i, 2) was regarded as dove-like, and the spirit was to be especially poured on the Messiah (Is. xlii, 1); tempted by the devil to test him, because God tested his greatest servants, and would surely test the Messiah; fasting forty days in the wilderness, because the types of the Messiah--Moses and Elijah--thus fasted in the desert; healing all manner of disease, because Messiah was to heal (Is. xxxv, 5-6); preaching, because Messiah was to preach (Is. lxi, 1-2); crucified, because the hands and feet of Messiah were to be pierced (Ps. xxii, 16); mocked, because Messiah was to be mocked (Ib. 6-8); his garments divided, because thus it was spoken of Messiah (Ib. 18); silent before his judges, because Messiah was not to open his mouth (Is. liii, 7); buried by the rich, because Messiah was thus to find his grave (Ib. 9); rising again, because Messiah could not be left in hell (Ps. xvi, 10); sitting at God's right hand, because there Messiah was to sit as king (Ps. cx, 1). Thus the form of the Messiah was cast, and all that had to be done was to pour in the human metal; those who alleged that the Messiah had come in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, adapted his story to the story of the Messiah, pouring the history of Jesus into the mould already made for the Messiah, and thus the mythus was transformed into a history." The foregoing theory, with various modifications, is accepted by a majority of Freethinkers at the present time. The hypothesis that Christ is a philosophical myth, based, like the preceding one, upon the Messianic idea, is thus presented by T. B. Wakeman: