While the beginning of the gospel narratives was being constructed by one influence of Pagan Christianity, the end of them was being constructed by another. When the expectation of the second coming of Christ was abandoned, the Church had to assign a different meaning to his resurrection. Originally, and especially by St. Paul, this was closely connected with the second advent.[86] St. Paul evidently regarded the appearances of Christ to him and to others as preliminaries of the second advent, but now they seemed to stand in another light. Examining the traditions which preserved the remembrance of the visions of Christ seen by the early Christians, the Church found them, of course, clustered most thickly in the period immediately after his death, when the conditions likely to produce them were strongest. Visions seen after that time were probably only occasional and rare, and, with the exception of St. Paul’s, they were sure to have little importance. Finding, then, that nearly all the appearances of Christ had occurred within a short period after his death, the Church would naturally make a distinction between this period and subsequent times. Christ obviously seemed to have been more present then than afterwards. It would not be long before the belief would follow that he had actually stayed on earth during this period, before he had ascended to heaven. With his second coming no longer expected, that he should have done so would seem quite natural. The Church having to face a long life without Christ, it was reasonable that, before leaving it to its lonely struggle, he should have stayed with it for a time to sustain its immaturity and to strengthen it for its work. A solemn ascension of Christ in presence of his disciples would seem to be demanded as a suitable close to this period, and with the addition of it the dogma was complete. As we can see by comparing Luke’s gospel with the Acts, this stay on earth was made shorter by an earlier than it was by a later belief. It was probably fixed finally at forty days, in order to include different reports of visions with places other than Jerusalem as their scene, and possibly, through the influence of expiring Christian Judaism, to match the forty days of Moses on Mount Sinai. That Christ rose on the third day after his death was a dogma of older times accepted by St. Paul,[87] founded, it is likely, on a passage of Hosea,[88] and there was no difficulty in connecting it with the belief in his stay on earth. So the final doctrine of the Church was that Christ rose again on the third day after his death, stayed then forty days on earth, and afterwards ascended to heaven, not to return till the day of judgment and the end of mortal things.