Pilate very unwillingly sat down again upon his throne, compelled to hold the trial of Jesus once more, and unable to avoid making a decision upon his case. Just as he was about to begin the new trial of Jesus, a message from his wife came to him, which added to his anxiety and his alarm. Pilate's wife sent this word to him:
"My husband, I ask you not to allow any harm to come to that good man; for this day I have been very unhappy on account of a dream about him."
This message made Pilate all the more desirous not to yield to the Jews and put Jesus to death. He thought of a new plan to save the life of Jesus; and with this in mind he said to the chief priests and the leaders:
"You brought before me this man charged with the crime of trying to lead the people to rise up against the government, and I have looked into his case, and have found the charges false. He has not done the things that you accuse him of; and there is nothing wicked in his acts, so far as I can see. Nor has Herod found any fault with him, for he has sent him back. He has done nothing that demands death. But he deserves some punishment for causing all this excitement and stir. I will order him to be well beaten, and then set free."
But with one voice, they all cried out, "Away with this fellow! To the cross with him! Don't release him: release to us Barabbas!"
It was a custom that at the Feast of the Passover, as a sign of the gladness of the time, to set free some prisoner, whatever man in prison the people should call for. There was at that time in the prison a man named Barabbas, who had led a party of Jews against the Roman rulers, and in the fight had killed a man. He had been condemned to die, but the people did not think any the less of him because he had fought against the Romans, whom they also hated, and whom they would gladly drive out of the land if they were not afraid of their power. The crowd began calling out to Pilate to do as had been done every year, and set free some prisoner.
"Are you willing," asked Pilate "that I should free this man Jesus, the King of the Jews?"
But the chief priests and the Jewish rulers went around among the crowd, and persuaded them to ask, not for Jesus, but for Barabbas. And the people shouted out, as if they were all one man:
"We will not have this man; we will have Barabbas!"
This was not what Pilate had looked for. He had thought that according to the custom of the feast he might set Jesus free and still please the people. He said to the crowd:
"What then shall I do with Jesus, the man whom they call Christ?"
"Send him to the cross! Let him die on the cross!" they roared with all their might.
"Why, what wicked thing has he done?" asked Pilate of the crowd. "I find nothing on his part that deserves death. I will have him beaten, and let him go!"
Then, at Pilate's command, the soldiers took Jesus into the guard room. They stripped off all his clothes, tied him to one of the pillars, and beat him with heavy whips, which tore into his flesh. To mock him, as one who called himself "King," they put on him a cloak of scarlet color; they wove together a wreath of thorns, and pressed it on his head until the blood streamed out; they placed in his hand a reed, as if it were a scepter held by a king; they fell down on their knees before him, and said to him: "Long live the King of the Jews!" They struck him with their hands, over and over again; they beat him with the reed; and they spat in his face.
Pilate thought that if the people could see Jesus as he was, crowned with thorns, and covered with blood, they would feel pity for him, and not call for him to be put to death. He said to the Jews:
"I will bring him out for you to see; but understand, I cannot find anything wrong in him."
Then they brought Jesus out on the steps of the palace. His face was stained with blood; on his head was the wreath of thorns; and on his shoulders was the scarlet cloak. And Pilate said to the crowd:
"See, here is the man!"
But if Pilate hoped that the sight of Jesus, so woeful and sad, would arouse the pity of the people, he soon found himself mistaken. Led by the chief priests and their officers, they cried out with loud voices:
"To the cross with him! Let him be crucified!"
To be crucified was to be fastened with nails on a cross, which was then stood up, and left standing until the suffering man was dead. This was what the crowd of Jews before Pilate's palace called upon him to do with Jesus who had done no harm, but only good!
Pilate answered them: "You can take him and crucify him, if you choose. I will have nothing to do with it; for I can not find that he has done anything wicked."
The rulers of the Jews answered Pilate: "But we have a law; and by our law he must die, because he has made himself out to be the Son of God!"
When Pilate heard that, he was still more afraid, for there seemed to him something strange in this man Jesus. He did not know what to do. He went inside the palace and took Jesus with him.
"Where do you come from?" said Pilate to Jesus.
Jesus gave him no answer. Pilate said to him:
"You will not speak to me? Don't you know that it is in my power either to set you free, or to send you to the cross, just as I please?"
"You would have no power over me," answered Jesus, "if it had not been given you from one who is above. God gave you that power to use for the right and not for the wrong. There is one man whose sin is greater than yours; and that is the high priest who brought me to you!" Jesus meant to have Pilate understand that he was only a weak man, yielding to the will of the high priest, and that he as the governor should have a mind of his own and do only what was right in God's sight.
