The Divine Origin of Revelation

C. The Vision Hypothesis

While the two theories just described, especially the former, appeal to but few critics at the present time, the vision hypothesis still has many adherents. In substance it is almost as old as Christianity itself. Celsus, an eclectic philosopher who flourished in the second century and whose teaching is known to us almost exclusively through Origen’s famous treatise Contra Celsum,⁴⁰⁸408Cfr. Bardenhewer-Shahan, Patrology, pp. 147 sqq.; W. Turner in the Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. III, pp. 490–492. says: “Who saw it? A half-frantic woman [γυνὴ πάροιστρος; the femme hallucinée of Renan] practiced in such jugglery, who was either deceived by her diseased and morbid mind and mistook a phantom for a reality, as many have done; or else (which seems to me more probable) was herself the author of this deception in order to astonish others or delude them into the same lie.”⁴⁰⁹409Quoted by Origen, Contra Celsum, II, 55 (Migne, P.G., XI, 884 sq.) Cfr. F. Hettinger, Revealed Religion (tr. by H. S. Bowden), 2nd ed., London, 1905, p. 147. Origen is so careful to cite the very words of his opponent that it is possible to reconstruct the text of the latter’s Ἀληθὴς Λόγος from the former’s treatise Κατὰ Κέλσου, a task which was accomplished by Lachmann in 1836 and more successfully by Keim (Celsus’ Wahres Wort, Zurich, 1873). Cfr. Turner, l. c.

The modern defenders of the theory hold that Christ did not rise from the dead at all, but His disciples merely saw a vision of their glorified Lord, which some critics believe to have been objective, whereas others regard it as purely subjective. The representatives of the former school (Keim, A. Schweitzer, Lotze) assume that the vision corresponded to an objective reality which God produced in the minds of the disciples, while others (Strauss, Renan, Holtzmann, Meyer, Pfleiderer, Harnack) regard the vision as a figment of the imagination. Steude briefly explains the fundamental postulates of this theory as follows: “The apparitions which the disciples saw after the death of Christ, and which led them to believe in His Resurrection, were hallucinations or pure illusions, with no external, real object, but were regarded and proclaimed by the disciples as the product of direct observation. In their low state of culture and with their characteristically Jewish narrow-mindedness, they were unable to perceive the illusory character of this vision, regarded what they saw as real and, in the light of the ideas they entertained of the time and people, were forced to conclude that Jesus had been raised up from the grave.”⁴¹⁰410E. G. Steude, die Auferstehung Jesu Christi, Gütersloh, 1893, pp. 35 sq.

This hypothesis rests upon two suppositions, namely, the extreme nervousness of the disciples and the vision of St. Paul at Damascus. Some of the disciples, like Mary of Magdala,⁴¹¹411Renan says of her (La Vie de Jésus, Paris, 1863, ch. 26, towards the end): “La forte imagination de Marie de Magdala joua dans cette circonstance un rôle capital. Pouvoir divin de l’amour! moments sacrés, où la passion d’une hallucinée donne au monde un Dieu ressuscité!” were naturally disposed to hallucinations, while the others were readily led to “see things” by the terrible events of the Passion, which had stirred their souls to their inmost depths. Thus, it required but a slight occasion to bring before their minds, seemingly real, the figure of the Master, whose image was so deeply engraven in their memories. St. Paul, in his first Epistle to the Corinthians,⁴¹²4121 Cor. XV, 1 sqq. puts the apparitions of Christ to His disciples on a level with the vision he himself had been vouchsafed at Damascus. As the latter was purely subjective, a visionary experience of a man disposed to hallucinations,⁴¹³4132 Cor. XII, 1 sqq. who suffered from recurrent attacks of epilepsy,⁴¹⁴4142 Cor. XII, 7. and whose soul was profoundly agitated at the time, the visions of the disciples, too, must be regarded as purely subjective phenomena.

Against these assertions we contend that the vision hypothesis in both its forms is absolutely untenable.

1. It is untenable in its objective form because if the apparitions of Christ were visions produced by God in a supernatural way, they would necessarily have led to the belief that Christ had really and truly risen from the dead,—when as a matter of fact He did not. God, therefore, by His supernatural intervention, would have become the direct author of an error which, according to St. Paul,⁴¹⁵4151 Cor. XV, 14. would have destroyed Christianity in its very foundations. Such conduct would be incompatible with God’s infinite veracity, and, therefore, we must reject a theory which, aside from having no objective support in the Gospels, entails such ludicrous consequences.

