Note 171 — Chapter IV · DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS.

Meanwhile, if the body of Jesus was interred in a known place, and could there (so far as we are not at liberty to suppose a theft, or an accidental removal) be sought for and exhibited: it is difficult to conceive how the disciples in Jerusalem itself, and not quite two days after the interment, could believe and declare that Jesus was risen, without refuting themselves, or meeting with refutation from their adversaries, (to whom however they appear to have made the first disclosure as to the resurrection of their Messiah at Pentecost,) by ocular demonstration at the grave.171 Now it is here that the narrative of the first gospel, which has been unjustly placed below the others, presents an explanatory and satisfactory indication. According to this gospel also the risen Jesus does indeed appear in Jerusalem, but only to the women, and so entirely as a mere preparation for a succeeding interview, nay, so superfluously, that we have already questioned the truth of this appearance, and pronounced it to be a later modification of the legend of the angelic appearance, which Matthew nevertheless also included in his narrative.172 The sole important appearance of Jesus after the resurrection occurs, according to Matthew, in Galilee, whither an angel, and Jesus himself on the last evening of his life and on the morning of the resurrection, most urgently directed his disciples, and where the fourth gospel also, in its appendix, places an appearance of the resuscitated Jesus. That the disciples, dispersed by their alarm, at the execution of their Messiah, should return to their home in Galilee, where they had no need, as in the metropolis of Judea, the seat of the enemies of their crucified Christ, to shut the doors for fear of the Jews, was natural. Here was the place where they gradually began to breathe freely, and where their faith in Jesus, which had been temporarily depressed, might once more expand with its former vigour. But here also, where no body lay in the grave to contradict bold suppositions, might gradually be formed the idea of the resurrection of Jesus; and when this conviction had so elevated the courage and enthusiasm of his adherents that they ventured to proclaim it in the metropolis, it was no longer possible by the sight of the body of Jesus either to convict themselves, or to be convicted by others.