CHAPTER XIV

THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY

THE last article of the Creed teaches the resurrection of the body of the Christian at the second advent of the Lord, by the power of the Holy Spirit: and implies an eternal life in the body as well as in the spirit with Christ and His Church. Subsequently this was made explicit by the addition of the phrase: life eternal.

The received form of the Creed is: resurrection of the flesh, life eternal.

The Creed of the fourth century had only: resurrection of the flesh.

It is not disputed that the early Roman Creed had this article in this form. The phrase is not a New Testament phrase. We have rather: resurrection of the dead (Mt. 2281; Acts 1732, 236, 242, 2623; I Cor. 1512, 13, 21, 42; Heb. 62; cf. Acts 2415). So the Constantinopolitan has the word dead without the article.

But it is quite evident that σapkós = carnis had come into usage in the Creed, for that phrase is familiar to Justin, Irenæus, Tertullian, and others. Thus Irenæus (Adv. Hær., I, 101): "to raise up all flesh of all mankind"; Tertullian (De Virg., vel. 1): per carnis etiam resurrectionem; (De Præs. Hær., 13): cum carnis restitutione. Cyril in his long form, has: eis σαρκὸς ἀνάστασιν.

The motive for a change is not difficult to find; for resurrection of the dead might mean a resurrection of the disembodied spirit; and it was necessary, in order to rule out that doctrine, to add flesh, to show that it was the whole man, body and soul, that took part in the resurrection.

Harnack, followed by McGiffert, claims that the change was due to grosser views of the resurrection, which became current in the early Church in opposition to the more spiritual views of St. Paul; and that "the Greek capxòs åvástasty, and the Latin carnis resurrectionem are distinctly, though not, of course, intentionally, anti-Pauline" (McGiffert, p. 169). This view of Harnack is utterly without justification; it is due to a neglect of the study of the use of cap in the New Testament, and of its basis in the Old Testament.

There can be no doubt as to what was the Jewish doctrine of the resurrection in the time of Jesus and His Apostles; and there is no evidence of any different opinion among the writers of the New Testament.

The doctrine of the Pharisees was well defined over against the Sadducees. Jesus and His Apostles in this matter agreed with the Pharisees, as is evident from many passages of the New Testament.

It is altogether probable that σáp came into the Creed from Psalm 169; where is used for the body in antithesis with , making up the entire man, body and soul, and which is so quoted by St. Peter and applied to Jesus (Acts 226-27, 31). has sometimes the specific meaning of flesh of the body; but in this passage, where it is used in connection with the

resurrection, it is the body of man, and is not the flesh of the body. The same is true of in Job 1926,

which is often used by the early writers in connection with the resurrection; and this is a common usage of the Old Testament in other relations also, as I have shown elsewhere.1 So also in the New Testament, in many passages and in many relations, σáp§ is used of the body more frequently than of the flesh of the body. There can be no reasonable doubt that the term σáp in the Creed had this general sense of body of man, and not the specific grosser sense that Harnack would foist upon it

St. Paul, in I Cor. 15, uses oua, body, in connection with the resurrection, and accordingly gives σáp the more specific sense of the fleshly substance of the body. He affirms that the body of Christians at the resurrection will not have the flesh and blood characteristic of the earthly body, corruptible and mortal; but that their bodies will be heavenly bodies, and so incorruptible, immortal, and glorious, like the body of Christ, composed of a heavenly substance into which it has been transubstantiated.

It is quite true that Tertullian, and other early and mediæval authors, were quite gross in their conceptions of the body of the resurrection. Their gross views were tolerable but not valid interpretations of the Creed, which followed the Biblical teaching, and is to be interpreted by St. Paul, and not in conflict with him; because St. Paul goes deeper into the question of the resurrection than any other New

1 V. Briggs, Commentary on Psalms, I, p. 126.

Testament writer. Gross views of the resurrection of the body are tolerable, because they include the less gross view; but the antithetic opinion, which discards the resurrection of the body altogether, is intolerable, because it was to avoid just such an opinion that the Creed has resurrection of the flesh instead of resurrection of the dead.

Opinions as to the nature of the resurrection body have varied in the Church, as they vary now; and these variations are permissible so long as the reality of the resurrection of the body is held.

Following the teaching of St. Paul in I Cor. 15, which has always been normal on this question, the resurrection body is the same body as that which is entombed, or buried; that is, in form, structure, appearance, identity: but its substance is different, in that it is no longer earthly, corruptible, mortal flesh, but heavenly, incorruptible, immortal. And this is most reasonable.

The body that inhabits this earth must be composed of flesh and blood, derived from the substance of this earth. If Jupiter or Mars is inhabited, the bodies of their inhabitants must be composed of the substance of these planets and constructed in accordance with the forces and motions of these planets. Wherever the spirit of man goes to abide, it will take to itself the substance of the place where it is to abide.

The view that best commends itself to me, is, that there is a spiritual body, which underlies and gives shape and organization to the physical body. This

body is inseparable from the soul, goes forth with the soul at death, and in the intermediate state assumes the substance of the intermediate place of souls. When the final change comes, for the ultimate state of existence at the resurrection, the same body takes to itself the substance of the final place of its abode: the body, the same in form and structure, but different in its substance.

Eternal life was added to the Creed, as other phrases of other articles, probably through the influence of Niceta's Creed, which has it.

The eternal life is the eternal life that follows the resurrection of the body and the final judgment; and not the eternal life which begins, according to the Gospel of John, with the new birth in this world, or that which begins immediately after death.

This article of the Creed has to do only with Christians, not with unbelievers; for it is subordinate to the article of the Holy Spirit, and the last in the order of clauses as to the work of the Spirit: church -remission of sins-resurrection. This is not to deny the universal resurrection, which, indeed, is implied in the article of the judgment of Christ, but simply leaving it out of view here, where the work of the Spirit is under consideration and the blessedness of the righteous kept in view.

The Apostles' Creed is based on the New Testament, and especially upon the teaching of Jesus and His Apostles as recorded in the Gospels and the Book of Acts; and to a great extent is Lukan, as would