§ 19. The Resurrection of Christ.
§ 19. The Resurrection of Christ.
The resurrection of Christ from the dead is reported by the four Gospels, taught in the Epistles, believed throughout Christendom, and celebrated on every "Lord’s Day," as an historical fact, as the crowning miracle and divine seal of his whole work, as the foundation of the hopes of believers, as the pledge of their own future resurrection. It is represented in the New Testament both as an act of the Almighty Father who raised his Son from the dead,208 and as an act of Christ himself, who had the power to lay down his life and to take it again.209 The ascension was the proper conclusion of the resurrection: the risen life of our Lord, who is "the Resurrection and the Life," could not end in another death on earth, but must continue in eternal glory in heaven. Hence St. Paul says, "Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death no more hath dominion over him. For the death that he died he died unto sin once: but the life that he liveth, he liveth unto God."210
The Christian church rests on the resurrection of its Founder. Without this fact the church could never have been born, or if born, it would soon have died a natural death. The miracle of the resurrection and the existence of Christianity are so closely connected that they must stand or fall together. If Christ was raised from the dead, then all his other miracles are sure, and our faith is impregnable; if he was not raised, he died in vain and our faith is vain. It was only his resurrection that made his death available for our atonement, justification and salvation; without the resurrection, his death would be the grave of our hopes; we should be still unredeemed and under the power of our sins. A gospel of a dead Saviour would be a contradiction and wretched delusion. This is the reasoning of St. Paul, and its force is irresistible.211
The resurrection of Christ is therefore emphatically a test question upon which depends the truth or falsehood of the Christian religion. It is either the greatest miracle or the greatest delusion which history records.212
Christ had predicted both his crucifixion and his resurrection, but the former was a stumbling-block to the disciples, the latter a mystery which they could not understand till after the event.213 They no doubt expected that he would soon establish his Messianic kingdom on earth. Hence their utter disappointment and downheartedness after the crucifixion. The treason of one of their own number, the triumph of the hierarchy, the fickleness of the people, the death and burial of the beloved Master, had in a few hours rudely blasted their Messianic hopes and exposed them to the contempt and ridicule of their enemies. For two days they were trembling on the brink of despair. But on the third day, behold, the same disciples underwent a complete revolution from despondency to hope, from timidity to courage, from doubt to faith, and began to proclaim the gospel of the resurrection in the face of an unbelieving world and at the peril of their lives. This revolution was not isolated, but general among them; it was not the result of an easy credulity, but brought about in spite of doubt and hesitation;214 it was not superficial and momentary, but radical and lasting; it affected, not only the apostles, but the whole history of the world. It reached even the leader of the persecution, Saul of Tarsus one of the clearest and strongest intellects, and converted him into the most devoted and faithful champion of this very gospel to the hour of his martyrdom.
This is a fact patent to every reader of the closing chapters of the Gospels, and is freely admitted even by the most advanced skeptics.215
The question now rises whether this inner revolution in the, life of the disciples, with its incalculable effects upon the fortunes of mankind, can be rationally explained without a corresponding outward revolution in the history of Christ; in other words, whether the professed faith of the disciples in the risen Christ was true and real, or a hypocritical lie, or an honest self-delusion.
There are four possible theories which have been tried again and again, and defended with as much learning and ingenuity as can be summoned to their aid. Historical questions are not like mathematical problems. No argument in favor of the resurrection will avail with those critics who start with the philosophical assumption that miracles are impossible, and still less with those who deny not only the resurrection of the body, but even the immortality of the soul. But facts are stubborn, and if a critical hypothesis can be proven to be psychologically and historically impossible and unreasonable, the result is fatal to the philosophy which underlies the critical hypothesis. It is not the business of the historian to construct a history from preconceived notions and to adjust it to his own liking, but to reproduce it from the best evidence and to let it speak for itself.
1. The Historical view, presented by the Gospels and believed in the Christian church of every denomination and sect. The resurrection of Christ was an actual though miraculous event, in harmony with his previous history and character, and in fulfilment of his own prediction. It was a re-animation of the dead body of Jesus by a return of his soul from the spirit-world, and a rising of body and soul from the grave to a new life, which after repeated manifestations to believers during a short period of forty days entered into glory by the ascension to heaven. The object of the manifestations was not only to convince the apostles personally of the resurrection, but to make them witnesses of the resurrection and heralds of salvation to all the world.216
Truth compels us to admit that there are serious difficulties in harmonizing the accounts of the evangelists, and in forming a consistent conception of the nature of Christ’s, resurrection-body, hovering as it were between heaven and earth, and oscillating for forty days between a natural and a supernatural state of the body clothed with flesh and blood and bearing the wound-prints, and yet so spiritual as to appear and disappear through closed doors and to ascend visibly to heaven. But these difficulties are not so great as those which are created by a denial of the fact itself. The former can be measurably solved, the latter cannot. We, do not know all the details and circumstances which might enable us to clearly trace the order of events. But among all the variations the great central fact of the resurrection itself and its principal features "stand out all the more sure."217 The period of the forty days is in the nature of the case the most mysterious in the life of Christ, and transcends all ordinary Christian experience. The Christophanies resemble in some respect, the theophanies of the Old Testament, which were granted only to few believers, yet for the general benefit. At all events the fact of the resurrection furnishes the only key for the solution of the psychological problem of the sudden, radical, and permanent change in the mind and conduct of the disciples; it is the necessary link in the chain which connects their history before and after that event. Their faith in the resurrection was too clear, too strong, too steady, too effective to be explained in any other way. They showed the strength and boldness of their conviction by soon returning to Jerusalem, the post of danger, and founding there, in the very face of the hostile Sanhedrin, the mother-church of Christendom.
2. The Theory of Fraud. The apostles stole and hid the body of Jesus, and deceived the world.218
This infamous lie carries its refutation on its face: for if the Roman soldiers who watched the grave at the express request of the priests and Pharisees, were asleep, they could not see the thieves, nor would they have proclaimed their military crime; if they, or only some of them, were awake, they would have prevented the theft. As to the, disciples, they were too timid and desponding at the time to venture on such a daring act, and too honest to cheat the world. And finally a self-invented falsehood could not give them the courage and constancy of faith for the proclamation of the resurrection at the peril of their lives. The whole theory is a wicked absurdity, an insult to the common sense and honor of mankind.
3. The Swoon-Theory. The physical life of Jesus was not extinct, but only exhausted, and was restored by the tender care of his friends and disciples, or (as some absurdly add) by his own medical skill; and after a brief period he quietly died a natural death.219
Josephus, Valerius Maximus, psychological and medical authorities have been searched and appealed to for examples of such apparent resurrections from a trance or asphyxy, especially on the third day, which is supposed to be a critical turning-point for life or putrefaction.
But besides insuperable physical difficulties—as the wounds and loss of blood from the very heart pierced by the spear of the Roman soldier—this theory utterly fails to account for the moral effect. A brief sickly existence of Jesus in need of medical care, and terminating in his natural death and final burial, without even the glory of martyrdom which attended the crucifixion, far from restoring the faith of the apostles, would have only in the end deepened their gloom and driven them to utter despair.220
4. The Vision-Theory. Christ rose merely in the imagination of his friends, who mistook a subjective vision or dream for actual reality, and were thereby encouraged to proclaim their faith in the resurrection at the risk of death. Their wish was father to the belief, their belief was father to the fact, and the belief, once started, spread with the power of a religious epidemic from person to person and from place to place. The Christian society wrought the miracle by its intense love for Christ. Accordingly the resurrection does not belong to the history of Christ at all, but to the inner life of his disciples. It is merely the embodiment of their reviving faith.
This hypothesis was invented by a heathen adversary in the second century and soon buried out of sight, but rose to new life in the nineteenth, and spread with epidemical rapidity among skeptical critics in Germany, France, Holland and England.221
The advocates of this hypothesis appeal first and chiefly to the vision of St. Paul on the way to Damascus, which occurred several years later, and is nevertheless put on a level with the former appearances to the older apostles (1 Cor. 15:8); next to supposed analogies in the history of religious enthusiasm and mysticism, such as the individual visions of St. Francis of Assisi, the Maid of Orleans, St. Theresa (who believed that she had seen Jesus in person with the eyes of the soul more distinctly than she could have seen him with the eyes of the body), Swedenborg, even Mohammed, and the collective visions of the Montanists in Asia Minor, the Camisards in France, the spectral resurrections of the martyred Thomas à Becket of Canterbury and Savonarola of Florence in the excited imagination of their admirers, and the apparitions of the Immaculate Virgin at Lourdes.222
Nobody will deny that subjective fancies and impressions are often mistaken for objective realities. But, with the exception of the case of St. Paul—which we shall consider in its proper place, and which turns out to be, even according to the admission of the leaders of skeptical criticism, a powerful argument against the mythical or visionary theory—these supposed analogies are entirely irrelevant; for, not to speak of other differences, they were isolated and passing phenomena which left no mark on history; while the faith in the resurrection of Christ has revolutionized the whole world. It must therefore be treated on its own merits as an altogether unique case.
