Apologeticae sive Theologiae Fundamentalis, Tomus I: Demonstratio Christiana

The resurrection of Christ himself from the dead surpasses in greatness and importance even the raisings of the dead performed by Jesus. Creation excepted, there is nothing more wonderful in the visible works of God than that a man should rise again from the dead. If Christ wrought this miracle of miracles in his own person in order to prove his messianic and divine claims, no one can doubt that he is truly the Messiah and God.

To be sure, Jesus Christ clearly declared his future resurrection — the most eminent seal of his mission and doctrine¹ — manifestly.² The apostles likewise regarded the resurrection of Christ as the firmest foundation and ineluctable argument of the Christian religion.³ Finally, even the adversaries of the resurrection of Christ exclaim with Friedrich Strauß: "The center of the center, the very heart of the Christian religion is the resurrection of Jesus."⁴

Hence the unbelievers leave nothing untried against the resurrection of Jesus. For the historical facts on which the resurrection rests they either deny outright or at least strive to weaken by a natural explanation. Wherefore we shall first establish those historical facts; afterwards we shall refute their natural explanation.

The resurrection of Jesus is demonstrated by a threefold fact: the faith of the disciples, the empty tomb of Jesus, and the appearances of the risen Jesus.

1. The testimony of the Gospels. The final chapters of all the Gospels testify to and describe the resurrection of Jesus.¹ That the Evangelists describe it in the manner of history, not in the style of legend, is evident from what we have said in another place against the legendary hypothesis.² Indeed, Matthew and John narrate the resurrection as eyewitnesses; Mark, as the interpreter of Peter, who himself was an eyewitness and the principal spectator of the narrated event; Luke, finally, follows those "who from the beginning themselves saw"³ and especially the apostle Paul, to whom the risen Christ had appeared. Hence we cannot doubt the due knowledge of the Evangelists, and since not even their adversaries doubt their truthfulness, what the Gospels narrate concerning the resurrection is simply historical.

The rationalists, however, object with two difficulties, the one drawn from textual, the other from real criticism.

Textual criticism rightly affirms that the conclusions of the second and fourth Gospels,⁴ which narrate the resurrection of Jesus, were added after the books of Mark and John had already been written. But even if this be true, the evangelical testimony concerning the resurrection of Jesus remains unimpaired. For it is certain: 1° that the authors of the additions in question were most probably the Evangelists themselves, or certainly their disciples,⁵ and 2° that Mark and John, even in the body of the Gospels certainly written by themselves, testify to the resurrection of Jesus. Therefore textual criticism cannot avail to diminish the force of the testimony which the Gospels render to the resurrection of Jesus.

Real criticism concerns the discrepancies⁶ of the evangelical accounts of the resurrection. To be sure, each of the Evangelists relates the events in question in a somewhat different manner, according to the different purpose he set himself and the different catechesis he employed. Yet the discrepancies of the accounts do not touch the principal fact of the resurrection, but only lesser circumstances, and although a discrepancy may stand, nowhere is a contradiction of the accounts detected. This being so, the very diversity of narration does not weaken, but confirms, the truth of the narrated resurrection. For the more freely the four writers testify to the same principal fact, the greater historical faith they deserve.

2. The testimony of Paul. According to the witness of the Acts of the Apostles and of the Pauline epistles, the resurrection was the most essential part of the gospel of the Apostle of the Gentiles. From the first day of his preaching⁷ St. Paul proclaims the resurrection of Jesus on every occasion and regards it as the foundation of Christian faith and hope.⁸ More explicitly, however, he speaks of the resurrection of Christ in c. 15 of the first Epistle to the Corinthians. For at Corinth a dispute had arisen about the resurrection of the dead. Paul settles this dispute by appealing thus to the resurrection of the Lord: "Now I make known unto you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you have received, and wherein you stand; by which also you are saved: if you hold fast what I preached to you, unless you have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all, which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he was seen by Cephas, and after that by the eleven. Then he was seen by more than five hundred brethren at once, of whom many remain until now, but some are fallen asleep. After that he was seen by James, then by all the apostles. And last of all he was seen also by me, as by one born out of due time ... For whether I, or they: so we preach, and so you believed. But if Christ be preached, that he rose again from the dead, how do some among you say, that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen again. And if Christ be not risen again, then is our preaching vain, and your faith also is vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God: because we have given testimony against God, that he raised up Christ, whom he raised not up, if the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not again, neither is Christ risen again. And if Christ be not risen again, your faith is vain, for you are yet in your sins ... But now Christ is risen from the dead, the firstfruits of them that sleep."⁹

