Chapter IV ST PAUL’S CONCEPTIONS OF THE PAROUSIA AND THE JUDGMENT At the stage we have reached in our inquiry, a difficulty occurs as to the question of method.
St Paul’s statements regarding the Parousia are most intimately interwoven with his treatment of the Resurrection. Both belong to that inbreaking of the era of salvation, in which time is no longer reckoned. Yet his conception of the Resurrection is so crucial for the apostle’s Eschatology, that it inevitably demands a separate discussion for itself. It is not easy to decide between the respective claims of the two groups of ideas as to priority of handling. Perhaps, however, a truer perspective will be gained in our presentation of St Paul’s forecast of the future, if we deal first with the Parousia, and its chief content, the Judgment, and then pass on to the Resurrection, a subject which takes us into the very heart of his religious thought and experience. Unquestionably, in the former province, as we shall discover, he has followed much more closely what may be called the prophetic tradition. In the latter, he has remoulded current notions by means of that creative power which sprang from his wonderful contact with the risen Lord. The careful reader of the Pauline Epistles must be forcibly impressed by their constant references, in one form or another, to that event which the Christian Church is accustomed to designate the Second Coming of Christ. This emphasis on the Parousia is, indeed, by no means peculiar to St Paul. All the New Testament writers seem to assign to it a like prominence. In proof, we have only to cite such passages as James 5:8 : “Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts; for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh”; 1 Peter 4:7 : “The end of all things is at hand; be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer”; Hebrews 10:25 : “Exhorting one another, and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.”1 [Note: It is characteristic of all intense eschatological expectation to look for a speedy development of events. Cf.Revelation 1:1, “To show unto His servants things which must shortly come to pass.” The earlier Jewish Apocalypses reveal the same trait: cf. Apoc. Bar. xxiii. 7, “My salvation has truly drawn nigh, and it is no longer distant as formerly”; also Enoch li. 2, “He (i.e. the Messiah) will choose out the righteous and holy among them, for the day of their redemption is near.” Davidson refers to the same phenomenon in the O.T., “the peculiarity of prophecy, which compresses great momenta into a brief space, which brings up great movements close upon the back of one another, and takes them all in at one glance of the eye.” He compares our Lord’s prophecy of the End in which “the two great events which He has in view-the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the world-seem immediately combined,” and offers the hypothesis that “there may have been a powerful exercise of the intuitional faculty which presented the events together, taking little note of time, or contracting the time into what seemed a period of a very few years” (O.T. Prophecy, p. 353).] These are typical of a large class of passages. And the fact stands out in bolder relief, owing to the comparative receding of the conception in the later periods of the history of the Church.
It may be well to inquire at the outset into the special reasons which should be assigned for the phenomenon in question, although, in attempting such an inquiry, we must confine ourselves to the apostle Paul. In many passages, more especially in the earlier Epistles, he seems to expect the Parousia in his own, or, at least, in his readers’ lifetime. Writing to the Thessalonians, he rejoices at the success of his ministry among them, and reminds them how they turned “to God from idols, to serve the living and true God, and to await His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the coming wrath” (1 Thessalonians 1:9-10).1 [Note: It is of importance to notice that St Paul’s interest attaches to the Parousia solely along redemptive lines. For him, certainly, its vital import lies in the assurance that it is to be a deliverance from judgment and all that that involves.] He prays that their hearts may be “blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the Parousia of our Lord Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 3:13). He reassures those who were distressed because some of their friends “had fallen asleep,” by the affirmation that “we, the living, who survive to the Parousia of the Lord shall not anticipate (φθάσωμεν) those who fall asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a commanding word (κελεύσματι), with the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first, then we, the living, who survive, shall be snatched up with them in the clouds to meet the Lord, into the air, and then shall we be ever with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:15-17). He seeks to relieve their perplexity as to the precise time of the Parousia, by declaring that they are not in darkness so that “the day” (i.e. of the Lord) should come upon them (καταλάβῃ) as a thief. They are “sons of the light and of the daytime,” therefore it accords with their character to watch and live soberly (1 Thessalonians 5:4-6). He prays that their “spirit and soul and body in their entirety (ὁλόκληρον) may be preserved blameless at the Parousia of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:23). In his second letter to Thessalonica, his expectation appears to be no less vivid. To his persecuted converts he predicts a stern judgment of God upon their cruel enemies, and for themselves “rest along with us at the revelation (ἀποκαλύψει) of the Lord Jesus from heaven with the angels of His might in flaming fire … when He shall have come to be glorified (ἐνδοξασθῆναι) among His saints” (2 Thessalonians 1:6-10). The Parousia of the Lord Jesus Christ and their “gathering together” (ἐπισυναγωγή) to Him, had become events of such acute and vivid anticipation at Thessalonica-apparently, in part, at least, from an exaggerated impression based on his teaching-that he is obliged to correct their expectation of its immediacy (2 Thessalonians 2:2). His expectant mood continues more or less throughout the letters to the Corinthians and the Romans. Thus, he gives thanks for the rich gifts bestowed on the Corinthian Christians as they eagerly await (ἀπεκδεχομένους) “the revelation (ἀποκάλυψιν) of our Lord Jesus Christ,” and expresses his confidence that they will prove without reproach “in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 1:7-8). He entreats them not to be misled by adversaries into hasty criticism of his work “before the time … until the Lord shall have come” (1 Corinthians 4:5). In view of what he believes to be the shortness of the interval (ὁκαιρὸςσυνεσταλμένοςἐστίν), he advises them to make no new family ties, “for the fashion of this world passes away” (1 Corinthians 7:29; 1 Corinthians 7:31). And in the climax of the great Resurrection-passage he can look forward to a day when those of them who have not fallen asleep-and he appears, from the form of the sentence, to include himself-shall be transformed “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet” (1 Corinthians 15:51-52). In the second Epistle the emphasis on the probable imminence of the Parousia is by no means so marked. Indeed, we may even go the length of saying that the apostle seems to have a presentiment that he will not survive until that great crisis. This is suggested by such passages as 2 Corinthians 4:14; 2 Corinthians 4:16; 2 Corinthians 5:1 ff, 6-10. Some exegetes have accounted for the less vivid statement of his expectation by the serious perils through which he had lately passed at Ephesus (see 2 Corinthians 1:8-10; 2 Corinthians 6:4-10), perils which unquestionably have left their mark upon this Epistle. Perhaps no such definite reason need be given.1 [Note: HEINRICI OBSERVES WITH FORCE, THAT SO FAR FROM THESE GREAT DANGERS IN ASIA LEADING HIM TO GIVE UP ALL HOPE OF EXPERIENCING THE PAROUSIA, HIS REMARKABLE DELIVERANCE FROM THEM MUST HAVE STRENGTHENED IT (SEE HIS NOTES ON2 Corinthians 5:4F.).] A man of the apostle’s richness and variety of spiritual experience cannot be tied down by the logic of any merely external sequence of events. At certain moments in his career the vista of the Kingdom of God would lengthen out for him, at others it would seem to contract. Nothing, indeed, is more fitted to convince us of the futility of postulating schemes of gradual development in St Paul’s Eschatology (as, e.g., Sabatier, Teichmann, Holtzmann, and others have done) than his utterances on the nearness of the Parousia.1 [Note: Of course we should admit the possibility of very considerable variation as to details in the apostle’s conceptions at different times, for the simple reason that neither in Judaism nor in primitive-Christian circles does there seem to have been any rigid eschatological system (see this point well argued in Bornemann’s Thessalonians, p. 186). Where we fail to trace any marked development, is in his presentation of the great central conceptions of Eschatology. Holtzmann is obliged to have recourse to the theory, based on2 Corinthians 5:1-7, that St Paul, having given up his old idea of resurrection, hopes, immediately after death, to be carried to Christ in heaven. “But this,” he is forced to admit, “was certainly conceived only as an exceptional case, affecting merely himself and a few companions in spirit and fortune, as otherwise a total transformation of his entire eschatology must be assumed,” etc., etc. (N.T. Theol. ii. p. 193). This hypothesis of the “exceptional case” appears to us fatal to his idea of St Paul’s development, for we can find no further evidence to support it.] For while his expectation has receded in 2 Corinthians, it revives in the Epistle to the Romans. In the eighth chapter he gives expression to eager yearnings for the redemption (ἀπολύτρωσις) of the body (8:23). We know from other passages that this redemption was to be accomplished at the Parousia. In chap. 5 he exults “in the hope (ἐλπίδι) of the glory of God.” In the later letters, as we shall see, ἐλπίς often represents his conception of the future of salvation. Towards the close of the Epistle his statements are more definite. “And this, knowing (or, taking note of) the season (καιρόν, fitting opportunity), that it is already high time for you to rise from sleep: for now our salvation (σωτηρία, always used by the apostle of the final, completed salvation) is nearer than when we believed. The night has advanced, the day is at hand” (Romans 13:11-12).1 [Note: AT THE SAME TIME, IN ROMANS ALSO, THE POSSIBILITY OF DYING BEFORE THE PAROUSIA IS BY NO MEANS EXCLUDED: CF. 14:8, “FOR WHETHER WE LIVE, WE LIVE UNTO THE LORD; AND WHETHER WE DIE, WE DIE UNTO THE LORD; WHETHER WE LIVE THEREFORE, OR DIE, WE ARE THE LORD’S.”] Undoubtedly, in Colossians and Ephesians, the outlines of his expectation are far more vague than in the earlier letters. The term ἐλπίς often exhausts his Eschatology (e.g., Colossians 1:5; Colossians 1:23; Ephesians 1:18; Ephesians 4:4). Still, the expression παραστῆσαι, in Colossians 1:22, “to present you holy and blameless and without reproach before Him,” the same word used of the apostle himself in 1:28, “that we may present every man perfect in Christ,” together with the striking statement in 3:4, “when Christ shall be made manifest, who is our Life, then you also will be made manifest with Him in glory,” remind us that his early conviction continues to weigh with him. In Philippians it is of importance to notice the blending of the two diverging elements in his outlook. By this time, in his Roman prison, he feels no certainty and no desire of surviving to the great crisis of the Lord’s appearing: “I am constrained between the two alternatives, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better” (Php 1:23). He speaks of his converts at Philippi as “being a cause of glorying” to him “in the day of Christ,” and thus testifying to the efficacy of his labours. But immediately he goes on to contemplate the possibility of “being poured out as a libation upon the sacrifice and service” of their faith, a contingency which he can meet with joy, although it means death for him (2:16, 17). And in the magnificent statement of his own Christian experience in chap. 3, he uses these remarkable words: “If perchance I may attain unto the resurrection from the dead” (3:11). It seems evident from the context that here he has in view a personal possession of the life-giving power of the risen Lord, whereby he also may share in the Resurrection, thus obviously accepting the probability of death before the Parousia. Yet, side by side with these possibilities for himself, he has high hopes of a different kind for his readers. He is assured that God who began His good work in them “will finish it up to the day of Jesus Christ” (Php 1:6). From St Paul’s standpoint these words must almost certainly mean a process carried on in their lifetime. He prays that they may be pure, and kept from giving offence in the day of Christ (1:10). Nevertheless, if he seems to separate himself in some places from his expectations for them, there is no such distinction drawn in that most memorable passage where he exclaims: “Our commonwealth is in heaven, from whence also we eagerly expect the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of His glory, according to the energy whereby He is able even to subdue all things to Himself” (Php 3:20-21). And in the closing chapter of the Epistle, in an exhortation to reasonableness and calmness of spirit, he declares to them, “the Lord is near” (Php 4:5; see a similar setting for the thought in James 5:8-9).1 [Note: In spite of his idea of a development in St Paul’s eschatological conceptions, Holtzmann frankly admits his enduring expectation of a speedy end of the world (N.T. Theol. ii. p. 188).]
