It must be emphasized that this is, at the moment, an historical hypothesis, not a theological construct. I am suggesting that Jesus saw Israel as courting political and historical disaster by that national ambition which would lead Rome to crush it, as so many other peoples had been crushed; and that he identified himself, as a matter of vocation, with Israel. In that context it would be a matter of logic, not of ‘supernatural’ prophecy (and hence not, either, of a vaticinium after the event), that