Among this people the ties of kinship ar_Tarry thou till I come; or, Salathiel, the wandering Jew.

a wrong is done to one, no other flame is needed to make the blood of all

boil. With the million of fires burning to death their martyred brethren,

quite naturally the air grew too thick with smoke, and their eyes too

sore with weeping, for them to see any of the beauty of the Cross. Talk

of the sweetness of that Christ was hideous mockery to them. I too would

join with them and spit on such a Christ. But now the smoke is getting

out of the air, and the Jew, like the rest of us, is beginning to see

the real Jesus of the Gospels, and he also, like the rest of us when we

see Him aright, can not but respect, admire, love Him—claim Him as one

of his own people, saying, with Rabbi Henry Berkowitz, of Philadelphia,

this Jew, Jesus, “is the greatest, noblest rabbi of them all,” and as the

famous Jewish writer, Max Nordau, touchingly says, “He is one of us.”

Yes, we are living in a better land and in a better time. Here both

Christian and Jew clasp the folds of the same flag and say, Our Country,

and both look up to the one God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,

and say, Our Father; and may not both, by and by, look to this Jew, Jesus

of Nazareth, and say, Our Brother?

* * * * *

Within the past two years I have written to a number of representative

Jews, residing in different parts of the world, asking the question,

_WHAT IS THE JEWISH THOUGHT TO-DAY OF JESUS OF NAZARETH?_ The inquiry

was accompanied with a copy of the letter from Dr. Kohler, which is here

published as the first of the series. There are utterances in some of

these published replies that may strike strangely and discordantly on

orthodox Christian hearts. It will be well for all such to ponder the

following letter, here given as prefatory to the other replies. It is

from the pen of Dr. Singer, a well-known Jewish scholar, the originator

and now the managing editor of the Jewish Encyclopedia:

A LETTER FROM ISIDORE SINGER, Ph.D.

“It has been both a privilege and a pleasure to me to examine in the

original manuscript the letters which are printed on the following

pages. They are all from representative Jewish scholars, theologians,

historians, and philosophers, well and most favorably known in the

scientific world of Europe and America. Where it has been necessary to

abbreviate for lack of space, I find that the work has been done in a way

that does no injustice to the writer. No one is made to say, by faulty

translation, or abridgment, or otherwise, what he does not intend to say.

It is my hope and most ardent desire that these utterances may greatly

help to make known to the Christian world the real heart and mind of my

brethren. I am glad to be permitted to add a thought or two of my own.

“I regard Jesus of Nazareth as a Jew of the Jews, one whom all Jewish

people are learning to love. His teaching has been an immense service

to the world in bringing Israel’s God to the knowledge of hundreds of

millions of mankind.

“The great change in Jewish thought concerning Jesus of Nazareth, I can

not better illustrate than by this fact:

“When I was a boy, had my father, who was a very pious man, heard the

name of Jesus uttered from the pulpit of our synagog, he and every other

man in the congregation would have left the building, and the rabbi would

have been dismissed at once.

“Now, it is not strange, in many synagogs, to hear sermons preached

eulogistic of this Jesus, and nobody thinks of protesting,—in fact, we

are all glad to claim Jesus as one of our people.

“ISIDORE SINGER.”

_New York, March 25, 1901._

LETTERS FROM REPRESENTATIVE JEWS

[Omissions from letters indicated by ellipses have been made

necessary because of lack of space. In another form, at no

distant date, it is the expectation that these and similar

letters will be published in full. No letter from a Jew who

is known to be a Christian convert is here given; hence those

portions of letters that discuss the divinity of Christ have

generally been omitted.]

From KAUFMANN KOHLER Ph.D., Rabbi of Temple Beth-El, New York:

The true history of Jesus is so wrapped up in myth, the story of his life

told in the gospels so replete with contradictions, that it is rather

difficult for the unbiased reader to arrive at the true historical facts.

Still the beautiful tales about the things that happened around the

lake of Galilee show that there was a spiritual daybreak in that dark

corner of Judea of which official Judaism had failed to take sufficient

cognizance. “The stone that the builders rejected has become the

cornerstone” of a new world.

It is assumed by entire Christendom that the Jews in rejecting Jesus

Christ brought upon themselves everlasting doom, the inexorable fate of

exile, persecution, and hatred. This view is based upon the crucifixion

story in the gospel records, which, while shielding the Romans, maligns

the Jews, and is incompatible with the simple facts of the Jewish

law, the older Christian tradition, with common sense, and with the

established character of Pontius Pilate, a very tiger in human shape.

Surely the records of the trial demand a revision.

“DID THE JEWS REJECT CHRIST?” Most assuredly the weird and visionary

figure of the dead and rerisen Christ, the crucified Messiah lifted up

to the clouds there to become a partaker of God’s nature—a metaphysical

or mythological principle of the cosmos—the Jews did reject. They would

not, let it cost what it may, surrender the doctrine of the unity and

spirituality of God. Jesus, the living man, the teacher and practiser of

the tenderest love for God and man, the paragon of piety, humility, and

self-surrender, whose very failings were born of overflowing goodness

and sympathy with the afflicted, the Jews had no cause to reject. He

was one of the best and truest sons of the synagog. Did he not say, “I

have not come to destroy the law, but to fulfil it”? What reason had the

Jews for hating and persecuting him who had nothing of the rigidity of

the schoolman, none of the pride of the philosopher and recluse, nor even

the implacable zeal of the ancient prophet to excite the popular wrath;

who came only to weep with the sorrowing, to lift up the downtrodden, to

save and to heal? He was a man of the people; why should the people have

raised the cry, “Crucify him!” against him whose only object in life was

to bring home the message of God’s love to the humblest of his children?

Nor, in fact, was he the only one among the popular preachers of the time

who in unsparing language and scathing satire exposed and castigated the

abuses of the ruling priesthood, the worldly Sadducees, as well as the

hypocrisy and false piety of some of the Pharisean doctors of the law.

His whole manner of teaching, the so-called Lord’s Prayer, the Golden

Rule, the code of ethics expounded for the elect ones in the Sermon on

the Mount, no less than his miraculous cures, show him to have been one

of the Essenes, a popular saint.

But he was more than an ordinary teacher and healer of men. He went to

the very core of religion and laid bare the depths of the human soul.

As a veritable prophet, Jesus, in such striking manner, disclaimed

allegiance to any of the Pharisean schools and asked for no authority

but that of the living voice within, while passing judgment on the law,

in order to raise life to a higher standard. He was a bold religious and

social reformer, eager to regenerate Judaism. True, a large number of

sayings were attributed to the dead master by his disciples which had

been current in the schools. Still, the charm of true originality is felt

in these utterances of his when the great realities of life, when the

idea of Sabbath, the principle of purity, the value of a human soul, of

woman, even of the abject sinner, are touched upon. None can read these

parables and verdicts of the Nazarene and not be thrilled with the joy

of a truth unspelled before. There is wonderful music in the voice which

stays an angry crowd, saying, “Let him that is without sin cast the first

stone!” that speaks the words, “Be like children, and you are not far

from the kingdom of God!”

“DID THE JEWS REJECT CHRIST?” Jesus anticipated a reign of perfect love,

but centuries of hatred came. Could the Jews, victims of Christian

intolerance, look with calmness and admiration upon Jesus, in whose name

all the atrocities were perpetrated? Still, the leading thinkers of

Judaism willingly recognized that the founder of the Christian Church, as

well as that of Islamism, was sent by divine Providence to prepare the

pagan world for the Messianic kingdom of truth and righteousness.

The Jew of to-day beholds in Jesus an inspiring ideal of matchless

beauty. While he lacks the element of stern justice expressed so

forcibly in the law and in the Old-Testament characters, the firmness

of self-assertion so necessary to the full development of manhood, all

those social qualities which build up the home and society, industry and

worldly progress, he is the unique exponent of the principle of redeeming

love. His name as helper of the poor, as sympathizing friend of the

fallen, as brother of every fellow sufferer, as lover of man and redeemer

of woman, has become the inspiration, the symbol, and the watchword for

the world’s greatest achievements in the field of benevolence. While

continuing the work of the synagog, the Christian Church with the larger

means at her disposal created those institutions of charity and redeeming

love that accomplished wondrous things. The very sign of the cross has

lent a new meaning, a holier pathos to suffering, sickness, and sin, so

as to offer new practical solutions for the great problems of evil which

fill the human heart with new joys of self-sacrificing love.

All this modern Judaism gladly acknowledges, reclaiming Jesus as one of

its greatest sons. But it denies that one single man, or one church,

however broad, holds the key to many-sided truth. It waits for the

time when all life’s deepest mysteries will have been spelled, and to

the ideals of sage and saint that of the seeker of all that is good,

beautiful, and true will have been joined; when Jew and Gentile, synagog

and church, will merge into the Church universal, into the great city of

humanity whose name is “God is there.”

_August 23, 1899._

From MORITZ FRIEDLÄNDER, Ph.D., author of “Patristische und Talmudische

Studien,” “Das Judenthum in der vorchristlichen griechischen Welt,” etc.,

Vienna, Austria:

… The synagog of primitive Christianity was the direct offspring of the

Jewish synagog. Here, too, the center of sublime, divine service which

powerfully influenced the simple and pious souls, was Moses and the

prophets, hallowed, in addition, by the splendor of the invisibly ruling

Messiah.

In this synagog originated a new Israel, which silently and noiselessly

prospered beside “the burden of the law,” which killed the spirit of the

Mosaic doctrine and prepared the ossification and dwarfing of Judaism.

This synagog was a true house of God, which made all those who entered

it enthusiastic for a pure Mosaism, whose principal doctrine was the

love of God and the love of man. Here every one, through teaching and

learning, invigorated himself, and even the most simple-minded visitor

left the house as an enthusiastic apostle. In short, it was a synagog to

which, if it existed to-day, all hearts would be drawn and around which

the entire enlightened Judaism of to-day would gather. And Jesus himself,

who was the starting-point of the synagog of the Messianic community,

who fertilized and rejuvenated it by the sublime Messianic idea, was

proclaimed as divine Redeemer because of this rejuvenation, as well as

because of the redemption undertaken by him, on the Palestinian soil,

from the “unsupportable burdens” which the Pharisee teachers imposed on

the people (Matt. xxiii. 4).

