(Extract from Paley’s“Evidences.”—Part III.,Chapter 1. “The Discrepancies between the Gospels.”)
“I know not a more rash or unphilosophical conduct of the understanding, than to reject the substance of a story, by reason of some diversity in the circumstances with which it is related. The usual character of human testimony is substantial truth under circumstantial variety. This is what the daily experience of courts of justice teaches. When accounts of a transaction come from the mouths of different witnesses, it is seldom that it is not possible to pick out apparent or real inconsistencies between them. These inconsistencies are studiously displayed by an adverse pleader, but oftentimes with little impression upon the minds of the judges. On the contrary, close and minute agreement induces the suspicion of confederacy and fraud. When written histories touch upon the same scenes of action, the comparison almost always affords ground for a like reflection. Numerous and sometimes important variations present themselves; not seldom, also, absolute and final contradictions; yet neither one nor the other are deemed sufficient to shake the credibility of the main fact. The embassy of the Jews to deprecate the execution of Claudian’s order to place his statue in their temple Philo places in harvest, Josephus in seed-time, both contemporary writers. No reader is led by this inconsistency to doubt whether such an embassy was sent, or whether such an order was given. Our own history supplies examples of the same kind. In the account of the Marquis of Argyll’s death in the reign of Charles II., we have a very remarkable contradiction. Lord Clarendon relates that he was condemned to be hanged, which was performed the same day; on the contrary, Burnet, Woodrow, Heath, Echard, concur in stating that he was condemned upon the Saturday, and executed upon a Monday.[158a]Was any reader of English history ever sceptic enough to raise from hence a question, whether the Marquis of Argyll was executed or not? Yet this ought to be left in uncertainty, according to the principles upon which the Christian religion has sometimes been attacked. Dr. Middleton contended that the different hours of the day assigned to the Crucifixion of Christ by John and the other Evangelists, did not admit of the reconcilement which learned men had proposed; and then concludes the discussion with this hard remark: ‘We must be forced, with several of the critics, to leave the difficulty just as we found it, chargeable with all the consequences of manifest inconsistency.’[158b]But what are these consequences? By no means the discrediting of the history as to the principal fact, by a repugnancy (even supposing that repugnancy not to be resolvable into different modes of computation) in the time of the day in which it is said to have taken place.
“A great deal of the discrepancy observable in the Gospels arises fromomission; from a fact or a passage of Christ’s life being noticed by one writer, which is unnoticed by another. Now, omission is at all times a very uncertain ground of objection. We perceive it not only in the comparison of different writers, but even in the same writer, when compared with himself. There are a great many particulars, and some of them of importance, mentioned by Josephus in his Antiquities, which as we should have supposed, ought to have been put down by him in their place in the Jewish Wars.[159a]Suetonius, Tacitus, Dion Cassius have all three written of the reign of Tiberius. Each has mentioned many things omitted by the rest,[159b]yet no objection is from thence taken to the respective credit of their histories. We have in our own times, if there were not something indecorous in the comparison, the life of an eminent person, written by three of his friends, in which there is very great variety in the incidents selected by them, some apparent, and perhaps some real, contradictions: yet without any impeachment of the substantial truth of their accounts, of the authenticity of the books, of the competent information or general fidelity of the writers.
“But these discrepancies will be still more numerous, when men do not write histories, butmemoirs; which is perhaps the true name and proper description of our Gospels; that is, when they do not undertake, or ever meant to deliver, in order of time, a regular and complete account ofallthe things of importance which the person who is the subject of their history did or said; but only, out of many similar ones, to give such passages, or such actions and discourses, as offered themselves more immediately to their attention, came in the way of their enquiries, occurred to their recollection, or were suggested by theirparticular designat the time of writing.
“This particular design may appear sometimes, but not always, nor often. Thus I think that the particular design which St. Matthew had in view whilst he was writing the history of the Resurrection, was to attest the faithful performance of Christ’s promise to his disciples to go before them into Galilee; because he alone, except Mark, who seems to have taken it from him, has recorded this promise, and he alone has confined his narrative to that single appearance to the disciples which fulfilled it. It was the preconcerted, the great and most public manifestation of our Lord’s person. It was the thing which dwelt upon St. Matthew’s mind, and he adapted his narrative to it. But, that there is nothing in St. Matthew’s language which negatives other appearances, or which imports that this his appearance to his disciples in Galilee, in pursuance of his promise, was his first or only appearance, is made pretty evident by St. Mark’s Gospel, which uses the same terms concerning the appearance in Galilee as St. Matthew uses, yet itself records two other appearances prior to this: ‘Go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see him, as he said unto you’ (xvi., 7). We might be apt to infer from these words, that this was thefirsttime they were to see him: at least, we might infer it with as much reason as we draw the inference from the same words in Matthew; yet the historian himself did not perceive that he was leading his readers to any such conclusion, for in the twelfth and two following verses of this chapter, he informs us of two appearances, which, by comparing the order of events, are shown to have been prior to the appearance in Galilee. ‘He appeared in another form unto two of them, as they walked, and went into the country: and they went and told it unto the residue: neither believed they them. Afterward He appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief, because they believed not them which had seen Him after He was risen.’ Probably the same observation, concerning theparticular designwhich guided the historian, may be of use in comparing many other passages of the Gospels.”
[My brother’s work, which has been interrupted by the letter and extract just given, will now be continued. What follows should be considered as coming immediately after the preceding chapter.—W. B. O.]
Butthere is a much worse set of notes than those on the twenty-eighth chapter of St. Matthew, and so important is it that we should put an end to such a style of argument, and get into a manner which shall commend itself to sincere and able adversaries, that I shall not apologise for giving them in full here. They refer to the spear wound recorded in St. John’s Gospel as having been inflicted upon the body of our Lord.
The passage in St. John’s Gospel stands thus (John xix., 32–37)—“Then came the soldiers and brake the legs of the first and of the other which was crucified with Him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was dead already they brake not His legs: but one of the soldiers with a spear pierced His side, and forthwith came there out blood and water. And he that saw it bare record, and we know that his record is true, and he knoweth that he saith true that ye might believe. For these things were done that the Scripture should be fulfilled, ‘A bone of Him shall not be broken’ and again another Scripture saith, ‘They shall look on Him whom they pierced.’”
