"FOR a right understanding of what the Gospels teach concerning the "last things" it is indispensable that the antecedents upon which that teaching was, in the first instance, based should be studied. Eschatology, like so many other things, went through a process of development before it assumed that form which the Gospels have made so familiar to us. No developed growth can be satisfactorily studied without knowing something about its earlier processes of formation and the conditions under which development took place. And ...
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"FOR a right understanding of what the Gospels teach concerning the "last things" it is indispensable that the antecedents upon which that teaching was, in the first instance, based should be studied. Eschatology, like so many other things, went through a process of development before it assumed that form which the Gospels have made so familiar to us. No developed growth can be satisfactorily studied without knowing something about its earlier processes of formation and the conditions under which development took place. And, therefore, if we wish to understand what the Gospels teach concerning the "end of the world," the first requisite is that we should have some idea of that earlier teaching upon which it is based. Where is this earlier teaching to be found? Firstly, in the Old Testament; secondly, and chiefly, in the Apocalyptic literature; and thirdly, though in a much less degree, in Rabbinical literature, wherein are re-echoed so many of the popular conceptions on this subject which were current in our Lord's day. It is the main object of the following pages to offer to the general reader some insight into what these three classes of literature have to say upon the subject under consideration."
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