Always higher, on to unapproachableness grew his personality, including

all that is beautiful, lofty, sublime, and divine, and forcing every one

to adoration and self-nobilization. This divine “Son of Man” became the

world-ideal, and this sublime ideal has been originated in Judaism, which

will ever be remembered as having been predestined by Providence to bring

forth such a creation.

_November 6, 1899._

From MORRIS JASTROW, Jr., Ph.D., Professor of Semitic Languages,

University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa.:

From the historic point of view, Jesus is to be regarded as a direct

successor of the Hebrew prophets. His teachings are synonymous with the

highest spiritual aspirations of the human race. Like the prophets,

he lays the chief stress upon pure conduct and moral ideas, but he

goes beyond the prophets in his absolute indifference to theological

speculations and religious rites. It is commonly said that the Jews

rejected Jesus. They did so in the sense in which they rejected the

teachings of their earlier prophets, but the question may be pertinently

asked, Has Christianity accepted Jesus? Neither our social nor our

political system rests upon the principles of love and charity, so

prominently put forward by Jesus.

The long hoped-for reconciliation between Judaism and Christianity will

come when once the teachings of Jesus shall have become the axioms of

human conduct.

_November 6, 1899._

From BARON DAVID VON GÜNZBURG, St. Petersburg, Russia:

Jesus of Nazareth sought to regenerate the common people of Galilee

by infusing into them the moral teaching of the academies; and to

this end he stripped the religious ideal of its scientific garb.

Understood perfectly by those who listened to him, his simple language,

nevertheless, proved a stumbling-block for those who had not known him,

but who desired, after his death, to commune with his apostles. They

construed current phrases as predicating actual entities, and having

thus created a certain type of Messiah, it therefore devolved upon

succeeding ages, under the influence of controversy and in the ardor of

religious polemics, to harmonize at once all the genuine traditions, all

the ill-understood and ill-reported addresses made by him, all his noble

aspirations which later generations failed to comprehend, and to bring

them all into accord with the ardent faith of new converts as well as

with the Bible texts relative to the Messiah.

_September 29, 1899._

From PROF. DAVID CASTELLI, author of “Storia degli Israeliti,” Florence,

Italy:

… Jesus in a certain sense fulfilled in his person the prophecies of the

Old Testament; they reached in him a height beyond which it is impossible

to go. He was not the magnificent worldly king, since there could be

no question of a worldly king in Israel again, for whom the Hebrews

waited in vain; but he was the great teacher of mankind, spreading among

all nations that principle of love and humanity which, until then, had

remained confined within the limits of Judaism. His word, and after him

that of the Apostles, who, like himself, were born and reared in Judaism,

were a powerful means of carrying into effect the yet unfulfilled

prophecy of the Old Testament: “The Lord will be King of all the earth;

in that day God will be one and his name one.”

_September 28, 1899._

From MARCUS JASTROW, Ph.D., Rabbi Emeritus of Rodeph-Shalom Congregation,

Philadelphia, Pa., Author of the “Dictionary of the Talmud,” etc.:

The thoughtful Jews of all days, and especially of modern tendency of

thought, see in Jesus, as depicted in the New Testament, the exponent

of a part of the ethics of Judaism, and more especially of its milder

side—love and charity. The ethical sayings of Jesus reflect the

conception of Judaism in his own period, as it was current among its

spiritual leaders, such as Hillel, Rabbi Akiba, Ben Zoma, and others.

To a heathen world merged in vice and crime, to a civilization that led

the thoughtful among Romans and Greeks toward the abyss of pessimism

and despair, Christianity offered the bright prospect of forgiveness

and reconciliation with goodness. For the Jews it had no mission, no

new gifts to offer. Its ethics appear to the modern Jew one-sided

and exaggerated; the sense of justice appears to be pushed into the

background in favor of an unrealizable ideal of love.

Judaism prohibits revenge and the bearing of grudge, commands the

assistance of an enemy in distress, but “to love one’s enemy” appears

to the modern Jew a somewhat morbid philanthropy that could never have

been seriously meant. To bear indignities with patience, “to be of

the insulted and not of the insulters,” is a Jewish principle, but to

offer the right cheek to him who slaps you on the left, to offer the

undergarment to him who takes away your cloak—no, we will not and we can

not do it. Hence it is that we Jews, of our modern days, speak of Jesus

with that respect which all high-minded dreamers of all ages and nations

inspire, even though we can not accept all their ideas and ideals, and

are mindful of the fact that it is to noble dreamers that humanity is

indebted for its most precious possessions.

_September 4, 1899._

From ÉMILE LÉVY, Chief Rabbi, Bayonne, France:

Wide as the difference may be in certain essential points between

Christianity and Judaism, yet the former approaches the latter through

its origin, and a common basis which is love of God and man. In

proclaiming the superiority of spirit over matter, and the principle of

immortality of the soul and of a future life; in exhorting mankind in a

touching and poetical language, ever trying to come nearer the divine

example by a charitable, humble, modest, and pure life, Christ has

rendered immense services to humanity and to the cause of progress and

civilization, for he thus spread the Jewish doctrine, which aims at a

continual improvement of the individual and of society, and contributes

to the preparation of the Messianic era and of the brotherhood of the

nations.

_October 24, 1899._

From HENRY BERKOWITZ, D.D., Rabbi of Rodeph Shalom Congregation, Founder

and Chancellor of the Jewish Chautauqua Society, Philadelphia, Pa.:

… To me one of the saddest and most tragic facts in history is this,

that Jesus, the gentlest and noblest rabbi of them all, should have

become lost to his own people by reason of the conduct of those who

called themselves his followers. In Jesus there is the very flowering of

Judaism. What pathos, then, in the fact that his own people have been

made to shun his very name; that even to-day they speak it with bated

breath, because it has been made to them a symbol and a synonym of all

that is unjewish, unchristian—irreligious.…

_November 1, 1899._

From JOSEPH REINACH, Paris, France, formerly Member of the Chamber of

Deputies, and editor-in-chief of _La République Française_; Secretary to

Gambetta, and editor of Gambetta’s works:

… The characteristic mark of Jesus’s moral is love, the purest and

noblest love that ever existed—love for all human creatures, love for the

poor, love for the wicked. Love is joy, and love is duty, and love is

life. Humanity, since its first day and to its last day, was and will be

thirsty for love, and Jesus is and will remain one of the highest, if not

the highest, type of humanity, because his words, and his legend, and his

poetry are and will be an eternal source of love.

_November 28, 1899._

From CESARE LOMBROSO, Professor of Psychiatry and Criminology, University

of Turin, Italy:

In my eyes Jesus is one of the greatest geniuses the world has produced,

but he was, like all geniuses, somewhat unbalanced, anticipating by

ten centuries the emancipation of the slave, and by twenty centuries

socialism and the emancipation of woman. He did not proceed by a precise,

systematic demonstration, but through short sentences and by leaps and

bounds, so that without the downfall of the Temple, and without the

persecutions of the Christians under Nero, his work would have been lost.…

_September 29, 1899._

From MAX NORDAU, M.D., critic and philosopher, Paris, France:

… Jesus is soul of our soul, as he is flesh of our flesh. Who, then,

could think of excluding him from the people of Israel? St. Peter will

remain the only Jew who said of the son of David, “I know not the man.”

If the Jews up to the present time have not publicly rendered homage to

the sublime moral beauty of the figure of Jesus, it is because their

tormentors have always persecuted, tortured, assassinated them in his

name. The Jews have drawn their conclusions from the disciples as to the

master, which was a wrong, a wrong pardonable in the eternal victims of

the implacable, cruel hatred of those who called themselves Christians.

Every time that a Jew mounted to the sources and contemplated Christ

alone, without his pretended faithful, he cried, with tenderness and

admiration: “Putting aside the Messianic mission, this man is ours. He

honors our race and we claim him as we claim the Gospels—flowers of

Jewish literature and only Jewish.…”

From ISIDORE HARRIS, M.A., Rabbi of West London Synagog of British Jews,

London, England:

It seems to me that the truest view of Jesus is that which regards him

as a Jewish reformer of a singularly bold type. In his days, Judaism had

come to be overlaid with formalism. The mass of rabbinical laws that in

the course of centuries had grown round the Torah of Israel threatened

to crush out its spirit. Jesus protested against this tendency with all

the energy of an enthusiast. Ceremonial can never be anything more than

a means to an end—that end being the realization of the higher life of

communion with God. The rabbinical doctors of the law were inclined to

treat it as an end in itself, and this Jesus saw was a mistake. In taking

up this position, he was simply following in the path that had already

been marked out centuries before by the Hebrew prophets.

_October 17, 1899._

From JECHESKIEL CARO, Ph.D., Chief Rabbi, Lemberg, Austria:

Primitive Christianity, as Jesus of Nazareth taught and preached it, is

not at all different from the ethical principles of Judaism. He himself

proclaimed that he did not come to destroy the law. In morality and the

love of God and man (Deut. vi. 5; Matt. xxii. 37; Lev. xvii. 18; Matt.

xxii. 39) are contained the real essence and the categorical imperative

of religion.…

_October 18, 1899._

From N. PORGES, Ph.D., Rabbi, Leipsic, Germany:

Even the most conscientious Jew may, without hesitation, recognize that

in view of the immense effect and success of his life, Jesus has become

a figure of the highest order in the history of religion, and that the

noble man, the pure character, the mild heart-winning personality, come

forth unmistakable even from the mythical cover which surrounds his

person. The fact that Jesus was a Jew should, I think, in our eyes,

rather help than hinder the acknowledgment of his high significance,

and it is completely incomprehensible to me why a Jew should think and

speak about Jesus otherwise than with the highest respect, although we,

as Jews, repudiate the belief in his Messianic character and his divine

humanity with the utmost energy, from innate conviction.