2. The theory that the apparitions of Christ after the Resurrection were purely subjective visions is equally untenable because it has no foundation either in the psychology of the disciples or in the vision of St. Paul at Damascus.

a) It has no foundation in the psychology of the disciples for the following reasons:

α) Visions and hallucinations, originating as they do in the soul, usually accommodate themselves to the views, opinions, and moods of the visionary. But this rule does not apply to the alleged visions of the disciples. The vision hypothesis cannot appeal to the popular beliefs of the Jewish people, which the disciples on the whole shared. For the Jews knew of but one resurrection, namely, the general resurrection of all flesh that was to take place at the Last Judgment.⁴¹⁶416Cfr. Schürer, Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes, Vol. II, 4th ed., pp. 438–444. Before that judgment no man could arise from the dead.⁴¹⁷417Cfr. John XI, 24. The popular beliefs of the Jews, therefore, could not have caused the disciples to expect their Master to come forth from the grave within so short a time after His death.

As regards the disciples’ own views and beliefs, it seems that, at a later period, many of them did hold that Jesus would soon return to judgment.⁴¹⁸418Cfr. 1 Pet. IV, 7; 1 Thess. IV, 15. But in holding this belief they presupposed the Resurrection as a fact lying far back in the past. At the period with which we are now concerned there is not only no indication in the sources that the disciples expected the Resurrection of Christ, but the Gospels clearly attest the contrary, namely, that the idea of the Resurrection was something entirely new and unheard-of in the minds of the disciples,—so much so that it took some time before they were able fully to realize and accept it as a fact. Mary Magdalen, who, without reason, is described by the defenders of the vision hypothesis as strongly disposed to hallucinations, has no suspicion of the Resurrection even after she has seen the empty grave, but naïvely says to Peter and the other disciples: “They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him.”⁴¹⁹419John XX, 2. And shortly afterwards she asks the risen Lord Himself, whom she mistakes for the gardener: “Sir, if thou hast taken him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.”⁴²⁰420John XX, 15. The Apostles reject the reports of the women that Christ was risen as “idle tales”⁴²¹421Λῆρος; Luke XXIV, 11. and refuse to take them seriously. The two disciples on the way to Emmaus did not believe the story until Christ personally convinced them of its truth.⁴²²422Luke XXIV, 22 sq., 31 sqq. When, upon their return to Jerusalem, they related what they had heard and seen, the Apostles in their turn were sceptical,⁴²³423Mark XVI, 13. and when, soon after, Jesus Himself appeared to them in the room in which they were assembled, they thought they were seeing a ghost.⁴²⁴424Luke XXIV, 36 sq. Not until the Lord shows them His hands and feet, not until He eats with them and allows them to touch His body, do they believe that He is really and truly risen from the dead.⁴²⁵425Luke XXIV, 36 sqq. The most sceptical was Thomas, who refused to believe in the Resurrection except on condition that he be permitted to put his finger into the place of the nails and his hand into Christ’s open side.⁴²⁶426John XX, 25. Some of the other disciples still doubted the reality of the Resurrection when Jesus appeared to them on a mountain in Galilee.⁴²⁷427Matth. XXVIII, 16 sq. The original refusal of the disciples to believe in the Resurrection of Christ cannot be used as an argument against His prophecy predicting that event. For St. Luke (XVIII, 34; cfr. Mark IX, 31) expressly remarks: “Et ipsi nihil horum intellexerunt et erat verbum istud absconditum ab eis et non intelligebant, quae dicebantur.” The disciples understood the literal sense of Our Lord’s words, but were unable to harmonize it with their idea of the Messias, whom they visioned as a great monarch, who would restore the political power of Israel (cfr. Acts I, 6). The concept of a suffering Messias was as absolutely foreign to them as it was to all their contemporaries. (Cfr. Lagrange, Le Messianisme chez les Juifs, pp. 236 sqq.)

In view of their state of mind it is impossible to suppose that the disciples were inclined to regard subjective visions of the risen Lord as objective apparitions. The simple truth is that they accepted the fact of the Resurrection as real, not because they had expected it and wished for it so long and ardently that they finally imagined it to be true, but because the objective evidence of its actuality—the empty grave and the repeated apparitions of the Master—was so strong that all reasonable doubt simply had to vanish.

