283. The first part is proved. 1) Christ (John 2.19, 21, 22) said to the Jews: “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up… But He was speaking of the temple of His body. Therefore when He had risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken.” The unbelieving Pharisees, resisting the truth, were asking miracles from Christ according to their own pleasure. But Christ, refusing miracles to them, appeals to His resurrection, as to the supreme sign; whoever resisted it would by that very fact show his own obstinacy. For it is read (Matthew 22.38-40): “Then certain of the scribes and Pharisees answered Him, saying: Master, we wish to see a sign from You. He answering said to them: An evil and adulterous generation seeks a sign, and a sign will not be given to it except the sign of Jonah the prophet. For as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.” 2) More clearly and without figures Christ often predicted His resurrection. For it is said (Matthew 16.21): “Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the Elders and Scribes and Chief Priests, and be killed, and on the third day rise again.” And (ibid. 17.21-22): “While they were living in Galilee, Jesus said to them: The Son of Man is to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill Him, and on the third day He will rise again.” Christ repeated the same things (book 20.19): “And they will hand Him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and scourged and crucified, and on the third day He will rise again.” 3) These same things are read among the other two Synoptic Evangelists in parallel places (Mark 9.30, 10.34; Luke 18.33, etc.); among whom this also is found, that Jesus, after His transfiguration, commanded His disciples, witnesses of the same, (Mark 9.8) “that they should tell no one the things which they had seen, except when the Son of Man shall have risen from the dead.” Indeed, to the Jews themselves this often-repeated prediction of Christ was thoroughly known; for it is read (Matthew 27.63 ff.): “Lord, we have remembered that that seducer said while still living: After three days I will rise again. Therefore command the sepulcher to be guarded until the third day, lest perhaps His disciples come and steal Him, and say to the people: He has risen from the dead; and the last error will be worse than the first.” 4) Nor is it an obstacle that the disciples of Christ did not seem to understand well this prediction, so clear and so often repeated, and did not seem to remember it after the death of their Master before He had returned to life. For Christ often discussed clearly and plainly the calamities threatening Him, His death and resurrection; but all these things were obscure to the Apostles, as is clear from Mark 10.32 ff.; Luke 18.34; Matthew 16.22, 17.22; and again Luke 19.45, especially because they did not see how they could reconcile those predictions with the commonly received opinions concerning the Messiah and His dignity. Hence they were also rebuked by Christ (Mark 16); and for this reason their subsequent testimony is to be held firmer. 5) But it is objected in vain that, in the last discourse with His disciples (John 13-17), Christ said nothing about His resurrection. For: a) those who object thus seem to say that they would believe the prediction of the resurrection if it were found in the discourse which Christ had at the Last Supper. But if on other occasions Christ clearly issued that prediction, is there not equal reason for believing? b) Even if Christ in that discourse had been silent concerning His resurrection, at most there would be a negative argument; but an argument of this sort has no force against the positive things which are present. c) But the resurrection is indicated not obscurely in the aforesaid discourse, when Christ says to the Apostles (John 16.16): “A little while, and now you shall not see Me, and again a little while, and you shall see Me”; and (v. 22): “Now indeed you have sorrow; but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice.”
284. The second part is proved, I, from express testimonies. For: 1) The Apostles and Evangelists testify to the resurrection of Christ, who cite the words of the Angel to the women, saying concerning Christ: “He is not here, for He has risen, as He said” (Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24). St. John also testifies to the resurrection of Christ, narrating it with various accompanying circumstances (John 20). Peter intrepidly announced it in the first sermon held at Jerusalem, exclaiming (Acts 2): “This Jesus God raised up, of which we all are witnesses.” The same man writes in his first epistle (1 Peter 1): “Blessed be God, who has regenerated us unto a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” Paul (1 Corinthians 15) says: “But now Christ has risen from the dead, the first-fruits of those who sleep.” The same man (Acts 17), at Athens in the Areopagus, announces the resurrection of Christ to prove the truth of his doctrine, saying that God is “offering faith to all, raising Him from the dead.” 2) This testimony of the Apostles is the more efficacious in proportion as they showed themselves more difficult in believing the resurrection. The women, by command of the Angel, reported the resurrection to them (Luke 24.11); “and these words seemed before them like madness, and they did not believe them.” Peter and John, not finding the body of Christ in the sepulcher, report the matter to the others; nevertheless the two disciples going to the village of Emmaus toward evening of the same day do not yet believe, so that they merit that rebuke (Luke 24.25): “O foolish and slow of heart to believe!” These, convinced of the resurrection from Christ’s conversation and presence, testify to it to the eleven disciples; who nevertheless (Mark 16.13) “did not believe them either.” Jesus appeared to the Apostles gathered together; but they (Luke 24.37), “troubled and terrified, thought that they saw a spirit.” The unbelief of St. Thomas is known. Finally, so far were the Apostles from being too prone to believing that (Mark 16.14) “lastly, as the eleven were reclining, He” (Jesus) “appeared, and reproached their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen Him risen.” Therefore, only when convicted by the evidence of the fact could they afterward announce the truth of the resurrection so constantly.
