and they had told hastily and breathlessly the incredible news: the
sepulcher opened, the youth clad in white, the things which he had said,
the Master risen, the message to His brothers.
But the men, still stunned by the catastrophe, and who in these
dangerous days had shown themselves more torpid and passive than the
weaker women, were not willing to believe this wildly improbable news.
Hallucinations, women’s dreams, they said. How could He be risen from
the dead after only two days? He had said that He would return, but not
at once: so many terrible things were to be seen before that day of His
return!
They believed in the resurrection of the Master, but not before the day
when all the dead would rise again, and He would come in glory to rule
His kingdom. But not now: it was too soon, it could not be true: waking
dreams of hysteric women!
But in the meantime, Mary of Magdala rushed in, breathless with haste
and agitation. What the others had said was all true. But there was
more: she herself had seen Him with her own eyes, and He had spoken to
her, and she had not known Him at once, but had recognized Him as soon
as He had called her by name: she had touched His feet with her hands,
had seen the wounds on His feet; it was He, alive once more; and He had
told her, as had the unknown youth, to go to His brethren, so that they
should know that He had risen from the dead as He had promised.
Simon and John, finally aroused, rushed out of the house and began to
run towards Joseph’s garden. John, who was younger, outran Peter and
came first to the sepulcher. He looked through the door, saw the linen
cloths lying on the ground, but did not go in. Simon came up panting and
rushed into the grotto. The linen cloths were lying on the ground, but
the napkin which had been about the head of the corpse was folded and
wrapped together in a place by itself. John also went in, saw, and
believed. And without another word they returned in all haste towards
the house, still running, as if they expected to find the Risen One in
the midst of the others whom they had left.
But Jesus, after He had left Mary, withdrew from Jerusalem.
EMMAUS
After the solemn interval of the Passover, plain, ordinary everyday life
began again for all men.
Two friends of Jesus, among those who were in the house with the
Disciples, were to go that morning on an errand to Emmaus, a hamlet
about two hours’ journey from Jerusalem. They left as soon as Simon and
John had returned from the sepulcher. All these amazing tales had shaken
them somewhat, but had not really convinced them of an event so
portentous and unexpected. Serious-minded men, they could not understand
or believe what they had heard: if the body of the Master was no longer
there, might it not have been taken away by men’s hands?
Cleopas and his companion were good Jews, men who left a place for the
ideal in their minds, burdened with many material cares. But this place
for the ideal was not to be too large, and this ideal must be
commensurate with their own natures if it were not to be expelled as an
unwelcome guest. Like almost all the Disciples, they too expected the
coming of a Liberator, but of one who would come to liberate Israel
first of all,—a Messiah, in short, who should be the son of David rather
than the Son of God, a warrior on horseback rather than a poor
pedestrian, a scourge of His enemies and not a lover of sick people and
children. The words of Christ had almost given them a glimpse of higher
truths, but the crucifixion disheartened them. They loved Jesus, and
they suffered in His suffering, but this sudden, shameful ending without
glory and without resistance was too great a contrast to what they had
expected, and especially to much of what they had hoped. They could
understand that He might be a humble Saviour, riding on gentle asses
instead of on warlike chargers, and a little more spiritual and gentle
than they would have liked; they could understand this, although with
difficulty, and endure it although grudgingly. But that the Liberator
had not known how to free either Himself or others, that the Messiah of
the Jews should have died through the will of so many Jews on the
scaffold of murderers and parricides, was too great a disappointment,—an
inexcusable scandal. They pitied the crucified leader with all their
hearts, but at the same time they were tempted to believe that they had
been deceived about His real nature. His death—and what a death!—looked
to their narrow, practical minds sadly like a failure.
They were reasoning together of all these things as they went along
under the warm noonday sun and at times the discussion grew hot, for
they did not always agree. Then suddenly they caught a glimpse of a
shadow on the ground near them. They turned around. The shadow was that
of a man who was following as if he wished to hear what they were
saying. They stopped, as was the custom, to greet him, and the traveler
joined them. His did not seem an unknown face to the two men, but look
at him as they might, they could not think who it was. The newcomer,
instead of answering their silent questions, asked them, “What manner of
communications are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk?”
Cleopas, who must have been the older, answered with a wondering
gesture, “Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the
things which are come to pass there in these days?”
“What things?” asked the unknown man.
“Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and
word before God and all the people: And how the chief priests and our
rulers delivered him to be condemned to death, and have crucified him.
But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel:
and beside all this, to-day is the third day since these things were
done. Yea, and certain women also of our company made us astonished,
which were early at the sepulchre; And when they found not his body,
they came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, which
said that he was alive. And certain of them which were with us went to
the sepulchre and found it even so as the women had said: but him they
saw not.”
