It is remarkable that the Evangelists who find space to record the sayings of lunatics and devils, have not room to record the words of angels, or even note their presence. 466 For what purpose did Jesus ascend to heaven? "I go to prepare a place for you" (John xiv, 2). What was the need of this when the place had already been "prepared ... from the foundation of the world" (Matthew xxv, 34)? 467 Did Jesus ascend bodily into heaven? Luke: He ascended to heaven in a body of flesh and blood (xxiv, 36-43, 50, 51). Paul: "But some man will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come? Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die; and that which thou sowest thou sowest not that body that shall be" (1 Corinthians xv, 35-37). "It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body" (44). "Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God" (50). The whole theology of Paul is opposed to the bodily resurrection and ascension of Jesus. The "Bible for Learners" says: "In speaking of the resurrection, he [Paul] does not mean the reanimation of the body of Jesus; and indeed he expressly excludes such a thought by ascribing to the Christ a glorified and spiritual body not made of flesh and blood. It is equally certain that he thinks of the Christ as having appeared from heaven; and his ranking the appearance to himself--unquestionably the product of his own fervid imagination--as parallel with those which preceded it [his appearances to the disciples], seems to indicate that they were all visions alike" (Vol. iii, p. 467). 468 Do all the Evangelists record the ascension? Matthew and John, both of whom are declared to have been apostles, and the only Evangelists who are supposed to have witnessed the ascension, know nothing of it. The last twelve verses of Mark, it is admitted, are spurious; while the words, "carried up into heaven," of Luke do not appear in the Sinaitic version, the oldest version of the New Testament extant. With this forged appendix to Mark and this interpolated passage in Luke eliminated, the Four Gospels contain no mention of the ascension. 469 Had any man ever ascended to heaven before Jesus? Jesus: "No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven" (John iii, 13). Then that story about Elijah is a fiction, is it?