THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS: ADVERSE THEORIES CONSIDERED.

When admitted facts are to be accounted for, there may be one of three cases: First, no adequate cause for the fact may be known: in this instance the fact remains unexplained as to its cause. Second, two or more causes may be known, cither of which is adequate to account for the effect: in this instance there is a question of probability as to which of these is the real cause. Third, one, and only one, adequate cause may be known: in this instance the fact must be explained by that cause. In the inquiry concerning the resurrection of Jesus there are, as we have previously stated, two admitted facts having important bearing on the main question: first, that the dead body of Jesus disappeared from the tomb on or before the third morning; second, that the disciples came to believe that it disappeared by rising from the dead. These two facts are readily accounted for if Jesus actually arose; but if they can be accounted for on some other rational hypothesis, then the question is one of probability between that hypothesis and the resurrection. Again, if they can be accounted for on no other such hypothesis, we are logically shut up to the resurrection as the only adequate cause. Such hypotheses have been advanced by unbelievers, and we shall now give them careful consideration.

1. Very few infidel writers have seriously grappled with the question, how the body of Jesus disappeared. They have doubtless avoided it because they had no hypothesis on which they were willing to take a stand. Christian Baur, realizing his inability in this particular, sets the question aside by the following very remarkable statement: "The question as to the nature and reality of the resurrection lies outside the sphere of historical investigation."1 This is remarkable, because it places outside the sphere of historical investigation the most momentous event in history, if it is an event; and it is the more remarkable in that it is made in a history of the Church. It leaves outside of church history an inquiry into the very fact on which the existence of the Church depends. It is like a history of the United States which leaves out of consideration the reality of the Declaration of Independence, or a treatise on the solar system which treats the reality of the sun's existence as an outside question. Baur could not have chosen a more emphatic method of declaring his dissatisfaction with the theories on this subject propounded by some of his fellow infidels.

Renan, more courageous than discreet, takes issue with Baur. and makes a bold attempt to account for the removal of the body. He formally raises the question, "In what place did the worms consume the lifeless corpse, which, on the Friday evening, had been deposited in the sepulcher?" He proceeds to answer as follows: "It is possible that the body was taken away by some of the disciples, and by them carried into Galilee. The others, remaining at Jerusalem, would not be cognizant of the fact. On the other hand, the disciples who carried the body into Galilee could not have as yet become acquainted with the stories which were invented at Jerusalem, so that the belief in the resurrection would have been propounded in their absence, and would have surprised them accordingly. They could not have protested; and had they done so, nothing would have been disarranged." "It is also permissible to suppose that the disappearance of the body was the work of the Jews. Perhaps they thought that in this way they would prevent the scenes of tumult which might be enacted over the corpse of a man so popular as Jesus. Perhaps they wanted to prevent any noisy funeral ceremonies, or the erection of a monument to this just man." "Lastly, who knows that the disappearance of the body was not effected by the proprietor of the garden, or by the gardener? This proprietor, as it would seem from such evidence as we possess, was a stranger to the sect. They chose his cave because it was nearest to Golgotha, and because they were pressed for time. Perhaps he was dissatisfied with this mode of taking possession of his property, and caused the corpse to be removed."2

It will be observed that this ingenious author, although he suggests three ways in which he thinks it possible that the body may have been removed, does not make choice between them, nor does he state either with any confidence. He introduces one with the words, "It is possible;" another with "It is permissible to suppose;" and the third with "Who knows?" He also makes free use of the term "perhaps." All this shows conscious weakness and uncertainty; and when we come to consider the three suppositions, we shall see that he had good cause for so speaking.

