Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (875 page)

|| Gesch. der Pflanzung und Leitung der Christl. Kirche durch die Apostel, 1, s. 75 ff.to call in the aid of external natural phenomena, as thunder and lightning, may also seek to facilitate the explanation of the appearances of the risen Jesus which his immediate disciples believed themselves to have previously had, by the supposition of similar incidents.
^*
Only it must be observed that, as Eichhorn’s explanation of the event in the life of Paul proved a failure from his maintaining as historical every single detail in the New Testament narrative, as the blindness of Paul and his cure, the vision of Ananias, and so on, which he could only transform into natural occurrences by a very strained interpretation : so it would inevitably render impossible the psychological explanation of the appearances of Jesus, to acknowledge as historical all the evangelical narratives concerning them, especially those of the tests which Thomas applied by touching the wounds of Jesus, and which Jesus himself afforded by taking material nourishment; and indeed these narratives, from the contradiction which they are shown to present, have not the slightest claim to such a character. The two first gospels, and our chief informant in this matter, the Apostle Paul, tell us nothing of such tests, and it is quite natural that the Christophanies which, in the actual experience of the women and Apostles, may have floated before them as visions of much the same character as that which Paul had on the way to Damascus, when once received into tradition, should by reason of the apologetic effort to cut off all doubts as to their reality, be continually more and more consolidated so that the mute appearances became speaking ones, the ghostlike form was exchanged for one that ate, and the merely visible body was made palpable also.

Here however there presents itself a distinction, which seems at once to render the event in the history of Paul unavailable for the explanation of those earlier appearances. To the Apostle Paul, namely, the idea that Jesus had risen and appeared to many persons was delivered as the belief of the sect which he persecuted; he had only to receive it into his conviction and to vivify it in his imagination until it became a part of his own experience: the earlier disciples, on the contrary, had before them as a fact merely the death of their Messiah, — the notion of a resurrection on his part they could nowhere gather, but must, according to our conception of the matter, have first produced it; a problem which appears to be beyond all comparison more difficult than that subsequently presented to the Apostle Paul. In order to form a correct judgment on this subject, we must transport ourselves yet more completely into the situation and frame of mind into which the disciples of Jesus were thrown by his death. During several years’ intercourse with them he had constantly impressed them more and more decidedly with the belief that he was the Messiah; but his death, which they were unable to reconcile with their messianic ideas, had for the moment annihilated this belief. Now when, after the first shock was past, the earlier

* This is done in the treatise in Schmidt’s Bibliothek, and by Kaiser, ut sup.impression began to revive: there spontaneously arose in them the psychological necessity of solving the contradiction between the ultimate fate of Jesus and their earlier opinion of him — of adopting into their idea of the Messiah the characteristics of suffering and death. As, however, with the Jews of that age to comprehend meant nothing else than to derive from the sacred scriptures: they turned to these, to ascertain whether they might not perhaps find in them intimations of a suffering and dying Messiah. Foreign as the idea of such a Messiah is to the Old Testament, the disciples, who wished to find it there, must nevertheless have regarded as intimations of this kind, all those poetical and prophetic passages which, like isa. liii., Ps. xxii., represented the man of God as afflicted and bowed down even to death. Thus Luke states as the chief occupation of the risen Jesus in his interview with the disciples, that
beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself,
i. e. that
Christ ought to have suffered such things
(xxiv. 26
f., 44 ff.). When they had in this manner received into their messianic idea ignominy, suffering and death, the ignominiously executed Jesus was not lost, but still remained to them: by his death he had only entered into his messianic glory (Luke xxiv. 26) in which he was invisibly
with them always, even unto the end of the world
(Matt. xxviii. 20). But how could he fail, out of this glory, in which he lived, to give tidings of himself to his followers? and how could they, when their mind was opened to the hitherto hidden doctrine of a dying Messiah contained in the scriptures, and when in moments of unwonted inspiration their
hearts burned within them
(Luke xxiv. 32), — how could they avoid conceiving this to be an influence shed on them by their glorified Christ, an opening of their understanding by him (v. 45
),
nay, an actual conversing with him ? * Lastly, how conceivable is it that in individuals, especially women, these impressions were heightened, in a purely subjective manner, into actual vision; that on others, even on whole assemblies, something or other of an objective nature, visible or audible, sometimes perhaps the sight of an unknown person, created the impression of a revelation or appearance of Jesus: a height of pious enthusiasm which is wont to appear elsewhere in religious societies peculiarly oppressed and persecuted. But if the crucified Messiah had truly entered into the
highest
form of blessed existence, he ought not to have left his body in the grave: and if in precisely such Old Testament passages as admitted of a typical relation to the sufferings of the Messiah, there was at the same time expressed the hope :
thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thy holy one to see corruption
(Ps. xvi. 10;
Acts ii. 27); while in Isa. liii. 10
,
he who had been represented as led to the slaughter and buried, was yet promised a prolongation of his days: what was more natural to the disciples than to reinstate their earlier Jewish ideas, which the death of Jesus had disturbed,

