Let us suppose for a moment that they doubted it. How is it conceivable that St. Paul should have addressed to them such letters as those to the Corinthians, abounding everywhere with both direct and incidental allusions to it as an acknowledged truth and as the foundation of his reasonings? Would anyone in his senses have thus exposed himself to instant denunciation if he had supposed that there was the smallest doubt respecting its reality in the minds of his opponents? Would they not at once, if they had entertained it, have made short work with the Apostle and his reasonings? But the point is almost too clear to need any argument. In one of the passages where he is discussing with them the reality of his apostleship he urges as the foundation of his claim to this office: “Have not I seen Jesus Christ our Lord?” This reasoning is evidently founded on the supposition that all the other Apostles professed to have seen Him; and that none could have a valid claim to the office who had not seen Him. But Paul could only have seen Christ after the Resurrection; and it was in virtue of an appointment from the risen Jesus that he claimed to hold the office. If there had been the smallest doubt in the minds of his opponents as to the reality of the Resurrection, or if they had not been persuaded that the Apostles, whose claims they set up against those of St. Paul, affirmed that they had seen Him also, this would at once have settled the controversy and covered the Apostle with confusion before the assembled Church. But if this reasoning requires any additional confirmation, it is afforded by the Epistle to the Galatians. The opposition leaders in this Church were yet more hostile to St. Paul than those at Corinth. His denunciation of them is very severe. They are described as “false apostles, deceitful workers,” and subverters of the Gospel. Yet in the very opening words of his address to this Church in which he thus sharply denounces his opponents, the Apostle writes: “Paul, an Apostle, not of man nor by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father _who raised him from the dead_.” Is it conceivable, I ask, that St. Paul should have used such language, under such circumstances, in addressing this Church, unless he was absolutely certain that his opponents accepted the Resurrection of Christ as a fact? We shall see hereafter that these assertions and allusions of the Apostle not only prove that the Resurrection was believed in by every section of the Christian community at the time when he wrote these letters, but that they enable us to carry up the date of this belief to the very commencement of Christianity.