the signs that were so evident and so plainly foretold their future desolation, but like men stupefied, without either eyes to see or mind to consider, did not regard the public intimations that God gave them. Thus there was (1) a star resembling a sword, which stood over the city, and (2) a comet that continued a whole year. And (3) before the Jews' rebellion, and before those commotions which preceded the war, when the people were come in great crowds to the feast of Unleavened Bread, on the eighth day of the month Xanthicus, at the ninth hour of the night, so great a light shone round the altar and sanctuary, that it appeared to be bright daylight, and this light lasted for half an hour. This light seemed to be a good sign to the unskilful, but was interpreted by the sacred scribes to portend. those events that immediately followed. . . . . Moreover, (4) the eastern gate of the inner temple, which was of brass and exceedingly heavy, and was with difficulty shut every evening by twenty men, and rested upon bars covered with iron, and had posts let down very deep into the firm floor, which consisted of one entire stone, was seen to open of its own accord about the sixth hour of the night. . . . . This also appeared to the ignorant to be a very happy omen, as if God did thereby open to them the gate of happiness; but the men of learning understood by it that the security of their temple was dissolved of its own accord, and that the gate opened for the advantage of their enemies, and they declared that the sign foreshadowed the desolation that was coming upon them. Besides these, (5) a few days after the feast, on the one and twentieth day of the month Artemisius, a certain marvelous and incredible phenomenon appeared. I suppose what I am going to tell would seem a fable, were it not related by those that saw it, and were not the sad events that followed it deserving of such signs. Before sunset chariots were seen in the air, and troops of soldiers in their armor running about among the clouds and besieging cities. Moreover, (6) at the feast which is called Pentecost, as the priests were going by night into the inner temple, as their custom was, to perform their sacred ministrations, they said that first they felt a quaking, and heard a great noise, and after that they heard a sound as of a multitude saying, "let us remove hence." But, (7) what is still more terrible, there was one Jesus, the son of Ananus, a rustic and one of the people, who, four years before the war began, and at a time when the city was in very great peace and prosperity, came to that feast wherein it is our custom to make tabernacles to God in the temple, and began on a sudden to cry aloud, "A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem, and the temple, a voice against bridegrooms and brides, and a voice against the whole people!" This he cried, as he went about by day and by night, in all the streets of the city. . . This cry of his was loudest at the feasts, and he continued repeating it for seven years and five months, without growing hoarse, or being tired therewith, until the very time that he saw his presage fulfilled in earnest. . . . . Now, if any one consider these things, he will find that God takes care of mankind, and in all ways foreshows our race what is for their safety.1

I War, vi, 5, 883, 4.

It would seem from the testimony of Josephus that there is abundant support for the conjecture that the portion E is based for Luke in the reputed facts of the period preceding the destruction of Jerusalem. To the statement of his document MK, "there shall be famines," Luke adds in portion E "and pestilences." Famines are usually accompanied by pestilences. Descriptions by Josephus of the famine at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem imply the accompaniment of pestilence; for example:

Now while they were slaying him, Niger prayed that the Romans might be his avengers, and that the Jews might undergo both famine and pestilence in the war, and, besides all that, that they might come to mutual slaughter of one another; all which imprecations God satisfied.'

Because the addition of these events in portion E brought Luke historically to the period of the crisis itself, the portion D of his source is not now appropriate as a conclusion. Moreover, the persecutions preceded the destruction of the city, and those "terrors and great signs from heaven" which were associated with the time of the siege followed upon the persecutions. Apparently in order to adjust his paragraph to these facts, now that it has the addition in E, Luke omits the portion D and adds the words necessary for a transition to the statement of persecution, "But before all these things." By them he obtains the true sequence of persecution and the events in portion E. To this addition of E there is probably to be traced the necessity felt for some division in the thought, supplied by Luke through the addition of portion B.

For "rumours of wars" in the portion A, Luke substitutes the more definite "tumults," a natural change by one who knows the history of that troubled period. Among the "tumults" of those years may be mentioned that at Alexandria, A. D. 38, which gave rise to the complaint against, and deposition of, Flaccus and Philo's work against him, in which the Jews as a nation were the especial objects of persecution; that at Seleucia about the same time, in which more than 50,000 Jews were killed; that at Jamnia, a city on the coast of Judea near Joppa; that at Samaria, A. D. 39 or 40; the disturbance at the Passover, A. D. 49, in which 20,000 Jews perished; the tumult at Caesarea, 1 War, v, 12, §§3, 4; vi, 1, §1; vi, 9, §3.

a War, iv, 6, §I.

probably A. D. 59; that at Caesarea again in A. D. 66, in which above 20,000 Jews perished. Many other national "tumults" are recorded by Josephus. In the presence of this turbulent history it is not strange that the injunction "be not troubled" of document MK becomes "be not terrified" with Luke.

