Chapter I (2)

Thus alike invited and repelled by both explanations, [1656] theologians take refuge in a double sense, which holds the middle place either between the interpretation of John and the symbolical one last stated, [1657] or between the interpretation of John and that of the Jews; [1658] so that Jesus either spoke at once of his body which was to be killed and again restored to life, and of the modification of the Jewish religion which was to be effected, chiefly by means of that death and resurrection; or, in order to repel the Jews, he challenged them to destroy their real temple, and on this condition, never to be fulfilled, promised to build another, still, however, combining with this ostensible sense for the multitude, an esoteric sense, which was only understood by the disciples after the resurrection, and according to which ναὸς denoted his body. But such a challenge addressed to the Jews, together with the engagement appended to it, would have been an unbecoming manifestation of petulance, and the latent intimation to the disciples, a useless play on words; besides that, in general, a double meaning either of the one or the other kind is unheard of in the discourse of a judicious man. [1659] As, in this manner, the possibility of explaining the passage in John might be entirely despaired of, the author of the Probabilia appeals to the fact that the synoptists call the witnesses, who allege before the judgment seat that Jesus had uttered that declaration, ψευδομάρτυρας, false witnesses; whence he concludes, that Jesus never said what John here attributes to him, and thus gains an exemption from the explanation of the passage, since he regards it as a figment of the fourth Evangelist, whose object was both to explain the calumniations of the accusers, and also to nullify them by a mystical interpretation of his words. [1660] But, on the one hand, it does not follow, from the fact that the synoptists call the witnesses false, that, in the opinion of the Evangelists, Jesus had never said anything whatever of that whereof they accused him; for he might only have said it somewhat differently (λύσατε, not λύσω), or have intended it in a different sense (figuratively instead of literally): on the other hand, if he said nothing at all of this kind, it is difficult to explain how the false witnesses should come to choose that declaration, and especially the remarkable phrase, ἐν τρισὶν ἡμέραις.

If, according to this, on every interpretation of the expression, except the inadmissible one relative to the body of Jesus, the words ἐν τρισὶν ἡμέραις form a difficulty: a resource might be found in the narrative of the Acts, as being free from that determination of time. For here Stephen is only accused of saying, ὅτι Ἰ. ὁ Ναζ. οὗτος καταλύσει τὸν τόπον τοῦτον (τὸν ἅγιον), καὶ ἀλλάξει τὰ ἔθη ἃ παρέδωκε Μωϋσῇς. What is false in this allegation (for the witnesses against Stephen also are described as μάρτυρες ψευδεῖς), might be the second proposition, which speaks in literal terms of a changing of the institutes of Moses, and instead of this, Stephen, and before him Jesus, may very probably have said in the figurative signification above developed, καὶ πάλιν οἰκοδομήσει (—σω) αὐτὸν, or καὶ ἄλλον (ἀχειροποίητον) οἰκοδομήσει (—σω).

Meanwhile, this expedient is not at all needful, so far as any insurmountable difficulty in the words ἐν τρισὶν ἡμέραις, is concerned. As the number 3 is used proverbially, not only in connexion with 2 or 4 (Prov. xxx. 15, 18, 21, 29; Wis. xxiii. 21, xxvi. 25), but also by itself (Wis. xxv. 1, 3); so the expression, in three days, if it were once, in combination with the second and first day, become common as an indefinite statement of time, might probably at length be applied in the same sense when standing alone. Whether the expression should signify a long or a short period would then depend on the connexion: here, in opposition to the construction of a great and elaborate building, to the real, natural erection of which, as the Jews directly remark, a long series of years was required, the expression can only be understood as denoting the shortest time. [1661] A prediction, or even a mere intimation of the resurrection, is therefore not contained in these words.

As, here, Jesus is said to have intimated his resurrection beforehand, by the image of the destroying and rebuilding of the temple, so, on another occasion, he is supposed to have quoted the type of the prophet Jonah with the same intention (Matt. xii. 39 ff., comp. xvi. 4; Luke xi. 29 ff.). When the scribes and Pharisees desired to see a sign from him, Jesus is said to have repulsed their demand by the reply, that to so evil a generation γενεὰ no sign shall be given, but the sign of the prophet Jonah, τὸ σημεῖον Ἰωνᾶ τοῦ προφήτου, which, in the first passage of Matthew, Jesus himself explains thus: as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, ἐν τῇ κοιλίᾳ τοῦ κήτους, so also the Son of man will pass three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ τῆς γῆς. In the second passage, in which Matthew attributes this declaration to Jesus, he does not repeat the above interpretation; while Luke, in the parallel passage, explains it simply thus: For as Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so shall also the Son of man be to this generation. Now against the possibility of Jesus having himself given the interpretation of the sign of Jonah which Matthew puts into his mouth, v. 40, a variety of objections may be urged. It is indeed scarcely a tenable argument, that Jesus cannot have spoken of three days and three nights, which he would pass in the heart of the earth, because he only lay in the grave one day and two nights: [1662] since the phraseology of the New Testament decidedly has the peculiarity of designating the abode of Jesus in the grave as of three days’ duration, because it touched upon the evening of the day before the Sabbath, and the morning of the day after it; and if this one day, together with two nights, were once taken for three whole days, it would only be a round way of expressing this completeness, to add to the days the nights also, which, besides, would naturally follow in the comparison with the three days and three nights of Jonah. [1663] But if Jesus gave the explanation of the sign of Jonah which Matthew attributes to him, this would have been so clear a prediction of his resurrection, that for the same reasons which, according to the above observations, are opposed to the literal predictions of that event, we must conclude that Jesus cannot have given this explanation. At all events it must have led the disciples who, according to v. 49, were present, to question Jesus, and in that case it is not to be understood why he did not make the subject perfectly clear, and thus announce his resurrection in plain words. But if he cannot have done this, because then the disciples could not have acted after his death as they are said to have done in the evangelical accounts: neither can he, by that comparison of the fate which awaited him with that of Jonah, have called forth from his disciples a question, which, if proposed to him, he must have answered; but which, judging from the sequel, he cannot have answered.

