolations was also a sun-god—and which shall he be but that dreaded destroyer and Lord of the Realm of the Dead, Cheres, the god of the Burning Sun, of “bloody’’ Mars, and of the baleful planet Saturn? With this conclusion agrees the universal testimony of the Greeks, who identified Moloch with Chronos, or Saturn; and it is further substantiated by the story of the desperate expedient of Mesha, King of Moab. The local name or title of the supreme deity of Moab was Chemosh, but in the name of the father of Mesha we find the combination Chemosh-Melek, while the name of his great fortress is given as Kir-Cheres— -and it was upon the wall of this fortress that Mesha offered up his eldest son ‘‘for a burnt offering’’ to his god (2 Kings 3: 27). According to some texts of the Septuagint, which read Moloch instead of Malcham in Zeph. I: 5, it was against this same apostasy, brazenly associating itself even with the worship of Jehovah, that Zephaniah lifted his voice in vehement protest, citing the threatenings of the broken covenant; and the indications are that the shameful rites of Cheres-Saturn-Molech were indeed recrudescent in Jerusalem at that time (Cf. Jer. 19: 5; 32: 35; and Ezek. 23: 38 ff.). It is of course easy to see that for those who desired FORESHADOWINGS IN HEBREW HISTORY 61 them in those days of general spiritual declension among the people of Jehovah, there were not lacking in the externals of religious institutionalism, of cere- monial and symbol, of song and story, and even of dogma, plausible though specious excuses for this association of Moloch-worship with the worship of Jehovah; for it becomes more and more evident that - there were many parallels between the religion of Israel and the sun-cults of their neighbors and of the land of their origin; and, as we have just seen, these parallels are especially complete, far more complete indeed than could have been supposed, with the cults of Cheres-Nergal-Ninib, the cults of the Burning Sun and the planets Mars and Saturn. No one today, however, can fail to recognize the absolute contrast between them in the inner life that determined their historic development. It is very clear, therefore, that the religion of Israel had a common origin with the faiths of the peoples about them—a common origin, we doubt not, with all the Ethnic religions—in the once universal revela- tion, whose characteristic rudimentary promise is found in the Protevangel; but it is equally clear that, while on the one hand the Ethnic religions, all of them, in differing degrees and in many directions—least offensively among the Persians (thinking now only of the world as known to the Hebrews) and most grievously in the Saturn-Molech worship of ancient Canaan—wandered irretrievably from the only proper path of development of the primitive promise, the religion of Israel, on the other hand, though it was often betrayed by kindred impulses and dangerously beset by the example of the surrounding apostasies, was kept, but only by dint of providential interven- 62 ST. MATTHEW'S CLUE tions and frequent discipline and prunings the most severe, sufficiently near to the right line of religious, moral and spiritual development to enable it to furnish in due season the modicum of human cooperation necessary to the Gospel’s fulfilment of the first half of the Protevangel’s promise. Alas, how completely ancient history has repeated itself in the records of the Christian Centuries! The Prophet of Nazareth is still largely rejected, not only by “his own’’ who “received him not”’ in the days of his flesh, but by many also who call themselves by his name but receive not his spirit. Many indeed are the modern “‘worshippers of Saturn,’ many and various, from the ultrarationalistic exalters of nature in its most materialistic manifestations to the ob- scurantist devotees of perverted and superstitious traditions. But Divine Providence is still intervening as of old; and, preparing the way now for an adequate reception of the Mighty One returning to initiate the fulfilment of the second half of the Protevangel’s promise, brings to light opportunely this long-lost prophecy of the name of Joshua of Timnath-Serach, or Timnath-Cheres, with its manifold revelations that point to Jesus of Nazareth as the promised Savior of the World. 3. THE REST THAT REMAINETH FOR THE PEOPLE OF GoD—AND THE RIGHTEOUS REMNANT THROUGH WHOM THE JOSHUA OF THE NEW COVENANT WILL TAKE POSSESSION OF IT IN BEHALF OF HUMANITY (Cf. Rev. 14: 1 ff.) The relationship between the place-names of Jesus and Joshua has led us to assume that Nazareth like FORESHADOWINGS IN HEBREW HISTORY 63 Timnath-Serach was devoted to the worship of the Sheol-conquering sun-god Cheres, the Palestinian equivalent of Nergal, the “‘Lion”’ and the ‘Elder Brother,’’ and in accordance with this assumption, we find that ancient Nazareth seems to have shared the characteristic peculiarity common to places de- voted to the worship of the Lord of the Under-World —Timnath-Cheres, Kefar-Cheres and Kir-Cheres— unusual care in the burial of the dead; for there can be little doubt that this was the original purpose of the extraordinary artificial caves excavated in the limestone spur that juts out from the eastern mountain wall and occupies the central place in the valley of Nazareth. Like Joshua’s city, it was therefore a T1|mnath-Tserach, “‘A Place of Sepulture,’’ and this is the form of the name that has survived in connection with this northern shrine of Cheres; but, as we shall see, 7z]mnath-Cheres and T1|mnath Serach, the two other forms that the analogy of the name as applied to the sister city and the consistency of its local evolution demand, have left indubitable traces in the sacred records. That Nazareth was sometimes called JTumnath- Serach, or Mnath-Serach, is evidenced by the fact that it is actually mentioned in the scriptures by the latter half of this form of its name, which is its essential element. Nazareth is undoubtedly the largest town on the borders of Zebulon, and its location and en- vironment are such as to have invited settlement from the earliest times. It ought therefore to be found as the principal landmark in the boundaries of the territory of Zebulon as set forth in Israel’s doomsday book—and it is indeed so recorded in Josh. 19: 10-12, but in a fashion that only too truly reflects its peculiar- 64 ST. MATTHEW'S CLUE ities and its proverbial standing in the community. It was evidently among the cities from which the original Canaanite inhabitants were never driven out; and so in the ancient records its protean and elusive name, which did not live like that of the more southerly shrine of Cheres in the hearts of Hebrew citizens, easily lost both form and identity. That the un- certainty about the name of the principal land-mark of Zebulon is of very long standing is evident from its exceedingly various renderings in the Greek translations of the Bible: Zap6.5, Daperd, DedSoun, VeddovxX and ’Ecebexywra. In the present Hebrew text it is written TY, Sarid, a form that still suggests Tseriach, and that was perhaps chosen from among the variants represented in the Septuagint under the influence of the fact that Served (written both Deped and Laped in the Septuagint, and also Zedex in Lucian’s version) was the name of the eldest son of Zebulon. In all these variants the relationship to Serach, nnd or MY, is unmistakable. In all of them the initial ‘‘S”’ is retained with one or the other of the two remaining radicals; and the clerical error involved in each case— for the Septuagint was written after the introduction of the Hebrew square character—is either an easily understood confusion between 4 and 5, or an equally facile Japsus in writing tforn. Taken together Sarid (WY and Laped) and Sedduch (Zeddovx) leave little room for doubt that Serach, mw, or, as suggested by Dapb.6, with the Canaanite suffix -eth, Seracheth, nm, representing T1|mnath-Serach-eth, was the name in the original autograph of this passage. Lacking the key of the analogy of Timnath-Serach, and not knowing the true spelling of Nazareth, scholars have of course not been able heretofore to FORESHADOWINGS IN HEBREW HISTORY 65 identify Sarid with Nazareth; but they have not failed to note that the context indicates the immediate vicinity of Nazareth as its location. For instance, Knobel thought it designated ‘merely the southern opening of the deep and narrow wady that comes down from the basin of Nazareth,” while Keil sug- gested that it was represented by ‘‘one of the two heaps of ruins on the south side of the Mount of Precipitation.’’* The reference to Nazareth wherein it is called by the happy equivoke with which Joshua transformed the name of his chosen portion in Israel from a sugges- tion that it was to be the “Place of his Burial’’ into a prophecy of his boundless and eternal portion in the Heavenly Canaan is found, therefore, in exactly the place that is most appropriate—in Israel’s dooms- day book, which fixes the meets and bounds of the possessions of the Chosen People in the Earthly Promised Land, where it is mentioned as the pivotal landmark in the boundaries of the tribe of Zebulon, whose prophetic name means ‘“‘Habitation.’’ It was to be the earthly habitation of the Joshua of the New Covenant, who is to lead a ‘* Righteous Remnant,’’ as suggested by Sarid (=) and Seddouk (=p"y) —for we are dealing, it must be remembered, not with simple exegesis but with the ENIGMA of the Lost Prophecy —to the final reclamation of human- ity, of which a prophetic type is to be found in the postexilic redemption of Nazareth from Canaanite apostasy, and a harbinger in Sarid emended to (Mnath)-Serach. Finally, as we shall see, the form of the name that reveals Nazareth as at one time a shrine of the * See McClintock and Strong, “‘Sarid.”’ 66 ST. MATTHEW'S CLUE sun-god Cheres-Nergal-Saturn, will be found in an exceedingly suggestive equivoke that characterizes this type of earth-life as at that time the lair of the spoilers, in the picturesque story of Israel’s first Battle of Armageddon, the typical victory that delivered the people of Jehovah from the recrudescent domi- nance of the apostate Canaanites; and it is significant that the Spirit of Prophecy, speaking through the lips of Deborah, calls the victors in that typical contest by the very name to which the errors of the scribes have assimilated Serach, for she sings, ‘Then came down the remnant (7) of the nobles and the people; Jehovah came down for me against the mighty ’’ (Judges 5: 13). 4. A FORESHADOWING OF THE FINAL ARMAGEDDON THAT 1S AT LAsT TO DELIVER THE CHURCH FROM ALL THE OPPRESSIONS OF THE WORSHIPPERS OF SATURN Closely following the passage in the Book of Judges in which Joshua’s City, Timnath-Serach, is called Timnath-Cheres, Nazareth, or (Mnath)-Serach-eth, nm, is called “(Mnath)-Charish-oth (n-w7n) or Charis-oth (n-win) of the Gentiles’’ (Judges 4: 2 etc.). It must be remembered in this connection that in the old unpointed text Sim and Shin were not discrimi- nated, and that even in some modern Lexicons they are not treated as distinct letters. The pronunciation of this name is naturally of uncertain tradition. The English versions follow the Masoretic pointing, and transcribe it “‘ Harosheth of the Gentiles’’; but the Septuagint rendering, which we follow here, is *Aptowd Tta&v eOvav. FORESHADOWINGS IN HEBREW HISTORY 67 No site but that of Nazareth will harmonize with the implications concerning Charts[h oth of the Gentiles, in the story of Israel’s first Battle of Armageddon (Judg. 4 and 5 and Ps. 83:9 and 10). Tell Cherithiya “on the south bank of the lower Kishon,”’ with which, so far as the names are concerned, Charis[h]oth may . be most plausibly identified,* is nevertheless alto- gether impossible, and so is El Cherithiya on the opposite bank; for the implication that Sisera’s stronghold was at some distance from the Kishon is unmistakable in the promise given to Barak through Deborah, “I will draw unto thee to the river Kishon, Sisera, the Captain of Jabin’s Army with his chariots and his multitude; and I will deliver him into thy hand”’ (Judg. 4: 7); and in agreement with this im- plication, as well as in accordance with the promise, is the later description of Sisera’s hosts as “gathered together”? “‘from (j) Charis|hloth of the Gentiles unto (5x) the river Kishon” (Judg. 4:13). From either of the Cherithiyas unto the river Kishon, would mean nothing, for they are directly on the banks of the river; but from Nazareth unto the river Kishon— the north branch of the river, anciently regarded as the main stream, passing Nazareth at a distance of several miles—corresponds with the implication of the narrative, and also stages the battle intelligibly. Sisera’s nine hundred chariots could here be deployed on open ground; and here, as nowhere else, with its right flank protected by the river and its left by the hills of Zebulon, his challenging battle-array, as we would expect and as is indicated in the story (Judg. 4:14 and cf. 5: 15), could be drawn up in full view of *See W. M. Thomson, The Land and the Book, Vol. II., pp. 213-224. 68 ST. MATTHEW'S CLUE Barak on Mt. Tabor. Furthermore the issue of the contest was determined on the meadows in front of En Dor (Ps. 83: to- Eng.), which are about equi- distant from the initial positions of the two armies—if Charis[h]oth is the same as Nazareth. Here, it would seem, a sudden equinoctial storm transformed the rich soil into the worst of mud and turned the chief assets of the Canaanites, their chariots of iron, into hopeless liabilities—for ‘‘the stars in their courses fought against Sisera’’ (Judg. 5: 20), “‘the Earth trembled and the heavens dropped, yea the clouds dropped water”’ (Judg. 5: 4). The turn in the tide of battle evidently found Barak holding his enemy’s line of retreat; for the defeated captain fled eastward and northward on foot to the tent of Jael near Kadesh, while his army turned south- ward along the western edge of Little Harmon and then took the Great Central Highway that led over the upper fords of the left branch of the Kishon to the Canaanitish city of Taanach (Judg. 5:19). Here they doubtless expected to find a safe refuge; but their hopes were deceived, and turning westward they followed the road along the left bank of the river to Megiddo—only to find the gates of this Canaanitish city closed against them also. Sisera’s host was now indeed upon the direct road to Tell Cherithiya; but if this place was his headquarters and had been for twenty years, it is difficult to see why Sisera did not try to escape in that direction with his army. Fur- thermore, if it had been to Tell Cherithiya that they were retreating, the Canaanites having once gotten to the southern side of the river would have been in comparative safety both from their foe and from the hostile flood—for certainly, if either Cherithiya had FORESHADOWINGS IN HEBREW HISTORY 69 been the lair of these marauders for so many years, the stronghold on the opposite bank of the river would have been in their possession also and there would have been no occasion for them to attempt to cross the river at Megiddo. Thomson’s idea that they were caught by the overflowing flood in a narrow . pass between the ordinary bank of the river and the cliffs of Carmel is not in accordance with the Bible narrative, which says that “Barak pursued after the chariots and after the host, unto Harosheth of the Gentiles’’ (Judg. 4: 16). | The Song of Deborah makes it clear, however, that, not only at the fords near Taanach but also at Megid- do, “the River Kishon swept them away’”’ (Judg. 5: 19-21); and the only possible explanation is that at the fords near Megiddo they attempted to cross the now swollen and raging torrent and follow the road that leads across the plain to Nazareth, where the few that escaped the Kishon fell into the hands of Barak, so that ‘‘there was not one man left.’’ Clearly Barak had wisely maintained his hold upon the Canaanites’ lines of communication; and, instead of pursuing them across the rising stream, had followed along its northern bank and left the disorganized foe to be harried and driven on by the aroused country- side south of the river. And that the tribesmen of the neighboring regions, though they had not joined Deborah and Barak on Mt. Tabor, were nevertheless mobilized, and came up, all save the inhabitants of Meroz, ‘‘to the help of the Lord against the mighty ”’ in time to be of material assistance, is the testimony of Deborah, who, while her highest praises are re- served for Zebulon and Naphtali, makes honorable mention also of Ephraim, Benjamin and Manasseh— 70 ST. MATTHEW'S CLUE represented by Machir—and more especially of Issachar, who dwelt on the banks of the Kishon (Judes 214515, 18,123). Commanding, as we have seen, all the highways of Esdraelon, one of the great crossroads of ancient commerce, the north and south central highway of Palestine as well as the east and west caravan route from Egypt to Babylon, and so with easy communica- tions in all directions, and yet high up among the hills and protected by a mountain wall, Nazareth was the ideal headquarters for Jabin’s marauding minions, who, as is evident from the bitter taunt of Deborah’s song (Judg. 5: 6 and 19), had been ac- customed to levying “gain of money ’”’ at the fords of Taanach and Megiddo, where at last they paid such a toll to Death. The Cherithiyas, on the other hand, are off at one corner of the plain and could not directly command even the Egypt-Babylon caravan route, which had an alternative course through the Plain of Dothan. Moreover we would expect to find Jabin’s chief border fortress on the north or home side of both the treacherous river and the open plain, in fact secured exactly as it would be at Nazareth on the edge of the friendly hills; for it was among the northern fastnesses of these same hills that his capital Hazor was situated—and that his tyranny as a direct oppressor of Israel, however far his exactions as a tribute gatherer might extend, was confined to the regions of Galilee is evident from the relative lack of enthusiasm for the war among the other tribes as compared with Zebulon, Naphtali and Issachar. That his authority as the leader of the Canaanitish confederation was confined to this same region and had the Kishon as its southern boundary is indicated FORESHADOWINGS IN HEBREW HISTORY ek by the fact that the Canaanite towns of Taanach and Megiddo on the further edge of the plain did not open their gates to his fleeing army. Every cir- cumstance, therefore, points toward Nazareth as the site of Sisera’s stronghold. The name “ Charis-oth [or Chartsh-oth| of the Gentiles’’ is in keeping, so far as its qualifying phrase © is concerned, with all that we know about the city from which Nathaniel and his people would not at first believe that the Messiah could possibly come; and these equivokes are just such twists of the name of the city as the occasion would call forth among the Semites of those times. For twenty years, hidden behind its mountain wall, Nazareth had been the rendezvous of a Canaanitish confederation that had “mightily oppressed the children of Israel,’’ and so on their lips—or at least in the pages of their historian —|Mnath|-Serach-eth reverted to what, according to the analogy of the name of Joshua’s city, was its original form as the name of a heathen shrine. With a purposeful and exceedingly effective aspira- tion of Sin into Shin, which, as we have noted, were not discriminated in the unpointed text, and with a play also upon the Canaanitish termination -eth, the name becomes—as indicated by the Septuagint rendering ’Apiow t&v ’eAvv, which is far older than the Masoretic pointing—" [Mnath]-Charishoth (nw n) of the Goim,” which, with Charishoth referred to IV. won,* may be rendered ‘‘ The Place of the Sorceries of the Heathen.”’ A more direct word-play,f however, and one that * Cf. Isa. 3: 3; and the Arab fem. form noted by Brown- Driver-Briggs, p. 361 0. + As we have seen, the double word-play here is dependent upon the double function of the unpointed letter ¥. It appeals, Ta ST. MATTHEW'S CLUE specifically identifies the fearful apostasy against which Deborah rose up as a ‘“‘mother in Israel,”’ and that reveals its full significance as a prophetic type, is found in the reading [Mnath]-Charisoth (nen) hag-goim, “‘The Place of the Burnings of the Heathen.”? This construction is in harmony with the assumption that Nazareth was devoted to the worship of Cheres-Molech and answers the requirement of symbolic consistency that the first Battle of Ar- mageddon should picture the overthrow of the base counterfeit that has always sought to supplant the religion of Jehovah. The verb Charas, DN or Win, is regarded as obsolete. We have seen valid reasons nevertheless for the assurance that it meant “‘to burn’’; and the derivative Charisoth, used here in the appropriate sense of “Burnt Offerings to Cheres-Molech,” is found with the same meaning in two other equally apt word- plays, one of them used twice. The first of these word-plays is found in Kir Charisoth, the twist given the name of Kir Cheres, the Moabite stronghold, in the story of King Mesha’s horrible sacrifice on its wall (2 Kings 3: 25), and in Isaiah’s picture of the doom of Moab (Isa. 16: 7), where the prophet dwells sarcastically upon the lamentations of the Moabites, mourning “for the raisin-cakes of Kir-Charisoth’’— for the sacrificial feasts (Cf. Hos. 3: 1) in connection with the burnt offerings of their children. The same play on Cheres would explain the Kethibh, Sha‘ar Charisoth, mp in ayy (Jer. 19: 2), which records Jeremiah’s pronunciation of the name of the gate of therefore, to the eye rather than to the ear; and so must be credited to the author of the book rather than to the actors in the story. FORESHADOWINGS IN HEBREW HISTORY 73 Jerusalem that opened toward the Valley of Hinnom. The true name of this gate, as both the Masorites and the Septuagint indicate, was Sha‘ar Charesith, moan “yw, ‘‘The Rubbish Gate’’; but here in his denuncia- tion of the apostasy that sought to identify the worship of Jehovah with the cult of the Burning Sun, Jeremiah by a strikingly effective paronomasia made it mean “The Gate of the Burnt Offerings of Cheres-Molech”’ —for this was the gate by which the apostates led forth their little ones to be sacrificed. These renderings of the name of Sisera’s lair add new force to the peculiar phrase, “‘ of the Gentiles,’’ * found associated with it, and they also sound the very keynote of the patriotism of Deborah and Barak; for even more than an uprising against political and material oppression, the war they waged was in behalf of the religion of Jehovah and against the encroach- ments of the abominations of the Canaanites and the attempted restoration of the ancient apostasy of the land. ‘‘They chose new gods, then was war in the gates’’ (Judg. 5: 8) is the explanation given by Deborah; and her pean of victory closes in exultant harmony with it, “So let all thine enemies perish, O Jehovah; but let those that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might” (Judg. 5: 31). Note the word-play and antithesis suggested in these last words of Deborah’s song; for ‘‘the sun .. . in his might”’ is exactly Cheres, which in the spiritual monotheism of Israel, the legitimate successor of the earlier revelations, was still an unperverted type of the Sun of Righteousness, a symbol of the Mighty * This phrase and Esedekgola (p. 64) suggest that, to distin- guish it from Joshua’s city, Nazareth was known as ‘‘(Mnath-) Serach [or Cheres] of Galilee of the Gentiles.” 74 ST. MATTHEW'S CLUE Hero, who was to destroy the power of the Evil One, the Nazarene, of whom Joshua of Timnath-Cheres, or Timnath-Serach, was the great prophetic type; while the equivokes, Charishoth, twisted and plural and signifying ‘‘sorceries,’’ and Charisoth, referring to the abominable sacrifices to Molech, pictured the riotous and degenerate idolatry of the vanquished Canaanites, and furnished apocalyptic symbols of the apostasy that is the consummate work of the Evil One, and of which the typical example was furnished by those ancient worshippers of Cheres-Nergal-Molech-Saturn. It is evident that this first Battle of Armageddon, in which Deborah and Barak and the hosts of Israel, aided by the raging river and the stars in their courses, overthrew Jabin and Sisera, the champions of that earlier apostasy, foreshadows the final Armageddon of which the Voice of the Day of Jehovah and all the voices of prophecy give warning. 5. THe TypicAL HERO AND HIS PROPHETIC NAME IN FuLtt—A COMPLETE FORESHADOWING. The radical identity of the names of Nazareth and Timnath-Serach has now been abundantly sub- stantiated; and we see that in his place-name as exactly and fully as in his personal name and in his work, Joshua the Son of Nun of Timnath-Serach, the Savior of Ancient Israel, and the scourge of the apostasy of the Canaanites, foreshadowed Jesus of Nazareth, the Judge of all the Earth and the Savior of the World. Not only so, but even his clan-name, ben Joseph, was likewise appropriately contributory to his high calling as the central figure in a picture that was both historic and prophetic, and that was FORESHADOWINGS IN HEBREW HISTORY 75 designed to serve as one of the credentials of his great antitype; for it was as “The Son of Joseph” that Jesus was enrolled in the household of Israel (Matt. I: 16; 2:4, etc.). Furthermore it was only putatively that Joshua could be called The Son of Joseph, for it was not by nature but in accordance with the law of | the partriarchal blessing of Jacob (Gen. 46: 20; 48: 5, 13-20) that the Prince of Ephraim had precedence over the Prince of Manasseh as the Chief of the House of Joseph. It is worth while to note in this connection the care and the completeness with which a suggestive parallel has been established between the name of this Son of Joseph and the name of him who was called Jesus of Nazareth. He too was (1) putatively The Son of Joseph; and he is also, (2) as we shall see, metaphori- cally “‘The Son of Nun’’; (3) the name of the future conqueror of Canaan was changed by Moses from Hoshea, yw, to JSehoshua, or Joshua, ywwin—from “Salvation’”’ to “Jehovah is Salvation’’; (4) Joshua himself chose as his portion in Israel a place with the versatile and prophetic name of Timnath-Serach; (5) a suggestion of the peculiar oracular quality of this name is preserved in a parallel passage that gives us the form, Zumnath-Cheres; (6) ‘‘Nazarene’’ is darkly foreshadowed as a name of the Messiah by the prophet Isaiah, who calls him a Netser, 23, ‘‘A Little Branch’’; (7) this name is fully and specifically foretold by the prophet Zephaniah in a passage than which none could be more appropriate for the purpose; (8) the Angel of the Annunciation directed the Virgin | Mary to name her son JESUS (Luke 1: 31); (9) the angel that appeared to Joseph gave him the same in- junction (Matt. 1: 21); (10) the Holy Family, intend- 76 ST. MATTHEW'S CLUE ing to return from Egypt to Bethlehem, were by divine intervention turned aside to Nazareth; (11) the Evangelist Levi-Matthew recorded this last fact, and added—to the great discomfort of the apologists, but to the final discomfiture of their gainsayers—the annotation, “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophets that he should be called a Nazarene’’; and now (12), summoned to the witness stand in this Great Day, Joshua bin Nun ben Joseph of Timnath-Serach puts the seal of prediction exactly fulfilled upon the Joshua of the New Covenant. This prophetic witness of the great leader who was the flower of the tribe of Joseph is itself foreshadowed in the blessings pronounced upon the tribe by the pa- triarch Jacob (Gen. 49:22-28). Indeed so evidently Messianic in their implications are these blessings that some Jews have tried to find in them the promise of a second Messiah, the Messiah ben Joseph, to whom they might assign the roll of the Devoted Shepherd, the Suffering Servant. But the fact that these pre- dictions of the patriarch were to be fulfilled, not in one who was himself to be a Messiah, but ina hero who was to be a type of the Lord’s Anointed and whose very name was to be prophetic of his transcendent Prototype, is unmistakably suggested. He was to be made strong “by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob, BY THE NAME of the Shepherd the Stone of Israel’? (Gen. 49:24, R. V. Marg. Cf. Isa. 40:11; Zech. 13:7; Gen. 28:22; and John 1:51). IV ECHOES IN CHURCH HISTORY THE SIGN OF THE SON OF NUN AND ITS COUNTERFEIT BY THE FATHER OF LIES HE mission of the Angel of the Annunciation with the specific injunction, “‘Thou shalt call his name Jesus (or Joshua), for it is he that shall save his people from their sins’’ (Matt. 1: 21, 25; Luke 1: 31; 2: 21), has always been accepted as serving notice upon us that the name of him who lead Israel of old into their Earthly Promised Land—typical of the rest that remaineth for the people of God (Heb. 4: 8-9)—was designed to play no unimportant rdéle in Messianic prophecy, and this so much the more clearly in view of the fact that the Spirit of Prophecy, speaking through Moses, had been careful to change the name of the typical Savior of ancient Israel from Hoshea to Joshua (Num. 13: 16). Heretofore, how- ever, we have had no reason to suppose that the prophetic significance extended any further than the personal name of Joshua the Son of Nun of Timnath- Serach; but now we have discovered that his place- name was also prophetic, foreshadowing the place- name of his great antitype, and that the care exercised to insure the desired correspondence between type and antitype with regard to these place-names was exactly parallel to that bestowed upon the personal names. The suggestion is insistent, therefore, that we should enquire whether the patronymic of Joshua the Son 77 78 ST. MATTHEW'S CLUE of Nun of Timnath-Serach might not be found equally oracular with the rest of his name. In fact it is impossible to believe that the Spirit of Prophecy could fail to observe the law of analogy so evidently appli- cable here; it is unthinkable that He should make such appropriate and effective use of the personal name and the place-name of the human type of the divine Redeemer and neglect the golden opportunity offered by his patronymic; and indeed we shall find that, in accordance with a well-known usage of the East— exemplified, for instance, in the assumption by the false messiah whose pretensions brought the Roman Exile in its last full measure upon his people of the suggestive title Bar Cocheba, “Son of the Star’’— Jesus of Nazareth is in very truth a “Son of Nun.” Nun is his “Star,” it is his “Sign,” it is in fact and in the fullest sense of the term his patronymic sym- bolically presented; and it cooperates with his place- name to set forth the revelation so long reserved, hidden until the Day for which it was intended, to which St. Matthew’s clue has in due season led the way. For the interpretation of this figurative patronymic, Divine Providence has ordained that the symbol it uses should have the place of honor as the earliest token in the insignia of the Church, a token that sug- gested both of its two characteristic sacraments, the initial rite of Baptism and the memorial ordinance of the Lord’s Supper. It presents also the only truly Christian form of the sacred monogram and of that prehistoric emblem, the cross. It was the token that guarded the outer doors of the early Church from the secret minions of Caesar, and it is a sign in which is declared the truth that must guard the inner doors of ECHOES IN CHURCH HISTORY 79 the Church in all ages—it is the Sign and Seal of the Christian. Thecharacter Nun, our N, the fourteenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, pictures a fish; and its name is the Old Semitic term for ‘‘fish,’’ which recurs also in New Hebrew—and, as every student of Church History knows, it was the fish-token that | gave admittance to Christian fellowship in those early days of persecution. We shall see later that there are indeed meanings and applications appropri- ate to the symbolism to be found in the Hebrew fish- word Dag. 35, or Dagah, 1%, as well asin the Semitic fish-letter Nun; but for the Greek-speaking* Church of the first centuries of our era the significance of the emblem was primarily found in the Greek fish-word Ichthus, *Ix6ts.¢ In this fish-word every Christian of those times would read the confession, *Incods Xptatds O.od Tids Zwrnp, ** Jesus the Christ the Son of God our Savior.” Significant indeed, therefore, and in line with the oracles of his personal name and his place-name, is the patronymic of Joshua of Timnath-Serach, the Son of Nun, the Savior of Ancient Israel and the prophetic type of the Savior of the world, for by its suggestion that Jesus of Nazareth must also be in some sense in accordance with Semitic usage a “‘Son of Nun,” it presents and confirms the Christian’s historic confession of faith in him as the ‘Son of God’’—and we shall see that it presents him also as the “Son of Man”’ in all the historic relations of his humanity. The name of the letter Nun agrees, even in its * As Paul’s Letter to the Romans indicates and as the in- scriptions in the Catacombs prove, even the early Church at Rome spoke Greek rather than Latin. + Cf. Bennett’s Christian Archaeology, pp. 77-82. 80 ST. MATTHEW'S CLUE primary meaning, with its use as a symbol of Christ; for it is derived from the verb Nén, }\3 or 3, which means “‘to propagate or increase’’—and his is the Quickening Spirit that gives “power to become sons of God to them that believe on his name’’ (John 1:12). Thecorresponding noun Nin, }'), is translated simply ‘‘Son”’ in our versions, but it is always associ- ated with Neked, 323, ‘‘Son’s Son.”’ It is in fact the Son who is himself to become the succeeding head of the family—and he is the ‘‘Only begotten of the Father,’ the ‘‘First-born among many bretheren,”’ the ‘Second Adam,” the Head of the New Humanity through whom we also become ‘“‘heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ our Elder Brother.” With the incarnation there begins a new phase of the world’s redemption. Before that event, the preparation for it had involved division, elimination, and election—the Saving of Noah, the Call of Abra- ham, the “‘Election’’ of Jacob, on the one hand; and the ‘‘Preterition’’ of all the non-elect on the other. This involves no implications, of course, with regard to either the salvation or the ‘‘reprobation’’ of the individuals ‘passed over’’—and neither does St. Paul’s argument in the Nineth of Romans. That God “loved Jacob” and ‘hated Esau’”’ is merely a picturesque putting of the fact that Israel and not Edom gave promise of furnishing the higher type of national, social and religious life that God was seeking to develop as the necessary matrix of the Messianic hope. This process of division, of elimination and election reached its consummation in the birth of the ideal man, the ‘‘Son of God” and the “‘Seed of the woman,’ who initiated the final ‘‘mutation”’ of the life of Earth—participated in “by faith’? in the ECHOES IN CHURCH HISTORY SI times before—by which, through the new birth from above, the whole of humanity may become partakers of the divine nature. With Jesus, accordingly, there enters the process of multiplication of which Nun is the symbol and for which the division, the elimina- tion and election of the preceding dispensation had . been a preparation—the multiplication of the life of the Son of God in twice-born men. There is there- fore no longer any “election’’ that depends upon eugenics according to the flesh (John 1: 13)—though that eugenics must indeed be increasingly regarded as an essential factor of social growth in grace—but now God “commandeth all men everywhere to repent.” The call is to all, the race may be entered by all, and the prize may be won by all. The only “election ’’ now is the call to special service in herald- ing the Glad Tidings, which comes both to individuals (1 Cor. 12: 28) and to groups, nations, races (Luke 24: 47). From Jerusalem the call went forth pro- gressively to the diaspora, to the Gentiles of the Greek and Roman World, to the races of Europe; and now at last, after over twelve centuries of preparation in the ‘‘wilderness’’ (Rev. 12: 14), it is going forth to all the Earth and to the whole of humanity—for to every son and daughter of Adam must come in due season the opportunity to make his calling and election sure. Glorious indeed, therefore, is the hope wrapped up in the fish-symbol of the Early Church, the promise of the multiplication in dying humanity—in all who will receive it—of the divine and immortal life of “‘Jesus the Christ the Son of God our Savior’ through faith in his name, for even the dead shall hear his voice and come forth to his righteous judgment; and we shall 82 ST. MATTHEW'S CLUE see in the following chapter that this same symbolism bears witness to the equally essential work of this mighty Savior as the destroyer of the evil that has made his great salvation necessary, and that continu- ing would make even it of no effect. We will find too that it is no merely curious coinci- dence that the name of the constellation with which the fortunes of Israel were anciently associated is also “The Fishes ’’— Pisces, the largest but the least con- spicuous constellation of the Zodiac, to which, as we shall see, the oracle of the Lost Prophecy itself refers, indicating it by the Hebrew fish-word Dagah ns. This Hebrew word for fish, and the more usual form Dag, are also from a root that means “to multiply, to increase’’; and a play on its spelling somewhat after the analogy of that on the spelling of Ichthus, one that is indeed self-enouncing, gives us Daleth- Gemiul, or Gemilah, which represents the work of the Son of Man in its twofold aspect under an apt and familiar figure; for Daleth is ‘‘Door,’’ and Gemiél or Gemilah is “treatment just such as one ought to receive, whether of reward or of retribution’’—and he is the Door of Reward to the justified, and the Door of Retribution to the finally impenitent (Cf. Jer. 51: 56; and John 10: 1-2). For the early Chris- tians, both Jew and Gentile therefore, the picture of a fish, or an equivalent symbol, was a suggestive “‘Sign of Christ’? and an appropriate countersign at the door of the Church. It was a token suggestive both of the initiatory sacrament of Baptism and of the memorial sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, with which it is frequently found associated in early Christian remains.* Its confession of faith is indeed the ‘‘rock”’ * See Bennett’s Christian Archaeology, pp. 79-83; and Hastings’ Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. XII., p. 136. ECHOES IN CHURCH HISTORY 83 on which the Savior declared he would build his Church as a temporal institution (Matt. 16: 18), just as he himself is the “‘Rock’’ on which is founded its eternal hope; and this is the truth that the Beloved Disciple made the central theme of all his writings, and that in his epistles he recommends as the touch- , stone of Christian fellowship. In fact St. John ex- plicitly and repeatedly affirms that any denial of this truth is the identifying mark of Antichrist (1 John 2 Edr2a) hs 25.53 TO). | This is the Nun that was rejected by the Rabbins and that, restored to the text of Zephaniah, discloses in the Oracle of the Great Day of Jehovah the Lost Prophecy that St. Matthew has been accused of allowing his enthusiasm to invent—a prophecy that now, reinforced by the foreshadowings of the place- name of the first Joshua, clinches with unexpected corroboration his argument that Jesus of Nazareth was indeed the Joshua of the New Covenant, the Christ, the Son of God, the Messiah foretold by the prophets. The suggestion is inevitable, there- fore, that Resh, the letter that supplanted Nun in Zephaniah’s oracle and that thereby obscured the Proclamation of the Voice of the Day of Jehovah, the prediction that most specifically identifies the Christ with the Prophet of Nazareth, must indeed be the symbol of Antichrist, the token of that most deadly of all errors, the denial of the power and authority of him on whom our Salvation depends, the denial of the reality of the incarnation of the Spirit of Life in the First-born among many brethren, whether it take the form of a denial of the reality of his divinity or of his humanity—and the Great Apostasy is in effect a denial of both. 84 ST. MATTHEW'S CLUE The Church as a whole has never been long de- ceived by overt and palpable manifestations of either of these cardinal errors—that of the Gnostics on the one hand and that of the Alogot and the Arians on the other—but St. John earnestly bids us beware of those hidden workings of the same spirit of Antichrist that lead men to confess Christ Jesus with the lips while they deny him in the heart and in the life (1 John 2:4 ff., 15 ff.;3:4 ff., etc.) ;and these practical denials of his divinity and authority and power, on the one hand, and of the reality of his human nature and the sufficiency of his human sympathy on the other—both of which are denials of the divine hu- manity in which alone is the possibility of Salvation and eternal life—have in varying degrees and propor- tions been sadly evident in the Church of all ages and of all places and denominations. The type and chief, the supreme ‘‘head,” of them all, however—and therefore the special application of Resh—is to be seen in the denial of Christ by an appeal to the practices of the world, the substitution for his Spirit in the Church itself, in its activities and government, of the spirit of the world, even of the world at its worst, the spirit dominant in the great exploiting despotisms characterized by the Word of God as “‘wild-beasts.’’ This is that great apostasy, predicted by the Apocalyptist of the New Testament, through which the Bride of Christ, the New Jerusalem, has been supplanted in the house of the Church, its ex- terior organization, by Babylon the Great, the Mother of the harlots and of the abominations of the Earth. And as it practically denies the divine power and authority of the Son of God, our Savior, by its appeal to the methods of the World, and its worship of the ECHOES IN CHURCH HISTORY 85 ideal of absolute and ruthless Empire, so this same Apostasy denies in effect the reality of his human nature, the sufficiency of the sympathy of our Great High Priest, for it places its main reliance on the mother-heart of the ‘““Queen of Heaven”’ and calls in besides the intercession of the multitudes of its deified saints. That this is indeed the significance of Resh, that it does in fact identify the Great Apostasy, the over- reaching enmity of the Evil One has left no doubt— for God makes even the wrath of Satan to praise him. As it supplanted Nun in Minnatserach, mmy3o, the Hebrew cryptogram of the name of the Messiah, so it did also in the Greek monogram of Jesus Christ, and in such a way as not only to reveal its own origin but also to put the mark of his identity upon the head of that consummate disguise of the Old Serpent, the Dragon in the clothing of the Lamb, against which the oracles of God give particular warning. The equivalent of Nun in the Greek-speaking Christian Church was the picture of a fish, or some- times of two fishes, representing the letter as its name is spelled in Hebrew, }\3, “‘ Fish and Fish’’—a duplica- tion that is also appropriate as suggesting the fish- constellation Pzsces, which pictures two fishes tied together. In early Christian art the two fishes are frequently found crossed, and it would seem that it is as an equivalent of this form of the emblem that the primitive Swastika ® must be construed in its Christian use, for it is readily seen to be the crossing of two N’s or Nuns in a very ancient as well as a finally persisting form of that letter. The most suggestive form of the fish-symbol was however the abbreviation of the word ’Iy6is, its first two letters, 86 ST. MATTHEW'S CLUE written as a monogram, *—which is also the monogram of Jesus Christ, and which is besides the only purely Christian form of the CROSS, the only form of that prehistoric emblem that has no perverted or unhallowed associations. In process of time this, the true and original, sacred monogram was obscured.* In harmony with the ever more and more prevailing tendency toward con- formity to the world and its institutions and cults, it was assimilated to the ancient mystic symbol X&, which is found on pre-Christian coins and on monu- ments to heathen deities; and, in the form ¢ , it was assimilated also to the well-known Crux Ansata, the symbol of life in the religion of Egypt.t Both of these forms were construed as Cihi-Rho, the monogram of Xpictos or Christ, which with seeming innocence has taken the place of the monogram of Jesus Christ and is now indeed the symbol meant when one speaks of “the Sacred Monogram.” It is, however, in reality the emblem of imperialism; for it is Constan- tine’s Cross, the standard of the Caesars, and the successor and equivalent of the predatory Eagles of Rome. Constantine’s Cross is only too true to history in its symbolism—only too faithful in its picture of the deceptive alliance of the Church and the Empire. The beautiful curve that transformed Jota into Rho seemed, no doubt, to the Christians of that day not only harmless but even advantageous. Chi-Rho, ¥, seemed even more distinctly the monogram of Christ than Jota-Cht, %, and so indeed altogether dis- placed it; but this intrusion of the letter “‘R’’ into * See Bennett’s Christian Archaeology, pp. 84 and 87. t See McClintock and Strong, Vol. VI., p. 506. ECHOES IN CHURCH HISTORY 87 the monogram obliterated all reference to the fish- word Ichthus with its confession of faith in the Savior —Resh supplanted Nun as completely in the historic token of the Church as it had in MiNaTSaRaCh its prophetic symbol; and as the standard of the Church- Empire the perverted monogram became altogether what it doubtless suggested to the pagan officers of’ Constantine’s army, the standard of the Emperor as Pontifex Maximus, the labrum surmounted by a serpent*—for indeed both Resh and its Greek equiva- lent Rho are very suggestive of the conventional figure of the curving neck and head of a serpent. Furthermore, when this emblem is thought of as a ‘“Cross’’—and so it is called—and when its inter- loping ‘‘R’’ is identified with the supplanting Resh of the Lost Prophecy, it is no longer the Greek monogram of Christ at all, the dissimulated appearance of the Lamb is betrayed by the voice of the Dragon, and it is revealed in its true character as the significant Hebrew letters Tav-Resh, a CROSS, Tav, exalting Resh, the initial of ROME (a) and the “Head”’ of the Serpent; for the letter Tav is both in figure and name a ‘‘Cross Mark,” while the letter Resh pictures a “head ”’ and its name is a by-form of Rosh, the Hebrew word for ‘‘head’’ and the term also for the ‘venom of the serpent.’’ It is indeed the ‘‘Mark Resh’’— the Symbol of the Serpent and the Mark of ROME, the last and greatest and most fearful of the Apoc- alyptic beasts. * So Ammianus Marcellinus, Book XVI., Chap. 12, as quoted by A. Hislop, The Two Babylons, pp. 389, 512. V THE END OF THE CLUE THE First MEssIANIC PROPHECY—ITS FINAL FULFIL- MENT FORESHADOWED IN THE RECOVERY OF THE Lost PROPHECY T. MATTHEW’S reference to prophecies that the Christ “should be called a Nazarene”’ was in his own mind simply for the purpose of proving from the Scriptures that Jesus of Nazareth was the promised Messiah; but we see now that there was in the mind of the Spirit a further purpose of more ex- plicit corroboration and fuller revelation unsuspected by the writer whom he inspired, a purpose that made use of the evangelist’s seeming misstatement to afford in the fullness of time a clue to the recovery of this oracle of Zephaniah, which was to be lost for a season. Truly the name of the prophet is itself a prophecy: ‘Jehovah hides, preserves, treasures up.”’ “‘Deep in unfathomable mines Of never failing skill, He treasures up his bright designs And works his sovereign will.” The name of the evangelist, who is called both Matthew and Levt, is equally significant in this connec- tion. Matthew, as is well known, means “The gift of Jehovah,” while Levi, 15, may be regarded as derived from III. "5 and rendered ‘‘Garland” or ‘‘Wreath ”— anything “‘twined,” and therefore a “clew”’; and it is entirely in harmony with this idea that in Gen. 29: 34 88 THE END OF THE CLUE 89 it is explained as derived from I. 5, RCT JOIN ia tO unite,’ and as given to the first Levi, the third son of Jacob and Leah, because it was hoped he would prove to be a bond of reunion between his estranged parents—and this is a meaning appropriate also to the priestly function of his tribe in the Household of Israel. Just so St. Matthew’s much derided reference © to seemingly imaginary predictions of the despised name ‘‘Nazarene” is a “‘bond of reunion’’ between these Lost Prophecies and their rightful place among the treasures of the Church, and has become the “‘clue”’ to their recovery. Accordingly Levi-Matihew, the union of the old Jewish and the new Christian names of the evangelist through whom this “‘clew”’ and ‘‘bond of reunion’’ comes to us, is found to be, like those of Joshua and Zephaniah, most appropri- ately prophetic, “A clue is given by Jehovah’’; and the opprobrium so long cast upon the name of this one-time publican (redXwvns = Tedos + *wvéomac) because of his supposed blunder with regard to these prophecies has purchased (wvéopar) the accomplishment (rédos) of the hidden purposes of God. ‘*Blind unbelief is sure to err, And scan his work in vain; God is his own interpreter And he will make it plain.” And we shall indeed find in the recovered Proclamation of the Voice of the Day of Jehovah and in the timeli- ness of its message for this perplexed and lowering day abundant justification of its age-long obscuration to the seeming discredit of the first of the Gospels. St. Matthew’s clue has led us to the Hid Treasures of Zephaniah, and we have also found an unsuspected wealth of meaning and of prophetic suggestion in the 90 ST. MATTHEW'S CLUE place-name of Joshua the Son of Nun of Timnath- Serach, and in his patronymic as well; but the clue still leads on—the message and its authentication are not yet complete. The very loss and recovery of the Oracle of the Voice that heralds the Last Day—the erasure, first of Nun} and then of the Resh that supplanted it—are found to be freighted with pro- phetic import. The discovery of the symbolic character of these letters awakes in them an un- mistakable echo of the first Messianic prophecy, an echo that seems, like the Voice of the Day of Jehovah itself, to be a harbinger of the speedy coming of the Mighty One and of the fulfilment of the promise of restoration implied in the divine pronouncement as the gates of Eden were closing behind our first parents. It is by a very obvious word-play that Rosh, Ws, the ‘‘head’’ of the Serpent, becomes the letter Resh, which pictures a ‘‘head’”’ and whose name is a by-form of Rosh—which is also a term for the venom of the serpent. Soalso‘Akeb, 3py, which is translated “‘ heel” in the English versions of the Protevangel (Gen. 3: 15), may be rendered “mark” or “sign.” This is one of its ordinary meanings in both Arabic and Aramaic, and the extant usage indicates that this was one of its meanings in Hebrew also—it is, for instance, the ‘“‘foot-print,”’ the ‘mark,’ by which one is tracked by his enemies (Ps. 56: 7 and 89: 52); and it is found for ‘‘token’’ in the Hebrew rendering of Ecclus. 13: 26. In this ancient prophecy, therefore, ‘Akeb, the ‘‘foot-print,’’ the ‘‘mark,’’ the “‘sign,”’ of the Seed of the Woman, readily suggests the letter Nun, the Hebrew fish-letter, which we have found to be synon- ymous with the Greek fish-word Ichthus, the ‘‘token”’ of the Church and the ‘“‘sign”’ of Christ. | THE END OF THE CLUE Of These word-plays are further exemplified and con- firmed in the version of the Protevangel preserved in the picture-writing of the stars, to which we shall have occasion to refer in the fifth and sixth chapters of Part II., following. There Resh, the Head of the Serpent, is found to have been represented by Aries, the ‘‘Ram,” the ‘‘Prince of the Signs,’”’ the ‘‘Leader — of the Year,’’ regarded as the Head of the Zodiac in its malign aspect or, in other words, as under the dominance of its southern or infernal paranatellon, the Head of Cetus, the Dragon of the Deep; while Nun, the Hebrew fish-letter, which we have found to be, like the Greek fish-word Ichihus, a token of the Church and the sign of Christ, was represented by the last constellation of the Zodiac, its ‘‘heel,’” the fish-constellation Pisces, in its beneficent aspect, or regarded as under the dominanee of its northern or supernal paranatellon, Andromeda, the maiden whom the dragon would devour—but whose chains are now to be broken—and whose “‘feet’’ anciently marked the end of the circle of the months, as did the ‘‘head”’ of Cetus its beginning. Moreover that Pisces was indeed anciently thought of as the “‘heel’’ of that most important figure of the heavens, the Zodiac, while Aries was conceived as its “‘head,”’ is reflected in the fact that even in our almanacs today these parts of the human body are pictured as traditionally under the influence of the Fishes and the Ram re- spectively; and it is significant that ‘Ekeb, “‘heel,’’ is still the Arabic term for the end of the month. Finally, this ‘Heel’? (‘Ekeb, apy) of the Zodiac is known to have been associated of old with the fortunes of the Children of Israel—it was the constellation of Jacob (2p), who was given his name because at their 92 ST. MATTHEW'S CLUE birth he significantly laid hold of the ‘‘heel”’ of his twin brother Esau, whom he afterward “supplanted ” (apy). The perfect complement of these word-plays upon its emphatic substantives is found in Si#ph, bid, the verb of this pronouncement of the Protevangel. The primary meaning of this verb is “to grind’’—so in the cognate languages, and so in Gen. 3:15, @, and in Ex. 32: 20 Targum. Thence come the secondary meanings, (1) “‘to abraid, wound or bruise’’—so in Gen. 3: 15 0; and (2) ‘‘to rub off, to render invisible, to erase’’—so in Job 9:17 and Ps. 139: 11, and so also in Gen. 3: 15 in the paronomasia.