Book  III:  The Theology Of The Resurrection

 

Chapter  XV – The Teaching of the Risen Lord in S. Matthew

      S. Matthew reports one single Appearance of the Risen Lord to the Eleven.  The occurrence is placed in Galilee, upon “the mountain where Jesus had appointed them.”  With characteristic brevity S. Matthew omits to mention when this appointment was made, or where the mountain was.  His real interest is manifestly in the sayings uttered on this occasion by the Risen Lord.  They fall into three clearly marked divisions: a claim, a commission, and a promise.

      I.  First comes the claim: “all Authority hath been given unto Me in Heaven and on earth.”

      1. Authority signifies at once the right and the power.  It is the term employed by Pilate to express his conscious possession of imperial power over another human being to condemn or release.  That was in the political sphere.  The authority here claimed is in the sphere of things spiritual.  Already during the ministry our Lord had made partial claims to such authority.  He claimed “authority on earth to forgive sins” (S. Matt. 9:6); and “authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man” (S. John 5:27).  He asserted, “all things have been delivered unto Me of my Father” (S. Matt. 11:27), words which seemed to denote anticipation rather than actual possession.  But now, in this Resurrection utterance, we hear no longer partial claims, or anticipations: the plenitude of authority is asserted, and that not as a future endowment but as a present possession.  All authority in the realm of the spirit is now actually His.  That the words can mean no less is shown by the following commission.  He could not confer upon others a commission on the ground of a power which was not yet actually His own.  A commission cannot be bestowed in anticipation of an authority not yet acquired.  Thus the context requires that of the spiritual authority He is already now in full possession.  Such then is the authority claimed.

      2. Then next comes the sphere of its operation.  Over what realm does this authority of the Risen Lord extend?  It is “in heaven and on earth.”  It embraces the entire intelligent creation.

      3. Then, thirdly, there is the recipient of this authority.  Of this authority, coextensive with responsible beings, He, the Risen Jesus, is the recipient.  From what source, it is not said, nor was there need.  The Giver of this authority is manifestly the Father in heaven, Who has bestowed all this dominion upon the perfect Man.  There is nothing here which militates against perfect equality with the Father.  The Divine personality of our Lord is not here the object of contemplation.  It is as human that Jesus is the recipient of power.

      And this authority has become His human possession at His Resurrection.  He enters upon universal dominion at the period of His heavenly exaltation which the Resurrection inaugurates.

      This claim of the Risen Jesus is evidently the completion of the great Voice in Daniel 7:13, 14.

      It is, as Zahn truly observes, a majestic saying. [“Das Evangelium des M.”, p. 710.]  It seems to lie at the foundation of S. Paul’s sublime description in Ephesians, where he speaks of the strength of God’s might “which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and made Him to sit at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule, and authority, and power, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: and He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the Church which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.” [Eph. 1:20, 21.]

      II.  On the ground of this universal spiritual authority is based a corresponding worldwide Commission: “Go ye therefore.”

      “Go ye.”  The Commission is imposed upon the apostles in their corporate capacity, not as isolated individuals.  This is evidently the Evangelist’s view when he describes them as “the Eleven.”  The corporate character of the Eleven is the necessary result of the training which, according to the Evangelist, they have received from the Master.

      And their mission extends to “all the nations.”  Although in Scripture “the nations” are commonly contrasted with the chosen race, such contrast cannot be intended here.  The idea that S. Matthew here reports Christ’s rejection of Israel as the penalty of Israel’s rejection of Christ is certainly foreign to the context and intention.  For if He is the recipient of all authority in Heaven and on earth, Israel cannot be conceived as excluded from its operation.  The whole intention of the passage is worldwide range of power.  It does not contemplate the heathen as contrasted with the Jew, but mankind including Israel.  The thought is not exclusive but comprehensive. [Cf. Zahn, “Das Εν. Matt.” p. 712.  Stier Reden, J., vii. 267.]  The parable relating the exclusion of the wicked husbandmen from the vineyard, which S. Matthew reports, [S. Matt. 21:41.] cannot be utilized to confirm the idea that this saying of the Risen Lord is a sentence of excommunication pronounced against Israel; for the same parable is reported also by S. Luke, [S. Luke 20:16.] who nevertheless makes the Risen Master speak of “preaching in His name unto all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem”; [S. Luke 24:47.] an idea which is also repeated in Acts 1:8.  Indeed, the exclusion of Israel from the apostolic mission contradicts all the documents we possess.  It is true that S. Paul received the command of the Risen Lord “get thee quickly out of Jerusalem, because they will not receive of thee testimony concerning me”; [Acts 22:18–21/] as also the commission “I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles”; but the same historian shows no less certainly S. Paul’s profound consciousness that the offer of the Gospel must first be made to Israel.  Thus the exclusive interpretation of the saying in S. Matthew has all probability against it.

      “Make disciples.”  It is a comprehensive expression.  Like all the great religious terms so much depends on the depth of contents assigned to it.  A disciple may be simply a learner in religion.  Disciples of John Baptist, of the Pharisees, of Moses, are all mentioned in New Testament.  A disciple of Jesus is one who takes Jesus as his teacher.  Yet, how inadequate that statement is by itself, our Lord’s own use of the term elsewhere shows conclusively.  A disciple of Jesus was originally any Jew who followed Him.  But discipleship was found to involve increasing claims.  It involved submission, [S. Luke 6:40.] unreserved devotion, [S. Luke 14:26.] acceptance of the Cross, [S. Luke 14:27.] assent to the Master’s authority. [S. John 6:39–44.]  And in the Acts discipleship involves a personal relationship to Jesus as the Christ, and as the exalted Saviour: a relationship transcending altogether what was meant by discipleship of John Baptist or of Moses.

      The Eleven therefore are to make disciples of all the nations.  This is vastly more than to teach.  To teach is comparatively easy: to make disciples, in the sense which our Lord’s previous utterances require, is supremely difficult.  The rendering with which English people have been so long familiar is the Authorized Version, “go teach all nations,” is not only quite inadequate, but has led to serious misconceptions as to the real nature of the commission here imposed.  It has set in the primary place the thought of giving instruction: whereas this is exactly what the original passage does not suggest.

      1. How are the Eleven to make disciples of all the nations?  In the original passage the comprehensive command, “make disciples,” is immediately explained by the enumeration of two of its leading methods.  The Eleven are to baptize and also to instruct.  And, in the order of enumeration, baptism is set first and teaching afterwards.  This priority does not mean that baptism would precede instruction, but it certainly gives striking emphasis to the sacramental ministration in the process of making disciples.  The Eleven are here enjoined to make disciples by baptizing.  The obvious reason for this connection of baptism with discipleship is that baptism is incorporation with the body of disciples of which Jesus is the Head. [Cf. I.oisy, “Les Evang. Synopt.” ii. 753.]  Or rather, as it is here expressed, “baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.”  Clearly this baptism “into the Name” is profoundly mystical.  It denotes neither the formula nor the doctrine, but the sphere or element into which the individual is merged.

      2. As baptism, being incorporation into the Christian community, is one very vital aspect of discipleship, so instruction is another.  Thus disciples are matured by “teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I command you.”  This covers the whole field of religious teaching, whether dogmatic or moral.  And the aspect emphasized is not the purely intellectual.  Discipleship is here regarded as a response and obedience to known truth.  The disciple must be, in this sense also, as his Lord.  The Eleven are to instruct the incorporated disciples to observe the whole range of our Lord’s teaching, whether given before His Passion or during the great Forty Days. [Cf. I.oisy, “Les Evang. Synopt.” ii. 753.]

      III.  If the force of this commission to the Eleven and its sequel is to be fully appreciated, it is essential to throw ourselves back by an effort of historical imagination into the circumstances in which the Eleven were placed.  We read the passage through the realization of nineteen centuries.  But to feel the force of it upon the Eleven we have to remember that the actual development of Christianity had not begun.  In their situation the commission imposed must have seemed stupendous.  Whether they considered the world which they were ordered to convert, or their own capacities for the undertaking, especially as illustrated by their recent weakness during the Passion, the command must have sounded appalling.  Whatever strength they felt in the fact of the Resurrection, the intermittent character of the manifestations proved that His continued visible presence was an experience of the past.  Now the note of reluctance to undertake spiritual responsibilities is the general characteristic in the commission of the Old Testament messengers.  Human nature shrinks from the burden exactly in proportion to its realization.  It is inconceivable that the apostolic experience was the one exception to this universal rule.  The injunction, “go make disciples of all the nations,” was a larger call, both in the message to convey, and in the extent of humanity to be won, than was ever imposed on the prophets of the old regime.  The Evangelist means us to understand that the Eleven profoundly felt the weight of the great commission.  If he records no syllable or sign of hesitation, yet the sequel in the words of our Lord contains the acknowledgment that He is indeed placing upon them an awful task.  For the commission is immediately followed by a promise: “And lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.”

      “With you”: in what sense?  It has been taken to signify moral concurrence, or personal presence.  Now it seems sufficiently obvious which of these two the situation requires.  The promise must correspond to the task.  Otherwise it would be inadequate.  Now the magnitude of the duty imposed, and the incompetence of the men of Galilee to discharge it, require the promise of something more than divine approval of their endeavours.  A promise of moral concurrence, He in heaven and they on earth, He in security and they in the conflict, is too remote to satisfy their needs.  Just as in the mission of Moses, his sense of powerlessness is relieved by the promise, “Certainly I will be with thee”; [Exod. 3:12.] and the promise was realized, as the entire history shows, not by distant approval, but by personal presence; so it must be in the promise to the Eleven.

      “With you”: that is with you collectively, in your corporate capacity.  For the promise is given to the Eleven; and the Eleven are, as we have already seen, welded into a community by the previous action of Christ.

      “With you always even unto the end of the world.”  His presence is not transient, but abiding in perpetuity to the consummation of the age.  With you always, and therefore with your successors, is an inference which could not be apparent at the time the promise was spoken, although it may well have become apparent at the time when the Gospel was written.  The expectation of the speedy return of Christ would render such inferences impossible so long as the expectation endured; but, in proportion as it faded, the fuller contents of the promise would become increasingly obvious.  It is undoubtedly true that the inference was the result of Christian experience; but to say that it was not in the Speaker’s mind is indefensible, except on humanitarian presuppositions.  No Christian will imagine that the Risen Lord knew no more than His hearers could at the moment understand.

 

Chapter  XVI – The Universality Of The Risen Lord’s Commission

      The passage in S. Matt. 28:16–20 suggests by its contents and character that it is not the first manifestation of the Risen Lord to the apostles, although it is the first and only manifestation to them which the Evangelist has recorded.  For there is not the slightest attempt at evidential demonstrations of His identity.  We read that “when they [i.e. the Eleven] saw Him “they worshipped Him, but some doubted.”  It is incredible that this “some” included any of the Eleven.  The Eleven clearly have no hesitation.  They have seen Him before since He rose.  The doubters are not assisted.  The entire discourse is an instruction on the apostolic mission.  It presupposes the evidential work accomplished.  Thus the contents of the passage suggest that it comes at the end of a series and not at the beginning.  It requires the interpolation of other Appearances before verse 16.  Thus S. Matthew is not, as is often asserted, evidence for an exclusively Galilean series.

      The entire discourse is remarkably systematic: there is the triple division, the claim, the commission, the promise.  The sections of each division follow a natural sequence of thought.  In the first division is treated the authority claimed, its extent, its sphere of operation, its recipient.  In the second, discipleship in the aspects of incorporation and instruction.  In the last, the promise of presence and its permanence.  The question naturally rises whether we possess here a summary, an outline of the Risen Lord’s instructions; or whether this condensation was original.  The passage does not read at all like a summary of words given on different occasions.  Their logical sequence shows them to represent unbroken instruction.

      I.  Harnack expressly rejects this saying of the Risen Lord, because it contains the idea of a universal mission. [Harnack, “Expansion of Christianity”, i. 40–45.]  He points out that (1) the selection and commission of the Twelve is described without any reference to a world-wide sphere of operation; (2) that the apostolic mission is expressly limited to Palestine; [Matt. 10:5, 6, and 10:22.] (3) that Christ Himself definitely affirms His mission to be limited to the House of Israel; (4) that the disciples are to judge the twelve tribes of Israel.

      On the other hand, (1) S. Mark 13:10, “the gospel must first be preached to all the nations,” is set aside by Harnack as a passage which “hardly came from Jesus in its present wording.”  Again (2), “Wherever the gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world” (Mark 14) is disregarded as an “excusable hysteron proteron,” an anachronism due to the facts of later Christian experience in the worldwide expansion of Christianity; (3) the Parable of the Vineyard taken from the wicked husbandmen and given to the nation bringing forth the fruits thereof (S. Matt. 21:43) is said to refer to the Jewish nation as opposed to the official Israel.

      After this clearance of the ground, this discourse of the Risen Jesus is criticized in the following strange sentence: “There is a cunning subtlety, of which one would fain believe the evangelist was incapable, in keeping his Gentile Christian readers, as it were, upon the rack with sayings which confined the gospel to Israel, just in order to let them off in the closing paragraph”. [p. 44.]  He thinks it “advisable ... to credit the writer with a remarkable historical sense, which made him adhere almost invariably to the traditional framework of Christ’s preaching, in order to break it open at the very close of his work.”

      He accounts for this deviation from historical fidelity on the ground that while “Jesus never issued such a command at all,” [p. 45.] “a Lord and Saviour who had confined His preaching to the Jewish people, without even issuing a single command to prosecute the universal mission, was an utter impossibility at the time when the Gospels were written.” [p. 44.]

      Harnack would apparently agree with Loisy, who holds it as evident that this instruction was not addressed to the Eleven.  The admission of the Gentiles was not an idea realized by the apostles until long afterwards.  The entire discourse is the product of Christian reflection on Jesus glorified.  It is a religious philosophy of the earthly mission of Christ and of the Church.

      ΙΙ.  What first will strike the reader of Harnack’s criticism is the amazing fashion in which every passage ascribing to Jesus Christ the conception of universality is dismissed.  On the ground that the disciples’ mission is in S. Matt. 10:5 definitely restricted within the limits of Israel (“go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not”), it is inferred that the mission to the heathen cannot have lain within the horizon of our Lord.  But to get this result passages which indicate our Lord’s possession of such a conception are simply, without further reason, set aside as anachronisms.  But, as Dr. Knowling says, [“Testimony of S. Paul”, p. 343.] “If we are referred to such passages as Matt. 15:24 (‘I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel’) they are fairly interpreted as meaning that our Lord’s purpose was to confine Himself to His own people during His earthly ministry: but this in no way invalidates the proof that He foresaw a worldwide preaching of the Gospel, a prescience which may be inferred from so many passages in the Gospels.”

      Harnack’s attempt to eliminate the conception of univer­sality from the teaching of our Lord leads him to do extraordinary violence to the prediction “ye shall be brought before governors and kings for My sake, for a testimony to them and to the Gentiles.” [S. Matt. 10:18.]  We are asked to believe that the kings and governors need not mean Gentiles, and that the clause “for a testimony to the Gentiles” is an addition to the words of Christ.  Certainly, as Dr. Knowling says, this is criticism run riot. [“Testimony of S. Paul”, p. 343.]  Zahn’s criticism on Harnack’s theory of the limited mental horizon of Jesus is surely not undeserved, that it manifests neither breadth of outlook nor penetration of insight. [Zahn, “Evang. Matt.”  See also Wohlenberg in “T. L. Z.” 1903.  N. 9.]

      A singularly valuable discussion of this limitation of Christ’s personal ministry to Israel is given in the pages of Wendt. [“Teaching of Jesus”, ii. 197.]  He points out that Jesus devoted His Messianic activity only to the people of Israel because He saw this limitation to be a personal necessity.  And if He primarily confined His disciples to a similar restriction, [Ib. 197.] yet “that they were to confine their preaching of the Kingdom of God in all the future to the Jews in Palestine was by no means enjoined upon them.” [Ib. 198.]

      The prophetic anticipations themselves contained a universalistic widening of the work of the Messiah.  And our Lord’s conception of the Kingdom of God “contained in it the presuppositions out of which the idea of the universal distinction of the blessedness of the kingdom for all mankind must follow as a consequence.” [Ib. p. 199.]  All that is required therefore, according to Wendt, is that our Lord Himself should have realized this necessary inference.  “And that Jesus Himself must consciously have drawn this consequence,” adds Wendt, “is plainly discernible from some of His utterances.”  Accordingly the great saying reported of Him when Risen, “Go ye into all the world ...” is merely the expression by Christ of the necessary inference which He consciously realized.  Thus it is the culmination of His previous teaching.  It is also the beginning of larger thought for the apostolic circle.

      III.  But why does Harnack assume that the idea of universality which was forced upon the primitive community by the logic of events could not previously have occurred to the mind of Jesus?  Plainly because of his dogmatic presuppositions as to the nature of Christianity.  “The Gospel,” according to Harnack, “is the glad message of the government of the world and of every individual soul by the Almighty and Holy God, the Father and Judge.” [“Hist. Dogm.” i. 58.]  The question, therefore, is whether Jesus conceived Himself as occupying a permanent place in His own Gospel, or whether the Gospel consists in a message from which Jesus Christ may be left out.  If the former, surely His universality is implied.  Harnack says that “Jesus Christ has by no express statement thrust this connection of His Gospel with His Person into the foreground.” [Ibid. p. 59.]  Yet he writes that Jesus “in a solemn hour at the close of His life, as well as on special occasions at an earlier period, referred to the fact that the surrender to His Person which induced them to leave all and follow Him, was no passing element in the new position they had gained towards God the Father.” [Ibid. p. 60.]  The Gospel is also described as “inseparably connected with Jesus Christ; for in preaching this Gospel Jesus Christ everywhere calls men to Himself” [Ibid. p. 59.]  Is it really meant that this Gospel was only designed by Jesus Christ for the Jews; that He had not contemplated its further extension to the world; that He was held back under narrow national restrictions from the sympathy necessary to concern Himself with mankind; that the extension of the Gospel to humanity at large was not His intention, but an idea ascribed to Him, by a happy anachronism, among His disciples who held a larger conception of His mission than He did Himself?  If this be what is meant in Harnack’s view, then, to say nothing of the hopeless impossibility of reconciling it with any form of the Christian tradition, there is the further difficulty, how is it possible to maintain, as Hermann in his “Communion with God” maintains, that in contemplating Jesus we realize God?  If the historical Jesus were the narrow-minded Jew whose sympathies never extended beyond the confines of Israel, how is it reasonable to say that His moral character is a revelation of God?  But Harnack and Hermann are both members of the same Ritschlian school.  We must clearly either advance upon this position, or else recede from it.  Retain it we cannot.  If the self-consciousness of Jesus saw no universal relationship between Himself and humanity, why should we?  If the conception of universality was forced into the Gospel, in spite of the ignorance of Jesus about it, then surely the Galileans and the converted Pharisees who achieved this revolution from the national to the worldwide became the real makers of Christianity.  But whence was this conception of universality derived?  Surely it was the outcome of the impression of the personality of Jesus upon them?  And was He Himself unconscious of the virtue which went out of Him?

      IV.  There is another form in which the objection to this saying of the Risen Lord is stated, which we should not have thought it necessary to notice, except that it is still repeated.  “Is it in any case conceivable that Jesus gave the apostles express command to preach to all nations, and that long afterwards they were still debating whether or not the mission to the Gentiles was to be recognized?” [Macan, “Resurr.” p. 64.]

      This objection is surely founded on a misconception of the facts.  The question in debate among the Jerusalem community was not whether the mission to the Gentiles was to be recognized, but whether the entrance of the Gentiles into the Church was or was not to be through the medium of Israel.  And considering that it was Israel in which the primitive Church arose, and Israel to whom the promises had been made; considering also the veneration necessarily accorded by the Jewish disciples to the ancient people of God; considering also their extreme reluctance to sever themselves from Israel: it was inevitable that their very foremost thoughts would be that Israel would be the instrument for the general ingathering.  In the disciples’ desire to work through Israel, there is nothing inconsistent with their having received a command to make disciples of every creature.

 

Chapter  XVII – The Baptismal Formula

      Some critical writers have suggested that the phrase commonly known as the Baptismal Formula was not spoken by our Lord, but is the product of Christian reflection interpolated into the saying of Christ.  The grounds upon which this criticism is urged are chiefly three: the patristic use, the Biblical method of baptism, and the dogmatic peculiarities of the phrase.

      A criticism upon the Formula was made by Thomas Burnet* in a work published in 1727.  Burnet did not discuss the question, but observed that variations had existed in the Baptismal phrases.

      *Burnet, “de fide et officiis Christianorum.  Ed. 2, 1728.  Burnet was Master of the Charterhouse, and author of the “Treatise de Statu Mortuorum et Resurgentium,” see below, Chapter XXVII.  See also Riggenbach, “Trinitarische Taufbefehl,”’ p. 7.  Riggenbach reports Burnet as saying that the Trinitarian Baptismal formula was absent from the Aramaic original of S. Matthew.  All, however, that the present writer can find in Burnet is, “In formnulis et verbis baptizantis, et in tempore, serius aut citius, baptismi recipiendi non minus variatum est,” p. 207.

      Harnack discredits the whole passage: not merely the Baptismal Formula.

      “It cannot be directly proved that Jesus instituted baptism, for Matt. 28:19 is not a saying of the Lord.  The reasons for this assertion are: (1) It is only a later stage of the tradition that represents the Risen Christ as delivering speeches and giving commandments.  Paul knows nothing of it.  (2) The Trinitarian formula is foreign to the mouth of Jesus and has not the authority in the apostolic age which it must have had if it had descended from Jesus himself.” [“Hist. Dogm.” i. 79 n.]

      But the writer who has adversely criticized the passage more exhaustively than any other is Mr. Conybeare. [“Hibbert J.” Oct., 1902.]

      Mr. Conybeare begins with assuring us that “Until the middle of the 19th century the text of the three witnesses in 1 John 5:7–8 shared with Matt. 28:19 the onerous task of furnishing scriptural evidence of the doctrine of the Trinity.” [“Hibbert J.” Oct., 1902, p. 102.]  The passage in 1 S. John is, he says, “now abandoned by all authorities except the Pope of Rome.”  “By consequence the entire weight of proving the Trinity has of late come to rest on Matt. 28:19.”  “There had been,” Mr. Conybeare adds, “no general inclination on the part of divines to inquire soberly into the authenticity of a text on which they builded superstructures so huge.  Nevertheless, an enlightened minority had their doubts.”  Mr. Conybeare’s contention is that Eusebius, the historian, who “lived in the greatest Christian library of that age, that, namely, which Origen and Pamphilus had collected,” must have habitually handled MSS. of the Gospels older by two hundred years than any which we now possess.  Now Eusebius quotes eighteen times over the verse in S. Matt. 28:19, always in the following form: “Go ye and make disciples of all nations in my name, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you.”  The inference is that Eusebius “had never heard” of any other form of the text until he visited Constantinople, and attended the Council of Nicea.  “Then in two controversial works written in his extreme Old age ... he used the common reading.”  “The conversion of Eusebius to the longer text after the Council of Nice indicates that it was at that time being introduced as a Shibboleth of orthodoxy into all codices.” [“Hibbert J.” Oct., 1902, pp. 104, 105.]  “A text so invaluable to the dominant party could not but make its way into every codex irrespective of its textual affinities.” [Ibid. p. 108.]

      A number of other writers have accepted Mr. Conybeare’s conclusions, without, however, adding any force to his arguments.  Wellhausen, for instance, [“Das Ev. Matt.” p. 152.] merely states the view and leaves it.

      I.  The Patristic quotations referred to are chiefly those of Eusebius, who repeats the passage many times without the Baptismal Formula.  Eusebius’ position as Bishop of Caesarea, with the great library at his disposal, makes this omission exceedingly significant.  And it is suggested that the Baptismal Formula was interpolated at an earlier period into the original text of S. Matthew, but did not secure undisputed possession until after the Council of Nicea.

      Eusebius quotes the passage about thirty times, [Riggenbach.] but in differing forms.  Sometimes he simply quotes it without the Baptismal Formula.  At other times with the substituted phrase, “in My Name” (this latter at least twelve times).  These variations show at any rate that Eusebius quoted with considerable freedom. [Riggenbach, p. 22.]  It is suggested also that seven of the passages containing the phrase “in My Name” were written after the Council of Nicea. [Riggenbach, p. 25.]

      Bishop Chase [“J.T.S.” July, 1905, p. 485, 6.] would explain the variations, (1) partly by the fact that theological writers, whether ancient or modern, habitually omit from quotations clauses irrelevant to the subject in hand; more particularly if the clauses omitted are important and therefore likely to divert attention from the subject under consideration.  S. Chrysostom, for instance, whose text is known to have contained the Baptismal Formula, nevertheless, like Eusebius, omits it when irrelevant to his special teaching. [Ib. p. 487.]

(2) The form of the passage “make disciples of all nations in My Name” may be an addition to the genuine text of the clause, [Ιb. ρ. 488.] assimilated perhaps from the passage in S. Mark 16:17.  Eusebius may have found this combination in some MSS. in the library of Casarea, [Ib. p. 489.] or it may be a harmonizing effort of his own. [Ib. ρ. 491.]

(3) The omission of the Baptismal Formula may be due to that instinct of reserve and reticence (the disciplina arcani) which was elevated into a principle by the early Fathers of the Church. [Riggenbach holds this.]  Certain critics have treated this explanation with contempt, but it is sufficient to read S. Cyril of Jerusalem to see that such contempt is entirely out of place.  Cyril of Jerusalem says, “To a heathen we do not expound the mysteries concerning Father, Son and Holy Spirit, nor do we speak plainly of the things touching the mysteries in the presence of catechumens; but we often say many things in a hidden fashion, in order that the faithful who know may understand, and that ‘those who know not may not suffer harm.’” [S. Cyril of Jerusalem, “Catech.” vi. 29.]

      (4) Eusebius does actually quote the Baptismal Formula no less than three times.  These quotations belong to writings after the Council of Νicea: but, on the other hand, one is a letter to the Church of Caesarea, intended only for the faithful; and another, the Theophaneia, a distinctively theological treatise. [Bp. Chase, p. 496.]  That is to say, they are precisely the sort of documents in which, according to the previous argument, the Baptismal Formula should occur, if it occurred at all.

      The MS. evidence for the passage is overwhelming.  Bishop Chase describes it as follows: “The command to baptize, in Matthew 28:19, is found in every known MS. (uncial and cursive) in which this portion of S. Matthew is extant, and in every known version in which this portion of S. Matthew is extant.” [p. 498.]  It occurs in Tatian’s Diatessaron.  It is quoted as early as Irenaeus [Haeres, iii. 171.]  It is found in Tertullian. “The reference in the Didache may reasonably be regarded as a quotation.” [Chase, ib. ρ. 491.]  Bishop Chase accordingly concludes that the verdict of scientific criticism must be that “The whole evidence ... establishes without a shadow of doubt or uncertainty the genuineness” [Ib. p. 499.] of the passage.

      The history of the Church is not without disputes on the proper formula for administering Baptism, although such disputes cannot be said to have held an important place.  S. Cyprian, [Ep. 73, 18.] in discussing the value of Baptism conferred outside the Church, strongly condemns the opinion that the name of Christ is a sufficient formula in place of that of the Holy Trinity.  “For,” he argues, [§ 17.] “whereas in the Gospels, and in the epistles of the apostles, the name of Christ is alleged for the remission of sins, it is not in such a way as that the Son alone, without the Father, or against the Father, can be of advantage to anybody; but that it might be shown to the Jews, who boasted as to their having the Father, that the Father would profit them nothing, unless they believed on the Son whom He had sent.”  Cyprian then quotes: “This is life eternal that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.”  The inference is: “Since, therefore, from the preaching and testimony of Christ Himself, the Father who sent must be first known, then afterwards Christ, who was sent, and there cannot be a hope of salvation except by knowing the two together; how, when God the Father is not known, nay, is even blasphemed, can they who among the heretics are said to be baptized in the name of Christ, be judged to have obtained remission of sins?”  For the case of the Jews under the apostle was one, but the condition of the Gentiles is another.  The former, because they had already gained the most ancient Baptism of the Law and Moses, were to be baptized also in the name of Jesus Christ, in conformity with what Peter tells them in the Acts.  Cyprian then quotes Acts 2:38–39, and interprets that “Peter makes mention of Jesus Christ, not as though the Father should be omitted, but that the Son also might be joined to the Father.”

      “Finally,” continues Cyprian, “when after the Resurrection the apostles are sent by the Lord to the heathen, they are bidden to baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.  How then do some say that a Gentile, baptized without, outside the Church, yea, and in opposition to the Church, so that it be only in the name of Jesus Christ, everywhere and in whatever manner can obtain remission of sins, when Christ Himself commands the heathen to be baptized in the full and united Trinity?” [§ 18.]

      Cyprian’s theory appears to be that Baptism could be validly administered to Jews with the formula “in the name of the Lord Jesus,” because they were already in possession of the Father; but could not be so administered to the Gentiles, because they were not already in possession of the Father.  For the Gentile world there could be no valid Baptism without the formula of the Trinity; and this Cyprian considers proved by the Risen Lord’s injunction to baptize in the triple Name.

      S. Basil [S. Basil on the Spirit, ch. xii.] pleads: “Let no one be misled by the fact of the apostle’s frequently omitting the name of the Father and of the Holy Spirit when making mention of Baptism, or on this account imagine that the invocation of the names is not observed.”  For, urges Basil, “the naming of Christ is the confession of the whole.”  And the promise, “He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost,” supports his contention.  “No one on this account would be justified in calling that Baptism a perfect Baptism wherein only the name of the Spirit was invoked.  For the tradition that has been given us by the quickening grace must remain for ever inviolate.”

      S. Ambrose, speaking of the recipients of S. John Baptist’s Baptism, whom S. Paul encountered at Ephesus, says: “They knew not the Spirit, because in the form in which John baptized they had not received Baptism in the Name of Christ.”  “So,” adds Ambrose, “they were baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, and Baptism was not repeated in their case, but administered differently, for there is but one Baptism.” [S. Ambrose on the Holy Spirit, i. III. 41.]

      S. Ambrose is plainly arguing here on the form of Baptism – “the form in which John baptized” – and not on the recipient’s confession of faith.  His question is, What constitutes valid Christian Baptism?  The Baptism of these disciples of S. John Baptist required to be supplemented by Baptism in the name of Jesus Christ.  This formula was adequate, because it implied the Trinity.  “Baptism,” says Ambrose, “is complete if one confesses the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.  If you deny One you overthrow the whole.  And just as if you mention in words One only, either the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit, and in your belief do not deny either the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit, the mystery of the faith is complete; so, too, although you name the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and lessen the power of either the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit, the whole mystery is made empty.”  Ambrose clearly refers to the formula and intention of the Church, and not to the recipient’s faith.  He does not mean that the validity of Baptism varies with the integrity of the candidate’s theological ideas.  His meaning is made still clearer when he proceeds: “Let us now consider whether, as we read that the Sacrament of Baptism in the Name of Christ was complete, so, too, when the Holy Spirit alone is named, anything is wanting to the completeness of the mystery.”  Naturally, from his previous principles, he argues that Baptism, when the Holy Spirit alone is named, is as valid as Baptism in the name of the Lord Jesus.

      This is the sense in which Ambrose was understood by the Venerable Bede – “Since it is the rule of the Church,” wrote Bede, “that believers should be baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity, it may be wondered why S. Luke throughout this book witnesses that Baptism was not otherwise given than in the name of Jesus Christ.  The blessed Ambrose solves this problem by the principle that the mystery is fulfilled by the unity of the name.” [Ven. Bede, “Expositio in Acta Apost.” ch. x.  Giles’ Edition, vol. xii. pp. 54, 55.]  Thus the sole invocation of Christ includes the Trinity; and similarly the sole invocation of the Father, or of the Holy Spirit.

      Pope Nicholas the First, when consulted in 866 by the Bulgarians, what was to be done in the case of a number of persons baptized by a Jew, replied: “if they have been baptized in the name of the Trinity, or in the name of Christ, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, they are baptized; for it is one and the same thing, as Ambrose testifies.” [Nicholas I., “Respons. ad consult. Bulgar.”  c. 104.]

      This view of the validity of Baptism when conferred with exclusive mention of our Lord evidently prevailed widely through the scholastic period: for it is maintained without hesitation by no less a person than Peter Lombard. [Sentent. Lit. iv. Dist. iii. § 2, 3, 4, 5.]  He founds himself partly on the letter of Pope Nicholas to the Bulgarians, but derives his arguments almost entirely from the teaching of S. Ambrose.  He maintains that, provided that the implicit faith of the Baptizer is Trinitarian, the explicit mention of the triple name in Baptism is indifferent, since the mention of Father or Son or Holy Spirit alone carries with it the implication of all Three.

      An elaborate discussion of the question was made by the Jesuit theologian Bellarmine. [“De Baptismo,” I. iii.  Ed. Fevre, 1870.  T. iii. p. 516.]  He is not at all satisfied with the teaching of S. Ambrose; although Pope Nicholas I approved it.  “The Pope,” says Bellarmine, “did not define anything: he referred to the authority of Ambrose and seems to approve it.”  Bellarmine himself maintains that the question whether the formula of S. Matt. 28:19 is the essential Baptismal Formula cannot be conclusively inferred from the Evangelist alone, but requires the support of tradition and the practice of the Church.  For the Gospel words alone may be explained of the faith in the Trinity, which is the basis of the Church’s work ; or of the authority from whom Baptism is derived. What the practice and tradition of the Church makes certain is the meaning of the use of the Triple Name.

      As to the practice in the Acts of the Apostles some scholastic writers urged that this was done by a special Divine dispensation.  But Bellarmine sets this opinion aside as pure conjecture.  Personally he is convinced that the real answer is that the apostles never did baptize except with the Trinitarian formula.  He considers that the question of S. Paul, “into what then were ye baptized?” [Acts 19:3.] indicates the use of a formula in which the Holy Ghost was named.  And since the early Fathers, such as Justin Martyr, present the Trinitarian formula, he cannot think it credible that the apostles did not do the same.

      As for the phrase, “Baptize in the name of the Lord Jesus,” [Acts 2:10, 19.] it can be understood in many ways.  It may signify the Christian faith; or the authority of Jesus Christ; or the name not taken by itself but together with that of the Father and of the Spirit.

      II.  The Biblical argument against the Baptismal Formula is that we never find it in use in the Acts of the Apostles.  What we invariably find is Baptism in the name of Jesus Christ. [Acts 2:38; 10:48; 19:5.]  “Be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ” is S. Peter’s counsel at Whitsuntide.  “To be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ” is his order for the converts at Caesarea.  “They were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus” was the result of S. Paul’s instructions at Ephesus.

      1. But what does the language of the Acts precisely mean by Baptism in the name of Jesus Christ?  Clearly not invariably the same thing, for the prepositions in the original differ. [εν τω ονόματι, Acts 2:38; 10:48; εις το όνομα, 19:5.]  The passage interpolated at the Baptism of the Ethiopian, “And Philip said, if thou believest with all thy heart, thou mayest.  And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God,” indicates that the name of Jesus Christ formed the candidate’s confession of faith.  S. Peter’s command to the converts at Whitsuntide to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ is interpreted by Alford to mean “on confession of that which the Name implies.”  So understood, the passage would contain no reference to the phrase employed by S. Peter in administering the Sacrament, but only to the convert’s profession of faith.

      2. There is another explanation.  Baptism in the name of the Lord Jesus may refer not to any Baptismal Formula, but to the chief contents of the Christian religion.  Christianity, being the religion of which Jesus Christ is the object, is naturally denoted by His Name: and assent to Christianity is relationship to Him.  In this case the language of the Acts would tell us nothing of the formula which the apostles employed.

      That the use of the phrase, “baptized in the name of the Lord,” does not necessarily mean ignorance of the baptismal formula in the triple Name is certain from the occurrence of both expressions in the Didache.  While the Didache expressly enjoins that men are to be baptized “unto the name of the Father and Son and Holy Ghost,” [Ch. vii.] yet it can afterwards speak of “such as have been baptized in the name of the Lord.” [Ch. ix.]

      3. The conversation in the Acts between S. Paul and the disciples at Ephesus [Acts 19:1–5.] leaves the reader in some uncertainty whether the reference is to the Trinitarian doctrine or to the Baptismal Formula.  To the inquiry whether they received the Holy Ghost when they believed, the disciples reply with an admission of their ignorance “whether the Holy Ghost was given” (R.V.) or whether there is a Holy Ghost (margin).  S. Paul thereupon inquires, “Into what, then, were ye baptized?”  The implication is that ignorance of the Holy Ghost was inexcusable on the part of recipients of Christian Baptism: either because this was an essential element of Christian doctrine, or else because it was part of the Baptismal Formula.  Since the passage is open to both interpretations, no conclusive evidence can be derived from it.  The practical result, “they were baptized into the Name of the Lord Jesus,” is equally ambiguous.  It may simply refer to the sphere into which they were admitted.  In which case it tells us nothing of the formula employed.

      4. But again, although the words which S. Matthew here ascribes to our Lord are habitually termed the Baptismal Formula, and naturally so from the Church’s immemorial use, the question still remains whether the phrase was originally a sacramental formula or a doctrinal statement.  Certainly the phrase itself does not compel the inference that this is the injunction of a formula.  Many expositors [Ε.g. Meyer.] maintain that the title “the Baptismal Formula,” which the phrase first received apparently from Tertullian, [“De Bapt.” 13.] is incorrect if applied to the Biblical text, however accurate in reference to traditional use.  And as we have seen, this is no new idea.  The Jesuit Bellarmine held that the use of the phrase must be ascertained from tradition, and not merely from the passage itself.  If this interpretation be accepted, it removes a difficulty.  Thus it has been recently said, “it can scarcely have been meant or at first understood to prescribe a form of words for use in the ministration of Christian Baptism, although our familiarity with this employment of the words may tempt us to take this view.” [Swete, “H. Sp. in the N.T.” p. 124.]  “When we consider,” says Bishop Chase, “the words of Christ recorded by S. Matthew as revealing a spiritual fact about Baptism, then the question ceases to be one of rival formulas and becomes one of Christian theology.” [“J. T. S.” July, 1905, p. 508.]

      ΙΙΙ.  To the arguments of the Baptismal Formula derived from Patristic quotations, and from Scripture practice recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, some have added a third, a doctrinal argument from the substance of the formula.  Thus, Harnack argues that “the Trinitarian formula is foreign to the mouth of Jesus. [“Hist. Dogm.” i. 79 n.]  Harnack contends that “from the Epistles of Paul we perceive that the formula Father, Son, and Spirit could not yet have been customary, especially in baptism. But,” he admits, “it was approaching (2 Cor. 13:13). [Ib. p. 80 n.]

      1. Now, here, in the first place, it must be admitted that the doctrinal difference between the Baptismal Formula and the Pauline grace (2 Cor. 13.) is very considerable.  There is between them all the difference between the abstract and the experimental, between the systematic theologian and the devotional writer.  Considered simply as theological expressions, there is a marked distinction between saying “the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,” and saying, “the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost.”  It is a distinction which will probably most impress those who have been accustomed to the study of dogmatic formulas.  If the former words are truly interpreted as “revealing once for all decisively and distinctly His relation to the Father as One with Him in Essential Deity; and further disclosing the distinct but equally Divine Personality of the Holy Ghost “ [Medd, “Bamρtοn Lecture,” p. 335.] – they certainly mark a condition of mature development.

      The difference between the Baptismal Formula and the Pauline grace has greatly impressed modern theological writers.  Dorner, for instance, held that “the word Father in the Baptismal Formula does not express a relation to men; but the coordination of Father and Son requires us to regard the Father as the Father of the Son, and the Son as the Son of the Father: and therefore does not signify a paternal relation to the world in general, but to the Son; Who, standing between the Father and the Spirit, must be somehow thought as pertaining to the Divine sphere; and therefore denotes a distinction in the sphere of the Divine itself, and thus a relation of God to Himself.” [Dorner, “System of Christian Doctrine,” i. 351.]

      Thus the Baptismal Formula does not express a Trinity of work, or a Trinity of redemptive effort for man, but an essential Trinity, a Trinity in the inner constitution of Deity.  It is not God revealed as Father of mankind, as Redeemer of mankind, as Sanctifier of mankind, but God as He is in Himself, prior to, apart from, all self-manifestation: this is the amazing character of the phrase.  Or, as another modern writer puts it: the Pauline phrase is perfectly informal.  “It has none of the qualities of a doctrinal formula, and it does not seem to imply any formula of the Trinity present in the author’s mind.  It does not appear to be based upon what we call the Baptismal Formula, ...  The names do not correspond, for instead of the Father we here have God, and instead of the Son we have the Lord Jesus Christ.  Nor does the order correspond, for here the Second of the Baptismal Formula stands first, and the First stands second.  Moreover, the titles that are given to the Second instead of Son – namely, Jesus, Christ and Lord – are not derived from relations in the Godhead, but all come from his human history and relations.” [Newton Clarke, “Christian Doctrine of God,” p. 229.]

