The Fair Haven

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"Are we to suppose that a handful of ignorant soldiers should be
above error, when we remember that men have been left for dead, been
laid out for burial and buried by their best friends--nay, that they
have over and over again been pronounced dead by skilled physicians,
when the facilities for knowing the truth were far greater, and when
a mistake was much less likely to occur, than at the hurried
Crucifixion of Jesus Christ? The soldiers would apply no polished
mirror to the lips, nor make use of any of those tests which, under
the circumstances, would be absolutely necessary before life could be
pronounced to be extinct; they would see that the body was lifeless,
inanimate, to all outward appearance like the few other dead bodies
which they had probably observed closely; with this they would rest
contented.

"It is true, they probably believed Christ to be dead at the time
they handed over the body to his friends, and if we had heard nothing
more of the matter we might assume that they were right; but the
reappearance of Christ alive changes the whole complexion of the
story. It is not very likely that the Roman soldiers would have been
mistaken in believing him to be dead, unless the hurry of the whole
affair, and the order from Pilate, had disposed them to carelessness,
and to getting the matter done as fast as possible; but it is much
less likely that a dead man should come to life again than that a
mistake should have been made about his having being dead. The
latter is an event which probably happens every week in one part of
the world or another; the former has never yet been known.

"It is not probable that a man officially executed should escape
death; but that a DEAD MAN should escape from it is more improbable
still; in addition to the enormous preponderance of probability on
the side of Christ's never having died which arises from this
consideration alone, we are told many facts which greatly lessen the
improbability of his having escaped death, inasmuch as the
Crucifixion was hurried, and the body was immediately delivered to
friends without the known destruction of any organic function, and
while still hanging upon the cross.

"Joseph and Nicodemus (supposing that Nicodemus was indeed a party to
the entombment) may be believed to have thought that Christ was dead
when they received the body, but they could not refuse him their
assistance when they found out their mistake, nor, again, could they
forfeit their high position by allowing it to be known that they had
restored the life of one who was so obnoxious to the authorities.
They would be in a very difficult position, and would take the
prudent course of backing out of the matter at the first moment that
humanity would allow, of leaving the rest to chance, and of keeping
their own counsel. It is noticeable that we never hear of them
again; for there were no two people in the world better able to know
whether the Resurrection was miraculous or not, and none who would be
more deeply interested in favour of the miracle. They had been
faithful when the Apostles themselves had failed, and if their faith
had been so strong while everything pointed in the direction of the
utter collapse of Christianity, what would it be, according to every
natural impulse of self-approbation, when so transcendent a miracle
as a resurrection had been worked almost upon their own premises, and
upon one whose remains they had generously taken under their
protection at a time when no others had ventured to shew them
respect?

"We should have fancied that Mary would have run to Joseph and
Nicodemus, not to the Apostles; that Joseph and Nicodemus would then
have sent for the Apostles, or that, to say the least of it, we
should have heard of these two persons as having been prominent
members of the Church at Jerusalem; but here again the experience of
the ordinary course of nature fails us, and we do not find another
word or hint concerning them. This may be the result of accident,
but if so, it is a very unfortunate accident, and we have already had
a great deal too much of unfortunate accidents, and of truths which
MAY be truths, but which are uncommonly like exaggeration. Stories
are like people, whom we judge of in no small degree by the dress
they wear, the company they keep, and that subtle indefinable
something which we call their expression.

"Nevertheless, there arise the questions how far the spear wound
recorded by the writer of the fourth Gospel must be regarded,
firstly, as an actual occurrence, and, secondly, as having been
necessarily fatal, for unless these things are shewn to be
indisputable we have seen that the balance of probability lies
greatly in favour of Christ's having escaped with life. If, however,
it can be proved that it is a matter of certainty both that the wound
was actually inflicted, and that death must have inevitably followed,
then the death of Christ is proved. The Resurrection becomes
supernatural; the Ascension forthwith ceases to be marvellous; the
Miraculous Conception, the Temptation in the Wilderness, all the
other miracles of Christ and his Apostles, become believable at once
upon so signal a failure of human experience; human experience ceases
to be a guide at all, inasmuch as it is found to fail on the very
point where it has been always considered to be most firmly
established--the remorselessness of the grip of death. But before we
can consent to part with the firm ground on which we tread, in the
confidence of which we live, move, and have our being--the trust in
the established experience of countless ages--we must prove the
infliction of the wound and its necessarily fatal character beyond
all possibility of mistake. We cannot be expected to reject a
natural solution of an event however mysterious, and to adopt a
supernatural in its place, so long as there is any element of doubt
upon the supernatural side.

