The Last Prophecies

 Chapter III: The Last Prophecies

Mark xii. 41-44, xiii. 1-37, xiv, 1, 2, 10-11; Luke xxi. 1-36, xxii. 1-6; Matt. xxiv. 1-51, xxv. 1-46, xxvi. 1-5, 14-16.

The Jesus was standing not far from the Sanctuary the when he He anathematised the Pharisees.  Before descending from this upper terrace to the Gentiles' porches, He seated Himself in the courts that were open to women, just over opposite the great coffers in which all offerings for the service of the Temple1 were deposited.  These three caskets, called Schoferoth, from their orifices, which were like the bell of a trumpet, were now surrounded by a knot of wealthy Jews, who were casting in their bountiful gifts with all the ostentatiousness imaginable.  Just behind them a poor widow stole up to the box and dropped in her treasure,— two small pieces were for the quarter of a Roman as.2  "It was all her living," and Jesus knew it.

The widow's offering. J-J Tissot.

Forthwith, calling His disciples, He pointed out the humble soul to them.

"In truth," He said, "this poor widow has given more than all the others; for they, indeed, have put but a portion from their overabundance into the treasury, while she, out of her poverty, has given all that she had, even her whole living."

The Lord rose thereupon, and traversed the length of the porches.3  His disciples, following after, were admiring the splendours of the Temple,— all the more, indeed, because Jesus had just now predicted its destruction.4  Everything about this edifice enchanted their delighted eyes: mosaics, sculpturing, colonnades, gateways, or gaily bedight with precious metals.  High above their heads rose the terraces, like a mountain of white marble, bearing on his brow that littering facade of the Sanctuary, the resplendent with burnished gold.

One of the disciples stopped the Lord.

" Master," said he, "see!  Look at the stones!  What a structure!"

The disciples admiring the Temple buildings. J-J Tissot.

Others added that all this magnificence was the free gift of Israel, and each uttered his prayers for this national monument, one of the wonders of the world and the crowning honour of Judaea.  But the sentence was irrevocable.  And now Jesus could only renew it in formal terms.

" Of all these great buildings," He said, "truly I tell you, they shall not remain one stone upon stone."

Such was the Saviour's farewell to the Temple.  Thirty-five years later the Sanctuary crumbled into dust amid the flames, never again to tower over the town.  All in vain did Julian the Apostate try to give the lie to those prophetic words of the Christ; from the ruins he put there by the hand of God, flames shot forth and put terrified workmen to flight.  It was decreed that the ruin remain complete, and that " the Holy Place should be left desolate for evermore."6

The little company left the Temple, crossed Kedron-Gorge, then clambered up the Mount of Olives.  Once on the top Jesus sat down, and before withdrawing farther toward Bethany, lingered to gaze at the town which He was never to enter again except to die.  From this high point the whole scene of the Passion was now spread before His eyes: at His feet was Gethsemane; yonder, on Mount Sion, shone the palaces of the pontiffs and Herod's royal residence; facing Him and nearer the Temple stood Pilate's Praetorium, while afar off He could see Calvary and the tomb.

For a time the disciples respected the Master;s silent reverie, but soon, disquieted by all they had just been hearing, some of them approached Him.  These were Peter, James, John, and Andrew; they wanted Him to explain to them personally the mystery contained in Is fine words.

"When shall all these things take place?  What shall be the Sign" of His Coming and the end of time?7

Jesus did not fully satisfy their queries, for the hour which they desired to know is still God's secret; but He unveiled so much of the future for their benefit as it was fitting for them to know, — the approaching end of the Jewish world, and the more fearsome ending of the whole world.  Indeed it was with design that the Lord united these two catastrophes.  He knew that, for the Apostles, imbued with Judaic prejudices, Jerusalem was everything, and its ruin meant that of the universe.  And, in consequence of this confusion, which continued to linger in their minds until after the actual destruction of the Holy City, the disciples remained in a state of continual expectation and watchfulness.  And this was what Jesus wished; His Prophecy was framed, not so much to reveal the things of the future as to give them a lesson; it was not meant in the least to satisfy a vain curiosity, nor, by a clear view of the future, to plunge the faithful into discouragement or presumption.  Hence the care which the Lord took to envelop His thought in figurative language, linking events which have so many points in common, and dealing with facts even as one Who sees all things as the eternally present, unto Whom a thousand years are as one day.  Hence, too, the form in which the Apostles afterwards recorded this prediction of the Master.  Faithful interpreters of Jesus, they pointed out to their own disciples two horizons, one nigh at hand, the other stretching afar off to the end of the world, yet so alike in outline, in colour, and appearance, that the new landscape seems at first sight undistinguishable from the distant prospect.  It is especially in Saint Matthew and in Saint Mark that the Prophecy of Jesus assumes this character; in Saint Luke, the two dread disasters can be more distinctly discerned, and the language of the Master which indicates this difference is here more carefully noted.  Hence we prefer to follow the latter Witness, for it will enable us to determine best what is proper to each of the several events predicted.

