Note 45 — Chapter IV · DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS.

According to Roman custom the body of Jesus must have remained suspended until consumed by the weather, birds of prey, and corruption;45 according to the Jewish, it must have been interred in the dishonourable burying place assigned to the executed:46 but the evangelical accounts inform us that a distinguished adherent of the deceased begged his body of the procurator, which, agreeably to the Roman law,47 was not refused, but was immediately delivered to him (Matt. xxvii. 57 parall.). This man, who in all the gospels is named Joseph, and said to be derived from Arimathea, was according to Matthew a rich man and a disciple of Jesus, but the latter, as John adds, only in secret; the two intermediate Evangelists describe him as an honourable member of the high council, in which character, Luke remarks, he had not given his voice for the condemnation of Jesus, and they both represent him as cherishing messianic expectations. That we have here a personal description gradually developed into more and more preciseness is evident. In the first gospel Joseph is a disciple of Jesus—and such must have been the man who under circumstances so unfavourable did not hesitate to take charge of his body; that, according to the same gospel, he was a rich man ἄνθρωπος πλούσιος already reminds us of Isa. liii. 9, where it is said ‏וַיִּתֵּן אֶת־רְשָׁעִים קִבְרוֹ וְאֶת־עָשִׁיר בְּמֹתָיו‎ which might possibly be understood of a burial with the rich, and thus become the source at least of this predicate of Joseph of Arimathea. That he entertained messianic ideas, as Luke and Mark add, followed of course from his relation to Jesus; that he was a counsellor, βουλευτὴς, as the same Evangelists declare, is certainly a new piece of information: but that as such he could not have concurred in the condemnation of Jesus was again a matter of course; lastly, that he had hitherto kept his adherence to Jesus a secret, as John observes, accords with the peculiar position in relation to Jesus which this Evangelist gives to certain exalted adherents, especially to Nicodemus, who is subsequently associated with Joseph. Hence it must not be at once supposed that the additional particulars which each succeeding Evangelist gives, rest on historical information which he possessed over and above that of his predecessors.