Incredulity of the disci ples.—Such are the suc cessive evidences of the resurrection which the various groups of the ministering women brought to the apostles. They were vouchsafed at two.ap pearances of Christ himself, and three apparitions of angels. We have seen how varied were the processes of conviction in the case of the women. Uniform, however, was the effect produced by their different reports upon the men ; even in variable incredulity. St. Luke, the historian .of this incredulity, expressly mentions the successive messengers, who catne freighted with the mar vellous tidings--(t) Mary Magdalene, and (2) Joanna, and (3) Mary the mother of James,' and whatever other women respectively accompanied them (see xxiv. to ; and, for this distributive sense of the names,* the convincing remarks of Dr. Townson, Discourses, pp. 296, 394-400 ; but their reports vvere uniformly rejected— their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not.' Some allowance must in charity be made for the apostles. They never had under stood the Lord's plainest predictions of the de cease he was to accomplish at Jerusalem ;' vithy should Messiah die (John xii. 34)? Before they had learnt to solve the startling question, his pain ful and ignominious death dashed their fondest hopes to the ground, and they were scattered like sheep, when the shepherd is smitten. This result was not unforeseen by Jesus (Matt. xxvi. 3 t ; Mark xiv. 27); nay, it was indicated in prophecy (Zech. xiii.• 7). The time is now come when they are to be gathered from their dispersion ; and we venture to think that the gentle means employed by the Good Shepherd' to recall them from the consterna tion and grief into which his death had plunged them, affords an irresistible evidence of the truth of the resurrection, by the illustration it yields, at every step, that it was the same Jesus, who in methods of characteristic grace and kindness to his disciples was carrying out, in his post-mortal course, the purpose and counsel which he so often announced to them previous to his death. One reflection we obviously derive from this incredulity bf the apostles. How unreasonable is the objec tion which makes the history of the resurrection au invention of the apostles and their friends ! Some (like Mon. Renan, Vie de Tsus P. 434) imagine this history to be the offspring of the heated imagination of Mary Magdalene. Otheis (and they are the majority of the neocritical school) find in the Evangelists a legendary summary of primitive belief, which took its shape from the fond conceits of the first preachers of Christianity. The best refutation of all such opinions is the simple narrative of the Gospels. This narrative, which is on all hands accepted as the basis of all these speculations, proves most clearly that the apostles and their friends, who were the primitive witnesses of the resurrection, were anything but enthusiasts and framers of legends. They were tardy-minded men ; far from entertaining a preju dicc or expectation of the Lord's restoration from death ; and resisting the manifold evidences of that fact, until disbelief became unreasonable. And as to Mary Magdalene, in whose hallucination' the newest criticism discovers the unsubstantial founda tion of all subsequent faith in the resurrection ( Vie de .Tsus, 1. c.), it happens, that that noble-hearted woman (whose loving devotion to the Saviour is sadly caricatured in Mon. Renan's rhapsody), though blessed with almost the earliest conviction of the illustrious truth of the risen Christ (St. John's being the very earliest), could induce no one to accept her testimony ; for however true it may be that the reports brought by her and the other women may have startled the eleven out of the first inactivity of their despair, they did not impart any conviction to the apostles ; nor is it upon the testimony of the women, much less any one of them, that subsequent Christians received their faith. The strong-minded St. Paul was so emphatic in his belief of the resurrection of Christ as to base the whole value of Christianity upon it alone (1 Cor. xv. 14-18). But while he does this in the strongest possible terms, he in the most studied manner excludes Mary Magdalene and all the other women as witnesses of the historical fact (comp. verses 5-7).
