Chapter II: 2.1 Matt. xxviii. 7; Mark xvi. 7

[2.2] Matt. xxviii. 10.

[2.3] Ibid. xxvi. 32.

[2.4] Matt. xxviii. 16; John xxi.; Luke xxiv. 49, 50, 52, and the
_Acts_ i. 3, 4, are here in flagrant contradiction to Mark
xvi. 1-8, and Matthew. The second conclusion of Mark (xvi. 9,
et seq.), and even of the two others which are not a part of
the received text, appeared to be included in the system of
Luke. But this cannot avail in opposition to the harmony of a
portion of the synoptical tradition with the fourth Gospel,
and even indirectly with Paul (I. Cor. xv. 5-8), on this
point.

[2.5] Matt. xxviii. 16.

[2.6] Ibid, xxviii. 7; Mark xvi. 7.

[2.7] Conclusion of Mark, in St. Jerome, _Adv. Pelag._ ii.

[2.8] Matt. xxviii. 16.

[2.9] John xxi. 2, et seq.

[2.10] The author of the _Acts_ i. 14, makes them remain at Jerusalem
until the Ascension. But this agrees with his systematic
determination (Luke xxiv. 49; _Acts_ i. 4), not to allow
of a journey into Galilee after the resurrection (a theory
contradicted by Matthew and by John). To be consistent in this
theory he is compelled to place the Ascension at Bethany, in
which he is contradicted by all the other traditions.

[2.11] I. Cor. xv. 5, et seq.

[2.12] John xxxi. 1, et seq. This chapter has been added to the
already completed Gospel, as a postscript. But it is from the
same pen as the rest.

[2.13] John xxi. 9-14; compare Luke xxiv. 41-43. John combines in
one the two scenes of the fishing and the meal. But Luke
arranges the matter differently. At all events, if we consider
with attention the verses of John xxi. 14, 15, we shall come
to the conclusion that these harmonies of John are somewhat
artificial. Hallucinations, at the moment of their conception,
are always isolated. It is later that consistent anecdotes
are formed out of them. This habit of coupling together as
consecutive events facts which are separated by months and
weeks, is seen, in a very striking manner, by comparing
together two passages of the same writer, Luke, Gospel, xxiv.
end, and _Acts_ i. at the beginning. According to the former
passage, Jesus should have ascended into heaven on the same
day as the resurrection; whilst, according to the latter,
there was an interval of forty days. Again, if we rigorously
interpret Mark xvi. 9-20, the Ascension must have taken
place on the evening of the resurrection. Nothing more fully
proves than the contradiction of Luke in these two passages,
how little the editors of the evangelical writings observed
consistency in their stories.

[2.14] John xxi. 15, et seq.

[2.15] Ibid. xxi. 18, et seq.

[2.16] I. Cor. xv. 6.

[2.17] The Transfiguration.

[2.18] Matt, xxviii. 16-20; I. Cor. xv. 6. Compare Mark xvi. 15, et
seq. Luke xxiv. 44, et seq.

[2.19] I. Cor. xv. 6.

[2.20] John affixes no limit to the resuscitated life of Jesus.
He appears to suppose it somewhat protracted. According to
Matthew, it could only have lasted during the time which was
necessary to complete the journey to Galilee and to rendezvous
at the mountain pointed out by Jesus. According to the first
incomplete conclusion of Mark (xvi. 1-8), the incidents would
seem to have transpired as found in Matthew. According to
the second conclusion (xvi. 9, 20), according to others;
and, according to the Gospel of Luke, the disentombed life
would appear to have lasted only one day. Paul (I. Cor. xv.
5-8), agreeing with the fourth Gospel, prolongs it for two
years, since he gives his vision, which occurred five or six
years at least after the death of Jesus, as the last of the
apparitions. The circumstance of "five hundred brethren"
conduces to the same conclusion; for it does not appear
that on the morning after the death of Jesus, the group of
his friends was compact enough to furnish such a gathering
(_Acts_ i. 15). Many of the Gnostic sects, especially the
Valentinians and the Sethians, estimated the continuance of
the apparitions at eighteen months, and even founded mystic
theories on that notion (Irenæus _Adv. hær._, i. iii. 2; xxx.
14). The author of the _Acts_ alone (i. 3) fixes the duration
of the disentombed life of Jesus at forty days. But this
is very poor authority; above all, if we remark that it is
connected with an erroneous system (Luke xxiv. 49, 50, 52;
_Acts_ i. 4, 12), according to which the whole disentombed
life of Jesus would have been passed at Jerusalem or in its
vicinity. The number forty is symbolic (the people spend forty
years in the desert; Moses, forty days on Mount Sinai; Elijah
and Jesus fast forty days, &c.). As to the formula of the
narrative adopted by the author of the last twelve verses of
the second Gospel, and by the author of the third Gospel, a
formula according to which the events are confined to one day,
the authority of Paul, the most ancient and the strongest of
all, corroborating that of the fourth Gospel, which affords
the most connected and authentic record of this portion of
the evangelic history, appears to us to furnish a conclusive
argument.

