CHAPTER XXVI SCAURUS ON CHRIST’S RESURRECTION (I)

Passing next to the subject of Christ’s resurrection, “To deal first,” said Scaurus, “with Christ’s alleged predictions that he would ‘rise again,’ what strikes me as the strangest point in them is his frequent mention of being ‘betrayed.’ For the rest, if Jesus believed himself to be the Messiah or Christ—as I think he did, if not at first, yet soon—or even if he did not believe himself to be the Christ, but thought that he was to reform the nation, I can well understand that he adopted the language of one of their prophets, Hosea by name, who says, ‘Come and let us return unto the Lord … he hath smitten, and he will bind us up. After two days will he revive us. On the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight.’ Using such language as this, a later Jewish prophet, such as Christ, might lead his followers up to Jerusalem at the Passover, not knowing whether he should live or die, but convinced that the Lord would work some deliverance for Israel. And the predictions of ‘scourging,’ and ‘smiting,’ and ‘spitting,’ I could also understand, as coming from the prophets. But ‘betrayal’ is not mentioned by the prophets, and I cannot understand its insertion here.”

With this I have dealt above, and with the double sense of the word meaning “deliver over” and “betray.” I now found that the evangelists sometimes apply the word to the act of Judas the betrayer (because by his betrayal Christ was “delivered over” to the Jews); and Scaurus regarded it as meaning “betray” here. I could not however believe that Jesus, when predicting His death, used the word in the sense “betray.”[249] It seemed to me that He predicted that His end would be like that of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah, namely, that He would be “delivered over” as a ransom for the sins of the people by the will of His Father. Long afterwards, I found that, whereas the Greek in Isaiah has “delivered over for,” the Hebrew has “make intercession for.” Then I saw, even more clearly than before, the reason why Christ may have often repeated this prediction, if He foresaw that His death would “make intercession” for the people. The evangelists rendered this so that it might be mistaken for “would be betrayed.” But Paul made the matter clear.

Scaurus added that the rising again was predicted as about to occur, sometimes “on the third day,” as in Hosea, but sometimes “after three days,” corresponding to a period of three days and three nights spent by Jonah (according to a strange Hebrew legend) in a whale’s belly. And he also said, “Mark and Matthew represent Jesus as saying, concerning what he would do after death, ‘I will go before you to Galilee.’ But Luke omits these words. Later on, after the resurrection, Mark and Matthew again mention this prediction; but there Luke has ‘remember that which he said to you while yet in Galilee.’ My rabbi tells me that the words ‘to Galilee’ might easily be confused with other expressions having quite a different meaning. This seems to me probable, but into these details I cannot now enter. I take it, however, that Luke knew Mark’s tradition ‘to Galilee,’ and rejected it as erroneous. Matthew also says that certain women, meeting Jesus after death, ‘took hold of his feet,’ and Jesus sent word by them to the disciples to ‘depart into Galilee.’ Here you see ‘Galilee’ again. But this tradition is not in any other gospel. Luke makes no mention of any appearance in Galilee.”

These discrepancies about “Galilee” might have interested me at any other time; but “took hold of his feet”—this was the assertion that amazed me and carried away my thoughts from everything else. I had approached the subject of the Resurrection through Paul, who mentions Christ merely as having “appeared” to several of the apostles and last of all to himself. I had all along assumed that the “appearances” of[250] the Lord to the other apostles had been of the same kind as the appearance to Paul, that is to say, supernatural, but not material nor tangible. Having read what Paul said about the spiritual body and the earthly body, I had supposed that Christ’s earthly body remained in the tomb but that His spiritual body rose from the dead, passed out of the tomb—as a spirit might pass, not being confinable by walls or gates or by the cavernous sides of a tomb—and “appeared” to the disciples, now in this place, now in that. That the “spiritual body” meant the real spiritual “person”—and not a mere “shade” or breath-like “spirit” of the departed—this (as I have explained above) I had more or less understood. But I had never supposed that the “body” could be touched. And now, quite unexpectedly, Scaurus thrust before me, so to speak, a tradition that some women “took hold of Christ’s feet” after He had risen from the dead.

