agreeable to the circumstances of the case; and such altogether as might be expected, a priori, in an address to the first party of our Saviour's friends and disciples, who might visit his tomb on the morning of the resurrection for any such purpose as is specified in the Gospel narrative. Let us examine the circumstances of the similar address in St. Luke.

It must strike every one who compares them together, that as the address in St Matthew is characterized by a tone of encouragement, gentleness, and condescension, so the address in St. Luke is distinguished by a tone of severity and reproof. It begins with an expostulation: Why seek ye the living, or rather the living one, among the dead? and the tone of this expostulation is maintained throughout; for it proceeds to remind them that when Jesus was still in Galilee, and long before he came to Jerusalem, he had predicted all this; both his death, and at a certain time after his death answering to the present, his resurrection; which was virtually to reproach either their dulness of apprehension, or their want of faith; their dulness, if they had not understood nor remembered his words-their want of faith, if understanding and remembering them both, they had yet come on such an errand as this, which was to expect to find him dead. Nothing so severe as this is to be met with in St. Matthew: nor in fact have the two addresses any thing in common, except merely the particulars interposed between these two members, the repeated assurance that Jesus was not there, but risen: which however is so natural and appropriate, under any circumstances of distinction besides, that it can prove nothing of the identity of the two occasions.

This difference of language and deportment on the part of the angels, would be easily accounted for, if, after

the assurance, received a little while before, the same women, or any part of them, had shortly afterwards returned to the tomb. Now though it is certain, or at least highly probable, that Mary Magdalene in particular could not have been one of the number, it is by no means impossible that the other two, as they were going away, might have fallen in with the party of Johanna, coming to the sepulchre; and having told them what had happened to themselves, instead of persuading them to turn back, might have been induced to go on with them; and in order to satisfy the curiosity which so wonderful a report would naturally excite in their companions, (a report which, when they first heard it, they might not know how to believe,) to come again to the tomb.

The

I propose this, however, only as one conjecture out of many; for I consider it just as probable that the two parties were originally, and continued all the time, distinct. If, indeed, though really distinct they acted on any preconcerted plan, they might not arrive at once, nor yet, probably, much after each other: espepecially as all the Evangelists agree that each of the parties, who paid the first visit to the sepulchre, set out at the earliest possible hour in the morning. transactions at the tomb, with the party of Salome, were not such as to occupy many minutes; so that, however soon a second party might have arrived after them, they might find every thing over, and their predecessors gone away, before their arrival. St. Mark's assertion that the women, on quitting the sepulchre, οὐδενὶ οὐδὲν εἶπον, which would seem to imply that they said nothing to any one, would also seem to imply that their companions themselves did not come in their way for this silence must surely be understood of strangers as such, and not of those who belonged to

their own society. From these latter they would never have concealed the knowledge of what they had seen -especially when they were going with a message to the Apostles themselves: and the reason assigned for their silence, ἐφοβοῦντο γάρ—it is manifest would be partly removed by falling in with persons whom they knew.

I think, then, they did not fall in with any such; and still the angels might address a second party, arriving for the same purpose as the first, but under circumstances somewhat distinct, in a manner not quite the same as before. Nor is their language, after all, so severe as to convey more than a grave expostulation, and a mild rebuke. There was this difference in the situation of the parties addressed, which might produce a corresponding difference in the terms of the address; that the first party, having seen the angel before they had any the least evidence of the resurrection, were bereft of their presence of mind from the first; they had neither time nor capacity for summoning their recollection to their aid, and remembering the predictions of Christ: but the second party having entered the tomb without seeing any one, and examined the interior without finding any thing there, had leisure and opportunity to have reasoned, from existing appearances, to the fact of the resurrection of Christconfirming the conclusion by the recollection of his own assurances-before they were alarmed by the sudden manifestation of the angels: which yet it is evident they did not do; and for this dulness, or this unbelief, they might incur an express rebuke.

The only material objection against the supposition in question is this; that, in recounting the names of those who made a report to the Apostles of what had transpired at the tomb, St. Luke specifies Mary of

Magdala, and Mary the mother of James, as well as Johanna: whence it might be concluded that all were present at the preceding transaction; or that all made the visit in conjunction. Nor would I oppose to this difficulty, what would be only to silence one objection by starting another, how incompatible it must be with the account of St. Matthew or of St. Mark, who make their party to consist of Salome and of the two Maries merely, to include in it Johanna and many others also. It is more to the purpose to observe that the objection will be totally removed, if, as we admitted was not impossible, the party of Salome, after arriving first and visiting the tomb first, as related by St. Matthew and by St. Mark, fell in upon their return with the party of Johanna; and accompanied them to the sepulchre again.

But though this solution of the difficulty should not be embraced, still it may be contended that St. Luke has ended his account of what took place at the tomb, down to the mention of the return of the women, and of the communication of their report to the Apostles, before he specifies the names of any: and when he specifies the names of any, he mentions them only as the names of the parties who made the report; and nothing further: he does not affirm that they were the parties who had visited the tomb, and seen the vision of the angels, as related by himself just before. On the contrary, neither when preparing to record that visit-nor earlier, when alluding to the presence and cooperation of the same parties about the cross and at the burial of Jesus-does he mention the

names of any. Considering the singular accuracy of this Evangelist, even in the slightest particulars, we may look upon this silence as not without design; and the reason of it may be that out of this

number, which did not, as I suppose, include either Salome or the two Maries, the only person likely to be known to his readers, because the only one to whom an allusion had occurred in his Gospel before, was Johanna, the wife of Chuzas the procurator of Herod.

The

If, then, he intended to specify by name those women alone, who concurred in making a like report of what they had seen or heard at the tomb, to others who had not been thither, there may be an omission in this part of his narrative-but there is no inconsistency in it, as compared with the accounts of the rest. women of the first party made a report to the Apostles, as well as those of the second: the substance of each report was exactly the same; and it might truly be said in reference to both parties, because they had each precisely a similar communication to make, that they related these things to the Apostles, and to all the rest. What they related is thus stated by one of the number to whom it was related, Cleopas, in his discourse with our Lord himself: ἀλλὰ καὶ γυναῖκές τινες ἐξ ἡμῶν ἐξέστησαν ἡμᾶς, γενόμεναι ὄρθριαι ἐπὶ τὸ μνημεῖον· καὶ μὴ εὑροῦσαι τὸ σῶμα αὐτοῦ, ἦλθον λέγουσαι καὶ ὀπτασίαν ἀγγέλων ἑωρακέναι, οἳ λέγουσιν αὐτὸν ζῆν. Luke xxiv. 22, 23. It is indifferent to which of the reports this summary of particulars is supposed to refer; for it is a correct description of either.

On the question, however, of the supposed omission generally, the consideration, of which we have already, in so many instances, experienced the benefit, viz. regard and attention to the supplementary character of the later Gospels, will be equally useful to us now. On this principle, the account of St. Matthew must be taken along with that of St. Mark, the account of both with St. Luke's, and the account of all the three with St. John's,