| 142. The So-Called Ascension Considered as a Supernatural and as a Natural Event. | ||||
The ascension of Jesus is reported to us in the New Testament in three different narratives, which in point of fulness of detail and {P.859} picturesqueness of description form a progressive series. Mark, who in the last portion of his gospel is in general very brief and abrupt, only says, that after Jesus had spoken to the disciples for the last time, he was received up into heaven and sat on the right hand of God (xvi. 19.). With scarcely more definiteness it is said in the Gospel of Luke that Jesus led his disciples out as far as Bethany, and while he here with uplifted hands gave them his blessing, he was parted from them and carried up into heaven; whereupon the disciples fell down and worshipped him, and forthwith returned to Jerusalem with great joy (xxiv.50ff.). In the introduction to the Acts, Luke gives more ample details concerning this scene. On the mount of Olives, where Jesus delivered to his disciples his last commands and promises, he was taken up before their eyes (em'jpOrf.), and a cloud received him out of their sight. While the disciples were watching hi, as he went up into heaven on the cloud, there suddenly stood by them two men in white apparel, who induced them to desist from thus gazing after him by the assurance, that the Jesus now taken from them would come again from heaven in the same manner as he had j'ust ascended into heaven: on which they were satisfied, and returned to Jerusalem (i. 1-12). | ||||
The first impression from this narrative is clearly this: that it is intended as a description of a miraculous event, an actual exaltation of Jesus into heaven, as the dwelling-place of God, and an attestation of this by angels; as orthodox theologians, both ancient and modern, correctly maintain. The only question is, whether they can also help us to surmount the difficulties which stand in our way when we attempt to form a conception of such an event? One main difficulty is this: how can a palpable body, which has still flesh and bones, and eats material food, be qualified for a celestial abode? how can it so far liberate itself from the laws of gravity, as to be capable of an ascent through the air? and how can it be conceived that God gave so preternatural a capability to Jesus by a miracle? The only possible reply to these questions is, that the grosser elements which the body of Jesus still retained after the resurrection, were removed before the ascension, and only the finest essence of his crporeality, as the integument of the soul, was taken by him into hcaven. But as the disciples who were present at the ascension observed no residuum of his body which he had left behind, this leads either to the above mentioned absurdity of an evaporation of the body of Jesus, or to Olshausen's process of subtilization which, still incomplete even after the resurrection, was not perfected until the moment of the ascension; a process which must have been conducted with singularly rapid retrograde transitions in these last days, if the body of Jesus, when penetrating into the closed room where {P.860} the disciples were assembled, is to be supposed immaterial; immediately after when Thomas touched him, material; and lastly, in the ascension, again immaterial. The other difficulty lies in the consideration, that according to a just idea of the world, the seat of God and of the blessed, to which Jesus is supposed to have been exalted, is not to be sought for in the upper regions of the air, nor, in general, in any determinate place such a locality could only be assigned to it in the childish, limited conceptions of antiquity. We are well aware that he who would attain to God and the circle of the blessed would make a superfluous circuit, if he thought it necessary for this purpose to soar aloft into the higher regions of the firmament; and the more intimately Jesus was acquainted with God and divine things, the further certainly would he be from making such a circuit, or from being caused to make it by God. Thus there would be no other resource than to suppose a divine accommodation to the idea of the worl in that age, and to say: God in order to convince the disciples of the return of Jesus into the higher world, although this world is in reality by no means to be sought for in the upper air, nevertheless prepared the spectacle of such an exaltation, But this is to represent God as theatrically arranging an illusion. | ||||
As an attempt to set us free from such difficulties and absurdities, the natural explanation of this narrative must needs be welcome. This distinguishes in the Gospel accounts of the ascension, what was actually beheld, and what was inferred by reasoning. Certainly, when it is said in the Acts: while they beheld, he was taken up, fike-novTUv avruv iTrfjpOt): the exaltation to heaven seems here to be represented as a fact actually witnessed. But, the Rationalists tell us that we are not to understand irfpBtj, as signifying an elevation above the earth, but only that Jesus in order to bless the disciples, drew up his form and thus appeared mgre elevated to them. They then bring forward the word "he was parted from them," in the conclusion of Lxike's gospel, and interpret it to mean that Jesus in taking leave of his disciples removed himself further from them. Hereupon, they continue, in the same way as on the mount of Transfiguration, a cloud was interposed between Jesus and the disciples, an together with the numerous olive-trees on the mount, concealed him from their sight; a result which, on the assurance of two unknown men, they regarded as a reception of Jesus into heaven. But, when Luke in the Acts immediately connects with the statement, "and a cloud received him," he implies that the taking up was an introduction to the being received by the cloud; which it would not be if it were a mere drawing up of the body, but only if it were an {P.861} exaltation of Jesus above the earth, since only in this case could a cloud float under, carry, and envelop him, which is the idea expressed by nefelh. Again, in the Gospel of Luke, the fact that he was parted from them is represented as something which took place while he blessed them now no one when pronouncing a benediction on another, will remove from him: whereas it appears very suitable, that Jesus while communicating his blessing to the disciples should be carried upward, and thus, while rising, have continued to extend over them his outstretched hand as a symbol of his blessing. Thus the natural explanation of the disappearance in the cloud falls to the ground of itself; while in the supposition that the two individuals clothed in white apparel were natural men, Paulus only disguises a final and strongly marked essay of the opinion espoused by Bahrdt and Venturini, that several epochs in the life of Jesus, especially after his crucifixion, were brought about by the agncy of secret colleagues. And Jesus himself-what, according to this opinion, must we suppose to have become of him after this last separation from his disciples V Shall we, with Bahrdt, dream of an Essene lodge, into which he retired after the completion of his work? and with Brennecke appeal, in proof that Jesus long continued silently to work for the welfare of mankind, to iiis appearance for the purpose of the conversion of Paul? But, taking the narrative of the Acts as historical, this was connected with circumstances and effects which could be produced by no natural man, even though a member of a secret order. Or shall we with Paulus suppose, that shortly after the last interview the body of Jesus sank beneath the injuries it had received? This could not well have happened in the very next moments after he had appeared still active among his disciples, so that the two men who joined them might have been witnesses of his decease, who, even admitting this, would not have spoken in accordance with the tuth; but if he continued to live for any length of time he must have had the intention to remain from that period in the concealment of a secret society; and to this must then be supposed to belong the two men clothed in white, who, doubtless with his previous sanction, persuaded the disciples that he had ascended into heaven. But this is a mode of representation, from which in this instance as in every other, a sound judgment must turn away with aversion. | ||||