532
ESCHAT0L0(3Y
ESCHATOLOGY
tlieir owu generation. It is inconceivable that an expectation so confident and definite could have rested on anything but a definite reminiscence of words used by Jesus which seemed capable of only one interpretation.
Is it, then, possible to justify such sayings as Mk 9' 13''" II apart from the Idunt avowal that Jesus laboured under an illusion, and that He trans- mitted the illusion to His immediate followers not only before but after His death and resurrection ? Tins has been felt to be amony; the most difficult questions of historical Christology, and various types of solution of the problem are still repre- sented by leading authorities. These may be roughly classified under the heads : (a) prophetic, (b) pictorial, (c) realistic. Under (a) would be included all theories, such as that of Beyschlag, which emphasize the fact that in this instance at least Jesus spoke in the manner of an OT prophet, and that His utterance kept within the limitation common to all the prophets. This limitation re- quired Him to see and amiounce the final .salva- tion of Jehovah as about to happen within a measurable interval after the judgment (in this case the fall of Jerusalem) impending over the nation. Under (b) would be included theories of the type of Haupt's, which emphasize the necessarily pictorial character of language, which must express extra-mundane realities in mundane forms. Might not the assertion that the Son of Man would come on the clouds within their own generation be the most eft'ective way of leading persons familiar with the apocalyptic stj'le of language to the per- fectly confident but also essentially spiritual type of faith represented in the NT literature ? (-) The term realistic, finally, might describe all theories whose tendency is to insist on what has been called the 'biblical realism,' and to require us to put upon the language of Jesus the most literal or natural construction possible. The most distin- guished representative of this type in its bearing on the present problem is perhaps Titius. Titius thinks that Jesus must be considered to have held in a bond fide sense the view which His words naturally express, viz. that His own generation would see the end of the i)resent wicked world and the establishment on earth of the jjerfect Jieavenly Kingdom. But His confession of ignorance as to the day and the hour of tlie Consummation (Mk 13**) shows that He held His own conviction in an attitude of reverent submission to His Father's will, which must have made the transition to accept- ance of the differing reality easy and natural.
It is possible to incline to any one of the above tyjies consistently with a reverential appreciation of the unique mental and spiritual equipment of
Jesus ; found in thei students of inclined mo- time, lioweM tions from I apocalyptic > that more re realistic chai and utteram
•aluable
.11. Th.
elements of ti'
laid to the I'd the belief is due to the : of tliought variety and
On the whole, t acillation of opinion suggest the likelihood that we are not yet in a position to otter a solution of the probleni that shall possess demonstrable cer- tainty. Our information about Jesus, while ade- quate for spiritual and practical purposes, is insufficient for the purposes, or at least for the appetite, of biographical science. To a great extent | we do not know, or are only .slowly learning, either the exact occa.-tions of His utterances or the ' amount of meaning they may have conveyed or 1 failed to convey to those to whom they were delivered. Greater than the lunitation arising
from defective information, liecau.-<e more intimate to our-selves, is that connected with tlie ina))ility of even the modern mind to find within itself a measure for the words of eternal life. To those to whom Jesus was and is the unique bearer of the Kingdom of God both to themselves and to the world, it must seem pertinent to ask whether those who can never stand in the centre of .such responsi- bilities can properly estimate the things falling witliin the vision of the one Person, bearing our nature, who did and does so stand ?
Without presuming to otter a key that fits the lock of all the critical difficulties, the jrtesent writer ventures to call attention to the view of the whole matter expressed in his Eschatologi/ of Jesus (Melrose, 1904). While it does not meet the difficulties of those whose view of the Person of Jesus is frankly naturalistic, it has some claim upon the attention of those to whom the historical Jesus was the unique manifestation in the flesh of the Power that is directing human history to its goal. To those for whom this conviction is fixed, the two following considerations may perhaps appear of paramount importance. The one is that many of the sayings of Jesus must have had a certain elusiveness. The mere fact that they were so habitually aphoristic and pictorial is itself almost a proof of this. Besides the meaning which immediately strikes us, there is a reserve of possible meaning which lies along the line of our vision, yet goes beyond what we actually see. There is a measure of this elusiveness in the language of all genuine seers. Must there not have been an extraordinary measure of it in the language of Je.sus ?