3. The resurrection of several of them about the time of the vernal equinox. The twenty-fifth of March is the period assigned by the Christian world generally for the resurrection of Christ, though some Christian writers have assigned other dates for this event. They all agree, however, that Christ rose from the dead, and that this occurred three days after the entombment. Bishop Theophilus of Cesarea remarks, relative to this event, "Since the birth of Christ is celebrated on the twenty-fifth of December,.... so also should the resurrection of Jesus be celebrated on the twenty-fifth of March, on whatever day of the week it may fall, the Lord having risen again on that day." (Cent. ii. Call, p. 118.) "All the ancient Christians," says a writer, "were persuaded that Christ was crucified on the twenty-third of March, and rose from the dead on the twenty-fifth." And accordingly Constantine and cotemporary Christians celebrated the twenty-fifth of March with great eclat as the date of the resurrection. The twenty-third and twenty-fifth, including the twenty-fourth, would comprise a period of three days, the time of the entombment. Now mark, Quexalcote of Mexico, Chris of Chaldea, Quirinus of Rome, Prometheus of Caucasus, Osiris of Egypt, Atys of Phrygia, and "Mithra the Mediator" of Persia did, according to their respective histories, rise from the dead after three days' burial, and the time of their resurrection is in several cases fixed for the twenty-fifth of March. And there is an account more than three thousand years old of the Hindoo crucified Savior Chrishna, three days after his interment, forsaking "the silent bourn, whence (as we are told) no traveler ever returns," and laying aside the moldy cerements of the dead, again walking forth to mortal life, to be again seen, recognized, admired, and adored by his pious, devout and awe-stricken followers, and thus present to the gaze of a hoping yet doubting world "the first fruits of the resurrection." At the annual celebration of the resurrection of the Persian Savior "Mithra the Mediator," more than three thousand years ago, the priests were in the habit of exclaiming in a solemn and loud voice, "Cheer up, holy mourners; your God has come again to life; his sorrows and his sufferings will save you." (See Pitrat, p. 105.) The twenty-fifth of March was with the ancient Persians the commencement of a new year, and on that day was celebrated "the feast of the Neurone," and by the ancient Romans "the festival of the Hilaria." And we find the ancients had both the crucifixion and resurrection of a God symbolically and astronomically represented among the plants. "Their foundation," says Clement of Alexandria, "was the fictitious death and resurrection of the sun, the soul of the world, the principle of life and motion." The inauguration of spring (the twenty-fifth of March), and the summer solstice (the twenty-fifth of June), were both important periods with the ancients.