of the risen Lord, referring to them as well known, in fact as the familiar subject matter of his earliest teaching (I.  Cor. xv. 4-8).  He gives definite date to none of these appearances, indicating only their sequence.  He tells of six different manifestations, beginning with an appearance to Cephas on the third day, then to the twelve, then to a large company of disciples,—­above five hundred,—­then to James, then to all the apostles.  The sixth in the list is his own experience, which he puts in the same class with the appearances of the first Easter morning.  Two of these instances are found only in Paul’s account, the appearance to James and to the five hundred brethren, though this last may probably be the same as is referred to in the Gospel of Matthew (xxviii. 16-20).

212.  The gospel records are much fuller, but they differ from each other even more than they do from Paul.  Mark is unhappily incomplete, for the last twelve verses in that gospel, as we have it, are lacking in the oldest manuscripts, and were probably written by a second-century Christian named Aristion, as a substitute for the proper end of the gospel which seems by some accident to have been lost.  These twelve verses are clearly compiled from our other gospels.  They have value as indicating the currency of the complete tradition in the early second century, but they contribute nothing to our knowledge of the resurrection.  All, then, that Mark tells is that the women who came early on the first day of the week to anoint the body of Jesus found the tomb open and empty, and saw an angel who bade them tell the disciples that the Lord had risen.  How the record originally continued no one knows, for Matthew and Luke use the same general testimony up to the point where Mark breaks off, and then go quite different ways.  Of the two Matthew is closer to Mark than is Luke.  The first gospel adds to the record of the second an account of an appearance of Jesus to the women as they went to report to the disciples, and then tells of the meeting of Jesus with the disciples on a mountain in Galilee, and his parting commission to them.  It gives no account of the ascension.  Luke agrees with Mark in general concerning the visit of the women to the tomb, the angelic vision, and the report to the disciples.  He says nothing of an appearance of Jesus to the women on their flight from the tomb, but, if xxiv. 12 is genuine (see R.V. margin), he, like John, tells of Peter’s visit to the sepulchre.

213.  Luke further reports the appearances of Jesus to two on their way to Emmaus, to Simon, and to the eleven in Jerusalem,—­this last being blended consciously or unconsciously with the final meeting of Jesus with the disciples before his ascension.  The genuine text of the gospel (xxiv. 50) says nothing of the ascension itself, but clearly implies it.  In contrast with Matthew it is noticeable that Luke shows no knowledge of any appearance of Jesus to his disciples in Galilee.  John is quite independent