(a) The first insuperable argument against the visionary nature, and in favor of the objective reality, of the resurrection is the empty tomb of Christ. If he did not rise, his body must either have been removed, or remained in the tomb. If removed by the disciples, they were guilty of a deliberate falsehood in preaching the resurrection, and then the vision-hypothesis gives way to the exploded theory of fraud. If removed by the enemies, then these enemies had the best evidence against the resurrection, and would not have failed to produce it and thus to expose the baselessness of the vision. The same is true, of course, if the body had remained in the tomb. The murderers of Christ would certainly not have missed such an opportunity to destroy the very foundation of the hated sect.
To escape this difficulty, Strauss removes the origin of the illusion away off to Galilee, whether the disciples fled; but this does not help the matter, for they returned in a few weeks to Jerusalem, where we find them all assembled on the day of Pentecost.
This argument is fatal even to the highest form of the vision hypothesis, which admits a spiritual manifestation of Christ from heaven, but denies the resurrection of his body.
(b) If Christ did not really rise, then the words which he spoke to Mary Magdalene, to the disciples of Emmaus, to doubting Thomas, to Peter on the lake of Tiberias, to all the disciples on Mount Olivet, were likewise pious fictions. But who can believe that words of such dignity and majesty, so befitting the solemn moment of the departure to the throne of glory, as the commandment to preach the gospel to every creature, to baptize the nations in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and the promise to be with his disciples alway to the end of the world—a promise abundantly verified in the daily experience of the church—could proceed from dreamy and self-deluded enthusiasts or crazy fanatics any more than the Sermon on the Mount or the Sacerdotal Prayer! And who, with any spark of historical sense, can suppose that Jesus never instituted baptism, which has been performed in his name ever since the day of Pentecost, and which, like the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, bears testimony to him every day as the sunlight does to the sun!
(c) If the visions of the resurrection were the product of an excited imagination, it is unaccountable that they should suddenly have ceased on the fortieth day (Acts 1:15), and not have occurred to any of the disciples afterwards, with the single exception of Paul, who expressly represents his vision of Christ as "the last." Even on the day of Pentecost Christ did not appear to them, but, according to his promise, "the other Paraclete" descended upon them; and Stephen saw Christ in heaven, not on earth.223
(d) The chief objection to the vision-hypothesis is its intrinsic impossibility. It makes the most exorbitant claim upon our credulity. It requires us to believe that many persons, singly and collectively, at different times, and in different places, from Jerusalem to Damascus, had the same vision and dreamed the same dream; that the women at the open sepulchre early in the morning, Peter and John soon afterwards, the two disciples journeying to Emmaus on the afternoon of the resurrection day, the assembled apostles on the evening in the absence of Thomas, and again on the next Lord’s Day in the presence of the skeptical Thomas, seven apostles at the lake of Tiberias, on one occasion five hundred brethren at once most of whom were still alive when Paul reported the fact, then James, the brother of the Lord, who formerly did not believe in him, again all the apostles on Mount Olivet at the ascension, and at last the clearheaded, strong-minded persecutor on the way to Damascus—that all these men and women on these different occasions vainly imagined they saw and heard the self-same Jesus in bodily shape and form; and that they were by this baseless vision raised all at once from the deepest gloom in which the crucifixion of their Lord had left them, to the boldest faith and strongest hope which impelled them to proclaim the gospel of the resurrection from Jerusalem to Rome to the end of their lives! And this illusion of the early disciples created the greatest revolution not only in their own views and conduct, but among Jews and Gentiles and in the subsequent history of mankind! This illusion, we are expected to believe by these unbelievers, gave birth to the most real and most mighty of all facts, the Christian Church which has lasted these eighteen hundred years and is now spread all over the civilized world, embracing more members than ever and exercising more moral power than all the kingdoms and all other religions combined!
The vision-hypothesis, instead of getting rid of the miracle, only shifts it from fact to fiction; it makes an empty delusion more powerful than the truth, or turns all history itself at last into a delusion. Before we can reason the resurrection of Christ out of history we must reason the apostles and Christianity itself out of existence. We must either admit the miracle, or frankly confess that we stand here before an inexplicable mystery.
Remarkable Concessions.—The ablest advocates of the vision-theory are driven against their wish and will to admit some unexplained objective reality in the visions of the risen or ascended Christ.
Dr. Baur, of Tübingen (d. 1860), the master-critic among sceptical church historians, and the corypheus of the Tübingen school, came at last to the conclusion (as stated in the revised edition of his Church History of the First Three Centuries, published shortly before his death, 1860) that "nothing but the miracle of the resurrection could disperse the doubts which threatened to drive faith itself into the eternal night of death (Nur das Wunder der Auferstehung konnte die Zweifel zerstreuen, welche den Glauben selbst in die ewige Nacht des Todes verstossen zu müssen schienen)." Geschichte der christlichen Kirche, I. 39. It is true he adds that the nature of the resurrection itself lies outside of historical investigation ("Was die Auferstehung an sich ist, liegt ausserhalb des Kreises der geschichtlichen Untersuchung"), but also, that "for the faith of the disciples the resurrection of Jesus became the most solid and most irrefutable certainty. In this faith only Christianity gained a firm foothold of its historical development. (In diesem Glauben hat erst das Christenthum den festen Grund seiner geschichtlichen Entwicklung gewonnen.) What history requires as the necessary prerequisite of all that follows is not so much the fact of the resurrection itself [?] as the faith in that fact. In whatever light we may consider the resurrection of Jesus, whether as an actual objective miracle or as a subjective psychological one (als ein objectiv geschehenes Wunder, oder als ein subjectiv psychologisches), even granting the possibility of such a miracle, no psychological analysis can penetrate the inner spiritual process by which in the consciousness of the disciples their unbelief at the death of Jesus was transformed into a belief of his resurrection .... We must rest satisfied with this, that for them the resurrection of Christ was a fact of their consciousness, and had for them all the reality of an historical event." (Ibid., pp. 39, 40.) Baur’s remarkable conclusion concerning the conversion of St. Paul (ibid., pp. 44, 45) we shall consider in its proper place.
Dr. Ewald, of Göttingen (d. 1874), the great orientalist and historian of Israel, antagonistic to Baur, his equal in profound scholarship and bold, independent, often arbitrary criticism, but superior in religious sympathy with the genius of the Bible, discusses the resurrection of Christ in his History of the Apostolic Age (Gesch. des Volkes Israel, vol. VI. 52 sqq.), instead of his Life of Christ, and resolves it into a purely spiritual, though long continued manifestation from heaven. Nevertheless he makes the strong statement (p. 69) that "nothing is historically more certain than that Christ rose from the dead and appeared to his own, and that this their vision was the beginning of their new higher faith and of an their Christian labors." "Nichts steht geschichtlich fester," he says, "als dass Christus aus den Todten auferstanden den Seinigen wiederschien und dass dieses ihr wiedersehen der anfang ihres neuen höhern glaubens und alles ihres Christlichen wirkens selbst war. Es ist aber ebenso gewiss dass sie ihn nicht wie einen gewöhnlichen menschen oder wie einen aus dem grabe aufsteigenden schatten oder gespenst wie die sage von solchen meldet, sondern wie den einzigen Sohn Gottes, wie ein durchaus schon übermächtiges und übermenschliches wesen wiedersahen und sich bei späteren zurückerinnerungen nichts anderes denken konnten als dass jeder welcher ihn wiederzusehen gewürdigt sei auch sogleich unmittelbar seine einzige göttliche würde erkannt und seitdem felsenfest daran geglaubt habe. Als den ächten König und Sohn Gottes hatten ihn aber die Zwölfe und andre schon im leben zu erkennen gelernt: der unterschied ist nur der dass sie ihn jetzt auch nach seiner rein göttlichen seite und damit auch als den über den tod siegreichen erkannt zu haben sich erinnerten. Zwischen jenem gemeinen schauen des irdischen Christus wie er ihnen sowohl bekannt war und diesem höhern tieferregten entzückten schauen des himmlischen ist also dock ein innerer zusammenhang, so dass sie ihn auch jetzt in diesen ersten tagen und wochen nach seinem tode nie als den himmlischen Messias geschauet hätten wenn sie ihn nicht schon vorher als den irdischen so wohl gekannt hätten."
Dr. Keim, of Zürich (d. at Giessen, 1879), an independent pupil of Baur, and author of the most elaborate and valuable Life of Christ which the liberal critical school has produced, after giving every possible advantage to the mythical view of the resurrection, confesses that it is, after all, a mere hypothesis and fails to explain the main point. He says (Geschichte Jesu von Nazara, III. 600): "Nach allen diesen Ueberlegungen wird man zugestehen müssen, dass auch die neuerdings beliebt gewordene Theorie nur eine Hypothese ist, welche Einiges erklärt, die Hauptsache nicht erklärt, ja im Ganzen und Grossen das geschichtlich Bezeugte schiefen und hinfälligen Gesichtspunkten unterstellt. Misslingt aber gleichmässig der Versuch, die überlieferte Aufs Auferstehungsgeschichte festzuhalten, wie das Unternehmen, mit Hilfe der paulinischen Visionen eine natürliche Erklärung des Geschehenen aufzubauen, so bleibt für die Geschichte zunächst kein Weg übrig als der des Eingeständnisses, dass die Sagenhaftigkeit der redseligen Geschichte und die dunkle Kürze der glaubwürdigen Geschichte es nicht gestattet, über die räthselhaften Ausgange des Lebens Jesu, so wichtig sie an und für sich und in der Einwirkung auf die Weltgeschichte gewesen sind, ein sicheres unumstössliches Resultat zu geben. Für die Geschichte, sofern sie nur mit benannten evidenten Zahlen und mit Reihen greifbarer anerkannter Ursachen und Wirkungen rechnet, existirt als das Thatsächliche und Zweifellose lediglich der feste Glaube der Apostel, dass Jesus auferstanden, und die ungeheure Wirkung dieses Glaubens, die Christianisirung der Menschheit. On p. 601 he expresses the conviction that "it was the crucified and living Christ who, not as the risen one, but rather as the divinely glorified one (als der wenn nicht Auferstandene, so doch vielmehr himmlisch Verherrlichte), gave visions to his disciples and revealed himself to his society." In his last word on the great problem, Keim, in view of the exhaustion and failure of the natural explanations, comes to the conclusion, that we must either, with Dr. Baur, humbly confess our ignorance, or return to the faith of the apostles who "have seen the Lord" (John 20:25). See the third and last edition of his abridged Geschichte Jesu, Zürich, 1875, p. 362.
