We shall speak, anon, more fully on the subject of the frauds of the early Christians, the "lying and deceiving for the cause of Christ," which is carried on even to the present day.
As President Cheney of Bates College has lately remarked, "The resurrection is the doctrine of Christianity and the foundation of the entire system,"[232:1] but outside of the four spurious gospels this greatest of all recorded miracles is hardly mentioned. "We have epistles from Peter, James, John, and Jude—all of whom are said by the evangelists to have seen Jesus after he rose from the dead, in none of which epistles is the fact of the resurrection even stated, much less that Jesus was seen by the writer after his resurrection."[232:2]
Many of the early Christian sects denied the resurrection of Christ Jesus, but taught that he will rise, when there shall be a general resurrection.
No actual representation of the resurrection of the Christian's Saviour has yet been found among the monuments of early Christianity. The earliest representation of this event that has been found is an ivory carving, and belongs to the fifth or sixth century.[232:3]
FOOTNOTES:
[215:1] See Matthew, xxviii. Mark, xvi. Luke, xxiv. and John, xx.
[215:2] Mark, xvi. 19.
[215:3] Luke, xxiv. 51.
[215:4] Acts, i. 9.