Hence commentators have laboured in various ways to transform the angels in the history of the resurrection into natural appearances. Setting out from the account of the first gospel in which the angel is said to have a form or countenance like lightning, ἰδέα ὡς ἀστραπὴ, and to effect the rolling away of the stone and the prostration of the guards, while an earthquake is connected with his appearance: it no longer lay far out of the way to think of a flash of lightning, which struck the stone with force sufficient to shatter it, and cast the guards to the earth; or of an earthquake which, accompanied by flames bursting out of the ground, produced the same effect; in which case the flames and the overwhelming force of the phenomenon were taken by the watching soldiers for an angel.[95] But partly the circumstance that the angel seated himself on the stone after it had been rolled away, partly, and still more decidedly, the statement that he spoke to the women, renders this hypothesis insufficient. Hence an effort has been made to complete it by the supposition that the sublime thought, Jesus is risen! which on the discovery that the grave was empty began to arise in the women and gradually to subdue their first doubts, was ascribed by them, after the oriental mode of thought and language, to an angel.[96] But how comes it that in all the gospels the angels are represented as clothed in white, shining garments? Is that too an oriental figure of speech? The oriental may indeed describe a good thought which occurs to him as being whispered to him by an angel: but to depict the clothing and aspect of this angel, passes the bounds of the merely figurative even among orientals. In the description of the first gospel the supposed lightning might be called to aid, in the conjecture that the effect thereby produced on the senses of the women was ascribed by them to an angel, which, with reference to that lightning, they depicted as one clothed in shining garments. But, according to the other Evangelists, the rolling away of the stone, ex hypothesi by the lightning, was not seen by the women; on the contrary, when they went or looked into the grave, the white forms appeared to them in a perfectly tranquil position. According to this, it must have been something within the grave which suggested to them the idea of white-robed angels. Now in the grave, according to Luke and John, there lay the white linen clothes in which the body of Jesus had been wrapt: these, which were recognized simply as such by the more composed and courageous men, might, it is said, by timid and excited women, in the dark grave and by the deceptive morning twilight, be easily mistaken for angels.[97] But how should the women, who must have expected to find in the grave a corpse enveloped in white, be prompted by the sight of these clothes to a thought so strange, and which then lay so remote from their anticipations, as that they might be an angel who would announce to them the resurrection of their deceased master? It has been thought in another quarter quite superfluous here to advance so many ingenious conjectures as to what the angels may have been, since, among the four narratives, two expressly tell us what they were: namely, natural men, Mark calling his angel [[718]]a young man, νεανίσκον, Luke his two angels, two men, ἄνδρας δύο.[98] Whom then are we to suppose these men to have been? Here again the door is opened for the supposition of secret colleagues of Jesus, who must have been unknown even to the two disciples:—these men seen at the grave may have been the same who met him in the so-called Transfiguration, perhaps Essenes, white being worn by this sect,—or whatever else of the like conjectures the antiquated pragmatism of a Bahrdt or Venturini has to offer. Or will it rather be chosen to suppose a purely accidental meeting? or, lastly, with Paulus, to leave the matter in an obscurity, from the midst of which, so soon as it is endeavoured to clear it up by definite thoughts, the two forms of the secret colleagues invariably present themselves? A correct discernment will here also rather recognize the forms of the Jewish popular conception, by which the primitive Christian tradition held it necessary to glorify the resurrection of its Messiah: a recognition, which at once solves in the most simple manner the differences in the number and modes of appearance of those celestial beings.[99]
Herewith, however, it is at the same time acknowledged that we can succeed no better with the plan of selection than with that of incorporation; but must rather confess, that in all the evangelical accounts of these first tidings of the resurrection, we have before us nothing more than traditional reports.[100]
§ 138.
APPEARANCES OF THE RISEN JESUS IN GALILEE AND IN JUDEA, INCLUDING THOSE MENTIONED BY PAUL AND BY APOCRYPHAL WRITINGS.