285. II. From the various apparitions. For after His glorious resurrection Christ often made Himself visible. For He appeared to Mary Magdalene in the form of a gardener (John 20); to the women returning from the monument (Matthew 33); to the two disciples going to Emmaus (Luke 24); particularly to Simon Peter (ibid.); to all the Apostles except Thomas, to whom, being terrified, He offered Himself to be touched (John 20), and again, with Thomas also present, whom He ordered to put his finger into the print of the nails and his hand into His side (ibid.); to several disciples at the Sea of Tiberias (John 21); to the eleven Apostles in Galilee, on the mountain where Jesus had appointed them (Matthew 28). As Paul testifies, Christ living again “was seen by more than five hundred brethren at once” (1 Corinthians 15). But it should be noted that Christ did not appear to the Apostles in passing and momentarily, but conversed with them as a friend, ate with them, and taught them. For it is read (Acts 1): “He showed Himself alive after His passion by many proofs, appearing to them for forty days, and speaking of the kingdom of God.” Finally (Mark 16), while the Apostles were seeing, Christ was lifted up and ascended most gloriously into heaven.
286. You will say: Why did Christ appear only to His Apostles and friends? Why did He not show Himself alive again to the people, to the chief priests, to the Pharisees, and to His other enemies? Then truly the resurrection would have been placed beyond all doubt, and the Jews would have been converted. It is answered: 1) this very objection was proposed by Celsus, to whom Origen already replied (On the Harmony of the Gospels, chapter 24), that it does not pertain to men to prescribe the manner of performing miracles. Therefore the first response is: Christ did not appear to His enemies because He did not wish to. 2) But it is gratuitously asserted that the unbelieving Jews, having seen Christ alive again, would have received faith in Him. For just as, blinded by prejudices and passions, they could ascribe the other astonishing miracles to demonic power, so also they could have ascribed the resurrection itself to demonic power. 3) It is in fact established that Christ, living again, showed Himself to a member of the Synagogue, an assailant of the Christian religion, a persecutor of His name, and indeed while he was raging and mad against Him; namely, Christ appeared to Saul seeking Damascus and made him a distinguished Apostle. Nevertheless ancient and more recent adversaries have tried by a thousand sophisms to evade an apparition of this sort. 4) Certainly the most luminous arguments for believing in Christ were not lacking to the Jews, since by prophecies and miracles He had abundantly shown His divine mission; indeed, unless their stubbornness had stood in the way, they could have believed the resurrection itself, since the body of Christ, notwithstanding the guards selected by themselves, vanished from the sepulcher, and several witnesses affirmed the resurrection. 5) Nor are fitting reasons lacking which we ourselves can assign, and on account of which Christ did not show Himself to the hostile Jews after His resurrection. For great detriment could have arisen if the Jews, adhering to their prejudices concerning the Messiah as a most powerful temporal king, had seen Christ in the state of glory and exaltation. For it could easily have happened that, once He had been seen and held as Messiah, they would immediately have waged rebellion against the Romans, and, having been pressed and conquered by them, would have been shut up in Jerusalem. The Apostles also would have experienced that sad lot, and thus would have been especially hindered from the preaching of the Gospel. But the principal reason exists in Acts 10.14, concerning which elsewhere.
