THE CROSS AND THE CROWN

'ON THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE AGAIN FROM THE DEAD: HE ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN'

CHAPTER XVII

(St. Matt. xxviii. 1-10; St. Mark xvi. 1-11; St. Luke xxiv. 1-12; St. John xx. 1-18; St. Matt. xxviii. 11-15; St. Mark xvi. 12, 13; St. Luke xxiv. 13-35; 1 Cor. xv. 5; St. Mark xvi. 14; St. Luke xxiv. 36-43; St. John xx. 19-25; St. John xx. 26-29; St. Matt. xxviii. 16; St. John xxi. 1-24; St. Matt. xxviii. 17-20; St. Mark xvi.15-28; 1 Cor. xv. 6; St. Luke xxiv. 44-53; St. Mark xvi. 19, 20; Acts i. 3-12.)

GREY dawn was streaking the sky, when they who had so lovingly watched Him to His Burying were making their lonely way to the rock-hewn Tomb in the Garden. [1 I must remain uncertain, however important, whether the refers to Saturday evening or early Sunday Morning.] Considerable as are the difficulties of exactly harmonising the details in the various narratives, if, indeed, importance attaches to such attempts, we are thankful to know that any hesitation only attaches to the arrangement of minutes particulars, [2 The reader who is desirous of comparing the different views about these seeming or real small discrepancies is referred to the various Commentaries. On the strictly orthodox side the most elaborate and learned attempt at concilliation is that by Mr. McClellan (New Test., Harmony of the Four Gospels, pp. 508- 538), although his ultimate scheme of arrangement seems to me too composite.] and not to the great facts of the case. And even these minute details would, as we shall have occasion to show, be harmonious, if only we knew all the circumstances.

The difference, if such it may be called, in the names of the women, who at early morn went to the Tomb, scarce requires elaborate discussion. It may have been, that there were two parties, starting from different places to meet at the Tomb, and that this also accounts for the slight difference in the details of what they saw and heard at the Grave. At any rate, the mention of the two Marys and Joanna is supplemented in St. Luke [a St. Luke xxiv. 10.] by that of the 'other women with them,' while, if St. John speaks only of Mary Magdalene, [b St. John xx. 1.] her report to Peter and John: 'We know not where they have laid Him,' implies, that she had not gone alone to the Tomb. It was the first day of the week [3 an expression which exactly answers to the Rabbinic.], according to Jewish reckoning the third day from His Death. [1 Friday, Saturday, Sunday.] The narrative leaves the impression that the Sabbath's rest had delayed their visit to the Tomb; but it is at least a curious coincidence that the relatives and friends of the deceased were in the habit of going to the grave up to the third day (when presumably corruption was supposed to begin), so as to make sure that those laid there were really dead. [a Mass. Semach. viii. p. 29 d.] Commenting on this, that Abraham described Mount Moriah on the third day, [b Gen. xxii. 1.] the Rabbis insist on the importance of 'the third day' in various events connected with Israel, and specially speak of it in connection with the resurrection of the dead, referring in proof to Hos. vi. 2. [c Ber. R. 56, ed, Warsh. p. 102 b, top of page.] In another place, appealing to the same prophetic saying, they infer from Gen. xlii. 7, that God never leaves the just more than three days in anguish. [d Ber. R. 91.] In mourning also the third day fromed a sort of period, because it was thought that the soul hovered round the body till the third day, when it finally parted from its tabernacle. [e Moed K. 28 b; Ber. R. 100.]

