IF it is proved, 1st, That in the first centuries of the Christian era, and before the coming of Jesus Christ, the doctrine of the resurrection of the body was held by a large number of Pagans; 2d, That the Church of Rome which, in the sixteenth century, transmitted it to the now self-called Orthodox Christian Churches, did not hold it either from the apostles of Jesus Christ, or from the Jews, it will remain evident that the Church of Rome borrowed it from the Pagans, and consequently that its origin is Pagan. But it can be proved, 1st, That in the first centuries of the Christian era, and before the coming of Jesus Christ, the doctrine of the resurrection of the body was held by a large number of Pagans; 2d, That the Church of Rome, which, in the sixteenth century, transmitted it to the now self-called Orthodox Christian Churches, did not hold it from the apostles of Jesus Christ; and, 3d, That she did not hold it from the Jews. 1st. It can be proved that in the first centuries of the Christian era, and before the coming of Jesus Christ, the doctrine of the resurrection of the body was held by a large number of Pagans: The doctrine of the resurrection of the body had been taught by Zoroaster. All the Persians believed it; and even now the Parsis, or followers of the religion of Zoroaster, who live in Turkey and in Persia, hold it. It was also one of the dogmas of the Chaldeans, and of many other oriental countries. In India the Pagans, now-a-days, believe that their bodies will come again to life, and it is owing to this belief, the Roman Catholic priest Bergier says, that the wives throw themselves on the same wood piles on which lay the dead bodies of their husbands, to be burnt alive, and to come again to life with them. This belief and practice are immemorial in India. Interesting particulars in regard to the doctrine of the resurrection believed by ancient nations, can be read in the French work, Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions, tome 69, pages 270, and following; in the work of Hyde, on the Religion of the Persians; and also in the writings of Plutarch, article Isis and Osiris. According to the testimony of Diodore, and of Herodote, the Egyptians believed in Metempsychosis; and it was an immemorial doctrine among them. Also, many of them believed that their bodies would come again to life, after a sojourn of one thousand years in the grave. The Sybilline verses treat of the resurrection of the body. Much has been written about it by Bocchus, in Solin, chap. 8; and by Lactance, book 7, chap. 29, book 4, chap. 15, 18, and 19. The Stoicians, who were the most learned philosophers of antiquity, and in the three centuries which preceded the coming of Jesus Christ, and also in the three that followed, believed in Metempsychosis; however, a portion of their school believed in the resurrection of the body. Of this we are informed by Seneca, Epist. 40; by Laerta, book 7; and by Plutarch, writing on the Resignation of the Stoicians.