Having now the evidence in considerable fulness before us, let us attempt to answer the question proposed at the outset: For what reason does St Paul lay so remarkable an emphasis upon the conception of the Parousia? Here, as in all investigations of the teaching of the Epistles, an important caution has to be noted. Certain truths, and certain special aspects of these truths, come into prominence simply because they are problems of peculiar interest to the Christian communities addressed. Thus, as we have hinted, the large place given to the Parousia in the First and Second Epistles to the Thessalonians is due to the perplexing questions which centred around it for the minds of the converts in that Church. For precisely the same reason, we have the elaborate discussion of the Resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15:1-58. At the same time, the phenomena we have observed throughout his Epistles are enough to suggest that the Parousia must have occupied an important place both in the thought and the teaching of St Paul. And I believe that we are put upon the right track for ascertaining the significance of this fact, when we look carefully into its character and setting in those letters in which it bulks most largely, namely, 1 and 2 Thessalonians. For there we are at once impressed by the noteworthy parallelism between the language of the apostle and many passages in the Synoptic Gospels. Take a typical example. In the second chapter of 2 Thessalonians, St Paul warns his friends against the panic which had seized them as to the immediate approach of the Parousia, and points out certain conditions which he believes must be fulfilled, ere this tremendous crisis can break in upon the present order. “We beseech you, brethren, concerning the Parousia of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together (ἐπισυναγωγῆς) to Him, that ye be not quickly shaken from your mind nor perturbed” (θροεῖσθαι) (2 Thessalonians 2:1-2). Compare with this, Mark 13:27 : “Then shall He send forth His angels, and shall gather together (ἐπισυνάξει) the elect from the four winds” (parallel in Matthew 24:31). Further, in Mark 13:7 (parallel in Matthew 24:6) we read: “But when ye hear of wars and rumours of wars, be not perturbed (θροεῖσθε): these must happen, but the end is not yet.” The apostle goes on in verse 3 to warn them against deception (cf.Mark 13:5, “Take heed lest any one deceive you”; Matthew 24:4), and to announce the revelation of the “man of lawlessness” (ὁ ἄνθρωπος τῆς ἀνομίας). In Matthew 24:12 the same expression is found: “On account of the multiplying of lawlessness (διὰ τὸ πληθυνθῆναι τὴν ἀνομίαν), the love of many shall grow cold.” In his description of the “man of lawlessness,” St Paul speaks of him as “sitting in the temple of God, giving himself out to be God” (verse 4). We may compare Matthew 24:15 : “When, therefore, ye see the abomination of desolation, predicted by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place” (Mark 13:14, “standing where it ought not”). The presence (παρουσία) of the lawless one is depicted in verse 9 as being “according to the working of Satan, with all power and lying signs and wonders, and with all injurious deceit for those who are perishing.” The parallel in Mark 13:22 is noteworthy: “There shall rise up false Christs and false prophets, and shall work signs and wonders, to deceive, if possible, the elect” (parallel in Matthew 24:4). The above are striking instances of verbal agreement between St Paul and the Synoptic tradition of our Lord’s eschatological discourse. But there is far more to be noted than a group of verbal coincidences. The more closely we examine the eschatological sayings of Jesus, especially as these are reported in Mark 13:1-37 with its parallels, Matthew 24:1-51 and Luke 21:1-38, the better can we appreciate St Paul’s emphasis upon the Parousia. But at this point we are confronted by one of the most perplexing problems of interpretation which the New Testament presents. It is well known that many scholars, following, with various modifications, Weiffenbach (Der Wiederkunftsgedanke Jesu, 1873), have regarded the discourse on the Last Things, related in Mark 13:1-37 and its parallels, as a combination of at least two separate sources. One of these is held to be an authentic tradition of the words of Jesus. The other, consisting of verses 7-9a, 14-20, 24-27, 30-31, is considered, on this hypothesis, to be a Jewish-Christian Apocalypse, composed not long before the Fall of Jerusalem. Some plausible arguments may be adduced for the theory. But definite reconstructions of this kind appear to us highly precarious. Ingenuity can always rearrange a text to suit its preconceptions. (J. Weiss, e.g., makes the Apocalypse consist of verses 8, 14-15, 17-20, 23b-27; see S.K., 1892, p. 246 ff.) The same section can be adapted to fit various critical schemes. Thus Haupt (Die eschatol. Aussagen Jesu, pp. 25-34), following a similar method, reaches a different, and in our judgment, equally specious analysis of this discourse of Jesus. It would be unwarrantable to preclude processes of redaction or interpolation in the composition of the Gospels, but hypotheses carried out with such precision as the above, assume an acquaintance with the conditions under which ancient documents took shape, or came to embody traditions, which has no foundation in fact. The apocalyptic elements in the passage may readily be accounted for by the influence of Old Testament prophecy, more especially of a book like Daniel, with which Jesus was certainly acquainted, and which provided a symbolism more or less familiar to His hearers (see Stevens, N.T. Theol. pp. 156, 157; Beyschlag, N.T. Theol. i. p. 188, et al.). There is nothing improbable, however, in the supposition that this mysterious discourse consists of kindred sayings of Jesus grouped together in the earliest documents-a phenomenon natural in itself, and usually assumed in the case of the Sermon on the Mount, as reported in Matthew, and elsewhere.1 [Note: See Weisse, Die Evangelienfrage, pp. 167-170; Haupt, op. cit., p. 24.] Such an hypothesis would account for the fact that here we seem to find references to at least two groups of events; the Destruction of Jerusalem, and the Parousia in the strict sense of the term. Cognate words of our Lord are to be found in Mark 8:38; Mark 9:1 (parallel are Matthew 16:27-28; Luke 9:26-27), and Luke 12:36-46 (parallel in Matthew 24:43-51).
It is quite impossible to determine whether any of these predictions had been committed to writing by the time St Paul wrote his earliest Epistles. But whether that be so or not, many of them, at least, must have formed part of the oral tradition with which the Christians of that age would become acquainted sooner or later. Certain ideas must have come to be regarded as fundamental. Jesus had often spoken to His disciples, in one form or other, of His own Parousia.1 [Note: Teichmann fails to find a basis for the Parousia-expectations of the early Christians in the words of Jesus. He supposes that Jesus Himself was not convinced of His own second coming. On a par with this hypothesis is the argument he uses to establish it, which consists in a quotation ofMatthew 27:46;Mark 15:34;Luke 17:20f. The former two passages give the word on the Cross: “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me.” The latter is the well-known saying: “The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation” (op. cit., p. 12, note). For the real facts of the case, we need only refer, e.g., to Haupt, op. cit., pp. 119-121; and (from a different standpoint) to Holtzmann, N.T. Theol. i. p. 312.] It was to be a coming in glory (see Matthew 25:31; and compare Mark 13:26, Matthew 24:30, Luke 21:27). It was to be a sudden event: like the lightning-flash darting across the sky from east to west (Matthew 24:27; Luke 17:24). There was therefore a danger that it should overtake them unawares. “Observe, then,” He warns them, using a familiar illustration, “that if the master of the house had known in what watch the thief was coming, he would have watched, and not suffered his house to be broken through. For this cause, be ye also ready, for at an hour when ye think not, the Son of Man cometh” (Matthew 24:43-44; parallel in Luke 12:39-40). And then, changing the figure, He pronounces that servant blessed whom his master, when he returns, shall find busy with his appointed task. “But if that servant shall say in his heart, My lord delays his return; and shall begin to beat his fellow-servants … and to eat and drink with the drunken, the lord of that servant shall come in a day when he expects him not, and at an hour of which he knows not, and shall cleave him in twain, and appoint his portion with the hypocrites” (Matthew 24:46-51; parallel in Luke 12:43-46). Of similar import are the parables of the Ten Virgins and the Talents (Matthew 25:1-30). In the former, the emphasis is laid on the necessity of preparation for a sudden and incalculable event. This is, to a large extent, true also of the latter, only the efforts put forth by the servants are more prominent than the master’s return, which, however, still remains the decisive moment in the whole picture. It is noteworthy that in this parable the expression occurs: “After a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them” (ver. 19). Many interpreters have taken for granted that an integral part of Jesus’ conception of His Parousia was the expectation of its nearness (so, e.g., Holtzmann, N.T. Theol. i. p. 312). Various passages, certainly, can be quoted in favour of this impression. But if His utterances, as a whole, on this mysterious question, are viewed in their mutual relations, it will be evident, we believe, that to concentrate attention on the greater or lesser nearness of the Parousia is not Jesus’ purpose. Rather, to quote a very apt remark from J. Weiss (Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes, p. 69), “The essential point in the preaching of Jesus (i.e. concerning the Kingdom of God) is not the greater or lesser nearness of the crisis, but the thought that the Kingdom of God now comes with absolute certainty. The crisis is inevitable; salvation no more a dream but an undoubted reality.” (So also, in essence, Baldensperger, Selbstbewusstsein Jesu,1 p. 148: “The nearness of the Parousia is, in a certain sense, only another concrete, intelligible expression for its absolute certainty.”) This is a true appreciation of the balance of His thought, and it completely accords with the remarkable statement in Mark 13:32 (parallel in Matthew 24:36): “Concerning that day or hour knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, only the Father.” And on this statement follows the direct warning: “Watch, therefore, for ye know not when the lord of the house cometh” (Mark 13:35; parallel in Matthew 24:42). The Coming, moreover, of the Son of Man, was to be the signal for Judgment. This idea is indicated in the dealing of the master with his servants in the Parable of the Talents. A vivid pictorial description of the scene is given in Matthew 25:31-46. It reveals some remarkable transformations of the Old Testament “Day of the Lord,” its ancient prototype. Jesus, the Son of Man, is judge. We have no more pictures of noise and battle. It is essentially a judgment of individuals according to their conduct. It is an ethical verdict upon the manner in which they have used their opportunities.1 [Note: See an interesting paragraph in Briggs, The Messiah of the Gospels, pp. 311, 312.] But certain conditions must be fulfilled before the arrival of the crisis is possible. “The Gospel must first be preached to all the nations” (Mark 13:10). Compare Matthew 24:14 : “This Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached throughout the whole world for a testimony to all the nations, and then shall come the end.” Further, there must be a period of fierce opposition and cruel persecution for the followers of Jesus, in which their endurance shall be put to a severe strain (Mark 13:9b, 11-13; parallel are Matthew 24:9-13, Luke 21:12-19). Deceivers also will arise, with pretentious claims, attempting to seduce even Christian disciples, who must keep unceasingly on their guard (Mark 13:21-23; parallel in Matthew 24:23-26), lest they renounce their loyalty and deny their Lord. It is little wonder that our Lord’s predictions of the destruction of Jerusalem should have been blended in the Synoptic tradition with His utterances concerning the Parousia and accompanying Judgment. For to the first generations of Christians, more especially those who were Jews, this overwhelming event appeared as an appalling proof of the Divine sentence of doom, pronounced on the guilty nation which had crucified the Messiah of God. There can be no doubt that it is often an exceedingly delicate operation to separate between Jesus’ utterances regarding the Parousia and those which concern what He frequently designates the “coming” of the Kingdom of God. At various points the two conceptions seem to merge into one. So largely is this the case, that here and there even the Parousia itself partakes to some extent of the nature of a process, with preparatory elements in it. Instructive, in this connection, are the words of Jesus to the high priest: “From this time forward (ἀπʼ ἄρτι) ye shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming on the clouds of heaven” (Matthew 26:64). And we can by no means summarily dismiss that interpretation of the perplexing words in Mark 9:1 (parallel in Luke 9:27), “Verily I say unto you, That there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the Kingdom of God come with power,” which sees in them a forecast of the remarkable events of the day of Pentecost (so, e.g., Beet, Last Things, p. 45). Many scholars, indeed, taking these words in their Matthæan form (“Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom”), regard them as direct evidence that Jesus expected to return within that generation. Although we are unable to assent to that hypothesis, it must be noted that, in its barest form, it by no means involves the consequences which are frequently deduced from it. Thus Prof. Huxley argues: “If he (i.e. Jesus) believed and taught that (i.e. his speedy return), then assuredly he was under an illusion, and he is responsible for that which the mere effluxion of time has demonstrated to be a prodigious error” (Collected Essays, vol. v. p. 303). Such a statement reveals a complete misunderstanding of the inherent nature of prophecy. Unless the process of history be conceived as wholly mechanical, all the details of a prophetic forecast must necessarily be conditioned by the actual factors operative in the process. The Parousia of Jesus had, for Him, a vital relation to the whole redemptive purpose of God. But He openly disclaimed a full knowledge of the external bearings of that purpose (Mark 13:32). These, from the very nature of the case, must be more or less contingent. For human wills are concerned in the great development of history as well as the Divine. God operates by means of second causes. That Jesus was fully alive to this aspect of the situation, is abundantly clear from His express teaching as sketched above.
