Luke 21:34-36

Here, as in chap. 12, the life of the disciples is apparently to be prolonged till the Parousia. The reason is, that that period is ever to remain the point on which the believer's heart should fix (Luke 12:36); and if, by all the generations which precede the last, this expectation is not realized in its visible form, it has its truth, nevertheless, in the fact of death, that constant individual returning of Jesus which prepares for His general and final advent.

The warning Luke 21:34 refers to the danger of slumbering, arising from the state of the world in the last times, Luke 17:26-30. On the last words of the verse, comp. 1 Thessalonians 5:1-7.

Ver. 35. The image is that of a net which all at once encloses a covey of birds peacefully settled in a field. To watch (Luke 21:36) is the emblem of constant expectation. With expectation prayer is naturally conjoined under the influence of that grave feeling which is produced by the imminence of the expected advent. The word σταθῆναι, to stand upright, indicates the solemnity of the event. A divine power will be needed, if we are not to sink before the Son of man in His glory, and be forced to exclaim: “ Mountains, fall on us! ”

With this discourse before it, the embarrassment of rationalism is great. How explain the announcement of the destruction of Jerusalem, if there are no prophecies? that of the Parousia, if Jesus is but a sinful man like ourselves (not to say, with Renan, a fanatic)? Baur and Strauss say: Under the influence of Daniel's extravagant sayings, Jesus could easily predict His return; but He could not announce the destruction of Jerusalem. Hase and Schenkel say: Jesus, as a good politician, might well foresee and predict the destruction of the temple, but (and this is also M. Colani's opinion) it is impossible to make a fanatic of Him announcing His return. Each writer thus determines à priori the result of his criticism, according to his own dogmatic conviction. It is perfectly useless to discuss the matter on such bases. Keim recognises the indisputable historical reality of the announcement of the destruction of Jerusalem, on the ground of Matthew 26:60 (the false witnesses), and of Acts 6:11-14 (Stephen), and the truth of the promise of the Parousia as well; the saying Mark 13:32 is a proof of it which cannot be evaded. Nevertheless, agreeing in part with M. Colani, he regards the discourse Matthew 24 as the composition of an author much later than the ministry of Jesus, who has improved upon some actual words of His. This apocalyptic poem, Jewish according to Weizsäcker, Judeo-Christian according to Colani and Keim, was written shortly before the destruction of Jerusalem.

The following are our objections to this hypothesis: 1. It is not in this discourse only that Jesus announces the catastrophe of Israel, and appends the extraordinary assertion of His return. On the destruction of Jerusalem, read again Matthew 21:44; Luke 19:42-44; Mark 11:14; Mark 11:20; Mark 12:9, etc. etc.; and on the Parousia, Matthew 7:21-23; Matthew 19:28; Matthew 25:31-46; Matthew 26:63-64; Luke 9:26 and parall., Luke 13:23-27, etc. How could those numerous declarations, which we find scattered over different parts of our Syn. Gospels, be all borrowed from this alleged apocalyptic poem? 2. How could a private composition have obtained such general authority, under the very eyes of the apostles or their first disciples, that it found admission into our three Syn. Gospels as an authentic saying of our Lord? Was ever a pure poem transformed into an exact and solemn discourse, such as that expressly put by our three evangelists at this determinate historical time into the mouth of Jesus? Such a hypothesis is nothing else than a stroke of desperation.

