Chapter IV · DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS.

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§ 133.

PRODIGIES ATTENDANT ON THE DEATH OF JESUS.

According to the evangelical accounts, the death of Jesus was accompanied by extraordinary phenomena. Three hours before, we are told, a darkness diffused itself, and lasted until Jesus expired (Matt. xxvii. 45 parall.); in the moment of his death the veil of the temple was torn asunder from the top to the bottom, the earth quaked, the rocks were rent, the graves were opened, and many bodies of departed saints arose, entered into the city, and appeared to many (Matt. v. 51 ff. parall.). These details are very unequally distributed among the Evangelists: the first alone has them all; the second and third merely the darkness and the rending of the veil: while the fourth knows nothing of all these marvels.

The synoptists conclude their description of the events at the death of Jesus, with an account of the impression which they made more immediately on the Roman centurion whose office it was to watch the crucifixion. According to Luke (v. 47) this impression was produced by τὸ γενόμενον (what was done), i.e., since he had beforehand mentioned the darkness, by the departure of Jesus with an audible prayer, that being the particular which he had last noticed; indeed Mark, as if expounding Luke, represents the exclamation: truly this man was the Son of God as being called forth from the centurion by the circumstance that Jesus so cried out, and gave up the ghost, οὕτω κράξας ἐξέπνευσεν (v. 39). Now in Luke, who gives a prayer as the last utterance of Jesus, it is possible to conceive that this edifying end might impress the centurion with a favourable opinion of Jesus: but how the fact of his expiring with a loud cry could lead to the inference that he was the Son of God, will in no way appear. Matthew however gives the most suitable relation to the words of the centurion, when he represents them as being called forth by the earthquake and the other prodigies which accompanied the death of Jesus: were it not that the historical reality of this speech of the centurion must stand or fall with its alleged causes. In Matthew and Mark this officer expresses the conviction that Jesus is in truth the Son of God, in Luke, that he is a righteous man. The Evangelists in citing the former expression evidently intend to convey the idea that a Gentile bore witness to the Messiahship of Jesus; but in this specifically Jewish sense the words cannot well have been understood by the Roman soldier: we might rather suppose that he regarded Jesus as a son of God in the heathen sense, or as an innocent man unjustly put to death, were it not that the credibility of the whole synoptical account of the events which signalized the death of Jesus being shaken, this, which forms the top stone as it were, must also be of doubtful security; especially when we look at the narrative of Luke, who besides the impression on the centurion adds that on the rest of the spectators, and makes them return to the city with repentance and mourning—a trait which appears to represent, not so probably what the Jews actually felt and did, as what in the opinion of the Christians they ought to have felt and done.

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§ 134.

THE WOUND BY A SPEAR IN THE SIDE OF JESUS.

While the synoptists represent Jesus as hanging on the cross from the ὥρα ἐννάτη, i.e. three in the afternoon, when he expired, until the ὀψία, i.e. probably about six in the evening, without anything further happening to him: the fourth Evangelist interposes a remarkable episode. According to him, the Jews, in order to prevent the desecration of the coming sabbath, which was a peculiarly hallowed one, by the continued exposure of the bodies on the cross, besought the Procurator that their legs might be broken and that they might forthwith be carried away. The soldiers, to whom this task was committed, executed it on the two criminals crucified with Jesus; but when they perceived in the latter the signs of life having already become extinct, they held such a measure superfluous in his case, and contented themselves with thrusting a spear into his side, whereupon there came forth blood and water (xix. 31–37).

But concerning this wound itself, the place, the instrument, and the manner of its infliction—concerning its object and effects, there has always been a great diversity of opinion. The instrument is called by the Evangelist a λόνχη, which may equally signify either the light javelin or the heavy lance; so that we are left in uncertainty as to the extent of the wound. The manner in which the wound was inflicted he describes by the verb νύσσειν, which sometimes denotes a mortal wound, sometimes a slight scratch, nay, even a thrust which does not so much as draw blood; hence we are ignorant of the depth of the wound: though since Jesus, after the resurrection, makes Thomas lay only his fingers in the print of the nails, but, in or even merely on the wound in the side, his hand (John xx. 27), the stroke of the spear seems to have made a considerable wound. But the question turns mainly on the place in which the wound was made. This John describes as the πλευρὰ side, and certainly if the spear entered the left side between the ribs and penetrated into the heart, death must inevitably have ensued: but the above expression may just as properly imply the right side as the left, and in either side any spot from the shoulder to the hip. Most of these points indeed would be at once decided, if the object of the soldier had been to kill Jesus, supposing he should not be already dead; in this case he would doubtless have pierced Jesus in the most fatal place, and as deeply as possible, or rather, have broken his legs, as was done to the two thieves: but since he treated Jesus otherwise than his fellow sufferers, it is evident that in relation to him he had a different object, namely, in the first place to ascertain by this stroke of the spear, whether death had really taken place—a conclusion which he believed might securely be drawn from the flowing of blood and water out of the wound.