We are now in a better position to understand the ideas concerning the Parousia which prevailed in early Christian circles, when the Epistles were written. They were based, as we have endeavoured to show, on various remarkable utterances of Jesus,1 [Note: It is important to note that the circle of events which St Paul groups round the Parousia are no mechanical reproduction of current Judaistic ideas, but all take their colour from his own experience of the risen Jesus. See, e.g., Stähelin, Jahrb. f. deutsche Theol., 1874, p. 218.] and these came more prominently into the foreground of Christian thought, owing to the experiences through which the group of disciples had passed. Their Master had been crucified. That was a paralysing blow to their high hopes. But He had vanquished death, and His resurrection was the pledge that His claims were true, and their faith wholly justified. Yet they must have felt from the outset that His saving purpose could not end with His exaltation. The Kingdom of God, whose foundation He had laid, must grow until it should reach its full development. This was a truth He had often taught them in His parables. A time must come when the development was complete, and the Divine intention realised. Then the Lord must return and vindicate His claims and dominion before a wondering humanity. The day of universal reckoning would be the final decision for all men. It was the end of the present Æon, the ushering-in of the future eternal world. This view of the events which should inaugurate the perfected rule of God received immense support among the early Christians from the prophetic pictures of the future in the Old Testament. Without entering into any detailed examination of the various books and the varying aspects of the subject which they present,1 [Note: A conception peculiar to the later prophetic writers, and notably the Book of Joel, is that of the “Day of the Lord,” not as a single event, but rather as “a series of Divine acts.” This modification, which no doubt owes its origin to the facts of their personal experience, is of paramount importance for the New Testament view of the Parousia. See Cheyne, Origin of Psalter, p. 380, note x. Prof. Charles gives a good classification of the various prophetic conceptions of the “Day of the Lord” in E.B. i. coll. 1348-1353.] we must call attention to the dominating conception of the Day of the Lord. Perhaps the expression originated, as some scholars (e.g., W. R. Smith, Prophets of Israel, p. 397) suggest, in phrases like the “day of Midian” (Isaiah 9:4), the day made famous by a victory of Israel over her enemies. In any case, it has come to stand for that era or crisis in which Jehovah will manifest Himself to the world. To His faithful people it will be a day of great joy. “Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice … let the field exult, and all that is therein: then shall the trees of the wood sing for joy before the Lord, for He cometh: for He cometh to judge the earth” (Psalms 96:11-13). In this coming, Jehovah will vindicate His chosen nation. His true reign will begin. “The Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. And the idols shall utterly pass away” (Isaiah 2:17-18). It is the beginning of a great redemption for Jerusalem. “O thou that tellest good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up thy voice with strength: lift it up, be not afraid: say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God. Behold, the Lord God will come as a mighty one, and His arm shall rule for Him: behold His reward is with Him, and His recompense before Him” (Isaiah 40:9-10). But there is another side to the picture. It is a time of terror for the enemies of the people of Jehovah. “Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision, for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. And the Lord shall roar from Zion, and utter His voice from Jerusalem, and the heaven and the earth shall shake, but the Lord will be a refuge unto His people, and a stronghold to the children of Israel” (Joel 3:14-16). “Behold the Lord will come with fire, and His chariots shall be like whirlwinds: to render His anger with fury, and His rebuke with flames of fire” (Isaiah 66:15). “Behold, one like a son of man came with the clouds of heaven … and there was given him dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages should serve him” (Daniel 7:13-14). But if it is a day of judgment for the heathen, Israel shall not wholly escape. For in Israel there are many who are not true worshippers of Jehovah. “I will turn my hand upon thee, and throughly purge away thy dross” (Isaiah 1:25). “And it shall come to pass at that time that I will search Jerusalem with candles … And I will bring distress upon them, that they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the Lord” (Zephaniah 1:12; Zephaniah 1:17). The very fact that it was an entrance of Jehovah into the course of the world-order, imparted to the Day a wide significance. It was a crisis which should inaugurate a new condition of things. It involved a transformation of the material universe. “Behold I create new heavens and a new earth” (Isaiah 65:17). “The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad: and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose” (Isaiah 35:1). From being a day, it expands into an era. That era is often regarded as the Messianic age. To the prophets, as Dr A. B. Davidson used to point out, it is entirely homogeneous. There are no incidents within it. It is the ideal period, in which all the moral principles which have emerged in history are at length finally perfected.
It is needless to say that the conception of the Day of the Lord, in one form or other, continues to hold its place in Judaistic literature. Thus, in Sibyl. Orac. iii. 796 ff., a detailed description is given of the signs which presage the end of all things. This is identical with the establishment of a Divine kingdom “for all times, over all men,” which will be an era of peace (Sibyl. Orac. iii. 767 ff.). The idea is specially prominent in the Book of Enoch. Its very first chapter depicts the Judgment. “The great holy One shall go forth from his dwelling, and the God of the world (or the Æon, virtually = the eternal God) shall come from thence to Mount Sinai, and He shall be visible with His hosts, and shall appear in the strength of His might from the heaven of heavens. Then shall all men be afraid … and great fear and anguish shall seize them to the ends of the earth. The high mountains shall be shaken, they shall fall and pass away, the high hills shall sink and melt in the flame as wax before fire. The earth shall be rent in pieces, and everything upon it shall perish, and a judgment shall take place upon all. But with the righteous shall He make peace, and protect the elect. Grace shall rule over them, and they shall all belong to God. They shall have His good pleasure and be blessed, and the light of God shall appear to them. And behold. He comes with myriads of saints, to hold judgment upon all, and He shall destroy all the ungodly, and shall correct all flesh on account of all the ungodly acts which ungodly sinners committed” (Enoch i. 3 f.). In the Book of Similitudes (Enoch, chaps. xxxvii.-lxxi.) the descriptions are still more remarkable, as here the Messiah is a central figure. Thus, in chap. xlv. 3 f., we read: “On that day shall mine Elect sit on the throne of glory, and shall deal with a selected portion of their (i.e. men’s) deeds. Their spirit shall be strengthened within them when they see mine Elect, and those who have implored my holy name. On that day will I cause mine Elect one to dwell in their midst, and I will transform heaven, and make it for an everlasting blessing and light. I will transform the earth, and make it a blessing, and cause mine elect ones to dwell upon it: but those who commit sin and misdeeds shall not enter it. For I have beheld my righteous ones, and satisfied them with salvation, and set them before me. But for sinners I have the judgment in store, to extirpate them from the surface of the earth.” With this we may compare lxix. 27: “He (i.e. the Son of Man) sat on the throne of his glory, and the sum of judgment was committed to him, the Son of Man, and he causes the sinners and those who have beguiled the world, to disappear and to be destroyed from off the face of the earth.” Our last example is from Apoc. of Bar. lxxii. 2 ff., “After the miraculous signs, of which thou wast told before, when the peoples are set in confusion and the time of my Messiah is come, then shall he summon all peoples, and some he shall preserve in life, and some he shall slay … (lxxiii. 1). And after he has humbled all that is in the world, and has sat down for ever in peace on the throne of his kingdom, then gladness shall be revealed, and rest shall appear.” An elaborate picture follows of the blessedness of the Messianic kingdom. Instances might be multiplied from the apocalyptic writings to show the position which this group of conceptions occupied throughout the whole course of Jewish religious thought, and it is natural to find them prominently represented in the literature of the Synagogue (for examples, see Weber, op. cit., pp. 371, 375-380). But enough has been said to indicate their paramount importance for the theology of Judaism (see the important section in Volz, op. cit., pp. 257-270). To show how powerfully these prophetic anticipations affected St Paul, we have to turn not only to his thought but even to his language. Parallel, e.g., to the description of the Parousia in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, is Joel 2:1; Joel 2:11 (LXX.): σαλπίσατε σάλπιγγι ἐν Σειών, κηρύξατε ἐν ὄρει ἁγίῳ μου … διότι πάρεστιν ἡμέρα κυρίου, ὅτι ἐγγύς … καὶ κύριος δώσει φωνήν αὐτοῦ πρὸ προσώπου δυνάμεως αὐτοῦ, ὅτι πολλή ἐστιν σφόδρα ἡ παρεμβολὴ αὐτοῦ: “Blow with the trumpet in Zion, make proclamation in My holy mountain … because the day of the Lord is at hand, for it is near … and the Lord shall put forth His voice before the face of His power, for very great is His camp.” With this may be compared some remarkable resemblances from the account of the Theophany at Sinai, given in Exodus 19:1-25 : e.g., verse 16, καὶ ἐγίνοντο φωνὰι καὶ ἀστραπαὶ καὶ νεφέλη γνοφώδης ἐπʼ ὄρους Σεινά, φωνὴ τῆς σάλπιγγος ἤχει μέγα …; verse 17, καὶ ἐξήγαγεν Μωυσῆς τὸν λαὸν εἰς συνάντησιν τοῦ θεοῦ …; verse 18, τὸ δὲ ὄρος τὸ Σινὰ ἐκαπνίζετο ὅλον διὰ τὸ καταβεβηκέναι ἑπʼ αὐτὸ τὸν θεὸν ἐν πυρί: “And there were voices and lightning flashes and a misty cloud on Mount Sinai; the sound of a trumpet blared loudly … And Moses led forth the people to meet God … Now the mountain Sinai gave forth smoke everywhere, because God had descended upon it in fire.” In 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10, we have a mosaic of reminiscences from the prophets: e.g., Zechariah 14:5, ἥξει κύριος ὁ θεός μου, καὶ πάντες οἱ ἅγιοι μετʼ αὐτοῦ: “The Lord my God shall come, and all His holy ones with Him” (cf.2 Thessalonians 1:7); Isaiah 66:15, ἰδοὺ γὰρ κύριος ὡς πῦρ ἥξει … ἀποδοῦναι ἐν θυμῷ ἐκδίκησιν αὐτοῦ καὶ ἀποσκορακισμὸν αὐτοῦ ἐν φλογὶ πυρός: “For behold the Lord shall come as fire, with wrath, to render His vengeance and His rejection with a flame of fire”; Jeremiah 10:25, ἔκχεον τὸν θυμόν σου ἐπὶ ἔθνη τὰ μὴ εἰδότα σε: “Pour out thy wrath upon the nations which know thee not” (cf.2 Thessalonians 1:8); Isaiah 2:10, εἰσέλθετε εἰς τὰς πέτρας … ἀπὸ προσώπου τοῦ φόβου κυρίου καὶ ἀπὸ τῆς δόξης τῆς ἰσχύος αὐτοῦ: “Enter into the rocks … from the presence of the terror of the Lord, and from the glory of His power” (cf.2 Thessalonians 1:9); Isaiah 49:3, δοῦλός μου εἶ σύ, Ἰσραήλ, καὶ ἐν σοι ἐνδοξασθήσομαι: “Thou art my servant, Israel, and in thee will I be glorified” (cf.2 Thessalonians 1:10). In 2 Thessalonians 2:4 ff., a comparison with the Book of Daniel yields most important results. As a parallel to the description of the “man of lawlessness” (ver. 4), we may quote Daniel 11:36, καὶ ὑψωθήσεται ὁ βασιλεὺς καὶ μεγαλυνθήσεται ἐπὶ πάντα θεόν, καὶ λαλήσει ὑπέρογκα, καὶ κατευθυνεῖ μέχρις οὗ συντελεσθῇ ἡ ὀργή: “And the king shall be exalted, and shall be magnified against every god, and shall speak swelling words, and shall experience prosperity until the wrath be fulfilled”; (cf.Ezekiel 28:2, where the ruler of Tyre says: θεός εἰμι ἐγώ). In Daniel 7:27, the last king that shall arise, λόγους πρὸς τὸν ὕψιστον λαλήσει, “shall speak words against the Highest.” In Daniel 8:23-25, a king is described who shall come forth, πληρουμένων τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν αὐτῶν, “when their sins have reached a climax” (cf.1 Thessalonians 2:16, εἰς τὸ ἀναπληρῶσαι αὐτῶν τὰς ἁμαρτίας πάντοτε); several of his characteristics correspond to St Paul’s delineations in the passage before us. And the whole paragraph, Daniel 11:30-40, abounds in traits which are more or less combined in the apostle’s description (especially ver. 4). For ver. 8 we may refer to Isaiah 11:4, ἐν πνεύματι διὰ χειλέων ἀνελεῖ ἀσεβῆ: “By his breath (or spirit), through his lips, he shall destroy the ungodly,” a passage which depicts the operations of Messiah. And we must not omit the remarkable parallel in Enoch lxii. 2 ff., “The Lord of Spirits seated him (i.e., Messiah) on the throne of His glory, and the spirit of righteousness was poured out upon him, and the word of his mouth slew all the sinners, and all the unrighteous were destroyed before his face. And there shall stand up in that day all the kings, and the mighty, and the exalted, and those who hold the earth, and they shall see and recognise him, how he sits on the throne of his glory, and righteousness is judged before him, and no lying word is spoken before them. Then shall pain come upon them as a woman in travail.