“Of course,” said Scaurus, “most critics would say at once that the women lied. But in the first place, even if they did lie, that would not explain why Mark and Luke omitted it. For you may be quite sure the evangelists would not believe that the women told a lie; and, if they believed that the women told the truth, why should they not report it? For the fact, if a fact, is a strong proof of resurrection. In the next place, I am convinced that the Christian belief in Christ’s resurrection is far too strong to have been originated by lies. I believe it was originated by visions, and that the stories about these visions were exaggerated in various ways, but never dishonest ways. In this particular case, the explanation probably is, that the women saw a vision of Christ in the air and ‘would have held it fast by the feet,’ that is, desired to do so, but could not. I could give several instances from the LXX where ‘would have’ is thus dropped in translation. The belief of the Christians was, that Christ ascended to heaven. The women are perhaps regarded as desiring to grasp his feet while he was ascending, but Christ prevents them, sending them away to carry word to his ‘brethren’—for so he calls them—of his resurrection.” I had not, at the time, knowledge enough to judge of Scaurus’s explanation; but I afterwards found that “would have” might[251] be thus dropped, and that the fourth gospel represents a woman as attempting, or desiring, to “touch” Jesus, but as being prevented (by the words “touch me not”) because He had “not yet ascended”; and Jesus says to her “Carry word to my brethren.” Scaurus’s explanation was confirmed by these facts.

Scaurus continued as follows, “Mark, the earliest of the evangelists, contains no account of the resurrection, except as an announcement made by angels. He says that the women “were afraid” when they heard this announcement; and there he ends. But in my copy of Mark there is an appendix (not in the handwriting of the same scribe that wrote the gospel) which begins, ‘Now having arisen on the first day of the week he became visible at first to Mary of Magdala, out of whom he had cast seven devils.’ Then it says that Jesus ‘was manifested in a different form’ to two of his previous companions, when walking in the country. Then it mentions a third and last manifestation to ‘the eleven’ seated at a meal.” I turned at once to my copy of Mark, but there was no such appendix. It ended with the words “for they were afraid.”

Scaurus proceeded, “This appendix is not at all in Mark’s style, but it is probably very ancient. Luke mentions no appearance of Christ to women. But he describes an appearance to two disciples walking toward a village near Jerusalem; or rather, not to them while walking, for Jesus did not appear to them at first so as to be recognised; he first walked and talked with them and ‘opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.’ Then, in the village, during the breaking of bread, he was recognised by them, and vanished. As regards ‘walking,’ I may mention that the ancient Jews describe God as ‘walking with Israel,’ and I have read in a Christian letter, ‘The Lord journeyed with me,’ meaning ‘enlightened me.’ So the word may be used metaphorically. These two disciples expressly mention a ‘vision of angels’ spoken of by the women, who told them that angels had announced that Christ had risen from the dead; but, according to Luke, the two disciples and their companions disbelieved the women’s tale. And not a word is said by Luke, then or afterwards, about any appearance of Christ himself to women.

[252]

“You can see for yourself, Silanus, under what a disadvantage this Mark-Appendix placed these poor, simple, ignorant, honest Christians, when it called as their first witness to the resurrection a woman that had been formerly a lunatic. I believe they have been already attacked by their Jewish enemies on this ground. If they have not been, I am sure they will be. Luke, a physician and an educated man, chooses his ground much more sensibly. First, he omits all direct mention, in his own narrative, of manifestations to women. Secondly, he says, in effect—not in narrative but in dialogue—‘The women did see an apparition, but it was only of angels.’ Thirdly, ‘the men (and men are not liable to the hysterical delusions of women)—the men,’ he says, ‘treated the women’s vision as a mere delusion. The men saw Jesus himself.’ Possibly Luke was influenced by Paul, who in his list of the witnesses of manifestations makes no mention of women. The Law of Moses does not expressly exclude women’s testimony. But Josephus once told me that his countrymen allowed neither women nor slaves to give public testimony. So it is clear that Jewish tradition has interpreted the Law as excluding women, and that Paul, when controverting Jews, would not appeal to the evidence of women, because Jews would not accept it. Perhaps Luke followed in the same path.

