They also assume that the Apostles were in a state of mind conducive to misleading fancies. The reverse of this is true. It must, however, be conceded that the idea of a restoration to life of one who had been dead was not strange to them; for three[15] such instances were recorded in their Scriptures, and they had witnessed three miracles of the kind. But these were in respect to persons who, after they were raised up, lived and died as other men; and they were brought to life by some visible agency, as by a prophet in the name of the Lord, or Jesus by his own word. The resurrection which the disciples came to believe was, on the contrary, to a temporary sojourning with them, and then an ascension before their eyes; and it was accomplished by no visible hand.
And although Jesus had predicted his death and resurrection, they could not understand the one, any more than the other, because they could not conceive how that their Messiah could suffer death at the hands of his enemies. The evidence upon this point is most conclusive; and its scope was admirably put by Gilbert West,[16] four generations ago. “This, therefore, being their settled notion of the Messiah, can we wonder their former faith in him should be extinguished, when they saw him suffering, crucified, and dying, and, instead of saving others, not able to save himself? To prepare them for these events he had indeed most circumstantially foretold[17] his own sufferings, death, and resurrection; but the Apostles themselves assure us that they did not understand those predictions till some time after their accomplishment; and they made this confession at a time when they were as sensible of their former dullness, and undoubtedly as much amazed at it as they now pretend to be who object to it against them; so that their veracity upon this point is not to be questioned.... They had conceived great expectations from the persuasion that he was the Christ of God; but these were all vanished; their promised deliverer, their expected king, was dead and buried, and no one left to call him from the grave as he did Lazarus. With his life, they might presume, ended his power of working miracles; and death, perhaps, was an enemy he could not subdue, since it was apparent he could not escape it, and hence their despair.”
And hence we say, when the third day was ushered in there was no one of all his disciples at the sepulchre to welcome him. Those who loved him most, came but to embalm his body. Mary Magdalene beheld not her risen Saviour, but an empty tomb; and her hurried tidings were not that he is risen, but, “They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we know not where they have laid him.” When Jesus even speaks to her, she at first supposes him to be the gardener, and says, “If thou hast borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.” Peter and John beheld no vision, but only “the linen clothes lying, and the napkin, that was upon his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but rolled up in a place by itself.” The other women do not see Jesus until after they have found that the sepulchre is empty, and have been told by the angels, “He is risen, even as he said: Come see the place where[18] the Lord lay.” The two disciples, some hours after, had heard, not that he had been seen, but that certain women who were early at the tomb found not his body, and were told by angels that he was alive; and that the absence of the body had been confirmed by those of their company who visited the tomb. And finally, the Apostles, instead of expecting to see him, refused to believe upon the testimony of the women, and were only convinced by the evidence of their own senses.
[1] Taylor on the Gospel Miracles (1881), p. 17.
[2] Id., p. 25.
[3] “We do not say a miracle is impossible; we say there has been no instance, up to this time, of a proved miracle.”—Renan’s Life of Jesus, etc., p. 57.
“What I insist on is, that a miracle cannot be established by human testimony.”—Ingersoll, North American Review for November, 1881, p. 514. The skeptical author of Supernatural Religion in defending himself against the criticism that upon his theory his historical argument is unnecessary, in his preface to the sixth edition, says: “The preliminary affirmation is not that miracles are impossible, but that they are antecedently incredible. The counter allegation is that although miracles may be antecedently incredible, they nevertheless actually took place. It is, therefore, necessary, not only to establish the antecedent incredibility, but to examine the validity of the allegation that certain miracles occurred, and this involves the historical inquiry into the evidence for the Gospels. Indeed many will not acknowledge the case to be complete until other witnesses are questioned. This would leave the question of Christ’s Resurrection to be determined as a matter of evidence; and of course evidence enough to induce a reasonable conviction would be sufficient to overcome the antecedent improbability.” But he dare not trust himself or his readers to an examination of the evidence upon this basis. For when he is pressed with the testimony of the Apostles to the Resurrection, and is compelled to concede their honesty, he says (p. 1050), “The belief that a dead man rose from the dead and appeared to several persons alive is at once disposed of upon abstract grounds.” That is, his pretended examination of the evidence is a sham, and when he cannot meet it, it is at once disposed of “upon abstract grounds!”
[4] See chap. xvii. pp. 101-2, ante, [pp. 101, 102].
[5] Milligan on the Resurrection of Our Lord, p. 76; Strauss, Vol. II., pp. 846-866.