Chapter IV: Death and Resurrection of Jesus (3)

In this exigency of having to reconcile two contradictory commands given on the same day, the comparison with the Acts presented a welcome help by indicating a distinction of the times. Here, namely, the command of Jesus that the disciples should not leave Jerusalem is placed in his last appearance, forty days after the resurrection, and immediately before the ascension: at the close of the gospel of Luke it is likewise in the last interview, terminating in the ascension, that the above command is given. Now though from the summary representation of the gospel taken by itself, it must be believed that all occurred on the very day of the resurrection: we nevertheless see, it is said, from the history of the Acts by the same author, that between v. 43 and 44 in the last chapter of his gospel we must interpose the forty days from the resurrection to the ascension. Herewith, then, the apparent contradiction between these two commands vanishes: for one who in the first instance indeed enjoins a journey into Galilee, may very well forty days later, after this journey has been made, and the parties are once more in the metropolis, now forbid any further removal from thence. [2090] But as the dread of admitting a contradiction between different New Testament authors is no ground for departing from the natural interpretation of their expressions: so neither can this be justified by the apprehension that the same author may in different writings contradict himself; since if the one were written somewhat later than the other, the author may in the interim have been on many points otherwise informed, than when he composed his first work. That this was actually the case with Luke in relation to that part of the life of Jesus which followed his resurrection, we shall have reason to be convinced when we come to the history of the ascension: and this conclusion removes all ground for interposing nearly five weeks between the ἔφαγεν, v. 43, and εἶπε δὲ, v. 44, in defiance of their obviously immediate connexion; at the same time, however, it does away with the possibility of reconciling the opposite commands of Jesus in Matthew and Luke by a distinction of times.

Meanwhile, even admitting that this contradiction might be in some way or other removed, still, even without that express command which Luke mentions, the mere facts as narrated by him and his predecessor and successor, remain irreconcilable with the injunction which Jesus gives to the disciples in Matthew. For, asks the Fragmentist, if the disciples collectively twice saw him, spoke with him, touched him, and ate with him, in Jerusalem; how can it be that they must have had to take the long journey into Galilee in order to see him? [2091] The harmonists, it is true, boldly reply: when Jesus causes his disciples to be told that they will see him in Galilee, it is by no means said that they will see him nowhere else, still less that they will not see him in Jerusalem. [2092] But, the Fragmentist might rejoin, after his manner: as little as one who says to me, go to Rome, there you shall see the Pope, can mean that the Pope will indeed first come through my present place of residence, so as to be seen by me here, but afterwards I must yet go to Rome, in order to see him again there: so little would the angel in Matthew and Mark, if he had had any anticipation of the appearance in Jerusalem on the very same day, have said to the disciples: go into Galilee, there will Jesus show himself to you; but rather: be comforted, you shall yet see him here in Jerusalem before evening. Wherefore the reference to the more remote event, when there was one of the same kind close at hand? wherefore an appointment by means of the women, for the disciples to meet Jesus in Galilee, if the latter foresaw that he should on the same day personally speak with the disciples? With reason does the latest criticism insist on what Lessing had previously urged; [2093] namely, that no rational person would make an appointment with his friends through a third party for a joyful reunion at a distant place, if he were certain of seeing them repeatedly on the same day in their present locality. [2094] If thus the angel and Jesus himself, when they in the morning by means of the women directed the disciples to go into Galilee, cannot yet have known that he would show himself to them on the evening of the same day in and near Jerusalem: he must in the morning have still held the intention of going immediately into Galilee, but in the course of the day have embraced another purpose. According to Paulus, [2095] an indication of such an original intention is found in Luke, in the travelling of Jesus towards Emmaus, which lay in the direction of Galilee; while the reason for the alteration of plan is supposed by the same expositor, with whom in this instance Olshausen agrees, [2096] to have been the belief of the disciples, as more particularly manifested to Jesus on occasion of the journey to Emmaus. How so erroneous a calculation on the part of Jesus can consist with the orthodox view of his person, is Olshausen’s care; but even regarding him in a purely human character, there appears no sufficient reason for such a change of mind. Especially after Jesus had been recognised by the two disciples going to Emmaus, he might be certain that the testimony of the men would so accredit the assertion of the women, as to lead the disciples with at least a glimmering ray of faith and hope into Galilee. But in general, if a change of mind and a diversity of plan in Jesus before and after that change, really existed: why does no one Evangelist take any notice of such a retractation? Why does Luke speak as if he knew nothing of the original plan; Matthew, as if he knew nothing of a subsequent alteration; John, as if the principal theatre of the appearances of the risen Jesus had been Jerusalem, and he had only by way of supplement at length showed himself in Galilee? Lastly, why does Mark speak so as to make it evident that, having gathered the original direction to go into Galilee from Matthew, and the succeeding appearances in Jerusalem and its environs from Luke or elsewhere, he was unable, nor did he even make the attempt, in any way to reconcile them; but placed them together as he found them, rough hewn and contradictory.

