Thirdly, there are a few passages which deserve special mention. Two of these are Christ's saying that (apparently) there would not be time to go through the cities of Israel before His Second Coming; and that some of His hearers would not die till the end of the world.[209] That such statements should have been composed in later years is out of the question; so we can only conclude that they were actually spoken by Christ. And they show that the Gospels must not only have been written when some of Christ's hearers were still alive, but that they could not have been revised afterwards; or the passages would not have been allowed to remain as they are. [Footnote 209: Matt. 10. 23; 16. 28; Mark 9. 1; Luke 9. 27; but some other texts imply the contrary--_e.g._, Matt. 21. 43; Mark 13. 7, 10; 14. 9; Luke 21. 24.] Another is the statement that the potter's field was called the field of blood _unto this day_;[210] which could scarcely have been written when the whole city was little more than a heap of ruins. Of course, on the other hand, it could not have been written immediately after the time of Christ, but twenty years would probably be a sufficient interval. [Footnote 210: Matt. 27. 8; see also 28. 15.] Fourthly, there is the prophetic description of the _fall of Jerusalem_ itself, which seems confused by the Evangelists with that of the Day of Judgment, St. Matthew saying, and both the others implying, that the one would immediately follow the other.[211] Had the Gospels been written after the former event, it is almost certain that the writers would have distinguished between the two; indeed, their not doing so is scarcely intelligible, unless we assume that when they wrote, both events were still future. [Footnote 211: Matt. 24. 3, 29; Mark 13. 24; Luke 21. 27.] And this is confirmed by the curious hint given to the readers both in Matthew and Mark to _understand_, and act on Christ's advice, and leave the city and go to the mountains, before the siege became too severe.[212] Plainly such a warning could not have been written _after_ the siege, when it would have been useless. It must have been written _before_; so if it is a later insertion, as it seems to be, it proves a still earlier date for the rest of the chapter. Moreover, none of the Evangelists have altered the passage, as later writers might have done, to make it agree with the event; since as far as we know, the Christians did not go to _the mountains_, but to Pella, a city in the Jordan valley.[213] [Footnote 212: Matt. 24. 16; Mark 13. 14; Luke 21. 21.] [Footnote 213: Eusebius, Hist., iii. 5.]