“O fools, and slow of heart,” exclaimed the stranger, “to believe all
that the prophets have spoken: Ought not Christ to have suffered these
things, and to enter into his glory?” Do you not remember how He was
predicted from Moses down to our own time? Have you not read Ezekiel and
Daniel? Do you not even know our songs of the Lord and His promises?
And almost indignantly He recited the old words and the prophecies,
recalled the description of the Man of Sorrows given by Isaiah. The two
listened, docile and attentive, without answering, because the newcomer
spoke with so much heat, and the old admonitions in His mouth took on
new warmth and a meaning so clear that it seemed almost impossible that
they had not understood them before. The talk of the newcomer gave them
the impression of being the echo of other talks like those heard in
times past, but confusedly, like a voice from the other side of a wall.
In the meantime they had arrived at the entrance of Emmaus, and the
pilgrim made as though He would have gone further. But now the two
friends were not willing to part with their mysterious companion, and
they begged Him to stay with them. The sun was going down, throwing a
warmer golden light on the countryside, and their three shadows had
lengthened on the dusty road.
“Abide with us,” they said, “for it is toward evening, and the day is
far spent.” Also thou art tired and it is the hour for food. And they
took Him by the hand and made Him come into the house where they were
going.
When they were at table, the guest who sat between them took bread, and
broke it and gave a little to one of His friends. At this action, the
eyes of Cleopas and the other man were opened, as when we are suddenly
wakened and find the sun shining. Both of them sprang to their feet,
trembling with emotion, pale, amazed, and finally knew Him, the murdered
man whom they had misunderstood and slandered. But they had no time even
to run to kiss Him, for Jesus vanished out of their sight.
They had not recognized Him when they had seen Him, not even by His
speech, although that was so like His speech in His lifetime; they had
not recognized Him even by the light of His eyes while He spoke, nor by
the sound of His voice! But when He took the bread in His hands, like a
father who shares it with His children in the evening after a day of
work or of travel, in that loving action which they had seen Him perform
so many times in their hastily arranged intimate suppers, they had
recognized His hands, His blessed and wounded hands, and the cloud
lifted and they found themselves face to face with the splendor of
Christ risen from the dead. In His first life when He was their friend
they had not understood Him; when on the road to Emmaus He had taught
them, they had not recognized Him, but at the moment when He became the
loving Master, serving His servants and giving them bread which is life
and the hope of life, then for the first time they saw Him.
And tired and fasting as they were, they went back over the road which
they had come, and after nightfall arrived at Jerusalem.
And as they went along they said almost shamefacedly, “Did not our heart
burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened
to us the scriptures?”
The Disciples were still awake. Without drawing breath the newcomers
told of their encounter and what had been said along the way, and how
they had recognized Him only at the moment when He broke the bread. And
in answer to this new confirmation, three or four voices cried out
together, “The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon!”
But not all the Apostles were convinced even by these four appearances,
by the fourfold testimony. To some, this prompt, this extraordinary
resurrection, which had taken place by night in a secret and suspicious
manner, seemed more the hallucination of grief and of yearning than
actual truth. Who were the people who claimed to have seen Him? A
hysterical woman who had been possessed by a devil; a distraught man who
had not seemed himself from the moment when he had denied his Master;
and two plain fellows who were not even His real Disciples, and whom
Jesus had thus chosen, no one knew why, in preference to His closer
friends. Mary might have been deceived by a phantom; Simon, to win back
his self-respect after his baseness, was determined to do no less than
Mary; the others were perhaps impostors or, at the most, visionaries. If
Christ were really risen, would not He have been seen by them all while
they were together? Why these preferences? Why this appearance at
three-score furlongs from Jerusalem?
They believed in His resurrection, but they thought of it as one of the
signs of the ending of the world, when everything would be fulfilled.
But now that they found themselves confronted with the fact that He
alone had risen from the dead while everyday life went on as usual, they
realized that the return into life of human flesh (and of human flesh
which had not gone to sleep peacefully in the last sleep, but whose life
had been torn away by violence), that this idea of rising from the dead
not in the distant future but in the immediate present, contradicted all
the other concepts which made up the tissue of their minds. They
realized that this contradiction had always existed, but their doubt had
not risen to consciousness until this brusque encounter of two
impossible elements: a remote miracle and an actual fact.
If Jesus had risen from the dead, that would mean that He was really
God; but would a real God, a Son of God, ever have been reconciled to
allow Himself to be killed, and in so shameful a way? If He could
conquer death, why had He not stricken down the judges, put Pilate to
confusion, paralyzed the arms of those about to nail Him to the cross?
Through what paradoxical mystery had the Omnipotent allowed Himself to
be dragged through the ignominy of the weak?
They were reasoning thus among themselves, some of the Disciples who had
heard but had not understood. Prudent like all sophists, they did not
venture openly to deny the resurrection in the presence of those exalted
hearts, but they reserved judgment, turning over in their minds the
reasons for its possibility and impossibility, wishing for a manifest
confirmation, but unable to hope for one.
