Porphyry, arguing against the resurrection of Christ, comments on the appearance to Mary Magdalene:

There is also another argument whereby this corrupt opinion can be refuted. I mean the argument about that Resurrection of His which is such common talk everywhere, as to why Jesus, after His suffering and rising again (according to your story), did not appear to Pilate who punished Him and said He had done nothing worthy of death, or to Herod King of the Jews, or to the High-priest of the Jewish race, or to many men at the same time and to such as were worthy of credit, and more particularly among Romans both in the Senate and among the people. The purpose would be that, by their wonder at “the things concerning Him, they might not pass a vote of death against Him by common consent, which implied the impiety of those who were obedient to Him. But He appeared to Mary Magdalene, a coarse woman who came from some wretched little village, and had once been possessed by seven demons, and with her another utterly obscure Mary, who was herself a peasant woman, and a few other people who were not at all well known. And that, although He said: “Henceforth shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming with the clouds.” For if He had shown Himself to men of note, all would believe through them, and no judge would punish them as fabricating monstrous stories. For surely it is neither pleasing to God nor to any sensible man that many should be subjected on His account to punishments of the gravest kind.

If the argument is that Christ should have appeared to rich people rather than to poor people, or to the government rather than to common people, and it seems that this may be Porphyry’s actual intention, his argument is rather weak, especially given things that Christ says in the Gospels about the rich and the poor.

But on the other hand, if one understands his argument to be concerned with the fact that Jesus appeared to his friends and disciples rather than to others, the argument is significantly better, because this is what we would expect in the case of a fraud on the part of the disciples. In fact, there are many situations where most people would assume the existence of fraud with this kind of testimony. For example, Joseph Smith managed to get eleven people to swear that they saw the golden plates on which he supposedly received his revelation,  but most people remain unconvinced by this, since there is little reason to think that his witnesses are unbiased.

Of course, things are more complicated in the case of Christ, since for example we have the testimony of St. Paul, who was originally not a disciple. Nonetheless, the argument is meaningful and should not simply be dismissed.

In fact, a reasonable Christian response to this argument requires a particular idea of Christ’s intentions. Porphyry speaks under the assumption that Christ wanted to convince everyone: “For if He had shown Himself to men of note, all would believe through them.” Whether or not this method is sufficient, it is certainly the case that appearing to enough people and in enough ways would have convinced everyone. For that matter, Christ could have stayed on the earth for two hundred years instead of ascending to heaven, in order to ensure that everyone would believe in him, including Porphyry, if that had been his goal. In other words, the implication is that Porphyry was wrong about Christ’s intentions: Christ did not intend to convince everyone.

Given various things Christ says in the Gospels, this is not an unreasonable interpretation of his intentions. For example, he says,

Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.

For I have come to set a man against his father,
and a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.

Likewise, he suggests that not all are intended to understand:

The reason I speak to them in parables is that ‘seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.’ With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah that says:

‘You will indeed listen, but never understand,
    and you will indeed look, but never perceive.
For this people’s heart has grown dull,
    and their ears are hard of hearing,
        and they have shut their eyes;
        so that they might not look with their eyes,
    and listen with their ears,
and understand with their heart and turn—
    and I would heal them.’

But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear.

Isaiah says, “Truly, you are a God who hides himself, O God of Israel, the Savior.” In a similar way, the Christian understanding of the cross and resurrection implies the existence of a hidden truth that is, by design, only made known to some.

People arguing against Christianity might suggest that “ultimately perhaps this way of viewing things is only a trick of the church and of theologians who have run out of solutions but do not want to admit it, and now they are looking for something to hide behind,” as Cardinal Ratzinger puts it.

And on the other hand, the Christian might suggest that given this position, things that seemed unfavorable to his position, such as the three issues mentioned in the linked post, are now favorable to it. Since the truth of Christianity is something intentionally hidden, such things are just what we would expect.

But both of these arguments, the Christian and the non-Christian, are wrong.