On these grounds, modern critics have pronounced the explanation of the σημεῖον Ἰωνᾶ in Matthew to be an interpretation made post eventum by the Evangelist, and by him falsely attributed to Jesus. [1664] According to them, Jesus indeed directed the attention of the Pharisees to the sign of Jonah, but only in the sense in which Luke makes him explain it: namely, that as Jonah himself, by his mere appearance and preaching of repentance, without miracles, had sufficed as a sign from God to the Ninevites; so his own cotemporaries, instead of craving for miracles, should be satisfied with his person and preaching. This interpretation is the only one which accords with the tenor of the discourse of Jesus—even in Matthew, and more particularly with the parallel between the relation of the Ninevites to Jonah, and that of the queen of the south to Solomon. As it was the wisdom of Solomon, σοφία Σολομῶνος, by which the latter felt herself attracted from the ends of the earth: so, in Jonah, even according to the expression of Matthew, it was solely his preaching, κήρυγμα, which brought the Ninevites to repentance. It might be supposed that the future tense in Luke: οὕτως ἔσται καὶ ὁ υἱὸς τ. ἀ. τῇ γενεᾷ ταύτῃ (σημεῖον), So shall also the Son of Man be to this generation (a sign), cannot be referred to Jesus and his preaching as manifested at that moment, but only to something future, as his resurrection: but this in reality points either to the future judgment κρίσις, in which it will be made manifest, that as Jonah was reckoned a sign to the Ninevites, so was the Son of Man to the Jews then living; or to the fact that when Jesus spoke these words, his appearance had not yet attained its consummation, and many of its stages lay yet in futurity. Nevertheless, it must have been at an early period, as we see from the first gospel, that the fate of Jonah was placed in a typical relation to the death and resurrection of Jesus, since the primitive church anxiously searched through the Old Testament for types and prophecies of the offensive catastrophe which befel their Messiah.

There are still some expressions of Jesus in the fourth gospel, which have been understood as latent prophecies of the resurrection. The discourse on the corn of wheat, xii. 24, it is true, too obviously relates to the work of Jesus as likely to be furthered by his death, to be here taken into further consideration. But in the farewell discourses in John there are some declarations, which many are still inclined to refer to the resurrection. When Jesus says: I will not leave you comfortless, I will come unto you; yet a little time, and the world sees me no more, but ye see me; a little while, and ye shall not see me, and again a little while and ye shall see me, etc. (xiv. 18 ff., xvi. 16 ff.); many believe that these expressions—with the relation between μικρὸν καὶ πάλιν μικρὸν, a little while, and again a little while; the opposition between ἐμφανίζειν ἡμῖν (τοῖς μαθηταῖς) καὶ οὐχὶ τῷ κόσμῳ, manifest to you (the disciples) and not to the world; the words πάλιν ὄψομαι and ὄψεσθε, I shall see you again, and ye shall see, which appear to indicate a strictly personal interview—can be referred to nothing else than the resurrection, which was precisely such a reappearance after a short removal, and moreover a personal reappearance granted to the friends of Jesus alone. [1665] But this promised reappearance is at the same time described by Jesus in a manner which will not suit the days of the resurrection. If the words because I live, ὅτι ἐγὼ ζῶ (xiv. 19), denote his resurrection, we are at a loss to know what can be meant by the succeeding clause, ye shall live also, καὶ ὑμεῖς ζήσεσθε. Again, Jesus says that on that reappearance his disciples will know his relation to the Father, and will no more need to ask anything of him (xiv. 20, xvi. 23): yet even on the very last day of their intercourse with him after the resurrection, they ask a question of him (Acts i. 6), and one which from the point of view of the fourth gospel is altogether senseless. Lastly, when he promises that to him who loves him, he and the Father will come, and make their abode with him, it is perfectly clear that Jesus here speaks not of a corporeal return, but of his spiritual return, through the παράκλητος. [1666] Nevertheless, even this explanation has its difficulties, since, on the other hand, the expressions ye shall see me, ὄψεσθέ με, and I shall see you, ὄψομαι ὑμᾶς, will not entirely suit that purely spiritual return: hence we must defer the solution of this apparent contradiction until we can give a more complete elucidation of the discourses in which these expressions occur. In the meantime we merely observe, that the farewell discourses in John, being admitted, even by the friends of the fourth gospel, to contain an intermixture of the Evangelist’s own thoughts, are the last source from which to obtain a proof on this subject.