The most important of all the differences in the history of the resurrection turns upon the question, what locality did Jesus design to be the chief theatre of his appearances after the resurrection? The two first gospels make Jesus, before his death, when retiring to the Mount of Olives, utter this promise to his disciples: After I am risen again I will go before you into Galilee ([Matt. xxvi. 32]; [Mark xiv. 28]); the same assurance is given to the women by the angels on the morning of the resurrection, with the addition: there shall ye see him ([Matt. xxviii. 7]; [Mark xvi. 7]); and in Matthew, besides all this, Jesus in his own person commissions the women to say to the disciples: that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me ([xxviii. 10]). In Matthew the journey of the disciples into Galilee, with the appearance of Jesus which they there witnessed (the only one to the disciples recorded by this Evangelist), is actually narrated in the sequel. Mark, after describing the amazement into which the women were thrown by the angelic appearance, breaks off in the enigmatical manner already mentioned, and appends some appearances of Jesus, which,—as the first happens immediately after the resurrection, and therefore necessarily in Jerusalem, and no change of place is mentioned before the succeeding ones, while the earlier direction to go into Galilee is lost sight of,—must all be regarded as appearances in and around Jerusalem. John knows nothing of a direction to the disciples to go into Galilee, and makes Jesus show himself to [[719]]the disciples on the evening of the day of resurrection, and again eight days after, in Jerusalem; the concluding chapter, however, which forms an appendix to his gospel, describes an appearance by the Sea of Galilee. In Luke, on the other hand, not only is there no trace of an appearance in Galilee, Jerusalem with its environs being made the sole theatre of the appearances of Christ which this gospel relates; but there is also put into the mouth of Jesus when, on the evening after the resurrection, he appears to the assembled disciples in Jerusalem, the injunction: tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem (in the [Acts i. 4], more definitely expressed by the negative, that they should not depart from Jerusalem), until ye be endued with power from on high ([xxiv. 49]). Here two questions inevitably arise: 1st, how can Jesus have directed the disciples to journey into Galilee, and yet at the same time have commanded them to remain in Jerusalem until Pentecost? and 2ndly, how could he refer them to a promised appearance in Galilee, when he had the intention of showing himself to them that very day in and near Jerusalem?
The first contradiction which presents itself more immediately between Matthew and Luke, has by no one been more pointedly exhibited than by the Wolfenbüttel Fragmentist. If, he writes, it be true, as Luke says, that Jesus appeared to his disciples in Jerusalem on the day of his resurrection, and commanded them to remain there, and not to depart thence until Pentecost: then is it false that he commanded them within the same period to journey into Galilee, that he might appear to them there, and vice versâ.[101] The harmonists indeed affected to regard this objection as unimportant, and only remarked briefly, that the injunction to remain in a city was not equivalent to an arrest, and did not exclude walks and excursions in the neighbourhood; and that Jesus merely forbade the removal of residence from Jerusalem, and the going out into all the world to preach the gospel, before the given term should arrive.[102] But the journey from Jerusalem to Galilee is not a mere walk, but the longest expedition which the Jew could make within the limits of his own country; as little was it an excursion for the apostles, but rather a return to their home: while what Jesus intended to prohibit to the disciples in that injunction cannot have been the going out into all the world to preach the gospel, since they would have no impulse to do this before the outpouring of the Spirit; nor can it have been the removal of residence from Jerusalem, since they were there only as strangers visiting at the feast: rather Jesus must have meant to deter them from that very journey which it was the most natural for them to take, i.e. from the return to their native province Galilee, after the expiration of the feast days. Besides this—and even Michaelis confesses himself obliged to wonder here—if Luke does not mean by that prohibition of Jesus to exclude the journey into Galilee, why is it that he alludes to this by no single word? and in like manner, if Matthew knew that his direction to go into Galilee was consistent with the command to remain in the metropolis, why has he omitted the latter, together with the appearances in Jerusalem? This is certainly a plain proof that the accounts of the two Evangelists are based on a different idea as to the theatre on which the risen Jesus appeared.
