Apologeticae sive Theologiae Fundamentalis, Tomus I: Demonstratio Christiana

Jesus Christ also appeals to the prophecies uttered by Himself, in order to prove His Messiahship and divinity. Frequently He affirms with emphasis that He is prophesying this or that event in order to confirm the testimony given concerning Himself. Thus, foretelling the betrayal by Judas, He says: "Henceforth I tell you, before it come to pass, that when it shall come to pass, you may believe that I am he,"¹ he, namely, whom I have always professed myself to be. Likewise He foretells the destruction of Jerusalem, adding: "They shall not leave in thee a stone upon a stone, because thou hast not known the time of thy visitation,"² that is, because thou hast rejected the Messiah, God. The Apostles likewise regard the prophetic knowledge of Jesus as an argument for the Messiahship and divinity of the Lord: "Now we know that thou knowest all things, and thou needest not that any man should ask thee. By this we believe that thou camest forth from God."³

And Jesus indeed prophesies both things that are simply hidden and things that are simply future.⁴

1. The prophetic knowledge of Christ considered in general.

That Jesus Christ was endowed with a prophetic knowledge such as no prophet ever possessed is attested with certainty by the Gospels when compared with the books of the prophets.

In the other seers the prophetic light is present not by way of a habit or permanent form, but by way of a kind of passion or passing impression, by which God actually illuminates the prophet's intellect.¹ When this actual light ceases, the prophets are left to their own natural ignorance. The prophets themselves indicate this in many ways: "And the word of the Lord came to me",² "And the word of the Lord came to me a second time";³ "And the word of the Lord came to me, saying";⁴ "And it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month ... the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God ... the word of the Lord came"⁵

Like a disciple before his master, so the prophet listens attentively before the Lord to learn what he is taught.⁶ Again and again he waits in vain for the divine illumination, until at last he confesses: "The Lord hath hidden it from me, and hath not told me."⁷

Jesus, however, as though reading from an open book, always read the most hidden things; indeed, he gazed upon the deepest mysteries of God perfectly and unceasingly.

He does not await the moment of illumination and of the communication of supernatural knowledge. He possesses within himself the spirit of prophecy; he utters prophecies on every occasion, and brings them forth at his own will and from the treasury of his knowledge, as though they were the most obvious of matters. This divine-prophetic knowledge of Jesus shines forth above all in his cardiagnosis, that is, his scrutiny of hearts.⁸

2. The cardiagnostic knowledge of Christ in particular.

Jesus knows and reveals the inmost thoughts both of his friends and of his enemies.

a) Of his friends. He recognizes Simon's natural and individual character at first sight and gives him a name suited to that character: "And looking upon him, he said: Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is interpreted Peter."⁹ Seeing Nathanael for the first time, he says: "Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile." To Nathanael, who asks: "Whence knowest thou me?" Jesus answers: "Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee." To which he replies: "Rabbi, thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel."¹⁰ He lays open to the Samaritan woman her sinful life and reveals all that she herself had done, so that she cries out in astonishment: "Lord, I perceive that thou art a prophet."¹¹ The Pharisee Simon thinks within himself: "This [Jesus], if he were a prophet, would know surely who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him: that she is a sinner." Jesus reads that thought with such penetration as if it had been expressed in words.¹² The disciples dispute about which of them should be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. "But Jesus, seeing the thoughts of their heart", reproved them, because they alone had spoken of such things on the way.¹³

b) Of his enemies. The scribes set themselves to accuse Jesus of having healed on the sabbath. "But he knew their thoughts" and sharply reproved them.¹⁴

The Pharisees complain of the casting out of demons, as though he had done it by the power of Beelzebub. "But Jesus, knowing their thoughts", confounds his accusers.¹⁵ And straightway he justifies himself by a miracle: "And astonishment took hold upon them all, and they glorified God. And they were filled with fear, saying: We have seen wonderful things to day."¹⁶

