IX.

TO THE ELEVEN, BEFORE ASCENDING.

AUTHORITIES: 'Mc.' xvi. 19-20; Lc. xxiv. 44 (?)-52; Acts i. 4 (?)-II ; I Cor. xv. 7.

THE appearance to James, the Lord's brother, was followed, as S. Paul tells us, by an appearance 'to all the Apostles," i.e. to the Apostles as a body, the Eleven assembled in one place. Since S. Paul's own experience on the Damascus road is mentioned. immediately afterwards, this appearance to the Eleven may be taken to be the final interview, or group of interviews, before the Ascension, of which we have some account in the third Gospel and the Acts.

S. Luke, who, as we have seen, takes no notice of the return of the Eleven to Galilee after the Passover, distinctly places the last scenes in Jerusalem and its neighbourhood. His omission of the appearances in Galilee is more than discounted by the narratives of S. Matthew (who in

11 Cor. xv. 7 εἶτα τοῖς ἀποστόλοις πᾶσιν.

all probability followed S. Mark) and S. John; but his positive evidence remains unshaken, and it compels us to suppose that the fifth or sixth week after the Passover saw the Apostles and their party again in Judaea. We are left in ignorance of the reason for their return to the south; it was scarcely the approach of the Pentecost which brought them back to Jerusalem, for the Pentecost was at least a week after the Ascension.1 Possibly as their steps had been guided to Galilee, so now they were directed by the Lord to return to Jerusalem; 'there,' He may have said at the last interview in Galilee, 'ye shall see me again.' While Galilee, with its associations and its comparative security, was admirably fitted for the manifestations which were vouchsafed there, Jerusalem was the destined scene of the beginnings of the Church's life and work, and it was in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem that the last events of the forty days must take place.

2

If we suppose the Eleven to have spent a fortnight in Galilee, it was still possible for them to be at Jerusalem again at the end of the fifth week

1 Even if we accepted the statement of the Ep. of Barnabas (§ 15, ad fin.) that the Ascension took place on the first day of the week.

2 Renan's explanation (Les Apôtres, p. 45: 'Le retour à Jérusalem fut donc résolu par ceux qui à ce moment dirigeaient la secte') presupposes an organization which at the time did not exist.

3 Lc. xxiv. 47, Acts i. 4, 8.

after Easter. We will think of them as once more assembled at Jerusalem in the large upper room where they had met on the night of the Resurrection Day. It is the first day of the sixth week since the Passover;1 the hour is late and the doors are shut. Once more Jesus stands in the midst. But there is now no panic, scarcely any surprise; such appearances had grown familiar, and it may be that on this occasion, as once or twice before, the day and the place had been determined beforehand.

2

In S. Luke's compressed narratives there are only faint marks of any break in the series of teachings which began on Easter night. In these circumstances opinions naturally differ as to the arrangement of the materials. Let us suppose that Luke xxiv. 44-46 or 47 belongs to the Sunday before the Ascension and the rest to the day of the Ascension. On this assumption the earlier instruction turns on two points the fulfilment of the Old Testament in the passion and resurrection of the Christ; the carrying out of the purpose of the New Covenant

1 This is of course purely conjectural. But it is clear from Lc. xxiv. 50, 52, Acts i. 12 that the final instructions began in Jerusalem and ended on the Mount of Olives; and the nature of the instructions as they are sketched in S. Luke's two accounts suggests that more than one interview must have taken place.

2 εἶπεν δὲ αὐτοῖς (ν. 44), καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς (v. 46). Cf. Acts i. 4 συναλιζόμενος παρήγγειλεν αὐτοῖς, ib. 6 οἱ μὲν οὖν συνελθόντες ἠρώτων αὐτόν,

in the preaching of the future Church. Of the former of these the Lord had already spoken to the disciples on the way to Emmaus; but the Eleven had not heard what was then said, and for them as Jews, starting from the basis of the older covenant, the point was vital. Not that it was

altogether new to them, for the

Lord had often

during His ministry called their attention to it. These are my words which I spake unto you while I was yet with you, how that all things must needs be fulfilled which are written in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms, concerning me. But they had but ill understood the lesson, and now He insisted upon it at length. He shewed them that the Law, the Prophets, and Psalms, all found their ultimate explanation in the Gospel of the Incarnation. All presupposed the coming of a Christ such as Jesus was, a Christ who should suffer, die, rise again, and through whom a gospel of reconciliation could be preached to all mankind. The system of outward purifications and material sacrifices provided by the Law of Moses is intelligible only when it is regarded as propaedeutic; the Law fulfilled its purpose by

1 See e.g. Jo. v. 46.

2 Unless the Psalms' here represent the Hagiographa, which is unlikely, they are singled out from the third division of the Hebrew canon as being so largely conversant with the Messianic hope,

serving as a tutor who brought men to the school of Christ.1 Similarly the Prophets and the Psalmists raised expectations and created ideals, which ought to have prepared the Jewish people for such a Messiah as Jesus, and such a reign of righteousness and truth as He preached to the world. That the Old Testament had not done this, that the nation as a whole had rejected its King, that even the followers of Jesus and the Apostles themselves had failed to understand the nature of His Kingdom, was due to a misconception. They had interpreted the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms amiss; they had judged their national scriptures according to the letter, not according to the spirit. The teachers of the new Israel must shake themselves free from this error, and the Lord gave them now their first lesson in this new learning; He opened their mind that they might understand the Scriptures. Thus it is written, He said, that the Christ should suffer and rise again from the dead on the third day; and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name2 unto all the nations. The Old Testament, rightly understood, had not only foreshadowed the Passion and Resurrection of the Messiah; it had anticipated the extension of the covenant to the

1 Gal. iii. 24 ὁ νόμος παιδαγωγὸς ἡμῶν γέγονεν εἰς Χριστόν.

2 ἐπὶ τῷ ὀνόματι αὐτοῦ=on the basis of faith in His Messianic character and work.