vain, and your faith is also vain,"[134] and he goes on to
admit that if the Resurrection had not taken place, he was altogether
mistaken in the view of God's character set forth in his preaching and
epistles. Peter makes a similar statement: "We are begotten again unto a
lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ."[135] It is His victory
over death that confirms the truth of His claims. He is proved to be the
Son of God by His resurrection from the dead.[136] So important a fact
was it regarded in connection with their work, that when they met to
select a successor to Judas in the apostolic college, it was held to be
essential that no one should be appointed who was not able to testify
that he had seen the risen Lord.[137] Paul regarded this doctrine as so
necessary, that he made it the basis of faith and salvation: "If thou
shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine
heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."[138]

The life of Paul is an unanswerable argument for the truth of the
Resurrection. Not only did he preach this as the central doctrine of
Christianity; he maintained it at the cost of all that, before his
conversion, he had held dear. He was not a man to give his faith to such
a doctrine without overwhelming evidence of its truth. As Saul of Tarsus
he had been in the fullest confidence of the Jewish rulers, and knew all
that they could urge against the reality of the Resurrection, but their
arguments had no weight with one who had seen the risen Lord on the way
to Damascus.

The importance of the Resurrection of Christ as an argument for the
Divine origin of Christianity is recognised alike by those who receive
and by those who reject it. