[ p. 192 ]
“WHEN I first preached to you, among the earliest messages I delivered to you was a formula which was no invention of mine; I in my turn received it from others. It ran thus:
Christ died… and was buried
And the third day was raised again.
He appeared to Peter,
Then to the Twelve,
Then to above five hundred brethren at once. [1]
Then to James,
Then to all the apostles.
Finally he appeared to me also. No matter from whom you first heard the Christian message, everyone preaches the same and everyone believes the same.”
So wrote Paul about the year 55, [2] quoting a formula universally used by all Christian teachers. Paul had so taught it to the Corinthians when he first visited the city in the year 50, but the formula was much older; he himself had “received” it when he was instructed in the faith. This carries us back to the time [ p. 193 ] of his conversion, which could not have been later than the year 35. And that takes us back, practically, to the Resurrection itself, and into the fullest touch with the first eyewitnesses of the event.
How did these earliest Christians understand the Resurrection of Jesus?
The first Good Friday left the disciples utterly crushed with their sorrow. But it was grief and shame, rather than despair. Jesus had warned them that his death was inevitable, and by Maundy Thursday, at least, they began dimly to understand his warning. His solemn farewell had taught them that through death he looked forward to triumph, and that his sacrifice of himself was for their endless benefit. But then the tragedy had come with such appalling swiftness that they were dazed for the time and unable to collect their thoughts. All of this teaching, however, might soon have come back to remembrance. Crushed and broken as the disciples were, some of them would eventually have sought and found something of consolation in his predictions. None of them could have doubted for a moment that Jesus was with God, as were all the saints of Israel. Yet he was not merely with God, like the other saints. If the disciples believed his predictions—as they certainly did —he was in a unique position, sitting on “God’s right hand” until the time should come when he would return in glory.
In other words, we can imagine that, even had there been no Easter experience, the more ardent disciples would still have preached Jesus. But they would [ p. 194 ] have preached in such terms as those just described. They never preached in such terms. Every faithful Jew [3] believed that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were living to God. But the disciples believed and preached that Jesus was alive in an entirely different sense— that he was not only alive to God, but alive to the world as well. They believed and preached that Jesus was risen.
They declared that they had seen him. Not as a disembodied spirit or ghost; everyone at that day believed in ghosts, but the disciples knew what they had seen was not that. Not as a vision from heaven, as Peter had seen Moses; the Transfiguration vision never led Peter to think of Moses as risen. The revelation of Christ to Paul, indeed, was a heavenly appearance, but the older apostles held consistently that what they had seen and what Paul had seen were different. The disciples declared, moreover, that the risen Jesus had been seen not only by single persons, but by groups of people—by “the Twelve,” by “over five hundred brethren,” and by “all the apostles.”
This last group is especially significant. An “apostle” in the earliest Christian parlance was one who had seen the risen Lord and was commissioned by him to preach. The office, then, was created at the time of the vision and because of the vision; before this appearance there were no “apostles.” [4] Consequently, this group—which was of some size, as it included the Twelve—not only maintained they had seen Jesus, [ p. 195 ] but maintained likewise that they had heard him speak, that they had received a solemn commission from him. And here the primitive formula quoted by Paul is corroborated by every other tradition of the Resurrection. “That repentance and remission of sin should be preached in his name… Ye are witnesses of these things.” [5] “Ye shall receive power and ye shall be my witnesses.” [6] “Go ye therefore and make disciples of all nations.” [7] “As the Father hath sent me, even so send I you.” [8] “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to the whole creation.” [9]
Finally, the formula reads “died— was buried —rose again.” What had been buried rose again. The tomb was empty.
