In the episode of the merchants from Toledo (Chapter 4 of the first part of Don Quixote) [1], while in the middle of the road, Don Quixote saw six merchants on their way to Murcia to buy silk. He waited for their arrival and when they were close by, raised his voice and “in an imperious manner he said: ‘Halt, all of you, unless all of you confess that in the entire world there is no damsel more beauteous than the empress of La Mancha, the peerless Dulcinea of Toboso.’” (I, 4,39) One of the merchants explains that they are unable to grant his request because they do not know Dulcinea, but Don Quixote demands faith: “The significance lies in not seeing her and believing, confessing, affirming, swearing, and defending the truth, if you do not, you must do battle with me, audacious and arrogant people.” (I, 4, 39) The merchant reacts by asking the knight for a portrait of the lady. Don Quixote, burning with rage, attacks. Due to the daring merchant’s good fortune, Rocinante (the horse) trips, falls, and rolls some distance on the ground.
This episode is an invitation for the reader to reflect on faith as a meaningful human act. Faith is a participation in the knowledge of someone who knows. If there is no person that knows, there could not be someone who believes because to have faith is to trust the testimony of a witness. Hence, it is important to ask the following questions: Does Don Quixote know Dulcinea? Does the reader know her? Do the merchants know her?
Thanks to the narrator of the novel, the reader knows that Dulcinea is “a very attractive peasant girl with whom [Don Quixote] had once been in love, although she, apparently, never knew or noticed. Her name was Aldonza Lorenzo.” (I, 1, 23) Of course, Don Quixote, knows her, but has, due to his madness, a distorted view of Dulcinea. For him, she is not only “a very attractive peasant girl” but “the most beautiful damsel in the world, the peerless Dulcinea of Toboso.” Nevertheless, the merchants do not know who Dulcinea is and how she looks. Therefore, it makes sense for them, to question the testimony of the knight about the beauty of Dulcinea. The reader, because of the knowledge he possesses about Dulcinea and Don Quixote’s madness, easily understands and finds very reasonable the fact that the merchants conclude that Don Quixote is not a reliable witness. Furthermore, because of the knight’s appearance, weapons and words, they have been able to assess the extent of his madness.
On the one hand, the problem of Don Quixote is that he not only asks for trust and faith but wants to force it, and faith should not be coerced. The decisive factor with faith is the credibility of the witness and the willingness to believe of the believer. On the other hand, the proposal of one of the merchants that Don Quixote shows them a portrait of Dulcinea would change the situation into a case of knowledge, since a portrait is, by definition, a copy of reality.
Therefore, for the merchants of Toledo, as well as for the reader, Don Quixote, due to his madness, is not a reliable witness of Dulcinea’s beauty.
In Chapter 8 of the second part of Don Quixote, Don Quixote and Sancho were riding and talking on their way to El Toboso. In their conversation about fame, the knight mentions the tombs of famous people, such as Queen Artemisia and Emperor Hadrian, that were sumptuous temples. Sancho responds:
“’I am coming to that,’ replied Sancho. ‘Now, tell me which is the greater deed, raising a dead man or killing a giant?’ ‘The answer is self-evident,’ responded Don Quixote. ‘It is greater to raise a dead man.’ ‘Then I’ve got you,’ said Sancho: ‘The fame of those who raise the dead, give sight to the blind, heal the lame, and cure the sick, and whose tombs have lamps burning in front of them, and whose chapels are filled with devout people who adore the relics on their knees, that would be a better fame, in this world and the next, that the fame left behind by all gentile emperors and knights errant who ever lived.’” (II, 8, 507)
This reflection by Sancho invites us to pass from fiction to history, to Jesus and our faith in His Resurrection.
There is overwhelming evidence of the historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth, more evidence than we have for such famous historical figures as Homer, Socrates, Pericles, Cicero and Seneca. [2] Hence, few people have doubts about the historicity of Jesus. In addition, His profile in the Gospels is that of one exceptionally intelligent and wise human being, someone who shows love, tenderness, fortitude, clear principles and mercy; a well-balanced personality, extraordinary wisdom, a harmonious integration of intelligence, will and affectivity, and a life turned towards God (the Father) and others. Nevertheless, many (all non-believers) doubt He is the Son of God, God Himself, but are willing to accept Him as a great moral teacher or prophet.