He sees through the minds of the traitor and of those who plotted against him from the beginning, and is deceived by none of their pretense: "For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that did not believe, and who he was that would betray him."¹⁷ "But Jesus did not trust himself unto them, for that he knew all men, and because he needed not that any should give testimony of man: for he knew what was in man."¹⁸

It would be ridiculous to compare this cardiagnosis of Jesus with the natural transmission of thoughts which they call telepathy. Telepathic phenomena seem to be traceable to the continuous motion of the brains (Gehirnwellen) that accompanies every thought and excites vibrations in the ether. These vibrations, excited through the brain of one man, can indeed be perceived by the brain of another man, but only under certain conditions. It is required that the perceiving subject have the most delicate nerves; that he exert the keenest attention; that he be trained by the longest experience; that he be not far distant from the person whose thoughts he wishes to divine; and that this person be conscious of the experiment being undertaken. And even when all the conditions are present, the telepathic medium at length attains this or that thought, with the greatest fatigue, by a guess more or less probable.¹⁹

Jesus, however, scrutinizes the hearts of men with exactly that ease and penetration with which we little men behold the things placed before the eyes of the body. Such cardiagnosis, moreover, belongs to God alone, who alone "knoweth the secrets of the heart"²⁰ and "understandeth all the thoughts of the mind"²¹. Hence the cardiagnosis of Jesus firmly proves the divinity of the Savior.

Jesus' prophetic knowledge embraces also things that are simply future. For He Himself predicted with certainty and determinately various future events which could not have become known from natural causes. Among these are especially numbered the passion and resurrection of Jesus, the destruction of Jerusalem, the parousia of Jesus.

1. Christ's prophecy of His passion.

Jesus had already announced His passion while He was still in Galilee;¹ yet He began to describe it more accurately only from the transfiguration onward.² From then on "He began to tell them what was to befall Him: Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes and elders, and they will condemn Him to death. And they will deliver Him to the Gentiles, and they will mock Him, and spit upon Him, and scourge Him, and crucify Him, and kill Him, and on the third day He will rise again."³ Finally, on the eve of His death He added that two of the disciples, too, would have their parts in His bitter passion: namely, that He would be betrayed by Judas,⁴ but denied three times by Peter before the second cock-crow.⁵ That all things were fulfilled to the letter just as they had been predicted, not even the rationalists deny.

They contend, however, that Jesus could have foreseen His passion naturally, partly from the messianism of the Old Testament, partly and chiefly from the enmity of the Jewish leaders. Neither, however, [is true].

In the Old Testament the violent death of the Messiah had indeed been predicted, but not with all the circumstances predicted by Jesus, e.g., that He would be delivered to the Jewish leaders and to the Gentiles and condemned by a solemn sentence of death, etc.

From the enmity with which the Jewish leaders pursued Him, Jesus could not by natural sagacity foresee either His violent death, or the kind of death, or the circumstances of His death. He could not foresee the violent death, because the leaders of the Jews feared the people⁶ and because they had no power of life and death.⁷ Much less could He foresee the kind of death, namely crucifixion, because Jesus knew that the Roman judge would find no ground of accusation in Him, whereas the Jews would have wanted to stone Him, as they had the other prophets, but not to crucify Him.⁸ Least of all, finally, could He foresee the circumstances of His death: namely, that He would be mocked, spat upon, and scourged by the Gentiles, yes, betrayed and denied by His own.

By predicting His passion, therefore, Jesus proves that He penetrates the future decrees of men, which depended entirely on their free will.

2. Christ's prophecies of His resurrection.

As often as Jesus spoke to the disciples of His future death, He was wont to add "that He must rise again on the third day"⁹ He also predicted to the Pharisees: "As Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights."¹⁰ Likewise, speaking of the temple of His body, He said: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."¹¹

That He Himself would rise from the dead on the third day Jesus could not know either from natural causes, inasmuch as the dead do not naturally rise again, or from the messianism of the Old Testament, which, although it teaches the resurrection of the Messiah, nevertheless does not know that he would rise on the third day.¹² By the prophecy of His resurrection, therefore, Christ reveals the knowledge of the freely future decrees of God.

