'%       ^  J.: 
 
 LIBRARY  OF  THE  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 
 
 PRINCETON,  N.  J. 
 
 SecHcrt '..Vf\A^U 
 
a/6 
 
THE 
 
 RESURRECTION 
 
 OF 
 
 JESUS      CHRIST 
 
^  ,  y 
 
I      JUL  ;•/,.  1924 
 
 THE  y  X  ,*^ 
 
 RESURRECTION^ 
 
 OF 
 
 JESUS       CHRIST 
 
 AN    EXAMINATION    OF   THE 
 
 SPECULATIONS    OF   STRAUSS    IN    HIS 
 
 'NEW   LIFE   OF  JESUS' 
 
 AND   AN    INTRODUCTORY   VIEW    OF   THE    PRESENT    POSITION 
 
 OF   THEOLOGICAL    INQUIRY    IN    REFERENCE   TO    THE 
 
 EXISTENCE   OF   GOD    AND   THE    MIRACULOUS 
 
 EVIDENCE    OF   CHRISTIANITY 
 
 BY   THE    LATE 
 
 ROBERT   MACPHERSON,   D.D. 
 
 PROFESSOR   OF   THEOLOGY   IN   THE   UNIVERSITY 
 OF   ABERDEEN 
 
 WILLIAM    BLACKWOOD    AND    SONS 
 
 EDINBURGH   AND   LONDON 
 
 MDCCCLXVII 
 
PREFACE    BY   THE    EDITOR. 
 
 The  first  ten  Lectures  contained  in  this  vol- 
 ume were  delivered  by  the  Author  at  the 
 commencement  of  the  past  Session  to  the  Stu- 
 dents of  Divinity  in  the  University  of  Aberdeen. 
 The  other  five,  in  which  the  speculations  of 
 Strauss  on  the  Resurrection  of  Jesus  are  exam- 
 ined, were  prepared  without  any  intention  of 
 being  delivered  in  the  Divinity  Hall,  but  with  a 
 view  ultimately  to  publication,  and  were  fin- 
 ished only  a  few  days  before  the  Authors 
 death. 
 
 The  Author  considered  it  his  duty,  during 
 the  last  year  of  his  life,  to  engage  anew  in  a 
 careful  and  patient  study  of  the  great  subject  of 
 the  Resurrection  of  Christ,  as  the  fundamental 
 fact  on  which  the  whole  of  Christianity  rests, 
 and  as  the  point  against  which  its  most  power-  ^ 
 ful  and  popular  assailants  have  in  recent  times 
 
VI  PREFACE. 
 
 mainly  directed  their  attacks.  He  became  more 
 and  more  deeply  Impressed  with  the  feeling  that 
 all  present  discussions  on  the  subject  of  Miracles 
 ought  to  be  viewed  with  reference  to  this 
 event — the  crowning  manifestation  of  the  mirac- 
 ulous power  of  God.  He  was  also  convinced 
 that,  while  It  may  be  well  to  expose  the  fallacy 
 of  the  general  principles  and  methods  by  which 
 such  writers  as  Baur,  Strauss,  and  Renan  strive 
 to  undermine  the  Faith,  it  is  likely  to  prove  a 
 much  more  effectual  process  to  examine  calmly 
 and  minutely  some  leading  portion  of  their  so- 
 called  criticism,  and  to  show  how  utterly  unsup- 
 ported it  Is  by  the  only  witnesses  from  whom 
 any  knowledge  whatever  of  the  facts  criticised 
 can  be  obtained,  —  how  inconsistent  with  the 
 very  facts  admitted  by  those  authors  them- 
 selves. In  this  way  he  believed  the  mind  would 
 naturally,  and  without  further  argument,  be 
 brought  to  perceive  the  groundless  nature  of 
 their  theories. 
 
 He  was  thus  led  to  think  that  a  work  con- 
 taining a  distinct  statement.  In  a  somewhat  new 
 form,  of  the  general  argument  regarding  the 
 nature,  possibility,  and  design  of  Miracles,  with 
 a  renewed  and  careful  examination  of  the 
 Evidence  of  the  Resurrection  of  Jesus,  followed 
 
PREFACE.  Vll 
 
 by  an  analysis  of  the  reasonings  of  the  princi- 
 pal assailants  of  the  truth  of  that  Resurrection, 
 especially  those  of  Strauss  (the  most  import- 
 ant, plausible,  and  acute  in  the  literature  of 
 modern  infidelity),  and  some  others,  might  prove 
 a  useful  and  seasonable  contribution  to  the  sup- 
 port of  the  Faith. 
 
 To  the  preparation  of  a  work  of  this  nature 
 the  Author  had  accordingly  resolved  to  address 
 himself  The  Lectures  now  published  contain 
 the  materials  he  had  so  far  arranged  for  the 
 first  portion  of  his  undertaking.  The  present 
 volume,  therefore,  although  complete  in  itself, 
 is  to  be  viewed  as  only  a  part  of  a  larger  and 
 somewhat  modified  work,  to  the  completion  and 
 publication  of  which  the  Author  intended  to 
 devote  the  approaching  summer. 
 
 In  the  room  of  the  first  four  Lectures  the 
 Author  had  some  Intention  of  writing  an  intro- 
 duction bearing  more  particularly  on  the  special 
 design  of  the  whole  work.  These  Lectures, 
 however,  are  retained  in  the  form  In  which  they 
 were  delivered,  as  standing  in  natural  and 
 interesting  connection  with  the  rest  of  the  vol- 
 ume, and  as  forming  part  of  the  Author's  last 
 effort  on  behalf  of  his  Students  and  of  the 
 Church  of  Christ.      He  also  Intended  to  Intro- 
 
VllI  PREFACE. 
 
 duce  a  Lecture  on  the  Canon  of  the  New  Testa- 
 ment, with  special  reference  to  the  authenticity 
 and  genuineness  of  the  four  Gospels;  and  in 
 this  he  was  prepared  to  consider  particularly 
 the  objections  that  have  been  recently  urged 
 against  the  Gospel  according  to  St  John. 
 After  finishing  his  examination  of  Strauss, 
 he  was  about  to  commit  to  writing  his  observa- 
 tions on  Kenan's  theory  of  the  Resurrection ; 
 but  of  this  portion  of  his  design  he  has  left 
 only  a  few  guiding  notes.  Then,  leaving  the 
 region  of  unbelief  and  objections,  he  intended 
 to  conclude  with  the  consideration  of  a  subject 
 which  had  a  powerful  hold  on  his  thoughts  and 
 feelings, — that  of  the  Resurrection  of  the  Sav- 
 iour as  the  sure  pledge  of  ours,  and  the  power 
 of  that  Resurrection  as  the  ground  of  religious 
 hope. 
 
 Such  was  the  expressed  intention  of  the 
 deceased  Author ;  and  the  following  Lectures 
 are,  with  the  foregoing  explanation,  committed 
 to  the  press,  in  the  hope  that  they  may  be  the 
 means  of  fulfilling,  as  far  as  is  now  possible,  the 
 purpose  he  had  in  view. 
 
 May  He  whose  Name  was  sought  to  be  hal- 
 lowed by  them  make  them  the  means  of  stab- 
 lishing  the  faith  of  His  people,  and  of  arrest- 
 
PREFACE.  IX 
 
 ing  In  some  measure  the  bold  efforts  of  those 
 who  seek  to  rob  us  of  our  faith  and  hope ! 
 Would  that  the  work  now  humbly  presented, 
 with  feelings  of  deep  sadness,  to  the  Church 
 of  Christ  as  a  memorial  of  my  father's  faith 
 and  labour,  had  been  completed  and  perfected 
 by  himself! 
 
 In  the  portion  of  the  work  that  Is  devoted  to 
 the  examination  of  Strauss's  views,  each  Lec- 
 ture was  Intended  to  contain  the  full  discussion 
 of  a  distinct  topic.  This  will  account  for  the 
 unusual  length  of  some  of  the  Lectures. 
 
 My  sincere  thanks  are  due  to  the  Reverend 
 Dr  Campbell,  Principal  of  the  University  of 
 Aberdeen,  and  to  the  Reverend  Dr  Forbes 
 of  Donaldson's  Hospital,  Edinburgh,  for  their 
 invaluable  advice  and  assistance,  so  Avillingly 
 tendered  In  reference  to  this  publication. 
 Their  aid  has,  I  know,  been  to  them  a  labour 
 of  love.  To  Principal  Campbell's  kindness  I 
 am  also  Indebted  for  the  accompanying  sketch 
 of  my  father's  life  and  character. 
 
 W.  M.  MACPHERSON. 
 
 Kennethmont,.  Aberdeenshire, 
 May  2,  1867. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 MEMOIR, xxiii 
 
 INTRODUCTORY   LECTURE.      On  the  Spirit  of  The- 
 ological Inquiry. 
 
 Introductory  remarks,        .....  I 
 
 Caution  to  be  used  in  judging  of  the  tendencies  of  an  age,  2 
 
 Conflict  between  belief  and  unbelief  is  perpetual,  .  3 
 
 Present  tendency  to  subject  all  religious  questions  to  scrutiny,       4 
 Two  opposite  modes  of  inquiry,     ....  5 
 
 The  conflict  generally  issues  in  the  grand  contest  respect- 
 ing the  existence  of  God,  ....  6 
 Jealousy  of  some  professed  friends  of  the  Faith  in  regard 
 
 to  received  doctrines,      .....  7 
 
 Spirit  in  which  to  conduct  Theological  Inquiiy — 
 
 1.  The  inquirer  must  feel  the  importance  and  real  nature 
 
 of  the  subject,        .....  9 
 
 2.  The  Trath  alone  must  be  sought  after,  .  .  12 
 
 3.  The  Word  is  the  only  sQurce  of  the  knowledge  of 
 
 Divine  Truth,         .  .  .  .  .13 
 
 4.  Need  of  prayer  for  the  aid  of  the  Spirit  of  Truth,      ,  15 
 
 LECTURE   II.     On  the  Existence  of  God. 
 
 No  intermediate  ground  between  Theism  and  Atheism,    .  17 
 
 Theism  allows  of  examination  into  the  claims  of  a  Revelation,    18 
 Atheism  involves  the  denial  of  all  Revelation,       .  .  18 
 
 It  cannot  entertain  the  Evidences  of  Christianity,  .  19 
 
 Hence  it  forms  various  theories  to  account  for  the  origin 
 
 of  Christian  belief,         .  .  ,  .  .21 
 
 t^The  assumptions  of  Strauss,  .  .  .  .21 
 
 Renan's  in  essence  the  same,         ....  23 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 XI 
 
 From  these  it  is  seen  that  the  present  question  regards  the 
 
 existence  of  God,          .                 ....  25 
 
 Caution  to  be  observ^ed  in  our  inquiries  on  this  subject,       .  25 
 
 The  great  argument  for  belief  in  the  existence  of  God,        .  27 
 
 Exhortation,             ......  29 
 
 LECTURE  III.     On  the  Existence  of  Qoii—{coniiniced),  . 
 
 Widespread  character  of  the  present  conflict,          .             .  31 
 
 Nature  of  the  difficulties  of  Theism  and  Atheism,  .             .  33 
 
 General  nature  of  the  Theistic  argument,    •             •             •  33 
 
 Distinction  between  matter  and  mind  essential,      .             ,  35 
 
 Testimony  of  consciousness,             ....  36 
 
 The  argument  from  analogy  irresistible,     •              •              •  37 
 
 The  mystery  of  Self-existence,         •             •             •             •  39 
 No  escape  from  this  even  in  Atheism,          .             .             .41 
 
 LECTURE  IV.     On  Atheism. 
 
 Distinction  between  the  Infinite  and  the  Indefinite,             .  44 
 
 Its  importance,        ......  47 
 
 The  Atheistic  Hypothesis,  .             .             .             .             .  47 
 
 A  beginningless  series  of  changes  is  impossible,       .             .  49 
 
 1 .  This  is  declared  by  our  instinctive  nature,       .             .  50 
 
 2.  What  is  from  eternity  must  be  immutable,      .              .  5^ 
 
 3.  The  material  cannot  be  infinite,  .  .  .  52 
 Contradictions  inseparable  from  Atheism,  .  .  53 
 Contrasted  with  the  difficulties  of  Theism,  .  .  54 
 General  thoughts  on  the  subject,     .              .              .              .56 
 
 LECTURE  V.     On  the  Evidences  of  Divine  Revelation. 
 
 Proof  from  miracles  one  main  object  of  infidel  attack,         .  59 
 Hume's  argument,  .             .             .             .             .             -59 
 
 Mistaken  views  of  some  professed  friends  of  Revelation ,    .  60 
 
 1.  Miracles  the  valid  proof  of  a  Divine  Revelation ;  their 
 
 relation  to  Internal  Evidence,          ...  60 
 
 2.  Miracles  possible :  in  what  sense,  impossible,              .  64 
 
 3.  Miracles  dependent  on  the  will  of  God,           .              .  ()% 
 
 4.  Miracles,  like  ordinary  events,  objects  of  sensible  per- 
 
 ception,       ......  69 
 
 5.  Miracles,  like  ordinary  events,  proper  subjects  of  tes- 
 
 timony,        .  .  .  .  .  .71 
 
 Reluctance  to  believe,  unduly  connected  with  incapacity  to 
 
 comprehend,  miraculous  events,      .         .  .  .76 
 
Xll  CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE  VI.    On  the  Miraculous  Evidence  of  Christianity. 
 Statement  of  the  case  of  the  Christian  Revelation,  .  78 
 
 Its  claims  to  consideration,  ....  79 
 
 Jesus  appealed  to  His  Doctrine  and  to  Prophecy  in  support 
 
 of  His  claims,  ......  82 
 
 1.  Sensible  miracles  specially  appealed  to  by  Jesus  as 
 
 the  direct  proof  of  His  claims,         ...  83 
 
 2.  His  alleged  miracles,  real  miracles,    ...  85 
 
 3.  His  miracles  not  mere  displays  of  power,  but  acts  of 
 
 mercy,  ......  87 
 
 (The  two  miracles  of  judgment. ) 
 
 4.  His  miracles   being    openly    wrought,    eyewitnesses 
 
 could  judge  of  their  reality,  ...  89 
 
 (Renan's  demand. ) 
 
 5.  Eyewitnesses  could  also  testify  of  them  to  others,       .  93 
 Their  testimony  handed  down  in  the  fact  of  the  exist- 
 ence of  the  Church  and  in  the  New  Testament,      .           95 
 
 The  extraordinary  claim  of  Jesus  is  thus  supported  by  extra- 
 ordinary evidence,  .....  96 
 
 LECTURE  VII.     On  the  Resurrection  of  Jesus. 
 
 Importance  of  the  .subject  recognised  by  believers  and  un- 
 believers, ......  98 
 
 Quotation  from  Strauss  to  show  this,  ...  99 
 
 In  entering  on  this  discussion  we  must  admit  that, — 
 
 1.  With  God  a  Resurrection  is  possible,  .  .  lOO 
 
 2.  Eyewitnesses  may  have  satisfactory  evidence  of  a  Re- 
 
 surrection,   ......  102 
 
 3.  They  may  testify  of  it  to  others,  .  .  .  104 
 Necessity  of  viewing  the  Resurrection  of  Jesus  in  combina- 
 tion with  its  moraLyalue,              .             .             .             .106 
 
 The  Infidel  argument,  both  of  Strauss  and  Renan,  seeks 
 
 strength  by  ignoring  this,  .  .  .  .109 
 
 LECTURE  VIII.     On  the  Resurrection  of  Jesus — {continued). 
 '      The  testimony  of  the  Christian  Church  to  the  fact  of  the 
 
 Resurrection,        .  ,  ,  .  .  .113 
 
 Opinions  of  Baur  and  Strauss  on  this  matter,  .  .  1 13 
 
 Unfair  treatment  of  the  evidence  by  opponents  of  the  Gospel,     115 
 Baur's  decision  "as  a  philosopher,  not  as  an  historian,"    .  118 
 
 Four  possible  suppositions  respecting   the   origin    of  the 
 
 Apostles'  belief,  .  .  .  .  .119 
 
CONTENTS.  xiii 
 
 Only  two  of  these  worthy  of  consideration,              .  .         121 
 
 Origin_and  authority  of  the  New  Testament  waitings,  .          121 
 
 The  Resurrection  is  uniformly  represented  in  them  as  an 
 
 objective  fact,       .             .             .             .             .  .124 
 
 This  shown  by  their  general  testimony,       .              .  .124 
 
 Also  by  special  proof  ( I  Cor.  XV.  3-20),      .             .  .          125 
 
 Attempt  of  Strauss  to  set^aside  the  latter  argument,  .          130 
 
 LECTURE  IX.      The  various  Narratives  of  the  Resur- 
 rection OF  Jesus. 
 
 Preliminary  assumption  restated,     .  .  .  '133 
 
 I.  Pre-intimations  by  Jesus  of  His  Resun-ection,     .  .  134 
 
 (Perplexity  of  the  Disciples  in  regard  to  them.) 
 
 II.  Examination  of  the  Narratives — 
 
 1.  That  of  Matthew  (Matt,  xxvii.  57 — xxviii.  20),  .  139 
 
 2.  That  of  Mark  (Mark  xv.  42 — xvi.  20),  .  ,  143 
 
 3.  Those  of  Luke  (Luke  xxiii,  50 — xxiv.  53),      .  .  147 
 
 (Acts  i.  2-12)  .  .  .          153 
 
 4.  That  of  John  (John  xix.  38 — xxi.  24),  .  .  155 
 Conclusion  drawn  from  this  narrative,             .              .          163 
 
 LECTURE   X.      Comparison  of  the  various  Narratives 
 OF  THE  Resurrection  of  Jesus. 
 
 General  remarks  relative  to  this  subject,      .  .  .165 
 
 Views  of  the  adversaries  of  the  Gospel,       .  .  .166 
 
 Mistaken  views  of  tw^o  classes  of  defenders  with  regard  to 
 
 the  harmony  of  the  different  accounts,     .  .  .166 
 
 Reasonable  mode  of  procedure  in  this  inquiry,         .  ,  168 
 
 1.  Narratives  shown  to  be  at  one  in  respect  to  the  death 
 
 of  Jesus  and  the  burial  of  His   body  (Matt,    xxvii. 
 57-61 ;  Mark  xv.  43-47;  Luke  xxiii.  50-56;  John  xix. 
 
 38-42), .169 
 
 Matthew  alone  records  the  setting  of  the  watch :  the 
 
 reason  of  this  (Matt,  xxvii.  62-66),       .  .  .  171 
 
 2.  Comparison   of  the  Narratives  as   to  the  Resurrection 
 
 itself,  and  the  events  connected  with  the  day  on  which 
 
 it  occurred,      .  ,  .  .  .  .174 
 
 None  of  the  Evangelists  profess  to  know  the  moment 
 
 when  the  Resurrection  took  place,       .  .  .174 
 
 Visit  of  Mary  Magdalene  and  the  other  women  to  the 
 tomb  (Matt,  xxviii.  I  ;  Mark  xvi.  1,2;  Luke  xxiv.  I, 
 10;  John  XX.  I,  2,  13),  .  .  .  .175 
 
Xiv  CONTENTS. 
 
 Particular  circumstances  in  which  all  are  agreed  with 
 
 regard  to  it,     .  .  .  .  .  •          177 
 
 The  rolling  away  of  the  stone  (Mark  xvi.  3,  4;  Matt. 
 
 xxviii.  2-4,  11-15),       .  .  .  •  .178 
 
 '     When  did  the  earthquake  take  place  ?     .  .  .179 
 
 Comparison  as  to  the  angelic  appearance  at  and  in  the 
 tomb  (Matt,  xxviii.  2-77 Mark  xvi.  3-8;  Luke  xxiv. 
 2-9;  John  XX.  i.),      .  .  .  •  •          180 
 
 Mary  Magdalene  left  the  other  women  without  entering 
 
 the~Tomb,         .  .  .  .  .  .182 
 
 Proceedings  of  the  otlier  women  after  Mary  Magdalene 
 left  them,         .  7  .  .  .  .183 
 
 When  did  the  Lord  appear  to  them  ?  (first  clause  of 
 
 Matt,  xxviii.  9  is  doubtful),  .  .  .185 
 
 Peculiar  state  of  Mark's  narrative  in  chap,  xvi.,       .  186 
 
 Luke  (xxiv.   8-12)  blends  successive  transactions; 
 bearing  of  the  words  of  Cleopas  (ver.  24)  on  the 
 question,  .  .  .  .  .187 
 
 Conclusion — Appearance  to  these  women  was  after 
 
 their  return  from  delivering  the  angels'  message, 
 
 and  after  the  appearance  to  Mary  Magdalene,      .         188 
 
 Proceedings  of  Mary  Magdalene  (John  xx.  i,  2 ;  Matt. 
 
 xxviii.  I  ;  Mark  xvi.   1-8,  9;  Luke  xxiii.  55,  xxiv.  i, 
 
 10-12),  ......  189 
 
 Visit  of  Peter  and  John  to  the  tomb  (Luke  xxiv,  12  ; 
 
 John  XX.  3-8), 191 
 
 The  first  appearance  was  to  Mary  Magdalene  (John 
 
 XX.  II-18;  Mark  xvi.  9),  .  .  .192 
 
 Appearance  to  the  two  going  to  Emmaus  (Mark  xvi. 
 
 12,  13;  Luke  xxiv.  13-33),      .  •  •  .192 
 
 Appearance  to  Peter  (Luke  xxiv.  33,  34;  i  Cor.  xv.  5),  194 
 
 (State  of  the  Disciples'  minds  at  this  time.) 
 Appearance  to  the  assembled  Disciples  (Mark.  xvi.  14 ; 
 
 Luke  xxiv.  36-48  ;  John  XX.  19-23),     .  .  -195 
 
 .  Appearance  when  Thomas  was  present  (John  xx.  26-29),         198 
 Appearance  to  the  seven  at  the  Sea  of  Galilee  (John  xxi. 
 
 1-22),  .  .  .  .  .  .198 
 
 The  appointed  meeting  in  Gglilee  (Matt,  xxviii.  16-20; 
 
 probably  also  i  Cor.  xv.  6),     .  .  .  .  198 
 
 The  Asceiision  (Mark  xvi.  19,  20;  Luke  xxiv.  50-52; 
 
 Acts  i.  6-12),    ......         199 
 
 Conclusion — Perfect  harmony  of  the  Narratives,  as  far  as 
 
 they  afford  us  information,       ....         200 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 XV 
 
 LECTURE  XI.     Strauss  on  the  Burial  of  Jesus. 
 
 Objections  to  the  Resurrection  must  be  anxiously  considered, 
 Strauss  and  Renan  place  these  in  the  strongest  light, 
 Objectors  must  be  allowed  to  choose  their  own  ground, 
 Strauss  well  aware  of  the  importance  of  the  subject, 
 *    In  his  view,  such  an  event  as  a  resurrection  is  a  priori  im 
 
 possible,  ...... 
 
 His  admissions  regarding  the  life  and  death  of  Jesus  and  the 
 
 belief  of  the  Disciples,     .... 
 His  question — What  was  the  origin  of  the  belief  in  the  Re 
 
 surrection?  ...... 
 
 His  view  of  the  authorship  of  the  Gospels, 
 
 His  mode  of  reasoning  as  to  the  reality  of  Christ's  death, 
 
 Meaning  of  "tradition"  as  applied  to  St  Paul's  words  in 
 
 I  Cor.  XV.  3,  4,    . 
 Strauss's  statement  of  the  law  regarding  the  burial  of  the 
 
 crucified,  and  of  the  circumstances  of  the  burial  of  Jesus, 
 Statements  in  the  Gospels  are  most  explicit  as  regards  the 
 
 burial,  but  are  doubted  by  Strauss, 
 Without  giving  evidence,  he  says  it  is  probable  that  Jesus 
 
 was  buried  with  the  malefactors. 
 Nature  of  his  reasoning  on  this  point. 
 Probability  that  the  privilege  under  the  Roman  law  of  burial 
 
 by  friends  would  be  claimed. 
 Brief  sketch  of  the  plan  of  Strauss's  whole  work,    . 
 The  assumption  upon  which  it  is  professedly  based, 
 His  theory  that  the  idea  of  burial  in  Joseph's  tomb  sprang 
 
 out  of  the  necessities  of  ' '  the  earliest  Christian  conscious 
 
 ness,"       ....... 
 
 As  necessary  to  his  mode  of  argument,  he  here  rejects  both 
 
 the  plainest  statements  and  the  highest  probability, 
 His  opinion  regarding   Paul's   statement   that   "He  was 
 
 buried,"  ...... 
 
 Answer  to  this,        ..... 
 
 His  striking  evasion  of  the  question,  How  the  idea  of  an 
 
 honourable  burial  could  arise  from  a  mere  wish  ? 
 He  assumes  that  the  wish  caused  the  belief. 
 He  gives  no  explanation  of  the  particular  mention  of  Joseph 
 
 of  Arimathea,       ..... 
 His  statements  regarding  Joseph  being  a  rich  man. 
 The  Gospel  account  shown  to  be  natural,   . 
 Process  by  which  the  idea  that  the  body  was  laid  in  a  rich 
 
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 224 
 
 225 
 226 
 
 227 
 
XVI  CONTENTS. 
 
 man's  tomb  entered    into    the  Christian  belief  (Isaiah 
 
 liii.  9),     .  .  .  .  .  .  .228 
 
 Strauss's  view  of  the  fulfilment  of  prophecy,  .  .         229 
 
 Inconceivable  nature  of  his  theory  on  this  head,      .  .  231 
 
 Correct  interpretation  of  Isaiah  liii.  9,         .  .  .         232 
 
 Strauss's  mode  of  accounting  for  the  belief  that  the  tomb 
 
 was  in  a  rock  and  was  a  new  tomb,  .  .  .         233 
 
 The  true  facts  of  the  case,   .  .  .  .  .236 
 
 Strauss's  statement  regarding  the  closing  of  the  tomb  and 
 
 the  setting  of  the  watch,  ....  238 
 
 His  assumption  regarding  the  first  preaching  of  the  Resur- 
 rection,    .......         238 
 
 Its  erroneous  nature  shown,  ....         240 
 
 His  mode  of  accounting  for  the  *'  Jewish  legend  "  that  the 
 
 body  was  stolen,  .  .  .  .  .241 
 
 His  alleged  origin  of  the  ' '  Christian  legend  "  that  a  watch 
 
 was  set,  so  as  to  meet  the  "Jewish  legend,"       .  .         242 
 
 He  declares  it  to  be  absurd  that  the  High -Priests  should 
 remember  Christ's  predictions  of  His  Resurrection,  while 
 His  Disciples  forgot  them,  ....  243 
 
 The  true  explanation  of  this  important  point,  .  .  245 
 
 Reason  why  "the  Christian  consciousness"  must  seal  the 
 
 stone,       .......         247 
 
 Strauss's  discussion  as  to  how  the  "Jewish  legend"  that 
 
 the  body  was  stolen  originated,    ....  248 
 
 Answer  to  this,        .  .  .  .  .  .250 
 
 His  argument  as  to  the  intended  re-embalming :  the  answer 
 
 to  it,         .  .  .  .  .  .  .  252 
 
 Conclusion,  ......  254 
 
 LECTURE  XII.      Strauss   on   the   Evidence   of   the 
 Resurrection  of  Jesus. 
 
 Two  discussions  by  Strauss  on  this  subject,  the  first  alone 
 
 of  real  importance,  .....  256 
 
 His  manner  of  stating  the  case,        .  .  .  .257 
 
 That  all  Christianity  rests  on  the  fact  of  the  Resurrection  is 
 
 admitted  on  both  sides,    .  .  .  .  .259 
 
 Strauss's  dissatisfaction  with  even  Baur  regarding  this  sub- 
 ject, .......  260 
 
 v»The  real  question — Was  the  belief  in  the  Resurrection 
 grounded  on  an  objective  fact  or  on  a  subjective  impres- 
 sion?       .......         263 
 
CONTENTS.  XVll 
 
 Strauss  right  in  saying  that  the  evidence  of  such  a  fact 
 must  be  most  satisfying,  ,  .  .  -  .         264 
 
 His  assertion  respecting  the  authorship  of  the  Gospels,       .         265 
 
 The  testimony  of  the  Apocalypse  to  the  fact  of  the  Resur- 
 rection,    .......         266 
 
 Strauss' s  review  of  St  Paul's  statement  of  the  evidence  in 
 
 I  Cor.  XV.  3-7,     ......         267 
 
 His  admissions  regarding  it,  and  the  natural  conclusion  to 
 
 which  it  leads,     ......         268 
 
 His  unreasonable  demand  that  St  Paul  should  discuss  the 
 
 weight  of  the  evidence  he  states,  .  .  .270 
 
 He  assumes  that  St  Paul  did  not  investigate  the  grounds 
 
 on  which  the  belief  of  the  Disciples  rested,  .  .         272 
 
 Answer  to  his  assertion  that  the  Apostle  was  jealous  as  to 
 
 the  admissibility  of  his  so-called  *'  subjective  conviction,"        273 
 
 For  different  purposes  St  Paul  received  both  an  objective 
 
 vision  and  a  subjective  revelation,  .  .  .273 
 
 His  visit  to  Jerusalem,  and  the  Apostles'  inquiry  as  to  the 
 
 appearance  of  Christ  to  him,        ....         276 
 
 His  other  visit  also  spoken  of  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians,     278 
 
 Strauss's  conclusions  from  St  Paul's  statements — that  there 
 is  no  evidence  to  show  that  the  belief  of  the  first  Chris- 
 tians rested  on  any  real  fact,        ....         279 
 
 Strauss's  ingenious  mode  of  setting  aside  the  evidence  of 
 
 the  Evangelists,  ......  282 
 
 His  next  attempt  is  to  prove  that  they  contradict  St  Paul 
 
 and  one  another,               .....  283 
 
 His  failure  to  point  out  any  real  contradiction,        .              .  285 
 He  attempts  to  show  that  John  and  Paul  contradict  one 
 
 another,    .......  287 
 
 His  statement  as  to  the  place  of  the  last  appearance  men- 
 tioned in  Matthew  and  in  Mark  and  Luke,          .              .  289 
 His  supposed  discovery  of  contradiction  in  the  accounts  of 
 
 the  appearances  at  Jerusalem  and  in  Galilee,       .             •  290 
 
 Twofold  answer  to  his  argument,    ....  292 
 
 The  various  narratives  shown  to  be  in  harmony,     .             .  294 
 
 His  alleged  "  secondary  contradictions,"    .             .             •  296 
 Answer  to  his  objections,    .             .             .             .             .297 
 
 Strauss's  c///ty  argument  against  the  ResuiTCction,  .  .         299 
 
 His  summary  of  the  accounts  showing  the  means  by  which 
 
 b 
 
XVlii  CONTENTS, 
 
 the  Disciples  were  convinced  of  the  reality  of  the  presence 
 
 and  Resurrection  of  Jesus,  ....         301 
 
 The  conclusion  drawn  from  his  argument  on  these  statements,    303 
 His  insinuations  of  artifice  on  the  part  of  the  Evangelists,  .         304 
 Their  accounts  shown,  on  the  contrary,  to  be  natural,        .         307 
 Their  very  silence  a  proof  of  their  truthfulness,        .  .         308 
 
 Strauss's  mode  of  argument  shown  to  be  unreasonable,      .         308 
 His  main  argument  founded  on  what  he  considers  an  abso- 
 lute contradictio7i  in  the  accounts  respecting  the  Body  of 
 the  Risen  Jesns,    ......         309 
 
 To  escape  this,  the  literal  meaning  of  the  accounts  must 
 
 not  be  explained  away,    .  .  .  .  .310 
 
 The  real  defect  of  his  argument  lies  in  assuming  that  the 
 
 claims  of  Jesus  to  be  more  than  Man  are  false,    .  .         311 
 
 He  proceeds  on  the  principle  that  Jesus,  though  claiming 
 to  be  the  Son  of  God,  must  yet  act  as  only  the  Son  of 
 Man,        .......         312 
 
 We  are  bound  to  inquire  whether,  in  the  accounts  regard- 
 ing His  power  over  His  body,  there  be  anything  /«<:<?«- 
 j"zV/^«/ with  such  claims,  .  .  .  .  *         3^3 
 
 The  alleged  contradiction  disproved,  .  .  •    *     3^3 
 
 The  silence  of  the  Evangelists  a  proof  of  the  truth  of  their 
 
 narratives,  .  .  .  .  .  .314 
 
 LECTURE    XIII.       Strauss    on   the  Appearance    of 
 Christ  to  St  Paul. 
 
 Strauss  refutes  the  Rationalistic  theory  of  the  Resurrection 
 
 being  a  natural  revival,    .  .  .  .  .316 
 
 Statement  of  his  previous  reasoning  regarding  St  Paul's 
 
 evidence,  ......         318 
 
 His  question— What  was  the  nature  of  the  appearance  to 
 
 St  Paul?  ......         321 
 
 He  admits  that  the  threefold  account  of  this  event  in  the 
 
 Acts  of  the  Apostles  tells  of  an  external  appearance,  .  322 
 Difference  between  the  appearances  before  and  after  the 
 
 Ascension  disregarded,  .....  323 
 The  appearance  might  be  subjective,  and  therefore  was  so,  323 
 His  charge  of  inaccuracy  against  the  author  of  the  Acts,  .  324 
 Allegations  in  support  of  this  charge,  .  .  .         325 
 
 Statement  of  the  various  accounts  of  the  appearance — 
 
 I.  St  Luke's  narrative  (Acts  ix.  3-8),       .  .  .         326 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 XIX 
 
 2.  St  Paul's  first  account  (Acts  xxii.  3-21), 
 
 Distinction  in  the  two  accounts  as  to  "hearing  the  voice," 
 In  this  address  St  Paul  distinguishes  between  an  ob- 
 jective appearance  and  a  subjective  vision,  . 
 
 3.  St  Paul's  second  account  (Acts  xxvi.  4-23),    . 
 Statements  regarding  the  position  of  the  men  who 
 
 were  with  him  shown  to  be  at  one. 
 Reason  why  he  adds  in  this  account  alone —  "It  is 
 
 hard  for  thee  to  kick  against  the  pricks, "    . 
 His  instructions,  received  on  separate  occasions,  are 
 
 here  summed  up  without  distinction  of  time  or  place. 
 Reason  of  this,  ..... 
 
 Conclusion — The  accounts  are  in  harmony,  and  prove  the 
 
 objective  character  of  the  appearance, 
 Strauss  next  assails  the  authorship  of  the  Acts    of   the 
 Apostles,  ...... 
 
 His  reasoning  proved  to  be  invalid, 
 
 327 
 328 
 
 333 
 334 
 
 335 
 
 337 
 
 338 
 
 339 
 341 
 
 His  attempt  to  show  that  St  Paul's  words  in  the  Epistles 
 to  the  Corinthians  and  Galatians  support  only  a  subjec- 
 tive appearance,  .....         343 
 
 His  unreasonable  complaint  respecting  St  Paul's  statement 
 
 of  the  evidence  of  the  appearances,  .  .  .         345 
 
 He  attempts  his  proof  by  confounding  supernatural  visions 
 with  objective  appearances,  ....         346 
 
 He  misrepresents  the  Apostle's  argument  respecting  his 
 vision,  spoken  of  in  2  Cor.  xii.  1-4,  .  .  .         347 
 
 He  next  attempts  to  trace  St  Paul's  visions  to  the  peculiar 
 
 state  of  his  body,  .....         349 
 
 "The  thorn  in  the  flesh"  shown  to  have  succeeded,  not 
 preceded,  the  vision,         .  .  .  .  -351 
 
 "The  gift  of  tongues"  did  not  spring  from  any  peculiar 
 state  of  body,        ......         352 
 
 Reason  why  St  Paul  hesitated  to  go  to  Jerusalem  until  sent 
 
 "by  revelation,"  .....         353 
 
 Strauss's  theory  to  explain  the  origin  of  St  Paul's  belief  that 
 
 the  risen  Jesus  had  appeared  to  him  near  Damascus,        .         354 
 
 Contrary  to  his  assumption,  "Saul  the  persecutor"  was 
 then  full  of  hope,  thinking  he  was  doing  God  service, 
 and  became  more  settled  in  this  conviction,         .  .         35^ 
 
 According  to  the  evidence  furnished,  his  whole  theory  must 
 be  rejected,  ......        359 
 
XX  CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE    XIV.      Strauss   on   the    Origin    of   the 
 Belief  in  the  Resurrection  of  Jesus. 
 
 Preliminary  remarks,  .  .  .  .  .361 
 
 ,    Strauss's  hypothetical  statement  founded  on  his  own  previ- 
 ous reasoning,       .  .  .  .  .  .362 
 
 His  formula  exhibiting  "the  causes  which  produced  the 
 
 appearances  "  to  St  Paul  and  the  Disciples,         .  .         363 
 
 According  to  it,  the  effect  produced   on  the  minds  of  the 
 
 Disciples  was  prior  to  its  alleged  cause,  persecution,       .         364 
 
 St  Paul's  state  of  mind  and  that  of  the  Disciples  not  similar, 
 but  opposite,  when  they  came  to  believe  in  the  Resur- 
 rection,   .......         365 
 
 The  formula  is  contrary  to  the  workings  of  the  mind  and  to 
 
 the  evidence,        ......         3^7 
 
 Strauss's  statement  of  the  prevalent  Jewish  conceptions  as 
 
 to  the  nature  and  duration  of  Messiah's  kingdom,  .         368 
 
 Actual  state  of  the  case  :  the  Disciples  till  after  the  Resur- 
 rection held  the  same  carnal  views,  .  .  -370 
 
 Strauss's  theory  as  to  how  the  Disciples  came  to  reconcile 
 the  idea  of  Jesus's  violent  death  with  His  being  the 
 Messiah,  .......         37^ 
 
 The  false  nature  of  Strauss's  appeal  to  Luke  xxiv.  25  sq., 
 
 and  Acts  iii.  12-21,  .....         372 
 
 His  theory  that  after  the  death  of  Jesus  the  Disciples  exa- 
 mined the  Old  Testament  for  prophecies  of  the  Messiah 
 passing  through  the  grave  to  a  higher  life,  .  .  374 
 
 The  real  import  of  the  Apostles'  references  to  prophecy,    ,         375 
 
 Strauss's  allegation  that  the  Disciples  connected  words  of 
 Jesus  respecting  His  death  with  the  prophecies,  .         377 
 
 His  theory  shown  to  be  insufficient  to  account  for  their 
 belief,      .......        379 
 
 His  statement  of  the  case  as  between  the  unbelieving  Jews 
 
 and  the  Disciples  immediately  after  the  Crucifixion,        .         380 
 
 Actual  state  of  the  case  at  that  time  and  shortly  after  the 
 
 Ascension,  .  .  .  .  .  .381 
 
 Strauss's  next  theory,  that  from  the  idea  that  Jesus  had 
 passed  into  a  higher  life  with  God  the  Disciples  came  to 
 believe  in  His  Resurrection  as  a  fact,       .  .  .         384 
 
 The  effect  His  death  had  upon  them  the  reverse  of  that 
 
 assumed  by  Strauss,         .  .  .  .  .386 
 
 The  results  of  the  ideas  that,  according  to  him,  sprang  up 
 
 simultaneously  in  their  minds,      ....         387 
 
CONTENTS,  XXI 
 
 Their  assumed  mode  of  reasoning  from  the  records  of  pre- 
 vious ascensions,  .....         388 
 
 The  idea  of  Jesus  being  an  angel  begat  the  belief  that  He 
 
 had  appeared  to  them,     .....         389 
 
 Strauss's  argument  as  to  the  voice  heard  by  St  Paul :  its 
 
 relation  to  the  "  Bath  Kol "  of  the  Jews,  .  .         392 
 
 His  rationalistic  explanation  of  the  appearances  on  the  way 
 to  Emmaus  and  at  the  Sea  of  Galilee  :  his  reference  to 
 the  case  of  Duke  Ulrich  of  Wurtemberg,  .  .         394 
 
 His  misrepresentation  of  both  these  appearances,  .  .         397 
 
 His  attempt  to  reduce  the  appearances  to  delusions,  .         400 
 
 He  assumes  a  state  of  excitement  in  Mary  Magdalene  and 
 
 the  Disciples,  contrary  to  nature  and  the  evidence,  .         402 
 
 He  makes  the  appearance  to  Peter  similar  to  his  vision, 
 
 recorded  in  Acts  x.  9-16,  .  .  .  .         404 
 
 Renewed   consideration   of  the   appearance   at   supper  at 
 
 Emmaus,  .  .  ....         405 
 
 By  evading  all  discussion  of  the  appearance  of  the  risen 
 Jesus  to  the  five  hundred,  he  implicitly  admits  that  his 
 whole  theory  is  baseless,  ....         408 
 
 LECTURE    XV.      Strauss  on  the  Time    and    Place 
 OF  THE  Appearances  to  the  Apostles. 
 
 Strauss  again  misrepresents  St  Paul's  argument  in  i  Cor. 
 
 410 
 
 Seeing  that  on  his  theory  no  real  appearances  took  place 
 on  the  third  day,  he  attempts  to  explain  how  the  third 
 day  was  fixed  upon  as  the  day  of  the  Resurrection,  .         413 
 
 His  artful  statement  of  the  difficulty  of  his  case,     .  .         415 
 
 His  confused  statement  as  to  the  body  of  Jesus  being  still 
 in  the  tomb,  and  the  idea  of  the  Disciples  having  appear- 
 ances on  the  day  of  the  alleged  Resurrection,      .  .         417 
 
 His  insinuation  that  if  Jesus  had  risen  on  the  third  day  the 
 
 Disciples  must  have  at  once  declared  it  to  the  Jews,       .         420 
 
 Their  delay  for  seven  weeks  before  declaring  it  prompted  by 
 a  belief  that  the  Jews  would  not  then  be  able  to  produce 
 the  body,  ......         421 
 
 Mode  in  which  the  Jews  actually  met  the  announcement 
 
 when  made,  ....••         4^4 
 
 The  real  reason  why  the  Disciples  did  not  proclaim  the  fact 
 
 of  the  Resurrection  till  after  Pentecost,  .  .  .         426 
 
428 
 
 XXII  CONTENTS. 
 
 Strauss's  theory  of  a  sudden  reaction  of  mind  in  the  Dis- 
 ciples, resulting  in  their  imagining  that  the  Lord  had 
 risen,        ....... 
 
 The  relation  between  the  Day  of  Pentecost  and  the  giving 
 
 of  the  Law  the  reverse  of  what  Strauss  states,     .  .         43° 
 
 His  attempt  to  set  the  Evangelic  narratives  at  variance,     .         431 
 
 Their  accounts  are  not  contradictory,  .  .  .         433 
 
 Allegation  that  immediately  on  the  death  of  Jesus  the  Dis- 
 ciples fled  to  Galilee,       .....         434 
 
 The  records  prove  that  they  remained  in  Jerusalem,  .         436 
 
 Theory  of  the  origin  of  subjective  appearances  in  Galilee  : 
 
 based  on  mere  conjecture,  .  .  .  '437 
 
 Manner  of  accounting  for  the  Disciples'  returning  to  Jei-u- 
 
 salem  :  shown  to  be  false,  ....         441 
 
 Theory  as  to  the  time  of  the  appearances  :  reasons  why  the 
 
 third  day  was  fixed  upon  as  the  day  of  the  first  vision,    .         445 
 
 Difficulties  of  this  position,  ....         448 
 
 That  the  Resurrection  took  place  on  the  third  day  is  indis- 
 putably stated,      ......         449 
 
 Alleged  process  of  reflection  by  which  the  Apostles  were 
 led  to  represent  the  Messiah  as  having  been  only  a  short 
 time  in  the  grave  shown  to  be  absurd,     .  .  .         45 1 
 
 Strauss's  proofs  from  Scripture  in  support  of  his  view  as  to 
 
 the  fixing  of  the  day  for  the  Resurrection,  .  .         453 
 
 His  assertion  that  the  third  day  was  suggested  by  prophecy, 
 answered  by  the  fact  that  no  prophecy  foretells  the  day 
 of  the  Resurrection,  .....         456 
 
 Strauss's  theories  irreconcilable  with  the  moral  character  of 
 
 Christianity  and  the  sanity  of  the  Disciples,         .  .         459 
 
 Christianity,  if  resting  on  delusions,  must  have  given  way,  460 
 
 Nature  of  the  discussions  in  the  second  part  of  Strauss's 
 
 work,       .......         462 
 
 Contrast  of  belief  in  an  Ideal  and  an  Historical  Christ,      .         465 
 
MEMOIR 
 
 The  Rev.  Dr  Robert  Macpherson,  author  of  the  following 
 Lectures,  was  born  on  the  9th  of  January  1806,  of  parents 
 estuTiable  for  their  piety  and  worth.  His  grandfather  was 
 a  native  of  Badenoch,  in  Inverness-shire — his  father  a  trader 
 in  Montrose.  Dr  Macpherson  was  no  genealogist,  but  he 
 has  been  heard  to  relate  the  pleasure  he  once  felt,  in  passing 
 through  the  country  of  his  forefathers,  w4ien  a  gentleman  of 
 high  position  in  the  clan,  and  well  acquainted  with  its  his- 
 tory, pointed  out  to  him  the  spot  they  had  inhabited  for 
 many  generations,  and  informed  him  that  they  were  still 
 remembered  for  their  virtues.  Along  with  something  of  the 
 sensitive  pride  and  keen  temper  of  his  race,  he  inherited 
 many  of  its  best  characteristics — veneration,  loyalty,  great 
 depth  of  affection  and  strength  of  attachment,  with  a  chival- 
 rous readiness  to  espouse  the  cause  of  the  unfortunate  and 
 the  oppressed. 
 
 He  received  his  early  training  at  the  academy  of  his 
 native  town,  under  Dr  James  Calvert,  who  long  afterwards 
 spoke  with  affectionate  admiration  of  the  distinguished 
 appearance  he  had  made  at  school,  and  particularly  of  "  the 
 resolute  and  indefatigable  spirit  with  which  he  used  to  en- 
 counter and  conquer  difficulties."  The  same  energy  and 
 indomitable  perseverance  marked  his  character  through  life. 
 
xxiv  MEMOIR. 
 
 To  prepare  himself  for  entering  the  University  and  King's 
 College  of  Aberdeen,  he  became  for  some  time  a  pupil  of 
 the  Rev.  William  Linton,  Rector  of  the  Grammar-School  of 
 Brechin,  who  had  attained  great  reputation  in  training  young 
 men  for  the  bursary  competition,  and  profited  so  well  that 
 at  the  beginning  of  the  session  of  1823-24  he  gained  one  of 
 the  most  valuable  bursaries.  As  a  Student  in  Arts,  he  ob- 
 tained high  prizes  in  almost  every  class;  and  at  his  gradua- 
 tion in  1827,  he  carried  off  the  Huttonian  prize  for  excellence 
 in  all  the  branches  of  study,  the  highest  reward  the  Univer- 
 sity then  had  to  bestow. 
 
 I  After  spending  a  few  years,  chiefly  near  London,  as  a 
 i  private  tutor,  he  entered  in  1830  the  Divinity  Hall  at  Aber- 
 deen. His  course  there  was  marked  by  the  same  exemplary 
 conduct  and  distinction  as  his  previous  career.  At  the  close 
 of  his  first  session  in  183 1,  he  was  the  successful  competitor 
 for  a  prize  given  by  Sir  Charles  Forbes,  Bart.,  M.P.,  I^ord 
 Rector  of  Marischal  College,  and  open  to  all  the  Students 
 of  Theology  in  Aberdeen,  for  the  best  essay  on  the  ques- 
 tion : — "  Is  there  anything  in  the  doctrines  of  Natural  Reli- 
 gion that  would  lead  men  to  expect  that  God  would  bestow 
 a  Revelation  on  the  human  race  ?" 
 
 The  estimation  in  which  Mr  Macpherson's  character  and 
 
 attainments  were  held  in  the  University,  is  attested  by  the 
 
 fact  that,  while  yet  a  Student  of  Divinity,  he  was  intrusted 
 
 I  for  some  time,  during  the  illness  of  the  respective  Professors, 
 
 1  with  the  charge  of  the  Greek  classes,  and  (on  two  several 
 
 occasions)  of  the  class  of  Natural  Philosophy. 
 
 He  was  admitted  a  Licentiate  of  the  Church  by  the  Pres- 
 bytery of  Aberdeen,  on  the  5th  of  August  1834,  and  after 
 acting  for  a  short  time  as  assistant  in  the  parish  of  North 
 Berwick,  was  ordained  by  the  same  Presbytery,  on  being 
 appointed  Chaplain  of  the  Garrison  of  Fort-George,  on  the 
 3d  of  November  1835.  He  had,  in  the  interval,  been 
 selected  as  one  of  the   two  Murray  Sunday-Lecturers  in 
 
MEMOIR.  XXV. 
 
 King's  College  Chapel  for  the  session  1835-36;  but  this 
 honour,  highly  esteemed  by  the  young  divines  of  the  Uni- 
 versity, his  appointment  to  Fort-George  compelled  him  to 
 resign. 
 
 The  duties  of  his  chaplaincy,  which  were  often  of  a  diffi- 
 cult and  delicate  kind,  he  discharged  with  great  judgment, 
 fidelity,  and  acceptance;  earning,  as  the  recorded  testimony 
 of  a  Commanding  Officer  declares,  the  respect  and  gratitude 
 of  all — officers  and  men — by  his  exertions  in  promoting 
 their  spiritual  welfare. 
 
 While  at  Fort-George  he  married  Anne,  eldest  daughter 
 of  the  Rev.  Dr  Mearns,  Professor  of  Divinity  in  King's  Col- 
 lege, Aberdeen,  who  survives  him,  and  by  whom  he  has  left 
 five  sons  and  two  daughters. 
 
 After  the  memorable  Secession  of  1843,  he  was  presented 
 by  the  Earl  of  Moray  to  the  church  and  parish  of  Forres^ 
 Less  confident  than  those  who  knew  him  of  his  fitness 
 for  a  charge,  which,  owing  to  the  peculiar  circumstances  of 
 the  time,  presented  unusual  difficulties,  and  perhaps  desirous 
 of  a  position  that  might  allow  more  leisure  for  study,  he 
 would  fain  have  relinquished  the  offer  for  a  less  prominent 
 and  smaller  benefice  in  the  neighbourhood.  But  this  retreat 
 was  closed  against  him;  and  the  result  more  than  justified 
 the  opinion  of  the  Patron,  and  of  the  friends  who  had  urged 
 his  acceptance  of  Forres.  Of  this  no  better  evidence  can  be 
 desired  than  the  following  spontaneous  tribute  to  his  memory, 
 which  appeared  in  the  local  newspaper  a  week  after  his 
 death : — 
 
 "  The  death  of  Dr  Macpherson  has  excited  a  very  gene- 
 ral and  profound  feeling  of  regret  in  this  town,  where  he  was 
 greatly  respected  and  beloved  among  people  of  every  class, 
 and  where  the  memory  of  his  ministry  is  still  fondly  cherished 
 by  many. 
 
 "He  was  appointed  Minister  of  Forres  in  1843.  It 
 was  a  very  trying  time,  and  he  entered  upon  his  ministry 
 
XXVI  MEMOIR. 
 
 under  very  trying  circumstances.  The  congregation  which 
 had  been  wont  to  worship  in  the  parish  church  was  broken 
 up  and  very  much  scattered  by  the  disruption  which  had 
 lately  taken  place,  and  which  had  caused  the  vacancy  in 
 the  parish:  and  party  spirit  was  running  high  throughout 
 the  town.  But  Dr  Macpherson  was  eminently  qualified  in 
 many  respects  to  encounter  the  difficulties  with  which  he 
 had  to  contend,  and  the  happy  effects  of  the  energy,  dili- 
 gence, and  prudence  with  which  he  applied  himself  to 
 his  ministry,  were  soon  apparent  in  the  increasing  num- 
 ber and  flourishing  condition  of  the  congregation  which 
 waited  on  his  ministrations.  As  the  angry  passions  en- 
 gendered by  the  agitations  of  the  time  gradually  subsided, 
 his  merits  came  to  be  recognised  and  acknowledged  beyond 
 the  limits  of  the  Church  to  which  he  belonged;  and 
 long  before  he  left  the  parish,  he  had  won  for  himself  such  a 
 place  as  few  ministers  in  these  days  are  able  to  attain  in  the 
 esteem  of  the  whole  community. 
 
 "  As  a  preacher,  Dr  Macpherson's  talents  were  of  a  very 
 superior  order.  The  subject-matter  of  his  discourses  always 
 consisted  of  sound  expositions  and  faithful  applications  of 
 divine  truth — the  fruit  of  much  study,  of  an  extensive  ac- 
 quaintance with  the  Word  of  God,  a  deep  knowledge  of  the 
 human  heart,  and  much  Christian  experience.  He  had  been 
 the  subject,  as  we  happen  to  know,  of  religious  convictions 
 from  his  boyhood,  and  he  was  a  preacher  who  could  say, 
 *  We  speak  that  we  do  know,  and  testify  that  we  have  seen.' 
 The  chief  features  of  his  delivery  were  earnestness  and  im- 
 pressiveness.  His  sermons  might  present  few  of  the  flowers 
 and  embellishments  of  rhetoric,  but  they  were  pervaded  by 
 the  burning  ardour  of  a  godly  zeal  for  truth  and  righteous- 
 ness upon  the  earth,  and  an  intense  abhorrence  of  evil ;  and 
 it  was  impossible  to  listen  to  him  without  being  convinced 
 that  he  was  speaking  from  the  heart.  He  often  preached 
 without  the  aid  of  notes,  and,  even  when  he  had  his  sermon 
 
MEMOIR.  xxvil 
 
 written  and  the  manuscript  lying  before  him,  he  was  fre- 
 quently carried  away  from  it  by  the  overflowing  fulness  of 
 his  mind  and  the  fervency  of  his  feelings. 
 
 "  The  duties  of  the  pulpit,  however,  were  the  least  part  of 
 his  ministerial  labours.  He  visited  assiduously  from  house 
 to  house,  especially  among  the  poor,  ministering  not  only  to 
 their  spiritual  but  also  to  their  temporal  necessities;  and 
 wherever  there  was  sickness  or  trouble  of  any  kind,  whether 
 among  rich  or  poor,  there  he  was  sure  to  be  found  doing  the 
 office  not  only  of  a  faithful  minister,  but  also  of  a  sympathis- 
 ing friend. 
 
 "  He  felt  a  deep  and  lively  interest  in  the  education  of 
 the  young.  Fraser's  Female  Industrial  School  will  remain 
 a  monument  of  his  enlightened  zeal  in  this  respect,  no  less 
 than  of  the  munificence  of  him  whose  name  it  bears ;  and 
 one  of  the  greatest  disappointments  Dr  Macpherson  met 
 with  during  his  ministry  in  Forres,  arose  from  the  failure 
 of  a  plan  which  he  proposed,  and  on  which  his  heart  was 
 greatly  set,  for  the  establishment  of  a  parochial  school  in  the 
 town. 
 
 "  He  also  took  an  active  part  in  the  management  of  the 
 provision  for  the  poor,  especially  during  the  first  years  of 
 the  operation  of  the  present  Poor  Law  Act,  when  his  excel- 
 lent business  habits  enabled  him  to  give  very  efficient  assist- 
 ance in  setting  the  new  machinery  in  motion.  In  a  word, 
 he  was  always  ready,  and  could  be  relied  on,  to  do  all  that 
 was  in  his  power  for  the  promotion  of  any  public  object  that 
 seemed  likely  to  benefit  the  town. 
 
 "  He  loved  Forres  very  dearly,  and  retained  his  affection 
 for  it  to  the  last.  It  was  always  a  source  of  extreme  pleas- 
 ure to  him  to  meet  with  a  person  from  Forres,  and  to  hear 
 of  his  old  parishioners.  Students  from  the  town  and  neigh- 
 bourhood received  much  kind  attention  and  hospitality  at 
 his  hands ;  and  he  was  occupied  during  the  last  day  of  his 
 life  in  writing  a  long  letter  addressed  to  a  gentleman  in  this 
 
XXVlll  MEMOIR. 
 
 town,  which  bears  upon  it  striking  evidence  of  the  interest 
 which  he  continued  to  feel  in  the  institutions  of  Forres." 
 
 In  1852  the  Professorship  of  Divinity  in  the  University 
 and  King's  College  having  become  vacant  by  the  death  of 
 his  father-in-law,  Mr  Macpherson  was  induced  to  become  a 
 candidate  for  the  Chair.  This  office,  founded  in  1620  by  the 
 Synod  of  Aberdeen,  is  in  the  patronage  of  a  body  consist- 
 ing of  the  Moderator  of  the  Synod,  and  two  Delegates  from 
 each  of  the  eight  Presbyteries  within  its  bounds,  along  with 
 the  Principal  of  the  University,  the  Dean  of  Theology,  and 
 an  elected  member  of  the  Senatus,  and  according  to  the 
 terms  of  the  Charter,  framed  in  times  of  public  academical 
 disputations,  is  filled  up  by  a  competitive  trial  of  the  candi- 
 dates in  the  learned  languages,  philosophy,  and  the  various 
 branches  of  theology.  On  this  occasion  several  candidates 
 were  spoken  of,  but  only  two  presented  themselves  for  trial, 
 Mr  Macpherson  and  the  Rev.  Samuel  Trail,  of  Harray  and 
 Birsay,  in  Orkney,  also  a  distinguished  alumnus  and  gradu- 
 ate of  the  University.  After  an  arduous  contest  of  several 
 days,  the  choice  fell  upon  Mr  Macpherson  ]  but  so  strong 
 was  the  impression  produced  by  the  learning  and  abilities  of 
 both  candidates,  that  the  Senatus  Academicus,  at  the  request 
 of  the  examiners,  conferred  simultaneously  on  both  the 
 honorary  degree  of  Doctor  of  Divinity. 
 
 Dr  Macpherson  entered  on  all  the  duties  of  his  office 
 with  intense  zeal  and  devotion.  He  had  always  been  a 
 laborious  student  and  a  close  thinker,  and  never  spoke  from 
 the  pulpit,  from  the  academical  chair,  or  on  any  important 
 matter  of  business,  without  the  fullest  possible  examination 
 of  the  subject  in  all  its  bearings,  and  the  most  careful  reflec- 
 tion. No  man  could  be  more  averse  from  offering,  in  any 
 capacity,  "  that  which  had  cost  him  nothing."  His  students 
 had  always  the  satisfaction  of  knowing  that  the  instructions 
 of  their  Professor  were  the  fruit  of  the  most  scholarly  investi- 
 gation and  anxious  thought.     He  seldom  delivered  a  portion 
 
MEMOIR.  XXIX 
 
 of  his  course  without  alteration,  and  frequently  re\vrote  or 
 entirely  recast  his  prelections,  with  special  reference  to  the 
 tendencies  of  theological  literature  at  the  time.  He  was, 
 however,  far  from  making  any  parade  of  his  great  reading 
 and  research ;  and  in  discussing  the  views  of  others,  especi- 
 ally of  those  still  alive  and  of  note  in  any  branch  of  the 
 Church,  he  generally  avoided,  if  possible,  all  mention  of 
 their  names.  The  Lectures  in  this  volume  may  be  taken  as 
 a  specimen  of  his  unremitting  activity  as  a  theological  teacher, 
 and  of  his  care  to  arm  his  students  against  prevailing  error. 
 
 While  he  neglected  no  branch  of  theological  study  or 
 instruction,  his  favourite  department  was  the  critical  interpre- 
 tation of  Scripture.  For  several  years  he  devoted  to  Sacred 
 Hermeneutics  much  more  time  and  attention  than  is  usually 
 done  by  Theological  Professors.  As  a  Biblical  scholar  his 
 attainments  were  of  the  highest  order.  His  remarks  in  re- 
 ference to  the  exercises  of  his  students  on  the  original  text 
 of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  showed  how  fully  and  successfully 
 he  had  for  himself  investigated  the  meaning  of  important 
 and  difficult  passages ;  and  in  familiarity  with  the  text  of 
 the  Greek  New  Testament,  and  with  all  questions  relative  to 
 the  authenticity  and  criticism  of  its  various  parts,  he  had 
 probably  no  superior  in  Scotland.  While  naturally  led  in 
 this  direction  as  a  student  and  a  teacher  by  his  own  turn  of 
 mind  and  by  the  academical  traditions  of  Aberdeen,  he  was 
 even  more  so  by  the  consideration  that  such  studies,  at  all 
 times  necessary  to  enable  the  friends  of  Revelation  to  deter- 
 mine its  true  import,  have  become  in  our  day  the  chosen 
 battle-field  of  its  most  able  and  popular  opponents. 
 
 After  the  institution  in  the  University  in  i860  of  a  separate 
 chair  of  Biblical  Criticism,  he  restricted  himself  mainly,  in 
 accordance  with  the  special  designation  assigned  to  his  office 
 by  the  Universities  Act  of  1858,  to  Systematic  Theology;  and, 
 in  addition  to  his  regular  courses  of  Lectures,  he  delivered  a 
 weekly  series  of  explanatory  prelections  on  the  Westminster 
 
XXX  MEMOIR. 
 
 Confession  of  Faith.  The  profound  studies  in  which  the 
 preparation  of  these  prelections  engaged  him  produced  in 
 his  case,  as  similar  inquiry  has  often  done  in  the  case  of 
 others,  a  strong  sense  of  the  moderate  spirit  and  cautious 
 language  of  that  great  work — even  on  those  topics  on  which 
 it  has  sometimes  been  represented  as  extreme — and  of  its 
 value  as  an  embodiment  of  Scriptural  truth.  While  lectur- 
 ing on  the  Evidences  of  Christianity,  he  devoted  one  day 
 weekly  to  explaining  and  examining  upon  the  Second  Part 
 of  Butler's  Analogy. 
 
 In  conducting  his  classes,  he  attached  great  importance  to 
 examination,  as  well  as  to  the  special  method  of  examining 
 which  he  had  adopted,  and  in  his  opinion  of  the  usefulness 
 of  which  his  best  students  fully  concurred.  It  was  his  prac- 
 tice, at  the  close  of  a  lecture,  or  when  prescribing  a  portion 
 of  an  author  for  study,  to  dictate  a  short  series  of  very  care- 
 fully prepared  questions,  and  to  require  written  answers  to 
 be  read  in  the  class  at  a  subsequent  meeting.  His  pubHc 
 criticisms  of  the  exercises  and  discourses  of  his  students 
 were  always  founded  on  a  thorough  perusal  in  private,  and 
 were  not  only  felt  to  be  valuable  on  that  account,  but  to  be 
 just,  considerate,  and  kind. 
 
 His  great  aim  and  spirit  in  discharging  the  duties  of  his 
 high  office,  and  the  manner  in  which  these  were  appreciated, 
 may  be  inferred  from  the  following  expressions  in  a  com- 
 munication addressed  to  his  family  "  in  name  of  the  Divinity 
 Students,"  after  his  death  : — 
 
 "In  losing  Dr  Macpherson  we  have  lost  both  a  wise 
 teacher  and  a  warm  friend.  We  know  how  deeply  interested 
 he  was  in  our  welfare — not  only  in  our  general,  but  in  our 
 individual  welfare ;  how  specially  interested  in  all  that  con- 
 cerned our  efficiency  in  the  high  office  we  aspire  to  fill  j  how 
 untiring  were  his  efforts,  for  this  purpose,  to  give  us  intellec- 
 tually a  firm  grasp  of  Christian  truth,  so  that  we  might  not 
 only  hold  it  ourselves  free  from  error,  but  be  able  to  defend 
 
MEMOIR.  XXXI 
 
 I 
 
 it ;  and  spiritually  to  guide  us  all,  as  the  first  step  towards 
 such  efficiency,  to  Christ  Himself,  that,  being  real  partakers 
 of  His  grace  and  Spirit,  we  might  preach  from  the  heart  with 
 that  true  zeal  and  earnestness  which  can  spring  only  from 
 living  communion  with  the  Great  Master.  Brought  daily 
 into  contact  with  such  a  mind,  so  rich  and  varied  in  its 
 powers,  yet  withal  so  meekly  bowing  before  the  Supreme 
 Wisdom  that  speaks  in  Scripture,  with  a  spirit  so  devout, 
 so  earnest,  so  full  of  love  to  God  and  truth,  with  a  heart  so 
 warm  and  so  much  interested  in  all  that  concerned  us, — it  is 
 indeed  little  wonder  that  we  all  learned  to  love  him,  and 
 that  we  mourn  his  loss  with  unfeigned  sorrow." 
 
 While  thus  devoting  himself  to  the  special  work  of  his 
 chair,  Dr  Macpherson  took  an  active  and  leading  part  in  all 
 the  business  of  the  University,  as  well  as  of  the  Church 
 courts  and  of  several  important  charities  and  trusts.  He  pos- 
 sessed an  aptitude  for  business  rare  in  so  close  a  student. 
 With  him  all  labour  was  a  pleasure,  useful  labour  a  passion. 
 His  careful  and  conscientious  premeditation  of  every  matter 
 of  business  was  highly  valued,  as  securing  a  full  considera- 
 tion of  the  subject  in  hand  in  all  its  bearings,  by  those  who 
 desired,  as  he  did,  to  act  only  for  the  public  good,  even  when 
 arriving  at  conclusions  different  from  his.  The  conscious- 
 ness, indeed,  of  his  own  laborious  efforts  to  determine 
 what  was  right  or  expedient,  the  clear  perception  he  thus 
 acquired  of  the  difficulties  of  every  question,  and  the  tense- 
 ness of  mind  resulting  from  recent  severe  and  wakeful 
 thought,  caused  him  sometimes  to  come  to  a  discussion  in  a 
 mood  unfavourable  for  listening  with  calmness  and  patience 
 to  the  reasonings  and  verba  in  lahris  nasce?itia  of  more  hasty 
 thinkers.  But  in  the  later  years  of  his  life,  this  tendency, 
 which  might  well  be  excused  by  those  who  knew  the  value 
 of  his  counsels,  had  been  almost  entirely  subdued,  and  even 
 when  it  was  most  strongly  displayed  no  man  was  really 
 more  open  to  conviction.     Whenever  he  perceived  that  any 
 
"xxxii  MEMOIR. 
 
 one  had  considered  the  subject  under  discussion  more  fully 
 than  he  had  done,  or  that  he  himself  had  overlooked  any 
 important  element  in  the  question,  he  would  at  once  mani- 
 fest a  candour  and  humility  which  showed  how  much  his 
 aim  was  not  victory  but  truth. 
 
 He  had  an  intense  affection  for  his  Alma  Mater,  and  on 
 his  return  to  Aberdeen,  after  an  absence  of  seventeen  years, 
 brought  with  him  all  his  academical  feelings  fresh  as  ever  in 
 his  mind.  In  the  mean  time  great  changes  had  taken  place. 
 Few  of  the  Professors  under  whom  he  had  studied  survived 
 to  be  his  colleagues.  With  the  advancing  age  of  its  guar- 
 dians, some  good  features  of  the  old  discipline  had  disap- 
 peared. New  men,  a  new  spirit,  new  regulations,  a  new 
 system  of  examinations  at  the  beginning  and  close  of  each 
 session,  bearing  on  the  tenure  of  bursaries  and  on  graduation, 
 had  been  introduced.  These  changes,  disturbing,  as  they 
 did,  his  old  associations,  and  altering  a  state  of  matters 
 under  which  he  had  benefited  so  much,  he  viewed  at  first 
 with  apprehension  and  dislike.  But  he  soon  came  to  admit 
 the  value  of  many  of  them,  and  even  where  he  did  not  do 
 so,  he  gave  his  help  ungrudgingly  wherever  it  could  be  of 
 use  in  carrying  on  the  new  arrangements.  It  was  a  remark- 
 able trait  in  his  character,  that  while  showing  great  keenness, 
 warmth,  and  tenacity  of  purpose,  in  opposing  what  appeared 
 to  him  an  improper  or  inexpedient  course,  no  man  could 
 accept  a  defeat  with  greater  largeness  of  mind  and  freedom 
 from  rancour — as  was  shown  by  his  conduct  after  the  union 
 of  King's  and  Marischal  Colleges,  to  which  he  had  always 
 offered  a  strenuous  resistance.  Where  great  interests  were 
 at  stake,  instead  of  watching  for  the  fulfilment  of  his  own 
 unfavourable  prognostications,  he  would  set  himself  to  work 
 out  a  measure  to  which  he  had  been  strongly  opposed,  with 
 a  heartiness,  a  public  spirit,  and  a  singleness  of  purpose, 
 exemplary  even  to  its  friends  and  authors. 
 
 In  no  department  of  University  business  did  he   take 
 
MEMOIR.  XXXlll 
 
 greater  pleasure  or  a  more  useful  part  than  in  the  examina- 
 tion of  the  exercises  at  the  competition  for  bursaries.  The 
 annual  return  of  this  interesting  scene  carried  him  back  to 
 the  time  when,  himself  a  competitor,  his  success  had  opened 
 to  him  the  path  of  an  honourable  and  useful  career;  and 
 under  the  feeling  that  every  Professor,  of  whatever  Faculty, 
 ought,  according  to  his  ability,  to  assist  in  the  work,  he 
 shared  cheerfully  the  vigils  and  labours  of  each  successive 
 competition.  The  attention  he  had  paid  to  the  writing  of 
 Latin,  and  his  accurate  acquaintance  with  the  structure  of 
 that  language,  rendered  his  services  as  acceptable  and  useful 
 as  they  were  heartily  bestowed. 
 
 From  his  appointment  in  1852  till  the  union  of  the  Uni- 
 versities in  i860,  he  discharged  with  earnestness  and  fidelity 
 the  duties  of  the  Lectureship  on  Practical  Religion  for  the 
 Students  in  Arts,  maintained  in  King's  College  by  the  trus- 
 tees of  Gordon  of  Murtle;  and  after  that  event  he  delivered 
 the  weekly  Lecture  on  the  Evidences  of  Christianity,  which 
 was  substituted  for  the  previous  Lectureships,  in  triennial 
 rotation  with  the  Professors  of  Church  History  and  of  Biblical 
 Criticism.  This  Lecture,  as  conducted  by  him  and  his  col- 
 leagues, has  proved  a  valuable  addition  to  the  curriculum  in 
 Arts;  and  the  attendance,  which  is  voluntary,  shows  how 
 highly  it  is  appreciated  by  the  students  and  those  most  in- 
 terested in  their  welfare. 
 
 From  i860,  Dr  Macpherson,  as  holding  jointly  with  the 
 same  colleagues  the  office  of  Murray  Sunday  -  Lecturer, 
 regularly  conducted  Divine  service  in  his  turn  in  the  Uni- 
 versity Chapel  during  the  whole  winter  session ;  and  being 
 often  called  upon  for  assistance  by  his  clerical  friends, 
 by  whom  and  their  congregations  his  services  were  greatly 
 appreciated,  he  was  at  all  seasons  much  engaged  in  pulpit 
 duty.  His  character  as  a  preacher  has  been  well  esti- 
 mated in  the  account  given  above  of  his  ministry  at 
 Forres.     Yet  he  himself  has  been  heard  in  the  intimacy  of 
 
 c 
 
XXXIV  MEMOIR. 
 
 friendship  to  lament  with  unfeigned  humility  what  he  termed 
 his  incapacity,  "  from  want  of  imagination  and  of  musical 
 ear,"  to  impart  to  his  preaching  the  attractions  of  style  and 
 delivery,  the  use  of  which  in  engaging  the  attention  he  was 
 far  from  undervaluing.  But  if,  in  his  sermons,  there  was 
 any  deficiency  of  gratification  for  the  fancy  or  the  ear,  it  was 
 well  compensated  by  the  unction  of  unaffected  earnestness 
 and  deep  solemnity,  and  by  the  intense  feeling  produced  of 
 the  reality  at  once  of  the  preacher's  faith,  and  of  the  great 
 truths  he  was  enforcing.  His  matter  was  always  sound  and 
 weighty;  his  reasoning  clear  and  conclusive;  his  spirit  in  the 
 highest  degree  evangelical  and  devotional;  but  his  chief 
 characteristic  was  the  manifest  subjection  of  his  own  whole 
 being  to  the  theme  of  his  address.  One  may  wonder,  in 
 contemplating  the  great  realities  of  religion,  that  a  preacher 
 should  be  able  at  all  to  think  of  himself  or  of  what  others 
 may  be  thinking  of  him,  but  few  preachers  have  ever  shown 
 so  complete  a  forgetfulness  of  both,  or  have  so  little  in 
 any  respect  preached  themselves,  as  the  subject  of  this 
 memoir. 
 
 The  solemnity  which  characterised  his  preaching  he 
 manifested  even  more  in  prayer.  The  reverential  awe  with 
 which  he  approached  the  throne  of  grace,  the  simplicity  yet 
 appropriateness  and  elevation  of  his  thoughts  and  language, 
 powerfully  enforced  his  instructions  to  his  students  in  regard 
 to  earnest  preparation  for  the  devotions  of  the  sanctuary. 
 
 The  value  of  his  services  in  the  courts  of  the  Church  was 
 very  fully  and  generally  acknowledged  by  the  public  press 
 after  his  death.  As  a  member  of  the  General  Assembly,  his 
 conscientious  attention  to  business  in  committees,  and  the 
 active  unostentatious  interest  he  took  in  the  missionary 
 schemes  of  the  Church,  had  long  given  him  an  acknowledged 
 claim  on  public  gratitude ;  and  his  appearances  of  late  years, 
 especially  in  the  Assembly  of  1 864,  as  a  prominent  speaker, 
 his  manifest  freedom  from  party   spirit,  his  moderation  in 
 
MEMOIR.  XXXV 
 
 matters  of  secondary  moment,  combined  with  the  most  faith- 
 ful orthodoxy,  had  gained  for  him  the  regard  and  confidence 
 of  his  brethren,  and,  in  a  very  remarkable  degree,  of  the  in- 
 fluential and  pious  laity  of  the  Church.  There  can  be  little 
 doubt  that,  had  he  been  spared  for  a  few  years,  he  would 
 have  been  offered  the  highest  honour  the  Church  has  to  be- 
 stow— the  chair  of  the  General  Assembly. 
 
 His  position,  and  the  estimation  in  which  he  was  held,  as 
 a  member  of  the  local  Church  courts,  may  be  inferred  from 
 the  following  terms  in  which  the  Presbytery  of  Aberdeen  ex- 
 pressed their  grief  for  his  removal  : — 
 
 "  The  Presbytery  consider  the  present  to  be  a  fitting  occa- 
 sion for  placing  on  record  an  expression  of  the  sense  they 
 entertain  of  the  great  loss  which  they  and  the  Church  at  large 
 have  sustained  by  the  death  of  the  Rev.  Dr  Macpherson,  late 
 Incumbent  of  the  Chair  of  Systematic  Theology  in  the  Uni- 
 versity of  Aberdeen. 
 
 "  By  the  decease  of  Dr  Macpherson  the  Church  has  been 
 deprived  of  one  who  was  indeed  'a  master  in  Israel,'  faith- 
 ful in  the  inculcation  of  divine  truth  in  accordance  with  her 
 evangelical  standards;  watchful  to  guard  the  youth  under 
 his  charge  against  error  and  heresy,  whatever  phase  they 
 might  assume ;  and  devoted  to  a  degree  beyond  his  strength, 
 in  preparing  and  thoroughly  furnishing  them  for  the  work 
 of  the  Holy  Ministry.  Though  dead,  he  will  long  speak 
 to  the  edification  of  Christ's  people  through  the  mouths  of 
 those  who  carried  into  the  Church,  from  under  his  instruc- 
 tions, minds  stored  with  sound  and  wholesome  Christian 
 views  and  principles. 
 
 "  A  man  of  solid  judgment  in  ecclesiastical  affairs,  delib- 
 erate in  forming  his  conclusions,  and  well  prepared  to  support 
 them,  and  truly  devoted  to  the  best  interests  of  the  Church 
 of  Christ  and  the  highest  wellbeing  of  our  establishments, 
 while  at  all  times  conciliatory  in  his  counsels,  the  late  Dr 
 Macpherson  was  deservedly  looked  up  to  with  respect  and 
 
XXXVl  MEMOIR. 
 
 confidence  as  a  leading  member  of  our  Church  courts,  and 
 was  rapidly  commanding  for  himself  a  position  of  weight  and 
 influence  in  the  deliberations  of  our  General  Assemblies. 
 In  view  of  imminent  contendings  for  the  truth,  the  Church 
 may  have  cause  to  lament  his  removal  in  the  maturity  and 
 vigour  of  his  faculties. 
 
 "  As  a  member  of  Presbytery,  the  Presbytery  have  to  de- 
 plore in  Dr  Macpherson  the  loss  of  one  who  at  all  times  took 
 a  lively  interest  in  Presbytery  business,  and  whose  knowledge 
 of  Church  law  and  procedure  was  on  frequent  occasions  of 
 eminent  service  in  guiding  them  in  their  deliberations.  And 
 especially  will  they  miss  his  valuable  assistance  in  conduct- 
 ing the  examinations  of  students  and  candidates  for  Licence. 
 In  this  important  department  of  presbyterial  work,  for  which 
 his  biblical  scholarship  eminently  fitted  him,  Dr  Macpherson 
 ever  took  a  warm  interest  and  a  steady  part." 
 
 Of  the  benevolent  institutions  with  which  he  was  con- 
 nected none  engaged  his  affections  and  thoughts  to  such  a 
 degree  as  "  The  Society  at  Aberdeen  for  the  Benefit  of 
 the  Children  of  deceased  Ministers  and  Professors,"  of 
 which  the  chief  management  had  for  a  considerable  time 
 been  in  his  hands,  and  of  his  connection  with  which  the  fol- 
 lowing record  was  unanimously  placed  on  the  minutes  of  the 
 Society : — 
 
 "  Before  proceeding  to  the  special  business,  the  Society 
 feel  called  on,  as  their  first  duty,  to  put  on  record  their  sense 
 of  the  loss  which  they  have  sustained  in  the  removal  by 
 death,  since  their  last  meeting,  of  their  late  secretary  and 
 treasurer,  Dr  Robert  Macpherson,  Professor  of  Systematic 
 Theology  in  the  University  of  Aberdeen.  Of  the  admirable 
 manner  in  which  their  departed  friend  discharged  his  duties 
 as  a  Professor  and  Minister  this  is  hardly  the  occasion  to 
 speak ;  nor  is  it  necessary,  seeing  a  becoming  tribute  to  his 
 memory  has  been  already  recorded  in  the  books  of  the 
 Presbytery,  of  which  he  was  so  esteemed  and  valuable  a 
 
MEMOIR.  xxxvii 
 
 member.  Intimately  associated  with  him,  however,  as  most 
 of  the  members  of  this  Society  were,  they  cannot  deny 
 themselves  the  mournful  satisfaction  of  stating  how  fully 
 they  concur  in  all  that  has  been  said  of  his  extensive  and 
 varied  professorial  acquirements,  and  his  unsullied  Christian 
 excellence  and  worth.  Dr  Macpherson  became  secretary 
 and  treasurer  of  this  Society  on  the  death  of  his  brother-in- 
 law,  Professor  Hercules  Scott,  with  whom  for  some  time  pre- 
 viously he  had  been  associated  in  discharging  the  duties  of 
 the  office,  to  the  successful  fulfilment  of  which  he  brought  a 
 combination  of  gifts  and  qualities  rarely  found  in  the  same 
 individual.  Tenderly  sympathising  with  the  numerous  chil- 
 dren of  our  manses  and  colleges  who  are  left  in  poverty, 
 particularly  when  their  father  is  early  called  from  his  earthly 
 labours,  he  gave  a  ready  ear  to  every  application  that  was 
 made  to  him ;  yet  so  careful  was  he  in  administering  the 
 funds  under  his  charge,  that  with  conscientious  scrupulous- 
 ness, and  at  great  personal  trouble,  he  sifted  every  case,  and 
 the  Society  believe  that  during  his  time  not  a  penny  was 
 given  but  in  exact  accordance  with  the  needs  of  the  different 
 claimants.  Such  an  administration  inspired  public  confi- 
 dence, and  during  his  tenure  of  office  the  funds  greatly 
 prospered ;  and  though  he  had  often  to  regret  that  the  grants 
 made  were  far  short  of  the  necessities  of  the  case,  yet  he  had 
 the  gratification  of  being  able,  recently,  to  recommend  an 
 addition  to  the  allowances  of  the  most  destitute,  when  in 
 very  advanced  life.  It  was  unanimously  agreed  that  an 
 extract  of  this  minute  should  be  transmitted  by  the  President 
 to  the  family  of  the  late  Dr  Macpherson." 
 
 While  freely  giving  his  time  and  valuable  services  to  the 
 business  of  various  charities,  he  responded  liberally,  in  pro- 
 portion to  his  means,  to  public  claims  on  his  personal 
 bounty;  and  some  of  his  private  deeds  of  beneficence  were 
 unknown  till  after  his  death.  But  his  charity  was  not  limited 
 to  mere  giving.    It  showed  itself  in  unfeigned  sympathy  with 
 
XXXVlll  MEMOIR. 
 
 the  suffering,  in  lenient  judgment  of  the  erring.  His  tender- 
 ness of  heart  was  unbounded.  He  could  not  look  upon 
 disappointment,  broken  hopes,  or  distress  of  any  kind,  with- 
 out an  attempt  to  afford  relief  or  comfort ;  and  in  affording 
 either,  his  delicacy  was  remarkable.  He  could  not  bear  to 
 see  any  one  the  victim  of  injustice  or  of  extreme  measures. 
 He  would  not  stand  by  and  see  a  man  run  down.  And 
 while,  in  University  government,  he  favoured  a  strong  pre- 
 ventive discipline,  he  always  shrank  from  the  infliction  of 
 severe  punishment. 
 
 Dr  Macpherson  was  a  man  of  great  simplicity  of  character. 
 Though  reserved  and  cautious,  he  was  truthful  and  honour- 
 able in  the  highest  degree,  detesting  all  meanness  and  dupli- 
 city. He  was  singularly  devoid  of  vanity,  affectation,  and 
 display.  Endowed  with  a  strong  feeling  of  personal  inde- 
 pendence, he  would  not  step  aside  to  seek  applause,  favour, 
 or  sympathy,  or  even  to  justify  himself  if  at  any  time  mis- 
 represented or  maligned.  The  influence  and  respect  he 
 acquired  were  the  result  not  of  any  efforts  of  his  to  attain 
 them,  but  of  the  confidence  reposed  in  his  purity  of  motive, 
 his  devotion  to  the  public  good,  and  his  tried  abilities.  The 
 only  reward  he  seemed  to  covet,  and  one  which  he  indeed 
 appeared  greatly  to  enjoy,  was  the  feeling  of  having  been 
 useful.  While,  however,  entirely  free  from  ambition  and  any 
 strong  desire  of  personal  distinction,  he  had  much  jealous 
 sensitiveness  in  all  that  related  to  the  claims  and  dignity  of 
 his  office — a  state  of  mind  naturally  resulting  from  the  some- 
 what changed  position  in  the  Universities,  in  recent  times, 
 of  his  Church  and  Faculty,  and  from  the  too  manifest  ten- 
 dency to  degrade  the  greatest  and  most  important  of  the 
 sciences— the  science  of  man's  relation  to  God — from  the 
 place  it  has  held  in  all  great  seminaries  of  learning. 
 
 His  ardent  love  of  truth,  and  his  experience  of  the  diffi- 
 culty with  which  it  is  sometimes  reached,  inspired  him  with 
 a  sincere  respect  for  all  who  sought  it  with  candour  and 
 
MEMOIR.  xxxix 
 
 diligence,  although  they  might  have  arrived  at  views  different 
 from  his  own.  While  holding  firmly  and  ex  animo  the 
 tenets  of  his  Church,  and  that  after  frequent  and  mature 
 examination,  he  possessed  an  uncommon  catholicity  of  spirit 
 and  charity  in  judging  others.  He  had  a  kindly  sympathy 
 with  honest  difficulties,  and  made  large  allowance  for  the 
 powerful  influence  of  circumstances  on  opinion.  He  seemed 
 utterly  incapable  of  sectarianism,  and  heartily  loved  and 
 praised  all  who,  under  whatever  name,  showed  love  to  God 
 and  man,  and  a  desire  to  be  followers  of  Christ.  Severe  in 
 scrutinising  his  own  mental  processes,  he  was  in  the  case 
 of  others  tolerant  of  all,  except  superficial  dogmatism,  flip- 
 pancy, and  intolerance. 
 
 It  was  natural  that  one  so  scrupulously  careful  in  forming 
 his  opinions,  and  so  unambitious  of  notoriety,  should  shrink 
 from  placing  his  views  before  the  public  in  a  permanent 
 form.  His  only  known  publications,  besides  his  pamphlet 
 on  '  The  Perpetual  Obligation  of  the  Revealed  Moral  Law 
 and  of  a  Day  of  Holy  Rest,'  which  he  published  last  year, 
 were  two  able  and  elaborate  articles  in  the  '  British  and 
 Foreign  Evangelical  Review'  for  January  and  July  1858, 
 on  the  Essays  entitled  'The  Study  of  the  Evidences  of 
 Natural  Theology,'  and  '  Christianity  without  Judaism,'  both 
 by  the  late  Professor  Baden  Powell. 
 
 While  more  and  more  confirmed  by  time  and  study  in  his 
 attachment  to  the  standard  doctrines  of  the  Church,  and 
 grieving  over  all  depreciation  of  those  doctrines,  he  enter- 
 tained moderate  and  catholic  views  on  questions  relative  to 
 ecclesiastical  government  and  worship,  and  contemplated 
 with  sorrow  and  apprehension  the  disposition  manifested  by 
 opposite  parties  to  invest  such  questions  with  undue  import- 
 ance. He  always  considered  the  devotional  services  of  the 
 sanctuary  deserving  of  far  greater  attention  than  they  have 
 hitherto  received,  and,  as  his  public  conduct  showed,  would 
 not   discourage   attempts  at  the  improvement  of  them,  if 
 
xl  MEMOIR. 
 
 consistent  with  the  paramount  interests  of  truth  and 
 peace. 
 
 Although  his  state  of  health  and  studious  habits  prevented 
 his  mingling  much  in  general  society,  and  necessitated  his 
 evading  or  declining  the  hospitality  of  his  neighbours  and 
 acquaintance,  he  was  very  far  from  being  of  an  unsocial  dis- 
 position. He  took  great  pleasure  in  the  intercourse  of  inti- 
 mate friends;  and  although  his  mind  was  almost  always 
 filled  with  an  under-current  of  serious  thought,  he  often  dis- 
 played a  genial  mirthfulness  of  a  very  attractive  kind. 
 
 His  habitual  life  was  led  under  a  deep  and  constant  sense 
 of  the  Divine  presence,  ennobled  by  unceasing  devotion  to 
 duty  of  the  highest  kind,  and  adorned  with  all  the  graces  of 
 domestic  affection.  It  is  enough  to  say  that  those  who  saw 
 him  most  nearly,  and  who  knew  him  best,  reverenced  and 
 loved  him  most. 
 
 Dr  Macpherson  possessed  a  well-knit  and  vigorous  frame, 
 his  only  natural  defect  being  extreme  shortness  of  sight, 
 which  prevented  his  deriving  much  pleasure  from  external 
 objects.  But  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  he  early  laid  the 
 foundation  of  injury  to  his  health  by  excessive  study,  the 
 evil  being  aggravated  by  the  stooping  posture  and  continued 
 pressure  against  his  desk,  occasioned  by  weakness  of  vision. 
 The  effects  were  manifested  in  frequent  derangement  of  the 
 digestive  functions,  from  which  he  suffered  often  and  severely 
 at  Forres,  and  in  renal  disease  of  an  aggravated  form.  From 
 the  time,  however,  of  his  removal  to  Aberdeen  he  en- 
 joyed better  health,  and  was  scarcely  ever  laid  aside  from 
 duty,  even  for  a  single  day,  until  within  a  fortnight  of  his 
 death.  But  towards  the  close  of  the  autumn  of  1865  he 
 had  begun  to  be  seized  with  sudden  and  violent  attacks  of 
 pain,  the  locality  of  which  raised  at  first  apprehensions  of 
 serious  organic  disease  of  the  heart  or  stomach,  but  which 
 proved  to  be  angina  pectoris.  His  sufferings  during  these 
 attacks  were  agonising,  but  as  in  the  intervals,  which  were 
 
MEMOIR.  xli 
 
 often  of  many  days'  or  some  weeks'  duration,  he  was  free 
 from  pain,  he  never  intermitted  his  labours.  The  Lectures 
 which  form  this  volume  were  composed  within  a  short  time — 
 the  last  of  them  within  a  few  days — of  his  death.  About 
 the  middle  of  January  last  he  was  for  the  first  time  absent 
 from  his  class  for  a  day  or  two,  after  which  he  resumed  his 
 work.  He  lectured  as  usual  on  Tuesday,  the  2 2d  of  that 
 month.  About  midnight  he  was  seized  as  on  previous  occa- 
 sions, and  after  about  two  hours  of  intense  suffering,  entered, 
 while  yet  in  the  full  vigour  of  his  faculties,  into  the  eternal 
 enjoyment  of  that  rest,  of  which  the  promise,  sealed  by 
 the  Resurrection  of  Him  who  gave  it,  had  been  the  theme 
 of  his  last  meditation. 
 
 Of  the  many  tributes  to  the  memory  of  Dr  Macpherson 
 which  appeared  in  the  public  prints  on  the  announcement  of 
 his  death,  the  following,  from  the  columns  of  a  metropolitan 
 newspaper,  is  worthy  of  preservation  for  its  eloquence  and 
 truth  :— 
 
 "  In  Dr  Macpherson  the  Church  of  Scotland  has  lost  one 
 of  her  ablest  scholars  and  most  learned  and  valuable  theo- 
 logians. In  neither  capacity,  indeed,  was  he  so  widely 
 known  as  he  deserved  to  be ;  for  his  modesty,  his  distrust 
 of  himself,  and  his  great  conscientiousness,  prevented  his 
 coming  before  the  public  with  such  works  as  he  was  well 
 able  to  produce.  It  was  by  little  else  than  his  appearances 
 in  Church  courts  that  he  was  generally  known,  and  so  far, 
 at  least,  appreciated.  In  the  Presbytery  and  Synod  of 
 Aberdeen,  and  in  the  General  Assembly,  his  views  were 
 listened  to  with  the  greatest  deference ;  and  in  private  con- 
 sultations on  points  of  difficulty,  it  may  be  doubted  if  any 
 Minister  of  the  Church  exercised  a  greater  influence.  He 
 was  especially  remarkable  for  the  singular  amount  of  con- 
 scientious labour  which  he  brought  to  every  department  of 
 his  work,  and  to  every  inquiry  which  engaged  him.  He 
 spared  no  pains  to  reach  the  truth,  and  it  is  to  be  feared 
 
 d 
 
xlii  MEMOIR. 
 
 that  he  often  injured  his  health  by  the  anxious  consideration 
 which  he  devoted,  both  by  night  and  day,  to  any  topic  that 
 seemed  to  him  important.  This  part  of  his  character  was 
 especially  displayed  in  his  later  years,  owing  to  the  state  of 
 theological  opinion  around  him.  He  did  not  rest  simply  in 
 the  views  which  he  had  adopted  when  a  younger  man.  He 
 set  himself  to  examine  them  anew ;  and  it  was  characteristic 
 of  him  that,  if  he  did  not  modify  them  in  any  material  degree, 
 he  gained  a  deeper  sense  of  the  right  and  value  of  free 
 inquiry ;  while  the  charity  which  was  naturally  characteristic 
 of  him  was  greatly  enlarged,  and  became  a  settled  and 
 experimental  principle  of  his  life.  Few  men  have  felt  more 
 keenly  the  value  of  what  they  believed  to  be  the  truth,  or 
 have  held  it  with  a  firmer  grasp ;  but  still  fewer  who  have 
 done  so  have  been  able  to  combine  with  this  an  equally 
 generous  spirit  of  toleration  to  those  who  differed  from  them. 
 It  would  be  easy  to  find  partial  illustrations  of  what  has  now 
 been  said  in  the  position  taken  up  of  late  years  by  Dr  Mac- 
 pherson  in  the  General  Assembly,  but  we  forbear  speaking 
 of  that.  He  was  not  a  party  man,  and  it  is  not  a  party  but 
 the  Church  at  large  that  has  to  mourn  his  death.  We  have 
 already  said  that  Dr  Macpherson's  valuable  qualities  were 
 hardly  of  the  kind  which  procures  public  fame.  It  was  in 
 private  that  they  were  best  seen.  In  the  bosom  of  his 
 family,  in  the  circle  of  his  friends,  in  quiet  conversation  on 
 all  the  most  important  topics  of  the  day,  he  gained  for  him- 
 self an  amount  of  love  and  confidence  and  esteem  which  it 
 is  the  privilege  of  few  to  enjoy.  He  fully  deserved  it  all ; 
 and  however  truly  it  may  be  said  that  his  loss  is  a  public 
 one,  it  is  even  more  to  his  praise  to  say  that  his  personal 
 character  and  labours  were  a  constant  lesson  to  all  who  had 
 either  been  his  pupils  or  who  personally  knew  him." 
 
 University  of  Aberdeen, 
 2,0th  April  1867. 
 
THE 
 
 RESURRECTION   OF   CHRIST 
 
 ETC. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY    LECTURE, 
 
 ON   THE   SPIRIT   OF  THEOLOGICAL   INQUIRY. 
 
 Gentlemen, — You  appear  here  not  merely  to  engage 
 in  the  study  of  theological  science,  but  specially  to 
 prepare  yourselves  for  the  office  of  the  Christian  min- 
 istry. And  though  it  is  not  my  intention  at  present 
 to  dwell  particularly  on  the  nature,  importance,  and 
 responsibilities  of  that  office,  I  would  yet  remind  you 
 that  it  is  one  of  divine  institution  ;  that  it  is  de- 
 signed by  the  Great  Head  of  the  Church  to  be  the 
 means  of  maintaining  and  spreading  abroad  through- 
 out the  world  the  knowledge  of  His  Gospel,  and  of 
 building  up  His  people  on  their  most  holy  faith  ; 
 and  that  as  no  office  can  in  itself  be  more  dignified, 
 so  there  is  none  to  which  greater  or  more  solemn  re- 
 sponsibilities can  attach,  and  for  the  proper  discharge 
 of  which  more  anxious  preparation  ought  to  be  made. 
 Assuming,  as  I  am  bound  to  do,  that  you  yourselves 
 believe  in  the  Lord  Jesus,  and  that  it  is  after  the  most 
 
 A 
 
2  INTRODUCTORY   LECTURE. 
 
 serious  consideration  of  its  importance  that  you  have 
 been  led  to  form  the  resolution  to  devote  your- 
 selves to  the  work  of  the  Christian  ministry,  I  would 
 in  one  word  exhort  and  encourage  you  to  persevere 
 in  your  resolution,  and  to  apply  yourselves  with 
 energy  to  the  various  studies  in  which  you  will 
 have  to  engage,  in  order  that,  with  the  blessing  of 
 God  on  your  labours,  you  may  in  some  measure  be 
 .prepared  for  the  office  to  which  you  aspire.  Let 
 every  one  of  you  aim  at  as  high  a  state  of  pre- 
 paration as  you  can  possibly  reach ;  and  whilst  you 
 devote  yourselves  to  the  acquisition  of  extensive 
 and  accurate  knowledge  of  theological  truth,  aim 
 also  at  the  attainment  of  those  moral  qualifications, 
 without  which  all  knowledge,  however  extensive  and 
 accurate,  would  be  in  vain.  Cultivate  assiduously 
 in  your  own  minds  and  in  your  own  lives  those  dis- 
 positions and  habits  which  alone  become  the  Gos- 
 pel, and  which  will  manifest  to  yourselves  as  well 
 as  to  others  the  reality  and  strength  of  your  faith. 
 Live  habitually  as  the  followers  of  the  Lord  Jesus, 
 and  daily  implore  that  grace  which  alone  can  direct 
 and  uphold  us  in  the  way  of  truth  and  life. 
 
 My  design  on  the  present  occasion  is  to  draAv 
 your  special  attention  to  some  important  points  con- 
 nected with  the  study  of  Theology  itself,  and,  in 
 particular,  to  certain  points  suggested  by  the  manifest 
 tendencies  of  the  age  in  which  we  are  living.  But  I 
 must  premise  that  we  are  prone  to  take  an  exag- 
 gerated view  of  what  are  called  the  tendencies  of  an 
 age  ;  the  fact  being,  as  the  history  of  every  age  shows, 
 that  there  always  exist  to  a  greater  or  less  extent 
 those  very  tendencies  which  we  are  prone  to  regard 
 
ON    THE   SPIRIT   OF    THEOLOGICAL   INQUIRY.        3 
 
 as  peculiar  to  some  one  age.  The  manner,  indeed,  in 
 which  opposing  tendencies  discover  themselves,  varies 
 in  certain  features  with  the  circumstances  of  different 
 ages ;  and  the  conflict  may  appear  keener  and  more 
 determined  in  one  age  than  in  another,  but  the  essen- 
 tial character  of  these  tendencies  is  in  all  ages  the 
 same ;  and,  what  also  merits  attention,  our  estimate 
 of  the  real  state  of  things  in  any  one  age,  and  especi- 
 ally in  our  own,  is  in  no  slight  degree  affected  by  our 
 own  peculiar  views  and  dispositions.  Let  me  guard 
 you,  then,  against  forming  hasty  opinions  on  such  a 
 subject  as  this.  One  man,  looking  at  certain  manifes- 
 tations in  our  own  day  of  what  cannot  justly  be  other- 
 wise characterised  than  as  the  spirit  of  Infidelity,  if 
 not  of  Atheism,  and  overlooking  other  manifestations 
 which  bear  witness  to  the  spirit  of  Faith,  is  apt  to 
 represent  this  age  as  exhibiting  a  peculiar  tendency 
 towards  all  that  is  opposed  to  religious  belief,  if  not 
 also  to  sound  morals  ;  whilst  another  man,  taking  a 
 different  view  of  the  state  of  matters,  is  disposed  to 
 draw  quite  a  different  picture,  and  to  represent  the 
 age  as  one  in  which  pure  religion  and  sound  morals 
 are  on  the  whole  making  decided  progress.  Now,  it 
 appears  to  me  that  we  are  not  called  upon,  and  are 
 scarcely  qualified,  to  determine  this  question.  There 
 are  undoubtedly  circumstances  that  characterise  our 
 age,  which,  should  we  fix  our  attention  on  them  alone, 
 might  compel  us  to  adopt  the  former  view  ;  but  there 
 are  also  circumstances  not  less  manifest,  which,  if 
 they  also  were  solely  looked  at,  might  encourage  us 
 to  embrace  the  latter  and  more  favourable  view. 
 The  truth  is,  that  belief  and  unbelief,  truth  and  false- 
 hood, holiness  and  sin,  carry  on  a  perpetual  war  in 
 
4  INTRODUCTORY   LECTURE. 
 
 our  world,  and  that  the  servants  of  God  have  ever  to 
 fight  the  fight  of  faith.  In  our  own  age,  as  well  as  in 
 preceding  ages,  these  two  opposing  forces  are  strug- 
 gling for  the  mastery.  The  weapons  employed  on 
 the  side  of  infidelity  may  vary  a  little  in  their  struc- 
 ture from  those  formerly  employed  ;  but  even  in 
 respect  to  these  weapons,  that  may  be  said  which  is 
 applicable  to  so  many  other  devices  of  the  human 
 heart, — there  is  nothing  essentially  new.  As  for  the 
 servants  of  God,  the  weapons  of  which  in  all  ages 
 they  can  avail  themselves  are  ever  the  same — sound 
 reason  and  the  Word  of  God — weapons  which  have 
 stood  the  test  in  all  former  conflicts,  and  which  can 
 never  fail  to  gain  the  victory.  And  it  becomes  us 
 specially  to  remember  that  the  cause  of  truth  and 
 religion,  though  in  one  sense  intrusted  to  human 
 agency,  is  conducted  and  maintained  by  Him  who 
 reigneth  over  all,  and  whose  counsel,  we  know,  standeth 
 for  ever.  Whilst,  then,  we  endeavour  to  take  a  com- 
 prehensive view  of  the  tendencies  of  our  age,  over- 
 looking neither  those  which  seem  unfavourable,  nor 
 those  which  may  appear  favourable,  to  the  stability 
 and  progress  of  religious  belief,  let  us  have  faith  in 
 God  and  in  the  goodness  of  His  cause,  and  devote 
 ourselves  in  all  earnestness  to  present  duty,  resting 
 assured  that,  in  spite  of  all  opposition,  the  cause  of 
 God  must  and  will  prosper,  and  that  He  will  compel 
 all  opposition  to  be  finally  subservient  to  the  ad- 
 vancement of  His  kingdom  ;  for  "  He  maketh  even  the 
 wrath  of  man  to  praise  Him,  and  the  remainder  of 
 that  wrath  He  will  restrain." 
 
 It  is,  I  would  now  observe,  one  of  the  marked  ten- 
 dencies of  our  times  to  subject  all  religious  questions 
 
ON   THE   SPIRIT   OF   THEOLOGICAL   INQUIRY.        5 
 
 — even  the  primary  or  fundamental  truths  of  religion 
 — to  severe  and  prolonged,  not  to  say  sceptical,  scru- 
 tiny. Truth,  of  whatever  order  it  may  be,  can  never 
 suffer  from  inquiry.  Religious  truth,  like  all  other 
 truth,  invites  such  inquiry;  it  rests  its  claims  on  our 
 belief  upon  grounds  which  are  susceptible  of  investi- 
 gation, and  it  calls  on  every  man  to  examine  these 
 grounds,  and  to  build  his  faith  on  what  is  solid  and  en- 
 during. It  is  also  the  case  that  every  man  must,  with 
 perfect  freedom,  conduct  this  inquiry  for  himself,  so  that 
 his  faith  may  possess  the  character  of  a  well-founded, 
 a  reasonable  conviction.  The  knowledge  of  one  man 
 or  of  one  age  cannot,  without  the  expense  of  thought, 
 become  the  knowledge  of  another  man  or  of  another 
 age.  Hence  the  necessity  for  inquiry  must  always  con- 
 tinue ;  and  it  may  be  a  favourable  or  an  unfavourable 
 symptom  of  a  man  or  of  an  age  when  religious  truth 
 is  made  a  prominent  subject  of  investigation,  according 
 as  the  spirit  with  which  the  investigation  is  conducted 
 is  essentially  religious  or  irreligious.  Two  rnen,  we 
 shall  suppose,  set  to  work  to  examine  the  claims  of 
 Christianity.  One  of  these  terminates  his  inquiry  in 
 the  conviction  that  it  possesses  no  valid  claims  to  a 
 divine  origin,  but  that  its  origin  can  be  accounted  for 
 by  reference  to  the  circumstances  of  the  period  when 
 it  appeared  ;  whilst  the  other  expresses  it  as  his  con- 
 viction that  Christianity  possesses  valid  claims,  and  that 
 its  origin  can  be  traced  only  to  a  direct  interposition 
 of  the  living  God.  Both  these  men,  we  shall  further 
 suppose,  make  known  to  the  world,  not  merely  the 
 results  of  their  respective  inquiries,  but  also  the  modes 
 in  which  they  carried  on  their  investigations.  Now,  I 
 am  convinced  that,  supposing  we  were  to  peruse  these 
 
6  INTRODUCTORY   LECTURE. 
 
 two  different  inquiries,  terminating  as  they  do  in 
 directly  opposite  results,  we  should  discover  that  the 
 one  man  commenced  his  inquiry  with  the  assumption, 
 expressed  or  unexpressed,  of  some  principle  or  prin- 
 ciples which  exerted  their  influence  on  his  whole  mode 
 of  thought,  and  contained  in  greniio  the  very  conclu- 
 sion at  which  he  arrived  ;  and  that  the  other  man  also 
 set  out  with  certain  principles  in  his  mind,  which, 
 though  not  necessarily  embracing  his  conclusion,  yet 
 led  him,  step  by  step,  to  discern  the  validity,  and  to 
 feel  the  force,  of  the  Christian  evidences.  We  shall 
 afterwards  return  to  this  subject. 
 
 Meantime  we  are  drawing  your  attention  to  a 
 marked  feature  of  our  age,  in  stating  the  fact  that  all 
 religious  questions  or  truths  seem  to  be  at  present 
 once  more  thrown  into  the  crucible,  to  undergo  a  fiery 
 trial.  Not  merely  the  truths  of  revealed  religion,  but 
 those  truths  which  constitute  what  is  termed  natural 
 religion,  are  subjected  to  this  trial.  Not  that  former 
 ages  have  not  had  experience  of  the  same  ordeal. 
 Far  otherwise :  for  in  all  ages  the  contest  between 
 belief  and  unbelief  in  revealed  religion  has  generally 
 issued  in  the  contest  between  belief  and  unbelief  in 
 j  natural  religion.  The  grand  contest  is  ever  one  in 
 i  essence — belief  or  unbelief  in  a  Supreme  Personal  God. 
 Now,  it  is  sad  to  reflect  that  a  contest  such  as  this 
 should  be  continually  arising  in  our  world  ;  that,  age 
 after  age,  not  only  should  no  progress  seem  to  be 
 made,  but  that  the  conflict  should  be  perpetually 
 waged  about  the  very  foundation  itself  of  all  religious 
 belief;  and  that,  instead  of  enjoying  the  privilege  of 
 enlarged  knowledge,  and  of  devoting  our  energies  to 
 the  spread  of  this  knowledge  throughout  the  world, 
 
ON    THE   SPIRIT   OF   THEOLOGICAL   INQUIRY.        J 
 
 we  should   be  called   every  now  and  then  to  resist 
 attempts,  unceasingly  renewed,  to  undermine  the  very 
 foundation  of  our  faith.      But  such  is  the  state  of 
 things,  and  we  must  submit  to  the  warfare  to  which 
 the  course  of  events  in  God's  providence  summons  us. 
 This  tendency  of  the  age  to  subject  religious  truth 
 of  every  kind  to  severe  and  prolonged  discussion,  is  to 
 be  found  not  only  among  the  professed  opponents  of 
 religion,  but  also  among  its  professed  friends.     There 
 is  a  manifest  jealousy  among  the  latter  of  all  those 
 doctrines  which  have  come  down  to  us  as  the  received 
 doctrines  of  former  ages.     If  the  doctrines  themselves 
 are  too  evidently  the  doctrines  of  Scripture  to  be  sum- 
 marily questioned,  then  some  fault  or  other  is  found 
 with  the  manner  in  which  these  have  been  expressed  ; 
 the  whole  subject  is  spoken  of  as   mere  traditional 
 theology ;  and  those  who  value  and  defend  these  ex- 
 positions of  our  common  faith  are  represented  as  sur- 
 rendering their  intellectual  and  moral   freedom,  and 
 binding  themselves  by  the  fetters  forged  by  others  in 
 bygone  times.     It  is,  indeed,  doubtful  whether  those 
 who  thus  speak  have  for  themselves  undergone  the 
 severe  task  of  real  investigation ;  or  whether,  as  is  also 
 a  marked  feature  of  this  as  of  some  former  ages,  they 
 are  merely  giving  expression  to  a  peculiar  spirit  of 
 their  own,  which  seeks  to   exalt  itself  by  the  easier 
 task  of  depreciating  others.     But  it  is  not  for  us  to  sit 
 in  judgment  on  those  to  whom  we  are  here  referring. 
 It    is   right,   however,    in    us   to    observe   that,   even 
 among   the   professed    friends    of   religion,   there   is 
 scarcely  a  doctrine  peculiar  to  Christianity  which  is 
 not  once  more  subjected  to  criticism,  and  that  an  ex- 
 treme jealousy  is  manifested  of  every  received  doc- 
 
8  INTRODUCTORY   LECTURE. 
 
 trine,  on  the  sole  ground  that  it  is  the  received  doc- 
 trine— ^just  as  if  the  Bible  were  such  a  book  that  no 
 doctrine  whatever  could  be  drawn  from  it  to  be  held 
 by  the  Christian  Church  of  all  ages  as  fixed  and  perma- 
 nent Now,  you  will  not  fail  to  observe  that  we  regard 
 it  not  as  a  bad  symptom  when  religious  truth  is  made 
 the  subject  of  inquiry — I  would  add  (only,  however,  in 
 the  true  sense  of  the  word),  oi  free  inquiry — of  inquiry 
 unprejudiced,  impartial,  solemn,  and  earnest.  Such  in- 
 quiry is  due  to  the  subject — the  noblest  on  which  it  is 
 possible  for  the  human  mind  to  be  engaged — and  due 
 to  ourselves  ;  for  religious  truth  involves  our  highest 
 possible  interests.  Such  an  inquiry,  also,  is  a  most 
 salutary  exercise  for  the  human  mind.  It  strengthens, 
 enlarges,  and  elevates  all  its  powers,  raising  it  above 
 the  consideration  of  merely  material  and  visible 
 things  to  the  contemplation  of  those  objects  which 
 are  spiritual,  invisible,  and  everlasting.  To  such  an 
 inquiry,  conducted  in  the  spirit  to  which  we  shall  im- 
 mediately refer,  we  earnestly  exhort  you  to  devote 
 yourselves.  But  what  we  regard  as  a  bad  symptom 
 is  that  captious,  and,  as  it  appears  to  us,  half-scep- 
 tical spirit  in  which,  under  the  plea  of  freedom  from 
 the  influence  of  all  hitherto  received  expositions  of 
 doctrine,  certain  persons  profess  to  conduct  this  in- 
 quiry. 
 
 I  am  anticipating,  however,  what  I  wish  to  say 
 respecting  the  spirit  in  which  all  theological  study 
 should  be  conducted.  And  though  I  have  really 
 nothing  new  to  address  to  you  on  this  subject,  yet  I 
 trust  you  will  bear  with  me  whilst  I  say  a  word  or 
 two  by  way  of  exhortation.  I  do  not  mean  to  give  a 
 formal  discussion  of  the  subject,  as  if  you  were  wholly 
 
ON   THE   SPIRIT   OF   THEOLOGICAL   INQUIRY.       Q 
 
 in  ignorance  respecting  it,  but  to  restrict  my  remarks 
 to  a  few  leading  points. 
 
 I.  Theological  inquiry  should  be  conducted  under 
 a  profound  conviction  of  the  importance  and  in- 
 comprehensible nature  of  the  subject. 
 
 I  need  not  dwell  on  a  point  so  obvious  as  this, 
 for  who  can  deliberately  deny  the  vast  importance 
 of  religious  truth,  or  affirm  that  this  truth  does  not 
 exceed  the  finite  grasp  of  the  mind  of  man  }  Our 
 highest  interests  are  essentially  connected  with  reli- 
 gious truth,  and  therefore  to  attain  to  a  correct  know- 
 ledge of  it  is  of  the  highest  moment.  Hence  it 
 becomes  us,  in  all  religious  inquiries,  to  cherish  a 
 solemn  and  earnest  frame  of  mind — a  frame  of  mind 
 in  some  measure  corresponding  to  the  nature  of  the 
 subject  about  which  we  are  inquiring.  Further,  all 
 religious  questions  having  a  necessary  connection 
 with  the  infinite  and  incomprehensible  God,  can  be 
 apprehended  by  us  only  partially  and  imperfectly. 
 We  cannot  find  out  God  unto  perfection.  Hence, 
 whilst  we  endeavour  to  know  the  truth  so  far  as  our 
 finite  minds  can  attain  to  it,  it  becomes  us  ever  to 
 remember  that  our  highest  knowledge  can  be  only 
 partial  and  imperfect  knowledge ;  and  that,  in  our 
 present  state  of  existence,  we  must  rest  contented 
 with  such  knowledge.  We  are  not  to  reject  what  we 
 do  know,  simply  because  there  is  much  which  as  yet 
 we  cannot  know.  A  deep  sense  of  our  comparative 
 ignorance  will  keep  us  humble,  and  cause  us  to 
 restrict  our  inquiries  within  the  sphere  which  lies 
 open  to  us. 
 
 Now,  it  is  most  painful  to  witness  the  tokens  of  an 
 opposite  spirit  in  not  a  few  discussions  of  the  present 
 
10  INTRODUCTORY   LECTURE. 
 
 day  on  religious  subjects.  Not  only  the  peculiar 
 doctrines  of  revelation,  but  even  the  very  fundamental 
 truths  of  natural  religion,  are  often  discussed  in  a 
 spirit  which  seems  to  attach  no  importance  whatever 
 to  these  doctrines  or  truths,  and  which  also  seems  to 
 assume  that  they  may  be  discussed  and  determined 
 with  as  much  ease  as  matters  which  lie  wholly  within 
 our  grasp.  This  flippant  and  self-conceited  spirit  is 
 hostile  to  all  due  inquiry,  and  therefore  to  the  attain- 
 ment of  real  and  exact  knowledge.  The  person  who 
 enters  on  the  inquiry  with  such  a  spirit  may  exhibit 
 acuteness,  and  appear  to  see  much  farther  than  others 
 into  the  great  secrets  of  the  universe ;  but  it  is  scarcely 
 possible  for  him,  in  such  a  frame  of  mind,  to  discern 
 the  reality  of  spiritual  things,  and  to  aim  at  a  correct 
 knowledge  of  these  things  so  far  as  they  have  been 
 revealed  to  us.  It  is  not  the  knowledge  of  divine 
 truth  that  he  is  aiming  at,  but  the  exhibition  of  self — 
 his  own  glory  is  the  thing  which  he  is  seeking :  self 
 is  the  idol  which  he  is  worshipping ;  and  therefore 
 the  highest  truths,  however  important  or  incompre- 
 hensible, must  all  give  •way  to  this  magnifying  of 
 himself.  Nor  is  it  inconsistent  with  this  spirit  to 
 assume  the  appearance  of  coolness  and  impartiality, 
 and  to  make  strong  professions  that  truth  is  the  sole 
 object  aimed  at.  Quite  otherwise  :  for  it  is  often  by 
 assuming  this  appearance  and  reiterating  such  pro- 
 fessions that  the  end  aimed  at  is  sought  to  be  gained. 
 Now,  what  we  maintain  is  this,  that  all  religious 
 inquiries  should  be  conducted  not  merely  with  a  pro- 
 fession that  truth  is  the  object  sought — for  who  indeed 
 would  make  any  other  profession  ? — but  in  such  a 
 manner  as,  apart  from  ail  profession  whatever,  will  of 
 
ON    THE   SPIRIT   OF   THEOLOGICAL   INQUIRY.       II 
 
 itself  show  that  the  inquirer  is  impressed  with  a  pro- 
 found conviction  of  the  importance  and  incompre- 
 hensible nature  of  the  subject  under  his  investigation. 
 Are  the  evidences  of  revealed  religion  to  be  inquired 
 into  .'*  Then  let  them  be  investigated  with  all  possi- 
 ble scrutiny,  with  a  fixed  determination  to  know  their 
 character  and  worth.  But  let  them  not  be  treated  as 
 if  the  subject  were  one  of  no  interest  whatever  to  the 
 human  race,  or  as  if  they  merely  furnished  matter  for 
 a  display  of  intellectual  acuteness.  Are  the  peculiar 
 doctrines  of  Christianity  the  subject  of  investigation  ? 
 Then  let  these  be  inquired  into  with  all  possible 
 freedom  from  the  influence  of  mere  human  opinion  : 
 but  let  the  aim  be  to  know  what  these  doctrines  really 
 are,  as  they  are  laid  down  in,  or  necessarily  drawn 
 from,  the  only  infallible  standard  of  truth  ;  and  let 
 them  not  be  discussed  as  if  it  fell  to  us  to  ascertain 
 what  all  who  have  gone  before  us  had  failed  to  learn. 
 Are  the  fundamental  truths  of  all  religion  made  the 
 subject  of  inquiry  }  Then  it  surely  behoves  us  to 
 approach  them  with  all  possible  reverence  ;  for  what 
 other  feeling  should  pervade  the  mind  of  that  man 
 who  ventures  to  inquire  whether  there  is  a  God  or 
 not .''  As  our  faith,  even  in  the  reality  of  the  divine 
 existence,  must  rest  on  solid  ground,  so  even  this 
 subject  is  one  of  legitimate  inquiry;  and  the  Divine 
 Being  Himself  will  not,  we  apprehend,  be  offended 
 with  us.  His  rational  offspring,  when  we  reverently 
 and  humbly  inquire  into  the  reasons  which  He  Him- 
 self has  given  to  make  known  to  us  the  reality  of  His 
 existence.  But  such  an  inquiry,  conducted  in  this 
 reverential  and  humble  spirit,  is  very  different  from 
 that  upon  which    he  enters  whose   object  is   simply 
 
12  INTRODUCTORY   LECTURE. 
 
 to  display  with  what  acuteness  he  can  perplex  all 
 human  reasoning  even  on  so  fundamental  a  truth  as 
 this.  In  short,  not  to  dwell  longer  on  this  part  of 
 our  subject,  all  sound  theological  inquiry  is  essentially 
 dependent  on  a  right  frame  of  mind.  Endeavour, 
 then,  always  to  enter  upon  it  in  such  a  spirit  as  will 
 be  favourable  to  the  attainment  of  truth,  in  a  reve- 
 rential, humble,  and  earnest  spirit,  for  it  is  such  a 
 spirit  which  alone  it  becomes  us  to  cherish,  and  which 
 alone  will  lead  us  to  the  knowledge  of  the  truth. 
 
 2.  Let  it  be  the  _truth  alone  which  you  seek  to 
 know. 
 
 After  what  has  been  said,  I  need  do  little  more 
 than  state  this  point.  It  is  only  truth  on  any  sub- 
 ject that  constitutes  knowledge.  Falsehood  or  error 
 constitutes  the  very  opposite.  It  is  ignorance,  and 
 worse  than  mere  ignorance.  As  rational  beings  we 
 are  possessed  of  faculties  which,  when  duly  exercised, 
 enable  us  to  ascertain  what  is  real  and  true ;  and 
 there  is  in  our  nature  an  instinctive  desire  to  know 
 what  is  real  and  true.  It  is  necessary  for  us  to  have 
 confidence  in  these  faculties,  and  to  be  influenced 
 by  this  instinctive  desire  to  ascertain  truth.  We  are 
 not  to  allow  ourselves  to  fall  into  a  distrust  of  our 
 rational  nature,  as  if  it  were  in  itself  insufficient  to 
 enable  us  to  conduct  our  inquiries,  nor  are  we  to 
 imagine  that  our  instinctive  desire  to  know  what  is 
 true  is  vain,  because  truth  is  unattainable.  This  is 
 scepticism  ;  and  such  a  view  of  our  nature  would  put 
 an  end  at  once  to  all  inquiry  whatever,  even  in  the 
 most  common  affairs  of  life.  But  it  is  generally  in 
 reference  to  religion — to  spiritual  truth — that  such 
 scepticism  manifests  itself    Now,  religious  or  spiritual 
 
ON    THE   SPIRIT   OF   THEOLOGICAL   INQUIRY.       1 3 
 
 truth,  like  truth  of  every  other  kind,  is  open  to  in- 
 quiry. We  may  be  unable  to  know  it  to  the  same 
 extent  that  we  are  able  to  know  some  other  kinds  of 
 truth.  But  that  is  a  question  of  the  extent  to  which 
 our  knowledge  may  reach,  and  does  not  affect  the 
 main  point  at  issue.  Is  religious  truth  to  any  extent 
 within  the  sphere  of  our  knowledge  }  This  is  the 
 essential  question,  and  to  this  question  there  can  be 
 only  one  just  answer.  Man  feels  himself  compelled, 
 by  the  very  constitution  of  his  nature,  to  inquire  into 
 what  is  called  religious  truth  ;  and  however  slight 
 may  be  the  knowledge  to  which  he  is  capable  of 
 attaining,  he  is  bound  to  use  his  faculties  in  order 
 that  as  far  as  possible  he  may  know  the  truth.  And 
 since  the  Supreme  Being  has,  as  we  have  good 
 grounds  for  believing,  revealed  unto  us.  His  ignorant 
 creatures,  the  knowledge  of  Himself,  so  far  as  He  has 
 deemed  it  necessary  for  His  own  glory  and  for  our 
 good,  we  are  also  bound  to  apply  ourselves  to  the 
 attainment  of  this  divine  knowledge,  in  the  full  con- 
 fidence that  the  truth  is  not  now  far  from  us,  but  is 
 presented  to  us  in  that  Word  which  is  emphatically 
 the  Word  of  Truth,  and  which  is  to  be  seen  and  read 
 of  all  men. 
 
 3.  This  leads  me,  in  the  next  place,  to  exhort 
 you  to  study  with  all  earnestness  this  divine  Ward 
 as  the  only  source  whence  you  are  to  draw  your  know- 
 ledge of  divine  truth. 
 
 Whilst  you  do  not  undervalue  the  labours  of  other 
 inquirers  into  religious  truth,  but  thankfully  avail 
 yourselves  of  their  aid,  ever  remember  that  it  is  to 
 the  Word  of  God  alone  that  we  must  have  recourse 
 in  order  to  know  the  mind  of  God.     Even  received 
 
14  INTRODUCTORY   LECTURE. 
 
 expositions  of  revealed  truth — the  creeds  or  confes- 
 sions of  Christian  churches — are  always  to  be  regarded 
 as  only  helps  to  our  right  understanding  of  the  truth 
 itself.  Whatever  value  such  documents  may  possess, 
 it  is  derived  solely  from  their  agreement  with  that 
 Word  which  is  the  only  infallible  standard  of  faith 
 and  practice  ;  and  they  are  to  be  valued  by  us  only 
 in  so  far  as  they  express  the  truth  of  Holy  Scripture. 
 In  your  theological  studies,  therefore,  you  are  to  have 
 it  ever  present  to  your  mind  that  the  written  Word 
 is  to  be  your  guide — the  lamp  to  your  feet  and 
 the  light  to  your  path.  And  you  are  always  to 
 study  this  Word  with  the  anxious  desire  to  know 
 what  it  would  have  you  to  believe,  and  with  the 
 immovable  resolution  to  follow  wherever  it  directs 
 your  steps.  Only  you  must  study  it  reverently, 
 humbly,  and  thoroughly — not  coming  to  it  with  pre- 
 conceived notions  of  your  own,  but  approaching  it 
 in  a  teachable  frame  of  mind,  that  you  may  receive 
 even  as  little  children  the  things  which  it  reveals  con- 
 cerning the  kingdom  of  God.  Different  conclusions 
 on  weighty  subjects  have  indeed  been  drawn  by  dif- 
 ferent persons  even  from  this  divine  Word  itself ;  for 
 it  has  not  pleased  God  to  reveal  all  things  to  us  in 
 such  a  manner  as  to  leave  no  room  for  the  exercise  of 
 our  reason  and  the  trial  of  our  spirits.  Still  we  are 
 persuaded  that  the  great  things  of  the  kingdom  of 
 God — those  things  which  it  is  necessary  for  man  to 
 know,  to  believe,  and  to  do  in  order  that  he  may  be 
 saved— are  all  so  revealed  that  no  humble  and  earnest 
 mind  can  fail  to  arrive  at  the  knowledge  of  them. 
 
 But  it  specially  becomes  you,  as  candidates  for  the 
 office  of  the  holy  ministry,  to  aim  at  the  attainment 
 
ON   THE   SPIRIT   OF   THEOLOGICAL   INQUIRY.      1 5 
 
 of  an  enlarged  and  accurate  knowledge  of  what  the 
 Word  of  God  contains.  "  Search,"  then,  "  the  Scrip- 
 tures "  with  all  diligence  and  earnestness ;  habituate 
 yourselves  to  a  thorough  study  of  their  contents — to 
 a  comprehensive  view  of  that  great  scheme  of  mercy 
 which  is  revealed  in  them — and  you  will  grow  in  the 
 knowledge  and  also  in  the  grace  of  our  Lord  and 
 Saviour  Jesus  Christ.  You  will  find  that  this  great 
 scheme  to  which  I  have  just  referred  constitutes  the 
 great  subject  of  revelation,  and  that  therefore  to 
 know  Christ — the  Son  of  God  and  the  Saviour  of  the 
 world — is  to  know  the  truth  ;  for  He  is  Himself  the 
 Truth  ;  in  Him  are  laid  up  all  the  treasures  of  wisdom 
 and  knowledge. 
 
 4.  And  now,  in  the  last  place,  whilst  you  look  to 
 the  written  Word  as  the  alone  source  of  theological 
 knowledge,  and  study  it  habitually  that  you  may 
 grow  in  this  knowledge,  let  me  solemnly  exhort  you 
 to  seek  by  frequent  prayer  the  gracious  aid  of  Him 
 who  is  revealed  to  us  as  the  Spirit  of  Truth. 
 
 Whilst  we  must  place  confidence  in  our  rational 
 faculties  as  the  instruments  by  which  we  attain  to 
 knowledge,  and  whilst  we  are  also  called  upon  to 
 use  all  diligence  that  we  may  acquire  this  knowledge, 
 most  true  it  is  that  in  our  ignorance,  weakness,  and 
 proneness  to  err,  we  also  need  the  guidance  of  one 
 who  is  able  to  conduct  us  into  the  knowledge  of 
 truth.  How  thankful,  then,  ought  we  to  be  that  there 
 is  One  revealed  to  us  in  Scripture,  whose  prerogative 
 it  is  to  enlighten  the  darkened  mind,  and  who  is  ever 
 willing  to  be  our  guide  into  all  the  truth  !  With  what 
 earnestness  and  frequency  should  we  apply  for  His 
 guidance  and  direction,  humbly  beseeching   Him   to 
 
l6  INTRODUCTORY   LECTURE. 
 
 keep  us  from  all  hurtful  error,  and  to  grant  to  us  such 
 a  knowledge  of  the  truth  as  may  save  our  own  souls, 
 and  enable  us  to  be  instrumental  in  teaching  others 
 also  !  Be  frequent,  then,  and  earnest  in  prayer  for  the 
 gracious  aid  of  the  Holy  Spirit ;  and  thus  devoting 
 yourselves  to  the  work  of  study,  and  thus  praying  for 
 light  from  on  high,  you  may  pursue  your  inquiries  in 
 cheerful  confidence  that  you  will  not  fail  of  your 
 desired  end. 
 
 May  these  few  and  imperfect  remarks  be  blessed 
 for  your  good,  and  may  all  that  we  have  to  address 
 to  you  here  be  made  subservient  to  the  furtherance  of 
 your  knowledge  and  the  increase  of  your  faith. 
 
 It  is  now  my  intention  to  address  to  you  a  few 
 lectures  on  several  subjects  which  are  at  all  times, 
 but  especially  in  the  present  day,  of  peculiar  moment ; 
 but  these  lectures  will  aim  only  at  giving  you  the 
 chief  features  of  discussion  on  each  of  the  topics  to 
 which  I  shall  refer. 
 
LECTURE    II. 
 
 ON  THE  EXISTENCE   OF   GOD. 
 
 In  last  Lecture  a  case  was  supposed,  that  of  two 
 persons  examining  into  the  claims  of  Christianity,  and 
 arriving  at  two  directly  opposite  conclusions  ;  and  it 
 was  remarked  that,  since  both  these  persons  had  the 
 same  data  before  them,  the  difference  between  their 
 conclusions  must  have  had  its  origin  in  the  principles 
 assumed  by  each  on  entering  upon  the  inquiry.  I  now 
 desire  to  draw  your  special  attention  to  this  subject. 
 
 And,  first  of  all,  I  would  observe  that  there  are  in 
 reality  only  two  principles,  the  one  or  the  other  of 
 which  must  be  assumed  prior  to  all  inquiry  into  the 
 claims  of  a  professed  revelation  in  general,  or  of  the 
 Christian  revelation  in  particular.  The  inquirer  must 
 begin  with  the  assumption  of  the  existence  of  a  living 
 personal  God,  or  with  the  assumption  that  there  is  no 
 such  Being.  There  is,  and  can  be,  no  intermediate 
 assumption.  Pantheism,  which  represents  everything 
 as  a  mode  of  deity — as  the  development  of  a  some- 
 thing which  in  itself  has  no  proper  attributes  and  no 
 separate  existence — is  essentially  only  a  mere  form  of 
 expressing  what  is  called  Atheism,  according  to  which 
 the  visible  and  tangible  world  is  that  alone  which  exists, 
 and,  having  had  no  origin,  has  the  cause  of  its  exist- 
 
 B 
 
18  LECTURE  II. 
 
 ence  in  itself.  Theism  implies  that  there  is  a  self- 
 existent  and  personal  Being,  who  gave  origin  to  this 
 visible  frame  of  things,  and  who  consciously,  and  for 
 definite  purposes  formed  in  His  own  eternal  mind, 
 governs  all.  Now,  I  beg  you  to  observe  that  there 
 are,  and  can  be,  only  these  two  opposite  assumptions. 
 Either  there  is  a  God,  a  living  personal  God,  or  there 
 is  not  a  God  ;  for  it  is  a  manifest  perversion  of  lan- 
 guage to  call  a  mere  abstraction  of  the  human  mind 
 by  such  a  name. 
 
 If  we  suppose,  then,  that  an  inquirer  into  the 
 claims  of  a  professed  revelation  sets  out  with  the 
 assumption  or  belief  that  there  is  a  God,  it  is  evident 
 that  he  begins  with  an  assumption  which  renders  a 
 revelation  possible,  and  that  therefore  the  claims  of 
 any  professed  revelation  form  a  subject  of  legitimate 
 investigation.  It  does  not,  you  will  observe,  neces- 
 sarily follow  from  his  assumption  that  these  claims 
 are  valid.  It  is  possible  that  he  may  discover  them 
 to  be  wholly  unworthy  of  belief,  and  that  the  professed 
 revelation  has  had  its  origin  either  in  ignorance  or 
 imposture  ;  and  should  he  by  valid  reasoning  come  to 
 this  conclusion,  he  will  feel  it  to  be  his  duty  to  reject 
 such  a  professed  revelation.  But  you  will  at  the 
 same  time  observe  that  this  assumption  or  belief  does 
 not  preclude  legitimate  inquiry.  It  allows  the  evi- 
 dences of  a  professed  revelation  from  God  to  come 
 fairly  before  the  mind,  and  to  be  discussed  and  weighed 
 according  to  their  worth. 
 
 On  the  other  hand,  the  man  who  assumes  that  there 
 is  no  God,  no  self-existent  and  personal  Being  who 
 created  and  governs  the  universe,  has  already,  by  his 
 very  assumption,  rendered  all  inquiry  into  the  claims 
 
ON   THE   EXISTENCE   OF   GOD.  I9 
 
 of  a  professed  revelation  wholly  unnecessary ;  for  It  is 
 clear  that  no  revelation  can  possibly  proceed  from  a 
 Being  who  does  not  exist.  Such  a  person  may  avow- 
 edly examine  the  proposed  evidences  of  a  professed 
 revelation ;  but  it  is  evident  that  such  a  task  is  for 
 him  a  work  of  supererogation.  He  has  already  settled 
 the  question  ;  and  his  examination  of  the  proposed 
 evidences  can  be  to  him  only  an  exercise  of  curiosity, 
 with  the  view  of  ascertaining  how  the  human  mind 
 came  to  be  deluded  into  the  idea  that  there  could  be 
 such  a  thing  as  the  particular  revelation  in  question. 
 Religious  belief  under  any  form  is  to  such  a  person  a 
 mere  phase  of  delusion,  and,  like  other  delusions,  may 
 have  a  history ;  and  his  sole  object  is  to  trace  this 
 history.  Beyond  this,  his  investigation  has  to  him  no 
 value  whatever.  Viewed  in  this  aspect,  the  Christian 
 revelation  has  to  the  atheistical  inquirer  an  historical 
 value,  and  therefore  he  sets  himself  to  discover  in  what 
 way,  as  he  thinks,  it  sprang  up  and  grew  to  that  state 
 in  which  it  has  come  down  to  us.  But  from  the  very 
 outset  he,  according  to  his  assumed  theory,  knew  that 
 this  revelation  had  no  valid  claims  to  belief,  and  that 
 in  whatever  way  it  did  originate,  whether  in  mere  de- 
 lusion or  in  fraud,  its  origin  was  entirely  human. 
 
 Hence  he  is  compelled  to  call  in  question  every 
 branch  of  its  professed  evidences.  He  questions  the 
 genuineness  of  the  writings  in  which  the  origin  of 
 Christianity  is  recorded.  Were  these  writings  genuine, 
 he  knows  that  the  divine  origin  of  Christianity  would 
 be  estabhshed  ;  but  his  assumption  involves  the  denial 
 of  such  an  origin,  and  therefore  these  writings  cannot 
 be  genuine.  And  he  sets  himself  to  work  in  order  to 
 show  that  these  writings  were  of  later  date  than  that 
 
20  LECTURE   II. 
 
 which  they  ascribe  to  themselves,  and  were,  in  fact, 
 the  products  of  conscious  fraud. 
 
 Again,  is  Christianity  supported  by  the  testimony 
 of  miracles  declared  to  have  been  wrought  by  its 
 Founder .?  Is  an  appeal  directly  made  by  its  Founder 
 to  works  such  as  no  mere  man  ever  wrought,  in 
 confirmation  of  His  high,  His  extraordinary  claims  ? 
 Then  it  becomes  necessary  to  get  rid  of  this  peculiar 
 evidence,  either  by  explaining  away  these  professed 
 miracles ;  or,  if  that  is  rather  a  difficult  task,  by  at 
 once  cutting  the  knot,  and  boldly  affirming  that  such 
 works,  such  manifestations  of  superhuman  power,  are 
 impossible.  And  the  atheist  is  right,  according  to  his 
 supposition  ;  for  if  there  is  no  God — though  then  it 
 seems  impossible  for  us  to  say  what  might  or  might  not 
 be — yet  assuredly,  on  such  a  supposition,  a  manifesta- 
 tion of  divine  power  becomes  an  absurdity.  Hence 
 the  atheistical  inquirer  has  only  to  ascertain  the  par- 
 ticular circumstances  which  induced  men  to  imagine 
 that  the  miracles  recorded  in  proof  of  Christianity 
 were  performed.  The  invalidity  of  miracles  as  a  proof 
 is  already  assumed,  and  the  sole  inquiry  is  how  to 
 account,  on  the  ground  either  of  delusion  or  of  fraud, 
 for  the  fact  that  they  ever  formed  a  subject  of  belief 
 
 In  like  manner  all  the  other  evidences  are  disposed 
 of  Their  worthlessness  is  already  assumed,  and  the 
 inquirer's  sole  object  is  to  give  the  most  plausible 
 account  which  his  ingenuity  can  suggest  of  their  sup- 
 posed origin.  Hence  you  will  further  observe  that, 
 though  these  atheistical  inquirers  all  set  out  with 
 essentially  the  same  assumption,  and  accordingly  be- 
 gin with  an  implied  denial  of  the  divine  origin  of 
 Christianity,  yet  they  may  differ  among  themselves 
 
ON   THE  EXISTENCE   OF   GOD.  21 
 
 as  to  the  manner  in  which  they  endeavour  to  solve 
 the  various  particular  questions  which  the  Chris- 
 tian evidences  bring  before  them.  Hence  we  have 
 a  variety  of  theories  on  the  origin  of  Christianity, 
 viewed  as  the  mere  product  of  the  human  mind — the 
 product  of  human  superstition  or  of  human  fraud. 
 They  differ  also  in  their  respective  estimates  of  Chris- 
 tianity, regarded  as  a  mere  system  of  human  origin. 
 But  the  main  thing  to  be  observed  by  us  at  present 
 is,  that  they  all  begin  with  an  assumption  which  in- 
 volves the  denial  of  its  divine  origin,  and  that  all 
 investigation  into  its  professed  claims  is  to  them  a 
 matter  of  no  value  whatever — one  of  purely  historical 
 interest. 
 
 Without  entering  at  length  into  the  recent  attacks 
 on  the  Christian  revelation,  we  observe  that  these  all 
 proceed  from  the  atheistical  school.  The  elaborate 
 works  of  Strauss  are  based  on  the  assumption  that 
 there  is  no  God,  no  self-existent  Being  distinct  from 
 the  visible  universe.  A  revelation  is  therefore  to  him 
 a  contradiction  in  terms.  A  miracle,  as  a  proof  of 
 such  a  revelation,  is  nothing  else  than  an  absurdity. 
 Science  knows  nothing  of  the  miraculous.  Science, 
 therefore,  rejects  Christianity  because  it  professes  to 
 be  miraculous,  and  to  be  established  by  miracles. 
 Historical  science  recognises  only  the  ordinary  laws 
 which  govern  the  lives  of  men.  The  life  of  Jesus  pro- 
 fesses to  lie  beyond  these  laws,  and  therefore  histori- 
 cal science  rejects  this  life  as  presented  to  us  in  the 
 Gospel  narratives.  Such  are  the  declared  assump- 
 tions with  which  he  commences ;  and  on  these  as- 
 sumptions it  needs  no  argument  to  show  that  there 
 can  be  but  one  conclusion. 
 
22  LECTURE   II. 
 
 We  remark,  however,  that  in  these  assumptions  he 
 confounds  two  ideas  which  are  essentially  distinct. 
 Science,  strictly  so  called,  does  not,  it  is  admitted,  re- 
 cognise miracles  ;  but  it  only  does  not  recognise  them 
 as  occurring  in  the  ordinary  course  of  things.  A  mir- 
 acle is  impossible  so  far  as  this  ordinary  course  is  con- 
 cerned. That  is  a  mere  truism.  But  it  by  no  means 
 follows  that  miracles — real  miracles — are  in  them- 
 selves impossible,  when  we  take  into  view  the  power 
 of  Him  who  has  established  this  ordinary  course.  In 
 like  manner,  there  are  laws  which  govern  the  mani- 
 festations of  human  character ;  and  when  we  inquire 
 into  the  life  of  any  man,  we  proceed  in  our  investiga- 
 tion according  to  these  ordinary  laws.  But  it  by  no 
 means  follows  that  the  life  of  One  who  claims  to  be 
 more  than  man  must  be  restricted  to  the  operation  of 
 such  laws.  His  life  rises  above  the  sphere  of  their 
 operation,  and  therefore  above  the  sphere  of  ordinary 
 historical  investigation.  To  proceed  in  an  inquiry 
 into  the  life  of  Jesus,  and  into  the  evidences  of  mira- 
 culous interposition,  on  the  assumption  that  this  life 
 and  these  evidences  must  be  reduced  to  the  sphere  of 
 ordinary  historical  and  of  ordinary  scientific  inquiry,  is 
 manifestly  to  proceed  on  an  assumption  which,  so  far 
 as  the  subject  is  of  real  importance,  precludes  all  in- 
 quiry whatever,  involving  as  it  does  a  petitio  prhicipii 
 — an  assumption  of  the  very  conclusion  which  it  is 
 sought  to  establish.  But  to  this  important  part  of  our 
 subject  we  shall  return. 
 
 The  whole  elaborate  work  of  Strauss  rests  on  the 
 foundation  that  a  miracle  is  impossible ;  and  the 
 whole  design  of  his  work — his  former  as  well  as  his 
 recent  work — is  to  give  some  plausible  account,  as  he 
 
ON   THE   EXISTENCE   OF   GOD.  23 
 
 imagines,  of  the  rise  of  Christian  ideas  as  set  forth  in 
 the  New  Testament  writings — ideas  which  he  traces 
 either  to  mythical  fancies  or  to  conscious  fraud,  how- 
 ever inconsistent  with  each  other  these  suppositions 
 are.  Strauss  is  professedly  a  Pantheist,  and  Panthe-  ' 
 ism  is  essentially  Atheism  ;  for  it  recognises  no  living 
 God,  but  the  mere  idea  of  perfection  as  entertained  by 
 the  human  mind,  and  as  gradually  advancing  with 
 the  development  of  the  race.  There  is,  in  his  view, 
 no  distinct  Supreme  Being,  no  spirit  in  man  distinct 
 from  his  material  frame,  no  real  immortality  beyond 
 death  and  the  grave.  According  to  such  a  view, 
 a  revelation  is  impossible,  miracles  are  absurd,  a 
 supernatural  life  such  as  that  of  Jesus  is  unreal : 
 there  may  be  an  ideal  Christ,  as  there  may  be  an 
 ideal  God  ;  but  there  is,  and  can  be,  no  reality  in  the 
 one  or  in  the  other.  All  is  mere  illusion,  and  man  is 
 the  sport  of  illusion,  having  a  momentary  existence, 
 but  immediately  vanishing,  and  vanishing  for  ever. 
 
