"When once the idea of a resurrection of Jesus had been formed in this
manner," says Strauss, "the great event could not have been allowed to
happen so simply, but must be surrounded and embellished with all the
pomp which the Jewish imagination furnished. The chief ornaments which
stood at command for this purpose were angels; hence these must open the
grave of Jesus; must, after he had come forth from it, keep watch in the
empty place, and deliver to the women,--who, because without doubt women
had the first visions, must be the first to go to the grave,--the
tidings of what had happened. As it was Galilee where Jesus subsequently
appeared to them, the journey of the disciples thither, which was
nothing else than their return home, somewhat hastened by fear, was
derived from the direction of an angel; nay, Jesus himself must already
before his death, and as Matthew too zealously adds, once more after the
resurrection also, have enjoined this journey on the disciples. But the
farther these narratives were propagated by tradition, the more must the
difference between the locality of the resurrection itself and that of
the appearance of the risen one be allowed to fall out of sight as
inconvenient; and since the locality of the death was not transferable,
the appearances were gradually placed in the same locality as the
resurrection,--in Jerusalem, which, as the more brilliant theatre and
the seat of the first Christian church, was especially appropriate for
them.
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