THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST, 



151 



It is really a hopeless task to attempt, as Professor Kirsopp 

 LaKe does, to reduce all these authorities to one, and to main- 

 tain that the only solid nucleus of fact implied in them, which can 

 survive the acid test of criticism is that a party of women were 

 met by a young man whose innocent attempt to explain to them 

 that they were looking into the wrong tomb frightened them so 

 much that they raji away and said nothing to anyone. For 

 instance, in India, I am given to understand that it is not unusual 

 for a man, when pressed for payment on a bogus claim, instead 

 of challenging the claim directly to put in a forged receipt. But 

 this will hardly justify us in assuming that the Jews invented 

 the lie with regard to the stealing away of the Body by the 

 disciples to explain a groundless claim on the part of the 

 Christians that they had found the Tomb empty. 



The account in St. John presents indeed features which will re- 

 pay more careful examination. It is chiefly remarkable for the 

 stress laid on the position in which the grave-cloths, including the 

 napkin that had been about the head, were found lying in the 

 Tomb. This seems at first merely a picturesque detail, which 

 indeed, like the reference to the water pot left behind by the 

 Samaritan woman, suggests the presence of an eye-witness, but 

 seems to have no further significance. The only moral that I 

 remember having seen drawn from it related to the tidiness of the 

 Ministering Angels. 



As soon, however, as attention is drawn to the fact, it becomes 

 clear that the presence of the grave-cloths without the Body 

 is a very remarkable phenomenon. It precludes at once the 

 hypothesis that the Body had been stolen, or, as has been most 

 ingeniously suggested, swallowed up by the earthquake. It 

 equally, I think, precludes the hypothesis of a recovery from a 

 prolonged trance or swoon. Lazarus, we remember, came forth 

 from his tomb bound hand and foot with grave-cloths and his 

 face bound about with a napkin. One suggestion, as far aa I 

 know, and only one has been given, which simply and completely 

 accounts for the phenomena. It is the suggestion worked out 

 with great skill by the Eev. Henry Latham, Master of Trinity 

 Hall, Cambridge, in The Risen Master. It is that at the Eesur- 

 rection the Lord's Body passed out of the grave-cloths, leaving 

 them undisturbed, just as afterwards it passed freely into and uiit 

 of a room with closed doors. 



Some such interpretation as this the disciple whom Jesus 

 loved " must have put on the facts, for " he saw and believed." 

 He was, indeed, I fancy, a little ashamed of having needed the 

 assistance of the sight to quicken his faith, for he goes on to say 

 apologetically, " For as yet they knew not the Scripture that He 

 must rise from the dead." A deeper faith, he* seems to feel, 



