never once been vindicated by a resurrection; and the Messiah was not to be a murdered prophet, but a King who was to reign in the Kingdom of God. Whatever respect therefore they may have entertained for the character of their Master, and although it is within the limits of possibility that they should have believed that He was a prophet, His crucifixion must have convinced them that He had been labouring under a delusion in claiming to be the Christ. Their mental condition therefore must have been that of men whose hopes and expectations were utterly blasted, the very opposite of that which would have suggested the idea of a resurrection, and induced them to see visions of their Master risen from the dead. The necessary conditions of doing so I will consider presently.

It may perhaps be urged, for the purpose of obviating this difficulty, that Jesus may have foreseen that the exasperation of His enemies would probably result in His death, and that for the purpose of encouraging His disciples, He told them that if this should happen, He would be raised again from the dead; by which He only meant that His cause would be resuscitated; and that they mistook this for a prediction of an actual resurrection; and that this raised so strong an expectation of it, as to cause them to see visions of Him returned to life again, which they mistook for realities. To this I reply that our only information that Our Lord predicted His death and resurrection is derived from the pages of the Evangelists. But if their testimony is valid to prove that He did so, it must be equally valid to prove that the disciples did not attach to His words their literal meaning, and that they certainly did not suggest to

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* I make this admission on the strength of the words of Cleopas recorded in Luke xxiv. 19. 'Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people." These words were spoken on the evening of the ResurrecIt is impossible that even his most devoted followers could have long continued to believe in the prophetical character of one who had been self-deceived in believing himself to be the Messiah.

tion.

them the idea of an actual death, or an actual resurrection.* It would therefore have been impossible for this to have produced the state of expectancy requisite for seeing visions and mistaking them for realities.† Still less could such an

*This habit on the part of opponents of accepting the testimony of the Gospels when it favours their own theories, and of rejecting it when adverse, is one which cannot be too strongly deprecated; for however it may help to confirm preconceived notions, it can lead to no result favourable to truth. Apart from their testimony that Jesus predicted His death and resurrection, the idea that He foresaw the high probability of His death, and expressed the hope that His cause would revive afterwards, and designated this revival a resurrection, and on the strength of this to propound such a theory as a true account of the most important event in the history of the world, is to build on a foundation of sand. When criticism accepts possibilities for probabilities, and probabilities for certainties, all it does is to construct history out of its own subjective consciousness, a practice which can only result in substituting our own notions for the realities of things.

+ It may be urged that the institution of the Holy Communion was a distinct intimation made by Our Lord to His followers of His impending death. No doubt it was so; but it is very remarkable that in the account given by the Evangelists, there is no hint of His impending resurrection. If we take the accounts as they stand, not one word spoken by Our Lord on this occasion could have produced an expectation of it. The institution itself is one of the most remarkable facts in the world's history, and is without precedent in the history of martyrdoms. A man in anticipation of being put to death on the morrow, directs his followers to perform a very peculiar rite for all future time in remembrance of his death. He tells them that they are to take a piece of bread, to break and eat it, and to drink of a cup of wine, in remembrance that his body had been broken for them, and his blood shed for the remission of sins. What is the only possible inference? Either that the person who instituted the rite was fully conscious that he was about to perform an act pre-eminently divine in thus surrendering his life; and that that act had an intimate connection with the remission of sin; or that he was labouring under such a degree of hallucination as to amount to disorder of the intellect. There is no other alternative. The world's history contains instances enough of martyrdoms; but the enthusiasm of no martyr has ever impelled him to do an act at all resembling this. Yet nothing can be more calm, impressive, and devoid of the smallest trait

effect have been produced by the utterance of a few vague expressions, such as that God would vindicate His cause after His death; and that He would live again in its renewed life. The supposition that an utterance of this kind could have produced in the minds of the disciples such a state of expectancy as would have been requisite to enable them to see visions of Him risen from the dead, to hold imaginary conversations with Him, which they mistook for realities, and in consequence of His supposed instructions, to proceed to the work of reconstructing the Church, is too incredible to require serious argument.

The theory of visions is compelled to assume two things, both of which under the historical conditions of the case involve such difficulties as amount to impossibilities.