… And one portion of them shall look on the other, and they shall be terrified, and their countenance shall fall, and pain shall seize them, when they see that Son of Man sitting on the throne of his glory.”1 [Note: Cf. Ps. Sol. 17:41,ἐλέγξαι ἄρχοντας καὶ ἐξᾶραι ἀμαρτωλοὺς ἐν ἰσχύι λόγου;Job 4:9,ἀπὸδὲπνεύματοςὀργῆς αὐτοῦ(i.e.κυρίου)ἀφανισθήσονται.] The associated picture of Judgment in 1 Corinthians 3:13-15, recalls Zechariah 13:9, διάξω τὸ τρίτον διὰ πυρός, καὶ πυρώσω αὐτοὺς ὡς πυροῦται τὸ ἀργὺριον, καὶ δοκιμῶ αὐτοὺςὡςδοκιμάζεταιτὸχρυσίον: “I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will test them as gold is tested.” The same imagery is to be found in Malachi 3:3, and a most striking parallel occurs in Testament of Abrah. xciii. 10, δοκιμάζειτὰτῶνἀνθρώπωνἔργαδιὰπυρός·καὶεἴτινοςτὸ ἔργονκατακάυσειτὸπῦρ,εὐθὺςλαμβάνειαὐτὸνὁ ἄγγελοςτῆςκρίσεωςκαὶ ἀποφέρειαὐτὸνεἰςτὸντόποντῶνἁμαρτωλῶν,πικρότατονκολαστήριον·εἴτινοςδὲτὸ ἔργοντὸπῦρδοκιμάσεικαὶμὴ ἅψεταιαὐτοῦ,οὗτοςδικαιοῦται: “He tests the works of men by fire; and if any man’s work is consumed by the fire, straightway the angel of judgment taketh him and carrieth him away into the place of sinners, a most bitter abode of punishment; but if the fire shall test any man’s work, and shall not touch it, he is justified.” The description of retribution in Romans 2:5-9 has a marked Old Testament background. With verses 5-7 we may compare Psalms 110:5, κύριοςἐκδεξιῶνσουσυνέθλασενἐνἡμέρᾳ ὀργῆςαὐτοῦβασιλεῖς: “The Lord on thy right hand broke in pieces kings in the day of His wrath”; Proverbs 24:12, κύριοςκαρδίαςπάντωνγινώσκει… ὃςἀποδίδωσινἐκάστῳκατὰτὰ ἔργααὐτοῦ: “The Lord knoweth the hearts of all … who rendereth to every man according to his works”; Jeremiah 17:10, ἐγὼκύριοςἐτάζωνκαρδίαςκαὶδοκιμάζωννεφρούς,τοῦδοῦναιἑκάστῳκατάτάςὁδοὺςαὐτοῦ: “I, the Lord, am He that searcheth hearts and testeth reins, to give to each according to his ways.” The penalties with which the unrighteous are visited, we find foreshadowed in such passages as Isaiah 8:22, καὶεἰςτὴνγῆνκάτωἐμβλέψονται·καὶ ἰδοὺ ἀπορίαστενὴκαὶσκότος,θλίψιςκαὶστενοχωρίακαὶσκότοςὥστεμὴβλέπειν: “And they shall look down towards the ground, and behold grievous perplexity and darkness, tribulation and straits and darkness, so that men cannot see.” The examples quoted will suffice to reveal the religious environment in which St Paul’s pictures of the Parousia and the Judgment took shape. One important caution for exegesis may be noted. It is evident that he has lavishly appropriated the vivid metaphors of the prophets just as they stand. It is altogether illegitimate, although the practice is quite common, to interpret with a prosaic literalism in the New Testament those bold poetic images, so dear to the Eastern mind, which readers of the Old Testament like St Paul knew how to estimate in their true significance. But further, we may expect that the apostle’s conceptions of these all-important events will also be regulated by the Old Testament delineations. But before we endeavour to examine his ideas of the Parousia and the Judgment, it is worth while observing that the expectations he seems to have had of their imminence, must have been, in a large measure, stimulated by the prophetic teaching. We have seen that various mysterious predictions of Jesus might naturally lead to the hope that His Second Advent was not far distant. And the rapid progress of the Gospel through his own labours and those of his fellow-apostles would suggest to St Paul a speedy preparation of mankind for the Coming of the Lord. The hope thus kindled must have been powerfully fanned by the influence of Old Testament prophecy with its eager expectancy. It has already been observed that when the prophets saw a quickening of the currents of Providence in any direction, they looked upon that as prefiguring the Day of the Lord. It seems to us that St Paul occupied precisely the same position. There were various reasons why he should take this attitude. To begin with, there was his own religious experience. By means of his contact with the risen Lord, he knows himself to be a partaker of those high spiritual privileges which the prophets had seen afar off and had dimly foreshadowed, as ushering in the new dispensation.1 [Note: See especially, Gunkel, Wirkungen d. heiligen Geistes b. P.2 p. 65.] He felt as if he stood at the close of one Age (αἰών) and at the beginning of another. That other, the era of the Spirit, had already begun to project itself into human life. He can speak of himself as belonging to those “on whom the ends of the ages have come” (εἰςοὓςτὰτέλητῶναἰώνωνκατήντηκεν, 1 Corinthians 10:11). The present is the age which is evil (τοῦαἰῶνοςτοῦ ἐνεστῶτοςπονηροῦ, Galatians 1:4). But it is passing away (παράγειγὰρτὸσχῆματοῦκόσμουτούτου, 1 Corinthians 7:31). The future, ὁαἰὼνὁμέλλων, is that in which the Kingdom of God must prevail. It will be inaugurated by a crisis like the Day of the Lord. That Day is for the Christian apostle necessarily transformed into the Parousia of Christ, who is the vicegerent of the Father, to whom He has committed all judgment. But besides, the period in which St Paul wrote his Epistles was characterised by a thrill of expectancy. “The numerous popular tumults of a politico-religious kind” (we quote the words of Schürer, H.J.P., ii. 2, p. 149) “which took place in the time of the Roman procurators, give sufficient evidence of the feverish tension with which a miraculous intervention of God in history and the appearance of His kingdom on earth were expected.” And finally, the circumstances which attended St Paul’s own work as a missionary were in themselves prophetic, for just as the prophets, above all Ezekiel and Daniel, look for the crisis as the culmination of a movement in which evil has reached a height,1 [Note: In Judaistic literature this notion, it is interesting to observe, appears most prominently in 4 Ezra and the Apocalypse of Baruch, both of them works belonging, in all probability, to the half-century in which St Paul wrote his epistles. See, e.g., 4 Ezra 5:1-13, 6:11-26, 9:3-4; Apoc. Bar. xlviii. 25-41, and esp. lxx. Drummond refers to Sotah ix. 15, Synhed. 97a, from the Mishnah-literature (Jewish Messiah, p. 209).] so the apostle, more especially in his earlier Epistles,2 [Note: Beyschlag considers that “according to the later and maturer view of the apostle, it is not so much the final culmination of the evil and obduracy of mankind as the victory of the Gospel and the conversion of the world which calls down from heaven the exalted Christ, and brings in His visible dominion of the world” (N.T. Theol. ii. p. 260). So also Titius (p. 48), who makes this a distinguishing feature between St Paul and Jewish Apocalyptic. As a matter of fact, we must conceive both ideas as blended together in his thought all along. Certainly the culmination of evil appears to impress him peculiarly at the time when the letters to the Thessalonians were written. The same phenomenon is found in Judaistic literature. The closing period witnesses an abnormal outbreak of evil, e.g. Jub. xxiii. 14 calls the generation then living “the evil generation”; Sibyl. Orac. v. 74 speaks of “the last time in which there shall be utterly depraved men”; 4Ezra 5:1foretells days in which “the realm of truth shall be hidden, and the land of faith without fruit” (see Volz, op. cit., pp. 179-180).] discerns the ripening of forces of wickedness, which, he believes, presages the end. This conviction is most vividly disclosed in 1 Thessalonians 2:15-16, where he describes the Jews as “those who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and bitterly persecuted us, and please not God, and are opposed to all men,1 [Note: Cf. the remarkable parallels from classical writers in T. Reinach’s Textes … relatifs au Judaisme, e.g. pp. 284, 295, 303 ff., which disclose the hatred excited by the Jews.] preventing us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved, in order to fill up the measure of their sin always. But the wrath (ἡ ὀργή) has come upon them to the uttermost.” It is easy, bearing these words in mind, to discover why the Parousia so impresses the apostle at this stage in his activity. The iniquity of his own fellow countrymen is rampant. It takes the most daring form it has ever assumed in prompting the persecution of those who preach the Messiah of God to the heathen. This is an appalling provocation of the Divine judgment. “The wrath” (ἡ ὀργή), the peculiar eschatological visitation of the Divine retribution,2 [Note: SEE B. WEISS, N.T. THEOL. I. PP. 305-306.] is about to sweep down upon them. This will be the first act in the new order of things. The Parousia, the Judgment, the Resurrection of those who have fallen asleep in Jesus-all these tremendous events belong to the same experience.3 [Note: Stevens aptly summarises the essence of the related conceptions in the following sentence: “As the kernel of the teaching about the Parousia is the assurance of the triumph of Christ’s kingdom, and that concerning the Resurrection is the certainty of immortality, so the teaching concerning Judgment centres in the principle that human life and action bring forth fruit after their kind, and that every man shall receive from God his just recompense of reward” (A. J. Th., Oct. 1902, p. 677). For a fine poetic rendering of St Paul’s expectations, see F. W. H. Myers’ St Paul, pp. 10, 11.] The foregoing suggestions give a clue to the meaning of St Paul’s vivid expectations, wherever they occur in his writings. It is not that he possesses any time-schema. He never professes, any more than his Master, to know when the Parousia will take place. When it does come, it will be sudden, “like a thief in the night” (1 Thessalonians 5:2).1 [Note: Cf.2 Thessalonians 2:1-2, and Heinrici on1 Corinthians 15:20-22. The question as to when the End will come is a pressing one for apocalyptic literature, e.g.: Apoc. Bar. xxiv. 4, “What will happen to our enemies I know not, and when thou wilt visit thy works”; 4 Ezra 6:59, “If the world has been created on our account, wherefore have we not this our world in possession? How long is it to remain thus?” Sibyl. Orac. iii. 55: “When will that day come?” The most divergent answers are found (see Volz, op. cit., pp. 162 ff.). St Paul’s feeling is echoed in such a passage as Apoc. Bar. xxi. 8: “Who … alone knowest the consummation of the times before they come.” Volz notes that in Rabbinic Judaism the less confident mood is more common than in Apocalyptic, p. 171.] But at times, when the attitude of God’s foes appears peculiarly defiant, when the work and saving purpose of God seem to be hindered by a daring outbreak of iniquity, he feels compelled to foreshadow that climax of human history at which the authority of the exalted Messiah asserts itself, and Christ shall appear to vanquish all wickedness, to vindicate the righteous will of God, and to establish finally the Kingdom which shall endure for ever. From the standpoint of the believer, the yearning which underlies the expectation of the Parousia may be fitly expressed in the words of Psalms 80:3 : “Cause Thy face to shine, and we shall be saved.”
Let us now look more in detail at his conception of the Parousia. Not much requires to be said about the term παρουσία. In the LXX. the noun seems almost without exception to mean “arrival,” although there are several instances of the verb in the sense of “being present.” In the New Testament the noun usually seems to have the idea of “arrival” in it, although there are one or two undoubted examples of the simple meaning “presence” (2 Corinthians 10:10; Php 2:12; perhaps 2 Thessalonians 2:8).1 [Note: Bruston interprets the term παρουσία of the “presence” of Christ in heaven. According to his exposition of St Paul’s teaching, each believer at death is ushered into the “presence” of the glorified Christ. The final crisis is the unveiling of Christ’s presence along with the saints who are in His fellowship before the gaze of the living. His efforts to attain these results by exegesis of the Epistles are more quaint than convincing. (See Revue de Théologie et de Philos., 1895, p. 486 ff.).] The difference of signification is of comparatively little importance, as either would suit the conception. For the arrival of Christ in visible guise on the scene of earthly history, is, after all, only the unveiling of One who is never truly absent from the fortunes of His followers. That this very idea was before the apostle’s mind, is proved by several passages where he definitely speaks of the “unveiling” of Christ.2 [Note: Cf. 4Ezra 7:28: Revelabitur enim filius meus Messias (so Gunkel: Jesus = Christian correction) cum his qui cum eo, et jocundabit qui relicti sunt annis quadringentis.] See, e.g.: 1 Corinthians 1:7, “Awaiting the unveiling (ἀποκάλυψιν) of our Lord Jesus Christ”; 2 Thessalonians 1:7, “To you, who are in tribulation, rest with us at the unveiling (ἀποκαλύψει) of our Lord Jesus from heaven with the angels of His power”; Romans 2:5, “The day of the unveiling of the righteous judgment of God.” The expression occurs three times in the same sense in 1 Peter (1:7, 1:13, 4:13). In Romans 8:19, St Paul has the remarkable statement that “the eager expectation of the creation earnestly looks for the unveiling of the sons of God.” Hort, who justly traces back the apostolic usage to the words of Jesus Himself in Luke 17:30 : “Similarly shall it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed” (ᾗ ἡμέρᾳ ὁυἱὸςτοῦ ἀνθρώπουἀποκαλύπτεται), observes that there is nothing in any of the passages, “apart from the figurative language of 2 Thess., to show that the revelation here spoken of is to be limited to a sudden preternatural theophany. It may be a long and varying process, though ending in a climax. Essentially, it is simply the removal of the veils which hide the unseen Lord, by whatever means they are withdrawn” (on 1 Peter 1:7). For St Paul, at least, the climax holds the chief interest. He believes in a definite moment when the veils are to be withdrawn.