After all, there might seem to be a resource in the supposition, that though Jesus did not indeed speak of his future resurrection, it was not the less foreknown by him. Now if he had a foreknowledge of his resurrection, either he obtained it in a supernatural manner, by means of the prophetic spirit, the higher principle that dwelt within him—by means of his divine nature, if that be preferred: or he knew it in a natural manner, by the exercise of his human reason. But a supernatural foreknowledge of that event, as well as of his death, is inconceivable, owing to the relation in which Jesus places it to the Old Testament. Not merely in passages such as Luke xviii. 31 (which, as prophecies, can no longer have an historical value for us after the result of our last inquiry), does Jesus represent his resurrection, together with his passion and death, as a fulfilment of all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man, πάντων τῶν γεγραμμένων διὰ τῶν προφητῶν τῷ υἱῷ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου; but even after the issue, he admonishes his disciples that they ought to believe all that the prophets have spoken, ἐπὶ πᾶσιν οἷς ἐλάλησαν οἱ προφῆται, namely, that Christ ought to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory, ταῦτα ἔδει παθεῖν τὸν Χριστὸν, καὶ εἰσελθεῖν εἰς τὴν δόξαν αὑτοῦ (Luke xxiv. 25 f.). According to the sequel of the narrative, Jesus forthwith expounded to these disciples (going to Emmaus) all the passages of scripture relating to himself, beginning at Moses and all the prophets, ἀρξάμενος ἀπὸ Μωσέως καὶ ἀπὸ πάντων τῶν προφητῶν, to which farther on (v. 44) the psalms are added; but no single passage is given us as having been interpreted by Jesus of his resurrection, except that it would follow from Matt. xii. 39 f., that he regarded the fate of the prophet Jonah as a type of his own; and regarding the subsequent apostolic interpretation as an echo of that of Jesus, it might be concluded, that he, as afterwards the apostles, found such prophecies chiefly in Ps. xvi. 8 ff. (Acts ii. 25 ff., xiii. 35); Isa. liii. (Acts viii. 32 ff.); Isa. lv. 3 (Acts xiii. 34), and possibly also in Hos. vi. 2. But the fate of Jonah has not even an external similarity to that of Jesus; and the book which narrates his history carries its object so completely in itself, that whoever may ascribe to it or to one of its particulars, a typical relation to events in futurity, assuredly mistakes its true sense and the design of its author. Isa. lv. 3 is so obviously irrelevant that one can scarcely conceive how the passage could be brought into special connexion with the resurrection of Jesus. Isa. liii. refers decidedly to a collective subject perpetually restored to life in new members. Hosea vi. has a figurative reference, not to be mistaken, to the people and state of Israel. Lastly, the principal passage, Ps. xvi. can only be interpreted of a pious man, who by the help of Jehovah hopes to escape from the danger of death, not in the sense that he, like Jesus, would rise again from the grave, but that he would not be laid there—that is, obviously, not for the present, and with the understanding, that when his time should come, he must pay the tribute of nature: [1667] which, again, will not apply to Jesus. Thus if a supernatural principle in Jesus—a prophetic spirit—caused him to discover a pre-intimation of his resurrection in these Old Testament histories and passages; then, as no one of them really contained such a pre-intimation, the spirit in him cannot have been the spirit of truth, but must have been a lying spirit, the supernatural principle in him, not a divine, but a demoniacal principle. If, in order to avoid this consequence, supranaturalists who are accessible to a rational interpretation of the Old Testament, resort to their only remaining expedient, of regarding the foreknowledge of Jesus concerning his resurrection as purely natural and human: we must reply, that the resurrection, conceived as a miracle, was a secret of the divine counsels, to penetrate into which, prior to the issue, was an impossibility to a human intelligence; while viewed as a natural result, it was a chance the last to be calculated upon, apart from the supposition of an apparent death planned by Jesus and his colleagues.

Thus the foreknowledge, as well as the prediction of the resurrection, was attributed to Jesus only after the issue; and in fact, it was an easy matter, with the groundless arbitrariness of Jewish exegesis, for the disciples and the authors of the New Testament to discover in the Old, types and prophecies of the resurrection. Not that they did this with crafty design, according to the accusation of the Wolfenbüttel Fragmentist, and others of his class: but as he who has looked at the sun, long sees its image wherever he may turn his gaze; so they, blinded by their enthusiasm for the new Messiah, saw him on every page of the only book they read, the Old Testament, and in the conviction that Jesus was the Messiah, founded in the genuine feeling that he had satisfied their deepest need—a conviction and a feeling which we also still honour—they laid hold on supports which have long been broken, and which can no longer be made tenable by the most zealous efforts of an exegesis which is behind the age.

§ 115.

THE DISCOURSES OF JESUS ON HIS SECOND ADVENT. CRITICISM OF THE DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS.

Not only did Jesus, according to the evangelical accounts, predict that he should return to life three days after his death; but also that at a later period, in the midst of the calamities which would issue in the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, he should come in the clouds of heaven, to close the present period of the world, and by a general judgment, open the future age (Matt. xxiv. and xxv.; Mark. xiii.; Luke xvii. 22–37, xxi. 5–36).

