The first impression from this narrative is clearly this: that it is intended as a description of a miraculous event, an actual exaltation of Jesus into heaven, as the dwelling-place of God, and an attestation of this by angels; as orthodox theologians, both ancient and modern, correctly maintain. The only question is, whether they can also help us to surmount the difficulties which stand in our way when we attempt to form a conception of such an event? One main difficulty is this: how can a palpable body, which has still flesh and bones, and eats material food, be qualified for a celestial abode? how can it so far liberate itself from the laws of gravity, as to be capable of an ascent through the air? and how can it be conceived that God gave so preternatural a capability to Jesus by a miracle?[14] The only possible reply to these questions is, that the grosser elements which the body of Jesus still retained after the resurrection, were removed before the ascension, and only the finest essence of his corporeality, as the integument of the soul, was taken by him into heaven.[15] But as the disciples who were present at the ascension observed no residuum of his body which he had left behind, this leads either to the above mentioned absurdity of an evaporation of the body of Jesus, or to Olshausen’s process of subtilization which, still incomplete even after the resurrection, was not perfected until the moment of the ascension; a process which must have been conducted with singularly rapid retrograde transitions in these last days, if the body of Jesus, when penetrating into the closed room where the disciples were assembled, is to be supposed immaterial; immediately after when Thomas touched him, material; and lastly, in the ascension, again immaterial. The other difficulty lies in the consideration, that according to a just idea of the world, the seat of God and of the blessed, to which Jesus is supposed to have been exalted, is not to be sought for in the upper regions of the air, nor, in general, in any determinate place;—such a locality could only be assigned to it in the childish, limited conceptions of antiquity. We are well aware that he who would attain to God and the circle of the blessed would make a superfluous circuit, if he thought it necessary for this purpose to soar aloft into the higher regions of the firmament; and the more intimately Jesus was acquainted with God and divine things, the farther certainly would he be from making such a circuit, or from being caused to make it by God.[16] Thus there would be no other resource than to suppose a divine accommodation to the idea of the world in that age, and to say: God in order to convince the disciples of the return of Jesus into the higher world, although this world is in reality by no means to be sought for in the [[751]]upper air, nevertheless prepared the spectacle of such an exaltation.[17] But this is to represent God as theatrically arranging an illusion.
As an attempt to set us free from such difficulties and absurdities, the natural explanation of this narrative must needs be welcome.[18] This distinguishes in the evangelical accounts of the ascension, what was actually beheld, and what was inferred by reasoning. Certainly, when it is said in the Acts: while they beheld, he was taken up, βλεπόντων αὐτῶν ἐπήρθη: the exaltation to heaven seems here to be represented as a fact actually witnessed. But the Rationalists tell us that we are not to understand ἐπήρθη, as signifying an elevation above the earth, but only that Jesus, in order to bless the disciples, drew up his form and thus appeared more elevated to them. They then bring forward the word διέστη, he was parted from them, in the conclusion of Luke’s gospel, and interpret it to mean that Jesus in taking leave of his disciples removed himself farther from them. Hereupon, they continue, in the same way as on the mount of Transfiguration, a cloud was interposed between Jesus and the disciples, and together with the numerous olive-trees on the mount, concealed him from their sight; a result which, on the assurance of two unknown men, they regarded as a reception of Jesus into heaven. But, when Luke in the Acts immediately connects ἐπήρθη with the statement, and a cloud received him, καὶ νεφέλη ὑπέλαβεν αὐτὸν: he implies that the taking up was an introduction to the being received by the cloud; which it would not be if it were a mere drawing up of the body, but only if it were an exaltation of Jesus above the earth, since only in this case could a cloud float under, carry, and envelop him, which is the idea expressed by ὑπέλαβεν. Again, in the Gospel of Luke, the fact that he was parted from them is represented as something which took place while he blessed them, ἐν τῷ εὐλογεῖν αὐτον αὐτοὺς; now no one when pronouncing a benediction on another, will remove from him: whereas it appears very suitable, that Jesus while communicating his blessing to the disciples should be carried upward, and thus, while rising, have