The Life of Jesus Critically Examined

1 See his animated and impressive treatise, vom Zweck, u. s. f., s. 121 ff. Comp. Briefe über den Rationalismus, s. 224 ff., and De Wette, exeg. Handb. 1, 1, s. 143.

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crushed, would again expand and flourish.* As the Old Testament prophets, it was said, represent the restoration of the Israelitish people to renewed prosperity, under the image of a resurrection from the dead {Isa. xxvi. 19; Ezek. xxxvii.) ; as they mark the short interval within which, under certain conditions, this turn of things was to be expected, by the expression: in two or three days will Jehovah revive the smitten one, and raise the dead (Hos. vi. 2 ),† a statement of time which Jesus also uses indefinitely for a short interval (Luke xiii. 32) : so by the declaration that he will rise on the third day after his death, th trith hmera anasthnai, he intends to say no more than that even though he may succumb to the power of his enemies and be put to death, still the work which he has begun will not come to an end, but will in a short time go forward with a fresh impetus. This merely figurative mode of speaking adopted by Jesus, the apostles, after Jesus had actually risen in the body, understood literally, and regarded them as prophecies of his personal resurrection. Now that in the prophetic passages adduced, the expressions [Heb. letters] Qum khayah and [Heb. letters] Heqiyts have only the alleged figurative sense, is true; but these are passages the whole tenor of which is figurative, and in which, in particular, the depression and death which precede the revivification are themselves to be understood only in a figurative sense. Here, on the contrary, all the foregoing expressions: paradidosqai, katakrinesqai, staurousqai, apokteinesqai k. t. l. (to be delivered, condemned, crucified, killed, etc.) are to be understood literally; hence all at once, with the words egerqhnai and anasthnai, to enter on a figurative meaning, would be an unprecedented abruptness of transition; not to mention that passages such as Matt. xxvi. 32, where Jesus says: After I am risen again I will go before you into Galilee, meta to egerqhnai me proaxw umaV eiV thn Galilaian,, can have no meaning at all unless egeiresqai be understood literally. In this closely consecutive series of expressions, which must be taken in a purely literal sense, there is then no warrant, and even no inducement, to understand the statement of time which is connected with them, otherwise than also literally, and in its strictly etymological meaning. Thus if Jesus really used these words, and in the same connexion in which they are given by the Evangelists, he cannot have meant to announce by them merely the speedy victory of his cause; his meaning must have been, that he himself would return to life in three days after his violent death.‡

As however Jesus, judging from the conduct of his disciples after his death, cannot have announced his resurrection in plain words: other commentators have resigned themselves to the admission, that the Evangelists, after the issue, gave to the discourses of Jesus a

* Thus especially Herder, vom Erlöser der Menschen, s. 133 ff. Briefe über den Rationalismus, s. 227. Comp. Küinol, Comm. in Matth., p. 444 f.

† LXX. : ugiasei hmaV meta duo hmeraV, en th hmera th trith exanasthsomeqa kai zhsomeqa enwpion autou.

‡ Comp. Süskind, einige Bemerkungen über die Frage, ob Jesus seine Auferstehung bestimmt vorhergesagt habe? in Flatt’s Magazin, 7, s. 203 ff.

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definiteness which, as uttered by him, they did not possess; that they have not merely understood literally, what Jesus intended figuratively, of the revival of his cause after his death, but in accordance with their erroneous interpretation, have so modified his words that, as we now read them, we must certainly understand them in a literal sense;* yet that not all the discourses of Jesus are altered in this manner ; here and there his original expressions still remain.

§ 114. FIGURATIVE DISCOURSES, IN WHICH JESUS IS SUPPOSED TO HAVE ANNOUNCED HIS RESURRECTION.

According to the fourth gospel, Jesus, at the very commencement of his ministry, in figurative language, referred his enemies, the Jews, to his future resurrection (ii. 19 ff. ). On his first messianic visit to Jerusalem, and when, after the abuse of the market in the temple had provoked him to that exhibition of holy zeal of which we have formerly spoken, the Jews require a sign from him, by which he should legitimatize his claim to be considered a messenger of God, who had authority to adopt such violent measures, Jesus gives them this answer, Destroy this temple, and after three days I will raise it up. lusate ton naon touton, kai en trisin hmeraiV egerw auton : The Jews took these words in the sense, which, since they were spoken in the temple, was the most natural, and urged, in reply to Jesus, that as it had taken forty years to build this temple, he would scarcely be able, if it were destroyed, to rebuild it in three days; but the Evangelist informs us, that this was not the meaning of Jesus, and that he here spoke (though indeed the disciples were not aware of this until after his resurrection), of the temple of his body, naoV tou swmatoV autou : i.e. under the destruction and rebuilding of the temple, he alluded to his death and resurrection. Even if we admit, what however the most moderate expositors deny,† that Jesus could properly (as he is also represented to have done in Matthew xii. 39 ff.) when the Jews asked him for a visible and immediate sign, refer them to his resurrection as the greatest, and for his enemies the most overwhelming miracle in his history: still he must have done this in terms which it was possible for them to understand (as in the above passage of Matthew, where he expresses himself quite plainly). But the expressions of Jesus, as here given, could not possibly be understood in this sense. For when one who is in the temple, speaks of the destruction of this temple, everyone will refer his words to the building itself. Hence Jesus, when he uttered the words, this temple, ton naon touton, must have pointed to his body with his finger; as, indeed, is generally presupposed by the friends of this interpretation.‡ But, in the first place, the Evangelist says nothing of such a gesture, notwithstanding that it lay in

* Paulus, ut sup. 2, s. 415 ff. ; Hase, L. J. § 109.

