Belief that Jews’ mass conversion must precede the end of the world drove missions

Evidence

In addition to attempts to correct the ways of the Eastern Christians (as missionary-minded folk in the West saw the matter), for centuries to come other Christian missionaries worked on the conversion of the Jews, for many believed that the total conversion of the Jews was a necessary precondition for the end of the world. (This was a period when the pious actually looked forward to the end of the world with some enthusiasm.) — Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing, 122

Categorization

• XREF: Theology-driven eschatological temporality echoes themes of end-times expectation in Parable of the Sower’s apocalyptic framing.