* The words addressed to the serpent in Gen. 3: I5 may therefore be construed in two different but en- tirely equivalent ways: (1) simply and naturally in accordance with the literal story as traditionally rendered and invested with an allegorical and pro- phetic significance, ‘‘He shall grind (or bruise) thy head, and thou shalt wound (or bruise) his heel’’; and (2) by a paronomasia that discloses a parable of the enmity of the Father of Lies to the Living Word in his inveterate hostility to the Written Word, ‘‘ He shall erase thy Resh, and thou shalt erase his Nun ’’—a corollary of the Protevangel that furnishes the key to the full import both of the Ichthus sign, the true sacred monogram, and of its counterfeit, the Cross of Constantine; and that also confirms their identification of the great apocalyptic figures of the Book of Revelation with a parallel symbolism of which we have already seen, in some measure, the unique force and suggestiveness. And We shall find *For the data here adduced, see Brown-Driver-Briggs sub voce, Pp. 1,003 a. THE END OF THE CLUE 93 in the Book of Zephaniah—and also on the scroll of the heavens—such applications of this symbolism as will be altogether worthy of the tribute to its signif- icance implied in its use in the patronymic of that peerless type of the Savior, Joshua the Son of Nun of Timnath-Serach. Indeed by this symbolism, as we . now perceive, Jesus of Nazareth, the metaphorical ‘Son of Nun’ and the putative “Son of Joseph,” is directly identified, not only as the “Christ the Son of God our Savior,’ but also as the Son of the Virgin in whom is to be recognized the consummate appli- cation of the Protevangel’s prophecies concerning the Seed of the Woman. St. Matthew’s clue has now been followed back to the very beginning of Messianic prophecy; and it has disclosed the Lost Prophecy in two very dissimilar but closely related unfoldings of that first promise. One of these, the prophetic name of the greatest of the types of the Nazarene, has indeed been found to con- tain an altogether unsuspected wealth of revelation, and it has provided us with just the suggestions we need for the decipherment of the other. We can now proceed, therefore, to read the naturally fuller and far more explict message of the Lost Prophecy as it is found in the Hid Treasures of Zephaniah. PART II THE HID-TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH MIDS VI THE PROPHET AND HIS NEW BOOK HERE have been many methods of searching the Sacred Scriptures, but the Bible itself asks only to be read like any other literature— to be interpreted, in other words, by the Rule of Reason. A true application of this rule, however, must determine its premises from the origins, methods and goals of the work in hand; and so it will not forget that the Spirit of Prophecy as well as the human author is to be considered in the interpretation of these scriptures, and that, therefore, on the one hand, only such constructions and applications as are in harmony with the consensus of prophecy are to be admitted—‘“‘for no prophecy of scripture is of any suigenerous interpretation’’ (II. Peter 1: 20), while, on the other hand, no such construction or application is to be rejected merely because it is beyond the pur- view of the human author and his times. For, though the inspiration of these scriptures is no isolated phenomenon and can not be regarded as un- related to the strivings of the Holy Spirit with all men of all times and all places, it must nevertheless be construed in the light of the fact that, sifted and treasured and assembled by Divine Providence in cooperation with human appreciation, they are the surviving scriptures of the choice spirits of the Peculiar People who were in covenant relations with God and who prepared the way for the coming of Him who was “the express image of the Godhead bodily,’’ who was 97 98 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH the first perfect union of the divine and the human and the long expected earnest of the final and multi- plied revelation of the Heavenly Father in his earthly children—the surviving scriptures likewise of those who, in the estimation of the Household of Faith, under the guidance of the promised Paraclete, had caught the clearest vision of our Elder Brother and had become most fully conformed to his spirit and imbued with his life. We credit them, therefore, asa whole and severally and in each constituent element, both as to their original composition and as to what- ever redactions may have brought them to their present form, with such a degree of inspiration in each case as is entirely sufficient for the divine purpose involved—and also with a concomitant measure of divine providence in their transmission down the ages. For, on the assumption that these scriptures are indeed thus preeminently inspired by the Spirit of Truth in furtherance and interpretation of the mission, unapproachably supreme, intrusted to a. series of Chosen Peoples, central among whom were the Sons of Abraham who collaborated with Him in writing them, the Rule of Reason demands that we regard them, just as we have been led to do, as con- stituting one book, The Bzble, a unity from Genesis to Revelation in the unfolding of its one Grand Theme. The Rule of Reason demands furthermore that we interpret this book in accordance with its own precept and example—as illustrated in the quotations from the Old Testament found in the New, and as set forth explicitly by our Lord himself and by his apostles: “‘ Ye search the scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and these are they which bear witness of me’’ (John 5: 39); “and beginning THE PROPHET AND HIS BOOK 99 from Moses and from all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself’’ (Luke 24: 27); ‘‘Moses indeed said, A Prophet shall the Lord your God raise up from among your brethren, like unto me. ... Yea and all the prophets from Samuel and them that follow after, as many as have spoken, they also told of these days”’ (Acts 3: 22, 24). In truth so fully dedicated to this one all-absorbing theme is the Bible that all the strik- ing personalities, institutions, and events described in its pages are utilized as types and shadows to carry the burden of its unsearchable riches; for “these things happened to them by way of example (Marg. = figure; Greek = rirou, var., rurixds); and they were written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the ages are come”’ (I. Cor. 10: II). Of these principles the New Book of Zephaniah is an outstanding illustration and confirmation. It comes to us from the remote past in such a way as could be made possible only by the cooperation of a divine inspiration and a divine providence that extend, where need requires, to the very “jot and tittle”’ of the text; its readings and applications form a con- sistent and finished whole that is in absolute accord- ance with the consensus of prophecy; and its predic- tions, hidden so long and so securely, are found to tally circumstantially with the facts of history so far as they have developed. There is here, however, no implication that the whole body of sacred scriptures was likewise written under the direction of an inspiration that extended to the very letter, but just the contrary; for the Book of Zephaniah as it is now disclosed is the superlative of its kind, and required a corresponding degree of the I0O HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH divine agency in its composition—and the reasons for this character of the book and this quality of its inspiration are not far to seek. The efficient cause is to be sought of course in the divine purposes as now revealed in the book itself; but a contributing cause is to be seen in the capabilities and the sympathetic cooperation of the human author who was chosen and named and prepared in accordance with those pur- poses; while the occasion is to be found in the excep- tional and significant character of the times, which, in the first place, made such a revelation just then eminently appropriate to the purposes in hand and, in the second place, helped to make it possible through the reaction upon the prophet and his friends that attuned them to the mind of God. For the human author is here, as everywhere and always, not only a prophet of God to the extent of his real soul-affinity for the elements of the good, the beautiful.and the true involved in his work, but also, more or less, in accordance with the same Law of Sympathy, a repre- sentative of our common humanity, an exponent of his own times, his own people, his own cultus, and the spokesman especially of the circle of friends with whom he was most closely associated and whose ideas and aspirations he shared. Zephaniah wrote at the time of the great though seemingly futile reformation that followed the recovery of what was probably the long-lost and forgotten autograph copy of the Mosaic Covenant in the days of Josiah. The nation as a whole was indeed far gone in apostasy, but there was a remnant, a coterie of the meek of the land, that kept the ordinances and sought righteousness (Zeph. 2: 3), a party of progress that were insulated from the contamination of the general THE PROPHET AND HIS BOOK lor apostasy by their active and uncompromising hostility to it—among them, the good king Josiah, Hilkiah the high-priest, Huldah the prophetess, and the three prophets Jeremiah, Habakkuk and Zephaniah. To the moral earnestness of this great reformation there was added an undercurrent of foreboding that it could not allay, a growing conviction of the fearful — imminence of the greatest crisis in the history of the nation; and the spiritual exaltation that lifted the minds and hearts of the true Israel of that day into trustful confidence in the graciousness of the ultimate purposes of Jehovah, however dark might be the more immediate manifestations of his providence, is natura- Ily reflected in the preeminence, each in his own field, of the three literary prophets who are their spokesmen. Of Jeremiah, “‘Appointed of Jehovah,” acknowl- edged to be the greatest of all the seers of Judah, save possibly one, the statesman inspired for the times and the Prophet of the New Covenant, nothing further need be said; while Habakkuk has always been recognized as unexcelled in the artistry as well as in the native sublimity of the short but diversified theodicy with which he “gathered in his arms”’ the bewildered faith of the wandering sheep of the House of Israel; and now it is seen that Zephaniah, the Prophet of the Last Day, was in some respects even more wonderfully responsive to the divine purpose. It was his to reveal the final consummation, dimly but sufficiently to the needs of his own generation, and fully and circumstantially to the greater needs of the time of the end—even according to the oracle of his name. The name Zephaniah, 358, has been held to indi- 102 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH cate, as St. Jerome puts it, both the speculam and the arcanum of God—a paradox that aptly characterizes the work of the prophet. The first interpretation was suggested by the transcription of the name sometimes found in the Septuagint and always used in the Vulgate, Zogovias, or Sophonias. It derives the element Sophon, jb¥=)e¥y—1D¥, from the verb Tsaphah, nbs, ‘to watch’’—and indeed the prophet takes his text from the sanctions of the Mosaic Covenant and warns Jerusalem that “Jehovah is keeping watch’’ over its fulfilment. Regarding the name, however, as a portrait of the prophet himself, this derivation pictures him as the “Watchman of Jehovah’”’; and in truth we may think of him as stand- ing upon the central watchtower of the ages and looking out in both directions over the whole Highway of Salvation. The Book of Zephaniah was written at the middle point of the Seven Millenniums covered by Bible history and prophecy* and contains a con- spectus of the whole course of their major events. Moreover it is intimately interwoven, as it were, with the fabric of the ages of which it tells. It not only utilized events that had gone before, but it con- fidently depended also upon the distant future for contributions that were most vital to its purposes. Written, as we have just said, at the middle point of the Seven Days of the Re-creation of the World, it sets forth the wonders of the Last Great Day in the light of the Revelation given at the beginning; it calls to its assistance the threatenings of the Mosaic Covenant and the promises of the typical name and work of Joshua the Son of Nun of Timnath-Serach from the Seventh Century previous, and from still * See Part II., Chap. XI, Sec. I., ist note. THE PROPHET AND HIS BOOK 103 more ancient times (c. 3100 B.C., the times of Enoch?) the confirmation of the Apocalypse of the Stars; and then, moving in reverse symmetry upon the same rhythm of Seven, it trusts with justified assurance to the Seventh Century after it was written and sealed and hidden for St. Matthew’s Clue and the token of the Ichihus sign, and to the close of the Seven Times © of the Gentiles for its interpretation and open publi- cation.* All this is only contributory, however, to the work- ing-out of the grand design foreshadowed in the alternative and simpler construction of the prophet’s name to which we have already referred: that on the eve of the Last Great Day, of which he has always been regarded as peculiarly the prophet, his prophecy should unfold a message summing up the whole course of the interventions of the Mighty One in our behalf and focusing the whole of the Word of God *This is no ‘‘mechanical conception’’ of history. The “Doctrine of the Ages’’ here assumed—and confirmed—implies no other than the gladly accepted ‘‘determinism’’ of seed-time and harvest in which Free-agency finds its opportunity—the determinism of the laws of human development, according to which ideas and institutions as well as germs have their periods of incubation, growth and decay. As for the precise delimita- tions of prophetic eras, it is conceivable that manipulators of the markets might make the rhythm of our Black Fridays exact in- stead of merely approximate. And that Divine Providence does indeed shepherd the natural development of historic events so as to conform them to the artificial patterns by which the ful- filments of prophecy are to be recognized is the implication of the purpose clauses—*‘that it might be fulfilled,”—introducing the Scripture citations of St. Mathew and St. John, the two apostolic evangelists (Cf. the 3d par. of Chap. II. ante). Even so by the hand of man “‘the twig is bent ’’ and “‘the tree inclines ’’—but the growth is none the less in accordance with the laws of Nature. TO4 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH upon the needs of that supremely crucial hour, a message whose prophetic authority should be ac- credited by the fact that it had been written ages before (two millenniums and a half ago!) and had been hidden and reserved and treasured up all unsuspected till the very hour for which it was intended—for this is indeed the oracle of the name as it is now uni- versally construed: Zephaniah (from }b¥), “‘ Jehovah hides, reserves, treasures-up.”’ Even the patronymic of the prophet is, by word- play at least, in harmony with his réle as a writer of dark sayings, the keeper of the hid treasures of Jehovah; for Ben Kusht may very well be rendered “Of dark countenance.” Indeed, instead of being his patronymic, Ben Kusht, “‘Son of an Ethiopian ’’— used in a metaphorical sense—may really have been his surname, according to a custom of which there are any number of illustrations, as, for instance, Joseph surnamed Barnabas, “‘Son of Consolation and Exhortation,’’ James and John the “Sons of Thunder” and “Symeon that was called Niger’’—for, as has been frequently pointed out, there was barely room for four generations from Hezekiah to Zephaniah and there were but three from Hezekiah to Josiah. But whether it is a surname or a word-play on his patro- nymic, the characterization ‘‘Of dark countenance” is peculiarly appropriate to Zephaniah, who besides being the keeper of the dark-sayings of Jehovah was also the prophet of the “‘Day of Wrath, the day of trouble and distress, the day of wasteness and desolation, the day of darkness and gloom, the day of clouds and thick darkness’”’ (I, 15). Of the man Zephaniah we know nothing except the implications of the superscription of his book and the THE PROPHET AND HIS BOOK 105 reflection of his personality in the three short chapters that make up its contents. There can be no doubt, however, that He who caused him to be given his oracular name had also especially prepared this treasurer of his hidden purposes for the service to which he was called. The Jews have a notion that _ the persons recorded as a prophet’s ancestors were themselves endowed with the prophetic spirit, and so perhaps we have here in Zephaniah’s unprecedented superscription, Zephaniah ben Cusht, ben Gedaliah, ben Amariah, ben Hizkiah—and so also, as it would seem, a son of Solomon the illustrious Gnomist, and of David the inspired Psalmist—an indication that he was both by heredity and by training especially susceptible to spiritual influences. It is evident, moreover, that this prophetic scion of the royal house was one of the first of his con- temporaries to recognize the stern realities of the situation. He was never deceived by any delusive expectation of the immediate success of Josiah’s reformation, though he joined in the call to amend- ment. His hope was in the future, and he was never troubled with any questionings concerning the in- scrutable dispensations of Providence, though he saw that the Great Day of Jehovah was hastening greatly and pictured its visitations of divine wrath in the darkest colors. His confidence in God was of such simplicity and intensity that he himself was enabled to see the truth and to comprehend it to the limit of the elements of experience at the disposal of his imagination, while the Spirit of Prophecy was enabled to enfold within the letter of his conscious message to his contemporaries a fuller revelation that only the remote posterity for whom it was intended should be able to interpret. 106 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH It necessarily follows that a book of this peculiar character must also be unusual in its structure and literary methods; and yet its peculiarities in these respects are only more pronounced exemplifications of usages by no means unfamiliar. No theory of Biblical hermaneutics precludes the recognition of the right of the inspired writers and of the Spirit of Prophecy to employ allegory, paronomasia, anagram, and any other sort of double meaning or multiple application that the theme and the scheme of its development might appear to require; and that in the interpretation of oracular utterances the inclusion of all congruous meanings instead of, as in the reading of ordinary discourse, the exclusion of all but one, is no dubious novelty but is in accordance with an estab- lished usage of the scriptures themselves may be seen, for instance, in God’s own explanation of the prophetic name given to the patriarch Jacob at Peniel, “‘Thy name shall be called no more Jacob but Israel—5sit»— for as a prince thou hast power with God and with men and hast prevailed’’ (Gen. 32: 28). Here three different derivations are combined in the rendering, (1) Sarah, 1. m7, “to persevere, to prevail’; (2) Sarah, II. my, “to rule, to have power’’; and (3) Sarar, MWY, “to bea prince.”” He whois the source of all prophecy himself rejoices to see in the twice-born patriarch the fulfilment of all consistent interpretations of the oracle of his newname. And then Israel himself adds a fourth interpretation descriptive of this his most memorable experience, *Ish-ra’ah-’El, ““A man hath seen God’’; “for, said he, I have seen God face to face to face (Peniel), and my life is preserved’ (v. 30). The same usage is even more elaborately exempli- fied in Daniel’s interpretation of the Handwriting on the Wall—and even that explanation fell far short of THE PROPHET AND HIS BOOK 107 exhausting the wealth of meaning in this dramatic oracle, which is now found to contain a time-index that transfers its menace to Babylon the Great, the final anti-type of Belshazzar’s kingdom.* Indeed it is well known that multiple interpretation by word-play had a very prominent place in the ~ religious thought and ceremonial of all the peoples of the ancient world. This was doubtless partly because of the naive and uncompromising realism according to which they attributed mystic and even magic potentialities to the names of both persons and things. Then, too, the use of paronomasia among the Semites was in response to the unsurpassed facility with which their languages lent themselves to this practice—especially the unpointed Hebrew, Phe- nician and Aramaic; for, because of the mercurial fickleness of the vowels in the Semitic paradigms in contrast with the rigidity of the consonantal radicals, the ear as well as the eye was accustomed to recognize verbal identity entirely by the consonants. Divine Revelation avails itself of this device, not with any implication as to the oriental notions associated with it, but because it must needs express itself through human thought-forms and customs as well as through human speech-forms and alphabets, and also because this characteristically oracular con- struction is incomparably the most effective means to the attainment of some of itsends. ‘There is a sharp and significant difference, however, both in method and purpose, between the oracles of Jehovah and those of the so-called gods of the nations. The hexameters of Delphi, for instance, were craftily ambiguous, — * See The Christian Herald of Oct. 2, 1918, p. 1117. 108 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH equivocal, dissonant. Their meanings were mutually exclusive and contradictory—so that if one should prove false the other must necessarily prove true. The Word of the Lord, on the other hand, when for any reason it has more than one message, is always symphonic; its hidden meanings and remoter applica- tions are like the over-tones in the voices of choir and orchestra that make them rich and musical, and characteristic; and the parable holds also for the fact that these over-tones are as inherent and legitimate as the primary notes themselves. The indices of the two advents, the Rubric of the Oracle of the Great Day of Jehovah, the Seven Prophecies of the oracle, and the constructions of the Great Name that the Voice of the Day of Jehovah proclaims, are in fact not mere dubious paronomasia; they are not mere casual equivokes; they have been sought and found and set forth for a purpose, they are ‘Chosen Utter- ances’’ that have the unequivocal authority of literal and precise alternative readings of an oracular enigma of grand and intricate but exactly defined pattern. Oracular utterances are of course not to be classed with such sublimely simple and direct revelations as that of John III. 16, ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have eternal life.’ Nevertheless they have their place, and it is animportantone. They areas the score of the music to the words of the song; and among them all, there is none to compare in wealth of counterpoint with the Lost Prophecy St. Matthew’s clue has at last re- covered. No such hid treasures have been disclosed anywhere else in all literature sacred or profane. The various readings require no strain of the grammatical THE PROPHET AND HIS BOOK 109g construction and no undue liberties with regard to the text. In fact, except for the enigmatic devices by which the three symbolic letters are singled out from the text, only such constructions as are warranted by the analogy of Timnath-Serach are to be found in any of them. The text assumed is of course that of the ancient pre-Masoretic version without points of any kind; but the vowel-letters, Aleph, He, Vav and Yod, being of an older tradition and very likely original, have been retained exactly as they are found; and with regard to reading-in such other vowels and vowel- letters as may be required—and in fact with regard to all other points—Hebrew usage has been scrupulously followed (Cf. Ges., §§ 7, 8, 11, 23 and24). Wehave here, therefore, no greater need than usual to reckon with the personal equation. There is indeed as little opportunity for the intrusion of the subjective factor in the construction of these cryptograms as there would be in the interpretation of the simplest passage in any ancient Hebrew text, unpointed and unspaced. The parallel readings found in these hid treasures are sometimes numerous and varied, but they always fit together without fault or accommodation—shaped at the quarry like the stones of Solomon’s temple. In particular the renderings of the Great Name are the faces of a hewn stone—and that stone, so long rejected, is found to be the chief cornerstone of the whole structure. With this rediscovered corner- stone in place, the message of Zephaniah grows into an edifice of peculiar beauty, ancient indeed and oriental in style, but thoroughly modern and western in its unsurpassable utility—exactly fitted to the needs of the Great Day for which it was designed more than twenty-five centuries ago. II0 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH It can not be overemphasized, however, that thesé various readings and their interpretation assume, not that there is no human and therefore fallible element anywhere in the Sacred Scriptures, not that every word and even every letter everywhere has been dic- tated by the Spirit of Prophecy and preserved by divine Providence; but that the divine and the human have collaborated in such a way as to provide a mine of truth that exactly corresponds in every instance with God’s gracious purposes on the one hand and with man’s requirements on the other—a revelation thoroughly adequate, but never superseding human prerogatives, a revelation that, where the end in view demands it, is written under the guidance of an in- spiration that does indeed cross every “t’’ and dot every “‘i,”’ and that is guarded by a Providence that is abundantly able to conserve what the Spirit has written; nay, that makes the mistakes and even the perversities of redactors and copyists to serve the truth: a revelation, however, that employs human agencies to meet human needs, that takes none of the essential burden of responsibility from human shoul- ders, and that accordingly has given us its treasures in ore that requires not only digging but smelting and assaying as well. One of the effects of the human limitations of even the greatest of seers is the disregard of perspective that seems to be characteristic of prophetic visions of the future— ‘‘The near and future blend in one, And whatsoe’er is willed is done.” This characteristic seems especially marked in the Book of Zephaniah, but here it is rather a tribute to the disproportionate importance of the great events THE PROPHET AND HIS BOOK IIt ( that loom above the distant horizon, and we find on closer inspection that the artist, directed by the Spirit of Prophecy, provides the criteria for the necessary corrections. One of the best known and most modern of the commentators on the book, George Adam Smith, writes in The Expositors’ Bible: ‘‘The truth is that Zephaniah, though he found his material in the events of his own day, tears himself loose from history alto- gether. To the earlier prophets the Day of the Lord, the crisis of the world, is a definite point in history; full of terrible divine events, yet natural ones—battle, siege, famine, massacre and captivity. After it history is still to move on, common days come back and Israel pursue their way as a nation. But to Zephaniah, the Day of the Lord begins to assume what we call the supernatural. ...%In short, with Zephaniah the Day of the Lord tends to become the Last Day. His book is the first tinge of prophecy with apocalypse; that is the moment which it supplies in the history of Israel’s religion. And therefore it was with a true instinct that the great Christian singer of the Last Day took from Zephaniah his key- note’’—for the Dies Irae Dies Illa of Thomas of Celano is but the Vulgate’s translation of Zephaniah’s “‘A Day of Wrath is that day” (Zeph. 1: 15). It is an illuminating illustration of the methods of the Spirit of Prophecy that even the radical and naturalistic critic, like the prophet himself, wrote better than he knew. He was mistaken in his thought that ‘‘common days” were not to come back again after Zephaniah’s Great Day of Jehovah; for it is not the ‘Last Day’? as Thomas of Celano conceives it that the prophet pictures, but the culminating day of If2 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH Jehovah’s wrath, the last day of this dispensation of long-suffering with evil. He was mistaken also in his assumption that apocalyptic had its inception with Zephaniah; for—not to insist upon such passages as Isaiah XXIV.-XXVII., which some would have us regard as post-exilic largely for the very reason that they are apocalyptic—the Book of Zephaniah itself, like all other apocalypses, derives its method and spirit and much of its material from the primitive Picture-writing of the Stars, which, though it has long been largely forgotten in its original form, is nevertheless adequately preserved in the first chapters of Genesis and in those later chapters of the Pentateuch that tell of the tabernacle and its ordinances, as also in the folk-lore and temple ritual of all peoples—that earliest Revelation of which the Protevangel is the epitome. ‘There is, however, more truth than he realized in the critic’s judgment concerning the Book of Zephaniah. It is indeed an apocalypse, and such an apocalypse as will admit of no naturalistic explana- tion. The caskets in which its hid treasures are enclosed have been concealed in such a way that none could tamper with them, so securely indeed that none can suggest that they might have been tampered with. They have been sealed and covered up until the time of their fulfilment; and only now in due season has the clue of the Lost Prophecy confided to Levi- Matthew led to their hiding-place. It is not “the first tinge of prophecy with apocalypse’’ that we find here but, what is of far greater importance, the first distinctively and wholly apocalyptic book in The Bible, the first of a whole host of such books in Hebrew literature—and also the latest, the first to be written and the latest to be published—a worthy THE PROPHET AND HIS BOOK Ii3 fellow of the long unread and almost forgotten Apocalypse of the Stars preserved most fully in the Book of Genesis, and of the better known but as yet little understood apocalypses of Daniel and St. John. It is now to be seen that each of the four grand divisions of the Sacred Scriptures has its own out- | standing apocalypse; and that each of these apoca- lypses has its appropriate function in the development of divine revelation. The ancient and all-inclusive Apocalypse of the Stars, which underlies the Books of the Law, sets forth the whole course of Man’s moral history. As it is reflected in the written word, it tells of the Fall, the broken law, and the need and the promise of a Redeemer—the Seed of the Woman for whom the People of the Covenant were to prepare the way. Its cryptic Protevangel envisages both advents of the promised Savior, but the multiplied emphasis of its temple ritual is upon his coming as the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. The Prophetic Apocalypse of Zephaniah, written just before the beginning of the Times of the Gentiles, pictures the out-working of the Protevangel and tells the whole story of Man’s redemption. It tells of both the First and Second Advents of the promised Seed of the Woman; but since it was to be hidden and reserved until the time of the end, its primary interest is in the Second Advent, its predictions of the coming and rejection of the Nazarene serving as confirma- tions of the Gospel records and as authentications of its own announcement of the final Consummation and of its messages to Jew and Christian. Zephaniah’s Prophecy was of course addressed to his fellow- countrymen; but his Apocalypse comes now to both the Synagogue and the Church and brings to each the Il4 HID TREASURES OF ZEP HANIAH specific lesson it needs. The Book of Daniel, the apocalypse of the Hagiography, written just after the beginning of the Times of the Gentiles, supple- ments the Book of Zephaniah with regard to both advents, but with special reference to the history and needs of the People of the Ancient Covenant; while the New Testament Book of Revelation is its comple- ment with special reference to the history and needs of the Christian Church. As a prophecy, the Book of Zephaniah was con- cerned with the impending visitation of divine wrath upon apostate Jerusalem threatened in the sanctions of the Mosaic Covenant—and with her subsequent restoration to favor after she should have repented and received correction. Its primary application is therefore to the Babylonian Captivity and its sequel. Such a prophecy becomes an apocalypse, however, when it is regarded as typical, as an exemplification of the hand of God in history; and this prophecy is dedicated to that interpretation by its insistent appeal to the Day of Jehovah, a conception in which is pictured the philosophy of history that runs through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation and that is first set forth in the primitive apocalypse that tells of the Fall, the Flood and the Dispersion—a philosophy that interprets the revelations of Science as well. Furthermore, Zephaniah’s Prophecy is so worded as to invite application to specific anti-types of the Babylonian Captivity and the Return to Jerusalem, namely, to the Roman Exile and the final Restoration of Zion—and this fact provides the background for an apocalypse that sets forth the two great events in the redemption of the race, the two Advents of the promised Savior, first as the Lamb of God that taketh THE PROPHET AND HIS BOOK Los away the sins of the World, and then as the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. But since the story of Israel according to the flesh is typical of the history of the larger Spiritual Israel into which it is finally to be merged, we have in the prophecy of the Babylonian Captivity and in the corresponding apocalyptic prediction of the greater Roman Exile a composite foreshadowing of the fearful Roman desolation of the Christian Church that St. John, under the constraint of expediency, called Babylon the Great; and we have likewise in Zion restored a harbinger of the New Jerusalem. Let it be noted, however, that there is no assumption here that it is legitimate to search for ulterior meanings or mystical senses anywhere and everywhere in the sacred scriptures; and neither, on the other hand, is it assumed that the Book of Zephaniah is to be interpreted according to a canon all its own. What we have here is just what is to be found in all the seeming peculiarities of Zephaniah, an extreme, a double, exemplification of a usage that is not at all infrequent but that at the same time is only to be assumed in accordance with the Rule of Reason.* Moreover each step of this double extension of the application from type to antitype, from Babylon to Rome and from them to the more terrible Rome called Babylon the Great, has already been made very familiar through the traditional interpretation of Daniel and the Evangelical interpretation of the Revelation of St. John. The text of passages that are open to such an interpretation may be expected to suggest the antitype by certain allusions or felicitous * See, for instance, Fairbairn, Typology of Scripture, Vol. I., pp. 126 ff.; and Terry, Biblical Hermeneutics, pp. 249, 256. 116 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH turns of expression; and so vivid are these allusions in the Book of Zephaniah that with him, as noted by George Adam Smith, “‘the Day of the Lord tends to become the Last Day’’—his text is in fact so con- structed as to seem at the crucial points to apply primarily to its ulterior meanings. The reason for the sense of mystery that pervades the Book of Zephaniah is now self-evident. The “tinge’’ of apocalyptic that was as vivid to the eyes of the medizeval poet as to those of the modern critic is seen to have been, as it were, the blur of the lights and shadows of these ulterior meanings falling un- focused and confused upon the surface sense of the written word. Hitherto they have been at best but vague suggestions without any demonstrable certifica- tion either as to their authority or their application. What was needed was such a set of indices, rubrics, asterisks and notations as should unquestionably authenticate and define these ulterior meanings and enable us to apply and correlate them correctly—and the New Book of Zephaniah provides this very machinery of apocalyptic, which, however, not only meets the needs of interpretation but also makes contributions of its own to the revelations of the book. Indeed the machinery of this first book of its kind is as complete as that of the last, the New Testament Book of Revelation, which is seven times as long; and it is conceived and articulated in a manner that is strikingly suggestive of it. Its symbolic figures are necessarily drawn from an entirely different realm—they are literary in the literal sense of the term, and this is one of the factors that made possible their long concealment—but they are often very felicitously reducible to the same similitudes. We THE PROPHET AND HIS BOOK 117 have accordingly ventured to give the names of St. John’s pictorial symbols to the literary figures of Zephaniah that suggest them—and it will be found that the relationship between them is indeed far deeper than might be implied in a merely literary allusion. The key to this three-fold apocalypse is its master- word, the Proclamation of the Voice of the Day of Jehovah to which St. Matthew’s Clue of the Lost Prophecy has led us, and in which he read the name “‘Nazarene,’’ my39. This master-word is Zephaniah’s presentation of the General Apocalyptic significance that comes into his Prophecy with the Vision of the Day of Jehovah. Its message develops in the un- folding of the apocalypse it helps to interpret; but its full significance is finally summed up in the last chapter of the Hid Treasures, where it is found worthy of the suggestive title of ‘‘The Little Book of the Great Name’’—Chap. XIV. The first construction to be unlocked by the master- word is of course the primary reading of the Prophecy itselfi—and the restored Proclamation of the Voice is found to fit exactly into its immediate context and also to reveal a more complete consistency in the book as a whole—Chap. VII. The Apocalypse proper begins with the construction of the text that finds in the Babylonian Captivity a type of the Roman Exile and in the Return of the Captives a promise of the final Restoration of Zion. Its revelations concerning the two advents of the Savior are set forth in Chapters VIII. and IX. The third application of the Prophecy, which tells of Babylon the Great and which is therefore in sub- stance closely parallel to much of the Apocalypse of 118 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH St. John, is found to suggest in its structure also one of St. John’s major symbols, the “‘book close sealed with seven seals”? that furnishes the framework of all of the Book of Revelation that follows the Letters to the Churches. It _is contained in the Seven Prophecies, the Seven Seals, the Seven Counter- seals and the Stigmata, which, with the Little Book of the Great Name, constitute the apocalyptic machinery of the Oracle of the Great Day of Jehovah and make known the circumstances and the portents of the Second Advent—Chapters X. to XIII. VII THE GREAT DAY OF JEHOVAH THE PROPHET’S MESSAGE TO HIS CONTEMPORARIES T is of course very evident that St. Matthew’s rendering of the proclamation of the Voice of the Day of Jehovah was not its original accept- ance. ‘‘Nazarene is the name of the Mighty One” would have had no significance to the prophet’s con- temporaries, and was doubtless a meaning altogether unsuspected by the prophet himself. A rendering of the restored text that exactly fits both the context and the times of the first application of the prophecy is, however, not far toseek. Retaining the Masoretic pointing of oY, Sham, the passage becomes: MIA ISO ua atin “The Great Day of Jehovah is near, it is near and hasteneth greatly. (Hark!) The Voice of the Day of Jehovah! What is proclaimed? ‘There is the Mighty One!’ ” This is a very obvious reading; and it is easy to understand, therefore, how, even with a correct text, the fuller meaning of the prophecy could escape notice until the event revealed it to St. Matthew. ‘This is also indeed the one rendering that fits exactly into the prophet’s argument with his fellow-countrymen. He has already denounced the abominable evils of * A contraction for MI¥I7ND. Cf. Ges., §37. For asimilar use of an interrogative construction, see Song of Solomon 5: 8, R. V. Marg. 119 120 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH his times (I. 2-11), he has declared God’s purpose of exacting a terrible vengeance (I. 2, 7-9), and he has revealed the fact that the fearful day of reckoning is near at hand—‘‘ Hold thy peace at the presence of the Lord Jehovah, for the Day of Jehovah is at hand”’ (I. 7); but to all his warnings he finds the people in- different. Many of them “say in their heart, Jehovah will not do good, neither will he do evil” (I. 12). The prophet therefore reminds them of the threatenings of the ancient covenant (I. 13, quoting Deut. 28: 30-31), which, it would seem, had just been freshly and vividly brought before them by the finding of the long lost and forgotten autograph copy of its Deutero- nomic version in the temple archives. Hecalls atten- tion to the signs of the times—the Voice of the Day of Jehovah—that ought to prove to them that the threatenings of Moses are on the eve of fulfilment, that ‘‘the Great Day of Jehovah is near, it is near and hasteneth greatly’’ (I. 14). And what is the truth that is ‘‘shouted aloud”’ (m¥3) by the ‘“‘ Voice of the Day of Jehovah’’—by all the circumstances that heralditsadvent? This, that Jehovah is no indifferent absentee, no inert abstraction, nor even a mere im- personal Power that makes for righteousness, but “ainw, Sham Gibbér, “right there, a Mighty One” —and supremely ready for action; for of all the words in the Hebrew vocabulary, Gzbb6r is the one that most forcefully controverts the idea of inertness and indifference. It was therefore Jehovah himself to whom Zeph- aniah’s hearers referred the term ‘‘Mighty One,”’ Jehovah “in the midst of’’ his people but as yet unincarnate; and this use of Gibbdr to mean a special manifestation of the divine presence and power, the GREAT DAY OF JEHOVAH I2t Champion of Israel whether spiritually present as Jehovah of Hosts or incarnate as the Messiah, is in accordance with immemorial usage—Cf. Deut. 10: 17; 5.12495, 07 184.0215 210 N21? Jer 32 1 Os Nee O32: The prophet, however, continues to plead with his fellow countrymen, and assures them that whether . Jehovah as a “Mighty One”’ is present to ‘‘do good”’ to them or to ‘‘do evil”’ fortunately still remains for them to determine. It looks indeed like a “day of wrath”’ inexorable that is coming upon them (I. 15-18); but, ‘Before the decree go forth,” cries the prophet ... “‘seek Jehovah, seek righteousness; it may be ye will be hid in the day of Jehovah’s wrath”’ (III. 1-37). The appeal is especially addressed to the “meek of the land that have kept the ordinances’’—as if they might possibly become saviors of their fellows like the ten righteous of Abraham’s prayer for Sodom— and it is reinforced by visions of divine visitations upon the hostile nations round about (II]. 4-15) that might easily be construed as interventions in behalf of the people of Jehovah of Hosts (III. 7-11); but the prophet foresees that all his exhortations will be in vain, that ‘“‘correction’’ can only come through the rod of chastisement, and so he cries, ‘‘Alas for her that is rebellious and polluted, for the oppressing city! She obeyed not the Voice. She received not correction’’ (III. 1-2). It is to be noted here that this oracle of the first and second verses of the third chapter derives its force from that of the fourteenth verse of the first chapter and in turn confirms the restored reading: for ‘“‘She obeyed not the Voice”’ assumes that a Voice has already uttered a proclama- tion; and what that proclamation was, is implied in 122 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH the remainder of the verse, ‘‘She received not correc- tion, she trusted not in Jehovah, she drew not near to her God.’ It was the Voice of the Day of Jehovah heralding a Mighty One, Jehovah himself, the Cham- pion of Israel, who, cost what it might to them and to himself, would “‘save his people from their sins ’’— who came to save them from their enemies also if they would only choose repentance and amendment in- stead of the correction that waits upon punishment. Jerusalem ‘‘obeyed not the Voice,’ even as Zeph- aniah predicted, and ‘‘walked contrary unto”’ the Mighty One both in his providential intervention as Jehovah of Hosts and in his incarnation as the lowly Nazarene; and her punishment was, in the first in- stance, the Babylonian Captivity, and, in the second, the fearful Roman Exile that still continues and that will continue until, with all the nations of the Earth, the People of the Ancient Covenant receive correction and are finally obedient unto the Voice and “call upon the name of Jehovah”’ (III. 9)—or, as the passage may be translated, “‘call themselves by the name of Jehovah’’—and “‘take refuge’’ in that name (III. 12), the new name revealed in the restored text of the Lost Prophecy. The apostates of Jerusalem were indeed sadly mistaken when they said ‘in their heart, Jehovah will not do good neither will he do evil’’ (I. 12); and the prophet was eternally right when he replied, interpreting the Voice of the Day of Jehovah for them, Sham Gibbor, “He is right there, a Mighty One (One supremely capable and ready for action)”’ (I. 14). Fearful was the “‘evil’’ that the Babylonian minister of the divine chastisements did to rebellious and polluted Jerusalem (II. 1) in that Day of Wrath— GREAT DAY OF JEHOVAH 123 and even this “evil’’ was only a warning foretaste of the punishment in store for continued perversity. But in wrath Jehovah remembers mercy; he will not always chide, neither will he keep his anger forever. The prophet looks forward, therefore, to the time when God’s purposes of correction shall have been ac- complished, and so he finds in the Proclamation of the Voice of the Day of Jehovah a promise behind the threat:—Sham Guibbér, “Jehovah is right there—a Mighty One to do good.”” Even the “‘evil’’ he brings upon his people is itself intended for ‘‘good”’ in the end. He is “the Mighty One who will save,’’ Gibbér Yoshia‘ (III. 17), and he will surely “‘bring back the captivity’’ of Jerusalem (III. 9). Indeed to the con- fident faith of the prophet, the vision of the glad Return of the Captives becomes a fore-glimpse of the far more glorious Restoration that shall bring back all captivities, the Consummation of the Ages that waits upon the working out of the Great Salvation according to the laws of human development and under the shepherding of Divine Providence, which uses to that end the rod and the staff of the Day of Jehovah. Vit THE FIRST ADVENT THE PROPHECY AS IT WAS READ By St. MATTHEW HOUGH the prophecies of Zephaniah apply first AL of all to the events of his own times, those events were of such a nature as not only to prefigure, but also actually to include by implication, all the remaining crises of the history of Redemption; for with the Babylonian Captivity, their prophetic type, began the succession of judgments upon the House of Judah that will only end with the age—and it is significant that the Oracle of the Great Day of Jehovah is prefaced with allusions to the Scriptures in which these successively expanding sevenfold visitations of judgment are threatened.* So marked is the impression of an all-inclusive scope in the Book of Zephaniah that he has been universally and right- fully regarded as above all others the Prophet of the Last Day. His theme is in reality, however, the Great Day of Jehovah, of which the Last Day is indeed to be the consummation, the dénouement, but whose out- working is embodied in the whole series of divine interventions—Days of Jehovah—of which the events of his own times were the first crystallization; and so in his pages the contempt of Jerusalem for the Mighty One he proclaims becomes a prophecy of the rejection * Compare Zephaniah 1: 13 with Deut. 28: 30-31; and also with Lev. 26: 16, 20, 31 and 32. 124 THE FIRST ADVENT 125 of the Messiah, and his confident expectation of the return of the captives from Babylon becomes a vision of the final victory of the Conquering Christ and the Restoration of all things. The vistas of Zephaniah’s oracles include, therefore, not only the Seventy years of Captivity that followed _ the refusal of Jerusalem to obey the Voice of the Day of Jehovah as it was uttered by the prophet in person when he proclaimed the immediate presence of Jehovah as a Mighty One—a Mighty Avenger or a Mighty Deliverer, as she herself should determine— but also the treading down of Jerusalem that fills up the measure of the far greater heptad of the Times of the Gentiles (Cf. Luke 21: 24), the visitation upon her because she obeyed not the Voice when it spoke through the lips of the great fore-runner, who ‘‘came that he might bear witness of the light, that all might believe through him,’’ “the Voice of one crying in the wilderness,’’ who seeing Jesus of Nazareth ‘‘bare witness saying, I beheld the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven and it abode upon him. And I knew him not, but he that sent me to baptize in water he said unto me, upon whomsoever thou shalt see the Spirit descending and abiding upon him, the same is he that baptizeth in the Holy Spirit, and I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God’”’ (John 1: 29-34). St. Matthew’s rendering of the Proclamation of the Voice of the Day of Jehovah—‘ Nazarene is the name of the Mighty One’’—is therefore entirely warranted by the scope of the prophecy in which it is found, and is likewise a faithful presentation of the historic witness to the Nazarene through the Voice of the Baptist; and we will find also that it fits into its 126 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH context as precisely as does the construction of the Proclamation that applies to the prophet’s own times—nay, more, that it is attested by just such credentials as are demanded in view of its long ob- scurity and its sudden emergence with such lofty claims. Zephaniah does indeed wonderfully shadow forth the whole gist of the Gospel, as we shall see; but in accordance with his programme of sketching the development of the Great Day of Jehovah, he tells here simply the story of the rejection of the Suffering Savior that was to bring upon his people the full measure of the penalties of the broken covenant— and what but a lament could be the fitting introduc- tion to such a story? The prophet cries, “Alas, the rebellious and polluted! the oppressing City! She obeyed not the Voice!’”’ (III. 1 and 2)—the Voice of the Day of Jehovah, the Voice of John the Baptist, the Voice of the Holy Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven and saying “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased ’’—Matt. 3:17. It is indeed easy for us to recognize this passage as the introduc- tion to the Prophecy of the First Advent, it seems un- mistakable; but to establish its Messianic application beyond the shadow of a doubt and leave no room to question the legitimacy of St. Matthew’s rendering of the Proclamation of the Voice, there is stationed here—not as an exceptional device, but in accordance with the literary structure of the revelation—an apocalyptic choir of four voices that chants a full and harmonious chorus of confirmation. The preceding sections of the book (II. 5-15) con- sist of a series of oracles that exemplify Jehovah’s © righteous judgments upon the surrounding nations THE FIRST ADVENT Ley. and form the basis of the prophet’s final warning to Jerusalem. Now this series of oracles is suggestive and geographical instead of complete and chrono- logical. It points first to the doom of the nearest unfriendly neighbors, Philistia in the Southwest and Moab in the Northeast, and then predicts the visita- tions upon the remotest enemies in the same relative directions, Ethiopia and Nineveh—an arrangement that makes the oracle against Nineveh an introduction to that against Jerusalem, exactly as the fall of Nineveh was the immediate precursor of Nebuchad- nezzar’s first gesture against the Jewish capital. For the men to whom Zephaniah had preached, therefore, the overthrow of Nineveh was the harbinger of their own impending ruin, a proof that the prophet was right and that the Great Day of Jehovah was near, very near, and hastening greatly. It was more than that, however, for like every one of God’s threatenings of punishment it was also an offer of mercy. It wasa final appeal to all, especially to the meek of the land who had measurably kept the ordinances, to seek Jehovah, to seek righteousness; for the prophet had said: ‘It may be ye will be hid in the day of Jehovah’s wrath” (II. 1-3). Even aside from the prophet’s exhortation, this suggestion was inevitable to the Jews of Zephaniah’s times, for they could not fail to remember Jehovah’s loving-kindness toward this same wicked but then repentant Nineveh in the days of Jonah, and his relenting and turning away the threatened destruction even within forty days of the time appointed. To us, however, a more insistent Dieeatn here is the perverse contrast between Jerusalem and the heathen metropolis to which the Savior himself 128 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH called attention: ‘‘The men of Nineveh shall stand up in the judgment with this generation and shall con- demn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold a greater than Jonah is here’”’ (Matt. 12:41). : It is these inevitable suggestions of the juxtaposi- tion of the oracles against Nineveh and against Jerusalem that furnish the background on which the Index of the First Advent is set forth. The exclama- tion that stands between the two oracles and that may be construed with either of them, the first verse of the third chapter, reads in Hebrew: myn pyr ndsasy ae The American Revised Version, applying it to Jeru- salem, renders it, ‘‘Woe to her that is rebellious and polluted! to the oppressing city!’’ But written as follows: mov myn mdsaoy ase yn and construed with the preceding oracle, it becomes a reminder of Jonah’s mission to Nineveh. Taking AND as the Pu‘al part. of N1, “‘to fear,’ “to revere God’; nbxa2 as the Niph. part. of I. Gea, “to redeem”; and yn as the Hiph. of y, “to arouse, to stir up, to warn,’’ we read, ‘‘Woe to her that was made to revere God and was redeemed when Jonah warned her!?? For Nineveh soon forgot the warning of Jonah, and so to her also applied the accepted reading, “Woe to her that is rebellious and polluted! to the oppressing city!’’* The name Jonah, 43’, is however the same as the Hebrew word for Dove; and, construed with the * Zeph. 3:1; Cf. Nahum 3: I. THE FIRST ADVENT 129 succeeding arraignment of Jerusalem, and read in the light of Matt. 3: 17, the passage may be translated, ‘‘ Woe to her that is rebellious and polluted! The Dove—The Holy Spirit—warned her!’’ But (III. 2) ‘*she heeded not his Voice,’’ etc. In further keeping with the function of this passage as the asterisk of the First Advent is the fact that in the common speech of Bible times, the sturdy name Jochanan, }iM"", just as it has become John with us, was often softened to Jonah—compare John 1: 42 and 21: 15 with Matt. 16: 17; and also, in the Septu- acini es wines» 25°93) with 1.) Chrony 3 324) w/the outstanding lesson of the Book of Jonah would suggest, in accordance with the well-known aptness of the names of the other canonical prophets, that the name of this prophet was indeed an example of such a contraction and was originally and in reality Jochanan, which means “Jehovah is. gracious.” With this inference agrees also the name Oannes that Berosus gives to an Assyrian fish-god who was said to have come up out of the sea to bring his people instruction and warning—a name in which not a few have found a reference to Jonah. This identification originated with the German scholar F. C. Baur, who regarded Jonah as a literary echo of Oannes. Dr. Henry Clay Trumbull, late editor of the Sunday School Times, on the other hand, would make Oannes a reminiscence of Jonah.* In either case, the name John is unmistakably suggested here, and accordingly the pronouncement against Jerusalem may be freely rendered: ‘‘ Woe to her that is rebellious and pol- luted! to the oppressing city! Through John, the Voice of One crying in the Wilderness, the Holy Sours Bibalit) Vol. Xl) Part 1) 130 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH Spirit himself sought to arouse her, even as he had warned Nineveh through the prophet Jonah; but she heeded not the Voice; and in shameful contrast to Nineveh, which repented at the preaching of Jonah, she received not correction, she trusted not in Jehovah (the Mighty One Incarnate, the infinitely ‘Greater than Jonah’’); she drew not near to her God.” The arraignment of Jerusalem that follows corre- sponds with the conditions there at the time of the rejection of the Nazarene; the roaring and ravening house of Herod was in possession of the throne; the teachers of religion were occupied with trivial and insincere legal quibbles; and the temple was pro- faned with extortionate traffic (III. 3, 4). Especially significant, in view of the illegal night trials of Jesus before the representatives of the high-priesthood, are the statements that “her priests have done violence to the law”’ (III. 4), and that ‘‘her judges are evening wolves that lay nothing aside until the morrow’’ (III. 3). The ultimate destruction of the city is more than intimated in a close sequence that has almost the form as well as the force of a syllogism: (1) the declaration (III. 5) of the righteousness of Jehovah in the midst of her, who will not act in- equitably or partially; (2) the reminder (III. 6) of the desolations he has wrought in the punishment of other nations—‘‘their cities are destroyed so that there is no inhabitant’’; and (3) the sorrowful picture (III. 7) of the utter and hope-annulling perversity of the people—in response to the overtures of mercy, “they rose up early and corrupted all their ways.” Their dispersion in accordance with the sanctions of the broken covenant is plainly foreshadowed as a THE FIRST ADVENT 131 consequence of the fact that they would not receive the correction that could alone have prevented ‘their dwelling from being cut off’’ (III. 7); and the long and weary centuries of homeless wandering are suggested in the sentence pronounced upon them (III. 8), “Therefore wait ye for me, saith Jehovah, until the day that I rise up to testify.” Israel’s fortunes are to be merged in those of the Gentiles; and their restoration is to wait until the day of the final Reversal of all Earthly conditions; until the day when Jehovah as Judge shall testify that it is enough, that the chastisements of his Providence have accomplished their purpose of correction—until the Last Great Day of Jehovah. The Proclamation of the Voice of the Day of Jehovah in which St. Matthew read a prediction that “‘Nazarene’’ was to be the name of the Messiah is therefore found to be susceptible of this construction by no mere happy coincidence, but because it is a felicitous element in an exactly circumstantial Messi- anic prophecy. It is not a mere coincidence either, as we shall see, but a result of the unfailing cooperation between Divine Providence and the Spirit of Prophecy in the working out of the divine purposes, that, as the name of the Mighty One is found in the corrupt text of the Masorites, written Mar Tsoreach, ns, with Nun supplanted by Resh, it echoes the bitter cry of the Crucified Savior; for so the Proclamation of the Voice of the Day of Jehovah is made to tell of the seeming triumph of the Adversary on Calvary (Cf. Matt. 27: 46, 50; Mar. 15: 37; Luke 23: 46), and of the sacrifice there consummated. But with Resh erased and Nun restored, and I 32 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH interpreted according to the recently recognized radical meaning of the verb Z’savach IT, it becomes for us Minne-Tseriach, nvs7jo,* “‘From the Sepulcher ’’— a prophecy gloriously fulfilled in the Resurrection of the Captain of Our Salvation. * See Ges., § 90, 3 a, for 3; Tseriach is written MY in I Sam, T3103 IX THE SECOND ADVENT THE MESSAGE OF THE LOST PROPHECY FOR THE TIMES OF ITS RECOVERY E may be certain that in the oracles of the Prophet of the Last Day, the Voice of the Day will not be found to have a proclama~ tion exactly fitted to announce each of the crises that lead up to the dénouement and to have none with which to herald that climacteric event of the ages itself. We may be certain that, having announced the Day of the Visitation of the Mighty One and having afterward heralded his gracious Advent with the offer of Salvation, this Voice, which since then has been silent and forgotten so long, speaks now, not merely to reiterate its ancient pronouncements, but to deliver its final message, and to hail the Savior at his promised Second Coming in glorious majesty as the Mighty Conqueror, the King of Righteousness, the Prince of Peace—and the Judge of all the Earth. The prophet assures us (III. 9 and 12) that at last the remnant of Israel will listen to the Voice and “take refuge in the name of Jehovah,” a Messianic name. What shall it be? It must be a name that will confess their new-found faith in Jesus, and the name Jesus alone could have no such significance; Jesus of Nazareth is the name they have called him in derision; and Jesus the Messiah can no longer quite express the full truth to which they must subscribe, 133 134 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH for Jesus belongs now to the Spiritual Israel of the whole wide world. ‘What is proclaimed’”’ by the Voice of the Day of Jehovah is again equal to the occasion. It is indeed, as God himself is represented as calling it, ‘'a Chosen Utterance.”’ | How we are to construe this Chosen Utterance so as to find in it the third and last message of the Day of Jehovah is explicitly set forth at exactly the logical point in the course of the prophecy—in the ninth verse of the third chapter of the Book; and just as the asterisk of the First Advent was appropriately the lament that introduced the sad story of the Rejection of the Suffering Savior and the consequent rejection and exile of the people of disobedient Jerusalem, so this asterisk of the Second Advent, in which all peoples are seen serving the Lord with one accord, is the worthy introduction to the glorious picture of the Final Restoration, a picture so different in tone from the preceding oracles that some have refused to credit it to Zephaniah. ‘This ninth verse itself has hitherto been found so enigmatic that the more radical of the critics have not hesitated to delete it from the text “as very probably (?) an intrusion and dis- turbance of the argument.”” It is as follows: aqn3 may ony Ss ams Inv sms nse siayS min ovina nda mpd The interpretation of this passage hinges upon the following expressions: 1. Saphah bhertrah—an12 naw. Saphah means “lip, language, utterance’’; while bhertirah, which is translated ‘ pure’’ (purged) in the traditional render- THE SECOND ADVENT 135 ing of the verse, has also the meaning of “polished, tested, selected, chosen’’—viz., ‘‘polished arrows,” Isa. 49: 2;.“‘chosen valiant men,’ I. Chron. 7: 40. So in Job 33: 3, Elihu says he is going to answer Job "12, ‘‘choicely,” “with careful diction.” Saphah bhertirah is therefore an expression that has been care- fully selected, a “chosen utterance’’-—and how marvelously the word bhertrah itself functions in this passage! Its two distinct meanings, “‘purged”’ and “‘chosen,’’ suggest two promises of God both of which are in accordance with his revealed purposes in this very connection: (1) the promise of a new Evangelism that is to restore the ‘pure lip,’’ the symbol of the pure heart that is so necessary to fellowship with God (Cf. Isa. 6: 5-7 and Ps. 19: 14 and Matt. 5: 8); and (2) the promise foretokened at Pentecost of a Chosen Speech, an eclectic language or its equivalent—conditions restoring free intercourse among the peoples of all the earth so that the whole world may be evangelized. At the same time these two meanings are combined in a rubric that sets forth, as the marks of identification of the Proclama- tion referred to, exactly the outstanding characteristics of my3); for it is indeed the wonderfully well-chosen and polished utterance of the Voice of the Day of Jehovah, and it has at last been purged from the Resh that so long obscured and defiled it. 2. Haphak, 327. This verb may be translated “‘turn to’’ in the sense of ‘‘restore’’; but the usual meaning is ‘‘to turn over, turn about, reverse ’’—viz., to turn the back, Jos. 7: 8; to turn a dish upside down, II. Kings 21: 13; to turn a cake, Hos. 7: 8; to reverse the expected dénouement, Est. 9: 1. The most natural rendering of the passage is, there- 136 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH fore, ‘I will reverse for the peoples the Chosen and Purged Utterance, that they may all call upon the name of Jehovah to serve him with one accord.”’ 3. ‘El ‘Ammim, nox, is of course very properly translated “‘to the peoples,’ or ‘‘for the peoples’’; but the preposition ’el, 5x, may also mean “‘in addition to,” “‘together with’’ (Cf. 1 Sam. 14: 34—see B.D.B., p. 40, 58 No. 5); while the noun ‘am, oY, from the root boy, “to be comprehensive, to include,’ whence also the preposition ‘im, oy, ‘‘by the side of,’’ and ithe noun ‘ammah, nny, ‘juxtaposition,’ means primarily “those united, connected, related,’’ and is applied to a tribe of people, an assembly, the followers of a chieftain, and also to an individual “‘kinsman’”’ (See B.D.B., pp. 766 and 769 a). Used here as a metaphor, it readily suggests, therefore, the words and phrases that are in the same context with the chosen utterance; and so the phrase ’el ‘ammim may be rendered, ‘with its context.” The passage in which we have found the Index of Zephaniah’s prophecy of the Second Advent is accord- ingly, just as parallelism with the Index of the First Advent would demand, an oracular expression of multiple but symphonic construction. It reads, “For at that time I will restore to the peoples a clear language, and I will reverse with its context the Chosen Utterance (the Proclamation of the Voice of the Day of Jehovah) purged (from the defilement and obscuration of Resh), that they may all call upon the name of Jehovah (the name declared in the Reverse of the Chosen Utterance) to serve him with one consent.”’ Far from being a ‘‘disturbance of the argument,”’ therefore, this enigmatic verse furnishes just what THE SECOND ADVENT 137 the argument requires, a transition from wrath to favor, which it gives in the assurance that after the nations have been chastened by the ‘‘fire of God’s zeal’’ (v. 8), there will follow a New Dispensation— the Chosen Utterance of the Voice of the Day of Jehovah will be reversed together with the whole oracle in which it is found; and the name of the Mighty One made known in this Reverse Reading will herald and characterize the full and final Parousia in which he is to establish his world-wide kingdom; while its ‘‘context,’’ as we shall see, will appropriately reveal the circumstances and the portents of his coming. In Zephaniah’s time, the Voice announced the presence of Jehovah of Hosts as a Mighty One to punish unrighteousness—and a Mighty One to save such as heeded its warning and received correc- tion. In the days of John the Baptist, the Voice still cried, ‘‘Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand,” and hailed the lowly Nazarene as the Lamb of God, a Suffering Savior whom all must take up the cross and follow. Heretofore God has been long- suffering toward evil and disciplinary in his dealings with his own people; but now conditions are changed. The long season of growth is ended, the time of the harvest has come, and the tares are to be “‘gathered”’ and “‘devoured with the fire of the zeal’’ (III. 8) of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords; but with the true-hearted chastisement has at last brought to maturity the peaceable fruit of righteousness, and so the Champion ought to be announced by a name that would suggest, not Gethsemane and Calvary, but the Mount of Transfiguration and the revelation of the glory his people are to share. Especially for the prophet’s own kindred—and it is they to whom he 138 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH speaks primarily—will the situation be reversed. Their captivity will be brought back, for they will no longer be disobedient to the Voice but will take refuge in the name it proclaims (III. 12)—they are to accept the name that will restore them to fellow- ship with the Spiritual household of Israel. The figurative interpretation of the verb Haphak, 45h, tells us therefore that, in accordance with the complete reversal of conditions and programme in the new Dispensation, the “‘Chosen Utterance’’ of the Voice that heralds God’s providence will be found to contain a name of correspondingly reversed import; and it is in suggestive agreement with this message that the literal interpretation of the verb tells us how to find the new version of my20; for as the prophets often emphasized and dramatically illustrated their words with symbolic acts—as Ezekiel, for instance, in his vivid representation of the sieges of Samaria and Jerusalem turned from his left side to his right in token of the turning of the divine vengeance from one city to the other (Ezek. 4: 4-8)—so the reversal of all things in the New Era is symbolized by the literal reversal of the Chosen Utterance with which it is proclaimed. And we remember the precedent and warrant provided for this peculiar but dramatically significant construction in Timnath-Serach and Tim- nath-Cheres, the first prophetic whisperings of this same Chosen Utterance. We have taken for granted that Saphah bherfirah, ‘“‘the chosen utterance that has been restored to purity,’ must refer to the remarkable proclamation of the Voice of the Day of Jehovah, which has now been cleansed from the defilement of Resh; but that there may be no doubt about it, the oracle in which THE SECOND ADVENT 139 the proclamation of the name ‘‘Nazarene”’ is found (I. 14), the ‘‘context’’ that is to share its reverse reading adds its authority also to that of the Index and makes its application unquestionable. By a rubric of its own, it explicitly authorizes the reading in reverse, and emphasizes my as the center of interest—points it out as indeed the Saphah bherirah referred to. In ancient manuscripts there was originally no spacing of the letters to separate either words or verses, and so it is entirely permissible to find a double meaning in the fourteenth verse of the first chapter of Zephaniah by construing it, together with the last letters of the preceding verse, in the following manner: 12 [xlip Svan marron php ally 133 DY MINI AVTTAY PIP IND WD The translation is then: ‘In the Great Day of Jehovah, its reverse will utter an oracle. Read in it mos3o, the Voice of the Day of Jehovah, the name of the Mighty One, will gain exceedingly.” This reading hinges upon the two constructions given Mp; and that these paronomasia are indeed integral parts of the revelation is certified, not only by the aptness with which they fit into its structure here, but also by their significant relationship to the reverse reading of the oracle itself—as we shall see. Keri, “p (from imp), “ Reverse,” is found nowhere else in the Scriptures except in the chapter that con- tains the original draft of the covenant between God and his peculiar people, the twenty-sixth chapter of Leviticus—paralleled and amplified in Deut. 28-30— the prophecy of Seven Times of Woe and of Final Restoration that Zephaniah takes as the text of his discourse, and of which the Great Day of Jehovah is 140 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH to bring the fulfilment. ‘There it occurs seven times in the elaboration and unfolding of the truth that, if his People walk “contrary’’ to him, God must necessarily walk “‘contrary’’ to them. Its employ- ment by Zephaniah is therefore in continuation of its use in the ancient Scripture he expounds; and its connotation is in keeping with the symbolism of the reverse reading of his oracle, which heralds the final reversal of the estranged relations between God and his people. Kiryé, “its reverse,’ applies to the whole of the Oracle of the Great Day of Jehovah; but let us first consider the name proclaimed by the Voice, the name “Nazarene,” miyi. Read in reverse with Tsade, ¥, resolved into DN (ts), its phonetic equivalents, accord- ing to the analogy of the name of Joshua’s city, this Chosen Utterance becomes p[8]3 now, Christ— Ne'um, CHRIST—THE WORD OF GOD.” Can it be possible that we have here from the pen of a Jew of the Seventh Century before Christ—and he a scion of the royal house—the Greek equivalent that was to supplant his own Hebrew word Messiah as the title of the Son of David? This was a change fraught with tremendous significance for both Jew and Gentile. No one can deny, therefore, that ‘Christ ’’ is indeed the one word supremely suggestive and appropriate here; and that its phonetic elements are abundantly indicated in this proclamation of the Voice of the Day of Jehovah is equally clear; for the resolution of Tsade (¥)* into TS (nM or Band D, Yor), *The composite nature of Tsade is obscured by the close relationship of its components T and S, both being linguals; but that it is really a double consonant is evident from the fact that two distinct types of the letter are discriminated; the soft, the Arabic Sad, in which the S sound predominates; and the hard, b THE SECOND ADVENT Iq! which would be an entirely permissible cryptic device in any context, is peculiarly suggested in this anagram, which may be derived from either I. mys or II. my in which, as we have seen (Part I., Chap. I.), the two types of the letter are found, the ‘‘T”’ type and the ““S”’ type; and besides and conclusively, it is warranted by the providentially provided precedent of its ex- emplification just where it is most authoritative—in the mutations of the oracular name of Joshua’s heritage in Israel, which was, as we have found, the first prophetic whisper of this very Chosen Utterance. The necessary phonetic elements are unquestionably at hand. Whether they are actually intended to be construed as the word Christ or not is dependent, not upon the horizon of the human author, but upon the scope of his inspired writings; and it is already evident that this word is in truth demanded here as an integral and essential part of a complex and organic whole such as will brook no denial, and such as needs to assign no other basis for its demand than the time-honored belief that “‘no prophecy ever came by the will of man, but’‘men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit’’-—often spake and wrote far better than they knew. the Arabic Dad, in which the T sound is more prominent. To the same effect is the testimony of the fact that in the later occasional commutations of this consonant it is in some cases changed to {&—so “¥3 becomes "%4J—and in others to a simple sibilant—as when PM¥ becomes pnw. Cf. Ges., §19.1. In M83) as derived from I. MY, ‘‘to cry aloud,”’ we have the more sibilant type of the letter; while in this name of the Master as derived from the root of Nazareth, II. M5¥, ‘‘to excavate,’’ we have the hard Tsade, which Gesenius describes as ‘‘equivalent toa dora i, pronounced with a slight sibilant or lisping sound”’ (Lexicon). The two sounds T and S are therefore abundantly suggested here as equivalents of Tsade. 142 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH We have here also an anticipation of St. John and the Neo-platonists; for Ne’um, d[xl3, from which the anagram elides the Aleph without prejudice to its integrity,* is used only of God; it is ‘‘God’s Word* God’s Revelation.’”” Its primary meaning, “to speak softly,’ is in striking and suggestive antithesis to that of Tsarach, I. my, ‘“‘to shout aloud’’; and there is a keen discrimination in the use of these synonyms here that is freighted with prophetic import. To the passing multitudes that hear the Gospel proclama- tion (M¥3) Jesus is merely the Prophet of Nazareth still, and only to the inner circle of true believers who hear the still small Voice—to whom he is revealed (aN3) by the Father—is he the Christ, THE WORD OF GOD (Cf. Matt. 16: 17). There are some, perhaps, who will not find “Christ ”’ in the reverse of M7¥3D, who will refuse either to resolve Tsade (¥) into its phonetic elements or to turn from the language of the Old Testament to that of the New. For them the reverse will read bB[xl> pon, Chorets Ne’um—and herein is a parable of warning without which the message of the oracle would be incomplete. To the persistently perverse, to those who reject him as the Christ, ‘‘The Anointed Savior,’’ the final revelation of the ‘‘Word of God”’ will be as ‘‘ THE JUDGE INEXORABLE”’; for Chorets, y1n, is one who renders a strict decision—Cf. Joel 4: 14.T This third and final Proclamation of the Voice of the Day of Jehovah, which heralds and characterizes the Last Day, is therefore in full and exact accordance with the significance of the great events of the days of Belshazzar and Cyrus as a prophetic type of the end of the Times of the Gentiles and the dawn of a new * Cf. Ges., § 23, and the New Heb. D3. t See Brown-Driver-Briggs, 1. PAN. THE SECOND ADVENT 143 era; for it hails the coming Mighty One both as the Chorets, the Judge who is to pronounce sentence upon the great antitype of Babylon, and as the Christ, the Royal Savior of Israel Restored. It is also in striking and complete antithesis to the Proclamation that told of the Advent of the rejected ‘‘Nazarene’’; for instead of that human and earthly place-name, it calls him by the name that above all others represents his place in the hierarchy of Heaven, “THE WORD OF GOD.” At first glance the title Christ would seem to apply to the First Advent as appropriately as to the Second, for we are now rightly and properly accustomed to calling the Savior by all the titles that express the manifold offices of the World’s Redeemer; but it will be remembered that Jesus did not permit himself to be familiarly known as the Messiah in the days of his humiliation (Matt. 16: 20, etc.), and that Christ as a name is not found in the Gospels—and herein is the reflection of a truth that is abundantly set forth in the written word. St. Paul declares that God “‘wrought’’* the full ‘‘enduement,* or anointing, of the strength of his might ...in Christ when he raised him from the dead and made him to sit at his right hand in the heavenly places far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named not only in this world, but also in that which is to come; and he put all things in subjection under his feet, and gave him to *evépyeay ... evapnrw ... & TH Xpicrg. Our use of the word energy is apt to blind us to the force of the prepositional prefix. This verb is used “in N. T. esp. of things spiritual. Hence in pass. to be possessed by an evil spirit, ot évepyouevor, demoniacs’’—Lidd and Scott. Here, therefore, being used ina good sense it sets forth the full anointing with spiritual power. 144 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH be head over all things to the Church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all’’ (Eph. 1: 18—-23)—when he made him universal King. So also it is represented by the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews that as our Great High-priest he was made perfect through his death, resurrection and glorification (Heb. 1: 3; 2: 17, 18; 4: 14-16; 5: 5-10; 6: 25, etc.). This is the teaching likewise of St. Peter in his sermon on the Day of Pentecgst (Acts 2: 32-36), as was long ago pointed out by Dean Thomas Jackson, who concludes that the Savior ‘‘was anointed to his prophetical office at his baptism; but was thereby rather initiated to be, than actually made, Christ and Lord. Unto these two offices of Everlasting Priest and Everlasting King, he was not actually anointed or fully consecrated until his resurrection from the dead.’* ‘The “Anointing” of Christ may indeed be regarded as coincident with the progressive Plerosis, or ‘‘Self-Fulfilment,”’ of him who had “‘emptied himself ’’ of his divine consciousness and prerogatives at his incarnation. The Voice that heralds the Second Advent has there- fore chosen its words with unerring precision—and that notwithstanding the narrow confines of the phonetic elements at its disposal. It hails, not the Son of God in his human humiliation and clothed in the limita- tions of the flesh as ‘The Nazarene,” but the Son of Man exalted to all the glory of the ‘‘Word of God”’; and it proclaims no Jewish Messiah, but the Christ in whom there is neither Jew nor Gentile, the “Anointed ” in the full meaning of the term, ‘‘the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God’’—and the Judge of the Last Judgment, the “ Judge Inexorable.” *Works, Vol. VII., p. 368, as quoted by McClintock and Strong, Vol. VI., p. 135 ¢. THE SECOND ADVENT 145 It will be seen also that the Second Advent Proc- lamation of the apocalypse of Zephaniah announces the Coming One by the very name and titles that are indicated in the Second Advent vision recorded by St. John in the Nineteenth Chapter of the Book of Revelation. 1. “‘And I saw the heaven opened; and behold a white horse, and he that sat thereon is faithful and true (The analogy of Rev. 3: 14 joins with its own strangeness to forbid the construction that would make these two adjectives into a name—even the retention of “‘called,’’ which is found in some MSS., would not require it); and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. And his eyes are a flame of fire, and upon his head are many diadems; and he hath a name written which no man knoweth but he himself’? (Rev. 19: 11-12). This is a picture of the royal Judge who is supremely faithful and true and righteous—it is ‘“‘the Judge who renders a strict decision,’ “THE JUDGE INEXORABLE,”’ the - Chorets; and this is indeed a name or title that has never been specifically applied to him before and that accordingly “‘no one”’ has known “‘but he himself ’’— and it is in character with the réle he here enacts. 2. “And he is arrayed in a garment sprinkled with blood; and his name is called THE WORD OF GOD ”’ (Rev. 19: 13)—which is literally Ne’um, as set forth in the Proclamation. 3. “‘And he hath on his garment and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS (Rev. 19: 16). This title is of course the equivalent of ‘‘The Lord’s Anointed’’—the Christ, in the most prominent and most characteristic of the three applications of the term. x THE SEVEN PROPHECIES PORTENTS OF THE SECOND ADVENT HE Reverse of the Oracle of the Great Day of Jehovah, to which its own rubric calls atten- tion, contains a message that fits in with and confirms all the credentials of the Lost Prophecy and contributes new but congruous features to the picture of the Last Day. The unknown quantities in the problem of the recovery of the Lost Prophecy were occasioned by the two essential factors in its long concealment, the obscuration of the spelling of ‘“Nazareth’’ in the speech and literature of today, and the corruption of the name ‘‘Nazarene”’ in the sacred scriptures. The soil of Nazareth has as yet given no answer to the spade of the explorer with regard to the forms of its name in Bible times, and neither have the sands of Egypt given us the correct text of Zephaniah’s oracle; but the Hebrew spelling of Nazareth, [nlny3, suggested by its translietrations in Greek and Arabic has been established beyond a doubt by the witness of the conversation between Jesus and Nathaniel, by the testimony of the pro- phetic name of Joshua’s city, Timnath-Serach, by the confession of its own old forms in the books of Joshua and Judges, and by the fact that it works so well in the recovered prophecy; and now we are to see that the Reverse of the Oracle of the Great Day of Jehovah sanctions in no uncertain way our emenda- 146 THE SEVEN PROPHECIES 147 tion of the text of Zephaniah and also our corrobora- tive interpretation of the apocalyptic symbolism of its corruption and restoration. The Reverse of the Oracle is the complement of the Obverse. It refers to the Protevangel and points to the fulfilment of both senses of its double meaning in such a way as to reveal in the fulfilment of the pre- diction of the paronomasia an earnest of the fulfilment of the promise itself, a harbinger of the near approach of the final Day of Jehovah, when the Seed of the Woman shall grind the serpent’s head. Indeed the whole structure of the Reverse Reading of the Oracle is built upon the symbolic antagonism between Nin and Resh. Its first clause, construed literally, sets forth the effect of the erasure of Resh from the text; and in its figurative meaning it tells what will come to pass when retribution overtakes the head of the serpent; while the last clause puts its seal upon the interpretation of Nin as the Sign of Christ and re- veals in its illumination on the scroll of heaven the immediate portent of his Day. This arrangement is emphasized by the fact that these rival symbols, used as nouns and defined also by the possessives “his’’ and “‘my,’ are found in exactly the two most prominent and antithetic positions in the text and in just the places appropriate to the name and sym- bolism of each—Reshé ‘‘his head,” at the very begin- ning of the Reverse; and Néni, “my Nidan,’ at its “‘heel.’”’? Furthermore the emphasis upon them is underscored and their import certified by a doubly chiastic construction of the readings that makes each of these letters stand out against the background of a vivid word of the opposite color—Reshé against Gibbér, the “‘hero,”’ the “‘Mighty One,’’ a distinctive 148 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH title of Jehovah-Messiah; and Ndni in contrast to Kamani, ‘‘Him who rises up against me,’’ the ‘‘Rebel,’’ the ‘‘ Apostate.”’ Among the admirable features of this oracle are the apt and significant methods by which these symbolic letters are set forth—each of them three times and in three different ways. These methods and their significance can, however, be more easily considered after the reading of the text; and it will only be necessary to note here that, since the letter Resh is used in this prophecy with a very evident play on the meaning of its name and figure, it is set forth at the beginning of the Reverse by means of a like letter- play in the exceedingly appropriate phrase, Reshd bigemil, ‘‘His head in retribution,’ which forms the anagram of the otherwise unreversable word Gz2bdé6r. We will find too, that, in accordance with the principle of parallelism, the other protagonist, Nani, “My Nén,’’ at the end of the Reverse Reading, is also isolated from the text by means of a similar and equally suggestive resolution of its hostile back- ground, which is Kamani, the ‘‘ Apostate.”’ The Reverse of the Oracle of the Great Day of Jehovah falls naturally into three divisions: the passage that stresses the erasure of Resh at the be- ginning; the passage that emphasizes the restoration of Nin at the end; and a picture of the Day of Wrath by which the wrong is righted, in between. The middle passage is univocal, but the first passage admits of two constructions, and the last of four; and so the Great Oracle in its Reverse consists of seven distinct but organically interwoven predictions —seven lightning-flashing and thunder-echoing proph- ecies concerning the Last Day (Cf. Rev. Io: 3, 4). THE SEVEN PROPHECIES 149 The question of these multiple readings of the text has already been considered in a previous chapter (Part II., Chap. VI.); and so it will be sufficient to note here that, like every other peculiarity of the New Book of Zephaniah, its use of this characteristically oracular construction is exceptional only in degree, and that these readings, all of them, are authenticated and sealed by the oracle itself—and by the self-evident fact that all their predictions, except those that fore- tell the Great Event and its immediate portents, have either been fulfilled already or else are now ful- filled in their very publication. These fulfilled prophecies of the oracle are indeed avant-couriers that prepare the way for the acceptance of its long- awaited proclamation—that proclamation concerning which Hope Deferred has said so often, and of late with such an air of finality, ‘‘Where is the promise of his coming? For from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the Creation”’ (2 Peter 3: 4). I. THE RESH PASSAGE in its literal sense applies to the reading of the oracle itself and rejoices at the result of the cleansing of the text from its obscuration by Resh, while in its figurative meaning it points to the retribution that is to overtake the head of the serpent. The two constructions may also be distinguished with reference to their use, the one of the traditional and the other of the amended text. In its literal sense the Resh Passage follows the amended text, which is construed as follows: (1) pixlo non wn Sploaa wh, Reshé bigemtil mash Christ Ne’um, I50 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH ‘‘' When its Resh is erased, as it ought to be, the Oracle will reveal CHRIST.” Ne’um, 083, is here construed as the denominative verb (Cf. Jer. 23: 3).* Gemil, 5103, means ‘ dealing in accordance with the merits of the case, recompense, whether of reward or punishment.’ Any action bigemil is therefore “as it ought to be.”’ In its figurative sense this clause of the oracle pro- - nounces the doom of the great representative of the Evil One; and here accordingly it retains the thumb- mark he left upon it—for when he tampered with the word of God he signed his own death warrant. With Resh unerased the oracle reads: (2) ohh pan wi sfilaaa wn, Reshé bigemtl mash Chorets Rém, ‘‘Its head in retribution will the JUDGE remove from ROME.” For Mash, wv, used transitively, see Zec. 3: 9; and for the two accusatives with it, see Davidson, Heb.) Syntax, 8873 d.and'75 ¢.) \Ch Gensaz-iog: The Hebrew spelling of ROME is pin—it is so written in the Hebrew translation of the New Testa- ment. Its vowel letter Vav, like the smooth breath- ing Aleph of NE’UM, on3, the word it supplants, is elided in this oracle in answer to the very evident requirements of the multiple readings—and in strict conformity also with a frequent Hebrew usage.t Rome was founded the very year Isaiah sounded the first warning of the coming of the Day of Jehovah of Hosts and began to prophesy against the once * Brown-Driver-Briggs, p. 610 6. T Ges., §§ 23 and 24. THE SEVEN PROPHECIES I5I “faithful city’? that had ‘“‘become a_ harlot’’— Jerusalem, which in her apostasy was a type of the mightier apostate that claims to be the earthly manifestation of the New Jerusalem (Isa. 1:2; 2:12). An hundred years later, in Zephaniah’s time, Rome was only a petty kingdom of far away Italy, and the prophet had doubtless never even so much as heard its name and could not know that Roman legionaries would crucify the Savior at the behest of “rebellious and polluted’’ Jerusalem and afterwards destroy that city, in accordance with the apocalyptic application of his prophecy of the Babylonian Captivity, and drive out the poor remnant of its population into their last long exile. Neither could he dream of the later guilty union of the mightiest of the world- empires with the Church of Christ in her apostasy, and certainly he knew nothing of the final retribution that was to be visited upon Rome, in all the applica- tions of that dread name. ‘These things were no secret, however, to the Spirit of Prophecy; and no one can deny that here indeed is the name of that greatest of the oppressors of the Jews and chief persecutor and defiler of the Church, written in the Oracle of the Great Day of Jehovah just where it belongs, in precisely the appropriate context—as the supplanter of NE’UM, the Word of God, and as about to be visited with retribution, a retribution expressed in terms of the first pronouncement upon the head of the tempter of humanity. It must be remembered in this connection that ROME as contemplated by the Spirit of Prophecy that inspired Isaiah, Zephaniah, Daniel and St. John, is a many-headed monster, a conventional grouping of a succession of more or less closely related 152 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAM world-powers that, having once arisen, must continue until the time of the end. The historian uses the term ‘‘Roman Empire’’ in exactly the same con- ventional way—and in fact, whether centered in Rome itself, in Byzantium, in Milan, in Ravenna, in Aachen, in Frankfort, in Vienna, in Paris, or in Berlin, the Empires of Europe have all been “‘Roman”’ in their heritage and inspiration and in their very law; and for the most part they have been Roman also in their names and imperial titles;* while in them all and over them all there has existed and still exists, though now reduced to a shadow of its old authority, the great spiritual and would-be temporal and _ all-inclusive Empire, specifically and intensively Roman, of the heir of Caesar as Pontifex Maximus, who styles him- self also the Successor of Peter. In the fourth year of this century, James Brice, the greatest contem- porary authority on Rome in its later manifestations, could write of ‘‘A Europe which in the course of the Nineteenth Century removed itself an immeasurable way from those ages of faith and imagination down which Caesar voyaged in the bark of Peter.’’ ‘‘The Successor of Caesar,’’ said he, “‘is now an Emperor in Germany only, as the Successor of Peter is obeyed in less than half of Western Christendom.’’} It is therefore no arbitrary and fanciful interpretation of history that finds in the Blond Beast by which, since then, the “‘ages of faith and imagination”’ have been so fearfully outdone, the incomparable monster with which Prophecy pictures the final and consum- mate manifestation of Rome as a merely temporal * Cf, James Bryce, ‘‘Holy Roman Empire,” Ed. 1917, pp. 428 ff. and 500 ff.; and Ernest Baker, ‘‘Empire,’’ Encyc. Brit., 11th Ed., Vol. IX., espec. pp. 347, 355 and 356. } ‘Holy Roman Empire,” p. 507. THE SEVEN PROPHECIES 153 despotism. Happily the heel of the Seed of the Woman has now crushed, let us hope, completely, this most destructive and most unlooked-for manifestation, this resurrection of damnation as from the Bottom- less Pit (Rev. 17:8), of Rome in the civil realm. The ‘Successor of Cesar’’ is no longer an Emperor even in Germany, and only the so-called ‘‘Successor of Peter,’’ who claims to be Cesar’s heir as_ well, still sits upon his throne—and he is a “‘prisoner’’ in his palace on one of the Seven Hills of the great city, the Vatican, the “Hill of the False Prophet.’ The Oracle is indeed in the very process of fulfilment as it comes to light from its long concealment. II. The SECOND SECTION of the Oracle is also in process of fulfilment like the first—and in what a frightfully unprecedented measure! Its characteriza- tion of the Day of Wrath is in doleful harmony with the parable of the erasure of Resh, for it tells of the cost of the final discomfiture of Rome predicted in the preceding clause. It reads: (3) pm oxi dy oo mn, Havah yom, v-yelék dam raham, ‘“‘The Day is at hand, and it laps up the blood of a multitude.” Raham, ann, is found nowhere else in Hebrew literature, except in the name of Abraham, where its well-known traditional rendering, based on Gen. 17: 5, is ‘‘multitude’’; but it still occurs with this meaning in Arabic. Perhaps there is a suggestion here of a “‘multitude”’ of those who call themselves “ Children of Abraham’’—and it is in fact almost exclusively from the ranks of Christians, Jews and Moslems that the Great War has taken—and still is taking—its 154 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH fearful toll. In the middle of 1919 it was estimated that over nine million men had been killed in battle and that the total loss of life already occasioned by the war was forty millions,* and since then battles innumerable have been fought—and the Red Terror still rages and spreads. Havah, 1, is a parallel form of Hayah, nn, “to be, to become, to come to pass.’ It is the root of the ineffable name n\n, “He who is’’—Cf. B.D.B., pp. 217 Oli2 LOaaiecdeas Ill. The THIRD SECTION of the Oracle, the Nain Passage, contains four predictions, two of which foretell those final signs in the heavens that are to be interpreted according to the symbolism of the Corol- lary of the Protevangel, while the others authenticate these two readings of the Oracle. The text, it will be observed, retains the three letters of verse Thirteen that were included in the Rubric by which the Re- verse Reading was authorized. We will consider first the two constructions that authenticate the symbolism assumed in this interpreta- tion of the Oracle. It will be seen that they indicate also that the full reading of the Oracle is itself a portent of the final fulfilment of the burden of its Obverse, ‘‘The Great Day of Jehovah is near, it is near and hasteneth greatly.” The first construction of this section of the Oracle, which is the Fourth Prophecy of the Reverse, reads as follows: (4) Ww ( WAY D7 AIT WP WAS v-bér kol6 Dagah, havah yom; v-yabér *See Report of the Copenhagen Society for Investigation, etc., in the Literary Digest of June 26, 1920, p. 31. THE SEVEN PROPHECIES 155 ker? min- Nini, ‘‘When his voice interprets Dagah (‘“‘ The Fishes”), the Day is at hand; and he will interpret it* as the equivalent of my Nin’”’ (i.e., as readf according to my Nun).t Here, in accordance with the demands of the parallelism, Nani, “my Nan,’ is set forth from the text by a letter-play, Keri min Nini, “read according to my WNén,” which is appropriately analogous to that by which Reshé, “‘his Resh,”’ was set forth in the first of the Seven Prophecies; and at the same time this letter-play reveals a new symbolic letter Koph, p, which is to play a most essential part in this apoc- alyptic presentation of the corollary of the Protevangel. It has been maintained that the usage of which Képh, >, is the notation goes back at least to the time of the exile—the Talmud indeed asserts that it originated with Moses himself; but utterly regardless of whether it could or could not have been employed by a merely human author in the days of Zephaniah— and without doubt the prophet knew nothing at all *For the omission of the pron. obj., see Davidson, Heb. Syntax, § 73 Rem. 5. { For the participle used as obj., see Davidson, Heb. Syntax, § 76; and Ges., §117. 5C. t In the light of this prophecy, it is evident that 734 dp) is the exact equivalent of bpna-y); and that we have here no merely accidental homophony but the complement of MIBY and “S"~ np is made certain by the other half of the fessera, so") Dpy’. For in these two halves, notwithstanding their brevity, the object of the New Book of Zephaniah is indicated with the utmost fidelity :—to ‘‘clear up’’ (993) and to “‘interpret”’ (WA) Nun-Ichthus-Dagah, THE SEAL OF THE LivinG Gop; and to ‘track out’’ (3py, the denominative verb, ‘‘to follow at the heel”’ —See Brown-Driver-Briggs, p. 784 a) the covert significance of Tav-Resh, THE MARK OF THE Breast. The reading is, “‘ He shall seaich out Tav-Resh for me, and his voice shall interpret Nun.” 156 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH of the Reverse Reading of his Great Oracle—this notation conveys such a well-known, definite and appropriate significance to the readers for whose instruction the Seven Prophecies were prepared that we can not disregard it as unintentional on the part of the Spirit of Prophecy, especially in view of the exceedingly apt parable that is dependent upon it. We will in fact find that it is abundantly authenticated by the Seals and the Counter-seals of the Oracle and by the Stigmata as well. This letter Képh is the sign of the Masoretic notation Keri, "p, (=p), which indicates that the word under consideration is to be read according to the equivalent found in the margin instead of as it is wriiten in the text.* The second pronouncement concerning the interpre- tation of this section of the Oracle is precisely the companion-piece that analogy demands for the first and is based upon it—is in fact derived from it by a word-play that completes the definition of the new symbol Képh, P. (5) yp yay DVM mya pa V-bér Koph (p) Lé’Dagah, havah yom; v-yabér kert (7p) min- Nini. It reads: *‘ And when he interprets Koph (~?) as Lé’Dagah (The False Fishes), the Day is at hand; and he will interpret it as con- trary to my Niin (as the equivalent of Resh). The reading of this pronouncement concerning Képh and the False Fishes depends upon a very felicitously symbolic play on the phrase Ker? min Nini. A false reading of this phrase, deriving Kert from Mp instead of from Np, reflects the real nature *See ‘P’’ in any Masoretic Clavis: and ‘‘Keri and Kethib” in any Biblical Encyclopedia. THE SEVEN PROPHECIES 157 of the False Fishes and of Képh, ~, when it is their representative, as being “contrary to Ndn?z’’; and the Oracle puts its emphatic wnprimatur upon this interpretation in a most suggestive manner. For it is a significant fact that this same Képh, Pp, which is here in the Reverse of the Oracle properly construed as the sign and initial of the Masoretic Ker? from Np, is also in the Obverse the initial of the Kert from mip that is the key-word of the Rubric of the direct reading that authorizes the reading in reverse. The Keri of the Obverse, as we have already seen, is an asterisk that refers to the threatenings of the Mosaic Covenant against those that walk “contrary unto” their God; while that of the Reverse is a notation pointing to Nan, the sign of Him who is the Re- deemer from the penalties of the broken Law and its avenger upon those who accept not correction, the Christ and the Chores. The identity of Dagah, ‘‘The Fishes,” with Ndn, and of Lé’Dagah, ‘‘The False Fishes,” with Resh— through the mediation of Képh—having been made known in these two preliminary readings, the function of these equivalent symbols in the economy of the apocalypse is now to be set forth in the two remaining prophecies of the Oracle. For convenience of pres- entation we will consider these two prophecies in what is doubtless the reverse of their proper order (Cf. Matt. 24: 29, 30), numbering them, however, according to their true sequence. The final step is the restoration of Nén, its em- blazonment upon the scroll of heaven as the immediate harbinger of the Coming One, is foretold in the last of the Seven Prophecies. (7) 7D PMA AA AIT 5 prvi 158 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH V-bérek 16 Dagah, havah-yom; v-yebhérek nuin- Nini. Construing p13 and p12 as respectively the Infinitive Absolute and the Imperfect of the causative and in- tensive Po’el, we read this passage: ‘* When the Day comes, Dagah (the Constellation of the Fishes) will be made to shine forth like lightning upon it; yea, from my Nin will the lightning-like glory be made to shine forth.”? In other words, Pisces, the Constellation of the ‘‘Fishes,’’ heretofore the last and most inconspicuous of the twelve Constellations of the Zodiac, the Nadu of Christ among the stars, is to shine forth as the first and most conspicuous of the circle, as a token of the coming again in glory of him who was once despised and rejected of men. . Let us note, first of all, that here again the equiva- lence of Nin and Dagah is emphatically set forth in the synonymous parallelism of the two clauses of the passages. In the Hebrew of today the name of this Constellation has the plural form Dagim. The form Dagah is well used in the Oracle, however, for it is usually collective, and so is equivalent to the plural in its application here to the two fishes of Pisces; but it may also be used of a single fish, as in Jonah 2: 2, and so may stand for the fish-letter Nin, as the double meaning of the passage requires. The interpretation of Dagah as referring to the Constellation of the ‘“‘Fishes’’ is the unanswerable suggestion of the verb Barak, pra, “to flame forth like lightning’’; but the ideas it connotes are so foreign to the thought of this generation, so different from anything we have been accustomed to recognize as legitimate, that, not- withstanding its complete harmony with the context and with the parallel prophecy of the Savior himself (Matt. 24: 29, 30) when construed simply and nat- THE SEVEN PROPHECIES 159 urally, it will doubtless appear to many to require some other scripture warrant, seemingly impossible to find. Such a warrant is at hand, however, and it is one that is altogether incontrovertible; for indeed _ Pisces has already ‘“‘flamed forth”’ in fulfilment of ‘prophecy—as the portent of the First Advent, in accordance with the Vision of Balaam. Balaam prophesied the appearance of a mighty personality in Israel, but his prophecy was figuratively expressed—and here the figure involved is not a metaphor but a metonomy, for it evidently assumes a belief in celestial tokens. What the seer saw in his vision was the picture of an actual symbol and har- binger of the Savior: “I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not nigh! There shall come forth a star out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel . . . and out of Jacob shall one have dominion ”’ (Num. 24:17). This has always been regarded as a Messianic prophecy, and it furnishes the only possible explanation of the expectancy of the Wise Men of the East, who came to Jerusalem saying, ‘“‘Where is he that is born King of the Jews? For we saw his star in its rising and are come to pay homage to him”’ CMatt ian). Now according to our interpretation of Dagah, the “Star out of Jacob”’ of Balaam’s vision must be re- ferred to Pisces, the constellation of the ‘“‘ Fishes ’’— and it was in fact with this constellation that the fortunes of Israel were associated in the ancient lore of thestars. It remains to be seen, therefore, whether “the star’’ that the Magi saw and regarded as a token of the birth of the Messiah was actually a portent seen in Pisces. It must first be understood, however, that the word “star,” ’acrjp, as used by the 160 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH evangelist in the story of the Wise Men, does not necessarily mean a sfar in our limited sense of the term, but may indicate any significant sidereal phenom- enon. A comet ora Nova would doubtless correspond most fully with the modern ideal of a heavenly mes- senger—if indeed there is to be any such messenger— but of equal significance in the estimation of the ancient students of the stars were the conjunctions of the planets. In fact, the great cataclysmic events of history were believed to be marked by such conjunc- tions. Berosus, for instance, associates a universal flood with a conjunction of all the planets in Cancer, and predicts the destruction of the world by fire when a like conjunction takes place in Capricorn. Further- more, there seems to be no doubt that the opinion was entertained by the Jews themselves that a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn—or, as they called them, of T'sedek, ‘“‘Righteousness,’” and Shabbathat, “The Sabbatic’’—in the constellation of the Fishes oc- curred three years before the birth of Moses and would occur again two years before the birth of the Messiah.* St. Matthew’s account of Herod’s slaughter of the innocents “from two years old and under according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the Wise Men”’ (Matt. 2: 16) is in full accordance with this expectation; it indicates clearly that the Magi had first seen the “‘star’’ about two years before their arrival in Judea, and permits the suggestion that this “star’? was a notable conjunction of the major planets. Now “it is all but universally allowed that Jesus * See reference to Miinter’s Der Siern der Weisen and quota- tions from Abarbanal and from the Messiah Haggadah and other Midrashim, in Edersheim’s ‘“‘Life and Times of Jesus, the Messiah,” Book II., Chap. VIII. THE SEVEN PROPHECIES 161 was born about 5 or 6 B.C.’’* Accordingly the year of the first appearance of the “‘star’’ must have been either 7 or 8 B.C.