Although these things are here mentioned, we need scarcely say that no such thoughts were present with the holy mourners who, in the grey of that Sunday-morning, [2 I cannot believe that St. Matthew xxvii. 1 refers to a visit of the two Marys on the Saturday evening, nor St.Mark xvi. 1 to a purchasing at that time of spices.] went to the Tomb. Whether or not there were two groups of women who started from different places to meet at the Tomb, the most prominent figure among them was Mary Magdalene [3 The accounts imply, that the women knew nothing of the sealing of the stone and of the guard set over the Tomb. This nay be held as evidence, that St. Matthew could have not meant that the two Marys had visited the grave on the previous evening (xxviii. 1). In such case they must have seen the guard. Nor could the women in that case have wondered who roll away the stone for them(,).], as prominent among the pious women as Peter was among the Apostles. She seems to have reached the Grave, and, seeing the great stone that had covered its entrance rolled away, hastily judged that the Body of the lord had been removed. Without waiting for further inquiry, she ran back to inform Peter and John of the fact. The Evangelist here explains, that there had been a great earthquake, and that the Angel of the Lord, to human sight as lightning and in brilliant white garment, had rolled back the stone, and sat upon it, when the guard, affrighted by what they heard and saw, and especially by the look and attitude of heavenly power in the Angel, had been seized with mortal faintness. Remembering the events connected with the Crucifixion, which had no doubt been talked about among the soldiery, and bearing in mind the impressoin of such a sight on such minds, we could readily understand the effect on the two sentries who that long night had kept guard over the solitary Tomb. The event itself (we mean: as regards the rolling away of the stone), we suppose to have taken place after the Resurrection of Christ, in the early dawn, while the holy women were on their way to the Tomb. The earth-quake cannot have been one in the ordinary sense, but a shaking of the place, when the Lord of Life burst the gates of Hades to re-tenant His Glorified Body, and the lightning-like Angel descended from heaven to roll away the stone. To have left it there, when the Tomb was empty, would have implied what was no longer true. But there is a sublime irony in the contrast between man's elaborate precautions and the ease with which the Divine Hand can sweep them aside, and which, as throughout the history of Christ and of His Church, recalls the prophetic declaration: 'He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh at them.'

While the Magdalene hastened, probably by another road, to the abode of Peter and John, the other women also had reached the Tomb, either in one party, or, it may be, in two companies. They had wondered and feared how they could accomplish their pious purpose, for, who would roll away the stone for them? But, as often, the difficulty apprehended no longer existed. Perhaps they thought that the now absent Mary Magdalene had obtained help for this. At any rate, they now entered the vestibule of the Sepulchre. Here the appearance of the Angle filled them with fear. But the heavenly Messenger bade them dismiss apprehension; he told them that Chrits was not there, nor yet any longer dead, but risen, as indeed, He had foretold in Galilee to His disciples; finally, he bade them hasten with the announcements to the disciples, and with this message, that, as Christ had directed them before, they were to meet Him in Galilee. It was not only that this connected, so to speak, the wondrous present with the familiar past, and helped them to realise that it was their very Master; nor yet that in the retirement, quiet, and security of Galilee, there would be best opportunity for fullest manifestation, as to the five hundred, and for final conversation and instruction. But the main reason, and that which explains the otherwise strange, almost exclusive, prominence given at such a moment to the direction to meet Him in Galilee, has already been indicated in a previous chapter. [1 See this Book, ch. xii.] With the scattering of the Eleven in Gethsemane on the night of Christ's betrayal, the Apostolic College was temporarily broken up. They continued, indeed, still to meet together as individual disciples, but the bond of the Apostolate was for the moment, dissolved. And the Apostolic circle was to be reformed, and the Apostolic Commission renewed and enlarged, in Galilee; not, indeed, by its Lake, where only seven of the Eleven seem to have been present, [a St. John xxi. 2.] but on the mountain where He haddirected them to meet Him. [b St. Matt. xxviii. 16.] Thus was the end to be likethe beginning. Where He had first called, and directed them for their work, there would He again call them, give fullest directions, and bestow new and amplest powers. His appearances in Jerusalem were intended to prepare them for all this, to assure tham completely and joyously of the fact of His Resurrection, the full teaching of which would be given in Galilee. And when the women, perplexed and scarcely conscious, obeyed the command to go in and examine for themselves the now empty niche in the Tomb, they saw two Angels [1 It may, however, have been that the appearance of the one Angel was to one company of women, that of two Angels to another.], probably as the Magdalene afterwards saw them, one at the head, the other at the feet, where the Body of Jesus had lain. They waited no longer, but hastened, without speaking to anyone, to carry to the disciples the tidings of which they could not even yet grasp the full import. [2 While I would speak very diffidently on the subject, it seems to me as if the Evangelist had compresses the whole of that morning's event into one narrative: 'The Women at the Sepulchre.' It is this compression which gives the appearance of more events than really took place, owing to the appearance of being divided into scenes, and the circumstance that the different writers give prominence to different persons or else to different details in what is really one scene. Nay, I am disposed, though again with great diffidence, to regard the appearance of Jesus 'to the women' (St. Matt. xxciii, 9) as the same with that to Mary Magdalene, recorded in St. John xx. 11-17, and referred to in St. Mark xvi. 9, the more so as the words in St. Matt. xxviii. 9 'as they went to tell His disciples' are spurious, being probably intended for harmonious purposes. But, while suggesting this view, I would by no means maintain it as one certain to my own ming, although it would simplify details otherwise very intricate.]

