“I now come,” said Scaurus, “to one of the most interesting of all the traditions of the resurrection—the ‘rolling away of the stone’ from the tomb. As to the alleged facts, all the evangelists agree. But Mark alone has preserved traces of what I take to be the historical fact, namely, that the narrative, as it now stands, has sprung from Christian songs and hymns based on Hebrew scriptures and Jewish traditions. I shewed you above how the precept, ‘Go forth with the staff alone,’ did not mean ‘with a walking-stick’ but ‘with the staff of God,’ a metaphor from the story of Jacob in Genesis. Curiously enough, the same story will help us to explain the rolling away of the stone.

“There Jacob rolls away the stone from the well for Rachel in order that her flocks may obtain water. The Jews have many symbolical explanations of this ‘rolling of the stone.’ One is, that the stone is the evil nature in man. When worshippers go into the synagogue, the stone (they say) is rolled away. When they come out, it is rolled back again. Philo comments fully on the somewhat similar action of Moses helping the daughters of Jethro, taking it in a mystical sense. The scriptures may be regarded as the ‘water of life’ or ‘living water.’ The ‘stone’ prevents the ‘water’ from issuing to those that thirst for it. You may perhaps remember that Paul says something of the same kind, but using a different metaphor. To this day, he says, a ‘veil’ lies on the hearts of the Jews when the scriptures are read.[258] So Luke says—concerning one of Christ’s predictions about his resurrection—‘it was veiled from them.’ Luke also relates that Christ, after the resurrection, conversed with two disciples, but did not make himself visible to them till he had ‘interpreted the scriptures’ to them. Then, when he broke bread, ‘their eyes were opened and they recognised him.’ This ‘interpreting,’ the two disciples call ‘opening the scriptures.’ The ‘opening of the scriptures’ might be called ‘taking the veil from the heart,’ or ‘rolling away the stone.’ But the last phrase might still better be used for ‘rolling away the burden of unbelief’.”

All this seemed fanciful to me. But as I knew very little about Jewish tradition I waited to see what traces of this poetic language Scaurus could shew in the Greek text of Mark. Before passing to that, however, Scaurus shewed me, from Isaiah, that “the stone” might be used in two senses, a good and a bad; a good, for believers, as being “the stone that had become the head of the corner”; but a bad, for unbelievers, as “the stone of stumbling and rock of offence.” And he said that the stone rolled away by Jacob was called by some Jews the Shechinah or glory of God. According to Matthew, the “stone” at the door of the tomb was “sealed” by the chief priests, the enemies of Christ. There it stood, as an enemy, saying to the disciples, “Your faith is vain. He will come out no more. He is dead.” This was “a stone of stumbling.” On the other hand Scaurus said he had read an epistle written by Peter, which bids the disciples come to Christ as “a living stone.”

“Now,” said Scaurus, “taking the accounts literally, we must find it impossible to explain how the women, at about six o’clock in the morning, could expect to find men at the tomb ready and willing to roll the stone away for them; or, if guards were on the spot, how the guards could be induced to allow it. And there are also other difficulties, too many to enumerate, in the differences between the evangelists as to the object of the women’s visit. But taking the account as originally a poem, we are able to recognise (I think) two or three historic facts found in Mark alone.

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“First, take the statement that the women ‘said,’ or ‘said to themselves,’ ‘Who will roll away the stone for us from the door of the tomb?’ I am not surprised that someone has altered this into, ‘Who has rolled away the stone for us?’ Improbable though the latter is, it is at all events conceivable. But it is inconceivable that women, going to the guarded door of a prison, should ask, as a literal question, ‘Who will open the door for us?’ Taken literally, Mark’s text implies something almost as absurd as this. But now take it as a prayer to heaven. Then you may illustrate it by the language of the Psalmist, ‘Who will rise up for me against the evil-doers? Who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity?’—followed by ‘Unless the Lord had been my help my soul had soon dwelt in silence.’ So the Psalmist says, ‘Who will bring me into the fenced city?’ and then adds, ‘Hast not thou cast us off, O God?’ You see in all these cases the question is really a prayer, a passionate and almost desperate prayer, implying ‘What man will do this for us? No man. No one but God.’ So it is in the Law, ‘Who will go up to heaven? Who will go down into the deep?’ These last words Paul quotes as the utterance of something approaching to despair. So I take the women’s words as having been originally a cry to God, ‘Who, if not God, will roll away the stone!’