Going, now, outside of the formula itself, we notice a further fact. All the appearances, both to individuals and to groups, occurred within a very brief space. The tradition, which was naturally interested to make the time as long as possible, gives forty days (a round number) as the utmost limit. Then the appearances ceased, and everyone knew that they would not be repeated. Favored individuals might be vouchsafed a vision of the heavenly Christ, [10] but the Christians as a whole would not see him in any form until the last day: “Whom the heavens must receive until the times of restoration of all things.” [11] Consequently, any theory that explains the visions as subjective, as due [ p. 196 ] to abnormal nervous phenomena, is at once forbidden. Visions due to an abnormal nervous condition have been studied elaborately by psychiatrists, and their laws are well known. Such visions are common enough. Even group visions, while rare, are by no means unknown. The latter are due to an hysteria affecting a number of individuals simultaneously, when their minds are fixed on a common thought. Such group experiences are difficult to start; they commence normally with one or two ecstatic leaders, whose enthusiasm becomes gradually so contagious as to lead to the ecstasy taking hold of all the members of the group. This group is usually a religious sect; the classic example is a second-century perverted type of Christianity known as Montanism. But, if such phenomena are difficult to start, they are utterly impossible to stop. Once the hysteria has seized the group, it goes on for months and years—the Montanistic experiences lasted for more than half a century—and comes to an end only by a process of sheer exhaustion. Such a sect then passes out of existence. [12]
In the first Christian communities there was excitement enough and to spare; prophecies, revelations, speaking with tongues; ecstasy carried to excesses— the fact should be admitted frankly—that were often morbid and harmful. The desire to see the risen [ p. 197 ] Christ was passionate, and any condemnation of this desire would have seemed blasphemy. Yet after the first forty days there were no such visions; and everyone knew that such visions would never again be repeated. Here, then, the explanation of the visions as due to hysteria breaks down hopelessly. The hysteria was present, but the visions were not. When the hysteria increased and its most characteristic symptom —the speaking with tongues—appeared, the visions came to an end. Hysteria and the Christian visions of the Risen Jesus are as far apart as the poles.
The visions themselves are as impregnable a fact as anything in history. Every conceivable explanation, has been tried to explain the reports and every new theory exhaustively argued. To give a list of these explanations here would be wearisome. Some of them are so ingenious that they are far more difficult to accept than the facts they seek to explain. In fact, the only explanation that can be made to conform fully to the evidence is that the experiences were objective.
Apart from all other difficulties, only the reality of the facts can explain the change in the disciples themselves, the work they accomplished, and the church they established. Great institutions are not built out of the fabric of dreams. Men are not changed, as the disciples were changed, by self-deception, enthusiasm, or the hysteria of some friends of an overwrought, high-strung, and intensely emotional nature. Weak men do not defy authority, face death, convert thousands to their beliefs, reverse the entire course of their [ p. 198 ] lives, and revolutionize the world, unless there is a sufficient cause to account for the fact that out of weakness they have been made strong. The story of Christ’s triumph and of their renewal in the power of his resurrection is the only adequate explanation of the Work of the apostles and of the spiritual movement which had its impetus from them.
Turning now to the Gospel traditions, we should notice at the outset that it never occurred to any Evangelist that he was marshaling evidence for Jesus’ resurrection. [13] The Gospel writers were believers, who knew the evidence, and were writing for believers who likewise knew the evidence. To the Evangelists Christ’s resurrection was not a thing to defend, explain, or prove—it was a matter of course, accepted, received everywhere on the experience of witnesses. Nobody dreamed of debate about it. Consequently, in recording the bare facts about Jesus’ resurrection the Evangelists felt no more obligation to give all his words and acts after his rising than they felt to tell everything about his earlier life. They wrote, not to prove that Jesus rose from the dead, but to record that, being risen, he uttered sayings or performed acts that the Evangelists—each in his own way—felt were particularly significant. Just as, for the Galilean ministry, the Evangelists omit events, combine incidents, and unite scattered sayings, at will, so for the resurrection period they do precisely the same thing.