Nevertheless, in marked contrast with the prophetic descriptions of the Day of the Lord, the apostle scarcely ever paints a picture of the Parousia. The only real instance occurs in the earliest of his letters, 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18. There he depicts the Lord as descending from heaven with a commanding word (κελεύσματι), with the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God.1 [Note: Teichmann discusses elaborately the details of theκέλευσμα, theφωνή, and theσάλπιγξ, summing up the whole event as follows: “While Christ is on His way from heaven to earth, He commands (κελεύσματι) the dead, who have been wakened from their slumber by the call of the archangel and the blowing of the trumpet of God, now in actual reality to arise” (op. cit., pp. 22, 23). He criticises Kabisch for identifyingκελέυσμα, φωνὴ ἀρχαγγέλου, andσάλπιγξ θεοῦ. Surely the latter is nearer the truth. It is highly improbable that St Paul ever worked out the picture in its minutiæ. He is simply making use of the traditional imagery belonging to a Theophany. SeeExodus 19:16ff. (to which reference has already been made). We may here refer to the noteworthy parallel to this appearance of Christ for judgment and the resurrection of the dead which is found in the Persian religion. See Darmesteter, Ormazd et Ahriman, p. 227: “The day of great decision stands in close connection with Soshyos, the Messiah of Parsism, whose function is to awake the dead, to bring immortality into the world, and to endure the last decisive struggle with Angra Mainyu.” See also Söderblom, op. cit., p. 224.] Both dead and living shall be snatched up together in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. It is of little value to inquire into the precise significance of the words εἰςἀέρα. As Stähelin notes (op. cit., pp. 229-230), they emphasise the ideal character of the whole transaction, which takes place in a region exalted above this earth. Similarly, the clouds (ἐννεφέλαις) are viewed in their common Biblical significance as the mediating space between heaven and earth, which forms, as it were, the pathway into the unseen world (cf.Acts 1:9 : ἐπήρθη,καὶνεφέληὑπέλαβεναὐτὸνἀπὸτῶνὀφθαλμῶναὐτῶν; Revelation 11:12 : ἀνέβησανεἰςτὸνοὔρανονἐντῇνεφέλῃ, see Stähelin, op. cit., p. 225). The immediate goal of this meeting with Christ is left indefinite. We cannot decide whether, in St Paul’s view, the ἀπάντησις was for the purpose of escorting the Lord back to earth (so Schmiedel on 1 Thessalonians 4:13 f., and, with reserve, Stähelin, op. cit., p. 228) in accordance with the old prophetic anticipations, or whether it was the prelude to their accompanying Him to heaven, although this hypothesis would appear more congruous with the general direction of the apostle’s thought. In passages where we might expect the use of vivid imagery, such as 1 Corinthians 15:1-58, it is entirely absent. One or two touches, indeed, are added in other places to the picture described above. Thus, in 2 Thessalonians 1:8, the revelation of the Lord Jesus is said to be with the might (δυνάμεως) of His angels, in a fiery flame, (ἐνπυρὶφλογός).1 [Note: Kabisch baselessly supposes that fire, which he describes here as “pneumatic,” “the effect of the spiritual substance of the exalted Christ”, will be the instrument of judgment on the ungodly (p. 246). This crude materialism continually mars a discussion which is full of suggestion for Pauline Eschatology.] Fire was a characteristic symbol of Old Testament Theophanies, see Exodus 3:2; Exodus 19:18; Psalms 18:9-15; Ezekiel 1:13; Deuteronomy 4:24, etc. Again, in 1 Corinthians 6:2-3, he speaks of the saints as judging the world, apparently indicating thereby that they should form the retinue of the returning Lord. Cf.Revelation 2:26-27; Revelation 20:4; Wisd. 3:8 (κρινοῦσιν [i.e., οἱδίκαιοι] ἔθνηκαὶκρατήσουσινλαῶν); Daniel 7:27; Matthew 19:28. 1 [Note: See Weiss, ad loc.: “As they (the disciples) stood next to Jesus in His earthly activity, so will they have the most intimate share in the honour of the exalted Messiah; and as they preached the Gospel to the twelve tribes (cf. 10:5, 6), they will pronounce their judgment according as they have received or refused this offer of salvation.” Parallels in Judaistic literature are to be found in Enoch i. 9 (already quoted); 4 Ezra 13:52 : “As no one can investigate or know by experience that which is in the depths of the sea, so no one of the inhabitants of earth can behold my Son or His companions (Gunkel interprets as = ‘angels’) until the hour of His Day” (cf. 7:28). Cf. Volz, Jüd. Eschatol. p. 33.] This lack of pictorial drapery is another reminder of the remarkable sobriety and self-restraint of the apostle in dealing with those eschatological events which gave free play to the most extravagant fancies of Jewish apocalyptic writers. Evidently, apart from Old Testament reminiscences, St Paul was not concerned about framing an imaginary scene, in which the events of the Day of the Lord should group themselves harmoniously. Probably the reason is, that, as Titius puts it, “he does not possess a definite programme of the course of the apocalyptic development” (p. 152). In all likelihood, the longer he lived and knew his Lord, the less interest did he feel in forecasts of occurrences for which there was no human standard of comparison. The Coming or Unveiling of the exalted Lord, in close agreement with Old Testament teaching, is, in one aspect of it, for judgment. This conception, as it appears in St Paul’s writings, must now be examined with care. Various designations of the crisis occur in the Epistles. In 1 Thessalonians 1:10, it is called “the coming wrath” (ἡ ὀργὴ ἡ ἐρχομένη); in Romans 2:5, “the day of wrath and of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God”; in Romans 2:16, “the day when God judgeth the hidden things of men according to my Gospel.” In 2 Corinthians 5:10, he declares that “we must all be made manifest before the judgment-seat of Christ”; in Romans 14:10, “we shall all appear at the judgment-seat of God”; and he continues, “It is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to Me, and every tongue shall give honour (ἐξομολογήσεται) to God.” (Cf. Enoch xlviii. 5: “All who dwell on earth shall fall down and bow the knee before Him, and shall bless and laud and celebrate with song the Lord of Spirits”; also lxii. 6, 9, 10, lxiii.) In 1 Corinthians 3:13, the apostle speaks of the event as “the day” (cf.2 Thessalonians 1:10, “that day”). Perhaps its most characteristic title for him is “the day of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 1:8), “the day of Christ Jesus” (Php 1:6), or simply, “the day of Christ” (Php 2:16; Php 1:10).1 [Note: We have an instance of that almost wilful misapprehension of St Paul’s thought which shows itself here and there in Kabisch’s treatment of Pauline Eschatology, in the emphasis which he lays uponἡμέρα κυρίουas the “time of light” as opposed to the era of darkness (p. 236).] These designations at once reveal the intimate connection of the apostle’s idea of judgment with the prophetic conception of the “Day of the Lord.” Only, on the one hand, the horizon has immensely widened. On the other, the somewhat vague pictures of God’s judgment which the prophets clothe in various forms, have given place to the definite intervention of the exalted Lord, Jesus Christ, armed with complete authority. Here it is plain that St Paul has taken his stand on the teaching of Jesus Himself For there can be no doubt whatever that one of the lofty claims which our Lord put forward with emphasis and frequency, was His position as the Judge of the final destinies of mankind. It will suffice to refer to such familiar passages as Matthew 7:22-23; Matthew 13:41 f., 25:31 f. This was the point, we may say, at which the foundations of a distinctly Christian Eschatology were laid There was nothing to correspond to it in Judaism. There could not be, for the Jews had never conceived of a Messiah who should pass through a career of earthly activity, a career checked by death, and then return as the medium of God’s final purpose for the universe. The truth took firm hold of the apostles. Again and again, in the history of their labours, we find it set in the forefront. See Acts 10:42; Acts 17:31; Acts 24:25. This was inevitable. For the proclamation of judgment must ever be one of the most powerful weapons in the hands of the missionary. It is one of those appeals which first find an echo in the burdened conscience. When, as in their preaching, it was a judgment wielded by that Saviour whom they knew, its solemnity and terror must be tempered by the pity of eternal love.1 [Note: Wernle, who is rightly alive to the importance of the judgment in missionary preaching, misconceives both the facts and the apostle’s position when he writes: “The preaching of judgment has only this aim: it does not attempt to make men better, but to make believers. By this preaching of judgment, Paul draws heathen to Christianity: that is different from giving Christians in the Church comfort as regards their sins” (Der Christ u. die Sünde bei Paulus, p. 99). It is this isolating of the various elements of the Christian Gospel in a mechanical fashion which leads to the discovery of contradictions in Paulinism, where there are none. St Paul, no more than the modern intelligent Christian, looks upon the Christian life as a tightly-shut compartment into which the believer enters, and which he can never leave. The reminder of judgment is quite as necessary in the ordinary work of the Church, as in making appeals to those who are still outside.] The judgment of Christ is destined for Jews and heathen alike. St Paul has passed far beyond a purified theocracy. This broader outlook, as we have seen, had already established itself in Judaism. It was bound to accompany the emergence into prominence of the influential eschatological doctrine of the two Æons. The very statement of such a conception implies its universal bearing. The Judgment, which marks the transition between the old Æon and the new, would be meaningless unless it embraced all mankind.1 [Note: Cf. Bousset, Religion d. Judenthums, p. 246.] “The day of judgment will be the end of this period (and the beginning) of the future immortal period in which corruption has passed away” (4 Ezra 7:113). It is final, for it inaugurates the end of the present. It is the inevitable preparation for the pure and perfected Kingdom of God.2 [Note: This aspect of the judgment is specially prominent in the second example quoted from Matthew above.] But even if this stage in the conception had not been reached in Judaism, the world-central position of the exalted Christ for St Paul would necessarily have involved its formulation. He is the Saviour and Lord of all. He is “the Image of the invisible God, the First-born of all creation.… All things were created by Him, and for Him: and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist” (Colossians 1:15; Colossians 1:17). His Gospel is the winnowing-fan which sifts humanity. Men’s attitude to Him and to the revelation of God which He has given, is the touchstone of their eternal destiny.
There are several features of St Paul’s conception of judgment which claim special attention. Here, as in the case of the Parousia, there is an almost complete lack of scenery. We seem to pass into a new atmosphere, when we turn from the exuberant and often bizarre fantasies of the Jewish apocalyptic writers (e.g., Enoch, Slavon. Enoch, Apoc. Bar., even 4 Ezra) to the solemn, restrained, and genuinely ethical statements of the apostle, whose mind appears to be wholly concentrated on the spiritual issues. No less marked is the contrast between the comparative prominence assigned to this conception in the Pauline Epistles and the pseudepigraphal literature. In the latter group of writings, it stands in the forefront. These authors delight to linger over its circumstances. Such a predilection, no doubt, is partly due to the fact that their faith largely consists in the conviction of Divine retribution: that the condemnation of the ungodly (more especially the foes of Israel) and the vindication of the righteous (more especially Israelites) absorb their interest in the future of the Kingdom of God. It is true that in the later apocalyptic books, as, e.g., Jubilees, the idea of the Judgment falls into the background owing to the belief that reward or punishment is meted out immediately after death (see Clemen, Niedergefahren zu d. Toten, p. 149). This applies in particular to the writings of Hellenistic Judaism. In the Wisdom of Solomon, indeed, mention is made of a day of judgment (ἡμέραδιαγνώσεως, ἐξέτασις, ἐπισκοπὴψυχῶν, this latter term ἐπισκοπή, with the verb ἐπισκέψασθαι, Latin, visitare being a sort of technical expression in apocalyptic literature for the return of God to judgment; cf. Ps.Sol. 15:12; Apoc. Bar. lxxxiii. 2; Enoch lx. 6); but it is exceedingly difficult to combine it with the conception of retribution for the individual immediately after death, a conception dominant in this branch of Jewish thought, which did not admit a resurrection of the dead.1 [Note: See Bousset, op. cit., p. 282. It is of interest to note that, in later Jewish Apocalyptic, the chief feature connected with the Judgment is the practical issue, that the ungodly reap their punishment, and the pious their reward. See Volz, op. cit., p. 85.] But even in 4 Ezra, which probably belongs to the last quarter of the first century a.d., and so ranks among the latest products of its class, room is left for a final allotment of penalties and rewards at the End.