      2. On the other hand, much must here depend on the Johannine evidence.  Harnack himself declares of the farewell discourses in S. John that their fundamental ideas are, in his opinion, genuine; that is, they proceed from Jesus.  [“Hist. Dogm.” i. 65 n. 2.]  We presume that their fundamental ideas include their doctrine of God.  If these last discourses before the Passion were substantially uttered by our Lord, then the Trinitarian language of the Resurrection command to baptize is not unnatural.  There seem to be three stages discernible in a doctrinal progress.  First, the Synoptic report of the ministry, in which we find already the more abstract and dogmatic terms, “the Father” and “the Son” combined: as in the sentence,

“Νο one knoweth the Son save the Father;

neither doth any know the Father save the Son.” [S. Matt. 11:27.]

This blending together in a single sentence of the Father and the Son certainly prepares the way to the Baptismal expression, and goes a considerable distance along it.

      Next to the Synoptic report of the ministry comes the Johannine report of the last discourses.  If Jesus spoke at that period of “the Father,” “the Son,” “the Spirit of Truth”; [S. John 14:13–16.] if He not only named them distinctly but blended them in a single phrase; if He really uttered the verses in S. John 14:26 and 15:26; then He made a very definite advance to a second stage beyond the instructions of the earlier ministry.  That, after these, a third and final stage was reached in the period of the great forty days, as reported by S. Matthew, is a true theological sequence.  It would mean that our Lord thus gathered up into one final expression the substance of His previous instructions.

      3. Very much in this question, as in so many other New Testament problems, must depend on our doctrine of the Person of our Lord.  Could He not be in advance of His Galilean contemporaries?  Could He not teach more than subsequent reflection at first appreciated?  If we compare the Pauline doctrine with that of the Apostolic Fathers, are we not conscious of the enormous extent to which he is in advance of the age which followed him?  Is it incredible that something similar should occur in the last utterances of Jesus Christ compared with those of His disciples?  Are we prepared to deny Him an insight into divine truth capable of anticipating the results of His disciples’ matured reflection?  Or is it only the form of the Baptismal utterance and not the substance which constitutes a difficulty?  Can we agree that Jesus substantially taught ideas to which the Evangelist has given something of a contemporary expression?  The words of the Risen Lord, like all His other sayings, come to us through the medium of His reporters’ minds.  They may conceivably owe somewhat in their form to the medium through which they came, without thereby losing their substantial accuracy.  Thus Dean Robinson suggests that S. Matthew “does not here report the ipsissima νerba of Jesus, but transfers to Him the familiar language of the Church of the Evangelist’s own time and locality.” [“Encycl. Biblica,” i. 474.]  This assumes S. Matthew to be the author of the form though not of the substance.  This would make the actual form of the language subsequent to the Pauline phrase.  And certainly there is force in the view that if S. Paul had known the Matthaean form of the words of the Risen Lord, the knowledge might be found impressed upon his writings.  But yet at the same time the indirect influence may be really there.  For the apostles’ constant Trinitarian phraseology may be partly accounted for by the knowledge of such a formula.

      IV.  Finally, there remains the question, What would be the dogmatic consequence if the Baptismal Formula were demonstrated to be no saying of our Lord?  Mr. Conybeare says that since the omission of 1 S. John 5:7–8 from the revised text “the entire weight of proving the Trinity has of late come to rest on Matt. 28:19.” [“Hibbert J.” Oct. 1902, p. 103.]  No statement could well be more misleading.  The doctrine of the Trinity does not depend on any single text, however important that text may be.  The explicit declaration of the doctrine would, if the Baptismal Formula was absent, be less definite; but the doctrine itself would be none the less the necessary inference from the apostolic data. Mr. Conybeare quotes Dean Robinson’s view that S. Matthew “does not here report the ipsissima verba of Jesus, but transfers to him the familiar language of the Church of the Evangelist’s own time and locality.”  But Mr. Conybeare would not therefore ascribe to Dean Robinson the opinion that the foundation for the proof of the doctrine of the Trinity is thereby destroyed.  We should not have thought that anyone would rest the entire weight of proving the Trinity upon the Baptismal words: for the simple reason that the Baptismal Formula is, from any point of view, the consummation of a development, the final expression in which previous instruction is condensed and consolidated.  The Baptismal Formula is not the foundation.  It presupposes instruction as to the Son and the Spirit.  The doctrine of the Trinity must rest ultimately on the Person of Christ and His relation to the Father.  It must be confirmed by religious experience of redemption through the Son, and of sanctification through the Spirit.  It cannot rest entirely on a phrase, whoever the author of that phrase nay be.  All this is, we should have thought, a commonplace of modern theology.  But if the doctrine rests on the entire data of apostolic experience, it cannot be destroyed, or even vitally disturbed, by the question whether a particular sentence represents a saying of Christ, or an exposition of the mind of Christ by the primitive Church.  One has only to read the “Thesaurus” of S. Cyril, of Alexandria, to see that the patristic Trinitarianism was founded on a very wide range of conceptions, and not exclusively on the Baptismal Formula, or indeed upon any individual text.  We are, therefore, able to separate the critical inquiry from the fundamental dogmatic interests.  We cannot but feel that, as a matter of dispassionate criticism, Mr. Conybeare’s method is mistaken in prefacing what ought to be a purely historical inquiry with dogmatical considerations on the bearing of this text in “proving the Trinity”; and in assuming that if the text is cancelled the proof is gone; and in asserting that “there has been no general inclination on the part of divines to inquire soberly into the authenticity of a text on which they builded superstructures so huge.  Nevertheless an enlightened minority had their doubts.”  [“Hibbert J.” Oct. 1902, p. 103.]  Nor is the prophecy beyond dispute that “in future the most conservative divines will shrink from resting on it any dogmatic fabric at all, while the more enlightened will discard it as completely as they have its fellow-text of the three witnesses.” [Ib. 104.]  What if after all “the more enlightened” may reach another conclusion?  There is another consideration which deserves to be taken into account.  If the supposed adoption by Eusebius of the Trinitarian formula after the Council of Nicea were correct, it would not at all follow, as is sometimes implied, that the phrase was interpolated by Churchmen during the Arian struggle as a refutation of the Arian view.  For S. Athanasius tells us that the Arians themselves employed the formula in administering Baptism, only, of course, placing upon the terms a wrong construction. “If,” says Athanasius, “the consecration” [or initiation] “is given to us into the Name of Father and Son, and they do not confess a true Father, because they deny what is from Him and like His substance, and deny also the true Son, and name another of their own framing as created out of nothing, is not the rite administered by them altogether empty and unprofitable, making a show, but in reality being no help towards religion?  For the Arians do not baptize into Father and Son, but into Creator and creature, and into Maker and work.  And as a creature is other than the Son, so the Baptism, which is supposed to be given by them, is other than the truth, though they pretend to name the Name of the Father and the Son, because of the words of Scripture.” [S. Athan. “Orat.” ii.; “Ag. Arians,” § 42; Migne, P. G. Athanasius, Τ. ii. p. 238.]

      Thus Athanasius did not regard the Trinitarian formula as necessarily safeguarding the Trinitarian faith.  He saw in concrete instances how true it is that no form of words exists which cannot be eluded by the subtlety and ingenuity of men.

      Athanasius also affirms that the use of the orthodox formula was common among the sects opposing the Church.  “There are many other heresies too,” he says, “which use the words only, but without orthodoxy ... and in consequence the water which they administer is unprofitable, as deficient in religious meaning.”

      Among these Athanasius includes the followers of Paul of Samosata, who was nominated bishop of Antioch in 260. [Cf. Hefele, “Concilien-geschichte,” Bd. i. 411.]  Now it is not likely that the followers of this unorthodox person originally baptized in some other formula, and adopted the Trinitarian formula after their separation from the Church.  They appear to be independent witnesses to the use of the formula as far back as 260.  Surely they used it because they found it in their Bibles, just as Athanasius says that the Arians named the Father and the Son “because of the words of Scripture.”

      Augustine found it possible to say that in his time “ye will more easily find heretics who do not baptize at all than any who baptize without those words.” [S. Aug., “De Baptismo,” vi. 47.]

      On the Baptismal Formula, see Conybeare, “Hibbert Journal,” Oct. 1902; Riggenbach, “Der Trinitarische Taufbefehl” (“Beiträge zur Förderung der Christlichen Theologie,” 1905); Bp. Chase, “J. Th. S.,” July 1905; Rendtοrff, “Die Taufe im Urchristentum, 1905; Swete, “Appearances”; Swete, “Holy Spirit,” 1909.

 

Chapter  XVIII – Christ’s Resurrection an Evidence of His Divinity

      That the Resurrection of Christ is evidential to S. Paul has been repeatedly seen.  We are concerned here with the highest truth of all for which the apostles find it evidential: namely, the relation in which Christ stands to the Father.  The passage is the opening of the Epistle to the Romans, [Rom. 1:3, 4.] “Concerning his Son who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, who was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection of the dead; even Jesus Christ our Lord” (R.V.).

      I.  S. Paul here indicates the central feature of “the Gospel of God concerning His Son.”

      1. First, the Son is regarded “according to the flesh.”  By flesh is not here intended the body of our Lord and its material substance, excluding the soul.  Nor does it denote the lower animal life as contrasted with the higher moral and spiritual.  There is no moral suggestion in the statement that Christ was born of the seed of David according to the flesh.  Flesh is rather the synonym for our common human nature; soul and body included. [Cf. Rom 4:1; 9:3–5.]  Christ then is, according to the flesh, Son of David, recipient of human nature in the princely Jewish line.

      2. But, secondly, S. Paul describes what Christ is according to the spirit.  Or, rather, this is what S. Paul does not say: not according to the spirit, but according to the spirit of holiness.  If the former expression had been used, the antithesis between flesh and spirit would indisputably appear as a reference to the two sides of individual human nature, the body and the soul.  But the expression “spirit of holiness” suggested to the ancient interpreters as a whole, [Origen, Tertull. Adv. Prax. xxvii., Ambrosiaster. Aug. Inchoata Expositio.] and to some modern interpreters also, [Liddon’s Analysis, Gess, “Bibelstunden, Römer.”] that the reference is not so much to the human soul as to the Divine side of Christ’s nature.

The expression “spirit of holiness” is one of deep solemnity.  It appears to show that it is not a human spirit but a Divine which is here attributed to Christ: a spirit of which the essential quality is holiness. [Alford.]  “Spirit,” it must be remembered, “denotes the essential nature of God, [S. John 4:24.] and that is the sense in which the term is here employed.  It must denote its original character of Christ’s personality.” [Beyschlag, “Ν.T. Theol.” ii. 68.]

      While, then, in reference to His human nature Christ was made or became Son of David, in reference to His Divine nature He was designated “Son of God.”  The great term is here in the highest of meanings.  For this is S. Paul’s habitual use. [Rom. viii. 32.]  This was the substance of the revelation as it came in S. Paul’s personal experience. [Gal. 1:16.]  Hence he can speak of the pre-existence and the mission of the Son. [Gal. 4:4 ; Phil. 2:6 ff.]  It is the meaning peculiarly necessitated here by the opening words: “the gospel of God concerning the Son.”  This interpretation is recognized by a large number of recent expositors.  It is Sonship “in the metaphysical sense.” [Meyer in loc. cf. Immer, “Theologie des Neuen Testamentes,” p. 273.  Beyschlag, “Ν.Τ. Theol.” ii. 67.]  “On ne saurait douter que ce passage affirme le fait de ce double élément dans l’individualité tout exceptionelle du Sauveur, sa nature à la fois humaine et divine, que nous reconnaîtrons ainsi comme positivement enseignée par 1’apôtre.” [Edouard Reuss.]

      “S. Paul,” says Gifford, [p. 54.  See also Liddon’s “Analysis.”] “seems never to have applied the title ‘Son of Man’ to Christ in any other than the highest sense, certainly not here, where the Son of God is declared to be the one great subject of the Gospel and of prophecy.”

      Jesus Christ then, S. Paul affirms, was “declared to be the Son of God ... by the Resurrection of the dead.”

      The term translated both in A.V. and R.V. “declared” has been understood in two main senses: either “indicated” or “constituted.”  That is, either asserted to be, or appointed.  The latter sense is that which agrees with New Testament use. [Acts 10:42; 17:31, Gifford in loc.]  But to many this meaning has appeared inconsistent with the apostles’ belief in the metaphysical Sonship of Christ.  To indicate Christ as being what He was already, seemed more consistent than to designate or appoint Him what He was already.  How could Christ be constituted to a Sonship already essentially His? [Cf. Beyschlag, “Ν.Τ. Theol.” ii. 67.]  But the difficulty vanishes on a fuller exposition.  Chrysostom indeed held that the term ορισθέντος signified “indicated, manifested, estimated, confirmed by the opinion and vote of all.”  But Pearson did not hesitate to write, “thus was He defined or constituted and appointed the Son of God.” [“Exposition of the Creed,” Art. ii. p. 201.]

      How then was Jesus designated the Son of God?  S. Paul’s answer is: by the Resurrection of the dead.  He was Son of God throughout; but the reality of His Sonship was concealed by His human infirmities.  For to be a Son of God in weakness appears a contradiction in terms.  At least it so appeared to the age in which Christ lived.  The inferences which men were constrained to draw from His moral uniqueness were compromised, disordered, frustrated, by His apparent failure.  If it be said that men ought to have seen through this; the ideal may be granted, yet the fact remains.  They did not see the divinity of weakness.  Consequently some revelation of the Son of God in power was necessary to contradict the misleading impression of His overthrow.  This S. Paul asserts to have been done in Resurrection. [See on this Zahn, and Sabatier, “L’Αpôtre Paul,” p. 359.]

      Resurrection did this because it is the physical sphere, a manifestation of Divine power exactly where mortal man is altogether most helpless.  Moreover, the Resurrection divinely endorsed all that Christ had said and done and claimed.  Thus it gave a new and Divine support to the inferences which the character itself had already suggested, and to the “self-assertion” of Jesus in His relation to the Father.  It removed misgivings, because it cancelled the misleading impressions created by a Son of God in weakness.

      Moreover, although Christ was the Son of God all through, yet He was constituted to the prerogatives and exercise of His Sonship, in a higher larger sphere from the Resurrection onwards. [Cornely.]  In this sense also He was actually constituted Son of God in power.  We cannot separate Christ into two persons, one divine and the other human.  His humanity is the instrument of His Deity.  And towards mankind the larger exercise of His power dates from the Resurrection.  Of course this is part of the mysteriousness of the Incarnation.  The human experiences are the experiences of a Divine Person.  But it is strictly true, paradox as it sounds, that the Son of God is definitely constituted by His exaltation that which He was before.  Thus the Epistle to the Hebrews represents the Father as saying in reference to a distinct crisis in time the words of the Psalm: “Thou art My Son; this day have I begotten Thee.”  Just as these words are consistent with the Eternal Sonship of Him to whom they were addressed, so is the language “constituted” or “designated Son of God in power by the Resurrection,” consistent with the same.

      II.  This Pauline conception of the Divinity of Jesus Christ, as being attested by His Resurrection, has been challenged on the ground that Resurrection would not necessarily demonstrate the divinity of the person raised.

      Certainly it is true that Resurrection as such, apart from all other considerations, and in the case of a person otherwise unknown, would not demonstrate his divinity; since any individual mortal might be raised, and it is part of the Christian faith that Resurrection will be a universal experience.

      Belief in Christ’s Resurrection is theoretically separable from belief in His Divinity, and has been held without it.  The earlier school of English Unitarians represented by Priestley and Channing were prepared to accept the Resurrection without the Divinity.  Channing argued that God might be expected, considering the importance of Immortality, to prove its reality by a human illustration.  “Miracles,” said Channing, “are the appropriate, and would seem to be the only, mode of placing beyond doubt man’s future and immortal being; and no miracles can be conceived so peculiarly adapted to this end as the very ones which held the highest place in Christianity: I mean the resurrection of Lazarus, and, still more, the resurrection of Jesus.  No man will deny that, of all truths, a future state is most strengthening to virtue and consoling to humanity.  Is it, then, unworthy of God to employ miracles for the awakening or the confirmation of this hope?  May they not even be expected, if nature, as we have seen, sheds but a faint light on this most interesting of all verities?” [Channing, “Evidences of Christianity”; works, vol. iii. 383.]

      The Unitarian writer Priestley wrote in still more decided terms his belief in Jesus’ Resurrection.  “If there be any truth in history,” he wrote in his Essay on the Inspiration of Christ, “Christ wrought unquestionable miracles, as a proof of his mission from God; he preached the great doctrine of the Resurrection from the dead, he raised several persons from a state of death, and, what is more, he himself died and rose again in confirmation of his doctrine.  The belief of these facts I call the belief of Christianity.” [In Goblet d’Alviella, “The Contemporary Evolution of Religious Thought,” p. 86.]

      Priestley’s line of argument was that reason can at best only suggest the probability of a future state and not its certainty; that nothing less than a positive assurance from Deity could be conclusive; that such assurance in the shape of a concrete instance would be all the evidence that the most exacting of mankind could have desired.  Now, “Jesus rested the evidence of his divine mission, and consequently his authority to preach the doctrine of a future life, in a more particular manner upon his own resurrection from the dead; and as, in all cases, examples have the greatest weight with mankind,” Priestley proposed to show that the circumstances of Jesus’ Death and Resurrection were “such as to render these important events in the highest degree credible, both at the time when they took place, and, what is of much more importance, in all future time.”

      Priestley accordingly devoted an entire essay to the proof of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, which he considered perfectly convincing. [Priestley, “Discourse on the Resurrection of Jesus.”]

      But Priestley apparently failed to carry conviction even in the circle of his own pupils.  “He was constitutionally incapable of doubt,” says a contemporary.  “He could never perceive any mischief or danger in the fullest exposure of any doctrine which he believed.”  “His own faith in a future state” was “fixed on gospel promises,” ... “and he expected, I say not how wisely, to enhance the value of Christianity, and compel, as it were, the deist to accept of it, by proving that there was no hope of immortality without it.” [“Memoirs, Miscellanies, and Letters of L. Aikin,” 1864, p. 237.]

      The successors of Priestley and Channing have not been able to retain belief in Christ’s Resurrection while rejecting His Divinity.  Channing’s argument had no value for Martineau.

      Indeed, this estimate of the Resurrection as only (1) a miraculous certificate of the truth of the instructions given by the Prophet of Nazareth, and (2) a certificate of human immortality by means of a solitary illustration, was an obvious legacy from the theology of the 18th century.  It belongs to a period which considered Christianity as “a republication of natural religion”: natural religion being supposed to consist of the doctrines of God and Immortality.  It was a belief in Christ’s Resurrection without any belief in Christ’s Person.  It made the fact of the Resurrection the all important matter, while it regarded with indifference the Person who rose.  It did not matter essentially to such a theory that it was Jesus Christ who rose.  Any other person might have done as well, provided he had risen.  For any other person might be utilized as a certificate of human immortality.  Thus while an external resemblance to the apostolic faith was retained, there was an absolute departure from its essential spirit.  For apostolic belief in the Resurrection of Christ was but a preliminary to devotion and self-surrender to Christ as Risen.

      The failure of this Unitarian effort to establish Christ’s Resurrection without His Divinity, seems to show that belief in the former will not be retained unless it becomes the ground for belief in His Person.  This seems altogether natural and right.  When Christ’s Resurrection is reduced to a mere miraculous certificate of immortality not only are the distinctive glories of Christianity lost, but the conception remaining repels by its purely external, non-moral and unspiritual character.  Unless belief in Christ’s Resurrection advances to belief in His Divinity it will forfeit even that which it seems to have.

      While the Resurrection of any chance individual would assuredly not justify the inference that he was divine, what S. Paul was contemplating was not the Resurrection of any chance individual, but the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.  To appreciate S. Paul’s idea we must remember his experience.  To S. Paul, the Resurrection, of Christ included the exaltation to heavenly glory.  This was an essential part of the Resurrection.  It was this which S. Paul had seen.  The Resurrection of Christ was not to S. Paul a mere sample of the future Resurrection of men.  It contained within it elements entirely unique.  The exaltation was to a glory which none could share.  The Resurrection placed Christ alone in absolute splendour at God’s right hand.  Hence the inference from His Resurrection to His Divinity was anything rather than an illogical venture, refuted by the single remark that all other men will have the same experience, and yet none of them are divine.  We may be sure that S. Paul’s dialectic acuteness was not the victim of so obvious a fallacy.  To his mind all men will not share the same experience as Jesus Christ.  Their Resurrection differs essentially in its aspect of exaltation from His.  S. Paul never supposed that he or any one else would one day stand in that same exaltation wherein he saw the Risen Christ.

      III.  While, however, S. Paul drew the inference from the Resurrection to the Divinity, it is true that the ordinary modern experience would reverse the process, and argue from the Divinity to the Resurrection.

      If Jesus Christ is a human being and nothing more, the evidence that He rose from the dead will appear comparatively weak, perhaps incredible.  Regarded apart from His Divinity His Resurrection is intrinsically different, profoundly different, from what it is to those who believe Him to be divine.  A believer in Christ’s Divinity is deeply conscious that the Divine must be victorious in the sphere of death.  The whole conception of Incarnation requires the triumph of the Incarnate over all obstruction to the full development of man.  Otherwise, Incarnation itself would become meaningless and incredible.  The Divinity of Christ is precisely the fact which demands and necessitates Resurrection.  Thus, whenever men have sincerely believed in Him as their Divine Redeemer they have exhibited a genuine faith in Him as their Risen Lord.

 

Chapter  ΧΙΧ – Christ’s Resurrection Instrumental in His Exaltation

      The fact that the Resurrection of Christ is evidential has occupied an enormous place in Christian thought.  It may be said to have occupied a disproportionate place.  For, after all, the evidential value of the Resurrection is only a portion of the truth.  While it is, of course, most true that the Resurrection is evidential, yet if attention be exclusively concentrated upon this aspect, not only are other profoundly important aspects disregarded, but also the very aspect emphasized becomes purely external, and in a sense almost unspiritual.  It is therefore essential to insist that Christ’s Resurrection is not only evidential in attesting ideas, but instrumental in imparting powers.  The instrumental aspects of the Resurrection have been at times comparatively overlooked, or at least insufficiently emphasized.  And yet they are the most distinctively Christian.

      The aspect before us for contemplation in the present chapter is the effect of His Resurrection upon our Lord Himself.  This was an aspect dear to the apostolic mind.

      I.  No one has expressed more strikingly than S. Paul the thought that Christ’s Resurrection was instrumental in His exaltation.

      This is fully brought out in the first chapter of the Ephesians: “That ye may know ... what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe according to that working of the strength of His might which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and made Him to sit at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: and He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him to be Head over all things to the Church, which is His Body....”

      The Resurrection of Christ is here regarded by St. Paul, and indicated to the Ephesians, as a supreme manifestation of Divine power.  The apostle accumulates synonyms for power in his effort to describe it.  First he calls it “power” (δύναμις).  Then he enhances this term by epithets, the “exceeding greatness” of His power.  Then he expands the idea with three more terms: “That working of the strength of His might.”

      This Divine power is designated “might” (ισχύς): that is, the inner potentialities, the Divine capabilities and resources.  It is also strength (κράτος): this denotes the Divine power put forth in meeting and overcoming resistance.  The term is almost exclusively confined to the power of God. [Cf. Dean Robinson, in loc.]  It is also working (ενέργεια): that is, Divine power considered in the aspect of activity. [Cf. Meyer.]

      Thus the Power of God, whether regarded in its aspect of inner resource, or outward effort, or boundless activity, is for S. Paul chiefly displayed in the Resurrection of Christ.  And the Resurrection includes exaltation.  God has not only raised Him from the dead.  But this supreme exercise of power has carried with it the enthronement of Christ, in unique authority, above all conceivable dominions in the whole universe, of whatever sort they may be: whether of this natural sphere, or of the higher sphere of the spiritual.  This wondrous Divine power has uplifted the Christ, out of the lowest humiliation of death to the loftiest height of being.  We can see how deeply this thought of power revealed in the Resurrection of Christ has impressed itself upon the apostle’s imagination, how the glow of religious devotion, and the rush of feeling are behind these accumulated words.

      1. And this exaltation of Christ by the Divine power is in the heavenly sphere. [Cf. Dean Robinson, pp. 20, 21.]  It is in the sphere of spiritual activities, “that immaterial region, the unseen universe, which lies behind the world of sense.” [Ib.]

      2. And the position of the exalted Christ in the heavenly sphere is above all other: “above all rule and authority and power and dominion.”  Moreover, as S. Chrysostom notes, it is “far” above them.  All other rule and dominion sink into relative insignificance beside His.

      3. Nor is this all.  Not only are all other spiritual powers beside His insignificant, but they are subordinated to His.  Not only in power is He preferred above them, but they are made His servants and subjected to His will. [Cf. S. John Chrysostom, in loc.]

      4. Then, after this magnificent flight, the apostle returns manward.  The Divine power has constituted the exalted Christ the Head of the Church; the redeemed humanity which is His Body.  But yet it is clear how much this suggests and leaves unsaid: what vistas of hope for the spiritual development of mankind are here implied.

      This passage is a splendid illustration of S. Paul’s conception of the value of the Resurrection relatively to the exaltation of Christ.

      II.  S. Paul’s doctrine of the Resurrection as instrumental in the human exaltation of Christ is, of course, the doctrine of the entire New Testament.  S. Luke’s Gospel reports our Lord as describing the divine appropriateness that the Christ after his death should “enter into His glory.” [S. Luke 24:26.]  According to S. Peter in the Acts, Christ is through His Resurrection “at the right hand of God exalted.” [Acts 2.]  In the Revelation the announcement is: “I am the first and the last, and the living one; and I was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.” [Revel. 1:1–18.]  Here the doctrine goes much further than the Pauline statement that “death hath no more dominion over Him”; [Rom. 6:9.] it is a splendid ascription to Him of dominion over death and over the dead.  His Resurrection is His conquest over forces to us invincible.

      III.  The exaltation of Jesus Christ entailed in His Resurrection necessarily affects all His functions as Man.

      The Resurrection is the perfecting of His human nature.  It freed Him from the relatively incomplete and restricted sphere, and enthroned Him in the sphere of full-grown human energies.  In His Resurrection human nature achieves for the first time the ideal state.  Its perfection is consummated.

      The Resurrection confers upon His manhood further powers.  Whatever functions He discharged on earth are enhanced; are rendered effective towards mankind; in a manner unknown before.

      If on earth He wrought a prophetic, a priestly, and a kingly work, He now, as risen and exalted, exercises those offices in a perfected degree.

      1. The extent to which the priestly work of Christ is matured by the Resurrection is shown throughout the Epistle to the Hebrews.  If the Resurrection of Christ is not explicitly named, it is everywhere presupposed. [Cf. Μénégοz, p. 100.]  The priesthood of Christ transcends all other because it is exercised in the heavenly sphere.  It is a permanent priesthood.  It possesses all the value and effectiveness which only such conditions can give.  As high priest in the heavenly sphere, the exalted Christ exercises a twofold function in behalf of His redeemed community on earth: towards God He intercedes; towards man He confers help and strength. [Cf. Riehm. p. 612.]  These functions acquire their effectiveness through Christ’s Resurrection and exaltation in the heavenly sphere.  It is as exalted that “He is able to succour them that are tempted.” [Heb. 2:28.]  If His earthly experience has matured the human sympathy, it is His heavenly exaltation which bestows the power.  Hence it is that in Him we “may find grace to help us in the time of need.” [Heb. 4:16.]  For “He is able to save to the uttermost them that draw near unto God through Him.” [Heb. 7:25.]  And the ground of this ability to save is the inalienable priesthood which Christ possesses in the heavenly sphere.

      This is the fundamental thought of the Epistle.  So S. Peter claims that the Resurrection accounts for the increase of new spiritual power on earth.  “Being therefore by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, He bath poured forth this which ye see and hear.” [Acts 2:33.]

      2. The Resurrection of our Lord endowed His prophetic office also with fuller power.  For the whole substance of the Gospel acquires its force in virtue of His exaltation.  His teaching obtains a new significance when related to His personal glory at God’s right hand.  His teaching does not depend merely on the intrinsic value of His utterances; it is endorsed by the personal authority of One uniquely related to the Father.

      3. And once again, His Resurrection endowed our Lord with Kingly power in the spiritual sphere.  He is not only described by S. Paul as enthroned in the heavenly sphere, “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion,” but He is, in virtue of this exaltation, “Head over all things to the Church which is His Body.”  This spiritual dominion could only be realized after His Resurrection.  The contrast between the Kingship of Christ during His ministry, and His Kingship after His Resurrection, is as striking as it is possible to conceive.  It is only after the Resurrection that such utterances are possible as the great commission to the apostles.  The words “all authority hath been given unto Me in heaven and on earth” may be the original from which S. Paul’s doctrinal statement is derived.  The conception in both is at any rate the same.

 

Chapter  XX – Christ’s Resurrection the Means of Our Justification

      That Christ’s Resurrection is instrumental in effecting man’s justification is taught by S. Paul in the conclusion of the fourth chapter of the Romans.  Faith, he says, will be reckoned unto us for righteousness “who believe on Him that raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up for our trespasses, and was raised for our justification.”  Here the Death and the Resurrection are the two facts emphasized.  And at first sight our sin appears the reason for Christ’s Death, and our justification the reason for His Resurrection.  But this antithesis cannot mean that Redemption is ascribed to the Death and Justification to the Resurrection.  Not at least as if Redemption was not completed by the Death, or required supplementing by the Resurrection.  The whole redemptive work was ideally consummated in the Death.  We were reconciled to God by the death of His Son.  What then does the Resurrection effect?  It realizes the justification of the individual.  This does not mean, says Beyschlag, [Beyschlag, “N. T. Th.” ii. 164.] that our justification does not depend upon the Death, but rather that being rendered possible by the Death it is actualized for us through His Resurrection.  Redemption was ideally consummated by the Death: it is individually appropriated by the Resurrection.

      Sabatier observes that the Death and the Resurrection of Christ are not only logically united in the thought of S. Paul; they may even be described as one and the same act, expressing the two successive aspects of justification.  The Death denotes the negative deliverance from guilt and annihilation of the power of sin: the Resurrection the positive creation of the spiritual life. [“L’Αpôtre Paul,” p. 323.]  The new era begins with the Saviour’s Resurrection. [Ib. 339.]

      It will aid our thoughts to illustrate from other passages in S. Paul.  He writes, for instance (Rom. 8:34):

“It is God that justifieth;

Who is he that shall condemn?

It is Christ Jesus that died,

Yea rather, that was raised from the dead,

Who is at the right hand of God,

Who also maketh intercession for us.”

The passage sounds like a fragment of the Creed: Death, Resurrection, Exaltation, Intercession.  It shows most impressively the basis on which S. Paul’s sense of his own justification reposed.  First it is founded on the Death, which has had a redemptive effect.  But he instantly passes to the Resurrection without which the Death is ineffective. [Cf. Rom. 4:25.]  And on the Resurrection he founds the heavenly exaltation.  And on the exaltation the thought of the powerful advocate.  Thus S. Paul’s object of religious reliance is the heavenly work of the now exalted Being Who once was crucified.

      So again elsewhere S. Paul has written: “For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” [Rom. 5:25.]  That is to say, if the death of Jesus effected our reconciliation, much more must His glorified life complete our deliverance. [Liddon’s “Analysis.”]  The antithesis hers between reconciled by His death and saved by His life recalls and illustrates the passage under consideration: “delivered for our trespasses and raised for our justification.”

      Now the question is, How does the Resurrection of Christ produce our justification?

      1. Partly because justification is secured by faith; and faith in the death of Christ as the redemptive sacrifice is founded on the Resurrection.  Therefore, says Pfleiderer, the Resurrection was the necessary means for securing the individual’s justification.  It was “the intermediate cause of subjective justification, while the Death was the direct cause of the objective cancelling of sins.”  Accordingly we have here not two coordinate causes of salvation, each with its separate effect, but one and the same effect of salvation, which has in the death of Christ its real cause, and in His Resurrection the logical ground of the possibility of its subjective appropriation by faith.” [Pfleiderer, “Paulinismus,” i. 119.]  The exposition of the passage by Bernard Weiss is somewhat similar: according to him, “The objective atonement was accomplished by means of the death of Christ, but the appropriation of it in justification is only possible if we believe in this saving significance of His death, and we can attain to faith in that only if it is sealed by means of the Resurrection.”  Weiss compares Phil. 3:10, “that I may know Him and the power of His Resurrection”: his conclusion being that the relation between Christ’s Death and Resurrection is that “the former was the means of procuring salvation, the latter the means of appropriating it.” [B. Weiss, “Bibl. Theol.”, i. 437.]  So regarded, Christ’s Resurrection becomes reduced to” a divine declaration that we are accepted with God.” [Stevens, “Pauline Theology,” p. 254.]  It is little more than a certificate or testimonial to the validity of the Death.

      And, so regarded, the question raised by Pfleiderer becomes quite natural, whether the Resurrection has any permanent dogmatic significance in human justification. [“Paulinismus,” i. p. 119 n.]  That it was an essential aid to faith to contemporary Judaism Pfleiderer fully allows.  But supposing assent to the work of Christ, and faith in His Person, were founded on His character; while the Resurrection, instead of promoting faith, was rather viewed as an obstruction and a difficulty; then the thought that Christ rose again for our justification would represent an ancient but not a modern requirement.  The Resurrection would have no necessary connection with justification, but one purely external and contingent.  And this is substantially what Pfleiderer pleads.  He claims that if apologetic writers represent faith in Christ as inseparable from faith in His Resurrection, they are confusing a Jewish postulate with the permanent elements of the Christian religion.  It is, of course, quite clear that Pfleiderer does not mean by faith in Christ what Christendom means by the same.  But the question raised, that of the Resurrection as a permanent element in justification, is perfectly reasonable; supposing the value of the Resurrection to be merely that of a certificate to the Passion, and faith in the value of the Death to be acquired in some other way.

      According to Zahn, [Zahn on Romans 4:25, p. 240.] Christ was raised for our justification; but although our redemption was wrought once for all by the Death, yet this only becomes appropriated by faith, and faith is an individual affair.  But faith and trust in God cannot be founded on one who continues dead.  If men did not know that Christ Himself had been restored to life, much less would faith in Him as bringing life to others be possible.  Thus Christ’s Resurrection is the basis of faith in Christ as Redeemer; of faith in the reality and effectiveness of His work for the sins of men.  Therefore justification depends on Christ’s Resurrection.

      2. The question therefore is, Did S. Paul mean that the Resurrection was merely related to justification as an aid to faith?  He was raised for our justification.  It has been said that here “the Resurrection is associated with the completion of salvation in such a way as to be made an essential factor. [Stevens, “Pauline Theol.” 17, p. 255.]  But in what way?  Did S. Paul really mean to teach that the Resurrection itself possessed a power beyond its evidential usefulness?  Or does the Resurrection confer upon every individual that with which no individual can dispense?  Is it really right to contrast in this antithesis the Death and the Resurrection, as that which redeems and that which certifies?  Is not Christ’s Resurrection instrumental in conveying something more than intellectual assurance?  Does it not effect something for Christ Himself?  Is it not the process of the glorifying and perfecting of His humanity?  And does not this mean that His Resurrection actually contributes to realizing our justification?  Compare Rom. 8:34: “It is God that justifleth; who is he that condemneth?  It is Christ Jesus that died, yea rather, that was raised from the dead, Who is at the right hand of God, Who also maketh intercession for us.”  Does not this throw light on the meaning of the sentence, “was raised for our justification”?  S. Paul rapidly passes on from the Death to the Resurrection; thence again to the Exaltation; and thence again to the working of the glorified Christ.  And this suggests a deeper conception of its relation to justification.  It is only by His Risen Life that Christ becomes the new life principle for humanity.  New if the Resurrection becomes the medium through which the glorified life of Jesus is infused into the individual believer, then this must be included in the significance of the passage, “He was raised again for our justification.”  And surely this is a thoroughly Pauline idea.

      “Who was delivered up for our trespasses, and was raised for our justification.”  S. Augustine observed that S. Paul did not write: “Who was delivered up for our justification and was raised for our trespasses.”  There was a distinct appropriateness in the selected terms: a theological significance, not a rhetorical balance.  In the “delivering up” sin is denoted, in the “Resurrection” righteousness. [S. Aug., Sermon 236, p. 1444.]

      Thus Liddon in his analysis of the passage explains as follows: He was delivered up to death for the sake of, on account of, our offences.  But there is needed some means whereby we may appropriate the results of His Death.  For this purpose, He was raised again for the sake of, on account of, our justification: to make it possible.  Not merely as warranting faith in the atoning value of His Death, but also as making Him, in His risen life, a new life principle for us, by union with Whom our justification is secured. [Liddon’s “Analysis of Romans.”]

      “Christ’s work of mercy,” wrote Newman, “has two chief parts, as specified in the text (Rom. 4:25); what He did for all men, what He does for each; what He did once for all, what He does for one by one continually; what He did externally to us, what He does within us; what He did on earth, what He does in heaven; ... His meritorious sufferings, and the various gifts thereby purchased, of pardon, grace, reconciliation, renewal, holiness, spiritual communion; that is.  His Atonement and the application of His Atonement, or His Atonement and our justification ...” [J. H. Newman, “Lectures on Justification,” Lect. ix. “Christ’s Resurrection the Source of our Justification,” p. 232.]  “As in God’s counsels it was necessary for the Atonement that there should be a material, local sacrifice of the Son once for all: so for our individual justification there must be a spiritual, omnipresent communication of that sacrifice continually.” [Ib. p. 234.]  “And thus His rising was the necessary condition of His applying to His elect the virtue of that Atonement which His dying wrought for all men.  While He was on the Cross, while in the tomb ... the treasure existed, the precious gift was perfected, but it lay hid; it was not yet available for its gracious ends; it was not diffused, communicated, shared in, enjoyed.  Thus He died to purchase what He rose again to apply.” [Ib. p. 235.]  Accordingly, in Newman’s exposition the Resurrection is the means by which the Atonement is applied to each of us.  It is our justification.  In it are conveyed all the gifts of grace and glory which Christ has purchased for us.  It is the commencement of His giving Himself to us for a spiritual sustenance.  “It is that very doctrine which is most immediate to us, in which Christ most closely approaches us, from which we gain life, and out of which issue our hopes and our duties.” [Ib. p. 252.]

      It will be noted that these two interpretations are not mutually exclusive, but supplementary.  There is no reason why both should not be in the apostle’s design.  And if the latter be included, the permanent value of Christ’s Resurrection in Christian justification is indisputable.  The Resurrection can no longer conceivably be regarded as merely an aid to those whose standpoint enables it to strengthen their faith.  It is the means by which they are made recipients of the gifts which the Death secured.

 

Chapter  XXI – Christ’s Resurrection Instrumental

in the Moral Resurrection of Christians

      The Resurrection of Christ finds its counterpart, according to S. Paul, in the experiences of Christians.  All the great experiences of Christ, Crucifixion, Death, Burial, Resurrection, are paralleled by the apostle with the experiences of the individual believer.  Thus Christians are “crucified with Him”; [Rom. 6:6; Gal. 2:20.] they are “dead with Him”; [Rom. 6:3–4.] they are “buried with Him”; [Rom. 6:4.] they are “risen with Him.” [Eph. 2:6.]  This parallel of experiences is fully developed in Romans 6:3–11, in Ephesians 2:4–6, and in Philippians 3:10.  We propose to consider these three passages.

      Ι.  And first, the passage in the Roman Epistle. [Rom. 6:3–11.]

      “We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein?  Or are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?  We were buried therefore with Him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.  For if we have become united with Him by the likeness of His death, we shall be also by the likeness of His Resurrection; knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away, that so we should no longer be in bondage to sin; for he that hath died is justified from sin.  But if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him; knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death no more bath dominion over Him.  For the death that He died, He died unto sin once: but the life that He liveth, He liveth to God.  Even so reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus.”

      This parallel drawn by S. Paul, between the experiences of Christ and those of the Christian, is no mere external disconnected resemblance.  It is not two series of separated events bearing a striking similarity.  They are connected in the deepest and most intimate way.  The experiences of Christ and of the Christian are alike because Christ and the Christian are one.  The Christian is in Christ Jesus.  There is a mystical union between them: [σύμφυτοι] most intimate, most profound.  This is the fundamental idea upon which the entire conception of this passage is based.

      The apostle’s argument is, first, that “all who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death.”  So intimate the mystical union is that Christians are made sharers in a moral sense with the death which Christ experienced.  This mystical union is realized in their Baptism.  The plunge into the baptismal water, the immersion of the convert therein, corresponds in the spiritual sphere to the death, and to the burial, which is the death’s certificate and full expression.  Here, then, the parallel between the experience of Christ and the experience of the Christian is so far complete.  “We were buried with Him through baptism into death.”