 I  would  here,  but  only  briefly,  notice  another  recent 
 work,  which  when  it  appeared  excited  no  small  sensa- 
 tion. I  allude  to  the  work  of  Renan  on  the  *  Life  of 
 Jesus.'  Renan  belongs  to  what  is  called  the  Historical 
 school  of  philosophy  and  religion  —  a  school  which 
 professes,  not  to  determine  what  in  itself  is  true  or 
 false,  but  merely  to  trace  the  progress  of  philoso- 
 phical or  religious  ideas  as  these  have  appeared  in 
 the  history  of  the  human  race.  For  example,  this 
 school  admits  as  facts  or  phenomena  of  the  human 
 mind  the  various  conceptions  which  have,  in  different 
 ages  and  among  different  nations,  been  entertained 
 respecting  God,  and  also  the  feelings  or  sentiments 
 which  accompany  these  conceptions ;  but  it  restricts 
 
24  LECTURE   II. 
 
 itself  to  the  mere  history  of  these  conceptions  and 
 sentiments,  and  allows  no  inquiry  as  to  the  objective 
 reality  of  the  existence  of  God.  It  employs,  how- 
 ever, religious  terms,  and  often  speaks  loftily  of  moral 
 and  religious  feelings,  and  of  those  who  have  mani- 
 fested such  feelings  in  any  high  degree.  Jesus  is 
 described  by  Renan  as  one  of  the  greatest  of  men, 
 because  He  attained  to  the  highest  religious  concep- 
 tions, and  cherished  and  manifested  the  purest  reli- 
 gious sentiments.  His  language  about  the  character 
 of  Jesus  sometimes  rises  to  the  loftiest  admiration, 
 not  to  say  adoration.  His  task  was  in  many  respects 
 different  from  that  of  Strauss,  and  hence  he  sometimes 
 admits  what  the  other  rejects.  His  work,  however,  on 
 the  *  Life  of  Jesus,'  is  rather  a  romance  than  a  strictly 
 critical  inquiry,  which  is  the  character  that  the  other 
 labours  to  give  to  his  attack  ;  but  in  essence  there 
 is  no  real  difference  between  them.  To  Renan  as  well 
 as  to  Strauss  there  is  no  Supreme  Being  distinct  from 
 the  universe.  Man  is  the  highest  intelligence  in 
 existence ;  and  even  man  is  but  a  shortlived  deity, 
 for  there  is  no  immortality  to  the  individual,  but  only 
 to  the  race ;  and  yet  the  romantic  writer  dedicates  his 
 book  to  a  deceased  sister,  whom  he  represents  as  en- 
 joying rest  in  the  bosom  of  God.  Whilst  he  professes 
 not  to  reject  miracles  in  a  summary  manner  as  things 
 impossible,  yet  he  insists  that  miracles,  should  they 
 occur,  must  occur  as  ordinary  events,  and  in  this  way 
 he  virtually  rejects  them,  and  thus  occupies,  in  this  as 
 in  other  matters,  the  same  ground  as  Strauss,  The 
 denial  of  the  objective  reality  of  the  supernatural  is, 
 in  short,  the  basis  of  his  whole  work  ;  and  all  his 
 arguments,  so   far   as  anything   like   real   argument 
 
ON   THE  EXISTENCE   OF   GOD.  25 
 
 appears,  are  merely  attempts  to  give  some  accou  '  of 
 the  life  of  Jesus  on  the  supposition  that  He  was  not 
 what  He  declared  Himself  to  be. 
 
 My  great  design  in  these  remarks  on  the  late  at- 
 tacks upon  Christianity  is  to  show  you  that  the  ques- 
 tion affecting  divine  revelation  is  once  more  thrown 
 back  to  that  most  fundamental  of  all  questions — Is 
 there  a  God,  or  is  there  not  ?  However  elaborate 
 these  attacks  may  appear,  they  are  all  in  reality  based 
 on  the  assumption  that  there  is  no  God.  It  is  ex- 
 ceedingly important  that  you  should  see  that  this 
 really  is  the  question  Avhich  lies  at  their  basis.  We 
 repeat,  we  do  not  affirm  that  the  contrary  assump- 
 tion immediately  and  by  itself  establishes  the  divine 
 origin  of  Christianity.  What  we  at  present  affirm  is, 
 and  the  truth  of  the  affirmation  is  beyond  all  question, 
 that,  on  the  assumption  that  there  is  no  God,  neither 
 the  Christian  nor  any  other  professed  revelation  can 
 be  true.  There  can  be  no  message  unless  there 
 exists  one  from  whom  the  message  may  proceed.  If 
 there  is  no  God,  there  can  be  no  revelation. 
 
 Now,  it  is  most  saddening  and  most  painful  to 
 think  that  this  question  about  the  existence  of  God 
 should  be  every  now  and  then  forced  on  our  atten- 
 tion, as  if  it  were  an  undetermined  question.  And  I 
 would  here  guard  you  against  the  danger  of  having 
 your  thoughts  continually  employed  about  this  fun- 
 damental question,  important  as  it  is.  There  is,  I 
 apprehend,  very  great  danger  to  your  moral  and 
 spiritual  state  in  dwelling  exclusively  on  speculations 
 referring  to  such  a  question  as  this.  We  ought  to  be 
 going  forward  in  our  knowledge  of  God  and  Jesus 
 Christ  our  Lord,  and  must  not  be  continually  laying 
 
26  LECTURE   II. 
 
 the  foundation  of  this  knowledge.  Our  religious  faith 
 is  strengthened,  not  by  ever  contemplating  the  grounds 
 on  which  it  rests,  but  by  exercising  and  manifesting 
 this  faith  in  a  life  of  holiness  and  righteousness 
 and  love.  Our  faith  in  God  and  in  Christ  can  never 
 here  be  turned  into  sight.  Our  faith  in  an  unseen 
 God  and  in  an  unseen  Saviour  must  always  be  sub- 
 ject to  trial,  and  trial  always  implies  the  possibility  of 
 doubts ;  and  when  we  know  that  our  faith  is  well 
 founded,  it  is  our  wisdom  to  keep  our  faith  alive  by 
 actual  communion  with  its  unseen  objects,  and  by 
 walking  habitually  in  its  light.  Examine,  indeed,  to  the 
 utmost  the  grounds  on  which  your  faith  rests ;  but  when 
 you  have  found  that  these  are  real  and  solid,  and  that 
 therefore  your  faith  is  well  founded,  do  not  yield  to 
 mere  suggestions  of  the  possibility  of  doubts,  but 
 have  confidence  in  your  conclusions,  and  be  steadfast 
 in  the  faith.  If,  then,  I  enter  here  on  these  fundamental 
 questions,  it  is  simply  because  it  is  our  duty  here  to 
 notice  these  things,  so  that  you  may  discern  on  what 
 a  solid  rock  our  faith  does  rest.  But  I  at  the  same 
 time  exhort  you  to  go  on  towards  perfection — that 
 matured  state  of  the  spiritual  understanding  to  which 
 it  is  our  privilege,  notwithstanding  all  the  opposing 
 influences  which  would  undermine  our  faith,  to  be 
 striving  through  divine  help  to  attain. 
 
 The  great  question,  then,  which  lies  at  the  very 
 basis  of  this  subject,  is  just  this :  Is  there  a  God,  or  is 
 there  not  ?  We  believe  that  there  is  One  Living  Per- 
 sonal God,  a  Being  distinct  from  the  visible  universe, 
 a  Being  self-existent,  possessed  of  all  intellectual  and 
 moral  perfection, — the  Creator  and  Governor  of  the 
 world.     Such  is  our  belief     On  what  grounds  does 
 
ON   THE   EXISTENCE  OF   GOD.  2/ 
 
 this  belief  rest  ?  Does  it  rest  on  any  grounds  which 
 our  reason  can  state  and  discuss  ?  Or  is  this  belief  a 
 blind  belief — a  mere  notion  formed  by  our  minds, 
 and  one  of  which  we  can  give  no  account  whatever  ? 
 Such  is  our  inquiry.  Let  us  then  with  all  possible 
 calmness  contemplate  the  subject. 
 
 This  Being,  whom  we  denominate  God,  is  not  an 
 object  of  direct  perception.  "  Behold,  we  go  forward, 
 but  He  is  not  there  ;  and  backward,  but  we  cannot 
 perceive  Him :  on  the  left  hand,  where  He  doth 
 work,  but  we  cannot  behold  Him  ;  He  hideth  Him- 
 self on  the  right  hand,  that  we  cannot  see  Him." 
 This  Being  is  not,  then,  an  object  of  our  immediate 
 perception  ;  He  is  the  Invisible  God.  How,  then,  do 
 I  know  that  there  is  such  a  Being  ?  I  know  it  from 
 the  traces — the  visible  tokens  of  His  presence,  His 
 power,  and  His  intelligence ;  for  everywhere  I  see 
 the  traces  of  a  power  and  intelligence  which  I  am 
 compelled,  by  the  constitution  of  my  mind,  to  ascribe 
 to  a  Being  possessed  of  power  and  intelligence.  Every- 
 where— before  me,  behind  me,  on  my  left  hand  and 
 on  my  right — there  are  tokens  of  power  and  skill 
 which  must  belong,  not  to  matter,  but  to  mind  ;  not 
 to  an  abstraction,  but  to  a  Being,  and  to  a  Being  who 
 must,  from  the  very  necessity  of  the  case,  be  self- 
 existent,  infinite,  and  eternal.  This  is,  in  brief,  the 
 grand  and  enduring  argument  which  my  reason  em- 
 ploys in  confirmation  of  my  belief  in  the  existence  of 
 God.  It  is  an  argument  old,  and  yet  ever  new  ;  an 
 argument  level  to  the  meanest  capacity,  and  yet  avail- 
 ing to  the  highest  intellect  of  man ;  an  argument 
 which  sophistry  may  perplex,  as  it  may  perplex  every 
 possible  argument,  but  which  it  can   never  destroy. 
 
28  LECTURE   II. 
 
 The  humblest  peasant  who  looks  abroad  on  the  fields 
 of  nature,  and  beholds  the  innumerable  traces  of 
 power,  wisdom,  and  goodness  which  these  present  to 
 his  view,  or  who  looks  upwards  to  the  starry  heights 
 and  sees  the  wondrous  display  there  revealed  to  him, 
 as  well  as  the  man  of  science,  who  can  in  some 
 measure  contemplate  the  objects  of  earth  and  the 
 orbs  of  heaven  with  the  eye  of  intelligence,  is  instinc- 
 tively compelled  by  the  very  constitution  of  his  nature 
 to  recognise  in  all  these  things  a  manifestation  of 
 power,  and  of  wisdom,  and  of  goodness,  which  can  be 
 predicated  only  of  that  unseen  but  all-glorious  Being 
 whose  works  these  all  are,  and  to  whose  existence 
 and  attributes  they  all  unite  in  bearing  clear  and 
 valid  testimony.  We  pretend  not  to  demonstrate  as 
 by  a  mathematical  process  that  God  exists.  We 
 point  to  the  works  of  nature  around  us,  of  which 
 works  we  ourselves  form  a  part,  and  we  proclaim  in 
 no  hesitating  or  doubtful  manner  that  these  works 
 bear  unequivocal  witness  to  the  divine  existence. 
 However  much  the  argument  hence  drawn  may  be 
 cleared  up  by  reasoning  and  expressed  in  the  lan- 
 guage of  philosophy,  yet  the  argument  in  itself  is 
 ever  the  same  ;  and  it  is  the  s'olid,  immovable  rock  on 
 which  faith  in  God  ever  rests.  The  argument,  when 
 reduced  to  its  elements,  consists  of  principles  fur- 
 nished by  the  human  mind,  and  of  facts  presented 
 to  us  in  our  own  constitution  and  in  the  volume  of 
 nature  ;  and  so  long  as  these  principles  form  a  part 
 of  our  mental  possessions,  and  these  facts  are  open  to 
 consciousness  and  to  sight,  so  long  must  the  human 
 mind  ascend  as  by  a  ladder  fixed  on  earth,  and  having 
 its  top  amidst  the  heights  of  heaven,  to  the  recogni- 
 
ON   THE   EXISTENCE   OF  GOD.  29 
 
 tion  and  belief  of  that  Being  who,  Himself  uncreated, 
 gave  origin  to  us  and  to  all  nature.  We  are  at  pre- 
 sent desirous  to  state  the  argument  in  its  simplest,  its 
 broadest,  and  most  comprehensive  form.  It  is  an 
 argument  of  the  strictest  analogy,  and  meets  with  a 
 response  in  every  unbiassed  mind.  We  know,  in  some 
 measure,  what  is  meant  by  power,  intelligence,  and 
 goodness  ;  and  we  know  certain  effects  which  these 
 attributes  can  accomplish.  We  behold  in  the  uni- 
 verse around  us  clear  and  decisive  tokens  of  the 
 operation  of  such  attributes.  We  are  compelled  to 
 ascribe  such  attributes  to  mind  and  not  to  matter, 
 and  to  a  living  personal  mind — to  a  Being  who  has 
 power  and  intelligence  and  goodness ;  and  further,  to 
 a  Being  who  is  supreme — to  a  self-existent,  infinite 
 Being. 
 
 I  am  sure  that  I  need  not  specially  exhort  you  to 
 meditate  on  this  great  argument.  But  I  beg  of  you 
 not  only  to  perceive  its  nature  and  validity,  but  to 
 exercise  faith  in  the  conclusion  to  which  it  leads. 
 Faith  differs  from  reason,  not  because,  as  is  some- 
 times but  erroneously  imagined,  it  does  not  rest  on 
 solid  grounds,  but  because  the  conclusion  which  it 
 embraces  is  one  which  cannot  be  verified  by  mere 
 experience,  but  must,  even  when  established,  be  an 
 object  of  our  faith.  God  is  an  object  of  faith,  not 
 because  we  have  no  reasons  for  our  belief,  but  because 
 He  is  invisible  and  infinite,  and  cannot  possibly  be 
 an  object  of  sensible  experience.  Hence  it  requires 
 an  effort  of  mind  to  keep  our  faith  in  God  in  active 
 exercise ;  and  hence  also  it  is  that  faith  in  God  is  a 
 subject  of  trial,  and  is  capable  of  existing  in  a  variety 
 of  degrees.     Seeing  that  the  grounds  of  our  belief  in 
 
30  LECTURE  II. 
 
 God  are  real  and  strong,  aim  at  the  possession  of  a 
 firm  faith  in  the  living  God  :  realise  Him  as  ever 
 near  you  ;  cherish  the  loftiest  conceptions  of  His  glo- 
 rious attributes  ;  see  His  presence  everywhere,  and 
 live  as  in  His  presence ;  and  your  faith  will,  through 
 His  grace  helping  you,  be  proof  against  every  assault. 
 In  next  Lecture  we  shall  further  consider  this  great, 
 this  fundamental  subject. 
 
LECTURE    III. 
 
 ON    THE    EXISTENCE    OF    GOD. 
 
 (Continued) 
 
 You  would  be  labouring  under  a  great  mistake  were 
 you  to  suppose  that  the  great  contest  in  these  days 
 lies  between  Christianity  and  what  is  called  Natural 
 Religion.  The  contest  has  once  more  reached  the 
 very  foundation  of  all  religion,  whether  natural  or  re- 
 vealed. Not  that  there  is  anything  essentially  new 
 in  this  feature  of  our  times,  for  often  before  has 
 the  same  conflict  raged,  though  probably  never  with 
 greater  vehemence  than  in  our  day.  It  is  also  a 
 characteristic  of  our  times  that  this  contest  respecting 
 the  foundation  of  religious  belief  is  not  confined,  as  it 
 used  generally  to  be,  within  certain  circles  of  specu- 
 lative men.  All  classes  in  society  are  taking  part  in 
 it.  The  press,  now  so  powerful  in  its  influence,  has 
 involved  rich  and  poor,  learned  and  unlearned,  in  this 
 great  conflict.  And  the  apostles  of  a  material  and 
 atheistical  philosophy  are  most  zealous  and  vehement 
 in  the  spread  of  their  views.  At  the  same  time  there 
 is  also  in  our  day  an  unwonted  zeal  on  the  part  of  the 
 defenders  of  the  truth.  The  faith  of  the  Lord's  people 
 is  strong  and  zealous.     It  would  be  wrong  not  to  look 
 
32  LECTURE   III. 
 
 at  both  these  features  of  our  time ;  and  we  must 
 always  be  on  our  guard  against  exaggeration  on  the 
 one  side  or  on  the  other.  But  we  may  affirm  with 
 truth  that  there  never  was  a  time  when  the  Church  of 
 God  stood  in  greater  need  of  men  able  to  defend  the 
 truth,  and  to  put  to  silence  the  ignorance  of  foolish 
 men — in  greater  need  of  a  well-trained  and  thorough- 
 ly zealous  ministry.  Though  God  works  when  and 
 where  and  how  He  pleases,  yet  we  know  that  it  is 
 His  ordinary  course  to  employ  the  agency  of  men — of 
 men  learned  in  the  truth  and  devoted  to  His  cause. 
 It  is  painful  to  observe  that  in  our  day  fewer  than 
 formerly  of  our  Christian  youth  are  willing  to  give 
 themselves  to  this  service.  Without  attempting  to 
 trace  the  apparent  causes  of  this  decrease,  which  is  so 
 manifest  in  every  section  of  the  Church,  let  us  rather 
 hope  that  those  who  do  give  themselves  to  the  work 
 of  the  ministry  will  be  found  to  be  men  in  earnest, 
 men  willing  and  able  to  go  forth  in  the  strength  of 
 the  Lord  to  fight  the  fight  of  faith,  and  to  main- 
 tain the  cause  of  religious  and  moral  truth  amidst 
 all  the  opposition  of  its  enemies;  and  let  us  more 
 and  more  fervently  pray  to  "  the  Lord  of  the  har- 
 vest that  He  would  send  forth  labourers  into  His 
 harvest." 
 
 It  is  for  the  reasons  which  I  have  stated  that  I 
 am  anxious  to  draw  your  special  attention  to  the  fun- 
 damental truths  of  religion.  It  is  not  that  I  wish 
 formally  to  discuss  them  at  present.  My  main 
 desire  is  to  state  and  defend  these  truths  as  briefly 
 as  I  can,  and  thus  to  lead  you  to  meditate  on  them 
 as  the  sure  basis  of  our  Christian  faith.     I  for  one  am 
 
ON   THE   EXISTENCE  OF   GOD.  33 
 
 convinced  that,  to  the  man  who  thoroughly  believes 
 in  a  living,  personal  God,  the  Creator  and  moral 
 Governor  of  the  world,  the  evidences  of  Christianity 
 become  clear  and  decisive.  Difficulties,  indeed,  will 
 meet  him,  for  it  is  not  the  purpose  of  God  that  our 
 faith  should  be  free  from  trial ;  but  he  will,  I  am  per- 
 suaded, encounter  no  difficulties  which  he  will  not,  by 
 patient  and  serious  thought,  be  able  either  to  remove, 
 or  to  see  that  they  are  involved  in  the  very  nature  of 
 a  scheme  which  transcends  finite  comprehension.  But 
 to  the  man  who  has  no  real,  no  steadfast  faith  in  God, 
 as  a  living  personal  God,  but  who  has  involved  him- 
 self in  the  meshes  of  Atheism,  under  whatever  form  it 
 may  appear,  difficulties  insurmountable  occur  at  the 
 very  threshold.  No  kind  and  no  amount  of  evidence 
 can  avail  to  such  a  man.  A  deceived  heart  has  turned 
 him  aside.  The  very  eye  of  his  natural  reason  is 
 darkened  ;  and  since  the  light  which  is  in  him  is  dark- 
 ness, how  great  must  that  darkness  be  !  Such  a  man 
 is  without  God,  and  therefore  must  be  without  Christ. 
 Now,  it  becomes  you  to  know  that  all  the  chief  oppo- 
 nents of  Christianity  are  in  these  days  professed 
 Atheists  or  Pantheists  ;  and  that  between  the  two 
 systems  of  Atheism  and  Pantheism  there  is  in  reality 
 no  difference.  Pantheism  is  only  a  form  of  Atheism. 
 The  one  as  well  as  the  other  denies  the  existence  of  a 
 living  God.  The  whole  question,  then,  is  reduced  to 
 the  simple  and  fundamental  question.  Is  there  such 
 a  Being,  or  is  there  not }  How  important,  then,  it  is 
 for  you  to  give  to  this  question  your  most  serious 
 thought ! 
 
 Now,  I  have  endeavoured  to  state  to  you  the  argu- 
 ment for  our  belief  in  God  in  the  simplest  and  broadest 
 
 C 
 
34  LECTURE  III. 
 
 form.  We  do  not  require  the  aid  of  any  profound 
 speculation  in  order  to  establish  this  fundamental 
 truth.  We  may  be  compelled  to  engage  in  specula- 
 tion in  order  to  meet  the  counter-speculations  of  the 
 opponents  of  the  truth.  But  the  truth  itself  rests 
 on  a  basis  easily  seen,  and  patent  to  every  human 
 mind.  And  it  will  be  your  wisdom  ever  to  employ 
 such  an  argument  in  confirmation  of  the  truth.  Belief 
 in  God,  if  not  innate  in  the  human  breast,  is  at  least 
 so  consonant  to  its  most  instinctive  feelings,  and  so 
 much  in  harmony  with  the  dictates  of  unbiassed 
 reason  and  the  voice  of  conscience,  that  you  have 
 only  to  appeal  to  these  witnesses  within  us  for  a 
 clear  and  decisive  testimony  to  the  greatest,  the  most 
 glorious  of  all  truths, — that  we  are  not  in  a  Fatherless 
 world,  but  are  the  offspring — the  rational  offspring — 
 of  an  omnipotent  and  loving  God.  You  have  only 
 further  to  appeal  to  the  universe  around  us,  to  the 
 heavens  above  and  to  the  earth  beneath,  and  every- 
 where you  hear  the  voice  of  nature  proclaiming  the 
 existence  and  the  glory  of  the  great  Creator.  It  re- 
 quires no  profound  knowledge  either  of  our  own  con- 
 stitution or  of  the  works  of  nature  to  arrive  with  full 
 conviction  at  the  belief  of  this  truth ;  and  you  may 
 always  have  confidence  in  the  native  feelings  and 
 perceptions  of  the  human  mind,  darkened  and  cor- 
 rupted as  that  mind  has  become  through  sin.  Our 
 nature  in  its  essence  is  still  the  same  as  when  it  pro- 
 ceeded from  the  hands  of  the  Creator.  The  image  of 
 God  has  indeed  become  defaced,  but  is  not  wholly 
 removed  from  our  souls.  Have  confidence,  then,  I 
 pray  you,  in  the  testimony  of  your  own  native  feelings 
 and  perceptions  ;  for  if  we  abandon  these  as  unworthy 
 
ON   THE   EXISTENCE   OF   GOD.  35 
 
 of  credit,  then  all  knowledge,  all  truth  of  every  kind, 
 is  impossible  to  us. 
 
 Let  me  now  observe,  without,  however,  dwelling  on 
 the  subject,  that  the  great  question  immediately  before 
 us  involves  the  essential  distinction  between  matter 
 and  mind — a  distinction  to  which  our  own  conscious- 
 ness bears  witness,  and  which  is  therefore  to  be  re- 
 ceived as  fundamental  in  this  question.  And  here  it 
 is  that  you  must  make  your  stand,  if  you  would  thor- 
 oughly meet  the  sophistry  of  Atheism  ;  for  a  material- 
 istic philosophy  is  the  very  cradle  of  Atheism.  Even 
 then  Atheism  may  be  shown  to  be  involved  in  manifest 
 contradictions  ;  but  that  would  be  all  the  length  we 
 coul^  go  ;  for  a  positive  belief  in  a  supreme  Mind — a 
 living  and  personal  Spirit — can  rest  only  on  the  belief 
 that  there  is  mind, — that  we  ourselves  are  living  per- 
 sonal intelligences,  though  dwelling  as  we  do  in  these 
 tabernacles  of  clay.  It  is  from  the  consciousness  of 
 our  intelligent  and  moral  being — of  our  own  person- 
 ality— that  we  rise,  however  feebly,  to  the  grand  con- 
 ception of  a  supreme,  intelligent  and  moral  Being — of 
 a  living  and  personal  God.  Hence  the  unwearied 
 efforts  which  are  once  more  being  made  to  invalidate 
 man's  consciousness  of  his  own  spiritual  being,  and  to 
 represent  thought  and  will  and  conscience  as  the 
 mere  product  of  a  material  organisation.  Let  such  a 
 view  of  our  nature  be  established,  and  then,  in  what- 
 ever absurdities  we  may  land  ourselves,  there  is  no 
 escape  from  a  withering  Atheism  into  the  clear  and 
 warm  atmosphere  of  a  spiritual  world.  All  is  dark 
 and  chilling.  All  is  involved  in  deepest  gloom  and  in 
 frightful  absurdity.  It  is  not  mere  mystery,  then,  but 
 absurdity,  that  reigns  over  all.      The   merely  mys- 
 
36  LECTURE   III. 
 
 terious,  the  incomprehensible,  must  meet  us ;  for  we, 
 the  finite  creatures  of  a  day,  cannot  reach  the  heights 
 of  heaven,  or  stretch  back  into  the  depths  of  eternity. 
 Mystery,  the  incomprehensible,  must  meet  us  in  the 
 infinite  realms  of  truth  ;  but  on  the  theory  we  have 
 supposed,  and  which  is,  alas !  now  so  prevalent,  it  is 
 not,  we  repeat,  such  mystery  as  this — it  is  absurdity, 
 contradiction,  that  everywhere  bursts  on  our  view 
 and  mocks  our  efforts. 
 
 Now,  consciousness  is  that  to  which  the  last  appeal 
 must  be  made.  Beyond  its  testimony  we  cannot  pro- 
 ceed. The  facts  which  it  testifies  must  be  received  as 
 ultimate  facts ;  and  if  we  set  aside  its  testimony,  all 
 knowledge,  as  we  have  said,  becomes  impossible.  It 
 is,  however,  of  the  first  importance  that  we  read  the 
 testimony  of  consciousness  aright,  and  that  we  give 
 a  sound  interpretation  to  its  statements.  Of  what, 
 then,  as  respects  ourselves,  are  we  conscious  ?  It  is 
 that  we,  each  one  of  us,  are  living,  personal  beings, 
 capable  of  feeling,  thinking,  and  willing.  We  are 
 conscious,  not  merely  of  feelings,  thoughts,  and  voli- 
 tions,— not  merely  of  operations  or  states, — but  of 
 ourselves  as  feeling,  thinking,  and  wiUing — of  self  as 
 exercising  these  operations  or  existing  in  these  states. 
 Such  is  the  clear  testimony  of  consciousness  respect- 
 ing ourselves.  Again,  we  are  conscious  of  our  bodily 
 frame, — of  many  of  its  functions, — and  we  at  once 
 perceive  that  there  is  an  essential  distinction  between 
 the  matter  of  which  it  is  composed  and  the  mind 
 which,  however  connected  with  it,  feels  and  thinks 
 and  wills.  The  body  we  are  forced  to  regard  as  the 
 instrument  employed  by  the  mind,  but  not  as  one 
 with  the  mind  itself ;  and  when  we  look  beyond  our 
 
ON   THE   EXISTENCE   OF   GOD.  37 
 
 own  bodily  frame,  we  perceive  material  objects,  pos- 
 sessed, indeed,  of  various  properties,  but  wholly  void 
 of  all  power  of  feeling,  thinking,  or  willing.  Hence 
 we  instinctively,  without  any  conscious  process  of 
 reasoning,  come  to  distinguish  between  mind  and 
 matter.  We  know  each  only  as  it  manifests  itself; 
 but  these  manifestations  are  so  distinct  that  we  can- 
 not recognise  the  one  as  identical  with  the  other. 
 There  is  in  our  entire  constitution  a  mysterious  union 
 between  the  two.  Still  we  instinctively  recognise 
 them  as  essentially  distinct,  and  the  superiority  of 
 mind  over  matter  is  at  once  acknowledged.  Each  has 
 a  real  existence.  We  must  not  deny  the  existence  of 
 either ;  and  a  sound  philosophy,  which  must  be  based 
 on  the  testimony  of  consciousness  and  immediate 
 perception,  embraces  both  as  ultimate  facts.  Nor 
 must  we  form  unwarranted  speculations  regarding 
 either.  We  must  not  regard  matter  as  the  necessary 
 product  of  mind,  nor  mind  as  the  necessary  develop- 
 ment of  matter.  All  that  consciousness  teaches  us  is 
 that  matter  and  mind  are  both  real  existences,  and 
 that  the  one  is  essentially  different  from  the  other ; 
 and  also  that  it  is  mind  alone  which  can  feel  and 
 think  and  will — that  it  is  mind  alone  to  which  power, 
 intelligence,  and  goodness  can  be  ascribed. 
 
 On  this  fundamental  distinction,  then,  rests  all  reli- 
 gious belief;  for  it  is  in  virtue  of  our  own  conscious 
 nature — of  our  own  knowledge  of  ourselves  as  living, 
 intelligent,  and  moral  agents — that  we  discern  the 
 clear  evidences  in  our  own  constitution  and  in  the 
 world  around  us  of  a  supreme  conscious  Nature,  of 
 an  intelligent  and  moral  Agent,  who  transcends  our 
 highest  conceptions,  and   is   the   supreme,  the   self- 
 
38  LECTURE   III. 
 
 existent  cause  of  all  finite  beings,  of  all  finite  exist- 
 ence, whether  animate  or  inanimate.  We  cannot 
 escape  this  conclusion  without  doing  violence  to  the 
 dictates  of  our  whole  rational  nature.  The  conclu- 
 sion itself  being  so  marvellous,  so  transcendent,  it  is 
 easy  to  raise  questions  which  we  cannot  solve,  and 
 which  therefore  only  perplex  our  finite  understand- 
 ings. But  that  is  not  the  point.  The  real  point  is, 
 whether  the  conclusion  itself  is  warranted  or  not  war- 
 ranted. We  beg  of  you  to  adhere  to  this  point,  and 
 to  leave  the  transcendent  nature  of  the  conclusion  to 
 speak  for  itself.  Now,  what  we  maintain  is  this,  that 
 when  we  contemplate  ourselves  as  living  personal 
 beings,  endowed  with  the  capacities  or  powers  of  feel- 
 ing, thinking,  and  will,  we  are  forced  to  regard  our- 
 selves as  finite  and  dependent  beings,  as  beings  who 
 owe  our  existence  and  all  that  we  are  to  another,  to 
 one  who  also  must,  though  in  an  infinitely  higher 
 sense,  be  a  living  Being,  possessed  of  power  to  create, 
 and  endowed  with  all  intellectual  and  moral  perfec- 
 tion. We  cannot,  we  maintain,  but  so  regard  our- 
 selves ;  and  thus  looking  upon  ourselves  as  created 
 beings,  we  at  once,  by  the  very  constitution  of  our 
 minds,  rise  to  the  belief  of  a  self-existent  and  omni- 
 potent Creator.  Such,  we  apprehend,  is  the  process, 
 brief  and  decisive,  by  which  we  attain  to  the  idea  and 
 to  the  belief  of  the  existence  of  God.  The  foundation 
 is  laid  in  our  own  spiritual  constitution  ;  and  having 
 faith  in  its  testimony,  we  have  faith  in  God.  In  like 
 manner  we  contemplate  matter,  with  its  various  pro- 
 perties and  in  its  manifold  arrangements,  and  we  can- 
 not help  regarding  it  as  a  thing  created — as  a  thing 
 not  existing  by  any  inherent  power  of  self-existence, 
 
ON    THE   EXISTENCE   OF   GOD.  39 
 
 but  owing  its  existence  and  all  its  properties  to  one 
 possessed  of  power  and  able  to  arrange.  And  thus  it 
 is  that,  contemplating  the  world  around  us,  we  behold 
 in  the  objects  which  compose  it,  and  in  the  arrange- 
 ments which  everywhere  meet  our  eye,  evident  tokens 
 of  creative  power,  and  intelligent  design,  and  active 
 goodness.  We  at  once  ascribe  all  these  manifesta- 
 tions to  One  who  is  not  matter,  but  mind — to  a 
 self-existent,  conscious,  personal  Being,  infinite  in 
 power,  intelligence,  and  goodness.  And  as  we  dis- 
 cern a  unity  in  all  things,  manifold  and  widespread 
 as  they  are  seen  to  be,  so  we  arrive  at  last  at  the 
 sublime  conclusion  that  there  is  One  God,  and  only 
 one,  the  supreme  Cause  of  all  things,  the  Creator  and 
 Governor  of  the  world. 
 
 Let  us  for  a  moment  dwell  on  this  sublime,  this 
 transcendent  conclusion — a  conclusion  to  which  rea- 
 son, in  the  view  of  our  own  spiritual  being  and  of 
 surrounding  nature,  so  clearly  and  so  powerfully  con- 
 ducts us.  It  rests  on  an  immovable  basis  ;  and  yet, 
 when  we  endeavour  to  look  at  it  in  its  transcendent 
 greatness,  and  to  realise  in  our  minds,  inadequately 
 as  at  the  best  we  can,  the  sublime  fact  of  a  self- 
 existent,  living,  and  personal  God — a  Being  spiritual, 
 eternal,  infinite,  and  unchangeable  in  His  perfections — 
 a  Being  everywhere  present,  everywhere  operating, 
 controlling,  and  reigning — we  are  apt  not  only  to  be 
 overwhelmed,  as  we  well  may,  with  a  feeling  of  awe 
 at  the  very  thought  of  such  glorious  majesty,  but 
 even  to  startle  at  the  very  conclusion  itself,  and  at 
 times  to  question  whether  it  is  possible  for  such  a 
 conclusion  to  be  correct — possible  for  such  a  Being  to 
 exist.     Now,  I  beg  of  you  at  once  to  face  this  diffi- 
 
40  LECTURE  III. 
 
 culty,  which  springs,  you  will  observe,  not  from  any 
 flaw  to  be  detected  either  in  the  basis  of  the  conclu- 
 sion or  in  the  simple  process  by  which  our  reason, 
 building  on  this  basis,  raises  the  conclusion,  but  solely 
 from  the  nature  of  the  conclusion  itself — its  infinitely 
 sublime  and  transcendent  nature.  What  is  it,  then, 
 in  this  conclusion  respecting  the  existence  of  God, 
 which  at  times  startles  the  human  mind,  and  which, 
 unless  guarded  against,  may  lay  the  mind  open  not 
 merely  to  perplexities  in  speculation,  but  to  doubts, 
 and,  should  these  doubts  be  cherished,  to  scepticism, 
 and  at  last  to  blank  Atheism  }  What  is  it,  I  again 
 ask  you  to  consider,  which  startles  our  minds  in 
 respect  to  this  conclusion  "^  I  believe  that  it  is  mainly 
 one  thing  involved  in  it,  and  that  this  is  the  idea  of 
 Self-existence.  Now,  may  I  again  beg  of  you  to  give 
 to  this  matter  your  most  intense  consideration }  Whilst 
 infinitude,  of  whatever  it  may  be  predicated,  must 
 ever  surpass  our  limited  conceptions,  it  appears  to  me 
 that  we  are  specially  prone  to  feel  a  sense  of  this 
 limitation  of  our  faculties  when  we  attempt  to  realise 
 the  fact  of  a  past  eternal  duration — of,  in  short,  an  eter- 
 nal, a  self-existent  Being.  Our  reason  is  indeed  com- 
 pelled to  ascribe  all  existences  to  a  First,  an  Absolute 
 Cause — to  a  Being  who  Himself  must  have  no  cause 
 beyond  Himself  for  His  existence — who,  in  short, 
 possesses  in  His  very  being  what  we  can  only  term 
 the  cause  of  His  own  existence.  We  see  clearly, 
 when  we  reflect  on  the  subject,  that  such  must  be  the 
 case ;  for  were  it  not  so,  we  should  have  to  disown 
 this  supposed  Being  as  the  First  Cause  of  all,  and  to 
 proceed  in  our  reasoning  till  we  did  arrive  at  the 
 recognition   of  a  beginningless  Being — a  Being  un- 
 
ON   THE   EXISTENCE   OF   GOD.  4I 
 
 caused  by  aught  without  Himself.  Now  self-exist- 
 ence is,  we  apprehend,  that  one  great  mystery — that 
 one  fact  which  overpowers  the  mind  of  man  in  its 
 attempts  to  realise  it.  The  more  you  think  about  it, 
 the  more  incomprehensible  will  it  appear  to  you.  We 
 comprehend — or  rather,  I  should  say,  we  think  that  we 
 comprehend — the  fact  of  the  existence  of  one  being 
 whose  existence  has  been,  as  we  say,  caused  by  an- 
 other. We  seem  to  ourselves  to  have  an  adequate 
 reason  for  the  existence  of  any  being  or  thing  when 
 we  can  trace  this  existence  to  the  operation  of  another 
 being  or  thing.  But  uncaused  Being — a  self-existent 
 Being — though  we  know  that  such  a  Being  must  be, 
 is  wholly  i-ncomprehensible  by  us  ;  and  simply  be- 
 cause in  this  case  the  incomprehensible  nature  of  the 
 fact  appears  to  us  in  so  vivid  a  light,  we  are  apt  to  be 
 startled  by  the  thought,  and  are,  as  I  have  said,  in 
 danger  of  questioning  our  conclusion. 
 
 Now,  let  it  be  carefully  noticed,  that  it  is  literally 
 impossible  for  us  to  get  rid  of  this  fact  of  self-exist- 
 ence under  any  theory  whatever.  Here  is  that  ada- 
 mantine wall  against  which  the  Atheist  as  well  as  the 
 Theist  beats  in  vain.  The  former,  however  absurdly, 
 as  we  shall  endeavour  to  show  you,  only  changes  the 
 object  that  must  be  self-existent;  or,  if  such  lan- 
 guage would  in  his  case  be  contradictory,  the  object 
 which  must  have  eternally  been.  No  proposition  can 
 be  more  evident  than  this :  something  now  exists, 
 therefore  some  thing  or  some  Being  must  always  have 
 existed.  Ex  nihilo  nihil  fit  is  a  proposition  abso- 
 lutely certain  when  taken  in  its  literal,  absolute  sense. 
 Nothing,  absolute  nothing,  must  have  for  ever  re- 
 mained nothing.     Atheism,  then,  is  forced  to  assume 
 
42  LECTURE   III. 
 
 that  matter  in  some  form  or  other  must  have  existed 
 from  all  eternity  —  matter,  a  finite  thing,  a  thing 
 changeable  in  its  forms  at  least,  must  have  been 
 without  a  beginning.  Apart  from  the  absurdities  in- 
 volved in  this  supposition,  beginningless  existence — 
 that  is,  self-existence — is  as  essential  to  the  atheistic 
 hypothesis  as  it  is  to  the  theistic  conclusion.  And 
 therefore,  when  the  weak  mind  of  man  stumbles  at 
 the  idea  of  a  self-existent  spiritual  Being,  it  stumbles 
 only  to  fall  into  the  idea  of  a  self-existent  material 
 thing.  There  is,  as  I  have  said,  no  possible  escape 
 from  this  incomprehensible  fact — self-existence.  The 
 human  mind,  when  in  a  sound  state,  sees  that  such 
 must  be  the  case ;  and  when  overpowered  by  the  vain 
 attempt  to  fathom  the  mystery  of  a  self-existent  God, 
 it  sees  only  the  more  powerfully  the  transcendent  glory 
 of  His  nature,  and  adores  Him  who  dwells  in  light 
 unapproachable  and  full  of  glory.  Here  also  we 
 behold  at  once  the  greatness  and  the  littleness  of  the 
 human  mind — its  greatness  in  being  able  to  arrive  at 
 the  knowledge  and  belief  that  such  a  Being  must  be 
 and  is,  and  its  littleness  in  its  utter  inability  to  con- 
 ceive how  such  a  Being  can  be ;  and  again,  I  would 
 say,  its  greatness  in  knowing  that  it  is  because  we 
 are  finite  and  He  is  infinite  that  we  cannot  conceive — 
 cannot  comprehend  His  existence. 
 
 Have  faith,  then,  I  again  pray  you,  in  your  spirit- 
 ual constitution,  and  in  your  reason,  which  is  the  alone 
 instrument  of  all  our  thought.  Have  faith  in  the 
 basis  on  which  you  build,  and  in  the  process  which 
 reason  conducts,  and  in  the  conclusion,  marvellous  as 
 it  is,  to  which  reason  leads.  And  then  you  will  have 
 faith   in   God  —  in  that   uncaused,  that  self-existent 
 
ON   THE  EXISTENCE   OF  GOD.  43 
 
 Being,  who  has  life  in  Himself,  and  is  the  Author  of 
 life  throughout  His  universe.  Exercise  your  minds 
 in  order  to  keep  this  faith  alive ;  and  instead  of 
 stumbling  at  the  glorious  conclusion,  and  yielding 
 yourselves  a  prey  to  scepticism  and  unbelief,  you 
 will  rejoice  in  Him  who  is  from  everlasting  to  ever- 
 lasting God. 
 
LECTURE    IV. 
 
 ON    ATHEISM. 
 
 Before  entering  on  a  brief  consideration  of  the 
 Atheistic  hypothesis,  I  wish  to  draw  your  attention 
 for  a  few  moments  to  what  is  strictly  implied  in  our 
 idea  of  the  Infinite.  And,  first,  I  would  remark,  what 
 indeed  is  so  obvious  as  scarcely  to  require  distinct 
 notice,  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  "  the  Infinite  "  in 
 the  abstract,  but  that  the  term  must  be  applicable,  if 
 applicable  at  all,  to  some  being  or  thing  which  is  in- 
 finite. We  are  so  apt  to  use  words  loosely,  and  to 
 argue  about  mere  words,  that  it  seems  necessary  to 
 remind  you  that  this  term  is  merely  a  predicate,  which 
 can  have  no  existence  in  itself,  but  can  only  be  real- 
 ised, if  realised  at  all,  as  characterising  some  being  or 
 real  object — or  rather  the  attributes  of  such  being  or 
 object.  But  the  main  point  to  be  attended  to  by  us 
 in  respect  to  this  matter  is  the  strict  meaning  of  this 
 term  ;  for  there  is  another  term,  expressing  an  en- 
 tirely different  idea,  with  which  we  are  apt  to  con- 
 found it.  There  is  what  is  called  the  Indefinite,  and 
 there  is  what  alone  is  the  Infinite.  For  example,  you 
 are  contemplating  a  series  of  numbers,  say  the  series 
 of  fractional  numbers  yV  +  tJtt  +  tijwu  and  so  on.  The 
 law  of  this  series  is  easily  seen,  and  you  can  go  on 
 
ON   ATHEISM.  45 
 
 increasing  the  number  of  its  terms  as  long  as  you 
 please  ;  each  separate  fraction  being  of  less  numerical 
 value  than  the  one  immediately  preceding,  and  yet  no 
 one  so  small  but  there  may  still  be  a  smaller.  In 
 common  language  we  call  this  an  infinite  series.  Now 
 you  will  observe  two  things  which  distinguish  such  a 
 so-called  infinite  series  as  this :  first,  it  has  a  begin- 
 ning, the  fraction  yV ;  and  secondly,  each  number  in 
 the  series,  however  far  you  may  carry  it,  may  be 
 looked  upon  as  a  distinct  number  or  fraction.  More- 
 over, the  whole  value  of  the  series  can  be  expressed 
 or  summed  up  in  a  definite  number  or  fraction.  The 
 only  thing  which  entitles  you  to  apply  the  term  in- 
 finite to  the  series  is  this,  that  no  fraction,  however 
 small,  can  be  assigned  without  your  being  able  to 
 assign  a  smaller. 
 
 Strictly  speaking,  the  series  is  only  an  indefinite 
 series — that  is,  a  series  of  numbers,  to  which,  although 
 it  has  a  beginning,  no  limit  can  be  assigned.  But  the 
 infinite,  strictly  viewed,  is  different  from  this.  The 
 infinite  has  no  limits  whatever.  It  has  neither  a 
 beginning  nor  an  ending.  The  indefinite  has  a  be- 
 ginning, and  is  indefinite  only  because  you  are  not 
 able  to  reach  its  end.  This  distinction  between  the 
 indefinite  and  the  infinite,  the  importance  of  which 
 distinction  is  fundamental  in  our  subject,  may  also 
 be  made  obvious  to  you  by  borrowing  an  illustration 
 from  geometry.  A  line  is  defined  to  be  that  which 
 has  length  without  breadth  ;  and  a  point  is  defined  to 
 be  that  which  has  neither  length  nor  breadth.  Take, 
 then,  any  line,  and  suppose  it  bisected.  You  know 
 that  you  can  always  suppose  this  bisection  continued, 
 and  that  you  can  assign  no  limit  to  these  continued 
 
46  LECTURE   IV. 
 
 bisections.  The  process  of  bisection  could  only  stop 
 if  you  could  reach  to  a  line  so  small  as  that  it  should 
 be  a  point ;  but  this  would,  in  the  case  supposed,  in- 
 volve a  contradiction,  for  be  the  line  never  so  small, 
 it  must  have  length  to  constitute  it  a  line,  and  it  can 
 never  become  a  point,  which  by  the  definition  has  no 
 length.  You  see,  then,  that  any  line  of  any  definite 
 length  whatever  can  undergo  a  series  of  bisections 
 without  any  assignable  end.  And  yet  a  line  may  be 
 conceived,  or  rather  supposed,  to  consist  of  a  point 
 moving  in  a  certain  direction — that  is,  of  a  series  of 
 mere  points  in  contact  with  each  other.  You  further 
 may  say  that  any  line  consists  of  an  indefinite  number 
 of  such  points.  The  line  is  in  itself  of  a  definite 
 length  ;  but  inasmuch  as  the  geometrical  points  of 
 which  it  may  be  supposed  to  consist  have  no  length, 
 the  two  things  are  really  incommensurable  ;  the  line 
 cannot  be  said  to  consist  of  a  definite  number  of 
 points ;  but  when  we  suppose  them  to  be  commen- 
 surable, we  are  forced  to  say  that  the  line  consista 
 of  an  indefinite,  an  unassignable  number  of  such 
 points.  In  loose  language,  the  line,  whatever  its 
 length  as  compared  with  other  lines — with  things  of 
 its  own  order — is  infinite  when  brought  into  relation 
 or  comparison  with  a  thing  of  a  difi"erent  order.  The 
 finite  line  comes  to  be  viewed  as  infinite  relatively 
 to  a  point,  which  simply  has  position,  but  no  mag- 
 nitude whatsoever. 
 
 Now,  what  I  wish  you  thoroughly  to  notice  is  this, 
 that  in  mathematical  science,  whether  in  arithmetic  or 
 geometry,  we  deal  only  with  the  relatively  infinite — 
 only  with  the  indefinite,  and  never  with  the  strictly 
 infinite.     All  the  interesting  and  often  most  curious 
 
ON   ATHEISM.  47 
 
 processes  which  distinguish  the  science  of  mathe- 
 matics through  the  introduction  of  the  idea  of  the 
 indefinite  or  relatively  infinite,  are  wholly  excluded 
 when  we  attempt  to  reason  on  the  strictly  infinite. 
 The  essential  characteristic  of  the  latter  is,  that  it  has 
 no  limits  whatever.  It  is  the  absolutely  and  not  the 
 relatively  infinite.  It  has  no  beginning  and  no  end- 
 ing.    It  is  boundless  in  every  possible  aspect. 
 
 Now,  I  should  not  have  troubled  you  with  these 
 remarks,  were  I  not  convinced,  first,  that  a  correct 
 idea  of  the  strictly  infinite  lies  at  the  basis  of  our 
 great  subject ;  and,  secondly,  that  often,  far  oftener 
 than  one  would  at  first  imagine,  the  two  distinct  ideas 
 of  the  strictly  infinite  and  of  the  merely  indefinite  are 
 confounded,  especially  by  atheistical  inquirers.  You 
 will  therefore  excuse  these  remarks,  and  try  to  bear 
 them  in  your  minds  as  we  proceed  to  consider  the 
 hypothesis  of  Atheism. 
 
 This  hypothesis  implies  that  the  visible  world — that 
 world  which  consists  of  material  things,  some  of  them 
 organised,  others  unorganised — is  all  that  exists  ;  that 
 matter,  with  the  various  forces  which  we  perceive  to 
 be  in  operation  according  to  certain  methods  or  laws 
 which  also  may  be  known,  is  the  only  existence  ;  and 
 that  we  are  not  entitled  to  suppose  the  existence  of  a 
 spiritual  Being,  living  and  personal,  distinct  from  this 
 matter  and  its  properties  or  forces,  to  whom  the  ex- 
 istence of  the  latter  may  be  ascribed  as  its  Author. 
 Atheism,  therefore,  proclaims  the  eternal,  uncreated 
 existence,  the  self-existence  of  the  material  universe. 
 And,  as  I  formerly  remarked,  it  is  unnecessary  to 
 attempt  to  draw  any  distinction  between  this  Atheism 
 and  the  other  form  of  it  which  is  called  Pantheism. 
 
48  LECTURE   IV. 
 
 There  is  really  no  essential  distinction  between  them  ; 
 for  there  can  be  no  intermediate  supposition  between 
 strict  Atheism  and  strict  Theism.  To  attempt  any 
 such  supposition  is  merely  to  play  with  words  and  to 
 trifle  with  the  subject.  There  either  is  a  God  or  there 
 is  not.  Let  us,  then,  keep  strictly  to  the  subject,  and 
 not  allow  our  minds  to  be  drawn  away  from  it  by 
 merely  unmeaning  verbiage.  It  is  an  awful  reality 
 about  which  we  are  concerned,  a  reality  of  infinite 
 moment  to  every  rational  being ;  and  we  must  not 
 engage  in  the  inquiry  as  if  it  were  one  merely  for 
 exhibiting  ingenuity  in  the  use  of  words,  or  for  exer- 
 cising our  skill  in  perplexing  a  problem  which  is  one 
 of  life  or  death. 
 
 The  atheistic  hypothesis,  then,  declares  that  matter, 
 possessed  of  those  properties  which  we  see  it  pos- 
 sesses, is  a  thing  uncreated,  eternal,  and  self-existent. 
 Now,  observe  that  we  do  not  reject  this  hypothesis, 
 because  it  represents  something  as  having  existed 
 from  eternity,  something  uncreated  and  self-existent. 
 We  have  already  remarked  that  self-existence  is  that 
 one  great  mystery  which  meets  us  on  either  supposi- 
 tion— on  the  supposition  of  Theism  as  well  as  on  that 
 of  Atheism.  We  cannot  possibly  eliminate  this  fact 
 — for  such  it  is — from  the  question  on  either  view  ; 
 and  therefore,  taken  by  itself,  and  altogether  apart 
 from  that  which  is  supposed  to  be  self-existent,  this 
 fact  cannot  be  made  the  ground  for  rejecting  Atheism. 
 Only  let  us  take  care  that,  when  we  criticise  the 
 hypothesis  of  Atheism,  we  do  not  allow  its  advocate 
 to  substitute  the  idea  of  indefinite  duration  in  the 
 room  of  the  idea  of  a  beginningless  duration. 
 
 And  now  we  must  fix  our  thoughts  as  best  we  can 
 
ON   ATHEISM.  49 
 
 on  this  material  world,  and  see  whether  its  contents 
 and  its  condition  will  harmonise  with  the  fact  of  self- 
 existence,  of  beginningless  duration  ;  or  whether  it 
 is  such,  both  in  its  contents  and  its  condition,  as 
 wholly  to  disprove  the  assumptions  involved.  Now, 
 I  apprehend  that,  speaking  generally,  we  shall  be 
 allowed  by  the  Atheist  himself  to  contemplate  the 
 visible  universe  as  exhibiting  a  system  or  scene  of 
 continual  change,  both  in  the  relative  position  of  its 
 various  parts,  and  also  in  the  condition  of  these  parts 
 themselves.  Change,  unceasing  change,  is  a  manifest 
 characteristic  of  the  world.  The  great  end  of  all 
 scientific  inquiry  is  to  mark  these  changes,  and  to 
 ascertain  the  conditions  under  which  they  take  place  : 
 and  the  conclusion  which  science  ever  more  and 
 more  confirms  is,  that  there  is  a  system  in  operation, 
 a  system  proceeding  in  a  way  which  can  to  some 
 extent  be  observed.  It  is  of  no  consequence,  as  far 
 as  our  immediate  subject  is  concerned,  what  are  the 
 laws  which  are  seen  to  regulate  this  system  of  things. 
 The  only  thing  of  importance  to  us  at  present  is  the 
 fact  that  there  is  such  a  system, — that,  viewed  as  a 
 system,  the  world  presents  a  series  of  changes,  which 
 succeed  one  another  in  a  definite  manner.  Atheism, 
 then,  assumes  that  this  series  of  changes  in  the  mate- 
 rial world  has  gone  on  for  ever, — that  it  has  been 
 going  on,  not  merely,  you  will  observe,  for  an  inde- 
 finitely long  period,  for  millions  and  millions  of  past 
 years,  but  strictly  for  ever,  without  a  beginning,  from 
 all  eternity.  Now  we  maintain,  not,  you  will  observe, 
 that  the  fact  of  eternal,  beginningless  existence  is  im- 
 possible, but  that  a  series  of  changes  or  states,  one 
 succeeding  the  other,  without  a  beginning,  is  impos- 
 
 D 
 
50  LECTURE   IV. 
 
 sible, — is,  in  short,  a  contradiction  in  point  of  fact.  A 
 series  may  begin  and  be  supposed  to  go  on  indefin- 
 itely, so  that  no  limit  can  be  assigned  to  it ;  but  it 
 must  have  had  a  beginning,  otherwise  it  could  not 
 exist.  You  may  suppose  the  commencement  of  this 
 dependent  series — for  each  change  in  it  depends  on 
 the  one  immediately  preceding,  and  causes  the  one 
 immediately  succeeding — to  be  as  far  back  as  you 
 please ;  but  a  commencement  somewhere  it  must 
 have  had.  It  must,  I  say,  have  had  a  beginning ; 
 and  the  reasons  are  as  follows. 
 
 I.  Wherever  we  see  a  series  of  changes  in  any  sub- 
 stance whatever,  we  are  by  the  very  constitution  of  our 
 minds  compelled  to  believe  that  it  had  a  beginning. 
 What,  let  us  ask,  is  the  grand  end  of  all  physical  inquiry, 
 but,  if  possible,  to  find  out  this  assumed  beginning — 
 to  reach  to  some  primordial  state  of  things — to  some 
 supposed  germ  or  other,  from  which,  as  by  some  law 
 or  other,  all  successive  changes  or  states  have  proceed- 
 ed ?  Science,  it  is  true,  can  never  reach  this  assumed 
 beginning,  because  science  is  restricted  to  the  view  of 
 a  course  going  on.  But  whilst  this  is  true,  science 
 labours  to  push  back  its  inquiries  farther  and  farther, 
 in  order  that  it  may  reach  nearer  and  nearer  to  that 
 first  state,  the  existence  of  which  at  the  beginning 
 of  the  course  it  always  assumes.  The  very  ideas  or 
 assumptions  of  a  first  or  primordial  state — of  a  germ, 
 of  which  we  hear  so  much, — all  of  them  necessarily 
 involve  the  idea  of  a  beginning.  But  most  evident  it 
 is  that  on  the  atheistic  hypothesis  there  never  was  a 
 first  state  of  things — a  primordial  condition  of  matter 
 — a  germ  from  which  all  succeeding  things  could  have 
 proceeded.     Our  instinctive  nature,  then,  so  clearly 
 
ON   ATHEISM.  5 1 
 
 expressed  in  all  scientific  inquiry,  rejects  a  beginning- 
 less,  an  eternal  series  of  past  changes  in  the  material 
 world.  The  two  ideas  are  manifestly  contradictory — 
 the  idea  of  a  past  series  of  changes,  and  the  idea  that 
 this  series  had  no  beginning.  Hence  Atheism  is 
 built  on  an  imaginary  basis.  It  contains  a  contra- 
 diction in  its  very  supposition  regarding  the  material 
 world. 
 
 2.  This  absurdity  in  the  hypothesis  of  Atheism  might 
 be  otherwise  brought  out.  Always,  however,  keep  in 
 mind  the  really  infinite,  and  do  not  confound  it  with  the 
 merely  indefinite.  The  material  world  by  supposition 
 had  no  beginning.  It  has  been  from  all  eternity. 
 This  world  presents  to  us  changes  in  its  condition. 
 We,  for  example,  are  living  to-day.  A  few  years  ago 
 we  were  not  living.  Our  fathers  then  lived,  and  now 
 they  are  no  more.  We  shall  soon  be  succeeded  by 
 other  living  beings.  Now,  on  the  supposition  of  a 
 commencement  of  the  course  of  things,  whatever  other 
 speculative  difficulties  may  arise — and  difficulties,  you 
 will  observe,  are  not  to  be  confounded  with  real  con- 
 tradictions, —  on  the  supposition,  I  say,  of  a  com- 
 mencement of  the  course  of  things,  we  can  at  least 
 understand  why  it  has  happened  that  we  are  living 
 now,  and  not  a  hundred  years  ago  ;  for  as  this  begun 
 course,  however  long  it  may  have  gone  on,  consists  of 
 a  definite  number  of  past  changes,  we  see  why  it  is 
 that  we  now  live,  for  the  present  is  our  assigned  place 
 in  this  course.  A  Being  able  to  perceive  the  succes- 
 sive changes  which  have  taken  place  could  tell,  so  to 
 speak,  the  number  in  the  supposed  series  which  we 
 indicate.  But  on  the  supposition  that  the  course  of 
 things  had  no  beginning,  but  is  strictly  from  eternity, 
 
52  LECTURE  IV. 
 
 there  always  has  been  from  every  definite  point  in 
 that  course  an  eternity  past — a  duration  strictly  in- 
 finite. A  succession  of  changes  is  possible  only  when 
 the  series  has  had  a  commencement ;  but  on  the  sup- 
 position of  a  beginningless  existence  no  succession  is 
 possible.  Every  supposed  change  in  the  supposed 
 succession  must  have  been  from  eternity,  which  is 
 manifestly  absurd.  Even  supposing  an  infinite  num- 
 ber of  changes,  there  has  been  an  infinite  duration  for 
 them  to  have  happened  in.  Every  change  must  then 
 have  happened  infinitely  long  before  any  definite 
 point  of  duration.  In  other  words,  a  beginningless 
 series  of  changes  involves  a  contradiction,  for  such  a 
 series  must  have  had  a  beginning.  Whatever  is  from 
 eternity — whatever  is  self-existent — must  evidently, 
 from  the  very  supposition,  be  ever  the  same,  immut- 
 able as  well  as  eternal — the  same  yesterday,  to-day, 
 and  for  ever.  The  material  world,  then,  and  all  that 
 it  contains,  must  have  had  a  beginning,  however  re- 
 mote from  the  present  that  beginning  may  have  been ; 
 and  therefore  this  material  world  cannot  be  an  uncre- 
 ated, a  self-existent  world.  It  must  owe  its  existence 
 to  a  Power,  to  an  almighty  Being,  distinct  from  itself; 
 to  One  who  is  really  self-existent,  eternal,  and  immut- 
 able. Hence  we  again  see  that  Atheism  involves  a  con- 
 tradiction in  its  very  hypothesis. 
 
 3.  In  like  manner,  it  might  be  shown  that,  though  we 
 are  apt  to  speak  of  the  material  world  as  boundless 
 in  its  extent,  simply  because  it  is  boundless  relatively 
 to  us,  the  finite  creatures  of  a  day,  it  cannot,  in  strict 
 language,  be  regarded  as  infinite — as  having  no  limits  to 
 its  extent.  When  we  bring  our  minds  calmly  to  reflect 
 on  the  subject,  we  cannot  fail  to  conclude  that  matter, 
 
ON  ATHEISM.  53 
 
 whether  in  smaller  or  larger  objects,  is  a  thing  pos- 
 sessing only  certain  properties,  and  these  only  in  a  de- 
 finite measure.  We  perceive  that  everything  is  stamped 
 with  the  mark  of  finiteness  ;  that  subordinate  systems, 
 such  as  our  own,  consist  of  bodies,  which,  though  un- 
 known to  us  in  all  their  extent,  are  yet  a  definite 
 number ;  and  that,  however  numerous  the  stars  of 
 heaven  may  be — however  vast,  in  short,  the  universe 
 in  its  extent  may  be — still  there  can  and  must  be  a 
 limit  to  this  extent, — that  the  material  universe,  con- 
 sisting, as  it  does,  of  separate  though  connected 
 bodies,  must  still  have  limits,  which,  however  unknown 
 to  us,  must  somewhere  exist ;  for  no  possible  number 
 of  finite  objects  can  ever  constitute  a  strictly  infinite 
 number.  An  infinite  number  of  finite  objects  is, 
 indeed,  a  contradiction.  Infinity  is  out  of  all  propor- 
 tion to  the  finite.  It  is  an  3ittnhute  sui  ^-eneris,  a.nd 
 is  predicable  only  of  that  incomprehensible  Being 
 to  whom  alone  eternity  and  immensity  belong.  He, 
 and  He  alone,  is  the  Self-existent,  the  Eternal,  the 
 Infinite.  The  material  world  must,  we  thus  conclude, 
 be  finite  both  in  its  past  duration  and  in  its  extent. 
 Infinitude  in  any  respect  whatever  cannot  belong  to 
 such  a  thing  as  matter. 
 
 Such,  then,  are  the  contradictions  involved  in  the 
 atheistic  hypothesis.  Attempts  have  been  made  to 
 evade  them,  partly  by  using  the  term  infinite  in  a  loose 
 sense,  and  partly  by  bringing  forward  the  difficulties 
 which  necessarily  cling  to  all  our  inadequate  concep- 
 tions of  the  strictly  infinite.  These  difficulties  are, 
 indeed,  great — insurmountable,  we  should  at  once  say, 
 by  the  finite  mind  of  man.  But  a  difficulty — an  in- 
 surmountable difficulty— is  one  thing,  and  a  contra- 
 
54  LECTURE   IV. 
 
 diction  is  another.  The  human  mind  can  contemplate 
 the  one,  and  own  its  inability  to  remove  it  at  the  very 
 moment  that  it  receives  it  as  a  fact ;  but  the  other  it 
 cannot  contemplate  as  a  thing  to  be  received.  A 
 manifest  contradiction  can  never  be  acquiesced  in  by 
 our  reason  ;  for  we  are  satisfied  that  truth — the  reality 
 of  things  —  though  reaching  to  the  strictly  infinite, 
 can  never  contradict  itself,  but  must  in  all  its  parts 
 possess  a  unity  and  harmony  as  its  essential  char- 
 acteristics. Atheism  is  based  on  a  contradiction — on 
 a  lie — and  no  lie  is  of  the  truth.  It  is  a  lie  which, 
 alas !  seems  to  amuse  some  minds,  and  to  furnish 
 scope  for  their  ingenious  and  subtle  disputations  ;  but 
 it  is  a  lie  which,  wherever  it  prevails,  darkens  the 
 whole  region  of  truth,  and  corrupts  the  whole  nature 
 of  man,  and  would  render  it  impossible  for  him  to 
 live.  It  is,  however,  a  lie  so  manifest  that  reason  and 
 conscience,  and  the  very  instincts  of  our  nature,  pro- 
 test against  it ;  and  against  this  'JtoOjrov  -^ixih'ic, — this  fun- 
 damental falsehood — the  whole  material  universe,  for 
 the  deification  of  which  it  is  invented,  loudly  reclaims. 
 For  all  nature  bears  its  clear  testimony  to  Him  who 
 alone  is  God,  and  to  whom  reason  and  conscience 
 direct  us  as  the  source  of  all  truth  and  goodness,  and 
 before  whose  august  presence  our  instinctive  feelings 
 cause  us  to  bow  down  and  adore. 
 
 But  we  must  now  bring  these  remarks  to  a  close. 
 Atheism,  which  means  the  denial  of  the  existence  of 
 God,  represents  matter  as  being  eternal  and  infinite 
 in  the  strictest  sense  of  these  terms,  and  is  thus  in- 
 volved not  in  mere  speculative  difficulties,  but  in  real 
 contradictions  ;  whereas  Theism — the  belief  in  the 
 existence  of  God — whilst  it  presents  to  us  speculative 
 
ON  ATHEISM.  55 
 
 difficulties  which  our  finite  reason  cannot  overcome,  is 
 not  only  free  from  contradiction,  but  also  accounts 
 for  the  origin  of  the  world  and  the  course  of  events. 
 Viewed  as  mere  hypotheses,  the  one  is  condemned  by 
 our  reason,  while  the  other  is  accepted  as  the  only 
 philosophical  explanation  of  the  facts  before  us.  Ac- 
 cording to  Atheism,  the  visible  world  had  no  origin  ; 
 there  was  no  first  or  primordial  condition  ;  no  primary 
 germ  to  be  developed  ;  for  the  world — matter  with  all 
 its  forces  and  laws — is  from  eternity.  And  yet  there 
 is  a  manifest  system  of  things — a  system  having  all 
 its  various  parts  adjusted  to  one  another — a  system 
 advancing  in  an  orderly  course,  one  stage  causing 
 another — a  successive  order  of  changes,  movements, 
 and  living  creatures — a  wondrous  system  of  objects, 
 animate  and  inanimate — a  system  bearing  all  the 
 marks  of  having  had  an  origin,  and  of  having  been 
 arranged  by  intelligence  and  will  for  the  accomplish- 
 ment of  definite  purposes — a  system,  therefore,  which 
 contradicts  the  assumption  that  it  is  self-existent,  un- 
 originated,  eternal.  According  to  Theism,  there  is  a 
 spiritual  Being,  self-existent,  and  immutable  in  all  His 
 perfections  ;  who,  in  Himself  incomprehensible,  gave 
 origin  to  the  world,  which  He  ever  upholds  and  governs. 
 The  idea  of  creation  surpasses,  indeed,  our  compre- 
 hension, but  it  involves  no  contradiction.  We  ascribe 
 it  to  the  will  and  power  of  this  One  self-existent  God. 
 We  therefore  give  a  reasonable  account  of  the  exist- 
 ence of  the  world,  and  of  the  orderly  system  of 
 things  which  it  presents,  when  we  trace  that  sys- 
 tem, as  respects  both  its  contents  and  its  order,  to  a 
 self-existent  God,  possessed  of  almighty  power  and 
 supreme  intelligence.     This  Being  Himself  is  indeed 
 
56  LECTURE   IV, 
 
 incomprehensible ;  but  this  fact  does  not  constitute  a 
 contradiction,  for  there  is  nothing  contradictory,  but 
 altogether  reasonable,  in  the  fact  that  the  finite  cannot 
 comprehend  the  Infinite  ;  that  to  us  who  are  but  of 
 yesterday.  He  who  is  from  everlasting  should  be  an 
 object  surpassing  the  limits  of  our  knowledge.  In 
 one  word,  our  whole  nature  calls  for  such  a  Being — for 
 a  living  personal  God.  Our  feelings  of  dependence 
 and  worship  direct  us  instinctively  to  Him.  Our  rea- 
 son demands  Him  as  the  highest  reality  and  truth. 
 Conscience  points  to  Him  as  the  alone  moral 
 Governor  of  the  universe.  All  surrounding  nature 
 also  demands  His  existence ;  for  everywhere  w^e 
 behold  proofs  of  His  creative  power,  His  perfect 
 intelligence,  and  His  boundless  goodness.  If,  then, 
 there  is  one  truth  on  which  the  human  mind  may  rest 
 with  assured  confidence,  it  is  that  there  is  a  God  ;  and 
 we  can  only  be  astonished  and  saddened  at  the  per- 
 versity of  the  man,  who,  deaf  to  the  voice  within  and 
 to  the  voice  without,  can  bring  himself  even  for  a 
 moment  to  entertain  the  supposition  that  there  is  no 
 God. 
 
 Yet,  sad  as  the  fact  is,  it  is  most  certain  that, 
 as  we  have  said,  never  in  any  former  age  were  such 
 strenuous  efforts  made  to  promulgate  this  supposition; 
 and  to  such  a  length  have  these  efforts  proceeded,  that 
 it  is  now  openly  proclaimed  by  some  that  belief  in 
 God  is  the  chief  hindrance  to  individual  and  social 
 progress  and  happiness ;  for  it  is  this  belief,  they 
 allege,  which  stands  in  the  way  of  those  great  schemes, 
 which,  if  realised,  would  free  the  world  of  all  the 
 sources  of  its  misery.  Alas !  alas !  were  this  be- 
 lief indeed  removed  from  the  mind  of  an  individual, 
 
ON   ATHEISM.  5/ 
 
 or  from  the  bosom  of  society,  we  need  no  prophetic 
 voice  to  tell  us  what  would  be  the  result.  The  very 
 foundation  of  morals  would  be  sapped.  Truth,  Justice, 
 and  Love  would  speedily  take  their  flight ;  man's 
 animal  passions  would  soon  assume  the  ascendancy  ; 
 and  the  social  state,  hastening  to  dissolution,  would 
 meanwhile  be  a  scene  of  falsehood,  injustice,  tyranny, 
 and  death.  But  let  us  not  be  over-alarmed.  The 
 holy,  righteous,  and  beneficent  God  reigns,  and  though 
 at  times  "the  floods"  of  human  impiety  and  passion 
 may  "  lift  up  their  waves,  yet  Jehovah  on  high  is 
 mightier  than  the  noise  of  many  waters,  yea,  than  the 
 mighty  waves  of  the  sea."  "  Jehovah  reigneth,  let  the 
 earth  rejoice ;  let  the  multitude  of  isles  be  glad 
 thereof"  "  This  God  is  our  God  for  ever  and  ever  : 
 He  will  be  our  guide  even  unto  death  ;"  yea,  "  He  will 
 be  our  portion  for  ever." 
 
 Convinced  then,  as  I  am,  that  the  great  contest  of 
 our  day  has  come  once  more  to  be  between  Theism 
 and  Atheism,  and  that  the  most  strenuous  efforts  are 
 being  made  to  spread  the  latter,  subversive  though  it 
 be  of  all  truth  and  goodness  and  happiness,  whether 
 in  the  individual  or  in  society,  I  have  thought  it  pro- 
 per to  draw  your  attention  to  the  subject  ;  and  it  is 
 hoped  that  the  discussion,  brief  as  it  has  been,  may 
 not  have  been  altogether  useless,  but  may  have 
 tended  in  some  measure  to  strengthen  your  faith  in 
 the  greatest,  the  most  sublime,  and  most  fundamental 
 of  all  truths — the  existence  of  a  Supreme  Being  who 
 created  and  governs  the  world.  No  truth  can  pos- 
 sibly be  more  important  than  this,  for  it  is  one  which 
 comes  home  directly  to  each  of  us,  affecting,  as  it 
 does,  our  highest  duty  and  our  most  lasting  interests. 
 
58  LECTURE   IV. 
 
 It  becomes  us  to  cherish  this  truth  as  the  most  pre- 
 cious treasure  of  our  souls,  and  to  defend  it  with  all 
 our  energy.  It  is  man's  noblest  privilege  to  be  able 
 to  rise  to  the  conception  of  this  All-glorious  Being  ; 
 and  it  is  his  highest  duty  to  acknowledge,  honour, 
 love,  and  obey  Him  ;  as  it  is  also  his  highest  happiness 
 to  enjoy  communion  with  Him  as  his  God.  If  you 
 firmly  grasp  and  hold  this  truth,  you  will  find  the 
 way  open  to  examine  the  evidences  of  that  revela- 
 tion which  has  been  graciously  bestowed  upon  us  ; 
 and  you  will  encounter  no  special  difBculty  in  dis- 
 cerning the  validity  and  appreciating  the  worth  of 
 these  evidences.  It  is  when  a  man  vaguely  discerns 
 or  loosely  holds  the  fundamental  truth  of  a  living 
 personal  God,  that  he  stumbles  when  he  would  in- 
 quire into  the  evidences  of  revelation,  and  that  he  is 
 in  danger  of  yielding  to  the  sophistry  by  which  these 
 evidences  are  assailed.  Only  be  settled  and  grounded 
 in  the  faith  of  God,  and  you  will  find  yourselves  drawn 
 to  believe  on  Him  whom  God  has  sent.  On  this 
 latter  subject  also  we  propose  briefly  to  address  you, 
 and  specially  on  the  validity  of  those  miraculous 
 proofs  which  God  has  given  in  attestation  of  the  mis- 
 sion of  His  Son. 
 
LECTURE     V. 
 
 ON   THE   EVIDENCES   OF   DIVINE    REVELATION. 
 
 In  the  remarks  which  I  am  at  present  to  make  on 
 the  Evidences  of  Divine  Revelation,  it  is  not  my  in- 
 tention to  discuss  these  evidences  at  length,  but  to  de- 
 fend their  validity  as  evidences,  and  specially  to  show 
 that  miracles — real,  genuine  miracles — are  and  must  be 
 the  proper,  the  valid  proof  of  a  divine  revelation.  I 
 need  hardly  tell  you  that  it  is  against  the  miraculous 
 proof  that  the  efforts  of  infidelity  have  in  all  ages 
 been  mainly  directed  ;  and  that  the  recent  attacks 
 upon  Christianity  have  aimed  at  throwing  entire  dis- 
 credit on  this  branch  of  the  evidences,  as  being  that 
 without  which  all  other  proofs  would  in  reality  be  of 
 no  avail ;  for  it  is  only  in  conjunction  with  this,  the 
 direct  proof  of  a  revelation,  that  these  others  exert  their 
 due  influence.  Hence  every  effort  has  been  and  is 
 still  made  by  the  opponents  of  revelation  in  general, 
 and  of  Christianity  in  particular,  to  depreciate  the  value 
 of  the  miraculous  evidence,  and  even  to  represent  the 
 very  idea  of  a  miracle  as  an  absurdity.  The  sceptic 
 Hume,  who  devoted  the  great  talent  with  which  he 
 was  intrusted  to  the  melancholy  task  of  perplexing 
 those  questions  on  which  man's  highest  interests  de- 
 pend, did  not  attempt  to  prove  the  impossibility  of  a 
 
6o  LECTURE  V. 
 
 miracle.  He  aimed  rather  at  throwing  discredit  on 
 that  testimony  by  means  of  which  the  evidence  which 
 miracles  furnish  is  conveyed  to  those  w^ho  were  not 
 eyewitnesses^ of  the  events.  It  was  the  validity  of 
 this  testimony  which  his  sophistry  directly  sought  to 
 destroy.  No  doubt,  his  argument,  such  as  it  was, 
 indirectly  impugned  the  possibility  of  miracles  them- 
 selves. And  his  successors  in  this  work  have  open- 
 ly assailed  miracles  themselves,  their  whole  efforts 
 seeming  to  be  concentrated  to  accomplish  this  one 
 'result — the  entire  disproof  of  the  possibility  of  a 
 miracle.  It  is  to  be  deeply  lamented  that,  influenced 
 by  the  sophistry  of  these  recent  opponents  of  revela- 
 tion, not  a  few  of  its  professed  friends  have  shown  a 
 disposition  not  only  to  undervalue  the  miraculous 
 proof,  but  even  to  explain  away  by  all  sorts  of  inter- 
 pretation the  miracles  alleged  to  have  been  wrought 
 in  support  of  the  claims  of  revelation,  and  to  reduce 
 them  by  means  of  such  interpretations  to  the  level  of 
 ordinary  non-miraculous  events.  Miracles,  it  is  now 
 sometimes  said,  are  hindrances  to  our  faith  ;  and  these 
 professed  friends  of  revelation  seem  to  imagine  that,  if 
 we  could  in  any  way  get  rid  of  these  alleged  miracles, 
 we  should  remove  a  great  stumblingblock  out  of  the 
 way  of  many  who  but  for  them  would  willingly  receive 
 the  message  of  Heaven  !  The  subject,  then,  on  which 
 we  are  entering,  is  one  of  the  highest  moment,  and  I 
 wish  to  bring  together  within  a  short  compass  those 
 points  which  on  this  subject  demand  your  closest 
 attention. 
 
 I.  Miracles,  as  we  have  said,  constitute  the  valid 
 proof  of  a  divine  revelation. 
 
 We    do    not    mean    that    proofs    of   other    kinds 
 
ON   THE   EVIDENCES   OF   DIVINE   REVELATION.      6l 
 
 are  not  required,  or  that  these,  when  given,  are  of 
 slight  value.  Far  otherwise :  Christianity,  for  ex- 
 ample, is  supported  in  its  divine  claims  by  manifold 
 evidence ;  and  every  branch  of  this  body  of  evidence 
 is  important,  and  even  necessary.  The  moral  char- 
 acter of  Christianity,  for  instance,  is  absolutely  essen- 
 tial to  the  support  of  its  claims  ;  for  were  this  moral 
 character  other  than  it  is,  no  further  proof  would  be 
 necessary  to  discredit  these  claims.  But  then  you 
 will  observe  that  the  moral  character  of  a  system  of 
 doctrine,  how^ever  unexceptionable  that  character  may 
 be,  can  only  establish  the  truth  of  the  system  in  itself, 
 and  can  never  reach  to  the  Divine  authority  of  the 
 system.  The  question  is  still  undecided,  From  whom 
 has  this  system  of  moral  truth  proceeded  "^  Directly 
 from  God,  or  from  man  }  The  moral  character  of  a 
 doctrine  proves  that  doctrine  to  be  true,  but  it  does  not 
 logically  determine  that  God  is  its  immediate  author. 
 
 Again,  the  adaptation  of  the  scheme  of  redemp- 
 tion, made  known  to  us  in  the  Gospel,  to  the  na- 
 ture and  condition  of  man,  is  a  powerful  branch  of 
 the  evidence  in  support  of  its  divine  origin.  The 
 more  we  contemplate  this  adaptation  in  all  its 
 marvellous  features,  the  stronger  does  the  evidence 
 appear  which  it  furnishes  to  this  divine  origin.  It 
 constitutes — especially  in  connection  with  the  moral 
 character  of  the  Gospel,  from  which,  indeed,  it  is  in- 
 separable— that  internal  evidence  which  appeals  to 
 man's  conscience  as  well  as  to  his  reason,  and  leads 
 him  to  conclude  in  no  hesitating  manner  that  such  a 
 scheme  as  this  bears  on  itself  the  impress  of  Heaven. 
 
 Still  (for  we  must  look  at  the  matter  with  all 
 calmness  and  logical  severity),  had  we  nothing  more 
 
62  LECTURE  V. 
 
 than  this  internal  evidence,  however  strong  might  be 
 the  presumption  raised  in  our  minds  in  respect  to  the 
 divine  origin  of  the  Gospel,  and  however  much  we 
 should  feel  it  to  be  our  wisdom  to  act  on  such  a  pre- 
 sumption, it  seems  clear  that  there  would  still  remain 
 an  essential  link  wanting  in  the  evidence — that  link 
 by  means  of  which  the  authority  of  God  is  brought 
 directly  to  establish  the  claims  of  the  Gospel.  "  Re- 
 velation itself,"  says  the  sagacious  Butler,  "  is  miracu- 
 lous, and  miracles  are  the  proof  of  it."  They  are 
 the  proof,  you  will  observe,  not  directly  of  the  truth 
 of  the  doctrine  revealed,  but  of  its  authority — of  this 
 truth  having  come  from  God.  The  doctrine  may  be 
 true,  and  yet  God  may  not  be  its  direct  author. 
 Miracles  prove  that  God  is  its  author.  A  professed 
 messenger  from  heaven  appears.  He  delivers  a  sys- 
 tem of  doctrine.  If  his  doctrine  presents  aught  in- 
 consistent with  the  clear  dictates  of  reason  and  con- 
 science, we  at  once  reject  his  doctrine,  and  we  are 
 entitled  and  bound  to  do  so,  whatever  proofs  he  may 
 profess  to  furnish  in  support  of  his  claims  ;  for  reason 
 and  conscience  constitute  the  last  tribunal  to  which 
 all  such  claims  must  be  referred.  But  should  this 
 professed  messenger  make  known  to  us  a  system  of 
 doctrine,  which  in  itself,  so  far  as  we  can  judge  of  its 
 character,  is  evidently  true,  and  not  only  true,  but  of 
 importance  to  us,  and  which  also,  even  when  it  tran- 
 scends the  sphere  of  our  natural  reason,  unfolds  to  us 
 a  scheme  which,  so  far  again  as  we  can  judge  of  it, 
 seems  adapted  to  our  moral  condition,  and  capable  of 
 conferring  upon  us  real,  practical  benefits,  then  a  pre- 
 sumption of  a  high  order  indeed  arises  in  favour  of 
 the  claims  of  this  messenger ;  the  way  is  fully  open 
 
ON   THE   EVIDENCES   OF   DIVINE   REVELATION.      63 
 
 for  receiving  such  evidence  as  He  may  be  able  to  give 
 in  attestation  of  His  claims  ;  and  we  feel  an  assurance 
 that  if  He  really  is  what  He  claims  to  be,  the  all-wise 
 God  will  not  leave  the  claims  of  His  servant  in  a  state 
 of  doubt,  nor  place  us.  His  rational  creatures,  to  whom 
 He  has  sent  this  servant,  in  manifest  perplexity,  but 
 will,  along  with  the  message  of  truth  and  mercy,  give 
 such  tokens  to  His  servant  as  when  presented  by 
 Him  to  us  will  enable  us  to  know  of  a  truth  that  this 
 is  indeed  a  messenger  of  God  to  man. 
 
 The  necessity  for  such  evidence  as  bears  directly  on 
 the  authority  of  the  messenger  is  manifest.  We  dare 
 not,  without  satisfactory  evidence,  acknowledge  any 
 one  to  be  a  direct  messenger  of  Heaven.  And  the 
 evidence  must  be  such  as  will  at  once  establish  his 
 authority — clear,  palpable  evidence — evidence  not  in 
 mere  words  or  assertions,  but  in  deed  and  in  truth. 
 The  only  evidence  which  can  answer  this  purpose  is 
 that  which  consists  in  the  manifestation  of  power ; 
 therefore  of  extraordinary,  miraculous  power.  It  is 
 the  evidence  of  power  which  first  leads  the  mind  to 
 the  recognition  of  and  belief  in  creative  power.  The 
 evidences  of  wisdom  and  goodness  combine  with  the 
 former,  and  give  us  the  conception  of  an  all-wise  and 
 all-perfect,  as  well  as  of  an  almighty  Creator.  So  it 
 is  in  respect  to  our  recognition  of  and  belief  in  an 
 extraordinary  messenger  from  God.  We  demand  in 
 him  the  tokens  of  wisdom  and  goodness ;  but  the 
 token  of  power  is  absolutely  necessary,  for  it  is  that 
 token  on  which  we  can  directly  look,  and  which  leaves 
 no  possible  room  for  evasion  or  doubt.  Miracles, 
 then,  are  necessary  to  sustain  the  claims  of  a  Divine 
 Revelation ;   necessary  not  exactly  to   establish   the 
 
64  LECTURE   V. 
 
 truth  of  doctrine,  but  to  confirm  its  authority  as  being 
 from  God.  Miracles  are,  we  repeat  in  other  words, 
 essential  as  evidence,  not  to  make  that  true  which  is 
 not  true  in  itself,  but  to  exhibit  in  clear  light  the  fact 
 that  this  truth  has  come  from  God  ;  not,  we  again  say, 
 to  show  the  truth  of  the  message,  but  to  establish  the 
 claims  of  the  messenger,  and  therefore  the  authority 
 with  which  his  message,  true  and  important  in  itself, 
 is  clothed. 
 
 In  these  remarks  we  have  assumed  that  miracles 
 are  possible.  Our  object  has  been  to  show  the  place 
 which,  on  this  assumption,  they  occupy  among  the 
 evidences  of  divine  revelation.  They  are  absolutely 
 necessary,  for  "  revelation  itself  is  miraculous,"  and 
 there  can  be  no  other  direct  proof  of  it  than  that  of 
 miracles. 
 
 2.  We  now  consider  whether  a  miracle  be  a  pos- 
 sible event  or  not. 
 
 Here  we  must  correctly  understand  what  is  meant 
 by  a  miraculous  event.  A  real  miracle  is  not  merely 
 a  rare  or  unusual  event,  but  an  event  which  cannot 
 possibly  take  place  in  what  is  termed  the  ordinary 
 course  of  things.  There  can  be  no  question  that 
 there  is  an  established  course  of  nature,  in  which 
 events  take  place  in  accordance  with  what  we  term 
 "the  laws  of  nature."  Matter  is  possessed  of  certain 
 properties,  and  these  properties  exert  their  force  in  a 
 uniform  method  established  by  the  all-wise  Creator. 
 Physical  forces  or  causes  have  in  themselves  no  power 
 to  change  the  mode  in  which  they  severally  operate. 
 Similar  causes  under  similar  circumstances  invariably 
 produce  similar  results.  In  the  ordinary  course  of 
 nature,  then,  an  event  may  occur  which  surprises  and 
 
ON   THE   EVIDENCES   OF  DIVINE  REVELATION.      65 
 
 astonishes  our  minds.  We  may  have  never  before 
 witnessed  or  heard  of  such  an  event,  and  this  new 
 event — new  to  tis — may  be  inexpHcable  by  us  ;  that 
 is,  we  may  be  unable  to  assign  its  physical  cause  or 
 causes — to  classify  it,  in  short,  among  events  already 
 known  to  us.  And  a  person  ignorant  of  physical 
 science  may  be  apt  to  regard  the  event  as  really  ex- 
 traordinary, as  strictly  miraculous.  But  the  more 
 we  become  acquainted  with  the  facts  and  laws  of 
 external  nature,  the  deeper  does  our  conviction  be- 
 come, that  however  rare  and  surprising  any  event  in 
 the  ordinary  course  of  things  may  seem,  it  is  as  ex- 
 plicable as  the  most  common  event  by  the  ordinary, 
 established  laws  of  nature.  The  scientific  mind 
 attains  at  length  to  the  thorough  conviction  that  a 
 miracle,  a  real  miracle,  is  impossible  in  the  ordinary 
 course  of  nature  ;  for  a  miracle  is  an  event  which 
 cannot  be  explained  by  a  reference  to  mere  physical 
 causes.  It  is  the  product  of  no  mere  physical  law, 
 known  or  unknown,  which  rules  the  ordinary  course 
 of  things.  The  very  supposition  that  it  is  or  may  be 
 so  explicable,  annihilates  at  once  its  character  as  a 
 miraculous  event.  A  miracle  implies  the  immediate 
 interposition  of  divine  power — of  the  Supreme  Being, 
 in  short.  It  is  an  event  beyond  the  ordinary  course, 
 and  is  introduced  into  the  ordinary  course  on  purpose 
 to  bear  witness  to  an  extraordinary  interposition  of 
 the  almighty  Creator. 
 
 There  is  a  sense,  then,  in  which  the  affirmation 
 now  so  common  among  the  opponents  of  revelation 
 is  true,  that  a  miracle — an  event  not  explicable  by 
 the  ordinary  laws  of  nature — is  impossible.  This 
 affirmation  is  most  true,  when  regard  is  had  solely  to 
 
 E 
 
66  LECTURE  V. 
 
 these  laws  of  nature.  It  is  most  important  that  you 
 clearly  perceive  when  this  dictum  is  true,  and  why  it 
 is  that  it  is  true.  The  affirmation,  then,  is  ever  true 
 when,  as  we  have  said,  regard  is  had  to  the  laws  of 
 nature  alone,  to  physical  causes  alone,  to  the  ordinary 
 course  of  nature  alone.  And  the  reason  why  this  is 
 true  is  just  this, — that  it  would  involve  a  contradiction 
 to  suppose  a  physical  cause,  which  as  a  cause  tends 
 to  produce  one  result,  either  failing  to  operate  accord- 
 ing to  its  nature,  or  of  itself  changing  its  own  nature 
 and  producing  a  different  or  opposite  result.  Physical 
 causes  have  only  physical  force.  They  have  no  effi- 
 cient power,  no  intelligence,  no  will,  no  power  of 
 choice.  They  operate  blindly  and  mechanically,  and 
 cannot  possibly  operate  otherwise.  Hence  the  Thelst 
 maintains  as  firmly  as  the  Atheist  can  do,  that  in  the 
 ordinary  course  of  nature,  viewed  solely  as  governed 
 by  physical  causes  or  laws,  no  real  miracle  is  possible. 
 But  now  the  great  question  comes  into  view.  Is 
 there  no  sense  in  which  a  miracle  is  possible  ?  The 
 Atheist,  by  his  very  hypothesis,  is  compelled  to  reject 
 the  possibility  of  a  miracle  in  every  sense.  For  to 
 him  there  is,  by  supposition,  nothing  but  this  material 
 course  of  things  ;  and  it  needs  no  argument  to  prove 
 that,  if  the  visible  course  of  things  is  all  that  exists, 
 no  event  can  possibly  happen  but  in  harmony  with 
 such  a  course.  A  miracle  necessarily  implies  the  in- 
 tervention of  a  power  distinct  from  and  above  the 
 course  of  things  ;  and  since,  according  to  the  atheistic 
 hypothesis,  there  exists  no  such  power,  a  real  miracle 
 is  in  every  sense  impossible.  But  the  Theist — the 
 man  who  believes  in  God,  in  a  living  personal  Creator 
 — arrives  at  an  entirely  opposite  conclusion.     He  con- 
 
ON   THE   EVIDENCES   OF   DIVINE   REVELATION.     6/ 
 
 templates  the  material  world  as  the  effect  of  divine 
 power,  and  he  views  the  whole  course  of  nature,  not 
 as  having  in  itself  a  necessary  existence,  but  as  a 
 course  established,  governed,  and  carried  on  by  the 
 supreme  Creator.  The  Theist  admits  as  a  legitimate 
 conclusion,  that  in  this  ordinary  course,  viewed  in 
 itself,  no  events  of  an  extraordinary  kind  can  take 
 place ;  but  he  does  not  admit  that  in  no  sense  what- 
 ever can  such  events  take  place,  for  he  believes  that 
 He  who  created  the  world  and  established  the  course 
 of  nature  has  still  the  same  power,  the  same  intelli- 
 gence, and  the  same  will,  and  that  it  can  never  be 
 beyond  the  power  of  this  almighty  Being  to  interpose 
 in  the  course  of  events,  and  to  do  whatever  to  Him 
 seemeth  good.  We  can  have  no  adequate  idea  of 
 what  is  implied  in  creative  power ;  but  we  necessarily 
 ascribe  such  power  to  God,  and  therefore  we  are  war- 
 ranted in  ascribing  to  Him  power  to  interpose  in  His 
 own  established  course  of  things,  so  as  to  accomplish 
 a  result  which,  but  for  His  immediate  interposition, 
 could  never  have  taken  place.  Even  man,  with  his 
 finite  power  and  intelligence,  can  to  some  extent 
 interfere  with  the  course  of  events.  He  cannot, 
 indeed,  produce  a  strictly  miraculous  result,  for  he 
 is  possessed  of  no  creative  power.  But  within  a  cer- 
 tain sphere  of  operation  he  can  so  avail  himself  of 
 known  physical  causes  and  laws  as  to  accomplish 
 results  which  these  causes  and  laws,  if  left  to  their 
 own  action,  never  could  have  produced.  We  cannot 
 limit  the  sphere  of  the  Almighty's  operation.  He  has 
 manifestly  the  power  to  interpose ;  and  therefore  a 
 miracle,  though  impossible  under  the  mere  operation 
 of  physical  causes,  and  though  impossible  to  the  finite 
 
6S  LECTURE  V. 
 
 power  of  man,  must  be  possible  to  the  almighty 
 power  of  God.  We  thus  once  more  perceive  that  the 
 question  affecting  the  possibility  of  miracles,  really 
 resolves  itself  into  the  question  respecting  the  exist- 
 ence of  God.  Atheism  denies,  and  must  deny,  their 
 possibility.  Theism  admits,  and  must  admit,  that 
 they  are  possible — possible  to  God. 
 
 3.  And  now,  we  would  observe,  that  whether  a 
 miracle  shall  take  place  or  not  must  altogether  de- 
 pend on  the  will  of  God. 
 
 If  God  is  pleased   to  interpose  in  the  course  of 
 events.  He  has  power  to  do  so;  and  further.  He  has 
 intelligence  to  enable  Him  to  do  so  without  derang- 
 ing that  general  course  of  events  which  He  has  estab- 
 lished.     We   must   ever   be   on    our   guard    lest  we 
 limit  the  perfections  of  the  Almighty.     He  can  work 
 when  and  where  and  how  He  pleases,  and  accom- 
 plish His  purpose  in  so  working,  and  yet  maintain 
 the  appointed  operation  of  ordinary  causes  and  laws. 
 We  cannot  comprehend  His  mode  of  working.     All 
 we  can  know  is  the  effect  produced,  which  effect  we 
 are  compelled  to  ascribe  to  an  immediate  interposi- 
 tion of  His  power.     Whether  He  will  be  pleased  to 
 work  a  miracle  is  a  question  which  we  cannot  a  priori 
 determine ;  for  what  created  being  can  in  this  way  know 
 the  mind  of  the  Lord  t     But  we  may  safely  conclude 
 that,  should  it  please  Him  to  make  an  extraordinary 
 revelation  of  Himself  to  His  creatures.  He  will  ac- 
 company that  revelation  with  valid   evidence — with 
 miraculous  proof,  which,  as  has  already  been  shown,  is 
 the  direct,  the  proper  evidence  of  a  revelation.     Paley 
 has,  accordingly,  justly  observed,  that  "in  whatever 
 degree  it  is  probable  or  not  very  improbable  that  a 
 
ON   THE   EVIDENCES   OF   DIVINE   REVELATION.     69 
 
 revelation  should  be  communicated  to  mankind  at  all, 
 in  the  same  degree  it  is  probable  or  not  very  impro- 
 bable that  miracles  should  be  wrought."  A  miracle, 
 we  may  assume  as  certain,  will  not  be  wrought  but 
 for  a  reason  which  will  justify  such  an  interposition  ; 
 but  should  the  divine  wisdom  see  it  meet  to  reveal 
 His  will  and  purposes  in  an  extraordinary  manner  to 
 the  human  race,  who  is  there  that  can  justly  find 
 fault,  or  say  unto  the  Almighty,  What  doest  Thou  .? 
 Attempts  have  been  made  to  ridicule  the  very  idea 
 of  miraculous  interposition,  as  if  the  Almighty  were 
 supposed  to  have  discovered  some  error  in  His  work — 
 in  the  machinery  of  nature — and  then  to  have  found 
 it  necessary  to  interfere  in  order  to  correct  this  ori- 
 ginal defect.  But  it  is  an  easy  task  first  to  misrepre- 
 sent an  idea  or  a  proposition,  and  then  to  throw 
 ridicule  on  this  fiction  of  the  critic's  own  mind.  It  is 
 far  easier  to  do  this  than  to  look  at  the  subject  fairly, 
 and  to  judge  of  it  according  to  truth.  Miracles  are 
 not,  we  may  rest  assured,  wrought  for  themselves  as 
 mere  displays  of  power;  nor  are  they  wrought  to  ac- 
 complish purposes  which  may  in  their  whole  extent  be 
 accomplished  through  the  instrumentality  of  ordinary 
 means.  If  miracles  are  ever  wrought,  it  is  to  accom- 
 plish ends  worthy  of  God' — ends  which  cannot  be 
 reached  by  the  ordinary  course  of  things ;  for  just  as 
 miracles  are  the  proper  proof  of  a  diyine  revelation, 
 so  the  converse  also  is  true,  that  where  miracles  are 
 wrought,  there  a  revelation  will  be  found. 
 
 4.  Assuming,  now,  that  miracles  are  the  proper 
 proofs  of  a  divine  revelation,  and  that  they  are 
 possible  to  God,  and  further,  that  their  occurrence 
 depends  entirely  on  His  will,  we  remark  that  when 
 
70  LECTURE  V. 
 
 they  are  wrought   they  become   objects  of  sensible 
 perception  just  as  any  other  events  are. 
 
 There  is  in  this  respect  no  distinction  or  difference 
 whatever  between  effects  produced  by  immediate 
 divine  interposition  and  effects  produced  in  the  or- 
 dinary course  of  Providence.  Eyewitnesses  see  the 
 effects  in  the  one  case  just  as  they  see  them  in  the 
 other.  It  is  admitted  that  in  the  one  case  there  is 
 the  danger  of  our  being  deceived  by  a  pretence  to 
 work  miracles,  which  does  not  exist  in  the  other 
 case  ;  but  that  is  not  the  point  before  us.  Suppose 
 a  real  miracle  to  be  wrought  before  eyewitnesses, 
 that  miracle  is  an  effect  which  these  eyewitnesses  can 
 perceive  just  as  they  can  perceive  any  ordinary  effect. 
 It  is  indeed  a  grave  question,  which  they  are  bound  to 
 determine,  whether  the  thing  done  is  really  a  miracle 
 or  not — whether  sight  was  really  given  by  a  word  of 
 command — whether  thousands  were  really  fed  by 
 means  of  a  few  loaves — whether  the  dead  were  really 
 raised  to  life — whether,  in  short,  any  professed  miracle 
 was  really  a  miracle,  or  only  an  ingenious  device  ;  but, 
 supposing  this  question  to  be  settled  in  the  affirma- 
 tive, what  we  maintain  is,  that  a  miraculous  effect  is 
 as  truly  an  object  of  sensible  perception  as  any  other 
 effect.  The  essential  difference  between  the  two 
 classes  of  events  does  not  lie  in  their  relation  to  the 
 senses — the  organs  of  perception — but  in  the  manner 
 in  which  they  respectively  take  place.  It  is  our 
 Reason  which  in  the  one  case  proclaims  the  events  to 
 be  miraculous,  and  in  the  other  case  proclaims  the 
 events  to  be  non-miraculous — to  be  ordinary  events. 
 That  the  events  in  the  one  case  are  miraculous,  is  a 
 conclusion  not  discerned  by  the  senses,  but  drawn  by 
 
ON   THE   EVIDENCES   OF  DIVINE   REVELATION.     7 1 
 
 our  reason  :  whilst  in  the  other  case  the  events  are  at 
 once  accepted  by  the  same  reason  as  ordinary  events. 
 
 This  distinction  between  the  functions  of  our  senses 
 and  the  operation  of  our  reason  is  very  obvious,  and 
 yet  it  is  not  seldom  overlooked  in  the  discussion  of 
 this  great  subject.  We  do  not  by  our  senses  perceive 
 the  miraculous  power  itself — we  can  witness  only  the 
 effects  of  this  power.  We  do  not  immediately  discern 
 physical  causes  themselves — we  perceive  only  their 
 results.  It  is  results  only  in  both  cases  that  we  per- 
 ceive. It  is  our  reason  which  determines  whether  the 
 results  are  miraculous  or  not ;  that  is,  whether  they 
 are  such  as  can  be  accounted  for  by  reference  to 
 known  physical  causes,  or  whether  they  are  such  as 
 at  once  bear  testimony  to  an  immediate  exertion 
 of  divine  power.  Whatever  vigilance,  then,  is  to  be 
 employed  by  those  in  whose  presence  miracles  are 
 professedly  wrought,  in  order  that  they  may  not  be 
 deceived  by  a  mere  pretence  to  perform  such  works, 
 these  works,  if  really  wrought,  are  and  must  be  as 
 much  within  the  sphere  of  our  sensible  perception  as 
 any  other  works  whatever. 
 
 5.  This  brings  me  to  observe,  further,  that  miracles 
 may,  as  much  as  ordinary  events,  become  the  subject 
 of  testimony. 
 
 Let  it,  however,  be  here  noted,  that  in  discussing  this 
 point  we  have  strictly  nothing  to  do  with  the  danger  to 
 which  human  testimony  is  always  exposed,  of  adding 
 to  or  taking  from  what  alone  would  be  a  true  state- 
 ment of  an  occurrence.  The  real  question  before  us  is, 
 whether  an  eyewitness  of  a  miracle  is  competent  to 
 testify  of  the  event  which  he  has  himself  seen  to  another, 
 so  that  this  person  also  may  be  warranted  in  believing 
 
72  LECTURE  V. 
 
 in  the  reality  of  the  event.  It  is  in  reference  to  this 
 question  that  Hume's  celebrated  sophism  comes  be- 
 fore us.  This  sophism  is  in  effect  as  follows : — '  I 
 have  had  experience  of  the  ordinary  course  of  nature, 
 and  have  never  witnessed  a  departure  from  that  course. 
 I  have  also  had  experience  of  the  value  of  human 
 testimony,  and  have  occasionally  at  least  witnessed  a 
 departure  in  such  testimony  from  the  truth.  A  man 
 comes  to  me  and  tells  me  that  he  has  witnessed  a 
 departure  from  the  ordinary  course  of  nature.  Know- 
 ing, as  I  do,  so  far  as  my  own  experience  has  gone, 
 that  this  course  is  uniformly  the  same,  and  knowing 
 also,  as  I  do,  that  human  testimony  is  not  always  to 
 be  relied  upon,  I  conclude  that  I  ought  to  adhere  to 
 the  lessons  of  my  own  experience,  and  to  reject  this 
 testimony.  In  short,  no  amount  of  human  testimony 
 can  overcome  my  reluctance  to  believe  that  nature  has 
 departed  from  her  course.'  Though  we  have,  for  the 
 sake  of  brevity,  stated  Hume's  argument  in  our  own 
 words,  we  believe  we  have  given  you  a  clear  and  full 
 view  of  it ;  and  it  ought  to  be  admitted  that  it  is  an 
 argument  which  at  first  sight  assumes  a  formidable 
 appearance.  But  even  Hume  himself  supposes  a  case 
 in  which  he  allows  that  his  argument  would  fail — 
 a  case  in  respect  to  which  he  admits  that  it  would 
 be  a  greater  anomaly  to  suppose  the  testimony  to  be 
 unworthy  of  credit,  than  to  suppose  that  the  extra- 
 ordinary event  testified  had  happened.  But  the  fact 
 is,  that  in  all  such  reasonings  we  are  exceedingly  apt 
 to  be  led  astray  by  means  of  mere  words — of  words 
 which  may  have  a  greater  or  a  less  extent  of  meaning. 
 The  word  "  experience,"  for  example,  may  refer  to  the 
 experience  of  one  or  more  persons,  or  even  to  the 
 
ON    THE   EVIDENCES   OF   DIVINE  REVELATION.      "Jl 
 
 experience  of  the  whole  human  race.  To  say  that  a 
 miracle  is  contrary  to  experience,  may  mean  that  such 
 an  event  has  not  occurred  within  my  experience  ;  and 
 such  a  statement  may  be  perfectly  correct.  But  to 
 say  that  a  miracle  is  contrary  to  the  experience 
 of  the  race — that  is,  that  such  an  event  has  never 
 occurred  at  all— is  to  assume  the  very  point  under 
 discussion ;  for  the  professed  witnesses  affirm  that  a 
 miracle  has  happened  ;  and  the  real  question  is,  Is 
 their  testimony  to  be  believed  or  not  t  Now  it  seems 
 most  evident,  that  unless  with  the  Atheist  we  can 
 pronounce  a  miracle  impossible,  we  cannot  a  priori 
 determine  whether  a  miracle  has  taken  place  or  not. 
 And  if  we  admit  the  possibiHty  of  a  miracle,  then 
 if  competent  witnesses  should  declare  to  us  that  such 
 an  event  has  really  taken  place,  we  cannot  fairly,  upon 
 the  mere  ground  that  we  ourselves  have  not  been  eye- 
 witnesses of  such  an  event,  pronounce  their  testimony 
 to  be  unworthy  of  credit. 
 
 Now,  what  I  wish  to  show  you  at  present  is,  that 
 a  miraculous  event,  which  our  argument  must  now 
 suppose  to  have  really  occurred,  is  a  legitimate  subject 
 of  human  testimony — as  legitimate  a  subject  of  such 
 testimony  as  any  the  most  common  event.  Ob- 
 serve, we  do  not  say  that  we  are  to  be  satisfied  with 
 the  same  amount  of  testimony  in  the  one  case  as  in 
 the  other.  Far  otherwise.  The  testimony  which  alone 
 can  assure  us  that  a  real  miracle  has  happened,  must 
 be  of  the  highest  moral  order ;  a  testimony  given  under 
 circumstances  which  can  leave  no  reasonable  doubt 
 either  as  to  the  competency  of  the  witnesses  or  as  to 
 their  veracity.  All  that  is  true ;  but  the  real  point 
 before  us  at  present  is,  whether  a  miraculous  event 
 
74  LECTURE  V. 
 
 can  be  the  subject  of  human  testimony  at  all.  We 
 maintain  that  it  can  be  so,  just  as  much  as  any  other 
 event.  We  remarked  that  the  eyewitnesses  of  mir- 
 acles observed  only  effects,  and  that  it  is  the  pro- 
 vince of  reason  to  decide  whether  the  effects  be 
 miraculous  or  not.  In  the  same  way,  witnesses, 
 whilst  they  may  no  doubt  state  their  own  view  of  the 
 nature  of  any  event,  in  reality  only  testify  what  they 
 themselves  have  seen.  They  are  witnesses  to  us  only 
 of  the  facts — of  the  facts  which  came  under  their  own 
 sensible  perception.  It  is  by  no  means  uncommon 
 for  persons  to  testify  things  which  they  have  seen, 
 and  seen  correctly,  and  which  they  imagine  to  be 
 exceedingly  marvellous  ;  whilst  others,  to  whom  this 
 testimony  may  be  given,  admit  the  statements  of  the 
 facts,  but  know  full  well  that  they  are  far  from  being 
 marvellous.  If  a  witness  merely  told  us  in  general 
 terms  that  he  had  seen  on  some  particular  occasion 
 a  miraculous  event,  and  either  could  not  or  would  not 
 tell  us  the  event  itself  and  all  those  circumstances 
 connected  with  it  which  are  necessary  to  enable  us 
 to  judge  for  ourselves,  we  should  at  once  reject  his 
 testimony,  or  at  least  we  should  feel  ourselves  to  be 
 under  no  obligation  whatever  to  receive  it  as  valid. 
 The  witness  must  evidently  furnish  us  with  such  an 
 account  of  the  event,  and  its  accompanying  circum- 
 stances, as  shall  enable  us  to  determine  by  an  exer- 
 cise of  our  own  reason  whether  the  alleged  event  was 
 really  a  miracle  or  not.  And  what  we  affirm  is,  that 
 eyewitnesses  of  real  miracles  are  fully  competent  to 
 relate  to  us  what  fell  under  their  own  sensible  obser- 
 vation ;  and  then  it  is  for  us  to  look  at  the  facts  so 
 related,  and  to  judge  for  ourselves  as  to  the  nature 
 
ON   THE   EVIDENCES   OF   DIVINE   REVELATION.      7$ 
 
 of  the  events.  There  is  nothing  connected  with  the 
 mere  sensible  facts  which  take  place  when  miraculous 
 power  is  exerted,  to  remove  them  from  the  sphere 
 of  competent  testimony,  any  more  than  there  is  any- 
 thing connected  with  these  facts  to  withdraw  them 
 from  the  sphere  of  sensible  perception.  There  is 
 nothing,  in  short,  which  can  preclude  us  from  looking 
 at  the  facts  testified,  any  more  than  there  is  anything 
 to  preclude  an  eyewitness  from  looking  at  the  facts 
 when  presented  to  his  view. 
 
 We  have,  though  labouring  to  be  brief,  dwelt  at 
 some  length  on  this  general  view  of  miracles  ;  because 
 we  are  convinced  that  it  is  by  means  of  sophistical 
 statements  on  the  subject  in  general,  that  infidelity 
 seeks  to  undermine  our  faith  in  those  miraculous 
 works  which  our  Lord  wrought  in  support  of  His 
 divine  claims.  We  have  by  no  means  exhausted  the 
 subject ;  but  if  we  are  correct  in  the  remarks  which 
 we  have  laid  before  you,  they  will  perhaps  induce  you 
 to  meditate  more  fully  upon  it ;  and  they  may  also 
 be  the  means  of  suggesting  to  you  how  to  meet  the 
 current  objections  to  this  great,  this  essential  branch 
 of  the  evidence  of  divine  revelation. 
 
 There  is  unquestionably  in  our  minds  a  strong  re- 
 luctance to  receive  any  account  of  a  miraculous  event. 
 The  most  ordinary  testimony  is  generally  sufficient  to 
 obtain  our  belief  in  an  ordinary  event,  or  even  in  an 
 event  which,  though  strange,  may  yet  come  under  this 
 category.  But  even  when  we  have  examined  the  tes- 
 timony in  support  of  a  miraculous  event,  we  are  liable 
 to  entertain  the  thought  that  perhaps  in  some  way  or 
 other  we  may  be  deceived  by  this  testimony.  Now 
 this  reluctance  to  believe  in  an  apparently  well-ac- 
 
76  LECTURE  V. 
 
 credited  narrative  of  miraculous  events  should  be 
 treated  fairly  by  us,  and  should  lead  us  to  examine 
 most  thoroughly  the  testimony  presented  to  us,  and 
 to  examine  it  under  all  the  circumstances  in  which 
 it  is  given.  The  miracles  of  our  Lord,  for  example, 
 bear  witness  to  Him  as  the  Messenger  of  God,  and 
 are  inseparably  connected  with  His  person  and  work. 
 The  eyewitnesses  of  these  miracles  bore  their  testi- 
 mony in  connection  with  the  office  assigned  them,  and 
 under  circumstances  which  tended  to  put  their  testi- 
 mony to  the  severest  test.  We  are,  then,  to  look  at 
 all  the  circumstances  of  the  case,  and  after  a  fair, 
 full,  and  solemn  examination  of  the  subject,  to  deter- 
 mine for  ourselves  whether  we  have  sufficient  grounds 
 for  believing  the  Apostolic  testimony  to  be  true.  If 
 we  conclude  that  we  have  such  grounds,  then  we  are 
 called  upon  to  exercise  faith  in  these  miraculous 
 events ;  and  we  must  not  allow  our  general  feeling  of 
 reluctance  to  overcome  our  faith,  any  more  than,  when 
 we  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  there  is  a  living 
 personal  God,  we  are  to  allow  the  transcendent,  the 
 incomprehensible  nature  of  the  conclusion,  to  disturb 
 a  faith  which  we  know  to  be  built  on  the  solid  rock  of 
 the  most  reasonable  evidence.  It  is  when  we  attempt 
 to  realise,  to  conceive  how  a  miracle  can  take  place, 
 that  we  begin  to  stumble.  Now,  we  cannot  realise 
 this  ;  we  cannot  conceive  how  such  an  event  can  be 
 performed  ;  but  then  remember  that  we  know  not 
 how  any  event  whatever  takes  place.  There  is  a 
 mystery  inscrutable  by  us  in  every  event  whatsoever. 
 All  we  know  is,  that  under  such  and  such  circum- 
 stances such  and  such  events  do  take  place.  And  in 
 respect  to  a  miracle,  though  we  know  not,  and  cannot 
 
ON    THE  EVIDENCES   OF   DIVINE   REVELATION.     7/ 
 
 know,  the  mode  of  operation,  we  have  present  to  our 
 minds  a  cause  sufficient  for  its  production — even  the 
 power  of  Him  who  worketh  all  in  all.  Exercise  faith, 
 then,  in  conclusions  drawn  by  your  reason  from 
 sound  premises ;  for  unless  we  do  this,  we  shall  never 
 come  to  the  knowledge  and  belief  of  the  truth  on  any 
 subject  whatsoever. 
 
 In  next  Lecture  I  shall  briefly  consider  the  special 
 miraculous  evidence  furnished  to  us  in  support  of  the 
 claims  of  the  Gospel. 
 
LECTURE  VI. 
 
 ON  THE  MIRACULOUS  EVIDENCE  OF  THE  GOSPEL. 
 
 In  last  Lecture  we  made  some  remarks  on  the  general 
 subject  of  miracles  as  the  proper  evidence  of  a  divine 
 revelation.  We  would  now  apply  these  remarks  to 
 the  particular  case  of  the  Christian  revelation.  We 
 may  briefly  state  the  case  as  follows : — 
 
 There  appeared  among  the  Jewish  people,  at  a  time 
 which  for  all  practical  purposes  can  be  sufficiently  de- 
 termined, one  Jesus,  who  claimed  to  be  the  special 
 messenger  of  God,  not  merely  to  the  Jews,  but  to  the 
 whole  human  race,  and  to  have  been  sent  not  merely 
 to  reform  the  systems  of  religious  belief  then  prevail- 
 ing in  the  world,  or  the  moral  codes  adopted  by  the 
 several  nations  of  the  world,  but  to  be  the  Author  of 
 the  world's  redemption  from  that  state  of  ignorance, 
 sin,  and  death  into  which  it  had  fallen.  Jesus  claimed 
 to  be  not  merely  a  Teacher  of  religion  and  morals, 
 but  to  be,  in  the  strictest  sense  of  the  expression,  the 
 Saviour  of  the  human  race.  He  declared  His  design 
 to  be  not  to  institute  a  school  of  philosophy,  or 
 merely  to  reform  man's  social  condition,  but,  as  He 
 himself  expresses  it,  "  to  seek  and  to  save  that  which 
 was  lost,"  In  order  to  accomplish  this,  the  declared 
 purpose  of  His  mission,  He  went  about  throughout 
 
MIRACULOUS  EVIDENCE  OF  THE  GOSPEL.   79 
 
 the  land  of  Judea,  teaching  all  classes  of  the  people 
 the  great  doctrines  of  religion  and  morals,  and  ex- 
 hibiting in  His  own  life  the  practical  power  of  those 
 doctrines.  From  among  those  who  were  led  to  ac- 
 knowledge His  claims  He  selected  a  few  who  accom- 
 panied Him  during  His  ministry,  and  who,  after  His 
 own  ministry  was  closed,  went  forth  in  His  name  to 
 proclaim  His  message  of  truth  and  salvation  to  all 
 nations.  The  result  was,  that,  through  the  instru- 
 mentality of  these  chosen  attendants,  the  claims  of 
 Jesus  were  made  known  within  a  very  brief  period 
 throughout  the  vast  empire  of  Rome,  and  even  in 
 nations  beyond  that  empire,  and  that  Christian  socie- 
 ties or  churches,  composed  of  professing  believers  in 
 Jesus,  were  speedily  formed.  And  to  the  present  day 
 such  societies  or  churches  have  continued,  and  are, 
 notwithstanding  the  strenuous  opposition  which  the 
 religion  of  Jesus  has  had  all  along  to  encounter,  still 
 spreading  the  knowledge  of  His  name ;  and  there 
 appears  to  be  every  probability  to  lead  to  the  belief 
 that  this  religion  will,  in  course  of  time,  become  the 
 universal  religion  of  mankind. 
 
 Such  a  moral  phenomenon  as  this  deserves  the 
 earnest  attention  of  every  thoughtful  mind.  Be  the 
 real  merits  of  the  Christian  religion  what  they  may, 
 there  must  be  something  in  this  religion  which  gives 
 to  it  a  moral  power  such  as  no  other  system  of  religion 
 ever  propounded  to  man  possesses — something  in  it 
 which  reaches  man's  feelings  and  reason  and  con- 
 science, and  draws  him  to  acknowledge  the  claims  of 
 Jesus.  No  doubt  these  claims  have  been  all  along 
 disputed  and  rejected  by  some  in  every  class  of 
 society ;  and  not  a  few  who  have  been  distinguished 
 
80  LECTURE  VI. 
 
 for  intellectual  talent  and  for  great  attainments  in 
 science  and  literature,  have  openly  disavowed  these 
 claims,  and  laboured  to  disprove  them.  But  many, 
 if  not  all  of  these,  have  done  so  upon  grounds  which 
 would  equally  set  aside  all  religious  belief  whatever ; 
 upon  grounds,  therefore,  which  are  wholly  inadmis- 
 sible excepting  on  the  hypothesis  that  there  is  no  God, 
 and  therefore  can  be  no  messenger  from  God.  With 
 such  opponents  of  the  Christian  faith  all  argument 
 necessarily  ceases,  for  there  exists  no  common  ground 
 on  which  they  and  we  can  stand  in  order  to  discuss 
 the  real  merits  of  the  question.  It  is,  however,  to  be 
 kept  in  mind  that  other  men,  not  less  distinguished 
 than  those  to  whom  we  have  specially  alluded  for 
 talent  and  attainments,  have  professed  to  have  seri- 
 ously examined  the  claims  of  Jesus,  and  to  have  ar- 
 rived at  the  conclusion  that  these  claims  are  in  their 
 view  worthy  of  all  credit.  In  our  own  day,  as  well  as 
 in  former  times,  men  of  comparatively  high  talents 
 and  learning  are  ranged  on  both  sides  of  this  question. 
 The  conflict  between  these  two  classes  is  vigorously 
 going  on  ;  and  it  would  appear  as  if  this  conflict  would 
 continue  in  future  generations.  Why  it  should  be  so, 
 is  indeed,  altogether  apart  from  the  practical  conse- 
 quences involved,  a  most  marvellous  phenomenon. 
 Why,  if  the  claims  of  Jesus  are  really  unworthy  of 
 credit,  the  opponents  of  these  claims,  with  all  their 
 persistent  ingenuity  and  indomitable  labour,  are  un- 
 able so  to  discredit  them  as  to  silence  for  ever  the 
 advocates  of  these  claims,  seems  indeed  to  be  passing 
 strange.  Why,  on  the  other  hand,  the  advocates  of 
 those  claims  should  fail  so  to  establish  them  as  not 
 to  put  their  opponents  to  silence,  must  appear  no  less 
 
MIRACULOUS  EVIDENCE  OF  THE  GOSPEL.   8 1 
 
 Strange.  It  cannot  be  that  this  question  is  an  in- 
 determinable question,  that  it  is  one  in  respect  to 
 which  the  human  mind  can  arrive  at  no  satisfactory 
 conclusion  at  all,  and  that  therefore  it  would  be  our 
 wisdom  to  abandon  it  as  one  entirely  beyond  the 
 reach  of  man's  reason.  Such  a  view  of  this  question 
 cannot  be  entertained,  for  it  is  one  about  a  matter  of 
 fact,  and  that  fact  is,  whether  Jesus  supported  His 
 claims  or  not  by  competent  proof.  The  truth  is,  that 
 other  considerations  are  allowed  to  enter  into  the 
 examination  of  this  question — considerations  which 
 involve  the  conclusion,  and  therefore  prejudge  the 
 question  prior  to  all  fair  inquiry.  We  have  repeatedly 
 alluded  to  this  feature  of  the  conflict,  and  it  is  no 
 mere  assertion  on  our  part,  but  a  statement  of  plain 
 fact,  when  we  afflrm  that  the  opponents  of  the  claims 
 of  Jesus  do  ultimately  rest  their  argument  on  prin- 
 ciples which  of  themselves  render  these  claims  wholly 
 absurd.  Their  argument  ultimately  rests  on  Atheism, 
 on  the  negation  of  God,  and  therefore  on  the  negation 
 of  the  possibility  of  such  claims  as  those  which  Jesus 
 preferred.  There  have  indeed  been  professed  Theists 
 who  have  yet  denied  the  claims  of  Jesus.  With 
 such  persons  we  can  legitimately  discuss  this  ques- 
 tion, and  we  are  bound  to  bestow  all  attention  on 
 what  they  allege  ;  for  the  possibility  that  the  claims 
 of  Jesus  were  not  supported  by  competent  proof  must 
 be  allowed.  We  must  not  begin  our  argument  with 
 a  foregone  conclusion  even  in  favour  of  these  claims. 
 We  must  fairly  inquire  whether  or  not  there  are  solid 
 grounds  for  our  belief;  and  if  we  find  that  there  are 
 no  such  grounds,  then  belief  in  the  validity  of  the 
 claims  cannot  be,  and  ought  not  to  be,  entertained. 
 
 F 
 
82  LECTURE   VI. 
 
 On  the  other  hand,  should  we  ascertain  that  there 
 are  such  grounds,  then  we  are  bound  to  acknowledge 
 the  claims  of  Jesus  to  be  valid,  and  to  believe  in  Him 
 as  what  He  declared  Himself  to  be,  the  Son  of  God 
 and  the  Saviour  of  the  world. 
 
 Jesus  appealed  to  a  variety  of  evidence  in  support 
 of  His  claims.  He  appealed  to  the  doctrine  itself 
 which  He  taught,  as  containing  in  itself  evidence  of  its 
 own  divine  origin.  "  My  doctrine,"  He  said,  "  is  not 
 mine,  but  His  that  sent  me.  If  any  man  will  do  His 
 will,  he  shall  know  of  the  doctrine  whether  it  be  of 
 God,  or  whether  I  speak  of  myself."  He  also  ap- 
 pealed to  His  own  character,  and  especially  to  the 
 fact,  which  His  life  fully  attested,  that  He  had  no 
 selfish  or  ambitious  purpose  to  serve.  "  He  that 
 speaketh  of  himself  seeketh  his  own  glory  ;  but  He 
 that  seeketh  His  glory  that  sent  Him,  the  same  is 
 true,  and  no  unrighteousness  is  in  Him."  No  one 
 who  rightly  understands  the  religious  and  moral 
 doctrine  which  Jesus  taught,  and  forms  an  impartial 
 estimate  of  His  character,  as  it  is  portrayed  to  us, 
 not  in  mere  words,  but  in  the  habits  and  acts  of  His 
 life,  can  fail  to  perceive  the  powerful  evidence  which 
 both  His  doctrine  and  character  furnish  in  support 
 of  His  claims.  Even  some  of  the  opponents  of  these 
 claims  admit  the  purity  and  sublimity  of  His  doc- 
 trine, and  also  the  spotlessness  and  beneficence,  if  not 
 the  perfectness,  of  His  character. 
 
 Jesus  also  appealed  to  ancient  predictions  respect- 
 ing a  great  Deliverer  who  was  to  come, — to  predictions 
 recorded  in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  and  fulfilled,  as 
 He  alleged,  in  His  own  person  and  mission.  This  is 
 a  branch  of  evidence  of  a  peculiar  kind,  involving  as 
 
MIRACULOUS  EVIDENCE  OF  THE  GOSPEL.   8^ 
 
 it  does  what  may  be  termed  a  miracle  of  know- 
 ledge, even  although  the  events  foretold  and  accom- 
 plished may,  when  viewed  in  themselves,  be  classed 
 as  ordinary  events.  "  Search  the  Scriptures " — that 
 is,  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  —  said  Jesus  ;  "  for  in 
 them  ye  think  ye  have  eternal  life :  and  they  are 
 they  which  testify  of  me."  The  evidence  derived 
 from  a  comparison  of  these  alleged  predictions  with 
 the  recorded  life  and  ministry  of  Jesus  is  of  wide 
 extent,  and  most  powerful  in  its  force.  The  manifest 
 connection,  also,  of  the  various  dispensations  recorded 
 in  these  same  Scriptures  with  that  dispensation  of 
 which  Jesus  was  the  Author,  constitutes  one  great 
 prophetic  proof  that  the  last  is  the  one  dispensation 
 to  which  all  the  former  were  preparatory ;  and  the 
 unity  of  design  pervading  all  these  dispensations 
 furnishes  a  striking  evidence  that  they  all  have  one 
 Author,  and  that  this  Author  is  none  other  than  the 
 one  true  and  living  God. 
 
 But  in  addition  to  the  internal  evidence  furnished 
 by  His  doctrine  and  character,  and  to  the  external 
 evidence  to  be  drawn  from  the  fulfilment  of  ancient 
 predictions,  Jesus  appealed  to  the  miraculous  works 
 w^hich  He  himself  performed  as  direct  and  immediate 
 proofs  of  His  divine  mission.  *'  The  works  which  the 
 Father  hath  given  me  to  finish,  the  same  works  that  I 
 do,  bear  witness  of  me  that  the  Father  hath  sent  me." 
 That  Jesus  in  these  w^ords  referred  specially  to  His 
 miraculous  works,  there  can  be  no  question. 
 
 I.  Now,  let  us  here  observe,  first,  that  Jesus  did 
 appeal  to  sensible  miracles  as  the  direct  proof  of  His 
 claims.  No  doubt,  He  is  represented  as  on  certain 
 occasions  speaking  disparagingly  of  those  who  wished 
 
84  LECTURE  VI. 
 
 to  witness  miracles  as  mere  displays  of  power,  or 
 merely  as  affording  relief  from  present  distress,  as 
 also  of  those  whose  faith  seemed  to  be  such  as  to 
 stand  in  constant  need  of  such  support.  He  also,  on 
 a  memorable  occasion,  warned  His  disciples  against 
 the  idea  that  faith  in  Him  can  be  produced  only 
 by  the  sensible  perception  of  external  evidence. 
 "Blessed,"  He  said,  "are  they  that  have  not  seen, 
 and  yet  have  believed."  The  meaning  of  these  words, 
 which  have  been  strangely  misinterpreted  by  some,  is 
 surely  very  obvious.  Jesus  pronounces  those  blessed 
 who  shall  believe  in  the  absence,  not  of  evidence 
 of  every  kind,  but  of  sensible  evidence — those  who, 
 in  short,  believe  in  the  testimony  of  eyewitnesses — 
 a  testimony  which  the  disciple  whose  conduct  gave 
 occasion  to  these  words  had  deliberately  treated 
 as  insufficient  for  faith.  Whilst  Jesus,  then,  guards 
 against  the  mere  craving  for  miracles  as  ostentatious 
 displays  of  power,  and  warns  against  the  idea  that 
 sensible  evidence  is  the  only  ground  of  faith.  He  yet 
 appeals  to  miracles  as  the  direct  proof  of  His  divine 
 mission.  He  thus  recognises  the  necessity  for  such 
 proof;  and  this  is  a  point  by  no  means  undeserving 
 our  notice,  for  such  proof  was  not  then  always  given 
 in  support  of  the  claims  of  a  religious  teacher,  even 
 when  there  were  other  reasons  for  believing  that  the 
 teacher  was  raised  up  by  the  special  providence 
 of  God.  John,  the  forerunner  of  Jesus,  we  are  told, 
 assumed  the  office  of  at  least  a  religious  teacher — the 
 office  of  a  prophet  to  the  Jewish  nation;  and  though 
 we  have  reason  to  believe  that  he  was  raised  up  by 
 God  to  be  a  true  prophet,  yet  he  professed  to  be 
 nothing  more  than  a  human  teacher  and    the    pre- 
 
MIRACULOUS  EVIDENCE  OF  THE  GOSPEL.   85 
 
 dieted  herald  of  the  coming  Redeemer ;  and  it  is 
 emphatically  said  of  him  that  he  "did  no  miracle." 
 Here,  then,  is  a  remarkable  distinction  between  John 
 and  Jesus ;  for  the  latter  appealed  directly  to  miracles, 
 recognising  in  His  own  peculiar  case  their  absolute 
 necessity  in  order  to  establish  His  claims,  and  ex- 
 pressly admitting  that,  in  the  absence  of  such  evi- 
 dence, these  claims  would  be  justly  rejected.  "If  I 
 do  not  the  works  of  my  Father,  believe  me  not.  But 
 if  I  do,  though  ye  believe  not  me," — that  is,  my  own 
 mere  assertion — "believe  the  works,  that  ye  may 
 know  and  believe  that  the  Father  is  in  me,  and  I  in 
 Him."  Can  we  now  fail  to  perceive  that  Jesus  enter- 
 tained views  respecting  miracles  as  the  direct  evidence 
 of  His  extraordinary  claims,  which  reason  itself,  when 
 calmly  considering  this  subject,  pronounces  to  be 
 right } 
 
 2.  Having  noticed  this  important  point,  we  next 
 observe  that  the  alleged  miracles  to  which  Jesus  ap- 
 pealed, were  real,  genuine  miracles.  Every  one  who 
 pays  the  slightest  attention  to  the  ordinary  course  of 
 nature,  becomes  so  far  acquainted  with  this  course  as 
 to  be  able  at  once  to  pronounce  that  there  are  certain 
 events  which  cannot  possibly  take  place  in  this  ordi- 
 nary course,  apart  from  the  direct  intervention  of 
 divine  power.  There  may,  indeed,  be  certain  things 
 respecting  which  it  is  difficult,  and  perhaps  impossible, 
 for  us  to  pronounce  a  decided  judgment.  Cures,  for 
 example,  of  some  bodily  and  also  mental  maladies 
 sometimes  take  place  instantaneously,  and  under  such 
 circumstances  as  would  render  it  exceedingly  doubt- 
 ful whether  they  were  effected  through  the  instru- 
 mentality of  ordinary  means  or  not.     We  need  not 
 
86  LECTURE  VI. 
 
 refer  to  special  cases  of  this  kind  ;  the  facts  them- 
 selves are  well  known.  Had  the  alleged  miracles 
 of  Jesus  consisted  entirely  of  such  cures,  whether  of 
 certain  bodily  or  of  certain  mental  maladies,  however 
 beneficent  such  works  would  have  been,  and  whatever 
 degree  of  mere  presumptive  evidence  these  works, 
 taken  in  connection  with  the  internal  evidence  of  His 
 doctrine  and  of  His  character,  might  have  appeared 
 to  afford,  they  could  not,  we  apprehend,  have  con- 
 stituted that  strong  direct  proof  which  miracles  of  an 
 undoubted  kind  assuredly  furnish. 
 
 But  there  are  certain  things  in  respect  to  which  we 
 feel  perfectly  certain  that  they  could  not  possibly 
 take  place  without  an  actual  exercise  of  divine 
 power.  And  the  question  is,  Did  Jesus  perform  any 
 works  of  this  kind  ?  Are  any  of  His  alleged  miracles 
 really  such  as  we  must  pronounce  to  be  true  miracles  } 
 And  observe  that,  if  we  can  answer  this  question  in 
 the  affirmative,  the  influence  of  the  answer  extends 
 beyond  these  true  miracles  to  all  those  other  works 
 which,  taken  by  themselves,  might  have  left  us  in 
 doubt  as  to  their  real  nature.  Now,  the  restoring  or 
 giving  of  sight  to  the  blind,  the  raising  of  the  dead  to 
 life,  the  feeding  of  thousands  by  means  of  a  few  loaves, 
 the  walking  on  the  sea, — these  and  suchlike  works 
 and  acts  must  be  regarded  by  every  one  as  real, 
 genuine  miracles.  It  requires  no  scientific  knowledge 
 to  pronounce  such  a  judgment.  These  are  works 
 which  every  human  being,  whatever  may  be  his 
 knowledge  of  the  laws  that  regulate  the  course  of 
 nature,  at  once  declares  to  be  strictly  miraculous. 
 They  are  works  which  no  mere  power  of  man  can 
 effect.     They  are  results  which  physical  causes,  left  to 
 
MIRACULOUS   EVIDENCE   OF   THE   GOSPEL.        8/ 
 
 their  own  action,  cannot  produce.  Such  works  are, 
 every  one  knows,  impossible  to  the  ordinary  operation 
 either  of  physical  causes  or  of  human  power.  There 
 can  be  no  reasonable  question,  then,  as  to  the  real 
 nature  of  such  works.  They  are  miracles  in  the 
 strictest  sense  of  the  word  ;  and  if  they  take  place, 
 they  are  clear,  undoubted  proofs  of  the  immediate 
 interposition  of  superhuman — of  divine  power.  "  No 
 man  can  do  "  such  works,  "  these  miracles  that  Thou 
 doest,"  said  one  to  Jesus,  "  except  God  be  with  him." 
 This  is  the  testimony  not  merely  of  one  man,  but  of 
 all  mankind.  It  is  important,  then,  to  observe,  not 
 only  that  Jesus  appealed  to  miracles  as  the  direct 
 proof  of  His  mission,  but  also  that  the  alleged 
 miracles  of  Jesus  were  really  miracles — really  proofs 
 of  the  immediate  interposition  of  the  power  of  God. 
 
 3.  There  is  another  feature  of  the  alleged  miracles 
 of  Jesus  to  which,  although  it  does  not  strictly 
 affect  their  reality  or  genuineness  as  a  proof  of  the 
 immediate  interposition  of  divine  power,  we  may 
 here  refer ;  inasmuch  as  it  connects  these  miracles 
 with  the  declared  purpose  of  the  mission  of  Jesus, 
 and  in  this  respect  shows  a  unity  in  His  whole  charac- 
 ter and  work.  These  miracles  were  not  mere  displays 
 of  power — of  extraordinary  power.  They  were  also 
 works  of  beneficence — Works  manifesting  divine  love 
 as  well  as  divine  power — works  in  perfect  harmony 
 with  the  purpose  for  which  Jesus  affirmed  that  He 
 came  into  the  world.  Had  these  miracles  been  of  a 
 different  character,  whatever  proof  they  might  have 
 constituted  as  respects  the  manifestation  of  power, 
 we  could  not  but  have  felt  that  there  was  a  moral 
 discord   between    them    and   the  declared   design  of 
 
8S  LECTURE   VI. 
 
 Jesus'  mission.  But  there  is  no  such  discord.  The 
 alleged  miracles  are  miracles  of  mercy — miracles 
 which  evince  love  as  well  as  power  on  the  part  of 
 Him  by  whom  they  were  wrought.  The  only  excep- 
 tions to  this  character  in  these  miracles  are  seen  in 
 one  case,  where  a  barren  tree  is  doomed  to  speedy 
 decay,  as  emblematical  of  the  fearful  judgment  which 
 was  about  to  fall  on  the  unbelieving  Jewish  nation  ; 
 and  in  another,  where,  after  delivering  a  human 
 soul  from  the  tyranny  of  evil  spirits,  these  are  per- 
 mitted to  be  the  agents  of  destruction  to  a  herd  of 
 swine — a  judgment  which  discovered  the  carnality  of 
 their  owners.  These  two  cases  have  been  eagerly 
 laid  hold  of  by  the  opponents  of  the  claims  of  Jesus. 
 In  the  one  case  the  objection  is  manifestly  frivolous  ; 
 and  in  the  other  we  are  bound  to  suppose,  in  the  view 
 of  the  general  beneficence  of  all  the  other  alleged 
 miracles  of  Jesus,  that  there  were  circumstances  which 
 fully  justified  the  judgment,  such  as  it  was,  which  He 
 then  permitted,  and  only  permitted,  as  is  done  every 
 day  in  the  providence  of  God,  to  be  inflicted.  But 
 what  man,  looking  at  the  whole  character  of  Jesus, 
 and  beholding  His  untiring  efforts  to  relieve  the  dis- 
 tressed— to  proclaim  glad  tidings  to  the  poorest,  the 
 humblest,  the  most  unworthy — to  heal  the  broken- 
 hearted— to  give  strength  to  the  paralysed,  sight  to 
 the  blind,  and  life  to  the  dead, — what  man  can  contem- 
 plate such  works  as  these  and  not  adopt  as  his  own 
 the  words  of  an  eyewitness  of  these  works,  when  he 
 spake  of  Jesus  as  one  who  "went  about  doing  good  ".'* 
 The  alleged  miracles,  then,  of  Jesus  were  at  once  real 
 miracles,  and  therefore  direct  proofs  of  His  claims,  and 
 also  illustrations  of  the  great  purpose  of  His  mission. 
 
MIRACULOUS  EVIDENCE  OF  THE  GOSPEL.   89 
 
 4.  We  next  remark  tliat  these  alleged  miracles 
 were  wrought  in  such  circumstances  as  enabled  those 
 who  were  present  to  form  a  decided  judgment  respect- 
 ing them.  These  things  did  not  take  place  in  a 
 corner.  No  preparation  was  made  for  the  exhibition 
 of  the  alleged  miraculous  power.  The  works  were 
 done  openly,  in  the  presence  often  of  enemies  as  well 
 as  friends,  in  public  as  well  as  in  private — and  just  as 
 what  we  would  term  accidental  circumstances  gave 
 occasion.  There  was  variety,  great  variety,  in  the 
 works  themselves,  in  the  places  where  they  were 
 wrought,  in  the  persons  who  were  present,  in  all  the 
 circumstances  by  which  they  were  severally  charac- 
 terised. They  were  generally  performed  by  the  power 
 of  a  mere  word  or  command,  and  only  occasionally 
 was  anything  done  in  order  to  draw  the  special  atten- 
 tion either  of  those  on  whom  the  miracle  was  per- 
 formed or  of  others  to  what  was  taking  place. 
 
 It  has  been  maintained  by  a  recent  opponent  of 
 the  claims  of  Jesus,  that  He  should  have  laid  these 
 claims  formally  before  a  judicial  body,  and  should 
 have  submitted  His  power  to  perform  miracles  to  the 
 scrutiny  of  a  scientific  committee.  Had  the  purpose 
 of  Jesus  been  merely  to  display  His  possession  of 
 extraordinary  power,  or  to  enlarge  the  boundaries  of 
 mere  science,  such  a  mode  as  that  which  has  been 
 suggested  might  have  been  deemed  in  harmony  with 
 such  a  purpose.  But  this  was  not  His  declared  design. 
 He  came  into  the  world,  as  He  himself  alleges,  to 
 reveal  God  the  Father,  and  to  work  out  an  everlasting 
 redemption  for  the  fallen  race  of  man.  He  came  for 
 a  high  moral  purpose — the  highest  which  it  is  possible 
 for  the  mind  to  conceive.     His  miracles  were  wrought 
 
90  LECTURE  VI. 
 
 only  to  attest  His  mission,  to  accomplish  this  purpose, 
 and  to  illustrate  its  gracious  character.  The  method 
 which  He  adopted  in  making  known  His  claims  and 
 the  purpose  of  His  mission  was  such  as  commended 
 itself  to  His  wisdom,  and  also  such  as  left  no  possible 
 room  for  reasonable  objection.  Those  very  rulers  to 
 whom  reference  is  made  knew  these  claims,  and  often, 
 either  by  themselves  or  through  others  whom  they 
 appointed,  seated  themselves  in  His  very  presence, 
 in  order  if  possible  to  discover  in  His  words  or  deeds 
 something  of  which  they  might  accuse  Him.  It  is 
 strange  that  men,  in  their  anxiety  to  throw  discredit 
 on  the  character  and  claims  of  Jesus,  should  represent 
 a  method  as  not  having  been  adopted  by  Him  which 
 to  all  intents  and  purposes  was  virtually  adopted. 
 The  whole  question  surely  is.  Did  these  rulers  know 
 or  not  know  the  claims  which  He  preferred }  And 
 if  they  did  know  them,  did  they  not  of  their  own 
 accord  adopt  means  to  test  the  proof  which  He 
 offered  in  support  of  them  .?  They  were  beyond  all 
 doubt  aware  of  His  claims,  and  they  commissioned 
 persons  to  watch  Him  wherever  He  went.  He  knew 
 all  this,  and  though  not  seldom  brought  into  colli- 
 sion with  these  commissioned  spies,  He  pursued  His 
 own  sublime  course,  and  went  on  doing  good  by 
 word  and  deed,  till  His  watchful  enemies  were  com- 
 pelled to  acknowledge  the  reality  of  His  miracles, 
 and  found  no  other  way  to  evade  their  force  than 
 by  ascribing  them,  not  to  the  power  of  God,  but  to  the 
 power  of  the  great  enemy  of  God.  No  manifesta- 
 tion of  miraculous  power  can  meet  such  a  state  of 
 mind,  for  if  a  man  is  determined  not  to  believe  when 
 proper  evidence  is  set  before  him,  it  is  not  a  display  of 
 
MIRACULOUS  EVIDENCE  OF  THE  GOSPEL.   QI 
 
 mere  power  that  will  subdue  his  unbelief.  Such  a 
 man  would  not  believe  though  one  were  to  rise  from 
 the  dead. 
 
