Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (877 page)

 The first impression from this narrative is clearly this: that it is intended as a description of a miraculous event, an actual exaltation of Jesus into heaven, as the dwelling-place of God, and an attestation of this by angels ; as orthodox theologians, both ancient and modern, correctly maintain. The only question is, whether they can also help us to surmount the difficulties which stand in our way when we attempt to form a conception of such an event? One main difficulty is this: how can a palpable body, which has
still flesh and bones,
and eats material food, be qualified for a celestial abode? how can it so far liberate itself from the laws of gravity, as to be capable of an ascent through the air? and how can it be conceived that God gave so preternatural a capability to Jesus by a miracle?
^*  
The only possible reply to these questions is, that the grosser elements which the body of Jesus still retained after the resurrection, were removed before the ascension, and only the finest essence of his corporeality, as the integument of the soul, was taken by him into heaven.
^†  
But as the disciples who were present at the ascension observed no residuum of his body which he had left behind, this leads either to the above mentioned absurdity of an evaporation of the body of Jesus, or to Olshausen’s process of subtilization which, still incomplete even after the resurrection, was not perfected until the moment of the ascension; a process which must have been conducted with singularly rapid retrograde transitions in these last days, if the body of Jesus, when penetrating into the closed room where

 *  Gabler, in the neuesten theol. Journal 3, s. 457, and in the Vorrede zu Griesbach’s .opusc. acad. p. xcvi. comp. Kuinöl, in Marc., p. 222.

†  
 
Seiler, ap. Kuinöl, ut sup. s. 223.

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 the disciples were assembled, is to be supposed immaterial; immediately after when Thomas touched him, material; and lastly, in the ascension, again immaterial. The other difficulty lies in the consideration, that according to a just idea of the world, the seat of God and of the blessed, to which Jesus is supposed to have been exalted, is not to be sought for in the upper regions of the air, nor, in general, in any determinate place ; — such a locality could only be assigned to it in the childish, limited conceptions of antiquity. We are well aware that he who would attain to God and the circle of the blessed would make a superfluous circuit, if he thought it necessary for this purpose to soar aloft into the higher regions of the firmament; and the more intimately Jesus was acquainted with God and divine things, the farther certainly would he be from making such a circuit, or from being caused to make it by God.
^*  
Thus there would be no other resource than to suppose a divine accommodation to the idea of the world in that age, and to say: God in order to convince the disciples of the return of Jesus into the higher world, although this world is in reality by no means to be sought for in the upper air, nevertheless prepared the spectacle of such an exaltation.
^†  
But this is to represent God as theatrically arranging an illusion.

 As an attempt to set us free from such difficulties and absurdities, the natural explanation of this narrative must needs be welcome.
^‡  
This distinguishes in the evangelical accounts of the ascension, what was actually beheld, and what was inferred by reasoning. Certainly, when it is said in the Acts:
while they beheld, he was taken up,
b
l
e
p
o
n
t
w
n
a
u
t
w
n
e
p
h
r
q
h
:
the exaltation to heaven seems here to be represented as a fact actually witnessed. But the Rationalists tell us that we are not to understand
e
p
h
r
q
h
,
 
as signifying an elevation above the earth, but only that Jesus, in order to bless the disciples, drew up his form and thus appeared more elevated to them. They then bring forward the word
d
i
e
s
t
h
, he was parted from them,
in the conclusion of Luke’s gospel, and interpret it to mean that Jesus in taking leave of his disciples removed himself farther from them. Hereupon, they continue, in the same way as on the mount of Transfiguration, a cloud was interposed between Jesus and the disciples, and together with the numerous olive-trees on the mount, concealed him from their sight; a result which, on the assurance ot two unknown men, they regarded as a reception of Jesus into heaven. But, when Luke in the Acts immediately connects
e
p
h
r
q
h
with the statement,
and a cloud received him,
k
a
i
n
e
f
e
l
h
u
p
e
l
a
b
e
n
a
u
t
o
n
:
he implies that the t
aking up
was an introduction to the being received by the cloud; which it would not be if it were a mere drawing up of the body, but only if it were an

 *  Comp. Paulus, exeg. Handb. 3, b, s. 921; De Wette, Religion und Theologie, s. 161.

†  Kern, Hauptthatsachen, Tüb. Zeitschrift, 1836, 3, s. 58, Comp. Steudel (Glaubenslehre, s. 323), who supposes the ascension to have been a vision which God produced in the disciples. Against this comp. my Streitschriften, 1
,
s. 152 if.

‡  See especially Paulus, ut sup. s. 910 ff
.
; L. J. 1,
b, s. 318 ff.

