Chapter One

Christians believe that Jesus was arrested and crucified, owing to his betrayal by Judas Iscariot, was later resurrected, and raised to heaven. A detailed study of the Gospel, however, disproves this notion altogether. It is written in Matthew chapter 12 verse 40:

For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

Now it is obvious that Jonah did not die in the belly of the whale; all that happened was that he went into a swoon or a coma. The holy books of God bear witness that Jonah, by the grace of God, remained in the belly of the whale alive, came out alive, and his people ultimately accepted him. If then Jesus had died in the belly of the whale,1 what resemblance could there be between the dead and the living, and vice versa? The truth is, that Jesus was a true prophet and he knew that God, who loved him, would save him from an accursed death. Therefore, on the basis of divine revelation, he prophesied in the form of a parable, and positively intimated that he would not die on the cross, nor would he give up his ghost on the accursed wood; on the contrary, like the prophet Jonah, he would only be in a state of swoon. In the parable, he had also hinted that he would come out of the bowels of the earth and join his people and would be honoured like Jonah. This prophecy was also fulfilled; for Jesus came out of the bowels of the earth and went to his tribes who lived in the eastern countries like Kashmir and Tibet. These were the ten tribes of the Israelites who 721 years2 before Jesus, had been taken captive and forced to leave Samaria by Shalmaneser, King of Assur. They eventually came to India and settled in various parts of the country. Jesus had to make this journey, for the divine object underlying his mission was to meet the lost tribes of Israel who had settled in different parts of India. This was because these were the lost sheep of Israel who had renounced their ancestral faith after settling in these parts, and most of them had become Buddhists, and gradually started worshipping idols. Dr. Bernier, on the authority of a number of eminent scholars, states in his Travels that the Kashmiris in reality are the Jews who had migrated to this country during the political turmoil in the days of the king of Assur.34 In any case, it was incumbent upon Jesus to find out the whereabouts of the lost sheep, who had got mixed with the local people after coming to India. I shall presently produce evidence to prove that Jesus did in fact come to India and then, by stages, travelled to Kashmir, and discovered the lost sheep of Israel among Buddhists, who ultimately accepted him the way Jonah was accepted by his people. This was inevitable, for Jesus himself said in so many words that he had been sent to the lost sheep of Israel.

Otherwise too, he must needs have escaped death on the cross, for it was stated in the Holy Book that whoever was hanged on the cross was accursed. The term ‘accursed’ has a connotation which it would be cruel and unfair to apply to a chosen one of God like Jesus, for, according to the agreed view of all whose mother tongue is Arabic, la’nat, or curse, has reference to the state of one’s heart. A man is said to be accursed when his heart, having been estranged from God, becomes dark; when, deprived of divine mercy and of divine love, devoid absolutely of His knowledge, blind and deaf like Satan, he is saturated with the poison of unbelief; when there remains not a ray of divine love and knowledge in him; when the bonds of love and loyalty are broken, and, between him and God, mutual hatred and disdain and spite and hostility take root, so much so that they become enemies; and God becomes weary of him and he becomes weary of God; in short, he becomes an heir to all the attributes of the Devil. That is why the Devil himself is called the accursed.5

The connotation of the word ‘accursed’ is so foul and unclean that it can never apply to a righteous person who entertains the love of God in his heart. It is a pity that Christians did not consider the significance of curse when they invented this belief; otherwise, they could never have used such a degrading word for a righteous man like Jesus. Can we ever possibly imagine that Jesus’ heart was estranged from God; that he had denied His existence, hated Him and had become His enemy? Can we ever imagine that Jesus ever felt in his heart of hearts that he was alienated from God, that he was an enemy of God, and that he was totally lost in the darkness of unbelief and denial? But while Jesus never experienced such feelings and his heart was always full of the light of Divine love and knowledge, then, my worthy intellectuals, how can we ever say that not one, but thousands of curses descended upon Jesus with all their evil significance! God forbid, this could never be. How then can we believe that Jesus was accursed? What a pity, that once a man has expressed an opinion or taken his stand on a certain doctrine, he is ill-inclined to turn back from it, even if all its ills are exposed before him. It is praiseworthy indeed to seek salvation if it is based on authentic reality, but where is the sense in a desire for salvation which kills truth and countenances the belief regarding a holy prophet and perfect man, that he passed through a state in which he was totally estranged from God, and instead of unreserved and single-minded submission, there appeared in him a strangeness and alienation, even enmity and hatred, and that darkness filled his heart in place of light?

Remember, this kind of thinking not only detracts from the dignity of the prophethood of Jesus but is also derogatory to his claim to spiritual eminence, holiness, love, and knowledge of God, to which he gives repeated expression in the Gospels. Just look it up in the New Testament where Jesus claims that he is the Light and the Guide of the world, that he has a relationship of great love with God, that he has been blessed with a pure birth and that he is the beloved son of God. How then, in spite of these pure and holy ties, can the unholy attributes of a curse be ascribed to Jesus? No, this can never be so. There cannot be the least doubt therefore that Jesus was not crucified, and did not die on the cross, for his person did not deserve the stigma of death on the cross. Not having been crucified, he was also spared the unclean consequence of the curse, and this no doubt proves that he did not physically go to heaven. Since ascension was a constituent part of the whole scheme and a corollary of crucifixion, it necessarily follows that as he was neither accursed nor did he go to hell for three days, nor for that matter did he die on the cross, the second part of the scheme, namely, that of ascension, also stands nullified. The Gospels contain even more evidence on this, which I proceed to set below. One of these is the following statement of Jesus:

But after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee. (Matthew 26: 32)

This verse clearly shows that Jesus, after he had come out of the sepulchre, went to Galilee and not to heaven. His words ‘After I am risen’ do not mean coming to life after being dead; rather, Jesus used these words in anticipation of what the people were going to say in the future, because as it turned out, they thought he had died on the cross. And indeed, if a man is put on the cross, with nails driven into his hands and feet, and he faints away for all his suffering, looking more dead than alive; if such a man is saved from his ordeal and recovers his senses, it would hardly be an exaggeration on his part to say that he had come to life again. No doubt, Jesus’ escape from such a predicament was no less than a miracle. There is no doubt that after so much suffering, Jesus’ escape from death was a miracle, but it would be wrong to say that Jesus had actually died. True, words to this effect are of course found in the Gospels, but this is only the kind of mistake which the evangelists have also made in the recording of several other historical events. In the light of their research, commentators of the Gospels admit that the books of the New Testament can be divided into two parts:

1. The religious teaching which the disciples received from Jesus; this constitutes the essence of the teachings of the Gospel.

