t can be
entertained. The only points which can enter into our consideration are,
whether the apostles knowingly published a falsehood, or whether they
were themselves deceived; whether either of these suppositions be
possible. The first, I think, is pretty generally given up. The nature
of the undertaking, and of the men; the extreme unlikelihood that such
men should engage in such a measure as a scheme; their personal toils,
and dangers and sufferings in the cause; their appropriation of their
whole time to the object; the warm and seemingly unaffected zeal and
earnestness with which they profess their sincerity exempt
their memory from the suspicion of imposture. The solution more
deserving of notice is that which would resolve the conduct of the
apostles into enthusiasm; which would class the evidence of Christ's
resurrection with the numerous stories that are extant of the
apparitions of dead men. There are circumstances in the narrative, as it
is preserved in our histories, which destroy this comparison entirely.
It was not one person but many, who saw him; they saw him not only
separately but together, not only by night but by day, not at a distance
but near, not once but several times; they not only saw him, but touched
him, conversed with him, ate with him, examined his person to satisfy
their doubts. These particulars are decisive: but they stand, I do
admit, upon the credit of our records. I would answer, therefore, the
insinuation of enthusiasm, by a circumstance which arises out of the
nature of the thing; and the reality of which must be confessed by all
who allow, what I believe is not denied, that the resurrection of
Christ, whether true or false, was asserted by his disciples from the
beginning; and that circumstance is, the non-production of the dead
body. It is related in the history, what indeed the story of the
resurrection necessarily implies, that the corpse was missing out of the
sepulchre: it is related also in the history, that the Jews reported
that the followers of Christ had stolen it away.* And this account,
though loaded with great improbabilities, such as the situation of the
disciples, their fears for their own safety at the time, the
unlikelihood of their expecting to succeed, the difficulty of actual
success,+ and the inevitable consequence of detection and failure, was,
nevertheless, the most credible account that could be given of the
matter. But it proceeds entirely upon the supposit