“Luke also makes the following attempt to meet the objections of those who might urge that Christ’s apparition was not a rising of the actual body from the grave. He represents Christ as saying to the disciples, ‘Handle me’—as a proof that he was not a disembodied spirit. Now I do not believe that Luke invented this, although he, the latest of the three evangelists, is alone in recording it. Curiously enough, I have only recently been reading a letter—very wild and extravagant but manifestly genuine—written some four or five years ago by a Christian named Ignatius, which throws light on these very words in Luke. A few months after writing it, the man suffered as a Christian here in Rome, and his letters naturally had a vogue. Flaccus sent me a copy as a curiosity. Well, this letter says that when Christ came to his disciples—Ignatius says ‘to those around Peter’ but the meaning is ‘to Peter and[253] his companions,’ that is, ‘to Christ’s disciples,’ as I have explained above—in the flesh, after his resurrection, he said to them, ‘Take, handle me, and see that I am not a bodiless d?mon.’ Then Ignatius adds—and these are the words I want you to mark—‘Straightway they touched him and believed, having been mixed with his flesh and blood.’

“Do you remember my laughing at you as a boy because you translated Diodorus Siculus literally, ‘They touched one another because of extreme need,’ when it ought to have been, ‘They fed on one another’? I quoted to you, at the time, the saying of Pythagoras, ‘Do not touch a white cock,’ i.e. ‘do not feed on it.’ There are many instances of this meaning. Well, the Christians believed that they fed on Christ. His ‘flesh and blood was mixed’ with theirs—or they were ‘mixed’ with his—when they fed on him in their sacred meal. If there were some Greek traditions saying ‘they touched him,’ meaning ‘they fed on him,’ there would naturally be other traditions about ‘touching’ Jesus meaning that they ‘handled’ him. The latter would suggest that they touched the wounds in his body inflicted during the crucifixion.”

I remembered my boyish mistake, and I saw clearly that Christians would have had much more excuse for making a similar one. Scaurus added, “This also explains Ignatius’s curious use of ‘take’ (as in Mark and Matthew).” At first I could not understand what Scaurus meant; but on looking at Ignatius’s Greek, which Scaurus gave me, I perceived that the words were not “Take hold of me, handle me,” but “Take,” i.e. “Take me,” or “Take my body (as a whole).” Now “take” is similarly used by Mark and Matthew in the sentence “Take, eat, this is my body,” where Mark omits “eat.”

“Moreover,” continued Scaurus, “Luke goes on to relate that Jesus said to the disciples, ‘Have ye anything to eat?’ and that they gave him some broiled fish, and that he ate in their presence. Christians in Rome have been in the habit—it would take too long to explain why—of using FISH as the emblem of Christ. The sense requires ‘he gave,’ not ‘they gave.’ I think Luke has confused ‘he gave’ with ‘they gave.’ The confusion, in Greek, might arise from one erroneous letter.”[254] After giving me several instances of such confusion, he said, “I should not be surprised if some later gospel stated the fact more correctly, namely, that Christ gave the disciples ‘fish’.” This I afterwards found to be the case in the fourth gospel.