Probably St Paul’s comparative reticence as to the Judgment, and the lack of elaborate treatment of the event in his letters, should be connected with the nature of his conception of salvation. The sinner who is justified by faith, receives already a new standing before God. “There is, therefore, now (νῦν) no condemnation (κατάκριμα) to those that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit” (Romans 8:1). They already belong to the class designated as οἱ σωζόμενοι (1 Corinthians 1:18; 2 Corinthians 2:15). There awaits them the final salvation, ἡ σωτηρία. See, e.g., Php 2:12, τὴν ἑαυτῶν σωτηρίαν κατεργάζεσθε; Romans 1:16, δύναμις γὰρ θεοῦ ἐστιν εἰς σωτηρίαν; Php 1:28, ἥτις ἐστὶν αὐτοῖς ἔνδειξις ἀπωλείας, ὑμῶν δὲ σωτηρίας. The converse of σωτηρία is invariably ἀπώλεια, and there are those who belong already to οἱ ἀπολλύμενοι. Their end (τέλος) is ἀπώλεια (Php 3:19). They have rejected the gospel of Jesus Christ. They have despised the riches of God’s goodness and forbearance and longsuffering, and hence, in accordance with their hardness and impenitence of heart, they treasure up for themselves wrath in view of the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God (Romans 2:4-8).
It is, perhaps, difficult to realise how the apostle would adjust this conception of salvation and all that it involves to the more traditional idea of a judgment day, when each shall be rewarded according to his deeds. For, obviously, in a very real sense, God’s judgment on the believer, according to St Paul’s view, has already been pronounced in the act of justification. He has received the forgiveness of his sins in Jesus Christ. How can there be any further place for acquittal or condemnation? So also, on the other hand, those who have refused to surrender to the love of God, established in the Cross of Christ, have thereby, in the apostle’s estimation, pronounced their own judgment. “If our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is the Image of God, should shine unto them” (2 Corinthians 4:3-4). The problem is, to find some mediation between that aspect of St Paul’s thought which may be called retribution, which seems to look exclusively to God’s final verdict on human conduct, and the other, which we know as justification, of whose effects we are conscious already in the present. This difficulty has led to misapprehensions of St Paul’s conception. Thus Reuss asserts that the final Judgment is a purely Jewish-Christian idea, “having no natural link with the evangelical doctrine of Paul.” For, from the fact of union with Christ, it follows that judgment takes place on this side of the grave (Histoire de la Théol. Chrét. ii. p. 221). Teichmann considers that St Paul has two parallel but irreconcilable ideas of judgment, the one ethical, the other belonging to the close of history (op. cit., pp. 81-83). For Christians, he holds, the latter must be done away with, for in their case St Paul leaves out of account all human action. Everything, with them, rests on faith and the bestowal of the Holy Spirit. There is no room for a final judgment as to their deeds (p. 103). These are examples of a type of criticism which is constantly applied to the apostle’s doctrine. And at first sight it seems plausible enough. Yet this apparent incongruity of thought, on which so much stress has been laid, really pervades all Christian experience. A lively faith assures believers that God has begun His good work in them; nevertheless, most of them. must tremble as they anticipate, in their inmost self-knowledge, the verdict of Him who is the Searcher of hearts. Not only so, but justification has no meaning, cannot be understood, apart from its practical results. No one was ever more fully alive to this than St Paul himself. The sixth, seventh, and eighth chapters of Romans are sufficient proof of it. Those who have been fully justified must, from the nature of the case, walk after the Spirit, and not after the flesh. To continue heedlessly in sin, is to make void the grace of God. “How shall we, that are dead to sin (i.e. have broken our connection with our sinful environment in Christ Jesus), live any longer therein?” (Romans 6:2). “No,” says the apostle, and he is speaking to believers, “if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die” (Romans 8:13). So that there is no real contradiction between that group of ideas which centre round justification, and a statement like Galatians 6:8 : “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap; for he that soweth to his own flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption (or destruction, φθοράν), but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.” The forgiven man must live as one who is under the profoundest obligations to the grace of God, and the only fulfilment of such obligations is a life of righteousness. That life, which is the sowing to the Spirit, is possible solely through the Spirit’s aid, and His aid is given exclusively to those who abide in fellowship with Christ (Romans 8:8-10). Now, as we have hinted above, believers will always be conscious of their utterly imperfect service. The clearer their knowledge of God, the more glaring must appear to them the contrast between what they are and what they might have been. Hence the final verdict of God upon their completed lives is for them no mere dramatic scene, belonging to a stage of reflection which is now antiquated. It meets a craving of human conscience which can find full satisfaction in no other direction. Accordingly, it is altogether untrue to the workings of the spirit of a Christian to say that St Paul has clung by force of tradition to the Old Testament conception of the Day of the Lord, while his real idea of judgment bears no relation to it. The same kind of profound paradox runs through all his deepest thoughts. For example, he can say in one place (Romans 8:16), “The Spirit beareth witness with our spirit that we are children of God”; and yet in another (Php 3:11), “If haply I may attain unto the resurrection from the dead”; (see 1 Corinthians 4:4; and cf. the utterance of Jochanan b. Sakkai, Tanchuma, Schofetim, sect. 7, qu. by Volz, op. cit., p. 118, “Woe to us in the day of judgment, woe to us in the day of correction”). In an exultant mood he can exclaim (Romans 8:33), “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?”; but at a later time (Php 2:12), “With fear and trembling, work out your own salvation to the end” (κατεργάζεσθε). And all who, like the apostle, set the loftiest spiritual ideals before them, while never distrusting the grace of God, which is able to keep them from falling, will ever distrust themselves, lest in the end they should prove unworthy of God’s high calling in Christ Jesus.
It does not appear as if St Paul had worked out in any detail the actual events and processes of the final Judgment. If we view this solemn crisis, however, in close connection with the rest of his teaching, it is plain that the judgment of the σωζόμενοι will be their admission into the heritage of glory. That is to say, he regards it as decisive confirmation of that earlier acceptance of them in Christ, the confirmation which absolutely fixes their eternal destiny.1 [Note: Cf. Clemen, Niedergefahren zu d. Toten, p. 143; Titius, p. 152; also Castelli, J.Q.R., i. p. 343. Charles puts the facts strikingly: “(Paul) teaches that at the consummation of the universe, all rational beings will receive their due unto the full. According to the doctrine of the kingdom, individual members cannot reach that consummation apart from the consummation of the blessedness of all” (Eschatology, p. 399). This brings out an element in the conception which St Paul does not explicitly emphasise, but which, even from his relation to the Old Testament, not to speak of the teaching of Jesus, must have been tacitly present to his mind.] They shall obtain “everlasting life” (Romans 2:7; Romans 6:23; Galatians 6:8).1 [Note: These passages are most instructive for the light they shed upon St Paul’s twofold conception of Judgment. This twofold conception, in a more elementary form, is also apparent in the literature of Judaism; see Volz, op. cit., pp. 111-115.] For the ἀπολλύμενοι, judgment will mean the experience of the ὀργή of God. Its effect is exclusion from the Kingdom of God. Such exclusion is nothing else than ἀπώλεια.
Perhaps one reason why St Paul speaks so seldom in detail regarding the Judgment, and never apparently fixes a definite place for it in the sequence of the Last Things,2 [Note: See Heinrici on1 Corinthians 15:22.] may be found in the fact that he seems usually to have the living in view. As we have noted, he does not expect that the End is far distant. Whether he survives to that day or not, he deems it probable that many of his brethren will. So that such questions as the relation of an Intermediate State, or of the Resurrection, to the Judgment, do not come prominently within his horizon.3 [Note: Cf. Wernle, Anfänge, etc., p. 174; Orr, Christian View, p. 335 f.] He writes concerning the Day of the Lord, not with a theoretical but with a practical interest. He desires to set its grave issues before members of those Christian communities which are dear to him, men and women who may themselves experience the Parousia. Hence, he treats the Judgment altogether from the side of its spiritual significance, refraining from all curious speculations as to its method and guise. Moreover, in a number of important passages, he is thinking exclusively of Christians. It is so, for example, in 2 Corinthians 5:9-10 : “Wherefore also we make it our ambition, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him. For all of us must be made manifest (φανερωθῆναι, shown in our true colours) before the judgment seat of Christ, that each may receive the things done in the body, according to what he did, whether good or worthless” (φαῦλον). The context of this passage makes it clear that he has believers in his mind. It is the last clause alone which might suggest, and has suggested, the opposite. But, as it happens, we find an entirely relevant parallel in 1 Corinthians 3:12-16. In this section of the Epistle he is dealing with the work of Christian teachers. He himself had laid the foundation. But the crucial point is, What kind of building is being erected upon it? “Let each,” he says, “take heed how he raises a building upon it” (ἐποικοδομεῖ, verse 10). But, be that as it may, “if any one builds up upon the foundation (τὸνθεμέλιον = ἸησοῦςΧριστός) gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, the work of each shall be made manifest (φάνερονγενήσεται): for the day shall declare it, because by fire (ἐνπυρί)) it is laid bare (ἀποκαλύπτεται), and the fire itself shall test each man’s work of what quality (ὁποῖον) it is. If any man’s work, which he built up, shall remain, he shall receive a reward; if any man’s work shall be consumed, he shall be punished (ζημιωθήσεται), but he himself shall be saved, yet in such a way as by fire.” He recognises the many imperfections in the service and activities of Christian workers. These will be made manifest in the day of judgment. God’s welcome to them must necessarily be affected by the greater or less degree of unworthiness (φαῦλον) which the sum of their life discloses, so that, even within the sphere of salvation, men shall receive according to the things done in the body. St Paul accepts, that is to say, the conclusion which commends itself to every reasonable mind-a conclusion authenticated by our Lord Himself in the parables of the Talents and the Pounds-that in the future consummated Kingdom of God, each will receive that portion for which his spiritual capacities have fitted him. This truth has not received the emphasis in New Testament theology to which it is entitled. “It is neither according to Scripture, nor to moral instinct, to depict the Final Judgment as implying that all in whom the same set of character exists receive an equal reward or penalty. It is strange how much the doctrine of a destiny proportionate to the measure of fidelity or failure, so perpetually on our Lord’s lips, has become a ‘lost theological principle.’ It must be recovered, if we are to bring the fundamental conceptions of a final Judgment and a final Kingdom of righteousness into relation with the moral facts of life” (Forrest, Christ of History, etc., p. 367).1 [Note: Cf. Cone, New World, 1895, p. 299; and for a fine imaginative rendering of the thought, Dante’s Paradiso, xxxii. 50-58. Degrees of bliss form a prominent doctrine in the Persian religion. The highest blessedness is to reach the “House of Hymns” (garôtmân): the next highest condition is called the “best existence,” and is divided into the “space of the sun,” that “of the moon,” and that “of the stars.” These are attained according as certain special virtues have been practised (see Söderblom, op, cit., p. 128). For numerous examples in Jewish literature, more especially the Rabbinic, see Volz, op. cit., pp. 366, 367.] From these passages and from others, notably, e.g., 1 Corinthians 4:5, “Do not come to any judgment (i.e. on St Paul and his work) before the time, until the Lord come, who shall bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and shall reveal the schemes of many hearts” (cf. the exact parallel in Romans 2:16, “the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my Gospel”), it is evident that the idea which stands out most sharply before him in connection with the process of judgment, is the revelation of the secrets of human souls to themselves and probably to others, the testing of human character by a severe experience, which he symbolises by fire. These ideas have their anticipations in the Old Testament and in the literature of Judaism. As to the revealing of the hidden realities of human character, we may quote Proverbs 24:12 (LXX.), “The Lord knoweth the hearts of all … who shall render to every man according to his deeds”; Ecclesiastes 12:14, “God shall bring every work into judgment with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil.” The same thought appears in such passages as Sir 1:30, “The Lord shall reveal thy secrets, and in the midst of the assembly (συναγωγῆς) shall cast thee down”; Apoc. Bar. lxxxiii. 1 ff., “The Most High shall assuredly hasten the times, and He shall assuredly bring on His hours. And He shall assuredly judge those who are in His world, and shall visit in truth all things by means of all their hidden works. And He shall assuredly examine the secret thoughts, and that which is laid up in the secret chambers of all the members of man, and shall make them manifest in the sight of all, with reproof.” Cf. the Arabic poet Zuhair: “Whatever men seek to hide from God, He knoweth: it is reserved, laid up in writing, and kept in store against the day of reckoning” (qu. by Bevan, Daniel, p. 123). The idea occurs repeatedly in Jewish literature, e.g., Enoch xlix. 4, lx. 5; Slav. Enoch xlvi. 3: “When God shall send a great light, by means of that there shall be judgment to the just and unjust, and nothing shall be concealed.” The closely-related conception of a testing as by fire is foreshadowed by similar expressions in the prophets, e.g., Zechariah 13:9, “I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them (πυρώσω in LXX.) as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried”; Malachi 3:2-3, “But who may abide the day of His coming (= the Day of the Lord), and who shall stand when He appears? for He is like a refiner’s fire (πὺρ χωνευτηρίου), and like fuller’s soap: and He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; and He shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver.”1 [Note: See also the remarkable passage already quoted from Testament of Abraham xciii. 10, and a very materialistic picture in Sibyl. Orac. iii. 80-91; and cf. the most striking parallel of the ordeal by fire in the Persian religion, “The two blessings (i.e. salvation and immortality) mayest thou give (in harmony) with the holy spirit, O Mazda Ahura, by means of the decision with fire” (Yasna xlvii. 6). “The last judgment … will dispense to men reward and punishment. Then the earth will be purified by the fiery metal-stream. All men shall enter the fire-stream, which is felt by the pious like a bath in tepid milk, by the wicked as a frightful torture … With the tribulation of earth, the fire devours also the hell of Ahriman and the serpent” (F. Justi, Preussische Jahrbücher, Bd. 88, Hft. 1, p. 242; cf. Böklen, op. cit., pp. 119, 121). The idea of fire as a purifying agent occurs in the Alexandrian Fathers-e.g. Clem. Alex., Strom. vii. 6, p. 851:φαμὲν δʼ ἡμεῖς ἁγιάζειν τὸ πῦρ, οὐ τὰ κρέα, ἀλλὰ τὰς ἁμαρτωλοὺς ψυχάς· πῦρ οὐ τὸ παμφάγον καὶ βάναυσον, ἀλλὰ τὸ φρόνιμον λέγοντες τὸ διϊκνόυμενον διὰ ψυχῆς … τὸ πῦρ; also Origen, c. Celsum iv. 21:οὐκ ἀρνούμεθα οὖν τὸ καθάρσιον πῦρ, καὶ τὴν τοῦ κόσμου φθορὰν ἐπὶ καθαιρέσει τῆς κακίας καὶ ἀνακαινώσει τοῦ παντός.] The thought which underlies those statements of St Paul which we have quoted, is entirely in accord with much recent philosophical speculation on the ultimate issues of life.1 [Note: See, e.g., F. C. S. Schiller, Riddles of the Sphinx, pp. 399, 400.] No future life can be conceived without the consciousness of self-identity. But this consciousness must depend on memory. Is there not profound truth in the idea that the self-identity of a personality fully realised will rest upon a memory wholly unclouded, in which all past experience, and every part of it, is grasped, as it were, in one perception. Would not such a perception in itself prove a tremendous factor in the process of retribution?2 [Note: For a very concise and well-balanced summary of St Paul’s conception of Judgment, see Heinrici on2 Corinthians 5:10.]
