tion of a sign to precede that advent, and for that evident solicitude, which appears in the words of the inquiry, to know more about this sign in particular, than about the advent in general? How shall we explain too, the allusion to a συντέλεια τοῦ αἰῶνος, or an end of the period of ages, as well as to the napovoía, or personal advent of Jesus Christ; if the origin of the former, as much as of the latter, is to be referred to Matt. xxiii. 39r? r Some commentators on the prophecy, explain the phrase σvvtêdeia Toû alŵvos, in the present instance, by referring to a supposed division of time among the Jews; the period before, the period under, and the period subsequent to the continued existence of their own law; these periods being termed collectively oi aloves, and each in its turn ó alóv. The second of these periods would now be current; and what the apostles are thought to be inquiring about, in this part of their question, is the appointed time of the consummation of that, and the beginning of the next. I do not think it necessary to enter at any length upon the consideration of this opinion. The phrase in question, as a Gospel phrase, is peculiar to St. Matthew; in whose Gospel it occurs four other times, always as it seems to me, in its simple and obvious sense of the end or consummation of the existing state of things; but whether that which ushers in the millenary dispensation, or that which precedes the transition of the things of time and sense into those of spirit and eternity-to the proper meaning of the words, (which is no more than that of the close or conclusion of the period of ages,) is perfectly indifferent. See Matt. xiii. 39, 40. 49; xxviii. 20. It appears only reasonable to judge of its meaning in the present instance, by the analogy of these other instances. Compare Hebrews ix. 26, where the phrase, συντέλεια τῶν αἰώνων, though not τοῦ αἰῶνος, occurs, to denote the period or point of time in the world's existence, at which the Son of God appeared in the flesh, to do away sin, by his one sacrifice of himself, once offered; a period which might well be called a σvvreλeia tŵv aiwvwv, if it was, as I endeavoured to shew in my former work, a cardinal division of time It was an obvious peculiarity of the inquiry of the apostles, upon each of its points, that it implied an assurance or a knowledge of some things, a doubt or an ignorance of others; an assurance of the prin in the existence of the world; when two thirds of that existence were elapsed, and one third still remained to elapse, before the consummation of the whole. Cf. also 1 Cor. x. 11, và têλN TŴV alovov, which means almost the same thing. It would be another strong objection to the above construction of these words, that so much of our Lord's answer as will be seen hereafter to describe the signs which are destined to precede his second personal advent, and consequently the end of the existing state of things, in one sense or other, was clearly produced by this part of the question of the apostles. And as to the supposition that any Jew of the present day, unless expressly taught to expect such an event by an infallible authority like our Saviour's, could have contemplated, a priori, the suspension, termination, or supersession of his own system of faith or practice; let us hear what the accusers of Stephen laid to his charge, Acts vi. ll: τότε ὑπέβαλον ἄνδρας λέγοντας· ὅτι ἀκηκόαμεν αὐτοῦ λαλοῦντος ῥήματα βλάσφημα εἰς Μωσῆν καὶ τὸν Θεόν. And what these words of blasphemy or disparagement against Moses, as well as against God, were, we learn from verses 13, 14: ὁ ἄνθρωπος οὗτος οὐ παύεται ῥήματα βλάσφημα λαλῶν κατὰ τοῦ τόπου τοῦ ἁγίου τούτου, καὶ τοῦ νόμου· ἀκηκόαμεν γὰρ αὐτοῦ λέγοντος, ὅτι Ἰησοῦς ὁ Ναζωραῖος οὗτος καταλύσει τὸν τόπον τοῦτον, καὶ ἀλλάξει τὰ ἔθη ἃ παρέδωκεν ἡμῖν Μωϋσῆς. We may contend even, on the authority of Acts xxiii. 20, 21, that so late as U. C. 809. A. D. 56, not one of the common believing Jews of Jerusalem was prepared to expect such an event as the change or extinction of the Law of Moses in toto; while as to the unbelieving Jews, the effect of the address to them, at verse 28, from the old adversaries of St. Paul, sufficiently proves how little they were disposed to tolerate the idea of the same thing. Τὰ δὲ τούτου, sc. τοῦ νόμου, says Philo, μόνου βέβαια, ἀσάλευτα, ἀκραδάντα, καθάπερ σφραγίδι φύσεως αὐτῆς σεσημασμένα, μένει παγίως ἀφ ̓ ἧς ἡμέρας ἐγράφη μέχρι νῦν καὶ πρὸς τὸν ἔπειτα πάντα διαμενεῖν ἐλπὶς αὐτὰ αἰῶνα, ὥσπερ ἀθάνατα, ἕως ἂν ἥλιος καὶ σελήνη, καὶ ὁ σύμπας οὐρανός τε καὶ κόσμος ᾖ. cipal facts, a doubt or an ignorance about their circumstances. The motive to their question was plainly a desire to have this doubt or this ignorance removed; and the motive to that desire, as it appears from the answer of our Lord, if not from the terms of the question, must have been an antecedent conviction of a strong personal interest of their own, in the event of the things predicted; which required the removal of all doubt or ignorance about them. But whence