In his note upon the thirty-fourth verse Dean Alford writes—“The lance must have penetrated deep, for the object was toensuredeath.” Now what warrant is there for either of these assertions? We are told that the soldiers saw that our Lord was dead already, and that for this reason they did not break his legs: if there had been any doubt about His being dead can we believe that they would have hesitated? There is ample proof of the completeness of the death in the fact that those whose business it was to assure themselves of its having taken place were so satisfied that they would be at no further trouble; what need to kill a dead man? If there had been any question as to the possibility of life remaining, it would not have been resolved by the thrust of the spear, but in a way which we must shudder to think of. It is most painful to have had to write the foregoing lines, but are they not called for when we see a man so well intentioned and so widely read as the late Dean Alford condescending to argument which must only weaken the strength of his cause in the eyes of those who have not yet been brought to know the blessings and comfort of Christianity? From the words of St. John no one can say whether the wound was a deep one, or why it was given—yet the Dean continues, “and see John xx., 27,” thereby implying that the wound must have been large enough for Thomas to get his hand into it, because our Lord says, “reach hither thine hand and thrust it into my side.” This is simply shocking. Words cannot be pressed in this way. Dean Alford then says that the spear was thrust “probably into theleftside on account of the position of the soldier” (no one can arrive at the position of the soldier, and no one would attempt to do so, unless actuated by a nervous anxiety to direct the spear into the heart of the Redeemer), “and of what followed” (the Dean here implies that the water must have come from the pericardium; yet in his next note we are led to infer that he rejects this supposition, inasmuch as the quantity of water would have been “so small as to have scarcely been observed”). Is this fair and manly argument, and can it have any other effect than to increase the scepticism of those who doubt?
Here this note ends. The next begins upon the words “blood and water.”
“The spear,” says the Dean, “perhaps pierced the pericardium or envelope of the heart” (but why introduce a “perhaps” when there is ample proof of the death without it?), “in which case a liquid answering to the description of water may have” (mayhave) “flowed with the blood, but the quantity would have been so small as scarcely to have been observed” (yet in the preceding note he has led us to suppose that he thinks the water “probably” came from near the heart). “It is scarcely possible that the separation of the blood into placenta and serum should have taken place so soon, or that if it had, it should have been described by an observe as blood and water. It is more probable that the fact here so strongly testified was a consequence of the extreme exhaustion of the body of the Redeemer.” (Now if this is the case, the spear-wound does not prove the death of Him on whom it was inflicted, and Dean Alford has weakened a strong case for nothing.) “The medical opinions on the subject are very various and by no means satisfactory.” Satisfactory! What does Dean Alford mean by satisfactory? If the evidence does not go to prove that the spear-wound must have been necessarily fatal why not have said so at once, and have let the whole matter rest in the obscurity from which no human being can remove it. The wound may have been severe or may not have been severe, it may have been given in mere wanton mockery of the dead King of the Jews, for the indignity’s sake: or it may have been the savage thrust of an implacable foe, who would rejoice at the mutilation of the dead body of his enemy: none can say of what nature it was, nor why it was given; but the object of its having been recorded is no mystery, for we are expressly told that it was in order to shewthat prophecy was thus fulfilled: the Evangelist tells us so in the plainest language: he even goes farther, for he says that these things weredonefor this end (not only that they wererecorded)—so that the primary motive of the Almighty in causing the soldier to be inspired with a desire to inflict the wound is thus graciously vouchsafed to us, and we have no reason to harrow our feelings by supposing that a deeper thrust was given than would suffice for the fulfilment of the prophecy. May we not then well rest thankful with the knowledge which the Holy Spirit has seen fit to impart to us, without causing the weak brother to offend by our special pleading?
The reader has now seen the two first of Dean Alford’s notes upon this subject, and I trust he will feel that I have used no greater plainness, and spoken with no greater severity than the case not only justifies but demands. We can hardly suppose that the Dean himself is not firmly convinced that our Lord died upon the Cross, but there are millions who are not convinced, and whose conviction should be the nearest wish of every Christian heart. How deeply, therefore, should we not grieve at meeting with a style of argument from the pen of one of our foremost champions, which can have no effect but that of making the sceptic suspect that the evidences for the death of our Lord are felt, even by Christians, to be insufficient. For this is what it comes to.
Let us, however, go on to the note on John xix., 35, that is to say on St. John’s emphatic assertion of the truth of what he is recording. The note stands thus, “This emphatic assertion of the fact seems rather to regard the whole incident than the mere outflowing of the blood and water. It was the object of John to shew that the Lord’s body was areal bodyandunderwent real death.” (This is not John’s own account—supposing that John is the writer of the fourth Gospel—either of his own object in recording, or yet of the object of the wound’s having been inflicted; his words, as we have seen above, run thus:—“and he that saw it bare record, and we know that his record is true; and he knoweth that he saith true that ye might believe.For these things were done that the Scripture should be fulfilledwhich saith ‘a bone of him shall not be broken,’ and, again, another Scripture saith, ‘they shall look upon’ him whom they pierced.’” Who shall dare to say that St. John had any other object than to show that the event which he relates had been long foreseen, and foretold by the words of the Almighty?) And both these were shewn by what took place,not so much by the phenomenon of the water and blood” (then here we have it admitted that so much disingenuousness has been resorted to for no advantage, inasmuch as the fact of the water and blood having flowed is notper seproof of a necessarily fatal wound) “as by the infliction of such a wound” (Such a wound! What can be the meaning of this? What has Dean Alford made clear about the wound? We know absolutely nothing about the severity or intention of the wound, and it is mere baseless conjecture and assumption to say that we do; neither do we know anything concerning its effect unless it be shewn that the issuing of the blood and waterprovethat death must have ensued, and this Dean Alford has just virtually admitted to be not shewn), after which,even if death had not taken place before(this is intolerable),there could not by any possibility be life remaining.” (The italics on this page are mine.)
With this climax of presumptuous assertion these disgraceful notes are ended. They have shewn clearly that the wound does not in itself prove the death: they shew no less clearly that the Dean does not consider that the death is proved beyond possibility of doubtwithoutthe wound; what therefore should be the legitimate conclusion? Surely that we have no proof of the completeness of Christ’s death upon the Cross—or in other words no proof of His having died at all! Couple this with the notes upon the Resurrection considered above, and we feel rather as though we were in the hands of some Jesuitical unbeliever, who was trying to undermine our faith in our most precious convictions under the guise of defending them, than in those of one whom it is almost impossible to suspect of such any design. What should we say if we had found Newton, Adam Smith or Darwin, arguing for their opinions thus? What should we think concerning any scientific cause which we found thus defended? We should exceedingly well know that it was lost. And yet our leading theologians are to be applauded and set in high places for condescending to such sharp practice as would be despised even by a disreputable attorney, as too transparently shallow to be of the smallest use to him.
After all that has been said either by Dean Alford or any one else, we know nothing more than what we are told by the Apostle, namely, that immediately before being taken down from the Cross our Lord’s body was wounded more severely, or less severely, as the case may be, with the point of a spear, that from this wound there flowed something which to the eyes of the writer resembled blood and water, and that the whole was done in order that a well-known prophecy might be fulfilled. Yet his sentences in reference to this fact being ended, without his having added one iota to our knowledge upon the subject, the Dean gravely winds up by throwing a doubt upon the certainty of our Lord’s death which was not felt by a single one of those upon the spot, and resting his clenching proof of its having taken place upon a wound, which he has just virtually admitted to have not been necessarily fatal. Nothing can be more deplorable either as morality or policy.