 But  to  return  to  our  immediate  point.  The 
 miracles  of  Jesus  were  wrought  under  such  circum- 
 stances as  enabled  impartial  eyewitnesses  to  be  per- 
 fectly satisfied  that  they  were  wrought.  The  facts  in 
 each  case  were  clearly  before  them.  The  withered 
 hand  was  known  and  seen  to  be  withered  ;  the  word 
 of  Jesus  was  heard  ;  the  restored  hand  was  seen  to 
 be  restored.  The  change  from  the  one  state  to  the 
 other  was  manifest  to  the  senses.  That  a  miracle 
 was  there  and  then  wrought,  was  an  instantaneous 
 conclusion  of  the  reason.  The  senses  do  not  attest 
 the  miraculous  power  —  they  attest  or  rather  give 
 knowledge  of  the  facts.  It  is  the  reason  which 
 ascribes  the  change  to  the  immediate  power  of  God. 
 And  in  such  a  case  what  other  conclusion  could  have 
 been  formed  by  an  unbiassed  mind  ?  Beyond  all 
 question,  if  it  is  true  that  Jesus  by  His  word  did 
 restore  a  man's  withered  hand  to  a  sound  state.  He 
 did  what  no  mere  man  can  do.  He  did  what  only 
 the  power  of  God  can  do.  He  established  His  claims 
 by  a  direct  and  all-sufficient  proof  And  of  the 
 reality  of  this  proof  those  who  were  present  were 
 undoubtedly  competent  witnesses,  for  the  sensible 
 facts  were  before  them  ;  that  reason  which  belongs 
 to  man  was  in  them  ;  and  hence  no  reasonable  excep- 
 tion can  be  possibly  taken  to  their  competency  as 
 eyewitnesses  of  such  a  miracle. 
 
 The  same  remarks  are  applicable  to  the  eyewitnesses 
 of  all  the  alleged  miracles  of  Jesus ;  and  it  is  wholly 
 unnecessary  for  our  immediate  purpose  to  apply  them 
 
92  LECTURE   VI. 
 
 in  detail.  The  essential  facts  connected  with  each 
 were  within  the  sphere  of  sensible  perception  ;  and 
 in  each  case  also  reason  was  competent  to  draw  the 
 proper  conclusion.  But  there  is  one  miracle  to  which 
 I  would  specially  draw  your  attention,  for  it  was  the 
 crowning  proof  of  the  claims  of  Jesus,  and  also  that 
 miracle  of  which  the  commissioned  apostles  of  Jesus 
 were  the  selected  eyewitnesses.  I  purpose  to  draw 
 your  attention  specially  to  the  consideration  of  this 
 miracle  ;  but  I  cannot  omit  all  mention  of  it  in  this 
 general  survey.  I  allude  to  the  Resurrection  of 
 Jesus  Himself  from  the  dead.  At  present,  however, 
 it  is  enough  to  state  that  the  facts  connected  with 
 this  great  proof  of  the  claims  of  Jesus  were  such  as 
 were  within  the  sphere  of  sensible  perception.  The 
 disciples  had  sufficient  reason  to  believe  that  He 
 really  died  upon  the  cross  ;  and  after  two  or  three 
 days  they  again  saw  Him  alive.  The  conclusion, 
 then,  was  inevitable  that  He  had  risen  from  the  dead; 
 and  this  effect  they  justly  ascribed  to  the  immediate 
 operation  of  that  Power  which  alone  gives  life.  The 
 disciples  saw  Jesus  after  He  was  risen — saw  Him  re- 
 peatedly, and  conversed  with  Him,  for  He  abode  with 
 them  during  forty  days,  at  least  appeared  to  them  often 
 during  that  period,  and  instructed  them  more  fully 
 than  He  had  done  before  respecting  the  kingdom 
 of  God.  At  length  He  gave  them  His  last  commands, 
 and  constituted  them  His  messengers  to  all  nations, 
 promising  to  endow  them  after  His  return  to  the 
 Father  with  extraordinary  gifts  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 
 And  then  in  presence  of  them  all  He  was  Hfted  up, 
 and  a  cloud  received  Him  out  of  their  sight.  Here, 
 indeed,  were  wonderful  events;   but  events  not  ex- 
 
MIRACULOUS   EVIDENCE   OF   THE   GOSPEL.        93 
 
 ceeding  the  power  of  God  to  accomplish — events 
 which  those  who  were  present  were  fully  competent 
 to  perceive. 
 
 5.  And  now  we  have,  in  the  last  place,  to  observe 
 that  these  men  were  competent  to  testify  to  others 
 what  they  themselves  had  seen.  We  need  not  repeat 
 the  remarks  made  on  this  subject  in  our  last  Lecture. 
 Those  to  whom  their  testimony  was  given  might 
 well  be  astonished  at  the  facts  testified,  and  were 
 bound  and  fully  warranted  to  subject  such  a  testi- 
 mony to  the  severest  scrutiny.  But,  looking  merely 
 at  the  competency  of  the  testimony,  we  cannot  but 
 admit  that  whatever  a  man  has  seen  he  may  com- 
 petently tell  to  another,  and  that  this  other,  if  he  is 
 satisfied  that  the  testimony  is  valid — that  the  witness 
 is  a  true  witness — may  receive  and  ought  to  receive 
 as  true  the  information  thus  given  him.  Now,  it  is  a 
 fact  which  can  be  ascertained,  that  the  disciples  who 
 were  eyewitnesses  of  the  life  and  ministry  of  Jesus 
 — eyewitnesses  of  His  miracles,  eyewitnesses  of  the 
 risen  Jesus,  and  eyewitnesses  of  His  ascension — did, 
 in  terms  of  their  commission,  go  forth,  did  proclaim  to 
 Jew  and  Gentile  the  glad  tidings  of  His  kingdom, 
 and  did  bear  witness  to  His  miraculous  works,  and 
 specially  to  His  resurrection  as  the  crowning  proof  of 
 His  claims.  It  is  also  a  fact  that  they  did  all  this 
 under  circumstances  which  tried  their  veracity  to  the 
 very  utmost.  They  had  no  worldly  end  in  yiew. 
 They  gained,  and  could  gain,  nothing  by  adhering  to 
 their  testimony.  They  had,  in  fact,  to  endure  the 
 loss  of  all  earthly  things,  and  even  to  suffer  and 
 die  in  confirmation  of  their  testimony.  And  the 
 result  was,  that  wherever  they  went,  whilst  some  did 
 
94  LECTURE   VI. 
 
 not  believe,  others  did  believe,  and  that,  within  a  few 
 years  after  the  departure  of  Jesus,  Christian  churches 
 were  formed  in  almost  every  quarter  of  the  vast 
 empire  of  Rome.  And  not  only  was  their  testimony 
 orally  proclaimed  ;  it  was  soon  committed  to  writing ; 
 and  the  Christian  Church  became  early  possessed  of 
 a  number  of  writings  of  various  kinds,  all  of  them 
 containing  the  Apostolic  testimony  respecting  Jesus. 
 And  this  written  testimony  has  been  with  the  Church 
 from  that  time  to  the  present,  so  that  every  genera- 
 tion is  virtually  carried  back  to  the  first  age  of  the 
 Church,  and  is  privileged  to  hear,  not  a  testimony 
 orally  passing  from  one  generation  to  another,  and 
 therefore  coloured  or  varied  as  it  passes  onwards,  but 
 the  original  testimony  of  the  eyewitnesses  them- 
 selves— of  those  very  men  who  saw  and  heard  Jesus 
 both  before  and  after  His  resurrection. 
 
 Efforts—the  most  persistent  efforts — have  of  course 
 been  made  by  the  opponents  of  the  claims  of  Jesus  to 
 bring  discredit  on  these  Apostolic  writings  ;  and  in- 
 genuity has  racked  itself  in  order  to  give  some  account 
 which  may  seem  plausible  of  their  having  a  different 
 origin.  But  even  the  miost  determined  and  ingenious 
 of  these  opponents  cannot  deny  the  early  rise  of 
 Christian  churches,  nor  the  fact  that  these  churches 
 were  founded  on  the  testimony  of  Apostles  to  the 
 alleged  miracles,  and  specially  to  the  alleged  resur- 
 rection of  Jesus.  They  are  compelled  to  admit  that 
 these  first  messengers  of  Jesus  actually  believed  in 
 His  resurrection,  and  that  others  were  led  to  believe 
 in  the  same  alleged  fact  through  their  testimony. 
 They  only  insist  that  these  Apostles  were  deceived 
 mainly  by  enthusiasm,  that  they  thought  they  saw 
 
MIRACULOUS   EVIDENCE   OF   THE   GOSPEL.       95 
 
 what  they  had  not  really  seen,  and  that,  in  some 
 way  or  other,  others  were  induced,  but  upon  insuffi- 
 cient grounds,  to  believe  their  statements.  It  is  easy 
 — exceedingly  easy — to  assert  all  this,  or  anything 
 else.  But  the  origin  of  the  Apostles'  own  belief  and 
 the  rise  of  the  Christian  Church  are  wholly  inexplicable 
 on  any  other  hypothesis  than  one — namely,  on  the 
 hypothesis  that  the  belief  of  the  Apostles  rested  on 
 sensible  facts,  and  that  their  testimony  was  believed 
 by  others,  because  it  was  seen  to  be  valid,  competent 
 testimony. 
 
 This  testimony  is,  as  we  have  said,  continued  in  a 
 twofold  manner ; — by  the  continued  existence  of  the 
 Christian  Church,  which  is  a  perpetual  witness  to  the 
 original  testimony  ;  and  by  means  of  those  writings 
 which  compose  the  New  Testament  Scriptures,  and 
 which  embody  this  original  testimony.  We  cannot 
 at  present  enter  on  the  discussion  of  this  part  of  our 
 subject,  important  as  it  is.  It  must  suffice  at  present 
 to  remark  that  the  testimony  of  the  eyewitnesses — of 
 the  first  ministers  of  the  Word — is  in  this  twofold 
 manner  maintained  in  all  its  competency  and  force  ; 
 and  that,  however  much  a  sceptical  criticism  has 
 laboured  to  impair  the  value  both  of  the  traditional 
 or  oral  testimony,  and  of  the  written  record  especially, 
 these  two  witnesses — the  Christian  Church,  with  its 
 traditional  belief  and  its  peculiar  institutions,  and  the 
 New  Testament  writings — defy  all  the  efforts  of  such 
 criticism,  and  stand  forth  as  firmly  as  ever,  proclaim- 
 ing in  no  doubtful  manner  the  certainty  of  those 
 things  which  Jesus  did  and  spake.  The  Church  has 
 ever  been  a  public  institution,  and  no  effort  could  or 
 can  silence  its  voice.     The  New  Testament  writings 
 
96  LECTURE  VI. 
 
 were,  with  a  few  exceptions,  public  documents,  at 
 first  existing  in  separate  parts,  which  were  severally 
 intrusted  to  different  sections  of  the  Church,  but  soon 
 collected  into  one  volume  and  spread  throughout  the 
 Church,  and  translated  into  different  tongues,  and 
 finally  stamped  as  a  whole  with  the  seal  of  a  unani- 
 mous belief,  being  thus  constituted  the  permanent  and 
 alone  authentic  witness  of  the  Apostolic  teaching  con- 
 cerning Jesus.  These  precious  writings  are  indeed 
 open  to  fair,  legitimate  criticism ;  and  there  may 
 be  questions  raised  respecting  some  of  them  which  it 
 is  now  difficult  or  impossible  for  us  to  answer :  but 
 taking  all  the  known  circumstances  into  consideration, 
 an  unbiassed  mind  cannot  fail  to  perceive  and  to  own 
 that  the  evidence,  both  external  and  internal,  in  sup- 
 port of  their  antiquity,  their  genuineness,  and  their 
 credibility,  is  clear  and  decided  ;  and  that  no  other 
 satisfactory  account  can  be  given  of  the  existence  and 
 reception  of  these  writings,  than  that  which  has  from 
 the  first  been  given — namely,  that  these  writings  had 
 for  their  authors  those  persons  whose  names  they 
 respectively  bear. 
 
 Such,  then,  being  the  case,  we  conclude  that  this 
 testimony  which  has  come  down  to  us  is  worthy  of 
 credit,  and  that  therefore  we  do  well  to  believe  it,  and 
 consequently  to  believe  in  Him  who,  by  His  miracu- 
 lous works  as  well  as  by  His  doctrine  and  character, 
 established  His  extraordinary  claims — to  believe,  in 
 short,  that  this  Jesus  is  indeed  the  Christ,  the  Son  of 
 God,  and  the  Saviour  of  the  world.  Extraordinary 
 indeed  is  the  claim,  but  the  evidence  by  which  it  is 
 established  is  also  extraordinary.  Apostles  believed 
 because  they  saw  and  heard  ;  and  we,  though  we  have 
 
MIRACULOUS  EVIDENCE  OF  THE  GOSPEL.   9/ 
 
 not  seen  and  heard,  also  believe,  because  we  have  re- 
 ceived the  competent  testimony  of  those  who  did  see 
 and  hear.  Such  is  the  ground  of  our  faith,  and  it  is  a 
 ground  which  no  assertions  to  the  contrary  can  affect, 
 or  ought  to  affect.  Let  us,  then,  hold  fast  our  faith, 
 and  we  shall  experience  the  fulfilment  of  the  promise, 
 "  Blessed  are  they  that  have  not  seen,  and  yet  have 
 believed." 
 
LECTURE    VII. 
 
 ON   THE   RESURRECTION   OF   JESUS. 
 
 The  resurrection  of  Jesus  is,  as  we  have  said,  the 
 crowning  evidence  of  His  divine  mission.  It  is  also 
 the  great  pledge  of  that  hope  which  He  has  given  to 
 all  who  believe  upon  His  name.  It  is  literally  im- 
 possible, therefore,  to  over-estimate  the  consideration 
 of  the  subject  now  before  us,  for  upon  the  issue  of 
 our  inquiry  depends  whether  we  are  to  believe  on 
 Jesus  or  not.  If  there  is  evidence  to  convince  us  that 
 He  rose  from  the  dead,  then  we  must  believe  that 
 His  claims  were  established,  that  He  was  declared  to 
 be  the  Son  of  God  with  power,  and  that  our  hope 
 in  Him  as  "  the  Resurrection  and  the  Life,"  as  the 
 Author  of  salvation  to  our  souls,  is  sure  and  steadfast. 
 If,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  no  satisfactory  evi- 
 dence of  this  alleged  fact,  then,  in  whatever  way  we 
 may  account  for  the  origin  of  the  report,  whether  we 
 trace  it  to  an  enthusiastic  imagination  or  to  conscious 
 fraud  on  the  part  of  its  originators,  faith  in  the  claims 
 of  Jesus  becomes  to  us  unreasonable,  and  indeed  im- 
 possible, and  hope  in  Him,  as  the  author  of  eternal 
 life  to  us,  would  be  vain  and  absurd.  Such  was  the 
 view  entertained  on  this  subject  by  one  who  was  led 
 firmly  to  believe  in  the  reality  of  the  fact,  and  who, 
 
ON    THE   RESURRECTION    OF  JESUS.  99 
 
 after  he  came  to  believe  in  it,  devoted  his  Hfe  to  the 
 spread  of  the  Gospel.  "  If  Christ  be  not  raised,"  the 
 Apostle  Paul  wrote  to  one  of  the  churches  which  he 
 had  planted,  "  your  faith  is  vain  ;  ye  are  yet  in  your 
 sins.  Then  they  also  which  are  fallen  asleep  in  Christ 
 are  perished."  We  shall  have  to.  recur  to  these  words. 
 We  refer  to  them  at  present  merely  in  confirmation 
 of  what  we  have  said  respecting  the  importance  of  the 
 subject. 
 
 But  in  respect  to  this  view  of  the  subject  we  can 
 also  appeal  to  the  adversaries  of  the  Gospel.  The 
 most  determined  of  these  adversaries  in  our  day  is 
 unquestionably  David  Friedrich  Strauss  ;  and  in  his 
 recent  work,  in  which  he  has  restated  his  theory  of 
 "  the  Life  of  Jesus  for  the  German  people,"  he  has 
 given  us  his  opinion  in  a  passage  which,  though 
 somewhat  long,  we  extract  at  length. 
 
 "  Here  then,"  he  says,  "  we  stand  on  that  decisive  point 
 where,  in  the  presence  of  the  accounts  of  the  miraculous 
 resurrection  of  Jesus,  we  either  acknowledge  the  inadmissi- 
 bility of  the  natural  and  historical  view  of  the  life  of  Jesus, 
 and  must  consequently  retract  all  that  precedes,  and  so  give 
 up  our  whole  undertaking,  or  pledge  ourselves  to  make  out 
 the  possibility  of  the  result  of  these  accounts — that  is,  the 
 origin  of  the  belief  in  the  resurrection  of  Jesus — without  any 
 corresponding  miraculous  fact.  The  more  immediately  this- 
 question  touches  all  Christianity  to  the  quick,  the  more 
 regard  we  must  pay  to  the  sensibility  with  which  every  un- 
 prejudiced word  that  is  uttered  about  it  is  received,  and 
 even  to  the  sensible  effect  which  such  words  may  have  upon 
 him  who  pronounces  them ;  but  the  more  important  the 
 point  is,  and  the  more  decisive  on  the  other  side,  for  the 
 whole  view  of  Christianity,  the  more  pressing  is  the  demand 
 upon  the  investigator  to  set  aside  all  these  considerations, 
 
100  LECTURE   VII. 
 
 and  pronounce  upon  it  in  a  perfectly  unprejudiced,  perfectly- 
 decided  spirit,  without  ambiguity  and  without  reserve."* 
 
 The  believer  and  the  unbeliever  thus  agree  in  their 
 viev/s  of  the  importance  of  the  subject.  The  whole 
 question  as  to  the  origin  of  Christianity  is  brought  to 
 one  decisive  point :  Did  Jesus  rise  from  the  dead,  or 
 did  He  not?  In  discussing  this  question,  we  shall 
 endeavour  to  proceed  in  that  spirit  which  Strauss 
 justly  demands — "  in  a  perfectly  unprejudiced  and 
 decided  spirit" — in  a  spirit,  however,  not  prejudiced, 
 as  his  manifestly  was,  by  a  foregone  conclusion,  and 
 decided  to  maintain  that  conclusion  in  spite  of  all 
 evidence  tending  to  a  different  result.  We  need  hardly 
 observe  that,  in  a  full  discussion  of  this  subject,  we 
 cannot  avoid  repeating  remarks  which  have  already 
 been  made  on  the  general  question  of  miracles.  But 
 anxious  though  we  are  that  the  discussion  of  so  mo- 
 mentous a  point  should  be  complete,  we  shall  try  as 
 much  as  possible  to  be  brief. 
 
 I.  First,  then,  we  must  enter  on  the  discussion  with 
 the  clear  admission  that  such  an  event  as  that  of  a 
 resurrection  from  the  dead  is  possible  with  God. 
 
 We  must  begin  with  a  clear  admission,  we  say,  on 
 this  point,  for  otherwise  all  further  discussion  is 
 superfluous.  We  must  assume  that  there  is  a  living 
 personal  God,  who  is  the  Creator  of  the  world  and 
 the  Giver  of  life  to  all  His  creatures  ;  and  also  assume 
 that,  as  the  Author  of  life.  He  possesses  the  power, 
 should  it  be  His  will,  to  restore  the  really  dead  to 
 life.  We  are  not  called  upon  now  to  establish  these 
 against  the  contrary  assumptions,  for  to  do  so  would 
 be  to  enter  once  more  on  the  question  of  Theism — a 
 
 *  Strauss's  'New  Life  of  Jesus,' Authorised  Translation,  vol.  i.  p.  397. 
 
ON   THE   RESURRECTION   OF  JESUS.  101 
 
 question  which  we  are  now  warranted  in  regarding  as 
 settled,  so  far  as  our  inquiries  are  concerned.  But 
 though  we  cannot  allow  ourselves  to  be  driven  back 
 to  the  discussion  of  these  fundamental  points,  we 
 would  beg  of  you  to  remember  that  they  have  been 
 discussed,  and  are  to  us  determined  points  ;  and  that 
 our  present  argument  is  not  with  the  Atheist,  and  can- 
 not be,  but  with  the  Theist — with  the  man  who  will 
 stand  upon  the  same  ground  with  ourselves,  and  fairly 
 inquire  whether  indeed  Jesus  did  rise  from  the  dead. 
 The  possibility  of  such  a  resurrection  does  not  imply 
 its  reality.  It  only  implies  that  His  alleged  resurrec- 
 tion may  have  been  a  reality,  but  whether  it  was  so 
 must  depend  on  the  evidence  adduced.  We  enter 
 upon  the  inquiry,  then,  with  no  foregone  conclusion  as 
 to  the  reality  of  the  alleged  fact — we  only  assume  its 
 possibility ;  an  assumption  which  no  unbiassed  mind 
 can  refuse,  for  "why  should  it  be  thought  a  thing 
 incredible,"  or  a  thing  impossible,  "that  God  should 
 raise  the  dead.''"  We  admit,  you  will  observe,  as 
 firmly  as  any  atheist  can  do,  that  a  resurrection  from 
 the  dead  is  a  thing  impossible  in  the  ordinary  course 
 of  nature,  and  a  thing  impossible  to  human  power ; 
 but  believing  as  we  do,  on  grounds  which  to  us  are 
 most  clear  and  detided,  that  there  is  a  God,  we  be- 
 lieve that  the  restoration  of  the  dead  to  life  is  no 
 more  impossible  with  Him,  than  it  was  to  frame  the 
 human  body  and  to  breathe  into  it  life  at  first.  The 
 ordinary  course  of  nature — a  course  which  this  Su- 
 preme and  Almighty  Being  originated  and  sustains — 
 tells  us  clearly  that  the  dead  do  not  rise  again,  so  far 
 as  this  course  is  concerned  ;  but  it  does  not  tell  us 
 either  that  the  power  of   God  is  exhausted  in  the 
 
102  LECTURE   VII. 
 
 establishing  of  this  course,  or  that  if  His  power  is  not 
 so  exhausted — if  there  is  still  a  residue  of  power  in 
 Him  who  is  omnipotent — it  is  not  the  purpose  of  His 
 will  to  put  it  forth  in  restoring  the  dead  to  life.  Nay, 
 the  spirit  that  is  in  man  seems  to  suggest  to  him,  as 
 by  the  force  of  instinct,  that  death  does  not  wholly 
 terminate  his  being.  The  course  of  providence,  which 
 is  as  truly  of  divine  appointment  as  the  course  of 
 nature,  gives  startling  intimations  of  a  life  to  come. 
 And  notwithstanding  the  fearful  gloom  which  death 
 throws  around  the  existence  of  man,  his  mind,  both 
 through  instinctive  feelings,  and  the  forebodings  of 
 conscience,  and  the  marked  tendencies  of  God's  moral 
 providence,  is  by  no  means  unprepared  to  receive 
 intimations  respecting  a  future  state  of  existence, 
 in  which  this  course  of  providence,  to  which  that  of 
 nature  is  manifestly  subordinate,  shall  be  carried  out 
 to  its  full  extent.  The  possibility,  then,  of  such  a 
 fact  as  that  of  the  resurrection  of  the  dead,  is  an 
 assumption  which  we  are  entitled  to  make  in  entering 
 upon  our  present  inquiry. 
 
 2.  We  must  next  assume  that  it  is  possible  for  eye- 
 witnesses to  have  satisfactory  evidence  that  a  person 
 has  been  raised  from  the  dead. 
 
 Supposing  such  a  fact  to  take  place,  we  easily  per- 
 ceive the  several  elements  which  must  enter  into  this 
 evidence.  The  witnesses  must  have  known,  inti- 
 mately known,  the  person  when  he  lived  ;  they  must 
 have  satisfactory  evidence  of  his  death,  and  they 
 must  have  equally  satisfactory  evidence  that  he  is 
 aeain  alive.  Now  it  is  admitted  that  there  is  no 
 slight  risk  of  mistake,  of  delusion,  or  of  being  de- 
 ceived, in  such  a  matter  as  this,  especially  in  respect 
 
ON    THE   RESURRECTION    OF  JESUS.  IO3 
 
 to  the  second  and  third  elements  which  enter  into  the 
 complex  evidence.  A  person  may  be  believed  to  be 
 dead  who  has  only  fallen  into  a  swoon.  In  such  a 
 case  apparent  restoration  to  life  would  not  be  a  real 
 resurrection.  Again,  it  is  notorious  that  the  power  of 
 imagination  has  often  played  a  strange  part  in  respect 
 to  supposed  apparitions  of  the  dead.  Persons  have 
 dreamed  or  fancied  that  the  departed  have  appeared 
 to  them,  and  some  have  actually  believed  in  the  ob- 
 jective reality  of  such  apparitions  under  circumstances 
 which  leave  us  no  room  to  doubt  that  these  were 
 wholly  the  result  of  their  own  excited  imaginations. 
 But  whilst  all  this  is  true,  and  ought  to  be  carefully 
 borne  in  mind  in  our  inquiry  into  the  truth,  we  are  at 
 the  same  time  not  to  rush  into  the  opposite  extreme, 
 and  to  assume  that  in  such  a  matter  it  is  impossible 
 for  eyewitnesses  to  have  competent  evidence.  If  these 
 witnesses  intimately  knew  the  person  in  his  lifetime, 
 if  they  also  knew  upon  valid  evidence  that  death  took 
 place,  and  if  afterwards  they  actually  saw  him  alive 
 again  under  such  circumstances  as  could  allow  no  rea- 
 sonable doubt  to  exist  as  to  the  fact  of  his  being  alive, 
 then  all  the  evidence  necessary  to  estabUsh  the  fact 
 is  afforded  ;  and  the  only  conclusion  warranted  by 
 such  evidence  is,  that  a  real  resurrection  from  the 
 dead  has  taken  place.  Now,  each  branch  of  this 
 evidence  is  within  the  sphere  of  sensible  perception. 
 Each  consists  of  a  fact  which  appeals  to  the  senses. 
 The  several  facts,  viewed  in  themselves,  have  nothing 
 peculiar,  so  as  to  remove  them  frbm  the  sphere  of 
 ordinary  perception.  It  is  the  combination  of  the 
 facts  which  causes  the  peculiarity ;  and  this  combina- 
 tion is  the  work  of  reason,  and  not,  strictly  speaking, 
 
104  LECTURE   VII. 
 
 of  the  senses.  The  latter  are  called  upon  to  do 
 nothing  but  what  they  are  constantly  doing — to  make 
 known  facts  to  the  mind  within ;  and  it  is  the  power 
 of  reason,  that  great  faculty  which  belongs  to  the 
 mind,  which,  combining  the  facts  together,  pronounces 
 the  decision  that  a  supernatural  event  has  taken 
 place — that  a  miracle  has  been  performed — and  that 
 this  event  is  to  be  ascribed  to  an  immediate  inter- 
 vention of  divine  power.  We  are  warranted,  then, 
 in  assuming  that  eyewitnesses  may  have  competent 
 evidence  of  the  reality  of  such  a  fact  as  that  of  a 
 resurrection  from  the  dead. 
 
 3.  Again,  we  also  assume  that  the  eyewitnesses 
 of  such  a  fact  may  bear  competent  testimony  of  it 
 to  others,  who,  on  ascertaining  the  testimony  to  be 
 worthy  of  credit,  are  entitled  and  morally  bound  to 
 credit  the  same. 
 
 The  importance  of  the  subject  must  be  our  excuse 
 for  dwelling  on  these  points.  You  cannot  be  too 
 familiar  with  them  ;  and  we  are  anxious  that  you 
 discern  them  thoroughly,  and  that  they  be  impressed 
 indelibly  on  your  minds.  It  is,  we  are  persuaded, 
 from  the  want  of  clear  and  distinct  views  on  these 
 preliminary  and  essential  points  that  the  mind  is 
 prone  to  hesitate,  if  not  to  stumble,  when  the  attacks 
 of  the  opponeilts  of  Christianity  are  skilfully  directed ; 
 and  never,  we  may  affirm,  were  these  more  skilfully, 
 powerfully,  and  plausibly  directed  than  in  our  own 
 day.  The  only  way  in  which  you  can  successfully 
 meet  such  attacks',  is  by  patiently  and  calmly  training 
 your  minds  to  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  subject. 
 You  will  find  that  these  attacks  derive  their  power 
 from   assumptions  made  by  their  authors — assump- 
 
ON   THE  RESURRECTION   OF  JESUS.  IO5 
 
 tions  involving  the  very  conclusions  which  they  then 
 seek  to  confirm  by  elaborate  displays  of  argument — 
 of  argument  which,  on  their  premises,  is  wholly  super- 
 fluous. 
 
 I  formerly  remarked  on  the  validity  of  testimony 
 in  reference  to  miracles,  and  therefore  only  allude 
 to  this  point  again  in  a  brief  manner.  There  is  no 
 question,  you  will  again  observe,  as  to  the  importance 
 and  necessity  of  our  scrutinising  in  the  severest  way 
 possible  any  testimony  bearing  on  such  an  alleged 
 fact  as  that  of  a  resurrection  from  the  dead.  The 
 supposed  witness  may  have  been  deceived  or  imposed 
 upon.  We  are  not  to  credit  a  mere  vague  report  on 
 such  a  matter,  nor  to  believe  every  one  who  may 
 profess  to  have  been  a  witness  of  such  a  fact.  Even 
 a  circumstantial  account  of  such  a  matter  is  to  be 
 thoroughly  examined,  for  it  is  by  no  means  un- 
 common for  a  false  story  to  be  set  afloat  with  a  long 
 detail  of  supposed  facts.  The  character  of  the  wit- 
 nesses must  be  thoroughly  ascertained,  and  the  mo- 
 tives by  which  they  may  seem  to  be  influenced  most 
 carefully  inquired  into.  The  moral  bearing  of  the 
 alleged  fact  ought  also  to  be  examined  and  ascer- 
 tained ;  for  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the  Supreme 
 Being  will  give  useless  displays  of  His  power,  and 
 that  such  a  fact  as  that  of  the  resurrection  of  one  from 
 the  dead  can  be  an  isolated  fact,  having  no  moral 
 bearing  whatever.  It  is  clear  that  when  persons 
 appear  to  us,  and  testify  that  one  rose  from  the  dead, 
 we  have  a  variety  of  circumstances  to  take  into  view, 
 and  that  only  when  all  these  harmonise  and  tend  to 
 one  conclusion  we  shall  be  justified  in  receiving  the 
 testimony. 
 
I06  LECTURE  VII. 
 
 We  are  not,  however,  at  present  discussing  all 
 the  circumstances  which,  meeting  together,  would  ren- 
 der such  testimony  valid,  but  only  stating  the  points 
 which  we  must  assume  in  entering  upon  our  inquiry  ; 
 and  the  possibility  that  such  testimony  may  exist  is 
 evidently  one  which  we  are  entitled  to  assume.  The 
 witnesses  are  competent  to  state  to  us  the  facts  which 
 they  witnessed,  and  we  are  able  to  look  at  the  facts 
 so  stated,  and  to  examine  the  witnesses,  so  as  to  deter- 
 mine whether  their  testimony  is  worthy  of  credit ;  and 
 if  so,  whether  the  facts  are  such  as  to  warrant  our 
 reason  in  concluding  that  a  resurrection  from  the 
 dead  has  really  taken  place.  Without  adopting  the 
 doubt  implied  in  the  following  extract  as  to  the  possi- 
 bility of  miracles,  we  are  willing  to  acquiesce  in  what 
 it  expresses  respecting  the  nature  of  the  evidence 
 required  to  establish  the  reality  of  such  a  fact  as  that 
 of  a  resurrection  from  the  dead.  In  the  work  already 
 referred  to  Strauss  says — 
 
 "  Whether  we  consider  miracles  in  general  as  possible  or 
 not,  if  we  are  to  consider  a  miracle  of  so  unheard-of  a  de- 
 scription as  having  really  occurred,  it  must  be  proved  to  us 
 by  evidence  in  such  a  manner  that  the  untruth  of  such 
 evidence  would  be  more  difficult  to  conceive  than  the 
 reality  of  that  which  it  was  intended  to  prove." — Vol.  i. 
 P-  399. 
 
 Let  us,  then,  now  proceed  to  examine  this  evidence 
 with  all  possible  fairness  and  earnestness,  and  with  the 
 sole  desire  to  ascertain  the  truth. 
 
 And,  first  of  all,  on  entering  upon  this  examina- 
 tion, we  must  ascertain  whether  the  alleged  resurrec- 
 tion of  Jesus  be  presented  to  us  as  an  isolated  fact, 
 having  no  moral  bearing,  or  whether  it  is  represented 
 
ON   THE   RESURRECTION   OF  JESUS.  10/ 
 
 as  essentially  possessing  a  moral  value,  not  merely  to 
 Himself,  but  also  to  mankind  in  general. 
 
 We  have  already  hinted  at  this  question,  and  it  is 
 one  of  essential  importance  in  our  inquiry.  We  do 
 not,  you  will  observe,  mean  that  the  reality  of  any 
 fact  whatever  can  be  proved  merely  by  showing  that 
 such  a  fact,  if  real,  possesses  moral  value.  This  is  not 
 at  all  our  argument.  What  we  mean  is  this,  that  such 
 a  fact  as  that  of  a  resurrection  from  the  dead — a  fact 
 manifestly  miraculous — could  not  be  believed  by  us 
 as  having  really  occurred,  unless  it  had  a  moral  value 
 of  the  highest  order.  If  any  person  came  to  us  and 
 said  that  he  had  seen  one  who  had  been  raised  from 
 the  dead,  and  if  this  was  the  whole  of  his  statement — 
 if  the  alleged  fact  was  an  isolated  occurrence,  having 
 no  connection  with  any  declared  moral  purpose  of 
 God,  or  with  man's  highest  interests — then  I  apprehend 
 we  should  be  justified  in  giving  ourselves  no  concern 
 about  the  allegation,  and  would  be  entitled  to  reject 
 the  testimony  as  in  some  way  or  other  originating 
 in  fraud  or  delusion.  The  entire  absence  of  moral 
 value  would,  1  conceive,  more  than  counterbalance  any 
 amount  of  evidence  proposed  to  us  in  the  form  of 
 testimony.  There  is  an  improbability  against  a  mira- 
 culous occurrence  even  after  the  proof  of  testimony 
 has  been  offered,  which  improbability  can  be  counter- 
 balanced only  by  the  moral  purpose  to  the  accom- 
 plishment of  which  the  miracle  is  declared  to  be  sub- 
 servient. If  this  view  is  correct,  we  ought,  previously 
 to  all  inquiry  into  the  evidence  itself,  to  ascertain  this 
 important  preliminary  point.  Now,  the  adversaries  of 
 Christianity  must  themselves  allow  that  the  resurrec- 
 tion of  Jesus,  whether  it  was  real  or  not,  is  presented 
 
I08  LECTURE  .VII. 
 
 to  US  in  the  Gospel — in  the  Christian  scheme — not 
 as  an  isolated  fact,  but  as  essentially  connected  both 
 with  the  high  claims  of  Jesus  himself,  and  with  that 
 scheme  of  salvation  of  which  He  declared  Himself  to  be 
 the  Author.  He  claimed  to  be  the  Son  of  God,  who  for 
 a  definite  design  had  become  the  Son  of  Man.  Now, 
 whilst,  in  consistency  with  this  claim,  He,  as  the  Son 
 of  Man,  might  die,  yet  we  cannot  conceive  that  death 
 should  hold  dominion  over  Him  as  the  Son  of  God. 
 It  is  in  perfect  harmony,  then,  with  this  claim,  that 
 He,  the  Son  of  God,  should  overcome  the  power  of 
 death  and  be  restored  in  His  human  nature  to  life. 
 We  do  not  prove  either  the  truth  of  His  claim  or  the 
 reality  of  His  resurrection  by  means  of  this  harmony 
 between  the  two ;  but  this  harmony  goes  to  show 
 that  the  alleged  fact  of  the  resurrection  has  an  im- 
 portant moral  bearing  in  regard  to  the  person  Himself 
 who  is  said  to  have  been  raised  again. 
 
 But  further,  this  alleged  fact,  the  reality  of  which  is 
 in  question,  is  essentially  connected  with  the  scheme 
 of  salvation  which  Jesus  declared  that  He  came  into 
 the  world  to  accomplish  for  the  human  race.  No  one 
 can  deny  the  prevalence  of  death  in  our  world.  No 
 one  can  deny  that  death,  universally  prevalent,  is 
 looked  upon  by  man  as  an  enemy,  a  tyrant,  the  very 
 king  of  terrors.  No  more  can  any  one  deny  the  uni- 
 versal prevalence  of  sin  ;  and  the  connection  between 
 sin  and  misery  of  every  form  is  most  manifest.  Now, 
 the  Gospel  assumes  and  asserts  as  a  thing  absolutely 
 certain  that  sin  and  death  are  most  closely  connected; 
 that  death  is,  in  short,  the  penalty,  the  just  conse- 
 quence, of  sin  ;  that  "  the  wages  of  sin  is  death  ; "  and 
 that  therefore  the  salvation  of  man  implies  deliverance 
 
ON   THE   RESURRECTION    OF  JESUS.  IO9 
 
 from  death.  And  the  Gospel  represents  the  death  and 
 resurrection  of  Jesus  as  the  means  by  which  God,  in 
 His  infinite  mercy,  has  been  pleased  to  work  out  sal- 
 vation for  the  human  race.  There  can  be  no  question 
 that  such  is  the  view  given  us  in  the  Gospel,  whether 
 that  Gospel  be  from  God  or  not,  respecting  the  death 
 and  the  resurrection  of  Jesus.  He  by  His  death  is  said 
 to  have  died  for  us — to  have  suffered  the  penalty  of 
 death  due  to  us.  He  is  also  said  to  have  risen  again 
 for  us — to  have  secured  by  His  own  resurrection  our 
 resurrection  to  life  everlasting.  Be  these  things  true 
 or  false,  such  is  the  uniform  testimony  of  the  Apostolic 
 writings  respecting  the  moral  value  of  the  death  and 
 resurrection  of  Jesus.  So  close  is  the  connection 
 between  these  alleged  events  and  man's  highest  in- 
 terests, that  Jesus  is  said  to  have  by  His  appearing  in 
 our  world  "  abolished  death,  and  brought  life  and  im- 
 mortality to  light  by  His  gospel." 
 
 Now,  we  beg  your  earnest  attention  to  this  declared 
 view  of  the  moral  value  of  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  ; 
 for  it  is  generally,  and  most  unfairly,  as  we  think, 
 overlooked  or  kept  out  of  sight  by  the  adversaries  of 
 the  Gospel.  They  would  view  the  alleged  resurrec- 
 tion of  Jesus  merely  as  an  isolated  fact — as  an  event 
 which  is  reported  to  have  occurred,  but  which  has  no 
 moral  influence  whatever.  By  thus  isolating  the  fact, 
 they  create  a  prejudice — a  strong  and  natural  preju- 
 dice— against  believing  in  such  a  fact.  Now,  in  order 
 that  the  human  mind  may  believe  in  the  reality  of 
 such  a  fact,  it  must  have  fully  before  it,  not  merely 
 the  external  evidence  attesting  the  reality  of  the  fact, 
 but  the  internal  evidence  also, — that  moral  evidence 
 which  shows  the  fact,  if  real,  to  be  one  of  the  highest 
 
no  LECTURE   VII. 
 
 moral  importance.  It  is  the  combination  of  these  two 
 kinds  of  evidence  which  alone  can  satisfy  our  reason 
 that  such  a  wondrous  fact  did  take  place.  In  such  a 
 case,  the  consideration  of  the  internal  or  moral  evi- 
 dence must  always  precede  that  of  the  external ;  for 
 it  is  the  consideration  of  the  former  which  moves  the 
 mind  to  enter  on  the  consideration  of  the  latter. 
 
 But  such  a  mode  of  procedure,  it  is  said,  brings  a 
 regard  to  our  interests — to  consequences^unduly  into 
 play  in  an  inquiry  which  ought  to  be  conducted  "  in  a 
 perfectly  unprejudiced,  perfectly  decided  spirit,  with- 
 out ambiguity  and  without  reserve."  We  are,  then,  it 
 seems  to  be  inferred,  to  conduct  our  inquiry  with  the 
 same  coolness  and  indifference  to  results  as  if  it  were 
 an  inquiry  into  the  reality  of  some  alleged  physical 
 fact  which  had  no  moral  bearing  whatever.  Now,  we 
 maintain  that,  whilst  we  are  to  proceed  in  our  investi- 
 gation in  the  spirit  here  described,  we  do  so,  not  by 
 keeping  out  of  view  the  essential  data  of  the  problem, 
 but  by  bringing  all  these  together,  and  then  determin- 
 ing the  conclusion  to  which  they  legitimately  lead. 
 Leave  out  the  declared  moral  purpose  to  which  a 
 miracle  is  subservient,  and  you  deal  unfairly  with 
 your  reason  as  well  as  with  your  inquiry  ;  for  a  mir- 
 acle, which  by  hypothesis  implies  an  immediate  inter- 
 vention of  the  Supreme  Being,  does  not  belong  to  the 
 class  of  ordinary  physical  events,  but  is  necessarily  to 
 be  viewed  as  in  connection  with  some  high  moral  end 
 or  other.  Attempt  to  realise  in  your  minds  such  a 
 fact  as  that  of  the  resurrection  of  a  human  body 
 from  the  state  of  death,  as  a  mere  historical  event, 
 without  any  moral  bearing,  and  your  minds  will  refuse, 
 instinctively  refuse,  to  believe  in  the  reality  of  such  a 
 
ON    THE   RESURRECTION    OF  JESUS.  Ill 
 
 fact, — not  because  the  mind  regards  such  an  event  as 
 impossible  with  God,  but  because  it  cannot  believe 
 that  God,  whose  power  is  ever  directed  by  His  wisdom, 
 would  so  intervene,  unless  He  had  some  corresponding 
 moral  end  in  view.  It  is  evidently  most  unfair,  in 
 point  of  mere  argument,  to  ignore,  as  not  essential  to 
 the  inquiry,  the  declared  moral  influence  of  the  alleged 
 resurrection  of  Jesus.  To  do  so  is  to  foreclose  the 
 inquiry.  Whether  this  be  entering  upon  it  "  in  a  per- 
 fectly unprejudiced  spirit,"  you  may  now  judge.  It  is 
 certainly,  we  must  admit,  entering  upon  it  *'  in  a  per- 
 fectly decided  spirit,  without  ambiguity  and  without 
 reserve." 
 
 And  herein  lies,  allow  me  to  assure  you,  the  strength 
 of  the  infidel  argument,  whether  wielded  by  the  pre- 
 judiced but  affectedly  cool  Strauss,  or  by  the  equally 
 prejudiced  but  enthusiastically  warm  Renan.  It  will, 
 when  you  thoroughly  examine  it,  be  found  to  lie  in 
 the  ignoring  of  the  moral  or  spiritual  value  of  the  life 
 of  Jesus — of  His  teaching.  His  example.  His  death, 
 His  resurrection.  His  ascension, — of  His  whole  work 
 as  designed  to  accomplish  an  everlasting  salvation  for 
 us,  perishing  sinners.  May  I  then  exhort  you  to  give 
 your  most  serious  consideration  to  the  view  which  I 
 have  anxiously  laboured  to  set  before  you — a  view 
 which  the  subject  legitimately  requires — a  view  which 
 will  not  prejudice  your  minds  unduly  in  favour  of  the 
 external  evidence  which  confirms  the  reality  of  the 
 resurrection  of  Jesus,  but  only  preserve  you  from 
 unfair  prejudice  against  that  evidence,  and  render 
 you  more  solicitous  to  test  it  by  every  legitimate 
 means  in  your  power.  And  when  at  any  time  you 
 endeavour  to  place  this  external  evidence  before  the 
 
112  LECTURE  VII. 
 
 minds  of  others,  remember  that  it  is  due  to  the  sub- 
 ject and  to  your  fellow-men  to  set  it  before  them  in 
 combination  with  that  moral  evidence  which  is  indis- 
 solubly  connected  with  it ;  and  you  will  then  find 
 that  you  are  wielding  a  combined  argument  which 
 all  the  weapons  of  infidelity  will  fail  to  overturn. 
 
 Having  dwelt  at  such  length  on  the  relation  be- 
 tween the  moral  or  internal,  and  the  external  evidence 
 of  the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  but  not  at  greater  length 
 than  the  importance  of  the  subject  appears  to  me  to 
 demand,  I  must  postpone  entering  on  the  external 
 evidence  itself  till  next  Lecture. 
 
LECTURE   VIII. 
 
 ON    THE    RESURRECTION    OF    JESUS. 
 
 {Continued) 
 
 In  examining  the  external  evidence  in  confirmation 
 of  the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  we  naturally  turn  our 
 attention  first  to  the  Christian  Church,  as  by  its  very 
 existence  and  constitution  bearing  testimony  to  this 
 great  fact. 
 
 It  is  allowed  by  the  adversaries  of  the  Gospel,  and 
 especially  by  those  recent  adversaries  to  whom  in 
 these  Lectures  we  are  specially  referring,  such  as 
 Baur,  Strauss,  and  Renan,  that  the  Christian  Church 
 was  founded  on  the  belief  in  the  reality  of  the  resur- 
 rection, and  that  the  disciples  of  Jesus — those  men 
 who  by  their  teaching  founded  this  Church  —  did 
 themselves  firmly  believe  in  the  reality  of  this  fact. 
 These  are  most  important  admissions  ;  for  the  whole 
 question  is  thus  reduced  to  the  inquiry  whether  these 
 disciples,  these  first  preachers  of  the  Gospel,  were 
 warranted  in  entertaining  the  belief  which  they  pro- 
 fessed. We  might  therefore  at  once  proceed  to  the 
 discussion  of  this  fundamental  point. 
 
 Baur,  perhaps  the  most  learned  of  these  modern 
 adversaries,  endeavours,  in  his  work  on  "  The  Chris- 
 
 H 
 
114  LECTURE  VIII. 
 
 tianity  of  the  First  Three  Centuries,"  to  trace  what  he 
 conceives  to  have  been  the  history  of  the  develop- 
 ment of  the  Christian  Church  ;  and  he  admits  that 
 the  first  disciples  of  Jesus — the  first  propagators  of 
 Christianity — believed  that  Jesus  had  risen  from  the 
 dead,  and  that  the  first  Churches  were  founded  on 
 the  same  belief  He  affirms  that  this  belief  in  the 
 resurrection  of  Jesus  is  that  which  historically  ac- 
 counts for  the  origin  and  rise  of  the  Christian  Church. 
 As  to  his  views  on  the  origin  of  this  belief  in  the 
 minds  of  the  disciples,  these  will  by-and-by  come  to 
 be  considered.  Meantime  it  is  important  for  you  to 
 notice  that  it  is  conceded  by  him  and  others  that  the 
 Christian  Church  was  founded  on  the  belief  that 
 Jesus  had  risen  from  the  dead. 
 
 Referring  to  the  opinion  of  Baur  on  this  subject, 
 Strauss,  who  is  far  from  being  pleased  with  Baur's 
 avowed  hesitation  to  pronounce  decidedly  on  the 
 nature  of  that  belief  which  the  first  disciples  evidently 
 entertained,  thus  remarks  : — 
 
 "  It  is  something  very  different " — different,  he  means, 
 from  what  he  had  previously  said  respecting  this  belief, — 
 "  and  said  by  Baur  in  a  genuinely  historical  spirit,  when  he 
 states,  in  connection  with  the  same  subject,  that  the  neces- 
 sary historical  hypothesis  for  all  that  follows  is  not  so  much 
 the  real  element  in  the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  as  the  faith  in 
 it.  That,"  adds  Strauss,  "  is  a  hint  for  the  apologists  who 
 would  like  to  persuade  the  world  that  if  the  reality  of  the 
 resurrection  is  not  recognised,  the  origin  and  rise  of  the 
 Christian  Church  cannot  be  explained.  No,  says  the  his- 
 torian, and  rightly,  only  thus  much  need  be  acknowledged, 
 that  the  disciples  firmly  believed  that  Jesus  had  arisen ;  this 
 is  perfectly  sufficient  to  make  their  further  progress  and 
 
ON   THE  RESURRECTION   OF  JESUS.  II5 
 
 operations  intelligible ;  what  that  belief  rested  upon,  what 
 there  was  real  in  the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  is  an  open  ques- 
 tion, which  the  investigator  may  answer  one  way  or  another 
 without  the  origin  of  Christianity  being  thereby  made  more 
 or  less  conceivable." — Vol.  i.  p.  398-9. 
 
 Now,  it  is  to  be  admitted  that  there  is  a  certain 
 amount  of  truth  in  these  statements,  and  they  show 
 with  what  extreme  caution  we  ought  to  proceed,  lest, 
 in  our  haste  to  arrive  at  conclusions,  we  expose  the 
 truth  to  the  taunts  of  its  adversaries.  Apart  from  the 
 circumstances  of  the  case  before  us,  it  is  possible, 
 though  extremely  difficult,  to  conceive  that  the  belief 
 which  the  disciples  firmly  held,  and  which  through 
 their  testimony  to  this  belief  others  were  led  to  enter- 
 tain, was  only  one  of  those  strange  delusions  which 
 the  human  mind  is  at  times  so  easily  induced  to  form. 
 Such  a  thing,  we  say,  is  possible ;  and  the  question, 
 therefore,  as  to  the  real  nature  and  origin  of  such  a 
 belief  may  be  regarded  as  so  far  an  open  question. 
 Apart,  as  we  have  said,  from  the  peculiar  circum- 
 stances of  the  case,  whether  as  affecting  the  belief  of 
 the  first  converts  or  of  the  first  disciples  themselves, 
 we  do  not  immediately  conclude  from  the  mere  exist- 
 ence of  this  belief  that  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  must 
 have  been  a  real,  an  objective  fact.  But  it  must  be 
 conceded  to  us  that  such  a  belief  on  the  part  of  these 
 disciples,  embraced  also  by  others  to  whom  they 
 declared  their  belief,  is,  so  far  as  our  question  is  con- 
 cerned, in  favour  of  the  reality  of  the  alleged  fact. 
 Let  the  evidential  weight  of  this  belief  be  what  it  may, 
 its  weight  is  altogether  on  one  side — in  one  scale  of 
 the  balance.     That,  at  least,  is  certain. 
 
 And  here  we  have  to  complain  most  seriously  of 
 
Il6  LECTURE   VIII. 
 
 what  we  cannot  but  term  unfair  treatment  of  this 
 momentous  question  on  the  part  of  the  opponents  of 
 the  Gospel.  We  are  in  possession  of  no  small  amount 
 of  information  from  various  sources  respecting  the 
 circumstances  under  which  the  first  disciples,  who,  it 
 is  allowed,  "  firmly  believed  in  the  resurrection  of 
 Jesus,"  made  known  their  belief  throughout  the  world, 
 and  also  respecting  the  circumstances  under  which 
 the  first  Churches  were  planted.  We  know  for  certain 
 that  these  disciples  did  not  believe  in  the  resurrection 
 of  Jesus  as  a  mere  isolated  fact,  but  in  connection 
 with  a  system  of  religion,  and  especially  with  a  scheme 
 of  salvation,  of  which  this  alleged  fact  was  declared  to 
 be  a  proof  and  an  essential  part ;  and,  further,  that 
 these  disciples  proclaimed  their  belief  and  confirmed 
 their  testimony  in  a  manner  which  left  no  room  for 
 doubt  as  to  their  own  sincerity.  We  have  unques- 
 tionable evidence  to  prove  that,  notwithstanding  the 
 opposition  everywhere  offered  to  them,  these  first 
 preachers  of  the  Gospel  persevered  in  their  efforts  to 
 make  known  the  name  of  Jesus  in  every  land  ;  that 
 within  a  few  years  after  they  entered  on  their  labours, 
 Christian  Churches  were  formed  in  all  the  chief  towns 
 of  the  Roman  Empire,  and  even  in  Rome  itself;  and 
 that  in  a  short  time  the  most  terrible  persecutions 
 were  raised  against  the  Christians.  These  are  facts 
 fully  established  by  heathen  as  well  as  by  Christian 
 authors ;  and  these  facts  ought  unquestionably  to 
 enter  into  our  estimate  of  the  nature  and  value  of 
 that  belief,  which  the  first  converts,  and  especially  the 
 first  disciples,  held  and  professed  respecting  the  re- 
 surrection of  Jesus.  Assuredly  it  is  not  fair  in  point 
 of  mere  argument  to  overlook  entirely,  or  to  regard 
 
ON   THE   RESURRECTION   OF  JESUS.  11/ 
 
 as  of  little  moment,  such  momentous  facts,  when  we 
 would  ascertain  whether  that  belief  rested  on  valid 
 grounds  or  not.  It  was  not  the  mere  belief  of  the 
 disciples  in  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  which  moved 
 them  to  such  unwonted  efforts  and  sacrifices  of  tem- 
 poral interests,  even  to  the  sacrifice  of  life  itself;  nor 
 was  it  the  mere  profession  of  this  belief  which  operated 
 so  powerfully  on  the  minds  of  others.  It  was  this 
 belief,  in  connection  with  the  glad  tidings  of  salvation 
 which  they  had  to  communicate,  that  formed  their 
 chief  motive ;  and  it  was  this  belief,  as  so  connected, 
 and  as  manifested  in  the  manner  in  which  it  was  done, 
 that  constrained  others  to  accept  their  testimony  and 
 to  believe  in  Jesus.  When,  then,  we  take  into  con- 
 sideration all  the  essential  circumstances  of  the  case, 
 we  seem  to  have  the  strongest  moral  evidence  which 
 can  fairly  be  required,  that  it  was  no  mere  dogma,  as 
 is  said,  but  a  fact,  that  was  the  object  of  the  disciples' 
 belief,  when  they  bore  testimony  to  the  resurrection 
 of  Jesus.  It  is  morally  impossible,  we  apprehend,  to 
 conceive  that,  had  the  fact  not  been  real,  men  could 
 have  been  found  to  cherish  such  a  belief  as  they  did, 
 and  to  devote  themselves  amidst  such  privations,  in- 
 sults, and  even  tortures,  to  the  propagation  of  their 
 story.  And  had  it  not  been  manifest  that  these 
 devoted  and  self-sacrificing  men  thoroughly  believed 
 in  the  resurrection  as  a  reality,  we  can  give  no  rational 
 account  of  the  origin  and  progress  of  the  Church  and 
 of  those  institutions  which  either  directly  or  indirectly 
 witness  to  the  death  and  resurrection  of  Jesus.  Hence, 
 notwithstanding  the  assertion  of  Strauss,  we  maintain 
 that,  when  we  look  at  all  the  circumstances  of  the 
 case,  the  apologists  are  right  in  trying  "  to  persuade 
 
Il8  LECTURE   VIII. 
 
 the  world,  that  if  the  reality  of  the  resurrection  is 
 not  recognised,  the  origin  and  rise  of  the  Christian 
 Church  cannot  be  explained."  It  is  easy,  indeed,  for 
 him  and  his  fellow-labourer  Baur,  to  distinguish  in 
 general  between  the  belief  existing  in  the  mind  and 
 the  reality — the  objective  reality — of  the  thing  be- 
 lieved. But  Baur  himself  confessed  his  inability  as 
 an  historian  to  pronounce  decidedly  on  the  real  nature 
 of  the  alleged  resurrection,  and  that  it  was  only  as  a 
 philosopher — that  is,  in  his  sense,  as  one  who  denies 
 the  "possibility  of  a  miraculous  fact — that  he  could 
 reject  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  as  an  objective  occur- 
 rence. Baur  thus  acknowledged  that  his  denial  of  the 
 resurrection  as  a  reality  rested  not  upon  historical  but 
 on  philosophical  grounds — that  is,  on  an  assumption 
 which  he  is  pleased  to  style  philosophical,  but  which 
 in  truth  is  a  mere  begging  of  the  question.  The  dis- 
 tinction referred  to  is  no  doubt  to  be  regarded  as  in 
 general  a  real  distinction  ;  and  as  there  are  cases  in 
 which  the  firmest  belief  existing  in  the  mind  does  not 
 warrant  the  conclusion  that  the  object  believed  in  has 
 a  reality  beyond  the  mind  itself,  so  there  are  cases  in 
 which  the  mental  belief  is  a  sufficient  warrant  for  the 
 external  reality  of  the  object ;  and  if  ever  there  was 
 such  a  case,  that  of  the  first  disciples  was  undoubt- 
 edly one  ;  for,  under  all  the  circumstances,  their  belief 
 in  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  could  not  have  existed 
 unless  that  resurrection  had  been  a  real,  historical 
 fact.  The  truth  of  this  view  of  the  nature  of  their 
 belief  will  be  more  and  more  confirmed  as  we  pro- 
 ceed. 
 
 The  question  now  before  us,  then,  respects  the  origin 
 of  the  belief  which  it  is  admitted  the  disciples  of  Jesus 
 
ON   THE   RESURRECTION   OF  JESUS.  II9 
 
 entertained  in  His   resurrection.     Now,  you  will  ob- 
 serve that  there  are  two^suppositions,  otherwise  pos- 
 sible as  suppositions,  which  are  excluded  by  this  ad- 
 mission.    The  one  is  that  of  fraud  on  the  part  of  the 
 disciples;  and  in  truth  this  is  a  supposition,  which, 
 though  it  has  had  its  advocates,  is  under  the  circum- 
 stances scarcely  worthy  of  notice,  not  to  say  refuta- 
 tion.    That  any  number  of  men  could  have  resolved 
 to  go  forth  among  the  nations  with  the  view  of  estab- 
 lishing in  the  world  a  religion  such  as  that  of  Christi- 
 anity, embracing  as  it  does  a  system  of  the  highest 
 practical   morality,  of  which  a  regard   to  truth,  jus- 
 tice, and  benevolence  are  the  very  elements — that,  in 
 order  to  accomplish  their  enterprise,  they  should  con- 
 sciously agree  to  proclaim  this  religion  in  the  name  of 
 One  who  had  been  publicly  put  to  death,  but  whom 
 they  resolved   to   represent   falsely  as    having   risen 
 again — and  that,  in  prosecuting  an  enterprise  distin- 
 guished by  such  contradictory  features  as  truth  and 
 conscious  falsehood,  they  should  one  and  all  submit 
 to  the  severest  privations  and  sufferings — is  indeed  a 
 supposition  which  we  may  pronounce  morally  impos- 
 sible, and  which  may  therefore  be  set  aside  without 
 further  consideration.     In  whatever  the  belief  of  the 
 disciples  originated,  it  assuredly  did  not  originate  in 
 fraud.     Indeed,  to  speak  of  belief  on  their  part  on 
 such  a  supposition  would  be  a  manifest  contradiction. 
 The  other  supposition  alluded  to,  as  excluded  by 
 the  admission  of  their  belief  in   the  resurrection  of 
 Jesus,  is  one  which,  strange  to  say,  has  found  advo- 
 cates even  among  professed   friends  of  the   Gospel. 
 These   persons,   having   formed    erroneous  views   re- 
 specting the  possibility  of  miracles,  have  laboured  at 
 
120  LECTURE  VIII. 
 
 the  manifestly  impracticable  task  of  vindicating  Chris- 
 tianity as  they  view  it  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  ex- 
 plaining away  the  narratives  of  miracles  on  the  other. 
 They  have  not  seen  that  whilst  miracles  are  impossible 
 to  the  power  of  man  and  to  the  operation  of  mere 
 physical  causes,  they  are  still  possible  to  God  ;  and, 
 further,  they  have  not  seen  that  since  a  divine  revela- 
 tion is  itself  miraculous,  visible  miracles  must  consti- 
 tute its  proper  evidence  ;  but  looking  on  the  recorded 
 miracles  of  Jesus  as  really  hindrances  to  faith  in  Him, 
 they  have  sought  by  the  strangest  modes  of  interpre- 
 tation to  bring  all  these  miracles  within  the  sphere  of 
 ordinary  events.  Hence,  in  respect  to  the  alleged 
 resurrection  of  Jesus,  these  persons  endeavour  to  make 
 out  that  His  death  upon  the  cross  was  not  a  real 
 death— that  though  the  visible  signs  of  life  had  ceased, 
 the  vital  powers  had  really  not  become  extinct,  and 
 that  after  His  body  was  taken  down  from  the  cross 
 and  laid  in  the  tomb  according  to  the  record,  He  re- 
 vived and  was  again  seen  alive  by  His  disciples.  Jesus 
 then,  thus  restored  from  a  swoon,  lived  for  some  time 
 among  His  disciples,  and  soon  after  died  a  natural 
 death  ;  after  which  event  these  disciples,  looking  upon 
 His  revival  as  a  real  resurrection,  went  forth  and  pro- 
 claimed the  Gospel  to  all  nations,  asserting  at  the 
 same  time  that  He  had  risen  from  the  dead.  The 
 very  statement  of  such  a  supposition  destroys  itself 
 It  would  be  difficult,  indeed,  to  heap  together  a  greater 
 mass  of  manifest  absurdities.  How  could  sane  men 
 have  regarded  such  a  revival  as  a  real  resurrection  } 
 How,  when  He  afterwards  died  a  natural  death,  could 
 men,  not  bereft  of  their  senses,  have  believed  that  He 
 was  still  alive .''     How  could  any  man  in  such  a  case 
 
ON   THE   RESURRECTION   OF  JESUS.  121 
 
 have  borne  testimony  to  a  real  resurrection  and  been 
 ready  to  suffer  for  such  testimony  ?  The  supposition 
 is  wholly  worthless,  and  may  therefore  be  at  once 
 dismissed. 
 
 There  remain  now  only  two  possible  suppositions, 
 and  to  these  we  must  carefully  direct  your  atten- 
 tion. \  The  one  is,  that  the  belief  of  the  disciples 
 in  th  resurrection  of  Jesus  was  a  belief  which 
 had  n  other  ground  than  that  of  a  mere  impres- 
 sion p.  )duced  in  some  way  or  other  upon  their 
 minds—  an  impression  which,  though  it  necessarily, 
 like  all  impressions,  had  a  subjective  reality,  yet  had 
 no  corresponding  objective  reality.  The  other  is,  that 
 this  belief,  whilst  in  itself  a  subjective  impression, 
 originated  in  an  objective  reality.  In  the  one  case 
 the  disciples  dreamed  or  fancied  that  they  saw  Jesus 
 risen.  In  the  other  they  really  saw  Him  risen.  And 
 the  question  is.  Which  of  these  suppositions  is  the 
 one  borne  out  by  the  facts  so  far  as  these  are  known 
 to  us .'' 
 
 In  order  to  determine  this  question  we  must  go  to 
 the  New  Testament  writings,  where  alone  the  facts 
 are  to  be  found  which  can  enable  us  to  answer  the 
 question.  As  we  formerly  noticed,  the  greatest  efforts 
 have  been  made  by  the  adversaries  of  the  Gospel  to 
 throw  discredit  on  these  writings,  so  that  their  testi- 
 mony may  be  of  as  little  avail  as  possible.  Theories 
 beyond  number  have  been  framed  to  give  some  other 
 account  of  the  origin  of  these  writings  than  that 
 which  all  the  external  and  internal  evidence  known  to 
 us  warrants.  These  theories  are  discordant  among 
 themselves,  and  we  might  leave  them  all  alone  until 
 their  authors  should  agree  among  themselves,  and  tell 
 
122  LECTURE  VIII. 
 
 US  with  some  measure  at  least,  of  unanimity,  in  what 
 way  and  by  whom  the  Gospel  narratives,  the  Apostolic 
 Epistles,  and  the  other  writings  were  formed.  There 
 is  another  feature  besides  that  of  discord  which  char- 
 acterises these  theories  :  they  all  suppose  a  degree  of 
 artifice  in  the  composition  of  the  writings  which  is 
 truly  amazing — equal  to  the  ingenuity,  and  that  is  not 
 saying  little,  displayed  by  the  authors  themselves  of 
 these  various  and  discordant  theories.  Whenever  men 
 reject  the  obvious  cause  of  any  phenomenon,  they  are 
 driven  to  exert  their  ingenuity  to  give  some  plausible 
 account  of  it.  Such  we  confidently  affirm  is  the  real 
 state  of  the  case  as  respects  the  several  documents 
 composing  our  New  Testament.  These  documents, 
 written  by  the  authors  to  whom  they  are  ascribed, 
 were  composed  at  different  times  and  in  different 
 places — composed,  indeed,  as  the  exigencies  of  the 
 Christian  Church  seemed  to  require ;  they,  therefore, 
 existed  at  first  as  so  many  separate  documents  ;  but, 
 as  was  formerly  observed,  they  were,  with  a  very  few 
 exceptions,  from  the  very  first  public  documents. 
 They  were  meant  to  be  such,  and  were  treated  as 
 such  by  the  respective  Churches  into  whose  possession 
 they  first  came.  In  course  of  time,  as  might  natu- 
 rally be  expected,  collections  of  these  documents 
 were  formed,  some  containing  more  and  some  fewer  of 
 the  whole  number  finally  brought  together.  There  is 
 evidence  to  show  that  the  Church  in  its  various  sec- 
 tions watched  over  these  collections  with  jealous  care. 
 Though  fictitious  or  unauthenticated  documents  did 
 in  course  of  time  appear,  and  appear  under  Apostolic 
 names,  yet  these  were  always  either  wholly  rejected 
 by  the  Church,  or  kept  separate  from  the  really  au- 
 
ON   THE   RESURRECTION   OF  JESUS.  1 23 
 
 thoritative  writings.     The  origin  and  authority  of  our 
 four  Gospels,  and  of  by  far  the  greater  number  of  the 
 other  writings  composing  our  collected  New  Testa- 
 ment, were  never  questioned  by  any  portion   of  the 
 Church  ;    and   there  is   no  valid   reason  assigned  by 
 any  of  the  recent  adversaries  of  Christianity,  to  show 
 that    the  Christian    Church,  from  east    to  west   and 
 from  north  to  south,  erred  in  its  unanimous  decision. 
 What,  then,  is  the  reason  why  such  efforts  are  made 
 to  lessen,  if  not  to  destroy,  the  value  of  these  pre- 
 cious writings  ?      The    main    reason    is    plain :    it   is 
 avowed — openly  avowed.     If  these  writings  are  what 
 they  profess   to   be,  and   what  the  Christian  Church 
 from   the   first   held    them   to  be,  then   the  life  and 
 ministry  of  Jesus  must  have  been  such  as  is  recorded 
 in   them.       Miracles,  real    miracles,  must   have   been 
 wrought  by  Him.     Not  only  His  death,  but  His  re-  ■- 
 surrection   also,   must  have   been   real.      Christianity 
 must    then    be    neither   a   mythical    delusion   nor  a 
 cunningly  devised  fable  :  it  must  be  true.     And  then 
 where  is  the  so-called  philosophy  ?  where  is  the  con- 
 clusion that  a  miracle  is  impossible  ?  that  the  life  of 
 Jesus,  when  critically  discussed,  must  be  explained  by 
 ordinary  historical  laws  ?  that  there  is  no  future  ex- 
 istence  to    man  ^    yea,  that   there   is    no    real   God  ? 
 nothing  in  existence   but  this  visible,  this    material, 
 this  ever-changing  scene  of  things — this  eternal  move- 
 ment of  material  forces  ?     But  this  philosophy  must 
 be  maintained — things  shall  be  as  it  decrees  them  to 
 be  ;  and,  therefore,  these  writings,  which  condemn  this 
 philosophy  and  tell  us  about  a  God,  an  immortality,  a 
 salvation — which  tell  us  that  there  is  a  supernatural 
 order  to  which  this  natural,  this  visible  order  is  sub- 
 
124  LECTURE  VIII. 
 
 ordinate,  must  be  decried  and  rejected  as  writings 
 which  were  not  written  by  their  alleged  authors,  but 
 appeared  at  a  later  date,  though  they,  the  opponents 
 of  the  Gospel,  know  not  when  ;  and  were  composed  by 
 men,  they  know  not  whom,  and  acknowledged  by  the 
 whole  Church  to  be  what  they  were  not,  they  know 
 not  how.  Such,  I  affirm,  is  the  basis  of  all  these 
 theories  which  go  to  disprove  the  genuineness  and 
 authenticity  of  the  New  Testament  writings.  The 
 basis  is  a  foregone  conclusion,  and  it  is  worthless  as 
 the  basis  of  a  real  argument. 
 
 As  we  formerly  remarked,  it  would  be  impossible 
 for  us  at  present  to  enter  specially  into  this  subject. 
 Assuming,  then,  the  writings  of  the  New  Testament 
 to  be  what  they  profess  to  be  and  what  they  have 
 from  the  first  been  held  to  be,  and  the  contrary  of 
 which  no  critic,  be  he  a  Baur  or  a  Strauss  or  a  Renan, 
 has  yet  established  except  on  the  untenable  basis  of  a 
 petitio  principii,  we  proceed  with  our  great  question — 
 which  is  to  determine  whether  the  belief  of  the  dis- 
 ciples in  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  was  belief  in  a  mere 
 dream,  in  a  delusion,  or  belief  in  a  reality,  in  an  objec- 
 tive fact.  So  far  as  our  main  purpose  at  present  is 
 concerned,  this  question  may  be  soon  settled. 
 
 Not  one  of  the  adversaries  of  the  Gospel,  between 
 whom  and  us  there  is  now  any  argument,  denies  the 
 reality  of  the  death  of  Jesus  upon  the  cross  ;  and  we 
 appeal  to  the  whole  New  Testament  in  general  in  con- 
 firmation of  the  statement  that  His  death  and  His  re- 
 surrection are  represented  as  facts  of  the  same  order. 
 The  objective  reality  of  the  one  is  as  plainly  declared 
 as  that  of  the  other.  The  same  Jesus  died  and  rose 
 again.     It  is  unnecessary  to  adduce  particular  pas- 
 
ON   THE   RESURRECTION   OF  JESUS.  1 25 
 
 sages  to  this  effect ;  for  no  one  who  reads  the  New 
 Testament  with  the  slightest  attention  can  for  a 
 moment  doubt  our  statement.  Mere  visions,  as  they 
 are  termed,  are  spoken  of  in  the  New  Testament,  but 
 never  is  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  described  as  any- 
 thing else  than  a  real  fact.  "  Who  is  he  that  con- 
 demneth  ?"  says  an  Apostle  ;  "  It  is  Christ  that  died, 
 yea  rather,  that  is  risen  again,  who  is  even  at  the 
 right  hand  of  God,  who  also  maketh  intercession  for 
 us."  And  the  same  Apostle  declares  faith  in  the 
 reality  of  His  resurrection  to  be  essential  to  our  sal- 
 vation :  "  If  thou  shalt  confess  with  thy  mouth  the 
 Lord  Jesus,  and  shalt  believe  in  thine  heart  that  God 
 hath  raised  Him  from  the  dead,  thou  shalt  be  saved." 
 It  is  declared  to  have  been  an  essential  qualification 
 of  an  Apostle  to  be  able  to  bear  witness  to  this  great 
 fact.  "  Wherefore,"  said  the  Apostle  Peter  on  a  me- 
 morable occasion,  "of  these  men  which  have  com- 
 panied  with  us  all  the  time  that  the  Lord  Jesus  went 
 in  and  out  among  us,  beginning  from  the  baptism  of 
 John,  unto  that  same  day  that  He  was  taken  up  from 
 us,  must  one  be  ordained  to  be  a  witness  with  us  of 
 His  resurrection."  In  truth,  the  resurrection  of  Jesus 
 as  a  reality  was  the  central  subject  of  the  Apostolic 
 teaching,  as  it  is  the  foundation  of  our  belief  in  His 
 divine  claims  and  the  basis  of  all  our  hope  in  Him. 
 Without  further  argument,  we  maintain  that  the  uni- 
 form general  testimony  of  the  whole  New  Testament 
 is  to  the  reality  of  the  fact. 
 
 But  we  have  also  the  reality  of  this  fact  specially 
 proved  and  insisted  upon.  And,  first,  we  appeal  to  the 
 testimony  of  the  Apostle  Paul  as  recorded  in  his  First 
 Epistle  to  the  Church  at  Corinth.     We  appeal  to  this 
 
126  LECTURE  VIII. 
 
 Epistle  first  of  all,  because  it  is  one  of  the  few  docu- 
 ments which  even  the  most  advanced  school  of  scep- 
 tical criticism  has  allowed  to  be  genuine.  And  we 
 appeal  to  St  Paul's  testimony  for  another  special  rea- 
 son, because  attempts  have  been  made  to  support  the 
 theory  of  mere  subjective  impression  by  reference  to 
 his  words.  In  the  15th  chapter  of  that  Epistle  the 
 Apostle  Paul  combats  a  false  doctrine,  which  had  crept 
 into  the  Church  at  Corinth,  respecting  the  resurrec- 
 tion of  the  dead.  This  false  doctrine  evidently  was 
 that  there  was  to  be  no  real  resurrection  of  the  dead, 
 but  that  the  only  resurrection  to  be  looked  for  was  a 
 resurrection  of  the  soul,  so  to  speak,  in  the  present 
 life.  The  resurrection  of  the  body  was  the  doctrine 
 which  was  assailed.  Now,  observe  that  the  main 
 purpose  of  the  Apostle  in  this  chapter  is  to  expose 
 this  erroneous  view  respecting  the  resurrection  of  the 
 body.  He  does  this  by  first  insisting  on  the  real  re- 
 surrection of  the  body  of  Jesus.  His  main  purpose 
 is  not  to  establish  this  latter  fact ;  but  by  means  of 
 this  fact,  which  all  professed  to  believe,  to  refute  the 
 error  respecting  the  general  resurrection.  And  his 
 argument  is,  that  if  Jesus  really  rose  from  the  dead, 
 so  shall  those  who  sleep  in  Jesus  rise  ;  whereas,  if 
 believers  who  die  are  not  to  be  raised,  it  would  follow 
 that  Jesus  did  not  rise — a  conclusion  which,  since 
 Jesus  did  rise,  would  amount  to  a  rednctio  ad  absiirdiim. 
 It  is  only,  then,  for  the  sake  of  his  argument  that  he 
 refers  to  the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  and  shows  its 
 reality  by  appealing  to  the  sensible  evidence  which 
 established  it.  The  idea  that  his  words  may  imply  a 
 mere  subjective  vision  is  altogether  untenable,  for  his 
 argument  demands  the  objective  reality  of  the  fact. 
 
I 
 
 ON   THE   RESURRECTION   OF  JESUS.  12/ 
 
 No  one  who  had  not  a  foregone  conclusion  In  his 
 mind  could  possibly  suppose  that  a  mere  subjective 
 vision  was  all  that  the  Apostle's  words  can  mean.  He 
 appeals  to  the  sensible  evidence  given  on  various 
 occasions  and  to  different  persons  in  confirmation  of 
 the  reality  of  the  fact.  "  For  I  delivered  unto  you,"  he 
 says,  "  first  of  all  that  which  I  also  received,  how  that 
 Christ  died  for  our  sins  according  to  the  Scriptures  ; 
 and  that  He  was  buried,  and  that  He  rose  again  the 
 third  day  according  to  the  Scriptures."  Observe  that 
 the  death  and  burial  and  resurrection  of  Christ  are 
 all  described  as  of  the  same  order  of  facts.  All  were 
 real  or  all  were  visionary.  There  is  no  distinction, 
 and  there  can  be  none.  They  are  all  real  facts.  "  And 
 that  He  was  seen" — Seen!  how  .-^  evidently  not,  as  is 
 said,  in  a  mere  subjective  vision,  but  as  an  objective, 
 living,  real  Being  ; — seen  with  the  bodily  eye — "  seen 
 of  Cephas,"  that  is,  Peter — ''  then  of  the  twelve,"  as 
 the  eleven  were  still  termed ;  "  after  that.  He  was 
 seen  of  above  five  hundred  brethren  at  once"  (how 
 could  this  be  if  the  vision  was  merely  subjective  .'^), 
 "  of  whom  the  greater  part  remain  unto  this  present, 
 but  some  are  fallen  asleep.  After  that.  He  was  seen 
 of  James  :  then  of  all  the  Apostles.  And  last  of  all," 
 he  adds,  "  He  was  seen  of  me  also,  as  of  one  born  out 
 of  due  time."  It  is  argued  that  this  vision  of  Paul's  was 
 entirely  subjective,  and  that  therefore  the  other  visions 
 spoken  of  were  of  the  same  character.  But  such  is 
 not  the  meaning  of  the  Apostle.  He  saw  and  heard 
 the  risen  Lord.  He  saw  at  least  the  objective  mani- 
 festation of  His  glory  and  heard  His  voice.  He  had, 
 consequently,  sensible  evidence  that  Jesus,  who  was 
 once  crucified,  was    now    alive.     Therefore,  whatever 
 
128  LECTURE   VIII. 
 
 peculiar  distinction  may  be  drawn  under  the  circum- 
 stances between  the  sensible  evidence  given  to  Paul, 
 and  that  which  was  given  to  the  Apostles  and  others 
 who  saw  Jesus  on  earth  after  His  resurrection,  he  had,  as 
 well  as  they,  sensible  evidence  that  Jesus  was  now  alive, 
 and  alive  in  glory  ;  and  therefore  he  could  justly  say  of 
 himself,  as  well  as  of  them,  that  he  had  seen  the  Lord. 
 In  the  1 2th  verse  we  have  his  argument:  "  Now,  if 
 Christ  be  preached  that  He  rose  from  the  dead,  how 
 say  some  among  you  that  there  is  no  resurrection  of 
 the  dead  ?  "  The  objective  reality  of  Christ's  resurrec- 
 tion is  assumed  as  the  ordinary  subject  of  Christian 
 teaching ;  and  it  is  adduced  as  overturning  the  erro- 
 neous doctrine  which  some  were  advancing  that  there 
 is  no  resurrection  of  the  dead.  *'  But  if,"  he  adds, 
 "  there  be  no  resurrection  of  the  dead,  then  is  Christ 
 not  risen."  The  two  doctrines  are  inseparably  con- 
 nected. And  this  verse  contains  the  reductio  ad  ab- 
 surdimiy  for  the  very  persons  who  introduced  the 
 erroneous  doctrine  which  the  Apostle  is  combating 
 admitted  that  Christ  had  risen.  The  Apostle's  argu- 
 ment is  just  this  :  the  reality  of  Christ's  resurrection 
 must  be  denied,  if  you  deny  the  reality  of  the  resur- 
 rection of  the  dead.  And  then  he  goes  on  to  show 
 further  consequences  which  would  follow  from  the 
 supposition  of  Christ's  resurrection  not  having  been 
 real.  "  And  if  Christ  be  not  risen,  then  is  our  preach- 
 ing vain,  and  your  faith  is  also  vain."  If  there  was 
 no  reality  in  Christ's  resurrection,  the  whole  Gospel 
 which  we  preach  collapses,  and  your  faith  is  utterly 
 vain.  "  Yea,  and  we  " — we  the  Apostles — "  are  found 
 false  witnesses  of  God  ;  because  we  have  testified  of 
 God  that  He  raised  up  Christ,  whom  He  raised  not 
 
ON  THE  RESURRECTION  OF  JESUS.  1 29 
 
 up,  if  SO  be  that  the  dead  rise  not.  For  if  the  dead 
 rise  not,  then  is  not  Christ  raised"  Is  this  hke  the 
 language  of  a  man  who  had  only  experienced  a  sub- 
 jective impression  ?  What  clearer  and  stronger  lan- 
 guage could  have  been  used  by  one  when  insisting  on 
 the  reality  of  what  he  testified  ?  His  argument,  as  I 
 have  repeatedly  said,  is  in  the  form  of  a  redtictio  ad 
 absurdum,  and  he  continues  it  further.  "  And  if  Christ 
 be  not  raised,  your  faith  is  vain  ;  ye  are  yet  in  your 
 sins."  There  is,  on  this  supposition,  no  salvation  re- 
 vealed. Mankind  are  still  under  the  guilt  and  domin- 
 ion of  sin.  "  Then  they  also  which  are  fallen  asleep 
 in  Christ  are  perished."  Those  who  died  in  the  faith 
 of  Christ,  and  in  the  hope  of  a  resurrection  to  eternal 
 life,  are  in  the  same  state  of  condemnation  with  others. 
 And  further,  "  if  in  this  life  only  we  have  hope  in 
 Christ,  we  are  of  all  men  most  miserable."  For  we 
 renounce  the  pleasures  of  a  present  life,  such  as  they 
 are,  and  we  endure  real  privations  and  sufferings, 
 solely  because  of  our  faith  in  Christ — a  faith  which,  on 
 the  supposition  that  He  did  not  rise  from  the  dead,  is 
 utterly  vain.  Observe  here  the  thoroughly  practical 
 sense  of  the  Apostle.  He  was  no  blind  or  wild  fanatic. 
 He  was  in  full  possession  of  his  faculties,  and  of  what 
 we  term  "common  sense,"  He  had  no  relish  for 
 mere  suffering,  and  he  would  not  have  submitted  to 
 such  a  life  of  privation  as  that  which  he  and  his 
 fellow-labourers  in  the  Gospel  endured,  if  he  had  had 
 the  slightest  suspicion  that  his  faith  did  not  rest  on 
 solid  ground.  But  it  did  rest  on  such  ground  ;  for  he 
 thus  concludes  his  argument,  "  But  now  is  Christ 
 risen  from  the  dead,  and  become  the  first-fruits  of 
 them  that  slept."     The  reality  of  Christ's  resurrection 
 
 I 
 
130  LECTURE  VIII. 
 
 is  all  along  the  basis  of  his  argument ;  and  just  as  the 
 first-fruits  are  the  pledge  of  the  coming  harvest,  so  is 
 Christ's  real  resurrection  the  pledge  of  the  reality  of 
 the  coming  resurrection  of  all  His  people. 
 
 Strauss  labours  hard  to  show  that,  when  we  com- 
 pare the  passage  on  which  we  have  commented,  with 
 the  threefold  account  given  in  the  Book  of  Acts 
 respecting  the  appearance  of  Jesus  to  Paul,  and  also 
 with  other  statements  in  his  Epistles  referring  to  cer- 
 tain visions  with  which  he  says  he  was  favoured,  we 
 have  no  valid  reason  for  concluding  that  the  special 
 appearance,  mentioned  in  our  passage  and  elsewhere 
 detailed,  was  anything  else  than  a  mere  mental  im- 
 pression, occasioned  by  the  peculiar  state  of  Paul's 
 mind,  and  by  the  circumstances  in  which  he  was  at 
 the  time  placed.  Strauss  further  asserts  that  as  Paul 
 in  this  passage  regards  the  appearances  to  Cephas, 
 to  James,  to  the  Twelve,  and  to  the  more  than  five 
 hundred  brethren,  as  ideatical  in  kind  with  the  one  to 
 himself — so  we  can  only  infer  that  all  these  appear- 
 ances were  entirely  subjective,  and  to  be  traced  to 
 the  power  of  imagination  under  highly  exciting  cir- 
 cumstances. We  cannot  enter  minutely  into  the 
 several  accounts  given  of  the  appearance  of  Jesus  to 
 Paul,  nor  is  it  necessary  for  us  to  do  so  at  present. 
 It  is  admitted  that  such  impressions  are  possible,  and 
 we  also  maintain  that  it  is  in  the  power  of  God  to 
 favour  His  servants  with  what  may  be  termed  ''super- 
 natural visions."  He  has  access  to  the  human  mind, 
 and  may,  if  He  wills,  employ  its  powers  in  such  a  way 
 that  truth  may  be  immediately  revealed,  or  a  vision 
 of  some  scene  immediately  produced.  This  is  a 
 subject  of   most   interesting  and   important  inquiry, 
 
ON    THE    RESURRECTION   OF  JESUS.  I3I 
 
 but  it  is  not  necessary  for  us  to  discuss  it  at  present. 
 We  observe,  however,  that  such  supernatural  visions — 
 internal  miracles,  as  they  may  be  termed — are  very 
 different  in  their  nature  from  external  miracles,  which 
 are  objects  of  distinct  sensible  perception.  And  the 
 question  comes  to  be,  "Was  Paul  favoured  at  any 
 time  with  mere  supernatural  visions  ?  And  if  so, 
 was  he  aware  of  the  distinction  between  them  and 
 the  perception  of  external  miraculous  facts  } "  Now, 
 it  can  be  clearly  proved  from  his  own  statements  that 
 he  was  often  favoured  with  such  visions  and  revela- 
 tions of  the  Lord,  and  that  he  was  perfectly  aware  of 
 the  distinction  referred  to.  The  mere  use  of  the  same 
 word  "appeared"  in  reference  to  such  visions,  and  to 
 the  case  of  sensible  perception,  in  no  way  identifies 
 these  two  distinct  acts  of  the  mind.  We  are  said  to 
 see  an  object  in  a  mere  dream,  as  well  as  to  see  it  by 
 means  of  our  sense  of  sight.  It  is  not  this  word,  but 
 the  circumstances  of  the  case,  which  must  determine 
 the  nature  of  the  appearance. 
 
 Now,  looking  at  the  passage  before  us,  and  at  the 
 accounts  given  in  the  Acts  of  the  appearance  of  Jesus 
 to  Paul,  to  which  we  shall  refer  in  our  next  Lecture,  we 
 can  only  state  it  as  our  conviction,  that  as  the  Apostle 
 evidently  describes  this  appearance  as  a  real,  objec- 
 tive occurrence,  we  must,  believing  his  testimony,  con- 
 clude that  it  was  such  an  occurrence.  His  whole 
 argument  assumes  the  reality  of  the  appearance  to 
 the  first  disciples  as  well  as  to  himself;  and  there- 
 fore, in  the  view  of  the  Apostle  Paul,  the  resurrection 
 of  Jesus  was  a  real  resurrection.  True  it  is  that  the 
 Apostle  does  not,  as  Strauss  would  have  had  him 
 do,  formally  investigate  the  grounds  which  he  and 
 
132  LECTURE  VIII. 
 
 the  others  tell  us  they  had  for  considering  the  appear- 
 ance as  something  "  real."  Had  the  Apostle  done  so 
 on  an  occasion  when,  strictly  speaking,  he  was  directly 
 combating,  not  the  denial  of  the  reality  of  Christ's  re- 
 surrection, but  the  denial  by  some  philosophic  persons 
 of  the  reality  of  the  resurrection  of  Christ's  believing 
 people,  I  humbly  think  that  even  Strauss  would  have 
 regarded  such  a  discussion  on  such  an  occasion  as  not 
 altogether  free  from  suspicion,  and  might,  whether 
 fairly  or  not,  have  imagined  he  detected  a  latent 
 hesitation  in  Paul's  own  mind  as  to  the  reality  of 
 Christ's  resurrection.  In  short,  there  is  no  possible 
 way  of  convincing  scepticism  when  it  is  bent  on  main- 
 taining a  foregone  conclusion.  Sad,  indeed,  is  such  a 
 state  of  the  mind — all  its  ingenuity  is  turned  to  ward 
 off  evidence,  however  clear  and  powerful,  and  to 
 strengthen  by  every  possible  means  its  own  assump- 
 tions. Such  a  state  of  mind  would  not  yield  "  even 
 should  one  rise  from  the  dead." 
 
 In  our  next  Lecture  we  shall  consider,  however 
 briefly,  the  grounds  on  which  the  first  disciples  rested 
 their  belief  in  the  resurrection  of  Jesus. 
 
LECTURE     IX. 
 
 THE  VARIOUS   NARRATIVES  OF  THE   RESURRECTION 
 OF  JESUS. 
 
 We  are  now  to  examine  the  Evangelic  narratives 
 themselves,  in  order  that  we  may  still  further  deter- 
 mine the  momentous  question,  whether  the  admitted 
 belief  of  the  first  disciples  in  the  resurrection  of  the 
 Lord  Jesus  originated  in  mere  mental  excitement, 
 occasioned  by  the  circumstances  in  which  they  were 
 placed,  or  in  an  objective  fact,  for  the  reality  of  which 
 they  had  the  evidence  of  their  senses. 
 
 We  assume,  for  reasons  which  have  already  been 
 stated  generally,  that  these  narratives,  or  Gospels,  as 
 they  are  termed — the  public  documents  of  the  Chris- 
 tian Church,  and  recognised  as  such  from  the  first 
 by  every  section  of  that  Church — are  genuine  and 
 anthentic  documents,  having  for  their  authors  those 
 to  whom  they  have  from  the  first  been  ascribed — 
 namely,  the  Apostles  Matthew  and  John,  and  the  two 
 companions  of  Apostles,  Mark  and  Luke.  The  last 
 of  these  Evangelists,  Luke,  further  gives  us  a  supple- 
 mentary account  referring  to  the  resurrection  of  Jesus, 
 in  his  introduction  to  his  second  treatise,  commonly 
 called  "  The  Acts  of  the  Apostles."  To  this  account 
 also  we  shall  have  to  give  attention.     As  the  subject 
 
134 
 
 LECTURE   IX. 
 
 before  us  is  one  of  great  extent,  and  as  we  must  com- 
 press our  remarks  within  as  small  a  compass  as  possible, 
 we  shall  endeavour  to  avoid  all  irrelevant  discussion, 
 and  to  bring  before  you  only  the  chi.^f  points  which 
 require  to  be  noticed.  Our  plan  will  be,  first,  to  notice 
 the  pre-intimations,  if  any,  which  Jesus  gave  respecting 
 His  resurrection;  secondly,  to  consider  the  several 
 narratives  of  the  resurrection  by  themselves  ;  thirdly, 
 to  compare  these  narratives ;  and  lastly,  to  notice  the 
 theories  of  those  who  deny  the  reality  of  the  event. 
 
 I.  First,  then,  as  to  the  pre-intimations  which  Jesus 
 gave  to  His  disciples  respecting  His  resurrection,  all 
 the  four  Evangelists  inform  us  that  such  were  given, 
 and  that  even  the  enemies  of  Jesus  were  aware  of 
 some  of  them.  St  John  relates  that  at  a  very  early 
 period  of  His  ministry,  Jesus,  when  asked  by  the 
 Jewish  rulers  for  what  they  called  a  sign  (some  visible 
 sign  from  heaven,  as  they  meant  by  this  word,  in  con- 
 firmation of  His  authority  to  act  as  He  had  been 
 doing  in  respect  to  the  sanctity  of  the  Temple),  re- 
 plied, "  Destroy  this  temple,  and  in  three  days  I  will 
 raise  it  up."  This  obscure  intimation  was  at  first 
 understood  literally  by  these  rulers,  but  we  learn  from 
 another  Evangelist  that  they  afterwards  attached  the 
 true  meaning  to  His  words.  The  disciples  also  did 
 not  at  first  understand  their  meaning ;  but  they  re- 
 membered them  after  He  was  risen  from  the  dead. 
 On  another  occasion,  after  Jesus  had  given  evidence 
 which  ought  to  have  convinced  the  eyewitnesses  of  the 
 truth  of  His  claims,  we  are  informed  by  St  Matthew 
 that  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  rejecting  this  evidence, 
 persisted  in  demanding  some  further  sign  from  Him, 
 when  He  declared  that  no  sign  would  be  given  them, 
 
NARRATIVES   OF  THE  RESURRECTION.  1 35 
 
 except  one  shadowed  forth  by  what  had  happened  to 
 the  prophet  Jonah  :  "  For  as  Jonas  was  three  days 
 and  three  nights  in  the  whale's  belly,  so  shall  the  Son 
 of  Man  be  three  days  and  three  nights  in  the  heart  of 
 the  earth."  Several  other  expressions,  more  or  less 
 obscure,  were  uttered  by  Jesus  in  the  course  of  His 
 ministry,  all  bearing  on  His  death  and  resurrection, 
 and  the  progress  of  His  kingdom  throughout  the 
 world. 
 
 But  it  was  not  till  He  was  about  to  proceed  to 
 Jerusalem  for  the  last  time  that  He  plainly  intimated 
 to  His  disciples  the  things  which  were  about  to  happen 
 there.  We  cannot  at  present  dwell  on  the  peculiar 
 state  of  mind  which  these  disciples  cherished  during 
 the  whole  course  of  His  ministry.  They  grew  more 
 and  more  in  the  belief  that  He  was  the  Christ,  the 
 Messiah  promised  to  the  fathers,  and  now  universally 
 looked  for  by  the  Jewish  nation  ;  but  they,  like  the 
 rest  of  the  nation,  expected  a  temporal  deliverer,  one 
 who  would  rescue  the  nation  from  all  foreign  oppres- 
 sion, and  establish  a  universal  empire  of  which  the 
 earthly  Jerusalem  was  to  be  the  seat.  Such  a  hold 
 had  this  view  of  the  Messianic  kingdom  upon  their 
 minds  that  they  seemed  incapable  of  understanding 
 even  the  plainest  intimations  which  were  opposed  to 
 it,  and  it  was  only  towards  the  close  of  His  ministry 
 that  Jesus  deemed  it  expedient  to  give  them  such 
 intimations. 
 
 The  three  Evangelists,  Matthew,  Mark,  and  Luke, 
 inform  us  that  after  He  had  drawn  from  them  a 
 decided  confession  of  their  belief  in  His  Messiahship, 
 He  announced  to  them  in  the  plainest  terms  His 
 approaching   death   and    resurrection.     "  From    that 
 
136  LECTURE  IX. 
 
 time  forth,"  says  St  Matthew,  "  began  Jesus  to  show 
 unto  His  disciples  how  that  He  must  go  unto  Jerusalem, 
 and  suffer  many  things  of  the  elders  and  chief  priests 
 and  Scribes,  and  be  killed,  and  be  raised  again  the 
 third  day."  But  the  Evangelists  at  the  same  time 
 tell  us  that  the  disciples  were  completely  perplexed 
 by  such  an  intimation ;  not  that  they  did  not  under- 
 stand the  meaning  of  the  words,  but  that  they  could 
 not  conceive  how  such  things  should  happen  to  the 
 Messiah — how  it  could  be  that  He,  who  was  to  restore 
 the  kingdom  to  Israel,  should  be  subjected  to  death, 
 even  to  a  death  that  was  to  be  followed  by  a  resurrec- 
 tion. "  They  understood  not,"  says  St  Mark,  "  that 
 saying" — that  intimation  about  His  death  and  resurrec- 
 tion— "  and  were  afraid  to  ask  Him  " — that  is,  to  ask 
 how  such  things  could  be,  consistently  with  His  claims 
 to  be  the  Messiah.  St  Luke  informs  us  to  the  same 
 effect.  "  Let  these  things,"  said  Jesus,  "  sink  down 
 into  your  ears,  for  the  Son  of  Man  shall  be  delivered 
 into  the  hands  of  men.  But  they  understood  not  this 
 saying,  and  it  was  hid  from  them,  that  they  perceived 
 it  not ;  and  they  feared  to  ask  Him  of  that  saying." 
 It  was  evidently  the  intimation  of  His  death — of  His 
 death  by  a  public  execution — that  disconcerted  and 
 perplexed  their  minds.  The  intimation  of  His  resur- 
 rection was,  of  course,  essentially  connected  with  His 
 death  ;  but  it  perplexed  them  solely  because  the  latter 
 event  was  one  which  they  were  unable  to  reconcile 
 with  their  deeply-seated  convictions  respecting  the 
 Messiah.  We  have  a  proof  that  this  is  the  correct 
 view  of  the  matter  in  what  St  Peter,  the  spokesman 
 of  the  disciples  on  this  as  on  other  occasions,  ventured 
 to  do,  when  Jesus  for  the  first  time  plainly  told  them 
 
NARRATIVES   OF   THE   RESURRECTION.         1 37 
 
 of  His  approaching  sufferings  and  death.  "  Then 
 Peter  took  Him" — took  Him,  probably,  by  the  hand,  or 
 aside — "  and  began  to  rebuke  Him,  saying,  Be  it  far 
 from  Thee,  Lord  ;  this  shall  not  be  unto  Thee."  How 
 strong  must  have  been  the  prejudice  in  the  minds  of 
 the  disciples  against  the  very  thought  that  the  Messiah 
 should  suffer  and  die,  as  Jesus  had  declared,  when  it 
 moved  Peter  to  act  in  this  manner,  and  when  his  con- 
 duct on  this  occasion  called  forth  from  Jesus  the 
 terrible  rebuke  :  "  Get  thee  behind  Me,  Satan  ;  thou 
 art  an  offence  unto  Me  ;  for  thou  savourest  not  the 
 things  that  be  of  God,  but  those  that  be  of  m.en !" 
 
 You  will  observe,  then,  that  it  was  the  announce- 
 ment, not  so  much  of  His  resurrection,  as  of  His 
 sufferings  and  death,  that  disconcerted  the  minds  of 
 the  disciples.  Had  they  not  stumbled  at  the  very 
 idea  of  the  latter,  they  would  have  rejoiced  in  the 
 assurance  of  the  former  ;  and  they  did  not  understand 
 the  saying  about  the  resurrection  merely  because  they 
 could  not  understand  why  He,  the  Messiah  who  was  to 
 live  for  ever,  should  possibly  need  to  be  raised  again. 
 It  is  important  for  you  to  have  a  distinct  conception  of 
 the  state  of  mind  thus  manifested  by  the  disciples,  as 
 also  of  what  it  was  in  these  announcements  of  Jesus 
 which  really  caused  their  perplexity — in  fact,  their  un- 
 belief that  these  announcements  would  be  fulfilled. 
 
 Again,  you  will  observe  that  in  these  intimations  of 
 His  approaching  death  and  resurrection  Jesus  evi- 
 dently speaks  of  both  as  facts  of  the  same  order.  The 
 resurrection  is  to  be  as  real  a  resurrection  as  the  death 
 is  to  be  a  real  death.  Jesus  clearly  declares  that 
 He  is  to  suffer  and  die,  and  that  He  is  to  rise  again 
 on   the  third   day.      It  is  impossible  to   regard  His 
 
138  LECTURE   IX. 
 
 words  as  referring  to  any  other  kind  of  resurrection 
 than  a  real  one.  Now,  I  beg  you  to  consider  seri- 
 ously the  importance  of  this,  the  only  fair — I  might 
 say,  the  only  possible — interpretation  of  the  words  of 
 Jesus  ;  for  since  it  is  of  a  real  death  that  He  speaks, 
 His  words  can  be  fulfilled  only  by  a  real  resurrection 
 from  the  dead.  It  is  universally  admitted,  by  unbe- 
 lievers as  well  as  by  believers,  that  He  was  put  to 
 death,  and  that,  so  far.  His  pre-intimations  were  liter- 
 ally fulfilled  ;  nor  can  it  be  denied — nay,  it  is  not  denied 
 even  by  the  most  decided  adversaries  of  His  claims — 
 that  His  disciples  did  afterwards  firmly  believe  that 
 He  rose  again  from  the  dead  on  the  third  day.  We 
 are  entitled,  then,  to  infer  that  the  resurrection,  in 
 which  they  thus  believed,  corresponded  in  its  nature 
 to  that  which  was  foretold — that  it  was,  in  their  view, 
 a  real  resurrection. 
 
 It  is,  indeed,  still  possible  to  suppose  that  in  this 
 view  they  were  deceived,  by  mistaking  the  product 
 of  an  excited  imagination  for  a  real,  a  sensible  fact. 
 And  there  is  only  one  way  in  which  we  can  pronounce 
 a  judgment  on  this  matter,  and  that  is  by  calmly  and 
 carefully  examining  those  authentic  narratives  which 
 contain  an  account  of  the  circumstances  on  which 
 their  belief  was  founded. 
 
 Before  proceeding  to  the  examination  of  these 
 special  narratives,  it  deserves  to  be  noticed  that,  on 
 the  very  night  in  which,  as  He  knew,  He  was  to  be 
 betrayed  into  the  hands  of  His  enemies.  He  renewed, 
 under  the  most  affecting  circumstances,  the  intimation 
 of  His  death,  and  also  of  His  resurrection,  and  assured 
 the  disciples  that  He  would  meet  them  again  in  Galilee. 
 On  that  night  He  also  instituted  that  Supper  which  has 
 
NARRATIVES   OF   THE   RESURRECTION.  1 39 
 
 ever  since  been  obsen^ed  by  the  Christian  Church,  and 
 which  is  a  standing  memorial  of  His  expiatory  death, 
 and  also  indirectly  of  His  glorious  resurrection  ;  for 
 whilst  it  ever  points  back  to  the  body  that  was  broken 
 and  to  the  blood  that  was  shed  for  the  remission  of  sins, 
 it  likewise  looks  forward  to  the  time  when  He,  the 
 Risen  Lord,  will  come  again  to  complete  the  salvation 
 of  all  His  people.  "  Then  said  Jesus  unto  them.  All 
 ye  shall  be  offended  because  of  Me  this  night :  for  it 
 is  written,  I  will  smite  the  Shepherd,  and  the  sheep  of 
 the  flock  shall  be  scattered  abroad.  But  after  I  am 
 risen  again,  I  will  go  before  you  into  Galilee." 
 
 n.  Let  us  now  proceed  to  consider  separately  each 
 of  the  four  narratives  of  the  resurrection,  in  the  order  in 
 which  these  are  presented  to  us  in  the  New  Testament. 
 
 I.  The  Evangelist  Matthew,  after  minutely  detailing 
 the-circumstances  attending  the  trial  and  crucifixion 
 of  Jesus,  relates  that  when  the  even  was  come,  Joseph 
 of  Arimathea,  a  rich  man,  and  a  disciple  of  Jesus, 
 went  to  Pilate,  the  Roman  governor,  and  begged  the 
 body  of  Jesus  ;  that,  on  his  request  being  granted, 
 he  took  down  the  body  from  the  cross,  and,  wrapping 
 it  in  a  clean  linen  cloth,  laid  it  in  his  own  new  tomb 
 which  he  had  hewn  out  in  the  rock  ;  and  that  he  rolled 
 a  great  stone  to  the  door  of  the  sepulchre,  and  then 
 departed.  He  also  mentions  that  Mary  Magdalene 
 and  the  other  Mary  whom  he  had  named  a  little 
 before — namely,  the  mother  of  James  and  Joses — 
 were  present  at  the  interment.  Matthew  then  relates 
 that  on  the  next  day,  which  he  says  was  the  day  after 
 the  preparation  —  that  is,  the  preparation  for  the 
 Jewish  Sabbath — the  chief  priests  and  Pharisees  came 
 
140  LECTURE  IX. 
 
 in  a  body  to  Pilate,  and  called  his  attention  to  a  saying 
 which  they  remembered  that  Jesus,  whom  they  em- 
 phatically designated  as  "that  deceiver,"  had  uttered,  to 
 the  effect  that  "  after  three  days  He  would  rise  again." 
 They  requested,  therefore,  that  Pilate  would  '*  issue  a 
 command  to  have  the  sepulchre  made  sure  until  the 
 third  day,  lest,"  as  they  said,  "  His  disciples  should 
 come  by  night  and  steal  Him  away,  and  say  unto  the 
 people,  He  is  risen  from  the  dead,  and  so  the  last 
 error  should  be  worse  than  the  first."  Pilate  listened 
 to  their  application ;  a  guard  of  soldiers  was  sta- 
 tioned at  the  sepulchre  ;  and  to  prevent,  as  far  as 
 could  be  done,  the  possibility  of  collusion  even  on  the 
 part  of  the  guard,  the  stone  itself  at  the  opening  of 
 the  tomb  was  formally  sealed.  "  In  the  end  of  the 
 Sabbath,"  but  not  till  the  morning  "began  to  dawn, 
 toward  the  first  day  of  the  week,  Mary  Magdalene 
 and  the  other  Mary  came  to  see"* — carefully  to  look 
 at  "  the  sepulchre.  And,  lo,  there  was  a  great  earth- 
 quake "•[" — a  great  shock — "  for  the  angel  of  the  Lord, 
 descending  from  heaven,  and  coming  to  the  sepulchre, 
 rolled  back  the  stone  from  the  door,  and  sat  upon  it. 
 His  countenance  "J — his  appearance — "was  like  light- 
 ning, and  his  raiment  white  as  snow.  And  for  fear  of 
 him  the  keepers  did  shake,  and  became  as  dead  men." 
 But  the  angel  addressed  the  women,  and  said,  "  Fear 
 not  ye  ;  for  I  know  that  ye  are  seeking  Jesus,  the 
 crucified  One.  He  is  not  here  ;  for  He  is  risen,  as  He 
 said.  Come,  see  the  place  where  the  Lord  lay.  And 
 go  quickly,  and  tell  His  disciples  that  He  is  risen 
 from  the  dead  :  and,  behold.  He  goeth  before  you 
 into  Galilee ;  there  shall  ye  see  Him :  lo,  I  have  told 
 
NARRATIVES  OF   THE   RESURRECTION.  I4I 
 
 you.  And  they  departed  quickly  from  the  sepul- 
 chre with  fear  and  great  joy ;  and  did  run  to  bring 
 His  disciples  word." 
 
 There  is  a  clause  in  the  commonly  received  text  * 
 which  implies  that  "  zvhilst  they  were  nozv  on  their  way 
 to  tell  His  disciples''  Jesus  met  them;  but  this  clause 
 has  been  generally  omitted  in  the  best  critical  editions, 
 as  not  supported  by  sufficient  authority.  We  can 
 therefore  only  regard  Matthew  as  relating  the  simple 
 fact,  that  either  then,  or  at  a  somewhat  later  time  when 
 they  again  were  on  the  same  road,  "Jesus  met  the 
 women  and  said,  All  hail ;"  and  that  the  women,  "com- 
 ing up  to  Him,  held  Him  by  the  feet,  and  worshipped 
 Him."  Jesus  addressed  them  in  soothing  words,  say- 
 ing, just  as  the  angel  had  done  before,  "  Fear  not.  Go, 
 tell  My  brethren  that  they  go  into  Galilee,  and  there 
 shall  they  see  Me." 
 
 The  Evangelist  next  relates  that  "whilst  these 
 women  were  going,"  either  on  the  first,  or  it  may  have 
 been  on  a  second  occasion,  to  the  disciples,  "  some  of 
 the  guard  went  and  reported  to  the  chief  priests  the 
 things  which  had  occurred  ;"  that  after  a  consultation 
 had  been  held  with  the  elders  or  members  of  the  Coun- 
 cil, the  chief  priests  bribed  the  soldiers  with  a  large  sum 
 of  money  to  spread  a  false  report  to  the  effect  that 
 "  the  disciples  had  come  during  the  night  and  stolen 
 the  body  whilst  they,  the  soldiers,  were  asleep ;"  and 
 that  the  chief  priests  gave  the  soldiers,  who  would  no 
 doubt  at  once  perceive  the  danger  to  themselves  in- 
 volved in  such  a  story,  an  assurance  that  they  would, 
 by  their  influence  with  Pilate,  secure  them  against  all 
 danger.     The  soldiers,  we  are  told,  took  the  money, 
 
 *  ws  Se  iiropevovTO  aTrayyelXai  to7s  jj.a6r}Ta7s  avrov. 
 
142  LECTURE   IX. 
 
 and  spread  abroad  the  report,  which,  says  the  Evan- 
 gelist, was  "  current  among  the  Jews "  even  at  the 
 time  when  he  wrote  his  Gospel. 
 
 "The  eleven  disciples,"  it  is  then  related,  "went 
 to  Galilee,  to  a  mountain,"  which  it  would  appear 
 Jesus  had  at  some  time  or  other  mentioned  as  the 
 place  where  He  would  meet  them.  When  they  were 
 assembled  on  the  mountain,  "  they  saw  Him,  and 
 worshipped  Him.  But,"  the  Evangelist  adds,  "some," 
 whether  of  these  eleven  or  of  other  disciples,  "  doubted  " 
 — doubted,  that  is,  at  first,  whether  the  person  whom 
 they  saw,  probably  at  some  distance,  was  really  Jesus 
 or  not.  But  "  Jesus  came " — came  up  to  the  as- 
 sembled disciples — "  and  addressed  them  "  in  audible 
 words,  "saying.  All  power"  —  all  authority*  —  "is 
 given  to  Me  in  heaven  and  upon  earth.  Go  ye  there- 
 fore, and  make  disciples  f  of  all  nations,  baptising 
 them  into  the  name"j  —  the  one  name  —  "of  the 
 Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost ;  and 
 teaching  them  to  observe  all  things  whatsoever  I  have 
 commanded  you  :  and,  lo,  I  am  with  you  during  all 
 the  days  "  § — all  the  appointed  days — "  even  unto  the 
 consummation  of  the  age."|| 
 
 Such  is  the  brief  account  which  St  Matthew  gives  of 
 the  burial  and  the  resurrection  of  the  body  of  Jesus. 
 It  is  perfectly  clear  that,  if  his  account  is  correct,  the 
 resurrection  was  a  real,  though  of  course  a  miraculous, 
 event.  It  was  evidently  not  his  intention  to  record 
 more  of  the  circumstances  than  were  in  his  view  suf- 
 ficient to  attest  the  reality  of  the  fact,  and  to  meet 
 the   false    report   which   he   knew   had    been    spread 
 
 *  iraaa  i^ovaia.  f  /xadrjTevaaTe.  X  ^ '^  rh  ovofxa. 
 
 II   €cos  TTjs  0vvr(Kiias  tov  alwvos. 
 
NARRATIVES   OF   THE  RESURRECTION.  I43 
 
 abroad  among  the  Jews.  There  is  every  reason  to 
 believe  that  he  wrote  his  Gospel  specially  for  the  in- 
 struction of  Jewish  converts,  and  hence  he  deemed  it 
 necessary  to  expose  the  falsehood  of  this  report,  and 
 to  show  by  a  mere  reference  to  two  actual  appear- 
 ances of  Jesus,  the  one  to  the  women,  and  the  other 
 to  the  assembled  disciples  in  Galilee,  that  Jesus  had 
 risen  even  as  He  had  said  beforehand,  and  that  He 
 was  now  invested  with  all  authority  in  heaven  and 
 upon  earth. 
 
 2.  The  Evangelist  Mark — John  Mark,  the  son  of 
 Mary  who  was  sister  to  Barnabas — was  the  companion, 
 first  of  Paul  and  Barnabas,  then  of  the  latter  alone, 
 and  after  that  of  Peter,  whose  interpreter — that  is, 
 amanuensis  or  secretary — credible  testimony  represents 
 him  to  have  been.  He  wrote  his  Gospel  specially  for 
 the  benefit  of  certain  Gentile  churches  ;  and  we  now 
 proceed  to  examine  his  account  of  the  resurrection  of 
 Jesus. 
 
 After  recording  the  events  of  the  crucifixion,  he  also 
 details  the  circumstances  attending  the  burial  of  the 
 body  of  Jesus.  "  On  the  evening" — that  is,  towards  the 
 close  of  the  day,  which  he  also  calls  "  the  preparation, 
 the  day  immediately  preceding  the  Sabbath,  Joseph 
 of  Arimathea,"  a  member  of  the  Jewish  Sanhedrim, 
 and  one  "  who  was  in  longing  expectation  of  the 
 kingdom  of  God,"  laying  aside  all  timidity,  "  went 
 with  boldness  to  Pilate  and  craved  the  body  of  Jesus. 
 Pilate  was  surprised  to  hear  that  Jesus  was  by  this 
 time  dead,  and  sent  for  the  centurion,"  who  com- 
 manded the  soldiers  who  had  charge  of  the  cruci- 
 fixion, that  he  might  ascertain  "  whether  Jesus  had 
 
144  LECTURE   IX. 
 
 been  any  time  dead  ;"  and  on  receiving  an  affirmative 
 reply  from  the  centurion,  he  ordered  the  dead  body 
 to  be  given  to  Joseph.  Joseph,  purchasing  a  Hnen 
 cloth,  took  down  the  body  and  wrapped  it  in  the 
 linen,  and  then  laid  it  in  a  tomb  which  was  hewn  out 
 of  a  rock,  and  rolled  a  stone  to  the  door  or  entrance 
 of  the  tomb.  Mary  Magdalene  and  Mary  of  Joses,* 
 that  is,  the  mother  of  Joses,  beheld,f  carefully  beheld, 
 "  where  He,"  Jesus,  "  was  laid."  Such  is  Mark's  nar- 
 rative of  the  burial  of  Jesus. 
 
 "  And  when  the  Sabbath  was  past " — that  is,  at  sun- 
 set of  that  day — "  Mary  Magdalene  and  Mary  of 
 James,"!  the  mother  of  James,  the  same  Mary  as  was 
 mentioned  before,  "  and  Salome,"  whose  name  also 
 Mark  had  previously  mentioned,  "  bought  spices,  \vith 
 the  intention  of  going  to  the  tomb  and  anointing  the 
 body.  Very  early  in  the  morning,  which  was  the 
 morning  of  the  first  day  of  the  week,  they  came  to 
 the  sepulchre  ;"  and  the  Evangelist  adds  another  note 
 of  time,  "  the  sun  having  risen  " — that  is,  not  that  the 
 sun  was  yet  above  the  horizon,  as  the  expression 
 might  otherwise  mean,  but  that  the  dawn  w^as  by  this 
 time  appearing.  The  time  was  just  as  the  day  was 
 about  to  break.  The  women,  after  setting  out  on  the 
 way,  began  to  consider  how  they  were  to  reach  the 
 body.  "  Who,  they  said  one  to  another,  shall  roll  us 
 away  the  stone  from  the  door  of  the  sepulchre  ?"  And 
 when  they  came  nearer,  but  yet  at  some  distance, 
 "  looking  up,  they  beheld  the  stone  rolled  away,  for  it 
 was  very  large."  They  advanced  to  the  tomb,  and 
 "  entering  in,  they  saw  a  young  person  sitting  on  the 
 right  side,  clothed  in  a,  long  white  garment,  and  they 
 
 *  Mapia  7]  'Iwcr^Tos.  +  iOecSopovy.  X  Mapi'a  rj  'laKwfiov. 
 
NARRATIVES   OF   THE  RESURRECTION.  I45 
 
 were  affrighted.  And  the  young  person  said  to  them, 
 "  Be  not  affrighted  :  ye  are  seeking  Jesus  of  Nazareth, 
 the  crucified  One.  He  is  risen  ;  He  is  not  here  :  see, 
 this  is  the  place  where  they  laid  Him.  But  go  your 
 way,  tell  His  disciples  and  Peter  that  He  goes  before 
 you  into  Galilee ;  there  shall  ye  see  Him,  as  He  said 
 unto  you."  The  women,  "  going  out  of  the  sepulchre, 
 fled  from  it ;  trembling  and  amazement  possessed 
 them,  and  they  said  not  a  word  to  any  one,  for  they 
 were  afraid." 
 
 Such  is,  so  far,  the  unquestionable  narrative  of  this 
 Evangelist.  But  we  now  come  to  a  portion  of  the 
 received  text,  which,  from  its  not  being  found  in  some 
 ancient  manuscripts,  and  from  its  containing  certain 
 words  or  phrases  not  elsewhere  employed  by  Mark, 
 has  caused  considerable  difference  of  opinion  as  to  its 
 genuineness.  We  cannot  enter  on  the  discussion  of 
 this  matter.  The  sound  conclusion  seems  to  be,  that 
 Mark  could  not  have  intended  to  finish  his  narrative 
 so  abruptly  as  is  done  in  the  previous  section,  and 
 that  this  section  was  appended  to  it  at  a  somewhat 
 later  time,  either  by  himself  or  by  some  one  whose 
 testimony  was  undoubted  in  the  Church.  The  section, 
 though  omitted  in  some  manuscripts,  is  found  in  others 
 of  ancient  date,  and  is  also  supported  by  other  testi- 
 mony. As  to  the  use  of  peculiar  Avords  or  phrases, 
 whilst  such  a  matter  is  not  to  be  overlooked,  it  is  still 
 a  very  precarious  ground  on  which  to  raise  any  solid 
 argument.  We  proceed,  then,  with  the  section,  in  full 
 confidence  that  if  it  did  not  proceed  from  Mark,  it 
 had  for  its  author  some  early  disciple  of  undoubted 
 credit  in  the  Christian  Church.  The  subject  of  the 
 resurrection  is,  as  it  were,  resumed  in  this  section. 
 
 K 
 
146  LECTURE  IX. 
 
 "  And  rising  early  on  the  first  day  of  the  week,  He," 
 that  is,  Jesus,  "appeared  first  to  Mary  Magdalene,  out  of 
 whom  He  had  cast  seven  demons."  There  has  been 
 some  difference  of  opinion  as  to  whether  we  are  to 
 understand  the  Evangelist  (for  so  we  may  justly  de- 
 signate the  writer,  whether  he  was  Mark  or  some  other 
 early  disciple)  as  meaning  that  the  risen  Jesus  ap- 
 peared first,  absolutely  first,  to  Mary  Magdalene,  or 
 only  first  relatively  to  the  next  two  appearances  re- 
 corded in  this  section.  The  writer  mentions  three 
 appearances, — the  first  to  Mary  Magdalene ;  the  second 
 to  two  disciples  who  were  on  a  journey  from  Jerusalem 
 to  the  country;  and  the  third,  or  last,  to  the  eleven 
 whilst  they  were  sitting  at  meat.  Either  interpretation 
 we  consider  to  be  tenable,  and  we  cannot  at  present 
 refer  to  the  other  Evangelic  narratives  to  determine 
 which  is  the  one  that  most  agrees  with  their  contents. 
 Confining  our  attention,  however,  to  the  section  itself, 
 we  regard  the  former  interpretation  as  the  one  which, 
 apart  from  all  other  information,  would  be  suggested 
 by  the  words  of  the  writer.  According  to  this  view, 
 Mary  Magdalene,  who  had  in  so  remarkable  a  degree 
 experienced  the  saving  power  of  Jesus,  was  the  first 
 human  being  to  whom  He,  after  His  resurrection,  ap- 
 peared. She  also  was  the  first  herald  of  His  resurrec- 
 tion to  others.  She  went,  we  are  told,  and  "  informed 
 those  who  had  been  with  Him" — those  who  had  ac- 
 companied Him  during  His  ministry,  and  .whom  she 
 found  "  mourning  and  weeping.  And  they,  when  hear- 
 ing from  her  that  He  was  alive  and  had  been  seen  by 
 her,  believed  not:"  they  did  not  believe  her  testimony. 
 "  After  that  He  appeared,  but  in  another,"  in  a  strange, 
 "  form,  to  two  of  their  number  as  they  were  walking, 
 
NARRATIVES   OF   THE  RESURRECTION.         I47 
 
 going  on  a  journey  into  the  country.  And  these, 
 returning,  reported  to  the  rest "  what  had  happened, 
 "  but  neither  did  they  beheve  them.  Lastly,  He 
 appeared  unto  the  eleven  as  they  sat  at  meat,  and  He 
 upbraided  them  for  their  unbelief  and  hardness  of 
 heart,  because  they  believed  not  those  who  had  seen 
 Him  after  He  had  risen.  And  He  said  unto  them, 
 Go  ye  into  all  the  world,  and  proclaim  the  Gospel  to 
 the  whole  creation "  * — to  the  whole  race  of  man. 
 *'  He  that  believeth  and  is  baptised  shall  be  saved  : 
 but  he  that  believeth  not  shall  be  condemned."  And 
 then  He  promises  that  those  who  would  believe 
 should  be  endowed  with  miraculous  gifts  through 
 the  power  of  His  name.  The  section  concludes  by 
 representing  on  the  one  hand  the  Lord  as  "  received 
 up  into  heaven,  and  as  seated  on  the  right  hand  of 
 God;"  and  on  the  other,  the  disciples  "going  forth 
 and  proclaiming  the  Gospel  everywhere,  the  Lord 
 working  with  them,  and  confirming  the  word  with 
 signs  following." 
 
 If  this  narrative  is  correct,  no  other  conclusion  can 
 be  drawn  than  the  one,  that  Jesus,  who  was  crucified 
 and  buried,  rose  again  from  the  dead  early  on  the 
 first  day  of  the  week,  being  the  third  after  His 
 death ;  and  that  the  most  unquestionable  evidence 
 was  given  of  the  reality  of  His  resurrection.  The 
 disciples  saw  and  heard  the  risen  Jesus,  and  went 
 forth  to  proclaim  His  Gospel  in  virtue  of  the  com- 
 mission which  they  received  from  Him  immediately 
 before  He  ascended  on  high. 
 
 3.    We  now  come  to  the  narrative  of  the   Evan- 
 
 *  Trda"n  TTJ  KTiffei. 
 
148  LECTURE  IX. 
 
 gelist  Luke.  Of  him  we  need  only  say  at  present, 
 that  he  was  in  all  probability  a  Gentile  convert,  and 
 that  he  became  the  devoted  companion  of  the  Apostle 
 Paul.  He  tells  us  himself  that  he  had  not  been  an 
 eyewitness  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  but  had  received  his 
 information  respecting-  Him  from  those  who  had  been 
 eyewitnesses  and  ministers  of  the  Word  ;  and  that, 
 after  tracing  everything  from  the  beginning  onwards, 
 he  had  composed  his  treatise  with  the  view  of  im- 
 parting accurate  knowledge  of  those  things  which  had 
 been  accomplished  and  were  generally  believed,  to  his 
 friend  Theophilus,  and,  as  we  may  conclude,  through 
 him  to  other  believers.  Like  Matthew  and  Mark, 
 Luke  narrates  in  detail  the  circumstances  which  at- 
 tended the  trial,  the  condemnation,  and  the  crucifix- 
 ion of  Jesus ;  and  then,  as  they  also  do,  he  relates 
 those  which  occurred  at  the  burial  of  His  body. 
 
 "Joseph  of  Arimathea,"  he  informs  us,  "one  of  the 
 Sanhedrim,  a  good  and  just  man,  a  man  who,"  as 
 a  member  of  the  Sanhedrim,  "  had  not  consented  to 
 the  counsel  and  deed  of  the  rest,  a  man  also  who  was 
 waiting  for  the  kingdom  of  God,"  the  new  era  which 
 the  promised  Messiah  was  to  introduce,  "went  to 
 Pilate  and  begged  the  body  of  Jesus  ;  and,"  having 
 obtained  his  request,  "  he  took  the  body  down  and 
 wrapped  it  in  linen,  and  laid  it  in  a  tomb  hewn  out  in 
 stone,"  that  is,  in  the  rock,  "  where  never  before  was 
 any  one  laid."  The  burial,  he  adds,  took  place  on 
 "  the  day  of  preparation,"  that  is,  on  the  afternoon  of 
 the  day  immediately  before  the  Sabbath ;  "  and  the 
 Sabbath  drew  on."  It  was  near  sunset.  "  And  the 
 women  also,  who  had  come  with  Jesus  from  Galilee, 
 followed  "  those  who  with  Joseph  carried  the  body  to 
 
NARRATIVES   OF   THE   RESURRECTION.         I49 
 
 the  tomb,  "  and  observed  the  tomb,  and  how  the  body- 
 was  laid.  And,  returning  to  the  city,  they  prepared 
 spices  and  ointments.  On  the  Sabbath  they  rested, 
 according  to  the  commandment;  but  on  the  first 
 day  of  the  week,  when  it  was  deep  dawn,  they  came 
 to  the  tomb,  bringing  the  spices  which  they  had 
 prepared." 
 
 The  Evangehst  then  relates  that  when  these  women, 
 some  of  whom  he  afterwards  names,  came  to  the 
 tomb,  "they  found  the  stone  rolled  away  from  its 
 entrance."  It  is  worthy  of  notice  that  our  Evangelist, 
 when  narrating  the  burial,  said  nothing  respecting 
 this  stone — one  instance  out  of  many  that  occur  to 
 teach  us  the  important  lesson  which  so  many  seem 
 to  require,  that  silence  on  the  part  of  a  writer 
 does  not  always  or  necessarily  imply  ignorance  of 
 facts.  The  women  then,  "  finding  the  stone  rolled 
 aside,  entered  the  tomb,  but  found  not  the  body  of 
 the  Lord  Jesus."  This  circumstance  threw  them  into 
 great  perplexity;  and  whilst  they  were  in  this  state, 
 "  lo  !  two  men  appeared  to  them  in  shining  garments  ; 
 and  as  the  women  were  afraid,  and  bowed  their  faces 
 toward  the  earth,  they  said  to  them.  Why  are  ye 
 seeking  the  Living  One  among  the  dead  ?  He  is  not 
 here,  but  is  risen.  Remember  how  He  spake  unto 
 you  when  He  was  yet  in  Galilee,  saying.  The  Son  of 
 Man  must  be  delivered  into  the  hands  of  sinful  men, 
 and  be  crucified,  and  the  third  day  rise  again.  And 
 they  remembered  His  words,  and,  returning  from  the 
 tomb,  they  reported  all  these  things  to  the  eleven  and 
 to  all  the  rest.  These  women  were,"  says  the  Evan- 
 gelist, "  Mary  Magdalene,  Joanna  "  (that  is,  as  we  else- 
 where learn   from  him,   the  wife  of  Chuza,  Herod's 
 
ISO  LECTURE   IX. 
 
 steward),  "  Mary  of  James,"  the  mother  of  James,  "  and 
 others,"  whose  names  he  does  not  give.  These  were  the 
 persons  who  reported  to  the  Apostles  what  had  taken 
 place.  But  the  reports  of  these  women  "appeared  to 
 them  as  idle  talk,  and  they  believed  them  not.  Peter, 
 however,"  the  Evangelist  tells  us  without  assigning  any 
 reason, "  rising  up,  ran  to  the  tomb,  and,  stooping  down, 
 sees  the  bandages*  lying  apart ;  and  he  went  away  to  his 
 place  of  abode,-]*  wondering  at  what  had  happened." 
 
 As  yet  the  Evangelist  has  related  no  appearance  of 
 Jesus  to  any  one.  But  he  now  gives  at  great  length 
 an  account  of  His  appearance  to  two  of  the  disciples — 
 not,  however,  of  the  eleven,  but  of  the  rest — ^who  hap- 
 pened to  be  journeying  on  that  day,  the  first  day  of 
 the  week,  to  the  village  Emmaus,  which  was  about 
 sixty  furlongs  from  Jerusalem,  and  whose  conversa- 
 tion was  wholly  employed  about  the  recent  events. 
 "  Whilst  they  were  conversing  with  one  another,  and 
 reasoning  about  these  things,  Jesus  Himself  drew  near 
 and  walked  with  them.  Their  eyes,  however,  were 
 holden,  so  that  they  could  not  know  Him."  Whether 
 this  withholding  of  their  eyes  from  recognising  Jesus, 
 whom,  as  is  implied,  they  had  previously  known,  was 
 owing  to  the  engrossed  state  of  their  minds,  or  to  a 
 supernatural  power  exerted  over  them,  or  to  the 
 special  form  or  appearance  which  Jesus  assumed,  is 
 not  expressly  stated  by  the  Evangelist ;  but  it  seems 
 not  improbable  that  all  these  three  causes  operated 
 together  to  bring  about  the  result.  Jesus  then  "said 
 to  them.  What  words  are  these  which  ye  are  uttering 
 to  one  another  in  such  earnest  disputation,  |  walking 
 
 *  TO  6d6uia.  f  ctTTTjAflc  -rrphs  iavrhv. 
 
 X  ots  dvTi/3ctA.A.6Te  irphs  ak\i]\ovs  irfpnraTovvTfs  (TKvQpuiroi. 
 
NARRATIVES   OF   THE   RESURRECTION.         151 
 
 and  sad  ?  And  one  of  them,  Cleopas  by  name,  an- 
 swered, Art  thou  lodging  in  Jerusalem  apart  by  thy- 
 self^* and  hast  not  known  the  things  which  have  hap- 
 pened there  in  these  days?  And  He  said.  What 
 things  ?  And  they  said  unto  Him,  Concerning  Jesus 
 of  Nazareth,  who  was  a  prophet  mighty  in  deed  and 
 word  before  God  and  all  the  people :  and  how  the 
 chief  priests  and  our  rulers  delivered  Him  to  be  con- 
 demned to  death,  and  crucified  Him.  But  as  for  us, 
 we  were  hoping  f  that  He  was  the  One  who  was  about 
 to  redeem  Israel.  But  indeed,  even  beside  all  this, 
 He  is  now  in  the  third  dayj  since  these  things  took 
 place.  But,  moreover,  certain  women  of  our  company 
 astonished  us,  having  been  at  the  dawn  of  the  day  at 
 the  tomb,  and  not  finding  His  body,  they  came,  say- 
 ing that  they  had  seen  a  vision  of  angels,  who  said 
 that  He  is  alive.  And  some  of  those  with  us  went 
 away  to  the  tomb,  and  found  it  so  as  also  the  women 
 had  said,  but  Him  they  saw  not.  And  He  said  unto 
 them,  O  void  of  understanding,  §  and  slow  in  heart  to 
 believe  all  that  the  prophets  have  spoken !  Ought 
 not  the  Messiah"  —  the  Christ  —  "to  have  suffered 
 these  things,  and  to  enter  into  His  glory  ?  And  be- 
 ginning with  Moses  and  with  all  the  prophets  in  suc- 
 cession. He  explained  unto  them  in  all  the  Scriptures 
 the  things  concerning  Him"|l — that  is,  the  Messiah. 
 "  And  they  drew  nigh  unto  the  village  whither  they 
 were  going  ;  and  He  made  as  though  He  were  going 
 farther,  and  they  constrained  Him,  saying.  Abide 
 with  us,  for  it  is  toward  evening,  and  the  day  is  far 
 
 +  Tpirrju  TavT7]u  rjixepav  &y€i.  §  au6r]Toi. 
 
 II     TCt  TTCpl  aVTOV. 
 
152  LECTURE   IX. 
 
 spent.  And  He  went  in  to  abide  with  them.  And  it 
 came  to  pass  whilst  He  was  reclining  with  them, 
 taking  the  bread,  He  blessed,  and,  breaking  it.  He 
 gave  it  to  them.  And  their  eyes  were  opened,  and 
 they  recognised  Him  ;  and,  departing  from  them,  He 
 disappeared  from  their  sight.  And  they  said  one  to 
 another.  Was  not  our  heart  burning  within  us  as  He 
 spake  to  us  in  the  way,  as  He  opened  to  us  the  Scrip- 
 tures .?  And  rising  up  the  same  hour,  they  returned 
 to  Jerusalem,  and  found  the  eleven  and  those  with 
 them  assembled  together,  saying.  The  Lord  is  risen 
 indeed,  and  has  appeared  to  Simon"  —  to  Peter. 
 "  And  they  related  the  things  which  had  taken  place 
 in  the  way,  and  how  He  was  known  of  them  in  the 
 breaking  of  the  bread.  And  whilst  they  were  speak- 
 ing of  these  things,*  He  Himself  stood  in  the  midst  of 
 them,  and  He  says  to  them.  Peace  to  you.  But 
 being  terrified  and  affrighted,  they  supposed  that  they 
 were  beholding  a  spirit" — a  spectre.  "And  He  said 
 to  them.  Why  are  you  troubled,  and  why  do  ques- 
 tionings arise  in  your  heart  ^  See  My  hands  and  My 
 feet,  that  it  is  I  Myself:  handle  Me,  and  see  ;  for  a 
 spectre  has  not  flesh  and  bones,  as  ye  behold  Me 
 having.  And  having  said  this.  He  showed  them  His 
 hands  and  His  feet  ;  and  while  they  were  yet  unbe- 
 lieving from  joy,  and  wondering,  He  said  to  them, 
 Have  ye  here  any  meat .''  And  they  gave  Him  a 
 piece  of  a  broiled  fish,  and  of  a  honeycomb.  And 
 taking  it.  He  ate  before  them.  And  He  said  unto 
 them.  These  are  the  words  which  I  spake  unto  you, 
 while  I  was  yet  with  you,  that  all  things  must  be  ful- 
 filled which  have  been  written  in  the  Law  of  Moses, 
 
 *  Tavra  5e  avTuu  KaKovvroiv. 
 
NARRATIVES   OF   THE   RESURRECTION.         1 53 
 
 and  in  the  Prophets,  and  in  the  Psalms,  concerning 
 Me.  Then  opened  He  their  understanding  that  they 
 might  understand  the  Scriptures,  and  said  to  them, 
 Thus  it  has  been  written,  that  the  Messiah  should 
 suffer  and  rise  from  the  dead  the  third  day,  and  that 
 repentance  and  remission  of  sins  be  proclaimed  in  His 
 name  among  all  nations,  beginning  at  Jerusalem.  Ye 
 are  witnesses  of  these  things.  And  lo !  I  send  forth 
 the  promise  of  My  Father  upon  you  ;  but  tarry  ye  in 
 the  city  until  ye  be  clothed  with  power  from  on  high. 
 And  He  led  them  out  as  far  as  to  Bethany  ;  and  hfting 
 up  His  hands.  He  blessed  them.  And  it  came  to  pass 
 while  He  was  blessing  them  that  He  was  parted  from 
 them,  and  carried  up  into  heaven.  And  they,  wor- 
 shipping Him,  returned  to  Jerusalem  with  great  joy, 
 and  were  continually  in  the  temple,  praising  and 
 blessing  God." 
 
 In  his  second  treatise  the  Evangelist  Luke  gives,  in 
 the  introduction,  a  brief  account  of  the  resurrection 
 and  ascension  of  Jesus.  In  that  account,  however, 
 which  may  be  regarded  as  supplementary  to  the  one 
 in  his  Gospel,  there  are  some  additional  circumstances 
 of  importance  recorded.  In  particular,  he  there  in- 
 forms us  of  the  exact  length  of  the  time  which  inter- 
 vened between  the  resurrection  and  the  ascension. 
 "Jesus,"  he  says,  "showed  Himself  alive  to  the 
 Apostles,  after  His  passion,  by  many  definite  proofs, 
 during  forty  days,  being  seen  of  them,  and  speaking 
 of  the  things  pertaining  to  the  kingdom  of  God." 
 His  last  interview  with  them  is  thus  minutely  de- 
 scribed :  "  And  being  assembled  together  with  them, 
 He  commanded  them  not  to  depart  from  Jerusalem, 
 but  to  await  the  promise  of  the  Father,  which.   He 
 
154  LECTURE   IX. 
 
 said,  ye  have  heard  of  Me.  For  John  baptised  with 
 water,  but  ye  shall  be  baptised  in  the  Holy  Ghost  not 
 many  days  hence.  They  then,  being  come  together, 
 asked  Him,  saying.  Lord,  wilt  Thou  at  this  present 
 time  restore  the  kingdom  to  Israel  ?  And  He  said 
 unto  them.  It  is  not  for  you  to  know  the  times  or  the 
 seasons,  which  the  Father  hath  put  in  His  own  power. 
 But  ye  shall  receive  power,  after  that  the  Holy 
 Ghost  is  come  upon  you  ;  and  ye  shall  be  witnesses 
 unto  Me  both  in  Jerusalem,  and  in  all  Judea,  and  in 
 Samaria,  and  unto  the  uttermost  part  of  the  earth. 
 And  when  He  had  spoken  these  things,  while  they 
 beheld.  He  was  taken  up  ;  and  a  cloud  received  Him 
 out  of  their  sight.  And  while  they  were  gazing  up 
 toward  heaven,  as  He  w^as  going,  lo !  two  men  were 
 standing  by  them  in  white  apparel,  who  also  said.  Ye 
 men  of  Galilee,  why  stand  ye  looking  toward  heaven  } 
 This  same  Jesus,  who  is  taken  up  from  you  into  hea- 
 ven, shall  so  come  in  the  same  manner  as  ye  have 
 seen  Him  going  into  heaven.  Then  returned  they 
 unto  Jerusalem  from  the  mount  called  Olivet,  which 
 is  from  Jerusalem  a  sabbath-day's  journey." 
 
 Such,  then,  are  the  narratives  in  which  this  Evan- 
 gelist states  the  circumstances  connected  with  the 
 burial,  the  resurrection,  and  the  ascension  of  Jesus. 
 He  records  the  evidence  which  overcame  the  unbelief 
 of  the  disciples  in  the  reports  that  first  reached 
 them — the  evidence  of  sensible  perception  ;  and  he 
 particularly  mentions  the  evidence  which  proved  that 
 the  body  of  the  risen  Jesus  was  a  real  body — that  very 
 body  which  had  been  laid  in  the  tomb,  and  which  was 
 still  a  body  having  flesh  and  bones,  though  at  the 
 same  time  it  was  a  body  over  which  Jesus  possessed  a 
 
NARRATIVES   OF   THE   RESURRECTION.         1 55 
 
 supernatural  power.  From  these  narratives  what 
 other  conclusion  can  be  drawn  than  that  Jesus,  who 
 was  put  to  death  upon  the  cross,  actually  rose  from 
 the  dead  on  the  third  day — the  first  day  of  the  week 
 — and  that  forty  days  after  He  ascended  openly,  in 
 the  sight  of  the  disciples,  into  heaven  .'* 
 
 4.  We  now  come  to  the  last  Evangelic  narrative, 
 written,  as,  notwithstanding  the  strong  denial  of  the 
 adversaries  of  the  Gospel,  all  existing  evidence  tends 
 to  prove,  by  that  Apostle  who  enjoyed  the  special 
 affection  of  Jesus,  and  was  spared  to  a  good  old  age 
 to  watch  over  the  infant  Church,  and  to  witness  the 
 advancing  progress  of  the  Gospel.  The  Gospel  narra- 
 tive bears  clear  internal  evidence  of  the  authorship  of 
 John  ;  and  the  main  purpose  for  which  it  was  written 
 is  also  expressly  stated.  It  was  not  his  intention, 
 says  the  beloved  disciple,  to  attempt  a  complete  record 
 of  the  life  of  Jesus,  but  to  select  such  facts  from 
 among  those  innumerable  tokens  which  distinguished 
 His  wonderful  ministry  as  would  confirm  the  faith  of 
 those  who  believed  that  Jesus  is  the  Christ,  the  Son  of 
 God,  and  would  thus  render  them  more  and  more 
 partakers  of  that  life  which  is  to  be  obtained  through 
 faith  in  His  name.  We  must  avoid  here  all  irrelevant 
 discussion  of  the  characteristics  of  this  Gospel,  and  of 
 its  relation  to  the  other  Gospels.  Whether  the  Apostle 
 John  had  seen  these  Gospels  or  not,  it  seems  undeni- 
 able that  he  was  fully  acquainted  with  the  peculiar 
 cycle  of  teaching  which  the  first  preaching  of  the  com- 
 missioned Apostles  embraced,  and  that  whilst  through- 
 out his  Gospel  he  kept  his  own  main  purpose  in  view, 
 which  was  the  setting  forth  of  the  glory  of  the  Incar- 
 
156  LECTURE   IX. 
 
 nate  Word  in  the  fulness  of  that  grace  and  truth 
 which  even  in  His  state  of  humiliation  shone  forth  in 
 all  He  said  and  did,  he  so  constructs  his  record  that 
 it  becomes  a  record  additional  and  supplementary  to 
 the  other  three. 
 