Dr. Schenkel, of Heidelberg, who in his Charakterbild Jesu (third ed. 1864, pp. 231 sqq.) had adopted the vision-theory in its higher form as a purely spiritual, though real manifestation from heaven, confesses in his latest work, Das Christusbild der Apostel (1879, p. 18), his inability to solve the problem of the resurrection of Christ, and says: "Niemals wird es der Forschung gelingen, das Räthsel des Auferstehungsglaubens zu ergründen. Nichts aber steht fester in der Geschichte als die Thatsache dieses Glaubens; auf ihm beruht die Stiftung der christlichen Gemeinschaft ... Der Visionshypothese, welche die Christuserscheinungen der Jünger aus Sinnestäuschungen erklären will, die in einer Steigerung des ’Gemüths und Nervenlebens’ ihre physische und darum auch psychische Ursache hatten,... steht vor allem die Grundfarbe der Stimmung in den Jüngern, namentlich in Petrus, im Wege: die tiefe Trauer, das gesunkene Selbstvertrauen, die nagende Gewissenspein, der verlorne Lebensmuth. Wie soll aus einer solchen Stimmung das verklärte Bild des Auferstandenen hervorgehen, mit dieser unverwüstlichen Sicherheit und unzerstörbaren Freudigkeit, durch welche der Auferstehungsglaube die Christengemeinde in allen Stürmen und Verfolgungen aufrecht zu erhalten vermochte?"
Luke 2:52.
Hebr. 5:8, 9.
See Cowper, l.c. pp. 212-214.
Mark 6:2, 3; Matt. 13:54-56; John 7:15.
John 12:32.
Augustine: "Deus; quid gloriosus? Caro; quid vilius? Deus in carne; quid mirabilius?"
On the testimony of Napoleon to the divinity of Christ see the letters of Bersier and Lutteroth appended to the twelfth ed. of my book on the Person of Christ (1882), p. 284, and pp. 219 sqq. Napoleon is reported to have asked the poet Wieland at a court-ball in Weimar, during the Congress of Erfurt, whether he doubted that Jesus ever lived; to which Wieland promptly and emphatically replied in the negative, adding that with equal right a thousand years hence men might deny the existence of Napoleon or the battle of Jena. The emperor smiled and said, très-bien! The question was designed not to express doubt, but to test the poet’s faith. So Dr. Hase reports from the mouth of Chancellor Müller, who heard the conversation. Geschichte Jesu, p. 9.
The fathers distinguish between the Nativity (gevnesi", Matt. 1:18) and the Incarnation (savrkwsi") and identify the Incarnation with the Conception or Annunciation. Since the time of Charlemagne the two terms seem to have been used synonymously. See Ideler, Chronol., ii. 383, and Gieseler, i. 70 (4th Germ. ed.).
Jos., Antiqu., xvii. 8,1: "Herod died ... having reigned since he had procured Antigonus to be slain [a.u. 717, or B.C. 37], thirty-four years, but since he had been declared king by the Romans [a.u. 714, or B.C. 40], thirty-seven." Comp. the same statement in Bell. Jud., i. 33, 8, and other passages.
According to Josephus, Antiqu. xvii. 6, 4: "And that night there was an eclipse of the moon." It is worthy of note that Josephus mentions no other eclipse in any of his works.
Matt. 2:16: pavnta" tou;" paiÀdo" ... ajpo;dietouÀ" kai; katwtevrw kata; ton; crovnon o}n hjkrivbwsen para; twÀn mavgwn.
Tradition has here most absurdly swelled the number of Innocents to 20,000, as indicated on the massive column, which marks the spot of their supposed martyrdom in the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem. XX M[artyres], i.e. martyrs, have become XX M[ilia], i.e. twenty thousands.
Macrob., Sat., ii 4: "Augustus, cum audisset, inter pueros, quos in Syria Herodes, rex Judaeorum, intra bimatum [perhaps taken from Matt. 2:16, Vulg.: a bimatu et infra]jussit interfici, filium quoque eius occisum, ait: melius est Herodis porcum esse quam filium." It is a pun on the similar sounding Greek terms for sow and son (u|" and uiJov"). Kepler already quoted thispassage in confirmation of Matthew.
Tacitus (Hist., v. 13) and Suetonius (Vespas.,c. 4) speak of a widespread expectation of that kind at the time of the Jewish war and before (Suetonius calls it a vetus et constans opinio), but falsely refer it to the Roman emperors Vespasianus and Titus. In this the heathen historians followed Josephus, who well knew and believed the Messianic hopes of his people (comp. Ant., iv. 6, 5; x. 10, 4; 11, 7), and yet was not ashamed basely to betray and pervert them, saying (Bell. Jud. vi. 5, 4): "What did the most to elevate the Jews in undertaking this war, was an ambiguous oracle that was found also in their sacred writings, how ’about that time, one from their country should become governor of the habitable earth.’ The Jews took this prediction to belong to themselves in particular, and many of the wise men were thereby deceived in their determination. Now, this oracle certainly denoted the goverment of Vespasian, who was appointed emperor in Judaea." Comp. Hausrath, N.T. Ztgesch., I. 173. The Messianic hopes continued long after the destruction of Jerusalem. The false Messiah, who led the rebellion under the reign of Hadrian (a.d. 135), called himself Bar-Cochba, i.e. "Son of the Star," and issued coins with a star, in allusion probably to Num. 24:17. When his real character was revealed, his name was turned into Bar-Cosiba, "Son of Falsehood."
In the beginning of his Bericht vom Geburtsjahr Christi (Opera, IV. 204) he describes this new star in these words: "Einungewöhnlicher, sehr heller und schöner Stern ... der wie die schönste, herrlichste Fackel so jemahl mit Augen gesehen worden, wenn sie von einem starken Wind getrieben wird, geflammet und gefunkelt, gerad neben den drey höchsten Planeten Saturno, Jove und Marte." He calls this phenomenon "ein überaus grosses Wunderwerk Gottes." A fuller description of the whole phenomenon he gives in his work De Stella Nova (Opera, II. 575 sqq. and 801 sqq., ed. Frisch). Upham (The Wise Men, N. Y. 1869, p. 145) says: "Tycho de Brahe had observed a similar wonder in the constellation Cassiopeia, on the night of the 11th of October, in the year 1572. These were not luminous bodies within our atmosphere; were not within, or near, the solar system; they were in the region of the fixed stars. Each grew more and more brilliant, till it shone like a planet. Then its lustre waned until it ceased to be visible,—the one in March, 1574, the other in February, 1606. The light was white, then yellow, then red, then dull, and so went out." On temporary stars, see Herschel’s Astronomy, Chap. XII.
The learned Jewish Rabbi Abarbanel, in his Commentary on Daniel (called Ma’jne hajeshuah, i.e."Wells of Salvation,"Isa. 12:3), which was published 1547, more than fifty years before Kepler’s calculation, says that such a conjunction took place three years before the birth of Moses (A.M. 2365), and would reappear before the birth of the Messiah, A.M. 5224 (or a.d. 1463). Ideler and Wieseler conjecture that this astrological belief existed among the Jews already at the time of Christ.
It has been so accepted by Dean Alford and others. See the note in 6th ed. of his Com. on Matt. 2:2 (1868), with the corrections furnished by Rev. C. Pritchard. McClellan (New Test., I, 402) assumes that the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn was premonitory and coincided with the conception of the birth of John the Baptist, Oct. 748, and that Kepler’s new star was Messiah’s star appearing a year later.
Comp. Num. 4:3, 35, 39, 43, 47.
In the new revision the passage, Luke 3:1, 2, is thus translated: "Now in the fifteenth year of the reign (hJgemoniva") of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor (hJgemoneuvonto") of Judaea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, in the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness." The statement must have been quite intelligible to the educated readers of that time.
The different interpretations of aujto;" h|n ajrcovmeno" wJsei; ejtwÀn triavkonta do not alter the result much, but the wJseiv leaves a margin for a few months more or less. Comp. McClellan, I. 404.
He uses the same term of Pontius Pilate (hJgemoneuvonto"). Zumpt, l.c. p. 296, says: "Eigentlich verstanden, bezeichnet hJgemoniva die Würde des militärischen Befehlshabers und des Regenten über die Provinzen. Hätte Lucas ’Augustus Kaiser’ (aujtokravtwr) oder auch nur ’Herrscher’ (a[rcwn) gesagt, so würde man an eine Zählung von Tiberius’ Provincialverwaltung weniger denken können .
