HKB
[426:1] Rhys Davids' Buddhism, p. 179.
[426:2] This is clearly shown by Mr. Higgins in his Anacalypsis. It should be remembered that Gautama Buddha, the "Angel-Messiah," and Cyrus, the "Anointed" of the Lord, are placed about six hundred years before Jesus, the "Anointed." This cycle of six hundred years was called the "great year." Josephus, the Jewish historian, alludes to it when speaking of the patriarchs that lived to a great age. "God afforded them a longer time of life," says he, "on account of their virtue, and the good use they made of it in astronomical and geometrical discoveries, which would not have afforded the time for foretelling (the periods of the stars), unless they had lived six hundred years; for the great year is completed in that interval." (Josephus, Antiq., bk. i. c. iii.) "From this cycle of six hundred," says Col. Vallancey, "came the name of the bird Phoenix, called by the Egyptians Phenu, with the well-known story of its going to Egypt to burn itself on the altar of the Sun (at Heliopolis) and rise again from its ashes, at the end of a certain period."
[426:3] "Philo's writings prove the probability, almost rising to a certainty, that already in his time the Essenes did expect an Angel-Messiah as one of a series of divine incarnations. Within about fifty years after Philo's death, Elkesai the Essene probably applied this doctrine to Jesus, and it was promulgated in Rome about the same time, if not earlier, by the Pseudo-Clementines." (Bunsen: The Angel-Messiah, p. 118.)
"There was, at this time (i. e., at the time of the birth of Jesus), a prevalent expectation that some remarkable personage was about to appear in Judea. The Jews were anxiously looking for the coming of the Messiah. By computing the time mentioned by Daniel (ch. ix. 23-27), they knew that the period was approaching when the Messiah should appear. This personage, they supposed, would be a temporal prince, and they were expecting that he would deliver them from Roman bondage. It was natural that this expectation should spread into other countries." (Barnes' Notes, vol. i. p. 27.)
[427:1] Hist. Hindostan, vol. ii. p. 273.
[427:2] See Lardner's Works, vol. viii. p. 353.
[427:3] Apol. 1, ch. xxvi.
[428:1] See Lardner's Works, vol. viii. p. 593.
[428:2] Socrates: Eccl. Hist., lib. i. ch. xvii.
[429:1] Eusebius: Eccl. Hist., lib. 3, ch. xxiii.
[429:2] Ibid. lib. 7, ch. xxx.
[429:3] The death of Manes, according to Socrates, was as follows: The King of Persia, hearing that he was in Mesopotamia, "made him to be apprehended, flayed him alive, took his skin, filled it full of chaff, and hanged it at the gates of the city." (Eccl. Hist., lib. 1, ch. xv.)
[430:1] Plato in Apolog. Anac., ii. p. 189.
[431:1] Mark, xiii. 21, 22.
[432:1] Geikie: Life of Christ, vol. i. p. 79.
[433:1] Frothingham's Cradle of the Christ.
[433:2] "The prevailing opinion of the Rabbis and the people alike, in Christ's day, was, that the Messiah would be simply a great prince, who should found a kingdom of matchless splendor." "With a few, however, the conception of the Messiah's kingdom was pure and lofty. . . . Daniel, and all who wrote after him, painted the 'Expected One' as a heavenly being. He was the 'messenger,' the 'Elect of God,' appointed from eternity, to appear in due time, and redeem his people." (Geikie's Life of Christ, vol. i. pp. 80, 81.)