Yet the Dean is justified by the event. One would have thought he could have been guilty of nothing short of infatuation in hoping that the above notes would pass muster with any ordinarily intelligent person, but he knew that he might safely trust to the force of habit and prejudice in the minds of his readers, and his confidence has not been misplaced. Of all those engaged in the training of our young men for Holy Orders, of all our Bishops and clergy and tutors at colleges, whose very profession it is to be lovers of truth and candour, who are paid for being so, and who are mere shams and wolves in sheep’s clothing if they are not ever on the look-out for falsehood, to make war upon it as the enemy of our souls—not one,no,not a single one, so far as I know, has raised his voice in protest. If a man has not lost his power of weeping let him weep for this; if there is any who realises the crime of self-deception, as perhaps the most subtle and hideous of all forms of sin, let him lift up his voice and proclaim it now; for the times are not of peace, but of a sowing of wind for the reaping of whirlwinds, and of the calm that is the centre of the hurricane.
Either Christianity is the truth of truths—the one which should in this world overmaster all others in the thoughts of all men, and compared with which all other truths are insignificant except as grouping themselves around it—or it is at the best a mistake which should be set right as soon as possible. There is no middle course. Either Jesus Christ was the Son of God, or He was not. If He was, His great Father forbid that we should juggle in order to prove Him so—that we should higgle for an inch of wound more, or an inch less, and haggle for the root νυy in the Greek word ενυξε. Better admit that the death of Christ must be ever a matter of doubt, should so great a sacrifice be demanded of us, than go near to the handling of a lie in order to make assurance doubly sure. No truthful mind can doubt that the cause of Christ is far better served by exposing an insufficient argument than by silently passing it over, or else that the cause of Christ is one to be attacked and not defended.
Thereare some who avoid all close examination into the circumstances attendant upon the death of our Lord, using the plea that however excellent a quality intellect may be, and however desirable that the facts connected with the Crucifixion should be intelligently considered, yet that after all it is spiritual insight which is wanted for a just appreciation of spiritual truths, and that the way to be preserved from error is to cultivate holiness and purity of life. This is well for those who are already satisfied with the evidences for their convictions. We could hardly give them any better advice than simply to “depart from evil, do good, seek peace and ensue it” (Psalm xxxiv., 14), if we could only make sure that their duty would never lead them into contact with those who hold the external evidences of Christianity to be insufficient. When, however, they meet with any of these unhappy persons they will find their influence for good paralysed; for unbelievers do not understand what is meant by appealing to their spiritual insight as a thing which can in any way affect the evidence for or against an alleged fact in history—or at any rate as forming evidence for a fact which they believe to be in itself improbable and unsupported by external proof. They have not got any spiritual insight in matters of this sort; nor, indeed, do they recognise what is meant by the words at all, unless they be interpreted as self-respect and regard for the feelings and usages of other people. What spiritual insight they have, they express by the very nearly synonymous terms, “current feeling,” or “common sense,” and however deep their reverence for these things may be, they will never admit that goodness or right feeling can guide them into intuitive accuracy upon a matter of history. On the contrary, in any such case they believe that sentiment is likely to mislead, and that the well-disciplined intellect is alone trustworthy. The question is, whether it is worth while to try and rescue those who are in this condition or not. If itisworth while, we must deal with them according to their sense of right and not ours: in other words, if we meet with an unbeliever we must not expect him to accept our faith unless we take much pains with him, and are prepared to make great sacrifice of our own peace and patience.
Yet how many shrink from this, and think that they are doing God service by shrinking; the only thing from which they should really shrink, is the falsehood which has overlaid the best established fact in all history with so much sophistry, that even our own side has come to fear that there must be something lurking behind which will not bear daylight; to such a pass have we been brought by the desire to prove too much.
Now for the comfort of those who may feel an uneasy sense of dread, as though any close examination of the events connected with the Crucifixion might end in suggesting a natural instead of a miraculous explanation of the Resurrection, for the comfort of such—and they indeed stand in need of comfort—let me say at once that the ablest of our adversaries would tell them that they need be under no such fear. Strauss himself admits that our Lord died upon the Cross; he does not even attempt to dispute it, but writes as though he were well aware that there was no room for any difference of opinion about the matter. He has therefore been compelled to adopt the hallucination theory, with a result which we have already considered. Yet who can question that Strauss would have maintained the position that our Lord did not die upon the Cross, unless he had felt that it was one in which he would not be able to secure the support even of those who were inclined to disbelieve? We cannot doubt that the conviction of the reality of our Lord’s death has been forced upon him by a weight of testimony which, like St. Paul, he has found himself utterly unable to resist.
Here then, we might almost pause. Strauss admits that our Lord died upon the Cross. Yet can the reader help feeling that the vindication of the reality of our Lord’s reappearances, and the refutation of Strauss’s theories with which this work opened, was triumphant and conclusive? Then what follows? That Christ died and rose again! The central fact of our faith is proved. It is proved externally by the most solid and irrefragable proofs, such as should appeal even to minds which reject all spiritual evidence, and recognise no canons of investigation but those of the purest reason.
But anything and everything is believable concerning one whose resurrection from death to life has been established. What need, then, to enter upon any consideration of the other miracles? Of the Ascension? Of the descent of the Holy Spirit? Who can feel difficulty about these things? Would not the miracle rather be that they shouldnothave happened! May we not now let the wings of our soul expand, and soar into the heaven of heavens, to the footstool of the Throne of Grace, secure that we have earned the right to hope and to glory by having consented to the pain of understanding?
We may: and I have given the reader this foretaste of the prize which he may justly claim, lest he should be swallowed up in overmuch grief at the journey which is yet before him ere he shall have done all which may justly be required of him. For it is not enough that his own sense of security should be perfected. This is well; but let him also think of others.
What then is their main difficulty, now that it has been shewn that the reappearances of our Lord were not due to hallucination?
I propose to shew this by collecting from all the sources with which I was familiar in former years, and throwing the whole together as if it were my own. I shall spare no pains to make the argument tell with as much force as fairness will allow. I shall be compelled to be very brief, but the unbeliever will not, I hope, feel that anything of importance to his side has been passed over. The believer, on the other hand, will be thankful both to know the worst and to see how shallow and impotent it will appear when it comes to be tested. Oh! that this had been done at the beginning of the controversy, instead of (as I heartily trust) at the end of it.
Our opponents, therefore, may be supposed to speak somewhat after the following manner:—“Granted,” they will say, “for the sake of argument, that Jesus Christ did reappear alive after his Crucifixion; it does not follow that we should at once necessarily admit that his reappearance was due to miracle. What was enough, and reasonably enough, to make the first Christians accept the Resurrection, and hence the other miracles of Christ, is not enough and ought not to be enough to make men do so now. If we were to hear now of the reappearance of a man who had been believed to be dead, our first impulse would be to learn the when and where of the death, and the when and where of the first reappearance. What had been the nature of the death? What conclusive proof was there that the death had been actual and complete? What examination had been made of the body? And to whom had it been delivered on the completeness of the death having been established? How long had the body been in the grave—if buried? What was the condition of the grave on its being first revisited? It is plain to any one that at the present day we should ask the above questions with the most jealous scrutiny and that our opinion of the character of the reappearance would depend upon the answers which could be given to them.