      But this correspondence is carried through into the Resurrection, “that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.”  The Resurrection of Christ, which was an act of Divine power, and demonstration of Divine glory, must also have its counterpart in the immediate spiritual Resurrection of Christians in the present world.  They are men to whom new life has been imparted.  “For,” urges S. Paul, “if we have become united with Him by the likeness of His death, we shall be also by the likeness of His Resurrection.”  The parallel between Christ’s experience and that of Christians cannot apply merely to the death: it must equally hold good on its more glorious side.  This assumes, of course, the mystical union between Christ and Christians as its explanation and its cause.  The Resurrection of believers must ensue through their union with their Lord.  The very meaning of the Christian experience already achieved demonstrates this.  We know, says the apostle, that our former unregenerate self was crucified with Christ: mystically identified with His Passion in a manner so real as even to deserve the name of crucifixion.  We know the purpose of this is “that the body of sin might be done away”; that is to say, that the human body, [Cf. Origen.] so far as it is under the servitude of sin (not the body as such, but so far as instrumental to sinful desires), might be put to death, with a view to liberate us from the tyranny of sin: sin being personified as a slave owner who forces the body to his will.  “For he that hath died is justified from sin.”  For the dead slave is out of the sphere of its former master’s control.  He has no further claim upon it.  But the mystical union of the believer with Christ will in the future issue in a completed parallel of experience, physical as well as moral.  “But if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him.”  Life and death take larger meaning here: neither the moral nor the physical can be excluded.  The parallel of the Christian’s moral death with Christ, already experienced, will lead to a further parallel of physical Resurrection and life with Christ.  On what assurance is this founded?  It is based on Christ’s physical Resurrection.  “Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over Him.  For the death that He died, He died unto sin once: but the life that He liveth, He liveth unto God.”

      The deep significance of this passage is that S. Paul regards the Death and Resurrection of our Lord as being not merely physical facts, but also mystic experiences.  He does not for a single instant undervalue the historic realities.  They are to him the whole foundation of his argument.  There could be no such thing as a conformity of the Christian experiences to those of Christ unless Christ actually died and rose again.  But yet the important point is that, while giving full appreciation to the literal historical occurrences, S. Paul absolutely refuses to regard Christ’s Death and Resurrection mainly on the physical side.  They are moral experiences through and through.  The Death of Christ is not merely nor chiefly a physical incident.  It is an experience in the moral sphere: “He died unto sin once for all.”  His entire relation to evil was as one dead to it.  This represented His constant habitual unvarying state.  This mystic death to sin issued in death, the physical experience.  That was what sin required.  But although the physical death was inevitable on moral grounds, it was the moral determination which gave it any worth.  Thus the Death of Christ is to S. Paul profoundly mystical.  And the Resurrection is mystical also.  “Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over Him.”

      II.  The second passage is Ephesians 2:4–6: “But God being rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, quickened us together with Christ (by grace have ye been saved), and raised us up with Him, and made us to sit with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus.”

      The thought in this passage is the sequel to that which precedes it.  S. Paul had just dwelt on the supreme manifestation of Divine power which had effected Christ’s Resurrection, and Christ’s enthronement in the heavenly sphere.  The apostle now advances to the further thought that the same Divine power had also and at the same time effected corresponding privileges in the case of Christians.  Christ had been dead: dead in the physical sense.  God raised Him and enthroned Him.  Christians also had been dead: not in the physical sense but in the moral; dead through their trespasses. God quickened them together with Christ.  This idea is explained by two phrases, corresponding to the two experiences of Christ in His Resurrection and Enthronement.  God raised Christ and enthroned Him.  God also raised Christians with Christ, and enthroned them with Christ.  For the original compound verbs we possess no English equivalents.  In the Vulgate they are, convivificaνit, conresuscitavit, consedere fecit.  But what is precisely meant by “quickened us together with Christ”? (cοnvivficavit).  God is said to have given us life together with Christ.  The life which He gave must clearly correspond to the death which we suffered.  This death was moral.  The life, therefore, must be moral also.  The apostle expressly asserts a difference between the nature of our death and that of Christ.  We were dead through our trespasses.  He gave us life: restored us to a higher moral and spiritual condition.

      But in what sense does this quickening take place in us “with Christ”?  Certainly not merely after the example of what God wrought for Christ: not a mere historic parallel, or illustration of a similar working of Divine power.  This is not adequate.  The relation between Christ and Christians is immeasurably more intimate.  “Together with Christ” (σύν) means more.  Elsewhere S. Paul writes, “If so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified with Him” (Rom. 8:17).  And again: “If we died with Him, we shall also live with Him; if we endure we shall also reign with Him” (2 Tim. 2:12).  These passages suggest a very intimate union and mystical identification of the Christian with Christ.  That God “quickened us together with Christ,” or that He gave us life together with Christ, must signify that God produces in the Christian certain moral and spiritual effects in virtue of the union of the Christian with Christ.

      It is essential here to notice that S. Paul describes that Christian experience as already achieved.  The Christian’s Resurrection, the Christian’s enthronement in the spiritual sphere, are divine acts once accomplished.  They do not lie for S. Paul in the future so much as in the past.  Thus they are ideal acts of God.  They are “contemporaneous with the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ.” [Dean Α. Robinson, p. 52.]  They are “wholly independent of any human action.”  They are products of Divine grace.  They originate entirely in the Divine love and compassion.  If Christ be viewed as humanity, humanity embodied in its one concrete instance of achieved perfection, then with Christ all humanity is ideally raised and exalted into the heavenly sphere.  Raised with Christ, enthroned in heavenly places with Christ, will then denote a real identification between mankind and Christ.

      It is not probable that S. Paul confined his thoughts to the existing Church of the moment when he was writing.  The ideal outlook is also in perfect keeping with the general character of the Ephesian letter.

      III.  The relation of the Resurrection of Christ to the Resurrection of Christians is again emphasized, and very personally, in Philippians, “That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, becoming conformed unto His death; if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection from the dead.” [Phil. 3:10.]

      Now the knowledge to which S. Paul here aspires (“that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection”) is not of a mere speculative theoretical kind; it is personal and experimental.  It is the knowledge which nothing but religious experience can bring. [Cf. Meyer, in loc.]  It is not the knowledge of the intellect alone, such as assent to certain dogmatic propositions, although of course it includes them.

      S. Paul then proceeds to speak of such experimental knowledge of Christ: and this first, in reference to His Resurrection, and secondly, to His sufferings. [Cf. Lipsius in the “Handcommentar.”]  The two great words in which the sacred writer characterizes these are “power” and “fellowship”: power of His Resurrection, and fellowship with His sufferings.  It will be observed how characteristically here, as always, S. Paul bases his theology on the Resurrection and on the Death.

      His theme then is experimental knowledge of Christ: “That I may know Him.”  As it has been said, “with an intuition possible only to the soul which accepts Him.” [Bp. Moule, “Philippian Studies”, p. 165.]  And first, experimental knowledge of the power of Christ’s Resurrection.  To “know Him and the power of His Resurrection” is not a reference to the power by which Christ Himself was raised, but to the power which Christ Himself exerts as risen. [Cf. Meyer, in loc.]  The power of Christ’s Resurrection is undoubtedly exhibited in authenticating Christ’s own assertions, and in certifying His work.  But the knowledge to which S. Paul aspires, is much more intimate and personal than mere intellectual incentives to faith.  S. Paul in his conversion received a very direct and personal experience of the power of Christ’s Resurrection.  But that upon which he is dwelling here is the moral and spiritual power of the same. [See also Liddon’s “Easter Sermons,” i. 175–177.]  It is the effectiveness of that power upon the believing will and heart.  The power of Christ’s Resurrection is shown in justifying and renewal.  Thus to know the power of His Resurrection is to have experience of the fruits of His redemptive work.  S. Paul, indeed, sums up the principal gifts of Christ by a reference to His Resurrection.

      Secondly, S. Paul speaks of experimental knowledge derived by fellowship or participation in Christ’s sufferings.  This signifies a mystical union with Christ’s self-surrender.  “That deep experience of union with Him which comes through daily taking up the cross, in His steps, for His sake, in His strength.” [Moule, ib. p. 165.]  This experience naturally comes after experience of the spiritual power of Christ’s Resurrection: for it is only through that power that human nature is strengthened for such mystical union and self-surrender.  No exposition of this passage can possibly be adequate which fails to be profoundly conscious of the apostle’s mystic intensity.  Thus the apostle’s conception of discipleship is a “becoming conformed unto His death.”  S. Paul aspires to a process of growing into conformity with the death of Christ: always of course with the conscious underthought of His Resurrection, and of the power which flows therefrom.  The death of Christ is clearly here conceived as a physical fact, but infused with all the reality of its spiritual meaning.  It is physical but at the same time it is moral.  Hence S. Paul in this life aspires to be “ drawn evermore into spiritual harmony with Him who wrought his salvation by an ineffable self-surrender.” [Bp. Moule, ib. p. 165.]  Then S. Paul concludes his aspirations with the hope “if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection from the dead.”  This resurrection to which S. Paul aspires is plainly physical.  And this transition from the spiritual to the physical effects of Christ’s Resurrection, its power over both sides of human nature, is eminently characteristic of S. Paul.

 

Chapter  XXII – Christ’s Resurrection Instrumental in the

Physical Resurrection of Christians

      Ι.  The Resurrection of Christ as the cause of the Resurrection of Christians is wonderfully expressed in Romans 8:10–11.  “And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness.  But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you, He that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall quicken also your mortal bodies through His Spirit that dwelleth in you.”

      In this great passage S. Paul lays emphasis successively on the moral and physical Resurrection of Christian people.  “If Christ be in you”; that is to say, not challenging the fact of the indwelling of Christ in the believer, but on the assumption of the reality of the experience; if Christ has actually entered into the believer’s inmost personality, then according to the apostle, two consequences follow.  First, that although their human body is virtually dead already, through the effect of sin (dead, νεκρόν; not mortal, θνητόν), being not merely liable to the experience of physical dissolution, but consigned to it inevitably; belonging as it does to the category of dead things: yet the spirit, the human spirit of the believer, is life (not merely living, but life ζωή), on account of the righteousness of Christ; of which Christ’s indwelling makes it the recipient.  Thus on the spiritual side of the believer’s nature the Resurrection has already taken place.  The Christian is already risen with Christ, in the region of personal renewal, in moral regeneration, because the righteousness of Christ is in the believer, already imparted to him.

      It is a most striking feature of S. Paul’s doctrine of Resurrection that his teaching does not stop here, and is not confined to one side of our complex nature.  For, in the second place, continues the apostle, “if the spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you,” and the Resurrection has become realized already within you on the spiritual side of your nature, the new vitality shall in process of time pervade the physical also.  “He that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall quicken also your mortal bodies,” as well as your spirit; shall give new life to the physically mortal frame, which being now subject to mortality shall deserve that epithet no longer.  And this will be brought about “through His Spirit,” through the Holy Spirit, “that dwelleth in you.”

      With this may be compared the later verses in the same chapter of Romans: “In hope that the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God.  For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.  And not only so, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for our adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.”

      The drift of this passage is that we Christians are already in possession of the firstfruits of the Spirit, so far as the soul is concerned, since we are recipients of redemptive grace; but so far as the body is concerned, it waits, as the whole creation waits, to be delivered from the bondage of corruption; and this will take place in the Resurrection of the body.  We still on the physical side of our nature await an adoption which consists in the redemption of our body.

      II.  Matthew Arnold [“St. Paul and Protestantism,” p. 81.] contended that in S. Paul’s ideas the expression “resurrection from the dead” “has no essential connection with physical death.”  Arnold complains that “popular theology connects it with this almost exclusively, and regards any other use of it as purely figurative and secondary.  For popular theology, Christ’s Resurrection is his bodily Resurrection on earth after his physical death on the cross.”  “But whoever has carefully followed Paul’s line of thought.  ... will see that in his mature theology, as the Epistle to the Romans exhibits it, it cannot be this physical and miraculous aspect of the Resurrection which holds the first place in his mind; for under this aspect the Resurrection does not fit in with the ideas which he is developing.” [“St. Paul and Protestantism,” p. 82.]

      Matthew Arnold indeed admits that this statement requires qualification : “Not for a moment do we deny that in Paul’s earlier theology, and notably in the Epistles to the Thessalonians and Corinthians, the physical and miraculous aspect of the Resurrection, both Christ’s and the believers’, is primary and predominant.  Not for a moment do we deny that to the very end of his life, after the Epistle to the Romans, after the Epistle to the Philippians, if he had been asked whether he held the doctrine of the Resurrection in its physical and miraculous sense, as well as in his own spiritual and mystical sense, he would have replied with entire conviction that he did.  Very likely it would have been impossible to him to imagine his theology without it.” [Ib. p. 83.]

      Nevertheless Matthew Arnold could imagine S. Paul’s theology without it: because below what we say we feel and think we feel is what we feel indeed.  And what S. Paul felt indeed was the mystical and spiritual resurrection and not the physical.

      “Paul’s conception of life and death inevitably came to govern his conception of resurrection.”  And what did he mean by life, and what by death?  “Not the ordinary physical life and death; death, for him, is living after the flesh, obedience to sin; life is mortifying by the spirit the deeds of the flesh, obedience to righteousness.  Resurrection, in its essential sense, is therefore for Paul, the rising, within the sphere of our visible earthly existence, from death in this sense to life in this sense.”  “Christ’s physical resurrection after He was crucified is neither in point of time nor in point of character the resurrection on which Paul, following his essential line of thought, wanted to fix the believer’s mind.  The resurrection Paul was striving after for himself and others was a resurrection now, and a resurrection to righteousness.” [Ib. p. 85.]

      Matthew Arnold’s criticism on the one-sidedness of popular theology, its confinement of the idea of Christ’s Resurrection to His bodily resurrection on earth, is very vigorous and well deserved.  The mystical resurrection, both of Christ and of the Christian, has been practically effaced in much popular religion in favour of the more easily grasped idea of bodily resurrection after physical death.  That this effacement is very serious loss is unquestionably true.  Modern religion requires the restatement in its proper position of the sublime conception of mystical correspondence between the spiritual experiences of our Lord and those of any true disciple.  So far as he insisted on this, Matthew Arnold has done us real service.

      But when this brilliant critic insisted that mystical resurrection is the essential element in St. Paul’s conception – essential in such a way that bodily resurrection can be excluded without detriment to Christianity, although it is admitted that it would very likely have been impossible for S. Paul to imagine his theology without it – Matthew Arnold is even more one-sided and exclusive than the popular religion which he condemns.  It is a curious procedure to eliminate from apostolic Christianity that without which St. Paul declared his preaching vain, and then to affirm that no essential alteration in the religion has been made.

      S. Paul’s conception of resurrection is undoubtedly profoundly spiritual; but it does not create a false antithesis between soul and body; nor does it leave one side of our double nature untouched by the work of Christ.  It does not confine resurrection to the soul any more than it does to the body.  It recognizes a spiritual force derived from Christ, overcoming death of every kind, on whatever side of our nature that death exists.  After all, death of the body is as real in its way as death of the soul.  And the glory of Christianity is that it refuses the one-sidedness whether it be popular or whether it be critical of confining the operation of Christ’s spirit to either part of the double nature of man.

      This truth has been very ably expressed by Fr. Waggett in an essay on the Resurrection. [“The Holy Eucharist.” pp. 198–208, 1906.]  S. Paul connects the Resurrection of Jesus with our own lives in two ways: “First the Lord’s rising is the cause of our own inward rising with Him, now, by faith.  Secondly, it is the promise of our future rising from the death of the body.

      “This resurrection of the body is sometimes called ‘the physical resurrection,’ but the phrase is one likely to discredit the fact it points to.  The Resurrection is a victory of spirit in the region which death now rules.  We are not asked to believe in a reconstruction of the body after the fashion which belongs to the reign of death, but to believe that the death of the body as well as that of the spirit meets its conqueror in Christ.  The death we die is a real event, as real on its lower level of importance as the sin which is its counterpart in the spirit.  And this real event of death – so serious, so tyrannous, so much unworthy to be the conclusion of the body’s story – finds its cure in Christ.  This cure lies in the victory of Christ over bodily death in His own person, and will be accomplished in His members by the extension of the same victory.  ‘God both raised the Lord, and will raise us through His power.’” [p. 199.]

      To confine resurrection to one part of human nature is, the author contends, a false spirituality.  It “is false, not by making an excessive claim, for we can never push too far the claim of the inward and unseen; it is false precisely through timidity, and by failing to invade in the name of Spirit the regions of sensible experience.” [p. 200.]

      “This very sharing of the Lord’s Resurrection, which the Christian at once possesses and expects, provides a means to distinguish the statements made concerning our Lord Himself.  The Christian, according to S. Paul, ‘is risen,’ ‘was raised’ with Christ.  This is the inward spiritual fact, the presence of the new and heavenly life; the life which in Christ has passed through death and already invigorates the Christian.  The soul which has been invaded by this heavenly life is thereby risen in Christ, and must seek those things that are above, above mortal nature, above dying reason.  But there is a sense in which the believer is not yet risen.  He must not ‘say that the Resurrection is past already,’ that there is nothing more to hope for.  On the contrary, this heavenly life, now purifying a mortal and dying body, is one day to revive, almost to recreate, the bodily presence....  This is the redemption of the body, this is the cure.  This, if you like, is physical resurrection.  But in S. Paul it is clearly distinguished from, and it accompanies in thought, the inward moral fact which has already taken place.

      It is precisely the concomitance of the two ideas which shows that the one is not the substitute of the other, the physical travesty of the first pure spiritual belief....  Certainly in S. Paul the moral and the bodily resurrection appear in deliberate succession and in an ordered whole.” [p. 203.]

 

Chapter  XXIII – S. Paul’s Conclusions on the Dogmatic

Value of Christ’s Resurrection

      It so happened, a believer will add, providentially, that the needs of the Corinthian Church led S. Paul not only to give positive expression to the theological consequences which flow from Christ’s Resurrection, but also to describe negatively the consequences which must follow to Christianity if Christ be not risen.

      There ought to be no doubt that in the Christian community at Corinth the Resurrection of Christ Himself was nowhere called in question.  For the Apostle makes no attempt to prove it; and while he carries out the logical consequences of its denial to their last results, he does it manifestly with absolute confidence that the victorious force of truth will save his readers from taking the wrong alternative in the dilemma.  He has not the slightest fear that they will deny that Christ is risen.  He is quite certain that what they will do is precisely what men unassailably convinced of Christ’s Resurrection must do; namely, believe also in the Resurrection of Christians.

      The confused thinkers at Corinth saw no difficulty hitherto in combining belief in the Resurrection of Christ with denial of that of Christians.  They accepted an individual instance and denied the universal.  They evidently considered the Resurrection of Christ as an exceptional case: [Cf. Kennedy, “S. Paul’s Conception of the Last Things,” p. 225.] and they laid down the universal negative; that there is no such thing as resurrection of dead persons.  They had no conception of the far-reaching consequences upon the entire believing community of the Resurrection of their Lord.  And they imprudently committed themselves to that most unscientific position – a universal negative.

      This confused condition of a religion not thought out was intolerable to S. Paul’s systematic mind.  He presses with remorseless logic upon the Corinthian inconsistencies of thought.

      The Resurrection of Christ was proclaimed by the Apostle and accepted by the Corinthians (verse 12).  Then urges S. Paul: If the Resurrection of Christ be true, “how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?”  A denial of the Resurrection in general, combined with an assent to it in particular, was illogical.  If there is no such thing at all as Resurrection, then, plainly, what is thus universally refuted cannot be true in the solitary instance of Jesus Christ (13).

      Accordingly, S. Paul pushes out to the furthest the conclusions which must follow on the assumption that Jesus Christ is not risen.

      1. First, the consequences to the Christian religion itself: “then is our preaching vain.”

      If Christ’s Resurrection has not happened, Christianity is emptied of its truth and vitality.  To realize how profoundly this must be so for S. Paul, we have but to remember that the whole dogmatic structure of his Christianity was founded on the Death of our Lord seen in the light of His Resurrection.  Therefore, every one of the main Christian truths about the Person and Work of Christ disappears, if Christ be not risen.  If Christ were not risen, then the ground on which S. Paul came to believe in His Divinity, in His redemptive work, in His sinless perfection, and in His priesthood, would be entirely destroyed.

      On the relation between the Resurrection and His redemptive work, Beyschlag [Beyschlag, “N.T. Th.” ii. 162.] observes that it is commonly asserted that without the Resurrection of Jesus we should not have known that His Death was redemptive, and therefore could have had no faith in the same.  The faith of the centurion at the Cross, and of the penitent thief, show the possibility of faith in Jesus, without a knowledge of His Resurrection on the ground of His behaviour in death.  Our knowledge of His life and death could surely produce the same.  Yes, perhaps, the same: but the faith neither of the centurion nor of the dying malefactor was the full faith of the Christian.  Faith of a kind might undoubtedly still be produced, but not justifying faith.

      Justification can only be conferred by the risen and glorified Christ.  It is through His Resurrection that Jesus in His manhood becomes a life-giving spirit.  The whole life of S. Paul consists in living communion with the risen and exalted Christ.  The redemptive sanctifying power of the death of Christ is reached and applied through His Resurrection.  Our justification is not merely wrought by the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, as acts past and completed, but through His present activity as exalted. [Cf. Rom. 8:34.]

      Of course, if the apostolic conception of redemption and of the infusion of life from Christ be rejected, it is true that His Resurrection need no longer be retained.  If redemption be reduced to the higher instruction and holy example which Jesus has given to men, then certainly in such a scheme of His work Resurrection finds no necessary place.  There seems no particular theological reason why in the discharge of such a mission He should not have seen corruption.  But then this only means that Christ has been lowered to the level of a mere prophet or founder of a religion.  But this is to surrender the earlier apostolic conception of Himself and His work.  It is exceedingly important to realize that the Resurrection takes its place in one self-consistent conception of Christ’s work to which it is absolutely essential.

      2. Now clearly if the religion itself is reduced to nothingness by a denial of Christ’s Resurrection, the results which follow to every class of persons connected with it are obvious enough.  These S. Paul proceeds to summarize.

      The consequences to his converts are disastrous: “Your faith also is vain” (κενή). [1 Cor. 15:14.]  If Christ is not risen, there are no real contents in the doctrine on which the Corinthians have set their belief.  There is no real object corresponding to their subjective devotion.  They have concentrated their faith on Jesus as Messiah, Redeemer, and Son of God.  All these are illusions, without the Resurrection.  Thus, moreover, their faith is vain (ματαία): that is misdirected, fruitless of effect: “Ye are yet in your sins.” [1 Cor. 15:17.]  The reconciliation with God, the justification in which you fondly believed, are not effected.

      When therefore it is said that “even apart from Jesus’ bodily Resurrection there still remains objectively the whole religious significance of His saving work,” [Schwartzkopff, “Prophecies”, p. 135.] this is exactly what S. Paul denies.

      What S. Paul says to his converts, in effect, is this: You have hitherto assured yourselves that your sins were forgiven and removed by the Blood of Christ.  But upon what foundation does that conviction rest?  How do you know that the Death of Christ is what you assert it to be?  Where is the demonstration that what Christ wrought on earth is accepted in Heaven?  That is an urgent inquiry: it cannot be avoided.  Your answer is, and must be, for it is the only answer possible: the Death of Christ is certified as all-prevailing by His Resurrection.  By His Resurrection also are the gifts confirmed which His Death obtained.  If then you cast uncertainty upon this historic fact by your universal negative, realize the insecurity, the baselessness to which your whole faith and hope are instantly reduced.  Without Christ’s Resurrection you do not know that this Passion and Death prevail in Heaven.  And if you do not know that, neither can you know that your sins are forgiven for His Name’s sake.  Neither can you be recipients of that justification which depends upon His rising.  Contemplate yourselves then as thrown back into the old pagan state.  The redemptive effects of Christianity upon you are destroyed.

      3. Thirdly, S. Paul reveals the consequences of such denial to himself, as a witness of the Resurrection.  For more than twenty years he has proclaimed it everywhere.  Jesus and the Resurrection: that was the substance of his teaching.

      He has been irretrievably committed to it, and identified with it.  But, if Christ be not risen: what then? Then, “we are found false witnesses of God.”  S. Paul does not say “we are,” but “we are found.”  The idea is, we are detected.  False witnesses: the reference is not to the character of the messenger, but to that of the message. [Heinrici.]  “Because we witnessed of God that He raised up Christ: whom He raised not up, if so be that the dead are not raised.”  S. Paul steadily faces this bearing of the denial upon his message as a preacher.  If Christ has not risen then S. Paul is calmly aware that he has misrepresented the Almighty to His creatures; described Him as being what He is not; and attributed to Him actions in which He had no share; and which, in point of fact, never took place.

      We are for you, he seems to say, in that case, no longer messengers of truth, but of illusions.  We came to you as ambassadors, as though God did beseech you by us; we have described as a Divine achievement what is no better than a fiction; we have taught as a historic fact what is nothing more than our own imagination.

      4. These applications might seem enough, even more than enough, to make the Corinthians reconsider: but S. Paul traces the consequence of a Christianity without the Resurrection into one further province; namely, that of the faithful departed.  If Christ be not risen, “then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ have perished.” [1 Cor. 15:18.]  The meaning is not that they have ceased to exist. [Meyer.]  S. Paul does not contemplate annihilation.  The thought is that whereas the Resurrection of Christ meant for the faithful departed their union with Him, and their share in His triumph: if Christ be not risen, the departed are still detained in Hades in the same condition as the Jews who died before His coming, or apart from union with Him.  Whereas the believer in Christ’s Resurrection could say “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord” (Rev. 14:13): if Christ be not risen, that would be no longer possible to say. [Heinrici.]  It would in that case be necessary to view the faithful departed in a very different light.  They all died trusting for salvation in Christ, and they are all deceived.  They thought themselves forgiven through Him and justified by His Resurrection: but they find themselves in the other world to be nothing of the kind.  They have lost precisely that upon which their eternal hopes were fixed.

      Nay, Christ Himself, instead of being their deliverer, is, in that case, Himself sharing that joyless state in Hades, remote from the presence of God.

      If in this life we have had nothing in Him but a hope to which no reality corresponds, if our hope is a mere unsubstantial delusion, then we of all men are most to be pitied.  S. Paul is not thinking of loss of future reward, but loss of present strength and grace.  It is that his hope is deprived of correspondence with reality.  He is in a most miserable position: having substituted shadow for substance, and set his hope on that which is in reality hopeless? [See also Liddon’s “Easter Sermons”, iii. and iv., on “Christianity without the Resurrection.”]

      II.  S. Paul in his argument here might seem to consider Resurrection and Immortality as equivalents.  It is scarcely conceivable that the Corinthian Christians, who affirmed that there was no such thing as resurrection from the dead, intended to deny entirely the soul’s survival in a future state, for such denial must have rendered any acceptance of Christianity repugnant and impossible.

      They must have meant to distinguish between spiritual survival and physical resurrection.  It has been thought that if they belonged, as they probably did, to one of the four parties into which the Corinthian Church was divided, it could not have been the party of Kephas, or of S. Paul, or of Christ, since the known teaching of all three contradicted them: it must have been therefore the party of Apollos whose Alexandrian antecedents would easily involve the influence of Greek ideas of immortality rather than Resurrection. [Meyer and Heinrici.]  In any case they were almost certainly converts of pagan origin.  Pagan conceptions did not advance beyond the hope of the immortality of the soul.  Pagan antecedents would naturally predispose to disbelief in a general resurrection of the body.  The dualistic antagonism of matter and spirit would make acceptance of the physical resurrection extremely difficult.

      But if the unorthodox of Corinth were really rejecting physical resurrection while accepting spiritual survival, it is obvious to inquire why S. Paul fails to distinguish between the two: why he appears to regard denial of resurrection as denial of immortality?  The reason probably is that, for S. Paul, man is not merely soul, but soul and body.  For S. Paul, the hope of a better life after death is inseparably bound up with the thought of existence in a body: [Henrici.] not indeed in the sense of reproduction of the present physical conditions, but still existence in a body.  For S. Paul, survival of death in a bodiless state would be a maimed and shadowy existence.  It would be the existence in Hades which the Jew deprecated rather than desired.  Thus the characteristically Christian thought, that for which S. Paul cared most to contend, was resurrection of the body; meaning thereby human perfection in both parts of our nature.

      Thus the idea represented by Justin Martyr in the words – “If you have fallen in with some who are called Christians, but who ... say there is no resurrection of the dead, and that their souls, when they die, are taken to heaven; do not imagine that they are Christians” [J. M., “Dial. with Trypho,” ch. 80.] – corresponds closely to S. Paul’s criticism on the unorthodox of Corinth.

      The distinction between survival and Resurrection is very familiar to the early theologians. S. Irenaeus, for example, wrote: “For as the Lord went away in the midst of the shadow of death, where the souls of the dead were, yet afterwards arose in the body, and after the resurrection was taken up [into Heaven], it is manifest that the souls of His disciples also, upon whose account the Lord underwent these things, shall go away into the invisible place allotted to them by God, and there remain until the resurrection, awaiting that event; then receiving their bodies, and rising in their entirety, that is bodily, just as the Lord arose, they shall come thus into the presence of God.” [S. Irenaeus, on Heresies, v. xxxi. 2.]

      III.  Such is S. Paul’s account of the consequences of eliminating Christ’s Resurrection from Christianity.  He has traced it along four directions.  He has shown the result to the Religion, to the Believer, to the Preacher, to the faithful Departed.  What effect this fearless analysis had upon the Corinthians is unknown.  Men have an almost endless faculty for ignoring the results of their own accepted principles.  But there is something deeply steadying and consoling in the fact that this negative argument, instead of being the product of later apologists, was wrought out by one of the apostles.  This calm contemplation of the full consequences to Christianity if Christ never rose, combined with lifelong incessant self-surrender to the work of proclaiming that He did arise, is surely most impressive.  To many minds the negative argument, the dilemma relentlessly forced upon them is bewildering and repulsive.  Nevertheless we have cause to be profoundly thankful that an apostle has faced it and thought it out.

 

Chapter  XXIV – S. Paul’s Doctrine of the Resurrection Body

      S. Paul’s doctrine of the Resurrection Body is principally given in three great passages: the 15th of 1 Corinthians, the 5th of 2 Corinthians, and the third chapter of the Philippians.

      I.  Christian attention has been chiefly fixed on the first of these.

      On 1 Cor 15 the following expositions may be mentioned: S. John Chrysostom, S. Augustine (Ep. 205), S. Cyril Alex., S. Thomas, Calvin, Estius, Hodge. Drummond, Godet, Cornely; the German comments of Flatt, Kling, Meyer, Heinrici, Schmiedel, Bachmann, Schnederrnann (in Strack and Zökler), Pfleiderer (“Paulinismus,” i. 260), Horn (“N.K.L.”, 1902, 266 ff.).

      The Christian doctrine of the Resurrection of the body presented great difficulties to certain members of the Corinthian Church.  This was due to their pagan antecedents, and to the influences of Greek thought.  Their difficulties confronted S. Paul in his instructions of that Church, and occasioned the magnificent exposition of the Christian doctrine contained in his First Epistle.  The difficulties were apparently two.  First, that the Resurrection was impossible; How are the dead raised?  Secondly, that the Resurrection was incredible: with what manner of body do they come?  The former difficulty consisted in the thought that no power could recall the buried element into life again: the second in the logical inconsistencies presented by the conception of a resurrection state.

      To this whole condition of mind S. Paul proceeds to reply. [1 Cor. 15:35 ff.]

      i. He does this by setting before the Corinthians some analogies of nature – the illustration of the seed.  “Thou foolish one, that which thou thyself sowest is not quickened, except it die.”  Your own experience, contends the apostle, is a refutation of your objection.  You yourself, in the common act of planting a seed, illustrate the unreasonableness of your challenge against the idea of Resurrection.  For, urges S. Paul, the natural process ensuing upon the planting of a seed yields the following ideas:

      1. Its death is the condition of its life.  It “is not quickened except it die.”  The process of dissolution sets free the germ of life which the seed contains.  The apparent destruction is the beginning of a higher vitality.  The paradox is true that death is the condition of life.

      The suggestion of this first natural analogy is that something corresponding would occur in the experience of man.

      2. The second idea which the planted seed conveys is that its future body is not that which is planted in the earth.  “Thou sowest not the body that shall be, but bare grain.”  What is planted in the earth is not the future perfected organism.  It is nothing more than bare grain: bare, that is undeveloped; possibly with the idea of poorness and want of strength.

      And if in the natural order thou sowest not the body that shall be, the suggestion is that the present body of man is not the body which he will hereafter possess.  The analogy of nature suggests transition from a lower to a higher form.

      3. A third idea suggested by the seed is that its future body is a product of Divine creative power.  “God giveth it a body, even as it pleased Him.”  That which determines the future form is God’s will.  The new appearance is entirely independent of the planter’s wishes: it depends altogether on Divine creative power.  And this is not as it “pleases” God, but as it “pleased” Him: it is the eternally determined order, the natural law.

      Here then the analogy would be that as upon the seed a body is divinely bestowed, so also it will happen in the case of man.  As in the divinely determined order of things a body is bestowed upon the grain, so will a body be bestowed on man.  And the cause of both is the Divine power.  If then the Corinthian doubters ask, How are the dead raised? the answer is by the power of God.

      4. A fourth idea suggested by the planted seed is that its future body possesses the character of individuality and appropriateness, “to each seed a body of its own.”  There are varieties of future organisms divinely designed to correspond with the distinctiveness of the different kinds of seed.

      Here again the analogy is that a corresponding individuality and appropriateness will appear in the future body of man.  Here, moreover, is the answer to the Corinthian’s second inquiry about the departed: with what manner of body do they come?  The answer is with such body as corresponds to the intrinsic nature and individuality of man.

      These analogies of nature received further illustration in the following verses (39–41), where S. Paul indicates the different kinds of bodies, and their differences in degrees of glory.  The thought which he impresses is that just as in the limits of our experience, in the natural order, body is not confined to one form, we certainly have no ground to say what is possible or impossible as to the human body hereafter.

      If justice is to be done to S. Paul’s illustrations from nature they must obviously not be pressed beyond the purpose for which he employs them.  There is a criticism which draws unfair inferences from these analogies, just as there is a criticism which similarly misuses the parables of our Lord.  Of course anyone can see the weak points of an illustration.  All illustrations of great truths are in the nature of things inadequate.  They illustrate at one point: at others they would mislead.  Of course it may be urged that the seed, strictly speaking, does not die; that the material masses, the heavenly bodies, to which S. Paul assigns a unity, cannot strictly illustrate the experience of personality.  Or again it may be asked whether S. Paul’s analogy between the seed and plant is meant to affirm a very intimate relationship of substantial identity between the human body which is buried and the body which will rise?  Whether any of these ideas are misuses of the illustration must depend upon the purpose for which S. Paul adduced it.  We are secure of S. Paul’s intention so long as we confine ourselves to the four main inferences which he drew from the planting of the seed.  We may be right or wrong in other inferences: but we cannot be equally secure, from the illustration itself, apart from other reasons, whether we accurately present the apostle’s thoughts.

      “Thou sowest not the body that shall be.”  Clearly these words are open to more than one construction.  Does S. Paul mean that no relation exists between the seed sown and the perfected plant?  Or does he rather mean to emphasize the difference?  The seed is the germ of the perfected form.  There is an essential connection of principle between them.  Certainly, no seed, no perfected plant.  The plant is in a sense identical with the seed: in a sense it is not.  We are confronted with the problem, what constitutes identity?  So far as S. Paul’s illustration goes, it does not suggest that there is no connection between the buried and the risen: on the contrary, however contrasted the appearance, the identity is very real indeed.

      ii.  After clearing the way by his illustrations from nature, S. Paul then explains his conception of the Resurrection body.  “It is sown ... it is raised.”  There are two interpretations of these words.  The one confines attention to the corpse: “sown” being equivalent to “buried” in the earth.  The other takes a larger outlook, and considers “sown” as equivalent to placed in terrestrial conditions.  It seems more probable on the whole that the more comprehensive sense best conveys the essential thought.  The contrast is between the earthly and the heavenly estate.

      “It is sown ... it is raised.”  S. Paul’s doctrine is shown in four contrasts between the earthly and the risen state.

      1. In the first place, “it is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption.”  Corruptibility is characteristic of the earthly body throughout its whole career, and is consummated in death.  Conversely, a characteristic of the body in the future life will be superiority to corruption.

      2. Secondly, “it is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory.”  The present physical constitution is notable for the lowliness of its origin, and is subject to humiliations which are consummated in dissolution.  The characteristic of the future body will be its glory, which surely cannot refer merely to external appearances, but to the dignity consequent upon its higher endowments.

      3. Thirdly, “it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.”  In contrast with the narrow limits of man’s physical strength, characteristic of his whole earthly career, and eminently descriptive of the corpse, is indicated the quality of the Resurrection body.

      Thus over against the present body’s corruption, dishonour, and weakness, S. Paul sets the future body’s incorruption, glory, and power.  Then comes the last and grandest statement of all.

      4. “It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.”  Here S. Paul penetrates beneath the manifest differences between the human body on earth and the human body hereafter, down to the fundamental cause and reason for the differences.  If the characteristics of the present body are corruption, dishonour, and weakness, this is due to its being a natural body.  If incorruption, glory, and power are characteristics of the future body, this is due to its being a spiritual body.  Here then we are at the root of the whole matter.

      The natural, or psychical, body, is a body whose formative principle is the soul.  The soul is regarded as principle of the animal life.  All the animal functions are its products.  The constituents of the natural body are flesh and blood.  The natural body is designed for the terrestrial sphere.

      The spiritual or pneumatical body is a body whose formative principle is the spirit.  The spirit is the principle of the intellectual, moral, and religious life of man.  The spiritual body is a body corresponding to the innermost personality.  It is the self’s perfected expression.  Its constituents are not flesh and blood.  What they are is not described.  It is a real body.  Just as the psychical body does not consist of soul, neither does the pneumatical body consist of spirit. [Cf. S. Aug. Ep. 205.]  The pneumatical body is a phrase not intended to deny the distinctiveness of the body, nor to merge it into or identify it with spirit, nor to deny its materiality, but to affirm its entire subordination to the purposes of spirit.  It is a body which “has no longer anything of this earthly materiality” [B. Weiss. “Bibl. Theol.” i. 397.] in the sense of the gross solid flesh and bones; but it still possesses materiality in a manner inconceivably changed and refined.  It will not do to say that “this glorified body no longer forms any antithesis to the spirit,” [B. Weiss, ib.] if by that is meant that it ceases to be body.

      1. That this spiritual body must exist is to S. Paul a logical necessity.  He states it in the form of an argument a fortiori.  “If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual.”  If, that is to say, there exists a body vitalized by the inferior principle, the soul; much more will there be a body vitalized by the higher principle, the spirit (44 b).

      2. The spiritual body is also for S. Paul a Scripture inference.  “So also it is written, The first man Adam became a living soul.  The last Adam became a life-giving spirit” (45).  Here, whatever preliminary contrasts may be suggested between the origin and the development of Adam and of Christ, the whole point of the passage is, as Augustine [Ep. 205, § 11.] said, that in the former case there was a natural body and in the latter a spiritual.

      3. In the historic order of their development, the natural body pervades the spiritual.  But S. Paul claims that the recipients of the lower are divinely intended to become, in due process, recipients of the higher also (46–49).

      4. Moreover, to S. Paul, a spiritual body is necessitated by the conditions under which the future life will be lived (50).  “Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.”  It is impossible for the present body to share the life of the heavenly kingdom: for it would be out of harmony with the environment.  “Flesh and blood is an expression whose meaning must greatly depend upon its context.  In one passage it may signify human insight (as in S. Matt. 16:17, “flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee”); in another, human nature (as in Heb. 2:14, “Since then the children are sharers in flesh and blood, He also Himself in like manner partook of the same”).  Or again, it might denote moral unworthiness.  But in the present place the whole drift of the chapter requires the phrase to receive a physical meaning.  Flesh and blood must mean here neither more nor less than the animal constitution of man. [Heinrici.]  This is expressed by S. Paul, first in a concrete and then in an abstract form: first, “flesh and blood,” and then “corruption.”  Both these in the present use are physical.  The argument is that whatever the Resurrection body may be, it cannot be the present body of flesh.  It cannot be the existing solid animal constitution, for the reason already given, that such constitution is inadaptable to heavenly conditions.  If the existing animal body could adapt itself to the conditions of the future life, then the bodies of those who survive to the Second Advent would require no change.  And this is exactly what S. Paul proceeds to deny. [Verse 52.]  “We shall not all sleep” (that is, die physically), “but we shall all be changed.”  “The dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we” (that is the survivors at the Second Advent) “shall be changed.”  This resurrection will be the experience of the Departed, and change the experience of the Surviving.  But in both cases there is the same absolute necessity to transmute the animal body into the spiritual.  Only on that condition can man be adjusted to the higher heavenly world.

