be based on an alleged occurrence which it W&.1 within the power and in the interest ot many to disprove had it been hut amvth— the emptv grave on the third day together with His subsequent appearances. This was their own explanation ot the ethical and spiritual power which dittcrentiates their belief from that of alleged pagan counterparts, and this is the only explanation that is adequate to the facts.
LiTKRATCRK. — Oil tlic Myiliological Theory see, further, J Orr, Kemmction of Jesm, London, liWS, ch. ix. ; T. J. Thorburn, Jesus the. Christ: Uislorical or Mi/thical I, E>im- burgh, 11)1'2 ; R. J. Knowling, Testimony oj St. Paul to Christ, London. \M:<, p. :M'2 It.
3. The spiritual significance theory.— A tiother
tendency whicli is dominant .'it the present time is that which lays emphasis on the spiritual worth or significance of the resurrection of Christ while sur- rendering or sitting loose to the belief in a bodily rising from the grave. A bodily liesurrcction, so far from being of the essence of the Christian faith, is represented as a temporary excrescence which can be dropped without atlecting it in any vital way. This is a tendency associated especially with a certain section of tlie Kitsclilian school of theologians and ' connects itself naturally with the disposition in this school to seek the ground of faith in an immediate religious iinpiession— in something verifiable on its own account— and to dissociate faith from doubtful questions of criticism and uncertainties of historical inquiry' (Orr, Re- surrection of Jesii.1, p. 23 f.). 'The basis of faith must be something fi.xed ; the results of historical study are continually changing' (W. Herrmanii, Commnnion of the Christian with God, Eiig. tr.-, London, 1900, p. 76). The certainty to which Christian faith holds fast is that ' Christ lives,' but this is a 'judgment of value,' or, as Herrmann prefers to call it, a ' thought of faith ' (Glaubcnsge- danke), a conviction based on the impression of religious worth produced by the earthly life of Jesus, and not atiected by any view that may be held as to the historical Resurrection. The belief in the Resurrection is thus not a belief based on historical evidence in regard to an event in the past, but a faith inference from a prior judgment of His person. P'oremost among representatives of this position stands Harnack, who has probably done more than any other to popularize the theory.
In his Hist, of Dogma (i. 85-87) Harnack contends (1) that there is no satisfactory historical evidence of the actual bodily Resurrection. ' None of Christ's opponents saw him after his death. . . . The succession and number of the appearances can no longer be ascertained with certainty. . . . The disciples, and Paul were conscious of having seen Christ not in the crucified earthly body, but in heavenly glory. . . . Even the empty grave on the third dav can by no means he regarded as a certain historical fact, because it appears united in the accounts with manifest legendary features, and further because it is directly excluded bv the way in which Paul has portr.aycd the resurrection in 1 C'o IS.' But (2) Harnack goes further, and pours ridicule on the attempt to find such evidence. He scouts the idea of faith being dependent on historical evidence at all. Faith must be independent of evidence coming to us througli the testimony of others. 'To believe in appearances which others have had is a frivolity which is alw.ays revenged by rising doubts.' But the faith which is thus independent of historical evidence is, itspeedilva]ipears, a faith which is indifferent to the question ot the ph\ sical Resurrection. ' Kaith has by no means to do with the knowledge ot the form in which Jesus lives, but only with the conviction that he is the living Lord.' The faith in the Resurrection and the belief in the empty tomb are two different things. The historical question and the question of faith must cleariy be distinguished here. In his later lectures on 'What is Ch'ristianityV Harnack gives expression to the same view in his famous distinction between what he calls the ' Easter message ' and the ' Raster faith.' ' The Easter message tells us of that wonderful event in Joseph of Arinmthaja's garden, which, however, no eve saw ; it tells us of the empty grave into which a few women and disciples looked ; of the appearance of the Lord in a transfigured form— so glorified that his own could not immediately recognise him ; it soon begins to tell us, too, of what the risen one said and did.' But ' the Easter /aUA is the conviction that the crucified one gained a victory over death ; that Ood is just and powerful ; that he who is the first- born among many brethren still lives '(What i,s Chnstianilij >'■', p. 163 f.). To found the Easter faith on the Easter message is to restitonan 'unstable foundation.' 'What he [Paul] and the disciples regarded as all-important was not the state in which the grave was found, hut Christ's appearances. But who of us can maintain that a clear account of these appearances can be
364 RESURRECTION OF CHRIST
RESURRECTION OF CHRIST
constructed out of the stories told by Paul and the evangelists ; and if that be itnpoHi^ible, and there is no tradition of single events which is quite trustworthy, how is the Kapler faith to be base<l on IheniV Either we nuist decide to rest our belief on a foundation unstable and always exposed to fresh doubts, or else we must abandon this foundation alto;,'ether, and with it the miraculous appeal to our senses ' (p. Iti4 f.). It nmst have been, he thinlts, evwi to the disciples themselves not so much the Easter messajre as the imj>rcs»ion of His personality which was the ultimate foundation of the Easier faith that He was still alive. This impression of the personality of Jesus at least is a simple matter of fact which no historical criticism can in any way alter {ib.).