Note 86 — Chapter I · RELATION OF JESUS TO THE IDEA OF A SUFFERING AND DYING MESSIAH; HIS DISCOURSES ON HIS DEATH, RESURRECTION, AND SECOND ADVENT.

According to Kern, the appearing of the Son of Man in the clouds, signifies “the manifestation of everything which forms so great an epoch in the development of the history of mankind, that from it, the agency of Christ, who is the governing power in the history of mankind, may be as clearly recognised as if the sign of Christ were seen in the heavens. The mourning of all the tribes of the earth is to be understood of the sorrow with which men will be visited, owing to the judgment, κρίσις, which accompanies the propagation of the kingdom of Christ, as consisting in an expulsion of ungodliness out of the world, and the annihilation of the old man.” Still further does Weisse allow himself to be carried away by the allegorizing propensity: Christ “commiserates those who are with child and who give suck, i.e. those who would still labour and produce in the old order of things; he further pities those whose flight falls in the winter, i.e. in a rude, inhospitable period, which bears no fruit for the spirit.” (Die evang. Gesch. 2, s. 592.) ↑