"The natural solution of the origin of belief in the Resurrection
lies very ready to our hands; once admit that Christ was crucified
hurriedly, that there is no proof of the destruction of any organic
function of the body, that the body itself was immediately delivered
to friends, and that thirty-six hours afterwards Christ was seen
alive, and it is impossible to understand how any human being can
doubt what he ought to think. We must own also that once let Joseph
have kept his own counsel (and he had a great stake to lose if he did
NOT keep it), once let the Apostles believe that Christ's restoration
to life was miraculous (and under the circumstances they would be
sure to think so), and their reason would be so unsettled that in a
very short time all the recognised and all the apocryphal miracles of
Christ would pass current with them without a shadow of difficulty."

It will be observed that throughout both this and the preceding
chapter I have been dealing with those of our opponents who, while
admitting the reappearances of our Lord, ascribe them to natural
causes only. I consider this position to be only second in
importance to the one taken by Strauss, and as perhaps in some
respects capable of being supported with an even greater outward
appearance of probability. I therefore resolved to combat it, and as
a preliminary to this, have taken care that it shall be stated in the
clearest and most definite manner possible. But it is plain that
those who accept the fact that our Lord reappeared after the
Crucifixion differ hardly less widely from Strauss than they do from
ourselves; it will therefore be expedient to shew how they maintain
their ground against so formidable an antagonist. Let it be
remembered that Strauss and his followers admit that THE DEATH of our
Lord is proved, while those of our opponents who would deny this,
nevertheless admit that we can establish THE REAPPEARANCES; it
follows therefore that each of our most important propositions is
admitted by one section or other of the enemy, and each section would
probably be heartily glad to be able to deny what it admits. Can
there be any doubt about the significance of this fact? Would not a
little reflection be likely to suggest to the distracted host of our
adversaries that each of its two halves is right, as FAR AS IT GOES,
but that agreement will only be possible between them when each party
has learnt that it is in possession of only half the truth, and has
come to admit both the DEATH OF OUR LORD AND HIS RESURRECTION?

Returning, however, to the manner in which the section of our
opponents with whom I am now dealing meet Strauss, they may be
supposed to speak as follows:-

"Strauss believes that Christ died, and says (New Life of Jesus, Vol.
I., p. 411) that 'the account of the Evangelists of the death of
Jesus is clear, unanimous, and connected.' If this means that the
Evangelists would certainly know whether Christ died or not, we demur
to it at once. Strauss would himself admit that not one of the
writers who have recorded the facts connected with the Crucifixion
was an eyewitness of that event, and he must also be aware that the
very utmost which any of these writers can have KNOWN, was THAT
CHRIST WAS BELIEVED TO HAVE BEEN. DEAD. It is strange to see Strauss
so suddenly struck with the clearness, unanimity, and connectedness
of the Evangelists. In the very next sentence he goes on to say,
'Equally fragmentary, full of contradiction and obscurity, is all
that they tell us of the opportunities of observing him which his
adherents are supposed to have had after his resurrection.' Now,
this seems very unfair, for, after all, the gospel writers are quite
as unanimous in asserting the main fact that Christ reappeared, as
they are in asserting that he died; they would seem to be just as
'clear, unanimous, and connected,' about the former event as the
latter (for the accounts of the Crucifixion vary not a little), and
they must have had infinitely better means of knowing whether Christ
reappeared than whether he had actually died. There is not the same
scope for variation in the bare assertion that a man died, as there
is in the narration of his sayings and doings upon the several
occasions of his reappearance. Besides, in support of the
reappearances, we have the evidence of Paul, who, though not an eye-
witness, was well acquainted with those who were; whereas no man can
make more out of the facts recorded concerning the death of Jesus,
than that he was believed to be dead under circumstances in which
mistake might easily arise, that there is no reason to think that any
organic function of the body had been destroyed at the time that it
was delivered over to friends, and that none of those who testified
to Christ's death appear to have verified their statement by personal
inspection of the body. On these points the Evangelists do indeed
appear to be 'clear, unanimous, and connected.'

