The oidy remaining course is to combine the traditions, much as they seem to be combined in the Fourth (Jospel and the Gospel of Peter. We must not disguise from ourselves the difficulties which this .solution leaves. The most serious of these are caused by the command of Lk 24^*, and the contracted space within which we shall have to compress the events in Galilee. We have only 40 days to dispose of, in all, if we accept the traditional date of the Ascension, — and even if we regarded this as a round number, the nearness (A the Day of Pentecost would allow us very little more margin. From the.se Forty Days we should have to take off a week at the beginning on ac- count of Jn 20'^. And if, as we reasonably may, we suppose that there has been some frireshorteninij in Lk 24*^''', and that two or three distinct occasions are treated as if they were continuous, we should still, to find a place for the injunction to wait in
JESUS CHRIST
JESUS CHRIST
G41
Jerus., have to cut off another like period at the end. That would not leave much more than three weeks for the retirement to Galilee and return to Jerus. — a length of time which cannot be pro- nounced wholly insufficient, but which does not fit in quite naturally with the way in which the apo.stks are <lescribeil in Jn "JF as rtiurninj; to their ordi- nary occupations. These difficulties would be avoided if we eould regard the Day o£ Pentecost as that of the following year; but any .such hypo- thesis Would conflict directly with Ac P, and the interval implied in Jn 21'''* is also a .short one.
Whichever way we turn difficulties meet us, which the documents to which we have access do not enalile us to remove. We have said enouLcli a.s to the nature of these documents, and of the lines of tradition to which they give expression. It is not what we could wish, but what we have. And no difficulty of weaving the separate nicidents into an orderly well-compacted narrative can impugn the unanimous belief of the Church which lies behind them, that the Lord Jesus Christ rose from ths dead on the third day and appeared to the di.sciple^.
(3) Attempled KxiHanatwn.i. — -This universal belief is the root fact which hits to be accounted for. It would be the natural product of a real event such as the Epistles assume and the Gospels de.scribe. But what if the event were not real ? In that ease the widely held and deeply planted belief in it must needs constitute a very serious problem.
In the present century a succession of efforts have been made to account for the belief in the Kesurrection without accepting it as a fact. Many of the hypotheses put forward with this object may be regarded as practically obsolete and abandoned. No one now believes that the supposed death Wiis really only a swoon, and that the body laid in the tomb afterwards revived, and was seen more than once by the disciples (on this see a trenchant sentence by Strauss, Lchen Jesii, 180:J, p. 298, end of paragraph). Ivpially inadmissible is the hypo- thesis of fraud — that the body was really taken away by Joseph of Arimathsa or Xicodemus, and that the rumour was allowed to grow that Jesus was ri.sen. The lingering trace of this which sur- vives in Kenan, Lis Apolres, ed. 13, p. K! (-ceux qui .savaient le secret de la disposition du corps') is thrown in quite by the way as a subordinate detail.
More persistent is the theory of ' visions.' This lia-s been presented in different forms, assigning the leading part now to one and now to another of the disciples. Kenan, who goes his own way among critics, sees in this part of the narrative a marked superiority of the Fourth Go.spel (Les Api'itres, p. !)). In accordance with it he refers the beginning of the series to Mary Magdalene (cf. Strau.ss, I.i'lien Jcnu, 18li3, p. 300). A woman out of whom had been ciist 'seven devils' might well, he thinks, have been thrown into a state of nervous tension and excitement which would give form and substance to the creations of fancy. And when once the report had got aliroad that the Lord had been seen, it would be natural for others to supjiose tnat ihey saw llim. Strauss and I'fleiderer (Giff. Led. pp. 112, 149) start rather from the case of St. Paul. Uoth lay stress upon the fact that he places the appearance to himself on a level with those to the older di.sciples. Ilis own vision they wo\dd agree in ex|ilaining as due to a sjiecies of epileptic seizure, and the others they would regard
• Till' niiinhorinf: nf lliln Oallln'an Anpearancc a« tho * thtnl ' niicrit lici'iii to tif nt vnrlnncf with St. raiil'ft ll»l In 1 t'o 15 : Itiit It Is i-Ii-nr Itml tin- ii|»iM-jiriiliri's whirh St. John I'miini-nili's «frv UiMS(, til Itn' tiiwly of • till- tllM'IpIcs ' (1.^. lirllimrlly. to a ci"""!' Ilu'liullntf tin- apo^tli's). lie hllntx'lr (!•>«■» not roiint tliat to .Mary Macilalriii' ; nor would ho have coUDtcd IhuM tu St. Totur or till' KniniauM travi-IItT!*.
as equally subjective, though led up to by different trains of psychological preparation.