apocalypse as a whole detaches readily from the context, and forms by itself an intelligible unity, even although it has been overlaid with fresh colours1 by the various evangelists or by their predecessors. It forms a fly-leaf of prophecy, a palimpsest which lies beside the surrounding contents of the gospels with a distinctly alien appearance. A fragment from it is also used elsewhere in Lk 1781. Like most apocalyptic sketches, it goes back for its scenery and imagery to Daniel, from which it derives the ideas common to itself and the Jewish pseudepigrapha. Coincidences are to be noted between it and the Johannine apocalypse, but these are little more than the stereotyped conceptions of the general apocalyptic literature. (The parallels are quoted from Matthew, as that gospel preserves the apocalypse in a more primitive form-cp. μηδὲ σαββάτῳ, εὐθέως—than even Mark, a proof that the original text was accessible to the author of Matthew. Such parallels might be multiplied, as Baldensperger shows, The rest of the chapter contains genuinely Christian elements, which the redactor has blended with the other piece. For another ingenious reconstruction by J. Weiss, cp. SK, 1892, p. 259 f. He distinguishes a Jewish apocalypse in Mk 1314. 17-20. 22.25b-27, and refuses to admit that even the rest of the chapter is in its present form a unity. Vers. 9b-13 and 28-31 originally occupied other settings. Kabisch simply finds an interpolation in Mt 2415-31; Réville (ii. p. 310 f.), in Mt 2411-12. 26-28.37-51 251-46, disinters fragments of the Logia. 66 1 In Luke 2113 μaprúpov may have its darker and later sense of martyrdom (Clem. Rom. 5), as J. Weiss suggests, although the customary interpretation, an opportunity for bearing witness," serves well enough. In vers. 12-15 Paul and Stephen are certainly in the author's mind as he writes. 2 These formed part of the apocalyptic stock-in-trade, and are probably due to little else than the fashion of the literary tradition. But, as it happens, contemporary phenomena of nature can be found to match most of the descriptions; cp. particularly Renan's vivid picture, L'antéchrist, chap. xiv. 3 Remarkable enough to deserve printing in full, as an instance of the general similarities: Mt, i úroμsivas ris réλos oûtos owlσerα=Esd. 97. 8, et erit omnis qui salvus factus fuerit et qui poterit effugere per opera sua vel per fidem, in qua credidit, is relinquetur de praedictis periculis et videbit salutare meum. 4 As is well known, Papias attributed an apocalyptic passage to Jesus (Iren. adv. Haer. v. 33. 2) which originally belonged to one of the pre-70 A.D. sources of the Apocalypse of Baruch (chap. 27-30). The same tendency betrays itself in the attribution to Jesus of passages taken from or founded on the Wisdom literature (Mt 1128-30, Lk 1149). On the exposure of the early church to such theologoumena, cp. Harnack, HD, i. pp. 100-105. It may be (as Driver, after Sanday, conjectures: DB, i. pp. 12, 13) that the language of the original synoptic apocalypse was more general, and that, "during the years of agitation and tension which preceded the final struggle of A.D. 70, it was modified so as to give more definite expression to such apprehensions." All literature of that class was liable to such revision and adaptation. But there is really no evidence in this case to justify the supposition. Apocalyptic interpretation was never greatly concerned to be literal. almost indefinitely from the current literature of the time). How congenial such utterances were to the feverish age, 60–70, in Jerusalem and Palestine, may be illustrated from Josephus story of the wild peasant who roamed through the capital in the year 62, howling in a wail of doom, "Woe, woe to Jerusalem!" His name is given as Jesus ben Ananias. 1 The date and the character of the synoptic apocalypse are allied questions. If its origin be in Caligula's age, a product-like some part of the Johannine apocalypse-of the stress and horror stirred up then by his desecrating insults to Judaism, it is of Jewish origin (Iselin, ZSchz, 1886, p. 134 f.). Against this, however, must be set the general result of recent criticism upon the larger apocalypse, which does not seriously favour the Christian exploitation of Jewish pieces. It is much more probable that the small apocalypse is a Jewish-Christian production, composed amid the restlessness and fevered anticipations of the seventh decade 2 by some Palestinian author, as the horrors and fears of the Roman campaign began to throw their shadows over the country and the church. Hausrath, like Colani, Pfleiderer, and Keim, dates it (iv. p. 247) from or just before the years 68-70 A.D., as it seems to have a certain retrospect of suffering and warfare already behind it, while Renan seems to put its composition after the siege altogether (?). Wendt more probably locates it somewhere between 60 and 70; in the earlier part of that seventh decade it is most reasonable (with Weizsäcker) to look for its period, before the crisis had become definite. Spitta, however, holds to the period c. 40 A.D. (Offenbarung Johan. pp. 493-497), interpreting the apocalypse