3. The prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem.

Daniel had prophesied the future ruin of the holy city and of the temple.¹³ Jesus takes up the same prediction often, and above all a few days before His passion,¹⁴ yet in such a way that He discloses the minute circumstances of the destruction of Jerusalem, which could not have been inferred either from the Old Testament or from natural causes. The principal circumstances are these:

The time of the destruction. Although Jesus predicts the destruction of Jerusalem together with the prophecy of the end of the world, He nevertheless leaves this latter prophecy to be fulfilled at an indeterminate time, while He announces that the ruin of Jerusalem will come while several of His disciples are still alive: "Amen I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things come to pass."¹⁵ In truth all things were done and accomplished already in the year 70 A.D., while several of Jesus' disciples and contemporaries who had heard the prophecy uttered were still alive.¹⁶

The persecution of the disciples preceding the ruin: "But before all these things they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, dragging you before kings and governors for my name's sake. It shall happen to you for a testimony."¹⁷ — That the apostles experienced all these things is clear to one reading their Acts.¹⁸

The wars and seditions, earthquakes, pestilences and famines running before the ruin of Jerusalem: "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be great earthquakes in various places, and pestilences and famines."¹⁹

Concerning which Tacitus [writes]: "I am entering upon a work rich in disasters, atrocious in battles, torn by seditions, savage even in peace. Four emperors slain by the sword. Three civil wars, more foreign wars, and for the most part mixed."²⁰

Flavius Josephus narrates more in detail the seditions, the wars, and their most wretched consequences then raging throughout the whole Roman empire and especially in Palestine.²¹

The circumvallation and siege of the city: "And your enemies will cast a rampart about you, and they will surround you, and press you in on every side: and they will dash you to the ground, you and your children who are in you."²²

That Titus surrounded the city with a wall and besieged it cruelly, Josephus²³ and Tacitus write: "Against this city and people Caesar Titus ... resolved to contend with mounds and mantlets."²⁴

How much the inhabitants suffered during the siege, the same Josephus relates: "During the whole time of the siege eleven hundred thousand men [1,100,000] perished. Of these the greater part were indeed of the same nation, but not of the same region; for those who had come together from the whole region for the feast of unleavened bread were suddenly surrounded by war, insomuch that first the pestilence invaded them from the narrowness of the place, and then famine more quickly."²⁵

The terrors and signs appearing from heaven before the final destruction of the city: "There will be terrors from heaven and great signs."²⁶

That these things happened, Tacitus records: "Armies were seen to clash in the sky, arms gleaming red, and suddenly the temple shone with fire from the clouds. Suddenly the doors of the shrine were flung open, and a voice greater than human was heard: 'The gods are departing,' together with the immense movement of those departing."²⁷

And that the same and many other signs of terror in heaven and on earth were then seen and heard at Jerusalem, Josephus writes.²⁸

The complete ruin of the city and of the temple: "Do you see all these great buildings [of the temple]? There will not be left a stone upon a stone that shall not be thrown down ... They will not leave in you [Jerusalem] a stone upon a stone."²⁹ — And indeed thus Josephus writes of the ruin of the city: With three towers and the western part of the wall left standing, "those who demolished it leveled the whole remaining circuit of the city so evenly with the ground that it would scarcely persuade those approaching that it had ever been inhabited."³⁰ The temple, too, was utterly destroyed by fire.³¹

The dispersion of the Jews among all nations: "They will be led away captive into all nations, and Jerusalem will be trodden down by the Gentiles, until the times of the nations be fulfilled."³² — And yet very many of the Jews were either led into captivity or sold.³³ Those, however, who remained in Palestine, being conquered again in the time of Hadrian, were sent into various regions and even as far as Spain, and from that time they remain dispersed among almost all nations. Under the same Hadrian, Jerusalem was indeed rebuilt under the name of Aelia Capitolina, but as a city wholly gentile and one that was never in the power of the Jews.³⁴

