Chapter V · THE ASCENSION.
George Eliot translation
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§ 141.
THE LAST COMMANDS AND PROMISES OF JESUS.
In the last interview of Jesus with his disciples, which according to Mark and Luke closed with the ascension, the three first Evangelists (the fourth has something similar on the very first interview) represent Jesus as delivering testamentary commands and promises, which referred to the establishment and propagation of the messianic kingdom on earth.
With regard to the commands, Jesus in Luke (xxiv. 47 f.; Acts i. 8) in parting from his disciples appoints them to be witnesses of his messiahship, and charges them to preach repentance and remission of sins in his name from Jerusalem to the uttermost parts of the earth. In Mark (xvi. 15 f.) he enjoins them to go into all the world and bring to every creature the glad tidings of the messianic kingdom founded by him; he who believes and is baptized will be saved, he who believeth not, will (in the future messianic judgment) be condemned. In Matthew (xxviii. 19 f.) the disciples are also commissioned to make disciples of all nations πάντα τὰ ἔθνη, and here baptism is not mentioned incidentally merely, as in Mark, but is made the subject of an express command by Jesus, and is besides more precisely described as a baptism in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, ἐις τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ τοῦ υἱοῦ καὶ τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος.
Thus there are in the New Testament three distinct opinions concerning the impartation of the Spirit to the disciples of Jesus; and in two respects they form a climax. As regards the time, Matthew places the impartation the earliest—within the period of the natural life of Jesus; Luke, the latest—in the time after his complete departure from the earth; John in an intermediate position—in the days of the resurrection. As regards the conception of the fact, it is the simplest in Matthew, the least perceptible to the senses, for he has no special and external act of impartation; John already has such a feature, in the act of breathing on the disciples; while with Luke, in the Acts, the gentle breathing has become a violent storm, which shakes the house, and with which other miraculous appearances are united. These two series of gradations stand in opposite relations to historical probability. That the Spirit πνεῦμα, which, whether it be regarded as natural or as supernatural, is in either case the animating power of the messianic idea in its Christian modification, was communicated to the adherents of Jesus so early as Matthew narrates, is contradicted by his own representation, for according to him, that Christian modification—the introduction of the characteristics of suffering and death into the idea of the Messiah,—was not comprehended by the disciples long after the mission described in Matt. x.; and as the discourse of instructions there given contains other particulars also, which will only suit later times and circumstances: it is easy to imagine that the promise in question may have been erroneously referred to that earlier period. Only after the death and resurrection of Jesus can we conceive what the New Testament calls the πνεῦμα ἅγιον to have been developed in the disciples, and in so far the representation of John stands nearer to reality than that of Matthew; but, as certainly the revolution in the sentiments of the disciples described in the foregoing section, had not taken place so early as two days after the crucifixion: the account of John does not approach so near to the truth as that of Luke, who allows an interval of at least fifty days for the formation of the new opinions in the disciples. The position of the narratives with respect to historical truth is reversed by the other climax. For in proportion as a narrative represents the impartation of a spiritual power as perceptible to the senses, the formation of a sentiment which might spring from natural causes as miraculous, the origin of a faculty which can only have been developed gradually, as instantaneous: in the same proportion does such a narrative diverge from the truth; and in this respect, Matthew would stand at the least distance from the truth, Luke at the greatest. If we therefore recognise in the representation of the latter the most mature product of tradition, it may be wondered how tradition can have wrought in two opposite ways: receding from the truth in relation to the determination of the manner and form of the impartation, approaching the truth in relation to the determination of the time. But this is explained as soon as it is considered, that in the changes in the determination of the time, tradition was not guided by critical inquiry after truth—this might well have caused surprise,—but by the same tendency that led to the other alteration, namely, to present the impartation of the Spirit as a single miraculous act. If Jesus was said to have shed the Spirit on his disciples by a special act: it must seem appropriate to assign this act to his state of glorification, and thus either with John to place it after the resurrection, or with Luke after the ascension; indeed the fourth Evangelist expressly remarks that in the lifetime of Jesus, the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified (vii. 39).
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§ 142.
THE SO-CALLED ASCENSION CONSIDERED AS A SUPERNATURAL AND AS A NATURAL EVENT.
The ascension of Jesus is reported to us in the New Testament in three different narratives, which in point of fulness of detail and picturesqueness of description form a progressive series. Mark, who in the last portion of his gospel is in general very brief and abrupt, only says, that after Jesus had spoken to the disciples for the last time, he was received up (ἀνελήφθη) into heaven and sat on the right hand of God (xvi. 19). With scarcely more definiteness it is said in the gospel of Luke that Jesus led his disciples out as far as Bethany, ἐξω ἕως εἰς Βηθανίαν, and while he here with uplifted hands gave them his blessing, he was parted from them (διέστη), and carried up into heaven (ἐνεφέρετο); whereupon the disciples fell down and worshipped him, and forthwith returned to Jerusalem with great joy (xxiv. 50 ff.). In the introduction to the Acts, Luke gives more ample details concerning this scene. On the mount of Olives, where Jesus delivered to his disciples his last commands and promises, he was taken up before their eyes (ἐπήρθη), and a cloud received him out of their sight. While the disciples were watching him, as he went up into heaven on the cloud, there suddenly stood by them two men in white apparel, who induced them to desist from thus gazing after him by the assurance, that the Jesus now taken from them would come again from heaven in the same manner as he had just ascended into heaven; on which they were satisfied, and returned to Jerusalem (i. 1–12).
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§ 143.
INSUFFICIENCY OF THE NARRATIVES OF THE ASCENSION. MYTHICAL CONCEPTION OF THOSE NARRATIVES.
As regards the description of the event itself, it might be thought admissible to ascribe the silence of Mark, and of Luke in his gospel, concerning the cloud and the angels, purely to the brevity of their narratives; but since Luke at the close of his gospel narrates circumstantially enough the conduct of the disciples—how they fell down and worshipped the ascended Jesus, and returned to the city with great joy: so he would doubtless have pointed out the information communicated to them by angels as the immediate source of their joy, had he known anything of such a particular at the time when he composed his first writing. Hence this feature seems rather to have been gradually formed in tradition, in order to render due honour to this last point also in the life of Jesus, and to present a confirmation of the insufficient testimony of men as to his exaltation into heaven by the mouth of two heavenly witnesses.
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