2. Historical events, like the genealogy of Jesus, his arrest and his being beaten; the existence at the time of a miraculous pond, etc., were recorded by the writers on their own authority. They were not revelations but were written down according to the writers’ own perceptions. At places, we find gross exaggerations, for instance, it is stated that if all the miracles and works of Jesus were put into writing, the world would not be big enough to accommodate them. What a hyperbole!

On the other hand, it would be quite in keeping with common parlance to describe as death the traumatic shock suffered by Jesus. This kind of expression is almost universal. Whenever a man escapes from such a near-fatal experience, without any hesitation he is considered to have been given ‘a new life’.

One thing more worth attention is that in the Gospel of Barnabas, which should be available in the London library, it is written that he was not put on the cross, nor did he die thereupon. We could very well point out that though this book is not included in the Gospels and has been rejected summarily, but there is no doubt that it is an ancient book, and was written at the same time as the other Gospels. Can’t we, therefore, view this book as an ancient chronicle and make use of it as an historical document? And can’t we conclude from this book that at the time when the event of the cross took place, people were not unanimous as to Jesus having died on the cross? Apart from this, the four Gospels themselves use metaphors describing a dead person as being asleep. It is not far from the point to suppose that coma has been described as death. As I have already mentioned, a prophet never lies. Jesus compared his three days’ stay in the tomb to the three days Jonah spent in the belly of the whale. This only shows that just as Jonah remained alive in the belly of the whale for three days, Jesus must also have been alive in the tomb for three days. It must be remembered here that the Jewish tombs in those days were not like the present-day tombs; they were spacious like a room and had an opening at one end covered with a big stone. I shall prove in due course that Jesus’ tomb, which has been recently discovered in Srinagar in Kashmir, is exactly similar to the one in which Jesus was placed in a state of swoon.

In short, the verse I have just quoted shows that Jesus, after coming out of the sepulchre, went to Galilee. It is written in the Gospel of Mark that after coming out of the sepulchre, Jesus was seen on the road to Galilee, and in due course he met the eleven disciples who were at their meal; he showed them his hands and feet which bore wounds; they thought that he was perhaps a spirit. Then he said to them: ‘It is I myself; touch me and see for a spirit has no flesh and bones as I have.’ Then he took a piece of broiled fish, and of an honeycomb and ate it before them. See Mark 16:14 and Luke 24:39-42.6

These verses show that it is certain that Jesus never went to the heavens; rather, he came out of the sepulchre and went to Galilee like a common man, in ordinary clothes and a human body. If he had been resurrected after death, how was it that his spiritual body could still have borne the wounds inflicted upon him on the cross? What need had he to eat? And if he required food then he must be in need of food even now!

Readers should know better than to think that the Jewish cross was like the present day gallows, from which deliverance is almost an impossibility. In those days, no noose was secured around the neck of the victim, nor was the wooden plank pulled from under him to keep him hanging. Instead, the victim was put on the cross, his hands and feet were nailed to it; and there was always the possibility that after he was put on the cross and duly nailed, he could still be taken down alive after a day or two, before his bones had been broken, in case it was decided to spare his life, the punishment already undergone being considered sufficient. If he was meant to be killed, he was kept on the cross, was denied food and water and left in this condition under the sun for at least three days, after which his bones were broken and he would expire under the torture. But by the grace of God Almighty, Jesus was spared the agony which would otherwise have meant certain death. A close scrutiny of the Gospels would reveal that neither did Jesus remain on the cross for three days, nor did he have to suffer hunger or thirst, nor were his bones broken. On the contrary, he remained on the cross only for about two hours, and it so happened, by the grace of the Almighty, that he was placed on the cross in the latter part of the day, which was a Friday, sometime before sunset, the next day being the Sabbath, the Jewish feast of Fasah. Now, according to Jewish custom, it was unlawful and a cognizable offence to let anyone remain on the cross on the Sabbath, or the night before. Jews, like Muslims, followed the lunar calendar, according to which the day began with the sunset. On the one hand was this welcome circumstance which was born of earthly causes, and, on the other, divine scheme intervened. When the sixth hour had struck, a severe dust storm began to blow which enveloped the world in darkness and persisted for at least three hours. See Mark 15:33. The sixth hour was after twelve o’clock and was close to evening. Now, the Jews got worried at the deep darkness and feared lest the night of the Sabbath should overtake them and lest, having violated the sanctity of the Sabbath, they should be deservedly punished. Therefore, they hurriedly removed Jesus and the two thieves from their crosses. In addition to this, there was another heavenly intervention. When Pilate presided at his court, his wife sent word to him saying, Have nothing to do with that just man (don’t seek to have him killed) for I have suffered many things in a dream because of him. See Matthew 27:19.7 So, this angel, whom the wife of Pilate saw in her dream, would have us and all fair-minded people believe, that God had never intended for Jesus to die on the cross. Ever since creation, it has never happened that God should reveal to a person in a dream that a particular thing would happen in a certain way, and still that thing should fail to happen. For example, Matthew says that an angel of the Lord came to Joseph in a dream and said:

Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. (Matthew 2:13)

Can anyone imagine that Jesus could have been killed in Egypt? The dream of Pilate’s wife was similarly a part of divine design, which could never fail in its objective. Just as the possibility of Jesus being put to death during the journey to Egypt was against the specific promise of God, so here too it is unthinkable that the angel of God should appear to Pilate’s wife and point out to her that if Jesus died on the cross it would spell disaster for her, and yet the angel’s appearance should go in vain, and Jesus should be allowed to suffer death on the cross. Is there any example of this in the world? None. The pure conscience of all good men, when informed of the dream of Pilate’s wife, will no doubt testify that for a fact it was the purpose of the dream to lay the foundation for Jesus’ rescue. On the other hand, everyone is free to reject a self-evident reality, out of sheer prejudice for his creed, but fairness would have us believe that the dream of Pilate’s wife is a piece of weighty evidence in support of Jesus’ escape from the cross. Matthew, the first and foremost of the Gospels, testifies to this. Although the powerful evidence which I shall set out in this book at once invalidates the divinity of Jesus and the doctrine of Atonement, yet honesty and fairness demand that we should pay no heed to our people, family, and conventional religion in accepting the truth. Since his creation, man, because he lacked true insight, has deified very many objects, so much so, that even cats and snakes have been worshipped. But the wiser among men, by the grace of God, have always managed to keep away from such polytheistic beliefs.

