at the sepulchre on the eve of the first day of the week: for the night of that eve was the first and the only time when any attempt at the removal of the body of Christ by his disciples, for such a purpose as they supposed, could be expected to take place. Fifthly, the design of the measure being expressly to defeat any clandestine attempt on the part of the followers of our Lord, it was natural that the step should be taken with as much secrecy as possible, especially with respect to them and it is certain that the women, who visited the sepulchre on the morning of the resurrection, were ignorant at the time of the existence of the watch about it but this could scarcely have been the case, had the guard been posted at an earlier period than the night preceding. And this point being thus established, we may proceed to consider the accounts of the resurrection.

DISSERTATION XLIII.

On the Harmony of the accounts of the Resurrection. THE Harmony of the accounts of the Resurrection, if we include under the term not merely the principal fact, but also the several personal manifestations of Jesus Christ to his disciples, by which it was subsequently confirmed, comprises a period of forty days; viz. between the resurrection and the ascension. difficulties, however, which belong to this part of our subject, concern almost exclusively the particulars of a single day, the day of the resurrection itself; the sixteenth of Nisan with the Jews, the seventh of the Julian April and Easter-day with us.

The

The events of this day admit of no other distinct classification, except into the several visits to the tomb and the several manifestations of Christ, which took place upon it; the appearances of the angels, as part of the circumstances belonging to the history of the visits, being consequently included under that: and among these events the testimony of all the Evangelists establishes the following relation at least-that the first manifestation, recorded by any, was posterior to the last visit, recorded by any. The question concerning the visits, therefore, will properly require to be considered before that which concerns the manifestations.

Now with regard to these visits, each of the Evangelists records one-and two of them, St. Luke and St. John, record two; the second, however, in each of these instances, so connected with the first, that it arose, and is described to have arisen, out of the report of those who had made the first. The principal diffi

culty, therefore, still concerns the first; and if that can be satisfactorily adjusted, every other, which concerns merely the second, may be easily accounted for.

If then we compare the several narratives with respect to these in particular; there is so much circumstantial agreement between the one visit recorded by St. Matthew, and the one visit recorded by St. Mark, as to leave no doubt that they must be in the main the same and again, if we compare the account of this one visit, in either of them, with the account of the first visit in St. John; as Mary of Magdala was certainly a party in all the three, all the three must so far have been the same. But if we compare the same account with the history of the first visit in St. Luke, there is no longer any such appearance of agreement between them as would authorize us to pronounce them the same; but on the contrary, so many symptoms of disagreement as render it much more probable that they were distinct. This will be seen more clearly by the help of the following considerations.

Each of these three Evangelists concurs in ascribing the visit to the Holy sepulchre to certain of our Lord's female disciples; and each concurs in ascribing the motive of the visit to the natural and pious desire of completing his funeral obsequies; which the exigency of the time had prevented from being completed on the evening of the crucifixion. With a prospective view both to the motive, and also to the fact, of such a visit, they all, among other particulars connected with the account of our Lord's last moments, specify the presence of certain of these his disciples about his cross, first at his expiration, and subsequently when he was taken down to be buried. And this view appears so much the more distinctly, because, in mentioning these women by name, they particularize at that time

none but those, whom they represent afterwards as joining in the visits to the tomb.

Now our Lord's expiration, as we saw, took place about the ninth hour, or three in the afternoon; when the Parasceue had begun, and the arrival of the sabbath was scarcely three hours distant. The nature of the Parasceue was such as to partake in some respect of the sanctity of the sabbath, or to be an anticipation of the sabbath itself. The testimony of Josephus, it is true, which demonstrated this of it in general, restricted it's sanctity in particular to an immunity from civil business; and, if our Lord was actually alive at the ninth hour, it is evident that neither his body, nor the bodies of the thieves, who did not expire until some time later, could be taken down for interment except during the Parasceue itself. The sanctity of the period, therefore, must be limited to such immunities as Josephus mentioned, and certainly was not so great as to interfere with a business of this kind: or though it had been, still it must have been dispensed with in the present instance, out of deference to the special reasons of the case.

Yet this very necessity would be an additional motive why the ceremony of our Lord's interment should be performed with all possible dispatch. It was the urgency of the time which determined the choice of his sepulchre. In the place where Jesus was crucified there was a garden—and in the garden a sepulchre— there, then, they laid the body of Jesus, because of the Preparation of the Jews; for the sepulchre was nigh at hand. The body of Christ was deposited in that garden and in that grave, not merely because they belonged to Joseph, but because they were the nearest that could be found, and there was no time to take it elsewhere; the sabbath would have arrived in the midst of

the attempt. The funeral ceremonies of the Jews, duly completed, would have taken up a considerable time; and the period of the Parasceue itself, which was all that remained for this purpose, had been prematurely abbreviated by the circumstances which preceded the removal of the body from the cross-the application to Pilate the examination of the centurion-and the other particulars on record: which must needs have occupied time, where there was little or none to be spared.

It is clear, then, that our Lord's interment was hasty; and, consequently, that his funeral solemnities were very inadequately performed. He had predicted, only six days before, that the unction of his body by Mary, the sister of Lazarus, would be the sole embalment which it should receive for the grave. The mixture brought by Nicodemus had perhaps not been duly prepared; and was certainly not duly applied; for it was not the customary method of embalming a body at this period, when liquid perfumes were so generally used, merely to wrap up aromata or spices along with it in grave-clothes *. Besides which,

* Mr. Harmer, (vol. ii. 156. ch. vi. Obs. lx.) is of opinion, in opposition to Dr. Ward, that the Jewish method of embalming dead bodies, resembled the Egyptian both in other respects, and in the circumstance of disembowelling, previous to interment. There is no doubt that the due performance of this last part of the process, if it really was wont to take place, would add considerably to the length of the whole. I think, however, that in this opinion Mr. Harmer is mistaken.

No Jew, it may be presumed,

would have ventured to open a dead body, or to take out any part of it. The Egyptians, Palmyrenes, and others, might disembowel, as Mr. H. contends; but what they did, is no argument of what the Jews would do in the like case.

As the object of embalment in general, and of the disembowelling part in particular, was to obviate the process of natural decay; Martha would not have said of a body embalmed and disembowelled, on the fourth day after the death, on Cel: John xi. 39. Nor could it be