I have proved in the preceding chapter, on the testimony of the highest
order of historical evidence:—
1. That the belief in the Resurrection of Jesus was universal in the
Church when St. Paul wrote these Epistles.
2. That this belief was held by every section in the Church, by the
strongest opponents no less than by the admiring friends of St. Paul.
3. That the Churches holding this belief were separated from each other by
a wide geographical area, and consisted of a great diversity of character,
thereby affording the greatest obstacle to the spreading of an absurd
story.
4. That these Churches did not merely accept the Resurrection as a bare
fact, but that they considered that their existence as communities was
based on its truth.
5. That they viewed the fact of the Resurrection not only as the great
bond of union, but as the source of the moral power of the Christianity
which they professed, and fully believed that their acceptance of it had
exercised a mighty influence in turning them from the low and debasing
pursuits of their previous life.
6. That their belief in the Resurrection was closely bound up with all the
pursuits of their daily life.
7. That these Epistles not only afford indisputable proof that this state
of things existed in the Churches within less than twenty‐eight years
after the crucifixion, but they no less clearly show that the earliest
Christian communities, such as the Churches of Antioch and Jerusalem,
entertained similar beliefs.
8. That it is an unquestionable historical fact that the belief in the
Resurrection was co‐eval with the restored life of the Church which had
been extinguished by the crucifixion.
9. That the three pillar Apostles of the Church of Jerusalem believed that
they had seen Jesus after His Resurrection, and that the entire body
entertained a similar opinion.
10. That as late as A.D. 57 or 58 more than 250 persons were still living
who believed that they had seen Jesus after His Resurrection; and that
originally more than five hundred persons entertained a similar
persuasion.
Such are plain facts of history. The question now before us is, how are
they to be accounted for? Only three possible alternatives present
themselves. Either:
Some of the followers of Jesus must have fancied that they saw Him risen
from the dead, and have communicated this delusion to the rest. Or:
That He did not actually die, when He was supposed to have done so; and
that His subsequent appearance, when partially recovered, was mistaken for
a resurrection. Or:
That He rose from the dead in veritable reality, and was seen by His
followers, and conversed with them.
I omit another possible supposition, that the belief in the Resurrection
was due to a deliberate fraud, because no one capable of appreciating
moral or historical evidence ventures to affirm it. The idea that the
greatest and purest of human institutions can owe its origin to a
deliberate imposture is a libel on human nature.
Around one or other of these alternatives the contest lies. It is useless
to attempt to becloud the question with a number of barren and indefinite
generalities, such as myths and legends, vague charges of enthusiasm,
fanaticism, and credulity, or general assertions of developments brought
about by a succession of compromises between hostile parties. We are here
in the presence of stern historical facts, which require a clear and
definite solution. The Christian Church exists as a fact. We can trace it
up to its first origin. It asserts that its existence is due to the
Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and to nothing else. If unbelievers affirm
that the fact is false, they are bound to offer some theory which is true
to human nature, and lies within the possibilities of things, to show us
how this belief originated, and how it was able to consolidate the life of
this new community.
The idea that the greatest moral power which has ever appeared among
mankind has had no other origin than a baseless delusion is supremely
melancholy. That Christianity has been such a moral power will be disputed
by few; and a large number of unbelievers will allow that notwithstanding
the faults which they attribute to it, nothing has equally contributed to
the civilization and elevation of the race. Yet if it be a delusion, it
must be recognised as such, and we must submit to our hard fate. Still it
is a terrible proposition to realize, that the noblest of human
institutions has originated in a lie, even if it be one which was not
deliberately intended as such.
It is evident that however great may be the general credulity of mankind,
it is a very difficult matter to get any number of men to accept as a fact
the assertion that a person who has actually died has returned again to
bodily life. Such a belief will only be effected by the production of
evidence which, if not true, is at all events in the highest degree
plausible. This, as I have already observed, is fully established by the
history of the past, for however numerous the narratives of marvellous
occurrences may be, whether in histories or fictions, it is next to
impossible to find reports of beliefs in the actual occurrence of a
resurrection, or even in the possibility of one prior to that of Jesus
Christ. Now St. Paul’s conversion cannot be dated later than within ten
years of the crucifixion; most probably it was earlier. It is clear that,
prior to his conversion, communities of Jewish Christians must have
existed in considerable numbers—in such numbers, in fact, as to raise his
wrath and indignation to the highest point. The spirit of persecution is
aroused by a sense of danger. It is clear, therefore, from the fact of the
persecution, that the persons in power saw danger from the progress of the
new sect, and that its numbers most have been considerable. From St.
