Supernatural Religion Volume III Part 27

Which of these accounts are we to believe? According to the first Gospel, there is no embalmment at all; according to the second and third Gospels, the embalmment is undertaken by the women, and not by Joseph and Nicodemus, but is never carried out; according to the fourth Gospel, the embalmment is completed on Friday evening by Joseph and Nicodemus, and not by the women. According to the first Gospel, the burial is completed on Friday evening; according to the second and third, it is only provisional; and according to the fourth, the embalmment is final, but it is doubtful whether the entombment is final or temporary; several critics consider it to have been only provisional.(2) In Mark, the women buy the spices "when the Sabbath was past" [------];(3) in Luke before it has begun;(4) and in Matthew and John they do not buy them at all. In the first and fourth Gospels, the women come after the Sabbath merely to behold the sepulchre,(5) and in the second and third, they bring the spices to complete the burial.

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Amid these conflicting statements we may suggest one consideration. It is not probable, in a hot climate, that a wounded body, hastily laid in a sepulchre on Friday evening before six o'clock, would be disturbed again on Sunday morning for the purpose of being anointed and embalmed.

Corruption would, under the circ.u.mstances, already have commenced.

Besides, as Keim(l) has pointed out, the last duties to the dead were not forbidden amongst the Jews on the Sabbath, and there is really no reason why any care for the body of the Master which reverence or affection might have dictated should not at once have been bestowed.

The enormous amount of myrrh and aloes--"about a hundred pound weight"

[------]--brought by Nicodemus has excited much discussion, and adds to the extreme improbability of the story related by the fourth Evangelist.(3) To whatever weight the [------] may be reduced, the quant.i.ty specified is very great; and it is a question whether the body thus enveloped "as the manner of the Jews is to bury" could have entered the sepulchre. The practice of embalming the dead, although well known amongst the Jews, and invariable in the case of Kings and n.o.ble or very wealthy persons, was by no means generally prevalent In the burial of Gamaliel the elder, chief of the party of the Pharisees, it is stated that over 80 pounds of balsam were burnt in his honour by the proselyte Onkelos;(3) but this quant.i.ty, which was considered very

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remarkable, is totally eclipsed by the provision of Nicodemus.

The key to the whole of this history of the burial of Jesus, however, is to be found in the celebrated chapt. liii. of "Isaiah." We have already, in pa.s.sing, pointed out that, in the third Gospel (xxii. 37), Jesus is represented as saying: "For I say unto you, that this which is written must be accomplished in me: And he was reckoned among transgressors."

The same quotation from Is. liii. 12 is likewise interpolated in Mk. xv.

28. Now the whole representation of the burial and embalmment of Jesus is evidently based upon the same chapter, and more especially upon v.

9, which is wrongly rendered both in the Authorized Version and in the Septuagint, in the latter of which the pa.s.sage reads: "I will give the wicked for his grave and the rich for his death."(1) The Evangelists taking this to be the sense of the pa.s.sage, which they suppose to be a Messianic prophecy, have represented the death of Jesus as being with the wicked, crucified as he is between two robbers; and through Joseph of Arimathaea, significantly called "a rich man" [------] by the first Synoptist, especially according to the fourth Evangelist by his addition of the counsellor Nicodemus and his hundred pounds weight of mingled myrrh and aloes, as being "with the rich in his death." Unfortunately, the pa.s.sage in the "prophecy" does not mean what the Evangelists have been led to understand, and the ablest Hebrew scholars and critics are now agreed that both phrases quoted refer, in true Hebrew manner, to one representation, and that the word above

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translated "rich" is not used in a favourable sense, but that the pa.s.sage must be rendered: "And they made his grave with the wicked and his sepulchre with the evil-doers," or words to that effect.(1) Without going minutely into the details of opinion on the subject of the "servant of Jehovah" in this writing of the Old Testament, we may add that upon one point at least the great majority of critics are of one accord: that Is. liii. and other pa.s.sages of "Isaiah" describing the sufferings of the "Servant of Jehovah" have no reference to the Messiah.(3) As we have

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touched upon this subject it may not be out of place to add that Psalms xxii.(1) and lxix.,(2) which are so frequently quoted in connection with the pa.s.sion, and represented by New Testament and other early writers as Messianic, are determined by sounder principles of criticism applied to them in modern times not to refer to the Messiah at all. We have elsewhere spoken of other supposed Messianic Psalms quoted in the New Testament.(3)

