# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1902_S52
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

52 Proceedings of the nineteenth convention

and his raiment white as snow. Through what they felt there in the quaking of the earth, and what they saw, the bright heavenly radiance, frightened to death, the guards, as soon as they had only recovered from the terror, had seen the tomb open, the stone that closed the cave moved inward and laid aside, and the tomb empty (just as the women found it immediately afterward). With this message some of them came (not all of them will have done so; one may well suppose that some feared punishment from Pilate) into the city and reported first to the chief priests, in whose interest the watch had been posted, everything that had happened. The High Council, however (we can easily imagine that the calling together of a few members will not have required much time, since the earthquake will already have awakened the people), the High Council, then, which now knew two things, first, that the body of Jesus is gone and no longer in the tomb, and second, that it was not his disciples who had taken him away, agreed quickly to give the soldiers money, and indeed "large money," so that they should say they had slept instead of keeping watch, and that in the meantime the disciples had stolen the body of Jesus. Of this, then, the disciples were to be accused, in order to forestall the rumor that might arise, that Jesus had risen from the dead. Without doubt the High Council took care that this rumor spread early in the city and, if possible, found belief. So the fear in which we find the disciples in the evening behind closed doors can also be explained quite easily. For their part the chief priests undertook to satisfy Pilate, so that nothing should happen to the watchmen on account of the neglect of duty which they were to allege. It could be a matter of indifference to Pilate whether the body of this crucified man stayed in its place or not, if only no new uproar arose among the people; and the arrangement of the High Council with the watchmen, that it was Jesus' disciples who had stolen the body, was calculated to prevent such a possible agitation. The news, then, that the tomb is empty will in the course of the forenoon have spread in Jerusalem, together with the fable that the disciples had stolen the body.

b. But something else happened in the early morning, after Jesus had risen from the tomb, something which Matthew mentions at Christ's crucifixion and death and had anticipated in connection with the quaking of the earth, the rending of the rocks and the opening of the graves, which still happened on Good Friday itself. For after the resurrection of Christ many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came into the holy city and appeared unto many. Whoever now experienced such an appearance, would he not have hesitated to believe what the chief priests had spread abroad, that Jesus' disciples had stolen his body? Would he not have considered it possible that he who,