Jesus’ ethics is closely connected with that of the Old Testament prophets, inasmuch as [pg 113] both are alike conditioned by the expectation of a state of perfection which God is to bring about. But also the secret of the Kingdom of God, according to which the moral renewal hastens the supernatural coming of the Kingdom, corresponds with the fundamental thought of the Prophets. In the case of the Prophets, the relation between the moral reform which they would bring about and the glorious condition which God will bring to pass at the Day of Judgment is not that of a mere temporal sequence, but it rests upon a supernatural causal connection. Godless behaviour brings nearer the Day of Judgment and of condemnation. Therefore, God chastises the people and gives them into the hand of their oppressors. When, however, they determine to reform their ways, when they seek refuge in him alone with trusting faith, when righteousness and truth prevail among them, then will the Lord deliver them from their oppressors, and his glory will be manifest over Israel, to whom the heathen will do service. In that day there will then be peace poured out over the whole world, over nature as well as man. After the Exile this thought was still operative in the conception of the Law. By the observance of the Law the promised glorious [pg 114] estate will be wrung from God. Not the individual but the collectivity influences God through the Law. This generic mode of thought is the primary, the individual mode is secondary. “Israel would be redeemed if only it observed two Sabbaths faithfully.” (Schabbath 118_b_. Wünsche, _System der altsynagogalen Palästinensischen Theologie,_ 1880, p. 299). Here we meet with the early prophetic thought in legalistic form. In general, however, it was the individualistic view which prevailed later. The Law, and moral conduct in general, were only the preparation for the expected estate of glory. The lively generic view of the Prophets was replaced by individualistic and lifeless conception. Eschatology became a problem of accounting and ethics became casuistry. Jesus, however, reached back after the fundamental conception of the prophetic period, and it is only the _form_ in which he conceives of the emergence of the final event which bears the stamp of later Judaism. He no longer conceives of it as an intervention of God in the history of the nations, as did the Prophets; but rather as a final cosmical catastrophe. His eschatology is the apocalyptic [pg 115] of the book of Daniel, since the Kingdom is to be brought about by the Son of Man when he appears upon the clouds of heaven (Mk 8:38- 9:1).