Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (876 page)

 If this were the only passage relating to the impartation of the Spirit, every one would believe that the disciples had it commuicated to them by Jesus when he was personally present among them, and not first after his exaltation to heaven. But in accordance with the harmonizing interest, it has been concluded, first by Theodore of Mopsuestia, and recently by Tholuck,
^†  
that the word
l
a
b
e
t
e
,
receive,
in John,
must be taken in the sense of
l
h
y
e
s
q
e
, ye shall receive,
because
according to Luke
the Holy Spirit was not imparted to the disciples until later, at Pentecost. But as if he wished to preclude, such a wresting of his words, the Jesus of John adds to them the symbolical action of breathing on the disciples, which unmistakably represents the
receiving
of the Holy Spirit as a present fact,
^‡  
It is true that expositors have found out a way of eluding even this act of breathing, by attributing to it the following signification: as certainly as Jesus now breathes upon them, so certainly

 *
 
Comp. Baur, in the Tübinger Zeitschrift für Theologie, Jahrgang 1830,
2,
s.
75
ff
.

†  Comm. z. Joh., S. 332.

‡  Lücke, Comm. z. Joh. 2, s. 686; De Wette, s. 204.

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 will they at a future time receive the Holy Ghost.
^*  
But the act of breathing upon a person is as decided a symbol of a present impartation as the laying on of hands, and as those on whom the apostles laid their hands were immediately filled with the Spirit (Acts viii. 17, xix. 6), so, according to the above narrative, the author of the fourth gospel must have thought that the Apostles on that occasion received the Spirit from Jesus. In order to avoid the necessity of denying, in opposition to the clear meaning of John, that an impartation of the Spirit actually took place immediately after the resurrection, or of coming into contradiction with Luke, who assigns the outpouring of the Spirit to a later period, expositors now ordinarily suppose that the Spirit was granted to the Apostles both at the earlier and the later period, the impartation at Pentecost being only an increasing and perfecting of, the former.
^†
 Or more correctly, since Matthew x.
20
speaks of the
Spirit of the Father
as already sustaining the disciples in their first mission: it is supposed that they were first endowed with some extraordinary power before that mission, in the lifetime of Jesus; that on the occasion in question, shortly after his resurrection, he heightened this power; but that all the fulness of the Spirit was not poured out upon them until Pentecost.
^‡  
What constitutes the distinction between these steps, and especially in what the increase of the gifts of the Spirit consisted in the present instance, is, however, as Michaelis has already remarked, not easy to discern. If in the first instance the apostles were endowed with the
power of working miracles (Matt. x. 1, 8) together with the gift of speaking freely (
p
a
r
r
h
s
i
a
)
before tribunals (v. 20),
it could only be a more correct insight into the spirituality of his kingdom that Jesus communicated to them by breathing on them; but of this they were still destitute immediately before the ascension, when, according to Acts i. 6, they asked whether, with the impartation of the Spirit, within the next few days, would be associated the restoration of the kingdom to Israel. If however it be supposed that each successive impartation of the Spirit conferred no new powers on the disciples, but was merely an addition in measure to that which was already present in all its diversified powers :
^§
 it must still be held surprising that no Evangelist mentions, together with an earlier impartation, a later amplification; but instead of this, besides an incidental mention of the Spirit as enabling the disciples to defend themselves before tribunals, in Luke (xii. 12), — which, since it is not here, as in Matthew, connected with a mission, may be regarded merely as a reference to the time after the later outpouring of the Spirit, — each of the Evangelists mentions only one impartation, and represents this as the first and last. This is, indeed, a clear proof that, to place in juxtaposition three impartations and to regard them as so many different degrees, is only an effort to harmonize

 *  Less, Auferstehungsgeschichte, s. 281; Kuinöl, in loc.

†  Lücke, s. 687.

‡  Vid. ap. Michaelis, Begräbniss- und Auferstehungsgeschichte, s. 268; Olshausen, 2, s. 533
.

§  This is Tholuck’s opinion, ut sup.

 857

 the gospels by introducing into them what is foreign to the text.