as an outcome of Caligula's freak, while J. Weiss (SK, 1892, pp. 246-270) chooses widely between 40 and 69. But really almost any of these periods would suit the conditions and nature of the synoptic apocalypse. It represents the growth of semi-literal imagery round the nucleus of language that was used by Jesus in a free and ideal sense, a growth fostered by the Messianic hopes of the period, and by the undoubted connection of Jesus with these hopes in the primitive evangelic tradition. Generally, the theory of this "small apocalypse" was started by Colani (Jésus-Christ et les Croyances Messianiques de son Temps,2 1864, p. 201 f.), and Weiffenbach (Der Wiederkunftsgedanke Jesu, 1873, pp. 69 f., 135 f.), adopted by writers like Baldensperger and Schwartzkopff, from the side of research into Christ's consciousness, and reinforced by others from the side of literary and historical criticism, e.g. by Vischer (TU, II. 3, p.9 n.), Pfleiderer (Jahrb. d. Theol. 1868, pp. 134-149; Urc. p. 402 f.), Simons, Mangold (-Bleek), Weizsäcker (AA, ii. p. 22 f. (c. 64-66 a.D.)), Renan (L'antéchrist, chpp. iii. xii.; Les Evangiles, pp. 123-125), Carpenter (First Three Gospels, pp. 247-250), and Cone (Gospel Criticism, p. 276 f.). Keim has a full exposition (v. p. 235 f.); cp. also Holtzmann (Einl. pp. 363, 373, 374; HC, i. p. 259 f.; NTTh, i. pp. 327, 328), Wernle (Syn. Frage, pp. 212-214), O. Holtzmann (Das Ende des jüdischen Staatswesens, p. 669), Cheyne (EBi, i. pp. 21–23), Charles (Crit. Hist. Eschatology, p. 324 f., dating 1 In this event, and if the sdíλvyμa rüs ipnμwσews be identified with the "man of sin" (2 Th 21-12), it follows that the author of the third gospel has altered the original purport of the saying. In his hands it is shaped into a picture of the Roman siege of 68-70 A.D.; indeed his whole treatment of it reflects the wider experiences and retrospect of Christians in the outside Empire. 2 It was a time, says Tacitus (Hist. 1. 2), "Opimum casibus, atrox proeliis, discors seditionibus, ipsa etiam pace saevum. Quattuor principes ferro interempti. Trina bella civilia, plura externa ac plerumque permixta." Josephus (Ant. xx. 8. 5) bears a similar testimony to the demoralised and excited condition of Palestine. it 67-68), and apparently W. A. Brown (DB, iii. pp. 676, 777), with Dr. G. L. Cary (IH, i. pp. 274–292). There are adverse discussions in Godet's Luke (ad loc.), and Briggs's Messiah of Gospels (1894), chap. iv. ; also in Haupt's Die Eschatologischen Aussagen Jesu in den Syn. Evglien (1895), pp. 21-45, which is the fairest conservative statement of the case.1 Like Weiss and Beyschlag, Dr. Sanday still hesitates (DB, ii. pp. 635, 636), and even to Prof. Bruce the critical analysis was "ingenious but not convincing" (ExGT, i. p. 290; cp. The Kingdom of God, chap. xii.). Stevens (NTTh, pp. 152-156), while admitting that Matthew's version "involves Jesus in a tissue of contradictions," chooses also to refer the incongruities of the discourse to "subjective combinations and misapprehensions on the part of the early disciples." The well-known references in Papias and Irenaeus, to say nothing of the freedom with which Luke has handled the primitive evangelic tradition, show how easily edifying material could be attributed to Jesus, particularly as the early Christians breathed apocalyptic hopes and fears at the age when the sources of the gospels were composed, and even later (vide Kabisch, Eschatologie des Paulus, 1893, pp. 1–12). It has often been conjectured that this apocalypse is actually the oracle which, according to Eusebius (HE, III. 5. 2, 3, κατά τινα χρησμὸν τοῖς αὐτόθι δοκίμοις δι' ἀποκαλύψεως πρὸ τοῦ πολέμου ἐκδοθέντα κτλ), was the means of prompting the Christians to migrate from Jerusalem to the refuge of Pella in Peraea. At any rate, this fly-leaf of prophecy was intended, like other apocalypses (Apoc 1318 179) to be read (o avayivóσkwv voeirw= Barn. 29£ 46, σvviévai ovv oþeiλere, 4 Esdras 610)2 and solemnly pondered in view of the crisis. Its incorporation with the eschatological utterances of Jesus is due (a) to the probable existence of genuine eschatological sayings in the evangelic tradition, which received fresh accent and emphasis when the crisis of 65-70 arrived; and (b) to the vivid zest for apocalyptic ideas which gained more and more foothold in the Palestinian circles of early Christianity, especially during these years of crisis. It is quite a precritical idea to confuse this position with the dogmatic assumption (omne vaticinium ex eventu) that Jesus could not have foreseen the course of events beyond his own lifetime. The point is, that whatever he could have uttered, it is in the highest degree unreasonable to attribute to him this programme of events and ideas, many of which were not even upon the horizon in the third decade of the first century (notice even Paul's references, some nineteen or twenty years later, 1 Th 413-18). Unless historical criticism is to be deliberately abandoned, the only method of reaching back to the genuine eschatological logia of Jesus is to strip away 1 Though even Haupt is forced to admit (p. 45) the possibility