teusantas]) and we might probably add,
that no appearances of the Lord could permanently have convinced them of
his life, if they had not possessed in their hearts the impression of
his Person. Faith in the eternal life of Christ and in our own eternal
life is not the condition of becoming a disciple of Jesus, but is the
final confession of discipleship. Faith has by no means to do with the
knowledge of the form in which Jesus lives, but only with the conviction
that he is the living Lord. The determination of the form was
immediately dependent on the most varied general ideas of the future
life, resurrection, restoration, and glorification of the body, which
were current at the time. The idea of the rising again of the body of
Jesus appeared comparatively early, because it was this hope which
animated wide circles of pious people for their own future. Faith in
Jesus, the living Lord, in spite of the death on the cross, cannot be
generated by proofs of reason or authority, but only to-day in the same
way as Paul has confessed of himself [Greek: hote eudokesen ho theos
apokalupssai ton huion autou en emoi]. The conviction of having seen the
Lord was no doubt of the greatest importance for the disciples and made
them Evangelists, but what they saw cannot at first help us. It can only
then obtain significance for us when we have gained that confidence in
the Lord which Peter has expressed in Mark VIII. 29. The Christian even
to-day confesses with Paul [Greek: ei en te zoe taute en christo
elpikotes esmen monon, eleeisteroi panton anthropon esmen]. He believes
in a future life for himself with God because he believes that Christ
lives. That is the peculiarity and paradox of Christian faith. But these
are not convictions that can be common and matter of course to a deep
feeling and earnest thinking being standing amid nature and death, but
can only be possessed by those who live with their whole hearts and
minds in God, and even they need the prayer, I believe, help thou mine
unbelief. To act as if faith in eternal life and in the living Christ
was the simplest thing in the world, or a dogma to which one has just to
submit, is irreligious. The whole question about the resurrection of
Christ, its mode and its significance, has thereby been so thoroughly
confused in later Christendom, that we are in the habit of considering
eternal life as certain, even apart from Christ. That, at any rate, is
not Christian. It is Christian to p