β) “Visions,” says Dr. Gutberlet, “in the case of a large multitude, do not usually cease all at once, unless they have been induced by some bodily or psychic change or climatic influence, with the disparition of which the visions come to an end. Now the visions of the disciples begin definitely on the third day after the death of Christ and cease suddenly with His Ascension. It is simply ridiculous to assume that those same influences began and ceased to operate at exactly the same time in the case of all the disciples,—in other words, that an abnormal state of nervous excitement should last just as long in the case of many men of different character, produce exactly the same visions, and stop at precisely the same moment. What sort of climatic influence could have made the disciples see visions when none of the other inhabitants of Jerusalem saw them, is difficult to understand.”⁴²⁸428C. Gutberlet, Lehrbuch der Apologetik, Vol. II, 4th ed., Münster i. W., 1922, pp. 324 sq.

γ) The vision hypothesis, moreover, is utterly inadequate to explain the “empty grave.” Meyer’s assertion: “No investigation of the grave took place; the empty grave was never seen by any of the disciples of Jesus, male or female,”⁴²⁹429A. Meyer, Die Auferstehung Christi, Tübingen, 1905, p. 213. openly contradicts the Gospel account. Nor do the documents afford any basis for the further assertion of the same writer that “the existing belief that He would arise from the dead, the joyful conviction: ‘Jesus lives, we have seen Him,’ was not a result of the empty grave, but contrariwise produced belief in that phenomenon in the minds of the disciples.”⁴³⁰430Meyer, op. cit., p. 120. That there was no such pre-existing belief in the Resurrection, at least in the sense of the vision hypothesis, is shown by the arguments given under α and β.

b) Nor does the vision hypothesis find any support in St. Paul’s experience before the gates of Damascus. The champions of this theory regard the vision of St. Paul as a purely subjective phenomenon, and since he places the apparitions reported by the disciples on a level with his own vision,⁴³¹4311 Cor. XV, 5 sqq. they argue that all apparitions of the risen Lord must be treated as purely subjective phenomena.

Since the visionary character of St. Paul’s experience cannot be demonstrated with certainty, an attempt has been made to prove it by an analysis of the Apostle’s state of mind. Saul, it is said, had become acquainted with the teaching of Christ through the apologetic discourse of St. Stephen and through contact with the Christians whom he was persecuting. He saw that their teaching was opposed to the Mosaic law, but he also knew that the Christians tried to justify themselves by pointing to the Resurrection of Christ. The possibility of the Resurrection he could not doubt. Its reality was brought home to him by the contention of the Christians that Christ had been put to death innocently and by the courage with which they professed their faith. Thus, not once, but frequently, the question must have arisen in his mind, whether Christ was not, after all, the promised Messias and whether it was not a crime to persecute His followers. His soul was harassed by doubts, which grew from day to day. It was in this state of mind that Saul set out for Damascus. On the way he could quietly reason out the problem with himself, and gave much thought to his hostile attitude towards the Christian religion. Before Damascus the struggle within his soul and his nervous excitement reach their climax. Paul falls into a sort of trance. He sees the glorified Christ and becomes convinced that He had really and truly risen from the dead, as the Christians asserted.⁴³²432Cfr. E. Moske, Die Bekehrung des hl. Paulus, Münster, 1907, pp. 52 sqq.

α) This interpretation, however, cannot be reconciled with the detailed description given of the vision of the Apostle in the Acts. The story, as told there by St. Luke, does not at all create the impression that the vision was purely subjective; on the contrary, the circumstances positively exclude this interpretation. Saul’s companions saw the light and heard the voice that spoke to him, but he himself was struck with blindness. These facts are incompatible with a purely subjective vision. That the men who were with him “heard indeed a voice, but saw no man,”⁴³³433Acts IX, 7. was probably owing to the light from heaven, which momentarily blinded not only him, but them as well. This interpretation of the incident is confirmed and partly strengthened by the two other accounts in the Acts,⁴³⁴434Acts XXII, 6 sqq.; XXVI, 12 sqq. which were no doubt inspired by the Apostle himself.⁴³⁵435Cfr. F. Tillmann, “Einige Bemerkungen zur Kritik der Osterbotschaft und der Auferstehungsberichte,” in Theologie und Glaube, 1910, pp. 546 sq. The minor variations found in the different accounts must be attributed to their incompleteness.⁴³⁶436Moske, Die Bekehrung des hl. Paulus, pp. 8 sqq.

β) St. Paul’s own account of his conversion and of the incident before Damascus confirms our interpretation. Nowhere in his Epistles does he intimate that his conversion was preceded by doubts in the validity of the Mosaic law or that he was not in good faith when he persecuted the Christians. On the contrary, his own words in the Epistle to the Galatians⁴³⁷437Gal. I, 13 sqq. show that “before his conversion his position among the Jews was in no wise shaken, and he considered it his duty to champion the law with all the force of his personality.”⁴³⁸438Moske, op. cit., p. 68. A remark in his first letter to Timothy⁴³⁹4391 Tim. I, 13. indicates that he had persecuted the Christians “ignorantly in unbelief.” Therefore “he feels himself free from guilt; he believes that he acted according to his best knowledge and regards the sincerity of his conduct as the very reason why God had mercy on him and conducted him into the Christian pale.”⁴⁴⁰440Moske, op. cit., p. 69.