All this made Pilate the more anxious not to put Jesus to death, but to set him free. But the rulers of the Jews shouted aloud to him:
"If you set this man free, who has called himself a king, you are no friend to Cæsar, the emperor at Rome! Anyone who calls himself a king sets himself above the emperor who is over us all!"
Pilate knew that Cæsar the emperor was very jealous and would be very angry if he knew that any man was trying to make himself a king. Very unwillingly, Pilate made up his mind that it would be safer for himself to let Jesus be put to death, rather than to make the emperor at Rome his enemy. So Pilate again took his seat upon the throne, and had Jesus brought before him. It was now the time of sunrise, six o'clock in the morning. Pilate said to the Jews:
"Here is your king!"
"Kill him! kill him!" yelled the Jews. "Crucify him! Crucify him!"
"This fellow is not our king," shouted the priests and rulers. "We have no king but Cæsar the emperor!"
Pilate tried to show the Jews that the act of putting Jesus to death was their deed, not his. He sent for a basin of water, and in presence of them all washed his hands. Then holding out his hands, he called out to the people:
"My hands are clean from this good man's blood! I tell you that he has done nothing to deserve death! This is your doing, not mine!"
"This blood be on us, and on our children who come after us," answered the Jews.
Then Pilate, sitting on his throne, gave sentence that it should be as they wished, that Barabbas, a robber and a murderer, should be set free, and that Jesus, who had done no harm, but only good, should be sent to the cross.
So it was with Jesus on that day. After the soldiers had treated him shamefully, they took off the scarlet robe and put on him his own clothes. Then they laid upon his wounded shoulders the heavy beam of his cross, and led him from Pilate's palace through the streets of Jerusalem toward a hill outside the city wall. This hill was called in the Hebrew tongue, the language of the Jewish people, "Golgotha," a word meaning "Skull-place." In the language of the Romans, the word meaning "Skull-place" was "Calvaria," and from this word the place where Jesus was crucified has been called "Mount Calvary."
It is not certain where was the true Mount Calvary, the place of Christ's cross. For a long time it was believed to be a little hill on the west of the city; and over that hill was built in the after years a great church, called "The Church of the Holy Sepulchre," because inside that church they show not only the place where people thought that the cross stood, but also the tomb or sepulchre in which Jesus was buried. To this church thousands of people go every year, thinking that they can see the very places where the Saviour died and was buried.
But most of those who have studied carefully all that can be known about the city of Jerusalem and the hills around it, have believed that the true Calvary was not where the great Church of the Holy Sepulchre now stands, but at some other place. Many think that it was a rounded, grass-covered little hill just outside the city on the north. The side of this hill looking toward the city is very steep, and in it are two great caves. As one stands on the city wall and looks at this rounded hill, with the two holes in it, he thinks of a skull—which is a man's head without the skin and the flesh, and with two eye-holes. This hill may have been called "the skull-place," because it looks so much like a skull. On this skull-like hill it may be that Jesus was crucified.
Jesus walked through the streets of the city loaded down with the heavy beam of his cross on his shoulders. The soldiers were dragging him on, and some were driving him forward with blows, when suddenly, worn out with suffering, and fainting from loss of blood and want of food, he sank down upon the ground, unable to carry his load any further. Just then a man coming from the country into Jerusalem, met the soldiers and the crowd with Jesus. This man was named Simon. He was not Simon Peter, the disciple of Jesus, but another Simon, who had come from a city far away in Africa, called Cyrene. The soldiers seized this man, and made him help Jesus in carrying the cross, until they came to Calvary.
Following the soldiers who had been commanded to crucify Jesus, was a crowd of Jewish priests and scribes, the teachers of the law, and a multitude of the lowest of the people, all shouting aloud their rejoicing that Jesus was to be put to death, just as if he had been the wickedest man in all the land. But among these were a few friends of Jesus, and some of the women who had known him and loved him, and were now weeping over the wrongs done to him.
Jesus turned and spoke to these women:
"Women of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and your children! For the time is coming when they shall say, 'Happy are those who have no children to suffer and to die.' In those days they shall call out to the mountains, 'Fall on us,' and to the hills, 'Hide us.' If this is what they do now in the beginning, what will they do then in the end?"
Even in those terrible moments Jesus was not thinking of himself and his own sufferings, but the sorrows that would soon come upon others.
