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| Additional Evidence Afforded to Us in the Acts of the Apostles.
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Chapter
XXXIX.—Additional Evidence Afforded to Us in the Acts of the
Apostles.
The Acts of the Apostles, too, attest7535
| 7535 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 explain7536
the Old Testament and confirm7537
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,7538
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,”7539
—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.”7540
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.7541
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.7542
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.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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