The Apostles. Ernest Renan

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      But the miracle of love is accomplished. That which Cephas could not do, Mary has done; she has been able to draw life, sweet and penetrating words from the empty tomb. There is now no more talk of inferences to be deduced, or of conjectures to be framed. Mary has seen and heard. The resurrection has its first direct witness.

      Frantic with love, intoxicated with joy, Mary returned to the city; and to the first disciples whom she met, she says, “I have seen Him, He has spoken to me.”{1.24} Her greatly agitated mind{1.25}, her broken and disconnected accents of speech, caused her to be taken by some persons for one demented.{1.26} Peter and John, in their turn, relate what they had seen; other disciples go to the tomb and see likewise.{1.27} The fixed conviction of all this first party was that Jesus had risen again. Many doubts still existed; but the assurance of Mary, of Peter, and of John, imposed upon the others. At a later date, this was called “the vision of Peter.”{1.28}

      Paul, in particular, does not speak of the vision of Mary, and attributes all the honor of the first apparition to Peter. But this expression is very indefinite. Peter only saw the empty cave, and the linen cloth and the napkin. Only Mary loved enough to pass the bounds of nature and revive the shade of the perfect master. In these kinds of marvellous crises, to see after the others is nothing; all the merit is in seeing for the first time, for the others afterwards model their visions on the received type. It is the peculiarity of fine organizations to conceive the image promptly, justly, and with a sort of intimate sense of the end. The glory of the resurrection belongs, then, to Mary of Magdala. After Jesus, it is Mary who has done most for the foundation of Christianity. The shadow created by the delicate sensibility of Magdalene wanders still on the earth. Queen and patroness of idealists, Magdalene knew better than any one how to assert her dream, and impose on every one the vision of her passionate soul. Her great womanly affirmation: “He has risen,” has been the basis of the faith of humanity. Away, impotent reason! Apply no cold analysis to this chef-d'œuvre of idealism and of love. If wisdom refuses to console this poor human race, betrayed by fate, let folly attempt the enterprise. Where is the sage who has given to the world as much joy as the possessed Mary of Magdala?

      The other women, meanwhile, who had been to the tomb, spread abroad different reports.{1.29} They had not seen Jesus;{1.30} but they told of a man clothed in white, whom they had seen in the cave, and who had said to them: “He is no longer here, return into Galilee: He will go before you, there shall ye see Him.”{1.31}

      Perhaps it was the white linen clothes which had given rise to this hallucination. Perhaps, again, they saw nothing at all, and only began to speak of their vision when Mary of Magdala had related hers. According to one of the most authentic texts,{1.32} indeed, they maintained silence for some time, and their silence was subsequently attributed to terror. However that may be, these stories continued hourly to increase, as well as to undergo strange transformations. The man in white became an angel of God; it was told how that his clothing was glistening like the snow, and his figure like lightning. Others spoke of two angels, of whom one appeared at the head and the other at the foot of the tomb.{1.33} In the evening, it is possible that many persons believed already that the women had seen the angel descend from heaven, take away the stone, and Jesus then shoot forth with a crash.{1.34} They themselves, no doubt, varied in their narratives;{1.35} suffering from the effect of the imagination of others, as always happens to people of the lower orders, they scrupled not to introduce all sorts of embellishments, and were thus participators in the creation of the legend which took its rise amongst them and concerning them.

      The day was stormy and decisive. The little company was sadly dispersed. Some of them had already departed for Galilee, others hid themselves from fear.{1.36} The deplorable scene of the Friday, the heart-rending spectacle which they had before their eyes when they saw Him of whom they had hoped such great things expire upon the gibbet, without His Father having come to deliver him, had, moreover, shocked the faith of many. The news spread by the women and by Peter had been received by many of them with scarce dissembled incredulity.{1.37} The different stories contradicted one another; the women went hither and thither with strange and conflicting stories, each surpassing the other. The most opposite ideas were propounded. Some of them still deplored the sad event of the previous evening; others were already rejoicing: all were disposed to collect the most extraordinary tales. Meanwhile the mistrust which the excitement of Mary of Magdala caused,{1.38} the want of authority on the part of the women, together with the incoherence of their several stories, produced great doubts. They were on the watch for new visions, which could not fail to appear. The state of the sect was entirely favorable to the propagation of strange rumors. If the entire little Church had been assembled, the legendary creation would have been impossible; those who knew the secret of the disappearance of the body would probably have protested against the error. But in the confusion which prevailed amongst them, an opportunity was afforded for the most fruitful misunderstandings.

      It is the characteristic of those states of mind in which ecstasy and apparitions are commonly generated, to be contagious.{1.39} The history of all the great religious crises proves that these kinds of visions are catching; in an assembly of persons entertaining the same beliefs, it is enough for one member of the society to affirm that he sees or hears something supernatural, and the others will also see and hear it. Amongst the persecuted Protestants, a report was spread that angels had been heard chanting psalms in the ruins of a recently destroyed temple; the whole company went to the place and heard the same psalm.{1.40} In cases of this kind, the most excited are those who make the law and who regulate the common atmospheric heat. The exaltation of individuals is transmitted to all the members; no one will be behind or confess that he is less favored than the others. Those who see nothing are carried away by excitement, and come to imagine either that they are not so clear-sighted as others, or that they do not give a just account of their feelings; in every case they are careful not to avow their distrust: they would be disturbers of the common joy, they would be causing sadness to the others, and would be themselves acting a disagreeable part. When, then, an apparition is brought forward in such meetings as these, the usual result is, that all either see it or accept it. We must remember, moreover, what degree of intellectual culture was possessed by the disciples of Jesus. What we call a weak head is well accompanied by perfect goodness of heart. The disciples believed in phantoms;{1.41} they imagined that they were surrounded by miracles; they took no part whatever in the positive science of the time. This science flourished amongst a few hundreds of men who were only to be found in the countries to which the civilization of the Greeks had penetrated. But the common people, in all countries, knew very little about it. In this respect Palestine was one of the most backward countries; the Galileans were the most ignorant of the inhabitants of Palestine, and the disciples of Jesus might be counted amongst the number of the most simple people of Galilee. It was to this very simplicity that they owed their heavenly election. Among such a people, belief in the marvellous discovered the most extraordinary channels of propagation. The idea of the resurrection of Jesus being once circulated, numerous visions would be the result. And so, indeed, it came to pass.

      Even during the course of that very Sunday, at an advanced period of the forenoon, when the stories of the woman had already been freely circulated, two disciples, one of whom was called Cleopatras or Cleopas, set out on a short journey to a village called Emmaus,{1.42} situated a short distance from Jerusalem.{1.43} They were conversing together respecting the recent events, and were full of sadness. On the road an unknown companion joined them and inquired the cause of their deep grief: “Art thou, then, the only stranger at Jerusalem,” they said to him, “that thou knowest not what things are come to pass there? Hast thou not heard of Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people? Knowest thou not how that the chief priests and rulers have condemned him to death and crucified him? We trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel; and besides all this, to-day is the third day since these things were done—yea, and certain women, also, of our company made us astonished who were early at the sepulchre; and when they found not his body, they came, saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. And certain of them who were with us went to the sepulchre, and found it even so as the women had said; but him they СКАЧАТЬ