In relation to the facts of the case, the natural interpretation speaks with more than its usual confidence, under the persuasion that it has on its side the assurance of Jesus himself, that the maiden was not really dead, but merely in a sleep-like swoon; and not only rationalists, like Paulus, and semi-rationalists, like Schleiermacher, but also decided supranaturalists, like Olshausen, believe, on the strength of that declaration of Jesus, that this was no resuscitation of the dead.[205] The last-named commentator attaches especial importance to the antithesis in the speech of Jesus, and because the words οὐκ ἀπέθανε, is not dead, are followed by ἀλλὰ καθεύδει, but sleepeth, is of opinion that the former expression cannot be interpreted to mean merely, she is not [[479]]dead, since I have resolved to restore her to life; strange criticism,—for it is precisely this addition which shows that she was only not dead, in so far as it was in the power of Jesus to recall her to life. Reference is also made to the declaration of Jesus concerning Lazarus, [John xi. 14], Λάζαρος ἀπέθανε, Lazarus is dead, which is directly the reverse of the passage in question, οὐκ ἀπέθανε τὸ κοράσιον, the damsel is not dead. But Jesus had before said of Lazarus, αὕτη ἡ ἀσθένεια οὐκ ἔστι πρὸς θάνατον, this sickness is not unto death ([v. 4]), and Λάζαρος ὁ φίλος ἡμῶν κεκοίμηται, our friend Lazarus sleepeth ([v. 11]). Thus in the case of Lazarus also, who was really dead, we have just as direct a denial of death, and affirmation of mere sleep, as in the narrative before us. Hence Fritzsche is undoubtedly right when he paraphrases the words of Jesus in our passage as follows: puellam ne pro mortua habetote, sed dormire existimatote quippe in vitam mox redituram. Moreover, Matthew subsequently ([xi. 5]) makes Jesus say, νεκροὶ ἐγείρονται, the dead are raised up; and as he mentions no other instance of resuscitation by Jesus, he must apparently have had this in his mind.[206]
But apart from the false interpretation of the words of Jesus, this view of the subject has many difficulties. That in many diseases conditions may present themselves which have a deceptive resemblance to death, or that in the indifferent state of medical science among the Jews of that age especially, a swoon might easily be mistaken for death is not to be denied. But how was Jesus to know that there was such a merely apparent death in this particular case? However minutely the father detailed to him the course of the disease, nay, even if Jesus were acquainted beforehand with the particular circumstances of the girl’s illness (as the natural explanation supposes): we must still ask, how could he build so much on this information as, without having seen the girl, and in contradiction to the assurance of the eye-witnesses, decidedly to declare that she was not dead, according to the rationalistic interpretation of his words? This would have been rashness and folly to boot, unless Jesus had obtained certain knowledge of the true state of the case in a supernatural way:[207] to admit which, however, is to abandon the naturalistic point of view. To return to the explanation of Paulus; between the expressions, ἐκράτησε τῆς χειρὸς αὐτῆς, he took her by the hand, and ἠγέρθη τὸ κοράσιον, the maid arose, expressions which are closely enough connected in Matthew, and are still more inseparably linked by the words εὐθέως and παραχρῆμα in the other two gospels, he inserts a course of medical treatment, and Venturini can even specify the different restoratives which were applied.[208] Against such arbitrary suppositions, Olshausen justly maintains that in the opinion of the evangelical narrator the life-giving word of Jesus (and we might add, the touch of his hand, furnished with divine power) was the means of restoring the girl to life.