According to this we must agree with the latest criticism of the gospel of Matthew, in acknowledging the contradiction between it and the rest in relation to the locality of the appearances of Jesus after the resurrection: but, it must be asked, can we also approve the verdict of this criticism when it at once renounces the representation of the first gospel in favour of that of the other Evangelists. [2097] If, setting aside all presuppositions as to the apostolic origin of this or that gospel, we put the question: which of the two divergent accounts is the best adapted to be regarded as a traditional modification and development of the other? we can here refer, not merely to the general nature of the accounts, but also to a single point at which the two touch each other in a characteristic manner. This is the address of the angel to the women, in which according to all the synoptists Galilee is mentioned, but in a different way. In Matthew the angel, as has been already noticed, says of Jesus: he goeth before you into Galilee,—lo, I have told you (xxviii. 7), προάγει ὑμᾶς ἐις τὴν Γαλιλαίαν—ἰδοὺ εἶπον ὑμῖν. In Mark he says the same, except that instead of the latter addition, by which in Matthew the angel seeks to impress his own words on the women, he has the expression: as he said unto you, καθὼς εἶπεν ὑμῖν, with which he refers to the earlier prediction of Jesus concerning this circumstance. If we first compare these two representations: the confirmatory I have told you, εἶπον ὑμῖν, might easily appear superfluous and nugatory; while on the other hand the reference to the earlier prediction of Jesus by he said, εἶπεν, might seem more appropriate, and on this the conjecture might be founded that perhaps Mark has here the correct and original phrase, Matthew a variation not unaccompanied by a misunderstanding. [2098] But if we include the account of Luke in the comparison, we find here, as in Mark, the words: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee, μνήσθητε, ὡς ἐλάλησεν ὑμῖν ἔτι ὢν ἐν τῇ Γαλιλαίᾳ, a reference to an earlier prediction of Jesus, not however referring to Galilee, but delivered in Galilee. Here the question occurs: is it more probable that Galilee, from being the designation of the locality in which the prophecy of the resurrection was uttered, should at a later period be erroneously converted into a designation of the locality where the risen one would appear; or the contrary? In order to decide this, we must ascertain in which of the two positions the mention of Galilee is the more intrinsically suited to the context. Now that on the announcement of the resurrection it was an important point whether and where the risen Jesus was to be seen, is self-evident; it was of less moment, in referring to an earlier prediction, to specify where this prediction was uttered. Hence from this comparison of the passages it might already be held more probable that it was originally said, the angels directed the disciples to go into Galilee, there to see the risen one (Matt.); but afterwards, when the narratives of the appearances of Jesus in Judea had gradually supplanted those in Galilee, a different turn was given to the mention of Galilee in the address of the angel, so as to make it imply that already in Galilee Jesus had predicted his resurrection (Luke); whereupon Mark appears to have taken a middle course, since he with Luke refers the εἶπον (changed into εἶπεν) to Jesus, but with Matthew retains Galilee as the theatre, not of the earlier prediction of Jesus, but of the coming appearance.

If we next take into consideration the general character of the two narratives and the nature of the case, there exist the same objections to the supposition that Jesus after his resurrection appeared several times to his disciples in and near Jerusalem, but that the remembrance of this fact was lost, and the same arguments in favour of the opposite supposition, as we have respectively applied to the analogous alternatives in relation to the various journeys to the feasts and Judæan residences of Jesus. [2099] That the appearances of the risen Jesus in Jerusalem should undesignedly, that is, by a total obliteration of them from the minds of individuals, have sunk into oblivion in Galilee, where according to this presupposition the tradition of Matthew was formed, is difficult to conceive, both from the pre-eminent importance of these appearances, which, as for example those before the assembled eleven and before Thomas, involved the surest attestations of the reality of his resurrection, and also from the organizing influence of the community in Jerusalem; while that the Judæan appearances of Jesus were indeed known in Galilee, but intentionally suppressed by the author of the first gospel, in order to preserve the honour for his province alone, would presuppose an exclusivism, an opposition of the Galilean Christians to the church at Jerusalem, of which we have not the slightest historical trace. The other contrary possibility, that perhaps originally only Galilean appearances of the risen Jesus were known, but that tradition gradually added appearances in Judea and Jerusalem, and that at length these completely supplanted the former, may on many grounds be heightened into a probability. First, as respects the time, the tidings of the resurrection of Jesus were the more striking, the more immediately his appearances followed on his burial and resurrection: if however he first appeared in Galilee, such an immediate sequence of the events could not exist; further, it was a natural idea that the resurrection of Jesus must have been attested by appearances in the place where he died; lastly, the objection that Jesus after his pretended resurrection only appeared to his own friends, and in a corner of Galilee, was in some degree repelled when it could be alleged that on the contrary, he walked as one arisen from the dead in the metropolis, in the midst of his furious enemies, though indeed he was neither to be taken nor seen by them. But when once several appearances of Jesus were laid in Judea and Jerusalem, the appearances in Galilee lost their importance, and might thenceforth either be appended in a subordinate position, as in the fourth gospel, or even be entirely overlooked, as in the third. This result, drawn from the possible mode of legendary formation, not being opposed, as in the inquiry concerning the theatre of the ministry of the living Jesus, by a contrary one drawn from the circumstances and designs of Jesus: we may, in contradiction to the criticism of the day, decide in favour of the first gospel, whose account of the appearance of the risen Jesus recommends itself as the more simple and free from difficulty. [2100]