γ) St. Paul himself draws a clear-cut distinction between his experience before Damascus and his visions. The Damascus incident he describes as an external objective event, several features of which had been observed by his companions. In his Second Epistle to the Corinthians, on the other hand, he tells of visions which represent a purely internal experience.⁴⁴¹4412 Cor. XII, 2 sqq. In view of the distinction which he himself draws it is not permissible to conclude that his vision at Damascus was purely subjective. True, he puts it on a level with the apparitions of the risen Lord vouchsafed to the disciples; but we cannot admit the validity of the conclusion which our opponents draw from this parallel, namely, that the latter apparitions, like the former, were purely subjective experiences. For the Damascus apparition, as we have seen, was an objective occurrence, and consequently the visions vouchsafed to the disciples must also have been real, objective appearances of the risen Christ.

In 1 Cor. St. Paul states, “Christ died and was buried and rose on the third day.” He employs the same subject throughout. Christ died in the flesh, was buried according to the flesh, and rose in the flesh.

Was Christ a Spiritistic Medium?

For the sake of completeness we will notice the theory broached by R. A. Hoffmann,⁴⁴²442Das Geheimnis der Auferstehung Jesu, Leipsic, 1921. that the apparitions of Christ after His Resurrection were Spiritistic materializations and that He and some of His disciples were endowed with mediumistic powers.

The true efficient cause of all these apparitions, according to Dr. Hoffmann, was Christ Himself.⁴⁴³443Ibid., p. 162. His astral or pneumatic body, which at death had become separated from the coarse material body, and the extremely subtle material element of which was strengthened and solidified by currents issuing from the bodies of His disciples, especially Peter, repeatedly made its appearance among the disciples. Through this pneumatic body, Jesus, who after His death belonged to a higher realm of spirits, communicated with His followers on earth, ate with them, and allowed them to touch Him with their hands.⁴⁴⁴444Op. cit., pp. 162 sqq. “Behind the somewhat fantastic account of the Acts of the Apostles describing how, after His last conversation with the Twelve, the glorified Master was raised up and taken away by a cloud,⁴⁴⁵445Acts I, 9. may possibly lurk the true recollection of a gradual dissolution of His figure. … The cloud which Luke mentions would in that case have been, not a mere mass of condensed vapor floating in the sky, but a formless materialization in process of evanescing.”⁴⁴⁶446Hoffmann, Das Geheimnis der Auferstehung Jesu, p. 146.

Hoffmann was led to evolve this novel theory by the development of the phenomena of materialization, which in his opinion demanded such an explanation, and by the consideration that “the three hitherto known methods of explaining the apparitions of Christ after the Resurrection are decidedly unsatisfactory.”⁴⁴⁷447Op. cit., p. 145.

Critique of this Theory.—The theory explaining the apparitions of the risen Saviour as phenomena of materialization is untenable for a number of reasons. In the first place it cannot be squared with the historical fact that the grave was found empty. What became of Christ’s earthly body if that which appeared to the disciples after the Resurrection was an astral or pneumatic body? The assertion that there was no reason why the disciples should have examined the tomb, the exact location of which was perhaps no longer ascertainable, and that the persuasion that the grave was empty was simply a result of their belief that the Master had risen from the dead,⁴⁴⁸448Op. cit., p. 150. is incompatible with the very definite statements of the Evangelists concerning the condition of the grave on Easter morning. Hoffmann’s hypothesis, secondly, has no support in the thoughts and actions of the disciples of Jesus. They refused to admit the actuality of the apparitions and made no preparations to induce such phenomena. It is arbitrary to assert that the materializations of the astral body of Jesus were strengthened by currents issuing from the bodies of His disciples. The argument that there are mediums who are not aware of their power and that there are “double-gangers” (doubles of living persons) and imaginary forms that appear without the aid of a medium is meaningless in this connection, because it is by no means proved that the apparitions of the risen Saviour were the result of mediumistic faculties in the disciples and of materializations of an astral body. Thirdly, it cannot be proved that, at the death of Jesus, His astral body separated itself from His earthly body and only the former, and not the Saviour Himself with His glorified earthly body, appeared to the disciples. Jesus had clearly and definitely predicted that He would arise from the dead. The fulfilment of this prophecy demanded the reanimation of His dead body, the empty grave, and His reappearance in a glorified material body, just as the Gospels report it. This conclusion cannot be shaken by Hoffmann’s assertion: “And if some one should suggest that perhaps the earthly body was transformed into a heavenly body, we must say that this, too, is impossible, because in that case the same body would have had to be alternately an earthly and a heavenly body.”⁴⁴⁹449Op. cit., p. 145. For the historical actuality of the apparitions of Jesus after the Resurrection is so firmly established that their possibility cannot reasonably be doubted. The question how the apparitions were effected does not concern us here. Perhaps the natural powers of His soul were able to give to the glorified body of Christ a palpable form, or perhaps they received supernatural aid for this purpose. In any case there was a cause adequate to produce the effect.

