SYNOPSIS.--Arbitrary criticism of the Biblical narratives of the
raising of the "dead."--Facts which it ignores.--The subject related
to the phenomena of trance, and records of premature burial.--The
resuscitation in Elisha's tomb probably historical.--Jesus' raising
of the ruler's daughter plainly a case of this kind.--His raising of
the widow's son probably such.--The hypothesis that his raising of
Lazarus may also have been such critically examined.--The record
allows this supposition.--Further considerations favoring it: 1. The
real interests of Christianity secure.--2. The miracle as a work of
mercy.--3. Incompetency of the bystanders' opinion.--4. Congruity
with the general conception of the healing works of Jesus, as
wrought by a peculiar psychical power.--Other cases.--The
resurrection of Jesus an event in a wholly different order of
things.--The practical result of regarding these resuscitations as
in the order of nature.
Of resuscitation from apparent death seven cases in all are
recorded,--three in the Old Testament and four in the New. Some critics
arbitrarily reject all but one of these as legendary. Thus Oscar
Holzmann, in his recent _Leben Jesu_, treats the raising of the widow's
son, and of Lazarus. But he accepts the case of the ruler's daughter on
the ground that Jesus is reported as saying that it was not a case of
real but only of apparent death,--"the child is not dead, but sleepeth."
But for the preservation of this saving declaration in the record, this
case also would have been classed with the others as unhistorical. And
yet the admission of one clear case of simulated death, so like real
death as to deceive all the onlookers but Jesus, might reasonably check
the critic with the suggestion that it may not have been a solitary
case.[12] The headlong assumption involved in the discrimination made
between these two classes, viz. that in a case of apparent but unreal
death the primitive tradition can be depended on to put the fact upon
record, is in the highest degree arbitrary and unwarrantable.
The scepticism which lightly contradicts the Biblical narratives of the
raising of the "dead" to life is seemingly ignorant of facts that go far
to place these upon firm ground as historical occurrences. Catalepsy,
or the simulation of death by a trance, in which the body is sometimes
cold and rigid, sensation gone, the heart still, is well known to
medical men.[13] In early times such a condition would inevitably have
been regarded and treated as actual death, without the least suspicion
that it was not so. Even now, the dreadful mistake of so regarding it
sometimes occurs. So cautious a journal as the London _Spectator_ a few
years ago expressed the belief that "a distinct percentage" of premature
burials "occurs every year" in England.
The proper line of critical approach to the study of the Biblical
narratives of the raising of the "dead" is through the well-known facts
of the deathlike trance and premature burial.
Where burial occurred, as in the East, immediately after the apparent
death,[14] resuscitation must have been rare. Yet cases of it were not
unknown. Pliny has a chapter "on those who have revived on being carried
forth for burial." Lord Bacon states that of this there have been "very
many cases." A French writer of the eighteenth century, Bruhier, in his
"_Dissertations sur l'Incertitude de la Mort et l'Abus des
Enterrements_," records seventy-two cases of mistaken pronouncement of
death, fifty-three of revival in the coffin before burial, and
fifty-four of burial alive. A locally famous and thoroughly attested
case in this country is that of the Rev. William Tennent, pastor in
Freehold, New Jersey, in the eighteenth century, who lay apparently dead
for three days, reviving from trance just as his delayed funeral was
about to proceed. One who keeps a scrap-book could easily collect quite
an assortment of such cases, and of such others as have a tragic ending,
both from domestic and foreign journals. A work published some years ago
by Dr. F. Hartmann[15] exhibits one hundred and eight cases as typical
among over seven hundred that have been authenticated.[16]
Facts like these have been strangely overlooked in the hasty judgment
prompted by prejudice against whatever has obtained credence as
miraculous. Some significant considerations must be seriously
entertained.
It cannot be that no such facts occurred in the long periods covered by
the Biblical writers. Occurring, it is extremely improbable that they
should have altogether escaped embodiment in popular tradition and its
record. Furthermore, while on one hand the custom of speedy burial
rendered them much rarer than they are now under other conditions, and
so much the more extraordinary, the universal ignorance of the causes
involved would have accepted resuscitation as veritable restoration from
actual death. As such it would have passed into tradition. In cases
where it had come to pass in connection with the efforts of a recognized
prophet, or through any contact with him, it would certainly have been
regarded as a genuine miracle.
Among the raisings of the "dead" recorded in the Scriptures probably
none has been so widely doubted by critical readers as the story in the
thirteenth chapter of the second book of Kings, in which a corpse is
restored to life by contact with the bones of Elisha. Dean Stanley's
remark upon the suspicious similarity between the miracles related of
Elisha and those found in Roman Catholic legends of great saints here
seems quite pertinent. Let the record speak for itself.
"And Elisha died and they buried him. Now the bands of the Moabites
invaded the land at the coming in of the year. And it came to pass,
as they were burying a man, that, behold, they spied a band; and
they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha; and as soon as the
man touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood up on his
feet."