Jesus revealed, first, what was to precede the fall of Jerusalem: false prophets seducing Judaea; a thousand scourges falling upon her, wars, plagues, famines, great earthquake; then "the beginning of sorrows,"— that is to say, the persecution of the newborn Church, wherein the weakest shall succumb beneath their trials, one brother denouncing another, fathers betraying their children, horrible scandals, "charity frozen up in their hearts;" but all this time faith gaining ground even while evil increases, and " the Gospel, as preached throughout the world," made known unto all.  Such was to be the earliest age of the Church.

"Thereupon," continued Jesus,10 "the end shall come.  When you shall see the abomination of desolation in the Holy Place (Matthew and Mark), when you shall behold the hosts encompassing Jerusalem (Luke), know that he's ruin is nigh.  Then let them that are in Judaea flee into the mountains, let not him who is on the housetop descend to take anything from his dwelling, and let not him who is in the field return inquest of his garment.  Woe to the women with child and to them that give suck in those days!  Pray that your flight happen not during the winter nor on a Sabbath day, for there shall be then great affliction, such as, since the beginning of the world up to this present, hath never been nor ever shall be aught like unto it."

Every line of this Prophecy was a vivid representation of the times which were to come.  Never, indeed, was the spirit of seduction so potent with the people as when the siege of Jerusalem was close at hand.  Now, at the call of Teudas, the populace rushed to the Jordan, carrying with them their goods, fully persuaded that the stream would stand apart before their approach; again, the dismayed city saw 30,000 Jews going up to the desert, led thither by a false prophet, and waiting upon the Mount of Olives for the walls to fall before them, as of old the walls of Jericho had fallen.  There, too, was Simon the Magician, multiplying his deceptive marvels; while, over yonder, were to hang two sons of Judas the Gaulonite, crucified for having renewed the sedition set on foot by their father.

All these disturbances would soon shake the land of Judaea.  The rebellion, continued under the rule of Caligula and Claudius, broke out openly in the reign of Nero; "after the rumours of war shall succeed war" itself, together with such disasters that the Jew Josephus considers these the prelude of his country's destruction.  There wisest leaders were shaken; their towns were divided into two camps; peoples and cities flung themselves upon each other with fury; blood flowed in every land,— in Gaul, under Vindex and Virginius, on the Danube, in Germany and Britanny, even to the frontiers of the Parthian Empire.  Those who escaped the sword succumbed to other plagues: under Claudius the famine was a permanent evil; during one autumn season the pestilence reaped its harvest of 30,000 inhabitants in Rome, and at the same time the earth trembled and quivered in every known region.  Jerusalem was not the only spot disturbed: about Naples the soil had already begun to smoke, sending out low, sinister murmurings; Crete, Apamea, Laodicea, Rome itself, trembled upon their great bases, while that queen of the world only profited by these dreadful warnings to unloose all her horrors upon the disciples of the Christ; some they crucified, others were cast before wild beasts; others, saturated with pitch and resin, was set fire to during a summer's evening festival, and like living torches illuminated the gardens of Nero.  Surely it seemed as if, according to the Master’s prediction, an implacable hatred had moved the whole human family to rise in arms against His disciples.

The fulfilment of the Prophecy was not less as regards the ruin of Jerusalem.  One of their own traditions, recorded by Josephus, foretold that the town would be devastated and the Temple burnt so soon as ever the Holy Place should be soiled by Jewish hands.  "Although the Zealots did not believe in this prophecy, they accomplished it," adds the historian.  Shortly after the investment of the city by Cestius, the Temple became their citadel and the seat of their tyranny.  Not content with filling the courts with combats and bloodshed, they mimicked the sacred functions and drew lots for a Sovereign Pontiff.  Chance chose for them a countryman, not even of the tribe of Levi; this fellow they invested with the ephod, and, before the eyes of the weeping priests, forced him to go through the sacred rites.

