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| Reasons for His rising on the Third Day. (1) Not sooner for else His real death would be denied, nor (2) later; to (a) guard the identity of His body, (b) not to keep His disciples too long in suspense, nor (c) to wait till the witnesses of His death were dispersed, or its memory faded. PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
§26. Reasons for His rising on the
Third Day. (1) Not sooner for else His real death would be denied, nor
(2) later; to (a) guard the identity of His body, (b) not to keep His
disciples too long in suspense, nor (c) to wait till the witnesses of
His death were dispersed, or its memory faded.
The death on the Cross, then, for us has proved
seemly and fitting, and its cause has been shewn to be reasonable in
every respect; and it may justly be argued that in no other way than by
the Cross was it right for the salvation of all to take place. For not
even thus—not even on the Cross—did He leave Himself
concealed; but far otherwise, while He made creation witness to the
presence of its Maker, He suffered not the temple of His body to remain
long, but having merely shewn it to be dead, by the contact of death
with it, He straightway raised it up on the third day, bearing away, as
the mark of victory and the triumph over death, the incorruptibility
and impassibility which resulted to His body. 2. For He could, even
immediately on death, have raised His body and shewn it alive; but this
also the Saviour, in wise foresight, did not do. For one might have
said that He had not died at all, or that death had not come into
perfect contact with Him, if He had manifested the Resurrection at
once. 3. Perhaps, again, had the interval of His dying and rising again
been one of two days275
275 Literally ‘at an even’ [distance], as contrasted with
(a) the same day (2, above), (b) the third day (ἐν
τριταί& 251·
διαστήματι
(6, below). ἐν
ἴσῳ must therefore be
equivalent in sense to δευτεραίου. Possibly the literal sense is ‘[had the
Resurrection taken place] at an equal interval between the Death and
the [actual day of] the Resurrection.’ | only, the glory of
His incorruption would have been obscure. So in order that the body
might be proved to be dead, the Word tarried yet one intermediate day,
and on the third shewed it incorruptible to all. 4. So then, that the
death on the Cross might be proved, He raised His body on the third
day. 5. But lest, by raising it up when it had remained a long time and
been completely corrupted, He should be disbelieved, as though He had
exchanged it for some other body—for a man might also from lapse
of time distrust what he saw, and forget what had taken place—for
this cause He waited not more than three days; nor did He keep long in
suspense those whom He had told about the Resurrection: 6. but while
the word was still echoing in their ears and their eyes were still
expectant and their mind in suspense, and while those who had slain Him
were still living on earth, and were on the spot and could witness to
the death of the Lord’s body, the Son of God Himself, after an
interval of three days, shewed His body, once dead, immortal and
incorruptible; and it was made manifest to all that it was not from any
natural weakness of the Word that dwelt in it that the body had died,
but in order that in it death might be done away by the power of the
Saviour.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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