Paul’s testimony, it is also certain that Christianity had spread at least
to one place beyond Judæa. The inference, therefore, seems irresistible
that in the period which elapsed between the crucifixion and St. Paul’s
conversion, the number of the believers in the Resurrection of Jesus had
increased to several thousands. Those, therefore, against whom I am
reasoning, cannot help admitting that an interval of eight or ten years is
a very short one for the conversion of such a large number of persons to
the belief that a man who had been publicly executed, in the very city in
which many of them lived, had been restored to life.
It is impossible that this belief could have been entertained by only a
few solitary individuals who treasured it up secretly in their bosoms. On
the contrary, the conditions of the case prove that it must have spread
rapidly. It was not sufficient for the creation of the Church that a few
solitary enthusiasts should believe that their Master was risen from the
dead, but it was necessary that the Society, which Jesus had formed in his
life‐time, should be immediately reorganized on the basis of this belief.
The belief in the Messiahship of Jesus constituted the original bond of
union. A dead Messiah was, in the eyes of a Jew, an absurdity; still more
so one who had been publicly crucified. With the death of Jesus,
therefore, the bond of union among His followers must have been severed.
Unless the Church was to perish in His grave, it was absolutely necessary
that it should be re‐constructed on the basis of His renewed life. The
slowness with which any large number of even credulous people will accept
the fact of a resurrection from the dead, must have formed an obstacle,
the force of which it is impossible to over‐estimate. Yet the work was
done, and, within a period of seven or eight years, the belief had spread
so widely that its adherents could be numbered by thousands. The truth of
the Resurrection, founded on the direct testimony of a considerable number
of persons who had had sufficient opportunity of testing it by the
evidence of their senses, would fully account for the rapid growth of the
belief. If, however, it originated in the brain of one or two crazed
fanatics, if the belief of so prodigious an event could propagate itself
at all, a considerable interval of time was absolutely necessary for its
doing so. The memory of the Crucifixion was fresh and recent. What would
have been the natural effect of announcing the fact of His Resurrection?
Incredulity! What has become of His body? Why does He not appear to His
former friends? The strangeness of the event must have prompted even the
most credulous to make some inquiry about the matter, and the inquiry must
have dissipated the delusion. Such a belief could only readily propagate
itself after recent memories had grown dim, and a long interval of time
had elapsed, sufficient for the Founder of Christianity to become
surrounded with a halo of imaginary glory.
Let us now consider the position in which the followers of Jesus must have
found themselves on the night of the Crucifixion, and during the following
days. Their hopes had been based on Him as the Messiah, who was to reign
in the kingdom promised by the prophets; and they expected important
places in that kingdom as the reward of their fidelity. These hopes must
have been annihilated. The Messiah whom they expected to reign had
perished at the hands of His enemies. What was to be hoped for more? Many
could not help thinking that he had been a self‐deceiver, if not an
impostor. Was there any ground for hoping that He could be raised from the
dead? Many of the prophets of the ancient Church had perished by the
authority of former governments, or by the violence of the mob. But God
had never interfered to vindicate the cause of one of them by raising him
from the dead. The utmost that He had done was to raise up some new
prophet to take his place. But this man was more than a prophet—he was the
Messiah. Did not all the old prophets promise Him a kingdom and a glory
and a mighty triumph? Yet He had been cut off by His enemies, instead of
triumphing over them; and His dead body was silent in the grave. Any hint
that the Gospels allege Jesus to have given His followers of His own
Resurrection is, according to the theory of those with whom I am
reasoning, a late invention. On the days, therefore, which followed the
Crucifixion, the Church must have presented the stillness of death, broken
only by a few utterances of loving despair.
But the Church did not perish; it set itself to the work of
reconstruction. It expanded and grew. Within the space of eight years
after the Crucifixion, the believers in the Resurrection could be numbered
by thousands. This is an indisputable fact. Again it expanded and grew,
and it never ceased to grow until in less than three hundred years after
the public execution of its Founder by the authority of the Roman
government, one of its professed adherents mounted the imperial throne,
and found its strength sufficient to enable him to make it one of the
institutions of the State. These facts are without a parallel in history.