As regards the appearances of the risen Jesus taken singly, the first gospel has two: one on the morning of the resurrection to the women (xxviii. 9 f.), and one, the time of which is undetermined, before the disciples in Galilee (xxviii. 16 f.). Mark, in what is indeed a merely summary statement, enumerates three: the first, to Mary Magdalene on the morning of the resurrection (xvi. 9 f.); a second, to two disciples going into the country (xvi. 12); and a third, to the eleven as they sat at meat, doubtless in Jerusalem (xvi. 14). Luke narrates only two appearances: that before the disciples going to Emmaus on the day of the resurrection (xxiv. 13 ff.), and the last, before the eleven and other disciples in Jerusalem, according to xxiv. 36 ff., on the evening of the same day, according to the Acts i. 4 ff. forty days later; but when the travellers to Emmaus, on rejoining the apostles, are greeted by them, before Jesus has appeared in the midst of them, with the information: the Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon (xxiv. 34): here a third appearance is presupposed, which was granted to Peter alone. John has four such appearances: the first, to Mary Magdalene at the grave (xx. 14 ff.); the second to the disciples when the doors were shut (xx. 19 ff.); the third, likewise in Jerusalem, eight days later, when Thomas was convinced (xx. 26 ff.); the fourth, of which the time is unspecified, at the Galilean sea (xxi.). But here we have also to take into consideration a statement of the Apostle Paul, who 1 Cor. xv. 5 ff., if we deduct the appearance of Christ granted to himself, enumerates five appearances after the resurrection, without however giving any precise description of them: one to Cephas; one to the twelve; one before more than five hundred brethren at once; one to James; and lastly, one before all the apostles.

