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| Conclusions. Jesus as the Christ of the Creator Proved from the Events of the Last Chapter of St. Luke. The Pious Women at the Sepulchre. The Angels at the Resurrection. The Manifold Appearances of Christ After the Resurrection. His Mission of the Apostles Amongst All Nations. All Shown to Be in Accordance with the Wisdom of the Almighty Father, as Indicated in Prophecy. The Body of Christ After Death No Mere Phantom. Marcion's Manipulation of the Gospel on This Point.
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Chapter
XLIII.—Conclusions. Jesus as the Christ of the Creator Proved
from the Events of the Last Chapter of St. Luke. The Pious Women at the
Sepulchre. The Angels at the Resurrection. The Manifold Appearances of
Christ After the Resurrection. His Mission of the Apostles Amongst All
Nations. All Shown to Be in Accordance with the Wisdom of the Almighty
Father, as Indicated in Prophecy. The Body of Christ After Death No
Mere Phantom. Marcion’s Manipulation of the Gospel on This
Point.
It was very meet that the man who buried the Lord
should thus be noticed in prophecy, and thenceforth be
“blessed;”5165
| 5165 The first
word of the passage just applied to Joseph. | since prophecy does
not omit the (pious) office of the women who resorted before day-break
to the sepulchre with the spices which they had prepared.5166
For of this
incident it is said by Hosea: “To seek my face they will watch
till day-light, saying unto me, Come, and let us return to the Lord:
for He hath taken away, and He will heal us; He hath smitten, and He
will bind us up; after two days will He revive us: in the third day He
will raise us up.”5167
For who can refuse
to believe that these words often revolved5168
in
the thought of those women between the sorrow of that desertion with
which at present they seemed to themselves to have been smitten by the
Lord, and the hope of the resurrection itself, by which they rightly
supposed that all would be restored to them? But when “they found
not the body (of the Lord Jesus),”5169
“His sepulture was removed from the midst of
them,”5170
| 5170 Isa. lvii. 2, according to the Septuagint,
ἡ ταφὴ αὐτοῦ
ἠρται ἐκ τοῦ
μέσου. | according to the
prophecy of Isaiah. “Two angels however, appeared
there.”5171
For just so many
honorary companions5172
| 5172 Tot fere
laterensibus. | were required by
the word of God, which usually prescribes “two
witnesses.”5173
| 5173 Deut. xvii. 6, xix. 15, compared with Matt.
xviii. 16 and 2 Cor. xiii. 1. | Moreover, the
women, returning from the sepulchre, and from this vision of the
angels, were foreseen by Isaiah, when he says, “Come, ye women,
who return from the vision;”5174
| 5174 Isa. xxvii. 11, according to the Septuagint,
γυναῖκες
ἐρχόμεναι
ἀπὸ θέας,
δεῦτε. | that is,
“come,” to report the resurrection of the Lord. It was
well, however, that the unbelief of the disciples was so persistent, in
order that to the last we might consistently maintain that Jesus
revealed Himself to the disciples as none other than the Christ of the
prophets. For as two of them were taking a walk, and when the
Lord had joined their company, without its appearing that it was He,
and whilst He dissembled His knowledge of what had just taken
place,5175
they say:
“But we trusted that it had been He which should have redeemed
Israel,”5176
—meaning their
own, that is, the Creator’s Christ. So far had He been from
declaring Himself to them as another Christ! They could not, however,
deem Him to be the Christ of the Creator; nor, if He was so deemed by
them, could He have tolerated this opinion concerning Himself, unless
He were really He whom He was supposed to be. Otherwise He would
actually be the author of error, and the prevaricator of truth,
contrary to the character of the good God. But at no time even after
His resurrection did He reveal Himself to them as any other than what,
on their own showing, they had always thought Him to be. He
pointedly5177
reproached them:
“O fools, and slow of heart in not believing that which He spake
unto you.”5178
By saying this, He
proves that He does not belong to the rival god, but to the same
God. For the same thing was said by the angels to the women:
“Remember how He spake unto you when He was yet in Galilee,
saying, The Son of man must be delivered up, and be crucified, and on
the third day rise again.”5179
“Must be delivered up;” and why, except that it was
so written by God the Creator? He therefore upbraided them, because
they were offended solely at His passion, and because they doubted of
the truth of the resurrection which had been reported to them by the
women, whereby (they showed that) they had not believed Him to have
been the very same as they had thought Him to be. Wishing, therefore,
to be believed by them in this wise, He declared Himself to be just
what they had deemed Him to be—the Creator’s Christ, the
Redeemer of Israel. But as touching the reality of His body, what can
be plainer? When they were doubting whether He were not a
phantom—nay, were supposing that He was one—He says to
them, “Why are ye troubled, and why do thoughts arise in your
hearts? See5180
| 5180 Videte. The original
is much stronger ψηλαφήσατέ
με καὶ
ἴδετε, “handle me,
and see.” Two sentences thrown into one. | my hands and my
feet, that it is I myself; for a spirit hath not bones, as ye see me
have.”5181
Now Marcion was
unwilling to expunge from his Gospel some statements which even made
against him—I suspect, on purpose, to have it in his power from
the passages which he did not suppress, when he could have done so,
either to deny that he had expunged anything, or else to justify his
suppressions, if he made any. But he spares only such passages as he
can subvert quite as well by explaining them away as by expunging them
from the text. Thus, in the passage before us, he would have the
words, “A spirit hath not bones, as ye see me have,” so
transposed, as to mean, “A spirit, such as ye see me to be, hath
not bones;” that is to say, it is not the nature of a spirit to
have bones. But what need of so tortuous a construction, when He might
have simply said, “A spirit hath not bones, even as you observe
that I have not?” Why, moreover, does He offer His hands
and His feet for their examination—limbs which consist of
bones—if He had no bones? Why, too, does He add, “Know
that it is I
myself,”5182
when they had
before known Him to be corporeal? Else, if He were altogether a
phantom, why did He upbraid them for supposing Him to be a phantom? But
whilst they still believed not, He asked them for some meat,5183
for the express purpose of showing them that
He had teeth.5184
| 5184 An additional proof
that He was no phantom. |
And now, as I would venture to believe,5185
we have accomplished our undertaking. We
have set forth Jesus Christ as none other than the Christ of the
Creator. Our proofs we have drawn from His doctrines, maxims,5186
affections, feelings, miracles, sufferings,
and even resurrection—as foretold by the prophets.5187
Even to the last He taught us (the same
truth of His mission), when He sent forth His apostles to preach His
gospel “among all nations;”5188
| 5188 Luke xxiv. 47 and Matt. xxviii. 19. |
for He thus fulfilled the psalm: “Their sound is gone out through
all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.”5189
Marcion, I pity you; your labour has been in
vain. For the Jesus Christ who appears in your Gospel is
mine.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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