Different modes of counting were not unusual, regarding the early Roman emperors, and Herod I. See above, p. 112, Zumpt, l. c. 282 sqq., and Andrews, p. 27. Suetonius (Tib., 33) and Tacitus (Annal., vi. 51) say that Tiberius died in the 23d year of his reign, meaning his sole reign; but there are indications also of the other counting, at least in Egypt and the provinces, where the authority of Tiberius as the active emperor was more felt than in Rome. There are coins from Antioch in Syria of the date a.u. 765, with the head of Tiberius and the inscription, Kaisar. Sebasto" (Augustus). In favor of the computation from the colleagueship are Ussher, Bengel, Lardner, Greswell, Andrews, Zumpt, Wieseler, McClellan; in favor of the computation from the sole reign are Lightfoot, Ewald. Browne. Wieseler formerly held that Luke refers to the imprisonment, and not the beginning of the ministry, of John, but he changed his view; see his art. in Herzog’s " Encykl.,"xxi. 547.
Andrews,l. c. p. 28, thus sums up his investigations upon this point: "We find three solutions of the chronological difficulties which the statements of Luke present: 1st. That the 15th year of Tiberius is to be reckoned from the death ot Augustus, and extends from August, 781, to August, 782. In this year the Baptist, whose labors began some time previous, was imprisoned; but the Lord’s ministry began in 780, before this imprisonment, and when he was about thirty years of age. 2d. That the 15th year is to be reckoned from the death of Augustus, but that the statement, the Lord was about thirty years of age, is to be taken in a large sense, and that he may have been of any age from thirty to thirty-five when he began he labors. 3d. That the 15th year is to be reckoned from the year when Tiberius was associated with Augustus in the empire, and is therefore the year 779. In this case the language, ’he was about thirty,’ may be strictly taken, and the statement, ’the word of God came unto John,’ may be referred to the beginning of his ministry."
Hase (Gesch. Jesu, p. 209) strangely defends the Dionysian era, but sacrifices the date of Matthew, together with the whole history of the childhood of Jesus. Against the view of Keim see Schürer, p. 242.
See the literature till 1874 in Schürer, p. 262, who devotes 24 pages to this subject. The most important writers on the census of Quirinius are Huschke (a learned jurist, in 2 treatises, 1840 and 1847), Wieseler (1843 and 1869), and Zumpt (1854 and 1869). Comp, also the article "Taxing," by Dr. Plumptre, supplemented by Dr. Woolsey, in Smith’s "Bible Dictionary" (Hackett and Abbot’s ed.), IV. 3185, and J. B. McClellan, New Test., I. 392.
This is the proper meaning of the original (according to the last text of Tischendorf, Westcott and Hort, who with B D omit the article hJ) au[th ajpografh; prwvth ejgevneto hJgemoneuvonto" th'" Suriva" Kurhnivou. Vulg.:Haec descriptio prima facta est a praeside Syriae Cyrino.The English version, " this taxing was first made when,"is ungrammatical, and would require prw'ton, or, prw'ta instead of prwvth. Luke either meant to say that there was no previous enrolment in Judea, or, more probably had in his mind a second enrolment made under Quirinius at his second governorship, which is noticed by him in Acts 5:37, and was well known to his readers. See below. Quirinius (Kurhvnio") is the proper spelling (Strabo, Josephus, Tacitus, Justin M)—not Quirinus, which was also a Roman name; hence the confusion. (See Weiss, in the 6th ed. of Meyer on Luke, p. 286.) His full name was Publius Sulpicius Quirinius (Tacitus, Annal., iii 48; Suetonius, Tiber., 49). He was consul a.u. 742, at the head of an army in Africa, 747, and died in Rome, a.d. 21. Josephus speaks of him at the beginning of the 18th book of his Archael. See, a full account of him in Zumpt, pp. 43-71.
Ulpian, quoted by Zumpt, Geburtsjahr Christi, p. 203 sq.
Josephus, Antiqu., xvii. 13, 5; xviii. 1, 1. The census here referred to is evidently the same which Luke means in Acts 5:37: "After this man arose Judas the Galilaean in the days of the enrolment." Josephus calls him "Judas, a Gaulanite," because he was of Gamala in lower Gaulanitis; but in Ant., xx. 5, 2, and Bell. Jud., ii. 8, 1, he calls him likewise a Galilaean. In this case, then, Luke is entirely correct, and it is extremely improbable that a writer otherwise so well informed as Luke should have confounded two enrolments which were ten years apart.
The usual solution of the difficulty is to give prwvth the sense of protevra before Quirinius was governor; as prw'tov" tino" is used (though not in connection with a participle) in the sense of prior to, John 1:15, 30; 15:18. So Ussher, Huschke, Tholuck, Wieseler, Caspari, Ewald. But this would have been more naturally and clearly expressed by privn or pro; touÀ hJgemeneuvein (as in Luke 2:21; 12:15; Acts 23:15). Paulus, Ebrard, Lange, Godet, and others accentuate authv (ipsa) and explain: The decree of the census was issued at the time of Christ’s birth, but the so-called first census itself did not take place till the governorship of Quirinius (ten years later). Impossible on account of Lk 2:3, which reports the execution of the decree, Lk 2:1. Browne (p. 46) and others understand hJgemoneuvein in a wider sense, so as to include an extraordinary commission of Quirinius as legatus Caesaris.
Annal., iii. 48, as interpreted by A. W. Zumpt in a Latin dissertation: De Syria Romanorum provincia ab Caesare Augusto ad T. Vespasianum, in Comment. Epigraph., Berol. 1854, vol. ii. 88-125, and approved by Mommsen in Res gesstae divi Augusti, 121-124. Zumpt has developed his views more fully in Das Geburtsjahr Christi, 1869, pp. 1-90. Ussher, Sanclemente, Ideler (II. 397), and Browne (p. 46) had understood Tacitus in the same way.
First published at Florence, 1765, then by Sanclemente (De vulg. aerae Emendat. Rom. 1793), and more correctly by Bergmann and Mommsen: De inscriptione Latina, ad P. Sulpicium Quirinium referenda, Berol. 1851. Mommsen discussed it again in an appendix to Res gestae Augusti, Berol. 1865, pp. 111-126. The inscription is defective, and reads: "... Pro. Consul. Asiam. Provinciam. Op[tinuit legatus]. Divi. Augusti[i]terum i.e., again, a second time]. Syriam. Et. Ph[oenicem administravit, or, obtinuit]. The name is obliterated. Zumpt refers it to C. Sentius Saturninus (who preceded Quirinius, but is not known to have been twice governor of Syria), Bergmann, Mommsen, and Merivale to Quirinius (as was done by Sanclemente in 1793, and by Ideler, 1826). Nevertheless Mommsen denies any favorable bearing of the discovery on the solution of the difficulty in Luke, while Zumpt defends the substantial accuracy of the evangelist.
Josephus, Antiqu., xvii. 11, 1; Tacitus, Hist., v. 9: "post mortem Herodis ... Simo quidam regium nomen invaserat; is a Quintilio Vare obtinento Syriam punitus," etc.
.Three censuses, held a.u. 726, 748, and 767, are mentioned on the monument of Ancyra; one in Italy, 757, by Dion Cassius; others in Gaul are assigned to 727, 741, 767; Tertullian, who was a learned lawyer, speaks of one in Judaea under Sentius Saturninus, a.u. 749; and this would be the one which must be meant by Luke. See Gruter, Huschke, Zumpt, Plumptre, l. c.
Suetonius, Aug. 28, 101; Tacitus, Annal., i. 11; Dio Cassius, lii. 30; Ivi. 33. The breviarium contained, according to Tacitus: "opes publicae quantum civium sociorumque in armis [which would include Herod], quot classes, regna, provinciae, tributa aut vectigalia, et necessitates ac largitiones. Quae cuncta sua manu perscripserat Augustus, addideratque consilium coërcendi intra terminos imperii, incertum metu anper invidiam"
Joseph. Ant. xvi. 9, § 4. Comp. Marquardt, Röm. Staatsverwaltung, I.249.
Such a decree has been often inferred from the passages of Suetonius and Tacitus just quoted. The silence of Josephus is not very difficult to explain, for he does not profess to give a history of the empire, is nearly silent on the period from a.u. 750-760, and is not as impartial a historian as Luke, nor worthy of more credit. Cassiodorus (Variarum, iii. 52) and Suidas (s. v., ajpografhv) expressly assert the fact of a general census, and add several particulars which are not derived from Luke; e.g. Suidas says that Augustus elected twenty commissioners of high character and sent them to all parts of the empire to collect statistics of population as well as of property, and to return a portion to the national treasury. Hence Huschke, Wieseler, Zumpt, Plumptre, and McClellan accept their testimony as historically correct (while Schürer derives it simply from Luke, without being able to account for these particulars). Wieseler quotes also John Malala, the historian of Antioch, as saying, probablyon earlier authorities, that "Augustus, in the 39th year and 10th month of his reign [i.e. B.C. 5 or 6] issued a decree for a general registration throughout the empire." Julius Caesar had begun a measurement of the whole empire, and Augustus completed it.