How are they to be accounted for? The followers of Jesus affirmed that
their Master rose from the dead; and that He thus resumed His place as the
Messiah of His Church. Unbelievers, in the face of the evidence before us,
cannot deny that the great body of His followers must have believed that
He had done so within the short interval of a few months after His public
execution. Our documents on this point are distinct and definite. They
affirm that He was not only seen but handled by many of His disciples
after His Resurrection, that He ate with them, and that they had
interviews with Him individually and collectively. I must now examine the
alternative positions; and first, that His supposed appearances were
delusions of the imagination.
The loose and general affirmation has been made that the followers of
Jesus were so enthusiastically attached to Him that the idea of His death
was simply unbearable, and that they attempted to get rid of the fact by
supposing that He had risen from the dead.
I reply first: that all such general statements are worthless. We have
specific facts before us; and these can only be accounted for by facts
which are equally definite, and not mere fancies. The assertion before me
is not only a bare supposition without one atom of evidence to rest upon,
but it contradicts all the known facts of the case. So far is it from
having been the case that the disciples were in such a state of
enthusiastic exultation, that our own documents inform us that they had
fallen into the lowest state of despondency.
But further: when a theory is propounded to account for an historical
fact, the possibility of the supposition must be supported by some
analogous cases in the history of man, more or less resembling it. All
theories which are devoid of this support are worthless as history. Let
those, therefore, who would urge this on our acceptance as an account of
the origin of the greatest event in history, show that something like it
has occurred in the records of the past. Let them show us one instance of
a body of men whose enthusiasm for their leader was so great that, when he
had been put to death by the authority of the government of the country,
they got over this by fancying that he had been raised from the dead, and
then took to persuading others of its truth. The enthusiasm of followers
for their leaders has urged them to form plots, and even to make attempts
to rescue them from the hands of their enemies. Such enthusiasm, however,
is not even hinted at in the case of the disciples of Christ. No whisper
of tradition has reached us that any of them formed a plot, or made a
solitary attempt to rescue their Master. Are we then to believe that they
imagined a resurrection to repair the damage of His Crucifixion? Such
imaginative conceits would never have made a single convert to their
story. They left their Master to perish in His agony, and when He had
expired under the hands of His executioners, restored Him to an ideal life
by imagining that He was risen from the dead. Such fictions may be safely
dismissed without further notice.
Secondly: Let us suppose that some one of His disciples thought that he
actually saw Him, and in the height of his enthusiasm converted a fancy
into a fact; and persuaded the other disciples that He was risen from the
dead: that these too, in turn, were wrought up into so high a state of
enthusiasm that they likewise fancied that they saw Him: thus the delusion
spread. I reply:—
First: As I have already observed, we are entitled to demand that some
analogous case should be adduced before we can be rationally asked to
accept such theories as to the solution of an unquestionable historical
fact. Surely, if such are the workings of human nature under influences so
general as enthusiasm and credulity, some similar occurrence must be no
uncommon event in history. Let one therefore be adduced.
Secondly: Nothing is easier to affirm than that some credulous and
enthusiastic follower of Jesus mistook a fancy of his imagination for a
fact, thought that he had seen Him alive, and communicated his enthusiasm
to the rest. Whatever may be said as to the possibility in fits of
enthusiasm of a few half‐crazy fanatics mistaking fancies for facts, it is
clear that to communicate this enthusiasm to others is a very difficult
undertaking, especially when they are in a depressed state of mind. As I
have already shown, it is in the highest degree difficult, if not
impossible, to persuade even very credulous persons of the occurrence of
an actual resurrection, as all history and fiction prior to the Advent
testify. A case of a person who professed to have seen, touched,
conversed, and eaten with one who was raised from the dead is not on
record. The belief in ghost stories and apparitions of the departed is to
be met with at every turn. Sorcery professed to be able to bring departed
spirits from the under‐world, but it never attempted to restore to life a
body which once was dead.
Between these two classes of facts the distinction is most important. The
enthusiasm or credulity which easily creates the one belief, refuses to
accept the other. What we have to account for in this case is, not that
some imaginative follower thought that he had seen the spirit of the
crucified Jesus, come from the under‐world to make a communication to his
followers, and that the other disciples credulously accepted the report:
but that the appearance was that of his body restored to the functions of
animal life—in one word, a _Resurrection_, able to repair the damage which
had been occasioned by his Crucifixion.