"We now come to a remarkable episode which is peculiar to the first Synoptic and strangely ignored by all the other Gospels. It is stated that the next day--that is to say, on the Sabbath--the chief priests and the Pharisees came together to Pilate, saying: "Sir, we remember that that deceiver said while he was yet alive: After three

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days I am raised [------]. Command, therefore, that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest his disciples come and steal him away and say unto the people: He is risen from the dead: so the last error shall be worse than the first. Pilate said unto them: Ye have a guard [------]: go, make it as sure as ye can. So they went and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, with the guard."(l) Not only do the other Evangelists pa.s.s over this strange proceeding in total silence, but their narratives exclude it, at least those of the second and third Synoptists do so. The women came with their spices to embalm the body, in total ignorance of there being any guard to interfere with their performance of that last sad office for the Master. We are asked to believe that the chief priests and the Pharisees actually desecrated the Sabbath by sealing the stone, and visited the house of the heathen Pilate on so holy a day, for the purpose of asking for the guard.(2) These priests are said to have remembered and understood a prophecy of Jesus regarding his resurrection, of which his disciples are represented to be in ignorance.(3) The remark about "the last error," moreover, is very suspicious. The ready acquiescence of Pilate is quite incredible.(4) That he should employ Roman soldiers to watch the sepulchre of a man who had been crucified cannot be entertained; and his friendly: "Go, make it as sure as ye

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can," is not in the spirit of Pilate. It is conceivable that to satisfy their clamour he may, without much difficulty, have consented to crucify a Jew, more especially as his crime was of a political character represented as in some degree affecting the Roman power; but, once crucified, it is not in the slightest degree likely that Pilate would care what became of his body, and still less that he would employ Roman soldiers to mount guard over it.

It may be as well to dispose finally of this episode, so we at once proceed to its conclusion. When the resurrection takes place, it is stated that some of the guard went into the city, and, instead of making their report to Pilate, as might have been expected, told the chief priests all that had occurred. A council is held, and the soldiers are largely bribed, and instructed: "Say that his disciples came by night and stole him while we slept. And if this come to the governor's ears we will persuade him and make you free from care. So they took the money and did as they were taught."(1) Nothing could be more simple than the construction of the story, which follows the usual broad lines of legend. The idea of Roman soldiers confessing that they slept whilst on watch, and allowed that to occur which they were there to prevent! and this to oblige the chief priests and elders, at the risk of their lives!

Then are we to suppose that the chief priests and council believed this story of the earthquake and angel, and yet acted in this way? and if they did not believe it, would not the very story itself have led to the punishment of the men, and to the confirmation of the report they desired to spread, that the disciples had stolen the body? The large bribe seems to have been very ineffectual, however, since the Christian historian is able to report precisely what the

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chief priests and elders instruct them to say.(1) Is it not palpable that the whole story is legendary?(2) If it be so, and we think it cannot be doubted, a conclusion which the total silence of the other Gospels seems to confirm, very suggestive consequences may be deduced from it. The first Synoptist, referring to the false report which the Sanhedrin instruct the soldiers to make, says: "And this saying was spread among the Jews unto this day."(3) The probable origin of the legend, therefore, may have been an objection to the Christian affirmation of the resurrection to the above effect; but it is instructive to find that Christian tradition was equal to the occasion, and invented a story to refute it. It is the tendency to this very system of defence and confirmation, everywhere apparent, which renders early Christian tradition so mythical and untrustworthy.

We now enter upon the narrative of the Resurrection itself. The first Synoptist relates that Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to behold the sepulchre "at the close of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn into the first day of the week" [------],(4) that is to say, shortly after six o'clock on the evening of Sat.u.r.day, the end of the Sabbath, the dawn of the next day being marked by the

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glimmer of more than one star in the heavens.(1) The second Synoptic represents that, "when the Sabbath was past," Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, and that they came to the sepulchre "very early on the first day of the week after the rising of the sun" [------].(2) The third Synoptist states that the women who came with Jesus from Galilee came to the sepulchre, but he subsequently more definitely names them: "Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them,"(3)--a larger number of women,--and they came "upon the first day of the week at early dawn"

[------]. The fourth Evangelist represents that Mary Magdalene only(4) came to the sepulchre, on the first day of the week, "early, while it was yet dark" [------].(5)

The first Evangelist indubitably makes the hour at which the women come to the sepulchre different and much earlier than the others, and at the same time he represents them as witnessing the actual removal of the stone, which, in the other three Gospels, the women already find rolled away from the mouth of the sepulchre.(6) It will, therefore, be interesting to follow the first Synoptic. It is here stated: 2. "And behold there was a great earthquake [------]: for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled away the stone and sat upon it. 3. His appearance was like lightning, and his raiment white as

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snow. 4. And for fear of him the keepers did shake and became as dead men. 5. And the angel answered and said unto the women: Fear ye not, for I know that ye seek Jesus, who hath been crucified. 6. He is not here: for he was raised [------] as he said: Come, see the place where he lay.