_September 28, 1899._

From the late JAMES H. HOFFMAN, Founder and first President of the Hebrew

Technical Institute, New York City:

… I revere him (Jesus) for having brought home by his own life and his

teachings, to the innermost hearts and souls of mankind, of all times, in

every station, the eternal truths as first embodied in the Mosaic code

and proclaimed in undying words by the prophets. I recognize in him the

blending of the divine and human, the lofty and lowly, showing the path

for the dual nature of man, by divine aspirations to gain the victory

over the earthly life, tending to draw him downward—the Son of God

triumphing over the child of the earth.…

_October 6, 1899._

From ADOLF BRUELL, Ph.D., Editor “_Populär-Wissenschaftliche

Monatsblütter_,” Frankfort-on-the-Main, Germany:

… In Christianity, as it is represented in the Gospels, the sublime

doctrines of Judaism, if we subtract the dogmas, find their most

beautiful expression. If we deduct the purely human additions, as well

in Judaism where they take the form of observances, as in Christianity,

where they crystallize themselves into dogmas, we find that there is no

real antagonism between the two. And how could it be otherwise, for did

not Jesus stand upon the ground of biblical and prophetical Judaism?

…

The fact that love, the highest religious principle, has not yet fully

penetrated Christianity, as is shown by the awful fanaticism of the

Middle Ages and the odious anti-Jewish movement of our own time, does not

alter the fact that Jesus promulgated a sublime doctrine which is in full

harmony with Judaism, and with which Christianity must be entirely imbued

before it can be seriously called the religion of Christ.…

Judaism and Christianity both have still to go through a process of

purification as to law and dogma, and only after these separating walls

have fallen, will Jews and Christians, and with them all humanity, on

the terrain of pure morality and the spirit of the prophets, tender

one another forever the hand of brotherhood in the noble spirit of

reconciliation.

Meanwhile, it would be appropriate that honest and enthusiastic men might

form an alliance in order to reconcile Judaism and Christianity, and for

this purpose Jesus and the prophets would be rather genial helpers than

detractors.

_October 10, 1899._

From THÉODORE REINACH, Ph.D., former President of the Société des Etudes

Juives, Paris, France:

Although we know very little with certainty concerning the life and

teachings of Christ, we know enough of him to believe that, in morals

as well as in theology, he was the heir and continuator of the old

prophets of Israel. There is no necessary gap between Isaiah and Jesus,

but it is the misfortune of both Christianity and Judaism that a gap has

been effected by the infiltration of heathen ideas in the one, and the

stubborn (only too explainable) reluctance of the other, to admit among

its prophets one of its greatest sons. I consider it the duty of both

enlightened Christians and Jews to endeavor to bridge over this gap.

_December 17, 1899._

From JACOB H. SCHIFF, New York City:

We Jews honor and revere Jesus of Nazareth as we do our own prophets who

preceded him. By his martyrdom, his teachings have been emphasized, and

these are to this day I believe often better practised by the descendants

of the race he sprang from than by those who have become the followers of

Christ in name, but not in spirit, else the prejudice practised by the

latter against Jews would not exist.…

_September 5, 1899._

From M. LAZARUS, Ph.D., late Professor of Philosophy, University of

Berlin, author of “Die Ethik des Judenthums,” Meran, Austria:

… I am of the opinion that we should endeavor with all possible zeal to

obtain an exact understanding of the great personality of Jesus and to

reclaim him for Judaism.

_January 24, 1901._

The following questions were sent to a number of Jewish scholars, whose

answers are tabulated below:

QUESTION 1. Do you agree with Dr. Kohler that there was a spiritual

daybreak on the shores of Galilee nineteen centuries ago, which was not

sufficiently recognized by the official Sanhedrin at that time?

Q. 2. Do you esteem Jesus to have been one “sent of God” to reveal the

Father more clearly to men?

Q. 3. Do you believe that his mission has been of advantage in making

known to the Gentile world the God of Abraham?

Q. 4. Do you consider him to have been a Jewish prophet? If so, would you

indicate in what order he would stand, in your judgment, respecting the

earlier prophets?

Q. 5. Is there a growing interest among Jews in the study of the sayings

and life of Jesus?

Q. 6. Is there a growing willingness in Judaism, as says Dr. Kohler, to

reclaim Jesus as one of her greatest sons?

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

===========+==========+=========+==========+==========+=========+=========

| 1. | 2. | 3. | 4. | 5. | 6.

-----------+----------+---------+----------+----------+---------+---------

I. |Not a | | |Yes. |Only |Yes,

Eng. | | | | | |or two

| | | | | |

I. L. |I do. |I |Christ |I do not |Yes. |Yes.

| |is a |Christ- | | |

| | | | | |

M. |No. |No. |He has |I do not |No. |No.

and | | |Gentile | | |

| | | | | |

G. J. |Yes. |Yes. |Yes. |Yes, |Yes. |Yes.

| | | | | |

Max |I do not. |I do |I agree |I do not |There is |The

| | | | | |

|law |in a | | |his life |

-----------+----------+---------+----------+----------+---------+---------

From SIMON WOLF, LL.D., former Consul of the United States to Egypt,

Vice-President of Order B’ne B’rith, Washington, D. C.:

I have not had the time nor the desire to investigate the alleged

divinity of the Christian Savior. I have, however, recognized the

great influence his character and labors have exercised throughout the

world. If properly understood and if properly construed, I have no

doubt whatsoever that what he aimed at and labored for would prove of

great benefit to every human being. I look upon him, in short, as a

great teacher and reformer, one who aimed at the uplifting of suffering

humanity, whose every motive was kindness, mercy, charity, and justice,

and if his wise teaching and example have not always been followed, the

blame should not be his, but rather those who have claimed to be his

followers. I have the very highest regard for him as a man who reflects

in his sayings the divine Spirit, which after all is nothing more or less

than a reflex of the Jewish ethics in which he was so well grounded.

_October 9, 1899._

From H. WEINSTOCK, Sacramento, Cal. Extract from a letter to Dr. K.

Kohler:

[The letter urges reasons why the life and sayings of Jesus

should be taught in Jewish Sabbath-schools. Dr. Kohler approves

of the suggestion.]

With the growing enlightenment and the broadening atmosphere under which

the modern Jew lives, the progressive Jew looks upon the Nazarene as one

of Israel’s great teachers, who has a potent influence on civilization,

whose words and deeds have left an undying imprint upon the human mind,

and have done heroic work toward universalizing the God of Israel and

the Bible. This change of sentiment toward Jesus is largely due to the

intelligent and progressive preaching of our modern rabbis, who seem

to appreciate the glory Jesus has shed upon the Jewish name, and the

splendid work he did in broadening the influence of the Jewish teachings.

But, despite all this, the fact remains, that, so far as I know, not one

Jewish Sabbath-school in the land teaches a single word concerning Jesus

of Nazareth.

To maintain a continued silence in the Jewish Sabbath-school on Jesus

would seem a grave error.…

The influence of “Jesus the Christ” may be diminishing in the rational

world, but the influence of “Jesus the Man” is increasing daily the world

over, and no Jewish education can be complete that does not embody within

it a comprehensive knowledge of Jesus the Jew, his life, his teachings,

and the causes which led to his death.…

It would seem to be in the highest interest of the modern Jew and Judaism

that the curriculum of at least every reform Jewish Sabbath-school

should, from a purely historical standpoint, embrace a simple yet

comprehensible history of the life of Jesus, and its wonderful moral

and religious influence, in order that the rising Jews may be able to

appreciate better the powerful influence Judaic teachings and the Bible

have had upon civilization, and the exalted place given by the world to

one of their teachers and brethren, who lived a purely Jewish life and

taught only Jewish precepts.…

_September 26, 1899._

From GUSTAV GOTTHEIL, Ph.D., Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Emanu-El, New York:

The keynote of prophetic religion of the Jewish prophets was holiness of

life and purity of heart. Love and mercy shown by men, one to another,

make up the acceptable worship of the Holy One of Israel. To place the

Master of Nazareth by their side can surely be no dishonor to him, nor

can it dim the luster of his name. If he has added to their spiritual

bequests new jewels of religious truth, and spoken words which are words

of life, because they touch the deepest springs of the human heart, why

should we Jews not glory in him? Show us the man, help us to understand

his mind, draw from his face the thick veil behind which his personality

has been buried for the Jewish life by the heartless zeal of his

so-called followers, and you will find the Jewish heart as responsive

to truth and light and love as that of all other nations. The question

whether Jesus suffered martyrdom solely for his new teachings or for

other causes, we will not discuss. The crown of thorns on his head makes

him only the more our brother. For to this day it is borne by his people.

Were he alive to-day, who, think you, would be nearer his heart—the

persecuted or the persecutors?

_October 24, 1899._

From EMANUEL WEILL, Rabbi of the Portuguese Congregation, Paris, France:

I do not know the secret of God, but I believe that Jesus and

Christianity were providential means, useful to the Deity in guiding all

men gradually, and by an effort, keeping pace with the mental state of

the majority of men from paganism up to the pure and true idea of the

divinity.

The error—one might almost say a fatal one—of Christianity is to believe

that it is an end in itself, whereas it is but a step, and as error often

generates evil, Christianity in its evolution toward its end has effected

side by side much good as well as much harm.

We Jews await the Christians on God’s appointed day, when, all humanity

having become more enlightened, will rally to the spiritualistic

principle which is that of Judaism, viz.: that of the unity and the

perfect spirituality of God, in opposition to any incarnation and to any

trinitarian idea whatever.

Meanwhile, I think that Jews and Christians, divided on the

identification of Jesus with God, but both in accord in acknowledging

this God the same for all, consider themselves children of the same

Father, and thus love one another with brotherly love.

_October 11, 1899._

From M. KAYSERLING, Ph.D., Rabbi, Budapest, Hungary:

The Jews rejected Jesus as the Messiah and Redeemer, but they recognized

him as “the extraordinary man” who first showed to the heathen world

the way to natural religion and moral perfection. “The founder of

Christianity,” says the pious and scholarly Jacob Emden of Altona, who

lived about the middle of the last century, “was a twofold benefactor

to the world, since, on the one hand, he strengthened with all his

might the doctrine of Moses and insisted upon its eternal validity;

and, on the other hand, drew heathens away from idolatry and obligated

them to observe the seven Noachian commandments to which he added moral

teachings. The alliance of the nations in our time can be regarded as an

alliance to the glory of God, whose aim is to proclaim over all the world

that there is only one God who is Master in heaven and on earth; who

rewards the good and punishes the evil.”