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 exaltation of Jesus above the earth, since only in this case could a cloud float under, carry, and envelop him, which is the idea expressed by
u
p
e
l
a
b
e
n
.
Again, in the Gospel of Luke, the fact that
he was parted from them
is represented as something which took place
while he blessed them,
e
n
t
w
e
u
l
o
g
e
i
n
 
a
u
t
o
n
a
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V
now no one when pronouncing a benediction on another, will remove from him: whereas it appears very suitable, that Jesus while communicating his blessing to the disciples should be carried upward, and thus, while rising, have continued to extend over them his outstretched hand as a symbol of his blessing. Thus the natural explanation of the disappearance in the cloud falls to the ground of itself; while in the supposition that the two individuals clothed in white apparel were natural men, Paulus only disguises a final and strongly marked essay of the opinion espoused by Bahrdt and Venturini, that several epochs in the life of Jesus, especially after his crucifixion, were brought about by the agency of secret colleagues. And Jesus himself — what, according to this opinion, must we suppose to have become of him after this last separation from his disciples? Shall we, with Bahrdt, dream of an Essene lodge, into which he retired after the completion of his work? and with Brennecke appeal, in proof that Jesus long continued silently to work for the welfare of mankind, to his appearance for the purpose of the conversion of Paul? But, taking the narrative of the Acts as historical, this was connected with circumstances and effects which could be produced by no natural man, even though a member of a secret order. Or shall we with Paulus suppose, that shortly after the last interview the body of Jesus sank beneath the injuries it had received? This could not well have happened in the very next moments after he had appeared still active among his disciples, so that the two men who joined them might have been witnesses of his decease, — who, even admitting this, would not have spoken in accordance with the truth; but if he continued to live for any length of time he must have had the intention to remain for that period in the concealment of a secret society; and to this must then be supposed to belong the two men clothed in white, who, doubtless with his previous sanction, persuaded the disciples that he had ascended into heaven.
^*  
But this is a mode of representation, from which in this instance as in every other, a sound judgment must turn away with aversion.

§ 143. INSUFFICIENCY OF THE NARRATIVES OF THE ASCENSION. MYTHICAL CONCEPTION OF THOSE NARRATIVES.

 Among all the New Testament histories of miracles, the ascension least demanded such an expenditure of perverted acumen, since the attestations to its historical validity are peculiarly weak, — not only to us who, having no risen Jesus, can consequently have no ascended

 *  Briefe über den Rationalismus, s. 146, Anm. 28.

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 one, but apart from all prior conclusions and in every point of view. Matthew and John, who according to the common idea were the two eyewitnesses among the Evangelists, do not mention it; it is narrated by Mark and Luke alone, while in the rest of the New Testament writings decided allusions to it are wanting. But this absence of allusions to the ascension in the rest of the New Testament is denied by orthodox expositors. When, say they, Jesus in Matthew (xxvi. 64), declares before the high priest, that hereafter the Son of Man will be seen sitting at the right hand of God: this presupposes an exaltation thither, consequently an ascension; when in John (iii. 13), he says, no one hath ascended into heaven but the Son of Man who came from heaven, and at another time (vi. 62) tells the disciples that they will hereafter see him ascend where he was before; further, when on the morning of the resurrection he declares that he is not yet ascended to his Father, implying that he is about to do so (xx. 17): there could hardly be more explicit allusions to the ascension; again, when the apostles in the Acts so often speak of an exaltation of Jesus to the right hand of God (ii. 33, v. 31, comp. vii. 56),
and Paul represents him as
ascended up far above all heavens
a
n
a
b
a
V
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p
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r
a
n
w
 
p
a
n
t
w
n
t
w
n
o
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r
a
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n
(Ephes. iv. 10), Peter, as
gone into heaven
p
o
r
e
u
q
e
i
V
e
i
V
o
u
r
a
n
o
n
t
w
n
o
u
r
a
n
w
n
(1
Pet. iii. 22): there can be no doubt that they all knew of his ascension.
^*
 All these passages, however, with the exception perhaps of John vi. 62, where a
SEEING the Son of Man ascend,
q
e
w
r
e
i
n
a
n
a
b
a
i
n
a
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t
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u
i
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t
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u
a
n
q
r
w
p
o
u
,
is spoken of, contain only in general his exaltation to heaven, without intimating that it was an external, visible fact, that took place in the presence of the disciples. Rather, when we find Paul in 1
Cor. xv. 5 ff
.
ranking the appearance of Jesus to himself, which occurred long after the alleged ascension, with the Christophanies before this epoch, so entirely without any pause or indication of a distinction: we must doubt, not merely that all the appearances which he enumerates besides his own can have occurred before the ascension,
^†
 but whether the Apostle can have had any knowledge at all of an ascension as an external fact which closed the earthly life of Jesus. As to the author of the fourth gospel, — in his metaphorical language, we are not compelled by the word
q
e
w
r
e
i
n
,
any more than by the
o
y
e
s
q
e
in relation to the angels ascending and descending upon Jesus, i. 52, to ascribe to him a knowledge of the visible ascension of Jesus, of which he gives no intimation at the conclusion of his gospel.