Table of Contents

THE PAROUSIA

by James Stuart Russell

AFTERWORD

The author avails himself of this opportunity to make a few observations on several points which have come under his notice since the first publication of this volume.

Dollinger on ‘The Man of Sin.’

The Parousia

It is with great satisfaction that he finds himself in substantial agreement with the distinguished ecclesiastical historian and theologian, Dr. Dollinger, of Munich, in his interpretation of St. Paul’s prediction in 2 Thessalonians. (1) Dr. Dollinger distinctly identifies the ‘Man of Sin’ with Nero, a conclusion now so generally accepted by the highest authorities, that it may be regarded as a settled point. (2) He clearly distinguishes between the ‘Man of Sin’ and ‘the Apostasy,’ so frequently confounded by the mass of interpreters. Dollinger shows that the former is a person, the latter a heresy. (3) He recognises ‘the Beast’ of the Apocalypse as the Emperor, and therefore identical with the ‘Man of Sin.’ (4) The miracles wrought by the ‘Second Beast’( the Beast from the earth) he regards as a representation derived from our Lord’s prophecy on the Mount of Olives.

Magical and theurgic arts are inseparable from heathenism.

The whole of Dr. Dollinger’s observations on this subject are most important, but as they are too lengthy for quotation here, the reader is referred to the ‘First Age of the Church,’ vol. ii. pp. 79-96. It is only fair to add, that Dollinger seems to hold a personal Antichrist, and a twofold or typical fulfilment of prophecy.

The Babylon of the Apocalypse.

The belief that Rome is the Babylon of the Apocalypse is so firmly established in most minds, that nothing but the clearest evidence to the contrary will be able to dislodge it. Yet some of the ablest critics long since suspected that Babylon was a pseudonym of ancient Jerusalem. The illustrious Herder in his Commentary on the Book of Revelation affirms—

‘Rome was not in the circle of the prophet’s vision, nor is Rome in coincidence with the symbols and metaphors; but the resemblance to Jerusalem is as perfect as the case can be supposed to furnish’ (p. 153).

The well-known commentator, John David Michaelis, shrewdly conjectured that Babylon is identical with Jerusalem. Speaking of the place from which the First Epistle of Peter was written, he says—

‘If I could only find a single authority for calling Jerusalem by the name of Babylon, I would rather follow Cappellus and Harduin, who take Jerusalem to have been the place; which was also, according to Cyril of Alexandria, meant by Isaiah when he is speaking of Babylon. For the contents of this Epistle are not so well suited to any time as to that soon after the Council of Jerusalem, whilst Peter continued in that city. It is not impossible that St. Peter might call Jerusalem by the name of Babylon after she had begun to persecute the Church; and the expression of the elected church at Babylon seems to imply a paradox which would be removed had Jerusalem itself been named. It is therefore not improbable that St. Peter might in an epistle make use of this figurative and opprobrious name to signify Jerusalem.... Add to this that St. Peter sends a salutation from Mark, and this Mark, who was also called John, was returned to Jerusalem, not long before the said Council. (Acts 13:13) All circumstances thus concurring, and it being never more necessary to the Gentile converts that they should ‘stand in the true grace of God,’ it appears to me, whilst I am writing, probable in the highest degree, that this Epistle was written at Jerusalem soon after the Council, i.e., in the year of Christ 49.... I am the less influenced by the testimony of the ancients to the contrary, as the matter depends not upon the historical question, whether St. Peter ever was at Rome, but upon the critical question, whether he calls Rome by the name of Babylon?’

Michaelis has placed this title in the margin—

‘The First Epistle of St. Peter was written at Jerusalem, at the time of the first council’ (See Introd. Lect. to the ‘Sacred Books of the New Testament,’ by J. D. Michaelis, sect. 148).

Jerusalem, a seven-hilled city.

It has been supposed that the description of the ‘great city’ in the Apocalypse, as seated on seven hills, is conclusive evidence that Rome is here intended. ‘The reader will see how this point is dealt with in its proper place. The author has shown how Zullig enumerates seven hills or mountains in Jerusalem. Herder also remarks—

‘The seven heads of the Beast are said to be seven mountains; assuming the woman to be a city founded upon seven mountains. Such was the situation of Jerusalem’( Comm., p. 156).