Thus was "the abomination of desolation" introduced into the Holy Place.  At this unmistakable token the disciples took to flight, before John of Giskala closed the gates of Jerusalem, and the robber-hordes, camping roundabout, began to massacre the fugitives,— before Titus, wheeling up his troops in haste, had hedged the doomed city to make it the tomb of Judaea.  From their hiding places over beyond Jordan they beheld afar off "the great wrath" falling upon Jerusalem, and in the frightful sacking of the town saw the fulfilment of the desolation predicted by Jesus, "so great that never since the beginning of the world unto this present have there ever been, nor ever shall be, aught like unto it." In a season of seven months more than ten 1,000,000 men perished, and that which came not "under the age of the sword, was led away captive by all the nations." "Not a man would have been saved if the days "of the siege" had not been shortened; this was done for love of the Elect," and under circumstances which clearly betrayed the hand of God.  In fact, their preparations for the defence were neglected, there provisions were destroyed, and the arrival of the Romans were so unlocked for that the Jews forthwith abandoned a part of their defences.  Taking Titus'own avowal, God Himself made war on the side of the besiegers and beat back the Jews from their impregnable ramparts.

According to this description, borrowed from profane annals, it is evident that not one detail in the Master’s Prophecy remained without its actual fulfilment.  To this He added that Jerusalem should be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles, even until the time of the nations be accomplished; hereby foretelling what we have witnessed for now 18 centuries,—that all peoples shall successively enter the Church; and then only, when the salvation of the Gentiles' consummated, shall the remnant of Israel be saved in their turn.

Thereafter shall come that end of the world he had predicted by Jesus, when the grey old earth's enticements have worked their last chance, and the stars are veiled from sight, then pining away with anguish at the clamour of the sea and its hoary floods; the powers of heaven shaken from their spheres; the Cross, the Sign of the Son of Man, appearing in the sky; the Christ Himself descending upon the clouds in great power and majesty; all humankind awakened by the Angel's trumpeting; dark hosts of eagles, the avengers of God, falling upon this sinful world as upon an abandoned carcass; and all this vast sea of terror shall be unrolled before our sight more swiftly than the bright thunderbolt from heaven.

After this manner shall come the last moments of the universe.  Jesus indicated all the signs which are to proclaim its presence, as plainly "as the fig-tree;s leafage marks the coming of the summer;" but, far from fixing the day and the hour, He declared that neither the Angels in Heaven, nor the Son, insofar as He is Man, knew aught thereof; it is to remain a secret with the Father.  The Jewish race is not to end before these things happen, and as for the Christians, their first duty is to live in expectation of the Judgment, — conceiving no anxiety at the thought, but with serene and confident glance scanning the horizon of time in readiness to receive these forerunners of redemption.

"Take heed," He charged them;12 "watch and pray; for you know not when it is the time.  He shall be then even as when a man is about to make a far journey, and leaves the care of his household to servants, appointing for each what he must do, and bidding the gatekeeper be vigilant.  Watch ye, therefore, for you know not when the Master will come,— if it shall be at even, or at midnight, whether at cock crow, or in the morning,— for fear lest, coming suddenly, He find you sleeping.  And this which I say unto you, I say to all: 'Watch!'"

This, then, was the fruit which Christians must needs gather from the Prophecy of Jesus.  Therefore it was that He spoke so much at length of vigilance, multiplying comparisons and parables in order to better inculcate this first requisite.

" Those days shall be like unto the days of Noë, when all men were eating, drinking, marrying wives, and straight way the Deluge swallowed them up," "as the spring snaps up on the bird," or "as the lightning rends the thunder cloud." Besides these images, He repeated similitudes delivered in former times, but hitherto only as if to remind them that it was their duty to watch and see that His word for fruit; one was the Parable of a steward overtaken in his heel doing, the other that have the talent concealed by an idle servant.  But none touched the Apostles more keenly than their Parable of the Virgins, which He uttered now for the first time.

The wise virgins. J-J Tissot.