The supposition that the disciples from Galilee carried the body with them is preposterous, for want of an adequate motive for so difficult an undertaking. The transportation of a dead body in the warm season of that warm climate to a distance of not less than sixty miles, with no facilities except a common bier borne on the shoulders of men, is an undertaking not to be thought of except under extreme necessity, and no such necessity existed. But if it had been thus transported it is still more absurd to assume that the story of its resurrection would not have been contradicted by those who buried it in Galilee, or that a remonstrance from them would have had no effect. And even should both these suppositions be accepted as within the bounds of probability, still it would have been impossible for the disciples to carry the body through the country and bury it in Galilee without the cognizance of unbelieving Jews or Samaritans along the way, and they would have borne witness to the fact. The second supposition is not "permissible," for two reasons: first, the motive assigned could not have prompted the act, inasmuch as it would not have prevented either funeral ceremonies, if any had been desired, or the erection of a monument; second, if the Jews had disposed of the body they would certainly have produced it when the story of a resurrection became current; or, if the body had by this time been too much decomposed, they would have presented evidence that it had been disposed of in this way. This would have been a far more effective method of silencing the Apostles than to threaten them with death, and to scourge them, as was done afterward for "preaching, through Jesus, the resurrection of the dead."3 The third hypothesis is equally unreasonable with the others; for if the garden did not really belong to Joseph, he certainly had the right of access through it to his own sepulcher; and if the gardener had removed the body he would have been very glad to give it up to Mary when she was seeking for it. The dead body of a stranger, and especially that of a crucified criminal, is a piece of property of which men are very glad to be relieved. Finally, all three of these suppositions are proved to be absurd, from the fact that the sepulcher was guarded by Roman soldiers for the very purpose of preventing any such removal of the body. At this point we can see more clearly than before why unbelievers feel compelled to deny the placing of that guard. It is not because there is anything improbable in it, but because the presence of the guard renders it incredible that the body disappeared in any way compatible with the theories of unbelief. To deny a fact which is reasonably well attested for no other purpose than to get it out of the way of a theory, is convincing proof that the theory is false.

2. While few infidels have made serious attempts to account for the disappearance of the body of Jesus, many have tried to account for the other admitted fact, the belief of the disciples that he arose from the dead. The theory that all the witnesses labored under a hallucination has already been examined, and found to be without the slightest ground of evidence. As a cause of the belief in question it would be inadequate even if it were a fact. Men and women who are hallucinated firmly believe that what they 6ee and hear in this state of mind i6 real while the hallucination continues, but as soon as it passes away the belief passes away with it. No sane man, for instance, continues after waking to believe in the reality of what he saw in his dreams; and no man who has suffered from delirium tremens believes, after his delirium has passed, that the serpents and hobgoblins which he saw were realities. It is contrary to the experience of hallucinated persons, therefore, that the disciples, if they were in this state of mind when they thought they saw Jesus, continued to believe that they saw him after they returned to their normal mental condition. The permanency of their belief is a complete refutation of this theory.

Not content with the bare statement that the witnesses were hallucinated, skeptics have undertaken to trace the exact process by which they were led to believe that they had seen Jesus. As this attempt is made more in detail by Renan than by others, we shall take up his remarks on the subject as the representative of all. In regard to Mary Magdalene, he follows the account given by John in every detail except that of seeing the angels, up to the point when she spoke to the supposed gardener; then he says that she thought she heard her name called: she thought it was the voice of Jesus; she cried, "O my Master!" and threw herself at his feet, when "the light vision gives way, and says to her, Touch me not." "Little by little the shadow passes away," and she believes that she has seen Jesus.4 Now this is so near the whole story as told by John, that it leaves no room for the theory which Renan would make it support. If Mary thought she heard her name called, why should we think that she did not? And if, on hearing the voice the second time, she recognized the voice of Jesus, looked upon the person who spoke, and fell at his feet because she recognized him as Jesus, why should we doubt that it was he? She knew him as perfectly as one human being can know another; and how could she be mistaken in his identity when she both heard his voice and looked upon his person? Even if he did "little by little" disappear--an assertion made without evidence--this detracts nothing from the reality of his appearance before he began to disappear. This theory differs from John's account in only one particular--in supposing that, instead of seeing Jesus, Mary saw a "shadow" which she mistook for Jesus--a supposition as thin as the shadow which it conjures up.  

