As to the time of the Advent we have conflict- ing evidence. Mk 91 and parallels represent it as within the lifetime of the disciples. There is notking in the context leading us to discriminate two Ail wetita, as has sometimes been done. The same is true of Mt 10%. Inreferring to the terrible
rsecutions which are to come upon the disciples (ef. Lk 17”), He declares that they shall not make the circuit of the cities of Israel in their flight before the Son of Man come. On the other hand, Ac 17, which seems to take the place in Lk of Mt 24%, Mk 13%, makes the time of the Advent unknown. Lk represents the parable of thie
unds as spoken to those who supposed that the SEES would ey gee (194; of. 12% ‘my Lord delayeth,’ etc.). In Mt 26% the coming, which in Mk (1453) seems to be a single event, 18 transformed after the analogy of the Fourth Gospel into a continuous process, beginning im- mediately after Christ’s death. The two points continually emphasized are (1) the necessity of watchfulness, since the hour of the Parousia is uncertain (so the parables of the servants, Mk 13%-37, Mt 24", Lk 1257; cf. Lk 21% the day coming ‘suddenly as a snare’; of the goodman taken unaware by the thief, Mt 248°“, Lk 12%”; of the virgins, Mt 25, ef. Lk 12"; the reference to the days of Lot and of Noah, Lk 17*™). (2) The necessity for faithfulness, since, though the Lord seem to delay, He will surely come and reward His servants according to their works (Mt 9445 5 Lk 12"-, and the parable of the talents Mt 25, and the pounds Lk 19"*"; cf. Lk 18** When the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth ?’),
It thus ape that the Synoptics represent Jesus as predicting His own return, now within His own generation, now after an indefinite future. This return is to be preceded by great trials, which none but the faithful shall be able toendure. The return itself is pictured as a glorious coming on the clouds to punish evil-doers, to reward the
saints, and to establish that kingdom predicted from the foundation of the world. This coming is by Christ Himself associated with the end of the age and the day of final judgment, which is repre- sented, now, after the fashion of OT, as a destruc- tion of all the enemies of the Messiah before His face; now, as in the great judgment-scene in Mt, as a formal process in a law court in which all the nations are assembled to receive the sentence of the judge. For the disciples it introduces the time of their redemption (Lk 21%), a period of joy and glad communion with Christ, set forth now by the figure of the marriage feast, in which the Master
imself ministers to His faithful servants, now by that of the kingdom in which the disciples enjoy sresial honours, sitting upon thrones and judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
Those interpreters like Wendt, Weiffenbach, ete., who regard the Apocalypse of Jesus as of Jewish-Christian origin, explain the other Apoca- lyptic features in the Synoptic doctrine as due to a similar source. Those who refuse to take this view are obliged either (1) to explain away those passages which predict an Advent within the generation then living ; or (2) preserving the con- nexion to regard Jesus as actually predicting during the lives of men then living a visible advent in the clouds—a prediction which was not fulfilled; or (3) to understand the language of Jesus symbolically as the prediction, in anguage taken partly from OT, partly from the Apocalypses of the time, of an advent which, while seemingly external and catastrophic, is really to be SS! stood after the analogy of Mt 26%, Rey 2° 6 3% and Jn 14% as spiritual and continuons.
ii. THE PAROUSIA IN ACTS, THE EPISTLES, AND REVELATION.—The expectation of a speedy Advent of Christ to establish the Messianic kingdom is one of the most prominent features of the apostolic hope. It is a part of the gospel of St. Paul no less truly than of that of the ewish Christians. As in the Synoptics, it is ordinarily associated with the judgment at the end of the age, the only certain exception being Revelation, which distin- guishes a preliminary from the final pen ig associating the former, which, after OT analogy, it conceives as a battle-scene, with the Advent of Christ, and inserting between this and the final judgment a millennial kingdom of 1000 years. Cf. MILLENNIUM. Thus the first chapter of Acts begins with the prediction of the angels to the weeping disciples that ‘this Jesus... shall so come in like manner as ye beheld him going into heaven’ (1"). Accordingly we find St. Peter re- garding the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost as a sign of that impending Day of J” to which OT prophecy looks forward (2), and urging the Jews to pray that God may send the Christ whom He hath appointed, even Jesus, whom the heavens must receive until the time of the restoration of all things (3), To Cornelius he preaches Christ as the judge of quick and dead (10); while St. Paul warns the Athenians to repent, inasmuch as God ‘hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he hath ordained’ (17"; cf. 24", the resur- rection of just and unjust). Equally explicit is the testimony of the Epistles, St. James urges patience until the coming of the Lord, and warns