| 135. Burial of Jesus. | ||||
ACCORDING To Roman Custom The Body of Jesus must have remained suspended until consumed by the weather, birds of prey, and corruption;% according to the Jewish, it must have been interred in the dishonourable burying place assigned to the executed:but the Gospel accounts inform us that a distinguished adherent of the deceased begged his body of the procurator, which, agreeably to the Roman law,( was not refused, but was immediately delivered to him (Matt. xxvi. 57 parall.). This man, who in all the Gospels is named Joseph, and said to be derived from Arimathea, was according to Matthew a rich man and a disciple of Jesus, but the latter, as John adds, only in secret; the two intermediate evangelists describe him as an honourable member of the high council, in which character, Luke remarks, he had not given his voice for the condemnation of Jesus, and they both represent him as cherishing Messianic expectations. That we have here a personal description gradually developed into more and more precisenes is evident. In {P.800} the first gospel Joseph is a disciple of Jesus and such must have been the man who under circumstances so unfavourable did not hesitate to take charge of his body; that, according to the same gospel, he was a rich, man (a)nqrwpoj plousioj) already reminds us of Isai. liii. 9., which might possibly be understood of a burial with the rich, and thus become the source at least of this predicate of Joseph of Arimathea. That he entertained Messianic ideas, as Luke and Mark add, followed of course from his relation to Jesus; that he was a "counsellor" as the same evangelists declare, is certainly a new piece of information: but that as such he could not have concurred in the condemnation of Jesus was again a matter of course; lastly, that he had hitherto kept his adherence to Jesus a secret, as John observes, accords with the peculiar position in relation to Jesus which this evangelist gives to certain exalted adherents, especially to Nicodemus, who is subsequently associated with Joseph. Hence it must not be at once supposed that the additional particulars which each succeeding evangelist gives, rest on historical information which he possessed over and above that of his predecessors. | ||||
While the Synoptics represent the interment of Jesus as being performed by Joseph alone, with no other beholders than the women, John, as we have observed, introduces Nicodemus as an assistant; a particular, the authenticity of which has been already considered in connection with the first appearance of Nicodemus. This individual brings spices for the purpose of embalming Jesus; a mixture of myrrh and aloes, in the quantity of about a hundred pounds. In vain have commentators laboured to withdraw from the word Mrpa, which John here uses, the signification of the Latin libra, and to substitute a smaller weight: the above surprising quantity is however satisfactorily accounted for by the remark of Olshausen, that the superfluity was a natural expression of the veneration of those men for Jesus. In the fourth gospel the two men perform the office of embalming immediately after the taking down of the body from the cross, winding it in linen clothes after the Jewish practice; in Luke the women, on their returnhome from the grave of Jesus, provide spices and ointments, in order to commence the embalming after the Sabbath (xxiii. 56; xxiv. 1.); in Mark they do not buy the sweet spices dpupara until the Sabbath is past (xvi. 1.); while in Matthew there is no mention of an embalming of the body of Jesus, but only of its being wrapped in a clean linen cloth (xxvii. 59.). | ||||
Here it has been thought possible to reconcile the difference between Mark and Luke in relation to the time of the purchase of the spices, by drawing over one of the two narrators to the side of the other. It appeared the most easy to accommodate Mark to Luke by the supposition of an enallage tempo-sum; his verb {P.801} jfydpaoav, they bought, used in connection with the day after the Sabbath, being taken as the pluperfect, and understood to imply, in accordance with the statement of Luke, that the women had the spices in readiness from the evening of the burial. But against this reconciliation it has already been remarked with triumphant indionation by the Fragmentist, that the aorist, standing between a determination of time and the statement of an object, cannot possibly signify anything else than what happened at that time in relation to that object, and thus the words fijopaoav dpufiara, they bought sweet spices, placed between "The sabbath being past," and "that they might come and anoint him," can only signify a purchase made after the sabbath had elapsed, Hence Michaelis, who undertook to vindicate the histories of the burial and resurrection from the charge of contradiction urged by the Fragmentist, betook himself to the opposite measure, and sought to confom Luke to Mark. When Luke writes: "And they returned, and bought sweet spices and ointments," he does not, we are told, mean that they had made this purchase immediately after their return, and consequently on the evening of the burial: on the contrary, by the addition "and rested the Sabbath day, according to the commandment," he himself gives us to understand that it did not happen until the sabbath was past, since between their return from the grave and the beginning of the sabbath at six in the evening, there was no time left for the purchase. But when Luke places his e(toimasan (they prepared) between "being returned" and "they rested", this can as little signify something occurring after the rest of the sabbath, as in Mark the similarly placed word can signify something which had happened before the sabbath. Hence more recent theologians have perceived that each of you two evangelists must be allowed to retain the direct sense of his words: nevertheless they have believed it possible to free both the one and the other from the appearance of error by the supposition that the spices prepared before the sabbath were not sufficient, and that the women, agreeably to Mark's statement, really bought an additional stock after the sabbath. But there must have been an enormous requirement of spices if first the hundred pounds weight contributed by Nicodemus had not sufficed, and on this account the women on the evening before the sabbath had laid ready more spices, and then these too were found insufficient, so that they had to buy yet more on the morning after the sabbath. | ||||
