The most earnest desire of those who have lost a dear friend is to revisit the places where they have lived with him. It was no doubt this feeling which, some days after the events of Easter, induced the disciples to return to Galilee. From the moment of the arrest of Jesus, and immediately after His death, it is probable that many of His disciples had already taken their departure for the northern provinces. At the period of the resurrection, a report was spread that it was in Galilee that they would see him again. Some of the women who had been at the sepulchre returned with the statement that the angel had told them that Jesus had already preceded them into Galilee.[2.1] Others said that it was Jesus himself who had told them to meet him there.[2.2] Sometimes they even fancied that they remembered how that He had told them so in his lifetime.[2.3] It is, however, certain, that at the end of some days, perhaps after they had completed the solemnities of the Paschal feast, the disciples believed that they had received a commandment to return to their own country, and they returned accordingly.[2.4] Perhaps the visions began to diminish in frequency at Jerusalem. A sort of homesickness possessed them. The short apparitions of Jesus were not sufficient to compensate for the enormous void left to them by His absence. They fancied that they were actuated by a melancholy affection for the lake and the beautiful mountains where they had tasted of the kingdom of God.[2.5] The women, especially, desired at all hazards to return to the country where they had enjoyed so much happiness. It must be observed that the order for leaving Jerusalem came especially from them.[2.6] This odious city weighed down their spirits; they longed to revisit the country where they had possessed Him whom they so well loved, assured aforehand in their own minds that they would need him there. The greater part of the disciples then departed full of joy and hope, perhaps in company with the caravan which was conducting homewards the pilgrims who had attended the Paschal feast. That which they hoped to find in Galilee was not only fleeting visions, but Jesus Himself to continue with them as He had done previous to His death. An intense expectation filled their minds. Was He about to restore the kingdom of Israel, to found in definite form the kingdom of God, and, as it has been said, “reveal His justice?”[2.7] All this is possible. Already did they recall to their minds the smiling landscapes where they had been happy with Him. Many thought that He had told them that He would meet them on a mountain,[2.8] probably that one to which so many sweet remembrances of Him were attached. Never certainly was any more cheerful journey undertaken. They were on the eve of realizing all their dreams of happiness. They were going to see Him again.

And indeed they did see him. Hardly restored to their peaceable fantasies, they believed themselves to be placed in the midst of the Gospel dispensation. It was about the end of the month of April. The ground was covered with red anemones, which are probably the “flowers of the field,” from which Jesus loved to draw his similes. At every step they recollected His words, attached, as it were, to the thousand events of the way. See this tree, this flower, this seed, from which he took up his parable! here is the little hill on which he delivered his most touching discourses; here is the little ship in which he taught. It was all like a beautiful dream commenced anew, like an illusion which had vanished, and then reappeared. The enchantment seemed to spring up again. The sweet “kingdom of God” to be established in Galilee, took possession of their hearts. This pellucid air, those mornings spent on the bank of the lake or on the mountain, those nights passed on the lake while guarding their nets,—all these returned to their minds in distinct visions. They saw him in every place in which they had lived with him. Doubtless it was not always the joy of possession. Sometimes the lake appeared to them to be very solitary. But a great love is contented with small matters. If all of us, while we are alive, could stealthily once a year calculate on a moment long enough to behold those loved ones whom we have lost, and to exchange but two words with them, death would be no more death.

Such was the state of mind of this faithful company in this short period when Christianity seemed to return for a moment to its cradle to bid Him an eternal adieu. The principal disciples, Peter, Thomas, Nathanael, the sons of Zebedee, returned to the shore of the lake and henceforth took up their abode together;[2.9] they had taken up their former trade of fishers at Bethsaida, or at Capernaum. The women of Galilee were, doubtless, with them. More than the others, they had urged the return to Galilee; for with them it was a matter of heartfelt love. This was their last act in the foundation of Christianity. From this moment we see no more of them. Faithful to their affection, they would not quit the country where they had tasted of so great enjoyment.[2.10] Soon they were forgotten, and as Galilean Christianity had scarcely any posterity, the remembrance of them was completely lost in certain ramifications of the tradition. These touching demoniacs, these converted sinners, these real founders of Christianity, Mary of Magdala, Mary Cleophas, Joanna, Susanna, all passed into the condition of forsaken saints. St. Paul knows nothing about them.[2.11] The faith which they had created almost threw them into oblivion. We must come down to the middle ages before justice is rendered to them; and when one of them, Mary Magdalene, again assumes her lofty position in the Christian heaven.

