CHAPTER II.

[2.1] Matt. xxviii. 7; Mark xvi. 7.

[2.2] Matt. xxviii. 10.

[2.3] Ibid. xxvi. 32.

[2.4] Matt. xxviii. 16; John xxi.; Luke xxiv. 49, 50, 52, and the _Acts_ i. 3, 4, are here in flagrant contradiction to Mark xvi. 1-8, and Matthew. The second conclusion of Mark (xvi. 9, et seq.), and even of the two others which are not a part of the received text, appeared to be included in the system of Luke. But this cannot avail in opposition to the harmony of a portion of the synoptical tradition with the fourth Gospel, and even indirectly with Paul (I. Cor. xv. 5-8), on this point.

[2.5] Matt. xxviii. 16.

[2.6] Ibid, xxviii. 7; Mark xvi. 7.

[2.7] Conclusion of Mark, in St. Jerome, _Adv. Pelag._ ii.

[2.8] Matt. xxviii. 16.

[2.9] John xxi. 2, et seq.

[2.10] The author of the _Acts_ i. 14, makes them remain at Jerusalem until the Ascension. But this agrees with his systematic determination (Luke xxiv. 49; _Acts_ i. 4), not to allow of a journey into Galilee after the resurrection (a theory contradicted by Matthew and by John). To be consistent in this theory he is compelled to place the Ascension at Bethany, in which he is contradicted by all the other traditions.

[2.11] I. Cor. xv. 5, et seq.

[2.12] John xxxi. 1, et seq. This chapter has been added to the already completed Gospel, as a postscript. But it is from the same pen as the rest.

[2.13] John xxi. 9-14; compare Luke xxiv. 41-43. John combines in one the two scenes of the fishing and the meal. But Luke arranges the matter differently. At all events, if we consider with attention the verses of John xxi. 14, 15, we shall come to the conclusion that these harmonies of John are somewhat artificial. Hallucinations, at the moment of their conception, are always isolated. It is later that consistent anecdotes are formed out of them. This habit of coupling together as consecutive events facts which are separated by months and weeks, is seen, in a very striking manner, by comparing together two passages of the same writer, Luke, Gospel, xxiv. end, and _Acts_ i. at the beginning. According to the former passage, Jesus should have ascended into heaven on the same day as the resurrection; whilst, according to the latter, there was an interval of forty days. Again, if we rigorously interpret Mark xvi. 9-20, the Ascension must have taken place on the evening of the resurrection. Nothing more fully proves than the contradiction of Luke in these two passages, how little the editors of the evangelical writings observed consistency in their stories.

[2.14] John xxi. 15, et seq.

[2.15] Ibid. xxi. 18, et seq.

[2.16] I. Cor. xv. 6.

[2.17] The Transfiguration.

[2.18] Matt, xxviii. 16-20; I. Cor. xv. 6. Compare Mark xvi. 15, et seq. Luke xxiv. 44, et seq.

[2.19] I. Cor. xv. 6.

[2.20] John affixes no limit to the resuscitated life of Jesus. He appears to suppose it somewhat protracted. According to Matthew, it could only have lasted during the time which was necessary to complete the journey to Galilee and to rendezvous at the mountain pointed out by Jesus. According to the first incomplete conclusion of Mark (xvi. 1-8), the incidents would seem to have transpired as found in Matthew. According to the second conclusion (xvi. 9, 20), according to others; and, according to the Gospel of Luke, the disentombed life would appear to have lasted only one day. Paul (I. Cor. xv. 5-8), agreeing with the fourth Gospel, prolongs it for two years, since he gives his vision, which occurred five or six years at least after the death of Jesus, as the last of the apparitions. The circumstance of "five hundred brethren" conduces to the same conclusion; for it does not appear that on the morning after the death of Jesus, the group of his friends was compact enough to furnish such a gathering (_Acts_ i. 15). Many of the Gnostic sects, especially the Valentinians and the Sethians, estimated the continuance of the apparitions at eighteen months, and even founded mystic theories on that notion (Irenæus _Adv. hær._, i. iii. 2; xxx. 14). The author of the _Acts_ alone (i. 3) fixes the duration of the disentombed life of Jesus at forty days. But this is very poor authority; above all, if we remark that it is connected with an erroneous system (Luke xxiv. 49, 50, 52; _Acts_ i. 4, 12), according to which the whole disentombed life of Jesus would have been passed at Jerusalem or in its vicinity. The number forty is symbolic (the people spend forty years in the desert; Moses, forty days on Mount Sinai; Elijah and Jesus fast forty days, &c.). As to the formula of the narrative adopted by the author of the last twelve verses of the second Gospel, and by the author of the third Gospel, a formula according to which the events are confined to one day, the authority of Paul, the most ancient and the strongest of all, corroborating that of the fourth Gospel, which affords the most connected and authentic record of this portion of the evangelic history, appears to us to furnish a conclusive argument.

