The Harmony of the Gospels 3.69–3.77

Therefore let us arrange in one narrative, as far as the Lord helps us, all these things that were done around the time of the Lord's resurrection, according to the testimonies of all the evangelists, showing how they could have happened. On the first day of the week at dawn, as all agree, they came to the tomb. There had already taken place what Matthew alone records about the earthquake and the stone rolled away, and the guards so terrified that they lay in one part as if dead. And there came, as John says, Mary Magdalene, without doubt far more fervent in love than the other women who had ministered to the Lord, so that not without reason John recorded her alone, passing over those who were with her, as the others testify. She came, then, and saw the stone taken away from the tomb; before examining anything more carefully, not doubting that the body of Jesus had been taken away from there, she ran, as the same John says, and told Peter and John himself; for he is the disciple whom Jesus loved. And they began to run to the tomb, and John, arriving first, stooped down and saw the linen cloths lying there, but did not go in; but Peter, following, went into the tomb and saw the linen cloths lying and the face cloth, which had been on his head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up separately. Then John too went in and saw likewise and believed what Mary had said, that the Lord had been taken away from the tomb. For he did not yet know the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead. So the disciples went away again to their homes. But Mary stood outside at the tomb, weeping, that is, in front of that place of the rocky grave, but still within that space which they had already entered; for there was a garden there, as the same John records. Then they saw the angel sitting on the right, on the stone rolled away from the tomb, the angel of whom Matthew and Mark narrate. Then he said to them, “Do not be afraid; for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified; he is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come and see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen; and behold, he is going before you into Galilee; there you will see him. Behold, I have told you beforehand.” Mark too did not pass over words similar to these. At these words Mary, as she wept, stooped down and looked into the tomb and saw two angels, as John says, in white, sitting one at the head and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” Here the angels are to be understood to have risen, so that they were also seen standing, as Luke records they were seen, and, according to the same Luke, to have said to the women, who were afraid and bowed their faces to the ground, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he spoke to you while he was still in Galilee, saying that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.” And they remembered his words. After this Mary turned around and saw Jesus standing, as John says, and did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek?” She, thinking that he was the gardener, said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him, “Rabboni,” which means Teacher. Jesus said to her, “Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, and my God and your God.” Then she went out from the tomb, that is, from that place where the space of the garden was in front of the hollowed rock, and with her the other women, whom, according to Mark, trembling and fear had seized, and they said nothing to anyone. Then, according to Matthew, behold, Jesus met them, saying, “Hail.” And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him. For so we gather that, on coming to the tomb, they had both the address of the angels twice and that of the Lord himself: once there, when Mary thought him the gardener, and now again, when he met them on the way, so as to strengthen them by the very repetition and revive them from fear. Then, therefore, he said to them, “Do not be afraid; go, tell my brothers to go into Galilee; there they will see me.” So Mary Magdalene came announcing to the disciples that she had seen the Lord and that he had said these things to her; and not only she, but also the others whom Luke records, who told these things to the eleven disciples and all the rest. And these words seemed to them like nonsense, and they did not believe them. Mark too attests these things. For after recording that they went out from the tomb trembling and afraid and said nothing to anyone, he added that the Lord, having risen early on the first day of the week, appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons, and that she went and told those who had been with him, as they mourned and wept, and that they, hearing that he was alive and had been seen by her, did not believe. Matthew too, certainly, inserted that, as the women who had seen and heard all those things were going away, some of the guards who had lain as if dead also came into the city and told the chief priests all that had happened, that is, what they too were able to perceive; and that the chief priests, having gathered with the elders and taken counsel, gave the soldiers a large sum of money to say that his disciples had come and stolen him while they were asleep, promising them also security with the governor who had given them as guards; and that they took the money and did as they had been taught, and this story was spread among the Jews to this day.