7. And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he was raised [------]

from the dead, and behold he goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see him: behold, I have told you. 8. And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy; and ran to tell his disciples."(1) We have here in the first place another earthquake and apparently, on the theory of the course of cosmical phenomena held during the "Age of Miracles," produced by the angel who descended to roll away the stone from the sepulchre. This earthquake, like the others recorded in the first Synoptic, appears to be quite unknown to the other Evangelists, and no trace of it has been pointed out in other writings.

With the appearance of the angel we obviously arrive upon thoroughly unhistorical ground. Can we believe, because this unknown writer tells us so, that "an angel,"(2) causing an earthquake, actually descended and took such a part in this transaction? Upon the very commonest

2 Compare his description with Dan. x. 6. It is worthy of consideration also that when Daniel is cast into the den of lions a stone is rolled upon the mouth of the den, and sealed with the signet of the king and his lords, vi. 17.

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principles of evidence, the reply must be an emphatic negative. Every fact of science, every lesson of experience excludes such an a.s.sumption, and we may add that the character of the author, with which we are now better acquainted, as well as the course of the narrative itself, confirms the justice of such a conclusion.(1) If the introduction of the angel be legendary, must not also his words be so? Proceeding, however, to examine the narrative as it stands, we must point out a circ.u.mstance which may appropriately be mentioned here, and which is well worthy of attention. The women and the guard are present when the stone is rolled away from the sepulchre, but they do not witness the actual Resurrection. It is natural to suppose that, when the stone was removed, Jesus, who, it is a.s.serted, rises with his body from the dead, would have come forth from the sepulchre: but not so; the angel only says, v.

6: "He is not here: for he was raised [------];" and he merely invites the women to see the place where he lay. The actual resurrection is spoken of as a thing which had taken place before, and in any case it was not witnessed by any one. In the other Gospels, the resurrection has already occurred before any one arrives at the sepulchre; and the remarkable fact is, therefore, absolutely undeniable, that there was not, and that it is not even pretended that there was, a single eye-witness of the actual Resurrection. The empty grave, coupled with the supposed subsequent appearances of Jesus, is the only evidence of the Resurrection. We shall not, however, pursue this further at present.

The removal of the stone is not followed by any visible result. The inmate of the sepulchre is not

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observed to issue from it, and yet he is not there. May we not ask what was the use, in this narrative, of the removal of the stone at all? As no one apparently came forth, the only purpose seems to have been to permit those from without to enter and see that the sepulchre was empty.

Another remarkable point is that the angel desires the women to go quickly and inform the disciples: "he goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see him." One is tempted to inquire why, as he rose from the dead in Jerusalem and, in spite of previous statements, the disciples are represented as being there also,(1) Jesus did not appear to them in the Holy City, instead of sending them some three days'

journey off to Galilee. At the same time, Jesus is represented by the first two Synoptics as saying at the last Supper, when warning the disciples that they will all be offended at him that night and be scattered: "But after I shall have been raised, I will go before you into Galilee."(2) At present we have only to call attention to the fact that the angel gives the order. With how much surprise, therefore, do we not immediately after read that, as the women departed quickly to tell the disciples in obedience to the angel's message, v. 9: "Behold Jesus met them, saying, Hail. And they came up to him and laid hold of his feet, and worshipped him. 10. Then saith Jesus unto them: Be not afraid: go, tell my brethren that they depart into Galilee, and there they shall see me."(3) What was the use of the angel's message since Jesus himself immediately after appears and delivers the very same instructions in person? This sudden and apparently unnecessary appearance has all the character of an afterthought. One point,

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however, is very clear: that the order to go into Galilee and the statement that there first Jesus is to appear to the disciples are unmistakable, repeated and peremptory.

