PREDICTIONS OF THE GOSPEL.

No one is a prophet in his own land. — Death and passion of Jesus. — Persecution of the apostles. — Impenitent cities. — Ruin of the Temple and of Jerusalem. — Curse upon the Pharisees. — My words shall not pass away. — The cornerstone. — Parable of the murderous vinedressers. — One single flock and one single shepherd. — Advent of Elijah. — Announcement of the Consoler. — Second advent of the Christ. — Precursory signs. — Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. — Last judgment.

SECOND ADVENT OF THE CHRIST.

— Jesus then said to his disciples: If anyone would come in my footsteps, let him renounce himself, take up his cross, and follow me; for he who would save his life shall lose it, and he who shall lose his life for love of me shall find it again.

What would it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul? Or for what price could a man buy back his soul, after having lost it? For the Son of Man is to come in the glory of his Father, with his angels, and then he will give to each one according to his works.

I say to you, in truth, that some of those who are here present shall not suffer death without having seen the Son of Man come in his kingdom. (Saint Matthew, chapter XVI, vv. 24 to 28.)

— Then, rising up in the midst of the assembly, the high priest questioned Jesus thus: Do you answer nothing to what these men depose against you? But Jesus kept silent and answered nothing. The high priest questioned him again: Are you the Christ, the Son of the forever Blessed God? Jesus answered him: I am, and you shall one day see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the majesty of God and coming upon the clouds of heaven.

Whereupon the high priest, tearing his garments, said to him: What need have we of further witnesses? (Saint Mark, chapter XIV, vv. 60 to 63.)

— Jesus announces his second advent, but he does not say that he will return to the Earth with a carnal body, nor that he will personify the Consoler.

He presents himself as having to come in Spirit, in the glory of his Father, to judge merit and demerit and to give to each one according to his works, when the times shall have come.

These words: “There are some of those who are here present who shall not suffer death without having seen the Son of Man come in his reign,” seem to enclose a contradiction, for it is incontestable that he did not come during the lifetime of any of those who were present.

Jesus, however, could not be mistaken in a prediction of that nature and, above all, with respect to a contemporary matter that concerned him personally; 5 one must first inquire whether his words were always faithfully reproduced.

This is doubtful, once one considers that he wrote nothing; that they were recorded only after his death; that the same discourse each evangelist set down in different terms, which constitutes evident proof that the expressions they used are not textually those that Jesus used.

Furthermore, it is probable that the meaning underwent alterations in passing through successive translations.

On the other hand, it is indubitable that, if Jesus had said all that he could have said, he would have expressed himself on all things in a clear and precise manner, without giving room for any misunderstanding, as he did with respect to the principles of morality, whereas he was obliged to veil his thought concerning the matters that he did not judge it fitting to deepen.

Persuaded that the generation of which they were a part would witness what he announced, the disciples were led to interpret the thought of Jesus in accordance with that idea; thus it is that they wrote down from the point of view of the present what the Master had said, doing so in a more absolute manner than he himself would have done.

Be that as it may, the fact is that things did not come to pass as they had supposed.

— The great and important law of reincarnation was one of the principal points that Jesus could not develop, because the men of his time were not sufficiently prepared for ideas of that order and for their consequences; nevertheless, he laid down the principle of the said law, as he did with regard to all the rest.

Studied and brought into evidence in the present day by Spiritism, the law of reincarnation constitutes the key to the understanding of many passages of the Gospel that, without it, seem true absurdities.

It is by means of this law that the rational explanation of the above words is found, granting that they are textual.

Since they cannot be applied to the persons of the apostles, it is evident that they refer to the future reign of the Christ, that is, to the time when his doctrine, better understood, shall be universal law.

In saying that some of those present on that occasion would see his advent, he necessarily referred to those who will be living again in that epoch.

The Jews, however, imagined that it would be granted to them to see all that Jesus announced, and they took his allegorical phrases literally.

Moreover, some of his predictions were realized in due time, such as the ruin of Jerusalem, the misfortunes that followed it, and the dispersion of the Jews; 8 his vision, however, projected itself much farther, so that, when he spoke of the present, he always alluded to the future.