“But it is no less plain that the distance of the supposed event from our own time and country is no bar to the necessity for the same questions being as jealously asked concerning it, as would be asked if it were alleged to have happened recently and nearer home. On the contrary, distance of time and space introduces an additional necessity for caution. It is one thing to know that the first Christians unanimously believed that their master had miraculously risen from death to life; it is another to know their reasons for so thinking. Times have changed, and tests of truth are infinitely better understood, so that the reasonable of those days is reasonable to us no longer. Nor would it be enough that the answers given could be just strained into so much agreement with one another as to allow of amodus vivendibetween them,and not to exclude the possibility of death,they must exclude all possibility of life having remained, or we should not hesitate for a moment about refusing to believe that the reappearance had been miraculous: indeed, so long as any chink or cranny or loophole for escape from the miraculous was afforded to us, we should unhesitatingly escape by it; this, at least, is the course which would be adopted by any judge and jury of sensible men if such a case were to come before their unprejudiced minds in the common course of affairs.
“We should not refuse to believe in a miracle even now, if it were supported by such evidence as was considered to be conclusive by the bench of judges and by the leading scientific men of the day: in such a case as this we should feel bound to accept it; but we cannot believe in a miracle, no matter how deeply it has been engrained into the creeds of the civilised world, merely because it was believed by ‘unlettered fishermen’ two thousand years ago. This is not a source from which such an event as a miracle should be received without the closest investigation. We know, indeed, that the Apostles were sincere men, and that they firmly believed that Jesus Christ had risen from the dead; their lives prove their faith; but we cannot forget that the fact itself of Christ’s having been crucified and afterwards seen alive, would be enough, under the circumstances, to incline the men of that day to believe that he had died and had been miraculously restored to life, although we should ourselves be bound to make a far more searching inquiry before we could arrive at any such conclusion. A miracle was not and could not be to them, what it is and ought to be to ourselves—a matter to be regardeda prioriwith the very gravest suspicion. To them it was what it is now to the lower and more ignorant classes of Irish, French, Spanish and Italian peasants: that is to say, a thing which was always more or less likely to happen, and which hardly demanded more than aprimâ faciecase in order to establish its credibility. If we would know what the Apostles felt concerning a miracle, we must ask ourselves how the more ignorant peasants of to-day feel: if we do this we shall have to admit that a miracle might have been accepted upon very insufficient grounds, and that, once accepted, it would not have had one-hundredth part so good a chance of being refuted as it would have now.
“It should be borne in mind, and is too often lost sight of, thatwe have no account of the Resurrection from any source whatever. We have accounts of the visit of certain women to a tomb which they found empty; but this is not an account of a resurrection. We are told that Jesus Christ was seen alive after being thought to have been dead, but this again is not an account of a resurrection. It is a statement of a fact, but it is not an account of the circumstances which attended that fact. In the story told by Matthew we have what comes nearest to an account of the Resurrection, but even here the principal figure is wanting; the angel rolls away the stone and sits upon it, but we hear nothing about the body of Christ emerging from the tomb; we only meet with this, when we come to the Italian painters.
“Moreover, St. Matthew’s account is utterly incredible from first to last; we are therefore thrown back upon the other three Evangelists, none of whom professes to give us the smallest information as to the time and manner of Christ’s Resurrection.There is nothing in any of their accounts to preclude his having risen within two hours from his having been laid in the tomb.
“If a man of note were condemned to death, crucified and afterwards seen alive, the almost instantaneous conclusion in the days of the Apostles, and in such minds as theirs, would be that he had risen from the dead; but the almost instantaneous conclusion now, among all whose judgement would carry the smallest weight, would be that he had never died—that there must have been some mistake. Children and inexperienced persons believe readily in all manner of improbabilities and impossibilities, which when they become older and wiser they cannot conceive their having ever seriously accepted. As with men, so with ages; an unusual train of events brings about unusual results, whereon the childlike age turns instinctively to miracle for a solution of the difficulty. In the days of Christ men would ask for evidence of the Crucifixion and the reappearance; when these two points had been established they would have been satisfied—not unnaturally—that a great miracle had been performed: but no sane man would be contented now with the evidence that was sufficient then, any more than he would be content to accept many things which a child must take upon authority, and authority only.Weought to require the most ample evidence that not only the appearance of death, but death itself, must have inevitably ensued upon the Crucifixion, and if this were not forthcoming we should not for a moment hesitate about refusing to believe that the reappearance was miraculous.
“And this is what would most assuredly be done now by impartial examiners—by men of scientific mind who had no wish either to believe or disbelieve except according to the evidence; but even now, if their affections and their hopes of a glorious kingdom in a world beyond the grave were enlisted on the side of the miracle, it would go hard with the judgement of most men. How much more would this be so, if they had believed from earliest childhood that miracles were still occasionally worked in England, and that a few generations ago they had been much more signal and common?
“Can we wonder then, if we ourselves feel so strongly concerning events which are hull down upon the horizon of time, that those who lived in the very thick of them should have been possessed with an all absorbing ecstasy or even frenzy of excitement? Assuredly there is no blame on the score of credulity to be attached to those who propagated the Christian religion, but the beliefs which were natural and lawful to them, are, if natural, yet not lawful to ourselves: they should be resisted: they are neither right nor wise, and do not form any legitimate ground for faith: if faith means only the believing facts of history upon insufficient evidence, we deny the merit of faith; on the contrary, we regard it as one of the most deplorable of all errors—as sapping the foundations of all the moral and intellectual faculties. It is grossly immoral to violate one’s inner sense of truth by assenting to things which, though they may appear to be supported by much, are still not supported by enough. The man who can knowingly submit to such a derogation from the rights of his self-respect, deserves the injury to his mental eye-sight which such a course will surely bring with it. But the mischief will unfortunately not be confined to himself; it will devolve upon all who are ill-fated enough to be in his power; he will be reckless of the harm he works them, provided he can keep its consequences from being immediately offensive to himself. No: if a good thing can be believed legitimately, let us believe it and be thankful, otherwise the goodness will have departed out of it; it is no longer ours; we have no right to it, and shall suffer for it, we and our children, if we try to keep it. It has been said that the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge, but, more truly, it is the eating of sweet and stolen fruit by the fathers that sets the teeth of the children jarring. Let those who love their children look to this, for on their own account they may be mainly trusted to avoid the sour. Hitherto the intensity of the belief of the Apostles has been the mainstay of our own belief. But that mainstay is now no longer strong enough. A rehearing of the evidence is imperatively demanded, that it may either be confirmed or overthrown.”
It cannot be denied that there is much in the above with which all true Christians will agree, and little to find fault with except the self-complacency which would seem to imply that common sense and plain dealing belong exclusively to the unbelieving side. It is time that this spirit should be protested against not in word only but in deed. The fact is, that both we and our opponents are agreed that nothing should be believed unless it can be proved to be true. We repudiate the idea that faith means the accepting historical facts upon evidence which is insufficient to establish them. We do not call this faith; we call it credulity, and oppose it to the utmost of our power.
