Chapter XXXIX.—Additional Evidence Afforded to Us in the Acts of the Apostles.

The Acts of the Apostles, too, attest251    Tertullian always refers to this book by a plural phrase. the resurrection. Now the apostles had nothing else to do, at least among the Jews, than to explain252    Resignandi. the Old Testament and confirm253    Consignandi. the New, and above all, to preach God in Christ. Consequently they introduced nothing new concerning the resurrection, besides announcing it to the glory of Christ: in every other respect it had been already received in simple and intelligent faith, without any question as to what sort of resurrection it was to be, and without encountering any other opponents than the Sadducees. So much easier was it to deny the resurrection altogether, than to understand it in an alien sense. You find Paul confessing his faith before the chief priests, under the shelter of the chief captain,254    Sub tribuno. among the Sadducees and the Pharisees:  “Men and brethren,” he says, “I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee; of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am now called in question by you,”255    Acts xxiii. 6.—referring, of course, to the nation’s hope; in order to avoid, in his present condition, as an apparent transgressor of the law, being thought to approach to the Sadducees in opinion on the most important article of the faith—even the resurrection. That belief, therefore, in the resurrection which he would not appear to impair, he really confirmed in the opinion of the Pharisees, since he rejected the views of the Sadducees, who denied it. In like manner, before Agrippa also, he says that he was advancing “none other things than those which the prophets had announced.”256    Acts xxvi. 22. He was therefore maintaining just such a resurrection as the prophets had foretold.  He mentions also what is written by “Moses,” touching the resurrection of the dead; (and in so doing) he must have known that it would be a rising in the body, since requisition will have to be made therein of the blood of man.257    Gen. ix. 5, 6. He declared it then to be of such a character as the Pharisees had admitted it, and such as the Lord had Himself maintained it, and such too as the Sadducees refused to believe it—such refusal leading them indeed to an absolute rejection of the whole verity. Nor had the Athenians previously understood Paul to announce any other resurrection.258    Acts xvii. 32. They had, in fact, derided his announcement; but they would have indulged no such derision if they had heard from him nothing but the restoration of the soul, for they would have received that as the very common anticipation of their own native philosophy. But when the preaching of the resurrection, of which they had previously not heard, by its absolute novelty excited the heathen, and a not unnatural incredulity in so wonderful a matter began to harass the simple faith with many discussions, then the apostle took care in almost every one of his writings to strengthen men’s belief of this Christian hope, pointing out that there was such a hope, and that it had not as yet been realized, and that it would be in the body,—a point which was the especial object of inquiry, and, what was besides a doubtful question, not in a body of a different kind from ours.

CAPUT XXXIX.

Resurrectionem apostolica quoque instrumenta testantur. Nam et Apostolis nullum aliud negotium fuit, dumtaxat apud Israelem, quam veteris Testamenti resignandi, et novi consignandi, potius jam Dei in Christo concionandi. Ita et de resurrectione nihil novi intulerunt , nisi quod et ipsam in 0849C gloriam Christi annuntiabant; de caetero, simplici et nota jam fide receptam, sine ulla qualitatis quaestione, solis refragantibus Sadducaeis. Adeo facilius fuit negari in totum mortuorum resurrectionem, quam aliter intelligi. Habes Paulum, apud summos sacerdotes sub tribuno inter Sadducaeos et Pharisaeos fidei suae professorem: Viri, inquit, fratres, ego pharisaeus sum, filius pharisaeorum; de spe nunc et de resurrectione judicor apud vos; utique communi; ne quia jam transgressor legis videbatur, de praecipuo fidei totius articulo, id est de resurrectione, ad Sadducaeos sapere existimaretur. Ita, quam nolebat 0850A videri rescindere, fidem resurrectionis utique confirmabat secundum Pharisaeos, respuens negatores ejus Sadducaeos. Proinde et apud Agrippam, nihil se ait proferre, citra quam prophetae annuntiassent. Ergo servabat resurrectionem quoque, qualem prophetae annuntiarant. Nam et de resurrectione mortuorum apud Moysen scriptum commemorans, corporalem eam norat; in qua scilicet sanguis hominis exquiri habebit. Itaque talem praedicabat, qualem et Pharisaei susceperant, et Dominus ipse defenderat, et Sadducaei, ne talem quoque crederent, in totum esse noluerunt. Sed nec Athenienses aliam intellexerant a Paulo portendi: denique irriserant, non irrisuri omnino, si animae solius restitutionem ab eo audissent; suscepissent enim vernaculae suae philosophiae 0850B frequentiorum praesumptionem. At ubi nationes praeconium resurrectionis, inauditae retro, ipsa novitate concussit, et digna incredulitas rei tantae quaestionibus fidem torquere coepit, tunc et Apostolus per totum pene instrumentum fidem hujus spei corroborare curavit, et esse eam ostendens, et nondum transactam, et (de quo magis quaerebatur) corporalem, et (quod insuper dubitabatur) non aliter corporalem.