But for the purpose of arguing the question we must suppose that some one
of the enthusiastic followers of Jesus fancied that he saw Him after His
death, and mistook that fancy for a fact. I own that it is very difficult
even to assume the existence of enthusiasm in the present instance,
because all the known facts as well as the conditions of the case prove
that whatever enthusiasm had once existed, it was at a very low ebb on the
morning of the supposed Resurrection. Still, however, the assumption must
be made, or argument will be impossible. As one enthusiast will be as good
as another, let us assume that our supposed enthusiast was Mary Magdalene,
who went early to the sepulchre, found the stone gone, saw the gardener in
the dim light, mistook him for Jesus, and went and told her friends that
she had seen Him risen from the dead: or to put the case more simply, that
her excited brain created some spectral illusion; and that under its
influence she thought she saw Him, and proceeded to convey the report to
her friends.
It at once strikes us as most unaccountable that, enthusiastic as she must
have been, she did not do something to assure herself of the reality of
the bodily presence of her Master. It was hard even for an enthusiast to
believe that it was He. If she had spoken, and it was the gardener, she
would have been at once cured of her delusion. If she had attempted to
embrace Him and it had been a phantom, the same result would have
followed. Surely the intensity of her love, however credulous or fanatical
she might be, would not have allowed her to leave the spot without some
suitable demonstration. Equally incredible is it that she should have left
Him, without inquiring whither He intended to betake Himself, or obtaining
the promise of some future meeting at which His disconcerted friends might
see Him. However enthusiastic she may have been, it is simply untrue to
human nature, that she should have thought that her much loved Master had
appeared to her in bodily reality, and that she should neither have spoken
to Him, touched Him, nor endeavoured to ascertain the place of His
proposed retreat, nor what His intentions were about the future. If she
had done any of these things, it would have dissipated her delusions.
Let us suppose, however, that all these difficulties do not exist, and
that she is gone to publish among the friends of Jesus that she had seen
Him risen from the dead. His death had proved to them a stunning blow; but
let us suppose that they were still eagerly desirous of the occurrence of
something which might renew their old faith in their Master’s Messiahship.
It is clear that nothing short of a belief in His resurrection could have
accomplished this. Yet however desirous they may have been of His return
to life, they were confronted with the stern fact that He had been
publicly executed, and that the credulity of the past had not succeeded in
restoring dead men to life. Their despondency occasioned by the events of
the last three days was extreme. Let us suppose that Mary Magdalene rushes
in with the announcement: “I have seen the Lord,—the tomb is empty,—He is
risen from the dead.” However desirous they might be that the news should
be true, it is evident that such an announcement must have filled the
minds of even the most credulous with astonishment. What! not the
apparition of His departed spirit, but a bodily reality, the very man
himself? Is it possible that none of them suspected that it was the dream
of an enthusiastic woman? Is it conceivable that men or women,
passionately attached to their Master, asked her no questions about the
interview; what He had said to her; where He was to be found? Some replies
to these and kindred questions were inevitable; and unless they were
distinct and satisfactory, the rising enthusiasm must have been checked.
Is it true to human nature that the most enthusiastic credulity could have
accepted these things as facts, or that the dead Jesus could have
straightway assumed His place of Messianic dignity in their minds, if He
had made no appointment where He could meet His friends; or if that
appointment was created by the imagination of the Magdalene, but when
tested by the attempt to see him, it proved a delusion?
But even credulity, when united with profound love and attachment to a
departed friend, must have some farther satisfaction than a fancied sight.
If the disciples, in the height of their enthusiasm, imagined that they
saw Him, they surely would have spoken to Him. Could they have helped
embracing Him on his return to life after His cruel sufferings and
ignominious death? Above all, what about the future? Was He going to teach
again in public? Was He not going to bring confusion on His enemies? Was
He actually going to retire from public view out of their way? And if He
did so, what about His Messianic claims? Who was to head the party for the
future? Could they have no secret interviews with Him? If He henceforth
retired into obscurity, what announcement were His friends to make to His
opponents? The most fanatical enthusiasts must have asked some of these
questions.
Either no answer was returned, and the delusions must have been
immediately dispelled; or the enthusiasm which generated a phantom, and
mistook it for a reality, invented an answer likewise. Any reply which
fell short of a promise to appear for the future at their head, and either
convince or confound His adversaries, must have extinguished their belief
in His Messiahship. They either fancied they saw Him again, or they did
not. If the former was the case, they must have had repeated interviews,
all created by the imagination, at which something definite must have been
supposed to have passed sufficient to establish the belief that He was a
Messiah returned to them from the grave. If His old Messianic character
had ceased, some definite plan must have been propounded of the mode in
which He was going to enter on a new one. If, however, we accept the
alternative that He saw them no more, we shall possibly be told that His
followers accounted for His absence by imagining that He had for a time
been taken up into heaven, whence He was shortly coming again to destroy
His enemies. But in that case it must have been a cruel blow to
enthusiastic love. What! their much loved Master, for whom they had
sacrificed their all, to afford them one mute interview after His
resurrection, immediately to go into heaven, and leave them without a
head, exposed to the assaults of the opponents who had murdered Him?
