Commenting on the book of Malachi, we find the following in book 2, chapter 11 (“The Prophecy of Malachi, Who is the Last of the Prophets, and the Completion of the Temple [French: LA PROPHÉTIE DE MALACHIE, QUI EST LE DERNIER DES PROPHÈTES, ET L'ACHÈVEMENT DU SECOND TEMPLE]):
At length the Temple is finished.
Victims are sacrificed, but the covetous Jews present only defective offerings.
Malachi, who reproves them for it, is raised to a higher thought: upon the
occasion of the polluted offerings of the Jews, he sees that an offering
which is always pure and never tainted will be presented to God,
no longer, as in the past, only in the Temple of Jerusalem, but from the
rising of the sun, even unto the going down: no longer by the Jews but by
the Gentiles, among whom, he prophesies, the name of God shall be great.
Like Haggai, he also sees the
glory of the second Temple and the Messiah honoring it with his presence; but
at the same time he sees that the Messiah is the God to whom that Temple is
dedicated: Behold, I will send my messenger, says the Lord, and he shall prepare
the way before me: and the Lord ye seek, even the messenger of the Covenant,
whom ye delight in, shall come to his Temple.
An angel is a messenger. But here
is a messenger of marvelous rank: a messenger who has a Temple, a messenger who
is God and who enters into the Temple as into his own dwelling; a messenger desired
by all the people, who comes to make a new covenant and who for that reason is
called the Messenger of the Covenant or of the Testament.
It was therefore in the second
Temple that this God, the messenger of God, was to appear; but another
messenger goes before him and prepares his way. Here we see the Messiah
preceded by his forerunner. The character of that forerunner is also revealed to
the prophet. He is to be a new Elijah, remarkable for his holiness, for the
austerity of his life, for his authority, and for his zeal.
Thus the last prophet of the
ancient people pointed out the first prophet who was to come after him, or that
Elijah, the forerunner of the Lord, who was to appear. Until that time
God's people expected no prophet; the Mosaic Law was to be sufficient for them,
and therefore Malachi concludes with these words: Remember ye the Law of
Moses my servant, which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel. Behold, I will
send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of
the Lord. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the
heart of the children to their father, who will show the latter what was
expected by the former.
To this Law of Moses God had
added the prophets-who had spoken in conformity with it-and the history of
God's people composed by these same prophets, in which the promises and warnings
of the Law were confirmed by visible experiences. Everything was carefully
written down; everything was set forth in chronological order; and this was
what God left for the instruction of his people when he put an end to the
prophecies. (Jacques-Bénigne
Bossuet, Discourse on Universal History, ed. Orest Ranum [trans.
Elborg Forster; Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1976], 169-70)
It is within that context that we find the following from
book 2, chapter 12, “The Times of the Second Temple. Fruits of the Chastisements
and the Preceding Prophecies. Cessation
of Idolatry and of the False Prophets [French: LES TEMPS DU SECOND TEMPLE :
FRUITS DES CHÂTIMENTS ET DES PROPHÉTIES PRÉCÉDENTES : CESSATION DE L'IDOLÂTRIE
ET DES FAUX PROPHÈTES])
Such instruction worked great
changes in the ways of the Israelites. They no longer needed visions, manifest
predictions, or those unheard-of wonders which God had so often performed for
their preservation. The proofs they had received were sufficient; and once their
incredulity had been not only overcome by events but also frequently punished,
they at last became docile.
Therefore, from that time on we
never see them return to idolatry, to which they were so strangely inclined.
They had fared too badly whenever they had rejected the God of their fathers.
They were always calling to mind Nebuchadrezzar and their own destruction, which,
so often foretold in all its circumstances, was yet upon them before they
believed it. No less did they admire their restoration, brought about, contrary
to all appearances, in the time and by the person that had been pointed out to
them. Never did they behold the second Temple without remembering why the
former had been destroyed and how this latter had been rebuilt; and thus did
they confirm themselves in the faith of their Scriptures, to which their whole
state bore testimony.
False prophets were no longer to
be seen among them. They had thrown off both their propensity to believe in
them and their propensity for idolatry. Zechariah had foretold in one and the
same oracle that both these things would happen to them. [These are the words
of the prophecy: And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord of
hosts, that I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they
shall no more be remembered: and also I will cause the prophets and the unclean
spirit to pass out of the land. And it shall come to pass that when any shall
yet prophesy, then his father and his mother that begat him shall say unto him,
Thou shalt not live; for thou speakest lies in the name of the Lord. One
may see in this very text the remainder of this prophecy, which is equally strong.]
This prophecy was clearly fulfilled. The false prophets ceased under the second
Temple. The people, scandalized at their imposture, were no longer inclined to
listen to them. The true prophets of God were read over and over, continually;
they needed no commentary, and the things which occurred daily in fulfillment of
their prophecies interpreted them only too faithfully. (Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, Discourse on
Universal History, ed. Orest Ranum [trans. Elborg Forster; Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press, 1976], 170-71)
That Bossuet is speaking about a lack of public revelation
between Malachi to John the Baptist (and not after Jesus’s ascension or the
completion of the New Testament per his appeal to the Zechariah text [not that
he held to on-going public revelation after the first century]) is seen in
chapter 13, where Bossuet speaks of
. . . the beautiful picture which
Isaiah and Ezekiel draw of the happy times that were to follow the Captivity of
Babylon. All the ruins are repaired, the cities and towns are magnificently
rebuilt, the people are without number, the enemies are brought low, and plenty
abounds in towns and country . . . (Ibid., 172)
And also chapter 14:
It seemed that this tranquility
would be everlasting, had they not themselves disturbed it by their dissensions.
For 300 years they had enjoyed this rest, so often foretold by their prophets,
when ambition and jealously arose among them and came near to undoing them. (Ibid.,
173)