Now how shall we make an orderly arrangement of these various appearances? The right of priority is, in John, and still more expressly in Mark, claimed for that to Mary Magdalene. The second must have been the meeting of Jesus with the women returning from the grave, in Matthew; but as Mary Magdalene was likewise among these, and there is no indication that she had previously seen Jesus, these two appearances cannot be regarded as distinct, but rather as one under two different garbs. Paul, who in the above named passage speaks as if he meant to enumerate all the appearances of the resuscitated Christ, of which he knew, omits the one in question; but it may perhaps be said in explanation of this, that he did not choose to adduce the testimony of women. As the order in which he enumerates his Christophanies, to judge from the succession of εἶτα and ἔπειτα and the conclusion with ἔσχατον, appears to be the order of time: [2101] according to him the appearance before Cephas was the first that happened before a man. This would agree well with the representation of Luke, in which the journeyers to Emmaus, on rejoining the disciples in Jerusalem, are met by them with the information that Jesus is really arisen and has appeared to Simon, which might possibly be the case before his interview with those two disciples. As the next appearance, however, according to Luke, we must number that last named, which Paul would not mention, perhaps because he chose to adduce only those which were seen by apostles, and from among the rest only those which happened before great masses of witnesses, or more probably, because it was unknown to him. Mark xvi. 12 f. evidently refers to the same appearance; the contradiction, that while in Luke the assembled disciples meet those coming from Emmaus with the believing exclamation: the Lord is risen, etc., in Mark the disciples are said to have remained incredulous even to the account of those two witnesses, probably proceeds from nothing more than an exaggeration of Mark, who will not lose his hold of the contrast between the most convincing appearances of Jesus and the obstinate unbelief of the disciples. The appearance on the way to Emmaus is in Luke immediately followed by that in the assembly of the eleven and others. This is generally held to be identical with the appearance before the twelve mentioned by Paul, and with that which John narrates when Jesus on the evening after the resurrection entered while the doors were closed among the disciples, out of whose number, however, Thomas was wanting. It is not fair to urge in opposition to this identification the eleven of Luke, as at variance with the statement of John that only ten apostles were present, any more than the twelve of Paul, from which number Judas at least must be deducted; moreover the similar manner in which the two Evangelists describe the entrance of Jesus by ἔστη ἐν μέσῳ αὐτῶν and ἔστη εἰς τὸ μέσον, and the greeting cited in both instances: εἰρήνη ὑμῖν, appear to indicate the identity of the two appearances; nevertheless, if we consider that the handling of the body of Jesus, which in John first happens eight days later, and the eating of the broiled fish, which John assigns to the still later appearance in Galilee, are connected by Luke with that scene in Jerusalem on the day of the resurrection: it is evident that either the third Evangelist has here compressed several incidents into one, or the fourth has divided one into several—whichever alternative may be chosen. This appearance before the apostles in Jerusalem however, as has been above remarked, according to Matthew could not have happened, since this Evangelist makes the eleven journey to Galilee in order to see Jesus. Mark, and Luke in his gospel, annex the ascension to this appearance, and thus exclude all subsequent ones. As the next appearance, the apostle Paul has that before five hundred brethren, which is generally regarded as the same with the one which Matthew places on a mountain in Galilee: [2102] but at this only the eleven are stated to have been present, and moreover the discourse of Jesus on the occasion, consisting principally of official instructions, appears more suited to this narrow circle. Paul next adduces an appearance to James, of which there is also an apocryphal account, in the Hebrew gospel of Jerome, according to which however it must have been the first of all. [2103] Here there would be space for that appearance in which, according to the fourth gospel eight days after the resurrection of Jesus, Thomas was convinced; wherewith Paul would closely agree, if his expression, to all the apostles, τοῖς ἀποστόλοις πᾶσιν (v. 7), which he uses in relation to this appearance, were really to be understood of a full assembly of the eleven in distinction from the earlier one, when Thomas was not present: which however, as Paul, according to the above presupposition, had described this also as an appearance before the twelve, is impossible; on the contrary, the apostle intends as well by the δώδεκα, twelve, as by οἱ ἀπόστολοι πάντες, all the apostles, the collective body of apostles (whose proper number was then indeed incomplete by one man), in opposition to the individuals (Cephas and James) of whom in each case he had just before spoken, as having witnessed a Christophany. If however we were nevertheless to regard the fifth appearance of Jesus according to Paul as identical with the third in John: it would only be the more clearly evident that the fourth of Paul, before the five hundred brethren, cannot have been the one in Galilee recorded by Matthew. For as, in John, the third took place in Jerusalem, the fourth in Galilee: Jesus and the apostles must in that case have gone into Galilee after the first appearances in Jerusalem, and have met on the mountain; then have returned to Jerusalem where Jesus showed himself to Thomas; then again have proceeded into Galilee where the appearance by the sea occurred; and lastly, have once more returned to Jerusalem for the ascension. In order to avoid this useless journeying backwards and forwards, and yet to be able to combine those two appearances, Olshausen lays the appearance before Thomas in Galilee: an inadmissible violence, since not only is there no mention of a change of place between this and the foregoing, which is by implication represented as happening in Jerusalem, but the place of assembly is in both instances described in the same manner; nay the addition, the doors being shut, will not allow the supposition of any other locality than Jerusalem, because in Galilee, where there was less excitement against Jesus from the enmity of the priesthood, there cannot be supposed to have been the same reason for that precaution, in the fear of the Jews. Thus, first where the Judean appearances close with that happening eight days after the resurrection, we should obtain room to insert the Galilean appearances of Matthew and John. But these have the peculiar position, that each claims to be the first, and that of Matthew at the same time the last. [2104] By the tenor of his whole narrative, and expressly by adding, after the statement that the disciples went to a mountain in Galilee, the words: where Jesus had appointed them, οὗ ἐτάξατο αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰ., Matthew marks this appearance as the one to which Jesus had referred on the morning of the resurrection, first by the angel, and then in his own person; but no one concerts a second meeting in a particular place, leaving the first undetermined: consequently, as an unforeseen earlier meeting is incompatible with the evangelical idea of Jesus, [2105] that meeting, since it was the concerted one, was also the first in Galilee. If thus the appearance at the sea of Tiberias in John, cannot possibly be placed before that on the mountain in Matthew: so the latter will just as little suffer the other to follow it, since it is a formal leave-taking of Jesus from his disciples. Moreover, it would be more than ever difficult to understand how the appearance in John could be made out, in accordance with the Evangelist’s own statement, to be the third φανέρωσις of the risen Christ before his disciples (xxi. 14), if that of the first gospel must also be supposed to precede it. Meanwhile, even allowing the priority to the former, this numerical notice of John remains sufficiently perplexing. We might, it is true, deduct the appearances before the women, because, though John himself narrates that to Mary Magdalene, he does not take it into his account; but if we number that to Cephas as the first, and that on the way to Emmaus as the second: then this Galilean appearance, as the third, would fall between the above and that before the eleven on the evening of the resurrection, which would presuppose a rapidity of locomotion totally impossible; nay, if that appearance before the assembled eleven is the same with the one at which, according to John, Thomas was absent, the third appearance of John would fall before his first. Perhaps, however, when we consider the expression: showed himself to his disciples, ἐφανερώθη τοῖς μαθηταῖς αὑτοῦ, we ought to understand that John only numbers such appearances as happened before several disciples at once, so that those before Peter and James should be deducted. In that case, we must number as the first, the appearance to the two disciples going to Emmaus; as the second, that before the assembled eleven on the evening of the resurrection: and thus in the eight days between this and the one before Thomas, the journey into Galilee would fall somewhat more conveniently,—but also the third appearance of John would fall before his second. Perhaps, then, the author of the fourth gospel held the two disciples whom Jesus met on the way to Emmaus too small a number, to entitle this Christophany to rank as a φανεροῦσθαι τοῖς μαθηταῖς. On this supposition the entrance of Jesus among the assembled disciples in the evening would be the first appearance; hereupon the five hundred brethren to whom Jesus showed himself at once would surely be numerous enough to be taken into the reckoning: so that the Galilean appearance of John, that is, his third, must be inserted after this, but then it would still fall before that to Thomas and all the apostles, which John enumerates as the second. Perhaps, however, the appearance of Jesus before the five hundred is to be placed later, so that after that entrance of Jesus among the assembled disciples would first follow the scene with Thomas, after this the appearance at the sea of Galilee, and only then the sight of Jesus granted to the five hundred. But if the appearance before Thomas is to be reckoned the same with the fifth in Paul’s enumeration, this apostle must have reversed the order of his two last appearances, a transposition for which there was no reason: on the contrary, it would have been more natural to place last the appearance before the five hundred brethren, as the most important. Thus nothing remains but to say: John understood under the word μαθηταῖς merely a greater or a smaller assembly of the apostles; but among the five hundred there was no apostle; hence he omitted these also, and thus correctly numbered the appearance at the sea of Tiberias as the third: if indeed this could have happened before the one on the mountain in Galilee, which, we have seen, to be inconceivable. The above expedients resorted to by way of accommodation are in part ridiculous enough: but Kern has lately surpassed them all by a suggestion which he advances with great confidence, namely, that John here intends to number, not the appearances, but the days on which appearances took place, so that τοῦτο ἤδη τρίτον ἐφανερώθη ὁ Ἰ. τοῖς μαθηταῖς, this is now the third time that Jesus showed himself to the disciples, means: now had Jesus already appeared to his disciples on three separate days: namely, four times on the day of the resurrection; then once eight days after; and now again some days later. [2106] Renouncing such expedients, nothing remains but to acknowledge that the fourth Evangelist numbers only those appearances of Jesus to his disciples, which he had himself narrated; and the reason of this can scarcely have been that the rest, from some cause or other, appeared to him less important, but rather that he knew nothing of them. [2107] And again, Matthew with his last Galilean appearance, can have known nothing of the two in Jerusalem recorded by John; for if in the first of these ten apostles had been convinced of the reality of the resurrection of Jesus, and in the second Thomas also: it could not have been that at that later appearance on the mountain in Galilee some of the eleven (for only these are represented by Matthew as going thither) still doubted (οἱ δὲ ἐδίστασαν, v. 17). Lastly, if Jesus here delivered to his disciples the final command to go into all the world teaching and baptizing, and gave them the promise to be with them until the end of the existing age, which is manifestly the tone of one who is taking leave: he cannot subsequently, as is narrated in the introduction to the Acts, have communicated to them his last commands and taken leave of them at Jerusalem. According to the conclusion of the gospel of Luke, this farewell departure on the contrary occurs much earlier than can be supposed in accordance with Matthew; and in the close of the gospel of Mark, where Jesus is represented as parting from his disciples in Jerusalem on the very day of his resurrection, partly the same words are put into his mouth as, according to Matthew, are spoken in Galilee, and in any case later than on the day of the resurrection. The fact, that the two books of the same author, Luke, diverge so widely from each other in relation to the time during which Jesus appeared to his disciples after his resurrection, that one determines this time to have been a single day, the other, forty days, cannot be taken into more particular consideration until we have reached a farther point of our inquiry.

