Greg shows that much of Old Testament history, like Deuteronomy, is presented in the form of anticipatory narrative. To the Christian argument that the Messianic predictions, at least, were written long anterior to the time of Christ, he replies: "This is true, and the argument would have all the force which is attributed to it, were the objectors able to lay their fingers on a single Old Testament prediction clearly referring to Jesus Christ, intended by the utterers of it to relate to him, prefiguring his character and career, and manifestly fulfilled in his appearance on earth. This they cannot do. Most of the passages usually adduced as complying with these conditions, referred, and were clearly intended to refer, to eminent individuals in Israelitish history; many are not prophecies at all; the Messiah, the anointed deliverer, expected by the Jews, hoped for and called for by their poets and prophets, was of a character so different, and a career so opposite, to those of the meek, lowly, long-suffering Jesus, that the passages describing the one never could have been applied to the other, without a perversion of ingenuity, and a disloyal treatment of their obvious signification, which, if employed in any other field than that of theology, would have met with the prompt discredit and derision they deserve" (Creed of Christendom, pp. 135, 136). 495 His own prescience is cited in proof of his divinity. The destruction of the temple by the Romans, it is claimed, was a wonderful instance of the fulfillment of prophecy. But did his so-called prophecy have reference to this event? No one can read this prophecy (Matthew xxiv, 1-3) and then honestly contend that it did. He clearly refers to his second coming and the end of the world when the temple, in common with all sublunary things, shall be destroyed. In the verse immediately following this prediction, his disciples say: "Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?" But even if this so-called prophecy had referred to this event it is rendered nugatory by the fact that the book containing it was not composed until a hundred years after the destruction of the temple. 496 When was Christ's second coming and the end of terrestrial things to take place? "There be some standing here that shall not taste of death till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom" (Matthew xvi, 28). "This generation shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled" (Luke xxi, 32). Seventy-five generations have passed, and still the world rolls on, unmoved by Christ's and Mother Shipton's prophecies. 497 Did the Apostles believe that the second coming of Christ and the end of the world were at hand? Peter: "The end of all things is at hand" (1 Peter iv, 7). James: "The coming of the Lord draweth nigh" (James v, 8).