[586] Ibid., p. 275 f.
[587] Ibid., p. 278.
[588] Ibid., p. 317.
[589] “Schol. Rom.,” p. 271 f.
[590] Ibid., p. 272.
[591] Ibid., p. 300 f.
[592] Ibid., p. 301.
[593] Ibid., p. 272.
[594] Ibid., p. 301 f.
[595] “Schol. Rom.,” p. 320. It cannot be proved that such gloomy forebodings were due to the influence of the apocalyptic literature then so widely disseminated in print. (See Ficker, p. xcix.) The verdict which he passes on the Church of that day is, however, as severe and comprehensive as “the sharpest criticisms of the Reformed theology, or of the apocalyptic literature” (ibid., p. xcvii.); the verdict is really a consequence of his “new conception of a personal religion” (p. xci.). On the strength of this Ficker thinks he may go so far as to say: “Just as, hitherto, he had confronted the teaching authorities with the Scripture rightly understood and opened up the religion of the gospel to the individual, bringing it home to each one as a moral force, so now under the pressure of the Scripture and of outward events, he sets up the new standard of Christian life ... thus realising in practice the religion he had discovered” (pp. xci., xcvi.).