The author of Supernatural Religion makes an attempt to improve on this explanation, by observing that if Mary had turned away at the instant in which she thought the person who spoke to her was the gardener, this inference would have remained and have been erroneous; from which, he says, we might argue, that if still further examination had taken place, her second inference might have proved as erroneous as the first.5 To put this in familiar form, it means about this: you met a gentleman, and when he first called your name you did not recognize him; but on hearing the voice a second time you recognized it as that of an old friend. You then looked at him, and recognized his person, and held out your hand to him. Now it is suggested that if you had looked at him a little closer you would have seen that he was not your old friend at all, but a shadow conjured up in your own imagination! Such reasoning reverses all experience, and shows how desperate are the straits to which learned and ingenious men are driven when they attempt to explain away the testimony for the resurrection. Baur realized the weakness of their cause and his own at this point, and consequently, while assuming with the writers just quoted that the change in the disciples from unbelief to belief in the resurrection was the result of an "inward spiritual process," he utterly repudiates their attempts to explain the process, by asserting that "no psychological analysis can show what that process was." 6 This is the candidly expressed judgment of one of the most learned and acute of all of the men who have written against the evidence of the resurrection.

In regard to the other women, Renan first misrepresents their testimony by saying that they did not claim to have seen Jesus, and then tries to account for their claim to have seen and heard the angel, by saying: "Perhaps it was the linen clothes which bad given rise to this hallucination;" and "Perhaps, again, they saw nothing at all, and only began to speak of their vision when Mary of Magdala had related hers."7 As to the former of these two perhapses, the supposition that four or five women, entering a tomb to put spices on a dead body, and finding only the grave clothes there, would take those folded pieces of linen for a young man in dazzling apparel, and think they heard him say to them, "He is no longer here; return into Galilee; he will go before you; there you shall see him," appears incalculably more like the working of a disordered brain than anything these artless women ever did or said. The other supposition, that they saw nothing, but only told their tale after Mary had told hers; that is, that they made up a lie to keep Mary from excelling them in telling big tales, is the more reasonable of the two. and it would doubtless have been adopted in preference but for the fact that a real belief in the resurrection is admitted, and this would be accounting for its existence by denying that it existed at all. How much more rational to believe the whole story told by the women, than to believe this absurd effort to explain it away. In accounting for the belief of the Twelve, Renan succeeds no better. After the assumption already cited (page 123), that they mistook a current of air, a creaking window, or a chance murmur for the voice of Jesus, be says they immediately decided that Jesus was present, and "some pretended to have observed on his bands and his feet the mark of the nails, and on his side the mark of the spear which pierced him."8 This is, in the first place, a false representation of the testimony. The testimony is, that when they heard the voice, instead of instantly believing that Jesus was in their midst, they were "terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they beheld a spirit;" and that it was not until he showed them his hands and feet, and ate a piece of broiled fish in their presence, that they were sure it was he (Luke xxii. 36-43). This is the testimony to be dealt with, and not the imaginary representation which Renan substitutes for it. With this before us, we can at once see that either they told the truth, or the assertion made by Renan about some of them is true of all, they pretended to have seen his wounds; and this means that their story is a falsehood. Here again the theory of hallucination breaks to pieces in the hands of its advocates, and turns into the theory of intentional falsehood. That it does so is proof that there is no middle ground between charging the witnesses with conscious fraud, and admitting the truth of their testimony.

As to the origin of Paul's belief, after stating the theory of delirious fever which we have already noticed (page 123), Renan says that while a prey to these hallucinations Paul saw Jesus, and heard him say to him, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" and that instantly his sentiments experienced a revulsion as thorough as it was sudden; "and yet all this was but a new order of fanaticism."9 If there were any reason at all for thinking that Paul was at the time suffering from delirious fever, it would be possible to suppose that in this fever he was possessed by such a hallucination; but that he would have believed this hallucination to be a reality after he recovered from the fever is preposterous; it is contrary to all the experiences of persons who have had fever. The absurdity of the supposition appears more glaring still, when we remember that Paul's disbelief in Jesus as the Messiah was based on his deliberate judgment as to the meaning of the prophesies on that subject found in the Old Testament; and there could be no possible connection between a hallucination experienced in fever and the exegesis which had led him to his conclusions.

