Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (869 page)

As regards the appearances of the risen Jesus taken singly, the first gospel has two: one on the morning of the resurrection to the women (xxviii. 9 f.), and one, the time of which is undetermined, before the disciples in Galilee (xxviii. 16 f.). Mark, in what is indeed a merely summary statement, enumerates three: the first, to

* The opinion that the true locality of the appearances of the risen Jesus before the disciples was Galilee, is concurred in by Weisse, 2, s.
358 ff.; but in accordance with his fundamental supposition concerning the synoptical gospels, he gives the preference to the narrative of Mark before that of Matthew.Mary Magdalene on the morning of the resurrection (xvi. 9 f.); a second, to two disciples going into the country (xvi. 12);
and a third, to the eleven as they sat at meat, doubtless in Jerusalem (xvi. 14). Luke narrates only two appearances: that before the disciples going to Emmaus on the day of the resurrection (xxiv. 53 ff
.
), and the last, before the eleven and other disciples in Jerusalem, according to xxiv. 36 ff., on the evening of the same day, according to the Acts i. 4 ff. forty days later; but when the travellers to Emmaus, on rejoining the apostles, are greeted by them, before Jesus has appeared in the midst of them, with the information:
the Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon
(xxiv. 34): here a third appearance is presupposed, which was granted to Peter alone. John has four such appearances: the first, to Mary Magdelene at the grave (xx. 14 ff.
);
the second to the disciples when the doors were shut (xx. 19 ff.)
; the third, likewise in Jerusalem, eight days later, when Thomas was convinced (xx. 26 ff.);
the fourth, of which the time is unspecified, at the Galilean sea (xxi.). But here we have also to take into consideration a statement of the Apostle Paul, who 1 Cor. xv. 5 ff.
,
if we deduct the appearance of Christ granted to himself, enumerates five appearances after the resurrection, without however giving any precise description of them: one to Cephas; one to the twelve ; one before more than five hundred brethren at once; one to James; and lastly, one before all the apostles.

Now how shall we make an orderly arrangement of these various appearances? The right of priority is, in John, and still more expressly in Mark, claimed for that to Mary Magdalene. The second must have been the meeting of Jesus with the women returning from the grave, in Matthew; but as Mary Magdalene was likewise among these, and there is no indication that she had previously seen Jesus, these two appearances cannot be regarded as distinct, but rather as one under two different garbs. Paul, who in the above named passage speaks as if he meant to enumerate all the appearances of the resuscitated Christ, of which he knew, omits the one in question; but it may perhaps be said in explanation of this, that he did not choose to adduce the testimony of women. As the order in which he enumerates his Christophanies, to judge from the succession of
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^*
according to him the appearance before Cephas was the first that happened before a man. This would agree well with the representation of Luke, in which the journeyers to Emmaus, on rejoining the disciples in Jerusalem, are met by them with the information that Jesus is really arisen and has appeared to Simon, which might possibly be the case before his interview with those two disciples. As the next appearance, however, according to Luke, we must number that last named, which Paul would not mention, perhaps because he chose to adduce only those which were seen by apostles, and from among the rest only those which happened

* Vid Billoth’s Commentar, in loc.before great masses of witnesses, or more probably, because it was unknown to him. Mark xvi. 12 f. evidently refers to the same appearance; the contradiction, that while in Luke the assembled disciples meet those coming from Emmaus with the believing exclamation:
the Lord is risen,
etc., in Mark the
disciples are said to have remained incredulous even to the account of those two witnesses, probably proceeds from nothing more than an exaggeration of Mark, who will not lose his hold of the contrast between the most convincing appearances of Jesus and the obstinate unbelief of the disciples. The appearance on the way to Emmaus is in Luke immediately followed by that in the assembly of the
eleven
and others. This is generally held to be identical with the appearance before the
twelve
mentioned by Paul, and with that which John narrates when Jesus on the evening after the resurrection entered while the doors were closed among the disciples, out of whose number, however, Thomas was wanting. It is not fair to urge in opposition to this identification the
eleven
of Luke, as at variance with the statement of John that only ten apostles were present, any more than the
twelve
of Paul, from which number Judas at least must be deducted; moreover the similar manner in which the two Evangelists describe the entrance of Jesus by
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and the greeting cited in both instances:
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appear to indicate the identity of the two appearances; nevertheless, if we consider that the handling of the body of Jesus, which in John first happens eight days later, and the eating of the broiled fish, which John assigns to the still later appearance in Galilee, are connected by Luke with that scene in Jerusalem on the day of the resurrection: it is evident that either the third Evangelist has here compressed several incidents into one,
or the fourth has divided one into several — whichever alternative may be chosen. This appearance before the apostles in Jerusalem however, as has been above remarked, according to Matthew could not have happened, since this Evangelist makes the
eleven
journey to Galilee in order to see Jesus. Mark, and Luke in his gospel, annex the ascension to this appearance, and thus exclude all subsequent ones. As the next appearance, the apostle Paul has that before five hundred brethren, which is generally regarded as the same with the one which Matthew places on a mountain in Galilee :
^*
but at this only the eleven are stated to have been present, and moreover the discourse of Jesus on the occasion, consisting principally of official instructions, appears more suited to this narrow circle. Paul next adduces an appearance to James, of which there is also an apocryphal account, in the Hebrew gospel of Jerome, according to which however it must have been the first of all
^†
Here there would be

* Paulus, exeg. Handb. 3, b. s. 897; Olshausen, 2, s. 541.

