ead was first told by some
woman, or women, who said they had seen an angel, or angels, who had
declared that Jesus was risen.

There is not an atom of evidence that these young men who told the story
were angels. There is not an atom of evidence that they were not men,
nor that they had not helped to revive or to remove the swooned or dead
Jesus.

Stress has been laid upon the presence of the Roman guard. The presence
of such a guard is improbable. But if the guard was really there, it
might have been as easily bribed to allow the body to be removed, as
Matthew suggests that it was easily bribed to say that the body had been
stolen.

Matthew says that after the Resurrection the disciples were ordered to
go to Galilee. Mark says the same. Luke says they were commanded not to
leave Jerusalem. John says they did go to Galilee.

So, again, with regard to the Ascension. Luke and Mark say that Christ
went up to Heaven. Matthew and John do not so much as mention the
Ascension. And it is curious, as Mr. Foote points out, that the two
apostles who were supposed to have been disciples of Christ and might
be supposed to have seen the Ascension, if it took place, do not mention
it. The story of the Ascension comes to us from Luke and Mark, who were
not present.

Jesus rose from the dead on the third day. Yet Luke makes Him say to the
thief on the cross: "Verily I say unto thee, to-day shalt thou be with
me in Paradise." Matthew, Mark, and John do not repeat this blunder.

There are many other differences and contradictions in the Gospel
versions of the Resurrection and Ascension; but as I do not regard those
differences as important, I shall pass them by.

Whether or not the evidence of these witnesses be contradictory, the
facts remain that no one of them states that he knows anything about the
matter of his own knowledge; that no one of them claims to have himself
heard the story of the woman, or the women, or the angels; that no one
of them states that the women saw, or said they saw, Christ leave the
tomb.

As for the alleged appearances of Christ to the disciples, those
appearances may be explained in several ways. We may say that Christ
really had risen from the dead, and was miraculously present; we may say
that the accounts of His miraculous appearance are legends; or we may
say that His reappearance was not miraculous at all, for He had never
died, but only swooned.

As Huxley remarked, when we are asked to co