outweigh those of a single individual; he constitutes himself the accuser of Jesus.1

4

The order is given to seize him. But let us pause here upon a fact of the highest importance. The senate did not begin by actually seizing Jesus, as is now the practice; they begin by giving, after some debate, an order that he should be seized. This decree is made public; it is known to all, especially to Jesus. No opposition is offered to his passing the frontier: his liberty depends entirely upon himself. This is not all; the order for his arrest was preceded by a decree of admonition. One day, Jesus having entered the temple, took upon himself authority contrary to the common law; then he preached to the people, and said: "That those who should believe in him should be able to do all things, so that if they should say to a mountain, remove thyself and cast thyself into the sea, would obey." Then the chief priest and senators went to find him, and said to him, " 'By what authority doest thou these things? who gave thee this power? Meanwhile a traitor discloses the place whither the accused had retired; the guards, authorized by the high priest and by the elders, hasten to seize him. One of his disciples, breaking into open rebellion, with a stroke of his sword cuts off the ear of one of them, and brings upon himself the reproof of his master. As soon as Jesus is arrested, the zeal of the apostles is extinguished; all forsake him. He is brought before the grand council, where the priests sustain the accusation. The witnesses testify, and they are numerous; for the deeds of which he is accused were done in the presence of all the people. The two witnesses whom St. Matthew and St. Mark accuse of perjury, relate a discourse which St. John declares to be true, with regard to the power which Jesus arrogates to himself. Finally, the high priest addresses the accused, and says: "Is it true that thou art Christ, that thou art the Son of God?" "I am he," replies Jesus; "you shall see me hereafter at the right hand of the majesty of God, who shall come upon the clouds of heaven." At these words, Caiaphas rent his garments in token of horror.8 "You have heard him." They deliberate. The question already raised among the people was this: has Jesus become God? But the senate having adjudged that Jesus, son of Joseph, born at Bethlehem, had profaned the name of God by usurping it to himself, a mere citizen, applied to him the law of blasphemy, and the law in the 13th chapter of Deuteronomy, and the 20th verse in chapter 18, according to which every prophet, even he who works miracles, must be punished, when he speaks of a god unknown to the Jews and their fathers: the capital sentence was pronounced. As to

4 It will be recollected, that the senate held its sessions in one of the porticos of the temple. At this time the high priest presided over the senate, so that the guards of the high priest, of the elders and the temple, were no other than the legal militia. 6 Mark xiv. 50. Matth. xxvi. 56.

5 John xviii. 10, 11.

7 Matth. xxvi. 60, 61. And the last came two false witnesses, and said, this fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days. Mark xiv. 57, 58. And there arose certain and bare false witness against him, saying, We heard him say, I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and within three days I will build another made without hands. John ii. 19, 21, 22. Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. But he spake of the temple of his body. When, therefore, he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said.

8 I repeat that the expression son of God, includes here the idea of God himself; the fact is already established, and all the subsequent events confirm it. Observe, also, that I quote the narrative of only one of the parties to this great proceeding.

9 Deut. xxviii. 20. But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die.

the ill treatment which followed the sentence, it was contrary to the spirit of the Jewish law; and it is not in the course of nature, that a state composed of the most respectable men of a nation, who, however they might have been deceived, yet intended to act legally, should have permitted such outrages against him whose life was at their disposal. The writers win have transmitted to us these details, not having taken a part in the prosecution, have been disposed to exaggerate the picture, either on account of their prejudices, or to throw greater obloquy on the judges.

