Jesus never indulged in such precise details. When he was interrogated as to the time of his advent, he always refused to reply; once even he declared that the date of this great day was known only by the Father, who had revealed it neither to the angels nor to the Son.[1] He said that the time when the kingdom of God was most anxiously expected, was just that in which it would not appear.[2] He constantly repeated that it would be a surprise, as in the times of Noah and of Lot; that we must be on our guard, always ready to depart; that each one must watch and keep his lamp trimmed as for a wedding procession, which arrives unforeseen;[3] that the Son of man would come like a thief, at an hour when he would not be expected;[4] that he would appear as a flash of lightning, running from one end of the heavens to the other.[5] But his declarations on the nearness of the catastrophe leave no room for any equivocations.[6] "This generation," said he, "shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled. There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom."[7] He reproaches those who do not believe in him, for not being able to read the signs of the future kingdom. "When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather; for the sky is red. And in the morning, It will be foul weather to-day; for the sky is red and lowering. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?"[8] By an illusion common to all great reformers, Jesus imagined the end to be much nearer than it really was; he did not take into account the slowness of the movements of humanity; he thought to realize in one day that which, eighteen centuries later, has still to be accomplished. [Footnote 1: Matt. xxiv. 36; Mark xiii. 32.] [Footnote 2: Luke xvii. 20. Comp. Talmud of Babyl., _Sanhedrim_, 97 _a_.] [Footnote 3: Matt. xxiv. 36, and following; Mark xiii. 32, and following; Luke xii. 35, and following, xvii. 20, and following.] [Footnote 4: Luke xii. 40; 2 Peter iii. 10.] [Footnote 5: Luke xvii. 24.] [Footnote 6: Matt. x. 23, xxiv., xxv. entirely, and especially xxiv. 29, 34; Mark xiii. 30; Luke xiii. 35, xxi. 28, and following.] [Footnote 7: Matt. xvi. 28, xxiii. 36, 39, xxiv. 34; Mark viii. 39; Luke ix. 27, xxi. 32.] [Footnote 8: Matt. xvi. 2-4; Luke xii. 54-56.]