However, for C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity, this view is absurd:
“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I am ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would be a lunatic […] or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to… Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God.” [3]
And what do we know about the death of this Jesus who lived in the first century? We know four facts about his death that are incontrovertible because almost all scholars on the subject (believers and non-believers) agree: 1) Jesus died by crucifixion. 2) His tomb was found empty three days after his death. 3) His followers (the apostles and other disciples) testify to have had an encounter with the risen Jesus, and 4) they were willing to suffer martyrdom and death for their belief in the Resurrection.
It is certainly extremely difficult to explain these four incontrovertible facts just mentioned without accepting the reality of Christ’s Resurrection. The Resurrection is key to interpreting Christ’s life and is the foundation of our faith. Furthermore, it is the supreme argument in favor of the divinity of Jesus Christ and the promise of our own future resurrection. St. Paul was very clear about this: “Now if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and our faith is in vain. […] But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.” (1 Cor 15: 12-14. 20)
At the beginning of this reflection, it was emphasized that faith should not be coerced but it has to be based on the credibility of the witness and the willingness to believe of the believer; therefore, it was concluded that Don Quixote lacked credibility in relation to the evaluation of Dulcinea’s beauty. In the case of the Resurrection, the possibility of faith is going to depend on the credibility of the disciples of Jesus and the willingness to believe of the believer. Of course, “believing is possible only by grace and the interior helps of the Holy Spirit. But it is no less true that believing is an authentically human act. Trusting in God and cleaving to the truths he has revealed is contrary neither to human freedom nor to human reason.” (CCC 154) In other words, in order to have faith, the believer has to be docile to the Holy Spirit, but this docility does not act in the vacuum but is based on the credibility of the witness or witnesses. A passage from the Gospel of St. John touches on this theme, one when the risen Jesus appears to his apostles, but Thomas was not present: “Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in his side, I will not believe.’ Eight days later, his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. The doors were shut, but Jesus came and stood among them, and said, ‘Peace be with you! Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here, and see my hands, and put out your hand, and place it in my side; do not be faithless, but believing.’ Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.’” (Jn 20: 24-29)
What is interesting about this passage is that Thomas (just like the disciples of Emmaus Lk 24: 13-16) was shattered, despondent and depressed because of the death of Jesus by crucifixion. He simply did not have the strength even to believe his own friends and companions, the apostles. He was in such a pessimistic and sad state that he was unable to consider his most intimate friends as reliable witnesses to the Resurrection. Thomas is representative of all potential believers throughout history to whom Jesus invites to be blessed because they believe without having seen and by considering the disciples of Jesus as reliable witnesses to the Resurrection.
A pertinent question would be: Are the disciples reliable witnesses to the Resurrection? In the Gospels and the Letters, according to professor Brant Pitre [4], there are at least nine apparitions of the risen Christ, including to some women, to Mary Magdalene, to Peter, to Cleopas, to the twelve, and to James. St. Paul records (1 Cor 15: 3-8) that he appeared to Cephas, to the twelve, to more than five hundred, to James, to all the apostles, and also to him. The apparitions to women and to Mary Magdalene are key facts because if the apostles would have made up the Resurrection, they would never have included women as witnesses, since at the time, the testimony of women was worthless. It is true that there are differences between the four Gospels in small and unimportant details, but there is agreement in what is essential.
Also, that the apostles made up the Resurrection does not make sense if we take into account the fact that all of them were tortured and eleven of them died as martyrs and never retracted their beliefs. It is true, people die for their beliefs, but it would be absurd to think that someone would die for a belief that he knows to be false. In addition, only the Resurrection would be able to explain the rapid expansion of the early church, accomplished by men and women who were willing to live and die for their faith.
The fact that Jesus died by crucifixion is undisputable; it is mentioned in the four Gospels and by Hellenistic, Roman and Jewish sources (Varo, 99-127). At the same time, it is very difficult to explain the four incontrovertible facts that were mentioned before if the Resurrection would not have happened. Therefore, it is reasonable to affirm that the apostles and other disciples are reliable witnesses of Christ’s Resurrection.
Egberto Bermúdez
[1] Miguel de Cervantes. Don Quixote. Edith Grossman translation. New York: HarperCollins, 2003.
[2] p.223. Francisco Varo. Rabí Jesús de Nazaret. Madrid: BAC, 2006.
[3] pp.54-56. C.S. Lewis. Mere Christianity. London: Collins, 1952.
[4] pp.182-183. Brant Pitre. The Case for Jesus: The Biblical and Historical Evidence for Christ. New York: Image, 2016.