We must defer to a later chapter the consideration of St Paul’s teaching on future bliss and future punishment. And the relation of the Parousia and the Judgment to the Resurrection can be more conveniently treated when that central province of his Eschatology is under review. But it is necessary, before quitting the subject of the Parousia itself, to examine the difficult passage which deals with the mysterious figure of the “man of lawlessness” (2 Thessalonians 2:3-12). Considerable light has been shed upon this whole conception by recent studies in the history of religion. Of these we shall endeavour to make use, but we must first form as clear an idea as possible of St Paul’s statement in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-17. The statement is not made for its own sake, but to correct the erroneous notion prevalent at Thessalonica that the Parousia was to take place immediately. The apostle declares that certain events must precede it. The first of these he names the “apostasy” (ἡ ἀποστασία). Apparently coincident with the “apostasy,” or closely subsequent to it, is the revelation (ἀποκαλυφθῇ) of the “man of lawlessness” (ὁ ἄνθρωποςτῆςἀνομίας), “the son of destruction, who opposes and raises himself up against every one called God, or object of reverence (σέβασμα), so as to take his seat in the temple of God, giving forth (ἀποδεικνύνταἑαυτόν) that he is God.” But this revelation is for the present hindered. “Ye know the restraining force” (τὸκατέχον). Already, indeed, “the mystery of lawlessness” (τὸμυστήριοντῆςἀνομίας) is in operation. “Only, the restrainer is now (present), until he be taken out of the way (ἐκμέσουγένηται). And then shall be revealed the lawless one, whom the Lord Jesus shall slay by the breath of His mouth (τῷπνεύματιτοῦστόματοςαὐτοῦ), and destroy by the radiance (ἐπιφανεία) of His Parousia; whose whole coming (or appearance, παρουσία) is according to the power of Satan, sheer force (so Weizsäcker, admirably), signs and wonders of lying, sheer deception of unrighteousness for the lost, for the reason that they did not receive the love of the truth to their salvation. Therefore God sends them the power of deception that they should believe falsehood, so that they all might be judged who did not believe the truth, but had their pleasure in unrighteousness.” In examining this description, certain preliminary points may be noted. The dimness and vagueness in the outlines of the figure here presented may be partly explained by St Paul’s statement in verse 5: “Do ye not remember that while I was yet with you I spoke to you of these things?” There is no need for him to do more than recall to their minds the remarkable picture whose details he must have explained to them orally in his preaching at Thessalonica. This is no doubt a consideration which may often serve to explain perplexing allusions in the apostolic writers. Further, as we have already discovered, a number of features in the description have noteworthy parallels in the Book of Daniel, a writing of extraordinary significance and importance for the early Christian Church. These parallels are echoed in the New Testament in the great eschatological discourse of Matthew 24:1-51 (parallel in Mark 13:1-37, in 1 John 2:18 f., 4:3, and in Revelation 13:1-18 (especially verses 4-7, 13-15).1 [Note: Holtzmann exaggerates when he says that there is no real parallel to our passage in the New Testament exceptRevelation 13:5-8; Revelation 13:12-17; Revelation 16:9-11(N.T. Theol. ii. p. 192).] Can we find any clue to the genesis of this conception of a Person in whom the forces of evil are concentrated, rising up in blasphemy, seducing men by deceit, giving himself out as the antagonist of the true God? Several recent investigators have come forward with attempted solutions of the problem. W. Bousset, in particular, who has made a careful and exhaustive study of the subject (Der Antichrist, Göttingen, 1895; E. Tr. by A. H. Keane, The Antichrist Legend, 1896), endeavours to trace the conception through a long tradition, back to the old Babylonian myth of the Dragon which stormed the abode of God. The next phase he finds in the wicked angel of Judaism, Belial2 [Note: M. Friedländer attempts to prove that in the last pre-Christian century Beliar was the demonic embodiment of an antinomian spirit which pervaded a very powerful Jewish sect, designatedîÄéðÄéíin the Talmud. He lays great stress on the character of Beliar as the seducer, from the LXX. translation of “children of Belial,” byἄνδρες παράνομοιinDeuteronomy 13:13, and comparesJudges 19:22; Judges 20:13;Proverbs 6:12;2 Samuel 23:5-7. As we approach the Christian era, he holds, Beliar grows beyond the range of anything human, until at length he represents Satan in human form (. Sibyl. Orac. ii. 63-75). Along these lines he comes to be the prototype of Antichrist (Der Antichrist in d. vorchristlichen jüdischen Quellen, Gött., 1901). There are probably true elements in this hypothesis, but its basis seems decidedly questionable. . Volz, . cit., p. 77, who, among various instances of renegade Jews designated “sons of Belial,” quotes Kidduschin, 66a, where an evil adviser, who stirs up the Maccabæan princes against the Pharisees, is called a Belial. This application of the name to Jewish apostates corroborates the view ofὁ ἄνομοςwhich has been taken in the text.] (or Beliar), who becomes the ruler of the ethereal region (cf. “The prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience,” Ephesians 2:2), and thus a rival to the Divine power. The tradition, which culminates in the conception of Antichrist, he regards as an esoteric doctrine handed down orally in Judaism. Various traits derived from contemporary circumstances are added from time to time to the hateful figure, which is the incarnation of insolent wickedness. Thus, in the epoch of Daniel, the blasphemy and cruelty of Antiochus Epiphanes supply some prominent features. While, for the minds of the early Christians, it is natural that this demoniac power, which was opposed to God and all goodness, should be transformed into the idea of a false Messiah, who arises out of Judaism, which had rejected and crucified the true Christ, and appears among the Jews in Jerusalem, doing wonderful works by the help of Satan, and ultimately seating himself in the temple of God. Bousset goes the length of saying, that in all probability “man of lawlessness” is a translation of the Hebrew Belial1 [Note: Cf. the preceding note.] (for his theory, see The Antichrist Legend, especially pp. 30, 128, 137, 144, 155, 165, 166, 182).2 [Note: Gunkel agrees with him as regards an eschatological tradition which goes back to the primitive Babylonian conception of the conflict between order and chaos, symbolised by the struggle between Marduk, the supreme god of Babylon, and Tiamat, the dragon of the abyss. “Theἄνομος-expectation of 2 Thessalonians,” he says, “is not the arbitrary invention of an individual, but only the expression of a belief which had arisen throughout a long history, and was at that time widely circulated … Since Daniel (11:36), it is declaredthat this culmination of evil (expected by Judaism) would be embodied in a man who insolently violates everything sacred, even the temple of God in Jerusalem. Cf. also3Ma 1:1-29, Ps.Song of Solomon 1:1-17” (Schöpfung und Chaos, p. 221).]