In the excitement of the day no one had eaten. But the women had
prepared supper, and now all sat down to the table. Simon remembered the
Last Thursday: “This do in remembrance of me.”
And a flood of tears dimmed his eyes while he broke the bread and gave
it to his friends.
HAVE YE HERE ANY MEAT?
They had scarcely eaten the last mouthfuls when Jesus appeared in the
doorway, tall and pale. He looked at them one by one, and in His
melodious voice greeted them: “Peace be unto you.”
No one answered. Their astonishment overcame their joy, even for those
who had already seen Him since His death. On their faces the Man risen
from the dead read the doubt which He knew they all felt, the question
which they did not dare express in words, “Art Thou really Thyself a
living man, or a spirit which comes from the caverns of the dead to
tempt us?”
“Why are ye troubled?” said the Man who had been betrayed, “and why do
thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold my hands and my feet, that it is
I, myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as
ye see me have.”
And He stretched out His hands towards them, showed them the marks still
bloody left by the nails, opened His garment over His breast so that
they could see the mark of the lance in His side. Some of them, rising
from their couches, knelt down and saw on His bare feet the two deep
wounds, each with its livid ring around it.
But they could not bring themselves to touch Him, for they feared to see
Him disappear suddenly as He had come suddenly. If one of them had
embraced Him, would he have felt the warm solidity of a body, or would
his arms have passed through the emptiness of a mere shadow?
It was He with His face, with His voice, with the irrefutable traces of
the crucifixion, and yet there was something changed in His aspect which
they could not have described, even if they had been calm. The most
reluctant were forced to believe that the Master stood before them with
all the appearance of life begun anew, but their thoughts whirled in the
last of their doubts and they were silent as if they were afraid to
believe in their senses, as if they expected to wake up, from one moment
to another. Even Simon was silent. What could he have said without
betraying himself by tears to Him who had looked at him with those same
eyes in the courtyard of Caiaphas while he swore that he had never known
Him?
To make an end of their last doubts, Jesus asked, “Have ye here any
meat?”
He needed no longer any food except that for which He had vainly asked
all His life. But these men of the flesh needed a fleshly proof, a
material demonstration as was befitting those who believed only in
matter and nourished themselves only on matter. They had eaten together
on their last evening; this evening also, now that they were again
together, He would eat with them. “Have ye here any meat?”
A piece of broiled fish was left in a dish. Simon put it before the
Master, who sat down at the table and ate the fish with a piece of bread
while they all stared at Him as though it were the first time they had
ever seen Him eat.
And when He had finished, He raised His eyes towards them, and, “Are you
convinced now, or do you still not understand: does it seem possible to
you that a spirit can eat as I have eaten here in your presence? So many
times I have been forced to reprove your hardness of heart, and your
little faith! And behold you are still as you were at first, and you
were not willing to believe those who had seen me, and yet I had hid
nothing of what was to happen in these days. But you, deaf and
forgetful, hear and then forget, read and do not understand. When I was
with you, did I not tell you that all things which were written and
which I announced must be fulfilled; that it behooved Christ to suffer
and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and
remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations,
beginning at Jerusalem? Now you are witnesses of these things, and
behold I send the promise of my Father upon you. Go ye into all the
world and preach the gospel to every creature. All power is given unto
me in heaven and on earth, and as the Father sent me, I send you. Go ye
therefore and teach all nations, teaching them to observe all things
whatsoever I have commanded you. He that believeth and is baptized shall
be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned. I will remain here
a little and we shall meet again in Galilee, but I am with you always
even unto the end of the world.”
Little by little as He spoke, His Disciples’ faces lighted up with a
forgotten hope, and their eyes shone with exaltation. This was the hour
of consolation after the gloom of those dreadful days just passed. His
indubitable presence showed that the impossible was assured, that God
had not abandoned them and never would abandon them. Their enemies,
apparently victorious, were conquered; the visible truth bore out all
the prophecies. It was true that they had known already everything He
was then saying, but those truths really lived in them only when His
lips repeated them.
Their King had come back, the Kingdom was near at hand, and His
brothers, instead of being derided and persecuted, would reign with Him
through all eternity. These words had fired again the most tepid, had
brightened the memory of other words, of other sunnier days, and
suddenly they felt an exaltation, an ardor, a greater desire to embrace
each other, to love each other, never more to be separated from each
other. If the Master was risen from the dead, they themselves could not
die; if He could leave the sepulcher, His promises were the promises of
a God and He would fulfill them to the uttermost. Their faith was not in
vain, and they were no longer alone: the crucifixion had been the
darkening of one day in order that the light might shine out more
splendidly for all the days to come.