This is the opinion of the immense majority of the Jews of our epoch

about Jesus of Nazareth, “the extraordinary man.” We all look forward to

that sublime end when all human beings, prompted by the love of fellow

men, shall recognize God and worship Him in full harmony and glory as the

one only God.

_November 20, 1899._

From DAVID PHILIPSON, D.D., Professor in Hebrew Union College, Rabbi of

Mound Street Temple, Cincinnati, Ohio:

There is no backwardness nor hesitancy on the part of modern Jewish

thought in acknowledging the greatness of the teacher of Nazareth, the

sweetness of his character, the power of his genius. But, as a matter of

course, we accord him no exceptional position as the flower of humanity,

the special incarnation of the Divinity. Judaism holds that every man is

the son of God. Jesus was a Jew of the Jews. The orthodox Christianity of

to-day he would scarcely recognize, as its chief dogmas were unknown to

him.

_September 19, 1899._

From EMIL G. HIRSCH, Ph.D., LL.D., L.H.D., Rabbi of Sinai Congregation,

Professor of Rabbinical Literature in Chicago University, Chicago, Ill.:

… For me Jesus is an historical reality. To understand his work and

correctly to value his mission, one must bear in mind his own time.

Galilean as he was, he must have grown up under influences making for an

intense Jewish patriotism.

… Under close analysis, his precepts will be found to contain nothing

that was new. There is scarce an expression credited to him but has its

analogon in the well-known sayings of the rabbis. He did not pretend

to found a new religion. The doctrines he developed were the familiar

truths of Israel’s prophetic monotheism. Nor did his ethical proclamation

sound a note before unknown in the household of the synagogue or in the

schools. He was in method a wonderfully gifted Haggadist. His originality

lies in the striking form which he understood to give to the old

vitalities of his ancestral religion. He moved the heart of the people.

… The Jews of every shade of religious belief do not regard Jesus in the

light of Paul’s theology. But the gospel Jesus, the Jesus who teaches

so superbly the principles of Jewish ethics, is revered by all the

liberal expounders of Judaism. His words are studied; the New Testament

forms a part of Jewish literature. Among the great preceptors that have

worded the truths of which Judaism is the historical guardian, none, in

our estimation and esteem, takes precedence of the rabbi of Nazareth.

To impute to us suspicious sentiments concerning him does us gross

injustice. We know him to be among our greatest and purest.

_January 26, 1901._

MEMORANDUM JOTTINGS

Here are some of the jottings which I find on my memorandum pad,

suggested by the reading of these Jewish letters—letters which it would

be difficult to read without feeling that at last Jew and Christian,

after a horrible nightmare of misunderstandings centuries long, are

coming to see that after all they are first cousins, if not actually

brothers.

1. Right nobly is it in some of these Jewish writers to say that Jesus

is not to be blamed for those awful persecutions committed for ages

in His name, and in reverse of His teachings. As He foretold, many

were called by His name whom He knew not, and who knew not Him—false

prophets who came in sheep’s clothing, but were, within, ravening wolves.

Sometimes these wolves tore the Jews, sometimes they tore one another,

and sometimes they tore the real Christians. But we live, all of us, in

a better time. The glowing sky is not sunset, but is sunrise—sunrise of

a glorious day that is to reveal a far wider brotherhood than the world

ever heretofore has known.

2. Jewish friends, “Let the dead past bury its dead.” All the world

is bound to realize sooner or later that your history has been of

inestimable advantage to the world. Turn your faces to that rapidly

advancing future. The divine reason will appear for all the sorrows of

the past ages, for all the persecutions, misapprehensions, including the

errors into which you and we have fallen—largely _because_ of these, not

in spite of them, the Jewish race will arise a purified flame.

Look the future in the face. As Shelley has put it: “The past is dead,

and the future alone is living.” Why not, all of us, permit the ashes to

grow over the embers of hate, and let the rawness of all wounds, real

or imaginary, heal over? Distance now gives a wider survey and a juster

survey to both Jew and Christian.

Waste no time in denying hostility to Jesus nineteen hundred years ago.

Who alive to-day is to be blamed for that any more than for the forty

years of rebellion in the wilderness? No more are you to be blamed for

the death of Jesus than are we to-day to be blamed for Washington having

held slaves, and for the slave auction-block in the Nation’s capital, and

for the slave lash a generation ago.

3. The Mosaic system of ceremonies, as seen before the destruction of

Jerusalem, was beautiful. How mournfully are Jewish eyes still fixed upon

the broken shell. Friends, lift your eyes and see what came out of that

shell; see in the boughs above, the singing-bird of the civilization of

to-day. Claim it all, for God has given it to the world through your

people.

From the matrix of the Jewish soul sprang Christianity. Heine, the great

Jewish writer of the last century, has wittily put it: Half the civilized

world worships a Jew, the other half a Jewess.

4. Come, children of the prophets, your home, for a season at least, is

in the West, not in the East. Let not your hearts longer be troubled.

Cease dragging about with you that monstrous corpse of memory—the

persecutions committed against you, no matter how frightfully you have

been misunderstood and wronged.

Above all let it never be truly said that the Jew has suffered so much,

and come so far, now only to reap despair and bitterness. There are two

Jewish tendencies to-day, one to cold materialism, the motto of which

is “make money, eat, drink, be merry, to-morrow ye die”; the other is

upward, the path the prophets walked. This latter tendency must be made

to dominate. The time will come, with many already here, when the Jew

will turn again to his sublime mission and say, like Agassiz, “I have not

time to make money.”

Surely, the Jew of America is to be a regenerating educational force to

the Jews of all the world, and not to the Jews only. It does not yet

appear fully what he shall be; but in some way it will appear that this

mass of concentrated human energy will arise above the commercial, the

material, the sordid, which so dominates much of the so-called Christian

world. The Jewish genius is essentially religious. The Jew will again

come to himself and find his center, and God will vindicate His purpose

through this wonderful people from Abraham’s time to the present.

The Jew has grown strong by the law of the survival of the fittest. For

eighteen centuries he has not known what security is, always living

by his resource of keenest wit—the feeblest dying out. Those who were

physically strong enough and mentally clever enough, escaped destruction,

and these became the parents of the new and stronger generation. Thus the

law of compensation works justice. For ages the Jew was compelled to be a

money-lender as the business of such an one was held to be disreputable

for Christians. Thus the Jew mastered the problems of finance, and now

when finance rules the world, the Jew is naturally on the throne. The

whirligig of time is twirled by a hand that cares for justice.

5. How unseemly, impossible, that it should prove in the end that they

who have been to the world messengers of God, whose feet have been

beautiful upon the mountain-tops and who did eat the bread of angels,

should now forget their prophets and their God and grovel in materialism,

and seek to satisfy their hunger with husks. No; this can not be. This

people have done too glorious things for humanity, for such an ending.

They have in them the nobility that will assert itself. They are born for

great things yet to be; they have been made in large molds. They, like

the best of us, have often slipped, but are now coming to themselves. For

one I am glad, and thank God for it.

Now will the Christian Church permit a friendly exhortation: You have

tried everything to get the Jewish people to understand Jesus of

Nazareth, except one thing, _love_. Try that, for they believe in love;

and you believe in love. Let both Jew and Christian get on this common

ground, and have respect for the honest convictions of one another, and

then both may clasp hands and look into each other’s eyes, and repeat the

words uttered alike by Moses and by Jesus:

“THE LORD OUR GOD IS ONE GOD. AND THOU SHALT LOVE HIM WITH ALL THY

HEART, AND WITH ALL THY SOUL, AND WITH ALL THY MIGHT.”

The lightnings from Mount Sinai and the rays of light and heat from Mount

Calvary are one, and will yet fuse into brotherhood all peoples of the

earth.

I. K. F.

OTHER TESTIMONY TO JESUS

WILLIAM McKINLEY.

[A Letter. Washington, D.C., 1900.]

The religion which Christ founded has been a mighty influence in the

civilization of the human race. If we of to-day owed to it nothing more

than this, our debt of appreciation would be incalculable. The doctrine

of love, purity, and right-living has step by step won its way into the

heart of mankind, has exalted home and family, and has filled the future

with hope and promise.

JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU.

[COMPLETE WORKS. (Emilius.) Edinburgh: 1778, vol. ii., pp. 215-218.]

I will confess to you that the majesty of the Scriptures strikes me with

admiration, as the purity of the Gospel has its influence on my heart.

Peruse the works of our philosophers, with all their pomp of diction;

how mean, how contemptible are they, compared with the Scriptures! Is it

possible that the sacred personage whose history they contain should be

Himself a mere man?… Where is the man, where the philosopher, who could

so live and die, without weakness, and without ostentation? When Plato

describes his imaginary righteous man, loaded with all the punishments of

guilt, yet meriting the highest rewards of virtue, he describes exactly

the character of Jesus Christ. The resemblance is so striking that all

the Church fathers perceived it.

THOMAS JEFFERSON.

[WORKS. Philadelphia: 1871, vol. iv., p. 479.]

I am a Christian in the only sense in which He [Christ] wishes any one to

be: sincerely attracted to His doctrines, in preference to all others;

ascribing to Him every human excellence, and believing He never claimed

any other.

WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE.

[REVIEW OF ECCE HOMO, from GLEANINGS OF PAST YEARS. New York: 1879, vol.

iii., pp. 84, 93.]

Through the fair gloss of His manhood, we perceive the rich bloom of His

divinity. If He is not now without an assailant, at least He is without

a rival. If He be not the Sun of Righteousness, the Friend that gives

His life for His friends and that sticketh closer than a brother, the

unfailing Consoler, the constant Guide, the everlasting Priest and King,

at least, as all must confess, there is no other to come into His room.

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE.

[CONVERSATIONS WITH ECKERMANN. London: 1874, pp. 567-569.]