Thus the various evangelical writers only agree as to a few of the appearances of Jesus after his resurrection; the designation of the locality in one excludes the appearances narrated by the rest; the determination of time in another leaves no space for the narratives of his fellow Evangelists; the enumeration of a third is given without any regard to the events reported by his predecessors; lastly, among several appearances recounted by various narrators, each claims to be the last, and yet has nothing in common with the others. Hence nothing but wilful blindness can prevent the perception that no one of the narrators knew and presupposed what another records; that each again had heard a different account of the matter; and that consequently at an early period, there were current only uncertain and very varied reports concerning the appearances of the risen Jesus. [2108]

This conclusion, however, does not shake the passage in the first Epistle to the Corinthians which, (it being undoubtedly genuine,) was written about the year 59 after Christ, consequently not 30 years after his resurrection. On this authority we must believe that many members of the primitive church who were yet living at the time when this epistle was written, especially the apostles, were convinced that they had witnessed appearances of the risen Christ. Whether this involves the admission that some objective reality lay at the foundation of these appearances, will hereafter become the subject of inquiry; concerning the present point, the divergencies of the Evangelists, especially in relation to the locality, the passage of Paul offers nothing decisive, since he has given no particular description of any of those appearances.

§ 139.

QUALITY OF THE BODY AND LIFE OF JESUS AFTER THE RESURRECTION.

But how are we to represent to ourselves this continuation of the life of Jesus after the resurrection, and especially the nature of his body in this period? In order to answer this question we must once more cast a glance over the separate narratives of his appearances when risen.

According to Matthew, Jesus on the morning of the resurrection meets (ἀπήντησεν) the women as they are hastening back from the grave; they recognize him, embrace his feet in sign of veneration, and he speaks to them. At the second interview on the Galilean mountain the disciples see him (ἰδόντες), but some still doubt, and here also Jesus speaks to them. Of the manner in which he came and went, we have here no precise information.

