with the promise of the Parousia and are placed in the closest connexion with that event. In the fourth place, because the description of that which is to befall the disciples is quite without any basis in experience, A time of general dissension will begin, in which brothers will rise up sgainst brothers, and fathers against sons and children against their Parents to cause them to be put to death (Matt. x. 21). And the disciples Mall be hated of all men for His name's sake." Let them strive to hold out to the "end," that is, to the coming of the Son of Man, in order that they may be saved (Matt. x. 22).
But why should they suddenly be hated and persecuted for the name of Jesus, seeing that this name played no part whatever in their preaching? That is simply inconceivable. The relation of Jesus to the Son of Man, the fact, that is to say, that it is He who is to be manifested as Son of Man, must therefore in some way or other become known in the interval; not, however, through the disciples, but by some other means of revelation. A kind of supernatural illumination will suddenly make known all that Jesus has been keeping secret regarding the Kingdom of God and His position in the Kingdom. This illumination will arise as suddenly and without preparation as the spirit of strife.
And as a matter of fact Jesus predicts to the disciples in the same discourse that to their own surprise a supernatural wisdom will suddenly speak from their lips, so that it will be not they but the Spirit of God who will answer the great ones of the earth. As the Spirit is for Jesus and early Christian theology something concrete which is to descend upon the elect among mankind only in consequence of a definite event-the outpouring of the Spirit which, according to the prophecy of Joel, should precede the day of judgment-Jesus must have anticipated that this would occur during the absence of the disciples, in the midst of the time of strife and confusion.
To put it differently; the whole of the discourse at the sending forth of the Twelve, taken in the clear sense of the words, is a prediction of the events of the "time of the end," events which are immediately at hand, in which the supernatural eschatological course of history will break through into the natural course. The expectation of sufferings is therefore doctrinal and unhistorical, as is, precisely in the same way, the expectation of the pouring forth of the Spirit uttered at the same time. The Parousia of the Son of Man is to be preceded according to the Messianic dogma by a time of strife and confusion-as it were, the birth-throes of the Messiah-and the outpouring of the Spirit. It should be noticed that according to Joel ii. and iii. the outpouring of the Spirit, along with the miraculous signs, forms the prelude to the judgment; and also, that in the same context, Joel iii. 13, the judgment