287. III. From the manner of acting of Christ’s enemies. For: 1) It is read (Matthew 27): “But on the next day the chief priests and Pharisees came together to Pilate, saying: Lord, we have remembered that that seducer said while still living: After three days I will rise again. Therefore command the sepulcher to be guarded until the third day, lest perhaps His disciples come and steal Him, and say to the people: He has risen from the dead, and the last error will be worse than the first. Pilate said to them: You have a guard; go, guard it as you know. But they, going away, secured the sepulcher, sealing the stone with the guards.” Now (ibid. 28) the guards, terrified by the earthquake, came into the city and “reported to the chief priests all the things which had happened.” But these men, “having gathered together with the elders and taken counsel, gave abundant money to the soldiers, saying: Say that His disciples came by night and stole Him while we were sleeping.” Weighing all these things, St. Augustine (on Psalm 62) exclaims: “What is it that you have said, O unhappy cunning? Do you so much abandon the light of pious counsel and sink into the depth of craftiness that you say this: Say that while you were sleeping His disciples came and took Him away? Do you employ sleeping witnesses? Truly you yourself have fallen asleep, who have failed by searching out such things. If they slept, what could they have seen? If they saw nothing, how are they witnesses?” 2) The futile evasions of the adversaries confirm the matter. For certain men asserted that the body of Christ was absorbed by the rock split by the earthquake. But: a) if this were true, how could Christ afterward show Himself alive and appear to several persons? b) If the body of Christ had been absorbed, would not the linens and the cloth also have been absorbed with it, which nevertheless were found in the sepulcher? The earthquake was sensible to all, and if there had been any cleft of the rock, it would have been visible to all. Why therefore was this absurd hypothesis introduced late, when the chief Priests and Pharisees, for whom it was especially dear to deny the resurrection, did not observe that cleft? 3) Others dreamed that the body of Christ was taken away by the disciples. But: a) this certainly was not done. For either the Apostles believed the resurrection of Christ, and they would have acted in vain; or they did not believe, and, thinking themselves deceived, they would never have exposed themselves to the danger of life for a seducer. b) Nor, if they had wished, could the Apostles have carried away the body of Christ. For how could they have accomplished this? By corrupting the guards? But, once the falsity of the resurrection is supposed, both every motive for undertaking this was lacking and several motives for abstaining from that crime were present. For they could easily fear that the guards would resist the corruption, that they would spread their wicked plan, that they would accuse them before the Judges. By bringing violence upon the guards? But the guards would have protested before Pilate and the Sanhedrin; the Apostles would have been seized, judged, and condemned. Far from these things having happened, the guards reported what had happened, and the Jews, enemies of Christ, tried to persuade them to say that they had not suffered violence, but that Christ had been taken away while they were sleeping. c) Wherefore the chief Priests and magistrates were most grieved that the Apostles were announcing the resurrection of Christ; they tried in every way to prohibit preaching of this sort; yet they never dragged the Apostles forward as violators of the sepulcher and deceivers. d) But the Apostles testified that they had seen, heard, and touched Christ living again; in this preaching they remained constant, even to chains, to prisons, to death; and innumerable persons from the Jews themselves were converted to the faith of Christ. 4) Still more foolishly, Paulus, Strauss, and others, in order to attack the resurrection of Christ, deny the death of Christ and assert that He was only oppressed by syncope. To this absurd supposition there stand opposed: a) innumerable and most valid testimonies. For all four Evangelists testify that Christ was truly dead. Matthew (27) says: “Jesus… crying with a loud voice, yielded up the spirit”; Mark (15): “Having uttered a loud voice, He expired”; Luke (23): “Saying these things, He expired”; John (19): “Having bowed His head, He handed over the spirit.” Indeed John himself, an eyewitness, narrates (John 19) that the soldiers broke the legs of the robbers who were still living, “but when they had come to Jesus, as they saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs; but one of the soldiers opened His side with a spear, and immediately there came out blood and water.” Pilate also, only after having been made certain of the death of Christ from the testimony of the Centurion, granted His body to Joseph of Arimathea. Joseph himself of Arimathea, when he had received the lifeless body of Christ from Pilate, “wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and placed it in his own new monument, which he had hewn out in a rock,” and “in which no one had yet been placed.” Then “he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the monument, and went away.” Finally, not only for Christians, but for all Jews and pagans, the death of Christ was always a fact placed beyond all controversy. Indeed, the Jews and pagans had such certainty concerning this fact that, although they attacked the real resurrection of Christ, they never made exception that He had not been dead. b) The follies of unbelievers are refuted, among others, by Gruner father and son, Protestants (On the True, Not Simulated, Death of Christ, Halle, 1805): “Syncope,” they say, “if any other affection of the body is, is by far the most dangerous of all, according to Aretaeus. The greatest weakness goes before, fainting begins, syncope follows, and finally death itself makes the sudden close of the evils… Placed” [Christ] “in a rocky, very cold place, after a grave wound and syncope caused by weakness and most abundant hemorrhage” (for, having been scourged and on the cross, He had poured forth a large quantity of blood), “the blood ought suddenly to have stopped and congealed. The temperature of the air is almost absent from deep cells and sepulchers cut into rock. Nor does a man exhausted in strength and deprived of breathable air have a long space for reviving under the earth… What prudent physician would dare to draw blood from a man pressed by fainting, with a vein cut? For if violent syncope held Christ, He could not emit blood in a visible manner, for then the circulation of the blood is almost at rest… Christ expired, but He lived again; for Christians it is enough to know these things, the rest pertain to the triflings of the learned, in which, if anyone wishes to exercise himself in the future, he may do so by me.”
