1 these ].assages
)«-ile' so iliHelenl flolll tlieii mean
,u n,.ln3'-.
ll Is evelenl fioii, ll, au.a-;
lion «ilh Nico-
.len.us that the eouin.sl diaun h\
chiisi between
things earthly and tilings heav enl\
was in. I a con-
trast between things iiatuial aii
1 1 lungs su per- il:;- s|,iiitual, or
natural, or things physical an.l lli
things easily understood and ihii
.;s nnsearehable
and profound, or things belonging
to the present
and things belonging to the future economy, or things moral in which faith is active and things heavenly where it is passive (de Wette). It was a contrast between truths which were within the range of religious experience, and which .should therefore have been within the knowledge and understanding of Nicodemus — ' a master of Israel,' and truths pertaining to the gospel which were, for the time being, beyond the reach of the re- ligious consciousness. The earthly things were those of which Christ had been speaking, — the necessity and mystery and reality of the new birth,— and also, as Godet rightly infers from v.'= (note use of plural instead of singular in address- ing Nieodemus), tlie truths previously preached by Clirist. These were all of a moral-religious char- acter, .Mid eonhl be known and verified by the spiritnally niiiided. The heavenly things were tliosc whieh weie to be revealed to men through the completed redemptive work of Christ. Their nature may be gathered from v. '"■'■. The Divinity and the atoning death of Christ, God's eternal love, and salvation by faith, are indicated there as being among the heavenly things.
Literature.— Besides the Comm. on St. John, esp. Whitelaw .and Godet, see Cremer's and Grimm-Thayer's Lex. s.m. ; E. H. Hall, Discourses, 92 ; D. Wright, Poicer of an Endless Life, 168 ;
EAETHQUAKE
H. Joivett, Thirsting for the Springs, 64 ; Expos. Times, xii. EASTER.— See CALENDAR, THE CHRISTIAN, p.
[1900150. MORISON BRYCE. 2o5 If.
EARTHQUAKE.— Palestine abounds in traces of seismic and volcanic action. From the region of the Dead Sea northward along the Jordan valley and as far as Damascus the whole country must have been visited by tremendous earthquakes in prehistoric ages. Mention of several is made in the OT, sometimes coupled with significant re- ference to serious disaster and widespread alarm caused by them (1 S 14", Am 1', Zee 14= etc.). Regarded as supernatural visitations, signs of the times, they produced a deep impression.
Five times in the Gospels tlie noun o-uo-^et (fr. iriiu, 'to shake ') is used of an earthquake (Mt 24' 27" 2S=, Mk 13S, Lk 21"), and once (lit 27^0 the idea is expressed by the phrase ^ y^, tin.irffr (EV *the earth did quake'). In LXX truirfAoi (or tronnifff^a;) is eniplo.ved to render l^VT of the original. Though speeiflcally applied to an earthquake, ffttrui; properly has a wider connota- tion : thus in Ml 82^ it is used of a tempest (trUffWH u.iyai 'iy;^i^■e
!> T^ 9«t).«o-a-<). Hence Alford thinks that in Mt 282 jt denotes not an earthquake, but the 'shock' produced by the rolling away of the stone from the sepulchre-
1. Recorded earthjuakes.—Oi these there are two, namely, the earthquakes at the Crucifixion and the Resurrection (Mt 27='-" 28-). The his- toricity of these earthquakes is disijuted. St. Matthew alone mentions tliem ; St. Mark (IS'^-^) and St. Luke (23*"-), in agreement with St. Matthew in regard to the darkness and the rending of the veil, apparently know nothing of an earthquake at the Crucifixion [the Fourth Gospel has no allusion to any of the portents], and they are equally silent in the case of the Resurrection. Plumnier ('St. Luke' in Intemat. Crit. Com.) quotes a state- ment in the Geinara that some forty years before the destruction of Jerusalem the heavy gates of the temple were mysteriously flung open about midnight at tlie Passover ; but it would seem that sufficient evidence of earthquake shocks being felt in or near Jerusalem at the date in question is wanting. Probably a legendary element must be recognized in the passages under consideration. At the same time it should be borne in mind that the circumstance narrated is 'not in itself in- credible ' (Gary, Synop. Gospels). Earthquakes are frequently accompanied by a ' strange, bewildering darkness' (Plumptre, Bibl. Studies), and if shocks did then take place they would naturally be interpreted of the 'sympathy of nature.' (Cf. Corn, a Lap. : ' The earth, which trembled with horror at the death of Christ, as it were leaped with joy at the Resurrection ').
2. Predicted earthquakes.— ^It 24', Mk IS^, Lk 21". The question arises, Do the Synoptists here preserve ipsissima verba of our Lord? It must be remembered that ' a generation and a half . . . had passed between the events and the telling of the tale' (F. C. Burkitt) ; hence a po.ssibility that the esehatological discourses as reported are coloured Ijy events which had already taken place when the narratives were compiled. On the assumption that the predictions were uttered by Jesus, account should be taken of the fact th.at they are clothed in the language of current Messianic expectation. The setting up of the Kingdom was at hand ; it would be consequent on that national disaster which, looming in the near future, would be presaged by phenomena in which men saw the dread precursors of catastrophe. And this actually came about : between the Crucifixion and the destruction of Jerusalem the earthquake was frequent ; the earth was a prey to the most violent convulsions (Godet, St. Mat. p. 149; Renan, L' Antichrist, ch. xiv.).