In the case of resuscitation narrated by Luke alone ([vii. 11 ff.]) the natural explanation has not such a handle as was presented by the declaration of Jesus in the narrative just considered. Nevertheless, the rationalistic commentators take courage, and rest their hopes mainly on the circumstance that Jesus speaks to the young man lying in the coffin ([v. 14]). Now, say they, no one would speak to a dead person, but only to such an one as is ascertained or guessed to be capable of hearing.[209] But this rule would prove that all the dead whom Christ will raise at the last day are only apparently dead, as otherwise they could not hear his voice, which it is expressly said they will do [[480]]([John v. 28]; comp. [1 Thess. iv. 16]); it would therefore prove too much. Certainly one who is spoken to must be supposed to hear, and in a certain sense to be living; but in the present instance this holds only in so far as the voice of him who quickens the dead can penetrate even to the ears from which life has departed. We must indeed admit the possibility that with the bad custom which prevailed among the Jews of burying their dead a few hours after their decease, a merely apparent corpse might easily be carried to the grave;[210] but all by which it is attempted to show that this possibility was here a reality, is a tissue of fictions. In order to explain how Jesus, even without any intention to perform a miracle, came to join the funeral procession, and how the conjecture could occur to him that the individual about to be buried was not really dead, it is first imagined that the two processions, that of the funeral and that of the companions of Jesus, met precisely under the gate of the city, and as they impeded each other, halted for a while:—directly in opposition to the text, which makes the bearers first stand still when Jesus touches the bier. Affected by the peculiar circumstances of the case, which he had learned during the pause in his progress, Jesus, it is said, approached the mother, and not with any reference to a resurrection which he intended to effect, but merely as a consolatory address, said to her, Weep not.[211] But what an empty, presuming comforter would he be, who, when a mother was about to consign her only son to the grave, should forbid her even the relief of tears, without offering to her either real help by recalling the departed one, or ideal, by suggesting grounds for consolation! Now the latter Jesus does not attempt: hence unless we would allow him to appear altogether heartless, he must be supposed to have resolved on the former, and for this he in fact makes every preparation, designedly touching the bier, and causing the bearers to stand still. Here, before the reanimating word of Jesus, the natural explanation inserts the circumstance that Jesus observed some sign of life in the youth, and on this, either immediately or after a previous application of medicaments,[212] spoke the words, which helped completely to awake him. But setting aside the fact that those intervening measures are only interpolated into the text, and that the strong words: νεανίσκε, σοὶ λέγω, ἐγέρθητι, Young man, I say unto thee arise! resemble rather the authoritative command of a miracle worker than the attempt of a physician to restore animation; how, if Jesus were conscious that the youth was alive when he met him, and was not first recalled to life by himself, could he with a good conscience receive the praise which, according to the narrative, the multitude lavished on him as a great prophet on account of this deed? According to Paulus, he was himself uncertain how he ought to regard the result; but if he were not convinced that he ought to ascribe the result to himself, it was his duty to disclaim all praise on account of it; and if he omitted to do this, his conduct places him in an equivocal light, in which he by no means appears in the other evangelical histories, so far as they are fairly interpreted. Thus here also we must acknowledge that the Evangelist intends to narrate to us a miraculous resuscitation of the dead, and that according to him, Jesus also regarded his deed as a miracle.[213]
In the third history of a resurrection, which is peculiar to [John (chap. xi.)], the resuscitated individual is neither just dead nor being carried to his grave, but has been already buried several days. Here one would have thought there was little hope of effecting a natural explanation; but the arduousness [[481]]of the task has only stimulated the ingenuity and industry of the rationalists in developing their conception of this narrative. We shall also see that together with the rigorously consequent mode of interpretation of the rationalists,—which, maintaining the historical integrity of the evangelical narrative throughout, assumes the responsibility of explaining every part naturally, there has appeared another system, which distinguishes certain features of the narrative as additions after the event, and is thus an advance towards the mythical explanation.