[2.21] Luke xxiv. 34.

[2.22] John xx. 19, 26.

[2.23] Matt. xxviii. 9; Luke xxiv. 37, et seq.; John xx. 27, et seq.;
Gospel of the Hebrews, in St. Ignatius, the Epistle to the
Smyrniotes 3, and in St. Jerome, _De Viris Illustribus_, 16.

[2.24] John vi. 64.

[2.25] Matt. xxviii. 11-15; Justin, _Dial. cum Tryph._ 17, 108.

[2.26] Matt. xxvii. 62-66; xxviii. 4, 11-15.

[2.27] Ibid. xxviii. 9, et seq.

[2.28] The Jews are enraged, Matt. xxvii. 63, when they hear that
Jesus had predicted his resurrection. But even the disciples
of Jesus had no precise ideas in this respect.

[2.29] A vague idea of this sort may be found in Matthew xxvi. 32;
xxviii. 7, 10; Mark xiv. 28; xvi. 7.

[2.30] This is plainly seen in the miracles of Salette and Sourdes.
One of the most usual ways in which a miraculous legend is
invented is the following. A person of holy life pretends to
heal diseases. A sick person is brought to him or her, and in
consequence of the excitement finds himself relieved. Next
day it is bruited abroad in a circle of ten miles that there
has been a miracle. The sick person dies five or six days
afterwards; no one mentions the fact; so that at the hour of
the burial of the deceased, people at a distance of forty
miles are relating with admiration his wondrous cure. The
word loaned to the Grecian philosophy before the _ex votos_
of Samothrace (Diog. Läert. VI. ii. 59,) is also perfectly
appropriate.

[2.31] A phenomenon of this kind, and one of the most striking, takes
place annually at Jerusalem. The orthodox Greeks pretend that
the fire which is spontaneously lighted at the holy sepulchre
on the Saturday of the holy week preceding their Easter, takes
away the sins of those whose faces it touches without burning
them. Millions of pilgrims have tried it and know full well
that this fire does burn (the contortions which they make,
joined to the smell, are a sufficient proof). Nevertheless,
no one has ever been found to contradict the belief of
the orthodox Church. This would be to avow that they were
deficient in faith, that they were unworthy of the miracle,
and to acknowledge, oh, heavens! that the Latins were the true
Church; for this miracle is considered by the Greeks as the
most convincing proof that theirs is the only good church.

[2.32] The affair of Salette before the civil tribunal of Grenoble
(decree of 2d May, 1855), and before the court of Grenoble
(decree of 6th May, 1857), pleadings of MM. Jules Favre and
Bethmont, &c., collected by J. Sabbatier (Grenoble Vellot.
1857.)

[2.33] John xx. 15. Could it include a glimmering of this?

[2.34] See above.

[2.35] John expressly says so, xix. 41, 42.

[2.36] John xx. 6, 7.

[2.37] One cannot help thinking of Mary of Bethany, who in fact is
not represented as taking any part in the event of the Sunday
morning. See "_Life of Jesus_" p. 341, et seq.; 359, et seq.

[2.38] Celsus has already delivered some excellent critical
observations on this subject (in Origen). _Contra Celsum_,
ii. 55.

[2.39] Mark xvi. 9; Luke viii. 2.