Thus however, in consistency, it is necessary to solve the second {P.802} contradiction which exists between the two intermediate evangelists unitedly and the fourth, namely, that according to the latter Jesus was embalmed with a hundred weight of ointment before being laid in the grave, while according to the former the embalming was deferred until after the sabbath. But as far as the quantity was concerned, the hundred pounds of myrrh and aloes were more than enough: that which was wanting, and had to be supplied after the sabbath, could only relate to the manner, i.e. that the spices had not yet been applied to the body in the right way because the process had been interrupted by the arrival of the sabbath. But, if we listen to John, the interment of Jesus on the evening of his death was performed according to the buirial customs of the Jews, i.e. in due form, the corpse being wound in the linen clothes with the spices (v. 40), which constituted the whole of Jewish embalming, so that according to John nothing was wanting in relation to the manner; not to mention that if the women, as Mark and Luke state, bought fresh spices and placed them in readiness, the embalming of Nicodemus must have been defective as to quantity also. Thus in the burial of Jesus as narrated by John nothing objective was wanting: nevertheless, it has been maintained that subjectively, as regarded the women, it had not been performed, i.e. they were ignorant that Jesus had already been embalmed by Nicodemus and Joseph. One is astonished that such a position can be advanced, since the Synoptics expressly state that the women were present at the interment of Jesus, and beheld, not merely the place (Mark), but also the manner in which he was interred (Luke). | ||||
There is a third divergency relative to this point between Matthew and the rest of the evangelists, in so far as the former mentions no embalming either before or after the sabbath. This divergency, as it consists merely in the silence of one narrator, has been hitherto little regarded, and -even the Fragmentist admits that the wrapping of the body in a clean linen cloth, mentioned by Matthew, involves also the Jewish method of embalming. But in this instance there might easily be drawn an argument ex silentio. When we read in the narrative of the anointing at Bethany the declaration of Jesus, that the woman by this deed had anointed his body for burial (Matt. xxvi. 12 parall.); this has indeed its significance in all the narratives, but a peculiarly striking one in Matthew, according to whose subsequent narrative no annointing took place at the burial of Jesus, and this fact appears to be the only sufficient explanation of the special importance which the Gospel tradition attached to the action of thewoman. If he who was revered as the Messiah did not, under the pressure of unfavourable circumstances, receive at {P.803} his burial the due honour of embalmment: then must the thoughts of his adherents revert with peculiar complacency to an event in the latter part of his life, in which a humble-minded female votary, as if foreboding that this honour would be denied to him when dead, rendered it to him while yet living. Viewed in this light the different representation of the anointing in the other evangelists would have the appearance of a gradual development of the legend. In Mark and Luke it still remains, as in Matthew, that the corpse of Jesus is not really embalmed: but, said t"he legend, already outstepping the narrative of the first gospel, the embalming was designed for him, this intention was the motive for the resort of the women to his grave on the morning after the sabbath, and its execution was only prevented by the resurrection. In the fourth gospel, on the other hand, this anointing, from being first performed on him by anticipation while he was yet living, and then intended for him when dead, resolved itself ino an actual embalming of his body after death: in conjunction with which, however, after the manner of legendary formations, the reference of the earlier anointing to the burial of Jesus was left standing. | ||||
The body of Jesus, according to all the narrators, was forthwith deposited in a tomb hewn out of a rock, and closed with a great stone. Matthew describes this tomb as kainon (new); an epithet which Luke and John more closely determine by stating that "no man had yet been laid there." We may observe in passing, that there is as much reason for suspicion with respect to this newness of the grave, as with respect to the unridden ass in the story of the entrance of Jesus, since here in the same way as there, the temptation lay irresistibly near, even without historical grounds, to represent the sacred receptacle of the body of Jesus as never having been polluted by any corpse. But even in relation to this tomb the evangelists exhibit a divergency. According to Matthew it was the property of Joseph, who had himself caused it to be hewn in the rock; and the two other Synoptics also, since they make Joseph unhesitatingly dispose of the grave, appear to proceed on the same presupposition. According to John, on the contrary, Joseph's right of property in the grave was not the reason that Jesus was laid there; but because time pressed, he was deposited in the new sepulchre, which happened to be in a neighbouring garden. Here again the harmonists have tried their art on both sides. Matthew was to be brought into agreement with John by the observation, that a manuscript of his gospel omits the au(tou (his own) after mnhmeiw; while an ancient translation read, instead of o( elatomhsen (which he had hewn), o( lelatwmenon (which was hewn); as if these alterations were not obviously owing already to harmonizing efforts. Hence the opposite side has been taken, and it has been remarked that the words of John by no means exclude the possibility that Joseph may have been the owner of the tomb, since both reasons the vicinity, and the fact that the grave belonged to Joseph may have co-operated. But the contrary is rather the truth: namely, that the vicinity of the grave when alleged as a motive, excludes the fact of possession: a house in which I should take shelter from a shower, because it is near, would not be my own; unless indeed I were the owner of two houses, one near and one more distant, of which the latter was my proper dwelling: and in like manner a grave, in which a person lays a relative or friend who doea not himself possess one, because it is near, cannot be his own, unless he possess more than one, and intend at greater leisure to convey the deceased into the other; which however in our case, since the near grave was from its newness adapted above all others for the interment of Jesus, is not easily conceivable. If according to this the contradiction subsists, there does not appear in the narratives themselves any ground for decision in favour of the one or of the other. | ||||