the servant of God, and because, in the twelfth verse, it is said that this servant "was numbered with the transgressors" (compare Luke xxii. 37); his condemnation by the rulers of the people might perhaps have been concluded from the Psalms (cxviii. 22) in which the "builders" who rejected the chief corner-stone, according to the apostolical interpretation (Acts iv. 11) were the rulers and elders of the people; his being delivered over to the hands of the gentiles might have been gathered from several passages in the Psalms, which were probably interpreted as having reference to the Messiah, in which persecutors were spoken of as idolaters; his death upon the cross might have been looked upon as prefigured in the type of the brazen serpent raised upon a pole (Numbers xxi. 8, et seq.; compare John iii. 14), or in the piercing of the hands and the feet (Psalm xxii. 17); in fine, the scoffing and ill-treatment of which he was to be the subject, might have been concluded from an acquaintance with passages like the seventh and following verses of the above psalm, and the sixth verse of the fiftieth chapter of Isaiah, &c. If the spirit which resided in Jesus, a spirit which, according to the orthodox opinion, enabled him to discover the connection between these types and prophecies, and his terrestrial destiny, is to be regarded as a spirit of truth, it should be capable of demonstration that the true and primitive references of these passages of the Old Testament were to Jesus. But, to confine ourselves to the principal of these passages, we should recollect, that a searching grammatical and historical explanation, has most convincingly proved to all who are capable of rising superior to dogmatical prejudices, that none of these passages have any reference whatever to the passion of Christ; that Isaiah 1. 6, is in allusion to the ill treatment which the prophet had to endure; Isaiah liii. to the sufferings of prophets in general, and most probably to the sufferings of the Israelitish people; Psalm cxviii. to the salvation and unlooked for glorification of the people, or a prince of the people; and in Psalm

xxii. some unfortunate exile is giving utterance to his griefs. As to the sixteenth verse of this psalm, which has been supposed to have reference to the crucifixion of Christ, even though we gave to the Hebrew word 18, which has been translated perfoderunt, this most improbable explanation, yet, still, we must understand this piercing as figurative, and the figure here employed is drawn not from the punishment of the cross, but from a combat or hunting down with dogs or savage beasts; thus the connection between this verse and the crucifixion of Christ is now only maintained by those with whom it is not worth while to dispute the subject. Then, if Jesus, by virtue of his superior nature, had, by supernatural means, found in these passages a prediction of the particulars of his passion, it must of necessity follow, as such is not the true sense of these passages, that the spirit resident in Jesus was not the spirit of truth, but the spirit of falsehood. Thus the orthodox interpreter, from the moment in which he does not close his eyes to the light of an unprejudiced explanation of the Old Testament, should, from motives of self-interest, be induced to adopt the rationalist opinion, which supposes that Jesus was led not by superior inspiration but by his own personal reflections thus to combine and explain the passages of the Old Testament, and thus to foresee the details of his future destiny.

He conjectured, it may be said, in this sense, that he should fall beneath the efforts of a dominant priesthood; this might easily have been supposed, for, on the one hand, this party was greatly irritated against him, and, on the other hand, was possessed of the power to destroy him. It must have been for the same reason that he conjectured that Jerusalem would be the theatre of his condemnation and execution-for it was the centre of the power of this party. He conjectured that, being condemned by the chiefs of his own people, he should be delivered to the Romans for execution; this was the effect of the circumscribed jurisdiction at that time enjoyed by the Jews. He conjectured that

