The great day of the Lord is near, it is near and hasteth greatly . . . . That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of the trumpet and alarm.' More vivid in detail and dramatic in general impression are the scenes which the prophetic spirit of Joel grasped and delineated: The day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand: a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness. . . . the heavens tremble; the sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining . . . . for the day of the Lord is great and very terrible; and who can abide it ?2 Most striking among the portrayals is that of Joel 2:30, 31: And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come. In a community that believed itself to be experiencing the fulfilment of the prophecy of Joel 2:28, 29, it was inevitable that vigorous hope should be taken from that experience, and that it should frame for itself, as a central belief, the faith that the remainder of the prophecy, Joel 2:30, 31, was on the verge of realization. That the former was the case with the early Christians is testified by Acts 2:1-36; that the latter was the resultant is evident from the large place given this hope in the early apostolic age. With the authentic words from Jesus of document P §60 concerning "the day" as a starting-point, with the experience of finding large areas of prophecy about "the last days" richly fulfilled in the present, with that interpretation of Joel which regarded the events of Joel 2:28, 29 as immediately preceding those of Joel 2:30, 31, is it not both natural and, in some measure, justifiable that they freely embody Old Testament forecasts in their growing tradition of the words of Jesus about the future? These are probably not regarded by them as conveying a different body of ideas; they are likely not even thought of as introducing minor essential modifications; they are believed rather to report the ideas of Jesus, which they naturally consider as grounded in, and originating from, Old Testament prophecy. Moreover, this accretion of Old Testament phrasing must be regarded as a gradual and prolonged process, wrought out in an oral tradition; it is surely not the outcome of a single sitting at manuscript reproduction of Jesus' words. 1 Zeph. 1:14-16. 2 Joel 2:1, 2, 10, II. 3 Acts 2:17. It has been pointed out that the statement about the rise of messianic claimants in portion B of document MK is given such a chronological setting in that document that there are narrow limits of time for their activity. This is effected by the "And then" of portion B, which means after the destruction of Jerusalem, and by the "But in those days, after that tribulation" of portion C. But it is to be observed that the portion C, which brings the day of the Son of man into close sequence with the destruction of Jerusalem, is entirely absent from the document P record of these sayings. In the document P account there is no statement of any kind as to the sequence of the rise of messianic claimants and the day of the Son of man, or, indeed, of the time relation of "the day" to any other event or events. The single chronological note of P §60 is that in the portion A in the words, "And ye shall not see it." Instead of supplying, as does document MK, an assurance to the disciples that they may look for "the day" to follow speedily upon "that tribulation," the document P warns them that all desire to see "the day" is vain and destined to disappointment-"ye shall not see it." Does the acceptance of the document P §60 report of the sayings of Jesus about the day of the Son of man, because of the weighty external and internal evidences of its greater originality as compared with document MK, leave the discourse without any indication as to the time of the two great events named in the discourse, the destruction of Jerusalem and the day of the Son of man? The paragraph that follows in document MK makes a clear answer to that important question. 89. THE TIME OF THE EVENTS A DOCUMENT MK 13:28-32 B A GOSPEL LK 21:29-33 And he spake to them a parable: Behold the fig tree, and all the trees: when they now shoot forth, ye see it and know of your own selves that the summer is now nigh. Even so ye also, when ye see these things coming to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh. Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all things be accomplished. Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away. In no other paragraph of this discourse does Matthew follow his document MK so closely in verbal details as in that above. No significant divergence is observable in the portion A. For his document MK phrase "that day or that hour" in portion B, Matthew substitutes "that day and hour." By this apparently unimportant modification, the evangelist obscures more completely that application of portion B to the day of the Son of man which already had suffered partial obscuration in document MK by the probable addition of the words "or that hour." The original utterance of Jesus seems to have been, "But of that day knoweth no one, etc.," the reference being to the day of the Son of man of which he had just been speaking. Had the original intention of the speaker been to say that the events referred to in portion A were to fall within the present generation, but that the precise day of their coming could not be forecast by himself or even by angels, his language more naturally would have been, "But of the day or the hour knoweth no one." On the other hand, had the wish been to distinguish in time between all the other events he had forecast and the day of the Son of man itself, the language could hardly have been other than that suggested-"But of that day knoweth no one." For the phrase of Jesus from first to last in the preceding paragraph, P §60, is "the day of the Son of man," not "the