There is a story told of Jesus on the way to Calvary, which is not found in any of the gospels, and may not be true. It is said that a good woman, named Veronica, was standing by the street when Jesus went by. Seeing his face covered with sweat, and dust, and blood, she went to him and wiped his face with a napkin. When she looked at her napkin, she found that on it had been printed the portrait of Jesus; and she kept it ever afterward as her greatest treasure.
They led Jesus out of the gate in the city wall, and up the side of the hill Calvary, wherever that hill was. There they laid the cross upon the ground and stretched Jesus out upon it. They drove nails through his hands and feet to fasten his body to the cross. Then they lifted it up with Jesus upon it, and dropped the lower end of it into a hole so that it would stand upright.
With Jesus they had brought two other men, who had been robbers, and sentenced to die by the cross. These two men they crucified with Jesus, one on his right hand and the other on his left, and Jesus between them, as if he had been the most wicked man of the three.
Jesus knew that the Roman soldiers who fastened him to the cross were not his enemies, as the Jews were, but were only obeying the orders that had been given them by their officers. He prayed to God for them.
"Father," said Jesus, "forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing!"
It was nine o'clock on Friday morning when Jesus was placed upon the cross; and he hung there living for six awful hours, until three o'clock in the afternoon.
It was written in the language of three different peoples; in Hebrew, the tongue spoken by the Jews; in Latin, the language of the Romans; and in Greek, the language spoken by all in that part of the world who were not Jews. These words told a great truth, that Jesus was a king, and they told it to all the earth, although very few people believed it then. Now, all over the world are millions upon millions of people who serve Jesus as Lord and King.
When the priests and rulers of the Jews read this writing upon the cross they were greatly displeased, for they did not like to have Jesus called a king. The priests went to Pilate in his palace and said to him:
"Will you not change the writing upon the cross of that man? Let it not be, 'The King of the Jews.' Please change it to, 'He said, "I am King of the Jews."'"
But Pilate answered them, "What I have written, I have written." He meant that whatever he had placed upon the cross must stand there unchanged.
It was also the custom of the Romans when a man was crucified to give his clothes to the soldiers who fixed him on the cross. Four soldiers were in charge of the cross. These men divided the clothes of Jesus among them, each taking one garment. But one garment was left over, the shirt of Jesus. This was all woven in one piece, not sewed together; so the soldiers said:
"Let us not tear it, but cast lots to settle whose it shall be."
They threw upon the ground little square pieces of ivory having spots upon them. These squares were called dice. Each soldier threw one ivory piece; and they counted the spots on the side that was uppermost. The soldier whose piece showed the highest number took the shirt of Jesus as his own. One of the disciples of Jesus was standing near, and saw the soldiers dividing the clothes of Jesus, and he thought of the words in the twenty-second psalm, as a prophecy or foretelling of what should happen to Christ. These were the words of the psalm, written many hundred years before:
The soldiers having done their work, sat down around the cross to watch it. A great crowd of the priests and scribes and people stood around the cross, looking at Jesus hanging there. Some of them spoke spitefully to Jesus, shaking their heads at him, saying such words as these:
"Ah! you would destroy the Temple and build it again in three days, would you? Then come down from the cross and save yourself if you can!"
And some of the priests and scribes called out, "He saved others; but he can not save himself! If he is, as he said, 'Christ, the King of Israel,' let him now come down from the cross in our sight. Then we will believe on him."
"He trusts in God," said others; "now let God help him, if he chooses; for he said, 'I am the Son of God.'"
One of the two robbers who were hanging on the crosses beside Jesus called out to him, joining in the abuse:
"Are you not the Christ, the King of Israel? If you are, why don't you save yourself and save us with you?"
But the crucified man on the other side of Jesus rebuked him:
"Have you no fear of a just God?" he said. "You are suffering the same sentence as this man. And you and I are suffering only what we deserve for our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong."
Then this man from his cross said to Jesus, "Jesus, do not forget me when you come into your kingdom."
And Jesus answered him, "I tell you truly, this very day you shall be with me in the heavenly land."
At this time, near the cross of Jesus, was standing John, his disciple, the one disciple that Jesus loved, and with him was Mary, the mother of Jesus, also her sister and two other women named Mary—Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene, or Mary of Magdala. When Jesus saw his mother, and beside her the disciple whom he loved, he spoke from the cross to her:
"Woman, there is your son."
Then he said to John:
"Son, there is your mother."
And from that time Mary, the mother of Jesus, lived with the disciple John, as though he was her own son.