* Comp. Weisse, ut sup. p. 398 ff.namely, that
the Christ remaineth for ever
(John xii. 34), through the medium of an actual revivification of their dead master, and, as it was a messianic attribute one day to call the dead bodily from the grave, to imagine also as returning to life in the manner of a resurrection?

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

According to the Acts, it is true, the disciples so early as on the next Pentecost, seven weeks after the death of Jesus, appeared in Jerusalem with the announcement of his resurrection, and were themselves already convinced of it on the second morning after his burial, by appearances which they witnessed. But how long will it yet be,

* Comp. Friedrich, in Eichhorn’s Biblioth. 7, s. 223.

† Comp. also Schmidt’s Biblioth. 2, s. 548.until the manner in which the author of the Acts places the first appearance of the disciples of Jesus with the announcement of the new doctrine, precisely on the festival of the announcement of the old law, be recognized as one which rests purely on dogmatical grounds; which is therefore historically worthless, and in no way binds us to assign so short a duration to that time of quiet preparation in Galilee? As regards the other statement — it might certainly require some time for the mental state of the disciples to become exalted in the degree necessary, before this or that individual amongst them could, purely as an operation of his own mind, make present to himself the risen Christ in a visionary manner; or before whole assemblies, in moments of highly wrought enthusiasm, could believe that they heard him in every impressive sound, or saw him in every striking appearance:

but it would nevertheless be conceived, that, as it was not possible that he should be held by the bonds of death (Acts ii. 24), he had passed only a short time in the grave. As to the more precise determination of this interval, if it be held an insufficient explanation, that the sacred number three would be the first to suggest itself; there is a further idea which might occur, — whether or not it be historical that Jesus was buried on the evening before a sabbath, — namely, that he only remained in the grave during the rest of the sabbath, and thus rose
on the morning after the sabbath
p
r
w
i
p
r
w
t
h
s
a
b
b
a
t
w
which by the known mode of reckoning might be reconciled with the round number of three days.
^*

When once the idea of a resurrection of Jesus had been formed in this manner, the great event could not be allowed to have happened so simply, but must be surrounded and embellished with all the pomp which the Jewish imagination furnished. The chief ornaments which stood at command for this purpose, were angels: hence these must open the grave of Jesus, must, after he had come forth from it, keep watch in the empty place, and deliver to the women, who (because without doubt women had had the first visions) must be the first to go to the grave, the tidings of what had happened. As it was Galilee where Jesus subsequently appeared to them, the journey of the disciples thither, which was nothing else than their return home, somewhat hastened by fear, was derived from the direction of an angel; nay, Jesus himself must already before his death, and, as Matthew too zealously adds, once more after the resurrection also, have enjoined this journey on the disciples. But the further these narratives were propagated by tradition, the more must the difference between the locality of the resurrection itself and the appearances of the risen one, be allowed to fall out of sight as inconvenient; and since the locality of the death and resurrection was not transferable, the appearances