But let us imagine all these difficulties got over, and that they fancied
that they caught one solitary glimpse of Him, and that He was taken up
into heaven, whence He would come again to revive His sinking cause. Was
He to return in a few days, or months, or years? If the days became
months, and the months years, what was to be done with the Church in the
meantime? Was it to organize itself? If so, on what new basis? Was it to
confront His foes? Was it to make converts; or quietly to await His
return? If the latter, as months and years passed away, the Church must
have simply died of inanition, and we should have heard no more of
Christianity. If the former hypothesis be preferred, then it is plain that
His followers must have determined to start His Messiahship on a new
basis. But what was this? How was it to be propounded to the world? How
were His other disciples to be persuaded to accept it? Instead of an
earthly, the Church for the future must be headed by a heavenly Messiah,
who was coming at some future day to take vengeance on His foes. Such a
change of tactics must have been resolved upon, and that speedily; the
whole plan must have been conceived and executed by a few credulous
enthusiasts, or the belief in the Messiahship of Jesus must have been
extinguished in His grave.
But further; the necessity of converting the other disciples to this
belief was most urgent; for until this could be done, the society was
dissolving into its individual elements. How was it to be accomplished? It
is easy to say that these enthusiasts communicated their enthusiasm to the
rest. But this little sentence conceals behind it whole mountains of
difficulty. Every one to which I have already alluded, must have had to be
surmounted in each individual case. There must have been many other
disciples who dearly loved their Master. What must have been their
feelings on hearing that He had appeared to only four or five of them, and
had gone up into heaven? What! He, whom we loved, who dearly loved us,
risen from the dead, and gone to heaven without affording us the
consolation of a parting interview? Such a thought was enough to chill all
ordinary enthusiasm. Was His mother one of those who fancied they saw Him
come again from the grave? If she was, could she have been mistaken? If
she did not see Him, what must have been her feelings at the thought that
He had left the world, without allowing her to behold Him? What would have
been the feelings of the women, whose beneficence had contributed to His
support, or of His intimate friends among the Apostles? Surely all these
would have thought it more certain that their companions’ report
originated in a heated imagination, than that Jesus should have acted
thus.
But the idea that a few fanatics only fancied that they saw Jesus alive
after His Crucifixion is negatived by an historical fact distinctly
affirmed by St. Paul in the face of his opponents in the Corinthian
Church. Having mentioned His appearance to Peter and the twelve, St. Paul
asserts: “After that, He was seen of above five hundred brethren at once,
of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen
asleep.”
Here then we are in possession of direct contemporaneous testimony. This
assertion is boldly made in the face of the powerful party who denied St.
Paul’s apostleship. It is clear that if they had not believed in the truth
of his assertion, they would not have lost such an opportunity of throwing
discredit upon him by convicting him of falsehood. The Apostle affirms in
the presence of his adversaries that there were then living more than 250
persons who believed that they had seen Jesus Christ after He had risen
from the dead; and not only so, but that upwards of 500 persons had seen
Him on one and the same occasion. If this assertion was false, nothing was
easier than for the opponents of the Apostle to refute it.
On the supposition, therefore, that the belief in the Resurrection
originated in a delusion, it must have been one on a prodigiously large
scale. Unless St. Paul, and the opposing section of the Corinthian Church,
who must have represented the opinions of the Church at Jerusalem, were
misinformed on this subject, it is necessary to frame an hypothesis which
shall not only account for three or four fanatics, fancying that they saw
Jesus Christ alive, when it was nothing but the creation of a disordered
imagination, but for the fact that more than five hundred persons laboured
under a similar delusion. The assertion of the Apostle is express, not
that more than five hundred persons were persuaded to believe that some
others had seen Jesus Christ after He was risen from the dead, but that
they had actually seen Him themselves.