 After  relating  at  length  the  apprehension,  the  trial, 
 the  condemnation,  and  the  crucifixion  of  Jesus,  and 
 specially  the  evidence  which  proved  the  reality  of  His 
 death,  he  records  the  circumstances  attending  His 
 burial.  "  Joseph  of  Arimathea,  a  disciple  of  Jesus, 
 but  up  to  this  time  a  secret  one,  for  he  feared  the 
 unbelieving  rulers,  begged  of  Pilate  to  be  allowed 
 to  take  the  body  away.  Obtaining  his  request,  he 
 came  "  to  the  place  of  crucifixion,  "  and  removed  the 
 body."  Another  disciple,  Nicodemus,  who  also  was  a 
 secret  one,  and  of  whom  on  two  other  remarkable 
 occasions,  especially  on  the  first,  previous  mention  has 
 been  made  in  this  Gospel,  a  member  also,  as  well  as 
 Joseph,  of  the  Sanhedrim,  was  present,  and  assisted  at 
 the  interment.  The  latter  had  brought  a  large  quan- 
 tity of  myrrh  and  aloes  with  the  view  of  anointing  the 
 body  of  Jesus  ;  and  he  and  Joseph  then,  taking  the 
 body,  "  wrapped  it  in  linen  clothes  with  the  spices, 
 according  to  the  usual  Jewish  mode  of  burying."  The 
 tomb  in  which  the  body  was  laid  was  a  new  one  ;  it 
 was  in  a  garden  near  to  the  place  of  crucifixion  ;  and 
 "  no  one,"  adds  the  Evangelist,  "  had  as  yet  been  laid 
 in  that  tomb."  One  reason,  though  not  stated  as  the 
 only  one,  why  Joseph  and  Nicodemus  laid  the  body 
 of  Jesus  in  this  tomb,  was  because  the  day  was  the 
 preparation-day,  and  only  a  short  time  now  remained 
 before  the  Sabbath  would  come  on ;  and  "  because 
 the  sepulchre  was  nigh  at  hand." 
 
NARRATIVES   OF   THE  RESURRECTION.        1 57 
 
 "  On  the  first  day  of  the  week,  Mary  Magdalene 
 comes  early,  while  it  was  yet  dark,  to  the  tomb,  and 
 sees  the  stone  taken  away  from  it."  The  Evangelist, 
 in  narrating  the  burial,  made  no  mention  of  this  stone ; 
 but  from  what  he  now  says,  we  learn  that  he  was 
 aware  of  the  fact  that  a  stone  had  been  rolled  to  the 
 entrance  of  the  tomb.  Mary  Magdalene,  on  seeing 
 that  this  stone  had  been  removed  from  its  proper 
 place,  immediately  infers,  not  that  Jesus  was  risen, 
 but  that  the  body  had  been  removed  from  the  tomb  ; 
 and,  with  a  mind  impressed  with  this  thought,  she 
 hastens  in  a  state  of  excitement  to  Simon  Peter  and 
 to  the  other  disciple,  whom,  without  naming  him,  the 
 Evangelist  repeatedly  describes  as  "  the  disciple  whom 
 Jesus  loved" — for  whom  Jesus  had,  as  the  word*  means, 
 a  personal  affection,  and  which  disciple  was  evidently 
 no  other  than  the  Evangelist  himself  To  these  two 
 Mary  Magdalene  runs,  and  tells  them  what  she  had 
 seen,  and  also  states  her  own  inference  as  a  matter  of 
 fact :  "  They  have  taken  away  the  Lord  out  of  the 
 sepulchre,  and  we  " — not  merely  I,  but  we,  evidently 
 inclusive  of  others — "  know  not  where  they  have  laid 
 Him."  Then  Peter  and  the  other  disciple  immediately 
 set  out  to  the  sepulchre.  "  They  ran  together,"  so 
 full  of  anxiety  were  they,  "  and  the  other  disciple  out- 
 ran Peter,  and,  coming  first  to  the  sepulchre,  bends 
 down,  and  sees  the  linen  clothes  lying ;  yet  went  he 
 not  in.  But  Simon  Peter,  coming  up  after  him,  went 
 into  the  sepulchre,  and,"  not  merely  sees,  but  "  looks 
 at"!*  the  linen  clothes  lying."  This  strange  fact,  contra- 
 dictory of  Mary  Magdalene's  inference,  evidently  ar- 
 rested his  attention  ;  for  whilst  looking  at  the  clothes, 
 
158  LECTURE   IX. 
 
 he  observed  that  the  napkin  with  which  the  head  of 
 Jesus  had  been  bound  was  not  lying  with  the  rest  of  the 
 linen  clothes,  but  had  been  folded  together,  as  if  with 
 care,  and  left  in  a  place  by  itself  "  Then  went  in 
 also  the  other  disciple,  he  who  had  come  first  to  the 
 sepulchre,  and  on  seeing  these  things  he  believed  " — he 
 believed,  that  is,  on  the  ground  of  what  he  then  saw, 
 that  Jesus  had  risen  from  the  dead.  The  Evangelist, 
 who  is,  in  fact,  here  speaking  of  himself,  states,  appa- 
 rently with  a  feeling  of  self-reproach,  that  neither  he 
 nor  the  other  disciples  as  yet  thoroughly  "  understood 
 the  Scripture,"  when  its  predictions  concerning  the 
 Messiah  implied  "  that  He  must  rise  from  the  dead." 
 These  two,  Peter  and  the  other  disciple,  then  "  went 
 away  to  their  places  of  abode." 
 
 "  But  Mary  remained  outside  near  the  tomb,  weep- 
 ing ;  and  in  this  state  of  grief  she  bent  down  into  the 
 tomb,  and  she  beholds" — intently  beholds* — "two 
 angels  in  white  sitting,  the  one  at  the  head,  and  the 
 other  at  the  feet,  where  the  body  of  Jesus  had  lain. 
 And  they  say  unto  her,  Woman,  why  weepest  thou  ? 
 She  saith  unto  them.  Because  they  have  taken  away 
 my  Lord,  and  I  know  not  where  they  have  laid  Him." 
 The  other  disciple,  who  saw  and  believed,  had  evidently 
 been  as  yet  silent  as  to  his  own  belief  Mary  was  still 
 impressed  with  the  conviction  that  the  body  had  been 
 violently  removed.  So  overpowered  was  her  mind 
 with  this  sad  thought,  that  even  the  strange  sight  of 
 two  men — not  to  say  angels — sitting  within  the  tomb, 
 failed  to  arrest  her  attention,  except  for  the  moment. 
 After  replying  to  their  question,  "she  turns  round 
 and  beholds  Jesus  standing,"  probably  at  no  great  dis- 
 
NARRATIVES   OF   THE   RESURRECTION.         1 59 
 
 tance ;  but  she  did  not  recognise  Him,  for  the  idea  of 
 His  having  risen  never  entered  her  mind.  One  thought, 
 and  only  one,  engrossed  her  whole  soul,  "  His  body 
 had  been  taken  away."  Jesus,  addressing  her,  said,  just 
 as  the  angels  had  said,  "Woman,  why  weepest  thou  ^" 
 but  He  adds,  "  Whom  seekest  thou  ? "  Mary  at  once 
 imagines  that  this  person  is  the  keeper  of  the  garden, 
 and  that  probably  he  had  something  to  do  with  the 
 removal  of  the  body  ;  she  therefore  says,  "  Sir,  if  thou 
 hast  borne  Him  hence " — she  does  not  mention  the 
 name,  but  assumes  that  he  knew  whom  she  was  seek- 
 ing— "  tell  me  where  thou  hast  laid  Him,  and  I  will 
 take  Him  away."  The  language  of  overwhelming 
 grief,  true  to  nature,  is  above  all  cold  criticism  :  0/i/y 
 tell  me  where  thoit  hast  laid  His  body,  and  I  will  take 
 it  away.  "Jesus  says  to  her,  Mary."  The  sound. of 
 her  name,  uttered,  no  doubt,  in  the  well-known  familiar 
 manner,  at  once  reaches  her  soul ;  and,  turning  full 
 round,  she  utters  the  equally  familiar  word  in  her 
 native  tongue,  "  Rabboni,  Master." 
 
 And  now,  as  you  may  well  suppose,  a  reaction  of 
 feeling  in  no  ordinary  degree  took  place,  especially 
 in  such  a  mind  as  we  have  reason  to  believe  that  of 
 Mary  Magdalene's  was — a  mind  which  at  one  time 
 had  been  fearfully  disturbed,  but  had  been  reduced  to 
 calm  and  self-possession  by  the  power  of  Jesus.  She 
 had  received  the  evidence  of  sight  and  of  hearing, 
 but  she  would  also  have  the  evidence  of  touch.  But 
 this  is  at  present  withheld.  "  Touch  Me  not,"  said 
 Jesus;  "  for,"  He  adds,  "  I  have  not  yet  ascended  to  the 
 Father :  but  go  to  My  brethren,  and  say  unto  them,  I 
 ascend  to  My  Father  and  your  Father,  and  to  My 
 God  and  your  God."     Strange  interpretations  have 
 
l60  LECTURE   IX. 
 
 been  given  of  these  apparently  simple  words.  These 
 we  cannot  at  present  detail  and  discuss.  But  looking 
 at  the  words  themselves,  and  remembering  Mary's 
 peculiar  state  of  mind,  we  apprehend  that,  in  order  to 
 calm  her  excited  feelings,  and  to  disabuse  her  of  the 
 idea  which  seems  to  have  rushed  into  her  mind,  that, 
 now  that  He  had  risen.  He  would  immediately 
 ascend.  He  deemed  it  wise  to  forbid  her  to  touch 
 Him,  at  the  same  time  assuring  her  that  He  has  not 
 yet  ascended, — that  He  is  not  immediately  to  ascend  ; 
 and  whilst  thus  withholding  from  her  the  evidence  of 
 touch.  He  bestows  on  her  the  high  honour  of  being 
 His  messenger  to  His  disciples,  whom  He  lovingly 
 styles  His  brethren.  "  Go  to  My  brethren,  and  say 
 unto  them,  I  ascend" — I  am  now  soon  to  ascend — 
 "  unto  My  Father  and  your  Father,  and  to  My  God 
 and  your  God."  Thus  calmed  and  thus  honoured, 
 "  Mary  Magdalene,"  the  first  mortal  herald  of  the 
 resurrection  of  Jesus,  "comes  and  tells  the  disciples 
 that  she  has  seen  the  Lord,  and  that  He  spake  these 
 things  unto  her."  What  effect  her  report  produced 
 on  the  disciples  the  Evangelist  does  not  say. 
 
 He  goes  on  to  relate  that,  ''on  the  evening  of  the  same 
 day,  the  first  day  of  the  week,  when  the  doors  of  the 
 room  where  the  disciples  were  assembled  were  shut  for 
 fear  of  the  Jews,  came  Jesus  and  stood  in  the  midst,  and 
 says  to  them,  Peace  be  unto  you."  It  seems  evident 
 that  the  Evangelist  represents  this  appearance  as  instan- 
 taneous and  supernatural,  and  that  therefore  he  states 
 only  the  fact.  The  doors  were  closed,'and  yet  Jesus  all 
 at  once  stood  jDefore  the  disciples.  He  immediately 
 calmed  their  minds,  naturally  excited  by  so  sudden 
 and  miraculous  an  appearance,  by  uttering  that  v/ord 
 
NARRATIVES   OF   THE   RESURRECTION.         l6l 
 
 which  assured  them  of  His  love :  "  Peace,"  every 
 blessing,  "  be  unto  you.  And  having  thus  spoken,  He 
 showed  them  His  hands  and  His  side,"  still  bearing 
 the  marks  of  the  nails  and  the  spear.  "  Then,"  it  is 
 added,  "were  the  disciples  glad  when  they  saw  the 
 Lord.  Then  Jesus  again  addressed  them,  saying, 
 Peace  be  unto  you :  as  the  Father  sent  Me,  even  so 
 send  I  you.  And  having  said  this.  He  breathed  on 
 them,  and  says.  Receive  the  Holy  Spirit :  whose  sins 
 ye  remit,  they  are  remitted  unto  them  ;  and  whose 
 sins  ye  retain,  they  are  retained."  The  Evangelist 
 then  mentions  that  one  of  the  disciples,  Thomas,  who 
 was  also  called  Didymus,  was  not  present  at  that 
 meeting ;  and  that  when  the  rest  told  him  they 
 had  seen  the  Lord,  he  declared  that  "  except  he 
 should  see  in  His  hands  the  print  of  the  nails,  and 
 put  his  finger  into  the  print  of  the  nails,  and  put  his 
 hand  into  His  side,  he  would  not  believe." 
 
 On  the  next  first  day  of  the  week  the  disciples 
 were  again  assembled,  and  Thomas  was  with  them. 
 The  doors  were  again  closed,  and  Jesus  again  ap- 
 peared in  the  midst  of  them,  and  addressed  to  them 
 His  usual  salutation,  "  Peace  be  unto  you."  Then 
 specially  addressing  Thomas,  He  said,  "  Reach  hither 
 thy  finger,  and  behold  My  hands ;  and  reach  hither 
 thy  hand,  and  put  it  into  My  side,  and  be  not  unbe- 
 lieving, but  believing."  Thomas,  the  Evangelist  says, 
 immediately  exclaimed,  "  My  Lord  and  my  God  " — 
 words  which  evidently  expressed  not  only  his  belief 
 in  the  reality  of  the  appearance  of  the  risen  Jesus, 
 but,  along  with  this,  his  belief  that  He,  who  thus 
 appeared  and  thus  manifested  all  knowledge,  was 
 more  than  man — was  indeed  his  Lord  and  his  God. 
 
 L 
 
l62  LECTURE   IX. 
 
 Jesus  replied  to  His  now  convinced  disciple  in  those 
 ever-memorable  words  :  "  Thomas,  because  thou  hast 
 seen  Me,  thou  hast  believed :  blessed  are  those  who 
 have  not  seen,  and  have  believed" — words  which  do 
 not  mean,  as  some  have  alleged,  that  Jesus  pronounces 
 those  blessed  who  believe  without  any  evidence  what- 
 ever, but  that  those  are  blessed  who  having-  not,  as 
 Thomas  now  had,  the  evidence  of  sight,  believe,  as 
 Thomas  had  not  done,  the  testimony  of  competent 
 and  therefore  credible  witnesses. 
 
 The  Evangelist  seems  to  have  at  first  concluded 
 his  narrative  here,  and,  for  reasons  which  afterwards 
 occurred,  to  have  added  an  appendix  to  it,  in  which 
 he  records  what  he  calls  a  third  appearance  of  Jesus ; 
 that  is,  as  he  expressly  says,  not  His  third  appear- 
 ance absolutely,  but  the  third  to  His  disciples  when 
 all  or  a  number  of  them  were  present.  I  need  not 
 detail  the  circumstances  of  this  appearance,  which,  we 
 are  told,  took  place  at  the  Sea  of  GaHlee,  when  seven  of 
 the  disciples  had  returned  to  their  trade  of  fishing.  The 
 whole  circumstances  are  deeply  interesting,  especially 
 those  which  refer  to  what  took  place  between  Jesus 
 and  Peter,  who  is  now  made  to  confess  his  love  to  Jesus 
 as  often  as  he  had  formerly  denied  any  knowledge 
 of  Him,  and  who,  after  each  confession,  is  solemnly 
 recognised  as  a  commissioned  Apostle:  especially  also 
 the  prediction  of  Jesus  respecting  the  martyrdom 
 which  Peter  would  have  to  suffer,  and  the  somewhat 
 obscure  prediction  respecting  what  was  to  happen 
 to  the  other  disciple — "  the  disciple  whom  Jesus 
 loved,  who  also  leaned  on  His  breast  at  supper, 
 and  said.  Lord,  who  is  he  that  betrayeth  Thee  ?  It  is 
 this  disciple,"  says  the  Evangelist,  "  which   testifieth 
 
NARRATIVES   OF   THE   RESURRECTION.         1 63 
 
 of  these  things,   and  wrote   these   things;    and,   we 
 know,"  he  adds,  "  that  his  testimony  is  true." 
 
 The  conclusion  to  be  drawn  from  the  whole  of  this 
 narrative  is  very  evident. 
 
 The  dead  body  of  Jesus  is  taken  down  from  the 
 cross  by  Joseph  and  Nicodemus.  It  is  laid  by  them 
 in  a  new  tomb  within  a  garden  near  to  the  place  of 
 crucifixion. 
 
 Early  on  the  morning  of  the  first  day  of  the  week 
 Mary  Magdalene  comes  to  the  garden  and  finds  the 
 stone  rolled  away  from  the  entrance  of  the  tomb. 
 She  believes  that  the  body  has  been  removed,  and 
 she  immediately  hastens  to  inform  Peter  and  John. 
 These  disciples  run  to  the  tomb,  and  John  at  last, 
 carefully  noticing  not  only  the  linen  clothes  them- 
 selves, but  also  how  they  are  placed,  concludes  that 
 the  body  has  not  been  removed,  but  that  Jesus  has 
 risen.  He  seems  to  be  silent  in  respect  to  this  con- 
 clusion. Peter  and  he  leave  the  tomb  and  return 
 home. 
 
 Mary  remains,  overwhelmed  with  grief  on  account 
 of  the  removal,  as  she  supposes,  of  the  body  of  Jesus. 
 The  idea  that  He  has  risen  never  enters  her  mind. 
 She  sees  two  angels  within  the  tomb.  They  speak 
 to  her,  and  she  answers  them  according  to  her  grief. 
 She  recognises  them  not  as  angelic  messengers.  She 
 partly  turns  round,  and  sees  a  person  standing  at  a 
 little  distance  from  her;  she  supposes  him  to  be 
 the  gardener.  The  stranger  asks  her  the  cause  of  her 
 grief,  and  whom  she  is  seeking.  She  at  once  sup- 
 poses that  this  is  the  person  who  has  removed  the 
 body,  and  implores  him  to  tell  her  where  he  has 
 laid  it.      Immediately  she  hears  the  well-known  ut- 
 
164  LECTURE   IX. 
 
 terance  of  her  own  name,  and  at  once  recognises  her 
 Lord.  She  would  have  the  evidence  of  touch  also, 
 but  for  wise  and  kind  reasons  is  forbidden  to  touch 
 Him,  and  is  sent  with  soothing  words  to  bear  the 
 tidings  to  the  disciples.  Whether  they  believed  her 
 or  not  is  not  said ;  probably  they  did  not  believe. 
 
 But  Jesus  appears  to  ten  of  them  on  the  evening  of 
 the  same  day.  His  appearance  is  real,  but  the  mode 
 in  which  it  is  effected  is  supernatural.  He  gives  them 
 full  evidence  of  the  reality  of  His  appearance,  and 
 of  the  identity  of  His  body.  They  believe  and  re- 
 joice. But  one  of  them,  Thomas,  is  not  then  pre- 
 sent, and  he  refuses  to  credit  the  testimony  of  the 
 others.  He  demands  for  himself  the  evidence  of 
 sight  and  touch. 
 
 Again  the  disciples  are  assembled,  and  Thomas 
 is  with  them.  Again  Jesus  appears  in  the  same 
 miraculous  manner.  He  addresses  Thomas,  and  offers 
 him  the  evidence  which  he  had  demanded.  Thomas 
 is  instantly  convinced,  and  expresses  his  faith  at  once 
 in  the  identity  and  the  divinity  of  the  risen  Jesus. 
 
 On  a  third  occasion  Jesus  appears  to  a  number  of 
 the  disciples  in  a  different  quarter.  They  see  Him  ; 
 they  hear  His  words  ;  they  experience  His  miraculous 
 power ;  they  know  that  it  is  the  Lord. 
 
 What  other  evidence  could  be  demanded  to  attest 
 the  reality  of  His  resurrection  ?  How  could  the 
 disciples  believe  aught  else  than  that  He  who  was 
 thus  seen  by  them,  and  who  thus  spoke  to  them,  had 
 indeed  risen  from  the  dead  ?  Such,  then,  is  the  testi- 
 mony of  an  eyewitness — of  John,  that  disciple  whom 
 Jesus  loved. 
 
LECTURE    X. 
 
 COMPARISON   OF   THE   VARIOUS   NARRATIVES   OF 
 THE   RESURRECTION   OF  JESUS. 
 
 III.  Having  now  examined  at  length  the  narratives 
 of  the  four  Evangelists  separately,  we  proceed  to 
 bring  these  together,  and,  so  far  as  we  are  able,  to 
 ascertain  whether  they  are  consistent  with  each  other, 
 and  thus  confirm  each  other's  testimony. 
 
 If  these  narratives  present  us  with  true  accounts  of 
 facts,  then,  however  diversified  in  details,  and  how- 
 ever independent  of  each  other  they  may  be,  they 
 must  be  consistent  with  one  another,  whether  we 
 discern  that  consistency  or  not.  That  they  are  diver- 
 sified in  certain  details,  and  are  in  one  sense  indepen- 
 dent of  each  other — that  is,  that  not  one  of  them  is 
 the  source  whence  the  others  were  drawn — must  be 
 manifest  to  every  reader.  They  evidently  constitute 
 four  distinct  and  independent  witnesses  to  the  one  great 
 fact  which  is  the  subject  of  their  testimony — the  re- 
 surrection of  Jesus  from  the  dead.  But  though  this  is 
 the  manifest  character  of  these  four  narratives,  it  is  no 
 less  certain  that  these  witnesses  must  agree  substan- 
 tially in  their  testimony,  and  that  we  have  a  right  to 
 demand  such  agreement,  and  are  therefore  entitled  to 
 cross-examine  them,  so  to  speak,  in  order  to  ascertain 
 
l66  LECTURE   X. 
 
 whether  this  is  the  case  or  not.  Should  we  discover 
 that,  notwithstanding  an  agreement  in  the  mere  asser- 
 tion of  the  fact  of  the  resurrection,  their  separate 
 accounts  are  not  only  diversified  in  details,  but  are 
 inconsistent  with  each  other — contradictory,  in  short, 
 to  one  another — then  their  agreement  in  the  mere 
 general  assertion  would  be  of  no  avail,  however  diffi- 
 cult it  might  be  for  us  to  trace  the  origin  of  such  an 
 assertion.  No  doubt  the  alleged  fact  is  a  miraculous, 
 a  supernatural  fact,  and  is  therefore  in  itself  incompre- 
 hensible by  our  limited  reason  —  incomprehensible, 
 that  is,  as  to  the  mode  of  its  occurrence.  But  that 
 is  not  the  question  before  us.  That  question  refers 
 solely  to  sensible  occurrences ;  to  things  seen  and 
 heard  and  palpable ;  to  things  within  the  sphere 
 of  sense,  and  therefore  so  far  within  the  sphere  of 
 human  reason. 
 
 We  cannot,  if  we  would,  avoid  the  inquiry  on 
 which  we  are  now  entering,  and  we  ought  not  to 
 avoid  it ;  but  we  ought  fearlessly,  and  yet  humbly,  to 
 engage  in  it  under  the  full  conviction  that,  though  we 
 may  not  be  able  to  discern  the  agreement  of  these 
 witnesses  in  every  part  of  their  testimony,  yet  we 
 shall  not  entirely  fail,  but  shall  see  enough  to  con- 
 vince us  that,  if  we  knew  more  than  what  they 
 have  recorded,  we  should  perceive  their  entire  agree- 
 ment. 
 
 There  arc  those,  as  wc  shall  afterwards  have  to 
 show,  who  profess  to  discover  contradictions  in  these 
 narratives,  and  who  therefore  conclude  that  they  are 
 wholly  unworthy  of  credit.  These  are  the  open — the 
 avowed  adversaries  of  the  Gospel. 
 
 Again,  there  are  those  who,  believing  in  the  truth 
 
COMPARISON    OF   THE   NARRATIVES.  167 
 
 of  the  narratives,  endeavour  to  bring  them  into  perfect 
 harmony  with  one  another  ;  and,  further,  who,  beHev- 
 ing  that  this  result  can  be  accomphshed  by  what  the 
 narratives  themselves  contain,  deem  it  a  failure  unless 
 this  result  is  arrived  at.  This  is  unreasonable ;  for  a 
 perfect  agreement  could  be  ascertained  by  us  only  on 
 the  supposition  that,  taking  the  Evangelical  narratives 
 as  a  whole,  we  knew  that  these  contained  a  record  of 
 every  event  that  occurred  from  the  resurrection  to  the 
 ascension  of  Jesus.  Now,  it  is  most  manifest  that 
 these  narratives,  taken  either  separately  or  together, 
 do  not  contain  such  a  complete  record ;  and  there- 
 fore, to  expect  that  from  the  partial  accounts  con- 
 tained in  them  we  can  construct  such  a  record,  is,  as 
 we  have  said,  most  unreasonable.  All  that  ought  to 
 be  a  priori  expected  is,  that  no  real  contradiction 
 shall  emerge,  and  that  an  agreement  to  a  certain 
 extent  may  be  seen  ;  whilst  difficulties  also  may  arise, 
 which  such  partial  accounts  may  occasion,  but  do  not 
 enable  us  to  remove. 
 
 Again,  we  must  mention  that  there  are  some,  and 
 these  of  no  m.ean  name  in  the  Christian  world,  who, 
 whilst  professing  to  believe  in  each  narrative  separ- 
 ately, and  therefore  in  the  great  fact  to  which  each 
 bears  its  independent  testimony,  go  the  length  of 
 utterly  condemning  all  attempts  to  reconcile  the  dif- 
 ferent accounts,  and  of  declaring  "  all  such  attempts 
 to  be  fruitless."  Such  persons  even  profess  to  "see  in 
 the  failure  of  these  attempts  strong  corroboration  of 
 the  truth  of  the  Evangelic  narratives,"  and  seem  to 
 consider  it  a  mark  of  superior  wisdom  to  speak  con- 
 temptuously of  "  the  harmonisers."  I  cannot  too  ear- 
 nestly guard  you  against  such  a  hasty  view  as  this. 
 
1 68  LECTURE   X. 
 
 which  I  regret  to  say  is  not  a  little  current  in  our  day. 
 Such  a  view,  whilst  it  seems  not  only  not  to  shake, 
 but  even  in  some  strange  way  to  strengthen,  the  faith 
 of  its  advocates,  does,  in  my  humble  but  decided 
 opinion,  tend  to  play  into  the  hands  of  the  adversaries 
 of  the  Gospel,  and  to  overturn  the  whole  credit  of  the 
 narratives  in  question.  Avoid,  I  pray  you,  all  hasty 
 and  rash  views,  whether  on  the  one  side  or  the  other, 
 on  every  subject,  and  especially  on  such  a  subject  as 
 the  one  before  us.  Be  calm  and  patient,  and  here  as 
 elsewhere  you  shall  find  that,  though  you  cannot  know 
 everything  as  you  would  wish  to  know  it,  you  shall  yet 
 know  enough  to  assure  you  that  these  accounts  of  the 
 resurrection  of  Jesus,  however  varied  in  their  details, 
 present  no  contradiction,  but  being  substantially  at 
 one  in  respect  to  those  details  which  they  give  in 
 common,  are  therefore  such  as  to  warrant  us  in  con- 
 cluding that  they  are  equally  at  one  even  when  we 
 are  unable  to  discern  this  unity  in  all  its  complete- 
 ness. In  short,  let  us  only  deal  fairly  with  these  nar- 
 ratives, not  forcing  them  into  agreement,  but  never- 
 theless trying  to  see  whether  the  witnesses  do  not 
 substantially  agree. 
 
 Before  entering  on  this  comparative  inquiry,  there 
 is  another  observation  which  we  have  to  make,  and  it 
 is  this — that  whilst  we  must  avoid  all  attempts  at 
 forcing,  so  to  speak,  an  agreement  between  the  ac- 
 counts, we  are  entitled  to  propose  what  may  be  only 
 a  conjecture,  a  mere  supposition,  when  such  conjec- 
 ture is  not  unreasonable,  in  order  to  explain  state- 
 ments which  at  first  sight  seem  to  come  into  collision. 
 Such  a  mode  of  procedure  is  perfectly  legitimate  in 
 such  a  case  as  the  present ;  and  if  the  result  should 
 
COMPARISON   OF   THE   NARRATIVES.  169 
 
 only  be  to  show  that  two  apparently  opposite  state- 
 ments may  not  be  discordant  or  contradictory,  even 
 such  a  result  is  valuable,  for  it  is  sufficient  to  disprove 
 the  allegation  of  contradiction.  Bearing  these  things, 
 then,  in  mind,  let  us  now  proceed  to  the  inquiry  itself 
 
 I.  As  to  the  death  of  Jesus  and  the  burial  of  His 
 body,  these  four  narratives  are  in  wonderful  agree- 
 ment— in  such  a  state  of  agreement,  indeed,  that  it 
 seems  scarcely  necessary  to  prove  it. 
 
 That  Jesus  was  put  to  death  after  a  public  trial, 
 and  that  He  really  expired  on  the  cross,  are  facts  ad- 
 mitted by  the  adversaries  as  well  as  by  the  advocates 
 of  the  Gospel.  A  few  persons,  as  we  formerly  re- 
 marked, have  attempted,  in  order  to  explain  away  the 
 reality  of  His  resurrection,  to  broach  the  supposition 
 of  a  swoon — the  mere  visible  cessation  of  vital  power, 
 and  not  the  cessation  of  life  itself  But  this  supposi- 
 tion, formed  for  a  special  purpose,  has  met  with  little 
 countenance  even  from  the  enemies  of  the  Gospel, 
 and  is  in  direct  opposition  to  the  facts  as  stated  by 
 each  Evangelist.  We  may  therefore  dismiss  it  as 
 altogether  untenable. 
 
 Again,  as  respects  the  important  matter  of  the 
 burial  of  the  body,  we  have  the  most  ample  informa- 
 tion ;  and  the  narratives,  though  somewhat  varied  in 
 their  details,  are  easily  brought  into  agreement.  Each 
 of  the  Evangelists  relates  that  Joseph  of  Arimathea 
 was  the  person  who  went  to  Pilate  and  begged  to 
 obtain  possession  of  the  body  of  Jesus.  Taking  all 
 the  accounts  together,  we  find  that  this  Joseph  was 
 secretly  a  disciple  of  Jesus — that  he  was  a  man  of 
 wealth,  a  man  of  high  character,  and  a  member  of  the 
 
I/O  LECTURE   X. 
 
 Jewish  Sanhedrim.  Matthew  tells  us  that  the  tomb 
 in  which  the  body  was  laid  belonged  to  Joseph ;  that  it 
 was  a  new  tomb — one  recently  made,  and  cut  out  in  a 
 rock  ;  and  that  there  was  a  large  stone  which  exactly 
 fitted  the  entrance  or  door  of  the  tomb.  Mark 
 simply  tells  us  that  Joseph  laid  the  body  in  a  tomb 
 which  was  hewn  out  of  a  rock,  and  that  he  rolled  a 
 large  stone  to  the  door  of  the  tomb.  Luke  says  that 
 Joseph  laid  the  body  in  a  tomb  that  was  hewn  in 
 stone,  and  adds,  "  wherein  never  man  before  was  laid." 
 John  gives  us  a  little  more  information, — that  Nico- 
 demus,  another  secret  disciple  of  Jesus,  and  also  a 
 member  of  the  Sanhedrim,  took  part  with  Joseph  in 
 discharging  these  last  offices  to  the  body  of  Jesus,  and 
 that  the  tomb  was  in  a  garden  nigh  to  the  place  of 
 crucifixion — a  circumstance  which  in  some  measure 
 influenced  Joseph  to  lay  the  body  there.  He  also 
 adds,  that  never  man  was  yet  laid  in  this  tomb. 
 The  day  also,  and  the  exact  time  of  the  day,  are 
 mentioned  by  all  the  Evangelists.  It  was  on  the  day 
 of  preparation — the  day  before  the  Sabbath — and 
 towards  the  close  of  that  day  ;  that  is,  a  short  time 
 before  sunset.  They  all  mention  the  wrapping  of  the 
 body  in  linen  clothes  ;  and  John  informs  us  that  Nico- 
 demus  brought  myrrh  and  aloes,  about  an  hundred 
 pound  weight,  and  that  he  and  Joseph  wrapped  the 
 body  in  linen  clothes  with  these  spices,  according  to 
 the  Jewish  custom  in  burying.  Matthew  tells  us  that 
 Mary  Magdalene  and  the  other  Mary — that  is,  the 
 mother  of  James  and  Joses  ;  Mark,  that  Mary  Mag- 
 dalene and  Mary  the  mother  of  Joses  ;  and  Luke, 
 that  the  women  also,  who  came  with  Him  from 
 Galilee  (some  of  whose  names  he  afterwards  as  well 
 
 r 
 
COMPARISON   OF   THE   NARRATIVES.  I/I 
 
 as  before  mentions),  witnessed  the  interment.  John 
 does  not  mention  the  presence  of  any  women.  We 
 thus  see  that  with  slight  variations,  and  sometimes 
 with  the  mention  of  more  or  fewer  details,  there  is 
 perfect  agreement  among  the  Evangelists  in  respect 
 to  the  really  momentous  fact  of  the  burial  of  the 
 Body. 
 
 There  is,  however,  one  circumstance  of  an  impor- 
 tant nature  which  is  recorded  by  Matthew  alone.  It 
 is  that  of  the  application  of  the  Jewish  rulers  to 
 Pilate  to  set  a  watch  or  guard  at  the  sepulchre.  The 
 conduct  of  Pilate  during  the  trial  of  Jesus  had  not 
 altogether  satisfied  these  rulers,  and  they  were,  no 
 doubt,  much  displeased  at  his  having  granted  the 
 body  to  Joseph,  instead  of  allowing  it  to  suffer  the 
 usual  fate  of  those  who  were  crucified.  And  now  they 
 either  feared,  or  pretended  to  fear,  from  some  things 
 which  they  had  heard  Jesus  say,  that  His  disciples, 
 having  got  possession  of  the  body,  would  remove  it 
 out  of  sight,  and  spread  the  story  that  He  had  risen 
 from  the  dead.  Pilate  allowed  them  to  set  a  watch, 
 and  to  do  anything  else  they  pleased  to  render  the 
 sepulchre  sure.  Now,  since  Matthew  alone  relates 
 this  circumstance,  and  also  the  subsequent  conduct  of 
 the  soldiers  who  formed  the  guard,  and  the  means 
 which  the  Jewish  rulers  adopted  in  order  to  suppress 
 the  testimony  of  the  disciples  about  the  resurrection 
 of  Jesus,  a  difficulty  has  been  raised  affecting  the 
 credibility  of  all  the  narratives.  If  the  Jewish  rulers 
 had  recourse  to  such  means  as  Matthew  mentions,  to 
 prevent  fraud  on  the  part  of  the  disciples  ;  if,  notwith- 
 standing the  use  of  these  means,  Jesus  really  rose  from 
 the  dead  ;  and  further,  if  such  a  story  as  that  men- 
 
 ] 
 
172  LECTURE   X. 
 
 tioned  by  Matthew  was  spread  abroad,  why,  it  is  asked, 
 did  not  the  other  EvangeHsts  take  notice  of  a  circum- 
 stance bearing  so  powerfully  on  the  evidence  of  the 
 Resurrection  ? 
 
 Now,  let  it  be  observed  that  this  matter  respecting 
 the  setting  of  a  watch  was  certainly  one  of  no  slight 
 moment  to  the  Jewish  rulers.  They  had  already  re- 
 sisted the  clearest  evidence  of  the  claims  of  Jesus  ; 
 and  through  their  own  suspicions,  real  or  pretended 
 (probably  partly  both),  they  were  once  more  to  be  put 
 on  trial.  They  devised  the  very  means  for  another 
 trial  of  their  own  hearts.  Yet  so  hardened  were  their 
 hearts  in  unbelief,  that  instead  of  yielding  to  the  tes- 
 timony of  the  very  men  whom  they  themselves  set  as 
 a  watch  around  the  tomb,  they  bribed  those  men  to 
 falsify  their  own  testimony,  and  to  spread,  so  far  as 
 they  could,  a  false  account  of  what  had  happened. 
 But  a  little  reflection  will  show  that  however  impor- 
 tant to  the  Jewish  rulers  the  whole  of  this  matter  was, 
 it  is  really  in  itself  of  minor  importance,  as  bearing 
 on  the  evidence  for  the  reality  of  the  resurrection  of 
 Jesus.  The  disciples  were  to  believe,  and  did  believe, 
 in  this  fact  on  evidence  presented  to  themselves,  and 
 they  were  to  be  witnesses,  and  were  witnesses,  to 
 others,  not  of  what  others  said,  but  of  what  they 
 themselves  had  seen  and  heard.  As  the  whole  of 
 this  matter  about  the  guard  was  one  with  which  they 
 had  no  direct  concern,  but  one  which  they  as  well  as 
 others  could  know  only  by  report ;  and,  further,  as  in 
 their  narratives  they  evidently  on  purpose  record  only 
 what  fell  under  their  own  cognisance,  or  was  reported 
 to  them  by  persons  whom  they  knew ;  and,  again,  as 
 the  three  Gospels  in  which  no  mention  of  this  matter 
 
COMPARISON    OF   TftE   NARRATIVES.  1/3 
 
 is  found  were  written  expressly  for  the  Christian 
 Church  in  general,  and  chiefly  for  the  Gentile  Churches, 
 we  may  perceive  some  not  invalid  reasons  why  it  did 
 not  find  a  place  in  these  Gospels.  On  the  other  hand, 
 there  is  satisfactory  ground  for  believing  that  Matthew 
 wrote  his  Gospel  specially  for  the  Jewish  converts  ; 
 and  as  the  false  story  set  afloat  was  likely  to  affect 
 these  converts  in  particular,  we  cannot  but  discern  the 
 wisdom  which  guided  this  Evangelist  to  give  to  these 
 converts  a  correct  view  of  a  matter  which  was  chiefly 
 to  concern  them.  So  far,  I  humbly  think,  we  can  meet 
 the  objection  which  has  been  raised  in  connection 
 with  this  subject.  We  cannot  always  account  for  the 
 silence  of  an  historian  in  respect  even  to  matters  which 
 appear  to  us  of  importance  ;  nor  are  we  to  infer  from 
 such  silence  that  the  matters  themselves  were  unknown 
 to  him.  Matthew  evidently  felt  it  necessary,  for  the 
 special  purpose  he  had  in  view  in  composing  his  nar- 
 rative, to  meet  the  false  report  spread  among  the 
 Jews.  It  fell  in  with  his  design  to  do  so.  The  other 
 three  Evangelists  wrote  each  with  a  purpose  in  view 
 different  from  that  which  specially  guided  Matthew ; 
 and  any  mention  of  the  circumstance  may  not  have 
 been  called  for  by  that  special  purpose.  As  to  the 
 fact  itself  we  have  the  testimony  of  Matthew ;  and 
 it  might  be  also  shown  from  the  evidently  restrained 
 conduct  of  the  rulers  towards  the  Apostles,  when 
 these  first  proclaimed  in  Jerusalem  itself  the  resur- 
 rection of  Jesus,  that  they  were  not  altogether  easy 
 in  their  unbelief  That  the  false  story  referred  to 
 by  Matthew  was  spread  abroad  in  an  expanded  form 
 by  the  Jewish  rulers,  we  have  other  and  sufficient 
 evidence. 
 
174  LECTURE   X. 
 
 2.  We  now  proceed  to  compare  the  four  narratives 
 in  reference  to  the  resurrection  itself,  and  specially 
 the  events  connected  with  it  on  the  day  on  which  it 
 took  place. 
 
 They  all  agree  that  this  great  fact  took  place  early 
 on  the  first  day  of  the  week.  None  of  the  Evangel- 
 ists professes  to  know  at  what  particular  moment  on 
 that  eventful  morning  the  body  of  Jesus  was  restored 
 to  life,  or  the  manner  in  which  He,  once  more  quick- 
 ening this  body  by  His  indwelling  Spirit,  came  forth 
 from  the  tomb.  The  Evangelists  Luke  and  John 
 alone  mention  that  the  linen  clothes  in  which  the 
 body  had  been  wrapped  were  left  in  the  tomb,  and 
 John  adds  that  these,  and  the  napkin  or  bandage 
 with  which  the  head  had  been  bound,  were  left  in  such 
 a  manner  as  to  convince  himself,  when  he  and  Peter 
 saw  them,  that  the  body  had  not  been  taken  away, 
 but  that  Jesus  Himself  had  risen  from  the  dead,  leav- 
 ing these  as  tokens  of  His  triumph  over  death  and  the 
 grave.  We  shall  have  special  occasion  to  note  the 
 power  which  the  risen  Jesus  exerted  over  His  risen 
 body,  a  power  which  even  during  His  ministry  He 
 had  occasionally  exerted,  but  now  exerted  more  fre- 
 quently and  fully.  It  is  not  said  that  any  mortal  eye 
 witnessed  the  resurrection  itself,  and  in  all  probability 
 no  such  eye  did  witness  it.  Nor  was  it  necessary  that 
 any  human  being  should  have  witnessed  this  event  in 
 order  to  establish  the  reality  of  the  fact.  The  only 
 thing  necessary  was,  that  Jesus  when  risen  should  be 
 seen  by  competent  witnesses ;  and  that  He  was  seen 
 is  what  these  four  narratives  unite  in  proving.  But 
 we  cannot  avoid  remarking  that  had  these  narratives 
 been  based  on  fiction  or  delusion,  we  should  in  all 
 
COMPARISON   OF   THE    NARRATIVES.  \J ^ 
 
 probability  have  seen  proofs  of  man's  ever-restless 
 imagination  in  attempts  to  describe  to  us  not  merely 
 the  fact,  but  how  the  fact  took  place.  The  absence 
 of  all  such  attempts  on  such  a  theme  furnishes  no 
 slight  evidence  to  a  thoughtful  mind  of  the  complete 
 self-possession  of  the  four  Evangelical  writers.  The 
 fact  itself  became  first  known  to  certain  women  who 
 had,  as  we  have  already  learned,  carefully  observed 
 where  the  body  was  laid,  and  who  had  resolved  to 
 visit  the  tomb  as  early  as  they  could  on  the  first  day 
 of  the  week,  in  order  still  further  to  anoint  it. 
 
 And  now  in  regard  to  the  visit  of  these  women  we 
 require  to  observe  with  the  utmost  care  every  circum- 
 stance related  by  the  Evangelists.  That  one  should 
 tell  us  more  than  the  others — that  each  should  give 
 us  only  a  partial  account — can  occasion  no  surprise. 
 This  diversity  will  only  prove  the  independence  of 
 the  narratives ;  and  even  should  we  experience  some 
 difficulty  in  harmonising  the  statements  of  the  various 
 circumstances  which  occurred,  and  which  could  not 
 but  give  rise  to  unwonted  excitement,  we  need  not  be 
 astonished.  But  we  may  hope  to  bring  the  narratives 
 together  so  far  at  least  as  to  convince  us  that  they 
 are  not  irreconcilably  at  variance  ;  and  if  we  succeed 
 even  to  this  extent,  we  deprive  the  assertion  of  the 
 adversary  of  all  its  force. 
 
 Matthew  simply  tells  us  that  Mary  Magdalene  and 
 the  other  Mary  went  on  that  day,  as  it  began  to  dawn, 
 to  see  the  sepulchre  ;  Mark  says  that  when  the  Sab- 
 bath was  past — that  is,  after  sunset  on  the  previous 
 day — Mary  Magdalene,  Mary  the  mother  of  James, 
 and  Salome,  bought  sweet  spices,  that  they  might 
 come  and  anoint  Him,  and  that  very  early  in  the 
 
.'j6  LECTURE   X. 
 
 morning  on  the  first  day  of  the  week  they  came  unto 
 the  sepulchre  at  the  rising  of  the  sun — that  is,  as  this 
 last  phrase  evidently  here  means,  when  the  dawning 
 of  the  day  was  beginning  to  appear.  Luke  relates 
 that  the  women  who  came  with  Jesus  from  Galilee, 
 among  whom  were,  as  he  afterwards  mentions,  Mary 
 Magdalene,  and  Joanna,  and  Mary  the  mother  of 
 James,  witnessed  the  burial  of  the  body,  which  took 
 place  towards  the  close  of  the  preparation-day,  and 
 on  their  return  to  the  city  prepared  spices  and  oint- 
 ments ;  and  that,  resting  on  the  Sabbath-day,  they 
 came  very  early  in  the  morning  of  the  day  after,  the 
 first  day  of  the  week,  with  the  spices.  The  clause  in 
 the  received  text  stating  that  there  were  certain  other 
 women  with  them  is  now  generally  rejected,  and  is  a 
 clause  of  no  moment,  for  Luke  afterwards  expressly 
 says  that  there  were  other  women  with  the  three 
 whose  names,  as  we  have  mentioned,  he  particularises. 
 John  names  only  Mary  Magdalene,  who,  he  says, 
 came  on  the  first  day  of  the  week  early,  when  it  was 
 yet  dark,  to  the  sepulchre.  When  indeed  she  hastened 
 to  tell  Peter  and  John  what  she  had  seen  and  what 
 she  inferred,  she  uses  the  expression,  "  Wc  know  not 
 where  they  have  laid  Him."  But  in  her  reply  to  the 
 two  men,  as  she  supposed  the  persons  to  be  whom 
 she  saw  within  the  tomb,  and  who  asked  her  why 
 she  was  weeping,  she  uses  a  different  expression,  "  I 
 know  not  where  they  have  laid  Him."  Without  at- 
 taching any  great  importance  to  this  point,  I  think 
 the  fair  interpretation  is,  that  Mary  included  others 
 besides  herself  in  the  first  expression,  whilst  in  the 
 second,  through  the  absorbing  grief  which  more  and 
 more  possessed  her  soul,  she  refers  to  herself  alone. 
 
COMPARISON   OF   THE   NARRATIVES.  ifP 
 
 It  is,  however,  to  be  noticed  that  the  EvangeHst  John 
 makes  no  mention  of  other  women,  and  that  it  is  only 
 in  this  expression  of  Mary's  that  we  have  any  intima- 
 tion in  his  narrative  that  there  were  others  besides 
 herself. 
 
 Observe,  then,  that  all  the  four  Evangelists  are  at  one 
 in  relating,  that  early,  just  as  it  was  beginning  to  dawn, 
 when  it  might  be  said  that  it  was  either  light  or 
 dark,  one  or  more  women  went  to  visit  the  sepulchre ; 
 that  the  first  three  name  Mary  Magdalene  as  accom- 
 panied by  others  ;  that  Luke  expressly  names  three 
 women,  with  whom  he  also  says  there  were  others  ; 
 and  that  John  mentions  only  Mary  Magdalene. 
 Again,  observe  that  Mark  and  Luke  tell  us  the  pur- 
 pose which  these  women  had  in  view  —  it  was  to 
 anoint  the  body  of  Jesus ;  whilst  Matthew  and  John 
 make  no  mention  of  this  purpose.  Observe,  fur- 
 ther, that  none  of  these  women  doubted  that  they 
 would  find  the  body  of  Jesus  in  the  tomb.  The  idea 
 of  His  resurrection  had  passed  away  from  their  minds, 
 if  ever  it  had  found  any  real  place  there.  The  death 
 of  Jesus  had  completely  overwhelmed  them.  They 
 still  believed  in  Him ;  but  how  He,  the  Messiah, 
 should  have  died,  was  what  confounded  their  minds, 
 preoccupied  as  these  were  with  erroneous  views  of  the 
 Messiah's  kingdom.  Why  John  restricted  himself  to 
 the  sole  mention  of  Mary  Magdalene,  will  be  noticed 
 by-and-by.  Meanwhile,  assuming  that  this  Evangelist 
 does  not  contradict  the  other  three  in  this  matter,  we 
 remark  that  a  band  of  devoted  women  set  out  early 
 on  the  morning  of  the  first  day  of  the  week  to  the 
 sepulchre,  in  order  to  anoint  more  carefully,  than  had 
 been  done  in  the  hurry  of  the  evening  of  the  burial, 
 
 M 
 
178  LECTURE   X. 
 
 the  body  of  Jesus.  Among  these  women  was  Mary 
 Magdalene.  Mark  alone  informs  us  of  a  very  natural 
 occurrence.  These  women  had  witnessed  the  placing 
 of  the  large  stone  by  Joseph  to  close  up  the  en- 
 trance into  the  tomb  ;  and,  as  they  were  going,  they 
 began  to  ask  one  another  how  they  could  get  this 
 stone  rolled  aside,  so  that  they  might  reach  the  body. 
 Mark,  Luke,  and  John  simply  tell  us  the  fact  that  the 
 stone  had  been  rolled  away.  Mark,  who  describes 
 the  women  as  asking  one  another  the  question  now 
 mentioned,  adds,  that  when  they  were  yet  at  some 
 distance  from  the  tomb,  they  looked  up  and  saw  that 
 the  stone  had  been  rolled  away.  They  saw  it  at  that 
 distance,  "  because  it  was  very  great."  But  Matthew, 
 inasmuch  as  the  rolling  away  of  this  stone  was  con- 
 nected with  what  he  alone  records,  the  stationing  of  a 
 guard  at  the  sepulchre,  informs  us  Jiow  it  was  rolled 
 away.  "  Behold,  there  was  a  great  earthquake  " — 
 a  great  shock  ;  "  for  the  angel  " — or  an  angel — "  of 
 the  Lord  descended  from  heaven,  and  came  and 
 rolled  back  the  stone  from  the  door,  and  sat  upon  it. 
 His  countenance  was  like  lightning,  and  his  raiment 
 white  as  snow.  And  for  fear  of  him  the  keepers  " — 
 the  guard — "did  shake,  and  became  as  dead  men." 
 All  the  four,  you  will  observe,  mention  that  the  stone 
 had  been  rolled  away  before  the  women  came  to  the 
 tomb.  Now,  who  rolled  it  away  }  The  story  spread 
 abroad  by  the  Jewish  rulers  makes  the  soldiers,  who 
 had  been  stationed  at  the  tomb  expressly  to  prevent 
 the  body  being  stolen,  say  what  implies  that  the  dis- 
 ciples had  come  and  rolled  away  this  stone  and  car- 
 ried off  the  body  while  they,  the  soldiers,  were  asleep. 
 This  story  bore  falsehood  on  its  face.     Still,  Matthew, 
 
COMPARISON    OF   THE   NARRATIVES.  1 79 
 
 who  knew  that  this  story  was  spread  abroad  among 
 the  Jews — especially  among  the  foreign  Jews — was 
 led  to  state  the  true,  though  superhuman,  manner  in 
 which  the  stone  had  been  removed  from,  its  place. 
 Carefully  notice  that  it  is  not  said  that  this  stone  was 
 so  removed  in  order  to  allow  the  quickened  body  of 
 Jesus  to  escape  from  the  tomb.  We  believe  He  had 
 risen  before  this  time,  at  a  moment  and  in  a  way 
 not  recorded.  The  stone  was  removed  in  order  to 
 lay  open  the  tomb  to  mortal  sight,  and  removed  in  the 
 way  it  was  in  order  to  free  the  tomb  from  the  presence 
 of  these  soldiers,  and  to  give  one  more  proof  to  the 
 Jewish  rulers  of  the  reality  ©f  the  claims  of  Jesus. 
 
 At  what  time  this  event  took  place — whether  be- 
 fore the  women  left  the  city  for  the  tomb,  or  whilst 
 they  were  on  the  way — it  is  difficult  to  determine. 
 It  seems  absolutely  certain  that  these  women  were 
 not  aware  that  a  guard  of  soldiers  had  been  stationed 
 at  the  tomb ;  for  if  they  had  known  this  they  must 
 have  felt  hopeless  of  accomplishing  their  purpose.  It 
 would  appear  to  be  equally  certain,  that  if  the  event 
 happened  whilst  they  were  on  the  way,  they  were  at 
 such  a  distance  that  it  made  no  distinct  impression 
 at  the  time  upon  their  minds.  Matthew,  indeed,  intro- 
 duces the  mention  of  the  earthquake  in  order  to  account 
 for  the  removal  of  the  stone,  and  also  for  the  departure 
 of  the  soldiers,  and  the  subsequent  conduct  of  the  Jew- 
 ish rulers.  And  here  we  may  allude  to  the  fact  that, 
 in  perusing  these  Evangelical  narratives,  we  are  apt 
 very  naturally  to  read  each  as  presenting  us  with  an 
 account  of  events  happening  in  unbroken  succession, 
 without  any  intervening  time  during  which  other  events 
 not  mentioned  in  the  particular  narrative  may  have  oc- 
 
l80  LECTURE   X. 
 
 curred.  Matthew's  narrative,  for  example,  is  very 
 brief;  and  when  reading  it  by  itself,  we  might  sup- 
 pose that  the  women  experienced  the  shock,  and 
 also  witnessed  the  angelic  appearance  and  the  terror 
 and  flight  of  the  soldiers,  and  actually  came  up  to  the 
 tomb  whilst  the  angel  was  sitting  upon  the  stone  ; 
 and,  moreover,  that  he,  sitting  there,  addressed  them 
 in  the  words  recorded.  Matthew's  account  does  not 
 necessarily  imply  such  conclusions  ;  but  had  we  it 
 alone,  these  are  the  conclusions  which  most  probably 
 we  should  have  formed.  The  other  three  Evangel- 
 ists, however,  state  facts  inconsistent  with  such  con- 
 clusions ;  and  therefore  we  are  compelled  to  inquire 
 anew  into  the  statements  of  Matthew,  in  order  that 
 we  may  see  to  what  extent  we  must  modify  our  first 
 conclusions,  and  if  possible  reduce  all  the  statements 
 to  harmony. 
 
 Now,  Mark  tells  us  expressly  that  the  women,  after 
 expressing  to  one  another  the  difficulty  which  forcibly 
 occurred  to  them  about  removing  the  stone,  looked 
 up  and  saw  that  it  was  removed  ;  and  the  reason 
 which  he  gives  for  their  being  able  to  see  that  such 
 was  the  case,  implies  that  they  were  as  yet  at  some  dis- 
 tance— perhaps  not  great,  for  it  was  early  morning — 
 from  the  tomb.  Luke  simply  tells  us  that  when  the 
 women  came  to  the  tomb,  they  found  the  stone  rolled 
 away — a  statement  which  harmonises  completely  with 
 Mark's.  John,  in  the  same  manner,  says  that  Mary 
 Magdalene,  on  coming  to  the  tomb,  saw  that  the 
 stone  was  taken  away  from  its  entrance.  Hence  we 
 receive  information  which  enables  us  to  re-examine 
 Matthew's  account,  and  we  now  see  that  the  women 
 could  not  have  witnessed  the  events  which  took  place 
 
COMPARISON   OF   THE   NARRATIVES.  l8l 
 
 when  the  stone  was  rolled  away  and  the  soldiers  fled. 
 We  also  perceive  that  Matthew  does  not  expressly 
 say  that  they  did  witness  these  events,  or  come  up  to 
 the  tomb  whilst  the  angel  was  sitting  upon  the  stone. 
 Nay,  when  we  carefully  consider  the  address  of  the 
 angel  to  these  women,  we  see  that  he  is  then  within 
 the  tomb  ;  for  he  invites  them  to  enter  and  see  the 
 place  where  the  Lord  lay — words  which,  though  not 
 altogether  inconsistent  with  the  supposition  that  the 
 angel  is  outside  the  tomb,  do  certainly  better  accord 
 with  the  supposition  that  he  is  now  within  it ;  so  that 
 he  can  literally  say,  "  He  is  not  here :  come,  see  the 
 place  where  the  Lord  lay." 
 
 But,  again,  judging  from  Matthew's  narrative  alone, 
 we  might  infer  that  these  w^ords  wxre  addressed  by 
 the  angel  to  the  women  as  soon  as  they  reached  the 
 tomb  and  were  looking  into  it.  Mark's  narrative, 
 taken  by  itself,  seems  also  to  favour  such  a  conclu- 
 sion. The  women,  entering  the  tomb,  saw,  as  they  at 
 first  thought,  a  young  man  sitting  on  the  right  side, 
 clothed  in  a  long  white  garment,  and  they  w^ere 
 affrighted.  Luke's  narrative  gives  a  little  more  in- 
 formation on  this  point.  The  women  enter  the  tomb 
 and  search  for  the  body,  but  find  it  not.  They  were 
 greatly  perplexed  by  this  circumstance,  and  whilst 
 they  were  in  this  state  of  perplexity,  not  knowing 
 what  to  think  or  what  to  do,  for  such  is  the  meaning 
 of  the  Evangelist's  word*  indicating  their  state  of 
 mind,  "  behold  two  men,"  as  they  seemed  to  be,  "  ap- 
 peared to  them  "f — not  stood  by  them,  as  our  version 
 has  it — "  in  shining  garments."  Some  time,  then, 
 however   short,   did    intervene  between   their  arrival 
 
 *  diairopucrdai,  f  eireffTrjcrav. 
 
l82  LECTURE   X. 
 
 at  the  tomb  and  their  entrance  into  it,  and  the  ap- 
 pearance of  the  angel,  or  as  it  is  in  Luke,  of  the  two 
 angels. 
 
 We  thus  already  learn  that  our  conclusion,  founded 
 on  Matthew's  narrative  alone,  requires  to  be  modified 
 by  what  Mark  tells  us  ;  and,  further,  that  the  conclu- 
 sion which  we  might  draw  from  both  these  narratives 
 must  also  be  somewhat  modified  by  what  Luke  tells. 
 Need  we,  then,  wonder  that  John,  who  wrote  last 
 of  all,  should  give  us  a  little  more  information  which 
 may  require  us,  not  to  alter  any  fact  stated  by  the 
 other  three,  but  to  alter  or  rather  to  modify  still  fur- 
 ther the  conclusion  which  we  ourselves  drew  from 
 their  combined  statements }  Mary  Magdalene  was 
 unquestionably  one  of  the  women  who  came  together 
 to  the  tomb.  She  did  not  come  alone,  but  in  com- 
 pany with  the  others.  Now,  John,  purposing  to  relate 
 specially  for  a  very  evident  reason,  as  his  narrative 
 shows,  this  woman's  conduct,  and  what  happened  to 
 her  on  this  eventful  day,  restricts  his  narrative  to  this 
 purpose,  and  tells  us  that  when  she  saw  the  stone 
 was  rolled  away,  she  hastened — she  ran — to  the  house 
 or  lodging  where  she  knew  she  would  find  Peter  and 
 John,  or  one  of  them  at  least — probably  the  latter,  for 
 with  him  there  lived  also  one  who  could  not  but  feel 
 a  profound  interest  in  the  events  of  that  day.  It  is 
 clear  that  Mary  Magdalene  did  not  enter  the  tomb 
 along  with  the  other  women.  They  sought  for  the 
 body,  and  did  not  find  it,  and  were  then  in  a  state  of 
 utter  perplexity.  Mary  Magdalene,  more  rapid  in 
 her  conclusions,  at  once  inferred,  not  that  Jesus  had 
 risen,  but  that  His  body  had  been  taken  away.  Im- 
 pressed with  this  instantaneous  conviction,  she  imme- 
 
COMPARISON   OF   THE   NARRATIVES.  1 83 
 
 diately  ran  from  the  tomb  to  inform  Peter  and  the 
 other  disciple. 
 
 We  seem  now,  with  this  fourfold  narrative  before 
 us,  to  be  able  to  give  some  harmonious  account  of  all 
 these  varied  statements — an  account  which  is  at  least 
 so  accordant  with  all  the  facts  as  to  disprove  the 
 charge  of  contradiction.  A  number  of  women,  de- 
 voted to  Jesus,  after  making  preparation  for  anoint- 
 ing His  body,  repair  early  to  the  sepulchre.  As  they 
 are  advancing  on  their  journey,  they  begin  to  ask 
 themselves  how  they  will  succeed  in  getting  the  stone 
 removed.  Looking  up,  they  see,  though  at  some  dis- 
 tance, that  it  is  removed  ;  and  when  they  reach  the 
 sepulchre,  they  find  that  such  is  the  case.  Mary 
 Magdalene  immediately  concludes  that  the  body  of  her 
 Lord  has  been  taken  away,  and,  without  a  word  to  the 
 rest,  starts  off  and  hastens  to  where  Peter  and  John 
 are  residing.  The  rest  of  the  women  enter  the  tomb, 
 and  are  for  a  time  perplexed  at  not  finding  the  body 
 there,  when  angelic  beings  appear  to  them,  of  whom 
 one  probably  is  the  speaker. 
 
 It  was,  then,  after  Mary  Magdalene  had  left  the 
 garden  in  haste  to  inform  Peter  and  John,  that  the  rest 
 of  the  women  entered  the  tomb,  and  were  addressed 
 by  the  angel.  The  address  is  recorded  by  each  of  the 
 first  three  Evangelists,  and  is  substantially  the  same 
 in  each  narrative.  In  Matthew  it  is,  "  Fear  not  ye  : 
 for  I  know  that  ye  are  seeking  Jesus  who  has  been 
 crucified.  He  is  not  here  :  for  He  is  risen  as  He  said. 
 Come,  see  the  place  where  the  Lord  lay.  And  go 
 quickly,  and  tell  His  disciples  that  He  is  risen  from 
 the  dead;  and,  behold,  He  goeth  before  you  into 
 Galilee;    there   shall   ye   see   Him:    lo,  I   have  told 
 
1 84  LECTURE   X. 
 
 you."  In  Mark  it  is,  "  Be  not  affrighted  :  ye  are 
 seeking  Jesus  of  Nazareth  who  has  been  crucified : 
 He  is  risen  ;  He  is  not  here :  behold  the  place  where 
 they  laid  Him.  But  go  away,  tell  His  disciples  and 
 Peter  that  He  goeth  before  you  into  Galilee :  there 
 ye  shall  see  Him,  as  He  said  unto  you."  In  Luke, 
 who  makes  mention  of  two  angels,  both  these  are 
 represented  as  addressing  the  women  ;  and  the  ad- 
 dress is  given  thus  :  "  And  as  they,"  the  women,  "  were 
 afraid,  and  were  bowing  down  their  heads  towards 
 the  earth,  they  said  unto  them,  Why  seek  ye  the 
 living — Him  that  liveth — among  the  dead  ?  He  is  not 
 here,  but  is  risen.  Remember  how  He  spake  unto 
 you  when  He  was  yet  in  Galilee,  saying.  The  Son  of 
 Man  must  be  delivered  into  the  hands  of  sinful  men, 
 and  be  crucified,  and  the  third  day  rise  again."  The 
 Evangelist  adds,  that  the  women  remembered  these 
 words.  Nothing  can  be  more  clear  than  that  these  three 
 accounts  of  the  angel's  address,  whilst  varying  in  one 
 or  two  minor  details,  and  thus  shown  to  be  inde- 
 pendent accounts,  are,  not  only  in  substance  but  in  the 
 leading  details,  the  same.  Jesus  had  foretold  His 
 resurrection  on  the  third  day,  and  had  promised  to 
 meet  His  disciples  in  Galilee.  The  women,  as  well  as 
 the  disciples,  stunned  by  the  intimation  of  His  ap- 
 proaching death,  the  thought  of  which  had  been  their 
 chief  stumblingblock,  were  unable  to  understand  what 
 He  meant  when  He  spake  of  His  resurrection,  and 
 seem  to  have  for  the  time  wholly  forgotten  the  words. 
 The  angel,  whilst  assuring  them  that  He  was  risen, 
 reminds  them  of  the  words  of  Jesus,  and  tells  them 
 to  go  and  inform  the  disciples,  that,  according  to  His 
 promise.  He  was  going  before  them — even  as  a  shep- 
 
COMPARISON   OF   THE   NARRATIVES.  1 85 
 
 herd  before  his  flock — into  GaHlee,  where  they  would 
 see  Him.  These  words  do  not  necessarily  imply 
 that  they  should  not  see  Him  anywhere  else  than 
 in  Galilee,  but  they  mean  that  He  would  specially 
 meet  with  them  there. 
 
 Having  received  this  testimony  to  the  resurrection 
 of  Jesus,  and  also  this  message  for  the  disciples,  the 
 women  proceed  in  haste  to  deliver  the  message.  And 
 here  again  we  require  to  notice  very  carefully  the 
 statements  in  each  of  the  three  narratives.  John,  as 
 has  already  been  said,  omits  all  mention  of  these 
 women,  restricting  his  narrative  to  Mary  Magdalene, 
 who  was  now  alone  on  her  way  to  himself  and  Peter. 
 Matthew,  after  mentioning  the  quick  departure  of  the 
 women  from  the  tomb,  in  a  state  of  mind  in  which 
 fear  and  great  joy  alternately  held  place,  and  their 
 running  to  carry  word  to  the  disciples,  says  nothing 
 as  to  their  actual  coming  to  the  disciples,  or  as  to  the 
 manner  in  which  their  message  was  received.  But  he 
 immediately  relates  that  Jesus  met  these  women  and 
 saluted  them,  and  that  they,  coming  up  to  Him,  held 
 Him  by  the  feet  and  worshipped  Him  ;  and  that 
 Jesus  calmed  their  minds,  and  also  gave  them  a  mes- 
 sage to  His  disciples.  There  is  a  clause  in  the 
 received  text  which  would  indicate  that  this  took 
 place  when  they  were  on  the  way  to  the  disciples  zuith 
 the  angelic  message ;  but  this  clause  has  little  autho- 
 rity, and  the  text  simply  reads,  "  And  lo !  Jesus  met 
 them,  saying.  All  hail ;  and  they,  coming  up,  held  Him 
 by  the  feet  and  worshipped  Him.  Then  saith  Jesus 
 unto  them,  Fear  not :  go  away,  tell  My  brethren  that 
 they  go  into  Galilee,  and  there  shall  they  see  Me," 
 This  address  evidently  repeats  the  angelic  message. 
 
1 86  LFXTURE   X. 
 
 Now,  the  question  is,  when  did  this  event  occur  ?  Did 
 Jesus  meet  these  women  whilst  they  were  on  the 
 way  from  the  tomb  to  the  disciples  ?  or  did  this  meet- 
 ing take  place  at  some  time,  however  short,  after  they 
 had  delivered  the  first  message  ?  In  short,  were  they 
 sent  a  second  time  with  a  message — now  not  from 
 an  angel,  but  from  Jesus  Himself?  Let  us  examine 
 the  narratives  of  Mark  and  Luke  on  this  important 
 point. 
 
 I  have  already  noticed  the  peculiar  state  of  Mark's 
 narrative  of  the  resurrection.  It  consists  of  two 
 sections,  the  first  embracing  the  first  eight  verses,  and 
 the  second  the  rest  of  the  chapter.  The  first  ends 
 abruptly,  just  when  the  Evangelist  is  beginning  to 
 record  the  departure  of  the  women  from  the  tomb  to 
 the  disciples.  "And  going  out,"  he  says— that  is, 
 going  out  of  the  tomb — "they  fled  from  the  tomb. 
 Trembling  and  amazement  held" — possessed — "  them, 
 and  they  said  nothing  to  any  one,  for  they  were 
 afraid."  Such  is  the  abrupt  conclusion  of  the  first 
 section  ;  and  so  far  as  its  statements  go,  we  only 
 learn  that  the  women  fled  from  the  tomb  in  a  state  of 
 great  terror,  and  that  they  did  not  speak  to  any  one — 
 that  is,  to  any  one  whom  they  met.  But  it  is  not  said 
 that  they  did  not  go  to  the  disciples  and  deliver  the 
 message  which  they  had  received.  In  short,  from  the 
 manner  in  which  this  section  ends  we  learn  nothing 
 more  about  the  proceedings  of  these  women.  In  the 
 second  section,  which  we  consider  as  having  been 
 appended  either  by  Mark  himself  or  by  some  one  of 
 entire  credit  in  the  Apostolic  Church,  there  is  a  brief 
 summary  given  of  the  proofs  of  the  resurrection. 
 The  writer  resumes  the  subject,  and  begins  by  men- 
 
COMPARISON    OF   THE    NARRATIVES.  1 8/ 
 
 tioning  the  appearance  of  Jesus,  not  to  the  women  of 
 whom  we  have  been  speaking,  but  to  Mary  Magda- 
 lene, expressly  stating  that  Jesus  appeared  to  her 
 first,  and  that  she  went  and  told  this  fact  to  the 
 disciples,  and  that  they  did  not  believe  her  report. 
 We  thus  learn  nothing  from  Mark's  narrative,  whether 
 in  the  first  or  the  second  section,  respecting  the  other 
 women,  beyond  what  has  been  already  noticed.  But 
 we  learn  the  important  fact,  that  Mary  Magdalene 
 was  the  first  to  w^hom  Jesus  appeared  ;  for  though  a 
 different  interpretation  of  the  word  "  first "  is  perhaps 
 possible,  as  meaning  only  the  first  of  the  three  appear- 
 ances recorded  in  this  section,  we  apprehend  that, 
 unless  we  are  compelled  by  other  statements  to 
 adopt  such  an  interpretation,  the  natural  interpre- 
 tation is  to  regard  the  writer  as  meaning  the  first 
 absolutely. 
 
 In  this  state  of  matters,  then,  let  us  examine  the 
 narrative  of  Luke.  He  relates  that  the  women,  on 
 receiving  the  angelic  message,  returned  and  told  all 
 these  things  unto  the  eleven,  and  to  all  the  rest.  He 
 makes  no  mention  of  the  appearance  of  Jesus  to  these 
 women.  But  after  specifying  the  names  of  some  of 
 the  women,  and  taking  no  notice  of  the  fact  which 
 John's  narrative  leads  us  to  recognise,  that  Mary 
 Mag-dalene,  thoucrh  she  was  with  the  rest  at  first,  had 
 left  them  at  the  tomb,  he  mentions  that  the  women 
 reported  to  the  Apostles  what  had  happened  to 
 them,  but  that  their  words  were  treated  as  idle 
 tales ;  that,  in  short,  the  Apostles  did  not  believe 
 the  testimony  of  the  women.  Luke  evidently  com- 
 bines the  two  distinct  reports  of  Mary  Magdalene 
 and  of  the  other  women  ;   for  after  saying  that  the 
 
155  LECTURE   X. 
 
 Apostles  did  not  believe  the  women,  he  adds,  what  at 
 first  sight  appears  to  contradict  this,  at  least  in  some 
 measure,  that  "  Peter  rose  up  and  ran  to  the  sepul- 
 chre ;  and  that,  stooping  down,  he  beheld  the  linen 
 clothes  laid  by  themselves,  and  departed  to  his  own 
 abode,*  wondering  at  that  which  was  come  to  pass." 
 We  shall  have  to  notice  this  statement  again  :  mean- 
 while we  see  how  it  was  that  Luke  mentions  Mary 
 Magdalene  as  one  of  the  women  who  came  and  told 
 the  Apostles  what  had  happened.  He  blends,  as 
 we  have  said,  in  one  statement,  two  different  transac- 
 tions. But  Luke,  when  relating  the  conversation  be- 
 tween Jesus  and  the  two  disciples  on  the  road  to 
 Emmaus,  represents  Cleopas  as  saying  this  among 
 other  things,  "  Yea,  and  certain  women  also  of  our 
 company  made  us  astonished,  who  were  early  at  the 
 sepulchre ;  and  when  they  found  not  His  body,  they 
 came,  saying  that  they  had  also  seen  a  vision  of 
 angels,  who  said  that  He  was  alive."  There  is  no 
 mention  by  Cleopas  that  the  women,  whether  Mary 
 Magdalene  or  the  rest,  on  first  bringing  their  reports, 
 had  seen  Jesus  Himself.  The  contrary  is  implied  ; 
 and  so  far  as  Cleopas  knew,  no  one  had  as  yet  seen 
 Jesus  ;  for  he  adds,  "  And  certain  of  them  who  were 
 with  us  went  to  the  sepulchre,  and  found  it  even  so 
 as  the  women  had  said :  but  Him  they  saw  not." 
 This  was,  according  to  Cleopas,  the  chief  defect  in 
 the  evidence  as  yet  received.  No  one,  whether  of  the 
 women  or  of  the  disciples,  had,  according  to  him,  as 
 yet  seen  Jesus. 
 
 The  conclusion,  then,  seems  to  be,  that  it  was  not 
 when  the  women  were  on  the  way  from  the  tomb  to 
 
 *  OTTjjA^e  Trphs  iavrhv. 
 
COMPARISON   OF   THE   NARRATIVES.  1 89 
 
 tell  the  disciples  what  they  had  seen  and  what  the 
 angel  had  said  to  them,  that  Jesus  met  them  ;  but 
 that  this  meeting  took  place  after  they  had  reported 
 the  message  to  the  disciples,  who  rejected  their  testi- 
 mony, and  treated  their  words  as  the  words  of  per- 
 sons under  delusion.  The  probability  is,  that  these 
 women,  so  contemptuously  treated  by  the  disciples, 
 went  back  in  a  melancholy  state  of  mind  towards  the 
 tomb,  and  that  it  was  then  that  Jesus  met  them  and 
 consoled  them,  and  gave  them  a  message  from  Him- 
 self, corresponding  exactly  to  the  one  which  had  been 
 rejected,  but  still  conveying  an  expression  of  His 
 sympathy  with  His  sorrowing,  though  unbelieving, 
 disciples :  "  Go  away  ;  tell  My  brethren  that  they  go 
 into  Galilee,  and  there  shall  they  see  Me." 
 
 This  appearance,  then,  of  Jesus  to  these  women,  we 
 conclude,  for  the  reasons  stated,  took  place  after  they 
 had  conveyed  the  angelic  message  to  the  disciples. 
 It  also,  we  at  the  same  time  conclude,  took  place 
 after  His  appearance  to  Mary  Magdalene,  to  whose 
 proceedings  we  would  now  draw  your  special  atten- 
 tion. Whilst  her  name  occurs  first  in  the  lists  of  the 
 women  given  by  the  first  three  Evangelists,  it  is  John 
 alone  who  informs  us  of  the  manner  in  which  she 
 acted,  and  of  the  events  which  befell  her  on  this 
 eventful  day.  His  narrative  has  all  the  appearance 
 of  one  supplementary  to  the  others.  It  is  evident 
 from  what  John  relates,  that  though  she  had  come 
 with  the  other  women  to  the  sepulchre,  she  did  not 
 enter  it  along  with  them,  but  at  once  inferring  from  the 
 removal  of  the  stone  that  the  body  of  Jesus  had  been 
 taken  away,  instantly  set  off  to  inform  Simon  Peter 
 and   John.      These   two   disciples   were   at  the  time 
 
190  LECTURE   X. 
 
 living  in  a  different  place  from  the  rest.  John  would 
 appear  to  have  had  a  house  or  lodging  by  himself, 
 for  we  know  that  he  took  the  mother  of  Jesus  away 
 with  him  to  his  own  home.  Whether  Peter  was  for 
 the  time  also  living  in  the  same  house,  or  was  there 
 merely  on  that  day,  we  cannot  tell ;  but  Mary  Magda- 
 lene seems  to  have  known  that  they  were  living  either 
 in  the  same  house,  or  not  far  from  each  other.  To 
 these  two  disciples,  then,  she  went  alone  ;  and  we  need 
 not  repeat  the  circumstances  which  occurred.  We 
 have  already  noticed  these  ;  and  at  present  we  are 
 simply  considering  whether  the  different  narratives 
 are  consistent  with  each  other.  Now  Matthew,  whose 
 narrative  is  so  brief,  tells  us  nothing  more  about  Mary 
 Magdalene  than  that  she,  accompanied  by  the  other 
 Mary,  went  early  to  see  the  sepulchre ;  and  looking 
 solely  at  his  narrative,  we  might  suppose  that  these 
 were  the  only  women  who  did  so,  and  also  that  Jesus 
 appeared  to  these  two  women  together.  But  Mark 
 gives  additional  details.  He  mentions  only  the  two 
 named  by  Matthew  as  present  at  the  burial ;  but  he 
 adds  Salome  to  these  two  when  he  names  the  women 
 who  went  on  the  morning  of  the  first  day  of  the 
 week  to  visit  the  sepulchre  and  to  anoint  the  body 
 of  Jesus.  Judging  solely  from  the  first  section  of  his 
 narrative,  we  might  again  suppose  that  these  three 
 women  entered  the  sepulchre,  and  saw  the  angel, 
 and  returned  with  his  message  to  the  disciples.  But 
 in  the  second  section  there  is  a  circumstance  men- 
 tioned which  obliges  us  to  modify  this  conclusion,  for 
 it  is  said  that  Jesus  appeared  first  to  Mary  Magda- 
 lene. Consequently  she  must  have  been  alone  when 
 this  appearance  took  place.     No  mention  is  made  of 
 
COMPARISON    OF   THE    NARRATIVES.  I9I 
 
 the  appearance  recorded  by  Matthew  to  the  other 
 women.  Now,  when  we  examine  Luke's  narrative, 
 we  find  that,  along  with  Mary  Magdalene  and  the 
 other  Mary,  Joanna  also  went,  besides  other  women 
 whose  names  are  not  given.  Taking  the  three 
 narratives  together,  we  learn  that  there  were  not 
 only  the  four  women  whose  names  are  given,  but 
 also  others  with  them ;  so  that  we  conclude  there 
 were  several  more  than  four  who  went  together  on 
 that  morning  to  the  sepulchre.  Luke  further  tells 
 what  has  been  already  noticed,  that  these  women 
 brought  a  report  to  the  disciples,  which  was  not  be- 
 lieved by  them,  but  was  treated  as  an  idle  tale  ;  and 
 yet  he  says,  in  apparent  opposition  to  this  statement, 
 that  Peter  was  so  impressed  by  the  report  that  he 
 arose  and  ran  to  the  sepulchre ;  that,  stooping  down, 
 he  saw  the  linen  clothes  lying  by  themselves  ;  and 
 that  he  departed,  filled  with  wonder  at  what  had 
 happened. 
 
 There  is  a  manifest  difficulty  on  the  face  of  this 
 part  of  Luke's  narrative.  The  disciples,  spoken  of  as 
 a  body,  disbelieved  the  report,  and  treated  it  as  an 
 idle  tale.  Now  Peter  for  one  did  not  so  treat  it ;  for  he 
 instantly  ran  away  to  the  sepulchre.  The  apparent 
 discrepancy  here  is  most  manifest ;  and  it  is  only  John 
 who  gives  us  the  means  by  which  it  may  be  at  once 
 reconciled.  Luke  blends,  as  we  have  already  said,  two 
 distinct  reports  in  one.  All  that  he  states  is  true  ; 
 but  his  statement  does  not  enable  us  to  see  how  both 
 parts  are  true  and  consistent  with  each  other.  John 
 tells  us  that  Mary  Magdalene  alone  came  to  Peter 
 and  the  other  disciple,  as  he  designates  himself 
 Hence  it  was  the  rest  of  the  women  who  came  with 
 
192  LECTURE   X. 
 
 their  special  message  to  the  disciples  as  a  body. 
 Peter,  accompanied  by  John,  runs  to  the  sepulchre, 
 and  sees,  according  to  John,  exactly  what  Luke  re- 
 lates about  the  linen  clothes.  John  tells  us  that  he 
 himself  inferred  what  had  happened,  but  he  says 
 nothing  about  Peter's  conclusion.  From  his  silence 
 on  this  point  we  may  conclude  that  the  effect  upon 
 Peter's  mind  from  what  he  saw  was  not  that  belief  at 
 which  he  himself  had  silently  arrived,  but  that  wonder 
 of  which  Luke  makes  mention.  Again,  John  tells  us 
 that  Jesus  did  appear  to  Mary  Magdalene  alone,  and 
 as  this  is  declared  by  Mark,  or  at  least  by  the  credi- 
 ble writer  of  the  second  section  of  the  conclusion  of 
 his  Gospel,  to  have  been  His  first  appearance,  so  we 
 may  conclude  that  it  was  prior  to  that  appearance  with 
 which  the  other  women  were  favoured.  Hence  all 
 the  seeming  discrepancy  is  reconciled,  and  that  by 
 no  violent  interpretation,  nor  by  the  suppression  of 
 a  single  fact  recorded  in  any  of  the  narratives,  but 
 simply  by  bringing  them  together,  and  listening  to 
 the  varied  information  which  each  imparts. 
 
 As  yet,  however,  only  Mary  Magdalene  and  the 
 other  women  had  seen  the  risen  Jesus ;  and  it  is 
 stated  that  the  twofold  testimony  was  as  yet  produc- 
 ing no  other  effect  on  the  minds  of  the  majority,  at 
 least,  of  the  disciples  than  that  of  astonishment.  They 
 were  overwhelmed  with  grief,  and  would  not  believe 
 the  women,  and  especially  Mary  Magdalene,  when  she 
 assured  them  that  Jesus  was  alive,  and  had  been  seen 
 by  her.  But  as  the  day  advanced,  other  testimonies 
 were  added  to  those  of  the  women.  Matthew  makes 
 no  mention  of  these.  In  the  second  section  of  Mark's 
 narrative  we  are  told  that,   after  His  appearance  to 
 
COMPARISON   OF   THE   NARRATIVES.  I93 
 
 Mary  Magdalene,  Jesus  "  appeared  in  another  form  " — 
 in  a  form  different  from  His  former  usual  one — "  to  two 
 of  them" — that  is,  of  the  disciples — "as  they  walked, 
 and  went  into  the  country  ;  and  that  these  two,"  who, 
 it  is  implied,  recognised  Him  at  last,  "  went  and  told 
 it  to  the  rest  of  the  disciples  ;  but  that  neither  believed 
 they  them."  John  makes  no  mention  of  this  event, 
 but  Luke  gives  a  lengthened  and  most  deeply-inte- 
 resting account  of  it.  We  do  not  again  detail  what 
 he  says.  An  attempt  has  been  made  to  create  a  discre- 
 pancy between  what  is  said  by  Mark  as  to  "  the  other 
 or  strange  form  "  in  which  Jesus  appeared  to  the  two, 
 and  what  Luke  alleges  as  the  reason  why  these  two  did 
 not  at  first  recognise  Jesus — "  their  eyes  were  holden 
 that  they  should  not  know  Him."  The  attempt  is 
 really  frivolous,  for  both  expressions  may  fairly  be 
 regarded  as  meaning  the  same  thing.  The  fact  that 
 these  two  did  not  recognise  Jesus  might  be  owing  to 
 the  form — the  unusual  form  in  certain  respects — which 
 He  then  assumed  ;  and  to  express  the  whole  of  this 
 fact,  Luke  might  fairly  say  that  "their  eyes  were 
 holden  that  they  should  not  know  Him."  Never  let 
 us  descend  to  frivolous  criticism.  We  have  thus  a  per- 
 fect agreement  as  to  this  appearance  of  Jesus  between 
 Mark  and  Luke,  and  there  is  nothing  in  the  other  two 
 narratives  opposed  to  it. 
 
 We  cannot  here  avoid  remarking,  that  if  ever  there 
 was  a  narrative  bearing  internal  evidence  of  its  his- 
 toric truth,  of  its  being  a  narrative  of  real  facts,  that 
 narrative  is  the  one  given  by  Luke,  detailing  the  con- 
 versation between  these  two  disciples  and  the  risen 
 Jesus.  Fiction  or  delusion  never  produced  such  a 
 narrative  as  this.     It  bears  the  true  stamp  of  reality 
 
 N 
 
194  LECTURE   X. 
 
 on  its  very  face.  How  must  the  hearts  of  these  two  men 
 have  burned  whilst  the  wondrous  stranger  laid  open  to 
 them  the  meaning  of  the  Scriptures,  and  showed  them 
 out  of  these  Scriptures  that  it  behoved  the  Messiah 
 — the  Christ — first  to  suffer  the  very  things  which 
 they  told  him  Jesus,  whom  they  once  believed  to  be 
 the  Messiah,  had  suffered ;  and  then,  after  suffering 
 these  things,  to  enter  into  His  glory  !  Study  over  and 
 over  again  this  most  precious  narrative,  and  meditate 
 upon  it,  till  you  also  feel  the  words  of  the  risen  Jesus 
 kindling  your  hearts. 
 
 As  soon  as  Cleopas  and  his  fellow-traveller  recog- 
 nised the  risen  Jesus,  who  instantly  withdrew  Himself 
 from  their  sight,  they  returned  to  Jerusalem,  and 
 found  the  eleven  (as  the  chosen  disciples  were  now 
 termed,  Judas  having  gone  to  his  own  place)  assembled, 
 and  also  other  disciples,  styled  by  Luke  "  those  who 
 were  with  them."  Who  these  others  were,  we  are  not 
 informed  by  the  Evangelist.  In  his  second  treatise, 
 when  he  mentions  a  meeting  of  the  eleven  and  others, 
 which  took  place  on  the  day  of  the  ascension  and 
 immediately  after  that  event,  he  tells  us  that,  besides 
 the  eleven,  whose  names  he  gives,  there  were  present 
 "  the  women,  and  Mary  the  mother  of  Jesus,  and  His 
 brethren."  All  we  can  say  is,  that  some  of  these,  and 
 probably  others,  were  present  on  this  occasion  also, 
 brought  together  by  the  repeated  marvellous  accounts 
 of  the  day.  It  was  now  evening.  When  the  two  from 
 Emmaus  came  into  the  room  where  the  eleven  and 
 others  were  met,  they  found  them  in  a  state,  of  high 
 excitement,  owing,  it  would  appear,  to  an  event  which 
 had  just  been  told  them,  but  of  which  no  further  men- 
 tion is  made  in  any  of  the  narratives — namely,  to  an 
 
COMPARISON   OF   THE   NARRATIVES.  I95 
 
 appearance  of  Jesus  to  Simon  Peter — an  appearance 
 which  must  have  taken  place  not  long  before,  and 
 which  Peter  now,  no  doubt,  reported  to  the  rest. 
 The  two  found  them,  says  Luke,  assembled,  and  say- 
 ing, probably  aloud,  to  one  another,  "  The  Lord  is 
 risen  indeed,  and  hath  appeared  to  Simon."  Up  to 
 the  time  when  this  testimony  was  given,  they  had  re- 
 ceived testimony  only  from  the  women — from  Mary 
 Magdalene  on  the  one  hand,  and  from  the  company  of 
 the  rest  of  the  women  on  the  other.  This  testimony 
 they  had  not  believed  ;  but  now  they  have  the  testi- 
 mony of  one  of  their  own  number,  of  Simon  Peter  him- 
 self;  and  when  he  told  that  he  had  actually  seen  the 
 Lord,  their  unbelief  seems  for  the  moment  to  have 
 given  way,  and  they  burst  forth,  just  as  the  two  arrived, 
 in  the  exclamation,  that  now  all  doubt  was  removed  : 
 "  The  Lord  is  risen  indeed,  and  hath  appeared  to 
 Simon."  The  Apostle  Paul,  we  need  scarcely  remind 
 you,  refers  to  this  appearance  as  one  of  the  visible 
 proofs  of  the  reality  of  the  resurrection  of  Jesus.  The 
 two  now  related  the  events  which  had  occurred  to 
 them  in  their  journey,  and  how  Jesus  was  known  of 
 them  in  breaking  of  bread.  Luke  does  not  say  how 
 their  report  was  received,  but  Mark  tells  us  that 
 once  more  unbelief  resumed  its  sway  in  their  troubled 
 minds.  "  Neither,"  says  he,  "  believed  they  them." 
 Nothing  but  the  actual  visible  presence  of  Jesus 
 seemed  to  be  capable  of  producing  lasting  convic- 
 tion. 
 
 And  now  we  are  told  by  Mark  and  Luke  and 
 John,  that  whilst  they  were  thus  assembled,  and  were 
 alternately  believing  and  unbelieving,  Jesus  Himself 
 appeared  amongst  them.     This  appearance  of  Jesus 
 
196  LECTURE   X. 
 
 on  the  evening  of  the  day  of  His  resurrection — the 
 first  day  of  the  week — is  not  recorded  by  Matthew, 
 who  only  mentions  an  appearance — the  one  promised 
 by  Jesus  before  His  death,  and  intimated  by  the 
 angel,  and  again  promised  by  Jesus — to  the  eleven  in 
 Galilee.  In  the  second  section  of  Mark's  narrative 
 there  is  also  only  one  appearance  to  the  eleven  men- 
 tioned ;  and  although  it  is  blended  with  what  was 
 perhaps  said  in  all  its  fulness  by  Jesus  at  a  subse- 
 quent appearance,  yet  we  apprehend  it  is  to  this,  the 
 first  appearance  of  Jesus  to  the  eleven,  that  the  writer 
 specially  refers  ;  for  he  says,  "  After  that " — after  His 
 appearance  to  the  two  who  were  going  into  the  coun- 
 try— "  He  appeared  unto  the  eleven  as  they  sat  at 
 meat,  and  upbraided  them  with  their  unbelief  and 
 hardness  of  heart,  because  they  believed  not  them 
 who  had  seen  Him  after  He  was  risen."  This  address 
 evidently  implies  that  Jesus  then  appeared  for  the 
 first  time  to  His  assembled  disciples.  We  here  learn 
 that  the  events  of  the  day  had  been  so  ordered  for 
 this,  as  well  as  other  reasons,  to  try  the  hearts  of  these 
 His  chosen  disciples.  They  had  been  tried,  and 
 found  wanting ;  for  they  had  received  valid  and  suffi- 
 cient evidence,  and  yet  had  not  believed. 
 
 That  Luke  refers  to  this  appearance  on  that  even- 
 ing is  abundantly  manifest ;  for  he  tells  us,  that  whilst 
 these  men — the  two  from  Emmaus — were  speaking, 
 and  whilst  the  eleven,  or  most  of  them,  were  probably 
 exhibiting  signs  of  unbelief.  He  Himself  stood  in  the 
 midst  of  them,  and  said,  "  Peace  be  unto  you  ;"  and 
 that  He  then,  as  we  have  before  observed,  endeavoured 
 to  calm  their  minds,  affrighted  by  His  sudden  appear- 
 ance, and  to  convince  them  by  sensible  proofs  that 
 
COMPARISON   OF   THE   NARRATIVES.  I97 
 
 though  He  showed  Himself  as  having  a  superhuman 
 power  over  His  body,  yet  it  was  a  real  body,  having 
 flesh  and  bones. 
 
 Whether  the  remainder  of  the  recorded  address  was 
 delivered  at  this  or  at  a  subsequent  appearance,  we 
 cannot  pronounce  for  certain  ;  for  we  have  repeatedly 
 seen  that  it  was  not  unusual  for  these  first  three  Evan- 
 gelists to  blend  together  either  events  or  addresses 
 which,  though  strictly  happening  or  delivered  at 
 different  times,  were  so  allied  that  they  might  in  a 
 brief  narration  be  recorded  together.  But  it  is  by 
 no  means  improbable  that  substantially  the  same  in- 
 structions were  given  by  Jesus  at  every  appearance 
 to  His  disciples.  It  was  always,  we  are  informed  by 
 Luke  in  his  second  treatise,  about  the  things  of  the 
 kingdom  of  God — of  the  new  dispensation— that  He 
 spake  to  them.  We  need  not,  therefore,  be  surprised 
 that  these  Evangelists,  purposely  giving  only  a  brief 
 summary  of  events,  blended  together  things  which, 
 though  occurring  at  different  periods,  were  substanti- 
 ally the  same  on  each  occasion. 
 
 John  in  his  narrative  gives  us  additional  informa- 
 tion in  respect  to  this  first  appearance  of  Jesus  to  the 
 eleven.  After  mentioning  that  Mary  Magdalene 
 came  and  told  the  disciples  that  she  had  seen  the 
 Lord,  and  that  He  had  spoken  to  her  these  things 
 —the  things  recorded  by  John— and  without  tell- 
 ing us,  what  we  learn  from  Mark  and  Luke,  that  her 
 testimony  was  not  believed,  he  records,  as  we  have 
 seen  when  examining  his  narrative  by  itself,  the  exact 
 time  when,  and  circumstances  in  which,  Jesus  for  the 
 first  time  appeared  to  the  assembled  disciples.  We 
 need  not  repeat  the  details,  but  we  here  see  a  perfect 
 
I98  LECTURE   X. 
 
 agreement,  as  respects  this  first  appearance,  between 
 Mark  and  Luke  and  John.  Each  Evangelist  gives 
 us  some  information  pecuHar  to  himself.  Mark,  or 
 whoever  wTote  the  second  section,  tells  us  that  the 
 disciples  were  sitting  at  meat ;  Luke,  that  Jesus  sud- 
 denly appeared  whilst  the  two  from  Emmaus  were 
 speaking ;  and  John,  that  Jesus  came  and  stood  in 
 the  midst  of  them,  though,  for  a  reason  assigned,  the 
 doors  were  shut  or  closed.  Mark  relates  that  He 
 upbraided  them  for  their  unbelief;  Luke  states  at 
 length  how  He  endeavoured  to  relieve  their  terror 
 and  doubts,  and  to  convince  them  that  it  was  He 
 Himself  who  now  stood  before  them  ;  and  John,  whilst 
 implicitly  confirming  these  two  previous  statements, 
 when  he  records  that  Jesus  showed  them  His  hands 
 and  His  feet,  goes  on  to  relate  His  special  bestowal 
 upon  them  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  All  these  statements, 
 though  varied,  are  perfectly  reconciled,  and  mutually 
 support  each  other. 
 
 John  further  mentions,  what  neither  Mark  nor  Luke 
 records,  that  one  of  the  eleven  was  not  present  on 
 that  evening,  and  how  this  unbelieving  disciple  was 
 led  at  a  subsequent  meeting  to  full  faith  in  the  risen 
 Lord.  He  then  mentions  an  appearance  of  Jesus  to 
 seven  of  the  disciples  at  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  and  with 
 the  interesting  account  of  what  took  place  on  that 
 occasion  concludes  his  Gospel. 
 
 Matthew  concludes  his  Gospel  with  an  account  of 
 the  fulfilment  of  the  promise  that  Jesus  would  meet  His 
 disciples.  His  brethren,  in  Galilee.  This  was  evidently 
 a  most  solemn  meeting ;  and  it  manifestly  took  place 
 shortly  before  the  ascension  of  Jesus.  The  eleven 
 were  present,  and  in  all  probability  the  "  more  than 
 
COMPARISON   OF  THE   NARRATIVES.  1 99 
 
 five  hundred  "  mentioned  by  Paul  were  also  present ; 
 for  we  are  told  that  when  those  present  saw  Him, 
 they  worshipped,  but  some  doubted.  The  eleven 
 would  no  longer  doubt,  but  it  may  have  been  that 
 there  were  present  some  who  were  not  yet  convinced, 
 and  who  may  therefore  at  first  have  doubted  whether 
 it  was  He.  On  that  memorable  occasion  Jesus  pro- 
 claimed His  sovereignty  over  heaven  and  earth,  and 
 commissioned  His  disciples — especially  the  eleven, 
 for  they  only  are  specially  mentioned  by  Matthew — 
 to  go  and  make  disciples  of  all  nations.  But  Matthew 
 does  not  say  that  this  was  the  last  appearance  of 
 Jesus  to  the  disciples.  He  makes  no  mention  of  His 
 ascension,  though  that  is  implied  in  the  words  with 
 which  he  represents  Jesus  as  concluding  His  address. 
 
 Mark  records  no  other  appearance  but  that  one 
 which  took  place  on  the  evening  of  the  day  of  the 
 resurrection.  It  is  not  improbable  that  the  address, 
 which  he  records  after  mentioning  this  appearance,  was 
 delivered  at  a  subsequent  time  ;  for  it  also  bears  the 
 marks  of  a  farewell  address.  Still,  for  reasons  already 
 assigned,  it  may  not  have  been  the  last  address  given 
 by  the  Lord.  The  Gospel  concludes  with  a  simple 
 statement  of  the  ascension  of  Jesus  to  the  right  hand 
 of  God,  and  with  another  statement  as  to  the  labours 
 of  the  commissioned  Apostles,  and  of  the  signs  or 
 miraculous  proofs  with  which  the  Lord,  according  to 
 His  promise,  confirmed  their  word. 
 
 Luke  gives  us  information  additional  to  that  given 
 by  the  other  three.  After  mentioning  the  first  ap- 
 pearance to  the  disciples  on  the  evening  of  the  first 
 day,  and  the  manner  in  which  Jesus  convinced  them 
 of  the  reality  of  His  risen  body,  he  records  an  address 
 
200  LECTURE  X. 
 
 which  may  in  its  substance  have  been  delivered  then 
 and  at  subsequent  appearances  (for  he  himself  tells 
 us  elsewhere  that  during  forty  days  there  were  such 
 appearances),  and  which,  beyond  all  question,  would 
 be  given  in  His  last  interview  with  them.  He  then 
 simply  mentions  that  Jesus  led  the  disciples  out  as 
 far  as  to  Bethany,  and,  lifting  up  His  hands,  blessed 
 them  ;  and  that  whilst  He  was  in  the  act  of  blessing 
 them  He  was  parted  from  them  and  carried  up  into 
 heaven.  He  concludes  by  telling  us  that  the  disciples 
 worshipped  Him  who  thus  ascended  on  high,  and  re- 
 turned to  Jerusalem  with  great  joy,  and  were  continu- 
 ally in  the  temple  praising  and  blessing  God. 
 
 We  have  already  considered  the  details  recorded 
 by  Luke  in  his  introduction  to  his  second  treatise. 
 These  give  us  more  information,  especially  as  regards 
 the  time  which  intervened  between  the  resurrection 
 and  the  ascension,  but  are  in  no  respect  discordant  with 
 the  brief  narratives  contained  in  the  four  Gospels.  The 
 fullest  information  given  has  reference  to  the  events 
 which  happened  on  the  day  of  the  resurrection  itself ; 
 and  may  we  now  not  conclude  by  saying,  that  in 
 respect  to  these  most  momentous  events  we  have 
 found  the  four  Evangelists  at  perfect  harmony,  so 
 far  as  we  are  furnished  with  facts  which  enable  us 
 to  pronounce  a  judgment  on  so  infinitely  important  a 
 subject  ?  Amidst  much  diversity  substantial  unity 
 prevails.  With  one  combined  testimony  they  clearly 
 prove  that  "  f/ie  Lord  is  risen  indeed!' 
 
 But  we  shall  refer  to  this  united  testimony  on 
 another  occasion. 
 
LECTURE    XI. 
 
 STRAUSS   ON    THE   BURIAL   OF  JESUS. 
 
 Having  considered  the  several  narratives  which  give 
 us  an  account  of  the  facts  proving  the  resurrection  of 
 Jesus,  and  having  also  endeavoured  to  compare  these 
 narratives  among  themselves  so  as  to  determine 
 whether  they  are  consistent  with  one  another,  we 
 might  now  proceed  to  draw  the  conclusion  which  the 
 evidence  presented  to  us  seems  to  warrant.  But 
 before  formally  doing  this,  it  becomes  us  to  hear 
 whether  any  objections  have  been  taken  to  these  nar- 
 ratives, and,  if  so,  carefully  to  consider  their  nature 
 and  worth.  As  it  ought  to  be  our  sole  wish  to  ascer- 
 tain the  truth,  and  as  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ, 
 however  precious  it  may  appear  to  us,  can  be  of  no 
 real  value  unless  it  be  true,  and  as  the  truth  of  this 
 Gospel  rests  pre-eminently  on  the  reality  of  the  re- 
 surrection of  Jesus,  so  we  cannot  possibly  be  too 
 anxious  to  examine  with  the  utmost  impartiality  the 
 evidence,  on  the  one  hand,  which  is  presented  in  sup- 
 port of  that  fact,  and  the  objections,  on  the  other 
 hand,  which  have  been  taken  to  that  evidence.  After 
 such  an  examination  it  rests  with  us  individually  to 
 make  up  our  minds,  and  to  determine,  each  for  him- 
 self, what  our  conclusion  shall  be. 
 
202  LECTURE   XL 
 
 In  two  works  recently  published  we  have  the  objec- 
 tions to  the  evidence  in  favour  of  the  resurrection  stated 
 to  us  in  as  complete  a  form  as  they  have  ever  been,  or 
 probably  can  be,  stated  by  any  one.  I  allude  to  the 
 works  of  Strauss  and  Renan.  The  former,  in  his  re- 
 cent work,  entitled  '  The  Life  of  Jesus  for  the  German 
 People,'  has  stated  these  objections  in  an  elaborate 
 form ;  and  the  latter,  in  his  second  book  on  the  origin 
 of  Christianity,  which  he  entitles  '  The  Apostles,'  has 
 also  presented  these  objections,  though  in  a  somewhat 
 different  shape,  yet  in  a  manner  calculated  to  produce 
 no  slight  impression  on  the  reader's  mind.  I  believe, 
 then,  that  in  these  two  works,  and  especially  in  the 
 one  by  Strauss,  we  may  find  all  that  has  been,  or 
 probably  can  be,  said  against  the  reality  of  the  re- 
 surrection of  Jesus,  and  that  when  we  have  examined 
 what  they  have  to  object  against  this  alleged  fact, 
 we  may  consider  that  we  have  the  case  fully  be- 
 fore us. 
 
 Now,  in  order  to  do  justice  to  the  subject,  we  must 
 submit  to  exercise  patience  in  listening  to  and  ex- 
 amining these  objections.  It  may  be  irksome — nay, 
 exceedingly  painful — to  us  to  have  to  dwell  upon 
 such  objections ;  and  we  may  often  feel  that  we 
 might  fairly  dismiss  them  in  a  summary  manner. 
 But  on  such  a  subject  as  this  we  must  not  adopt 
 such  a  course.  We  must  allow  the  objector  to  choose 
 his  own  way  in  stating  what  he  has  to  say,  and  we 
 must  follow  him  in  his  course,  and  honestly  consider 
 whether  what  he  says  has  weight  or  not.  It  is  for 
 him  to  select  the  ground  on  which  he  is  to  stand  ; 
 and  there  is  no  help  for  us  but  to  take  our  place 
 beside  him,  and  argue  the  question  with  all  possible 
 
STRAUSS   ON   THE   BURIAL   OF  JESUS.  203 
 
 fairness.  Whilst,  then,  we  might,  I  think,  legitimately 
 in  one  respect  decline  to  reason  on  this  subject  with 
 either  of  these  men,  because  they  both  assume  the 
 impossibility  of  a  miraculous  event  —  the  impossi- 
 bility of  such  a  fact  as  that  of  the  resurrection  of 
 one  who  has  really  died — yet,  inasmuch  as  the  mere 
 possibility  of  the  fact  does  not  imply  its  reality,  and, 
 further,  since  by  adducing  objections  to  the  evi- 
 dence given  in  support  of  the  resurrection  they  do 
 virtually  abandon  their  assumed  principle,  and  so  far 
 come  over  to  our  ground,  we  are  bound  to  meet  them, 
 and  patiently  to  hear  whatever  they  may  have  to 
 say. 
 
 For  these  reasons,  then,  I  intend  to  enter  fully  into 
 this  momentous  part  of  our  inquiry,  and  to  consider 
 minutely  the  portions  of  the  two  books  referred  to, 
 but  specially  the  portion  of  Strauss's  work  devoted  to 
 our  subject.  And  I  have  no  doubt  that  you  will  see 
 the  propriety  of  our  doing  so,  and  that  you  will 
 kindly  give  me  your  patient  attention.  It  is  no 
 pleasure  to  me  to  dwell  on  objections  such  as  these 
 men  have  brought  forward,  and  most  gladly  would  I 
 go  on  to  subjects  more  in  unison  with  our  views  and 
 feelings.  But  when  we  engage  in  any  work  we  must 
 do  it  thoroughly,  otherwise  it  had  been  better  and 
 wiser  to  have  let  it  alone. 
 
 Without  further  preliminary  remarks,  then,  let  us 
 proceed  to  hear  and  examine  the  objections  of  Strauss 
 to  the  reality  of  the  resurrection  of  Jesus.  He  ex- 
 presses himself,  as  I  formerly  noticed,  as  perfectly 
 aware  of  the  momentous  nature  of  the  subject.  I 
 shall  not  again  quote  his  words  to  that  effect.  He 
 knows  and  admits  that  the  whole  character  of  Chris- 
 
204  LECTURE   XI. 
 
 tianity  is  involved  in  the  question — that,  in  short,  this 
 question  of  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  is  decisive,  one 
 way  or  the  other,  of  the  divine  or  human  origin  of  the 
 Gospel.  He  enters  upon  the  inquiry  with  his  mind 
 fully  open  to  its  importance,  and  he  expresses  a  re- 
 solution, as  we  also  formerly  remarked,  to  conduct  it 
 in  the  most  impartial  manner.  But,  whilst  we  give 
 him  credit  for  such  expressions,  and  must  deal  with 
 him  as  one  who  has  so  expressed  himself,  we  cannot 
 forget,  and  ought  not  to  forget,  that  with  him  the  in- 
 quiry is  really  ended  before  it  has  begun.  A  resur- 
 rection from  the  dead  is  with  him  an  impossibility, 
 not  merely,  as  we  at  once  allow,  in  the  ordinary  course 
 of  nature,  or  in  respect  to  the  finite  power  of  man,  but 
 in  every  sense — an  utter  impossibility  in  any  aspect 
 whatever.  Now,  we  cannot  forget,  and,  as  I  have  said, 
 we  ought  not  to  forget,  that  such  is  with  him  a  fixed 
 and  unalterable  principle  of  belief.  So  that  whilst  we 
 will  listen  to  him,  coming  as  he  does  over  to  our 
 ground,  and  thus  apparently  admitting  the  possibility 
 of  the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  yet  we  know  beforehand 
 that  he  cannot  possibly  conduct  his  inquiry  with  an 
 unprejudiced  mind  ;  for  that  he  should  be  able  to  do 
 so  would  imply  not  a  miracle,  but  a  contradiction  ; 
 and  whilst  we  are  perfectly  ready  to  admit  the  pos- 
 sibility of  the  one,  w^e  can  by  no  means  allow  the 
 possibility  of  the  other.  We  are  entitled,  then,  be- 
 forehand, to  expect  that  Strauss  will  argue  only  on 
 one  side  of  the  question,  for  with  his  assumed  prin- 
 ciples he  cannot  do  otherwise.  Still,  it  is  possible 
 that  even  with  a  mind  thus  preoccupied  he  may  de- 
 tect something  defective  in  the  evidence  which  has 
 been  adduced  ;  and  we  may  rely  upon  it,  that  if  a  real 
 
STRAUSS   ON   THE   BURIAL   OF  JESUS.  205 
 
 defect  is  to  be  found  in  that  evidence,  such  a  mind  as 
 his  will  not  be  likely  to  fail  in  discovering  it. 
 
 Again,  let  us  carefully  notice  what  is  the  question 
 which  Strauss  places  before  him.  He  is  not  one  of 
 those  who  have  attempted  to  deny  the  very  existence 
 of  such  a  person  as  Jesus,  or  to  represent  Him  and 
 His  disciples  as  a  set  of  impostors.  Strauss  admits 
 that  a  man  called  Jesus  did  exist,  that  He  taught 
 doctrines  bearing  on  morality  and  religion,  and 
 that  He  went  about,  accompanied  by  a  number  of 
 disciples,  teaching  His  doctrines  and  doing  many 
 benevolent  acts  which  attracted  the  attention  of  the 
 Jewish  people ;  and,  further,  that  He  at  last  gave 
 Himself  out  to  be  the  Messiah  whom  the  Jews  ex- 
 pected, and  that  He  was  looked  upon  by  His  disciples 
 as  the  Messiah.  Strauss  also  does  not  question  the 
 fact,  that  Jesus  incurred  the  hatred  of  the  Jewish 
 rulers,  and  that  He  was  at  last  put  to  death  as  a 
 criminal,  after  undergoing  a  trial  before  the  Roman 
 governor  of  Judea.  Strauss  admits  all  these  things 
 as  historical  facts ;  and,  further,  he  admits  that  soon 
 after  the  death  of  Jesus  His  disciples  did  believe  that 
 He  was  risen  from  the  dead,  or  at  least  that,  though 
 He  had  died.  He  was  yet  alive,  and  alive  in  a  state  of 
 exaltation,  and  that  He  would  come  again — probably 
 very  soon — in  glory,  as  the  Messiah,  to  carry  on  His 
 reign.  Strauss,  you  will  carefully  bear  in  mind,  ad- 
 mits belief  in  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  on  the  part  of 
 the  disciples  ;  and  also  that,  cherishing  this  belief,  they 
 went  forth  in  course  of  time  and  proclaimed  it  to  the 
 world — to  Jew  and  Gentile — and  that  they  succeeded 
 in  laying  the  foundations  of  the  Christian  Church  on 
 the  basis  of  this  very  belief. 
 
206  LECTURE   XI. 
 
 Thus  the  question  with  Strauss  is  not,  whether  the 
 Christian  Church  was  founded  on  the  beHef  of  the 
 resurrection  of  Jesus,  or  even  whether  the  disciples — 
 the  first  preachers  of  the  Gospel  —  entertained  this 
 belief.  He  admits  both  of  these  things  as  facts. 
 The  only  question  before  him  is,  What  was  the  origin 
 of  this  belief  which  the  disciples  cherished  ?  Did  it 
 originate  in  sensible  perception — in  the  actual  pre- 
 sentation to  their  minds  through  their  senses  of  an 
 objective  fact  ?  or  did  it  originate  in  a  mere  subjective 
 impression  produced  by  mental  excitement,  and  with- 
 out any  presentation  of  an  objective  fact  ?  Of  course 
 we  know,  a  priori,  what  will  be  Strauss's  answer  to 
 this  apparently  delicate  and  subtle  question.  We 
 know  that  there  is  only  one  answer  which  he  can 
 possibly  give,  were  he  standing  upon  his  own 
 ground.  But,  as  we  have  said,  he  has  virtually  come 
 over  to  our  ground  ;  and  as  we  are  not  a  prioid  shut 
 up  to  the  one  answer  or  to  the  other,  but  are  pre- 
 pared to  hear  with  impartiality  whether  of  these  two 
 answers  is  the  one  warranted  by  the  facts  which  com- 
 pose the  evidence,  we  must  hear  what  he  will  tell  us 
 in  support  of  his  view,  although  that  view  has  been 
 already  necessarily  determined  by  him.  I  have  dwelt 
 on  this,  because  in  all  such  inquiries  the  first  thing  to 
 be  clearly  seen  by  us  is  the  exact  question  which  is 
 to  be  discussed.  The  question  then  is — the  reality  of 
 the  disciples'  belief  being  admitted  on  both  sides, 
 by  Strauss  as  well  as  by  ourselves,  what  was  its 
 origin .'' 
 
 It  may  be  as  well  to  remark  here,  that  although 
 Strauss  more  than  questions  the  received  view  of  the 
 authorship  of  the  Gospel  narratives,  and  indeed  con- 
 
STRAUSS   ON   THE   BURIAL   OF  JESUS.  20/ 
 
 siders  these  as  having  been  written,  not  during  the 
 Apostolic  age,  but  in  the  course  of  the  second  cen- 
 tury, and  although  his  opinion  on  this  subject  is 
 really  founded  on  what  he,  were  he  speaking  of  the 
 opinions  of  his  opponents,  would  call  a  dogmatic  view, 
 and  is,  as  we  believe  can  be  historically  proved,  in 
 direct  opposition  to  evidence  bearing  on  the  subject ; 
 still,  as  it  is  upon  the  contents  as  well  as  upon  the 
 authorship  of  these  narratives  that  the  main  question 
 at  present  under  discussion  depends  for  its  answer,  he 
 is  not  entirely  precluded  from  stating  to  us  objections 
 which,  apart  from  the  question  of  authorship,  he  may 
 think  he  can  draw  from  these  contents  themselves. 
 The  question  of  the  authorship  of  these  narratives,  as 
 well  as  of  the  other  writings  which  enter  into  the 
 canon  of  the  New  Testament,  is  undoubtedly  one  of 
 essential  importance,  and  one  which  we  cannot  allow 
 him  any  more  than  ourselves  to  settle  merely  upon 
 a  theoretical  or  dogmatic  view,  but  in  respect  to 
 which  we  must  insist  on  being  guided  by  evidence, 
 and  evidence  alone.  Still,  inasmuch  as  he  professes 
 to  discover  in  the  very  contents  of  the  narratives 
 grounds  for  objecting  to  the  reality,  not  of  the  dis- 
 ciples' belief,  but  of  the  fact  itself  in  which  they 
 believed,  we  will,  setting  aside  for  a  moment  the  mere 
 question  of  authorship,  but  assuredly  not  conceding 
 his  opinion  on  that  subject,  hear  what  he  has  to  say 
 in  respect  to  these  contents.  I  think  I  have  now 
 given  you  a  clear  and  fair  view  of  the  state  of  matters 
 in  which  Strauss  and  we  are  to  commence  our  com- 
 mon inquiry. 
 
 In    reference   to  the   death   and   burial   of    Jesus, 
 though  he  never  for  a  moment  forgets  his  manifest 
 
208  LECTURE   XL 
 
 determination  to  question  every  point  bearing  on  the 
 subject  of  inquiry,  Strauss  does  not  seem  disposed 
 to  throw  any  strong  doubt  on  the  reality  of  the 
 former.  But  he  does  question  the  accounts  given  in 
 the  narratives — we  mean,  of  course,  the  Gospel  narra- 
 tives— in  respect  to  the  latter.  He  does  not  question 
 the  crucifixion  of  Jesus  ;  but,  as  the  narratives  them- 
 selves show — and  Strauss  never  doubts  their  contents 
 whenever  these  seem  to  favour,  or  to  be  capable  of 
 being  made  by  him  to  favour,  his  own  view — that 
 Jesus  was  only  a  few  hours  upon  the  cross,  and  as 
 "crucifixion,  in  which,"  as  he  says,  "the  loss  of  blood 
 occasioned  by  the  wounds  of  the  nails  was  so  slight, 
 was  not  a  punishment  that  killed  quickly,"  he  states 
 what  circumstances  would  have  warranted  the  con- 
 clusion of  a  real  death  ;  and  then  says,  that  "  on  the 
 other  hand,  if  after  a  few  hours  Jesus  appeared  to  be 
 dead,  and  was  immediately  taken  down  from  the  cross, 
 His  death  might  possibly  have  been  only  apparent, 
 and  a  condition  from  which  He  might  again  recover."* 
 Then  he  refers  to  the  statements  in  the  Gospels  re- 
 ferring to  this  subject,  evidently  with  the  view  of 
 giving  some  colour  to  the  supposition  of  a  merely  ap- 
 parent death  ;  and  mentions  the  recorded  surprise  of 
 Pilate  when  he  was  informed  that  Jesus  was  so  soon 
 dead,  and  also  the  recorded  testimony  of  John, 
 whom,  of  course,  he  does  not  allow  to  have  been  the 
 author  of  the  fourth  Gospel,  to  the  reality  of  the 
 death  as  attested  by  the  facts  mentioned  in  that 
 Gospel,  which  recorded  facts  he  regards  with  more 
 than  suspicion.  In  short,  whilst,  according  to  his 
 usual  mode  (and  in  saying  this  we  do  him  no  injus- 
 *  'New  Life  of  Jesus,'  vol.  i.  p.  392,  393. 
 
STRAUSS   ON   THE   BURIAL   OF  JESUS.  209 
 
 tice,  but  are  only  stating  what  every  page  of  his  book 
 testifies),  he  tries  either  to  throw  discredit  on  every- 
 thing recorded  in  the  Gospels,  or  to  turn  every  state- 
 ment, though  made  to  show  what  actually  occurred, 
 to  the  service  of  his  own  preconceived  purpose, 
 yet  at  last  he  concedes  the  reality  of  the  death  of 
 Jesus. 
 
 But  he  makes  this  concession  in  a  way  worthy  of 
 notice.  "  The  proof  of  the  reality  of  the  death  of 
 Jesus,"  he  says,  "  which  certainly  cannot  be  given  in  a 
 sufficient  form  on  the  side  of  His  crucifixion,  is  con- 
 tained in  the  deficiency  of  all  satisfactory  proof  of  His 
 resurrection.  If  he  is  to  be  considered  as  having  really 
 died,  of  whose  continuance  in  life  there  is  no  historical 
 information,  the  death  of  Jesus  on  the  cross  must 
 be  considered  to  have  been  a  real  death."*  You 
 have  here  a  perfect  specimen  of  that  kind  of  argu- 
 ment which  characterises  his  whole  work.  '  Be- 
 cause crucifixion  was  a  mode  of  punishment  which 
 did  not  until  after  a  time  terminate  in  death,  and 
 because  Jesus,  according  to  the  testimony  of  the 
 Evangelists,  was  on  the  cross  only  during  a  few  hours, 
 we  are  to  consider  His  death  as  a  doubtful  matter; 
 although  those  very  Evangelists,  on  whose  testimony 
 we  rely  for  the  one  fact,  present  to  us  the  clearest 
 evidence  that  the  other  fact — His  death — did  really 
 take  place.  Again  we  are  to  consider  His  death  to 
 have  been  a  real  death,  because  there  is  no  satisfac- 
 tory proof  of  His  resurrection,  or  of  His  having  con- 
 tinued in  life  after  His  crucifixion.  The  assumed 
 deficiency  of  all  such  proof  of  His  resurrection  is  to 
 be  the  only  ground  of  our  behef  that  He  really  died. 
 *  Vol.  i.  p.  394. 
 
 o 
 
210  LECTURE  XI. 
 
 But,  as  is  implied  in  this  argument,  if,  contrary  to 
 the  supposition,  satisfactory  proof  of  the  resurrection 
 should  be  produced,  then  in  that  case  we  fall  back  to 
 our  place  of  departure,  and  deny  that  there  is  satisfac- 
 tory proof  of  His  death.'  In  one  word,  Strauss  will 
 receive  the  testimony  of  the  Evangelists  so  far,  and  so 
 far  only,  as  it  can  be  employed  to  sustain  his  pre- 
 conceived conclusion  that  a  real  resurrection  from  the 
 dead  is  a  thing  which  cannot  be. 
 
 He  next  discusses,  in  connection  with  the  death, 
 the  question  which  has  been  raised  by  some  as  to 
 "  whether  only  the  hands  or  the  feet  also  of  the  cruci- 
 fied Jesus  were  nailed  to  the  cross."  We  agree  with 
 him  in  regarding  this  as  a  subordinate  question,  and 
 also  in  his  conclusion,  that,  "  everything  considered, 
 the  nailing  of  the  feet  as  well  as  the  hands  may  be 
 the  most  probable."*  But  the  next  question — that 
 affecting  the  burial  of  the  crucified  and  now  dead 
 body — is  one  of  a  different  character ;  it  is,  in  fact, 
 of  pre-eminent  importance.  Strauss,  after  a  few 
 remarks  upon  it  at  this  stage  of  his  argument,  which 
 he  considers  as  sufficient  to  throw  doubt  upon  the 
 whole  matter,  reserves  the  full  discussion  of  it  to  a 
 later  stage.  We  deem  it  of  essential  moment  to  hear  at 
 once  all  that  he  has  to  say  on  this  subject.  He  admits 
 that  so  early  as  "  the  time  of  the  Apostle  Paul  it  was 
 a  Christian  tradition  that  Jesus  was  buried  after  being 
 taken  down  from  the  cross."  The  first  epistle  of  this 
 Apostle  to  the  Church  at  Corinth  refers  to  this  so- 
 called  tradition  ;  and  this  is  one  of  the  few  writings 
 to  be  found  in  the  New  Testament  which  even  Strauss 
 admits  to  be  an  authentic  document.     In  that  epistle 
 
 *  Vol.  i.  p.  396. 
 
•   STRAUSS   ON   THE  BURIAL   OF  JESUS.  211 
 
 Paul  writes  thus  to  the  Corinthian  Church :  "  For  I 
 delivered  unto  you  first  of  all  " — or  rather,  among  the 
 first  things,  as  matters  of  first  importance* — ''that 
 which  I  also  received  " — received  not  from  man,  but, 
 as  he  tells  us  in  a  former  part  of  the  epistle,  from  the 
 Lord;  by  special  revelation,  in  short — "how  that 
 Christ  died  for  our  sins  according  to  the  Scriptures  ; 
 and  that  He  was  buried,  and  that  He  rose  again  the 
 third  day  according  to  the  Scriptures."  No  doubt, 
 the  burial  of  Jesus  was  a  fact  everywhere  believed  in 
 the  Christian  Church  on  the  testimony  of  the  Apostles, 
 and  therefore,  if  we  assign  to  the  word  tradition  its 
 strictly  literal  meaning,  we  may  say  with  Strauss, 
 that  in  the  time  of  Paul  there  was  a  Christian  tradi- 
 tion respecting  the  burial  of  Jesus.  Yet  let  us  not 
 concede  to  him  the  loose  or  vague  meaning  of  this 
 term,  but  hold  to  the  truth,  that  the  burial,  as  well  as 
 the  death  and  the  resurrection,  of  Jesus  was  a  fact 
 which  Paul  and  the  other  Apostles  testified  and  taught 
 as  of  primary  importance.  There  is,  then,  satisfactory 
 evidence  that  in  the  apostolic  age,  and  upon  apostolic 
 testimony,  the  crucified  body  of  Jesus  was  believed 
 by  the  Church  to  have  been  buried.  And  Strauss 
 admits  that  what  he  terms  "  a  Christian  tradition  "  to 
 this  effect,  "  has,  historically,  nothing  against  it." 
 
 "For,"  he  confinues,  "though,  according  to  the  Roman  cus- 
 tom, persons  who  had  been  crucified  were  accustomed  to  hang 
 until  they  wasted  away  from  weather,  or  were  consumed  by 
 birds  and  putrefaction,  and  the  Jewish  law  required  that  they 
 should  be  taken  down  before  evening,  and  buried  in  some 
 dishonourable  burying-place,  there  was  a  Roman  law  which 
 gave  the  bodies  of  criminals  so  executed  to  their  relations 
 
 *  TrapedcoKa  yap  vjxiv  eV  irpu>TOiS,  h  Koi  TropeAo/Sov,  K.  T.  X- — I  Cor.  xv.  3,  4. 
 
212  LECTURE   XL 
 
 or  friends  if  they  themselves  asked  for  them.  No  one  of 
 the  EvangeHsts  says  that  Jesus'  own  disciples  did  this  with 
 regard  to  the  body  of  Jesus ;  all,  on  the  other  hand,  repre- 
 sent a  man  who  stood  only  in  a  distant  relation  to  Jesus, 
 the  rich  Joseph  of  Arimathea,  as  here  coming  in.  There 
 are,  indeed,  different  statements  as  to  the  mode  in  which 
 the  burial  was  performed,  which  give  rise  to  doubt,  and 
 reserve  the  point  for  a  later  investigation,  under  which,  also, 
 the  isolated  notice  of  Matthew  as  to  the  watch  at  the  grave 
 will  fall."— Vol.  i.  p.  396. 
 
 Before  we  hear  what  Strauss  has  afterwards  to  say 
 on  this  subject,  let  us  observe  that  we  have,  as  indeed 
 he  admits,  the  unanimous  testimony  of  the  Evangelists 
 to  the  facts  that  Joseph  of  Arimathea  went  to  Pilate 
 and  craved  the  body  of  Jesus,  and  that  Pilate  granted 
 it.  Matthew  and  John*  expressly  tell  us  that  this 
 man  was,  though  secretly,  a  disciple  of  Jesus  ;  and 
 Mark  and  Lukef  describe  him  in  language  almost 
 equivalent  to  this  ;  he  was  one  "  who  was  waiting  for 
 the  kingdom  of  God" — for  the  predicted  reign  of 
 the  Messiah.  The  statements  of  the  four  Evangelists 
 respecting  the  mode  in  which  the  burial  was  per- 
 formed, though  varied  in  one  or  two  particulars,  are 
 not  merely  in  substance,  but  in  most  of  the  details,  at 
 one.  And  we  presume  to  say,  that  if  any  statements 
 of  fact  can  bear  the  impress  of  historical  truth,  these 
 statements  bear  it.  Let  any  one  who  has  not  a  fore- 
 gone conclusion  in  his  mind  read  these  statements, 
 and  he  must,  we  affirm,  feel  the  conviction  that  he  is 
 reading  statements  of  actual  facts.  But  Strauss,  you 
 will  observe,  cannot  allow  the  bj^rial  any  more  than 
 
 *  Matt,  xxvii.  57  ;  John  xix.  38. 
 t  Mark  xv.  43  ;  Luke  xxiii.  50. 
 
STRAUSS   ON   THE   BURIAL   OF   JESUS.  21 3 
 
 the  death  of  Jesus  to  be  accepted  without  a  reserve. 
 He  cannot  enter  on  the  investigation  of  the  evidence 
 bearing  on  the  resurrection  with  a  free  unprejudiced 
 mind ;  and  he  labours  at  every  step  to  throw  doubt 
 on  every  statement,  however  clear  and  historically 
 certain.  He  reserves,  however,  he  tells  us,  for  later 
 investigation,  this  subject  of  the  burial,  along  with  the 
 other  topic  concerning  the  alleged  watch  at  the  tomb. 
 There  are,  we  think,  reasons  which  might  be  stated 
 for  this  deferring  of  the  consideration  of  so  important 
 a  subject  as  that  of  the  burial  of  the  body  of  Jesus  ; 
 but  before  stating  what  these  appear  to  us  to  be,  we 
 shall  pass  on  to  ascertain  what  he  has  to  say  further 
 on  this  head. 
 
 The  next  time  that  Strauss  refers  to  this  subject  of 
 the  burial  is  when  he  is  discussing  the  statements  in 
 the  Gospels  respecting  the  places  where  the  alleged 
 appearances  of  the  risen  Jesus  are  said  to  have  oc- 
 curred. According  to  these  statements,  the  first 
 appearances  occurred  at  or  near  Jerusalem.  As  we 
 shall  have  afterwards  to  examine  what  he  says  on 
 this  particular  subject,  we  mention  at  present  only 
 what,  in  course  of  the  discussion,  he  says  in  respect 
 to  the  burial  : — 
 
 "  In  addition  to  this,"  he  remarks — that  is,  in  addition  to 
 something  that  he  had  said  immediately  before — "  there  is 
 the  consideration  that  the  interment  of  Jesus  in  the  stone 
 sepulchre  of  Joseph,  is  anything  but  historically  corroborated, 
 as  has  been  already  intimated,  and  shall  be  hereafter  more 
 accurately  discussed.  But  if  Jesus  was,  as  is  probable, 
 buried  with  other  condemned  criminals  in  a  dishonourable 
 place,  his  disciples  had  not  from  the  first  the  tempting 
 opportunity  of  looking  for  his  body." — Vol.  i.  p.  432. 
 
214  LECTURE   XL 
 
 The  argument  under  discussion  here  will  come  to 
 be  considered  afterwards.  But  you  will  observe  that 
 Strauss  uses  much  stronger  language  in  this  passage 
 than  he  formerly  did  when  expressing  his  opinion  as 
 to  the  burial.  Formerly,  after  stating  that  the  Roman 
 law  allowed  relatives  or  friends  to  ask  for  the  bodies 
 of  crucified  criminals,  and  after  admitting  that  all 
 the  Evangelists  represent  a  man  whom  he  rather  un- 
 fairly describes  as  standing  in  a  distant  relation  to 
 Jesus,  the  rich  Joseph  of  Arimathea — as  if  this  were 
 all  that  the  Evangelists  say  of  Joseph — "  as  here,"  at 
 this  stage,  "  coming  in,"  he  observed  that  differences, 
 which  differences  he  did  not  mention,  in  the  statements 
 as  to  the  mode  of  the  burial,  gave  rise  to  doubt.  But 
 now  he  advances  beyond  a  state  of  mere  doubt,  af- 
 firming that  the  burial  of  Jesus  in  the  stone  sepulchre  of 
 Joseph  is  anything  but  historically  corroborated  ;  and 
 that  the  probability  is,  that  His  body  was  buried 
 along  with  the  bodies  of  other  condemned  criminals 
 in  a  dishonourable  place.  What  evidence  he  has  for 
 the  latter  assertion  he  does  not  state  ;  and  as  for  the 
 former,  he  does  not  tell  us  what  he  considers  to  be 
 the  historical  corroboration  of  a  fact.  He  merely 
 asserts  both  these  things,  and  the  only  reason  which 
 can  be  assigned  for  both  assertions  is,  that  they  are 
 necessary  to  his  hypothesis.  Everything,  however 
 clearly  and  strongly  attested,  must  give  way  to  that 
 hypothesis  ;  and  when  such  is  the  case,  it  is  mani- 
 festly perfectly  easy  to  support  any  hypothesis  what- 
 soever. But,  then,  what  kind  of  reasoning  is  this 
 that  allows  me  not  only  to  assume  my  theory,  but 
 also  to  construct  my  facts  in  opposition  to  all  histori- 
 cal evidence  in  order  to  support  it .''     Such  reasoning 
 
STRAUSS  ON  THE  BURIAL   OF  JESUS.  21 5 
 
 may  be  called  hypothetical  reasoning,  but  assuredly 
 it  is  not  that  kind  of  reasoning  which  ought  to  be 
 employed  when  we  are  dealing  with  facts.  If  the 
 statements  of  the  Evangelists  are  not  true,  let  them  be 
 shown  to  be  untrue,  and  then  we  shall  know  how  to 
 regard  them.  But  let  us  not  first  assume  that  they 
 are  not  true,  and  then  by-and-by  represent  them  as 
 historically  disproved.  Is  it,  I  would  venture  to  ask, 
 conceivable  that  such  definite  and  consistent  state- 
 ments as  are  to  be  found  in  the  four  Gospels  respect- 
 ing the  burial  of  the  crucified  Jesus,  would  have  been 
 made,  had  His  body  not  been  laid  in  the  tomb  of 
 Joseph — had  that  body  been  really  thrown  with  the 
 bodies  of  other  crucified  criminals  into  some  dis- 
 honoured place  }  Whether  that  body  was  again 
 raised  to  life  or  not,  can  we  for  a  moment  believe 
 that  these  statements,  impressed  as  they  are  with  the 
 clear  stamp  of  historical  verity,  were  the  fabrications 
 of  after  times }  There  is  nothing  in  the  statements 
 to  cause  the  slightest  doubt,  or  even  to  occasion  sur- 
 prise ;  for  viewing  Jesus  even  as  a  mere  man,  who  by 
 His  teaching  and  character  had  drawn  some  friends 
 around  Him,  though  on  account  of  His  claims  and 
 His  exposure  of  prevailing  hypocrisy  in  high  places 
 He  had  incurred  the  deadly  hatred  of  the  chief 
 priests  and  rulers,  so  that  they  could  not  rest  until 
 they  cut  Him  off  by  a  cruel  death  (and  all  this 
 Strauss  admits),  is  it  any  cause  of  wonder  that,  since 
 the  Roman  law  permitted  relatives  or  friends  to  crave 
 possession  of  the  bodies  of  condemned  criminals, 
 some  one  of  the  friends  of  Jesus  should  avail  himself 
 of  this  permission,  and  crave  the  body  of  Him  whom 
 they  so  ardently  loved,  and  believed  to  be  the  Mes- 
 
2l6  LECTURE   XI. 
 
 siah,  and  whose  death  they  knew  was  due  to  no  crime 
 of  His,  but  entirely  to  the  relentless,  though  ground- 
 less, malice  of  His  enemies  ?  What,  may  we  not  ask, 
 should  we  have  thought,  and  what  would  not  Strauss 
 himself  have  forced  us  to  think,  had  the  Evangelists 
 told  us  that,  notwithstanding  the  professed  attachment 
 of  many  to  Jesus  during  His  ministry,  and  their  pro- 
 found grief  when  they  saw  Him  delivered  into  the 
 hands  of  His  enemies,  and  hanging  like  a  malefactor 
 on  the  accursed  tree,  and  notwithstanding  the  kind 
 indulgence  of  the  Roman  law,  there  was  not  one 
 among  His  friends  who  even  thought  of  craving  pos- 
 session of  the  body,  in  order  to  rescue,  as  far  as  was 
 now  in  their  power,  their  deceased  Master  from  fur- 
 ther disgrace ;  but  that  they  all  so  forgot  Him,  and 
 their  own  relation  to  Him,  as  to  allow  His  body  to  be 
 thrown  with  the  bodies  of  notorious  criminals  into 
 some  dishonoured  place  ?  But  it  is  necessary  to  the 
 hypothesis  of  Strauss  that  no  such  burial  as  that 
 attested  by  all  the  Evangelists  should  have  taken 
 place  ;  and,  this  being  the  case,  the  conclusion  is  that 
 no  such  burial  did  take  place.  The  weight  due  to 
 such  an  argument  need  not  be  formally  estimated. 
 
 It  is  in  his  second  book  that  Strauss  gives  us  his 
 promised  accurate  discussion  of  this  subject,  as  also 
 of  the  other  topic  connected  with  it — the  stationing 
 of  a  watch  at  the  tomb.  And  here,  once  for  all,  let 
 me  briefly  point  out  to  you  the  plan  of  Strauss's 
 whole  work.  In  a  long  introduction  he  professes  to 
 investigate  the  sources  of  our  information  respecting 
 the  life  of  Jesus,  and  endeavours  to  disprove  the  gen- 
 uineness and  authenticity  of  the  Evangelical  records. 
 He  then,  in  his  first  book,  assuming  that  the  life  of 
 
STRAUSS   ON   THE   BURIAL   OF  JESUS.  21/ 
 
 Jesus,  however  superior  in  certain  respects  to  the  Hves 
 of  other  men,  could  be  distinguished  by  nothing  of  a 
 miraculous  or  superhuman  character,  labours  to  throw 
 discredit  on  every  narrative  implying  that  Jesus  was 
 so  distinguished,  and  that  His  life,  therefore,  is  not  to  be 
 judged  solely  by  the  laws  which  regulate  the  lives  of 
 merely  human  beings.  Admittingthe  existence  of  Jesus, 
 and  assuming  that  in  His  life  there  could  have  been 
 nothing  miraculous  or  superhuman,  Strauss  examines 
 with  great  minuteness  and  subtlety  the  Gospel  nar- 
 ratives, and  endeavours  to  separate  what,  under  the 
 circumstances,  may  be  supposed  to  have  been  His 
 character  and  course  of  life  from  what,  under  the 
 assumption,  can  be  regarded  as  only  the  product  of 
 delusion  and  fiction  on  the  part  of  His  followers. 
 And  having  made  this  separation,  he  devotes  his 
 second  book  to  the  examination  of  these  delusions 
 and  fictions  with  the  view  of  ascertaining  their  rise 
 and  growth — that  is,  the  conditions  under  which  the 
 stories  embodying  them  were  formed. 
 
 Now,  this  mode  of  procedure  is,  upon  his  assumed 
 principles,  perfectly  legitimate.  If  we  assume  as  our 
 point  of  departure  that  the  life  of  Jesus,  when  criti- 
 cally or  historically  examined,  must  be  viewed  as  in 
 no  essential  respect  differing  from  the  ordinary  life  of 
 man,  we  cannot  admit  as  true  those  statements  which 
 imply  that,  though  truly  man.  He  was  yet  possessed 
 of  a  higher  nature  than  man's,  and  that  He  per- 
 formed miraculous  works — works  which  it  is  manifest 
 no  mere  man,  unendowed  with  superhuman  power,  can 
 do  ;  and  in  order  to  obtain  a  view  of  His  real  life,  we 
 are  compelled  to  separate,  as  we  best  can,  such  state- 
 ments from  the  other  parts  of  the  Evangelic  record. 
 
2l8  LECTURE  XI. 
 
 And  having  succeeded,  as  we  may  think,  in  making 
 this  separation,  we  may  fairly,  with  our  assumed  prin- 
 ciple, endeavour,  if  we  are  so  minded,  to  trace  the 
 origin  of  these  supposed  fictitious  stories.  Such  an 
 inquiry,  however,  possesses  only  a  literary  or  his- 
 torical interest ;  for,  on  the  principle  assumed,  the 
 Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,  whether  it  then  be  viewed  as 
 a  cunningly  devised  fable  or  as  a  purely  mythical  pro- 
 duction, loses  all  its  moral  value.  It  is  no  longer 
 the  Gospel  of  salvation  to  a  sinful  and  perishing 
 race. 
 
 In  his  second  book,  then,  Strauss,  according  to  his 
 promise,  discusses  the  subject  of  the  burial  of  Jesus, 
 as  also  the  narrative  in  Matthew  respecting  the 
 watch  stationed  at  the  tomb.  I  deem  it  of  import- 
 ance to  examine  at  length  this  discussion,  because 
 such  an  examination  will  not  only  show  you  how 
 completely  Strauss  fails  to  set  aside  the  unanimous 
 testimony  of  the  Evangelists  in  reference  to  this  mat- 
 ter of  the  burial,  as  further  the  testimony  of  Matthew 
 to  the  other  fact,  but  will  also  enable  you  to  see  the 
 entirely  hypothetical  manner  in  which,  throughout  his 
 second  book,  he  attempts  to  account  for  the  origin  of 
 what  he  designates  the  mythical  or  legendary  stories 
 in  the  Gospel  narratives.  I  need  not  repeat  that 
 our  examination,  however  tedious  and  even  painful, 
 must  be  thorough,  in  order  that  it  may  be  of  any 
 worth. 
 
 Strauss  begins  his  discussion  thus  : — 
 
 "It  was  naturally  of  great  importance  to  the  earliest 
 Christian  consciousness  that  the  honour  of  burial  should 
 have  been  paid  to  the  body  of  Jesus.  Even  Paul  mentions 
 it  as  a  tradition  that  Jesus  was  buried  (i  Cor.  xv.  4);  but  in 
 
STRAUSS   ON   THE   BURIAL   OF  JESUS.         219 
 
 saying  this,  he  only  wishes,  as  a  preparation  for  what  is  said 
 immediately  afterwards  of  his  resurrection,  to  establish  that 
 the  body  of  Jesus  went  under  the  earth.  In  itself  this 
 might  have  been  done  only  in  the  manner  which  was 
 usual  among  the  Jews  in  the  case  of  persons  executed,  by 
 his  being  taken  down  from  the  cross  and  covered  over  \vith 
 soil  in  the  burial-place  of  other  criminals.  The  Romans, 
 however,  as  was  remarked  above,  if  the  relatives  announced 
 themselves  as  coming  to  apply  for  the  body  of  a  person  who 
 had  been  executed,  were  accustomed  to  give  it  up  to  them 
 for  burial.  And  according  to  the  Evangelists  such  a  person 
 did  really  announce  himself  to  Pilate,  in  a  rich  man  of 
 Arimathea,  by  name  Joseph,  who  belonged  to  Jesus  as  a 
 disciple  (Matt,  xxvii.  57,  ff. ;  Mark  xv.  42,  ff. ;  Luke  xxiii. 
 50,  ff.  j  John  xix.  38,  ff.)"— Vol.  ii.  p.  395. 
 
 In  the  first  sentence  of  this  introductory  portion, 
 Strauss,  you  will  obser\^e,  states  the  feeling  to  which 
 he  means  to  trace  the  story  that  arose  in  the  early 
 Church  respecting  the  burial  of  Jesus.  Although 
 there  was  nothing  miraculous  in  the  fact  narrated  by 
 all  the  Evangelists,  that  a  disciple  of  Jesus  craved 
 the  body,  and  on  obtaining  his  request  buried  it  in  a 
 tomb ;  although,  even  with  the  implied  sanction  of 
 Strauss  himself,  who  allows  that  "  the  earliest  Chris- 
 tian consciousness  " — that  is,  in  plain  words,  the  pre- 
 valent feeling  of  the  earliest  Christians — "  naturally  con- 
 sidered it  of  great  importance  that  the  honour  of  burial 
 should  have  been  paid  to  the  body  of  Jesus,"  we  may 
 justly  ascribe  the  existence  of  such  a  feeling  to  the 
 first  disciples — to  those  persons  who  personally  knew 
 Him,  and  believed  on  Him  and  loved  Him,  and  who 
 were  filled  with  grief  when  they  saw  Him  condemned 
 to  a  criminal's  death  ;  although  nothing  could  be  more 
 natural  than  that  one  or  more  of  these  first  disciples 
 
220  LECTURE   XL 
 
 should  desire  to  rescue  the  body  from  further  degra- 
 dation, and  should  therefore  avail  themselves  of  the 
 privilege  which  the  Roman  law  allowed ;  and  al- 
 though, had  none  of  them  done  so,  we  should  have 
 had  an  argument  of  a  peculiar  kind,  and  of  no  or- 
 dinary weight,  raised  against  the  reality  of  the  resur- 
 rection, and  founded  upon  this  very  neglect  on  the 
 part  of  the  friends  of  Jesus  ;  and,  moreover,  although 
 there  does  not  exist  the  slightest  particle  of  real  evi- 
 dence which  can  be  brought  forward  against  the 
 unanimous  testimony  of  the  Evangelists  to  the  fact 
 of  the  burial  of  the  body  in  the  tomb  by  Joseph  ; 
 — still  this  fact,  so  natural  in  every  respect,  and  so 
 naturally  recorded  and  unanimously  attested,  must, 
 owing  to  the  manifest  exigencies  of  the  argument 
 against  the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  be  called  in  ques- 
 tion, being  first  merely  doubted,  next  declared  not 
 to  be  historically  corroborated,  and  now  wholly  set 
 aside.  All  this  is  done,  we  repeat,  without  the  slightest 
 particle  of  real  evidence. 
 
