[Footnote 4:  Luke xxiii. 56.]

The women retired after having carefully noticed how the body was laid.  They employed the hours of the evening which remained to them in making new preparations for the embalming.  On the Saturday all rested.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Luke xxiii. 54-56.]

On the Sunday morning, the women, Mary Magdalen the first, came very early to the tomb.[1] The stone was displaced from the opening, and the body was no longer in the place where they had laid it.  At the same time, the strangest rumors were spread in the Christian community.  The cry, “He is risen!” quickly spread amongst the disciples.  Love caused it to find ready credence everywhere.  What had taken place?  In treating of the history of the apostles we shall have to examine this point and to make inquiry into the origin of the legends relative to the resurrection.  For the historian, the life of Jesus finishes with his last sigh.  But such was the impression he had left in the heart of his disciples and of a few devoted women, that during some weeks more it was as if he were living and consoling them.  Had his body been taken away,[2] or did enthusiasm, always credulous, create afterward the group of narratives by which it was sought to establish faith in the resurrection?  In the absence of opposing documents this can never be ascertained.  Let us say, however, that the strong imagination of Mary Magdalen[3] played an important part in this circumstance.[4] Divine power of love!  Sacred moments in which the passion of one possessed gave to the world a resuscitated God!

[Footnote 1:  Matt. xxviii. 1; Mark xvi. 1; Luke xxiv. 1; John xx. 1.]

[Footnote 2:  See Matt. xxviii. 15; John xx. 2.]

[Footnote 3:  She had been possessed by seven demons (Mark xvi. 9; Luke viii. 2.)]

[Footnote 4:  This is obvious, especially in the ninth and following verses of chap. xvi. of Mark.  These verses form a conclusion of the second Gospel, different from the conclusion at xvi. 1-8, with which many manuscripts terminate.  In the fourth Gospel (xx. 1, 2, 11, and following, 18), Mary Magdalen is also the only original witness of the resurrection.]

CHAPTER XXVII.

FATE OF THE ENEMIES OF JESUS.

According to the calculation we adopt, the death of Jesus happened in the year 33 of our era.[1] It could not, at all events, be either before the year 29, the preaching of John and Jesus having commenced in the year 28,[2] or after the year 35, since in the year 36, and probably before the passover, Pilate and Kaiapha both lost their offices.[3] The death of Jesus appears, moreover, to have had no connection whatever with these two removals.[4] In his retirement, Pilate probably never dreamt for a moment of the forgotten episode, which was to transmit his pitiful renown to the most distant posterity.  As to Kaiapha, he was succeeded by Jonathan, his brother-in-law,