In these words St. Paul most clearly sets forth and extols the fact and the significance of the resurrection. He also indicates without doubt the origin of the doctrine of the resurrection of Jesus, tracing it back to the double source of Christian tradition and of his own experience. And first, indeed, he had learned the resurrection of Jesus from the tradition of the apostles, of Peter especially and of James, as well as of the 500 disciples who had seen the risen Christ. This tradition he had received in the third year after his conversion, while he remained at Jerusalem.¹⁰ Before that, however, he already knew the resurrection by his own experience, when Christ on the way to Damascus appeared to Saul himself and converted him into Paul. This appearance and conversion took place shortly after the death of Jesus and perhaps, as Harnack thinks, in the same year in which the Lord died.¹¹

It is clear, therefore, that Christians from the very beginning believed in and preached the resurrection of Jesus.

3. The testimony of Peter. The Acts of the Apostles report catecheses delivered by Peter even before the conversion of Paul, namely, in the first days of the nascent Church. The principal theme of these catecheses, however, is the testimony rendered to the resurrection of the Lord. On the day of Pentecost Peter dares to preach before a multitude of Jews and Gentiles: "Jesus of Nazareth ... by the hands of wicked men you have crucified and slain: whom God hath raised up, having loosed the sorrows of hell... This Jesus hath God raised again, whereof all we are witnesses."¹² In the porch of Solomon the Prince of the Apostles testifies the same: "You killed the author of life, whom God hath raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses."¹³ In the presence of the Sanhedrin, by which Jesus had been condemned, he insists: "The God of our fathers hath raised up Jesus, whom you put to death, hanging him upon a tree. Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be Prince and Saviour, and we are witnesses of these words."¹⁴ In the house of Cornelius, the Roman centurion, Peter affirms: "And we are witnesses of all things which [Jesus] did in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem, whom they killed, hanging him upon a tree. Him God raised up the third day, and gave him to be made manifest, not to all the people, but to witnesses preordained by God, even to us, who did eat and drink with him after he rose again from the dead."¹⁵ Then, throughout the whole time of his preaching, Peter founds all his hope and all his faith upon the resurrection of Jesus.¹⁶ Even to the last days of his life he extols the faith and the graces of the resurrection: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy hath regenerated us unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead."¹⁷

According to these testimonies of the Gospels, of Paul, and of Peter, the faith of the disciples in the resurrection of Jesus comprised three things: a) the fact itself, namely, that Jesus rose again. That the first Christians had and preached this persuasion of the resurrection as ineluctable from the beginning, unanimously and constantly, all unbelievers concede.

b) The object of the resurrection, namely, that Jesus rose from the dead, i. e., returned from bodily death to bodily life. While the unbelievers feign that Jesus "revived spiritually in the minds of the faithful" or "passed over to a mystical life in the heavens," the disciples, on the contrary, cry aloud that the "crucified and buried" one came forth from the sepulchre alive; that Jesus was "raised up" as "the firstfruits of them that sleep"; that Jesus was "neither left in hell, nor did his flesh see corruption";¹⁸ that his resurrection is the exemplar and the pledge of our resurrection according to the flesh.

c) The singular circumstance, namely, that Jesus rose from the dead on the third day. All the Evangelists testify that Jesus was buried toward the evening of Friday, remained in the sepulchre on the Sabbath, and left the sepulchre at dawn of the Lord's day. Paul insists, according to the apostolic tradition, that Christ rose again "on the third day";¹⁹ Peter confirms: "Him God raised up the third day, and gave him to be made manifest."²⁰

Therefore that article of the Apostles' Creed, "On the third day he rose again from the dead," truly corresponds to the persuasion and the confession of the whole Church from the first days after the death of Christ. The faith of the disciples in the risen Jesus did not arise by evolution, but in time it equals the very event of the resurrection. So great and such a persuasion could be born only of the evidence of the fact.