[2.21] Luke xxiv. 34.

[2.22] John xx. 19, 26.

[2.23] Matt. xxviii. 9; Luke xxiv. 37, et seq.; John xx. 27, et seq.; Gospel of the Hebrews, in St. Ignatius, the Epistle to the Smyrniotes 3, and in St. Jerome, _De Viris Illustribus_, 16.

[2.24] John vi. 64.

[2.25] Matt. xxviii. 11-15; Justin, _Dial. cum Tryph._ 17, 108.

[2.26] Matt. xxvii. 62-66; xxviii. 4, 11-15.

[2.27] Ibid. xxviii. 9, et seq.

[2.28] The Jews are enraged, Matt. xxvii. 63, when they hear that Jesus had predicted his resurrection. But even the disciples of Jesus had no precise ideas in this respect.

[2.29] A vague idea of this sort may be found in Matthew xxvi. 32; xxviii. 7, 10; Mark xiv. 28; xvi. 7.

[2.30] This is plainly seen in the miracles of Salette and Sourdes. One of the most usual ways in which a miraculous legend is invented is the following. A person of holy life pretends to heal diseases. A sick person is brought to him or her, and in consequence of the excitement finds himself relieved. Next day it is bruited abroad in a circle of ten miles that there has been a miracle. The sick person dies five or six days afterwards; no one mentions the fact; so that at the hour of the burial of the deceased, people at a distance of forty miles are relating with admiration his wondrous cure. The word loaned to the Grecian philosophy before the _ex votos_ of Samothrace (Diog. Läert. VI. ii. 59,) is also perfectly appropriate.

[2.31] A phenomenon of this kind, and one of the most striking, takes place annually at Jerusalem. The orthodox Greeks pretend that the fire which is spontaneously lighted at the holy sepulchre on the Saturday of the holy week preceding their Easter, takes away the sins of those whose faces it touches without burning them. Millions of pilgrims have tried it and know full well that this fire does burn (the contortions which they make, joined to the smell, are a sufficient proof). Nevertheless, no one has ever been found to contradict the belief of the orthodox Church. This would be to avow that they were deficient in faith, that they were unworthy of the miracle, and to acknowledge, oh, heavens! that the Latins were the true Church; for this miracle is considered by the Greeks as the most convincing proof that theirs is the only good church.

[2.32] The affair of Salette before the civil tribunal of Grenoble (decree of 2d May, 1855), and before the court of Grenoble (decree of 6th May, 1857), pleadings of MM. Jules Favre and Bethmont, &c., collected by J. Sabbatier (Grenoble Vellot. 1857.)

[2.33] John xx. 15. Could it include a glimmering of this?

[2.34] See above.

[2.35] John expressly says so, xix. 41, 42.

[2.36] John xx. 6, 7.

[2.37] One cannot help thinking of Mary of Bethany, who in fact is not represented as taking any part in the event of the Sunday morning. See "_Life of Jesus_" p. 341, et seq.; 359, et seq.

[2.38] Celsus has already delivered some excellent critical observations on this subject (in Origen). _Contra Celsum_, ii. 55.

[2.39] Mark xvi. 9; Luke viii. 2.