Our opponents imply that we regard as a virtue well-pleasing in the sight of God, and dignify with the name of faith, a state of mind which turns out to be nothing but a willingness to stand by all sorts of wildly improbable stories which have reached us from a remote age and country, and which, if true, must lead us to think otherwise of the whole course of nature than we should think if we were left to ourselves. This accusation is utterly false and groundless. Faith is the “evidence of things not seen,” but it is not “insufficient evidence for things alleged to have been seen.” It is “the substance of things hoped for,” but “reasonably hoped for” was unquestionably intended by the Apostle. We base our faith in the deeper mysteries of our religion, as in the nature of the Trinity and the sacramental graces, upon the certainty that other things which are within the grasp of our reason can be shewn to be beyond dispute. We know that Christ died and rose again; therefore we believe whatever He sees fit to tell us, and follow Him, or endeavour to follow Him, whereinsoever He commands us, but we are not required to take both the commands of the Mediatorand His credentialsupon faith. It is because certain things within our comprehension are capable of the most irrefragable proof, that certain others out of it may justly be required to be believed, and indeed cannot be disbelieved without contumacy and presumption. And this applies to a certain extent to the credentials also: for although no man should be captious, nor ask for more evidence than would satisfy a well-disciplined mind concerning the truth of any ordinary fact (as one who not contented with the evidence of a seal, a handwriting and a matter not at variance with probability, would nevertheless refuse to act upon instructions because he had not with his own eyes actually seen the sender write and sign and seal), yet it is both reasonable and indeed necessary that a certain amount of care should be taken before the credentials are accepted. If our opponents mean no more than this we are at one with them, and may allow them to proceed.
“Turn then,” they say, “to the account of the events which are alleged to have happened upon the morning of the Resurrection, as given in the fourth Gospel: and assume for the sake of the argument that that account, if not from John’s own hand, is nevertheless from a Johannean source, and virtually the work of the Apostle. The account runs as follows:
“‘The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene while it was yet dark unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre. Then she runneth and cometh to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, ‘They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid Him.’ Peter therefore went forth and that other disciple, and came to the sepulchre. So they both ran together: and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre. And he stooping down and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying, yet went he not in. Then cometh Simon Peter following him and went into the sepulchre and seeth the linen clothes lie, and the napkin that was about His head not lying with the linen clothes but wrapped together in a place by itself. Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw and believed. For as yet they knew not the Scripture that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples went away again to their own home. But Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping; and as she wept, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre, and seeth two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain, and they say unto her, ‘Woman, why weepest thou?’ She saith unto them, ‘Because they have taken away my Lord and I know not where they have laid him.’”
“Then Mary sees Jesus himself, but does not at first recognise him.
“Now, let us see what the above amounts to, and, dividing it into two parts, let us examine first what we are told as having come actually under John’s own observation, and, secondly, what happened afterwards.
I. “It is clear that Mary had seen nothing miraculous before she came running to the two Apostles, Peter and John. She had found the tomb empty when she reached it. She did not know where the body of her Lord then was,nor was there anything to shew how long it had been removed: all she knew was that within thirty-six hours from the time of its having been laid in the tomb it had disappeared, but how much earlier it had been gone neither did she know, nor shall we. Peter and John went into the sepulchre and thoroughly examined it: they saw no angel, nor anything approaching to the miraculous, simply the grave clothes (which were probably of white linen), lyingin two separate places. Then,and not till then, do they appear to have entertained their first belief or hope that Christ might have risen from the dead.
“This is plain and credible; but it amounts to an empty tomb, and to an empty tomb only.
“Here, for a moment, we must pause. Had these men but a few weeks previously seen Lazarus raised from the corruption of the grave—to say nothing of other resurrections from the dead? Had they seen their master override every known natural law, and prove that, as far as he was concerned, all human experience was worthless, by walking upon rough water, by actually talking to a storm of wind and making it listen to him, by feeding thousands with a few loaves, and causing the fragments that remained after all had eaten, to be more than the food originally provided? Had they seen events of this kind continually happening for a space of some two years, and finally had they seen their master transfigured, conversing with the greatest of their prophets (men who had been dead for ages), and recognised by a voice from heaven as the Son of the Almighty, and had they also heard anything approaching to an announcement that he should himself rise from the dead—or had they not? They might have seen the raising of Lazarus and the rest of the miracles, but might not have anticipated that Christ himself would rise, for want of any announcement that this should be so; or, again, they might have heard a prophecy of his Resurrection from the lips of Christ, but disbelieved it for the want of any previous miracles which should convince them that the prophecy came from no ordinary person; so that their not having expected the Resurrection is explicable by giving up either the prophecies, or the miracles, but it is impossible to believe thatin spite both of the miracles and the prophecies, the Apostles should have been still without any expectation of the Resurrection. If they had both seen the miracles and heard the prophecies, they must have been in a state of inconceivably agitated excitement in anticipation of their master’s reappearance. And this they were not; on the contrary, they were expecting nothing of the kind. The condition of mind ascribed to them considering their supposed surroundings, is one which belongs to the drama only; it is not of nature: it is so utterly at variance with all human experience that it should be dismissed at once as incredible.
“But it is very credible if Christ was seen alive after his Crucifixion, and his reappearance, though due to natural causes, was once believed to be miraculous, that this one seemingly well substantiated miracle should become the parent of all the others, and of the prophecies of the Resurrection. Thirty years in all probability elapsed between the reappearances of Christ and the earliest of the four Gospels; thirty years of oral communication and spiritual enthusiasm, among an oriental people, and in an unscientific age; an age by which the idea of an interference with the modes of the universe from a point outside of itself, was taken as a matter of course; an age which believed in an anthropomorphic Deity who had back parts, which Moses had been allowed to see through the hand of God; an age which, over and above all this, was at the time especially convulsed with expectations of deliverance from the Roman yoke. Have we not here a soil suitable for the growth of miracles, if the seed once fell upon it? Under such conditions they would even spring up of themselves, seedless.
“Once let the reappearances of Christ have been believed to be miraculous (and under all the circumstances they might easily have been believed to be so, though due to natural causes), and it is not wonderful that, in such an age and among such a people, the other miracles and the prophecies of the Resurrection should have become current within thirty years. Even we ourselves, with all our incalculably greater advantages, could not withstand so great a temptation to let our wish become father to our thoughts. If we had been the especially favoured friends of one whom we believed to have died, but who yet was not to beholden by death, no matter how careful and judicially minded we might be by nature, we should be blind to everything except the fact that we had once been the chosen companions of an immortal. There lives no one who could withstand the intoxication of such an idea. A single well-substantiated miracle in the present day, even though we had not seen it ourselves, would uproot the hedges of our caution; it would rob us of that sense of the continuity of nature, in which our judgements are, consciously or unconsciously, anchored; but if we were very closely connected with it in our own persons, we should dwell upon the recollection of it and on little else.