These things being considered, Eusebius of Caesarea rightly concludes: "But if anyone compares the words of our Saviour with those things which are recorded [by Flavius Josephus] concerning the whole [Jewish] war, he cannot help admiring the foreknowledge and prediction of our Saviour, and confessing that it is truly divine and stupendous beyond measure."³⁵

4. The prophecy of the parousia of Jesus.

The prophecy of the parousia (παρουσίᾳ) of Jesus, i.e., of His coming to judgment and the end of the world, is not yet fulfilled, and therefore does not yet have the force of a formal prophecy. Nevertheless it must be treated briefly, because the rationalists contend that Christ erred in announcing His parousia, and consequently was not a true prophet, nor the messianic legate of God, nor God Himself. The adversaries affirm that Christ a) in the eschatological discourse predicted that the parousia would come together with the destruction of Jerusalem, and also b) in certain other texts proclaimed the parousia as near at hand. In truth, however, neither of these is established.³⁶

a) The eschatological discourse indeed at first sight seems to confound the parousia with the destruction of Jerusalem. This is not surprising. For it is the way of the prophets to connect and confound things that are logically assimilated, without regard to chronology. Now the destruction of Jerusalem is the image and type of the last judgment and of the end of the world, and, as it were, the first coming of Christ. Whence the Jewish cataclysm is placed on an equal footing with the cataclysm of the whole human race and of the entire world. From this fact, however, it is not lawful to conclude that both will come at one and the same time.

Nay rather, Christ openly assigns the destruction of the city and His parousia to a different time. For the eschatological discourse follows that rhythm or parallelism customary to the prophets, according to which the third strophe of the discourse corresponds to the first, and the fourth to the second.³⁷

In the first member of the discourse the destruction of Jerusalem is predicted with all its circumstances;³⁸ in the second, however, the parousia alone is treated.³⁹ Then in the third member the time of the destruction is distinctly determined: "Amen I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things come to pass."⁴⁰ Finally, in the fourth member the parousia is left to an indeterminate time: "But of that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father. Take heed, watch and pray: for you know not when the time is ... lest coming suddenly, He find you sleeping ... And what I say to you, I say to all: watch."⁴¹ Whence it is clear that the parousia will not take place together with the destruction of Jerusalem.

That it will rather come long after that destruction follows from this, that Christ adds: "Jerusalem [after the destruction] will be trodden down by the Gentiles, until the times of the nations be fulfilled."⁴² Since such is the force of the eschatological discourse, the following, too, can be more easily adjudged:

b) Other texts which seem to proclaim the parousia as immediately imminent.

Before He first sent the apostles to preach the kingdom of God, Jesus warned them: "But when they persecute you in this city, flee into another. Amen I say to you, you will not finish the cities of Israel until the Son of Man comes."⁴³ It is clear that these words are to be understood of the coming of Jesus on the occasion of the destruction of Jerusalem.

For before the parousia properly so called comes, the gospel must be preached to all nations throughout the world: "And the gospel must first be preached to all nations ... And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world, for a testimony to all nations, and then will the consummation come."⁴⁴

Already about to depart from Galilee, Christ said to His disciples: "Amen I say to you, there are some of those standing here who will not taste death, until they see the Son of Man in His kingdom."⁴⁵ He speaks openly of that coming by which the city of Jerusalem was destroyed, that the kingdom of God might be established on earth. That the parousia at the end of the world is not to be understood is evident from this, that the Lord soon expressly declares concerning it: "But of that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father."⁴⁶ He repels all curiosity of the disciples about the moment of the parousia properly so called: "It is not for you to know the times or moments, which the Father has put in His own power."⁴⁷ Mindful of this uncertainty, the disciples and the first Christians always kept the parousia of the Lord before the eyes of their mind, always fearing it, always hoping for it.⁴⁸

Therefore the prophecies — those of the Old Testament uttered concerning Christ, as well as those of the New Testament uttered by Christ — unshakably prove the testimony which He Himself gave to His messianity and His divinity.