rn of being terminated by prayers for a re-establishment and
regeneration, uttered in the form of prophecies. The Hierophants,
in their enthusiasm, had painted a king as a deliverer, who was to
re-establish the nation in its ancient glory; the Hebrews were to become
once more a powerful, a conquering nation, and Jerusalem the capital of
an empire extended over the whole earth.

"Events having realized the first part of these predictions, the ruin of
Jerusalem, the people adhered to the second with a firmness of belief in
proportion to their misfortunes; and the afflicted Jews expected, with
the impatience of want and desire, this victorious king and deliverer,
who was to come and save the nation of Moses, and restore the empire of
David.

"On the other hand, the sacred and mythological traditions of preceding
times had spread through all Asia a dogma perfectly analogous. The cry
there was a great mediator, a final judge, a future saviour, a king,
god, conqueror and legislator, who was to restore the golden age upon
earth,* to deliver it from the dominion of evil, and restore men to the
empire of good, peace, and happiness. The people seized and cherished
these ideas with so much the more avidity, as they found in them a
consolation under that deplorable state of suffering into which they
had been plunged by the devastations of successive conquests, and the
barbarous despotism of their governments. This conformity between the
oracles of different nations, and those of the prophets, excited the
attention of the Jews; and doubtless the prophets had the art to compose
their descriptions after the style and genius of the sacred books
employed in the Pagan mysteries. There was therefore a general
expectation in Judea of a great ambassador, a final Saviour; when a
singular circumstance determined the epoch of his coming.

* This is the reason of the application of the many Pagan
oracles to Jesus, and particularly the fourth eclogue of
Virgil, and the Sybilline verses so celebrated among the
ancients.

"It is found in the sacred books of the Persians and Chaldeans, that the
world, composed of a total revolution of twelve thousand, was divided
into two partial revolutions; one of which, the age and reign of good,
terminated in six thousand; the other, the age and reign of evil, was to
terminate in six thousand more.

"By these records, the first authors had understood the annual
revolution of the great