 It  is  supposed  by  Strauss  that  the  reader  is  by  this 
 time  convinced  that  no  such  burial  as  is  recorded  took 
 place — that  he  will  now  overlook  the  pure  assumption 
 which  is  made,  and  will  proceed  with  him  to  inquire, 
 or  rather,  as  we  shall  see,  to  conjecture,  how  in  the 
 "  earliest  Christian  consciousness  " — that  vague  but 
 most  useful  expression — the  idea  of  the  burial  sprang 
 up,  and  finally  grew  into  the  belief,  and  therefore  the 
 story,  of  a  real  burial.  Even  so  early  as  the  time  of 
 Paul,  **  the  Christian  consciousness "  was  at  work  on 
 this  subject ;  for  at  the  time  when  he  wrote  his  first 
 epistle  to  the  Church  at  Corinth — probably  about 
 twenty-seven  years  after  the  death  of   Christ — "  he 
 
STRAUSS   ON    THE   BURIAL   OF   JESUS.  221 
 
 mentions  it  as  a  tradition,"  says  Strauss,  "  that  Jesus 
 was  buried."  The  idea,  then,  of  the  burial  must  have 
 taken  possession  of  "  the  Christian  consciousness " 
 some  time  at  least  before  this,  and  must  have  grown 
 very  rapidly  indeed,  and  that,  too,  whilst  the  first  dis- 
 ciples of  Jesus  were — most  of  them,  at  least — alive, 
 and  able  to  check  the  progress  of  the  error,  if  error  it 
 was.  But  what  does  Paul  mean  when  he  says  that 
 Jesus  was  buried  ^  According  to  Strauss,  "  Paul  only 
 wishes,  for  the  sake  of  his  subsequent  argument,  to 
 establish  that  the  body  of  Jesus  went  under  the 
 earth  ;"  and  this  would  have  been  the  case  had  the 
 body  been  taken  down  from  the  cross  and  covered 
 over  with  earth  in  the  burial-place  of  other  criminals, 
 so  that,  after  all,  the  Christian  tradition  which  Paul 
 mentions  may  have  been  a  tradition  only  to  that 
 effect.  But  how  such  a  fact  as  is  now  supposed 
 should  have  satisfied  "  the  earliest  Christian  con- 
 sciousness "  which  demanded  an  honourable  burial 
 for  the  body  of  Jesus,  and  should,  by  so  satisfy- 
 ing this  consciousness,  have  assumed  the  important 
 aspect  of  a  tradition,  and  further,  in  what  way  this 
 tradition  became  afterwards  changed  into  the  idea 
 and  belief  of  an  honourable  burial,  Strauss  does  not 
 attempt  to  explain.  Nay,  it  seems  questionable 
 whether,  with  all  his  subtlety — and  it  is  not  slight — 
 he  perceived  the  contradiction  into  which  he  here,  at 
 the  very  outset  of  his  "  accurate  discussion,"  manifestly 
 falls.  If  "the  earliest  Christian  consciousness,"  we 
 repeat,  demanded  an  honourable  burial  for  the  body 
 of  Jesus,  and  if  this  consciousness  created  the  tra- 
 dition to  which  Paul  refers,  then  Paul  also,  who 
 adopted  this  tradition,  could  not  mean,  when  he  says 
 
222  LECTURE   XI. 
 
 that  Jesus  was  buried,  that  the  body  was  thrown  with 
 the  bodies  of  other  criminals  into  some  dishonourable 
 place,  as  Strauss  formerly  expressed  himself  Paul 
 must  have  meant  that  the  body  was  laid  in  some 
 honourable  tomb. 
 
 Now,  although  the  Apostle  does  not  expressly  say 
 where  the  body  of  Jesus  was  laid,  no  one  who  is  not 
 bent  on  using  the  most  frivolous  criticism  can  doubt 
 that,  when  he  says  Jesus  was  buried,  he  does  mean 
 that  His  body  was  laid,  according  to  the  testimony  of 
 the  Evangelists,  in  a  tomb  or  grave.  And  how  does 
 Paul  say  that  he  knew  this  fact  as  well  as  other  facts 
 respecting  Jesus }  No  doubt  he  may  have  heard  the 
 testimony  of  other  Apostles  ;  but  he  tells  us  plainly 
 that  he  had  higher  testimony  than  even  that  of 
 Apostles.  "  For  I  delivered  unto  you,"  he  writes, 
 "first  of  all," — or  rather,  among  the  first  things,  as 
 things  of  first  importance — "that  which  I  also  re- 
 ceived." Received  from  whom  }  From  the  Lord,  as 
 he  expressly  said  before  in  this  very  Epistle  (xi.  23), 
 received  directly  by  divine  revelation — "  that  Christ 
 died  for  our  sins  according  to  the  Scriptures ;  and  that 
 He  was  buried,  and  that  He  rose  again  the  third  day 
 according  to  the  Scriptures."  Let  us  notice  in  pass- 
 ing the  importance  here  attached  to  the  fact  that 
 "  Christ  was  buried  " — a  fact  attesting  the  prior  death, 
 and  preparatory  to  the  subsequent  resurrection,  and  a 
 fact  of  such  importance  as  to  have  been  made,  in  the 
 case  of  this  Apostle,  the  subject  of  special  revelation. 
 But  Strauss  assumes — inconsistently  with  the  view 
 which  he  wishes  to  take  of  the  words  of  Paul,  and  of 
 the  supposed  tradition  to  which  he  thinks  Paul  refers 
 — that  the  idea  of  an  honourable  burial  of  the  body 
 
STRAUSS   ON   THE   BURIAL   OF  JESUS.  223 
 
 of  Jesus  Sprang  up  in  the  minds  of  the  earliest  Chris- 
 tians, and,  growing  rapidly,  at  length  embodied  itself 
 in  the  mythical  stories  which  were  afterwards  re- 
 corded by  the  so-called  Evangelists.  He  then  pro- 
 ceeds to  account  for  the  special  form  with  which  this 
 idea  clothed  itself  Here  we  shall  have  a  specimen 
 both  of  the  manner  in  which  he  subjects  to  the  so- 
 called  "  higher  criticism "  the  Gospel  narratives,  and 
 also  of  the  manner  in  which  mythical  ideas  grew  up 
 in  the  minds  of  the  earliest  Christians,  and  at  last 
 became  consolidated  as  real,  objective  facts — first,  of 
 course,  in  their  minds,  and  lastly  in  written  records. 
 
 According  to  Strauss,  though  he  does  not  expressly 
 say  so,  but  leaves  us  to  infer  his  view  from  statements 
 made  in  different  parts  of  his  work,  the  case  was  this  : 
 The  body  of  Jesus  was  buried  along  with  the  bodies 
 of  other  condemned  criminals  in  the  place  set  apart 
 for  that  purpose.  But,  in  opposition  to  this  known 
 fact,  the  idea  of  an  honourable  burial  sprang  up  in 
 the  minds  of  the  earliest  Christians.  How  are  we  to 
 account  for  the  origin  of  this  idea,  and  for  the  special 
 form  in  which  it  embodied  itself.'*  The  Evangelic 
 narratives  present  us  with  varied  statements  of  this 
 form.  Let  us,  then,  examine  them,  and  we  shall 
 trace  the  whole  matter  to  its  origin.  The  idea  itself 
 is  one  which  would  naturally  arise  in  the  mind. 
 These  Christians  could  not  but  wish  that  their  Lord's 
 body,  crucified  though  it  had  been,  should  not  be 
 treated  with  ignominy  even  after  life  had  become  ex- 
 tinct. How,  with  their  knowledge  that  it  had  been 
 so  treated,  the  idea  that  it  had  not  been  so  treated 
 could  spring  from  the  mere  wish  that  it  should  have 
 been  differently  treated,  Strauss  does  not  attempt  to 
 
224  LECTURE   XL 
 
 explain.  He  evades,  after  his  usual  manner,  that 
 primary  question  altogether.  He  does  not  even  state 
 the  question  ;  and  he  evidently  does  not  wish  his 
 reader  to  think  of  it.  But  this  is  a  question  which  in 
 fair  argument  we  cannot  evade,  and  I  beg  your  spe- 
 cial attention  to  it ;  for  by  evading  this  question 
 Strauss  implicitly  condemns  his  own  theory,  since  a 
 theory  can  be  pronounced  good  only  when  it  explains 
 all  the  phenomena. 
 
 In  what  way,  then,  did  the  mere  wish,  however 
 strong,  on  the  part  of  the  earliest  Christians,  that 
 their  Lord's  body  had  been  honourably  buried,  pass 
 into  the  idea  and  belief  that  it  had  been  so  honourably 
 buried,  when  they  knew  the  contrary  to  have  been  the 
 fact  ?  Had  this  occurred  at  some  later  age,  when  the 
 knowledge  of  the  real  fact  had  been  forgotten,  we 
 might  not  have  been  so  greatly  at  a  loss  to  conceive 
 how  the  idea  of  and  belief  in  an  honourable  burial 
 could  have  arisen,  though  even  then  we  should  have 
 been  at  a  loss  to  account  for  the  apparently  natural 
 and  certainly  most  consistent  narratives  contained  in 
 the  Gospels.  But  how  this  idea  and  belief  could  pos- 
 sibly have  assumed  the  appearance  of  a  reality  in  the 
 minds  of  the  earliest  Christians,  if  they  knew  the  con- 
 trary to  be  the  truth,  surpasses,  we  confess,  our  power 
 to  conceive.  Strauss,  however,  has  a  way  always  at 
 hand  to  get  over  even  such  a  difficulty  as  here  pre- 
 sents itself  He  assumes  that  the  wish  created  the 
 idea  and  caused  the  belief  This  is  the  basis  of  his  pro- 
 mised "  accurate  discussion."  Grant  him  his  assump- 
 tion, and  he  will  soon  explain  the  whole  matter.  Give 
 him  a  place,  and  he  will  move  the  whole  Christian 
 world.     Let  him  first  form  his  own  premises,  and  he 
 
STRAUSS   ON   THE  BURIAL  OF  JESUS.  225 
 
 will  speedily  demonstrate  his  conclusion.  Only  be  it 
 observed  that,  whilst  a  conclusion  may  be  logically 
 drawn  from  the  premises,  an  error  in  the  latter  vitiates 
 the  former.  And  it  is  scarcely  worth  while,  after 
 assuming  that  such  and  such  was  the  case,  to  enter 
 upon  a  lengthened  argument  to  demonstrate  that  such 
 was  the  case. 
 
 Having  silently  assumed  that,  in  direct  opposition 
 (according  to  his  own  view)  to  their  knowledge,  the 
 earliest  Christians  embraced  the  belief  that  the  body 
 of  Jesus  had  been  honourably  buried,  Strauss  evi- 
 dently wishes  us  to  perceive  in  the  indulgence  of  the 
 Roman  law  on  this  subject  a  ground  for  the  promi- 
 nent idea  embodied  in  every  form  of  the  mythical 
 story.  That  law  allowed  the  relatives  and  friends  to 
 crave  the  body  of  a  condemned  criminal.  Hence  we 
 have  an  explanation  why,  in  the  story  which  embodies 
 the  full-grown  myth,  a  person  is  introduced  who  goes 
 to  Pilate  and  craves  the  body  of  Jesus.  But  Strauss, 
 whilst  keenly  anxious  to  trace  the  origin  of  every- 
 thing mentioned  in  the  story,  does  not  attempt  to 
 explain  why  this  person  was  called  Joseph  of  Ari- 
 mathea.  His  name  and  place  of  birth  are  expressly 
 mentioned  in  all  the  four  editions  of  the  story.  He 
 certainly  comes  in  as  a  real  living  man,  and  not  at  all 
 as  a  mythical — a  merely  ideal  personage.  Why  was  he 
 called  Joseph  .?  Why  was  he  of  Arimathea  }  Surely 
 Strauss,  who  never  omits  a  single  thing  in  any  narra- 
 tive which  he  thinks  he  can  account  for  in  some  way 
 or  other,  must  have  seen  that  an  explanation  was 
 needed  here.  Why,  we  again  ask,  if  a  real  Joseph 
 — a  man  of  Arimathea — did  not  go  to  Pilate  and 
 crave  the  body  of  the  crucified  Jesus,  does  the  story 
 
 P 
 
226  LECTURE   XI. 
 
 say  so  ?  Had  it  merely  said  that  some  friend  of 
 Jesus  went  and  made  the  request,  though  even  then 
 we  should  not  have  felt  ourselves  on  that  account 
 necessarily  in  the  region  of  myths,  still  the  case 
 would  not  have  been  so  clearly  in  the  region  of 
 realities.  But  the  story — each  form  of  it — the  four- 
 fold story — names  the  man  and  also  gives  the  place 
 of  his  birth,  or  at  least  of  his  abode.  It  was  Joseph 
 of  Arimathea  who  went  to  Pilate.  And  the  ques- 
 tion is,  how,  upon  the  hypothesis  of  Strauss,  did 
 the  specific  idea  of  Joseph  of  Arimathea  enter  into 
 "the  earliest  Christian  consciousness"  in  connection 
 with  not  merely  the  wish  for  an  honourable  burial, 
 but  with  the  belief  that  such  had  been  the  character 
 of  the  burial  ?  No  attempt  at  explanation  is  made 
 by  Strauss.  He  is  silent,  and  evidently  hopes  that 
 his  reader  will  acquiesce  in  this  silence.  He  assumes 
 that  no  such  man  went  to  Pilate  and  craved  and 
 obtained  the  body  of  Jesus.  Silent  assumption  is 
 once  more  his  way  of  overcoming  an  otherwise  in- 
 superable difficulty. 
 
 But  though  Strauss  takes  no  notice  of  the  fact  that, 
 according  to  all  the  narratives,  it  was  a  man  of  Ari- 
 mathea, Joseph  by  name,  who  went  to  Pilate  and 
 craved  the  body,  he  eagerly  seizes  on  what  one  of  the 
 narratives — that  in  the  Gospel  of  Matthew — says  of 
 him  as  to  his  being  a  man  of  wealth.     He  says  : — 
 
 "  A  rich  man — these  are  the  first  words  of  the  most  ancient 
 reporter,  Matthew ;  he  only  adds  incidentally  that  the  rich 
 man  was  also  a  disciple  of  Jesus.  Luke  and  Mark  "  (for 
 such  is  the  order  in  which  Strauss  insists  that  their  respective 
 Gospels  were  written)  "  forget  the  rich  man  in  the  honour- 
 able councillor,  and  whatever  else  they  make  of  Joseph ; 
 
STRAUSS   ON   THE   BURIAL   OF  JESUS.  22/ 
 
 while  John  seizes  on  the  discipleship,  and  in  his  favourite 
 style  makes  it  a  secret  one,  from  fear  of  the  Jews.  But  in 
 other  cases  wealth,  in  a  good  sense,  is  not  of  so  much  im- 
 portance to  the  Evangelists  :  why  does  the  first  reporter  so 
 industriously  put  it  forward  here  ?  The  rich  man  had  a 
 tomb  which  he  had  hewn  out  for  himself  in  the  rock,  and  in 
 which  he  now  laid  the  dead  Messiah." — Vol.  ii.  p.  395-6. 
 
 Now  surely  there  is  nothing  in  the  narrative,  as 
 given  either  by  Matthew  or  by  any  other  of  the  Evan- 
 gelists, which,  under  the  alleged  circumstances,  should 
 excite  even  surprise,  and  far  less  doubt.  There  is 
 nothing  miraculous  here,  at  least.  Everything  seems 
 perfectly  natural.  It  was  surely  not  impossible  that 
 there  should  be  living  at  that  time  a  man  of  Ari- 
 mathea  called  Joseph  ;  that  he  should  happen  to  be 
 a  rich  man,  a  good  man  and  just,  a  member  of  the 
 Jewish  Sanhedrim,  and  a  disciple  of  Jesus — a  dis- 
 ciple only  secretly  at  first  from  fear  of  the  Jews  ;  nor 
 is  there  anything  unnatural  in  the  statement  that 
 such  a  man  had  a  portion  of  ground  near  to  Jerusalem 
 belonging  to  him,  and,  if  so,  that  he  had  hewn  out  for 
 himself  a  tomb  in  that  portion  of  it  which  is  described 
 as  a  rock.  Supposing,  further,  that  all  these  things 
 were  real,  was  it  not  the  most  natural  thing  possible 
 that  this  man — a  man  of  influence,  character,  and 
 wealth — should,  at  such  a  crisis,  feel  irresistibly  im- 
 pelled by  his  belief,  although  hitherto  secret,  or  more 
 probably  only  partially  so,  that  Jesus,  though  now 
 hanging  on  the  cross,  was  really  the  Messiah,  to  avail 
 himself  of  the  permission  granted  by  the  Roman  law 
 to  crave  and  obtain  the  body  of  his  Lord,  and  that  he 
 should  lay  this  iDody  in  the  tomb  which  he  possessed, 
 and  in  which  as  yet  no  man  had  lain  ?     As  we  have 
 
228  LECTURE   XI. 
 
 repeatedly  said,  all  the  narratives,  however  varied,  are 
 consistent  with  each  other,  and  bear  the  Impress  of 
 historical  truth.  But  Strauss,  you  will  observe,  does 
 not  Inquire  whether  these  narratives  are  true  or  false. 
 He  assumes  that  they  are  false ;  and  though  he 
 maintains  a  determined  silence  on  the  very  funda- 
 mental parts  of  the  narratives,  he  will  endeavour  to 
 show  how,  as  he  imagines,  some  of  the  details  may  be 
 accounted  for.  And  thus,  as  we  have  said,  he  eagerly 
 seizes  on  the  detail  given  only  by  Matthew,  whose 
 report  he  considers  as  presenting  the  most  ancient 
 form  of  the  assumed  mythical  story,  that  it  was  a 
 rich  man  who  paid  honour  to  the  dead  body  of 
 Jesus. 
 
 Observe  now  how  Strauss  will  account  for  the 
 idea  of  a  rich  man  having  entered  into  "  the  earliest 
 Christian  consciousness,"  and  consequently  into  the 
 most  ancient  version  of  the  story  In  which  the  Idea  of 
 the  whole  matter  became  embodied.     He  says  : — 
 
 "  But  it  was  in  his  death  that  the  Messiah  was  brought 
 into  connection  with  the  rich  in  Isaiah.  With  the  rich 
 indeed  in  a  bad  sense,  as  It  would  appear,  when  It  Is  said 
 (IIII.  9),  '  He  made  his  grave  indeed  with  the  wicked,  and 
 with  the  rich  in  his  death,'  in  which  words,  the  rich  being 
 taken  as  synonymous  with  the  wicked,  a  prophecy  of  a  dis- 
 honourable burial  might  be  proved.  But  the  association 
 with  the  wicked,  the  being  numbered  with  the  transgressors, 
 was  considered  to  have  been  already  fulfilled  in  Jesus  by 
 his  apprehension  and  crucifixion  (Luke  xxiii.  37  ;  Mark 
 XV.  28)  :  thus  the  rich  remained  for  his  burial,  he  must 
 have  been  laid  in  the  tomb  of  a  rich  man,  and  this  rich  man 
 not  a  godless  but  a  God-fearing  man,  who,  believing  in  the 
 Messiah,  gave  up  his  tomb  to  the  murdered  Christ." — Vol. 
 ii.  p.  396. 
 
STRAUSS   ON   THE   BURIAL   OF   JESUS.  229 
 
 Such,  according  to  Strauss,  is  a  satisfactory  account 
 of  the  origin  in  "  the  earliest  Christian  consciousness  " 
 of  the  idea  and  the  belief  that  the  body  of  Jesus  was 
 laid  in  a  rich  man's  tomb.  'Although  the  earliest 
 Christians  knew  the  real  facts  of  the  case,  which 
 were,  according  to  Strauss,  that  the  body  of  Jesus 
 was  not  laid  in  such  a  tomb,  but  was  dishonourably 
 buried  ;  yet  naturally  deeming  it  of  great  import- 
 ance that  the  honour  of  a  burial  should  have  been 
 paid  to  His  body,  they  remembered  the  words  of 
 Isaiah,  which,  according  to  the  prevailing  belief,  re- 
 ferred to  the  Messiah,  and  which  foretold  that  the 
 Messiah  would  in  His  death  be  brought  into  connec- 
 tion with  the  rich  ;  and  although  they  misinterpreted 
 these  words,  which  identify  the  rich  with  the  wicked, 
 yet  as  Jesus  in  His  death  so  far  fulfilled  the  prophecy 
 in  being  numbered  with  transgressors,  they  thought 
 that  they  might  reserve  the  rich  for  his  burial,  and 
 change  the  predicted  character  of  these  rich  men  into 
 that  of  a  rich  man  who  feared  God.' 
 
 Apart,  then,  from  this  supposed  misinterpretation 
 of  the  latter  part  of  Isaiah's  prophecy,  let  us  calmly 
 consider  the  process  by  means  of  which  these  earliest 
 Christians  persuaded  themselves  that  the  body  of 
 Jesus  was  laid  in  a  rich  man's  tomb.  These  Chris- 
 tians knew — for  if  it  was  the  case  they  could  not  but 
 know — that  the  body  of  Jesus  was  thrown  into  the 
 place  where  the  bodies  of  other  criminals  were 
 buried.  They  knew  this  fact,  if  fact  it  was,  but  they 
 naturally  and  ardently  wished  that  it  had  been  other- 
 wise. And  in  some  way  or  other,  which  Strauss  does 
 not  explain,  the  prophetic  words  of  Isaiah  occurred 
 to  them,  which  words  foretold  that  the  Messiah  would 
 
230  LECTURE   XI. 
 
 be  with  the  rich  in  His  death  ;  and  they,  beheving 
 that  Jesus  was  the  Messiah,  immediately  inferred  that, 
 contrary  to  what  they  knew  to  have  been  the  case, 
 His  body  must  have  been  laid  in  a  rich  man's  tomb. 
 The  principle  in  this  process  of  reasoning  is  this — and 
 it  is  exceedingly  important  for  you  clearly  to  under- 
 stand it,  for  it  is  in  virtue  of  this  assumed  principle 
 that  Strauss  throughout  his  work  undertakes  to  ex- 
 plain all,  or  nearly  all,  the  so-called  mythical  stories 
 in  the  Gospels — the  principle  is  this,  that  whatever  the 
 first  Christians  believed  to  have  been  foretold  by  the 
 prophets  respecting  the  Messiah,  they  immediately 
 concluded  to  have  been  fulfilled  in  Jesus,  whom  they 
 looked  upon  as  the  Messiah,  whether  that  fulfilment 
 was  a  reality  or  not ;  or  rather,  according  to  Strauss's 
 assumption,  even  though  no  fulfilment  whatever  took 
 place,  and,  as  in  the  case  before  us,  even  when,  as  he 
 alleges,  the  very  contrary  to  what  was  predicted  took 
 place.  Isaiah  foretold  that  the  Messiah  would  be 
 with  the  rich  in  His  death  :  therefore,  argued  these 
 first  Christians,  Jesus,  whom  we  believe  to  have  been 
 the  Messiah,  must  have  been  with  the  rich  in  His 
 death.  It  was  not,  you  will  carefully  observe,  because 
 ancient  prophecies  respecting  the  Messiah  were  ful- 
 filled in  Jesus,  that  on  this  and  other  grounds  the  first 
 disciples  believed  Jesus  to  be  the  Messiah.  To  sup- 
 pose that  such  was  one  ground  of  their  belief  would 
 be  to  admit  the  possibility  of  a  miracle ;  for  the  ful- 
 filment of  prophecy  involves,  as  you  must  at  once 
 perceive,  miraculous  knowledge,  the  knowledge  of 
 future  contingent  events.  But  Strauss  rejects  the 
 possibility  of  the  miraculous  under  any  form.  Ac- 
 cording to  him,  the  first  disciples,  without  any  miracu- 
 
STRAUSS   ON   THE   BURIAL   OF  JESUS.  23 1 
 
 lous  evidence  whatever,  for  of  such  there  was  and 
 could  be  none,  beHeved  Jesus  to  be  the  Messiah ; 
 and  then,  after  His  death,  they  appHed  to  Him  all 
 the  prophecies,  or  rather  pretended  prophecies,  which 
 were  understood,  erroneously  understood,  to  refer  to 
 the  Messiah,  actually  believing  in  their  own  minds, 
 and  openly  declaring  to  others,  that  these  prophecies 
 were  really  fulfilled  in  Jesus — when,  as  Strauss  as- 
 sumes, they  knew  perfectly  that  no  such  fulfilment 
 had  taken  place. 
 
 Is  it  possible,  we  may  now  ask,  to  conceive  that 
 any  man  or  any  number  of  men,  not  wholly  void  of 
 understanding,  could  have  proceeded  in  such  a  manner 
 as  Strauss  here  assumes  ?  Were  these  first  Christians 
 so  utterly  deprived  of  the  power  of  our  common 
 reason,  that,  contrary  to  their  personal  knowledge  of 
 the  facts,  they  could  thus  convince  themselves  of  the 
 reality  of  the  very  opposite  of  those  facts  ?  Were 
 they  so  utterly  blind  to  the  distinction  between  truth 
 and  falsehood,  that  when  they  knew  the  former  they 
 persuaded  themselves  to  believe  the  latter  ?  And  not 
 only  to  believe  that  which  they  could  not  but  know 
 to  be  false,  but  actually  to  spend  their  lives  in  bearing 
 testimony  to  it,  and  to  endure  every  species  of  per- 
 secution in  support  of  their  testimony  ?  Surely  we 
 may  suppose  that  among  the  earliest  Christians  there 
 were  some  besides  St  Paul  who  believed  that  unless 
 Jesus  was  really  the  Messiah,  and  that  unless  this 
 belief  was  grounded  on  the  evidence  of  facts  which 
 had  happened,  they,  in  submitting  to  persecution  for 
 the  sake  of  their  belief,  were  of  all  men  most  miser- 
 able, because  they  were  submitting  to  such  persecu- 
 tion in  the  knowledge  that  their  faith  was  vain. 
 
232  LECTURE   XL 
 
 It  is,  however,  a  pure  assumption  to  represent  these 
 Christian  men  as  reasoning  in  the  manner  which 
 Strauss  ascribes  to  them.  The  assumption  is  neces- 
 sary to  his  purpose,  but  it  is  wholly  baseless ;  and 
 the  very  opposite  is  that  which  all  existing  evidence 
 attests.  How  any  man  can  believe  that  the  first 
 Christians  so  reasoned  and  so  convinced  themselves 
 of  the  reality  of  what  they  knew  had  not  happened, 
 we  can  only  explain  by  referring  to  those  awful  words 
 which  Jesus  on  one  occasion  uttered,  "If  the  light 
 that  is  in  thee  be  darkness,  how  great  is  that  dark- 
 ness !"  What  a  power  unbelief  exerts  on  the  mind  in 
 which  it  dwells  !  It  gains  an  entire  ascendancy  over 
 the  man's  whole  nature.  He  will  adopt  any  supposi- 
 tion, however  childish  and  absurd,  in  order  that  he 
 may  resist  the  evidence  presented  to  him  ;  and  I  be- 
 lieve that  no  kind  of  evidence,  or  any  amount  of  it, 
 can  produce  the  slightest  effect  on  such  a  mind.  It 
 is  so  deluded  as  to  believe  a  lie ;  and  nothing  but  the 
 special  working  of  divine  grace  can  affect  it.  Let  us 
 wish  and  pray  that  even  this  man's  mind  may  yet 
 experience  the  power  of  that  grace. 
 
 With  respect  to  the  particular  prophecy  to  a  mis- 
 interpretation of  which,  as  Strauss  alleges,  he  would 
 trace  the  idea  and  belief  of  the  burial  of  Jesus  in  a 
 rich  man's  tomb,  I  would  remark  in  passing  that  the 
 correct  interpretation  seems  to  be  this:  "And  one — 
 they — appointed  His  grave  to  be  with  wicked  men, 
 yet  was  He  with  a  rich  man  in  His  death."  The 
 parallelism  in  the  verse  is  that  of  contrast,  not  of 
 identity ;  and  this  prophecy,  though  the  fulfilment  of 
 it  is  not  mentioned  by  any  of  the  Evangelists,  was 
 literally  fulfilled  in  the    death  and    burial  of  Jesus. 
 
STRAUSS   ON   THE   BURIAL   OF  JESUS.  233 
 
 They — the  Jewish  rulers — did  intend  that  His  grave 
 should  be  with  the  wicked  ;  but  the  overruling  pro- 
 vidence of  God  frustrated  their  intention,  and  caused 
 His  body  to  be  laid  in  a  rich  man's  tomb — the  tomb 
 of  Joseph  of  Arimathea. 
 
 But  supposing  that  "  the  earliest  Christian  con- 
 sciousness "  demanded,  in  opposition  to  what,  accord- 
 ing to  Strauss,  was  publicly  known  to  have  been  the 
 case,  that  the  body  of  Jesus  should  be  honourably 
 buried,  and  that  for  this  reason,  and  in  conformity 
 with  the  misinterpreted  prophecy  of  Isaiah,  "  a  rich 
 man"  must  be  introduced  into  the  same  consciousness 
 as  having  paid  this  honour  to  Jesus,  how  did  it  enter 
 that  consciousness  that  the  sepulchre  or  tomb  must 
 be  hewn  out  in  a  rock,  and  that  it  must  be  one 
 recently  formed — a  new  tomb,  in  short,  wherein  never 
 man  was  yet  laid  ?  These  are  essential  parts  of  the 
 story  as  first  believed  by  the  earliest  Christians,  and 
 afterwards  recorded  by  those  who  embodied  it  in 
 their  narratives.  How,  then,  are  we  to  account  for 
 these  features  of  the  story  }  Strauss  will  easily  do 
 so  ;  for  it  is  to  be  assumed  that  "  the  Christian  con- 
 sciousness "  having  got  hold  of  the  idea  of  "  a  rich 
 man,"  would  instinctively  perceive  that  "  the  tomb  of 
 the  rich  man  must  have  corresponded  to  his  wealth  on 
 the  one  hand,  to  its  lofty  purpose  on  the  other;"* 
 and  that  consciousness  would  once  more  be  instinc- 
 tively reminded,  by  the  very  idea  of  what  was  thus 
 required,  of  another  passage  to  be  found  in  the  pro- 
 phetic book  of  Isaiah.  "A  man  in  high  position  is 
 addressed  thus  in  Isaiah  (xxii.  16)  :  'What  hast  thou 
 here,  and  whom  hast  thou  here,  that  thou  hast  hewed 
 *  Vol.  ii.  p.  396. 
 
234  LECTURE   XI. 
 
 thee  out  a  sepulchre  here,  as  he  that  heweth  him  out 
 a  sepulchre  on  high,  and  that  graveth  an  habitation 
 for  himself  in  a  rock  ?'  "  There  is,  however,  an  obvious 
 difficulty  in  applying  this  passage  to  the  case  before 
 us  ;  but  this  also  is  easily  removed.  "  This,  indeed," 
 says  Strauss,  "  was  said  rebukingly  to  a  proud- 
 minded  man  ;  but  of  the  righteous  man  also  it  was 
 said  in  the  same  Isaiah  (xxxiii.  i6),  that  he  shall 
 dwell  on  high  in  munitions  of  rocks,  or,  according  to 
 the  Greek  translation,  in  caves  of  rocks  ;  then,  con- 
 sequently, even  a  God-fearing  rich  man^might  have 
 hewn  out  for  himself  a  tomb  in  a  rock,  and  the  ques- 
 tion as  to  whom  he  has  here  that  he  does  this,  might 
 be  answered  by  a  reference  to  the  body  of  the  Messiah, 
 for  whom  he  was  there  preparing  a  resting-place."  * 
 Is  not  this  an  admirable  specimen  of  reasoning — of 
 that  "  higher  criticism  "  which  is  to  lay  open  to  us  the 
 very  process  of  mythical  creations  ?  Have  we  here, 
 then,  the  promised  more  accurate  discussion  of  the 
 burial  of  Jesus  ?  Is  it  not  a  mystery — a  thing  that 
 almost  surpasses  comprehension — how  men  possessed 
 of  common  sense  can  venture  gravely  to  propose 
 such  absolute  nonsense  for  our  belief  ?  But  you  will 
 ever  find  it  to  be  a  characteristic  of  unbelief  in  God 
 and  in  Christ,  that  it  is  marked  by  the  most  extra- 
 ordinary degree  of  credulity  in  any  supposition  or  in 
 any  process  of  reasoning,  which,  however  absurd,  tends 
 to  strengthen  itself  Such  unbelief  actually  seems  to 
 feed  upon  the  imaginary,  and  grows  until  it  over- 
 powers all  that  reason — man's  common  sense — would 
 suggest  to  the  mind. 
 
 But  we  must  proceed.     The  tomb  must,  in  the  view 
 
 *  Vol.  ii.  p.  396-7. 
 
STRAUSS  ON   THE   BURIAL   OF  JESUS.  235 
 
 of  "  the  earliest  Christian  consciousness,"  not  only  be 
 hewn  out  in  a  rock,  to  correspond  to  the  wealth  of 
 the  rich  man  ;  it  "  must  also,  in  order  to  correspond 
 to  its  lofty  purpose,  be  a  new  one,  not  as  yet  polluted 
 by  any  corpse,  as  it  was  not  considered  right  that  any 
 man  should  have  previously  ridden  on  the  ass  which 
 the  Messiah  used  on  His  entrance  into  the  capital."* 
 Although  it  is  in  the  Gospel  of  Luke  alone  that  we  find 
 this  latter  fact  mentioned,  and  although  therefore,  ac- 
 cording to  Strauss,  such  a  fact  did  not  enter  into  the 
 most  ancient  report  of  the  mode  in  which  Jesus  made  His 
 public  entry  into  Jerusalem,  yet  we  see  no  valid  reason 
 why  both  facts  may  not  have  been  real,  merely  because 
 a  kind  of  resemblance  maybe  discovered  between  them. 
 And  we  at  once  admit  that,  if  it  could  be  proved  that 
 the  belief  that  the  body  of  Jesus  was  laid  in  a  rich  man's 
 tomb,  which  had  been  hewn  out  in  a  rock,  had  its 
 origin,  not  in  the  knowledge  of  what  had  really  hap- 
 pened, but  in  the  excited  imaginations  of  the  earliest 
 Christians,  we  should  experience  little  difficulty  in  as- 
 cribing to  the  same  power  of  imagination  the  idea  and 
 the  belief  that  this  tomb  was  a  new  one — a  tomb^where- 
 in  never  man  before  was  laid."  But  until  the  former  is 
 established  by  valid  evidence,  we  must  adhere  to  the 
 unshaken  testimony  of  the  Evangelists  to  the  reality 
 of  the  latter  fact  also.  "  In  the  two  other  synoptics," 
 continues  Strauss — that  is,  in  Mark  and  Luke — 
 "  both  the  '  wealth '  of  the  man,  mentioned  in  the 
 passage  in  the  Prophet,  as  well  as  his  relation  with 
 regard  to  the  tomb — namely,  that  he  himself  had  had 
 it  hewn  for  him  in  the  rock — is  omitted,  still  their 
 meaning  undoubtedly  is,"  Strauss  allows,  "  that  it  was 
 
 *  Vol.  ii.  p.  397. 
 
2^6  LECTURE   XI. 
 
 his  property."  But  now  he  detects  a  discrepancy;  for 
 "  in  John  the  connection  is  completely  broken,  and 
 the  new  tomb  in  which  Jesus  is  to  be  laid  is  selected  " 
 (selected,  you  will  observe,  by  "  the  Christian  consci- 
 ousness "  only  at  a  later  stage  of  the  myth  or  legend), 
 "selected,  not  because  it  belonged  to  Joseph,  but  be- 
 cause it  was  near  to  the  place  of  execution,  and  a 
 burying-place  close  at  hand  was  desirable  on  account 
 of  the  near  approach  of  the  festal  Sabbath." 
 
 Now,  let  us  observe  the  recorded  facts  of  the  case. 
 If  there  was  a  man  of  Arimathea,  Joseph  by  name, 
 who  was  wealthy  and  a  member  of  the  Jewish  San- 
 hedrim, surely  it  need  excite  no  surprise  that  such  a 
 man  possessed  a  small  piece  of  property  nigh  to  the 
 city,  and  also  nigh  to  the  place  of  execution  ;  and  if 
 he  possessed  such  a  piece  of  property,  it  need  as  little 
 surprise  us  that  he  had  prepared  a  tomb  for  himself, 
 and  hewn  it  out  in  a  rocky  part  of  the  garden  or 
 ground  belonging  to  him.  If  this  man  was,  more- 
 over, a  disciple  of  Jesus,  although  hitherto,  for  the 
 reason  assigned,  only  a  secret  disciple,  what  was 
 more  natural  than  that  he,  rather  than  any  other 
 disciple,  should  think  of  craving  the  body  of  Jesus 
 and  laying  it  in  his  own  new  tomb,  and  that  he  should 
 have  been  led  to  think  of  this  by  the  very  circum- 
 stance that  the  tomb  which  was  his  own  was  nigh  at 
 hand  ?  The  other  narratives  imply  that  such  was  the 
 case — that  the  tomb  was  nigh  at  hand  ;  and  John's 
 narrative  only  supplements  their  narratives  by  telling 
 that  it  was  so.  Instead  of  discrepancy,  there  exists 
 perfect  agreement  among  the  four  narratives  ;  and  it 
 is  only  a  capricious  and  suspicious  scepticism  which 
 can    detect     the     slightest    disagreement.       Strauss, 
 
STRAUSS   ON   THE   BURIAL   OF  JESUS.  237 
 
 however,  who  is  never  at  a  loss  to  discover  some 
 deep  purpose,  especially  in  the  mind  of  the  fourth 
 Evangelist,  adds  : — "  Thus  this  feature  " — namely,  the 
 nearness  of  the  tomb  to  the  place  of  crucifixion — 
 "  serves  the  purpose  of  the  fourth  Evangelist,  enabling 
 him,  as  it  does,  to  make  still  more  palpable  the  pres- 
 sure of  time  on  that  evening  of  the  burial,  which  fur- 
 nishes him  with  a  reason  for  what  is  so  important  to 
 him — the  breaking  of  the  bones  in  reference  to  the 
 wound  with  the  spear."  The  fourth  Evangelist,  we 
 may  simply  say,  satisfactorily  accounts  for  the  pressure 
 of  time  when  he  tells  us  that  the  Jewish  rulers  were 
 anxious  to  have  the  crucified  bodies  removed  before 
 the  Sabbath-day  came  on — that  is,  before  the  setting 
 of  that  day's  sun. 
 
 Strauss  next  discusses  the  various  statements  in  the 
 Gospel  narratives  which  refer  to  the  embalming  of  the 
 body  of  Jesus ;  but  his  remarks  on  this  subject  are  so 
 utterly  frivolous  that  it  would  be  worse  than  tedious 
 to  subject  them  to  detailed  criticism.  We  pass  on, 
 then,  to  consider  what  he  has  to  say  on  a  matter  of 
 greater  moment,  so  far  as  our  main  subject  is  con- 
 cerned. We  allude  to  the  watch  or  guard  which,  as 
 Matthew  afhrms,  the  chief  priests  and  Pharisees,  with 
 the  sanction  of  Pilate,  stationed  at  the  sepulchre.  On 
 a  former  occasion  we  stated  what  appears  to  us  a 
 highly  probable  reason  why  this  fact  was  introduced 
 by  Matthew  into  his  narrative.  We  cannot  say  for 
 certain  why  none  of  the  other  Evangelists  mentions 
 this  fact ;  but  we  know  that  their  Gospels  were 
 mainly  intended  for  Gentile  Churches,  whilst  that 
 of  Matthew  was  specially  written  for  the  Jewish 
 Churches  ;  and  we  also  perceive  that  the  fact  was  re- 
 
238  •  LECTURE   XI. 
 
 corded  by  Matthew  expressly  to  meet  a  false  report 
 which  was  purposely  spread  abroad  among  the  Jews, 
 whether  in  Judea  or  elsewhere.  Let  us  then  patiently 
 listen  to  what  Strauss  has  to  say  in  reference  to  this 
 matter. 
 
 Strauss  begins  the  discussion  of  this  important 
 point  by  referring  to  the  statement  of  each  Evan- 
 gelist as  to  the  manner  in  which  the  sepulchre  was 
 closed  : — 
 
 "  All  the  Evangelists  agree  in  stating  that  the  sepulchre 
 in  the  rock,  in  which  the  body  of  Jesus  was  laid,  was  closed 
 with  a  stone  rolled  to  the  entrance.  According  to  Matthew, 
 it  was  a  large  stone ;  in  Mark,  the  women  going  out  take 
 counsel  as  to  who  will  roll  away  the  stone  for  them  from  the 
 mouth  of  the  sepulchre ;  consequently  they  assume  it  as  a 
 difficult  thing  to  do.  While,  however,  the  other  Evangelists 
 are  satisfied  with  this  closure,  Matthew  represents  the  stone 
 as  being,  in  addition,  sealed  by  the  high-priests,  and  the 
 sepulchre  as  being  guarded  by  a  watch  stationed  there  by 
 Pilate  at  their  request  (xxvii.  62-66)." — Vol.  ii.  p.  399. 
 
 You  will  observe  that,  though  not  expressly  stated, 
 it  is  assumed  in  this  last  sentence  that  the  statement 
 about  the  sealing  of  the  stone  and  the  stationing  of 
 the  watch  is  wholly  fictitious.  Without  the  slightest 
 attempt  to  prove  his  assumption,  Strauss  proceeds,  in 
 his  usual  manner,  to  account  for  the  origin  of  what  he 
 regards  as  a  pure  fiction.  We  must  now  make  a  long 
 extract. 
 
 "  For  when,  in  the  earliest  times  of  Christendom,  the 
 preaching  about  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  had  taken  the  form 
 that  his  sepulchre  was  found  empty  on  the  second  morning 
 after  his  burial,  it  was  met  by  the  unbelieving  Jews  with 
 the  allegation  that  it  was  found  in  this  condition,  not  be- 
 cause its  inmate  had  come  out  of  it  restored  to  life,  but  be- 
 
STRAUSS   ON   THE   BURIAL   OF  JESUS.  239 
 
 cause  his  coqDse  had  been  stolen  out  of  it  by  his  disciples. 
 This  Jewish  legend,  in  opposition  to  the  Christian,  gave  rise 
 to  a  second  Christian  legend  in  opposition  to  the  Jewish. 
 If  the  Christian  solution  was  to  satisfy  the  problem,  it  must, 
 on  the  one  hand,  make  the  stealing  of  the  body  impossible, 
 and,  on  the  other,  account  for  the  denial  of  the  resurrection 
 on  the  part  of  the  Jews.  The  stealing  away  of  the  body  was 
 impossible  if  the  sepulchre  was  watched.  Consequently  the 
 high-priests  and  Pharisees  must  go  to  the  Roman  procurator 
 and  beg  him  to  secure  the  sepulchre.  But  what  in  the 
 world  could  move  them  to  make  such  a  request?  What 
 could  the  sepulchre  signify  to  them,  so  long  as  they  knew 
 that  he  who  had  been  laid  in  it  was  dead  ?  They  remem- 
 ber, they  say,  that  that  crucified  deceiver  did  in  his  lifetime 
 predict  his  resurrection  after  three  days ;  they  do  not  be- 
 lieve in  a  fulfilment  of  this  prediction,  but  they  are  afraid 
 lest  his  disciples  should  steal  the  body,  and  in  connection 
 with  the  prophecy  give  out  that  he  has  arisen.  So  the  high- 
 priests  must  have  remembered  speeches  of  Jesus  of  which  his 
 disciples,  at  the  time  of  his  death,  can  have  known  nothing 
 whatever  (else  how  could  they  have  been  so  despairing?) ;  they 
 must  have  foreseen  the  rising  up  of  the  faith  in  the  resurrec- 
 tion of  Jesus,  which  is  absolutely  inconceivable  :  the  Chris- 
 tian legend  attributed  to  them  the  Christian  belief  of  later 
 times,  only  in  the  form  of  unbelief" — Vol.  ii.  p.  399,  400. 
 
 Now,  you  will  observe  that  Strauss  begins  by 
 assuming  that  the  first  preachers  of  the  resurrection 
 of  Jesus  proclaimed  their  testimony  to  this  fact  in 
 the  particular  form  of  an  assertion,  that  His  sepulchre 
 was  found  empty  on  the  second  morning  after  His 
 death  ;  and  though  this  assumption  may  seem  at  first 
 a  harmless,  if  not  an  allowable  one,  yet  it  is  in  reality 
 a  baseless  assumption,  and  adopted  by  Strauss  on 
 purpose  to  give  a  colour  to  the  supposed  origin  of  the 
 false  story  spread  among  the  Jews.     It  is  true  that 
 
240  LECTURE   XI. 
 
 the  women  who  first  visited  the  sepulchre  on  the 
 morning  of  the  resurrection  found  it  empty,  and  that 
 Mary  Magdalene,  inferring  from  the  removal  of  the 
 stone  that  the  body  had  been  taken  away,  ran  to 
 the  Apostles  Peter  and  John  with  a  report  to  that 
 effect.  But  when  the  Apostles  proclaimed  the  resur- 
 rection of  Jesus  they  did  so  in  express  terms.  They 
 did  not  declare  this  fact  in  the  form  of  a  conclusion 
 drawn  by  them  from  the  mere  circumstance  that  the 
 sepulchre  of  Jesus  was  found  empty  on  the  second 
 morning  after  His  death.  They  testified  the  fact  on 
 the  ground  that  they  had  seen  Jesus  alive  after  His 
 death.  We  have  the  earliest  form  of  their  testi- 
 mony thus  given  us :  "  Ye  men  of  Israel,  hear  these 
 words :  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  a  man  approved  of  God 
 among  you  by  miracles  and  wonders  and  signs,  which 
 God  did  by  Him  in  the  midst  of  you,  as  ye  your- 
 selves also  know  ;  Him,  being  delivered  by  the  deter- 
 minate counsel  and  foreknowledge  of  God,  ye  have 
 taken,  and  by  wicked  hands  have  crucified  and  slain  : 
 whom  God  hath  raised  up,  having  loosed  the  pains 
 of  death,  because  it  was  not  possible  that  He  should 
 be  holden  of  it"  (Acts  ii.  22-24).  Again,  "Ye 
 denied  the  Holy  One  and  the  Just,  and  desired  a 
 murderer  to  be  granted  unto  you  ;  and  killed  the 
 Prince  of  Life,  whom  God  hath  raised  from  the  dead  ; 
 whereof  we  are  witnesses"  (Acts  iii.  14,  15). 
 
 Such  was  the  form  in  which  the  proclamation  of 
 the  resurrection  of  Jesus  was  from  the  first  made. 
 And  how  was  this  proclamation  met  by  the  Jewish 
 rulers  ?  Did  they  meet  it  by  affirming  either  that 
 the  body  of  Jesus  was  still  in  the  tomb  of  Joseph  ; 
 or — as  they  might  have  done,  had  Strauss's  assump- 
 
STRAUSS   ON   THE   BURIAL   OF  JESUS.  24I 
 
 tion  of  the  place  of  burial  been  true — that  that  body- 
 had  been  thrown  into  the  burying-place  of  condemned 
 criminals,  where  it  still  lay  ?  In  neither  of  these 
 ways  did  they  meet  the  testimony  of  the  Apostles. 
 They  met  it  by  affirming  that  the  disciples  had  come 
 to  the  sepulchre  by  night  and  stolen  the  body.  And 
 where  was  it  that  they  had  recourse  to  such  a  story 
 as  this  ?  Not  at  Jerusalem,  so  far  as  we  know,  but  at 
 a  distance  from  Jerusalem,  where  the  facts  of  the 
 case  were  not  likely  to  be  so  well  known.  The  story 
 was  spread  chiefly  among  the  foreign  Jews ;  and 
 Matthew,  knowing  that  such  was  the  case,  inserted 
 the  true  account  of  the  matter  in  his  Gospel,  which, 
 as  has  repeatedly  been  said,  was  written  purposely 
 for  the  instruction  of  the  Jewish  converts.  S  .auss, 
 then,  erroneously  represents  the  question  as  i.  stood 
 between  the  first  Christians  and  the  Jews.  He  repre- 
 sents the  former  as  only  saying  that  on  the  morning 
 of  the  second  day  after  the  death  of  Jesus  His 
 sepulchre  was  found  empty,  and  as  stating  merely  by 
 way  of  inference  from  this  that  Jesus  must  have 
 been  restored  to  life  ;  and  he  represents  the  Jews  as 
 meeting  this  inference  by  the  counter-assertion  :  True, 
 the  sepulchre  was  found  empty,  as  you  allege  ;  but  it 
 was  so  found,  not  because  its  inmate  had  come  out  of 
 it  restored  to  life,  but  because  His  dead  body  had 
 been  stolen  out  of  it  by  His  disciples.  In  this  way 
 Strauss  accounts  for  the  Jewish  legend  ;  but  as  his 
 representation  of  the  manner  in  which  the  first  Chris- 
 tians preached  the  resurrection  is  erroneous,  so  his 
 explanation  of  the  origin  of  the  Jewish  legend  falls  to 
 the  ground. 
 
 Having  thus  accounted  for  the  origin  of  the  Jewish 
 
 Q 
 
242  LECTURE   XL 
 
 legend,  he  thinks  he  can  now  easily  explain  the  origin 
 of  what  he  calls  the  second  Christian  legend — the 
 first  being,  of  course,  that  which  reported  that  the 
 tomb  of  Jesus  had  been  found  empty,  and  which 
 alleged  on  that  ground  that  Jesus  had  returned  to 
 life.  He  will  demonstrate  first  the  conditions  of  this 
 second  Christian  legend,  and  then  its  absurdity. 
 These  earliest  Christians,  observe,  had  now  to  con- 
 trive— consciously  to  contrive — how  they  could  meet 
 the  assertion  of  their  Jewish  enemies,  that  the  body 
 of  Jesus  had  been  stolen  from  the  sepulchre  by  His 
 disciples.  The  conditions  of  the  problem  to  be 
 solved  were,  on  the  one  hand,  to  make  the  stealing  of 
 the  body  impossible  ;  and,  on  the  other,  to  account 
 for  the  denial  of  the  resurrection  on  the  part  of  the 
 Jews — that  is,  of  the  Jewish  rulers.  These  conditions 
 rendered  the  problem  rather  a  difificult'one  for  "  the 
 Christian  consciousness ; "  and  here  theories  about 
 the  formation  of  myths  or  even  legends  must  fail. 
 The  problem  demanded  thought,  ingenuity,  false- 
 hood. In  order  to  solve  it,  "the  Christian  conscious- 
 ness "  must  act  with  conscious  fraud. 
 
 Strauss,  accordingly,  abandons  the  theory  which 
 he  had  so  laboriously  maintained  in  his  first  work. 
 He  must  now  introduce  the  opposite  theory — that  of 
 conscious  falsehood.  Let  us  see,  then,  how  "the 
 Christian  consciousness,"  now  abandoning  all  regard 
 to  truth,  succeeds  in  solving  the  problem.  We  shall, 
 said  the  first  Christians  to  themselves,  render  the 
 charge  of  stealing  the  body  impossible,  if  we  set  a 
 watch  around  the  sepulchre.  But,  then,  this  watch 
 must  be  stationed  by  the  enemies  of  Jesus — by  those 
 men  who  caused  His  death.     We  must  therefore  in- 
 
STRAUSS   ON   THE   BURIAL   OF  JESUS.  243 
 
 troduce  the  high-priests  and  Pharisees  as  going  to  the 
 Roman  procurator  and  begging  him  to  secure  the 
 sepulchre.  But  is  it  not  awkward  to  represent  them 
 as  at  all  concerned  about  this  matter .''  Jesus  is  now 
 dead,  and  what  can  now  excite  their  fears,  and  move 
 them  to  make  such  a  request  ?  Here  was  a  manifest 
 difficulty,  yet  not  sufficient  to  baffle  the  ingenuity 
 of  "  the  earliest  Christian  consciousness."  We  shall 
 make  these  high-priests  and  Pharisees  remember  cer- 
 tain words,  whether  uttered  by  Jesus  or  not  is  of  no 
 moment — words  which  we  can  elsewhere  in  our  stories 
 affirm  were  uttered  by  Him — to  the  effect  that  He — 
 we  must  here  call  Him  "that  Deceiver" — said  in  His 
 lifetime,  "  After  three  days  I  will  rise  again."  We 
 must  introduce  them  as  saying  these  words  before 
 Pilate,  and  begging  of  him  to  "command  that  the 
 sepulchre  be  made  sure  until  the  third  day,  lest  His 
 disciples  come  by  night  and  steal  Him  away,  and  say 
 unto  the  people,  He  is  risen  from  the  dead  ;  for  then 
 the  last  error  shall  be  worse  than  the  first." 
 
 Such  was  the  solution  of  the  problem  which  "  the 
 Christian  consciousness"  contrived  in  order  to  meet 
 the  assertion  of  the  Jews  that  the  body  had  been 
 stolen  away  by  the  disciples  of  Jesus.  And  now  see 
 the  absurdity  of  this  solution,  argues  Strauss — who 
 a/o7ie,  be  it  observed,  is  the  author  of  it,  as  a  solution 
 contrived  by  the  first  Christians.  The  high-priests 
 are  made  to  remember  a  prophecy  of  Jesus,  in  the 
 fulfilment  of  which  they  do  not  believe  ;  but  they  are 
 afraid  lest  the  disciples  should  steal  the  body,  and 
 then,  in  connection  with  the  prophecy,  give  out  that 
 Jesus  had  risen.  So  far  there  is  nothing  absurd  in 
 the  supposition.     If  the  high-priests  either  heard,  or 
 
244  LECTURE   XI. 
 
 in  any  way  knew,  that  Jesus  in  His  lifetime  had 
 uttered  such  words,  even  although  they  disbelieved 
 them,  they  might  have  suspected  that  His  disciples 
 would  remember  them,  and  might  attempt  to  steal 
 the  body,  and,  if  successful  in  this,  give  out  in  connec- 
 tion with  that  prophecy  that  their  Master  had  risen 
 from  the  dead.  If  Jesus  had  been  a  deceiver,  and  if 
 the  disciples  were  deceivers,  however  unaccountable 
 it  may  be  that  He  should  have  uttered  such  words — 
 still,  assuming  the  case  to  have  been  as  it  was  repre- 
 sented by  the  high-priests  to  Pilate,  there  is  nothing 
 unreasonable  in  their  conduct ;  on  the  contrary,  they 
 acted  wisely  in  taking  steps  to  prevent  the  further 
 progress  of  the  error  which  had  commenced  to 
 spread. 
 
 But  here  is  what  appears  to  Strauss  to  be  so 
 absurd  :  these  enemies  of  Jesus  are  represented  as 
 remembering  words — most  remarkable  words,  beyond 
 all  question — uttered  by  Him  ;  and  the  first  disciples, 
 as  they  are  presented  to  us  in  the  narratives  of  the 
 resurrection,  know  nothing  of  these  words,  else  how 
 could  they  have  been  in  such  despair  after  His  death 
 as  they  are  said  to  have  been  ?  Had  the  story  been 
 true,  "  these  high-priests  must  have  foreseen  the  rising 
 up  of  the  faith  in  the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  which  is 
 absolutely  inconceivable :  the  Christian  legend  attri- 
 buted to  them  the  Christian  belief  of  later  times,  only 
 in  the  form  of  unbelief."  These  last  statements  are 
 scarcely  correct,  even  on  his  own  hypothesis.  All 
 that  the  story  implies  respecting  the  high-priests  is, 
 that  it  represents  them  as  foreseeing  in  certain  cir- 
 cumstances the  rise,  not  of  faith  in  the  resurrection  of 
 Jesus,  but  of  an  additional  error  worse  than  the  first 
 
STRAUSS  ON   THE   BURIAL   OF  JESUS.  245 
 
 — namely,  the  rise  of  a  false  report  by  the  disciples  of 
 His  resurrection.  The  legend,  if  legend  it  was,  only 
 attributed  to  them  an  alarm  that  such  a  false  report, 
 being  spread  in  connection  with  a  pretended  pro- 
 phecy, might  be  believed,  and  cause  greater  evils  than 
 as  yet  had  happened. 
 
 But  whilst  we  view  the  case  correctly  even  on 
 Strauss's  hypothesis,  there  is  one  thing  stated  by  him 
 in  connection  with  this  subject  which  demands  special 
 notice,  although  we  have  before  remarked  upon  it.  It 
 is  the  forgetfulness  by  the  disciples  of  Jesus  of  His 
 repeated  predictions  respecting  His  own  resurrection. 
 They  did  not  remember  His  words,  whilst  His  enemies 
 did.  That  the  words  remembered  by  the  chief  priests 
 and  Pharisees  were  spoken  by  Jesus,  we  have  abun- 
 dant testimony.  Here  is,  then,  at  first  sight,  a  diffi- 
 culty of  no  ordinary  kind.  But  I  need  first  only  re- 
 mind you  of  what  I  endeavoured  to  make  clear  when 
 treating  of  this  very  subject — that  it  was  the  intima- 
 tion of  His  death  which  confounded  the  minds  of  His 
 disciples,  and  that  they  were  wholly  unable  to  see 
 why  He  who  as  the  Messiah  was  to  abide  for  ever 
 should  need  to  be  raised  again.  Why  the  disciples 
 were  so  perplexed  and  cast  down  by  the  fact  of 
 His  death  that  they  did  not  remember  His  assurance 
 that  He  would  rise  again,  we  cannot  tell ;  but  so  it 
 was,  and  the  fact  proves  only  the  depth  of  despair 
 into  which  they  sank  at  His  death,  and  also  the  ex- 
 traordinary power  which  preconceived  notions  exerted 
 over  their  minds. 
 
 Again,  we  have  the  fact  attested,  that  the  enemies 
 of  Jesus  did  remember  His  words — not  that  they  be- 
 lieved them,  but  merely  that  they  remembered  them, 
 
246  LECTURE   XI. 
 
 and  deemed  it  prudent  to  adopt  measures  to  pre- 
 vent them  receiving  a  pretended  fulfilment.  Their 
 remembrance  of  the  words  of  Jesus  is,  I  think,  to  be 
 easily  accounted  for.  Enmity  quickens  the  intellect 
 in  such  a  case.  These  rulers  hated  Jesus  with  ex- 
 treme hatred  ;  and  I  am  convinced  that  they  were 
 not  altogether  easy  in  their  minds  with  respect  to 
 Him.  They  had  seen  much  that  ought  to  have 
 convinced  them  of  the  truth  of  His  claims  ;  but  they 
 rejected  Him  in  the  face  of  evidence,  and  were  judi- 
 cially given  over  to  believe  a  lie.  Until  that  third 
 day  was  over  of  which  they  had  heard,  they  could 
 not,  with  all  their  unbelief  and  hatred,  be  at  ease. 
 Their  minds  were  not  thrown  into  despair  by  His 
 death,  like  the  minds  of  the  disciples.  No  ;  they  no 
 doubt  triumphed  when  He  expired  upon  the  cross. 
 But  after  their  momentary  feeling  of  triumph  a  dark 
 shadow  would  pass  across  their  minds  ;  for  there 
 were  events  which  happened  even  as  He  hung  upon 
 the  tree  calculated  to  excite  terror  in  their  hearts. 
 I  am  persuaded  that  it  was  not  altogether  suspicion 
 of  fraud  on  the  part  of  the  disciples  that  moved  them 
 to  go  to  Pilate,  and  to  beg  that  he  would  make  the 
 sepulchre  secure.  There  was  also,  I  doubt  not,  deep 
 anxiety,  though  perhaps  not  expressed  by  any  of 
 them,  in  their  inmost  souls.  They  could  not  with- 
 draw their  thoughts  for  three  days  at  least,  and  till 
 they  had  assurance  that  His  words  had  failed,  from 
 that  sepulchre  in  which  the  lifeless  body  of  one  who 
 gave  such  marvellous  proofs  of  His  claims,  and  whom 
 they  had  pursued  with  relentless  hatred  to  the  very 
 death,  was  now  lying,  and  in  which  they  hoped,  not 
 without  a  mixture  of  fear,  it  would  lie  for  ever.     Un- 
 
STRAUSS   ON   THE   BURIAL   OF   JESUS.  247 
 
 belief  of  the  truth  is  an  awful  mystery.  Who  can 
 fathom  it } 
 
 But  we  must  proceed.  "  Pilate,"  says  Strauss,  ''im- 
 mediately grants  them  the  watch,  and  orders  them 
 in  addition  to  guard  the  grave  as  well  as  they  can." 
 Observe  that  all  this  is,  according  to  Strauss,  part  of 
 the  solution  framed  by  "  the  Christian  consciousness." 
 "He  is  right  in  doing  so,"  he  continues;  "a  watch 
 may  be  bribed,  deceived,  and  what  they  ought  to  pro- 
 tect be  carried  off.  So  they  seal  the  stone  that  closes 
 the  mouth  of  the  sepulchre,  as  formerly  Darius  had 
 sealed  the  stone  at  the  mouth  of  the  lions'  den  into 
 which  he  caused  Daniel  to  be  thrown,  to  prove  whether 
 his  God  would  save  him  from  the  lions  (Dan.  vi.  18). 
 Were  they  not,  then,  antitypes  of  Christ  in  the  sepul- 
 chre— on  the  one  hand,  Jonas  in  the  belly  of  the 
 whale;  on  the  other,  Daniel  in  the  lions'  den.''"  I 
 need  only  remark  on  this  passage  that  you  have  here 
 another  specimen  of  the  manner  in  which,  according 
 to  Strauss,  the  first  Christians  applied  prophecies  and 
 events  recorded  in  the  ancient  Scriptures  to  Jesus  as 
 the  Messiah.  The  idea  of  the  sealing  of  the  stone  at 
 the  entrance  of  the  sepulchre  was  suggested  to  their 
 minds  by  what  was  done  by  Darius  when  Daniel  was 
 thrown  into  the  lions'  den  ;  and  the  idea  of  being 
 three  days  in  the  sepulchre  was  suggested  by  refer- 
 ence to  what  happened  to  Jonah.  Whether  myths  or 
 conscious  fictions,  they  were  generally,  if  not  ahvays, 
 based  on  some  words  or  events  which  were  to  be 
 found  in  their  Scriptures,  and  which  were  imagined  by 
 them  to  have  some  reference  or  other  to  the  Messiah, 
 and  therefore  to  Jesus  as  such. 
 
 In  this  way,  then,  was  the  Christian  legend  formed. 
 
248  LECTURE   XL 
 
 It  was  formed  on  purpose,  according  to  Strauss,  to  meet 
 the  charge  brought  by  the  Jews  against  the  Christians 
 of  having  stolen  the  body  of  Jesus.  It  did,  he  allows, 
 meet  that  charge.  But  then  another  question  arises, 
 "  How,  under  the  circumstances,  could  this  Jewish 
 legend  originate  r  Strauss  now  discusses  this  ques- 
 tion ;  and  we  must  follow  him  in  his  discussion  of  it, 
 for  he  evidently  considers  it  as  a  question  bearing 
 closely  upon  that  of  the  resurrection  itself  We  know 
 upon  good  authority  how  this  "  legend,"  as  the  false 
 report  spread  abroad  by  the  Jewish  rulers  among  their 
 countrymen  is  called,  did  originate.  But  Strauss 
 rejects  that  authority,  and  must  trace  the  legend  to  a 
 different  source.     He  says  : — 
 
 "  It  was  a  matter  of  course  for  the  Christian  legend  " — 
 that  is,  the  legend  about  setting  the  watch  and  sealing  the 
 stone — "  to  assert  that  when  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  oc- 
 curred, an  angel  descended  from  heaven,  and,  shining  like 
 lightning,  rolled  away  the  stone  from  the  sepulchre  with  a 
 violent  earthquake,  that  seals  and  watches  availed  nothing, 
 and  that  the  latter  in  particular  fell  down  like  dead  men 
 (Matt,  xxviii.  4).  And,  according  to  that  legend,  the  watch 
 reported  the  fact  truly  to  the  high-priests  (ver.  11)." — Vol. 
 ii.  p.  400-1. 
 
 All  this,  according  to  Strauss,  was  quite  naturally 
 to  be  found  in  the  Christian  legend — in  the  false 
 story  contrived  by  the  earliest  Christians  to  meet  the 
 Jewish  assertion  that  the  body  of  Jesus  had  been 
 stolen  from  the  tomb.  And  he  proceeds  to  expose 
 the  absurdity  of  this  false  story.  For,  on  the  suppo- 
 sition that  the  story  was  not  false,  but  true,  he  affirms 
 that 
 
 '•'  The  real  high-priests  and  elders  would  have  considered 
 
STRAUSS  ON   THE   BURIAL   OF  JESUS.  249 
 
 such  a  report " — the  report  of  the  watch — "  to  be  false,  and 
 have  insisted  upon  an  investigation,  which  must  have  elu- 
 cidated the  truth  that  the  watchmen  had  slept,  or  had 
 allowed  themselves  to  be  bribed,  and  the  body  to  be 
 stolen." 
 
 This,  Strauss  affirms,  is  what,  under  the  circum- 
 stances, these  rulers  would  have  done.  But  it  is  clear 
 that  he  is  warranted  only  in  affirming  that  this  is 
 what  they  ought  to  have  done,  for  it  not  unfrequently 
 happens  that  men  do  not  always  adopt  the  course 
 which  they  ought  to  adopt — that  men  are  restrained 
 by  certain  considerations  from  doing  the  very  thing 
 which  they  ought  to  do.  It  was  incumbent  on 
 Strauss  to  show  that  there  were  no  considerations 
 which  could  have  influenced  the  Jewish  rulers  to  ab- 
 stain from  all  investigation  into  the  truth  or  falsehood 
 of  the  alleged  report.  But  it  suited  his  purpose  better 
 to  assume  what  he  ought  to  have  proved,  and  there- 
 fore to  affirm  at  once  that  these  real  rulers,  believing 
 such  a  report  to  be  false,  would  have  insisted  upon 
 an  investigation.  He  should,  however,  have  also  told 
 us  what  he  thinks  the  same  rulers  would  have  done, 
 had  they,  on  the  other  hand,  dreaded  that  the  report 
 was  true.  This,  however,  the  essential  point  in  the 
 matter,  he  passes  over  in  silence ;  and  he  goes  on 
 to  expose,  as  he  imagines,  the  absurdity  of  the  Chris- 
 tian legend. 
 
 "  The  high-priests  and  elders  "  (not,  you  will  observe,  the 
 real  high-priests  and  elders,  but  the  high-priests  and  elders) 
 "  of  the  Christian  legend,  on  the  contrary,  look  upon  the  re- 
 port of  the  miraculous  resurrection  of  Jesus  as  true,  and  give 
 them  money  to  declare  that  to  be  false  which  the  real  digni- 
 taries must  have  considered  the  truth,  which  the  watchmen 
 
250  LECTURE  XL 
 
 had  motives  for  concealing,  and  they  for  elucidating  by  an 
 investigation.  The  fact  is,  therefore,  as  stated  above  :  the 
 Christian  legend  attributes  to  the  Jewish  authorities  the 
 Christian  belief,  leaving  them,  at  the  same  time,  as  enemies 
 of  Christ,  their  unbeHef ;  that  is,  they  believe  in  silence  that 
 Jesus  returned  miraculously  to  life,  but  still  they  would  not 
 recognise  him  as  the  Messiah,  but  persevere  in  their  opposi- 
 tion to  his  cause.  Thus  the  origin  of  the  Jewish  legend  was 
 indeed  explained,  but  awkwardly  enough,  and  only  for  the 
 Christians,  who,  starting  from  the  same  assumptions,  did  not 
 notice  the  contradictions  involved  in  the  attempt  at  expla- 
 nation."— Vol.  ii.  p.  401. 
 
 Strauss  evidently  regards  his  argument  on  this  par- 
 ticular subject  as  unanswerable,  and  he  has  laboured 
 to  present  it  in  all  its  force.  Now,  we  beg  your 
 special  attention  to  the  following  facts,  facts  which 
 even  Strauss  himself  must  admit.  These  high-priests 
 and  Pharisees  persecuted  Jesus  to  death  on  the  sole 
 ground  that  He  claimed  to  be  the  Messiah  —  the 
 Son  of  God.  Whatever  evidence  He  gave  in  support 
 of  this  claim  they  rejected  ;  and  whether  that  evidence 
 was  valid  or  not,  they  not  only  rejected  it,  but  pur- 
 sued Him  with  a  hatred  so  intense  and  relentless  that 
 they  did  not  rest  until  they  had  succeeded  in  having 
 Him  publicly  condemned  and  openly  put  to  death  as 
 one  of  the  greatest  criminals.  They  declared  Him  to 
 be  a  deceiver  of  no  ordinary  stamp,  and  hated  Him  as 
 such.  Even  Strauss  must  admit  all  this  statement  of 
 the  case.  We  feel  ourselves  entitled  to  go  farther 
 than  this,  and  to  say,  that  they  had  all  along  rejected 
 valid  evidence,  and  had  wilfully  blinded  their  minds 
 and  hardened  their  hearts  in  respect  to  that  evidence. 
 But  even  stopping  short  with  that  view  of  the  case 
 which  Strauss  cannot  refuse  to  take,  we  ask  whether, 
 
STRAUSS   ON   THE   BURIAL   OF   JESUS.  25 1 
 
 on  the  supposition  that  the  watch  did  make  the  report 
 in  question,  these  men  were  in  that  state  of  mind 
 which  would  lead  them  to  investigate  the  truth  or 
 falsehood  of  the  report,  or  whether,  receiving  such  a 
 report  from  those  whom  they  themselves  had  em- 
 ployed, they  would  not  feel  some  alarm  lest  it  might 
 be  true,  and  would  not,  therefore,  employ  such  means 
 as  were  within  their  power  to  check,  as  they  would 
 imagine,  the  spread  of  the  truth.  The  watch,  you  will 
 observe,  did  not  testify  that  Jesus  had  risen,  for  Him 
 they  had  not  seen.  They  only  testified  to  the  ap- 
 pearance of  the  angel,  to  the  shock  of  the  ground,  and 
 to  the  removal  of  the  stone — phenomena  marvellous 
 indeed  in  themselves,  and  calculated  to  strike  them 
 with  terror.  It  was  a  report  of  these  things  which 
 they  made  to  the  Jewish  rulers ;  and  although  these 
 rulers  could  not  but  infer  that  these  phenomena  had 
 a  special  reference  to  Him  whose  body  had  been  laid 
 within  the  tomb,  and  that  therefore,  in  all  probability, 
 the  words  which  they  had  so  well  remembered  were 
 now  fulfilled,  still  they,  who  had  so  often  withstood 
 former  evidence,  were  not  likely  to  yield  to  this  new 
 evidence,  but  would  persist  in  their  unbelief,  and  use 
 their  utmost  efforts  to  suppress  a  testimony  which 
 only  awakened  afresh  their  former  hatred.  Would 
 not  even  Strauss  allow  that  the  moral  state  of  the 
 heart  exerts  a  powerful  influence  over  the  intellect  in 
 regard  to  all  such  matters,  and  that  there  may  be  a 
 feeling  of  hatred  which  will  move  the  intellect  to 
 reject  the  clearest  testimony  .?  We  have  in  the  con- 
 duct of  these  Jewish  rulers  a  proof  of  the  most  de- 
 cided character  that  such  is  the  case  ;  and  therefore 
 his  argument,  keeping  out  of  view  the  essential  cir- 
 
252  LECTURE   XL 
 
 cumstances  of  the  case,  falls  to  the  ground.  It  is 
 easy  for  him  so  to  construct  the  case  that  it  shall 
 contain  a  contradiction  in  itself.  But  the  contradic- 
 tion is  due  to  the  framer  of  the  argument,  not  to  the 
 case  itself  The  Christian  legend,  as  he  terms  the 
 story  recorded  by  Matthew,  does  not  attribute  to  the 
 Jewish  authorities  belief  and  unbelief  at  one  and  the 
 same  time.  It  is  Strauss  who,  by  misrepresenting  the 
 case,  introduces  this  contradiction.  The  Jewish  autho- 
 rities did  not  believe  that  Jesus  had  risen,  and  yet 
 remain  enemies  to  Him.  They  continued  in  their 
 unbelief,  and  as  they  could  not  but  be  startled  by  the 
 report  of  the  watch,  they,  still  unbelieving,  bribed  the 
 men  to  give  out  a  different  report.  And  would  those, 
 think  you,  who  had  employed  the  most  nefarious 
 means  to  get  Jesus  into  their  power,  hesitate  to  em- 
 ploy similar  means  to  suppress  a  report  which,  how- 
 ever true,  only  filled  their  minds  with  alarm  at  the 
 same  time  that  it  added  fuel  to  their  hatred .?  We 
 may  also  remark  here  that  an  objection  has  been 
 often  raised  to  the  reality  of  Christ's  resurrection,  on 
 the  ground  that  He  when  risen  did  not  appear  to  the 
 Jewish  rulers.  This  special  objection  will  come  to  be 
 discussed  on  another  occasion.  Meanwhile,  we  see 
 that  these  rulers  were  not  left  without  witness  even 
 on  the  very  day  that  Jesus  rose.  They  received  un- 
 expected testimony,  and  they  rejected  it.  These  men 
 were  indeed  given  over  to  believe  a  lie. 
 
 In  the  remarks  with  which  Strauss  concludes  his 
 discussion  of  the  burial  of  Jesus  there  is  only  one 
 thing  stated  that  calls  for  special  notice.  It  refers  to 
 **  the  intention  of  the  women  to  embalm  the  body  of 
 Jesus  after  the  Sabbath  had  elapsed."     This  circum- 
 
STRAUSS   ON   THE  BURIAL  OF  JESUS.  253 
 
 Stance  he  considers  inconsistent  with  the  story  about 
 the  watch  ;  and  therefore  Matthew,  who  gives  this 
 story,  omits  all  mention  of  the  embalming,  whilst  the 
 two  middle  Evangelists  record  the  latter  and  omit 
 the  former ;  and  as  for  the  fourth  Evangelist,  as  he 
 places  the  embalming  on  the  Friday  evening,  he 
 might,  had  he  so  pleased,  have  introduced  the  other 
 story,  but  that  legend  was  too  far  removed  from  his 
 whole  point  of  view  for  him  to  adopt  it.  All  this 
 supposed  profound  criticism  rests  upon  the  assump- 
 tion that — 
 
 "  If  the  sepulchre  was  sealed  by  authority,  and  watched 
 by  Roman  soldiers,  and  the  women  knew  it,  as  all  Jerusa- 
 lem, and  especially  all  the  nearest  connections  of  Jesus 
 must  have  known  of  a  measure  so  remarkable  and  so  pubHcly 
 taken,  they  could  not  hope  to  get  there  with  their  spices." — 
 Vol.  ii.  p.  402. 
 
 Now,  it  is  easy  to  assert  that  "  all  Jerusalem,  and 
 especially  all  the  connections  of  Jesus,"  and  therefore 
 that  these  women,  knew  of  this  measure  which  the 
 rulers  had  adopted  ;  but  Strauss  gives  no  evidence 
 that  such  was  the  case,  nor  is  there  the  slightest 
 evidence  in  the  narrative  of  Matthew  that  it  was 
 the  case,  at  least  that  these  women  were  at  all  aware 
 of  what  the  rulers  had  done.  It  is  manifestly 
 implied  in  the  narrative  that  the  women  had  no 
 knowledge  of  it  whatever ;  and  in  all  probability  no 
 one  except  the  rulers  themselves  and  others  who 
 were  officially  cognisant  of  the  matter,  was  aware  that 
 such  means  for  guarding  the  sepulchre  had  been 
 adopted.  Matthew  tells  us  plainly  that  it  was  on 
 "  the  next  day  that  followed  the  day  of  the  prepara- 
 tion, that  the  chief  priests  and  Pharisees   came  to- 
 
254  LECTURE   XT. 
 
 gether  unto  Pilate "  (ch.  xxvii.  62).  That  next  day 
 was  the  Jewish  Sabbath,  and  as  the  words  of  Jesus 
 which  they  remembered  pointed  to  the  third  day 
 after  His  death,  the  probability  is  that  they  did  not 
 go  to  Pilate  until  the  Sabbath  was  either  over  or 
 wellnigh  over.  If  this  was  the  case,  it  would  follow 
 that  few,  if  any,  beyond  those  immediately  concerned 
 in  the  measure,  had  any  knowledge  of  it ;  and  thus 
 the  whole  criticism  about  the  reasons  why  Mark  and 
 Luke  and  John  omitted  the  story  of  the  watch  falls 
 to  the  ground.  It  is,  like  all  the  rest  of  the  author's 
 critical  discussions,  built  on  an  assumption  which  is 
 not  only  not  proved,  but  the  opposite  of  which  is 
 either  proved  or  at  least  supported  by  probable 
 evidence. 
 
 We  have  thus  endeavoured  to  follow  our  objector 
 in  his  long  and  tedious  discussion  respecting  the 
 burial  of  Jesus.  You  may  rely  upon  it  that  he  saw 
 how  important  a  bearing  this  subject  has  on  his  main 
 object  of  attack — the  Resurrection  itself  Hence  the 
 reason  is  manifest  why  he  has  laboured  so  hard  to  set 
 aside  the  unanimous  testimony  of  the  four  Evangelists 
 that  Jesus  was  buried  in  the  tomb  of  Joseph.  He 
 knew  perfectly  that  if  he  admitted  the  truth  of  this 
 testimony,  he  would  have  a  difficult  task  indeed  be- 
 fore him  in  attempting  to  disprove  the  reality  of  the 
 resurrection ;  and  he  also  knew  that  it  would  be 
 something  in  his  favour  even  could  he  only  throw 
 doubts  on  this  matter.  He  has  evaded,  as  we  have 
 seen,  the  main  point  in  the  narratives,  and  directed 
 his  whole  argument  against  certain  details.  He  has 
 assumed  that  the  body  of  Jesus  was  thrown  into  the 
 usual   burying-place  of  condemned  criminals.      The 
 
STRAUSS   ON    THE   BURIAL   OF  JESUS.  255 
 
 Evangelists,  with  one  voice,  bear  witness  that  this 
 sacred  body  was  now  taken  out  of  the  hands  of  the 
 enemies  of  Jesus,  and  laid  in  the  tomb  of  a  disciple — 
 of  a  man  of  Arimathea,  Joseph  by  name.  And  as 
 heretofore,  so  to  the  end  of  time  will  the  testimony  of 
 these  Evangelists  be  held  by  all  impartial  judges  as 
 worthy  of  credit,  whilst  the  groundless  conjecture  of 
 Strauss  will  be  accepted  only  by  those  who  have  pre- 
 viously made  up  their  minds  that  Christianity  is  and 
 can  be  nothing  else  than  a  cunningly-devised  fable. 
 
LECTURE    XII. 
 
 STRAUSS  ON  THE  EVIDENCE  OF  THE  RESURRECTION 
 OF  JESUS. 
 
 We  now  proceed  to  consider  what  Strauss  has  to 
 allege  against  the  unanimous  testimony  of  all  the 
 writers  of  the  New  Testament  that  Jesus  rose  again 
 from  the  dead.  I  need  not  repeat  that,  as  we  must 
 allow  him  to  speak  for  himself,  and  therefore  to 
 state  his  objections  in  his  own  way,  so  we  must, 
 however  tedious  and  irksome  the  task  may  be  to 
 us,  submit  with  patience  to  follow  him  in  this  great 
 discussion,  and  endeavour  to  examine  with  all  pos- 
 sible fairness  whatever  he  has  to  object  to  our  belief 
 in  the  reality  of  that  fact,  which  is  at  once  the  crown- 
 ing evidence  of  the  divine  claims  of  Jesus  and  the 
 sure  pledge  of  our  resurrection  to  eternal  life  and 
 glory.  We  cannot  but  be  anxious  to  ascertain  whether 
 this  foundation  of  our  faith  and  hope  remains  firm 
 and  steadfast  notwithstanding  his  assault,  probably 
 the  greatest  and  most  determined  which  has  been  or 
 can  be  made  to  remove  it ;  or  whether  that  founda- 
 tion is  successfully  undermined,  and  we  are  left  with- 
 out Christ  and  without  hope. 
 
 Strauss  has  two  separate,  though  inseparably  con- 
 nected,  discussions    on    this    subject.       In    the   first 
 
EVIDENCE   OF   THE   RESURRECTION.  257 
 
 discussion,  which  forms  the  concluding  portion  of 
 his  first  book,  he  endeavours  to  expose  the  unsatis- 
 factory character  of  the  accounts  contained  in  the 
 Gospels  and  other  writings  of  the  New  Testament  of 
 the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  and  to  show  how,  as  he 
 thinks,  belief  in  this  fact  originated.  .  In  the  second 
 discussion,  which  forms  the  conclusion  of  his  second 
 book,  he  purposes  to  show  that  this  myth  grew  up  grad- 
 ually— that  is,  that  the  accounts  of  the  appearances 
 of  the  risen  Jesus  form  a  series  which  is  continually 
 progressing  from  the  visionary  to  the  palpable,  "  from 
 the  subjective  to  the  objective."  It  is  evidently  his 
 first  discussion  that  demands  our  special  and  minute 
 attention ;  for  if  he  should  succeed  in  throwing  dis- 
 credit on  the  accounts  which  present  to  us  the  testi- 
 mony of  the  first  or  earliest  disciples,  we  shall  feel 
 but  little  interest  in  tracing  the  gradual  or  sudden 
 growth  of  a  fable  in  which  we  once  believed,  but 
 which  we  are  now  compelled  to  abandon  as  the  pro- 
 duct of  delusion  or  imposture.  Such  an  inquiry  may 
 possess  a  literary  or  historical  interest,  but  can  have 
 no  real  or  practical  value. 
 
 Strauss  enters  on  the  first  discussion  in  the  follow- 
 ing manner : — 
 
 "  According  to  all  the  Gospels,  Jesus,  after  having  been 
 buried  on  the  Friday  evening,  and  lain  during  the  Sabbath 
 in  the  grave,  came  out  of  it  restored  to  Hfe  at  daybreak  on 
 Sunday  (Matt,  xxviii.  i,  ff. ;  Mark  xvi.  i,  if. ;  Luke  xxiv. 
 I,  ff. ;  John  XX.  i,  fF.)  It  is  not  said  that  any  one  partici- 
 pated in  the  sight  of  this  occurrence.  Even  Matthew,  who 
 places  watchmen  at  the  grave,  represents  them  as  being 
 blinded  by  the  brilliancy  of  the  angel  who  descends  from 
 heaven  to  roll  away  the  stone,  and  falling  down  dead,  con- 
 sequently as  being  incapable  of  seeing  how  the  angel  per- 
 
 R 
 
258  LECTURE   XII. 
 
 formed  his  task  and  Jesus  issued  from  the  sepulchre.  But 
 soon  after,  according  to  all  the  Evangelists,  more  or  fewer 
 women  came  to  the  sepulchre,  where  they  find  the  stone 
 already  rolled  away,  and  upon  this  are  made  acquainted  by 
 one  or  more  angels  with  the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  which  is 
 soon  after  proved  by  several  appearances  of  Jesus  himself." 
 — Vol.  i.  p.  396-7. 
 
 Now,  knowing  as  we  do  that  Strauss  enters  on  this 
 discussion  with  a  foregone  conclusion  in  his  mind — for 
 such  a  fact  as  that  of  the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  being 
 a  real  miracle,  is,  in  his  view,  a  priori  impossible — 
 we  are  not  to  expect  that  his  unbelief  in  this  alleged 
 fact  shall  not  appear,  even  when  he  is  professedly 
 stating  only  the  circumstances  of  the  case  as  these 
 are  presented  to  us  in  the  Gospel  narratives.  Whilst 
 we  would  most  anxiously  avoid  all  hypercritical 
 remarks,  yet  we  are  entitled  to  notice,  if  not  the  spirit, 
 at  least  the  manner  in  which  he  puts  the  case  before 
 us.  Is  it  altogether  fair  to  represent  MattJiew  as 
 " placing  watchmen  at  the  grave ".'^  That  is  a  point 
 which,  to  say  the  least,  is  not  as  yet  determined  by 
 him  the  one  way  or  the  other.  Further,  on  what 
 ground  does  he  assume  that  the  angel  descended  to 
 roll  away  the  stone  in  order  that  Jesus  might  issue 
 from  the  tomb  ;  and  that,  although  He  then  did  so, 
 the  watchmen  did  not  see  Him  }  That  Jesus  raised 
 His  body  from  the  tomb  early  on  the  morning  of  the 
 first  day  of  the  week,  is  indeed  clearly  implied  in  all 
 the  Evangelic  narratives,  but  not  one  of  them  says 
 that  this  great  event  took  place  when  the  angel 
 descended  and  rolled  away  the  stone.  Let  us  adhere 
 strictly  to  what  the  Evangelists  say,  and  where  they 
 are  silent,  let  us  not  add  to  their  statements. 
 
EVIDENCE    OF   THE   RESURRECTION.  259 
 
 The  next  passage  is  one  which  we  quoted  before,  and 
 in  the  general  sentiments  of  which  we  thoroughly  agree. 
 
 "  Here,  then,  we  stand  on  that  decisive  point  where,  in 
 the  presence  of  the  accounts  of  the  miraculous  resurrection 
 of  Jesus,  we  either  acknowledge  the  inadmissibility  of  the 
 natural  and  historical  view  of  the  life  of  Jesus,  and  must 
 consequently  retract  all  that  precedes,  and  so  give  up  our 
 whole  undertaking,  or  pledge  ourselves  to  make  out  the 
 possibility  of  the  result  of  these  accounts — i.e.^  the  origin  of 
 the  belief  in  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  without  any  corres- 
 ponding miraculous  fact.  The  more  immediately  this  ques- 
 tion touches  all  Christianity  to  the  quick,  the  more  regard 
 we  must  pay  to  the  sensibility  with  which  every  unpreju- 
 diced word  that  is  uttered  about  it  is  received,  and  even  to 
 the  sensible  effect  which  such  words  may  have  upon  him 
 who  pronounces  them  ;  but  the  more  important  the  point  is, 
 and  the  more  decisive  on  the  other  side  for  the  whole  view 
 of  Christianity,  the  more  pressing  is  the  demand  upon  the 
 investigator  to  set  aside  all  these  considerations  and  pro- 
 nounce upon  it  in  a  perfectly  unprejudiced,  perfectly  de- 
 cided spirit,  without  ambiguity  and  without  reserve." — Vol. 
 i.  p.  397. 
 
 We  have  said  that  we  thoroughly  agree  in  the 
 general  sentiments  expressed  in  this  passage.  The 
 resurrection  of  Jesus  is  indeed  that  fact  which  touches 
 Christianity  to  the  quick — that  one  fact  on  which  the 
 whole  of  Christianity  really  rests  as  its  very  basis.  If 
 this  fact  cannot  be  established  by  adequate  proof, 
 Christianity,  so  far  as  its  divine  claims  are  concerned, 
 falls  to  the  ground.  If  it  can  be  so  established,  then 
 Christianity  in  all  its  divine  character  stands  secure  as 
 on  a  rock.  But  how,  may  we  ask,  can  that  man  fairly 
 investigate  the  evidence  presented  in  the  Gospels  in 
 support  of  this  fact  in  a  spirit  "  perfectly  unprejudiced," 
 
26o  LECTURE   XII. 
 
 who  assumes,  at  the  outset  of  his  investigation,  that  no 
 such  fact  is  possible  ?  Such  a  man  is,  by  his  very 
 assumption,  pledged  to  make  out,  not  whether  the 
 accounts  in  the  Gospels  are  worthy  or  unworthy  of 
 credit,  but  "  the  possibility  of  the  result  of  these  ac- 
 counts— that  is,  the  origin  of  the  belief  in  the  resur- 
 rection of  Jesus  without  any  corresponding  miracu- 
 lous fact."  The  man  who  admits  the  possibility  of  a 
 miracle  such  as  this  alleged  fact  implies,  is  not  a  piHori 
 pledged  to  make  out  the  reality  of  this  fact.  His  con- 
 clusion will  depend  on  the  nature  and  value  of  the 
 evidence  ;  and  this  evidence  he  is  bound  and  entitled 
 to  examine  in  the  strictest  possible  manner,  and  with 
 all  impartiality.  But  Strauss  cannot,  consistently 
 with  his  own  assumption,  conduct  this  examination  in 
 such  a  spirit.  He  has  already  settled  the  question  in 
 his  own  mind,  and  we  can  therefore  anticipate  only 
 the  utmost  exercise  of  ingenuity  in  order  to  establish 
 his  foregone  conclusion. 
 
 The  next  long  passage  refers  to  the  treatment  of 
 this  subject  by  others,  especially  by  Hase  and  Ewald 
 and  Baur.  It  is  only  necessary  to  allude  to  what  he 
 says  of  Baur,  who,  in  his  work  on  '  The  Christianity  of 
 the  First  Three  Centuries,'  "  declares  that  the  real 
 nature  of  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  lies  outside  the 
 limits  of  historical  investigation,"  and  accordingly,  as 
 Strauss  says,  "  avoids,  at  least  in  words,  the  burning 
 question."  Strauss  avows  himself  as  dissatisfied  with 
 this  declaration  by  Baur. 
 
 "  For  his  words,"  says  he,  ''  appear  to  mean  that  it  cannot 
 be  historically  discovered,  and  that  it  is  not  even  a  problem 
 for  historical  investigation  to  find  out,  whether  the  resurrec- 
 tion of  Jesus  was  an  objective  occurrence,  either  miraculous 
 
EVIDENCE   OF   THE   RESURRECTION.  261 
 
 or  natural,  or  whether  it  was  only  the  belief  of  his  disciples. 
 But  of  this  much  at  any  rate,"  he  adds,  "  Baur  was  con- 
 vinced, that  in  no  respect  Avas  the  first  of  these  alternatives 
 the  case — that  in  no  respect  was  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  an 
 objective  occurrence ;  consequently  the  second  resulted  as 
 a  matter  of  course." 
 
 Strauss  further  expresses  his  dissatisfaction  with 
 Baur's  statement. 
 
 "  The  saving  clause  that  he  (Baur)  was  convinced  of 
 this  not  as  an  historian,  but  as  a  philosopher,  was  in  part 
 irrelevant,  in  part  sophistry.  For,  traced  only  historically," 
 affirms  Strauss,  in  direct  opposition  to  what  Baur's  state- 
 ment implied,  "  he  must  acknowledge  that  the  accounts  of 
 the  resurrection  given  in  the  New  Testament  are  insufficient 
 to  prove  a  real  resuscitation  of  the  crucified  Jesus." — Vol. 
 i.  p.  398. 
 
 The  ground  of  this  insufficiency,  you  will  now  ob- 
 serve, is  not  an  historical  ground,  which,  according  to 
 Baur's  confession,  does  not  exist,  but  a  so-called  philo- 
 sophical ground,  which  Baur,  with  his  sceptical  ten- 
 dency, was,  equally  with  Strauss,  ready  to  admit. 
 But  then  Strauss  insists  that  so  much  of  philosophy 
 as  will  at  least  deny  the  possibility  of  a  miracle  is  an 
 indispensable  requisite  in  an  historian,  and  that  Baur 
 himself  had  on  other  occasions  given  proof  of  his  pos- 
 sessing this  qualification. 
 
 "  But  so  much  of  philosophy  as  is  required  here  and  else- 
 where to  disprove  a  miracle  is  indispensable  for  the  his- 
 torian, and  has  been  everywhere  applied  by  Baur  especially 
 as  an  historian." 
 
 The  only  thing  worthy  of  our  notice  in  these 
 remarks  is,  first,  that  Baur's  statement  implies  that 
 the  reality  of  the  resurrection   of  Jesus   cannot   be 
 
262  LECTURE    XII. 
 
 historically  disproved ;  and,  secondly,  that  this  alleged 
 fact,  which  cannot  be  disproved  on  historical  grounds, 
 is  disproved  on  a  philosophical  ground — namely,  on 
 the  ground  that  a  miracle  is  impossible ;  in  other 
 words,  is  disproved  only  by  an  assumption  which 
 involves  the  disproof — is  disproved  by  a  begging  of 
 the  question.  History  and  philosophy  are  thus  anta- 
 gonistic ;  and  a  reconciliation  of  the  two  can  take 
 place  only  when  the  historian  introduces  into  his  own 
 sphere  a  principle  which  compels  him  to  interpret  the 
 accounts  of  events  not  according  to  their  real  charac- 
 ter, but  as  they  are  affected  by  the  assumed  principle. 
 It  is  so  far  satisfactory  to  know  that  an  avowed  oppo- 
 nent of  the  Gospel  would  not  pronounce  the  accounts 
 of  the  resurrection  insufficient  but  for  a  so-called  prin- 
 ciple which  assumes  that  they  cannot  be  sufficient. 
 
 Strauss  next  refers  to  another  statement  by  Baur, 
 which  he  praises  very  highly — namely, 
 
 "  That  the  necessary  historical  hypothesis  for  all  that 
 follows  is  not  so  much  the  real  element  in  the  resurrection 
 of  Jesus  as  the  faith  in  it."  "  That  is  a  hint,"  adds  Strauss, 
 "  for  the  apologists,  who  would  like  to  persuade  the  world 
 that  if  the  reality  of  the  resurrection  is  not  recognised,  the 
 origin  and  rise  of  the  Christian  Church  cannot  be  explained. 
 No,  says  the  historian,  and  rightly,  only  thus  much  need  be 
 acknowledged,  that  the  disciples  firmly  believed  that  Jesus 
 had  arisen  ;  this  is  perfectly  sufficient  to  make  their  further 
 progress  and  operations  intelligible :  what  that  belief  rested 
 upon,  what  there  was  real  in  the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  is  an 
 open  question,  which  the  investigator  may  answer  one  way 
 or  another,  without  the  origin  of  Christianity  being  thereby 
 made  more  or  less  conceivable." — Vol.  i.  p.  398-9. 
 
 Whether  the  belief  of  the  disciples  in  the  reality  of 
 the  resurrection   could,  under  the  circumstances,  have 
 
EVIDENCE   OF   THE   RESURRECTION.  263 
 
 existed  had  that  resurrection  not  been  real ;  and 
 whether,  viewed  abstractly,  their  belief  is  sufficient 
 to  account  for  the  remarkable  change  which  took 
 place  in  their  views  and  character,  and  also  to  account 
 for  all  that  followed  in  the  spread  of  the  Gospel 
 throughout  the  world,  are  questions  which  cannot  be 
 discussed  except  in  connection  with  all  the  facts  of 
 the  case.  But  is  it  not  absurd  in  Strauss  to  represent 
 as  '*an  open  question"  the  determining  of  what  that 
 belief  rested  upon,  when  he,  as  a  professed  investi- 
 gator, has  pledged  himself  to  determine  it  only  in  one 
 way  ?  According  to  his  assumed  principle  of  the 
 impossibility  of  a  miracle,  there  can  be  only  one 
 answer  to  the  proposed  question. 
 
 The  great  question,  then,  before  us,  respects  the 
 origin  of  that  belief,  which  Strauss  as  well  as  Baur 
 admits  the  disciples  to  have  firmly  held,  in  the  resur- 
 rection of  Jesus.  Of  this  question  there  can  be  only 
 two  possible  solutions.  The  belief  must  have  been 
 grounded  on  an  objective  fact,  or  it  must  have  been 
 only  a  subjective  impression  without  any  correspond- 
 ing objective  reality. 
 
 "  The  origin  of  that  faith  in  the  disciples,"  says  Strauss, 
 "  is  fully  accounted  for  if  we  look  upon  the  resurrection  of 
 Jesus  as  the  Evangelists  describe  it,  as  an  external  mira- 
 culous occurrence ;  that  is,  if  we  suppose  that  Jesus  really 
 died,  was  recalled  to  life  by  God  by  an  act  of  his  omni- 
 potence, or  rather  transported  by  him  into  a  new  and 
 higher  kind  of  existence,  in  which  he  could  indeed  exercise 
 his  influence  in  a  m.aterial  and  perceptible  manner  on  his 
 followers  on  earth,  but,  being  no  longer  subject  to  death, 
 was  soon  taken  up  into  heaven  into  the  immediate  neigh- 
 bourhood of  God.     But,"  he  adds,  "  we  are  prevented  by 
 
264  LECTURE   XII. 
 
 various  reasons  from  adopting  this  view  as  our  own. 
 Whether  we  consider  miracles  in  general  as  possible  or  not, 
 if  we  are  to  consider  a  miracle  of  so  unheard-of  a  descrip- 
 tion as  having  really  occurred,  it  must  be  proved  to  us  by 
 evidence  in  such  a  manner  that  the  untruth  of  such  evidence 
 would  be  more  difficult  to  conceive  than  the  reality  of  that 
 which  it  was  intended  to  prove.  Now,  the  assumption  that 
 any  one  of  our  Gospels  had  for  its  author  either  an  Apostle 
 or  any  eyewitness  at  all  of  the  life  of  Jesus,  is  one  which 
 was  not  proved  in  what  has  gone  before.  The  only  book  in 
 the  New  Testament,  the  authorship  of  which  by  any  one  of 
 the  twelve  Apostles  we  found  to  be  at  all  events  possible, 
 the  Revelation  of  John,  does  not  carry  us  further  than  the 
 general  belief  that  Jesus  was  put  to  death,  and  is  now  living 
 in  immortality"  (i.  5-18  ;   ii.  8,  &c.) — Vol.  i.  p.  399. 
 
 Strauss  professes  in  this  passage  to  be  prevented 
 by  various  reasons  from  adopting  the  view  given  by 
 the  Evangelists  ;  and  waiving,  for  the  moment,  his 
 principle  that  a  miracle  is  impossible,  he  demands 
 that  such  a  miracle  as  that  of  the  resurrection  should 
 "  be  proved  to  us  by  evidence  in  such  a  manner  that 
 the  untruth  of  such  evidence  would  be  more  difficult  to 
 conceive  than  the  reality  of  that  which  it  was  intended 
 to  prove."  Now,  there  can  be  no  objection  to  this 
 demand,  rightly  understood.  The  evidence  for  the 
 reality  of  such  a  fact  must  be  of  a  most  satisfactory 
 nature.  It  must  be  such  as  corresponds  to  the  ex- 
 traordinary character  of  the  fact — such  evidence  as 
 will  prove  to  us  that  the  persons  giving  it  were  not 
 deceived  themselves,  and  were  competent  to  bear 
 valid  testimony  to  others.  For  such  a  fact  we  must 
 unquestionably  have  the  evidence  of  eyewitnesses ;  and 
 we  are  entitled  to  examine  and  cross-examine  these 
 witnesses,  in  order  to  satisfy  us  that  they  were   not 
 
EVIDENCE   OF   THE   RESURRECTION.  265 
 
 labouring  under  delusion,  or  were  not  deceived  by 
 others.  They  must  not  only  assert  their  own  belief 
 in  the  fact  of  the  resurrection,  but  tell  us  plainly  the 
 circumstances  which  impressed  them  with  this  belief, 
 so  that,  placing  ourselves  in  their  room,  we  may  deter- 
 mine whether,  under  the  circumstances  presented  to 
 them,  we  also  would  have  believed. 
 
 Admitting,  then,  when  rightly  understood,  Strauss's 
 demand  in  respect  to  the  character  of  the  evidence 
 required,  we  cannot  but  object  to  his  assertion  respect- 
 ing the  authorship  of  the  Gospels.  True  it  is  that  he 
 regards  it  as  an  assumption  to  admit  the  commonly 
 acknowledged  authorship  of  these  Gospels,  and  he 
 says  that  this  assumption  was  7iot  proved  in  his 
 dissertations  on  that  subject  ;  but  the  fact  is  that 
 it  is  he  who  is  chargeable  with  assumption  on  this 
 subject,  for  these  Gospels  have  from  their  very 
 origin  been  received  and  acknowledged  by  all  sec- 
 tions of  the  Christian  Church  as  the  writings  of 
 two  Apostles  and  of  two  companions  of  Apostles. 
 All  existing  external  testimony  is  in  favour  of  this 
 authorship.  There  is  not  a  single  fact  which  either 
 Strauss  or  any  one  else  has  been  able  to  bring  for- 
 ward and  establish  against  this  authorship  ;  and  the 
 writings  themselves,  though  they  do  not  all  tell  us 
 who  were  their  authors,  bear  a  testimony  which  is  in 
 perfect  harmony  with  the  external  evidence.  Fur- 
 ther, Strauss's  chief  objection  to  the  received  author- 
 ship of  the  Gospels  is  drawn  from  the  supposition 
 that  Jesus  did  not  and  could  not  work  miracles,  and 
 that  therefore  no  eyewitness  of  the  life  of  Jesus,  and 
 no  person  who  had  learned  about  Jesus  from  an  eye- 
 witness, could  have  described  Him  as  the  Gospels  do — 
 
266  LECTURE   XII. 
 
 that  is,  as  working  miracles.  Strauss  reasons,  there- 
 fore, about  the  authorship  of  the  Gospels  in  a  vicious 
 circle  ;  and,  indeed,  all  his  arguments,  from  first  to 
 last,  are  vitiated  by  his  one  grand  assumption  that  a 
 miracle  is  impossible. 
 
 He  would  allow  that  the  Apocalypse  or  Revelation 
 of  St  John  is  an  Apostolic  writing — the  work  of  one 
 who  was  an  eyewitness  of  Jesus  ;  but  whilst  he  would 
 allow  this,  he  asserts  that  in  that  book  we  find  only 
 an  assertion  of  the  general  belief  that  Jesus,  who  had 
 been  put  to  death,  was  now  living  in  immortality;  that 
 is,  an  assertion  of  the  belief,  not  that  Jesus  was  raised 
 from  the  dead,  but  that  without  such  a  real  resurrec- 
 tion as  the  Gospels  affirm  He  was  merely  believed  to 
 be  alive  in  heaven.  In  proof  of  this  assertion  he  refers 
 us  to  Chap.  i.  5-18,  and  to  other  passages.  Now, 
 the  first  passage  referred  to  clearly  points  to  the  re- 
 surrection of  Jesus,  so  that,  even  according  to  Strauss 
 himself,  we  have  the  testimony  of  at  least  one  eye- 
 witness to  this  fact.  In  the  fifth  verse  the  Apostle 
 John,  who  is  allowed  by  Strauss  to  have  been  the 
 author  of  this  book,  designates  Jesus  as  the  Faithful 
 Witness,  and  as  the  First-begotten — the  First-born  — 
 of  the  dead  ;  an  expression  which  clearly  refers  to  His 
 having  been  dead  and  buried — as  having  been  in  the 
 womb  of  death,  and  as  having  risen  from  the  dead, 
 born  of  this  womb,  in  a  pre-eminent  manner,  so  that 
 He,  the  risen  Jesus,  is  the  first-born  of  all  who,  through 
 union  with  Him,  shall  rise  to  life  everlasting.  The 
 phrase,  "  First-born  of  the  dead,"  cannot  possibly 
 refer  to  His  being  raised  to  a  higher  life  in  heaven, 
 apart  from  an  actual  resurrection  from  the  tomb  in 
 Avhich  His  body  was  laid  ;  and  to  give  such  an  inter- 
 
EVIDENCE   OF   THE   RESURRECTION.  267 
 
 pretation  to  the  phrase  is  merely  to  force  it  to  uphold 
 an  hypothesis.  Again,  in  this  same  passage  (ver.  10), 
 the  Apostle  says,  "  I  was  in  the  Spirit  on  the  Lord's 
 day,"  iv  rfi  ■/.-j'^iax.fi  rjfj/socc^  an  expression  which  mani- 
 festly means  on  the  day  commemorative  of  the  Lord 
 — that  is,  the  first  day  of  the  week,  which  was  held 
 sacred  to  the  Lord,  as  commemorative  of  His  resur- 
 rection— the  Apostle  by  this  very  expression  confirm- 
 ing the  testimony  of  all  the  Evangelists,  that  on 
 the  first  day  of  the  week  Jesus  rose  from  the  dead. 
 We  have  thus  the  testimony  of  at  least  one,  whom 
 Strauss  himself  is  willing  to  regard  as  an  eyewitness 
 of  the  life  of  Jesus,  to  the  fact  of  the  resurrection. 
 
 Strauss  now  professedly  enters  on  the  examination 
 of  the  evidence  in  support  of  the  reality  of  the  resur- 
 rection of  Jesus,  and,  as  he  has  already  intimated,  his 
 purpose  is  to  show  that  this  evidence  is  wholly  insuf- 
 ficient. He  examines,  first,  the  statements  of  the 
 Apostle  Paul  bearing  on  this  subject. 
 
 "  The  earliest  writer,"  he  says,  "  who  gives  us  any  accurate 
 information  as  to  how  the  belief  in  the  resurrection  of  Jesus 
 arose  among  his  disciples  is  the  Apostle  Paul,  who  was  not 
 an  eyewitness  of  the  original  phenomena  which  were  the 
 ground  of  this  belief,  but,  as  he  himself  says,  relates  what  he 
 had  heard  from  others.  He  tells  them  (i  Cor.  xv.  3-7)  how 
 he  had  '  received '  that  Jesus,  who  had  died  and  been  buried 
 according  to  the  Scriptures,  had  risen  again  on  the  third 
 day  according  to  the  Scriptures,  and  that  he  had  appeared 
 to  Cephas,  then  to  the  twelve,  then  to  more  than  five  hun- 
 dred brethren  at  once,  then  to  James,  then  to  all  the 
 Apostles.  There  is  no  occasion  to  doubt  that  the  Aposde 
 Paul  had  heard  this  from  Peter,  James,  and  perhaps  from 
 others  concerned  (comp.  Gal.  i.  18  ff,  ii.  9),  and  that  all  of 
 these,  even  the  five  hundred,  were  firmly  convinced  that 
 
26S  LECTURE   XII. 
 
 they  had  seen  Jesus,  who  had  been  dead,  and  was  aHve 
 again." — Vol.  i.  p.  399,  400. 
 
 Before  we  quote  further,  let  us  carefully  notice  the 
 admissions  here  made  by  Strauss.  "  There  is  no 
 occasion  to  doubt,"  he  says,  "  that  the  Apostle  Paul 
 had  heard  this  " — namely,  "  that  they  had  seen  Jesus, 
 who  had  been  dead  and  was  alive  again" — "from  Peter, 
 James,  and  perhaps  from  others  concerned ;"  and 
 further,  "there  is  no  occasion  to  doubt  that  all  of 
 these,  even  the  five  hundred,  were  firmly  convinced 
 that  they  had  so  seen  Jesus."  Here,  then,  is  an 
 admission  that  all  these  persons  believed  in  the  resur- 
 rection of  Jesus,  and  that  they  professed  to  believe  in 
 this  fact  on  the  evidence  of  sight.  Peter  believed 
 that  he  had  seen  Him  ;  so  did  James  ;  so  did  the 
 twelve  Apostles  as  a  body ;  and  so  did  the  more  than 
 five  hundred  brethren,  who  said  that  they  had  all  seen 
 Him  at  one  and  the  same  time.  It  is  not  doubted  by 
 Strauss  that  all  these — Apostles  and  brethren — told 
 what  they  believed  to  be  true.  He  admits  that  they 
 were  all  firmly  convinced  of  the  fact.  Can  such  evi- 
 dence, then,  be  lightly  set  aside  ?  Granting  the  pos- 
 sibility of  delusion  on  the  part  of  a  single  person,  can 
 we  imagine  that  eleven  or  twelve  men  would  all  be 
 deluded  on  more  than  one  occasion  in  a  matter  of 
 sensible  perception  at  one  and  the  same  tim^e  ?  Still 
 more,  can  we  imagine  that  five  hundred  men  should 
 all  be  simultaneously  convinced  that  they  saw  a  Living 
 Man  whom  they  did  not  see }  Five  hundred  men 
 believe  that  Jesus,  who  had  been  put  to  death,  stands 
 before  them.  Not  one  of  the  whole  crowd  doubts  the 
 fact.  The  eleven  disciples,  according  to  Paul,  assert 
 that  they  had  also  seen  Him  on  two  different   occa- 
 
EVIDENCE   OF   THE   RESURRECTION.  269 
 
 sions.  Peter  asserts  that  he  also,  when  alone,  had 
 seen  Him ;  and  James  bears  the  same  testimony. 
 Now,  let  us  candidly  estimate  all  this  evidence,  and 
 ask  ourselves  whether  it  is  not  evidence  of  the  highest 
 order.  It  is  the  evidence  of  eyewitnesses — of  hundreds 
 of  eyewitnesses.  Unless  we  maintain  as  an  abstract 
 fixed  principle  that  such  a  fact  as  the  resurrection  of 
 Jesus  is  in  itself  impossible,  how  can  w^e  get  over  such 
 evidence  ?  Is  it  not  more  difficult  to  conceive  the 
 untruth  of  such  evidence  than  the  reality  of  the  resur- 
 rection itself.^  We  apprehend  that  it  is  so,  and  that 
 we  must  feel  it  to  be  so,  when  we  endeavour  fairly  to 
 realise  in  our  minds  this  varied  and  extensive  evidence. 
 We  have  as  yet  taken  no  account  of  the  evidence  of 
 Paul  himself  We  have  merely  regarded  him  as 
 honestly  reporting  what  he  had  heard,  and  heard 
 from  the  first  sources.  Paul's  testimony,  being  un- 
 doubted by  Strauss,  places  before  us  all  these  eye- 
 witnesses ;  and  w^e  hear  them,  one  and  all,  relating  as 
 a  fact  of  sensible  perception  that  they  had  seen  Jesus 
 alive  again.  We  hear  them  telling  us  this  fact,  and 
 that  they  believed  it  on  the  evidence  of  their  own 
 eyes.     They  saw  Him  alive  again. 
 
 Let  us  now  hear  what  Strauss  has  to  say  in  order 
 to  weaken  the  force  of  this  apparently  most  sufficient 
 evidence  ;  and  we  shall  see  another  remarkable  speci- 
 men of  that  ingenuity  with  which  he  labours  so  per- 
 sistently to  close  his  eyes  to  what  must  appear  to  us 
 the  clearest  light. 
 
 "  If,  however,  we  ask,  as  we  must  be  allowed  to  do,  the 
 question  referring  to  this  belief  in  something  so  unheard  of, 
 how  these  men  convinced  themselves  that  their  supposed 
 sight  did  not  rest  on  a  delusion,  our  voucher  " — that  is,  the 
 
270  LECTURE   XII. 
 
 Apostle  Paul — "  leaves  us  in  the  lurch.  He  only  says 
 shiaply  that  the  Jesus  who  was  alive  again,  had  '  appeared  ' 
 (wp^Tj)  to  them;  that  is,  that  they  thought  they  perceived 
 him,  and  perceived  him  in  a  visible  form;  but  he  does 
 not  tell  us  how  they  arrived  at  this  belief,  what  grounds 
 they  had  for  considering  the  appearance  as  something  real, 
 and  indeed  as  the  appearance  of  their  Master,  who  was 
 dead." — Vol.  i.  p.  400. 
 
 We  formerly  remarked  on  this  subject,  and  en- 
 deavoured to  show  the  main  design  of  the  Apostle's 
 argument  in  this  chapter ;  and  we  will  not  repeat  our 
 remarks  upon  it.  But  we  must  again  observe  that, 
 though  the  Apostle  is  led  to  state  the  evidence  for 
 the  reality  of  Christ's  resurrection,  his  main  design 
 is  to  expose  and  suppress  the  erroneous  view  which 
 some  of  the  professing  Christians  at  Corinth,  misled 
 by  their  false  philosophical  opinions,  had  adopted  and 
 were  spreading  ;  namely,  that  there  will  be  no  resur- 
 rection of  the  body  at  the  last  day.  The  Apostle,  as 
 we  showed,  builds  his  whole  argument  against  this 
 error,  which  he  deemed  a  most  grievous  one,  on  the 
 basis  of  the  reality  of  Christ's  resurrection — a  fact 
 which  these  speculative  Christians  professed  to  admit. 
 Now,  Strauss  would  have  had  the  Apostle  not  only 
 state  the  evidence  which  he  does  in  attestation  of 
 this  admitted  fact,  but  also  enter  on  a  discussion 
 respecting  the  validity  of  that  evidence.  I  remark- 
 ed before  that  had  the  Apostle  done  this,  Strauss's 
 ingenuity  would  have  probably  suggested  a  suspi- 
 cion that  all  was  not  right  when  the  Apostle  deemed 
 such  a  discussion  necessary.  But,  apart  from  this, 
 what  does  Strauss  mean  when  he  says  that  Paul 
 "  leaves  us  in  the  lurch,"  because  he  does  not  tell  us 
 
EVIDENCE   OF   THE   RESURRECTION.  2/1 
 
 "  how  these  men  convinced  themselves  that  their  sup- 
 posed sight  did  not  rest  on  a  delusion  ?"  Paul  does 
 not  indeed  tell  us  all  that  took  place  on  the  several 
 occasions  on  which  these  men  saw  the  risen  Jesus. 
 But  have  we  no  other  accounts  besides  this  of  Paul's } 
 And  do  not  these  accounts  tell  us  that  the  senses  of 
 hearing  and  touch  confirmed  the  testimony  of  sight  ? 
 Paul  does  not  profess  to  discuss  the  evidence  of  the 
 persons  to  whom  he  refers  in  a  formal  manner.  He 
 regards  the  evidence  of  sight  as  under  the  circum- 
 stances valid  and  sufficient ;  and  he  is  right ;  for  it  is 
 not  the  evidence  of  one  man  or  of  two  men,  but  the 
 evidence  also  of  eleven  men  twice  given  ;  yea,  the 
 evidence  of  five  hundred  men  all  at  once.  We  main- 
 tain that  the  evidence  of  sight  thus  repeated  and 
 thus  given  cannot  but  be  trustworthy,  and  that,  there- 
 fore, our  voucher  does  not  "  leave  us  in  the  lurch." 
 These  men  could  not  but  believe  what  they  saw ;  and 
 who  ever  heard  of  a  multitude  of  men  being  all  at  one 
 time  led  to  suppose  that  they  saw  a  person  standing 
 before  them  whom  they  did  not  see .'' 
 
 But  our  objector,  perfectly  satisfied  with  his  own 
 reasoning,  goes  a  little  farther.  He  doubts  "  whether 
 Paul  had  investigated  this  point  for  himself."  Let  us 
 hear  the  whole  of  his  estimate  of  Paul's  state  of  mind. 
 Only  let  us  remember  that  in  the  passage  referred  to 
 in  his  First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  we  have  re- 
 markable expressions  which  clearly  show  how  self- 
 possessed  Paul  was,  and  how  anxiously  he  had  thought 
 about  this  very  subject.  "  If  Christ  be  not  risen,"  he 
 says,  "  then  is  our  preaching  vain,  and  your  faith  is  also 
 vain ;  yea,"  he  adds  in  most  solemn  words,  *'  yea,  and 
 we  are  found  false  witnesses  of  God ;  because  we  have 
 
272  LECTURE   XII. 
 
 testified  of  God  that  He  raised  up  Christ :  whom  He 
 raised  not  up,  if  so  be  that  the  dead  rise  not "  (ver.  14, 
 15).  Remembering  the  solemnity,  earnestness,  and 
 perfect  self-possession  of  the  Apostle,  let  us  patiently, 
 however  sorrowfully,  listen  to  the  manner  in  which 
 Strauss  detracts  from  the  value  of  his  testimony. 
 
 After  expressing  his  doubt  whether  Paul  had  in- 
 vestigated for  himself  the  grounds  on  which  the  belief 
 of  those,  whom  he  mentions  as  having  seen  the  risen 
 Jesus,  rested,  he  proceeds  thus  : — 
 
 "  After  he  had  himself  witnessed  that  apparition  of  Christ 
 which  we  shall  have  to  discuss  further  on,  he  was  so  sure  of 
 his  case,  so  satisfied  in  his  own  behalf,  and  so  sufficiently 
 instructed,  that  he  let  three  years  go  by,  before  he  started  from 
 Damascus,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  which  he  had  had  the 
 vision,  to  go  for  the  first  time  to  Jerusalem,  to  get  more 
 accurate  information  about  Jesus  in  general,  and  in  particu- 
 lar about  those  appearances  of  him  after  his  death  which 
 others  also  professed  to  have  had  (Gal.  i.  18,  ff.)  We  must 
 assume  that  he  had  heard  in  many  ways  of  these  appearances 
 even  at  an  earlier  period,  while  he  was  persecuting  the  con- 
 fessors of  the  new  Christ ;  but  it  is  quite  as  clear  that  in  his 
 then  impassioned  state  of  mind  he  was  not  qualified  calmly 
 to  investigate  what  was  real  in  them.  And  after  his  conver- 
 sion he  felt  no  impulse  leading  him  to  such  an  investigation; 
 on  the  contrary,  he  could  satisfy  himself  for  three  whole 
 years  with  what  he  thought  he  had  himself  seen  and  heard. 
 Now  this  proves  sufficiently  the  pure  subjectivity  of  the 
 whole  turn  his  mind  had  taken,  how  little  adapted  he  was, 
 generally,  to  undertake  the  historical  investigation  of  an 
 objective  fact.  Indeed,  he  regularly  boasts  that  he  looked 
 for  nothing  beyond  that  apparition ;  that  even  in  Jerusalem 
 he  conversed  with  none  of  the  Apostles  excepting  Peter,  and 
 James  the  brother  of  the  Lord.  These  may  have  told  him 
 of  the  appearances  which  they  could  boast  of  having  wit- 
 
EVIDENCE   OF   THE   RESURRECTION.  273 
 
 nessed,  perhaps  even  one  or  two  of  the  five  hundred  breth- 
 ren may  have  spoken  to  him  of  what  they  thought  they  had 
 observed.  But  that  he  should  have  instituted  a  more  ac- 
 curate investigation  with  regard  to  these  statements,  have 
 tested  the  foundations  of  them,  their  consistency  with  them- 
 selves and  with  each  other,  is  not  to  be  expected  of  a  man 
 who,  already  convinced  to  superfluity  by  the  supposed  ap- 
 parition which  he  had  seen  himself,  was  also  to  a  certain 
 degree  jealous  as  to  the  admissibility  of  this  subjective  con- 
 viction."— Vol.  i.  p.  400-1. 
 
 If  ever  there  was  a  specimen  of  what  is  termed 
 special  pleading  in  support  of  a  preconceived  con- 
 clusion, I  humbly  think  we  may  fairly  say  that 
 here  is  one.  The  conclusion,  assumed  at  the  outset, 
 and  to  be  supported  by  some  kind  of  argument  or 
 other,  is,  that  the  Apostle  Paul,  either  from  indisposi- 
 tion of  mind  or  from  incapacity,  abstained  from  in- 
 vestigating the  grounds  on  which  the  belief  of  those 
 who  said  that  they  had  seen  Jesus  alive  after  His 
 death,  rested.  This  conclusion  is  manifestly  assumed, 
 and  Strauss  sets  himself  to  the  task  of  framing  an 
 argument  in  support  of  the  assumption.  He  does 
 not  deny,  you  will  observe,  that  Paul  also  believed 
 that  he  himself  had  seen  the  Lord  ;  but  though  he 
 postpones  the  discussion  as  to  the  nature  of  this  as- 
 serted fact,  he  in  the  mean  time  assumes  and  reasons 
 upon  the  assumption  that  this  alleged  appearance  had 
 no  corresponding  objective  reality,  but  was  a  pure 
 subjective  impression  in  the  Apostle's  mind ;  and  he 
 even  represents  Paul  as  being  himself  "  to  a  certain 
 degree  jealous  as  to  the  admissibility  of  this  subjective 
 conviction." 
 
 In  respect  to  this  last  assertion  Strauss,  neither  here 
 s 
 
274  LECTURE   XII. 
 
 nor  in  his  special  discussion  on  "  the  appearance  of 
 Christ  to  this  Apostle,"  produces  the  slightest  evi- 
 dence. That  Paul  was  jealous  of  his  claim  to  the 
 Apostleship,  and  of  the  freedom  of  believers  in  Christ 
 from  the  ritual  observances  of  the  Jewish  law,  there 
 is  abundant  proof.  But  there  is  nothing  to  show 
 that  he  was  in  any  degree  jealous  as  to  the  admissi- 
 bility of  what  Strauss  terms  his  "  subjective  convic- 
 tion." As  it  was  an  essential  qualification  for  the 
 office  of  an  Apostle  that  the  person  holding  this  office 
 should  be  able  to  testify  to  the  fact  of  the  resurrec- 
 tion of  Jesus,  Paul  on  one  occasion  appeals  to  his 
 having  seen  the  Lord  as  one  of  the  essential  proofs  of 
 his  Apostleship  ;  but  so  far  is  such  an  appeal  from 
 exhibiting  the  state  of  mind  with  which  Strauss 
 charges  him,  that  it  furnishes  a  proof  of  the  very 
 contrary,  for  he  appeals  to  the  fact  as  one  which  ad- 
 mitted of  no  dispute.  **  Am  I  not  an  Apostle  ? "  he 
 says  ;  ''Am  I  not  free.?  Have  I  not  seen  Jesus  Christ 
 our  Lord  ?  Are  not  ye  my  work  in  the  Lord  ?  If  I 
 be  not  an  Apostle  unto  others,  yet  doubtless  I  am  to 
 you  :  for  the  seal  of  mine  Apostleship  are  ye  in  the 
 Lord"  (i  Cor.  ix.  i,  2).  Here  it  is  most  manifest 
 that  he  is  vindicating  not  "  the  admissibiHty  of  a  sub- 
 jective conviction"  as  to  his  having  seen  the  Lord, 
 but  the  claim  of  his  Apostleship  on  this,  as  one  ground, 
 that  he  had  actually  seen  Him.  And  yet  Strauss 
 assumes,  as  if  it  were  a  matter  beyond  all  dispute, 
 that  it  was  the  former  of  which  Paul  was  to  a  certain 
 extent  manifesting  jealousy. 
 
 Let  us  now  observe  the  manner  in  which  Strauss 
 misrepresents  the  Apostle's  conduct  immediately  after 
 his  conversion,  and  also  the  reasons  which  induced 
 
EVIDENCE   OF   THE   RESURRECTION.  2/5 
 
 him  to  visit  Jerusalem.  The  Apostle  himself  in  an- 
 other epistle,  which  also  the  school  of  Strauss  admits 
 to  be  genuine,  most  clearly  informs  the  Churches  of 
 Galatia  (which  he  had  been  instrumental  in  planting, 
 and  among  which  great  efforts  were  being  made  by 
 Judaising  missionaries  to  throw  discredit  on  his  Apos- 
 tolic authority)  in  respect  to  both  these  matters,  so 
 that  it  is  inexcusable  in  any  one  to  give,  as  Strauss 
 has  done,  a  misrepresentation  of  them  for  any  purpose 
 whatever,  and  especially  in  order  to  uphold  an  hypo- 
 thesis adopted  to  discredit  that  Apostle's  own  clear 
 statement  of  the  objective  reality  of  Christ's  appear- 
 ance to  him.  Whatever  information  as  to  facts,  con- 
 nected with  the  life  and  ministry  of  Jesus,  Paul  may 
 have  heard  before  his  conversion,  or  may  have  re- 
 ceived after  his  conversion  from  Ananias  and  other 
 disciples  at  Damascus,  he  tells  us  plainly  in  the  epistle 
 referred  to,  that  in  addition  to  the  miraculous  ap- 
 pearance of  Christ  to  him  when  he  was  nigh  unto 
 Damascus,  he  received  a  special  revelation  from  God 
 respecting  the  Lord  Jesus,  to  enable  him  to  preach  the 
 Gospel  among  the  Gentiles  ;  and  that  it  was  because 
 of  this  special  revelation,  and  not  merely  because  he 
 had  seen  the  risen  Jesus,  that  he  did  not  require  to  be 
 taught  by  man — even  by  those  who  were  Apostles 
 before  him.  Strauss,  in  direct  opposition  to  the 
 Apostle's  words,  limits  the  whole  matter  of  the  Gospel 
 to  the  fact  bearing  on  the  existence  and  therefore  the 
 appearance  of  Christ ;  whereas  in  addition  to  this  fact, 
 fundamental  as  it  was,  there  was  a  knowledge  of 
 Christ  which  constituted  the  substance  of  the  Gospel, 
 and  which  that  appearance  could  not  of  itself  impart. 
 Paul  needed  to  be  instructed  respecting  this  Jesus  of 
 
2/6  LECTURE  XII. 
 
 Nazareth,  who  had  so  marvellously  appeared  to  him, 
 and  apprehended  him  when  he  was  pursuing  his  mad 
 career.  And  it  was  God,  as  he  tells  us,  who,  after  this 
 appearance,  revealed  His  Son  in  him — made  known 
 to  him,  by  special  revelation,  those  great  truths  re- 
 specting Jesus,  the  Son  of  God,  which  constitute  the 
 glad  tidings  of  salvation.  Strauss  confounds  these  two 
 distinct  things,  the  appearance  of  Jesus  and  the  sub- 
 jective revelation  which  Paul  afterwards  received  ;  and 
 the  whole  of  his  argument  rests  on  the  assumption 
 that  these  two  things  were  one  and  the  same  thing. 
 
 He  also  charges  Paul  with  being,  after  the  appear- 
 ance of  Christ  to  him,  "  so  sure  of  his  case,  so  satisfied 
 in  his  own  behalf,  and  so  sufficiently  instructed,  that 
 he  let  three  years  go  by,  before  he  started  from 
 Damascus,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  which  he  had  had 
 the  vision,  to  go  for  the  first  time  to  Jerusalem  to  get 
 more  accurate  information  about  Jesus  in  general, 
 and  in  particular  about  those  appearances  of  Him 
 after  His  death  which  others  also  professed  to  have 
 had '(Gal.  i.  i8,  ff.)  "  Now,  this  charge  manifestly 
 proceeds  on  the  assumption  that  Paul  received  no 
 other  than  human  instruction  respecting  Jesus,  and 
 that  he  at  length,  after  so  unaccountable  a  delay, 
 went  to  Jerusalem  on  purpose  to  obtain  fuller  or 
 more  accurate  information,  and  specially  to  investi- 
 gate reports  which  had  reached  him  that  others  had 
 been  favoured  with  appearances  of  Jesus  after  His 
 death.  In  support  of  these  grounds  on  which  the 
 charge  is  founded,  Strauss  appeals  to  a  passage  in 
 the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  which  tells  us  the  very 
 contrary.  What  were  all  the  Apostle's  reasons  for  not 
 visiting  Jerusalem  until  after  a  period  of  three  years 
 
EVIDENCE   OF   THE   RESURRECTION.  2// 
 
 from  his  conversion,  we  are  not  informed  ;  but  after 
 stating  that  he  had  been  taught  respecting  Jesus  by 
 a  special  revelation  from  God,  he  mentions  that  he 
 passed  some  time,  how  long  is  not  stated,  in  Arabia  ; 
 that  he  returned  thence  to  Damascus  ;  and  that  after 
 three  years — that  is,  three  years  after  his  conversion — 
 he  went  up  to  Jerusalem  to  see — to  visit — Peter,  with 
 whom  he  abode  fifteen  days.  He  also  tells  us  that 
 Peter  was  the  only  one  of  the  twelve  then  in  Jerusa- 
 lem, for  that  "  he  saw  no  other  of  the  Apostles,  save 
 James  the  Lord's  brother." 
 
 This  is,  in  all  probability,  the  visit  related  in  the 
 Acts  ix.  26,  ff. ;  and  we  there  learn  that  when  he 
 arrived  in  Jerusalem  the  disciples  were  afraid  of  him, 
 and  refused  to  admit  him  into  their  fellowship,  until 
 "  Barnabas  took  him,  and  brought  him  to  the  Apos- 
 tles"— that  is,  to  Peter,  and  also  to  James,  who,  though 
 not  one  of  the  twelve,  was  reckoned  an  Apostle — "  and 
 declared  unto  them  how  he  had  seen  the  Lord  in  the 
 way,  and  that  He,  the  Lord,  had  spoken  to  him,  and 
 how  he  had  preached  boldly  at  Damascus  in  the  name 
 of  Jesus."  And  then  "he  was  with  them  coming  in  and 
 going  out  at  Jerusalem."  The  true  state  of  the  case, 
 then,  as  respects  this  first  visit,  is  this.  It  was  not  the 
 Apostle  Paul  who  investigated,  or  needed  to  investigate, 
 the  nature  of  the  appearances  of  Jesus  to  the  Apostles 
 and  others,  but  they  who  required  to  be  assured  of 
 the  reality  of  the  alleged  appearance  of  Jesus  to  Jiim  ; 
 and  it  was  only  after  Barnabas  rehearsed  the  sensible 
 evidence  of  sight  and  hearing,  that  they  were  con- 
 vinced of  the  reality  of  that  appearance.  Here  we 
 have  a  remarkable  proof  that  the  first  disciples  were 
 not  so  ready,  as  Strauss  and  others  would  have  us  to 
 
2/8  LECTURE   XTL 
 
 believe,  to  listen  to  mere  rumours,  or  to  arrive  at  con- 
 clusions without  thorough  and  legitimate  evidence. 
 
 Again,  Paul  does  not  in  his  epistle  tell  us  expressly 
 what  was  the  subject  that  engaged  his  attention  in  his 
 interviews  with  Peter  and  James.  We  learn  from  the 
 passage  referred  to  in  the  Acts,  that  after  the  Apostles 
 and  disciples  w^ere  satisfied  that  he  had  seen  and 
 heard  the  Lord,  "  he  spake  boldly  in  the  name  of  the 
 Lord  Jesus,  and  disputed  against  the  Grecians ;  but 
 that  they  went  about  to  slay  him."  There  is  not  the 
 slightest  probability  that  he  felt  it  necessary  to  engage 
 in  any  such  investigation  as  Strauss  insists  upon.  It 
 was  not,  we  may  rely  upon  it,  any  doubt  as  to  the 
 reality  of  the  Lord's  resurrection  and  subsequent  ap- 
 pearances that  occupied  the  mind  of  Paul.  These  were 
 settled  matters.  The  probability  is,  that  he  would 
 consult  with  them  as  to  the  sphere  of  his  future  labours 
 in  the  Gospel.  But  whatever  may  have  been  the  case 
 as  to  this,  we  know  for  certain  that  the  result  of  that 
 short  visit  was,  that  the  report  concerning  his  conver- 
 sion and  his  efforts  in  preaching  the  Gospel  was  con- 
 firmed, not  only  to  the  disciples  in  Jerusalem,  but  also 
 to  the  Churches  beyond  Jerusalem — to  the  Churches 
 of  Juda;a,  to  the  members  of  which  he  had  formerly 
 been  personally  unknown,  and  who  "had  heard  only, 
 that  he  who  had  persecuted  them  in  times  past  was 
 now  preaching  the  faith  which  once  he  destroyed  ; " 
 and  that  "  they  glorified  God  in  him  "  (Gal.  i.  23,  24). 
 
 In  the  same  epistle  Paul  mentions  another  visit 
 which,  along  with  Barnabas  and  Titus,  he  paid  to 
 Jerusalem  about  fourteen  years  after  his  conversion, 
 and  distinctly  tells  us  what  was  the  great  subject  then 
 discussed  between  him  and  such  of  the  Apostles  and 
 
EVIDENCE   OF   THE   RESURRECTION.  2/9 
 
 brethren  as  were  in  the  city.  James,  Peter,  and  John 
 were  present  at  the  council  which  was  then  held, 
 and  the  question  affecting  the  relation  of  the  Gentile 
 Churches  to  the  ritual  law  was  determined.  These 
 Apostles,  who  were  among  the  chief  rulers  of  the 
 Church,  "  perceiving  the  grace  that  was  given  unto 
 Paul,"  recognised  him  as  an  Apostle,  and  gave  to  him 
 and  Barnabas  the  right  hand  of  fellowship ;  and  it 
 was  arranged  that  these  two  should  go  specially  to 
 the  Gentiles,  whilst  they  themselves  were  to  labour 
 chiefly  among  the  Jews  (Gal.  ii.  1-9). 
 
 Such  having  been  the  real  state  of  the  case,  we 
 think  we  have  completely  established  our  state- 
 ment, that  the  whole  of  this  theory  of  Strauss  as 
 to  the  indifference  of  Paul  to  the  question  affecting 
 the  historical  reality  of  what  he  had  heard  about  the 
 appearances  of  Jesus  to  others,  and  his  incapacity, 
 from  the  impassioned  state  of  his  mind,  to  investigate 
 such  a  subject,  proceeds  from  a  misconception,  and 
 consequently  a  misrepresentation,  of  the  manner  in 
 which  Paul  received  his  knowledge  about  Jesus,  and 
 of  the  main  reasons  which  induced  him  to  visit  Jeru- 
 lem,  whether  on  the  first  occasion  after  his  conversion 
 or  at  any  subsequent  time.  The  whole  passage  is,  as 
 we  have  said,  a  mere  specimen  of  special  pleading  in 
 support  of  a  foregone  conclusion. 
 
 Strauss  next  sums  up  the  conclusions  which  he 
 imagines  he  has  established : — 
 
 "  As  regards  the  first  point,  therefore,  the  statement  of  an 
 eyewitness  with  regard  to  the  appearances  upon  which  the 
 belief  in  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  originally  rested,  we 
 have  it  not.  In  the  second  place,  the  witness  with  regard 
 to  whom  we  might  assume  that  he  drew  his  information 
 
280  LECTURE   XII. 
 
 from  the  lips  of  eyewitnesses,  the  Apostle  Paul,  does  not 
 lead  us  beyond  the  fact  that  these  eyewitnesses  firmly 
 believed  that  they  had  seen  Jesus  returned  to  life." — Vol.  i. 
 p.  401. 
 
 It  is  evident  from  what  we  have  already  said  in 
 respect  to  Strauss's  arguments  in  support  of  these 
 conclusions,  that  neither  of  them  has  been  established. 
 But,  you  will  observe,  it  was  deemed  by  Strauss  of 
 the  greatest  importance  to  show  that  we  have  no 
 evidence,  either  at  first  or  at  second  hand,  in  support 
 of  the  resurrection  of  Jesus.  He  is  forced  to  admit 
 that  the  first  disciples  firmly  believed  in  the  fact  of 
 the  resurrection  ;  but  assuming,  as  he  does,  that  this 
 belief  had  no  other  ground  than  a  mere  subjective 
 impression,  he  cannot  allow  that  we  have  any  authen- 
 tic statement  of  the  circumstances  which  produced 
 this  belief. 
 
 Not  one  of  the  Gospels  must  be  allowed  to  have 
 been  written  by  an  Apostle,  for  then  we  should  have 
 a  "  statement  of  an  eyewitness  with  regard  to  the 
 appearances  upon  which  the  belief  in  the  resurrection 
 of  Jesus  originally  rested."  Nay,  it  must  not  be  al- 
 lowed that  any  one  of  the  Gospels  was  written  even 
 by  a  companion  of  Apostles,  for  in  that  case  we 
 should  have  a  similar  statement  from  one  who  had 
 received  his  information  from  eyewitnesses.  The 
 only  book  in  the  New  Testament  for  the  Apostolic 
 authorship  of  which  it  is  conceded  there  is  some  evi- 
 dence is  that  of  "  the  Revelation  of  St  John  ; "  and 
 though  an  appeal  is  made  to  a  passage  in  that  book 
 which  clearly  implies  the  fact  of  the  resurrection,  yet 
 we  must  understand  the  Apostle  not  as  really  testify- 
 ing such  a  fact,  but  as  only  expressing  the  belief, 
 
EVIDENCE   OF   THE   RESURRECTION.  28 1 
 
 common  to  all  the  Apostles  and  disciples,  that  Jesus, 
 "  who  had  been  put  to  death,  was  now  alive,  and  in  a 
 state  of  exaltation  with  God."  Any  assumption  or 
 any  interpretation  of  passages  must  be  adopted, 
 which  will  support  the  foregone  conclusion,  that  Jesus 
 in  realit}^  did  not  rise  from  the  dead. 
 
 As  for  the  Apostle  Paul,  "  we  might  have  assumed 
 that  he  drew  his  information  from  the  lips  of  eyewit- 
 nesses," and  that  he  would  have  given  us  statements 
 of  circumstances  which  would  have  enabled  us  to  de- 
 termine whether  the  first  disciples  really  saw  Jesus,  or 
 only  thought  that  they  saw  Him  when  they  did  not. 
 But,  unfortunately,  he  tells  us  simply  that  Jesus  was 
 seen  of  Cephas,  then  of  the  twelve,  then  of  above  five 
 hundred  brethren  at  once,  then  of  James,  then  of  all  the 
 Apostles,  and  lastly  of  himself.  And  then,  postpon- 
 ing the  discussion  of  the  appearance  to  himself,  and 
 assuming  in  the  mean  time  that  it  was  a  mere  subjec- 
 tive impression  without  any  corresponding  objective 
 fact,  we  must  find  fault  with  him  for  not  having  in- 
 vestigated the  grounds  on  which  the  others  were  led 
 to  consider  the  appearances  to  them  as  something 
 real.  Indeed,  when  we  consider  the  highly  impas- 
 sioned state  of  his  mind,  we  may  cease  to  wonder 
 why  he  neglected  such  an  investigation.  He  was  so 
 satisfied  as  respects  his  own  case,  that  he  did  not  go 
 to  Jerusalem  until  after  the  lapse  of  three  years  to 
 make  inquiries  on  this  subject,  as  is  evident  from 
 what  he  writes  in  his  Epistle  to  the  Churches  of 
 Galatia — although,  when  we  interpret  the  passage  as 
 it  presents  itself  to  us,  it  would  appear  he  went  to 
 Jerusalem  for  a  quite  different  purpose.  As  for  the 
 appearance  to  himself,  it  will  be  afterwards  shown 
 
282  LECTURE   XII. 
 
 that    there    was    no    real    appearance    of    Jesus    to 
 him. 
 
 Thus  we  have,  concludes  Strauss  after  such  reason- 
 ing as  we  have  endeavoured  to  expose,  no  evidence 
 either  from  a  first  or  a  second  hand  to  convince  us 
 that  the  beHef  of  the  first  disciples  rested  on  any  real 
 fact.  Is  it  not  amazing  that  any  man,  pretending 
 to  investigate  a  subject  in  an  unprejudiced  state  of 
 mind,  can  have  satisfied  himself  with  such  childish 
 and  absurd  reasoning  as  we  have  been  compelled  to 
 examine }  The  whole  reasoning  is  frivolous  in  the 
 extreme.  But  we  must  exercise  patience,  and  listen 
 to  what  he  has  yet  to  say. 
 
 Having  stated  his  two  conclusions,  apparently  with 
 all  the  satisfaction  which  one  might  feel  on  having 
 reached  the  conclusion  of  a  mathematical  theorem, 
 Strauss  proceeds  to  the  Evangelic  narratives  them- 
 selves, such  as  in  his  estimation  they  are. 
 
 "  If  we  would  learn  anything  more  accurate,  we  must  turn 
 to  the  Evangelists,  and  they  are  witnesses  in  regard  to  not 
 one  of  whom  we  can  unhesitatingly  assume  that,  like  the 
 Apostle  Paul,  he  received  his  information  from  the  lips  of 
 eyewitnesses.  Their  evidence,  therefore,  has  not,  a  priori, 
 the  weight  which  it  must  have  to  counterbalance  that  of  the 
 improbability  of  the  fact  to  which  it  testifies." — Vol.  i. 
 p.  401-2. 
 
