CHAP. I. Effects of trine. The calm inquirer into the history of human nature, as displayed in the existing records of our race, if unhappily disinclined to receive the Christian faith as a divine revelation, must nevertheless this docbehold in this point of time the crisis, and in this circumstance the governing principle, of the destinies of mankind during many centuries of their most active and fertile development. A new race of passions was introduced into the political arena, as well as into the individual heart, or rather the natural and universal passions were enlisted in the service of more absorbing and momentous interests. The fears and hopes by which man is governed, took a wider range, embracing the future life in many respects with as much, or even stronger, energy and intenseness than the present. The stupendous dominion erected by the church, the great characteristic feature of modern history, rested almost entirely on this basis; it ruled as possessing an inherent power over the destiny of the soul in a future world. It differed in this primary principle of its authority from the sacerdotal castes of antiquity. The latter rested their influence on hereditary claims to superiority over the rest of mankind; and though they dealt some Glauben emporwachsende Seligkeit so, wie in Schleiermacher's eigener Darstellung in den Hintergrund tritt, so ganz nur als eine beilaüfige, in Bezug auf das Wie ganz und gar problematisch bleibende Folgerung, ja fast als eine hors d'œuvre hinzugebracht wird: da wird auch demjenigen Bewusstsein welches seine diesseitige Befriedigung in II. BOOK times, more or less largely, in the terrors and hopes of another state of being, especially in defence of their own power and privileges, theirs was a kind of mixed aristocracy of birth and priestcraft. But if this new and irresistible power lent itself, in certain stages of society, to human ambition, and as a stern and inflexible lictor, bowed down the whole mind of man to the fasces of a spiritual tyranny, it must be likewise contemplated in its far wider and more lasting, though perhaps less imposing character, as the parent of all which is purifying, ennobling, unselfish, in Christian civilisation; as a principle of every humanising virtue which philosophy must ever want; of self-sacrifice, to which the patriotism of antiquity shrinks into a narrow and national feeling: and as introducing a doctrine of equality as sublime, as it is without danger to the necessary gradations which must exist in human society. Since the promulgation of Christianity, the immortality of the soul, and its inseparable consequence, future retribution, have not only been assumed by the legislator as the basis of all political institutions, but the general mind has been brought into such complete unison with the spirit of the laws so founded, that the individual repugnance to the principle has been constantly overborne by the general predominant sentiment. In some periods it has seemed to survive the religion on which it was founded. Wherever, at all events, it operates upon the individual or social mind, wherever it is even tacitly admitted and assented to by the prevalent feeling of mankind, I. it must be traced to the profound influence which CHAP. Christianity has, at least at one time, exercised over the inner nature of man. This was the moral revolution which set into activity, before unprecedented, and endowed with vitality, till then unknown, this great ruling agent in the history of the world. Still, however, as though almost unconscious of Style of the Evangelthe future effects of this event, the narratives of ists. the Evangelists as they approach this crisis in their own, as well as in the destinies of man, preserve their serene and unempassioned flow. Each follows his own course, with precisely that discrepancy which might be expected among inartificial writers relating the same event, without any mutual understanding or reference to each other's work, but all with the same equable and unexalted tone. The Sabbath passed away without disturbance or commotion. The profound quiet which prevailed in the crowded capital of Judæa on the seventh day, at these times of rigid ceremonial observance, was unbroken by the partizans of Jesus. Yet even the Sabbath did not restrain the leading members of the Sanhedrin from taking the necessary precautions to guard the body of their victim: their hostile jealousy, as has been before observed, was more alive to the predictions of the resurrection than the attachment of the disciples. To prevent any secret or tumultuous attempt of the followers to possess themselves of the remains of their Master, they caused a seal to be attached BOOK The women at the sepulchre. Į to the stone which formed the door to the sepulchral enclosure, and stationed the guard, which was at their disposal, probably for the preservation of the public peace, in the garden around the tomb. The guard being Roman, might exercise their military functions on the sacred day. The disciples were no doubt restrained by the sanctity of the Sabbath, as well as by their apprehensions of re-awakening the popular indignation, even from approaching the burial-place of their Master. The religion of the day lulled alike the passions of the rulers, the popular tumult, the fears and the sorrows of the disciples. It was not till the early dawn of the following morning that some of the women set out to pay the last melancholy honours at the sepulchre. They had bought some of those precious drugs, which were used for the preservation of the remains of the more opulent, on the evening of the crucifixion; and though the body had been anointed and wrapt in spices in the customary manner, previously to the burial, this further mark of respect was strictly according to usage. But this circumstance, thus casually mentioned, clearly shows that the women, at least, had no hope whatever of any change which could take place as to the body of Jesus.† * Matt. xxviii.; Mark, xvi.; Luke, xxiv.; John, xx. In a prolusion of Griesbach, De fontibus unde Evangelistæ suas de resurrectione Domini narrationes hauserint, it is observed, that the Evangelists seem to have dwelt on those particular points in which they were personally concerned. This appears to furnish a very simple key to their apparent discrepancies. John, who received his first intelligence from Mary Magdalene, makes her the principal person in his narrative, while Matthew, who, with the rest of the I. The party of women consisted of Mary of Magdala, CHAP. a town near the lake of Tiberias; Mary, the wife of Alpheus, mother of James and Joses; Joanna, wife of Chuza, Herod's steward; and Salome "the mother of Zebedee's children." They were all Galileans, and from the same neighbourhood; all faithful attendants on Jesus, and related to some of the leading disciples. They set out very early; and as perhaps they had to meet from different quarters, some not unlikely from Bethany, the sun was rising before they reached the garden. Before their arrival, the earthquake or atmospheric commotion * had taken place; the tomb had burst open; and the terrified guard had fled to the city. Of the sealing of the stone, and the placing of the guard, they appear to have been ignorant, as, in the most natural manner, they seem suddenly to remember the difficulty of removing the ponderous stone which closed the sepulchre, and which would require the strength of several men to raise it from its place. Sepulchres in the East, those at least belonging to men of rank and opulence, were formed of an outward small court or enclosure, the entrance to which was covered by a huge stone; disciples, derived his information from the other women, gives their relation, and omits the appearance of Jesus to the Magdalene. St. Mark gives a few additional minute particulars, but the narrative of St. Luke is altogether more vague and general. He blends together, as a later historian, studious of compression, the two separate transactions ; he ascribes to the women collectively that communi- * Σεισμος is rather an ambiguous |