ABSTRACT
IN approaching this subject it is necessary to resist the temptation of making definite statements and of over-systematization. For the contemporaries of Jesus had neither evolved a fixed eschatological doctrine nor systematized the various beliefs that were current among them. Different writers would uphold different theories, according to the particular influences to which they had been subjected, but the theories themselves were not well established. If passages dealing with the subject seem vague and hesitant, it is because they reflect a real vagueness and hesitancy in the thought of the time. There was as much confusion concerning the destiny of the world as concerning that of man. Another temptation is to assume a priori that the lines of thought which prevailed later because they had the force of Christianity behind them, were already in control at the time of Jesus' birth. It would be quite misleading to suppose that Jewish thought and Jewish literature viewed the coming of the Messiah in just the same way as the New Testament.