4. Alleged Contradictions in the Gospel Accounts of the Resurrection

The refutation of the Rationalist theories which have been devised to account for the Resurrection of Christ constitutes a negative confirmation of that fact. The same may be said of the solution of the alleged contradictions in the Biblical accounts of the Resurrection.

These contradictions, we are told, are of a twofold kind: some refer to the circumstances accompanying the Resurrection, while others appertain to essential features of the different accounts, i. e., the apparitions of Jesus and the empty grave.

A. Alleged Contradictions in the Circumstances Attending the Resurrection

A. Meyer asserts: “Among all the circumstances which are said to have attended the Resurrection of Jesus, there is hardly one concerning which the accounts fully agree. Even if we limit ourselves to the descriptions given in the New Testament, we find so many contradictions that no consistent picture of the events can be drawn without all manner of desperate artifices.”⁴⁵⁰450Die Auferstehung Christi, Tübingen, 1905, p. 85. He then proceeds to enumerate all the alleged “contradictions” which have formed the stock-in-trade of infidel critics ever since Reimarus, with the addition of a few new ones, derived mainly from the apocryphal gospels.

Some of the ten “contradictions” compiled by Reimarus are, as even Lessing had to admit in his “Duplik,” based on a false interpretation of the text. The remainder may be traced to the incomplete character of the reports. We need not enter upon a refutation of these and similar “contradictions,” since there is question only of differences in the narration of unimportant details, in regard to which actual contradictions, even if they could be shown to exist, would not impair the credibility of the sacred writers so far as the principal subject of their narrative, i. e., the fact of the Resurrection, is concerned. It is not our aim in this treatise to demonstrate the complete inerrancy of the Biblical accounts of the Resurrection,—which inerrancy, according to Catholic belief, is a necessary result of the divine inspiration of the Gospels and Epistles. All we have to do is to defend the historical reliability of those accounts in so far as they concern the fact of the Resurrection. This reliability is not weakened by the circumstance that several independent writers disagree with one another on minor points, as long as they concur in essentials, as the sacred writers do in telling the story of the Resurrection. Minor discrepancies in regard to accompanying circumstances, therefore, would not permit us to conclude that the different narrators are unreliable also in regard to the essential features of the Resurrection, where they show complete agreement. In this respect Lessing was perfectly right when he wrote: “Who has ever permitted himself to employ the same process of reasoning in profane history? If Livy and Polybius and Dionysius and Tacitus narrate the same event, e. g., a battle or a siege, each accompanying the main fact with many details bristling with contradictions, who for this reason has ever denied the event itself concerning which they agree? Have men refused credence to these writers until ways and means were found to confine those obstinate circumstances, like so many pugnacious goats, in a narrow stable, where they are compelled to stop fighting? … If Livy and Dionysius and Polybius and Tacitus are treated so frankly and nobly by us that we do not stretch them upon the rack for every divergent syllable, why do we treat Matthew and Mark and Luke and John differently?”⁴⁵¹451Theologische Streitschriften: Eine Duplik, 1778. In leaving the complete harmonization of differences in non-essentials to the exegetes,⁴⁵²452Cfr. especially J. E. Belser, History of the Passion, pp. 579 sqq. therefore, we proceed to the second group of alleged contradictions, which refer to the Resurrection itself.

B. Alleged Contradictions in the Biblical Accounts of the Empty Grave and the Apparitions of the Risen Saviour

It is these alleged contradictions above all others which A. Meyer has in mind when he says: “There is no agreement in the primitive Christian as well as in the Biblical accounts regarding most important details upon which the correct view of the events absolutely depends, and concerning which there would have to be clarity if the whole narrative were to be accepted as reliable.”⁴⁵³453Die Auferstehung Christi, p. 93.