Not to be confounded with L. Volusius Saturninus, who is known, from coins, to have been governor of Syria a.u. 758 (a.d. 4).
Adv. Marc. iv. 19: "Sed et census constat actos sub Augusto tunc in Judaea per Sentium Saturninum, apud quos genus ejus inquirere potuissent."
Zumpt, the classical scholar and archaeologist, concludes (p. 223) that there is nothing in Luke’s account which does not receive, from modern research,"full historical probability" ("volle historische Wahrscheinlichkeit"); while Schürer, the theologian, still doubts (Matt. 28:17). Dr. Woolsey (s. v."Cyrenius," in "Smith’s Bible Dict.," Hackett and Abbot’s ed., p. 526), decides that "something is gained." In the art. "Taxing" he says that a registration of Judaea made under the direction of the president of Syria by Jewish officers would not greatly differ from a similar registration made by Herod, and need not have alarmed the Jews if carefully managed.
Antiqu. xv. 11, 1: "And now Herod, in the eighteenth year of his reign (ojktwkaidekavton thÀs JHrwvdon basileiva" ejniautou') ... undertook a very great work, that is, to build of himself the temple of God, and to raise it to a most magnificent altitude, as esteeming it to be the most glorious of all his actions, as it really was, to bring it to perfection, and that this would be sufficient for an everlasting memorial of him."
Bell. Jud. I. 21, pentekaidekavtw/ e[tei thÀ" basileiva" aujto;n de; to;n nao;" ejpeskeuvase
Adv. Jud. c. 8: "Huius [Tiberii] quinto decimo anno imperii passus est Christus, annos habens quasi triginta, cum pateretur .... Quae passio huius exterminii intra tempora LXX hebdomadarum perfecta est sub Tiberio Caesare, Consulibus Rubellio Gemino Et Fufio Gemino, mense Martio, temporibus paschae, die VIII Kalendarum Aprilium, die prima azymorum, quo agnum occiderunt ad vesperam, sicuti a Moyse fuerat praeceptum." Lactantius(De Mort. Persec. 2; De Vera Sap. 10) and Augustine make the same statement (De Civit. Dei, I xviii. c. 54: "Mortuus est Christus duobus Geminis Consulibus, octavo Kalendas Aprilis "). Zumpt assigns much weight to this tradition, pp. 268 sqq.
As in Switzerland the herds are driven to the mountain pastures in May and brought home in August or September.
The latest learned advocate of the traditional date is John Brown McClellan, who tries to prove that Christ was born Dec. 25, a.u. 749 (B.C. 5). See his New Test., etc. vol. I. 390 sqq.
Adv. Haer. II. c. 22, § 4-6.
This shows conclusively how uncertain patristic traditions are as to mere facts.
John 8:57. Irenaeus reasons that the Jews made the nearest approach to the real age, either from mere observation or from knowledge of the public records, and thus concludes: "Christ did not therefore preach only for one year, nor did he suffer in the twelfth month of the year; for the period included between the thirtieth and the fiftieth year can never be regarded as one year, unless indeed, among their aeons [he speaks of the Gnostics] there be such long years assigned to those who sit in their ranks with Bythos in thePleroma."
Comp. Matt. 4:12; 23:37; Mark 1:14; Luke 4:14; 10:38; 13:34.
John 2:13, 23; 6:4; 11:55; 12:1; 13:1. The Passover mentioned 6:4 Christ did not attend, because the Jews sought to kill him (7:1; comp. 5:18).
John 5:1 if we read the article hj before eJorth; twÀn jIoudivwn. See below.
Isa. 61:2; comp. Luke 4:14.
Exod. 12:5.
Keim, I. 130.
Henry Browne who, in his Ordo Saeclorum (pp.80 sqq.), likewise defends the one year’s ministry, in part by astronomical calculations, is constrained to eliminate without any MSS. authority to ;pavsca from John 6:4, and to make the eJorthv there mentioned to be the same as that in 7:2, so that John would give the feasts of one year only, in regular chronological order, namely, the Passover 2:13 in March, the Pentecost 5:1 in May, the Feast of Tabernacles 6:4; 7:2 in September, the Feast of Dedication 10:22 in December, the Passover of the Crucifixion in March.
The definite article before "feast, (hJ eJorthv ) which is supported by the Sinaitic MS. and adopted by Tischendorf (ed. viii.), favors the view that the feast was the Passover,the great feast of the Jews. The reading without the article, which has the weight of the more critical Vatican Ms, and is preferred by Lachmann, Tregelles, Westcott and Hort, and by the Revision of the E. V., favors the view that it was Pentecost, or Purim, or some other subordinate feast. (On the grammatical question comp. Thayer’s Winer, p. 125, and Moulton’s Winer, p. 155.) In all other passages John gives the name of the feast (to; pavsca John 2:13; 6:4; 11:55; hJ skhvnophgiva 7:2; ta; ejgkaivnia 10:22). It is objected that Jesus would not be likely to attend the patriotic and secular feast of Purim, which was not a temple feast and required no journey to Jerusalem, while he omitted the next Passover (John 6:4) which was of divine appointment and much more solemn; but the objection is not conclusive, since he attended other minor festivals (John 7:2; 10:22) merely for the purpose of doing good.
Luke 13:6-9.Bengel, Hengstenberg, Wieseler, Weizäcker, Alford Wordsworth, Andrews, McClellan.
By Eusebius (H. E., I. 10), Theodoret (in Dan. ix.), Robinson, Andrew, , McClellan, Gardiner, and many others. On the other hand Jerome, Wieseler, and Tischendorf hold the tripaschal theory. Jerome says (on Isaiah 29, in Migne’s ed. of the Opera, IV. 330): "Scriptum est in Evangelio secundum Joannem, per tria Pascha Dominum venisse in Jerusalem, quae duos annos efficiunt."
W. E. H. Lecky: History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne (1869) vol. II. p. 9. He adds: "Amid all the sins and failings, amid all the priestcraft and persecution and fanaticism that have defaced the Church, it has preserved, in the character and example of its Founder, an enduring principle of regeneration."
Mark 15:42; Matt. 27:62; Luke 23:54; John 19:14. Friday is called Preparation-day (paraskeuhv), because the meals for the Sabbath were prepared on the sixth day, as no fires were allowed to be kindled on the Sabbath (Ex. 16:5).
Matt. 26:17, 20; Mark 14:12; Luke 22:7, 15. Comp. John 18:9, 40.
Ex. 12:6; Lev. 23 5; Num. 9:3, 5. If the phrase "between the two evenings" (syIB'r][h; wy]Be) could be taken to mean between the evening of the 14th and the evening of the 15th of Nisan, we should have twenty-four hours for the slaying and eating of the paschal lambs, and the whole difficulty between John and the Synoptists would disappear. We could easier conceive also the enormous number of 270,000 lambs which, according to the statement of Josephus, had to be sacrificed. But that interpretation is excluded by the fact that the same expression is used in the rules about the daily evening sacrifice (Ex. 29:39, 41; Num. 28:4).
John 13:1; 13:29; 18:28 19:14.
John 13:1 "before the feast of the Passover" does not mean a day before (which would have been so expressed, comp, 12:1), but a short time before, and refers to the commencement of the 15th of Nisan. The passage, 13:29: "Buy what things we have need of for the feast," causes no difficulty if we remember that Jesus sat down with his disciples before the regular hour of the Passover (13:1), so that there was time yet for the necessary purchases. The passage on the contrary affords a strong argument against the supposition that the supper described by John took place a full day before the Passover; for then there would have been no need of such haste for purchases as the apostles understood Christ to mean when he said to Judas."That thou doest, do quickly" (13:27). In John 18:28 it is said that the Jews went not into the Praetorium of the heathen Pilate "that they might not be defiled, but might eat the Passover; " but this was said early in the morning, at about 3 A. M., when the regular paschal meal was not yet finished in the city; others take the word Passover "here in an unusual sense so as to embrace the chagigah ( j'gygÉh) or festive thank-offerings during the Passover week, especially on the fifteenth day of Nisan (comp. 2 Chr. 30:22); at all events it cannot apply to the paschal supper on the evening of the fifteenth of Nisan, for the defilement would have ceased after sunset, and could therefore have been no bar to eating the paschal supper (Lev. 15:1-18; 22:1-7). " The Preparation of the Passover,"hJ paraskeuh; touÀ pavsca, John 19:14, is not the day preceding the Passover (Passover Eve), but, as clearly in 19:31 and 42, the preparation day of the Passover week, i.e. the Paschal Friday; paraskeuhv being the technical term for Friday as the preparation day for the Sabbath, the fore-Sabbath, prosavbbaton, Mark 15:42 (comp. the German Sonnabend for Saturday, Sabbath-eve, etc.). For a fuller examination of the respective passages, see my edition of Lange on Matthew (pp. 454 sqq.), and on John (pp. 406, 415, 562, 569). Lightfoot, Wieseler, Lichtenstein, Hengstenberg, Ebrard (in the third ed. of his Kritik. 1868), Lange, Kirchner, Keil, Robinson, Andrews, Milligan, Plumptre and McClellan take the same view; while Lücke, Bleek, DeWette, Meyer, Ewald, Stier, Beyschlag, Greswell, Ellicott, Farrar, Mansel and Westcott maintain that Christ was crucified on the fourteenth of Nisan, and either assume a contradiction between John and the Synoptists (which in this case seems quite impossible), or transfer the paschal supper of Christ to the preceding day, contrary to law and custom. John himself clearly points to the fifteenth of Nisan as the day of the crucifixion, when he reports that the customary release of a prisoner " at the Passover"(ejn tw/À pavsca) was granted by Pilate on the day of crucifixion, John 18:39, 40. The critical and cautious Dr. Robinson says (Harmony, p. 222): " After repeated and calm consideration, there rests upon my own mind a clear conviction, that there is nothing in the language of John, or in the attendant circumstances, which upon fair interpretation requires or permits us to believe, that the beloved disciple either intended to correct, or has in fact corrected or contradicted, the explicit and unquestionable testimony of Matthew, Mark and Luke."Comp. also among the more recent discussions Mor. Kirchner: Die jüd. Passahfeier und Jesu letztes Mahl (Gotha, 1870); McClellan: N. Test. (1875), I. 473 sqq., 482 sqq.; Keil: Evang. des Matt. (Leipz. 1877), pp. 513 sqq.
