Such a discussion it is manifestly impossible to
ive within the limits of the present article. Nor 1s it necessary to our immediate purpose. Without settling all the pele queens involved, it ma be possible to give a bird’s-eye view of the ἘΠ ΤΟ as it lies in our sources, to discover how far it lends itself to a single consistent interpretation, and to indicate what are the chief problems which it presents, and what are the most important methods proposed for their solution. We shall begin our survey with the Synoptics, partly be- cause in them the eschatological teaching of Jesus is most fully set forth, partly because they present the difficulties connected with our doctrine in their most acute form. We shall then offer a brief sur- vey of the doctrine of the Parousia as it is found in the other NT books, giving special attention to the teaching of St. Paul. The Fourth Gospel, for reasons presently to be explained, will be reserved for separate treatment. In conclusion, we shall briefly indicate the course of the later develop- ment, and point out the chief lines which the interpretation of the doctrine has followed. Thus our discussion will cover the following four points: —(i.) The Parousia in the Synopties ; (ii.) the Par- ousia in Acts, Epistles, and Revelation ; (iii.) the Parousia in the Gospel of John ; (iv.) the Parousia in the later Church.
i. THE PAROUSIA IN THE SynoptTics.—The doctrine of the Parousia is set forth in the Rynoptics most fully in the so-called Apocalypse of Jesus (Mk 18, and parallels Mt 24, Lk 91). A prophec of Jesus as to the destruction of the temple leat
PAROUSIA PAROUSIA
of time. By the parable of the fig-tree, Jesus indicates the close connexion between the signs and the Parousia, and ends with the explicit state- ment given by all three evangelists, ‘ Verily, I sa unto you, this generation shall not pass away ti all these things be accomplished. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away,’ to which Mt and Mk add the qualifying clause, ‘But of that day or that hour knoweth vo one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father (only)’ (ef. Ac 17 ‘It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father hah set within his own authority’).
The exegetical difficulties of this passage are such as to render a consistent interpretation of the present text difficult. On the one hand, the account in Mt and Mk associates the Parousia with the destruction of Jerusalem, and puts both within the lifetime of the generation then living (cf. Gould, Mark, 240ff.). In Lk the connexion between the destruction and the Parousia is not so | close, but the closing verses (Lk 21%) agree with the other evangelists in placing all the events described within a single generation. On the other hand, we have in Mt (94:3) and Mk (13” references to a world-wide prenctne of the peas preceding, and in Lk (2153) a prophecy of certain times of the Gentiles following the destruction of Jerusalem. If it were not for Mt 244, Mk 13”, it would be easy exegetically to bring the entire prophecy of Mt and Mk within the limits of a single generation. On the other hand, were it not for Lk 21%, it would be natural to regard the account in Lk as postponing the Parousia to a distant future—a postponement natural in view of the later date of the Gospel. Various attempts are made to meet the difficulty. It is claimed that yeved may mean an indefinite period of time (Dorner). But, apart from the linguistic objections to this translation, it does not overcome the close connexion between the destruction and the Par- ousia. One of the most elaborate attempts to solve the difficulty without recourse to interpola- tion has been made by Briggs (Mess. Gosp. p. 156 ff.), who distinguishes between the time an the signs. To the first he finds reference in Mt 24:5, Mk 13", Lk 9153, where the text pointe to an extended
eriod. On the other hand, only the signs are re- erred to in the ‘all these things’ which are to be accomplished within the generation then living (ef. Mt 24%, Mk 13, Lk 913), According to this view, Jesus predicted His Parousia after an un- known period (¢/#éws=the prophetic 377), but the signs within a single generation, a position which is certainly difficult to reconcile with the close connexion between the signs and the Advent in the parable of the fig-tree. Under the cireum- stances, many scholars believe that the difficulty can be most easily solved by the hypotheses of composite origin. E. Haupt (Die eschatologischen Aussagen Jesu) argues that the evangelist has brought together in this passage a number of sayings originally spoken by Jesus on different occasions. Others hold to the interpolation either of a Jewish (so Weizsiicker, J. Weiss) or of 8 Jewish-Christian Apocalypse (Colani, Pfleiderer, Keim, e¢ al.). As constructed by the most recent. and careful scholars (Weiffenbach, Der Waieder- kunftsgedanke Jesu, Ὁ. 170£.; Wendt, Die Lehre Jesu, i. 10 ff.), this consists of three sections: Mk 137 and parallels piving tie beginning of tribula- tion; vv.**° giving its height (the destruction of Jerusalem) ; and vy." giving the Advent at the conclusion of the tribulation. Vv. 81, which con- clude the ‘ Apocalypse,’ put the entire content of the prophesy, within the generation then living. After these excisions, there remain in the original text only the prophecy of the destruction of Jeru