The rationalistic expositors set out here from the same premises as in the former narrative, namely, that it is in itself possible for a man who has lain in a tomb four days to come to life again, and that this possibility is strengthened in the present instance by the known custom of the Jews; propositions which we shall not abstractedly controvert. From this they proceed to a supposition which we perhaps ought not to let pass so easily,[214] namely, that from the messenger whom the sisters had sent with the news of their brother’s illness, Jesus had obtained accurate information of the circumstances of the disease; and the answer which he gave to the messenger, This sickness is not unto death ([v. 4]), is said to express, merely as an inference which he had drawn from the report of the messenger, his conviction that the disease was not fatal. Such a view of his friend’s condition would certainly accord the best with his conduct in remaining two days in Peræa after the reception of the message ([v. 6]); since, according to that supposition, he could not regard his presence in Bethany as a matter of urgent necessity. But how comes it that after the lapse of these two days, he not only resolves to journey thither ([v. 8]), but also has quite a different opinion of the state of Lazarus, nay, certain knowledge of his death, which he first obscurely ([v. 10]) and then plainly ([v. 14]) announces to his disciples? Here the thread of the natural explanation is lost, and the break is only rendered more conspicuous by the fiction of a second messenger,[215] after the lapse of two days, bringing word to Jesus that Lazarus had expired in the interim. For the author of the gospel at least cannot have known of a second messenger, otherwise he must have mentioned him, since the omission to do so gives another aspect to the whole narrative, obliging us to infer that Jesus had obtained information of the death of Lazarus in a supernatural manner. Jesus, when he had resolved to go to Bethany, said to the disciples, Lazarus sleepeth, but I go that I may awake him out of sleep (κεκοίμηται—ἐξυπνίσω—[v. 11]); this the naturalists explain by the supposition that Jesus must in some way have gathered from the statements of the messengers who announced the death of Lazarus, that the latter was only in a state of lethargy. But we can as little here as in the former case impute to Jesus the foolish presumption of giving, before he had even seen the alleged corpse, the positive assurance that he yet lived.[216] From this point of view, it is also a difficulty that Jesus says to his disciples ([v. 15]) I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe (ἵνα πιστεύσητε). Paulus explains these words to imply that Jesus feared lest the death, had it happened in his presence, might have shaken their faith in him; but, as Gabler[217] has remarked, πιστεύω cannot mean merely the negative: not to lose faith, which would rather have been expressed by a phrase such as: ἵνα μὴ ἐκλείπῃ ἡ πίστις ὑμῶν, that your faith fail not (see [Luke xxii. 32]); and moreover we [[482]]nowhere find that the idea which the disciples formed of Jesus as the Messiah was incompatible with the death of a man, or, more correctly, of a friend, in his presence.
From the arrival of Jesus in Bethany the evangelical narrative is somewhat more favourable to the natural explanation. It is true that Martha’s address to Jesus ([v. 21 f.]), Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died, but I know that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, he will give it thee, ἀλλὰ καὶ νῦν οἶδα, ὅτι, ὅσα ἂν αἰτήσῃ τὸν θεὸν, δώσει σοι ὁ θεὸς, appears evidently to express the hope that Jesus may be able even to recall the dead one to life. However, on the assurance of Jesus which follows, Thy brother shall rise again, ἀναστήσεται ὁ ἀδελφός σου, she answers despondingly, Yes, at the last day. This is certainly a help to the natural explanation, for it seems retrospectively to give to the above declaration of Martha ([v. 22]) the general sense, that even now, although he has not preserved the life of her brother, she believes Jesus to be him to whom God grants all that he desires, that is, the favourite of the Deity, the Messiah. But the expression which Martha there uses is not πιστεύω but οἶδα, and the turn of phrase: I know that this will happen if thou only willest it to be so, is a common but indirect form of petition, and is here the more unmistakable, because the object of the entreaty is clearly indicated by the foregoing antithesis. Martha evidently means, Thou hast not indeed prevented the death of our brother, but even now it is not too late, for at thy prayer God will restore him to thee and us. Martha’s change of mind, from the hope which is but indirectly expressed in her first reply ([v. 24]) to its extinction in the second, cannot be held very surprising in a woman who here and elsewhere manifests a very hasty disposition, and it is in the present case sufficiently explained by the form of the foregoing assurance of Jesus ([v. 23]). Martha had expected that Jesus would reply to her indirect prayer by a decided promise of its fulfilment, and when he answers quite generally and with an expression which it was usual to apply to the resurrection at the last day (ἀναστήσεται), she gives a half-impatient half-desponding reply.