Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (868 page)

Meanwhile, even admitting that this contradiction might be in some way or other removed, still, even without that express command which Luke mentions, the mere facts as narrated by him and his predecessor and successor, remain irreconcilable with the injunction which Jesus gives to the disciples in Matthew. For, asks the Fragmentist, if the disciples collectively twice saw him, spoke with him, touched him, and ate with him, in Jerusalem; how can it be that they must have had to take the long journey into Galilee in order to see him ?
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The harmonists, it is true, boldly reply: when Jesus causes his disciples to be told that they will see him in Galilee, it is by no means said that they will see him nowhere else, still less that they will not see him in Jerusalem.
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But, the Fragmentist might rejoin, after his manner: as littIe as one who says to me, go to Rome, there you shall see the Pope, can mean that the Pope will indeed first come through my present place of residence, so as to be seen by me here, but afterwards I must yet go to Rome, in order to see him again there: so little would the angel in Matthew and Mark, if he had had any anticipation of the appearance in Jerusalem on the very same day, have said to the disciples: go into Galilee, there will Jesus show himself to you; but rather: be comforted, you shall yet see him here in Jerusalem before evening. Wherefore the reference to the more remote event, when there was one of the same kind close at hand? wherefore an appointment by means of the women, for the disciples to meet Jesus in Galilee, if the latter foresaw that he should on the same day personally speak with the disciples? With reason does the latest criticism insist on what Lessing had previqusly urged;
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namely, that no rational person would make an appointment with his friends through a third party for a joyful reunion at a distant place, if he were certain of seeing  

them repeatedly on the same day in their present locality.
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If thus the angel and Jesus himself when they in the morning by means of the women directed the disciples to go into Galilee, cannot yet have known that he would show himself to them on the evening of the same day in and near Jerusalem: he must in the morning have still held the intention of going immediately into Galilee, but in the

* Ut sup. s. 486.

† Griesbach, Vorlesungen über Hermeneutik des N. T., mit Anwendung auf die Leidens und Auferstehungsgeschichte Christi, herausgegeben von Steiner, s. 314.

‡ Duplik, Werke, 6 Bd. s. 352.

§ Schneckenburger, über den Urspr. des ersten kanon. Evang., s. 17 f.course of the day have embraced another purpose. According to Paulus,
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an indication of such an original intention is found in Luke, in the travelling of Jesus towards Emmaus, which lay in the direction of Galilee; while the reason for the alteration of plan is supposed by the same expositor, with whom in this instance Olshausen agrees,
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to have been the belief of the disciples, as more particularly manifested to Jesus on occasion of the journey to Emmaus. How so erroneous a calculation on the part of Jesus can consist with the orthodox view of his person, is Olshausen’s care; but even regarding him in a purely human character, there appears no sufficient reason for such a change of mind. Especially after Jesus had been recognised by the two disciples going to Emmaus, he might be certain that the testimony of the men would so accredit the assertion of the women, as to lead the disciples with at least a glimmering ray of faith and hope into Galilee. But in general, if a change of mind and a diversity of plan in Jesus before and after that change, really existed: why does no one Evangelist take any notice of such a retractation? Why does Luke speak as if he knew nothing of the original plan; Matthew, as if he knew nothing of a subsequent alteration; John, as if the principal theatre of the appearances of the risen Jesus had been Jerusalem, and he had only by way of supplement at length showed himself in Galilee? Lastly, why does Mark speak so as to make it evident that, having gathered the original direction to go into Galilee from Matthew, and the succeeding appearances in Jerusalem and its environs from Luke or elsewhere, he was unable, nor did he even make the attempt, in any way to reconcile them; but placed them together as he found them, rough hewn and contradictory.

According to this we must agree with the latest criticism of the gospel of Matthew, in acknowledging the contradiction between it and the rest in relation to the locality of the appearances of Jesus after the resurrection : but, it must be asked, can we also approve the verdict of this criticism when it at once renounces the representation of the first gospel in favour of that of the other Evangelists.
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If, setting aside all presuppositions as to the apostolic origin of this or that gospel, we put the question: which of the two divergent accounts is the best adapted to be regarded as a traditional modification and development of the other? we can here refer, not merely to the general nature of the accounts, but also to a single point at which the two touch each other in a characteristic manner. This is the address of the angel to the women, in which according to all the synoptists Galilee is mentioned, but in a different way. In Matthew the angel, as has been already noticed, says of Jesus:
he goeth before you into Galilee, — lo, I have told you
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In Mark he says the same,

* Exeg. Handb. 3, b. s. 835.

† Bibl. Comm. 2, s. 524.

‡ This is done by Schulz, über das Abendm. s. 321; Schneckenburger, ut sup.except that instead of the latter addition, by which in Matthew the angel seeks to impress his own words on the women, he has the expression:
as he said unto you,
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with which he refers to the earlier prediction of Jesus concerning this circumstance. If we first compare these two representations:

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But if we include the account of Luke in the comparison, we find here, as in Mark, the words:
remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee,
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, a reference to an earlier prediction of Jesus, not however referring to Galilee, but delivered in Galilee. Here the question occurs: is it more probable that Galilee, from being the designation of the locality in which the prophecy of the resurrection was uttered, should at a later period be erroneously converted into a designation of the locality where the risen one would appear; or the contrary? In order to decide this, we must ascertain in which of the two positions the mention of Galilee is the more intrinsically suited to the context. Now that on the announcement of the resurrection it was an important point whether and where the risen Jesus was to be seen, is self-evident; it was of less moment, in referring to an earlier prediction, to specify where this prediction was uttered. Hence from this comparison of the passages it might already be held more probable that it was originally said, the angels directed the disciples to go into Galilee, there to see the risen one (Matt.); but afterwards, when the narratives of the appearances of Jesus in Judea had gradually supplanted those in Galilee, a different turn was given to the mention of Galilee in the address of the angel, so as to make it imply that already in Galilee Jesus had predicted his resurrection (Luke); whereupon Mark appears to have taken a middle course, since he with Luke refers the
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to Jesus, but with Matthew retains Galilee as the theatre, not of the earlier prediction of Jesus, but of the coming appearance.

If we next take into consideration the general character of the two narratives and the nature of the case, there exist the same objections to the supposition that Jesus after his resurrection appeared several times to his disciples in and near Jerusalem, but that the remembrance of this fact was lost, and the same arguments in favour of the opposite supposition, as we have respectively applied to the analogous alternatives in relation to the various journeys to the feasts and Judæan residences of Jesus.
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That the appearances of the risen Jesus in Jerusalem should undesignedly, that is, by a total

* On which account Michaelis, s. 118 f., is of opinion that
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was the original reading in Matthew also. Comp. Weisse, die Evang. Gesch. 2, s. 347 f.

† Vol. I. § 57
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obliteration of them from the minds of individuals, have sunk into oblivion in Galilee, where according to this presupposition the tradition of Matthew was formed, is difficult to conceive, both from the pre-eminent importance of these appearances, which, as for example those before the assembled eleven and before Thomas, involved the surest attestations of the reality of his resurrection, and also from the organizing influence of the community in Jerusalem; while that the Judæan appearances ofJesus were indeed known in Galilee, but intentionally suppressed by the author of the first gospel, in order to preserve the honour for his province alone, would presuppose an exclusivism, an opposition of the Galilean Christians to the church at Jerusalem, of which we have not the slightest historical trace. The other contrary possibility, that perhaps originally only Galilean appearances of the risen Jesus were known, but that tradition gradually added appearances in Judea and Jerusalem, and that at length these completely supplanted the former, may on many grounds be heightened into a probability. First, as respects the time, the tidings of the resurrection of Jesus were the more striking, the more immediately his appearances followed on his burial and resurrection: if however he first appeared in Galilee, such an immediate sequence of the events could not exist ; further, it was a natural idea that the resurrection of Jesus must have been attested by appearances in the place where he died
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lastly, the objection that Jesus after his pretended resurrection only appeared to his own friends, and in a corner of Galilee, was in some degree repelled when it could be alleged that on the contrary, he walked as one arisen from the dead in the metropolis, in the midst of his furious enemies, though indeed he was neither to be taken nor seen by them. But when once several appearances of Jesus were laid in Judea and Jerusalem, the appearances in Galilee lost their importance, and might thenceforth either be appended in a subordinate position, as in the fourth gospel, or even be entirely overlooked, as in the third. This result, drawn from the possible mode of legendary formation, not being opposed, as in the inquiry concerning the theatre of the ministry of the living Jesus, by a contrary one drawn from the circumstances and designs of Jesus: we may, in contradiction to the criticism of the day, decide in favour of the first gospel, whose account of the appearance of tlìe risen Jesus recommends itselt as the more simple and free from difficulty.
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