And first, with respect to time.  The first three gospels—­frequently called the synoptical gospels, or the synoptics, because from the general similarity of their plan and materials their contents are capable of being summed up in a synopsis—­record our Lord’s prophecy of the overthrow of Jerusalem.  The three records of this prediction wear throughout the costume of a true prophecy, not of a prophecy written after the event.  They are occupied, almost exclusively, with the various signs by which the approach of that great catastrophe might be known, and with admonitions to the disciples to hold themselves in readiness for it.  Matthew, for example, devotes fifty verses to the account of the prophecy and the admonitions connected with it.  Of these, only four, chap. 24:19-22, describe the calamities of the scene, and that in the most general terms.  Now, upon the supposition that the evangelist wrote before the event, all this is natural.  Our Lord’s design in uttering the prophecy was not to gratify the idle curiosity of the disciples, but to warn them beforehand in such a way that they might escape the horrors of the impending catastrophe.  He dwelt, therefore, mainly on the signs of its approach; and with these, as having a chief interest for the readers, the record of the prediction is mostly occupied.  It is impossible, on the other hand, to conceive that one who wrote years after the destruction of the city and temple should not have dwelt in more detail on the bloody scenes connected with their overthrow, and have given in other ways also a historic coloring to his account.  We may safely say that to write a prophecy after the event in such a form as that which we have in either of the first three gospels, transcends the power of any uninspired man; and as to inspired narratives, the objectors with whom we are now dealing deny them altogether.

But there are, in the record of this prophecy, some special indications of the time when the evangelists wrote.  According to Matthew, the disciples asked, ver. 3:  “When shall these things”—­the destruction of the buildings of the temple—­“be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming and of the end of the world?” These questions our Lord proceeded to answer in such a way that the impression on the minds of the hearers (to be rectified only by the course of future events) must have been that the overthrow of the temple and city would be connected with his second coming and the end of the world.  “Immediately after the tribulation of those days,” says Matthew, “shall the sun be darkened,” etc.  The probable explanation of this peculiar form of the prophecy is that it does actually include all three events; the fulfilment which it had in the destruction of the city and temple by the Romans being only an earnest of a higher fulfilment hereafter.  But however this may be, it is important to notice that the evangelists, in their record of the prophecy, are evidently unconscious of any discrepancy, real or apparent, that needs explanation; which could not have been the case had they written years after the event predicted.  “It may be safely held,” says Professor Fisher, Supernatural Origin of Christianity, p. 172, “that had the evangelist been writing at a later time, some explanation would have been thrown in to remove the seeming discrepancy between prophecy and fulfilment.”