288. IV. Therefore, to complete the demonstration of this part, we gather from what has been said that the fact of the resurrection rests upon those arguments which, according to all, render human testimony irrefragable. For the resurrection is testified by witnesses very many in number, most apt for acquiring knowledge of that fact, by no means credulous but on the contrary almost obstinate, wonderfully agreeing among themselves, constant in asserting that fact even unto death, placed in those circumstances in which it was impossible for them to wish or even to be able to deceive others (1). I shall report the most eloquent words of St. John Chrysostom (homily 89, otherwise 90, on Matthew), who comprehends all things in a few words: “Therefore consider: it was necessary to believe that He had died, and had been buried, and had risen again; all of which things are made credible by the works of the enemies. Therefore see those words which altogether confirm these things: ‘We have remembered that that impostor said while still living’” (therefore He is dead), “‘After three days I will rise again. Command the sepulcher to be sealed’” (therefore He was buried), “‘lest perhaps His disciples come and steal Him.’ If therefore the sepulcher has been secured and sealed, there will be no fraud? Certainly none. Therefore the demonstration of the resurrection is certain, as is clear from those things (1) After these things each one will easily detect how tastelessly the most trifling Renan (Life of Jesus, near the end of chapter 26), in order to extricate himself from this very troublesome argument taken from the resurrection, wrote: “Had His body” (of Jesus Christ) “been taken away, or did enthusiasm, always credulous, later hatch the whole collection of narratives by which one sought to establish faith in the resurrection? This is what, for lack of contradictory documents, we shall be ignorant of forever. Let us say, however, that the strong imagination of Mary of Magdala played a capital role in this circumstance”; and he concludes truly poetically: “Divine power of Love! sacred moments when the passion of a hallucinated woman gives to the world a risen God!” as though Mary Magdalene had been the only testimony of the resurrection! which you object. For when the sepulcher had been sealed, there was no fraud. If there was no fraud, and nevertheless the sepulcher was found empty, it is open and without controversy that He Himself rose again… Consider how the disciples are lovers of truth; how they hide none of the things which the enemies said, however disgraceful those things may be. For behold, they call Him an impostor, and they themselves do not keep that silent… What therefore of Pilate?… He does not permit the soldiers alone to seal it; for, as though having been informed concerning their affairs, he is no longer willing to act with them; but in order to free himself from them, he permits this also and says: you seal it as you wish, lest you be able to accuse others… They themselves came, they themselves asked, they themselves sealed it with a guard, so that they mutually accuse and refute themselves.” Then he weighs the testimony of the Apostles itself more accurately, saying: “When would they have stolen it on the sabbath, and how?… How could they have persuaded the crowd? What recompense were they expecting? What reward? When they saw Him living and seized, they fled; and after death were they going to speak boldly for Him, if He had not risen? How can these things be thought? For that they would neither have wished nor been able to invent a resurrection which had not existed is here plainly clear. For He had frequently spoken many things to them concerning the resurrection… Therefore if He had not risen, it is manifest that they, as deceived men and attacked by the whole nation on account of Him, would have departed from His worship. For they would not have wished to spread such an opinion concerning Him, since they had been deceived by Him and brought into extreme dangers for Him. But that they could not have simulated it, unless the resurrection had been true, is certainly very probable. For in what matter would they have had confidence? In gravity of speech? But they were the most unskilled of all. In abundance of money? They had neither staff nor shoes. In splendor of family? They were lowly, born from lowly persons. In the splendor of their native place? They were born from ignoble places. In multitude? They were not more than eleven, dispersed in various places. In the promises of the Master? If He had not risen, they would have had no faith in them. But how would they have endured the raging people? For if their chief did not bear the word of a doorkeeper woman, and if the rest, seeing Him bound, were dispersed, how would they have brought themselves to run to the ends of the world in order to plant a fictitious word of resurrection? How could they stand against kings and princes and peoples, where there were swords, frying-pans, furnaces, and a thousand deaths every day, unless they had been aided by the power and grace of Him who had risen?”
