3d, The tradition of the doctrine of the resurrection of the body was not of an ancient and national origin.
In the year 587 before the Christian era, in the second year of the reign of Sedecias, Jerusalem was besieged, taken, destroyed; Sedecias and the whole nation were led captives to Babylon. There they were detained seventy years, until Cyrus permitted them to return to their own country. During those seventy years of captivity, the Jewish people borrowed from the Pagans many religious practices, ceremonies, rites, and doctrines—this is the testimony of Josephus—and among them the doctrine of the resurrection of the body, which, as has been proved before, was believed by a large number of Pagans. When the people returned from Babylon to Jerusalem a portion of them preserved some of those religious practices, ceremonies, rites, and doctrines, and rejected the others. Those which they preserved they transmitted to their posterity, and among them was the doctrine of the resurrection of the body. Therefore the tradition of the doctrine of the resurrection of the body was not of an ancient and national origin.
We have proved, 1st, That the Roman Catholic theologians do not hold that the doctrine of the resurrection of the body is taught in the Old Testament; 2d, That this doctrine was traditional only among the illiterate portion of the Jewish nation; and, 3d, That this tradition was not of an ancient and national origin.
Therefore, 3d, The Church of Rome did not hold from the Jews the doctrine of the resurrection of the body.
We come now to the general conclusions of this chapter.
It has been proved, 1st, that in the first centuries of the Christian era, and before the coming of Jesus Christ, the doctrine of the resurrection of the body was held by a large number of Pagans; 2d, That the Church of Rome, which, in the sixteenth century, transmitted it to the now self-called Orthodox Christian Churches, did not hold it either from the Apostles of Jesus Christ or from the Jews.
Therefore the Church of Rome borrowed from the Pagans the doctrine of the resurrection of the body.
Therefore the origin of the doctrine of the resurrection of the body is Pagan.