Baur follows in the train of those who hold Paul's vision of Jesus to have been a subjective experience, but he repudiates the hypothesis defended by Renan, that a thunderstorm bursting from the sides of Mount Hermon was the immediate cause of the transition.10 He holds that the account of that miraculous light is nothing but a symbolical and mythical expression for the real presence of the glorified Jesus; and he says: "However firmly the Apostle may have believed that he saw the form of Jesus actually and, as it were, externally before him, his testimony extends merely to what he believed he saw." This last remark is unquestionably true; and the only question is, Did he see what he believed he saw, or was he mistaken? As we have said before, if there occurred within him, from some unnatural state of mind, the conviction that he was seeing and hearing Jesus, this conviction would have passed away with the unnatural mental state which brought it about; and consequently the fact that he continued to believe that he saw and heard with his physical senses is the best of proof that he did.

Strauss, dismissing with Baur the theory of a thunder storm, makes a somewhat different attempt to account for Paul's belief psychologically. He says: "Apart from the blindness and its removal by Ananias, as also the phenomena seen by the attendants, we might look upon all as a vision which Paul attributed indeed to an external cause, but which, nevertheless, took place in his own mind." In another place he speaks in more positive terms of Paul's conviction, saying: "It is certain that in doing so he considered the ascended Christ as really and externally present, the appearance as in the full sense an objective one;" but he claims the right to be of a different opinion from Paul.11 He attempts to account for this singular mistake of an inward for an outward vision by supposing that Paul, in hours of despondency, when thinking of the tranquillity of the disciples under persecution in contrast with his own troubled feelings, began to question himself as to whether, after all, he might not be wrong and they right; and that an ecstasy coming on him--that is, in plain terms, an epileptic fit--Jesus appeared and spoke to him.12 Here, by the necessity of his attempt to show that Paul mistook the working of his own mind for the miraculous appearance of Jesus, lie falls into the supposition which we have already so fully exposed as absurd, that Paul was demented at the time of his conversion. Christian Baur repudiates all these theories of his fellow infidels, and declares concerning Paul's faith as he does concerning that of the older Apostles, that it can not be accounted for in any such way.13  

