becomes in a measure soluble by means of an analysis into its simpler elements.

In this connection we have more especially to take into account that the belief in a resurrection played a large part in the Jewish thought of the time. It was not merely, as one might almost say it is in our Christian society, a doctrine which is held to be theoretically true, but of which no use is made in practical life. The period was marked by strong religious excitement. For the imagination of the Palestinian Jews-at all times prone to exaggeration -the bounds between the natural and spiritual worlds had become so fluctuating that they found no difficulty in seeing in a mighty personality like Jesus an ancient prophet returned to Earth, and therefore risen from the dead, an Elias, a Jeremiah, or even the lately-beheaded John the Baptist. Popular conceptions of this kind, such as the Evangelists record for us, are a clear proof how natural the thought of the resurrection of a good man was to the Jewish people. That, too, explains the numerous legends of raising of the dead by Jesus and His disciples, and the statement of Matt. xxvii. 52, that at the death of Jesus the rock-hewn graves were opened and many bodies of the saints arose and, after the resurrection of Jesus, appeared to many in Jerusalem. In a period and environment in which a mental tendency of this kind ruled, in which men stood in such close relations with the other world, and were constantly, indeed, in a state of strained expectation as to whether its gates would not open, whether some communication, some messenger, would not come forth from it -is it any wonder if something which all held to be

possible, and even probable, and which was expected by many, should once, under exceptional circumstances, be actually experienced by a few?

These exceptional causes are, in the case of the disciples of Jesus immediately after the shock of His death, by no means difficult to recognise. Stunned by a catastrophe for which they were wholly unprepared, they had, it is true, lost for the moment all self-command and power of deliberate thought, and had fled to their Galilæan homes. Here, however, in the very scenes where they had lingered, so short a time before, in the company of Jesus, and received the deepest impressions from Him, their power of reflection returned. They felt what a barren desert their life would become if all was over with the Cause of Jesus, to which they had given themselves so joyfully and confidently. They recalled now many of the words which Jesus had spoken to them, before the journey to Jerusalem, concerning the necessity of suffering for the Kingdom of God, and the certainty of its ultimate victory. Could, then, these promises of a faith which could remove mountains be mere delusion? And yet, how could they be true, if He in whom they recognised the Messiah sent by God, the founder of the Kingdom of God, remained in the power of death? But must He remain in the power of death, or should not that prove true in Him to which so many texts of Scripture witnessed, that God delivered His saints from death? They could recall several sayings which Jesus Himself had uttered, and passages of Scripture which He had quoted, of which the pictorial phraseology could now, after His death had actually

happened, no longer be understood in reference to miraculous deliverance from death, but only to a release from the bonds of death by being miraculously awakened from death and raised to a heavenly life.1 When memories of this kind began to revive the fallen courage of the disciples, when their hearts burned within them in the hot strife between doubt and hope (Luke xxiv. 32), when yearning love steeped itself in the memory of the Lord's appearance as He used to open up to them the Scriptures; all the psychic conditions were present in which a visionary experience, such as that of which Paul was at a later time the subject, becomes completely explicable. What was the exact content of this experience, whether a form was seen in which their memorypicture portrayed itself circumstantially upon the field of vision, or whether, perhaps, only a shining appearance and a voice were apprehended, as is related of Paul in Acts as to all this, not only is no exact knowledge possible for us, but even the consciousness of those who actually experienced the vision can hardly have been perfectly clear. That, however, does not affect the question. Enough that Peter, and after him the others, became convinced, on the ground of such experiences, that they had seen their crucified Master as the living and ascended Messiah.

That Peter was the first who saw such an appearance of Christ is not only attested by Paul and

1 We may recall in this connection such passages as Ps.

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xvi. 10, “Thou wilt not leave my soul in Sheol, nor let thy holy one see the grave"; Ps. lxxxvi. 13, “Great is thy mercy towards me; thou deliverest my soul from the depths of Sheol"; Hos. vi. 2, “ After two days will he revive us : in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight."

confirmed by a hint in Mark (xvi. 7), but has also all intrinsic probability in its favour. It is completely in harmony with the character of his temperament— easily excited, and hastily moved, by momentary impulses of feeling, to conviction and resolve as it expressed itself in the Messianic confession (Mark viii. 29). Just as he was, on that occasion, the first of the disciples in whose mind the overmastering impression of the personal dignity and significance of Jesus crystallised into the conviction of His Messianic vocation, so he was now again the first to rescue from the shipwreck of his earthly Messianic hopes a belief in the person and divine vocation of Jesus, by means of the conviction of the new life and heavenly Messiahship of the risen Lord. There, as here, it was a revelation, an immediate certainty and irresistible impression of the divine truth; a revelation which is not indeed purely supernatural, inasmuch as we can understand how it was psychologically mediated, but which, nevertheless, has its source in those depths of the soul in which it is in touch with the Spirit of God, and feels itself taken hold of by His power. And therefore the belief of the disciples in this resurrection of Jesus is, in its essence, Truth, even if the form in which this truth entered into their consciousness was determined by the conditions of human psychology and their situation at the time, and, accordingly, is only of historical significance.

It was a proof of the essential truth of the revelation of Christ to Peter, that, like every genuine revelation, it did not remain isolated, but at once extended a kindling and inspiring influence to others, and became the source of a mighty stream of spiritual

life. His newly-won certainty of Christ's life and lordship became a foundation for that of others, his enthusiasm, strong in the courage of faith, worked magnetically, and soon all the disciples experienced moments of enthusiastic vision, which served them as confirmatory evidence of Peter's words. That such appearances took place in the presence of several persons and even of large assemblies, is so far from being opposed to the psychological explanation given above that it rather serves as a support for it. For it is a well-known matter of experience that conditions of strong mental excitement, such as religious enthusiasm and ecstasy, have in them something infectious, and lay hold, with elemental power, of whole assemblies. Abundant examples of this are furnished by the religious history of all times, from the "Schools of the Prophets," among the ancient Hebrews, down to the American "Revivals" of our own time. Something of this sort is what we have to suppose in the of the manifestation of Christ, which Paul records in 1 Cor. xv. 6, to more than five hundred brethren at once. As this event must in any case have been of exceptional significance for the progress of the belief in Christ and for the formation of the Christian community, it would be very remarkable, and, indeed, scarcely comprehensible, if there had been no trace of it elsewhere in the tradition. The conjecture, therefore, has much in its favour which makes the same event the foundation of the narrative in Acts of the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost. No doubt in this narrative, as will be shown in a later connection, legend and allegory play a considerable part; yet it seems possible, by the separation of these