2. But whatever unclearness of detail may rest on the narratives of the Synopsis, owing to their great compression, all is distinct when we follow the steps of the Magdalene, as these traced in the Fourth Gospel. Hastening from the Tomb, she ran to the lodging of Peter and to that of John, the repetition of the preposition 'to' probably marking, that the two occupied different, although perhaps closely adjoining, quarters. [c So already Bengel.] Her startling tidings induced them to go at once, 'and they went towards the sepulchre.' 'But they began to run, the two together,' probably so soon as they were outside the town and near 'the Garden.' John, as the younger, outran Peter. [3 It may be regarded as a specimen of what one might designate as the imputation of sinister motives to the Evangelists, when the most 'advanced' negative criticism describes this 'legend' as implying the contest between Jewish and Gentile Christianity (Peter and John) in which the younger gains the race! Similarly, we are imformed that the penitent on the Cross is intended to indicate the Gentiles, the impenitent the Jews! But no language can be to strong to repudiate the imputation, that so many parts of the Gospels were intended as covert attacks by certain tendencies in the early Church against others, the Petrine and Jacobine against the Johannine and Pauline directions.] Reaching the Sepulchre, and stooping down, 'he seeth' the linen clothes, but, from his position, not the napkin which lay apart by itself. If reverence and awe prevented John from entering the Sepulchre, his impulsive companion, who arrived immediately after him, thought of nothing else than the immediate and full clearing up of the mystery. As he entered the sepulchre, he 'steadfastly (intently) beholds' in one place the linen swathes that had bound about His Head. There was no sign of haste, but all was orderly, leaving the impression of One Who had leisurely divested Himself of what no longer befitted Him. Soon 'the other disciples' followed Peter. The effect of what he saw was, that he now believed in his heart that the Master was risen, for till then they had not yet derived from Holy Scripture the knowledge that He must rise again. And this also is most instructive. It was not the belief prerviously derived from Scripture, that the Christ was to rise from the Dead, which led to expectancy of it, but the evidence that He had risen which led them to the knowledge of what Scripture taught on the subject.

3. Yet whatever light had risen in the inmost sanctuary of John's heart, he sapke not his thoughts to the Magdalene, whether she had reached the Sepulchre ere the two left it, or met them by the way. The two Apostles returned to their home, either feeling that nothing more could be learned at the Tomb, or wait for further teaching and guidance. Or it might even have been partly due to a desire not to draw needless attention to the empty Tomb. But the love of the Magdalene could not rest satisfied, while doubt hung over the fate of His Sacred Body. It must be remembered that she knew only of the empty Tomb. For a time she gave away the agony of her sorrow; then, as she wiped away her tears, she stopped to take one more look into the Tomb, which she thought empty, when, as she 'intently gazed,' the Tomb seemed no longer empty. At the head and feet, where the Sacred Body had lain, were seated two Angels in white. Their question, so deeply true from their knowledge that Christ had risen: 'Woman, why weepest thou?' seems to have come upon the Magdalene with such overpowering suddenness, that, without being able to realise, perhaps in the semi-gloom who it was that had asked it, she spake, bent only on obtaining the information she sought: 'Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not [1 When Meyer contends that the plural in St. John xx. 2, 'We know not where they have laid Him,' does not refer to the presence of other women with the Magdalene, but is a general expression for: We, all His followers, have no knowledge of it, he must have overlooked that, when alone, she repeats the same words in ver. 13, but markedly uses the singular number: 'I know not.'] where they have laid Him., So is it often with us, that, weeping, we ask the question of doubt or fear, which, if we only knew, would never risento out lips; nay, that heaven's own 'Why?' fails to impress us, even when the Voice of its Messengers would gently recall us from the error of our impatience.