There is probably a mixture of fact and mere hypothesis in these statements. The notion of an esoteric, eschatological tradition handed down orally in Judaism, is a pretty theory, but where are we to find a sure basis for it? We are by no means certain that clear traces of it are to be discerned in Revelation 11:1-19, in the Beast that comes up out of the abyss and makes war with the two witnesses, and kills them.3 [Note: M. R. James (in his article on “Man of Sin,” H.D.B.) agrees with Bousset in this identification.] For symbolic figures of this description (having their basis, no doubt, in popular mythology) occur in the most arbitrary fashion throughout the whole province of apocalyptic literature. Compare the various Beasts of Daniel, the symbolic oxen and heifers and sheep of Enoch (lxxxv.-xc.), and the three-headed eagle rising out of the sea and the roaring lion of the forest in 4 Ezra (11, 12). To emphasise the fact that the scene of these occurrences (in Revelation 11:1-19) is Jerusalem (so Bousset, p. 20), contributes little to the matter in hand. For in the Apocalypse (in accordance with its Old Testament background) Jerusalem is necessarily a central point in the drama of history. Bousset makes reference to the eschatological discourse of Jesus in Matthew 24:1-51, assuming that “the distinctly apocalyptic part is a fragment of foreign origin introduced amid genuine utterances of the Lord” (p. 23). This is an assumption which we have already seen grave reasons to doubt. But after making it, he finds it needful to apply 2 Thessalonians 2:1-17 to explain the passage. In our judgment, it seems much more probable (and we think that our investigation so far goes to prove it) that echoes of a genuine tradition of Jesus’ words are to be found in the statements of St Paul. But we are astonished to find that the hypothesis of an oral, esoteric teaching is mainly based on eschatological commentaries of the Fathers, such as Hippolytus, Irenæus, and Victorinus of Pettau. This is, at best, a precarious foundation on which to rest. The mere figure of Antichrist, perhaps mainly derived from 2 Thessalonians 2:1-17, and viewed in the light of (a) the sayings of Jesus as to false Christs and false prophets, (b) the references in the Johannine Epistles to deceivers (who are called ἀντίχριστοι), (c) the mysterious Beasts of the Apocalypse (largely reflecting the appalling impression of Nero’s cruelties), (d) the picture of Antiochus Epiphanes in Daniel 11:1-45, and (e) Ezekiel’s descriptions of the attacks of Gog upon the chosen people (chaps. 38, 39), was sufficient in itself to inflame the imaginations of spiritualising commentators, and to produce a whole apparatus of accompanying details which require no link of connection with an earlier esoteric tradition. At the same time, without attempting any elaborate discussion of the Antichrist-doctrine, we can certainly gather from an examination of the passage in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-17 that the idea is not one which sprang up in a moment, or as the result of the speculations of any single individual. Thus in Ezekiel 38:1-23 (already cited), we find the conception of a final assault of a heathen prince upon the people of God. “It shall come to pass in the latter days that I will bring thee against my land, that the nations may know thee, when I shall be sanctified in thee, O Gog, before their eyes (verse 16).… Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou and all thy hordes, and the peoples that are with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be devoured” (39:4, R.V.).1 [Note: Cf. Apoc. Bar. xli.: “The last ruler of that time shall be left alive, when the multitudes of his hosts are destroyed, and shall be bound with chains. And they shall take him up to Mount Zion, and my Messiah shall convict him of his insolent deeds, and he shall gather and set before him all the deeds of his hosts. And afterwards he shall put him to death.” Bousset’s remarkable quotation from Sibyl. Orac. iii. 46 ff. is regarded by Jülicher, on good grounds, as of Christian and not Jewish origin, and as referring to Simon Magus (Th. L.Z., 1896, Sp. 379). The enormous literature which sprang up in the early Christian centuries round the name and fortunes of Simon Magus is, in itself, a proof of the inherent tendency to speculations of the Antichrist type in connection with a far-reaching religious movement. The same phenomena are to be found in the heretical books of the Middle Ages.] This conception may have been allied with some popular tradition, but it would be unwise to dogmatise. In Daniel 7:1-28, we find something of a parallel picture. The seer has the vision of the fourth Beast “dreadful and terrible … it devoured and brake in pieces and stamped the residue with the feet of it.… I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of Days did sit.… His throne was like the fiery flame, and His wheels as burning fire.… I beheld them because of the voice of the great words which the horn spake: I beheld even till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed and given to the burning flame” (verses 7, 9, 11). Here, again, there is the destruction at the end of time of a brutal and boastful force which has risen against the Most High. Its destruction prepares the way for the possession of the kingdom by the saints of the Most High (verse 22). In Daniel 11:1-45 there is that portrayal of a profane and blasphemous king, with which, as we have seen, St Paul is familiar. “His heart shall be against the holy covenant.… Such as do wickedly against the covenant shall he pervert by flatteries.… And the king shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods: and he shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that which is determined shall be done” (verses 28, 32, 36). Probably most of these traits belong to Antiochus Epiphanes, whom the seer may have regarded as fulfilling some terrible expectation associated with the End. In any case, bearing in mind all that we have already demonstrated as to St Paul’s relation to the prophetic teaching, it seems clear enough to us that in passages such as those above, we come upon the more immediate background of the apostle’s thought. Only, the conception of a final struggle between God and evil,1 [Note: This dominating idea of the Persian religion finds expression in a vaguer, and also in a more precise form. Thus, as a rule, we find merely the general expectation that the powers of evil will be vanquished, and will vanish, no surmises being made as to their definite fate. Thus, Yasna xxx. 10: “Then shall be beaten down, then shall be broken the army of the Druj.” But at times, more definite statements are made: e.g., Bundehesh xxx. 31 f., “Thereafter the snake Gôkîhar is consumed in the molten metal” (Böklen, op. cit., p. 128; cf. Hübschmann, Jahrb. f. prot. Theol., 1879, p. 226). This latter idea belongs to the same type of conceptions as the Jewish Antichrist; cf. the conception of Azi Dahâka, originally a mythical monster, who appears at the End, as the incarnation of evil, and is slain by a hero who rises from the dead. He is placed in Babylon (Söderblom, op. cit., p. 258, note).] we might almost say, between God and the Devil,2 [Note: Cf. Bousset (Religion d. Judenthums, p. 486): “The figure of Antichrist is … in all probability, nothing more than an anthropomorphising of the Devil.”] before the end, is of course determined and coloured by the circumstances and experiences of his own time. Thus, in Ezekiel, the conflict is between the heathen prince Gog and Jehovah Himself. In Daniel, it is the God of gods (i.e. the God of Israel, see Bevan, ad. loc.) whose indignation shall be visited upon the impious and insolent king of the north. The figure of Antichrist has not yet taken definite shape, for there is no mention of a Messiah as occupying a central place in the culminating collision between good and evil. But for the first Christian circles, of necessity, all the events of the End have a Messianic bearing. For them the cause of God has its supreme representative in the Christ of God. Now, plainly, Jesus Himself had given strong and frequent warnings against false Christs and false prophets who should strive to deceive their fellows (e.g., Matthew 7:15; Matthew 24:4 f; Luke 17:21; Luke 17:23, etc.). As a matter of history, the Jewish nation had rejected the true Messiah. What could be more natural than that the apostle, his mind steeped in the prophetic delineations of the future, delineations which would receive a new significance and importance in the light of those predictions of Jesus which had been reported to him, should expect the appearance of a false Messiah, whose very coming and influence should be a judgment upon the Jewish nation for their daring opposition to the redemptive purpose of God? Obviously, he would be inclined to attribute to such a figure, whose outlines remained still vague and obscure, any features of surpassing ungodliness which might impress themselves on his mind at the time. We are therefore disposed to believe that the remarkable description, for example, which occurs in 2 Thessalonians 2:4 (ὁ ἀντικείμενοςκαὶ ὑπεραιρόμενοςἐπὶπάνταλεγόμενονθεὸνἢσέβασμαὥστεαὐτὸνεἰςτὸνναὸντοῦθεοῦκαθίσαι, ἀποδεικνύνταἑαυτόνὅτιἐστὶνθεός), while closely related to Daniel 11:36, is directly connected with the sacrilegious conduct of the demented Roman Emperor Caligula, who, from his enthusiasm in propagating the cult of the Cæsars, went the length of attempting to place a statue of himself in the Temple at Jerusalem. To every devout Jew, and to the Christians also, who believed that they stood in the true succession of the chosen people, such an action revealed an almost incredible depth of daring impiety.1 [Note: So also Schmiedel on2 Thessalonians 2:1-12; Findlay, art. “Paul” in H.D.B.] It is probably impossible to trace all the various elements which may have contributed to St Paul’s mysterious conception of the “man of lawlessness.” Certainly it is a gross exaggeration when Reuss speaks of the “celebrated passage on Antichrist, in which he (i.e. St Paul) repeats word for word, although with an appearance of mystery, the theory drawn by the Rabbis from the Book of Daniel” (Histoire de la Théol. Chrét. ii. p. 211). This is an instance of a type of inaccuracy of which the author is often guilty. As a matter of fact, our authorities for the Rabbinic theory are later by several centuries than the writings of St Paul. Hence, extreme caution is needful in discussing the influence of the Synagogue-theology on his conceptions. Even when we do examine the “theory” about which Reuss speaks so confidently, we find a crucial difference between it and the statements of the apostle. “Throughout the Talmudic literature,” says Weber, “we meet the idea that the Roman dominion must be stamped out if the Messianic kingdom is to be erected. Thus, in the days of Messiah, there shall stand at the head of this kingdom a powerful ruler, who unites in himself all enmity against God and hatred against God’s people. He is called Armilus,1 [Note: Supposed by some scholars to be a corruption or reminiscence of Romulus.] and is the øùÑéòàκατʼ ἐξοχήν.… This Armilus, the last and greatest oppressor of the community, shall the Messiah slay by the word of his mouth and the breath of his lips (Targ. of Jonathan on Isaiah 11:4)” (Lehren d. Talmud, p. 349). As we shall see in a moment, this attitude by no means tallies with that of St Paul towards the Roman Empire. Yet, as might be expected, there are undoubted affinities between the apostle’s view and the tradition of the Synagogue. But whatever may have been the exact lines along which St Paul reached the thought of a combination of evil in that strange figure, designated by him the “man of lawlessness,” it appears to us that the description given sheds some valuable light on the manner in which he expected his conception to be realised. It is apparent that he has no definite historical personage in view. So much seems to be implied in the use of the term ἀποκαλύπτειν (verses 3, 6, 8) to denote his appearance on the scene of action. We are led to infer from the term, that the principle embodied bulks more largely before his mind than the person in whom it finds expression. Further, his ἀποκάλυψις is connected with an event which St Paul names ἡ ἀποστασία, “the apostasy.” This can only mean a revolt against God. Therefore it must take place among the people who acknowledge the true God, i.e. the Jews.1 [Note: So also Weiss, N.T. Theol. i. pp. 307, 308; Charles, Eschatology, p. 381, note 1: Bousset, Antichrist, passim.] But the title given to the leader of the revolt corroborates our hypothesis. His characteristic is ἀνομία, lawlessness. He is ὁ ἄνομος, the lawless man. He is untrue to the highest tradition of the race. Defying the law, he defies the God who has promulgated it. Now we saw at an earlier stage that the apostle was led to his expectation of the speedy coming of the End by the aggravated sinfulness of the Jews. They had committed the unspeakable crime of crucifying the promised Messiah. Not content with this, they instigated and carried on a most relentless persecution of those who bore testimony to the Resurrection of the Crucified (1 Thessalonians 2:14-16). These facts explain his assertion that the “mystery of lawlessness is already in operation” (2 Thessalonians 2:7). His life is embittered by their unscrupulous machinations. He feels that they are completing the full tale of their iniquities (πληρουμένωντῶνἁμαρτιῶν). The Divine wrath is accumulating upon them. It only requires the final culmination of evil in the ἄνομος, the “son of destruction,” to usher in the last act in the drama of human history, the Parousia of the Messiah, the destruction of the supreme foe of God and godliness. But the final outburst of impiety (to proceed from within Judaism, ut sup.) was, for the present, being hindered. There was a restraining force which interfered, τὸκατέχον or ὅκατέχων. Until this ceased to act, the closing catastrophe would be averted.1 [Note: Cf. Bousset (Antichrist, p. 123): “The mention of one distinct premonitory sign occurs in nearly all the sources. The end is at hand when the Roman Empire perishes.”] We agree with those scholars who recognise in this preventing power the Roman Empire and its government. It is evident, both from his Epistles and from Acts, that St Paul experienced and valued a certain protection on the part of the Roman authorities. Christianity had not reached the formidable dimensions to which it attained fifty years later. The disputes it occasioned appeared in the eyes of the Roman officials to turn exclusively on questions of Jewish law and custom. The obscurity of the sect of the Nazarenes told in the apostle’s favour. Probably more frequently than our documents inform us, the secular arm intervened to shield him from the fanatical rage of his fellow-countrymen. Could anything be more intelligible than that St Paul should see in this impartial State the main bulwark against the forces of injustice and impiety which menaced his work at every turn? To us, looking back along the course of history, and able to estimate the true proportions of empires and kingdoms, it may appear altogether incongruous to bring two such unequal magnitudes as Rome and Judaism into a relation of this kind. To the apostle, nurtured in the magnificent traditions of his country and his race, the nation to whom belonged the promises of God overshadowed all others. Although he did not survive to see it, the last awful struggle round the walls of the holy city must have appeared to the eye-witnesses a struggle for life or death, involving the triumph or the doom of one of the opposing forces. It is of interest in this connection to note that long after the destruction of Jerusalem, the leader of the fierce Jewish insurrection against Hadrian in 132 a.d., Simon Bar-Cochba (Numbers 24:17), was greeted by the famous Rabbi Akiba as the King Messiah, and in this rôle attracted great masses of adherents. Thus the expectation of a false Messiah, who should by delusive signs and wonders produce an impression on his fellow-countrymen, was in no sense an unreasonable one. The place assigned by St Paul to the Roman power in the development of the events of the End, supplies a needful caution in our estimate of his expectation of the Parousia. Apart from this, indeed, he distinctly declares to the Thessalonians that the Day of the Lord is not imminent (ἐνέστηκεν). But his reference to the restraint of the Imperial government suggests that the apostle must have been prepared, even in those early days, to allow the intervention of a lengthened period ere the End should break in. For assuredly, at the time when he wrote, there was little to presage any speedy collapse of the mightiest Empire of the world. From our point of view, we may be surprised that the apostle laid so strong an emphasis on an event which, in reality, was so far distant. But he never professed any minute knowledge as to times and seasons. His judgment was mainly formed by observation of the spiritual processes advancing in mankind. At times it appeared to him as if the world must soon be ready for Christ. At times it seemed as if the ripening of evil demanded the Judgment of the Messiah. But we never find him lamenting the delay of the End. Even when his thoughts of the Parousia are most vivid, he never undervalues the ethical significance of his present opportunity. In truth, it may be said that the early Christian belief in the nearness of the Second Advent was one of the most momentous and inspiring influences for holiness in the primitive Church. It was a call to watchfulness and prayer, a call to strenuous effort and solemn preparation.1 [Note: See especially1 Thessalonians 5:23. The verse is an indication of how the apostle dealt with the expectation.] Perhaps it did more than any other impulse to raise the life of the young Christian community to a lofty level, and to keep it there. For they lived in the expectation of Christ, their returning Lord, as those who must buy up the time.2 [Note:Sanday andHeadlam suggestively note how the parousia belief preserved the elasticity ofChristianity, as the apostles, from its influence, “never realised that they were building up a church to last through the ages.… they never wrote or legislated except so far as existing needs demanded.… they never admonished or planned with a view to the remote future.”-commentary onRomans, p. 380.]