According to the Rationalist Bible critics the belief in the risen Christ originated as follows: Soon after the death of their Master, as the apocryphal gospel of Peter testifies,⁴⁵⁴454S. E. Hennecke, Neutestamentliche Apokryphen, Tübingen and Leipsic, 1904, p. 32; M. Rhodes James, The Apocryphal New Testament, Oxford, 1924, p. 94. the disciples fled to Galilee. There Peter had the first apparition of Christ. St. Paul reports this fact in 1 Corinthians,⁴⁵⁵4551 Cor. XV, 5. and the story is very plausible in view of the mental state in which the Apostles must have been at that time. “More than any of the others, Peter must have been in an almost intolerable frame of mind. He had promised the Master to be faithful to Him unto death and then betrayed Him in the presence of a servant maid, and the cock crowed. He could no longer afford to appear in public, but had to be ashamed of himself. Fallen from heaven and no longer safe anywhere on earth, physically exhausted, over-excited, unable to see a way out of his predicament, he was precisely in the kind of quandary in which ordinary mortals cease to think logically, and either despair or, like the Camisards, have visions.”⁴⁵⁶456A. Meyer, Die Auferstehung Christi, p. 303. On the Calvinist sect of the Camisards and their “seers” and “prophets” see J. F. Sollier in the Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. III, p. 218. The first apparition of the Master to Peter was purely internal and subjective; it was soon followed by others, and thus originated the belief in the Resurrection of Jesus, which was soon preached as an article of faith.

1. This theory, we are assured, agrees fully with the most ancient tradition, which knows only apparitions of Christ in Galilee, possibly followed at a later period by others in Jerusalem.⁴⁵⁷457Op. cit., pp. 127 sqq.

2. This theory, we are further told, permits us to perceive that the story that Christ first appeared on the third day after His death, is unhistorical. 1 Cor. XV, 4 and Luke XXIV, 45 are invoked to prove that this statement was a deduction from certain prophetic passages in the Old Testament, supported by the utterances of Christ Himself, or based upon “ancient mythology and astronomy.”⁴⁵⁸458Op. cit., pp. 178 sqq.

3. The empty grave is characterized as a later invention and as a result of the already widespread belief in the Resurrection. St. Paul, we are assured, knew nothing about it.⁴⁵⁹459Op. cit., pp. 120 sqq.

4. Finally, the critics quote ancient sources in proof of their contention that all the apparitions of the risen Saviour were nothing but interior and purely subjective visions, to be judged in the light of the experience which St. Paul had before Damascus.⁴⁶⁰460Op. cit., pp. 186 sqq.

If this interpretation were correct, the narratives of St. Matthew (except XXVIII, 9 sq.) and of St. Mark (without the conclusion XVI, 9–20) would directly contradict those of St. Luke and St. John (without ch. XXI), and all of these narratives in their present form would contain manifest untruths. What are we to think of this? Let us briefly examine the single points in the light of the Gospels.

Ad 1. St. Paul, whose account of the Resurrection⁴⁶¹4611 Cor. XV. is regarded by modern critics as the most ancient of all, localizes none of the six apparitions which he mentions. Consequently, we must admit at least the possibility that some of them may have taken place in Judea. Moreover, it cannot be proved that it was his intention to enumerate all the apparitions of Christ of which he had knowledge. The purpose of his first letter to the Corinthians required him to make a selection and to omit the apparition of the risen Lord to the women of Judea. For this reason St. Paul cannot possibly be regarded as a witness to a tradition which was exclusively Galilean in its origin.

If we turn our attention to the Gospels, we find that St. Luke reports only those apparitions which took place in Jerusalem and its immediate neighborhood. The critics try to explain this by the assumption that this account is derived from a later tradition. We must not overlook the fact, however, that the sequence of the apparitions in the Lucan account shows a marked similarity with that given by St. Paul,⁴⁶²462Ibid. that St. Luke was the companion of St. Paul, and composed his Gospel before he wrote the Acts. This combination of circumstances brings the Lucan account into direct proximity with the Pauline tradition, whence it may with certainty be concluded that St. Paul, too, was aware of the apparitions of the risen Master in Judea and that, consequently, there was a primitive tradition concerning these apparitions in Judea as well as in Galilee.

The critics appeal in favor of their theory to the older accounts of St. Matthew and St. Mark, but disregard the fact that the Gospel of St. Matthew mentions one apparition of Christ in Judea, namely, that vouchsafed to the holy women.⁴⁶³463Matth. XXVIII, 9 sq. That this passage of St. Matthew’s Gospel is spurious we have no right to assume, since its textual history is unimpeachable.

