Note 58 — Chapter IV · DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS.

The body of Jesus, according to all the narrators, was forthwith deposited in a tomb hewn out of a rock, and closed with a great stone. Matthew describes this tomb as καινὸν, new; an epithet which Luke and John more closely determine by stating that no man had yet been laid therein. We may observe in passing, that there is as much reason for suspicion with respect to this newness of the grave, as with respect to the unridden ass in the history of the entrance of Jesus, since here in the same way as there, the temptation lay irresistibly near, even without historical grounds, to represent the sacred receptacle of the body of Jesus as never having been polluted by any corpse. But even in relation to this tomb the Evangelists exhibit a divergency. According to Matthew it was the property of Joseph, who had himself caused it to be hewn in the rock; and the two other synoptists also, since they make Joseph unhesitatingly dispose of the grave, appear to proceed on the same presupposition. According to John, on the contrary, Joseph’s right of property in the grave was not the reason that Jesus was laid there; but because time pressed, he was deposited in the new sepulchre, which happened to be in a neighbouring garden. Here again the harmonists have tried their art on both sides. Matthew was to be brought into agreement with John by the observation, that a manuscript of his gospel omits the αὑτοῦ (his own) after μνημείῳ; while an ancient translation read, instead of ὃ ἐλατόμησεν (which he had hewn),—ὃ ἦν λελατομημένον (which was hewn):58 as if these alterations were not obviously owing already to harmonizing efforts. Hence the opposite side has been taken, and it has been remarked that the words of John by no means exclude the possibility that Joseph may have been the owner of the tomb, since both reasons—the vicinity, and the fact that the grave belonged to Joseph—may have co-operated.59 But the contrary is rather the truth: namely, that the vicinity of the grave when alleged as a motive, excludes the fact of possession: a house in which I should take shelter from a shower, because it is near, would not be my own; unless indeed I were the owner of two houses, one near and one more distant, of which the latter was my proper dwelling: and in like manner a grave, in which a person lays a relative or friend who does not himself possess one, because it is near, cannot be his own, unless he possess more than one, and intend at greater leisure to convey the deceased into the other; which however in our case, since the near grave was from its newness adapted above all others for the interment of Jesus, is not easily conceivable. If according to this the contradiction subsists, there does not appear in the narratives themselves any ground for decision in favour of the one or of the other.60