"Later on Strauss is even more unsatisfactory, for on the page which
follows the one above quoted from, he writes: 'Besides which, it is
quite evident that this (the natural) view of the resurrection of
Jesus, apart from the difficulties in which it is involved, does not
even solve the problem which is here under consideration: the
origin, that is, of the Christian Church by faith in the miraculous
resurrection of the Messiah. It is impossible that a being who had
stolen half-dead out of a sepulchre, who crept about weak and ill,
wanting medical treatment, who required bandaging, strengthening, and
indulgence, and who still, at last, yielded to his sufferings, could
have given to the disciples the impression that he was a conqueror
over death and the grave, the Prince of Life, an impression which lay
at the bottom of their future ministry. Such a resuscitation could
only have weakened the impression which he had made upon them in life
and in death; at the most could only have given it an elegiac voice,
but could by no possibility have changed their sorrow into
enthusiasm, have elevated their reverence into worship.'

"Now, the fallacy in the above is obvious; it assumes that CHRIST was
in such a state as to be compelled to creep about, weak and ill, &c.,
and ultimately to die from the effects of his sufferings; whereas
there is not a word of evidence in support of all this. He may have
been weak and ill when he forbade Mary to touch him, on the first
occasion of his being seen alive; but it would be hard to prove even
this, and on no subsequent occasion does he shew any sign of
weakness. The supposition that he died of the effects of his
sufferings is quite gratuitous; one would like to know where Strauss
got it from. He MAY have done so, or he may have been assassinated
by some one commissioned by the Jewish Sanhedrim, or he may have felt
that his work was done, and that any further interference upon his
part would only mar it, and therefore resolved upon withdrawing
himself from Palestine for ever, or Joseph of Arimathaea may have
feared the revolution which he saw approaching--or twenty things
besides might account for Christ's final disappearance. The only
thing, however, which we can say with any certainty is that he
disappeared, and that there is no reason to believe that he died of
his wounds. All over and above this is guesswork.

"Again, if Christ on reappearing had continued in daily intercourse
with his disciples, it might have been impossible that they should
not find out that he was in all respects like themselves. But he
seems to have been careful to avoid seeing them much. Paul only
mentions five reappearances, only one of which was to any
considerable number of people. According also to the gospel writers,
the reappearances were few; they were without preparation, and
nothing seems to have been known of where he resided between each
visit; this rarity and mysteriousness of the reappearances of Christ
(whether dictated by fear of his enemies or by policy) would heighten
their effect, and prevent the Apostles from knowing much more about
their master than the simple fact that he was indisputably alive.
They saw enough to assure them of this, but they did not see enough
to prevent their being able to regard their master as a conqueror
over death and the grave, even though it could be shewn (which
certainly cannot be done) that he continued in infirm health, and
ultimately died of his wounds.

"If the Apostles had been highly educated English or German
Professors, it might be hard to believe them capable of making any
mistake; but they were nothing of the kind; they were ignorant
Eastern peasants, living in the very thick of every conceivable kind
of delusive influence. Strauss himself supposes their minds to have
been so weak and unhinged that they became easy victims to
hallucination. But if this was the case, they would be liable to
other kinds of credulity, and it seems strange that one who would
bring them down so low, should be here so suddenly jealous for their
intelligence. There is no reason to suppose that Christ WAS weak and
ill after the first day or two, any more than there is for believing
that he died of his wounds. This being so, is it not more simple and
natural to believe that the Apostles were really misled by a solid
substratum of strange events--a substratum which seems to be
supported by all the evidence which we can get--than that the whole
story of the appearances of Christ after the Crucifixion should be
due to baseless dreams and fancies? At any rate, if the Apostles
could be misled by hallucination, much more might they be misled by a
natural reappearance, which looked not unlike a supernatural one.

