2. Doctrine of Saint Paul.— In keeping with his teaching that the Church is the mystic Christ, whereof Jesus is the mystic Head and we are the members, Saint Paul links together two correlative doctrines. The first is that of the mystic resurrection of both Head and mem bers, by the rising of the soul above things of sin. The second is the teaching that the physi cal resurrection of the Head postulates the ris ing of the members: "Now if it be preached that Christ rose from the dead, how is it some among you say there is no resurrection of the dead? Why, if there be no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ is risen. And if Christ is not risen, then vain is our preaching—yea, vain is your faith; and we are proven to have been false witnesses of God; forasmuch as we have testified of God that He raised the Christ, whom He did not raise—if, forsooth, the dead do not rise) (1 Cor. xv, 12, 15). This denial of the resurrection is due to an infiltration into the Corinthian Church either of Sadducean ideas or of the Hellenism that scouted the doc trine upon the Hill of Ares in Athens (Acts xvii, 32). To show how fundamental is belief in the resurrection, Saint Paul urges the doctrine at Athens (Acts xvii, 18), at Jerusalem (Acts xxiii, 6), before Felix (Acts xxiv, 15), and Agrippa (Acts xxvi, 8). 'The Pauline let ters again and again present the argument: Jesus, the Head of the mystic Christ is risen; therefore, we the members of that mystic Christ, the Church, shall also rise from the dead (Romans viii, 11; 1 Cor. vi, 14; 2 Cor. iv, 14; 1 Thess. iv, 14; 2 Tim. ii, 11). Christ, "the first of those that sleep" the sleep of death, is the second Adam. As body and soul are separated in death because of the sin of the first Adam; so body and soul come together after death because of the merit of the second Adam (1 Cor. xv, 20-23). "He will trans form the body of our lowliness, that it may be conformed with His Body of glory, by the same power that enabled Him to subject all things to himself" (Phil. 21). If this be not true, then one may as well follow one's lower appetites, and act according to an Epicurean fundamental principle of life: "Let us eat and drink; for to-morrow we die" (1 Cor. xv, 32, citing Isaias, xxii 13).
3. Manner of the Saint Paul preached "a resurrection of the just and the unjust alike" (Acts xxiv, 15). True, his letters generally have to do with the rising only of thejust, who have died in the mystic union with Christ by grace. Yet He clearly means that both the just and the unjust will rise unto immortality in the same bodies as were ani mated by the soul before death. It would not be resurrection, were the dead to rise in bodies not their own. These identical bodies, in all their entirety, will be so transformed at the resur rection as to be immortal. The transformation of the living, at the Last Day, will be conse quent upon the equivalent of death, a summary death that will be immediately followed by resurrection. The living will not then die the lasting death, which the Apostle calls sleep. "We shall not all sleep; but we shall all be transformed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet-call. For the trum pet will sound, and the dead will rise immortal, and we also shall be transformed" (1 Cor. xv, 51, 52). As the grain of wheat differs from the blade that shoots up therefrom, so the earthly body differs from the transformed (1 Cot. 36, 37). To the just, this immortality of the transformed body will be an everlasting joy i ; to the unjust, a never ending torture.
This torture vividly described in Matt. v, 29, 30; xxv, 41-46; Mark, ix, 43-49; and Apoc. ix. In the last pericope, it is expressly stated that the tortures of the wicked are "not allowed to kill them." The tortured "will seek death, and will not find it; they will long to die, but death will flee from them" (Apoc. ix, 5, 6).
In what will the transformation of the bodies of the just consist? Saint Paul tells us, after putting himself the questions: "How shall the dead rise? With what sort of body shall they come forth?" (1 Cor. xv, 35-57). Four qualities of spirit will transform the risen bodies of the just. The first of these qualities is impassibility, by which the glorified body is not subject to pain and is forever freed from those organic changes that end in death. "For this perishable body must put on an imperishable form: and this dying body must put on a deathless form" (verse 53). The second quality of the glorious risen body is glory, or brightness, by which the bodies of the saints are refulgent and dazzling in beauty, and "shine like the sun" (Matt. xiii, 43). "There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies: but the glory of the heav enly bodies is not the glory of the earthly. The glory of the sun is not the glory of the moon, nor the glory of the stars: for star differs from star in glory. Even in such wise is the resur rection of the dead° (1 Cot. xv, 40, 41). The third quality of the bodies of the risen just is agility, by which the risen body is freed from the hindrance of gravity and speedily moves through space like as does a spirit. Saint Paul has this agility in mind, when he writes: "With a summons, with a voice of an archangel, with a trumpet-blast of God, the Lord Himself will come down from heaven. Then the dead in Christ shall rise first; and afterward we, if we be alive, if we be left over, shall with them be caught up into the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we shall ever be with the Lord" (1 Thess. iv, 16-18). The fourth qual ity of the glorified body is subtility, by which it becomes spiritualized or like to a spirit, passes through material objects as did the glori fied body of Christ and is under the absolute control of the soul. "Sown mortal, it rises immortal; sown tainted, it rises glorious; sown weak, it rises mighty; sown an animated body, it rises a spiritualized body. As surely as there is an animated body, so is there a spiritualized" (I Cor. xv, 42-44).
IV. Ecclesiastical and Patristic Evidence. creeds of the Church, from the begin nings of Christianity, have contained the be lief in the resurrection of the dead. Such are the Apostles' Creed, as witnessed to by Justin A.D. 138-165), Tertullian (194-221), Phcebadius c. 392), Rufinus (d. 410) and Epiphanius d. 374) ; the Fides Domasi (c. 380), the Nicene Constantinopolitan Creed (381), Libellus in modum Symboli (referred to by Gennadius c. 490), the Quicunque (fifth cent.) and later creeds. So, too, the Fathers bear overwhelming witness to the doctrine of the resurrection. We cite only the earliest: Clement of Rome, (1 Cor. 25); Justin, 'Contra Tryphonem,' 80; Athenagoras, 'De resurrectione carnis,) 3; Tatian, (Adversus Grmcos,) 6; Tertullian, (Marcion,) v, 9, and (De resurrectione carnis,) 1; Irenseus, 'Contra Haereses,) i, 10; Minu cius Felix, 34; Origen, in Matt. xxix ; Hippolytus, 'Adversus Grwcos) (in Migne, (Patrologia Grmca,) x, 799) ; Cyril of Jerusalem, Ephraim, Epiphanius, Basil and a vast list of later Fathers.