“Secondly, note that Mark says nothing about any guards at the tomb. According to him, no obstacle was to be anticipated by the women, in their attempt to enter the tomb, except the weight of the stone, which was ‘exceeding great.’ No other evangelist says this. But I have seen traditions describing the stone as so heavy that twenty men could scarcely roll it, or that it required the efforts of the elders and scribes aided by the centurion and his soldiers. In my opinion the omission of the ‘greatness’ by Matthew and Luke, and the literalising of it by later traditions, arise from a misunderstanding of its poetical and spiritual character. The ‘stone’ was ‘exceeding great’ in this sense, that it could not be moved except by the help of God.

“Thirdly, ‘the women looked up and saw it (i.e. the stone) rolled upward,’ that is, as I take it, to heaven, in a vision.[260] The word here used for ‘look up’ may mean ‘regain sight,’ as though the women were blind to the fact till they had uttered their aspiration (‘who will roll it away?’) and then their eyes were opened. Anyhow, it is more than ‘looked.’ I think it means ‘saw in a vision’.” I was certainly astonished at this use of “look up,” but much more at the “rolling up” of the stone.

“As to Mark’s ‘rolling up’,” said Scaurus, “I have looked everywhere, trying to find his word used by others in the sense of ‘roll away,’ or ‘roll back.’ But in vain. Its use here is all the more remarkable because, when Jacob rolls away the stone for Rachel, the word ‘roll away’ is used. You may say, ‘This shews that the term is not borrowed from Jacob’s story.’ I cannot agree with that. The Christian hymn might contrast Jacob, the type of Christ, rolling the stone merely on one side, with Christ, the fulfilment, rolling it right up to heaven. I should add that a marginal note in Mark inserts an ascension of angels with Jesus at this point.”

In attempting to do justice to this narrative and to Scaurus’s criticisms of it, I felt at a great disadvantage owing to my ignorance of Jewish literature and thought; and at first I was much more disposed to put by the whole story as an inexplicable legend than to accept Scaurus’s explanation. But afterwards, looking at Matthew’s narrative, I found that Matthew described an “angel” as “rolling away the stone,” and as saying to the women, “Fear not.” This seemed decidedly to confirm the conclusion that the women saw “a vision of angels” (a phrase used by Luke) in which vision the stone was seen rolled away—or (as Mark says) “rolled upward”—when the angels went up to heaven. But all this—though it confused and wearied me—did not prevent me from believing that the spirit, or spiritual body, of Christ had really risen from the dead, since I had all along supposed that this alone was what was meant by Christ’s resurrection, in accordance, as it appeared to me, with Paul’s statements. Nothing that Scaurus had said, so far, seemed to me to shake Paul’s testimony to the resurrection.

But Scaurus’s next remarks dealt with this matter, and greatly shook my faith. “I had almost forgotten,” he said, “to speak of Christ’s appearance to Paul. It was clearly a mere[261] image of Paul’s thought, called up by his conscience—nothing more. I need write no further about it. Flaccus has sent you Luke’s Acts of the Apostles. If you are curious, look there, and you will find enough and more than enough. My belief is, that, if Stephen had not seen Christ, Paul would not have seen Christ. That puts the matter epigrammatically, and therefore (to some extent) falsely; for all epigrams are partly false. But it is mainly true. There may have been other Stephens whom Paul persecuted. But Stephen, I think, summed up the effect of all. Read what Paul says to the Romans about the persecuted and their conquest of persecutors:—‘Bless them that persecute you’; that is, instead of resorting to the fire of vengeance against one’s enemy, use, he says, the refiner’s fire of kindness, ‘for in doing this thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head’; finally, ‘Be not conquered by evil, but conquer evil with good.’ Read this. Then reflect that Paul ‘persecuted.’ Then read the Acts and see how he persecuted Stephen, and how Stephen interceded for his enemies. I take it that Paul is writing from experience—that the intercession of Stephen ‘overcame’ Paul (he would say ‘overcame,’ I should say ‘hypnotized’ him) and compelled Paul to see what Stephen saw, namely, Jesus raised from the dead and glorified. Read the Acts and see if I am not right.”

It had not occurred to me before, while I was reading what Flaccus’s letter said incidentally about the inclusion of the Acts of the Apostles in my parcel, that this book would probably give me Luke’s account of the conversion of the apostle Paul, which had been so much in my thoughts, in my conjectures, and even in my dreams. Now, therefore, although ............