As a final exposure of the futility of all of these attempts to account for Paul's belief without admitting the reality of the appearance of Jesus to him, we cite the fact of the blindness, which resulted from the brilliancy of the light that shone around him. Strauss felt that this blindness was in his way, as appears from the qualifying clause with which he introduces his theory: "Apart from the blindness and its removal by Ananias, we might look upon all as a vision."14 But the narrative can not be considered apart from this blindness and its removal. The latter is an essential part of the story, without which all that is said about Paul's conversion in Acts breaks to pieces. It is necessary either to get rid of the blindness, or to believe the whole story; for if the blindness was real, the theory of a mere mental change in Paul without an external cause must be dismissed; and so must the hypothesis of an ecstasy, for an ecstasy does not make men blind. It also sets aside the supposition of an optical illusion and that of a falsehood, for neither optical illusions nor falsehoods make men blind. The blindness and its removal stamp the whole story with the indelible marks of truthfulness and reality. Baur, realizing this, attempts to get rid of the blindness. After referring to what is said of the visit and the remarks of Ananias, he says: "Is not, then, the 'to be filled with the Holy Spirit,' which was wont to follow the laying on of hands, in itself a healing of blindness, an ἀναδλέπειν in a spiritual sense; and does not the expression, 'immediately there fell from his eyes, as it were, scales,' seem to indicate that they were no real scales, that there was no real blindness, no real cure?"15 These questions would have plausibility if the statements of the text about the blindness were at all ambiguous; but they are not so. Luke says that when Paid opened his eyes after the vision "he saw nothing;" and that he was "three days and nights without sight;" and Paul says: "When I could not see for the glory of that light, being led by the hand of them that were with me, I came into Damascus." In regard to the restoration of his sight Luke represents Ananias as saying to him, "The Lord hath sent me that thou mayest receive thy sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit." Two purposes are here declared: that he might receive sight is one, and that he might be filled with the Holy Spirit is another, and it is totally distinct from the first. Neither of these purposes was at all dependent on the other; for Paul might have been restored to his sight without receiving the Holy Spirit, and he might have received the Holy Spirit had it been in accordance with God's subsequent purposes concerning him, without receiving his sight. Furthermore, Luke says: "And straightway there fell from his eyes, as it were, scales, and he received his sight." The expression "as it were scales," shows of course that they were not real scales, but it does not show that they were nothing. They were doubtless obstructions to sight which had formed on the eyes, and they resulted from the inflammation caused by the intensity of the light. Paul's account is that Ananias said to him, "Brother Saul, receive thy sight;" and he adds: "In that very hour I looked upon him." Only on the supposition that these several statements of Paul and Luke are false can any of the questions propounded by Baur be answered in the affirmative except the last, which is thus answered in the text itself. Let it be noted, too, that the only reason why infidels can wish to get rid of the fact of the blindness is because it proves the reality of the miraculous light which caused it, and of the miraculous cure which removed it. Now, if in the accounts of it given in the text of Scripture it had the appearance of being lugged in to artificially support the evidence of these two miracles, this would justly excite suspicion of its reality; but no such artificiality is charged, and there is not the slightest indication of it to be found. It must stand as a fact; and while it stands, it stands as an impassable barrier to the attempts of skeptics to throw doubt on the reality of Paul's vision of Christ glorified. It was largely owing to this fact, perfectly well known to the unbelieving friends of Paul during the three days of its continuance, that he "confounded the Jews who dwelt at Damascus, proving that this is the Christ" (Acts ix. 22).

We now see that all attempts to break the force of the evidence for the resurrection by adverse theories concerning the disappearance of the body of Jesus, and of the origin of the belief of the disciples that he had risen, are as futile as those to invalidate the testimony of the witnesses by various charges against them. The case, then, is the third of those mentioned at the beginning of the chapter (132, 133). These two facts are to be accounted for. The resurrection of Jesus accounts for them adequately, and on no other hypothesis can they be accounted for at all; therefore we are confined to the actual resurrection as the true and only cause of the admitted facts. 

1 "The question as to the nature and the reality of the resurrection lies outside the sphere of historical inquiry. History must be content with the simple fact that in the faith of the disciples the resurrection of Jesus came to be regarded as a solid and unquestionable fact. It was in this faith that Christianity acquired a firm basis for its historical development. What history requires the necessary antecedent of all that is to follow is not so much the fact of the resurrection, as the belief that it was a fact." (Baur, Church History, i. 42). Strauss, dissatisfied with this strange position of his follow unbeliever, makes the following comment: "But even Baur himself has vouchsafed to declare that the real nature of the resurrection of Jesus lies outside the limits of historical investigation, and has accordingly, at least in words, avoided the burning question." (New Life, i. 398.) Yet Strauss himself also avoids "the burning question," at least so far as not to attempt to say what became of the dead body.