2

One thing is certain, that the council met again on the morning of the next day or of the day following that,' as the law requires, to confirm or to annul the sentence it was confirmed. Jesus was brought before Pilate, the procurator that the Romans had placed over the Jews. They had retained the power of trying according to their own laws, but the executive power was in the hands of the procurator alone: no criminal could be executed without his consent this was in order that the Senate should not have the means of reaching men who were sold to foreigners. Pilate, the Roman, signed the decree. His soldiers, an impure mixture of diverse nations, were charged with the punishment. These are they who brought Jesus to the judgment hall, who stripped him before the whole cohort, who placed upon his head a crown of thorns, and a reed in his hand, who showed all the barbarity to which the populace in all ages is disposed; who finally caused him to undergo a punishment common at Rome, and which was not in use among the Jews. But before the execution, the governor had granted to the condemned an appeal to the people, who, respecting the judgment of their own council, would not permit this favor, couching their refusal in these terms: "We have a law; and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God." Then Pilate left them the choice of saving Jesus, or a man accused of murder in a sedition; the people declared for the latter; saying that the other would scatter the seeds of discord in the bosom of the nation, at a time when union was most necessary."

Jesus was put to death. The priests and elders went to the place of punishment; and as the sentence was founded upon this fact, that he had unlawfully arrogated to himself the title of Son of God, God himself, they appealed to him thus: "Thou wouldst save others; thyself thou canst not save. If thou art indeed the king of Israel, come down into the midst of us, and we will believe in thee; since thou hast said, I am the Son of God, let that God who loves thee come now to thine aid." According to the Evangelist, these words were a mockery; but the character of the persons who pronounced them, their dignity, their age, the order which they had observed in the trial, prove their good faith. Would not a miracle at this time have been decisive?"

1 Matt. xxvii. 1. Mark xv. 1.

The duties of Pilate were to inform himself whether the sentences given did or did not affect the interests of Rome; there his part ended. Thus it is not astonishing that this procurator, doubtless little acquainted with the Jewish laws, signed the decree for the arrest of Jesus, although he did not find him guilty. We shall see hereafter that there were then many parties among the Jews, among whom were the Herodians or serviles, partisans of the house of Herod, and devoted to the foreign interests. These are they who speak continually of Cæsar, of rendering to Cæsar the tribute due to Cæsar; they also insist that Jesus called himself king of the Jews: but this charge was reckoned as nothing before the senate, and was not of a nature alone to merit capital punishment.

3 See Matth. xxvii. 27. Mark xv. 16. John xix. 2.

4 John xix. 7.

5 The sending back of Jesus to Herod, which, according to the Gospel of St. Luke, Pilate would have done, is not stated by the other Evangelists, and does not at all change the judicial question. Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee, and of Perea, had no authority in Jerusalem. Upon his visit to this city, Pilate, according to St. Luke, would, out of respect, have caused Jesus to appear before this ally of the Romans, because Jesus was surnamed the Galilean, though originally from Judea. But to whatever tribe he belonged, the nature of the accusation would still have required, according to the Hebrew law, that he should be judged by the senate of Jerusalem.

6 Matth. xvii. 42, 43.

NO. VI. See § 159 to § 171.

The accounts of the Resurrection and of the subsequent appearances of our Lord, have been harmonized in various methods; of which the latest, and probably the best, is that of Professor Robinson, in an Article published in the Bibliotheca Sacra for February, 1845, vol. ii. pp. 162–189. As the best service the present writer could do to the English reader, he has therefore here abridged that Article, by omitting the introduction, and such parts as relate to the Greek text, and a few other passages, which it seemed might be spared without injury to the narrative itself.

§ 1.

Matt. 26: 1, 2.

The Time of the Resurrection.

Mark 16: 1, 2, 9. Luke 24: 1. John 20: 1.

