AN APOLOGY FOR THE CHURCH S PERSECUTION OF SCIENCE 1 79 



doctrine of the resurrection was alien if not abhorrent to the gentile 

 intellect, popular and philosophic alike. It was "to the Greeks fool- 

 ishness." To the unphilosophic Greek it was an unheard of thing 

 that a soul should ever return from the House of Hades and take body 

 again in the upper air. To the Greek philosopher it was absurd to 

 think that men in the higher existence should be burdened with a body. 

 Yet the doctrine spread, and spread eventually in even a crasser and 

 more Judaic form than St. Paul had preached it, in the form of a belief 

 in resurrection of the flesh. Men believed in the teeth of their pre- 

 suppositions and even in the teeth of their reason. Why ? Because 

 they found in the doctrine a gospel. It was good news to the slave 

 that he should Hve again, no shade life but a real life in a real world 

 in which justice and happiness should prevail. Those philosophers 

 who became Christians found in the Christian hope a fuller hope than 

 philosophy offered, a hope of a Ufe spent not merely in contemplation, 

 but also in activity and fellowship. A study of the logical method of 

 the defense of the doctrine of the resurrection which is contained in 

 the fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians is illuminating in this con- 

 nection. St. Paul mentions the fact that the disciples and he himself 

 had seen Jesus after his death; but he does not rest his case there. 

 His testimony might be doubted. The argument on which he relies 

 is that if there be no resurrection, Christ did not rise, and "if Christ 

 be not risen your faith is without ground," "let us eat, drink and 

 be merry, for tomorrow we die." St. Paul was fully conscious of 

 his true ground of appeal. He refused to discuss "wisdom." He 

 refused, that is, to use scientific argument. He was determined to 

 "know only Christ and him crucified" and he found that his gospel, 

 cast though it was in im-gentile forms of thought and expression, 

 awakened a response in needy hearts and won those who were fitted 

 to receive it. 



It has ever been so. Argument may produce intellectual assent; 

 but religious conviction resulting in an altered life seldom if ever results 

 from mere argument. It results only from a felt need and the satis- 

 faction of that need by the rehgious message. 



