[31] Though in reporting the sack of Rome he makes the Germans behave the more brutally as regards the cardinals. [↑]
Chapter XI
THE LOGIA THEORY AND THE HISTORICAL TEXT
So much for the “especially remarkable” fact that churches were desecrated in the sack of Rome in 1527, and that Savonarola should in 1496 have predicted such things for his own day. We have seen that his prediction was not a forecast of the event, that he had no idea of the causation of the ultimate sack of Rome, that he really prophesied an early event, and that he was simply announcing speedy divine vengeance after the manner of the Hebrew and many previous Christian prophets. What ground for argument, then, does his case furnish for an inference as to the date of the quasi-prophecy of the fall of Jerusalem in the third Gospel? Blass, despite his “especially remarkable” argument, puts his case pretty low:—
Accidentally, you will say, the event [in 1527] corresponded with the prophecy. But that is not my point, whether it was accidental, or the prophet had really foreseen the event; for in the case of the prophecies recorded by Luke you may raise the same controversy if you like.[1]
What then were the manner and the matter of the prophecy in Luke? The Messiah expressly grounds his prediction upon the non-acceptance by Jerusalem of him and his mission:—
If thou [Jerusalem] hadst only known in this day the things which belong unto peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee when thine enemies shall cast up a bank about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall dash thee to the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone on another ([Luke xix, 42–44]).
But when ye see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that her desolation is at hand. Then let them that are in Judæa flee unto the mountains.... For these are days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.... And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led captive into all the nations, and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. And there shall be signs in sun and moon and stars.... And then shall they see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. But when these things begin to come to pass, look up, and lift up your heads; because your redemption draweth nigh ([id. xxi, 20–28]).