was that almost all the somewhat mysterious traits that were in these books had reference to the Messiah, and it was sought to find there the type of him who should realize the hopes of the nation.  Jesus participated in the taste which every one had for these allegorical interpretations.  But the true poetry of the Bible, which escaped the puerile exegetists of Jerusalem, was fully revealed to his grand genius.  The Law does not appear to have had much charm for him; he thought that he could do something better.  But the religious lyrics of the Psalms were in marvellous accordance with his poetic soul; they were, all his life, his food and sustenance.  The prophets—­Isaiah in particular, and his successor in the record of the time of the captivity,—­with their brilliant dreams of the future, their impetuous eloquence, and their invectives mingled with enchanting pictures, were his true teachers.  He read also, no doubt, many apocryphal works—­i.e., writings somewhat modern, the authors of which, for the sake of an authority only granted to very ancient writings, had clothed themselves with the names of prophets and patriarchs.  One of these books especially struck him, namely, the Book of Daniel.  This book, composed by an enthusiastic Jew of the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, under the name of an ancient sage,[1] was the resume of the spirit of those later times.  Its author, a true creator of the philosophy of history, had for the first time dared to see in the march of the world and the succession of empires, only a purpose subordinate to the destinies of the Jewish people.  Jesus was early penetrated by these high hopes.  Perhaps, also, he had read the books of Enoch, then revered equally with the holy books,[2] and the other writings of the same class, which kept up so much excitement in the popular imagination.  The advent of the Messiah, with his glories and his terrors—­the nations falling down one after another, the cataclysm of heaven and earth—­were the familiar food of his imagination; and, as these revolutions were reputed near, and a great number of persons sought to calculate the time when they should happen, the supernatural state of things into which such visions transport us, appeared to him from the first perfectly natural and simple.

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

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