And in truth this persuasion rests on a twofold argument: the empty sepulchre of Jesus and the appearances of the risen Christ.²¹

The empty tomb of Jesus is an ineluctable argument for the resurrection of the Lord. Hence all unbelievers strain every nerve to deny that the tomb of Jesus was empty.¹ Yet the testimony of the Gospels, of Paul, and of the contemporary Christians and Jews refutes them.

1. The testimony of the Gospels. The evangelists narrate that the tomb was found and recognized as "empty" in this way:² On the first day of the week (i. e. the first day of the week = Sunday) Mary Magdalene and the other women came early in the morning to the monument (all the evangelists), in order to anoint the body of Jesus (Mc, Lc). They found, however, the stone rolled away (all) and an angel of the Lord, who told them (the Synoptics)³ that Jesus had risen (the Synoptics) and was going before the disciples into Galilee (Mt, Mc). This message the women at first kept to themselves (Mc), then brought it only to the apostles (Mt, Lc). The apostles did not indeed believe the women's report (Lc); nevertheless Peter (Lc) and John (Io) came in haste to the tomb. John "ran faster than Peter and came first to the monument. And when he had stooped down, he saw the linen cloths lying, yet he did not go in" (Io). Simon Peter then came following him, and went into the monument, and saw the linen cloths lying (Lc, Io) "and the napkin that had been upon his head, not lying with the linen cloths, but wrapped together in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who had come first to the monument, also went in, and he saw and believed" (Io).⁴

These texts, when harmoniously compared, show that the individual evangelists, under various circumstances, testify to one and the same principal fact: the discovery and recognition of the empty tomb. But those who testify to this fact knew it either from the mouth of eyewitnesses — namely Mark and Luke — or from their own eyewitness experience — namely Matthew and John. Therefore their testimony concerning the tomb found empty on the third day is most certain. There follows:

2. The testimony of Paul. Although the apostle of the Gentiles never says in explicit words that the tomb of Jesus was found empty, he nevertheless implicitly proclaims this as often as he announces the resurrection of the Lord. He always teaches that Jesus was crucified, died, and was buried, and that he rose again on the third day. "For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died ... and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day."⁵ "And when they had fulfilled all things that were written of him, taking him down from the tree, they laid him in a monument. But God raised him up from the dead the third day ... But he whom God raised up from the dead saw no corruption."⁶ By these and similar expressions St. Paul openly supposes that the tomb of Jesus was found empty on the third day.⁷ Agreeing with this:

3. The testimony of the contemporary Christians and Jews. We have already shown that all the Christians of the first days both believed and preached the resurrection of Jesus. But how, I ask, could the conviction of the resurrection have arisen while the tomb stood closed before the eyes of all? Or how, I say, could that conviction, once born, not have been blunted when the tomb was found closed? Or how, finally, under this condition would the disciples have dared publicly to preach that Jesus, crucified and buried, had come forth alive from the tomb?

But while they nevertheless preached, and daily challenged the Jews with the resurrection,⁸ would not the people and the rulers of Israel have objected, and pointed with the finger at the tomb still closed and secured? Yet they did not object, nor point, nor ever contend that the body of Christ was still in the tomb; rather they spread the report that the disciples had stolen the corpse of Jesus after breaking open the tomb.⁹ So thoroughly were the Jews convinced that Jesus was no longer in the tomb.

It is therefore perfectly clear that the tomb of Jesus was empty on the third day. This fact, already established by the explicit testimony of the Gospels, the implicit testimony of Paul, and the tacit testimony of all Christians and Jews, is further confirmed by the apparitions of the risen Jesus.

That the disciples saw Jesus risen from the third day onward is reported with unanimous consent by the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Pauline epistles. Error in regard to this fact was simply impossible. For its witnesses were not only the apostles, but also 120 disciples in Judea¹ and "more than 500 brethren" in Galilee.² Most of these brethren were still alive while Paul was writing to the Corinthians around the year 57;³ and when the Synoptics were writing, at least half of those brethren of whom I have spoken were living;⁴ and when the last evangelist was writing, not a few of them still survived, as for example John the evangelist himself.