      II.  S. Paul returns to the subject of the future body in 2 Cor. 5: but under different figures.  The present body is there described as “the earthly house of our tabernacle (verse 1).  The “tabernacle” conveys the thought of the transitional character of the present body.  It is earthly; that is localized, bound to terrestrial conditions.  S. Paul contemplates its dissolution: “If the earthly house of our tabernacle be dissolved.”  If its destruction occur, that is in death, “we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens.”  We possess, that is to say, another body, which is contrasted with the existing body in various ways.  (1) It is, in a special sense, Divinely bestowed.  The present body is of course from God.  But the future body suggests to S. Paul a peculiarly Divine creative energy.  (2) It is “not made with hands”: that is to say, it is of superhuman origin.  (3) It is “eternal”: contrasted with the transient character of the present tent or tabernacle.  (4) It is “in the heavens.”  Meyer thinks that S. Paul here speaks as if he considered the future body already existing in a heavenly treasure house.  We have it, as a man is said to have treasure in heaven.  The whole description certainly suggests that the future body is independent of the present body, both in its source and in its nature.  The contrasts are very striking between them.  The present body is earthly, transient, dissoluble: the future body is Divinely bestowed, superhuman in origin, eternal in duration, heavenly in character.  The question naturally arises, What connection, if any, did the apostle see between them?  The distinctiveness of the two is more strongly emphasized here than it is in 1 Cor. 15.

      But then S. Paul suddenly changes the figure. [Verse 2.]  The present body, so far regarded as a tent, or dwelling place, of the soul, is now described as the clothing of the soul.  The present body is the vesture in which the soul is wrapped and covered.  “For verily in this [body] we groan, longing to be clothed upon with our habitation which is from heaven.”  The burdensomeness and weaknesses of the present earthly body (cf. 4:16) is to S. Paul a proof that his anticipation of the future body is true.  The infirmities of the existing frame are only explicable on the assumption that the earthly body will be replaced by a body of a glorious kind.

      It should be noted here how very different S. Paul’s inference is from that of much popular modern theology.  The modern inference from the burdensomeness of the existing body is the anticipation of a bodiless state: the deliverance of the soul from its earthly prison.  But S. Paul could never have described the body as “a worn out fetter which the soul had broken and cast away,” without making it perfectly clear that the soul’s transition was not to a bodiless state, but from an earthly tent to an eternal and heavenly body.

      In the view of S. Paul, the burdensomeness of the existing body, in which we groan, ought not to prompt the desire of physical death, but rather of the superaddition of the prerogatives of the higher life.  “For indeed we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened; not for that we would be unclothed” [that is to say, deprived of the existing body by death], “but that we would be clothed upon” [made recipients in addition of the virtues of the heavenly body], “that what is mortal may be swallowed up of life.” [2 Cor. 5:4.]

      S. Paul is contemplating the experience of those who will be still living on earth at the Second Coming of Christ, among whom he and other Christians desired to be included.

      The various metaphors which S. Paul employs in describing the body that shall be, whether the bare grain, the tent, or the clothing, suggests that none of these figures is adequate; and that none of them must be pressed beyond the special purpose for which it is utilized.

      III.  The third main passage in S. Paul’s instructions on the Resurrection body is in Philippians 3:21, where he speaks of “the Lord Jesus Christ ... who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of His glory.”  “The body of our humiliation” is the human body as it now exists.  It is a notable expression of disparagement.  Elsewhere the apostle says more of the body’s dignity.  Here we find the necessary balancing statement of its lowliness.  In view of the gnostic contempt for the body, or identification of it with evil, this recognition of the indignities attendant on an animal constitution is all the more remarkable.  Similar is the thought in 1 Corinthians: “it is sown in dishonour.”  But while it is the body of our humiliation, S. Paul would never have called it vile.  The change from the Authorized to the Revised translation is unmixed gain.

      Set in strong antithesis to the body of our humiliation is the body of Christ’s glory.  Glory is here contrasted with humiliation, as in 1 Corinthians it is with dishonour.  The body of Christ was formerly a body of humiliation: it is now a body of glory.

      S. Paul affirms that Christ will effect a similar change in the human body of the Christian individual.  Christ will fashion it anew (μετασχηματίσει): will transfigure the external appearance of it.  The fashion conveys the thought of transitoriness.  The fashion is the existing externality which is the subject of the change.  Christ will conform it or fix it permanently in the inner form of the body of His glory.  Will transfigure it: which implies that its essence is to be retained, not cast away.  For the essential basis of the body is not evil but good.  The disparagement is of its present conditions, not of its inner potentialities. [Cf. Lightfoot, pp. 131–156.  Trench, “Synonyms”; Alford, Bp. Moule.]

      IV.  The important question arises out of S. Paul’s exposition of the Resurrection body, What relation does S. Paul conceive to exist between the natural and the spiritual body?  Is the spiritual body something completely new, having no relation to the old?  Or is it only the old body in a new and a higher form?  Is the spiritual derived from the natural, or from other sources altogether?

      A number of modern writers have maintained that no substantial relation exists between the two bodies in the doctrine of S. Paul.  There is undoubtedly a series of Pauline statements which, if isolated, conveys that impression; as, “Thou sowest not the body that shall be”; “God giveth it a body as it pleased Him”; “flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God.”

      But on the other hand, the analogy of the seed; the statements, it is sown, it is raised; the intimate connection between the seed and the perfected plant; convey the opposite impression.  Moreover, the teaching of all the three great passages should be grouped together.  The variations of the metaphors, as has been already suggested, go far to neutralize misleading inferences from the one.  The description of the survivors at the Second Advent as “changed” in bodily state, suggests bodily identity under altered conditions.  And if the suggestions of 2 Corinthians 5 are rather towards difference between the earthly and risen body than identity, it must be remembered that this Epistle is scarcely likely to contain a different doctrine from that to the Romans, when S. Paul could write “shall quicken your mortal bodies” [Rom. 8:11.]: a statement undoubtedly teaching bodily Resurrection and identity.

      Surely the truth is that S. Paul is giving paradoxical utterance to both sides of the truth: the vast distinction between the two bodies, together with their substantial or underlying identity.  Pfleiderer considered that the relation between the natural body and the spiritual was “supported by the analogy of the Resurrection body of Christ,” which S. Paul conceived “not as an entirely new one, having no relation to the old (which would then have remained in the grave) but as identical, at least in form if not also in its material, with the Body which was put to death, inasmuch as it came into being from that Body, by being reanimated and at the same time changed; for on no other supposition could such terms as ‘resurrection’ and ‘rising from the dead’ have been appropriately used.” [Ρfleiderer, “Paulinismus”, i. 260.]

      Similarly Kaftan [“Dogmatik”, 1897, p. 632.] considers S. Paul’s teaching to affirm an “inner organic connection” between the old body and the new.

      The words, “That Christ died ... and that He was buried, and that He hath been raised on the third day,” are, says Feine, susceptible of no other interpretation than that the same individual who was laid in the grave, on the third day went forth out of the same. [Feine, “Theologie des N.T.”, p. 362.]

      V.  It is a deeply interesting inquiry, Whence was this doctrine of S. Paul derived?

      A very careful critic [Feine, “Jesus Christus und Paulus”.  181–182.] has recently pointed out the significant similarities in word and thought between our Lord’s instruction to the Sadducees in Jerusalem [S. Mark  12.] and S. Paul’s instruction to the Corinthians.

      If our Lord says, “ye therefore do greatly err,” S. Paul says, “be not deceived.”  If the Gospel speaks of “Sadducees which say there is no Resurrection,” S. Paul says, “how say some among you that there is no Resurrection?”  If our Lord says, “ye know not ... the power of God,” S. Paul says, “some have not the knowledge of God.”  But not only are there similarities of expression between the Gospel and the Epistle; there are also similarities of idea.  For our Lord says, “when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as angels in heaven”; [S. Mark 12:25.] while S. Paul says, “as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.” [1 Cor. 15:49.]

      Thus, argues Feine, the apostle is dependent on the Master.  S. Paul maintains neither the fleshly materiality of the Pharisaic Resurrection theory, nor the bodiless condition of the Greek theory, but an intermediate conception of a spiritual body.  And this idea he has derived from Christ.  It surely should be added that S. Paul’s conception is also determined by S. Paul’s experience.  It is the Appearance of Christ to him in glory which underlies the apostle’s analysis of the Resurrection state. [Cf. also Β. Weiss, “Bibl. Theol.”, i. 90 n.]

 

Chapter  XXV – Patristic Teaching of the Resurrection Body

      Next to Christology the Resurrection is undoubtedly the doctrine which held the chief place in early Christian literature. [Cf. Turmel, “Hist. de la Théοlοgie Positive”, p. 180.]

      The sub-apostolic age presents many references, but the second century yields treatises exclusively devoted to it; as, for instance, Athenagoras, and the work ascribed to Justin Martyr.

      We propose to trace in outline the course of Christian thought on the Resurrection body through the Patristic period down to the middle ages.

      In the Epistle of S. Clement to the Corinthians, which was probably written in the closing years of the first century (? 96 A.D.), it is said that God “made the Lord Jesus Christ to be the first fruits when He raised Him from the dead.” [Ch. xxiv.]  But, after this somewhat concise reference to the Christian doctrine, Clement is satisfied by pointing to natural and other analogies to Resurrection: such as the succession of night and day; the sowing and the fruit; which he regards as divinely ordered symbols of the Christian truth.  The fabulous story of the Phoenix is appealed to as a further illustration. [Ch. xxv.]  He also says that “life in immortality” is one of the gifts of God.  He adds that the apostles, who derive their mission from Christ, “having received His instructions, and being finally established through the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ ... went forth.” [Ch. xlii.]  Thus the two main thoughts which S. Clement connects with the Resurrection are that it is the basis of the apostolic mission, and the promise of the Resurrection of Christians, and that perpetual reminders of the doctrine are providentially provided in the ordinary constitution of nature.  This is all that Clement tells us, and considering the purpose of his letter we could scarcely expect him to tell us more.  There seems no consciousness of any defective belief at Corinth as there was in the time of S. Paul, such as would require fuller instruction on the Resurrection.

      Clement indeed quotes the words of Job, “Thou shalt raise up this flesh of mine that has suffered all these things”: [Ch. xxvi.  Cf. Titius, “Die vulgäre Anschauung von der Seligkeit,” p. 40.] where we appear to find the first trace of the expression, Resurrection of the flesh.

      The substance of Ignatius’ Gospel is Jesus Christ, and the Christian religion consists in “faith in Him and love toward Him, in His Passion and Resurrection.” [“Ep. Ephes.” xx.]  He enjoins upon Christians to “be fully convinced of the birth and passion and resurrection.” [“Ep. Magn.” xi.]

      Jesus Christ is described as “our hope through the Resurrection.” [“Trall.’ Introd.]  The Resurrection of Jesus is the promise of our Resurrection also. [“Trall.” ix.]

      Ignatius further declares that the Church “rejoices in the Passion of our Lord and in His Resurrection without wavering.” [“Philad.” Introd.]  The main facts upon which he dwells are Christ’s “Cross and Death and Resurrection.” [“Philad.” viii. and ix.]  These he groups together.  Speaking of certain heretics, he says: “They withhold themselves from Eucharist and prayer, because they confess not that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which flesh suffered for our sins, and which in His lovingkindness the Father raised up.” [“Ep. Smyrn. vi.]  Again, he says that the Resurrection “was both of the flesh and the spirit.” [“Ep. Smyrn.” xi.]

      The teaching of S. Ignatius on the Resurrection was greatly influenced by the Docetic heresy, which confronted him with its denial of the reality of the human nature of our Lord.  The Docetist denial of the Incarnation required its advocates consistently to deny the reality of our Lord’s sufferings, and the reality of His Resurrection.  In opposition to these speculations, which undermined the very basis of Christianity, Ignatius affirmed “He truly suffered, as also He truly raised Himself up.” [“Ep Smyrn.” ii.]  “For I know and believe,” wrote Ignatius, “that He was in the flesh even after the Resurrection.  And when He came to Peter and those who were with him, He said to them, ‘Take, handle me and see that I am not a spirit without body.’  And straightway they touched Him and believed, being united with His flesh and spirit ... Moreover after His Resurrection He ate and drank with them, as living in the flesh, although spiritually united with the Father.” [“Ep. Smyrn.” iii.]

      The words here ascribed to our Lord are quoted from Ignatius by the historian Eusebius, with the remark that he does not know whence they are derived. [“H. Ε.” iii. 36. 11.]  S. Jerome, however, quoting the passage, says that it comes from the Gospel which he had recently translated, [“De Viris illustr.” xvi.] that is, the Gospel of the Nazarenes, or the Gospel according to the Hebrews. [Cf. Jerome, “Comment. in Isa.” Bk. viii. introd.]  But Origen says that it comes from the teaching of Peter. [“De Princip.” pref. 8.]  It has been argued that since Eusebius shows by quotations he knew the Gospel of the Hebrews, it is impossible, remembering his great thoroughness, to suppose that the passage could have been in his copy.  Accordingly, it has been suggested that the passage was interpolated into the Gospel of the Hebrews either from the teaching of Peter, in which Origen found it, or from some common source or oral tradition. [McGiffert, ed. of “Eusebius”’ p. 168.]

      The passage bears a strong resemblance to S. Luke 24:36–42.  But yet the differences are remarkable.  It is generally agreed that it comes from a different source.  It has been suggested that the words “appear to represent a later tradition than the simpler and more natural words of S. Luke.” [Srawley, “Epistles of S. Ignatius,” ii. 36 n.]

      In the Epistle of S. Polycarp to the Philippians (about Α.D. 110) the writer speaks of our Lord Jesus Christ having “endured to come so far as to death for our sins, Whom God raised, having loosed the pains of death”. [Ch i. (cf. Acts 2:24).] He says that God “raised our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead and gave Him glory [Cf. 1 S. P. i. 21.] and a throne on His right hand, to Whom were  subjected all things in heaven and on earth.” [Ch. ii.]  The Risen Jesus “is coming as Judge of quick and dead.” [Cf. Acts 10:42.]  And “He that raised Him from the dead will raise us also, if we do His will and walk in His commandments.”  To S. Polycarp the exalted Jesus is “the Eternal High Priest.” [Ch. xii.]  And the saintly bishop’s final prayer before his martyrdom was that he “ might take a portion in the number of the martyrs in the cup of Christ, to the resurrection of eternal life both of soul and body in the incorruption of the Holy Ghost.” [“Εp. Smyrna,” ch. xiv.]

      The work of Athenagoras [Written before A.D. 180.  Cf. Kruger, “Geschichte der Altchristlichen Litteratur”, 1895, p. 81.] is an essay on the general question of the resurrection of the dead; and is evidently designed as a preliminary to Christianity, and not as an exposition of Christian principles.  It is concerned rather with contemporary philosophy and science.  Athenagoras himself distinguishes between a defensive method suitable for the sceptical and an expository method suitable for the religiously disposed.  His own method is the former.  His arguments are that a resurrection is not impossible.  The separable particles of the dissolved bodies cannot escape the Divine knowledge or power. [Ch. ii.]  The objection that former bodies have become incorporated into others is answered by a theory that since human flesh is not the proper food of man, it cannot be assimilated into the human constitution. [Ch. iii–viii.]

      Whether resurrection will occur must be dependent on the Divine Will: and there is nothing incredible in the idea that He should will it.  After this negative argument, Athenagoras proceeds to the positive defence of resurrection.  It is (1) involved in the purpose of man’s creation; [Ch. xii, xiii, xiv.] (2) in the double constitution of man, since he consists in body and soul, and not in soul without a body; [Ch. xv.] (3) suggested in the analogy of sleep; [Ch. xvi.] (4) in the changes in human development which would be incredible apart from experience; [Ch. xvii.] (5) it is required by the moral necessity of a future judgment. [Ch. xviii.]  Such are the main lines of the argument of Athenagoras.  As striking as any of its positive assertions are its omissions.  Not a solitary reference is made to the Resurrection of Christ as the Christian ground for the Resurrection of Christians.  Athenagoras indeed quotes the apostolic language (1 Cor. 15), “this corruptible must put on incorruption.” [Ch. xviii.]  But the apostolic reasons for the language are simply ignored.  Even the very name of Christ is not mentioned.  The argument is also strongly materialistic, even to the retention of the identical particles in the Resurrection body. [Cf. Titius, “Seligkeit”, p. 40.]

      The fragments of the treatise on the Resurrection, often ascribed to Justin Martyr, present an essential contrast to the work of Athenagoras; for Justin deals with distinctively Christian doctrine.  Contemporary opposition to the faith asserted that the Resurrection was impossible; undesirable, since the flesh is the cause of sins; inconceivable, since there can be no meaning in the survival of existing organs.  They further maintained that the Resurrection of Christ was only in physical appearance and not in physical reality.  To these objections and difficulties Justin replied: (1) That the resuscitation of existing physical organs did not necessarily imply a continuance of their existing functions; [Ch. iii.] and that no imperfections would be continued into the future life. [Ch. iv.]  (2) As to the impossibility of Resurrection, Justin argues that the facts of human development from the germ to maturity would be, were it not for experience, equally incredible; [Ch. v.] and that we cannot place limits on Divine power.  Justin here feels constrained to apologize to the children of the Church for the use of secular and physical arguments: yet to God nothing is secular, and the argument is designed for unbelievers.  And in the principles of unbelievers, Resurrection is not inconsistent with philosophic and scientific conceptions.  If matter and God, as many thinkers held, are indestructible, God can refashion the same material. [Ch. vi.]  (3) Moreover, the flesh is not to be disparaged. [Ch. vii, viii.]  The flesh is, Justin argued, God’s making, created in the image of God (ascribing to the body what applies to the soul).  Nor is it true that the body is the cause of sin.  The flesh cannot possibly sin by itself.  (4) And, further, the perfect man is body and soul: therefore of necessity there will be a Resurrection of the flesh.  (5) But above all there is the actual Resurrection of Christ.  “Why did He rise in the flesh in which He suffered, unless to show the Resurrection of the flesh?” [Ch. ix.]  As for the theory that this was mere appearance and not reality, Justin replies, “He let them handle Him, and showed them the print of the nails in His hands.”  “And when he had thus shown them that there is truly a Resurrection of the flesh, wishing to show them this also, that it is not impossible for flesh to ascend into heaven ... He was taken up into heaven while they beheld, as He was in the flesh.” [Ch. ix.]

      Therefore, Justin concluded, Resurrection is a Resurrection of the flesh which died.

      Great interest attaches to Justin’s exposition because it presents an essentially Christian type of argument.  At the same time it clearly fails to appreciate S. Paul’s conceptions, and is entangled in a deeply materialistic view.

      I.  Two opposing theories as to the nature of the Resurrection Body divided early Christian thought between them.  The first was profoundly materialistic.  It affirmed the retention in the Resurrection not only of the existing particles and form of the human frame but also of the present physical organs, although frankly confessing an inability to explain their usefulness under changed conditions.  The strongest early advocate of the gross materiality of the Resurrection state is the African Tertullian.  He defines body in the following terms:

      “Since perverse interpretations are given of what is meant by ‘body,’ I understand by the human body nothing else than all that fabric of the flesh, whatever be the materials from which it is constructed and modified, which is seen and touched, and even slain by men, just as the body of a wall is nothing else than the mortar and the stones and the bricks.  If anyone introduces into our discussion some subtle body, let him demonstrate that such a body is the one that can be slain, and I will grant that such is the body of which the Scripture speaks.” [“De Resurrectione Carnis”. xxxv.]

      Here we find the matter-of-fact unphilosophic conceptions of the ordinary man laid as the basis for a discussion on the Resurrection state.  The result of this is inevitable.  According to Tertullian, if the hairs of our head are all numbered, this registration is with a view to their future reproduction. [Op. cit. xxxv.]  The weeping and gnashing of teeth are to Tertullian literal, physical, material.  The outer darkness is external gloom.  The being “bound hand and foot” implies the solidity of the Resurrection structure.  The reclining at the feast, the standing before God, the eating of the tree of life, are in Tertullian’s opinion most certain proofs of a corporeal form and structure (corporalis dispositionis fidelissima indicia).  Human bones and teeth undecayed after being buried for centuries are to his mind “the lasting germs of the body which is to. spring into life again at the Resurrection.” [Ibid. xlii.]  “It is,” he says, “ characteristic of a religious spirit to maintain the truth on the authority of a literal interpretation.”  [Ibid. xxx.] Accordingly he applies this principle. [Ibid. xxxiv.]  Christ affirms as the Father’s Will “that of all which He hath given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.”  Now what had Christ received of the Father but that which He had Himself put on?  Man, of course, in his texture of flesh and soul.  Neither, therefore, of those parts which He has received will He allow to perish: nay, no considerable fraction – nay, not the least fraction, of either – “not even a hair or an eye or a tooth.” [Ibid. xxxv.]

      But Tertullian is suddenly confronted with the words “flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God.”  Here a literal interpretation would destroy his view.  Accordingly that “characteristic of a religious spirit” is abandoned.  The words must receive a figurative interpretation.  Christ, urges Tertullian, rose again in the flesh.  “The very same body which fell in death, and which lay in the sepulchre, also rose again.”  If, then, Christians are to rise after the example of Christ, they must rise in the flesh.  Otherwise the example is meaningless.  The “flesh and blood,” therefore, which “cannot inherit the Kingdom of God” must be unregenerate behaviour.  The incongruity of intruding this ethical idea into a discussion of physical experience is met by asserting that if “flesh and blood” must be literally interpreted, then it is not the Resurrection which S. Paul says they cannot inherit, but the Kingdom of God.

      Tertullian’s opponents recoiled from the gross materiality of this conception.  If that which constitutes identity is sameness of outline and limbs and particles, then the blind and the lame and defective must perpetuate their characteristic defects.  Tertullian replied that nature is prior to injury.  The Almighty can remake what once He made.  The restorer of the flesh is the repairer of its deficiencies.

      His opponents pressed him further to explain the rationale of the retention of physical organs after their functions had ceased.  What significance could be found in the mouth and the throat and the organs of assimilation, when assimilation has passed away?  Tertullian was hard pressed.  He maintained that, liberated from their functions, the physical organs are still required for judgment.  Man cannot be entire without his limbs.  Man consists, moreover, of the substance of his organs, and not of their functions.  Perhaps some other function may be found for them.  The mouth not necessary for food may be required for language and for praise. [Op. cit. lvii, lx., lxi.]

      But it appears from another passage that Tertullian did not regard gross materiality as man’s final bodily state.  “The Resurrection was not admission into Heaven, but into the Millennial reign of the Saints on earth: a period which would terminate in a further change in the physical condition of man.  He writes:

      “We confess that a kingdom is promised to us upon earth, but before Heaven, but in another state of existence, inasmuch as it will be after the Resurrection, for a thousand years in the divinely built city of Jerusalem, let down from Heaven. ... We say that this city has been provided by God for receiving the saints on their Resurrection.... After its thousand years are over ... there will ensue the destruction of the world and the conflagration of all things at the judgment: we shall then be changed in a moment into the substance of angels, even by the investiture of an incorruptible nature, and so be removed to that Kingdom in Heaven of which we have now been treating.” [“C. Marcion”, III. xxiv.]

      “Not that we indeed claim the Kingdom of God for the flesh; all we do is to assert a resurrection for the substance thereof....  But the resurrection is one thing, and the Kingdom is another.  The resurrection is first, and the Kingdom afterwards.  We say therefore that the flesh rises again, but that when it is changed it obtains the Kingdom.”  “Having therefore become something else by its change, it will then obtain the Kingdom of God, no longer the old flesh and blood, but the body which God shall have given it.” [Ibid. V. x.]

      Thus the force of Tertullian’s profoundly materialistic conception of the Resurrection state is considerably modified by his distinction between Resurrection state and the final Kingdom of God. [Cf. Sheldon, “History of Christian Doctrine”, i. 151.]  The distinction, however, does not seem to have taken effect in the subsequent theology.  The Millennium theory disappeared, but Tertullian’s teaching on the change after the Resurrection disappeared with it.  What survived in men’s minds was his materialistic language, and this was quoted as a description of man’s final bodily estate.

      To do justice, however, to the materialistic elements of Tertullian’s teaching it must be remembered that his theory was formulated in opposition to pagan disparagement of the body.  The contemptuous and one-sided estimate of the ills and humiliations of the flesh was ringing in his ears and exciting his anger.  The gnostic depreciation of matter in general was prevailing all around him.  The identification of moral evil with material substance was a fundamental axiom with many among his opponents.  The Docetism which denied all reality to the physical nature of Jesus Christ complicated still further all treatment of the theme.  And amid circumstances such as these it is scarcely to be wondered that his intolerant and uncompromising temper should have tended to give his theory a reactionary form which made the most of divergences and the least of common ground.

      But assuredly Tertullian made belief in the Resurrection exceedingly difficult for any philosophic mind.  His modern admirer, Schwane, allows that his philosophy was “insufficiently developed to give solution to such a problem.” [Schwane, “Dogmengeschichte.”]  But the fact is, as Meander asserted long ago, that Tertullian in spite of speculative tendencies was not a metaphysician. [Neander “Antignosticus.”]  He never really faced the problem of what constitutes identity.  He held the superficial view that identity consisted in the material particles, disintegrated by corruption, reassembled by Resurrection.  A vigorous dialectician, without logical consistency; a born debater, too impulsive to be impartial; too much of the advocate to seek for elements of truth in an opponent’s mind; he was, as his more recent expounder says, [Adhémar d’Alès, “La Théolοgie de Tertullien”, 496, 425.] an embarrassing advocate, an interpreter more devoted than exact.  He surpassed the apologists of the age rather in the splendour of his expressions than in the depth of his thought.  He enforced the Faith with despotic argumentativeness.  In behalf of Authority he would suppress all invasions of reason into the precincts of religious truth.  His famous saying reveals his character: “We have no need of curiosity after Christ, nor of inquiry after the Gospel.” [Ρraescr. 7, “Nobis curiositate opus non est post Christum, nec inquisitione post Evangelism.”]  But he identified the Gospel too closely with his own expositions, and the spirit of further inquiry refused to be restrained.

      II.  This grossly materialistic conception was not in undisputed possession.  Α second theory was advocated in the Alexandrian School, and, being adopted by Greek theologians, acquired extensive influence.  This theory is primarily identified with the name of Origen.  It emphatically refused to ascribe solidity and physical organs to the body in the Resurrection state.  Doubtless Origen is not the first to hold this view; but he is certainly its ablest exponent.  His treatise on the Resurrection is unhappily lost; but its contents may be gathered from the fragmentary notices of opponents and friends.

      According to S. Jerome, [“Liber contra Joannem Jerusolymitanum,” § 25.] who gives selected passages, Origen in his treatise on the Resurrection rejected two. theories: that of the Latin school, and that of the Docetic heresy.  The former he rejected as materialistic.  Its advocates were simple-minded, and lovers of the flesh. [Philosarcas.]  They believed that the same bones and blood and flesh, that is, features and members, and organization of the whole body, would rise again at the Last Day.  They supposed that in the next life we should still walk with feet, and work with hands, and see with eyes, and hear with ears.  It would only be logical that we should also require food, as now.  This theory, says Jerome, Origen characterized as simple and rustic.  Its opposite extreme was the Docetic theory which also Origen rejected.  The Docetic view restricted the future. existence to the disembodied soul.  It not only denied the Resurrection of the flesh, but of the body as well.  The Resurrection of Christ was simply phantastic, as was also His assumption of the flesh.  Both these contrasted theories Origen regarded as alien to the truth.  They erred by exaggeration on opposite sides.  Against the Docetist Origen held that the Resurrection was a reality: against the materialistic view, that it was not the gross resuscitation of the flesh.  He preferred to call it Resurrection of the Body.  There exists, said Origen, in seeds a principle which germinates, [Ratio quaedam a Deo artifice insita.  Ib. § 26.] and in which the future body is virtually contained.  The tree, the leaves, the branches and the fruit are all implied in this ratio or λόγος [Sunt tamen in ratione seminis quam Graeci σπερματικον λόγον vocant.  Ib.] of the seed.  Similarly to this development there exists in the human body a principle which will germinate in the Resurrection: but there will be no restoration of the outward form.  He taught, says Jerome, that the substance of the flesh and blood neither perishes nor returns to its former state.  The solidity of the flesh, the liquid blood, the sinews, the structure of the veins, the hardness of the bones will not survive in the Resurrection.  Thou sowest not that body that shall be.  Here we see with eyes, act with hands, walk with feet.  But in that spiritual body we shall be all sight, all hearing, all activity. [In illo autem corpora spirituali toti videbimus, toti audiemus, toti operabimus, toti ambulabimus.  Ib.]  He will change this body of our humiliation; [Phil. 3:21.] change [μετασχηματίσει] it, reiterates Origen.  To his mind this involved the transmutation of the present physical constitution into something of a purely ethereal type, inaccessible to all our present material organs of sense.  Origen also declared, says Jerome, that the Resurrection Body of Christ, although offered to the evidence of the senses in order to establish the fact of the Resurrection in the doubting minds of men, nevertheless certified its own profound spirituality by the manner of its entrance and disappearance.

      This very valuable exposition of Origen by S. Jerome is worth reproducing because it contains illustrations of Origen’s mind not found elsewhere.  Origen’s surviving treatises show that he approached the subject with certain metaphysical presuppositions:

      First, he maintained the indestructibility of substance.  “No destruction of substance,” he wrote, “can befall those things which God created to exist and to continue.” [“De Principiis,” III. vi. 5.]

      Secondly, he held that embodiment was a necessity for all created rational beings.  God alone is incorporeal.

      Thirdly, he held a definite theory of matter.  Matter [ύλη, “De Principiis,” II. i. 4.] is that by which bodies subsist.  It is the substratum underlying all varieties of form.  Its characteristic is endless transmutation.  Wood, for instance, is convertible into fire, fire into smoke, smoke into air.  Bodies built up by assimilation from external sources necessarily exhibit perpetual fluctuation.  Hence the comparison of the human body to a river is most appropriate. [In Psalm 1.]  The river remains, but the water departs.  The human constitution is in perpetual flux.

      But, in the fourth place, Origen postulates, beneath this endless variation of form and change of substance, a germinative principle – the ratio insita, as Jerome translates it – which is the constitutive unity of the body, both as it is and as it is to be.

      The application of these principles to the Resurrection Body is obvious.  From the indestructibility of substance, and the necessity of embodiment, Origen infers that “if it is necessary for us to be invested with bodies, as it certainly is, we ought to be invested with no other than our own.” [“De Principiis,” II. x. 1.]  “Its substance certainly remains.” [Ibid. III. vi. 5.]  His theory of the substantial identity beneath the changes of wood into fire, into smoke, into air, shows how readily Origen could conceive total change in the form of the Resurrection Body as being perfectly consistent with real identity.  His conception of the germinative principle beneath all variations secured for him a principle of identity, most rational, most philosophic; [“De Principiis,” II. x. 3.] unquestionably the best attainable solution of the problem, Wherein does identity consist?  Identity is to be sought neither in the particles, nor in the organs, nor in the form of the human frame; but in the spirit beneath them.

      Thus the conditions of the Resurrection state will be completely different from the existing gross materiality.  The present fleshy solidity is necessitated by the environment.  “The soul which is immaterial exists in no material place without having a body suited to the nature of that place.  Accordingly it at one time puts off one body which was necessary before, but which is no longer adequate in its changed state, and it exchanges it for a second.” [“C. Celsum,” VII. xxxii.]  The soul dwelling in material surroundings adopts an organism appropriate to such surroundings.  If, says Origen, we were destined to live in water, we must assume bodies like those of fish. [In Psalm 1.]  Similarly if we are to live in spiritual surroundings we must assume bodies of a spiritual kind.  Otherwise we shall not be in harmony with our surroundings. Yet this does not mean the annihilation of the former body, but its transmutation into something of a pre-eminently glorious character. Thus, to recall the remarkable sentence ascribed to him by S. Jerome, “ here we see with eyes, act with hands, walk with feet. But in that spiritual body we shall be all sight, all hearing, all activity.”

      Origen utilized the principles of Greek thought, but his doctrine was derived from S. Paul.  It was with him no question of abstract theology but of Scripture interpretation.  The statements upon which he builds are chiefly these; “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God”; “we shall be changed”; “thou sowest not that body that shall be”; “God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him.”

      “None of Origen’s opinions,” says Bishop Westcott, “was more vehemently assailed than his teaching on the Resurrection.  Even his early and later apologists were perplexed in their defence of him.  Yet there is no point on which his insight is more conspicuous.  By keeping strictly to the apostolic language he anticipated results which we have hardly yet secured.  He saw that it is the ‘spirit’ which moulds the frame through which it is manifested; that the ‘body’ is the same not by any material continuity, but by the permanence of that which gives the law, the ‘ratio’ (λόγος), as he calls it, of its constitution.  No exigencies of controversy, it must be remembered, brought Origen to his conclusion.  It was, in his judgment, the clear teaching of S. Paul.” [“Dictionary of Christian Biography,” s.v. iv. 138, footnote.]

      Thus Origen laid the greatest stress on the difference between the natural and the spiritual body.  “We assert,” he said, “that the qualities which are in bodies undergo change.” [Ag. Celsus, IV. lvii.]  For the possibility of this he appealed to the Divine power.  “That the matter which underlies bodies is capable of receiving these qualities which the Creator pleases to bestow is a point which all of us who accept the doctrine of Providence firmly hold; so that, if God so willed, one quality is at the present time implanted in this portion of matter, and afterwards another of a different and better kind.”  Origen here throws out the important principle that substantial identity is consistent with indefinite change; that the Resurrection Body is material, but material endowed with new and nobler qualities.  This teaching is surely most remarkable.

      “We therefore,” he said, elsewhere, [Ag. Celsus, V. xxiii.] “do not maintain that the body which has undergone corruption resumes its original nature, any more than the grain of wheat which has decayed returns to its former conditions.  But we do maintain that as above the grain of wheat there arises a stalk, so a certain power [λόγος] is implanted in the body, which is not destroyed, and from which the body is raised up in incorruption.”  In this passage Origen shows that he did not regard the Resurrection Body as a mere replacement of the old by something totally disconnected; but, on the contrary, as derived from the old.  As he describes it again elsewhere, [Ib. VII. xxxii. λόγον έχειν σπέρματος] “there is a seminal principle” in the earthly tabernacle, which is the producer of the new body.  The soul “puts off one body which was necessary before, but which is no longer adequate to it in its changed state.”  It “assumes another ... suited to the pure ethereal regions of heaven.” [Ib.]

      Origen’s spiritual theory of the Resurrection enabled him to deal with the problem of eschatology in a totally different manner from Tertullian.  While to the latter the penalties of the future life were physical and material, the gnashing of teeth being literally understood, the former holds that spiritual bodies cannot he subjected to material flames.  To Origen the fire that is not quenched is the mental anguish of the sinner contemplating in retrospect his own unholy deeds. [“De Principiis”, II. x. 4.]

      The general correctness of this exposition of Origen is confirmed by a number of modern writers. [C. Ramers, “Des Origines Lehre von der Auferstehung des Fleisches” (Trier, 1851), p. 76.]  According to Ramers, he taught that the Resurrection Body will be flesh; yet not this corruptible flesh, but of a spiritual and ethereal nature.  According to Turmel, what he denied was the doctrine of a material resurrection. [Turmel, “Histoire de la Théologie Positive”, p. 182.]  According to Neander, Origen endeavoured to occupy a via media between gnosticism and gross materiality. [Neander, “Allegemeine Geschichte”, I. iii. 1097.]  According to Bovon, he denied the physical identity of the future body with that which we now possess. [Bovon, “Dogmatique Chrétienne”, ii. 448.]  According to Dr. Bigg, “Origen, like Clement, found a solution of all his doubts in the teaching of S. Paul, but he refined upon this in a way peculiar to himself.” [Bigg, “Christian Platonists of Alexandria”, p. 225; cf. 291.] According to Sheldon, he “is distinguished among the early Fathers by his steadfast endeavour to spiritualize the conception of the Resurrection.... Still he accepted the fact of a bodily resurrection. [Sheldon, “History of Christian Doctrine”, i. 151.]

      It should be carefully observed that Origen’s doctrine is not derived from mere abstract speculation.  It is an exposition of S. Paul.  Origen has laid especial stress on such passages as speak of difference: thou sowest not the body that shall be; [Cf. Ag. Celsus, V. xviii. and xxii.] God giveth to each seed its own body; [Cf. V. xviii. and xix.] flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. [Cf. V. xviii.]  Due weight is also given to S. Paul’s teaching on the earthly house of this present tabernacle, which must be dissolved and replaced by the house not made with hands. [2 Cor. 5.  Cf. Ag. Celsus, VII. xxxii. and V. xix.]  But Origen succeeded in balancing the two sides of S. Paul’s teaching on the Resurrection Body – its identity and its difference – as no other teacher before him and comparatively few since have been able to do.

      And while Origen’s doctrine was more easily misrepresented than that of the opposite school, precisely because it was more philosophic and more profound, it is nothing better than caricature to accuse him of teaching a theory in which body had become converted into spirit.  He had reason in his life to deprecate misconstruction.  “Let no one,” he wrote, “suspect that in speaking as we do, we belong to those who are indeed called Christian, but who set aside the doctrine of the Resurrection as it is taught in Scripture.” [Ag. Celsus, V. xxii.]

      III.  The history of the doctrine since Origen’s time is the history of a conflict between the materialistic and the philosophic schools.  Roughly speaking, the materialistic conception of Tertullian became identified with the Latin Church: the philosophic with the Greek.  There were of course exceptions.  Where a Greek theologian was unmetaphysical, he naturally sided with Tertullian; where a Latin writer was a metaphysician, he enrolled himself on Origen’s side.

      Methodius, the Lycian Bishop, and one of the Diocletian martyrs, set himself deliberately to refute the school of Origen.  The fragmentary condition of Methodius’ writings on the Resurrection increases the difficulty of giving a coherent account of his theory.  Some of the theories which he ascribes to Origen may have been advocated by members of that school, but appear quite inconsistent with the great teacher’s known convictions.  Moreover, Methodius’ own criticisms do not appear consistent with themselves.  But some of these difficulties may be due to the state of the documents.

      Methodius ascribes to Origen the distinction between material substance and form.  The material flesh will not be restored to the soul: but the form, or external appearance by which the flesh is now distinguished will be stamped upon another spiritual body. [Photius, “Summary of Methodius”, § xii.]  It is difficult to imagine that Origen asserted this.  Methodius observes that the reproduction of the form without the material is inconceivable.  Form cannot be separated from the material which informs it: nor can it possibly possess independent self-existence.  “There is no resurrection of the form without the flesh.”  The quality cannot be separated from the material substance.  The form of a melted statue disappears with the substance which is melted, “and has no longer a substantial existence.” [Ib. §§ xiii and xi.]

      Indeed, says Methodius, if anyone melts a statue, “he will find the appearance of the form disappearing, but the material itself remaining.” [§ xv.]

      Origen’s theory seems to Methodius, in spite of Origen’s protest, entirely to deny the body’s resurrection.  Methodius accordingly insists that body is part of the essential constitution of man.  “Man is neither soul without body, nor body without soul; but a being composed by the union of both” [“Second Discourse”, § iv.]: whereas Origen seems to Methodius to adopt the Platonic doctrine that the soul alone is man.  Origen certainly did regard the present body as a fetter of the soul, imposed upon it apparently as a consequence of the Fall.  This laid him open to the criticism of Methodius that “if the body was given to the soul after the Fall as a fetter, it must have been given as a fetter upon the evil or upon the good.  Now it is impossible that it should be upon the good: for no physician or artificer gives to that which has gone wrong a remedy to cause further error; much less would God do so.  It remains then that it was a fetter upon evil.  But surely we see that at the beginning Cain, clad in this body, committed murder; and it is evident into what wickedness those ran who succeeded him.  The body is not, then, a fetter upon evil, nor indeed a fetter at all.  Nor was the soul clothed in it for the first time after the Fall.” [“Second Discourse”, § iii.]

      The present body is then, according to Methodius, not a fetter at all upon the soul.  He does not contemplate the possibility of its being at least an inadequate instrument to the soul’s capabilities.  Nor does he allude to the Scriptural language so constantly quoted by other Fathers: “the corruptible body presseth down the soul, and the earthly tabernacle weigheth down the mind that museth upon many things.” [Wisdom 9:15.]  Methodius certainly has not said the last word here.  Origen would still have found material for reply.

      Methodius rises into eloquence when describing the dignity and beauty of the human form.  He asks what will be the appearance of the risen body, when this human form, according to Origen so useless, shall wholly disappear?  “It is the most lovely of all things which are combined in living creatures, as being the form which the Deity Himself employs ... for a man ... is the image and glory of God.”  Methodius asks whether the human form in the future life will be a circle, a polygon, a cube, or a pyramid.  “Well then,” he exclaims triumphantly, “what are we to think of the assertion that the godlike shape is to be rejected as more ignoble ... and that man is to rise again without hands and feet?” [Photius, “Synopsis”, § xi.]

      Methodius seems here to have forgotten the view, which he has previously ascribed to the school of Origen, that the form of man would be impressed upon the spiritual body.

