VI.

TO THE SEVEN, BY THE LAKE.

AUTHORITIES: Jo. xxi. 1-23; Gospel of Peter (?) 12.

We have now reached a difficulty which has given some occasion to those who are disposed to doubt the truth of the Resurrection narratives, and some uneasiness to those who believe.

The Marcan tradition1 represents the angel at the tomb as saying to the women on the morning of the Resurrection Day, Go tell his disciples and Peter, He goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him; and the first Gospel adds that this message was endorsed by the risen Lord Himself, in whose mouth it became an explicit direction to the Eleven to return to the north: Go tell my brethren that they depart into Galilee. S. Luke, however, shews no knowledge of any such precept, or of any return from Jerusalem; while S. John, who places one of the appearances in Galilee, keeps the Eleven in Jerusalem for a full week after Easter Day.

1 Mc., Mt.

If the Apostles received from the women the message of the angel, it is strange that they should have lingered in Jerusalem after their business was done.1 It is true that the seven days of the feast were not ended before Thursday night on the week following the Resurrection, and as the Gospel of Peter suggests, it may have been expedient to remain till then, in order to return in the caravan with other Galilean visitors.2 But why should they have stayed to the octave of the Resurrection? Had the Lord Himself at His first meeting with the Eleven arranged another meeting on the evening of the first day of the following week? Was it His purpose in this way to suggest a weekly commemoration of the Resurrection, at which, after the Ascension, His Church might still meet with Him in the breaking of the Bread? Who that realizes the foresight and forethought of the Master can doubt that this is a possible explanation of the prolonged stay in the city? If so, the problem is partly solved.

3

1 Renan (Les Apôtres, p. 28) speaks of the nostalgie which forced them to return. There is certainly no trace of home-sickness in their conduct, as the Gospels describe it.

2 Petr. ev. 12 ἦν δὲ τελευταία ἡμέρα τῶν ἀζύμων καὶ πολλοί τινες εξήρχοντο, ὑποστρέφοντες εἰς τοὺς οἴκους αὐτῶν τῆς ἑορτῆς παυσαμένης.

3 Latham (p. 175) thinks that His intention was to provide a time of rest and quiet for the quickening of the 'seed thoughts' sown upon Easter Day.

There remains, however, the apparent inconsistency between the statement that the Lord was going into Galilee, followed by the words, There shall ye see him, and the facts for which the third and fourth Gospels vouch, that He appeared to the Eleven in Jerusalem, and that whether by His command or not, they remained in the city for at least a week after the Resurrection. But again the difficulty may be due to imperfect knowledge. We possess but fragments of the story, and we must not wonder if we cannot always piece them together. What if the promise that the Eleven should see the risen Lord in Galilee referred only to the greater manifestations, the larger visions, which were to be vouchsafed among the scenes of the ministry? As for S. Luke's complete silence as to a return to the north, it is unreasonable to construe it as an argument against the Marcan tradition. There is reason to think that the third Evangelist had before him the work of the second, and if he omitted all reference to the Galilean appearances, he did so because he had access to other information which would fully occupy his space. He tells the Emmaus incident at such length that he finds it necessary to pass on from the Resurrection to the Ascension without giving more than a bare summary of the teaching of the intermediate days; for he is hurry

ing on to a second part of his history which will begin with another short account of the same period, so far as it may be necessary to introduce the story of the Ascension and the postAscension work of the Church.1

The order of the appearances in Galilee cannot be determined with certainty. But it will be convenient to begin with the incident which the appendix to S. John 2 places next after the appearances to Thomas and the Ten, and regards as third among the greater manifestations of the forty days.3

The Gospel of Peter, after relating the return of the Galilean visitors, proceeds; 'But I, Simon Peter, and Andrew my brother, took our nets and went to the sea, and there was with us Levi, the son of Alphaeus, whom the Lord' . . Here the fragment ends abruptly. But it can scarcely be doubted that the writer is about to relate the incident which we find in the appendix to S. John. The group indeed is not quite the same;

1 Acts i. I-II. It is true that even here S. Luke does not mention Galilee. But (1) Jerusalem is the centre of interest in view of the history of the Acts, and (2) in so brief a summary he has no occasion to enter into details as to the locality of the appearances.

2Jo. xxi. stands on a different plane from Mc. xvi. 9-20, being clearly the work of the writer or school of writers to whom we owe the rest of the Gospel: cf. Sanday, Criticism of the Fourth Gospel, pp. 63, 80 f.

Jo. xxi. 14. Not absolutely the third, since according to c. xx. the Lord had appeared at least three times before.

in the Petrine Gospel it consists of Peter, Andrew, and Matthew; in the Johannine Gospel, of Peter, Thomas, Nathanael, the sons of Zebedee, and two unnamed disciples, who may have been Andrew and Matthew, though the suppression of their names is against this identification. But in one important point the two accounts agree; both represent the disciples as occupation on the Lake.

going back to their 'We took our nets,'1

1

One

Peter is made to say by the Petrine writer; I go a-fishing, he says in S. John's story, whereupon the rest answer, We also come with thee. asks oneself with what purpose Peter and his party returned to their nets: whether it was merely to provide themselves with a meal, or whether with the intention of resuming their old life. Had they forgotten the great work opened before them by the commission received on Easter night? or had they never realized its meaning? No doubt it was a time of waiting, of uncertainty, even of suspense; nearly a fortnight had passed since the Resurrection, and no plans had yet been formed for the future.2 It may have been that a crisis was near; a little further delay, and Peter and the rest might have once more become

1Tà Xiva; so cod. 604-700 at Mc. i. 18.

2 That a great future was before them was implied by the words in Jo. xx. 21 ff.; but no details had been given.