As Herder does not say to prove his assertion, it may be well to supplement it with evidence of a confirmatory kind. Dr. Lange, in his discussion respecting the site of Golgotha, observes—

‘Jeremiah predicts (Jer. 31:36-40) that the city should in future times extend beyond the north wall (the second wall) and inclose Gibeat Gareb, or the Leper’s Hill, and Gibeat Goath, or the Hill of Death (of roaring, groaning). The position of Gareb can correspond only with Under Bezetha, and the position of Goath only with Upper Bezetha where Golgotha rose. Both of these elevations were inclosed by Agrippa, as parts of the new city, and lay inside the third wall. From the context we learn that Gareb and Goath were unclean places, but being measured in with the holy city, became sanctified. That the Goath hill of Jeremiah is identical with the Golgotha of the Evangelists, is more than probable. The wall of Agrippa was built around Bezetha by Herod Agrippa, the grandson of Herod the Great’ (Lange on Matt. 27:33).

A sketch-plan of ancient Jerusalem, showing Mount Gareb and Mount Goath is given in ‘Palestine Explored,’ by the Rev. James Neil, M. A., formerly incumbent of Christ Church, Jerusalem. Mark. Neil enumerates the seven hills on which the city was built—Mount Zion, Mount Ophel, Mount Moriah, Mount Bezetha, Mount Acra, Mount Gareb, and Mount Goath.



THE CRUCIAL QUESTION

Doubtless most readers will shrink from the demand made upon their faith, when they are asked to believe that the predictions of our Lord in Matt. 24, and the kindred prophecy of St. Paul in 1 Thess. 4, had a veritable accomplishment. Many will regard it as an extravagance which refutes itself. Let them consider whether this demand is not made by the most express affirmations of Inspiration. These predictions are bounded by certain limits of time. The time is explicitly declared to fall within the period of the then existing generation. No artifice of logic, no violence of interpretation, can evade or gainsay this undeniable fact. Credible or incredible, reasonable or unreasonable, the authority of Scripture is committed to the affirmation. And why should it be thought incredible? The reply will be, ‘Because there is no historical evidence of the fact.’ This, however, is an assumption. It deserves consideration whether we have not all the evidence which the nature of the case admits. What evidence, for example, may be reasonably required that the most seemingly incredible event predicted in Matt. 24:31, and in 1 Thess. 4:17, commonly denominated ‘the rapture of the saints,’ actually took place? The principal, if not the only, portion that seems to come within the cognizance of human sense, is the removal of a great multitude of the disciples of Christ from this earthly scene. We might expect, therefore, that there should be some trace in history of this sudden disappearance of so vast a body of believers. It surely must have made a blank in history; a failure, at the least, in the continuity of the records of Christianity. Admitting that the predictions do not require an absolute and universal removal of the whole body of the faithful (for it is manifest that there is a clear distinction made between the watchful and the unwatchful, the ready and the unready, and that as many might be shut out of the kingdom as those who went in), yet the language of the prophecy certainly implies the sudden and simultaneous removal of a very great number of the faithful. Is there, then, any vestige in history of such a blank? Most certainly there is, and just such an indication as we might expect. A silence which is expressive. Silence where, a moment before, all was life and activity. The ecclesiastical historian will tell you that the light suddenly fails him. The Christian Church of Jerusalem, of which an apostle could say, ‘Thou seest, brother, how many myriads there are among the Jews which have believed,’ suddenly dwindles into two wretched sects of Ebionites and Nazarenes. Where are the many myriads of St. James? Where are the ‘hundred and forty and four thousand’ whom St. John saw, with the seal of God on their foreheads, and standing with the Lamb on the Mount Zion? Did they perish in the siege of Jerusalem? Certainly not; for it is universally agreed that, forewarned by their Divine Master, they retired from the doomed city to a place of safety. Yet they seem to disappear and leave no trace behind. Ask the ecclesiastical historian to put his finger on the spot where the records of early Christianity are most obscure, and he will unhesitatingly point to the period when the Acts of the Apostles end. Of this period the learned Neander says that ‘We have no information, nor can the total want of sources for this part of Church history be at all surprising.’ And, again, he speaks of ‘the age immediately succeeding the Apostolic,’ of which we have unfortunately so few authentic memorials (‘Planting and Training,’ chaps, v. and x.). Hiudekoper, a Dutch theologian, in his work entitled, ‘Christ’s Descent to the Under-world,’ remarks that—