      In exposition of S. Paul, Methodius follows Justin Martyr [Ib. § vi.] in the view that the flesh and blood which cannot inherit the Kingdom of God does not mean flesh itself but the irrational impulses of the flesh. [Ib. § v.  Cf. :Discourse”, § xiii.]

      Methodius’ own theory is that Death and Resurrection correspond to the melting down a disfigured statue, and the remoulding it in ideal perfection.  God seeing His fairest work corrupted “dissolved him again into his original materials, in order that by remodelling, all the blemishes in him might disappear.” [“Discourse”, § vi.]  The scene of the future life is to be the earth itself.  “Wherefore it is silly to discuss in what way of life our bodies will then exist, if there is no longer air, nor earth, nor anything else.” [Ib. § ix.]  “I cannot endure,” he says again, “the trifling of some who shamelessly do violence to Scripture, in order that their opinion, that the resurrection is without flesh, may find support.” [Ib. § ii.]

      The defence of Origen’s theory was undertaken chiefly by Pamρhilus, [Eusebius, “H. E.” vi. 32.] founder of the famous library of Caesarea, martyred in 309.  He had been formerly a pupil in the Alexandrian School and a devoted admirer of its greatest master.  The last two years of his life were spent in prison, writing Origen’s apology.  This was translated into Latin by Rufinus, and thus the Alexandrian School was introduced to the Western Church.  There, however, it shared Origen’s unpopularity, being viewed as one of his numerous eccentricities.  Jerome, whose translations of Origen’s works, and earlier laudatory remarks about him, were now considered to compromise his own repute, attempted to re-establish himself by vigorous attacks, after his own manner, on Origen’s doctrine of the Resurrection state.

      Jerome charged the school of Origen with insincerity and duplicity.  They repeated the accepted formulas in an uncatholic sense.  While asserting their belief in the Resurrection of the Body, “they use the word body instead of the word flesh, in order that an orthodox person hearing them say ‘Body’ may take them to mean ‘flesh,’ while a heretic will understand that they mean ‘ spirit.’”  This, says Jerome, is their first piece of craft.  If pressed further they will adopt the orthodox confession and say, “we believe in the resurrection of the flesh.”

      “Now when they have said this, the ignorant crowd thinks it ought to be satisfied, particularly because these exact words are found in the creed.  If you go on to question them farther, a buzz of disapproval is heard in the ring and their backers cry out: ‘You have heard them say that they believe in the resurrection of the flesh; what more do you want?’  The popular favour is transferred from our side to theirs, and while they are called honest, we are looked on as false accusers.  But if you set your face steadily, and, keeping a firm hold of their admission about the flesh, proceed to press them as to whether they assert the resurrection of that flesh which is visible and tangible, which walks and speaks; they first laugh, and then signify their assent.  And when we inquire whether the resurrection will exhibit anew the hair and the teeth, the chest and the stomach, the hands and the feet, and all the other members of the body; then, no longer able to contain their mirth, they burst out laughing and tell us that in that case we shall need barbers, and cakes, and doctors, and cobblers.  Do we, they ask us in turn, believe that after the resurrection men’s cheeks will still be rough and those of women smooth, and that sex will differentiate their bodies as it does at present?

      “Then if we admit this, they at once deduce from our admission conclusions involving the grossest materialism.  Thus, while they maintain the resurrection of the body as a whole, they deny the resurrection of its separate members.” [Hieronynni, Ep. lxxxiν. § 5 (“Nicene and Post-Nicene Library”).]

      As for Jerome’s own opinion, he reproduced in harshest terms the crudest utterances of Tertullian.  To these he added an appeal to the Transfiguration, and to Job.  Even as our Lord in the Transfiguration did not lose His hands and feet, and suddenly assume the proportions of a sphere, nor exchange His material vesture for a robe of light, so will it be with mankind in the Resurrection.  “In my flesh I shall see God,” exclaimed Job: not in an ethereal, aerial body, comments Jerome; not resolved into wind and air.  With the same eyes which saw corruption will Job see God.  To remove the conditions in which Job subsisted is in Jerome’s view to reduce Job himself to nonentity.  The Catholic doctrine of Resurrection becomes absolutely unintelligible without blood and bones and members.  Grant these, and Mary is Mary, and John is John.  Otherwise identity has perished.  As for the common objections of the pagan mind, a Christian has no business to employ them. [“Qui Christianum esse te dicis, gentilium army depone.”]  Or if Origen will employ them, let him take the pagan side, and incur the consequences.

      Nevertheless the Alexandrian conception was affirmed by distinguished persons in the fourth century to an extent which certainly Jerome’s strictures on Origen would not lead us to expect.  S. Cyril of Jerusalem († 386) shows in his catechetical instructions closer affinities with the Alexandrian than with the Latin view.  But the chief disciple of Origen is S. Gregory of Nyssa (about 390).  Origen had greatly provoked Christian thought, and in the 130 years which separated him from Gregory reflection had matured.  Gregory of Nyssa’s interest lies partly in the philosophic character of his mind, but chiefly in the fact that various irreconcilable conceptions converge in him.  He is strangely under the influence alike of Methodius and of Origen.  On the one side he employs illustrations of the Resurrection Body which have come from the former: for example, he suggests that as quicksilver poured out on a dusty slope is scattered in globules, and mingles with none of the bodies it may meet, and is capable of being recollected, and of flowing back into unity with its kind, so some mutual affinity may exist in the scattered elements of the body of man whereby they may flow back into unity at the Resurrection. [“On the Making of Man”, xxvii. 6.]  This idea would have been quite congenial to advocates of the grosser view.  But, on the other side, in his Dialogue with the Sister of S. Basil, he gives exceedingly forcible expression to the conceptions of the opposite school.  “Let me say something else also,” says Gregory, “from amongst the objections made by unbelievers to this doctrine.  No part, they urge, of the body is made by nature without a function.  Some parts, for instance, are the efficient causes within us of our being alive; without them our life in the flesh could not possibly be carried on; such are the heart, liver, brain, lungs, etc....  Now if the life to come is to be in exactly the same circumstances as this, the supposed change in us is reduced to nothing; but if the report is true, as indeed it is, which represents marriage as forming no part of the economy of that afterlife, and eating and drinking as not then preserving its continuance, what use will there be for the members of our body when we are no longer to expect in that existence any of the activities for which our members now exist? ... When therefore all these operations will be no more, how or wherefore will their instruments exist?  So that necessarily, if the things that are not going to contribute in any way to that other life are not to surround the body, none of the parts which at present constitute the body would exist either.  That life, then, will be carried on by other instruments ; and no one could call such a state of things a resurrection, where the particular members are no longer present in the body, owing to their being useless to that life.  But if, on the other hand, our resurrection will be represented in every one of these, then the Author of the Resurrection will fashion things in us of no use and advantage to that life.  And yet we must believe not only that there is a resurrection, but also that it will not be an absurdity.” [S. Gregory, Nyssa. “On the Soul and the Resurrection.”]

      This description of the difficulties attendant on the literal and gross idea of resurrection was assuredly composed by one himself acutely sensitive to them.  The philosophic tendencies of Gregory’s mind are in this passage sufficiently obvious.  The solution of the difficulties so stated must clearly be in the direction of Origen.  The reply which the Sister of S. Basil makes in the Dialogue represents much of Gregory’s own view.  “The true explanation,” she says, “of all these questions is still stored up in the hidden treasure rooms of Wisdom, and will not come to the light until that moment when we shall be taught the mystery of the Resurrection by the reality of it.”  At the same time she proceeds to lay down the principle that Resurrection may be defined as “the reconstitution of our nature in its original form.”  By which is to be understood the divesting ourselves of “the skin of the brute and all its belongings.”  All the animal functions will cease.  Physical dimensions will have no meaning in the Resurrection Body.  Then comes the appeal to S. Paul: “thou sowest not the body that shall be.”

      Doubtless the conflicting theories are not worked out in this Dialogue, nor is any real harmony reached.  But the tendencies of Gregory Nyssa, are conspicuously enough in favour of the Origenistic view.*

      *See further the introduction to the transl. of S. Gregory N., in Wace and Schaff, “Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers”; also Dr. Srawley’s edition of the “Catech. Oration.”

      S. John Chrysostom († 407) greatly promoted the Alexandrian doctrine by maintaining that the manifestations of the Risen Master to the disciples were evidential, and did not reveal the risen life’s essential character.

      “It is worth inquiring, how an incorruptible Body showed the prints of the nails, and was tangible by a mortal hand.  But be not thou disturbed; what took place was a matter of condescension.  For That which was so subtle and light as to enter in when the doors were shut, was free from all density; but this marvel was shown, that the Resurrection might be believed, and that men might know that it was the Crucified One Himself, and that another rose not in His stead.  On this account He arose bearing the signs of the Cross, and on this account He eateth.  At least the apostles everywhere made this a sign of the Resurrection, saying, We, who did eat and drink with Him.  As therefore when we see Him walking on the waves before the Crucifixion, we do not say, that that body is of a different nature, but of our own; so after the Resurrection, when we see Him with the prints of the nails, we will no more say, that He is therefore corruptible.  For He exhibited these appearances on account of the disciple.” [Chrysostom, “Hom. lxxxcii. in Ev. Ioan.” (“Library of the Fathers,” p. 782).]

      More powerful in this, as in much else, than any hitherto named was S. Augustine.  Originally he harmonized, as his philosophic instincts would suggest, with Origen rather than with Tertullian.  His teaching is given in the “De Fide et Symbolo”, an exposition of the faith delivered in 393 before a Synod of African Bishops, and published at their desire.  At that date he maintained as follows:

      “Therefore the body will rise again, according to the Christian Faith that cannot deceive.  Which if it seem to anyone incredible, he regards what the flesh now is, but considers not what it will be; because in that time of angelic change, it will be no longer flesh and blood, but only body.  For the Apostle, speaking of the flesh, says, ‘the flesh of beasts is one, the flesh of birds another, of fishes another, of creeping things another; and there are bodies celestial and bodies terrestrial.’  For he says not, ‘and flesh celestial’; but he says, ‘both celestial and terrestrial bodies.’  For all flesh is also body, but all body is not also flesh; first in those things terrestrial, since wood is body but not flesh; but to man or cattle there belongs both body and flesh; but in things celestial no flesh, but bodies simple and bright, which the Apostle calls spiritual, but some call ethereal.  And therefore that which he says ‘Flesh and blood shall not inherit the Kingdom of God,’ contradicts not the resurrection of the flesh, but declares what will one day be, which is now flesh and blood.  Into which sort of nature whosoever believes not that this flesh can be changed, he must be led step by step unto faith.  For if you demand of him whether earth can be changed into water; by reason of the nearness, it seems not to him to be incredible.  Again, if you demand whether water can be changed into air; he answers, that neither is this absurd, for they are near one another.  And if this question be asked concerning air, whether it can be changed into an ethereal – that is, celestial – body; already the very nearness persuades him.  What therefore he allows may be done by these steps, that earth may be changed into ethereal body, why does he not believe that when there is added thereto the will of God, ... it may be done more speedily, as it is said, in the twinkling of an eye, without any such steps, just as generally smoke is changed into flame with wonderful quickness.  For our flesh is certainly of earth; but philosophers, by whose arguments most frequently the resurrection of the flesh is opposed, in that they assert that there cannot exist any terrestrial body in Heaven, allow that any body whatever may be turned and changed into every kind of body.”

      This opinion, however, Augustine afterwards withdrew, or, at any rate, very greatly modified in his latest utterances.  Referring in the Retractations to the passage just quoted from the “De Fide et Symbolo”, he says that what he had written on the change of terrestrial bodies into celestial bodies was founded on S. Paul’s statement that “flesh and blood shall not inherit the Kingdom of God.”  He now adds the following qualifying words:

      “But whoso takes this so as to think that the earthly body such as we have now is by Resurrection so changed into a heavenly body as that there will be no limbs nor substance of flesh, must doubtless be set right by reminding him of the Lord’s Body, Who appeared after Resurrection in the same members, not only to be seen by the eyes, but also to be handled with the hands, and even proved Himself to have flesh by saying, ‘Handle Me and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see Me have’ (S. Luke 24:39).  Whence it is plain that the Apostle did not deny that there will be the substance of flesh in the Kingdom of God.” [“Retractations”, i. xvii.]

      S. Augustine’s interpretation of S. Paul is controlled by the passage in S. Luke.  It is assumed, without further reflection, that the accessibility of our Lord’s Risen Body to the senses of His apostles was its normal and essential characteristic.  It does not here occur to him apparently to interpret S. Luke by S. Paul.

      Elsewhere, however, he speaks more guardedly:

      “As to the spiritual body which we shall have in the Resurrection: how great a change for the better it is to undergo, whether it shall become pure spirit, so that the whole man shall then be a spirit, or (as I rather think, but do not yet confidently maintain) shall become a spiritual body in such a way as to be called spiritual because of a certain ineffable facility in its movements, but at the same time to retain its material substance ... on these and on many other things which may perplex us in the discussion of this subject, I confess that I have not yet read anywhere anything which I would esteem sufficiently established to desire to be either learned or taught by men.” [Aug. “Ep. cxlviii.  Commonitorium Fortunatiano”.]

      This tentative and guarded utterance, characteristic of the great writer in his finest hours, was, according to the editors, formulated about the year 413.  To this expression of uncertainty as to the nature of the Resurrection Body he added a hope that in the future the subject might perhaps be better understood.  “Let us inquire more calmly and carefully concerning the spiritual body; for it may be that God, if He knows this to be useful to us, may condescend to show us some definite and clear view on the subject, in accordance with His written word.”  And he suggests the possibility that further investigation may reveal capacities hitherto unrealized in the human body after the Resurrection.

      This was in 413.  The date is important.  About the year 420 Augustine wrote at considerable length a reply [“Ep. 205, Augustinus Consentio.’] to questions on the Resurrection Body.  You ask, he says, whether the Lord’s Body at the present moment possesses bones and blood, and the other characteristics of the flesh.  What if you were to add the inquiry whether it is also clothed?  Would not the problem be increased?  And would not the difficulty be due to our inability to conceive what is meant by incorruption?  “I,” he says, “ believe that the Lord’s Body is in Heaven in the same condition as it was on earth when He ascended into Heaven.”  And for this he appeals to the Lucan passage: [S. Luke 24:39.] “a spirit bath not flesh and bones as ye see Me have.”  Thus Augustine assumes that the manifested condition exactly represents the glorified condition.  For him, therefore, Christ seems to possess solid flesh and bones in Heaven.  To an objector who is supposed to argue: If there is flesh [in the Risen Christ] there is also blood; and if blood then the other humours of the human body; and therefore there must be corruption: Augustine replies that some men think this acute; but he can only suggest that Divine power can prevent the corruption.  He does not qualify his conception of the fleshly state.  S. Paul’s words: “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” are interpreted to be a synonym for corruption.  Moreover, the Lucan passage, “flesh and bones, as ye see Me have” weighs heavily on Augustine’s exposition, and is quoted again.  The Pauline teaching, “thou sowest not the body that shall be,” is reduced to the meagre assertion that if God can add to the original seed, much more can He make up that which was in the body of a man.  Thus the Apostle’s illustration from nature suggests to Augustine a restoring and replacing of the old rather than a development of the new.

      There are, he says, some who consider that the spiritual body will come into existence by the transmutation of body into spirit; so that whereas man consisted of body and spirit on earth, he will consist entirely of spirit in heaven.  It is this theory, wrongly ascribed to Origen, which Augustine has in mind: and this leads him to stronger emphasis on the other side.  He says, very acutely, that if S. Paul had meant this he would have written, it is sown a body, it is raised a spirit: whereas what S. Paul actually wrote was, “it is sown an animal body, it is raised a spiritual body.”  And, adds Augustine, in terms constantly quoted since, and not infrequently ascribed to later authorship: [E.g. to S. Thomas Aquinas.] “as the animal body is body and not soul, so the spiritual body is to be considered body and not spirit.”  For the subject is resumed in the closing books of the “De Civitate Dei,” which were written about 426.  Augustine now fully adopts the materialistic opinion.  The cautious utterances of 413 are replaced by much more decided and confident expressions.  We miss the phrase, “I rather think, but do not yet confidently maintain,” with reference to the body retaining its material substance.  We have now discussions on the restoration of the original material elements to the same condition as before.  He thinks that infants must acquire perfection of human stature in the next world, because this was ideally theirs, although unrealized on earth.  He doubts whether “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” is physical as well as spiritual.  He thinks that all will rise in the vigour of maturity, which is about the age of thirty.  He repeats Methodius’ illustration of the figure of clay broken up and remade, which is substantially identical although its particles are redistributed.  Through the process of redistribution all deformities disappear.  The scars of the martyrs will remain to enhance their glory: but severed limbs will he replaced, while retaining the mark of severance.  The problem of ownership of material particles which, through cannibalism or natural process, have become assimilated with other human constitutions, is solved on the principle that they must revert to their original proprietor. [“De Civ. Dei”, XXII. xv.]

      These are sufficient to show the entirely materialized character of his later speculations.  At the same time to balance these he adds the following profound and luminous principle.  “The flesh shall then be spiritual and subject to the spirit, but still flesh, not spirit; as the spirit itself, when subject to the flesh, was fleshly, but still spirit and not flesh.” [Ibid. c. xxi.]

      Here, then, as in so many cases, this wonderful religious genius yields conflicting thoughts, and leaves them simply unreconciled in mere juxtaposition.  But what predominates is the grosser Latin view.  It is that upon which his contemporaries seized: and his powerful influence strongly contributed to make the materialistic theory the exclusive tradition in the Church of the West.  It may be a legitimate theme for wonder what that tradition might have become had this greatest of Western teachers been thoroughly familiar with the best theological conceptions of the East.  As it was, the two Churches moved on their independent ways, to the detriment of both.

      By the time of Gregory the Great the materialistic view so completely dominated the West that the philosophic school were denounced as nothing less than heretical.  When Gregory in early manhood represented the Roman See at Constantinople he was scandalized by discovering that Eutychius the Patriarch maintained in his writings and instructions the opinion that the human body after the Resurrection will exist in an impalpable state, more subtle than wind and air.  Eutychius was doubtless following the tradition of his philosophic forefathers, the Greek theologians: Gregory was no less determined by the tradition made dominant through Augustine.  The interest of the controversy, then, consists in the encounter of two traditions.  Gregory expressed grave concern at the Patriarch’s unorthodox conceptions, and an earnest conference took place between them.  Gregory declared that the theory of impalpability could not be reconciled with Scripture teaching.  He acknowledged that the Resurrection Body would be spiritualized, but appealed to the Lucan passage: “Handle Me and see,” as a proof that the risen body will be tangible.  Eutychius replied that the text was no contradiction to his theory: the solidity of the Risen Body of Christ being nothing more than an accommodation to the disciples’ incredulity, temporarily granted in order to strengthen their faith.  Gregory retorted that this interpretation reassures the disciples faith at the expense of destroying its basis, namely the true Resurrection of the flesh.  Eutychius then appealed to the text, “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God.”  Gregory gave the passage an ethical interpretation: the “flesh and blood” which “cannot inherit the kingdom” is sinful desire.  Eutychius did not apparently reject the interpretation, but he denied the inference, and reaffirmed the impalpability of the Resurrection state.  He reiterated his position that Christ’s Risen Body was temporarily palpable; but, after serving its evidential purpose, reverted to its impalpable and normal condition.  Gregory held that this contradicted the text, “Christ being raised from the dead, dieth no more”: for if the Risen Christ were subject to further change, He would still be under the dominion of death.  Eutychius failed to see the connection, and appealed to the text, “Thou sowest not that body that shall be.”  Gregory replied that these words do not imply the future absence of anything now present, but the future presence of many things now absent.

      By this time the controversy had created some sensation in Constantinople, and the two controversialists were summoned before the Emperor, who, after what Gregory regards as an impartial hearing of the arguments, gave decision that the Patriarch’s book ought to be committed to the flames.  Both disputants fell ill when the discussion was at an end.  Both were compelled to take to their beds.  Eutychius did not recover.  But, according to messengers sent by Gregory to visit him, the Patriarch before he died came round to the Roman view.  “He used to take hold of the skin of his hand before their eyes and say; ‘I confess that we shall all rise again in this flesh’; a thing which he was before accustomed altogether to deny.”  Thus, in Roman opinion, the Patriarch’s reputation was saved.  And in respect for his memory and character Gregory tells us that he refrained from pressing the subject any further. [S. Greg. Magn. “Moralia”, XIV. lvii. (trans. “Library of the Fathers”), p. 168.]

      This conflict between the two traditions is most significant.  Neither advocate was a really competent representative of his cause.  Certainly Gregory’s arguments do not explain the Greek Emperor’s decision against the Greek tradition.  What influence prompted it we do not know.  The view which Gregory considered heresy, a lamentable blot on an ecclesiastic’s reputation, a ground for which its adherent might justly be condemned by authority if he happened to survive, and which nothing but considerate forbearance and respect for his memory and character – especially in view of his death-bed recantation – prompted them to overlook and forget, was nevertheless the doctrine maintained by S. Hilary, S. Cyril of Jerusalem, S. Gregory of Nyssa, and S. John Chrysostom.  The quiet assumption that the Eastern tradition was heresy would scarcely have been possible a century and a half before, in Augustine’s time.  The alternative suggestions of that great thinker, the cautious utterances of his letters, his occasional insight into profounder views, were all forgotten in the hundred and fifty years since he had died.  The Greek tradition was evidently unstudied, its rationale unknown.  And this asserted conversion, whether historical or not, of the expiring Patriarch to the Latin view was at any rate symbolical of the destiny awaiting the opposing conceptions of the Resurrection state.  The philosophic doctrine, although founded on S. Paul, passed into obscurity before the dominant authority of the materialistic view.

      In the period after Gregory apparently no man lifted a voice for the Greek tradition.  It seems to have expired with the Patriarch Eutychius.  One solitary protest, so far as the present writer is aware, broke the uniformity of assent, when Erigena, on independent grounds, reaffirmed the Alexandrian Conception.

      Erigena maintained that our Lord’s Resurrection state transcended all material conditions and local relationships. [“De Divisione Naturae”.  Minge, “P. L.”, ii. 11.]  The visible manifestations, in the same material state into which He was born of the Virgin and in which He suffered, were accommodations to the requirements of His apostles, for the purpose of confirming their faith. [Ibid. p. 538.]  Realization of the truth would have been impossible without recognition, and recognition without contemplation of the same familiar form. [Ibid. p. 539.]  But this condescension to their human needs involved no local transition on His part from a distance in order that He might appear, nor any departure to another place when He vanished out of sight.  There was but a simple resumption of His natural invisible state.

      On the basis of this view of our Lord’s Resurrection state, Erigena argued that the future condition of Christians will be similar in kind.  The experiences of the senses will be exchanged for intellectual and immaterial experiences.  It is frankly acknowledged that this theory had very considerable traditional authority against it.  But Erigena endeavours to mitigate the force of the widely prevalent materialistic tradition by indicating the marked divergences of opinion among the Fathers on this point.  It was not for us, said Erigena deferentially, to sit in judgment on the wisdom of the Fathers; yet neither are we precluded from adopting the inferences of reason in harmony with Holy Scripture.  The style is significant of the age and of the writer.  But Erigena could support his spiritualistic theory by an appeal to long-forgotten statements of several great authorities, and in particular to the teaching of S. Gregory of Nyssa.

      Erigena’s own conviction is expressed in the startling phrase that the body will be changed into spirit.  The language sounds as if it meant an actual conversion of body into spirit.  This, however, is not Erigena’s meaning.  He expressly affirms that he does not maintain the destruction of the substance, but its transmutation into something of a nobler kind.  He considers air as one substance and light another; and then observes that the air does not lose its substance when it is entirely converted into light: yet nothing appears except the light; although air is one thing, and light is another.  He gives a second illustration. [Lib. V. p. 879.]  “Iron or some other metal, molten in the fire, appears to be converted into fire, so that it seems to become pure fire, while yet the substance of the metal remains.  In the same manner I consider that the substance of the body will pass over into [Transituram.] soul, not, however, so as to cease to be, but so as to be preserved in a nobler nature.”  Thus the properties of either nature remain; and what happens is a union (adunatio) [Ibid. p. 881.] of natures, without confusion or intermingling.  If the transmutation of an earthly body into spirit should appear incredible, [Ibid. p. 885.] the changes known to occur in material natures, which modify their qualities without losing their substance, should, he thinks, go far to facilitate belief.  The Resurrection Body will, he believes, bear no relation to material senses nor to the conditions of space.  If the phrase may be permitted him (ut ita dicam), body will be wholly converted into spirit; that is to say, it will be inaccessible to earthly senses, and endowed with indescribable subtlety and spirituality. [Ibid. p. 902.]

      As to the theory which affirms the reproduction of the bodies of the saints in their former stature and appearance and physical distinctions, with the retention of all the bodily organs of the present earthly condition, [Ibid. p. 986.] Erigena, it is scarcely necessary to say, absolutely rejects it.  In language which must have sounded very startling at the time when written, he says boldly that when he reads such statements in the writings of the Fathers he is simply astounded that men so spiritual should have sanctioned to posterity assertions of such a kind.  And he can only explain the fact on the supposition that these statements were nothing more than concessions to a materially minded generation whom they hoped by such earthly figures and expressions to uplift to spiritual things.  Men who realize nothing beyond the reach of their senses are scandalized if informed that the Resurrection Body bears no relation to space.  They instantly jump to the inference that, if bodily solidity ceases to exist, there will be nothing left.  Erigena thinks that, as a concession to these infirmities, the Fathers who advocated the materialistic view may have written as they did.  But the protests of Erigena scarcely affected the mediaeval conceptions of the Future state.

      The mediaeval conception as embodied in S. Thomas Aquinas was that while the Risen Body of Christ was spiritual, that is to say, subject to the spirit, in such a manner as to be submissive to the will, and so that Christ was seen when He willed to be seen, and unseen when He willed not to be seen; [Q. liv. A.] yet, on the other hand, He retained all that belongs to the nature of a human body.  Flesh, bones, blood, etc., were all integrally present in the Risen Body of Christ without any diminution: otherwise it would not have been a perfect resurrection.  As Scripture says, the hairs of your head are all numbered, and not a hair of your head shall perish.  To say that the Risen Body of Christ had not flesh and bones, and the other parts natural to a human body, is the error of Eutychius, Patriarch of Constantinople, which Gregory condemned. [Q. liv. Α. ii.]  Thus all the Blood which flowed from the Body of Christ in His Passion, belonging as it does to the truth of His human nature, rose again in His Resurrection.  But the blood preserved among the relics in certain Churches did not flow from the side of Christ, but is said to be derived miraculously from some Image.

 

Chapter  XXVI – The Formulas of the Church on the Resurrection Body

      The theories of individual theologians on the Resurrection of the Body are not necessarily the convictions of the Universal Church.  An essential distinction exists between that which Christian teachers assert, and that to which the Church itself is committed.  The collective faith of the Church is expressed in very few words, being significantly formulated in three short phrases of the Creeds.  The Athanasian formula is, “All men shall rise again with their bodies”; the Nicene, “I look for the Resurrection of the Dead”; while the Apostles’ Creed professes belief in the “Resurrection of the flesh.”  Whether these three formulas are of the Universal Church must depend on the attitude of the Eastern Churches to the Athanasian Creed.

      They all, at any rate, express the mind of the Church over an enormous extent of space and time.  Each Creed has, on this doctrine, its own expressive difference.  The Resurrection of the body, the Resurrection of the dead, the Resurrection of the flesh.

      While the first and the second of these are unquestionably Scriptural, the last, at least in words, is not.  “Resurrection of the body” is a Pauline phrase. [Rom. 8:11, 1 Cor. 15:44.]  So is “Resurrection of the dead.” [1 Cor. 15:12.]  But “Resurrection of the flesh” is not a Pauline phrase.  The question is whether, although it is not a Pauline phrase, it is a Pauline idea.  The answer may appear decisively given in the sentence, “flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God.”  Flesh seems here deliberately contrasted with body: the flesh, which cannot inherit the kingdom, with the body which will rise.  And yet flesh and body are at times employed by S. Paul as synonymous.  Thus while S. Paul can write “absent in body (σώματι) but present in spirit,” [1 Cor. 5:3.] he can also write “absent in the flesh (σαρκί), yet I am with you in the spirit.” [Col. 2:5.]  So again the phrase, loving their wives “as their own bodies,” is followed by the sentence, no man “hateth his own flesh.” [Eph. 5:28, 29.]  And once more, after speaking of man and woman becoming “one body”, he goes on to add “the twain shall become one flesh.” [1 Cor. 6:16.]

      In any case S. Paul’s usage did not appear to the primitive Church to preclude the phrase “Resurrection of the flesh.”  It originated in the sub-apostolic age as a protest against Docetic denial of the reality of our Lord’s human nature.  It is, as we have seen, already hinted at and suggested by S. Clement’s quotation from the book of Job, “Thou shalt raise up this flesh of mine that has suffered all these things.”  It occurs definitely in the letter of S. Ignatius to Smyrna: “He was in the flesh after His Resurrection.” [Ep. Smyrn.” ii.]  Christ’s Resurrection was “both of the flesh and the spirit.” [Ib. xi.]  Much more definite and emphatic still is the language already quoted from Justin Martyr, [Ch. ix. p. 343.] that the risen Christ let Himself be handled by the apostles to show “that there is truly a Resurrection of the flesh”; and even that He was taken up into heaven “as He was even in the flesh.”

      This language was evidently forced upon the Church partly by the heretical theory of a phantom Christ, and partly by the prevalent disparagement of the flesh as intrinsically worthless, and indeed as the real cause of evil.  Against such conceptions the phrase “Resurrection of the flesh” would be most necessary and effective.  It protected the doctrine of Incarnation, and the dignity of the body of man.  Thus it safeguarded Christian essentials, under the conditions of popular thought, more securely than the phrase “Resurrection of the body” could have done.  It did not necessarily imply grossly materialistic views; although, undoubtedly, as interpreted by Athenagoras or Justin Martyr, it greatly contributed to that result.  But this was due to prevalent unphilosophic conceptions rather than to the phrase itself.  We can readily understand that when heresy interpreted the Pauline words “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” as a denial of the Resurrection of the Body, the Church of the period felt constrained to place other interpretations on the passage, and to employ the phrase “Resurrection of the flesh,” in spite of any apparent contradiction with the apostolic expression.  In many instances, it must be admitted, that the teachers of the Church were scarcely more adequate in their expositions of S. Paul than their heretical opponents were.  But yet there was a true instinct in their defence however defective their interpretation.

      S. Jerome regarded habitual omission of the phrase resurrection of the flesh, as a sign of heretical tendencies.  He challenges the Origenists to employ both phrases, flesh and body, interchangeably.  Flesh and Body are not synonymous.  All flesh is body, but not all body is flesh.  Flesh designates, strictly speaking, that which is composed of blood, veins, bones, and nerves.  Body may be purely ethereal and invisible; although more commonly body is visible and tangible.  Thus S. Jerome grew suspicious when he did not hear the phrase Resurrection of the flesh. [“Liber contra Joannem Jerusolymitanum,” ch. xxvii.]

      Accordingly the phrase “Resurrection of the flesh” passed from the pages of individual writers into the authorized formularies of the Church.  By the middle of the second century it was embodied in the Roman Creed.  It remains in the Latin Creed of the apostles to the present day.

      So far as it appears, no objection within the Church was raised to the phrase “Resurrection of the flesh.”  At the Reformation, however, Luther criticized it, and expressed a preference for the form “Resurrection of the Body.”  That criticism still remains substantially in the Lutheran Catechism.

      The “Lutheran Greater Catechism” says: “ Quod autem hic ponitur (carnis des Fleisches) ne hoc quidem valde apte et bene lingua nostra vernacula expressum est.  Etenim carnem audientes non ulterius cogitamus quam de macello.  Verum recte et genuine loquendo germanice diceremus Auferstehung des Leibes oder Leichnams, h.e. corporis resurrectionem.  Attamen res est momenti non magni, dummodo verborum sensum recte percipiamus.” [Quoted in Biedermann, “Dogmatik”, ii. 391.]

      In the Church of England the article in the Apostles’ Creed on the Resurrection of Christians was now, for the most part, differently translated.  Whereas in the early thirteenth and fourteenth century translations, [See Maskell, “Monumenta Ritualia”, iii. 251 ff.] this Article ran “uprisigen of fleyes,” or “fleiss uprising,” or “risyng of flesshe,” or “the resurrection of the flesh,” it was now rendered “the resurrection of the body.”  So it appears to this day in the daily offices; while the older form, and more correct translation, is retained in the interrogatory form of the Apostles’ Creed in the Baptismal Service.  This inconsistency makes it difficult to explain the purpose of the altered rendering.  Was it a mark of Lutheran influence? In 1537, in the “Institution of a Christian Man,” the paraphrase is given “I believe ... that ... Almighty God shall raise up again the very flesh and bodies of all men.” [Lloyd’s “Formularies of Faith”, Henry VIII. p. 59.]  And the Necessary Doctrine of 1543, while giving the heading “the Resurrection of the Body,” explains it as meaning that “every man generally shall resume and take again the very self-same body and flesh which he had whiles he lived here on earth.” [Ib. p. 251.]  This does not give the impression of any deviation from the prevalent conception.  The subsequent language of the Articles certainly manifests no anxiety to correct the medieval materialistic views commonly associated with the Resurrection.  It formulates the doctrine very much in the terms which Justin Martyr adopted.  It is founded on the narrative of the Gospels, unqualified by the doctrine of S. Paul.  And it assumes the Appearances to indicate the normal conditions of the Resurrection state.

      The official language of the English Reformation is that “Christ did truly arise again from death, and took again His body, with flesh, bones, and all things appertaining to the perfection of man’s nature, wherewith He ascended into Heaven, and there sitteth until He return to judge all men at the last day.” [Article iv.]  It has been suggested that this intense literalism was specially designed to guard against the Docetic views adopted by some of the Anabaptists. [“Gibson on the xxxix Articles”, vol. i. p. 181.]  In the “Reformatio legum Ecclesiasticarum” the error of some is denounced who maintained that before the Ascension the human nature of Christ was absorbed into the Divine. [Ib.]  But the language of the Article is in any case quite in keeping with the gross materialism of the middle ages, which seems in this particular doctrine to have been taken over unchallenged at the Reformation.  While a strong reaction set in from similar Eucharistic conceptions, the doctrine of the Resurrection Body was not restated in a more balanced and qualified form.  The language is of course obviously drawn from that portion of the Gospels, and especially of the Lucan report, which lays the greatest stress on physical identity.  But no attempt is made to balance those statements with the Pauline doctrine of the spiritual body.  And whether the “flesh and bones” of the Appearances to the disciples was economic, temporary, evidential, or permanently characteristic of the Risen state is a question which does not come within the horizon of the Anglican Article.  So striking is this absence of qualification that so cautious a commentator as Bishop Harold Browne felt constrained to add, after summarizing the apostolic doctrine: “We must therefore conclude that though Christ rose with the same Body in which He died, and that Body neither did, nor shall, cease to be a human body; still it acquired, either at His Resurrection or at His Ascension, the qualities and attributes of a spiritual, as distinguished by the apostle from a natural body, of an incorruptible as distinguished from a corruptible body.” [Bishop Harold Browne, “Exposition of the xxxix Articles”, p. 107.]

      A study of English teaching on the Resurrection will show convincingly that the substitution of the formula “ Resurrection of the Body” for “Resurrection of the Flesh” had no effect whatever in refining and elevating the subsequent belief.  This could hardly be expected considering the language of the Articles as the authorized exposition.  Whatever gain might come from the altered rendering of the Creed was clearly neutralized by the exposition to which the clergy adhered.

      Whether the translation of the words “carnis resurrectionem” into “resurrection of the body” can be justified is another matter.  If the forms are not mere synonyms the loss of either should be deprecated.  Both alike are open to misconstruction: Resurrection of the body nay be easily refined away until it loses all sense of continuity and identity; Resurrection of the flesh may be easily materialized into the idea of identity without change.  Thus the substitution of the former for the latter does not avoid risks but only introduces risks of a different kind.  The phrase Resurrection of the Flesh is far too deeply ingrained in the formularies of Christendom to be obliterated by the action of any isolated portion of the Church.  And there are tendencies in the present day which make such removal altogether undesirable. [Cf. Swete, “Apostles’ Creed,” p. 98.  Zahn, “Articles of the Apostles’ Creed,” pp. 240–242.]

 

Chapter  XXVII – Post-Reformation English Teaching on the

Resurrection Body

      Our task will be to trace the doctrine through individual English teachers to the present day.

      1. Bishop Pearson’s exposition of the doctrine may well stand first, alike for its date and its authority.  In his exposition of the Creed, published in 1659, Pearson wrote, “Whatsoever we lose in death, is not lost to God; ... though therefore the parts of the body of man be dissolved, yet they perish not: they lose not their own entity when they part with their relation to humanity; they are laid up in the secret places, and lodged in the chambers of nature; and it is no more a contradiction that they should become the parts of the same body of man to which they did belong, than that after his death they should become the parts of any other body, as we see they do.  Howsoever they are scattered, or wheresoever lodged, they are within the knowledge and power of God....” [Sinker’s Edition, p. 701.]

      Bishop Pearson’s teaching has obvious affinities with the Latin school rather than with the Greek; with Tertullian, to whom he appeals, rather than with Origen.  And it is quite in keeping that the Bishop concludes with a strong expression of his belief “that the same numerical bodies which did fall shall rise.” [Ib. p. 726.]

      2. Next may be placed some remarks of the philosopher Locke.

      Locke approached the subject of the Resurrection of the Body in his Essay on the human understanding. [Published in 1689.]  Discussing the problem of identity he maintained that “the identity of the same man” [meaning by man nothing else but an animal of a certain form] “consists in nothing but a participation of the same continued life, by constantly fleeting particles of matter, in succession vitally united to the same organized body.” [Bk. II. xxvii. pp. 6, 7, 8.]  But personal identity consists in consciousness.  [Ib. § 9.]  But the substance united to the personal self may be varied from time to time without change of personal identity. [Ib. § 11.]

      Thus personal identity does not consist in identity of substance but in identity of consciousness. [Ib. § 19.]  So far as our knowledge goes, urged Locke, although we are very much in the dark upon the subject, “there can from the nature of things be no absurdity at all to suppose, that the same soul may, at different times, be united to different bodies, and with them make up, for that time, one man. [Ib. § 21]

      “Any part of our bodies vitally united to that which is conscious in us, makes a part of ourselves: but upon separation from the vital union, by which that consciousness is communicated, that which a moment since was part of ourselves, is now no more so, than a part of another man’s self is a part of me; and it is not impossible, but in a little time may become a real part of another person.  And so we have the same numerical substance become a part of two different persons; and the same person preserved under the change of various substances.” [Ib. § 25.]

      Applying this to the Resurrection Locke maintained that “thus we may be able, without any difficulty, to conceive the same person at the resurrection, though in a body not exactly in make or parts the same which he had here, the same consciousness going along with the soul that inhabits it.” [Ib. § 14.]  Locke based his theory of resurrection on the idea of identity.  Personal identity “does not depend on a mass of the same particles”; for it is not altered by “the variation of great parcels of matter.”  Personal identity, that is sameness of a rational being, lies in self-consciousness and in that alone.  Hence whether the person is annexed to one substance or to a succession of different substances cannot affect its identity.

      Consequently, according to Locke, the whole problem of Resurrection is resolved into a question of personal identity.

      3. Stillingfleet, [Answer to Mr. Locke’s Second Letter, Collected Works, London, 1710, vol. 3, p. 571–4.] in reply to Locke, discussed whether it is not necessary for the same substance which was united to the body to be raised up at the last day?  Stillingfleet qualifies his statement of the problem by the curious remark: “I do not say the same individual particles of matter which were united at the point of death; for there must be a great alteration on them in a lingering disease, as if a fat man falls into a consumption: I do not say the same particles which the sinner had at the very time of commission of his sins; for then a long sinner must have a vast body, considering the continual spending of particles by perspiration; but that which I suppose is implied in it is, that there must be the same material substance which was vitally united to the soul here.”

      Thus Stillingfleet held that in the Resurrection the organization and life of the body will be the same, “and this is a real identity of the body which depends not upon consciousness.”  It is thus the same body.  To constitute identity of body, “no more is required but restoring life to the organized parts of it.”  “If by Divine power life be restored to that material substance which was before united, by a reunion of the soul to it, there is no reason to deny the identity of the body.”  S. Paul’s language, it is sown in corruption, dishonour, and weakness requires this view.  For, “Can such a material substance which was never united to the body be said to be sown in corruption and weakness and dishonour?  Either, therefore, he must speak of the same body, or his meaning cannot be comprehended.”  The very idea of Resurrection, moreover, requires that the same material substance must be reunited.  “Else it cannot be called a Resurrection but a renovation; i.e. it may be a new life, but not a raising the body from the dead.”