This being so, unbelievers agree that the disciples experienced apparitions of the risen Jesus. They dream, however, as we shall see, that the apparitions were not real, but imaginary. To win easier credence for this hypothesis, they contend that no visions took place at Jerusalem near the tomb of Jesus, but only in the most remote region of Galilee and at a time far removed from the death of the Lord. This opinion of the unbelievers, however, collapses when the persons, places, and times are examined at which the apparitions of the risen Jesus took place:

1. At dawn of the pasch⁵ Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene near the tomb. "She, thinking that it was the gardener, says to him: 'Sir, if you have taken him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will take him away.' Jesus says to her: 'Mary.' She, turning around, says to him: 'Rabboni.' Jesus says to her: 'Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brethren and say to them: I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'"⁶

2. Shortly afterward, other women, departing from the tomb into the city, saw Jesus.⁷

3. As the paschal day advanced, the Lord appeared to Simon Peter.⁸

4. In the afternoon of the pasch, two disciples, one of whom was named Cleophas, went to the village of Emmaus. While they conversed on the way and questioned among themselves about the death of Jesus, Jesus, drawing near, went with them and interpreted to them the Scriptures that were about the death and resurrection of the Messiah. But their eyes were held, so that they did not recognize him, until he broke bread for them.⁹

5. In the evening the same disciples returned to Jerusalem, where they found the apostles gathered together. And while they told one another of the apparitions that had taken place, behold, "Jesus stood in the midst of them and says to them: 'Peace to you! It is I, do not be afraid.' But they, troubled and terrified, thought they were seeing a spirit. And he said to them: 'Why are you troubled, and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see me having.' But while they still did not believe",¹⁰ he ate with them, explained to them the Scriptures, and gave them the power of remitting sins.

6. Thomas alone was absent that evening and refused to believe the account of the others. But after eight days the disciples were again within, and Thomas with them. Jesus came and, after greeting all, "says to Thomas: 'Bring your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believing.' Thomas answered him: 'My Lord and my God!'"¹¹

7. When the week of the pasch was over and the disciples had returned to Galilee, seven of them saw the Lord at the sea of Tiberias, namely Peter, Thomas, Nathanael, John, James the Greater, and two others whose names are not given. Jesus ate bread and fish with them and conferred on Peter the primacy over the Church.¹²

8. After this "third"¹³ apparition of Jesus before the apostles there followed a fourth in Galilee upon the mountain. Jesus gave the Eleven the power of baptizing, preaching, and working miracles.¹⁴

9. Afterwards Jesus appeared to a multitude of believers, as Paul testifies: "Then he was seen by more than five hundred brethren at once, of whom many remain unto this day, but some are fallen asleep."¹⁵

10. "Then he was seen by James"¹⁶ the Less.

11. On the fortieth day after the pasch he appeared to the apostles gathered in Jerusalem, led them to the Mount of Olives, and ascended into heaven before their eyes.¹⁷

12. After some time had elapsed, Jesus appeared on the way to Damascus to Saul the Pharisee, converting him and choosing him as apostle of the Gentiles. This apparition was the last of all, as Paul testifies: "And last of all, as to one born out of due time, he was seen also by me."¹⁸

For the sake of a readier survey we subjoin a table of the apparitions of the risen Jesus arranged according to place, time, persons, and the authors reporting them:

This survey shows to the eye that the rationalists unjustly set the hagiographic authors against one another, the "historical" tradition against the "legendary" tradition,¹⁹ of which the former reports only the apparitions that took place in Galilee, while the latter adds the earlier apparitions granted in Judea and Jerusalem. All the sacred writers agree that Jesus showed "himself alive after his passion by many proofs, appearing to them for forty days and speaking of the kingdom of God".²⁰ All the hagiographers also agree that the apparitions of the risen Jesus began at Jerusalem on the very day of the pasch of the Lord, continued in Judea and Galilee for forty days, and ceased on the day of the ascension, except for the vision granted to Saul later near Damascus.²¹

Hence it is impossible that those three facts be shaken by which the resurrection of Jesus is historically proven. The disciples were persuaded from the third day that Jesus had risen. The tomb of Jesus was found empty on the third day. Jesus appeared to his own in manifold ways from the third day on.

The question now arises whether the adversaries can explain these facts naturally without being obliged to concede the resurrection of the Lord.