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§ 135.

BURIAL OF JESUS.

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§ 136.

THE WATCH AT THE GRAVE OF JESUS.

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§ 137.

FIRST TIDINGS OF THE RESURRECTION.

To escape from this restless running to and fro of the disciples and the women, this phantasmagoric appearance, disappearance, and reappearance of the angels, and the useless repetition of the appearances of Jesus before the same person, which result from this harmonistic method, we must consider each Evangelist by himself: we then obtain from each a quiet picture with simple dignified features; one visit of the women to the grave, or according to John, two; one angelic appearance; one appearance of Jesus, according to John and Matthew; and one visit to the grave by one or two of the disciples, according to Luke and John.

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§ 138.

APPEARANCES OF THE RISEN JESUS IN GALILEE AND IN JUDEA, INCLUDING THOSE MENTIONED BY PAUL AND BY APOCRYPHAL WRITINGS.

The most important of all the differences in the history of the resurrection turns upon the question, what locality did Jesus design to be the chief theatre of his appearances after the resurrection? The two first gospels make Jesus, before his death, when retiring to the Mount of Olives, utter this promise to his disciples: After I am risen again I will go before you into Galilee (Matt. xxvi. 32; Mark xiv. 28); the same assurance is given to the women by the angels on the morning of the resurrection, with the addition: there shall ye see him (Matt. xxviii. 7; Mark xvi. 7); and in Matthew, besides all this, Jesus in his own person commissions the women to say to the disciples: that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me (xxviii. 10). In Matthew the journey of the disciples into Galilee, with the appearance of Jesus which they there witnessed (the only one to the disciples recorded by this Evangelist), is actually narrated in the sequel. Mark, after describing the amazement into which the women were thrown by the angelic appearance, breaks off in the enigmatical manner already mentioned, and appends some appearances of Jesus, which,—as the first happens immediately after the resurrection, and therefore necessarily in Jerusalem, and no change of place is mentioned before the succeeding ones, while the earlier direction to go into Galilee is lost sight of,—must all be regarded as appearances in and around Jerusalem. John knows nothing of a direction to the disciples to go into Galilee, and makes Jesus show himself to the disciples on the evening of the day of resurrection, and again eight days after, in Jerusalem; the concluding chapter, however, which forms an appendix to his gospel, describes an appearance by the Sea of Galilee. In Luke, on the other hand, not only is there no trace of an appearance in Galilee, Jerusalem with its environs being made the sole theatre of the appearances of Christ which this gospel relates; but there is also put into the mouth of Jesus when, on the evening after the resurrection, he appears to the assembled disciples in Jerusalem, the injunction: tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem (in the Acts i. 4, more definitely expressed by the negative, that they should not depart from Jerusalem), until ye be endued with power from on high (xxiv. 49). Here two questions inevitably arise: 1st, how can Jesus have directed the disciples to journey into Galilee, and yet at the same time have commanded them to remain in Jerusalem until Pentecost? and 2ndly, how could he refer them to a promised appearance in Galilee, when he had the intention of showing himself to them that very day in and near Jerusalem?

As regards the appearances of the risen Jesus taken singly, the first gospel has two: one on the morning of the resurrection to the women (xxviii. 9 f.), and one, the time of which is undetermined, before the disciples in Galilee (xxviii. 16 f.). Mark, in what is indeed a merely summary statement, enumerates three: the first, to Mary Magdalene on the morning of the resurrection (xvi. 9 f.); a second, to two disciples going into the country (xvi. 12); and a third, to the eleven as they sat at meat, doubtless in Jerusalem (xvi. 14). Luke narrates only two appearances: that before the disciples going to Emmaus on the day of the resurrection (xxiv. 13 ff.), and the last, before the eleven and other disciples in Jerusalem, according to xxiv. 36 ff., on the evening of the same day, according to the Acts i. 4 ff. forty days later; but when the travellers to Emmaus, on rejoining the apostles, are greeted by them, before Jesus has appeared in the midst of them, with the information: the Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon (xxiv. 34): here a third appearance is presupposed, which was granted to Peter alone. John has four such appearances: the first, to Mary Magdalene at the grave (xx. 14 ff.); the second to the disciples when the doors were shut (xx. 19 ff.); the third, likewise in Jerusalem, eight days later, when Thomas was convinced (xx. 26 ff.); the fourth, of which the time is unspecified, at the Galilean sea (xxi.). But here we have also to take into consideration a statement of the Apostle Paul, who 1 Cor. xv. 5 ff., if we deduct the appearance of Christ granted to himself, enumerates five appearances after the resurrection, without however giving any precise description of them: one to Cephas; one to the twelve; one before more than five hundred brethren at once; one to James; and lastly, one before all the apostles.