First that the followers of Jesus, both individually and conjointly, took to seeing visions of their Master risen from the dead.

Secondly that not only must they have mistaken these visions for realities, but they must have believed that they had conversations with Him in which they received His instructions as to the new basis on which they were to reconstruct the Church. It is simply incredible that they would have ventured on making such a change if they believed that Jesus had risen from the dead, unless they were also persuaded that they had received His definite instructions to do so.

of enthusiasm than the account of the institution as it is given by the Evangelists. The whole scene is one of the profoundest solemnity. Yet the act in question has received a perpetual series of commemorations from the night of the Paschal Supper to the present hour; certainly without the intermission of a single week, probably not of a single day, during a period of eighteen hundred and forty-seven years. This renders the fact of the Institution one of the most indubitable in history; and constitutes an incontestable proof that Jesus claimed to be something very different from an ordinary man, however wise or good. Still, as I have observed, there was nothing in the institution itself to suggest to His desponding followers the idea that after a few days they would see Him risen again from the dead.

This necessity of accounting not only for the belief in the Resurrection, but for the reconstruction of the Church on the new Messianic basis, involves those who propound this theory in a difficulty so overwhelming as to be subversive. of the preconditions on which it necessarily rests. According to well-established principles of mental physiology, three mental states are necessary to enable even the most enthusiastic and credulous persons to mistake subjective impressions for external realities. These are Prepossession, Fixed Idea, and Expectancy; and unless they had been most energetically present in the minds of his followers, no amount of enthusiasm or credulity would have sufficed to create the necessary visions. But supposing that under the influence of these principles they had visions of a risen Jesus, it would have been impossible that visions generated by either prepossession or fixed idea could have suggested the reconstruction of the Church on a new basis.

Yet the fact that the Church was so reconstructed is unquestionable. It follows therefore that the minds of the disciples must have undergone a change as to the nature of the Messianic character during the interval which elapsed between the crucifixion of Jesus and the proclamation of His resurrection. How then will the principles of prepossession, fixed idea, or expectancy, account for their seeing such visions as could have led to the reconstruction of the Church? As for expectancy, I have already shown that it was non-existent. Prepossession and fixed idea are principles of the most conservative description. Under their influence it is impossible for a set of new ideas to be generated in the mind. It follows therefore, if these principles had induced the followers of Jesus to mistake visionary appearances and conversations for realities, they could neither have suggested the requisite change in the Messianic conception nor the consequent reconstruction of the Church. On the contrary, they would certainly have gone on on the old lines.

II. But let us for a moment suppose all these difficulties to be non-existent, and that such a state of enthusiastic exaltation existed among His disciples on the days immediately following the Crucifixion, that some one of them fancied that he saw Him alive, and spread among the others the report that He was risen. Let us further assume that this enthusiast was Mary Magdalene ;* and that she mistook the gardener for Jesus. Is it credible that a woman so enthusiastically attached to him, went away to report His resurrection to the disciples, without asking Him a single question? If she had done so, her delusions must have been instantly dissipated. But let us assume that what she fancied she saw was not the gardener, but a visionary creation of her own disordered imagination. Did she make no attempt to speak to her beloved Master? Some questions under the circumstances must have been inevitable. If she put them, did she get visionary answers, and fancy herself charged with some message to the disciples? Surely, if she did, it must have contained some promise to meet them. If so, was the promise kept? Or did He promise to meet her again? If he did so, and the appointment was not kept, her delusions must have ended. If however she fancied that she had subsequent interviews with him, she must have had a whole series of visions and ideal conversations, and mistaken them for realities. Such things may be conceivable in theory, but they become absolutely incredible when tested by the realities of this world of fact.

Let us however assume that she at once started off to tell the disciples that she had seen her crucified Master risen from the dead. Are we really to be invited to believe that

* I make this assumption because it is the most plausible form in which the theory of visions can be presented, it being far easier to conceive the possibility of a single person mistaking apparitions of the risen Jesus for realities, than that many did so separately and conjointly. As however it contradicts the most unquestionable facts of history, as proved by the testimony of the Pauline Epistles, I do so under protest.