continued to extend over them his outstretched hand as a symbol of his blessing. Thus the natural explanation of the disappearance in the cloud falls to the ground of itself; while in the supposition that the two individuals clothed in white apparel were natural men, Paulus only disguises a final and strongly marked essay of the opinion espoused by Bahrdt and Venturini, that several epochs in the life of Jesus, especially after his crucifixion, were brought about by the agency of secret colleagues. And Jesus himself—what, according to this opinion, must we suppose to have become of him after this last separation from his disciples? Shall we, with Bahrdt, dream of an Essene lodge, into which he retired after the completion of his work? and with Brennecke appeal, in proof that Jesus long continued silently to work for the welfare of mankind, to his appearance for the purpose of the conversion of Paul? But, taking the narrative of the Acts as historical, this was connected with circumstances and effects which could be produced by no natural man, even though a member of a secret order. Or shall we with Paulus suppose, that shortly after the last interview the body of Jesus sank beneath the injuries it had received? This could not well have happened in the very next moments after he had appeared still active among his disciples, so that the two men who joined them might have been witnesses of his decease,—who, even admitting this, would not have spoken in accordance with the truth; but if he continued to live for any length of time he must have had [[752]]the intention to remain for that period in the concealment of a secret society; and to this must then be supposed to belong the two men clothed in white, who, doubtless with his previous sanction, persuaded the disciples that he had ascended into heaven.[19] But this is a mode of representation, from which in this instance as in every other, a sound judgment must turn away with aversion.
§ 143.
INSUFFICIENCY OF THE NARRATIVES OF THE ASCENSION. MYTHICAL CONCEPTION OF THOSE NARRATIVES.
Among all the New Testament histories of miracles, the ascension least demanded such an expenditure of perverted acumen, since the attestations to its historical validity are peculiarly weak,—not only to us who, having no risen Jesus, can consequently have no ascended one, but apart from all prior conclusions and in every point of view. Matthew and John, who according to the common idea were the two eyewitnesses among the Evangelists, do not mention it; it is narrated by Mark and Luke alone, while in the rest of the New Testament writings decided allusions to it are wanting. But this absence of allusions to the ascension in the rest of the New Testament is denied by orthodox expositors. When, say they, Jesus in Matthew ([xxvi. 64]), declares before the high priest, that hereafter the Son of Man will be seen sitting at the right hand of God: this presupposes an exaltation thither, consequently an ascension; when in John ([iii. 13]), he says, no one hath ascended into heaven but the Son of Man who came from heaven, and at another time ([vi. 62]) tells the disciples that they will hereafter see him ascend where he was before; further, when on the morning of the resurrection he declares that he is not yet ascended to his Father, implying that he is about to do so ([xx. 17]): there could hardly be more explicit allusions to the ascension; again, when the apostles in the Acts so often speak of an exaltation of Jesus to the right hand of God ([ii. 33], [v. 31], comp. [vii. 56]), and Paul represents him as ascended up far above all heavens ἀναβὰς ὑπεράνω πάντων τῶν οὐρανῶν ([Ephes. iv. 10]), Peter, as gone into heaven πορευθεὶς εἰς οὐρανὸν ([1 Pet. iii. 22]): there can be no doubt that they all knew of his ascension.[20] All these passages, however, with the exception perhaps of [John vi. 62], where a SEEING the Son of Man ascend, θεωρεῖν ἀναβαίνοντα τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, is spoken of, contain only in general his exaltation to heaven, without intimating that it was an external, visible fact, that took place in the presence of the disciples. Rather, when we find Paul in [1 Cor. xv. 5 ff.] ranking the appearance of Jesus to himself, which occurred long after the alleged ascension, with the Christophanies before this epoch, so entirely without any pause or indication of a distinction: we must doubt, not merely that all the appearances which he enumerates besides his own can have occurred before the ascension,[21] but whether the Apostle can have had any knowledge at all of an ascension as an external fact which closed the earthly life of Jesus. As to the author of the fourth gospel,—in his metaphorical language, we are not compelled by the word θεωρῆτε, any more than by the ὄψεσθε in relation to the angels ascending and descending upon Jesus, [i. 52], to ascribe to him a knowledge of [[753]]the visible ascension of Jesus, of which he gives no intimation at the conclusion of his gospel.