 Observe  the  summary  manner  in  which  the  evi- 
 dence of  these  Evangelists  is  set  aside.  The  manner 
 exhibits  a  slight  degree  of  ingenuity.  We  are  not 
 entitled  unhesitatingly  to  assume,  says  Strauss,  that 
 any  one  of  the  Evangelists  received  his  information 
 from  the  lips  of  eyewitnesses.     But  the  Apostle  Paul 
 
EVIDENCE   OF   THE   RESURRECTION.  283 
 
 did  receive  his  information  from  such  witnesses. 
 Now,  having  shown  that  his  testimony  is  insufficient, 
 we  cannot  possibly  look  upon  the  testimony  of  the 
 Evangelists,  whatever  it  may  be,  as  even  equal  to  his, 
 and  therefore  as  sufficient  to  counterbalance  the  im- 
 probability of  the  fact  to  which  he  testifies — the  "  im- 
 probability," you  will  observe — that  being  a  more 
 plausible  term  to  employ  here,  although  the  main 
 argument  against  Paul's  testimony,  and  against  the 
 acknowledged  authorship  of  the  Gospels,  rests,  not  on 
 the  mere  improbability,  but  on  the  assumed  abso- 
 lute impossibility,  of  the  fact  in  question.  We  need 
 not,  however,  again  specially  point  out  the  vicious 
 character  of  such  reasoning.  We  have  arrived  at  a 
 different  class  of  arguments,  and  we  shall  have  to  fol- 
 low our  objector  very  closely,  and  with  the  utmost 
 watchfulness.  He  is  now  to  show  that  the  Evangel- 
 ists contradict  Paul  and  one  another.  If  he  fairly 
 makes  out  such  a  result,  then  we  admit  that  whoever 
 wrote  the  Gospels,  their  trustworthiness  is  gone,  and 
 we  shall  have  no  other  alternative  than  that  which 
 Strauss  would  have  us  to  receive.  Such,  then,  being 
 the  issue  at  stake,  let  us,  as  we  have  said,  hear  our 
 objector  with  patience,  and  af  the  same  time  with  all 
 possible  watchfulness. 
 
 "  Add  to  this,"  says  Strauss — that  is,  to  the  a  priori  argu- 
 ment stated  above — "  that  the  narratives  of  the  Evangelists 
 contradict  in  many  ways,  not  only  the  accounts  of  the 
 Apostle  Paul,  but  also  each  other.  This  Apostle  says  no- 
 thing of  the  appearances  of  Jesus  before  women,  who  in  the 
 Evangelists,  Luke  excepted,  stand  in  the  foreground  (Matt. 
 xxviii.  9  ;  Mark  xvi.  9  ;  John  xx.  14,  ff.)  This  may  be  ex- 
 plained upon  the  supposition  that  he  only  wished  to  appeal 
 
284  LECTURE   XII. 
 
 to  the  testimony  of  men,  in  the  same  way  as  the  author  of 
 the  supplement  to  the  fourth  Gospel  does  not  take  in  the 
 appearance  of  Jesus  before  Mary  Magdalene,  which  is  men- 
 tioned in  this  Gospel.  Luke  (xxiv.  34)  as  well  as  Paul 
 states  Peter  to  have  been  the  first  (man,  if  we  will  have  it 
 so)  to  whom  an  appearance  of  the  newly-risen  Jesus  was  ac- 
 corded. But  neither  Matthew  nor  even  John  knew  any- 
 thing of  such  an  appearance  having  been  accorded  to  Peter, 
 but  speak  only  of  that  before  the  Apostles  collectively  (Matt, 
 xxviii.  16;  Mark  xvi.  16;  comp.  John  xx.  19,  26),  which 
 Paul  separates  from  the  appearance  to  Peter.  He  says  no- 
 thing of  the  appearance  to  the  two  disciples  going  into  the 
 country,  of  which  Luke  (xxiv.  13,  ff.)  and  Mark  (xvi.  12) 
 give  an  account.  This  may  be  supposed  to  be  accounted 
 for  by  the  fact  that,  as  compared  with  the  appearance  to  the 
 Apostles  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  five  hundred  brethren  on 
 the  other,  this  seemed  to  him  to  be  of  but  little  importance. 
 But  this  last  again  is  unknown  to  the  Evangelists,  as  is  also 
 a  special  appearance  to  James,  of  which  Paul  makes  men- 
 tion, but  which  is  found  only  elsewhere  in  the  Gospel  of 
 the  Hebrews.  Finally,  a  second  appearance  before  the 
 Apostles  collectively,  with  which  Paul  concludes  his  enumer- 
 ation, is  not  found,  at  all  events,  in  the  first  three  Evangel- 
 ists ;  but  in  John,  where,  on  the  first  occasion,  Thomas 
 being  absent,  only  ten  Apostles  were  present,  Jesus  appears 
 eight  days  later,  once  to  the  full  College  of  eleven ;  and  in 
 the  introduction  to  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  where  for  the 
 first  time  the  presence  of  the  risen  Jesus  upon  earth  is  extend- 
 ed to  forty  days,  time  is  indeed  given  for  all  possible  appear- 
 ances, but  at  the  price  of  a  complete  contradiction  with  the 
 earlier  account  of  the  same  author  in  the  Gospel,  where  the 
 last  appearance  of  Jesus  after  his  resurrection  takes  place, 
 unmistakably,  on  the  day  of  the  resurrection  itself" — Vol.  i. 
 p.  402-3. 
 
 Such  is  the  first  portion  of  Strauss's  statement  to 
 prove  that  "  the  narratives  of  the  Evangelists  contra- 
 
EVIDENCE   OF   THE   RESURRECTION.  285 
 
 diet  in  many  ways  not  only  the  accounts  of  the 
 Apostle  Paul,  but  also  each  other."  As  we  formerly 
 considered  Paul's  account,  and  also  compared  the 
 accounts  in  the  Gospels  with  each  other,  it  is  not 
 necessary  for  us  to  go  over  this  ground  again.  A 
 very  few  remarks  will  be  sufficient  to  show  that 
 Strauss  entirely  fails,  so  far  as  he  has  yet  gone,  to 
 establish  his  grave  assertion.  First  of  all,  what  is  a 
 contradiction  ?  Is  it  not  when  one  account  expressly 
 states  that  something  took  place  which,  according  to 
 the  equally  express  statement  in  another  account,  did 
 not  take  place  ^  "  Paul  says  nothing  of  the  appear- 
 ance of  Jesus  before  women,  who  in  the  Evangelists, 
 Luke  excepted,  stand  in  the  foreground."  Is  there 
 any  contradiction  here  between  Paul  and  these  Evan- 
 gelists .''  Does  he  say  that  Jesus  did  not  appear 
 before  women }  What  the  reasons  were  which  led 
 Paul  and  the  Evangelists  to  mention  the  particular 
 appearances  which  they  record,  is  an  entirely  different 
 question,  and  one  which,  assuming  that  there  were 
 several  appearances,  we  are  not  entitled  seriously  to 
 ask.  Every  historian  of  an  event  which  is  accom- 
 panied with  a  variety  of  details  may,  in  recording 
 that  event,  give  more  or  fewer  of  these  details,  as  he 
 deems  suitable  to  his  purpose.  It  is  most  unreason- 
 able to  assert  that  diversity  in  the  statement  of  such 
 details  implies  real  contradiction  in  the  writers  of  the 
 several  narratives  ;  and  it  is  unwarrantable  in  Strauss, 
 whatever  may  be  his  view  of  the  Gospel  narratives 
 and  of  Paul's  account,  to  employ  the  term  "contra- 
 diction "  in  the  case  before  him.  He  has  pointed  out 
 considerable  diversity  ;  but  with  all  his  keen-sighted- 
 ness  he  has  not  put  his  finger  on  a  single  "  contradic- 
 
286  LECTURE   XIL 
 
 tion."  Like  some  others,  he  infers  most  unfairly  that 
 because  Paul  or  an  Evangelist  does  not  mention 
 something  which  another  does,  therefore  he  was  ig- 
 norant of  it.  Such  a  mode  of  argument  would  not  be 
 tolerated  in  any  other  case.  Why,  then,  should  it  be 
 for  a  moment  tolerated  here  ?  If  these  writers  do 
 really  contradict  one  another,  let  the  contradiction  be 
 pointed  out,  and  then  we  shall  know  how  to  estimate 
 their  statements.  But  let  us  not  deal  with  these 
 writers  as  if  the  most  perverted  forms  of  argument 
 were  justly  applicable  to  them.  In  order  to  have 
 secured  their  narratives  against  Strauss's  charge  of 
 contradiction,  they  ought  to  have  been  the  same  in 
 every  detail.  Had  this  been  the  case,  it  requires  no 
 ingenuity  to  discover  what  Strauss  and  others  would 
 then  have  said.  But  we  formerly  showed  that  these 
 accounts,  substantially  one,  yet  diversified  in  details, 
 throw  great  light  on  each  other,  and  that  the  result  of 
 a  fair  comparison  of  all  their  contents  establishes  the 
 truth  of  their  several  narratives. 
 
 As  to  that  "complete  contradiction"  which  Strauss 
 discovers  between  two  separate  accounts  given  by  the 
 same  writer,  it  exists  solely  in  his  own  mind,  not  in 
 the  narratives  of  St  Luke.  He  does  not  say  in  his 
 Gospel  that  the  last  appearance  of  Jesus  after  His 
 resurrection  took  place  on  the  day  of  the  resurrection 
 itself.  We  showed,  when  discussing  his  Gospel  nar- 
 rative, that  it  was  his  manner  to  combine  different 
 details.  After  recording  one  which  took  place  on  the 
 evening  of  the  day  of  the  resurrection,  Luke  only  re- 
 cords the  last  appearance  of  the  risen  Jesus  ;  and 
 having  further  detailed  information  from  the  same 
 author  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  we  are  bound  in 
 
EVIDENCE   OF   THE   RESURRECTION.  287 
 
 all  fairness  to  avail  ourselves  of  this  additional  Infor- 
 mation to  clear  up  what  was  left  obscure  in  the  briefer 
 account.  We  do  not  believe,  as  some  defenders  of 
 Luke  have  alleged,  that  he  knew  more  details  when 
 he  wTote  his  second  treatise  than  he  did  when  he 
 wrote  the  first.  We  believe  that  he  had  the  second 
 treatise  in  view  at  the  time  when  he  wrote  his  Gospel, 
 and  that  he  purposely  concluded  his  Gospel  as  he  has 
 done. 
 
 So  far,  then,  as  we  have  yet  heard  Strauss,  we  un- 
 hesitatingly conclude  that  he  has  completely  failed  to 
 make  out  his  charge,  and  that  if  he  has  no  stronger 
 proofs  of  contradiction  to  bring  forward,  his  failure 
 will  constitute  a  remarkable  testimony  to  the  truth  of 
 the  Gospel  narratives  as  well  as  to  that  of  the  Apostle 
 Paul's  account. 
 
 Strauss  proceeds  thus  : — 
 
 "  Up  to  this  point  an  opponent  might  maintain  that 
 neither  Paul  nor  any  one  of  the  Evangelists  undertakes  to 
 mention  all  the  appearances  after  the  resurrection.  But  this 
 defence  is  not  available  for  the  fourth  Evangelist,  as  regards 
 the  author  of  the  21st  chapter,  who  particularises  the  ap- 
 pearances up  to  the  third  (xxi.  14).  There  would  be,  then, 
 that  before  the  eleven  (xx.  19,  ff.;  the  absence  of  Thomas 
 may  be  considered  as  unimportant),  consequently  the  second 
 of  St  Paul,  the  first;  that  before  the  full  College  of  the 
 Apostles  (xx.  26,  ff.),  therefore  the  fifth  of  Paul,  the  second  ; 
 the  appearances  to  Peter  and  James,  the  first  and  fourth  in 
 Paul,  are  omitted,  it  might  be  said  because  only  concerning 
 one  Apostle;  but  why  that  before  five  hundred  brethren, 
 among  whom,  in  all  probability,  the  eleven  also  were? 
 while  that  to  the  seven  Apostles  on  the  Sea  of  Galilee  (xxi. 
 I,  ff.)  is  not  considered  too  unimportant  to  be  mentioned  as 
 the  third  appearance,  though  nothing  corresponding  to  it  is 
 
288  LECTURE   XII. 
 
 found  either  in  Paul  or  in  any  of  the  other  Evangelists.  The 
 author  does  not  say  that  this  was  the  last  appearance,  and, 
 moreover,  what  he  represents  Jesus  as  saying  on  the  occa- 
 sion of  it  is  not  such  that  a  later  appearance  is  thereby  ab- 
 solutely excluded.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  in  the  three 
 other  Evangelists  the  last  meeting  of  Jesus  with  his  disciples, 
 mentioned  in  every  one  of  them,  is  obviously  meant  to  be 
 the  last  that  ever  took  place,  as  it  contains  the  last  arrange- 
 ments and  promises  of  Jesus,  and  besides  this  concludes,  in 
 Mark  and  Luke,  with  the  ascension.  And  this  last  appear- 
 ance is  by  Matthew  (who  knows  no  more  than  John  any- 
 thing about  an  ascension)  as  decidedly  placed  in  Galilee, 
 and  by  Luke,  and  obviously  also  by  Mark,  in  the  immediate 
 neighbourhood  of  Jerusalem.  Of  these  two  accounts,  there- 
 fore, one  in  any  case  must  rest  upon  a  mistake." — Vol.  i. 
 p.  403-4. 
 
 This  long  passage  really  brings  nothing  new  before 
 us,  and  we  must  again  avoid  repeating  remarks  which 
 we  formerly  made,  especially  in  respect  to  the  con- 
 cluding chapter  of  John's  Gospel.  That  chapter,  as 
 was  formerly  stated,  is  an  appendix  which  the  Apostle 
 seems  to  have  added  to  his  narrative,  in  order  to  meet 
 a  misinterpretation  of  certain  words  which  Jesus,  on 
 the  occasion  referred  to,  uttered  respecting  himself. 
 He  had  in  his  former  narrative  recorded  two  appear- 
 ances of  Jesus  to  the  disciples  when  assembled  to- 
 gether, and  therefore,  having  added  this  other  chapter, 
 he  mentions  the  appearance  recorded  in  it  as  the 
 third  appearance  to  a  number  of  the  disciples.  It  was 
 evidently  not  his  design  to  record  all  the  appearances 
 of  Jesus  ;  and  as  his  Gospel  was  unquestionably  sup- 
 plementary to  the  other  three,  he  does  not  detail  the 
 circumstances  of  the  ascension,  already  stated  more 
 or   less   briefly   by  other    Evangelists ;   but   that   he 
 
EVIDENCE  OF  THE   RESURRECTION.  289 
 
 knew  about  the  ascension,  who  can  possibly  deny 
 with  any  measure  of  fairness,  who  remembers  the  fre- 
 quent allusions  recorded  in  this  Gospel  to  the  Lord's 
 departure  to  the  Father,  and  in  particular  His  mes- 
 sage to  the  disciples  through  Mary  Magdalene,  "  Go 
 to  My  brethren,  and  say  unto  them,  I  ascend  unto 
 My  Father  and  your  Father,  and  to  My  God  and 
 your  God"  (xx.  17)? 
 
 As  to  the  comparison  between  John's  account  and 
 that  of  Paul,  these  are  shown  by  Strauss  himself  to 
 agree  so  far ;  but  why  in  any  one  of  the  accounts  we 
 have  certain  details  given,  and  not  others,  is  really  a 
 question  which  it  is  unreasonable  to  ask,  as  we  have 
 already  said.  A  special  reason  seems  assigned  by 
 John  for  introducing  the  account  of  the  appearance  at 
 the  Sea  of  Galilee ;  and  it  was  manifestly  his  original 
 design  to  record  only  the  two  appearances  to  the 
 disciples  which  took  place  in  Jerusalem  on  two  suc- 
 cessive first  days  of  the  week.  No  contradiction, 
 in  the  slightest  matter,  is  brought  out  between  him 
 and  Paul. 
 
 But  Strauss  insists  that  Matthew  places  the  last 
 appearance  in  Galilee,  while  Luke  and  Mark  place 
 the  same  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood  of  Jerusa- 
 lem, and  that  therefore  one  of  these  accounts  must,  in 
 any  case,  rest  upon  a  mistake.  But  there  is  no  mis- 
 take. The  meeting  of  Jesus  with  His  disciples  in 
 Galilee  was,  as  we  showed  before,  a  public  meeting 
 promised  before  His  death,  and  also  brought  to  the 
 remembrance  of  the  disciples  through  the  women  by 
 the  angel  at  the  tomb,  and  by  Jesus  Himself,  who 
 afterwards,  on  the  same  day,  met  them  on  the  road. 
 At  this   great   meeting  Jesus  proclaimed  His   sove- 
 
 T 
 
290  LECTURE  XII. 
 
 reignty  over  all,  whether  in  heaven  or  on  earth,  and 
 also  gave  His  disciples  a  commission  to  preach  the 
 Gospel  to  all  nations.  The  same  or  similar  words 
 were  afterwards  addressed  by  Him  to  His  disciples  at 
 His  last  appearance  near  to  Jerusalem  immediately 
 before  His  ascension.  If  we  would  only  deal  fairly 
 with  the  accounts,  we  should  see  that  whilst  all  is  not 
 told  us  so  as  to  enable  us  to  clear  up  every  difficulty 
 which  may  be  suggested,  there  is  no  difficulty  in  per- 
 ceiving that,  so  far  as  we  are  informed  of  the  various 
 appearances,  no  contradiction  will  emerge,  unless  w^e 
 draw  such  conclusions  from  the  brief  accounts  as  shall 
 necessarily  involve  contradiction.  To  draw  such  con- 
 clusions is  evidently  unwarrantable,  and  to  treat  the 
 Gospels  in  this  way  is  to  set  ourselves  to  the  task  of 
 creating  contradiction  where,  under  a  fair  treatment  of 
 them,  we  should  see  that  none  exists.  But  to  such 
 a  fair  treatment  of  these  Gospels  Strauss's  assumed 
 principle  of  the  impossibility  of  a  miracle  will  not 
 allow  him  to  consent.  He  must  treat  them  in  such  a 
 manner  as  will  not  oblige  him  to  "  give  up  his  whole 
 undertaking,"  and  to  "  acknowledge  the  inadmissibility 
 of"  what  he  calls  "  the  natural  and  historical  view  of 
 the  life  of  Jesus."  And  therefore  we  must  follow  him 
 a  little  longer  whilst  he  brings  to  view  more  contra- 
 dictions of  the  nature  last  adverted  to. 
 
 ''But  the  contradiction  in  respect  of  locality,"  he  says, 
 "  does  not  attach  merely  to  this  last  meeting,  but  penetrates 
 the  whole  history  of  the  appearances  after  the  resurrection. 
 The  Apostle  Paul  does  not  define  the  place  of  the  appearances 
 mentioned  by  him ;  in  Matthew,  Jesus  shows  himself  only 
 to  the  two  Marys  on  the  morning  of  the  resurrection,  on  the 
 way  from  the  sepulchre  to  the  town,  consequently  near  Jeru- 
 
EVIDENCE   OF   THE   RESURRECTION.  29I 
 
 salem ;  through  them  he  gives  the  same  directions  to  the  dis- 
 ciples as  they  had  received  from  him  during  his  Hfetime 
 (xxvi.  32),  and  also  from  an  angel  (xxviii.  7),  to  go  to 
 Galilee,  where  he  immediately  appears  to  them  also  (xxviii. 
 9  ff.,  16  ff.),  according  to  the  opinion  of  the  Evangehst,  un- 
 doubtedly for  the  first  and  last  time.  In  direct  contradiction 
 with  this,  Luke  represents  Jesus  on  the  day  of  the  resurrection 
 as  appearing  not  merely  to  the  two  disciples  on  the  road  to 
 Emmaus,  and  to  Peter,  and  then  immediately  after  to  all 
 the  eleven,  with  some  few  others  (probably  the  brothers  of 
 Jesus  and  the  women,  Acts  i.  14)  in  Jerusalem,  but  also  as 
 giving  them  the  express  direction  to  remain  here  in  the  city 
 until  power  shall  be  given  them  from  above.  This  the 
 author  of  the  Acts  represents  as  not  taking  place  until  Pen- 
 tecost, that  is,  seven  weeks  after  (xxiv.  49 ;  Acts  i.  4).  It 
 will  not  do  to  reconcile  this  contradiction,  as  Mark  does,  by 
 saying  that  the  angel  first  commissioned  the  women  to  direct 
 the  disciples  to  Galilee  as  the  place  where  they  were  to  see 
 him,  and  that  then,  we  know  not  why,  Jesus  showed  himself 
 to  them  in  and  near  Jerusalem  (xvi.  7,  ff.) ;  but  if  Luke  is 
 correct  in  the  statement  that  Jesus  on  the  day  of  the  resur- 
 rection directed  the  disciples  to  remain  in  Jerusalem,  he 
 cannot,  as  Matthew  says,  have  told  them  on  the  very  same 
 morning  to  go  to  Galilee;  and  as  they  would  not  have  gone 
 there  against  his  express  directions,  they  cannot  have  seen 
 the  appearances  there  of  which  Matthew  and  the  author  of 
 the  supplementary  chapter  in  John  give  an  account.  Con- 
 versely, if  Jesus  had  defined  Galilee  to  the  disciples  as  the 
 place  where  they  were  to  see  him,  it  is  impossible  to  imagine 
 what  could  have  induced  him  to  show  himself  to  them  on 
 the  same  day  in  Jerusalem ;  if,  therefore,  Matthew  is  correct, 
 all  the  three  other  appearances  to  the  disciples,  which  took 
 place  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Jerusalem,  vanish  into  no- 
 thing."— Vol.  i.  p.  404-5. 
 
 It   is    evident  that    Strauss   regards   his  reasoning 
 in    the    above    passage  as    unanswerable — as    bring- 
 
292  LECTURE   XII. 
 
 ing  out  a  complete  contradiction  in  the  accounts 
 of  the  several  Evangelists.  We  formerly  compared 
 these  accounts  with  reference  to  the  very  point  here 
 noticed  by  Strauss,  and  showed  that,  when  fairly 
 viewed,  they  perfectly  harmonise  with  one  another. 
 Without,  therefore,  again  entering  into  a  full  discus- 
 sion of  the  subject,  we  would  remark,  first,  that  when 
 we  have  several  independent  accounts  of  any  complex 
 series  of  events,  the  fair  way  of  dealing  with  such 
 accounts  is  to  see  whether  they  can  be  brought  into 
 harmony.  Unless  we  have  other  reasons  to  induce 
 the  belief  that  the  writers  of  such  accounts  are  not 
 trustworthy,  we  ought  to  begin  with  the  assumption 
 that,  however  varied  in  the  details,  the  accounts  may 
 all  be  at  one ;  and  even  when  a  difficulty  appears 
 which  the  accounts  do  not  enable  us  thoroughly  to 
 remove,  we  are  not  entitled  to  charge  the  accounts  with 
 containing  contradictory  statements,  inasmuch  as  a 
 little  more  information,  had  it  been  given  us,  might 
 have  cleared  up  the  difficulty.  A  mere  difficulty  in  the 
 way  of  reconciling  two  different  accounts  of  a  fact 
 attended  with  a  number  of  details,  does  not  amount  to 
 a  contradiction. 
 
 True  it  is  that,  as  Strauss  represents  the  accounts, 
 he  does  make  them  contradict  one  another.  But  the 
 question  is.  Does  he  represent  the  accounts  fairly  .?  Or 
 does  he  not  draw  unauthorised  conclusions  from  state- 
 ments in  them,  on  purpose  to  make  out  a  contradiction.-* 
 The  latter  we  believe  to  be  the  case.  Matthew,  for 
 example,  although  he  records  only  the  appearance  of 
 Jesus  to  the  disciples  in  Galilee,  does  not  say  that  He 
 did  not  appear  to  the  disciples  in  Jerusalem.  Nor  does 
 Luke,  on  the  other  hand,  who  records  only  appearances 
 
EVIDENCE   OF   THE   RESURRECTION.  293 
 
 in  or  near  Jerusalem,  say  that  Jesus  did  not  appear  to 
 the  disciples  in  Galilee.  Mark,  in  his  narrative,  whilst 
 he  records  only  the  appearances  in  or  near  Jerusalem, 
 evidently  implies,  in  recording  the  message  through 
 the  women,  that  there  was  an  appearance  in  Galilee  ; 
 whilst  John  expressly  records  appearances  in  both 
 places — one  in  Galilee  and  two  in  Jerusalem — besides 
 the  appearance  to  Mary  Magdalene.  Why  these 
 accounts  present  us  with  such  varied  details — why 
 they  do  not  all  give  identical  statements — is  an  entirely 
 different  question  ;  but  one  thing  is  clear,  that  the 
 diversified  nature  of  the  details  proves  the  indepen- 
 dence of  the  accounts,  and  therefore  presents  their 
 authors  as  so  many  independent  witnesses.  As  we 
 have  said,  in  comparing  these  accounts  with  one  an- 
 other, we  are  bound  to  treat  them  with  all  fairness. 
 If  they  really  contradict  one  another,  such  contra- 
 diction must  impair  their  credit ;  but  should  the  ap- 
 parent discrepancy  be  only  a  difficulty,  and  not  a  real 
 contradiction,  we  are  not  entitled  to  call  it  such,  and 
 to  reject  the  testimony  of  the  witnesses. 
 
 We  would,  in  the  second  place,  specially  remark, 
 what  indeed  has  formerly  been  stated,  that  the  ap- 
 pearance of  Jesus  in  GalilQ.e  after  His  resurrection 
 was  evidently  of  a  public  nature,  whilst  His  appear- 
 ances in  Jerusalem  partook  rather  of  a  private  char- 
 acter. Matthew  and  Mark  both  record  the  promise 
 which,  on  the  evening  before  His  death,  Jesus  gave 
 to  the  disciples,  that  He  would  meet  them  again  in 
 Galilee — that  He  would  go  before  them  thither,  as  a 
 shepherd  before  his  flock.  "  All  ye  shall  be  offended 
 because  of  Me  this  night:  for  it  is  written,  I  will 
 smite  the  Shepherd,  and  the  sheep  of  the  flock  shall 
 
294  LECTURE   XII. 
 
 be  scattered  abroad.     But  after  I  am  risen  again,  I 
 will  go  before   you  into   Galilee"    (Matt.   xxvi.   31  ; 
 Mark  xiv.  27,  28).     Such  was  His  promise,;  and  it  is 
 perfectly  clear  that  that  promise  implied  a   solemn 
 public  appearance  there  to  the  disciples.     It  is  indeed 
 marvellous  to  us  how  the  disciples  could  have  either 
 forgotten  or  distrusted  this  promise ;  but,  as  we  for- 
 merly showed,  their  minds  were  in  such  a  state  that 
 they  could  not  enter  into  His  statements  regarding 
 His  resurrection  ;  for  they  could  not  conceive  it  pos- 
 sible that    He,  the   Messiah,  should   die — should   be 
 betrayed  and  condemned,  and  put  to  death  as  a  male- 
 factor.    We  understand    these   things,  and  therefore 
 wonder  at  what  we  read   of  these  disciples.     But  in 
 order  to  judge  fairly  about  the  narratives,  we  must 
 endeavour  to  forget  our  knowledge,  and  to  realise,  as 
 far  as  we  can,  the  state  of  mind  then  prevailing  among 
 the  disciples.     There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  death 
 of  Jesus  confounded  their  views  of  Him  as  the  Mes- 
 siah of  God.     They  still  maintained  their  belief,  but 
 their   minds  were   completely   perplexed ;    and    His 
 very  words,  such  as  expressed  His  promise  to  meet 
 them  in  Galilee,  vanished  entirely  from  their  memory. 
 As  we  have  said,  it  is  extremely  difficult  for  us   to 
 conceive  such  a  state  of  mind  ;  but  such  it  was — a 
 state  which  no  fiction  would,  or,  we  may  rather  say, 
 could  have  ventured  to  assume,  yet  which,  from  its 
 very  nature,  bears  on  itself  the  feature  of  historical 
 reality. 
 
 Remembering,  as  we  do,  that  great  promise,  we 
 cannot  wonder  at  the  message  given  to  the  women, 
 first  by  the  angel,  and  then  by  Jesus  Himself,  for  the 
 disciples,  reminding  them  of  the  promise,  and  assur- 
 
EVIDENCE   OF   THE   RESURRECTION.  295 
 
 ing  them  that  He  would  meet  them  in  GaHlee.  But 
 this  promise  did  not  exclude  other  appearances ;  and 
 knowing,  as  we  are  informed,  that  the  disciples  were 
 slow  of  heart  to  believe  the  testimony  of  the  women, 
 can  we  be  surprised  when  we  are  told  that  Jesus  Him- 
 self appeared  to  them  whilst  they  were  yet  in  Jeru- 
 salem, in  order  to  convince  them  of  the  reality  of  His 
 resurrection,  and  to  prepare  them  for  the  solemn  meet- 
 ing which  was  to  take  place  in  Galilee  ?  Matthew  in- 
 deed tells  us  that  the  women  received  the  messasfe 
 from  the  angel  who  appeared  to  them  in  the  sepulchre, 
 and  that  the  women  carried  this  message  to  the  dis- 
 ciples ;  but  he  does  not  tell  us  in  what  spirit  the  mes- 
 sage was  received.  We  learn  elsewhere  that  the  tes- 
 timony of  the  women  was  not  believed.  Matthew 
 also  records  an  appearance  of  Jesus  to  these  women  ; 
 and  the  correct  reading  of  the  text  (which  omits  the 
 first  clause  of  the  Textus  Receptus)  allows  us  to  infer 
 that  this  appearance  took  place,  not  before,  but  after, 
 they  had  been  with  the  disciples.  Matthew  also  re- 
 cords the  departure  of  the  disciples  for  Galilee,  and  the 
 appearance  of  Jesus  to  them  there.  But  he  does  not 
 tell  us  when  this  departure  took  place ;  he  does  not 
 say  that  it  was  either  the  first  or  the  last  appearance  of 
 Jesus  to  them.  Had  we  no  more  information  than  he 
 gives  us,  we  might  have  inferred  that  such  may  have 
 been,  although  not  that  it  was,  the  case ;  but  having 
 more  information,  we  know  that  it  was  not  the  case. 
 Strauss  thinks  himself  at  liberty  to  draw  certain  con- 
 clusions, and  then  to  represent  the  Evangelist  as 
 expressly  stating  his  conclusions — a  mode  of  reason- 
 ing which  surely  is  not  allowable.  Mark,  Luke,  and 
 John  record  one  or  more  appearances  to  the  disciples 
 
296  LECTURE   XII. 
 
 in  Jerusalem.  Who  knows  but  that  such  appearances 
 were  absolutely  necessary  to  induce  the  disciples  to 
 repair  to  Galilee,  and  there  to  meet  Jesus,  according 
 to  His  promise  ? 
 
 In  short,  the  whole  question  in  respect  to  these 
 various  appearances  just  comes  to  this, — Are  we  to 
 allow  the  several  accounts  to  throw  light  on  one  an- 
 other ?  Or  are  we  to  regard  each  account  as  containing 
 all  that  each  Evangelist  believed  had  happened,  and 
 in  this  way  to  set  the  accounts  one  against  another  ? 
 Are  we  to  look  upon  each  account  as  a  partial  or  as  a 
 complete  account  ?  If  we  take  the  one  view,  we  shall 
 discern  unity  amidst  diversity ;  if  we  take  the  other, 
 we  shall  discover  contradiction.  It  rests  with  every 
 man  to  say  for  himself  which  view  he  will  take.  As 
 for  ourselves,  we  believe  that  these  accounts  were  not 
 designed  to  be  severally  complete ;  and  therefore,  in- 
 stead of  being  contradictory,  which  Strauss  insists 
 upon,  we  maintain  that  they  combine  in  bearing  one 
 and  the  same  testimony  to  the  risen  Lord,  who  in 
 various  ways  gave  to  His  disciples,  during  forty  days, 
 clear  and  decided  proofs  of  the  reality  of  His  resur- 
 rection. 
 
 Dismissing,  then,  these  objections,  on  which  Strauss 
 insists  so  keenly,  let  us  hear  what  further  he  has  to 
 say  on  the  same  head  : — 
 
 "  We  have,  besides,  the  following  secondary  contradic- 
 tions. According  to  I.uke  (xxiv.  i,  ff.),  Mary  Magdalene, 
 Mary  the  mother  of  James,  Joanna,  and  some  few  other 
 women,  go  to  the  sepulchre,  see  in  it  two  angels,  and  after 
 their  return  proclaim  to  the  Apostles  and  all  the  others  what 
 they  had  seen  and  heard;  according  to  Mark  (xvi.  i.  ff.), 
 only  three  women,  among  them  Salome  instead  of  Joanna, 
 
EVIDENCE   OF   THE   RESURRECTION.  297 
 
 take  this  course,  see  one  angel  in  the  sepulchre,  and  after- 
 \^  ards,  from  fear,  say  nothing  to  any  one ;  according  to 
 Matthew  (xxviii.  i,  fif.),  only  the  two  first-named  women 
 find  an  angel  sitting  on  the  stone  of  the  sepulchre  that  had 
 been  rolled  away,  and  afterwards  on  their  return  meet  with 
 Jesus  himself;  while  according  to  John  (xx.  i,  ff.),  it  was 
 Mary  Magdalene,  single  and  alone,  who  went  out,  and  on 
 the  first  occasion  saw  only  the  sepulchre  empty ;  and  then, 
 not  until  she  went  for  the  second  time,  saw  two  angels 
 sitting  in  the  sepulchre,  and  Jesus  himself  standing  behind 
 her.  Again,  Matthew  and  Mark  know  nothing  of  Luke's 
 account  (xxiv.  12)  of  Peter  having  gone  to  the  sepulchre  on 
 hearing  the  statement  of  the  women,  and  finding  it  empty, 
 while,  according  to  John  (xx.  2,  ff.),  the  other  disciple  also 
 went  with  him.  These  and  some  other  subordinate  discre- 
 pancies," adds  Strauss,  "  we  do  not  bring  prominently  for- 
 ward, as  even  without  them  it  is  sufficiently  clear  that  in  the 
 Evangelical  accounts  of  the  appearances  of  Jesus  after  the 
 resurrection,  we  have  no  evidence  of  such  a  character  as  to 
 compel  us  to  assume  that  the  unheard-of  facts  to  which  they 
 relate  must  really  have  taken  place,  rather  than  to  suppose 
 that  the  accounts  themselves  rest  upon  error." — Vol.  i.  p.  405. 
 
 With  respect  to  these  so-called  secondary  or  subor- 
 dinate contradictions,  a  very  few  remarks  will  be  all 
 that  is  necessary.  The  different  Evangelists  do  in- 
 deed mention  more  or  fewer  of  the  women  who  went 
 to  the  sepulchre ;  but  such  a  difference  in  a  detail  of 
 this  kind  creates  no  contradiction,  whether  primary 
 or  secondary.  None  of  them  professes  to  give  a  full 
 account.  John  mentions  only  Mary  Magdalene ;  but 
 from  an  incidental  expression  uttered  by  her — "  We 
 know  not  where  they  have  laid  Him  " — it  is  evident 
 that  there  had  been  others  with  her. 
 
 As  to  the  number  of  angels  alleged  to  have  been 
 
298  LECTURE   XII. 
 
 seen  by  the  women,  this  is  truly  a  minor  matter ;  for 
 whilst  Matthew  and  Mark  mention  only  one,  Luke 
 and  John  mention  two,  as  being  in  the  sepulchre.  The 
 difference  may  be  accounted  for  by  the  fair  supposi- 
 tion that  one  only  addressed  the  women,  and  that 
 there  is  special  reference  to  him  in  the  first  two  Evan- 
 gelists. Luke  and  John,  indeed,  represent  both  angels 
 as  speaking  ;  but  even  if  one  only  spoke,  such  a  mode 
 of  expressing  the  fact  is  by  no  means  unusual.  All 
 the  Evangelists  agree  in  bearing  testimony  that  one 
 or  two  angels  did  appear  within  the  sepulchre  on  that 
 wondrous  occasion.  But  Strauss  draws  an  unwar- 
 rantable conclusion  when  he  affirms  that  Matthew  re- 
 presents the  women  as  finding  the  angel  sitting  upon 
 the  stone,  and  then  on  their  return  meeting  with  Jesus 
 Himself  Matthew  does  not  assert  either  of  these  par- 
 ticulars. He  states  as  a  fact  that  "an  angel  of  the  Lord 
 descended  from  heaven,  and  came  and  rolled  back  the 
 stone  from  the  door,  and  sat  upon  it."  But  he  does 
 not  say  that  when  the  women  came  to  the  sepulchre 
 the  angel  was  still  sitting  there  ;  on  the  contrary,  from 
 what  he  says  to  the  women,  we  may  fairly  conclude 
 that  when  they  came  up  he  was  within  the  sepulchre. 
 Again,  as  we  have  oftener  than  once  stated, 
 Matthew  does  not  say  that  Jesus  appeared  to  the 
 women  as  they  were  returning  from  the  sepulchre 
 with  the  angelic  message ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  he 
 first  mentions  the  delivery  of  this  message,  and  then 
 records  His  appearance,  from  which  again  we  may 
 infer  that  this  appearance  took  place  subsequently  to 
 the  delivery  of  that  message.  Further,  John  does  not 
 say  that  Mary  Magdalene,  on  first  coming  to  the 
 sepulchre,  found  it  empty ;  on  the  contrary,  he  only 
 
EVIDENCE   OF   THE   RESURRECTION.  299 
 
 says  that  she  saw  that  the  stone  was  rolled  away ; 
 from  which  we  may  infer  that  she  immediately  con- 
 cluded that  the  body  of  Jesus  had  been  taken  away, 
 and  instantly  —  without  even  looking  into  the  se- 
 pulchre—  started  off  to  inform  Peter  and  the  other 
 disciple.  On  her  return,  we  are  told  that  she  stooped 
 down  into  the  sepulchre,  and  that  it  was  then  that 
 she  saw  two  angels  within  it.  Luke  mentions  that 
 Peter,  on  hearing  the  report — he  does  not  expressly 
 say  whether  from  Mary  Magdalene  alone  or  from 
 her  and  the  other  women — "  arose,  and  ran  unto  the 
 sepulchre."  John  mentions  that  it  was  Mary  Mag- 
 dalene who  brought  the  report  to  Peter  and  to  the 
 other  disciple,  and  that  both  immediately  ran  to  the 
 sepulchre.  There  is  additional  information  given  by 
 John,  which  enables  us  to  understand  more  clearly 
 what  took  place  ;  but  there  is  no  contradiction  be- 
 tween him  and  Luke. 
 
 Without  dwelling  further  on  these  details,  we  think 
 we  are  entitled  to  conclude  that  Strauss  fails  in  estab- 
 lishing these  secondary  contradictions,  just  as  he 
 failed  in  establishing  the  primary  ones  ;  and  that  we 
 are  warranted  in  still  regarding  the  Evangelical  ac- 
 counts of  the  appearances  of  Jesus  after  the  resurrec- 
 tion as  presenting  to  us  evidence  sufficient,  not  indeed 
 to  compel  us  to  believe  in  the  reality  of  these  mar- 
 vellous facts,  but  to  secure  our  belief,  unless  we  are 
 predetermined,  on  the  ground  of  some  assumption, 
 not  to  believe. 
 
 We  now  come  to  the  chief  argument  by  means  of 
 which  Strauss  concludes  against  the  Evangelical  ac- 
 counts as  not  furnishing  satisfactory  evidence  of  the 
 
300  LECTURE   XII. 
 
 reality  of  the  resurrection.  On  this  argument,  then, 
 we  must  bestow  the  most  careful  attention.  That  we 
 may  enter  thoroughly  into  its  scope,  we  must  remem- 
 ber that  Strauss  admits  that  "  the  first  disciples  firmly 
 believed  that  Jesus  had  risen."  This  point,  then,  is 
 not  in  question.  The  question  is,  On  what  did  that 
 belief  rest .?  Did  it  rest  on  an  objective  fact  ?  or  was 
 it  a  mere  subjective  impression  ^  Strauss,  you  will 
 remember,  finds  fault  with  the  Apostle  Paul  for  not 
 having,  as  he  thinks,  investigated  the  origin  of  the 
 belief  of  Cephas  and  the  others  whom  he  mentions  as 
 having  seen  the  Lord.  Paul  himself  had  also  seen  and 
 believed  ;  and  he  evidently  deemed  it  sufficient  when 
 he  said  that  these  others  too  had  seen.  But  Strauss 
 w^ill  not  admit  such  a  statement  to  be  sufficient.  The 
 Apostle  Paul,  we  know,  had  not  only  seen  but  also 
 heard  the  Lord ;  and  the  same  may  be  affirmed  of  all 
 the  others.  In  addition  to  the  sensible  evidence  of 
 sight,  they  all  had  the  sensible  evidence  of  hearing ; 
 and  the  belief  of  all  of  them  thus  rested  on  facts 
 which  appealed  to  their  senses.  But  Strauss  maintains 
 that  they  only  thought  that  they  saw  (for  he  dwells 
 almost  exclusively  on  the  supposed  evidence  of  st£-/a) 
 Jesus,  whilst  all  the  time  they  did  not  see  Him,  but 
 were  deluded  by  an  excited  imagination.  And  as  he 
 set  aside  Paul's  testimony  respecting  others,  and  will 
 by-and-by  set  aside  Paul's  testimony  respecting  him- 
 self as  having  seen  the  Lord — because  Paul  merely 
 states,  in  the  passage  referred  to  and  formerly  dis- 
 cussed, the  fact  itself,  and  does  not  enter  into  a  detail 
 of  what  happened  when  the  several  appearances  are 
 said  to  have  occurred— so  now  he  will  endeavour  to 
 set  aside  the  narratives  of  the  Evangelists  which  do 
 
EVDIENCE  OF   THE  RESURRECTION.  30I 
 
 enter  more  or  less  into  such  details  ;  and  having  done 
 this,  he  will  conclude  that  we  have  no  reliable  evidence 
 whatever  in  support  of  the  reality  of  the  resurrection  of 
 Jesus.  You  will  also  have  to  observe  that  the  argu- 
 ment which  Strauss  is  now  to  employ  is  in  no  way 
 affected  by  the  question  as  to  the  authorship  of  the 
 Gospels ;  for  it  is  from  the  contents  of  the  several 
 accounts  that  he  is  to  draw  the  substance  or  material 
 of  this  argument.  These  contents  are  of  course  alto- 
 gether independent  of  any  view  taken  of  the  authorship. 
 Let  us,  then,  endeavour  to  see  thoroughly,  first,  what  his 
 argument  is  ;  and,  secondly,  whether  the  conclusion 
 he  would  establish  by  means  of  it,  is  valid  or  other- 
 wise. I  shall  set  both  before  you  in  his  own  words, 
 although  the  passage  in  which  he  states  them  is  some- 
 what long.     It  is  as  follows  : — 
 
 "But  we  have  only  entered  upon  these  Evangelical  accounts 
 of  the  appearances  of  Jesus  after  his  resurrection,  in  order 
 to  discover  what  means  those  persons,  to  whom  they  are 
 supposed  to  have  been  imparted,  had  and  applied  to  convince 
 themselves  of  the  reality  of  these  appearances.  All  the  ac- 
 counts endeavour  to  show  how  the  eleven,  if  not  to  the  credit 
 of  their  faith  in  believing,  but  at  all  events  for  the  satisfaction 
 of  those  who  were  afterwards  to  trust  to  their  testimony, 
 were  anything  but  hasty  in  their  belief.  According  to  Luke, 
 they  considered  the  account  given  by  the  women  of  what 
 they  had  seen,  and  the  message  of  the  angel,  as  empty  talk 
 (xxiv.  11);  according  to  Mark,  they  gave  no  credit  to  the 
 disciples  who  had  gone  into  the  country,  who  declared  they 
 had  seen  Jesus  himself  (xvi.  12);  according  to  Matthew, 
 some  even  were  unbelievers  on  the  occasion  of  the  final 
 appearance  of  Jesus  in  Galilee  (Matt,  xxviii.  17),  at  which  we 
 cannot  be  surprised  if  he  appeared  to  them,  as,  according 
 to   Mark,  he  did   to   the   disciples   in   the   countr}^,  in   a 
 
302  LECTURE   XII. 
 
 changed  form.  The  means,  however,  by  which  at  last  the 
 doubts  of  the  disciples  were  satisfied,  and  they  brought 
 to  believe,  were,  according  to  Matthew  and  Mark,  simply 
 these.  Jesus  appeared  to  them  themselves,  approached 
 them,  and  spoke  to  them.  In  Luke,  he  finds  it  necessary  to 
 go  much  farther,  and  the  most  thorough  sceptic  whom  he 
 has  to  satisfy  is  John.  There  the  two  who  went  to  Emmaus 
 had  just  come  in  to  the  eleven,  and  been  by  them  received 
 with  the  intelligence  of  His  resurrection  and  the  appearance 
 imparted  to  Peter,  before  they  had  time  to  tell  of  their  own 
 meeting  with  Jesus,  when,  all  at  once,  Jesus  stood  in  the 
 midst  of  them.  As  they  were  still  afraid,  notwithstanding  that 
 information,  and  thought  they  had  seen  a  spirit,  Jesus  showed 
 them  his  hands  and  his  feet,  calling  upon  them  to  touch 
 him  and  convince  themselves  that  he  has  bone  and  flesh, 
 and  consequently  is  not  a  spirit;  and  as  they  cannot  believe 
 for  joy,  he  asked  whether  they  had  there  any  food,  and 
 immediately  partook  before  their  eyes  of  a  piece  of  fried  fish 
 and  some  honeycomb  (xxiv.  36,  ff.)  These  were  proofs 
 which  in  themselves  might  lead  to  the  supposition  of  a 
 natural  return  to  life  on  the  part  of  Jesus ;  but  he  had  im- 
 mediately before  vanished  from  table  before  the  eyes  of  the 
 Emmaus  disciples,  and  his  sudden  appearance  on  this 
 occasion  in  the  room  in  the  midst  of  the  disciples  points  to 
 a  supernatural  entrance.  But  here,  what  Luke  had  only 
 implied,  John  undoubtedly  declares  more  definitely,  when 
 he  says  that  Jesus  came  and  stood  in  the  middle  of  the 
 room,  when  the  doors  were  shut  (xx.  19,  20).  On  the  first 
 occasion  he  shows  his  hands  and  his  side,  only,  as  it  seems, 
 to  be  looked  at ;  on  the  second,  he  makes  Thomas  put  his 
 fingers  and  hand  in  the  marks  of  his  wounds.  To  this,  in 
 the  supplement  to  the  Gospel,  is  further  added  the  proof  by 
 eating  the  fried  fish  and  bread  (xxi.  5,  9,  12)." — Vol.  i. 
 p.  405-7. 
 
 Such  is  his  summary  of  the  contents  of  the  several 
 accounts  as  showing  the  means  by  which  the  disciples 
 
EVIDENCE   OF   THE   RESURRECTION.  303 
 
 were  convinced  of  the  reality  of  the  presence  of  Jesus, 
 and  therefore  of  His  resurrection.  Before  remarking 
 on  this  summary,  let  us  hear  the  argument  founded 
 on  these  contents,  and  the  conclusion  which  in  his 
 view  is  thus  established  : — 
 
 "  Now,  in  this  case,  if  the  eating  and  the  touching  were 
 historically  true,  it  could  not  be  doubtful  that  what  ap- 
 peared to  the  disciples  was  a  human  body  [?  being], 
 endowed  with  natural  Hfe  and  a  natural  body :  if  the 
 showing  and  feeling  of  the  marks  of  the  wounds  were  so, 
 there  could  be  as  Httle  doubt  that  the  human  being  was 
 the  Jesus  who  died  upon  the  cross :  finally,  if  the  entrance 
 with  closed  doors  were  true,  there  could  be  no  question 
 that  the  natural  corporeality  and  life  of  this  human  being 
 w^as  of  a  very  peculiar,  a  perfectly  supernatural  order. 
 But  then  we  have  two  things  coexisting  in  absolute  contra- 
 diction with  each  other.  A  body  which  can  be  touched, 
 consequently  has  power  of  resistance,  cannot  penetrate 
 through  closed  doors — that  is,  cannot  have  at  the  same 
 time  that  power  of  resistance ;  as,  conversely,  a  body  which 
 penetrates  through  boards  without  opposition  can  have  no 
 bones,  nor  any  organ  by  which  to  digest  bread  and  fish. 
 These  are  not  conditions  which  can  exist  together  in  a  real 
 being,  but  such  as  only  a  fantastic  imagination  can  combine 
 together.  The  Evangelical  testimony  in  favour  of  the  re- 
 surrection of  Jesus  endeavours  to  bring  forward  the  most 
 convincing  of  all  proofs ;  in  doing  so  it  breaks  to  pieces, 
 and  shows  itself  to  be  the  mere  result  of  a  wish  to  give 
 support  to  a  dogmatical  conception,  which,  so  soon  as  the 
 wish  ceases  to  exist,  collapses  for  want  of  any  support  at 
 all."— Vol.  i.  p.  407-8. 
 
 Such,  then,  is  the  great  argument,  and  such  is  the 
 conclusion  w^hich  Strauss  founds  upon  it — a  conclusion 
 which  subverts  all  rational  faith  in  the  reality  of  the 
 
304  LECTURE   XII. 
 
 resurrection  of  Jesus.  It  is  abundantly  evident  that 
 all  the  previous  discussions,  as  Strauss  himself  ex- 
 pressly allows,  were  only  preparatory  to  this  main, 
 this  final  argument,  by  means  of  which  he  manifestly 
 thinks  he  has  for  ever  annihilated  all  belief  in  that 
 event.  With  what  anxiety,  then,  should  we  examine 
 every  part  of  this  argument,  that  we  may  see  whether 
 it  really  possesses  that  force  which  it  unquestionably 
 appears  to  him  to  possess  ! 
 
 First,  then,  as  to  the  summary  which  Strauss  gives 
 of  the  contents  of  the  different  narratives  in  respect 
 to  the  grounds  on  which,  according  to  them,  the  dis- 
 ciples became  convinced  of  the  reality  of  the  presence, 
 and  therefore  of  the  resurrection,  of  Jesus,  we  have 
 no  desire  to  be  hypercritical.  But  we  think  that  it 
 would  have  become  Strauss  to  have  abstained  from 
 blending  with  that  summary  any  insinuations  of  arti- 
 fice on  the  part  of  the  Evangelists.  It  was  his  duty 
 to  present  that  summary  fairly  and  fully,  whatever 
 argument  he  might  have  already  in  his  mind  in  order 
 to  be  founded  upon  it ;  but  most  evident  it  is  that  the 
 statements  in  the  different  accounts  are  brought  to- 
 gether in  such  a  manner,  and  with  such  insinuations 
 of  artifice  on  the  part  of  the  Evangelists,  as  tend  to 
 impress  the  mind  of  the  reader  with  a  prejudged  con- 
 clusion. These  accounts  are,  according  to  him,  pur- 
 posely constructed  to  show  that  the  disciples  were  not 
 hasty  in  their  belief  What  would  Strauss  have  said 
 if  the  accounts  had  really  represented  them  as  hasty 
 in  their  belief?  Would  he  not  then  have  found  ground 
 for  an  argument  against  the  credit  to  be  ascribed  to 
 the  accounts  ?  Nothing  is  more  clear  than  that  it  is 
 utterly  impossible  to  satisfy  a  sceptical  spirit.     Let  a 
 
EVIDENCE  OF   THE   RESURRECTION.  305 
 
 narrative  give  what  statement  the  author  of  it  pleases 
 — that  spirit  will  ever  find  some  ground  or  other  on 
 which  to  fasten  a  charge.  Paul  is  blamed  for  only 
 affirming  as  a  fact  that  Jesus  was  seen  by  Cephas  and 
 others.  He  ought,  it  is  said,  to  have  investigated  and 
 stated  the  grounds  on  which  these  persons  believed 
 that  what  they  saw  was  real.  The  Evangelists  do  state 
 the  circumstances  which  occurred  on  different  occa- 
 sions when  Jesus  appeared  to  the  disciples  ;  and  their 
 accounts  are  summed  up  in  a  spirit  which  sees  only  in 
 this,  marks  of  artifice,  and  of  an  artifice  that  outwits 
 itself  Why  could  not  Strauss,  having,  as  he  all  along 
 thought,  so  triumphant  an  argument  before  him — an 
 argument  which  was  to  settle  the  matter  beyond  the 
 possibility  of  dispute — have  abstained  for  a  few  mo- 
 ments from,  manifesting  his  sceptical  and  ironical 
 spirit  ? 
 
 He  dwells  first  on  the  unbelief  which  the  accounts 
 attribute  to  the  disciples.  They  reject  the  testimony 
 of  the  w^omen ;  they  are  not  convinced  by  the  testi- 
 mony of  the  two  who  had  gone  to  Emmaus;  some 
 even  doubted  when  Jesus  appeared  to  the  assembled 
 disciples  in  Galilee ;  nay,  the  eleven  hardly  believe 
 when  Jesus  appears  in  the  midst  of  them ;  and 
 one  rejects  the  testimony  of  all  the  rest.  Matthew 
 and  Mark  represent  them  as  convinced  by  rather 
 simple  means.  Jesus  appears  to  them,  approaches 
 them,  and  speaks  to  them.  But  Luke  represents 
 them  as  needing  stronger  proofs  to  produce  convic- 
 tion. Jesus  requires  to  show  His  hands  and  His 
 feet,  to  ask  them  to  touch  Him,  and  to  feel  that  His 
 body  has  flesh  and  bones  ;  and  as  now  they  are  un- 
 believing for  joy  (how  true  to  human  nature   is  the 
 
 U 
 
306  LECTURE   XII. 
 
 Evangelist's  account !),  He  must  eat  before  them,  and 
 thus  remove  every  doubt  But  John,  whom  Strauss 
 dares  to  call  the  most  thorough  sceptic  of  all,  cannot 
 allow  conviction  of  the  reality  of  the  fact  to  seem  to 
 be  produced  except  by  supposing  one  who  resisted 
 the  combined  testimony  of  his  fellow -disciples,  to 
 attain  to  conviction  by  actually  putting  his  finger  and 
 his  hand  in  the  marks  of  the  wounds  which  the  body 
 of  Jesus  had  received  upon  the  cross.  All  this  is  mere 
 artifice,  according  to  Strauss  ;  and  he  presents  the 
 summary  of  the  contents  in  the  different  accounts  as 
 if  he  \vd.d.  proved,  instead  of  having  merely  asstinied,  in 
 virtue  of  his  own  scepticism,  that  such  was  the  case. 
 Why  demand  accounts  of  circumstances,  and  then 
 assail  these  accounts  in  such  a  spirit }  Prove  them  to 
 be  the  result  of  artifice,  and  then  assail  them  as  they 
 would  merit  to  be  assailed.  Again,  how  does  Strauss 
 know  that  those  who  doubted  when  Jesus  appeared 
 in  Galilee  were  of  the  eleven,  and  not  some  others 
 who  had  not  seen  Him  before  }  Matthew,  from  whom 
 alone  we  have  any  knowledge  of  the  circumstance, 
 makes  no  such  assertion.  It  is  only  fair  to  let  the 
 Evangelists  speak  for  themselves,  and  to  draw  no- 
 thing from  their  statements  but  what  these  expressly 
 affirm. 
 
 It  is  next  to  be  observed  that  Strauss  himself  ad- 
 mits that  if  the  Evangelical  accounts  contain  real 
 facts,  the  belief  of  the  disciples  in  the  reality  of  the 
 resurrection  of  Jesus  was  well  founded.  These  ac- 
 counts show  that  the  disciples  had  the  evidence  not 
 only  of  sight  but  of  hearing  and  touch — and  that  not 
 merely  on  one,  but  on  several  occasions — so  that  no 
 possible  room  for  doubt  existed  as  to  the  reality  of 
 
EVIDENCE   OF   THE   RESURRECTION.  307 
 
 the  appearances.  The  disciples  were  indeed  blam- 
 able  for  manifesting  such  a  spirit  of  unbelief  as  they 
 did  when  valid  testimony  was  given  them  of  the  re- 
 surrection of  Jesus  ;  but  this  circumstance  only  brings 
 out  more  fully  to  us  the  grounds  on  which  their  belief 
 was  at  length  secured.  Nothing  can  be  more  natural 
 — more  true  to  the  workings  of  human  nature  placed 
 in  such  extraordinary  circumstances — than  the  manner 
 in  which  the  Evangelists  describe  the  transition  on 
 the  part  of  the  disciples  from  doubts  and  unbelief  to 
 the  fulness  of  belief  No  ingenuity,  we  maintain, 
 could  have  contrived  such  a  description.  No  imagina- 
 tion would  have  dreamed  of  such  a  scene.  Every- 
 thing is  life-like.  All  exaggeration  is  absent ;  and 
 the  account  given  by  each  Evangelist  bears  truth  on 
 its  very  face.  What  can  possibly  be  more  according 
 to  nature  than  the  description  given  of  the  conduct 
 and  feelings  of  the  women  who  went  early  on  the 
 morning  of  the  first  day  of  the  week  to  anoint  the 
 body  of  their  crucified  Lord  ?  How  true  to  nature  is 
 the  account  of  Mary  Magdalene,  who,  the  moment 
 she  saw  the  stone  rolled  away,  immediately  concluded 
 that  the  body  had  been  removed,  and  started  off  to 
 convey  the  intelligence  to  Peter  and  John  !  How  true 
 to  nature  the  description  given  of  the  feelings  of  the 
 two  to  whom,  on  their  way  to  Emmaus,  Jesus  ap- 
 peared, after  they  came  to  the  knowledge  that  it  was 
 indeed  He  who  had  joined  their  company  and  opened 
 to  them  the  Scriptures !  Nay,  how  true  to  nature  is 
 the  conduct,  blamable  as  it  was,  of  the  unbelieving 
 Thomas,  who  refused  to  believe  unless  he  also  should 
 receive  sensible  evidence !  In  short,  every  scene  de- 
 scribed in  these  accounts  is  such  as  to  convince  us 
 
308  LECTURE   XII. 
 
 that  we  have  here  no  product  of  fraud  or  of  fiction, 
 but  descriptions  of  events  which  actually  took  place. 
 
 There  are  also  omissions  of  things  which  it  is  easy 
 to  conceive  would  have  been  introduced  in  some  way 
 or  other,  had  these  accounts  been  framed  by  artifice 
 or  produced  by  imagination.  Is  it  possible  to  con- 
 ceive that  no  mention  of  one  in  particular — of  her 
 whom  He  addressed  when  hanging  on  the  cross,  and 
 whom  He  then  commended  to  the  care  of  the  beloved 
 disciple — would  have  been  found  in  any  of  the  ac- 
 counts ?  She  is  not  mentioned  among  the  women. 
 No  doubt  she  is  abiding  in  silence  and  sorrow  in  the 
 home  of  that  disciple  ;  and  there  can  surely  be  as  little 
 doubt  that  she  once  again  saw  alive  Him  to  whom  in 
 His  human  nature  she  gave  birth.  Yet  her  name 
 never  occurs  in  these  narratives.  We  only  read  of 
 her  as  being  present  in  the  meeting  of  the  disciples 
 after  His  ascension. 
 
 But  to  return  to  the  main  subject.  These  narra- 
 tives state  the  grounds  on  which  the  belief  of  the  first 
 disciples  rested  that  they  had  seen  Jesus  alive  after 
 He  was  put  to  death.  Strauss  deemed  the  account 
 of  the  Apostle  Paul  unsatisfactory  for  the  very  reason 
 that  it  contains  a  mere  affirmation  that  Jesus  had 
 been  seen  by  Cephas,  by  the  twelve,  by  the  more  than 
 five  hundred,  by  James,  and  by  the  Apostles.  And 
 now  he  has  accounts  which  not  merely  affirm  that 
 Jesus  was  seen  on  various  occasions  and  by  disciples, 
 both  singly  and  collectively,  but  also  minutely  detail 
 what  occurred  at  these  appearances,  so  as  to  convince 
 the  eyewitnesses  that  He  whom  they  saw  stood  really 
 before  them,  and  that  He  was  the  very  Jesus  who  had 
 died  upon  the  cross.     Is  Strauss  now  satisfied  .'*    Does 
 
EVIDENCE   OF   THE   RESURRECTION.  309 
 
 he  now  admit  that  what  was  wanting  in  Paul's  ac- 
 count is  amply  given  in  these  accounts  ?  Does  he 
 now  proclaim  his  belief  in  the  reality  of  the  resurrec- 
 tion of  Jesus,  and,  like  Thomas,  acknowledge  Him  to 
 be  his  Lord  and  his  God  ?  Or  does  his  former  scep- 
 ticism still  prevail,  and  discover  some  method  of  evad- 
 ing the  force  of  the  very  evidence  which  he  professed 
 to  demand  ?  The  latter,  we  regret  to  say,  is  the  case. 
 He  is  in  search  of  some  ground  on  which  to  rest  his 
 unbelief,  and,  as  will  ever  happen  in  such  a  case,  he 
 thinks  that  he  detects,  in  the  very  accounts  themselves, 
 a  ground  for  unbelief  which  it  is  impossible  to  remove. 
 He  discovers  what  he  terms  an  absolute  contradiction 
 in  what  these  accounts  say  respecting  tJie  body  of  the 
 risen  Jesns. 
 
 There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Strauss  really  regards 
 the  statements  in  the  Evangelical  narratives  respect- 
 ing the  body  of  Jesus  as  presenting  such  a  contradic- 
 tion as  he  terms  absolute,  and  that  all  his  previous 
 discussions  were  conducted  with  an  eye  ever  looking 
 forward  to  his  concluding  argument  on  this  head.  He 
 states  this  argument  in  the  most  formal  manner,  and, 
 viewing  it  as  he  states  it,  the  conclusion  seems  irre- 
 sistible. This  conclusion  is  expressed  in  the  most 
 triumphant  manner  : — 
 
 "  The  Evangelical  testimony  in  favour  of  the  resurrection 
 of  Jesus  endeavours  to  bring  forward  the  most  convincing 
 of  all  proofs;  in  doing  so  it  breaks  to  pieces  and  shows 
 itself  to  be  the  mere  result  of  a  wish  to  give  support  to  a 
 dogmatical  conception,  which,  so  soon  as  the  wish  ceases  to 
 exist,  collapses  for  want  of  any  support  at  all." 
 
 Here,  then,  we  are  brought  to  a  decisive  point.  Let 
 us  calmly  and  impartially  weigh  the  argument,  and 
 
310  LECTURE   XII. 
 
 see  whether  it  is  valid  or  not — whether  we  must,  like 
 Strauss,  reject  the  Evangelical  testimony  as  containing 
 in  itself  evidence  of  its  own  worthlessness,  or  whether 
 that  testimony  still  remains  valid  and  sufficient. 
 
 The  alleged  contradiction,  you  must  have  observed 
 from  the  passage  which  we  quoted,  consists  in  the  re- 
 presentations given  by  the  Evangelists  respecting  the 
 risen  body  of  Jesus.  At  one  time  that  body  is  re- 
 presented as  a  natural  body,  as  capable  of  being  seen 
 and  touched,  even  of  eating  food  ;  at  another  time  it 
 is  represented  as  of  a  perfectly  supernatural  order,  as 
 penetrating  through  closed  doors,  as  suddenly  appear- 
 ing and  suddenly  vanishing.  Such  representations  of 
 the  same  body  contain  an  absolute  contradiction,  for 
 they  suppose  "  conditions  which  cannot  exist  together 
 in  a  real  being,  but  such  as  only  a  fantastic  imagina- 
 tion can  combine  together."  Such  is  Strauss's  argu- 
 ment. 
 
 Now,  be  it  observed  that  we  regard  all  attempts 
 to  explain  away  the  literal  interpretation  of  the 
 Evangelical  accounts  on  this  subject  as  wholly  futile. 
 Jesus  did  suddenly  appear  in  the  midst  of  the  dis- 
 ciples when  they  were  assembled  in  a  room,  the 
 doors  of  which  were  shut.  Jesus  did  suddenly  with- 
 draw Himself  when,  after  breaking  the  bread,  He  made 
 Himself  known  to  the  two  who  reclined  with  Him  at 
 the  table.  Although  it  is  not  expressly  stated,  Jesus, 
 we  believe,  rose  from  the  tomb  before  the  stone  was 
 rolled  away  from  its  entrance.  Jesus  appeared  in  the 
 body  when  He  pleased,  and  when  He  pleased  He 
 disappeared  from  all  mortal  view.  Yet  when  He  ap- 
 peared, that  body  in  which  He  appeared  was  the  very 
 body  which  had  been  nailed  to  the  cross,  and  laid  in 
 
EVIDENCE   OF   THE   RESURRECTION.  3II 
 
 Joseph's  tomb ;  and  He  spoke  and  ate,  and  was 
 visible  to  the  sight  and  palpable  to  the  touch.  His 
 body,  thus  seen  and  touched,  was  a  real  body.  Finally, 
 He  disappeared  bodily,  and  ascended  to  the  Father's 
 right  hand. 
 
 We  must  not  evade  the  force,  whatever  it  be,  of 
 Strauss's  argument,  by  fastening  untenable  interpreta- 
 tions on  the  statements  in  the  Evangelical  testimony. 
 We  must  take  these  statements  exactly  as  they  are 
 presented  to  us.  Where,  then,  is  the  defect,  if  defect 
 there  be,  in  our  objector's  argument  ?  Or,  what 
 amounts  to  the  same,  what  is  it  that  imparts  to  it 
 all  its  apparent  force  .''  The  argument  is  based  on  that 
 assumption  which  from  the  outset  has  been  avowed 
 by  him,  and  has  never  been  lost  sight  of — an  assump- 
 tion which  contains  in  itself  the  very  conclusion  which 
 all  the  subsequent  reasoning  is  professedly  meant  to 
 establish — the  assumption  t/iat  Jesus  was  only  a  man; 
 that  Jesns  is  not  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  God ;  that  the 
 life  of  Jesns  must  in  all  essential  respects  resemble  the 
 life  of  any  ordinary  man  ;  that,  therefore,  He  conld  do 
 nothing  but  what  any  such  man  may  do.  This  is  the  one 
 assumption  with  which  Strauss  sets  out  in  the  task 
 which  he  undertook  ;  and  it  is  this  assumption  that  is 
 the  very  foundation  of  this,  the  great  argument  with 
 which  he,  in  apparent  triumph,  closes  his  elaborate  dis- 
 cussion of  the  evidence  in  support  of  the  resurrection 
 of  Jesus.  If  Jesus  was  only  a  man,  the  argument  is 
 unassailable ;  but,  indeed,  no  argument  at  all  was 
 required  ;  for  if  He  were  only  a  man,  then  the  whole 
 Gospel  is  based  on  a  falsehood,  for  it  emphatically 
 proclaims  Him  to  be  the  Son  of  God  as  well  as  the 
 Son  of  Man. 
 
312  LECTURE   XII. 
 
 Now,  it  is  surely  evident  that,  in  reasoning  about 
 the  evidence  in  support  of  the  claims  of  Jesus,  we  are 
 bound,  not  indeed  to  assume  that  these  claims  are 
 established,  but  to  look  at  the  evidence  in  the  light  of 
 these  claims.  The  evidence  supposes  these  claims  to 
 be  valid,  and  is  given  in  order  to  sustain  their  validity. 
 We  must,  therefore,  unquestionably,  in  all  fairness, 
 remember  these  claims  when  we  are  looking  at  and 
 weighing  the  evidence.  If  we  discover  aught  incon- 
 sistent with  these  claims,  this  will  militate  against 
 them  ;  but  we  are  not  entitled  to  set  aside  evidence 
 in  support  of  these  claims  merely  because  this  evi- 
 dence presents  what  is  in  harmony  with  them.  This 
 is  the  fundamental  error  which  pervades  the  whole  of 
 Strauss's  work  ;  and  it  is  the  error  which  lies  at  the 
 basis  of  this  argument  against  the  reality  of  the 
 resurrection.  He  insists  on  viewing  Jesus  in  His 
 advent,  His  ministry.  His  death.  His  resurrection,  and 
 His  ascension,  merely  as  a  human  being ;  and  upon  this 
 supposition  he  very  easily  constructs  arguments  against 
 His  miracles,  His  sinlessness.  His  resurrection,  and 
 His  ascension.  He  supposes  a  mere  human  being. 
 Now,  it  needs  no  elaborate  reasoning  to  prove  that 
 these  things  cannot  be  predicated  of  any  mere  human 
 being,  and  therefore,  according  to  him,  cannot  be  pre- 
 dicated of  the  man  called  Jesus.  But  it  is  surely  mani- 
 fest that  such  a  mode  of  reasoning  is  merely  an  attempt 
 to  evade  the  solemn  question  which  the  claims  of 
 Jesus,  be  they  good  or  be  they  bad,  present  to  our 
 consideration.  That  question  is,  Does  the  evidence 
 furnished  to  us  support  these  claims  or  not  .'*  Jesus 
 claims  to  be  the  Son  of  God.  Does  His  life — do  His 
 works — does  all  that  He  says  and  does  and  suffers — 
 
EVIDENCE   OF   THE  RESURRECTION.  313 
 
 correspond  with  such  a  high  claim,  or  do  they  not  ? 
 That,  and  that  alone,  is  the  question  ;  and  we  repeat, 
 that  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  his  work  Strauss 
 evades  it,  never  touches  it ;  but  reasons  all  along  to 
 support  a  foregone  conclusion — an  assumption  prior  to 
 all  proof — that  Jesus  is  not  the  Son  of  God. 
 
 Now,  to  come  to  the  argument  before  us,  we  fully 
 admit  that  Jesus,  who  claims  to  be  the  Son  of  God, 
 was  truly  Man — that  His  body  was  a  real,  a  natural 
 body — and  also  that  He  had  a  rational  soul.  But 
 according  to  His  claim.  He  had  also  a  divine,  a  really 
 divine  nature.  We  are  not  required  to  comprehend 
 this  alleged  union  of  the  divine  and  human  natures 
 which  coexisted  in  Jesus  ;  but  we  must  not  forget 
 His  claim  to  possess  such  a  union  of  these  natures 
 when  we  contemplate  Him  as  presented  to  us  in  the 
 Gospels.  Now,  is  there  aught  inconsistent  with  this 
 claim,  when  we  find  in  these  Gospels  that  He  had  a 
 power  over  His  human  body  which  no  ordinary  man 
 possesses  ^  Is  the  alleged  possession  of  such  a  power 
 inconsistent  with  His  claims .''  That  it  is  inconsistent 
 with  the  supposition  that  He  was  only  a  man,  needs 
 no  proof  But,  we  repeat,  that  is  not  the  question. 
 The  real  question  before  us  is  this :  Is  the  alleged 
 possession  of  such  a  power  over  His  body  inconsistent 
 with  His  claim  to  be  the  Son  of  God  as  well  as  the 
 Son  of  Man  ?  Who  can  tell  what  power  such  a  being, 
 if  Jesus  was  such,  could  exert  over  His  human  frame.'* 
 Not,  indeed,  a  power  to  work  contradictions  with  that 
 body — that  is,  to  make  it  visible  and  invisible  at  one 
 and  the  same  moment ;  but  to  allow  it  to  be  visible  at 
 one  moment  and  invisible  at  another :  not  to  make  it 
 palpable  and  impalpable  at  one  and  the  same  moment, 
 
314  LECTURE   XII. 
 
 but  to  render  it  palpable  on  one  occasion,  and  to  with- 
 draw it  from  mortal  touch  on  another  ;  not  that  this 
 body  should  at  one  and  the  same  time  have  the  power 
 of  resistance  and  be  without  that  power,  but  that  at 
 one  time  it  should  exert  such  a  power,  and  at  another 
 cease  to  exert  it  at  His  will.  Even  during  His 
 ministry  we  find  that  Jesus  possessed  such  a  power 
 over  His  body,  and  that  on  certain  occasions  He 
 proved  His  possession  of  this  power.  He  could 
 withdraw  Himself  miraculously  from  the  presence 
 of  His  enemies.  He  could  walk  on  the  waves  of 
 the  sea.  His  body  on  one  occasion  was  transfigured, 
 and  shone  forth  in  glorious  brightness.  No  mere 
 man  could  exhibit  such  a  power ;  but  in  Jesus  the 
 fulness  of  the  Godhead  dwelt  bodily ;  and  the  exer- 
 tion of  such  divine  power  must  be  viewed  as  only 
 consistent  with  His  wondrous  claims. 
 
 That  Jesus  at  His  resurrection  and  after  His  re- 
 surrection, during  the  period  when  He  appeared  to 
 His  disciples,  should  manifest  in  greater  measure  this 
 divine  power,  seems  to  us  to  be  only  consistent  with 
 His  claims  and  with  the  great  purpose  which  He, 
 having  at  His  death  finished  His  work  upon  earth, 
 had  now  in  view.  This  purpose  evidently  was  to 
 establish  the  faith  of  the  disciples  in  the  reality  of 
 His  resurrection,  to  raise  their  conceptions  of  His 
 exalted  nature,  and  to  prepare  them  for  the  work  in 
 which  He  was  now  to  employ  them.  How  He  could 
 raise  His  body,  as  He  did,  from  the  tomb  ;  how  He 
 could  appear  in  that  raised  body,  and  withdraw  Him- 
 self from  mortal  sight  as  He  did  ;  how  He  could  sud- 
 denly stand  before  His  disciples  when  assembled,  and 
 submit  His  body  to  be  handled  as  He  did  ;  and  then, 
 
EVIDENCE   OF   THE   RESURRECTION.  315 
 
 as  suddenly,  in  all  probability,  disappear  from  their 
 presence  ;  how  He  held  intercourse  with  the  disciples 
 during  the  forty  days,  and  yet  maintained  that  solemn 
 reserve,  if  we  may  use  such  a  term,  as  to  His  habitual 
 presence,  as  to  Avhere,  in  short.  He  was,  when  not  actu- 
 ally present  before  them — all  this  we  know  not ;  and  is 
 it  not  wonderful  that  these  accounts  make  no  attempt 
 to  inform  us  on  these  points  ?  The  Evangelists  are 
 silent  on  all  such  matters,  and  yet  they  could  not  but 
 have  thought  about  them,  for  the  very  statements  in 
 their  accounts'  suggest  them  to  us,  and  must  have 
 suggested  them  to  their  own  minds.  Their  silence  in 
 respect  to  all  such  inscrutable  matters  is  to  us  no 
 slight  proof  of  the  truth  of  their  narratives,  as  it  is 
 also  no  slight  proof  that  in  writing  these  narratives 
 they  were  restrained  from  all  attempts  to  explain  what 
 the  human  mind  cannot  comprehend,  by  a  power  and 
 a  wisdom  higher  than  their  own. 
 
 We  meet,  then,  the  triumphant  argument  of  Strauss, 
 first,  by  the  remark  that  he  builds  it  on  the  assumption 
 that  Jesus  was  a  mere  human  being,  which,  according 
 to  His  claims,  He  was  not ;  and,  secondly,  by  the 
 affirmation  that  Jesus,  contemplated  according  to  His 
 claims,  exerted  a  power  over  His  body  both  during 
 His  ministry,  and  specially  at  and  after  His  resurrec- 
 tion, which,  though  not  possessed  by  any  mere  man, 
 is  perfectly  consistent  with  His  claim  of  being  the 
 Son  of  God.  The  absolute  contradiction  with  which 
 Strauss  charges  the  Evangelical  testimony  is  based  on 
 an  assumption ;  and  when  this  assumption  ceases  to 
 exist,  the  contradiction  vanishes,  and  the  Evangelical 
 testimony  stands  forth  in  all  its  clearness,  validity, 
 and  force. 
 
LECTURE     XIII. 
 
 STRAUSS   ON   THE  APPEARANCE   OF   CHRIST   TO 
 ST   PAUL. 
 
 In  his  next  section,  Strauss  proceeds  to  refute  the 
 theory  which  has  been  advanced  by  some  professed 
 friends  of  the  Gospel,  that  the  alleged  resurrection  of 
 Jesus  was  a  natural  revival.  This  theory,  which  is 
 indeed  so  obviously  opposed  to  the  clear  testimony  of 
 Jesus  Himself  and  of  His  Apostles  that  it  is  scarcely 
 worthy  of  notice,  not  to  say  of  serious  refutation,  has 
 been  and  still  is  propounded  by  some  who  are  willing 
 to  acknowledge  Jesus  as  a  great  moral  and  religious 
 Teacher,  but  at  the  same  time  desire  to  explain  away 
 all  that  is  recorded  of  a  miraculous  nature  in  His  life, 
 death,  and  resurrection.  These  persons  attempt  to 
 ground  their  theory  on  the  assumption,  which  is  so 
 far  true,  that  crucifixion  was  a  mode  of  punishment 
 which  killed  very  slowly,  and  that  as  Jesus  was  taken 
 down  from  the  cross  after  He  had  hung  there  only  for 
 a  few  hours,  "  there  is  every  probability  of  His  sup- 
 posed death  having  been  only  a  death-like  swoon, 
 from  which,  after  the  descent  from  the  cross.  He 
 recovered  again  in  the  cool  cavern,  covered  as  He 
 was  with  healing  ointments  and  strongly- scented 
 spices."  *  Strauss,  whilst  he  maintains,  as  we  have 
 *  Vol.  i.  p.  410. 
 
ON   THE   APPEARANCE   TO   ST   PAUL.  317 
 
 seen,  that  the  Evangehcal  accounts  do  not  afford 
 satisfactory  evidence  of  the  reahty  of  the  resurrec- 
 tion of  Jesus,  rejects  the  theory  of  a  natural  revival 
 on  the  part  of  Jesus,  on  the  ground  that  there  is  no 
 certain  proof  contained  in  these  accounts  that  Jesus 
 showed  Himself  alive  after  His  crucifixion.  Strauss 
 saw  clearly  enough,  that  were  he  to  admit,  as  a  fact 
 attested  by  the  Evangelists,  that  Jesus  did  show  Him- 
 self alive  after  that  event,  he  would  be  compelled  by 
 the  same  testimony  to  admit  the  reality  of  the  resur- 
 rection, inasmuch  as  the  attempt  is  manifestly  futile 
 to  explain  the  origin  of  the  belief  of  the  disciples  in 
 the  resurrection  by  means  of  the  theory  of  a  mere 
 revival  from  a  death-like  swoon. 
 
 "  It  is  quite  evident,"  he  says,  "  that  this  view  of  the  re- 
 surrection of  Jesus,  apart  from  the  difficulties  in  which  it  is 
 involved,  does  not  even  solve  the  problem  which  is  here 
 under  consideration  :  the  origin,  that  is,  of  the  Christian 
 Church  by  faith  in  the  miraculous  resurrection  of  the  Mes- 
 siah. It  is  impossible,"  he  justly  adds,  "  that  a  being  who 
 had  stolen  half-dead  out  of  the  sepulchre,  who  crept  about 
 weak  and  ill,  wanting  medical  treatment,  who  required 
 bandaging,  strengthening,  and  indulgence,  and  who  still, 
 at  last,  yielded  to  his  sufferings,  could  have  given  to  the 
 disciples  the  impression  that  he  was  a  Conqueror  over 
 death  and  the  grave,  the  Prince  of  Life — an  impression 
 which  lay  at  the  bottom  of  their  future  ministry.  Such  a 
 resuscitation  could  only  have  weakened  the  impression 
 which  he  had  made  upon  them  in  life  and  in  death — at  the 
 most  could  only  have  given  it  an  elegiac  voice,  but  could 
 by  no  possibility  have  changed  their  sorrow  into  enthu- 
 siasm, have  elevated  their  reverence  into  worship." — Vol.  i. 
 p.  412. 
 
 Strauss  thus  refutes   the  theory  of  these  so-called 
 
3l8  LECTURE   XIII. 
 
 Rationalists ;  and  whilst  we  do  not  admit  every  argu- 
 ment which  he  employs  in  his  refutation,  yet  most 
 assuredly  we  agree  in  his  conclusion  that  such  a 
 theory  is  altogether  baseless.  We  pass  on,  then,  to 
 the  consideration  of  his  succeeding  section,  in  which 
 a  matter  of  deep  importance  is  subjected  to  dis- 
 cussion. 
 
 This  section  is  entitled  "  The  Appearance  of  Christ 
 to  the  Apostle  Paul."  You  will  remember  that  Strauss 
 formerly  considered  the  testimony  of  this  Apostle  to 
 the  resurrection  of  Jesus  as  given  in  his  First  Epistle 
 to  the  Church  at  Corinth,  and  that  he  laboured  hard 
 to  deprive  that  clear  and  decided  testimony  of  all  its 
 weight.  He  found  fault  with  the  Apostle,  you  will 
 remember,  for  having  only  stated  that  Jesus  was  seen 
 alive  after  His  death  by  Cephas,  by  the  twelve,  by  the 
 more  than  five  hundred  brethren  at  once,  by  James, 
 and  then  by  all  the  Apostles,  and  for  not  having  in- 
 vestigated the  grounds  on  which  these  persons  rested 
 their  belief  that  they  had  seen  Jesus.  He  even,  you 
 will  also  remember,  questioned  if  Paul  was  inclined 
 or  able  to  make  such  an  investigation  ;  and  he  pur- 
 posely reserved  for  future  discussion  Paul's  statement 
 respecting  himself,  that  he  also  had  seen  Jesus.  We 
 formerly  remarked  on  Strauss's  capricious  and  frivol- 
 ous dealing  with  this  Apostle's  testimony  respecting 
 those  whom  he  specially  mentions.  We  need  not 
 repeat  our  remarks,  and  we  therefore  now  proceed  to 
 the  consideration  of  what  Strauss  has  to  say  against 
 the  Apostle's  testimony  respecting  the  great  event  of 
 which  he  himself  was  an  eyewitness,  and  which  had 
 been  the  means  of  his  own  conversion  to  the  faith  of 
 
ON   THE   APPEARANCE   TO   ST   PAUL.  319 
 
 Christ.  The  subject  is  one  of  the  highest  moment  in 
 various  respects,  and  therefore  we  entreat  your  patient 
 attention,  whilst  we  shall  first  allow  Strauss  to  speak 
 for  himself,  and  then  endeavour  to  form  a  due  esti- 
 mate of  what  he  alleges.  This  is,  we  confess,  a 
 tedious  task ;  but,  on  the  whole,  it  is  the  only  mode 
 of  procedure  which  can  be  thoroughly  satisfactory. 
 Let  us  patiently  hear  all  that  our  objector  has  to 
 say,  and  then  we  shall  be  in  full  possession  of  his 
 arguments,  and  in  circumstances  which  will  enable  us 
 duly  to  appreciate  them. 
 
 Strauss  thus  begins  this  part  of  his  dissertation  : — 
 
 "  In  what  was  said  above,  after  stating  what  we  learn 
 from  the  Apostle  Paul,  speaking  in  the  main,  presumably, 
 on  the  authority  of  eyewitnesses,  about  the  appearance  of 
 Jesus  after  his  resurrection,  we  turned  to  the  narratives  of 
 the  Evangelists  upon  the  same  subject,  in  order  to  discover 
 more  accurately  what  was  not  to  be  gathered  from  the  short 
 notices  of  the  Apostle,  upon  what  the  conviction  of  these 
 eyewitnesses  may  have  rested,  that  they  had  really  seen 
 Jesus  after  he  had  risen  again.  But  we  did  not  find  what 
 we  sought  for.  Independent  of  the  fact  of  which  we  were 
 already  aware,  that  we  had  no  certainty  in  the  case  of  any 
 one  of  the  Evangelists  that  he  tells  what  he  had  learned 
 from  either  the  oral  statements  or  the  notes  of  eyewitnesses, 
 we  may  say  that  they  do  indeed  go  more  into  detail  than 
 Paul ;  but  their  accounts  stand,  in  the  first  place,  in  direct 
 contradiction  with  each  other,  and,  in  the  next  place,  what 
 they  tell  us  is  so  inconsistent  with  itself  that  we  cannot 
 trust  it,  but  find  ourselves  referred  back  to  the  Apostle 
 Paul." — Vol.  i.  p.  412-3. 
 
 These  assertions  on  the  part  of  Strauss  we  have,  we 
 think,  sufficiently  confuted.  We  have  shown  that  the 
 Evangelical  accounts   contain  the  testimony  of  eye- 
 
320  LECTURE   XIII. 
 
 witnesses — that  these  accounts  do  not  contradict  one 
 another — and  that  what  they  tell  us  is  not  inconsistent 
 with  itself  when  we  take  all  the  data  of  the  Christian 
 problem  into  view ;  but  that,  on  the  contrary,  there  is 
 such  an  agreement  in  these  independent  accounts,  that 
 they  support  one  another,  and  that  the  alleged  incon- 
 sistency springs   entirely  from   the  fact  that   Strauss 
 leaves  altogether  out  of  view  the  main  element  of  the 
 question — the  claim  of  Jesus  to  be  the  Son   of  God. 
 Strauss   begs  the  very   point   in    dispute,   and   then 
 brings  the  charge  of  inconsistency ;  whereas  we,  not 
 indeed  assuming  that  point  as  proved,  but  only  taking 
 it  into  consideration  as  an  element  in  the  question, 
 perceive  that  what  is  related  is  only  in  harmony  with 
 such  a  claim.     The  principle  on  which  we  proceed  is 
 this,  that  Jesus,  claiming  to  be  the  Son  of  God,  must 
 be  viewed  in  relation  to  such  a  claim ;  whilst  Strauss 
 proceeds  on  the  opposite  principle,  that  Jesus,  though 
 claiming  to  be  the  Son  of  God,  must  yet  act  as  only 
 the  Son  of  Man.     These  are  the  two  opposed  prin- 
 ciples, on  the  one  or  other  of  which  the  whole  dis- 
 cussion must  proceed.     It  is  for  every  man  to  decide 
 for  himself  whether  he  will    adopt   the   one  or  the 
 other.     We  have  already  stated  our  reasons   for  re- 
 garding the  one  principle  as  the  only  fair  one  to  guide 
 our  discussion.     That  principle  is,  that  Jesus   cannot 
 be  regarded  as  acting  inconsistently,  when  what  He 
 does   is   only  consistent  with  what   He  claims  to  be. 
 The  other  principle  assumes  that  He  is  not  what  He 
 claims  to   be,   and  therefore   involves  the  conclusion 
 which  it  is  sought  to  establish.     You  cannot  too  tho- 
 roughly understand  this  preliminary  point,  for  upon  it 
 hangs  the  whole  result.     Assume  that  Jesus  is  only  a 
 
ON   THE  APPEARANCE   TO   ST   PAUL.  $2 1 
 
 man,  and  the  whole  inquiry  Into  the  truth  of  His  claims 
 becomes  useless.  Assume,  not  as  proved,  but  as  an 
 element  In  the  problem  to  be  solved,  that  He  Is  the 
 Son  of  God,  and  then  you  will  see  whether  what  He 
 does  is  inconsistent  with  such  a  claim  or  not.  The 
 inquiry  is  still  open.  No  conclusion  is  assumed  as 
 established  ;  and  we  are  able,  without  prejudice,  to 
 Investigate  the  whole  question.  The  importance  of 
 this  point  is  constantly  present  to  us,  and  we  are 
 therefore  forced  to  recall  It  at  every  step  to  your 
 special  notice. 
 
 Strauss  now  goes  back  to  complete  his  discussion 
 of  the  testimony  of  St  Paul. 
 
 "  If  we  look  more  closely,"  says  he,  "  at  what  he  says,  we 
 see  that  we  turned  away  from  his  statements  with  so  little 
 satisfaction  from  them,  because  we  did  not  allow  the 
 Apostle  to  speak  out.  He  speaks,  indeed,  not  merely  of 
 the  appearances  of  Christ,  which  Cephas  and  James,  the 
 twelve  and  the  five  hundred  saw,  but,  '  and  last  of  all,'  he 
 adds,  '  he  was  seen  of  me,  too,  as  of  one  bom  out  of  due 
 time '  (i  Cor.  xv.  8).  With  regard  to  the  appearance 
 which  he  witnessed,  he  uses  the  same  expression  as  with 
 regard  to  the  others ;  he  places  it  in  the  same  category  with 
 them,  only  in  the  last  place,  as  he  names  himself  the  last  of 
 the  apostles,  but  in  exactly  the  same  rank  with  the  others. 
 Thus  much,  therefore,  Paul  knew  or  supposed — that  the 
 appearances  which  the  elder  disciples  had  seen  soon  after 
 the  resurrection  of  Jesus  had  been  of  the  same  kind  as  that 
 which  had  been,  only  later,  vouchsafed  to  himself  Of  what 
 sort,  then,  was  this?" — Vol.  I.  p.  413. 
 
 Now,  there  can  be  no  objection  to  this  statement  of 
 the  case,  provided  we  remember  what  the  accounts 
 plainly  tell  us,  that  the  circumstances  in  which  Jesus  ap- 
 peared to  the  elder  disciples  were  quite  different  from 
 
 X 
 
322  LECTURE   XIII. 
 
 those  in  which  He  appeared  to  Saul  the  persecutor. 
 The  former  appearances  took  place  befoi'e  His  ascen- 
 sion to  the  Father ;  the  latter  took  place  after  that 
 event.  They  agreed  in  this,  that  they  were  all  real 
 appearances,  but  in  several  respects  they  were  neces- 
 sarily different.  The  main  point,  however,  at  present 
 is,  as  Strauss  has  stated  it,  to  determine  the  nature  of 
 the  appearance  to  him  who,  from  being  a  persecutor, 
 became  the  great  Apostle  to  the  Gentile  world. 
 
 ^'  It  is  well  known,"  continues  Strauss,  "  that  we  have  of 
 it,  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  a  detailed,  indeed  a  threefold 
 account  (ix.  1-30,  xxii.  1-2 1,  xxvi.  4-23),  which  certainly  tells 
 of  an  external,  sensible  appearance,  of  a  light  from  heaven, 
 which  threw  Paul  to  the  ground  and  blinded  him  for  some 
 days,  a  voice  from  heaven  which  spoke  to  him  intelligible 
 words,  and  was  heard  by  those  who  accompanied  him." — 
 Vol.  i.  p.  414. 
 
 Strauss  here  admits  that  this  detailed,  this  threefold 
 account  does  tell  of  an  external,  sensible  appearance ; 
 and  he  mentions  the  circumstances  that  proved  the 
 externality  of  the  appearance  —  the  light  which 
 dazzled  Saul  and  his  companions,  and  the  voice 
 which  spoke  to  him  intelligible  words,  and  was  heard 
 by  the  others.  One  would  suppose  that  here  satisfac- 
 tory proof  was  given  that  the  appearance  was  really 
 such  as  is  described,  and  that  this  proof,  being  in  itself 
 satisfactory,  is  not  to  be  called  in  question  merely 
 because  the  eye  and  the  ear  were  in  this  case  the 
 organs  which  received  the  testimony,  whilst  in  the 
 appearances  to  the  elder  disciples  the  sense  of  touch 
 was  also  employed  to  testify  their  reality.  But 
 Strauss  will  now  exert  his  ingenuity  to  show  that  the 
 proof  referred  to  was  anything  but  satisfactory ;  and 
 
ON   THE   APPEARANCE   TO   ST   PAUL.  323 
 
 scepticism  is  never  at  a  loss  to  detect  what  it  sup- 
 poses or  wishes  to  be  flaws  in  any  proof,  whatever 
 details  it  may  embrace. 
 
 "  But,"  says  Strauss,  "  there  is  no  proof  here  of  the  objec- 
 tive reality  of  the  appearance,  like  that  which,  according  to 
 the  third  and  fourth  Evangelists,  Jesus  is  said  to  have 
 vouchsafed  to  the  elder  disciples,  when  he  allowed  himself 
 to  be -touched  by  them,  and  partook  of  food  before  their 
 eyes." — Vol.  i.  p.  414. 
 
 Because  the  two  proofs,  given  under  very  different 
 circumstances,  of  which  difference  it  did  not  suit 
 Strauss's  purpose  to  take  the  slightest  notice,  are  not 
 composed  of  exactly  the  same  elements,  therefore  the 
 value  of  the  one,  as  compared  with  that  of  the  other, 
 which  also  in  its  turn  is  depreciated,  is  to  be  ques- 
 tioned. Unless  different  witnesses  state  exactly  the 
 same  things,  their  testimony  is  to  be  rejected.  What, 
 we  might  ask,  would  have  been  Strauss's  estimate  of 
 that  testimony,  had  it  in  both  cases  been  exactly 
 identical  ?  Such  a  mode  of  argument  is  truly  absurd. 
 But  a  sceptic  is  always  blind  to  any  absurdity  that 
 lurks  in  his  argument,  however  visible  it  may  be  to 
 any  other  inquirer.  His  object  is  simply  to  depreciate, 
 by  any  means,  the  value  of  every  proof,  however  legi- 
 timate and  strong. 
 
 "Apart,"  says  Strauss,  "from  the  blindness,  and  its 
 removal  by  Ananias,  as  also  the  phenomena  seen  by  the 
 attendants,  we  might  look  upon  all  as  a  vision  which  Paul 
 attributed  indeed  to  an  external  cause,  but  which  neverthe- 
 less took  place  in  his  own  mind." — Ibid. 
 
 Such  is  the  theory  on  this  subject  which  he  is  now 
 to  support.  He  admits  the  reality  of  certain  external 
 phenomena  —  the  excessive   light,  and    perhaps    the 
 
324  LECTURE   XIII. 
 
 great  sound  ;  but  as  we  may  suppose  that  all  the  rest 
 which  is  recorded  took  place  solely  in  Paul's  own 
 mind,  so  we  are  to  conclude  that  such  was  in  reality 
 the  case.  The  possibility  of  the  supposition  is  to  be 
 to  us  a  sufficient  reason  for  inferring  such  a  conclu- 
 sion. We  wish  the  case  to  be  so  and  so,  and  there- 
 fore it  was  so  and  so.  And  now  let  us  go  in  quest  of 
 something  to  support  us  in  this  mode  of  reasoning. 
 
 "  That  we  are  not  bound,"  says  Strauss,  "  to  the  indivi- 
 dual features  of  the  account  in  the  Acts,  is  shown  by  com- 
 paring with  it  the  substance  of  the  statement  twice  repeated 
 in  the  language  of  Paul  himself;  for  there  we  find  that  the 
 author's  own  account  is  not  accurate — that  he  attributed  no 
 importance  to  a  few  variations  more  or  less." — Vol.  i.  p.  414. 
 
 The  accuracy  of  the  account  given  by  the  author  of 
 the  whole  book  of  the  Acts  is  now  to  be  disproved, 
 and  this  is  to  be  done  by  comparing  his  account  with 
 statements  made  by  St  Paul  himself  on  two  different 
 occasions,  and  recorded  in  his  book  by  the  same 
 author.  Now,  whoever  that  author  was — and  on  this 
 head  we  think  there  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt — there 
 is  surely  a  strong  presumption,  prior  to  all  inquiry 
 into  details,  that  he  would  be  sufficiently  careful  to 
 avoid,  not  indeed  variation,  but  real  inaccuracy,  in 
 recording  such  an  event  as  this.  The  author  or  com- 
 piler of  the  Book  of  the  Acts  was  manifestly  not  a 
 person  of  mean  talent,  or  one  who  felt  but  slight  in- 
 terest in  his  record.  He  was  evidently  a  man  who 
 carefully  inquired  into  the  details  of  events,  and  was 
 capable  of  narrating  them  in  a  clear  and  most  inter- 
 esting manner.  There  are  few  books  which  have 
 come  down  to  us  from  antiquity  that  exhibit  so 
 much  anxiety  to  present  details  before  us  in  all  their 
 
ON   THE   APPEARANCE   TO   ST   PAUL.  325 
 
 minuteness,  or  that  bear  so  vividly  the  stamp  of 
 historical  truth.  It  is  a  work  which  of  itself  con- 
 tains clear  and  ample  evidence  of  the  real  origin  of 
 Christianity.  It  is  indeed  par  excelleiice  the  treatise 
 which  proves  the  divine  origin  of  the  Gospel ;  for  it 
 shows  how  this  Gospel  began  to  be  preached  and  to 
 prevail  through  the  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit  and  the 
 instrumentality  of  those  to  whom  this  Spirit  was 
 given  in  an  extraordinary  measure.  We  need  not  be 
 afraid  that  Strauss  or  any  other  sceptic  will  gain  a 
 triumph  over  the  author  of  this  book,  whose  praise 
 was  in  all  the  Churches.  Petty,  frivolous  objections 
 may  be  conjured  up  ;  but  their  very  frivolity  will  be 
 their  sufficient — their  strongest — refutation.  Let  us, 
 then,  see  what  Strauss  has  to  allege  in  support  of  his 
 grave  charge  of  inaccuracy. 
 
 "  Not  only  is  it  said,"  he  alleges,  "  as  has  been  already 
 remarked  in  passing,  that  on  one  occasion  the  attendants 
 stood  dumbfound ered,  on  another,  that  they  fell  with  Paul  to 
 the  ground ;  that  on  one  occasion  they  heard  the  voice,  but 
 saw  no  one,  on  another,  that  they  saw  the  light,  but  did  not 
 hear  the  voice  of  him  who  spake  with  Paul;  but  also  the 
 speech  of  Jesus  himself,  in  the  third  repetition,  gets  the  well- 
 known  addition  about  '  kicking  against  the  pricks ; '  to  say 
 nothing  of  the  fact  that  the  appointment  to  the  apostleship 
 of  the  Gentiles,  which,  according  to  the  two  earlier  accounts, 
 was  made  partly  by  Ananias,  partly  on  the  occasion  of  a 
 subsequent  vision  in  the  Temple  at  Jerusalem,  is  in  this  last 
 account  incorporated  in  the  speech  of  Jesus  on  the  occasion 
 of  the  first  appearance.  There  is  no  occasion,"  he  adds,  "  to 
 derive  the  three  accounts  of  this  occurrence  in  the  Acts  from 
 different  sources,  and  even  in  this  case  one  must  suppose  that 
 the  author  must  have  remarked  and  reconciled  the  discre- 
 pancies ;  that  he  did  not  do  so,  or  rather  that,  without  fol- 
 lowing his  own  earlier  narrative,  he  repeated  it  in  an  arbi- 
 
0 
 
 i6  i.ixriTRK  XIII, 
 
 traiy  form,  proves  to  us  how  careless  the  New  Testament 
 writers  are  about  details  of  that  kind,  important  as  they  are 
 to  one  who  strives  after  strict  historical  accuracy." — Vol.  i. 
 p.  414-5. 
 
 Such  is  the  cliari;"c  which  Strauss  briii<:^s  aL;ainst  tlie 
 autluM-  of  this  book,  antl  which  he  cxtcnils  to  all  the 
 New  Testament  writers.  It  is  not  our  business  at 
 present  to  defend  the  other  writers  from  this  cliari^e 
 of  carelessness  as  to  the  details  o[  the  events  which 
 they  severally  record.  It  is  sufficient  to  remark  that 
 variations  in  respect  to  details  always  characterise 
 independent  accounts  of  substantially  the  same  events, 
 and  that  even  the  same  author,  should  he  have  occa- 
 sion to  repeat  his  account  o(  an  event  which  was 
 marked  by  a  variety  of  details,  will  not  always  repeat 
 it  in  cxacth'  the  same  manner,  but  ma)'  have  u^ood 
 reasons  for  mentionini;-  at  one  time  some  of  those  de- 
 tails which  he  ma\'  ha\e  omitted  to  notice  at  another 
 time.  As  {o  the  three  different  accounts  of  the  threat 
 event  referred  to,  which  we  find  in  the  Acts,  two  of 
 them  are  j^^iven  as  proceeding  directly  from  Paul  him- 
 self, and  one — the  first  account — is  that  which  comes 
 from  the  author,  and  was  in  all  probability  received 
 by  him  from  the  Apostle.  If  we  compare  these  three 
 accounts  in  that  spirit  of  fairness  in  which  we  ought 
 always  to  examine  historical  narratives,  w^e  shall  dis- 
 cern, not  indeed  a  literal  agreement  in  the  statement 
 of  some  of  the  details,  but  a  perfect  agreement  as  to 
 the  event  itself  which  is  recorded,  and  also  a  con- 
 sistency between  the  very  statements  which  are  by 
 Strauss  alleged  to  be  at  variance.  Let  us  briefly 
 notice  these  accounts. 
 
 I.   In  the  first,  which   is  that  criven  b\'  the  author 
 
ON    Till':    AI'l'IlAKANCI':   TO   S'l'    I'AIJL.  327 
 
 (ix.  1-30),  it  is  recorded  tliat  wlien  Saul  was  approach- 
 ing:^ Damascus,  there  suddenly  shone  round  about  liini 
 a  lij:^ht  from  heaven  ;  and  that,  lie  fell  to  the  earth, 
 and  heard  a  voice  sayin^^  unto  him,  "Saul,  Saul,  why 
 I)ersecutest  thou  Me?"  and  that  Saul  said,  "Who  art 
 'Jhou,  Lord?"  vvhereiijMHi  the  Lf^rd  said,  "I  am  Jesus 
 whom  thou  jiersecutest  ;  hut  arise  and  i/^o  into  the 
 city,  and  it  shall  be  UAd  thee  what  thf;u  must:  do  ;" 
 fiullicr,  that  the  men  who  journeyed  vvitli  liijn  st.fjod 
 speechless,  hearing  the  vcjice,  but  seeing  no  c^ne  ;  anrl 
 that  Saul  arr>se  from  the  earth,  and  When  his  eyes 
 were  o}>e-ned  he  saw  no  man,  but  that  those  who  were 
 with  him  lefl  him  by  the  hand,  and  broupdit  liim  into 
 Damascus.  '1  here  are  certain  clauses  in  the  fifth  and 
 sixth  verses  of  the-  received  text  which  seem  I0  have 
 been  introfluce-d  into  this  account  from  the-  other  ac- 
 C(mnts,  and  which  we  have  tlierefore  omitted. 
 
 2.  Let  us  now  hear  the  first  of  the  two  recr^rded  ac- 
 counts ^iven  by  the  Ajjostle  himself  when  he  sjjoke  in 
 his  own  defence  before  a  vast  assembly  of  Jews  in  the 
 city  of  Jerusalem  (xxii.  1-21).  After  briefly  tellinr^^ 
 them  what  he  was  by  descent,  and  lunv  he  had  bf.-en 
 trained  from  his  youth,  and  specially  of  his  zeal  for 
 the  Jewish  law  and  his  efforts  to  arre-st  the  fjrrj^ress  of 
 the  new  fiitli,  he-  informs  them  that  he  had  set  out 
 with  authority  to  Damascus,  on  purpose  to  brin;:;  the 
 converts  to  this  faith  in  bonds  to  Jerusalem,  that  they 
 might  be  punished.  "And  it  came  tcj  jjass,"  he  goes 
 on  to  say,  "that  as  I  made  my  journey,  anrl  was  come 
 nigh  unto  Damascus,  about  nor^n  sufhlenly  there  shone 
 from  heaven  a  great  light  round  about  me.  And  1 
 fell  unto  the  ground,  and  hearrl  a  voice-  saying  unto 
 me,   Saul,   Saul,   why  jjersecutest   thr^u  Me?     And   I 
 
328  LECTURE   XIII. 
 
 answered,  Who  art  Thou,  Lord  ?  And  He  said  unto 
 me,  I  am  Jesus  the  Nazarene  whom  thou  art  perse- 
 cuting. And  they  that  were  with  me  saw  indeed  the 
 Hght,  and  were  afraid  ;  but  they  heard  not  the  voice 
 of  Him  that  spake  unto  me.  And  I  said,  What  shall 
 I  do.  Lord .''  And  the  Lord  said  unto  me,  Arise,  and 
 go  into  Damascus  ;  and  there  it  shall  be  told  thee  of 
 all  things  which  are  appointed  for  thee  to  do.  And 
 when  I  could  not  see  for  the  glory  of  that  light,  being 
 led  by  the  hand  of  them  that  were  with  me,  I  came 
 into  Damascus." 
 
 The  differences  between  this  and  the  former  account 
 may  be  noticed  before  we  proceed  to  examine  the  re- 
 maining one.  The  author  did  not  mention  the  time  of 
 the  day  when  the  event  occurred.  Paul  tells  us  here 
 that  it  was  about  noon.  Both  accounts  agree  as  to 
 the  place  where  the  event  took  place,  also  as  to  the 
 sudden  burst  of  light,  as  to  Paul's  falling  to  the 
 ground  and  hearing  the  voice  which  addressed  him  in 
 words  which  he  understood,  and  which  are  exactly 
 the  same  in  both  accounts,  with  the  single  exception 
 that  in  Paul's  own  account  Jesus  calls  Himself  "the 
 Nazarene,"  whereas  the  author  of  the  Acts  omits  this 
 appellation  in  his  account.  There  is,  however,  an 
 apparent  discrepancy  between  these  two  accounts  in 
 what  is  related  respecting  the  men  who  were  accom- 
 panying Saul.  The  author  says  that  "  they  stood 
 speechless,  hearing  the  voice,  but  seeing  no  one  ; " 
 whilst  the  Apostle  in  his  account  says  that  *  those 
 who  were  with  him  saw  indeed  the  light,  and  were 
 afraid,  but  that  they  heard  not  the  voice  of  Him 
 that  spake  to  him.'  Now,  apart  from  the  considera- 
 tion that  the  word  "  voice  "  is  in  the  Greek  differently 
 
ON   THE   APPEARANCE   TO   ST   PAUL.  329 
 
 governed  in  these  two  passages* — a  circumstance  which 
 we  consider  not  so  immaterial  as  some  represent  it — 
 the  simple  question  is,  whether  the  phrase  "  to  hear 
 the  voice"  may  not  legitimately  be  understood  in  two 
 different  senses.  A  person  may  be  said  to  hear  a 
 voice  when  he  hears  merely  the  sound,  yet  does  not 
 catch  or  understand  the  words  conveyed  by  that  sound. 
 Such  a  person  may  be  said  to  hear  of  the  voice — 
 to  hear  something — the  sound — of  the  voice  ;  and  this 
 is  the  exact  translation  of  the  words  in  the  author's 
 account.  Again,  a  person  may  be  said  not  to  hear  a 
 voice,  when  he  does  not  hear  or  does  not  understand 
 the  words  conveyed  by  the  sound ;  and  this  seems  to  be 
 the  exact  meaning  of  the  words  used  by  the  Apostle 
 in  his  account.-}*  But,  apart  from  the  mere  gram- 
 matical structure  of  the  two  phrases,  it  seems  clear 
 that  the  author  and  the  Apostle  did  attach  different 
 senses  to  the  phrase.  The  author  contrasts  what  the 
 men  did  Jiear,  with  what  they  did  not  see.  They 
 heard  the  sound  of  the  voice,  but  they  saw  no  one — 
 did  not  see  Him  from  whom  the  voice  proceeded. 
 The  Apostle  contrasts  two  different  things — his  own 
 hearing  the  words  spoken  by  the  voice,  with  their  not 
 hearing  the  words  thus  spoken  to  him  :  "  They  heard 
 not,"  he  says,  "the  voice  of  Him  that  spake  to  me." 
 It  is  thus  evident  that  the  two  accounts  are  in  perfect 
 agreement  with  each  other  in  respect  to  this  point  ; 
 and  that  Strauss's  attempt  to  place  them  in  opposi- 
 tion arises  from  carelessness  on  his  own  part,  or 
 rather,  we  should  say,  from  a  determination  to  set 
 them  in  opposition.     The  difference  in  the  accounts, 
 
 *    O.KO\)OVT^S  T7)S  <\><j}Vr\S.     ||    TT]V  (pU}Vr]V  OVK  ¥lKOV(TaV  TOV  \aK0VVT0S  fXOt. 
 
 t  Comp.  Mark  iv.  33;  i  Cor,  xiv.  2;  Gal.  iv.  21;  Gen.  (LXX.)  xi.  7. 
 
230  LECTURE   XIII. 
 
 when  these  are  fairly  treated,  corroborates  the  accu- 
 racy of  each.  The  accounts  throw  light  on  each  other, 
 just  as  we  found  to  be  the  case  with  the  different 
 narratives  of  the  Resurrection  itself  We  would  only 
 further  observe,  in  respect  to  both  these  accounts, 
 that  they  inform  us  how  Ananias,  a  disciple  at  Damas- 
 cus, was  sent  to  Saul  to  restore  his  sight,  to  receive 
 him  into  the  Christian  Church,  and  to  tell  him,  as  the 
 Lord  had  said,  "  the  things  which  were  appointed  for 
 him  to  do  ; "  and  that  the  two  accounts  are,  in  reference 
 to  this  matter  also,  substantially  at  one. 
 
 In  this  account,  which  the  Apostle  himself  gives,  he 
 also  mentions  a  vision  with  which  he  was  favoured 
 when  he  was  on  a  visit  to  Jerusalem,  and  was  engaged 
 in  prayer  in  the  Temple.  It  is  important  to  observe 
 that  he  expressly  distinguishes  this  vision  of  Jesus 
 as  one  of  a  different  order  from  that  appearance  which 
 took  place  when  he  was  nigh  to  Damascus.  He  tells 
 us  plainly  that  he  was  then  in  a  trance — in  an  ecstasy. 
 This  vision  was  a  reality :  still  it  was  different  in  its 
 nature  from  that  event  which  occurred  when  he  first 
 saw  the  glorified  Jesus  and  heard  His  voice.  The  one, 
 though  real,  may,  for  the  sake  of  distinction,  be  termed 
 subjective,  whilst  the  other  was  an  objective  appear- 
 ance, and  could  therefore  be  the  subject  of  ordinary 
 testimony.  It  is  important,  we  have  said,  to  notice 
 that  the  Apostle  was  fully  aware  of  the  distinction 
 between  these  two  kinds  of  appearance,  and  that  he 
 has  himself  expressly  pointed  out  the  distinction. 
 Strauss,  you  will  find,  rests  his  whole  theory  on  the 
 supposition  that  there  was  no  such  distinction  —  a 
 supposition  directly  opposed  to  the  Apostle's  own 
 statements. 
 
ON   THE   APPEARANCE   TO   ST   PAUL.  33 1 
 
 3.  And  now  let  us  consider  the  second  account 
 which  Paul  gave  of  what  occurred  when  he  was  on 
 the  way  to  Damascus  (xxvi.  4-23).  This  was  given 
 by  him  in  his  address  before  King  Agrippa,  after  he 
 had  appealed  from  the  tribunal  of  Festus  to  that  of 
 the  Emperor  himself  He  begins  his  speech  with  a 
 reference  to  his  former  life,  which,  he  says,  was  w^ell 
 known  to  all  the  Jews,  and  to  the  hope  which,  in 
 common  with  his  Jewish  brethren,  he  had  cherished, 
 namely,  the  hope  of  the  promise  given  by  God  unto 
 the  Fathers.  This  was  evidently  the  great  promise 
 of  the  Messiah  and  His  kingdom.  It  was,  says  Paul, 
 because  he  believed  that  this  promise  had  been  ful- 
 filled in  One  whom  God  had  raised  from  the  dead 
 that  he  was  now  accused  by  the  Jews  ;  and  he  point- 
 edly asks,  "  Why,  if  God  does  raise  persons  who  are 
 dead,  it  should  be  judged  a  thing  not  to  be  believed  ?" 
 Paul  here  exposes  the  absurdity  of  want  of  belief  in 
 the  fact  of  a  resurrection,  if  it  is  admitted  that  God 
 has  power  to  raise  the  dead,  and  actually  does  so. 
 His  words,  viewed  in  connection  with  the  context, 
 manifestly  imply  that  the  great  proof  that  Jesus  was 
 the  Messiah  was  afforded  in  the  fact  that  God  had 
 raised  Him  from  the  dead.  He  then  mentions  how 
 he  had  formerly  opposed  the  claims  of  Jesus,  and 
 persecuted  His  followers  by  every  means  in  his  power. 
 "  I  verily  thought,"  he  says,  "  with  myself  that  I 
 ought  to  do  many  things  contrary  to  the  name  of 
 Jesus  of  Nazareth.  Which  thing  I  also  did  in  Jerusa- 
 lem ;  and  many  of  the  saints  did  I  shut  up  in  prison, 
 having  received  authority  from  the  chief  priests  ;  and 
 when  they  were  put  to  death,  I  gave  my  voice  against 
 them.     And  I  punished  them  oft  in  every  synagogue, 
 
332  LECTURE   XIII. 
 
 and  compelled  them  to  blaspheme ;  and  being  exceed- 
 ingly mad  against  them,  I  persecuted  them  even  unto 
 strange  cities."  Such  was,  according  to  his  own  con- 
 fession, his  furious  hatred  of  the  very  name  of  Jesus. 
 And  now  he  relates  what  happened.  "  Whereupon, 
 as  I  went  to  Damascus  with  authority  and  commission 
 from  the  chief  priests,  at  mid-day,  O  King,  I  saw  in  the 
 way  a  light  from  heaven,  above  the  brightness  of  the 
 sun,  shining  round  about  me  and  them  which  jour- 
 neyed with  me.  And  when  we  were  all  fallen  to  the 
 earth,  I  heard  a  voice  speaking  unto  me,  and  saying 
 in  the  Hebrew  tongue,  Saul,  Saul,  why  persecutest 
 thou  Me }  It  is  hard  for  thee  to  kick  against  the 
 pricks.  And  I  said,  Who  art  Thou,  Lord  ?  And  He 
 said,  I  am  Jesus  whom  thou  persecutest.  But  rise, 
 and  stand  upon  thy  feet ;  for  I  have  appeared  to  thee 
 for  this  purpose,  to  make  thee  a  minister  and  a  wit- 
 ness both  of  these  things  which  thou  hast  seen,  and 
 of  those  things  in  the  which  I  will  appear  unto  thee  ; 
 delivering  thee  from  the  people  and  from  the  Gentiles, 
 unto  whom  now  I  send  thee,  to  open  their  eyes,  and 
 to  turn  them  from  darkness  to  light,  and  from  the 
 power  of  Satan  unto  God,  that  they  may  receive  for- 
 giveness of  sins,  and  inheritance  among  them  which 
 are  sanctified  by  faith  that  is  in  Me.  Whereupon," 
 adds  the  Apostle,  "  O  King  Agrippa,  I  was  not  dis- 
 obedient unto  the  heavenly  vision,  but  showed  first 
 unto  them  of  Damascus,  and  at  Jerusalem,  and 
 throughout  all  the  coasts  of  Judaea,  and  then  to  the 
 Gentiles,  that  they  should  repent  and  turn  to  God, 
 and  do  works  meet  for  repentance." 
 
 Now,  in  this  narrative  there  are  certain  variations, 
 both  from  Paul's  former  account  and  also  from  that 
 
ON   THE   APPEARANCE   TO   ST   PAUL.  333 
 
 given  by  the  author  of  the  Acts,  but  in  the  main 
 particulars  there  is  perfect  agreement  in  the  three 
 accounts.  Paul  here  also  states  the  time  of  day  when 
 the  event  occurred,  and  he  describes  the  light  which 
 burst  forth  as  exceeding  the  brightness  of  the  sun. 
 In  his  former  account  he  says  nothing  as  to  the  effect 
 which  this  sudden  burst  of  light  had  on  his  com- 
 panions, beyond  that  when  they  saw  the  light  they 
 became  afraid,  whilst  he  speaks  of  himself  as  having 
 fallen  to  the  ground.  The  author,  in  his  account,  re- 
 presents Saul  as  having  fallen  to  the  ground,  and, 
 after  recording  the  words  uttered  by  Jesus,  and  Saul's 
 reply,  he  describes  the  men  as  standing  speechless. 
 But  Paul,  in  his  speech  before  Agrippa,  says  that 
 these  men  fell  along  with  himself  to  the  earth.  Here, 
 then,  is  one  of  those  variations  or  discrepancies  which 
 Strauss  adduces  in  support  of  his  charge  of  careless- 
 ness against  the  author  of  the  Acts.  That  author,  ac- 
 cording to  Strauss,  was  so  careless  as  to  details,  which 
 are  so  important  to  one  who  strives  after  historical 
 accuracy,  that  he  makes  no  attempt  to  reconcile  this 
 and  other  discrepancies,  but  repeats  his  own  earlier 
 narrative  in  an  arbitrary  form. 
 
 Now,  let  it  be  observed  that  the  two  last  accounts 
 proceed  directly  from  Paul  himself,  and  that  the 
 author's  duty  was  to  record  them  just  as  they  were 
 stated  by  Paul.  His  own  account,  the  first  one,  was 
 no  doubt  derived  by  him  from  Paul  also  ;  but  it  be- 
 longed to  the  author  to  state  more  or  fewer  of  the 
 details  which  he  had  learned,  as  might  seem  to  him 
 to  be  necessary  for  his  immediate  purpose.  And 
 when  we  examine  the  three  accounts  and  compare 
 them  fairly,  we  find  no  difficulty  in  reconciling  them 
 
334  LECTURE   XIII. 
 
 as  far  as  the  discrepancy  before  us  is  concerned.  The 
 author,  you  will  observe,  records  the  position  of  the 
 men  whilst  the  voice  was  speaking.  They  were  stand- 
 ing, as  the  word  really  means,  speechless,  hearing  the 
 voice — the  mere  sound  of  the  voice — but  seeing  no 
 one.  Paul,  however,  in  his  second  account,  says  that 
 when  the  great  light  burst  forth,  he  and  the  men  fell 
 to  the  ground ;  and  then  he  mentions  the  voice.  It 
 is  therefore  clear  that,  on  the  bursting  forth  of  the 
 light,  they  were  so  dazzled  and  amazed  that  they  all 
 instantly  fell  to  the  ground,  but  that  whilst  Paul  was 
 actually  blinded  and  remained  prostrate  on  the  earth, 
 his  companions  were  not  blinded,  but  immediately 
 rose  up  and  stood  speechless,  hearing  the  sound  of 
 that  voice,  the  words  uttered  by  which  were  under- 
 stood by  Paul  alone.  That  these  men  were  not 
 blinded  as  Paul  was,  is  evident  from  what  is  said,  that 
 though  they  heard  the  voice  they  saw  no  one,  and 
 that  when  Paul  rose  up  and  opened  his  eyes,  he  was 
 found  to  be  blind,  and  was  therefore  led  by  his  com- 
 panions by  the  hand  into  Damascus.  There  is  thus 
 no  discrepancy  whatever  in  respect  to  this  matter 
 affecting  the  men  who  were  with  Paul  ;  and  the  re- 
 moval of  the  apparent  difference  only  corroborates 
 the  historical  accuracy  of  the  several  accounts. 
 
 There  is,  however,  in  the  latter  account,  an  addi- 
 tion to  the  words  addressed  by  Jesus  to  Paul,  not 
 found  in  his  former  account,  nor,  when  the  text  is 
 corrected,  in  the  author's  own  account.  Paul  tells 
 Agrippa  that  Jesus,  after  putting  the  question,  "Why 
 persecutest  thou  Me  ? "  added  these  startling  words, 
 "  It  is  hard  for  thee  to  kick  against  the  pricks."  This 
 proverbial  expression,  intimating  the  utter  hopeless- 
 
ON   THE   APPEARANCE  TO   ST   PAUL.  335 
 
 ness  and  utter  ruin  of  an  enterprise,  was  employed  by 
 Jesus  to  show  the  infuriated  persecutor  that,  let  him 
 rage  as  he  might,  he  was  engaged  in  a  hopeless  task, 
 and  would,  should  he  persist,  only  bring  ruin  upon 
 himself.  These  words,  as  well  as  all  the  rest  spoken 
 on  this  occasion,  were  no  doubt  indelibly  impressed  on 
 Paul's  mind,  but  he  mentions  them  only  in  his  speech 
 before  Agrippa.  I  doubt  not  that  as  he  described  in 
 that  speech  his  own  furious  zeal  in  stronger  terms 
 than  he  used  in  the  speech  before  the  assembled  Jews 
 at  Jerusalem,  so  he  had  also  some  special  reason  for 
 relating  words  which  showed  the  utter  impotency  of 
 that  zeal,  and  the  ultimately  ruinous  consequences  to 
 himself,  if  he  should  persist  in  his  mad  career.  I 
 doubt  not  that  he  desired,  by  repeating  these  words 
 before  Agrippa,  to  convince  him  that  he,  Paul,  had 
 no  other  alternative  than  to  yield  obedience  to  the 
 heavenly  vision,  and  also  to  impress  Agrippa  himself 
 with  the  danger  of  resisting  the  testimony  now  de- 
 livered to  him  concerning  Jesus.  The  addition  of 
 these  words  constitutes,  in  fact,  no  real  difficulty. 
 
 We  now  come,  however,  to  what  indeed,  at  first 
 sight,  presents  a  difficulty,  although  it  also  will  dis- 
 appear when  we  examine  the  matter  with  fairness 
 and  candour.  That  we  may  bring  this  apparent 
 difficulty  fully  before  you,  we  would  observe  that,  ac- 
 cording to  the  author's  account,  Jesus  commanded 
 Paul  to  arise  and  go  into  the  city,  where  he  would 
 receive  further  information  as  to  what  he  was  to  do, 
 and  that  then  we  have  an  account  of  the  mission  to 
 Paul  of  Ananias,  who  gave  him  this  further  informa- 
 tion. We  next  observe  that,  according  to  Paul's  own 
 account,  given  in  his  speech  at  Jerusalem,  we  have  a 
 
336  LECTURE   XIII. 
 
 statement  substantially  the  same  as  that  given  by  the 
 author,  Paul  also  adding  that  when  he  was  on  a  visit 
 to  Jerusalem,  and  whilst  he  was  praying  in  the  Temple, 
 he  received  in  a  supernatural  vision  direct  instruction 
 from  Jesus,  especially  as  to  his  mission  to  the  Gentiles. 
 Now,  in  his  speech  before  Agrippa,  Paul  represents 
 Jesus  as  addressing  him  thus  : — "  But  rise,  and  stand 
 upon  thy  feet :  for  I  have  appeared  unto  thee  for  this 
 purpose,  to  make  thee  a  minister  and  a  witness  both 
 of  these  things  which  thou  hast  seen,  and   of  those 
 things  in  the  which  I  will  appear  unto  thee ;  delivering 
 thee  from   the  people  and    from  the   Gentiles,  unto 
 whom  now  I  send  thee,  to   open  their  eyes,  and  to 
 turn  them  from  darkness  to  light,  and  from  the  power 
 of  Satan  unto  God,  that  they  may  receive  forgiveness 
 of  sins,  and  inheritance  among  them  which  are  sancti- 
 fied by  faith  that  is  in  Me."     In  this  speech  he  omits 
 all  mention  of  Ananias,  and  also  of  the  vision  with 
 which   he   was    favoured  on   his  visit   to   Jerusalem. 
 Strauss  adduces  the  difference  in  the  three  accounts 
 of  this  whole  matter  as  substantiating  his  charge  of 
 carelessness  against  the  author.     Now,  let  it  be  well 
 observed  that  this   difference    lies   between   the  last 
 account  and  the  two  former  accounts.     In  the  first 
 two  we  have   all  or   the  principal  details  as  to  the 
 manner  in  which  Paul  received  his  instructions.     He 
 received   these   partly  through  Ananias   and    partly 
 from  Jesus  Himself      In  his  last  account   Paul  evi- 
 dently wishes  to  be  as  brief  as  possible,  and  there- 
 fore, without  mentioning  Ananias  and  the  subsequent 
 vision,  he  represents  Jesus  as  imparting  all  the  instruc- 
 tions at  once.     Paul,  in   short,  sums  up  all,  whether 
 proceeding  from   Ananias   or  afterwards  received  in 
 
ON   THE   APPEARANCE   TO   ST   PAUL.  337 
 
 the  vision  referred  to,  and  lays  before  Agrippa  in  one 
 view  all  that  Jesus  appointed  him  to  do.  Paul  was 
 fully  justified  in  doing  so;  for  all  that  he  states  did 
 come  from  Jesus,  and  did  constitute  the  special  com- 
 mission with  which  he  was  entrusted.  Strictly  speak- 
 ing, these  words  were  not  addressed  to  him  at  the 
 very  time  when  Jesus  commanded  him  to  arise  and 
 go  into  the  city,  where  he  would  be  told  what  he  must 
 do.  But  as  they  contained  a  summary  of  his  com- 
 mission, as  they  were  connected  with  the  appearance 
 of  Jesus  to  him  on  that  occasion,  and  as  he  wished 
 to  sum  up  all  in  one  brief  sentence,  he  thereby  stated 
 to  Agrippa  in  few  words  all  that  Jesus  appointed  him 
 to  be  and  to  do  ;  and  consequently  his  statement, 
 though  not  literally  exact,  was  in  its  import  perfectly 
 correct.  Paul  had  before  him  only  the  alternative  of 
 a  comparatively  long  detail  of  the  time  when,  and  cir- 
 cumstances in  which,  these  instructions  were  imparted, 
 or  of  avoiding  details  on  these  points,  which  were  not 
 necessary  for  his  immediate  purpose,  and  summing  up 
 all  the  instructions  in  the  manner  he  adopted  ;  and  it 
 is  only  a  spirit  of  hypercriticism  which,  overlooking 
 the  immediate  purpose  of  a  speaker  or  a  narrator, 
 finds  fault  with  such  a  mode  of  procedure.  It  is  clear, 
 then,  that  the  accounts,  when  fairly  and  candidly 
 viewed,  do  not  clash  with  one  another  in  regard  to 
 this  matter.  By  comparing  them,  we  learn  in  what 
 way  the  details  succeeded  one  another,  and  we  also 
 see  that  what  Paul  sums  up  in  the  form  of  one  address 
 delivered  to  him  by  Jesus,  consisted  of  detailed  in- 
 structions given  to  him  on  several  occasions.  The 
 main  point  before  him  was  to  inform  Agrippa  of  what 
 Jesus  did  in  reality  commission  him  to  do ;  and  it  is 
 
 Y 
 
338.  LECTURE   XIII. 
 
 evident  that  the  whole  of  this  commission  was  in- 
 cluded in  what  took  place  when  Jesus  apprehended 
 him  on  the  way  to  Damascus,  and  turned  him  from 
 being  a  persecutor  of  His  name  to  be  a  witness  of 
 what  he  had  seen  and  heard,  and  a  preacher  of  the 
 faith  among  all  nations. 
 
 These  remarks  are,  we  believe,  sufficient  to  show 
 that  there  is  no  discord  whatever  among  these  ac- 
 counts, and  also  to  free  the  author  of  the  Acts  from 
 the  charge  of  carelessness  about  details.  They  are 
 sufficient  also,  we  think,  to  prove  that  these  three 
 accounts,  varied  although  they  are  in  certain  respects, 
 do  support  one  another — a  result  which  can  be  ex- 
 pected to  take  place  only  when  different  accounts 
 are,  so  far  as  they  go,  historically  correct.  Further, 
 these  accounts  do  unquestionably  represent  what  took 
 place  near  to  Damascus  as  objective  occurrences.  Paul 
 knew  perfectly  the  distinction  between  what  is  termed 
 a  subjective  vision,  although  produced  in  a  supernat- 
 ural manner,  and  an  external  appearance  such  as 
 that  which  then  occurred.  The  author  of  the  book 
 also  shows  that  he  too  was  fully  aware  of  this  dis- 
 tinction. It  is  impossible  to  have  clearer  and  more 
 decided  testimony  than  that  which  the  Apostle  Paul 
 gives  to  the  objective  character  of  the  appearance  of 
 Jesus,  when  he  was  on  the  way  to  Damascus  as  the 
 infuriated  persecutor  of  all  who  called  upon  His 
 name.  He  therefore  could  justly  say,  and  he  sol- 
 emnly testified,  "  Last  of  all.  He  was  seen  of  me  also, 
 as  of  one  born  out  of  due  time."  And  when  his 
 authority  as  an  Apostle  was  called  in  question  by 
 some  Judaising  teachers,  he  could  ask  with  the  fullest 
 confidence,  "  Have  I  not  seen  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord  .?" 
 
ON   THE   APPEARANCE  TO   ST   PAUL.  339 
 
 It  was  the  exalted,  the  glorified  Jesus  who  appeared 
 to  St  Paul  in  the  way.  The  circumstances  under 
 which  he  saw  Jesus  were  undoubtedly  different  from 
 those  in  which  the  elder  Apostles  had  seen  Him  after 
 His  resurrection.  These  Apostles  could  say,  as  one 
 of  them  did,  that  they  had  been  witnesses  of  the  suf- 
 ferings of  Jesus  as  well  as  of  His  resurrection.  The 
 Apostle  Paul  had  not  witnessed  His  sufferings,  but  he 
 was  a  witness  of  the  glory  of  Jesus.  As  Ananias  said 
 to  him,  "The  God  of  our  fathers  hath  chosen  thee, 
 that  thou  shouldest  know  His  will,  and  see  that  Just 
 One,  and  shouldest  hear  the  voice  of  His  mouth  :  for 
 thou  shalt  be  His  witness  unto  all  men  of  what  thou 
 hast  seen  and  heard."  The  objective  nature,  then,  of 
 the  appearance  of  Jesus  to  Paul,  is  that  which  these 
 accounts,  so  diversified  in  some  details,  yet  so  thor- 
 oughly at  one,  clearly  and  decidedly  establish ;  and 
 Luke's  accuracy  as  an  historian  stands,  we  think,  per- 
 fectly intact. 
 
 But  Strauss  has  not  yet  finished  his  attack  on  these 
 accounts.  Even  had  they  been  found  free  from  all 
 the  supposed  inaccuracies,  why  must  we  allow  these 
 accounts  to  have  proceeded  either  from  an  eyewitness, 
 or  from  one  who  received  his  information  from  an  eye- 
 witness ?  Why  may  we  not  attempt  to  lessen  the 
 credit  due  to  the  supposed  author  of  this  book  ? 
 Strauss  proceeds  to  do  so  in  the  following  manner; 
 and  his  reasoning  will  furnish  you  with  another  re- 
 markable specimen  of  that  "higher  criticism"  of  which 
 we  hear  so  much  in  our  day : — 
 
 "  But  even,"  says  he,  "  if  the  narrator  in  the  Acts  had 
 gone  more  accurately  to  work,  still  he  would  not  be  an  eye- 
 witness, scarcely  even  a  writer  who  took  the  history  from 
 
340  LECTURE   XIII. 
 
 the  narrative  of  an  eyewitness.     Even  if  we  consider  the 
 person  who  in  different  places  of  the  Acts  comprehends 
 himself  and  the  Apostle  Paul  under  the  word  '  we '  or  '  us ' 
 to  have  been  the  composer  of  the  whole  work,  that  person 
 was  not,  on  the  occasion  of  the  occurrence  before  Damascus, 
 as  yet  in  the  company  of  the  Apostle.     Into  this  he  did  not 
 enter   until   much   later,   in   the   Troad,  on   the   Apostle's 
 second  missionary  journey  (Acts  xvi.  lo).     But  that  hypo- 
 thesis with  regard  to  the  author  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles 
 is,  moreover,  as  we  have  seen  above,  erroneous.     He  only 
 worked  up  into  different  passages  of  his  composition  the 
 memoranda  of  a  temporary  companion  of  the  Apostle  about 
 the  journeys  performed  in  his  company,  and  we  are  there- 
 fore not  justified  in  considering  the  narrator  in  these  pas- 
 sages and  sections  in  which  the  '  we '  is  wanting  as  an  eye- 
 ^^dtness.     Now  among  these  is  found  the  very  section    in 
 which  appear  the  two  accounts    of  his  conversion  which 
 Paul    gives,    first    to    the    Jewish  people     in    Jerusalem, 
 secondly  to  Agrippa  and   Festus    in   C^sarea.      The  last 
 occasion   on  which   the  'we 'was  found  was  xxi.  1 8,  that 
 of  the  visit  of  Paul  to  James,  and  it  does  not  appear  again 
 until  xxvii.  i,  when  the  subject  is  the  Apostle's  embarka- 
 tion for  Italy.      Nothing,  therefore,  compels   us  externally 
 to  assume  that  we  have  in  the  report  of  these   speeches  the 
 account  of  any  one  who  had  been  a  party  to  the  hearing  of 
 them,  and,  in  them,  Paul's  own  narrative  of  the  occurrences 
 that  took  place  on  his  conversion.     Moreover,  the  history 
 in  its  internal  character,  with  its  shining  light  and  falling- 
 down,  its  miraculous  blinding  and  healing,  its  dreams  and 
 visions  dovetailing  into  each  other,  is  so  completely  in  the 
 fashion  of  the  tales  of  appearances  and  miracles  current 
 among  the  Jews  and  the  original  Christians,  and  so  espe- 
 cially resembles  the  manner  in  which  the  author  of  the 
 Acts  of  the  Apostles  and  the  third  Gospel  loves  to  arrange 
 scenes  of  this  kind  (comp.,  e.g.,  the  history  of  Cornelius  and 
 Peter,  Acts  x.  1 1  ;  of  Zachariah  and  the  angel,  Luke  i.  8, 
 
ON   THE   APPEARANCE   TO   ST   PAUL.  34I 
 
 ff.),  that  we  look  upon  this  appearance  of  Christ  to  Paul  as 
 exactly  on  the  same  footing  as  those  witnessed  by  the 
 earlier  disciples.  That  is,  we  find  ourselves  in  this  case  also 
 thrown  back  from  evidence  of  the  third  rank  upon  that  of 
 the  Apostle ;  which,  moreover,  is  not  in  this  instance  evi- 
 dence of  the  second,  but  of  the  first  rank." — Vol.  i.  p. 
 415-16. 
 
 A  very  few  remarks  will  suffice  to  show  how  en- 
 tirely arbitrary  is  the  theory  which  Strauss,  following 
 Baur  and  others,  attempts  to  establish  respecting  the 
 authorship  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles.  It  is  ad- 
 mitted by  them  that  the  same  person  was  the  author 
 of  this  book  and  of  the  third  Gospel.  Now,  the  author, 
 although  he  does  not  mention  his  own  name,  tells 
 us  plainly  in  the  introduction  to  his  Gospel  that  he 
 had  received  his  information  respecting  Jesus  from 
 the  first  sources — from  those  who  had  been  ''eye- 
 witnesses and  ministers  of  the  Word  " — and  that  he 
 had,  with  the  utmost  care,  endeavoured  to  trace  every- 
 thing down  from  the  very  beginning,  so  as  to  present 
 to  Theophilus,  and  through  him  to  other  Christians,  an 
 exact  narrative  of  those  things  which  were  certainly 
 believed  among  them  concerning  Jesus.  In  the  Book 
 of  the  Acts  we  have  the  clearest  testimony  that  the 
 author  did  become  the  companion  of  the  Apostle 
 Paul  during  his  second  missionary  journey,  and  went 
 with  him  to  Macedonia  (xvi.  10).  Whether  Luke — 
 for  such,  by  unanimous  testimony,  w^as  the  name  of  the 
 author — remained  at  Philippi  when  the  Apostle  left 
 that  city  until  his  return  thither  at  the  end  of  his 
 second  visit  to  Greece,  or  went  elsewhere,  we  are  not 
 expressly  informed  ;  but  we  learn  (xx.  6)  that  he  was 
 in  the  company  of  Paul  when  the  latter  visited  that  city 
 
342  LECTURE   XIII. 
 
 a  second  time,  and  that  he  accompanied  the  Apostle 
 to  Asia  and  Jerusalem  (xxi.  17)  ;  while  from  the  fact, 
 which  is  also  expressly  stated,  that  he  sailed  with  the 
 Apostle  to  Rome  (xxvii.  i,  xxviii.  16),  we  may  rea- 
 sonably conclude  that  he  continued  with  the  Apostle, 
 or  in  his  neighbourhood  at  least,  during  the  imprison- 
 ment of  the  latter  at  Ca^sarea.  That  the  author  does 
 not  mention  himself  as  being  present  on  certain  occa- 
 sions referred  to,  and  especially  that  no  mention  of 
 him  occurs  in  the  sections  which  consist  chiefly  of 
 Paul's  defences,  is  surely  no  reason  for  supposing  that 
 he  was  absent.  The  idea  that  the  author  of  the  Acts 
 obtained  possession  of  some  memorandaof  a  temporary 
 companion  of  the  Apostle,  and  that  he  worked  up  these 
 into  different  passages  of  his  treatise  in  so  blundering 
 a  manner  as  the  theory  supposes — the  idea  that  this 
 was  done  by  the  author  of  the  third  Gospel,  and  of  this 
 second  remarkable  treatise,  is  so  absurd,  that  it  could 
 be  entertained  only  by  those  who  feel  themselves 
 compelled  to  abandon  all  fair  criticism,  and  to  have 
 recourse  to  the  most  desperate  measures  in  order  to 
 support  their  desired  conclusion.  Luke,  "  the  be- 
 loved physician,"  and  the  devoted  companion  of  the 
 Apostle  Paul — the  man  whose  praise  was  in  all  the 
 Churches,  and  who  remained  steadfast  to  the  Apostle 
 in  his  severest  trials,  even  when  others  had  forsaken 
 him — was  the  undoubted  author  of  this  book,  as  well 
 as  of  the  Gospel  which  bears  his  name ;  and  for  his 
 power  of  observation  and  skill  in  narration  we  need 
 only  appeal  to  his  remarkable  description  of  the 
 voyage  and  shipwreck  given  towards  the  close  of  his 
 work.  The  idea  also  that  this  treatise  was  composed 
 by  some  unknown  author  during  the  first  half  of  the 
 
ON   THE  APPEARANCE  TO   ST   PAUL.  343 
 
 second  century,  in  order  to  conciliate  what  those  cri- 
 tics, to  whom  we  are  specially  referring,  call  Petrine 
 and  Pauline  Christianity,  is  disproved  by  the  manifest 
 design  of  the  treatise,  which  unquestionably  was  to 
 record  the  progress  of  the  Gospel  through  the  minis- 
 try of  the  Apostles,  first  among  the  Jews  and  then 
 among  the  Gentiles.  As  to  what  Strauss  says  about 
 "the  manner  "  of  the  author,  and  his  love  for  "arranging 
 scenes"  of  a  miraculous  or  supernatural  character,  we 
 have  only  to  state  that  he  loved  to  arrange  these  and 
 other  scenes  just  as  he  knew  for  certain  they  had 
 occurred.  In  the  testimony  of  Luke,  then,  we  have 
 often  that  of  an  eyewitness  of  what  he  records  ;  and 
 where  he  was  not  himself  an  eyewitness,  we  have  the 
 testimony  of  one  who  had  his  information  directly 
 from  eyewitnesses.  In  the  recorded  speeches  of  Paul 
 we  have,  we  need  hardly  say,  the  highest  possible 
 testimony  as  to  the  facts  which  occurred  when  Jesus 
 appeared  to  him  on  his  way  to  Damascus. 
 
 Having,  as  he  imagines,  deprived  the  Book  of  the 
 Acts  of  all  historical  weight,  Strauss  returns  to  the 
 expressions  in  the  Epistles  of  Paul  which  inform  us 
 that  Jesus  had  appeared  to  him ;  and  his  aim  now  is 
 to  show  that  these  expressions  do  not  compel  us  to 
 conclude  this  appearance  to  have  been  anything  else 
 than  one  merely  subjective. 
 