Third Appearance of Chrirt—to Peter.—When Joanna and her companions circulated their tem perate and credible report, it, no doubt, soon reached the ears of that apostle, who of all others, we may well suppose, both from his temperament and the sad memory of his great ingratitude, was the most restless and impatient. We have seen him once at the sepulchre with St. John and Mary Magdalene. This is the visit described in the fourth gospel (xx. 3-to). But St. Luke mentions a hasty visit to the sepulchre as paid by St. Peter alone, the circumstances of which are so different from the former (comp. Luke xxiv. 12), as to justify the supposition that the disquieted apostle, influenced it inay be by the strong view of his friend St. John in favour of the women's reports, went again (perhaps unknown to any) in quest of that conviction which he would gladly cherish, if he could only find evidence to satisfy him. This
time he did not enter the sepulchre, but like St, John on the former occasion, he stooped down, if haply he could behold at least the vision of angels, of which so much was now being said (comp. Luke xxiii. 23). The result of his anxious but reverent gaze was not satisfactory ; and St. Luke—the his torian of the incredulity—mildly includes the amazed apostle among the instances of those whose minds, though disturbed, were as yet unconvinced by all they heard. Once more 'he departed' (un blessed by that angelic service, which, though not permitted to announce to him the gospel, as it had to the women, was still destined to protect him from danger when he should have to preach it to others—Acts v. 19 ; xii. 7), wondering in himself at that which was come to pass.' We can hardly suppose that he reached his home, as on the last occasion (John xx. to), without the blessedness of that full conviction which was in store for his per turbed heart, for we have the assurance of St. Paul that the Lord appeared to him (t Cor. xv. 5), and that appearance, which St. Paul puts as the earliest of the six he mentions, must have taken place in the course of this morning, some time be fore mid-day, as may be gathered from St. Luke's reference to it (xxi v. 34). We are not informed of the details of this interview, nor must we detain ourselves with imagining what passed between the deeply penitent disciple and his most gracious master. The result was not only a happy one to him, who of all the male disciples of the Lord was the first to see the mighty conqueror of death, but full of importance to the entire body of Christ's scattered followers, as tending more than any re corded incident to impress on them that faith which was to reunite them.
Fourth Appearance—on the mad to Emmaus. — One of the most beautiful passages of the post resurrection life of Jesus is narrated by St. Lnke (xxiv. 13-35) with so vivid a portraiture of details as to deter us from the attempt to reproduce the story, lest our own words should injure the effect of it. In perfect contrast to his third appearance to St. Peter, over which a veil of mystery hangs, we have here a full revelation of Christ's next manifestation of himself to two of his non-apostolic followers (of the seventy perhaps), as they were on their way to Emmaus, a village which the sacred historian describes as between seven and eight miles from Jerusalem. Intensely human is the whole tone of this exquisite narrative. Cleopas and his companion were deep in conversation on the events which had happened during the Pass over, which they were leaving with saddened hearts. Jesus, joining company with them, hears their simple but earnest commentary on his own life and death. These were an enigma which they de spaired of solving. His life, in deeds and words, how like—his death, in pain and ignominy, how sin/the—Messiah ! And then the third day was come, a day of strange foreboding to foe and friend ! Foreboding, which was now indeed fill ing their soul with sickening anxiety ; for certain women had, just as they were quitting the city, actually declared that they had at the tomb seen a vision of angels, which said that he was alive ; report which they could not credit, because certain of themselves, having visited the burial-place to test the women's story, had utterly' failed to dis cover a sight of 111.11Z, although they found his grave emptied of its precious charge ! The Lord, who is as a stranger to them, reproves them for their unbelief ; sets forth Messiah's sufferings as the predestined prelude of his gloty, which all their Scriptures, Moses and the prophets alike, might have taught them ; kindles in their tardy, but not unloving hearts, a strange glow of wannest interest, as he adapts his wonderful exposition to restore their drooping hopes ; and, having by this time ar rived at their house and accepted their hospitality, he reveals himself to them in the midst of their consecrated meal. With that divine and awful promptitude, which marks all his movements now, Jesus had no soorier convinced them of his identity, than he mysteriously disappears from their view (dcbapros J-yipero ver. 3 t). They instantly returned to the city and discovered their fellow disciples aroused from their despondency ; for they, too, had been startled by the increasingly persua sive signs of the Lord's resurrection, which his ap pearance to Simon Peter had produced amongst them. Who can describe the thrilling scene at that moment, when the meeting of the discipks aroused with the successive testimony of the apostle first, and then of the two from Emmaus ? But the soul of the reader is still more profoundly moved as he passes on through St. Luke's most ravishing history. The Evangelist has occupied us alone up to this point. St. John now joins in the narra tive*—for a still greater event impends.