It was now noon, and Jesus had been upon the cross three long, terrible hours; the sun beating with its rays upon his head. Just at noon a sudden darkness came over the sky and the earth, and the darkness did not pass away until three o'clock. This darkness alarmed the people, and those who had been speaking to Jesus words of contempt, now stood still, full of fear.
At about three o'clock, Jesus called out with a loud voice these words:
"My God! My God! Why hast thou forsaken me?"
These are the opening words of the twenty-second psalm, written many hundred years before as a prophecy of what Christ should suffer. It may be that Jesus spoke those words to show that all his suffering had been foretold long before. Jesus in speaking those words used the old Hebrew tongue, the language in which the psalm was written. In the old Hebrew the words, "My God! My God!" were "Eloi! Eloi!" But the language had changed so greatly since the psalms were written that the people who heard him did not understand the words. Some said, "He is calling upon Elijah the prophet to help him!"
Then Jesus spoke again and said:
"I am thirsty."
There was standing by a jar full of vinegar. One of the men took a sponge, soaked it in the vinegar, fastened it on the end of a stick, and placed it on the lips of Jesus. This also had been foretold in the sixty-ninth psalm, in the words,
As soon as Jesus tasted the vinegar, he said:
"All is finished."
Then, after a moment's pause, he spoke with a loud voice to God:
"Father, into thy hands I give up my spirit!"
And with those words his head dropped forward, and Jesus was hanging dead upon his cross.
Just at the moment when Jesus died, suddenly there was an earthquake; the ground was shaken, the rocks were torn apart, and many of the tombs around Jerusalem were opened. In the Temple on Mount Moriah, a wonderful event was seen. The great veil that hung between the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place was suddenly torn from the top to the bottom, as if by a mighty unseen hand, so that the priests in the Temple could see what none of them, except the high priest, had ever seen before, the inside of the Holy of Holies.
The people who were standing on Mount Calvary, looking at the dying Jesus, were filled with fear. They beat upon their breasts with their hands, and went back to the city in terror at the darkness and the earthquake. The Roman captain, who was in charge of the soldiers around the cross, said:
"Surely this was a good man, a son of God!"
You know that the Sabbath among the Jews was kept on the seventh day of the week and that it always began at sunset on the evening before. It was on Friday that Jesus was crucified, and three o'clock on that afternoon. The Jews did not wish to have the men upon the three crosses hanging there upon the Sabbath, for that day, the Passover Sabbath, was kept especially holy.
The Jewish rulers came to Pilate and asked him that the men should not be left upon the cross over the Sabbath, but that they should be killed and their bodies taken away. They did not know at that time that Jesus was already dead. Pilate gave orders to the soldiers to have the men killed. This they did by breaking their legs, as they hung upon the crosses. As they saw that Jesus was no longer alive, they did not break his legs. But one of the soldiers, to be sure of his death, drove his spear into the side of Jesus, to strike his heart. John the disciple was still standing there watching beside the cross to the very last, and he wrote in his gospel many years afterward that he saw both water and blood pour forth from the side of Jesus, out of the wound made by the spear.
One of these secret friends of Jesus was Nicodemus, the ruler who had come to see Jesus at night three years before, on his first visit to Jerusalem. Another was a good man named Joseph, a rich man, who lived at a place called Arimathea, some miles out of Jerusalem, in the country. This man, Joseph of Arimathea, did a very bold thing. He went to Pilate in his palace, and asked Pilate to allow him to take down from the cross the dead body of Jesus, and to bury it. To us this may not seem a brave act, but it was, for the Roman rulers were very suspicious of anybody who appeared to be the friend of one who had been condemned to death. Some time before this, when a man asked the governor for the body of a man who had been put to death, the governor ordered that his friend should also be slain as an enemy of the Romans and the governor's enemy. It might be said that Joseph of Arimathea "took his life in his hands" when he asked Pilate for the body of Jesus.
But Pilate was not angry with Joseph; and at heart he was not an enemy of Jesus. Pilate was surprised to learn that Jesus was already dead, for sometimes upon the cross men lived several days of terrible pain. He sent for the Roman captain who had been in charge at the cross, and asked him if Jesus the Nazarene was dead. When the captain told him that Jesus was dead, he allowed Joseph to take away the body and do with it as he pleased.