When it is seen in how large measure within this brief paragraph the actual developments of the history have affected one of the narratives, it may not unreasonably be asked whether any of the events named by document MK itself have found a place in that document not because a part of the forecast of Jesus but because experienced by the transmitters of the tradition. The external test fails here, except in one particular. Luke in taking up the portion C reports not simply earthquakes" as in his document, but "great earthquakes." This makes it fairly evident that Palestine, at all times subject to these natural phenomena, suffered especially at some time between the death of Jesus and the destruction of Jerusalem. This seems, indeed, to be supported by the statement of Seneca, who records, writing in A. D. 58,

How often the cities of Asia, how often the cities of Achaia, have fallen with a quaking! How many towns in Syria, how many in Macedonia, have been swallowed down! How often has this destruction desolated Cyprus! How often has Paphos fallen upon itself! Frequently there is reported to us the ruin of whole cities.1

By a body of men holding those hopes for the speedy consummation of the aeon that are known to have dominated the early Christian community, these experiences of earthquakes in Syria, and the reports of their frequency in the adjacent countries, could hardly be interpreted otherwise than as additional portents of the impending crisis, and as such would very probably come to be added to those events actually portrayed by Jesus as preceding the siege of Jerusalem. To this fact is to be attributed, perhaps, the appearance of the words "there shall be earthquakes in divers places" in the document MK.

To no other particular of this forecast does the objective testimony call attention. That which document MK otherwise records may be taken, therefore, as the statement of Jesus, heightened perhaps in particulars of phraseology, but yet substantially the thought of

1 Ep., 91, 89.

Jesus. That thought is very simple, and of the most general character. It asserts that there will be a period of fierce conflict, with all the terrible accompaniments of warfare between resolute and powerful peoples, before the disciples will see that event about which the conversation opened, the destruction of the capital city. Jesus would correct the natural inference from his first remark to his hearers, namely, that the temple was speedily to be razed. Before that there would be years of severest "travail," which, however, would be only as a "beginning" to the terrors and tortures of the "tribulation" which would be ushered in by the siege. The history of the years A. D. 30 to A. D. 70 more than fulfilled the forecast.

$8. THE DAY OF THE SON OF MAN

There may be a return now to that point in document MK considered prior to the preceding section, namely, the close of the sayings about the rise of messianic claimants, MK 13:23. To the present, there have been brought under review all parts of the thirteenth chapter of document MK that precede MK 13:24. With the twenty-fourth verse another theme of the discourse begins.

To the total impression made by the scene portrayed in this paragraph, no one portion contributes so much as the portion C. That portion gives the most strikingly dramatic and tragic aspects of the effect of that day upon mankind. By it there is heightened to the point of terrible tension the sense of destiny for man in that impending crisis. It is a picture of a distracted, fear-haunted, terror-driven mankind. It is vivid with realistic feeling. From whence was it drawn by Luke? It seems clear that it was not in his document MK. It can hardly be doubted that it is a natural and easy editorial inference from the situation sketched in portion B of his document. That tells of those things which will happen in the heavens. But if the celestial drama is to be so stupendous and awe-inspiring, surely there will be "upon the earth" among mankind some such distress, perplexity, and fainting for fear and expectation as Luke infers and sets down. The evangelist does not invent a scene; he apparently deduces it from the statements of his document MK.

Among the most striking of the several elements which together make so profound an impression, no one which deals with the heavenly phenomena is of more dramatic suggestiveness than that which Matthew supplies in the portion E, "then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven." But like the Lukan contribution in portion C, this particular appears to have been absent from the document MK. From whence, then, did Matthew derive it? The latter statement, "then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn," may be traced, perhaps, to the description of the day of Jehovah in Zech. 12:11, 12, “In that day there shall be a great mourning . . . . and the land shall mourn, every tribe apart." The evangelist may have come to regard the sight of the Son of man on the clouds, described in his document portion F, as "the sign" which should be seen of all men before the actual descent. Or if, as seems clear from the synoptic testimony elsewhere, some "sign" had come to be conceived as a necessary forerunner of the Messiah, Matthew probably felt himself on secure ground in giving it as a part of the messianic programme, of which he had the other features in his document MK.

I

A second Lukan addition to his document MK is found in the hortatory portion H. It seems designed to give support and courage I Document MK 8:11, 12; document P §16C, K.