[209] Acts 2:24, 32; Rom. 6:4; l0:9; 1 Cor. 15:15; Eph. 1:20; 1 Pet. 1:21.

[209] Acts 2:24, 32; Rom. 6:4; l0:9; 1 Cor. 15:15; Eph. 1:20; 1 Pet. 1:21.

[210] John 2:19; 10:17, 18. In like manner the first advent of the Lord is represented as his own voluntary act and as a mission from the Father, John 8:42: ego' ek teou exelthen Kai-i' heko oude-i' ga'r ap emautou elelutha, all ekeino's me apesteilen.)

[211] Rom. 6:9, 10. Neander (Leben Jesu, pp. 596 and 597 of the 6th Germ. ed.) makes some excellent remarks on this inseparable connection between the resurrection and the ascension, and says that the asc ension would stand fast as a supernatural fact even if Luke had not said a word about it. A temporary resurrection followed by another death could never have become the foundation of a church.

[212] 1 Cor. 15:13-19; comp. Rom. 4:25, where Paul represents Christ's death and resurrection in inseparable connection, as the sum and substance of the whole gospel.

[213] Ewald makes the striking remark (VI. 90) that the resurrection is "the culmination of all the miraculous events which are conceivable from the beginning of history to its close."

[214] Matt. 16:21-23; 17:9, 22, 23; 20:17-20; Mark 8:31; 9:9, 10, 31, 32 ("they understood not that saying, and were afraid to ask him"); Luke 9:22, 44, 45; 18:31-34; 24:6-8; John 2:21, 22; 3:14; 8:28; 10:17, 18; 12:32.

[215] The devoted women went to the sepulchre on the first Christian Sabbath, not to see it empty but to embalm the body with spices for its long rest, Mark 16:1; Luke 23:56; and when they told the eleven what they saw, their words seemed to them "as idle talk," and "they disbelieved them," Luke 24:11. Comp. Matt. 28:17 ("some doubted"); Mark 16: 8 ("they were afraid"); John 20:25.

[216] Dr. Baur states the contrast tersely thus: "Zwischen dem Tod [Jesu]und seiner Auferstehung liegt ein so tiefes undurchdringliches Dunkel, dass man nach so gewaltsam zerrissenem und so wundervoll wiederhergestelltem Zusammenhange sich gleichsam auf einem neuen Schauplatz der Geschichte sieht."Compare his remarks at the close of this section. Dr. Ewald describes the depression and sudden exaltation of the disciples more fully with his usual force (vol. vi. 54 sqq.). I will quote also the description of Renan, at the beginning of the first chapter of his work, Les Apôtres: "Jésus, quoique parlant sans cesse de résurrection, de nouvelle vie, n'avait jamais dit bien clairement qu'il ressusciterait en sa chair. Les disciples, (dans les premières heures qui suivirent sa mort, n'avaient à cet égard aucune espérance arrétée. Les sentimentsdont ils nous font la naive confidence supposent méme qu'ils croyaient tout fini. Ils pleurent et enterrent leur ami, sinon comme un mort vulgaire, du moins comme une personne dont la perte est irréparable (Marc 16:10; Luc 24:17, 21) ils sont tristes et abattus; l'espoir qu'ils avaient eu de le voir realiser le salut d'Israël est convaincu de vanité; on dirait des hommes qui ont perdu une grande et chère illusion. Mais l' enthousiasme et l'amour ne connaissent par les situations sans issue. Ils se jouentde l'impossible, et plutot que d'abdiquer l'espérance, ils font violence à toute réalité," etc.

[217] Matt. 28:18-20; Mark 16:15, 16; Luke 24;46-48; John 20:21-23; Acts 1:8.