As Jesus for the last time went out of the temple (Luke has not this circumstance), and his disciples (Luke says indefinitely, some) admiringly drew his attention to the magnificent building, he assured them that all which they then looked on, would be destroyed from its foundations (Matt. xxiv. 1, 2, parall.). On the question of the disciples, when this would happen, and what would be the sign of the Messiah’s coming, which in their idea was associated with such a crisis (v. 3), Jesus warns them not to be deceived by persons falsely giving themselves out to be the Messiah, and by the notion that the expected catastrophe must follow immediately on the first prognostics; for wars and rumours of war, risings of nation against nation and kingdom against kingdom, famine, pestilence, and earthquakes in divers places, would be only the beginning of the sorrows which were to precede the advent of the Messiah (v. 4–8). They themselves, his adherents, must first suffer hatred, persecution, and the sword; perfidy, treachery, deception by false prophets, lukewarmness and general corruption of morals, would prevail among men; but at the same time the news of the Messiah’s kingdom must be promulgated through the whole world. Only after all this, could the end of the present period of the world arrive, until when, he who would partake of the blessedness of the future must endure with constancy (v. 9–14). A nearer presage of this catastrophe would be the fulfilment of the oracle of Daniel (ix. 27), the standing of the abomination of desolation in the holy place (according to Luke xxi. 20, the encompassing of Jerusalem with armies). When this should take place, it would be high time for the most precipitate flight (according to Luke, because the devastation of Jerusalem would be at hand, an event which he more nearly particularizes in the address of Jesus to the city, xix. 43 f.: thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another). At this juncture, all who should have hindrances to rapid departure would be deserving of compassion, and it would be in the highest degree desirable that the recommended flight should not fall in an unfavourable season; for then would commence unexampled tribulation (according to Luke, v. 24, consisting chiefly in many of the people of Israel perishing by the sword, in others being carried away captive, and in Jerusalem being trodden down of the Gentiles for a predetermined period): a tribulation which only the merciful abridgment of its duration by God, for the sake of the elect, could render supportable (v. 15–22). At this time would arise false prophets and Messiahs, seeking to delude by miracles and signs, and promising to show the Messiah in this or that place: whereas a Messiah who was concealed anywhere, and must be sought out, could not be the true one; for his advent would be like the lightning, a sudden and universal revelation, of which the central point would be Jerusalem, the object of punishment on account of its sin (v. 23–28). Immediately after this time of tribulation, the darkening of the sun and moon, the falling of the stars, and the shaking of all the powers of heaven would usher in the appearance of the Messiah, who, to the dismay of the dwellers on the earth, would come with great glory in the clouds of heaven, and immediately send forth his angels to gather together his elect from all the corners of the earth (v. 29–31). By the fore-named signs the approach of the described catastrophe would be as certainly discernible as the approach of summer by the budding of the fig-tree; the existing generation would, by all that was true, live to witness it, though its more precise period was known to God only (v. 32–36). But, after the usual manner of mankind (what follows, Mark and Luke partly have not at all, partly not in this connexion), they would allow the advent of the Messiah, as formerly the deluge, to overtake them in thoughtless security (v. 37–39): and yet it would be an extremely critical period, in which those who stood in the closest relation to each other, would be delivered over to entirely opposite destinies (v. 40, 41). Hence watchfulness would be requisite, as in all cases where the period of a decisive issue is uncertain: an admonition which is then illustrated by the image of the master of the house and the thief (v. 43, 44); of the servant to whom his lord, when about to travel, entrusted the rule of his house (v. 45–51); of the wise and foolish virgins (xxv. 1–13): and lastly, of the talents (v. 14–30). Hereupon follows a description of the solemn judgment, which the Messiah would hold over all nations, and in which, according as the duties of humanity were observed or neglected, he would award blessedness or misery (v. 31–46). [1668]

Thus in these discourses Jesus announces that shortly (εὐθέως, xxiv. 29), after that calamity, which (especially according to the representation in Luke’s gospel) we must identify with the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple, and within the term of the cotemporary generation (ἡ γενεὰ αὕτη, v. 34), he would visibly make his second advent in the clouds, and terminate the existing dispensation. Now as it will soon be eighteen centuries since the destruction of Jerusalem, and an equally long period since the generation cotemporary with Jesus disappeared from the earth, while his visible return and the end of the world which he associated with it, have not taken place: the announcement of Jesus appears so far to have been erroneous. Already in the first age of Christianity, when the return of Christ was delayed longer than had been anticipated, there arose, according to 2 Peter iii. 3 f., scoffers, asking: where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. In modern times, the inference which may apparently be drawn from the above consideration, to the disadvantage of Jesus and the apostles, has been by no one more pointedly expressed than by the Wolfenbüttel Fragmentist. No promise throughout the whole scriptures, he thinks, is on the one hand more definitely expressed, and on the other, has turned out more flagrantly false, than this, which yet forms one of the main pillars of Christianity. And he does not see in this a mere error, but a premeditated deception on the part of the apostles (to whom, and not to Jesus himself, he attributes that promise, and the discourses in which it is contained); a deception induced by the necessity of alluring the people on whose contributions they wished to subsist, by the promise of a speedy reward: and discernible by the boldness of their attempts to evade the doubts springing from the protracted delay of the return of Christ: Paul, for example, in the second epistle to the Thessalonians, sheltering himself in obscure phrases; and Peter, in his second epistle, resorting to the preposterous expedient of appealing to the divine mode of reckoning time, in which a thousand years are equal to one day. [1669]

Such inferences from the discourse before us would inflict a fatal wound on Christianity; hence it is natural that exegetists should endeavour by all means to obviate them. And as the whole difficulty consists in Jesus having apparently placed an event now long past, in immediate chronological connexion with one still future, three expedients are possible: either to deny that Jesus in part spoke of something now past, and to allege that he spoke solely of what is still future; or to deny that a part of his discourse relates to something still future, and thus to refer the entire prediction to what is already lying in the past; or lastly, to admit that the discourse of Jesus does indeed partly refer to something which is still future to us, but either to deny that he places the two series of events in immediate chronological succession, or to maintain that he has also noticed what is intermediate.

