Note 125 — Chapter IV · DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS.

But the New Testament narratives, as we have seen, also contain particulars which favour the opposite idea of the corporeality of Jesus after the resurrection: hence the advocates of the opinion hitherto detailed must undertake so to interpret these apparently antagonistic features that they may no longer present a contradiction. Here it may seem that the very expressions by which the appearances of Jesus are ordinarily introduced, as ὤφθη used of the appearance in the burning bush (Exod. iii. 2, LXX.); ὀπτανόμενος, of the appearance of the angel in Tobit xii. 19; ἐφάνη, of the angelic appearances in Matt. i. and ii., may seem already to point to something supernatural. As still more decided indications, the idea of a natural going and coming which may be presupposed in some scenes, is contradicted in others by a sudden appearance and disappearance; the supposition of an ordinary human body is opposed by the frequent non-recognition on the part of friends, nay, by the express mention of another form, ἑτέρα μορφὴ; above all, the palpability of the body of Jesus appears to be opposed by the capability which, according to the first impression from the text, is lent to him in John, namely, that of entering through closed doors. But, that Mary Magdalene mistook Jesus at first for the gardener, is thought even by commentators who ordinarily are not diffident of the miraculous, to be most probably accounted for by the supposition that Jesus had borrowed clothes from the gardener, who very likely dwelt near to the grave; moreover, say these writers, both in this instance and in the journey to Emmaus, the disfiguration of the countenance of Jesus by the sufferings of crucifixion may have contributed to prevent his being recognized, and these two circumstances are alone to be understood from the expression ἑτέρα μορφὴ, another form, in Mark.125 As to the disciples going to Emmaus, in the joyful astonishment caused by the sudden recognition of him whom they had believed dead, Jesus, it is said, may easily have withdrawn from them unobserved in the most natural manner; which, however, they, to whom the whole fact of the resuscitation of Jesus was a miracle, might regard as a supernatural disappearance.126 Nor, we are told, do the expressions: ἒστη ἐν μέσῳ αὐτῶν or εἱς τὸ μέσον he stood in the midst of them, especially in John, where they are accompanied by the ordinary words ἦλθεν he came, and ἔρχεται he comes, imply anything supernatural, but merely the startling arrival of one who had just been spoken of, without his being expected; and the assembled disciples took him for a spirit, not because he entered in a miraculous manner, but because they could not believe in the real resuscitation of their deceased master.127 Lastly, even the trait which is supposed to be decisive against the opinion that the body of the risen Jesus was a natural and human one,—the coming when the doors were shut ἔρχεσθαι θυρῶν κεκλεισμένων in John,—has long been interpreted even by orthodox theologians so as no longer to present any obstacle to that opinion. We will not discuss explanations such as that of Heumann, according to which the doors were not those of the house in which the disciples were assembled, but the doors of Jerusalem in general, and the statement that they were shut is an intimation of its having been that hour of the night in which it was customary to close the doors, while the fear of the Jews represents the motive, not for the closing of the doors, but for the assembling of the disciples. Apart from these expedients, Calvin himself pronounces the opinion that the body of the risen Jesus passed per medium ferrum et asseres, to be pueriles argutiæ, for which the text gives no occasion, since it does not say that Jesus entered per januas clausas, but only that he suddenly appeared among his disciples, cum clausæ essent januæ.128 Still Calvin upholds the entrance of Jesus of which John here speaks as a miracle, which must consequently be supposed to consist in this, that Jesus entered cum fores clausæ fuissent, sed quæ Domino veniente subito patuerunt ad nutum divinæ majestatis ejus.129 While more modern orthodox divines only contend for the less definite position, that in the entrance of Jesus some miracle took place, its precise character being unascertained.130 Rationalism has found means entirely to banish the miraculous from the event. The closed doors, we are told, were opened to Jesus by human hands; which John omits to notice, only because it is understood as a matter of course, nay, it would have been absurd of him to say: they opened the doors for him, and he went in.131