[218] But that general declaration of Jesus, as well as the yet more indefinite one ([v. 25 f.]), I am the resurrection and the life, is thought favourable to the rationalistic view: Jesus, it is said, was yet far from the expectation of an extraordinary result, hence he consoles Martha merely with the general hope that he, the Messiah, would procure for those who believed in him a future resurrection and a life of blessedness. As however Jesus had before ([v. 11]) spoken confidently to his disciples of awaking Lazarus, he must then have altered his opinion in the interim—a change for which no cause is apparent. Further, when ([v. 40]) Jesus is about to awake Lazarus, he says to Martha, Said I not unto thee that if thou wouldst believe thou shouldst see the glory of God? evidently alluding to [v. 23], in which therefore he must have meant to predict the resurrection which he was going to effect. That he does not declare this distinctly, and that he again veils the scarcely uttered promise in relation to the brother ([v. 25]) in general promises for the believing, is the effect of design, the object of which is to try the faith of Martha, and extend her sphere of thought.[219]
When Mary at length comes out of the house with her companions, her weeping moves Jesus himself to tears. To this circumstance the natural interpretation appeals with unusual confidence, asking whether if he were already certain of his friend’s resurrection, he would not have approached his grave with the most fervent joy, since he was conscious of being able to call [[483]]him again living from the grave in the next moment? In this view the words ἐνεβριμήσατο ([v. 33]) and ἐμβριμώμενος ([v. 38]) are understood of a forcible repression of the sorrow caused by the death of his friend, which subsequently found vent in tears (ἐδάκρυσεν). But both by its etymology, according to which it signifies fremere in aliquem or in se, and by the analogy of its use in the New Testament, where it appears only in the sense of increpare aliquem ([Matt. ix. 30]; [Mark i. 43], [xiv. 5]), ἐμβριμᾶσθαι is determined to imply an emotion of anger, not of sorrow; where it is united, not with the dative of another person, but with τῷ πνεύματι and ἐν ἑαυτῷ, it must be understood of a silent, suppressed displeasure. This sense would be very appropriate in [v. 38], where it occurs the second time; for in the foregoing observation of the Jews, Could not this man, who opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died? there lies an intimation that they were scandalized, the prior conduct of Jesus perplexing them as to his present demeanour, and vice versâ. But where the word ἐμβριμᾶσθαι is first used [v. 33], the general weeping seems to have been likely to excite in Jesus a melancholy, rather than an angry emotion: yet even here a strong disapproval of the want of faith (ὀλιγοπιστία) which was manifested was not impossible. That Jesus then himself broke out into tears, only proves that his indignation against the faithless generation around him dissolved into melancholy, not that melancholy was his emotion from the beginning. Lastly, that the Jews ([v. 36]) in relation to the tears which Jesus shed, said among themselves, Behold, how he loved him! appears to be rather against than for those who regard the emotion of Jesus as sorrow for the death of his friend, and sympathy with the sisters; for, as the character of the narrative of John in general would rather lead us to expect an opposition between the real import of the demeanour of Jesus, and the interpretation put upon it by the spectators, so in particular the Jews in this gospel are always those who either misunderstand or pervert the words and actions of Jesus. It is true that the mild character of Jesus is urged, as inconsistent with the harshness which displeasure on his part at the very natural weeping of Mary and the rest would imply;[220] but such a mode of thinking is by no means foreign to the Christ of John’s gospel. He who gave to the βασιλικὸς, when preferring the inoffensive request that he would come to his house and heal his son, the rebuke, Except ye see signs and wonders ye will not believe; he who, when some of his disciples murmured at the hard doctrines of the sixth chapter, assailed them with the cutting question, Doth this offend you? and Will ye also go away? ([vi. 61], [67]); he who repulsed his own mother, when at the wedding at Cana she complained to him of the want of wine, with the harsh reply, What have I to do with thee, Woman? ([ii. 4])—who thus was always the most displeased when men, not comprehending his higher mode of thought or action, showed themselves desponding or importunate,—would here find peculiar reason for this kind of displeasure. If this be the true interpretation of the passage, and if it be not sorrow for the death of Lazarus which Jesus here exhibits, there is an end to the assistance which the natural explanation of the entire event is thought to derive from this particular feature; meanwhile, even on the other interpretation, a momentary emotion produced by sympathy with the mourners is quite reconcilable with the foreknowledge of the resurrection.[221] And how could the words of the Jews [v. 37], serve, as rationalistic commentators think, to excite in Jesus the hope that God would now perhaps perform something extraordinary for him? The [[484]]Jews did not express the hope that he could awake the dead, but only the conjecture that he might perhaps have been able to preserve his friend’s life; Martha therefore had previously said more when she declared her belief that even now the Father would grant him what he asked; so that if such hopes were excited in Jesus from without, they must have been excited earlier, and especially before the weeping of Jesus, to which it is customary to appeal as the proof that they did not yet exist.
