Doctrine of the REstmEECTioN or the Dead IN Apostolic Teaching. — To this the preceding remarks naturally lead us on. In two respects the doctrine presented itself to men of the apostolic age dili'erently from the way in wliich we regard it. (i) To the apostles the expectation of tlie Second Coming in their own lifetime, arising from such sayings as Mt 24^^, superseded in some measure the expectation of resurrection for themselves and for those whom they addressed, vet the strong Saddii- cean opposition to the gospel is expressly attributed to the apostles' teaching as to the resurrection (Ac 4-). (2) On the other hand, the sense of the new life imparted to them by the words of Christ and the gift of the Spirit, with the example before them in the Person of Christ of how this life could triumph over death, made the resurrection in its aspect of quickening (^wo-KoutaBai.) an already pres- ent fact. They were already risen with Christ, death was brought to nought (2Ti 1'"), and the subject of their preaching was 'this life' (t) fwij oCti), Ac 5-"). But for later ages of the Church the literal resurrection has appeared to be the important thought, and the mjstical resurrection has lost the fieshness which it had when grown men entered by baptism into the new life, from the bondage of Judaism or the superstition and vice of heathenism (Ko 6^- "). But the question as to apostolic teaching is really not a general one, but special, and to be answered almost entirely from the Pauline Epistles. The Catholic Epistles and Hebrews contribute very little. It is when St. Paul turns to the Gentiles that the doctiine of the resurrection assumes a fresh prominence. It is not merely, as in Judsea, that ^ritness must be given that .Jesus is risen, to men who expect already resurrection for themselves ; but the idea of resur- rection is here a new one, and there is no previous belief in which the resurrection of the Lord can find its place. Popular Hellenic thought on the subject was vague, and apparently but little in- fluenced by the doctrine of retribution taught in the mj'steries (Salmond, Chr. Duct. Immortalitti, p. 135 note). Philosophic thought was simply concerned with the possible immortality of the soul, and uniformly discarded the prospect of a renewed existence in the body except by way of transmigration, a totally different conception from that of resurrection. In his discourse at Athens, St. Paul carried the Stoics with him throughout, untU he came to the words ' in that he raised him from the dead,' Ac 17^'. Then some mocked, and Paul departed from among them. Hence in both his Epistles to the most distinctly Greek of the Churches which he addresses (Corinth), St. Paul enters fully on the question of resurrection. It was apparently at Corinth, first of all, that the mystical sense of resurrection, described above, usurped the place of the literal sense. It is to St. Paul that we owe the clear presentation of both the literal and the mystical views of resurrection as truly compatible. As examples of the mystical sense, besides Ko G*- ° (already referred to), we have Col 2" 3', Eph 2''-. The last-named jiassage carries the mystical union with Christ bej'ond His resur- rection to His ascension. And it is in reference to the mystical resurrection that we are to understand the baptismal hvmn, ' Awake thou that sleepcst, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall sliine upon thee,' Eph G". It is easy to see how such language, if it stood alone and without its com- plement, might give occasion to the teaching of Hj-menoeus and Philetus that the resurrection w.as past already, 2Ti 2'". It was tliercfore absolutely necessary for St. Paul to emphasize also the liter.'il sense of the doctrine, which he does in 1 Th 4'*, 2 Co 5, Ph 3-', but especially in 1 Co 15'-"". In th« latter passage he first shows that faith in the re-
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•nrrection of the dead is vital to the gospel, because the resurrection of Christ is vital to it, and that cannot be maintained if the resurrection of those ■who are in Christ is denied. Then he meets the difficulties which Greek thought, more subtle and critical than Je^vish, felt so strongly — ' How are the dead raised, and with what manner of body do they come?'
In further examination of the Pauline doctrine, three questions will present themselves, which must be dealt with successively — (1) In what re- spects, if at all, does the teaching of St. Paul on tlie subject go beyond the teaching of Christ? (2) Is his teaching consistent with itself ? (3) Does it include a doctrine of two resurrections I
(1) The principal thought which we owe to 1 Co 15 is that of a spiritual (irvtu/iariKii') as distin- guished from a natural {tpvxiKiu) body, namely, a body wliifh is adapted to be the organ of a per- Bonalitj- in which it is no longer the soul ii/vx^) but the spirit {TrveO^ui), which is supreme. This is in full correspondence with the account given in the Gospels of the risen Christ, but needed to be detinitely stated (cf. 1 P 3" KV). The analogies by which the possibility of such a body is indicated (vv.""") are to be regarded as (a) popular illustra- tions, (6) examples of the inexhaustible resources of God, and are not adduced aa arjjuments. The crux of the doctrine is, ' What continuity is there between the natural body resigned at death, and the spiritual body received at the resurrection ? ' For tliis, another analogy is brought forward — that of the seed and the Avheat plant ; and here again we have an illustration which must not be pressed too closely. It does not iini)ly that the writer believed that there really is as it were a seed in the dead body out of which the new body will be developed (cf. Weber, Jiirl. Theol.' p. 369 ; Hughes, Diet. Islam, art. ' Resurrection ). Nor do St. Paul's words necessarily imply that view of the doctrine V. iiich iTom the Apologists onwards was general in the Catholic Chuicli, namely, that the matter which constituted the former body at the time of de.ath will be collected, and that the former body will thus be reproduced in all its members. The passage lends itself quite as readily to Origen's suggestion of a ' ratio quaj salva est ' (Or. de Frimipiis, 11. x. 3) ; see Westcott, Gospel of Ee- surreitiun, ii. § 7. In considering the dilliculties attending the idea of the preservation of identity in the body, it must not be forgotten that difficulties also attend the conception of a continuous identity of the soul.