The only way of evading the force of this testimony is either by directly
impugning St. Paul’s veracity, or by supposing that he made an assertion
based on a vulgar rumour. The whole character of the Apostle renders the
supposition of a deliberate falsehood incredible, besides the danger
already alluded to of certain detection by his opponents. Nor is the other
alternative more tenable, that on such a subject he adopted a mere idle
rumour. No subject more occupied his mind than the Resurrection of Jesus
Christ. For Him he sacrificed everything. To Him he devoted his entire
life. Is it conceivable that such a man would not, under the influence of
common curiosity, have inquired into the alleged facts of his Master’s
Resurrection? But these letters prove that he was a man of far more than
ordinary curiosity. It is clear from them that he kept himself acquainted
with the details of the events which took place in the Churches which he
had planted. Messengers were sent by him to supply him with all necessary
information. Even in so distant a Church as that of Rome, which he had not
even visited, he knew no small number of the chief Christians by name, and
took the deepest interest in their affairs. Are we to believe that such a
man received such a fact connected with the dearest interests of his life
without taking the trouble to ascertain its truth? Moreover, his former
character as a persecutor must have rendered it necessary that he should
institute a diligent inquiry into the alleged Resurrection of one whom he
considered an impostor, and whose adherents he was endeavouring to compel
to renounce their allegiance. We must, therefore, conclude that what St.
Paul here affirms must have been true, that on one definite occasion
several hundreds of persons thought that they had seen Jesus Christ after
He was risen from the dead.
But if it is in the highest degree difficult to account for the
possibility of three or four of the disciples of Jesus fancying they saw
their risen Master, when they saw nothing but a creation of their own
imagination, what theory can be framed to account for the fact of several
hundreds of persons having become the prey of a similar delusion? Large
numbers of persons do not fall into delusions of this kind. Are we to
suppose that some of them affirmed that some distant object which they saw
was Jesus, and that the remainder accepted the assertion without inquiry?
If He had not come near to them, would they not have rushed up to a man,
who was believed to have come up again from the grave, and endeavoured to
converse with him? Let all history be searched for any fact at all like
this. Until something like it can be found, we are justified in
pronouncing such a delusion impossible. Nay: however common the belief in
ghost stories, it would be impossible to find a case of several hundred
persons who believed that, on some one definite occasion, when they were
all assembled, they had seen the ghost of a person who had recently been
executed, appear before them, and on the strength of this belief,
constituted themselves into a new society;—a society which has endured
through eighteen centuries? However cynical our views may be, it is
impossible to believe that human nature is a lie.
Again: If for the purposes of the argument we accept the impossible
supposition that a few deluded fanatics persuaded themselves that they had
seen their Master risen from the dead, and that they set themselves to
persuade others that this was a fact, then it is clear that the wish of
making converts to their belief must have been a very gradual and slow
process. This, in the face of all the evidence supplied by history, does
not require further proof. It would be impossible to make converts at all,
without adducing some overwhelming evidence of the truth of their
assertion. But on the supposition that it was a delusion of the
imagination, such evidence could not be forthcoming. Such beliefs are only
possible after the lapse of very considerable intervals of time, if they
are possible even then.
But in the present case recollections were all fresh. Will the attempt to
persuade persons who live in the city where a public execution has taken
place, that the man executed is alive again, succeed? Will it succeed
anywhere in the neighbourhood, while the events are still in everybody’s
recollection? Living actors must have died out, memories of the past must
have become faint, before such things can be made to wear even the
semblance of possibility. But the plain historical facts refuse to concede
the requisite interval during which such a belief could slowly grow up.
While the belief was growing, the Church would have been perishing from
want of a Messiah to step into the place of the dead Jesus. On the
contrary, the growth of the belief was rapid. The Church speedily rose
from its ruins. Before St. Paul’s conversion, it had increased to such
numbers as to be worth persecuting. There was a Church at Jerusalem; there
were Churches in Judæa; there were Christians in Damascus. Before this
event the small knot of deluded fanatics had persuaded thousands; they had
formed the Society which subverted the religion and institutions of the
Roman empire, and of which all the progressive races of men profess—now in
the 19th century of its existence—to be still members. The facts of
unquestionable history utterly refuse to the advocates of this theory the
time necessary for imparting to it even a passing plausibility.
I infer, therefore, that the theory that one or more credulous enthusiasts
among the disciples of Jesus fancied that they saw their Master risen from
the dead, while in reality they were labouring under some mental
hallucination, and that they communicated their enthusiasm to the rest,
and that these created the Christian Church, is unsound in philosophy,
contradicts the facts of history, and the phenomena of human nature, as
testified to by past experience, and is destitute of the possibility of
verification, and also is contrary to analogy. It follows, therefore, that
this portion of the alternative before us must be pronounced utterly
inadequate as a solution of the facts.