Volkmar finds in this discourse, as everywhere, the result of the miserable intrigues of the Christian parties. John the apostle had published in 68 the great reverie of the Apocalypse. He still hoped for the preservation of the temple (Rev 11:1 et seq.), which proves that he had never heard his Master announce its destruction. Five years later, in 73, Mark composes another Apocalypse, intended to rectify the former. He elaborates it from the Pauline standpoint; he rejects its too precise dates, and the details which had been hazarded, but which the event had proved false; the fixing, e.g.,, of the three years and a half which were to extend to the Parousia, a date for which he prudently substitutes the saying: “As to that day, even I myself know it not,” etc. Such is the origin of the great eschatological discourse in the Syn., the most ancient monument of which is Mark 13. But, 1. This alleged dogmatic contrast between the discourse Mark 13 and the Apocalypse, exists only in the mind of Volkmar; the latter celebrates the conversion of the Gentiles with the same enthusiasm as the former foretells it. 2. The composition of the Apocalypse in 68 is an hypothesis, the falsehood of which we have, as we think, demonstrated. 3. It is utterly false that the Apocalypse teaches the preservation of the temple of Jerusalem. The description Luke 11:1 et seq., if it is to be rescued from absurdity, must necessarily be taken in a figurative sense, as we have also demonstrated. 4. Certainly the poetical representations of the Apocalypse were not the original of the simple, concise, prosaic expressions of the discourse of Jesus in the Syn.; it was these, on the contrary, which served as a canvas for the rich delineations of the Apocalypse. Is it not evident that the literal terms war, famine, pestilence, earthquakes, in the mouth of Jesus (Luke 21:9-11 and parall.), are amplified and developed into the form of complete visions in the apocalyptic seals (war, in Revelation 6:3-4; famine, in Luke 21:5-6; pestilence, in Luke 21:7-8; earthquake, in Luke 21:12-17; comp. also the persecutions foretold Luke 5:16-17, with Revelation 6:9-11, and the false Christs and prophets predicted Matthew 24:24, with Revelation 13)? The inverse procedure, the return from the elaborate to the simple, from the Apocalypse to the Gospels, is in its very nature inadmissible. The composition of Jesus' discourse in the Syn. is therefore anterior to that of the Apocalypse, and not the reverse. 5. The historical declaration of Jesus in Mark: “Of that day knoweth no man, not even the Son,” is confirmed by Matthew 24:36 and Mark 13:35. It results from the very contents of this marvellous saying. Who would have thought, at the time when the conviction of the Lord's divinity was making way with so much force in the Church, and when Jesus was represented in this very discourse as the universal Judge, of putting into His mouth a saying which seemed to bring Him down to the level of other human beings? Such a saying must have rested on the most authentic tradition. 6. We have proved the mutual independence of the three synoptical accounts. The origin of this discourse of Jesus was therefore, no doubt, apostolical tradition circulating in the Church, agreeably to Luke 1:1-2.

Jesus then called Himself, and consequently either knew or believed Himself to be, the future Judge of the Church and the world. In the former case, He must be something more than a sinful man

He can be only the God-man; in the latter, He is only a fool carried away with pride. In vain will MM. Colani, Volkmar, and Keim attempt to escape from this dilemna. Genuine historical criticism and an impartial exegesis will always raise it anew, and allow no other choice than between the Christ of the Church and the clever charmer of M. Renan.

What conclusion should be drawn from this discourse as to the date when our Syn., and Luke in particular, were composed? De Wette has justly concluded, from the close connection which this discourse, as we have it in Matthew, fixes between the destruction of Jerusalem and the Parousia, that this Gospel must have been composed before the former of those two events. And, in truth, it requires all Volkmar's audacity to attempt to prove the contrary by means of that very εὐθέως, immediately (Luke 24:29), which so directly, as we have seen, connects the second event with the first. But if this conclusion is well founded in regard to the first Gospel, it is not less applicable to the second, which in this respect is in exactly the same circumstances as the first. As to Luke, it has often been inferred from the well-marked distinction kept up between the two subjects and the two discourses (Parousia, chap. 17; destruction of Jerusalem, chap. 21), that he wrote after the destruction of Jerusalem, when the interval between the two events was historically established. Rational as this conclusion may appear at first sight, it is nevertheless unfounded. For, 1. Luke himself, as we have seen at Luke 21:32, is not wholly exempt from the confusion which prevails in the other two. 2. If Jesus in His own judgment distinctly separated those two events, why might He not have spoken of them Himself in two separate discourses; and why might not Luke, in this case as in many others, have simply reproduced the historical fact from more exact originals (Luke 1:3-4)?