Wherefore the wise and good man, remembering who he is and whence he came, and by whom he was produced, is
no place for them either in heaven or in hell; for the modern scientific notion, as I suppose that it must be named, does not admit the conception of a place heaven or a place hell (Strauss, Der Alte und der Neue Glaube, p. 129).
We may name Paul a contemporary of Epictetus, for though Epictetus may have been the younger, he was living at Rome during Nero's reign (A.D. 54–68); and it is affirmed, whether correctly or not, I do not undertake to say, that Paul wrote from Ephesus his first epistle to the Corinthians (Cor. i. 16, 8) in the beginning of A.D. 56. Epictetus, it is said, lived in Rome till the time of the expulsion of the philosophers by Domitian, when he retired to Nicopolis an old man, and taught there. Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians (c. 15) contains his doctrine of the resurrection, which is accepted, I believe, by all, or nearly all, if there are any exceptions, who profess the Christian faith: but it is not understood by all in the same way.
Paul teaches that Christ died for our sins, that he was buried and rose again on the third day; and that after his resurrection he was seen by many persons. Then he asks, if Christ rose from the dead, how can some say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 'But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen' (v. 13); and (v. 19), 'if in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.' But he affirms again (v. 20) that 'Christ is risen and become the first fruits of them that slept.' In v. 32, he asks what advantages he has from his struggles in Ephesus, 'if the dead rise not let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.' He seems not to admit the value of life, if there is no resurrection of the dead; and he seems to say that we shall seek or ought to seek only the pleasures of sense, because life is short, if we do not believe in a resurrection of the dead. It may be added that there is not any direct assertion in this chapter that Christ ascended to heaven in a bodily form, or that he ascended to heaven in any way. He then says (v. 35), 'But some man will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come?' He answers this question (v. 36), 'Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die': and he adds that 'God giveth it (the seed) a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body.' We all know that the body, which is produced from the seed, is not the body 'that shall be:' and we also know that the seed which is sown does not die, and that if the seed died, no body would be produced from such seed. His conclusion is that the dead 'is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body' (σῶμα πνευματικόν). I believe that the commentators do not agree about this 'spiritual body': but it seems plain that Paul did not teach that the body which will rise will be the same as the body which is buried. He says (v. 50) that 'flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.' Yet in the Apostles' Creed we pronounce our belief in the 'resurrection of the body': but in the Nicene Creed it is said we look 'for the resurrection of the dead,' which is a different thing or may have a