Even supranaturalists admit that the expression of Martha when Jesus commanded that the stone should be taken away from the grave, Κύριε, ἤδη ὄζει ([v. 39]), is no proof at all that decomposition had really commenced, nor consequently that a natural resuscitation was impossible, since it may have been a mere inference from the length of time since the burial.[222] But more weight must be attached to the words with which Jesus, repelling the objections of Martha, persists in having the tomb opened ([v. 40]): Said I not unto thee that if thou wouldst believe thou shouldst see the glory of God? How could he say this unless he was decidedly conscious of his power to resuscitate Lazarus? According to Paulus, this declaration only implied generally that those who have faith will, in some way or other, experience a glorious manifestation of the divinity. But what glorious manifestation of the divinity was to be seen here, on the opening of the grave of one who had been buried four days, unless it were his restoration to life? and what could be the sense of the words of Jesus, as opposed to the observation of Martha, that her brother was already within the grasp of decay, but that he was empowered to arrest decay? But in order to learn with certainty the meaning of the words τὴν δόξαν τοῦ θεοῦ in our present passage we need only refer to [v. 4], where Jesus had said that the sickness of Lazarus was not unto death, πρὸς θάνατον, but for the glory of God, ὑπὲρ τῆς δόξης τοῦ θεοῦ. Here the first member of the antithesis, not unto death, clearly shows that the δόξα τοῦ θεοῦ signifies the glorification of God by the life of Lazarus, that is, since he was now dead, by his resurrection: a hope which Jesus could not venture to excite in the most critical moment, without having a superior assurance that it would be fulfilled.[223] After the opening of the grave, and before he says to the dead man, Come forth! he thanks the Father for having heard his prayer. This is adduced, in the rationalistic point of view, as the most satisfactory proof that he did not first recall Lazarus to life by those words, but on looking into the grave found him already alive again. Truly, such an argument was not to be expected from theologians who have some insight into the character of John’s gospel. These ought to have remembered how common it is in this gospel, as for example in the expression glorify thy son, to represent that which is yet to be effected or which is only just begun, as already performed; and in the present instance it is especially suited to mark the certainty of obtaining fulfilment, that it is spoken of as having already happened. And what invention does it further require to explain, both how Jesus could perceive in Lazarus the evidences of returning life, and how the latter could have come to life again! Between the removal of the stone, says Paulus, and the thanksgiving of Jesus, lies the critical interval when the surprising result was accomplished; then must Jesus, yet some steps removed from the grave, have discerned that Lazarus was living. By what means? and how so quickly and unhesitatingly? and why did he and no one else discern it? He may have discerned it by the movements of Lazarus, it is conjectured. But how easily might he deceive himself with respect to a dead body lying in a dark cavern; [[485]]how precipitate was he, if without having examined more nearly, he so quickly and decidedly declared his conviction that Lazarus lived! Or, if the movements of the supposed corpse were strong and not to be mistaken, how could they escape the notice of the surrounding spectators? Lastly, how could Jesus in his prayer represent the incident about to take place as a sign of his divine mission, if he was conscious that he had not effected, but only discovered, the resuscitation of Lazarus? As arguments for the natural possibility of a return of life in a man who had been interred four days, the rationalistic explanation adduces our ignorance of the particular circumstances of the supposed death, the rapidity of interment among the Jews, afterwards the coolness of the cave, the strong fragrance of the spices, and lastly, the reanimating draught of warm air, which on the rolling away of the stone streamed into the cave. But all these circumstances do not produce more than the lowest degree of possibility, which coincides with the highest degree of improbability: and with this the certainty with which Jesus predicts the result must remain irreconcilable.[224]