Among the testimonies of the Gospels, which testify to Jesus’ escape from death on the cross, is the journey he undertook to a far-off place i.e. Galilee after coming out of the sepulchre. On Sunday morning, the first person he met was Mary Magdalene, who at once informed the disciples that Jesus was alive, but they did not believe her. Then he was seen by two of the disciples who were walking in the countryside; and finally he appeared to all the eleven while they were at their meal and remonstrated with them for their callousness and lack of faith. See Mark 16:9-14. Again, when the disciples were going towards the hamlet called Emmaus, 3.75 kose8 from Jerusalem, Jesus joined them; and when they reached the hamlet, Jesus wanted to part company with them, but they insisted on his staying. He then dined with them, and they all spent the night with Jesus in Emmaus. See Luke 24:13-31. Now, it is absolutely impossible and irrational to say that Jesus ate and drank and slept and made a journey of about 70 kose to Galilee and performed all the functions of the physical body with a disembodied spirit — the spiritual form the human body assumes after death. Although many differences are found in the Gospels due to differing dispositions, they clearly prove that Jesus met his disciples in his mortal, physical body, and made a long journey on foot to Galilee. He showed his wounds to the disciples, had the evening meal with them, and slept in their company. We shall later on prove that he even treated his wounds with a special ointment.

Now, one has to consider, as to how it is possible that after a person has been invested a glorious and eternal frame, and exempted from the necessity of eating and drinking, is to sit on the right hand of God, and freed from all pain and deformity, he should still bear on his hands and feet fresh nail wounds which bleed and hurt, and an ointment has to be prepared to heal them? In other words, even after having an eternal body which should last forever without changing or deteriorating, Jesus was still suffering from a number of travails. He even showed his flesh and bones to his disciples; he was also prone to hunger and thirst, or it would serve no purpose to eat and drink and to rest during his journey. Food and water are indeed necessary for mortal bodies in this world, and their lack could prove fatal. Hence, there is no doubt that Jesus did not die on the cross, and did not acquire a new spiritual body: rather, he was in a state of coma which resembled death. And it so happened, by God’s mercy, that the tomb in which he was placed was not like the tombs we have in this country; it was a large and ventilated room with an opening. It was a custom with the Jews in those days to build large sepulchers with an access; they were kept ready and when someone died, his body was placed there. We find a clear testimony of this in the Gospels. Luke says,

Now upon the first day of the week very early in the morning, they (the women) came unto the sepulchre bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them. And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre and they entered in and found not the body of the Lord Jesus. (Luke 24:2-3)9

Consider for a moment the words, ‘they entered’. Obviously, a man can only enter a tomb which is like a room and has an opening. I shall again state at its proper place in this book that the tomb of Jesus which has recently been discovered in Srinagar, Kashmir, also has an opening. This is a very special point and researchers can draw meaningful conclusions from it.

Among the testimonies of the Gospels are the words of Pilate, recorded by St. Mark:

And now when the even was come, because it was the preparation, that is the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, an honourable counsellor, who also waited for the kingdom of God, came, and went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the body of Jesus. And Pilate marvelled if he were already dead. (Mark 16:42-44)10

This shows that suspicion had risen at the very moment of crucifixion as to whether Jesus had actually died, and this suspicion was raised by a person who knew well enough how long it took for a person to die on the cross.

Among the testimonies of the Gospels are also the following verses:

The Jews, therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath day (for that Sabbath day was an high day), besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. Then came the soldiers and brake the legs of the first, and of the other which was crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was dead already they brake not his legs: But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water. (John 19:31-34)

These verses clearly show that in order to put an end to the life of a crucified person, it was the practice in those days to keep him on the cross for several days, and then to break his legs, but Jesus’ legs were purposely not broken, and he was taken down alive from the cross, like the two thieves. That was the reason why blood gushed out when his side was pierced, whereas the blood of a dead man is congealed. This shows very clearly that there was some kind of a secret plan. Pilate was a God-fearing and good-hearted man; he could not openly show favour to Jesus for fear of Caesar because the Jews condemned Jesus as a rebel. All the same, Pilate was lucky to have beheld Jesus but Caesar was not so fortunate. Pilate not only saw Jesus but also showed him great favour. He did not at all desire that Jesus should suffer crucifixion. It is clear from the Gospels that Pilate resolved several times to let Jesus go, but the Jews threatened that if he did so, he would be disloyal to Caesar because, according to them, Jesus was a rebel who wanted to become king. (John 19:12)

Moreover, the dream which Pilate’s wife saw, was also the prime mover to the effect that somehow or the other, Jesus should be saved from crucifixion, and that it would otherwise spell disaster. Since the Jews were a mischievous people, and were quite ready to report him to Caesar, Pilate used a subterfuge to release Jesus. First, he ordered Jesus’ crucifixion in the expiring hours of a Friday, close to the night of Sabbath. Pilate was only too well aware that according to the Jewish law Jesus could only be kept on the cross until that evening, as the Sabbath would then begin and it would be unlawful to keep the bodies on the cross. It is unthinkable that the two thieves should be alive after two hours and Jesus should be dead; this was rather part of the design not to allow Jesus’ bones to be broken. To a person with some common sense, it is indeed a reasonable point to ponder that the two thieves were taken down alive from their crosses. Indeed, it was normal practice that people were taken down alive from the cross and died only when their bones were broken or they breathed their last because of hunger and thirst after staying on the cross for a few days. But Jesus had to suffer none of these travails. Neither was he kept on the cross hungry and thirsty for so many days, nor were his bones broken to put a stop to his life at once. It would be understandable if even one of the two thieves had died and there had been no need to break his bones.

Furthermore, Joseph, a close friend of Pilate’s, who was a chief in those parts, and a secret disciple of Jesus, happened to arrive at this very moment. I presume that he too was summoned by Pilate. Jesus was declared dead and his body was placed in his custody. Since Joseph was a respected personality, the Jews could not quarrel with him. Thus, he took charge of Jesus, who had been declared dead whereas he was actually in a coma. Following Pilate’s instructions, he took Jesus to a room with an opening which was used as a grave according to the prevailing custom of the time, and was beyond the access of the Jews.

