The Apostles. Ernest Renan

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СКАЧАТЬ and that their bodies were sepulchred at Hebron, alive and animated.{1.4} To Jesus had happened the same fortune which is the lot of all men who have riveted the attention of their fellow-men. The world, accustomed to attribute to them superhuman virtues, could not admit that they had submitted to the unjust, revolting, iniquitous law of the death common to all. At the moment at which Mahomet expired, Omar rushed from the tent, sword in hand, and declared that he would hew down the head of any one who should dare to say that the prophet was no more.[1.5]

      Death is so absurd a thing when it smites the man of genius or the man of large heart, that people will not believe in the possibility of such an error on the part of nature. Heroes do not die. What is true existence but the recollection of us which survives in the hearts of those who love us? For some years this adored Master had filled the little world by which He was surrounded with joy and hope; could they consent to allow Him to the decay of the tomb? No; He had too entirely lived in those who surrounded Him, that they could but affirm that after His death He would live for ever.{1.6}

      The day which followed the burial of Jesus (Saturday, the 15th of the month Nisan), was occupied with such thoughts as these. All manual labor was forbidden on account of the Sabbath. But never was repose more fruitful. The Christian conscience had, on that day, only one object; the Master laid low in the tomb. The women, especially, overwhelmed him in spirit with the most tender caresses. Their thoughts leave not for an instant this sweet friend, lying in His myrrh, whom the wicked had slain! Ah! doubtless, the angels are surrounding Him, and veiling their faces with His shroud. Well did He say that He should die, that His death would be the salvation of the sinner, and that He should live again in the kingdom of His father. Yes! He shall live again; God will not leave His Son a prey to hell; He will not suffer His elect to see corruption.{1.7} What is this tombstone which weighs upon Him? He will raise it up; He will reascend to the right hand of His Father, whence He descended. And we shall see Him again; we shall hear His charming voice; we shall enjoy afresh His conversations, and they will have slain Him in vain.

      The belief in the immortality of the soul, which through the influence of the Grecian philosophy has become a dogma of Christianity, is easily permitted to take the part of death; because the dissolution of the body, by this hypothesis, is nothing else than a deliverance of the soul, hereafter freed from the troublesome bonds without which it is able to exist. But this theory of man, considered as a being composed of two substances, was by no means clear to the Jews. The reign of God and the reign of the spirit consisted, in their ideas, in a complete transformation of the world and in the annihilation of death.{1.8} To acknowledge that death could have the victory over Jesus, over him who came to abolish the power of death, this was the height of absurdity. The very idea that he could suffer had previously been revolting to his disciples.{1.9} They had no choice, then, between despair or heroic affirmation. A man of penetration might have announced during the Saturday that Jesus would arise. The little Christian society, on that day, worked the veritable miracle; they resuscitated Jesus in their hearts by the intense love which they bore towards him. They decided that Jesus had not died. The love of these passionately fond souls was, truly, stronger than death;{1.10} and as the characteristic of a passionate love is to be communicated, to light up like a torch a sentiment which resembles it and is straightway indefinitely propagated; so Jesus, in one sense, at the time of which we are speaking, is already resuscitated. Only let a material fact, insignificant of itself, allow the persuasion that his body is no longer here below, and the dogma of the resurrection will be established for ever.

      This was exactly what happened in the circumstances which, being partly obscure on account of the incoherence of their traditions, and above all on account of the contradictions which they present, have nevertheless been seized upon with a sufficient degree of probability.{1.11}

      On the Sunday morning, at a very early hour, the women of Galilee who on Friday evening had hastily embalmed the body, repaired to the cave where they had provisionally deposited it. These were, Mary of Magdala, Mary Cleophas, Salome, Joanna, wife of Khouza, and others.{1.12} They came, probably, each from her own abode; for if it is difficult to call in question the tradition of the three synoptical Gospels, according to which many women came to the tomb,{1.13} it is certain, on the other hand, that in the two most authentic accounts{1.14} which we possess of the resurrection, Mary of Magdala plays her part alone. In any case, she had at this solemn moment a part to play altogether out of the common order of events. It is her that we must follow step by step; for she bore on that day during one hour all the burden of the Christian conscience; her witness decided the faith of the future. We must remember that the cave, wherein the body of Jesus was inclosed, had been recently hewn out of the rock, and that it was situated in a garden hard by the place of execution.{1.15} For this latter reason only had it been selected, seeing that it was late in the day, and that they were unwilling to violate the Sabbath.{1.16} The first Gospel alone adds one circumstance, viz. that the cave was the property of Joseph of Arimathea. But, in general, the anecdotical circumstances added by the first Gospel to the common fund of tradition are without value, above all when it treats of the last days of the life of Jesus.{1.17} The same Gospel mentions another detail which, considering the silence of the others, is destitute of probability; viz. the fact of the seals and of a guard detailed to the tomb.{1.18} We must also recollect that the mortuary vaults were low chambers hewn in the side of a sloping rock, on which was contrived a vertical cutting. The door, usually downwards, was closed by a very heavy stone, which fitted into a rabbet.{1.19} These chambers had no locks secured with keys; the weight of the stone was the sole safeguard they possessed against robbers and profaners of tombs; thus were they arranged in such a manner that either mechanical power or the united effort of several persons was necessary to remove the stone. All the traditions are agreed on this point, that the stone had been placed at the orifice of the vault on the Friday evening.

      But when Mary Magdala arrived on the Sunday morning, the stone was not in its place. The vault was open. The body was no longer there. The idea of the resurrection was with her, as yet, but little developed. That which occupied her soul was a tender regret, and the desire to pay funeral honors to the corpse of her divine friend. Her first feelings then were those of surprise and grief. The disappearance of this cherished corpse had taken away from her the last joy on which she had depended. She could never touch him again with her hands. And what was he become? … The idea of a profanation presented itself to her, and she revolted at it. Perhaps, at the same time, a ray of hope beamed across her mind. Without losing a moment, she runs to the house where Peter and John were reunited.{1.20}

      “They have taken away the body of our Master,” she said, “and we know not where they have laid him.” The two disciples arise hastily and run with all their might. John, the younger, arrives first. He stoops down to look into the interior. Mary was right. The tomb was empty. The linen cloths which had served as his shroud were lying apart in the vault. In his turn Peter arrives. The two enter, examine the linen cloths, no doubt spotted with blood, and remark, in particular, the napkin which had enveloped his head rolled by itself in one corner of the cave.{1.21} Peter and John returned to their homes overwhelmed with grief. If they did not then pronounce the decisive words, “He is risen!” we may affirm that such a consequence was their irrevocable conclusion, and that the creative dogma of Christianity was already propounded.

      Peter and John having departed from the garden, Mary remained alone at the edge of the cave. She wept copiously; one sole thought preoccupied her mind: Where had they put the body?

      Her woman’s heart went no further from her desire to clasp again in her arms the beloved corpse. Suddenly she hears a light rustling behind her. There is a man standing. At first she believes it to be the gardener. “Oh!” she says, “if thou hast borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, that I may take him away.” For the only answer, she thinks that she hears herself called by her name, “Mary!” It was the voice that had so often thrilled her before. It was the accent of Jesus. “Oh, my master!” she cries. She is about to touch him. A sort of instinctive movement throws her at his feet to kiss them.{1.22}

      The light vision gives way and says to her, “Touch me not.” Little by little the СКАЧАТЬ