Unbelievers contend that faith in the risen Jesus was not born of the resurrection, but that, apart from the miracle of the resurrection, it can be explained either from the oriental myths, or from the prophecies of the Old Testament, or from the image of Jesus impressed upon the minds of the disciples. The contrary is easily proved.¹

1. Oriental myths, which they wrongly call myths of the "resurrection," are found among almost all the more ancient peoples, namely among the Babylonians (the god Tammuz), the Phoenicians (Adonis), the Phrygians (Attis), the Egyptians (Osiris), the Greeks (Dionysus). Nevertheless, there is lacking both a parallelism between the oriental myths and the resurrection of Jesus, and an influence of the oriental myths upon the resurrection of Jesus.

There is no parallelism between the oriental myths and the resurrection of Jesus. Those myths simply lament the death of natural vegetation as winter draws near and celebrate the regeneration of natural vegetation in the springtime. The god of vegetation descends to the underworld in winter and returns to the earth in spring. It is therefore a matter of a mere fable, by which the changes of the seasons are deified. The Christian resurrection, on the contrary, concerns the concrete, individual, historical person of Jesus, whom the believing disciples had known and loved, and whose bodily death and return to bodily life they narrate. Hence there is absolutely no similarity between the oriental myths and the resurrection of Jesus.

There is no influence of the oriental myths upon the resurrection of Jesus. The mythological cults by which the changes of the seasons were celebrated were wholly unknown to the Jews contemporary with Jesus. For no traces of these cults are found in the Jewish monuments. A fortiori, those Galilean fishermen, who believed in, preached, described, and at last sealed with their martyrdom the resurrection of their Master, did not turn to the vegetation gods of the pagans. Hence it is absurd to explain the disciples' faith in the resurrection from the oriental myths.

2. The prophecies of the Old Testament do indeed foretell the resurrection of the Messiah, without, however, mentioning the circumstance of the third day.² Hence this circumstance at least the disciples did not draw from the Old Testament. But even the prophecy of the resurrection itself they understood only after experiencing the resurrection of Jesus. Steeped in the messianic conception of the rabbis, they had never been able to grasp the idea of a dying and rising Messiah. When Jesus spoke of his future death and resurrection, Peter sharply rebuked him: "God forbid, Lord: this shall never happen to you!"³ When Jesus was already dead, and they found his tomb empty and heard from the mouth of the angel that he had been raised, "they did not yet know the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead."⁴

Nay more, although the risen Jesus, as the disciples were going to the village of Emmaus, interpreted "in all the Scriptures" the things that concerned the death and glorification of the Messiah,⁵ they themselves, convinced by experience alone, recognized the risen Master in the breaking of the bread.⁶ Hence, thereafter preaching to the Jews, they declare that Christ died and rose again "according to the Scriptures,"⁷ not contrary to the Scriptures. Therefore they did not draw their faith in the resurrection from the messianic prophecies of the Old Testament, but rather learned the prophecies of the Old Testament about a dying and reviving Messiah from the fact of the resurrection of Jesus.

3. The image of Jesus did indeed remain deeply and profoundly impressed upon the minds of the disciples. Yet however much they recalled Jesus, once living and now already dead, they by no means conceived the image of a rising and risen Master. This is evident from the psychological state which the disciples exhibited after the death of Jesus. With Jesus dead on the cross, the disciples mourned and wept between the Parasceve and the Pasch,⁸ with every hope of the resurrection excluded. At dawn of the Pasch the women went to the tomb to anoint the body of Jesus, expecting nothing but his corruption.⁹ Finding the stone rolled back and the tomb open, they did not suspect that Jesus had risen, but that the body had been stolen away.¹⁰ The angel bringing the news of the resurrection does not instill faith in them, but strikes them with great terror.¹¹ The apostles thought this same news to be "an idle tale, and they did not believe."¹² Shortly afterward Peter found the tomb empty; he did not, however, believe, but "went away wondering to himself at what had come to pass."¹³ In the afternoon of the Pasch two of them were going to the village of Emmaus, "sad." And when Jesus inquired about their despair, one of them, named Cleophas, answered and said to him: "You alone are a stranger in Jerusalem and have not known the things that have been done in it in these days? ... Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a man, a prophet mighty in work and word before God and all the people. And how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him up to the condemnation of death, and crucified him. But we hoped that it was he who should redeem Israel: and now besides all this, today is the third day since these things were done. But certain women also of our company terrified us, who before it was light were at the sepulchre, and not finding his body, came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels, who say that he lives. And some of our people went to the sepulchre, and found it so, as the women had said, but him they found not."¹⁴ From all these things it is clear that the disciples by no means cherished an image of the risen Jesus, and that they acquired their faith in the risen Jesus solely from the fact of the resurrection. The paschal faith can in no way be explained without the paschal fact.

