of Jerusalem: "Blindness is happened to Israel until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in" (Rom.
11:25). Must we therefore put the composition of Romans after a.d. 70? On the other hand, Luke
reports as clearly as Matthew and Mark the words of Christ, that "this generation shall not pass
away till all things" (the preceding prophecies) "shall be fulfilled" (Luke 21:32). Why did he not
omit this passage if he intended to interpose a larger space of time between the destruction of
Jerusalem and the end of the world?
The eschatological discourses of our Lord, then, are essentially the same in all the Synoptists,
and present the same difficulties, which can only be removed by assuming: (1) that they refer both
to the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the world, two analogous events, the former being
typical of the latter; (2) that the two events, widely distant in time, are represented in close proximity
of space after the manner of prophetic vision in a panoramic picture. We must also remember that
the precise date of the end of the world was expressly disclaimed even by the Son of God in the
days of his humiliation (Matt. 24:36; Mark 13:32), and is consequently beyond the reach of human
knowledge and calculation. The only difference is that Luke more clearly distinguishes the two
events by dividing the prophetical discourses and assigning them to different occasions (Luke
17:20–37 and 21:5–33); and here, as in other cases, he is probably more exact and in harmony with
several hints of our Lord that a considerable interval must elapse between the catastrophe of
Jerusalem and the final catastrophe of the world.
Place of Composition.
The third Gospel gives no hint as to the place of composition. Ancient tradition is uncertain,
and modern critics are divided between Greece,^1030 Alexandria,^1031 Ephesus,^1032 Caesarea,^1033 Rome.^1034
It was probably written in sections during the longer residence of the author at Philippi, Caesarea,
and Rome, but we cannot tell where it was completed and published.^1035§ 83. John.
See Literature on John, § 40, of this vol.; Life and Character of John, §§ 41–43, of this vol.; Theology
of John, § 72, pp. 549 sqq.
The best comes last. The fourth Gospel is the Gospel of Gospels, the holy of holies in the New
Testament. The favorite disciple and bosom friend of Christ, the protector of his mother, the survivor
of the apostolic age was pre-eminently qualified by nature and grace to give to the church the inside
view of that most wonderful person that ever walked on earth. In his early youth he had absorbed
the deepest words of his Master, and treasured them in a faithful heart; in extreme old age, yet with
the fire and vigor of manhood, he reproduced them under the influence of the Holy Spirit who dwelt
in him and led him, as well as the other disciples, into "the whole truth."(^1030) Jerome: Achaia and Boeotia; Hilgenfeld (in 1858): Achaia or Macedonia; Godet (in his first ed.): Corinth, in the house of
Gaius (Rom. 16:23), but more indefinitely in the second ed.: Achaia.
(^1031) The Peshito, which gives the title: "Gospel of Luke the Evangelist, which he published and preached in Greek in Alexandria
the Great."
(^1032) Köstlin and Overbeck, also Hilgenfeld in 1875 (Einleit., p. 612).
(^1033) Michaelis, Kuinöl, Schott, Thiersch, and others.
(^1034) Hug, Ewald, Zeller, Holtzmann, Keim, Davidson.
(^1035) Weiss, in the sixth ed. of Meyer (p. 244) "Wo das Evang. geschrieben sei, ist völlig unbekannt."
A.D. 1-100.