This conclusion, however, does not shake the passage in the first Epistle to the Corinthians which, (it being undoubtedly genuine,) was written about the year 59 after Christ, consequently not 30 years after his resurrection. On this authority we must believe that many members of the primitive church who were yet living at the time when this epistle was written, especially the apostles, were convinced that they had witnessed appearances of the risen Christ. Whether this involves the admission that some objective reality lay at the foundation of these appearances, will hereafter become the subject of inquiry; concerning the present point, the divergencies of the Evangelists, especially in relation to the locality, the passage of Paul offers nothing decisive, since he has given no particular description of any of those appearances.

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§ 139.

QUALITY OF THE BODY AND LIFE OF JESUS AFTER THE RESURRECTION.

But how are we to represent to ourselves this continuation of the life of Jesus after the resurrection, and especially the nature of his body in this period? In order to answer this question we must once more cast a glance over the separate narratives of his appearances when risen.

According to Matthew, Jesus on the morning of the resurrection meets (ἀπήντησεν) the women as they are hastening back from the grave; they recognize him, embrace his feet in sign of veneration, and he speaks to them. At the second interview on the Galilean mountain the disciples see him (ἰδόντες), but some still doubt, and here also Jesus speaks to them. Of the manner in which he came and went, we have here no precise information.

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§ 140.

DEBATES CONCERNING THE REALITY OF THE DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS.

When we form a correct opinion of the relation between soul and body, not abstractly separating the two, but conceiving them at once in their identity, the soul as the interior of the body, the body as the exterior of the soul, we know not how to imagine, to say nothing of comprehending, the revivification of a dead person. What we call the soul is the governing centre which holds in combination the powers and operations of the body; its function, or rather the soul itself, consists in keeping all other processes of which the body is susceptible in uninterrupted subjection to the superior unity of the process of organic life, which in man is the basis of his spiritual nature: so soon as this regulating power ceases to act, the supremacy in the various parts of the body is assumed by these other, inferior principles, whose work in its prosecution is corruption. When once these have acceded to the dominion, they will not be inclined to render it back to their former monarch, the soul; or rather this is impossible, because, quite apart from the question of the immortality of the human spirit (Geist), the soul (Seele) as such ceases in the same moment with its dominion and activity, which constitute its existence; consequently, in a revivification, even if resort be had to a miracle, this must consist in the direct creation of a new soul.

Only in the dualism which has become popular on the subject of the relation between body and soul, is there anything to favour the opinion of the possibility of a revivification properly so called. In this system, the soul in its relation to the body is represented as like a bird, which, though it may for a time have flown out of the cage, can yet be once more caught and replaced in its former abode; and it is to such figures that an imaginative species of thought cleaves, in order to preserve the notion of revivification. But even in this dualistic view, the inconceivability of such an event is rather concealed than really diminished. For in the most abstract separation, the co-existence of the body and soul cannot be held as indifferent and lifeless as that of a box and its contents; on the contrary, the presence of the soul in the body produces effects, which again are the conditions whereby that presence is rendered possible. Thus so soon as the soul has forsaken the body, there is a cessation in the latter of those activities which according to the dualistic idea were the immediate expressions of the influence of the soul; at the same time, the organs of these activities—brain, blood, etc., begin to stagnate; a change which is coincident with the moment of death. Thus if it could occur to the departed soul, or be imposed on it by another, to re-enter its former dwelling-place: it would find this dwelling, even after the first moments, uninhabitable in its noblest parts, and unfit for use. To restore, in the same way as an infirm member, the most immediate organs of its activity, is an impossibility to the soul, since in order to effect anything in the body it has need of the service of these very organs: thus the soul, although remanded into the body, must suffer it to decay, from inability to exercise any influence over it; or there must be added to the miracle of its reconveyance into the body, the second miracle of a restoration of the lifeless bodily organs: an immediate interposition of God in the regular course of nature, irreconcileable with enlightened ideas of the relation of God to the world.

Hence the cultivated intellect of the present day has very decidedly stated the following dilemma: either Jesus was not really dead, or he did not really rise again.

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