—and the great astronomer Kepler, impressed by the remarkable appearance of a con- junction of Jupiter and Saturn that occurred in his own time, and with which there was associated a very brilliant Nova, made a thorough investigation, which has since been repeatedly verified, and dis- covered that three times in the year 7 B.C., in May, October and December, these two planets were in very close conjunction in the Constellation of the Fishes, and that the following year Mars, or Maadim, “The Bloody,” joined them in the same constellation. f An ephemeral star, or comet, of the Chinese Astronomical Tables, which, it has been calculated, appeared in February of the year 5 B.C., was perhaps the star that ‘went before’’ the Wise Men as they journeyed on from Jerusalem; but whatever it was that they accepted as a reappearance of the “star,’”’ the sunset revealed it to the travelers, as indicated in the gospel narrative, blazing in the southern heavens a little to the west and westering, for this was the direction of their road to Bethlehem—and this was also the direction of the constellation of the Fishes at that season of the year in those times. Arriving before Bethlehem, however, they found that the “star’’ did not lead them on into the walled town itself, which lies just off the main highway to the east, but ‘‘stood’’ about 30 degrees above the south- * New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia, Vol. VI., p. 158, C. + The altogether too readily accepted discussion of ‘‘The Star of the Wise Men” in Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible is vitiated by its failure to note the fact that the visit of the Wise Men did not immediately follow the first appearance of the *‘Star’’ but was delayed for about two years (Matt. 2: 16). 162 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH western horizon directly over the “inn’’ where Jesus was born, the Khan of Chimham, which was the ancestral home of the House of David (cf. 2 Sam. 19: 38-40; I Kings 2: 7), and which was not within the city but “beside” it (Jer. 41: 17).* We are therefore abundantly warranted in our interpretation of Dagah as Pisces, the Constellation of the Fishes, and in our explanation of it as the celestial representative of Nén and Ichthus that is to be made conspicuous and glorious in the Last Day to herald the Second Advent as it did the First. Indeed on the intellectual plane, as we shall see later,} this prediction of the Seventh Prophecy of the Reverse of the Oracle of the Great Day of Jehovah—the pre- diction also of Balaam’s vision, of whose fulfilment the Star of Bethlehem was evidently only a fore-token ——has already received a fulfilment as notable as those that greet the announcement of the predictions of the preceding sections of the Oracle. Having found one well-attested use of the picture writing of the constellations in this Oracle, it will not be difficult to recognize and appreciate a com- panion picture that is revealed when the text is construed as follows: (6) Op IN oO MA AT INhd pr: V-borek Lé’Dagah, havah yom, v-yabér Kamanti, ‘‘ And when the False Fishes are set on fire, the Day — is at hand; and it will clear out my adversary.” *Even so Justin Martyr says that Jesus was born “in a certain cave very close to the village.’’ Caves are frequent in connection with Palestinian inns; and these Khans are usually just outside the villages and on the highways. The highway is west of Bethlehem while the Church of St. Mary is east. + See Second Portent of Chap. XI. following. THE SEVEN PROPHECIES 163 Lé’-Dagah, nxvixhb, is rendered “False Fishes” after the analogy of 5x5, Lo’-’el, ‘False God” (Deut. 32: 17, and many like examples). For bas a shortened form of 815, which in turn equals x5, see poaiiie HiOy ands2O 12, Kamani, *32p, is the equivalent of the Kamaz, ‘9p, “‘them that rise up against me,” of Psalm 18: 40 and 49, but is more precise in that it uses the pronominal suffix of the verb instead of that of the noun.* ‘‘He who rises up against me’”’ is the “Rebel,” the “‘ Apos- tate,’ “‘Anti-Christ’’; and a very clear word-play identifies the arch-adversary who is here ‘‘cleared out’? with one manifestation—the one that most concerns the Church—of the great enemy against whom judgment is pronounced in the first clause of the Oracle, “‘As for ROME, its head the Judge will remove in retribution.” For Kamani7 suggests Ka- ‘amani, ‘‘the Saturnian,’’ the “worshipper of Saturn,”’ an adjective formf from Ka’amanu, the name of Saturn and his Star among the Babylonians (Cf. Amos 5:26 and Acts 7: 42, 43). As Saturn was the patron deity of Rome, the deity indeed from whom the original settlement was called Saturnia—a name that was later poetically applied to the whole of Italy— the chief and representative “worshipper of Saturn”’ here contemplated is the Roman Pontifex Maximus, the head of the Great Apostasy. Now, as we have seen, the Great Apostasy is pre- figured by the apostasy that Joshua and Israel of old were commissioned to drive out of the Promised Land, the religious declension of the Canaanites of whose abominations the typical example is the cult * Gesenius, § 116: 3, Rem. + Gesenius, § 86: 5. 164 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH of Cheres-Nergal-Molech at Timnath-Cheres and Nazareth, the perversion of primitive worship that no longer saw in the orb of day a suggestive parable of the Sun of Righteousness but offered horrible sacrifices to a god of the Burning 5un, the personifi- cation of War and Destruction, of Wrath that must be appeased; and it is to this same saturnine mis- conception of God that the Great Apostasy offers its sacrifices—a sad fact that is unmistakably represented in the symbolism of the New Book of Zephaniah, for Ka’amani, the worshipper of Saturn, was verily a worshipper of Cheres. As we have already noted (Part {., Chap. III.), the planet Saturn as well as the Burning Sun was anciently worshipped as an ikon of Cheres- Nergal-Molech; and in the times of Imperial Rome such original worshippers of ‘‘the grisly king’’ as the peoples of North Africa, becoming Latinized, engraved on their altars the name of the Roman Saturn.* At first glance it seems unaccountable that these ‘‘False Fishes’ that represent his foes should ‘flame forth’’ in the heavens as well as his own sign, the true Constellation of the Fishes, in anticipation of the coming of the Son of Man; but the key to the under- standing of these portents is furnished by the words of the Master himself, ‘‘But immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun shall be darkened and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken, and then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven (Matt. 24: 29, 30). These words must be construed in a literal as well as in a figurative sense, for the figure involved in them, as in * See Deremberg and Saglio, Vol. IV., p. 1088 a; and Lubker’s Real-lexicon, p. 916 d. THE SEVEN PROPHECIES 165 the similar Oracle of Balaam, is a metonomy and implies the appearance of the actual symbols. In view of the ideasof the times and in the light of the Star of Bethlehem, no merely metaphorical interpreta- tion is permissible, and in fact the literal meaning was in the foreground of the prediction, for it was given in answer to an inquiry concerning the ‘‘sign ’’’— onuetov, the outward and visible sign—of his promised coming (Matt. 24: 3). Interpreted in accordance with these words of the Master, these prophecies fore- tell a remarkable display of “‘falling stars’’ in the region of the False Fishes—perhaps even a catastrophe among its charted stars, the like of which only the novas have hitherto reported from the unknown depths of space, as an omen of the complete erasure of Resh, the final discomfiture of Anti-Christ, the clearing out of Kamani, the Rebel, the worshipper of Saturn; which is to be followed by a burst of glory in the Constellation of Jacob heralding the revelation of the Hope of Israel. The False Fishes are without doubt the constella- tions of the Sea Monster—miscalled Cetus, the ““Whale’’—and Piscis Australis, the ‘Southern Fish,” which skirt the southern border of Pisces—and with them, as we shall see presently, there is also associated the Zodiacal goat-fish Capricornus. Lying below the Eclyptic, they are, according to the lore of the stars, in the nether realm of evil, the Sea Monster represent- ing the rapacious world-empires—as does the Apoc- alyptic ‘‘Beast from the Sea’’—and the Southern Fish, which is pictured as being sustained by the stream of water poured from the urn of Aquarius, or “Ramman the Lord of the triple Crown,’’* represent- * See Encyclopedia Brit., 11th Ed., Vol. XXVIII., p. 994, C. 166 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH ing Babylon the Great, or the beast with the horns of a lamb and the voice of a dragon (Rev. 13: 11 ff.). Cetus, under the evil dominance of whose head Aries becomes the astral equivalent of Resh, the symbol of the Old. Serpent, qualifies for this part through the fact that it pictures the sea-monster of the myth of Perseus and Andromeda (So Aratus in The Phainomena, the one Greek authority quoted by St. Paul—Acts 17: 28), and by the further fact that it issues from the very Inferno of Infernos, the South Pole of the Galactic Universe—marked by the star Diphda, or Deneb Kaitos, which, though it is the Beta of the Constellation, is nevertheless its most prominent star. Képh is represented by the other False Fish and its Zodiacal sponsor; and it would be difficult to devise a more faithful representation of the Papacy, with its claims to both spiritual and temporal supremacy, than this combination of Aquarius and Piscis Australis tied together by the stream from the urn of the Water- carrier, as the Fishes that represent the true Church are tied together by the thongs of Nodus; for the triple crown is the emblem of the temporal power of the Roman Sea that nourished its spiritual preten- sions so long and that is still regarded by the dominant Ultra-montanists as absolutely essential to their system, while the one overshadowing star in the jaw of the Southern Fish well portrays the truly absolute spiritual authority of the sovereign and infallible pontiff. Consistently with this view, the Southern Fish may be regarded as the sidereal presentment of Dagon,* the fall of whose head and hands before the Ark of the Covenant is in symbolic harmony with the * So Dupins as quoted by Serviss, ‘‘ Astronomy with the Naked ELVES 132, THE SEVEN PROPHECIES 167 prediction here set forth concerning this constellation. It is therefore strikingly significant that the one great star of this constellation is called ‘‘ Fomalhaut,” ‘‘The Mouth of the Fish,’”’ which may be rendered in Hebrew Lo‘-Dagah, nis-yS, for this is a close word-play upon the name given the Constellation in the Oracle, and substituting in it for Dag, “Fish,’’ its equivalent in the Oracle, the fish-letter Nan, the name of this star becomes 7395, La‘anah, or “‘ Wormwood,” which is the name of the ‘‘fallen star’’ of Rev. 8: 10-11, and which is also a synonym of Résh, ‘‘a bitter poisonous herb,”’ and an equivoke of Resh the supplanter of Nan the Sign of the Christ. Fomalhautis one of the four Royal Stars that anciently marked the four corners of the heavens; and in consonance with its apocalyptic symbolism, it stood for the North, though in reality it is the southernmost of the four. As a companion to the parable of the word-play upon Lo’Dagah, Fomalhaut-Lo‘Dagah-La‘anah, ‘Worm- wood,’’ the “fallen star’’ of the Southern Fish, we find in Cetus, the other False Fish, a dramatic proph- ecy to the same effect—an earnest, as it were, of the fulfilment of the Sixth Prophecy of the Reverse of the Oracle of the Great Day of Jehovah and of the words of the Master; for it is in this constellation that the “wonder star’’ Mira, the most notable and the first discovered of the variables, blazes up and fades away like a nova, usually oscillating between the third and the seventh magnitudes in a cycle of 331 days, but some- times unexpectedly flashing forth and becoming the brightest star of the constellation—as in December 1906—and then disappearing and continuing invisible unaccountably—as once in the Seventeenth Century, when for four years it seemed to be blotted out of existence. 168 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH The parallelism of this chapter of the picture- writing of the stars with the Oracle of the Great Day of Jehovah is completed and the identification of ‘The Fishes’”’ with Ndén and of ‘The False Fishes”’ and their Zodiacal sponsors (Aries, Aquarius and Capricornus) with Resh and its equivalent Képf is confirmed by the relationship to these constellations that was assigned in the ancient lore of the stars to the three planets whose conjunction marked the First Advent. As we have already seen, the con- stellation of Aries was the “house’’ of Mars. In its right and proper aspect, as represented by its northern paranatellon Perseus, it was the home of the self- devoting Hero; but in its perversion, as represented by its southern paranatellon, the Head of Cetus, it was “‘the house” of the pseudo-hero, the protector who becomes an exploiter, the tyrant, the King—of Mars “The Bloody,” which the Jews call Maadim and which we have identified with Ares- Cheres- Nergal, the god of the ancient typical apostasy. ‘The signif- icance of Aries as in its evil-aspect the equivalent of Resh, the symbol of the Great Adversary and the mark of his fearful avators, the apocalyptic beasts of the line of Babylon, is further emphasized by the fact that the Zodiacal Ram was the heraldic token* of the Babylonian dynasty of the Seleucids and so of Anti- ochus Epiphanes, the most venomous and blasphemous of the enemies of the people and religion of Jehovah and the typical anti-Christ of the Book of Daniel. In harmony with this token of the stellar apocalypse, the constellations of the goat-fish Capricornus and of Aquarius, or of Ramman the Thunderer, the wearer of the triple crown who pours from his urn the stream “Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Ed., Vol. XXVIII., pp. 993, 4, 7- THE SEVEN PROPHECIES | 169 that sustains the False Fish Piscis Australis with its false representative of the North, Fomalhaut or Lo‘Dagah, the fallen star ‘‘ Wormwood,’ are found to be ‘‘houses’’? dominated by SATURN, the star of Ares- Cheres- Ninib, the alter ego of Nergal—and this identifies the wearer of the triple crown and also his lesser brother on the Bosporos with Ka’amanz, “The Worshipper of Saturn,’’? and Kamant, “the Apostate,’’ whose initial and symbol is Képh, the equivalent of Resh. Furthermore, in reinforcement of the reference of this picture to the False Church, Saturn, which is in reality the Szxth of the planets as we count them now, was regarded as the Seventh in the old and mistaken geo-centric system handed down by Ptolemy; and its Hebrew name was ac- cordingly Shabbathat, “‘The Sabbatic’’—which was also appropriately the name of the most shameful and preposterous of the false Messiahs that have afflicted Jewry f in accordance with the warnings of the rejected Nazarene. (Matt. 24:5, 23, 26; John 5: 43.) The symbolism is completed by the Hebrew name of Jupiter, the planet regarded as regnant over Pisces, ‘‘The Fishes,’’ the constellation of Israel and the representative of Nin on the scroll of heaven; for it is Tsedek or ‘‘ Righteousness.”’ The réle played by the constellations Dagah and Lo’ Dagah remind us of Israel’s First Battle of Arma- geddon, to which the clue of St. Matthew’s Lost Prophecy has already directed our attention as like- wise a foreshadowing of the mighty conflict of the Last Great Day—and here, as everywhere, we see that there is a studied harmony, even in outer form, t Sabbathaz Zebi, born at Smyrna in 1626 and died a renegade, a pervert to Mohammedanism in 1676, 170 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH that puts the seal of unity upon all the types and shadows of God’s written revelation. The parallels between the story of that ancient type of the Great Armageddon and the Prophecies of the Reverse of the Oracle of the Great Day of Jehovah are clearly indi- cated and emphasized by the familiar method charac- teristic of both. Kamani, “‘The Apostate,’’ is identified in the Oracle by the word-play Ka’amani, “The Worshipper of Saturn’’; and his type in the Book of Judges is the Canaanite power that centered in Nazareth, the northern shrine of Cheres-Molech-Saturn, whose apostate worship is characterized by the plays on its name, Charisoth and Charishoth, that picture it as ‘“‘The Place of the Sorceries of the Gentiles and of their burnt offerings to Cheres-Molech-Saturn.”’ In the Armageddon of the Last Great Day, as it is foretold in the Oracle, itis Ne’um, “‘THE WORD OF GOD” (Cf. Rev. 19: 13), who, as the ‘Judge In- ‘exorable,” will flash forth his “lightnings,’”’ Barak (pk3), upon the apostate and cause the Day to lap unto the blood of a multitude. So in the ancient typical Armageddon, Deborah, by word-play Debar- yah, mas, ‘The Word of Jehovah,” was the name of the “Judge’’ who inspired Israel to rise up against Jabin and Sisera and sent Barak, pia, “The Lightning,’’ and the ten thousand heroes of Zebulon and Naphtali, rushing down upon them from the heights of Tabor, which tradition identifies with the Mount of the Transfiguration. The Oracle of Zeph- aniah appeals to the portents of the stars; and in the Song of Deborah we read: ‘‘From heaven fought the stars, From their courses they fought against Sisera aes 5320, 27); ———— AT THE SEVEN SEALS A DRAMATIZATION OF THE PROTEVANGEL HE authentication of an oracle as unusual as this Reverse Reading must be correspondingly outstanding—and the Spirit of Prophecy has left unused no means that could be employed to that end. No one can fail to appreciate (1) the thorough self-consistency of this Reverse Reading in all its Seven Prophecies; (2) its striking accordance with the message of the Obverse; (3) its harmonious elaboration of the symbolism of the Protevangel, the very symbolism illustrated in the loss and re- covery of the true meaning of the Oracle of the Great Day of Jehovah itself; and (4) its unquestionable confirmation in the fulfilment of so many of its pre- dictions, of those that have to do with its own dis- covery and interpretation, and of the two that are preliminary to its main action—the destruction of the Blond Beast, and the Great War that has already lapped up the blood of such a multitude. It will be well, however, to consider also those less obvious evidences of design that are indeed worthy of the “mind of the Spirit,’’ but that can be appreci- ated only as they are studied—and that must reward study with a clearer conception of the truth. The symbolic antagonists, Nén and Resh, are contrasted in the Oracle three times and in three different ways; and the rebellion of Resh is finally 171 L722 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH resolved through the mediation of Képh. The symbolism is therefore set forth seven times—in Seven Seals, so to speak, that, by the perfection, propriety and consistency of the devices engraved upon them, authenticate the multiple readings of the text, the Seven Prophecies of the Oracle. These Seven Seals present in four acts a three-fold dramatiza- tion of the Protevangel in its application to the final phase of the great conflict of the ages, the deadly contest between the Church and the World. The primary presentation of this threefold drama is found in the first and last acts, the other two being interludes —portents. The drama begins with a picture of the now historic aggression of Resh, and ends with a prophecy of the triumph of Nén, of which the portents of the interludes show the imminence. The first interlude is a miniature presentation of the whole drama, which is enacted in the minutie of the text of Scripture as a portent for the watchful eye of the Church; while the second promises to speak its warning through the mighty constellations of the heavens—blazing oracles that even the careless World must heed. The first is in fact a replica of the New Book of Zephaniah itself, while the second is a ref- erence and appeal to the great and original Apocalypse of the Stars. The protagonists of this dramatization are the letters Nin and Resh used as nouns; and, as has already been noted, they are set off for this use by means of characteristic pronominal suffixes, Reshé, “His Resh,”’ and Nint ‘“‘My Nan’; and they are emphasized by being placed in the commanding positions in the text—positions, too, that correspond with their significance as respectively ‘‘head’”’ and THE SEVEN SEALS 173 ‘‘heel’’—Reshé being the first word of the oracle and Nuni the last. The emphasis is heightened by the device of setting each of the protagonists upon a back- ground of the opposite color—each stands out indeed against the very word most appropriately used to characterize his adversary, Reshé, “His Resh,” against Gibbdér, the ‘‘ Mighty One,” the divine title of the Messiah in the Proclamation of the Voice of the Day of Jehovah, and Nini, “‘My Nin,” against Kamani, ‘Him who rebels against me,” the Apostate, by word-play “‘the Worshipper of Saturn.” The antithesis between these representations of the great antagonists is the more marked because of the exact parallelism maintained between them in all things save in those distinctive points that constitute the action of the drama. ‘They are of necessity taken, both of them, from the words of the text that form their backgrounds, the characteristic titles of their adversaries; but each comes forth in such a way as to enact its proper réle in the presentation of the Protevangel. The fulfilment of the Protevangel is necessarily presented in a drama of two great acts, The Wounding of the Heel of the Hero, and The Retribution upon the Head of the Serpent. I. THE FIRST ACT—-THE WOUNDING OF THE HEEL OF THE HERO In one scene = The FIRST SEAL, Reshé bigemil. The drama of the Protevangel is of course enacted here in such a way as to carry a message concerning the Second Advent, for that is the purpose of the Reverse Reading in which it is found. The Word of God is not pictured here, therefore, as wounded in 174 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH the person of Jesus of Nazareth on Calvary, but as wounded in his greater body, the Church, on one of the seven hills of Babylon the Great. Reshé, is ex- hibited here as the Head of the Great Apostasy, or “Falling Away’’ (II. Thes. 2: 3), as the initial of an attempted inversion of Gibbér, 13, the ‘Mighty One,” the characteristic title of God intervening with power and authority in the affairs of earth, Jehovah- Messiah, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The Evil One, therefore, actually takes as his initial, his mark, the last letter of Gibbér—LITERALLY WOUNDS THE HEEL OF THE HERO—and in this attempted appropriation and perversion of the title that expresses the authority of Christ, there is indeed only too faithfully pictured his impious at- tempt to transform the Kingdom of Christ, who rules by truth alone, into a Roman despotism, an empire, under a triple-crowned “‘Vicar’’ who finds his ideal of a Gibbér in Nimrod (Gen. 10: 8, 9) and in Cesar instead of in the meek and lowly Nazarene. Happily we can call St. Francis of Assisi as well as Martin Luther to witness that his seeming triumph on the Vatican is as essentially futile as was that on Calvary; and the Oracle itself adds the reassurance of its prophetic pronouncement. A real reversal of Gibbér being, as the parable demands, altogether im- possible, its anagram is formed by a play on the letters of the word, by which Gzbbér, 133, becomes 33°45, Reshé bigemil, ** His head—in retribution.” II. THE FIRST PORTENT—WRIT LITTLE FOR THE CHURCH An interlude in two scenes: Scene I = The SECOND SEAL, Rém. Scene 2 = The THIRD SEAL, Ne’um. THE SEVEN SEALS 175 At the close of the first section of the Reverse Reading of the Oracle, the antagonists are seen in their own proper forms as letters contending for the possession of the master-word of the Prophecy, the name of the Nazarene and the symbol of his Church. Here in their proper form they are also revealed in their true significance; for when Num is restored to the text, we find in its logical place in the oracle the divine name of the glorified Seed of the Woman, Ne’um, o[sl3, the ‘Word of God,” of which Nun is the initial and sign; but with Resh supplanting Nun, as in the corrupted Masoretic text, the place of Ne’um, the ‘‘Word of God,” is usurped by Rom, nih, the name of the consummate incarnation of the Old Serpent, the synonym of Empire—the World at its worst, of which Resh is the initial and sign. Resh, as we have seen, supplanted Num in the text of the Oracle about the time of the Crucifixion—and now the erasure of Resh and restoration of Nun has the force of a portent for all who read the Word of God. II. THE SECOND PORTENT——-WRIT LARGE FOR THE WORLD An interlude in two scenes: Scene 1 = The FOURTH SEAL, Lo’Dagah. Scene 2 = The FIFTH SEAL, Dagah. At the beginning of the last section of the Oracle, the great contest is shown as it is about to be set forth in the picture-writing of the heavens that all nations and peoples and languages may see and under- stand it—a portent for the world at large. This picture-writing was traced on the heavens by the 176 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH finger of the Creator, and its suggestive outlines have never been seriously misconstrued by any of his earthly children, however sadly its true significance may have been lost. Its revelation was given to the race in its receptive childhood,* and its interpretation is to be found in the cosmic myths the first men wove around its figures as they tried to solve the mysteries of the wonderful world in which they found themselves —its origins and goals, its good and its evil—dreaming with mingled hope and fear of life and death and things to come, and listening to the voice of God in the cool of the evening, to the still small voice in the silence and darkness of the night, under the stars. It is the first written revelation, the first apocalypse; and like its Biblical redactions, it does indeed foretell the future, not, as the inevitable perversions pretend, the fixed destinies of individuals or peoples—for there is no such thing in God’s universe—but the major movements in the out-working of the Great Salvation in accordance with the laws of growth and under the husbandry of all the free-agencies involved, among which, transcendant, but none the less law-abiding, works the divine purpose of Him who, through the over-rulings of his providence and through the in- fluence of his Holy Spirit, “bringeth his own devices to pass.” *See W. F. Warren, The Earliest Cosmologies, pp. 109 ff. As to whether at this late date we are warranted in attempting to construe this early revelation, we have every reason to believe that, so far as its fundamental constructions are concerned, the picture-writing of the stars ‘‘underwent no essential change” (so F. von Oeffele in Hastings’ Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. XII., p. 57, b.) ‘from the time of the earliest attempts to draw upa calendar—through the period of the Sumerians and Akkadians—to the days of Kepler.” THE SEVEN SEALS Ag The chapter of the Stellar Apocalypse to which Zephaniah appeals in this portent is its version of the Corollary of the Protevangel. Here Resh and its equivalent Koph are appropriately represented by the constellations of the “‘False Fishes’’ (Lo’Dagah), Resh itself by Cetus, the Monster of the Deep that _ issues from the southern or infernal pole of the Galactic Universe, and Koph by the Southern Fish, the picture of Dagon, whose lone bright star is ‘‘The Mouth of the Fish,’ Fomalhaut, Lo‘DAGah, La‘anah, or the fallen star ‘‘Wormwood,” the southern star that poses as the representative of the North; while Num is pre- sented in the guise of Dagah, or Pisces, the Constella- tion of the Fishes, which of old was assigned to Jacob, and in which the Wise Men of the East, in accordance with the prediction of Balaam, found “the star” that led them to the feet of the infant Redeemer. The erasure of Resh, the Oracle tells us, will be heralded by the “‘falling stars’’ of the False Fishes, while in the true ‘‘Fishes’”’ of Pisces will appear that sign of the Son of Man, Nun, emblazoned on the scroll of heaven, by which, as the Savior himself made known to us, the stars in their joy are to signal to the redeemed Earth a token of the Presence of the Victorious Redeemer. These False Fishes are, however, paranatellons; and their effect on the institutional life of earth is represented in the stellar apocalypse through their dominance of the corresponding Zodiacal signs and constellations. Accordingly, as the drama is enacted in the heavens, it is the Zodiacal Ram, the ancient “Leader (Resh) of the year,’’ whose southern para- natellon is the head (Resh) of Cetus, that plays the part of RESH; while the Water-carrier, which is the 178 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH Zodiacal sponsor of the head (Koph) of the Southern Fish and of its one great star, and which in fact over- shadows the whole of that constellation, and also the fish-tail of Capricornus, represents KOPH in the action of the apocalypse. It will be necessary of course to reserve for the less restricted limits of a separate publication the full discussion of this astral presentation of the great contest of the ages, but perhaps it will be possible to set forth here an in- telligible picture of its main features. In any moving circle the first follows hard upon the last; but in the ceaseless round of the year as repre- sented by the circle of the Zodiac, the ‘‘head ”’ actually ““wounds’”’ the “‘heel’’—a fact that is suggested, un- wittingly no doubt on the part of its human orig- inators, in the ancient symbol of time often seen in classic presentations of Saturn, or Chronos, a serpent grasping its tail in itsmouth. Little by little, because of the Precession of the Equinoxes, the “‘Sign’”’ of the Ram has bitten into the “‘ Constellation ”’ of the Fishes; for the signs—each an arc of the Eclyptic of thirty degrees—following the lead of the Vernal Equinox, are moving backward in relation to the fixed stars of the constellations, one degree in a little over three score years and ten. As originally conceived, of course, the signs and constellations were identical; and Taurus, the Winged Cherub, whose symbol was represented on the Mercy Seat of the Ark of the Covenant, and whose constellation includes the seven rain-dispensing Hyades and the seven Halcyon Pleiades (Job 38: 31), was then the leader of the Circle of the Zodiac; and according to the analogy of subsequent astronomical usage, and in accordance also with consistency in chronology, the sign of Taurus THE SEVEN SEALS 179 ought to have retained its primacy on down the ages; but in the earliest extant records, the Ram had assumed its place and become the leader, the Resh, of the signs. It must be understood in this connection that, since they represent the impact upon human life of the mutually antagonistic influences of the Spirit of the Heavenly Father and the spirit of the Father of Lies, the Zodiacal figures are, as it were, houses divided against themselves, being in their ideal acceptances symbols of the divine interventions in behalf of fallen humanity and in their perversion counterfeits of these same symbols and witnesses to the Satanic inter- ferences in our despite. Accordingly Aries, which in its rightful significance is the Little Lamb of the Heavenly Hosts who is later to manifest himself as the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, is in its perverted aspect the Ram-demon Kingu-Abaddon-A ppolyon,* the leader of the rebel hordes of Tiamat-Chaos. More- over, since during all the centuries that the Equinox, the Index of the Ages, has been moving westward over the stars of Pisces the paranatellons, which picture the incarnations and show the seeming rela- tive vantage or disadvantage of the two opposing forces, have been, on the South, the rampant sea- monster Cetus, and on the North his helpless victim the chained maiden Andromeda, it is evident that in the celestial oracles as in the earthly records of these centuries evil is presented as ruthlessly aggres- sive and to all appearances overwhelmingly dominant; and so Aries, the ‘‘Prince’”’ or ‘‘Head’”’ (Resh) of the Signs, encroaching upon Pisces, the Fishes (um), the *See Rev. 9: 11 etc; and The Babylonian Creation Tablets, bey ri4 ff.) ete. 180 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH ‘“‘Heel’’ of the Constellations of the Zodiac, can only be construed as representing the “Head” of the Zodiac in its draconian aspect wounding the ‘ Heel”’ of the celestial Hero. The “wounding ”’ of the ‘heel ’’ or last of the Zodiacal constellations, Pzisces,-or Dagah, the “Fishes’’—the erasure of N U N written on the scroll of heaven—by this usurping “‘head,’”’ or RES H, of the signs, began in the days of the first Antiochus (280 to 269 B.C.), who adopted it as his heraldic token, and just at the time that Rome, having completed and consolidated her conquest of Italy (272 B.C.), started out on that fateful career of foreign conquest that made her the age-long mistress of the world. The cycle of the Precession of the Equinoxes is completed in 25730 years, and so the Vernal Equinox passes through the thirty degrees of a sign in 2144 years. Consequently at the time of the First Advent, or the coming of the Suffering Savior, the encroachment of the sign of the Ram upon the constellation of the Fishes had just begun to be noticeable, and the first point of Aries was then appropriately marked by the Alpha of Pisces—for the Arabs have given us a name for this star that completes the prophetic message of this crucial passage of the picture-writing of the heavens and reinforces it with, as it were, an apt quotation from the greatest of the prophets. The classic name of this star, Nodus, the ‘‘ Knot,” points out the fact that, though it is in their constella- tion, it does not belong to the Fishes themselves, but stands for the knot that unites the two thongs that bind them. Alpha Piscium represents, therefore, neither Christ nor his true people, but the union of the forces that have oppressed them (Cf. Luke 23: 7; THE SEVEN SEALS 181 Acts 4: 27). Well, therefore, has the Spirit of Proph- ecy added to its Latin name WNodus, the Semitic name El-Rescha, ‘‘The Slaughterer.’”’ And so now, as the majestic and long unrecognized movement of the Precession of the Equinoxes—a token indeed of the inscrutable providence of God—enacts in our | retrospect vision of the stars the apocalyptic drama of the wounding of the “heel’”’ of the Messianic Hero by the ‘‘head”’ of the Serpent, or the symbolic erasure of Nun and its supplanting by Resh, it also pictures the true significance of that supreme tragedy and shows us the Sign of Aries in its rightful aspect as the symbol of Love’s redeeming sacrifice, the Little Lamb bearing the Cross of the Easter Equinox toward Alpha Piscium—and on from Alpha to Omega—and it utters in Reason’s ear an unmistakable voice that speaks in the very words of familiar scripture: ‘‘He was brought asalamb to the slaughterer’’* (Isa. 53 :7;3 Acts 8 :32 cf. John I : 29, 36). Nineteen centuries have now gone by since Calvary and the seeming triumph of the Serpent over the Suffering Savior—only a seeming triumph, for, in accordance with the prophetic meaning of the name by which he was rejected, the “Nazarene” (Moy3"1) left behind him an empty sepulcher as a token of the glorious victory won from seeming defeat—and all this time the enmity between the Serpent and the Seed of the Woman has been exemplified in his cease- less conflict with the Church, the body of Christ, which indeed he has not only persecuted but even * The Masorites punctuate this word N30; but it could with equal or even greater propriety be pointed NAD and rendered “‘slaughterer’’—which is in keeping with ‘‘shearer’”’ in the parallel clause. 182 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH seemed to overcome and transform into the likeness of his own consummate incarnation; and accordingly the Sign of the Ram has continued to encroach upon the Constellation of the Fishes, until at last the Cross of the Equinox has moved back through its stars the full measure of a sign—from their Alpha to their Omega. The Resh of the Serpent, it would seem, has completely supplanted the Nun of Christ and taken possession of the stars of its constellation. So it would seem—and so would some interpret appear- ances in the world today and find in them abundant evidence of the “‘failure of Christianity ’’—but in reality it is the very opposite that has come to pass. The “tables have been turned’’ in the heavens in token of the coming “‘Mutation”’ on earth that will reveal the triumph of the Gospel of Jesus of Nazareth. Pisces, which hitherto has always been regarded as the last of the constellations of the Zodiacal Circle, is now of necessity universally acknowledged to have become the first, “‘the precession of the equinoxes having brought it into the position originally occupied by the first sign.’’* It is true that this first sign is still called by the name of Aries, the Ram; but now its first point, ‘the Greenwich of the Skies from whose longitude the right ascension of all the stars is reck- oned,’’ and all its other points as well, must be identi- fied by the stars of the Fishes. True to the demands of the prophetic symbolism, the Constellation of the Fishes has indeed become only the more glorious as the final result of the age-long aggression of the Sign of the Ram; but the picture is not yet complete; for the Sign of the Fishes as well as their Constellation must be seen to share in the *G. P. Serviss, Astronomy with the Naked Eye, p. 138. THE SEVEN SEALS 183 victory—and that phase of the picture is presented in a like contest between Pisces and Aquarius, a con- test that is indeed very much like that between Pisces and Aries, but that is by no means a mere duplicate of it. Artes in its perversion is the Zodiacal embodi- ment of the False Fish Cetus, the Monster of the Deep, the Beast from the Sea. It represents the ’ hostility of the World to the truth of God, the hostility of the World when it is dominated by the Spirit of Evil. Its characteristic manifestation is seen in the great exploiting world-powers, and its typical activity is exemplified supremely in the crucifixion of the Master himself and in the persecution of his Church. It is represented in the Oracle of the Great Day of Jehovah by Resh, the initial of ROME. Aquarius, on the other hand, or Ramman, the wearer of the triple crown, is the Zodiacal sponsor of the False Fish Piscis Australis, whose lucida is Fomalhaut, or Lo‘Dagah, the fallen star ‘Wormwood.’ It stands for the Apostasy that is represented in the Oracle by Koh, the initial of Kamani, and, by word-play, of Ka’ amani, “the worshipper of Saturn’’—and, as we have seen, the symbol of Aguarius, the Water- carrier, is often simply a water-jar, a Kaph. The contest between Pisces and Aquarius is ac- cordingly a companion picture to that between Pisces and Aries, but it is in the reverse order. The times have changed—the Head of the Serpent has been crushed, and the principles represented’ by the benefi- cent aspect of the Zodiac and by Pisces as the Sign of Christ have now become openly victorious. In this picture, therefore, the Sign of the Fishes over- runs the Constellation of the Water-carrier—and there is no turning of the tables against the victorious 184 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH invader. Indeed the precession of the equinoxes, which in the first picture finally makes the seemingly overshadowed Fishes the premier constellation of the Zodiac, in the second demotes the vanquished Water- carrier to the last place in the circle—it is assimilated to Nun, it has become the ‘“‘heel” of the Zodiac. Neither has the Sign of the Fishes lost its identity as did the Sign of the Ram: for the path of the Sun through Aquarius is very short, while Pisces extends through fifty degrees of longitude, and so two-thirds of the points of its sign are still marked by its own stars—and its first point will be so marked for a T HO U- SAND YEARS! Accordingly on the North Andro- meda, the Church in Chains, gives place to Pegasus, the winged charger that evidences the Presence of his unseen Rider, while on the South Cetus the sea- monster is succeeded by Piscis Australis, the Church that has been conformed to the world but that is now to be transformed—assimilated to Nun, as indicated by the conquest of its Zodiacal sponsor Acquarius— and restored to favor in the universal kingdom of the Prince of Peace. And in harmony with the vision as already unfolded, just as the Easter Equinox, which once led the Little Lamb to ‘the Slaughterer,’’ Alpha of the Fishes or Nodus the “ Knot”’ that binds them, brings him now at last to the Omega of the constellation, which marks the end of the thong that symbolizes subjection, and, leaving behind the last stars of the Sea-monster and the Chained Maiden,. enters the region of the Second Fish of Pisces, its fellow, the New Year’s Equinox, which ushers in the Feast of Tabernacles (Cf. Zech. 14:16), points to the stars of the Lion—among which gleams the Sickle poised over the heads of the Hydra, or “the clus- THE SEVEN SEALS 185 ters of the vine’’—and to the ‘‘ White Cloud”’ of Coma Berenices (Cf. Rev. 14 : 14-20). To the eye of the mind, therefore, Lo’Dagah, the ‘“‘False Fishes’’—Cetus, the Dragon of the Deep, with its wonder-star Mira, and the ‘‘Southern Fish’’ with its lone star ‘‘Wormwood’’—have already fallen from their places; while Dagah, the ‘‘ Fishes ’’— Nun emblazoned among the stars—‘‘flashes forth”’ in glory. The Sign of the Son of Man is even now in the heavens, and only awaits the hour of its un- veiling, when it is to be illuminated and made re- splendent to the eyes of all, ‘“‘as the lightning cometh forth from the East and is seen even unto the West”’ (Watts 24 27): IV. THE LAST ACT—RETRIBUTION UPON THE HEAD OF THE SERPENT In two scenes: Scene I = The sixTH SEAL, Ker? (7p) min Nunt. Scene 2 = The SEVENTH SEAL, Keré (Sp) min Nunt. In accordance with the pronouncement made in Reshé bigemil, ‘‘ His head—in retribution,’’ vengeance for the wounding of the ‘‘heel’’ (the last letter) of Gibbér, “‘the Hero,” at the beginning of the Oracle, is visited upon the “head” of Kamani, ‘39p, “the Rebel,’ “‘the Apostate,’ at the end = upon its initial Koph, which, as the pictograph of a head, is a synonym of Resh. The “head’’ of evil is utterly destroyed—and this is in accordance with the pro- phetic meaning of the name of the letter Koph, which is, as derived from I. 5p, ‘‘to strike off’ (in Arabic, “to decapitate’’), “‘todestroy utterly ’’ (Cf. Job 19:26). This name, however, as derived from II. 5p), means 186 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH “te go around,” “‘to complete the circle’’ (Cf. Isa. 29: 1)—to go back, therefore, to the place from which it started—and here indeed is a beautiful prophecy that accords with the truth of God, who in wrath remembers mercy and all whose chastisements are intended for correction to such as will receive it, a prophecy that fits in with the specific teaching of the symbolism of this picture. For Koph is both smitten and transformed, and the Apostate is again conformed to the likeness of Christ—and this is indeed the only triumph the Savior could rejoice in. It is the victory for which he died. Kamani, ‘.0p, ‘‘the Church Apostate,’”’ the Wor- shipper of Ka’amanu, or Saturn, the God of Babylon and of Rome, is accordingly smitten and broken up into its elements, ‘>">. And now behold! its “head,” its initial Koph, which ought to stand for the Ker? that comes from Kara’, 8p, and be the seal of harmony with Him who is represented by Nun, is found to have been perverted into the KerZ that is derived from Karah, mp, ‘‘to go contrary,” the asterisk that refers to the broken covenant; for, resolved into its elements, Kamanti, “the Apostate,”’ must be read Ker? (mp) min Nunt, ‘‘ He who walks contrary unto my Nun.’ Koph as thus perverted is therefore the head of the deceitful beast with the horns of a lamb and the voice of the dragon (Rev. 13: 11); and when its true nature is thus made mani- fest, its force as the ‘“‘head”’ of Kaman? is ‘‘ destroyed utterly’’ (I. 5p3), and the letter “‘turns about” (II. 5p2) and goes back again to its original signif- icance as the notation Ker? from Kara’, sp, “‘to call.” At last, therefore, Kamani, “‘the Apostate Church,” is “‘purged’’ (113%) in accordance with the THE SEVEN SEALS 187 prophecy of the Fifth Reading of the Oracle, and is restored to genuine Catholicity; for now its elements, Myre must be construed as Ker? (Sip) min Nuni, ‘‘ He who walks in accordance with my Nun.” It is seen, therefore, that Nun? is derived from Kaman? in the same way that Reshé is derived from Gibbér, except that while the derivation of Reshé involves the wounding of the “‘heel’’ (the excision of the last letter) of Gibbdr, the derivation of Nun? in- volves the grinding of the ‘Head”’ ( Koph, the initial letter) of Kaman?. Nuni,°J, is indeed also the last syllable of Kamani, but its isolation does not wound the ‘‘heel’’ of the ‘‘Rebel”’ as the isolation of Reshé, i[w]n, wounds the heel of Gzbbér, the Hero; for it is not taken from the verbal radicals that express the idea of rebellion but is exactly the pronominal suffix -nz, ‘3, or in English “‘me,’’ that refers to Jehovah-Messiah in his characterization of the “‘ Apostate’? as Kama-ni, ‘DP, “Him who rebels against me.’ It is in fact seen to have been already identical with Nun?, °3. A thoroughgoing consistency in the parable of Koph would require that the substitution of its equivalents in the distinctive radicals of Kaman?, ‘39p, ‘Him who rises up against me,’’ should produce results in harmony with the teaching of the apoc- alypse—and it does. When Resh, the Head of the Serpent, is substituted for Koph, the Kamani, the Rebels, the Apostates, are revealed as indeed Romanz, L119; and if Koph is regarded as having been restored to conformity with Nun, the word Kaman? is trans formed into Na’amanzt, °3208]3, ‘‘They that reveal Me”’ —which represents a Church that is indeed the true 188 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH “body,” the multiple reincarnation, of Ne’um, O83, “The Word of God,” whose initial and sign is NUN. The new name of the transformed Apostate may also be appropriately rendered Ne’emanzt, *32(8]3 (Niph. part. of jox), “My Faithful One,’ which is the term used by Isaiah in the prophecy that in its final application refers to the Great Apostasy, and that was uttered in the very year of the founding of Rome: —‘‘How is the faithful (429N3) city becomea harlot!” (Isa. 1: 2I—Cf. Rom. 1: 8). The harlot is now, on the other hand, to become once more a “faithful city ’’—which is indeed a striking characterization in view of the great text of the Reformation, ‘‘The just shall live by faith” (AnDS. Cf. Heb. 2: 4;and Rom. Doped calor rT According to the thought implied in the greatest of the old Latin hymns of the Church—the hymn inspired by the Great Oracle of Zephaniah— ‘*Dies irae, dies illa Solvet saeclum in favilla, Teste David cum Sibylla—” it is unthinkable that such an event as this transforma- tion of the supreme exemplification of force, oppres- sion and exploitation into an incarnation of the Prince of Peace, the Lord of Love, should not be worthily foreshadowed in local lore as well as in the revelation given to the whole world in the Sacred Scriptures; and such an adumbration is to be found, as would be expected, in the legends that tell of the origins of the city that was the home of Virgil and the care of the Sibyl, the city that stamped its character upon the empire and the hierarchy that have born its name. The name Roma is attributed to the THE SEVEN SEALS 189 founding of the city by Romulus, who is appropriately represented as a robber chieftain and fratricide sprung from Mars and nurtured by a she-wolf. This first founder of the city is said to have recruited its popula- tion by making it an asylum for all the outlaws of the regions round about, and to have provided wives for his new subjects by the treacherous rape of the daughters of his Sabine neighbors. The story of the warlike reign of Romulus ends, however, with his disappearance in the midst of a violent tempest; and, after an interregnum of a year, he is followed by a king of diametrically opposite character, the philos- opher Numa, of whom it is told that “‘the City which had been founded by means of violence and arms, he succeeded in ‘founding anew upon principles of justice, law and morality.’’’* It is said accordingly that during the whole long reign of Numa the doors of the temple of Janus (a by-form of Saturn) remained shut in token of the unbroken peace and tranquility of the state. Numa is also said to have “taught the Romans not to worship the deity by images’? (Lem- priere), and it is in harmony with this tradition that, as the story is told by Livy (XL. 29), the fourteen volumes of his philosophy and laws, which were accidentally discovered in the year 181 B.C., just as Rome was entering upon her career of world-conquest, were publicly burned as having “a tendency to under- mine the (then) established system of religion.” Sadly different indeed has been the historic city that still bears the name of Roma from the legend’s ideal picture of the city of Numa. Nevertheless, like prophecy in general, that ideal picture has had its partial fulfilments, its earnests of better things to *Encyc. Brit., 9th Ed., Vol. XVI., p. 628 b. 190 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHA NIAH follow—as witness modern Europe’s heritage of Law and ideal of Order—and, in spite of appearances, there is far more truth in it than there is in the picture, so long overshadowing but finally fading, of the ruth- less city of brutal Romulus, for it is a vision of the ultimate reality. XII THE SEVEN COUNTER-SEALS THE CHURCH CONFORMED TO THE WorRLD DIs- TINGUISHED FROM THE TRUE CHURCH IKE the Oracle of the Great Day of Jehovah itself, its Seven Seals are “‘written within and on the back.’’ Upon the Obverse we have found, briefly but comprehensively sketched, a dramatization of the first Messianic prophecy, in which the fish-symbol, Nun-Ichthus-Dagah, represents the victorious Hero; and now we are to find upon their Reverse a vision that corresponds to a secondary use of this symbol in the Early Church—for the mystic meaning of Ichthus and the miracle of the Loaves and Fishes, which occasioned the Savior’s discourse on the Bread of Heaven (John VI), naturally gave the fish-symbol a well attested Eucharistic significance.* This vision is altogether appropriate here, because the Lord’s Supper is the central feature of Christian worship, it is the one ceremonial in- stituted by the Master himself, and in it we ‘‘do show the Lord’s death until he come”’ (I Cor. 11: 26). Moreover its divergence both in doctrine and in practice with regard to this fundamental institution affords an infallible mark wherewith to identify the Great Apostasy. In harmony with a principle everywhere exemplified in Zephaniah’s Apocalypse, the Reverse of the Seven * Bennett’s Christian Archeology, pp. 78 ff. I9I I92 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH Seals is strikingly symmetrical with the Obverse. Just as the drama of the Obverse is reinforced by two interludes, or subsidiary dramas, one writ little in the text of the scriptures and the other writ large on the scroll of heaven, so in the Reverse, the Vision of the Lord’s Supper is reinforced by the two parables of the Manna and the Coriander Seed, which are set forth in the anagrams of these dramatic interludes. Furthermore, like the drama of the Obverse, the Vision of the Lord’s Supper is also divided into two parts: the Lesson of the Bread, or the Vision of the Wafer, which is carried by the first Counter-Seal, the anagram of the first act of the drama; and the Lesson of the Wine, or the Vision of the Cup, which is pre- sented in the last two Counter-Seals, the reverse readings of the seals on which are enacted the two scenes of the second act of the drama. It will be observed also that here as everywhere else in the rhythmic structure of this Oracle, par- allelism is associated with antithesis; for, while the interludes of the Obverse preface the last act, the prophetic act, of the drama with portents of the imminence of its fulfilment, the parenthetic parables of the Reverse supplement the first of the two visions, the scene that sets forth the theory and practice of the Mass, and reveal the true doctrine of the Lord’s Supper and the finished product of its perversion. Moreover, while the great parable of the Heavenly Manna is found in the anagrams of the seals that are engraved with the miniature drama enacted by the letters of the Lost Prophecy, the parable of the tiny Coriander Seed is pictured on counter-seals that associate it with the portents written on the heavens and contrast it with the mighty orbs of immensity. THE SEVEN COUNTERSEALS 193 The word-plays by which the ‘‘Mass”’ in both its doctrine and its ceremonial is contrasted with the Evangelical conception and manner of celebration of the “‘Lord’s Supper’”’ are contained in exactly the same words and phrases, neither more nor less, in which the symbols of the seals themselves are set forth; and as between the Obverse and Reverse of the Oracle itself, so between its seals and their counter- seals, there is always a logical relationship. In fact, the counter-seals may be regarded as making a new but related application of the symbolism of the seals, and are to be construed in connection with them. It is to be observed moreover that the counter-seals are anagrams, never of any merely permissible form that may be found in the word- and letter-plays of the seals, but always of the regular spellings of the words and phrases used; and here is to be seen an example of the mutual corroboration of its several parts that is such an essential characteristic of this hidden apocalypse, for thus the rendering of the seals is authenticated by the counter-seals. I, THE VISION OF THE WAFER. The false doctrine underlying the Roman usage with regard to the Lord’s Supper and the errors involved in the sacrifice of the Mass are clearly indicated in the inscription on the first counter-seal, the anagram of the seal that pre- sents a picture of the deadly assault of Resh the “head ”’ of the Serpent upon the ‘‘heel”’ of the Mighty One—a prophetic picture that finds its primary fulfil- ment in the crucifixion of the Savior, the great sacri- fice of which the Lord’s Supper is our memorial; and that finds a further figurative application in the Great Apostasy that has wounded the Lord anew jn-hisy=>-—.. \ | Lay Peehe PS OP ay AWA 194. HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH greater body the Church, the Great Apostasy in whose perverted worship the Mass is the chief and most characteristic ceremonial. As we have seen, the device engraved upon the first seal is the phrase that pronounces judgment upon the head of the serpent—‘ His head in retribution,” Sry]o32 wits. The device upon the corresponding counter-seal is therefore Nvinin%, Ld, Mag, bd she’er. Remembering that the scene depicted on the first seal is the Great Sacrifice of which the Mass purports to be a reenactment; and remembering also that, so far as the ordinary worshipper is concerned, this reenactment is consummated in the sacramental wafer of which alone he partakes, we see clearly that, if indeed we have here a Vision of the Lord’s Supper— and the vision itself will reveal its own identity in- dubitably—this pronouncement must characterize the bread in the so-called ‘“‘sacrifice’’ of the Mass. It is equally clear that since the Obverse is a threat of vengeance upon the head of the offender, the Reverse ought to make some specification either with regard to the offense or the offender. It does both, and it is besides the very protasis to which “ His head in retribution’’ is the apodosis. It reads: ‘If in- deed, O Priest of Babylon, there were in it flesh-with- the-blood! ” This is a construction exactly parallel to that found in Gen. 50: 15. It is a condition contrary to fact— and the Mass is of course not in fact a ‘“‘sacrifice.”’ It is such in intention, however, and so it does indeed “crucify the Lord anew.” She’ er, NY, is the anagram of Résh, Ys, the original form of Resh and the word for ‘“‘head’’—and also the term for the ‘‘venom”’ of the serpent. In contra- THE SEVEN COUNTERSEALS 195 distinction to its synonym Basar, "W1., the primary and more specific meaning of She’er is “‘flesh that contains the blood’”’ (Cf. Brown-Driver-Briggs, Sub Voce). This first counter-seal is therefore a succinct but comprehensive statement, not only of the doctrine of the Real Presence that underlies the Roman Sacrifice of the Mass, but also of the theory on which * the sacramental wine is withheld from the laity. Mag, 3), is found in Jer. 39: 3 and 13, as the Hebrew pronunciation of the Babylonian Machchu, ‘‘Magian or priest.’ It is there the distinctive element of the title Rab-Mag applied to one of Nebuchadnezzar’s high officials—the Babylonian equivalent of the Roman Pontifex Maximus. Mag is therefore well used here to indicate that the celebrant is a ‘‘wor- shipper of Saturn,” a Ka’amani, and identical with the Kaman, the “Apostate,” of the Sixth Prophecy of the Reverse of the Oracle. II. THE PARABLE OF THE MANNA. The parable of this great and tremendously significant Old Testa- ment miracle is set forth in the readings, obverse and reverse, of the two seals that present the miniature picture of the coming victory of the Living Word of God, the glad message for the watchful eye of the true Church, the portent found in the text of the Written Word—and this is in accordance with the truth that “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God.’ The presentation of this parable is two-fold. 1. The ‘‘Mass”’ is characterized as a perversion in the second seal and counter-seal. 2. The true doctrine of the Eucharist is made known in the third seal and counter-seal; and for convenience of presentation we will consider this second lesson first. 196 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH When Nu is restored to the text of the Great Name at the end of the first section of the Reverse of the Oracle, NE’UM, ‘the Word of God,’’ is revealed as the mighty name of him who as our great high-priest made a full atonement for sin “‘once for all, when he offered up himself’? (Heb. 7: 27) as the all sufficient sacrifice on Calvary—and this ‘Word,’ a Spiritual presence, the Truth both as a knowledge and a power, and not the presence of the merely physical body and blood of the crucified Savior, is the Bread of Heaven symbolized in the Lord’s Supper; for, as the Savior himself said in explanation of this very mystery, “Tt is the spirit that giveth life; the flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I have spoken unto you are spirit and are life’ (John 6:63). Even so the Second Seal and Counter-Seal of the Great Oracle declare; for the anagram of Ne’um, THE WORD OF GOD, reads Man, }0, which is the regular Hebrew word for Manna, the Bread of Heaven, to which the Master gave this spiritual significance in the discourse recorded in the Sixth Chapter of the Gospel according to St. John. The original form of Resh being Résh, and this word being also the name of a bitter poisonous herb, and the term for the venom of the serpent, it is with strikingly suggestive consistency that the Masoretic substitution of Resh for Nun in the Great Name of the Oracle transformed Man, }0, into Mar, 1o—the Bread of Heaven, the Manna that was ‘‘as sweet as honey,’ became a ‘bitter thing.’ This Mar, this “bitter thing,” is the anagram of Rém, o[1}, whichis the name of the supreme incarnation of the spirit of Anti-Christ; and just as there is found a suggestive relationship between Ne’um, “THE WORD OF THE SEVEN COUNTERSEALS 197 GOD,” and its anagram Man, ‘‘the Bread of Heaven,”’ so there is found a like relationship between Mar, the Manna become bitter, and its Obverse Rém. For Rém, D1, may be construed as a form (Inf. Kal.) of the verb Ramam, II. 067, which denotes the most horrible corruption, and which is only used to describe the _ nauseous condition of the Manna that was dis- obediently hoarded by the impious in Israel of old (Ex. 16: 20). The parallel forcefully suggests that characteristically Roman abuse in which the multiple repetitions of the Mass are hoarded and actually sold—the main source of the revenues of Babylon the Great. III. THe PARABLE OF THE CORIANDER SEED. The parable of this in itself extremely insignificant natural object is found in the anagrams of the seals that carry the portents of those most tremendous revelations of nature, the mighty constellations of the heavens. The Parable of the Manna has controverted the error of the Apostasy with regard to the spiritual import of the Eucharist; and now the Parable of the Coriander Seed is to pronounce upon the significance of the rite itself—and by implication upon the signif- icance of all rites. It isindeed to reveal sacramenta- rianism, the exaltation of the mere rite itself, in its naked shame as a relic of fetishism. This parable like the preceding one is presented in @¥o parts. 1. The false teaching of the Apostasy is unmasked in the Fourth Counter-Seal, which is appropriately the anagram of Lo’Dagah, ‘The False Fish.” 2. The Truth is revealed in the Fifth Counter- Seal, which is the anagram of Dagah, the name of the fish constellation that represents Nun on the scroll of heaven. Here again for convenience of exposition 198 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH we will consider the true doctrine before we examine its perversion. : As in the first parable, there is here an allusion, and that likewise by a word used nowhere else in the Bible, to the Old Testament story of the Manna (Ex. 16: 31 and Num. 11: 7). Read in Reverse, Dagah becomes Halg|—Gad, 13°54, ‘‘ the Coriander,” to which the Children of Israel likened their strange bread from heaven—‘it was like Coriander seed.” The Coriander was not the Manna, but was sugges- tively like it; and just so Dagah is not Nun, but, as the Oracle expressly states, is to be “‘read as Nun,”’ Kert min Ndani, being taken to represent Nun be- cause the one suggests the other through the likeness of their names, both meaning ‘“‘fish.’’ So also the fish-sign became a symbol of the Holy Communion, not because fish was ever an element of the Lord’s Supper—for it was not—but because, being itself a common food, it suggested the Eucharistic bread through the association of the loaves and fishes in the miraculous feeding of the multitude that occasioned the Savior’s discourse on the Heavenly Manna. The lesson is enforced therefore by a series of related similitudes that there is this same purely symbolic relationship between the Eucharistic elements and the body and blood of the crucified Redeemer— which are themselves in turn symbols of the New Humanity of which we are to partake continuously, the humanity of the Son of Man endued with the divine life of the Word of God, the New Humanity that is born of the Spirit of Truth. The simplest Hebrew spelling of Lo’Dagah, “The False Fish,” is nx7°x5, and its anagram reads, Halg|— Gad ’ El, $8 1x. Now, as we have just seen, Hag— THE SEVEN COUNTERSEALS 199 Gad, ‘“‘the Coriander,’’ which closely resembles and suggests the Manna of old, is used here to set forth the literal ‘‘bread’’ of the Lord’s Supper as being merely a symbol of the Bread of Heaven. Ha[g|— Gad ’ El is therefore an exact statement of the error involved in that finished product of the false doctrine of the Mass, that consummate revelation of its inner ” principle, the ‘‘Elevation’’ and adoration of the sacramental wafer. It may be translated, ‘* The Coriander (the symbol, the bread itself) is God.” Truly the Heavenly Manna has here become *‘ Worm- wood ’’—and this is the name of the Fallen Star that is revealed as a prophetic equivoke in the “mouth” of Lo’Dagah, ‘The False Fish,” pictured in the Ob- verse of this parable (See Sixth Prophecy of the Oracle). There is here also a suggestive allusion to a parallel idolatry in the Apostasy of Israel according to the flesh, the table spread for Gad, the god of Fortune (Isa. 65: 11—Rev. Vers., Marg.); for the Mass is indeed a magic rite that is supposed to insure the eternal good fortune of the soul in whose name it is “said.” IV. THE VISION OF THE Cup. Of the errors in- volved in the abuse of the bread in the Mass no reform is possible—the Mass as a whole is to be ‘‘done away with”? (Mash, &) when the Head of the Serpent is ground under the Heel of the Seed of the Woman— and so there was only one scene in the first Eucharistic Vision, the true doctrine of the bread being reserved for the parables that followed it. The sacramental wine, on the other hand, which is the symbol of the “blood,” the divine life, of the incarnate Word, the Spiritual presence of the Master with its gifts and graces and authority, has simply been expropriated 200 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH by the so-called priesthood ; but now, with the eradica- tion of sacerdotalism, it is to be restored to the so- called laity; and this restoration, which is a figure and sign of the Return of the true Head of the Church, is accordingly pictured in the Vision itself. Of the Lesson of the Wine there are therefore two parts. 1. The erroneous practice represented by the empty cup of the Mass is pictured in the anagram of the erroneous construction of the enigmatic phrase that is carried by the Sixth and Seventh Seals. 2. The true practice and its glad import are set forth in the anagram of the true rendering of this same phrase. By word-play Koph, p, suggests a cup or a bowl (Cf. Kaph, Num. 7: 84, etc.). It therefore appropri- ately carries the lesson of the wine in this Eucharistic apocalypse. This symbol appears in the Oracle as the initial of Kamani, “the Apostate’’; and it plays its part in the drama of the Seven Seals through the resolution of Kamani, ‘x2p, into the cryptic phrase Kert min N&ni, in which, as noted in the preceding chapter, Nini, °3, stands out in its integrity as not derived from the verbal radicals that carry the idea of rebellion but from the pronominal suffix -m12, "3 (in English ‘‘me’’), which refers to Him whose symbol it is and against whom the Rebel has exalted himself— and to whose allegiance he is to be restored. The oracular quality of this phrase arises, as we have seen, from the double construction of Keri, which may be derived from either 83P or MP; and the corresponding double construction of its anagram brings out clearly the most striking difference between the Roman and the Evangelical usages in the service of the Lord’s Supper, and with dramatic emphasis reveals its significance. THE SEVEN COUNTERSEALS 201 When Koph is the equivalent of Resh, and Kamant is synonymous with Romani, the phrase Kert min Nin? must be rendered “Contrary to my Nun,” which is precisely “Anti-Christ.” Kert is now to be derived from 7p; but the radicals of this verb are really “1p, and so they appear in the word Keri, "9p, “Contrary,” which with Zephaniah is the asterisk that refers to the sanctions of the broken Covenant. The anagram of the phrase becomes therefore pv" DL)", Yénam Yurak, ** Their wine shall be emptied out.” The verb of this anagram, Rik, is never used of pouring out a drink, but always denotes a complete emptying out, viz: ““Emptied from one vessel into another’’ (Jer. 48: 11); ‘‘ They shall empty his vessels and break his jars in pieces’’ (Jer. 48: 12); ‘And it came to pass as they emptied their sacks’’ (Gen. 42: 35); ‘‘For the fool will speak folly, and his heart will work iniquity, to practice profaneness, and to utter error against Jehovah, to make empty the soul of the hungry, and to cause the drink of the thirsty to fail’”’ (Isa. 32: 6). It very evidently has a sinister connotation—and the very same application in this Sixth Counter-Seal of the Great Oracle of Zephaniah that it has in the prophecy just quoted from Isaiah. In striking reinforcement of this construction and interpretation, the Yéxam,* o3[*]', that we construeas ‘their wine’”’ here, is literally the very Yénam, n3",* “their wine,” of the thirteenth verse of the chapter, the wine of which Zephaniah himself, prophesying concerning the Israel of his own day and speaking better than he knew, declared that those typical apostates should ‘not drink’’ (Zeph. 1: 13). Koph is, however, to be smitten and finally to * With the sufhx following it, the second Yod of this word becomes merely a vowel letter. 202 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH receive correction; and when it is no longer the equivalent of Resh, when the Kamani, the “ Apos- tates’’ that vaunt themselves as Romani, have been transformed into Na’aman? and become once more a ‘‘faithful’’ Church that truly “reveals’’ Christ, the restored and rightful relationship is expressed in the restored and rightful construction of Ker? min Nani, or ‘‘Read according to my Nun.” The full and proper spelling of Ker7 being here 8‘7p, the anagram reads: pu"s D3" Yénam ’i-rek, which declares with suggestive fullness of meaning, *‘ Their wine is in- exhaustible.”” With po"s compare "Pp" (Job 22: 30), which Brown-Driver-Briggs (p. 33a) renders ‘the non-innocent.”’ The lesson of the wine in the Holy Communion and the significance of the empty cup in the Mass and of the inexhaustible supply in the restored service is revealed in the fact that besides being the Yénam of the thirteenth verse, the Yénam of the Counter- Seals is also the Yen’am of the Rubric. Itis Ne’um used as a verb—it is the WORD OF GOD speaking. The empty cup symbolizes, therefore, the sad fact that from the Apostasy, which vainly essays to “create”? for itself a worse than unavailing “real presence”’ of the physical body and blood of the Lamb of God in the wafer it exalts as a god, has forfeited the “Spiritual presence’’ of the Word of God by which alone his divine life, his grace and his power can be imparted to his Church; but correspondingly glorious on the other hand is the significance of the restored construction, ‘“‘Their wine is inexhaustible.’ It pictures the full, the unreserved and uncircumscribed Spiritual Presence of the Glorified Redeemer that is to usher in the final Consummation of the Great Sal- vation. XII THE STIGMATA THE SEAL OF THE LIVING GOD AND ITs COUNTERFEIT HE symmetry that presides over all the com- plexity of this unique Oracle and its emphatic antitheses and suggestive parallelisms become self-evident if the Rubric of the Obverse that author- izes the reading in reverse is used as a cantus firmus on which to build the harmonious counterpoint of the multiple readings. This Rubric falls naturally into a stanza of three verses, thus: Yin’am Ker[i|6 b-yé6m Jahveh haggadhdl; Karfi[’] bh6 maher m’odh kél-yém-Jahveh: Min-Natserach, shem Gibbdr. It reads, as we have already seen: *‘An Oracle will its Reverse utter in the Great Day of Jehovah; Read in it, vast will be the gain of the Voice of the Day of Jehovah: ‘Nazarene,’ the name of the Mighty One.”’ The symbolic letters and their invariable equivalents —Reshé,1 (Resh), and Lo’Dagah; and 3 (Nun), Dagah, and Nuni—are found grouped at the four corners of this stanza in such a fashion that each is diagonally opposite an adversary, while the variable p (Koph) is strategically situated just around the corner from Nuni, against which it is at first in rebellion but to which it is finally reassimilated. The significance of 203 204 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH the structure of the Oracle that is thus revealed is more strikingly manifest if Nun? and its associates are written on one side of the cantus firmus and Reshé and its associates on the other, the variable Koph being associated first with Reshé (Plate I.) and finally with Ndén? (Plate II.). While Koph is regarded as the initial of Kamani, the “Apostate,” and of its equivalent Kert-min- Nini, “Contrary to my Nun,” or ‘ Anti-Christ,” it is a representative of Resh; and, having no adversary diagonally opposite, it must be paired with Niéni— to which indeed it is specifically declared to be “‘con- trary,” KerZ (Mp). Indicating all these antitheses by appropriate lines, we find that the three intersecting diagonals that connect the three pairs of invariable opposites—Reshd and Nani, 1 (Resh) and Dagah, and 3 (Nun) and Lo’Dagah—together with the curve (8p3) that shows the divergenceof Koph from Néni, stigmatize the historic situation thus assumed with the well-known emblem that Constantine chose as his standard, %, the emblem that was ostensibly Chit Rho, the monogram of Christ, but that was in reality Zav-Resh, the symbol of imperialism and the MARK OF THE BEAST (Rev. 13: 16, etc.)—See Plate I. But when at last the head of Anti-Christ has been ground under the heel of the Hero and has received correction, when Koph is restored to its rightful meaning as the traditional notation of KerZz (sp) and so is ‘‘to be read according to My Nun,” it takes its proper position by the side of N@n7 and there is no longer any place for the curve that transforms Jota, the initial of Jesus, into Rho, the initial of Rome— the same deceitful curve that has caused the Resh Te CONST} Eis 1% x5 nk of Isr me TTA a My, Va agtaDot Nam Nexis bey dy JHVH HagfaDOL eqs m/l ee ae) “A ag Rash: of Ga sn Bi Casa TES: : HIS ANATHEMA S wm ca Gel=Yom JHVH:- erat 9 é = mahet yp TR ROW tapi Ker be i ee PPLE CROWN whose HOUSE 4 WHO A ert’ : ruled by SATURN, NEUM) “IN A Ht ee STUL = ~Norp s) ed he SMALL sin)Naisera h shem yolcE God, Pi Gibe@ AaB tere | che ‘ sham 0 R Lees yur | Rech DM Umesh sits ” Bi Ininl of Ros 4 | Plate I, _ The CONSTELLATION ! U vier? § ‘ } TspA€ TAT SNP re eee is ) Doc | HagGaDel 710 Now Kerie bey JAVA canon, Rash -£3° Dagah THE CONSTELLATION of RAMMAN) the TRUNDERER ithe whe “FOLAUMATES” his. ANATHEMAS ~ : : c . The wearer of Te Kart’ bd maher—te rod (Al Yor JHVH:- TRIPPIE CROWN ae “ whose HOUSE Laled ruled by SATURN spraks Vesubol (NENTS) wa The’ ORD ! See AA SMin atsel ach shem ; | NOICE Gibb¢) GH each sham R fre Resh oil Resh. WwW Reo ase f Hestes A ROME Phx. IT, THE STIGMATA 205 of Satan to supplant the Nun of Nazareneand Ne’um, “the Word of God,” in the Oracle of the Great Name so long—and so the emblem becomes again Jota Chi, *, the true monogram of Jesus Christ, the Ichihus Sign, the distinctly Christian equivalent of Nun, the earliest token of the Church, and the symbol of its confession of faith in ‘Jesus Christ the Son of God our Savior,’ the “SEAL OF THE LIVING GOD”’ (Rev. 7: 2)—See Plate IT. The divine author of this oracle has therefore stamped his great seal upon it, even in its intimate structure like a water-mark, and in such a way as to expose the subtle forgery of the usurper, the “‘head”’ of the “ Apostasy,’ the Man of Sin, the Son of Perdi- tion, who ‘‘sitteth in the sanctuary of God, setting himself forth as God”’ (II. Thes. 2: 3, 4)—and in such a manner also as to picture and foretoken the end of the “falling away,’ the restoration of the whole Church to purity of heart and life, and to fitness and readiness for the long awaited Presence of her Lord. Thus our interpretation of the Fish-symbol as representing Nun, the Sign of Christ, in the insignia of the Church, and of its perversion through the intrusion of Rho, or Resh, as the symbol of imperialism, the standard of Cesar, is confirmed by the appearance of these emblems themselves in the oracle; for they are so disposed as to leave no doubt with regard to their application—and the identification of the con- summate manifestation of Anti-Christ is driven home and clinched. In his use of the Seal of the Living God and its counterfeit the Mark of the Beast, as in so many other respects, Zephaniah assumes a knowledge of the Revelation—centuries later than his apocalypse in 206 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH its enunciation by the Spirit of Prophecy, but mil- lenniums earlier in its publication—that was given to the Church by the hand of St. John. It will be well, therefore, to search out the full message of these symbols in the light of their use in the New Testament Apocalypse. This use is based on a custom, exempli- fied in Ezekiel 9: 4-6, in accordance with which the Judge was expected to put his “‘mark,” the equivalent of his signature—as with us a “cross,” which was represented both in figure and in name by the ancient Hebrew letter Zav, our letter “T’’—upon the fore- head of the prisoner whom he released, that all might know that he had been judged and pronounced “not guilty.’ In St. John’s vision, accordingly, “the servants of our God”’ are “‘sealed’’ on their foreheads with the “‘Seal of the Living God”’ (Rev. 7: 3; 9: 4; Cf. 3: 12; 14: 1; 22: 4) to insure their immunity from the punishment that is to be visited upon a guilty Church—for, like the guilty world, it is to be “given up unto a reprobate mind’’ (Rom. 1: 24, 26, 28), to be allowed to become a prey to the errors and superstitions and the inevitable retributions that are to come like demon hosts from ‘‘the four winds of the earth’’ (Rev. 7:1). The saints too have been sinners, but for a sufficient reason the Judge has pro- nounced their pardon. As new creatures in Christ Jesus they are to be regarded as “not guilty,” and the ‘‘seal’’ on their foreheads is the token of the verdict— and the full import of that seal is carried by the fish- symbol (Nun-Ichihus-®), which is the sign of Jesus the Christ and the Chorets, the JUDGE, and which was actually the token and countersign of the Church during all the years of its pristine purity, a token that, beginning with the Fourth Century, THE STIGMATA 207 passed out of use and finally disappeared, as the Apostasy appeared and became dominant.* As we have seen, it provides us with the only purely Christian representation of the Cross, the peculiar ‘“‘cross’’ of the Judge, his monogram, his official signature, a signature that answers all the specifications enu- merated by St. John, through whom the Judge him- self says: “‘And I will write upon him the name of my God (his own divine patronymic) and the name of the City of my God, the New Jerusalem (Cf. Rev. 21: 2) which cometh down out of heaven from my God (the place-name of the glorified Redeemer) and my Own new name (the personal name by which he is to be hailed at his Second Advent) ’’—Rev. 3: 12. In fact the symbolism of Nun-Ichthus-& does more; it identifies the Judge in both his divine and his human relationships as the great antitype of Joshua the son of Nun of Timnath-Serach, as the Word of God, the Seed of the Woman and the Son of David. 1. The fish-letter Nuz is the Sign of Christ and the initial of NEUM, ‘The Word of God,’ the divine name, the ‘‘new name,’ by which the Coming One is heralded by the Voice of the Day of Jehovah: Christ (or Chorets) NEUM. Even so St. John says of the coming King of Kings and Lord of Lords:— “‘And his name is called the Word of God” (Rev. Oe 3)? 2. The fish-word Ichthus gives us the monogram of Jesus Christ, the personal name of the Son of God made flesh, the name by which he has been known during all the Christian Centuries. 3. The Hebrew and the Greek forms of the symbol cooperate to give us the divine patronymic of the * See Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. VI., p. 83 8. 208 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH Judge, the antitype of Joshua the Son of Nun (Ix6bs), ‘Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, our Savior.”’ 4. Nun is the sign of the Hero promised in the Protevangel, the Seed of the Woman, the Son of Man who was born of the Virgin. The sacred monogram derived from Ichthus is also, as we shall see later (Part III., Chap. VII.), a device appropriate to the Messiah as the Sou of David—a device whose message is peculiarly addressed, as it ought to be, to the Zionist Jews of this generation. 5. The monogram of Jesus Christ is also that of Jerushalaim Chadashah, or ‘‘New Jerusalem,” the name of the City of God, compounded very properly of roots from only one language and that Hebrew, but written in the Greek characters of the monogram and of the New Testament. 6. The earthly place-name of the Son of God in- carnate is unmistakably suggested by Nun, which is the initial of Nazareth and which, restored to the text of the Proclamation of the Voice of the Day of Jehovah, has revealed the Lost Prophecy that the Messiah was to be called a Nazarene. 7. The symbolism of the Nun-Ichthus sign, the token that seals those who are to be accounted “‘not guilty ’’ in the Great Day of Jehovah, is not content merely to authenticate the seal with the full signature of the Judge, even though it thereby shows him to be the only rightful and the one truly qualified Judge, the God-Man; it is not content merely to assume the authority even of such a Judge, but publishes as well to all intelligences the justification of his righteous judgment. The form of the cross it presents, *, the only truly Christian form, the peculiar cross of the Judge that carried his official signature, is also THE STIGMATA 209 a pictograph that presents Jesus (I) upon the Cvoss (X) as the only possible and all-sufficient ground of judicial clemency—the sacrifice of the Lamb of God | that taketh away the sin of the world, the gift freely offered to ali, of the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus that sets us free from the Law of Sin and Death. It is likewise the token that sets forth the individual Christian’s only and all-sufficient claim to a share in the benefits of that sacrifice, the acceptance of that divine life of self-surrender as expressed in his con- fession—not by words merely nor by adorning himself with a jeweled badge, but by the works of a sacrificial life—of faith in “‘Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, our Savior.” Anti-Christ is, by his very nature as the consummate incarnation of the Father of Lies, the arch dissembler; and so in the Apocalypse of St. John he is represented as assuming not merely the appearance of an angel of light, but even the appearance and the authority as well (the horns) of the Lamb himself—but as with Jacob, the supplanter of old, his disguise is betrayed by his voice, the voice of the Dragon (Rev. 13: I1). He is represented therefore as mimicking Christ with intent to deceive in all such outward forms as would seem to be characteristic. Accordingly he too puts his recognizance upon his people (Rev. 13: 16, etc.), and it is intended to be a complete counterfeit of the Seal of the Living God. Nevertheless, just as his dragon voice betrays his lamb-like disguise, so of necessity his characteristic curve betrays his forgery of the signature of the Savior; and St. John indicates this fact, and indeed reveals the identity of the forger, in the very term he uses to designate his “mark,” for he does not speak of it as a Sphragis, 210 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH aypayis, which is the word he always applies to the “Seal”? of the Living God, but invariably as a Charagma, xapayua, ‘a mark engraven or imprinted,” ‘fa coin’’—a word chosen, as Deismann suggests, ‘‘because it was the technical designation of the imperial stamp.”’* Furthermore these two words are also peculiarly appropriate here in their remoter suggestions; for, while Sphragis could be used of ‘“‘“wounds’’ such as the Apostle Paul bore in his body as the stigmata of the Lord Jesus (See cgpayitw), Charagma would suggest the impression of a Charax, xapaé—and Charax is a synonym of Stauros, oravpos, AEROS >, The ‘‘ Mark of the Beast’’ must therefore be sought in a figure that suggests a sign of absolution, that is some form of the cross, that is an ostensible monogram of the sacred name, and that can be found stamped on the coins of Rome; and all these requirements are met by the emblem that the Oracle of the Great Day of Jehovah presents as the counterfeit of the Great Seal of God. This emblem, ¥%, or ¥, purports to be Chit Rho, the monogram of Christ; but it has been emptied of all suggestion of the Ichthus Sign and of the Christian’s confession of faith in “ Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, our Savior’’; it is a Cross, but it is the ‘‘Cross of Constantine’? and the Symbol of Imperialism, and it was the characteristic Charagma of the coins of the so-called Christian Empire of Rome. It is indeed Tav Resh, ¢, the Cross of Rome and the Mark of the Beast. As the standard that replaced the Imperial Eagles, it identifies Imperial Rome as the Beast that was apotheosized, the Beast that was frankly an incarnation of the Dragon (Rev. 13: I-10, * See Charles’ The Rev. of St. John, Vol. 1., p. 362, note I. THE STIGMATA 211 12, 15); and it identifies Hierarchical Rome as the arch-worshipper of that First Beast, as indeed the Beast with the dissimulated appearance of a lamb and the betraying voice of a dragon, the counterpart of the False Prophet and the Great Harlot. In its simpler form, the true form of the cross, to which it | was finally assimilated under Justinian, who gave the sanction of Roman law to the pretensions of the Bishop of Rome, it is without question the charac- teristic ‘‘Mark”’ of his religion, and is to be seen on all his property, his vestments, his utensils, his churches—in their very plan; and on all his followers it is branded as their token of absolution. It is to be noted in this connection that the Churches of the Reformation manifested a disinclination to the use of the “‘Cross’’ as an emblem in exact proportion to their emancipation from the spell of Rome; and it is to be observed also that every covert revival of so- called Catholicism, or movement toward Rome, is marked by something more than a mere artistic and forgetful and undiscriminating tolerance of this mis- appropriated and perverted symbol. The use of the Cross as a thought symbol—as a metonomy—has the sanction of multiplied apostolic usage in the New Testament (Cf. Gal. 6: 14, etc., etc.); and in itself considered there could be no objection to its use as a pictorial or even as a material emblem as well. Nevertheless it is unquestionable that during the first four centuries of our era no such use was made of it by the Christian Church. It is universally admitted that the ‘‘undisguised cross’’ is not found on Christian monuments of the period prior to Con- stantine the Great, or even on those of his times, that in fact it* does not appear in the insignia of the Church * Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. IV., p. 521 6. Cf. Hastings 212 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH until the Fifth Century. Itcan not be doubted there- fore that the original Cross of Primitive Christianity was the merely suggested Cross of the Ichthus Sign and the monogram of Jesus Christ; and it is acknowl- edged even by the devotees of the overt Cross that has supplanted it that this distinctive mark of the Medieval Church developed from the Cross of Constantine,* which, as we have seen, is the emblem of Imperialism and a perversion, an erasure, of the true token of the Christian. The development of the accepted symbol of the Church we have already traced, but it will be well to assemble the principal data and set them clearly in order here. The successive forms in the evolution and devolu- tion of this symbol are as follows: I. Tae Turee Forms THAT REPRESENT NUN— The Evolution of the ‘‘Seal’”’ 1. The fish-symbol, which is found in the catacombs (those of St. Calixtus) that date from the first decade of the Second Century. It is universally acknowl- edgedf that of all the symbols employed by the primitive Church that of the fish is by far the most characteristic and important. It is the providential complement, as we have seen, of the prophetic symbolism of the Hebrew fish-letter Nun, the Sign of the Seed of the Woman. 2. The Greek fish-word Ichthus, *Ix6is, which, read Encyl. of Religion and Ethics, Vol. XII., p. 136, and Vol. IV., Pp. 329. * Catholic Encyclop., Vol. X., p. 488 3. + Catholic Encyclop., Vol. VI., p. 83; Hastings’ Encyclop. of Religion and Ethics, Vol. XII., p. 136; C. W. Bennett, Christian Archeology, pp. 77-83, 92. THE STIGMATA 213 as an acrostic, gave the fish-symbol its specific Con- fession of Faith in “‘Jesus the Christ the Son of God our Savior,’ and was the token and countersign of the Christian at the door of the Church. 3. The Monogram x, Jota- Chi, which is at once the abbreviation of Ichthus and a combination of the initials of Jesus Christ, *"Incovs Xpiorés, and which can also be regarded very readily as a pictograph of Jesus (Iota) on the Cross (Chi). This, as we have seen, is the form of the symbol that most specifically carries the import of the apocalyptic ‘‘Seal of the Living God.” II. Tue THREE ForMS IN wHIcH NUN 1s ERASED— The Devolution of the ‘‘ Mark’”’ 1. The Chrismon ¥, read Chi-Rho, in which an added curve has transformed the letter Jota, the initial of JESUS, into Rho, the initial of Rome. This perversion was accepted as the monogram of Christ, but it utterly obscured the original force of the symbol as an abbreviation of the Ichthus Sign and blotted out its Confession of Faith—erased it as an equivalent of NUN and supplanted it with Resh. It dates per- haps from the Third Century, but it gained universal vogue and revealed its true significance in the begin- ning of the Fourth Century as the ‘Cross of Con- stantine’’ and the symbol of Imperialism—and con- sequently, as the Catholic Encyclopedia remarks, “after the Fourth Century the fish-symbol gradually disappeared.’’* 2. The Monogrammatic Cross, ¢, is a variation of the Cross of Constantine that almost completely superseded the original form in the Fifth Century. * Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. VI., p. 83 0b. 214 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH It reveals the so-called Monogram of Christ as not Chi Rho but Tav-Resh, and the Catholic Encyclo- peedia calls it ‘a stage in the development of the Monogram into the Cross.’’* 3. The Cross itself, +, +, etc., first appeared as a distinct emblem in the Fifth Century;f and was adopted by Justinian as the official simplification and representative of the Cross of Constantine and the Eagles of Rome at the end of the first third of the Sixth Century and within a few months of the pro- mulgation of his famous decree recognizing the Bishop of Rome as the Primate of Christendom. ‘Thus the Cross as a material or pictorial emblem and unrelated to the historic Ichthus Sign, whether in a covert form like the ‘Cross of Constantine”’ or in an overt form such as that called the “‘Latin Cross,’ is revealed as the “Mark” that counterfeits the “Seal’’ of the Living God. Like the Cross as an instrument of torture, the Cross as an emblem is peculiarly Roman. It is in truth Tav-Resh, the Cross, the Standard, the *“Mark’’ (Tav), of RoME (Resh). To the historic record as set forth above, the sure word of Prophecy adds the portents of the Hebrew fish-word Dagah and its counterfeit Lo’Dagah; and in conclusion it will be well to note that the Swastika, and the Yau Crosses that were doubtless suggested in such symbols as the Anchor, were by-forms that had no direct influence on the development that made the Cross the characteristic emblem of the Churches that are the heirs of Constantine; while the Vesicapiscis (so called), or Amande mystique, is a late invention. * Tbid., Vol. X., p. 488 0. t Ibid., Vol. IV., p. 523 a. THE STIGMATA 215 It is evident, therefore, that during the first four centuries of Christian history, the Apostolic and Patristic Churches manifested a disinclination to the use of the actual figure of the Cross as an emblem that was as decided as was that of the Churches of the Reformation;* and the reason could be neither . fear nor shame, for those four centuries included the times of Constantine and Helena. Moreover it is well known that the early Christians were wont to see the Sign of the Cross in every possible natural or artificial object—in the flight of a bird, in the sails of a ship, in the great circles of the heavens, in the out- stretched arms, in the sacred monogram with which they delighted to seal themselves; and they not only saw it everywhere but they openly “gloried’”’ in it to such an extent as to bring upon themselves the false accusation that they were ‘‘ worshippers of the Cross.”’ Nevertheless they refrained for four centuries from representing it by any outward emblem more closely suggestive than the true sacred monogram—and the reason could be nothing less than a well-grounded and thoroughly ingrained religious scruple. In truth, the danger that lurks in the use of material and pic- torial representations of such a symbol had been un- mistakably indicated by the Savior’s own comparison of the Cross (John 3: 13, 15) with the Brazen Serpent that Moses lifted up in the wilderness by divine com- mand, but that in later centuries Hezekiah was com- mended for breaking in pieces because it had become an object of idolatry (2 Kings 18: 4). It is easy to see, however, that people who had already gone so far in their veneration as to invite the accusation of being ‘‘worshippers of the Cross” * Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. IV., p. 522 8. 216 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH would be hard-pressed indeed by the influences and tendencies that came flooding into the Church with the sudden change in its fortunes in the first quarter of the Fourth Century. The wonder is that, not- withstanding the growing assimilation to the Empire, and notwithstanding the powerful impulse that must have come from the reputed finding of the true cross and the distribution of splinters of it as most venerable relics throughout Christendom, it was nevertheless a full century before the “undisguised cross’’ actually made its appearance as an emblem either fabricated or pictured—but then it rapidly became the one profusely universal mark of the accepted and dominant forms of Christianity. And since then the abuse of it not only as an object of worship, but also as a charm, an amulet, a fetish, has been such as the misuse of the Brazen Serpent only faintly foreshadowed. That this abuse of it still continues unabated among those who are marked by it is witnessed by such services as the Festival of the Exaltation of the Cross and by such remarks as this of Amalarius quoted with approval in a current authoritative publication, * ‘‘The virtue of the Holy True Cross is not wanting in those crosses which are made in imitation of it.”’ Here again is to be seen in the Cross as an emblem one of the characteristics of the Mark of the Beast as it is pictured in the Book of Revelation. St. John always represents the Seal of the Living God as purely and simply a certification of innocence written by the Judge himself upon the faithful who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the * The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. IV., p. 536 6. The Cross is ‘adored almost equally with God himself’’—so Didron as quoted in Hastings’ Encyclop. of Religion and Ethics, Vol. IV., p. 328 b. THE STIGMATA 217 Lamb, and in accordance with this symbolism it is written only on their foreheads (Rev. 7:3;14:13;22:4). It is a mystic equivalent of the blood of the Pascal Lamb, and is intended only for the eyes of equally mystic agents of divine vengeance, “the Four Winds of the Earth”’ (Rev. 7: 1-3). For, of course, we must understand that the Ichthus Sign of the early Church was not in itself the Seal of the Living God, but merely the outward symbolical embodiment by which Divine Providence, cooperating with the Spirit of Prophecy, has pointed out its application. The Mark of the Beast, on the other hand, as now generally recognized, is a studied parody of the Jewish tephillin (the ‘‘phylacteries’’ of Matt. 23: 5), which were “‘practically amulets and were used as a protec- tion against evil spirits.’’* These amulets of Jewish Apostasy were worn on the forehead and on the left hand, and so their parody in the Christian Apostasy is represented as worn on the forehead and the right hand (See Rev. 20: 4). Furthermore, the Mark of the Beast is not simply a mystic symbol like the Seal of the Living God, but is represented as an emblem intended, like the Jewish phylacteries, ‘‘to be seen of men.’ It is not only a charm that will ward off spiritual evil, but also a token that will insure the favor of the corporeal agents of the “Beast.’’ Only those who are marked with it are to ‘‘be able to buy and to sell” (Rev. 13:17). And this prophetic picture has been multi- tudinously fulfilled in the Papal interdicts by which not only individuals but whole communities and peoples have been proscribed, outlawed and placed outside the pale, cut off, not merely from all business * Charles, The Rev. of St. John, Vol. 1., p. 362. 218 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH dealings, but from common justice, and even from considerations of mercy as well—have indeed been deliberately consigned to the pillage, rapine, lust and butchery of hordes sent against them under the banner of the Cross. For the Reformers of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, therefore, the Cross of Justinian had acquired all the significance of the perverted Brazen Serpent of the days of Hezekiah— and more. It still reeked suggestively, not only of such monumentally miserable exhibitions of hypoc- risy, craft, credulity, greed and ferocity as the Crusades for the recovery of Palestine, but even more suggestively of those other Crusades, such as the one that was preached against the South of France and that decimated the population and destroyed the culture and the very language of the land of the Troubadours, with which their own bitter experiences were identical in animus, in method and in horror. The Cross had indeed for them become the symbol of the evil spirit that had taken possession of the Church, the spirit that impelled her to worship uniformity, worldly power, empire—the spirit of the self-exalting city whose name she had taken and whose was the Cross as the banner of its hireling legionaries and as its characteristic instrument of torture, the spirit that made her a crucifier, a persecutor, the Great Harlot red with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. What then is the lesson we are to draw from the Stigmata of Zephaniah’s great Oracle as they are interpreted by the Revelation given through St. John and by the historic development of the Cross as an emblem? Certainly it is not merely a warning to look upon any form of the Cross as did the fathers of the Reformation and as did the Christians of the first THE STIGMATA 219 four centuries as well. Then indeed would the moun- tain have labored and brought fortha mouse. Neither should we for a moment think of regarding every use of the Cross on banner and shield and signet as a mark of disloyalty to the highest conception of the truth. Many uses of the Cross today, however questionable they may be in the light of both Primi- tive and Reformed usage, must nevertheless be recognized as utterly devoid of any significance in this respect. They are either mere motives in a purely decorative art, or they are symbols representing entirely legitimate Christian or Chivalric sentiment— they are often in intention true Confessions of Faith in “Jesus the Christ the Son of God our Savior.” We have not the slightest difficulty, however, in discriminating these uses of the emblem from the veritable Mark of the Beast; and we are fully war- ranted in recognizing that Mark in the Cross abused, and in regarding it as the prophetically provided criterion that reveals the true nature of those institu- tions and tendencies that brand themselves with it— those institutions and tendencies that pervert the Cross of Christ into an idol to be worshipped, into a fetish to be worn, or into an ostentatiously flaunted token of proud authority instead of the symbol of humble self-sacrificing service. Very clear indeed is the lesson of the Cross of Constantine itself, which marks as the False Prophet, the Great Harlot, the Beast with the horns of a lamb and the voice of a dragon, any despotic ecclesiasticism, whether of Old Rome on the Tiber, or of the New Romes on the Bosporus or elsewhere, that worships the imperial pride and worldly power supremely incarnate in the Roman Empire—and the Cross in the insignia of the 220 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH Church of today is representative historically, not of the Cross of Christ, but of its perversion in this Cross of Constantine. The true Christian, whatever his ecclesiastical affiliations, sings in the spirit of the Apostle Paul— Gal. 6: 14: i “In the Cross of Christ I glory, Towering o’er the wrecks of time; All the light of sacred story Gathers round its head sublime.” But the same spirit impels him to sing also: “Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast, Save in the death of Christ, my God; All the vain things that charm me most, I sacrifice them to his blood.” For him the Cross means the sacrificial love of which the glorious example was Jesus crucified, but of which he himself must bea sharer as well. Itisacross to be borne in all humility, and not a cross to be vauntingly and superstitiously worn. It is significant that the only representation of the Cross that specifically sets forth this lesson of sacri- ficial love, the only purely Christian symbol that suggests the Cross, the pictograph of Jesus crucified, *&, Iota-Chi, which is also the original sacred mono- gram and the abbreviation of Ichthus, the New Testa- ment equivalent of Nun, the Sign of the Seed of the Woman, the emblem that carries all the meanings implied in the Seal of the Living God, is no longer to be found among the forms of the Cross that are in common use. This token of the Early Church is not found embroidered on the vestments, or painted on the windows, or carved over the portals, of any of THE STIGMATA 221 the Churches of today; and neither is it found any- where in the insignia, the blazonry, or the art, of the times. The Seal of the Living God is indeed still to be discovered in the heart of love and the life of service that distinguish every true follower and spiritual kinsman of the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world; but it is not found written as the seal of unreserved approval upon the escutcheon of any institution in the world today. The Churches of the Reformation have indeed been purged of much of the stain of Resh, but they are still, as they them- selves would sadly confess, far from being the true representatives of Christ that they ought to be; and Christendom as a whole, though it is awake to the truth as never before, and has already throttled some of the heads of the hydra, is still in most of its relation- ships and activities only too evidently under the spell of the old spirit of exploitation and privilege. On the background of these facts, how vividly significant become the final portents of the end of this age and the beginning of the new era of Righteous- ness and Peace of which the prophets of old and the Savior himself made mention and to which the New Book of Zephaniah specifically points in the last two of the Seven Prophecies of the Second Advent message of the Oracle of the Great Day of Jehovah. Upon the stellar picture of the Christendom of this age, as upon its representation in the apocalyptic drama we have just seen enacted in Zephaniah’s Great Oracle, there is to be emblazoned as the token of its con- demnation the very symbol that has been its own false token of absolution. The heavens above it are to flame with the falling stars of the “‘False Fishes,’ the astral equivalent of Tav-Resh, the 222 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH ‘‘Mark of the Beast’’; while upon the New World that is to follow will be written the “‘Seal of the Living God,” the true token of pardon and innocency, when the Constellation of the Fishes, the celestial counterpart of Nun, “flashes forth like lightning upon it.” \ Indeed the actual figures of these Strgmata are presented to the eye of the mind in the Oracle as it is written on the scroll of heaven just as clearly as they are in Zephaniah’s version. The ages are marked on the chronometer of the Zodiac by the ever-moving Index of the Vernal Equinox, and this Index is a CROSS—a cross in which Plato saw “‘the self-revela- tion of the Soul of the World.’”’ Moreover, when rightly conceived, it is a cross of three lines, the Equator, the Ecliptic and one or the other of the Prime Meridians. For practical everyday observa- tions of Right Ascension and Declination men use the Prime Meridian of the Equatorial or ‘Terrestrial Pole (the Tree of Knowledge), which is ever shifting. In fact the locus of the Terrestrial Pole is A CIRCLE TO WHICH ITS PRIME MERIDIAN IS A TANGENT. With this Prime Meridian, therefore, the Cross of the Equinox is the Cross of Constantine, %, Yav-Resh, the “Mark’”’ appropriate to the World as it is—and six thousand years ago this Prime Meridian gave the World as its Pole Star the Alpha of Draco, the Great Northern Dragon that pictures the Fallen Archangel in Paradise; and the curve that transforms Jota into Resh, or Rho, was made visible by the stars of his constellation. True celestial Latitude and Longitude are deter- mined, however, by reference to the Prime Meridian of the Ecliptic Pole, which is invariable, A POINT. THE STIGMATA 223 With this Prime Meridian, accordingly, the Cross of the Equinox becomes the monogram of Jesus Christ, Iota- Chi, *, the Seal of the World as it ought to be, and as it is to become—and this promise of the ideal was made visible two thousand years ago, for then its Prime Meridian, pointing toward the true Celestial Pole (the Tree of Life), was indicated by the stars of the First Fish of Pisces and its thong, and the Equator by the stars of the Second Fish and its thong, while the Ecliptic was traced by the Easter Sun emerging from the nether realm of the South. At that time the Equinoctial Point was near the Alpha of the Fishes and was further identified by the Star of the Wise Men. Now it has reached their Omega—and all the lines of the ‘‘Seal of the Living God’’ are again made visible. The Equator and the Ecliptic are set forth just as before, but the Prime Meridian becomes a specific portent. On the one hand, it directs the menace of its portent directly toward Beta Ceit, which marks the South Pole of the Galaxy, or the Inferno of Infernos, and which is the lucida of the first False Fish, the Great Dragon of the Deep; and on the other hand, it points far beyond the North Pole of the Solar System toward the stellar theophany of Coma Berenices, sometimes significantly called *‘St. Veronica’s Veil,’’ whose seemingly far distant multi- tude of stars on the blue vault suggested of old the lapis lazult,* or “‘sapphire,’’ Throne of God at the summit of the Universe (Ex. 24: 10 and Ezek. 1: 26 and 10)—the Heaven of Heavens. This North Galactic Pole is, however, not nearly so remote as *In unsuspected harmony with the gold-dust besprinkled cerulean of this gem, the telescope reveals in Coma Berenices an inordinate number of binaries of these two colors. 