And even in the one case, where St. Paul alludes to what he saw as a _heavenly vision_, he refers to it in order to prove that it is not incredible that God should _raise the dead_;[274] which again shows that he thought it was a _Body_, for a _Spirit_ cannot be raised from the _dead_. And his specifying _the third day_ makes this (if possible) still plainer, for the life of the spirit after death does not commence on the third day; nor would it have prevented Christ's Body from seeing corruption. [Footnote 274: Acts 26. 19, 8.] From all this it is abundantly clear that St. Paul, like the Four Evangelists, and the other Apostles, believed in what is called the _physical_ Resurrection, in the sense that Christ's Body was restored to life, and left the tomb. Though like them, he also believed that it was no longer a _natural_ body, bound by the ordinary laws of nature, but that it had been partly changed as well, so that it shared to some extent the properties of spirits. Nor is his statement that _flesh and blood_ cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, opposed to this.[275] For when he uses the same expression elsewhere (_e.g._, _I conferred not with flesh and blood_)[276] it is evidently not used in a literal sense. It does _not_ mean flesh and blood, in the same way in which we might speak of bones and muscles. It means _men_. So his meaning here is probably that mere men--human beings as such--cannot inherit the future life of glory. Their bodies will first have to be changed, and made incorruptible; but they will still be _bodies_. And as just said, St. Paul is quite definite as to its being the Body of Christ that was _buried_, that was afterwards raised on the third day. [Footnote 275: Cor. 15. 50.] [Footnote 276: Gal. 1. 16; Eph. 6. 12; comp. Matt. 16. 17.] We may say, then, with confidence, that wherever the Resurrection was believed, the fact that it occurred on the third day, and the fact that it was a physical Resurrection, involving the empty tomb, was believed also. The three invariably went together. But was this belief justified? This is the question we have to discuss. (_B._) THE NARRATIVES.