night two days before; He brings to them the eternal greeting of reunion, which has unfolded itself from His parting salutation, Peace be unto you! He then convinces them of the reality of His bodily resurrection, by showing them the marks of the wounds in His hands and in His side. And therefore, as the disciples are now in the right frame of Easter gladness, and the ear is fully regained for the joyful tidings, He salutes them a second time. His salutation of peace is now made to be a real gift of eternal peace. And from it their calling straightway developes itself (if only gradually), to become the apostles of His salvation. This promise He seals, by breathing upon them. He imparts to them His Holy Spirit as the completion of their peace, as the spirit of 'perfect joy,' of full life in the remembrance of Him, and in fellowship with Him. This blessedness, however, is also the soul of their apostolical calling. Henceforth they can—not merely in a typical and legal manner, but dynamically—preach, proclaim, and effect the forgiveness of sins, and in the same way also announce to the unbelieving that their sins are retained. In this manner, they can, and must, by the truth, by the spread of the communion of His salvation, build up His Church separate from the world.

This impartation of the Holy Ghost, on the part of the Lord, was not merely symbolical, as a promise of Pentecost, but was a symbolical-real communication by which the festival of Pentecost was in like manner gradually prepared on their side, as on His side His first manifestations to the disciples prepared the way for His ascension into heaven. From this hour the fountain of the new life was opened for them, as a rippling brook, which, on the day of Pentecost, should become a river of life, rushing down from heaven. The Church of disciples was from this time a Church of disciples growing into apostles: the fear of the Jews had passed away, the remains of darkness had been overcome.

And so also were they finally vanquished in the doubting disciple, who, under the separatistic influence of an unbelieving melancholy, had isolated himself, and thus had lagged far behind the Church.

But Thomas, one of the Twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said

unto him, 'We have seen the Lord.' But he said unto them, 'Except I shall see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into His side the great wound in the side-I will not believe'— that He has appeared again as one risen from the dead. And after eight days His disciples were again within-in their place of meeting-and Thomas was with them. Then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, 'Peace be unto you!' Then saith He to Thomas, 'Reach hither thy finger, and behold My hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into My side; and be not faithless, but believing.' And Thomas answered and said unto Him, 'My Lord, and my God!' Jesus saith unto him, 'Because thou hast seen Me, Thomas, thou hast believed: blessed are they who do not see, and yet believe.'

Thomas did not believe the report of the united company of disciples. In this he did them a grievous wrong. Had the world, to whom the apostolic Church later preached the Gospel, been disposed to act on his principle, that it must first see the risen Lord before being able to believe on Him, faith must have died a natural death. Thomas, indeed, as an apostle, was warranted to entertain special expectations: he should have to testify of Christ, and thus also of His resurrection, and must therefore be assured in the apostolic sense of that fact. But on this very account he had also to be specially watchful, and, with the company of the apostles, look for the appearance of the Lord. This he had not done; and now he demanded not only a special, new manifestation of Christ, but also a strict investigation, an examination by the senses, whether he that appeared was indeed the crucified one himself. One sees how remote the thought is from his mind, that Jesus has only been in appearance dead. That He was dead, of this he is quite certain; and he indicates the fact also by designating the wound in the side as large, as one into which he could thrust his hand. But it is to him entirely a matter of doubt, that He who was dead should have returned to life again. His faith is thus quite obscured, and especially also his trust. That, however, it is not entirely extinguished, that love still lives in him, and hope, unconsciously to himself, we perceive from the circumstance, that after eight days he has really taken his place in the assembly of the disciples. Now,

therefore, the Lord discovers Himself a second time to the disciples, and more especially to him. With friendly reproof He acquiesces in his demand: He permits him to touch the marks of His wounds. But Thomas gladly relinquishes this last test: deeply ashamed, but also supremely happy, he makes an exclamation, which shows, that with the certainty of the resurrection of Christ, he is at the same time strongly affected with a sense of His divinity. This is the mark of the honest doubter. He comes with more difficulty to a belief in the miracle, because he carefully weighs the infinite consequences which flow from it. So soon, however, as he does believe in it, there discloses itself to his view, along with it, the manifestation of the fulness of the Godhead. The believer hard to convince gains thus the whole contents of faith at once; whereas the believer of easy faith must force his way through many phantasms of the imagination with little vital substance in them, before he attains to the full power of faith. Yet slowness of belief is just as dangerous as credulity. The noblest and most healthy form of faith lies in the middle, as the harmonious act of an inquiring trust, and of trustful inquiry. Jesus recognises the faith of Thomas, and therefore also the blessedness of his faith; nevertheless He here declares those more blessed who do not see and yet believe, in accordance with the proper character of faith itself.