224 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH the vast ring of the Galaxy itseli—the Deity enthroned upon it is imminent as well as transcendent. Ac- cordingly in the Vision of St. John, its shimmering stars became the “‘white cloud’”’ on which he saw the Son of Man coming down to reap the harvest of Earth (Rev. 14: 14, Cf. Matt. 24: 30, etc.; and Acts 1: 9 and I1). XIV THE LITTLE BOOK OF THE GREAT NAME the seemingly Lost Prophecy of the Oracle of the Great Day of Jehovah, has already been used to unlock the hidden treasures of Zeph- aniah, and has indeed been found to be, as it is called in the book itself (Zeph. 3: 9), a Saphah bhertirah, an “‘utterance’’ that is bherirah, M173, in both senses of the term, “‘purged’’ from the textual corruption that so long obscured it, and wonderfully well ‘‘chosen,”’ exactly adapted, not to one use merely, nor only to the applications that we have already observed—but the Little Book itself will have to tell about this peerless exemplification of perfect diction in the most difficult of contexts, this master-word of an oracular prophecy that includes the furtherest vistas of revelation. Its origin, as we have seen, was perhaps as far back in the remote past when the Spirit of Prophecy in- scribed it upon the pages of Zephaniah as its final fulfilment was to be far on in the distant future. It seems to have been associated with the Sign of the Cross in the earliest Semitic version of the Protevangel. At any rate, the supplanting of its Num by Resh in the text of the prophecy and the subsequent erasure of Kesh and restoration of Nun fulfil a tropical mean- ing of the Protevangel in such a way as to foretoken the final fulfilment of the great promise itself; and when Israel first entered Canaan, they found it associated with Tav, the overt Sign of the Cross, 225 \ | iNatSeRaCh, msi, the key-word preserved in 226 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH which, as we have seen, is one of the marks of apos- tasy, in the names of twocities, My30"n and n-my3[0, inhabited by peoples of Semitic speech who had doubtless originally walked in the dawning light of such a revelation as was known to Melchizedek, but who were then in the darkness of the lowest depths of religious declension. One of these cities, Me] Natserach, or Natserach{eth, in Galilee, later became famous as the city where Jesus the Christ was brought up; and the other, Timnat(h)-serach in Ephraim, was chosen as _ his heritage in Israel by Joshua the Son of Nun, the type of the Messiah; and its name therefore became the first foreshadowing of the fact, later more specifically predicted in the Book of Zephaniah, that the Messiah was to be ‘‘called a Nazarene’’—and why was he to be called a Nazarene? ‘That in him and in his Church, his fuller incarnation, might be seen the fulfilment of “what is proclaimed,” Mah-niisrach, Mms30, the world of mystic and prophetic meanings divinely enshrined in the Chosen Utterance that forms the Great Name of Christ and the apocalyptic symbol of his Church. Even in those ancient times this group of consonants M-N-T-S-R-Ch had given evidence of its excep- tional adaptability. Its mutations in the names of these cities exemplify the method of its interpretation in the Oracle, and suggest that the cryptogram in which we have found the names and titles of the Savior so fully presented—The Nazarene, The Word of God, the Christ, the Judge (with ‘‘Jesus’”’ fore- shadowed also through the oracular name of Joshua of Timnath-Serach)—may be interpreted in terms that represent the historic and characteristic phases of the Faith that centers in Jesus of Nazareth. It is well THE LITTLE BOOK 227 used therefore in the Apocalypse of Zephaniah as the symbol of the Church—well indeed, for the Church is the body of Christ, and Christ is not only the theme but also the informing Spirit of the Church—and just so the Greek monogram of Jesus Christ, *, the abbreviation of the fish-word Ichthus in which was represented its confession of Faith in him, was used as its token by the Church of the first Christian centuries. There may be combinations of the phonetic elements of myo that will give readings altogether irrelevant to its significance as the cryptogram of the Great Name and the symbol of the Church, and some per- haps that would even be incongruous; but this might be expected in any enigmatic expression and could be no embarrassment to its use, for the purpose of such an expression is not to reveal what is altogether un- known but to emphasize and interpret something already well known, or at least already suggested. So in Daniel’s elucidation of the handwriting on the wall, Peres, D105, which signified in the first place the verb “to divide,” was also vivid with an ordinarily very remote meaning because of the only too well known fact that the “‘Persians’’ were even then at the gates of the city, while its most familiar every-day meaning of a “half shekel’”’ was ignored as seemingly irrelevant—though, as we now know, it also is an integral part of the oracle.* In like manner the following renderings of the Great Name and of its perversion by the intrusion of Resh in the place of Nun are sifted out from whatever other possible combinations there may be by their harmony with the consensus of history and prophecy, which they *See Part II., Chap. VI., 3d Note. 228 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH emphasize and endorse and even help to interpret by their aptness and comprehensive completeness. They form indeed a conspectus of the whole history of Revealed Religion—a “Little Book” that contains both the “bitter”? and the “sweet” of the story of the relations between God and man (Cf. Rev. 10:2 ff.). The treasures of M-N-T-S-R-Ch, m30, are found in seven strata, corresponding to seven periods in the history of the City of God on Earth. The first three refer to the times antecedent to Zephaniah; the fourth was contemporaneous with the prophet; and the last three apply to the Advents of the Savior and the period between them. It will be noticed that in each of the groups of three there are (1) a Covenant, (2) an Apostasy that seems to be all devastating, and (3) a Restoration, the victorious emergence of dis- ciplined Faith. ‘This is indeed the typical order of the relations between God and man, and like all types and shadows it has many applications. In its primary application it is the pattern of human destiny: (1) The Creation in the likeness of God, (2) the Fall and consequent expulsion from Eden with all it entailed, and (3) the promised Redemption through the wounded but finally victorious Seed of the Woman. It is repeated in the out-working of Redemption: (1) The Promise of the Protevangel and the Covenant evidenced by Abel’s smoking altar; (2) The Ante- diluvian Degeneracy that was purged away as by the waters of a flood; and (3) the New World that emerged from the Deluge. Again it appears in (1) the Covenant of the Rainbow, in which, as indicated by Noah’s reinstitution of burnt offerings (Gen. 8: 20; 9: 17), the Promise of the Protevangel was re- newed and amplified; (2) the Apostasy at Babel; THE LITTLE BOOK 229 and (3) the Call of Abraham and the development of the Peculiar People in preparation for the coming of the World’s Redeemer. And again and again it recurs, until its final and antitypical exemplification in (1) the Great Salvation through Jesus the First- born of many brethren, and the founding of the Church; (2) the Great Apostasy represented by Babylon the Great, in which the Church was con- formed to the World, even to the World at its worst; and (3) the ultimate justification of God’s long patience in the full Restoration of man to the divine likeness and the Restitution of all things—for then will be accomplished the mighty purpose hidden even in the sufferance of evil—when in the Last Great Day of Jehovah the Earth shall have been purged as by fire and brought back to its place in the common- wealth of Heaven. The religious history of the times before Zephaniah is represented by the mutations of M-N-T-S-R-Ch, mos, in the place-names of Joshuaand Jesus. These place-names and the cryptogram itself are Semitic; but that the truths they enshrine were originally the common property of the whole human race and not merely of the Semites is witnessed by the fact that not a few of them, as we have seen, are preserved in the old Sumerian idiograms, the lingering formulas of a purer worship, that were part of the ancient ritual of the Kuthean sun-god Nergal, whom we have identified with Cheres, the sun-god worshipped at Timnath- Cheres and Nazareth. I. THE PRIMITIVE REVELATION. The question of religious origins is answered unequivocally and em- phatically in the Word of God. The consistent Christian can admit no theory save that of a primitive 230 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH revelation that was universal in its acceptance and that, however rudimentary, was all comprehensive in its implications. This was in fact the position assumed with practical unanimity until David Hume and more especially until the Revolution in the World’s thinking brought about by the precipitate and un- reserved adoption of the modern Theory of Evolution in its inchoate and tentative first forms. Wesee now, however, that this Revolution was itself an illustration of the later and more mature doctrine of a Creative Evolution that moves by Mutation—a doctrine that compasses all the truths set forth in the first chapters of Genesis and assumed as fundamental in the historic teachings of Christianity. The dog baying at the moon may indeed be a picture of the prehuman animism from which Religion emerged* and to which degenerate apostasy always tends to revert; but when God breathed into his nostrils the breath of a higher life and “‘pythecanthrop rose erect and human,”’ a potential ‘‘son of God,’’ it was inevitable that the next picture should show him talking with his Heavenly Father and receiving a specific revelation, a conditional promise of the tree of life and the warning, “‘Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.’”’ And when he had listened to the Serpent, the vertebrate that has reverted to the worm, and had eaten the forbidden fruit and incurred the penalty—the devolu- tion that entailed forfeiture of the divine potentiality by which he was to have inherited immortality—it was equally inevitable that his Heavenly Father should * Cf. Sir J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough, 1 vol. ed., p. 711 ff. THE LITTLE BOOK 231 undertake his salvation, should institute the necessary discipline, should offer the necessary assistance, and should invite the necessary cooperation. To this end there were required a further revelation and a new covenant—a Religion* that should progressively ‘“‘re-bind’’ the severed bonds that ought to unite Heaven and Earth. And its beginning is to be found in the Protevangel, of which there are broken recollec- tions in all religions, even the most decadent, and of which the complete unfolding is the glorious Gospel of the Son of God, the Man of Nazareth. All of God’s subsequent covenants with his earthly children are based upon an ever fuller and more specific enunciation of the promise contained in the Prote- vangel, the promise of the coming of a mighty Redeemer, the Seed of the Woman, who, at the cost of his own wounding, should grind the head of the Serpent under his heel and save the world from the sin and the consequent devolution of which the serpent is the horrible example—and from the grave that is the inevitable end of that devolution. This is indeed the meaning of the Church spire pointing heavenward from the midst of God’s Acre—and this is the hope expressed with supreme simplicity in the first chapter of the Little Book, which reads: Minne-Tseriach, msi, “From the Grave.’”? What could be more appropriate, therefore, than that the Savior who was to rise from the grave as the first fruits of them that * Let it be observed that not ‘‘Creation’’ but the institution of this Religion of Salvation is the terminus a quo of Bible Chro- nology, and let it be further observed that in this Religion of Salvation the spiritual history of humanity had already passed through the stages of Revelation and Declension to the third stage, that of Restoration; and it will be seen that the date indi- cated in Scripture (c. 4000 B.C.) is altogether reasonable. 232 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH sleep should be identified by this same expression, hidden and long unsuspected, but in due time revealed through the fact that, in accordance with the Lost Prophecy, he was “called a Nazarene,” my39? In its references to that first germinal revelation, the Little Book of “the Great Name, moy39, exhibits the same characteristics that are found in its chapter on the final and complete revelation in Christ- Ne’um. Reversed and with Tsade resolved into T S, it becomes Cheres TAV-Ne’'um, alxirf psn, “The Sun is the symbol of the Word of God.’ This is in accordance with the tradition that shines out unmistakably in all regions and among all races, even in the darkest perversion of the original revelation; and, as we have seen, like fossils embedded in the prehistoric rocks, the formule of the primitive faith that set forth the Protevangel in terms of this divinely authorized symbolism (Cf. Ps. 84: 11; and Mal. 3: 10, Heb., or 4: 1, Eng.) and that have continued to be living ex- pressions of the truth concerning “‘Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, our Savior’’ in the perennially re- plenished fountains of the Religion of Israel, are found petrified in the pre-Semitic idiograms that represent the Babylonian sun-god Nergal and his alter-ego Ninib. And how could the hope that is expressed by Minne-Tsertach, nosy, ‘‘From the grave,’’ be more faithfully and gloriously pictured than it is in the daily and yearly rounds of the sun, which nightly goes down into the nether regions, the realm of the grave in the thought of the ancients, leaving the world in darkness, but only to rise victorious and resplendent in a new and better day; and which with the Winter Solstice begins the patient journey that gives glad promise of Easter! THE LITTLE BOOK 233 Furthermore, as was to be expected, we find that when the race from which Abraham was called came into the land of Shinar and fell heir to these Sumerian presentations of the universal allegories of Night and Day and Winter and Summer, they did not fail to associate with them, by the familiar and favorite device of word-play, the Great Name, mys0, that the Spirit of Prophecy was preparing for the final un- folding of the full meaning of the Protevangel. The sign group SHESH. GAL. (B.L.* 6452), which, as we have seen (Part I., Chap. III., Sec. II.), is one of the characterizations of Nergal and which carries the two Messianic titles of “‘Great High Priest,’”’ Urigallu, and “Elder Brother,” Achu Rabu, may be rendered also, by double construction of SHESH (B.L. 6443 and 6437), ‘“‘ The Great Brother-Protector,” or, in the Semitic Babylonian, The Great Munatsir-’Ach. II. Apostasy—of which the ancient synonyms were the Tower of Babel and Nimrod, the mighty hunter against Jehovah who sought to reunite the world in the iron bonds of despotic empire in spite of the Dispersion and the Confusion of Tongues with which it had been visited—is well represented by the name common to the cities of Jesus and Joshua and by the disruptions, inversions and perversions that have sometimes almost obliterated it from the records. T1]mnath-Cheres (pinniv[n), “Place de- voted to the worship of the Sun,” the original name of these cities, pictures the characteristic features of the religious declension that had filled up the measure of the iniquity of the original in- habitants of Canaan, the sun-worship—an example of the general nature-worship—which, beginning no *B.L. = Briinnow’s Classified List of Cuneiform Idiographs. 234 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH doubt with the perversion of the helpful and divinely authorized contemplation of the orb of day, the con- queror of night, as a beautiful and suggestive symbol of the World’s Redeemer, into a more than question- able veneration of the ikon itself, ended in the crass idolatry and the utterly immoral orgies of heathenism and in such horrid rites as those that lit the fiendish fires on the altars of Moloch and made the Valley of Hinnom infamous. An even more specific reference to the nature of this apostasy is to be seen in Timdnath- Cheres, ** Likeness of the Sun,” the play on the name with which Jewish tradition tells of the sun-image carved on the ancient tomb in which Joshua was buried; for Timénath is the very term used in the Second Commandment, “‘Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or any likeness of anything that is in the heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them nor serve them’”’ (Ex. 20: 4-6, etc.—Cf. Deut. 4: 19). It is further characterized in the twists Deborah and Barak gave the name of Nazareth when that city was the stronghold and center of the political despotism and religious corruption of Jabin and Sisera: | 7im- nath| Charishéth Hag-Gotm, * Place of the Sorceries of the Gentiles”; and [Timnath] Chariséth Hag- Goim, ‘‘ Place of the Burnings of the Gentiles.” As we have seen, Cheres, the sun-god worshipped at Timnath-Cheres and at Nazareth, is to be identified with the Babylonian Nergal, the Mighty Conqueror and Ruler of ‘The Great City,’ the Realm of the Dead, the Grave. It was most appropriate, therefore, and significant, that the place devoted to his worship should become a ‘‘ Place devoted to the Grave,’ a THE LITTLE BOOK 235 “Place of Sepulture,”? Timnath-Tseriach, myioln]— and this is the form in which the name has persisted as applied to Nazareth, |[M]Naiserachleth|. But that in the midst of this apostacy God was preserving a Righteous Remnant in which was the promise of final Restoration, Israel’s Dooms-day Book sets ferth in (Mnath) -Sarid and -Seddouk, its intimations of Mnath-Serach. III. RestoRATION—exemplified in the typical call and development of the Chosen People—is symbolized by the restoration of the Chosen Utterance to its un- broken sequence and its transformation into Tim- nath-Serach, mo-nioinj, the happy equivoke Joshua substituted for Zimnath- Cheres and Timnath-Tseriach when he chose that city as his portion in Israel. The destruction through the Conquest of such evil in- stitutions as the sun-worship at Timnath-Cheres, and the entrance of Israel into the possession of the land purged of its apostasy, are typical—not in their methods and human imperfections, of course, but in their providential results—of the final overthrow of all evil in the Great Day of Jehovah and of the entrance of Spiritual Israel under the Joshua of the New Covenant into ‘the rest that remaineth for the people of God,” into the possession of the promised inheritance that is no more to be corrupted or defiled and that fadeth not away, the Heavenly Canaan into which the people of God will pass over dry-shod from the earthly Gilead of Immanuel’s Land. Most appropriately, therefore, the old name of the city chosen by the leader of Israel, Timmnath- Cheres, “Sanctuary of the Sun,” which reflected the apostasy of the original inhabitants of the land and which, in its earlier paronomasia, Zimnath-Tseriach, “ Place 236 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH of Sepulture,” pictured the wages of sin, was trans- formed into Timnath Serach, mo-nid (nj, “A Boundless Portion,’’ foreshadowing the eternal inheritance of the true worshippers of the ‘‘Sun of Righteousness,’’ or Paradise Restored. IV. To ZEPHANIAH’s Own TIME applies the literal meaning of the cryptogram as derived from T’sarach I., “to cry aloud,” or Manntisrach, nv¥3, which is the assimilated form of Mah- Niisrach, mosrnd, ‘ What is proclaimed?’’? Only in his prophecy as it was addressed to his contemporaries did the prophet make use of this question; and the answer to it is found in the final clause of the verse, ‘‘There is the Mighty One.”’ It was the warning of the Voice of the Day of Jehovah on the eve of the Babylonian Captivity, the “loud proclamation”? with which it announced the beginning of the Times of the Gentiles. From the point of view of the prophet, the remaining chapters of the Little Book are predictions of the future; but they have now in large part passed into history, and all of them correspond with either records or prophecies found in other parts of the Word of God. There can, therefore, be no uncertainty in their elucidation. V. Tue Frrst ADVENT is set forth in seven readings that, brief as they are, suggest nevertheless a complete epitome of the Gospel. The first contains its funda- mental doctrines, the next four picture the cardinal features of the Life of Jesus, while the last two present the two-fold work of the risen and glorified Redeemer, his indirect work through the Holy Spirit, his ‘‘ Advo- cate’’ on Earth, and his direct work as our ‘‘ Advo- cate’’ in Heaven (Cf. John 14: 16, etc., and I. John 2: 1ff.). It will be observed also that the three THE LITTLE BOOK 237 offices of the Christ, as Prophet, Priest and King, are clearly suggested in the biographical readings. It will be further observed that the temporal sequence of the four biographical readings is also that of the four constructions of the text on which they are severally based: (1) a play on the construction in- tended by the prophet himself in his appeal to his contemporaries, (2) the reading of St. Matthew, (3) the corrupt rendering of the Masorites, and (4) the restored text as it is construed in the New Book of Zephaniah. ; 1. Manna* Tsiir-’ Ach, ALIX J>DI8 jo. In the three words of this reading is concentrated the essence of the whole Gospel. They present just those truths con- cerning Him who was called the Nazarene that reveal in Him the World’s Redeemer: (1) Manna, “ The Bread of Heaven” (Cf. John 6: 31, etc.); (2) Tsar, “The ROCK,” a divine name and the one that above all others is here most suggestive (Cf. Deut. 32:4, 15, 18; Isa. 44: 8; Ps. 78: 35, etc.), the smitten Rock whence flows the water of life (Num. 20: 113 and I. Cor. 10: 4), and the Rock that is nevertheless unmoved and unmovable, on which the Church is founded (Matthew 16: 18); and (3) ’Ach, Our “ Brother,’’ the Son of Man (John 5: 27, etc.), the First-born among many brethren (Rom. 8: 29). He is the Mediator, the living bond of union, between the human and the divine, the God-Man, ‘‘the ROCK * That Manna and not Manis thetrue and original pronuncia- tion of this word is the testimony of the Septuagint, the New Testament, the Apocrypha, Josephus and the cognate languages— of all the sources except the version of the Masorites—and is the suggestion also of Ex. 16: 15. The form Man, however, being found in the present text, is of course a perfectly legitimate basis for word-play also. 238 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH and our Brother ’’; and therefore we live through him, he is our ‘‘ Manna,’ the Bread of Heaven that sustains eternal life—the bread that represents the price that was paid, the life laid down on Calvary (Cf. Luke BO ANTOMETCL): The doctrinal significance, thus figuratively set forth, of this Hebrew cryptogram of the name of the Messiah and Little Book of the History of the Church of all ages is therefore the same as that of the Greek monogram of Christ and token of the early Christian Church, the Confession of Faith, literally expressed in the fish-word Ichihus, ‘Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, our Savior’’; and it suggests also Peter’s rock-confession, ‘‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God ’’—Matt. 16: 16. 2 Mah Netser’Achis a play on the uncontracted form of the question, “‘What is proclaimed?’’—Mah Nitsrach—which was the original construction of the Chosen Utterance in Zephaniah’s prophecies. It is accordingly the first in order of the four readings that tell the story of Jesus. It may be rendered, “Alas, What a Netser!’”’, or ‘‘ What a Netser is our Brother!’ Now WNetser is Isaiah’s term for the Messianic BRANCH (Isa. 11: 1). We have here therefore a direct announcement of the coming of the Messiah, and it is expressed in a manner that corre- sponds with the outward circumstances of the great event—so unacceptably contrary to human expecta- tions. Moreover, a Netser is a “‘branch’’ that is still green and tender, still in the sap, a tiny shoot. This exclamation accordingly pictures the marvel of the inscrutable fact, lamentably hazardous from the human point of view, that the accomplishment of God’s most cherished purposes and the destiny of THE LITTLE BOOK 239 humanity hung upon the fate of a seemingly helpless infant whom a monster of wickedness sought to destroy. ‘* Whata tender little shootis our Brother!’ is the Little Book’s characterization of the Babe of Bethlehem. 3, Min- Natsarach, M830, is the next in order, for it is the play on the assimilated form of the original question in which St. Matthew discovered the Second Proclamation of the Voice, the prophecy that ‘ Naz- arene’’ was to be the name of the Mighty One—and because of the years spent in the obscurity of his Galilean “hiding-place,” it was as the Prophet “of Nazareth”’ that the Savior was known during the time of his public ministry; and it was as “‘ The Nazarene ”’ that he was despised and rejected of men. 4 Mar Tsoreach, My, is the form of the Lost Prophecy as it is perverted in the corrupt text of the - Masorites. With Nun supplanted by Resh, it echoes the “Bitter Cry’’ of the crucified Savior. The whole proclamation of the Voice of the Day of Jehovah as it is written in the present text, Mar Tsoreach sham Gibbér, means literally, ‘‘ There is the Mighty One crying loudly and bitterly °’’—even so it is written: ‘About the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And some of them that stood there, when they heard it, said, This man calleth for Elijah. And straightway one of them ran and took a sponge and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed and gave him to drink. And the rest said, Let be; Let us see whether Elijah cometh to save him. And Jesus cried again with a loud voice, and yielded up his spirit ’’—Matt. 27: 46-50. Cf. Mark 15: 34-37; Luke 23: 46. This, 240 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH rather than the crucifixion itself, was the crisis of the sacrifice offered by our Great High Priest. It was the dregs of the cup of which he tasted for every man. It was “ His supreme redeeming hour.’’* With infallible precision, therefore, the Spirit of Prophecy and the hand of Providence have cooperated to make even the mistakes of men and the perversions of the Adversary work together to reveal the truth. The Father of Lies has indeed with ready cunning transformed this most specific of the predictions of the coming of Him who was to be his conqueror into a taunting reference to his own seeming victory on Calvary—but only to contribute an essential element to the unfolding of the sure word of prophecy. 5 Minne-Tseriach, n0J>8-0130,¢ which is the fuller equivalent off my", “‘ From the Grave,” has already been found in the Little Book, in its very first chapter. There it was a prophecy that set forth the great hope enshrined in the promise of the Protevangel. Here it is the record of a glorious fulfilment of that prophecy in the resurrection of him who was the first fruits of them that sleep—an earnest of the final victory of the whole of redeemed humanity over the last of foes, and a revelation of the irresistible power of Christ the King. This reading of M¥39 would have had no meaning in its context for Zephaniah’s contemporaries; and it was impossible for St. Matthew, to whom II. my was unknown. It is therefore peculiarly associated with the restored text of the Proclamation. which is its fourth construction. *See James Hastings, The Speaker’s Bible, No. I., Part I., Dage. t See Ges., § 90, 3 a. t So written in I. Sam. 13: 6. THE LITTLE BOOK 241 6 Minnah tsé6 Riach, nOJ7 Dy *nav, * The Spirit will administer his ordinance, or what he ordains”’; Tsé (8 + the pronoun }) is from m1, and this verb and the Piel of 439 both mean “‘to appoint, to com- mand, to ordain.”’ The declaration here is, therefore, that The Holy Spirit as his messenger will ordain what Christ ordains. A more divergent paronomasia by the doubling of Resh gives us Minnah Tsir Raach, nos Cals, “He will appoint the Spirit his Mes- senger.”?. Compare John 14: 16, 17, 26; 15: 26; TOs 7b, ats. 7 Menath-Serach, mo-ni», ‘A Boundless Heri- tage.”? This is the Chosen Utterance’s equivalent of Tumnath-Serach, Joshua’s prophetic pronunciation of the name of the city he chose as his portion in Israel; and we have already considered it in the third chapter of the Little Book. It presents here the earnest of its own fulfilment in those activities of the ascended Lord of which he gave us a hint in his last discourse, when he said, “Let not your heart be troubled: Ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you’’—a place of which the earthly Canaan whither the Joshua of the old covenant led the ancient people of God was a shadow, and of which the New Jerusalem coming down from God out of Heaven will be the realization. There is here implied also the promise of his return, as he said, ‘‘And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and will receive you to myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” John 14: 3 ff. * The letter 7 is here merely the carrier of the vowel and has no consonantal force—Ges., § 23, 4. The final radical is really Yod, 242 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH VI. THe Great Apostasy. The corruption of the Great Name in the text of the Masorites—the name of the Master that is also the apocalyptic symbol of the Church—is indeed a prophetic way-mark down the ages, and both sides of the shield have now been only too faithfully fulfilled. On the Obverse, as we have seen, its vision of the Mighty One “crying loudly and bitterly’’ points to the crucification on Calvary and the seeming victory of the Adversary over the Savior himself; and on the Reverse, as we are now to see, its anagrams picture the later wounds in his greater body, the Church, inflicted by the con- summate incarnation of the Great Dragon. The pictures presented by these anagrams are the same as those in which the revelator of Patmos painted Babylon the Great—but Zephaniah’s Apocalypse has no need of the oblique designation Babylon the Great, and uses instead the direct and unmistakable name ROME. These pictures are seven in number, but they fall naturally into three categories. (1) Four of them identify the Apostasy with Rome, and are therefore comparable to the beast-imagery of the Book of Revelation, for the apocalyptic beasts are always symbols of empire. (2) Two of them charac- terize it by the term Chor or Chur (from III. n), which is used in the Scriptures of a “‘den”’ of lions (Na. 2:13), of the “hole’’ of an asp (Isa. 11: 8), and of the “‘caverns’”’ or “‘pits’’ that harbor outcasts (Job 30: 6). They may be expected, therefore, to corre- spond to St. John’s vision of the Great Harlot—and they do exactly. (3) The remaining construction is in the form of a prophetic pronouncement in the second person, and its prediction is precisely such as would be most congenial to the lips of the False Prophet of Apostasy. THE LITTLE BOOK 243 1. Chor Sat Rém, D1 oO’ Nn, is a categorical state- ment of both the fact and the nature of the Apostasy. It reads, ‘‘ The Noble One, or the Free-born (The Church—Gal. 4: 26), becomes by apostasy ROME.” The Church is assimilated to the despotic Empire of the Czsars, which is represented by the First Beast of the Book of Revelation. Indeed this reading may be regarded as applying in the first place to the City of Rome itself. For, as we have seen, the reformation under Numa soon gave way to the apostasy under the oriental Etruscan dynasty of the Tarquins; and then, having been quickened with a new life once more and become a republic, it apostasized again—and the last state of that city was worse than the first, for its name has become a synonym for the tinseled slavery of imperialism. Gentile Rome is therefore typical of the Gentile Church that has inherited its name. The word Chor is here from nN, which in the Cognate languages carries the idea of being or becoming free. In Hebrew it has acquired also the idea of being well born or noble. It is therefore a faithful characteriza- tion of the Christian, whom the Lord has set free from his former slavery to sin and ennobled by membership in the Household of Heaven; and the violent contrast of Rome, the absolute and exploiting despotism, the ruthless destroyer of Jerusalem and the fearful persecutor of Spiritual Israel, plumbs the dark depths of the Apostasy. The construction here of the verb Saf (piv = Targ. OD, “‘to apostasize’’) with the accusative is exactly paralleled in the ex- pression of the Psalmist, mtn °pt (Ps. 40: 5), which Brown-Driver-Briggs (p. 962) renders, ‘those falling away to falsehood.’’ 2. Christ-Rém, oynorn, * Christ-Rome,’’ is an un- 244 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH mistakable equivalent of St. John’s Second Beast, the Beast with the deceptive appearance of a lamb and the betraying voice of a dragon (Rev. 13: 11 ff.)— it is an unmistakable description of the Apostate Church, which claims to be the “body of Christ,” but which is in reality the reincarnation of Imperial Rome. The corruption of the Hebrew cryptogram by the intrusion of Resh presents the same picture, therefore, as does the corresponding corruption of the Greek monogram of the Redeemer’s name and title. Christ- Ne’um sets forth the Second Advent name of the Mighty One, Ne’um, “‘The Word of God,” together with the title that expresses his relation to the King- dom of God among men, “The Christ,’’ the Lord’s Anointed, its rightful King; and its perversion, Christ-Rém, reveals the name of the incarnation of the Great Adversary that has usurped the place of the Master in his Church and pretends to exercise the prerogatives of the King, even to his infallibility, in a travesty of his Millennial Kingdom. Just so & (Tota- Chr), the true monogram of the Savior, stands for Jesus Christ, a combination of the First Advent name of the King and his royal title; while the spurious monogram ¥ (Chi-Rho), though it suggests Christos, leaves out the personal name of the rightful King and is indeed the monogram of Christ-Rém—a reading confirmed by the fact that this ostensible monogram of Christ is in reality the standard of Rome, the emblem of Imperialism. 3. The constructions O35 nwn and O17 nn are the same twists on the name of the Nazarene that was given to the name of Nazareth when that city was the seat of the recrudescent and aggressive heathenism THE LITTLE BOOK 245 against which Deborah and Barak fought victoriously in Israel’s first Battle of Armageddon. They give us four readings, very different in meaning, but as closely related in their apocalyptic associations as they are in their sound. They complete the picture of the Beast represented by Chrisi-Rém, just as it is drawn by the New Testament revelator. 3a. Cherishéth Rém sets forth ‘‘ The Sorceries of Rome ”’; and 36. Charisé6th Rém predicts ‘‘The Burnings of Rome ’’; and just so St. John says, ‘And he doeth great signs that he should even make fire to come down out of Heaven upon the earth in the sight of men” (Rev. 13: 13). The allusion is evidently to Elijah’s great sign on Mt. Carmel which the priests and prophets of Baal vainly tried to duplicate (I. Kings 18: 17 ff.); and the prophetic application is to the “sions and lying wonders’”’ (II. Thes. 9: 2) of the Man of Sin, especially to the assumption of divine authority in the “fulminations’’ of papal excommuni- cations and anathemas—and to the exercise of that pretended authority and power exemplified in the Autos da fe and their like that have been his veritable Chariséth, ‘burnt offerings to Cheres-Molech-Saturn.” 3c. Charishath Rém (from I. win, Pass. Part. Kal., Cf. Jer. 17: 1) corresponds to the culmination of the sorceries of Rome as painted in the verse following the one quoted above, ‘‘And he deceived them that dwell on the earth by reason of the signs which it was given him to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast who hath the stroke of the sword and lived’”’ (Rev. 13: 14). For Charishath Rém means literally ‘‘ The Graven Image of Rome ” 246 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH —See nviin, Jer. 17: 1; and Cf. I. nwan, Ex. 31:5; Boos: According to this reading, the Image of the Beast is unquestionably to be identified with the simulacrum of Rome fashioned by the Papacy and given the name of ‘‘The Holy Roman Empire,” an institution that in its later decline was derided by Voltaire as neither holy nor Roman, nor yet an Empire, but that during the whole of the Middle Ages was certainly no mean factor in the life and development of Christendom. And there can be no question that the age-long worship of this image of Empire, lingering like a superstition in the ideals and aspirations even of the Protestant peoples of once Imperial Germany, was one of the essential factors in the evocation of the Beast itself from the Bottomless Pit where it had slumbered so long that men thought it had been cast into the oblivion of the lake of fire and utter destruction.* 3d. Charishéth Rém (from I. wan, No. 3, “to devise, to scheme’’—usually in a bad sense) calls attention to *‘ The Evil Schemes of Rome” that are described in the last verses of the Thirteenth Chapter of the Book of Revelation: ‘‘And it was given unto him to give breath to it, even to the image of the beast that the image of the beast should botht *See James Brice, Holy Roman Empire, Chap. XXII., esp. Pp. 430-431. + The various Greek texts overwhelmingly agree in represent- ing that the Image is to be empowered both to talk and to cause that they who refuse to worship shall be put to death. This is im accordance with the fact that those who offended the Ecclesias- tical Empire were handed over to the civil arm of Christendom, the Holy Roman Empire and its constituents, to be executed. Many manuscripts state also that it is they who will not worship the Beast and its image who are to be slain—See Charles’ Revela- tion of St. John, Vol. I1., pp. 319 and 420, note 5. Charles 4 ; ! ‘ a THE LITTLE BOOK 247 speak and cause that as many as should not worship the beast and its image should be killed, and he causeth all... that there be given them a mark on their right hand or upon their forehead; and that none should be able to buy or sell save he that hath the mark, even the mark of the beast, or the number of his name.” 4. Chartis Rém, ov yon, “ Gold-Rome,” points to the inevitable conclusion of the worship of God and Mammon (Matt. 6: 24), and to the inevitable judg- ment upon the worshippers of the Golden Calf—Cf. Charttts Rém in the Second Advent readings following. Love of money is indeed a main “‘root”’ of Apostasy. 5. Chor Tsarim, nrsan, A Den of Persecutors ” (Cf. 1%, Job 16: 9, etc.), shows us the woman whom John ‘‘saw drunken with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus’’ (Rev. 17: 6). Persecutions were unfortunately confined to no branch of the Church in the gray light of the times that followed the long night of the Dark Ages; but the Churches of the Reformation long ago repented in sack-cloth and ashes of their very small share in such disgraces. 6. Chor Sat#rim, nt}riy]no-n, * A Cavern of Mys- teries,’’? identifies Zephaniah’s verbal figure of the fallen Church by the same significant name that St. John saw written upon the forehead of the Scarlet Woman—the very same radicals, ST R—a name suggestive of Eleusis and of Pergamus,’’ ‘where Satan dwelleth’’ (Rev. 2: 13), and of the rites of Cybele and Bacchus and Isis, and more especially of seeks to amend the text here as illogical because he does not see that the Image is the make-believe Roman Empire of the Middle Ages. 248 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH that most dangerous rival of the early Church, the Mithraic counterfeit of Christian worship whose mysteries were always celebrated in a cavern, either natural or artificial. It stands, therefore, for all those form-worshipping perversions of the ancient revelation that were mingled together in the syn- cretism of Classic Rome and that formed, like the title Pontifex Maximus, part of the heritage of Ceesar’s spiritual successor—the ‘‘Golden Cup full of abominations’’ that the woman held in her hand, and by which “‘all the nations’’ have been debauched and “are fallen’’ (Rev. 17: 4; 18: 3, 6). Countless indeed are the secret and hidden things, the “mysteries,” of the Fallen Church, but in them all the abomination of desolation is the worship of the Beast (the ‘‘First Beast’? of the Apocalypse— Rev. 13: 1 ff.), the worship of the evil spirit of self- aggrandizement and universal exploitation incarnate in Imperial Rome. Her multitude of cults and con- gregations and chapters and brotherhoods and sister- hoods, made up as they are of men and women whose natural ties to home and country have been broken and whose interests are consequently wholly wrapped up in the fortunes of their mother, the Church, have inevitably been peculiarly susceptible to the tempta- tion to make a religion of the glory and wealth and power and authority of the ancient and imposing institution itself, a religion that finds its ideal, not in the meek and lowly Nazarene, but in ‘‘the grandeur that was Rome,” the religion of ‘“‘the worshippers of Saturn.” As worshippers of the ‘‘Beast,”’ or “‘ Worshippers of Saturn,” all these children of the Great Harlot are, like their mother, branded with his name (Cf. Rev. THE LITTLE BOOK 249 13: 16, 17, etc.). Each of them is a “mystery’’; and the Hebrew name-form of ‘‘ Mystery,” the name written upon the forehead of the Harlot and upon the foreheads of her children, the name of their god, is the otherwise obsolete passive participle Satdr, “[ijnp, ‘‘Hidden’’ (See Num. 13: 13). Now Satér or Satér, in either case 1[1]ND, was the original form* of the name of Saturn, who, as we have already had occasion to observe, was the patron deity of Rome from whom the city was anciently called Saturnia, a name that was afterward poetically applied to the whole of Italy. This pronouncement of the Great Name agrees, therefore, with the prophecies of the Reverse of the Great Oracle, in which the Apostate, Kamani, is identified with Babylon the Great through the paronomasia that pictures him as a worshipper of Ka’amanu, the Babylonian equivalent of the Roman Saturn, the star that was anciently dedicated to Cheres-Nergal-Molech (See Am. 5: 26). That Satér, "1nd, is indeed the nameof the Beast and brands these ‘‘mysteries’’ as children of the Great Apostasy is confirmed by the criterion provided by the apocalyptist himself—not as a primary proof but as a corroboration—" Here is wisdom. He that hath understanding, let him count the number of the beast; for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred and sixty-six’? (Rev. 13: 18). Satir, as we have seen, is in Hebrew the name of a man, and in Latin it is the name of the personification of Rome, * Schwegler, Roem. Gesch., p. 223, regards Satur, derived from Sero, ‘‘to sow,” as the original form of the name of Saturn. Daremberg and Saglio, Dict. d’Antiq. Grecques et Romaines, Vol. 4, p. 1086 a, refer it to either Satur or Sator, and the latter spelling is found in the metrical encyclopedia of Martinus Capella. 250 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH its tutelary deity—and its number is 60 + 400 + 6 + 200, or 666;* and so is that of its translation Aaretvos,t or Latinus, “Hidden” (30 + 1 + 300+ 5 + 10+ 50+ 70 + 200 + 666), which is the eponym of the Latin race and the name of its language, the sacred language of the Latin or Roman Church, the dead language in which its heritage of Truth is “hidden.” Furthermore, this speech of old Rome, the voice of the dragon (Rev. 13: 11), was made characteristic of the Western Church to the exclusion of all vernac- ulars by decree of Pope Vitalian, whose name is an anagram of Valentia, the “secret’’ name of Rome, just 666 years after the birth of Christ (6. Dec. 25, B.C. 5) and exactly 1260 years ago—in accordance with the number of Saturim, ‘‘mysteries,’”’ as written in the Oracle, OD5ND, 60 -++ 400 -++ 200 + 600, or 1260 (See Rev. II: 2). And finally, that the ‘coincidences’’ may form a complete ‘‘design,’’ the ‘‘Mark”’ of the Beast, as well as his ‘‘ Name” and ‘‘ Number ”’ and the ‘‘ Times’’ of his dominion (1260 years = “Time, Times and half a Time’’), is found in this same reading of the Little Book. For, construed aD ]aDJno-sj4, it brands these Saturim, these “‘mysteries,’’ with Cheth-Resh, or Chi-Rho, %, the Cross of Constantine. 7. Cheres tarum, Dun DIN, * Thou, O Cheres, shalt be exalted.’”? Thus speaks the False Prophet of Baal; and, as in every clever falsehood, there is a measure of truth in his exultant vaticination. Cheres we have learned to know as the typical representative of the Ba‘alim that were characteristic * See Alexander Hislop, The Two Babylons, pp. 440 ff. { So Irenzeus—See any Bible Dictionary. THE LITTLE BOOK 251 of the apostasy that had filled up the cup of the iniquity of Ancient Canaan to overflowing, and that it was one phase of the mission of Joshua as a type of the Messiah to purge out of the Land of Promise. The hope of the False Prophet, therefore, as expressed in this prediction, is that the Apostasy of which the worship of the Burning Sun was the horrible example, though exorcised from Israel according to the flesh, would return triumphant to debauch Spiritual Israel— and the Great Apostasy, with its worship of Saturn (whose star assimilates him to the Babylonian Nergal and the Canaanite Baal-Cheres-Molech) and with its unnumbered autos da fe’ that outrivaled the abomina- tions of the Valley of Hinnom, is in fearful fulfilment of the measure of truth it contains; and so also is the exaltation of the war-god during the age now closing, for we must remember that Cheres was the original name of Ares, or Mars, the Son of Saturn, to whom the Roman Cross, no less than the Roman Eagles it represents, has been especially dedicated. We shall soon see, however, how unenduring is the tinsel of truth with which the words of the False Prophet are gilded. It will be noticed that these characterizations of the Apostasy are derived from reverse readings of the corrupted cryptogram of the Name of the Nazarene; and this is in keeping with the claim that the Papal Empire is the final and consummate earthly mani- festation of the Kingdom of Heaven, that Rome is the terrestrial counterpart of the Celestial City of the New Jerusalem, and that its imperial Pontiff is the Vicar of Christ on Earth. VII. THE SEconD ADVENT. The apocalyptic figure by which Zephaniah characterizes the Second Advent 252 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH is the picturesque and significant reversal of the Proclamation of the First Advent. The features of the Parousia are accordingly presented in the ana- grams of the seven readings in which the Great Name sets forth its epitome of the Gospel; and it will even be found that the temporal sequence of these anagrams is the same as that of the obverse readings from which they are derived. It will be observed, moreover, that there is a suggestive relationship of thought, a striking antithesis, between each obverse and its reverse; and that there is also a close parallelism be- tween these pictures and those of the New Testament Apocalypse. 1. Christ-Ne’um, a(slsnpin, and its alternative Corets Ne’um, OL8]3°pn, are very properly anagrams of Manna Tsitr-’Ach, mixlm{iis jo, the doctrinal pro- nouncement of the Gospel epitome, which enshrines the truth concerning the person of the Mighty One incarnate and the work he accomplished in his First Advent; for they, on the other hand, set forth the truth concerning the person and offices of the Re- deemer at his Second Coming—he is to be “‘ The Word of God, the Christ and the Judge.” There is here indeed a very evident and significant contrast between Obverse and Reverse. The first, tells of “the ROCK our Brother” in whom God humiliated himself, took upon himself our human nature, and shared the death that is our portion, in order that we might share his life—gave himself without reserve to be our Spiritual “‘Manna,” the Bread of Heaven freely offered to all humanity, and spurned, alas! by so many. In the Reverse, on the other hand, the Coming One is exalted as the glorified WORD OF GOD to whom we owe allegiance as the THE LITTLE BOOK 253 Christ, the Lord’s Anointed, and to whom as the Judge inexorable we must render account—the Judge _ who will pronounce the doom of those to whom in the Gospel proclamation he has vainly offered himself as the Suffering Savior, the Bread of Life. 2. Chor-Satan ham, oth] wan (from III. wn), “ He will discomfit the Pit of Satan.”? This anagram very evidently foretells the initial triumph of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords over the forces of Darkness (Rev. 16:16;17:14;19:19ff.). Itis there- fore appropriately the reverse, both in form and in thought, of the first formula of the Little Book’s Life of Jesus, the reading that refers to him as the seemingly helpless Babe of Bethlehem, Mah Netser *Ach, ‘Alas, what a Netser—what a fragile little shoot—is our Brother.” 3. Chor-Saian nam, piyoean, * The Pit of Satan shall slumber.” The Powers of Darkness are here represented as decisively defeated—not necessarily as utterly annihilated, but as overwhelmed and silenced for a while, as “put to sleep,” oO. It is the condition of affairs, as the New Testament apoc- alyptist pictures it (Rev. 20, 1-3), that will obtain when the Old Serpent is banished from the World and shut up for a thousand years in the Pit where he belongs; and it is accordingly foretold in the anagram of “‘Nazarene,’”’ Min- Natserach, the name that the Victor owes to his own banishment to Nazareth in the days of his humiliation and his long obscurity among the caverns of that ‘Place of Sepulture.”’” St. John tells us that ‘“when the thousand years are finished, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison’’ (Rev. 20: 7), but only for ‘‘a little season’’ and for the complete outworking of his own undoing—and even so Resh 254. HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH and Rome itself (Cf. Gog and Magog) reappear in the next anagram, but only to be brought to judgment and to be made to contribute to the final exaltation of Christ. 4a. Chartis Rém, oly} yhjon, Rome shall be judged inexorably.”? The victories of the preceding prophecies were both primarily in the spiritual realm— over the Pit of Satan, the Powers of Darkness— though of course the battles must also be thought of as fought on the fields of Earth against the human dupes of the tempter and so as involving the use of carnal as well as spiritual weapons; but now the triumph is set forth in terms of its visible effect on the life of Earth, ROME, the typical and supreme example of evil enthroned in human institutions, in the state and even in the church, is brought to final judgment. It is not merely to be subdued for a season; but, in the language of St. John, is to be cast into the Lake of Fire, which is the second death. It was Rome, openly hostile and draconian, that of old crucified him who is now the victor; it is Rome dis- guised as a lamb, that has crucified the Lord anew in the body of his Church—and it will evidently be some form of Rome that Gog and Magog will vainly attempt to restore. Rome is indeed the consummate incarnation of the Great Adversary who, by the intrusion of his venomous Resh (which is the initial of Rome) into the text of Scripture, transformed the Proclamation of the Voice of the Day of Jehovah into Mar Tsoreach, a taunting reference to the “bitter cry”’ of the Suffering Savior, seemingly vanquished by the Evil One and nailed to the cross, the charac- teristic implement of Roman torture. The judgment upon Rome is therefore, in accordance with poetic THE LITTLE BOOK 255 justice, written in the reverse of Martsoreach, My, the third biographical reading of the gospel epitome— and so also is the companion prophecy of the triumph of the World’s Redeemer, which follows. 4b. Christ Ram, D7 noon, “ Christ shall be exalted,” is at once the perfect antithesis and the inevitable consequence of the lifting up of the Nazarene upon the Cross; for he said, “And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me.” It sets before us the full manifestation of his kingdom; for Christ will be exalted in all the earth, only when the whole of humanity shall have been purged of the last lingering remnant of the pollution of which Resh is the symbol and Rome is the supreme example. 5. Christ Yinna’em, dooxj3s non, * Christ will reveal himself.”? This is the reverse reading of Muinne- Tserzach, *noy73d, “‘From the Grave.”’ Theverb here is the denominative Na’am, and it may be regarded as put in the imperfect tense in order to make certain its discrimination from the noun Ne’um. It is also put most appropriately in the reflexive conjugation— Christ will come down from Heaven as he came up from the grave, revealing himself to his own and on occasion. It is significant that this prediction is the reverse of a construction that reserves it for the fourth and last place in the chronological series that has to do with earth-life, or immediately before the two synchronous pronouncements that herald the con- summation of the ages, when Earth and Heaven shall be one. 6a. Chartts Hinnom,jomnyh}in, “ Hinnom ?’— *So written in I. Sam. 13: 6. ft In 13, of which O37 is the reverse, the letter M is only the carrier of a vowel, but it is conventionally treated as a consonant, 256 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH by which we necessarily understand Ge-Hinnom— “will be judged inexorably.” This is indeed the Last Judgment stated specifically in its extreme application—it is the last act of the Mighty One as Chorets, the Judge upon the Great White Throne (Rev. 20: 11 ff.). It'is therefore most appropriately the warning of the reverse of Mannah tsé Riach, non [8 730, the Gospel reading that tells of the Mis- sion of the Holy Spirit, who during the whole period of God’s long-suffering patience “strives with men,” convicting ‘‘the World in respect of sin, and of righteousness and of judgment’’ (John 16: 8). In this obverse there are, however, two equal cesure, and so its reverse admits of two construc- tions. The second is the complement of the first, and completes the correspondence at this point be- tween the first and the last of the apocalypses. 66. Char Satan-Neum, oisirywrn, ‘The Ad- versary of the Word of God shall be burned up.” The picture presented here in outline is exactly the closing scene of the Last Judgment. It is the execu- tion of the sentence upon the guilty, just as it is painted by St. John: ‘And death and Hades were cast into the Lake of Fire. ‘This is the second death, even the Lake of Fire. And if any was not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the Lake of Fire’’ (Rev. 20: 14, 15). 7. Cheres tanam, pinoin. This is the utmost vision of the future granted by the Spirit of Prophecy. Indeed it is the utmost possible—nay, rather it opens and this is its first impression. It therefore permits and suggests alternative anagrams, one in which it is retained as a consonant and another where regarded as a vowel—this suggestion is rein- forced by the two equal cesure of the construction in the obverse. THE LITTLE BOOK 257 the vistas of the ‘‘ Boundless Heritage’’ far beyond the reach of earthly vision, for it is impossible for our present inexperience even to imagine ‘‘the things that God hath prepared for them that love him” (1 Cor. 2:9). This grand truth is shadowed forth in the very form of the oracle, for it suggests these ineffable things only negatively, by contrast with a progressive three-fold glimpse of the future as it concerns all other existences with which the Church is now associ- ated: (a) the doom of her great Adversary, the traitor within; (0) the sweeping away of all hostile conditions and personalities without; and (c) the final destruction even of the material universe itself when the purposes of its creation have been ac- complished—three visions that are presented by the three historic applications of the name Cheres. (a) This pronouncement of the Spirit of Prophecy is the original of which the vaticination of the False Prophet, Cheres tarum (See the 7th reading of the 6th chapter of this Little Book), is the perversion wrought by the substitution of the Resh of the Father of Lies for the Nun of the Word of God; and it will be seen that the gilded falsehood, ‘‘Thou, O Cheres, shalt be exalted,” is in flat and seemingly plausible contradiction to the truth it supplanted; for Cheres tanam reads, *‘ Thou, O Cheres, shalt slumber ’’— or, as the Psalmist uses the verb (Ps. 76: 6), ‘* shalt sleep the sleep of death.’