Then Joseph, with some of the disciples of Jesus, carefully and tenderly took down from the cross the body of Jesus; and after the manner of Jewish burials at that time, wrapped it round and round with long strips of linen cloth. They also tied a napkin over the face of Jesus. Nicodemus came to help in the burial, bringing with him the weight of a hundred pounds in fragrant and costly spices, aloes and myrrh, which they laid in the linen cloth around the body.
Near the place where Jesus was crucified was a garden belonging to Joseph of Arimathea, and in the side of the rocky hill was a cave which Joseph had hollowed out for his own tomb. No dead body had ever been buried in this tomb; and there they laid the body of Jesus. Then they rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb, and left it.
Near by, at this time, were some of the women who had come with Jesus from Galilee; looking on while the body of Jesus, whom they had loved so fondly, was laid in the tomb. One of these women was Mary Magdalene, or "Mary of Magdala" by the Sea of Galilee, a woman from whom Jesus had driven out evil spirits more than a year before. Another woman was Mary, the wife of Clopas; and another was named Salome, who may have been the mother of the disciples James and John, and the wife of Zebedee the fisherman. These women noticed carefully the place where the body of Jesus was buried.
On the next morning, which was the Jewish Sabbath day, the chief priests and leading men among the Jews came to Pilate and said to him:
"We remember, sir, that while this man who deceived the people was alive, he said, 'After three days in the tomb I will arise again.' Now, then, give orders that the tomb where he is buried be kept under guard for three days. For if it be not watched, his disciples may come and steal his body out of the tomb and hide it; then they will tell the people, 'He is risen from the dead,' and the last false report will do more harm than the first, that he was the King of Israel."
"Take a guard of soldiers," said Pilate, "and make it just as sure as you can."
So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the great stone at the door. Also they placed a guard of soldiers in front of the tomb, with orders to stay there for three days.
On one side of the rounded skull-like hill which may have been Calvary, where Jesus was crucified, there has been found a very ancient tomb, which may have been the place of the Saviour's burial. No one can be sure of this; but we may be certain that either in this tomb, or in one like it, not far away, Jesus was buried.
There was a great earthquake, shaking the ground around the tomb, as an angel from heaven came down. His face and his form shone with dazzling brightness like lightning, and his clothing was white as snow glittering in the sun. The soldiers on guard trembled as they saw the angel, and fell down on the ground as if they were dead; and after a little while rising up, crept away in their fear, and left the garden.
The bright angel laid his hand on the stone at the door of the tomb, paying no attention to the seal upon it, and rolled the stone away. As he stood at the open door of the tomb, the Lord Jesus Christ walked out from it, no longer dead but living, and living never to die again. The grave clothes were not now wrapped around his body, and the napkin had been taken from his face.
If the Roman soldiers were still there, they could not see Jesus, for a change had come over him, and he was now seen only by those whom he wished to see him and by no others. And he could suddenly appear and disappear as he chose. He could be seen suddenly in one place, and then a moment after could be seen just as suddenly in another place miles and miles away. He could pass through closed doors just as if they were wide open; and after being seen by his friends could vanish out of their sight.
A few moments after the earthquake, and after the risen Christ had come from his tomb, a few women came from the city to the tomb, bringing some more spices and perfumes to place around his body. Those women were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the wife of Clopas, and Salome, and a woman named Joanna, and perhaps others. They may have felt the earthquake shock, but they did not know the wonderful things that had taken place, and supposed that the body of Jesus was in the tomb. As they came near, they said to each other:
"Who will roll away for us the great stone at the door of the tomb?"
But when they came to the tomb, they found the stone already rolled away, and the tomb open. Mary Magdalene came a little before the others, and was the first to see that the tomb was open, and looking inside she saw that it was empty. She took but one glance, and then, without waiting for the others, ran away to tell some of the disciples of Jesus that the tomb had been opened and the body of Jesus taken away, for she did not know that Jesus had risen and was living.
A moment after Mary Magdalene had gone away, the other women came to the tomb. They, too, saw that the stone had been rolled away, the tomb was open and the body of Jesus was not there. But these women saw what Mary Magdalene had not seen, a young man with shining face and long white robe, seated on the right side of the place where the body of Jesus had been laid. They were frightened as they looked upon him, for this young man was the angel who had rolled away the stone. But he calmed their fears, saying to them:
"Do not be afraid, you are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who has been crucified. He has risen; he is not here! Look! this is the place where his body was laid; and you can see it is empty! But go, find his disciples, and Peter, and tell them that he will go before you into Galilee, to the mountains. There they will see him, as he said to them before he died."
