g of
the Son of Man in the clouds, before that generation was totally
extinguished, which had beheld his humble condition upon earth, and
which might still be witness of the calamities of the Jews under
Vespasian or Hadrian. The revolution of seventeen centuries has
instructed us not to press too closely the mysterious language of
prophecy and revelation; but as long as, for wise purposes, this error
was permitted to subsist in the church, it was productive of the most
salutary effects on the faith and practice of Christians, who lived in
the awful expectation of that moment, when the globe itself, and all
the various race of mankind, should tremble at the appearance of their
divine Judge. [60]

[Footnote 591: This was, in fact, an integral part of the Jewish notion
of the Messiah, from which the minds of the apostles themselves were but
gradually detached. See Bertholdt, Christologia Judaeorum, concluding
chapters--M.]

[Footnote 60: This expectation was countenanced by the twenty-fourth
chapter of St. Matthew, and by the first epistle of St. Paul to the
Thessalonians. Erasmus removes the difficulty by the help of allegory
and metaphor; and the learned Grotius ventures to insinuate, that, for
wise purposes, the pious deception was permitted to take place. * Note:
Some modern theologians explain it without discovering either allegory
or deception. They say, that Jesus Christ, after having proclaimed the
ruin of Jerusalem and of the Temple, speaks of his second coming and the
sings which were to precede it; but those who believed that the moment
was near deceived themselves as to the sense of two words, an error
which still subsists in our versions of the Gospel according to St.
Matthew, xxiv. 29, 34. In verse 29, we read, "Immediately after the
tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened," &c. The Greek word
signifies all at once, suddenly, not immediately; so that it signifies
only the sudden appearance of the signs which Jesus Christ announces not
the shortness of the interval which was to separate them from the "days
of tribulation," of which he was speaking. The verse 34 is this "Verily
I say unto you, This generation shall not pass till all these things
shall be fulfilled." Jesus, speaking to his disciples, uses these words,
which the translators have rendered by this generation, but which means
the race, the filiation of my disciples; that is, he speaks of a class
of men, not of a generation. The true se