Some of the Fathers of the Church, as Irenæus and Hilary—yet living in the primitive expectation of the return of Christ, and at the same time not so practised in regular exegesis, as to be incapable of overlooking certain difficulties attendant on a desirable interpretation—referred the entire prediction, from its commencement in Matt. xxiv. to its end in Matt. xxv., to the still future return of Christ to judgment. [1670] But as this interpretation admits that Jesus in the commencement of his discourse uses the destruction of Jerusalem as a type of the final catastrophe, it virtually nullifies itself. For what does that admission signify, but that the discourse of Jesus, in the first instance, produces the impression that he spoke of the destruction of Jerusalem, i.e. of something now past, and that only more extended reflection and combination can give it a relation to something still lying in futurity?

To modern rationalism, based as it was on naturalistic principles, the hope of the second advent of Christ was in every form annihilated. Hence, not scrupling at any exegetical violence for the sake of removing from scripture what was discordant with its preconceived system, it threw itself on the opposite side, and hazarded the attempt to refer the discourses in question, in their entire tenor, solely to the destruction of Jerusalem, and the events which immediately preceded and followed it. [1671] According to this interpretation, the end spoken of is only the cessation of the Judeo-Gentile economy of the world; what is said of the advent of Christ in the clouds, is only a figurative description of the promulgation and triumph of his doctrine; the assembling of the nations to judgment, and the sending of some into blessedness, and others into condemnation, is an image of the happy consequences which would result from embracing the doctrine and cause of Jesus, and the evil consequences attendant on indifference or hostility to them. But in this explanation there is a want of similarity between the symbols and the ideas represented, which is not only unprecedented in itself, but particularly inconceivable in this case; since Jesus is here addressing minds of Jewish culture, and must therefore be aware that what he said of the Messiah’s advent in the clouds, of the judgment, and the end of the existing period of the world, would be understood in the most literal sense.

It thus appears that the discourse of Jesus will not as a whole, admit of being referred either to the destruction of the Jewish state, or to the events at the end of the world; it would therefore be necessarily referred to something distinct from both, if this twofold impossibility adhered alike to all its parts. But the case is not so; for while, on the one hand, what is said Matt. xxiv. 2, 3, 15 ff. of the devastation of the temple, cannot be referred to the end of the world: on the other hand, what is predicted xxv. 31 ff. of the judgment to be held by the Son of Man, will not suit the destruction of Jerusalem. As, according to this, in the earlier part of the discourse of Jesus, the destruction of Jerusalem is the predominant subject, but in the subsequent part, the end of all things: it is possible to make a division, so as to refer the former to the more proximate event, the latter to the more remote one. This is the middle path which has been taken by the majority of modern exegetists, and here the only question is: where is the partition to be made? As it must present a space of time within which the whole period from the destruction of Jerusalem to the last day may be supposed to fall, and which therefore would include many centuries, it must, one would think, be plainly indicated, so as to be easily and unanimously found. It is no good augury for the plan, that this unanimity does not exist,—that, on the contrary, the required division is made in widely different parts of the discourse of Jesus.

Thus much on the one hand appeared to be decided: that at least the close of the 25th chapter, from v. 31, with its description of the solemn tribunal which the Messiah, surrounded by his angels, would hold over all nations, cannot be referred to the time of the destruction of Jerusalem. Hence many theologians believed that they could fix the boundary here, retaining the relation to the end of the Jewish state until xxv. 30, and at this point making the transition to the end of the world. [1672] On the very first glance at this explanation, it must appear strange that the great chasm which it supposes to exist between v. 30 and 31, is marked simply by a δὲ. Moreover, not only are the darkening of the sun and moon, earthquakes, and falling of the stars, understood as a mere image of the subversion of the Jewish state and worship; but when xxiv. 31, it is said of the Messiah, that he will come in the clouds, this is supposed to mean, invisibly; with power—only observable by the effects he produces; with great glory—with such as consists in the conclusions which may be drawn from those effects; while the angels who gather together the nations by the sound of the trumpet, are supposed to represent the apostles preaching the gospel. [1673] Quite erroneously, appeal is made, in support of this merely figurative meaning, to the prophetic pictures of the divine day of judgment, Isa. xiii. 9 ff., xxiv. 18 ff.; Jer. iv. 23 f.; Ezek. xxxii. 7 ff.; Joel iii. 3 ff.; Amos viii. 9; farther, to descriptions [1674] such as Judges v. 20; Acts ii., xvii. ff. In those prophetic passages, real eclipses of the sun and moon, earthquakes, and the like, are intended, and are described as prodigies which will accompany the predicted catastrophe; the song of Deborah, again, celebrates a real participation of heaven in the battle against Sisera, a participation which in the narrative, iv. 15, is ascribed to God himself, in the song, to his heavenly hosts; lastly, Peter expects, that the outpouring of the spirit will be succeeded by the appearances in the heavens, promised among the signs of the great day of the Lord.