* May the three days’ abode of Jonah in the whale have had any influence on this determination of time? or the passage in Hosea quoted above, § I II, note 3? Thc former is indeed only placed in this connexion in one gospel, and the latter is nowhere used in the N.
T.were gradually placed in the same locality as the resurrection, — in Jerusalem, which as the more brilliant theatre and the seat of the first Christian Church, was especially appropriate for them.*

* Compare with this explanation the one given by Weisse, in the 7th chapter of his work above quoted. He agrees with the above representation in regarding the death of Jesus as real, and the narratives of the grave being found empty as later fabrications; the point in which he diverges is that above mentioned — that in his view the appearances of the risen Jesus are not merely psychological and subjective, but objective magical facts.

PART III

CHAPTER V.

THE ASCENSION.

§ 141. THE LAST COMMANDS AND PROMISES OF JESUS.

In the last interview of Jesus with his disciples, which according to Mark and Luke closed with the ascension, the three first Evangelists (the fourth has something similar on the very first interview) represent Jesus as delivering testamentary commands and promises, which referred to the establishment and propagation of the messianic kingdom of earth.

 With regard to the commands, Jesus in Luke (xxiv. 47 f.; Acts i. 8) in parting from his disciples appoints them to be witnesses of his messiahship, and charges them to preach
repentance and remission of sins
in his name from Jerusalem to the uttermost parts of the earth. In Mark (xvi. 15 f.) he enjoins them to go into all the world and bring to every creature the glad tidings of the messianic kingdom founded by him; he who believes and is baptized will be saved, he who believeth not, will (in the future messianic judgment) be condemned. In Matthew (xxviii. 19 f.) the disciples are also commissioned to make disciples of
all nations
p
a
n
t
a
t
a
e
q
n
h
,
and here baptism is not mentioned incidentally merely, as in Mark, but is made the subject of an express command by Jesus, and is besides more precisely described as a baptism
in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,
e
i
V
t
o
o
n
o
m
a
t
o
u
p
a
t
r
o
V
k
a
i
t
o
u
u
i
o
u
k
a
i
t
o
u
a
g
i
o
u
p
n
e
u
m
a
t
o
V
.

The impediments to the supposition that Jesus delivered to his disciples the express command to carry the announcement of the gospel to the Gentiles, have been already pointed out in an earlier connexion.
^*  
But that this more definite form of baptism proceeded from Jesus, is also opposed by the fact, that such an allocation of Father, Son, and Spirit does not elsewhere appear, except as a form

 * Vol. II. §  68. of salutation in apostolic epistles (2 Cor. xiii. 14:
the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
etc.); while as a more definite form of baptism it is not to be met with throughout the whole New Testament save in the above passage of the first gospel: for in the apostolic epistles and even in the Acts, baptism is designated as a
b
a
p
t
i
z
e
i
n
e
i
V
C
r
i
s
t
o
n
I
h
s
o
u
n
baptising in Christ Jesus,
or
in the name of the Lord Jesus,
or their equivalent (Rom. vi. 3; Gal. iii. 27; Acts ii. 38, viii. 16, x. 48, xix. 5), and the same threefold reference to God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit is only found in ecclesiastical writers, as, for example, Justin.
^*  
Indeed the formula in Matthew sounds so exactly as if it had been borrowed from the ecclesiastical ritual, that there is no slight probability in the supposition. that it was transferred from thence into the mouth of Jesus. But this does not authorize us to throw the passage out of the text as an interpolation,
^†  
since, if everything in the gospels which cannot have happened to Jesus, or which cannot have been done or spoken by him in the manner there described, were to be pronounced foreign to the original text, the interpolations would soon become too numerous. So far it is with justice that others have defended the genuineness of the baptismal formula ;
^‡
 but their grounds for the assertion that it was delivered in this manner by Jesus himself are insufficient: the two opinions then resolve themselves into a third, namely, that this more definite form of baptism does indeed belong to the original context of the first gospel, but without having been so delivered by Jesus.
^§  
Jesus had, during his life, predicted in divers ways the propagation of his kingdom beyond the limits of the Jewish nation, perhaps also had intimated the introduction of baptism to be his will; and — whether it be the fact that, as we learn in the fourth gospel, the disciples already practised baptism in the life. time of Jesus, or that they first made this rite a sign of reception into the new messianic society after his death, — in any case it was entirely in the manner of the legend to place the injunction to baptize, as well as to go out into all the world, in the mouth of the departing Christ as a last declaration of his will.

