The 'by this time he stinketh" is Martha's opinion; thus she at any rate considered Lazarus already in a state of corruption. The evangelist calls this witness 'the sister of him that was dead.' Why this designation? Certainly not to inform the reader that Martha was the sister; that was known long before. But still less to show, as Meyer says, 'the natural shuddering of the sister's heart;' but in order to pledge by this phrase (it is not of Lazarus, but of him that was dead) his own word in testimony that the buried one was really dead. And lastly, he adds: for he hath been dead four days,' thus establishing the fact, which was known to every one interested in the circumstance, that it was so long since he had given up the ghost, since he had been buried. We are still informed that the Jews entertain the fancy, that for three days the soul floats about the dead body; that on the fourth it departs, and gives it up to corruption. And the judgment will be immoveably fixed, that unreasonable obstinacy alone can doubt that the evangelist wishes to narrate a real awakening from the dead, and that he has narrated one. Even Strauss himself asserts this. But how does this agree with his peculiar view?

The fact that the synoptic Gospels are silent on this event, he points out as the rock on which its historical credibility is irremediably wrecked. Whether this circumstance really resembles a rock, which causes unavoidable shipwreck, may remain at present undecided; but the difficulty really is present. The manner in which it was formerly attempted to be solved satisfies no one now. Schleiermacher's resource, that the history has less a didactic value than a pragmatical significance, which has been damaged in the transmission, could easily be proved by Strauss to have miscarried. Another remark of this theologian

has indeed gained attention, but nowhere any real acknowledgment. For even granting the possible case, that the family saw themselves compelled, by the plots on the part of the Jews (mentioned John xii. 10), to leave Bethany, the remembrance of the event is by no means necessarily connected with their personal presence still in the Kóμn; it must, under all circumstances, have still been retained there. Hence the apologists of the present day have endeavoured to throw light on this dark point by new exertions. It has been said that the synoptic Gospels confine themselves to the Galilean miracles. But this is not in accordance with fact; for as far as St. Luke is concerned, this manner of explanation does not at all agree with the care with which he depicts the latter part of the life of Jesus.

1

Other writers have taken a higher standpoint, and decided that this history belongs to the class of those reserved to John; that this disciple had a special mission for the communication of things deep and full of mystery. The mysterious character of the history does not consist in the representation of it, but in the act itself; and the disciple whom Jesus loved, who lay on his breast, was alone able to narrate it. The justice of such a manner of considering it can be acknowledged, without our being on that account obliged to admit, or even able to admit, that the question has thereby been satisfactorily solved. The plain confession, that we must leave it as it is, deserves certainly the preference over a new hypothesis, in case the latter cannot be made quite clear. Hence we do not show great self-denial in being silent on our own indi

1 Meyer is of opinion, that from this point of view the problem appears as solved (Comm. to the Gospel of John, 4th ed. p. 379). We acknowledge that the representation of such an intentionally mechanical, and almost capricious and objectless carrying out of the restriction of the older evangelical historical writings to a limited region' is certainly not possible.

vidual conjecture, because we are not able to fulfil the required condition, and in substituting for it the following consideration as a tolerably satisfactory solution. When the biblical critic comes upon any difficulty, the first law is, that he should not exaggerate it; and in case this should have happened, that he should bring it back to its right proportions. In the case before us it has been exaggerated, and it is right to guard against such unjustifiable over-estimation. So much is indisputable fact, that all four evangelists, although they (John not excepted) each report certain miracles of Jesus in common, also each give single narratives peculiar to themselves. It may therefore be asked, Why this special narrative is only found in the first, and that one only in one of the others? But nobody concludes, that because only one evangelist has it, that it must be untrustworthy. Because Mark alone has the history of the deaf and dumb, no one is therefore inclined to suspect it. Why then, because John alone narrates the raising of Lazarus, is it on that account not trustworthy? We might perhaps

conclude that it is just this miracle that should stand out prominently, that such a manifestation of the power of Jesus would have been passed over by no evangelist, 'that it should have been wanting in no complete Gospel, even if only by a mere collector of traditions' (Strauss, 477; Eng. trans. ii. 223).

