CHAPTER III. THE EVIDENCE OF PAUL
We may now proceed to examine the evidence of Paul. "On one occasion," it is affirmed in a passage already quoted, "he gives a very circumstantial account of the testimony upon which the belief in the Resurrection rested (1 Cor. xv. 4—8)."(1) This account is as follows: 1 Cor. xv. 3. "For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4. and that he was buried, and that he has been raised [———] the third day according to the Scriptures, 5. and that he was seen by Cephas, then by the Twelve. 6. After that, he was seen by above five hundred brethren at once [———], of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. 7. After that, he was seen by James; then by all the Apostles. 8. And last of all he was seen by me also as the one born out of due time."(2) Can this be considered a "very circumstantial account"? It may be exceedingly unreasonable, but we must at once acknowledge that we are not satisfied. The testimony
upon which the belief in the Resurrection rests comprised in a dozen lines! for we may so far anticipate as to say that this can scarcely be regarded as a resume of evidence which we can find elsewhere. We shall presently point out a few circumstances which it might be useful to know.
The Apostle states, in this passage, that the doctrines which he had delivered to the Corinthians he had himself "received." He does not pretend to teach them from his own knowledge, and the question naturally arises: From whom did he "receive" them? Formerly, divines generally taught that Paul received these doctrines by revelation, and up to recent times apologists have continued to hold this view, even when admitting the subsidiary use of tradition.(1) If this claim were seriously made, the statements of the Apostle, so far as our inquiry is concerned, would certainly not gain in value, for it is obvious that Revelation could not be admitted to prove Revelation. It is quite true that Paul himself professed to have received his Gospel not from men, but from God by direct revelation, and we shall hereafter have to consider this point and the inferences to be drawn from such pretensions. At present, the argument need not be complicated by any such supposition, for certainly Paul does not here advance any such claim himself, and apologetic and other critics agree in declaring the source of his statements to be natural historical tradition.(2) The points which he
delivered and which he had also received are three in number: (1) that Christ died for our sins; (2) that he was buried; and (3) that he has been raised the third day. In strictness the [———] might oblige us to include, "and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve," after which the construction of the sentence is changed. It is not necessary to press this, however, and it is better for the present to separate the dogmatic statements from those which are more properly evidential.
It will be observed that, although the death, burial, and resurrection are here taught as "received," evidence only of one point is offered: that Jesus "was seen by" certain persons. We have already pointed out that the Gospels do not pretend that any one was an eye-witness of the Resurrection itself, and it is important to notice that Paul, the earliest and most trustworthy witness produced, entirely passes over the event itself, and relies solely on the fact that Jesus was supposed to have been seen by certain persons to prove that he died, was buried, and had actually risen the third day. The only inference which we here wish to draw from this is, that the alleged appearances are thus obviously separated from the death and burial by a distinct gulf. A dead body, it is stated, or one believed to be dead, is laid in a sepulchre: after a certain time, it is alleged that the dead person has been seen alive. Supposing the first statement to be correct, the second, being in itself, according to all our experience, utterly incredible, leaves further a serious gap in the continuity of evidence. What occurred in the interval between the burial and the supposed apparition? If it be asserted—as in the Gospels it is—that, before the
apparition, the sepulchre was found empty and the body gone, not only may it be replied that this very circumstance may have assisted in producing a subjective vision, but that, in so far as the disappearance of the body is connected with the appearance of the person apparently alive, the fact has no evidential value. The person supposed to be dead, for instance, may actually not have been so, but have revived; for, although we have no intention ourselves of adopting this explanation of the Resurrection, it is, as an alternative, certainly preferable to belief in the miracle. Or, in the interval, the body may have been removed from a temporary to a permanent resting place unknown to those who are surprised to find the body gone;—and in the Gospels the conflicting accounts of the embalming and hasty burial, as we have seen, would fully permit of such an argument if we relied at all on those narratives. Many other means of accounting for the absence of the body might be advanced, any one of which, in the actual default of testimony to the contrary, would be irrefutable. The mere surprise of finding a grave empty which was supposed to contain a body betrays a blank in the knowledge of the persons, which can only be naturally filled up. This gap, at least, would not have existed had the supposed resurrection occurred in the presence of those by whom it is asserted Jesus "was seen." As it is, no evidence whatever is offered that Jesus really died; no evidence that the sepulchre was even found empty; no evidence that the dead body actually arose and became alive again; but skipping over the intermediate steps, the only evidence produced is the statement that, being supposed to be dead, he is said to have been seen by certain persons.(1)