rvellous but literal fact. This appears
from their minute accounts of the scenes at the sepulchre and of
the disappearance of his body. Their declarations of this are most
unequivocal, emphatic, iterated, "The Lord is risen indeed." All
that was most important in their faith they based upon it, all
that was most precious to them in this life they staked upon it.
"Else why stand we in jeopardy every hour?" They held it before
their inner vision as a guiding star through the night of their
sufferings and dangers, and freely poured out their blood upon the
cruel shrines of martyrdom in testimony that it was a fact.
That they believed he literally rose from the grave in visible
form also appears, and still more forcibly, from their descriptions
of his frequent manifestations to them. These show that in their
faith he assumed at his resurrection the same body in which he had
lived before, which was crucified and buried. All attempts, whether
by Swedenborgians or others, to explain this Scripture language as
signifying that he rose in an immaterial body, are futile.1 He
appeared to their senses and was recognised by his identical
bodily form. He partook of physical food with them. "They gave him
a piece of broiled fish and of an honey comb; and he ate before
them." The marks in his hands and side were felt by the
incredulous Thomas, and convinced him. He said to them, "Handle
me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me
have." To a candid mind there can hardly be a question that the
gospel records describe the resurrection of Christ as a literal
fact, that his soul reanimated the deceased body, and that in it
he showed himself to his disciples. Yet that there are a few texts
implying the immateriality of his resurrection body that there are
two accounts of it in the gospels we cannot deny.

We advance to see what is the historical evidence for the fact of
the resurrection of Christ. This argument, of course, turns
chiefly on one point, namely, the competency of the witnesses, and
the validity of their testimony.2 We will present the usually
exhibited scheme of proof as strongly as we can.3 In the first
place, those who testified to the resurrection were numerous
enough, so far as mere numbers go, to establish the fact beyond
question. Paul declares there were above five hundred who from
their personal knowledge could affirm of the Lord's resurrection.
But particularly there were the eleven apostles, the t