All this took place in the midst of the 14th century after the demise of the prophet Moses, and the Messiah was the divine reformer who was to revive the Jewish faith in that century. Although the Jews themselves were awaiting the Messiah in the fourteenth century, and the prophecies of the earlier prophets testified to his coming, it is a pity that the Jews did not recognize the person and the time and denounced their Promised Messiah as an imposter. They called him an apostate, pronounced a verdict of death against him, and dragged him to court. This shows that the fourteenth century has the inherent quality of making people’s hearts callous, and causing religious clerics to become blind and averse to the truth. A comparison between the fourteenth century after Moses and the fourteenth century after the Holy Prophet(sa) — who is the similitude of Moses, will show, first, that in both of these centuries there was a man who claimed to be the Promised Messiah, and that it was a true claim, made on the authority of God Almighty. We also know that the religious leaders of the two peoples declared both of them to be apostates, denounced them as unbelievers and Anti-Christs, and pronounced verdicts of death against both. They were both taken to the courts; a Roman court in one case and a British court in the other. But in the end, they were both saved and the designs of both the Jewish and the Muslim clerics failed. God intended to raise great communities for both the Messiahs, and to defeat the designs of their enemies. In short, the fourteenth century after Moses and the fourteenth century after our Holy Prophet(sa), are both hard and trying and, in the long run, full of blessings for their respective Messiahs.

Among the testimonies which bear out that Jesus was indeed saved from the cross is the one narrated in Matthew 26:36-46. It relates that, having been informed by revelation of his impending arrest, Jesus prayed to God all night, crying and prostrating. These prayers, offered in such humility, for which Jesus was given ample time, could not have gone unaccepted. God never turns down the prayer of a chosen one when he prays in distress. How then could Jesus’ prayer have been turned down, which he offered all night long in a state of anguish and distress, particularly when Jesus himself had announced that his Father in heaven listened to his prayers. How could we say that God listened to his prayers if this prayer offered in such distress was not accepted? The Gospels also show that Jesus was certain that his prayer had been accepted and that he had great faith in his prayer. That is why when he was arrested and put on the cross, and found the circumstances contrary to his expectations, he involuntarily cried out: ‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani’, that is to say ‘My God, my God why hast Thou forsaken me?’,11 meaning, ‘I did not expect things would come to this pass and that I would have to die on the cross. I was certain that God would listen to my prayers.’ So, both these references of the Gospels show that Jesus firmly believed his prayer would be heard and accepted and his nightlong cries and supplications would not go in vain. In fact, he had himself taught his disciples, on divine authority, that if they prayed, their prayers would be accepted. He had also related the parable of the judge who feared neither God nor man, which was intended to convey to the disciples that God did indeed listen to prayers. Although Jesus had been apprised of the impending catastrophe, yet, like all righteous people, he prayed to God, believing that there was nothing impossible for Him and that everything that happened or did not happen was subject to God’s will. Now if Jesus’ own prayer was not accepted, God forbid, what an adverse effect this would have had on his disciples who had seen with their own eyes that the prayer of a great prophet like Jesus, addressed all night long with such burning passion, had not been accepted. Such an unfortunate example would have sorely tried their faith. God’s mercy, therefore, desired that this prayer must be accepted; and the prayer offered at Gethsemane was indeed accepted.

There is another point to remember in this connection. Just as there was a conspiracy to kill Jesus, for which purpose the chief priests and the scribes assembled at the palace of the high priest called Caiphas and devised a plan to kill Jesus, so was there a conspiracy to murder Moses, and, likewise, the Holy Prophet(sa), for which there was a secret consultation in Mecca at a place called Dar-ul-Nadwa. But God Almighty saved both the great prophets from the evil consequences of these designs. The conspiracy against Jesus lies, in point of time, between the two conspiracies; why then was Jesus not saved, even when he had prayed so earnestly and in a much more dire situation? Why was Jesus’ prayer not heard, when God hears the prayers of His beloved servants and frustrates the designs of the wicked? All righteous people know by experience that the prayer of the distressed and the afflicted is accepted. Indeed the hour of distress is the time for the righteous to show signs. I have had personal experience of this. Two years ago, a false charge of attempted murder was brought against me by Dr. Martin Clark, a Christian, who was a resident of Amritsar, Punjab. The case was filed in the district court, Gurdaspur, and it was alleged that I had sent a person named Abdul Hameed to murder the said doctor. It so happened that I was opposed in this case by several scheming persons belonging to the three communities, Christian, Hindu, and Muslim, who joined hands in trying to prove the charge of attempted murder. The Christians were against me because I was trying, and am still trying, to rescue humanity from the false notions which Christians entertain regarding Jesus; and this was the first taste of their ire. The Hindus were displeased with me because I had made a prophecy regarding the death of Pundit Lekh Ram, with his consent, and the prophecy was fulfilled within the appointed time, which was indeed a terrible sign from God. Likewise, the Muslim clerics were angry because I was opposed to the idea of a bloodthirsty Messiah and to the doctrine of Jihad as understood by them. So, some important personages of these three communities counselled together to somehow prove the charge of murder against me, so that I should either be hanged or imprisoned. They were thus unjust in the sight of God. God had informed me of this long before their secret consultations, and had given me the tidings of my ultimate acquittal. These divine revelations were announced beforehand to hundreds of people; and when after the revelation, I prayed: ‘Lord! Save me from this affliction,’ it was revealed to me that God would save me and clear me of the charge brought against me. This revelation was verbally communicated to more than three hundred persons, many of whom are still alive. It so happened that my enemies produced false witnesses in the court, and very nearly ‘proved’ the case, witnesses of the three communities mentioned earlier having deposed against me. Then, it so happened, that the truth of the case was disclosed by God in a variety of ways to the magistrate before whom the case was pending. This magistrate was Captain W. Douglas, the Deputy Commissioner of Gurdaspur. He was convinced that the case was false. Then without caring for the doctor who was also a missionary, his sense of justice made him dismiss the case. Thus what I had announced about my acquittal on the authority of divine revelation to hundreds of people and in public meetings turned out to be true notwithstanding the mounting danger of the attending circumstances. This served to fortify the faith of many people. This was not all. More charges of this kind and calumnies of a criminal character were preferred against me on the above grounds, and cases were taken to court, but before I could be summoned, God informed me of the origin and the end of each affair, and in every case howsoever alarming, I was given the glad tidings of acquittal in advance.