289. The third part is proved. When it is now established that Christ predicted His resurrection from the dead, and that that prediction was fulfilled by the event, after the things which we have said concerning the force of proving of miracle and prophecy, the argument which is drawn from the resurrection of Christ for proving the truth of Christian revelation is easily understood by all. For: 1) the resurrection is not a work which can be foreseen in natural causes, since it is rather beyond the order of natural causes; therefore it can be foreknown only by God, and by him to whom God has revealed it. Therefore a certain prediction of the resurrection, fulfilled by the event, is true prophecy; and, employed in confirmation of Christian revelation, it certainly proves that revelation. 2) From what has been said it is also established that the resurrection is a true miracle which has no author except God. Therefore either Christ rose by His own power, and now He is shown to be God; or God is said to have raised Him from death, and now God has confirmed by this miracle the divine mission of Christ.
290. But it is useful to show briefly how the resurrection of Christ is the principal foundation of our faith, which the Apostle openly asserts (1 Corinthians 15.14): “But if Christ has not risen, then our preaching is empty, and your faith also is empty.” Certainly: 1) If Christ had not risen, He would not have conquered death, but rather would have been conquered by it. But it is more difficult, as St. John Chrysostom reasons, to conquer sin than death; therefore Christ would not have conquered sin either unless He had risen. And the Apostle himself seems to indicate this when (same place, v. 17) he says: “But if Christ has not risen, your faith is vain, for you are still in your sins.” 2) If Christ rose again, therefore He was dead; if He was dead, therefore He was a true man. But once the human nature of Christ has been believed, there is no longer any difficulty in believing the other truths which pertain to His humanity. Again, if Christ truly rose again, He Himself, just as He had said, is true God; for either by rising by His own power He showed Himself to be God, or God, by calling Him back to life, manifested that He Himself is God. But if once we believe the truth of the divine nature in Christ, no difficulty remains in believing His miracles, the mysteries which He revealed, and His whole doctrine. 3) It is true that Christ had already performed several miracles in confirmation of His divine mission; nevertheless the seal, as it were, and final confirmation of all, as He Himself had said more than once, was the resurrection. Indeed He appealed to His future resurrection as to a sign sufficient of itself for His mission; for He says (Luke 11.29 ff.): “This generation is a wicked generation; it seeks a sign, and a sign will not be given to it except the sign of Jonah the prophet. For just as Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so also will the Son of Man be to this generation.” Compare Matthew 12.39; 16.4. Therefore suppose that Christ did not rise again: the seal which He Himself had proposed would be lacking to His works. Would not the rest of His works be weakened from this? 4) The Apostles themselves exhibit themselves chiefly as witnesses of the resurrection of Christ, just as if the force of all the things which they were testifying depended upon this testimony alone. Hence the Apostle, in the cited epistle to the Corinthians (v. 14 ff.), says: “If Christ has not risen… we are found also false witnesses of God, because we have given testimony against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise.” Certainly St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles, when there was question of substituting someone in the place of Judas (Acts 1.15-22): “Rising in the midst of the brethren, he said” (and the crowd of men together was about one hundred twenty), ”… Therefore from these men who have gathered with us during all the time in which the Lord Jesus entered and went out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day on which He was taken up from us, one of these must become with us a witness of His resurrection.” And (2.24-32) the same Peter, in the first sermon to the people, speaking concerning Jesus Christ, says: “Whom God raised up”; and he produces the prophecy of David, who from the mouth of Christ Himself said (Psalm 15.8): “Because You will not abandon my soul in hell, nor will You give Your holy one to see corruption… Foreseeing,” Peter adds, “he” (David) “spoke concerning the resurrection of Christ, because neither was He abandoned in hell, nor did His flesh see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, of which we all are witnesses.” And (4.3) it is said concerning all the Apostles: “And with great power the Apostles were giving testimony to the resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord.” 5) Indeed the