The bizarre character of such a story excusably predisposes many a
critic to stamp it as fabricated to enhance the glory of the great
prophet who had been a pillar of the throne. Yet nothing is more likely
than that tradition has here preserved a bit of history, extraordinary,
but real. There is not the least improbability in regarding the case as
one of the many revivals from the deathlike trance that have been noted
by writers ancient and modern. It is entirely reasonable to suppose that
the trance in which the seemingly dead man lay was broken either by the
shock of his fall into the prophet's tomb, or coincidently therewith;
and stranger coincidences have happened. Such a happening would be
precisely the sort of thing to live in popular tradition, and to be
incorporated into the annals of the time.
Here it may be rejoined that this is only a hypothesis. Only that, to be
sure. But so is the allegation that the story is a mere fantastic
fabrication only a hypothesis. Demonstration of the actual fact past all
controversy being out of the question, all that can be offered for the
attempt to rate the narrative at its proper value, either as history or
as fiction, is hypothesis. The choice lies for us between two
hypotheses. Surely, that hypothesis is the more credible which is based
on a solid body of objective facts, and meets all the conditions of the
case.
Will it be replied to this that the critics can show for their
hypothesis the admitted fact of the human proclivity to invent legends
of miracle? The decisive answer is that the burden of proof rests on him
who contests any statement ostensibly historical. If such a statement be
found to square with admitted objective facts, it must be accepted
notwithstanding considerations drawn from the subjective tendency to
invent extraordinary tales.
Were raisings of the "dead" recorded in the Old Testament alone,
objection would less often be offered to this transference of them,
along with other occurrences once deemed miraculous, to a place in the
natural order of things. The statistics of premature burial and of the
resuscitation of the apparently dead before burial are sufficiently
strong to throw grave doubt on any contention that the resuscitations
narrated of Elijah[17] and Elisha[18] do not belong in that historical
series. It has been frequently observed, however, that there is much
reluctance to apply to the New Testament the methods and canons of
criticism that are applied to the Old. It will be so in the present
case, through apprehension of somehow detracting from the distinctive
glory of Christ. That fear will not disturb one who sees that glory not
in his "mighty works," the like of which were wrought by the prophets,
but in the spiritual majesty of his personality, the divineness of his
message to the world, and of the life and death that illustrated it.
One case, at least, among Jesus' raisings of the "dead," that of the
young daughter of the ruler of the synagogue,[19] is admitted even by
sceptical critics to have been a resuscitation from the trance that
merely simulates death. But the fact that there is a record of his
saying in this case, "the child is not dead, but sleepeth," and no
record of his saying the same at the bier of the widow's son,[20] is
slight ground, yet all the ground there is, against the great
probabilities to the contrary, for regarding the latter case as so
transcendently different from the former as the actual reembodiment of a
departed spirit recalled from another world. Were these the only two
cases of restoration to life in the ministry of Jesus, it is most
probable that they would be regarded as of the same kind.
The raising of Lazarus[21] presents peculiar features, in view of which
it is generally regarded as of another kind, and the greatest of
miracles, so stupendous that the Rev. W. J. Dawson, in his recent _Life
of Christ_, written from an evangelical standpoint, says of it: "Even
the most devout mind may be forgiven occasional pangs of incredulity."
But the considerations already presented are certainly sufficient to
justify a reexamination of the case. And it is to be borne in mind that
the question at issue is, not what the eye-witnesses at that time
believed, not what the Church from that time to this has believed, not
what we are willing to believe, or would like to believe, but what all
the facts with any bearing on the case, taken together, fully justify us
in believing as to the real nature of it.
What Jesus is recorded as saying of it is, of course, of prime
importance. "Our friend Lazarus is fallen asleep, but I go that I may
awake him out of sleep." Were this all, the case might easily have been
classed as one of trance. The disciples, however, understood Jesus to
speak of natural sleep. "Then Jesus therefore said unto them plainly,
_Lazarus is dead_." Tradition puts the maximum meaning into this word
"dead." But if this word here qualifies the preceding word, "fallen
asleep," so also is it qualified by that; the two are mutually
explanatory, not contradictory. These alternatives are before us: Is the
maximum or the minimum meaning to be assigned to the crucial word
"dead"? For the minimum, one can say that a deathly trance, already made
virtual death by immediate interment, would amply justify Jesus in using
the word "dead" in order to impress the disciples with the gravity of
the case, as not a natural but a deathly, and, in the existing
situation, a fatal sleep. For the maximum, no more can be advanced than
the hazardous assertion that Jesus _must_ have used the word with
technical precision in its customary sense; an assertion of course
protected from disproof by our ignorance of the actual fact.[22] But
whatever support this view of the case derives from such ignorance is
overbalanced by the support supplied to the other view by the long
history of revivals from the deathly trance, and by the probabilities
which that history creates.
Many, to whom the view here proposed seems not only new, but unwelcome,
and even revolutionary, may reasonably prefer to suspend judgment for
reflection; but meanwhile some further considerations may be
entertained.
