i'i) To i)lace the appearances of the Risen Christ on the same level as spiritualistic apparitions of the dead — no more miracu- lous or significant than they — given to assure the sorrowing disciples that their Master was still living in the world of spirits, thus ' making human experience in all ages akin,' is to eliminate just that which is of distinctive worth and value in His appearances, and to fail to realize the true significance of the Resurrection for apostolic thought. The Resurrection claims to be a new beginning, a new departure in experience, a revelation sui generis. For the apostles the Resurrection had a significance far beyond the incidental revelation of the truth that Christ lives on after death. It was a fact of the Largest moral and spiritual significance, for it meant His exaltation at the right hand of God, supreme in the material as well as in the spiritual world, and as such led to a revolution in apostolic thought and life. To compare the appearances and manifesta- tions of the Risen Christ with their unique and far-reaching results to the spiritualistic apparitions of psychical research and alleged communications from the other world is to compare the incomparable. When any of the ' resurrections ' investigated by the Society for Psychical Research has consequences of a moral
an(l spiritual character to be compared with the XT or the Apoylolic Church — then, but not till Llieii, will we believe it is the same kind of thing as the resurrection of Jesus. Bo-called * messages' or 'conimunications' from the other side of death we have in abundance, but they are mere inanities and jilati- tudes which we are as well without. 'If communication is established at all with the spirit-world, it is merely with " the dregs and lees of the unseen universe " — with spirits wlio either have not the power or else the will to communicate anything of importance to man' (W. V. Paterson, Shli, p. 45S'*).
(3) A Hciciitific proof or verification of the Resurrection by ex- perimental methods on evidence open to all alike, such as Myers and Lake desiderate, would have no religious value. The belief in the resurrection of .Jesus depends on an initial appreciation of the uniqueness of His personality — it is belief in .lesiui us risen— and this is spiritually discerned. (4) The object of the theor.v is to bring the resurrection of (jhrist into line with natural phenomena and ' our ever-growing recognition of the continuity, the uniformity of cosmic law' (Myers, Hiniian I'ersiiniUiti/t p. 3.il), and thus to get rid of the supernatural especially in the physical realm. The empty tomb and the event on the third (lay become, on this theory, mistakes for whicil some explanation has to be found. What Lake's sug- gested explanation is has already been considered (V. i. z).
LiTERATtiiiB.— On this theory see F. W. H. Myers, Human Personality and its .'^ttrrical of Bodily Deaths ed. London, 19(J7 ; K. Lake, JJislorical Evidence for the Resurrection o/ JesMS Christ, do., 1907; O. Lodge, Survival oj .Van, do., 19U9, art. 'The Immortality of the Soul,' pt. ii., in H./ vi. [1908] 674fif. ; F. Podraore, 7'iie ^euier Spiritualism, London, 1910 ; W. MacDougall, Body and Mind, do., 1911, ch. xxv.
2. The mythological theory. — The theory ad- duced from the side of the study of comparative religion and mythology is perhaps the most char- acteristic modern form of explanation. It is con- nected, in its most recent phase, with the rise of the school of thought usually called 'Neo-Baby- lonian ' or 'Pan-Babylonian' from its attempt to account for much in Bible story through the in- fluence of conceptions imported into Judaism from the Orient, and derived chiefly from Babyloniti. The fundamental principle of this school or move- ment in relation to Christianity is the demand that the I'eligion of Jesus Christ, including its OT pie- paration, be studied by the scientihc-historical method, not as if it were something unique and apart, 'a holy island in the sea of history,' but in its place in the stream, and in essential connexion with religions chronologicallj' and geographically adjacent to it. As applied to the NT, the attitude of the school may be rejtresented by the thesis of H. Gunkel that 'in its origin and shaping (.4m.?- bildung) in important and even in some essential points the religion of the NT stood under the iii- Huence of foi'eign religions, and that this influence was transmitted to the men of the XT through Judaism ' {Zum reliqionsgeschichtl. Vcrslundni.s da Nl\ Uottingen, 1903, p. 1) ; or bj' that of Clieyiie : ' There are parts of the New Testament — in the Gospels, in the Epistles, and in the Apocalypse — which can only be accounted for by the newly- di.scovered fact of an Oriental .syncietism, which began early and continued late' (Bible Problems, p. 19). Among the beliefs thus accounted for is the belief in the resurrection of Jesus in the form in which this appears in the NT. Myths of the death and resurrection of gods, 'resurrection legends,' derived ultimately from Babylonia, were spread, it is represented, through the whole East, and these, entering through many channels, chiefly through the mystery-religions, became attached first to the figure of the expected Messiah in Jewish literature, and then through Judaism to Jesus of Nazareth, and had a powerful influence in moulding the NT representation of His resurrection.