Denying the miracle of the resurrection, unbelievers account for the empty tomb in this way: either Jesus, overcome by a mere swoon, left the tomb; or the disciples stole the body of Jesus; or, finally, the Jews removed it. The falsity of these hypotheses is manifest.¹

1. That Jesus, awakened from a swoon, left the tomb is set forth by the older rationalists and certain recent ones as follows: Jesus on the cross, having suffered only a fainting fit from the lance-thrust, was greatly revived by the spices. When an unexpected storm with a great crash of thunder arose, he was fully roused from his syncope, and the tomb was opened, so that the soldiers guarding the sepulcher fled in terror. With these put to flight, Jesus crept out of the tomb, was discovered by the pious women, and was cared for by the disciples, until, after 40 days had elapsed, worn out by his wounds, he died. Such is the hypothesis of apparent death.²

They were wont to refute this hypothesis with many historical and medical arguments, proving that Jesus had truly died. Yet it is not worth the trouble to expend so much fruitless labor. For Jesus himself demonstrated the hypothesis of apparent death to be absurd: by impressing upon the disciples the appearance of his true resurrection, and by requiring of the disciples faith in his true resurrection.

By impressing upon the disciples the appearance of his true resurrection. The Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the epistles of St. Paul describe Jesus from the day of Easter as perfectly healthy, indeed as the prince of life, the victor over death and the tomb. But this conviction could certainly not have been impressed upon the minds of the disciples by a half-dead man creeping out of the sepulcher, in need of and using medical care, lying in weak and even sickly health, and at length succumbing to the fever of his wounds.³

By requiring of the disciples faith in his true resurrection. Jesus had foretold to his disciples his death and his resurrection.

Already now he announces to them that he has truly risen; he convinces them by many arguments of his return to life; entering and going out with closed doors, he reminds them of his glorious body assumed in the resurrection; finally ascending into heaven, he bears witness to them that, death overcome, he enters into his glory. In a word, he constantly inculcates and demands faith in his true resurrection. Therefore he truly died and truly rose again, not merely in appearance. Otherwise we should have to call Jesus a most base impostor.

2. That Jesus was carried off by the disciples by stealth was spread abroad by the rulers of the Jews. For when the terrified guards had hurried from the tomb into the city, the chief priests with the elders, having called a council together, "gave the soldiers a large sum of money, saying: 'Say, "His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep." And if this comes to the governor's ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.' So they took the money and did as they were instructed. And this saying," says Matthew the evangelist, "has been spread abroad among the Jews to this very day."⁴ Indeed, later Jews, on the testimony of St. Justin,⁵ repeated the same fable, which finally Reimarus in the eighteenth century served up anew, to the very ridicule of the rationalists.

In truth this hypothesis of theft and deceit is refuted by the manner of acting of both the Jews and the disciples.

By the manner of acting of the Jews. The Jews had left nothing untried to forestall deceit; they had sealed the tomb with a seal and fortified it with a military guard, saying: „Lest his disciples come and steal him away and say to the people: 'He is risen from the dead', and the last error will be worse than the first."⁶ Nevertheless, when the tomb was found open and the body removed, the Sanhedrin took care to have the legend of the theft spread abroad. Yet it does not inquire into the guilt of the disciples and the soldiers of the guard, nor does it punish them for the horrible crime imputed to them. Indeed, it suffers the disciples to go about freely and to preach the resurrection of Jesus before the people and before the council itself,⁷ without even charging them with bearing false witness. By this manner of acting the Sanhedrin of the Jews⁸ openly shows how falsely it accuses the apostles of theft. The same appears a fortiori from the manner of acting of the disciples.