the punishment of the cross would be inflicted upon him, because this was the punishment made use of by the Romans, especially in cases of rebellion. In fine, he conjectured that the whip and personal insult would not be wanting to the completion of his sufferings; which was easy to be foreseen from the habits of the Roman courts of justice. But, on closer investigation of the subject, we may ask how it was that Jesus could know with so much certainty that Herod, who had made him the object of his dangerous attentions (Luke xiii. 31), would not forestall the enmity of the priests, and, to the murder of John the Baptist add that of his successor, a far more important individual? And even though he might think he was sure of having no danger to fear but on the part of the priests (Luke xiii. 33), whence could he have derived the certainty that none of the tumultuous attempts at murder directed against him (compare John viii. 59; x. 31) would be crowned with success; and that he should not meet, as Stephen at a later period did, without any formality, and without being delivered over to the Romans, his death in some other way than by the cross? In fine, how could he have maintained with certainty that after the failure of so many other attempts it should be just this last one that should succeed with his enemies, and that the journey which he was about to undertake would be his last journey? Nevertheless, the advocates of the natural explanation can, here, in their turn, invoke the passages of the Old Testament, and say that Jesus, either guided by the use of a mode of interpretation at that time employed by his countrymen, or by peculiar views of his own, had found in the passages of Scripture already cited, precise indications of the course of events which should lead him, as the Messiah, to a violent and early death. But, in the first place, it would, perhaps, be difficult to prove that in the lifetime of Jesus all these different passages were considered as having reference to the Messiah, and not less difficult to conceive how Jesus of himself, before the event, should have been enabled to perceive this refer

ence; and then, what must have been altogether miraculous, is, how the event should have in reality been found in conformity with such a false interpretation. Besides, the types and prophecies of the Old Testament are not at all sufficient to explain so many of the peculiarities of the foresight of Jesus, and, especially, the precise determination of the epoch of his death.

If Jesus could neither supernaturally nor naturally have had so exact prescience of the manner of his passion and death, he could not in any way have been acquainted with it, and what the evangelists have put into his mouth respecting it, must be looked upon as predictions after the event. And there have not been wanting individuals to bring the narrative of John into comparison with that of the synoptics, who have remarked that the special peculiarities of the predictions, peculiarities which Jesus could not have so expressed, are only to be found in the synoptics, whilst John only puts indefinite allusions to the circumstance into his mouth, and makes a distinction between these allusions and the explanations which he (John) gives after the event; which, it is added, visibly proves that this evangelist alone has preserved to us the observations of Jesus without alteration, and in their original form. But an attentive examination will show us that this is not the case; it is not correct merely to impute to the compiler of the fourth gospel the fault of having erroneously interpreted the observations of Jesus, which otherwise have been preserved without alteration; for in one passage, he has put into the mouth of Jesus an obscure observation, it is true, but the meaning of which is not to be misunderstood, which announces beforehand that he should perish on the cross; consequently, he must, at least in this instance, have changed after the event, the textual expressions of Jesus. We allude to the saying "lifted up." When, in the gospel of John, Jesus says, in the passive voice, that the Son of Man shall be "lifted up," it may, doubtless, be understood of his elevation to glory, although in the fourteenth verse of the third chapter, it is difficult thus to understand it,

because of the comparison with the brazen serpent which, as we are aware, was lifted up upon the end of a pole. But it is no longer the same thing when he makes use of this verb in the active tense to represent (viii. 28) the elevation of the Son of Man as the work of his enemies, "When ye have lifted up the Son of Man;" these could not have elevated him to glory; they could only have “ lifted " him upon a cross; and, if our conclusions in this respect are worth anything, John himself must either have imagined this expression, or he must have incorrectly translated the Syrian observations of Jesus; consequently, after all, he must be classed in one and the same category with the synoptics. It is indisputable, that he makes use of obscure language to elucidate the precise ideas which he had upon this subject; but this may perhaps be attributed to his manner; he is fond of enigmas and mysteries, and pleased to represent in an unintelligible way prophecies which he did not understand.

The primitive Christian legend must have had an interest in putting into the mouth of Jesus, after the event, a prediction of the particulars of his passion, and, above all, of the ignominious punishment of the cross. The more the crucified Christ was "to the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness" (I. Cor. i. 23), the more earnest must have been the necessity of removing the stumbling-block; and as, amongst the posterior events, the resurrection, being the subsequent reparation of this death, served in the eyes of the gentiles to dissipate the opprobrium of it, so, it must have been desirable to weaken, even by anticipation, the poignancy of this strange catastrophe. Nothin g could be better contrived to fulfil this end than a prediction of this kind, which should thus enter into the details of the event. For, whilst the most insignificant circumstance prophetically announced beforehand gains in importance by thus receiving a place in the sum of superior knowledge, so, the most profound ignominy, from the moment in which it is predicted as a phase of the divine plan of salvation, ceases to be degrading;