coming (apovoía) of the Son of man," or "the end," or "the consummation of the aeon," or "the kingdom of God." It seems evident that in this paragraph on the time of the events Jesus distinguished between the destruction of Jerusalem and the day of the Son of man by affirming that the former would be realized within the generation, but that the time of the latter was unknown to any but the Father himself. That Jesus had some confidence, however, that "the day" would not fall within that near future in which his disciples would ardently desire it seems asserted by him in his saying of the previous paragraph-"ye shall not see it." That the obscuration of the distinction apparently intended here by Jesus between the time of the two events became more and more complete as the tradition of his words was handled and interpreted is evidenced not only by the change of phrasing made by Matthew in the portion B, but more strikingly in the editorial work of the evangelist Luke in portion A. There Luke substituted for the simple "it is nigh" the specific "the kingdom of God is nigh," by which he made it impossible to interpret the portion A in any other sense than as applying to the whole body of events previously mentioned by Jesus, including the day of the Son of man. This substitution by Luke makes clear also that in his time the phrase "the kingdom of God" had come to be regarded as meaning for Jesus the same as "the day of the Son of man." But since Jesus nowhere either in the document MK report of this discourse or in those portions of it which are now believed to be found in document P uses the term "kingdom of God" or in any way indicates that he is defining his conception of the kingdom, we may not rightly follow Luke in his insertion of this most important phrase of Jesus in the present discourse. Because Jesus does not use here the term "kingdom of God," we may not argue therefrom that he certainly is not defining here the future of the kingdom, for he may define the kingdom without naming it. But, on the other hand, it would be quite as arbitrary to assume from this discourse that "day of the Son of man" is with Jesus the synonym for "kingdom of God." For a sound deduction, account must be taken of a larger area of the teaching of Jesus about the future, especially that which deals explicitly and unmistakably with the future of "the kingdom of God." The motive of Luke in wholly omitting the portion B of his document MK may reasonably be found in his judgment that this saying set limits to the knowledge possessed by Jesus which did not accord with that estimate of the person and dignity of Jesus which the Christian community cherished in the time or in the circle of Luke. On the basis of the critical results reached to the present in the examination of the final discourse on the future, there may now be reconstructed tentatively those paragraphs which have come under consideration. §1. OCCASION OF THE DISCOURSE And as he went forth out of the temple, one of his disciples saith unto him, Master, behold, what manner of stones and what manner of buildings! And Jesus said unto him, Seest thou these great buildings? there shall not be left here one stone upon another, which shall not be thrown down. See pp. 301-27. The appearance of the phrase "kingdom of God" in a parable which Matthew inserts in this discourse from his document M §24 is considered fully on pp. 200-2. B C E $2. QUESTION OF THE DISCIPLES And as he sat on the mount of Olives over against the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign when these things are all about to be accomplished? $3. RISE OF MESSIANIC CLAIMANTS And Jesus began to say unto them, Take heed that no man lead you astray. Many shall come in my name ]], saying, I am he; and shall lead many astray. $4. EVENTS BEFORE THE SIEGE And when ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars, be not troubled: these things must needs come to pass; but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: [there shall be earthquakes in divers places; there shall be famines: these things are the beginning of travail. 85. PERSECUTION OF THE DISCIPLES but he that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved. But take ye heed to yourselves: for they shall deliver you up to councils; and in synagogues shall ye be beaten; and before governors and kings shall ye stand for my sake, for a testimony unto them. And the A gospel must first be preached unto all the nations. And when they lead you to judgement, §6. DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM and let him that is on the housetop not go down, nor enter in, to take anything out of his house: and let him that is in the field not return back to take his cloke. But when ye see the abomination of desolation standing where he ought not (let him that readeth understand), then let them that are in Judæa flee unto the mountains: But woe unto them that are with child and to them that give suck in those days! And pray ye that it be not in the winter. For those days shall be tribulation, such as there hath not been the like from the beginning of the creation which God created until now, and never shall be. And except the Lord had short- D ened the days, no flesh would have been saved: but for the elect's sake, whom he chose, he shortened the days. 87. RISE OF MESSIANIC CLAIMANTS And then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is the Christ; or, Lo, there; believe it not: The days will come, when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, and ye shall not see it. And they shall say to you, Lo, there! Lo, here! go not away, nor follow after them. for there F shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall shew signs and wonders, that they may lead astray, if possible, the elect. But take ye heed: behold, I have told you all things beforehand. |