The promises which Jesus gives to his adherents in parting from them, are in Matthew, where they are directed exclusively to the eleven, limited simply to the assurance that he, to whom as the exalted Messiah all power was delivered both in heaven and on earth, would be invisibly with them during the present
age,
a
i
w
n
,
until at the
consummation
s
u
n
t
e
l
e
i
a
of this term, he should enter into permanent visible communion with them: precisely the expression ol the belief which was formed in the first Christian community, when the equilibrium was recovered after the oscillations caused by the death of Jesus. — In Mark, the last promises of Jesus seem to be gathered from the popular opinion concerning the gifts of the

 *  Apol. i. 61.

†   As is done by Teller, im excurs.
2, ad Burneti I. de fide et offic.
Christ. p. 262.

‡   The work of Beckhaus, über die Aechtheit der sog. Taufformel, 1794, met with general approval.

§   Comp. De Wette, exeg. Handb. 1
,
1,
s. 246.

 855

 Christians, which was current at the period of the composition of this gospel. Of the
signs,
s
h
m
e
i
a
, which are here promised to believers in general, the
speaking with (new) tongues,
l
a
l
e
i
n
g
l
w
s
s
a
i
V
(
k
a
i
n
a
i
V
)
in the sense intended i Cor. xiv.
,
not in the manner described in Acts ii. which is a mythical modification,
^*  
actually appeared in the primitive church;. as also the
casting out of devils
d
a
i
m
o
n
i
a
e
k
b
a
l
l
e
i
n
; and it may even be conceived that sick persons were cured in a natural manner by faith in the
laying on of hands
e
p
i
q
e
s
i
V
c
e
i
r
w
n
by a Christian: on the contrary the
taking up of serpents
o
f
e
i
V
a
i
r
e
i
n
(comp. Luke x. 19) and the power of drinking poisons with impunity, have never had any existence except in the superstitious belief of the vulgar, and such signs of discipleship would have been the last to which Jesus would have attached any value. — In Luke, the object of the last promise of Jesus is the
power from on high
d
u
n
a
m
i
V
e
x
 
u
y
o
u
V
,
which according to the
promise of the Father,
e
p
a
g
g
e
l
i
a
t
o
u
p
a
t
r
o
V
,
he would send on the apostles, and the impartation of which they were to await in Jerusalem (xxiv. 49); and in Acts i. 5 ff
.
Jesus more precisely designates this impartation of power as a baptism with the
Holy Spirit,
p
n
e
u
m
a
a
g
i
o
n
,
which in a few days. would be granted to the disciples in order to qualify them for, the announcement of the gospel. These passages of Luke, which place the impartation of the Holy Spirit in the days after the ascension, seem to be in contradiction with the statement of the fourth gospel, that Jesus communicated the Holy Spirit to his disciples in the days of his resurrection, nay, on his very first appearance in the circle of the eleven. In John xx. 22 f. we read, that Jesus, appearing among the disciples when the doors were closed, breathed on them and said:
Receive ye the Holy Ghost,
l
a
b
e
t
e
p
n
e
u
m
a
a
g
i
o
n
,
wherewith he connected the authority to remit and retain sins.