† E.g. Lücke, I, s. 426; comp., on the contrary, Tholuck, in loc.

‡ Vid. Tholuck, ut sup.

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his interest to notice this, as a support of his interpretation. In the second place, Gabler has with justice remarked, how ill-judged and ineffective it would have been, by the addition of a mere gesture to give a totally new meaning to a speech, which verbally, and therefore logically, referred to the temple. If, however, Jesus used this expedient, the motion of his finger could not have been unobserved; the Jews must rather have demanded from him how he could be so arrogant as to call his body the temple, naoV ; or even if not so, still, presupposing that action, the disciples could not have remained in the dark concerning the meaning of his words, until after the resurrection.*

By these difficulties modern exegetists have felt constrained to renounce John’s explanation of the words of Jesus, as erroneous and made ex eventu, and to attempt to penetrate, independently of the Evangelist’s explanation, into the sense of the enigmatical saying which he attributes to Jesus.† The construction put upon it by the Jews, who refer the words of Jesus to a real destruction and rebuilding of the national sanctuary, cannot be approved without imputing to Jesus an extravagant example of vain-glorious boasting, at variance with the character which he elsewhere exhibits. If on this account search be made for some figurative meaning which may possibly be assigned to the declaration, there presents itself first a passage in the same gospel (iv. 21 ff.) where Jesus announces to the woman of Samaria, that the time is immediately coming, in which the Father will no longer be worshipped exclusively in Jerusalem (en IerosolumoiV), but will, as a Spirit, receive spiritual worship. Now in the present passage also, the destruction of the temple might, it is said, have signified the abolition of the temple-service at Jerusalem, supposed to be the only valid mode of worship, This interpretation is confirmed by a narrative in the Acts (vi. 14), Stephen, who, as it appears, had adopted the above expressions of Jesus, was taxed by his accusers with declaring, that Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and shall change the customs which Moses delivered, oti IhsouV o NazwraioV outoV katalusei ton topon touton, kai allaxei ta eqh, a paredwke MwushV : In which words a change of the Mosaic religious institutions, without doubt a spiritualization of them, is described as a sequel to the destruction of the temple. To this may be added a passage in the synoptical gospels. Nearly the same words which in John are uttered by Jesus himself, appear in the two first gospels (Matt. xxvi. 60 f. ; Mark xiv. 57 f,) as the accusation of false witnesses against him; and here Mark, in addition, designates the temple which is to be destroyed, as one made with hands, ceiropoihtoV, and the new one which is to be

* Henke, Joannes apostolus nonnullorum Jesu apophthegmatum in evang. suo et ipse interpres. In Pott’s and Ruperti’s Sylloge Comm. theol. I, s. 9; Gabler, Recension des Henke’schen Programms im neuesten theol. Journal, 2, I, s. 88; Lücke, in loc.

† Thus, besides Henke in the above Programm, Herder, von Gottes Sohn nach Johannes Evang., s. 135 f. ; Paulus, Comm. 4, s. 165 f. ; L. J. I, a, s. 173 f. ; Lücke, and De Wette, in loc.

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built, as another, made without hands, alloV, aceiropoihtoV, whereby he appears to indicate the same contrast between a ceremonial and a spiritual religious system. By the aid of these passages, it is thought, the declaration in John may be explained thus: the sign of my authority to purify the temple, is my ability in a short time to introduce in the place of the Jewish ceremonial worship, a spiritual service of God; i.e. I am authorized to reform the old system, in so far as I am qualified to found a new one. It is certainly a trivial objection to this explanation, that in John the object is not changed, as in Mark, where the temple which is to be built is spoken of as another (alloV), but instead of this, is indicated by the word autoV , as the same with the one destroyed;^* since, indeed, the Christian system of religion in relation to the Jewish, may, just as the risen bodyof Jesus in relation to the dead one, be conceived as at once identical and different, inasmuch as in both cases the substance is the same, while the transitory accidents only are supposed to be removed. But it is a more formidable objection which attaches itself to the determination of time, en trisin hmeraiV. That this expression is also used indefinitely and proverbially, in the sense of a short interval of time in general, is not adequately proved by the two passages which are usually appealed to with this view; for in them the third day, by being placed in connexion with the second and first (Hos. vi. 2 : [Heb. letters] Miyyomayim bayyom hashsheliyshiy; Luke xiii. 32 : shmeron kai aurion kai th trith is announced as a merely relative and proximate statement, whereas in our passage it stands alone, and thus presents itself as an absolute and precise determination of time.†

Thus alike invited and repelled by both explanations,‡ theologians take refuge in a double sense which holds the middle place either between the interpretation of John and the symbolical one last stated,§ or between the interpretation of John and that of the Jews ;|| 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 naoV 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

* Storr, in Flatt’s Magazin, 4, s. 199.