“Few of us can realise what happened so very long ago. Men believe in the Christian miracles, though they would reject the notion of a modern miracle almost with ridicule, and would hardly even examine the evidence in its favour. But the Christian miracles stand in their minds as things apart; theirprestigeis greater than that attaching to any other events in the whole history of mankind. They are hallowed by the unhesitating belief of many, many generations. Every circumstance which should induce us to bow to their authority surrounds them with a bulwark of defences which may make us well believe that they must be impregnable, and sacred from attack. Small wonder then that the many should still believe them. Nevertheless they do not believe them so fully, nor nearly so fully, as they think they do. For even the strongest imagination can travel but a very little way beyond a man’s own experience; it will not bear the burden of carrying him to a remote age and country; it will flag, wander and dream; it will not answer truly, but will lay hold of the most obvious absurdity, and present it impudently to its tired master, who will accept it gladly and have done with it. Even recollection fails, but how much more imagination! It is a high flight of imagination to be able to realise how weak imagination is.
“We cannot therefore judge what would be the effect of immediate contact even with the wild hope of a miracle, from our conventional acceptance of the Christian miracles. If we would realise this we must look to modern alleged miracles—to the enthusiasm of the Irish and American revivals, when mind inflames mind till strong men burst into hysterical tears like children; we must look for it in the effect produced by the supposed Irvingite miracles on those who believed in them, or in the miracles that followed the Port Royal miracle of the holy thorn. There never was a miracle solitary yet: one will soon become the parent of many. The minds of those who have believed in a single miracle as having come within their own experience become ecstatic; so deeply impressed are they with the momentous character of what they have known, that their power of enlisting sympathy becomes immeasurably greater than that of men who have never believed themselves to have come into contact with the miraculous; their deep conviction carries others along with it, and so the belief is strengthened till adverse influences check it, or till it reaches a pitch of grotesque horror, as in the case of the later Jansenist miracles. There is nothing, therefore, extraordinary in the gradual development within thirty years of all the Christian miracles, if the Resurrection were once held to be well substantiated; and there is nothing wonderful, under the circumstances, in the reappearance of Christ alive after his Crucifixion having been assigned to miracle. He had already made sufficient impression upon his followers to require but little help from circumstances. He had not so impressed them as to wantnohelp from any supposed miracle, but nevertheless any strange event in connection with him would pass muster, with little or no examination, as being miraculous. He had undoubtedly professed himself to be, and had been half accepted as, the promised Messiah. He had no less undoubtedly appeared to be dead, and had been believed to be so both by friends and foes. Let us also grant that he reappeared alive. Would it, then, be very astonishing that the little missing link in the completeness of the chain of evidence—absolute certainty concerning the actuality of the death—should have been allowed to drop out of sight?
“Round such a centre, and in such an age, the other miracles would spring up spontaneously, and be accepted the moment that they arose; there is nothing in this which is foreign to the known tendencies of the human mind, but there would be something utterly foreign to all we know of human nature, in the fact of men not anticipating that Christ would rise, if they had already seen him raise others from the dead and work the miracles ascribed to him, and if they had also heard him prophesy that he should himself rise from the dead. In fact nothing can explain the universally recorded incredulity of the Apostles as to the reappearance of Christ, except the fact that they had never seen him work a single miracle, or else that they had never heard him say anything which could lead them to suppose that he was to rise from the dead.
“We are therefore not unwilling to accept the facts recorded in the fourth Gospel, in so far as they inform us of things which came under the knowledge of the writer. Mary found the tomb empty. Ignorant alike of what had taken place and of what was going to happen, she came to Peter and John to tell them that the body was gone; this was all she knew. The two go to the tomb, and find all as Mary had said; on this it is not impossible that a wild dream of hope may have flashed upon their minds, that the aspirations which they had already indulged in were to prove well founded. Within an hour or two Christ was seen alive, nor can we wonder if the years which intervened between the morning of the Resurrection and the writing of the fourth Gospel, should have sufficed to make the writer believe that John had had an actual belief in the Resurrection, while in truth he had only wildly hoped it. This much is at any rate plain, that neither he nor Peter had as yet heard any clearly intelligible prophecy that their master should rise from the dead. Whatever subsequent interpretation may have been given to some of the sayings of Jesus Christ, no saying was yet known which would of itself have suggested any such inference. We may justly doubt the caution and accuracy of the first founders of Christianity, without, even in our hearts, for one moment impugning the honesty of their intentions. We are ready to admit that had we been in their places we should in all likelihood have felt, believed, and, we will hope, acted as they did; but we cannot and will not admit, in the face of so much evidence to the contrary, that they were superior to the intelligence of their times, or, in other words, that they were capable critics of an event, in which both their feelings and theprimâ facieview of the facts would be so likely to mislead them.
II. “Turning now to the narrative of what passed when Peter and John were gone, we find that Mary, stooping down, looked through her tears into the darkness of the tomb, and saw two angels clothed in white, who asked her why she wept. We must remember the wide difference between believing what the writer of the fourth Gospel tells us that John saw, and what he tells us that Mary Magdalene saw. All we know on this point is that he believed that Mary had spoken truly. Peter and John were men, they went into the tomb itself, and we may say for a certainty that they saw no angel, nor indeed anything at all, but the grave clothes (which were probably of white linen), lyingin two separate placeswithin it. Mary was a woman—a woman whose parallel we must look for among Spanish or Italian women of the lower orders at the present day; she had, we are elsewhere told, been at one time possessed with devils; she was in a state of tearful excitement, and looking through her tears from light into comparative darkness. Is it possible not to remember what Peter and Johndidsee when they were in the tomb? Is it possible not to surmise that Mary in good truth saw nothing more? She thought she saw more, but the excitement under which she was labouring at the time, an excitement which would increase tenfold after she had seen Christ (as she did immediately afterwards and before she had had time to tell her story), would easily distort either her vision or her memory, or both.
“The evidence of women of her class—especially when they are highly excited—is not to be relied upon in a matter of such importance and difficulty as a miracle. Who would dare to insist upon such evidence now? And why should it be considered as any more trustworthy eighteen hundred years ago? We are indeed told that the angels spoke to her; but the speech was very short; the angels simply ask her why she weeps; she answers them as though it were the common question of common people, and then leaves them. This is in itself incredible; but it is not incredible that if Mary looking into the tomb saw two white objects within, she should have drawn back affrighted, and that her imagination, thrown into a fever by her subsequent interview with Christ, should have rendered her utterly incapable of recollecting the true facts of the case; or, again, it is not incredible that she should have been believed to have seen things which she never did see. All we can say for certain is that before the fourth Gospel was written, and probably shortly after the first reappearance of Christ, Mary Magdalene believed, or was thought to have believed, that she had seen angels in the tomb; and this being so, the development of the short and pointless question attributed to them—possibly as much due to the eager cross-questioning of others as to Mary herself—is not surprising.
“Before the Sunday of the Resurrection was over, the facts as derivable from the fourth Gospel would stand thus. Jesus Christ, who was supposed to have been verily and indeed dead, was known to be alive again. He had been seen, and heard to speak. He had been seen by those who were already prepared to accept him as their leader, and whose previous education, and tone of mind, would lead them rather to an excess of faith in a miracle, than of scepticism concerning its miraculous character. The Apostles would be in no impartial nor sceptical mood when they saw that Christ was alive. The miracle was too near themselves—too fascinating in its supposed consequences for themselves—to allow of their going into curious questions about the completeness of the death. The Master whom they had loved, and in whom they had hoped, had been crucified and was alive again. Is it a harsh or strained supposition, that what would have assuredly been enough for ourselves, if we had known and loved Christ and had been attuned in mind as the Apostles were, should also have been enough for them? Who can say so? The nature of our belief in our Master would have been changed once and for ever; and so we find it to have been with the Christian Apostles.