In Luke, Jesus joins the two disciples who are on their way from Jerusalem to the neighbouring village of Emmaus (ἐγγίσας συνεπορεύετο αὐτοῖς); they do not recognize him on the way, a circumstance which Luke attributes to a subjective hindrance produced in them by a higher influence (οἱ ὀφθαλμοὶ αὐτῶν ἐκρατοῦντο, τοῦ μὴ ἐπιγνῶναι αὐτὸν), and only Mark, who compresses this event into few words, to an objective alteration of his form (ἐν ἑτέρᾳ μορφῇ). On the way Jesus converses with the two disciples, after their arrival in the village complies with their invitation to accompany them to their lodging, sits down to table with them, and proceeds according to his wont to break and distribute bread. In this moment the miraculous spell is withdrawn from the eyes of the disciples, and they know him: [2109] but in the same moment he becomes invisible to them (ἄφαντος ἐγένετο ἀπ’ αὐτῶν). Just as suddenly as he here vanished, he appears to have shown himself immediately after in the assembly of the disciples, when it is said that he all at once stood in the midst of them (ἔστη ἐν μέσῳ αὐτῶν), and they, terrified at the sight, supposed that they saw a spirit. To dispel this alarming idea, Jesus showed them his hands and feet, and invited them to touch him, that by feeling his flesh and bones then might convince themselves that he was no spectre; he also caused a piece of broiled fish and of honeycomb to be brought to him, and ate it in their presence. The appearance to Simon is in Luke described by the expression ὤφθη; Paul in the first Epistle to the Corinthians uses the same verb for all the Christophanies there enumerated, and Luke in the Acts comprises all the appearances of the risen Jesus during the forty days under the expressions ὀπτανόμενος (i. 3) and ἐμφανῆ γενέσθαι (x. 40). In the same manner Mark describes the appearance to Mary Magdalene by ἐφάνη, and those to the disciples on the way to Emmaus and to the eleven by ἐφανερώθη. John describes the appearance at the sea of Tiberias by ἐφανὲρωσεν ἑαυτὸν, and to all the Christophanies narrated by him he applies the word ἐφανερώθη. Mark and Luke add, as the close of the earthly life of the risen Jesus, that he was taken away from before the eyes of the disciples, and (by a cloud, according to Acts i. 9) carried up to heaven.

In the fourth gospel Jesus first stands behind Mary Magdalene as she is turning away from the grave; she however, does not recognize him even when he speaks to her, but takes him for the gardener, until he (in the tone so familiar to her) calls her by her name. When on this she attempts to manifest her veneration, Jesus prevents her by the words: Touch me not, μή μου ἅπτου, and sends her with a message to the disciples. The second appearance of Jesus in John occurred under peculiarly remarkable circumstances. The disciples were assembled, from fear of the hostile Jews, with closed doors: when all at once Jesus came and stood in the midst of them, greeted them, and presented—apparently to their sight only—his hands and feet, that they might recognize him as their crucified master. When Thomas, who was not present, refused to be convinced by the account of his fellow disciples of the reality of this appearance, and required for his satisfaction himself to see and touch the wounds of Jesus: the latter, in an appearance eight days after, granted him this proof, making him touch the marks of the nails in his hands and the wound in his side. Lastly, at the appearance by the sea of Galilee, Jesus stood on the shore in the morning twilight, without being known by the disciples in the ship, asked them for fish, and was at length recognized by John, through the rich draught of fishes which he procured them; still, however, the disciples, when come to land, did not venture to ask him whether it were really he. Hereupon he distributed among them bread and fish, of which he doubtless himself partook, and finally held a conversation with John and Peter. [2110]

Now the general ideas which may be formed of the life of Jesus after his resurrection are two: either it was a natural and perfectly human life, and accordingly his body continued to be subject to the physical and organic laws; or his life was already of a higher, superhuman character, and his body supernatural and transfigured: and the accounts, taken unitedly, present certain traits to which, on the first view, each of these two ideas may respectively appeal. The human form with its natural members, the possibility of being known by means of them, the continuance of the marks of the wounds, the human speech, the acts of walking and breaking bread,—all these appear to speak in favour of a perfectly natural life on the part of Jesus even after the resurrection. If it were possible still to demur to this, and to conjecture, that even a higher, heavenly corporeality might give itself such an aspect and perform such functions: all doubts must be quelled by the further statement, that Jesus after the resurrection consumed earthly food, and allowed himself to be touched. Such things are indeed ascribed even to higher beings in old myths, as for example, eating to the heavenly forms from whom Abraham received a visit (Gen. xviii. 8), and palpability to the God that wrestled with Jacob (Gen. xxxii. 24 ff.): but it must nevertheless be insisted that in reality both these conditions can only belong to material, organized bodies. Hence not only the rationalists, but even orthodox expositors, consider these particulars as an irrefragable proof that the body and life of Jesus after the resurrection must be regarded as remaining still natural and human. [2111] This opinion is further supported by the remark, that in the state of the risen Jesus there is observable precisely the same progress as might be expected in the gradual, natural cure of a person severely wounded. In the first hours after the resurrection he is obliged to remain in the vicinity of the grave; in the afternoon his strength suffices for a walk to the neighbouring village of Emmaus; and only later is he able to undertake the more distant journey into Galilee. Then also in the permission to touch his body there exists the remarkable gradation, that on the morning of the resurrection Jesus forbids Mary Magdalene to touch him, because his wounded body was as yet too suffering and sensitive; but eight days later, he himself invites Thomas to touch his wounds. Even the circumstance that Jesus after his resurrection was so seldom with his disciples and for so short a time, is, according to this explanation, a proof that he had brought from the grave his natural, human body, for such an one would necessarily feel so weak from the wounds and torture of the cross, as always after short periods of exertion to require longer intervals of quiet retirement.