These decided predictions are indeed the main hindrance to the natural interpretation of this chapter; hence it has been sought to neutralize them, still from the rationalistic position, by the supposition that they did not proceed from Jesus, but may have been added ex eventu by the narrator. Paulus himself found the words ἐξυπνίσω αὐτὸν ([v. 11]) quite too decided, and therefore ventured the conjecture that the narrator, writing with the result in his mind, had omitted a qualifying perhaps, which Jesus had inserted.[225] This expedient has been more extensively adopted by Gabler. Not only does he partake the opinion of Paulus as to the above expression, but already in [v. 4], he is inclined to lay the words ὑπὲρ τῆς δόξης τοῦ θεοῦ for the glory of God, to the account of the Evangelist: again [v. 15], he conjectures that in the words χαίρω δι’ ὑμᾶς, ἵνα πιστεύσητε, ὅτι οὐκ ἤμην ἐκεῖ, I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe, there is a slight exaggeration resulting from John’s knowledge of the issue; lastly, even in relation to the words of Martha [v. 22], ἀλλὰ καὶ νῦν οἶδα κ.τ.λ. he admits the idea of an addition from the pen of the writer.[226] By the adoption of this expedient, the natural interpretation avows its inability by itself to cope with the difficulties in John’s narrative. For if, in order to render its application possible, it is necessary to expunge the most significant passages, it is plain that the narrative in its actual state does not admit of a natural explanation. It is true that the passages, the incompatibility of which with the rationalistic mode of explanation is confessed by their excision, are very sparingly chosen; but from the above observations it is clear, that if all the features in this narrative which are really opposed to the natural view of the entire event were ascribed to the Evangelist, it would in the end be little short of the whole that must be regarded as his invention. Thus, what we have done with the two first narratives of resuscitations, is with the last and most remarkable history of this kind, effected by the various successive attempts at explanation themselves, namely, to reduce the subject to the alternative: that we either receive the event as supernatural, according to the representation of the evangelical narrative; or, [[486]]if we find it incredible as such, deny that the narrative has an historical character.
In order, in this dilemma, to arrive at a decision, with respect to all the three narratives, we must refer to the peculiar character of the kind of miracles which we have now before us. We have hitherto been ascending a ladder of miracles; first, cures of mental disorders, then, of all kinds of bodily maladies, in which, however, the organization of the sufferer was not so injured as to cause the cessation of consciousness and life; and now, the revivification of bodies, from which the life has actually departed. This progression in the marvellous is, at the same time, a gradation in inconceivability. We have indeed been able to represent to ourselves how a mental derangement, in which none of the bodily organs were attacked beyond the nervous system, which is immediately connected with mental action, might have been removed, even in a purely psychical manner, by the mere word, look, and influence of Jesus: but the more deeply the malady appeared to have penetrated into the entire corporeal system, the more inconceivable to us was a cure of this kind. Where in insane persons the brain was disturbed to the extent of raging madness, or where in nervous patients the disorder was so confirmed as to manifest itself in periodical epilepsy; there we could scarcely imagine how permanent benefit could be conferred by that mental influence; and this was yet more difficult where the disease had no immediate connection with the mind, as in leprosy, blindness, lameness, etc. And yet, up to this point, there was always something present, to which the miraculous power of Jesus could apply itself; there was still a consciousness in the objects, on which to make an impression—a nervous life to be stimulated. Not so with the dead. The corpse from which life and consciousness have flown has lost the last fulcrum for the power of the miracle worker; it perceives him no longer—receives no impression from him; for the very capability of receiving impressions must be conferred on him anew. But to confer this, that is, to give life in the proper sense, is a creative act, and to think of this as being exercised by a man, we must confess to be beyond our power.