Gibbon says, "It happened during the life of Seneca and the elder
Pliny, who must have experienced its immediate effects, or received the
earliest intelligence of the prodigy. Each of these philosophers, in a
labored work, has recorded all the phenomena of Nature's earthquakes,
meteors and eclipses, which his indefatigable curiosity could collect.
Both the one and the other have omitted to mention the greatest
phenomenon, to which the mortal eye has been witness since the creation
of the world." (Gibbon, p. 451.)
2. With reference to the "bodies" of the dead saints coming out of their
tombs (for it is declared their "bodies arose," see Matt, xxvii. 52), many
rather curious and puzzling questions might be started, which would at
once disclose its utter absurdity.
We might ask, for example
1. Who were those "many saints" who came out of their graves, seeing
there were as yet but few Christians to occupy graves, if they had been
all dead, as the enumeration at Antioch made out only one hundred and
twenty? (See Acts.) 2. How long had they lain in their graves?
3. How long since their bodies had turned to dust, and been food for
worms? 4. And would not those worms have to be hunted up and required to
disgorge the contents of their stomachs in order to furnish the saints
with the materials for their bodies again? 5. And were the shrouds or
grave clothes of those saints also resurrected? or did they travel about
in a state of nudity? 6. For what purpose were they re-animated? 7. And
should not Matthew have furnished us, by way of proof, with the names
of some of these ghostly visitors? 8. How long did they live the second
time? 9. Did they die again, or did they ascend to heaven with their
new-made bodies? 10. What business did they engage in? 11. Why have we
not some account of what they said and did? 12. And what finally became
of them?
Until these questions are rationally answered, the story must be
regarded as too incredible and too ludicrous to merit serious notice.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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