lively hatred requires some degree of relationship.

It was into this world of Jewish thought and practice that Jesus came
preaching in Galilee. The content of his preaching is given by Mark as
"Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." Therefore the two
questions of primary importance are the meaning of the Kingdom of
Heaven or Kingdom of God, and of repentance.

The phrase "the Kingdom of Heaven" is common in the later Jewish
literature and familiar in Christian ears. But it is not actually
found before the Christian era, though similar expressions were
customary, and the concept which it covers is often met with in the
{18} Old Testament. It means primarily the sovereignty of God in the
world, not a kingdom in the local sense, or even in the sense of an
organisation. Though in the Old Testament God is frequently referred
to as a king whose rule is universal even now, the dominion of a king
is not complete or perfect unless he be recognised by his subjects, and
the dominion of God is not yet thus recognised or submitted to
throughout the world. The Jewish view seems to have been that men had
fallen away from the rule of God in the days before Abraham, and that
when Abraham recognised the Lord as his God, then for him--but not for
others--the sovereignty of God was complete. Similarly, when Israel
recognised the Lord as their God there was a nation which accepted the
sovereignty of God. The time would come when all the world would make
this same recognition, but the day was not yet present, and there was
more than one opinion as to the probable course of events which would
lead up to it.

In general the Jews believed that the universal recognition of the
sovereignty of God would bring about, or would at least be coincident
with, the coming of the Golden Age, so frequently spoken of by the
prophets, and described with imaginative profusion in the apocalyptic
writings. But it is by no means always clear whether the Golden Age
was the condition or the result of the coming of the Kingdom. Would
the heathen, who knew not God, be converted or be exterminated? It is
not surprising if there was a {19} tendency to confuse the recognition
of the sovereignty of God with the phenomena attending it, and to speak
of the Kingdom of God when the conditions of its attainment were really
meant.

There were two special features in the Jewish expectation of the future
recognition of the sovereignty of God which wer