We must now turn to the second Gospel. The women going to the sepulchre with spices that they might anoint the body of Jesus--which, according to the fourth Gospel, had already been fully embalmed and, in any case, had lain in the sepulchre since the Friday evening--are represented as saying amongst themselves: "Who will roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre?"(1) This is a curious dramatic speculation, but very suspicious. These women are apparently not sufficiently acquainted with Joseph of Arimathaea to be aware that, as the fourth Gospel a.s.serts, the body had already been embalmed, and yet they actually contemplate rolling the stone away from the mouth of a sepulchre which was his property.(2) Keim has pointed out that it was a general rule(3) that, after a sepulchre had been closed in the way described, it should not again be opened. Generally, the stone was not placed against the opening of the sepulchre till the third day, when corruption had already commenced; but here the sepulchre is stated by all the Gospels to have been closed on the first day, and the unhesitating intention of the women to remove the stone is not a happy touch on the part of the second Synoptist. They find the stone already rolled away.(4) Ver. 5: "And entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment; and they were

4 Mk. xvi. 4. The continuation: "for it was very great" [-- ----], is peculiar, but of course intended to represent the difficulty of its removal.

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affrighted. 6. And he saith unto them: Be not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified: he was raised [------]; he is not here; behold the place where they laid him. 7. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him, as he said unto you. 8. And they went out and fled from the sepulchre: for trembling and astonishment seized them, and they said nothing to any one; for they were afraid."(1) In Matthew, the angel rolls away the stone from the sepulchre and sits upon it, and the women only enter to see where Jesus lay, upon his invitation. Here, they go in at once, and see the angel ("a young man") sitting at the right side, and are affrighted. He re a.s.sures them and, as in the other narrative, says: "he was raised." He gives them the same message to his disciples and to Peter, who is specially named, and the second Synoptic thus fully confirms the first in representing Galilee as the place where Jesus is to be seen by them. It is curious that the women should say nothing to anyone about this wonderful event, and in this the statements of the other Gospels are certainly not borne out. There is one remarkable point to be noticed, however, that, according to the second Synoptist also, not only is there no eye-witness of the Resurrection, but the only evidence of that marvellous occurrence which it contains is the information of the "young man," which is clearly no evidence at all.

There is no appearance of Jesus to any one narrated, and it would seem as though the appearance described in

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Matt, xxviii. 9 f. is excluded. It is well known that Mark xvi. 9-20 did not form part of the original Gospel and is inauthentic. It is unnecessary to argue a point so generally admitted. The verses now appended to the Gospel are by a different author and are of no value as evidence. We, therefore, exclude them from consideration. In Luke, as in the second Synoptic, the women find the stone removed, and here it is distinctly stated that "on entering in they found not the body of the Lord Jesus. 4. And it came to pa.s.s as they were perplexed thereabout, behold two men stood by them in shining garments; 5. And as they were afraid, and bowed their faces to the earth, they said unto them: Why seek ye the living among the dead? 6. He is not here, but was raised [------]; remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee, 7. saying, that the Son of Man must be delivered up into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified and the third day rise again. 8. And they remembered his words, 9. and returned from the sepulchre, and told all these things unto the eleven and to all the rest.... 11. And these words appeared to them as an idle tale, and they believed them not."(1) The author of the third Gospel is not content with one angel, like the first two Synoptists, but introduces "two men in shining garments," who seem suddenly to stand beside the women, and instead of re-a.s.suring them, as in the former narratives, rather adopt a tone of reproof (v. 5). They inform the women that "Jesus was raised;" and here again not only has no one been an eye-witness of the resurrection, but the women only hear of it from the angels. There is one striking peculiarity in the above

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account. There is no mention whatever of Jesus going before his disciples into Galilee to be seen of them, nor indeed of his being seen at all; but "Galilee" is introduced by way of a reminiscence. Instead of the future, the third Synoptist subst.i.tutes the past and, as might be expected, he gives no hint of any appearances of Jesus to the disciples beyond the neighbourhood of Jerusalem. When the women tell the disciples what they have seen and heard, they do not believe them. The thief on the cross, according to the writer, was more advanced in his faith and knowledge than the Apostles. Setting aside Mat. xxviii. 9,10, we have hitherto no other affirmation of the Resurrection than the statement that the sepulchre was found empty, and the angels announced that Jesus was raised from the dead.

The account of the fourth Evangelist, however, differs completely from the narratives of all the Synoptists. According to him, Mary Magdalene alone comes to the sepulchre and sees the stone taken away. She therefore runs and comes to Simon Peter and to "the other disciple whom Jesus loved," saying: "They took [------] the Lord out of the sepulchre and we know not [------](1) where they laid [------] him. 3. Peter, therefore, went forth and the other disciple, and came to the sepulchre.

4. And the two ran together; and the other disciple outran Peter and came first to the sepulchre; 5. and stooping down, looking in, he seeth the linen clothes lying; yet went he not in. C. Then cometh Simon Peter following him and went into the