2 Renan, Apostles, 78-80.

3 See Acts of Apostles, iv. 1, 2, 21; v. 17, 40. Strauss, in attempting to reply to this argument, after saying that the Apostles kept quiet till Pentecost, about seven weeks, and that it is doubtful whether Jesus was actually laid in Joseph's tomb, proceeds to say: 11 But if Jesus was, as is probable, buried with the other condemned criminals in a dishonorable place, his disciples had not from the first the tempting opportunity of looking for his body. And if some time elapsed before they came forward proclaiming his resurrection, it must have been more difficult for their opponents also to produce his corpse in a condition still to be recognized or affording any proof. Moreover, when we remember the horror for dead bodies felt by the Jews it was far from being so obvious a thing to do as we may at this day imagine." (New Life, i. 432). The author of Supernatural Religion follows in a similar strain, but neither of them meets the point made above, that even if the body had been, too much decayed for identification, competent evidence as to what was done with it by the soldiers of Pilate would have been fatal to the preaching; and that such evidence was not even thought of by the chief priests. Moreover, both these writers, in common with all on their side, find it very convenient just here, as at other points in the discussion, to ignore the fact that the soldiers did give explicit testimony to the priests, which agreed with that of the apostles.

4 "Peter and John having departed from the garden, Mary remained alone at the edge of the cave. She wept copiously; one sole thought preoccupied her mind: Where had they put the body? Her woman's heart went no further than her desire to clasp again in her arms the beloved corpse. Suddenly she hears a light rustling behind her. There is a man, standing. At first she believes it to be the gardener. 'Oh!' she says, 'if thou hast borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, that I may take him away.' For the only answer, she thinks that she hears herself called by her own name, 'Mary.' It was the voice that had so often thrilled her before. It was the accent of Jesus. 'Oh, my Master!' she cries. She is about to touch him. A sort of instinctive movement throws her at his feet to kiss them The light vision gives way. and says to her, 'Touch me not!' Little by little the shadow disappears. But the miracle of love is accomplished. That which Cephas could not do, Mary has done; she has been able to draw life, sweet and penetrating words from the empty tomb. There is now no more talk of inferences to be deduced, or of conjectures to be framed. Mary has seen and heard. The resurrection has its first direct witness." (Apostles, 60.)

5 Sup. Rel., iii. note.

6 "The view we take of the resurrection is of minor importance for the history. We may regard it as an outward objective miracle, or as a subjective psychological miracle; since, though we assume that an inward spiritual process was possible by which the unbelief of the disciples at the time of the death of Jesus was changed into belief of his resurrection, still no psychological analysis can show what that process was." (Church History, i. 42.)

7 Apostles, 62.

8 Apostles, 67, 68.

9 "And what did he see; what did he hear, while a prey to these hallucinations? He saw the countenance which had haunted him for several days; he saw the phantom of which so much had been said. He saw Jesus himself, who spoke to him in Hebrew, saying, 'Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?' . . . Instantly the most thrilling thoughts rush in upon the soul of Paul. Alive to the enormity of his conduct, he saw himself Stained with the blood of Stephen, and this martyr appeared to him as his father, his initiator into the new faith. Touched to the quick, his sentiments experienced a revulsion as thorough as it was sudden; and yet all this was but a new order of fanaticism." (Apostles, 173, 174).

10 "The well known modern hypothesis, so often repeated, that this light was a flash of lightning which suddenly struck the apostle and laid him and his companions senseless on the ground, is really a mere hypothesis; and as it not only has no foundation in the text, but is also in manifest contradiction with the meaning of the author, we shall make no further mention of it here." (Baur, Paul, i. 68.)

11 New Life, i. 414, 417.

12 Ib., 420.

13 "We can not call his conversion, his sudden transformation from the most vehement opponent of Christianity into its boldest preacher, anything but a miracle; and the miracle appears all the greater when we remember that in this revulsion of his consciousness he broke through the barriers of Judaism, and rose out of the particularism of Judaism into the universal idea of Christianity. Yet great as this miracle is, it can only be conceived as a spiritual process; and this implies that some step of transition was not wanting from one extreme to the other. It is true that no analysis, either psychological or dialectical, can detect the inner secret of the act in which God revealed his Son in him. Yet it may very justly be asked whether what made the transition possible can have been anything else than the great impressiveness with which the great fact of the death of Jesus came all at once to stand before his soul." (Church History, i. 47.)

14 New Life, i. 414.

15 Paul, i. 72.