‘On leaving the Apostolic age we almost lose sight of the Christians in a historical chasm of sixty or eighty years.’

Archdeacon Farrar more emphatically dwells upon the fact and probable cause of this unaccountable eclipse—

‘Although we are so fully acquainted with the thoughts and feelings of the early Christians, yet the facts of their corporate history, and even the closing details in the biographies of their very greatest teachers are plunged in entire uncertainty. When, with the last word in the Acts of the Apostles, we lose the graphic and faithful guidance of St. Luke, the torch of Christian history is for a time abruptly quenched. We are left, as it were, to grope among the windings of the Catacombs. Even the final labours of the life of St. Paul are only so far known as we may dimly infer from the casual allusions of the Pastoral Epistles. For the details of many years in the life of St. Peter, we have nothing on which to rely, except slight and vague allusions, floating rumours, and false impressions, created by the deliberate fictions of heretical romance.’

‘It is probable that this silence is in itself the result of the terrible scenes in which the apostles perished. It was indispensable to the safety of the whole community that the books of the Christians, when given up by the unhappy weakness of ‘traditores,’ or discovered by the keen malignity of informers, should contain no compromising matter. But how would it have been possible for St. Luke to write in a manner otherwise than compromising, if he had detailed the horrors of the Neronian persecution? It is a reasonable conjecture that the sudden close of the Acts of the Apostles may have been due to the impossibility of speaking without indignation and abhorrence of the Emperor and the Government, which, between A.D. 64 and 68, sanctioned the infliction upon innocent men and women, of atrocities which excited the pity of the very Pagans. The Jew and the Christians who entered on such themes, could only do so under the disguise of a cryptograph, hiding his meaning from all but the initiated few, in such prophetic symbols as those of the Apocalypse. In that book alone we are enabled to hear the cry of horror which Nero’s brutal cruelties wrung from Christian hearts’ (‘The Early Days of Christianity,’ vol. ii. pp. 82, 83).

Still more vividly and forcibly, if possible, the case is put by the able reviewer of Renan’s ‘St. Paul’ in the pages of The Edinburgh Review, April, 1870-

‘This volume ["The Life of St. Paul"] takes us through the whole period of, what we may call, the ministry of the great apostle, embracing those all-important fifteen or sixteen years (A.D. 45-61), during which his three missionary journeys were undertaken, and the infant Church, with four bold strides, advanced from Jerusalem to Antioch, from Antioch to Ephesus, from Ephesus to Corinth, and from Corinth to Rome. Once arrived there, once securely planted in that central and commanding position, strange to say, the Church, with all its dramatis persoae, suddenly vanishes from our view. The densest clouds of obscurity immediately gather round its history, which our eager, curiosity in vain attempts to penetrate. It is gone, amid a wreath of smoke, as completely as when a train plunges into a tunnel. In the words of M. Renan—" The arrival of St. Paul at Rome, owing to the decision taken by the author of the "Acts" to close his narrative at that point, marks for the history of the Origin of Christianity the commencement of a profound night, illuminated only by the lurid fire of Nero’s horrible festivities, and by the lightning flash of the Apocalypse." The causes of this sudden and confounding disappearance have not, to this day, been thoroughly investigated... The history of St. Paul’s life, and the history of the Apostolic age, together abruptly end. Black darkness falls upon the scene; and a grim and brooding silence—like the silence of impending storm—holds in hushed expectation, of the "day of the Lord" the awe-struck, breathless Church. No more books are written, no more messengers are sent, the very voice of tradition is still. One voice alone from amid the silence and the dread, breaks upon the straining ear; it is the Apocalyptic vengeance-cry from Patmos, "Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen! Rejoice over her, thou heaven! and ye holy apostles and prophets! for God hath avenged you on her: she shall be utterly burned with fire, for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her"’. (Rev. 18:20)