THOMAS DIDYMUS
Thomas, called Didymus, was not present when Jesus appeared, but the day
after, his friends ran to seek him, still agitated by what Jesus had
said. “We have seen the Lord!” they said. “It was really He. He talked
with us. He ate with us like a living man.”
Thomas was one of those who had been profoundly shaken by the shame of
Golgotha. He had said once that he was ready to die with his Master, but
he had fled away with the others when the lanterns of the guard had
appeared on the Mount of Olives. His faith had been darkened by the
gloom which had shut down on Golgotha. In spite of Christ’s warnings, he
had never once thought that the end of his Master could be thus. To
think of the shame into which Jesus let himself be led, with the
passivity of a feeble sheep, made him suffer, almost more than the loss
of Him who had loved him. This disappointment of all his hopes had
shocked him almost as though he had discovered that he had been cheated,
and in his eyes his disappointment excused even the shame of their
abandoning Him. Thomas, like Cleopas and his comrades, was a sensualist,
whom the exalted example of Christ had lifted high into a world which
was not his own. Faith had taken him unawares, like a contagious fervor.
But as soon as the flame which had kindled him anew every day was
buried, or seemed buried, under the shameful stoning of hate, the light
of his soul burned low, and grew cold. He took on again his first
character, his real character, which sought tangible things with the
senses, hoped for material changes in matter, and expected to find only
in material things material certainties and consolations. His eyes
refused to look at the things which his hands could not touch, and for
this he was condemned never to see the invisible,—a grace reserved only
for those who believe it possible. He hoped for the Kingdom, especially
when the words and the presence of Jesus brightened his earthly heart
with the light of Heaven, but not for a purely spiritual Kingdom
floating in the firmament among the unsubstantial islands of the clouds,
but a kingdom where living, warm-blooded men might have eaten and drunk
at solid and tangible tables, might govern with new laws a fairer earth
assigned to them by God.
Thomas, after the scandal of the crucifixion, was not at all disposed to
believe a hearsay report of the resurrection. He had seen his first
beliefs too roughly disabused to put any faith now in his equally
deceived companions. And he answered to those who joyfully brought him
the news, “Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and
put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his
side, I will not believe.”
He had said at first, “Except I shall see.” But he corrected himself at
once: even his eyes could deceive him, and many men were cheated by
visions. And his thoughts went on to a material test, to the coarse,
brutal proof of fact,—to put his finger there where the nails had been,
to put his hand, his whole hand, where the lance had penetrated. To do
as a blind man does who sometimes is less mistaken than men who see.
He rejected faith which is the higher vision of the soul. He even
refused to have faith in the sight of his eyes, the most divine of our
bodily senses. He put his faith only in his hands, flesh handling flesh.
This double denial left him in the dark, groping like a blind man, until
the Light made Man, through a supreme loving concession, gave him back
light for his eyes and for his heart.
But this answer of Thomas has made him one of the most famous men in the
world: for it is Christ’s eternal characteristic to immortalize even
those men who affronted Him. All those afraid to touch spiritual
concepts for fear of breaking them, all cheap skeptics, all the misers
in academic chairs, all tepid half-wits stuffed with prejudices, all the
faint-hearted, sophists, the cynics, the beggars and the retort-cleaners
of science; in short all rush-lights jealous of the sun, all geese
hissing at the flight of soaring falcons, have chosen for their
protector and patron Thomas called Didymus. They know nothing of him
except this: he does not believe in what he cannot touch. This answer
seems to them the sum-total of perfect good sense. Let anybody who
wishes claim that he sees in the darkness, hears in the silence, speaks
in solitude, lives in death; the followers of Thomas can get no such
idea into their thick, dense heads. So-called “reality” is their
stronghold, and they will not budge from it. They prefer to fill their
lives with gold which satisfies no hunger, with land in which they will
occupy so small a cavity, with glory so fleeting a whisper in the
silence of eternity, with flesh which is to become worm-eaten
corruption, and with those noisy, magic discoveries which after
enslaving men hurry them towards the formidable discovery of death.
These and other things like them are “real things,” beloved by the
devotees of Thomas. But perhaps if they had ever had the idea of reading
what happened after that answer made by Thomas, they would have their
doubts even of him who doubted the resurrection.
A week later, the Disciples were in the same house as on the first
occasion and Thomas was with them. He had hoped all that week that he
also might be permitted to see the risen Master, and sometimes he had
trembled, thinking that his answer might be the reason for Christ’s
absence; but suddenly there came a voice at the door, “Peace be unto
you.”
Jesus entered, his eyes seeking out Thomas: He came for Thomas, for him
alone, because Christ’s love for him was greater than any affront. And
He called him by name and came up to him so that he could see Him
clearly, face to face, “Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands;
and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not
faithless, but believing.”
But Thomas did not obey Him. He dared not put his finger in the nail
print nor his hand in the wound. He only said to him: “My Lord and my
God.”