i 7 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



is said that no Jew would have violated the Sabbath by taking 

 the former course, it is to be recollected that Joseph of Arimathsea 

 might well be familiar with that wise and liberal interpretation of 

 the fourth commandment, which permitted works of mercy to 

 men — nay even the drawing of an ox or an ass out of a pit — on the 

 Sabbath. At any rate, the Saturday night was free to the most 

 scrupulous observers of the law. 



These are the facts of the case as stated by the oldest extant 

 narrative of them. I do not see why any one should have a word 

 to say against the inherent probability of that narrative ; and, for 

 my part, I am quite ready to accept it as an historical fact, that 

 so much and no more is positively known of the end of Jesus of 

 Nazareth. On what grounds can a reasonable man be asked to 

 believe any more ? So far as the narrative in the first Gospel, on 

 the one hand, and those in the third Gospel and the Acts, on the 

 other go beyond what is stated in the second Gospel, they are hope- 

 lessly discrepant with one another. And this is the more signifi- 

 cant because the pregnant phrase " some doubted," in the first Gos- 

 pel, is ignored in the third. 



But it is said that we have the witness Paul speaking to us 

 directly in the Epistles. There is little doubt that we have, and a 

 very singular witness he is. According to his own showing, Paul, 

 in the vigor of his manhood, with every means of becoming ac- 

 quainted, at first hand, with the evidence of eye-witnesses, not 

 merely refused to credit them, but " persecuted the church of God 

 and made havoc of it." The reasoning of Stephen fell dead upon 

 the acute intellect of this zealot for the traditions of his fathers : 

 his eyes were blind to the ecstatic illumination of the martyr's 

 countenance " as it had been the face of an angel " ; and when, at 

 the words " Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of man 

 standing on the right hand of God," the murderous mob rushed 

 upon and stoned the rapt disciple of Jesus, Paul ostentatiously 

 made himself their official accomplice. 



Yet this strange man, because he has a vision one day, at once, 

 and with equally headlong zeal, flies to the opposite pole of opin- 

 ion. And he is most careful to tell us that he abstained from any 

 re-examination of the facts. 



Immediately I conferred not with flesh and Mood ; neither went I up to Jerusa- 

 lem to them which were apostles before me; hut I went away into Arabia. (Gala- 

 tians i, 16, 17.) 



I do not presume to quarrel with Paul's procedure. If it satis- 

 fied him, that was his affair ; and, if it satisfies any one else, I am 

 not called upon to dispute the right of that person to be satisfied. 

 But I certainly have the right to say that it would not satisfy me, 

 in like case ; that I should be very much ashamed to pretend that 

 it could, or ought to, satisfy me ; and that I can entertain but a 



