any
persons, not mentioned by Moses, as it would have been no proof to the
Sadducees. His argument is, to prove that the three patriarchs, _are
raised_ according to their own writings, not _shall be raised_. Now
that the _dead are raised_ Moses showed at the bush when he called God
the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Here we perceive that "_the
dead_" refers to the three persons whom Moses showed were raised. He
then adds--for he is not the God of the _dead_ but of the _living_,
for all live unto him--that is, the three patriarchs _all_ live to
him. If the phrase embrace any others, it must be the living in
eternity, not the living in the flesh nor the dead as such. It would
make Jesus contradict himself in the same breath. "He is not the God
of the _dead_, but of the _living_; for _all_ live unto him." To whom
does this "_all_" refer? To the "_living_"; not the "_dead_," for in
that case he would be the God of the dead.

Luke ix. 30. "_And behold there talked with him two men, which were
Moses and Elias_." The transfiguration of our Lord is recorded also by
both Matthew and Mark, and it is plainly stated that the disciples
"saw his glory and the two men that stood with him." If Moses and
Elias were dead, their bodies crumbled to dust, and their minds in a
state of insensibility, then they were not Moses and Elias who talked
with him. Even if God had represented those two persons by other
forms, they could no more have been Moses and Elias than Adam and
Noah. It is _consciousness and memory_ which constitute personal
identity; and if a conversation was carried on with Jesus by any means
that human ingenuity can invent, while Moses and Elias were wrapped in
as profound insensibility as the dust with which their bodies mingled,
then it could not have been Moses and Elias who conversed with Jesus
any more than if they had never had an existence. Perhaps it may be
said that, as it is called a _vision_ by Matthew, it might have been
nothing _real_. But as the word _horama_ means a _sight_ as well as
_vision_, and as the other Evangelists do represent it as an actual
appearance and nothing visionary, it is to be taken in this sense. Was
it not a _reality_ that the three disciples saw Jesus transfigured,
and though in that condition was it not still their _identical_ Lord?
Certainly. Then the vision was so far _real_, and I see no ground on
which the other personages can be considered phantoms. Mark says, "he
charged them th