That the resurrection of our Lord took place before full daylight, on the first day of the week, follows from the unanimous testimony of the Evangelists respecting the visit of the women to the sepulchre. But the exact time at which he rose is nowhere specified. According to the Jewish mode of reckoning, the Sabbath ended and the next day began at sunset; so that had the resurrection occurred even before midnight, it would still have been upon the first day of the week, and the third day after our Lord's burial. The earthquake had taken place and the stone had been rolled away before the arrival of the women; and so far as the immediate narrative is concerned, there is nothing to show that all this might not have happened some hours earlier. Yet the words of Mark in another place render it certain, that there could have been no great interval between these events and the arrival of the women; since he affirms in v. 9, that Jesus “had risen early, the first day of the week;" while in v. 2, he states that the women went out very early." A like inference may be drawn from the fact, that the affrighted guards first went to inform the chief priests of these events, when the women returned to the city (Matt. 28: 11); for it is hardly to be supposed, that after having been thus terrified by the earthquake and the appearance of an angel, they would have waited any very long time before sending information to their employers. The body of Jesus had therefore probably lain in the tomb not less than about thirty-six hours.

§ 2.

The Visit of the Women to the Sepulchre.

66

Matt. 28 18. Mark 16: 1-8. Luke 24: 1-11. John 20: 1, 2.

The first notices we have of our Lord's resurrection, are connected with the visit of the women to the sepulchre, on the morning of the first day of the week. According to Luke, the women who had stood by the cross, went home and rested during the sabbath (23: 56); and Mark adds that after the sabbath was ended, that is, after sunset, and during the evening, they prepared spices in order to go and embalm our Lord's body. They were either not aware of the previous embalming by Joseph and Nicodemus; or else they also wished to testify their respect and affection to their Lord, by completing, more perfectly, what before had been done in haste; John 19: 4042.

It is in just this portion of the history, which relates to the visit of the women to the tomb and the appearance of Jesus to them, that most of the alleged difficulties and discrepancies in this part of the Gospel narratives are found. We will therefore take up the chief of them in their order.

I. The Time. All the Evangelists agree in saying that the women went out very early to the sepulchre. Matthew's expression is, as the day was

dawning. Mark's words are, very early; which indeed are less definite, but are appropriate to denote the same point of time. Luke has the more poetic term: deep morning, i. e. early dawn. John's language is likewise definite early, while it was yet dark. All these expressions go to fix the time at what we call early dawn, or early twilight; after the break of day, but while the light is yet struggling with darkness.

Thus far there is no difficulty; and none would ever arise, had not Mark added the phrase, the sun being risen; or, as the English version has it, at the rising of the sun. These words seem, at first, to be at direct variance both with the very early of Mark himself, and with the language of the other Evangelists. To harmonize this apparent discrepancy, we may premise, that since Mark himself first specifies the point of time by a phrase sufficiently definite in itself, and supported by all the other Evangelists, we must conclude that when he adds, at the rising of the sun, he did not mean to contradict himself, but used this latter phrase in a broader and less definite sense. As the sun is the source of light and of the day, and as his earliest rays produce the contrast between darkness and light, between night and dawn, so the term sunrising might easily come in popular language, by a metonymy of cause for effect, to be put for all that earlier interval, when his rays, still struggling with darkness, do nevertheless usher in the day.

Accordingly we find such a popular usage prevailing among the Hebrews; and several instances of it occur in the Old Testament. Thus in Judg. 9: 33 the message of Zebul to Abimelech, after directing him to lie in wait with his people in the field during the night, goes on as follows: "and it shall be, in the morning, as soon as the sun is up thou shalt rise early and set upon the city;" yet we cannot for a moment suppose that Abimelech with his ambuscade was to wait until the sun actually appeared above the horizon, before he made his onset. So the Psalmist (104: 22), speaking of the young lions that by night roar after their prey, goes on to say: "The sun ariseth, they gather themselves together, and lay them down in their dens." But wild animals do not wait for the actual appearance of the sun ere they shrink away to their lairs; the break of day, the dawning light, is the signal for their retreat. See also Sept. 2 K. 3: 22. 2 Sam. 23: 4. In all these passages the language is entirely parallel to that of Mark; and they serve fully to illustrate the principle, that the rising of the sun is here used in a popular sense as equivalent to the rising of the day or early dawn.