Commentators have, it is true, taken all possible pains to explain the want of a narrative of the ascension in the first and fourth gospels, in a way which may not prove inimical either to the authority of the writings, or to the historical value of the fact. They maintain that the Evangelists who are silent on the subject, held it either unnecessary, or impossible, to narrate the ascension. They held it unnecessary, say these expositors, either intrinsically, from the minor importance of the event;[22] or extrinsically, on the consideration that it was generally known as a part of the evangelical tradition;[23] John in particular supposed it to be known from Mark and Luke;[24] or lastly, both Matthew and John omitted it as not belonging to the earthly life of Jesus, to the description of which their writings were exclusively devoted.[25] But we must contend, on the contrary, that the life of Jesus, especially that enigmatical life which he led after his return from the grave, absolutely required such a close as the ascension. Whether it were generally known or not, whether it were important or unimportant,—the simple æsthetic interest which dictates even to an uncultivated author, that a narrative should be wound up with a conclusion, must have led every evangelical writer who knew of the ascension to mention it, though it were but summarily at the end of his history, in order to avoid the strange impression left by the first gospel and still more by the fourth, as narratives losing themselves in vague obscurity. Hence our apologists resort to the supposition that the first and fourth Evangelists held it impossible to give an account of the ascension of Jesus, because the eyewitnesses, however long they might gaze after him, could still only see him hovering in the air and encircled by the cloud, not entering heaven and taking his place on the right hand of God.[26] But in the ideas of the ancient world, to which heaven was nearer than to us, an entrance into the clouds was in itself a real ascent into heaven, as we see from the stories of Romulus and Elijah.
Thus it is undeniable that the above Evangelists were ignorant of the ascension: but the conclusion of the most recent criticism, that this ignorance is a reproach to the first Evangelist as a sign of his unapostolic character,[27] is the less in place here, because the event in question is rendered suspicious not merely by the silence of two Evangelists, but also by the want of agreement between those who narrate it. Mark is at variance with Luke, nay, Luke is at variance with himself. In the account of the former, it appears as if Jesus had ascended into heaven immediately from the meal in which he appeared to the eleven, consequently from out of a house in Jerusalem; for the phrases: he appeared with the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them—and he said—So then after the Lord had spoken unto them he was received up into heaven, etc., ἀνακειμένοις—ἐφανερώθη· καὶ ὠνείδισε—καὶ ἐ͂ιπεν—Ὁ μὲν οὖν κύριος, μετὰ τὸ λαλῆσαι αὐτοῖς, ἀνελήφθη κ.τ.λ. have an immediate dependence on each other, and it is only by violence that a change of place or a distinction of time can be introduced.[28] Now an ascent into [[754]]heaven directly out of a room is certainly not easy to imagine; hence Luke represents it as taking place in the open air. In his gospel he makes Jesus immediately before his ascension, lead out his disciples as far as Bethany ἕως εἰς Βηθανίαν, but in the Acts he places the scene on the mount called Olivet ὄρος τὸ καλούμενον ἐλαιῶνα; this, however, cannot be imputed to him as a contradiction, since Bethany lay in the neighbourhood of the mount of Olives.[29] But there is a more important divergency in his statement of time; for in his gospel, as in Mark, we are left to infer that the ascension took place on the same day with the resurrection: whereas in the Acts it is expressly remarked, that the two events were separated by an interval of forty days. It has already been remarked that the latter determination of time must have come to the knowledge of Luke in the interim between the composition of the gospel and that of the Acts. The more numerous the narratives of appearances of the risen Jesus, and the more various the places to which they were assigned: the less would the short space of a day suffice for his life on earth after the resurrection; while the determination of the