[218] So Meyer says, who is one of the fairest as well as most careful exegetes (Com. on John, 5th Germ. ed., p. 643). I will add the observations of Canon Farrar (Life of Christ, vol. II 432): "The lacunae, the compressions, the variations, the actual differences, the subjectivity of the narrators as affected by spiritual revelations, render all harmonies at the best uncertain. Our belief in the resurrection, as an historic fact, as absolutely well attested to us by subsequent and contemporary circumstances as any other event in history, rests on grounds far deeper, wider, more spiritual, more eternal, than can be shaken by divergences of which we can only say that they are not necessarily contradictions, but of which the true solution is no longer attainable. Hence the 'ten discrepancies' which have been dwelt on since the days of Celsus, have never for one hour shaken the faith of Christendom. The phenomena presented by the narratives are exactly such as we should expect, derived as they are from different witnesses, preserved at first in oral tradition only, and written 1,800 years ago at a period when minute circumstantial accuracy, distinguished from perfect truthfulness, was little regarded. St. Paul, surely no imbecile or credulous enthusiast, vouches, both for the reality of the appearances, and also for the fact that the vision by which he was himself converted came, at a long interval after the rest, to him as to the 'abortive-born' of the apostolic family (1 Cor. 15:4-8). If the narratives of Christ's appearance to his disciples were inventions, how came they to possess the severe and simple character which shows no tinge of religious excitement? If those appearances were purely subjective, how can we account for their sudden, rapid, and total cessation ? As Lange finely says, the great fugue of the first Easter tidings has not come to us as a 'monotonous chorale,' and mere boyish verbal criticism cannot understand the common feeling and harmony which inspire the individual vibrations of those enthusiastic and multitudinous voices (vol. V. 61). Professor Westcott, with his usual profundity, and insight, points out the differences of purpose in the narrative of the four Evangelists. St. Matthew dwells chiefly on the majesty and glory of the Resurrection; St. Mark, both in the original part and in the addition (Mark 16:9-20), insists upon it as a fact; St. Luke, as a spiritual necessity; St. John, as a touchstone of character (Introd. 310-315).

[219] This theory was invented by the Jewish priests who crucified the Lord, and knew it to be false, Matt. 27:62-66; 28:12-15. The lie was repeated and believed, like many other lies, by credulous infidels, first by malignant Jews at the time of Justin Martyr, then by Celsus, who learned it from them, but wavered between it and the vision-theory, and was renewed in the eighteenth century by Reimarus in the Wolfenbüttel Fragments. Salvador, a French Jew, has again revived and modified it by assuming (according to Hase, Geschichte Jesu, p. 132) that Jesus was justly crucified, and was saved by the wife of Pilate through Joseph of Arimathaea or some Galilean women; that he retired among the Essenes and appeared secretly to a few of his disciples. (See his Jésus Christ et sa doctrine, Par. 1838.) Strauss formerly defended the vision-hypothesis (see below), but at the close of his life, when he exchanged his idealism and pantheism for materialism and atheism, he seems to have relapsed into this disgraceful theory of fraud; for in his Old and New Faith (1873) he was not ashamed to call the resurrection of Christ "a world-historical humbug." Truth or falsehood: there is no middle ground.

[220] The Scheintod-Hypothese (as the Germans call it) was ably advocated by Paulus of Heidelberg (1800), and modified by Gfrörer (1838), who afterwards became a Roman Catholic. We are pained to add Dr. Hase (Gesch. Jesu, 1876, p. 601), who finds it necessary, however, to call to aid a "special providence," to maintain some sort of consistency with his former advocacy of the miracle of the resurrection, when he truly said (Leben Jesu, p. 269, 5th ed. 1865): "Sonach ruht die Wahrheit der Auferstehung unerschütterlich auf dem Zeugnisse, ja auf dem Dasein der apostolischen Kirche."