The visions on the lake shore appear to have been frequent enough. On these very waters where they had touched God, how was it that the disciples had not again beheld their Divine friend? The most simple circumstances restored Him to them. On one occasion they had toiled all the night without having taken a single fish; all on a sudden the nets are filled: this was a miracle. It seemed to them that some one had told them from the shore, “Cast your nets to the right.” Peter and John looked at each other: “It is the Lord,” said John. Peter, who was naked, hastily covered himself with his tunic and jumped into the sea, that he might go and rejoin the invisible counsellor.[2.12] At other times, Jesus came to share their simple repasts. One day, when they had done fishing, they were surprised to find the coals lighted, with a fish upon the fire, and some bread beside it. A lively recollection of their feasts in times past took possession of their minds, for the bread and the fish had always been essential characteristics of them. Jesus was in the habit of offering portions to them. They were persuaded after their meal that Jesus was seated at their side, and had presented them with these victuals, which had become already, in their view, eucharistic and holy.[2.13]

It was John and Peter, more than all the others, who had been favored with these intimate conversations with the well-beloved phantom. One day Peter, dreaming perhaps (But why do I say this? Was not their life on these shores a perpetual dream?), thought that he heard Jesus ask him, “Lovest thou me?” The question was thrice repeated. Peter, altogether under the influence of tender and sad feelings, imagined that he replied, “Oh! yea, Lord! Thou knowest that I love thee;” and on each occasion the apparition said, “Feed my sheep.”[2.14] On another occasion Peter confided to John a wondrous dream. He had dreamt that he was walking with the Master. John was coming up a few steps behind. Jesus spoke to him in very obscure language, which appeared to tell him of a prison or a violent death, and repeated to him at different times, “Follow me.” Then Peter, pointing to John, who was following, with his finger, asked, “Lord, and this man?” Jesus said, “If I wish that this man remain until I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou me.” After the martyrdom of Peter, John recollected this dream, and saw in it a prediction of the kind of death by which his friend suffered. He told it to his disciples; and they on their part fancied that they had discovered an assurance that their master would not die before the final advent of Jesus.[2.15] These grand and melancholy dreams, these unceasing conversations interrupted and again commenced with the beloved departed One, occupied the days and the months. The sympathy of Galilee in behalf of the prophet whom the Jerusalemites had put to death, was renewed. More than five hundred persons were already devoted to the memory of Jesus.[2.16] In the absence of the lost Master, they obeyed the chief of the disciples, and above all, Peter. One day, when following their spiritual chiefs, the Galileans had climbed up one of the mountains to which Jesus had often led them, and they fancied that they saw him again. The air on these mountaintops is full of strange mirages. The same illusion which had previously taken place in behalf of the more intimate of the disciples, was produced again.[2.17] The whole assembly imagined that they saw the Divine spectre displayed in the clouds; they all fell on their faces and worshipped.[2.18] The feeling which the clear horizon of these mountains inspires is the idea of the immensity of the world and the desire of conquering it. On one of these neighboring points, Satan, pointing out with his hand to Jesus the kingdoms of the earth, and all the glory of them, it is said proposed to give them to him if he would fall down and worship him. On this occasion, it was Jesus who, from the top of these sacred summits, pointed out to his disciples the whole world, and assured them of the future. They came down from the mountain persuaded that the Son of God had commanded them to convert the whole human race, and had promised to be with them even to the end of the world. A strange ardor, a divine fire, took possession of them when they returned from these conversations. They looked upon themselves as the missionaries of the world, capable of effecting prodigious deeds. St. Paul saw many of those who were present at this extraordinary scene. At the expiration of twenty-five years, the impression on their minds was still as strong and as vivid as it was on the first day.[2.19]

Nearly a year passed over during which they lived this charmed life, suspended, as it were, between heaven and earth.[2.20] The charm, far from diminishing, increased. It is the peculiarity of grand and holy enterprises, that they always become grander and more pure of themselves. The feeling towards a beloved one whom we have lost is always more intense than on the day following his death. The more distant it is, the more intense does this feeling become. The sorrow which at first was part of it, and in a certain sense diminished it, is changed into a serene piety. The image of the departed one is transfigured, idealized, and becomes the soul of life, the principle of every action, the source of every joy, the oracle which we consult, the consolation which we seek in times of despondency. Death is a necessary condition of every apotheosis. Jesus, so beloved during His life, was even more so after His last breath; or rather His last breath became the commencement of His actual life in the bosom of His Church. He became the intimate friend, the confidant, the travelling companion, the one who, at the corner of the road, joins you and follows you, sits down to table with you, and reveals Himself as He vanishes out of your sight.[2.21] The absolute want of scientific exactitude in the minds of these new believers, was the reason why no question was ever propounded as to the nature of His existence. They represented Him as impassible, endowed with a subtle body, passing through open windows, sometimes visible, sometimes invisible, but always alive. Sometimes they thought that His body was not a material body; that it was a pure shadow or apparition.[2.22] At other times they accorded to Him a material body with flesh and bones; with an unaffected minuteness, and as if the hallucination had wished to be on its guard against itself, they represented Him as drinking and eating; nay even as feeling.[2.23] Their ideas on this point were as vague and uncertain as the waves of the sea.

