For I delivered unto you first
of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins
according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He
rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. And that He
was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve. After that [196:1] He was
seen of above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater
part remain unto this present [twenty-five years after the event]
but some are fallen asleep. After that He was seen of James, then of
all the Apostles, and last of all He was seen of me also." (1 Cor.
xv. 1.)
If the reader compares this with the accounts in any one of the Four,
he will find that it gives the fullest list of our Lord's appearances
which has come down to us, and this, be it remembered, forming part of
the most categorical declaration of what the Gospel is, to be found in
the New Testament. [196:1]
A man, then, writes in A.D. 57 or earlier, that another, Who had died in
A.D. 32 had been seen by a number of persons, and among these, by 500
persons at once, of whom the greater part were alive when he wrote, and
implying that the story had been believed ever since, and received by
him (the writer) from those who had seen this Jesus, and that the fact
was so essential to the religion that it was itself called "the Gospel,"
a name continually given to the whole system of Christianity, and
moreover that he himself, when in company with others, had seen this
Jesus at noon-day, and, the history asserts, had been blinded by the
sight.
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