[221] Dr. Strauss (in his second Leben Jesu, 1864, p. 298) thus strikingly and conclusively refutes the swoon-theory: "Ein halbtodt aus dem Grabe Hervorgekrochener, siech Umherschleichender, der ärztlichen Pflege, des Verbandes, der Stärkung und Schonung Bedürftiger, und am Ende doch dem Leiden Erliegender konnte auf die Jünger unmöglich den Eindruck des Sieqers über Tod und Grab, des Lebensfürsten machen, der ihrem spätern Auftreten zu Grunde lag. Ein solches Wiederaufleben hätte den Eindruck, den er im Leben und Tode auf sie gemacht hatte, nur schwächen, denselben höchstens elegisch ausklingen lassen, unmöglich aber ihre Trauer in Beigeisterung verwandeln, ihre Verehrung zur Anbetung steigern können." Dr. Hase (p. 603) unjustly calls this exposure of the absurdity of his own view, "Straussische Tendenzmalerei."Even more effective is the refutation of the swoon-theory by Dr. Keim (Leben Jesu v. Naz. III. 576): "Und dann das Unmöglichste: der arme, schwache, kranke, mühsam auf den Füssen erhaltene, versteckte, verkleidete, schliesslich hinsterbende Jesus ein Gegenstand des Glaubens, des Hochgefühles, des Triumphes seiner Anhänger, ein auferstandener Sieger und Gottessohn! In der That hier beginnt die Theorie armselig, abgeschmackt, ja verwerflich zu werden, indem sie die Apostel als arme Betrogene, oder gar mit Jesus selber als Betrüger zeigt. Denn vom Scheintod hatte man auch damals einen Begriff, und die Lage Jesu musste zeigen, dass hier von Auferstehung nicht die Rede war; hielt man ihn doch für auferstanden, gab er sich selbst als auferstanden, so. fehlte das nüchterne Denken, und hütete er sich gar, seinen Zustand zu verrathen, so fehlte am Ende auch die Ehrlichkeit. Aus allen diesen Gründen ist der Scheintod von der Neuzeit fast ausnahmslos verworfen worden."

[222] The vision-hypothesis (Visions-Hypothese)was first suggested by the heathen Celsus (see Keim, III. 577), and in a more respectful form by the Jewish philosopher Spinoza, and elaborately carried out by Strauss and Renan, with the characteristic difference, however, that Strauss traces the resurrection dream to the apostles in Galilee, Renan (after Celsus) to Mary Magdalene in Jerusalem, saying, in his Life of Jesus (almost blasphemously), that "the passion of a hallucinated woman gave to the world a risen God!" In his work on the Apostles, Renan enters more fully into the question and again emphasizes, in the genuine style of a French novelist, the part of the Magdalene."La gloire de la résurrection (he says, p. 13) appartient à Marie de, Magdala. Apres Jésus, c'est Marie qui a le plus fait pour la fondation du christianisme. L'ombre créée par les sens délicats de Madeleine plane encore sur le monde .... Sa grande affirmation de femme: 'Il est resuscité!' a été la base de la foi de l'humanité."The vision-theory has also been adopted and defended by Zeller, Holsten (in an able treatise on the Gospel of Paul and Peter, 1868), Lang, Volkmar, Réville, Scholten, Meijboom, Kuenen, Hooykaas. Comp. Keim, III. 579 sqq. Among English writers the anonymous author of Supernatural Religion is its chief champion, and states it in these words (vol. III. 526, Lond. ed. of 1879): "The explanation which we offer, and which has long been adopted in various forms by able critics" [among whom, in a foot-note, he falsely quotes Ewald] "is, that doubtless Jesus was seen Gr. (wjvfqh), but the vision was not real and objective, but illusory and subjective; that is to say, Jesus was not himself seen, but only a representation of Jesus within the minds of the beholders." On the other hand Ewald, Schenkel, Alex. Schweizer, and Keim have essentially modified the theory by giving the resurrection-visions an objective character and representing them as real though purely spiritual manifestations of the exalted Christ from heaven. Hase calls this view happily a Verhimmelung der Visionshypothese (Gesch. Jesu, p. 597). It is certainly a great improvement and a more than half-way approach to the truth, but it breaks on the rock of the empty sepulchre. It does not and cannot tell us what became of the body of Christ.

[223] The author of Supernatural Religion (III. 530), calls to aid even Luther's vision of the devil on the Wartburg, and especially the apparition of Lord Byron after his death to Sir Walter Scott in clear moonshine; and he fancies that in the first century it would have been mistaken for reality.

[224] It is utterly baseless when Ewald and Renan extend these visions of Christ for months and years."Ces grands rêves mélancoliques," says Renan (Les Apötres, 34, 36), "ces entretiens sans cesse interrompus et recommecés avec le mort chéri remplissaient les jours et les mois .... Près d'un an s'écoula dans cette vie suspendue entre le ciel et la terre. Le charme, loin de décroître, augmentait," etc. Even Keim, III 598, protests against this view.