THE TRUE SOLUTION

It remains for the reader to consider, whether the causes suggested in the preceding quotations furnish an adequate explanation of this singular phenomenon; or whether the solution of the problem is not to be found in the actual occurrence of the events predicted by our Lord and His apostles. There, in the written record of Inspiration, stand the ineffaceable words which foretell the speedy return of the Son of Man to judge the guilty nation and avenge His own elect. His coming was indissolubly connected with that same generation. The attendant circumstances of His coming are set forth with marked precision. Everything points to a sudden, swift, far-reaching catastrophe, analogous to that which took place ‘in the days of Noah when the flood came, and took them all away,’ or in the days of Lot, when the tempest of wrath overwhelmed Sodom and Gomorrah. These are the very images used by our Lord to describe the suddenness and swiftness of His appearing. No wonder that there should be a ‘total blank’ in contemporary history; that there should be a solution of continuity in the records of the Christian Church; that the pen of St. Mark should be arrested in the midst of an unfinished sentence; that St. Luke should abruptly break off his narrative of the life and labours of St. Paul. Grant that there is no failure in the predictions of Christ; that His words had a veritable accomplishment; and all is explained. There is an adequate cause for the otherwise unaccountable hiatus which occurs in the Christian history of the time, and for the total obscuration of the Church, and all its greatest luminaries. Is it unreasonable to ask that the plainest declarations of the Lord Himself, and of His inspired witnesses should obtain a candid hearing, and a cordial belief, from all who own Him as Lord and Master? Surely that robust faith is not utterly extinct, which once could say, ‘Let God be true, and every man a liar.’

This postscript may close with the impressive caution of a great critic and theologian of the last century, which, though it has special reference to the Apocalypse, is equally applicable to the whole prophetical portion of the New Testament.

‘If it be objected that the prophecies in the Apocalypse are not yet fulfilled, that they are therefore not fully understood, and that hence arises the difference of opinion in respect to their meaning, I answer, that if the prophecies are not yet fulfilled, it is wholly impossible that the Apocalypse should be a Divine work; since the author expressly declares (Rev. 1:1) that the things which it contains ‘must shortly come to pass.’ Consequently, either a great part of them, I will not say all, must have been fulfilled, or the author’s declaration, that they should shortly be completed, is not consistent with fact. It is true that to the Almighty a thousand years are but as one day, and one day as a thousand years; but if we therefore explain the term ‘shortly,’ as denoting a period longer than that which has elapsed since the Apocalypse was written, we sacrifice the love of truth to the support of a preconceived opinion. For when the Deity condescends to communicate information to mankind, He will of course use such language as is intelligible to mankind; and not name a period short which all men consider as long, or the communication will be totally useless. Besides, in reference to God’s eternity, not only seventeen hundred but seventeen thousand years are nothing. But the author of the Apocalypse himself has wholly precluded any such evasion, by explaining (Rev. 1:3) what he meant by the term ‘shortly,’ for he there says, ‘Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein; for the time is at hand.’ According, therefore, to the author’s own declaration, the Apocalypse contains prophecies with which the very persons to whom it was sent were immediately concerned. But if none of these prophecies were designed to be completed till long after their death, those persons were not immediately concerned with them, and the author would surely not have said that they were blessed in reading prophecies of which the time was at hand, if those prophecies were not to be fulfilled till after the lapse of many ages’ (J. D. Michaelis, ‘Introduction to the New Testament,’ vol. iv. pp. 503, 504).

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Malcolm Wattssays...

Could it not be that, as for adopted Israel and its rejection of its Messiah, the era of the Messiah-expecting nation gives way to the era of the church with its broadening of its mission to the whole of Mankind, and that era, our own very present era, will give way, is giving way, to a knowledge and recognition of and response to God such that the organised Church will dissipate and the world will, painfully and yet dependably, witness God being all and in all ?

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