† Tholuck and Olshausen, in loc.

‡ Hence Neander remains suspended in indecision between the two, s. 395 f.

§ Thus Kern, die Hauptthatsachen der evang. Gesch., Tüb. Zeitschrift, 1836, 2, s. 128.

|| Thus Olshausen.

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other kind is unheard of in the discourse of a judicious man.* 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, yeudomarturaV, 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.† 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 (lusate, not lusw), 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, en trisin hmeraiV.

If, according to this, on every interpretation of the expression, except the inadmissible one relative to the body of Jesus, the words en trisin hmeraiV 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, oti I. o Naz. outoV katalusei ton topon touton (ton agion), kai allaxei ta eqh a paredwke MwushV. What is false in this allegation (for the witnesses against Stephen also are described as martureV yeudeiV 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, kai palin oikodomhsei (-sw) auton or kai allon (aceiropoihton) oikodomhsei (-sw).

Meanwhile, this expedient is not at all needful, so far as any insurmountable difficulty in the words en trisin hmeraiV, 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.‡

* Kern says, indeed, that a similar doubleness of meaning is found elsewhere in significant discourse; but he refrains from adducipg an example.

† Probab., p. 23 ff.

‡ Comp. Neander, s. 396, Anm.

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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 ) genea no sign shall be given, but the sign of the prophet Jonah, to shmeion Iwna tou profhtou, 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, en th koilia tou khtouV so also the Son of man will pass three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, en th kardia thV ghV. 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 possibilityof 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:* 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.† 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.

* Paulus, exeg. Handb. in loc.

† Comp. Fritzsche and Olshausen, in loc.

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On these grounds, modern critics have pronounced the explanation of the shmeion Iwna in Matthew to be an interpretation made post eventum by the Evangelist, and by him falsely attributed to Jesus.* 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, sofia SolomwnoV, 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 khrugma, which brought the Ninevites to repentance. It might be supposed that the future tense in Luke: outwV estai kai o uioV t. a. th genea tauth (shmeion), 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 krisiV, 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 mikron kai palin mikron, a little while, and again a little while; the opposition between emfanizein hmin (toiV maqhtaiV) kai ouci tw kosmw, manifest to you (the disciples) and not to the world; the words palin oyomai and oyesqe,

* Paulus, exeg. Handb. 2, s. 97 ff. Schulz, über das Abendm., s. 317 f.

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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.* 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, oti egw zw (xiv. 19), denote his resurrection, we are at a loss to know what can be meant by the succeeding clause, ye shall live also, kai umeiV zhsesqe. 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 paraklhtoV.† Nevertheless, even this explanation has its difficulties, since, on the other hand, the expressions ye shall see me, oyesqe me, and I shall see you, oyomai umaV, 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 pantwn twn gegrammenwn dia twn profhtwn tw uiw tou anqrwpou; but even after the issue, he admonishes his disciples that they ought to believe all that the prophets have spoken, epi pasin oiV elalhsan oi profhtai, namely, that Christ ought to suffer these things and to enter into his glory, tauta edei paqein ton Criston, kai eiselqein eiV thn doxan autou (Luke xxiv. 25 f.).

* Süskind, ut sup. s. 184 Ff.

† Vid. Lücke, in loc.

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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, arxamenoV apo MwsewV kai apo pantwn twn profhtwn, 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:* 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

* Vid. de Wette, Comm. über die Psalmen, s. 178.

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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. I, 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

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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 1.: 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. 2 3—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—3 1). 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

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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. 3I~~~46).^*

‡ Thus Storr, Opusc. acad. 3, s. 34 ff. ; Paulus, exeg. Handb. 3, a, s. 346 f. 402 f.

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interpretation of euqewV 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, en ekeinaiV taiV hmeraiV meta thn qliyin ekeinhn 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 genea as the Wolfenbüttel Fragmentist* 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 ;^† at another the adherents of Jesus ;^‡ 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 genea has long been dissipated by the distinction between an inexact indication of the space of time, beyond which the event will not be deferred (genea), and the precise determination of the epoch (hmera kai wra) at which it will occur; the former Jesus gives, the latter he declares himself unable to give.^§ But the very possibility of interpreting genea 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, genea 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 umeiV otan idhte panta, ginwskete k. t. l., 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, genea auth, but of some standing here, tineV twn wde esthkotwn, whereby it is shown in the most decisive manner, that in the present passage also,