“Over and above the reappearance of Christ, there would also be a report (probably current upon the very Sunday of the Resurrection), that Mary Magdalene had seen a vision of angels in the tomb in which Christ’s body had been laid; and this, though a matter of small moment in comparison with the reappearance of Christ himself, will nevertheless concern us nearly when we come to consider the narratives of the other Evangelists.”
“Letus now turn to Luke. His account runs as follows:—
“‘Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them.And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre.And they entered in,and found not the body of the Lord Jesus. And it came to pass as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments,and as they were afraid,and bowed their faces to the earth, they said unto them, “Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen:remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee, saying, ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified,and the third day rise again.”And they remembered his words, and returned from the sepulchre, and told all these things unto the eleven, and to all the rest. It was Mary Magdalene and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women that were with them which told these things unto the Apostles.And their words seemed unto them as idle tales,and they believed them not. Then arose Peter, and went unto the sepulchre: and, stooping down, he beheld the linen clothes laid by themselves, and departed wondering in himself at that which was come to pass.’
“When we compare this account with John’s we are at once struck with the resemblances and the discrepancies. Luke and John indeed are both agreed that Christ was seen alive after the Crucifixion. Both agree that the tomb was found empty very early on the Sunday morning (i.e., within thirty-six hours of the deposition from the Cross), and neither writer affords us any clue whatever as to the time and manner of the removal of the body; but here the resemblances end; the angelic vision of Mary, seenafterPeter and John had departed from the tomb, and seen apparently by Mary alone, in Luke finds its way into the van of the narrative, and Peter is represented as having gone to the tomb,not in consequence of having been simply told that the body of Christ was missing,but because he refused to believe the miraculous story which was told him by the women. In the fourth Gospel we heard of no miraculous story being carried by Mary to Peter and John. The angels instead of being seen by one person only, as would have appeared from the fourth Gospel, are now seenby many; and the women instead of being almost stolidly indifferent to the presence of supernatural beings, are afraid, and bow down their faces to the earth; instead of merely wanting to be informed why Mary was weeping, the angels speak with definite point, and as angels might be expected to speak; they allude, also, to past prophecy, which the women at once remember.
“Strange, that they should want reminding! And stranger still that a few verses lower down we should find the Apostles remembering no prophetic saying, but regarding the story of the women as mere idle tales. What shall we say? Are not these differences precisely similar to those which we are continually meeting with, when a case of exaggeration comes before us? Can we acceptboththe stories? Is this one of those cases in which all would be made clear if we did but knowallthe facts, or is it rather one in which we can understand how easily the story given by the one writer might become distorted into the version of the other? Does it seem in any way improbable that within the forty years or so between the occurrences recorded by John and the writing of Luke’s Gospel, the apparently trifling, yet truly most important, differences between the two writers should have been developed?
“No one will venture to say that the facts, upon the face of them, do not strongly suggest such an inference, and that, too, with no conscious fraud on the part of any of those through whose mouths the story must have passed. If the fourth Gospel be assigned to John (and if it isnotassigned to John the difficulties on the Christian side become so great that the cause may be declared lost), his story is that of a principal actor and eye-witness; it bears every impress of truth and none of exaggeration upon any point which came under his own observation. Even when he tells of what Mary Magdalene said she saw, we see the myth in its earliest and crudest form; there is no attempt at circumstance in connection with it, and abundant reason for suspecting its supernatural character is given along with it; reason which to our minds is at any rate sufficient to make us doubt it, but which would naturally have no weight whatever with John after he had once seen Christ alive, or indeed with us if we had been in his place. It is not to be wondered at that in such times many a fresh bud should be grafted on to the original story; indeed it was simply inevitable that this should have been the case. No one would mean to deceive, but we know how, among uneducated and enthusiastic persons, the marvellous has an irresistible tendency to become more marvellous still; and, as far as we can gather, all the causes which bring this about were more actively at work shortly after the time of Christ’s first reappearance than at any other time which can be readily called to mind. The main facts, as we derive them from the consent ofbothwriters, were simply these:—That the tomb of Christ was found unexpectedly empty on the Sunday morning; that this fact was reported to the Apostles; that Peter went into the tomb and saw the linen clothes laid by themselves; that Mary Magdalene said that she had seen angels; and that eventually Christ shewed himself undoubtedly alive. Both writers agree so far, but it is impossible to say that they agree farther.
“Some may say that it is of little moment whether the angels appeared first or last; whether they were seen by many or by one; whether, if seen only by one, that one had previously been insane; whether they spoke as angels might be expected to speak,i.e., to the point, and are shewn to have been recognised as angels by the fear which their appearance caused; or whether they caused no alarm, and said nothing which was in the least equal to the occasion. But most men will feel that the whole complexion of the story changes according to the answers which can be made to these very questions. Surely they will also begin to feel a strong suspicion that the story told by Luke is one which has not lost in the telling. How natural was it that the angelic vision should find its way into the foreground of the picture, and receive those little circumstantial details of which it appeared most to stand in need; how desirable also that the testimony of Mary should be corroborated by that of others who were with her, and out of whom no devils had been cast. The first Christians would not have been men and women at all unless they had felt thus; but theyweremen and women, and hence they acted after the fashion of their age and unconsciously exaggerated; the only wonder is that they did not exaggerate more, for we must remember that even though the Apostles themselves be supposed to have been more judicially unimpassioned and less liable to inaccuracy than we have reason to believe they were, yet that from the very earliest ages of the Church there would be some converts of an inferior stamp. No matter how small a society is, there will be bad in it as well as good—there was a Judas even in the twelve.
“But to speak less harshly, there must from the first have been some converts who would be capable of reporting incautiously; visions and dreams were vouchsafed to many, and not a few marvels may be referable to this source; there is no trusting an age in which men are liable to give a supernatural interpretation to an extraordinary dream, nor is there any end to what may come of it, if people begin seriously confounding their sleeping and waking impressions. In such times, then, Luke may have said with a clear conscience that he had carefully sifted the truth of what he wrote; but the world has not passed through the last two thousand years in vain, and we are bound to insist upon a higher standard of credibility. Luke would believe at once, and as a matter of course, things which we should as a matter of course reject; yet it is probable that he too had heard much that he rejected; he seems to have been dissatisfied with all the records with the existence of which he was aware; the account which he gives is possibly derived from some very early report; even if this report arose at Jerusalem, and within a week after the Crucifixion, it might well be very inaccurate, though apparently supported by excellent authority, so that there is no necessity for charging Luke with unusual credulity. No one can be expected to be greatly in advance of his surroundings; it is well for every one except himself if he should happen to be so, but no man is to be blamed if he is not; it is enough to save him if he is fairly up to the standard of his own times. ‘Morality’ is rather of the custom whichis, than of the custom which ought to be.
