Kant uttered this profound word at the moment when the correspondence of the notion of transcendental freedom with the practical first occurred to him. The case is the same with the relation of Jesus’ ethics to his eschatology. It is a postulate of our Christian conviction that the ethics of Jesus in its basic thoughts is modern. Hence we come back again and again to the search after the modern element in his ethics, and for this cause we force into the background his eschatology, [pg 122] since it appears to us unmodern. If, however, one resolves to ignore for a moment this interest, which is so deeply grounded in our being and so well justified, and regards the relation of Jesus’ eschatology to his ethics simply for itself, as a purely historical question, the investigation brings to light the astonishing result that the latter (i. e. Jesus’ ethics) is modern in a far higher degree than any one hitherto has dared to hope. Jesus’ ethics is modern, not because the eschatology can be reduced somehow to a mere accompaniment, but precisely because the ethics is absolutely dependent upon this eschatology! The fact is, this eschatology itself, as it is exhibited in the secret of the Kingdom of God, is thoroughly modern, inasmuch as it is dominated by the thought that the Kingdom of God is to come by reason of the religious-moral renovation which the believers perform. _Every moral-religious performance is therefore labour for the coming of the Kingdom of God._ As the eschatology in this ethical-eschatological Weltanschauung gradually faded in the course of history, there remained an ethical Weltanschauung in which the eschatology persisted in the form of an imperishable faith in the final triumph of the good. The [pg 123] secret of the Kingdom of God contains the secret of the whole Christian Weltanschauung. The ethical eschatology of Jesus is the _heroic form_ in which the modern-Christian Weltanschauung first entered into history! [pg 124] CHAPTER V THE SECRET OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD IN THE THOUGHT OF THE PASSION IN the last period of his life Jesus again uttered parables of the Kingdom of God: God’s vineyard (Mt 21:33-46); the royal marriage (Mt 22:1-14); the servant watching (Mt 24:42-47); the ten virgins (Mt 25:1-13); the talents (Mt 25:14-30). These parables, in contrast to those about the secret of the Kingdom, contain no secret, but rather they are teaching parables pure and simple, from which a moral is to be drawn. The Kingdom of God is near. Those only will be found to belong to it who by their moral conduct are prepared for it.