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.[68] 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.[69] 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[70] 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 [[587]]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.[71] 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[72] 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;[73] at another the adherents of Jesus;[74] 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.[75] 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, [[588]]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.[76] 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.[77] 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].[78] 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.[79] 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. [[589]]
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.[80] 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.[81] 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[82] 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 [[590]]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.[83] But the famous utterance of the poet,[84] 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.[85] 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,[86] 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. [[591]]