which animates it, and from the error
arising from this, viz., that the fulfilment must necessarily fall
within a particular, limited period, that the various opposite
interpretations had their rise (compare the copious enumeration and
representation of these in _Dresde_, _Comparatio Joelis de Effusione
Spir. S. vatic. c. Petrina interpret._ _Wittemb._ 1782, _Spec._ 2), all
of which are partially true, and are false only by their one-sidedness
and exclusiveness. 1. Several interpreters think of an event at the
time of Joel. Thus Rabbi _Moses Hakkohen_, according to _Abenezra_,
_Teller_ on _Turrettine de interpret._ p. 59, _Cramer_ on the
_Scythische Denkmaeler_, p. 221.--2. Others insist on an exclusive
reference to the first Pentecost. Thus do almost all the Fathers of the
Church--among whom, however, _Jerome_ (on Joel iii. 1) felt the great
difficulties in the way of this view, arising from the context--and
most of the later Christian interpreters.--3. Others would refer it at
the same time to the events in Joel's time, and to those at the first
Pentecost. Of this opinion are _Ephraem Syr._, _Grotius_, and
_Turrettine_.--4. Others place the fulfilment altogether in the future.
Thus did the Jews as early as in the time of _Jerome_, and afterwards
Jarchi, Kimchi, and Abarbanel.--5. Others, finally, find in the first
Pentecost the beginning only of the fulfilment, and regard it as
pervading the whole Christian time. Thus, _e.g._, _Calovius_ (_Bibl.
illustr. ad. h. l._) says: "Although [Pg 334] that prophecy began to be
fulfilled in a remarkable manner on that feast of the Pentecost, yet
its reference is not to that solemn event only, but to the whole state
of these last, or New Testament times, _just after the manner of other
general promises_." These last words show that _Calovius_ was very near
the truth. But if the promise be a general one, by what are we entitled
to place the beginning of its fulfilment only at the times of the New
Testament, and to exclude all of that same gift which God bestowed in
Old Testament times? The insufficiency of the foundation for such a
limitation in the text itself is proved by the following confession of
_Dresde_ (l. c. p. 8), who even believes himself obliged to defend such
a limitation from the authority of the Apostle Peter, and to whom it
did not at all occur, that any other reference than to some particular
event was even possible: "It appears, therefore," he says, "that the
prop