If I am asked whether it is in my nature to pay Him devout reverence,

I say, certainly. I bow before Him as the divine manifestation of the

highest principles of morality.… Let mental culture go on advancing, let

the natural sciences go on gaining in depth and breadth, and the human

mind expand as it may, it will never go beyond the elevation and moral

culture of Christianity, as it glistens and shines forth in the Gospel.…

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

[PROSE WORKS. Boston: 1870, vol. i., pp. 69, 70.]

Jesus Christ belonged to the true race of prophets. He saw with open eye

the mystery of the soul. Drawn by its severe harmony, ravished with its

beauty, He lived in it, and had His being there. Alone in all history, He

estimated the greatness of man. One man was true to what is in you and

me. He saw that God incarnated Himself in man, and evermore goes forth

anew to take possession of His world.…

FRANÇOIS P. G. GUIZOT.

[MEDITATIONS ON THE ESSENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. New York: 1885, p. 320 _et

seq._]

The supernatural being and power of Jesus may be disputed; but the

perfection, the sublimity of His acts and precepts, of His life and

His moral law, are incontestable. And in effect, not only are they not

contested, but they are admired and celebrated enthusiastically, and

complacently too; it would seem as if it were desired to restore to Jesus

as man, and man alone, the superiority of which men deprived Him in

refusing to see in Him the Godhead.

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.

[JOHN S. C. ABBOTT’S LIFE OF NAPOLEON, vol. ii, p. 612.]

Alexander, Cæsar, Charlemagne, and myself founded empires. But on what

did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ alone

founded His empire upon love, and at this hour, millions of men would die

for Him.…

This testimony from Napoleon has been much disputed. Dr. Philip

Schaff, weighing the argument for and against, says that he

believes that it is authentic in substance.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.

[LETTER TO PRESIDENT STILES OR YALE COLLEGE, March 9, 1790.]

I think His [Jesus Christ’s] system of morals and religion as He left

them to us, the best the world ever saw, or is likely to see.

JEAN PAUL RICHTER.

[DAWNINGS FOR GERMANY. Complete Works, pp. 33, 36.]

It concerns Him who, being the holiest among the mighty, the mightiest

among the holy, lifted, with His pierced hands, empires off their hinges,

turned the stream of centuries out of its channel, and still governs the

ages.

JOHN STUART MILL.

[THREE ESSAYS ON RELIGION. New York: 1874, pp. 253, 255.]

Religion can not be said to have made a bad choice in pitching on this

man as the ideal representative and guide of humanity; nor even now would

it be easy, even for an unbeliever, to find a better translation of the

rule of virtue from the abstract into the concrete than to endeavor so to

live that Christ would approve our life.

THOMAS CARLYLE.

[SARTOR RESARTUS, pp. 155, 158.]

If thou ask to what length man has carried it in this manner, look on our

divinest symbol, Jesus of Nazareth, and His life and His biography, and

what followed therefrom. Higher has the human thought not yet reached:

this Christianity and Christendom—a symbol of quite perennial infinite

character, whose significance will ever demand to be anew inquired into,

and anew made manifest.…

WILLIAM E. LECKY.

[HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS. London: 1869, vol. ii., p. 9.]

It may be truly said that the simple record of three short years of

active life has done more to regenerate and soften mankind than all the

disquisitions of philosophers and all the exhortations of moralists. This

has, indeed, been the wellspring of whatever is best and purest in the

Christian life. Amid all the sins and failings, amid all the priestcraft

and persecution and fanaticism, that have defaced the Church, it has

preserved, in the character and example of its Founder, an enduring

principle of regeneration.

JOSEPH ERNEST RENAN.

[THE LIFE OF JESUS. New York: 1864, pp. 215, 365, 375, 376.]

He founded the pure worship—of no age, of no clime—which shall be that of

all lofty souls to the end of time. Not only was His religion that day

(John iv. 24) the benign religion of humanity, but it was the absolute

religion; and if other planets have inhabitants endowed with reason and

morality, their religion can not be different from that which Jesus

proclaimed at Jacob’s well.…

Whatever may be the surprises of the future, Jesus will never be

surpassed. His worship will grow young without ceasing; His legend will

call forth tears without end; His sufferings will melt the noblest

hearts; all ages will proclaim that among the sons of men there is none

born greater than Jesus.

THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST—A SUCCINCT HISTORY

BY DANIEL SEELYE GREGORY. D.D., LL.D.

The legend of “The Wandering Jew,” in its various forms, has its basis in

the doctrine of the Second Coming of Christ, or of His personal return to

this world. This is true of the form of the legend that underlies Croly’s

romance, the Lord Himself having given assurance of His return to the

hero of the work and the arch-plotter, in the words of doom: “Tarry thou

till I come!” The doctrine of the Second Coming has been accepted by the

Christian Church and embodied in its creeds in all ages.

The Second Advent finds its analog in many respects in the First Advent,

and that, not in its facts only, but in its difficulties as well.

According to the Old Testament, a great Redeemer was to appear; he was

to be a prophet, priest, and king, and was to deliver his people from

their sins and from their oppressors; he was to set up a kingdom that

should become universal, absorbing all earthly kingdoms; and he was to

exalt his people to the summit of prosperity and glory. These predictions

turned the minds of the whole Jewish race toward the future, in confident

expectation of the coming Messiah, in whose birth and career they all

anticipated their fulfilment. Nevertheless, tho Christ came indeed

fulfilling prophecy, it was “in a way which no man did anticipate or

could have anticipated.”

So the main features of the Second Advent have been prophetically

presented with like fulness, and yet, as of old, the Church has had to

remain “satisfied with the great truths which those prophecies unfold,

and leave the details to be explained by the event.”

The many theories of the Second Coming of Christ and of the millennium—or

the thousand years’ reign of Christ at the end of time, as connecting

with that coming—may be reduced to two, one based upon the literal and

the other upon the spiritual interpretation of the Scriptures on this

subject.

1st. The _literal_, or _Chiliastic_, notion of the millennium, as held

by some Christians, was derived from the Jews, and was largely confined

originally to the converts from Judaism to Christianity. The Jewish

doctrine received its peculiar form from Rabbi Elias, who lived about

two centuries before the Christian era. According to this ante-Jewish

tradition:

“The world is to last seven thousand years—six thousand to be years of

toil and trouble, and the seventh thousand to be a grand SABBATISM. It

is to be ushered in by the advent of the Messiah, who is to establish

his throne at Jerusalem. The Holy City is to be rebuilt with surpassing

magnificence, as described by Tobit (xiii., xiv.); the Jews are to return

to Palestine; their pious ancestors are to be raised from the dead and

reign in their own land, with their offspring, under the Messiah” (see T.

O. Summers, in Johnson’s “Universal Cyclopedia,” article “Millennium”).

* * * * *

Some of the early Christians—like the early Jews, pressed with

persecutions and longing for temporal deliverance—adopted this literal

view, except that they modified it by recognizing Jesus as the true

Messiah, and by acknowledging the equality of Gentile with Jewish

believers in the millennial age. The Thessalonian Christians, in

particular, early developed a tendency to the literal, Chiliastic

interpretation, which was, however, checked and corrected by Paul’s

letters to them.

But the first teacher who is clearly recorded as having adopted the

crude Jewish notion was Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis, in Phrygia;

altho Cerinthus, a heretic of the first century, is said to have held

it. According to Irenæus, Papias pretended to have received a glowing

tradition direct from the Apostle John embodying and enlarging all the

Jewish literalism.

In part it is to this effect: “The days shall come in which there shall

be vines which shall severally have ten thousand branches, and every one

of these shall have ten thousand lesser branches, and every one of these

branches shall have ten thousand twigs, and every one of these twigs

shall have ten thousand clusters of grapes, and in every one of these

clusters shall be ten thousand grapes, and every one of these grapes

being pressed shall give twenty-five _metretas_ of wine; and when a

person shall take hold of one of these sacred bunches, another shall cry

out, ‘I am a better bunch, take me, and by me bless the Lord.’”

Irenæus reports similar fanciful traditions respecting extraordinary

temporal blessings during the millennial period. Papias taught that

Christ’s reign on earth should be corporeal. In the main, Justin Martyr,

Irenæus, Tertullian, Nepos, and Lactantius agree with Papias, teaching

the Christians under their instruction these views, each varying the

details according to his own fancy.

The disciples of Papias and their successors naturally pressed into their

service Rev. xx. 1-10, interpreting it with the baldest literalness.

The same method has been used by the later followers, who have largely

held to a literal, corporeal reign of Christ on earth for a thousand

years. There has often been coupled with this view—growing out of

Christ’s teaching of the IMMINENCY of his Second Coming—a belief in the

IMMEDIACY of that Coming.

2d. The usual or _Catholic_ theory of the millennium has its basis in the

spiritual, rather than literal, interpretation of the Scriptures on this

subject. It rejects alike Jewish traditions and Patristic fancies.

According to this view, the number 1,000 is often employed in the

Scriptures as “denoting a definite number for an indefinite.” It is so

used manifestly in Psalm xc. 4, in 2 Peter iii. 8, and in Rev. xx. 1-7.

In the last passage, as has been often remarked, it is “evidently a

definite number for an indefinite,” indicating a long period. The entire

passage is figurative, in keeping with the enigmatical book in which it

is found. The angel with the key of the abyss, a chain and a seal to bind

and confine the devil, thrones and the souls of martyrs seated upon them,

and judgment given to them—these are all “pictorial representations of

the circumscription of Satan’s power, the revival of the martyr spirit

in the Church, and the general prevalence of truth and righteousness

in the earth. This agrees with the figurative style of the Apocalypse,

and corresponds with the predictions concerning the prosperity of the

Church in the last days. In no other place is there any allusion to a

millennium.”

This interpretation, it is held, is agreeable to the style of prophecy,

that is elsewhere employed in the Revelation (compare Isa. xxvi. 19;

Ezek. xxxvii. 13, 14; Hos. vi. 2; Rev. xi. 7, 11). This spiritual

view also agrees with the paracletal work of Christ, while the

Judaico-Christian does not; it is favorable to the efforts of the Church

for the conversion of the world, and accords with the general teachings

of the Scriptures concerning “the last things.”

