eaps.” 8. The perspective of prophecy. There is avery general agreement that in the predictions contained in this chapter of St. Mark and the corresponding chapters of the other synoptists, the two events of Christ’s coming at the fall of Jerusalem, and of hia coming at the end of the world or present dispensation, are combined, While some explain this according to the theory of two applications, one primary and another secondary ; and others by the typical theory, one event being typical of another, so that the one description covers both ; others again prefer that theory of prophecy according to which it exhibits events without regard to the periods of time or portions of space that intervene between them and separate them from each other; just as in the landscape hill rises above hill, while to the spectator at a distance the valleys that lie between, or the interspaces that separate them, are not seen nor observed, and it is only when the summit of each hill is reached that the interval between it and the next is discernible. So we may conceive it to be with respect to the close of the aly which was marked by the fall of Jerusalem, and the completion, or réAes, of the present dispensation or current age.
Il. Tux signs specirizp. 1. “numeration. There is some slight difference in the enumeration of the signs; they are also divided by some into negative and positive. We prefer dividing them into the immediate and more remote, and enumerate them as follows :—(1) False prophets or pretended Messiahs ; (2) wars and rumours of wars, that is, wars actually declared or commenced, and wars threatened or reported as imminent. St. Luke employs, instead of “rumours,” the somewhat different expression of “commotions,” or “unsettlements ” (4roxaracraclas); these are the more remote premonitions, for it is added by St. Matthew and St. Mark, “ The end is not yet,” while St. Luke has, “The end is not immediately.” (3) Wars ona larger scale, implied in nation rising against nation and kingdom against kingdom. After these political agitations come physical, as (4) earthquakes ; then other providential events, as (5) famines, and troubles, the latter word being omitted in some manuscripts and in the Revised Version; also (6) pesti- lences, ‘hat all these signs preceded the fall of Jerusalem at a greater or less distance from that event, and that, on a still wider area and a still grander scale, they shall precede the winding up of the present dispensation, appears to be the teaching of this portion of Scripture. The intermingling of the predictions relating to the two great events may in some measure be accounted for by the circumstance that the Jews would regard the overthrow of the Jewish state as the signal of, and coincident with, the end of all present things. Other signs of a less general and more personal kind are subjoined, so that we have (7) persecutions befalling the disciples both in and outside of Judwa; and (8) sad apostasies and the evils consequent on such defections, as we learn from the first evangelist ; also (9) the proclamation of the gospel proceeding from Jerusalem and Judea, and its diffusion among all nations, as a witness everywhere toe Christ and his salvation. 2. Verification. Scripture itself bears witness to the fulfil- ment of the first sign; for St. John says, “ Even now are there many antichrista, whereby we know that it is the last time ;” while Josephus acquaints us with the fact that “the land was overrun with magicians, seducers, and impostors, who drew the
218 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MARK. (cu. xu. 1—87.