But the New Testament narratives, as we have seen, also contain particulars which favour the opposite idea of the corporeality of Jesus after the resurrection: hence the advocates of the opinion hitherto detailed must undertake so to interpret these apparently antagonistic features that they may no longer present a contradiction. Here it may seem that the very expressions by which the appearances of Jesus are ordinarily introduced, as ὤφθη used of the appearance in the burning bush (Exod. iii. 2, LXX.); ὀπτανόμενος, of the appearance of the angel in Tobit xii. 19; ἐφάνη, of the angelic appearances in Matt. i. and ii., may seem already to point to something supernatural. As still more decided indications, the idea of a natural going and coming which may be presupposed in some scenes, is contradicted in others by a sudden appearance and disappearance; the supposition of an ordinary human body is opposed by the frequent non-recognition on the part of friends, nay, by the express mention of another form, ἑτέρα μορφὴ; above all, the palpability of the body of Jesus appears to be opposed by the capability which, according to the first impression from the text, is lent to him in John, namely, that of entering through closed doors. But, that Mary Magdalene mistook Jesus at first for the gardener, is thought even by commentators who ordinarily are not diffident of the miraculous, to be most probably accounted for by the supposition that Jesus had borrowed clothes from the gardener, who very likely dwelt near to the grave; moreover, say these writers, both in this instance and in the journey to Emmaus, the disfiguration of the countenance of Jesus by the sufferings of crucifixion may have contributed to prevent his being recognized, and these two circumstances are alone to be understood from the expression ἑτέρα μορφὴ, another form, in Mark. [2112] As to the disciples going to Emmaus, in the joyful astonishment caused by the sudden recognition of him whom they had believed dead, Jesus, it is said, may easily have withdrawn from them unobserved in the most natural manner; which, however, they, to whom the whole fact of the resuscitation of Jesus was a miracle, might regard as a supernatural disappearance. [2113] Nor, we are told, do the expressions: ἒστη ἐν μέσῳ αὐτῶν or εἱς τὸ μέσον he stood in the midst of them, especially in John, where they are accompanied by the ordinary words ἦλθεν he came, and ἔρχεται he comes, imply anything supernatural, but merely the startling arrival of one who had just been spoken of, without his being expected; and the assembled disciples took him for a spirit, not because he entered in a miraculous manner, but because they could not believe in the real resuscitation of their deceased master. [2114] Lastly, even the trait which is supposed to be decisive against the opinion that the body of the risen Jesus was a natural and human one,—the coming when the doors were shut ἔρχεσθαι θυρῶν κεκλεισμένων in John,—has long been interpreted even by orthodox theologians so as no longer to present any obstacle to that opinion. We will not discuss explanations such as that of Heumann, according to which the doors were not those of the house in which the disciples were assembled, but the doors of Jerusalem in general, and the statement that they were shut is an intimation of its having been that hour of the night in which it was customary to close the doors, while the fear of the Jews represents the motive, not for the closing of the doors, but for the assembling of the disciples. Apart from these expedients, Calvin himself pronounces the opinion that the body of the risen Jesus passed per medium ferrum et asseres, to be pueriles argutiæ, for which the text gives no occasion, since it does not say that Jesus entered per januas clausas, but only that he suddenly appeared among his disciples, cum clausæ essent januæ. [2115] Still Calvin upholds the entrance of Jesus of which John here speaks as a miracle, which must consequently be supposed to consist in this, that Jesus entered cum fores clausæ fuissent, sed quæ Domino veniente subito patuerunt ad nutum divinæ majestatis ejus. [2116] While more modern orthodox divines only contend for the less definite position, that in the entrance of Jesus some miracle took place, its precise character being unascertained. [2117] Rationalism has found means entirely to banish the miraculous from the event. The closed doors, we are told, were opened to Jesus by human hands; which John omits to notice, only because it is understood as a matter of course, nay, it would have been absurd of him to say: they opened the doors for him, and he went in. [2118]