1. Aside from the unwillingness to abandon a long-cherished belief on
any subject whatever, which is both a natural, and, when not pushed to
an unreasonable length, a desirable brake on all inconsiderate change,
no practical interest is threatened by the adoption of the view here
suggested. Religious interest, so far as it is also intelligent, is
certainly not threatened. The evidences of Jesus' divine character and
mission resting, as for modern men it rests, not on remote wonders, but
on now acknowledged facts of an ethical and spiritual kind, is
altogether independent of our conclusion whether it was from actual or
only apparent death that Lazarus was raised. Since all the mighty works
wrought by Jesus, and this among them, were identical in type with those
wrought by the ancient prophets, with whom his countrymen classed him in
his lifetime, their evidential significance could be, even for the
eye-witnesses at that tomb, no greater for him than for an
Elisha,--signs of a divine mission attesting itself by works of mercy.
2. As works of mercy these raisings from the "dead," including that of
Lazarus, rank far higher in the view of them here proposed than in the
traditional view. This regards them as the recall of departed spirits
from what is hoped to be "a better world." Yet this, while it turns
sorrow for a time into joy, involves not only the recurrence of that
sorrow in all its keenness, but also a second tasting of the pains
preliminary to the death-gate, when the time comes to pass that gate
again. But in the other view, a raising from the death that is only
simulated is a merciful deliverance from a calamity greater than simple
death, if that be any calamity at all,--the fate of burial alive. In the
former view, therefore, the quality of mercy, distinctive of the mighty
works of Jesus, is imperfectly demonstrable. In the present view, as the
rescue of the living from death in one of its most horrible forms, it is
abundantly conspicuous.
3. The onlookers by the tomb of Lazarus doubtless regarded his awakening
as revival from actual death. Their opinion, however, does not bind our
judgment any more than it is bound by the opinion of other onlookers,
that Jesus' healing of the insane and epileptic was through the
expulsion of demons that possessed them. In each instance it was
understood as a sign of control over beings belonging to another world.
But such an attestation of Jesus' divine mission, having been superseded
for us by proofs of higher character, is now no more needful for us in
the case of the "dead" than in the case of the "demons."
4. The power of breaking the deathly trance, of quickening the dormant
life, reenergizing the collapsed nervous organism, and ending its
paralysis of sensation and motion, may be reasonably regarded as power
of the same psychical kind that Jesus regularly exerted in healing the
sufferers from nervous disorders who were reputed victims of demoniac
possession.[23] In this view these resuscitations from apparent death
appear in natural coherence with the many other works of mercy that
Jesus wrought as the Great Physician of his people, and may be regarded
as the crown and consummation of all his restorative ministries. Jesus'
thanksgiving after the tomb had been opened--"Father, I thank thee that
thou hast heard me"--shows that he had girded himself for a supreme
effort by concentrating the utmost energy of his spirit in prayer.
Physically parallel with this was the intensity of voice put into his
call to the occupant of the tomb. This is better represented in the
original than in our translation: "He shouted with a great voice,
'Lazarus, come forth.'" The whole record indicates the utmost tension of
all his energies, and closely comports with the view that this stood to
the sequel in the relation of cause to effect.[24] Another circumstance
not without bearing on the case is the energizing power of the intense
sympathy with the bereaved family that stirred the soul of Jesus to weep
and groan with them. And it is not without significance that this strong
factor appears active in the larger number of the Biblical cases,--three
of them only children, two of these the children of the pitiable class
of widows.
Peculiar, then, as was the case of Lazarus, our examination of it
reveals no substantial ground for insisting that it was essentially
unlike the previous case of the ruler's daughter, that it was the
bringing back into a decaying body of a spirit that had entered into the
world of departed souls. The actual fact, of course, is indemonstrable.
Our conclusion has to be formed wholly upon the probabilities of the
case, and must be formed in a reasonable choice between the greater
probability and the less.
The restoration of Dorcas to life by Peter, recorded in the book of
Acts,[25] needs no special discussion beyond the various considerations
already adduced in this chapter. The case of Eutychus, recorded in the
same book,[26] requires mention only lest it should seem to have been
forgotten, as it is not in point at all. The record makes it highly
probable that the supposed death was nothing more than the loss of
consciousness for a few hours in consequence of a fall from the window.
* * * * *
If one should here suggest that no mention has yet been made of the
resurrection of Jesus himself, it must be pointed out that this is a
fact of a totally different kind from any of the foregoing cases. To
speak, as many do, of the "resurrection of Lazarus" is a misuse of
words. Resuscitation to life in this world, and resurrection, the rising
up of the released spirit into the life of the world to come, are as
distinct as are the worlds to which they severally belong. We here
consider only the _raisings_ which restored to the virtually dead their
interrupted mortal life. The _rising_ from the mortal into the immortal
state belongs to an entirely different field of study.
* * * * *
Apart, then, from traditional prepossessions, examination of the
Biblical narratives discloses nothing to invalidate the hypothesis which
one who is acquainted with the copious record of apparent but unreal
death must seriously and impartially consider. The reputedly miraculous
raisings of the "dead" related in both the Old and the New Testament
may, with entire reason, and without detriment to religion, be classed
with such as are related outside of the Scriptures, in ancient times as
well as modern, and as phenomena wholly within the natural order,
however extraordinary. The practical result of such a conclusion is
likely to be a gain for the historicity of the Scripture narratives in
the estimate of a large class of thoughtful minds.