Apostles themselves worked miracles directly for confirming the truth of the resurrection, and consequently the truth of the religion which they announced. Thus (Acts 3) it is narrated that Peter and John cured a man “who was lame from his mother’s womb… whom they placed daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, that he might ask alms from those entering the temple.” To him Peter said: “Silver and gold are not mine; but what I have, this I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, arise and walk. And taking him by his right hand, he lifted him up, and immediately his feet and soles were strengthened. And leaping up he stood and walked.” But to the admiring people Peter immediately declared that God in that miracle glorified “His Son Jesus… whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses.” Indeed (chapter 4) it is confirmed that the Apostles “were teaching the people and announcing in Jesus the resurrection from the dead”; and then (chapter 5) it is added: “By the hands of the Apostles many signs and prodigies were being done among the people. And all were with one accord in Solomon’s porch. But of the rest no one dared to join himself to them; yet the people magnified them. But the multitude of men and women believing in the Lord was increased more and more, so that they brought the sick out into the streets and placed them on little beds and couches, so that, when Peter came, at least his shadow might overshadow any one of them, and they might be freed from their infirmities. But also the multitude of the neighboring cities came together to Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those troubled by unclean spirits, all of whom were cured.” But these miracles, which the Apostles used to confirm their preaching, would have no force if the resurrection, which they were directly testifying, were false. And for that reason that saying of the Apostle again becomes known (1 Corinthians 15): “But if Christ has not risen, then our preaching is empty… We are found… false witnesses of God, etc.” Therefore you see how much Wegscheider conflicts with the Apostle, writing (part 3, chapter 2, section 131): “Nevertheless we do not contend that the whole truth of the Christian religion depends on this fact alone” [of the resurrection].
291. Wherefore it is useful to complete this distinguished argument with the most beautiful words of St. Augustine (City of God, book 22, chapter 5). “It is incredible,” says the holy Doctor, “that Christ rose again in the flesh and ascended into heaven with the flesh; it is incredible that the world believed a thing so incredible; it is incredible that men ignoble, lowest, very few, unskilled, were able to persuade the world, and in it even the learned, of a thing so incredible so efficaciously.” “Of these three incredible things, the first they with whom we are dealing are unwilling to believe; the second they are compelled both to see and to perceive; but they do not find whence it was done, if they do not believe the third. Certainly the resurrection of Christ and His ascension into heaven with the flesh in which He rose again are now preached and believed throughout the whole world. If it is not credible, whence has it already been believed throughout the whole world? If many noble, lofty, learned men had said that they had seen it, and had taken care to spread abroad what they had seen, it would not be wonderful that the world believed them; but that these men are still unwilling to believe would be very hard. But if, as is true, the world believed a few obscure, lowest, unlearned men saying and writing that they had seen it, why do the few most obstinate men who have remained still not believe the world itself now believing? The world believed a small number of ignoble, weak, unskilled men precisely because, in witnesses so contemptible, divinity much more wonderfully persuaded it by itself. For the utterances of those persuading, which they spoke, were wonderful deeds, not words. For those who had not seen Christ rise again in the flesh and ascend with that flesh into heaven believed those narrating that they had seen it, not merely speaking, but also performing wonderful signs.” Then, after reviewing the signs, he concludes thus: “But if they do not believe that, through the Apostles of Christ, so that they might be believed when preaching the resurrection and ascension of Christ, even those miracles were performed, this one great miracle suffices for us: that the world believed it without miracles.”
292. SCHOLION. We have demonstrated the established proposition by such a method that at the same time we have satisfied objections which could seem of some moment. Nevertheless it is useful to indicate certain other difficulties which are commonly proposed against the truth of the resurrection, so that from this it may be apparent to all on account of what futile quibbles they attempt to deny a fact most fully demonstrated.