† Hieron. de viris illusir. ii. :
Evangelium quoque, quod appellatur secundum Hebræos, — post resurrectionem Salvatoris refert: Dominus autem, postquam dedisset sindonem servo sacerdolis
(apparently in relation to the watch at the grave, which is here represented as a sacerdotal instead of a Roman guard; vid. Credner, Beiträge zur Einl., in das N. T. s. 406 f.),
ivit ad Jacobum et apparuit ei. Juraverat enim Jacobus, se non comestururn panem ab illa hora, qua biberat calicern Dornini, donec videret eum resurgentum a dormientibus
(on the inconceivableness of such a vow, despairing as the disciples were, comp.
Michaelis, s. 122).
Rursusque post paululum: Afferte, ait Dominus, mensam et panem.
Statimque additur: Tuli panem et benedixit at fregit, et dedit Jacobo justo et dixit ei: frater mi, comede panem tuum, quia resurrexit filius hominis a dormientibus.
space for that appearance in which, according to the fourth gospel eight days after the resurrection of Jesus, Thomas was convinced; wherewith Paul would closely agree, if his expression,
to all the apostles
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(v. 7), which he uses in relation to this appearance, were really to be understood of a full assembly of the eleven in distinction from the earlier one, when Thomas was not present: which however, as Paul, according to the above presupposition, had described this also as an appearance before
the twelve,
is impossible; on the contrary, the apostle intends as well by the
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twelve,
as by
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all the apostles,
the collective body of apostles (whose proper number was then indeed incomplete by one man), in opposition to the individuals (Cephas and James) of whom in each case he had just before spoken, as having witnessed a Christophany. If however we were nevertheless to regard the fifth appearance of Jesus according to Paul as identical with the third in John: it would only be the more clearly evident that the fourth of Paul, before the five hundred brethren, cannot have been the one in Galilee recorded by Matthew. For as, in John, the third took place in Jerusalem, the fourth in Galilee: Jesus and the apostles must in that case have gone into Galilee after the first appearances in Jerusalem, and have met on the mountain; then have returned to Jerusalem where Jesus showed himself to Thomas; then again have proceeded into Galilee where the appearance by the sea occurred; and lastly, have once more returned to Jerusalem for the ascension. In order to avoid this useless journeying backwards and forwards, and yet to be able to combine those two appearances, Olshausen lays the appearance before Thomas in Galilee: an inadmissible violence, since not only is there no mention of a change of place between this and the foregoing, which is by implication represented as happening in Jerusalem, but the place of assembly is in both instances described in the same manner; nay the addition,
the
doors being shut,
will not allow the supposition of any other locality than Jerusalem, because in Galilee, where there was less excitement against Jesus from the enmity of the priesthood, there cannot be supposed to have been the same reason for that precaution, in
the fear of the Jews.
Thus, first where the Judean appearances close with that happening eight days after the resurrection, we should obtain room to insert the Galilean appearances of Matthew and John. But these have the peculiar position, that each claims to be the first, and that of Matthew at the same time the last.
^*
By the tenor of his whole narrative, and

* Lessing, Duplik, s.
449 ff.expressly by adding, after the statement that the disciples went to a mountain in Galilee, the words:
where Jesus had appointed them,
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, Matthew marks this appearance as the one to which Jesus had referred on the morning of the resurrection, first by the angel, and then in his own person; but no one concerts a second meeting in a particular place, leaving the first undetermined: consequently, as an unforeseen earlier meeting is incompatible with the evangelical idea of Jesus,
^*
that meeting, since it was the concerted one, was also the first in Galilee. if thus the appearance at the sea of Tiberias in John, cannot possibly be placed before that on the mountain in Matthew: so the latter will just as little suffer the other to follow it, since it is a. formal leave-taking of Jesus from his disciples. Moreover, it would be more than ever difficult to understand how the appearance in John could be made out, in accordance with the Evangelist’s own statement, to be the third
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of the risen Christ before his disciples (xxi. 14), if that of the first gospel must also be supposed to precede it. Meanwhile, even allowing the priority to the former, this numerical notice of John remains sufficiently perplexing. We might, it is true, deduct the appearances before the women, because, though John himself narrates that to Mary Magdalene, he does not take it into his account; but if we number that to Cephas as the first, and that on the way to Emmaus as the second: then this Galilean appearance, as the third, would fall between the above and that before the eleven on the evening of the resurrection, which would presuppose a rapidity of locomotion totally impossible; nay, if that appearance before the assembled eleven is the same with the one at which, according to John, Thomas was absent, the third appearance of John would fall before his first. Perhaps, however, when we consider the expression :
showed himself to his disciples,
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we ought to understand that John only numbers such appearances as happened before several disciples at once, so that those before Peter and James should be deducted, in that case, we must number as the first, the appearance to the two disciples going to Emmaus; as the second, that before the assembled eleven on the evening of the resurrection : and thus in the eight days between this and the one before Thomas, the journey into Galilee would fall somewhat more conveniently, — but also the third appearance of John would fall before his second. Perhaps, then, the author of the fourth gospel held the two disciples whom Jesus met on the way to Emmaus too small a number, to entitle this Christophany to rank as a
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On this supposition the entrance of Jesus among the assembled disciples in the evening would be the first appearance; hereupon the five hundred brethren to whom Jesus showed himself at once would surely be numerous enough to be taken into the reckoning: so that the Galilean appearance of John, that is, his third, must be inserted after