But while the literal method has been to some extent followed, there

has been a common or _Catholic_ Church-doctrine which, as will be seen,

has alone been embodied in the creeds of Christendom. That _common_,

_creedal_, or _Catholic doctrine_ embraces the teachings that—

1st. The Second Advent of Jesus is to be a personal, visible, and

glorious advent as the Son of God.

2d. It is to be preceded by the universal diffusion of the Gospel, the

conversion of the Jews and the coming of Antichrist.

3d. It is to be accompanied by the resurrection of the dead, just and

unjust, the general judgment, the end of the world, and the consummation

of Christ’s kingdom.

The cardinal passages of Scripture on this doctrine are _Matthew xxiv._

and _the two Epistles to the Thessalonians_—the latter of which was

apparently rendered necessary by the development of the teachings in the

former. It is not possible to enter here into a detailed interpretation

of these passages. Had there been no extraneous influences at work,

what is claimed to be the simple and natural interpretation of these

Scriptures, which has always been in accord with the Catholic doctrine

embodied in the creeds, would probably have continued to be the faith of

all Christians.

The later-Jewish doctrine of the Messianic kingdom upon earth was a main

influence in directing the new development. The disciples being Jews were

naturally infected with this view, and did not rise above it till after

the experiences of Pentecost.

Millenarianism or Chiliasm naturally arose out of sympathy with this

Jewish materialism, and spread to some extent among the Jewish

Christians in the early Church. There was also introduced the doctrine

of _two resurrections_, based on the literal understanding of Rev.

xx., unmodified by the teachings of Jesus in Matt, xxiv. With the

Second Advent of Christ, according to this view, is to take place the

first resurrection, that of the righteous dead at that time. Then is

to follow a personal, corporeal reign of Christ for a thousand years—a

millennium—upon the renovated earth. At the close of this millennial

period, the second resurrection, that of the righteous and the wicked, is

to occur, and the end of the world.

As already hinted, this doctrine at first started and became prevalent

among the Jewish, as distinguished from the Gentile, Christians.

Persecutions arising from time to time, and the distressed conditions

resulting from governmental opposition have, however, extended to the

Gentile Christians belief in the corporeal features of Chiliasm. They

have likewise resulted at various times in an earnest longing for the

_immediate_ return of Christ, in an expectation of His _immediate setting

up of His kingdom_ in the place of the earthly kingdoms, and in belief in

the _imminence of His advent_.

The conflict between the earlier and Catholic doctrine and this

Chiliastic outgrowth may readily be traced in the history of the Church.

It appeared in its full development, first of all, early in the apostolic

age, in connection with the Church at Thessalonica. The two earliest of

the Pauline Epistles—supposed to have been written in A.D. 52 and 53—are

largely taken up with the exhibition and refutation of the departures

from the Catholic doctrine on this subject.

After their experience at Philippi, Paul and Silas passed on through

Amphipolis and Apollonia to Thessalonica. This city—now called in

slightly changed form Salonica—was a great maritime city and the capital

of the first division of Macedonia, and it always had a large Jewish

population. As Antioch was the natural center for Christian work in Asia

Minor, so Thessalonica was one of the best strategic points—if not the

best—for beginning the conquest of Europe. This was recognized by Paul

himself, who, inspired with the great purpose of making the empire of

Christ coterminous with that of Rome, wrote, only a few months after

leaving Thessalonica (1 Thess. i. 8), that “from them the word of the

Lord had sounded forth like a trumpet, not only in Macedonia and Achaia,

but _in every place_.”

The preaching that led to the expulsion of Paul and Silas from the city

(see Acts xvii. 1-10) furnishes the key to the Epistles written a little

later. It was the doctrine of the _Kingdom of God_. The accusation

brought against them was that they were proclaiming _another King_ than

Cæsar (Acts xvii. 7). In writing to them Paul accordingly reminds them

of his exhortations and entreaties, that they should “walk worthy of

God who called them to his _Kingdom_ and Glory” (1 Thess. ii. 12), and

addresses them as those who had “suffered affliction for the sake of that

_Kingdom_” (2 Thess. i. 5). Christ’s _Second Coming_ had evidently been a

chief topic of Paul’s preaching to them.

The brevity of the Apostle’s stay in the city gave little opportunity

for instructing and grounding the Christians, chiefly Gentiles, in the

Christian system; but they appear to have continued stedfast in the

faith in the severe persecutions and afflictions that followed (1 Thess.

ii. 14; iii. 3; 2 Thess. i. 4). Nevertheless there were some peculiar

aspects of the doctrine of the Second Coming toward which their trials

seemed naturally to push them. Looking upon it as the glorious _coming of

the Lord for deliverance_ (1 Thess. i. 10), some came to believe in the

_imminency_, if not the _immediacy_, of the Second Advent; and so gave up

laboring for their own support, became burdensome to the brethren, and

encouraged irregularities by their mode of life. Moreover, there arose

a perplexity about the case of those who should fall asleep before the

Second Coming.

This state of things led Paul, toward the close of 53 A.D., to write

from Athens his _First Epistle_ to the Thessalonians, to give specific

instruction regarding these points. His main theme is the _consolation

from the hope of the Second Coming of the Lord_. The leading words in the

Epistle (as in 2 Thessalonians) are _Parousia_ (advent, or appearing) and

_Affliction_. The prominence in it of the coming of the Lord is shown

by the fact that each chapter rises to and rests in that Coming as its

conclusion (see ch. i. 10; ii. 20; iii. 13; iv. 17, 18; v. 23).

The _Second Epistle_ was written to the Thessalonians in A.D. 53, from

Corinth. The former letter had produced salutary results, on which the

Apostle congratulates them; but their manifold tribulations on account of

the faith had caused the opinion that the Lord’s coming would take place

immediately, to gain ground rapidly among them. This hope was fostered

by some among them who claimed to have the “spirit of prophecy,” and it

was also thought to be favored by Paul’s own teachings (2 Thess. ii.

2). In consequence of this, the habits of idleness and irregularity had

increased. Moreover, the false Jewish teachers were beginning to lead the

Thessalonian Christians to look upon “the Day of the Lord,” according to

the Old-Testament view (Isa. xiii.; Joel ii.; Amos v. 18), as _a Day of

Judgment_, rather than of deliverance and glory. The aim of the _Second

Epistle_ is to meet the new needs that had arisen.

It will be seen from this outline view that the Epistles to the

Thessalonians bear a relation to the Second Advent of Christ similar to

that of the Book of Daniel to his First Advent. They were the guidebook

for that age and for the Church of the after-ages. In conjunction with

the teaching of our Lord Himself in Matt. xxiv., their instructions and

directions would appear to be sufficiently full and explicit. For the

time being the Chiliastic views seem to have disappeared from the Church,

and the Catholic doctrine to have held full sway.

A new development of Chiliasm took place toward the close of the second

century. It resulted from the persecuting hand of the government being

laid heavily upon the Church.

It is not necessary here to enter into the causes of the persecutions

by the Romans. It is enough to note that the ideas of religious freedom

in the modern world are quite alien to those of the ancient world. There

were none but state religions and national gods. Cicero lays down as the

fundamental maxim of legislation in ancient Romanism, that “no man shall

have for himself particular gods of his own; no man shall worship by

himself any new or foreign gods, unless they are recognized by the public

laws.” And so Christianity came necessarily into collision with the laws

of the state.

The bloody persecutions, from the last half of the second century onward,

were the inevitable outcome of this natural and essential antagonism;

but even in the opening half of the second century the Christians were

subjected to sore trials such as those from which the Thessalonians

suffered. In passing through these, their minds seem to have turned

again, says Neander, to “the idea of the millennial reign, which the

Messiah was to set up on earth.… In the midst of persecutions, it was a

solace and support to the Christians to anticipate that even upon this

earth, the scene of their sufferings, the Church was destined to triumph

in its perfected and glorified state.” In some regions this view took on

a more spiritual form; while in others, as in Phrygia, the natural home

of a sensual, enthusiastic religious spirit, “Chiliasm appeared in its

crass and grossly conceived form in which the earthly Jewish mind had

depicted it.”

Among the Apostolic Fathers, in the second century, the doctrine appears

in the writings of Barnabas, Hernias, and Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis,

only, the last named teaching it in its grossest form. As Dr. Shedd has

said (“History of Christian Doctrine,” vol. ii., p. 390): “There are

no traces of Chiliasm in the writings of Clement of Rome, Ignatius,

Polycarp, Tatian, Athenagorus, and Theophilus of Antioch.” He adds: “The

inference from these facts, then, is that this tenet was not the received

faith of the Church certainly down to the year 150. It was held only by

individuals.” Among the really masterful scholars, ecclesiastics, and

theologians, it had not a single advocate. That it was not the faith of

the Apostolic Church is further evident from the fact that it was not

embodied in the so-called Apostles’ Creed, which is “undoubtedly the

substance of the short confessions of faith which the catechumens of the

Apostolic Church were accustomed to make upon entering the Church.”

The period from 150 A.D. to 250 has been called “the blooming age

of Millenarianism.” It was in this period of bitter and increased

persecution that Irenæus and Tertullian came forward as its advocates,

giving glowing descriptions of the millennial reign. “Antichrist,

together with all the nations that side with him, will be destroyed. All

earthly empires, and the Roman in particular, will be overthrown. Christ

will appear, and will reign a thousand years, in corporeal presence on

earth, in Jerusalem, which will be rebuilt and made the capital of His

kingdom. The patriarchs, prophets, and all the pious, will be raised from

the dead, and share in the felicity of this kingdom. The New Jerusalem

is depicted in the most splendid colors” (Shedd, “History of Christian

Doctrine,” vol. ii.. p. 390).

But even Irenæus and Tertullian, in presenting “brief synoptical

statements of the authorized faith of the Church,” in their writings

against heretics, make no mention of the Millenarian tenet as belonging

to that faith.

The third century, chiefly in its first half, witnessed the strenuous

discussion that seems practically to have brought to an end, for the time

at least, the tendency in the Church to accept the Chiliastic doctrine.

This was conducted in the Alexandrian School, under the lead of three

great teachers, Clement of Alexandria, Origen his pupil, and Dionysius

the pupil of Origen. They did not reject the Apocalypse, but addressed

themselves to opposing the grossly literal interpretations put upon it by

the Chiliasts.