Let us now consider the other alternative, that Jesus did not actually
die, but, although He had been crucified, escaped with His life; that His
disciples saw Him after His crucifixion; and, being persuaded that He had
expired, mistook His appearance for a restoration to life.
This alternative need not detain us long. It is involved in a considerable
number of the difficulties which are connected with the assumption that
some one or more of the disciples fancied that they saw Him when they did
not really see Him, and that they persuaded the others that He was risen
from the dead. These difficulties I have already disposed of. But it has
in addition some difficulties peculiarly its own, which I will now briefly
notice.
I admit that it was possible to recover from the effects of crucifixion,
if taken down from the cross in time. This we learn from Josephus, who, on
his return one day from going to examine a place for the encampment of the
Roman forces, found that three of his friends had been crucified during
his absence. By his entreaties, he obtained the orders of Titus for their
being taken down. Two died under cure; one recovered. Josephus is silent
as to whether they had been scourged before they were crucified. This was
no doubt an important point in reference to the possibility of recovery.
Such was the usual practice; although when the Romans crucified the Jews
in large numbers, as they had now been in the habit of doing for some
time, it may be a question whether it was always inflicted. These persons
had probably been suspended on the cross for some hours before they were
taken down. They were treated with the utmost care, with a view to their
recovery; yet two out of the three died. Such are the facts, as related by
Josephus.
It has been suggested that Jesus was only in a swoon when taken down from
the cross; that in the sepulchre He recovered His consciousness, to which
the large quantity of spices used at His burial might have contributed;
that He managed to creep out of the grave to some place of security, where
He was seen by a few of His disciples, but that He died not long after.
This, it is said, the disciples mistook for a Resurrection, and that it
formed the basis of the renewed life of the Church. Let it be observed
that there would be the same difficulties in re‐constituting the Church on
such a basis, and in procuring converts to this belief, as there would
have been on the other alternative, which I have shown to be untenable.
These, therefore, I need not consider.
This theory pre‐supposes not only that the body of Jesus was interred, but
that it was committed to the custody of His friends. This fact we have
from the Gospels; as well as the additional fact that the time during
which He was suspended on the cross did not exceed six hours at the
utmost. But we also learn from them that, before Pilate ordered the body
to be delivered up, he took care to ascertain, from those in charge, the
certainty of the death; and the fourth Gospel affirms that one of the
soldiers, in order to remove all doubt on the subject, pierced his side
with a spear. Now without the aid of the Gospels it would not have been
known that the body was committed to the custody of His friends. If,
therefore, their historical testimony is good for this fact, it is absurd
to refuse them credence when they testify to the other facts. We say
distinctly: if the truth of the one set of facts is denied, because the
Gospels are unhistorical, the truth of the other set (for the Gospels are
the sole authorities) must not be assumed on their testimony. Apart from
this, we are only at liberty to assume that the crucifixion was conducted
in the usual manner; and that the bodies were disposed of accordingly,
_i.e._ that, if the crucified persons were buried at all, they were buried
ignominiously. It has also been affirmed that Pilate sacrificed Jesus by
compulsion, and that the centurion on guard was not ill‐disposed towards
him. This again, I say, we only learn from our present Gospels, and I must
again protest against the practice of accepting their testimony on one
side and ignoring it on the other. The Romans, moreover, were not the sort
of men to allow a crucified victim to be taken down from the cross until
they were well assured that he had hung there long enough to extinguish
life; and from the frequency of such executions they would learn how long
it would require, and what on such occasions were the symptoms of death;
nor did they concede to persons so executed an honourable burial.
But further: It never occurred to the Jews that it was possible that the
crucified Jesus had escaped with His life, and that this fact was really
at the bottom of the announcement of His resurrection. If it was known to
any person concerned that He had thus escaped, nothing could have been
more dangerous on the part of His followers than to announce that He was
risen from the dead. This was the very thing to promote inquiry, and to
arouse a suspicion among His enemies that He had not really died, and thus
to induce them to make every effort to ascertain the place of His retreat.
The quickest way to put an end to the story of the Resurrection was to
produce the living Jesus, weak and exhausted from His wounds; or, if He
had really died, to produce His body. But not a single whisper has come
down to us from the opponents of Christianity that He did not really die.