The point of this discourse is that God Almighty does indeed accept prayers especially when the oppressed knock on his door with implicit faith in Him; He attends to their plaints, and helps them in strange ways. To this, I myself am a witness. Why was it then that the prayer of Jesus uttered in such anguish was not accepted? But indeed, it was accepted, and God did save him. God caused things to happen on earth and in heaven to rescue him. John, i.e. the Prophet Yahya, had no time to pray for his end had arrived, but Jesus had a whole night to pray, and he spent it in supplication, standing and prostrating before God, for God had willed that he should give expression to his distress and pray to Him for Whom nothing was impossible. So the Lord, in keeping with His eternal practice, heard his prayer. The Jews lied when they taunted Jesus at the time of the crucifixion as to why God had not saved him despite his trust in Him? God frustrated all the designs of the Jews and saved His beloved Messiah from the cross and the attending curse. And the Jews had indeed failed.

Among the testimonies of the Gospels which have reached us are the following verses from Matthew:

That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation. (Matthew 23:35-36)

Now, if you think over these verses you will find that Jesus clearly says that the killing of prophets by the Jews ceased with the prophet Zacharias, and that after that, the Jews had no power to kill any prophet. This is a major prophecy which clearly points out that Jesus was not killed as a result of crucifixion; he was rather saved from the cross, dying ultimately a natural death. For if Jesus was also to suffer death at the hands of the Jews, like Zacharias, he would have hinted at it in these verses. If it is argued that Jesus was killed by the Jews but this was not a sin on the Jews’ part, for Jesus’ death was in the nature of an atonement, the contention is hardly tenable, for in John 19:11 Jesus says that the Jews have been guilty of a great sin for having resolved to kill him; and likewise in many other places there is the unmistakable hint that as a penalty for the crime of which they had been guilty against Jesus, they deserved punishment in the sight of God. See the Gospel12 26:24.

Among the testimonies of the Gospels which have reached us, is this verse in Matthew:

Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom. (Matthew 16:28)

And this verse from John:

Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he (the disciple John) tarry (in Jerusalem) till I come. (John 21:22)

This means: ‘If I will, John will not die till I come again’. These verses show with great clarity that Jesus had made a promise that some people would still be alive when he returned; among these, he had named John. The fulfillment of this promise was therefore inevitable. Accordingly, Christians also admit that for the prophecy to be fulfilled in accordance with the promise, it was inevitable that Jesus should have come at a time when some of his disciples were still alive. This is also the basis of the clergymen’s declaration that Jesus had come to Jerusalem at the time of its destruction, as he had promised, and that John had seen him, as he was still alive at the time. But it should be noted that Christians do not say that Jesus really came down from heaven accompanied by appointed signs; they rather say that he appeared to John in a kind of vision so that he might fulfil his prophecy contained in Matthew 16:38.13 But I say that such coming does not fulfil the prophecy. It is a very poor attempt at interpretation and is meant to avoid the objections inherent in the prophecy. This interpretation is evidently untenable and wrong, so much so, that it needs no refutation, for if Jesus had to appear to anyone in a dream or a vision, a prophecy of this kind would be ridiculous.14

Moreover, Jesus had also appeared to Paul long before this in the same manner. It appears that the prophecy contained in Matthew 16:28 has caused a panic among the padres and they have not been able to give it a rational meaning consistent with their own beliefs. It was difficult for them to say that Jesus, at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, had descended from heaven in glory, and that, like the lightning which lights up the heavens, was seen by everybody; and also it was not easy for them to ignore the statement, ‘Some of those who are standing here will not taste death till they have seen the Son of man coming in his kingdom.’ Therefore, as a result of a laboured interpretation they believed in the fulfillment of the prophecy in the form of a vision. But this is not true; righteous servants of God always appear in visions to the divinely elect, and for a vision it is not even necessary that they should appear only in a dream, they can be seen even when one is awake, and I myself have experienced such phenomena. I have seen visions in which I met Jesus many a time, and I have also met some of the other prophets, while I was fully awake. I have also seen our Chief, Lord and Master, the Holy Prophet Muhammad(sa) many a time in this condition, and I have talked to him in such a clear state of being awake that sleep or drowsiness had nothing to do with it. I have also met some dead people at their graves or other places while I was awake, and have talked to them. I very well know that such a meeting with the dead in this state is possible, and that not only can we meet, we can also talk to them and even shake hands. Between this and the ordinary state of being awake there is no difference during such an experience; a person feels that he is in this very world, has the same ears, eyes and tongue, but deeper reflection reveals a different universe. The world cannot understand this kind of experience, for the world lies in a state of indifference. This experience is a gift of God for those who are endowed with an extra sensory perception. The experience is of course genuine and authentic. Therefore, when Jesus appeared to John after the destruction of Jerusalem, though the latter might have seen him while fully awake, and though they might have had some conversation and a handshake between them, nevertheless, the incident has nothing to do with the prophecy. Such phenomena often take place in the world and even now, if I devote some attention to it, I can by the grace of God see Jesus or some other holy prophet while I am awake. But such a meeting would not fulfil the prophecy contained in Matthew 16:28.

What actually happened was that Jesus knew that he would be saved from the cross and would migrate to another land, that God would neither let him die nor take him away from this world as long as he had not seen the destruction of the Jews with his own eyes, and that he would not die unless and until the kingdom of heaven, vouchsafed to the godly, realized its aims and objectives. Jesus made this prophecy to assure his disciples that they would presently see the sign that those who had raised the sword against him would be killed with the sword during his lifetime and in his very presence. Thus, if evidence is of any value, there is no greater evidence to convince the Christians than the fact that Jesus himself prophesied that some of them would still be alive when he returned.

Remember, the Gospels contain two kinds of prophecies about the coming of Jesus:

1. The promise of his coming in the latter days means his coming in the spiritual sense, like the coming of Elijah before the coming of the Messiah. Like Elijah, he has already appeared in this age and it is I, the writer, a servant of mankind, who has appeared in the name of the Messiah as the Promised Messiah. Jesus has told of my coming in the Gospels, and blessed is he who, out of love for Jesus, considers my claim with justice and fairness, and saves himself from going astray.

