Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (820 page)

* Thus especially Jahn, in the treatise above cited.

† Kern, Hauptthatsachen der evang. Geschichte, Tub. Zeitschr. 1836, 2, s. 140 ff.

^‡
Thus Storr, Opusc. acad.
3,
s. 34 ff. ; Paulus, exeg. Handb. 3, a
,
s. 346 f. 402 f.interpretation of
e
u
q
e
w
V
is, as Olshausen correctly perceives, merely a desperate resource: but even were it otherwise, it would afford no real aid, since not only does Mark in his parallel passage, v. 24, by the words,
in those days, after that tribulation,
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n
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k
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place the events which he proceeds to mention in uninterrupted chronological succession with those which he had before detailed; but also, shortly after this point in each of the narratives (Matt. v. 34 parall.), we find the assurance that all this will be witnessed by the existing generation. As thus the opinion, that from v. 29, everything relates to the return of Christ to judge the world, was threatened with annihilation by v. 34; the word
g
e
n
e
a
as the Wolfenbüttel Fragmentist* complains, was put to the torture, that it might cease to bear witness against this mode of division. At one time it is made to signify the Jewish nation ;
^†
at another the adherents of Jesus ;
^‡
and of both the one and the other Jesus is supposed to say that it will (how many generations hence being left uncertain) be still in existence on the arrival of that catastrophe. So to explain the verse in question, that it may not contain a determination of time, is even maintained to be necessary on a consideration of the context, v. 35: for as in this Jesus declares it impossible to determine the period of that catastrophe, he cannot immediately before have given such a determination, in the assurance that his cotemporaries would yet live to see all of which he had been speaking. But this alleged necessity so to interpret the word
g
e
n
e
a
has long been dissipated by the distinction between an inexact indication of the space of time, beyond which the event will not be deferred (
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a
), and the precise determination of the epoch (
h
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r
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k
a
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a
)
at which it will occur; the former Jesus gives, the latter he declares himself unable to give.
^§
But the very possibility of interpreting
g
e
n
e
a
in the above manner vanishes, when it is considered, that in connexion with a verb of time, and without anything to imply a special application,
g
e
n
e
a
cannot have any other than its original sense: i.e.
generation, age;
that in a passage aiming to determine the signs of the Messiah’s advent, it would be very unsuitable to introduce a declaration which, instead of giving any information concerning the arrival of that catastrophe, should rather treat of the duration of the Jewish nation, or of the Christian community, of which nothing had previously been said; that, moreover, already at v. 33, in the words
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.
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.
, YE,
when ye shall
SEE
all these things, know, etc.,
it is presupposed that the parties addressed would witness the approach of the event in question; and lastly, that in another passage (Matt. xvi. 28 parall.) the certainty of living to see the coming of the Son of man is asserted not simply of
this generation,
g
e
n
e
a
a
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t
h
,
but of
some standing here
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,
whereby it is shown in the most decisive manner, that in the present passage also,

^*
Ut sup. s. 188.

^†
Storr, ut sup. s. 39, 116 ff.

^‡
Paulus, in loc.

^§
Vid. Kuinöl in Matt., s. 649.Jesus intended by the above expression the race of his cotemporaries, who were not to have become extinct before that catastrophe should occur.* Unable to deny this, and yet anxious to separate as widely as possible the end of the world here announced, and the age of Jesus, others would find in the declaration before us nothing more than this: the events hitherto described will
begin
to be fulfilled in the present age, though their complete fulfilment may yet be deferred many centuries.† But when already at v. 8 the subject is said to be the
beginning
of the tribulation, while from v. 14 we have a description of the end of the present period of the world, which that tribulation would introduce, and it is here (v. 34) said, the existing generation shall not pass away,
e
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V
a
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p
a
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t
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a
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a
g
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,
until all these things be fulfilled:
we must inevitably understand by
p
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t
a
t
a
u
t
a
, all these things,
not merely the beginning, but also the last-mentioned events at the end of the world.

Thus there is still at v. 34 something which must be referred to an event very near to the time of Jesus: hence the discourse of Jesus cannot from so early a point as v. 29, refer to the end of the world, an epoch so far distant; and the division must be made somewhat farther on, after v. 35 or 42.‡ But on this plan, expressions are thrown into the first part of the discourse, which resist the assigned application to the time of the destruction of Jerusalem ; — the glorious advent of Christ in the clouds, and the assembling of all nations by angels (v. 30 f)
must be regarded as the same extravagant figures, which formerly forbade our acceptance of another mode of division.

Thus the declaration v. 34 which, together with the preceding symbolical discourse on the fig tree (v. 32 f.), and the appended asseveration (v. 35), must refer to a very near event, has, both before and after it, expressions which can only relate to the more distant catastrophe: hence it has appeared to some as a sort of oasis in the discourse, having a sense isolated from the immediate context. Schott, for instance, supposes that, up to v. 26, Jesus had been speaking of the destruction of Jerusalem; that at v. 27 he does indeed make a transition to the events at the end of the present period of the world; but that at v. 32, he reverts to the original subject, the destruction of Jerusalem; and only at v. 36 proceeds again to
^*
Comp. the Wolfenbüttel Fragmentist, ut sup. s. 190 ff. Schott, ut sup. s. 127 ff.

^†
Kern, ut sup. s. 141f. That Jesus conceived the epoch at which he spoke to be separated from the end of the world by a far longer interval than would elapse before the destruction of Jerusalem, Kern thinks he can prove in the shortest way from v. 14, of the 24th chapter of Matthew, where Jesus says,
And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for
a
witness unto all nations, and then shall the end come.
For such a promulgation of Christianity, he thinks, it is “beyond contradiction” that a far longer space of time than these few lustrums would be requisite. As it happens, the apostle Paul himself presents the contradiction, when he represents the gospel as having been already preached to that extent before the destruction of Jerusalem, e.g. Col. i. 5 :
t
o
u
e
u
a
g
g
e
l
i
o
u
,
(
6
)
t
o
u
p
a
r
o
n
t
o
V
-
e
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p
a
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k
o
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m
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-
(
2
3
)
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r
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r
a
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n
.
Comp. Rom. x. 13.