“Turning now to the account of Mark, we find the following:—
“‘And when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome had bought sweet spices that they might come and anoint him. And very early in the morning, the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun. And they said among themselves,
“Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre?” And when they looked they saw that the stone was rolled away; for it was very great. And entering into the sepulchre they sawa young mansitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment; and they were affrighted. And he saith unto them, “Be not affrighted; ye seek Jesus of Nazareth which was crucified; he is risen; he is not here; behold the place where they laid him. But go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee: there ye shall see him, as he said unto you.” And they went out quickly, and fled from the sepulchre;for they trembled and were amazed,neither said they any thing to any man,for they were afraid. Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils. And she went and told them that had been with him as they mourned and wept. And they, when they heard that he was alive, and had been seen of her,believed not.’
“Here we have substantially the same version as that given by Luke; there is only one angel mentioned, but it may be said that it is possible that there may have been another who is not mentioned, inasmuch as he remained silent; the angelic vision, however, is again brought into the foreground of the story and the fear of the women is even more strongly insisted on than it was in Luke. The angel reminds the women that Christ had said that he should be seen by his Apostles in Galilee, of which saying we again find that the Apostles seem to have had no recollection. The linen clothes have quite dropped out of the story, and we can detect no trace of Peter and John’s visit to the tomb, but it is remarkable that the women are represented as not having said anything about the presence of the angel immediately on their having seen him; and this fact, which might be in itself suspicious, is apologised for on the score of fear, notwithstanding that their silence was a direct violation of the command of the being whom they so greatly feared. We should have expected that if they had feared him so much they would have done as he told them, but here again everybody seems to act as in a dream or drama, in defiance of all the ordinary principles of human action.
“Throughout the preceding paragraph we have assumed that Mark intended his readers to understand that the young man seen in the tomb was an angel; but, after all, this is rather a bold assumption. On what grounds is it supported? Because Luke tells us that when the women reached the tomb they foundtwowhite angels within it, are we therefore to conclude that Mark, who wrote many years earlier, and as far as we can gather with much greater historical accuracy, must have meant an angel when he spoke of a ‘young man’? Yet this can be the only reason, unless the young man’s having worn a long white robe is considered as sufficient cause for believing him to have been an angel; and this, again, is rather a bold assumption. But if St. Mark meant no more than he said, and when he wrote of a ‘young man’ intended to convey the idea of a young man and of nothing more, what becomes of the angelic visions at the tomb of Christ? For St. Matthew’s account is wholly untenable; St. Luke is a much later writer, who must have got all his materials second or third hand; and although we granted, and are inclined to believe, that the accounts of the visits of Mary Magdalene, and subsequently of Peter and John to the tomb, which are given in the fourth Gospel, are from a Johannean source, if we were asked our reasons for this belief, we should be very hard put to it to give them. Nevertheless we think it probable.
“But take it either way; if the account in the fourth Gospel is supposed to have been derived from the Apostle John, we have already seen that there is nothing miraculous about it, so far as it deals with what came under John’s own observation; if, on the other hand, it isnotauthentic we are thrown back upon St. Mark as incomparably our best authority for the facts that occurred on the Sunday after the Crucifixion, and he tells us of nothing but a tomb found empty, with the exception that there was a young man in it who wore a long white dress and told the women to tell the Apostles to go to Galilee, where they should see Christ. On the strength of this we are asked to believe that the reappearance of Christ alive, after a hurried crucifixion, must have been due to supernatural causes, and supernatural causes only! It will be easily seen what a number of threads might be taken up at this point, and followed with not uninteresting results. For the sake, however, of brevity, we grant it as most probable that St. Mark meant the young man said to have been seen in the tomb, to be considered as an angel; but we must also express our conviction that this supposed angelic vision is a misplaced offshoot of the report that Mary Magdalene had seen angels in the tomb after Peter and John had left it.
“It is possible that Mark’s account may be the most historic of all those that we have; but we incline to think otherwise, inasmuch as the angelic vision placed in the foreground by Mark and Luke, would not be likely to find its way into the background again, as it does in the fourth Gospel, unless in consequence of really authentic information; no unnecessary detraction from the miraculous element is conceivable as coming from the writer who has handed down to us the story of the raising of Lazarus, where we have, indeed,a real account of a resurrection, the continuity of the evidence being unbroken, and every link in the chain forged fast and strong, even to the unwrapping of the grave clothes from the body as it emerged from the sepulchre. Is it possible that the writer may have given the story of the raising of Lazarus (of which we find no trace except in the fourth Gospel), because he felt that in giving the Apostolic version with absolute or substantial accuracy, he was so weakening the miraculous element in connection with the Resurrection of Jesus Christ himself, that it became necessary to introduce an incontrovertible account of the resurrection of some other person, which should do, as it were, vicarious duty?
“Nevertheless there are some points on which all the three writers are agreed: we have the same substratum of facts, namely,the tomb found already empty when the women reached it, a confused and contradictory report of an angel or angels seen within it, and the subsequent reappearance of Christ. Not one of the three writers affords us the slightest clue as to the time and manner of the removal of the body from the tomb; there is nothing in any of the narratives which is incompatible with its having been taken away on the very night of the Crucifixion itself.
“Is this a case in which the defenders of Christianity would clamour forallthe facts, unless they exceedingly well knew that there was no chance of their getting them?Allthe facts, indeed—what tricks does our imagination play us! One would have thought that there were quite enough facts given as the matter stands to make the defenders of Christianity wish that there were not so many; and then for them to say that if we had more, those that we have would become less contradictory! What right have they to assume that if they had all the facts, the accounts of the Resurrection would cease to puzzle us, more than we have to say that if we had all the facts, we should find these accounts even more inexplicable than we do at present? Hadweargued thus we should have been accused of shameless impudence; of a desire to maintain any position in which we happened to find ourselves, and by which we made money, regardless of every common principle of truth or honour, or whatever else makes the difference between upright men and self-deceivers.
“It may be said by some that the discrepancies between the three accounts given above are discrepancies concerning details only, but that all three writers agree about the ‘main fact.’ We are continually hearing about this ‘main fact,’ but nobody is good enough to tell us precisely what fact is meant. Is the main fact the fact that Jesus Christ was crucified? Then no one denies it. We all admit that Jesus Christ was crucified. Or, is it that he was seen alive several times after the Crucifixion? This also we are not disposed to deny. We believe that there is a considerable preponderance of evidence in its favour. But if the ‘main fact’ turns out to be that Christ was crucified,died, and then came to life again, we admit that here too all the writers are agreed, but we cannot find with any certainty that one of them was present when Christ died or when his body was taken down from the Cross, or that there was any such examination of the body as would be absolutely necessary in order to prove that a man had been dead who was afterwards seen alive. If Christ reappeared alive, there is not only no tittle of evidence in support of his death which would be allowed for a moment in an English court of justice, but there is an overwhelming amount of evidence which points inexorably in the direction of his never having died. If he reappeared, there is no evidence of his having died. If he did not reappear, there is no evidence of his having risen from the dead.