By the manner of acting of the disciples. Supposing a theft, the disciples would from the first morning of Easter have simulated Jesus risen again. On the contrary, they were incredulous; they thought the news of the resurrection brought by the women to be a delusion; beholding the empty tomb they remained skeptical, and they did not believe Jesus risen until compelled by the evidence of the arguments. From this, however, they were changed into other men, who, spurning fear and doubt, boldly profess the resurrection of Jesus before Jews and Gentiles, demand faith in the resurrection of all, and moreover bravely pour out their blood and their life, in order to adore and proclaim Jesus risen from the dead. Would they have so acted, or could they have so acted, if they had stolen away their dead master and shamefully buried him elsewhere? No one fails to see that by this manner of acting of the disciples the hypothesis of theft charged against them collapses.

3. That Jesus was removed by the Jews with foresight is maintained by the most recent adversaries of the resurrection. And indeed:

Some contend that the Sanhedrin itself removed the body of Jesus and buried it in another place, lest the honored tomb of Christ become a sanctuary of the Christians.⁹ But what then? Did not the Sanhedrin, in acting thus, foresee that it was fostering the resurrection hope of the disciples and the „last error worse than the first"? But if it did not foresee it, why does the Sanhedrin not resist that error already arising? Why does it not confound the preachers of the resurrection by pointing out and exhibiting the body of Jesus buried in another place? Why does it not accuse the apostles of lying as they spread abroad the resurrection, but only threatens them, „that they speak henceforth to no man in this name [Jesus]"?¹⁰ What biting irony: the Sanhedrin of the Jews stole away the body of Jesus for the benefit of the resurrection preached by the Christians!

Others contend that Joseph of Arimathea himself transferred the body of Jesus elsewhere, lest "that malefactor" be forever associated with the dead of his own family in the tomb.¹¹¹² But that opinion not only contradicts the Gospels of Matthew and John, eyewitnesses of the event, but is in itself swollen with absurdities. For why does Joseph bury the body of Jesus with the greatest honors in his own new tomb, if he is ashamed to keep it longer in that same tomb? Why does he remove the body immediately at the great days of Easter, when nevertheless to be mingled with the dead was forbidden under penalty of defilement? Why do the members of the Sanhedrin not call Joseph, their colleague, to account concerning the body of Jesus hidden by him? Why do they not compel him to produce the dead body, so as to confound the disciples preaching Jesus risen? Why does not Joseph himself, of his own accord, convict the preachers of the resurrection of error and fraud, by exhibiting the "corpus delicti"? Manifestly, because he had not taken Jesus out of the tomb.

Therefore all natural explanations of the empty tomb of Jesus vanish: the disciples did not secretly steal Jesus away; the Jews did not remove him with foresight; Jesus himself did not, as one apparently dead, abandon the tomb. Therefore he rose from the tomb gloriously and miraculously.

We have proved that the risen Jesus appeared to the disciples.¹ The adversaries, however, having denied the resurrection, hold that those apparitions were not real but imaginary, not external but internal, not true but deceptive: that first Mary Magdalene and the other women, then Peter and the rest of the apostles, and finally the whole multitude of the faithful persuaded themselves, by a morbid suggestion, that they saw Jesus, although in reality Jesus appeared to no one. This theory of „visions" or „hallucinations" or „illusions" Celsus proposed, Renan and Strauß renewed, and today almost all radicals, liberals, and modernists approve.² They are refuted, however, by the psychology, the criticism, and the experience of the disciples.

1. The psychology of the disciples. The adversaries imagine that after the death of Jesus the disciples awaited his resurrection with the greatest confidence and the most ardent desire. But the more they were separated from the tomb in time and place, the more their hope and burning affection for seeing again their beloved master grew, until either Mary Magdalene or Peter put forward the first visions of the resurrection.

These first visions, like a stone cast into water, touched ever new circles of the faithful day by day, until all Christians underwent hallucinatory visions of the resurrection.

Nothing, however, is falser than the psychological state of the disciples thus described. We have proved more than enough³ that the disciples were deprived of every hope and expectation of the resurrection of Jesus. This being so, it was psychologically impossible that they should suffer hallucinatory visions of the resurrection of Jesus. For hallucinations are subject only to those things to which the mind is vividly and strongly attentive day and night. Hence the disciples, even if they had been visionaries, would not have had visions of the risen Jesus, but of Jesus dead in the tomb as to his body, glorious in paradise as to his soul.