The answer to this objection is well presented by Dr. Robinson, Harmony p. 222, and Keil, Evang. des Matt., pp. 522 sqq. The Mishna prescribes that "on Sabbaths and festival days no trial or judgment may be held;" but on the other hand it contains directions and regulations for the meetings and actions of the Sanhedrin on the Sabbaths, and executions of criminals were purposely reserved to great festivals for the sake of stronger example. In our case, the Sanhedrin on the day after the crucifixion, which was a Sabbath and "a great day," applied to Pilate for a watch and caused the sepulchre to be sealed, Matt. 27:62 sq.
See Wieseler, Chronol. Synopse, p. 446, and in Herzog, vol. XXI. 550; and especially the carefully prepared astronomical tables of new and full moons by Prof. Adams, in McClellan, I. 493, who devoutly exults in the result of the crucial test of astronomical calculation which makes the very heavens, after the roll of centuries, bear witness to the harmony of the Gospels.
Well says Hausrath (Preface to 2nd ed. of vol. I. p. ix) against the mythical theory: "Für die poëtische Welt der religiösen Sage ist innerhalb einer rein historischen Darstellung kein Raum; ihre Gebilde verbleichen vor einem geschichtlich hellen Hintergrund .... Wenn wir die heilige Geschichte als Bruchstück einer allgemeinen Geschichte nachweisen und zeigen können, wie die Ränder passen, wenn wir die abgerissenen Fäden, die sie mit der profanen Welt verbanden, wieder aufzufinden vermögen, dann ist die Meinung ausgeschlossen, diese Geschichte sei der schöne Traum eines späteren Geschlechtes gewesen."
The average length of Palestine is 150 miles, the average breadth east and west of the Jordan to the Mediterranean, from 80 to 90 miles, the number of square miles from 12,000 to 13,000. The State of Maryland has 11,124, Switzerland 15,992, Scotland 30,695 English square miles.
The tradition, which locates the Temptation on the barren and dreary mount Quarantania, a few miles northwest of Jericho, is of late date. Paul also probably went, after his conversion, as far as Mount Sinai during the three years of repose and preparation "in Arabia,"Gal. 1:17, comp. 4:24.
W. Hepworth Dixon (The Holy Land, ch. 14) ingeniously pleads for the traditional cave, and the identity of the inn of the Nativity with the patrimony of Boaz and the home of David.
We add the vivid description of Renan (Vie de Jésus, Ch. II. p. 25) from personal observation: "Nazareth was a small town, situated in a fold of land broadly open at the summit of the group of mountains which closes on the north the plain of Esdraëlon. The population is now from three to four [probably five to six] thousand, and it cannot have changed very much. It is quite cold in winter and the climate is very healthy. The town, like all the Jewish villages of the time, was a mass of dwellings built without style, and must have presented the same poor and uninteresting appearance as the villages in Semitic countries. The houses, from all that appears, did not differ much from those cubes of stone, without interior or exterior elegance, which now cover the richest portion of the Lebanon, and which, in the midst of vines and fig-trees, are nevertheless very pleasant. The environs, moreover, are charming, and no place in the world was so well adapted to dreams of absolute happiness (nul endroit du monde ne fut si bien fait pour les rêves de l’absolu bonheur). Even in our days, Nazareth is a delightful sojourn, the only place perhaps in Palestine where the soul feels a little relieved of the burden which weighs upon it in the midst of this unequalled desolation. The people are friendly and good-natured; the gardens are fresh and green. Antonius Martyr, at the end of the sixth century, draws an enchanting picture of the fertility of the environs, which he compares to paradise. Some valleys on the western side fully justify his description. The fountain about which the life and gayety of the little town formerly centered, has been destroyed; its broken channels now give but a turbid water. But the beauty of the women who gathered there at night, this beauty which was already remarked in the sixth century, and in which was seen the gift of the Virgin Mary, has been surprisingly well preserved. It is the Syrian type in all its languishing grace. There is no doubt that Mary was there nearly every day and took her place, with her urn upon her shoulder, in the same line with her unremembered countrywomen. Antonius Martyr remarks that the Jewish women, elsewhere disdainful to Christians, are here full of affability. Even at this day religious animosities are less intense at Nazareth than elsewhere." Comp. also the more elaborate description in Keim, I. 318 sqq., and Tobler’s monograph on Nazareth, Berlin, 1868.
Josephus no doubt greatly exaggerates when he states that there were no less than two hundred and four towns and villages in Galilee (Vita, c. 45, diakovsiai kai; tevssare" kata; th;n Galilaivan eijsi; povlei" kai; kwÀmai), and that the smallest of those villages contained above fifteen thousand inhabitants (Bell. Jud. III. 3, 2). This would give us a population of over three millions for that province alone, while the present population of all Palestine and Syria scarcely amounts to two millions, or forty persons to the square mile (according to Bädeker, Pal. and Syria, 1876, p. 86).
Matt. 11:20-24; Luke 10:13-15.
Comp. Fr. Delitzsch: Ein Tag in Capernaum, 2d ed. 1873; Furrer: Die Ortschaften am See Genezareth, in the "Zeitschrift des deutschen Palaestina-Vereins," 1879, pp. 52 sqq.: my article on Capernaum, ibid. 1878, pp. 216 sqq. and in the "Quarterly Statement of the Palestine Exploration Fund" for July, 1879, pp. 131 sqq., with the observations thereon by Lieut. Kitchener, who agrees with Dr. Robinson in locating Capernaum Khan Minyeh, although there are no ruins there at all to be compared with those of Tell Hum.
The present mongrel population of Jerusalem—Moslems, Jews, and Christians of all denominations, though mostly Greek—scarcely exceeds 30,000, while at the time of Christ it must have exceeded 100,000, even if we make a large deduction from the figures of Josephus, who states that on a Passover under the governorship of Cestius Gallus 256,500 paschal lambs were slain, and that at the destruction of the City, a.d. 70, 1,100,000 Jews perished and 97,000 were sold into slavery (including 600,000 strangers who had crowded into the doomed city). Bell. Jud. vi. 9, 3.
Matt. 28:6.
Matt. 24:2; Mark 13:2; Luke 19:44.
Renan sums up the results of his personal observations as director of the scientific commission for the exploration of ancient Phoenicia in 1860 and 1861, in the following memorable confession (Vie de Jêsus, Introd. p. liii.)."J’ai traversê dans tous les sens la province évangelique; j’ai visitê Jérusalem, Hêbron et la Samarie;presque aucune localité importante de l’histoire de Jésus ne m’a échappé. Toute cette histoire qui, à distance, semble flotter dans les nuages d’un monde sans réalité, prit ainsi un corps, une solidité qui m’étonnèrent. L’accord frappant des textes et des lieux, la merveilleuse harmonie de l’idéal évangélique avec le paysage qui lui servit de cadre furent pour moi comme une révélation. J’eus devant les yeux un cinquième évangile, lacéré, mais lisible encore, et désormais, à travers les récits de Matthieu et de Marc, au lieu d’un être abstrait, qu’on dirait n’avoir jamais existé, je vis une admirable figure humaine vivre, se mouvoir." His familiarity with the Orient accounts for the fact that this brilliant writer leaves much more historical foundation for the gospel history than his predecessorStrauss, who never saw Palestine.
Matt. 8:5-13; 15:21-28; Luke 7:1-9.
John 4:5-42; Luke 10:30-37.
John 12:20-32
Matt. 10:5, 6; 15:14.
Josephus, Bell. Jud. III. c. 3, § 2: "These two Galilees, of so great largeness, and encompassed with so many nations of foreigners, have been always able to make a strong resistance on all occasions of war; for the Galileans are inured to war from their infancy, and have been always very numerous; nor hath the country ever been destitute of men of courage, or wanted a numerous set of them: for their soil is universally rich and fruitful, and full of the plantations of trees of all sorts, insomuch that it invites the most slothful to take pains in its cultivation by its fruitfulness: accordingly it is all cultivated by its inhabitants, and no part of it lies idle. Moreover, the cities lie here very thick, and the very many villages there are so full of people, by richness of their soil, that the very least of them contained above fifteen thousand inhabitants (?)."
