at an event so dear to the heart of God as the recovery of Israel,
would have a result even more blessed, nothing less than 'life from the
dead.' What does this last expression mean? Does St. Paul mean that
when once the chosen people was recovered into a really catholic
church, there would be no further delay--the consummation would be
reached, the resurrection of the dead which is to accompany the
(second) coming of the Christ would take place at once? This thought
would be very natural to St. Paul, and thoroughly agreeable to the old
Messianic expectation; and it would give, as nothing else gives so
well, the needed climax to the sentence. Moreover it cannot be said
that the idea of the resurrection was not intimately associated among
Christians with the return of the Christ in glory. But, on the other
hand, nowhere else does St. Paul speak of 'the resurrection' so
absolutely and without explanation as the goal of all things; and, if
he had meant so to speak of it here, he would surely have said '_the_
resurrection,' and not used the vaguer expression 'life from the dead.'
As he has used this we must interpret it in terms {78} of Ezekiel's
vision[11]: the recovery of Israel will be nothing less than a case of
dead men coming to life again, of dry bones revivified. The only
drawback to this interpretation is--what need not trouble us much--the
failure of rhetorical climax. This revival of dead Israel is hardly a
greater thing than the reconciliation of an alienated world. And,
though it would improve the rhetorical climax to interpret the phrase
as meaning that the whole catholic church would have new life put into
it by Israel's recovery, and though we should expect this idea to prove
true, yet I do not think it is natural to introduce it here.

3. St. Paul's language--'beloved for the fathers' sake,' 'if the root
be holy, so are the branches'--comes very close to the current Jewish
language about 'the merits of the fathers,' and yet is deeply
distinguished from it. The Jews as represented in the Talmud--and the
belief goes back to St. Paul's time[12]--believed that no prayer was so
effective as that which was offered in the name of 'the fathers.'
Thus: 'How many prayers did Elijah speak on Mount Carmel that fire
might fall from heaven, and he was not heard; but when he mentioned
{79} the name of the dead, and called Jehovah the God of Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob, then at once he was heard. So was it in the ca