ources, which we know were abundant then. Justin Martyr says
there was formerly a passage in Jeremiah to this effect: "The Lord
remembered the dead who were sleeping in the earth, and went down
to them to preach salvation to them." 4 There were floating in the
Jewish mind, at the time of Christ, at least some fragmentary
traditions, vague expectations, that the Messiah was to die,
descend to Sheol, rescue some of the captives, and triumphantly
ascend. It is true, this statement is denied by some; but the
weight of critical authorities seems to us to preponderate in its
favor, and the intrinsic historical probabilities leave hardly a
doubt of it in our own minds.5 Now, three alternatives are offered
us. Either Jesus interpreted Moses, the Psalms, and the Prophets,
on the Rabbinical ground of a double sense, with mystic
applications; or he accepted the prophecies referred to, from oral
traditions held by his countrymen; or the apostles misunderstood,
and in consequence partially misreported, him. All we can
positively say is that these precise predictions are plainly not
in the Jewish Scriptures, undoubtedly were in the oral law, and
were certainly received by the apostles as authoritative.

Continuing our inquiry into the apostolic view of the resurrection
of Christ, we shall perceive that it is most prominently set forth
as the certificate of our redemption from the

4 Dial. cum Tryph. sect. lxxii.

5 Discussed, with full list of references, in Strauss's Life of
Jesus, part iii. cap. i. sect.
112.

kingdom of death to the same glorious destiny which awaited him
upon his ascension into heaven. The apostles regarded his
resurrection as a supernatural seal set on his mission, warranting
his claims as an inspired deliverer and teacher. Thereby, they
thought, God openly sanctioned and confirmed his promises.
Thereby, they considered, was shown to men God's blessed grace,
freely forgiving their sins, and securing to them, by this pledge,
a deliverance from the doom of sin as he had risen from it, and an
acceptance to a heavenly immortality as he had ascended to it. The
resurrection of Christ, then, and not his death, was to them the
point of vital interest, the hinge on which all hung. Does not the
record plainly show this to an impartial reader? Wherever the
apostles preach, whenever they write, they appeal not to the death
of a veiled Deity, but to the resurrection of an appointed
messenger; not to a vicarious aton