As regards St. Mark, the critics call attention to the fact that up to XVI, 8 the second Gospel reports no apparition of the risen Saviour, but merely the command to the disciples to go to Galilee, where they would see the Master. The critics reject the present conclusion of St. Mark’s Gospel as unauthentic and, in view of the command given to the disciples, assume that the original text mentioned no other apparitions except those which occurred in Galilee. But even if—what has by no means been proved—the present conclusion of St. Mark’s Gospel,⁴⁶⁴464Mark XVI, 9–20. which is wanting in the most ancient Greek codices (Sinaiticus and Vaticanus) and also in the Syriac version, would actually be unauthentic, the command given to the disciples would not suffice to justify the assertion that the original conclusion mentioned none but Galilean apparitions. Still less is it permissible to erect on such a slender foundation a theory which rejects as unhistorical all Evangelical reports that relate apparitions of Christ as happening in Judea during the first few days after the Resurrection.

The main support of the Galilean tradition is a fragment of the apocryphal Gospel of Peter, which mentions no apparition of the Saviour in Galilee, but in its final words (“I, Simon Peter, and Andrew, my brother, took our nets and went away to sea; and with us was Levi, the son of Alphaeus, whom the Lord …”),⁴⁶⁵465Hennecke, Neutestamentliche Apokryphen, p. 32. justifies the conclusion that in the original version this passage was followed by an account of an apparition of the risen Lord on the shores of Lake Genesareth. But since this fragment of the Petrine Gospel, in the opinion of experts,⁴⁶⁶466Cfr. O. Bardenhewer, Geschichte der altkirchlichen Literatur, Vol. I, 2nd ed., pp. 526 sq.; M. R. James, The Apocryphal New Testament, p. 90. was not composed before the middle of the second century, and contains no authentic information not found in the four canonical Gospels, nothing would be gained for the case of our critics, even if their contention in regard to it were well founded.

The Gospel of St. John, like that of St. Luke, up to XX, 31 reports only apparitions of the Saviour in Judea, and the critics say that its final chapter, which is a later addition, attempts to harmonize the Judaic and Galilean traditions. Assuming this contention to be well-founded, we must insist that in that case the fourth Gospel, by adding the Galilean apparition to the previously reported apparitions of Christ in Judea, shows that its author regarded the Judean and not the Galilean tradition as the more ancient.

Consequently, the assertion that primitive tradition knows of no apparitions of the risen Lord in Judea is without foundation. The most ancient reports mention Galilean and Judean apparitions side by side.

Intimately connected with the assumption that the first apparitions of Christ occurred in Galilee is another, namely, that the disciples fled to Galilee immediately or soon after the death of Jesus. Let us see whether our sources justify this assertion. We read in the Gospels that the disciples fled when Jesus was seized by His enemies, but nothing is said to indicate that they went at once to Galilee. In fact, the further course of the story makes this appear highly improbable. On the third day after the death of the Saviour the pious women are instructed by the angel to tell His disciples to betake themselves to Galilee, where they would see Him.⁴⁶⁷467Matth. XXVIII, 7; Mark XVI, 7. Evidently the disciples were still in Jerusalem at that time. Yet all this is reported by St. Matthew and St. Mark, the very Evangelists who are alleged to locate all the apparitions of Jesus in Galilee. Hence the critics have no other choice than to impugn the authenticity of the respective texts.⁴⁶⁸468Thus A. Meyer, Die Auferstehung Christi, pp. 104 sq. But they can adduce no valid reason for their rejection. Whoever examines the sources dispassionately, is forced to admit that the disciples were still in Jerusalem on the day of Our Lord’s Resurrection, and there is no reason that forbids us to assume that His first apparitions took place in that city rather than in Galilee.

Ad 2. The critics assert that the third day after the death of Christ cannot possibly have been the day of His first apparition, for the first apparitions took place in Galilee, and under the Mosaic law the disciples were not allowed to make a journey of any length on the Sabbath.⁴⁶⁹469Cfr. Acts I, 12; Schürer, Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes, Vol. II, 2nd ed., p. 557. This argument has already been refuted above, where we showed that the disciples were still in Jerusalem on the “third day,” and that the risen Saviour appeared to them there.