      To these criticisms and doctrines of Bishop Stillingfleet, Locke produced a reply, [“Collected Works”, ed. 1777, vol. i. p. 649.] in which he acknowledged the resurrection of the dead to be an article of the Christian faith; but as to the resurrection of the same body, in Stillingfleet’s sense of the phrase, he confessed himself unable to determine.  He submitted that the expression “resurrection of the sane body” never occurred in Scripture.  The same body in Stillingfleet’s sense was “not the same individual particles of matter which were united at the point of death; nor the same particles of matter that the sinner had at the time of the commission of his sins.  But that it must be the same material substance which was vitally united to the soul here.”  That is, says Locke, “the same individual particles of matter which were, sometime during his life here, vitally united to the soul.” [p. 650.]

      Stillingfleet had supported this by the words of our Lord: “they that are in the graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth”; arguing that a substance which was never in the grave cannot be said to come out of it.  Locke replied that if such strict literalism be maintained, it will follow that unless the soul was in the grave it will make no part of the person that is raised. [p. 650.]  Stillingfleet’s idea of selection among the particles of our former bodies with a view to secure proportion and comeliness not unnaturally roused the philosopher to courteous sarcasm: “Your Lordship says that you ‘do not say the same individual particles shall make up the body at the resurrection which were united at the point of death; for there must be a grave alteration in them in a lingering disease, as if a fat man falls into a consumption.’  Because it is likely your Lordship thinks those particles of a decrepit, wasted, withered body would be too few, or unfit to make such a plump, strong, vigorous, well-sized body, as it has pleased your Lordship to proportion out in your thoughts to men at the resurrection; and therefore some small portion of the particles formerly united vitally to that man’s soul, shall be reassumed to make up his body to the bulk your Lordship judges convenient; but the greatest part of them shall be left out, to avoid the making his body more vast than your Lordship thinks will be fit.” [“Collected Works”, ed. 1777, vol. i. p. 653.]  But then, asks Locke, what is to be done for one who dies in infancy? “Must we believe that he shall remain content with that small pittance of matter and that yet imperfect body to eternity, because it is an article of faith to believe the resurrection of the very same body? i.e. made up of only such particles as have been vitally united to the soul.” [p. 654.]  It is not wonderful if Locke felt constrained to protest against the identity of particles theory of Resurrection.  “By these, and not a few other like consequences, one may see,” he wrote, “what service they do to religion and the Christian doctrine, who raise questions and make articles of faith about the Resurrection of the same body, where the Scripture says nothing of the same body.”  It is very certain that the Church teachers of the time did not make faith in the Resurrection easier for a thoughtful mind, and that there was profound necessity for some influence to lift the whole subject above these gross and animal levels.

      When Stillingfleet appealed to the physical solidity of the risen body of Christ, Locke was in difficulties.  He admitted that the appearances of the risen Master represented the essential risen state: but he pleaded that the rapid resurrection of Christ’s incorrupted body was unique; and that there could be no necessity that our human bodies dissolved and dispersed after death should be reassembled with the same identical numerically unaltered particles. [p. 655.]  He suggested also that even Stillingfleet would not infer from Christ’s participation of food after He was risen, that we also when risen should do the same.  He realized also that the marks of the wounds were for evidential purposes; and that there would be nothing corresponding to this necessity in the case of the resurrection of Christians.  “At the last day,” said Locke, “when all men are raised, there will be no need to be assured of any one particular man’s resurrection.  It is enough that every one shall appear before the judgment seat of Christ, to receive according to what he had done in his former life; but in what sort of body he shall appear, or of what particles made up, the Scripture having said nothing but that it shall be a spiritual body raised in incorruption, it is not for me to determine.” [p. 656.]

      Locke distinguishes throughout between different kinds of identity: same man, same person, same body, are phrases employed in diverse senses.  Same body means same particles in rigid numerical identity: neither more nor less.  According to Stillingfleet’s assertion that the seed and the plant although differing so greatly in outward appearances as not to seem the same body, “yet, with regard to the seminal and organical parts, are as much the same as the man grown up is the same with the embryo” – Locke desires to know “same what?”  Same body the man and the infant cannot be, “unless he can persuade himself that a body that is not a hundredth part of another is the same with that other.” [p. 659.]  This would be equivalent to saying that a part and the whole are the same.

      4. Discussion on the subject was continued by Hody, Professor of Greek at Oxford in 1694.  Hody’s book is entitled “The Resurrection of the Same Body Asserted.”  Hody treated the subject from a historical point of view, and made an attempt to discover what was the doctrine of the primitive Fathers [p. 107 ff.] on the Resurrection Body.  The doctrine of Origen is to his mind entirely uncongenial.  The supposition of a germ or principle in the existing body becoming the cause of the future body he considers an absurdity.  “To show the absurdity of this hypothesis,” he says, “let us suppose that the body was never buried, but exposed to the air, or perfectly burnt to ashes, or drowned and dissolved in the sea, and let this be done some thousands of years ago: I would ask an Origenist, where is then his principia resurrectiοnis?  Tis  impossible to conceive any such semina resurgendi unless we will suppose that there always remains some little part of the Body undissolved.” [p. 111.]  Hody felt himself supported by Bishop Pearson on the Creed. [p. 113.]  With regard to S. Paul’s illustration of the grain of corn Hody appeals to the maxim of the Schools that no similitude walks on four feet. “All similitudes and comparisons are always lame, and ought to be understood loosely, and only in some respect.  And so ought this comparison which the apostle uses.  All that he means by it is this, that as a grain of corn which springs up differs from that which was sown; so the body which rises shall not be altogether the same, but shall differ in some respects from that which was buried.” [“Collected Works”, ed. 1777, vol. 1. p. 119.]

      Thus Hody minimizes the differences between our Lord’s earthly and risen Body.  “What if by His Divine Power He was pleased to convey Himself into a room, when the doors were, or seemed to be, shut?  What if He vanish’d away out of the sight of those that convers’d with Him?  This was done to demonstrate His power.” [p. 124.]  These facts do not to Hody convey any more idea of change in the Risen Body than Christ walking on the water during His ministry.  “Was not that contrary to the nature of a human body?” [p. 125.]  “So likewise he might vanish away, either by an exceeding swift motion, or by altering the medium, or the sight of the spectators.” [Ib.]  Hody then lays great stress on the Lucan report of the flesh and bones, and appeals to the language of the 4th Article, [p. 126.] and the literal school of the early Church.

      The very term “Resurrection” seems to Hody to enforce his view.  “If the same particles of matter that were buried be not to rise, if the body is to be altogether new as to its substance, how can it be said to be a resurrection?” [p. 131.]  Thus he adopts the language of Methodius.  Identity of particles, and identity of substance are, apparently, considered equivalent.  If reminded that the particles of the body are perpetually changing yet identity is retained, his answer is that gradual change is one thing, complete change another.  “If the body be dissolved and new particles be form’d into a body and united to the soul, it cannot be said to be the same or to rise again.  I appeal to the commonsense of mankind.” [p. 133.]  These extracts will be enough to show that, learned though he was, Hody’s place is not among the philosophers.

      5. The extreme materialism of the literal school not unnaturally increased the influence of Locke’s theory of identity, as may be seen in the writings of Samuel Bold, Rector of Steeple, Dorset, 1705. [S. Bold, “Discourses Concerning the Resurrection of the Same Body,” 1705.]  Bold protests vigorously against advancing human interpretations of Gospel doctrines into necessary articles of Christian faith; and in particular against the view (which he ascribes to Whitby and Parker) that Resurrection is “the raising and uniting again all the particles of matter which the grave received.” [p. 23.]  These authors had misgivings whether some addition would not be required to complete the Resurrection Body.  They allowed that God might “add to the body rising or risen such new particles as may complete the perfection of a Glorified Body. [p. 11.]  But these new particles are “purely additional.”  To which theory Bold opposes Locke’s definition of bodily identity.  “No body upon the removal or change of some of the particles that at any time make it up, is the very same material substance, or the same body.” [p. 1.]  Accordingly Bold reprints large selections from the letters of Locke against Stillingfleet.

      We have in these discussions reached the low water mark of English thought on the Resurrection of the Body.  It will be admitted that there was need for a return to apostolic and philosophic conceptions.

      6. Another important eighteenth-century contribution to English ideas of the Resurrection Body is Burnet’s treatise “De State Mortuorum et Resurgentium.” [Thomas Burnet was master of the Charterhouse, and died in 1715.]  Burnet understood Scripture to teach that the Resurrection Body will be “inorganical.” [p. 188.]  It will possess no organs of nutrition.  This he based on 1 Cor. 6:13. “Meats for the belly and the belly for meats; but God shall destroy both it and them.” [p. 189.]  It will possess none of the present organs of movement.  Members “made for walking upon some firm and solid pavement, as there is no such thing, and motion will not be after the manner of walking, but as angels move; these will be taken away as unnecessary and superfluous.” [Ib.]

      With the disappearance of the organs flesh and blood must also disappear.  And this Burnet claimed to be the Apostle’s teaching when he wrote that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God.” [p. 190.]  All figurative exposition of the passage Burnet rejected.

      The inorganic character of the Resurrection Body Burnet held to be confirmed by S. Paul’s description of it as “made without hands” (2 Cor. 5:1.), a description which our Lord Himself suggested in the words ascribed to Him in S. Mark 14:58, where the temple made with hands is contrasted with the temple made without hands, “and Christ applies both to His own Body, that then subsisting, and the Body afterwards to come.”  And further: the Epistle to the Hebrews [Heb. 9. 2.] explains “not made with hands” as equivalent to “not of this creation.”  “That is to say,” says Burnet, “of another fabric and form from the terrestrial and organical body.” [p. 193.]

      And Christ’s comparison of our future state with that of the angels implies that “we shall have such bodies as angels have, i.e. inorganical ones.”

      Burnet considered that S. Paul’s contrast between “the first Man,” who “is of the earth earthy,” and “the second Man,” who “is the Lord from Heaven,” together with the words, “as is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy, and as is the heavenly such also are they that are heavenly,” apply to the body here and the body hereafter.  The manner of body we shall have in Heaven will be heavenly.  “Heavenly denotes the matter of which it is composed.” [p. 196.]  It will not be “concrete, gross, and like our own at this day,” but thin, rare, light, and liquid, like ether or heavenly matter.”  Heavenly matter “is pure and rarefied, as ether, or air, and so will our celestial bodies be.” [p. 197.]

      The epithet “spiritual” as applied to body has, according to Burnet, a similar meaning.  Burnet held that the Resurrection Body of Christ confirms all this.  “After His Resurrection He appeared in another form (Mark 16:5, John 20:15, 21:4; Luke 24:16) and made Himself either visible or invisible, according to his pleasure (Luke 24:21).  And after the doors were shut, he twice entered into the house where His disciples were (John 20:19–26), and yet He appeared with bones and flesh to His disciples to confirm them in His Resurrection.  By which he plainly showed He could either diffuse His body into a volatile and expanded substance, or contract it into a gross and concrete one.” [p. 201.]  In support of this opinion Burnet appealed to S. Clement of Alexandria: [Strom. vi.] “He did not eat for the sake of His body, which subsisted by an independent power and virtue; but for those with whom he conversed, that they might not think otherwise of him, as some suspected he was only a phantom or vision.”

      But Burnet maintained “the glorious body of Christ in Heaven is like a flame, or liquid ether, and therefore our own bodies are to be of the same matter, as they are to be like thereunto; and if we consult reason (see Origen, Ag. Celsus, iii.) and philosophy, no other matter can subsist in Heaven.” [p. 203.]

      To the objection that this theory, although not contrary to Scripture or reason, opposes the received doctrine upon the subject, which undoubtedly is that the flesh and blood of Christ remain even in His Body in Heaven, Burnet replies: “I answer, some of the Fathers thought otherwise; and others very much doubted of the flesh and blood of this celestial body of Christ.  The Origenists denied it, and argued after another manner.” [p. 203.]

      Burnet’s conclusion [Burnet; also appealed to Greg. Naz.] is that “the glorious Body of Christ in Heaven does not consist of a fabric of bones, flesh, and blood, and other humours and entrails of a terrestrial and modern body; but is compounded of a more excellent matter of another kind of nature, purity and perfection; in one word, of a celestial matter, as to substance and accidents.” [p. 209.]

      Thus Burnet denied that we are to rise with the same bodies we lie down with in the grave, in the sense of “the same numerical body, with the same matter, and the same particles.” [p. 224.]  He acknowledged that “there are several places in the Scripture that very much favour the identical Resurrection.” [p. 225.]  For instance, S. John 5:28, 29; Rev. 20:13 (“And the sea shall give up her dead.”)  And S. Paul in 1 Cor. 15 “though at first he seems to hint that another body shall arise, different from that in the grave; yet in the following verses, he, according to the rigid literal sense, seems only to invest the former body with new qualities.” [p. 226.]  Upon this Burnet observes that “we must certainly adhere to the letter when the nature of the thing will bear it.” [p. 227.]  But he contends that adherence to the literal meaning is in this case impossible.  He insists upon the uselessness of the organic structure of the existing body if transferred to a heavenly state.  “God,” he says, “never deals in superfluities; and, as in this mortal life we have none, even the most minute, without some use, would you have in a more perfect and excellent body most of the structure thereof useless, and vain?” [p. 229.]

      7. Burnet’s treatise, “De Statu Mortuorum et Resurgentium,” was privately printed for the criticism of friends during his lifetime, but never published until after his decease.  The few who were permitted to have a copy were bound in honour “not to have it transcribed or delivered to the press.”  However, after Burnet’s death, it was not only published in Latin, but translated into English, by Matthias Earbery, a priest of the Church of England, with criticisms and replies.[Ed. 2, 1728.]  Earbery himself was sharply attacked by Burnet’s literary executors for venturing to translate and criticize the treatise. [Advertisement note, p. 102 and p. 103.]  He defended himself by claiming a liberty to make remarks upon a printed book.  Earbery identified Burnet with the school of Locke for his denial of the Resurrection of the sane body. [p. 85.]  Of the two he considers Burnet to be the more candid.  For while Locke “quibbles with the word identity,” Burnet “plainly tells us we shall have new bodies framed, as cases for the soul, after the Resurrection.” [p. 85.]

      The question is, says Earbery, what constitutes identity?  There is identity of essence; that is the duration of a particle of matter until it is annihilated.  There is also a relative identity, which the flux and reflux of parts does not destroy.  Thus “a river is said to be the same river, though the identical essence of the parts is not two moments there together, if the similitude remains.”  “But a discontinuation of this similitude destroys the identity, as when a river is dried up, and flows no more for some ages, and the channel is opened again by art, or by some natural accident, it will be termed a new river.” [p. 86.]  Thus, urged Earbery, “if a body moulders in the grave, and there is no succession of parts to keep up the integrality thereof, there can be no relative identity for the reasons above given; and if the same body arises, it must be an essential identity of the parts brought together, in the same situation they were in before the continuity was dissolved by putrefaction in the grave; for otherwise it is creation, a new formation, but no Resurrection of the same body.” [p. 87.]

      Earbery argued that both Locke and Burnet contradict the plain sense of Scripture.  The formation of a new body “to encase a soul after death” cannot he inferred from Christ’s going down to the grave and rising from the dead with His Body. [Ib.]  Thus the Gospel presentation is utilized to exclude the Pauline conception of the spiritual Body.  Moreover, argued Earbery, we must place no limits to Omnipotence.  Burnet’s theory is to his mind “a very whimsical heresy.” [p. 89.]  “The gnostics bambouzled away all the corporeal Resurrection.”  But Burnet has “moulded the grave to his fancy, and dressed up the dead like fairies; he has given them fantastical shadows.” [p. 213.]  Earbery adopts the mediaeval distinction between organs contrived for beauty and for use, and argues that the former may remain while the latter has become obsolete. [p. 214.]  But he inconsequently criticizes Burnet for holding the opposite view, on the ground that “this is a too nice inquiry into the Divine secrets.” [p. 215.]  He argues that if Burnet will not acknowledge an organical body in the Resurrection, at least he must acknowledge the survival of the organical eye. [p. 217.]  And if an organical eye, how then no organical brain?  And so the whole animal constitution of the human frame is reintroduced.

      But that which disturbs Earbery most of all is Burnet’s conception of the real nature of Christ’s glorified Body.  Burnet, he says, “seems inclined to fall into a most wicked heresy, though he dare not speak it plain, that the Body of Christ upon earth was a fantastical one.”  Earbery means apparently the Risen Body of Christ.  Flesh and blood, argued Burnet, after St. Paul, cannot inherit the Kingdom of God.  Flesh and blood, he added, cannot be rendered incorruptible.  For in that case they would be no longer flesh and blood.  Corruptibility is of their essence.  But all that Earbery can do is to appeal to Omnipotence which surely can stop organical decay if He pleases.  “If God is pleased to stop this depredation, if He will not suffer the particles to fly, nor to pervade the pores and perspire away; this consolidation will make our bodies incorruptible, they will be always then in one state, and so may continue for eternity.” [p. 221.]

      Such was Earbery’s attempt to support the common view.

      8. Samuel Horsley, Bishop of S. Asaph, treated the subject of the Resurrection Body with an insight vastly superior to many of his English predecessors. [Horsley, “Nine Sermons on the Nature of the Evidence,” 1815.]  Contrasting the Scripture evidence as to the Lord’s Body during His ministry and after His Resurrection, Bishop Horsley wrote, “After His Resurrection the change is wonderful.  Insomuch as that, except in certain actions which were done to give His disciples proof that they saw in Him their crucified Lord arisen from the grave, He seems to have done nothing like a common man.  Whatever was natural to Him before seems now miraculous; what was before miraculous is now natural.” [Ιb. p. 202.]

      The Risen Master’s manner of life was completely changed.  “He was repeatedly seen by the disciples after His Resurrection; and so seen as to give them many infallible proofs that He was the very Jesus who had suffered on the Cross.  But He lived not with them in familiar habits.  His time, for the forty days preceding His Ascension, was not spent in their society.  They knew not His goings out and comings in.” [Ib. p. 206.]  “The conclusion seems to be that on earth He had no longer any local residence....  He was become the inhabitant of another region, from which he came occasionally to converse with His disciples.  His visible Ascension, at the expiration of the forty days, being not the necessary means of His removal, but a token to the disciples that this was His last visit.” [Ib. p. 208.]

      Bishop Horsley calls especial attention to the words, “showed Him openly, not to all the people.”  Here, says Horsley, is in the English rendering a contradiction.  “Not to be shown to all the people is not to be shown openly... .  The literal meaning of the Greek words is this, ‘Him God raised up the third day, and gave Him to be visible.’  Not openly visible; no such thing is said; it is the very thing denied; but ‘He gave Him to be visible.’  Jesus was no longer in a state to be naturally visible to any man.  His body was indeed risen, but it was become that body which St. Paul describes in the fifteenth chapter of his first Epistle to the Corinthians, which having no sympathy with the gross bodies of this earthly sphere, nor any place among them, must be indiscernible to the human organs, till they shall have undergone a similar refinement.” [Ib. p. 210.]

      This remarkable passage deserves particular attention.  The influence of Origen is unmistakable.  And behind it the influence of S. Paul.  Jesus was no longer in a state to be naturally visible to any man.  Here the significance of the special appearance is suggested.  “As it was by miracle that, before His death, He walked upon the sea, it was now by miracle that, for the conviction of the apostles, he showed in His person the marks of His sufferings.” [Ib. p. 203.]

      9. Locke’s reply to Stillingfleet was still appealed to as a standard authority in the middle of the nineteenth century, in Bush’s “Anastasis,” published in 1845.  Bush was Professor of Hebrew in New York.  In his anxiety to liberate believers from the gross terrestrial conceptions of resurrection widely prevalent, he asserted, after considerable quotations from Locke, that “the body in which Jesus rose and repeatedly appeared to His disciples during the space of forty days was in fact a spiritual body”; [p. 152.] that it was “a body divested of the conditions of matter, at least as matter is commonly and philosophically defined.  It is one endowed with the power of entering a room when the doors were closed, and all the ordinary avenues of access precluded.  Such a body must have been spiritual.” [p. 153.]  The evidential signs of solidity, the reception of food are a “miraculous adaptation of the visible phenomena to the outward senses of the disciples.” [p. 154; italics in original.]  To the author’s mind it is certain that our Lord did not ascend in a material body: consequently if such material body were assumed at the Resurrection it must have been laid aside during the forty days; of which there is not the slightest proof. [Ibid. 155.]  Bush maintains that Christ’s dwelling was in Heaven from the Resurrection onwards; that each withdrawal from the disciples was an ascension into Heaven; that the spiritual body was assumed at the Resurrection itself. [p. 162.]  This is confirmed in the writer’s view by the Pauline doctrine of 1 Cor. 15: “Whatever else may be taught by it, we think nothing can be more unequivocally asserted than that man does not rise again with the same body which he had in this world.” [p. 174.]  What S. Paul’s illustration of the seed declares is that some kind of germ which is developed from the one body becomes the essential vital principle of the other. [p. 176.]  “We cannot understand the apostle’s reasoning, unless he meant to affirm that there is something of the nature of a germ which emanates from the defunct body, and forms either the substance or the nucleus of the future Resurrection Body.  But this principle we contend to be what the apostle calls spiritual, that is invisible, impalpable, refined, ethereal.” [p. 178.]  Bush indeed goes as far as to say of 1 Cor. 15 that this celebrated chapter “fails to yield any satisfactory evidence of the doctrine of the resurrection of the body.” [p. 202.]  He means apparently in the sense popularly accepted.  But when confronted with our Lord’s utterance, “they that are in the graves shall hear His voice,” he is at a loss how to make his theory harmonize with the materialism of the expression. [Ibid. p. 234.]  He suggests that the phrase is merely a reference to Daniel 12:2: “Many that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake”; that our Lord is emphasizing an idea, and that the language must not be pressed. [p. 239.]

      With whatever inconsistencies and crudities of exposition this writer’s work was composed, he was nevertheless feeling his way to a more philosophic and more Pauline conception of the nature of the Resurrection Body.

      10. One of the most important attempts in English theology to lift the doctrine to higher levels was made in Goulburn’s Bampton Lectures [1850.] on the Resurrection of the Body.  The treatise is not so well known as it deserves to be.  Considering the period at which it was produced, it marks a distinct stage upwards in English thought.  Goulburn wrote with a knowledge of the two great historic theories on the subject, and he definitely placed himself on Origen’s side.

      “We may not cumber the Resurrection in our notions of it, with associations drawn from the carnal, animal, shifting scene which surrounds us.  Misconceptions of this kind found place very early in the Church, and gave rise, in all probability, to errors in a contrary direction.  It was probably a too earthly and animal view of the circumstances and constitution of the risen dead which stirred up Origen to spiritualize the doctrine, and set it, as he conceived, on a more Scriptural footing.  And although certain of his assertions may too far trespass on the identity of the risen with the natural body; yet who can help yielding assent to his words as beautiful and true when he points out the necessity for an adaptation of every body to the surrounding element in which it exists, and thence infers that the heavenly state will demand glorified bodies such as those in which Moses and Elias appeared at the Transfiguration?  Who does not feel almost instinctively that this remark gives a juster representation of Scriptural truth than Jerome’s particularizing commentary on the much-disputed text of Job, in which he represents the identity of the hairs and teeth as involved in the doctrine of the Resurrection – and then in order to rid himself of the difficulty thrown in his path by the inspired statement that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, draws a distinction between the Resurrection and the inheritance of the Kingdom?” [Goulburn, “Bampton Lectures” for 1850, p. 33.]

      “Resurrection is not to be conceived of as a loss of some constitutional element of our nature.  In the passage of the nature from a lower stage of existence to a higher, and in the adaptation of its faculties to that higher stage, there is no loss of any essential element.  I say of any essential element; for is it not clear that the transition process may involve the falling-off of certain properties which are serviceable only in the rudimentary state, and which in the higher state would have no scope for exercise?  The lower sphere having been for ever quitted, it is but natural to suppose that such faculties as were exclusively adapted to that sphere will be dropped.” [Ib. p. 34.]

      Is matter no less than spirit an essential constituent of that nature, so that the primitive constitution of the creature would be altered, and man would cease to be man if the natural element no longer attached to him? Then, undoubtedly, inasmuch as Resurrection is no radical alteration of the constitution, but only such a modification of formerly existing rudiments as adapts them to a higher condition, the process is not to be conceived of as a laying down of the body and an emancipation of the soul from its fetters.  Yet, on the other hand, this preservation of the integrity of the nature does not exclude the possibility of a loss of such faculties as were adapted exclusively to the lower state.  Man may still carry about a body, and yet it may be a body whose animal functions have been dropped in the transit of Resurrection.” [Ib.]

      Thus urges Goulburn, “It is the essential basis, not the present organization of the human body, of which the Scriptures affirm that it shall be raised again in incorruption.” [Ib. p. 81.]  And further, “If the essential basis of a substance be preserved when it is brought out under a new form, that is sufficient to warrant us in calling it the same, however great the change which its form may have undergone.” [Ib. p. 82.]  Thus Goulburn maintains that the body which shall be raised “is some elementary material basis, not apprehensible by our present faculties, which lies at the root of those superficial phenomena exhibited by all matter, and by the human body, which is matter organized in a particular form.” [Ib. p. 83.]  The changes may be exceedingly great.  “Food and the organ adapted to its reception and digestion will pass away.” [Ib. p. 84.]  But the basis of the body will be material. [Ib. p. 86.]

      “Flesh and blood, says the apostle, in language too explicit to be evaded, cannot inherit the Kingdom of God.  And no less explicitly speaks he ... of natural sustenance and the organ adapted to its reception – ‘God shall destroy both it and them.’  But flesh and blood is not the body: it is only the present constitution of the body, the organization attaching to it under existing circumstances.  And so while the gross accretions of flesh and blood must fall away at our entrance into the kingdom of life and light, the body shall endure under another economy, of which all that we know is summed up in that one short word ‘spiritual’.” [Ib. p. 89.]

      11. Milligan’s idea of the Resurrection Body of Christ begins with dismissing every theory whose fundamental principle is “that His risen body, whatever its peculiar substance or form, was not a body in any true sense of the term.” [Milligan, “The Resurrection of our Lord”, p. 10.]  He then affirms that it is “difficult ... to form anything like a distinct conception of what the Resurrection Body of our Lord really was.  Were it possible, indeed, to adopt the idea generally entertained, that ‘the very body which hung upon the cross and was laid in the grave, rose again from the dead,’ [Quoted from Dr. Hodge of Princeton.] it would be easy to concur.  But in the light of the collected statements of Scripture upon the point, such a view cannot be successfully maintained.  It is true that the body of the Risen Saviour was, in various important respects, similar to what it had been....  It still retained the print of the wound inflicted by the spear of the Roman soldier, etc.” [Milligan, “The Resurrection of our Lord”, p. 11.]

      But the whole of Milligan’s argument is founded on the assumption that from the Risen Body as manifested to the apostles we can infer the normal characteristics of the Resurrection state.  He refuses indeed to regard any changes in the Risen Appearances as indications that the change produced upon the body of our Lord was gradual, that it began at His Resurrection, and went on in a progressive course during the forty days: [Milligan, “The Resurrection of our Lord”, p. 16.] but he clings to the view that other marks in the same Appearances are indications really corresponding with the Risen state.  Yet for the Risen body of Christians, after quoting S. Matt. 22:30, 1 Cor. 15:50, 1 Cor. 6:13, he could write: “Passages such as these, even if they stood alone, would be sufficient to show that the body with which the believer rises from the grave cannot be the same as it is now; and that the heavenly world demands an organization and functions different from those possessed by us in our present state.” [Ib. p. 19.]

      The natural criticism on these extracts from Milligan is that his doctrine of our Lord’s Resurrection Body was derived from the Evangelist’s account of the Appearances assumed as identical with the Resurrection state; while his doctrine of the Resurrection Body of Christians was derived from S. Paul’s conception of the spiritual body.  And the two doctrines are left unreconciled.

      Yet Milligan could elsewhere write: “The body now possessed by Him was not His old body, with whatever amount of outward glory we suppose it to have been glorified; but rather that old body changed, transfigured from within, so that it might be the fitting and perfectly adequate expression of pure spirit.” [Ib. p. 129.]

      This statement goes much further than the previous.  But it cannot easily be reconciled with them on Milligan’s assumptions.  For if “the heavenly world demands an organization and functions different from those possessed by us in our present state,” and therefore “the body with which the believer rises from the grave cannot be the same as it is now” – how can the organization of “flesh and bones” ascribed to the Risen Lord be a perfectly adequate expression of pure spirit and adapted to a heavenly state?  What is needed to reconcile Milligan’s various ideas is the recognition that the Appearances of the Risen Lord were adaptations of the Risen Body to terrestrial conditions, and therefore do not describe the essential characteristics of the Resurrection state.  As it is, Milligan is reduced to the paradox of explaining “a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see Me have” as intended to indicate “that Christ’s state was not the same as that of His disciples, or as it had been before.” [Ib. p. 242.]

      Moreover, Milligan has not carried the subject so far as to ask whether the Risen Appearances, the flesh and bones, of Christ correspond with the future experience of believers?  To ask this question is surely to throw much light on the character of Christ’s manifestation, and on the essential qualities of the Resurrection Body.

      12. The same line of progress was followed by Bishop Westcott, whose immense influence did much to popularize the more philosophical view.  He frankly accepted the principle taught by Origen, who, in his opinion, “by keeping strictly to the apostolic language, anticipated results which we have hardly yet secured.  It is the spirit which moulds the form through which it is manifested.  Continuity of the body is to be sought in the ‘ratio’ or ‘logos’ of its constitution.” [“Dict. of Christian Biogr.”, s.v. Origenes, vol. iv. p. 138, n.]

      Bishop Westcott’s account of our Lord’s Resurrection Body is, according to these principles: “A marvellous change had passed over Him.  He was the same and yet different.  He was known only when He revealed Himself.  He conformed to the laws of our present life, and yet He was not subject to them.  These seeming contradictions were necessarily involved in the moral scope of the Resurrection.  Christ sought (if we may so speak) to impress on His disciples two great lessons: that He had raised man’s body from the grave, and that He had glorified it.  Nor can we conceive any way in which these truths could have been conveyed but by appearances at one time predominantly spiritual, at another predominantly material, though both were alike real.  For the same reason we may suppose that the Lord took up into His glorified Body the material elements of that human body which was laid in the grave, though, as we shall see, true personality lies in the preservation of the individual formula or law which rules the organization in each case, and not in the actual but ever-changing organization which may exist at any moment.  The resumption of the Crucified Body conveyed to ordinary minds a conception which could not otherwise easily be gained.”  “A little reflection will show that the special outward forms in which the Lord was pleased to make Himself sensibly recognizable by His disciples were no more necessarily connected with His glorified Person than the robes which He wore.” [Westcott, “Gosp. Resurr.” p. 109, note.]

      13. It is greatly to be wished that the doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body had been made the subject of a complete study by Dr. Moberly.  The manner in which he touched incidentally on the relation of the human body to the spirit only suggests how valuable a complete treatment would have been.

      Discussing the relation of inward and outward, Moberly wrote: “So with man, in the bodily life.  What is he?  It is the simple truth that he is flesh and blood.  It is also true that he is a spiritual being.  He is spirit, of spirit, by spirit, for spirit.  Even while the lesser and the lower continues true, the higher is the truer truth.  That man is spirit, is a deeper, more inclusive, more permanent, truer truth than that man is body.  In comparison with this truth, the truth that he is body (though true) is as an untruth.  It is a downright untruth, whenever or wherever, in greater measure or less, it is taken as contradicting, or impairing, or obscuring the truth that he is spirit.  Thus S. Paul does not hesitate roundly to deny the truth of it – ‘Ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the spirit of God dwelleth in you’ – denying it, of course, in the context of his thought, with absolute truth; even though the proposition that the Roman converts were in the flesh might seem to be, in itself, one of the most undeniable of propositions.  Of course this is an inversion of the verdict of natural sense.  If natural sense would say, Man’s bodiliness is the fundamental certainty, man’s spirituality is only more or less probable; there is another point of view to which man’s spirituality is so the one over-mastering truth, that even his bodily existence is only a truth so far as it is an incident, or condition, or expression, of his spiritual being.  As method of spirit, it is true, and its truth is just this – to be method or channel of spirit.

      “Such is the case of the individual man ; he is obviously bodily, he is transcendently spiritual.  His bodily life is no mere type, or representation of his spiritual; it is spiritual life, expanding, controlling, developing under bodily conditions.  The real meaning of the bodily life is its spiritual meaning.  The body is spiritual.

      “And conversely, the spiritual is bodily.  Even when he is recognized as essentially spiritual, yet his spiritual being has no avenue, no expression, no method, other than the bodily; insomuch that, if he is not spiritual in and through the body, he cannot he spiritual at all.  Is he then bodily or spiritual?  He is both: and yet not separately, nor yet equally both.  If his bodily being seems to be the primary truth, yet, on experience, the truth of his spiritual being is so absorbing, so inclusive, that his bodily being is but vehicle, is but utterance, of the spiritual; and the ultimate reality even of his bodily being is only what it is spiritually.  He is body, indeed, and is spirit.  Yet this is not a permanent dualism, not a rivalry of two ultimate truths, balanced over against one another, while remaining in themselves unrelated.  More exactly, he is spirit, in and through body.” [Moberly, “Ministerial Priesthood”, p. 40.]

      “A human body is the necessary – is the only – method and condition on earth of spiritual personality.  It is capable, indeed, of expressing spirit very badly; it is capable of belying it; indeed, it is hardly capable of expressing it quite perfectly; it is, in fact, almost always falling short of at least the ideal expression of it.  And yet body is the only method of spiritual life; even as things are, spirit is the true meaning of bodily life; and bodies are really vehicles and expressions of spirit; whilst the perfect ideal would certainly be, not spirit without body, but body which was the ideally perfect utterance of spirit.” [Moberly, “Problems and Principles”, p. 358.]

      14. Latham, in his book “The Risen Master”, followed on Dr. Westcott’s lines in his teaching on the Resurrection Body.  “What the Resurrection Body actually was the Apostles probably could not know – but there are two things, either of which they might think it to be, which it was not – and, inasmuch as if they adopted one of these wrong suppositions, practical mischief would ensue, our Lord takes measures to put these errors out of their way.  One error was ... the supposition that the Lord had resumed His old body, and that its vital functions went on as before.  If this had been so, the Resurrection would have conveyed no revelation to men.  But this error was precluded as regards the apostles, without the Lord Himself saying a word on the matter merely by what Peter and John ‘saw and believed’ and reported to the other nine.  The other error was that of supposing that the apparent body was not Christ Himself but a phantom.  From this view immediate mischief would have come, for beholders would have been too terrified to recollect properly what they heard or saw.  Against this error accordingly our Lord anxiously guards the apostles, by words and actions of His own.” [Latham, “The Risen Master”, p. 71.] ....

      “He dispels their terrors by enabling them to grasp Him with their hands, to feel His body as well as to hear Him and to see Him.  ‘A spirit,’ said our Lord, ‘has not flesh and bones as ye see Me have.’  Here we come on a question which is altogether beyond us.  What connection was there between the body that disappeared from the tomb and the body that the disciples were invited to handle?  This I believe we cannot understand till we get out of the body ourselves.” [Ib. p. 73.]

      15. Bishop Gore, in his lectures on the Body of Christ, gives the following account of the spiritual Body: “The risen Body of Christ was spiritual ... not because it was less than before material, but because in it matter was wholly and finally subjugated to spirit, and not to the exigencies of physical life.  Matter no longer restricted Him or hindered.  It had become the pure and transparent vehicle of spiritual purpose.  He rose from the dead (as is apparently implied in the narrative of S. Matthew), leaving the gravestone undisturbed.  The angel rolled it away to show that He was risen.

      “Now from the physical point of view, such spiritualization of matter, as is involved in this conception of a spiritual body, is becoming perhaps, I will not say more imaginable, but more and more conceivable; less out of analogy with our ultimate conceptions of matter.  But the important point to notice is that the spirituality of the risen Body of Christ lies not so much in any physical qualities as in the fact that His material presence is absolutely controlled by His spiritual will.  The disciples, for example, could no longer argue with any approach to security that He was where they had last seen Him, until they had evidence that He had left that spot.  All such subservience to conditions of space was over for ever.  His manifestations were manifestations to special persons – i.e. those whose faith He willed to rekindle – under special forms for special purposes.” [Bishop Gore, “Body of Christ”, p. 129.]

      This outline of English post-Reformation thought shows an increasing influence of the great philosophical school.  Origen is recognized to have seen deeper into ultimate realities, into the problem of identity, than Tertullian or even Augustine.  The matter-of-fact materialistic view is being exchanged for a philosophical conception of the Risen state.  The great Alexandrian teacher is on this doctrine in harmony with the best tendencies of modern thought.

 

Chapter  XXVIII – Modern Roman Teaching on the Resurrection Body

      It is necessary for the completion of our subject to give an outline of the present day teaching given by Roman Catholic theologians on the nature of the Resurrection Body.  The literature is large.  It will be sufficient to select some of the chief representatives.  We therefore take the following: Perrone, Janssens, Wilhelm and Scannell, Scheeben, Hurter, and Heinrich.  It may be well to point out the wide distribution of these writers.  Perrone taught in Rome, Janssens is a monk of Maredsous, Wilhelm and Scannell are for English members of the Roman Church, Scheeben, Hurter and Heinrich are authorities in Germany.

      1. Perrone’s treatment of the subject is important from the position which he held as professor in the Jesuit College in Rome.  In 1877 his “Praelectiοnes” [Nine volumes.] appeared in their thirty-second edition.  The treatment is curious.  The Resurrection of Christ is considered in the Treatise on True Religion. [Vol. i. p. 70.]  It is dealt with there exclusively on its evidential side.  It is regarded as the chief proof of our Lord’s Divine mission.  The difficulties of the evidence are discussed much on the assumptions of the eighteenth century.  The general atmosphere is that of Sherlock’s “Trial of the Witnesses,” of Bergier’s “Theological Dictionary,” of Gilbert West and of Ditton. [All these are appealed to, p. 87.]

      But the doctrine of the Resurrection is not discussed.  The dogmatic significance of Christ’s Resurrection is merged in the doctrine of His priesthood. [Vol. vi. 196.]  His Resurrection disappears under a discussion of His priestly work.  Thus the Pauline inferences from the Resurrection are ignored.  And the whole proportion is singularly different from that of the New Testament.  Christ’s Resurrection does not occupy in the theology of Perrone the place which it occupies in that of S. Paul.  However, in the Treatise on God the Creator, [Vol. v. 272.] the subject is resumed in the aspect of eschatology, and a discussion is given on the future Resurrection Body.  The theory here maintained is that “we shall rise with that physical identity of body which we possessed when we departed from this life; so that we shall all resume the same body physically which we lost by death.  For this purpose, however, it is not necessary that God shall restore all and each particle, or molecule, of matter which constituted our body: it is sufficient to maintain its identity that God shall raise that which constitutes an essential part of our bodies; that by which one body is differentiated from another, and is made the property of the individual.” [v. 273.]

      The characteristics of the risen body, according to Perrone, will be impassibility, glory, agility, subtlety; “but not, as some have imagined, intangibility or invisibility.”  That was the mistake of the Patriarch Eutychius, who, however, recanted his error before he died.  Thus we witness still the dominance of the Latin view.  There is no real discussion of the Greek theology.  Tertullian is the chief authority.  The “flesh and blood” which “cannot inherit” means carnal works. [p. 280.]  The problem presented to the materialistic view by cannibalism and assimilation of human bodies into other organisms is met precisely as Augustine met it fifteen hundred years before in his less philosophic moods; by the assertion that sufficient material would still remain to constitute a body; that particles must revert to their original proprietor [“restituentur illis ad quos spectabant,” p. 289.]; and that in all probability resurrection bodies do not require so large a mass of material as mortal and passible bodies do.

      2. The Theological Treatises of Janssens [Summa Theologicsa.  Auctore Laurentio Janssens.  5 vols. 1901.] belong to the opening of the twentieth century.  They are published with the approval of Leo XIII.  The work is really an adaptation of S. Thomas to modern needs.  Accordingly we have the advantage of a much completer theology of the Resurrection than that of Perrone, although strictly on the scholastic scheme of the older writer, even including a reverential adherence to his sub-divisions.  On the other hand, Strauss is criticized.

      The Body of Christ, says Janssens, arose in its integrity.  The question is, how is that perfection consistent with the retention of the scars of the Passion?  Janssens replies that, abstractly considered, scars detract from the perfection of the body, yet in the case of Christ they possess the glory of merit, and so increase the perfection of the risen body. [Vol. v. pt. 2. p. 903.]

      If, says Janssens, not a hair of our head shall perish, the inference is that the Almighty bestowed especial attention to the work of restoring the sacred body of Jesus Christ.  Indeed, Janssens holds it to be a pious belief that the angels reverently gathered up the blood shed during the Passion, as well as the fragments of the flesh or hairs torn by the violence of the executioners. [Ib. p. 904.]  It can scarcely be said that this line of thought contains an adequate refutation of Strauss.