But these are only modern views, which we may not impute to the authors of our Gospels. We have already entered our protest against the comparison of the miracles of our Lord one with another, from the point of view as to the greater or lesser difficulty of their being performed, and have rejected the question, 'Which is easier to do, this or that?' If such a question is allowed in this matter, who knows whether the contemporaries of Jesus, the disciples included,

would not have judged quite differently from us. So much is fact, that the healing of a demoniac formerly left a deeper impression than the awakening of a dead person. No such estimates of degree were present to the eye which performed them. We read in John ix. of the cure of a man that was born blind. No other Gospel tells us that Jesus cured a man that was born blind. But yet it has never been asserted that this history could not be true, since the synoptics tell us only of simple healings of the blind. Although one may not agree with this inference, it is still an unjustifiable conclusion, that the history of the raising of Lazarus is not trustworthy, because the synoptics on their part relate fewer raisings of the dead occurring before their eyes. If we acknowledge in general the difficulty which is caused by the silence of the first three evangelists on this event, we desire that it should not be exaggerated. Its real value is much too small to be of any decided weight in the balance. At any rate, there must be brought forward other circumstances to make the difficulty greater. As already said, Strauss has made available as such additional witnesses the peculiar inner improbability of the event, and the probability of the narrative when viewed as a myth. To begin with this latter statement, we must repeat our opinion, that Strauss has here unfolded in full force his wonderful power of bringing forward probabilities and drawing conclusions from them. His arguments will tempt many an ignorant reader to put the question, 'Could it not have really happened like this?' At the same time, there would occur immediately to every unprejudiced one the opposite question, 'Why cannot what is here explained as a poetical working-up and weaving of threads, which are separate and scattered about in the synoptics,-why can it not be the whole historical truth?' A more untenable ground

than that the persons coming on the scene are nothing else than forms of fancy and phantoms, has not been advanced; and the confidence with which this is assumed is solely explainable by the view, that this result is attained by other grounds, and that criticism has only to solve the problem of justifying it at any price. It is an experience to which common life as well as scientific life bears witness, that a prejudice once entertained forms a fixed crystallizing point, to which all further motives occurring are added by degrees, so that they tend to confirm the supposition already cherished. The eye is sharp in finding out all suspicious circumstances; it sees them in the light, it places them in the light which prejudice has already prepared for them, while it is dim and blind to every other possibility, even though close at hand. Combinations, which to an unprejudiced observer appear extremely important, are reckoned as insignificant; and difficulties, over which another cannot pass, are put aside in an easy, genial manner.1 And thus can a picture be conjured up, which most opportunely

1 It is only in this way that we can explain the newest work of Volkmar, one relating solely to history, The Origin of our Gospels, Zurich 1866, unless in judging it we take into account the thorough animosity against Tischendorf's treatise (in defence of which we ourselves are not inclined to enter the lists). The Gospels may certainly be indifferent to an acknowledgment which is thus formulated in page 18: 'Jesus the teacher from God the Father, of redeeming love, of full love, even of love to His enemy,' even though it is embellished with a few pompous phrases. The acknowledgment of Jesus from heathen mouths would satisfy him (as pointed out in other places), while the Biblical sources are unsatisfactory and burdensome to him. The whole penetration of the author hence took instinctively the direction of finding out and combining together all that seemed to call in question the genuineness of the Gospels; while, on the other hand, all that opposed his suspicions he considered as unimportant, unenlightened, and uncertain. But how he can expect, that men who have read the sources just as well and just as carefully as himself should on his authority and guidance concede that the witnesses for the fourth Gospel are first met with in the second half of the second century, is difficult indeed for us to conceive.

х