to Jerusalem on occasion of his last Passover; while John describes chiefly his visits and teaching at or near the Holy city;so in their narratives of the scenes of the resurrection each writer follows his own eclectic method, and records what appertained to his own particular purpose or experience. Thus Matthew speaks only of a single appearance of our Lord at Jerusalem, namely, that to the women, which is not referred to by either of the other evangelists; while he mentions but one in Galilee. Mark enumerates three other appearances at Jerusalem; but says nothing of Galilee; although he records the charge of the angel, that the disciples should repair thither. Luke also speaks of three appearances (one of them different) at Jerusalem; but he too has not a word of Galilee. John again has likewise three appearances at Jerusalem (one of them still different); and describes another interview with the disciples on the shores of the Lake of Tiberias. And what perhaps is still more remarkable, only Mark and Luke make any allusion whatever to the fact of our Lord's ascension. Amid all this diversity of presentation, there is obviously no room for the idea of an intended completeness. It is the purpose of the present Article, not to discuss every cavil which the acuteness of unbelief may raise in regard to this portion of the Gospel History; but rather to suggest and elucidate what seems to me to be the natural order of the events, and to dwell only upon those difficulties which present themselves to the mind of the sincere inquirer after truth. These, I am persuaded, arise to us from the brevity of the sacred writers; who, in their narration of facts, have not seen fit to introduce all the minor connecting circumstances, without which we, at this distance of time, are unable to gain a complete and connected view of the whole ground. Had we all these facts, there is no reason why we should not rest assured, that this part of the sacred history would prove to be as exact, as consistent, and as complete, as any and every other portion of the Word of God. In perusing the following pages, the reader will find it advantageous to have before him a Greek Harmony of the four Gospels; or at least to make constant reference to his Greek Testament. f 1. The Time of the Resurrection. Matt. 28: 1, 2. Mark 18: 1, 2, 9. Luke 24: 1. John 20: 1. That the resurrection of our Lord took place before full day-light, on the first day of the week, follows from the unanimous testi 1845.] The Time of the Resurrection. 165 mony of the Evangelists respecting the visit of the women to the sepulchre. But the exact time at which he rose is nowhere specified. According to the Jewish mode of reckoning, the Sabbath ended and the next day began at sunset; so that had the resurrection occurred even before midnight, it would still have been upon the first day of the week, and the third day after our Lord's burial. The earthquake had taken place and the stone had been rolled away before the arrival of the women; and so far as the immediate narrative is concerned, there is nothing to show that all this might not have happened some hours earlier. Yet the words of Mark in another place render it certain, that there could have been no great interval between these events and the arrival of the women; since he affirms in v. 9, that Jesus" had risen nowi, early, the first day of the week;" while in v. 2, he states that the women went out λíav no̟wi, “very early.” A like inference may be drawn from the fact, that the affrighted guards first went to inform the chief priests of these events, when the women returned to the city (Matt. 28: 11); for it is hardly to be supposed, that after having been thus terrified by the earthquake and the appearance of an angel, they would have waited any very long time before sending information to their employers.-The body of Jesus had therefore probably lain in the tomb not less than about thirty-six hours. The scene of the actual resurrection, the Holy Spirit has not seen fit to disclose. The circumstances of that awful moment, so fraught with importance to angels and to men, remain to us shrouded in darkness. The sacred writers have narrated only what they saw after the sepulchre was empty. We know only that without the tomb "there was a great earthquake; for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it; his countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow." But what had passed within the tomb? When Jesus called Lazarus forth out of his sepulchre," he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with grave-clothes; and his face was bound about with a napkin."1 But when our Lord himself arose, no voice of power thus called him forth, bound hand and foot. In the dark recesses of the sepulchre, through almighty power, his spirit revived, unseen and unknown to every mortal eye. Angels ministered unto him, and opened before him the door of the tomb. Here was no struggle, no agony, no confused haste; but, on the contrary, "the linen clothes lying, and the napkin that was about his head, not lying 1 John 11: 44. 7 with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself," all testify of peace, deliberation, and composure. Who furnished the risen Lord with raiment? for his own garments had been parted, by lot, among the soldiers. Who staunched the wound in his side, that was probably intended to pierce his heart? Faith answers these, and all such questions without difficulty: To that omnipotence which raised him from the dead, to the angels who thus attended upon him in the resurrection, it would be a light thing indeed to minister to these physical wants. More we cannot know. § 2. The Visit of the Women to the Sepulchre. Matt. 28: 1-8. Mark 16: 1-8. Luke 24: 1-11. John 20: 1, 2. The first notices we have of our Lord's resurrection, are connected with the visit of the women to the sepulchre, on the morning of the first day of the week. According to Luke, the women who had stood by the cross, went home and rested during the sabbath (23:56); and Mark adds that after the sabbath was ended, that is, after sun-se and during the evening, they prepared spices in order to go and embalm our Lord's body. They were either not aware of the previous embalming by Joseph and Nicodemus; or else they also wished to testify their respect and affection to their Lord, by completing, more perfectly, what before had been done in haste; John 19: 40-42. It is in just this portion of the history, which relates to the visit of the women to the tomb and the appearance of Jesus to them, that most of the alleged difficulties and discrepancies in this part of the Gospel narratives are found. We will therefore take up the chief of them in their order. 