"The belief in the miraculous character of the Resurrection is the
central point of the whole Christian system. Let this be once
believed, and considering the times, which, it must always be
remembered, were in respect of credulity widely different from our
own, considering the previous hopes and expectations of the Apostles,
considering their education, Oriental modes of thought and speech,
familiarity with the ideas of miracle and demonology, and
unfamiliarity with the ideas of accuracy and science, and considering
also the unquestionable beauty and wisdom of much which is recorded
as having been taught by Christ, and the really remarkable
circumstances of the case--we say, once let the Resurrection be
believed to be miraculous, and the rest is clear; there is no further
mystery about the origin of the Christian religion.

"So the matter has now come to this pass, that we are to jeopardise
our faith in all human experience, if we are unable to see our way
clearly out of a few words about a spear wound, recorded as having
been inflicted in a distant country nearly two thousand years ago, by
a writer concerning whom we are entirely ignorant, and whose
connection with any eye-witness of the events which he records is a
matter of pure conjecture. We will see about this hereafter; all
that is necessary now is to make sure that we do not jeopardise it,
if we DO see a way of escape, and this assuredly exists."

I will not pain either the reader or myself by a recapitulation of
the arguments which have led our opponents as well as the Dean of
Canterbury, and I may add, with due apology, myself, to conclude that
nothing is known as to the severity or purpose of the spear wound.
The case, therefore, of our adversaries will rest thus:- that there
is not only no sufficient reason for believing that Christ died upon
the cross, but that there are the strongest conceivable reasons for
believing that He did not die; that the shortness of time during
which He remained upon the cross, the immediate delivery of the body
to friends, and, above all, the subsequent reappearance alive, are
ample grounds for arriving at such a conclusion. They add further
that it would seem a monstrous supposition to believe that a good and
merciful God should have designed to redeem the world by the
infliction of such awful misery upon His own Son, and yet determined
to condemn every one who did not believe in this design, in spite of
such a deficiency of evidence that disbelief would appear to be a
moral obligation. No good God, they say, would have left a matter of
such unutterable importance in a state of such miserable uncertainty,
when the addition of a very small amount of testimony would have been
sufficient to establish it.

In the two following chapters I shall show the futility and
irrelevancy of the above reasoning--if, indeed, that can be called
reasoning which is from first to last essentially unreasonable.
Plausible as, in parts, it may have appeared, I have little doubt
that the reader will have already detected the greater number of the
fallacies which underlie it. But before I can allow myself to enter
upon the welcome task of refutation, a few more words from our
opponents will yet be necessary. However strongly I disapprove of
their views, I trust they will admit that I have throughout expressed
them as one who thoroughly understands them. I am convinced that the
course I have taken is the only one which can lead to their being
brought into the way of truth, and I mean to persevere in it until I
have explained the views which they take concerning our Lord's
Ascension, with no less clearness than I shewed forth their opinions
concerning the Resurrection.

"In St. Matthew's Gospel," they will say, "we find no trace whatever
of any story concerning the Ascension. The writer had either never
heard anything about the matter at all, or did not consider it of
sufficient importance to deserve notice.

"Dean Alford, indeed, maintains otherwise. In his notes on the
words, 'And lo! I am with you always unto the end of the world,' he
says, 'These words imply and set forth the Ascension'; it is true
that he adds, 'the manner of which is not related by the Evangelist':
but how do the words quoted, 'imply and set forth' the Ascension?
They imply a belief that Christ's spirit would be present with his
disciples to the end of time; but how do they set forth the fact that
his body was seen by a number of people to rise into the air and
actually to mount up far into the region of the clouds?

"The fact is simply this--and nobody can know it better than Dean
Alford--that Matthew tells us nothing about the Ascension.

"The last verses of Mark's Gospel are admitted by Dean Alford himself
to be not genuine, but even in these the subject is dismissed in a
single verse, and although it is stated that Christ was received into
Heaven, there is not a single word to imply that any one was supposed
to have seen him actually on his way thither.