In this exigency of having to reconcile two contradictory commands given on the same day, the comparison with the Acts presented a welcome help by indicating a distinction of the times. Here, namely, the command of Jesus that the disciples should not leave Jerusalem is placed in his last appearance, forty days after the resurrection, and immediately before the ascension: at [[720]]the close of the gospel of Luke it is likewise in the last interview, terminating in the ascension, that the above command is given. Now though from the summary representation of the gospel taken by itself, it must be believed that all occurred on the very day of the resurrection: we nevertheless see, it is said, from the history of the Acts by the same author, that between [v. 43] and [44] in the last chapter of his gospel we must interpose the forty days from the resurrection to the ascension. Herewith, then, the apparent contradiction between these two commands vanishes: for one who in the first instance indeed enjoins a journey into Galilee, may very well forty days later, after this journey has been made, and the parties are once more in the metropolis, now forbid any further removal from thence.[103] But as the dread of admitting a contradiction between different New Testament authors is no ground for departing from the natural interpretation of their expressions: so neither can this be justified by the apprehension that the same author may in different writings contradict himself; since if the one were written somewhat later than the other, the author may in the interim have been on many points otherwise informed, than when he composed his first work. That this was actually the case with Luke in relation to that part of the life of Jesus which followed his resurrection, we shall have reason to be convinced when we come to the history of the ascension: and this conclusion removes all ground for interposing nearly five weeks between the ἔφαγεν, [v. 43], and εἶπε δὲ, [v. 44], in defiance of their obviously immediate connexion; at the same time, however, it does away with the possibility of reconciling the opposite commands of Jesus in Matthew and Luke by a distinction of times.
Meanwhile, even admitting that this contradiction might be in some way or other removed, still, even without that express command which Luke mentions, the mere facts as narrated by him and his predecessor and successor, remain irreconcilable with the injunction which Jesus gives to the disciples in Matthew. For, asks the Fragmentist, if the disciples collectively twice saw him, spoke with him, touched him, and ate with him, in Jerusalem; how can it be that they must have had to take the long journey into Galilee in order to see him?[104] The harmonists, it is true, boldly reply: when Jesus causes his disciples to be told that they will see him in Galilee, it is by no means said that they will see him nowhere else, still less that they will not see him in Jerusalem.[105] But, the Fragmentist might rejoin, after his manner: as little as one who says to me, go to Rome, there you shall see the Pope, can mean that the Pope will indeed first come through my present place of residence, so as to be seen by me here, but afterwards I must yet go to Rome, in order to see him again there: so little would the angel in Matthew and Mark, if he had had any anticipation of the appearance in Jerusalem on the very same day, have said to the disciples: go into Galilee, there will Jesus show himself to you; but rather: be comforted, you shall yet see him here in Jerusalem before evening. Wherefore the reference to the more remote event, when there was one of the same kind close at hand? wherefore an appointment by means of the women, for the disciples to meet Jesus in Galilee, if the latter foresaw that he should on the same day personally speak with the disciples? With reason does the latest criticism insist on what Lessing had previously urged;[106] namely, that no rational person would make an appointment with his friends through a third party for a joyful reunion at a distant place, if he were certain of seeing [[721]]them repeatedly on the same day in their present locality.[107] If thus the angel and Jesus himself, when they in the morning by means of the women directed the disciples to go into Galilee, cannot yet have known that he would show himself to them on the evening of the same day in and near Jerusalem: he must in the morning have still held the intention of going immediately into Galilee, but in the course of the day have embraced another purpose. According to Paulus,[108] an indication of such an original intention is found in Luke, in the travelling of Jesus towards Emmaus, which lay in the direction of Galilee; while the reason for the alteration of plan is supposed by the same expositor, with whom in this instance Olshausen agrees,[109] to have been the belief of the disciples, as more particularly manifested to Jesus on occasion of the journey to Emmaus. How so erroneous a calculation on the part of Jesus can consist with the orthodox view of his person, is Olshausen’s care; but even regarding him in a purely human character, there appears no sufficient reason for such a change of mind. Especially after Jesus had been recognised by the two disciples going to Emmaus, he might be certain that the testimony of the men would so accredit the assertion of the women, as to lead the disciples with at least a glimmering ray of faith and hope into Galilee. But in general, if a change of mind and a diversity of plan in Jesus before and after that change, really existed: why does no one Evangelist take any notice of such a retractation? Why does Luke speak as if he knew nothing of the original plan; Matthew, as if he knew nothing of a subsequent alteration; John, as if the principal theatre of the appearances of the risen Jesus had been Jerusalem, and he had only by way of supplement at length showed himself in Galilee? Lastly, why does Mark speak so as to make it evident that, having gathered the original direction to go into Galilee from Matthew, and the succeeding appearances in Jerusalem and its environs from Luke or elsewhere, he was unable, nor did he even make the attempt, in any way to reconcile them; but placed them together as he found them, rough hewn and contradictory.
