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Chapter XI

The Son of man According to the Jewish Apocalypses

From what has been already discussed in these pages

it will have been that the appellation “Barnasha,” or “the
Son of Man,” is not a title like “Messiah,” that could be
applied to every prophet, high priest, and legally anointed
king; but that it is a proper noun, belonging exclusively
to the Last Prophet. The Hebrew Seers, Sophees, and the
Apocalyptists describe the Son of Man, who is to come
in due time as appointed by the Almighty to deliver
Israel and Jerusalem from the heathenish oppression and
to establish the permanent kingdom for “the People of
the Saints of the Most High.” The Seers, the Sophees,
foretell the advent of the Powerful Deliverer; they see
him -only in a vision, revelation, and faith- with all his
might and glory. No Prophet or Sopheeever said that
he himself was “the Son of Man,” and that he would
“come again on the Last Day to judge both the quick and
the dead,” as the Nicene Creed puts it on the pretended
authority of the Sayings of Jesus Christ (pbuh) .

The frequent use of the appellation in question
by the evangelists indicates, most assuredly, their
acquaintance with the Jewish Apocalypses, as also
a firm belief in their authenticity and divine origin.
It is quite evident that the Apocalypses bearing the
names of Enoch, Moses (pbuh) , Baruch, and Ezra
were written long before the Gospels; and that the
name “Barnasha” therein mentioned was borrowed
by the authors of the Gospels; otherwise its frequent
use would be enigmatic and an incomprehensible
-if not a meaningless- novelty. It follows, therefore,
that Jesus (pbuh) either believed himself to be the
Apocalyptic “Son of Man,” or that he knew the Son
of Man to be a person distinctly other than himself.