But, apart altogether from the consideration that the theory in these different forms contra- dicts the historical evidence in vital points, and that to ascribe to fraud or mistake the rise of a belief with such revolutionary eft'ects in the thought and life of the disciples is altogether im- probable as an adequate explanation, there is one fact on which all such theories come to grief. Within a few weeks of the Death and the Burial the disciples were boldly proclaiming in the streets of the very city where Jesus had been crucified, and even before the authorities who were respon- sible for the Crucifixion, that God raised Him up on the third day, and through this public proclama- tion were making multitudes of converts. If their testimony was false, why did not the Jewish and Roman authorities for ever silence the disciples by pointing to where the body of Jesus still lay, or by showing how it had come to be removed from the tomb in which it had been laid after the Cruci- fixion ? What could have been at once easier and more effective? Even after an interval of fifty days, as medical science acknowledges, the body must have been recognizable. ' The silence of the Jews is as significant as the speech of the Chris- tians ' (Fairbairn, Studies in the Life of Christ, p. 357). 'Did not in this case spells could not, and the empty tomb remains an unimpeachable witness to the truth of the message that the Lord had risen' (Orr, Resurrection of Jesus, p. 213 f.).
3. The subjective vision or mental hallucina- tion theory. — This is the most weighty of the older theories put forward to explain the apostolic belief in the Resurrection, without acknowledging the actual fact. According to this theory the so- called ' appearances' of the Risen Christ were due to the excited state of mind in which the disciples were after the death of their Master. Overwrought and mentally distraught by the shock of His death, and yearning for His presence, they saw apparitions or visions of Him. But these Mere purely subjec- tive— phantasms or mental hallucinations. They longed to see Him ; they expected to see Him ; and they thought they did see Him. Their thought was perfectly honest, but it was neverthe- less a hallucination. For persons in a state of unusual mental excitement and expectancy, especi- ally when they are also of a highly strung nervous
temperament, such visions are, it is represented, common phenomena of religious history, and are often contagious. So it was in the case of the appearances of Jesus. They bes'an with the women, probably with Mary Magdalene, an excit- able and nervous person. Her story that she had seen the Lord was eagerly embraced ; it spread with lightning rapidity, and with the force of an epidemic. What she believed slie had seen others believed tliey too must see, and they saw. The visions were the product of their dwelling in fond and atl'ectionate memory on the personality of their Master, whicli, after the first shock of de-spair was over, they came to feel was such that He must have survived death, bo it is that Renan repre- sents the case. As he puts it, ' Ce qui a ressuscit6 J6.SUS, c'est I'amour ' [Les Apdtres, Paris, 1866, ch. i., Eng. tr., London, 1869). With this Strauss combines refiexion upon certain passages of the OT expressing faith in the Resurrection, together with recollection of the Master's own predictions of the fact. The inadequacy of such a theory to account for a belief with such incalculably momen- tous results as the belief in the Resurrection has often been exposed, but because of its continued prevalence in one form or other in the present day — such recent critics as Schmiedel, Weizsacker, Harnack, A. Meyer, and Loisy support it — the chief objections to it, in addition to the funda- mental consideration referred to at the end of last section, which applies equally against all forms of the vision theory, may be briefly indicated.
(1) Such a psycholo^cal condition as is necessary to the vision theory is absent on the disciples' part. With hearts sad and hopes broiien, so far from expecting a Resurrection, they could liardiv be persuaded of the fact even after it occurred (Lk 2411, jn 20»25, Mk 1611-13). The women themselves who went on the third morninpr to the tomb went to anoint a dead body, not to behold a Risen Lord. (2) With reference to Strauss's attempt to base the expectation on certain passages of the OT, there is no evidence of any Jewish belief in Jesus' time of a resurrection from the dead before the last day, much less of such a resurrection as took place in the case of Jesua (see Edersheim, LT-^ ii. 624). Even Jesus' own intimations that He would rise again, frequently as they were given {e.'j. Mt 16-1 179 20^9 2632, etc., and lis), seem to have made no impression upon the disciples. The thought was so strange to them that they were unable to receive it. Only after the event were these pre- dictions understood (cf. Jn 222). (3) The tradition of * the third day ' and of the appearances already on this day of the Risen Christ in Jerusalem is set aside as affording too little time for the rise of visions. So the upholders of the vision theory feel the necessity of transferring the appearances of Jesus from Jerusalem to Galilee, thus not only giving more time for visions to develop, but transferring them to scenes where memory and imagination could more easily work. This involves the separat- ing them from the empty tomb and the events of the Easter mom, which we have seen to be facts firmly rooted in the apos- tolic tradition. The inadequacy of Strauss's endeavour to show how the belief in ' the third day ' may have originated from < )T hints {Sew Life, i. 438 f.) has already been referred to. (4) The fact that the manifestations were made not merely to this or that individual but to companies of persons at the same time, 'the twelve,' 'all the apostles,' 'more than five hundred,' in- creases many-fold the difficulty of explaining as the product of subjective vision the fact to which they bear witness. There are no doubt genuine instances of ' collective ' delusion, an im- pression received or idea conceived by one ardent soul being transmitted by a kind of electric sympathy to others ready to bear witness that they have had a like experience. Schmiedel gives some instances (EBi iv. 4083) ; but there is this funda- mental difference between these and the appearances of the Risen Christ, that in the latter case, as the narratives bear dis- tinctly on their face, the whole company was instantaneously affected in the same way. (5) The theory is inconsistent with the fact that the visions came so suddenly to an end. After the forty days no appearance of the Risen Lord is recorded, except that to St. Paul, the circumstances and object of which were altogether exceptional. It is not thus that imagination works. As Keim says, ' the spirits that men call up are not so quickly laid ' {Jesus of Nazara, vi. 357).