Now we must consider how the Lord appeared to the disciples after the resurrection, not only so that the agreement of the four evangelists may shine out from this too, but also so that they may be seen to agree with the apostle Paul, who speaks of this in the First Epistle to the Corinthians thus: “For I delivered to you first of all what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve; then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at once, of whom most remain until now, though some have fallen asleep; then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.” None of the evangelists kept this order. So it must be considered whether the order they kept does not conflict with it. For neither did he say everything nor they everything; only this must be seen, whether the things all of them said in no way conflict among themselves. For Luke alone of the four evangelists does not say that the Lord was seen by the women, but only the angels. Matthew, however, says that he met them as they returned from the tomb. Mark too says that he was first seen by Mary Magdalene, as John does; but how he was seen by her he does not say, which John sets out. But Luke is not only silent, as I said, about his appearing to the women, but also says that two, one of whom was Cleopas, spoke with him before they recognized him in such a way as if the women had reported that they had seen nothing but angels, who said he was alive. For he narrates thus: “Behold, two of them were going that same day to a village about sixty stadia from Jerusalem, named Emmaus, and they were talking with each other about all the things that had happened. And it happened, while they were talking and discussing together, that Jesus himself drew near and went with them; but their eyes were held so that they did not recognize him. And he said to them, ‘What are these words that you are exchanging with one another as you walk, and are sad?’ And one of them, named Cleopas, answered and said to him, ‘Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who has not known the things that have happened there in these days?’ And he said to them, ‘What things?’ And they said, ‘Concerning Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we were hoping that he was the one to redeem Israel. And now, besides all this, today is the third day since these things happened. But some women of our company also amazed us, who were at the tomb before light, and not finding his body, they came saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who say that he is alive. And some of those with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.’” These things, according to Luke, they narrate as they were able to remember and recall what had been said by the women or by the disciples who had run to the tomb when it was reported to them that his body had been taken away from there. And Luke himself, indeed, says that only Peter ran to the tomb and, stooping down, saw the linen cloths lying by themselves, and went away wondering to himself at what had happened. He records this about Peter before narrating about these two whom he found on the way, after narrating about the women who had seen angels and heard from them that Jesus had risen, as if Peter ran to the tomb then. But it is understood that Luke put this about Peter by recapitulation. For Peter ran to the tomb at the time when John did too, when it had only been reported to them by the women, chiefly by Mary Magdalene, that the body had been taken away; and she had reported this when she saw the stone removed from the tomb; and afterward the things happened concerning the vision of the angels and of the Lord himself, who had appeared twice to the women, once at the tomb and again meeting them as they returned from the tomb. This, however, was before he had been seen by those two on the way, of whom one was Cleopas. For Cleopas too, speaking with the Lord, whom he did not yet recognize, did not say that Peter had gone to the tomb, but, “Some of those with us,” he says, “went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said”; which he too is understood to have said by recapitulation, namely, what the women first reported to Peter and John about the Lord's body being taken away. And so, since Luke himself said that Peter ran to the tomb and himself reported that Cleopas said some of them had gone to the tomb, he is understood to attest John's account that two went to the tomb; but he mentioned Peter alone first, because Mary had first reported it to him. Likewise it can trouble someone that the same Luke says that Peter, not going in but stooping down, saw only the linen cloths and went away wondering, whereas John says that it was rather he himself, that is, the disciple whom Jesus loved, who saw in this way, not entering the tomb, which he had reached first, but, stooping down, saw the linen cloths lying; yet he also says that he himself went in afterward. So Peter too is to be understood first to have stooped down and seen, which Luke records and John passes over, but afterward to have gone in, and gone in before John entered; so that all are found to have told the truth without any contradiction.