The attempt to effect a division near the end of the discourse, at xxv. 30, failing, from its rendering much that goes before incapable of explanation; the next expedient is to retreat as far towards the commencement as possible, by considering how far it is inevitable to recognise a relation to the immediate future. The first resting place is after xxiv. 28; for what is said, up to this point, of war and other calamities, of the abomination in the temple, of the necessity for speedy flight, in order to escape unprecedented misery, cannot be divested of a reference to the destruction of Jerusalem without the greatest violence: while what follows concerning the appearance of the Son of Man in the clouds, etc., just as imperatively demands an application to the last day. [1675] But in the first place, it appears incomprehensible how the enormous interval, which on this explanation also is supposed to fall between the one portion of the discourse and the other, can be introduced between two verses, of all others, which Matthew connects by an adverb expressive of the shortest possible time (εὐθέως). It has been sought to remove this inconvenience by the assertion that εὐθέως does not here signify the quick succession of the one incident on the other, but only the unexpected occurrence of an event, and that consequently, what is here said amounts merely to this: suddenly, at some period (how distant is undetermined) after the calamities attendant on the destruction of Jerusalem, the Messiah will visibly appear. Such an interpretation of εὐθέως is, as Olshausen correctly perceives, merely a desperate resource: but even were it otherwise, it would afford no real aid, since not only does Mark in his parallel passage, v. 24, by the words, in those days, after that tribulation, ἐν ἐκείναις ταῖς ἡμέραις μετὰ τὴν θλίψιν ἐκείνην, place the events which he proceeds to mention in uninterrupted chronological succession with those which he had before detailed; but also, shortly after this point in each of the narratives (Matt. v. 34 parall.), we find the assurance that all this will be witnessed by the existing generation. As thus the opinion, that from v. 29, everything relates to the return of Christ to judge the world, was threatened with annihilation by v. 34; the word γενεὰ, as the Wolfenbüttel Fragmentist [1676] complains, was put to the torture, that it might cease to bear witness against this mode of division. At one time it is made to signify the Jewish nation; [1677] at another the adherents of Jesus; [1678] and of both the one and the other Jesus is supposed to say that it will (how many generations hence being left uncertain) be still in existence on the arrival of that catastrophe. So to explain the verse in question, that it may not contain a determination of time, is even maintained to be necessary on a consideration of the context, v. 35: for as in this Jesus declares it impossible to determine the period of that catastrophe, he cannot immediately before have given such a determination, in the assurance that his cotemporaries would yet live to see all of which he had been speaking. But this alleged necessity so to interpret the word γενεὰ, has long been dissipated by the distinction between an inexact indication of the space of time, beyond which the event will not be deferred (γενεὰ), and the precise determination of the epoch (ἡμέρα καὶ ὥρα) at which it will occur; the former Jesus gives, the latter he declares himself unable to give. [1679] But the very possibility of interpreting γενεὰ in the above manner vanishes, when it is considered, that in connexion with a verb of time, and without anything to imply a special application, γενεὰ cannot have any other than its original sense: i.e. generation, age; that in a passage aiming to determine the signs of the Messiah’s advent, it would be very unsuitable to introduce a declaration which, instead of giving any information concerning the arrival of that catastrophe, should rather treat of the duration of the Jewish nation, or of the Christian community, of which nothing had previously been said; that, moreover, already at v. 33, in the words ὑμεῖς ὅταν ἴδητε πάντα ταῦτα, γινώσκετε κ.τ.λ., Ye, when ye shall SEE all these things, know, etc., it is presupposed that the parties addressed would witness the approach of the event in question; and lastly, that in another passage (Matt. xvi. 28 parall.) the certainty of living to see the coming of the Son of man is asserted not simply of this generation, γενεὰ αὕτη, but of some standing here, τινες τῶν ὧδε ἑστηκότων, whereby it is shown in the most decisive manner, that in the present passage also, Jesus intended by the above expression the race of his cotemporaries, who were not to have become extinct before that catastrophe should occur. [1680] Unable to deny this, and yet anxious to separate as widely as possible the end of the world here announced, and the age of Jesus, others would find in the declaration before us nothing more than this: the events hitherto described will begin to be fulfilled in the present age, though their complete fulfilment may yet be deferred many centuries. [1681] But when already at v. 8 the subject is said to be the beginning of the tribulation, while from v. 14 we have a description of the end of the present period of the world, which that tribulation would introduce, and it is here (v. 34) said, the existing generation shall not pass away, ἕως ἂν πάντα ταῦτα γένηται, until all these things be fulfilled: we must inevitably understand by πάντα ταῦτα, all these things, not merely the beginning, but also the last-mentioned events at the end of the world.

Thus there is still at v. 34 something which must be referred to an event very near to the time of Jesus: hence the discourse of Jesus cannot from so early a point as v. 29, refer to the end of the world, an epoch so far distant; and the division must be made somewhat farther on, after v. 35 or 42. [1682] But on this plan, expressions are thrown into the first part of the discourse, which resist the assigned application to the time of the destruction of Jerusalem;—the glorious advent of Christ in the clouds, and the assembling of all nations by angels (v. 30 f.) must be regarded as the same extravagant figures, which formerly forbade our acceptance of another mode of division.