1. The Time. All the Evangelists agree in saying that the women went out very early to the sepulchre. Matthew's expression is: ty zigwoxovoy sc. quion, as the day was dawning. Mark's words are: líav nowî, very early; which indeed are less definite, but are appropriate to denote the same point of time; see v. 9, and also not evvvyov híav, Mark 1:35. Luke has the more poetic term: ooooov Badéos, deep morning, i. e. early dawn. John's language is likewise definite: πρωί, σκοτίας ἔτι οὔσης, early, while it was yet dark. All these expressions go to fix the time at what we call early dawn, or early twilight; after the break of day, but while the light is yet struggling with darkness.2 1 John 20: 6, 7. * So the Homeric пgozóñeñlos juis II. 9. 1. al. See Eustath. ad Hom. ed. 1845.] Time of the Visit of the Women at the Sepulchre. 167 Thus far there is no difficulty; and none would ever arise, had not Mark added the phrase ἀνατείλαντος τοῦ ἡλίου, which, accord ing to every law of the Aorist, must be translated: the sun being risen; or, as the English version has it, at the rising of the sun. These words seem, at first, to be at direct variance both with the Liar nooi of Mark himself, and with the language of the other Evangelists. The ways in which interpreters have attempted to harmonize this apparent discrepancy, are chiefly the three following. (1) "The very early of Mark and the other evangelists refers to the time when the women set off from their home; the sun-rising, to the time of their arrival at the tomb." So West, Benson, and others. This would include a longer interval of time than could well have been occupied in going from the city to the sepulchre, unless they loitered by the way; which is not likely. Besides, the language of Luke and John, and most naturally that of Matthew, seems to refer the "early dawn" to the arrival of the women at the place. In Mark, likewise, the two phrases, λíav nowï and ἀνατείλαντος τ. ήλ. both qualify the clause έρχονται ἐπὶ τὸ μνη μɛior, one just as much as the other; and it seems, therefore, philologically impossible to refer them to different points of time. (2)" Cod. D. s. Bezae reads here ȧvarékhovtos. Cod. K. s. Colb. with several cursive Mss., and also Gregory of Nyssa, insert ezi before ȧvateínavros. By adopting one of these readings, the seeming inconsistency is removed." So Newcome. But the whole weight of authority is the other way; and no editor of the New Testament has ever ventured to adopt either of these readings. Both are regarded by Griesbach and other editors as obviously mere expedients to get rid of the difficulty. But they do not even do this. The insertion of it is incompatible with the Aorist form of the verb; while the present drazihorros, so far as it marks only the rising of the sun above the horizon, is itself just as inconsistent with the preceding av nooi. It matters very little here, whether the sun was in the act of rising, or already just risen. (3) "The idea of sunrise is a relative one. The sun is already risen, when as yet it is not visible in the heavens; for the morn Lips. II. p. 181 : ιστέον δὲ ὡς κροκόπεπλος ἠὼς ἡ ἔχοισά τι καὶ νυκτέρου ἔτι σκότους, εἰ καὶ τὸ χρυσοφαὲς κροκωτὸν αὐτῇ ἐξ ἡλιακῶν ἀκτίνων ἐμφαίνεται, i. e. "having still something of nocturnal darkness, although the golden saffron from the sun's rays is also visible."-This meaning of "opos ßaðós and πqwïis also elegantly illustrated by Plato, Protagor 310. A: The яapelDovors vvaròs tau, τησί, ἔτι βαθέος ὄρθρου, πρωΐ μὲν γὰρ ἐστιν, διατρίψωμεν ἕως ἂν φῶς γίνηται. ing dawn proceeds from it." So Hengstenberg, J. D. Michaelis, etc.-In this bold and unillustrated form it may not be easy to see at once the full force of the above remark; and yet it seems to me to contain the germ of the true solution. I proceed, therefore, to give here some illustrations, which, so far as I know, have not been elsewhere brought forward. We may premise, that since Mark himself first specifies the point of time by liar nooi, a phrase sufficiently definite in itself and supported by all the other evangelists, we must conclude that when he adds : ἀνατείλαντος τοῦ ἡλίου, he did not mean to contradict himself, but used this latter phrase in a broader and less definite sense. As the sun is the source of light and of the day, and as his earliest rays produce the contrast between darkness and light, between night and dawn, so the term sunrising might easily come in popular language, by a metonymy of cause for effect, to be put for all that earlier interval, when his rays, still struggling with darkness, do nevertheless usher in the day. Accordingly we find such a popular usage prevailing among the Hebrews; and several instances of it occur in the Old Testament. Thus in Judg. 9, 33 the message of Zebul to Abimelech, after directing him to lie in wait with his people in the field during the night, goes on as follows: " and it shall be, in the morning, as soon as the sun is up (Heb. ), thou shalt rise early and set upon the city;” Sept. καὶ ἔσται τοπρωῒ ἅμα τῷ ἀνατεῖλαι τὸν hov z. 7. 2. Here we have the very same use of the Aorist, and the same juxta-position of πρωΐ and ἅμα τῷ ἀνατείλαι τὸν ἥλιον, and yet we cannot for a moment suppose that Abimelech with his ambuscade was to wait until the sun actually appeared above the horizon, before he made his onset. So the Psalmist (104:22), speaking of the young lions that by night roar after their prey, goes on to say: The sun ariseth, they gather themselves together, and lay them down in their dens;" Sept. dvéreiher ó fos x. z. 2. still in the Aorist. But wild animals do not wait for the actual appearance of the sun ere they shrink away to their lairs ; the break of day, the dawning light, is the signal for their retreat. See also Sept. 2 K. 3: 22. 2 Sam. 23: 4. In all these passages the language is entirely parallel to that of Mark; and they serve fully to illustrate the principle, that the rising of the sun is here used in a popular sense as equivalent to the rising of the day or early dawn.1 This use of the Aorist in the Sept. shows also that in Mark 16: 2 the correct reading is ἀνατείλαντος, not ἀνατέλλαντος. |