2. The other prophecies regarding the second coming of Jesus mentioned in the Gospels constitute evidence of his life which continued after the experience of the cross, by the sheer grace of God. It was in accordance with the prophecy that God saved his chosen servant from death on the cross.

Christians are mistaken in mixing up these two contexts. Because of this, they end up confused and have to face many complications. The verse in chapter 16 of Matthew is, therefore, a very important piece of evidence in support of Jesus’ escape from the cross.

Among the testimonies of the Gospels which have reached us, is also the following verse of Matthew:

And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. (Matthew 24:30)

Jesus says that a time will come when, from heaven, as a result of divine intervention, such knowledge and evidence will come to hand as will invalidate the doctrines of his divinity, death on the cross, going up to heaven and coming back again; and that heaven will bear witness against the lies of those, for example the Jews, who denied his being a true prophet, and condemned him as accursed on account of his death on the cross. The fact that he did not suffer death on the cross and was, therefore, not accursed would be clearly established; that as a result all the nations of the earth, who had exaggerated or detracted from his true station, would become greatly ashamed of their error; that, in the same age, when this fact would be disclosed, people would see Jesus’ spiritual descent to the earth. It means that the Promised Messiah, who would come in the power and spirit of Jesus, would appear with all the lustrous signs, heavenly support, and power and glory which would be easily recognised. When further explained, the verse means that God’s will has so made the person of Jesus and such are the events of his life that they cause some people to exaggerate, and others to downgrade his status. There are those who have placed him above the category of human beings, so much so that they say that he has not yet died and is sitting alive in heaven. Then there are those who have gone one better and say that, having died on the cross and come back to life again, he has gone to heaven and become invested with all the powers of divinity and that he is God Himself. Then there are the Jews, who say that he was killed on the cross and therefore (We take refuge with God for this) he is accursed for all times to come; that he is doomed to be the object of perpetual divine wrath; that God is disgusted with him and looks upon him as his hated enemy; that he is a liar, an impostor, an apostate, and a rank unbeliever and that he is not from God. (We again take refuge with God for this). These exaggerations and detractions were so unjust that it was but natural that God Himself should exonerate His true prophet from these charges. The verse of the Gospel quoted above also points to this fact. The statement that all the nations of the earth would mourn and lament suggests that all those people to whom the term ‘nation’ applies would mourn on that day; they would beat their breasts and cry, and great would be their mourning. Christians had better study this verse a little carefully and consider. When the verse prophesies that all the nations would beat their breasts, how then is it possible that Christians shall stay away from this mourning? Are they not a nation? When, in accordance with this verse, they are a part of those who shall beat their breasts, why then are they not concerned about their salvation? The verse clearly says that when the sign of the Messiah appears in the heavens, all the nations inhabiting the earth will mourn. Anyone who says that his people will not mourn denies Jesus. Only those who are yet a small minority cannot be the people hinted at in the prophecy, as they are not yet numerous enough to be described as a nation. These people are none but us. Ours is the only community which is outside the sense and scope of this prophecy, for this community has yet only a few adherents to whom the term ‘nation’ cannot be applied. Jesus, on the authority of divine revelation, says that when a particular sign appears in the heavens all the people of the world who, on account of their numbers, deserve to be described as a nation will beat their breasts; there will be no exception but those who are small in number and to whom the term nation cannot apply. Neither Christians, nor Muslims, nor Jews, nor any other denier, can keep out of the purview of this prophecy. Our community alone is outside its scope for God has only just sowed us like a seed. The word of a prophet can never fail. The prophecy contains the unmistakable hint that every nation inhabiting the world will mourn. Now which of these people can claim to be outside its scope? Jesus admits of no exception in this verse. The group which has not yet attained the size of a nation is in any case an exception, and that is our community. This prophecy has been clearly fulfilled in this age, for the truth, which has now been revealed regarding Jesus, is undoubtedly the cause of mourning for all these nations, because it has exposed the error of their thinking. The hue and cry of Christians over the divinity of Jesus turns into sighs of grief; the insistence of Muslims day in and day out that Jesus has gone up to the skies alive, changes into weeping and wailing; and as for the Jews, they stand to lose everything.

Here it is necessary to mention that in the statement contained in the said verse, namely, that at that time all the nations of the earth would mourn and beat their breasts, the word ‘earth’ means Bilaad-i-Shaam15 with which these three peoples are basically connected — Jews, because that is their place of origin and their place of worship; Christians, because Jesus appeared in that place, and the early Christians lived there; Muslims, because they are the heirs to the land to the Last Day. If the word ‘earth’ is taken to embrace all countries, even then it presents no difficulty, for when the truth is laid bare all deniers would be ashamed.

Among the testimonies that have reached us through the Gospels, is this statement from the Gospel of Matthew:

And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his (Jesus’) resurrection and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many. (Matthew 27:52)

There is not the slightest doubt that the story mentioned in the Gospel that after the resurrection of Jesus the saints came out of the graves and appeared alive to many, is not based on any historical fact; for, had it been so, the Judgment Day would have taken place in this very world, and what had been kept secret as a test of faith and sincerity would have been made manifest to all. Faith would not have been faith, and, in the sight of every believer and denier, the nature of the next world would have become an evident and open fact, like the existence of the moon, the sun, and the alternation of day and night. In that case, faith would have no value, nor would it merit any reward.