      3. In Wilhelm and Scannell’s “Manual of Catholic Theology”, [2 vols.  1898.] which is based on the vast four volume work of the German Scheeben, the doctrine of the Resurrection of Christ occupies a single page. [Vol. 2, p. 179.]  Consequently no attempt is made to deal with the Scriptural doctrine.  There is an obvious disproportion.  Extreme unction, for example, occupies nine pages. [ii. 485–493.] On the other hand, the Resurrection of the Body is discussed in six pages. [pp. 535–541.]  But since the doctrine of our Lord’s Resurrection and its nature have not been proportionately treated, it is not surprising that the doctrine of the Resurrection of Christians is lacking in its real foundation.

      The usual four characteristics of impassibility, brightness, [p. 539.] agility, spirituality [p. 540.] are ascribed to the Resurrection Body.  By spirituality is understood an endowment “by means of which the body becomes so completely subject to the soul, and participates to such an extent in the soul’s more perfect and purer life, that it becomes itself like to a spirit....  This quality is generally explained in the special sense of subtlety or penetrability, that is, of being able to pass through material objects, just as our Lord’s risen body did.” [p. 540.]

      Most important is the statement of the problem how bodily identity is preserved – “That we shall all rise again with the same bodies is of the very essence of the doctrine... . Nevertheless, the particles of the body are continually passing away, and being replaced by others; and the particles of one human body may enter into the composition of other human bodies.  We must not, therefore, press too far the material identity of the earthly and the risen body.  Some theologians, following S. Augustine, have thought it sufficient if any of the particles which at any time formed part of the earthly body are preserved.  Others have not required even so much as this.  We cannot here enter into the discussion.” [Ib. p. 541.]

      4. Scheeben himself taught that the future human body is not only essentially or specifically, but also individually or numerically the same as that which men now possess. [Vol. iv. p. 916.]  The essential and individual identity is involved in the very idea of Resurrection, it is at least implicit in the Conception.  Scheeben held that Scripture and Tradition alike require it.  But his treatment of Scripture is not critical.  Job is his first authority.  The Fathers are affirmed to have taught from the beginning the numerical identity of the earthly and the risen body. [p. 917.]

      As to the actual nature of this identity Scheeben held that the Church had not defined.  But there are theological inferences which appear to be logically involved.  That which constitutes the form or inner principle of the body is the soul.  The body only subsists through the soul.  It is therefore the same soul which will constitute the inner principle of the Resurrection Body.  This may be described as the formal identity of the body which is to be.  Scheeben is very near in this thought to the fundamental conception of Origen: that the identity of the Resurrection Body is to be sought in the soul.  Scheeben however rapidly drops this thought, and asserts that the human body, in itself and as part of the substance of man, is composed of chemical particles or elements, or molecules; and infers that this same chemical material is necessary to constitute the identity of the Resurrection Body.  This is the natural identity, just as the soul is the formal identity.

      In Scheeben’s opinion Origen was the first to maintain only the formal identity to the exclusion of the material identity.

      Scheeben, however, proceeds to add that the material identity between the body which dies and that which rises is not to be taken in an absolute sense but only in a relative: for bodily identity is maintained even in the present life amid incessant alteration of material. [p. 918.]  Whether this identity is maintained in spite of total exchange of its constituent elements he appears to leave undecided.  He curiously suggests that human origins imply that the sum total of a material requisite for the building up of a human body is but small. [p. 919.]

      It is evident that Scheeben’s entire discussion is founded on materialistic presuppositions.  The Augustinian theory that elements misappropriated by cannibalism must revert to their original proprietor seems to be regarded by Scheeben as a satisfactory solution of the problem. [p. 920.]

      On the other hand he maintains the qualitative superiority of the future body.  Yet he asserts that the Resurrection Body will be a true organized human body, possessing the same appearance as in the present life, and endowed with the same parts, members and organs which constitute its natural properties.  Its superiority will chiefly consist in the fact that other bodies will present no obstruction to its progress. [p. 923.]

      5. Hurter’s ‘Compendium of Dogmatic Theology’ [3 vols.  1885.  Fifth Edition.] is one of the best known manuals for the use of Roman seminaries.  The thesis here maintained is that all men shall rise with the selfsame bodies which they carried while they lived on earth.  The method by which this thesis is confirmed is characteristic.  First, it is rested on the authority of the Church in the Creeds and Councils. [p. 601.]  Secondly, on the statements of Job, S. Paul, and the Maccabees. [p. 603.]  Thirdly, on the teaching of the Fathers, chiefly of Tertullian.

      Hurter affirms that if it is the Divine Will to restore the human body, the elements which constitute its identity will be providentially secured from becoming part of the property of some other body. [p. 604.]  The necessity, however, of retention of all the elements is not maintained.  And Omnipotence can supplement deficiencies without destroying identity.  Here again Augustine in his least spiritual moods is regarded as having spoken the last word upon the subject. [p. 604.]

      6. One of the completest dogmatic expositions of the subject by a modern Roman writer will be found in the “Dogmatical Theology” of Heinrich, Professor in the Seminary at Μaintz. [“Dogmatische Theologie” von Dr. Heinrich.  Ed. by Gutberlet.  10 vols.  1904.]

      Starting from the axiom that the identity of the Resurrection Body with the earthly body is implied in the very idea of Resurrection, [Vol. x. p. 852.] he proceeds at once to found his doctrine on Tertullian’s inference; “therefore the flesh shall rise again, the entire flesh, the same flesh, and in its integrity.” [“de Resurr. Carnis,” ch. lxiii.]  According to Heinrich the idea of Resurrection precludes both the substitution of some heavenly material or indeed of some earthly material in the future body in place of the existing frame.  The patriarch Eutychius is once more adduced as an illustration of heresy abandoned on the bed of death. [p. 855.]  The Resurrection requires a twofold identity: identity of the material elements; identity of the constitutive principle; that is material and formal identity.  The ordering and the distribution of the parts into stature, size, structure, and members, is the consequence of formal identity.  And since this form-giving element holds the predominating place in the constitution of the body, many have believed that all that is necessary to secure identity in the future state is the retention of appearance, stature, and order of the members.  Others believe that identity consists in the constitutive principle.  Heinrich himself does not maintain the latter view. [p. 857.]  The problems created by assimilation of human bodies into other animal constitutions is answered by Heinrich, partly by an appeal to omniscience and omnipotence, and partly by Augustine’s principle, approved by S. Thomas, that the elements must revert to their original proprietor. [p. 859.]  Heinrich thinks that further light is thrown upon the problem by the reflection that cannibals did not subsist exclusively and for generations upon human flesh. [p. 860.]  The difficulties are caused by too restricted a conception of identity.  There is no necessity for a restoration of all the particles.  The conception of identity only requires the restoration of all substance which belongs to the truth of human nature.  Essentially, generally, and broadly, there must be the same material, above all, the same formal principle.  Distribution of the members, appearance, flesh, bones, nerves, veins, muscles, must be substantially the same, however glorified; but there is no necessity for the complete restoration of all the substance. [p. 861.]

      Heinrich is then confronted with the question, What about blood?  He is perplexed between a desire to refine, and the reflection that complete withdrawal of blood from the brain produces insensibility.  He holds that the physical organs of self-maintenance will be retained, although their functions will cease. [p. 863.]  This he considers confirmed by the existence of functionless organs in the present frame.  Organs may exist for beauty, if not for use.

      Thus Heinrich reproduces the theology of the Middle Ages.  He does little more than translate and expand S. Thomas.  The physical conceptions of the twelfth century are still assumed to be those of the twentieth.  Except for an occasional modern name, chiefly mentioned to be set aside, we need scarcely be aware that thought had moved since the Scholastic period.  No breath of modernity has ruffled the lecture room at Maintz.  There seems no consciousness of the effect of these theories on the outer world, or whether they touch the problems of modern thought.

      Of the modern Roman discussions of the Resurrection state it appears true to say that they are almost entirely restricted to the Latin School.  The real value of the Greek theology does not seem understood.  The discussions rest more on the Resurrection of Christ as reported in the Gospels than on the doctrine as given by S. Paul.  The treatment is far stronger in its knowledge of tradition than in its appreciation of S. Paul.  The treatment of Scripture is constantly uncritical.  Thus Job, S. Paul, and the Maccabees are discussed in this order as evidence for the nature of the Resurrection Body.  The really dominating personality is Tertullian.  There is serious absence of philosophical inquiry, of appreciation of the real drift of the school of Origen.

 

Chapter  ΧΧΙΧ – Conclusions on the Doctrine of the Resurrection Body

      All the history of belief in the doctrine of the Resurrection Body shows the existence of two opposing schools, the materialistic and the philosophic: the one traced ultimately to the Evangelists and their reports of the Risen Body of Christ; the other to S. Paul and his conception of the spiritual body.  The former lays all the stress on the solidity and tangibility of the Lord’s Risen Body, and may be said to concentrate itself on the phrase “flesh and bones, as ye see Me have”; the other lays all the stress on the differences, and ethereality, and unearthliness of the spiritual body, and may be said to concentrate itself on the phrase, “flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God.”

      Since the origin of these two schools is thus distinctly traceable to a Scriptural diversity, it is natural for criticism to suggest that the Evangelistic and the Pauline accounts are not to be reconciled; that they are in fact alternative versions, and that the modern mind must therefore make its choice between them.

      Now, that the differences between the more materialistic aspect of the Evangelist’s account of the Lord’s Risen Body and the spiritual body of S. Paul’s doctrine is very great is undeniable.  The question is, Can they be reconciled?

      The longer one thinks upon this whole question the clearer it becomes that no man approaches it without presuppositions as to the nature of body, and that it must make all the difference what those presuppositions are.  Our summary of the history of belief in the Resurrection of the Body has forced us to see that the statements made, and the theories maintained, have constantly depended on the maintainer’s conception of what constitutes body and what constitutes identity: that is to say, on the philosophic outlook of the individual theorizer.  It is impossible for any man to approach this discussion with his mind a perfect blank.  Approach it with presuppositions he must.  The essential thing is that he should be conscious that this is so; and that his presuppositions should be at least in accordance with the best knowledge of his time.  We have only to recall, by way of illustration, the presuppositions prevalent in the eighteenth century as to identity consisting in the same individual particles of matter, to realize how greatly the conclusions were influenced by such contemporary ideas.

      Our duty therefore seems to be to inquire of the best learning of our time, What is Body?  We can scarcely do better than take again Moberly’s explanation already quoted: “A human body is the necessary – is the only – method and condition, on earth, of spiritual personality.  It is capable, indeed, of expressing spirit very badly; it is capable of belying it; indeed, it is hardly capable of expressing it quite perfectly; it is, in fact, almost always falling short of at least the ideal expression of it.  And yet body is the only method of spiritual life; even as things are, spirit is the true meaning of bodily life; and bodies are really vehicles and expressions of spirit; whilst the perfect ideal would certainly be, not spirit without body, but body which was the ideally perfect utterance of spirit.” [Moberly, “Problems and Principles,” p. 358.]

      Body, then, is a form of self-expression; an instrument for the manifestation of spirit.  Now, as Origen taught, the instrument of self-manifestation must agree with the environment in which the manifestation is to be made.  Body, as we possess it now, relates the spirit to terrestrial conditions.  The serviceableness of the present body consists in its harmony with those conditions.  It is constructed relatively to given surroundings.  All the senses owe their value to their correspondence with environment.  Unless the spirit adopts an organism appropriate to its surroundings life and manifestation become impossible.  Our existing body corresponds to a certain atmospheric condition, to a certain temperature, to the solidity of the earth.  Its entire system of maintenance, of movement, of sensation, has its meaning and purpose as related to surroundings such as now exist.

      Now it is certainly no untrue disparagement of the existing human body, admirable and wonderful as it is, to say with Moberly that “it is capable of expressing spirit very badly”; that “it is hardly capable of expressing it quite properly”; that “it is, in fact, almost always falling short of at least the ideal expression of it.”  This is only to say in other words what was said in the book of Wisdom, that “the corruptible body presseth down the soul, and the earthly tabernacle weigheth down the mind that museth upon many things.” [Wisdom,’ 9:15.]  The limitations to the body as an instrument for the expression of spirit are speedily reached in many directions.  Body is not under the complete control of spirit.  As nature conceals God more than it reveals Him so the human body conceals spirit more than it reveals it.  This cannot be the ultimate condition.  As Dorner says, “Since matter originates with God and is correlated with spirit by creation, a more effectual penetration by soul or spirit through union with spirit must be possible, instead of its present imperfect penetration by spirit.” [“System of Christian Doctrine,” iv. 134.]

      This idea of the perfect penetration of matter by spirit throws great light on the doctrine of Resurrection.

      Man, as writers already mentioned have constantly reminded us, is not soul without body: but soul and body combined.  If on the one side “his bodily being is but the vehicle, is but the utterance of the spiritual,” [Moberly, “Ministerial Priesthood,” p. 40.] a yet on the other “his spiritual being has no avenue, no expression, no method, other than the bodily.” [Moberly, ib.]  And this blending of spirit and body in unity cannot be temporary, but is rather an essential characteristic of man.  Thus as Moberly puts it  “the perfect ideal would certainly be, not spirit without body, but body which was the ideally perfect utterance of spirit.” [“Problems and Principles,” p. 358.]  Accordingly body will exist in the future state: but body which furnishes a perfect instrument to spirit.  The body of the future life must be conceived as in no sense limiting the activities and manifestations of spirit.  It must be a body which will not “press down the soul,” or “weigh down the mind that museth upon many things.”  It must be body “become the pure and transparent vehicle of spiritual purpose.” [Bishop Gore, “Body of Christ,” p. 227.]

      But we may see a little further than this.  The value of body as an organ of spirit consists in its correspondence with environment.  There must be “adaptability to the surrounding element in which it exists.” [Goulburn.]  As Origen said, if we were destined to live in water we must assume bodies like those of fish.  The serviceableness of the present human body consists in its harmony with terrestrial conditions.  The human body is adapted for life on earth : and for that purpose it is admirably adapted.  But it could not live in the moon or in the sun.  Raise or depress the temperature beyond a certain limit, and in either case the correspondence of the body with its environment ceases.  The transference of the existing human organized frame to other and non-terrestrial conditions is inconceivable.  The solidity of the present body, the whole structure, the organs of maintenance, constructed for assimilation of food, are not only meaningless but absolutely impossible for transference to non-terrestrial conditions.  S. Paul’s words are sufficiently decisive of the change which he conceived to have passed over the solidity of the existing frame: “then we that are alive, and are left, shall together with them be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” [1 Thess. 4:17.]  That implies total disappearance of all the normal characteristics of the earthly body of man.  The human senses, as they now exist, are all differentiations of the sense of touch; they all require corresponding external conditions to render them available; they cannot any one of them avail as instruments of spirit except in such an atmosphere as that which surrounds the earth.  This means that the entire system of sensation is merely terrestrial, and must disappear, and be replaced by methods of self-expression adapted to non-terrestrial conditions.  A large number of the writers already quoted, from Origen downwards, agree in emphasizing this.  “Here,” said Origen, “we see with eyes, act with hands, walk with feet.  But in that spiritual body we shall be all sight, all hearing, all activity.”  So Burnet taught that the Resurrection Body will be “inorganical”; that is, relatively to the existing constitution.  The organs of nutrition and of movement will have passed away.  With this may be compared the statement of Reville: “Le corps humain, tel qu’il est cοnstitué organiquement, ne se prête pas à d’autres conditions de vie que celles qui résultent de la nature de ses organes et des lois qui régissent l’existence terrestre.  Il ne peut se passer ni d’air, ni d’alimentation, ni d’un milieu en rapport avec son organisation physique et chimigue.” [Reville, “Jesus de Nazareth, Etudes critiques,” ii. 454.]

      The idea of the retention of existing organs in a future life without their use, urged over and over again by the materialistic Latin school and their successors, is not only a hopeless suggestion, but it fails to realize that the entire animal constitution cannot exist outside a certain earthly environment.  The materialistic theory cannot explain the rationale of the retention of physical organs after their functions have ceased.  No really modern mind would be persuaded by Tertullian’s reply, that they will be wanted for judgment; or that the mouth not necessary for food may still be required for language and for praise.  To carry consistently out the conception of life under non-terrestrial conditions is to realize that no animal mouth and tongue can be transferred to it, that human languages and sounds of human voices must be exchanged for nobler, if to us partly inconceivable, methods of intercommunication.  Many are the languages of mortals, the language of the immortals is but one, and it is not expressed in symbols of earthly sound.

      And carrying the conception out to its full results, life under non-terrestrial conditions must mean that the whole existing outline and form of man will disappear.  The thought, widely prevalent, that the form will survive while the organs of the same body are changed, cannot be consistently maintained.  Outward and inward cannot in this way be divorced.  The outer form is determined by the inward organization.  The structure disappears: the outline cannot remain.

      Is this Body of the Resurrection material?  Surely the answer must be, Yes.  The spirit is not furnished with a body entirely new, and unconnected with the old.  What Goulburn calls “the essential basis” of the present organization forms the substance out of which the future body is developed.  This is what Origen taught. “The matter which underlies bodies is capable of receiving those qualities which the Creator pleases to bestow.”  Not only is the Resurrection Body material, indeed only so can we form any conception of body at all, but it is derived substantially from the body which dies.  And it is this which constitutes its identity, and justifies the very term Resurrection.

      II.  It will undoubtedly be felt that the conception of the Resurrection Body just given may be that which S. Paul suggests when he spoke of the spiritual body: but it will also be objected that it cannot be reconciled with the reports of the Evangelists.

      The Evangelists describe the reappearances of the body which had been crucified, and which died, and was buried; and which, however endowed with new faculties, and recognizable with difficulty at times, still bore upon it the marks of the wounds received during the Passion; was capable of test by the senses of sight and touch; and above all is expressly declared by our Lord Himself to consist of “flesh and bones”.

      Criticism therefore asks, How is it possible to reconcile this conception of the Resurrection Body with that of S. Paul?  While it is true that the Evangelists report something very different from a mere resuscitation of the buried corpse, while their teaching is marked by conspicuous originality, being neither the conception of the Jewish Pharisee nor that of the Greek believer in the immortality of the soul, occupying indeed a place between the two; yet, allowing for all this, the difficulty still remains that the report of the Evangelists presents characteristics exactly opposed to S. Paul’s doctrine of the spiritual body.

      Now, if both the Evangelists and S. Paul are describing the normal conditions of Resurrection Life, it will probably not be possible to achieve their reconciliation.  It may be said that “flesh and bones” are not the same as “flesh and blood”; and the endeavour may be made to extort a metaphorical meaning from the latter phrase: but this is only done by interpolating a moral metaphor into the midst of a physical discussion on the body, where it is wholly inappropriate.  And, in any case, no reader of S. Paul’s doctrine of the spiritual body, if ignorant of the Evangelists’ report, could ever have drawn from it the idea that the Resurrection Body included solid flesh and bones.  If a reconciliation between S. Paul and the Evangelists is to be found it must be sought elsewhere.

      Now, what is obvious is that the Evangelists are reporting the occasional Appearances of our Lord’s risen Body within the sphere of terrestrial manifestations.  They are concerned exclusively with what was seen and touched during the great Forty Days.  And the question to be considered is, What relation do those Appearances bear to the normal Resurrection state?  They are all of them a temporary return of the risen Lord into earthly conditions; conditions, that is to say, in which He could be seen and heard by men leading the ordinary earthly life.  Is it necessary to assume that the characteristics of the Appearances during the period of forty days are essential and permanent qualities of the Resurrection state?  Or are they economic, evidential, assumed for a definite purpose and a limited time : the necessary conditions of communicating with men on earth, not the essential characteristics of the spiritual body?  Upon the answer given to this question the reconciliation of S. Paul with the Evangelists depends.  A study of the historical discussions on this doctrine has shown us beyond all dispute that the reason why Christians have differed so greatly on the Resurrection Body is that they have differed in their interpretations of the Evangelists’ reports.  One school has understood the whole of the Appearances to be purely evidential and economic: the other school has viewed them as an actual account of the eternal resurrection condition.  Now the importance of this diverse interpretation is exceedingly great.  To interpret the Appearances of our Lord as revealing to us that the future body will consist of flesh and bones is to make the Evangelists contradict S. Paul.  But is it necessary?  Very striking utterances have reached us from various older writers protesting against any such necessity.  According to Locke, the marks of the wounds were evidential.  According to Bishop Horsley, Jesus, after the Resurrection, “was no longer in a state to be naturally visible to any man.”  According to Professor Bush, there was a “miraculous adaptation of the visible phenomena to the outward senses of the disciples.”  According to Bishop Westcott, “a little reflection will show that the special outward forms in which the Lord was pleased to make Himself sensibly recognizable by His disciples were no more necessarily connected with His glorified Person than the robes which He wore.”

      These statements, which might easily be multiplied, are after all only repetitions of the Greek school in the primitive Church.  S. Chrysostom said that if asked how an incorruptible body showed the prints of the nails, and was tangible by a mortal hand, the answer was “what took place was a matter of condescension.”  The Resurrection Body was “free from all density.”

      The Evangelists themselves report that our Lord after the Resurrection was normally invisible.  As Bishop Horsley put it: “He lived not with them in familiar habits.  His time, for the forty days preceding His ascension, was not spent in their society.  They knew not His goings out and comings in.  Where He lodged on the evening of His Resurrection, after His visit to the apostles, we read not; nor were the apostles themselves better informed than we.” [“Nine Sermons”, p. 206.]  In other words He had entered into life under heavenly conditions, His Resurrection Body was normally unascertainable by any human being living under earthly conditions.  But in that glorified Body the penetration of matter by spirit was so complete that He could at will re-enter into terrestrial conditions, and become perceptible to the senses of human beings on earth.  It may be that such power is no unique prerogative of His Divinity, but part of the normal endowment of every perfected human individual.  We cannot tell.  At any rate this glorified human body, habitually dwelling in non-terrestrial conditions, temporarily reassumes the human outline, and solid frame, and former appearance, and marks of the wounds, for evidential and instructive purposes.

      But all this is condescension, and adaptation to the disciples’ needs.  Without it they could scarcely have been convinced.  It showed identity with His earthly past, rather than revealed the heavenly state.  Indeed solidity of flesh and bones can tell us nothing of a life essentially different from our own.  So far as these manifestations suggest the “spiritual body” at all, it is in the unearthly entrance and disappearance; in the difficulties of recognition; in the impossibility of going after Him and of finding Him; and not in the indications of physical identity, or in the solid flesh and bones.

      To some this conception of solid frame and flesh and bones as temporarily existing in the Resurrection Body for evidential purposes appears theatrical and deceptive.  We have been accustomed to sing the words:

                  “Those dear tokens of His Passion

                  Still His glorious Body bears.”

To regard the marks or the wounds as merely assumed during the occasional Appearances seems fictitious and inseparable from unreality.

      But this objection would be valid against every external form of supernatural communication with men.  It would tell against the form of a dove at Christ’s baptism, as not being that of the Holy Spirit; and against the words spoken to Saul of Tarsus in the Hebrew language – “Why persecutest thou Me,” as not being the language of Heaven.  If the perfected human body, which cannot in its normal state be detected by earthly senses, is to come within the reach of men on earth, it must adjust itself to their conditions.  It is not that another body is created for each manifestation, but that the one same glorified body is made instrumental in such a form that earthly mortals are enabled to discern it.  Either this condition must be complied with, or else no manifestation can be made.

      Indeed the same objection might be raised against the usual explanation of the Risen Lord’s reception of food.  Was this reception for the purpose of maintaining physical life?  The immediate answer is no.  It was exclusively for the purpose of proving His identity, and the reality of His human nature.  Was this theatrical, delusive, deceptive?  It will be generally answered no.  It was required by the state of the disciples’ mind.  But if such condescension to human needs for evidential purposes was permissible, so is the whole assumption of corporeity equally permissible.  If S. Clement of Alexandria was justified in saying “He did not eat for the sake of His body, but for their sakes with whom He conversed,” such action is identical in principle with the assumption also of the marks of the wounds.

      III.  Here, then, as we believe, the reconciliation between S. Paul and the Evangelists becomes perfectly simple.  It lies in the sphere with which each is dealing.  The Evangelists are historians.  They describe the re-entrance of the glorified Body of Christ into terrestrial conditions, effected for the purpose of convincing His apostles of His Resurrection, and of giving them instructions and commissions.  They do not attempt to go behind the occurrences into the speculative and theological problems which these occurrences create.  S. Paul on the other hand is the theologian.  He is not concerned so much with the occasional manifestations as with the essential condition of the Body of Christ in the risen state.  Accordingly it is not in the Evangelists but in S. Paul that we find the profounder teaching, whether as to the Resurrection of Christ or of that of Christians.  It will be entirely misleading to make inferences from the Evangelical reports as to the real condition of the body of man in the future life.  If this principle had been followed in the course of the history of doctrine the effect on human belief would have been simply incalculable.  Christendom would have been spared the gross materialism of the Latin School, and the unhappy exegesis which explained away S. Paul’s “flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God,” thereby forcing it into unnatural harmony with the words of Christ, “flesh and bones as ye see Me have”; the latter being mistakenly supposed to describe the spiritual body’s normal state.  Christendom would have been spared also those conceptions, gross and animal, which have been the despair of philosophic minds, and have certainly made belief very difficult for them, and have probably by reaction induced men to take refuge in the survival of the soul alone as a reasonable alternative and a positive relief.  It is not, we think, too much to say that the mistaken interpretation of the Evangelists’ reports, and especially of the Lucan narrative, accounts for much repugnance to the Christian truth.  To be subjected to the teaching of a Tertullian or of a Jerome on the Resurrection of the Body must have tended to keep thoughtful contemporaries outside the Christian Church.  And the powerful Latin tradition has largely affected, as we have seen, the course of English post-Reformation ideas.  A study of the history of the doctrine shows that the Greek philosophic school has held its place in English thought, and has of recent years risen more and more into a dominant position, from which in all human probability it is not likely to be dislodged.  But it is undeniable that great confusion, largely the result of eighteenth century traditions, still prevails in popular thought.  While it nay be true that the crude realism of the Latin School has protected a truth through centuries incompetent to grasp it in a purer form; at any rate it complicates the situation today. “I often regret,” wrote Max Müller, “that the Jews buried, and did not burn their dead, for in that case the Christian idea of the Resurrection would have remained far more spiritual.” [“Biographical Essays”, p. 140.]  It is difficult not to see more than enough in Christian schools of teaching on the subject to account for such an utterance.  But the fault must be laid to the charge of imperfect Christian teachers, and not to the method of the committal of our Lord’s body to the ground.  If the Body of Christ had been cremated, His Resurrection Appearances must have assumed much the same characteristics of physical identity as those which the Evangelists report.  The spiritual theory of Resurrection is as definitely taught within the New Testament as it could be under any conceivable conditions.  All that is wanted is for Christian exegesis to utilize the data therein bestowed.  No doctrine of Bodily Resurrection can be more spiritual than that of S. Paul.  The solution of all the difficulty lies in recognizing that the Evangelists describe the terrestrial occurrences, while S. Paul discusses the essential nature of the Risen Body.  If this recognition were to prevail the future history of the doctrine must become far more spiritual than the dominant Latin tradition has made it hitherto.

      This discussion on the nature of the Resurrection Body has its obvious bearing on the question of the empty grave.  If the resumption of the material particles which constitute our physical frame is no part of the doctrine of the Resurrection, then the inquiry meets us, What is the relation between the body which dies and the body which rises?  Is their coexistence conceivable?  Does the continuance of the physical corpse in the grave militate with belief in the reality of the body’s Resurrection?  If the Body of Jesus had been found in Joseph’s grave could His bodily Resurrection still be equally true?

      That it could be equally true seems undeniable.  The relation between the body dead and the body risen is not of such a kind as to require the absorption, disappearance, annihilation of the former.  When the Resurrection is understood in the Pauline sense of the spiritual body, the coexistence of the corpse and the Resurrection form of self-manifestation is quite conceivable.

      But it is clear that the credibility of this must depend on the accepted idea of Resurrection.  It by no means follows that primitive belief in Christ’s Resurrection would have been equally possible if His natural body had seen corruption.  If when S. Peter and S. John visited the grave on Easter Day the body had still been there, no belief in the Resurrection could have been created.  There was no philosophic conception of identity existing in the circle of Galilean discipleship.  There was no profound conception of the spiritual Body yet announced.  There was no possibility of evading the evidence of the senses by the evidence of the reason.  Even if, by an effort superhuman, the apostles could in spite of the piteous facts of dissolution have believed what their senses seemed to refute, the propagation of such a doctrine in spite of the existing corpse is absolutely inconceivable.  Just imagine the impression of the crowd at Whitsuntide if S. Peter had said, His body saw corruption: the remains lie there, in the gloom of Joseph’s sepulchre!  The empty grave was unquestionably indispensable for the disciples’ work and the disciples’ faith.

      And surely the empty grave has been a necessity to Christian faith from the apostolic age to the present time.  How could the truth have overcome the materialism of the middle ages without the Scripture statements, “He is not here, He is risen.”  “Come see the place where the Lord lay.”

      And that necessity still holds good.  However possible it might be for those who have grasped S. Paul’s conception of the spiritual body to contemplate undisturbed the body of Jesus in the sepulchre, this is not possible for the great majority of men even yet.  It may not be true that the Christian faith is founded on an empty grave: but it may yet he true that the empty grave is a necessary element in the confirmation and extension of faith.  It may yet be true that as a historic fact it has been evidentially necessary.

      A modern writer says: “The survival of Jesus, and with a body, as we understand that term, would have been to ourselves as credible even if the buried clay had mouldered in the death chamber.  But since we believe on the evidence that this did not happen, we suppose a withdrawal of it from the world of sensible things, which is no doubt a miraculous occurrence, in the same sense in which the creation of matter is miraculous.  It lies on us then to suggest a reason for this intrusion of the miraculous, or, we would rather say, the creative, and we find one, where we find the reason for the whole action described as the Forty Days.  The withdrawal of the body was a coherent and necessary detail in the Incarnation event which culminated in the Resurrection.  That the body should not moulder in the grave was an indispensable mental condition of men’s recognizing Christ’s Person as present to them: without it, they could not have effected on their part that vital relation to the Risen Master which we name the Appearing.  Just as the Body presented to their sight must wear the scars which all knew as marking it when laid in the tomb, so too it must not seem to be proved a delusion by men’s knowledge that the clay which died still lay there dead.  ‘Seem,’ I say, because the existence of it in the grave would not, for a modern, have proved the Appearances to be a delusion.  But for simple Galileans, or indeed for other and not simple men of that era, it would have made belief well nigh impossible.  This incident then is ... a part of the outward and visible sign of the whole Sacrament of Reconciliation.” [J. H. Skrine, “Contemporary Review”, 1904, p. 870.]

      Much of this statement we could cordially accept, only experience convinces us that the evidential necessity of the empty tomb is, as we have already urged, not confined to simple Galileans “nor to men of the apostolic age.  It would equally apply to a vast mass of mankind, the great majority, in every age, including the present.

      The more refined our conception of the Resurrection Body the more certainly we are confronted with the difficult problems of recognition in a future state.  For those who accepted a gross and materialistic view the question of recognition seemed comparatively simple.  Just as the Risen Lord was recognized by the scars and by His features and by His voice, so it was assumed that the future body would in outline and appearance closely resemble that which we now possess.  But when it is understood that the manifestations of the Risen Lord assumed a nature corresponding to the recipients’ terrestrial conditions, and do not really tell us anything of the spiritual body in its natural state; and when it is also understood that none of the present earthly organs can be transferred into non-terrestrial conditions : then the question, how shall we know each other again in a future world, becomes urgent.  There is no doubt that this spiritual theory of the Resurrection Body suggests to the unphilosophical mind a feeling that its reality is destroyed.  The comfortable sense of solidity is evaporated, and nothing of the former condition of things is left.  The difficulties of recognition seem intensified. It might be wisest to say that such a subject is purely speculative, that we have no knowledge of future conditions of body, and that it must be left to be solved by experience.  On the other hand, this problem of recognition tends to throw the popular mind back to materialistic and untenable ideas, which become in turn obstructions to faith.  For assuredly if belief in the Resurrection is to remain a permanent element in modern thought, it must rid itself of gross materialistic associations, and must assume a Pauline character.  After all, the problem of recognition is not created by S. Paul’s conception of the spiritual body.  It besets even the most materialistic view.  Rothe, for instance, asks how will a mother recognize her child who died in infancy, after a separation say of 30, 40, or 50 years?  Recognition certainly cannot be in that case by external resemblance.  If companionship in this life has been interrupted by distance for 20 years and then resumed, what is it which produces recognition?  Certainly not external resemblance.  The difference between the youth and the middle-aged is too great for that.  It is not physical recognition but mental.  The identity not detected at first becomes perfectly certain.  The developed and matured character is, at once, the same, and not the same.  It is in many ways exactly what we might have foreseen, had we been sufficiently gifted.  In other ways it surprises us.  But its identity is overwhelmingly clear.  Mutual intercourse is resumed on the basis of the earlier companionship, but as modified by the separate development.  It is suggested that this experience  in earthly life illustrates recognition hereafter.  Recognition hereafter must be greatly on the basis of spiritual affinity.  It must be recognition of the soul rather than of the exterior.

      Whatever be the value of such speculations, they are only referred to here to show that the problem of recognition need be no obstacle to a real and complete acceptance of S. Paul’s doctrine of the spiritual body.  It is suggested also that one of the tasks before the modern mind is to think persistently, and right through, the implications of this great doctrine of the Resurrection Body.

      It would seem that modern scientific writers who believe in man’s survival of physical death are quite prepared to maintain that the future life will not be a disembodied state.  Sir Oliver Lodge, for instance, while he complains, and surely with justice, of many crude and untenable forms in which Christians have expressed their creed, is nevertheless distinctly strong in his belief that body will be a permanent accompaniment of mind in a future state.  “It is plain,” he writes, [“Man and the Universe”, p. 277.] “that for our present mode of apprehending the universe a material vehicle is essential; ... A purely spiritual agency may be active – and the activity may be guessed at or inferred, and may be believed in – but the only evidence of its existence that can be allowed is the manifestation of that activity through matter.”  And he maintains that “this dependence of the spiritual on a vehicle for manifestation is not likely to be a purely temporary condition: it is probably a sign, or sample, of something which has an eternal significance – a presentation of some permanent truth.

      “That is certainly the working hypothesis which, until negatived, we ought to make.  Our senses limit us, but do not deceive us: so far as they go they tell us the truth.  I wish to proceed on that hypothesis.  To suppose that our experience of the necessary and fundamental connection between the two things – the something which we know as mind, and the something which is now represented by matter – has no counterpart or enlargement in the actual scheme of the universe, as it really exists, is needlessly to postulate confusion and instrumental deception.” [“Man and the Universe”, p. 279.]  “This probability, or possibility, may be regarded as the substantial basis of an orthodox Christian doctrine.  For ... Christianity emphasizes the material aspect of religion, and clearly supplements the mere survival of a discarnate spirit, a homeless wanderer, or melancholy ghost, with the warm and comfortable clothing of something that may legitimately be spoken of as “body”; that is to say, it postulates a normally invisible and intangible vehicle, or mode of manifestation, fitted to subserve the needs of future existence, as our present bodies subserve the needs of terrestrial life – an ethereal or other entity constituting the persistent ‘other aspect’, and fulfilling some of the functions which atoms of terrestrial matter are employed to fulfill now.” [Ibid. p. 280.]

      “Our argument throughout has been that, since our identity and personality in no way depend upon identity of material particles, and since our present body has been ‘composed’ by our characteristic element or soul, it is legitimate to suppose that some other ‘body’ can equally well be hereafter composed by the same agency; in other words, that the spirit will retain the power of constructing for itself a suitable vehicle of manifestation, which is the essential meaning of the term ‘body’.” [Ibid. p. 282.]

      The writer, indeed, goes on to propose that the ancient Christian language about Resurrection should be abolished, and new phrases invented to denote the changed idea.  The crude and popular idea of bodily resurrection should no longer be perpetuated merely by an ancient phrase.  “The phrase ‘resurrection of the body’ undoubtedly dates back to a period when it was thought that the residue laid in the grave would at some future signal be collected and resuscitated and raised in the air: and superstitions about missing fragments and about the permissibility of cremation, even to this day, are not extinct.  But all this is infantile, and has long been discarded by leaders of thought; and it were good if the phrases responsible for the misunderstanding could be amended also.” [Ibid. p. 284.]  Accordingly Sir Oliver Lodge proposes that the phrase “resurrection of the body” should be effaced.  The Nicene version of “resurrection of the dead” is also, he considers, open to objection: “for that which survives is just that which never was dead; it did not cease to be, and then arise to new life.” [Ibid. p. 285.]  And yet the author adds: “But God forbid that I should presume to pragmatize or dogmatize as to the language which ought to be employed.” [Ibid. p. 286.]  “The formula of centuries must be respected.”  Accordingly it must be explained.  “Perhaps the word ‘resurrection’ may be interpreted as meaning revival or survival.” [Ibid. p. 285.]

      These later suggestions appear far less happy than the earlier part of the essay.  Indeed the former seems to supply the answer to the latter.  For since our “identity ... in no way depends upon identity of material particles”; [Ibid. p. 282.] and the present body is not the same as that which we possessed some years ago; the question rises whether, strictly speaking, we can speak of the present body as having experienced what was really experienced in the body possessed some years ago?  After all, what constitutes identity?  It is almost impossible for a complex spiritual and yet material being to speak of himself in unity without contradiction.  Would any language be accurate?  Moreover, the phrase “resurrection of the dead” is not merely a “Nicene version,” it is the language of the apostles.  It is the language of S. Paul.  And S. Paul’s conception of the spiritual body is much more akin to that of Sir Oliver Lodge than to the crude materialistic conceptions of popular theology.  What is needed then is not the abolition of the term, but its exposition in the Pauline meaning.

      On the subject of the Resurrection of the Body, there are, says a recent German writer, [Grützmacher, “Modern Positive Vorträge”, 1906, pp. 120, 121.] three possible views of body and soul.  Either man consists of both, and requires both to his completion; or man is body, and soul is nothing more than a function of the material substance; or man is soul, and body is a superfluity, a prison of the soul, from which he must be set free.  Of these three conceptions the last is for the modern mind the least modern, and the least congenial.  Modern psychology postulates an intimate association of body and soul, and affirms that man consists of both.  The second conception that man consists of body, the materialistic view, is nearer to the modern spirit: but closer investigation shows it to be untenable.  There remains the first conception that man is a unity of soul and body.  This is the really scientific view.  Thus for the modern mind there is no analogy and no suggestion of a bodiless immortality of the soul.

 

Book  IV:  The Resurrection and Modern Thought

 

Chapter  XXX – The Documents Considered As Evidence

      After analyzing the evidence in detail it is necessary to ask, What impression this evidence ought to produce upon the modern mind?

      I.  The general character of the evidence is attended with considerable difficulties.  Whether we consider the details of the Third Day, or the empty grave, or the locality of the Appearances, or the Appearances themselves, or the words of the Risen Master, in every instance there are difficulties, and these difficulties very real.  While the evidence may in some cases carry conviction to the modern mind, it may fail in others.

      1. For example, the earliest document is the list of the witnesses given by S. Paul.

      Now what is the value of this list as evidence?  It gives the names or numbers of the chief witnesses to the Resurrection, as they were summarized by the Mother Church of Christendom, and ascertained by S. Paul, and taught to converts during the first thirty years after the occurrence.  But it is a list and nothing more.  It was not composed with a view to the requirements of later centuries; nor in compliance with modern standards of historical evidence.  That S. Paul inserted the list of witnesses at all was primarily due to his instinct for systematic completeness, while answering the difficulties propounded by the Corinthian Church.  He might have given his argument and omitted the list.  Moreover, as Augustine pointed out, “this succession of the Appearances is one which has been given by none of the Evangelists.” [“De Consensus Evv.” iii. 70.]

      As documentary evidence this is certainly different from what we might have anticipated.  We might imagine a full report by the witnesses at first hand: a document signed and sealed by S. Peter and S. James and the other leading authorities.  We might imagine a full report of his own conversion by S. Paul in his own letters.  But we have to deal with facts.  If we have not what we might desire, we may still have what is adequate to the purpose.  If we have not sufficient to compel belief, we may yet have sufficient to justify it.  If the Evangelists and S. Paul’s list were in close agreement would it not raise the suspicion that these were not independent witnesses but a harmonized account? [Grützmacher, p. 123.]  There is certainly no attempt in the Gospels to conform to the summary in S. Paul.

      2. Or again, there is the earliest of the Gospel documents, that of S. Mark.  Criticism has familiarized us with the fact that the ending of the Marcan narrative is lost, but no criticism can reconcile us with the disconcerting character of the fact.  It is, and must remain, permanently disconcerting, from the critical and religious point of view, that the earliest narrative of the Resurrection should have been permitted to perish.  Whatever may be said of its substantial reproduction in the later Gospels, the strangeness and mystery of this unaccountable loss remains.  And, more especially, since the contents of the Gospel of S. Matthew and of S. Luke are not in harmony, and both cannot represent the lost contents of S. Mark, the evidential value of the documents is made more perplexing to the modern mind.