 "  Now  in  this  instance,"  he  says,  "  we  have  to  complain 
 of  the  same  thing  as  in  others,  that  the  Apostle,  even  in  re- 
 ference to  the  first  appearance  imparted  to  him,  expresses 
 himself  so  very  briefly.  In  the  passage  already  quoted 
 (i  Cor.  XV.  8),  all  that  he  says  of  himself  is  that  the  risen 
 Christ  had  appeared,  or  been  made  visible  to  him.     In 
 
344  LECTURE   XIII. 
 
 another  passage  he  asks,  '  Did  I  not  see  Jesus  Christ  our 
 Lord?'  (i  Cor.  ix.  i),  where,  without  doubt,  he  means  the 
 same  appearance.  In  that  passage,  lastly,  in  which  he 
 enters  more  fully  than  elsewhere  upon  the  description  of  all 
 that  he  had  done,  and  that  had  happened  to  him,  he  only 
 says  that  it  had  pleased  God  (Gal.  i.  13-17)  to  reveal  His 
 Son  in  him,  that  he  might  preach  him  among  the  heathen. 
 Taking  these  different  expressions  together,  we  have  on  the 
 one  hand  the  conviction  of  the  Aposde  that  he  had  seen 
 Jesus ;  and  we  may  add  thus  much  from  the  narrative  in  the 
 Acts,  that  he  thought  he  had  heard  him — heard  words  pro- 
 ceeding from  his  lips.  Paul  thought  that  on  other  occa- 
 sions also  it  had  been  vouchsafed  to  him  to  hear  words  of 
 this  kind  from  the  upper  regions.  It  cannot  be  the  appear- 
 ance w^e  are  now  speaking  of,  but  must  have  been  another 
 subsequently,  when  in  the  Second  Epistle  to  the  Corin- 
 thians (xii.  I,  ff.)  he  speaks  of  a  man  who  fourteen  years 
 before  was  caught  up  into  the  third  heaven,  into  paradise, 
 and  heard  unspeakable  words,  which  it  was  not  lawful  for  a 
 man  to  utter.  But  when  he  adds,  '  whether  in  the  body,  he 
 cannot  tell ;  or  whether  out  of  the  body,  he  cannot  tell :  God 
 knoweth,'  we  see  that  he  was  not  without  consciousness  of 
 the  difficulty  of  establishing  the  real  nature  of  the  fact  in 
 appearances  of  this  kind.  And  when,  on  the  other  hand, 
 in  the  passage  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians,  he  describes 
 what  he  had  seen  and  done  as  the  effect  of  revelation  of 
 God  in  him,  he  lays  the  main  stress  on  the  internal  element, 
 conceives  of  the  seeing  and  hearing  of  Christ  as  accom- 
 panied by  the  rising  up  within  his  mind  of  the  true  know- 
 ledge of  him  as  the  Son  of  God.  It  is  certain  that  in  doing 
 so  he  considered  the  ascended  Christ  as  really  and  exter- 
 nally present,  the  appearance  as  in  the  full  sense  an  objec- 
 tive one ;  but  he  is  far  from  saying  anything  to  prevent  us 
 (as  certain  features  in  the  narrative  of  the  Acts  might  do, 
 if  we  were  obliged  to  take  them  in  the  strictly  historical 
 sense)  from  being  of  a  different  opinion,  and  considering  the 
 
ON   THE   APPEARANCE   TO   ST   PAUL.  345 
 
 appearance  as  one  merely  subjective,  as  a  fact  of  the  inward 
 life  of  his  soul." — Vol.  i.  p.  416-17. 
 
 Now,  in  reference  to  the  above  passage,  you  will 
 remember  that  Strauss  formerly  complained,  as  in- 
 deed he  here  reminds  us,  that  Paul,  when  appealing 
 to  the  fact  that  the  risen  Jesus  had  been  seen  by 
 Cephas  and  others,  only  stated  that  he  had  been  seen 
 by  them,  but  did  not  state  what  he  calls  "  the  grounds 
 which  these  persons  had  for  considering  the  appear- 
 ance as  something  real,  and  indeed  as  the  appearance 
 of  their  Master,  who  was  dead."  You  will  also  re- 
 member that  we  replied  to  this  captious  complaint  by 
 showing  that  the  Apostle  in  his  argument  assumed  as 
 an  indisputable  fact  the  reality  of  the  resurrection  of 
 Jesus  ;  that  his  main  design  in  that  argument  was  to 
 refute,  by  means  of  this  fact,  the  erroneous  doctrine 
 which  some  were  propagating  in  opposition  to  the 
 reality  of  the  resurrection  of  the  bodies  of  believers  in 
 Jesus  ;  and  that  he  therefore  stated  briefly,  but,  we 
 think,  most  sufficiently,  the  sensible  evidence  which 
 had  been  given  to  the  disciples  of  the  reality  of  the 
 resurrection  of  Jesus.  That  sensible  evidence  was 
 mainly,  though  not  exclusively,  the  evidence  of  sight ; 
 and  that  particular  evidence  is  manifestly  mentioned, 
 inasmuch  as  it  was,  so  to  speak,  the  essential  evi- 
 dence, and  further  as  it  included  whatever  other  sen- 
 sible evidence  was  at  the  same  time  afforded.  Jesus 
 was  seen  alive  after  His  death.  This  is  what  Paul 
 affirms  for  the  disciples,  and  what  he  also  affirms  for 
 himself  And  it  is  clear  that  an  objective  appearance 
 is  in  each  case  affirmed  to  have  taken  place.  Strauss's 
 complaint  is  therefore  wholly  unreasonable,  unless  he 
 can  show  by  positive  proof,  and  not  in  the  way  of 
 
34^  LECTURE   XIII. 
 
 mere  conjecture,  that  these  disciples  and  Paul  also 
 were  deceived  by  their  own  Imaginations — that  they 
 mistook  mere  subjective  impressions  in  each  case  for 
 objective  realities. 
 
 Strauss,  then,  proceeds  to  attempt  such  a  proof; 
 and  the  method  he  adopts  is  to  confound  what  we  may 
 term  pure,  supernatural  visions  with  these  objective 
 appearances.  He  confounds,  in  short,  things  which 
 are  distinct,  and  which  the  Apostle  Paul  knew  and 
 states  to  be  distinct.  Those  supernatural  visions 
 which  were  vouchsafed  to  the  Apostle,  and  some  of 
 which  he  records,  were  indeed  realities — they  were 
 not  mere  dreams  of  an  excited  imagination.  Still 
 they  were  different  from  those  appearances  to  which 
 testimony  was  borne  as  constituting  the  main  evidence 
 of  the  reality  of  Christ's  resurrection.  And  we  must 
 not,  any  more  than  the  Apostle  himself  does,  con- 
 found these  distinct  things.  When  Paul  says,  "And 
 last  of  all  He  was  seen  of  me  also  ; "  and  when,  in 
 vindication  of  his  Apostolic  authority,  he  asks  in  a 
 manner  which  really  implies  a  strong  affirmation, 
 "  Have  I  not  seen  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord  ^ "  he  un- 
 questionably refers  to  that  appearance  which  took 
 place  near  to  Damascus  ;  but  when,  in  his  Epistle  to 
 the  Churches  of  Galatia,  in  vindication  not  exactly  of 
 his  Apostolic  authority,  but  of  the  Gospel  which  he  as 
 an  Apostle  had  taught  these  Churches,  he  appeals  to 
 the  fact  that  he  had  neither  received  this  Gospel  from 
 man,  nor  had  been  taught  It  by  man,  but  by  the 
 revelation  of  Jesus  Christ ;  for  that  "  it  pleased  God, 
 who  had  separated  him  from  his  mother's  womb  and 
 called  him  by  His  grace,  to  reveal  His  Son  in  him, 
 that  he  might  preach  Him  among  the  heathen,"  he 
 
ON    THE   APPEARANCE   TO   ST   PAUL.  347 
 
 evidently  refers  not  strictly  to  the  objective  appear- 
 ance of  the  risen  and  exalted  Jesus,  but  to  the  subse- 
 quent revelation  of  Jesus  as  the  Son  of  God,  which 
 was  given  him  in  order  that,  being  thus  supernaturally 
 taught,  he  might  preach  to  the  Gentiles  the  Gospel  of 
 God  concerning  His  Son.  Strauss  entirely  misrepre- 
 sents the  whole  scope  of  the  Apostle's  argument  in 
 his  Epistle  to  the  Galatians,  when  he  says,  that  in  the 
 passage  referred  to  in  that  Epistle  "  Paul  enters  more 
 fully  than  elsewhere  upon  the  description  of  all  that  he 
 had  done  and  that  had  happened  to  him  ; "  and  that, 
 therefore,  Paul  means  the  same  thing  when,  in  the 
 Epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  he  says  that  "the  risen 
 Jesus  was  seen  by  him,"  and  when,  in  his  Epistle  to 
 the  Galatians,  he  speaks  of  God  "revealing  His  Son 
 in  him."  The  same  thing  is  evidently  not  meant  in 
 these  different  passages.  In  the  one  case  the  Apostle 
 is  distinctly  referring  to  an  external  proof  given 
 him  of  the  reality  of  Christ's  resurrection ;  in  the 
 other  he  is  as  distinctly  referring  to  an  internal  teach- 
 ing by  God  respecting  His  Son  Jesus,  who  had  been 
 seen  by  him.  The  two  things  were  no  doubt  con- 
 nected, but  they  are  not  for  that  reason  to  be  identi- 
 fied ;  nay,  there  is  abundant  reason  to  believe  that 
 the  revelation  spoken  of  was  subsequent  to  the 
 appearance  recorded.  Strauss,  then,  makes  out  his 
 supposed  proof  by  a  manifest  misrepresentation  of 
 the  Apostle's  different  statements. 
 
 Having  confounded,  for  the  sake  of  this  imaginary 
 proof,  two  things  which  are  distinct,  he  goes  on  to 
 strengthen  it,  as  he  thinks,  by  referring  to  other 
 supernatural  visions,  and  especially  to  one  particu- 
 larly mentioned  by  the  Apostle  in  his  Second  Epistle 
 
348  LECTURE   XIII. 
 
 to  the  Corinthians — to  visions  which,  though  real,  are 
 by  the  Apostle  himself  manifestly  distinguished  from 
 those  appearances  which  were  truly  objective,  and 
 which  were  the  subject  of  testimony  as  bearing  on 
 the  reality  of  Christ's  resurrection.  In  regard  to  that 
 particular  vision,  to  which  reference  is  made  in  the 
 Epistle  last  named,  Strauss  again  misrepresents  the 
 Apostle's  argument,  for  he  looks  upon  the  peculiar 
 expression,  "  Whether  in  the  body,  I  cannot  tell ;  or 
 whether  out  of  the  body,  I  cannot  tell:  God  know- 
 eth,"  as  indicating  a  "consciousness  on  the  part  of 
 the  Apostle  of  the  difficulty  of  establishing  the  real 
 nature  of  the  fact  in  appearances  of  that  kind."  The 
 Apostle's  difficulty  was  manifestly  not  such  as  is  here 
 represented.  He  knew  that  it  was  a  vision — a  real, 
 supernatural  vision.  He  knew  that  such  a  vision 
 was  different  in  kind  from  that  appearance  of  Jesus 
 which  was  made  to  him  through  the  senses  of  his 
 body.  The  difficulty  which  he  was  unable  to  solve 
 referred  not  to  the  nature  of  the  vision,  but  solely  to 
 the  relation  in  which  his  spirit,  when  thus  favoured 
 with  that  vision,  stood,  whilst  the  vision  lasted,  to  his 
 body.  He  was  then,  as  he  himself  elsewhere  describes 
 his  state,  in  an  ecstasy ;  and  he  saw  and  heard  things 
 which  were  presented  to  his  mind  ;  but  whether  the 
 body  acted  any  part,  and,  if  so,  what  part  it  did  act 
 on  such  an  occasion,  he  plainly  says  he  could  not  tell. 
 There  was  no  such  difficulty  as  to  what  occurred  when 
 Jesus  apprehended  him  on  the  way  to  Damascus.  He 
 was  then,  to  use  his  mode  of  expression,  "  in  the  body," 
 and  with  his  eyes  saw  the  light,  and  with  his  ears  heard 
 the  words  spoken  to  him  from  on  high.  But  Strauss 
 is  pleased  to  confound  these  things,  and  by  misinter- 
 
ON   THE   APPEARANCE   TO   ST   PAUL.  349 
 
 pretation  of  expressions  and  of  the  argument  in  each 
 case,  he  labours  to  make  it  appear  that  the  Apostle 
 also  confounded  them,  at  one  time  representing  the 
 appearance  of  Christ  as  a  purely  internal  revelation, 
 and  at  another  time  as  an  objective  reality ;  and  that, 
 therefore,  although  Paul  looked  upon  the  appearances 
 as  objective,  yet  from  his  own  representation  of 
 them  we  may  differ  from  him  in  his  opinion  as  to 
 the  objective  reality,  and  conclude  that  "the  ap- 
 pearance, the  one  which  took  place  near  Damascus, 
 was  merely  subjective — a  fact  of  the  inward  life  of 
 his  soul." 
 
 The  untenable  nature  of  Strauss's  hypothesis  is 
 thus  sufficiently  shown  by  a  fair  representation  of  the 
 Apostle's  statements  in  the  several  passages  alluded 
 to  ;  and  not  only  is  this  hypothesis  thus  refuted,  but 
 the  fact  of  the  objective  reality  of  that  first  appear- 
 ance is  clearly  brought  out  by  the  consistency  which 
 is  thus  found  to  pervade  the  Apostle's  statements 
 when  distinct  though  closely-allied  things  are  spoken 
 of  by  him. 
 
 Strauss  next  proceeds  to  trace  these  visions  of  Paul 
 to  the  physical  condition  of  his  frame. 
 
 "  The  Apostle  himself  tells  us,"  he  says,  "  that  certain  ec- 
 static states  of  mind  were  not  of  rare  occurrence  with  him. 
 '  If  it  were  expedient  for  him  to  glory,'  he  writes  to  the  Chris- 
 tians in  Corinth  (2  Cor.  xii.  i,  ff.),  he  could  boast  of  a  super- 
 abundance of  visions  and  revelations  with  which  he  had  been 
 favoured ;  among  which  he  then  mentions  especially  the  case 
 just  spoken  of,  about  the  catching  up  into  the  third  heaven. 
 '  But  that,  lest  he  should  be  exalted  above  measure,  there 
 had  been  given  to  him  a  thorn  in  the  flesh,  the  messenger 
 of  Satan  to  buffet  him.'  On  reading  these  words,  attacks 
 of  convulsion,  perhaps   of  epilepsy,  naturally  occur  to  the 
 
-50  LECTURE   Xm. 
 
 mind,  and  the  probability  of  them  is  strengthened  by  what 
 he  says  elsewhere  of  the  weakness  of  his  body,  the  unsight- 
 linessof  his  outward  appearance  {2  Cor.  x.  10,  Gal.  iv.  13). 
 The  notion  of  a  nervous  constitution  is  suggested  by  the 
 speaking  with  tongues,  in  which,  as  he  says  (i  Cor.  xiv.  18), 
 he  surpassed  all  the  members  of  the  Corinthian  Church ; 
 for  it  was  an  ecstatic  sort  of  speaking,  which  no  one  could 
 understand  without  an  interpreter.  Paul  also  ascribes  to  a 
 revelation  the  impulse  which  he  felt  to  take  the  journey  to 
 Jerusalem,  which  had  for  its  object  his  communicating  with 
 the  other  Apostles  (Gal.  ii.  2) ;  and  here  we  may  see  quite 
 clearly  what  Baur  has  already  drawn  attention  to,  how 
 these  supposed  supernatural  mental  revelations  occurred  in 
 him.  Besides  the  revelation,  he  further  brings  forward  a 
 very  rational  ground  for  having  undertaken  the  journey  with 
 Barnabas — namely,  in  order  not  to  run  the  danger  of  all  his 
 previous  apostolic  labour  being  in  vain.  There  was  just  at 
 that  time  an  awkward  complication.  The  great  success  of  the 
 Apostle  Paul  among  the  heathen  had  begun  to  draw  upon 
 him  the  notice  of  the  primal  Church  in  Jerusalem.  Sus- 
 picion was  aroused  in  this  metropolis  of  Jewish  Christianity 
 by  the  fact  that  in  Antioch  a  centre  of  heathen  Christianity 
 was  set  up  in  opposition  to  it.  Members  of  the  metro- 
 politan Church  came  to  Antioch,  where  Paul  was  labouring, 
 and  appealing,  as  it  would  appear,  to  the  Apostles  who 
 stood  at  the  head  of  that  Church,  demanded  that  the 
 heathen,  in  order  to  be  adopted  into  participation  in  the 
 salvation  of  the  Messiah,  should  first  be  compelled  to 
 subject  themselves  to  the  law  of  Moses,  and  especially  to 
 circumcision.  Paul  could  not  conscientiously  yield  to  such 
 a  demand ;  if  the  original  Apostles  really  persevered  in  it, 
 the  division  became  inevitable,  which  threatened  to  destroy 
 the  effects  of  the  work  to  which  he  had  devoted  his  life. 
 We  may  imagine  how  deeply  his  mind  was  moved  by  this 
 circumstance — how  it  haunted  him  day  and  night ;  and 
 considering  the  character  of  his  mind,  we  cannot  be  sur- 
 
ON   THE   APPEARANCE   TO   ST   PAUL.  35 1 
 
 prised  that  there  resuked  from  it  at  last  a  revelation,  an 
 imaginary  command  of  Christ  revealing  himself  to  him  in  a 
 dream  or  waking  moment." — Vol.  i.  p.  417-18. 
 
 The  manifest  design  of  Strauss  in  this  passage 
 is  to  show  that  the  visions  or  revelations  with  which 
 Paul  was  favoured  had  their  origin  in  a  peculiar  con- 
 stitution of  mind,  accompanied  with  or  springing  from 
 a  peculiar  constitution  of  body.  He  endeavours  to 
 support  this  theory,  first,  by  what  Paul  tells  us  of 
 a  certain  bodily  malady  with  which  he  came  to  be 
 afflicted,  and  by  what  he  says  of  the  gift  of  tongues 
 which  was  bestowed  upon  him ;  and,  secondly,  by 
 what  he  assigns  as  his  reason  for  going  up  to  Jeru- 
 salem on  the  occasion  referred  to  in  his  Epistle  to  the 
 Galatians. 
 
 Now,  first,  as  to  the  bodily  weakness  of  which 
 Paul  repeatedly  makes  mention,  and  especially  in  his 
 Second  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  it  is  evident  from 
 the  words  of  the  Apostle  that  the  special  malady 
 which  he  in  that  Epistle  emphatically  calls  "  a  thorn 
 in  the  flesh,"  did  not  precede  but  follow  the  remark- 
 able vision  of  which  he  there  speaks.  His  words  are, 
 "  And  lest  I  should  be  exalted  above  measure  through 
 the  abundance  of  the  revelations,  there  was  given  to 
 me  a  thorn  in  the  flesh,  the  messenger  of  Satan  to 
 bufTet  me,  lest  I  should  be  exalted  above  measure." 
 Whatever  this  thorn  in  the  flesh  was,  it  must  have 
 caused  him  excessive  pain,  and  have  been  a  hindrance 
 to  him  in  his  efTorts  to  preach  the  Gospel ;  and 
 mainly,  no  doubt,  for  this  second  reason,  "  he  besought 
 the  Lord  thrice  that  it  might  depart  from  him."  But 
 the  Lord  answered  his  third  petition  by  revealing  to 
 him   that  this   "  thorn "  would  not  be  removed,  but 
 
352  LECTURE   XIII. 
 
 that  sufficient  grace  would  be  bestowed  upon  him,  so 
 that  in  his  weakness  the  power  of  Christ  should  rest 
 upon  him.  Strauss's  argument,  then,  falls  to  the 
 ground,  for  it  supposes  that  the  malady  referred  to, 
 whatever  it  was,  preceded  the  vision  and  gave  rise  to 
 the  vision  ;  whereas  the  Apostle  distinctly  affirms  that 
 the  vision  preceded  the  malady. 
 
 As  to  the  gift  of  tongues,  which  Paul  says  he  pos- 
 sessed in  a  higher  measure  than  had  been  bestowed 
 on  the  members  of  the  Corinthian  Church,  there  is  no 
 evidence  to  show  that  this  was  other  than  a  super- 
 natural gift  bestowed  at  that  time  on  believers  by  the 
 Holy  Spirit  as  a  sign  of  the  power  of  that  Spirit,  and 
 that  this  gift  sprang  from  a  peculiar  state  of  the  body, 
 any  more  than  did  the  gift  of  prophecy  or  any  other 
 spiritual  gift  of  an  extraordinary  kind  then  bestowed. 
 
 With  respect  to  the  cause  of  Paul's  visit  to  Jeru- 
 salem on  the  occasion  specially  referred  to,  there  can 
 be  no  doubt  that  this  visit  was  caused  by  the  attempt 
 of  certain  Judaising  Christians  who  sought  to  bring  the 
 Gentile  believers  under  the  yoke  of  the  Mosaic  ritual 
 law.  This  matter  is  fully  explained  to  us  in  the  Acts  of 
 the  Apostles  (xv.  i,  ffi),  and  it  seems  evident  that  it  is 
 to  the  same  visit  there  related,  that  Paul  refers  in  his 
 Epistle  to  the  Galatians  (ii.  I,  ffi)  Now,  it  is  clear  that 
 Paul  was  intensely  anxious  about  this  matter.  He 
 had  received  the  Gospel  which  he  preached  directly 
 by  revelation  from  God  ;  and  he  knew  for  certain  that 
 submission  to  the  ritual  law  was  no  longer  obligatory. 
 He  therefore,  along  with  Barnabas,  resisted  the  at- 
 tempts of  those  who  came  down  to  Antioch  from  Judea, 
 and  who  taught,  that  "  except  the  Gentile  believers 
 were   circumcised  after   the  manner  of   Moses,  they 
 
ON   THE  APPEARANCE   TO   ST   PAUL.  353 
 
 could  not  be  saved."  So  vehement  did  the  discussion 
 of  this  subject  become,  that  the  Church  at  Antioch 
 resolved  to  send  Paul  and  Barnabas  and  some  others 
 to  Jerusalem,  to  hold  an  interview  with  the  Apostles 
 and  elders  there  about  this  question.  Such  is  the  in- 
 formation given  by  the  author  of  the  Acts.  But  Paul 
 in  his  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  says  that  he,  along 
 with  Barnabas  and  Titus,  "  went  up  by  revelation," — 
 that  is,  in  consequence  of  some  revelation  of  the  mind 
 of  God  to  that  effect.  Strauss  evidently  wishes  to 
 bring  out  a  contradiction  between  this  statement  and 
 what  we  learn  from  the  Acts.  Now,  there  is  surely 
 no  contradiction  here.  The  matter  about  which  the 
 dissension  arose  was  one  of  the  highest  practical 
 moment  to  the  whole  Church — to  Jewish  as  well  as 
 to  Gentile  believers  ;  and  it  also  affected  the  very 
 essence  of  the  Gospel.  Strauss  allows  that  it  was 
 reasonable  on  the  part  of  the  Church  at  Antioch  to 
 send  persons  to  Jerusalem  to  consult  the  Apostles 
 and  elders  there.  But  was  it  not  natural  that  he  who 
 had  received  the  Gospel  not  from  man,  but  from  God, 
 should  hesitate  to  take  such  a  step,  lest  any  counte- 
 nance should  thereby  be  given  to  the  idea  that  he 
 had  not  been  truly  taught  this  Gospel }  Is  there 
 anything,  therefore,  improbable  in  the  idea  that  he  did 
 receive  a  divine  intimation  to  agree  to  the  proposed 
 measure  .''  If  he  received  such,  it  behoved  him  to  men- 
 tion the  fact  expressly  to  the  Galatians,  in  order  that 
 they  might  see  that,  even  in  taking  such  a  step,  he  was 
 not  yielding  to  any  doubts  respecting  the  true  nature 
 of  the  Gospel  which  he  had  received,  but  was  follow- 
 ing special  divine  intimation  in  order  that  he  might, 
 in  presence  of  the  Apostles  and  elders  at  Jerusalem, 
 
 z 
 
354  LECTURE   XIII. 
 
 vindicate  this  Gospel,  and  obtain  an  authoritative 
 declaration  from  those  whom  his  opponents  allowed 
 to  be  the  "  pillars  "  of  the  Church,  in  support  of  the 
 freedom  of  all  believers  in  Christ,  and  especially  of 
 Gentile  believers,  from  the  bondage  of  the  ceremo- 
 nial law.  Strauss's  whole  reasoning,  then,  falls  to  the 
 ground,  when  we  take  a  fair  and  complete  view  of  all 
 the  circumstances  of  the  case. 
 
 But  he  has  now  prepared  the  way,  as  he  thinks,  for 
 giving  his  account  of  the  appearance  that  took  place 
 near  Damascus — to  get  rid  of  the  objective  reality  of 
 which  is  the  great  difficulty,  and  has  all  along  been 
 the  end  in  view.  Let  us,  then,  hear  how  this  is  to  be 
 done. 
 
 "  Let  us  now  transport  ourselves,"  he  says,  "  back  into  the 
 period  before  his  conversion,  and  think  of  the  excitement 
 into  which  he,  the  zealot  for  the  hereditary  institutions  of 
 Judaism  (Gal.  i.  14),  must  have  been  brought  by  the  threat- 
 ening progress  of  the  growing  Christianity.  He  saw  at 
 that  time  what  he  held  most  dear  and  most  holy  endan- 
 gered; a  spiritual  tendency  appeared  to  be  spreading  un- 
 checked, making  of  secondary  consideration  precisely  that 
 which  was  to  him  the  most  important  thing  of  all,  the  strict 
 observance  of  all  Jewish  laws  and  customs,  and  which  op- 
 posed in  the  most  hostile  manner  that  party  especially  to 
 which  he  had  attached  himself  with  all  the  fiery  zeal  of  his 
 nature.  Now,  we  might  indeed  suppose  that  out  of  such 
 mental  emotions,  a  visionary  Moses  or  Elias  might  at  last 
 have  started,  rather  than  an  appearance  of  Christ ;  but  only 
 when  the  other  side  of  the  question  is  left  out  of  considera- 
 tion. The  result  showed  that  the  satisfaction  which  Paul 
 thought  to  find  in  his  Pharisaic  zeal  for  righteousness  was 
 not  of  a  tranquillising  character.  This  was  evident,  even  at 
 that  time,  from  the  passionate  disquietude,  the  zealous  pre- 
 
ON   THE   APPEARANCE   TO   ST   PAUL.  355 
 
 cipitancy  of  his  conduct.  On  the  different  occasions  in 
 which  he  came  in  contact  with  the  new  beUevers  in  the 
 Messiah,  when  first,  in  the  character,  as  we  must  suppose,  of 
 a  disputatious  dialectician  as  he  was,  he  argued  with  them 
 (comp.  Acts  ix.  29),  then  entered  their  assemblies,  haled 
 them  away  prisoners,  and  helped  to  bring  them  to  trial,  he 
 could  not  fail  to  feel  himself  on  a  disadvantageous  footing 
 with  them  in  two  respects.  The  fact  on  which  they  reHed, 
 on  which  they  built  the  whole  of  their  faith,  as  differing 
 from  their  hereditary  Judaism,  was  the  resurrection  of  Jesus. 
 Had  he  been  a  Sadducee,  it  would  have  been  easy  for  him 
 to  combat  this  asserted  fact,  for  the  Sadducees  recognised 
 no  resurrection  whatever  (Acts  xxiii.  7).  But  Paul  was  a 
 Pharisee,  believed  therefore  in  the  resurrection — not,  indeed, 
 to  happen  until  the  end  of  time ;  but  that  in  a  particular 
 case,  the  case  of  a  holy  man,  it  might  have  happened  ex- 
 ceptionally even  earlier — this  supposition,  from  the  point  of 
 view  of  Jewish  notions  at  that  time,  created  no  difficulty. 
 He  must,  therefore,  in  the  case  of  Jesus,  have  relied  princi- 
 pally upon  the  fact  that  it  could  not  be  assumed  to  have  hap- 
 pened to  him,  because  he  was  not  a  holy  man,  but,  on  the 
 contrary,  a  false  teacher,  an  impostor.  But,  in  the  presence 
 of  the  believers  in  Jesus,  this  must  have  become  every  day 
 more  doubtful  to  him.  They  considered  it  not  only  pub- 
 licly honourable  to  be  as  convinced  of  his  resurrection  as 
 they  were  of  their  own  life,  but  they  showed  also  a  state  of 
 mind,  a  quiet  peace,  a  tranquil  cheerfulness,  even  under 
 suffering,  which  put  to  shame  the  restless  and  joyless  zeal  of 
 their  persecutor.  Could  he  have  been  a  false  teacher  who 
 had  adherents  such  as  these?  Could  that  have  been  a 
 mendacious  pretence  which  gave  such  rest  and  security? 
 On  the  one  hand,  he  saw  the  new  sect,  in  spite  of  all  perse- 
 cutions— nay,  in  consequence  of  them — extending  their  in- 
 fluence wider  and  wider  around  them ;  on  the  other,  as 
 their  persecutor,  he  felt  that  inward  tranquillity  growing  less 
 and  less  which  he  could  observe  in  so  many  ways  in  the  per- 
 
35^  LECTURE   XIII. 
 
 secuted.  We  cannot,  therefore,  be  surprised  if,  in  hours  of 
 despondency  and  inward  unhappiness,  he  put  to  himself  the 
 question,  'Who,  after  all,  is  right — thou  or  the  crucified 
 Galilean  about  whom  these  men  are  so  enthusiastic?'  And 
 when  he  had  once  got  as  far  as  this,  the  result,  with  his  bodily 
 and  mental  characteristics,  naturally  followed  in  an  ecstasy, 
 in  which  the  very  same  Christ,  whom  up  to  this  time  he  had 
 so  passionately  persecuted,  appeared  to  him  in  all  the  glory 
 of  which  his  adherents  spoke  so  much,  showed  him  the  per- 
 versity and  folly  of  his  conduct,  and  called  him  to  come 
 over  to  his  service." — Vol.  i.  p.  419-20. 
 
 Such  is  the  theory  which  Strauss  has  constructed 
 to  explain  the  origin  of  that  belief  which  he  admits 
 the  Apostle  Paul  entertained,  that  the  risen  Jesus  had 
 appeared  to  him.  It  is  for  us  calmly  to  consider 
 whether  this  account  consists  of  facts  historically  at- 
 tested, or  of  a  series  of  conjectures  framed  by  the  in- 
 ventor on  purpose  to  make  out  a  preconceived  judg- 
 ment. 
 
 First,  as  to  the  description  which  he  gives  of  Paul's 
 state  of  mind  during  his  persecuting  career,  it  is 
 mainly  correct,  for  it  is  taken  from  what  we  learn 
 from  the  Apostle  himself,  and  from  what  is  recorded 
 by  Luke  in  his  narrative  of  the  Acts.  Paul  himself 
 tells  us  that  "  beyond  measure  he  persecuted  the 
 Church  of  God,  and  wasted  it ;  and  that  he  profited — 
 made  advance — in  the  Jews'  religion  above  many  his 
 equals  in  his  own  nation,  being  more  exceedingly 
 zealous  of  the  traditions  of  his  fathers."  Paul  never 
 forgot  how  he  had  once  persecuted  the  followers  of  the 
 Lord  Jesus;  and  at  times  he  seems  to  labour  for  words 
 sufficiently  strong  to  express  his  zeal  for  Pharisaic 
 Judaism  on  the  one  hand,  and  his  hatred  of  the  very 
 
ON   THE   APPEARANCE   TO   ST   PAUL.  35/ 
 
 name  of  Jesus  on  the  other.  It  is  also  evident  that 
 all  the  time  he  was  so  engaged  in  persecuting  the 
 Christians,  he  was  cherishing  the  conviction  that  he 
 Avas  doing  God  service.  Whether  "  his  Pharisaic  zeal 
 for  righteousness" — for  that  righteousness  which  he 
 then  imagined  was  all  that  the  law  required — "  was  of 
 a  tranquillising  character,"  is  a  question  which  admits 
 of  a  double  answer,  for  in  one  respect  we  learn  from 
 himself  that  it  was  of  such  a  character.  He  was  then 
 "without"  a  spiritual  view  of  "the  law,"  and  was  "  alive." 
 His  supposed  conformity  to  the  law  gave  him  the 
 hope  of  the  divine  favour,  and  the  more  zealous  he 
 was,  the  higher  did  his  hope  rise.  On  the  other  hand, 
 persecuting  zeal  can  never  be  wholly  of  a  tranquillis- 
 ing character  ;  although  the  mental  disturbance  which 
 such  zeal,  from  its  very  nature,  tends  to  produce,  was 
 in  his  case  evidently  allayed  by  the  consideration  that 
 he  was  zealous  for  God. 
 
 There  is  not  the  slightest  ground,  we  would  next 
 observe,  for  Strauss's  assumption  that  any  doubt  ever 
 entered  the  Apostle's  mind  as  to  the  righteousness  of 
 the  course  which  he  was  pursuing.  On  the  contrary, 
 he  looked  upon  his  zeal  in  persecuting  the  Christians 
 as  one  of  his  strongest  claims  to  the  favour  of  his 
 countrymen,  and,  in  all  probability,  to  the  favour  of 
 God  Himself  Persecutors  generally  grow  in  the  con- 
 viction of  the  righteousness  of  their  own  cause.  And 
 Paul,  the  more  he  became  inflamed  with  zeal  against 
 the  Christians,  cherished,  no  doubt,  the  more  firmly 
 the  conviction  that  their  cause  was  only  one  to  be  put 
 down  by  every  possible  means.  Whether  he  ventured 
 to  dispute  with  Stephen  on  the  subject  of  the  Chris- 
 tian faith,  we  are  not  told ;  but  it  is  certain  that  those 
 
358  LECTURE   XIII. 
 
 who  did  dispute  with  him  were  only  filled  with  in- 
 creased hatred  when  they  found  themselves  "  unable 
 to  resist  the  wisdom  and  the  spirit  by  which  he 
 spake."  But  the  real  disproof  of  Strauss's  conjecture, 
 that  Paul  began  at  last  to  doubt  as  to  his  views  re- 
 specting the  nature  of  the  asserted  claims  of  Jesus,  is 
 to  be  found  in  the  entire  absence  of  anything  proceed- 
 ing from  the  Apostle  himself  to  countenance  such  a 
 conjecture.  He  tells  us,  in  an  Epistle  which  Strauss, 
 indeed,  will  not  acknowledge  as  genuine,  that  he  per- 
 secuted the  Church  in  ignorance  and  in  unbelief 
 But,  apart  from  what  he  thus  says,  can  we  for  a 
 moment  imagine  that  in  his  acknowledged  Epistles  to 
 the  Corinthians  and  to  the  Galatians,  in  which  he  ex- 
 pressly refers  to  what  he  once  was — a  persecutor  of 
 the  Church  of  God — he  would  not  have  alluded  in 
 some  way  or  other  to  the  doubts  that  began  to  arise 
 in  his  mind,  had  such  doubts  really  arisen  ?  So  far, 
 indeed,  from  his  having  come  to  entertain  any  such 
 doubts,  the  fact  is,  as  he  himself  said  in  the  presence 
 of  Agrippa,  that  his  fury  against  the  Christians  in- 
 creased more  and  more,  and  was  at  its  greatest  height 
 when  he  was  on  his  way  to  Damascus  with  authority 
 and  commission  from  the  chief  priests  to  apprehend 
 the  Christians  there,  and  to  bring  them  bound  to  Jeru- 
 salem to  be  punished.  Nor  does  the  expression  (to 
 which  Strauss,  however,  does  not  refer,  because  he 
 wishes  the  Book  of  the  Acts  to  be  set  aside  as  of  no 
 authority)  which  our  Lord  employed  to  show  him  the 
 utter  ruin  he  was  by  his  mad  career  bringing  on  him- 
 self, at  all  countenance,  as  some  have  supposed,  the 
 idea  that  there  was  a  struggle  going  on  in  the  mind  of 
 Paul  as  to  whether  he  was  right  or  wrong  in  the  course 
 
ON   THE  APPEARANCE   TO   ST   PAUL.  359 
 
 he  was  pursuing.  It  is  true,  as  Strauss  says,  that, 
 being  a  Pharisee,  Paul  believed  in  the  doctrine  of  a 
 future  resurrection,  and  that  therefore  he  could  not,  as 
 he  might  have  done  had  he  been  a  Sadducee,  reject 
 the  testimony  of  the  disciples  concerning  the  resurrec- 
 tion of  Jesus  on  the  ground  that  a  resurrection  is  im- 
 possible. It  may  also  be  true  that,  had  Paul  calmly 
 reasoned  respecting  the  conduct  of  the  disciples  who 
 manifested  such  a  firmness  of  faith  and  such  a  cheer- 
 fulness of  soul  under  all  the  sufferings  to  which  they 
 were  subjected,  he  might  have  been  induced  to  recon- 
 sider his  opinion  concerning  the  character  and  claims 
 of  Jesus,  and  even  led  to  renounce  his  former  opinion, 
 and  to  arrive  at  the  conviction  that  this  Jesus  must 
 have  been  no  false  teacher,  no  impostor,  but  a  holy 
 man,  even  the  Messiah.  But  where  is  there  the  least 
 evidence  that  Paul  ever  reasoned  thus  in  his  mind  ? 
 Is  not  the  whole  existing  evidence  of  an  opposite  cha- 
 racter }  Do  we  see  him,  when  on  the  way  to  Damas- 
 cus, hesitating  and  struggling  with  rising  doubts  ?  Do 
 we  not  rather  see  him  advancing  with  increasing  fury 
 against  the  Christians  there,  to  suppress,  as  he  hoped, 
 this  new  sect  which  had  risen  up  against  the  Law  ? 
 
 The  state  of  the  case,  then,  is  this.  If  we  form  our 
 views  solely  from  the  facts  presented  to  us  in  the 
 Epistles  of  St  Paul  as  well  as  in  the  Acts  of  the 
 Apostles,  we  must  reject  the  theory  of  Strauss.  If 
 we  abandon  these  authentic  sources  of  information, 
 and  form  in  our  minds  the  theory  that  Paul's  conver- 
 sion was  the  mere  result  of  a  mental  struggle,  we 
 may  adopt  Strauss's  conjecture,  or  any  other  that  our 
 imagination  may  suggest.  In  the  former  case  we 
 shall  conclude  without   the  slightest   hesitation  that 
 
360  LECTURE   XIII. 
 
 the  risen  Jesus  was  really  seen  by  Paul.  In  the  latter 
 case  we  shall  deny  this  fact,  and  account  for  Paul's 
 belief  in  the  reality  of  Christ's  appearance  to  him  as 
 we  best  can.  Only,  be  it  observed,  in  the  former 
 case  we  are  guided  by  authentic  evidence,  whilst  in 
 the  latter  we  are  guided  solely  by  conjecture.  Surely 
 no  unprejudiced  mind  can  hesitate  between  these  two 
 kinds  of  guidance.  Following,  then,  that  of  authentic 
 evidence,  we  conclude  that  the  appearance  of  Christ 
 to  Paul  was  a  real,  objective  appearance,  and  that  the 
 Apostle  said  with  truth,  "LAST  OF  ALL  He  WAS 
 SEEN 
 TIME.' 
 
LECTURE    XIV. 
 
 STRAUSS   ON   THE   ORIGIN   OF   BELIEF   IN   THE 
 RESURRECTION. 
 
 Having,  as  he  imagines,  disproved  the  objective 
 reality  of  the  appearance  of  the  risen  Jesus  to  St 
 Paul,  Strauss  proceeds  to  account  for  the  origin 
 of  the  belief  of  the  first  disciples  in  the  supposed 
 reality  of  His  resurrection.  Although  we  shall  meet 
 with  arguments  essentially  like  those  which  have 
 already  been  refuted,  yet,  considering  the  vast  im- 
 portance of  the  subject,  we  must  submit  to  follow 
 our  objector  in  his  tedious  repetition  of  mere  con- 
 jectures manifestly  framed  to  support  a  foregone 
 conclusion.  One  result  will  be  a  feeling  of  sur- 
 prise that  any  man  professing  to  be  in  quest  of 
 truth,  and  possessing  unquestionably  the  power  of 
 investigation,  could  so  persistently  blind  himself  to 
 the  utter  absence  of  all  real  argument  on  a  subject 
 so  awfully  momentous.  We  have  seen  how  Strauss 
 laboured  to  misrepresent  the  case  of  the  Apostle 
 Paul,  confounding  things  which  that  Apostle  knew 
 and  declares  to  be  distinct,  and  misinterpreting  many 
 of  his  statements  in  reference,  directly  or  indirectly, 
 to  that  marvellous  appearance  which  the  glorified 
 Jesus  accorded  to  him  when  He  apprehended  him 
 in  his  persecuting  career.     Let  us,  then,  endeavour  to 
 
362  LECTURE  XIV. 
 
 consider  as  calmly  as  we  can  the  explanation  which 
 Strauss  attempts  to  give  of  the  origin  of  that  belief 
 which,  be  it  remembered,  he  admits  the  first  disciples 
 to  have  firmly  held  in  the  resurrection  of  Jesus.  We 
 know,  on  testimony  of  the  highest  order,  how  this 
 behef  did  originate ;  but  that  testimony  Strauss 
 imagines  he  has  set  aside  as  unsatisfactory,  and  he 
 proceeds  to  construct  an  explanation  which  he  thinks 
 ought  to  prove  satisfactory  to  all.     He  begins  thus  : — 
 
 "  If,  then,  we  are  right  in  supposing  that  this  appearance  of 
 Christ,  which  occasioned  the  conversion  of  the  Apostle 
 Paul  from  Pharisaic  Judaism  to  the  newly-founded  Church 
 of  the  Messiah,  was  of  this  character,  and  if  those  appear- 
 ances which  in  the  older  disciples  accompanied  the  rise  of 
 the  faith  in  Jesus  as  the  risen  Messiah  were  of  essentially 
 the  same  kind  as  in  the  other  case — then  were  these  latter 
 solely  internal  states  of  mind,  which  might  indeed  present 
 themselves  to  the  subjects  of  them  as  external  sensible  per- 
 ceptions, but  are  to  be  considered  by  us  only  as  results  of 
 mental  excitement — as  visions." — Vol.  i.  p.  420-21. 
 
 As  this  is  a  purely  hypothetical  statement,  we  need 
 not  remark  upon  it  any  further  than  to  say,  that  since 
 the  appearance  of  Christ  to  Paul  was,  as  the  whole 
 evidence  proves,  a  real,  objective  appearance,  and 
 since  the  appearances  which  Paul  mentions  as  having 
 been  accorded  to  the  first  disciples  were,  though 
 under  different  circumstances,  of  essentially  the  same 
 kind  as  in  his  own  case — these  latter  were  unques- 
 tionably, as  the  particular  evidence  bearing  on  them 
 also  shows,  real,  objective  appearances,  which,  when 
 perceived  by  the  disciples,  produced,  and  could  not 
 but  produce,  in  their  minds  that  belief  which  they 
 firmly  held    in    the   reality  of  the  resurrection,  and 
 
ORIGIN   OF   BELIEF   IN   THE   RESURRECTION.      363 
 
 which  they  maintained  amidst  all  possible  privations 
 — even  to  the  loss  of  life  itself. 
 
 ''The  causes,"  says  Strauss,  "which  produced  these  ap- 
 pearances, the  conditions  which  made  them  possible,  were 
 in  both  cases  of  the  same  sort.  The  excitement  occasioned 
 in  the  mind  of  the  later  Apostle  by  the  threatening  progress 
 of  Christianity  and  his  zeal  in  the  persecution  of  its  ad- 
 herents, was  produced,  conversely,  in  the  older  Apostles  by 
 the  persecution  that  broke  out  on  the  part  of  the  Jews 
 against  Jesus  and  his  adherents.  The  impression  received 
 by  Paul  from  the  first  Christian  Church,  from  their  cheer- 
 fulness in  faith  and  suffering,  arose,  in  the  case  of  the  earlier 
 disciples,  from  their  recollection  of  the  personality  of  Jesus 
 himself,  and  their  vivid  conviction  that  he  was  the  Messiah." 
 — Vol.  i.  p.  421. 
 
 This  passage  contains  the  basis  of  his  theory  In 
 respect  to  both  cases.  Paul  was  Inflamed  with  zeal 
 against  the  Christians ;  but  their  cheerfulness  in  faith 
 and  suffering  produced  at  last  such  an  impression  on 
 his  mind  that  he  began  to  doubt  whether  they  were 
 not  in  the  right  and  himself  In  the  wrong;  and  a 
 struggle  was  thus  commenced  In  his  mind,  which 
 became  so  vehement  that  at  the  very  moment  when 
 he  seemed  most  infuriated  against  the  Christians,  he 
 imagined  that  Jesus  appeared  to  him  in  all  His  glory, 
 and  "  called  him  to  come  over  to  His  service."  Such, 
 as  we  have  seen,  is  Strauss's  theory  respecting  the 
 case  of  Paul ;  and  we  have,  we  think,  sufficiently 
 shown  that  the  theory  is  entirely  baseless,  being 
 opposed  to  the  natural  working  of  persecuting  zeal, 
 and  having  not  the  slightest  evidence  to  rest  upon. 
 It  Is  a  theory  purposely  constructed  to  set  aside  all 
 authentic   evidence   and   to   support  a  preconceived 
 
364  LECTURE   XIV. 
 
 opinion.  We  shall  find  the  similar  theory  respecting 
 the  case  of  the  older  Apostles  to  be  equally  baseless, 
 and  to  have  its  origin  solely  in  the  mind  of  the  pre- 
 judiced and  determined  objector.  That  the  Jewish 
 rulers  did  persecute  Jesus  even  to  the  death,  there  is 
 no  question ;  but  there  is  no  evidence  to  show  that 
 these  rulers  at  first  contemplated  anything  beyond 
 cutting  off  the  Head  of  the  new  sect.  They  no 
 doubt  expected  that  by  the  death  of  Jesus  this 
 sect  would  be  for  ever  extinguished.  When  Jesus 
 was  seized,  His  disciples  were  allowed  to  go  their 
 own  way :  two  of  them  at  least  were  present  at  His 
 trial,  and  only  one  of  these  was  subjected  to  a  little 
 temporary  reproach.  Nor  did  the  disciples  of  Jesus, 
 although  they  loved  Him,  and  believed  that  He  was 
 the  Messiah,  show  themselves  to  be  possessed  of  that 
 courage  which  is  necessary  to  face  persecution  and  to 
 run  the  risk  of  death.  They  indeed  soon  became  en- 
 tirely altered  men,  but  Strauss  has  no  right  to  appeal 
 to  the  documents  which  tell  us  that  some  time  after 
 the  death  of  Jesus  they  openly  and  bravely  encoun- 
 tered persecution  for  His  sake,  and  at  the  same  time 
 to  set  aside  these  documents  when  they  tell  us,  with 
 equal  clearness,  that  at  the  time  of  the  apprehension 
 and  trial  of  Jesus  they,  as  a  body,  forsook  Him  and  fled, 
 and  that  one  of  the  two  who  ventured  into  the  judg- 
 ment-hall openly  and  repeatedly  denied  Him.  Strauss 
 unfairly  applies  to  the  disciples  what  was  true  of  them, 
 at  a  later  date,  but  not  true  of  them  at  the  date  which 
 his  theory  supposes.  Their  belief  in  the  resurrection 
 was  prior  to  the  persecution  that  arose  against 
 themselves,  and  could  not  therefore  be  owing  to  that 
 persecution   as   one  of   the  main  causes  which   pro- 
 
ORIGIN    OF   BELIEF   IN   THE   RESURRECTION.      365 
 
 duced  it.  It  was,  we  repeat,  their  belief  in  the  resur- 
 rection of  Jesus  which  armed  their  minds  to  meet 
 this  persecution,  and  it  was  because  they  pubhshed 
 this  belief  that  this  persecution  arose.  Strauss's 
 theory,  then,  falls  to  the  ground  in  the  case  of  these 
 older  Apostles,  just  as  it  fell  to  the  ground  in  the 
 case  of  the  later  Apostle.  The  excitement  to  which 
 he  traces  their  belief  in  the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  and 
 which  he  says  was  occasioned  "by  the  persecution 
 that  broke  out  on  the  part  of  the  Jews  against  Jesus 
 and  His  adherents,"  did  not  exist  in  the  peculiar  form 
 which  his  theory  supposes  until  this  persecution 
 against  them  actually  arose ;  and  that  persecution 
 was  itself  occasioned  by  their  proclaiming  in  Jerusa- 
 lem that  Jesus  who  had  been  put  to  death  was  risen 
 from  the  dead.  Hence,  according  to  Strauss,  the 
 effect — their  belief  in  the  resurrection — was  prior  to 
 the  cause  by  which,  in  his  view,  it  was  produced — the 
 persecution  raised  against  them  by  the  Jewish  rulers. 
 As  to  the  impression  which  Strauss  parallels  to  that 
 which  (in  opposition,  as  we  have  already  shown,  to  all 
 the  evidence  bearing  on  the  subject)  he  alleges  Paul 
 to  have  received  from  the  cheerfulness  of  the  first 
 Christians  in  faith  and  suffering,  it  is  no  doubt  true 
 that  the  earlier  disciples  did  cherish  in  their  minds  "  a 
 recollection  of  the  personality  of  Jesus  Himself,  and  a 
 vivid " — more  or  less  vivid,  we  would  rather  say — 
 ".  conviction  that  He  was  the  Messiah."  In  reference 
 to  this  point,  the  state  of  mind  on  the  part  of  these 
 disciples  was  exactly  the  reverse  of  Paul's  state  of 
 mind,  when  he  was  breathing  out  slaughter  against 
 the  followers  of  Jesus.  Paul's  mind  was  indeed  then 
 in  a  state  of  high  excitement ;  but  it  was,  as  is  clear 
 
366  LECTURE   XIV. 
 
 from  his  own  language,  the  excitement  of  bigoted  zeal 
 and  furious  hatred.     The  earlier  disciples  too,  upon 
 the  condemnation  and  death  of  their  Master,  were  un- 
 questionably in  a  state — not  of  what  we  properly  call 
 excitement,  but — of  the  deepest  depression  ;  and  such 
 is  exactly  the  state  of  mind  which  we  should  expect 
 to  have  been  produced  in  their  case  by  the  death  of 
 Him  whom  they  had  reason  to  regard  as  the  Messiah. 
 They  never  could  understand  what  Jesus  meant  when 
 He   told   them    of   His    approaching   sufferings   and 
 death.      His   language   on   this   subject   utterly   con- 
 founded them  ;  and  in  all  probability  they  believed  to 
 the  very  last  that  He  would  rescue  Himself  from  the 
 hands  of  His  enemies.     When  His  predictions  were 
 actually  fulfilled,  and  they  saw  Him  betrayed,  con- 
 demned, and  crucified,  their  hearts  sank  within  them, 
 their  hopes  were  blasted,  and  their  faith  was  shaken 
 to  its  very  basis.     Their  state  of  mind  is  vividly  de- 
 scribed to  us  in  the  words  of  the  two  who  were  going 
 to  Emmaus  on  the  day  of  the   resurrection.     These 
 two  were   conversing   about   their   crucified    Master. 
 They  were  evidently  trying  to   account  for  this,  to 
 them,  most  unexpected   event.     Their  countenances 
 were  sad,  indicating  the  deep  depression  of  their  spi- 
 rits, and  their  words  were,  "  We  trusted  " — we  were, 
 not  are,  hoping — "  that  this  was  He  who  should  re- 
 deem Israel."     Their  words  do  not  imply  that  their 
 hope  was  wholly  gone,  but  they  state  only  what  had 
 been  their  hope  until  that  dread  event  befell  them — 
 the  death  of  Him  in  whom  their  hope  was  placed. 
 Neither  their  faith  nor  their  hope  was  as  yet  a  thing 
 entirely  of  the  past ;  but  both  had  suffered  a  fearful 
 eclipse,  and  they  knew  not  what  to  think. 
 
ORIGIN   OF   BELIEF   IN   THE   RESURRECTION.      367 
 
 Such  was,  according  to  all  the  evidence,  the  state 
 of  these  disciples'  minds ;  and  this  is  assuredly  not 
 that  state  of  excitement  which  Strauss  ascribes  to 
 them,  and  to  which,  as  its  source,  he  traces  their  sub- 
 sequent belief  in  the  resurrection  of  Jesus — the  ex- 
 citement which  he  supposes  could  not  exist  until  its 
 cause  existed.  That  cause  was  not  the  death  of 
 Jesus,  but  persecution  raised  against  themselves. 
 Such  is  his  theory.  But  this  persecution  was  itself 
 caused  by  their  proclaiming  the  resurrection  of  Jesus. 
 The  excitement,  therefore,  occasioned  by  this  perse- 
 cution, could  not  have  been  the  cause  of  their  belief 
 in  the  resurrection. 
 
 We  have  dwelt  the  longer  on  this  point  for  two 
 reasons.  First,  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to  ascer- 
 tain what  was  the  real  state  of  the  disciples'  minds 
 upon  the  death  of  Jesus.  To  ascertain  this  clearly  is 
 important,  because  their  state  of  mind  enters  into  the 
 evidence  which  is  given  us  in  support  of  the  fact 
 of  the  resurrection.  Secondly,  Strauss  manifestly 
 labours  to  throw  into  a  sort  of  formula  what  he  re- 
 gards as  the  component  elements  of  a  state  of  mind 
 from  which,  as  its  source,  the  idea  and  the  belief  of  a 
 resurrection  would  spring.  The  formula  is  so  con- 
 structed as  to  apply  to  both  cases — to  that  of  St  Paul, 
 and  to  that  of  the  earlier  disciples.  There  is  a  seeming 
 unity  in  the  two  cases  ;  and  there  is  an  apparent  simpli- 
 city in  a  formula  applicable  to  both — although  a  mere 
 set  of  words,  or  rather  of  conjectures — which  to  some 
 persons  may  give  it  a  plausible  aspect.  We  might 
 have  urged  against  the  theory  the  difficulty  which 
 both  Paul  and  the  earlier  disciples  could  not  but  have 
 experienced  in  concluding  from  any  supposed  mental 
 
368  LECTURE   XIV. 
 
 feelings,  however  highly  excited,  a  fact  which  they 
 yet  believed  to  have  been  of  an  external,  an  objective 
 nature,  such  as  that  of  a  resurrection  from  the  dead. 
 But  we  shall  hereafter  have  occasion  to  allude  to  this 
 view  of  the  subject.  Meanwhile  we  reject  the  formula 
 itself  as  one  which  is  not  only  purely  imaginary,  but 
 is  in  direct  opposition  both  to  the  natural  workings  of 
 the  human  heart  and  to  all  the  evidence  we  have, 
 whether  in  reference  to  Paul  or  to  the  earlier  disciples. 
 ''  Give  me  a  resting-place,"  said  one,  "  and  I  will  move 
 the  world."  Strauss  does  not  ask  a  formula  to  be 
 given  him.  He  is  able  to  construct  one  for  himself; 
 and  then  he  shows  how  easily  he  can  raise  the  dead. 
 But  as  his  formula  is  the  product  of  his  own  imagina- 
 tion, so  is  the  conclusion  which  is  involved  in  it  equally 
 the  product  of  the  same  untrustworthy  faculty.  It 
 is  reason,  and  not  imagination,  which  ought  to  be 
 our  guide  in  all  inquiries  into  truth.  If  we  abandon 
 reason  as  our  guide,  and  will  not  listen  to  evidence, 
 we  had  better  not  inquire  at  all.  Truth  addresses 
 itself  to  the  reason  alone. 
 
 Having  stated  the  general  formula  which  exhibits 
 "  the  causes  that  produced  these  appearances "  of 
 Christ,  whether  to  Paul  or  to  the  earlier  disciples,  and 
 also  "  the  conditions  which  made  them  possible," 
 Strauss  proceeds  to  particulars,  in  order  to  show  how 
 the  idea  of,  and  the  belief  in,  the  resurrection  of  Jesus 
 would  arise.  And,  first,  he  notices  the  conceptions 
 prevalent  among  the  Jews  respecting  the  Messiah  : — 
 
 "  The  Jewish  conceptions  of  the  Messiah,  though  different 
 in  different  persons,  agreed  nevertheless  in  this,  that  the 
 Messiah,  after  the  opening  of  his  kingdom,  would  continue 
 to  reign  over  his  followers  for  a  period  far  exceeding  the 
 
ORIGIN   OF   BELIEF   IN   THE   RESURRECTION.      369! 
 
 natural  duration  of  human  life.  According  to  Luke  i.  33 
 (comp.  John  xii.  34),  his  dominion  was  to  have,  absolutely^ 
 no  end,  as  we  might  read  in  Ps.  ex.  4 ;  Isaiah  ix.  7 ;  Dan.  vii. 
 14,  27;  elsewhere  we  find  sometimes  a  duration  of  a  thousand 
 years  (Rev.  xx.  4),  sometimes  of  four  hundred,*  sometimes 
 even  a  shorter  dominion  of  the  Messiah  on  earth  is  supposed.t 
 If  he  died  at  last,  this  death  was  to  happen  to  all  life  on 
 earth  for  the  purpose  of  bringing  about  the  change  into  the 
 superterrestrial  state.J  In  no  case  could  he  die  until  he  had 
 finished  his  work  and  executed  all  that  was  expected  of 
 him  ;  in  no  case  as  one  submitting  to  superior  power,  as  a 
 condemned  criminal.  Both  had  occurred  to  Jesus :  his 
 ministry  as  the  Messiah  had  been  broken  off  by  the  violence 
 practised  against  him  by  the  Jews,  even  before  it  had  fully 
 begun.  Interrupted  it  had  been,  but  even  this  only  appa- 
 rently ;  the  people  to  whom  he  had  been  sent  had  shown 
 themselves  unworthy  to  keep  him,  and  to  partake  of  the 
 blessings  which  he  had  wished  to  bring  them.  Therefore  the 
 heavens  at  length  had  taken  him  up  until  the  people  should 
 become  worthy  of  his  being  sent  again  by  God,  that  the 
 times  of  restitution  long  since  promised  to  the  true  Israel 
 may  come  in  (Acts  iii.  20,  ff.).  The  element  of  the  prema- 
 ture and  violent  death  could  only  be  adopted  into  the 
 Jewish  conception  of  the  Messiah  on  one  condition,  a  con- 
 dition, however,  not  unacceptable.  That  condition  was  the 
 viewing  of  the  death  of  the  Messiah  not  as  a  descent  of  his 
 soul  into  the  kingdom  of  shadows,  but  as  an  exaltation  to 
 God,  as  an  entrance  into  the  glory  of  the  Messiah  (Luke 
 xxiv.  25,  ff.),  with  the  prospect  in  reserve  of  a  future  return 
 in  that  glory." — Vol.  i.  p.  421-2. 
 
 The  design  of  the  above  passage  is  very  obvious. 
 There  is  the  prevalent  conception  entertained  by  the 
 Jews  that  the   Messiah's  reign  was  to  last  either  for 
 
 *  4  Ezra  V.  29,  ff.  Compare  on  this,  Volkmar,  Introduction  to  the 
 Apocrypha,  ii.  61,  ff. 
 
 t  Gfriirer,  The  Century  of  Salvation,  ii.  252,  ff.         +4  Ezra.    Ibid. 
 2  A 
 
370  LECTURE  XIV. 
 
 ever,  or  at  least  for  a  period  exceeding  the  natural 
 duration  of  human  life  ;  and  if  by  any  it  was  supposed 
 that  He  would  di£,  His  death  was  to  be  accompanied 
 with  the  death  of  all  life  on  earth,  for  the  purpose  of 
 bringing  about  the  change  into  the  superterrestrial 
 state.  In  no  case  was  He  to  die  as  one  yielding  to 
 superior  power,  or  as  a  condemned  criminal 
 
 Without  dwelling  on  the  particular  views  here  re- 
 ferred to,  it  is  abundantly  evident  that  the  current 
 conceptions  of  the  Messiah  among  the  Jews,  when  Jesus 
 appeared  and  claimed  to  be  the  Messiah,  were,  that  He 
 was  to  establish  a  kingdom  upon  earth ;  that  the  Jewish 
 .people  under  Him  were  to  be  raised  to  a  supremacy 
 over  all  other  nations  ;  and  that  this  kingdom  was  to 
 endure  for  ever.  The  disciples  of  Jesus,  as  well  as 
 the  rest  of  their  countrymen,  shared  in  these  views  of 
 the  Messiah — so  much  so  Indeed,  that  even  after  His 
 resurrection  "  they  asked  Him,  saying,  Lord,  wilt  Thou 
 at  this  time  restore  again  the  kingdom  to  Israel .'' " 
 (Acts  i.  6).  Carnality  blinded  the  minds  of  the  Jews, 
 and  they  rejected  the  claims  of  Jesus,  resisting  the 
 force  of  all  the  evidence  by  which  these  claims  were 
 supported,  mainly  because  He  came  as  a  spiritual  and 
 not  as  a  carnal  deliverer.  It  was  evidently  owing  to 
 these  carnal  conceptions  of  the  Messiah's  nature  and 
 office  that  the  disciples  of  Jesus  "were  offended" 
 when  He  spake  to  them  of  His  approaching  suffer- 
 ings and  death.  It  was  owing  to  the  same  cause 
 that,  when  He  was  actually  condemned  and  put  to 
 death,  their  hopes  were  well-nigh  extinguished  and 
 their  faith  overturned. 
 
 Now,  the  simple  question  is,  How  did  these  disciples 
 come  to  change  their  views  respecting  the  Messiah's 
 
ORIGIN   OF   BELIEF   IN   THE   RESURRECTION.      37 1 
 
 kingdom,  and  especially  respecting  His  death  ?  How 
 were  they  able  to  adopt  into  their  conception  of  the 
 Messiah  "the  element  of  a  premature  and  violent 
 death,"  such  as  that  which  had  befallen  Jesus  ?  Strauss's 
 theory  is,  that  this  change  was  effected  solely  by  an 
 effort  of  their  own  minds.  The  disciples  believed 
 that  Jesus  was  the  Messiah.  His  death  was  directly 
 opposed  to  the  conceptions  which  they  entertained 
 of  the  Messiah.  Still  they  were  of  themselves  deter- 
 mined to  persist  in  their  faith,  and  therefore  they 
 set  to  work  to  find  out  some  way  by  which  they 
 could  adopt  into  their  conception  the  fact  of  His 
 death.  And  it  occurred  to  them — to  them  all,  with- 
 out a  single  dissenting  voice — that  the  way  was  to 
 view  this  death,  which  had  so  stunned  them,  as  only 
 a  temporary  cessation  of  His  work,  caused  by  the 
 unworthiness  of  the  Jewish  people  of  that  generation 
 to  retain  Him  as  the  Messiah  ;  and  further,  to  view 
 it  not  as  a  real  death,  but  "  as  an  exaltation  to 
 God,  as  an  entrance  into  the  glory  of  the  Messiah, 
 with  the  prospect  in  reserve  of  a  future  return  in 
 that  glory." 
 
 This  is  his  theory,  and  it  is  professedly  constructed 
 out  of  two  passages,  of  which  the  one  is  found  in  St 
 Luke's  Gospel,  and  the  other  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles, 
 written  by  the  same  author.  These  two  books  Strauss 
 ascribes  to  some  unknown  author  who  lived  in  the 
 second  century,  and  he  therefore  regards  them  as  of  no 
 authority.  Still  he  may  say,  that  although  he  rejects 
 the  received  authorship  of  these  books,  he  is  entitled 
 to  look  at  these  passages  as  showing  how  the  minds 
 of  the  disciples  —  earlier  or  later  —  reasoned  about 
 those  matters.     Now  we  have,  first  of  all,  to  reply, 
 
372  LECTURE   XIV. 
 
 that  If  we  appeal  to  these  or  other  passages  as  fur- 
 nishing materials  for  a  conclusion,  we  must  take  them 
 as  they  are  presented  to  us,  and  not  garble  them,  or 
 torture  them  to  say  merely  what  we  wish  they  had 
 said.  The  passage  in  the  Gospel  of  Luke  consists  of 
 words  declared  to  have  been  uttered  by  the  risen 
 Jesus  in  order  to  show  to  the  two  disciples  that, 
 according  to  the  ancient  Scriptures,  it  behoved  the 
 Messiah  "  first  to  suffer,  and  then  to  enter  into  His 
 glory."  It  was  not  these  disciples  who  made  this 
 discovery.  It  was  another — even  Jesus  Himself,  risen 
 from  the  dead — who  explained  to  them  from  the 
 words  of  Moses  and  the  succeeding  Prophets  the 
 things  concerning  Himself.  We  have  here  a  satisfac- 
 tory and  reasonable  account  of  the  manner  in  which 
 these  disciples  came  to  be  able  to  adopt  into  their 
 conception  of  the  Messiah  the  element  of  His  pre- 
 mature and  violent  death.  We  also  learn  that  the 
 other  disciples  were  instructed  by  the  same  divine 
 Teacher ;  for  it  is  recorded  by  the  same  Evangelist 
 that  ''  Jesus  opened  their  understanding  that  they 
 might  understand  the  Scriptures,  and  said  unto  them. 
 Thus  it  is  written,  and  thus  it  behoved  Christ — the 
 Messiah — to  suffer,  and  to  rise  from  the  dead  the 
 third  day  "  (Luke  xxiv.  45,  46).  Here,  we  repeat,  is 
 a  rational  account  of  the  change  which  took  place 
 in  the  conceptions  of  these  disciples  respecting  the 
 Messiah.  Strauss's  theory  gives  no  rational  account 
 of  it  whatever.  He  merely  asserts  the  change,  and 
 ascribes  it  to  the  working  of  the  disciples'  own  minds; 
 and  he  does  this  not  only  without  adducing  the 
 slightest  evidence  in  support  of  his  view,  but  in  direct 
 opposition  to. the  only  evidence  we  have. 
 
ORIGIN   OF   BELIEF   IN    THE   RESURRECTION.      373 
 
 As  to  the  passage  in  the  Acts,  it  is  taken  from  a 
 speech  addressed  by  the  Apostle  Peter  to  the  Jewish 
 people,  who  crowded  to  the  Temple  when  they  heard 
 the  report  of  the  miracle  there  performed  on  the  lame 
 man.      In  this    remarkable   speech,   delivered   a    few 
 days  after  Pentecost,  and  therefore  not  a  long  time 
 after  the    death   of  Jesus,    Peter   expressly   charged 
 those  whom   he   addressed   with    having   denied    the 
 Holy  and  Just  One,  and  with  having  killed  the  Prince 
 of  Life,  whom  God,  he  said,  had  raised  from  the  dead, 
 of  which  fact  he  and  his   fellow-Apostles  were  wit- 
 nesses ;  he  then  told  them  that  though  they  and  their 
 rulers  were  guilty  in   having  so  treated   Him  whom 
 God  had  sent,  these  things  had  happened  according 
 to  predictions  uttered  by  the  Prophets,  who  had  all 
 foretold  that  the  Messiah  should  suffer ;  and  he  ex- 
 horted them  to  repentance  in  order  that  they  might 
 receive  the  forgiveness  of  their  sins,  for  that  He  whom 
 they  had  denied  and   crucified,  and  whom  God  had 
 raised  from  the  dead,  was  now  in  heaven,  and  would 
 come   again    to    restore  all   things   (Acts   iii.    12-21). 
 Here,  indeed,  is  an  account  of  the  manner  in  which 
 the  death   of  the   Messiah    could,   according   to    the 
 Scriptures,  be  adopted  into  a  just  conception  of  His 
 office.     So  far  there  is  truth  in  Strauss's  view;  but 
 then  this  account  contains,  as  essential  to  the  conclu- 
 sion which  it  enforces,  the  fact  of  the  resurrection  of 
 Jesus  ;  whereas  Strauss  would  first  bring  in  the  con- 
 clusion, and  then  draw  from  it  the  belief  in  the  resur- 
 rection.    He  would  represent  the  disciples  as  reason- 
 ing thus:  "Jesus  is  the  Messiah.     He  ought  not  to 
 have  died  ;  but  He  has  died.     His  death,  then,  cannot 
 be  anything  else  than  an  exaltation  to  God  :  therefore 
 
374  LECTURE   XIV. 
 
 He  must  have  risen  from  the  dead."  But  the  accounts 
 which  we  have  represent  the  matter  otherwise.  "  Jesus 
 is  the  Messiah.  He  has  been  put  to  death.  He  is 
 risen  again,  and  is  exalted  to  the  right  hand  of  God." 
 And,  as  we  have  said,  the  risen  Jesus  Himself  opened 
 the  understanding  of  His  disciples  to  see  how  this 
 .series  of  facts  was  fulfilled  in  harmony  with  the  pre- 
 dictions concerning  the  Messiah.  Who  can  hesitate 
 between  the  theory  of  Strauss  and  the  accounts  of 
 Luke  the  Evangelist } 
 
 Strauss  continues  his  argument,  such  as  it  is,  in  the 
 following  manner : — 
 
 "  If  the  Old  Testament  was  examined  with  this  view,  this 
 passing  of  the  Messiah  through  death  and  the  grave  to  a 
 new  and  higher  life  could  as  easily  be  found  there,  as,  in  so 
 many  places  treating  of  quite  different  persons  and  things, 
 the  Messiah  and  circumstances  relating  to  him  were  found. 
 Did,  then,  it  might  be  said,  and  in  fact  was  said,  David 
 praise  God  on  his  account  (Ps,  xvi.  9,  ff.)  for  not  leaving  his 
 soul  in  hell,  and  not  suffering  his  flesh  to  see  corruption — 
 David,  who  had  died  as  other  men,  and  whose  body  had 
 seen  corruption  ?  Or  was  it  not  rather  his  great  successor, 
 the  Messiah — that  is,  Jesus — to  whom  those  words  applied 
 as  a  prophecy  (Acts  ii.  25,  ff.)?  Had  not,  further,  Isaiah 
 prophesied  of  the  servant  of  Jehovah,  that  he  shall  be  cut 
 off  out  of  the  land  of  the  living,  and  make  his  grave  with 
 the  wicked ;  but  that  when  he  has  made  his  soul  a  sin- 
 offering,  he  will  live  long,  and  divide  his  spoil  with  the 
 strong  (Isaiah  liii.  8-12)?" — Vol.  i.  p.  422-3. 
 
 We  need  not  offer  many  remarks  on  this  passage, 
 the  design  of  which  is  to  insinuate  that  the  first  dis- 
 ciples examined  the  Old  Testament  in  order  to  dis- 
 cover passages  which  they  might  apply  to  the  Messiah, 
 and  therefore  to  Jesus,  whom  they  were  determined 
 
ORIGIN   OF   BELIEF   IN   THE   RESURRECTION.      375 
 
 to  regard  as  the  Messiah.  We  pass  over,  as  unworthy 
 of  notice  here,  the  assertion  that  this  was  an  easy 
 task  to  persons  who  were  in  the  habit  of  "applying 
 to  the  Messiah  and  to  circumstances  relating  to  Him, 
 passages  which  treat  of  quite  different  persons  and 
 things."  It  is  necessary  for  the  opponents  of  Chris- 
 tianity to  do  what  they  can  to  throw  discredit  on  the 
 evidence  of  prophecy,  which  is  one  great  branch  of 
 that  miraculous  evidence  which  God  has  given  in 
 proof  of  the  claims  of  His  Son  Jesus  Christ.  How- 
 ever obvious  to  us  is  the  meaning  of  many  of  these 
 prophecies,  the  carnally-minded  Jews  were  often  unable 
 to  discern  their  import ;  and  in  particular  their  minds 
 were  so  engrossed  with  worldly  conceptions  of  the 
 Messiah's  kingdom,  that  those  predictions  which 
 clearly  pointed  to  His  sufferings  and  death  were 
 hidden  from  them.  Hence  it  became  necessary  for 
 the  Apostles,  to  whom  Jesus  Himself  explained  these 
 predictions,  and  who  were  further  enlightened  by  the 
 gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  to  explain  especially  to  their 
 Jewish  brethren  the  full  significance  of  what  God  had 
 foretold  by  the  Prophets  concerning  the  Messiah. 
 
 It  is  important  in  our  discussion  to  notice  what 
 was  the  mode  in  which  these  Apostles  reasoned. 
 They  did  not  assert,  as  Strauss  more  than  insinuates, 
 that  certain  passages  of  Scripture  represent  the  Mes- 
 siah as  suffering  and  dying,  and  then  passing  into 
 glory ;  and  that  since  Jesus  is  the  Messiah,  therefore 
 He,  after  suffering  and  death,  must  have  passed  into 
 glory.  Their  invariable  mode  was,  after  proving  from 
 Scripture  that  the  Messiah  must  first  suffer  and  then 
 pass  into  glory,  to  show  that  Jesus  did  actually  suffer, 
 did    rise  again   from   the   dead,  and   did   ascend   to 
 
376      .  LECTURE   XIV. 
 
 heaven  ;  that  therefore  the  prophecies  concerning  the 
 Messiah  were  fulfilled  in  Him  ;  and  that  this  Jesus 
 whom  they  preached  was  accordingly  proved  to  be 
 the  Messiah.  This,  we  repeat,  was  the  mode  in 
 which  they  invariably  conducted  their  argument ;  and 
 neither  Strauss  nor  any  other  man  is  entitled  to  mis- 
 represent their  mode  of  procedure,  and  to  do  this 
 merely  to  uphold  a  preconceived  opinion,  which  they 
 know  perfectly  well  cannot  be  sustained  except  by 
 such  manifest  misrepresentation.  How  utterly  friv- 
 olous, were  the  subject  not  so  awful,  might  we  pro- 
 nounce such  conduct !  How  childish  it  is  in  any  man 
 to  think  he  can  support  a  cause  by  such  pretended 
 criticism  ! 
 
 We  say  nothing  as  to  the  two  passages  adduced. 
 They  are  both  direct  predictions  concerning  the 
 Messiah,  and  clearly  intimate  His  death  and  His 
 resurrection.  But  it  is  only  right  to  draw  attention 
 to  the  application  of  the  first  passage  which  the 
 Apostle  Peter,  in  his  first  speech  on  the  day  of  Pente- 
 cost, quoted  as  bearing  on  the  resurrection  of  Jesus. 
 Before  Peter  referred  to  the  passage,  he  had  uttered 
 these  solemn  words,  in  which  he  appeals  to  facts  that 
 had  occurred — "  Ye  men  of  Israel,  hear  these  words  : 
 Jesus  of  Nazareth,  a  Man  approved  of  God  among 
 you  by  miracles  and  wonders  and  signs,  which  God 
 did  by  Him  in  the  midst  of  you,  as  ye  yourselves 
 also  know :  Him,  being  delivered  by  the  determinate 
 counsel  and  foreknowledge  of  God,  ye  have  taken, 
 and  by  wicked  hands  have  crucified  and  slain :  whom 
 God  hath  raised  up,  having  loosed  the  pains  of  death  ; 
 because  it  was  not  possible  that  He  should  be  holden 
 of  it."     It  is  only  after  this  appeal  to  known   facts 
 
ORIGIN   OF   BELIEF   IN   THE   RESURRECTION.      377 
 
 that  the  Apostle  refers  to  the  passage  in  the  i6th 
 Psalm  as  showing  that  in  these  facts  divine  prophecy- 
 was  clearly  fulfilled. 
 
 As  to  the  passage  from  Isaiah  to  which  the  atten- 
 tion of  Philip  was  providentially  directed,  we  shall 
 merely  observe  that  all  the  ingenuity  of  scepticism 
 has  utterly  failed  to  set  aside  its  application  to  the 
 Messiah,  and  to  disprove  its  fulfilment  in  Jesus  of 
 Nazareth.  That  prophecy  stands  clear  and  distinct, 
 and  will  never  cease  to  direct  the  faith  of  every  sin- 
 cere inquirer  to  Him  who  alone  died  for  our  sins  and 
 rose  again  for  our  justification. 
 
 "In  connection,"  continues  Strauss,  "with  these  words, 
 the  disciples  might  remember  many  of  Jesus  himself,  in 
 which  were  involved,  on  the  one  hand,  allusions  to  the 
 passion  and  death  that  awaited  him,  on  the  other  hand  to 
 the  victory  of  his  cause,  which  was  not  to  be  defeated 
 thereby ;  and  these  words,  perhaps,  had  been  placed  in  con- 
 nection with  passages  of  this  kind  out  of  the  Old  Tes- 
 tament. Luke  (xxiv.  25,  ff.,  32,  46,  ff.)  represents  it  as 
 having  been  one  of  the  principal  things  that  Jesus  did  after 
 his  resurrection,  to  open  the  Scriptures  before  the  disciples, 
 and  point  out  to  them  how  his  passion,  death,  and  resur- 
 rection were  predicted  in  them.  But  we  have  no  trace  of 
 this,  that  after  the  final  departure  of  Jesus  it  was  a  renewed 
 search  into  the  Scriptures  which  served  to  revive  the  faith 
 of  his  disciples." — Vol.  i.  p.  423.  ^^ 
 
 It  is  not  very  easy  at  first  to  p^  ^,Sve  the  bearing 
 of  the  last  sentence  in  this  passage  ;  but  a  little  re- 
 flection discovers  this  to  be  its  bearing :  *  Luke  re- 
 presents Jesus  as  after  His  resurrection  opening  the 
 Scriptures  before  His  disciples,  and  pointing  out  to 
 them  how  His  passion,  death,  and  resurrection  were 
 predicted  in  them.     But  as  Jesus  did  not  rise  from 
 
378  LECTURE   XIV. 
 
 the  dead,  Luke's  account  is  erroneous,  and  we  might 
 have  supposed  that  his  error  lay  in  attributing  to  the 
 risen  Jesus  what  was  really  done  by  the  disciples 
 themselves — that  it  was  they  who,  after  the  death  of 
 Jesus,  made  a  fresh  search  into  the  Scriptures,  and  that 
 this  served  to  revive  their  faith.  Could  we  discover 
 a  trace  of  this,  we  should  easily  account  for  their 
 belief  in  the  resurrection  ;  but  though  we  must  con- 
 fess that  there  is  no  such  trace,  we  throw  out  the  in- 
 sinuation that  such  may  have  been  the  case.  At  all 
 events,  these  disciples  might  remember,  in  connection 
 with  the  words  of  David  and  Isaiah,  "  many  of  Jesus 
 Himself,"  involving  allusions  to  His  coming  passion 
 and  death,  and  also  to  the  victory  of  His  own  cause; 
 and  probably  Jesus  Himself  had  connected  His  own 
 words  with  passages  of  the  kind  out  of  the  Old  Testa- 
 ment.' 
 
 The  design  of  Strauss  here  is  to  account  for  the 
 fact  that  the  disciples  did  ultimately  adopt  into  their 
 conception  of  the  Messiah  the  element  of  the  pre- 
 mature and  violent  death  of  Jesus,  whom  they  believed 
 to  be  the  Messiah.  The  account  which  he  seems  to 
 regard  as  the  most  probable  is,  that  Jesus  Himself 
 had  used  expressions  involving  the  things  referred  to, 
 and  had  also  connected  these  expressions  with  certain 
 passages  to  be  found  in  the  Old  Testament.  But, 
 according  to  Strauss,  Jesus,  whilst  alluding  to  the 
 passion  and  death  that  awaited  Him,  spoke  only  of 
 the  victory  of  His  cause,  which  was  not  to  be  defeated 
 thereby.  Now,  the  very  documents  from  which  alone 
 Strauss  could  learn  this  much,  tell  us  plainly  that 
 Jesus  spoke  to  His  disciples  not  only  about  the 
 victory  of  His  cause,  but  also  about  His  own  resur- 
 
ORIGIN    OF   BELIEF   IN    THE   RESURRECTION.      379 
 
 rection,  which  He  assured  them  would  take  place  on 
 the  third  day  after  His  death.  Strauss  does  not 
 attempt  to  explain  how  Jesus,  whom  he  regards  as 
 only  a  man,  came  Himself  to  adopt  into  His  concep- 
 tion of  the  Messiah  the  element  of  a  premature  and 
 violent  death,  and  also  to  represent  to  His  disciples 
 that  His  cause  would,  notwithstanding  that  death, 
 prove  victorious.  The  difficulty  which  Strauss  labours 
 so  vaguely  to  remove  in  the  case  of  the  disciples  by 
 means  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  is  only,  according  to 
 his  view  of  Jesus,  thrown  back  to  the  case  of  Jesus 
 Himself,  who,  if  He  is  to  be  regarded  as  but  an  ordi- 
 nary Jew,  must  to  some  extent  at  least  have  enter- 
 tained the  prevalent  conception  of  the  Messiah.  But 
 conceding,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  that  Jesus  rose 
 above  this  prevalent  conception  so  far  as  to  see  that 
 the  promised  Messiah  was  to  die,  whilst  His  cause 
 was  not  to  be  defeated  thereby  ;  that  He,  without 
 any  direct  warrant  from  God,  but  solely  from  the 
 impulse  of  His  own  mind,  claimed  to  be  this  Messiah; 
 and  further,  that  certain  persons  came  to  recognise 
 this  claim,  we  might  understand  how  these  persons 
 should,  after  the  death  of  their  Messiah,  still  insist 
 upon  His  claims,  and  upon  the  ultimate  victory  of  His 
 cause, — yet  how  are  we  to  account  on  such  grounds  as 
 these  for  their  belief  in  His  resurrection  from  the  dead, 
 a  belief,  be  it  observed,  which  they  held  when  they 
 engaged  in  the  enterprise  of  announcing  His  claims 
 to  Gentile  as  well  as  Jew .?  If  Jesus  really,  as  the 
 documents  tell  us,  foretold  His  own  resurrection,  and 
 if  He,  in  point  of  fact,  did  rise  from  the  dead,  as  the 
 same  documents  assure  us  He  did,  then  we  have  a 
 satisfactory  account  of  the  matter.     But   upon   the 
 
380  LECTURE   XIV. 
 
 hypothesis  of  Strauss  we  have  no  such  account  of  one 
 of  the  most  remarkable  phenomena  that  have  oc- 
 curred in  the  history  of  the  human  mind.  Let  us 
 now,  after  these  vague  prehminary  attempts  to  clear 
 up  this  matter,  hear  how  the  case  stood,  according  to 
 Strauss,  after  the  death  of  Jesus. 
 
 "  The  case,  then,"  says  he,  "  immediately  after  the  decease 
 of  Jesus,  between  the  Jews  of  the  ancient  faith  and  his  ad- 
 herents, stood  as  follows.  The  former  said,  '  Your  Jesus 
 cannot  have  been  the  Messiah,  because  the  Messiah  is  to 
 continue  for  ever,  or  not  to  die  until  after  a  long  period  of 
 dominion  as  the  Messiah,  at  the  same  time  as  all  other 
 earthly  life;  but  your  Jesus  has  died  before  the  time  by  a 
 disgraceful  death,  without  having  done  anything  expected 
 of  the  Messiah.'  On  the  other  hand,  the  latter  said,  '  As 
 Jesus,  our  Messiah,  died  so  early,  the  prophecies  which 
 promise  to  the  Messiah  that  he  shall  endure  for  ever  can 
 only  have  meant  that  his  death  shall  not  be  a  continuance 
 in  hell,  but  a  transmigration  into  a  higher  life  with  God, 
 from  whence  he  will  return  to  earth  at  his  own  time,  in  order 
 to  bring  to  a  conclusion  his  work  that  was  interrupted  through 
 your  guilt.' " — Vol.  i.  p.  423. 
 
 Now  let  us  carefully  look  at  the  case  here  presented 
 to  us.  The  two  parties,  the  Jews  of  the  anci.ent  faith 
 on  the  one  hand  and  the  adherents  of  Jesus  on  the 
 other,  are  represented  as  entering  into  a  discussion 
 respecting  the  Messianic  claims  of  Jesus.  Let  us 
 suppose  that  the  former  employed  the  argument  here 
 put  into  their  mouths,  and  consider  the  manner  in 
 which  the  latter  reply  to  this  argument.  They  are 
 described  as  having  attained  to  the  belief  that  Jesus, 
 though  dead,  had  passed  into  a  higher  life  with  God, 
 whence  He  was  to  return  to  complete  the  work 
 which  had  been  interrupted  through  the  guilt  of  their 
 
ORIGIN    OF   BELIEF   IN    THE   RESURRECTION.      38 1 
 
 opponents.  Now,  where  is  there  the  slightest  evid- 
 ence that,  upon  the  death  of  Jesus,  His  disciples  went 
 forth  and  presented  the  claims  of  their  Master  in  this 
 vague  manner  ?  Where  is  there  the  slightest  evidence 
 that  they  themselves,  through  any  mere  remembrance 
 of  words  spoken  by  Jesus,  whether  connected  or  not 
 with  passages  of  the  Old  Testament,  attained  to  such 
 a  belief?  Jesus,  they  knew,  had  been  put  to  death, 
 and  His  body  had  been  laid  in  the  tomb;  or,  if  Strauss 
 will  have  it  so.  His  body  had  been  thrown  into  some 
 dishonourable  place.  How  is  it  possible  to  conceive 
 that  any  number  of  men  should  have  gone  forth  with 
 what,  in  the  case  supposed,  could  have  been  only  a 
 mere  theory,  a  theory  directly  opposed  to  their  own 
 inherited  conception  of  the  Messiah,  and  should  have 
 boldly  faced  the  Jewish  rulers,  and  for  the  sake  of 
 such  a  theory  have  encountered  not  mere  opposi- 
 tion in  words,  but  positive  persecution  even  to  impris- 
 onment and  to  death  ?  Strauss  represents  the  two 
 parties  as  arguing  solely  about  some  matter  of  specu- 
 lative opinion,  like  two  opposing  sects  in  the  schools 
 of  philosophy.  He  draws  the  features  of  the  case 
 entirely  from  his  own  imagination. 
 
 We  must,  with  all  deference  to  Strauss's  power  of 
 imagination,  prefer  to  look  at  the  case  as  presented 
 to  us  in  the  only  documents  which  give  us  informa- 
 tion regarding  it ;  and  when  we  so  look  at  it,  we  find 
 it  to  be  not  only  essentially  different  from  the  case 
 as  described  by  him,  but  actually  such  as  we  might 
 expect  it  to  have  been  under  all  the  circumstances 
 known  to  us.  The  disciples  did  believe  Jesus  to  be 
 the  Messiah.  They  believed  Him  to  be  such,  because 
 of  the  evidence  which  supported   His  claim.s.     But 
 
382  LECTURE   XIV. 
 
 when  He  gave  them  intimations  of  His  death  and 
 also  of  His  resurrection,  they  were  wholly  unable  to 
 "  adopt  the  element  of  His  death  into  their  conception 
 of  the  Messiah."  And  when  He  was  actually  put  to 
 death,  their  minds  were  so  stunned — the  gloom  of 
 His  death  so  obscured  their  mental  powers — that 
 they  forgot  His  words  about  His  rising  again.  It 
 was  only  after  sensible  evidence — evidence  appealing 
 to  their  senses  of  sight  and  hearing  and  touch — evid- 
 ence repeatedly  given,  that  they  were  thoroughly  con- 
 vinced of  the  reality  of  His  resurrection. 
 
 Such  is  the  representation  of  the  case  given  in  the 
 only  documents  we  have  bearing  on  the  subject,  as  to 
 the  way  in  which  the  belief  of  these  disciples  was 
 produced.  It  was  produced  by  the  presentation  of  a 
 visible  fact — of  Jesus  Himself  And  it  was  after  His 
 visible  ascension  to  heaven,  and  after  they  were  them- 
 selves endowed  with  power  from  on  high,  that  they 
 went  forth  and  proclaimed  to  the  people  of  Jerusalem 
 — not  first  the  transmigration  of  Jesus,  their  Messiah, 
 to  a  higher  life  with  God — but  His  actual  resurrection, 
 of  which  they  declared  themselves  to  be  witnesses, 
 and  then,  as  subsequent  to  this  fact.  His  ascension  to 
 the  right  hand  of  God,  and  His  promise  to  come  again 
 in  His  glory,  not  to  complete  a  work  which  had  been 
 interrupted  by  His  death,  but  to  judge  the  world  in 
 righteousness,  and  to  perfect  the  eternal  salvation 
 which  by  His  one  all-perfect  sacrifice  He  had  ob- 
 tained for  every  one,  Jew  or  Gentile,  who  believes  on 
 His  name.  They  first  of  all,  we  repeat,  proclaimed 
 the  fact  of  His  resurrection,  and  they  presented  them- 
 selves as  witnesses  before  God  of  the  reality  of  this 
 fact ;  and  when  they  appealed  to  passages  in  the  Old 
 
ORIGIN   OF   BELIEF   IN   THE   RESURRECTION.      383 
 
 Testament,  they  did  so,  not  for  the  purpose  of  estab- 
 lishing the  reality  of  the  resurrection,  but  with  the 
 view  of  proving  that  this  fact,  as  well  as  that  of  His 
 death,  w^as  in  perfect  harmony  with  the  prophecies 
 which  had  gone  before  concerning  the  Messiah. 
 
 Such,  and  such  only,  is  the  case  as  it  really  stood, 
 not  immediately  after  the  death  of  Jesus,  but  shortly 
 after  His  resurrection  and  ascension,  between  the 
 Jewish  people  and  the  disciples  of  Jesus.  It  was  no 
 matter  of  mere  opinion  to  be  tossed  to  and  fro  be- 
 tween two  opposing  parties.  It  was  a  matter  of  fact, 
 of  a  fact  involving  practical  consequences  of  the 
 highest  possible  order,  of  a  fact  involving  life  and 
 death,  misery  without  end  and  bliss  without  end. 
 Strauss  has  no  right  to  draw  from  the  original 
 sources  just  so  much  as  may  aid  his  imagination  in 
 constructing  a  case  involving  his  very  conclusion.  He 
 is  bound  either  to  reject  these  sources  altogether,  or 
 to  take  the  case  as  it  is  there  presented  ;  and  then,  if 
 he  can,  to  support  his  desired  conclusion.  He  had, 
 by  his  previous  insinuations,  all  contrary  to  the  evid- 
 ence, prepared  the  way  for  setting  up  his  imaginary 
 case.  He  has  now  succeeded,  as  he  thinks,  in  repre- 
 senting the  disciples  of  Jesus  as  arguing  with  their 
 opponents,  and  as  employing  a  particular  style  of 
 argument.  And  he  must  now  go  on  to  show  how 
 this  style  of  argument  employed  by  the  disciples  must 
 issue  in  their  coming  to  the  idea  of,  and  belief  in,  a 
 resurrection  of  the  body  of  the  deceased  but  now  ex- 
 alted Jesus.  The  idea,  you  will  observe,  of  the  deceased 
 Jesus  having  passed  at  His  death  into  a  higher  life 
 with  God,  is  the  germ  from  which  the  idea  of  a  resur- 
 rection of  His  body,  and  not  only  that,  but  a  positive 
 
384  LECTURE  XIV. 
 
 belief  in  such  a  resurrection,  is  made  to  proceed.  The 
 whole  must  be  reduced  to  a  mere  idea  which  sprang 
 up  in  the  minds  of  the  disciples.  He  has  now  suc- 
 ceeded in  the  formation  of  this  idea  ;  and  his  inge- 
 nuity will  not  fail  in  rendering  it  productive  of  all  the 
 necessary  fruit.  However  incredulous  the  sceptic  is 
 as  to  facts,  he  is  in  his  very  element  when  he  is  at 
 work  with  ideas.  Credulity  never  forsakes  him  then. 
 He  can  cause  them  to  spring  up  at  a  moment's  notice, 
 in  any  soil,  and  produce  whatever  he  pleases.  These 
 may  seem  to  be  harsh  sayings,  but  they  are  true  ;  and 
 for  their  truth  we  have  only  to  appeal  to  the  sad  and 
 tedious  statements  which  we  are  at  present  compelled 
 to  subject  to  criticism.  Strauss  is  purposely  labour- 
 ing to  subvert  the  very  basis  of  our  faith  and  hope  ; 
 and  he  attempts  to  do  this  by  substituting,  in  the 
 room  of  real  argument,  conjectures  which  involve  a 
 manifest  misrepresentation  of  the  case  as  set  before 
 us  in  the  only  authentic  documents,  and  which  are 
 due  solely  to  his  own  fancy.  We  can  meet  his  rea- 
 soning, such  as  it  is,  only  by  appealing  to  the  case  as 
 it  really  was,  and  by  a  decided  protest  against  such  a 
 mode  of  trifling  with  so  solemn  a  subject. 
 
 He  is  now  to  show  how  the  idea  of  the  resurrection 
 of  the  body  of  Jesus  would  in  course  of  time  spring 
 from  the  idea  of  His  having  passed  at  His  death  into 
 a  higher  life  with  God. 
 
 "Now  if  the  eminent  men,"  he  says,  "  of  the  Old  Testament, 
 to  whom  a  similar  ascension  to  God  had  been  vouchsafed, 
 an  Enoch  and  Elijah  (Moses  also,  according  to  later  Jewish 
 legends,  of  which  below),  had  ascended  thither  without  the 
 intervention  of  death,  they  must  have  taken  their  bodies 
 with  them  unchanged.     This  seems  to  be  an  essential  dif- 
 
ORIGIN   OF  BELIEF   IN   THE  RESURRECTION.      385 
 
 ference,  but  it  is  not  so.  The  mortal  bodies  of  an  Enoch 
 or  EHjah  could  not  have  entered,  in  their  natural  state,  into 
 the  heavenly  world  of  spirits,  but  God  must  have  changed 
 them  first.  \Vhat  in  these  cases  he  did  with  the  living 
 bodies,  in  the  case  of  Jesus  he  did  with  the  dead  body, 
 anticipating  at  the  same  time  in  him  the  future  resurrection 
 of  the  dead.  The  distinction  was  only  the  same  as  the 
 Apostle  Paul  (i  Cor.  xv.  51,  ff.)  assumed  was  to  exist  be- 
 tween those  who  were  to  live  until  Christ's  second  coming 
 and  those  who  had  died  before.  The  former  were  to  be 
 changed,  the  latter  awakened — that  is,  the  bodies  of  the 
 former  were  to  attain  the  condition  requisite  for  the  new 
 life  in  the  kingdom  of  Christ  without  the  intervention  of 
 death,  while  in  the  case  of  the  latter  the  dead  bodies 
 would  be  at  the  same  time  re-awakened  and  changed.  But 
 that  such  a  double  miracle,  exceeding  far  what  had  oc- 
 curred in  the  case  of  Enoch  and  Elijah,  occurred  also  in 
 that  of  Jesus,  could  only  be  credible  to  one  who  saw  in  him 
 a  prophet  superior  to  them — that  is,  to  one  who,  not- 
 w^ithstanding  his  death,  was  persuaded  that  he  was  the 
 Messiah ;  this  conviction  was  the  first  to  which  the  disciples 
 had  to  attain  in  the  days  of  their  humiliation  after  his  cruci- 
 fixion. When  they  had  done  so,  it  became  a  matter  of 
 course  that  his  soul  could  not  be  confined  powerless  in 
 hell,  but  must  have  ascended  up  to  God  in  heaven ;  and 
 when  they  reflected  upon  the  mode  in  which  this  ascension 
 might  have  taken  place,  they  came,  from  the  Jewish  point 
 of  view,  to  which  the  soul  without  the  body  was  a  mere 
 shadow,  to  the  conception  of  a  restoration  of  his  body  to 
 life — that  is,  of  the  resurrection." — Vol.  i.  p.  424. 
 
 In  this  passage  Strauss  merely  expands  what  he 
 had  before  asserted,  appealing  to  the  cases  of  Enoch 
 and  Elijah  as  in  certain  respects  similar  to  the  sup- 
 posed case  of  Jesus,  and  as  furnishing  to  the  disciples 
 a  ground  for  the  idea  which  arose  in  their  minds ;  but 
 
 2  B 
 
386  LECTURE   XIV. 
 
 further  than  assertions  on  these  points,  the  passage 
 contains  no  argument  whatsoever  to  show  how  the  dis- 
 ciples came,  soon  after  the  death  of  Jesus,  to  beHeve 
 that  He  had  risen  from  the  dead.  Strauss  assumes 
 one  thing  which  is  perfectly  correct,  that  the  disciples 
 did  believe  Jesus  to  be  the  Messiah — but  he  seems  also 
 to  assume  here  that  they  attained  to  this  conviction 
 during  the  days  of  their  humiliation  after  the  cruci- 
 fixion of  Jesus ;  whereas  the  fact  was,  as  is  attested 
 by  evidence,  not  by  mere  conjecture,  that  they  had 
 attained  to  this  conviction  during  the  ministry  of 
 Jesus  ;  and  that  His  crucifixion,  instead  of  strengthen- 
 ing their  conviction,  operated,  as  in  their  case  might 
 have  been  expected,  to  shake  their  faith,  and  to  throw 
 them  into  the  most  perplexing  doubts.  Had  Jesus 
 not  actually  risen  from  the  dead,  there  is  not  the 
 slightest  ground  for  supposing  that  their  faith  would 
 not  have  been  entirely  subverted.  "  They  had  hoped 
 that  this  was  He  who  was  to  have  redeemed  Israel  ;" 
 but  this  hope  was  now  buried  in  the  tomb  where  the 
 body  of  Jesus  lay;  and  had  that  body  continued  in 
 the  tomb,  their  hope  had  never  risen  again.  It  was 
 the  fact  of  His  resurrection  which  alone  rekindled 
 their  hope. 
 
 Strauss  adduces,  and  can  adduce,  no  evidence  in 
 support  of  his  theory.  According  to  him  the  con- 
 viction of  the  Messiahship  of  Jesus  sprang  up  in  the 
 minds  of  these  disciples  during  the  time  of  their  deep 
 distress  occasioned  by  His  death.  Then  this  convic- 
 tion begat  the  idea  of  His  having  passed,  notwith- 
 standing His  death,  or  rather  in  consequence  of  His 
 death,  into  a  higher  life  with  God.  This  idea,  again, 
 connecting  itself  with  the  remembrance  of  what  had 
 
ORIGIN   OF   BELIEF   IN   THE   RESURRECTION.      387 
 
 happened  to  Enoch  and  Elijah,  assumed  the  shape  of 
 an  ascension  on  the  part  of  Jesus  to  heaven ;  and  as 
 this  last  idea  of  an  ascension  must  complete  itself 
 according  to  the  Jewish  view  of  the  relation  between 
 the  body  and  the  soul,  it  at  length  reached  the 
 form  of  a  restoration  of  the  body  of  Jesus  to  life 
 — that  is,  the  conception  of  His  resurrection.  At 
 each  stage  of  this  process  a  firm  belief  accompanied 
 the  growing  idea,  that  things  really  were  as  they 
 were  conceived  to  be.  And,  further,  this  germinating 
 process  of  mere  ideas  was  begun,  carried  on,  and 
 perfected  simultaneously  in  the  minds  of  all  the  dis- 
 ciples, who  by-and-by  became  so  convinced  of  the 
 objective  reality  of  what  the  consciousness  of  every 
 one  of  them  could  not  but  tell  them  was  a  mere  idea 
 in  their  own  minds,  that  they  presented  themselves 
 before  the  world — before  Jew  and  Gentile — as  wit- 
 nesses not  of  a  mere  idea,  but  of  an  external,  sensible 
 fact,  and  submitted,  in  support  of  their  testimony,  to 
 all  manner  of  torture — to  distress  of  every  sort,  to  im- 
 prisonment, and  to  death — to  what,  if  their  belief  was 
 an  illusion,  show^ed  them  to  be,  as  they  themselves 
 confessed,  "  of  all  men  most  miserable." 
 
 Such  conduct  we  believe  to  have  been  impossible  in 
 any  set  of  men  who  had  no  other  foundation  for  their 
 belief  than  what  Strauss  assigns  to  the  disciples.  He 
 can  make  ideas  beget  one  another ;  but  the  human 
 mind  which  can  reflect,  as  he  supposes  the  disciples  did 
 reflect,  is  incapable  of  confounding  mere  ideas  with 
 objective  realities  ;  and  human  nature,  which  was,  we 
 may  assume,  essentially  the  same  in  the  case  of  these 
 disciples  as  in  that  of  other  men,  is  utterly  incapable 
 of  acting  and  suffering  as  they  did  in  support  of  a 
 
SB8  LECTURE  XIV. 
 
 mere  idea,  of  which  they  themselves  were  the  conscious 
 originators,  and  which  they  declared  to  be  no  mere 
 idea,  but  a  fact  of  which  they  had  been  witnesses. 
 
 As  to  the  cases  of  Enoch  and  Elijah — not  to  men- 
 tion that  of  Moses — these  are  referred  to  by  Strauss 
 merely  to  show,  that  since  such  eminent  men  had 
 been  favoured  by  being  taken  up  to  God,  it  might  well 
 be  supposed  that  Jesus  would  receive  a  similar  honour. 
 It  is  true  that  these  servants  of  God  had  passed  into 
 heaven  without  the  intervention  of  death,  and  must 
 therefore  have,  as  he  says,  carried  their  bodies  with 
 them  unchanged.  A  difficulty,  then,  is  suggested  here, 
 which,  however,  these  disciples  would  by  reflection 
 easily  overcome  ;  for  they  were  already  aware  of 
 that  distinction  which  is  pointed  out  by  the  Apostle 
 Paul  when  discussing  the  subject  of  the  general  resur- 
 rection of  Christ's  people.  The  living  are  to  have 
 their  bodies  changed ;  the  dead  are  to  be  re-awak- 
 ened, and  then  to  be  changed.  In  the  case  of  the 
 latter  there  is,  then,  to  be  a  double  miracle — the  re- 
 awakening and  the  change  of  their  bodies.  No  such 
 change,  Strauss  assures  us,  took  place  in  respect  to 
 the  bodies  of  Enoch  and  Elijah.  The  framers  of 
 these  older  fictions  had  not  perceived  the  necessity 
 of  a  change  in  the  body  when  transferred  into  the 
 heavenly  sphere.  But  this  necessity  was  now  felt ; 
 and,  double  miracle  as  it  occasions,  they  could  have 
 no  difficulty  in  predicating  it  of  the  body  of  Jesus, 
 since  He  was  regarded  by  them  as  so  superior  to 
 these  eminent  men. 
 
 Is  it  not  painful  beyond  expression  to  see  how  a 
 man,  capable  of  reasoning,  can  satisfy  his  own  mind 
 with   such   a  tissue  of  pure   conjectures,  and  set  at 
 
ORIGIN   OF  BELIEF  IN   THE   RESURRECTION.      389 
 
 defiance  all  consideration  of  the  ordinary  workings  of 
 human  nature  as  well  as  all  evidence,  be  it  what  it 
 may,  which  exists  in  respect  to  the  very  matter  he 
 is  discussing?  However,  we  must  follow  him  still 
 further,  and  see  how  the  process  which  has  now  pro- 
 duced not  only  the  conception  of  the  resurrection  of 
 Jesus,  but  also  the  firm  belief  in  the  objective  reality 
 of  His  resurrection,  will  yet  further  manifest  itself 
 Conjectures  are  endless  ;  but  there  is  art  in  arranging 
 them  well,  so  that  the  one  shall  beget  the  next,  and 
 so  on  in  regular  procession.  The  skilful  formation  of 
 the  series  tends  to  give  a  plausible  appearance  to  the 
 theory,  and  even  in  the  case  of  some  persons  to  beget 
 a  belief  in  the  truth  of  the  theory.  No  sceptic  excels 
 Strauss  in  this  art.  He  knows  thoroughly  where  to 
 begin  and  how  to  advance ;  and  the  unwary  reader 
 is  gradually  led  on  from  one  stage  to  another  in  such 
 a  manner  as  tends  to  blind  him  to  the  fact  that  he 
 began  with  a  mere  conjecture,  and  is  all  along  in  the 
 region  of  conjecture. 
 
 "  As  there  was  no  necessity,"  he  says,  "  for  this  con- 
 ception to  be  even  accurately  defined,  the  possibility  was 
 readily  assumed  that  the  ascended  Messiah  might  show 
 himself  in  his  new  glory  to  his  followers.  If  he  were  once 
 conceived  as  being  with  God  in  the  position  of  an  angel,  he 
 must  have  the  power  of  appearing  as  an  angel,  other\vise 
 such  an  intimation  of  his  existence  need  not  be  even  a 
 visible  appearance.  On  the  occasion  of  that  vouchsafed  to 
 Paul,  there  were,  according  to  the  description  in  the  Acts, 
 two  things  together :  there  was  a  shining  light,  which  was 
 considered  as  the  veil  of  the  ascended  Christ,  and  an 
 audible  voice  from  heaven.  The  latter  reminds  us  of  the 
 audible  oracle  of  the  later  Jewish  faith,  the  so  -  called 
 '  daughter  of  the  voice '  (Bath  Kol)  which  we  hear  of  in  the 
 
390  LECTURE  XIV. 
 
 Rabbinic  writings,  and  which,  as  may  be  seen  from  John 
 (xii.  29),  consisted  in  a  natural  sound,  accidentally  arising, 
 as  a  sudden  clap  of  thunder  and  the  like,  being  considered 
 as  an  omen,  and  a  definite  meaning  being  given  to  it, 
 according  to  the  circumstances  or  the  temper  of  men's 
 minds,  with  the  existence  of  which  it  coincided.  If  it 
 had  been  Paul  himself  who  told  us  of  a  light  which  sud- 
 denly shone  around  him,  and  of  a  voice  which  he  heard  from 
 out  the  splendour  (otherwise  than  merely  symbolically,  as 
 2  Cor.  iv.  6),  we  should  have  no  hesitation  in  thinking  of 
 a  flash  of  lightning  and  a  clap  of  thunder,  which,  coinciding 
 with  the  inward  struggles  in  his  mind,  was  considered  by 
 the  Apostle  as  the  appearance  and  angry  voice  of  the  Christ 
 whom  he  persecuted ;  but  as  it  is  only  the  Acts  of  the 
 Apostles  which  gives  the  account,  we  cannot,  considering 
 the  later  origin,  and  in  many  respects  unhistorical  character, 
 of  this  writing,  determine  whether  these  features  of  the  de- 
 scription belong  or  not,  only  to  legend  or  poetic  fiction." — 
 Vol.  i.  p.  425- 
 
 This  passage  is  intended  to  show  how  the  concep- 
 tion of  the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  when  once  formed  in 
 the  minds  of  the  disciples — a  conception  which  it  was 
 by  no  means  necessary  for  them  to  define  with  any 
 degree  of  accuracy — would  readily  beget  in  them  the 
 idea  that  the  ascended  Messiah  might  appear — that 
 is,  be  supposed  to  appear — in  His  new  glory  to  His 
 followers.  Strauss,  be  it  observed,  always  in  this 
 process  assumes  that  the  conception  of  a  thing  is 
 identical  with  a  belief — a  firm  belief — in  its  objective 
 reality.  This  assumption  he  never  attempts  to  prove. 
 He  could  not  but  know  that  there  is  a  wide  gulf 
 between  a  mere  idea  of  anything  and  the  belief  in  the 
 reality  of  that  thing.  The  former  is  indeed  necessary 
 to  the  existence  of  the  latter,  still  they  are  essenti- 
 
ORIGIN   OF   BELIEF   IN   THE   RESURRECTION.      39I 
 
 ally  distinct ;  and  prone  as  the  human  mind  is  to  be 
 deceived,  and  to  mistake  one  appearance  for  another, 
 it  must  have  something  beyond  the  mere  idea  of  a 
 thing  before  it  can  truly  believe  that  it  is  really 
 objective.  The  mind  may  believe  false  rumours  about 
 a  thing  of  an  objective  nature  ;  but  the  case  before 
 us  refers  to  the  first  believers  in  the  thing ;  and  what 
 we  maintain  is,  that  in  their  case  the  mere  conception 
 is  not  sufficient  to  beget  belief.  There  must  be 
 something  —  however  mistaken  it  may  be — some- 
 thing to  which  the  conception  will  attach  itself  as  a 
 ground  or  reason  for  the  belief  Strauss  seems  to 
 argue  as  if  the  human  mind  necessarily  believes  in  the 
 objective  reality  of  whatever  it  has  the  power  to  ima- 
 gine. Such  is,  in  fact,  the  principle  which  he  assumes, 
 and  upon  which  his  whole  reasoning  proceeds.  And 
 indeed  he  would  seem  to  have  some  warrant  for 
 assuming  this  principle  in  the  apparent  workings  of 
 his  own  mind  ;  for  he  sets  himself  purposely  to  solve 
 the  problem,  "  How  can  I  imagine  certain  ideas  to 
 have  entered  the  minds  of  these  disciples  ? "  After 
 forming  in  his  mind  an  image  of  the  process,  he  pro- 
 fesses to  believe  that  this  imagined  process  was  an 
 actual  process  in  the  case  of  the  disciples  and  begat 
 belief  in  them  of  the  objective  reality.  His  whole  proof 
 consists  in  the  implied  affirmation  :  It  was  so,  because 
 I  have  imagined  it  to  have  been  so.  Sound  reasoning 
 in  general  requires  us  to  assume  only  those  principles 
 which  we  know  govern  human  nature,  and  to  bestow 
 some  attention  on  whatever  evidence  we  have  as  to  the 
 formation  of  belief  in  mankind.  But  such  a  mode  of 
 procedure  is  unsatisfactory  to  Strauss.  The  evidence 
 he  wholly  rejects,  and  the  principles  of  the  human  mind 
 
392  LECTURE  XIV. 
 
 he  sets  at  defiance.  His  own  imagination  is  the  source 
 whence  everythmg  must  be  drawn.  The  disciples  hav- 
 ing by  the  mere  power  of  reflection — rather,  we  should 
 say,  by  the  power  of  imagination,  for  reflection  must 
 have  been  out  of  the  question — conceived  and  there- 
 fore believed  that  Jesus,  as  the  Messiah,  had  ascended 
 to  heaven  ;  that  accordingly  He  must  have  taken  His 
 body  thither  ;  and  that,  therefore,  though  laid  in  the 
 tomb,  it  could  not  now  be  there ; — the  disciples,  ac- 
 cording to  Strauss,  having  been  bereft  of  their  senses, 
 and  giving  uncontrolled  rein  to  their  power  of  imagi- 
 nation, experienced  no  difficulty,  of  course,  in  fancy- 
 ing, and  therefore  believing,  that  the  ascended  and 
 glorified  Messiah  might  appear  to  His  followers,  and 
 they  accordingly  believed  that  He  did  appear  to 
 them  in  His  new  glory.  Had  they  not  imagined 
 Him  to  be  with  God  in  the  position  of  an  angel,  it 
 would  not  have  been  necessary  for  them  to  suppose 
 visible  appearances ;  but  having  so  imagined,  and 
 angels  being  messengers,  and  having  visibly  appeared, 
 they  could  not  escape  from  the  conception  and  belief 
 of  such  appearances  on  the  part  of  the  risen  Jesus. 
 The  idea  of  the  Messiah  as  an  angel  necessarily 
 begets  the  idea  of  His  appearing  as  such. 
 
 Strauss  then  refers  to  the  alleged  appearance  to 
 Paul,  "  on  which  occasion  there  were,  according  to  the 
 description  in  the  Acts,  two  things  together — a  shin- 
 ing light  and  an  audible  voice  from  heaven,"  The 
 latter  he  considers  not,  as  is  expressly  stated  in  the 
 Acts,  as  an  articulate  sound,  but  as  reminding  us  of 
 the  Bath  Kol — "  the  daughter  of  the  voice  " — in  which 
 the  later  Jews  believed,  and  which  he  erroneously  de- 
 scribes as  an  audible  oracle;  whereas  that  so-called 
 
ORIGIN   OF   BELIEF  IN   THE   RESURRECTION.      393 
 
 "  daughter  of  the  voice  "  was  believed  by  these  Jews  to 
 be  not  an  ordinary  audible  sound,  but  a  voice  which 
 was  miraculously  heard,  even  v/hen  all  around  was  in 
 perfect  silence.  Such,  however,  is  the  view  of  Strauss 
 respecting  the  sound  which  reached  the  ears  of  Paul, 
 and  also  the  ears  of  his  attendants,  although  the  former 
 only,  as  we  are  informed,  understood  the  words  which 
 it  conveyed,  and  which  were  addressed  solely  to  him. 
 Strauss  thinks  that  we  have  a  similar  instance  of  such 
 a  sound  in  John  xii.  29,  where  he  erroneously  con- 
 ceives we  have  a  description  of  the  Bath  Kol,  which, 
 he  says,  "  consisted  in  a  natural  sound,  accidentally 
 arising,  as  a  sudden  clap  of  thunder  and  the  like, 
 being  considered  as  an  omen,  and  a  definite  meaning 
 being  given  to  it  according  to  the  circumstances  or 
 the  temper  of  men's  minds,  with  the  existence  of 
 which  it  coincided." 
 
 It  is  unnecessary  to  enter  again  upon  this  subject 
 of  the  appearance  of  Christ  to  Paul.  Had  Paul  him- 
 self told  us  of  a  light  which  shone  round  about  him, 
 and  a  voice  which  he  heard  from  out  the  splendour, 
 knowing  as  we  do  that  he  speaks  symbolically  of 
 a  "  light  of  the  knowledge  of  the  glory  of  God  which 
 shines  forth  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ "  (2  Cor.  iv.  6), 
 we  should  at  once,  according  to  Strauss,  have  con- 
 cluded that  in  such  a  case  also  Paul  was  using  .sym- 
 bolical language,  and  that  on  the  occasion  referred  to 
 there  were  a  flash  of  lightning  and  a  clap  of  thunder, 
 which,  coinciding  with  the  inward  struggles  in  his 
 mind,  were  considered  by  him  as  the  appearance  and 
 angry  voice  of  the  Christ  whom  he  persecuted.  In 
 short,  Strauss  would  have  explained  away  the  state- 
 ment, had  it  proceeded  directly  from  Paul,  by  adopt- 
 
394  LECTURE   XIV. 
 
 ing  the  theory  of  the  so-called  Rationalists — a  theory 
 which  he  had  formerly  shown  to  be  utterly  untenable. 
 But  he  has  an  easier  way  of  getting  rid  of  the  state- 
 ment ;  for  although  it  does  proceed  from  Paul  as  well 
 as  from  the  author  of  the  Acts,  yet,  as  the  statement 
 of  Paul  is  recorded  in  the  Acts,  he  thinks  it  better  to 
 deny  the  historical  character  of  this  book  ;  and  this 
 being  done,  we  are,  of  course,  at  a  loss  to  determine 
 whether  to  adopt  the  rationalistic  explanation  of  the 
 light  and  the  voice,  or  to  ascribe  these  features  en- 
 tirely to  legend  or  poetic  fiction. 
 
 But  the  main  thing  to  be  observed  in  all  this  pas- 
 sage is,  that  the  idea  of  appearances  of  Jesus  as  the 
 Messiah  is  regarded  as  fully  explained  by  the  idea 
 already  engendered  in  the  minds  of  the  disciples  of 
 His  ascension,  which  latter  idea  necessarily  produced 
 that  of  His  resurrection — the  idea  of  His  ascension, 
 or  rather  of  His  having  passed  at  death  into  a  higher 
 life  with  God,  having  itself  been  occasioned  by  the 
 belief  that  Jesus  was  the  Messiah,  and  by  the  neces- 
 sity of  having  to  meet  the  objection,  "Your  Jesus  is 
 dead,  and  cannot  be  the  Messiah,  for  the  Messiah 
 abideth  for  ever."  Such,  be  it  remembered,  is,  accord- 
 ing to  Strauss,  the  true  genesis  of  all  these  ideas — 
 ideas  identical  with  beliefs. 
 
 But  Strauss  still  further  shows  himself  now  quite 
 ready  to  follow  the  Rationalist  interpreters  of  mira- 
 culous events.  He  formerly,  as  we  have  said,  treated 
 their  theory  with  contempt,  and  he  certainly  justly 
 exposed  their  silly  interpretations.  But  he  has  so  far 
 changed  his  mind,  as  we  shall  again  see. 
 
 "  Thus  also,"  he  says,  "  some  of  the  appearances  of  Jesus 
 after  his  resurrection,  taken  by  themselves,  are  by  no  means 
 
ORIGIN   OF  BELIEF  IN   THE   RESURRECTION.      395 
 
 incapable  of  explanation  as  perfectly  natural  occurrences.  Ac- 
 cording to  Luke,  on  the  second  day  after  the  crucifixion,  two 
 disciples,  who  were  going  from  Jerusalem  into  the  country, 
 met  with  a  person  unknown,  who  in  inspired  words  opened 
 their  understandings  with  regard  to  the  death  of  the  Messiah, 
 and  just  at  the  moment  when  he  separated  from  them  in  the 
 dusk,  they  thought  they  recognised  him  as  their  own  Jesus.  In 
 the  supplementary  chapter  to  the  fourth  Gospel,  certain  dis- 
 ciples, being  in  the  ship  in  the  twilight  of  the  early  morning 
 on  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  met  an  unknown  person  on  the  shore, 
 who  gave  them  some  advice  on  the  subject  of  throwing  out 
 their  net ;  in  consequence  of  the  surprisingly  fortunate  re- 
 sult, they  considered  him  to  be  '  the  Lord,'  without  one  of 
 them  having  had  the  confidence  to  ask  him  whether  he  was 
 really  so.  In  these  cases,  taking  the  narratives  by  them- 
 selves, and  supposing  them  in  the  main  historical,  we  might 
 admit  that  the  excitement  of  the  disciples  after  the  sudden 
 death  of  Jesus,  their  power  of  imagination  incessantly  busy 
 with  the  recalling  of  his  figure,  readily  showed  them,  in  the  first 
 unknown  person  who  met  them  in  ambiguous  circumstances, 
 and  made  a  particular  impression  on  them,  an  appearance  of 
 the  Master  who  had  been  taken  from  them.  And  here  an 
 appeal  might  be  made  to  historical  examples  of  similar  delu- 
 sions having  happened  under  similar  circumstances.  I  quote 
 one  of  these  from  the  history  of  my  own  home.  Duke 
 Ulrich  of  Wurtemberg  was,  not  indeed  killed  by  the  Swabian 
 League,  but  only  banished  from  his  country ;  this  was  occu- 
 pied by  the  Austrians,  and  secured  against  his  return.  '  But 
 as  the  Duke,'  says  an  excellent  historian,  '  still  numbered 
 many  adherents  in  the  country,  whose  hearts  and  minds  he 
 occupied  waking  and  dreaming,  and  the  command  not  even 
 to  speak  of  him  invested  his  person  in  a  mysterious  obscurity, 
 the  power  of  imagination  became  naturally  more  inventive. 
 Stones  and  animals  were  represented  as  speaking  of  him. 
 There  were  also  people  who  professed  to  have  seen  their 
 former  master  (here  and  there  in  the  country),  or  even  to 
 
396  LECTURE   XIV. 
 
 have  had  him  in  disguise  under  their  roof.     "The  heart 
 thinks,  the  hour  brings." ' 
 
 "  It  is  not  to  be  supposed,"  Strauss  continues,  "  that  the 
 Duke,  in  his  cautious  and  suspicious  state  of  mind,  would 
 have  really  thus  travelled  about  unprotected  among  his 
 enemies.  We  must  therefore  consider  these  tales  of  his 
 haunting  the  country  like  a  spectre  solely  as  the  results 
 of  the  excited  imagination,  and  consequently  of  legend,  for 
 which,  as  the  acute  historian  does  not  forget  to  remind  us, 
 circumstances  like  those  described  are  a  particularly  favour- 
 able soil.  The  hostess  at  MUnchingen,  of  whom  he  tells, 
 may  have  really  taken  a  foreign  guest  who  lodged  with  her 
 for  the  Duke ;  so,  sooner  or  later,  may  the  coUier  at  Urach 
 the  unknown  person  to  whom  he  showed  the  way  through 
 the  wood;  and  these  stories,  told  at  greater  length,  might 
 have  given  occasion  for  the  invention  of  others  in  which 
 there  was  nothing  real  whatever." — Vol.  i.  p.  425-7. 
 
 We  have  quoted  all  this  about  the  Duke  Ulrich, 
 lest  it  should  be  supposed  that  Strauss  was  appealing 
 to  some  example  fairly  capable  of  a  stricter  comparison 
 with  the  subject  under  discussion.  He  himself,  as  we 
 shall  immediately  see,  admits  that  the  comparison  is 
 not  complete.  Still,  he  quotes  the  story  in  order  to 
 prepare  the  minds  of  his  readers  for  adopting  the 
 theory  which  he  is  endeavouring  to  establish  respect- 
 ing the  accounts  of  the  appearances  of  the  risen  Jesus, 
 and  which  he  is  about  to  present  as  sufficient  to  ac- 
 count for  those  appearances.  No  one  questions  the 
 power  of  imagination  to  invent,  under  certain  circum- 
 stances, stories  such  as  those  about  Duke  Ulrich. 
 Delusions  of  that  kind  have  abounded  among  all 
 nations.  And  they  certainly  teach  us  to  scrutinise 
 with  the  utmost  severity  every  account  of  appear- 
 ances such  as  those  which  are  recorded  concerning 
 
ORIGIN   OF  BELIEF  IN   THE   RESURRECTION.      397 
 
 Jesus.  But  whilst  we  thus  scrutinise  such  accounts, 
 we  are  not  to  judge  unfairly.  We  are  bound  to  ex- 
 amine the  accounts  with  an  impartial  mind,  and  also 
 to  take  into  consideration  all  the  circumstances  of  the 
 particular  case.  If  we  assume,  as  Strauss  does,  that 
 Jesus  was  an  impostor  when  He  claimed  to  be  the 
 Son  of  God,  then,  whether  we  can  explain  the 
 appearances  recorded  to  have  taken  place  after  His 
 death  or  not,  we  cannot  regard  the  belief  of  His  dis- 
 ciples in  these  appearances  as  anything  else  than  a 
 delusion.  Assuming  Strauss's  premisses,  we  must 
 adopt  his  conclusion,  for  the  premisses  involve  it,  and 
 all  further  inquiry  is  merely  a  matter  of  curiosity. 
 If,  however,  we  do  not  adopt  his  assumption,  but 
 desire  to  ascertain  whether  Jesus  was  indeed  what  He 
 claimed  to  be — the  Messiah,  the  Son  of  God,  and  the 
 Saviour  of  the  world — then  we  do  not  summarily 
 reject  these  accounts  as  containing  stories  of  mere 
 human  delusion,  but  must  allow  that  for  such  a 
 Being— if  He  were  really  what  He  professed  to  be — 
 to  rise  from  the  dead  is  assuredly  not  inconsistent 
 with  His  claim,  but,  as  far  as  such  an  event  is  con- 
 cerned, is  in  perfect  harmony  with  such  a  claim. 
 Hence  we  are  bound  to  examine  the  evidence  in 
 support  of  such  a  fact,  that  we  may  really  ascertain 
 whether  it  does  support  the  fact,  or  whether  we  shall 
 be  entitled  to  reject  it  as  altogether  insufficient  to 
 convince  us  of  its  having  occurred.  This  is  assuredly 
 the  only  fair  mode  of  judging  on  such  a  momentous 
 subject. 
 
 Now,  looking  at  the  two  alleged  appearances  to 
 which  Strauss  specially  refers  in  the  above  passage, 
 we  think  he  presents  neither  case  as  he  ought  to  have 
 
398  LECTURE   XIV. 
 
 done.  And,  by  the  way,  he  says  that  it  was  "  on  the 
 second  day  after  the  crucifixion  that  the  two  disciples 
 who  were  going  from  Jerusalem  into  the  country  met 
 with  a  person  unknown."  Strauss  never  says  any- 
 thing carelessly.  He  has  his  main  design  constantly 
 before  his  mind.  And  here  he  speaks  unfairly,  know- 
 ing, as  he  could  not  but  know,  the  common  mode  of 
 reckoning  time  among  the  Jews,  that  this  day  was  by 
 them  considered  not  the  second,  but  the  third  day 
 after  the  crucifixion,  which  all  allow  took  place  before 
 the  close  of  our  Friday,  so  that  the  first  day  of  the 
 week  became  the  third  day  after  that  event.  But 
 leaving  this  matter,  we  ask  anyone  to  conceive  the 
 case  of  the  two  disciples  meeting  with  this  unknown 
 person  in  the  way  which  Strauss  describes.  Here 
 are  two  disciples  of  Jesus  profoundly  sad  on  account 
 of  their  Master's  death,  and  evidently  expressing  to 
 one  another  their  perplexities  as  occasioned  by  such 
 an  event — by  the  death  of  one  who  they  had  been 
 hoping  would  have  redeemed  Israel.  A  stranger  joins 
 them,  and  draws  from  them  an  account  of  what  has 
 happened.  He  opens  their  understanding  with  regard 
 to  the  death  of  the  Messiah.  He  explains  to  them 
 from  the  Scriptures  that  "  it  behoved  the  Messiah  to 
 suffer,  and  then  to  enter  into  His  glory."  Was  not 
 this  unknown  person,  to  say  the  least,  a  disciple  of 
 Jesus  ^  Was  he  not  more  enlightened  in  the  know- 
 ledge of  Scripture  than  either  of  the  two  whom  he 
 was  addressing,  and  in  whose  hearts  he  was  kindhng 
 the  well-nigh  extinct  hope }  If  more  enlightened 
 than  either  of  them,  was  he  not  also  more  enlightened 
 than  any  one  of  the  other  disciples  whose  company 
 these  two  had  shortly  before  left  ?     Who,  then,  was 
 
ORIGIN   OF   BELIEF   IN   THE   RESURRECTION.      399 
 
 this  unknown  person  ?  And  why  did  he  so  abruptly 
 separate  himself  from  the  two  ?  Is  it  possible  to  con- 
 ceive that  this  person,  the  only  one  among  the  friends 
 of  Jesus,  so  far  as  we  know,  who  really  understood  the 
 import  of  ancient  prophecy  concerning  the  Messiah, 
 should,  if  a  friend,  have  felt  so  little  interest  in  the  other 
 disciples  as  either  to  have  been  utterly  unknown  to 
 them,  or  to  have  made  no  effort  to  relieve  them  in 
 their  distress,  except  by  a  brief  and  apparently  acci- 
 dental intercourse  with  the  two  going  to  Emmaus  ? 
 
 The  case,  be  it  observed,  of  the  disciples  is  unique. 
 It  has  no  parallel  in  the  whole  history  of  the  human 
 race.  We  must  look  at  it  as  it  was  in  itself,  and  not 
 as  it  may  be  reduced,  by  leaving  out  its  essential  fea- 
 tures, to  the  level  of  such  cases  as  that  of  the  banished 
 Duke  Ulrich.  No,  this  unknown  person  was  no  mere 
 secret  friend  or  secret  disciple  of  Jesus.  He  could  be 
 no  other  than  Jesus  Himself,  risen  from  the  dead,  and 
 revealing  Himself,  though  with  a  measure  of  reserve, 
 as  seemed  to  be  expedient  under  the  circumstances, 
 to  His  two  sorrowing  disciples.  If  ever  story,  as  we 
 said  before,  bore  on  itself  the  characteristics  of  his- 
 torical truth,  the  one  before  us  does  so  ;  and  it  does 
 seem  unaccountable  how  any  thoughtful  man,  learned 
 or  unlearned,  can  peruse  the  narrative  without  feeling 
 his  soul  burning  within  him  with  the  deepest  sym- 
 pathy with  these  two  disciples.  The  unknown  stranger 
 comes  to  every  unprejudiced  mind  to  be  recognised 
 as  no  other  than  Jesus  who  was  crucified — that  Jesus 
 whom  it  behoved  to  suffer  and  to  rise  again  the  third 
 day,  and  thus  to  be  declared  the  Son  of  God  with 
 power. 
 
 As  to  the  other  case  to  which  Strauss  refers,  and 
 
400  LECTURE   XIV. 
 
 which  he  also  thinks  is  capable  of  explanation  "  as  a 
 perfectly  natural  consequence,"  he  misstates  it  equally 
 as  he  does  the  former. 
 
 "  On  this  occasion  certain  disciples,"  he  says,  "  being  in 
 the  ship  in  the  twilight  of  the  early  morning  on  the  Sea  of 
 Galilee,  met  an  unknown  person  on  the  shore,  who  gave 
 them  some  advice  on  the  subject  of  throwing  out  their 
 net :  in  consequence  of  the  surprisingly  fortunate  result  they 
 considered  him  to  be  'the  Lord,'  without  one  of  them 
 having  had  the  confidence  to  ask  him  whether  he  were 
 really  so." 
 
 Is  this  the  whole  account  given  us  of  that  case  } 
 If  it  is  not,  why  does  Strauss  give  us  only  a  part  of 
 the  account .?  Why  does  he  not  tell  his  readers  that 
 it  was  after  the  "  unknown  "  person  asked  the  disciples 
 to  come  and  take  some  food  that  the  Evangelist 
 mentions  their  conviction — not  mere  supposition — that 
 it  was  the  Lord  who  had  given  the  advice  referred  to  .'' 
 We  formerly  showed  the  main  design  of  this  supple- 
 mentary narrative,  and  therefore  do  not  again  enter  on 
 the  subject.  Most  clear  it  is  that  neither  this  nor  the 
 former  case  is  susceptible  of  explanation  as  "a  per- 
 fectly natural  occurrence."  In  both  cases  there  was  a 
 real  appearance  of  the  risen  Lord.  But,  as  we  have 
 said,  all  this  about  delusions  and  natural  occurrences 
 is  only  preparatory  to  what  is  next  to  be  presented  to 
 the  reader,  where  we  shall  find  Strauss  applying  all 
 that  he  has  said  to  the  purpose  of  reducing  the  ap- 
 pearances of  Christ  to  mere  delusions,  or  subjective 
 impressions  on  the  part  of  the  disciples. 
 
 "Similar  delusions,"  he  says,  "may  also  in  the  case  before 
 us  have  been  current  at  the  same  time  \  but  it  is  scarcely 
 likely  that  the  first  appearances  of  Jesus,  which  individuals 
 
ORIGIN   OF   BELIEF   IN   THE   RESURRECTION.      4OI 
 
 thought  they  had  seen,  were  of  this  kind.  As  soon  as  ever 
 the  notion  that  Jesus  had  been  seen  restored  to  hfe  had 
 once  taken  root,  mistakes  of  that  kind  might  be  made  ;  but 
 originally,  as  the  question  was  not  about  an  exile,  but 
 about  one  who  was  dead,  the  faith  could  not  have  arisen  in 
 this  way.  When  Paul  says  that  he  appeared  after  his  resur- 
 rection to  Cephas  first,  the  possibility  is  not  excluded,  as 
 was  above  remarked,  of  certain  women  having  supposed 
 that  they  had  already  seen  him.  The  expression  of  Mark 
 (xvi.  9),  '  He  appeared  first  to  Mary  Magdalene,  from  whom 
 he  had  driven  seven  devils,'  admits  of  much  suspicion.  Not 
 only  John  (xx.  14,  ff.),  but  also  Matthew  agrees  with  Mark 
 that  it  was  this  woman  who  first  saw  such  an  appearance, 
 only  that  Matthew  (xxviii.  i,  9,  fi".)  associates  with  her  the  other 
 Mary,  and  the  notice  of  the  seven  devils  driven  out  of 
 her  was  ready  to  hand  for  Mark  from  Luke  (viii.  2).  In  a 
 woman  of  such  a  constitution  of  body  and  mind  it  was  no 
 great  step  from  inward  excitement  to  ocular  vision.  But  we 
 have  seen  in  the  example  of  the  Apostle  Paul,  that  even 
 in  men  of  that  period,  and  educated  as  they  were,  mental 
 conditions  like  these  were  not  unheard  of.  As  regards 
 Peter,  we  may  refer  those  who  in  the  Gospels  and  Acts  of 
 the  Apostles  see  a  real  history,  unusual  indeed,  but  still 
 natural,  to  the  occurrence  before  the  baptism  of  the  Roman 
 officer  Cornelius,  as  a  proof  of  a  visionary  disposition  in 
 the  Apostle.  Even  in  the  brightness  of  the  noon,  during  the 
 time  that  he  was  praying  on  the  housetop,  he  fell  into  a  trance, 
 in  which  he  thought  he  saw  the  well-known  appearance  of  a 
 sheet  coming  from  heaven  with  all  kinds  of  animals,  and 
 that  he  heard  a  voice  from  heaven.  This  history,  indeed, 
 we  lay  to  the  account  of  the  legends  of  the  Church,  or  the 
 pragmatism  of  the  author  of  the  Acts ;  but  think  we  may 
 assume  in  the  days  after  the  death  of  Jesus,  in  the  narrower 
 circle  of  his  adherents,  a  common  tone,  an  elevation  of 
 mental  and  nervous  life,  which  overrode  the  particular  dis- 
 position of  the  individual.     Of  James  the  tradition  says  in 
 
 2   C 
 
402  LECTURE   XIV. 
 
 the  Gospel  of  the  Hebrews  that  Christ  appeared  to  him 
 after  the  resurrection,  when  he  fasted  several  days;  this 
 circumstance  also,  assumed  to  be  historical,  would  make  a 
 vision  or  hallucination  all  the  more  intelligible." — Vol.  i. 
 p.  427-28. 
 
 Thus  does  Strauss  attempt  to  reduce  the  alleged 
 appearances  of  Jesus  to  mere  delusions  on  the  part 
 of  the  disciples.  He  admits,  however,  that  these 
 delusions,  having  reference  to  one  who  had  died,  can- 
 not be  explained  in  the  manner  in  which  delusions 
 such  as  those  respecting  the  banished  Duke  might  be 
 explained.  Delusions  similar  to  these  might  have 
 arisen  as  soon  as  the  notion  that  Jesus  had  been  seen 
 restored  to  life  had  once  taken  root ;  but  such  delu- 
 sions do  not  account  for  the  origin  of  this  notion. 
 Hence  Strauss  must  seek  for  this  origin  in  the  mental 
 state  of  the  disciples.  The  idea  of  a  restoration  to 
 life  on  the  part  of  Jesus  must  first  spring  up  in  their 
 minds,  and  he  has  already  shown  how  he  conceives 
 this  idea  to  have  arisen.  He  would  attribute  the 
 origin  of  it  first  to  the  excited  state  of  the  women 
 mentioned  in  the  Evangelical  accounts,  and  especially 
 to  Mary  Magdalene,  to  whom,  according  to  John  and 
 Matthew  and  Mark,  the  first  appearance  is  said  to 
 have  been  made.  That  Mary  Magdalene  was  a  per- 
 son of  highly  excitable  mind  he  infers  from  what 
 Luke  records,  that  she  had  been  dispossessed  of  seven 
 demons ;  nor  is  there  any  reason  for  questioning  this 
 view  of  her  mental  disposition.  But  Strauss  also  says 
 that  we  have  evidence  that  even  in  men  of  that  period, 
 educated  as  they  were,  similar  mental  conditions  were 
 not  unheard  of;  and  he  refers  particularly  to  the  cases 
 of  Paul  and  Peter. 
 
ORIGIN   OF   BELIEF   IN   THE   RESURRECTION.      403 
 
 Now,  we  formerly  discussed  the  case  of  Mary  Mag- 
 dalene, as  also  that  of  the  Apostle  Paul,  and  we  need 
 not  again  go  over  these  matters.  We  have  in  the 
 narrative  of  John  a  full  account  of  the  circumstances 
 referring  to  Mary  Magdalene ;  and  manifest  as  it  is 
 that  she  did  possess  a  highly  excitable  mind,  it  is 
 equally  manifest  that  the  idea  of  a  restoration  to  life  on 
 the  part  of  the  crucified  Jesus  never  crossed  her  mind, 
 until  it  was  forced  upon  her  by  her  actually  hearing 
 Him  pronounce  her  name.  It  was  a  feeling  of  dis- 
 tress which  filled  her  mind  as  well  as  the  minds  of  all 
 the  rest,  when  Jesus  was  put  to  death.  Nothing  can 
 be  more  natural  than  that  such  should  have  been  the 
 state  of  their  minds,  and  the  whole  evidence  shows 
 it  to  have  been  so.  The  followers  of  Jesus,  both 
 men  and  women,  were  cast  down — not  elevated  by 
 His  death.  It  is  easy  for  Strauss  to  imagine  that 
 their  state  was  one  of  mental  excitement  and  eleva- 
 tion, and  then  to  assert  that  the  idea  of  Jesus  passing 
 at  His  death  into  a  higher  life  with  God  was  origin- 
 ated ;  that  this  idea  immediately  led  to  that  of  His 
 restoration  to  life — to  the  resurrection  of  His  body, 
 and  that  then  He  might  be  expected  to  show  Himself 
 in  His  new  glory.  But  the  whole  theory  is  baseless, 
 because  the  mental  state  of  these  followers  was  not  as 
 is  here  assumed.  That  state  is  described  by  all  the 
 Evangelists  as  one  of  deep  depression — of  depression 
 approaching  to  despair ;  and  it  is  inconceivable  that, 
 had  such  not  been  their  mental  state,  the  Evangelists 
 should  not  have  let  fall,  however  unwarily,  something 
 to  betray  that  the  very  opposite  was  the  case.  The 
 women  went  to  the  sepulchre  to  anoint  the  body : 
 Mary  Magdalene,  in  particular,  as  soon  as  she  saw 
 
404  LECTURE   XIV. 
 
 that  the  stone  was  rolled  away,  was  wholly  occupied 
 about  the  recovery  of  the  body,  which  she  imme- 
 diately inferred  had  been  stolen.  Her  peculiar  dis- 
 position made  her  rush  to  this  inference,  and  her 
 distress  increased  at  the  very  thought ;  but  the  idea 
 of  a  restoration  to  life  was  wholly  absent  from  her 
 mind.  The  same  was  the  case  with  the  other 
 women,  and  with  all  the  disciples.  It  is  a  pure  conjec- 
 ture, then,  on  the  part  of  Strauss,  not  merely  in  the 
 absence  of  evidence,  but  in  direct  opposition  to  the 
 evidence,  when  he  ascribes  to  these  women  and  to  the 
 disciples  a  state  of  mind  such  as  may  answer  his  pur- 
 pose. If  we  are  to  reason  at  all  upon  the  subject,  we 
 must  do  so  not  according  to  our  own  conjectures,  but 
 to  the  evidence  before  us.' 
 
 As  to  the  case  of  Peter's  vision,  we  are  plainly  told 
 that  it  was  a  supernatural  vision  ;  and  until  Strauss 
 can  show  that  it  is  not  in  the  power  of  God  to  instruct 
 His  rational  creatures  in  this  way,  he  is  not  entitled 
 to  identify  such  visions  with  objective  realities,  when 
 the  author  of  the  Acts,  as  well  as  the  other  writers 
 of  Scripture,  clearly  distinguish  between  these  two 
 distinct  things.  God  had  a  great  moral  purpose  in 
 view  in  that  vision,  and  that  purpose  was  answered. 
 But  Strauss  is  not  warranted  in  representing  the 
 appearance  of  the  risen  Jesus  to  Peter  as  a  vision 
 similar  to  that  which  was  bestowed  upon  him  in  order 
 that  he  might  open  the  door  of  faith  to  the  Gentiles, 
 and  which  he  never  for  a  moment  mistook  for  an 
 objective  reality.  Strauss  regards  this  vision  either 
 as  a  legend  of  the  Church,  or  as  a  story  framed  pur- 
 posely by  the  author  of  the  Acts  in  order  to  account 
 for  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel  to  the  Gentile  Cor- 
 
ORIGIN   OF   BELIEF   IN   THE   RESURRECTION.      405 
 
 nelius.  But  he  thinks  we  may  assume  that,  even 
 among  the  first  disciples,  there  was  an  elevation  of 
 mental  and  nervous  life  which  overrode  the  particular 
 disposition  of  the  individual.  What  we  maintain  is, 
 that  we  can  assume  nothing  contrary  to  what  we  are 
 told  was  the  case ;  and,  as  we  have  already  said, 
 instead  of  that  elevation  which  Strauss  assumes,  there 
 was,  according  to  the  credible  evidence,  nothing  but 
 depression — sorrow — despair.  His  theory,  then,  col- 
 lapses. It  is  a  mere  dream  of  his  own  mind ;  and 
 truth  must  be  sought  for  in  realities,  not  in  dreams. 
 As  to  the  case  of  James,  we  know  that  the  risen 
 Jesus  did  appear  to  him  ;  but  whether  the  early 
 tradition  about  his  having  fasted  for  several  days 
 be  trustworthy  or  not,  is  of  no  importance  to  our 
 inquiry. 
 
