Apologeticae sive Theologiae Fundamentalis, Tomus I: Demonstratio Christiana

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.