If the people and past prophets of Israel whose number is millions, had really been brought to life at the time of the crucifixion and had in fact come back to the city alive, and if this miracle, that hundred of thousands of saints and prophets were all brought to life at the same time, were really shown to prove the truth and divinity of Jesus, the Jews would have had an excellent opportunity to inquire of their prophets, saints, and other ancestors, whether Jesus who claimed to be God was indeed God, or was he a liar! One can easily imagine that they could not have missed this welcome opportunity. They must have inquired about Jesus, for the Jews were very keen to compare notes with the dead if they could be restored to life. When, therefore, hundreds of thousands of the dead were restored to life, and flocked to the city in their thousands, how could the Jews have let go such an opportunity? They must have inquired, not from one or two, but from thousands; and when the dead entered their respective houses there must have been great commotion all over the place, for many hundreds of thousands of them had been brought back to life. In every house there must have been great excitement, and everybody must have been questioning the dead as to whether the man Jesus, who called himself the Messiah, was really God. But because the Jews, after the testimony of the dead, did not believe in Jesus, as we would expect them to do, nor did their hearts soften, rather if anything, they became confirmed in their hard-heartedness, it appears more than probable that the dead did not speak a single favourable word for him. They must have pronounced straightaway that this man was making a false claim to Godhood, and was lying against God. That was why the Jews did not desist from mischief in spite of the fact that hundreds of thousands of prophets and apostles had been restored to life. Having ‘killed’ Jesus, they attempted to kill all others. How can one believe that hundreds of thousands of saints who, right from the time of Adam up to the time of John the Baptist, had been resting in their graves in the holy land, should all be brought back to life; that they should all flock to the city to preach, and everyone of them should stand up and testify before thousands of people that Jesus, the Messiah, was really the Son of God — no, God Himself; that he alone should be worshipped; that the people should renounce their former beliefs, otherwise, they would go to hell, which these saints had witnessed for themselves! Yet, notwithstanding such excellent evidence and such eyewitness accounts which proceeded from the mouths of hundreds of thousands of dead saints, the Jews should not desist from their denial! I personally am not prepared to believe this. Therefore, if hundreds of thousands of saints, prophets and apostles, etc., who were dead, had really come to life and had visited the city to give evidence, they must undoubtedly have given unfavourable evidence; they could never have borne witness to the divinity of Jesus. Perhaps this is the reason why the Jews became more firmly entrenched in their disbelief after listening to the evidence of the dead. Jesus wanted them to believe in his divinity, but they, because of this evidence, denied that he was even a prophet.

In short, such beliefs have a highly deleterious and unhealthy effect, namely, to say that hundreds of thousands of dead persons, or any dead person before that time, had been brought back to life by Jesus; for the restoration to life of the dead did not serve any useful purpose. A person who has visited a far-off country and comes back to his hometown after several years of absence is naturally keen to tell the people of his strange experiences, and to relate to them the wonderful stories of the land he has visited. He will not keep mum or remain tongue-tied when he meets his people after a long period of separation. No, at such a time, others also are keen to listen to him and question him about the far off places; and if perchance, there comes to these people some poor and lowly person, humble in appearance, who yet claims to be the king of the country of which the principal town has already been visited by these people and who says that he is superior in his kingly rank even to this and that king, the people are always wont to question such itinerants whether the man, going about in their country, is really the king of that land; to which question these travellers reply to the best of their knowledge. This being so, the bringing of the dead to life by Jesus would have been, as I have stated before, worth believing in, if the evidence on which the dead must have been questioned, which was but natural, had led to some useful result. However, this was not at all the case. Therefore, along with the supposition that the dead were brought back to life, one is compelled to suppose that the dead did not give evidence favourable to Jesus which could lead one to believe in his truth. They rather gave evidence which added to the already existing confusion. Would that instead of human beings, some animal had been restored to life! Perhaps the idea was to preserve secrecy. For example, if it had been said that Jesus had brought back to life several thousand bullocks, it would have been ‘reasonable’ enough, and, if the question was asked as to what the evidence of these dead animals had led to, the answer would have been easy: how could the mute bullocks testify one way or the other? The dead, however, whom Jesus brought back to life, were human beings. Suppose some of the Hindus were asked if ten or twenty of their dead ancestors were restored to life and brought back to this world and were asked to state which religion was the true religion, would they still have any doubt about the truth of that religion? They would never say No. Therefore, take it for a certainty that there is no man in the whole world who would persist in his disbelief and denial after such a disclosure. What a pity that in inventing such stories, the Sikhs of our country have fared better than the Christians. The Sikhs have given proof of their astuteness in the art of inventing stories; for they state that their Guru, Bawa Nanak, once restored a dead elephant to life. This ‘miracle’ is not open to the above objection, for the Sikhs can say: the elephant had no tongue to bear witness for or against Bawa Nanak. In short, the common people, endowed with little intellect, are pleased with such ‘miracles’, but the wise are embarrassed by the objections raised by others and are put to shame when such silly stories are related. Now, as I bear the same feelings of love and sincerity towards Jesus as do the Christians; rather, I have a stronger attachment to him, for Christians do not know the man whom they praise, but I know him whom I praise, for I have as good as seen him. Therefore, I now proceed to unveil the real nature of the reports contained in the Gospels that at the time of the crucifixion all dead saints had come back to life and returned to the city.

Let it, therefore, be clearly understood that accounts like these are of the nature of Kashf or visions that were seen by some holy men after the crucifixion, in which they saw that the dead saints had been brought back to life and graced the city where they met the people. Just as dreams mentioned in divine scriptures are interpreted, for instance, Joseph’s dream, this vision too had an interpretation of its own. The interpretation was that Jesus had not died on the cross and that God had rescued him. If the question is asked as to the rationale behind this interpretation, the answer is that experts in the art of interpretation testify to its validity and have borne witness to it on the basis of their experience. I quote below from T’atirul-Anaam, a time honoured authority on the art of interpretation of dreams:

(T'atirul-Anaam fi T'abiril-Manaam by Qutb-uz-Zaman Sheikh Abdul Ghani Al-Naablisi, page 289).

This means that if someone has a dream or a vision that the dead have come out of their graves and have made for their homes, the interpretation is that a prisoner would be released from bondage, and that he would be rescued from the hands of his persecutors. The context shows that this prisoner would be a great and prominent personage. Now, it should be noted how appropriately this interpretation applies to Jesus. One can readily understand that the vision about the dead saints coming to life and returning to the city was meant to inform those with insight that Jesus would be saved from death on the cross.

Likewise, the Gospels at a number of places clearly point out that Jesus did not die on the cross and that he escaped and migrated to another land. I think what I have said so far should suffice for the fair minded to understand the true position. It is possible that objections may arise in some minds that the Gospels also repeatedly point out that Jesus died on the cross, and that after resurrection he rose to heaven. This kind of objection I have already briefly answered, but I might as well repeat that after the crucifixion, Jesus met the disciples; he travelled up to Galilee; ate bread and meat; displayed the wounds on his body; stayed a night with the disciples at Emmaus; escaped secretly from Pilate’s jurisdiction; emigrated from that place, as was the practice of prophets; and travelled under the shadow of fear. All these facts prove that he did not die on the cross; that he retained his bodily functions intact; and that he had undergone no visible change.