293. And I. They say that there are many things in the Gospel itself which suggest that the resurrection of Christ was not real but apparent. For: the Apostles themselves (Luke 24.37) thought “that they saw a spirit”; the two disciples going to Emmaus (ibid. 31) did not recognize Jesus except in the breaking of bread, and then “He” [Jesus] “vanished from their eyes”; Jesus entered into the supper-room with the doors closed, as is said in John (20.19); Mary Magdalene (ibid. 17) could not touch Him; and those intermittent apparitions under the form of a gardener, a stranger, and so forth, seem to indicate only an apparent resurrection.
294. Having before our eyes the demonstration exhibited, we can dispatch difficulties of this sort in a few words. Certainly the Apostles, because of fear conceived from the sudden apparition of Christ with the doors closed, thought for a brief moment that they saw a spirit; but immediately they were made certain of the truth of the matter, since Christ offered Himself to them to be seen and touched. Hence we have seen with how great constancy of soul the Apostles testified to Christ’s resurrection. Likewise the disciples going to Emmaus did not recognize Jesus at first because of His changed form, whether of the glorified body or of a stranger; but since afterward they recognized Him, and since that is reported by the same Evangelist, and since they announced Him and gave their life for Him, how shall we refuse their testimony? A glorious body, such as the body of Christ was after the resurrection, could easily enter into the supper-room with the doors closed, without its being possible to infer from this that it was not a true and real body. Mary Magdalene could not touch the body of Christ because He Himself did not wish it, not because a true body was lacking; certainly Christ showed the scars and offered Himself to Thomas to be touched. Finally, the diverse apparitions under those diverse forms certainly do not weaken the truth of the resurrection; for the Evangelists themselves, who report them, testify that under the form of a gardener, a stranger, and so forth, it is always the same Christ living again. We must only confess that the reasons for this particular economy in Christ’s apparitions are not sufficiently clear to us.
295. II. They are accustomed to object certain apparent contradictions which occur in the evangelical narrative of the resurrection of Christ. For, they say: 1) the Evangelists do not agree as to the time at which the women came to the sepulcher; for (Matthew 28) it is said that this happened in the evening of the sabbath; Mark (16.2) says, “very early… when the sun had already risen”; John (20), “while it was still dark.” 2) As to the object which the women had seen: Matthew and Mark mention only one Angel; Luke and John, two. Luke (24.4) says that the Angels stood; Mark (same place) and John (20.12) testify that they sat. 3) As to the manner in which the disciples received the first announcement of Christ’s resurrection. For according to Mark, the women coming out of the monument, terrified by fear, said nothing to anyone (v. 8). But if we hear John (20.2 ff.), Mary Magdalene “ran and came to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved,” and could announce nothing else to them except that “they have taken the Lord from the monument, and we do not know where they have put Him.”
296. But in order to meet these difficulties, we first recall two observations made above. First, indeed, the substance of the fact, that is, the truth of the resurrection, is unanimously reported by all the Evangelists; but the contradictions which are objected touch only certain accidental circumstances of that same fact. Contradictions of this sort, even if they were real and not merely apparent, by no means prevent faith from being given to the substance of the fact, which all the witnesses unanimously testify in the same way. Namely, since here there is question only of the human authority of the Gospels, we employ that rule of criticism which is usually of use to all in judging the truthfulness of any history. Secondly, the objected contradictions in their own way confirm the truth of the testimony of the Evangelists. For if they had wished to deceive by agreement in reporting Christ’s resurrection, they could easily, also by acting in agreement, have avoided those contradictions; and, according to what commonly happens, they surely would have done this.