? When this prophecy was hidden in the Little Book of the Great Name in the time of Zephaniah, the old Canaanitish apostasy was still very much alive, even in Jerusalem (Cf. Zeph. I: 4-9, etc.), but it was utterly exterminated from the land by the Captivity; and though it has indeed awaked, as from the Bottomless Pit, to fearful activity 258 HID TREASURES OF ZEPHANIAH in the Great Apostasy of Spiritual Israel, its doom is sealed by the erasure of Resh from the text of Holy Writ and the restoration of Nun to the prophecies of the Great Name. The day is at hand when “‘ Cheres,”’ the God of the Burning Sun—the Apostasy of which he is the symbol—shall go the way of all evil and transitory things, “‘shall fall asleep’”’ and, after a brief resurgence in Gog and Magog, shall finally “sleep the sleep of death’’; but the Church herself, redeemed and purified, shall survive victorious and more glorious than ever. (6) The Final Consummation is represented in the Book of Revelation by the vision of the holy city, New Jerusalem, the ‘New City of Peace,’’ coming down from God out of heaven (Rev. 21: 2 ff.) and in accordance with the significance of the name of the holy city, and remembering that Cheres was the Semitic equivalent of Aves- Nergal-Mars, the ancient personification of War, this construction may be rendered: ‘*Thou, O War, shalt slumber ’’—shalt finally ‘‘ sleep the sleep of death.” The strife that has disfigured the life of earth so long and so com- pletely that some of our wise men have come to regard it as an integral part of the very laws of existence and even of progress, the turmoil because of which “‘the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain to- gether until now’’ (Rom. 8: 22), shall be silenced for- ever by the Coming One, the King of Righteousness and the Prince of Peace. (c) Cheres tanam is, however, even more strikingly suggestive of the closing words of St. John’s descrip- tion of the holy city, New Jerusalem: “ And there shall be night no more; and they need no light of lamp, neither light of sun; for the Lord God shall give them THE LITTLE BOOK 259 light, and they shall reign for ever and ever’’ (Rev. 22: 5)—for the literal meaning of Cheres tanam is, ‘Thou, O Noon-day Sun, shalt fall asleep.” ‘The verb Nim, D1, primarily means “‘to grow drowsy, to become inactive,’ and then it means ‘‘to sleep the sleep of death’’; and this apt picture of the final gradual decline of the vital fires of our solar system is the more significant because of its tremendously sug- gestive contrast with the picture presented by Menath- Serach, mona, of which Cheres tanam,03n DN, is the exact anagram, and in which the Gospel epitome tells of the “‘Boundless Heritage’? that our Elder Brother has gone to prepare for us, the heritage eternal in the heavens foreshadowed in Timnath Serach, the prophetic pronunciation given by Joshua of old to the city he chose as his portion in the earthly Canaan into which he had lead the ancient people of God. From this heritage, boundless and eternal, the sons of God and joint heirs with our Elder Brother will watch with keen but serene interest as the Sun “‘grows drowsy and inactive, and finally sleeps the sleep of death.” Wonderful indeed is the prophetic import of the name “Nazarene.” Well is it called in the Scriptures themselves “‘The Chosen Utterance.’”’ It is the one utterance in all human speech that is measurably adequate to the high uses for which it was chosen :— to be the name of him whose is “‘the name which is above every name,’’ the name “‘at which every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is LORD to the glory of God the Father’’ (Cf. Phil. 2: 9-11, and Eph. 1: 17-23), and to be the symbol of his Church. PART Il THE INTERPRETATION XV THE PROMISED PRESENCE HE Book of Zephaniah has been regarded as “fone of the most difficult books in the prophetic canon,” and it has certainly been one of the most enigmatic. Everyone felt that it was above all others the herald of the Last Day; its vistas included the utmost bounds of the age; and yet there was revealed no figure that could be definitely identified as the Messiah. Now, however, this short and mys- terious book is transformed into the most compre- hensive and most specific of Messianic prophecies— the only one indeed in which the First and Second Advents of the Redeemer are explicitly distinguished. Elsewhere, it is true, the two pictures of the Suffering Servant and the Conquering Christ are clearly drawn, but only here are they to be seen in their historic relationship. Here too is found the only prophecy of the Spiritual presence in which the Word of God broods over the deeps of his new creation. It is instructive to note, however, that the discrimi- nation of these predictions of the two advents is ex post facto, and that likewise it was apparently only its fulfilment that made known the Lost Prophecy of the Name of the Nazarene to St. Matthew. The object 260 THE PROMISED PRESENCE 261 of this apocalypse would seem to have been, therefore, not primarily to write history beforehand—though it has indeed, even when least understood, painted the broad outlines of the future in ethical colors to the glory of God and the inspiration of his people—but to afford to Retrospect, just when needed most, a con- firmation of truth and a corrective of error; and to enable contemporary Faith to understand the full significance of the great events of the day in their relation to the Kingdom of Christ, and be “‘ready,” able to hear the summons of the Captain, to recognize and exemplify his Presence, and to act well its part. The First Advent prophecies of the New Book of Zephaniah need no further elucidation. They are themselves unmistakable, for they have passed from prediction to fulfilment; and, in their circumstantial correspondence with the Gospel records, they bear witness to the historic truth of the Glad Tidings, and furnish a solid basis for confidence in those pro- nouncements of the book that are still in the realm of prophecy and that set forth its great and vital message: “Behold, the Bride-groom! Come ye forth to meet him.” The general import of this message is of course already clear, and the implications and applications that make it specific have in large part been revealed in the unfolding of the book; but the foreshadowings of the Parousia whose parallel passages have enabled us to interpret the enigmas of Zephaniah are them- selves necessarily of such a nature that they have come to us freighted with various unfortunate mis- conceptions, and these we can correct only by a systematic consideration of the teachings of this new- old revelation. We must therefore examine its impli- 262 THE INTERPRETATION cations as to the meaning and nature of the Second Coming itself, which are to be gleaned from the book as a whole; we must see this crowning event of the ages in its relation to the typical Restoration of Israel according to the flesh, which is promised in the second construction of the prophecy; and we must hear the summons to the Spiritual Israel of the Church, which is the burden of the final apocalyptic construction of the book. The three short chapters of the Book of Zephaniah seem at first glance to promise only a very meager revelation concerning the nature and manner of the Return of the Redeemer. The pronouncements of its three-fold apocalypse, more especially those of the Proclamation of the Voice of the Day of Jehovah, are however so comprehensive and so_ precisely appropriate that they suggest and help to interpret the whole cycle of the foreshadowings of this crowning event of the ages. And it is indeed in all the implica- tions of the term the crowning event of the ages that these pronouncements picture; for they are of such a character as to harmonize throughout with those interpretations of prophecy that neither on the one hand imply a break in the continuity: of history and a negation of the reality of progress, nor on the other resolve the Savior’s promised Return into an even more unfortunate unreality. The Presence here acclaimed is the culmination of all past progress— and will mark the beginning of the end of all past regress. Itis therefore itself to be progressive, moving on from a beginning that would be all unrecognized but for the supernatural portents with which it is to be marked for our instruction and inspiration—and that are here identified for that purpose—to a consumma- THE PROMISED PRESENCE 263 tion entirely beyond the conception of our present inexperience. From the point of view of our ignor- ance, the Second Advent is indeed altogether super- natural, but it is painted here in colors that blend on the horizon with the familiar landscape of nature, just as did the equally supernatural First Advent to the eyes of the world at large. The nature of the Presence of the Savior peculiar to the Second Advent and the reason for the super- lative potency ascribed to it are to be learned first of all from the name given him in the Third Proclama- tion of the Voice of the Day of Jehovah, for in the usage of the Bible, as has been well remarked by a well known scholar, “‘The name stands for the man (or whoever is named) and all therein implied—his personality.”* This name must of course be inter- preted in the light of the sequence in which it is found, the successive names of the Mighty One given or assumed in the three proclamations. In the first, the name implied was unquestionably Jehovah, the name of God in his covenant relation to Israel of old— God coming down into the life of humanity. In the second it was Nazarene, the place-name of him who “took flesh and dwelt among us,’’ which carries with it also, through its reference to the oracular name of Joshua the Son of Nun of Timnath-serach and to the symbolism of the Protevangel, his personal name, and his patronymic as well, as they are set forth in the ancient token of the Church, ‘‘ Jesus the Christ the Son of God our Savior,’”’ and the Son of Man, the Seed of the Woman, and the putative Son of Joseph. Nazarene, it will be observed, is just the part of the * R. H. Charles, The Revelation of St. John, Vol. II., p. 391, note 2. 264 THE INTERPRETATION name of the Christ that is most appropriate to the proclamation that hails his advent as the Suffering Savior, for it is peculiarly suggestive of the divine condescension of Him who, “existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross’’ (Phil. 2: 6-8). The name employed in the second proclamation testifies, there- fore, that after centuries of effort with the race as a whole and with the seed of Abraham in particular, the Son of God had arrived at the first goal of his mission of salvation and was entering into humanity, assuming all the consequences that the act would involve, through the door he had opened in the perfect manhood of the Son of the blessed virgin. By that same Door, during all the centuries since, in his presence through the agency of the Holy Spirit, he has been leading mankind—whosoever will—the race of whose solidarity he has become partaker, whose fortunes he must share, and with which in turn he must share his own—for this was the very purpose of his incarnation—away from its alignment under the dominance of the Old Man and into the New Manhood of which he himself is the head. During all these centuries also, having in the person of our Elder Brother, whose is therefore the name which is above every name, won his way back, with all that is involved in his new relationship, to the full re-possession of the glory that he had laid aside in his humiliation, the glory that he had with the Father before the foundation of the world—for he ascended THE PROMISED PRESENCE 265 into heaven and resumed his seat at the right-hand of God the Father, where he ever liveth to make intercession for us—he has been preparing a place in his Father’s house of many mansions, even in the throne-room of God, the all-comprehensive service- chamber of the universe, for the new humanity of which he is the head, the body whose members are being developed for their high calling through the agency of the Holy Spirit in the Evangel he instituted and that is becoming more and more fully an organism expressive of himself. , The name employed in the proclamation with which the Voice of the Day of Jehovah heralds the Parousia bears witness to the fact that the work of the ascended and glorified Savior is completed, that he has at- tained the second goal of the Great Salvation, for this proclamation hails him as Ne’um, ‘‘THE WorRD oF Gop,” the glorified Son of Man; and the use made of it in the drama that sets forth the Third Apocalyptic construction of the book bears witness also to the fact that, notwithstanding the Great Apostasy, the work of his Spiritual presence with his Church is also completed—the inner development of the Church has reached a point where it is ready to leap forth into such a manifestation of its rightful relationship to him that it will be able to receive and exemplify his full Presence. It announces therefore that he is coming again according to his promise to undertake the final task involved in the incarnation, ‘And if I go and prepare a place for you, I come again and will receive you unto myself; that where I am there ye may be also”’ (John 14: 3). He has himself pre- pared a place for the earth-born sons of God; and through the Holy Spirit he has won from the world 266 THE INTERPRETATION the several members of an organism small but com- pletely functioning and thoroughly adequate to the purposes immediately in hand, the chosen few who, as represented by the holy martyrs (Rev. 20: 3), have already explicitly and_fully accepted his divine and life-giving Spirit—of which the seal is the sacrificial love exemplified on Calvary and represented by the pictograph of Jesus on the Cross, *—the mystically numbered One Hundred and Forty-four Thousand who follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth; and now, their “‘number’’ complete,* he is coming to receive unto himself this earnest of the new humanity and to organize them into that manifestation of himself in a glorified manhood through which he is to bring the world as a whole—as many as will—into the place prepared for us. The Presence heralded in the third proclamation is, therefore, that of the perfected catalyst of the new and divine allotrope of humanity, that most potent Presence in which he will utterly dissolve the hopeless conglomerate of the world as it is—to gather out of it, on the one hand, from all regions and races and ages, such as have received him incipiently or potentially, and bring them into actual participation in the new fellowship, into complete conformity to the new Spirit, and into the fullness of the new life; and, on the other hand, to deliver the new humanity from the dead body of the old. He is coming to resolve the abnormal dualism of Earth-life, to destroy the degenerate secondary personality that constitutes its obsession by the Prince of Darkness, and to restore, * Strange that any should fail to observe that this number is entirely mystical like the seven eyes and seven horns of ons Lamb (Rev. 5:6). Itis 12 X 12 X 1000. THE PROMISED PRESENCE 267 by the influence of his Presence and the power of a new affection, its moral and spiritual integrity under the henceforth impregnable dominance of the true type of personality that he himself shares and that therefore shares with him and through him the illimitable resources of the divine nature. The name by which the Coming One is heralded, Ne’um, “THE WORD OF GOD,” represents him as robed in all the unapproachable glory of his deity, even according to the revelation voiced in his high- priestly prayer, ‘‘And Now, Father, glorify thou me with the glory which I had with thee before the world was”? (John 17: 5). This implies that he will be invisible to the merely earthly eye; and it isin harmony with this implication that the Third Construction of the Apocalypse of Zephaniah represents the Parousia as beginning, so far as its manifestation to the world is concerned, with the Spiritual presence that is to quicken the Church, the Body of Christ, with the power of his glorified humanity—the fullness of that Baptism of Fire of which the out-pouring at the Feast of First-fruits was the promise. Apostasy’s forfeiture of the gift of the Holy Spriit and the promise of its restoration in full measure after the visitations of the Day of Jehovah shall have brought correction, is the burden of the mystical con- struction of the Book of Zephaniah that finds in the unfaithfulness of Jerusalem of old and in her Baby- lonian and Roman captivities types of Babylon the Great, and that finds also a promise of the New Jeru- salem in the prophet’s song of joy :—“‘Sing, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel; be glad and rejoice with all thy heart, O daughter of Jerusalem. Jehovah hath cast out thine enemy: the King of Israel, even Jehovah, 268 THE INTERPRETATION is in the midst of thee; thou shalt not fear any more, . . . Jehovah thy God is in the midst of thee, a Mighty One who will save’? (Zeph. III. 14, 15, 17). The loss by the Church conformed to the World of the Spiritual presence of the Master, is specifically pictured in the Vision of the Emptied Cup (Part IT., Chap. XII.); and its full restoration to the Church redeemed from its apostasy at the Second Coming, is set forth in the Anagram of the corrected phrase Kert min Nani, “Their wine shall be inexhaustible.’’ That in truth, while the coming of the Spirit of Life, which was the birth of the Church, could only follow after the Incarnation of the Word of God, was - indeed its consummation, we are nevertheless to look for the New Birth of the Church, the Spiritual pres- ence of the Redeemer restored to the penitent and given to all in the full harvest abundance of which its Pentecostal power was only the first-fruits, as the initial and primary characteristic of the Parousia, is evident from the fact that it is set forth apocalypti- cally, not in a consecutive section of the text, which would have implied that it was to follow the personal appearance of our glorified Elder Brother, but in the Seals and Counter-seals and Stigmata of the Seven Prophecies of the Oracle of the Great Day of Jehovah, the Seven Thunders whose portents are the immediate harbingers of the Day of the Lord. Furthermore, that the Parousia will not supersede the Spiritual presence but must certainly be based upon it, is evi- dent from the Savior’s promise, ‘And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Paraclete, that he may abide with you forever, even the Spirit of truth”’ (John 14 : 16, 17. cf. Matt. 28 : 20)—and this is also in accordance with the nature of the Church as the THE PROMISED PRESENCE 269 Body of Christ and with the daily and hourly needs of its world-wide membership. The Book of Zephaniah leaves us in no doubt, however, that in due season we shall also see the face of our glorified Elder Brother, the Head of the Church himself, that indeed ‘‘we shall see him as he is’’; for this is the unquestionable implication of the Second Construction of the Apocalypse, where the parallelism demands that the Second Advent, while on a loftier plane, shall nevertheless follow the analogy of the First. And since the First Advent included both an open Epiphany, in which was the revelation it brought, and a Spiritual presence, in which is its transforming power, the parallelism demands that the Second Ad- vent Presence shall likewise have its open Epiphany as well as its spiritual manifestation; and this is in accordance with the unquestionable expectation of the disciples and with the revelation in the Master’s prayer, “Father, I desire that they also whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am that they may behold the glory which thou hast given me’”’ (John 17: 24)—which more than implies that we shall also share that glory (John 17: 22). The Presence for which we look is therefore to be the consummation of all the manifestations of God in the life of humanity —for while it is indeed Jesus of Nazareth who is coming again, it is also Jehovah of Hosts, the Mighty One heralded in the first proclamation of the Voice of his Day, for whom we look, a providential inter- position of the Mighty to Save and the Mighty Avenger—and we may conclude that, so far as our perception of it is concerned, it will pass in due course from the unseen, the providential and spiritual, to the personal and visible. 270 THE INTERPRETATION In harmony with these conclusions, St. Pual describes the return of the Lord as beginning “‘in the air’’ (I. Thes. 4: 17), and tells us that, like the ap- pearances of the risen though not yet glorified Naz- arene, which were not seen by the world at large, not even by the soldiers who guarded his tomb, but only by his own disciples, the Return of the glorified Re- deemer with the resurrection hosts of the Church Triumphant will be witnessed only by the Church Militant, which will be ‘‘caught up”’ to meet him. The manner of this revelation is doubtless suggested in the prophecy of which the manifestation at Pente- cost was a preliminary and exemplary fulfilment: ‘‘And it shall be in the last days, saith God, I will pour forth my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams ”’ (Acts 2:17 and Joel 2: 28). The inane abnormalities of Spiritism would seem to be Satan’s attempt to discount these first revelations of the Lord and the hosts of the redeemed with base counterfeits before- hand. It is significant and in accordance with this interpretation that the word St. Paul uses to picture the presence of the Lord and his hosts, whom he describes as in the “‘air’’ Canp) is the identical term with which he locates the spiritual forces they are to supersede, the psychic influences of the evil one, who is to be chained and cast out (Rev. 20) at the beginning of the Parousia, for he calls him “‘The Prince of the Power of the Air Canp), the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedience’? (Eph. 2: 2). Of like significance is the fact that the word “‘caught up” Caprdatw), with which he here describes the “‘ Rapture”’ of the saints, is the very word with which he tells of THE PROMISED PRESENCE 271 his own rapture into the “third heaven,’’ which he classes with ‘‘visions and revelations’’ (II. Cor. 12: I-4). It would seem indeed that until our maturity it must continue to be inexpedient for us, as it has been hitherto—for so the Master himself gives us to under- stand in his farewell discourse (John 16: 7)—that our free development should be overshadowed by the full revelation of a Presence before whom even angels veil their faces with their wings. Moreover such a con- Spiracy as that of Gog and Magog would seem to be an utter impossibility at the close of a millennium during which Jehovah incarnate but glorified sat visibly enthroned as the omnipotent ruler of the nations. In fact the passages of Scripture that imply the actual epiphany of Jesus our Elder Brother picture him as appearing to none but the true members of the household of Faith, and to them only as they are able to apprehend spiritual realities. Such passages must be construed, therefore, as having reference, not to the Premillennial beginning of his Parousia, but to its Postmillennial consummation, when the Church will have attained its majority and will have conquered and assimilated the whole world, and when all man- kind will be able therefore to meet him on the higher ground of his communicated divinity and share his glory, as he met us on the lower ground of his as- sumed humanity and shared our limitations. Cf. I. Timea Gel Dimas 1, 8 Litus 2:\03. The declaration of St. John—‘“‘ Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they that pierced him; and all the tribes of the earth shall mourn over him’’ (Rev. 1: 7)—very evidently refers to the last judgment; and suggests, not an epiphany Ap iP THE INTERPRETATION like the First Advent (2 Tim. 1:10), but the theophany described in Rev. 14: 14-20, and 20: I1-15. Cf. Ezek. 1: 4 ff. Without doubt the other pictures that represent the Savior as coming in the clouds of heaven are also of the same character—vz. Matt. 24: 30; Acts 1: 11. Indeed=these theophanies are them- selves unmistakable witnesses to the nature of the Parousia, for their only use is to manifest to mortals, as occasion may require, the presence of ‘‘the King eternal, immortal, invisible’? (Tim. 1: 17); and only such a manifestation will fit the Savior’s own descrip- tion of his Second Advent: ‘‘For as the lightning cometh forth from the East and is seen even unto the west; so shall be the Parousia of the Son of Man”’ (Matt:'245'27). That only the faithful will see the Lord at his final Epiphany is assumed and virtually asserted by the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, who says: “So Christ, having been once offered to bear the sins of many shall appear (ogé@jcerar) a second time, apart from sin (i.e., now no longer a sin-offering), to them that eagerly wait for him, unto salvation” (Heb. 9: 28). This is also tacitly assumed by St. ‘John in his First Epistle. Indeed the apostle here gives us clearly to understand that it is only in their maturity that the saints themselves will be able to see their Lord and Master as he is. He writes: ‘‘Be- loved, now are we children of God (réxva, ‘children with the promise of mature development ’—Westcott) and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be, but we know that when he shall be manifested (gavepw6y) we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is”’ (I. John 3: 2). The apostle therefore takes it for granted that only such as are like him can see him as THE PROMISED PRESENCE 272 he is. He takes it for granted also that ‘‘when he shall appear,’ the man Christ Jesus will be clothed with all the glory of the uncreated WorD whom no mere mortal ‘‘hath seen or can see”’ (I. Tim. 6: 16). With this interpretation agrees also the suggestive contrast between the radical meaning of the name by which the Coming One is heralded in the Third Proclamation of the Voice of the Day of Jehovah and that of the name by which the incarnate Son of God was hailed in the Second Proclamation of the Voice. For Ne’um, ‘the Word of God,” from Na’am, O83, “to speak softly,” in a “still small voice”’ that only true believers can hear (Cf. I. Kings 19:12), could not be improved upon as a name designed to carry this very prophetic import; just as ‘Nazarene,’ by homonymy from TJsarach, I. myx, “to shout aloud,” is exactly the name appropriate to him who is the theme of the Gospel that is to be preached to all mankind, and of whom it is said: “‘No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him”’ (John 1: 18). To the same effect are the implications of the fact that so many prophetic ‘‘signs,” harbingers, marks of identification, are provided for the Second Advent— its beginnings are to be of such a nature as to require them. The offices of the Coming One, the operations by which he will accomplish his task, are represented by the titles given him in the proclamation—and the same offices are ascribed to him in all the prophecies of his coming, but one of the two is an office hitherto held in abeyance (John 12 : 47), and so it is represented here by a name hitherto unrevealed (cf. Rev. 19 : 12). 274 THE INTERPRETATION He is to be (1) the Chorets, the “Judge inexorable”’ who by his truth and his cooperating providences will thoroughly sift the life of Earth and eliminate all that is evil; and (2) the Christ, the “ Anointed,” the King, who will rule in righteousness and bring all the world back into glad allegiance to God the Father. But who is this King? He is Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of David, the King of Israel; but he is also ‘‘The Worp,’’ The Son of God, Jehovah of Hosts, the King of Glory. In him therefore the aberrant Kingdom of Israel (Cf. II. Sam. 8: 4-22; and 10: 19) reverts to Shiloh (now, ov, nbw = dw. Cf. BDB, p. 1010 a), “‘Him to whom it belongs,” the only legitimate heir of original sovereignty in all the universe, and is merged in the restored Theo- democracy—restored and extended to its rightful bounds and conformed to its true ideal—the world- wide commonwealth of Spiritual Jsra-El, in which our Elder Brother is to rule as King of kings and Lord of lords both by heredity and by the free choice of his people. The identity of the name and titles of the Coming One with the apocalyptic symbol of the Church, purged of Resh and with Né#n restored, assures us that, notwithstanding all our lapses and follies and failures, the manifestation of the Presence of the Master will not be in supercession of his Church but through the Church purged and transformed, the historic Church as an institution but cleansed of the Apostasy that has worshipped the “ Beast’ as its Christ—the Anti- Christ pictured in the sullied symbol Christ-Rém, pa-npan—and become once more truly Christian in all respects, not only in the good deeds of its simple- hearted saints but in the purposes, plans, and methods THE PROMISED PRESENCE 275 of its organization as well, become in truth—as Christ- Ne’um, arnoin, the reverse reading of the restored symbol indicates—the revelation, the in- carnation, of the Second Advent Presence of the Worp oF Gop, the glorified Christ. The Church is indeed the body of which Christ is both the vitalizing Spirit and the living Head. Its members are there- fore his members, the members through which he has worked on earth during all the Christian centuries; and it is through them that he will continue to work until he has accomplished his purposes. The truth that struggles for expression through the mystic metaphor of “‘the body of Christ’’ would seem to require a following of the analogy even so as to include St. Paul’s discrimination between the ‘‘cor- ruptible”’ and ‘mortal,’ or “‘natural,’’ body of the human Psyche, and the “incorruptible” and ‘“im- mortal’’ body of the heaven-born Pneuma (I, Cor. 15: 35 ff.). A natural and alas! corruptible body is the Visible Church. It is indeed the “‘salt of the Earth,” but it is the salt of the Earthly Holy Land (Matt. 5: 13) and is itself only salted because there is within it the invisible body of the life-giving Spirit, the true Church of the twice-born in Heaven and on Earth elect through the ages and joined in one through the communion of saints in the unity of Christ our Head (Cite phi'4:'3 ff): At the time of the Second Coming of Christ, this Invisible Church, his Spiritual body, is to be com- plete—not complete with regard to any supposed complement of numbers, for it will never cease to grow in stature until its full maturity in the Consum- mation, but complete in all its functions—and so it will be able to be the agent of the fuller revelation 276 THE INTERPRETATION of his presence and power that will constitute the Parousia (Rev. 14: I-5). It is to be the first-fruits of the harvest; and as it conquers enemy after enemy and finally even the last of foes (Rev. 20: 4-6; 1 Cor. 15:51; 1, Thes. 4: 15, 17), it will be a living and more and more convincing ‘witness to the full meaning of the Great Salvation. Is is through the natural body, however, that the Spiritual life within must operate upon the life of the natural world outside, and so it is through the Church as an organization that the pronouncements of the Judge must be published and the decrees of the King carried out. Behind the scenes in the mysterious realm of Providence God works for righteousness, and over the deeps of every created being the Holy Spirit broods unceasingly; but it was only by his incarnation in the First-Born among many brethern that the Word of God could initiate his work of regeneration in human life; and it is only as he is incarnate in the Visible Church that he can regenerate human society. The “Rapture’’ of the living saints to meet their Lord and their brethern of the First Resurrection “in the air’’ (I, Thes. 4: 15, 17) can not be conceived of, therefore, as actually taking them out of the Visible Church (Cf. John 17: 15) and leaving it a life- less corpse; but must be of such a nature, on the contrary, as will make them a link between the seen and the unseen and enable the Spiritual body to gain a greater and greater ascendency over the natural and make it a more and more efficient instrument for the accomplishment of the divine purposes, finally conforming it altogether—and through it the whole world, ‘‘ whosoever will ’’—to its own ideal, the likeness of Christ, the restored image of God. THE PROMISED PRESENCE 277 This truth is typically foreshadowed in the con- quest of Canaan under Joshua of old. Gad and Reuben and part of Manasseh entered into the pos- session of their heritages in the Promised Land with- out having to cross the river Jordan (Num. 32: 1-5). Nevertheless the warriors of these tribes remained with their militant brethern during the whole period of the Conquest and fought at the head of the host (Deut. 32: 21) in every campaign. It is noteworthy in this connection that these tribes were the only ones to continue living in tents, “‘pilgrims’’ here below like their fathers. They were also children of the first-born of the mothers of Jacob’s household. Heterodox and schismatic Dan (Judge 18: 30; and I, Kings 12: 29-30) was the only one of the four tribes of the first-born that was not numbered among the original settlers on the eastern shore of the Jordan, and this tribe is also omitted from the genealogy of Israel as given in I, Chron. 2: 12 and from the list of those who were sealed by the angel in the vision of St. John (Rev. 7: 5-7). Infact the Danites, though they fought loyally with the host during the conquest, were long practically portionless in Israel (Judge 18: 1) —but there was nevertheless salvation for Dan; he also finally took his rightful place among the tribes of Israel (Gen. 49:16), and in accordance with the pro- phetic vision of Moses (Deut. 33: 22) carved out for himself a possession at Laish-Dan in Bashan, east of the main sources of the Jordan among the other tribes of the first-born—the northernmost of them all, for the last shall become first. In the blessings of Moses (Deut. 33) there is a peculiar primacy accorded these tribes of the first-born; and of Reuben, the first-born of the whole family, he says, “‘Let Reuben 278 THE INTERPRETATION live and not die’’ (Deut. 33: 6). Moreover Jacob’s remarkable exclamation as he passed from the con- templation of the future of Dan to that of Gad (Gen. 49: 18):—‘‘I have waited for thy Salvation, O Lord” —would suggest that here the dying patriarch saw a vision of the far more distant future and the in- comparably more glorious truths of which the tem- poral fortunes of his children were to be prophetic types—even the dawn of the New Day and the first fruits of the victory over death. It is of course not implied that it is only through the Church that the power of the Mighty One is to be more fully manifested in the coming age. Far from it; behind the scenes, as we have just said, in the mysterious realm of providence he always “‘works his sovereign will’’; and over the deeps of every human soul his Holy Spirit broods unceasingly and brings forth light and life in ever richer and richer abundance. Indeed it is very clearly indicated in the sequence of the 8th and 9th verses of the 3d chapter of Zephaniah that the first characteristic manifestation of the Presence peculiar to the Second Advent is to follow a providential interposition of the Mighty One in public affairs such as never was known before; and we may confidently expect that more and more mightily will the divine power be poured out in these channels of activity as the spiritual rapport between Heaven and Earth becomes closer and closer in the ever fuller manifestation of the Parousia, the Presence of the Lord and his Spiritual hosts, until at last the veil between the natural and the supernatural is rent in twain with “the glorious epiphany of the great God and our Savior,” the Head of the Church. Only through his Church, however, can his Presence THE PROMISED PRESENCE 279 as the “Christ’’ be manifested constructively in the world as it is, to transform it into what it ought to be; and even as the “Judge inexorable”’ he will some- times enforce his decrees through the hosts of Israel. Yes, the Judge at his coming will smite the nations with a sharp sword, but it will be with the sword of truth proceeding from the mouth of his Church; he will rule them with a rod of iron, but the hand that is to hold the rod is the hand of his Church (Cf. Rev. 2: 26-27)—a Church far worthier than ever before and far more responsive to his will, but nevertheless the same in historic identity with the Church of the Christian Centuries. Even now it is learning to wield the rod with effect, not the scepter of despotic authority that medizval Apostasy wrested from the hand of the Successor of Czesar as it had wrested the democratic prerogatives of the Spiritual presence of the Elder Brother from the Household of Faith, but the mace of enlightened public opinion. This is not to say, however, that the Church as an organization— for which organization would it be?—is suddenly to be exalted as the universally accepted and authorita- tive exponent of the truth. It is indeed the very opposite that we see transpiring on the frontiers of our present social unrest, in Russia and in Germany; but, notwithstanding whatever lions’ dens (Dan. VI) the passing night may bring, the true Church, an organism that has always found expression more or less adequate in many and various organizations throughout Christendom, is going to manifest itself more and more potently as the agent of the Captain of our Salvation; and ‘‘ The Church in action,’’ cooperat- ing with the Providence of God and writing the Eighteenth Amendment into the constitution of the 280 THE INTERPRETATION United States of America, is no uncertain augury of a divine Presence and leadership that will not only banish the serpent of the wine-cup, but will also bind the Old Serpent himself and cast him into the abyss, that will do away with all conditions that work in- justice, betray virtue, mar happiness, and hide heaven. It is indeed a New Dispensation that is coming. Hitherto, as has been said, God has been long- suffering toward evil; but now conditions are changed. The long season of growth is ending and the time of harvest is beginning; and first of all the tares are to be gathered out, evil is to be eliminated and segregated in the abyss, that the peaceable fruits of righteousness may be conserved in their purity—and that the meek may inherit the Earth. The conditions of society during the first years of the reign of Christ and his Church are doubtless well described by the poet who et . . . dipped into the future far as human eye could see, Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonders that would be”’; and who tells us that then ce . . . Lhe common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapped in universal law.” The coming age will indeed be characterized by law and order; but its law will be, in intention at least, the Law of Love, and less and less will it have to be enforced upon “‘a fretful realm’ as a law written on tables of stone, for it will be written more and more convincingly on the tablets of the heart, until finally it shall be on Earth altogether what it is in Heaven, a self-enforcing law, “‘the perfect law, the Law of Liberty.” There are still, however, to be both hills and valleys THE PROMISED PRESENCE 281 in the onward and upward march of humanity; evil is not to disappear as by magic. It is to be over- come, put down, circumscribed, hedged in, until it is only a smouldering fire; but the word of prophecy, which dips into the future far beyond the power of the human eye to see, tells us that, by the return of the old incorrigibles of earth-life through the con- tinual opening of new doorways into the unseen realms, the smouldering fire will be fanned into a roaring and seemingly all-devouring conflagration— a self-consuming conflagration that will quickly burn itself out. Having passed final judgment upon them- selves, the hosts of Gog and Magog, like the Legion of Gadara, will be seen no more. The radical nature of the change that is to be wrought in the New Dispensation is dramatically pictured in the Apocalypse of Zephaniah by the literal reversal of the Proclamation of the Voice of the Day of Jehovah and of the whole oracle in which it is framed. This reversal is not representative, however, of any alteration in God’s plans or purposes. He has been trying no experiments that were fore- doomed to failure; and if there is now to be a change of programme, it is not because of a change in the divine attitude, but simply in response to new con- ditions—new conditions that are themselves the re- sult, not of some new departure, but of the orderly out-working of God’s original plan of the ages, which both obeys and utilizes the laws of development, of seed-time and harvest. The coming of “the King of the Ages’’ awaits a certain necessary degree of readiness to receive him; and while this condition is to follow the revolution wrought in the last Great Day of Jehovah, it will nevertheless be the result of the 282 THE INTERPRETATION preceding centuries of the preaching of the Gospel, and of the concomitant moral, intellectual and material advancement that, notwithstanding all its fearful faults, notably characterizes the Christendom of to- day in comparison with all the other regions and ages of the race. The fruit may not appear upon the tree until this season’s sun has crossed the line; but it comes, nevertheless, from the planting and culture of the years gone by. The New Dispensation is ushered in by the sweeping revolution of the Last Great Day of Jehovah, but it is not for this reason any the lessa product of evolution. The controversies concerning the Second Advent in which some emphasize those teachings of our Lord and his apostles that give warning of the great cataclysm of the Day that cometh as a thief in the night, while others magnify, to the exclusion of all else, the parables of the growth of the kingdom, arise largely from a misunderstanding of the relation between Evolution and Revolution. The idea that there is a necessary conflict between them is a heritage from the inchoate notion of Evolution as proceeding by Infinitesimal Variations and Natural Selection that gained currency in the times of its great pro- tagonists and has not yet been superseded as the normative principle of modern thought by the more mature conception of a “Creative Evolution.’’* The Doctrine of Evolution is still evolving; but some of its features, thanks to the labors of such men as Lamarck, the Darwins, Huxley, Spencer, Mendel, DeVries, Bergson, may be regarded as now-assuredly * This term is used here in acknowledgment of a great debt to Henri Bergson; but it is not intended to imply by any means a wholesale acceptance of his philosophy as the final expression of the truth. THE PROMISED PRESENCE 283 fixed; and first and most essential among them, and almost all-sufficient as a confirmation of the tradi- tional faith and instinctive hope of the race, is the fact of Mutation, which implies a spiritual foundation for all life, makes room for the plastic hand and the brooding Spirit of a Divine Creator, and posits a Creative Evolution that works by the slow and constant accretion of unseen impulses and tendencies but manifests itself in sudden leaps, or “‘mutations.”’ In the history of the individual—not to speak of the wonderful story retold in his prenatal develop- ment—the true doctrine is exemplified by the growth that in all things but mere size manifests itself in distinct and characteristic periods, childhood, adoles- cence, maturity, defined by seasons of stress and realignment in accommodation to the new require- ments. In the life of the race, new eras are marked by the advent of great and constructive personalities, the children, on the one hand, of the mute and seem- ingly inglorious generations that have preceded them, and on the other of the Spirit of God, that brooding over the deep still breathes the breath of a higher life into the nostrils of each “new creature’”’ of the plastic WORD. Their way is prepared by the destructive instrumentality of crises, such as the Reformation, the French Revolution, the Great War— the Day of Jehovah in all its applications—which have their hidden causes in the clash of spiritual forces. The growing ideals, the pent-up aspirations, and the finally irrepressible enthusiasms aroused in the heart of humanity by the persistent proclamation of the truth to seemingly unresponsive but sub- consciously listening ears, at last break through the barriers of inertia to battle for the mastery of the 284. THE INTERPRETATION world with the antagonistic passions and sinister purposes nourished by Perversity. For it is of the nature of evil as well as of good to grow to its maturity —to grow in ugliness and in brazen aggressiveness, until none can mistake its character or find neutral ground on which to escape its challenge, and until in its utter insanity no scheme of exploitation is too mad for it to undertake, and no consideration of prudence can restrain it from dashing itself to destruc- tion upon the buckler of the Mighty One, who is in the forefront of every battle for righteousness. The Day of Jehovah with its many applications is therefore the prophetic view of the revolutionary phase of the evolution of Society. It finds Jehovah actively interested in every crisis of human history; and in its final application, it is the liberating cata- clysm that allows the accumulated spiritual in- fluences of the centuries of Christian growth to leap into self-expression in a new era that will be as dif- ferent from the preceding age as is the adolescent life of the individual from his child life—but just as continuous with it. Adolescence is however only the prelude to maturity. Puberty is indeed the grand change, the physical Second Birth of the individual; but the full perfection of manhood, with its developed personality and fixed character, is not attained until the less pro- nounced but no less real change that ushers in ma- turity. The suggestion made by this analogy, which is in line with the conclusions to which we have already come in our study of Zephaniah, is confirmed by the direct and specific testimony of St. John, who tells us that the complete overthrow of evil and the establishment of righteousness on the Earth is not THE PROMISED PRESENCE 285 to be the magic work of a day or a year even after the Second Advent, but must still be obedient to the laws of human development, whose necessary element of time is represented apocalyptically as a thousand years—tfor this is the teaching, exceedingly reasonable, of the much abused Twentieth chapter of the Book of Revelation, to which, as we have seen, a parallel is found among the word-pictures of the Little Book of the Great Name. Born from above, the Divine in humanity, conceived as an ideal when the First Adam emerged into the dignity of manhood, and threatened with forfeiture when he listened to the tempter, became a glorious reality with the Advent of the Son of God as the Babe of Bethlehem. ‘‘What a tender little shoot is our Brother,’’ Mah Netser’ Ach, nixjosy3 [n]», is the way the Chosen Utterance calls attention to the small beginning of the New Hu- manity; but the Little Shoot has become a Great Tree, the life of the Son of God and the Son of Man, the Spirit-endued life of the race of the Second Adam, has been multiplying during the Christian centuries; and the Church, the body of Christ, has been growing ‘“‘in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.” It is still in its childhood, however (Eph. 4: 3 ff., I. John 3: 2), and adolescence can come only with a fuller endowment of the divine nature in all its members, with the potent Presence of our glorified Elder Brother, the Second Advent of the WORD OF GOD, for which the centuries of growth have been a preparation, an Advent whose perfect consummation must wait the maturity that will crown ‘‘a thousand years’’ of further development. Such a transition period as the millennium, which begins with the Great Revolution that greets the 286 THE INTERPRETATION coming of the rightful but dispossessed Sovereign of humanity and ends with its final reverberation in the futile rebellion of “Og and Magog,” is therefore in accordance with the philosophy of history underlying the prophecies of the Day of Jehovah, is in harmony with the Theory of Evolution as it is now understood, and is demanded as the complement of the Doctrine of the Growth of the Kingdom as interpreted according to the analogy of the Body of Christ. Concerning the ‘‘Cloud of Witnesses’”’ that even now compass us about in expectation (Heb. 12: 1), and that are hereafter to be restored to actual con- tact with the life of Earth and exercise an ever more and more effective influence upon the course of events, the New Book of Zephaniah is silent, save for the implications of the glad hope that radiates from the primary meaning of its master-word, Minne Tseriach, myo0, “From the Grave,” the prophetic place-name of the “ Nazarene,” the Captain of our Salvation, the Joshua of the New Covenant, and the “‘first-fruits’”’ of the Resurrection. It is evident, however, that their ‘‘ Presence’’ must be of the same nature as that of the Captain himself. They will be with him “in the air’’ at first and will be openly manifested only in accordance with whatever laws of development are involved—and in this connection, we remember the declaration of the apostle with regard to the resurrec- tion body: “It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power; it is sown a psychic body; it is raised a spiritual body” (I. Cor. 15: 43-44). In other words, it is sown a body that in its weakness was yet adequate to the needs of the earth-born psyche in its terrestrial relationships; but it will be raised a body possessed of powers that will even be sufficient for the require- ments of the heaven-born spirit. That this body of THE PROMISED PRESENCE 287 the spirit will also be able to function on the lower physical plane when and as occasion requires was exemplified in the manifestations of the Savior himself during the forty days between his resurrection and his ascension (Luke 24: 38-43; John 20: 24-28). We may conclude, therefore, that in the coming age there will be a progressive lifting—as we and they are able to bear it and profit by it—of the veil that hangs between this world and the world as yet unseen; and that there will also be a progressive and mutual assimilation between the two worlds, so that we shall be able to cross the Jordan dry-shod when we have completed the lessons of Earth; and they, and all of us, shall be able to resume at the proper time what- ever Earthly task and development it may be needful to complete, under the auspicious conditions of that Better Day. That the resurrection of the just will not be simply for the sake of their influence upon the life of Earth but also, and primarily, in view of the reaction upon them of contact with Earthly conditions as they ought to be, is the evident thought of the apostle who wrote concerning the ancient worthies: ‘These all, having witness born to them through their faith, received not the promise, God having provided some better thing concerning us that apart from us they should not be made perfect’’ (Heb. 11: 39-40). All are to be perfected together—and certainly it is not unreasonable to assume that death itself works no constructive change in the minds and characters of men, and that interaction with terrestrial conditions through a corporeal medium provides the one proper curriculum for the development of human nature in the rudimentary stages from which none of the saints of Earth has as yet attained promotion. Few have 288 THE INTERPRETATION lived out the full period required for the ripening of character, and none has lived under conditions that were ideal for the nurture of Spiritual gifts and graces, while it has been the lot of the overwhelming majority of mankind to toil in the slow upbuilding of the substructure of*society down in the abysmal darkness of barbarism—and worse. It is reasonable, therefore, to expect that all mankind of every age and condition and degree and quality will share in the opportunity afforded by the Resurrection, an opportunity for complete development and _ un- hampered self-expression in some as yet undefined and at present incomprehensible but none the less real and adequate relation to the superstructure of the grand edifice they themselves have helped to build; and that, when humanity is sufficiently mature and its moral security can no longer be endangered, even the positively wicked, the utterly perverse, will also come forth from the grave to receive their equal opportunity (Rev. 20: 5, 7)—and their own appro- priate heritage (Rev. 20: 8-15). “With what manner of body”’ the unspiritual shall come forth has not been declared; but we may readily conclude that the progressively multiplied puissance of the Second Advent Presence will finally enable every member of the race to recover self- expression in whatever manner may in the providence of God be feasible and at the same time most congenial, such as are “‘of the earth earthy’’ both by necessity and by choice only on the physical planes of earth-life —from which, however, they will inevitably and speedily and finally eliminate themselves. For the Law of Sin and Death can never be abrogated, while its penalty will no longer be stayed by the Great Salvation. Indeed the Word informs us, as we have THE PROMISED PRESENCE 289 just noted, that under the banner of some Caesar redivivus they will rush to destruction ez masse, doubtless, in their blind fury against the then estab- lished order, evoking gigantic forces of ruin that once in motion no hand can stay—a nemesis from which they themselves will not be able to escape, but from whose purifying fires the spiritual hosts of the re- deemed will emerge unscathed, to organize ‘‘a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteous- ness’’ (2 Peter 3: IO-I3). The coming age is therefore to be, on the one hand, the Last Day of the old order of mingled good and evil, the Judgment Day in which the Chores, ‘‘the Judge who renders a strict decision,’ will cause a self-revelation and a spontaneous realignment of the moral and spiritual forces of Earth-life that will make impossible any further compromise between them; a Judgment Day that will begin with the destruction of the unrighteous institutions and conditions of Earth-life, and that must end in the ultimate defeat and elimination of all incorrigibly evil personalities as well—that will indeed bring about the complete countervailance of the devolution of which the Serpent is the example and symbol. It is to be on the other hand an earnest of the glorious Consumma- tion, when humanity shall resume its rightful place in the onward and upward march of creation—and this is the work of the Mighty One as the Christ, “the Anointed One,”’ the Millennial King, who will finally “deliver up the kingdom to God even the Father”’ with all his earth-born children—all whom Love’s self-sacrifice could win—brought back to loyal alle- giance to his throne and restored to their exalted station in his royal household, ‘heirs of God, even joint heirs with Jesus Christ our Elder Brother.”’ XVI CONCERNING ZION—A SIGN OF THE TIMES own people; and for Israel, as we have seen, both of the Messianic proclamations of the Voice of the Day of Jehovah are peculiarly and momentously significant—and so is the glowing prophecy that begins with the ninth verse of the third chapter of the book. For many generations, with regard to the central factor of their world- mission they have ‘‘ walked contrary unto’’ God; and accordingly—and of necessity for the accomplishment of his purposes—he has ‘‘walked contrary unto” them and dispersed them among the nations during the Seven Times of the covenant threatenings (Lev. 26: 14 ff.); but now they are to ‘‘take refuge in the name of Jehovah” (III. 12), the name that is heralded in the third proclamation of the voice, the reverse of Min- Naiserach that identifies the ‘“‘ Nazarene’’ they have rejected with the Messiah for whom they have been longing—only now their Messiah has become the Christ of Spiritual Israel in whom there is neither Jew nor Gentile; and the narrow boundaries of the national hope that in the olden days saw visions of the Son of David ruling the world from the throne of his father in Jerusalem are merged in the broader horizon of a grander Zionism that rejoices in the all- embracing Kingdom of the Truth, which in the providence of God has come into human life through Israel. / \HE message of Zephaniah was first of all to his 290 CONCERNING ZION 291 The lesser Zionism is however by no means to be discounted. Properly interpreted, it becomes the type and token of the final restoration of Spiritual Israel; and it is self-evident that the peculiar mission of the Jews as a people is not yet ended. Their marvelous preservation in an unexampled exile while all the nations and tribes by whom they were anciently surrounded have lost their identity in the “melting pot’’ is presumptive evidence to that effect; and however dark their pictures of threatened visitations of divine wrath may be, the oracles of the prophets without exception—as noted by the Masoretic ppn'— close with visions of a final and glorious and literal restoration to the Land of Promise. With this hope agrees also the implications of our Lord’s prediction that Jerusalem should be trodden down of the gentiles until the times of the gentiles should be fulfilled (Luke 21: 24); and these implications are reechoed in the declaration of the Apostle Paul “that a hardening in part hath befallen Israel, until the fullness of the gentiles be come in’’ (Rom. I1: 25). The threatenings contained in the sanctions of the Mosaic Covenant (Lev. 26 and Deut. 30 ff.), which were only partially fulfilled in the Babylonian Cap- tivity, have been universally recognized as circum- stantial pictures of the present condition of Israel; and Moses, like the later prophets, concludes with a prediction of ultimate restoration in confirmation of the covenants with the patriarchs and in fulfilment of the definite promise to Abraham: “For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it and to thy seed forever’’ (Gen. 13: 15). This restoration is indeed conditioned upon obedience; but St. Paul gives us the comfortable assurance of Israel’s final reconciliation 292 THE INTERPRETATION (Rom. 11:25, 26). The fulfilment of the threatenings being literal to the very jot and tittle, it follows that the fulfilment of the promises must be literal also. The Return after the Babylonian Captivity was a literal but incomplete and anticipative fulfilment of the predictions of the prophets, even as the Captivity itself was but the typical first period of the times of visitation that are not yet complete. This is clearly indicated in the ninth chapter of Daniel, and that this was indeed the thought of the Post-exilic Jews them- selves is evident from Tobit 14: 5-7. And how shall we interpret the Eleventh of Isaiah—whatever its expression, “the second time,’ may refer to—if it does not include the final restoration of Israel in the Golden Age of the Messiah? Against these declarations and implications, it is vain to urge the seeming incongruity of such pictures as that which is painted in the last chapters of Ezekiel; for with regard to all the prophecies that seem to involve the restoration of the ancient temple service with its obsolete sacrifices it is sufficient to point out that in passages of multiple application we may expect to find terms that are to be construed literally in one application and metaphorically in another. The sacrifices mentioned or implied in some of these prophecies apply in their literal sense to the Return from Babylon; and are to be interpreted in their application to the final Restoration, according to the analogy offered in Rom. 12: 1, Heb. 13: 15, and I. Peter 2: 5-9, as referring to the “royal priesthood ” who are ‘‘to offer up spiritual sacrifices.”” Among the Jews themselves there are not lacking authorities who agree with this interpretation. Fairbairn* quotes * Typology, Vol. III., p. 268 note. CONCERNING ZION 293 as follows from Schoetgen’s Hor. Heb. et Tal., I1., p. 612, “In the times of the Messiah all sacrifices will cease, but the sacrifices of praise will not cease.” Edersheim* gives many citations, even from the Talmud, to the same effect. It must be remembered furthermore that these prophecies have their application to Spiritual Israel only in as much as Israel according to the flesh is a type of the Church of Christ. Their fulfilment as regards the antitype is therefore out of the question save as it is also foretokened by a fulfilment in the type. Jewry under the oppressive dominance of the gentile world-powers, which began with the Baby- lonian Captivity and is to continue to the end of the “Times of the Gentiles,’”’ is a type of Christendom in bondage for “a Time, Times and the Dividing of a Time” to Babylon the Great; and the restoration of Jerusalem the Earthly City of the Ancient People of God will therefore be a harbinger of the restoration of Spiritual Israel, the whole Church, to the liberty of the sons of God, and of the revelation of the New Jerusalem, the Spiritual City of God. But however dubious it may once have seemed to be, the application of the prophecies on which the Zionists base their hopes is now definitely settled by the unequivocal declaration of the New Book of Zeph- aniah; for it is in immediate connection with the Third Proclamation of the Voice of the Day of Jehovah, which heralds the coming of the Conquering Christ, that it is written, ‘‘From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia my suppliants, even the daughter of my dispersed, shall they bring as mine offering’’ (III. 10); * Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, Appendix XIV. 294 THE INTERPRETATION and ‘‘at that time will I bring you in and at that time will I gather you... when I bring back your captivity before your eyes’’ (III. 20). Furthermore Jerusalem has already been delivered from the Moslem, and is held as a mandatory by the great Christian Commonwealth of Britain, with the avowed purpose of inviting the return of the homeless and wandering Jew. “Sing therefore, O daughter of Zion, shout O Israel; be glad and rejoice with all thy heart, O daughter of Jerusalem. Jehovah hath taken away thy judgments, he hath cast out thine enemy ’’ (III. 14, 15). As in the return after the Babylonian Captivity, most of the rich and prosperous will doubtless feel bound by their commercial and financial interests to the lands of their adoption; but from the lands still cursed by memories of the ghetto and from the land of the pale and the pogrom, the ‘‘afflicted and poor’”’ are already looking hopefully toward the Promised Land, and Zionists all over the world are eagerly concerting practical measures to bring to a glad realization the long-deferred but never forgotten hope of their fathers. Even from the favored land “beyond the rivers of Ethiopia’’ that has become the peaceful refuge—almost the Second Canaan—of at least a quarter of the people of the Ancient Covenant there will be sent without any doubt, as an offering of the incense (III. 1ny) of devotion, an abundant (II. .nv) company of the true worshippers (I. ny) of Jehovah (III. 10). Just what the peculiar mission of the Jew is to be is not set forth in the pages of Zephaniah or of any other prophet; but ‘‘At that time,” saith Jehovah, “T will make you a name and a praise among all the CONCERNING ZION 295 peoples of the Earth”’ (III. 20). There is no sugges- tion, however, of a literal Messianic Jewish world- empire—and where is the Jew who would wish for it now? Indeed the confutation of this notion is more than suggested; “for then,’’ saith Jehovah, “I will take away out of the midst of thee them that exult in thy majesty, and thou shalt no more be haughty in my holy mountain. But I will leave in the midst of thee an afflicted and poor people and they shall take refuge in the name of Jehovah” (III. II-I2). It needs no prophetic vision, however, to see clearly that Providence has disciplined the children of Abraham according to the flesh with some special purpose in view, and that it must be in accordance with this purpose that he has scattered them broad- cast over all the world, but more especially throughout Christendom. Jewry and Christendom are indeed as geographical terms practically synonymous—so fully so that there is hardly a hamlet inhabited by Christians that has not also its quota of Jews. The sons of Jacob are primarily oriental, and their condition has been on the whole far more tolerable in Eastern heathendom and under the Crescent than in the West and under the Cross—for since Constantine and Justinian the Cross has been the emblem of the intolerant Imperialism that has usurped dominion over most of the Church and sought through the Church to conquer and exploit the whole realm of human life without a rival, and that has accordingly persecuted the Jews as it has the martyrs of Jesus— and yet there are little more than half a million of them in Moslem lands and not more than half that number in the heathen world; so that the vast bulk 296 THE INTERPRETATION of the eleven or twelve millions of Jews are to be found in Europe and America.* This providential relationship between Christendom and Jewry, with its deep prophetic import, is reflected in the relationship between the mystic symbols of Christianity and Judaism; for the only purely Chris- tian representation of the Cross, the monogram of Jesus Christ and the Ichthus token of the early Church, Iota-Chi, *, the equivalent of the Hebrew Nidan, the Sign of the Seed of the Woman, presents exactly the structural lines that form the heraldic “‘ordinary,”’ the true armorial bearing, the distinctive charge, of the Magen-David, ‘‘the Shield of David,” *, which is the symbol of Judaism, a symbol that, like the Ichthus token of the Church of Christ, originated in the early centuries of the Christian Era, and that has now been formally adopted as the official emblem of the Zionists—and this is as it should be, for its Messianic promise was the glory of the House of David. Written together the two emblems become %t—a token of the final restoration of Israel and of the triumphant return of the Nazarene as the Lord’s Anointed, when at last “‘his own,” rejecting him no longer, shall join in the glad acclaim, ‘‘Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” Let us note in passing that here at last is absolved the promise that the Seal of the Living God would be found to suggest the characteristic and distinctive human relationships as well as the divine patronymic of him who is the Son of God and the Son of Man— the Seed of the Woman (the Son of Mary), and the Son of David. “Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Ed., Vol. XV., p. 410, Sec. 58. CONCERNING ZION 297 Right royal, in the revised and truly Christian sense of the term, will be the world-function of the children of Abraham according to the flesh, when they are restored to the Promised Land and to the spirit- ual household of the Father of the Faithful; for it is written, ‘Behold, at that time ... I will make them a praise and a name, whose shame hath been in all the Earth’’ (Zeph. 3: 20). Oriental in heredity and occidental in training, and seated in the Holy Land, the historic center of humanity’s deepest and loftiest interests and the strategic meeting-place of the East and the West, the cross-roads of the three continents of the preponderant hemisphere, and at the same time in closest touch through the great body of its un- repatriated diaspora with the whole periphery of world- conquering Christian Civilization, preeminent indeed will be Israel’s opportunity for service to God and humanity, to Christ and his Church, in the new era that all the signs of the times and all the voices of Prophecy are heralding in an ever-swelling chorus of jubilant expectation. Jerusalem, which in its present squalor only too faithfully mirrors the spiritual life of today, will doubtless become in its restoration a not altogether unworthy symbol and harbinger of the new City of Peace that St. John saw in his vision coming down from God out of heaven (Rev. 21); and as the wandering Jew, an exile and a stranger everywhere present in Christendom, has been a perpetual monument and witness to the reality of the First Advent in his very rejection of it, so his return to the Land of Promise will be a visible token of the promised Return of the Savior, a proof of the potent Presence of “the King, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God’’—to whom “‘be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.” 298 THE INTERPRETATION Jesus himself, in the memorable *‘ Prophecy on the Mountain’’ reported by all the synoptists (Matt. 24 ff.; Mark 13; Luke 21: 5-36)—though none of them heard it directly—pointed to the final judgment upon Jerusalem as one of.the principal landmarks in the | progress of time toward the Last Day and his promised Parousia. The conversation on this occasion origi- nated indeed in the Savior’s prediction of the utter destruction of Herod’s temple and his lament over Jerusalem, ‘‘O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killeth the prophets, and stoneth them that are sent unto her! How often would I have gathered thy children to- gether even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord” (Matt. 23: 37-39). His disciples therefore asked him, “Teacher, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign when these things are about to be accomplished? ”’ St. Matthew adds also the question, ‘What shall be the sign of thy coming and of the end of the world?” Evidently to these patriotic Jews Jerusalem, and not Rome, was the “Eternal City ’’; and they were right, but they did not yet foresee the full measure of the Jewish rejection of their Messiah and the retribution it would entail. As we see now, however, the Roman Exile, like the Babylonian Captivity, is an application of the prophecies of the Day of Jehovah, an exempli- fication of the Presence of the Mighty One, and a type and token of the last great Day that is to destroy the apostasy of Spiritual Israel and mark the end of the age. The discussion of one theme inevitably led therefore to a consideration of the other and blended with it; but that Jesus discriminated between the two CONCERNING ZION 299 shines out clearly even in the second-hand and largely uncomprehended summaries of the conversation given us by the evangelists. It is evidently in answer to their primary inquiry as to when the destruction of Jerusalem is to take place that he tells his disciples, “This generation shall not pass away till all these things be accomplished’”’ (Matt. 24: 34; Luke 21: 32. Cf. also Matt. 23: 36); while it is in reply to their question concerning the end of the world that he says further, ‘But of that day and hour knoweth no one, not even the angels of heaven, neither the Son, but inet athen only (i) (vlatt..\ 24:3) 265 Mark 1332), Reading the record now, we see that this visitation of wrath upon Jerusalem, eighteen centuries and a half long, as it has become, does indeed blend into the end of the age, and that its conclusion must therefore be an exceedingly significant sign of the times, and an immediate token of the Parousia. This truth appears most unmistakably in the account written by the exact and systematic hand of St. Luke; for according to this account Jesus tells us concerning the future of Jerusalem, ‘‘But when ye see Jerusalem compassed with armies then know that her desolation is at hand. ... And they shall fall by the sword, and shall be led captive into all the nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled’? (Luke 21: 20-24). And then, immediately following this assumption of the final restoration of the city, he gives us the specific sign of the end itself, closing with the familiar picture of the theophany in the clouds of heaven and the assurance, ‘‘But when these things begin to come to pass, look up, and lift up your heads; because your re- demption draweth nigh”’ (Luke 21: 28). The capture of Jerusalem by General Sir Edmund 300 THE INTERPRETATION Allenby was therefore an event of no mere passing interest; and it is notable that it was regarded by the Arabic speaking peoples of Palestine, even by the Moslems of that region, as ‘“God-inspired.’”?’ They saw in it and in him, in his methods and in his very name, the fulfilment of a prophecy, current among them for many generations, that he who should re- store Jerusalem to its ancient glory would enter the city on foot—as Allenby did—and that his name would signify, ‘‘God inspires,’”’? which is in Arabic ’Allah- nabi.* Construed in Hebrew, however, this name becomes ’Alé-nabi, sams, ‘Against the Prophet”; and that the work of General Allenby was indeed ordained of God for the overthrow of the False Prophet of Islam, who through his Calif, the Sultan, was the last of the line of oppressors by whom Jeru- salem was to be trodden down, and that accordingly it heralds the end of the Times of the Gentiles and the beginning of the new era under the leadership of the true Israel of God is suggested by all the circum- stances of this unprecedented day, which correspond so circumstantially with the Scriptural prophecies that the consensus of the ages has applied to the time of the end; and it is confirmed by the fact that here converge all the time predictions marked by the mystic labels of the Seven Times, its half and its variations. For the Great War burst upon an astonished world in the 2520th yeart from the beginning of the dominance of Babylon, and the recovery of the Holy City took place at the end of Seven Times after its first subjection by Nebuchadnezzar; while the expedition of such blessed promise to the lovers of Zion set forth, in accordance with the beatitude that closes the Book of Daniel, in the 1335th year of the Hegeira. * See Literary Digest History of the Great War, Vol. X., p. 91. f See Part II., Chap. VI., first three footnotes. XVIT TO THE CHURCH—A SUMMONS EPHANIAH ben Cushi, the man of dark coun- oy, tenance, who for so many centuries has been the silent treasurer of the hidden purposes of God, has always been recognized as above all others the herald of the Day of Wrath. The burden of his prophecy to his contemporaries was contained in the Obverse of his Great Oracle, ‘“The Great Day of Jehovah is near, it is near and hasteneth greatly’’; and the burden of his apocalypse, the message hidden and preserved for the Last Day and only just re- covered, the warning appropriately and significantly found in the Reverse of the same Oracle, is even more insistent, for it announces that “‘the Day is at hand” — Havah Yom—and who will deny that the condi- tions in the midst of which this long reserved message is now at last made known are entirely worthy of the interpretation given them by the Voice of the Day? For it heralds the final PRESENCE of him who was first made known as the Mighty to Save and the Mighty Avenger, who afterwards came as the lowly Nazarene, bringing at such great cost to himself the life of God into the dying body of humanity, and who, having at last fully reanimated such as have already actually received him with the power of that endless life, is now coming again, according to his promise, accompanied by the first fruits of his Great Salvation, the resurrected hosts of the Church of the First-born, as the glorified Son of Man, the WORD 301 302 THE INTERPRETATION OF GOD, the Christ and the Judge inexorable, to gather into the restored body of humanity—his own greater body, the Church—all who have potentially received him from the whole of the race of all ages, and to deliver that body from the gangrene of the essentially perverse, the incorrigibly evil. It is there- fore the Day of Jehovah in its final application that its Voice now heralds, the morning of the Last Great Day—and world conditions would suggest that it is indeed the hour before the dawn, for the fearful visitations from which we have not yet altogether emerged have corresponded as never did scenes on earth before and as men hope and pray that they never may again, with the prophet’s picture of the final Armageddon. The whole introductory section of the prophecy is devoted to this dark picture, but its specific announce- ment is found in the verse immediately preceding the Index of the Second Advent. This verse follows the prophet’s vision of Jerusalem’s supreme apostasy, her rejection of the Messiah, and foreshadows the retribution that has now been visited upon her, the weary waiting until the completion of the last age- long exile of the Times of the Gentiles; and then it pictures the final assize in which Jerusalem’s punish- ment is ended and the nations of all the Earth are brought to an accounting. Jehovah says here to his rebellious people: ‘Therefore wait ye for me, until the day that I rise up to the prey ’’—or, as the Septua- gint renders it, “‘until the day that I rise up to testify” (that it is enough, that correction has been accom- plished)—“‘for my determination is to gather the nations that I may assemble the Kingdoms, to pour out upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce TO THE CHURCH 303 anger; for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my zeal”’ (III. 8). The world has now taken stock of the Great War, its attendant horrors, its ruinous cost in blood and treasure, and its utter futility as an arbitrament of the questions at issue among the snarling nations of the earth; and more in terror than in hope the peoples have made a slogan of the words of the chief spokes- man of Democracy, ‘‘It must not be again.’”’ Lower- ing and insistent and gigantic and growing, like a pall over the oncoming future, looms the black shadow of the conviction that if indeed it should be again, its wholesale and unspeakable horrors and its irre- trievable ruin upon ruin would be heaped up far beyond comparison with even the so-called Great War’s unprecedented holocausts—and in the back- ground of the picture leer the sinister figures of Red Russia and a restless Islam. The omens would in truth suggest the Day of Wrath even as Thomas of Celano conceived it—the Day of Doom—and verily the only hope for humanity would seem to be in the promise that the Mighty One will speedily intervene to ‘shorten the days’’* and cause evil to work out its devolution in such a way as not to involve the whole social fabric, nay the very life of the race, in its self- immolation—before it can complete its mastery, for instance, of the lethal gases that chemistry has already incontinently placed at its disposal, or before it can lay its hands upon the titanic resources of subatomic energy that will doubtless be ours tomorrow. The full significance of the Great War is not to be seen, however, in its magnitude, stupendous as it was, nor in its own direct results, vast and of tremendous * Matt. 24: 22; Mark 13: 20. 304 THE INTERPRETATION import though they must be, nor yet alone in the dark forebodings it arouses and the dire moral needs they reveal, but rather in the mighty movement in the deeps of humanity of which, like tidal waves on the shore, its storm and stress were a demonstration; for it followed hard upon cataclysms even more momen- tous though far less spectacular, unprecedented revolutions in those realms of thought and action that are determinative of both material and spiritual values, revolutions that have not yet resulted in final realignments; and it is being followed by in- dustrial and social upheavals whose end is beyond conjecture. Of a truth, therefore, the world is now at the most critical period of its history. Now if ever must come the Mighty One who shall deliver humanity from the mad obsession that is making a last desperate effort to rush it over the precipice of destruction—whither, indeed, its swine must go. It is evident that our civilization, whose treasures, in process of accumula- tion for so many centuries in the keeping of the sons of Japheth, are at last to be shared with the peoples of all the earth, the civilization that is called and that ought to be Christian—and that is going to be made what it ought to be—has been put into the melting pot, the only way indeed to make it fit for its high destiny as the final and universal culture, to purge it of the worse than cumbering institutions, the corrod- ing customs and the deceptive ideals, the mass of counterfeit, that would seem almost to have become of its very nature. It must be acknowledged, how- ever, that from such a crucible it were not at all un- natural that there should come forth, instead of the Desire of the Nations, the veritable brazen Molech TO THE CHURCH 305 of whose potential presence in our civilization there are sO many indications and against which, by the voice of Mahatma Ghandi, even the devotees of Juggernaut and Siva rightfully protest. The need is, and the promise of the Word is, that when the mixture reaches the nascent state, the PRESENCE of the divine Catalyst, the Glorified Son of Man, manifest in a new evangelism, the work of the Church, a Church that is to the veritable and multiplied re- incarnation of the WORD OF GOD, shall effect a transmutation of the base elements of Earth into the lovingkindness of the Kingdom of Heaven, whose pure gold, all-abounding, so the Vision of St. John assures us, shall even pave the streets of the city of the New Humanity, the New City of Peace coming down out of heaven from God. The Apocalyptic Chorus (III. 9) that prepares the way for the Second Advent proclamation of the Voice of the Day of Jehovah joins with the Voice and the Rubric of its Oracle to hail a reversal of the old order in Christendom for the purpose of a world-wide heralding, immediate and effective, of the glad tidings revealed in the Great Name; and the fact that this Great Name is at the same time the symbol of the Church assures us that the Glad Tidings is to be made known through the Church. The same Apocalyptic Chorus foretells the favorable auspices under which the Church is now to complete its Great Commission, the receptive attitude of the peoples—‘‘with one accord ’’—and the unimpeded intercommunication be- tween the nations—as if, in fact, they were all of one language and dwelt in one community again as in the picture of the days before the curse that is coter- minous with Babylon and her line—new world- 306 THE INTERPRETATION conditions altogether favorable to the new evangelism. And behold how all things have been working to- gether for the fulfilment of these predictions. The progress of science, discovery and invention has enabled us to over-ride all the physical barriers that “interposed make enemies of nations’’; the intellectual and spiritual walls of partition are crumbling; and the culture of Christendom, purged of some of its faults and perversities by the Great War and cleansed from every other unrighteousness by whatever tribula- tions it may be necessary to visit upon it still, is indeed going to go forth from little Europe and its colonies to possess every corner of the Earth; and the Church, the living and informing soul within it, is beginning to realize that this is in truth its divine call to resume the long suspended execution of its Great Commission. For centuries the work of the Church was practically confined to Europe, her refuge in the wilderness for a thousand two hundred and sixty days (Rev. I2: 6, 14). Save for the two witnesses, who were to prophesy for the same mystic period (Rev. 11: 3), Christianity had been altogether driven out of Asia and Africa by the seventh decade of seventh century of the Christian Era; and not only were the doors of opportunity tightly closed, but missionary zeal itself seemed to have burned out entirely; or if it flamed up here and there, it was clearly “‘strange fire’’ and well deserved the ill success that soon extinguished it. The Church was in fact busy forging the tools and gathering the resources that it was to use in the Great Day that was coming—when the fields should be white unto harvest. A hundred years ago, however—following the Napoleonic Wars—there dawned a new era of World TO THE CHURCH 307 Missions; and since then, little by little, the Church has aroused to a fuller appreciation of her high calling, and at the same time the doors of opportunity have swung open of their own accord and she has entered one land after another, until at last there is hardly a people or a language that has not its own vernacular version of at least some portions of the Sacred Scrip- tures and its own native living epistles. And now, with this preliminary work accomplished, and the great opportunity, the crisis, at hand, behold, while we are still in the danger zone of that mighty leveler of obstructions, the Great War, the greatest in all his- tory—a war indeed whose most dramatic victory was won in the regions around Megiddo—all the divisions and brigades of the Church Militant are up in arms and making such plans and preparations as never would have been dreamed of even a decade ago, getting ready, in answer to the challenge of rampant anarchy in Christendom, to the invitation of uni- versal unrest in Heathendom, and to the threat of unwonted activity in Islam, to wage a second World War of even vaster import than the contest with carnal weapons just won for righteousness, a cam- paign for universal goodwill and brotherhood, to enthrone the Prince of Peace in the whole life of humanity, in its civic and international relations, in its industrial and commercial activities, in its social and religious ideals, and in the hearts of men every- where—for it is eternally true that the only firm foundation for social salvation is the salvation of the individual. The call is to an intensive campaign for personal and collective righteousness, to a heralding of the truth and an insistence upon its application to all the 308 THE INTERPRETATION practicalities of life, that will differ from our previous desultory conflicts with ignorance and evil as the recent trench warfare, frontier-covering and ceaseless, differed from the battles of even Czsar or Napoleon. It is indeed the final World-War of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords to which the Church is summoned. The need in this unprecedented crisis is, however, not only for a Church that by voice and vote in ceaseless, forceful and sympathetic propaganda shall champion the ethical consideration of every issue, big and little, everywhere, but for a Church also that shall exalt Christ Jesus unfailingly and bear consistent testimony to the power of the Great Salvation to enable humanity to solve all its problems in the light of the Law of Love, and that, by persevering fervent and confident prayer, shall open the doors and windows of human thought and feeling and motive more and more effectually to the free access of the Spirit of Truth and to the over-ruling governance of Divine Providence. But it is only too evident that the Church itself, the Church as a whole and to a greater or less degree in every one of its branches, needs to be purified and transformed and endued with a fuller measure of spiritual life before it will be either worthy or able— or indeed sufficiently devoted—to carry out the great task that confronts it. This is therefore the supreme need of the hour, and this need is as vivid in the visions of prophecy as it is in the scenes or to the consciousness of today. In fact this need is the great lesson enforced and reinforced both in the first and the last of the apocalypses—it is the primary objective of the Great Day of Jehovah. Of the Day of Jehovah, as we have observed, there are many applications; and the Great Day is the seven- TO THE CHURCH 309 fold campaign of judgments whose final and culminat- ing visitation at last brings correction. There have accordingly been many previous interventions of the Mighty One in behalf of the purity of his Church that, relatively to the times, can not be called ineffectual, but that were nevertheless only partial and prepara- tory. The Reformation—and with regard to its grosser manifestations the Counter-Reformation as well—did indeed erase much of the stain of Resh from the escutcheons of some parts of Christendom; but how incomplete and how superficial in many respects was the change wrought even by that mightiest move- ment of the Christian Centuries is only too self- evident. In many places the house of the Church was swept and garnished only to be left empty, a prey to the seven-fold evils that have so generally demoralized Protestantism and that finally made the resurrection of the Blond Beast possible even in the land of Luther. Self-interest, which is the cardinal principle of the World—or the exaltation of the Church as an end in itself, which is the dominant motive of Romanism—came back in the form of the narrow Sectarianism that has opened the door to Bigotry, Pride, Contention, Covetousness, Formalism, Heresy and Infidelity; and the last state of these Churches would be worse than the first, were it not for the great revivals that have swept through them and cleansed some of them and made them again such temples as in the condescension of his long-suffering could be accepted by the Spirit of Christ. Happily this great aberration that has afflicted Protestantism so long seems now to have run its course and to be giving place to a genuine desire for the return of Christian unity; and, whatever may be 310 THE INTERPRETATION the final verdict of time with regard to the Inter- church World Movement, there can be no doubt that its fallen petals, far from marking a disheartening failure, give no uncertain promise of the full fruition in due season of that significant desire. Indeed the unity of the Church just in proportion as it is purged of the arrogant and self-seeking spirit of the World, the spirit of ROME, and reinspired with the humble all- serving Spirit of the WorD oF GoD, is already hope- fully exemplified on all the Evangelical mission fields, and must go on toward perfection as the Churches become more and more fully imbued with the missionary zeal that is the unfailing token of spiritual life, must go on developing until the World shall see everywhere the good and pleasant and con- vincing revelation of a veritable Untias Fratrum; a unity, not according to the Medieval and peculiarly Roman ideal of conformity in one grand organization, * but according to the truly Christian ideal of ‘‘the unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace’’; a unity that will be the spontaneous expression of the full and free allegiance of the individual soul to its rightful Sovereign enthroned, neither at Rome nor at Jeru- salem, but in the heart; a unity that will be the out- ward evidence of an inward grace, a token of the Presence of the Master leading his Church—and through his Church leading the World, in all its relations, personal, political, international, economic, the whole social order—more and more fully into loyal and joyous obedience to the Law of Love. The time has not yet arrived, however, for self- congratulation, either on the part of the Church as a whole or on the part of any of its constituent organiza- * Cf. James Brice, The Holy Roman Empire, Chap. VII. TO THE CHURCH aan tions. Conditions glaringly patent call for humility, for heart-searching and repentance, on the part of each —lest its candle-stick be moved out of its place—for it is evident that everywhere Reformation and Counter-Reformation, the revivals of the past and the forward movements of recent decades, excellent as . their results have been in many ways, must now be complemented by the fires of the dross-consuming zeal by which the promised Presence of the ‘‘Christ”’ will manifest itself in his Church—or else they will be supplemented by the fearful conflagration of the zeal of the “Judge Inexorable”’ in the Great Day of his Coming (III. 8). All these minor crises of our progress out of the worse than barbarism of the Dark Ages, all these lesser exemplifications of the Day of Jehovah, have been but the growing pains of Christendom—which is the Church in the larger application of the outer meaning of the term. The crisis that now confronts us is climacteric. In the evolution of the race of the Second Adam, it ushers in the New Man in Christ Jesus—and in the devolution of the fallen race of the First Adam, it brings the full development of its heredity from the Father of Lies. It is the Day of Jehovah heralded in the final proclamation of the Voice, the Last Day, the Day that is to reveal and segregate all moral and spiritual entities according to their kind, to the right or to the left of the Judge, and leave them, each untrammeled by the restraints of its opposite, to the free out-working of their own inherent tendencies—those on the right to further development, to life in ever richer abundance, and those on the left to inevitable self-destruction. And first of all, the Church must be freed at any cost from | 312 THE INTERPRETATION the deadly incubus of the World—whose consummate incarnation is ROME. : Certain it is, therefore, that from the Church in all its members, Greek, Latin, Evangelical and Oriental, all the errors and evils of which imperial, syncratistic and materialistic Rome is the example and symbol, are to be resistlessly and completely done away with in the Day that is even now at hand. They will go even if the outward form of the Church— be it an infected right hand or an evil eye—should have to go with them; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. The words addressed to Israel apply also to the Christian Church—and how clearly they indicate its cleansing from the spirit of Rome! They sound indeed as if their final application had been in the foreground of the mind of the Spirit: “In that day shalt thou not be put to shame for all thy doings wherein thou hast transgressed against me; for then I will take away out of the midst of thee them that exult in thy majesty, and thou shalt no more be haughty in my holy mountain. But I will leave in the midst of thee an afflicted and poor people, and they shall take refuge in the name of Jehovah” Chit nr 32). The deliverance of Jerusalem from the oppressions of the Gentile World-powers that began with the Babylonian Captivity is therefore the sign and seal of the deliverance of the whole Earth from the rapacity of all such perversions of government, and of the cleansing of the Church, all Christendom, the world at large, its whole social order, as well as its religious and civic life, from its obsession by the Spirit of which they are the historic exponents, the Spirit that hides the heart of a wild beast behind the golden TO THE CHURCH 313 mask of royal splendor, and cloaks the soul of a dragon under the guise of a lamb, the Spirit of which above all Babylon, the Seat of Nimrod and of Nebuchadnezzar, was the ancient proverbial exemplification, and of which the incarnation final and consummate is to be seen in the Greater Babylon, so long the mighty mistress of the world, the so-called Eternal City, in whose magic name so many Cesars, Czars and Kaisers have beguiled, exploited and devoured the peoples of the Earth—whose Ponittfex still sits supreme above so many elders of the Church. Fearful indeed have been the hydra-heads of this elusive avatar of evil; but the truth that the Church never entirely ceased to preach and to exemplify even in the darkest days of her declension has continually smitten them, and the very “process of the suns” has been against them. Many of them have been hewn off already; and though sometimes a three-fold horror such as Jesuitism has sprung up in place of the one that was slain, the hot indignation of God and man has made sure that some of them at least shall never menace the life of Earth again. The coils of the spent monster have in fact relaxed their stranglehold on the thought of Christendom, and the central and vital head itself can not much longer escape its destined grinding destruction under the heel of the Seed of the Woman. To paraphrase the immortal words of Lincoln, neither in theory nor in practice can either the Church or the world at large long continue half slave and half free—and behold how prodigiously the world’s scrap-heap of crowns and mitres and shackles of all kinds has been piled up during the past nine years! The day is at hand when no institution of any sort 314 THE INTERPRETATION will be tolerated in which there are any lingerings of the old leaven of unrighteousness. Every such organ- ization, be it a business corporation or a labor union, a national government or a church, must be transformed by the renovation of its ideals and conformed to the spirit of the new era, the spirit of mutual and universal service, the spirit of loving-kindness that merges even into self-sacrifice, the spirit of Christ, or else there will be found no place for it in human society—it will go the way of the slaver, the opium joint and the licensed saloon. Least of all will there be room for any insti- tution that assumes to represent Jesus of Nazareth and yet fails to march in the van of this movement of transformation and does not continuously seek to be- come a more and more worthy exponent of the mind of the Master—it will speedily travel the road down which the state-church is fast disappearing, the road that the church-state has gone already. The churches, all of them, stand at the parting of the ways, and must choose without delay and without reservation between God and Mammon, between Christ and the World; for nothing but whole-souled devotion can accomplish the task now in hand: But woe unto the spurious devotion that makes great adoo about its tithes of the mint, the anise and the cum- min of mere amelioration (which lesser thing we ought to do, but without making it an excuse for leaving the greater undone), that doles out its miserably inade- quate ‘‘charities”’ to a pitiful few of the world’s multi- tudes of unfortunates, while it utterly neglects, or even bitterly opposes, those weightier matters of the law of righteousness, the measures of prevention, of thoroughgoing personal and world renovation, that will abolish the misfortunes themselves—the spurious TO THE CHURCH 315 devotion that so often chokes out the true wheat when the fields are seemingly richest and most prosperous. It is well that the Church should be splendidly organized and highly honored, that vast multitudes should be enrolled in its membership, and that all the machinery of its propaganda should be unstintedly ‘financed; it is well also that the Church should call upon all the sons of art and all the daughters of music to beautify its temples and enrich its worship; but these things are as nothing in themselves, they are worse than nothing when they are allowed to usurp the foreground of interest, and they become positively subversive, wooden horses filled with deadly enemies, when they are no longer sought as mere means to the true ends of religion and are perverted into coveted ends in themselves. It is this perversion that is represented by the Cross of Constantine, the sign under which the Roman emperor did indeed “conquer’”’ at the Milvian bridge—and later far more memorably at Nicaea—the sign that is the equivalent, therefore, of the eagles of Rome and the MARK oF THE BEAST. From this perversion the Church must now be purged thoroughly and at any cost. Its every organ- ization must appear before the judgment-seat of the Judge Inexorable. And if it is indeed but a “ Rem- nant’’ that the Judge will find worthy to receive the SEAL OF THE LIVING Gop, that saving Remnant-—so Zeph. 3: 11-20 and all the analogies—will neverthe- less be sufficient to rekindle the eagerly spreading flames of the Baptism of Fire and bring into action through the Communion of Saints the ever multiplying power of the Church of the First-born, the fuller and 316 THE INTERPRETATION ever growing incarnation of the Word of God, who was first made flesh in the lowly and lonely Nazarene, Jesus the Christ the Son of God our Savior, and who is now to manifest his Presence in that mightier body of which the First-born is the Head and whose members are at last to include the whole of redeemed humanity. So will the Church Militant be endued with new life, inspired with deeper devotion and equipped for the crisal contest into which it is now to march forth, the World War of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The task that confronts the Church to-day is indeed such as only whole-souled devotion can accom- plish—whole-souled devotion to the cause of an all- competent Leader. We are face to face with the necessity of winning the world for Christ, of capturing its citadel and its dominant fortresses, Now, before the opportunities of this era of transition are lost in a new alignment of forces. Very evidently the primary objective of the coming campaign will be Christendom itself. It is of course an essential work that the missionary enterprises of the churches have wrought in the century past; in every land they have prepared the way, have provided surveys and laid emplacements, for the New Evan- gelism that is to follow; but now the full offensive begins, and its strategy must develop in objective after objective and drive upon drive. In no part of the battle-line can there be anything but a continuous and insistent offensive, but first of all we must rise in the might of the Spirit of Christ and make Christ- endom actually Christian forthwith; and then it will be ours to command its secular forces, all of them all the time, as they sweep irresistibly and inevitably, TO THE CHURCH 317 like the floods of the rising tide, over all the earth— forces that hitherto, alas, have been so often allowed to move on ahead of us, undirected and hostile, to become the ever active and effective adversaries of our old Evangelism, instead of the staunch and invaluable allies they ought to have been! The christianization of Christendom involves many acutely momentous and exceedingly baffling problems; but we can safely leave whatever Gordian knots of perversity there may be among them to the sword of the Mighty One himself, to the providence of him who “watching over Israel slumbers not nor sleeps’’; and we can rest assured that, with the Wisdom of God and the Power of God as its living Head and its life-giving Spirit, the Church restored to the likeness of God and to the communion of the ancient worthies will be enabled to work out all its other problems in the light of Truth and in accordance with the Law of Love. Truly the one great need of the hour is the cleansing of the Church from all its obsessions by the powers of darkness, for then at last the gates of the morning will be lifted up and the King of Glory will come in; and then indeed the transformation of Christendom will begin forthwith, and the conquest of all the world will follow. Swift indeed will be the victories of our World Evangelism when all the institutions and agencies of Christendom are at last whole-heartedly loyal to the Savior, when the ranks of Science and Art and Litera- ture, of Industry, Statecraft and Social Leadership, yea, and of Religion itself, are no longer infested with traitors to the cause—and swift indeed must they be if they are to keep pace with the world-conquest of Western Civilization and prevent the catastrophe 318 THE INTERPRETATION that would certainly follow if the culture it imparts to the teeming multitudes of the non-Christian world should lack the one thing needful, the religious faith that is the only guarantee of moral and spiritual integ- rity. Its contact with the decadent cults of Heathen- dom must not be allowed to result in the poisonous monoxide of hopeless Materialism through the re- agency of its secular truths alone. They must be made to add to the wealth of our common heritage by the transforming power of its spiritual truths as well— and that there is no time to lose, needs no demonstra- tion. Exactly opportune, therefore, is this summons to the churches. The Voice of the Day of Jehovah has broken its age-long silence in punctual obedience to the behest of the Spirit of Prophecy; and its final proclamation is echoed and reechoed by all the signs of the times; and in reinforcement of its message the Seven Thunders of the Oracle have uttered their voices and revealed their portents. How closely the coming of the King of Glory and the Judge of all the Earth will follow the proclamation that heralds him is suggested by the fact that all save two of the portents to which the Oracle points have already presented their tokens—and even these two have entered the penumbra of fulfilment. The Day is indeed at hand, for it has lapped up the blood of a multitude—and the four horsemen of the Apocalypse of St. John are still riding to and fro on the Earth. The Beast from the Bottomless Pit has risen and ravened—and been driven back to his prison; and the whole apocalypse writ little in the letter of the Word has now been read and interpreted, and its summons to the Church is before us. Furthermore TO THE CHURCH 319 the pictures drawn in the text of the Prophecy have also begun to find their fulfilment in the events of the day. Zion has been delivered from the Abomination of Desolation, and from beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, his suppliants are preparing to bring their offerings to the God of their fathers (III. 10); and at this very time in the lands of the pale and the pogrom inevitable retribution has already overtaken those that have afflicted the daughter of God’s dispersed (III. 19). The double curse pronounced at Babel, the false “‘Gate of Heaven,’’ has run its course, is lifted: the Confusion of Tongues has given place to a wireless world, and the superlative sense of nationalism and the race-consciousness in which the Dispersion makes its final manifestation, though they may have to work themselves out in some final paroxysm of wrath, can not long withstand the effects of the growing realization of the solidarity of humanity in blood and in destiny as well, in all its interests and relations, of which the League of Nations, the Washington Con- ference, and the many international conclaves, religious, economic, scientific, artistic and athletic, are convincing evidences (III. 9). Of Zephaniah’s tokens there are still to be awaited only the unveiling of the portents that he borrows from the Apocalypse of the Stars—those final portents mentioned by the prophets and by the Master him- self and more exactly defined, given a specifically literal interpretation and a definite location, in the last two of the Seven Prophecies of the Oracle of the Great Day of Jehovah—the summons to the World and the immediate harbinger of the Coming One that are to be writ large upon the scroll of Heaven where none can fail to see them. They are indeed 320 THE INTERPRETATION already written there, as we have seen (Part IL., Chap. XI., 2d Portent), in lines that, though they are invisible to sense, are just as clear to reason as is the sun itself, and that only wait the touch of the finger of the Almighty to flash their message unmistakably upon the eyes of all. First the falling stars of the False Fishes are to bode the downfall of the Prince of Darkness, that Old Serpent the Devil, and the destruction of the World in which he has been so long incarnate, the World as it is, the World of sin and sorrow, the World organized for exploitation, the World that crucified the Lord himself and that has persecuted his Church and supplanted her in her own house for so many centuries, the World whose head is ROME. “And then shall appear the Sign of the Son of Manin Heaven.”’ The circle of the equinoxes, the Great Index of the Ages, will point to Nun em- blazoned among the stars to herald the Second Advent as it did the First, and to the stellar theophany of ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory,” in token of the World that is to be, the World made new by the WORD OF GOD, the wholesome, glad and glorious World that shall rise from the ashes of the old, when Earth has been purified as by fire and restored to the fellowship of Heaven. 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