that alien words may have been attributed to Jesus in good faith, but erroneously; also, that later ideas of time and events have been worked into his words. Cp. Holtzmann, GGA (1895), p. 329 f. "So much of the Jerusalem discourse as is true apocalypse represents the belief of the early church; so much of it as is simple prophecy of suffering ending in victory speaks to us from the heart of Jesus himself" (Cary). But it is doubtful whether these two elements can still be disentangled with much certainty. [N. Schmidt (Journ. Bibl. Lit. 1900, p. 22) dates the apocalypse too late.] 2 Cheyne aptly compares Dante, Inf. 961-63. "O you that have a sane intelligence, Look ye unto the doctrine which herein Conceals itself 'neath the strange verses' veil" (W. M. Rossetti). There is no need to attribute the words in Matthew to Jesus, in Mark to the evangelist (IH, i. p. 276). the self-evident accretions of the apostolic age. Otherwise, the alternative would be to treat the whole evangelic eschatology as a series of free compositions, in which the original thoughts of Jesus lie hopelessly buried. As they stand, the synoptic apocalypses cannot be brought within the limits of a single personality or situation without self-contradiction. THE LOGIA FOR obvious reasons it has not been possible to mark in the printed text of Matthew or Luke, the strata belonging to the incorporated Logia-document. This source, however, can be detected with approximate certainty.1 It probably consisted of "Logia," i.e. sententious words of Jesus regarded as utterances of the divine Mind, preserved in prose (as opposed to Xphoμo, the poetical form), and carrying with them a certain flavour of authority. Designed for instruction and edification, these traditional sayings of Jesus (óyoι TOû Kupiov 'Inooù, Clem Rom 131 467) naturally covered only a small portion of his life; even with the attached fragments of introductory narrative, they afforded little more than a bare sketch of the more salient points and phases in his career. Probably they emanated from the Palestinian, or even the Jerusalemite, circle of the early Christians. They represented the earliest attempt to crystallise in written form the apostolic tradition of Jesus as the teacher. Their contents may be most adequately defined as a practical manual of evangelic principles (which in the nature of the case assumed a biographic form), reflecting the current tradition of Jesus and his personality, but ultimately drawn up by a man who had somewhat definite views of his own, or rather who belonged upon the whole to the more liberal party of Jewish Christianity. "While the author was a man of conservative views, he was without controversial temper or interest" (McGiffert). Probably he sympathised with that large central body in the early church, which stood aloof from theological extremes. His personality is therefore less marked than his position. Indeed, so far as it is proper to speak at all of any one author or final editor in connection with these Logia, he was the representative of that average, characteristic piety which silently maintained itself amid the various parties of primitive Christianity, just as it afterwards formed their rallying-point. Behind the author of the Logia stood the generation whose faith he voiced. In this document, and in the [Continued on page 643. 1 This is admitted by many who refuse to go further in the critical analysis of Matthew. The hypothesis that this gospel represents a compilation of various documents has been for some time quite a derelict; but it has recently been refitted with considerable skill by Soltau (Eine Lücke d. Synopt. Forschung, 1899; ZNW, 1900, pp. 219-248, zur Entstehung des I Evglms."), who finds that our canonical Matthew is a second edition, containing additions from the hand of its final editor (1-2, 314. 15 414-16 817 1217-21 1314. 15 1335 2653. 56 279. 10; also 212-5 2615b 273-10, as due to the prophetic tendency of the writer; also, additions to the story of the passion, 2762-2820, with 2719. 24. 25. 52. 53 2734. 43. 57, and the three Petrine legends; besides 518. 19 1910-12). These are coloured by a uniform tinge. They reflect an author of catholic sympathies and dogmatic prepossessions in favour of the OT, anxious to discover a modus vivendi between Christianity and the Empire. The original Matthew, undogmatic and anti-Jewish, already lay before him, with its combination of the Marcan tales and the Logia. Its author, however, was not a JewishChristian, nor a Paulinist, but a sharp opponent of Judaism who endeavoured to mediate between Jewish-Christianity and Paulinism. The author of the third gospel, Soltau conjectures, knew only the Proto-Matthew, not the final edition. Mt 232-39 = 2426-28. 37-41 2443-51a. Lk 1146. 52. 42. 39. 44. 49-51 1334. 35 Synoptische Frage, p. 221 f. Also others like (?) (103 640 122-9. 51-53 1426 (??) 27 1016 1119. 20. 23. 16. 29-32. 24-26 176(?). 1 154. 5.7 173. 4 (2228-30 (?) 2018 (?) 1146 1411 1152 1142. 39. 44. (?) 47.48 1149-51 1334. 35 1723. 24. 37. 26. 27. 34. 35 1239-40.42-46 Horae Synopticae, pp. 88-92. Possibly also Mt 515 [=Lk 1133 (?)], |