"The author of the fourth Gospel is also silent concerning the
Ascension. There is not a word, nor hint, nor faintest trace of any
knowledge of the fact, unless an allusion be detected in the words,
'What and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascending where he was
before?' (John vi., 62) in reference to which passage Dean Alford, in
his note on Luke xxiv., 52, writes as follows:- 'And might not we
have concluded from the wording of John vi., 62, that our Lord must
have intended an ascension INSIGHT OF SOME OF THOSE TO WHOM HE SPOKE,
and that the Evangelist GIVES THAT HINT, BY RECORDING THOSE WORDS
WITHOUT COMMENT, THAT HE HAD SEEN IT?' That is to say, we are to
conclude that the writer of the fourth Gospel actually SAW the
Ascension, because he tells us that Christ uttered the words, 'What
and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascending where he was before?'

"But who WAS the author of the fourth Gospel? And what reason is
there for thinking that that work is genuine? Let us make another
extract from Dean Alford. In his prolegomena, chapter v., section 6,
on the genuineness of the fourth Gospel, he writes:- 'Neither Papias,
who carefully sought out all that Apostles and Apostolic men had
related regarding the life of Christ; nor Polycarp, who was himself a
disciple of the Apostle John; nor Barnabas, nor Clement of Rome, in
their epistles; nor, lastly, Ignatius (in his genuine writings),
makes any mention of, or allusion to, this gospel. SO THAT IN THE
MOST ANCIENT CIRCLE OF ECCLESIASTICAL TESTIMONY, IT APPEARS TO BE
UNKNOWN. OR NOT RECOGNISED.' We may add that there is no trace of
its existence before the latter half of the second century, and that
the internal evidence against its genuineness appears to be more and
more conclusive the more it is examined.

"St. Paul, when enumerating the last appearances of his master, in a
passage where the absence of any allusion to the Ascension is almost
conclusive as to his never having heard a word about it, is also
silent. In no part of his genuine writings does he give any sign of
his having been aware that any story was in existence as to the
manner in which Christ was received into Heaven.

"Where, then, does the story come from, if neither Matthew, Mark,
John, nor Paul appear to have heard of it?

"It comes from a single verse in St. Luke's Gospel--written more than
half a century after the supposed event, when few, or more probably
none, of those who were supposed to have seen it were either living
or within reach to contradict it. Luke writes (xxiv., 51), 'And it
came to pass that while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and
carried up into Heaven.' This is the only account of the Ascension
given in any part of the Gospels which can be considered genuine. It
gives Bethany as the place of the miracle, whereas, if Dean Alford is
right in saying that the words of Matthew 'set forth' the Ascension,
they set it forth as having taken place on a mountain in Galilee.
But here, as elsewhere, all is haze and contradiction. Perhaps some
Christian writers will maintain that it happened both at Bethany and
in Galilee.

"In his subsequent work, written some sixty or seventy years after
the Ascension, St. Luke gives us that more detailed account which is
commonly present to the imagination of all men (thanks to the Italian
painters), when the Ascension is alluded to. The details, it would
seem, came to his knowledge after he had written his Gospel, and many
a long year after Matthew and Mark and Paul had written. How he came
by the additional details we do not know. Nobody seems to care to
know. He must have had them revealed to him, or been told them by
some one, and that some one, whoever he was, doubtless knew what he
was saying, and all Europe at one time believed the story, and this
is sufficient proof that mistake was impossible.

"It is indisputable that from the very earliest ages of the Church
there existed a belief that Christ was at the right hand of God; but
no one who professes to have seen him on his way thither has left a
single word of record. It is easy to believe that the facts may have
been revealed in a night vision, or communicated in one or other of
the many ways in which extraordinary circumstances ARE communicated,
during the years of oral communication and enthusiasm which elapsed
between the supposed Ascension of Christ and the writing of Luke's
second work. It is not surprising that a firm belief in Christ's
having survived death should have arisen in consequence of the actual
circumstances connected with the Crucifixion and entombment. Was it
then strange that this should develop itself into the belief that he
was now in Heaven, sitting at the right hand of God the Father? And
finally was it strange that a circumstantial account of the manner in
which he left this earth should be eagerly accepted?"

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