2. What, then, are the evidences of this so glorious an event?
(a.) The four gospels agree in narrating that, while Jesus hung lifeless on the cross, a rich man, Joseph of Arimathea, himself a disciple of Jesus, went to Pilate and obtained permission to take charge of the body; that he laid it in his own new tomb, hewn out of a rock; that certain women saw where the body was laid, and that a great stone was rolled to the door of the tomb.
(b.) Matthew alone avers that, with Pilate's consent, the chief priests and Pharisees had the stone sealed, and a watch (of Roman soldiers) set.
(c.) Thus the tomb remained from the evening of the day of the crucifixion over the next day, the Jewish sabbath.
(d.) But early on the morning of the following day, the first day of the week, Jesus arose from the dead. Of this event--so entirely the reverse of all human experience, but of the last importance to each mortal man if it happened--the witnesses, of whose personal character among their neighbours for veracity and general trustworthiness nothing is known, thus present themselves:--
Matthew and John, eye-witnesses of the risen Jesus:
Mark, companion of Peter, an eye-witness:
Luke, companion of Paul, who had intercourse with eyewitnesses, and who himself professes to narrate the testimony of eye-witnesses (Luke i. 2):
And what they aver is analysed and compared in the following paragraphs:--
3. _The empty tomb_.--All four agree that in the morning (at dawn, at sun rising, very early, when it was yet dark) of the first day of the week the tomb was found empty by those who went to visit it.
4. _Visitors to the tomb_.--Matthew mentions "Mary Magdalene and the other Mary;" Mark, "Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome;" Luke, "Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and other Galilean women," and afterwards, on the report of the women, Peter; John, "Mary Magdalene" only, and afterwards, on her report, himself (John) and Simon Peter, Mary Magdalene returning after them.
5. _Appearances at the tomb_.--(a.) The great earthquake and the awful appearance of the angel to the watch--"countenance like lightning, raiment white as snow;" and the effect on the startled soldiers, who swooned away "as dead men," as also the subsequent report of the watch and their acceptance of a bribe (large money) from the chief priests to publish a falsehood and confess that they--Roman soldiers--had slept at their post, are mentioned by Matthew alone. Matthew does not name his informant, whether it was a chief priest or one of the soldiers who betrayed his own and his comrades' infamy.