ii. Thk witness of St. Paul. — St. Paul's teaching on the nature of the Resurrection-Body as 'spiritual' is but the further carrying out of the teaching of the forty days, and is intelligible only against the background of the appearances of Christ's risen body, reports of which he would receive from first-hand witnesses. In regard to the Risen Body he holds firmly the two jioints borne witness to by the Gospel accounts : (1) the identity between the body which was buried ami the boily which rose. Some critics maintain that there is no substantial identity between the two in St. Paul's teachin" ; but apart from the analogy of the seed, the words ' that Christ died . . . and that he was buried and that he hath been raised on the third day ' are, as Feiiie points out {Theol. dis NT, p. 362), susceptible of no other interpretation than that of identity. But (2) equally with identity the ditt'erence between the two is insisted on, repre- sented by the distinction between the seed and the perfected plant : ' Thou sowest not that body that shall be' (1 Co 15^). St. Paul speaks of the risen body as a body not of flesh and blood (' Hesli and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God,' v.'") but one transfigured and transformed. A distinc- tion is drawn between the ' ])sychical ' or ' natural ' body and the ' pneumatical ' or ' spiritual ' body, the former the vehicle of self-manifestation under earthly conditions, the latter the organ of self- manifestation under supra-terrestrial conditions. The ditt'erence consists not in the body ceasing to be material or being changed into spirit, but in the material being entirely subjected to the dominion of the spirit. 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 exi- gencies of physical life. Matter no longer restricted Him or hindered. It had become the pure and transparentvehicle of spiritual purpose' (Gore, Bodi/ of Christ, p. 127). (For the striking corroboration of St. Paul's conception of the 'spiritual body' supplied by recent science, see below, IV. ii. 2 (c). )
St. Paul's view has been contrasted with that of the Evangelists, as less materialistic, and the ditterence has been traced to the more spiritual character of the appearance of the Risen Christ to St. Paul as compared with those to the older apostles. But we have to remember the differenc^e of relationship to the Risen Lord between St. Paul and the older disciples. That St. Paul had ever seen Jesus during His earthly life and ministry is doubtful. Ramsay, C. Clemen (Pauhts, Giessen, 19U4), and J. Weiss (Paulas iind Jesvs, Berlin, 1909), among recent critics, maintain that he had. The weight of probability, however, is against the supposition (see Feine, Jrsiis Christiis und Paviiis, Leipzig, 1902, pp. 93, 350) (2 Co 5" cannot be cited for or against, for what St. Paul is contrast- ing here is the knowledge of Christ ' after the flesh' [not 'in the flesh'] with the knowledge of Him after the spirit — the ditterence between the estimate of Christ formed by St. Paul before his conversion and after). Recognition of identity
348 KESUKKKCTION OF CHKIST
KESURKKCTlUN OF CHRIST
under changed conditions was not, therefore, the primary requirciuent in St. Paul's case, as it was in the case of the older apostles. The aim of the appearance to him was to convince him that the Jesus who was crucilied and whose followers he persecuted was indeed the Risen and Exalted Christ. To him, therefore, ('hrist was manifested in the majesty of His Divine {;lory, a Figure in- vested in dazzling splendour, with none of those more tangible characteristics which He manifested to the earlier apostles and which seemed necessary for evidential purposes. Though thus less tangible, however, the appearance to St. Paul was not less objective than those to the earlier apostles. In St. Paul's own judgment it was the same kind of appearance as that to Peter, James, and the others—' He appeared to me also.'
The question has been raised whether St. Paul derived his view of the resurrection-body entirely from what he had seen and heard of the Risen Lord, or was partly influenced by contemporary Jewish or Hellenistic ideas. Lake, e.g. (Hesurrec- tion of Jesns Christ, \). 23 fl'.), maintains that ' the Pauline doctrine of a transubstantiation of the body at the resuircction is one which was in the main familiar to the Jews,' yet he recognizes the influ- ence on St. Paul's doctrine of ' his knowledge of appearances of the Risen Lord in the light of which knowledge he re-formed his ideas on the Resurrec- tion generally.' The question of the influence on St. Paul's doctrine ot Christ's own teaching on the resurrection has also to be considered. Peine {Jesus Christus und Paultis, p. 181 f.) points out certain remarkable similarities between St. Paul's teaching in 1 Cor. and the narratives of our Lord's discussion with the Sadducees in Mk 12'8'-, Lk 20=''-. The condition of the risen is described by Jesus as being ' as the angels of God in heaven ' (Mk 12^, lis d77eXoi iv Toi! ovpavoU), or 'like the angels ' {i<Tiyy(\oi), and as being ' sons of God, being sons of the resurrection ' (Lk 20""). That is to say, they possess a heavenly or spiritual organism, and are conformed to the likeness of God (see Kennedy, St. Pant's Conceptions of the Last Things, pp. 100, 234). This Christian tradition of Jesus' eschato- logical teaching, if received by St. Paul, was, how- ever, illumined and defined by the manifestations of Jesus to himself and to the other apostles. Others maintain {e.g. Reitzenstein ; see J. Weiss, on 1 Co 15") that St. Paul's contrast between the ' natural body ' (o-i^na i/'uxikoV) and the ' spiritual body ' {trU/xa ■rrt'fvfj.aTiKoi') w'as derived from the Greek mystery- religion.s. But the Greek anti- thesis is based on a dualistic conception of human nature, and St. Paul's contrast is in quite a different category.