John 1:46;.7:52; Matt. 4:16. The Sanhedrists forgot in their blind passion that Jonah was from Galilee. After the fall of Jerusalem Tiberias became the headquarters of Hebrew learning and the birthplace of the Talmud.
rJabbiv from br' or with the suff yBir' My prince, lord, kujrio") sixteen times in the N. T.,. rJabboniv orrJabbouniv twice; didavskalo" (variously rendered in the E. V. teacher, doctor, and mostly master) about forty times; ejpistavth"(rendered master) six times, kaqhghthv" (rendered master) once in Matt. 23:10 (the text rec. also 10:8, where didavskalo" is the correct reading). Other designations of these teachers in the N. T. are grammatei'" , nomikoiv, nomodidavskaloi. Josephus calls them sofistaiv, iJerogrammatei'", patrivwn ejxhghtai; novmwn, the Mishna symikj} and syrip]/s scholars. See Schürer, p. 441.
Matt. 23:8; comp. Mark 12:38, 39; Luke 11:43; 20:46.
The same, however, was the case with Greek and Roman teachers before Vespasian, who was the first to introduce a regular salary. I was told in Cairo that the professors of the great Mohammedan University likewise teach gratuitously.
Ecclesiasticus 38:24-34: "The wisdom of a learned man cometh by opportunity of leisure; and he that hath little business shall become wise. How can he get wisdom that holdeth the plough," etc.
See FR. Delitzsch: Jüdisches Handwerkerleben zur Zeit Jesu. Erlangen, third ed. revised, 1879. He states (p. 77) that more than one hundred Rabbis who figure in the Talmud carried on a trade and were known by it, as R. Oshaja the shoemaker, R. Abba the tailor, R. Juda the baker, R. Abba Josef the architect, R. Chana the banker, R. Abba Shaul the grave-digger, R. Abba Oshaja the fuller, R. Abin the carpenter, etc. He remarks (p. 23): "The Jews have always been an industrious people and behind no other in impulse, ability and inventiveness for restless activity; agriculture and trade were their chief occupations before the dissolution of their political independence; only in consequence of their dispersion and the contraction of their energies have they become a people of sharpers and peddlers and taken the place of the old Phoenicians." But the talent and disposition for sharp bargains was inherited from their father Jacob, and turned the temple of God into "a house of merchandise." Christ charges the Pharisees with avarice which led them to "devour widows’ houses." Comp. Matt. 23:14; Mark 12:40; Luke 16:14; 20:47.
Mark 6:3 Jesus is called, by his neighbors, "the carpenter"oJ tevktwn), Matt. 13:55 "the carpenter’s son."
Luke 8:3 Matt. 27:55; Mark 15:41; John 13:29. Among the pious women who ministered to Jesus was also Joanna, the wife of Chuzas, King Herod’s steward. To her may be traced the vivid circumstantial description of the dancing scene at Herod’s feast and the execution of John the Baptist, Mark 6:14-29.
Acts 18:3; 20:33-35; 1 Thess. 2:9; 2 Thess. 3:8; 2 Cor. 11:7-9.
John 18:20. Comp. Matt. 4:23; 9:35; 21:23; 26:55; Mark 1:21, 39; 14:49; Luke 2:46; 4:14-16, 31, 44; 13:10; 21:37.
Acts 13:14-16; 16:13; 17:2, 3.
Luke 2:46; 5:17; Matt. 5:1; 26:55; John 8:2; Acts 22:3 ("at the feet of Gamaliel").
Josephus often speaks of this. C. Ap. I. 12: "More than all we are concerned for the education of our youth (paidotrofiva), and we consider the keeping of the laws (to; fulavttein tou;" novmou") and the corresponding piety (th;n kata; touvtou" paradedomevnhn eujsevbeian) to be the most necessary work of life."Comp. II. 18; Ant. IV. 8, 12. To the same effect is the testimony of Philo, Legat. ad Cajum. § 16. 31, quoted by Schürer, p. 467.
2 Tim, 1:5; 3:15; comp. Eph. 6:4.
Vita, § 2.
Schürer, p. 468; and Ginsburg, art. Education, in Kitto’s "Cyc. of Bibl. Liter.," 3d ed.
Acts 6:9 for the freedmen and the Hellenists and proselytes from different countries. Rabbinical writers estimate the number of synagogues in Jerusalem as high as 480 (i.e. 4 x 10 x 12), which seems incredible.
Luke 4:16-22.
Acts 2:8-12.
Comp. the description of King Josiah’s Passover, 2 Chr. 35:1-19.
The Rabbinical scholasticism reminds one of the admirable description of logic in Goethe’s Faust:
"Wer will was Lebendig’s erkennen und beschreiben,
Sucht erst den Geist hinauszutreiben;
Dann hat er die Theile in seiner Hand,
Fehlt leider! nur das geistige Band."
Matt. 15:2, 3, 6; Mark 7:3, 5, 8, 9, 13. It is significant that Christ uses the word paravdosi"always in a bad sense of such human doctrines and usages as obscure and virtually set aside the sacred Scriptures. Precisely the same charge was applied by the Reformers to the doctrines of the monks and schoolmen of their day.
Matt. 16:21-23; Mark 8:31-33; Luke 9:22, 44, 45; 18:34; 24:21 John 12:34.
See, of older works, Schöttgen, Horae Hebraicae et Talmudicae tom. II. (De Messia), of modern works, Schürer, l.c. pp. 563-599, with the literature there quoted; also James Drummond, The Jewish Messiah,Lond. 1877.
Matt. 18:1-6; comp. Mark 10:13-16; Luke 18:15-17.
Matt. 11:25-30. This passage, which is found only in Matthew and (in part) in Luke 10:21, 22, is equal to any passage in John. It is a genuine echo of this word when Schiller sings:
"Was kein Verstand der Verständigen sieht,
Das übet in Einfalt ein kindlich Gemüth."
John 1:32-34; comp. 3:34.
Matt. 26:64; John l8:37; Luke23:43.
Luke 9:58; 19:10; Matt. 18:11; 20:17, 28; Mark 2:10, 28; John 1:51; 6:53, and many other passages. The term oJ uiJov" touÀ ajnqrwvpou occurs about 80 times in the Gospels. On its meaning comp. my book on the Person of Christ, pp. 83 sqq. (ed. of 1880).
Matt 16:20-23; Mark 8:30-33; Luke 9:21-27.
208 Acts 2:24, 32; Rom. 6:4; l0:9; 1 Cor. 15:15; Eph. 1:20; 1 Pet. 1:21.
209 John 2:19; 10:17, 18. In like manner the first advent of the Lord is represented as his own voluntary act and as a mission from the Father, John 8:42: ejgwV ejk teou~ ejxh~lqen KaiV hJvkw; oujdeV gaVr ajpj ejmautou~ ejlhvluqa, ajll! ejkei'novvv" me
ajpevsteilen.)
210 Rom. 6:9, 10. Neander (Leben Jesu, pp. 596 and 597 of the 6th Germ. ed.) makes some excellent remarks on this inseparable connection between the resurrection and the ascension, and says that the asc ension would stand fast as a supernatural fact even if Luke had not said a word about it. A temporary resurrection followed by another death could never have become the foundation of a church.
211 1 Cor. 15:13-19; comp. Rom. 4:25, where Paul represents Christ’s death and resurrection in inseparable connection, as the sum and substance of the whole gospel.
212 Ewald makes the striking remark (VI. 90) that the resurrection is "the culmination of all the miraculous events which are conceivable from the beginning of history to its close."
213 Matt. 16:21-23; 17:9, 22, 23; 20:17-20; Mark 8:31; 9:9, 10, 31, 32 ("they understood not that saying, and were afraid to ask him"); Luke 9:22, 44, 45; 18:31-34; 24:6-8; John 2:21, 22; 3:14; 8:28; 10:17, 18; 12:32.
214 The devoted women went to the sepulchre on the first Christian Sabbath, not to see it empty but to embalm the body with spices for its long rest, Mark 16:1; Luke 23:56; and when they told the eleven what they saw, their words seemed to them "as idle talk," and "they disbelieved them," Luke 24:11. Comp. Matt. 28:17 ("some doubted"); Mark 16: 8 ("they were afraid"); John 20:25.
215 Dr. Baur states the contrast tersely thus: "Zwischen dem Tod [Jesu]und seiner Auferstehung liegt ein so tiefes undurchdringliches Dunkel, dass man nach so gewaltsam zerrissenem und so wundervoll wiederhergestelltem Zusammenhange sich gleichsam auf einem neuen Schauplatz der Geschichte sieht."Compare his remarks at the close of this section. Dr. Ewald describes the depression and sudden exaltation of the disciples more fully with his usual force (vol. vi. 54 sqq.). I will quote also the description of Renan, at the beginning of the first chapter of his work, Les Apôtres: "Jésus, quoique parlant sans cesse de résurrection, de nouvelle vie, n’avait jamais dit bien clairement qu’il ressusciterait en sa chair. Les disciples, (dans les premières heures qui suivirent sa mort, n’avaient à cet égard aucune espérance arrétée. Les sentimentsdont ils nous font la naive confidence supposent méme qu’ils croyaient tout fini. Ils pleurent et enterrent leur ami, sinon comme un mort vulgaire, du moins comme une personne dont la perte est irréparable (Marc 16:10; Luc 24:17, 21) ils sont tristes et abattus; l’espoir qu’ils avaient eu de le voir realiser le salut d’Israël est convaincu de vanité; on dirait des hommes qui ont perdu une grande et chère illusion. Mais l’ enthousiasme et l’amour ne connaissent par les situations sans issue. Ils se jouentde l’impossible, et plutot que d’abdiquer l’espérance, ils font violence à toute réalité," etc.