lengthened period which had become necessary to forty days precisely, had its foundation in the part which this number is known to have played in the Jewish, and already in the Christian legend. The people of Israel were forty years in the wilderness; Moses was forty days on mount Sinai; he and Elias fasted forty days; and Jesus himself previous to the temptation remained the same length of time without nourishment in the wilderness. As, then, all these mysterious intermediate states and periods of transition were determined by the number forty: this number presented itself as especially appropriate for the determination of the mysterious interval between the resurrection and ascension of Jesus.[30]
As regards the description of the event itself, it might be thought admissible to ascribe the silence of Mark, and of Luke in his gospel, concerning the cloud and the angels, purely to the brevity of their narratives; but since Luke at the close of his gospel narrates circumstantially enough the conduct of the disciples—how they fell down and worshipped the ascended Jesus, and returned to the city with great joy: so he would doubtless have pointed out the information communicated to them by angels as the immediate source of their joy, had he known anything of such a particular at the time when he composed his first writing. Hence this feature seems rather to have been gradually formed in tradition, in order to render due honour to this last point also in the life of Jesus, and to present a confirmation of the insufficient testimony of men as to his exaltation into heaven by the mouth of two heavenly witnesses.
As, according to this, those who knew of an ascension of Jesus, had by no means the same idea of its particular circumstances: there must have been in general two different modes of conceiving the close of the life of Jesus; some regarding it as a visible ascension, others not so.[31] When Matthew makes Jesus before the tribunal of the high priest predict his exaltation to the right hand of the divine power ([xxvi. 64]), and after his resurrection declare that now all power is given to him in heaven and earth ([xxviii. 18]); and nevertheless has nothing of a visible ascension, but on the contrary puts into the mouth [[755]]of Jesus the assurance: I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world, ἐγὼ μεθ’ ὑμῶν εἰμι πάσας τὰς ἡμέρας ἕως τῆς συντελείας τοῦ αἰῶνος ([v. 20]): it is evident that the latent idea, on which his representation is founded, is that Jesus, doubtless immediately on his resurrection, ascended invisibly to the Father, though at the same time remaining invisibly with his followers; and that out of this concealment he, as often as he found it expedient, revealed himself in Christophanies. The same view is to be discerned in the Apostle Paul, when in [1 Cor. xv.] he undistinguishingly places the appearance to himself of the Christ already ascended into heaven, in one series with the earlier Christophanies; and also the author of the fourth gospel and the rest of the New Testament writers only presuppose what must necessarily be presupposed according to the messianic passage: Sit thou at my right hand, [Ps. cx. 1]: that Jesus was exalted to the right hand of God; without deciding anything as to the manner of the exaltation, or representing to themselves the ascension as a visible one. The imagination of the primitive Christians must however have felt a strong temptation to depict this exaltation as a brilliant spectacle. When it was once concluded that the Messiah Jesus had arrived at so exalted a position, it would appear desirable to gaze after him, as it were, on his way thither. If it was expected, in accordance with the prophecy of Daniel, that his future return from heaven would be a visible descent in the clouds: this would naturally suggest that his departure to heaven should be represented as a visible ascent on a cloud; and when Luke makes the two white-apparelled angels, who joined the disciples after the removal of Jesus, say: this same Jesus, who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven ([Acts i. 11]): we need only take the converse of this declaration in order to have before us the genesis of the conception of the ascension of Jesus; for the mode of conclusion was this: as Jesus will at some future time return from heaven in the clouds, so he must surely have departed thither[32] in the same manner.