EXPECTATION PRECEDED THE ADVENT.

            At the time of the coming of Christ there was a general expectation; among our nation, it was universal. Pious Simeon and Hannah, and many other devout persons, waited for the Consolation of Israel. The Pharisees sent priests and Levites to ask John the Baptist whether he was the Christ. The common people exclaimed, “If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly!” Hence they were ready to receive any one who pretended to be the Messiah. And it is worthy of observation, that many false Christs came after Jesus, but none before. The Samaritans, likewise, had the knowledge of a Saviour, and expected his coming, as is evident from the conversation of the woman of Samaria at Jacob’s well—John 4.

            But it is still more remarkable, the Romans themselves had the same expectations; and not only they, but all the eastern part of the world, which may well include all that was then known. Thus says Suetonius, (Vit. Vesp. 4,) “that an ancient and constant tradition had obtained throughout all the East, that in the fates it was decreed, that, about that time, some who should come from Judea should obtain the dominion, or government, i.e., of the world, which the Romans then possessed.” And Cornelius Tacitus (Hist. L. 5, c. 13) speaks almost in the same words: telling of the great prodigies which preceded the destruction of Jerusalem, he says: “that many understood them as the forerunners of that extraordinary person who, the ancient books of the priests did foretell should come about that time from Judea, and obtain the dominion.” Virgil, in his famous fourth Eclogue, written about the beginning of the reign of Herod the Great, compliments the consul, Pollio, with this prophecy, by supposing it might refer to his son, Saloninus, then born. But the words are too great to be verified of any mere mortal man; and he speaks of such a golden age, and such a renovation of all things as cannot be fulfilled in the reign of any ordinary king. And Virgil expresses it almost in the words of the Holy Scriptures—Isaiah 65: 17, wherein they tell of the glorious age of Messiah; of a new heavens and earth then to begin, and to be finally completed at the end thereof.

“The last age decreed by fate is come,

And a new frame of all things doth begin;

The Holy Progeny from heaven descends.

Auspicious be his birth, which puts an end

To th’ iron age, and from whence shall rise

A golden state far glorious through the earth.”

            Thus the poet depicts in glowing colours, and makes a paraphrase of Isaiah’s prediction. The prophet says: “The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw as the bullock; and dust shall be the serpent’s meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord.” The poet, after this—

“Nor shall the flocks fierce lions fear;

No serpent shall be there, or herb of pois’nous juice.”

            Nay, the very atonement for sins, which Daniel attributed to Messiah—Daniel 9: 24, “to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity,” is thus expressed in this eclogue: —

“By thee, what footsteps of our sins remain

Are blotted out, and the whole world set free

From her perpetual bondage and her fear.”

            And the very words of Haggai 2: 6 seem to be literally translated by Virgil. Thus saith the prophet of the coming of the Messiah: “Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; and I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come.” And thus the poet: —

“Enter on thy honour, now’s the time,

Offspring of God, O thou great gift of Jove!

Behold, the world, heaven, earth, and seas do shake;

Behold, how all rejoice to greet that glorious age.”

            And as if Virgil had been learned in the doctrine of Christ, he tells that these glorious times should not begin immediately upon the birth of that wonderful person then expected to come into the world, but that wickedness should still keep its ground in several places.

“Yet some remains shall still be left

Of ancient fraud, and war shall still go on.”

            Now, how the old pagan poet applied all this, is not the question, whether in part to Augustus Caesar, or partly to the consul Pollio, and partly to his son Saloninus, then newly born; but it shows the expectation there was at that time, of the birth of a very extraordinary person, who should introduce a new and golden age, and both reform and govern the whole world.”—FREY.

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