vants, they are made to lay hands upon and slay the son of their master, who is evidently the Messiah, Jesus (Matt. xxi. 38). With respect to the expressions of Jesus on the object and purpose of his death, we can still, as above, in the prediction of his death, distinguish between a more natural and a more supernatural view of the case. When Jesus, in the fourth gospel, compares himself to the faithful shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep (x. 11, 15), this may naturally signify that he is decided not to renounce his functions of shepherd and teacher, even though in the accomplishment of his duty, he should be menaced with death (moral necessity of his death); the expression, in the same gospel, full of prophetic presentiment (xii. 24), in which it is said that when a grain of wheat, on falling to the earth, does not die it remains unfruitful, but that, if it dies, it produces much fruit, admits of an explanation, which is not less rational, of the victorious influence exercised by martyrdom in favour of any particular idea or conviction (moral efficacy of his death). In fine, when Jesus in his last discourse related by John, so often repeats that his death would benefit his disciples, because it could only be on this condition that the comforter could be sent to them, who should transfigure them and lead them into the way of truth, this might be attributed to a natural reflection of Jesus, namely, that without the disappearance of his material presence, the ideas of his disciples with respect to his Messiahship, which had hitherto remained so material, could not be spiritualised (psychologic effect of his death). To the supernatural view of the question belong moreover the words which Jesus pronounced at the time of the institution of the supper. Doubtless, the words which the intermediate evangelists put into his mouth, namely, that the drink presented was the "blood of the new covenant (Mark xiv. 24), and that the "new testament is in my blood" (Luke xxii. 20), can only be interpreted in this way, namely, as the covenant of the ancient people was sealed on Mount Sinai by bloody sacrifices, so his blood, that of the Messiah, should seal the covenant of the new community which he had drawn around him. But this interpretation vanishes in the narrative of Matthew; this evangelist relates (xxvi. 28) that Jesus added that his blood should be shed for many "for the remission of sins;" here the idea of the sacrifice of the covenant is become the idea of the sacrifice of expiation: and, even in the other two evangelists, the words which are added "blood shed for many," or "for you," seem to infer more than the sacrifice of the covenant, and to be in reference to the sacrifice of expiation. When, in another place, in the first gospel, Jesus said that he came to "give his life a ransom for many" (xx. 28), it was, doubtless, in reference to Isaiah liii., where, according to an idea otherwise common among the Hebrews (Isaiah xliii. 3; Proverbs xxi. 18), a value of expiation for the rest of mankind is attributed to the death of the servant of the Most High. Consequently, Jesus, by a psychologic movement, may have arrived at the idea that a like catastrophe must have been advantageous to the spiritual development of his disciples, and indispensable to the spiritualisation of their ideas of the Messiah; and thence, conformably to the national ideas, and in referring to himself the passages in the Old Testament, he may have imagined that his death as the Messiah possessed an expiatory virtue. But it is possible, also, that the words which the synoptics put into the mouth of Jesus in reference to his death as a sacrifice of expiation, belong to a system which was developed after the death of Jesus; it is possible that what the fourth evangelist makes him say with respect to the connection between his death and the appearance of the comforter was said after the event. In this way, in those expressions of Jesus as to the end and object of his death a distinction should be made between what is general and what is special. § CX. Precise Declarations of Jesus respecting his future According to the evangelical narratives, Jesus announced his resurrection in terms no less clear than those in which he announced his death, and even with most remarkable exactness fixed the precise date of it. On each occasion on which he said to his disciples that the Son of Man should expire upon a cross, he added, "and the third day he shall be raised again," or "shall rise again" (Matt. xvi. 21; xvii. 23; xx. 19, and parallel passages; compare xvii. 9; xxvi. 32, &c.). But it is said, also, of these predictions that his disciples did not comprehend them, and that they even debated amongst themselves what "rising from the dead" could mean (Mark ix. 10). Their conduct, immediately after the death of Jesus, is in conformity with this want of understanding, for there is nothing in it indicative of the slightest trace of the remembrance of the predictions which had announced to them that his death would be followed by his resurrection, nor the slightest spark of a hope that these predictions would be realised. When his friends had put into the tomb the body which they took down from the cross, they embalmed it, according to John (xix. 40), or, according to Mark (xvi. 1) and Luke (xxiii. 