The Idea Of The Resurrection In The Ante-Nicene Period (1909) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS Having described the various Jewish and New Testament ideas of the resurrection, let us now turn to trace the development of thought in the ante-Nicene Christian literature. Here we are interested to know how the resurrection was approached; how Scripture was interpreted and used; and what arguments were employed in substantiation of the ideas that were held. Then we also wish to know what place the resurrection held in each particular writer and what purpose it served?whether it was a fundamental or a secondary consideration, and whether it was purely theological and apologetic. But especially do we desire to know what the precise character of the resurrection in each case was?whether the term "resurrection" was equivalent to personal immortality; whether there was a risen body, and if so, whether it was the former body, or a different body; and again, whether a writer held to one idea consistently, or whether two or even more ideas were sometimes overlaid or welded together. Clement1 of Rome stands out as the first among the apostolic Fathers. His epistle to the Corinthians is the only Christian monument of the first century not included in the New Testament canon. His discussion of the resurrection is very singular, and yet also very simple (chaps. 24-27). He affirms that God will effect a resurrection in the case of man as he has done in the case of Jesus. God has given an assurance of the resurrection from the very works of nature. Day comes forth from the grave of the night, and out of the decayed seed comes forth the plant and the fruit. But the unique analogy is that of the phoenix. This bird is the only one of its kind and lives for five hundred years, after which it enters into a coffin, which it has built, and dies; and "as the f...