The method adopted by Bishop Dionysius of Alexandria is of peculiar

interest, as showing what may be accomplished by candid Christian

discussion. Neander gives a somewhat detailed account of his course

(“Church History,” vol. i., p. 452). Nepos, a pious Egyptian bishop

belonging to the region of Arsinoë, and who was a devoted friend of the

sensual Chiliasm, wrote a book against the Alexandrian school, entitled

“A Refutation of the Allegorists.” “The book seems to have found great

favor with the clergy and laity in the above-mentioned district. Great

mysteries and disclosures of future events were supposed to be found

here; and many engaged with more zeal in the study of the book and theory

of Nepos than in that of the Bible and its doctrines.” So zealous did his

disciples become for this tenet that they brought the charge of heresy

against all who refused to accept it. Whole churches separated themselves

from their communion with the mother-church at Alexandria. After the

death of Nepos, a country priest, Coracion, took the leadership of this

party.

Neander gives an interesting account of the way in which, by instruction

and discussion, the good and wise Bishop of Alexandria, Dionysius, led

Coracion back to the faith. This happened in the year 255.

“Having restored the unity of faith among his own churches,” Dionysius

wrote his work on the Promises, for the instruction of the churches.

By the opening of the fourth century Chiliasm seems to have almost

disappeared from the Church, as is shown by the statements of Eusebius,

the church historian. Describing the writings of Papias, Eusebius

remarks that they contain “matters rather too fabulous,” among which

he enumerates the opinion of Papias that “there would be a certain

millennium after the resurrection, and that there would be a corporeal

reign of Christ on this very earth.” The return to the Catholic doctrine

on the subject seems therefore to have been quite general before the year

400.

The history of the Chiliastic doctrine from the opening of the fifth

century may be briefly summarized, since its manifestations have been

only sporadic and temporary.

As the tenth century drew to a close there arose “an undefined fear and

expectation among the masses that the year 1000 would witness the advent

of the Lord,” but this passed away with the century.

At the time of the Reformation, the doctrine was revived by the fanatical

Anabaptists, Münzer and his followers, who attempted to put down all

temporal sovereignty and to establish the kingdom of the saints with fire

and sword. They were, however, vigorously opposed by Luther, Melancthon,

Calvin, and the other great reformers, and their military forces were

defeated and crushed and their leaders slain at Mühlhausen in 1525 and

at Munster in 1535. Leading symbols of the Reformation period strongly

condemn Chiliasm, _e.g._, the Augsburg Confession, the Belgic Confession,

and the English Confession of Edward VI.

The history of the doctrine during the nineteenth century is well

summarized by Dr. Shedd:

“During the present century, individual minds in England and

America, and upon the Continent of Europe, have attempted

to revive the theory—in some instances in union with an

intelligent and earnest orthodoxy, in others in connection

with an uneducated and somewhat fanatical pietism. The first

class is represented by Delitzsch and Auberlen in Germany, and

by Cumming, Elliott, and Bonar in Great Britain; the second

class by the so-called Adventists and Millerites in the United

States.”

The Millerite movement, started in 1831 by William Miller, an American,

who predicted that Christ’s Second Coming and the end of the world would

take place in 1843, received what was practically its death-blow in the

failure of the prediction to meet with accomplishment at the appointed

time. Substantially the same classes of people are, however, to be

found among the Adventists, or Second Adventists, of the present time,

including a considerable number of immigrant foreigners, especially

Scandinavians. Some of these hold to the doctrine of the annihilation of

the wicked and to that of the sleep of the dead until the resurrection.

The approach of the twentieth century seems to have given an impulse to

the Adventist movement, altho it has not changed the character or quality

of its advocates.

The survey thus made of the history of the Church, ancient, medieval,

and modern, brings out the fact that the _Catholic_ doctrine, as already

outlined, has always been the Church doctrine. The _Chiliastic_ views

based upon the literal interpretation of the Scriptures bearing upon the

subject have never been generally accepted. The facts, as summarized by

Dr. Shedd (“History of Christian Doctrine,” vol. ii., p. 398), are as

follows:

“1. That Millenarianism was never the ecumenical faith of the Church and

never entered as an article into any of the creeds.

“2. That Millenarianism has been the opinion of individuals and parties

only—some of whom have stood in agreement with the Catholic faith, and

some in opposition to it.”

REASONS FOR THE BELIEF THAT CHRIST MAY COME WITHIN THE NEXT TWENTY YEARS

By ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D.

Is the day of Christ near at hand?

This question is attracting much attention as this new century begins,

and wise men are watching for the morning star, which is the herald of

the new dawn.

Imminence is a word used for the union of the _certainty of an event

with the uncertainty of its time_. One text suffices to show that such

imminence is, in the Scripture, characteristic of the Lord’s return:

“Be ye also ready; for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man

cometh” (Matt, xxiv. 44). Such an exhortation excludes mere argument.

The certainty of the event is assured, for “the Son of Man cometh;” the

uncertainty of the time is conceded, for it is “in an hour that ye think

not” or as verse 36 adds, “of that day and hour knoweth no man.”

In a broader sense, the word imminent is used to express the idea

that the event is _impending_—nigh at hand. True, it may be unwise to

attempt to fix the very “day and hour,” since these are declared to lie

among the divine secrets. Yet it may be both possible and proper to

observe carefully the signs which are to precede or accompany Christ’s

reappearing, and even the mistakes of those who have made erroneous

calculations as to the time may serve only to narrow the circle within

which the truth is to be found. We shall therefore inquire briefly

whether there is any reason to look for the speedy reappearing of the

Son of Man, and, without committing ourselves to all the opinions which

follow, we may state the grounds on which such conclusions have been

reached by many devout students of the subject.

The appeal must, of course, be to the Holy Oracles, if we are to get any

safe response. Seven signs hinted at in the Word of God may be selected,

as prominent:

(1) A widespread witness to Christ, with (2) a widespread decline in

godliness. (3) A marked movement among the Jews, with (4) the fulness

of the Gentiles. (5) A singularly unresting state of society, with (6)

a daring development of iniquity and (7) a confident sense of false

security. These seven indications must be studied in the light of seven

conspicuous passages of Scripture, such as Matt, xxiv., Luke xxi., Rom.

xi., 2 Thess. ii., 2 Peter iii., 2 Tim. iii., and Jude.

It may be well to add that, if such conclusion hung upon any one of these

signs alone, it might be more than doubtful; but, when all these unite,

they serve as far safer guides; as a cable may be unbreakable, any one of

whose separate strands would easily part under severe tension.

Thoughtful observers of events, who are at the same time prayerful

students of Scripture, have come to feel that there is a manifold and

remarkable preparation for the “Parousia” or personal coming of Christ;

and that the existing state of both the church and the world seems to

demand His coming as the only solution of the problems of prophecy and of

history.

The present drift of society is toward _anarchy_, a drift that has been

peculiarly rapid during the last quarter-century. Socialism, communism,

nihilism, and the hot battle between capital and labor, monopoly and

poverty, are the dominant facts and forces in this war, now being waged,

with increasing violence and desperateness, against all government.

There is also a strong drift in the church toward _apostasy_. Witness

the advance of Romanism, ritualism, and rationalism, even in Protestant

churches and communities. In society at large there is a corresponding

advance of materialism, agnosticism, and infidelity; and the polite

disguises of science, culture, and criticism do not hide the true

features and forms which they clothe, but can not conceal.

Who can fail to see the trend of the Jews toward national rehabilitation

and the colonization of Palestine, while at the same time the church is

fettered by secularism on the one hand and skepticism on the other? Side

by side with these signs there is the opening of the world to the Gospel,

the world-wide circulation of the Bible in over four hundred tongues, the

network of missionary societies wrapping the globe, and the uprising of

Christian young men and women in an unparalleled crusade of missions. All

these are like fingers all pointing in one direction—the Sunrise of the

Ages.

Many other Scriptures, besides those already cited, startle us from our

apathy, especially when we compare them. Take, for example, Matt, xiii.

and Rev. ii.-iii. The seven parables in the former and the seven letters

to the churches in the latter appear to correspond chronologically.

In Matthew, the last scene shows the _dragnet_—the obvious metaphor

for world-wide evangelization. In the Apocalypse, the last rebuke

is to _Laodicea_—the self-deceived and self-sufficient church, that

shuts in worldliness and shuts out Christ. When in history did those

two conditions ever meet as they do now? On one hand a wealthy,

self-satisfied, lukewarm Christianity, and on the other a casting of

the Gospel net into the world sea, and gathering of every kind of fish!

For the first time in this gospel age, ecclesiastical degeneracy and

evangelistic activity curiously blending—fulfilling before our eyes our

Lord’s paradox—world-wide witness side by side with love waxing cold!

One remark may be added as to the “times of the Gentiles.”

There is a remarkable consensus of opinion that it is from

Nebuchadnezzar—the world king and head of gold—that the “times of the

gentiles” date. His time was about 600 B.C. If the “seven times” or seven

years, of Dan. iv. 25, represent, as is supposed, seven periods of 360

years each (or seven times twelve months of thirty year-days), then the

full seven times from Nebuchadnezzar to the end would be 2,520 years,

and reckoning from 600 B.C. this brings us to 1920 A.D., or thereabouts.

These 2,520 years appear to be divided into two exactly equal periods of

1,260 years each, or “forty and two months,” or “a time, times and half

a time” (_i.e._, three and a half of these prophetic years) (Rev. xi. 2,

3., and xii. 14).

As to the filling up of the 1,260 days of the latter half, the historic

correspondences are so remarkable that at least ten different methods of

computation seem to point to the same precise period—an interval of time

lying somewhere between 1880 and 1920, the uncertainty of the exact time

of the end resulting from the difficulty of fixing the exact date of the

beginning. But it is this convergence of prophetic and historic times at

some point within these forty years which has awakened such a widespread

interest in the imminence of our Lord’s coming. And, surely, as our Lord

has taught us, if it behooves us to observe the signs of the weather, we

should not be indifferent to the signs on God’s greater horizon, which to

watchful souls indicate the approach of the day of the Lord (Matt. xvi.