The order of events that could have been, then, how the Lord, apart from having already spoken to the women, was also seen by the male disciples, must be woven together and shown according to the testimonies not only of the four evangelists but also of the apostle Paul. Of all the men, then, he is understood to have appeared first to Peter, at least of all those whom the four evangelists and the apostle Paul recorded. But if he appeared to someone before Peter, which all have passed over, who would dare either to say or deny it? For Paul did not say, “He appeared first to Cephas,” but, “He appeared,” he says, “to Cephas, then to the twelve, then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at once.” But in this way it does not appear which twelve, just as it does not appear which five hundred. For it may be that these twelve, whoever they were, were from the crowd of disciples. For those whom he named apostles he would call not twelve but eleven, as some manuscripts also have; which I believe troubled people corrected, thinking it said of those twelve apostles who were now eleven, Judas being dead. But whether those manuscripts that have eleven are more correct, or the apostle Paul wants some other twelve to be understood, or he wanted that sacred number to stand even among eleven, because the number twelve was so mystical among them that in place of Judas no one but another, that is, Matthias, could be substituted to preserve the mystery of that number: whichever of these it is, nothing arises from it that seems to conflict with the truth or with any of these most truthful narrators. It is, however, probably believed that, after he appeared to Peter, he then appeared to those two, of whom one was Cleopas; about them Luke narrates the whole, while Mark touches on it briefly thus: “After these things,” he says, “he was shown in another form to two of them as they walked, going into the country.” For we do not absurdly take it that that village could also be called a country place, just as Bethlehem itself, which was formerly called a city, is now called a village, although it is now of greater honor through the name of the Lord who was born in it, a name so widely spread abroad through the churches of all nations. And in the Greek manuscripts we find rather “field” than “country estate”; but under the name of “field” are usually called not only villages but also towns and colonies outside the city that is the head and as it were the mother of the others, whence it is called a metropolis.

As for Mark saying that the Lord appeared to them in another form, Luke says this, that their eyes were held so that they did not recognize him. For something had happened to their eyes, which was permitted to remain so until the breaking of bread, for the sake of a certain mystery, so that another form of him was shown to them and so that they recognized him only in the breaking of bread, as is shown in Luke's narrative. For, in keeping with the deserts of their mind, still ignorant that the Christ had to die and rise again, their eyes suffered something similar: not that the truth deceived, but that they were unable to perceive the truth and thought something other than what was the case; lest anyone think he has recognized Christ if he does not share in his body, that is, the church, whose unity the apostle commends in the sacrament of the bread, saying, “We, though many, are one bread, one body”; so that when he handed them the blessed bread their eyes were opened and they recognized him, opened, certainly, to the knowledge of him, the hindrance by which they were held from recognizing him being removed. For they were not walking with closed eyes; but there was something in them by which they were not allowed to recognize what they saw, such as a mist and some humor usually produce. Not that the Lord could not transform his flesh so that it was truly another form, not the one they used to look on, since even before his passion he was transformed on the mountain so that his face shone like the sun (for he who made true wine from true water makes a true body of whatever kind he wills from a true body of whatever kind); but he had not done so when he appeared to those two in another form. For he did not appear to them as he was, since their eyes were held so that they did not recognize him. And we do not unfittingly take it that this hindrance in their eyes was from Satan, so that Jesus would not be recognized; but the permission was given by Christ up to the sacrament of the bread, so that by sharing in the unity of his body the hindrance of the enemy might be understood to be removed, so that Christ could be recognized.

For it must be believed that these are the same ones of whom Mark also narrates, since he says they went and told the others, as Luke says they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem and found the eleven gathered together and those who were with them, saying that the Lord had truly risen and appeared to Simon, and that then they too told what had happened on the way and how they recognized him in the breaking of bread. There was already, then, a report that Jesus had risen, spread by those women and by Simon Peter, to whom he had already appeared; for these two found them speaking of this when they came to them in Jerusalem. So it may be that, out of fear, they had at first been unwilling on the way to say that they had heard he had risen, when they said only that angels had been seen by the women; for, not knowing with whom they were speaking, they could rightly be anxious lest, by speaking freely of Christ's resurrection, they should fall into the hands of the Jews. But as for Mark saying, “They told the others, and they did not believe them either,” when Luke says that they were already saying that the Lord had truly risen and appeared to Simon, what is to be understood except that some were there who would not believe this? And to whom is it not clear that Mark passed over what Luke set out in narration, that is, what Jesus said to them before they recognized him, and how they recognized him in the breaking of bread? For as soon as he said that he appeared to them in another form as they went into the country, he immediately joined on, “And they went and told the others, and they did not believe them either,” as if they could report one whom they had not recognized, or could recognize him to whom another form of his had appeared. How, then, they recognized him so as to be able to report, Mark undoubtedly passed over. This is to be committed to memory, so that we may grow used to noticing the custom of the evangelists, passing over what they do not record and joining what they do record in such a way that, for those who have no practice in this consideration, error arises chiefly from this, that they think they do not agree with one another.

