The Fair Haven

by Samuel Butler

“Dean Alford, indeed, maintains otherwise. In his notes on the words, ‘And lo! I am with you always unto the end of the world,’ he says, ‘These words imply and set forth the Ascension’; it is true that he adds, ‘the manner of which is not related by the Evangelist’: but how do the words quoted, ‘imply and set forth’ the Ascension? They imply a belief that Christ’s spirit would be present with his disciples to the end of time; but how do they set forth the fact that his body was seen by a number of people to rise into the air and actually to mount up far into the region of the clouds?

“The fact is simply this—and nobody can know it better than Dean Alford—that Matthew tells us nothing about the Ascension.

“The last verses of Mark’s Gospel are admitted by Dean Alford himself to be not genuine, but even in these the subject is dismissed in a single verse, and although it is stated that Christ was received into Heaven, there is not a single word to imply that any one was supposed to have seen him actually on his way thither.

“The author of the fourth Gospel is also silent concerning the Ascension. There is not a word, nor hint, nor faintest trace of any knowledge of the fact, unless an allusion be detected in the words, ‘What and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascending where he was before?’ (John vi., 62) in reference to which passage Dean Alford, in his note on Luke xxiv., 52, writes as follows:—‘And might not we have concluded from the wording of John vi., 62, that our Lord must have intended an ascension insight of some of those to whom he spoke, and that the Evangelist gives that hint, by recording those words without comment, that he had seen it?’ That is to say, we are to conclude that the writer of the fourth Gospel actually saw the Ascension, because he tells us that Christ uttered the words, ‘What and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascending where he was before?’

“But who was the author of the fourth Gospel? And what reason is there for thinking that that work is genuine? Let us make another extract from Dean Alford. In his prolegomena, chapter v., section 6, on the genuineness of the fourth Gospel, he writes:—‘Neither Papias, who carefully sought out all that Apostles and Apostolic men had related regarding the life of Christ; nor Polycarp, who was himself a disciple of the Apostle John; nor Barnabas, nor Clement of Rome, in their epistles; nor, lastly, Ignatius (in his genuine writings), makes any mention of, or allusion to, this gospel. So that in the most ancient circle of ecclesiastical testimony, it appears to be unknown or not recognised.’ We may add that there is no trace of its existence before the latter half of the second century, and that the internal evidence against its genuineness appears to be more and more conclusive the more it is examined.

“St. Paul, when enumerating the last appearances of his master, in a passage where the absence of any allusion to the Ascension is almost conclusive as to his never having heard a word about it, is also silent. In no part of his genuine writings does he give any sign of his having been aware that any story was in existence as to the manner in which Christ was received into Heaven.

“Where, then, does the story come from, if neither Matthew, Mark, John, nor Paul appear to have heard of it?

“It comes from a single verse in St. Luke’s Gospel—written more than half a century after the supposed event, when few, or more probably none, of those who were supposed to have seen it were either living or within reach to contradict it. Luke writes (xxiv., 51), ‘And it came to pass that while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into Heaven.’ This is the only account of the Ascension given in any part of the Gospels which can be considered genuine. It gives Bethany as the place of the miracle, whereas, if Dean Alford is right in saying that the words of Matthew ‘set forth’ the Ascension, they set it forth as having taken place on a mountain in Galilee. But here, as elsewhere, all is haze and contradiction. Perhaps some Christian writers will maintain that it happened both at Bethany and in Galilee.

“In his subsequent work, written some sixty or seventy years after the Ascension, St. Luke gives us that more detailed account which is commonly present to the imagination of all men (thanks to the Italian painters), when the Ascension is alluded to. The details, it would seem, came to his knowledge after he had written his Gospel, and many a long year after Matthew and Mark and Paul had written. How he came by the additional details we do not know. Nobody seems to care to know. He must have had them revealed to him, or been told them by some one, and that some one, whoever he was, doubtless knew what he was saying, and all Europe at one time believed the story, and this is sufficient proof that mistake was impossible.

“It is indisputable that from the very earliest ages of the Church there existed a belief that Christ was at the right hand of God; but no one who professes to have seen him on his way thither has left a single word of record. It is easy to believe that the facts may have been revealed in a night vision, or communicated in one or other of the many ways in which extraordinary circumstances are communicated, during the years of oral communication and enthusiasm which elapsed between the supposed Ascension of Christ and the writing of Luke’s second work. It is not surprising that a firm belief in Christ’s having survived death should have arisen in consequence of the actual circumstances connected with the Crucifixion and entombment. Was it then strange that this should develop itself into the belief that he was now in Heaven, sitting at the right hand of God the Father? And finally was it strange that a circumstantial account of the manner in which he left this earth should be eagerly accepted?”