37, and following.] We must remember, that in the Jewish ideas, which were averse to art and mythology, the simple form of man had a superiority over that of _Cherubs_, and of the fantastic animals which the imagination of the people, since it had been subjected to the influence of Assyria, had ranged around the Divine Majesty.

Already in Ezekiel,[1] the Being seated on the supreme throne, far above the monsters of the mysterious chariot, the great revealer of prophetic visions, had the figure of a man.

In the book of Daniel, in the midst of the vision of the empires, represented by animals, at the moment when the great judgment commences, and when the books are opened, a Being "like unto a Son of Man," advances toward the Ancient of days, who confers on him the power to judge the world, and to govern it for eternity.[2] _Son of Man_, in the Semitic languages, especially in the Aramean dialects, is a simple synonym of _man_.

But this chief passage of Daniel struck the mind; the words, _Son of Man_, became, at least in certain schools,[3] one of the titles of the Messiah, regarded as judge of the world, and as king of the new era about to be inaugurated.[4] The application which Jesus made of it to himself was therefore the proclamation of his Messiahship, and the affirmation of the coming catastrophe in which he was to figure as judge, clothed with the full powers which had been delegated to him by the Ancient of days.[5] [Footnote 1: Chap.i.5, 26, and following.] [Footnote 2: Daniel vii.

13, 14; comp.viii.15, x.