To show how the opinion originated that Christ arose on the first day of the week, the critics, who are otherwise averse to definite prophecies and their fulfilment, point to certain Old Testament predictions, which, they assert, contained the detail of the third day. Among other authorities they quote St. Paul, who says in his first Epistle to the Corinthians: “He rose again the third day, according to the scriptures.”⁴⁷⁰4701 Cor. XV, 4. However, from the words of the Apostle alone—and the same holds true of a similar passage in St. Luke’s Gospel⁴⁷¹471Luke XXIV, 46.—it is impossible to make out whether the phrase “according to the scriptures” refers to the Resurrection itself or to the fact that it was to take place on the third day, or to both parts of the prophecy together. In order to ascertain the true meaning, therefore, it is necessary to consult primitive Christian tradition, which allows us to perceive clearly: (1) that the Jews generally believed that the Resurrection of Christ was predicted in the Old Testament, and (2) that no attempt was ever made to deduce the fact that He was to arise on the third day from any Old Testament prophecy. Of the only passage of the Old Testament which is mentioned in the New Testament⁴⁷²472Jonas II, 1; Matth. XII, 40. in connection with the Resurrection of Christ on the third day, the critics themselves admit that it alone “cannot have been the reason why the death [sic! what is meant is the Resurrection] of Jesus was said to have occurred after three days, or even on the third day.”⁴⁷³473A. Meyer, Die Auferstehung Christi, p. 180. In view of this fact the critics found themselves forced to seek other Old Testament texts from which the Resurrection on the third day might possibly have been deduced. One which they discovered is Osee VI, 3: “He will revive us after two days; on the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight.” Another is 4 Kings XX, 5, where Yahweh promises to heal King Ezechias: “I have heard thy prayer, and I have seen thy tears: and behold I have healed thee; on the third day thou shalt go up to the temple of the Lord.” But the discoverers of these texts themselves complain that “all these texts combined [the famous one from Jonas and the two we have just quoted] are not quite sufficient to produce such a definite opinion.”⁴⁷⁴474Op. cit., p. 181. In view of these facts it is hardly necessary for us to discuss the pagan mythological motives which are adduced by the critics in connection with an event to which they can have no possible application.

One thing is certain: our interpretation, according to which the “third day” expresses the historical date of the Resurrection, has nothing to fear from the critics, as the inanity of the reasons adduced for the contrary view clearly proves.

Ad 3. The report that the grave of Jesus was found empty is regarded by most Rationalist critics as a later addition to the Gospel text. But it can be shown with certainty that this passage formed part and parcel of the most ancient tradition, for which the critics find a secure basis in the writings of St. Paul,⁴⁷⁵475Meyer, op. cit., p. 106. who does not, it is true, expressly refer to the empty grave, but in speaking of the Resurrection of Christ employs phrases and metaphors which would be unintelligible without the idea of the empty grave as a result of the Resurrection. The expressions ἐγήγερται⁴⁷⁶4761 Cor. XV, 4. (literally, “he was awakened”) and ἀνέστη⁴⁷⁷4771 Thess. IV, 14. (“he rose again”) denote a conception of death as a state resembling sleep. Hence when St. Paul says of the dead⁴⁷⁸4781 Cor. XV, 3. and buried⁴⁷⁹4791 Cor. XV, 4. Christ that He was awakened, and that He rose again, he evidently has in mind the body in the grave, which, after being reanimated, abandoned its resting-place and left the tomb empty. The same thought underlies the Pauline simile comparing the body to a grain of wheat.⁴⁸⁰4801 Cor. XV, 36 sqq. As the grain, when it becomes quickened, leaves the earth in which it has been buried, and is changed into a living plant, so it is with the bodies of the dead, among whom Christ is the first,⁴⁸¹4811 Cor. XV, 22 sq. since He was the first to arise from the grave to new life.

In the mind of the Apostle, therefore, the Resurrection of Christ is inseparable from the idea of the empty grave, and consequently primitive Christian tradition was familiar with both.⁴⁸²482Cfr. F. Loofs, Die Auferstehungsberichte und ihr Wert, 3rd ed., Tübingen, 1908, p. 14.

The opinion mentioned under No. 4, that the primitive Christian tradition regarded the apparitions of the risen Saviour as purely subjective visions, has been sufficiently dealt with above, and can therefore be passed over here.

Surveying this whole section once more, we arrive at the conclusion that the Gospel accounts of the Resurrection of Christ cannot be shown to contain any contradictions endangering their credibility and there is not between the various writers that alleged lack of agreement “regarding highly important details, on which the correct view of the events … depends.” This lack of agreement exists only in the imagination of the critics. A more accurate, comprehensive, and profound consideration of the various details of the story in its earlier as well as its later form enables us to combine them all easily and naturally into one consistent and harmonious whole. Thus, the attacks of infidels became a means of confirming the reliability of the Gospels.

For further reading, see page 347.