In no sense of the word
can souls, which descended in Christ's train ('chorus sacer animarum et
Christi comitatus') from Heaven, be said 'resurgere'. Resurrection is
always and exclusively resurrection in the body;--not indeed a rising of
the 'corpus' [Greek: phantastikon], that is, the few ounces of carbon,
nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, and phosphate of lime, the 'copula' of which
that gave the form no longer exists,--and of which Paul exclaims;--'Thou
fool! not this', &c.--but the 'corpus' [Greek: hypostatikon, ae
noumenon].
But there is yet another and worse wresting of the text. Who that reads
Lacunza, p. 108, last line but twelve, would not understand that the
Apocalypt had asserted this enthronement of the souls of the Gentile and
Judaeo-Christian Martyrs which he beheld in the train or suite of the
descending Messiah; and that he had first seen them in the descent, and
afterward saw thrones assigned to them? Whereas the sentence precedes,
and has positively no connection with these souls. The literal
interpretation of the symbols c. xx. v. 4, is, "I then beheld the
Christian religion the established religion of the state throughout the
Roman empire;--emperors, kings, magistrates, and the like, all
Christians, and administering laws in the name of Christ, that is,
receiving the Scriptures as the supreme and paramount law. Then in all
the temples the name of Jesus was invoked as the King of glory, and
together with him the old afflicted and tormented fellow-laborers with
Christ were revived in high and reverential commemoration," &c.
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