II. The Number of the Women. Matthew mentions Mary Magdalene and the other Mary; v. 1. Mark enumerates Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome; v. 1. Luke has Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and others with them; v. 10. John speaks of Mary Magdalene alone, and says nothing of any other. The first three Evangelists accord then in respect to the two Marys, but no further; while John differs from them all. Is there here a real discrepancy?

We may at once answer, No; because, according to the sound canon of Le Clerc "Qui plura narrat, pauciora complectitur; qui pauciora memorat, plura non negat.' Because John, in narrating circumstances with which he was personally connected, sees fit to mention only Mary Magdalene, it does not at all follow that others were not present. Because Matthew, perhaps for like reasons, speaks only of the two Marys, he by no means excludes the presence of others. Indeed, the very words which John puts into the mouth of Mary Magdalene, (v. 2), presuppose the fact, that others had gone with her to the sepulchre. That there was something in respect to Mary Magdalene, which gave her a peculiar prominence in these transactions, may be inferred from the fact, that not only John mentions her alone,

1 Harm. p. 525. Can. XII. fin.

but likewise all the other Evangelists name her first, as if holding the most conspicuous place.

The instance here under consideration is parallel to that of the demoniacs of Gadara, and the blind men at Jericho; where, in both cases, Matthew speaks of two persons, while Mark and Luke mention only one. Something peculiar in the station or character of one of the persons, rendered him in each case more prominent, and led the two latter Evangelists to speak of him particularly. But there, as here, their language is not exclusive; nor is there in it anything that contradicts the statements of Matthew.

III. The Arrival at the Sepulchre. According to Mark, Luke, and John, the women on reaching the sepulchre find the great stone, with which it had been closed, already rolled away. Matthew, on the other hand, after narrating that the women went out to see the sepulchre, proceeds to mention the earthquake, the descent of the angel, his rolling away the stone and sitting upon it, and the terror of the watch, as if all these things took place in the presence of the women. The angel too (in v. 5) addresses the women, as if still sitting upon the stone he had rolled away.

The apparent discrepancy, if any, here arises simply from Matthew's brevity in omitting to state in full what his own narrative presupposes. According to v. 6, Christ was already risen; and therefore the earthquake and its accompaniments must have taken place at an earlier point of time, to which the sacred writer returns back in his narration. And although Matthew does not represent the women as entering the sepulchre, yet in v. 8, he speaks of them as going out of it; so that of course their interview with the angel took place, not outside of the sepulchre, but in it, as narrated by the other Evangelists. When therefore the angel says to them in v. 6, "Come, see the place where the Lord lay," this is not said without the tomb to induce them to enter, as Strauss avers; but within the sepulchre, just as in Mark v. 6.

IV. The Vision of Angels in the Sepulchre. Of this John says nothing. Matthew and Mark speak of one angel; Luke of two. Mark says he was sitting; Luke speaks of them as standing. This difference in respect to numbers is parallel to the case of the women, which we have just considered; and requires therefore no further illustration.

There is likewise some diversity in the language addressed to the women by the angels. In Matthew and Mark, the prominent object is the charge to the disciples to depart into Galilee. In Luke this is not referred to; but the women are reminded of our Lord's own previous declaration, that he would rise again on the third day. Neither of the Evangelists here professes to report all that was said by the angels; and of course there is no room for contradiction.

§ 3. The return of the Women to the city, and the first appearance of our Lord.

Matt. 28: 7-10. Mark 168. Luke 24: 9-11. John 20: 1, 2.

John, speaking of Mary Magdalene alone, says that having seen that the stone was taken away from the sepulchre, she went in haste (ran) to tell Peter and John. He says nothing of her having seen the angels, nor of her having entered the sepulchre at all. The other Evangelists, speaking of the women generally, relate that they entered the tomb, saw the angels, and then returned into the city. On their way Jesus meets them. They recognize

1 Matt. 8: 28. Mark 5:2. Luke 8: 27. Matt 20: 30. Mark 10: 46. Luke

18:35.