Luke, then, continues and says: “While they were saying these things, Jesus stood in their midst and said to them, ‘Peace to you; it is I; do not be afraid.’ But they were troubled and terrified and thought they saw a spirit. And he said to them, ‘Why are you troubled, and why do thoughts arise in your heart? See my hands and feet, that it is I myself; handle and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.’ And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet.” This manifestation of the Lord after the resurrection John too is understood to have recorded, speaking thus: “When it was evening, then, on that day, the first of the week, and the doors were shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst and said to them, ‘Peace to you.’ And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and side.” And so to these words of John can be joined what Luke says and the same John passes over. For Luke continues thus: “And while they still did not believe and were marveling for joy, he said, ‘Have you anything here to eat?’ And they offered him a piece of broiled fish and a honeycomb. And when he had eaten before them, he took what was left and gave it to them.” To these words likewise can be added what Luke is silent about but John says: “The disciples therefore rejoiced when they saw the Lord. So he said to them again, ‘Peace be with you; as the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit; whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven them, and whose you retain, they are retained.’” To these again let us add what John passed over and Luke records: “And he said to them, ‘These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which are written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms.’ Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, ‘Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And I send the promise of my Father upon you; but stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.’” See how Luke too recorded the promise of the Holy Spirit, which we find made by the Lord only in John's Gospel. This should not be noticed in passing, so that we may remember how the evangelists attest one another even about some things that they themselves do not say, yet know were said. After this Luke passes over everything that was done and records nothing at all except when Jesus ascended into heaven; and yet he joins this as if it followed these words that he spoke, though this was done on the first day of the week, the day on which the Lord rose, and that on the fortieth day, as the same Luke narrates in the Acts of the Apostles. As for John saying that the apostle Thomas was not with them then, when according to Luke those two, of whom one was Cleopas, returning to Jerusalem found the eleven gathered together and those with them, it must undoubtedly be understood that Thomas went out from there before the Lord appeared to them as they were saying these things.