According to this we must agree with the latest criticism of the gospel of Matthew, in acknowledging the contradiction between it and the rest in relation to the locality of the appearances of Jesus after the resurrection: but, it must be asked, can we also approve the verdict of this criticism when it at once renounces the representation of the first gospel in favour of that of the other Evangelists.[110] If, setting aside all presuppositions as to the apostolic origin of this or that gospel, we put the question: which of the two divergent accounts is the best adapted to be regarded as a traditional modification and development of the other? we can here refer, not merely to the general nature of the accounts, but also to a single point at which the two touch each other in a characteristic manner. This is the address of the angel to the women, in which according to all the synoptists Galilee is mentioned, but in a different way. In Matthew the angel, as has been already noticed, says of Jesus: he goeth before you into Galilee,—lo, I have told you ([xxviii. 7]), προάγει ὑμᾶς ἐις τὴν Γαλιλαίαν—ἰδοὺ εἶπον ὑμῖν. In Mark he says the same, except that instead of the latter addition, by which in Matthew the angel seeks to impress his own words on the women, he has the expression: as he said unto you, καθὼς εἶπεν ὑμῖν, with which he refers to the earlier prediction of Jesus concerning this circumstance. If we first compare these two representations: the confirmatory I have told you, εἶπον ὑμῖν, might easily appear superfluous [[722]]and nugatory; while on the other hand the reference to the earlier prediction of Jesus by he said, εἶπεν, might seem more appropriate, and on this the conjecture might be founded that perhaps Mark has here the correct and original phrase, Matthew a variation not unaccompanied by a misunderstanding.[111] But if we include the account of Luke in the comparison, we find here, as in Mark, the words: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee, μνήσθητε, ὡς ἐλάλησεν ὑμῖν ἔτι ὢν ἐν τῇ Γαλιλαίᾳ, a reference to an earlier prediction of Jesus, not however referring to Galilee, but delivered in Galilee. Here the question occurs: is it more probable that Galilee, from being the designation of the locality in which the prophecy of the resurrection was uttered, should at a later period be erroneously converted into a designation of the locality where the risen one would appear; or the contrary? In order to decide this, we must ascertain in which of the two positions the mention of Galilee is the more intrinsically suited to the context. Now that on the announcement of the resurrection it was an important point whether and where the risen Jesus was to be seen, is self-evident; it was of less moment, in referring to an earlier prediction, to specify where this prediction was uttered. Hence from this comparison of the passages it might already be held more probable that it was originally said, the angels directed the disciples to go into Galilee, there to see the risen one (Matt.); but afterwards, when the narratives of the appearances of Jesus in Judea had gradually supplanted those in Galilee, a different turn was given to the mention of Galilee in the address of the angel, so as to make it imply that already in Galilee Jesus had predicted his resurrection (Luke); whereupon Mark appears to have taken a middle course, since he with Luke refers the εἶπον (changed into εἶπεν) to Jesus, but with Matthew retains Galilee as the theatre, not of the earlier prediction of Jesus, but of the coming appearance.