But already another was to given to the Magdalene. As she spake, she became conscious of another Presence close to her. Quickly turning round, 'she gazed' on One Whom she recognised not, but regarded as the gardener, from His presence there and from His question: 'Woman, why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou?' The hope, that she might now learn what she sought, gave wings to her words, intensity and pathos. If the supposed gardener had borne to another place the Sacred Body, she would take It away, if she only knew where It was laid. This depth and agony of love, which made the Magdalene forget even the restraints of a Jewish woman's intercourse with a stranger, was the key that opened the Lips of Jesus. A moment's pause, and He spake her name in those well- remembered accents, that had first unbound her from sevenfold demoniac power and called her into a new life. It was as another unbinding, another call into a new life. She had not known His appearance, just as the others did not know at first, so unlike, and yet so like, was the glorified Body to that which they had known. But she could not mistake the Voice, especially when It spake to her, and spake her name. So do we also often fail to recognise the Lord when He comes to us 'in another form' [a St. Mark xvi. 12.] than we had known. But we cannot fail to recognise Him when He speaks to us and speaks our name.

Perhaps we may here be allowed to pause, and, from the nonrecognition of the Risen Lord till He spoke, ask this question: With what body shall we rise? Like or unlike the past? Assuredly, most like. Our bodies will then be true; for the soul will body itself forth according to its past history, not only impress itself, as now on the features, but express itself, so that a man may be known by what he is, and as what he is. Thus, in this respect also, has the Resurrection a moral aspects, and is the completion of the history of mankind and of each man. And the Christ also must have borne in His glorified Body all that He was, all that even His most intimate disiciples had not known nor understood while He was with them, which they now failed to recognise, but knew at once when He spake to them.

It was precisely this which now prompted the action of the Magdalene, prompted also, and explains, the answer of the Lord. As in her name she recognised His Name, the rush of old feeling came over her, and with the familiar 'Rabboni!' [1 This may represent the Galilean form of the expression, and, if so, would be all the more evidential.], my Master, she would fain have grasped Him. Was it the unconscious impulse to take hold on the precious treasure which she had thought for ever lost; the unconscious attempt to make sure that it was not merely an apparition of Jesus from heaven, but the real Christ in His corporeity on earth; or a gesture of generation, the beginning of such acts of worship as her heart prompted? Probably all these; and yet probably she was not at the moment distinctly conscious of either or of any of these feelings. But to them all there was one answer, and in it a higher direction, given by the words of the Lord: 'Touch Me not, for I am not yet ascended to the Father.' Not the Jesus appearing from heaven, for He had not yet ascended to the Father; not the former intercourse, not the former homage and worship. There was yet a future of completion before Him in the Ascension, of which Mary knew not. Between that future of completion and the past of work, the present was a gap, belonging partly to the past and partly to the future. The past could not be recalled, the future could not be anticipated. The present was of reassurance, of consolation, of preparation, of teaching. Let the Magdalene go and tell His 'brethren' of the Ascension. So would she best and most truly tell them that she had seen Him; so also would they best learn how the Resurrection linked the past of His Work of love for them to the future: 'I ascend unto My Father, and your Father, and to my God, and your God.' Thus, the fullest teaching of the past, the clearest manifestation of the present, and the brightest teaching of the future, all as gathered up in the Resurrection, came to the Apostles through the mouth of love of her out of whom He had cast seven devils.

4. Yet another scene on that Easter morning does St. Matthew relate, in explanation of how the well-known Jewish Calumny had arisen that the disciples had stolen away the Body of Jesus. He tells, how the guard had reported to the chief priests what had happened, and how they had turn had bribed the guard to spread this rumor, at the same time promising that if the fictitious account of their having slept while the disciples robbed the Sepulchre should reach Pilate, they would intercede on their behalf. Whatever else may be said, we know that from the time of Justin Martyr [a Dial. c. Tryph. xvii.; cviii.] [1 In its coarsest form it is told in the so-called Toldoth Jeshu, which may be seen at the end of Wagenseil's Tela Ignea Satanae.] this has been the Jewish explanation. [2 So Gratz, and most of the modern writers.] Of late, however, it has, among thoughtful Jewish writers, given place to the so-called 'Vision-hypothesis,' to which full reference has already been made.