216 Matt. 28:18-20; Mark 16:15, 16; Luke 24;46-48; John 20:21-23; Acts 1:8.
217 So Meyer says, who is one of the fairest as well as most careful exegetes (Com. on John, 5th Germ. ed., p. 643). I will add the observations of Canon Farrar (Life of Christ, vol. II 432): "The lacunae, the compressions, the variations, the actual differences, the subjectivity of the narrators as affected by spiritual revelations, render all harmonies at the best uncertain. Our belief in the resurrection, as an historic fact, as absolutely well attested to us by subsequent and contemporary circumstances as any other event in history, rests on grounds far deeper, wider, more spiritual, more eternal, than can be shaken by divergences of which we can only say that they are not necessarily contradictions, but of which the true solution is no longer attainable. Hence the ’ten discrepancies’ which have been dwelt on since the days of Celsus, have never for one hour shaken the faith of Christendom. The phenomena presented by the narratives are exactly such as we should expect, derived as they are from different witnesses, preserved at first in oral tradition only, and written 1,800 years ago at a period when minute circumstantial accuracy, distinguished from perfect truthfulness, was little regarded. St. Paul, surely no imbecile or credulous enthusiast, vouches, both for the reality of the appearances, and also for the fact that the vision by which he was himself converted came, at a long interval after the rest, to him as to the ’abortive-born’ of the apostolic family (1 Cor. 15:4-8). If the narratives of Christ’s appearance to his disciples were inventions, how came they to possess the severe and simple character which shows no tinge of religious excitement? If those appearances were purely subjective, how can we account for their sudden, rapid, and total cessation ? As Lange finely says, the great fugue of the first Easter tidings has not come to us as a ’monotonous chorale,’ and mere boyish verbal criticism cannot understand the common feeling and harmony which inspire the individual vibrations of those enthusiastic and multitudinous voices (vol. V. 61). Professor Westcott, with his usual profundity, and insight, points out the differences of purpose in the narrative of the four Evangelists. St. Matthew dwells chiefly on the majesty and glory of the Resurrection; St. Mark, both in the original part and in the addition (Mark 16:9-20), insists upon it as a fact; St. Luke, as a spiritual necessity; St. John, as a touchstone of character (Introd. 310-315).
218 This theory was invented by the Jewish priests who crucified the Lord, and knew it to be false, Matt. 27:62-66; 28:12-15. The lie was repeated and believed, like many other lies, by credulous infidels, first by malignant Jews at the time of Justin Martyr, then by Celsus, who learned it from them, but wavered between it and the vision-theory, and was renewed in the eighteenth century by Reimarus in the Wolfenbüttel Fragments. Salvador, a French Jew, has again revived and modified it by assuming (according to Hase, Geschichte Jesu, p. 132) that Jesus was justly crucified, and was saved by the wife of Pilate through Joseph of Arimathaea or some Galilean women; that he retired among the Essenes and appeared secretly to a few of his disciples. (See his Jésus Christ et sa doctrine, Par. 1838.) Strauss formerly defended the vision-hypothesis (see below), but at the close of his life, when he exchanged his idealism and pantheism for materialism and atheism, he seems to have relapsed into this disgraceful theory of fraud; for in his Old and New Faith (1873) he was not ashamed to call the resurrection of Christ "a world-historical humbug." Truth or falsehood: there is no middle ground.
219 The Scheintod-Hypothese (as the Germans call it) was ably advocated by Paulus of Heidelberg (1800), and modified by Gfrörer (1838), who afterwards became a Roman Catholic. We are pained to add Dr. Hase (Gesch. Jesu, 1876, p. 601), who finds it necessary, however, to call to aid a "special providence," to maintain some sort of consistency with his former advocacy of the miracle of the resurrection, when he truly said (Leben Jesu, p. 269, 5th ed. 1865): "Sonach ruht die Wahrheit der Auferstehung unerschütterlich auf dem Zeugnisse, ja auf dem Dasein der apostolischen Kirche."
220 Dr. Strauss (in his second Leben Jesu, 1864, p. 298) thus strikingly and conclusively refutes the swoon-theory: "Ein halbtodt aus dem Grabe Hervorgekrochener, siech Umherschleichender, der ärztlichen Pflege, des Verbandes, der Stärkung und Schonung Bedürftiger, und am Ende doch dem Leiden Erliegender konnte auf die Jünger unmöglich den Eindruck des Sieqers über Tod und Grab, des Lebensfürsten machen, der ihrem spätern Auftreten zu Grunde lag. Ein solches Wiederaufleben hätte den Eindruck, den er im Leben und Tode auf sie gemacht hatte, nur schwächen, denselben höchstens elegisch ausklingen lassen, unmöglich aber ihre Trauer in Beigeisterung verwandeln, ihre Verehrung zur Anbetung steigern können." Dr. Hase (p. 603) unjustly calls this exposure of the absurdity of his own view, "Straussische Tendenzmalerei."Even more effective is the refutation of the swoon-theory by Dr. Keim (Leben Jesu v. Naz. III. 576): "Und dann das Unmöglichste: der arme, schwache, kranke, mühsam auf den Füssen erhaltene, versteckte, verkleidete, schliesslich hinsterbende Jesus ein Gegenstand des Glaubens, des Hochgefühles, des Triumphes seiner Anhänger, ein auferstandener Sieger und Gottessohn! In der That hier beginnt die Theorie armselig, abgeschmackt, ja verwerflich zu werden, indem sie die Apostel als arme Betrogene, oder gar mit Jesus selber als Betrüger zeigt. Denn vom Scheintod hatte man auch damals einen Begriff, und die Lage Jesu musste zeigen, dass hier von Auferstehung nicht die Rede war; hielt man ihn doch für auferstanden, gab er sich selbst als auferstanden, so. fehlte das nüchterne Denken, und hütete er sich gar, seinen Zustand zu verrathen, so fehlte am Ende auch die Ehrlichkeit. Aus allen diesen Gründen ist der Scheintod von der Neuzeit fast ausnahmslos verworfen worden."
221 The vision-hypothesis (Visions-Hypothese)was first suggested by the heathen Celsus (see Keim, III. 577), and in a more respectful form by the Jewish philosopher Spinoza, and elaborately carried out by Strauss and Renan, with the characteristic difference, however, that Strauss traces the resurrection dream to the apostles in Galilee, Renan (after Celsus) to Mary Magdalene in Jerusalem, saying, in his Life of Jesus (almost blasphemously), that "the passion of a hallucinated woman gave to the world a risen God!" In his work on the Apostles, Renan enters more fully into the question and again emphasizes, in the genuine style of a French novelist, the part of the Magdalene."La gloire de la résurrection (he says, p. 13) appartient à Marie de, Magdala. Apres Jésus, c’est Marie qui a le plus fait pour la fondation du christianisme. L’ombre créée par les sens délicats de Madeleine plane encore sur le monde .... Sa grande affirmation de femme: ’Il est resuscité!’ a été la base de la foi de l’humanité."The vision-theory has also been adopted and defended by Zeller, Holsten (in an able treatise on the Gospel of Paul and Peter, 1868), Lang, Volkmar, Réville, Scholten, Meijboom, Kuenen, Hooykaas. Comp. Keim, III. 579 sqq. Among English writers the anonymous author of Supernatural Religion is its chief champion, and states it in these words (vol. III. 526, Lond. ed. of 1879): "The explanation which we offer, and which has long been adopted in various forms by able critics" [among whom, in a foot-note, he falsely quotes Ewald] "is, that doubtless Jesus was seen Gr. (wjvfqh), but the vision was not real and objective, but illusory and subjective; that is to say, Jesus was not himself seen, but only a representation of Jesus within the minds of the beholders."
On the other hand Ewald, Schenkel, Alex. Schweizer, and Keim have essentially modified the theory by giving the resurrection-visions an objective character and representing them as real though purely spiritual manifestations of the exalted Christ from heaven. Hase calls this view happily a Verhimmelung der Visionshypothese (Gesch. Jesu, p. 597). It is certainly a great improvement and a more than half-way approach to the truth, but it breaks on the rock of the empty sepulchre. It does not and cannot tell us what became of the body of Christ.
222 The author of Supernatural Religion (III. 530), calls to aid even Luther’s vision of the devil on the Wartburg, and especially the apparition of Lord Byron after his death to Sir Walter Scott in clear moonshine; and he fancies that in the first century it would have been mistaken for reality.
223 It is utterly baseless when Ewald and Renan extend these visions of Christ for months and years."Ces grands rêves mélancoliques," says Renan (Les Apötres, 34, 36), "ces entretiens sans cesse interrompus et recommecés avec le mort chéri remplissaient les jours et les mois .... Près d’un an s’écoula dans cette vie suspendue entre le ciel et la terre. Le charme, loin de décroître, augmentait," etc. Even Keim, III 598, protests against this view.