exclusively, with the various
_signs_ by which the approach of that great catastrophe might be known,
and with admonitions to the disciples to hold themselves in readiness
for it. Matthew, for example, devotes fifty verses to the account of the
prophecy and the admonitions connected with it. Of these, only four,
chap. 24:19-22, describe the calamities of the scene, and that in the
most general terms. Now, upon the supposition that the evangelist wrote
before the event, all this is natural. Our Lord's design in uttering the
prophecy was not to gratify the idle curiosity of the disciples, but to
warn them beforehand in such a way that they might escape the horrors of
the impending catastrophe. He dwelt, therefore, mainly on the signs of
its approach; and with these, as having a chief interest for the
readers, the record of the prediction is mostly occupied. It is
impossible, on the other hand, to conceive that one who wrote years
after the destruction of the city and temple should not have dwelt in
more detail on the bloody scenes connected with their overthrow, and
have given in other ways also a historic coloring to his account. We may
safely say that to write a prophecy after the event in such a form as
that which we have in either of the first three gospels, transcends the
power of any uninspired man; and as to inspired narratives, the
objectors with whom we are now dealing deny them altogether.

But there are, in the record of this prophecy, some special indications
of the time when the evangelists wrote. According to Matthew, the
disciples asked, ver. 3: "When shall these things"--the destruction of
the buildings of the temple--"be? and what shall be the sign of thy
coming and of the end of the world?" These questions our Lord proceeded
to answer in such a way that the impression on the minds of the hearers
(to be rectified only by the course of future events) must have been
that the overthrow of the temple and city would be connected with his
second coming and the end of the world. "Immediately after the
tribulation of those days," says Matthew, "shall the sun be darkened,"
etc. The probable explanation of this peculiar form of the prophecy is
that it does actually include all three events; the fulfilment which it
had in the destruction of the city and temple by the Romans being only
an earnest of a higher fulfilment hereafter. But however this may be, it
is important to notice that the evangelists, in their record