With difficulty have we thus far dreamed, in order to propose a trifling question, but one which admits not of easy solution. Whilst Jesus rose again in this real manner, that is to say in the hearts of those who loved Him; while the immovable conviction of the apostles was being formed and the faith of the world being prepared—in what place did the worms consume the lifeless corpse which, on the Saturday evening, had been deposited in the sepulchre? This detail will be always steadily ignored; for, naturally, the Christian traditions can give us no information on the subject. It is the spirit which quickeneth; the flesh is nothing.[2.24] The resurrection was the triumph of the idea concerning its reality. The idea once entered upon its immortality, what need of discussion about the body?

About the year 80 or 85, when the actual text of the first Gospel received its last additions, the Jews had already formed a fixed opinion in regard to it.[2.25] According to them, the disciples came by night and stole away the body. The consciences of the Christians were alarmed at this report, and, in order to put an end to such an objection at once, they invented the circumstances of the guard of soldiers and the seal affixed to the sepulchre.[2.26] This circumstance, related only in the first Gospel, and mixed up with legends of very doubtful authority,[2.27] is in no respect admissible.[2.28] But the explanation of the Jews, although unanswerable, is far from altogether satisfactory. We can scarcely admit that those who so bravely believed that Jesus had risen again, were the very ones who had carried off the body. However slight the accuracy with which these men reflected, we can hardly imagine so strange an illusion. It must be remembered that the little Church was at this moment completely dispersed. There was no organization, no centralization, and no open regularity of proceeding. The contradictory stories which have reached us respecting the incidents of the Sunday morning, prove that the reports were spread through different channels, and that there was no particular care on their part to harmonize them. It is possible that the body was taken away by some of the disciples, and by them carried into Galilee. The others, remaining at Jerusalem, would not have been cognizant of the fact. On the other hand, the disciples who carried the body into Galilee,[2.29] could not have, as yet, become acquainted with the stories which were invented at Jerusalem, so that the belief in the resurrection would have been propounded in their absence, and would have surprised them accordingly. They could not have protested; and had they done so, nothing would have been disarranged. When a question of miracles is concerned, a tardy correction is not the way to a denial.[2.30] Never did a material difficulty prevent the sentimental development and creation of the desired fictions.[2.31] In the history of the recent miracle of Salette, the imposture has been clearly demonstrated;[2.32] this does not damage the prosperity of the temple, nor the increase of belief in it. It is also permissible to suppose that the disappearance of the body was the work of the Jews. Perhaps they thought that in this way they would prevent the scenes of tumult which might be enacted over the corpse of a man so popular as Jesus. Perhaps they wished to prevent any noisy funeral ceremonies, or the erection of a monument to this just man. Lastly, who knows that the disappearance of the body was not effected by the proprietor of the garden or by the gardener?[2.33] This proprietor, as it would seem from such evidence as we possess,[2.34] was a stranger to the sect. They chose his cave because it was the nearest to Golgotha, and because they were pressed for time.[2.35] Perhaps he was dissatisfied with this mode of taking possession of his property, and caused the corpse to be removed. Of a truth, the details related by the fourth Gospel of the linen cloths left in the tomb, and of the napkin folded away carefully by itself in a corner,[2.36] scarcely agree with such a hypothesis as this. This last circumstance would lead to the conclusion that a female hand had slipped in there.[2.37] The five stories of the visit of the women to the tomb are so confused and so embarrassed, that we may well be permitted to suppose that they conceal some misconception. The female conscience, when under the influence of passionate love, is capable of the most extravagant illusions. Often is it the abettor of its own dreams.[2.38] To introduce these kinds of incidents regarded as miraculous, deliberately deceives no one; but all the world, without thinking of it, is induced to connive at them. Mary of Magdala had been, according to the parlance of the age, “possessed with seven devils.”[2.39] In all this we must consider the want of precision of eastern women, from their absolute defect of education and the particularly slight knowledge of their sincerity. The conviction of being exalted, renders any return to oneself impossible. When one sees the heaven everywhere, one is induced at times to put oneself in the place of heaven.

Let us draw a veil over these mysteries. In the circumstances of a religious crisis, everything being considered as divine, the very grandest effects can be produced from the very meanest causes. If we were witnesses of the strange facts which lie at the bottom of all works of faith, we should see therein circumstances which seem to us quite out of proportion to the importance of the results, and others at which we could but smile. Our old cathedrals are counted amongst the most beautiful things of the world; one can scarcely enter them without being in some sort inebriated with the infinite. But these splendid marvels are almost always the blossoming of some little deceit. And what does it matter definitively? The result alone counts in such a matter. Faith purifies all. The material incident which has produced the belief in the resurrection was not the veritable cause of the resurrection. It was love that made Jesus rise again; and this love was so powerful that a little risk was sufficient to build up the universal faith. If Jesus had been less loved, if the belief of the resurrection had had less reason for its establishment, these sorts of risks would have been incurred in vain; nothing would have come of it. A grain of sand causes the fall of a mountain, when the moment for the fall of the mountain has arrived. The grandest results are produced altogether from causes very grand and very insignificant. The grand results alone are real; the little ones only serve to hasten the production of an effect which has been a long time in a state of preparation.