5. It was the early afternoon of that spring-day perhaps soon after the early meal, when two men from that circle of disciples left the City. Their narrative affords deeply interesting glimpses into the circle of the Church in those first days. The impression conveyed to us is of utter bewilderment, in which only some things stood out unshaken and firm: love to the Person of Jesus; love among the brethren; mutual confidence and fellowship; together with a dim hope of something yet to come, if not Christ in His Kingdom, yet some manifestation of, or approach to it. The Apostolic College seems broken up into units; even the two chief Apostles, Peter and John, are only 'cerain of them that were with us.' And no wonder; for they are no longer 'Apostles', sent out. Who is to send them forth? Not a dead Christ! And what would be their commision, and to whom and whither? And above all rested a cloud of utter incertainty and perplexity. Jesus was a Prophet mighty in word and deed before God and all the people. But their rulers had crucified Him. What was to be their new relation to Jesus; what to their rulers? And what of the great hope of the Kingdom, which they had connected with Him?

Thus they wre unclear on that very Easter Day even as to His Mission and Work: unclear as to the past, the present, and the future. What need for the Resurrection, and for the teaching which the Risen One alone could bring! These two men had on that very day been in communication with Peter and John. And it leaves on us the impression, that, amidst the general confusion, all had brought such tideings as they, or had come to hear them, and had tried but failed, to put it all into order or to see light around it. 'The women' had come to tell of the empty Tomb and of their vision of Angels, who said that He was alive. But as yet the Apostles had no explanation to offer. Peter and John had gone to see for themselves. They had brought back confirmation of the report that the Tomb was empty, but they had seen neither Angels nor Him Whom they were said to have declared alive. And, although the two had evidently left the circle of the disciples, if not Jerusalem, before the Magdalene came, yet we know that even her account did not carry conviction to the minds of those that heard it, [a St. Mark xvi. 11.]