297. These things indeed suffice for the present purpose. But whoever would desire a correct exposition of those apparent contradictions could consult the Interpreters, and especially the distinguished Patrizi, who (On the Gospels, book 3, dissertation 53), solidly and learnedly after the Fathers, handles this matter. Let it be permitted to us to copy out a few things from the principles which he establishes for solving the difficulties and arranging the whole narrative. He first notes that among the Jews the day begins from sunset; that at Jerusalem on the day of the equinox twilight extends to an hour and a half; and that Christ’s sepulcher was removed less than three hundred paces from the Judicial Gate, by which the way lay to that place. Then he adds: “The things which one must observe in the explanation of this history are these. After Christ had risen from the sepulcher, no fewer than five women went there… Between Mary Magdalene’s departure from home and the arrival at the sepulcher of those women about whom Mark speaks, at least an hour and a half intervened… Therefore all those women did not come at the same time, nor did all return at the same time; and therefore neither are all to be thought to have come at the same time to all the Apostles together, nor indeed each one to all with all and individual things to be announced, but, as some women came to the sepulcher after others and saw different things, so some announced to some Apostles, some earlier, some afterward, the things which each of them had seen… Mary Magdalene came in the morning while it was still dark and saw the stone taken away from the monument. But that she by no means remained there we ascertain from the Gospel of John, who continues writing thus: ‘Therefore she ran and came to Simon Peter.’ But the matter itself does not allow us to believe that Peter and John delayed after hearing the matter, and John himself altogether forbids it, inasmuch as he narrates that both ran, which Luke also says concerning Peter. Yet they did not go out except after the return of those women about whom Luke speaks in v. 9; therefore these brought the announcement to Peter within the space of an hour from when Mary Magdalene had come to him. And if you consider the short way which had to be measured out, you will not doubt that they arrived at the sepulcher when not yet one hour had passed from when Mary Magdalene departed from home, and therefore long before sunrise, yet when it was already growing light enough that John, looking into the sepulcher, although he had not entered, could see the linens laid there. What Matthew narrates, that Jesus living again appeared to the women, is different from and later than that which we read in John happened to Mary Magdalene. For Mark wrote these things: ‘But Jesus rising in the morning on the first day of the sabbath appeared FIRST to Mary Magdalene.’ The women who went to the sepulcher one after another, when they arrived there, did not yet know what had happened; therefore the women going were not meeting the women returning. But each of these goings and returns must be thought to have been completed quickly, both because the distance of the way was short and because they hurried. But if you have all these things in view, you will easily understand also what distinctions are needed in narrating and illustrating this history… It also happens that someone less attains those things which Mark wrote about those women: ‘But they, going out, fled from the monument… and THEY SAID NOTHING TO ANYONE.’ But this was on the road itself. For Mark, just as Matthew, narrates that they had been commanded by the Angel to announce to the Apostles the things which they had seen and heard, and from Matthew and Luke it appears that they carried out the command. Then Mark opens for us the cause of this silence: ‘for they were afraid,’ he says; which fear must be believed to have possessed them while they were fleeing from the sepulcher, but without doubt they were released from it when they had gone farther away from there.” But compare the whole dissertation.
298. III. Finally they say: Christ foretold that He would rise after three days and that He would remain in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights, as Matthew reports (12.40). Yet the Evangelists report that Christ remained in the heart of the earth only for one whole day. Behold therefore a new contradiction. But, once those things which we noted a little before are supposed, we say that those three days can and must be taken for three incomplete days, not for completed ones. Indeed they can be taken in this way because this manner of computing was common among the Jews, and it is established that the old synagogue, by a certain fiction of law, always regarded a part of time as a whole time; indeed among all people part of a day, month, or year is commonly called a day, month, or year. This is still more easily understood in another expression everywhere employed (Matthew 16.21; 17.22; 20.19; Mark 9.30; 10.34; Luke 9.22; 24.7, 46), according to which Christ is said to be going to rise, or to have risen, on the third day. But that this phrase “three days and three nights” must be so taken is understood even from the manner of acting of the chief priests and Pharisees. For unless they themselves had understood the matter as we explain it, they would not have gone to Pilate and sealed the sepulcher with a seal at that time when the twofold solemnity of the sabbath and passover coincided. For unless they had thought that the foretold resurrection could happen near the beginning of the third day, time would have been abundantly available to them to carry out all those things on the following day. Compare, concerning this whole argument taken from the resurrection, Sherlock (Trial of the Witnesses of the Resurrection of Jesus, which also exists apud Migne, Demonstration Evangelique, vol. 7); and Ditton (The Truth of the Christian Religion Demonstrated by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, which exists apud Migne, cited work, vol. 8; nor do I now have at hand the original work written in English), who undertook the demonstration by the geometrical method.