But in thus interpreting the words ἔρχεται τῶν θυρῶν κεκλεισμένων, theologians have been by no means unprejudiced. Least of all Calvin; for when he says, the papists maintain a real penetration of the body of Jesus through closed doors in order to gain support for their tenet that the body of Christ is immense, and contained in no place, ut corpus Christi immensum esse, nulloque loco contineri obtineant: it is plain that he combats that interpretation of the words of John merely to avoid giving any countenance to the offensive doctrine of the ubiquity of Christ’s body. The more modern expositors, on the other hand, were interested in avoiding the contradiction which to our perceptions is contained in the statement, that a body can consist of solid matter, and yet pass without hindrance through other solid matter: but as we know not whether this was also a contradiction in the view of the New Testament writers, the apprehension of it gives us no authority to discard that interpretation, providing it be shown to be in accordance with the text. We might certainly, on a partial consideration, understand the expression the doors being shut, τῶν θυρῶν κεκλεισμένων, as an intimation of the anxious state into which the disciples were thrown by the death of Jesus. But already the circumstance that this particular is repeated on the appearance of Jesus before Thomas excites doubts, since if the above was the only meaning, it was scarcely worth while to repeat the observation. [2119] But as in fact in this second instance the above cause for the closing of the doors no longer exists, while the words τῶν θυρῶν κεκλεισμένων are immediately united with ἔρχεται, he comes: what was before the most apparent meaning, namely, that they are intended to determine the manner of the coming of Jesus, is here heightened into a probability. [2120] Further, the repeated statement that Jesus came when the doors were closed is again followed by the words ἔστη εἰς τὸ μέσον, which even in connexion with ἦλθεν, to which they are related as a more precise determination, imply that Jesus suddenly presented himself, without his approach having been seen: whence it is undeniably evident that the writer here speaks of a coming without the ordinary means, consequently, of a miraculous coming. But did this miracle consist in passing through the boards of the doors? This is combated even by those who espouse the cause of miracles in general, and they confidently appeal to the fact, that it is nowhere said, he entered through the closed doors διὰ τῶν θυρῶν κεκλεισμένων. [2121] But the Evangelist does not mean to convey the precise notion that Jesus, as Michaelis expresses himself, passed straight through the pores of the wood of which the doors were made; he merely means that the doors were shut and remained so, and nevertheless Jesus suddenly stood in the chamber,—walls, doors, in short all material barriers, forming no obstacle to his entrance. Thus in reply to their unjust demand of us, to show them in the text of John a precise determination which is quite away from the intention of this writer, we must ask them to explain why he has not noticed the (miraculous) opening of the doors, if he presupposed such a circumstance? In relation to this point Calvin very infelicitously refers to Acts xii. 6 ff., where it is narrated of Peter, that he came out of the closed prison; no one, he says, here supposes that the doors remained closed, and that Peter penetrated through wood and iron. Assuredly not; because here it is expressly said of the iron gate of the prison which led into the city, that it opened to him of its own accord (v. 10). This observation serves to give so lively and graphic an idea of the miracle, that our Evangelist would certainly not, in two instances, have omitted a similar one, if he had thought of a miraculous opening of the doors.

Thus in this narrative of John the supernatural will not admit of being removed or diminished: nor is the natural explanation more satisfactory in relation to the expressions by which Luke describes the coming and going of Jesus. For if, according to this Evangelist, his coming was a standing in the midst of the disciples, στῆναι ἐν μέσῳ τῶν μαθητῶν, his going a becoming invisible to them, ἄφαντος γίνεσθαι ἀπ’ αὐτῶν: the concurrence of these two representations, taken in connexion with the terror of the disciples and their mistaking him for a spirit, will hardly allow the supposition of anything else than a miraculous appearance. Besides, if we might perhaps form some idea how Jesus could enter in a natural manner without being observed into a room filled with men: we should still be at a loss to imagine how it could be possible for him, when he sat at table at Emmaus, apparently with the two disciples alone, to withdraw himself from them unobserved, and so that they were not able to follow him. [2122]

That Mark, under the words ἑτέρα μορφὴ understands a form miraculously altered, ought never to have been denied; [2123] but this is a point of minor importance, because it involves only the narrator’s own interpretation of the circumstance which had been already stated, but with a different explanation, by Luke: namely, that the two disciples did not know Jesus. That Mary Magdalene took Jesus for the gardener, was hardly, in the view of the Evangelist, the consequence of his having borrowed the gardener’s clothes: rather, the spirit of the narrative would require us to explain her not knowing him by supposing that her eyes were held (κρατεῖσθαι, Luke xxiv. 16), or that Jesus had assumed another form; while her taking him for the gardener might then be simply accounted for by the fact that she met the unknown man in the garden. Nor are we authorized by the evangelical narratives to suppose a disfiguration of Jesus by the sufferings of the cross, and a gradual healing of his wounds. The words Touch me not in John, if they were to be regarded as a prohibition of a touch as painful, would be in contradiction, not merely with Matthew, according to whom Jesus on the same morning—that of the resurrection—allowed the women to embrace his feet, but also with Luke, according to whom he on the same day invited the disciples to handle him; and we must then ask, which representation is correct? But there is nothing at all in the context to intimate that Jesus forbade Mary to touch him for fear of pain; he may have done so from various motives: concerning which, however, the obscurity of the passage has hitherto precluded any decision. [2124]

But the most singularly perverted inference is this: that the infrequent and brief interviews of Jesus with his disciples after the resurrection are a proof that he was as yet too weak for long and multiplied efforts, and consequently was undergoing a natural cure. On this very supposition of his needing bodily tendance, he should have been not seldom, but constantly, with his disciples, who were those from whom he could the most immediately expect such tendance. For where are we to suppose that he dwelt in the long intervals between his appearances? in solitude? in the open air? in the wilderness and on mountains? That was no suitable abode for an invalid, and nothing remains but to suppose that he must have been concealed among secret colleagues of whom even his disciples knew nothing. But thus to conceal his real abode even from his own disciples, to show himself to them only seldom, and designedly to present and withdraw himself suddenly, would be a kind of double dealing, an affectation of the supernatural, which would exhibit Jesus and his cause in a light foreign to the object itself so far as it lies before us in our original sources of information, and only thrown upon it by the dark lantern of modern, yet already obsolete, conceptions. The opinion of the Evangelists is no other than that the risen Jesus, after those short appearances among his followers, withdrew like a higher being into invisibility, from which, on fitting occasions, he again stept forth. [2125]