touch, but gives him assurance that he is touching the same body that was wounded upon the cross. He believes it, and on that ground rests his conviction of the Lord's resurrection. To say that this ground was specious and false, would seem to us to involve the supposition that his Master studied and practised an imposition upon his disciples.

4. Christ ate with his disciples after his resurrection, and ate natural food,-"broiled fish and honeycomb." Not only so, but he ate before them for the avowed object of convincing them that he had "flesh and bones.". To suppose that spiritual bodies partake of material food implies an incongruity and anomaly that shocks the reason, and the case is not rendered a whit more rational to our minds by quotations from Genesis, which are supposed to assert the same thing of angels. As we do not believe that any such thing is there asserted or implied,* we reject all such interpretations, and receive this passage in its obvious and literal meaning.

We conclude, then, that Christ arose in the same body that was crucified. This, however, does not imply that there was no important

* Genesis ix. 1. The word there rendered angels is from

772, which means prophet or priest."

a messenger of God, whether an angel or See Stuart's Lexicon.

change in it, and that his post-resurrection appearances and relations were the same as before. That they were very different we readily grant, as, indeed, the arguments which we have above displayed most clearly demonstrate. But they demonstrate nothing more. They show a change of some kind in the natural body, and its methods of appearing; but, taken in connection with all the facts, the reader will judge whether they do not fail utterly in showing that Christ rose only in a spiritual form.

CHAPTER VIII.

THEORIES.

WE come to another view of the subject, and one which has been more generally adopted, as in strict accordance with all the facts of the narratives. It is that Christ rose in the natural body, but that it was changed for the glorified or celestial body during the forty days between his resurrection and ascension. The writers who adopt this view do not agree precisely as to the time and the progress of this change, but they agree in the essential fact, and their diversities of conception and statement do not seem to us of the least practical importance. Three shades of variation may be distinguished.

Thus, some of the early Fathers represent Christ after his resurrection as possessing the same body, but changed as to its qualities, and made "impassible, immortal, and incorruptible." In this class are reckoned Irenæus, Tertullian, Cyprian, and Augustine. In this class, too, are many of the

scholastic writers of the Middle Ages. The early Lutheran divines are of the same belief, for they describe the Lord's post-resurrection body as endowed with the qualities of "impalpability, invisibility, and illocality," that is, we suppose, of assuming these qualities at will. Some German writers of the present day, belonging to the orthodox school, take the same view, with only this difference, that the process of transformation was not performed at once and at the time of the resurrection, but was gradual and progressive, extending through the whole forty days, and only completed at the ascension. Such is the view of Hahn, Olshausen, Hengstenberg, and several others. Another class of writers suppose that this change was not gradual, but took place instantly at the ascension; that during the forty days Christ had the same body as before his death, unchanged in its qualities; but that at the moment he was "taken up" into heaven it was transformed and glorified, and fitted for the heavenly abodes. Such is the opinion defended by some of the Christian Fathers, by Jerome with considerable fulness. It was adopted by Calvin and his followers, and more recently by Herder, Neander, and Tholuck, and more recent

*

*Bibliotheca Sacra for July, 1845, Article on Christ's Resurrection, by Professor Robinson.

ly still by Professor Robinson, in an article in the Biblical Repository already referred to.

It will be perceived that these three classes of writers differ on a mere punctum temporis, the first supposing that the essential change took place on the resurrection morning; the second, that it was progressive through forty days; and the last, that it was accomplished at the moment of ascension; all coming, however, to the same result, that the natural body was changed for the glorified body before Christ ascended out of his earthly relations to his place at God's right hand. But in none of them is there the least glimmer of light as to the essential nature of this change. Do they mean that the material body had some new qualities added to it, increasing its splendor and adaptability, but remaining the same in essence as before, as a material body here may change from crass to fine, or from dull to bright? or do they mean that it was changed, not only in external properties, but also in internal essence? or, what is more likely, do they use language without meaning anything more than that some change took place, they know not what, and may not presume to know? This last, they would probably say; and yet it is plain, that, until we get some clear conception on this point, we not only fail to "discern the Lord's body," but have hardly advanced one step towards the apprehen