I remembered also an old remark of Scaurus’s about our modern Roman use of “convivo,” meaning “I _live with_,” and how easily it might be taken to mean the ordinary “convivor,” meaning “I _feast with_.” Since that, I have found that, in other ways, “_living with_” and “_eating with_” may be easily confused. For these reasons I concluded that the supposition that Jesus ate with the disciples after His resurrection was not justified. CHAPTER XXVII SCAURUS ON CHRIST’S RESURRECTION (II) “I now come,” said Scaurus, “to one of the most interesting of all the traditions of the resurrection—the ‘rolling away of the stone’ from the tomb. As to the alleged facts, all the evangelists agree. But Mark alone has preserved traces of what I take to be the historical fact, namely, that the narrative, as it now stands, has sprung from Christian songs and hymns based on Hebrew scriptures and Jewish traditions. I shewed you above how the precept, ‘Go forth with the staff alone,’ did not mean ‘with a walking-stick’ but ‘with the staff of God,’ a metaphor from the story of Jacob in Genesis. Curiously enough, the same story will help us to explain the rolling away of the stone. “There Jacob rolls away the stone from the well for Rachel in order that her flocks may obtain water. The Jews have many symbolical explanations of this ‘rolling of the stone.’ One is, that the stone is the evil nature in man. When worshippers go into the synagogue, the stone (they say) is rolled away. When they come out, it is rolled back again. Philo comments fully on the somewhat similar action of Moses helping the daughters of Jethro, taking it in a mystical sense. The scriptures may be regarded as the ‘water of life’ or ‘living water.’ The ‘stone’ prevents the ‘water’ from issuing to those that thirst for it. You may perhaps remember that Paul says something of the same kind, but using a different metaphor. To this day, he says, a ‘veil’ lies on the hearts of the Jews when the scriptures are read. So Luke says—concerning one of Christ’s predictions about his resurrection—‘it was _veiled_ from them.’ Luke also relates that Christ, after the resurrection, conversed with two disciples, but did not make himself visible to them till he had ‘interpreted the scriptures’ to them. Then, when he broke bread, ‘their eyes were opened and they recognised him.’ This ‘interpreting,’ the two disciples call ‘opening the scriptures.’ The ‘_opening of the scriptures_’ might be called ‘_taking the veil from the heart_,’ or ‘_rolling away the stone_.’ But the last phrase might still better be used for ‘_rolling away the burden of unbelief_’.”