 Thus there are in the New Testament three distinct opinions concerning the impartation of the Spirit to the disciples of Jesus; and in two respects they form a climax. As regards the time, Matthew places the impartation the earliest — within the period of the natural life of Jesus; Luke, the latest — in the time after his complete departure from the earth; John in an intermediate position — in the days of the resurrection. As regards the conception of the fact, it is the simplest in Matthew, the least perceptible to the senses, for he has no special and external act of impartation; John already has such a feature, in the act of breathing on the disciples; while with Luke, in the Acts, the gentle breathing has become a violent storm, which shakes the house, and with which other miraculous appearances are united. These two series of gradations stand in opposite relations to historical probability. That the
Spirit
p
n
e
u
m
a
,
which, whether it be regarded as natural or as supernatural, is in either case the animating power of the messianic idea in its Christian modification, was communicated to the adherents of Jesus so early as Matthew narrates, is contradicted by his own representation, for according to him, that Christian modification — the introduction of the characteristics of suffering and death into the idea of the Messiah, — was not comprehended by the disciples long after the mission described in Matt x.; and as the discourse of instructions there given contains other particulars also, which will only suit later times and circumstances: it is easy to imagine that the promise in question may have been erroneously referred to that earlier period. Only after the death and resurrection of Jesus can we conceive what the New Testament calls the
p
n
e
u
m
a
a
g
i
o
n
to have been developed in the disciples, and in so far the representation of John stands nearer to reality than that of Matthew; but, as certainly the revolution in the sentiments of the disciples described in the foregoing section, had not taken place so early as two days after the crucifixion: the account of John does not approach so near to the truth as that of Luke, who allows an interval of at least fifty days for the formation of the new opinions in the disciples. The position of the narratives with respect to historical truth is reversed by the other climax. For in proportion as a narrative represents the impartation of a spiritual power as perceptible to the senses, the formation of a sentiment which might spring from natural causes as miraculous, the origin of a faculty which can only have been developed gradu.ally, as instantaneous: in the same proportion does such a narrative diverge from the truth; and in this respect, Matthew would stand at the least distance from the truth, Luke at the greatest. If we therefore recognise in the reprepresentation of the latter the most mature product of tradition, it may be wondered how tradition can have wrought in two opposite ways: receding from

 858

 the truth in relation to the determination of the manner and form of the impartation, approaching the truth in relation to the determination of the time. But this is explained as soon as it is considered, that in the changes in the determination of the time, tradition was not guided by critical inquiry after truth — this might well have caused surprise, — but by the same tendency that led to the other alteration, namely, to present the impartation of the Spirit as a single miraculous act. If Jesus was said to have shed the Spirit on his disciples by a special act: it must seem appropriate to assign this act to his state of glorification, and thus either with John to place it after the resurrection, or with Luke after the ascension; indeed the fourth Evangelist expressly remarks that in the lifetime of Jesus, the Spirit was not yet given,
because Jesus was not yet glorified
(vii. 39).

 This interpretation of the opinion of the fourth Evangelist concerning the impartation of the Spirit to the disciples, is attested as the correct one by the fact, that it throws unexpected light on an obscurity in his gospel with respect to which we were previously unable to come to a decision. In relation to the farewell discourses of Jesus, it was not possible to settle the dispute, whether what Jesus there says of his return is to be referred to the days of his resurrection, or to the outpouring of the Spirit, because the description of that return as a
seeing again
seemed to speak as decidedly for the former, as the observation that in that time they would no longer ask him anything, and. would understand him fully, for the latter: a dispute which is decided in the most welcome manner, if it can be shown to be the opinion of the narrator that the impartation of the Spirit fell in the days of the resurrection.
^*  
At first indeed it might be thought, that this impartation, especially as in John it is connected with the formal appointment of his disciples as his envoys, and the communication of the authority to remit and retain sins (comp. Matt, xviii. i8), would have been more appropriate at the close than the commencement of the appearances of the risen Jesus, and in a full assembly of the Apostles than in one from which Thomas was absent; but on this account to suppose with Olshausen that the Evangelist for the sake of brevity merely appends the impartation of the Spirit to the first appearance, though it really belonged to a later interview, is an inadmissible violence; and we must rather allow, that the author of the fourth gospel regarded this first appearance of Jesus as the principal one, and the one eight days later as merely supernumerary in favour of Thomas. The appearance chap. xxi. is also a supplement, which the author, when he wrote his gospel, either had not known, or at least did not recollect.

§ 142. THE SO-CALLED ASCENSION CONSIDERED AS A SUPERNATURAL AND AS A NATURAL EVENT.

 The ascension of Jesus is reported to us in the New Testament in three different narratives, which in point of fulness of detail and

 *
 
Comp. Weisse, die evang. Geschichte,
2,
s. 458.

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 picturesqueness of description form a progressive series. Mark, who in the last portion of his gospel is in general very brief and abrupt, only says, that after Jesus had spoken to the disciples for the last time, he was received up (
a
n
e
l
h
f
q
h
) into heaven and sat on the right hand of God (xvi. 19). With scarcely more definiteness it is said in the gospel of Luke that Jesus led his disciples
out as far as Bethany,
e
x
w
e
w
V
e
i
V
B
h
q
a
n
i
a
n
, and while he here with uplifted hands gave them his blessing, he was parted from them (
d
i
e
s
t
h
)
,
and carried up into heaven (
a
n
e
f
e
r
a
t
o
);
whereupon the disciples fell down and worshipped him, and forthwith returned to Jerusalem with great joy (xxiv. 50 ff.).
In the introduction to the Acts, Luke gives more ample details concerning this scene. On the mount of Olives, where Jesus delivered to his disciples his last commands and promises, he was taken up before their eyes (
e
p
h
r
q
h
)
,
and a cloud received him out of their sight. While the disciples were watching him, as he went up into heaven on the cloud, there suddenly stood by them two men in white apparel, who induced them to desist from thus gazing after him by the assurance, that the Jesus now taken from them would come again from heaven in the same manner as he had just ascended into heaven; on which they were satisfied, and returned to Jerusalem (i. 1 — 12).