Page:Lives of the apostles of Jesus Christ (1836).djvu/430

 treasure together only for the last days. The brethren therefore, had but a little time to wait for the coming of the Lord. Both of these two latter expressions point very clearly at the destruction of Jerusalem,—for this is the uniform reference which these terms had, in those days, among the Christians. Jesus had promised his chosen disciples, that their generation should not pass away, till all those awful calamities which he denounced on the Jewish state, should be fulfilled; and for this event all his suffering followers were now looking, as the seal of the truth of Christ's word. Searching in the history of the times, a few years previous to that final desolation, it is found in the testimony of impartial writers, that these were the too faithful details of the evils which then raged in Palestine. "For, under Felix, and again under Portius Festus, desperate patriots marched through the country, in whole bodies, and forcibly tore away with them the inhabitants of open places, and if they would not follow them, set fire to the villages, and enacted bloody scenes. They even made their appearance in the capital and at the feasts, where they mixed among the crowd of people, and committed many secret assassinations with concealed weapons. As to that which regards the external circumstances and the civil condition of the Jews and Jewish Christians, they were far from being agreeable. The praetors, under all manner of pretexts, made extortions, and abused their legal authority for the sake of enriching themselves; a person was obliged to purchase with money his liberation from their prisons, as well as his safety and his rights; he might even purchase a license to commit crimes. In this state, under these circumstances, and in this degree of civil disorder, the author might probably have regarded his countrymen; for, although he wrote to the whole world, yet his native land passed more immediately before his eyes."

For the sources, and for the minuter proofs and illustrations of these views, see Hug's Introduction, as translated by Wait, Vol. II. §§ 148-159.

In the immediate consideration of all these present iniquities and coming desolations, he wrote to prepare the believing Jews, in Palestine more particularly, but also throughout the world, for the overwhelming consummation of their nation's destiny. Terrible as would be this doom, to the wicked, and mournful as would be these national desolations, to all, the righteous should find consolations in the peaceful establishment of the spiritual kingdom of their Lord, over the ruins of the dominion of his murderers,—of those who had "condemned and killed the just One, though he