This Jesus, When was received up from you into heaven, shall so come, in like manner as ye beheld Him going into heaven.' Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly!'
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[6241] I must remain uncertain, however important, whether the ps sabbton refers to Saturday evening or early Sunday Morning.
[6242] The reader who is desirous of comparing the different views about these seeming or real small discrepancies is referred to the various Commentaries. On the strictly orthodox side the most elaborate and learned attempt at concilliation is that by Mr. McClellan (New Test., Harmony of the Four Gospels, pp. 508-538), although his ultimate scheme of arrangement seems to me too composite.
[6243] St. Luke xxiv. 10.
[6244] St. John xx. 1.
[6245] masabbton, an expression which exactly answers to the Rabbinic {hebrew}.
[6246] Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
[6247] Mass. Semach. viii. p. 29 d.
[6248] Gen. xxii. 4.
[6249] Ber. R. 56, ed, Warsh. p. 102 b, top of page.
[6250] Ber. R. 91.
[6251] Moed K. 28 b; Ber. R. 100.
[6252] I cannot believe that St. Matthew xxviii. 1 refers to a visit of the two Marys on the Saturday evening, nor St. Mark xvi. 1 to a purchasing at that time of spices.
[6253] The accounts imply, that the women knew nothing of the sealing of the stone and of the guard set over the Tomb. This may be held as evidence, that St. Matthew could have not meant that the two Marys had visited the grave on the previous evening (xxviii. 1). In such case they must have seen the guard. Nor could the women in that case have wondered who roll away the stone for them.
[6254] I cannot believe that St. Matthew xxviii. 1 refers to a visit of the two Marys on the Saturday evening, nor St. Mark xvi. 1 to a purchasing at that time of spices.
[6255] See this Book, ch. xii.
[6256] St. John xxi. 2.
[6257] St. Matt. xxviii. 16.
[6258] It may, however, have been that the appearance of the one Angel was to one company of women, that of two Angels to another.
[6259] While I would speak very diffidently on the subject, it seems to me as if the Evangelist has compressed the whole of that morning's event into one narrative: The Women at the Sepulchre.' It is this compression which gives the appearance of more events than really took place, owing to the appearance of being divided into scenes, and the circumstance that the different writers give prominence to different persons or else to different details in what is really one scene. Nay, I am disposed - though again with great diffidence - to regard the appearance of Jesus to the women' (St. Matt. xxviii. 9) as the same with that to Mary Magdalene, recorded in St. John xx. 11-17, and referred to in St. Mark xvi. 9 - the more so as the words in St. Matt. xxviii. 9 as they went to tell His disciples' are spurious, being probably intended for harmonious purposes. But, while suggesting this view, I would by no means maintain it as one certain to my own mind, although it would simplify details otherwise very intricate.
[6260] So already Bengel.
[6261] It may be regarded as a specimen of what one might designate as the imputation of sinister motives to the Evangelists, when the most advanced' negative criticism describes this legend' as implying the contest between Jewish and Gentile Christianity (Peter and John) in which the younger gains the race! Similarly, we are informed that the penitent on the Cross is intended to indicate the Gentiles, the impenitent the Jews! But no language can be to strong to repudiate the imputation, that so many parts of the Gospels were intended as covert attacks by certain tendencies in the early Church against others - the Petrine and Jacobine against the Johannine and Pauline directions.
[6262] When Meyer contends that the plural in St. John xx. 2, We know not where they have laid Him,' does not refer to the presence of other women with the Magdalene, but is a general expression for: We, all His followers, have no knowledge of it - he must have overlooked that, when alone, she repeats the same words in ver. 13, but markedly uses the singular number: I know not.'