 Strauss,  whose  reasoning  on  the  whole  of  this  sub- 
 ject is,  we  presume  to  say,  exceedingly  feeble,  con- 
 cludes this  part  by  again  referring  to  that  remarkable 
 account  which  Luke  gives  of  the  appearance  of  Jesus 
 to  the  two  disciples  who  were  going  to  Emmaus. 
 This  account  has  such  an  historical  aspect  that  it  is 
 no  wonder  if  Strauss  should  exert  all  his  ingenuity 
 to  weaken  the  impression  which  it  can  hardly  fail  to 
 make  on  every  reader's  mind.  But  the  attempt  will 
 be  seen  to  be  marked  by  the  same  feebleness  of  which 
 we  have  spoken  as  characterising  his  whole  discussion 
 of  this  momentous  part  of  the  subject. 
 
 *'  Luke,"  he  says,  "  speaking  of  the  disciples  going  to 
 Emmaus,  says  that  when  the  Unknown,  following  their 
 invitation,  had  placed  himself  at  table  with  them,  he  took 
 bread,  uttered  the  prayer,  then  broke  it  and  gave  it  to 
 them.     Then,  he  says,  'on  the  breaking  of  the  bread'  they 
 
406  LECTURE   XIV. 
 
 recognised  him  as  the  Lord  (xxiv.  30,  K,  35).  The  divi- 
 sion of  bread  and  fish  by  an  unknown  person,  in  whom 
 the  disciples  saw  the  risen  Jesus,  is  brought  forward  in  a 
 similarly  significant  manner  in  the  supplementary  chapter  also 
 to  the  Gospel  of  John  (xxi.  13).  Let  us  remember,  now, 
 that  by  the  expression  'breaking  of  bread'  the  supper  was 
 accustomed  to  be  described  (Acts  ii.  42,  46,  xx.  7 ;  i  Cor.  x. 
 16),  and  that  this  meal,  the  material  representation  of  the 
 last,  and  many  others  besides,  in  which  Jesus  had,  in  the 
 capacity  of  host,  shared  the  bread  among  them,  formed  in 
 the  most  ancient  times,  by  frequent,  probably  daily,  repeti- 
 tion, a  powerful  consolation  and  bond  of  union  of  the  little 
 band  of  the  early  Church.  If  we  remember  this,  it  is  ob- 
 vious to  conjecture  that  it  may  have  been  principally  the 
 exalted  tone  of  mind  which  prevailed  at  this  meal,  which  in 
 particular  cases  elevated  the  memory  of  the  Departed  into 
 an  imaginary  appearance  even  before  larger  assemblies." — 
 Vol.  i.  p.  428-29. 
 
 Strauss  begins  and  ends  this  discussion  of  the 
 origin  of  the  disciples'  belief  in  the  reality  of  the 
 resurrection  of  Jesus  with  a  conjecture.  With  vi^hat 
 he  here  says  of  the  Supper  of  the  Lord  as  "  a  power- 
 ful consolation  and  bond  of  union  of  the  little  band 
 of  the  early  Church,"  we  thoroughly  agree.  Had 
 Strauss  but  allowed  the  idea  thus  so  justly  expressed 
 to  take  due  possession  of  his  mind,  he  might  have 
 been  led  to  ask  himself  how  such  a  meal  could  have 
 proved  such  a  consolation  and  such  a  bond  of  union 
 in  a  band  consisting  of  persons  who  were  surrender- 
 ing all  earthly  considerations  for  the  sake  of  the  Lord 
 Jesus,  unless  it  was  what  Jesus  declared  it  to  be  when 
 He  instituted  it  as  an  ordinance  in  His  Church — a 
 memorial  of  His  death  until  He  should  come  again  ; 
 unless,    in    short,   these   devoted    followers   of  Jesus 
 
ORIGIN    OF   BELIEF   IN   THE   RESURRECTION.      407 
 
 knew,  upon  legitimate  evidence,  that  He  had  not  only 
 died,  but  risen  again,  and  believed  in  His  resurrection, 
 not  through  mere  delusion,  but  because  they  saw  the 
 Lord  and  conversed  with  Him  after  He  was  risen. 
 
 How  could  Strauss  conceive  the  scene  which  is  re- 
 corded as  having  occurred  in  the  village  of  Emmaus, 
 and  in  which  the  unknown  but  wondrous  Stranger, 
 reclining  with  the  two  at  the  table,  took  up  bread,  and, 
 in  a  manner  known  to  them,  blessed  it  and  gave  it 
 to  them,  revealing  Himself  by  His  very  manner  and 
 words  to  be  no  other  than  their  Lord  who  had  been 
 put  to  death,  and  then,  for  wise  reasons  of  His  own, 
 immediately  withdrawing  Himself  from  their  pre- 
 sence— how,  we  say,  could  Strauss  conceive  such  a 
 scene,  and  suppose  it  to  be  explicable  in  any  other 
 way  than  as  explained  to  us  by  the  Evangelist  ? 
 What  mere  man  could  have  so  acted  as  this  unknown 
 Person  did .''  Some  stranger  or  other  must  have 
 joined  these  two.  Something  must  have  taken  place 
 to  cause  them  to  believe  that  the  Stranger  was  Jesus 
 Himself.  Even  a  delusion  in  such  a  case  must  have 
 some  external  fact  to  rest  upon.  What  could  that 
 fact  be  ^  Who  could  that  Stranger  be  .■*  It  is  impos- 
 sible, we  venture  to  say,  to  accept  the  story  to  any 
 extent,  and  to  account  for  it  even  as  so  accepted, 
 unless  we  adopt  the  Evangelist's  account  of  its  char- 
 acter. The  expression,  "the  breaking  of  the  bread," 
 came  indeed  to  be  most  significant ;  but  it  acquired 
 all  its  significance  from  the  reality  of  the  facts  which 
 it  indicated. 
 
 As  to  the  case  recorded  by  John  in  his  supple- 
 mentary chapter,  we  have  already  remarked  on  it 
 also,  and  need  not  repeat  what  has  thus  been  said. 
 
408  LECTURE   XIV. 
 
 But  it  is  to  be  remarked  that  Strauss  evades  a  real 
 discussion  of  the  recorded  appearance  of  Jesus  before 
 a  large  assembly.     He  would  merely  apply  to  "larger 
 assemblies "  what  he  has  said  in   respect  to  appear- 
 ances to  one  or  to  a  few  persons.     But  surely  there  is 
 a  difficulty  in  conceiving  a  large  assembly  of  persons 
 — an  assembly  of  more  than  five  hundred  brethren — 
 being  all  at  the   same  moment   in    such  a   state  of 
 mind,    however  elevated,  as  to   imagine  and   believe 
 that  they  saw  and  heard  one  whom  not  one  of  them 
 either  saw  or  heard.     Delusions  do  spread   rapidly, 
 but  not  such  a  delusion  as  is  here  supposed.     It  is  a 
 delusion  about  an  external  fact  supposed  to  be  pre- 
 sented to  the  organs  of  sight  and  hearing.     It  is  no 
 delusion  about  a  story  repeated  to  an  excited  crowd. 
 One  is  alleged  to  appear — to  appear  in  the  human 
 frame — and  to  speak  words  heard  by  the  ear.     The 
 assembled  multitude  believe  that  they  see  Him  and 
 hear  Him.     They  believe  this  firmly  and  publish   it 
 to  the  world,  and  are  willing  to   suffer  and  die  for 
 their  belief.     The  multitude,  we  say,  simultaneously 
 believe  that  they,  each   one   of  them,  see  and  hear 
 Jesus  who  had  been  put  to  death.     Such  a  simulta- 
 neous and  unanimous  belief  necessarily  implies  the 
 reality  of  the  fact.     The  belief  is  otherwise  inexplic- 
 able ;  and  Strauss   does   not  attempt  to  discuss  this 
 part  of  the  subject.      He  evades  it  by  means  of  a 
 conjecture.     He  implicitly  confesses  that  his  theory 
 breaks  down  at  last  in  his  hands.     And  we  conclude 
 the  review  of  this  part  of  his  discussion  by  affirming 
 that  the  whole  of  his  theory  is  built  on  a  baseless 
 assumption,  and  that,  since  he  has  failed  to  trace  the 
 origin  of  the  disciples'   belief  in  the  resurrection  of 
 
ORIGIN   OF   BELIEF   IN   THE   RESURRECTION.      409 
 
 Jesus  to  delusion  occasioned  by  excitement  and 
 elevation  of  mind,  the  Evangelical  accounts  remain 
 firm  and  true,  which  trace  this  belief  to  its  real 
 origin — the  actual  appearances  of  the  risen  Jesus  to 
 His  disciples.  Their  belief  rested  on  facts  appealing 
 to  their  senses.      They  believed,  because  they 
 
 SAAV  AND   HEARD   THE   RiSEN   LORD. 
 
LECTURE    XV. 
 
 STRAUSS   ON   THE   TIME  AND   PLACE   OF   THE 
 APPEARANCES   TO   THE   APOSTLES. 
 
 In  his  next  section,  which  is  also  the  last  of  his  first 
 book,  Strauss  discusses  the  subject  of  "the  time  and 
 place  of  the  Apostolic  visions  of  Christ."  His  design 
 in  this  discussion  will  be  apparent  as  we  proceed  to 
 consider  its  several  parts. 
 
 "  If  we  ask,"  says  he,  "  when  and  where  the  disciples  of 
 Jesus  saw  these  apparitions,  the  most  ancient  witness,  the 
 Apostle  Paul,  gives  us,  as  we  have  already  mentioned,  little 
 or  no  assistance  towards  arriving  at  a  result.  The  place  he 
 does  not  define  at  all,  the  time  only  apparently.  He  says 
 (i  Cor.  XV.  3-8)  that  he  had  heard  as  a  tradition  that 
 Christ  had  died  and  been  buried,  and  that  on  the  third 
 day  he  had  risen  again  according  to  the  Scriptures,  and  that 
 he  had  appeared  to  Cephas,  then  to  the  twelve,  <S:c.  Paul 
 therefore  says,  indeed,  that  Jesus  arose  on  the  third  day; 
 but  that  it  was  on  the  same  third  day  that  he  appeared 
 after  his  resurrection  to  Cephas  or  any  one  else,  he  does 
 not  say.  Moreover,  he  mentions  this  appearance  to  Cephas 
 immediately  indeed  after  the  statement  of  the  resurrection, 
 but  in  like  manner  he  mentions  the  appearance  which  he 
 himself  had  seen  immediately  after  the  appearance  of  Jesus 
 to  the  Apostles  collectively.  But  the  appearance  to  him- 
 self could  not,  in  any  case,  have  taken  place  until  several 
 years  after  the  death  and  resurrection  of  Jesus.     Thus  we 
 
TIME   AND   PLACE   OF   THE   APPEARANCES.      4I I 
 
 do  not  know  what  length  of  tune  we  must  suppose  to  have 
 occurred  between  the  different  appearances,  or,  consequently, 
 between  the  first  of  them  and  the  resurrection  on  the  third 
 day." — Vol.  i.  p.  429. 
 
 We  formerly  showed  that  the  main  design  of 
 the  Apostle  Paul  in  the  passage  here  again  referred 
 to,  was  not  to  prove  the  reality  of  Christ's  resurrection, 
 but  the  reality  of  the  future  resurrection  of  Christ's 
 people.  It  was  the  latter  doctrine  which  was  assailed 
 by  some  persons  in  the  Church  at  Corinth,  and  not 
 the  former  fact.  The  Apostle  meets  the  false  teaching 
 of  these  persons  by  showing  that  on  their  principles 
 the  reality  of  Christ's  resurrection  was  denied.  Hence 
 he  deemed  it  necessary  to  state  briefly  the  evidence 
 in  attestation  of  this  fact,  which  indeed  was  admitted 
 even  by  these  persons,  in  order  that  upon  this  fact,  as 
 a  basis,  he  might  show  how  inconsistent  they  were  in 
 denying  the  future  resurrection  of  the  bodies  of  Christ's 
 people,  and  on  how  firm  a  foundation  the  doctrine  on 
 this  subject  rested. 
 
 Now,  we  would  again  call  special  attention  to  what 
 is  manifestly  the  correct  view  of  this  passage ;  seeing 
 that  Strauss  repeatedly  represents  the  Apostle  as  for- 
 mally discussing  the  subject  of  Christ's  resurrection, 
 as  if  this  subject  were  the  main  purpose  of  his  argu- 
 ment, and  then  finds  fault  with  the  Apostle  for  not 
 entering  into  minute  details  respecting  the  appear- 
 ances of  the  risen  Jesus  to  Cephas  and  the  others. 
 Paul  states  distinctly  that  he  had  been  taught,  not  by 
 tradition,  as  Strauss  represents  it,  but  as  we  in  this 
 same  Epistle  learn,  by  divine  revelation,  that  Christ 
 died  and  was  buried,  and  rose  again  on  the  third  day 
 according  to  the  Scriptures — in  fulfilment  of  ancient 
 
412  LECTURE   XV. 
 
 prophecy ;  and  then  he  mentions  in  a  summary- 
 manner  the  visible  evidence  which  attested  the  resur- 
 rection. This  he  manifestly  does  in  order  to  impress 
 the  minds  of  the  Corinthian  converts  with  a  profound 
 conviction  of  the  reality  of  the  fact ;  and  his  whole 
 subsequent  argument  rests  on  the  reality  of  Christ's 
 resurrection.  He  mentions  several  appearances  of 
 the  risen  Lord ;  but  as  he  is  not  formally  discussing 
 this  subject,  he  simply  mentions  these  appearances, 
 and  as  his  argument  does  not  require  further  details, 
 it  never,  I  apprehend,  occurred  to  him  to  state  when 
 and  where  these  appearances  took  place.  He  speaks 
 at  greater  length  of  the  appearance  to  himself :  "  And 
 last  of  all  He  was  seen  of  me  also,  as  of  one  born 
 out  of  due  time.  For  I  am  the  least  of  the  Apostles, 
 that  am  not  meet  to  be  called  an  Apostle,  because  I 
 persecuted  the  Church  of  God."  What  solemn,  calm, 
 and  pregnant  words  these  are,  let  us  just  observe  in 
 passing.  Would  that  they  might  reach  in  all  their 
 force  the  heart  of  one  who  has  indeed  also  been  per- 
 secuting the  Church  of  God  !  Then  would  he,  too,  lay 
 aside  his  enmity,  and  no  more  trifle  like  a  wayward 
 child  with  things  which,  if  real,  are  awful  realities. 
 
 It  is  implied  in  Paul's  words  that  the  appearances 
 to  Cephas  and  the  others  took  place  soon  after  the 
 resurrection,  but  that  the  appearance  to  himself  was 
 at  a  later  date ;  for  the  Church  was  now  constituted, 
 through  the  labours  of  the  Apostolic  witnesses  of  the 
 resurrection.  It  is  therefore  most  unfair  dealing,  in 
 point  of  argument,  when  Strauss  discusses  this  passage 
 with  the  manifest  design  of  insinuating  doubts  into 
 the  minds  of  his  readers  about  the  times  and  places 
 of  the  appearances  of  Christ  to  His  first  disciples,  as 
 
TIME  AND   PLACE   OF   THE  APPEARANCES.      413 
 
 if  the  absence  of  details  on  these  points  in  any  meas- 
 ure affected  the  credit  of  testimony  to  the  reaHty  of 
 these  appearances.  Had  Paul  meant  to  discuss  the 
 evidence  bearing  on  this  subject,  Strauss  might  have 
 had  some  reason  to  ask  for  such  details ;  but  as  such 
 was  not  the  main  subject  before  the  Apostle's  mind, 
 Strauss  acts  most  unfairly,  and,  we  must  also  add, 
 most  artfully,  in  thus  treating  the  Apostle's  statements 
 solely  with  a  view  to  prejudice  the  mind  of  the  un- 
 wary reader.  Such  are  not  the  weapons  of  a  legiti- 
 mate warfare.  Such  is  not  the  procedure  adopted  by 
 any  one  bent,  not  on  apparent  victory,  but  on  find- 
 ing out  the  truth.  Strauss  calls  Paul  the  most  ancient 
 witness.  Pie  is  so  only  in  one  respect.  It  is  proba- 
 ble that  this  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians  was  written 
 before  any  of  the  Gospels  was  composed ;  but  he  is 
 not  the  most  ancient  witness  to  the  resurrection  of 
 Christ  in  any  other  sense.  The  first  disciples  had 
 founded  the  Church  which  Paul  at  one  "time  perse- 
 cuted ;  and  this  Church  was  built  on  the  testimony  of 
 these  disciples  to  the  fact  of  Christ's  resurrection. 
 
 "  On  the  other  hand,"  Strauss  next  says,  "  the  authorities 
 of  the  third  rank,  the  Evangelists,  represent  all,  or  at  all  events 
 a  part  of,  the  appearances  of  Jesus  after  the  resurrection  as 
 occurring  on  the  very  day  of  the  resurrection.  According 
 to  John,  he  appears  to  Mary  Magdalene  on  the  morning  of 
 the  resurrection  close  to  the  grave,  then  in  the  evening  to 
 the  assembled  disciples.  According  to  Luke,  his  first  appear- 
 ance is  on  the  same  day  to  the  two  going  to  Emmaus,  then 
 to  the  eleven  and  the  others ;  and  the  same  assumption  lies 
 at  the  bottom  of  the  brief  and  confused  account  of  Mark. 
 In  Matthew  he  does  not  indeed  show  himself  to  the 
 eleven  until  later,  in  Galilee,  but  to  the  women  on  the 
 morning  of  the  resurrection,  on  their  return  to  the  city  from 
 
414  LECTURE   XV. 
 
 the  sepulchre,  which  they  had  found  empty.  And  now  it 
 may  be  said:  how  did  it  happen  that  in  the  most  ancient 
 times  of  Christianity,  the  third  day  after  the  death  of  Jesus 
 was  set  down  as  the  day  of  the  resurrection,  if  it  was  not  on 
 this  day  that  the  first  appearances  of  him,  after  his  resur- 
 rection, took  place  ?  How  can  we  explain  the  fact  that,  so 
 early  as  the  time  of  the  Apostle  Paul,  and  the  composition 
 of  the  Revelation  of  John,  the  day  after  the  Sabbath  appears 
 as  the  day  of  the  Lord,  the  Christian  weekly  holiday  ( i  Cor. 
 xvi.  2 ;  Rev.  i.  7),  if  it  was  not  on  this  day  that  the  great 
 fact  of  the  restoration  of  their  Messiah  to  life  was  made 
 known  to  the  disciples?" — Vol.  i.  p.  430. 
 
 With  the  exception  of  his  styling  the  Evangelists 
 authorities  of  the  third  rank,  when  all  existing  evi- 
 dence proves  that  they  were  authorities  partly  of  the 
 first  and  partly  of  the  second  rank,  Strauss  in  this 
 passage  states  the  matter  fairly ;  and  we  have  now  to 
 hear  how  he  will  meet  the  questions  which  he  has  put. 
 We  maintain  that,  from  the  first,  "the  third  day 
 after  the  death  of  Jesus  was  set  down  as  the  day  of 
 the  resurrection,"  for  the  obvious  reason  that  on  that 
 day  the  resurrection  took  place.  And  by  the  same 
 reason — this  third  day  being  the  first  day  of  the  week 
 — we  account  for  the  fact  that  the  first  day  of  the 
 week,  the  day  after  the  Jewish  Sabbath,  was  set  apart 
 as  the  Christian  weekly  Sabbath — as  the  Lord's  Day, 
 the  day  on  which  His  glorious  resurrection  is  in  all 
 ages  of  the  Church  upon  earth  to  be  held  in  special 
 remembrance.  Such  is  the  simple  and  correct  ex- 
 planation of  these  historical  facts,  and  no  other  ex- 
 planation of  them  will  be  found  tenable.  But  Strauss 
 is  under  the  inevitable  necessity  of  attempting  to  con- 
 struct some  other  explanation.  He  would  evidently 
 rather  avoid  this  necessity,  especially  as  respects  the 
 
TIME   AND   PLACE   OF   THE   APPEARANCES.      415 
 
 day  of  the  resurrection ;  but  he  cannot  do  so,  and 
 therefore  his  utmost  ingenuity  is  called  into  exercise 
 in  order  to  give  some  plausible  conjecture  on  the  sub- 
 ject, however  untenable  it  may  be  All  the  Evangelists 
 affirm  that  Jesus  rose  on  the  third  day  after  His  death. 
 No  attempt  can  therefore  be  made  to  make  their  nar- 
 ratives even  assume  the  appearance  of  the  slightest 
 difference  on  this  point.  Pure  conjecture  alone  can  be 
 the  source  whence  a  contrary  assertion  can  be  drawn. 
 But  the  case  is  different  as  to  the  places  where  the 
 appearances  of  the  risen  Jesus  are  recorded  to  have 
 occurred.  These  were  numerous,  and  they  occurred 
 in  different  localities,  some  at  or  near  Jerusalem, 
 others  in  Galilee.  And  as  each  of  the  Evangelists 
 thought  of  recording  only  some  of  these  appearances, 
 and  therefore  omitted  others,  it  is  in  the  power  of  any 
 one  who  is  a  priori  bent  on  setting  them  at  variance 
 to  contrive,  by  a  little  ingenuity  and  some  misrepre- 
 sentation of  what  they  do  rec9rd,  to  appear  successful 
 in  his  attempt.  The  times  and  places  of  Christ's 
 appearances  are  topics  necessarily  connected ;  and 
 therefore  we  do  not  complain  of  the  somewhat  con- 
 fused manner  in  which  Strauss  discusses  them,  passing 
 as  he  does  from  the  one  topic  to  the  other  just  as  the 
 exigencies  of  his  assumed  case  seem  to  demand.  He 
 has  before  him  a  subject  of  insurmountable  difficulty, 
 especially  as  respects  the  time  of  the  appearances,  and 
 therefore  we  need  not  wonder  that  he  is  seen  to  labour 
 under  the  burden  which  he  has  undertaken  to  bear. 
 
 "If  we  look,"  says  he,  "upon  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  as 
 a  miracle,  it  might  take  place  as  well  on  one  day  as  another  j 
 a  natural  restoration  to  life  must  occur  on  some  day  soon 
 after  death,  or  it  could  not  occur  at  all.    On  the  other  hand, 
 
4l6  LECTURE   XV. 
 
 the  psychological  revolution  from  which  we  suppose  the 
 visions  of  Apostles  to  have  proceeded,  appears  to  require  a 
 longer  interval  for  its  development.  More  than  one  day,  it 
 would  seem,  should  intervene  before  the  disciples  could 
 recover  from  their  terror  at  the  unlooked-for  result,  before 
 they  could  assemble  together  again  after  their  first  disper- 
 sion. Supposing,  in  particular,  that  it  was  from  renewed 
 and  profounder  study  of  the  sacred  writings  of  the  Old  Tes- 
 tament that  the  certainty  arose  that  their  Jesus,  in  spite  of 
 suffering  and  death,  had  been  the  Messiah,  that  his  suffering 
 and  death  had  been  for  him  only  the  passage  to  the  glory  of 
 the  Messiah,  for  this  also  a  longer  time  was  requisite.  It 
 appears,  therefore,  if  it  is  true  that  on  the  very  first  day 
 after  the  death  of  Jesus  appearances  of  his  took  place,  not 
 to  be  conceivable  that  these  appearances  were  merely  sub- 
 jective visions  of  the  disciples;  and  our  view  of  the  origin 
 of  the  belief  in  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  appears  to  fall  to 
 pieces  upon  the  impossibility  of  making  that  origin  conceiv- 
 able on  the  third  day." — Vol.  i.  p.  430-31. 
 
 In  this  passage  Strauss  seems  to  acknowledge  with 
 great  candour  the  difficulty  of  his  present  task,  as  it 
 respects  the  alleged  time  when  the  first  appearances 
 of  Jesus  took  place.  We  say  advisedly  that  he  seems 
 to  make  such  an  acknowledgment,  for  we  know 
 already  that  he  considers  himself  to  have  proved  that 
 these  and  other  appearances  were  merely  what  he 
 calls  "subjective  visions."  And  therefore  it  is  morally 
 impossible  to  give  him  credit  for  a  candid  acknow- 
 ledgment of  the  difficulty.  That  difficulty  he  feels  to 
 be  such  that  he  is  compelled  to  gain  over  the  reader's 
 mind  to  a  favourable  reception  of  his  attempt  to  over- 
 come it,  by  an  ostentatious  confession  that  he  knows 
 well  the  weight  which  the  advocates  of  the  reality  of 
 the  resurrection  assign  to  the  fact  that  on  the  third 
 
TIME   AND   PLACE   OF   THE   APPEARANCES.      417 
 
 day  after  His  death  Jesus  did  show  Himself  ahve  to 
 His  disciples.  His  very  confession  that  he  is  fully 
 aware  of  the  strength  of  the  argument  on  the  part  of 
 his  opponents  will  tend,  as  he  assumes,  of  itself  to 
 lessen  its  strength.  We  are  entitled,  we  repeat,  to 
 regard  the  confession  in  this  light,  because  this  very 
 topic,  now  professedly  discussed,  ought  in  all  fairness 
 to  have  been  discussed  before  he  had  pronounced  the 
 judgment  which  he  has  already  pronounced  on  the 
 character  of  these  appearances.  The  difficulty,  in 
 short,  can  now  only  present  itself,  not  as  one  which  is 
 to  be  fairly  argued,  but  as  one  which  is  to  be  set  aside 
 by  some  means  or  other.  Before,  how^ever,  he  pro- 
 ceeds to  show  how  this  is  to  be  done,  he  deems  it 
 proper  to  notice  the  other  difficulty — namely,  that 
 which  has  respect  to  the  locality  of  these  appear- 
 ances. 
 
 "  In  like  manner,"  he  says,  "  the  statement  of  the  locality 
 of  these  appearances  in  the  Gospels  seems  to  lead  to  a  result 
 unfavourable  to  our  point  of  view.  On  the  morning  after 
 the  Sabbath,  on  the  evening  of  the  third  day  before  which 
 morning  the  crucified  Jesus  had  been  buried,  the  disciples, 
 according  to  the  accounts  of  the  Evangelists,  were  still  at  Jeru- 
 salem, and  here,  according  to  all  of  them,  even  Matthew  not 
 excepted,  the  first  appearances  of  their  risen  Lord  occurred. 
 Jesus  therefore  appeared  to  His  disciples  in  the  same  place  in 
 which  His  body  had  been  laid  in  the  grave.  Even  this  cir- 
 cumstance appears  only  to  put  us  into  a  difiiculty,  while  for 
 the  two  other  possible  views  of  the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  it 
 is  inconceivable.  For  supposing  Jesus  to  have  been  recalled 
 into  life  by  a  miracle,  or  awakened  naturally  from  an 
 apparent  death,  in  neither  case  would  there  be  a  body  in 
 the  grave  by  pointing  to  which  the  proposition  maintained 
 by  the  disciples  that  He  had  risen  could  be  contradicted. 
 
 2  D 
 
41 8  LECTURE   XV. 
 
 When  in  the  very  city  before  the  gates  of  which  the  body  of 
 Jesus  lay  in  a  sepulchre  well  known  and  easy  to  be  found,  not 
 forty-eight  hours  after  it  had  been  buried  there,  his  disciples 
 came  forward,  maintaining  that  he  had  risen,  that  he  had 
 come  alive  out  of  the  sepulchre,  how  is  it  conceivable  that 
 the  Jews  should  not  have  run  straight  to  this  sepulchre, 
 fetched  the  corpse  away,  and  by  the  public  exhibition  of  it 
 have  convicted  the  audacious  assertion  of  falsehood?  Or, 
 rather,  how  could  the  disciples  come  to  make  this  assertion, 
 when  they  could  examine  the  neighbouring  cavern  in  order 
 to  convince  themselves  of  its  groundlessness?" — Vol.  i.  p. 
 431-32. 
 
 In  this  passage  Strauss  professes  to  state  the  diffi- 
 culty to  which  his  own  view  of  the  nature  of  these 
 appearances  of  Jesus  seems  to  be  exposed,  from  the 
 statement  that  they  occurred  "  in  the  same  place  in 
 which  His  body  had  been  laid  in  the  grave,"  and  on 
 the  very  day  when  He  is  said  to  have  risen.  He 
 affirms,  however,  in  general,  that  to  such  as  hold  his 
 view  of  these  appearances — namely,  that  they  were 
 merely  subjective  impressions — "even  this  circum- 
 stance appears  only  to  cause  a  difficulty,"  but  that  to 
 those  who  maintain  either  of  the  two  other  possible 
 views  a  contradiction  is  inevitable  ;  for  "  the  circum- 
 stance," he  says,  "  is  for  these  views  inconceivable." 
 Now,  whatever  we  may  think  of  his  arguments,  or  of 
 his  fairness  in  stating  a  case,  we  seldom  experience 
 any  great  difficulty  in  making  out  Strauss's  mean- 
 ing ;  but  in  what  follows  in  the  passage  before  us 
 we  miss  his  usual  clearness  in  statement.  He  seems 
 to  assert  that  the  circumstance  referred  to,  whilst  only 
 appearing  to  put  him,  with  his  view  of  the  nature  of 
 the  appearances  of  Jesus,  into  a  difficulty,  becomes 
 inconceivable  in  the  case  of  those  who  hold  the  one  or 
 
TIME   AND   PLACE   OF   THE   APPEARANCES.      419 
 
 the  other  of  the  two  other  possible  views.  In  support 
 of  this  last  assertion,  he  supposes  that  according  to  the 
 one  or  the  other  of  these  views  Jesus  was  either  recalled 
 into  life  by  a  miracle,  or  awakened  naturally  from  an 
 apparent  death :  in  either  case  His  body  would  of 
 course  be  no  longer  in  the  grave ;  and  the  proposi- 
 tion maintained  by  the  disciples  that  He  was  risen, 
 could  not  be  contradicted  by  producing  the  body. 
 He  then  supposes  that  the  disciples  affirmed  this 
 proposition  on  the  very  day  of  the  resurrection,  and 
 within  the  very  city  of  Jerusalem,  and  asks,  "  How  is  it 
 conceivable  that  the  Jews  should  not  have  run  straight 
 to  the  sepulchre,  fetched  the  corpse  away,  and  by  the 
 public  exhibition  of  it  have  convicted  the  audacious 
 assertion  of  falsehood.^"  Now,  according  to  the  sup- 
 position, the  Jews  might  have  run  to  the  sepulchre, 
 but  they  could  not  have  found  the  body,  for  it  was 
 not  there.  The  thing  here  declared  to  be  inconceiv- 
 able is  not  the  same  with  that  which  he  formerly  said 
 was  inconceivable,  and  which  he  professedly  meant  to 
 set  before  the  reader.  He  passes  in  his  argument 
 from  one  thing,  said  to  be  inconceivable,  to  quite 
 another  thing,  which  also  he  pronounces  inconceiv- 
 able. He  means  to  show  that  to  those  who  maintain 
 the  reality  of  Christ's  resurrection,  there  is  in  the  re- 
 corded appearances  of  Jesus  at  Jerusalem  on  the  very 
 day  of  the  resurrection,  a  circumstance  stated  which 
 is  inconceivable.  And  to  prove  this  he  supposes  that 
 Jesus  had  really  risen  (the  other  possible  view  we 
 need  not  consider),  and  that  the  disciples  affirmed 
 this  fact  on  the  very  day  of  the  resurrection  ;  and 
 then  he  puts  the  question  as  above  stated,  in  which 
 question  he  implicitly  changes  his  supposition,  and 
 
420  LECTURE   XV. 
 
 now  supposes  the  body  of  Jesus  to  be  still  in  the 
 grave.  His  other  question  involves  the  same  change 
 of  supposition  :  "  How,"  says  he,  "  could  the  disciples 
 come  to  make  this  assertion,  when  they  could  examine 
 the  neighbouring  cavern  in  order  to  convince  them- 
 selves of  its  groundlessness.?"  Both  these  questions 
 evidently  imply  that  the  body  of  Jesus  was  still  in  the 
 tomb  ;  that  the  appearances,  therefore,  were  only  sub- 
 jective visions ;  and  that  the  idea  of  the  disciples 
 having  had  such  visions  at  Jerusalem,  and  on  the  very 
 day  of  the  alleged  resurrection,  presents  a  greater 
 difficulty  to  those  who  maintain  the  reality  of  the 
 resurrection,  than  to  those  who  believe  that  the  visions 
 were  only  subjective. 
 
 But  whilst  there  is  a  manifest  confusion  in  Strauss's 
 statements  on  this  subject,  there  is  one  thing  which 
 by  means  of  this  very  confusion  he  artfully  suggests 
 to  the  reader.  It  is  this  :  If  Jesus  really  rose  from 
 the  dead  within  forty-eight  hours  after  His  crucifixion, 
 and  if  He,  on  the  very  day  of  His  resurrection,  really 
 appeared  to  the  disciples  in  or  near  to  Jerusalem, 
 then,  as  a  matter  of  course,  these  disciples  proclaimed 
 the  fact  to  the  Jews  on  that  day  also,  and  thus  gave 
 them  a  full  opportunity  for  becoming  convinced  of 
 the  truth  of  the  assertion  ;  for  they  would  then  have 
 gone  to  the  sepulchre  and  found  that  the  body  was 
 not  there.  It  was  the  desire  to  insinuate  this  sup- 
 position that  led  Strauss  into  the  confused  statements 
 which  we  find  in  this  passage.  The  disciples,  he 
 would  implicitly  argue,  must  have  acted  in  this  way, 
 although  he  knows  that  they  did  not  act  in  this  way; 
 and  he  thus  prepares  the  mind  of  the  reader  for  the 
 argument  which    is   next    to   follow,  the    purport   of 
 
TIME   AND   PLACE   OF   THE   APPEARANCES.      42 1 
 
 which  will  be  to  show  that,  since  they  did  not  act  in 
 the  way  supposed,  we  have  reason  to  doubt  the  state- 
 ment, not  only  about  these  first  appearances,  but  also 
 about  the  recorded  burial  itself  of  the  body  of  Jesus. 
 We  shall  postpone  our  further  remarks  on  these  points 
 till  we  have  quoted  the  next  passage,  when  they  will 
 be  more  logically  introduced.  The  passage  is  as 
 follows  : — 
 
 "  But,  in  the  first  place,  the  Evangelists  do  indeed  tell  us 
 that  Jesus  appeared  to  his  followers  so  soon  as  the  second 
 morning  after  his  interment;  but  not  one  says  that  they 
 encountered  the  unbelieving  Jews  with  the  announcement 
 of  his  resurrection.  On  the  contrary,  according  to  all  the 
 accounts,  they  kept  quiet  from  the  first ;  and  Luke,  in  the 
 Acts,  represents  the  Apostles  as  not  coming  forward  to 
 preach  of  the  resurrection  of  Christ  until  Pentecost — seven 
 weeks,  consequently,  after  that  third  day.  In  addition  to 
 this,  there  is  the  consideration  that  the  interment  of  Jesus 
 in  the  stone  sepulchre  of  Joseph  is  anything  but  historically 
 corroborated,  as  has  been  already  intimated,  and  shall  be 
 hereafter  more  accurately  discussed.  But  if  Jesus  was,  as  is 
 probable,  buried,  with  other  condemned  criminals,  in  a  dis- 
 honourable place,  his  disciples  had  not  from  the  first  the 
 tempting  opportunity  of  looking  for  his  body.  And  if  some 
 time  elapsed  before  they  came  fonvard  proclaiming  his 
 resurrection,  it  must  have  been  more  difficult  for  their 
 opponents  also  to  produce  his  corpse  in  a  condition  still  to 
 be  recognised,  or  affording  any  proof.  Moreover,  when  we 
 remember  the  horror  for  dead  bodies  felt  by  the  Jews,  it 
 was  far  from  being  so  obvious  a  thing  to  do  as  we  may  at 
 this  day  imagine." — Vol.  i.  p.  432. 
 
 In  this  passage,  for  which  the  immediately  preced- 
 ing one  was  evidently,  with  all  its  confusion,  con- 
 structed to  prepare  the  reader,  Strauss  aims  at  dis- 
 
422  LECTURE   XV. 
 
 crediting,  on  two  distinct  grounds,  the  testimony- 
 borne  by  the  disciples  to  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  ; 
 first,  because,  according  to  all  the  Evangelists,  they 
 did  not,  as  he  evidently  wished  to  insinuate  in  the 
 preceding  passage  they  ought  to  have  done,  encounter 
 on  the  very  day  of  the  resurrection  the  unbelieving 
 Jews  with  an  announcement  of  that  event,  but  came 
 forward,  according  to  Luke's  account  in  the  Acts,  to 
 make  that  announcement  only  after  seven  weeks  had 
 elapsed  ;  and,  secondly,  because — both  on  account  of 
 this  delay  and  still  more  of  the  probability  that  the 
 body  of  Jesus  was  thrown  along  with  the  bodies  of 
 other  condemned  criminals  into  a  dishonourable  place, 
 rather  than,  as  the  Evangelists  relate,  deposited  in  the 
 stone  sepulchre  of  Joseph — the  Jews  would  have 
 found  it  exceedingly  difficult  to  produce  the  dead 
 body  in  order  "  to  convict  the  audacious  assertion  of 
 falsehood." 
 
 Now,  in  reference  to  this  second  reason,  we  have 
 already  discussed  Strauss's  attempt  to  discredit  the 
 unanimous  testimony  of  the  four  Evangelists  respect- 
 ing the  burial  of  Jesus,  and  we  have  shown  how 
 utterly  he  fails  in  this  attempt.  We  must  therefore 
 refer  our  readers  to  our  former  remarks  on  this  sub- 
 ject, the  importance  of  which  is  fundamental  in  this 
 inquiry.  We  shall  merely  observe  at  present  that 
 Strauss  was  fully  aware  of  the  importance  of  this 
 point,  and  he  was  bound,  we  think,  to  have  discussed 
 it  thoroughly  in  his  first  book,  and  not  to  have  as- 
 sumed his  view  as  proved,  and  then  reason  upon  this 
 assumption,  merely  telling  his  readers  that  "it  should 
 be  hereafter  more  accurately  discussed."  But  the 
 manifest  truth  is,  that  the  evidence  for  the  burial  of 
 
TIME   AND   PLACE   OF   THE   APPEARANCES.      423 
 
 the  body  of  Jesus  in  the  tomb  of  Joseph,  a  man  of 
 Arlmathea,  is  proof  against  all  assaults.  There  is  no 
 miracle  here  to  be  summarily  set  aside.  The  burial 
 belongs  to  the  class  of  ordinary  events,  and  nothing 
 can  be  more  natural  than  that  under  the  circum- 
 stances it  should  have  occurred  just  as  all  the  Evan- 
 gelists tell  us  it  did  occur.  There  is  no  fact,  we  pre- 
 sume to  affirm,  better  corroborated  historically  than 
 this.  But  Strauss  was  compelled,  as  we  formerly 
 observed,  by  the  very  exigencies  of  his  whole  under- 
 taking, to  deny  this  fact ;  for  it  is  most  clear  that,  if 
 the  body  of  Jesus  was  really  laid  in  the  tomb  of 
 Joseph,  there  is,  under  all  the  circumstances  of  the 
 case,  no  alternative  but  to  admit  the  reality  of  the 
 resurrection  ;  and  then  the  whole  enterprise  which 
 Strauss  undertook  and  pledged  himself  to  accomplish, 
 collapses  in  a  moment.  Hence  he  purposely  abstains 
 from  discussing  this  subject  of  the  burial  in  its  proper 
 place  as  respects  his  argument.  He  deems  it  more 
 prudent,  as  undoubtedly  it  is  more  artful,  to  gain  the 
 reader  over  to  his  assumed  view  by  insinuating  doubts 
 and  even  unbelief  about  this  fact,  and  to  assure  him 
 that  "  it  shall  be  hereafter  more  accurately  discussed." 
 Hence  the  reasoning  based  on  the  assumption  that 
 the  body  of  Jesus  was  buried  in  the  place  assigned  to 
 the  bodies  of  condemned  criminals,  is  wholly  worth- 
 less ;  and  the  very  necessity  of  such  an  assumption 
 exposes  the  desperate  condition  to  which  Strauss  is 
 reduced.  Even  after  the  lapse  of  seven  weeks  the 
 Jewish  rulers  still  had  it  in  their  power  to  convict  the 
 assertion  on  the  part  of  the  disciples  of  falsehood,  had 
 that  assertion  been  mendacious  ;  and  their  not  having 
 recourse  to  the  means  of  such  a  conviction,  constitutes 
 
424  LECTURE   XV. 
 
 an  invincible  proof  that  for  some  reason  or  other  they 
 knew  that  they  could  not  accomplish  this  by  produc- 
 ing the  dead  body.  That  body,  if  not  restored  to  life 
 or  stolen  by  the  disciples,  was  still  in  the  tomb,  so 
 that,  whether  the  announcement  was  made  on  the  day 
 of  the  alleged  resurrection  or  only  seven  weeks  after 
 that  day,  the  unbelieving  Jewish  rulers  had  only  to 
 have  recourse  to  the  alternative  either  of  producing 
 the  body,  or  of  proving  that  the  disciples  had  removed 
 it  from  the  tomb.  They  met  the  announcement,  as 
 far  as  Jerusalem  Avas  concerned,  in  neither  of  these 
 ways.  They  adopted  a  third  method,  which  they 
 must  have  deemed  more  likely  to  prove  effectual. 
 They  imprisoned  the  Apostles ;  they  threatened 
 them  with  further  punishment  if  they  should  persist 
 in  their  testimony ;  they  commanded  them  to  be 
 silent  on  the  subject. 
 
 But  in  addition  to  these  ready  means,  they  did 
 adopt  one  of  the  above  alternatives  in  regard  to  Jews 
 at  a  distance.  They  induced  persons  to  spread  abroad 
 the  report  that  the  disciples  had  stolen  the  body 
 during  the  night  preceding  the  alleged  resurrection, 
 whilst  the  soldiers  on  guard  at  the  sepulchre  w^ere 
 asleep.  This  latter  topic  Strauss  will  also  discuss  in 
 his  promised  dissertation  on  the  accounts  of  the 
 burial ;  and  he  must  of  course  show  that  the  story 
 about  the  guard  is  a  fiction  of  the  later  Church.  But 
 all  this,  as  we  have  elsewhere  shown,  arises  from  the 
 necessity  of  his  argument.  His  views  rest  on  no 
 evidence  ;  they  are  entirely  the  product  of  his  own 
 imagination,  which  undoubtedly  is  most  fertile  in 
 fruits  of  this  kind. 
 
 But  we  have  also  specially  to  notice  the  first  ground 
 
TIME   AND   PLACE   OF   THE   APPEARANCES.      425 
 
 on  which  Strauss  would  here  raise  an  argument  to 
 discredit  the  testimony  of  the  disciples  to  the  resur- 
 rection of  Jesus.  In  the  immediately  preceding  pas- 
 sage he  assumes  that  had  this  event  taken  place,  or 
 even  had  the  disciples  imagined  and  believed  that  it 
 had  taken  place,  they  must  no  doubt  have  announced 
 it  to  the  Jews  on  the  very  day  of  its  alleged  occur- 
 rence. On  that  very  day  they  must  have  come  for- 
 ward and  proclaimed  the  resurrection  of  Jesus.  If  on 
 that  day  they  were  convinced  that  Jesus  appeared 
 to  them,  they  could  not  have  kept  silence.  Such  is 
 manifestly  the  main  design  of  Strauss's  confused  state- 
 ments at  the  close  of  that  passage.  And  now  he 
 shows  that,  according  to  the  Evangelic  accounts, 
 they  did  not  come  for  ^ard  on  that  day. 
 
 "  The  Evangelists  do  in^aeed  tell  us  that  Jesus  appeared 
 to  them  so  soon  as  the  second  morning  after  his  inter- 
 ment; but  not  one  says  that  they  encountered  the  unbe- 
 Heving  Jews  with  the  announcement  of  his  resurrection.  On 
 the  contrary,  according  to  all  the  accounts,  they  kept  quiet 
 from  the  first;  and  Luke,  in  the  Acts,  represents  the  Apostles 
 as  not  coming  forward  to  preach  of  the  resurrection  of 
 Christ  until  Pentecost — seven  weeks,  consequendy,  after 
 that  third  day." 
 
 The  author  evidently  wishes  his  readers  to  look 
 with  great  suspicion  on  this  conduct  of  the  Apostles. 
 In  short,  his  design  is  to  discredit  the  accounts  of  the 
 first  alleged  appearances  of  Jesus,  and  to  show  that 
 the  idea  of  such,  appearances  did  not  arise  in  the 
 minds  of  the  disciples  until  a  later  date.  He  thinks 
 it  would  be  a  gain  to  his  theory  if  some  time  were 
 allowed  for  the  growth  of  this  idea.  Now,  it  is  quite 
 true  that,  though  the  risen  Jesus  appeared  to  His  fol- 
 
426  LECTURE   XV. 
 
 lowers  on  the  very  day  of  His  resurrection,  they  did 
 not  openly  come  forward  to  announce  the  fact  of  His 
 resurrection  until  after  the  lapse  of  fifty  days  ;  and 
 it  is  admitted  that  if  this  were  all  we  were  informed 
 of  on  the  subject,  we  should  have  been  at  a  loss  to 
 account  for  the  delay.  But  Strauss  most  unfairly 
 states  the  case  as  if  this  were  all  that  is  told  us ; 
 whereas  the  Evangelists  inform  us  that  Jesus  ap- 
 peared to  the  disciples  on  several  occasions — that  He 
 appeared  to  them  in  Galilee  as  well  as  at  Jerusalem  ; 
 and  Luke,  in  the  Acts,  expressly  tells  us  that  Jesus 
 continued  to  appear  to  them  during  a  period  of  forty 
 days  after  his  resurrection,  giving  them  repeated 
 proofs  of  the  reality  of  the  fact,  and  also  instructing 
 them  in  the  things  pertaining  to  His  kingdom.  We 
 are  also  informed  by  Matthew  that  on  the  very  day 
 of  the  resurrection  the  chief  rulers  did  receive  a  testi- 
 mony to  the  fact,  so  that  they  had  a  full  opportunity 
 on  that  very  day  of  investigating  the  truth  of  the 
 allegation,  had  they  been  really  disposed  to  ascertain 
 the  truth.  It  is  not  fair  in  Strauss,  first,  by  mere 
 denial  of  certain  parts  of  the  Evangelic  accounts,  to 
 get  rid  of  important  statements,  and  then,  by  means 
 of  what  remains  of  these  accounts,  to  construct  a  case 
 to  answer  his  own  purpose.  He  is  bound  to  take 
 these  accounts  as  they  present  themselves  to  us,  un- 
 less he  can  by  legitimate  proof  set  aside  what  appears 
 unfavourable  to  his  views. 
 
 So  long  as  Jesus  continued  appearing  to  the  dis- 
 ciples, and  personally  instructing  them  for  the  office 
 to  which  He  had  called  them,  it  is  only  reasonable  to 
 suppose  that  they  would  not  come  forward  and  pro- 
 claim the  fact  of  the  resurrection.     These  men  were 
 
TIME  AND   PLACE   OF   THE  APPEARANCES.      427 
 
 to  be  Christ's  messengers,  not  merely  to  the  Jews,  but 
 to  all  nations.  They  were  to  be  sent  forth  to  preach 
 the  Gospel  to  the  whole  world,  beginning  indeed  at 
 Jerusalem,  but  not  confining  their  ministry  to  that 
 city.  It  was  not  a  mere  contest  with  the  Jews  in 
 Jerusalem  that  they  were  to  enter  upon  ;  they  were  to 
 be  the  heralds  of  salvation  even  to  the  ends  of  the 
 earth.  They  were  to  be  witnesses,  not  only  of  Christ's 
 resurrection,  but  also  of  His  ascension ;  and  they 
 w^ere  to  receive  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit  after  His 
 ascension,  in  order  to  qualify  them  for  their  high 
 office.  Hence,  during  forty  days  after  Christ's  resur- 
 rection, they  were  under  His  own  special  teaching; 
 and  when  He  ascended  to  the  right  hand  of  the 
 Father,  they  were  commanded  to  wait  until  they 
 should  be  endued  with  power  from  on  high.  We 
 have  thus  a  full  and  satisfactory  explanation  of  the 
 reasons  of  the  delay  on  the  part  of  the  disciples  ;  while, 
 as  we  have  already  said,  testimony  had  reached  the 
 Jewish  rulers,  even  on  the  day  of  the  resurrection,  and 
 the  lapse  of  seven  weeks  did  not  deprive  them  of  the 
 means  of  refuting  the  Apostles'  announcement,  had  it 
 been  possible  for  them  to  do  so.  The  whole  force, 
 then,  of  Strauss's  argument  in  this  passage  is  due  to 
 a  partial  and  erroneous  statement  of  the  case ;  and 
 assuredly  that  is  not  the  way  to  be  followed  in  order 
 to  arrive  at  a  sound  conclusion.  Indeed,  although  he 
 does  not  expressly  acknowledge  it,  he  yet  seems  to 
 feel  the  weakness  of  his  argument  here,  and  he  there- 
 fore attempts  to  meet  the  difficulty  caused  by  the 
 alleged  time  of  these  first  appearances  in  another 
 way. 
 
 "  Now,"  he  says,  "  as  regards  the  shortness  of  the  time  for 
 
428  LECTURE   XV. 
 
 the  development  of  a  state  of  mind  among  the  disciples  from 
 which  those  visions  could  proceed,  this  difficulty  also  is  not 
 insuperable.  A  purely  logical  method,  by  the  intervention 
 of  clear  thoughts,  was  not  yet  possible ;  and  if  it  was  not, 
 and  the  reaction  took  place  in  the  secret  depths  of  the 
 minds  of  the  Apostles,  then  it  was  a  violent  burst,  a  flash  of 
 lightnuig  in  which  the  sultriness  of  the  overloaded  feelings 
 relieved  itself.  Such  a  burst  does  not  wait  until  all  is  first 
 arranged  in  the  course  of  thought;  on  the  contrary,  it 
 assumes,  by  the  power  of  imagination,  all  that  reflection 
 endeavours  afterwards  to  clear  up,  it  takes  for  granted  at  one 
 stroke  what  the  understanding  afterwards  works  up.  Thus 
 our  notion  of  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  would  be  far  from 
 being  quashed  even  if  it  were  established  that,  in  fact,  so 
 soon  as  the  third  day  after  his  death  the  conviction  of  it  had 
 arisen  among  the  disciples." — Vol.  i.  p.  432-33. 
 
 The  argument  here  really  amounts  to  this :  Had 
 the  idea  and  the  conviction  of  the  resurrection  of 
 Jesus  arisen  in  the  minds  of  the  disciples  so  soon  as 
 the  third  day  after  His  death,  then  "  our  notion"  of  the 
 nature  of  that  resurrection  as  being  merely  a  sub- 
 jective impression,  without  any  corresponding  objec- 
 tive occurrence,  "  would  be  far  from  being  quashed." 
 Now,  it  behoved  Strauss  to  show  that  the  state  of 
 mind  among  the  disciples  was  such  as  to  give  rise  to 
 the  supposed  visions  on  that  third  day.  To  tell  us 
 that  in  a  certain  state  of  mind  a  purely  logical  method 
 is  not  possible,  and  that  violent  reactions  take  place 
 in  the  secret  depths  of  the  mind,  when,  by  the  power 
 of  the  imagination,  it  takes  for  granted  at  one  stroke 
 what  the  understanding  afterwards  works  up, — this 
 may  be  all  very  true,  viewed  as  a  general  proposition. 
 We  are  not,  however,  dealing  with  general  proposi- 
 tions, but  with  an  actual  case ;  and  we  must  look  at 
 
TIME   AND   PLACE   OF   THE  APPEARANCES.      429 
 
 this  case  as  It  is  presented  to  us,  not  as  we  may  con- 
 jecture it  to  have  been.  We  are  fully  informed  as  to 
 the  state  of  mind  among  the  followers  of  Jesus  on  the 
 event  of  His  death.  Neither  the  m.en  nor  the  women 
 had  the  slightest  idea  that  He  was  to  rise  again. 
 They  had  been  so  stunned  by  the  death  of  Him 
 whom  they  believed  to  be  the  Messiah,  that  all  their 
 hopes  were  buried  with  Him  in  the  tomb.  The 
 women  went  to  the  sepulchre,  but  their  sole  purpose 
 was  to  anoint  the  dead  body.  The  disciples  refused 
 to  believe  the  testimony  of  these  women  when  they 
 affirmed  that  their  Lord  had  risen  again.  The  state 
 of  mind,  therefore  was  the  very  opposite  of  that  which 
 is  necessary  for  Strauss's  theory ;  and  although  a 
 reaction  from  one  extreme  to  another  is  possible,  yet 
 we  are  not  entitled  to  assume  such  a  reaction,  i»nless 
 the  phenomenon  presented  to  us  is  inexplicable  in 
 any  other  way.  Now  the  reaction,  if  we  may  here 
 use  such  a  term,  in  the  state  of  the  disciples'  minds, 
 is  satisfactorily  accounted  for.  It  took  place,  not 
 through  the  power  of  imagination,  but  through  the 
 testimony  of  the  organs  of  sense.  They  saw  the  risen 
 Jesus  ;  they  heard  Him  speak  to  them  ;  they  received 
 sensible  evidence  of  His  being  alive  ;  and  therefore 
 they  believed.  Such  is  the  account  of  the  actual 
 case,  and  all  Strauss's  conjectures  are  therefore  abso- 
 lutely worthless.  But  though  he  would  by  means  of 
 the  above  theoretical  explanation  attempt  to  lessen 
 the  difficulty  which  presses  upon  him,  his  chief  re- 
 source is  to  throw  discredit  on  the  statement  that  the 
 belief  in  the  resurrection  took  place  so  early  as  on  the 
 third  day  after  the  death  of  Jesus.  Hence  we  have 
 the  following  passage  : — 
 
430  LECTURE   XV. 
 
 "  Meanwhile  there  are  many  points  in  the  New  Testament 
 accounts  themselves  which  throw  a  doubt  upon  this  state- 
 ment. Let  us  take  that  which  was  last  touched  upon  :  Why 
 should  the  disciples,  if  they  were  convinced  of  the  resurrec- 
 tion of  their  Christ  so  soon  as  the  third  day,  have  waited 
 till  the  fiftieth  before  they  allowed  anything  about  it  to  come 
 before  the  public  in  general?  The  Acts  of  the  Apostles 
 says,  because  they  were  compelled  to  wait  for  the  Holy 
 Spirit,  which  was  not  to  be  poured  out  upon  them  until  the 
 Day  of  Pentecost ;  and  we  know,  on  our  own  point  of  view, 
 that  the  choice  of  this  day  especially  for  the  communication 
 of  the  Spirit  was  decided  by  the  antitypical  relation  in  which 
 the  most  ancient  Church  view  placed  the  first  preaching  of 
 the  Gospel  to  the  lawgiving  on  Sinai — that,  therefore,  this 
 choice  of  time  has  no  historical,  but  only  a  dogmatical 
 foundation.  But  it  is  another  question  whether  in  this 
 statement  the  recollection  may  not  be  involved  that  the 
 preaching  of  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  was  deferred  until  a 
 later  period,  as  well  as  the  origination  of  the  behef  in  this 
 resurrection,  until  one  of  longer  duration  than  three  days." 
 —Vol.  i.  p.  433. 
 
 We  have  already  stated  the  reasons  which  occa- 
 sioned the  postponing  of  the  public  announcement  by 
 the  disciples  of  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  until  the  Day 
 of  Pentecost.  The  ancient  Church  did  indeed  trace  a 
 typical  relation  between  the  lawgiving  on  Sinai  and 
 the  outpouring  of  the  Holy  Spirit  on  the  disciples. 
 But  it  was  the  fact  that  the-  Spirit  was  thus  given  to 
 the  disciples  on  the  Day  of  Pentecost  that  discovered 
 to  the  Church  the  reality  of  this  relation.  The 
 Church  founded  the  doctrine  of  this  relation  on  the 
 historical  fact.  It  was  not  the  doctrine  that  created 
 the  fact,  so  that  Strauss's  theory  falls  to  the  ground. 
 Besides,  he  entirely  ignores  the  fact  that  Jesus  abode 
 
TIME   AND   PLACE   OF   THE   APPEARANCES.      43 1 
 
 with  the  disciples,  or  at  least  appeared  to  them  on 
 frequent  occasions,  during  forty  days,  and  that  in 
 reality  they  waited  only  ten  days  more  after  His 
 ascension  until  the  promised  Spirit  was  poured  down 
 upon  them. 
 
 But  Strauss  proceeds  to  assail  the  accounts  them- 
 selves regarding  the  appearances  of  Christ.  And  we 
 must  now  quote  a  rather  long  passage  on  this  subject. 
 
 "  But  all  the  Evangelists,  even  Matthew,  agree  in  repre- 
 senting Jesus,  after  his  resurrection,  as  appearing  on  the  third 
 day  in  or  near  Jerusalem.  Even  Matthew — but  how  ?  First 
 he  describes  the  angel  at  the  grave  as  announcing  to  the 
 women  the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  with  directions  to  com- 
 municate the  intelligence  quickly  to  the  disciples,  mean- 
 while that  Jesus  will  go  before  them  to  Galilee,  where  they 
 are  to  see  him.  Nor  are  the  disciples  only  to  see  their  risen 
 Lord  in  Galilee,  but  'you,'  says  the  angel,  'even  you 
 women,  will  see  him  there,  in  Galilee.'  When,  then,  imme- 
 diately after,  when  the  women  were  running  from  the 
 sepulchre  to  the  city,  Jesus  himself  meets  them  on  the  road, 
 this  is  certainly  exceedingly  strange.  If  they  saw  Jesus  here, 
 they  did  not  see  him  first,  as  the  angel  had  predicted,  in 
 Galilee.  And  what  occasion  could  Jesus  have  to  depart  so 
 quickly  from  the  plan  which  he  had  just  before  caused  to  be 
 announced  by  the  angel?  The  women  were  intending  to 
 give  their  message  to  the  disciples,  and  for  themselves  they 
 were  already  convinced,  for  they  went  from  the  sepulchre, 
 as  Matthew  says,  with  fear,  naturally,  but  also  with  great 
 joy.  Or  had  Jesus  something  more  to  say  to  them  which 
 the  angel  had  forgotten  ?  On  the  contrary,  he  repeats  ex- 
 actly the  same  thing  which  the  angel  had  already  said  to 
 them — that  the  disciples  should  journey  to  Galilee;  there 
 they  will  see  him.  Anything  so  perfectly  superfluous  as 
 this  first  appearance  of  Christ  in  Matthew  not  only  never 
 happened,  but,  in  this  connection,  was  never  told ;  it  is  a 
 
432  LECTURE   XV. 
 
 later  interpolation,  not  into  our  text  of  Matthew,  but  into 
 the  account  which  the  first  Evangelist  placed  at  the  founda- 
 tion of  his  history  of  the  resurrection,  but  into  which  he  here 
 introduced  a  feature  absolutely  irreconcilable  with  it.  If  we 
 suppose  this  appearance  removed,  his  narrative  is  perfectly 
 consistent  with  itself  Near  Jerusalem,  at  the  sepulchre,  and 
 on  the  morning  of  the  resurrection,  only  the  angel  appears 
 with  the  preliminary  announcement,  and  the  direction  to 
 go  to  Galilee;  Jesus  himself  appears,  according  to  agree- 
 ment, in  Galilee,  and  not  before,  after  the  disciples  with  the 
 women  had  finished  the  journey  there.  If,  according  to 
 this,  Galilee  is  the  theatre  for  the  appearance  of  the  risen 
 Jesus — if  this  appearance  is  thus  brought  down  to  a  some- 
 what later  period  than  the  third  day,  as  it  is  impossible  that 
 the  disciples  should  have  reached  the  hill  country  of  Galilee 
 on  the  same  day  on  the  morning  of  which  they  had  received 
 the  instruction  to  set  off  to  go  there — this  view,  which  is  at 
 the  bottom  of  Matthew's  account,  is,  as  has  been  mentioned 
 already,  directly  opposed  to  the  description  in  Luke  and 
 John,  where  Jerusalem  and  the  neighbourhood  is  the  pecu- 
 liar, and,  if  we  set  aside  the  supplementary  chapter  in  John, 
 the  only  theatre  of  the  announcements  made  by  the  risen 
 Christ,  which  might  thus  be  supposed  to  begin  on  the  very 
 day  of  the  resurrection.  This  last  conception  is  irreconcil- 
 able with  the  first,  which  lies  at  the  bottom  of  the  narrative 
 in  Matthew.  But  still  the  author  of  the  first  Gospel  has  so 
 far  yielded  to  it  that  he  has  represented  Jesus  as  having  ap- 
 peared— not  indeed  to  the  disciples,  for  then  the  journey  to 
 Galilee  would  have  been  quite  aimless — but  to  the  women 
 while  still  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Jerusalem." — Vol.  i. 
 P-  433-35- 
 
 In  this  passage  Strauss  labours  to  show  that  the 
 account  in  Matthew,  as  it  exists  in  our  text,  of  the 
 appearances  of  Christ  is  inconsistent  with  itself;  and 
 that  when  the  interpolated  statement  about  the  ap- 
 
TIME   AND   PLACE   OF   THE   APPEARANCES.      433 
 
 pearance  to  the  women  is  removed,  the  account  be- 
 comes consistent,  but  then  stands  in  direct  opposition 
 to  the  accounts  in  Luke  and  John,  the  supplementary- 
 chapter  of  the  latter  being  set  aside.  Now,  we  for- 
 merly discussed  this  subject.  First,  we  considered 
 the  account  of  each  Evangelist  by  itself,  and  then  we 
 compared  the  accounts  one  with  another;  and  the 
 result  was,  that  we  found  these  accounts,  which  are 
 manifestly  partial  and  brief,  to  be  such  as  throw  light 
 on  one  another,  and  to  be  quite  consistent  among 
 themselves.  We  need  not  go  over  this  subject  again ; 
 but  we  may  mention  that  the  promised  meeting  in 
 Galilee  was  evidently  one  of  a  public  nature,  so  to 
 speak,  and  by  no  means  precludes  other  appearances 
 which  were  rather  of  a  private  character;  that  the 
 appearance  of  Jesus  to  the  women  seems  to  have 
 taken  place,  not  when  they  were  returning  from  the 
 sepulchre  with  the  angelic  message  to  the  disciples, 
 but  after  they  had  delivered  this  message  and  had  been 
 disbelieved  by  the  disciples  ;  and  that  this  appear- 
 ance of  Jesus  to  them  was  by  no  means  that  super- 
 fluous thing  which  Strauss  represents  it,  but  was 
 designed  to  confirm  to  the  women  the  message  which 
 the  angel  had  given  them,  and  which  had  been  re- 
 jected by  the  disciples.  The  account  of  this  appear- 
 ance is  no  interpolation  in  Matthew's  original  narrative, 
 but  is  a  part  of  that  narrative.  The  angel's  assurance 
 that  Jesus  would  meet  them  in  Galilee  does  not  neces- 
 sarily imply  that  Jesus  would  not  appear  to  them  else- 
 where, but  simply  refers  to  the  promise  which  Jesus 
 had  given  before  His  death,  that  He  would  go  before 
 the  disciples  into  Galilee.  The  truth  is,  that  these 
 several  accounts  are  such  that,  if  we  are  predeter- 
 
 2  E 
 
434  LECTURE   XV. 
 
 mined  to  set  the  one  against  the  other,  we  may  suc- 
 ceed in  making  out  a  plausible  discord  ;  while,  on  the 
 other  hand,  if,  without  any  such  predetermination,  we 
 are  merely  disposed  to  treat  them  fairly  as  brief 
 and  fragmentary  accounts,  we  shall  be  satisfied  that, 
 whatever  difficulties  they  (from  their  very  charac- 
 ter) present  to  us,  there  is  really  no  sufficient 
 ground  for  charging  them  with  inconsistency  or 
 contradiction. 
 
 Strauss  finds  a  great  difficulty  in  the  way  of  his 
 theory  in  the  alleged  appearances  at  Jerusalem  on  the 
 day  of  the  resurrection,  and  therefore  he  labours  as 
 he  does  to  discredit  the  accounts  of  these  appear- 
 ances. The  first  Evangelist  records  the  public  meet- 
 ing, as  we  have  termed  it,  in  Galilee ;  but  he  also 
 records  an  appearance  to  the  women  near  to  Jerusa- 
 lem. Hence  this  part  of  the  account  must,  according 
 to  Strauss,  be  an  interpolation,  whether  by  a  later 
 hand  or  by  the  Evangelist  himself  at  a  later  date.  It 
 cannot  be  a  part  of  the  original  document ;  for  were 
 it  so  it  would  militate  against  Strauss's  theory,  and 
 this  theory  is  to  be  upheld,  whatever  may  become  of 
 the  Evangelic  accounts.  But  for  a  full  discussion  of 
 the  whole  subject  we  must  refer  to  our  former  state- 
 ments. Galilee,  then,  is  to  be  the  only  theatre  for  the 
 appearances  of  the  risen  Lord — that  is,  according  to 
 Strauss,  for  the  subjective  visions  or  impressions  which 
 sprang  up  in  the  Apostles'  minds. 
 
 "  If,"  he  goes  on  to  say,  "  of  these  opposite  notions  with 
 regard  to  the  locality  of  these  appearances,  that  of  Luke 
 and  John  appears  to  be  the  latest,  from  the  fact  that  in 
 Matthew  one  feature  out  of  it  is  laid  upon  the  other,  the 
 statement  in  Matthew,  this  feature  apart,  has  internal  his- 
 
TIME   AND   PLACE   OF   THE   APPEARANCES.      435 
 
 torical  probability  on  its  side.  It  was,  indeed,  perfectly  open 
 to  Jesus,  if  miraculously  restored  to  life,  to  show  himself  to 
 his  followers  at  Jerusalem  as  well  as  in  Galilee ;  and  if  he 
 had  come  to  life  again  in  a  natural  manner,  possibly  wounds 
 and  weakness  might  have  kept  him  at  first  in  Jerusalem.  But 
 the  disciples,  with  whom  on  our  point  of  view  we  have  alone 
 to  do,  had  evidently,  after  the  blow  which  had  fallen  upon 
 their  master  in  the  metropolis,  every  reason  for  returning  as 
 soon  as  possible  to  their  home  in  Galilee.  They  could  not 
 know  how  far  the  hierarchical  party  would  go — whether  they 
 might  not,  being  encouraged  by  their  success  against  their 
 master,  seize  also  upon  his  most  notorious  adherents.  In 
 Jerusalem,  where  they  were  strangers,  they  stood  without 
 protection  in  the  presence  of  such  dangers.  In  Galilee 
 they  were  at  home,  secured  by  their  connection  both  with 
 relatives  and  countrymen,  and  the  hierarchical  party  were 
 far  from  being  as  powerful  as  in  the  capital.  There  are 
 unmistakable  traces  in  favour  of  this  view  in  a  statement  in 
 the  Gospels,  though  that  is  not,  like  the  other,  peculiar  to 
 Matthew.  After  the  flight  which,  on  the  arrest  of  Jesus, 
 the  two  first  Evangelists  represent  all  his  disciples  as  under- 
 taking (Matt.  xxvi.  56,  Mark  xiv.  50),  we  find,  indeed,  on 
 the  trial,  Peter  as  still  present,  but,  according  to  Matthew 
 and  Mark,  not  one  of  the  twelve  is  to  be  seen  at  the  cross ; 
 and  when  in  Matthew  (xxvi.  31)  Jesus  applies  the  prophecy 
 of  Zechariah  (xiii.  7)  to  them,  '  I  will  smite  the  shepherd,  and 
 the  sheep  shall  be  scattered,'  this  expression  appears  to  be 
 quite  correctly  explained  by  the  author  of  the  fourth  Gospel 
 in  the  sense  (xvi.  32)  that  the  disciples  will  return  to  their 
 home.  In  the  fourth  Gospel  (taking  the  supplementary 
 chapter  into  account)  this  return  to  Galilee  takes  place  at 
 the  soonest  eight  days  after  the  resurrection,  and  even  in 
 Matthew  not  until  after  they  have  heard  of  this,  and  been 
 directed  to  go  there  by  Jesus.  The  latter  appears  to  be  a 
 sort  of  palliative  representation  of  the  fact  attributing  what 
 was  done  voluntarily  through  fear  to  a  higher  command 
 from  Jesus  himself." — Vol.  i.  p.  435-36. 
 
43^  LECTURE   XV. 
 
 Having,  as  he  thinks,  discredited  the  accounts  which 
 record  appearances  at  Jerusalem,  and  having  brought 
 Matthew  over  to  his  view  by  setting  aside  his  state- 
 ment of  the  appearance  to  the  women,  Strauss  pro- 
 ceeds in  the  passage  now  quoted  to  show  that,  immedi- 
 ately on  the  death  of  Jesus,  the  disciples  fled  to  their 
 homes  in  Galilee.  Fear  of  danger  from  the  Jewish 
 rulers  was  the  motive  which  urged  this  flight.  And  he 
 would  also  find  support  for  this  assertion  from  some 
 statements  in  the  Gospels.  Now,  there  can  be  no 
 doubt  that  the  disciples  on  the  arrest  of  Jesus  for- 
 sook Him  and  fled.  Jesus  Himself  had  foretold  that 
 such  would  be  their  conduct ;  but  the  expressions 
 used  to  indicate  this  desertion  do  not  mean  that, 
 either  on  the  arrest  or  on  the  death  of  Jesus,  the 
 disciples  immediately  fled  to  Galilee.  All  the  ac- 
 counts tell  us  that  although  they  forsook  their  Master 
 they  remained  in  Jerusalem.  They  knew  perfectly 
 that  He  was  the  chief,  if  not  the  only,  object  of 
 hatred  on  the  part  of  the  rulers.  Peter  and  John 
 were  present  at  His  trial.  Matthew  and  Mark  tell 
 us  that  the  women  who  had  followed  Jesus  were 
 standing  at  a  distance  in  a  group  beholding  the  cruci- 
 fixion. Luke  says  that  "  all  His  acquaintance  "  were 
 there,  probably  in  another  group,  as  well  as  the 
 women.  John,  we  know,  was  there  along  with  the 
 mother  of  Jesus.  The  disciples,  according  to  all  the 
 accounts,  were  in  Jerusalem  on  the  day  of  the  resur- 
 rection. There  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt,  then, 
 that  all  the  disciples  witnessed  the  crucifixion.  Fear 
 caused  them  to  desert  Jesus  when  the  hour  of  dark- 
 ness came,  but  there  is  no  evidence  that  it  constrained 
 them   to   repair  to  Galilee.     It  was  the  command  of 
 
TIME   AND   PLACE   OF   THE   APPEARANCES.      437 
 
 Jesus  that  brought  them  there.  But  it  is  necessary 
 for  Strauss's  theory  that  they  should  instantly  quit 
 Jerusalem  and  reach  Galilee  in  a  state  of  terror,  and 
 therefore  he  now  assumes  that  such  was  the  case. 
 
 "  But  supposing,"  he  says,  "  the  disciples,  after  the  execu- 
 tion of  Jesus,  to  have  fled,  in  their  first  terror,  to  their  homes, 
 the  reaction  in  their  minds  up  to  the  point  at  which  they 
 might  have  visions  of  Christ,  even  though  not  absolutely 
 unintelligible,  in  Jerusalem,  is  nevertheless  far  more  capable 
 of  explanation.  Outside  of  the  range  to  which  the  power 
 of  the  enemies  and  murderers  of  their  master  extended,  the 
 spell  of  terror  and  consternation  which  had  been  laid  upon 
 their  minds  by  his  arrest  and  condemnation  gave  way.  More- 
 over, in  Galilee,  in  the  regions  which  they  had  so  often  wan- 
 dered through  in  his  society,  amid  the  population  in  com- 
 pany with  whom  they  had  so  often  been  inspired  by  his 
 words,  they  had  every  opportunity  of  continually  recalling 
 his  image  to  their  minds,  of  realising  it  to  themselves  in  the 
 different  important  situations  in  which  they  had  seen  him 
 there.  Even  the  distance  of  the  sepulchre  is  to  be  brought 
 into  consideration,  the  immediate  neighbourhood  of  which, 
 at  least  at  first,  would  necessarily  aggravate  the  difficulty  of 
 believing  that  he  who  had  been  buried  there  had  quitted  it. 
 And  if  the  transference  of  the  appearance  to  Galilee  dis- 
 engages us  from  the  third  day  as  the  period  for  the  com- 
 mencement of  them,  the  longer  time  thus  gained  makes  the 
 reaction  in  the  minds  of  the  disciples  more  conceivable." — 
 Vol.  i.  p.  436-37- 
 
 Having  removed  the  disciples  to  Galilee  in  their 
 first  terror  upon  the  death  of  their  Master,  Strauss — 
 though  he  will  not  allow  that  the  reaction  in  their 
 minds  up  to  the  point  at  which  they  might  have 
 visions  of  Christ  would  have  been  absolutely  unintel- 
 ligible had  they  remained  in  Jerusalem — considers 
 that  such  a  reaction  is  now  far  more  capable  of  ex- 
 
43^  LECTURE   XV. 
 
 planatlon.  And  then  he  states  some  circumstances 
 which  he  thinks  were  favourable  to  the  bringing 
 about  of  this  mental  revolution.  Now,  let  it  observed 
 that  we  are  not  considering  here  an  abstract  problem 
 in  reference  to  the  human  mind.  Strauss  admits 
 that  the  disciples  believed — firmly  believed — that  they 
 saw,  not  once  or  twice,  but  repeatedly,  their  Lord 
 alive  after  His  death.  The  great  question  is,  whether 
 these  visions  were  purely  subjective,  or  had  their 
 origin  in  outward  realities }  No  general  reasoning 
 on  mere  suppositions  can  avail  to  answer  this  ques- 
 tion. There  is  no  evidence  whatever  to  sustain  the 
 supposition  that  the  disciples  fled  to  Galilee  in  their 
 first  terror.  That  they  were  in  terror  when  Jesus  was 
 arrested  and  tried  and  put  to  death — in  such  terror 
 that,  on  His  being  arrested,  they  forsook  Him  and 
 fled  from  the  spot — we  are  informed  by  the  Evan- 
 gelists ;  but  not  one  of  them  says  that  the  disciples 
 fled  to  Galilee  in  their  terror.  Nay,  how  does  Strauss 
 know  that  they  went  to  Galilee  at  all,  but  by  the  tes- 
 timony of  the  Evangelists  ?  Matthew,  whose  account 
 he  deems  preferable  to  the  other  accounts,  expressly 
 tells  us  that  they  went  there  by  the  command  of  their 
 risen  Lord.  Strauss  insists  that  Matthew's  account 
 has  been  enlarged  by  a  later  hand  ;  but  he  insists  on 
 this,  partly  from  a  misinterpretation  of  his  account, 
 and  partly,  or  rather  mainly,  because  of  the  require- 
 ments of  his  own  theory.  Does  not  Matthew,  however, 
 clearly  aflirm  that  Jesus  rose  on  the  third  day  after 
 His  death,  and  that  it  was  after  the  resurrection 
 had  taken  place  that  the  disciples  went  to  Galilee? 
 Matthew,  then,  equally  with  the  other  Evangelists, 
 represents  the  fact — or,  according  to  Strauss,  the  idea — 
 
TIME   AND   PLACE   OF   THE   APPEARANCES.      439 
 
 of  the  resurrection  as  having  been  prior  to  the  journey 
 to  Gahlee. 
 
 It  is  exceedingly  easy,  indeed,  for  the  author  or 
 any  other  person  to  form  a  theory  in  his  mind  of  what 
 he  supposes  to  have  been  the  origin  of  the  disciples' 
 belief,  and  then  to  set  aside  whatever  in  the  accounts 
 is  opposed  to  this  theory ;  taking  out  of  them  some 
 one  thing,  such  as  the  journey  to  Galilee,  and  con- 
 necting it  with  something  else  that  happened  or 
 existed  under  different  circumstances  and  at  a  dif- 
 ferent time — such  as  the  fear  or  terror  in  which  the 
 disciples  were  when  their  Lord  was  actually  appre- 
 hended and  condemned  and  put  to  death — and  then 
 to  construct  a  case  out  of  these  two  things,  and  to 
 represent  the  disciples  as  fleeing  to  Galilee  in  a  state 
 of  terror  immediately  upon  the  death  of  Jesus.  But 
 this  is  not  criticism — this  is  not  reasoning ;  it  is  mere 
 trifling  with  the  accounts,  and  making  them  say  what 
 one  wishes  them  to  say.  Whether,  upon  the  suppo- 
 sition of  Strauss,  such  a  reaction  would  have  taken 
 place  as  he  conjectures,  we  know  not ;  but  what  we 
 do  know  is,  that  the  supposition  is  worthless,  being 
 based,  not  on  evidence,  but  on  conjecture. 
 
 Strauss  all  along  assumes  that  there  was  no  resur- 
 rection, that  the  appearances  were  entirely  subjective 
 — mere  mental  visions;  and  he  is  forced  to  these 
 strange  and  unwarranted  suppositions  merely  to  sup- 
 port his  preconceived  theory.  Our  desire  is  to  be 
 guided  by  evidence  in  our  inquiry  into  the  alleged 
 resurrection  of  Jesus.  We  form  no  a  priori  conclu- 
 sion in  respect  to  this  matter ;  and  we  feel  bound  to 
 examine  the  accounts  recording  the  event  in  order 
 that  we  may  know  at  what  conclusion  we  ought  to 
 
440  LECTURE   XV. 
 
 arrive.  These  accounts  affirm  a  real  resurrection,  and 
 they  contain  the  evidence  on  which  the  disciples  came 
 to  believe  in  its  reality.  Their  belief,  which  is  ad- 
 mitted by  Strauss,  is  explicable  only  in  the  way  in 
 which  these  accounts  explain  it.  And  although 
 Strauss  labours  hard  to  give  a  different  explanation, 
 he  stumbles  at  every  step,  and  is  compelled  to  seek 
 relief  only  by  laying  hold  of  one  supposition  after 
 another. 
 
 Having  then,  as  he  thinks,  brought  all  the  dis- 
 ciples to  their  homes  in  Galilee  in  a  state  of  terror, 
 he  will  now  suppose  a  reaction  which  shall  issue  in 
 visions  of  their  Lord.  A  longer  time  than  that  of 
 forty-eight  hours  has  been  gained  for  the  necessary 
 reaction  to  take  place — a  reaction,  be  it  observed,  not 
 in  the  mental  state  of  one  or  two  disciples,  but  in  the 
 minds  of  all  the  disciples  and  of  all  the  other  fol- 
 lowers of  Jesus,  so  that  every  one  of  them,  without  a 
 single  exception,  is  to  imagine  and  believe  that  he  or 
 she  has  seen  Jesus  alive  and  heard  His  words,  and 
 that,  too,  all  at  one  and  the  same  moment — a  reac- 
 tion, moreover,  which  is  to  lead  these  once  affrighted 
 disciples  to  return  to  Jerusalem,  and  embolden  them 
 at  the  hazard  of  their  lives  to  proclaim  the  resurrec- 
 tion of  Jesus  in  presence  of  their  known  enemies, 
 and  also  at  the  same  hazard  to  make  known  salvation, 
 in  the  name  of  their  once  crucified  but  now  risen  and 
 exalted  Master,  to  all  the  nations  of  the  earth.  It 
 is  absurd,  we  venture  to  affirm,  to  suppose  that  such 
 a  reaction  as  this  could  ever  have  taken  place  in  the 
 manner  laid  down  by  Strauss.  But  let  us  now  see 
 how  he  will  account  for  the  appearances  said  to  have 
 taken  place  at  Jerusalem. 
 
TIME   AND   PLACE   OF   THE   APPEARANCES.      44I 
 
 "If,  accordingly,  as  regards  the  locality  of  the  appear- 
 ances of  Jesus  after  his  resurrection,  Matthew  is  in  all 
 probability  right,  it  is  easy  also  to  see  how  it  happened  that 
 subsequently  injustice  was  done  him — nay,  that  he  did  him- 
 self injustice,  that  is,  the  last  hand  that  touched  up  the 
 older  narrative  worked  upon  by  Matthew,  by  interpolating 
 the  appearance  of  Jesus  before  the  women  at  Jerusalem. 
 It  was,  of  course,  the  most  obvious  thing  for  the  imagination 
 to  represent  the  risen  Lord  as  announcing  his  return  to  life; 
 that  is,  as  appearing  in  the  very  place  where  he  must  have 
 quitted  the  sepulchre.  Moreover,  the  disciples,  after  they 
 had  recovered  themselves  in  Galilee,  and  gained  new  faith 
 in  Jesus  as  the  Messiah,  had  in  fact  returned  to  Jerusalem, 
 and  became  here  the  founders  of  a  Church  which,  by  reason 
 of  the  central  position  of  this  city,  soon  became  the  centre 
 of  all  the  Churches  of  the  crucified  and  restored  Messiah. 
 How  natural,  then,  that  the  time  during  which  the  Apostles 
 retired  from  this  central  point  should  be  willingly  forgotten, 
 and  that  the  description  of  the  course  of  events  should  take 
 a  turn  implying  that  the  metropolis  had  never  been  without 
 a  nucleus  of  a  Church,  that  the  eleven  had  from  the  first 
 continued  together  in  Jerusalem,  and  that  here,  too,  they 
 had  been  awakened  to  renewed  faith  by  the  first  appear- 
 ances of  their  Master  after  his  resurrection!  In  this  form 
 the  facts  were  stated  at  a  later  period  in  Jerusalem  in  par- 
 ticular, and  in  this  form  represented  by  the  author  of  the 
 third  Gospel,  who  enriched  the  Galilean  tradition  of  the  first 
 principally  by  Jewish  traditions  and  those  of  Jerusalem. 
 But  it  does  not  follow  that  it  was  from  Galilean  patriotism 
 that  Matthew  made  this  country  the  theatre  of  the  re- 
 appearance of  his  risen  Lord ;  but  in  the  Galilean  tradition 
 which  he  followed  there  was  simply  no  occasion  to  modify 
 the  original  fact  to  the  advantage  of  Jerusalem." — Vol.  i. 
 P-  437-38. 
 
 One  cannot  refrain  from  expressing  astonishment 
 at  the  childishness  which  every  now  and  then  becomes 
 
442  LECTURE   XV. 
 
 apparent  in  the  discussions  of  such  men  as  Strauss, 
 when  subjects  of  the  highest  magnitude  are  before 
 them.  The  Evangelic  accounts  of  the  appearances 
 of  the  risen  Jesus  are  constructed  by  persons  who  are 
 thinking  of"  the  advantage  of  Jerusalem  or  of  Galilee  !" 
 These  accounts  consist  of  "  Galilean  traditions,"  and 
 some  of  them  are  "enriched  by  Jewish  traditions  and 
 those  of  Jerusalem  !"  The  idea  of  a  Gospel  of  the 
 grace  of  God  revealed  for  the  salvation  of  sinful  man, 
 whether  Jew  or  Gentile,  seems  never  to  cross  the  minds 
 of  these  men.  The  relation  of  the  death  and  resur- 
 rection of  the  Son  of  God  to  this  all-precious  Gospel 
 seems  never  once  to  be  thought  of  They  assume 
 the  whole  to  be  a  cunningly-devised  fable,  or  the 
 product  of  an  excited  imagination.  The  Gospel 
 exists  merely  as  a  thing  on  which  they  are  to  exercise 
 their  powers,  so  as  to  account  for  its  existence  on  the 
 one  or  the  other  of  these  assumptions  ;  and,  what  is 
 indeed  most  strange,  they  do  not  seem  to  be  aware 
 of  the  utter  childishness  which  so  often  marks  their 
 efforts. 
 
 Strauss  having  taken  the  disciples  in  a  state  of 
 terror  to  Galilee,  a  reaction  takes  place  there  in  their 
 minds  to  such  an  extent  that  they  now,  one  and  all, 
 have  visions  of  Christ.  But  he  must  bring  them  back 
 to  Jerusalem  ;  for  it  was  there,  by  all  accounts,  that 
 the  Christian  Church  was  founded.  The  difficulty 
 which  it  is  evident  he  saw  meeting  him  here,  is 
 slurred  over  in  the  quietest  possible  manner.  He 
 simply  asserts  that  "  the  disciples,  after  they  had  re- 
 covered themselves  in  Galilee,  and  gained  new  faith 
 in  Jesus  as  the  Messiah,  had  in  fact  returned  to  Jeru- 
 salem, and    became    here  the  founders  of  a  Church 
 
TIME   AND   PLACE   OF   THE   APPEARANCES.      443 
 
 which,  by  reason  of  the  central  position  of  this  city, 
 soon  became  the  centre  of  all  the  Churches  of  the 
 crucified  and  restored  Messiah."  Let  it  be  ever  so 
 "obvious  a  thing,"  as  Strauss  says  it  was,  "for  the 
 imagination  to  represent  the  risen  Lord  as  announc- 
 ing His  return  to  life — that  is,  as  appearing  in  the  very 
 place  where  He  must  have  quitted  the  sepulchre  " — 
 we  ask  for  some  explanation  of  what  took  place  in 
 Galilee  where  the  disciples  first  believed  they  had 
 visions  of  Christ,  and  also  of  the  reasons  which  so 
 soon  brought  them  back  to  Jerusalem,  from  which 
 they  had  shortly  before  fled  in  terror.  Taking 
 Strauss's  own  account  of  these  things,  can  we  con- 
 ceive it  possible  that  the  disciples,  after  such  a  re- 
 action in  their  minds,  could  have  kept  silence  in 
 Galilee  ?  And  if  they  did  not,  why  are  there  no  ac- 
 counts of  any  of  their  proceedings  there  ?  What  could 
 have  moved  them,  Galileans  as  they  were,  not  to 
 proclaim  the  resurrection  of  their  Lord  to  their  coun- 
 trymen there,  "  amid  the  population  in  company  with 
 whom  they  had  so  often  been  inspired  by  His  words  "  ? 
 They  were  there  "  outside  of  the  range  to  which  the 
 power  of  the  enemies  and  murderers  of  their  Master 
 extended,"  and  they  were  now  no  longer  under  "  the 
 spell  of  terror  and  consternation  which  had  been  laid 
 upon  their  minds  by  His  arrest  and  condemnation." 
 What,  then,  could  have  been  more  natural  than  that, 
 as  soon  as  the  reaction  took  place  in  their  own  minds, 
 they  should  have  been  constrained  by  the  very  con- 
 dition of  their  minds  to  proclaim  to  the  inhabitants 
 of  Galilee,  what  they  themselves  now  believed,  the 
 resurrection  of  their  Lord,  and  to  have  founded  the 
 Christian  Church  in  Galilee  ?     Or  what   could  have 
 
444  LECTURE   XV. 
 
 moved  such  men  to  rush  back  to  Jerusalem,  where 
 their  enemies  were  all-powerful,  and  where  they  could, 
 therefore,  expect  to  encounter  only  persecution  and 
 death  ?  The  very  thought  of  returning  to  Jerusalem, 
 where  their  Master  had  been  put  to  death,  would  at 
 once  have  dispelled  their  dream,  and  reminded  them 
 that  the  sepulchre  was  there  in  which  still  lay  the 
 body  of  their  Lord. 
 
 Strauss  acts  wisely  for  his  theory  in  keeping  silence 
 on  these  matters,  and  in  attempting  to  ascribe  to 
 persons  at  a  later  date  "  the  wilful  forgetfulness  of  the 
 time  during  which  the  Apostles  had  retired  from 
 Jerusalem,  that  central  point," — a  wilful  forgetfulness, 
 not  only  of  the  time,  but  of  all  that,  upon  the  sup- 
 posed theory,  must  have  taken  place  in  Galilee  during 
 that  time.  It  was  in  Jerusalem  that  the  disciples, 
 according  to  the  accounts  of  Luke,  first  preached  the 
 resurrection  of  Jesus.  It  was  there  that  the  Christian 
 Church  was  founded.  And  Strauss's  theory  fails  to 
 account  for  these  facts.  He  removes  the  disciples  to 
 Galilee,  and  he  brings  them  back,  without  assigning 
 any  reason  for  their  return.  According  to  his  theory, 
 they  had  fled  in  terror  from  Jerusalem,  and  nothing 
 had  occurred  to  lessen  their  danger  there.  It  was  in 
 Galilee  that  their  terror  gave  way ;  and  it  is  manifest 
 that  it  was  in  Galilee  that  they  would  have  remained, 
 and  made  known  the  visions  which  they  now  imagined 
 were  vouchsafed  to  them.  And  yet  Strauss  admits 
 that,  after  recovering  from  their  terror,  and  gaining 
 new  faith  in  Jesus  as  the  Messiah,  they  did  in  fact 
 return  to  Jerusalem.  The  silence  of  these  disciples  in 
 Galilee,  and  their  return  to  Jerusalem,  are  inexplic- 
 able on  the  theory  of  Strauss.     But  they  were  silent 
 
TIME   AND   PLACE   OF   THE   APPEARANCES.      445 
 
 in  Galilee,  because,  as  we  know,  they  went  there  by 
 the  command  of  Jesus,  and  they  returned  to  Jerusa- 
 lem by  the  command  of  the  same  Jesus.  These  facts 
 are  fully  explained  to  us  by  the  Evangelic  narratives, 
 which  therefore  are  true,  whilst  Strauss's  theory  is 
 false  ;  for  no  theory  can  be  true  which  does  not  ac- 
 count for  all  the  phenomena. 
 
 So  much  for  the  locality  of  the  appearances  of 
 Christ.  Strauss  now  returns  to  the  difficulty  respect- 
 ing the  time  of  these  appearances.  This  difficulty  he 
 found  to  be  very  great ;  but  having,  as  he  thinks, 
 gained  the  reader  over  to  his  views  as  to  the  locality, 
 he  will  now  try  to  surrnount  the  difficulty,  insurmount- 
 able as  we  beheve  it  to  be.  He  is  compelled  to  make 
 the  attempt ;  let  us  then  patiently  observe  how  he 
 does  so. 
 
 "  An  unhistorical  origin  of  the  statement  as  to  time,  which 
 lies  at  the  foundation  of  the  history  of  the  resurrection,  will 
 be  more  difficult  to  admit  than  in  the  case  of  the  locality  of 
 the  appearances.  The  primeval  definite  account  that  Jesus 
 rose  on  the  third  day,  and  was  seen  after  having  so  risen, 
 seems  to  have  every  claim  to  historical  validity.  But  in  this 
 case  also,  when  once  the  faith  in  his  resurrection,  and  in 
 his  having  shown  himself  after  it,  was  a  given  quantity,  it 
 may  be  discovered,  without  difficulty,  why  the  third  day 
 exactly  was  fixed  upon  for  the  occurrence.  It  was  necessary 
 that  death  should  have  had  power  over  the  crucified  Messiah 
 for  a  short  time  only  (comp.  Acts  ii.  24) ;  his  victory  over 
 death  and  hell  must  have  been  decided  as  early  as  possible. 
 Thus,  if  the  faith  of  his  adherents  had  on  the  one  hand  a 
 natural  interest  in  placing  the  moment  of  his  quitting  the 
 grave  as  close  as  possible  to  that  of  his  death  and  burial,  on 
 the  other  hand  they  did  not  choose  to  go  so  far  that  the 
 element  of  this  death  should  appear  to  vanish  entirely ;  Jesus 
 
44^  LECTURE   XV. 
 
 must  have  been  only  a  short  time  dead,  according  to  the 
 body,  but  he  must  have  been  really  dead.  The  endeavour 
 to  realise  this  notion  was  met  by  the  circumstance  that  the 
 crucifixion  of  Jesus,  according  to  the  unanimous  account  of 
 all  the  Gospels,  which  is  not  affected  by  their  discrepancy 
 as  regards  the  Feast  of  the  Passover,  had  taken  place  on  the 
 day,  and  his  interment  on  the  evening,  before  the  Sabbath. 
 On  the  Sabbath  God  had  rested  from  all  His  works :  how 
 appropriate  the  idea  which  represented  the  Messiah  also  as 
 resting  from  the  works  of  his  human  life  over  this  very  day, 
 as  only  keeping  the  Sabbath  rest  in  the  grave  !  Add  to  this, 
 that  in  consequence  of  the  typical  meaning  of  the  number 
 three,  the  third  day  seems  to  have  been,  to  a  certain  extent, 
 the  proverbial  limitation  for  a  short  time,  as  a  period  for  the 
 free  execution  or  performance  of  anything.  '  Jehovah,'  say 
 the  repentant  people  in  Hosea  (vi.  2),  'Jehovah  will  revive 
 us  after  two  days,  and  on  the  third  day  He  will  raise  us  up, 
 and  we  shall  live  in  His  sight.'  In  like  manner,  in  Luke  (xiii. 
 32,  ff.),  Jesus  orders  Herod,  that  fox,  to  be  told,  'Behold  I 
 cast  out  devils,  and  I  do  cures  to-day  and  to-morrow,  and 
 on  the  third  day  I  shall  be  perfected,'  and  also  the  fixing  of 
 the  time  in  the  deposition  of  the  false  witnesses  (Matt.  xxvi. 
 61),  that  Jesus  undertook  to  destroy  the  temple  of  God,  and 
 in  three  days  to  build  it  up  again,  need  not  be  derived  from 
 the  history  of  the  resurrection,  as  if  it  had  not  been  said 
 before.  On  the  other  hand,  the  continuance  of  Jonas  in  the 
 belly  of  the  whale,  in  which  he  offered  a  prayer  (ii.  i-ii) 
 that  may  be  compared  with  the  Psalms  relating  to  the  pas- 
 sion of  the  Messiah,  does  not  seem  to  have  been  brought  in 
 as  a  parallel  case  until  later — subsequently,  that  is,  to  the 
 time  when  the  morning  of  Sunday  had  been  fixed  upon  for 
 the  resurrection  of  Jesus  (Matt.  xii.  40).  For  the  three  days 
 and  three  nights  of  that  continuance  do  not  agree  with  the 
 two  nights  and  one  day  which,  according  to  the  Evangelical 
 narratives,  Jesus  passed  in  the  sepulchre. 
 
 "  In  this  way,"  continues  Strauss,  "  the  third  day  might 
 
TIME   AND   PLACE   OF   THE   APPEARANCES.      447 
 
 have  been  fixed  upon  for  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  even  in 
 the  lifetime  of  the  Apostles,  and  have  been  adopted  by 
 them,  even  though  it  had  no  historical  foundation.  No  one 
 professed  to  have  been  an  eyewitness  of  Jesus  coming  out 
 of  the  grave ;  the  time  at  which  he  did  so  rested  solely  upon 
 inferences.  The  only  certain  inference  was,  that  Jesus  must 
 have  come  out  of  the  grave  before  he  appeared  to  any  one 
 whomsoever.  How  long  before  was  left  undecided ;  and  if 
 on  dogmatical  grounds  formed  by  prophecy,  the  day  after 
 the  Sabbath,  the  third  day,  appeared  particularly  appropiiate 
 for  this,  one  who  had  seen  an  appearance  of  Christ  on  the 
 fourth  or  eighth  day,  or  later,  would  have  as  little  to  urge 
 against  fixing  on  the  third  day  for  the  resurrection  as  Paul, 
 who  did  not  see  his  until  several  years  later." — Vol.  i.  p. 
 438-40. 
 
 Such  is  the  way  in  v^hich  Strauss  attempts  to  show 
 that  the  alleged  time  of  the  first  appearances  of 
 Jesus  to  His  disciples,  and  accordingly  of  His  resur- 
 rection, has  no  historical  foundation.  He  admits 
 that  this  circumstance  as  regards  the  time  lies  at  the 
 basis  of  the  history  of  the  resurrection,  and  that  it 
 gives  rise  to  a  greater  difficulty  than  that  which  relates 
 to  the  locality  of  these  appearances.  He  even  admits 
 that  "  the  primeval  definite  account  that  Jesus  rose  on 
 the  third  day,  and  was  seen  after  having  so  risen, 
 seems  to  have  every  claim  to  historical  validity." 
 But,  notwithstanding  these  admissions,  he  asserts  that 
 "  in  this  case  also,  when  once  the  faith  in  His  resurrec- 
 tion and  in  His  having  shown  Himself  after  it  was  a 
 given  quantity,  it  may  be  discovered  without  diffi^.ulty 
 why  the  third  day  exactly  was  fixed  upon  lor  the 
 occurrence."  Now,  it  is  necessary  for  us  to  under- 
 stand clearly  the  problem  which  Strauss  here  asserts 
 it  will  not  be  difficult  to  solve.     He  assumes,  we  must 
 
44^  LECTURE   XV. 
 
 observe,  that  Jesus  did  not  rise  from  the  dead,  but 
 that  the  disciples,  having  fled  to  GaHlee  in  a  state  of 
 terror,  experienced  a  reaction  in  their  minds  which 
 reached  that  point  at  which  they,  through  the  mere 
 power  of  an  excited  imagination,  had  visions  of  Christ. 
 The  disciples,  one  and  all  of  them,  having  had  such 
 subjective  visions,  believed  that  He  was  risen  again ; 
 and  they  returned  to  Jerusalem,  where  they  pro- 
 claimed His  resurrection  as  a  fact  which  had  occurred, 
 and,  prevailing  on  others  to  believe  their  assertion, 
 laid  the  foundation  of  the  Christian  Church.  Faith 
 in  the  resurrection  and  in  the  appearances  of  Jesus 
 is  thus  assumed  as  "  a  given  quantity,"  and  it  there- 
 fore became  natural,  or  even  necessary,  to  give  to 
 the  believed  fact  of  the  resurrection  an  historical 
 aspect,  by  fixing  the  time  after  His  death  when  this 
 fact  took  place.  If,  according  to  Strauss,  the  disciples 
 did  not  experience  visions  of  Christ  on  the  third  day 
 after  His  death,  these  visions  could  not  be  of  service 
 to  enable  them  to  fix  exactly  the  day  on  which  He 
 was  supposed  to  have  risen  again.  Strauss  felt  it  to 
 be  important,  if  not  necessary,  to  his  theory,  that 
 some  time  longer  than  three  days  should  elapse  before 
 such  a  reaction  as  that  which  he  supposes  should  take 
 place  in  the  minds  of  the  disciples.  But  he  does  not 
 seem  to  have  perceived  that  the  longer  he  postponed 
 the  visions,  the  more  difficult  was  he  rendering  to 
 himself  the  problem  as  to  fixing  the  time  for  the 
 resurrection.  For  if  the  disciples  had  had  these  visions 
 on  the  third  day  after  the  death,  it  would  have  been 
 natural  for  them  to  fix  on  that  same  day  as  the  day  of 
 the  resurrection  itself  But  if  a  longer  time  intervened 
 between  the  death  and  these  visions,  then  it  is  mani- 
 
TIME   AND   PLACE   OF   THE  APPEARANCES.      449 
 
 fest  that  it  was  by  no  means  so  easy  a  matter  for 
 them  to  agree,  without  a  dissentient  voice,  as  to  the 
 day  on  which  they  should  affirm  that  the  resurrection 
 did  take  place. 
 
 Thus  Strauss,  in  his  effort  to  escape  from  one  diffi- 
 culty that  pressed  upon  his  theory,  rushes  into  an- 
 other, which,  however,  he  acts  wisely  for  himself  in 
 not  noticing,  and  which,  indeed,  is  in  itself  a  much 
 greater  difficulty  than  the  one  from  which  he  was  so 
 anxious  to  escape.  For  the  risen  Jesus  did  appear  to 
 His  disciples  in  Galilee  as  well  as  at  Jerusalem  ;  but 
 He  only  once  rose  from  the  dead,  and  He  rose  at  a 
 definite  moment.  Now,  whatever  difficulties  we  may 
 meet  with  in  the  Evangelical  accounts  in  respect  to 
 details  as  to  the  times  and  localities  of  the  appear- 
 ances of  Christ,  there  is  none,  not  the  slightest,  in 
 respect  to  the  time  of  His  resurrection.  There  is  but 
 one  account  of  this  matter,  and  Strauss  himself  ad- 
 mits that  it  is  "  primeval  and  definite."  That  account 
 is,  that  Jesus  rose  on  the  third  day  after  His  death. 
 Strauss  further  admits  that  "  this  third  day  might 
 have  been  fixed  upon  for  the  resurrection  of  Jesus 
 even  in  the  lifetime  of  the  Apostles,  and  might  have 
 been  adopted  by  them  even  though  it  had  no  his- 
 torical foundation."  Indeed,  it  is  impossible  even  for 
 him  to  question  the  fact  that  the  Apostles  did  declare 
 Jesus  to  have  risen  on  the  third  day;  for  in  that  Epistle 
 which  is  one  of  the  few  New  Testament  writings  the 
 genuineness  of  which  he  admits,  in  the  First  Epistle  of 
 Paul  to  the  Corinthians,  the  third  day  is  expressly  men- 
 tioned by  that  Apostle  as  the  day  on  which  Jesus  rose 
 from  the  dead.  We  can  have  no  doubt,  therefore, 
 that  this  was  the  belief  of  the  other  Apostles  on  this 
 
 2  F 
 
450  LECTURE   XV. 
 
 matter.  Strauss  would  represent  that  belief  as  resting 
 solely  upon  "  inference."  True  it  is  that  "  no  one  pro- 
 fessed to  have  been  an  eyewitness  of  Jesus  coming 
 out  of  the  grave  ; "  that  no  one,  in  all  probability, 
 saw  Him,  when,  having  restored  life  to  His  own  dead 
 body.  He  raised  it  from  the  tomb  by  His  supernatural 
 power.  But  equally  true  it  is  that  it  was  on  the 
 very  day  of  His  resurrection  that  His  tomb  was  found 
 to  be  empty,  and  that  He  appeared  to  His  disciples. 
 "  Inference,"  then,  though  it  was,  it  was  an  inference 
 based  upon  facts  which  allowed  of  no  other  inference. 
 And  the  only  reasonable  explanation  which  can  be 
 given  why  the  third  day  was  believed  by  the  Apostles, 
 and  declared  by  them,  to  have  been  the  day  of  the 
 resurrection,  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  itself,  that  on 
 that  day  Jesus  actually  rose  again. 
 
 But  now  let  us  notice  Strauss's  attempt  to  explain 
 this  phenomenon,  and  to  surmount  the  difficulty  before 
 him.  "  Faith  in  the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  and  in  His 
 having  shown  Himself  after  it,"  is  to  be  assumed  as  "a 
 given  quantity,"  and  an  easy  solution  of  the  difficulty 
 involved  in  the  exact  fixing  of  the  third  day  for  the 
 occurrence  is  to  be  placed  before  us.  The  Apostles, 
 when  reflecting  on  the  difficult  problem  (for,  ac- 
 cording to  Strauss,  it  was  they,  and  not  merely  him- 
 self, who  had  a  problem  to  solve),  would  consider  it 
 necessary  that  the  crucified  Messiah  should  be  under 
 the  power  of  death  "  for  a  short  time  only."  And  we 
 may  learn  from  Acts  ii.  24  that  such  a  consideration 
 would  occur  to  them,  for  we  there  hear  one  of  them 
 saying  that  '*  God  raised  Him — Jesus  of  Nazareth — 
 raised  Him  up,  having  loosed  the  pains  of  death  : 
 because  it  was  not  possible  that  He  should  be  holden 
 
TIME   AND   PLACE   OF   THE   APPEARANCES.      45 1 
 
 of  it."  But,  passing  over  the  fact  that  the  Apostle 
 who  is  here  speaking  refers  to  the  resurrection  of 
 Jesus  as  an  objective  fact  which  had  occurred — a  fact 
 as  objective  as  His  death  had  been — we  observe  that 
 he  appeals  not  to  prophecy  as  a  proof  that  this  fact 
 must  have  occurred,  but  to  the  fact  itself  as  a  fulfilment 
 of  prophecy.  It  may  be  at  once  admitted  that  the 
 prophecy  referred  to  might  be  justly  understood  as 
 implying  that  the  Messiah  would  be  under  the  power  of 
 death  only  for  a  short  time,  although  there  is  no  speci- 
 fication of  the  time.  But  whilst,  according  to  Strauss, 
 "  the  faith  of  the  adherents  " — that  is,  in  fact,  of  the 
 Apostles — "  had,  on  the  one  hand,  a  natural  interest 
 in  placing  the  moment  of  His  quitting  the  grave  as 
 close  as  possible  to  that  of  His  death  and  burial,  on 
 the  other  hand,  they  did  not  choose  to  go  so  far  that 
 the  element  of  His  death  should  appear  to  vanish  en- 
 tirely :  Jesus  must  have  been  only  a  short  time  dead, 
 according  to  the  body,  but  He  must  have  been  really 
 dead."  Does  not  all  this,  we  would  observe,  indicate 
 a  kind  of  reflection  and  reasoning  very  inconsistent 
 with  the  theory  that  these  adherents — these  Apostles 
 — had  arrived  at  their  belief  in  the  resurrection  solely 
 through  the  power  of  an  excited  imagination  ?  Can 
 we  conceive  it  possible  for  these  Apostles  to  have 
 directed  their  attention  in  this  manner  to  the  problem 
 before  them  }  "  We,"  they  say  to  one  another,  "  must 
 place  the  moment  when  our  crucified  Master  quitted 
 the  grave  as  close  as  possible  to  that  of  His  death 
 and  burial,  and  yet  we  must  not  go  so  far  that  the 
 element  of  His  death  shall  appear  to  vanish  entirely, 
 for  then  it  will  not  be  believed  that  He  was  really 
 dead."     Can  we,  I  repeat,  conceive  the  Apostles  thus 
 
452  LECTURE  XV. 
 
 deliberating — coolly  deliberating  how  to  frame  an 
 answer  to  the  question,  On  what  day  after  His  death 
 did  our  Master  rise  again  ?  The  supposition  is  ab- 
 surd. If  Strauss  had  represented  these  men  as  from 
 the  first  conscious  originators  of  a  falsehood — as  them- 
 selves not  believing  in  the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  but 
 as  resolved,  for  some  inexplicable  reason,  to  proclaim 
 to  the  world  that  He  had  risen, — then  the  determina- 
 tion of  the  day  of  the  resurrection  would  have  formed 
 an  essential  element  in  their  false  story.  But  even 
 Strauss  repudiates  the  idea  that  these  men  were  con- 
 scious authors  of  a  falsehood.  They  believed — firmly 
 believed,  he  admits — that  their  Master  had  risen  again. 
 And  he  is  right  in  this  admission.  But  how  is  it 
 possible  to  reconcile  with  such  an  admission  the  idea 
 that  they  proposed  to  themselves,  and  determined  by 
 reasoning,  the  problem  as  to  the  exact  time — the  very 
 day — on  which  this  firmly  believed  though  purely 
 imaginary  resurrection  took  place  ?  The  theory  con- 
 tains its  own  refutation  within  itself  It  involves  a 
 manifest  contradiction. 
 
 Strauss,  however,  proceeds  in  the  solution  of  the 
 problem  as  if  no  contradiction  had  entered  into  his 
 suppositions ;  and  we  must  hear  what  his  solution  is. 
 
 In  endeavouring  to  realise  their  notion,  which  he 
 has  told  us  involved  two  elements,  the  adherents — 
 that  is  (for  these  could  in  the  case  supposed  be  no 
 others)  the  Apostles  of  Jesus — were  met  by  the  circum- 
 stance that  the  crucifixion  had  taken  place  on  the 
 day,  and  his  interment  on  the  evening,  before  the 
 Sabbath.  Now,  it  could  not  but  occur  to  them,  that 
 as  God  had  on  the  Sabbath  rested  from  all  His 
 works,  so  it  would  only  be  proper  that  the  Messiah 
 
TIME  AND   PLACE   OF   THE   APPEARANCES.      453 
 
 also  should  be  represented  as  resting  from  the  works 
 of  His  human  life  over  this  very  day — as  keeping 
 the  Sabbath  rest  in  the  grave.  Hence  it  is  clear 
 that  they  could  not  think  of  the  resurrection  taking 
 place  on  that  day.  But  then  this  event  must  not  be 
 deferred  longer ;  and  as  the  "  number  three  was  con- 
 sidered as  having  a  typical  meaning,  and  as,  therefore, 
 the  third  day  seems  to  have  been  to  a  certain  extent 
 the  proverbial  limitation  for  a  short  time,"  the  day 
 after  the  Sabbath,  being  the  third  day  after  the  cruci- 
 fixion, was  unanimously  fixed  upon  as  the  day  on 
 which  Jesus — did  not  indeed  rise,  but — must  be  repre- 
 sented as  having  risen,  from  the  dead. 
 
 Strauss  endeavours  to  support  this  solution  by  refer- 
 ring to  a  passage  in  Hosea,  where  the  Israelites,  chas- 
 tened for  their  sins,  are  represented  by  the  prophet  as 
 expressing  their  penitence  and  hope  in  Jehovah:  "After 
 two  days  will  He  revive  us  ;  in  the  third  day  He  will 
 raise  us  up,  and  we  shall  live  in  His  sight" — a  passage 
 which  it  is  abundantly  evident  could  have  no  refer- 
 ence to  Him  in  "whom  there  was  no  sin,  and  in  whose 
 mouth  there  was  no  guile,"  and  which  is  never  once 
 appHed  to  Him  in  the  New  Testament.  But  it  is 
 enough  for  Strauss  that  the  passage  speaks  of  two 
 days  and  a  third  day,  as  indicating  a  short  period  of 
 time. 
 
 Again,  he  refers  to  a  passage  in  Luke,  where  Jesus, 
 in  reply  to  a  threatening  message  sent  to  Him  by 
 Herod,  says,  "  Behold,  I  cast  out  devils,  and  I  do 
 cures  to-day,  and  to-morrow,  and  the  day  following, 
 and  the  third  day  I  shall  be  perfected."  Of  this 
 rather  obscure  passage  the  meaning  seems  to  be  that 
 our  Lord  had  reference  to  what  was  to  take  place  in 
 
454  LECTURE   XV. 
 
 three  literal  days.  Strauss  next  refers  to  the  deposition 
 of  the  false  witnesses  who  at  the  trial  of  Jesus  charged 
 Him  with  having  said,  "  I  am  able  to  destroy  the 
 Tem.ple  of  God,  and  to  build  it  in  three  days."  We 
 know  that  Jesus  did  not  utter  exactly  these  words  ; 
 for  what  He  said  was,  "  Destroy  this  temple,  and  in 
 three  days  I  will  raise  it  up  " — words  which  He  spake 
 with  reference  to  the  temple  of  His  body,  and 
 which,  therefore,  contained  a  prediction  both  of  His 
 death  through  the  malice  of  His  enemies,  and  of  His 
 resurrection  by  His  own  power.  Even  Strauss  admits 
 that  words  to  this  effect  may  have  been  uttered  by 
 Jesus,  and  he  is  evidently  disposed  to  allow  that 
 they  were  so,  because  they  furnish,  as  he  thinks,  some 
 help  to  the  Apostles  when  engaged  in  fixing  the  time 
 for  the  supposed  resurrection. 
 
 Strauss,  however,  does  not  attach  any  weight  to  what 
 Jesus  is  represented  as  having  said  about  Jonah  ;  and 
 the  rea.son  of  this  is  also  evident.  On  this  occasion 
 Jesus  spoke  plainly,  not  obscurely,  as  He  did  on  the 
 occasion  above  referred  to,  about  His  own  resurrection  : 
 "  For  as  Jonas  was  three  days  and  three  nights  in  the 
 whale's  belly,  so  shall  the  Son  of  Man  be  three  days 
 and  three  nights  in  the  heart  of  the  earth."  Such  a 
 prediction  as  this  did  not  suit  Strauss's  theory ;  and 
 therefore  such  a  parallel  as  is  here  indicated  could  not 
 have  been  introduced  until  after  it  had  been  determined 
 by  the  adherents  of  Jesus  how  long  He  was  to  lie  in 
 the  tomb.  And  besides,  argues  Strauss,  "  the  three 
 days  and  three  nights  of  Jonah's  continuance  in  the 
 belly  of  the  whale  do  not  agree  with  the  two  nights 
 and  one  day  which,  according  to  the  Evangelical  nar- 
 ratives, Jesus  passed  in  the   sepulchre  " — ^just   as  if, 
 
TIME  AND   PLACE   OF   THE   APPEARANCES.      455 
 
 according  to  the  well-known  Jewish  reckoning,  the 
 day  was  not  considered  as  consisting  of  '*  the  night 
 and  day,"  and  as  if,  therefore,  a  part  of  this  complete 
 day  was  not  spoken  of  as  "  a  day  and  a  night."  Jesus 
 was  laid  in  the  sepulchre  on  Friday,  and  He  rose 
 again  on  the  third  day  after.  He  was  thus  in  the 
 sepulchre  on  three  distinct  days,  and  though  not 
 strictly,  yet,  according  to  the  Jewish  mode  of  speech 
 in  such  a  matter.  He  was  three  days — that  is,  accord- 
 ing to  another  mode  of  expressing  the  same  idea, 
 "three  days  and  three  nights" — in  the  heart  of  the 
 earth.  But,  as  we  have  said,  Strauss  could  not  allow 
 that  Jesus  had  foretold  His  own  resurrection ;  and 
 therefore  this  passage  referring  to  Jonah  must  be  dis- 
 carded along  with  all  other  passages  in  the  Gospels  of 
 similar  import. 
 
 The  third  day,  then,  we  are  to  believe,  was  fixed 
 upon  as  the  day  of  the  resurrection  for  the  reasons 
 here  assigned  by  Strauss.  "  That  day  might  have 
 been  fixed,"  he  says,  "even  in  the  lifetime  of  the 
 Apostles,  even  though  it  had  no  historical  foundation." 
 He  would  evidently  prefer  that  this  day  had  not 
 been  fixed  so  early ;  and  hence  he  says,  "  it  might 
 have  been  "  then  fixed,  as  if  there  could  be  any  doubt 
 even  in  his  mind  that  it  was  then  fixed,  since  the 
 Apostle  Paul  mentions  the  third  day  as  the  day  of 
 the  resurrection  ;  and  the  first  day  of  the  week — "  the 
 Lord's  Day " — dates  from  the  very  origin  of  the 
 Christian  Church ;  so  that  no  historical  fact  can  be 
 clearer  than  that  the  day  was  fixed,  if  fixed  it  was, 
 by  the  Apostles  themselves.  But,  according  to 
 Strauss,  this  day  was  fixed  not  upon  historical,  but 
 upon   "dogmatical    grounds,   formed   by   prophecy." 
 
456  LECTURE   XV. 
 
 Now,  prophecy  did  clearly  declare  that  the  Messiah 
 should  die  and  rise  again ;  but  within  the  whole 
 vohmie  of  prophecy  there  does  not  exist  a  single  intima- 
 tion as  to  the  particular  day  on  which  the  resurrectioji 
 should  take  place.  The  Apostle  Paul,  indeed,  says 
 "  that  Christ  died  for  our  sins  according  to  the  Scrip- 
 tures ;  and  that  He  was  buried,  and  that  He  rose 
 again  the  third  day  according  to  the  Scriptures."  The 
 Scriptures  did  predict  the  death,  the  burial,  and  the 
 resurrection  of  the  Messiah,  and  it  is  to  these  events 
 to  which  the  Apostle  refers  as  so  predicted.  But  the 
 particular  day  in  which  the  resurrection  was  to  take 
 place  is  not  foretold  in  the  Scriptures  ;  nor  does  the 
 Apostle  mean  to  affirm  that  it  was  so.  Jesus  Himself 
 foretold  the  day,  but  Strauss  will  not  admit  this. 
 The  problem  which  Strauss  attempted  to  solve  refers 
 not  to  the  resurrection  itself,  but  to  the  day  on  which 
 it  was  to  take  place.  He  solves  this  problem  by  the 
 assertion  that  the  third  day  was  fixed  upon  by  the 
 adherents  of  Jesus — that  is,  by  the  Apostles,  and  so 
 determined  by  them  upon  "dogmatical  grounds 
 formed  by  prophecy ; "  and  yet  he  cannot  point  out  a 
 single  prophecy  which  was  looked  upon  as  referring 
 to  the  Messiah,  that  says  one  word  as  to  the  day 
 when  the  resurrection  should  take  place. 
 
 His  attempt,  therefore,  to  solve  his  own  problem  is 
 an  entire  failure.  First  of  all  he  introduces  a  contra- 
 diction into  the  case,  and  then  he  proceeds  on  the 
 purest  conjectures,  ending  with  a  baseless  assertion 
 that  prophecy  formed  the  grounds  on  which  the 
 choice  of  the  day  was  made.  And  thus  he  shows  us 
 that  "  in  this  case  also,  when  once  the  faith  in  the 
 resurrection  of  Jesus,  and  in  His  having  shown  Him- 
 
TIME  AND   PLACE   OF   THE  APPEARANCES.      457 
 
 self  after  it,  was  a  given  quantity,  it  may  be  dis- 
 covered without  difficulty  why  the  third  day  exactly 
 was  fixed  upon  for  the  occurrence "  !  No,  the  dis- 
 covery has  not  yet  been  made,  and  never  will  be 
 made.  That  day  was  not  fixed  upon  by  mortal  men, 
 but  in  the  counsels  of  the  Eternal  God.  That  third 
 day  was  the  day  recognised  by  the  Apostles,  and  by 
 the  Church  which  they  founded,  because  it  was,  in 
 fact,  the  day  on  which  Jesus,  the  Son  of  God,  rose  tri- 
 umphant over  death,  vindicating  His  own  claims,  and 
 bringing  life  and  immortality  to  light.  Strauss  has 
 all  along  evidently  felt  that  this  was  the  fact  which  he 
 would  find  it  most  difficult  to  discredit.  He  makes 
 great  preparation  for  his  final  assault.  He  attempts 
 to  conceal  his  weakness,  and  goes  on  with  his  solution 
 of  the  problem  as  if  it  were  one  of  no  difficulty  what- 
 ever. But  the  problem  is  insoluble.  The  fact  pre- 
 sents itself  in  all  its  reality,  that  the  third  day  was  the 
 day  on  which  the  Apostles  affirmed  from  the  begin- 
 ning that  Jesus  arose,  that  the  first  day  of  the  week 
 was  "the  Lord's  Day" — the  day  commemorative  of 
 the  Lord — the  day  on  which  the  Christian  Church 
 from  the  beginning  held  its  solemn  meetings.  This 
 fact  must  have  an  explanation ;  and  the  only  expla- 
 nation of  which  it  is  capable  is,  that  it  was  founded 
 upon  an  "  historical"  ground — on  the  ground  that  on 
 that  day  Jesus  did  rise  from  the  dead. 
 
 Strauss  now  concludes  his  discussion  of  this  subject, 
 and  at  the  same  time  his  First  Book,  in  the  following 
 manner : — 
 
 "  Thus  the  faith  in  Jesus  as  the  Messiah,  which  by  his 
 violent  death  had  received  an  apparently  fatal  shock,  was 
 subjectively  restored,  by  the  instrumentality  of  the  mind, 
 
4S8  LECTURE   XV. 
 
 the  power  of  imagination,  and  nervous  excitement.  A  pro- 
 gressive life  was  now  insured  for  all  that  new  and  profound  re- 
 ligious life  that  had  been  in  Jesus,  and  by  him,  through  teach- 
 ing and  example,  imparted  to  his  followers.  But  the  imagina- 
 tive form  of  this  restoration  continued  thenceforth  to  give  a 
 standard  according  to  which  his  figure  was  contemplated, 
 his  words,  acts,  and  doctrines  remembered ;  his  whole  life 
 was  veiled  in  a  shining  cloud,  which  continued  to  raise  it 
 more  and  more  above  the  human  element,  but  removed  it 
 in  the  same  proportion  from  natural  and  historical  truth. 
 The  history  of  the  experiences  also,  which  had  founded  the 
 beHef  in  his  resurrection,  suffered  in  this  sense  a  modifica- 
 tion, of  which  we  shall  speak  at  the  conclusion  of  the 
 second  part  of  this  work.  It  is  the  object  of  that  second 
 part  to  follow  up  in  its  particular  features  and  changes  that 
 very  modification  which  affected  the  history  of  the  life  of 
 Jesus  under  the  influence  of  the  imaginative  spirit  of  the 
 most  ancient  Churches.  The  spirit  was  in  many  respects  at 
 the  same  time  a  relapse  into  the  ideas  of  the  Judaising 
 period." — Vol.  i.  p.  440. 
 
 In  this  concluding  passage  Strauss  introduces  no  new 
 argument.  He  merely  gives  a  summary  statement  of 
 the  results  of  his  preceding  arguments  against  the 
 reality  of  the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  and  respecting 
 the  origin  of  the  belief  of  the  disciples  in  that  resur- 
 rection. He  appears  to  believe  in  the  validity  of  all 
 his  previous  reasoning  against  the  supernatural  claims 
 of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  He  seems  to  be  per- 
 fectly convinced  that  the  belief  of  the  disciples  in  the 
 resurrection  of  the  Lord  was  wholly  due  to  their  own 
 excited  imaginations.  "Their  faith  in  Jesus  as  the 
 Messiah  had  by  His  death  received  an  apparently 
 fatal  shock,  but  it  was  subjectively  restored  by  the 
 instrumentality  of  the  mind,  the  power  of  imagina- 
 
TIME   AND   PLACE   OF   THE   APPEARANCES.      459 
 
 tion,  and  nervous  excitement."  And  he  adds,  that 
 "  a  progressive  Hfe  was  now  insured  for  all  that  new 
 and  profound  religious  life  that  had  been  in  Jesus,  and 
 by  Him,  through  teaching  and  example,  imparted  to 
 His  followers."  Strauss  admits  that  Jesus,  whom  He 
 regards  as  merely  a  man,  whose  life  was  in  no  essen- 
 tial respect  different  from  the  life  of  any  ordinary 
 man,  had  in  some  way  or  other  attained  to  a  new  and 
 profound  religious  life,  and  that  by  His  teaching  and 
 example  He  had  imparted  this  same  life  to  His  fol- 
 lowers. Truth  and  holiness  and  love  were  among  the 
 chief  characteristics  of  this  new  and  profound  life  of 
 Jesus.  Strauss  does  not  attempt  to  explain  how  it 
 was  possible  that  men,  to  whom  a  life  distinguished 
 by  such  features  was  imparted,  could  have  yielded 
 so  completely  to  the  mere  suggestions  of  an  excited 
 imagination.  Minds  under  the  influence  of  such  qua- 
 lities are  generally  in  a  subdued  and  healthy  condi- 
 tion, and  are  keenly  alive  to  whatever  wears  the 
 aspect  of  falsehood,  or  trenches  upon  moral  principle 
 in  general.  Nor  does  Strauss  explain  how  such  men 
 could  have  come  forward  and  proclaimed  to  the  world 
 in  the  solemn  and  earnest  manner  they  did  that  this 
 Jesus,  whom  the  Jewish  rulers  had  put  to  death,  God 
 had  raised  up,  and  exalted  to  His  own  right  hand.  It 
 is  impossible  for  any  sane  mind  to  have  been  deluded 
 by  its  own  imagination,  however  excited,  as  Strauss 
 represents  these  followers  of  Jesus  to  have  been. 
 Strauss  or  any  other  person  may  easily  assert  that 
 such  was  the  case  ;  but  we  repeat,  the  supposition, 
 taking  all  the  circumstances  into  consideration,  is 
 morally  impossible.  Imagination  cannot  so  operate 
 in  any  mind  not  deprived  of  reason.     A  sound  mind 
 
460  LECTURE   XV. 
 
 may  be  deceived  by  outward  appearances  or  by  plaus- 
 ible testimony.  Nay,  it  may  at  times  be  deluded  by 
 suggestions  of  its  own  imagination.  But  such  a  mind 
 will  recover  its  proper  condition  as  soon  as  time  and 
 events  have  withdrawn  the  sources  of  deception  or  of 
 delusion.  Insanity  alone  could  account  for  such  a  de- 
 lusion as  that  under  which,  according  to  Strauss,  these 
 first  disciples  laboured.  And  then  how  is  their  future 
 conduct  to  be  explained,  if  such  was  their  mental 
 condition }  These  men  became  the  instruments  of 
 revolutionising  the  moral  and  religious  state  of  the 
 human  race.  They  proclaimed  a  morality  so  pure 
 and  sublime  that  man's  highest  imagination  cannot 
 even  now  conceive  a  purer  or  more  sublime.  They 
 proclaimed  a  religion  which  alone  is  worthy  of  the  One 
 Living  and  True  God,  which  alone  is  able  to  redeem 
 man  from  the  bondage  of  moral  evil,  and  to  raise  him 
 to  the  love  and  practice  of  holiness — to  the  love  at 
 once  of  God  and  of  his  fellow-man.  Were  these  men 
 insane — men  who  hazarded  all  their  earthly  interests, 
 even  life  itself,  in  order  to  promote  the  glory  of  God 
 and  the  good  of  man  ?  The  idea  is  absurd.  It  re- 
 futes itself  These  men  were  not  insane.  They  knew 
 what  they  believed,  and  why  they  believed.  They 
 proclaimed  in  all  solemn  earnestness  the  name  of 
 Jesus  as  that  name  which  is  above  every  other  name, 
 and  by  which  alone  guilty  man  can  be  saved. 
 
 And  what  is  it  that  has  insured  "  a  progressive 
 life  "  for  the  religion  which  in  the  name  of  Jesus  these 
 men  proclaimed  ?  Not  delusion,  not  fraud,  not  human 
 eloquence  or  human  power,  but  its  own  inherent 
 excellence ;  its  adaptation  to  man's  moral  condition  ; 
 and  the  manifest  evidence  of  its  resting  upon  facts, 
 
TIME   AND   PLACE   OF   THE  APPEARANCES.      46 1 
 
 which,  supernatural  as  they  were,  occurred  within  the 
 sphere  of  man's  observation.  Had  the  faith  of  the 
 disciples  rested  on  delusions,  it  would  infallibly  have 
 given  way  in  progress  of  time.  Had  the  religion 
 of  Jesus  been  built  on  such  a  foundation,  it  would 
 have  fallen,  in  spite  of  all  its  excellence,  into  ruins 
 long  ere  now.  It  has  not  been  reserved  for  Strauss, 
 or  any  other  man  of  this  age,  to  assail  for  the  first 
 time  the  foundations  of  this  religion.  These  have 
 been  assailed  from  the  first,  and  during  the  whole 
 intei-vening  time,  to  the  present  day.  Yet  they  remain 
 firm  and  steadfast  as  when  laid  by  Him  who  descended 
 from  heaven  to  dispel  the  darkness  of  the  human 
 mind  in  respect  to  the  Living  God,  and  to  redeem  the 
 souls  of  men  from  sin  and  death.  No — the  delusion 
 which  Strauss  ascribes  to  these  disciples  is  to  be 
 found  elsewhere.  It  is  his  own  mind  that  is  under 
 the  spell ;  it  is  his  own  imagination  that  constructs 
 his  case,  and  reason  is  employed  merely  to  give  shape 
 and  form  to  his  own  ideas.  His  argument  sets  out 
 with  groundless  assumptions,  and  his  conclusion  par- 
 takes of  the  nature  of  his  premisses.  His  theory  may 
 prove  a  hindrance — a  snare  to  some ;  but  it  requires 
 only  to  be  patiently  examined,  and  its  hollowness 
 becomes  apparent. 
 
 He  began  his  whole  enterprise  with  an  assumption 
 which  contains  in  itself  his  conclusion.  There  must 
 be  nothing  supernatural  in  the  life  of  Jesus ;  and 
 therefore  the  conclusion  is,  that  there  was  nothing 
 supernatural  in  His  life.  Such  is  all  his  argument, 
 however  elaborate  and  plausible  the  processes  of 
 reasoning  may  appear.  His  problem  was.  How  can  I 
 explain  the  life  of  Jesus  on  the  supposition  that  His 
 
4^2  LECTURE   XV. 
 
 life  was  only  that  of  an  ordinary  man  ?  That  was  the 
 problem  which  he  set  before  him  ;  and  hence  at  every 
 step  he  must  deny — must  eliminate — every  super- 
 natural element,  however  clearly  attested.  His  con- 
 clusion was  before  him  at  the  outset ;  and  his  whole 
 work  is  nothing  else  than  a  laborious  effort  to  de- 
 monstrate a  foregone  conclusion.  Truth  is  not  to  be 
 reached  by  such  a  process  as  this.  The  investigation 
 which  aims  at  truth  must  be  conducted  "  by  a  mind 
 perfectly  unprejudiced,  perfectly  decided,  without 
 ambiguity  and  without  reserve,"  in  a  different  sense 
 from  that  in  which  these  words  are  understood  by 
 Strauss.  Whatever  powers  he  may  possess,  such  a 
 state  of  mind  as  he  has  described,  his  work  proves 
 that  he  himself  has  not  yet  attained.  May  he  yet 
 attain  to  it !  Then  no  man  will  more  thoroughly  see 
 than  he  will,  how  utterly  invalid  are  the  premisses 
 which  in  this  work  he  has  assumed,  and  consequently 
 how  worthless  are  the  conclusions  which  by  means  of 
 such  premisses  he  has  so  laboured  to  establish.  And 
 most  intensely  will  he  regret  that  he  should  have 
 persecuted  the  Church  of  God  by  such  persistent 
 efforts  to  subvert  faith  in  Him  whom,  in  His  infinite 
 mercy,  God  sent  into  our  guilty  and  miserable  world 
 to  dispel  our  darkness  and  to  give  us  the  hope  of 
 everlasting  life — the  hope  which  alone  can  alleviate 
 man's  present  evils,  and  can  enable  him  to  Iqok  forward 
 with  calmness  and  even  joy  to  a  coming  eternity. 
 
 As  to  the  discussions  in  the  second  part  of  his 
 work,  to  which  in  the  concluding  sentences  of  the 
 passage  before  us  he  refers  his  readers,  they  consist 
 of  attempts,  as  he  here  tells  us,  to  show  how  the 
 history  of  what  he  calls  "  the  experiences"  of  the  first 
 
TIME   AND   PLACE   OF   THE   APPEARANCES.      463 
 
 disciples  became  modified  —  altered  or  enlarged  — 
 under  the  influence  of  what  he  regards  as  "  the  imagin- 
 ative spirit  of  the  most  ancient  Churches."  In  short,  in 
 that  second  part  he  undertakes  to  construct  the  history 
 of  the  growing  legend  which  sprang  from  the  idea 
 of  the  resurrection  and  ascension  of  the  Lord  Jesus. 
 The  discussion  proceeds  upon  his  conclusions  in  the 
 first  part.  There  is  nothing  strictly  new  introduced  ; 
 and  were  we  to  enter  upon  it  with  the  view  of  fully 
 examining  its  statements,  we  should  find  ourselves 
 only  compelled  to  repeat  what  has  already  been  said 
 in  the  examination  of  the  part  now  gone  over.  We 
 deemed  it,  indeed,  proper  to  examine  minutely  his 
 discussion  respecting  the  burial  of  Jesus,  which  he 
 unfairly,  as  we  think,  postponed  to  this  second  part. 
 But  for  the  reasons  we  have  stated,  we  consider  it 
 wholly  unnecessary  to  enter  on  the  other  discussions. 
 
 In  the  conclusion  of  his  whole  work,  he  makes  some 
 statements  which  deserve  a  brief  notice  before  we 
 part  with  him.  "  Our  historical  knowledge  of  Jesus," 
 he  afifirms,  "  is  defective  and  uncertain  ;"  and  if  we 
 are  to  adopt  his  theory  respecting  the  sources  of  this 
 knowledge,  he  is  perfectly  right  in  this  statement.  If 
 all  we  know  for  certain  about  Jesus  is  what  Strauss 
 leaves  us,  then  is  the  amount  meagre  indeed ;  and 
 he  may  justly  assert  that  we  know  far  more  about 
 Socrates,  the  sage  of  Greece,  than  about  Him  who 
 came  forth  from  God  to  be  "  the  Light  of  the  world." 
 But  this  is  a  mere  assertion  on  the  part  of  Strauss, 
 founded  upon  a  theory  which  sets  all  historical  evi- 
 dence at  defiance.  The  true  state  of  the  case  is, 
 that  whilst  the  full  knowledge  of  Jesus  cannot  be  at- 
 tained by  us  till  we  see  Him  in  His  glory,  we  have  a 
 
464  LECTURE   XV. 
 
 fourfold  account  of  Him  as  He  lived  and  taught  and 
 suffered  upon  earth,  and  also  of  His  resurrection  and 
 glorious  ascension,  which  account,  in  its  diversified 
 form,  presents  Him  to  us  in  such  vivid  lights  and 
 varied  aspects  that  a  living  picture  of  Him  is  pro- 
 duced on  the  mind  of  every  thoughtful  believer — a 
 picture  which  is  more  and  more  filled  up  and  becomes 
 more  and  more  vivid  as  we  dwell  on  His  wonderful 
 character,  evinced  not  only  in  words,  but  in  deeds  and 
 in  sufferings.  Looking  with  steadfast  gaze  into  the 
 mirror  of  the  Gospel,  we  behold  the  image  of  Jesus 
 — we  behold  Himself  "  full  of  grace  and  truth  ; " 
 and  as  we  behold  Him,  we  ourselves  are  continually 
 being  "  changed  into  the  same  image,  as  by  the  Lord 
 the  Holy  Spirit."  Were  the  case  such  as  Strauss 
 would  have  it  to  be,  we  should  at  once  acquiesce  in 
 his  decision  as  to  the  value  of  such  knowledge. 
 
 "  There  is  little,"  he  says,  "  of  which  we  can  say  for  certain 
 that  it  took  place,  and  of  all  to  which  the  faith  of  the  Church 
 especially  attaches  itself,  the  miraculous  and  supernatural 
 matter  in  the  facts  and  destinies  of  Jesus,  it  is  far  more 
 certain  that  it  did  not  take  place.  But  that  the  happiness 
 of  mankind  is  to  depend  upon  belief  in  things  of  which 
 it  is  in  part  certain  that  they  did  not  take  place,  in  part 
 uncertain  whether  they  did  take  place,  and  only  to  the 
 smallest  extent  beyond  doubt  that  they  took  place — that  the 
 happiness  of  mankind  is  to  depend  upon  belief  in  such 
 things  as  these,  is  so  absurd  that  the  assertion  of  the  prin- 
 ciple does  not  at  the  present  day  require  any  further  con- 
 tradiction."— Vol.  ii.  p.  434. 
 
 We  add  that  the  assertion  of  such  a  principle  never 
 in  any  day,  whether  past  or  present,  stood  in  need  of 
 any  contradiction.     Such  an  assertion  would  indeed 
 
TIME   AND   PLACE   OF   THE   APPEARANCES.      465 
 
 be  absurd.  The  principle  laid  down  by  Strauss  was 
 never  asserted  by  any  reasonable  being.  And  as  to 
 the  nature  of  "  the  principle"  we  appeal  from  Strauss, 
 who  assumes  that  a  miracle  is  impossible — that  im- 
 mortality is  a  dream — that  there  is  no  Living  and  Per- 
 sonal God — that  nothing  exists  but  what  we  are  able 
 to  see  with  our  bodily  eye — to  one  who  lived  nearer 
 the  time  when  Jesus  was  upon  the  earth,  and  who  had 
 traced  the  history  of  His  life  from  the  beginning  to 
 its  final  issue — to  the  Evangelist  Luke,  who 'tells  us 
 that  he  had  received  his  information  from  those  who 
 were  eyewitnesses  and  ministers  of  the  Word,  and  that, 
 "  having  a  perfect  understanding  of  all  things "  con- 
 cerning Jesus  "  from  the  very  beginning,  he  wrote  his 
 historical  account  of  the  Life  of  Jesus,  in  order  that 
 others  might  know  the  certainty  of  those  things 
 wherein  they  had  been  instructed."  We  appeal  from 
 such  men  as  Strauss  to  men  like  this  Evangelist ;  and 
 we  affirm  that  since  the  One  Living  and  True  God 
 has  done  such  great  things  for  us  through  the  mission " 
 of  His  Only-begotten  Son  into  our  world,  it  is  most 
 reasonable  that  we  should  believe  in  God,  and  in  His 
 Son  Jesus  Christ,  and  that  the  happiness  of  mankind 
 should  be  made  to  depend  on  a  real,  a  living  faith  in 
 that  Gospel  which  alone  contains  the  testimony  of 
 God  concerning  His  Son. 
 
 Strauss,  like  others,  may  attempt  to  veil  his  enmity 
 to  this  glorious  Gospel  by  raising  up  the  picture  of  an 
 Ideal  Christ  in  the  room  of  that  Historical  Christ  who 
 alone  is  the  Saviour  of  the  world  ;  and,  further,  by 
 giving  credit  to  the  historical  Jesus,  of  whom  he  has 
 told  us  we  know  so  little,  for  having  "  first  brought  to 
 light  many  principal  features "  of  "  that  moral  pat- 
 
 2  G 
 
466  LECTURE   XV. 
 
 tern"  which  constitutes  "the  ideal  Christ."  But  if 
 we  are  to  form  our  judgments,  not  from  imaginary- 
 theories  respecting  the  development  of  the  human 
 race,  but  from  the  facts  of  its  past  history,  and  from 
 the  workings  of  that  nature  which  all  its  successive 
 generations  possess  in  common,  we  cannot  hesitate  to 
 affirm  that  woe  indeed  will  be  to  the  depraved  race  of 
 man  if  ever  this  fiction  shall  become  the  universal 
 belief;  and  if,  instead  of  trusting  in  a  real,  an  historical 
 Saviour— in  One  who  lived  and  died  and  rose  again, 
 and  is  now  living  in  glory — mankind  should  be  per- 
 suaded to  look  to  a  mere  ideal  Saviour,  an  ideal 
 pattern,  an  abstraction  which  may  be  discussed  by 
 the  intellect  and  pictured  by  the  imagination,  but 
 will  never  leave  any  impress  on  man's  soul,  or  in- 
 fluence in  a  single  respect  the  tenor  of  his  life. 
 No !  nothing  but  reality  can  avail  to  the  true  happi- 
 ness of  man  ;  and  man  cannot  and  does  not  "  find  in 
 himself"  that  knowledge  which  is  necessary  for  his 
 happiness.  Man  is  so  constituted  that  he  can  attain 
 to  this  happiness  only  through  real  communion  with 
 his  all-wise  Creator,  the  Living  God.  God  alone  can 
 be  the  portion  of  his  soul.  And  facts  beyond  all 
 question  prove  that  man  in  his  natural  state  is  not  in 
 communion  with  God,  and  that  he  has,  in  consequence 
 of  this  state  of  separation,  no  true  rest  of  spirit.  Has 
 God,  then,  in  His  infinite  mercy,  sent  One — even  His 
 own  Son — to  bring  man  back  to  this  communion  ? 
 And  shall  we,  in  our  blindness  to  spiritual  realities  and 
 in  our  enmity  to  God,  set  ourselves  to  the  miserable 
 task  of  questioning  the  only  evidence  by  which  the 
 mission  of  His  Son  can  be  confirmed  to  us  ?  Or 
 rather  shall  we  not,  conscious  of  our  depravity,  our 
 
TIME   AND   PLACE   OF   THE   APPEARANCES.      467 
 
 guilt,  and  our  unrest,  listen  to  the  words  which  fell 
 from  this  heavenly  Messenger,  this  Divine  Saviour — 
 words  which  no  mere  man  ever  uttered,  or  would 
 have  dared  to  utter — words  which,  in  spite  of  all  the 
 efforts  of  scepticism  and  infidelity,  will  abide  as  long 
 as  man  lives  upon  earth,  and  will  never  fail  to  reach 
 the  heart  of  some  sin-stricken  and  weary  pilgrims — 
 "  Come  unto  Me,  all  ye  that  labour  and  are 
 
 HEAVY   laden,   AND    I    WILL   GIVE   YOU   REST"? 
 
 THE    END. 
 
 PRINTED  BY  WILLIAM   BLACKWOOD   AND   SONS,    EDINBURGH. 
 
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