Satisfied, therefore, with the footnotes below (at which the reader will oblige us by just glancing, and which are appended, in perfect good faith and simple honesty, as implying no more than we could make good), we will avoid boring those who have a right to, and who expect, the conclusion of a straightforward story at our hands.[4]
Paulus and his mother were conversing, as has been described, in Greek, while the serving-man, despite his ignorance of that language, had the air of half-following the drift of what they said, and of catching the main purport of it with wonder and awe. There was, indeed, at that moment, only one topic in all Jerusalem. He who, less than a week ago, had been crucified, and with the time of whose coming (as much as with all the particulars of his life, teaching, works, and death) the old prophecies were found more and more startlingly, circumstantially, unmistakably, the more they were studied, questioned, and canvassed, to agree, point by point, down to what would seem even trivial details (indicated as if merely to emphasize the incommunicable identity of the Messiah)—he had himself stated, distinctly and publicly, that, by his own power, he would rise from the dead in three days; that, in three days after, he should be "lifted up" and be made "a spectacle for men and angels;" in three days after they should have destroyed it, he would rebuild the holy temple of his body. And now these rumors—these minute, these positive accounts—had he, then, really reappeared, according to his word and promise? Was it possible? Was it the fact?
Many had, on the previous Friday night, stated that, of a verity, they had seen their deceased parents and relatives. Again, on the Saturday, many declared, amid awe-stricken groups of listeners, that the unknown land had sent them its visitants, in various places, under various aspects, to startle the guilty city; which, after killing the King's messenger-servants, had just killed the King's Son, who had come, as had been a thousand times announced, in the very fulness, the exact maturity of days, to deliver the final embassy to men.
On that Wednesday evening, there was, in truth, but one theme of conversation, one subject of thought, all through Jerusalem, and already far beyond Jerusalem; among poor and rich, high and low, natives and strangers, the robbers of the Syrian hills and Arabian deserts, the dwellers in the city, the travellers on the roads and at the inns, among Sadducees, Pharisees, Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, and barbarians.
No wonder, then, if the humble serving-man, as he watered the flowers, penetrated the drift of the mother's and the son's discussion. For him and such as he was the message. The poor Syrian had once, for a while, rendered occasional out-door service to the family of Lazarus; and he had known Lazarus in three states—had known him living, dead, again alive. After days of death in that fierce climate, where inanimate flesh putrefies fast, he had beheld Lazarus, at the call of one upon whose lineaments he gazed, at the time, with unconscious adoration, come forth, not merely from death, but from incipient decomposition, back into balmy life—back to the "vita serena."
Now, was he who, in that instance, had allowed it to be perceived and felt that he was really the Lord of life, whom death and rottenness were manifestly unable to disobey—was he himself, as his disciples declared he was, living again among them, since the morning of the last Sunday (the feria prima), according to his own public prediction and distinct promise? Was he not? Was he?
Aglais and Paulus had heard more than one circumstantial account of this, his reappearance, according to that, his promise. By this one and by the other he had been met. They had gazed upon him, spoken to him, heard him in reply, touched him, in such a place, on that bridge, that road, in such a garden. He had walked conversing with them, had sat with them at meat, had broken bread with them, as was his wont, had then vanished.
Where was his body, over which the Pharisees had set their guard of soldiers? Not in the grave. No; but where? Had the Pharisees accounted for it? Could they tell what had become of it? Could the soldiers? The disciples could, and they did.
"Mother," said Paulus, "do you know what those soldiers say? One of them once served in a legion which I commanded. Do you know what they say?"