arose the sense of this personal interest in the matter of their own inquiry, which was present to the minds of the interrogators even before they inquired about it? To explain its origin, we have but to refer to that prior discourse, recorded in the seventeenth of St. Luke. If those who heard what was then said, had any the least conception of its drift and application, they must have been impressed by it with the conviction that their own safety was deeply concerned in the fulfilment of such predictions, whensoever and howsoever they might come to pass; and it would be incredible, that impressed with such a conviction, they should not have felt anxious to know more about things in which they were personally so much interested. The particulars of the discourse at that time, were abundantly full and clear, with respect to the directive part, but purposely, as it would seem, indefinite and obscure, with respect to the prophetical. The language of the speaker, in reference to the judgment called his day, might not actually promise a personal advent or reappearance of himself, and yet it might be construed so to promise it; and while the expectation of a sign to notify the time of its arrival was distinctly raised by it, the individual characters of the sign, beyond its general description as eminently calculated for the purpose intended by it, as intelligible, decisive, infallible—were studiously kept out of sight. By referring, therefore, to the particulars of the preceding transaction, we refer, in all probability, to the true cause of the inquiries which produced the subsequent discourse on mount Olivet; we refer, at least, to what was capable both of raising the feeling of a personal interest on the part of the inquirers, in the subject-matter of the disclosures about which they ask, and of accounting for the terms in which their question was couched. We refer to that which, striking as it was, had passed probably not many days before; and with the exception of what had preceded in the temple, and what followed in the course of the same evening on mount Olivet, was the last, and certainly the most copious of all the communications which the Gospel history has left on record, upon a subject so solemn and so momentous as the days of the Son of man, whether in reference to the first of their number, the visitation of the Jews, or to the last, at the end of the world. We refer to that, therefore, which we may presume to have been fresh in the recollection of its hearers; and which, had it even slumbered in their memories, the recent declaration coinciding so critically with it, could not fail to awaken t. t True it is, that the recollection of former declarations or prophecies of our Saviour, all concurring to intimate the futurity of some great national calamity, and therefore possessing a peculiar interest for Jews, would have its effect in producing the same solicitude for further and more plenary information upon such subjects. Nor was any thing of this kind likely to be better remembered, or to have affected the hearers more After these preliminary observations, we may proceed to the examination of the details of the discourse; subject to those general principles which I proposed to take as my guide, with respect to the interpretation of both its parts. These general principles I shall state first in reference to the prophetical, or historical division. It has been shewn to be the end of this part of the discourse, in general, to enable the Hebrew Christians to judge beforehand of the more remote, or the proximate approach of the calamity impending on their country; its particular subserviency to that purpose being twofold-by marking out beforehand the point of time in the whole of a certain intervening period, until which the event could not be anticipated, and after which it could not be delayed; and conforming its disclosures accordingly, by specifying beforehand one class of events which should shew the end to be approaching, but not yet come, and another, which should shew it to be arrived, and therefore the catastrophe to be close at deeply, than the prediction of the siege and destruction of Jerusalem, so plainly and pathetically recorded, Luke xix. 41-44, as delivered only two days before this time. It is worthy of remark, accordingly, that the turn or form of expression, in which St. Luke more particularly represents the question of the apostles to have been put on this occasion, Διδάσκαλε, πότε ΟΥΝ TavTa čσTai; contains an indication of something like a longcherished anxiety to know more of the subject-matter of the question, breaking forth with the first opportunity afforded for its gratification. We might render these words, “Master, BUT "when shall these things be?" a very abrupt interrogation apparently, with reference to the context, but not so, if referred to what was probably passing in the minds of the interrogators at the time, as the consequence not only of what they had just heard, but also of what they had often heard to the like effect. |