From here John records another manifestation of himself made by the Lord to the disciples after eight days, when Thomas too was there, who had not seen him before. “And after eight days,” he says, “his disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst and said, ‘Peace to you.’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving but believing.’ Thomas answered and said to him, ‘My Lord and my God.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Because you have seen, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.’” This second appearance of the Lord to the disciples, that is, the one John records in the second place, we could recognize in Mark, touching on it briefly, as he usually does, were it not troubling that he says there, “Last of all he appeared to the eleven as they reclined at table”; not because John was silent about their reclining (for he could pass that over), but because Mark said “last of all,” as if he did not appear to them any further, whereas John is still going to narrate a third manifestation of him at the sea of Tiberias; and further, because the same Mark says that he reproached them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who had seen that he had risen, namely those two to whom he appeared as they went into the country after he rose, and Peter, to whom, as was found out from Luke, he first appeared, and perhaps also Mary Magdalene and the other women who were with her, when he appeared to them both at the tomb and when he met them on the way returning from there. For the same Mark composes his narrative thus, having briefly recorded about those two to whom he appeared as they went into the country, that they told the others and were not believed: “Last of all,” he says, “he appeared to the eleven as they reclined at table, and he reproached them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who had seen him risen.” How, then, “last of all,” as if they did not see him any more afterward? For that is the last time the apostles saw the Lord on earth, when he ascended into heaven, which happened on the fortieth day after his resurrection. Would he then reproach them for not believing those who had seen him risen, when they themselves had by then seen him so many times after the resurrection, and especially on the very day of his resurrection, that is, on the first day of the week, already toward night, as Luke and John record? It remains, then, for us to understand that Mark too wished, in his usual way, briefly to record that same day of his resurrection, that is, the first day of the week, when Mary and the other women with her saw him after dawn, when Peter too did, and those two, of whom one was Cleopas, whom the same Mark seems also to record; when, already toward night, the eleven, apart from Thomas, and those who were with them were gathered, when these two also told them what they had seen; and that he therefore said “last of all,” because this was the last thing on that day, as night-time was already beginning, after those two had returned to Jerusalem from the village where they had recognized him in the breaking of bread and found, as Luke says, the eleven and those who were with them already talking about the Lord's resurrection and that he had been seen by Peter; to whom they too told what had happened on the way and how they recognized him in the breaking of bread. But certainly there were some there who did not believe; hence what Mark says is true: “They did not believe them either.” To these, then, as they reclined at table, as Mark says, and were still talking about these things, as Luke says, the Lord stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you,” as Luke and John say. And the doors were shut when he came in to them, which John alone records. So among the words of the Lord which Luke and John said he spoke to the disciples then is inserted also that reproach which Mark speaks of, that they did not believe those who had seen him risen.

But this again troubles us: how Mark says he appeared to the eleven as they reclined, if this is the time of the Lord's day already at the beginning of night, which Luke and John recall. For John says plainly that the apostle Thomas was not with them then, who we believe went out from there before the Lord came in to them, after those two, returning from the village, had spoken with the eleven themselves, as is found in Luke. But Luke in his narrative gives room for it to be understood that, while they were speaking of these things, Thomas first went out from there and afterward the Lord came in; whereas Mark, who says, “Last of all he appeared to the eleven as they reclined,” compels us to admit that Thomas too was there; unless perhaps, although one was absent, he still chose to call them eleven, because that same apostolic company was then called by this number, before Matthias was substituted in place of Judas. Or, if it is hard to take it so, let us take it this way: that after his many manifestations, by which he presented himself to the disciples for forty days, he also appeared last of all to the eleven as they reclined, that is, on the fortieth day itself; and that, since he was now about to ascend from them into heaven, he chose on that day above all to reproach them for not having believed those who had seen him risen before they themselves saw him; since certainly after his ascension, when they preached the gospel, even the nations were going to believe what they had not seen. For after that reproach the same Mark went on to say, “And he said to them, ‘Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; but whoever does not believe will be condemned.’” Since, then, they were to preach this, that whoever does not believe will be condemned, when, certainly, he will not have believed what he did not see, ought not they themselves first to be rebuked for not believing, before they had seen the Lord, those to whom he had appeared first?

That this was the last bodily presentation of the Lord to the apostles on earth is also suggested, so that we believe it, by what the same Mark goes on to say: “And these signs will follow those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents, and if they drink anything deadly it will not harm them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.” Then he adds, “And the Lord, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat at the right hand of God. And they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word by the signs that followed.” When, then, he says, “And the Lord, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven,” he seems to show clearly enough that this was the last discourse he had with them on earth, although he does not seem to restrict it to that in every way. For he did not say, “after he had said these things to them,” but, “after he had spoken to them”; so he allows, if necessity compelled, that this was not the last discourse nor this the last day on which he was present with them on earth, but that what was said, “after he had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven,” could refer to everything he spoke with them on all those days. But since what we said above persuades us rather that this was the last day than that the eleven are to be understood as those who, with Thomas absent, were ten, therefore after this discourse which Mark records, with the words also of the disciples or of the Lord himself which are recorded in the Acts of the Apostles added in sequence, it is to be believed that the Lord was taken up into heaven, namely on the fortieth day after the day of his resurrection.