Of the two, who on that early spring afternoon left the City in company, we know that one bore the name of Cleopas. [1 This may be either a formof Alphaeus, or of Cleopatros.] The other, unnamed, has for that very reason, and because the narrative of that work bears in its vividness the character of personal recollection, been identified with St. Luke himself. If so, then, as has been finely remarked, [2 By Godet.] each of the Gospels would, like a picture, bear in some dim corner the indication of its author: the first, that of the 'publican;' that by St. Mark, that of the young man, who, in the night of the Betrayal, had fled from his captors; that of St. Luke in the Companion of Cleopas; and that of St. John, in the disciple whom Jesus loved. Uncertainty, almost equal to that about the second traveller to Emmaus, rests on the identification of that place. [3 Not less than four localities have been identified with Emmaus. But some preliminary difficulties must be cleared. The name Emmaus is spelt in different ways in the Tulmud (comp. Neubauer, Geogr. d. Talm. p. 100, Note 3). Josephus (War iv. 1. 3; Ant. xviii. 2. 3) explains the meaning of the name as 'warm baths,' or thermal springs. We will not complicate the question by discussing the derivation of Emmaus. In another place (War vii. 6. 6) Josephus speaks of Vespasian having settled in an Emmaus, sixty furlongs from Jerusalem, a colony of soldiers. There can be little doubt that the Emmaus of St. Luke and that of Josephus are identical. Lastly, we read in Mishnah (Sukk. iv. 5) of a Motsa whence they fetched the willow branches with which the altar was decorated at the Feast of Tabernacles, and the Talmud explains this Moza as Kolonieh, which again is identified by Christian writers with Vespasian's colony of Roman soldiers (Caspari, Chronol Geogr. Einl. p. 207; Quart. Rep. of the Pal Explor. Fund, July 1881, p. 237 [not without some slight inaccuracies]). But an examination of the passage in the Mishanah must lead us to dismiss this part of the theory. No one could imagine that the worshippers would walk sixty stadia (seven or eight miles) for willow branches to decorate the altar, while the Mishah, besides, describes this Moza as below, or south of Jerusalem, whereas the modern Kolonieh (which is identified with the Colonia of Josephus) is northwest of Jerusalem. No doubt, the Talmud, knowing that there was an Emmaus which was 'Colonia,' blunderingly identified with it the Moza of the willow branches. This, however, it seems lawful to infer from it, that the Emmaus of Josephus bore popularly the name of Kolonieh. We can now examine the four proposed identifications of Emmaus. The oldest and the youngest of these may be briefly dismissed. The most common, perhaps the earliest identification, was with the ancient nicopolis, the modern Amwas, which in Rabbinic writings also bears the name of Emmaus (Neubauer, u.s.). But this is impossible, as Nicopolis is twenty miles from Jerusalem. The latest proposed identification is that with Urtas, to the south of Bethlehem (Mrs. Finn, Quart. Rep. of Pal. Exlor. Fund, Jan. 1883, p. 53). It is impossible here to enter into the various reasons urged by the talented and accomplished proposer of this identification. Suffice it, in refutation, to note, that, admittedly, there were no natural hot-baths,' or thermal springs, here, only 'artificial Roman baths,' such as, no doubt, in many other places, and that 'this Emmaus was Emmaus only at the particular period when they (St. Luke and Josephus) were writing' (u.s. p. 62). There now only remain two localities, the modern Kolonieh and Kubeibeh, for the strange proposed identification by Lieut. Conder in the Quarterly Rep. of the Pal. Explor. Fund, Oct. 1876 (pp. 172- 175) seems now abandoned even by its author. Kolonieh would, of course, represent the Colonia of Josephus, according to the Talmud = Emmaus. But this is only 45 furlongs from Jerusalem. But at the head of the same valley, in the Wady Buwai, and at a distance of about three miles north, is Kubeibeh, the Emmaus of the Crusaders, just sixty furlongs from Jerusalem. Between these places is Beit Mizza, or Hammoza, which I regard as the real Emmaus. It would be nearly 55 or 'about 60 furlongs' (St. Luke), sufficiently near to Kolonieh (Colonia) to account for the name, since the 'colony' would extend up the valley, and suffciently near to Kubeibeh to account for the tradition. The Palestine Exploration Fund has now apparently fixed on Kubeibeh as the site (see Q. Report, July, 1881, p. 237, and their N. T. map.] But such great probability attaches, if not to the exact spot, yet to the locality, or rather the valley, that we may in imagination follow the two companies on their road.

We have leave the City by the Western Gate. A rapid progress for about twenty-five minutes, and we have reached the edge of the plateau. The blood-strained City, and the cloud-and- gloom-capped trying-place of the followers of Jesus, are behind us; and with every step forward and upward the air seems fresher and freer, as if we felt in it the scent of mountains, or even the far-off breezes of the sea. Other twenty-five or thirty minutes, perhaps a little more, passing here and there country-houses, and we pause to look back, now on the wide prospect far as Bethlehem. Again we pursue our way. We are now getting beyond the dreary, rocky region, and are entering on a valley. To our right is the pleasant spot that marks the ancient Nephtoah, [a Josh. xv.] on the border of Judah, now occupied by the village of Lifta. A short quarter of an hour more, and we have left the well-paved Roman road and are heading up a lovely valley. The path gently climbs in a north-westerly direction, with the height on which emmaus stands prominently before us. About equidistant are, on the right Lifta, on the left Kolonieh. The roads irom these two, describing almost a semicircle (the one to the north-west, the other to the north-east), meet about a quarter of a mile to the south of Emmaus (Hammoza, Beit Mizza). What an oasis this in a region of hills! Among the course of the stream, which babbles down, and low in the valley is crossed by a bridge, are scented orange-and lemon- gardens, olive-groves, luscious fruit trees, pleasant enclosures, shady nooks, bright dwellings, and on the height lovely Emmaus. A sweet spot to which to wander on that spring afternoon; [1 Even to this day seems a favourite resort of the inhabitants of Jerusalem for an afternoon (comp. Conder's Tent-Work in Palestine, i. pp. 25-27).] a most suitable place where to meet such companionship, and to find such teaching, as on that Easter Day.