2. The criticism of the disciples. The theory of illusions supposes women and men who were enthusiastic, indeed hysterical to such a degree that they were overwhelmed by any phantasms whatever, their own or those of others. The contrary is evident from the historical documents and especially the evangelical ones. The disciples were by no means men prone to illusions, but of sound and serious mind, more inclined to incredulity than to credulity. This „realistic" and „critical" disposition they show throughout their whole life, but especially on the occasion and in the examination of the apparitions of the risen Jesus.

Mary Magdalene, whom Celsus calls a „fanatical woman",⁴ and Renan a woman hallucinated by passion,⁵ by no means eagerly recognizes Jesus appearing to her, but rather „saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus ... thinking that it was the gardener".⁶ Two disciples going to the village of Emmaus accompany Jesus, but at last recognize him in the breaking of the bread.⁷ The eleven apostles do not yet believe the two disciples telling of the apparition of Jesus⁸ and think the women's report of the resurrection accomplished to be a delusion.⁹ Nay more, when Jesus appears in their midst, they think they are seeing a ghost.¹⁰ Thomas refuses to believe, although all the apostles testify that they have seen the Lord: „Unless I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe."¹¹ A little before the ascension Jesus appears to his own on the mountain of Galilee and at the sea of Genesareth, and yet the disciples, trusting in the testimony of their senses, do not recognize him.¹²

Hence all the disciples receive the apparitions of the risen Jesus with a critical, indeed hypercritical mind. A visionary, on the contrary, neither acts critically nor can act critically. The visionary image, which he retains in his mind and projects outward, the visionary immediately and necessarily recognizes and obstinately asserts to be true. Whence the criticism with which the disciples call the apparitions into the balance most certainly proves that they had not deceptive visions, but true ones, of the risen Jesus.

3. The experience of the disciples. The disciples not only critically examine the truth of the apparitions, but experience it through arguments both material and spiritual, by which Jesus proves his real presence.

With material arguments: Jesus addresses them in words, explains the Scriptures to them, and reproves their unbelief.¹³ He makes the journey with them, enters the inn, and reclines at table.¹⁴ He asks that food be set before him, blesses and partakes of the food, breaks the bread, eats fish and cooked food.¹⁵ 1° He shows his hands, feet, and side and offers them to be touched, saying: „Touch and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see me having ... Bring your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and be not unbelieving, but believing."¹⁶ These are certainly not signs of a ghost, but of a bodily presence.

With spiritual arguments: „He showed himself alive after his passion by many proofs ... speaking of the kingdom of God",¹⁷ instituting baptism, granting the power of remitting sins, conferring the primacy, teaching the mystery of the Trinity, promising his perpetual assistance to the Church. „Peace be to you! As the Father has sent me, I also send you. Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained ..."¹⁸ „Feed my lambs, feed my sheep ..."¹⁹ „All power is given to me in heaven and on earth; going therefore, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ... and behold, I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world."²⁰ These sublime and most wise mysteries of the kingdom of God are certainly not the ravings of a visionary, but the last lessons of the Savior completing and bringing to an end the instruction of the disciples.

The psychology, criticism, and experience of the disciples exclude the theory of subjective visions so necessarily that certain rationalists, in despair, take refuge in the hypothesis of objective visions: they say that Jesus himself visited the disciples in soul²¹ and spirit, so that the disciples falsely thought him risen and present in body. Yet this hypothesis teems with the same absurdities as the theory of subjective visions: for both maintain that the disciples, being deceived, imagined the bodily presence of Jesus, when nevertheless they touched and handled the body of the risen master. Nay more, the hypothesis of objective visions surpasses the theory of subjective visions in absurdity, because it makes Jesus the author of the deception, inasmuch as he exhibited himself to be handled and touched with such evidence that the disciples were compelled to believe him risen. „He falls into Scylla, who wishes to avoid Charybdis."

By a threefold unshaken fact, therefore, the resurrection of Jesus Christ stands scientifically established, namely, the faith of the disciples of Jesus, the empty tomb of Jesus, the apparitions of the risen Jesus. All the supreme attempts vanish by which unbelievers have tried either to deny these facts or to explain them naturally. Whoever investigates the history of the resurrection free from a preconceived philosophy is compelled to confess: „Christ is risen from the dead, the firstfruits of those who sleep."²² „The Lord is risen indeed."²³