§ 13.
The Resurrection of Christ is bodily, i.e., personal immortality, presented as a sensible indubitable fact.
“Resurrexit Christus, absoluta res est.—Ostendit se ipsum discipulis et fidelibus suis, contrectata est soliditas corporis.... Confirmata fides est non solum in cordibus, sed etiam in oculis hominum.”—Augustinus (Sermones ad Pop. S. 242, c. I. S. 361, c. S. See also on this subject Melancthon, Loci: de Resurr. Mort.). “The philosophers ... held that by death the soul was released from the body, and that after it was thus set free from the body, as from a prison, it came into the assembly of the gods, and was relieved from all corporeal burthens. Of such an immortality the philosophers allowed men to dream, though they did not hold it to be certain, nor could defend it. But the Holy Scriptures teach of the resurrection and eternal life in another manner, and place the hope of it so certainly before our eyes, that we cannot doubt it.”—Luther (Th. i. p. 549).