Furthermore, the Gospels do not contain any eyewitness account of Jesus’ ascent to heaven.16 Had there been such an account, it would have lacked credibility, for making mountains out of molehills and magnifying small things into big ones, seems to be a habit with the evangelists. For example, if one of them happens to remark that Jesus is the Son of God, another sets about making him into a full-fledged God, the third invests him with power over the whole universe, and the fourth bluntly says that he is everything, and that there is no other God besides him. In short, exaggerations carry them too far. The vision in which the dead were seen to come out of their graves and make for the city is a case in point. One can notice that this vision had been given a literal interpretation, so far as to say that the dead had actually risen out of their graves, had come to the city of Jerusalem, and even visited their relatives. Consider how a mountain has been made out of a molehill, resulting in a veritable range! How can one arrive at the truth when things are so exaggerated! It is also worth considering that the Gospels, the so-called Books of God, contain preposterous claims, such as that if all the works of Jesus had been committed to writing, there wouldn’t be room enough in the whole world to accommodate them!17 Can such exaggeration be the way of honesty and truth? If indeed works of Jesus were so limitless and exceeded all boundaries, how could they have been compressed into a meager period of three years? Another difficulty about these Gospels is that the references they give of earlier books are mostly wrong; they could not even give Jesus’ genealogy correctly. From the Gospels, it appears that the evangelists were rather naive to the extent that they mistook Jesus for a ghost. From the earliest times these Gospels have been open to the charge that they have not been able to preserve the purity of their texts, particularly when there were other books too which were compiled as Gospels. There is no earthly reason why all the statements of those books should be rejected, and why all that is contained in the Gospels, generally so-called, should be admitted as true. We do not think that the other Gospels could contain such unfounded exaggerations as are to be found in the present four Gospels. It is surprising that while on the one hand, they say that Jesus was a righteous person and that his character was without blemish, on the other hand, charges are brought against him as are unworthy of a righteous person. For example, the Israelite prophets, in accordance with the teaching of the Torah, undoubtedly had hundreds of wives each at a time in order that they might thereby produce a whole generation of righteous people. But you will never have heard that any prophet had ever set such an example of permissiveness that he should allow a wanton and lascivious woman, a noted sinner of the city, to touch his body with her hands, to let her rub oil — her sin’s earnings — on his head and to stroke his feet with her hair; that he allowed all this to be done by an unchaste young woman, and didn’t so much as tell her to stop it. One is saved from giving way to suspicion, which naturally arises on seeing such a spectacle, only by an implicit trust in the goodness of Jesus. Nevertheless, the example is hardly worthy of being followed. In short, these Gospels are full of material which shows that they have not preserved their original form, or that their writers were other than the disciples. For example, can the statement: “And this is well known among the Jews till today"18 be properly ascribed to Matthew? Does it not show that the writer of the Gospel was some person other than Matthew, who lived at a time when Matthew had already died? Then, the same Gospel of Matthew says:

And they were assembled with the elders, and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers, Saying, ‘Say ye, his disciples came by night and stole him away while we slept. (Matthew 28:12-13)

It would be noticed how childish and meaningless such statements are. If it means that the Jews wanted to conceal the rising of Jesus from the dead, and had bribed the soldiers so that this great miracle should not become generally known, why was it that Jesus, whose duty it was to proclaim this miracle among the Jews, kept it a secret and forbade even others to disclose it? If it is urged that he was afraid of being caught, I would say, that when the decree of God had descended upon him once and for all, and he had, after suffering death, come to life again, assuming a spiritual body, what fear did he now have of the Jews? Surely, the Jews now had no power over him; he was now beyond and above mortal existence? One observes with regret that while, on the one hand, it is said that he was made to live again and assume a spiritual body, that he met the disciples and went to Galilee and thence went to heaven, he was nevertheless afraid of the Jews over quite trivial things and, in spite of his glorious body, he fled secretly from the country, lest the Jews should discover him; he made a journey of 70 koses to Galilee in order to save his life and time and again asked the people not to mention this to others. Are these the signs and ways of a glorious body? No, the truth is that his body was neither new nor glorious, it was the same body with wounds on it, which had been saved from death; and as there was still the fear of the Jews, Jesus took all the necessary precautions and left the country. Anything to the contrary would be senseless and absurd, as that the Jews had bribed the soldiers to make them say that the disciples had stolen the corpse while they (the soldiers) were asleep. If the soldiers were asleep, they could very well have been asked how on earth they came to know in their sleep that the corpse of Jesus had been stolen away. From the mere fact of Jesus not being in the sepulchre, can a sensible person conclude that he had gone up to heaven? May there not be other causes as a result of which tombs might be found empty? At the time of going up to heaven, it was up to Jesus to meet a few hundred Jews, and also Pilate. Who was he afraid of in his glorious body? He did not care to furnish his opponents with the slightest proof. On the contrary, he took fright and fled to Galilee. That is why we positively believe that though it is true that he left the sepulchre, which was a chamber with an opening, and though it is true that he secretly met the disciples, yet it is not true that he was given any new and glorious body. It was the same body, and the same wounds, and there was the same fear in his heart lest the accursed Jews should arrest him again. Just study closely Matthew 28:7-10. These verses clearly say that the women who were told by someone that Jesus was alive and was going to Galilee, and who were also quietly told that they should inform the disciples, were no doubt pleased to hear this, but they departed with hearts full of fear. They were still afraid lest Jesus might still be caught by some wicked Jew. Verse 9 says, that while these women were on their way to inform the disciples, Jesus met and greeted them. Verse 10 says that Jesus told them not to be afraid of his being caught. He asked them to inform his brethren that they should all go to Galilee;19 that they would see him there, i.e., he could not stay there for fear of the enemy. In short, if Jesus had really come to life after his death and had assumed a glorious body, it was up to him to furnish proof of this new kind of existence to the Jews. But we know that he did not do this. It is absurd, therefore, to accuse the Jews of trying to suppress the proof of Jesus’ coming to life again. Nor for that matter did Jesus give the slightest proof of his restoration to life; rather, by his secret flight, by the fact of his taking food, and sleep, and showing his wounds, he himself proved that he did not die on the cross.