reason He gives "for I am not yet ascended to my Father"?

We give briefly the general interpretation of the best commentators. Mary's attempt to lay her hands upon our Lord was not in the spirit of the other women who " held him by the feet " in adoration, or of the apostles who, at His invitation, touched His body with reverent awe; but was an impulsive gesture of mere human affection, unbefitting the new relations in which the Risen Lord stood to her, and to all His disciples, and to all human kind. "For I am not yet ascended" may mean the old relations of familiar human intercourse are ended, the new relations of spiritual nearness of intercourse not begun till after the ascension. This seems to be what St. Paul means when he says (2 Cor. v. 16) "though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more." Perhaps He had indeed appeared to her first because her grief was greatest, and that because her love was greatest; but the great object of His appearance to her was not to resume old relations, but to reward her fidelity at the cross and grave by making her the first human witness of His resurrection, and by giving to her, and sending by her, the first announcement of His approaching ascension. "Go to my brethren," the Risen Lord still graciously calls His disciples His brethren," and tell them, I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God."

"I ascend." He anticipates it in His human mind. and thought with exultation, it is the ascension to His Kingdom and glory, the kingdom and power which will enable Him to work out all His great designs for the eternal happiness of mankind, the glory which He values because He will share it with His redeemed. 1

"To my Father and your Father, to my God and your God," not to our Father and our God, because the Father is His Father in a different sense from that in which He is our Father, and His God in a different sense from that in which He is our God.

We record our Lord's appearance to the other women narrated by St. Matthew, before we make some general remarks on the particular features of the two appearances.

The Second Appearance.

"And as they" (i.e., probably, the other women) 2 "went to tell his disciples " of the vision and message of the angel,—

"Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they came and held him by the feet, and worshipped him. Then said Jesus unto

1 John xvii. 22, 24.

Origen, Chrysostom, Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine, all place this appearance of our Lord to the women in this place; though some suppose it to have taken place towards the close of the Forty Days.

them, Be not afraid; go tell my brethren that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me" (Matt. xxviii. 9, 10).

Possibly the "brethren" He mentioned means not the apostles only, but the disciples generally.

Possibly here comes the general summary statement of St. Luke (xxiv. 10, 11), “It was Mary Magdalene and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James and other women that were with them, which told these things unto the apostles. And their words. seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not."

The appearance of the angels at the sepulchre causes us no surprise; it seems natural. We have gathered from the whole history that they were always about our Lord, as they are about us, and that they ministered to Him, as they minister to us who are heirs of salvation (Heb. i. 14). But what is remarkable is their variety of appearance; "the angel of the Lord," whose "countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow," who rolled back the stone, and the one "young man clad in a long, white garment," who "sat at the right side," and the "two men in shining garments," and the "two angels in white, sitting one at the head and the other at the feet." And still more remarkable, that the first was seen by the soldiers, and the others by the women, and none of them by the apostles. We gather, throughout the Scriptures, that angels have the power

to make themselves visible, or to remain invisible to men; so at the Nativity, the multitude of the heavenly host were at first unseen, and afterwards seen. And we see, in other instances, that they sometimes appear as mere men,1 at others, in a glorious or terrible splendour. We also have indications, that men may see or not see angels, according to their own mental or spiritual state; so Elisha prayed God to open the eyes of his servant that he also might see

the horses and chariots of fire which Elisha saw round about him.

The Third Appearance.

An appearance to St. Peter, is mentioned in Luke xxiv. 34, without any note of the circumstances, and without any note of time, except that it was between the appearance to Mary Magdalene, which is specially said to be the first of His appearances, and that to the assembled apostles the same evening, when it is told to the two disciples returned from Emmaus. It is very possible that it occurred in the morning, after the appearance to the women. seems in keeping with the character of St. Peter, that when the women came relating their wonderful story, that they had seen the Lord, though all the apostles were incredulous, that he, in his impulsiveness, should

2

It

1 Gen. xviii. 2; Mark xvi. 5, &c. Judges xiii. 6, 23; Matt. xxviii. 2, &c.

set out again to the sepulchre by himself;1 and it may have been then that the Lord appeared to him. Why did He appear to Peter, who had denied Him, and not to him and John, "the disciple whom Jesus loved," when the two visited the sepulchre together? Perhaps because Peter needed the speedy assurance of pardon and love to save him from despair, or, at least, to mitigate his bitter regret. As there is, in a sense, "joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth more than over ninety-and-nine just persons which need no repentance," so, in a sense, God gives more sensible comforts and supports to penitent sinners than to saints, having merciful regard to their needs rather than to their deserts.

Why did our Lord appear first to the women before He appeared to any of the apostles? Why do the women so readily believe in His resurrection, while the apostles are so slow of belief? The two facts go together. The one believe with the slowness of calculating judgment, the other with the quickness of loving zeal; men reason, women feel; and this very unreasoning affection made the women more bold in their fidelity, and more constant in their attachment. They stood by the cross when the apostles stood aloof in perplexity; it was not the apostles who begged the body, and laid it in the tomb, but the

1 St. Luke's notice, "Then arose Peter and ran unto the sepulchre," &c. (xxiv. 12), may relate to this second visit.