No other sayings of Jesus as to Hades have come down to us which add anything essential to the view presented in the narrative of Lazarus. The words of Jesus to the thief on the cross, "To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise," where under paradise is understood the place of happiness in Hades, occur only in Luke (xxii. 43). When Jesus, as reported by the Logia, declared of Capernaum, that, though exalted to heaven, it would be thrust down to Hades, He uses the term Hades-as denoting a far-down subterranean region-figuratively to express a position of the utmost abasement. Also in those words to Peter, which we may consider as perhaps reliably recorded, "Thou art Rock, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against thee" (Matt. xvi. 18);1 "the gates of Hades," which keep irrevocably all who pass through them into the realm of the dead, is a popular expression for the greatest steadfastness.

6. Finally, we have, in this connection, to consider the ideas of Jesus relative to the events of past history. These are confined to the historical occurrences recorded in the Old Testament; and here also there is but one point that is specially noteworthy. Jesus has found no occasion, in connection with His work, to apply criticism to the historical traditions which were unquestioningly received by His country

men.

He refers to the murder of Abel (Luke xi. 51; cf. John viii. 44); to the deluge, and the destruction of Sodom (Luke xvii. 26 ff.; cf. x. 12); to the introduction of circumcision by the patriarchs, and its sanction by Moses (John vii. 22); to the joy of 1 Cf. Log. § 47, L. J. i. p. 180 f.

Abraham at receiving the Messianic promise (John viii. 56); to the vision seen by Moses at the burning bush (Mark xii. 26); to the eating of manna in the wilderness (John vi. 49, 58; cf. ver. 31 ff.); to the lifting up of the brazen serpent by Moses (John iii. 14); to David's partaking of the shewbread in the house of God (Mark ii. 25 f.); to Solomon's glory (Matt. vi. 29); and to the visit of the Queen of Sheba in order to hear his wisdom (Luke xi. 31); to the sending of Elias to the widow of Sarepta, and to the healing of the leprosy of Naaman by Elisha (Luke iv. 25 ff.); to the preaching of righteousness by the prophet Jonas to the Ninevites (Luke xi. 29, 30, 32); to the continuous persecution of the prophets by the Israelites, down to the murder of Zachariah in the temple court (2 Chron. xxiv. 21) at the close of the Old Testament period (Luke xi. 47-51; xiii. 33 f.). To this simple reception of the historical material handed down in the Old Testament, naturally corresponds the adoption of the traditional ideas in regard to the origin of the Old Testament writings. For Jesus, Moses is the author of the whole legal system (Mark i. 44; vii. 10; x. 3 ff.; xii. 26); David is the writer of Ps. cx. (Mark xii. 36).

Wherever, in short, the ideas of Jesus in regard to the natural order and previous history of the world are brought under consideration, the view finds confirmation that He has never sought to investigate, correct, or extend those ideas. He had to employ them in His teaching, but He has not made them special themes of that teaching. He has accepted them as they were given to Him and His compatriots

through simple observation or through tradition. He did not so accept them in order to give them the sanction of revelation, but only to concentrate the attention of Himself and His hearers wholly upon that which formed the true theme of His revealed message, the gospel of the kingdom of God.

THIRD SECTION.

PREACHING OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD IN
GENERAL.

CHAP. I. THE THEME OF THE PREACHING OF JESUS, AND ITS DETAILS IN GENERAL.

1. At the beginning of his narrative Mark describes the substance of the preaching with which Jesus set out, as follows (i. 14 f.): "Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand repent ye, and believe in the gospel." The glad tidings which Jesus proclaimed were tidings of the kingdom of God. In delivering this message, He, on the one hand, proclaimed the fact that the kingdom was beginning to be set up; and, on the other hand, He announced the requirements to be fulfilled in view of that fact. The whole contents of the teaching of Jesus can be classed under this general theme and the two points of view from which He expounded it. His preaching in regard to the kingdom of God contained, partly, instruction as to the existence of the kingdom, its nature, its realisation and development; and partly, exhortations to

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the fulfilment of the conditions of membership. For Jesus sought to impart no mere theoretical knowledge of the kingdom of God as something of no personal concern to the hearers. His object was to establish that kingdom practically among His hearers; and therefore He continually aimed at inciting them to become members of it. Although, in the discourses of the fourth Gospel, this title of "the kingdom of God" occurs only in one place (iii. 3 and 5), yet, in reality, the whole contents of those discourses, their testimony to His Messiahship, and their exhortations to faith in Him, can be ranked under the general subject of the kingdom of God, and the two aspects under which He expounded it.

The idea of the kingdom of God was familiar to the Jews in the time of Jesus. For them it signified that condition of things which would insure the realisation of God's kingship over His people (Dan. ii. 44), after which the pious in Israel ever aspired as the normal relation between them and God (Ex. xix. 6). Along with this they expected the fulfilment of the promises of the Old Testament and all the religious hopes of the Jewish people.' But though Jesus took this well-known idea as the central point of His preaching, and proclaimed that the kingdom of God was at hand, He was quite aware from the first

As to the employment of the term kingship or kingdom of God by the Israelites of the earlier period, as well as those of Christ's own time, cf. Schürer in the Jahrbüchern für protestantische Theologie, 1876, p. 166 ff., and History of the Jewish People, ii. p. 453 (trans. Div. II. vol. ii. p. 170); Cremer, Bibl. Theol. Lexicon of N. T. Greek, under the word βασιλεία.