56), the women reserved to themselves this care; an operation which is only practised on bodies, considered destined to putrefaction. On the morning of the day which should be, according to the New Testament calculation, that announced as the day of his resurrection, the women who resorted to his tomb thought so little of this resurrection that they were speculating upon the difficulty which they should experience in raising the stone from the tomb (Mark xvi. 3). Mary Magdalen, and afterwards Peter, having found the tomb empty, their first idea should have been, if the resurrection had been really predicted, that it was actually accomplished; instead of which Mary Magdalen imagined that the body must have been taken away (John xx. 2), and Peter merely expressed his astonishment, being unable to form any conjecture upon the subject (Luke xxiv. 12). The women having related to the apostles the angelic apparition which they had seen, and having acquitted themselves of the commission with which the angels had entrusted them, the apostles looked upon what they said as an "idle tale (Luke xxiv. 11), and were thrown by the event into a state of alarm and terror (Luke xxiv. 21, et seq.). When Mary Magdalen, and, afterwards, the disciples of Emmaus assured the eleven apostles that they had themselves seen him after his resurrection, the apostles did not believe in their assertions (Mark xvi. 11, 13), in the same way as Thomas did not believe in the assurances of the other apostles (John xx. 25). In fine, when Jesus appeared himself to the apostles in Galilee, even then their doubts did not completely subside (Matt. xxviii. 17). We are compelled, with the author of the "Fragments of Wolfenbuttel," to look upon this as incomprehensible, if it be indeed true that Jesus had predicted his resurrection in such clear and precise terms as those related in the three first gospels. It is true, nevertheless, that if the conduct of the apostles after the death of Jesus makes against such a prediction, the conduct of his enemies would appear to suppose the existence of it. When, according to Matthew (xxvii. 62, et seq.), the high priests and the pharisees went to ask Pilate to place a guard upon the tomb, the motive which induced them to take this precaution was the fact that they remembered that he had said, "after three days I will rise again." But the narrative of the first evangelist, the value of which we shall only be able properly to appreciate further on, far from deciding the question, only leads us to one of the alternanatives of the following dilemma: it the apostles did really behave as they are represented to have done after the death of Jesus, he could not have predicted his resurrection in precise terms, and the Jews could not in consideration of such a prediction have placed a guard over his tomb; or, if this last information is authentic, the apostles could not have conducted themselves as they are reported to have done. An attempt has been made to blunt the edge of this dilemma by saying that it was not to the literal sense of a rising of Jesus, dead, from the tomb, that these predictions had reference, but only to the figurative sense of a new rising of his doctrine and his hitherto oppressed cause. In the same way it has been said, as the prophets of the Old Testament often represent under the figure of a resurrection from the dead, the restoration of the people of Israel to new prosperity (Isaiah xxvi. 19; Ezekiel xxxvii.); in the same way as they express the short interval of time which, under certain conditions, the change for the better will take for its accomplishment, by saying that in two or three days Jehovah will raise up what has been overthrown, restore what has been destroyed (Hosea vi. 2), an expression which has been also made use of by Jesus, in an indeterminate manner to represent a short interval of time (Luke xiii. 32); so, the terms which he makes use of in saying that he will rise again on the third day after his death only signify that even if he should fall by the violence of his enemies, and if he should be put to death, the work commenced by him should not perish, but at the expiration of a short period should gather new life and strength. This method of speaking, it has been asserted, in continuation, which, in the mouth of Jesus had only a figurative meaning, was after the corporeal resurrection understood literally by the apostles, and considered as predictions respecting his personal resurrection. It may, without doubt, be truly affirmed that in the passage cited from the prophets, the words nop and have only the figurative meaning here assigned to them; but they occur in passages whose whole tenor is figurative, and where, in particular, the expressions "torn" and "smitten which precede the word "revive," are only themselves to be understood in a figura הקיץ |