      3. Again, there are the peculiarities of the record in S. Luke.  The Lucan narrative presents still further difficulties.  It has been pointed out [A. Resch, “Der Ρauilinismus und die Logia Jesu”, 1904, p. 361.] that S. Luke places first among the witnesses of the Resurrection Appearances a person unnamed and another who, although named, is quite unknown.  The Emmaus travellers are then received, by the Jerusalem disciples, with the announcement, “the Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon”; and this is all that S. Luke tells us of S. Peter’s experience.  And yet, immediately after this confident announcement of the Resurrection, when the Lord appears in their midst, they are terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they beheld a spirit.

      As Origen read the text, the unnamed disciple of Emmaus is S. Peter himself: and in the Cambridge Codex D. the announcement “the Lord is risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon,” is made by the Emmaus travellers, not by the assembled apostles.  In the existing conclusion of S. Mark the Emmaus disciples’ words are met with unbelief, instead of any announcement that the Lord had risen indeed.

      Now, it may not unnaturally be felt that there is much in these omissions which is exceedingly tantalizing.  There seems to be an unconsciousness of the relative importance of things, at least from the standpoint of the modern mind.  The expansiveness of the Emmaus incident, the curt brevity of the allusion to S. Peter’s experience, gives us what seems the less important at the sacrifice of the invaluable.  The Synoptic tradition does not tell the circumstances of S. Peter’s ascertaining the Resurrection.  But these, above all other, would have been invaluable to subsequent ages.  The evidential value of a passing reference, in a subordinate half-sentence, may be considered relatively small.

      II.  Now the effect of all this on the modern critical mind, the mind which is above all things critical and to which inexactness is the unpardonable sin, is, naturally, exceedingly disconcerting.  The whole result of modern critical methods has been to throw a glare of light on the least discrepancy.  The modern ideal of historical and biographical writing is clearly at the opposite pole from that of the Evangelists. [P. Gardner, “Historic View”, pp. 165–6.]  Thus, for example, a critic says: “That the spirit of Christ remained with His followers and dwelt among them we have an enormous volume of testimony.  And to people of that country and that age this spiritual presence would seem illusive unless the body also rose from the grave.  It may be added that the relations of spirit and body remain altogether mysterious.  And I suppose that if there were any sufficient consensus of tried testimony as to the appearance of Jesus after death to His disciples with a tangible body, anyone, even some of our most sceptical physicists and biologists, would be ready to accept that testimony, though we might all hold different views as to what facts were in reality guaranteed by it....  The great difficulty in regard to the physical Resurrection arises from the unscientific frame of mind of the early disciples, who did not in the least understand how to test or value evidence.”

      And Harnack, much in a similar spirit, exclaims: “Documents, when all is said, to what do they amount?”

      ΙΙΙ.  1. Whatever may be said about the documents, they are not the only evidence.  There is the evidence of the Institution: the Christian Church.  It is explicitly founded upon belief in the Resurrection.  The Institution would still exist, even if all the documents had perished.  The tradition of the Resurrection is embodied in imperishable phrases, in the presuppositions of religious worship, which go far deeper than any words.  It cannot be explained as the intrusion of Hellenistic thought into a Semitic soil.  Whatever the Resurrection may be, it is indigenous to the Christian origins.  Very striking is the way in which the Resurrection was impressed by the Church upon the gnostic sects around, so that Anastasis and Ecclesia both became exalted among the gnostic divinities. [See S. Irenaeus.]

      2. The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is not an abnormal incident in an otherwise normal career.  His Resurrection may, for purposes of study, and for the simple reason that the human mind cannot contemplate everything at once, be temporarily isolated from all other experiences ascribed to Him.  But it must be remembered that it is the Resurrection of Jesus, and not of some chance individual.  Such an experience would not equally arrest the attention if related of any other man.  It is not the Resurrection of one of whom nothing else exceptional is known.  The Resurrection of Jesus forms part of a self-consistent series of unique prerogatives which the apostolic experience ascribed to Him.  The primitive community ascribed to Him (1) a moral uniqueness and perfection of character; (2) a personal uniqueness and equality with the Father; (3) an official uniqueness towards humanity in consummating a redemptive work.  The consciousness of the first Christian community is a consciousness of deliverance by Him from personal guilt and uncleanness, and of relationship towards Him of reverence deepening into adoration.

      Then the Resurrection of Christ takes its place in a consistent series of profound religious facts and conceptions.  It is ascribed to One Who is unique in His character, in His person, and in His work.  It forms together with them a complete systematic whole.

      Is it not therefore right to plead that no adequate treatment of the question, whether Jesus rose, is possible which does not take into account the entire series of experiences of which this forms only a part?

      It is therefore amazing that volumes should be written confined exclusively to criticism of the historic details, with scarcely any reference whatever to the spiritual interpretation of the history, to the asserted historic preparation for it, and to the dogmatic value which the apostles assigned to it; and yet with an assumption that the subject has been adequately treated.  Surely it must be self-evident that the mere resurrection of an individual Galilean prophet is one thing: especially if it be divorced from all religious philosophy of history, and all belief in religious development, and religious crises; while the resurrection of such a one as Jesus, with His moral characteristics and spiritual uniqueness, especially in view of preparations and consequences in history, is another thing.

      If it were clearly understood, and as frankly affirmed, that the mere critical analysis of historic documents is an arbitrary if convenient restriction, and that consequently the results obtained can be only provisional, until philosophy, theology and religion, have all said their say, and have been maturely balanced with the critical results – we should arrive at a juster and truer estimate of the religious facts before us.  Too often, however, there is an air in criticism that it is all sufficient.

      Of course, criticism must do its work upon the documents: and interpretations of a fact are valueless, if there be no fact to interpret.  If Christ be not risen then is our preaching vain.  But if the moral uniqueness, the sinless self-consciousness, of Jesus is regarded as forced upon the modern conscience as a fact (so Herrmann maintains) by the contents of the documents, then this fact must be taken into account in dealing with the apostolic witness to the Resurrection.

      3. Modern criticisms on the kind of evidence required to produce conviction rest on several important assumptions which are not so indisputable as they are sometimes assumed to be.

      The objection to the apostolic testimony to our Lord’s Resurrection, on the ground of “the unscientific frame of mind of the early disciples, who did not in the least understand how to test or to value evidence,” is virtually an objection against all historic religion.  For the methods and standards of earlier ages can never be so highly developed and matured as those of later.  If the apostolic evidences had been marshaled under the methods of the present day, they might satisfy ourselves; but they would still be open to the criticisms of a century to come.  The question is whether these difficulties must necessarily preclude the Almighty from utilizing historic evidence in behalf of religious truth.  And that is precisely what we are not competent to determine a priori.  It is perfectly useless for beings constituted as we are to decide that the evidence of a previous age cannot contain a Divine revelation, owing to the difficulties inseparable from its issuing or its transmission.  It is clear that a criticism which makes such assumptions has gone beyond its province, and is really resting on religious or philosophical presuppositions.

      This really leads us into the problem of the nature of religious certainty.  The critical superiority of documentary evidence composed in the present day is indisputable.  Its religious superiority is not so certain.  We may still have doubts whether, if the Gospels had been originally revised by a modern critic, with modern methods, they would be more productive of religious faith in the modern mind.  The evidence we possess for the Resurrection falls short of demonstration.  So does the evidence we possess for the existence of God.  It is constantly assumed that religious evidence must be well nigh irresistible.  But what if well nigh irresistible evidence would be morally injurious?  How can we judge beforehand of the nature of its effect?  Would it promote spiritual religion?  Who can tell?  We may have our own opinions either way.  But we have no right to assume them as certain, and then utilize them as objections against a historical religion.

 

Chapter  ΧΧΧΙ:  Christ’s Resurrection and Psychical Research

      The most distinctively modern element in recent discussions on the Resurrection is that which is based on psychology, telepathic communication, and psychical research.  A very considerable literature has arisen both in England and America dealing with the subject of the future life from this point of view.  If the late F. W. H. Myers was the most distinguished advocate of this school he has been followed by a number of able men.  Myers himself was convinced that psychical research is at least on the way to establish a scientific basis for human immortality.  To quote his own statement: “Observation, experiment, inference, have led many inquirers, of whom I am one, to a belief in direct or telepathic inter-communication, not only between the minds of men still on earth, but between minds or spirits still on earth and spirits departed.”  [Myers, “Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death”, ii. 287.]

      He considered that psychical research had definitely established the reality of telepathic inter-communication between this world and another.  Accordingly, on the basis of evidence laboriously collected, he drew an inference as to the credibility of our Lord’s Resurrection; and predicted the probable future in store for this article of the Christian Creed.  “I venture now on a bold saying; for I predict that, in consequence of the new evidence, all reasonable men, a century hence, will believe the Resurrection of Christ, whereas in default of the new evidence, no reasonable man, a century hence, would have believed it.  The ground of this forecast is plain enough.  Our ever-growing recognition of the continuity, the uniformity of cosmic law has gradually made of the alleged uniqueness of any incident its almost inevitable refutation.”

      The prediction of Myers is that psychical research will set immortality upon a scientific and therefore indisputable foundation.  It is assumed that to have the future life certified by experiment would be a real gain.  But is this assumption justified?  At least let it first be realized what the reduction of immortality to a fact of science means.  It means the transference of the subject from the sphere of faith to the sphere of experiment.  It would make the matter impossible to deny.  Would that be beneficial?  I believe on the contrary that there is a high moral value in an undemonstrated immortality.  The place hitherto occupied by the belief in immortality in human development is, to say the least, profoundly significant.  It is sometimes assumed that all men desire to be immortal.  And at first, perhaps it sounds a religious thing to say.  Certainly in some the desire is very strong: so strong that they have found it impossible to credit the Indian with aspirations towards Nirvana in the sense of personal extinction.  And yet it is not really inconceivable that millions have found in the thought of their own annihilation a refuge from unrest.  It is quite intelligible that the prospect of endless transmigration through successive human and animal existences dismayed the heart and the will, and created by reaction a positive relief in the thought of becoming merged in eternal unconsciousness which terminated struggle and created peace.  Nor is it necessary to appeal to Oriental experience on this point.  Modern Europe exhibits many illustrations of practical indifference to personal continuance, as the statistics of suicide prove.

      There is also a theoretical and reasoned indifference, or a judgment held in suspense, coupled with the belief that earthly life loses nothing by the omission of the doctrine of immortality.  These opinions are not at all uncommon at the present among psychologists and speculative writers.  The late Professor William James, for instance, wrote as follows: “Religion, in fact, for the great majority of our own race means immortality, and nothing else.  God is the producer of immortality ... I have said nothing, in my lectures, about immortality or the belief therein, for to me it seems a secondary point.  If our ideals are only cared for in ‘eternity’, I do not see why we might not be willing to resign their care to other hands than ours.  Yet I sympathize with the urgent impulse to be present ourselves, and in the conflict of impulses, both of them so vague, yet both of them noble, I know not how to decide.  It seems to me that it is eminently a case for facts to testify.  Facts, I think, are yet lacking to prove ‘spirit-return’, though I have the highest respect for the patient labours of Messrs. Myers, Hodgson, and Hyslop, and am somewhat impressed by their favourable conclusions.  I consequently leave the matter open....” [James, “Varieties of Religious Experience”, p. 524.]

      Prof. Ηöffding of Copenhagen protested that the confusion of particular definite values with eternal values was irreligious.  To make the question whether I individually shall persist or not the basis of value is, he considered, an “egotistical form of religiosity,” [“Philosophy of Religion”, p. 259.] “as though existence might not have a meaning even if I were not immortal!  “He urged that “the Evangelical exhortation, take no thought for the morrow, can be applied with far greater justification to the life after death than to our attitude towards the actual morrow of this earthly life.  Whether the precise forms of value known to us will persist, experience alone can decide.”  He saw “no reason why we should demand at all costs an answer which shall take us beyond what science can teach.” [Ib. p. 376.]  In Höffding’s opinion, “The spiritual healthiness of the Greeks is shown in the fact that they recognized the great task of life to be the discovery and creation here, amid the reality of this life, of such values as ‘the beautiful and the good.’  They did not borrow their criterion for this life from the conception of a life to come.” [Ib. p. 380.]  Here then we are confined to the present, as viewed by the physical healthiness of the natural man.

      After all, Strauss said the same thing, only much more forcibly, years ago.  Goethe remarked three years before his death, “the conviction of continuous existence suggests itself to me from the conception of activity; for if I am unceasingly active to my very end, nature is bound to assign to me another form of being, if the present one is no longer capable of fulfilling the requirements of my spirit.”  Strauss’ criticism was: “Doubtless a grand and a beautiful utterance, as pregnant with the force of subjective truth on the lips of the dear old poet, indefatigably active to his dying day, as it is entirely devoid of all objective cogency.  ‘Nature is bound’ – what is the meaning of that?  Goethe, if any one, knew that Nature acknowledges no duties – only laws; but that man rather, even the most gifted and energetic, has the duty of humbly submitting to them.”  “To demand more than this was a weakness of old age.” [Strauss, “The Old Faith and the New”, p. 147.]  Strauss himself held that “most of the old people known to us are complete: they have yielded up all they had to bestow.” [Ib. p. 148.]  “He who does not inflate himself is well aware of the humble measure of his capacities, and while grateful for the time allowed him for their development, makes no claim for its prolongation beyond the duration of this earthly life; nay, its eternal persistence would fill him with dismay.” [Ib. p. 149.]  Strauss even went so far in his opposition to S. Paul as to say, “the last enemy which shall be destroyed is man’s belief in his own immortality.”  Frederick Denison Maurice, after quoting these words, observed “Some may suppose that he has merely uttered an audacious paradox, for the sake of startling us, and showing how far his vehemence against our ordinary faith will go.  I do not think so.  If we question our own minds honestly, we may find that there have been many hours, days, weeks, perhaps years, in which we have practically yielded assent to his proposition.” [“Theological Essays”, p. 131.]  “The sense of immortality,” says Maurice, “is very dreadful.” [Ib. p. 134.]  This is a truth which greatly needs to be emphasized.  There is an assent to immortality which is purely conventional.  Where the belief is little more than acquiescence in an inherited religion, whose implications have never been seriously faced or thought out, a sudden awaking to reality, by which the ancient term receives a deeper contents, does fill the consciousness with positive dismay.  There is something appalling in the thought of living everlastingly.  Many persons have probably experienced strange variations in their hold on immortality.  Perhaps emotion has alternated between the extremes of repulsion and vehement desire.  We have longed for it: we have shrunk from it.  That is to say that our relation to it must change with our moral state.  It needs a moral effort to long to live for ever.  A life of moral intensity will eagerly long for its own permanence.  A consciousness of the futility and worthlessness of one’s life will issue easily in the pessimistic utterance – “and now, O Lord, take away my life for I am not better than my Fathers.”  Now surely all this means that immortality has been hitherto a great venture of faith; something appropriated by moral effort; becoming real to us individually just in proportion to our own reality; a thing that can be won and lost and regained; sometimes remote, and sometimes near, correspondingly with a man’s religious depth.  Now psychical research expects to convert this venture of faith into an established fact of science.  Once more, one is constrained to ask, Would the alteration be a moral gain?  Of course if the time has come, or should come, in the providential enlightenment, to transfer this question from the sphere of religion to that of science, and henceforward to make immortality a fact impossible to doubt, then it must be for the best.  But those who confidently predict this change do not appear remotely conscious of the immensity of the revolution it would produce in the religious development of men.  And until such prediction is indisputably realized, it is assuredly permissible to clam that immortality is better left unprovided with any scientific foundation; better left to be individually appropriated, according to individual earnestness, by moral effort, rather than forced by experimental evidence of a purely external kind, upon all alike, indiscriminately, and apart from the question whether the fact would be to their spiritual gain or loss.

      Then, again, the attempt to provide a scientific basis for belief in immortality is supposed to be in the interests of Christianity.  But Christianity is a religion.  And immortality, however momentous, is not the foundation of religion.  The foundation of religion is God.  And God, it is universally acknowledged, is not ascertainable by the senses in the way of ordinary information.  Nor can His existence be demonstrated by a course of irresistible reasonings.  Modern apologetics conspicuously abandon any such attempt.  Few ancient maxims are more cordially endorsed by modern theology than that of S. Ambrose: non in dialectica complacuit Deo salvum facere populum suum.  God refuses to be put at the end of a syllogism.  That is to say that God is the ultimate postulate.  His existence and character are for us a supreme venture of faith.  Belief in God is bound up with an optimistic faith in the ultimate triumph of good.  And it is on the basis of that belief in God that the religious belief in immortality arises.  This is the basis upon which our Lord Himself placed immortality: God is not the God of the dead but of the living.  But if belief in God is itself a venture of faith, why should immortality, which is based on that belief, possess a certainty which does not belong to that upon which it is founded?

      Indeed, the curious feature of this attempt to establish immortality on a scientific foundation is that it divorces immortality from God.  It is an attempt to establish telepathic intercommunication with human beings: it is distinctly not a search for communion with the living God.  Rather it appears as a definite substitute for the latter.  This is very significant.  While the postulate of Deity involves the idea of human immortality, this statement cannot be reversed.  Immortality does not involve Deity.  Bishop Butler’s remarkable affirmation of this truth is opportune: “A proof, even a demonstrative one, of a future life, would not be a proof of religion.  For, that we are to live hereafter is just as reconcilable with the scheme of atheism, and as well to be accounted for by it, as that we are now alive is.” [“Analogy”, pt. i. ch. 1.]  Certainly if it be compatible with atheism that we exist, it is equally compatible with it that we should continue to exist in another state.  Now one would like to know more fully what the attitude of psychical research is toward Deity.  The phenomena of spiritualism as a rule leave God out.  To introduce Him would disconcert scientific procedure.  In the scientific method He is discreetly omitted.  Thus the search is restricted to the human.  Survival, then, and immortality are separated from religion.  But can this divorce of immortality from God yield results satisfactory to the needs of the human spirit?  Does not immortality require religious associations?  It is really, if it is to receive its proper contents, and hold its proper value, inseparable from the idea of God.  What is the religious worth or meaning of immortality with God left out?  How can the problems of existence be met and solved merely by postulating their transference from one godless region into another equally godless?  Conversely, if God be accepted, by a venture of faith, a true foundation is made for human immortality.  But even if man were immortal, he could not create an immortal Deity.  Or is it that man, could he prove himself immortal, would no longer feel a need of God: having established himself in a position of permanence from which he could not be dislodged?

 

Chapter  XXXII:  Historical Judgments and Dogmatic Judgments

      Modern religious thought has become increasingly clear that the reality of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is not determinable exclusively by the methods of historical criticism.  The favourite statement of the older apologetics that the Resurrection was as certain as any other fact in history would not find favour with the apologists of today.  It was an ordinary maxim with the English theologians of the eighteenth century. [Sherlock, West.]  It was asserted, even close to our own time, by Arnold of Rugby. [“Sermons.”]  But it does not represent the modern believing position.

      1. History is the account of the development of man, his thoughts and his actions.  It describes the evolution of ideas and principles; the growth of religions.  But history lies within a province definitely limited.  It is within the strictly natural.  It is concerned with man between the limits of birth and death.  But it is not concerned with preexistence, nor with subsequent existence after departure hence.  It is concerned with religions; but subjectively, as human beliefs: it is not concerned with the question of their objective truth.

      Just as the province of science is confined, for purposes of investigation and utility, within the limits of natural forces beyond which any inquiry would be, for science, a transgression; so history is confined to the natural order of life.  The supernatural, the miraculous, God and immortality, are all beyond the province of history.  The historian as such has nothing to say either for or against.  If he does, he does it as a theologian, or a metaphysician; but not in his capacity as a historian.

      Thus a historical judgment is a decision as to occurrences, after critical investigation, on data strictly within the limits of the natural.  It is an impersonal investigation in the sense that it has no individual interest in the issue.  It can be made by the agnostic or the believer; by the man of this or of that religion.  That which is inexplicable by natural laws can be registered by the historian as a human belief but not as an objective occurrence.  A historical judgment is a purely critical and intellectual exercise within the department ascertainable by ordinary research and investigation; being restricted to assumptions equally acceptable to the agnostic and the theist.

      2. But, in the modern view, there is a judgment of another kind.  It is also concerned with facts, but it brings to bear upon them not only the intellectual faculties, but also the moral and emotional: indeed the entire personality.  It does not profess, says Rüdel, [See Rüdel, “Historische und dogmatische Urteile,” Ν. K. Ζ., 1906, p. 226.] complete indifference whether the matter in contemplation is false or true.  This may be called a dogmatic judgment, a judgment on the value of the asserted fact to life.  Dogmatic judgments are founded on religious presuppositions: they do not rest on purely historic evidence, as confined within the limits of the merely natural.  They are, to some extent, ventures of faith.  They are largely concerned with a sphere outside the purely human.

      3. If an application of this distinction between critical and dogmatic judgments be made to the Articles of the Christian Creed its importance becomes immediately obvious.  (1) We find in the Christian Creed that some Articles are purely historic; for instance, that Jesus lived and was crucified under Pontius Pilate.  This is within the province of human history, and is ascertainable by the same critical methods as any other human fact.  But (2) secondly, some Articles of the Creed are purely dogmatic; for instance, “He sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.”  This is subject to none of the critical methods of ordinary historic investigation.  (3) Thirdly, other Articles of the Creed appear to be mixed judgments; partly historic and partly dogmatic; as for instance, “the Third Day He rose again from the dead.”  Now this, at first sight, might be considered a historical judgment.  That he died is historical.  That He was buried is historical.  That the grave was empty is a question purely within the limits of the historical.  That the Galileans believed that they had seen Him after He was risen, is, as a psychological experience, within the limits of the historical.  But the objective reality of His Resurrection: this transcends the sphere of history.  It is a dogmatic judgment, a venture of faith.  It is impossible to place the Resurrection of Christ on the same level as mere ordinary events of history.  It was not an event in the natural order at all.  To begin with, it was witnessed by no human eye.  The subsequent witness to the Appearances was confined to the circle of discipleship.  He never reappeared within the arena of the common world.  That the disciples passed through a stupendous change is within the historic sphere.  But the cause of it lies outside that sphere, and refuses to be brought within the circle of scientific critical investigation.  Here the mere historian is baffled.  He may talk of “the marvellous incident in Joseph’s garden, which, however, no human eye saw”; but he is quite consistent if, as a historian, he is unable to make any decision.

      From the purely critical standpoint history is confined within the limits of birth and death.  It naturally stands helpless before a career for which is claimed pre-existence and Resurrection.  As a German writer of a Life of Christ observes: “Every other human biography ends with death.”  What can criticism within the limits of the purely natural make of a life which does not end that way?  We must surely recognize that the historic judgment has reached its limit here, and must allow the dogmatic judgment to decide.

      The modern mind will not assent to the proposition that the Resurrection of Jesus is as certain as any other historical fact.  Such lines of argument as the once famous book called “Historical Doubt as to the Existence of Napoleon” may illustrate the possibility of universal scepticism, or the truth that no fact of history is a mathematical demonstration.  But it would not convince the modern mind that the Resurrection of Christ took place.

      We are constrained to say that if religious men advocate assent to the Resurrection as being the most certain fact in history, they are resting it on a wrong foundation, and cannot touch the modern mind.

      Belief in Christ’s Resurrection is a religious assent, and not a mere historic assent.  And the parallel sometimes drawn between our assent to facts we cannot verify and belief in the Resurrection is, however supported, quite misleading.  Its only result would be to withdraw the Resurrection from the sphere of religion, and to reduce it to the level of mere history.  But this would destroy its worth.  It is really of great importance that Christ’s Resurrection cannot be made as certain as any other event in history.  Belief in it must ultimately depend on a judgment of its worth.  And that again will depend on our entire interpretation of life.  It is inseparable from religious presuppositions.

      The Resurrection, says Hegel, [Hegel, “Philosophy of History”, ii. 250, quoted by Hermann Fichte, “Vermnischte Schriften”, ii. 135.] belongs eventually to the province of faith.  Christ appeared exclusively to His friends.  This is not external history for the unbelieving.  These appearances are for the believing alone.

 

Chapter  ΧXΧΙΙΙ:  Christ’s Resurrection as an Object of Faith

      Among recent foreign writers a conspicuous place belongs to Herrmann, because while he is deeply impressed by Christ’s moral uniqueness, he appears to disregard the Resurrection as if it were of no particular religious significance.  According to Herrmann, God communes with us not so much through nature as through the “historical phenomenon” of Jesus Christ. [“Connmunion with God,” pp. 57, 59.]  And our certainty of the reality of this historical portraiture of the Gospel rests partly on the fact that this “picture of Jesus’ inner life could be preserved only by those who had experienced the emancipating influences of that fact upon themselves”; [Ib. p. 61.] partly because “Jesus becomes a real power to us when He reveals His inner life to us.” [Ib. p. 62.]  This last takes us beyond the mere historic evidence, and translates a tradition into a living personal experience.  Now “the fact remains unquestioned that the Christ of the New Testament shows a firmness of religious conviction, a clearness of moral judgment, and a purity and strength of will such as are combined in no other figure in history.” [Ib. p. 71.]  The phenomenon of the Gospels shows “the portrait of a man who is conscious of no inferiority in Himself to the ideals for which He sacrifices Himself.” [Ib. p. 73.]

      “The fact that Jesus thought of Himself as sinless stands out powerfully before us when we remember what He said and did at the Last Supper with his disciples.  In face of a death whose horror He Himself felt, He was able to say that this death He was about to die would take away the burden of guilt from the hearts of those who should remember Him.”  “And so mighty within Him was the consciousness of His own purity, that He clearly saw that the impression which His death would cause would loose the spiritual bonds of those who had found Him and could remember Him.”  Herrmann’s conclusion is, “Jesus could not have spoken as He then did if He had been conscious of guilt within Himself.” [“Communion with God”, p. 74.]  As to the documents wherein this portraiture is contained, Hermann observes, “Such records are incomparable, and that not because of their contents alone; but their very existence is a wonderful fact, for it comes to us through the minds of men who did not experience in their own lives such untrammelled freedom in being good as He had.” [Ib. p. 75.]  Herrmann describes with no less force the self-identification of Jesus with His Gospel as being no less a unique and amazing characteristic of this sinless individual.  Buddha and Socrates impress him most in history with the originality of their moral strength.  “But,” he adds, “these two hid themselves modestly behind the teaching for which they lived and died, whereas Jesus knows no more sacred task than to point men to His own person.  His life and death proclaim the conviction that no man who desires true life can do without Him.” [Ib. p. 76.]  We see in Jesus, says Hermann, the Almighty God. [Ib. p. 78.]  “God makes Himself known to us as the power that is with Jesus.”  With Herrmann’s peculiar Ritschlian theories and consequent limitations we are not necessarily concerned.  The whole purpose of these quotations is that Herrmann declares that this great picture of Jesus’ inner life “not merely compels our reverence, but also makes good the wonderful claim He makes as the Messiah.” [Ib. p. 63.]  And yet Herrmann could protest “we do not help men into that way of salvation if we tell them, on the strength of New Testament narratives and doctrines, that Jesus was born of a Virgin as the Son of God; that He taught this and that; that He wrought many miracles and even raised the dead, and that He Himself rose again, and now, having ascended to the Father, rules with Almighty Power.  Such a story is no gospel be it never so impressively delivered.” [Ib. p. 66.]  He further declares that “such statements are a great hindrance to men today, for the majority can no longer accept them with childlike simplicity.” [Ib. p. 66.]

      Now while Herrmann’s exposition of the moral perfection of Jesus Christ, as a revelation of God, is most impressive and venerable, yet its indifference to the Resurrection is indefensible, for several reasons.

      1. In the first place, the moral perfection of Jesus and His Resurrection are both parts of the impression of the same personality upon the disciples.  The primitive believing mind was not more certain of the one than of the other.  It is pure eclecticism to bow reverently before part of the influence of Jesus, and at the same time to reject the other part; as if the impression were just as complete without it.  Surely it is self-evident that a personality which stamps upon the mind of the witnesses only a belief in its sinlessness is not the same personality as one which also produces a belief in its Resurrection.  Resurrection introduces a further cycle of ideas.  It suggests the conquest of death, the transcendence of lower conditions, the exaltation in heavenly experiences.

      2. In the next place if Jesus Christ is really a revelation of God, in the sinlessness of His life, how is it possible to determine a priori that He is not also a further revelation of God in the wonder of His Resurrection?  Will it be said that His life is ethical and His Resurrection is not?  Even supposing that were true, cannot God be revealed by faith?  Can material nature suggest no thoughts about Him?  The Resurrection, supposing it were true, cannot be severed from moral conceptions; it cannot be described as a meaningless appendix to the life; it cannot be said that, as a fact, the Resurrection of Jesus has exerted no influence on the ideas of the life to come.

      But in truth the Resurrection of Christ is a fact of the largest ethical and religious significance.  It throws a new light back on all His earthly work.  It endorses His claims.  It adds a fresh manifestation of power over the world and death and sin.  It certifies infinitely more than Christ’s personal survival of death.  It means His exaltation in the world beyond.  It means the complete subordination of the natural to the spiritual.  It is a brilliant proof of the paradox that the weakness of God is stronger than men.

      3. And yet again.  Herrmann strenuously maintains the sinlessness while excluding the Resurrection.  As for the latter it is “a hindrance to men today; for the majority can no longer accept it with childlike simplicity.”  But Herrmann is undoubtedly well aware that the conception of a sinless human being is the very last to deserve the name of easy.  Recent criticism shows plainly enough that many modern minds cannot accept it with childlike simplicity.  If the test of truth be acceptance by the majority with childlike simplicity it may fare as badly with the doctrine of sinlessness as with that of Resurrection.

      4. It may be further suggested that the idea of sinlessness has never hitherto long survived the denial of the Resurrection.  There is an intimate, if subtle, affinity in conceptions.  This has been the case in the history of Christian belief.  Again and again instances may be pointed out where one of these two doctrines held in isolation withered and died.  The strength of Herrrnann’s convictions may endure as a personal belief; but we question altogether whether it will be able to extend itself to the next generations.

      The fact is that if the Gospel portraiture of the inner life of Jesus as morally perfect “not merely compels our reverence, but also makes good the wonderful claim He made as the Messiah,” there can be no a priori reason why it may not also make good His claim to rise from the dead.  His Resurrection enters as deeply into the apostolic experience as any other fact about Him.  It is, of course, true that we moderns cannot test His Resurrection by our moral consciousness as we can His character: but neither can we His claim to be Messiah.  To accept His Christhood on the ground of His moral uniqueness, and yet to rule out His Resurrection, is arbitrary and unconvincing.  After all, His Christhood is local and Jewish: His Resurrection is human and universal.  The Resurrection of Jesus must mean mere for modern thought than the Christhood of Jesus; in whatever terms that office be interpreted and modernized.

      Indeed, to many modern minds the sinless perfection of Jesus is in itself the strongest ground for yielding to the idea of His physical Resurrection.  Oscar Holtzmann, for instance, who certainly will not be accused of a conservative or orthodox predisposition, and who denies its occurrence, is yet constrained to say: “In the case of a person so extraordinary as Jesus, even the greatest miracle might be accepted as an actual occurrence, and it might not seem incredible that the dead body, after having been laid in the rock grave, was resuscitated and restored to life by God.” [“Life of Jesus”, p. 500.]

      If in Jesus Christ human nature attained its ideal morally and spiritually, much may thereby have become possible on the physical side also which would otherwise be impossible.  Let us at any rate do full justice to the moral data which confront us.  Here, admittedly, we contemplate the morally unique.  Of Him also other exceptional things are spoken.  Now manifestly we must not look for parallels: we have admitted that we are in the sphere of the unique.  The physical Resurrection of Jesus is not more unique than His sinless perfection.  And, for aught we know to the contrary, there may be an intimate connection between these two orders of being.

      II.  It may be of interest here to follow the criticisms of Reischle [“Der Streit über die Begründung des Glaubens.”] on the problem of faith in the Resurrection.  Reischle, who differs considerably from Herrmann, asks, On what ground can the modern mind rise to faith in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ ?

      (a) Shall I believe it, he asks, because the apostles assure us that they saw Him again as living, or because the Church affirms it?  But to do this would be faith in mere authority.

      (b) Shall I believe it because scientific research makes it probable that the Easter phenomena are best accounted for by Resurrection?  But that would make faith dependent on scientific research.  Faith would rest on nothing more secure than a historical foundation.

      (c) Shall I believe because the Resurrection of Jesus satisfies the conscience and the heart?  But then do I not run the risk of illusion ?

      (d) Shall I believe because there can be no redemption without it?  But this is a theological inference from an intellectual theory.

      (e) Moreover, do not all these proposals involve a misconception of the nature of true faith?  Evangelical faith is trust: and trust can only be directed to a person, not a fact or an idea.

      1. First, then, it is objected that belief in the testimony of the apostles, or in that of the Church, is unreasonable; because it is faith on mere authority.

      The subject here suggested is, of course, immense.  But it is surely obvious that all religious belief is primarily faith on mere authority.  Whatever our matured convictions become, our first belief was through assent to human authority.  And if all religious belief is socially transmitted rather than individually and independently discovered, the principle of authority must continue to possess a living worth.  Doubtless, a man has only to reflect what his religion would now be if it had been the product of isolated reflection apart from mankind, or if it had been inherited from a Buddhist environment, to feel at once the power and the limitations of authority.  Authority may lead him right or wrong.  But still it is impossible to escape it.  With authority his religion must begin.  And even if his religion becomes ultimately exchanged for an opposite type, yet even then the form of the reaction is determined by that from which it sprang.  Assent to authority is also reasonable because it is necessary to accept religion at first upon authority.  And if it be reasonable to assent on such a ground to the existence and character of God, it cannot be unreasonable on the same ground to assent to the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

      Both beliefs must in process of time be by each individual experimentally verified.  If it be said that we can verify experimentally the existence of God, but not the occurrence of an incident some 2000 years ago; it must be answered that while no great historic event can be experimentally verified, the Christian idea is not that the Resurrection of Jesus is a mere past event.  The existence of Jesus as risen, with all that this Resurrection involves, can be for the individual experimentally verified just as certainly as the existence and character of God.  And while, in neither case, the individual experience can become a logical demonstration for others, it is more satisfying than logic to its recipient.  It is a religious experience, which verifies for him the assertions of authority, and enables him in turn to form part of the social authority by which religious truth is transmitted to the succeeding generations.

      2. As to the doubt, whether belief in the Resurrection can be justified on the ground that it satisfies the conscience and the heart, since subjective satisfaction opens the gate to all illusion, it may be answered that the risk of illusion is shared by every other religious belief.  It is not a peculiarity of belief in the Resurrection.  The conscience and the heart are after all the profoundest religious test we have.  And every religious belief we hold is held because it satisfies.

      Herrmann’s belief that Jesus reveals the character of God is just as certainly held because it satisfies the conscience and the heart.  And it is just as open to the cold sceptical challenge that the believer is liable to illusion.  Reischle for instance inquires, Does the life and character of Jesus demonstrate for us the reality of the God and Father of Whom He spoke?  Or does it do more than demonstrate that this was Jesus’ own subjective belief; that for Jesus Himself God was no theory but the great Reality, more real than the visible world?  His life indeed displays an inner certainty of the holy love of His Heavenly Father toward sinful men: a certainty so clear and deep that all He did, and was, revealed its mighty power; a certainty stronger than all natural instincts, stronger than all external influences, stronger than pain and death.  But how are we to know that this inner certainty corresponded with the timeless reality?  What answer can Herrmann give but that it satisfies the conscience and the heart?  That is to say, that the ultimate religious belief, the belief in the most ancient of all mysteries, the Personal and Holy God, is a venture of faith; and therefore, like belief in the Resurrection, like belief in Jesus as the revelation of God, open to the challenge that it involves a risk of illusion.  Theoretically this is true.  Experimentally it is found to be false.  But it is a dangerous argument for men who possess any religious belief.  And he who has already made the most stupendous venture of faith that man can make, a venture compared with which all other ventures are relatively insignificant – belief that the ultimate principle of the universe is personal holiness – cannot consistently urge against a belief in Christ’s Resurrection, held on the ground that it satisfies the conscience and the heart, that such assent involves the risk of illusion.

      Of course to say of a religious belief that it satisfies the conscience and the heart is not necessarily to say that the conscience and the heart produced it, and are therefore satisfied with their own creation.  Otherwise we should be obliged to confess the pure subjectivity of belief in God.  The conscience and the heart may certainly take their time before they find their satisfaction in that which is really true.  The conscience and the heart are our highest tests of truth, yet they themselves require training into the appreciation of the highest truth.  Thus the Resurrection may satisfy neither.  That would be no argument against its truth, but merely an indication of individual unsusceptibility.  It is part of the function of Christianity to create the disposition to which its truths can appeal.  And this is the rationale of the existence of social institutions in religion.  The function of the Catholic Church is to perpetuate, and to extend, the collective experience; to be the corporate witness to truths of whose value the individual is to be matured into appreciation.  This aspect of religion is one which Protestantism has largely lost.  By an exaggerated individualism it has assumed that the conscience and the heart of each are equally competent to test the value of religious truths.  Whereas experience proves that what the individual sorely needs is the support and training which the collective conscience alone can give.

      3. We now approach the question, What is the nature of faith?  Evangelical faith, it is objected, consists essentially in trust; and trust can only be directed to a person: it cannot rest upon a fact or an idea.  Faith, as a religious quality, consists in surrender of heart to heart; whereas acceptance of facts and theories is a mere intellectual assent, having no necessary relation to religion.  “Hence,” it is urged, “the bodily Resurrection of Jesus, as a mere historic event, can only be an object of intellectual conviction, but not of faith in the proper sense.” [Schwartzkopff, “Prophecies”, p. 135.  Cf. Martineau, “Authority”, and Harnack, “Hist. Dogm.”, i, 85 n.]

      To this objection there are two replies, of which the first is that although undoubtedly faith is a personal relation, it cannot be destitute of an intellectual element.  If it were religion would be reduced to mere emotion.  Faith cannot be a mere feeling of dependence and an exercise of trust.  Faith in God must necessarily include conceptions about Him.  For trust in God must surely mean trust in Him as being what He is: trust on certain intellectual grounds.  “He that cometh to God must believe,” that is to say, exercise faith, in certain facts about Him; such as “that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him”; in other words His existence and His character.  It has indeed been said that faith does not reflect on the question whether God exists, because that existence is as self-evident as that of the father whom he does not at the moment see, and whom he yet trusts, is to the child.  But the Divine existence is not necessarily self-evident.  Or, if it is, the assurance originated none the less in an act of faith.  He that cometh to God must believe that He is.  And that belief is the great venture of faith.  Trust in God is inseparable from faith in His existence and in His character.  Belief in both is essential to trust in Him.  If it be said that these are the presuppositions rather than the contents of faith: they are presuppositions without which trust is impossible; they are presuppositions to which assent must be given.  And then some name must be found for this assent.  And it will be difficult to give it any other name than faith.  At least it is a restriction of the meaning of faith to say that assent to the existence of God is not faith.  The desire to give all honour to religious faith, and to distinguish it from an intellectual assent which is not necessarily religious, may be pushed to the extreme of doing injustice to the more rudimentary form.

      Undoubtedly intellectual assent to a religious proposition is not faith in the highest form of living self-surrender to a personal Deity: but nevertheless it is a permanent element in the very highest form of faith; it is part of that capacity for venture in the unseen which constitutes true faith’s essential character.  Thus the depreciation of the intellectual and theoretic element in faith, however well meant, is yet unwise.  Could the intellectual assent be eliminated the justification of faith would be destroyed.  It is therefore better to say that faith exists in various degrees, and in different kinds, than to make faith in God rest on intellectual presuppositions to which the name of faith is denied.

      And, in the second place, faith in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is not mere belief in a historical event.  The Christian attitude is one of faith in Jesus Christ as Risen.  If the Resurrection be called a presupposition rather than contents of Christian faith, at any rate it is an essential presupposition.  Just as we could not exercise trust in God, except on the presuppositions, first that He exists and secondly that He is perfect, so neither could we exercise Christian trust in Jesus Christ, except on the presupposition that He passed through the experience of Resurrection, and as Risen is the object of human faith.  Whether we call our assent to the presuppositions of God’s existence and character, and of Christ’s Resurrection by the name of faith is a question of definition.  The main point is that the Resurrection is indispensable to Christian faith and trust in Jesus Christ.  The faith directed to Him as one who never rose would be a different faith, and not the distinctively Christian.

      If S. Paul can write: “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thy heart that God raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved,” [Rom. 10:9.] it follows that faith, in the Pauline sense of the term, includes the attitude of the Christian toward dogmatic facts.

      Faith in Jesus Christ is indeed faith in a Person.  But it is faith in Him as what?  If it be answered as Incarnate, as Mediator, these answers represent historic facts.  Faith in His Person, in the Christian sense, cannot be separated from faith in His Incarnation and His Death and His Resurrection.  For these facts are inseparable from the history of Redemption.  They are of such a character that, without them, faith in Christ would be impossible.

 

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