It pictured the marriage merry-makings and that end virgins, companions of the bride, marching in the nuptial procession.  Had even tied these goals by take themselves to the home of the betrothed maiden; but five of them are prudent, five foolish.  Now the latter, seeing their lamps still burning, do not remember that they will shortly flicker and become exhausted, and so they neglect to procure their portion of oil.  In the middle of the night the distant shout is heard:—

"Behold the bridegroom!  Go ye forth to greet him!"

That ten virgins rise up, and proceed to make ready their lamps.

"Give us of your oil," say the foolish to the wise, "because our lamps are gone out."

And the wise answer:—

"For fear that there by not enough for us and for you, go rather to them that sell, and by therefrom."

While they are gone away the bridegroom comes.  Those that already going with him to the marriage, and the door is shut.  Not long after come the other virgins, saying likewise:—

"Lord!  Lord!  Open to us."

And he answered them:—

"Of a truth, I say unto you, I know you not."

" Watch then," the Master concluded, "for you know neither the day nor the hour."

The foolish virgins. J-J Tissot.

Then reverting to the Prophecies which He had thus interrupted, He completed it by setting before them the scene of the last Judgment.

In presence of the celestial King, seated upon the throne of His majesty and encircled by Angels, all nations of earth shall be assembled together, and He shall separate them one from another, even as a shepherd separates the sheep from goats,— the sheep on his right hand, the goats on his left.  Then shall the former be gladdened by His loving words:—

"Come, you blessed of My Father, come hither and possess the Kingdom which hath been prepared for you before the foundation of the world."

And even at the same moment His malediction shall fall upon the goats:—

" Depart from Me, you curst, into that everlasting fire which hath been prepared for the Devil and his Spirits."

Then shall there arise between Heaven and Earth a solemn converse.  God Himself shall disclose the Glory of His Elect.

"I was hungry," He shall tell them, and you gave Me to eat; I was thirsty and you gave Me to drink; I was homeless and you gave Me shelter; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; in prison and you came two Me."

Overwhelmed by such praises and feeling that grace alone has been all-powerful in them, the righteous, in their humility, shall cast about how to esteem this their great merit.

"Lord," they shall say, "when did we ever see Thee hungry, and when did we ever give Thee food?"

" Of a truth," saith the Great King, "each time that you did it onto one of the very least of My brethren you did it and to Me."

And the just shall go into eternal life and the damned into punishment eternal.

Thereupon Jesus brought his long discourse to a close.

" You know," He said, "that the Passover takes place in two days, and that the Son of Man shall be delivered up to be crucified."

By these words He recalled His disciples' minds to what was being plotted against Him at that very hour in Jerusalem.  In fact the departure of the Christ had left the field free to His vanquished and humiliated foes; they could not wait for the morrow to deliberate upon their schemes of vengeance.  Pharisees, Sadducees, Priests, Scribes, Ancients of the people, all were resolved that this audacious man, who had made an open show of their shame, and was a perpetual menace to their peaceful relations with Rome, should be cut off from Israel.

To the south of Mount Sion rose a large palace, the residence of the High-Priests; it was there that the enemy's Jesus held their assembly and Caïphas presided over their deliberations.  The Pharisees brought with them all their habitual fanaticism, the Pontiffs evidence of their contempt for all belief in spiritual things, while Herod's courtiers only hoped to further their own political schemes.  The resolution passed was worthy of such the council.  Out of fear of the populace they decided to temporise until just after the festival ceremonies were completed, and then seizing the Christ of a sudden, to put Him to death; but an unforeseen incident altered these first plans and precipitated events.

Judas had not followed Jesus up the Mound of Olives; lingering in the porches he overheard a group of Temple-guards discussing how they might managed to arrest this troublesome Reformer, Who was powerful enough to hold in check the princes of the people.

" What will you give me," he asked them, " and I will deliver Him unto you?"

They recognised him as one of the Twelve who accompanied the Nazarene, and they at once proceeded to report this proposition to the Sanhedrin members.

Judas with the Chief Priests. J-J Tissot.

The latter welcomed the idea with great joy.  Judas, immediately introduced into their meeting, confirmed his offer, extending his hand to receive the wages of his crime.  He was treated indeed lack a common huckster, for the Jews, after much haggling over the sum, only allotted him thirty shekels, which was about the price of a slave.  Pitiful as this sum seemed, the Apostle seized it.  From that moment, says Saint Luke, "Satan entered into him." Two days later Judas betrayed his God.

Totus tuus ego sum

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:

Ad Jesum per Mariam.