their pretensions, as the judgements which would usher in the Advent of their Lord.
Against such seduction they must be peculiarly on their guard. So far for the 'things'
connected with the destruction of Jerusalem and the overthrow of the Jewish
commonwealth. But, taking a wider and cosmic view, they might also be misled by
either rumours of war at a distance, or by actual warfare,131 so as to believe that the
dissolution of the Roman Empire, and with it the Advent of Christ, was at hand.132 133
This also would be a Misapprehension, grievously misleading, and to be carefully
guarded against.
128. ver 4.
129. Acts v. 36; viii. 9; xxi. 38.
130. War ii. 13, 4, 5; Ant. xx. 5, 1; 8,10.
131. Of such wars and rumours of wars not only Josephus , but the Roman historians,.
have much to say about that time. See the Commentaries.
132. St. Matt. xxiv. 6-8.
133. We know how persistently Nero has been identified with Anti-Christ, and how the
Church then expected the immediate return of Christ; nay, in all ages, 'the End' has been
associated with troubles in 'the Roman Empire.'
Although primarily applying to them, yet alike the peculiarly Judaic, or, it might be even
Christian, and the general cosmic sources of misapprehension as to the near A dvent of
Christ, must not be limited to the times of the Apostles. They rather indicate these
twofold grounds of misapprehension which in all ages have misled Christians into an
erroneous expectancy of the immediate Advent of Christ: the seductions of fals e
Messiahs, or, it may be, teachers, and violent disturbances in the political world. So far
as Israel was concerned, these attained their climax in the great rebellion against Rome
under the false Messiah, Bar Kokhba, in the time of Hadrian,134 although e choes of
similar false claims, or hope of them, have again and again roused Israel during the
night of these any centuries into brief, startled waking. And, as regards the more
general cosmic signs, have not Christians, in the early ages watched, not only the wars
on the boundaries of the Empire, but the condition of the state in the age of Nero the
risings, turmoils, and threatenings; and so onwards, those of later generations, even
down to the commotions of our own period, as if they betokened the immediate Advent
of Christ, instead of marking in them only the beginning of the birth-woes of the new
'Age?'
134. A. D. 132 -135.
2. From the warning to Christians as individuals, the Lord next turns to give admonition
to the Church in her corporate capacity. Here we mark, that the events now described135
must not be regarded as following, with strict chronological precision, those referred to
in the previous verses. Rather is it intended to indicate a general nexus and partly after,
those formerly predicted. They form, in fact, the continuation of the 'birth-woes.' This
appears even from the language used. Thus, while St. Matthew writes: 'Then' (τοτε at
that time) 'shall they deliver you up,' St. Luke places the persecutions 'before all these
things;'136 while St. Mark, who reports this part of the Discourse most fully, omits every
note of time, and only emphasises the admonition which the fact co nveys.137 As regards