1-3).

Upon the ten different methods of computation referred to above, it

may be well to expand a little, without committing oneself to the

positions taken. No one, however, can appreciate the argument, whatever

be its worth, who does not understand the _numerical system_ which

manifestly pervades the whole Word of God, and which constitutes a sort

of mathematical framework upon which the whole written Revelation is

constructed; and not only so, but this same numerical structure pervades

also all the works of God in Creation, and all the workings of God in

human history. Astronomy, chemistry, botany, biology, theology, all obey

one mathematical law, and it must be a prejudiced mind that refuses to

recognize this fact. The orbits of the planets and the spiral course of

the leaf-buds on the trees, the proportions and dimensions of crystals,

the octaves of sound and of color—these and many other operations, forces

and forms of nature conform to strict mathematical laws. From Sirius down

to the invisible atom there is a uniform system, and it tells of the

one Designer and Creator. Once let this fact be admitted and it becomes

no novelty to us to find evidences of similar mathematical precision in

the periods of history. Let us, therefore, in conclusion, glance at the

various positions taken by devout students of history and prophecy, and

impartially survey the outlook from their points of view.

1. The first method of computation, already referred to, as fixing the

present period as approximately “the time of the end” is known as “the

times of the Gentiles,” seven times, or years, each consisting of 360

year-days, or a sum-total of 2,620 years. Of this period, Professor

Totten, of New Haven, following the lead of the British Chronological

Association, says:

“Nabopolassar shook off the yoke of Assyria, and, by thus assuming the

crown of Babylon, commenced the ‘times of the Gentiles.’ His accession

took place in the seventh civil (first sacred) month of the year

3377 A.M. The ‘times of the Gentiles’ therefore ran out 2,520 years

thereafter, or in March, 5897 A.M. (A.D. 1899).”

Thus by another method of computing the times of the Gentiles, he arrives

at the present period as at least the beginning of the end.

“Joshua’s Long Day was the last day in broad prophetic chronology which

is to be wholly counted as _solar_ time. Since that day, the millenaries

have been ‘shortened’ to _lunar_ years. The sum of the 2,555¼+ ‘long’ or

solar years up to that day, and the 3,444¾+ ‘shortened’ or lunar years,

from thence to the vernal equinox of 1899 A.D., is exactly 6,000, and

accurately terminates the sixth millennary since creation.”

2. Secondly, the _Sabbatic system_, impressed on the whole face of

Scripture history, affords, as many think, a very obvious key to the

divine chronology. This Sabbatic system reaches back to Eden and

characterizes the whole annals of the world. There was first consecrated

the seventh _day_, then the seventh _week_, then the seventh _month_,

then the seventh _year_, then the seventh _seven_ of years—introducing

the “jubilee”—then the seventh _seventy_ of years, the Grand Jubilee.

This number 7 × 70, or 490, appears in at least two conspicuous places,

1 Kings vi. 1, where, adding the ten years of the temple building to the

480, between the exodus and the beginning of the work, we have 490; and,

in Daniel ix. 24, where again the seven sevens reappear, as the sacred

typical number, between the exodus from the captivity and the building

of the new spiritual temple of God under the Messiah. This number 490 is

doubly a type of completeness: it is not only the product of 7 multiplied

by 70, but of 7 times 7 (49), the interval from jubilee to jubilee,

multiplied by 10—another sacred number. These jubilee periods must be

obviously reckoned from the time of _Moses_, when the law of the jubilee

first appears. And, counting the exodus from 2515 A.M., the full seven

periods of 490, or 3,430 years, would bring us to 5945 A.M., or somewhere

this side of the middle of the next century as its extreme limit; and, if

the years are to be reckoned by the _prophetic-year_ standard of 360 days

(twelve equal months of thirty days each) the limit would be somewhere

about 1898, so that by this method again the “beginning of the end” has

already come.

3. A third method of computation, “_The Millennial Standard_,” is thought

to point to the same approximate terminus. “One day is with the Lord as a

thousand years and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter iii. 8). This is

regarded by many as another not very obscure hint as to God’s chronology,

and they therefore reason that the predicted millennium or thousand years

of Sabbatic rest, crowning the six millenniums of a world’s toil, can not

be far off.

4. The fourth method of computation is “_the historical_.” The number

1,260 (“forty-two months,” “a time, times, and half a time”) is as we

have already seen, conspicuous both in Daniel and in Revelation.

Those who accept the “historical” method of interpreting the Apocalypse

believe that the beast and the false prophet represent the Papacy and

Mohammedanism, or the crucifix and the crescent. They maintain that it is

a curious fact, to say the least, that both these systems date from the

period between 606 and 620 (the decree of Phocas and the first Hegira) as

the _terminus a quo_, and, adding 1,260, they reach again a _terminus ad

quem_ somewhere between 1866 and 1886 as “the beginning of the end” of

these systems, as world powers or kingdoms.

5. A fifth mode of computation is that of the “_Antichrist Period_.” The

number, 666, is divinely given as the number of the _lawless one_ (ὁ

ἀνομος, ὁ ἀναρχος) who is to be revealed in the last week of years. This

number, thus inseparably linked with the man of sin, in whom personally

all the Antichristian systems of history are to “head up,” is thought

by many to stand for the period of the race’s rebellion, and to be the

symbolic number of perpetual unrest and incompleteness. There is a show

of reason in this, for 666 is a repeating decimal that ever approaches,

but never reaches, _seven_, the number of completeness and rest. Six

times this number 666 gives 3,996, the grand crisis—the year of Christ’s

birth, reckoning from creation; and again, reckoning from Abraham’s

birth, as father of the faithful, brings us to the beginning of this

century as a new crisis in history.

6. A sixth road by which the same terminus is reached is the “condition

of _world-witness_” (see Matt, xxiv. 14, Mark xiii. 10). Christ

distinctly stated that the Gospel must first be published among all

nations, and preached as a witness to all nations, and then would come

the END. With no little force many argue that there never was a period

of such world-wide evangelism as now. Over three hundred missionary

societies at work, about twelve thousand missionary workers, and nearly

fifty thousand native helpers, engaged; the Bible translated into over

four hundred tongues, etc., and “published to all nations.” It is

also very noticeable that the motto of the present“crusade” is “The

evangelization of the world in this generation!”

7. A seventh mode of computing is that of the _Laodicean lukewarmness_.

By a comparison of Matt. xiii. 47-50 and Rev. iii. 14-22, it will be

seen that the last state of the “_kingdom_,” previous to the end, is

world-wide evangelism, as indicated by the dragnet; and the last state

of the _church_ is deep-seated apathy, as indicated by the Laodicean

lukewarmness. And those who hold this view contend that both conditions

are to coexist as the end draws nigh. They point us to the startling

fact that _never before_ has the church shown signs of such extensive

evangelization on the one hand, and such extensive deterioration on the

other. Many regard this latter as the “falling away,” which is to precede

the end (2 Thess. ii. 3).

8. An eighth road seems to end at the same goal—it is the _development

of anarchism_. The hints in the Epistles to the Thessalonians, 2 Peter,

Jude, and the Apocalypse, it is contended, all agree in showing us

that, as the end approaches, there will be a peculiarly lawless spirit

prevailing—an uprising of an organized resistance to all authority in

church and state, a combination of forces to supplant all government, and

at the same time an arbitrary attempt to compel men to limit even trade

and commerce by a certain “mark,” that alone authorizes one to “buy or

sell” (Rev. xiii. 16, 17). Those who emphasize this as a sign of the end

point triumphantly to the recent and unprecedented growth of communism,

socialism, and nihilism; and to the simultaneous growth of trades-unions

and protective organizations, monopolies and trusts, which restrict all

trade or labor to their “mark.”

9. The ninth argument presented for the near approach of the end is

_Irredentism_ or the drift of the Jews toward Palestine, and the

rehabilitation of their national life. This is, as the advocates of this

view contend, “the blossoming of the fig-tree” (Matt. xxiv. 32, 33),

which marks the end as “near, even at the doors.” Certainly there is

something very startling in the modern movement known as “Zionism,” and

which has developed within the last five years, summoning these great

conferences of leading Jews to the European capitals. Never before has

the national spirit of the Israelites had such a revival since Christ

ascended.

10. The tenth line of argument converges at the same point, namely, the

_Spirit’s withdrawal_. There is a mysterious passage in 2 Thess. ii.

7, where we are told that there is some great Hinderer, whose presence

prevents the final outbreak of the Mystery of Iniquity, and who must be

withdrawn before the end of lawlessness can come, in the “reappearing of

the Lord.” The advocates of this view contend that, by every sign, the

Spirit of God is shown to have withdrawn or to be withdrawing from the

church as a whole. It is maintained by very devout souls that there is

left, in the church at large, neither spiritual worship, spiritual faith,

spiritual work, nor spiritual life; that altho these all exist, they

exist in a few elect individuals, and not in the church as a body; and

that, especially in the matter of _administration_—the specific office

of the Spirit—He is displaced by the spirit of the world, as evinced by

the worldly men and maxims, secular oratory, artistic music, worldly

entertainments, etc., which everywhere prevail.

Whatever grounds, above presented, may seem untenable or unsafe, one

thing seems undeniable: there is a _convergence of signs upon this our

day_, such as has never indicated any previous period as the probable

time of the end. For example, if the Hebrew means _Rosh_, Russia, and

this nation is thus in prophecy indicated as the “head” of the last great

movement of history toward world empire, how like a fulfilment are all

the present movements of that empire—the trans-Siberian railway, the

encroachments on China, etc.! And if universal anarchy is to be the last

great development of society, when was there a time when, both in church

and state, there was such a development of lawlessness (ἀνομια)?

Upon this subject we can no longer, within these narrow limits,

expatiate. But it may at least stir up the thoughtful reader to

individual search into the signs of the times. What are the indications

above the prophetic and historic horizon? If the signs of the coming of

the Son of Man are indeed to be seen, it may well incite us to be among

the watchers who, while others yet sleep, are awake and looking for the

dawn!

Among this people the ties of kinship are especially strong, so that when