So these women, like Mary Magdalene only a few minutes before, went away from the tomb to find some of the disciples. They found Peter and John, and told them the news that the angel had given to them.
Peter and John at once hurried to the tomb. John was younger than Peter, and came to the tomb first. He saw the stone rolled away and the tomb open, and stood at the door, hesitating, uncertain whether to go into the tomb or not. But Peter, who came a moment afterward, did not hesitate. He rushed past John into the tomb, and saw that it was empty. It was like John, the thoughtful one, to wait at the door of the tomb; and it was like Peter, the quick and hasty one, to rush straight into the tomb. After Peter walked into the tomb, John followed him inside. They saw that the grave-place was empty; but they saw no angel. John noticed that the grave-clothes were lying in a heap on the floor, just as if Jesus had slipped out of them, without unrolling the long bands; and that the napkin which he had seen bound about his face had been carefully folded and was lying by itself. All these things showed that the body had not been taken away suddenly or in haste.
Peter, the excitable, was not a thinker, and just looked at these things and wondered. But John, the thoughtful disciple, looked at these things—the stone rolled away with its seal broken, the empty tomb, the grave clothes in an orderly pile, and the napkin folded carefully. Then it flashed upon his mind for the first time that his Lord had risen alive from the tomb! And at that moment came to him the words of Jesus spoken more than once, that he must die, and on the third day would rise again from death to life. Of all the eleven disciples of Jesus—for now that Judas was dead, they were no longer twelve, but eleven—John, the disciple whom Jesus loved the most, was the first one to believe that Jesus had risen, and he believed it before he had seen his living Lord.
As yet no one had seen Jesus living. Two disciples had looked into the empty tomb, and the women, except Mary Magdalene, had seen the angel, but none of them had seen Jesus; and all of them, save Mary Magdalene, went away, wondering and scarcely knowing what to think.
When the other women, with Peter and John, went away from the tomb, Mary stayed there, weeping and sobbing; for she had not seen the angel who said that Jesus had risen, and did not know that he was alive. As she stood weeping at the door of the tomb, she looked inside. There she saw two angels sitting at the empty grave-place, one at the head, the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had been lying.
"Woman," said one of the angels, "why are you weeping?"
"Because they have taken away my Lord," answered Mary, "and I do not know where they have laid him."
Just then something caused her to turn around, and she saw a man standing near her. It was Jesus, but she did not know him; for after rising from his grave Jesus showed himself in differing forms, and people could not know him until he allowed them.
"Woman," said Jesus to her, "why are you weeping? Who is it that you are looking for?"
Mary thought that this strange man was the gardener. She said to him:
"Oh, sir, if you have carried him anywhere, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away myself."
"Mary!" said Jesus.
And as he spoke her name, she knew him; and fell at his feet, clasping them in her hands.
"My own Master!" was all that she could say, in her joy at seeing him alive once more, whom she had last looked upon dead, hanging on the cross.
"Do not hold me," said Jesus, "for I have yet to arise and go to my Father in heaven; but go to my brothers, my disciples, and tell them that I shall soon rise up from the earth and go to my Father and your Father, to my God, and your God."
Mary Magdalene went and found the disciples, and said to them, "I have seen the Lord!" telling them also what he had said to her.
After Mary Magdalene had gone away from the tomb, the other women—Mary the wife of Clopas, Joanna, and Salome—came back from having seen the disciples, and having told them what the angel had said, that Jesus had risen. As they drew near the tomb, Jesus went to meet them.
"Welcome!" he said to the women. They ran up to him, fell on their faces, and clasped his feet, just as Mary had done, for they felt joy and fear mingled as they saw him.
"Do not be afraid," said Jesus, "go tell my brothers to go to Galilee and they shall see me there."
So these women went again to find the disciples and give them the news that Jesus was really living, and that they had seen him. All this was on Sunday morning—the first Easter-day.
On that morning, when the soldiers who had fled from the tomb recovered from their terror, they went to the chief priests and told them about the earthquake and the angel who had rolled away the stone. The priests had a talk with the rulers of the city; then they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers, and told them to say to everybody:
"The disciples came at night, while we were asleep, and broke open the tomb, and stole the body of Jesus."
They knew that a soldier had no right to sleep while on guard; and the rule of the army was, that any soldier who slept on his post should be put to death. But the rulers said to them:
"If the governor hears about this, we will satisfy him, and see that no harm comes to you."
So the soldiers took their money and did as they were told. And the story that the body of Jesus was stolen from the tomb, was told among the Jewish people and believed by them.