[ p. 199 ]
When Mark wrote his Gospel, he did not trouble to include either the Lord’s Prayer or the Golden Rule. Why should he? Every Christian knew both! In the same way, in telling the resurrection stories, the Evangelists do not trouble to include even all the events detailed in the primitive formula quoted by Paul. Of the appearance to James we hear not a word. Some experts think that traces of the appearance to the five hundred can be found in the present versions—especially in the mention of a Galilean mountain [14] —but this is, of course, uncertain. The appearance to Peter, basic in the old formula, is alluded to only once and only in passing. [15] The distinction between the appearance “to the Twelve” and that “to all the apostles” has been for Gospel students a matter of close study for many centuries, but to little purpose.
This—to us—unsatisfactory nature of the Gospel evidence was due to no lack of tradition in the Evangelists’ day. The tradition was luxuriant; the difficulty was to choose what to use out of such a mass of material. All of the Evangelists, it should be noticed, center on the two essentials, the evidence of the empty tomb and the delivery of the great apostolic commission, connecting these two fundamental events in any way that appealed to them as suitable. Matthew adheres rigidly to this scheme and does not go beyond it. The same is true of the twentieth chapter of St. John, the original ending of the Fourth Gospel. Mark, presumably, planned to limit himself similarly. Luke’s basic plan is identical, but he has [ p. 200 ] enlarged his resurrection chapter with a tradition outside the plan; the exquisite beauty of the Emmaus story seemed to him too perfect to be lost. The twentyfirst chapter of St. John, probably written by a close disciple after the Evangelist’s death, likewise used tradition outside the plan, primarily to relieve the distress that arose when the aged Evangelist died. [16] Even within the central plan, the Evangelists pick and choose at will—as can be seen even in the various wordings given to the apostolic commission.
We should observe, further, that St. Matthew and St. John xxi reflect Galilean traditions, while St. Luke, Acts and St. John xx rest on the stories as they were told in Jerusalem. Visions of the risen Jesus were experienced in both northern and southern Palestine, but the Christians in each locality would dwell on the manifestations vouchsafed to their own communities. The Evangelists, past question, were familiar with many local traditions, but none of the writers thought it worth while to make his narrative move back and forth.[17]
“Most of them are still alive, although a few have died.” ↩︎
I Corinthians xv: a-n. This list of appearances was not meant to be exhaustive; it includes only the appearances to prominent Christian believers who could bear first-hand testimony of their own experience. ↩︎
With the exception of the Sadducees. ↩︎
On the later usage which called the Twelve “apostles” in Jesus’ lifetime see page 122. ↩︎
St. Luke xxiv: 47-48. ↩︎
Acts 1: 8. ↩︎
St. Matthew xxvm: 19. ↩︎
St. John xx: 21. ↩︎
St. Mark xvi: 15. This passage is given last because it was not written by the Evangelist, but by a supplements; compare page 240. ↩︎
Acts vii : 55; ix: 5; xxii: 18. ↩︎
Acts iii: 21. ↩︎
Sometimes, however, group ecstasy is sharply terminated by irrefragable evidence of the falsity of its underlying doctrines. Such was the case with some American millennial sects in the early nineteenth century. They set a day which was to mark the end of the world. As this day approached, group hysteria rose to grotesque dimensions. But when the day passed harmlessly the sect dissolved automatically. ↩︎
The supplementer of St. Mark, writing in the early second century, is a possible exception. ↩︎
St. Matthew xxviii: 16. ↩︎
St. Luke xxiv: 34. ↩︎
Since a tradition was current that Christ’s return would occur while John was still alive, his death caused many heartburnings. ↩︎
The case of St. Mark is peculiar. As the text stands, the verse xvi: 7 points forward to a Galilean tradition like St. Matthew’s. But this verse is a citation of xiv: 28, whose correct translation is, “I will lead you into Galilee.” That is, the older tradition underlying St. Mark told of a Jerusalem appearance to the disciples (not merely to the women), and a triumphal return to Galilee, where Christ was seen again. Critical investigation of the facts should start from this verse. ↩︎