Thus the declaration v. 34 which, together with the preceding symbolical discourse on the fig tree (v. 32 f.), and the appended asseveration (v. 35), must refer to a very near event, has, both before and after it, expressions which can only relate to the more distant catastrophe: hence it has appeared to some as a sort of oasis in the discourse, having a sense isolated from the immediate context. Schott, for instance, supposes that, up to v. 26, Jesus had been speaking of the destruction of Jerusalem; that at v. 27 he does indeed make a transition to the events at the end of the present period of the world; but that at v. 32, he reverts to the original subject, the destruction of Jerusalem; and only at v. 36 proceeds again to speak of the end of the world. [1683] But this is to hew the text in pieces, out of desperation. Jesus cannot possibly have spoken with so little order and coherence; still less can he have so linked his sentences together as to give no intimation of such abrupt transitions.

Nor is this imputed to him by the most recent critics. According to them, it is the Evangelist who has joined together, not in the best order, distinct and heterogeneous declarations of Jesus. Matthew, indeed, admits Schulz, imagined that these discourses were spoken without intermission, and only arbitrariness and violence can in this respect sever them from each other; but hardly did Jesus himself deliver them in this consecutive manner, and with this imprint of unity. [1684] The various phases of his coming, thinks Sieffert, his figurative appearance at the destruction of Jerusalem, and his literal appearance at the last day, though they may not have been expressly discriminated, were certainly not positively connected by Jesus; but subjects which he spoke of in succession were, from their obscurity, confused together by the Evangelist. [1685] And as in this instance there recurs the difference between Matthew and Luke, that what Matthew represents as being spoken on a single occasion, Luke distributes into separate discourses; to which it is also to be added, that much of what Matthew gives, Luke either has not, or has it in a different form: therefore Schleiermacher [1686] believed himself warranted to rectify the composition of Matthew by that of Luke, and to maintain that while in Luke the two separate discourses, xvii. 22 ff. and xxi. 5 ff., have each their appropriate connexion and their indubitable application, in Matthew (chap. xxiv. and xxv.), by the blending of those two discourses, and the introduction of portions of other discourses, the connexion is destroyed, and the application obscured. According to this, the discourse, Luke xxi., taken alone, contains nothing which outsteps the reference to the capture of Jerusalem and the accompanying events. Yet here also (v. 27) we find the declaration, Then shall they see the Son of Man coming in a cloud, τότε ὄψονται τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐρχόμενον ἐν νεφέλη; and when Schleiermacher explains this as a mere image representing the revelation of the religious significance of the political and natural events before described, he falls into a violence of interpretation which overturns his entire opinion as to the mutual relation of these accounts. If, then, in the connexion of the end of all things with the destruction of Jerusalem, Matthew by no means stands alone, but is countenanced by Luke—to say nothing of Mark, whose account in this instance is an extract from Matthew: we may, it is true, conclude, that as in other discourses of Jesus, so perhaps in this also, many things which were uttered at different times are associated; but there is nothing to warrant the supposition, that precisely what relates to the two events, which in our idea are so remote from each other, is the foreign matter, especially since we see, from the unanimous representation of the remaining New Testament writings, that the primitive church expected, as a speedy issue, the return of Christ, together with the end of the present period of the world (1 Cor. x. 11, xv. 51; Phil. iv. 5; 1 Thess. iv. 15 ff.; James v. 8; 1 Pet. iv. 7; 1 John ii. 18; Rev. i. 1, 3, iii. 11, xxii. 7, 10, 12, 20).

Thus it is impossible to evade the acknowledgment, that in this discourse, if we do not mutilate it to suit our own views, Jesus at first speaks of the destruction of Jerusalem, and farther on and until the close, of his return at the end of all things, and that he places the two events in immediate connexion. There remains, therefore, but one expedient for vindicating the correctness of his announcement, namely, on the one hand, to assign the coming of which he speaks to the future, but, on the other hand, to bring it at the same time into the present—instead of a merely future, to make it a perpetual coming. The whole history of the world, it is said, since the first appearance of Christ, is an invisible return on his part, a spiritual judgment which he holds over mankind. Of this, the destruction of Jerusalem (in our passage until v. 28) is only the first act; in immediate succession (εὐθέως, v. 29 ff.) comes the revolution effected among mankind by the publication of the gospel; a revolution which is to be carried on in a series of acts and epochs, until the end of all things, when the judgment gradually effected in the history of the world, will be made known by an all-comprehending, final revelation. [1687] But the famous utterance of the poet, [1688] spoken from the inmost depth of modern conviction, is ill-adapted to become the key of a discourse, which more than any other has its root in the point of view proper to the ancient world. To regard the judgment of the world, the coming of Christ, as something successive, is a mode of conception in the most direct opposition to that of the New Testament. The very expressions by which it designates that catastrophe, as that day or the last day, ἐκείνη or ἐσχάτη ἡμέρα, show that it is to be thought of as momentary; the συντέλεια τοῦ αἰῶνος, end of the age (v. 3), concerning the signs of which the apostles inquire, and which Jesus elsewhere (Matt. xiii. 39) represents under the image of the harvest, can only be the final close of the course of the world, not something which is gradually effected during this course; when Jesus compares his coming to lightning (xxiv. 27), and to the entrance of the thief in the night (v. 43), he represents it as one sudden event, and not as a series of events. [1689] If we consider in addition to this the extravagant figures, which it is not less necessary to suppose on this interpretation, than on the above-mentioned reference of the 24th chapter to the destruction of Jerusalem, [1690] it will appear necessary to abstain from this expedient, as from all the previous ones.

