Thus (4) the Kingdom shall be exalted to its triumph and perfection. It shall be cleansed of all things that offend, and them that do iniquity (Mt 13*'i) ; the supremacy of righteousness shall be vindicated by the elevation of the godly to salva- tion, the ingathering of all elect souls (24^3), and the exclusion of the wicked from the eternal inheritance.
Then (5) the existing world-order shall come to an end. In the teaching of Jesus Himself there is no trace of the thought that the Parousia would inaugurate an outward visible sovereignty on earth, when He should assume the reins of government, and rule as King in the realm of temporal affairs. That thought arose among His followers only at a subsequent period. The idea implied in His utter-
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ances is rather that His final glorious advent shall mark the definite close of the long drama of human life on the earth, by the removal of all His true disciples to the heavenly state, and the consign- ment of the unfaithful to the doom prepared for them. That shall be the Last Day, when the human race shall have had its full trial under the dispensations of the Divine truth and grace, — the winding-up of the world's history.
Literature. — Charles, Eschatology, Hebrew, Jeiciih, and Ch ris- tian (1899) ; Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, ii. 274-351 ; Weiss, Bib. Theol. of NT, ii. 145-1 58, and Life of Ch rist, iii. 80-97 ; Bevschlag, NT Theol. i. 190-204 ; Bruce, Kingdom of God (1889), 272-294 ; Stuart Russell, Parousia (1S87) ; Warren, Parousia (1885) ; Muirhead, Eschatology of Jesus (1904) ; Adams Brown, art. 'Parousia' in Hastings' DB; Dorner, Syst. of Chr. Doct. iv. 373-428; Salmond, Chr. Doct. of Immortality, 300ff., 425 £f. ; J. A. Beet, Last Things (1905), 19 ; G. Jackson, Teaching of Jesus (1905), 207 ; G. B. Stevens, Theology of NT (1899), 150 ; Sanday-Headlam, Bomans, 379 fif. Q-. I^I'HarDY.
PASSION WEEK.— What origin can we assign to the sacred institution known variously as Holy Week, Passion Week, or the Silent Week ? What documentary evidence have we for the belief that the Triumphal Entry took place on a Sunday, so that exactly a week elapsed between that event and the discovery of the empty tomb ?
1. Investigators of the Life of Jesus find a fulcrum in Jn 12'. Even Keim, who puts no faith in the narratives of the Fourth Gospel, least of all in its chronology, accepts its testimony in this particular passage (see Jesus of Nazara, V. 274). It is there stated that Jesus ' six days before the Passover (irp6 If 7ifj.epu)v toG Trdaxa) came to Bethany ' ; and {1'2^-^-) that He went to Jerusalem next day. But it is a little diflScult to understand what the narrator means by the ' six days ' in question. The idiom of 7rp6 i^ rjfiepQv tov wdax"- (cf. LXX, Am P irpb dvo erOiv tov aeiafj-ov), which bears a resemblance to the Latin formula ante diem tertiiim kalendas (cf. Inscr. Insularum Mar. ■^g. iii. 325, irpb le Ka\a.v5u}v kxi-yovcTTuiv), is genuine primitive Greek (Moulton, Gram, of XT Greek, i. 100 f.). The question is, then, whether the Passover day, the 14th Nisan, on which the Passover was eaten, is or is not included in the number 'six.' If it is included, Jesus must have arrived in Bethany on the 9th Nisan ; if not, then on the 8th. The latter alternative is the more natural, since the six days are sjaoken of as coming before the Passover ; and on this assump- tion Jesus must have entered Jerusalem on the 9th Nisan. Now, since according to Jn 19^^ the 15th Nisan was a Sabbath, the 8tli must like- wise have been a Sabbath, and the day of the Triumphal Entry a Sunday. It is to these Johannine data that we trace our Passion Week.
2. Now the Johannine reckoning appears to be corroborated by at least one of the Synoptics, viz. Mk. For one thing, iNIk. assigns the death of Jesus to the wapaaKevq (1.5^, cf. Mt 27^^ Lk 23^), His repose in the sepulchre to the Sabbath, and the finding of the empty tomb to the Sunday (16^, cf. Lk 241, Mt 281), arid consequently the Last Supper to the Thursday evening. Further, it is obviously the design of our ^Ik. to number the days in proper order, as may be seen in its striking succession of morning and evening, thus :
11" Evening of _ 1st day (the Triumphal Entrj) : xa) ripi- ;3Xi-^xij,ivo; Tavra, e'-J/j riSr, e\Jiry,; ry,; iupccs, i^y,x9ey iU Br,6i^nav. 1112 Morning of 2nd day : xxi t^ i^avpion iliXBovTmv ccuTuiy kto
1119 Evening of 2nd day : xai orxv o'-J/s lyiteri, l^t^epiCiTo l^u
1120 Morning of 3rd day : xa.i ■ta.pa.rtopfjou.ivoi Tpu't . . .
131 Evening of 3rd day(?): xai ixTopivouiveu xCmu kx rev
Upov . . .
To this point the enumeration is quite clear. We may ask, indeed, whether the various col- loquies of 1P"-12*^ all took place on a single day.
But in view of the care with which Mk. distin- guishes the previous days, we can only infer that the absence of time references in the disputations is likewise a matter of design.
We must now inquire, however, how 14' is con- nected with what precedes. Are the words f)v 5e TO irdcrxo- k°-"i- to. dt^vpLa /xerd 860 ri/xepas meant to imply that the foregoing discourse of Jesus on the Mt. of Olives was spoken two days before the Passover, i.e. on the very day the religious autho- rities held their conference ? And must Ave suppose the Anointing at Bethany (14^ /cat 6vtos avTov iv Bridavia) to have taken place that day also, i.e. on the evening of the third day, and after the Par- ousia discourse? Again, on what day does Mk. place the betrayal by Judas (14"""- Kal . . . dirri\div . . . Kai e^TjTei . . .)? On the day following, i.e. the fourth ? In truth, the Evangelist's chronology in these passages is as vague as in ini-i2. i». 20 it was unmistakable.