The persecutions of Antiochus Epiphanes made this idea a passion, almost a frenzy. It was something very analogous to that which happened under Nero, two hundred and thirty years later. Rage and despair threw the believers into the world of visions and dreams. The first apocalypse, "The Book of Daniel," appeared. It was like a revival of prophecy, but under a very different form from the ancient one, and with a much larger idea of the destinies of the world. The Book of Daniel gave, in a manner, the last expression to the Messianic hopes. The Messiah was no longer a king, after the manner of David and Solomon, a theocratic and Mosaic Cyrus; he was a "Son of man" appearing in the clouds[1]--a supernatural being, invested with human form, charged to rule the world, and to preside over the golden age. Perhaps the _Sosiosh_ of Persia, the great prophet who was to come, charged with preparing the reign of Ormuzd, gave some features to this new ideal.[2] The unknown author of the Book of Daniel had, in any case, a decisive influence on the religious event which was about to transform the world. He supplied the _mise-en-scene_, and the technical terms of the new belief in the Messiah; and we might apply to him what Jesus said of John the Baptist: Before him, the prophets; after him, the kingdom of God. [Footnote 1: Chap. vii. 13, and following.] [Footnote 2: _Vendidad_, chap. xix. 18, 19; _Minokhired_, a passage published in the "_Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenlaendischen Gesellschaft_," chap. i. 263; _Boundehesch_, chap. xxxi. The want of certain chronology for the Zend and Pehlvis texts leaves much doubt hovering over the relations between the Jewish and Persian beliefs.]