Thus the last attempt to discover in the discourse before us the immense interval which, looking from our position in the present day, is fixed between the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of all things, having failed; we are taught practically that that interval lies only in our own conception, which we are not justified in introducing into the text. And when we consider that we owe our idea of that interval only to the experience of many centuries, which have elapsed since the destruction of Jerusalem: it cannot be difficult to us to imagine how the author of this discourse, who had not had this experience, might entertain the belief that shortly after the fall of the Jewish sanctuary, the world itself, of which, in the Jewish idea, that sanctuary was the centre, would also come to an end, and the Messiah appear in judgment.

§ 116.

ORIGIN OF THE DISCOURSES ON THE SECOND ADVENT.

The result just obtained involves a consequence, to avoid which has been the object of all the futile attempts at explanation hitherto examined: if, namely, Jesus conceived and declared that the fall of the Jewish sanctuary would be shortly followed by his visible return and the end of the world, while it is now nearly 1800 years since the one catastrophe, and yet the other has not arrived; it follows that in this particular he was mistaken. Hence expositors, who so far yield to exegetical evidence, as to agree with us in the above conclusion concerning the meaning of the discourse before us, seek from dogmatical considerations to evade this legitimate consequence.

Hengstenberg, as is well known, has advanced, in relation to the history of the Hebrew prophets, the following theory, which has met with approval from other expositors. To the spiritual vision of these men, he says, future things presented themselves not so much through the medium of time as of space—as it were, in great pictures; and thus, as is the case in paintings or perspective views, the most distant object often appeared to them to stand immediately behind the nearest, foreground and background being intermingled with each other: and this theory of a perspective vision we are to apply to Jesus, especially in regard to the discourse in question. [1691] But we may here cite the appropriate remark of Paulus, [1692] that as one, who in a perspective externally presented, does not know how to distinguish distances, labours under an optical delusion, i.e. errs: so likewise in an internal perspective of ideas, if such there be, the disregard of distances must be pronounced an error; consequently this theory does not show that the above men did not err, but rather explains how they easily might err.

Even Olshausen considers this theory, which he elsewhere adopts, insufficient in the present case to remove all appearance of error on the part of Jesus; and he therefore seeks to derive special grounds of justification, from the particular nature of the event predicted. [1693] In the first place he regards it as indispensable to the full moral influence of the doctrine of Christ’s return, that this catastrophe should be regarded as possible, nay probable, at any moment. This consideration may indeed justify such enunciations as Matt. xxiv. 37 ff., where Jesus admonishes to watchfulness, because no one can know how soon the decisive moment may arrive; but by no means such as xxiv. 34, where he declares that within the term of the existing generation, all will be fulfilled. For one whose mind is in a healthy state, conceives the possible as possible, the probable as probable; and if he wishes to abide by the truth, he so exhibits them to others: he, on the contrary, by whom the merely possible or probable is conceived as the real, is under a mistake; and he who, without so conceiving it himself, yet for a moral or religious object, so represents it to others, permits himself to use a pious fraud. Olshausen further avails himself of a position already noticed, namely, that the opinion that the advent of Christ is at hand, is a true one, inasmuch as the entire history of the world is a coming of Christ; though not so as to exclude his final coming at the end of all things. But if it is proved that Jesus represented his literal, final coming as near at hand, while, in fact, only his figurative perpetual coming occurred in the period indicated: he has confused these two modes of his coming. The last argument which Olshausen adduces—that because the acceleration or delay of the return of Christ depends on the conduct of men, consequently on their free-will, his prophecy is only to be understood conditionally—stands or falls with the first; for to represent something conditional as unconditional is to create a false impression.

Sieffert, likewise, regards the grounds on which Olshausen seeks to free the assertions of Jesus concerning his return from the imputation of error, as inadequate; nevertheless he holds it an impossibility to the Christian consciousness, to ascribe an erroneous expectation to Jesus. [1694] In no case would this furnish a warrant, arbitrarily to sever from each other those elements in the discourse of Jesus which refer to the nearer event, from those which in our view refer to the more remote one: rather, if we had reasons for holding such an error on the part of Jesus inconceivable, we must deny in general that the discourses on the second advent, in which those two sets of materials are so inextricably interwoven, originated with him. But, looking from the orthodox point of view, the question is not: what will it satisfy the Christian consciousness of the present day to believe or not to believe concerning Christ? but, what stands written concerning Christ? and to this the above consciousness must accommodate itself as it best may. Considering the subject rationally, however, a feeling resting on presuppositions, such as the so-called Christian consciousness, has no voice in matters of science; and as often as it seeks to intermeddle with them, is to be reduced to order by the simple reprimand: mulier taceat in ecclesiâ! [1695]