Scaurus then proceeded, “I think, however, that Luke’s error may have arisen in part from another tradition, which he has preserved in the Acts—somewhat like that of the Christian Ignatius which I have quoted above. Ignatius spoke of ‘mixing,’ Luke, in the Acts, speaks of ‘incorporating’—I can think of no better word to give the meaning—saying that Jesus, ‘in the act of being incorporated with’ the disciples, bade them not to depart from Jerusalem till they had received the Holy Spirit. Now this word ‘incorporate’—which is used of men brought into a city, hounds into a pack, soldiers into a squadron, and so on—is adapted to represent that close union which is a mark of almost all the Christians, who say with Paul that they are ‘one body in Christ’ and ‘members one of another.’ But this compact union of Christians is also represented by their Eucharist, so that Paul says to the Corinthians, in effect, not only, ‘Ye are one body,’ but also ‘Ye are one loaf.’ And I rather think that some Christians at the present time, in their Eucharists, pray that, as the grains of wheat scattered in the field are made into one, so the scattered children of God may be gathered into one. I think you must see how easily errors might spring up from metaphors of this kind used in the various churches of the empire, among people varying in language, customs, and traditions, and for the most part illiterate.

“Even in the letter of Ignatius above-mentioned, a scribe has altered the word ‘mixed’ into ‘constrained’ in the margin; and I am not surprised. I do not by any means accuse Luke of dishonesty, nor of carelessness. He did his best. But he was probably a physician—a man of science therefore—and liked to have things definitely and scientifically stated. This word above-mentioned, ‘being made into one compact body with them,’ might easily be supposed to mean ‘partaking of salt with them,’ that is, ‘sharing a meal with them.’ That rendering had the advantage of constituting a definite proof[255] of Christ’s resurrection with a body that might be called in some sense material, since it (i.e. the body) was capable of eating. Then, of course, Luke would adapt his other accounts of the resurrection to this tradition, which he would naturally regard as one of central importance. But, though honest and pains-taking, Luke appears to me to have altered and corrupted what was perhaps, in some sense, a real—yes, I will admit, in some sense, a real—manifestation (if indeed any visions are real) into a mere non-existent physical sign or proof.

“Luke represents Jesus as feeding on his own body in order to satisfy his unbelieving disciples that he is really among them. I can easily imagine how very different may have been the feelings of those simple enthusiasts, the early Galil?an disciples, when they used these words—never dreaming that they would be reduced to dry, evidential prose—in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, praising the Lord for allowing them to ‘sit at His table,’ and to ‘eat and drink with Him,’ or for making them ‘sharers in the sacred food of His body’ and ‘partners of His board.’ It was only, after a generation or more had passed away, outside the atmosphere of Galilee—it was only to a compiler laboriously tracing back the truth through documents—that all these phrases would suggest the thought of Jesus proving his reality by partaking of food that his disciples give to him.

“It may be said, as though it were to Luke’s discredit, ‘He represents Peter as positively testifying to this eating.’ Of course he does. You know how speeches are written, even in the most accurate histories. No historian, as a rule, professes to record a speech of any length exactly. If Luke first inferred that Christ ate with the apostles after his death, he would also naturally go on to infer that Peter, in attesting Christ’s resurrection, must necessarily have included some mention of this fact. I cannot blame him. I think he was perfectly honest, though in error.” I agreed. But it seemed to me an error much to be regretted.

On one point, however, Scaurus seemed to me to be not quite accurate, when he said of Luke, “He represents Peter as positively testifying to this eating.” For Peter’s speech[256] was to this effect, “God raised him up on the third day and granted that he should be manifested—not to all the people but to witnesses previously appointed by God, namely us, who ate with him and drank with him—after he had risen from the dead.” Scaurus regarded this as meaning that “the eating and drinking” of Christ’s disciples took place “after his death.” Even if that had been so, it might be that Jesus was merely present (not eating and drinking) when the disciples ate and drank: and something of this kind I afterwards found in the fourth gospel. But I punctuated the words differently, and interpreted them differently, as meaning that the “manifestation” (not the “eating”) took place after the resurrection; and that the manifestation was limited to those who had been Christ’s intimate companions, or as the Greeks say, “sharers of his table,” during his life.

I remembered also an old remark of Scaurus’s about our modern Roman use of “convivo,” meaning “I live with,” and how easily it might be taken to mean the ordinary “convivor,” meaning “I feast with.” Since that, I have found that, in other ways, “living with” and “eating with” may be easily confused. For these reasons I concluded that the supposition that Jesus ate with the disciples after His resurrection was not justified.