Thomas closes the procession in the apostolic Church. His position is instructive to the great Christian Church of all times— of the blessed ones who do not see, and yet believe. For it he became the straggler in the rear of the apostolic Church; for it he doubted, and atoned for his Lord, and refused to avail himself him to touch the print of the nails. as its representative, that in him too the remains of the darkness, the unbelief of a melancholic despondency, were annihilated by the revelation of the glory of Christ.

doubt; for it he saw the of the opportunity offered And in this also he appears

How clear is the symbolic transparency, the ideality of this Easter history! In the first place, the sign of the stone rolled away from the door of the sepulchre, of the empty grave, of the linen clothes orderly arranged, and of the disciples deeply moved with joyful surmisings. Thus arises, thus unfolds itself, an Easter faith. Ever new signs of victory: stones rolled away,

tombs burst open, grave-clothes laid aside, female disciples early awake, brethren outrunning each other, bold inquirers who descend into the sepulchres, prepare its way. And there are always found firstling souls, which, like Mary, anticipate the Church in the knowledge of the Risen One. They are freed from the manycoloured fanciful mistakes of the love, and the longing, not yet entirely calmed and sanctified by the self-renunciation of faith. And ever anew we find a company of disciples, who have assembled with shut doors for fear of the Jews, forming the central group, with respect to the knowledge of the Risen One. And He Himself stands in the midst of them, no one knows how, and their fear has vanished. They hear the greeting of eternal peace -His Spirit breathes on them, and turns those who had shut. themselves off from all the world into joyful messengers to all the world. And their message is real, and instinct with life. As Christ came in the name of the Father, they come in the name of Christ, and proclaim life to the world; and their testimony causes a separation between the life in the Church of believers, and the death in the world of unbelief. Finally, there are to be found at all times stragglers in the army of the Church, who, by the spirit of doubt, of despondency, and of isolation, incur the guilt of attaining only after much delay to the full power of faith. But as the love of the one who outstripped the rest, in its still imperfect state, gave birth to manifold errors, even so the honest doubter gives unconsciously many signs of the secret working of faith, especially by showing himself ready to examine the truth, by returning to the Church, and waiting in hope for the manifestation of Christ. And by this means the straggler in the rear of the Church becomes a special witness of the resurrection for those who, during this earthly life, do not see, and yet are called to the enjoyment of the blessedness of faith.

Christ the Risen One overcomes in His people the passionate desire of immediate vision, the fear of the world, with its gloomy moodiness and harshness towards the world, and likewise their unbelief. In thus doing, He perfects in them the glorifying of His name. This is the close of the Gospel history: it points forwards to the post-historical manifestation of the glory of Christ, to the spiritual transformation of the world by His people.

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The Evangelist now therefore concludes the Gospel history itself, with the words:

Many other signs also1-as proofs of His resurrection-did Jesus in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, and that believing, ye might have life through His name.

NOTES.

1. Regarding the points of difference between John and the synoptists in the delineation of the history of the resurrection, see above, vol. v. pp. 56 ff.

2. The history of the city of Jerusalem has made patent the fact, that the place of the crucifixion of Jesus was a district of gardens, which a short time later was turned into a quarter of the city, as new town. As is well known, such rising new towns are crossed in all directions by irregular pathways; and from this we may explain the circumstance, how easily Mary Magdalene and the other women might pass each other.

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3. V. Baur will not hear of a material, bodily solidity' in the risen and ascended Christ. He charges this view as materialism, upon Lücke (who has certainly laid down a dubious alternative in the remark, ‘a medium between ethereal angelic corporealness, and material bodily solidity, is to me inconceivable'). Baur, on the other hand, asserts that Jesus appeared to the disciples neither in a purely corporeal nor in a purely visionary form, but in a spiritual manner, in order to the communication of the Spirit. It is not quite clear what is to be understood by Schweizer's ideal resurrection according to John (pp. 212 ff.). Weisse's theory of the resurrection has been referred to above, vol. v. 126.

1 In spite of this passage, Baur ventures to assert that the supposition of a more frequent appearance of Christ than is recorded in this Gospel, is excluded by its fundamental idea: p. 188.

2 Here again he understands the receiving of the Holy Spirit on the part of the disciples, which is expressed in the λάßere veμa йyov, so abstractly, that the whole promise must be regarded as already fulfilled.