If such an idea had afforded even a probable account of the story of the
Resurrection, it would certainly have occurred to Paul when a persecutor,
and he would have had recourse to it as a means of dissipating the
delusion. Such are some of the first difficulties which surround this mode
of accounting for the story of the Resurrection. A sepulchre was a place
ill‐fitted for a man, exhausted by scourging and crucifixion, to recover
in; nor was there a retreat at hand. But, as we scrutinize the matter more
closely, these difficulties become impossibilities.
It is clear that from the hour of His supposed death on the cross, Jesus
disappears from history, except in the form of Jesus the Messiah raised
again from the dead, the great Founder of the Christian Church. If,
therefore, His supposed Resurrection was nothing but a recovery from a
swoon, one of two things is certain: either He died shortly after from
exhaustion, or He lived somewhere in deepest retirement, only receiving
visits from those of His followers who were in the secret, and in due
course He expired. Perhaps it may be urged that His friends succeeded in
carrying Him off into some distant country, and that some one or more of
His followers, who had seen Him slowly recovering, mistook this for a
resurrection, and propagated the story.
We must keep steadily in view that what we have to account for is not a
mere story of a resurrection propagated by a crazed fanatic, but the
erection of the Christian Church on its basis. It is a plain fact that
Jesus appeared no more in public, and that His earthly history ends with
His crucifixion. What became of Him? It is impossible to over‐estimate the
importance of this question.
Let us take the first supposition that He recovered from a swoon, but died
shortly afterwards from exhaustion. This theory involves the necessity
that some one or more of His followers should have seen Him alive and
dying of exhaustion. Was it possible, I ask, for the most deluded
fanaticism to mistake such a condition for a resurrection from the dead?
Was this a basis on which to revive the hopes of the disciples, and to re‐
construct the Church? Would any amount of enthusiastic credulity mistake
such a person for the Messiah of the future? If He died shortly
afterwards, what became of His Messiahship? Did His other followers pay
Him no visits during His illness? Did they see Him die, or attend His
burial? Surely such positions do not require serious argument.
But let us suppose that He recovered, lived in retirement and only
received the secret visits of a few followers, and that out of this the
story of the Resurrection grew. How grew? I again ask. Such growths
require considerable periods of time, and these, history utterly refuses
to grant. Would it be possible, I ask, for any deluded follower to mistake
such facts for a resurrection from the dead? Could Jesus himself have so
mistaken it? or, however well the secret might be kept, would a Messiah,
living in privacy, out of the sight of friends and foes, be a possible
Messiah, who could impart a new life to the Church? In such a case it is
impossible to exonerate the persons concerned from fraud, even the Great
Teacher himself. Are we to suppose that He himself actually mistook His
recovery from a swoon for a resurrection, and justified His followers in
publishing a report of it? Why then did He not appear in public and assert
His Messianic claims? But could His followers have persuaded themselves
that a man who must have shown distinct indications of slow recovery, and
who never ventured to appear again in public, was raised again from the
dead to continue His Messianic work? If this is the true account of the
matter, it was not a delusion but an imposture. If we suppose that a few
friends only visited Him, what did His other disciples say about the
matter? Did the few, with the concurrence of their Master, propagate the
belief that He was gone into heaven, knowing that He was still on earth?
Be these things as they may (and those who have started the idea should
solve it), if the real basis of the story of the Resurrection be a
recovery from a swoon and a subsequent life of privacy, Jesus must have
shared the common fate of humanity and died. This must have been known to
those with whom He lived; it must have been known to those who visited
Him. His death must have dispelled their delusions. Henceforth the
propagation of their story must have been due to wilful fraud—a fraud for
which it is impossible to assign a motive, and which it is not the modern
practice to charge on the first propagators of Christianity.
The remaining supposition, that Jesus, after having been seen by one or
two of His followers alive and slowly recovering, was conveyed away to
some distant place, where they saw Him no more, and that out of this grew
the story of His Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven, is not only in
itself intrinsically incredible, but it offends against every one of the
principles which I have established. I need not, therefore, discuss it
further.
The existence of the Church is a fact. It is professedly based on another
fact, namely, the Resurrection of Christ. If this be true, it fully
accounts for the existence, origin, and growth of the Church. No other
theory can account for it. The Resurrection is a fact, or a delusion. If
it is not a fact, two suppositions respecting its origin are alone
possible. These have been proved, on the strongest historical evidence, to
be impossible. It follows, therefore, that the only remaining alternative
is the true one: that JESUS CHRIST ROSE FROM THE DEAD. Its attestation is
stronger than that of any other fact in history.