80 LT.-COL. MOLONY, O.B.E., LATE R.E., ON PREDICTIONS AND 



based their expectation of a Messiah ; the word, meaning 

 anointed, is the same as the Greek word Christ. 



I propose to show that the coming was predicted of a wise 

 Teacher, a beneficent King, a perfect Example, an unanswerable 

 Debater, a patient Sufferer, a Saviour from the power of sin, and 

 a Shelter in certain of the ills of life. I propose to lay special 

 stress upon the fact that, where it would be useful, a definite 

 expectation was created : and to argue that the predicted one 

 duly came in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. 



The reason I lay special stress on the expectation of Messiah 

 is this. Many learned men are telling us that the Prophets 

 did not mean what we take them to mean. For instance, that 

 when Isaiah wrote of the suffering servant of Jehovah he was 

 personifying the loyal remnant of the Jewish nation. Now this 

 really detracts very little from the evidential value of his 

 Messianic prophecies, because the wonder of them lies in their 

 being fulfilled, and not in their being recorded ; but it has cast 

 so much dust in the eyes of ordinary people that the whole subject 

 appears to be tabooed in our churches, and the best way to meet 

 the situation seems to me to show that the expectations of the 

 Jews just before Christ came centred on a person, or at most 

 three persons, a prophet and two messiahs, and so arguments that 

 the predictions related to a nation are, to say the least, belated. 



Permit me to give a simple illustration. Seven years ago 

 Lord Roberts was advising us to increase our army because he 

 foresaw that we should shortly be engaged in a serious war. 

 People understood him to refer to Germany, and officers prepared 

 defence schemes against an aggressor coming from the east. 

 And it was from the east that the danger came. Now suppose 

 a man to state that Lord Roberts referred to Brazil, and not to 

 Germany. Should we not remark to each other that his view 

 did not greatly interest us, and could at most only affect Lord 

 Roberts' personal reputation for foresight ; seeing that he was 

 understood to refer to an eastern Power, men worked on that 

 assumption, and thus the crisis was successfully met. Thus 

 we see that the expectation created should usually be taken into 

 account if we wish to assess the practical value of fulfilled pre- 

 dictions ; though, as we shall see, some classes of prediction 

 would thwart their own purpose if they created an expectation 

 of too defined a character. 



If prediction and subsequent events run on the same lines, 

 it may still be reasonable to argue that the prediction is 



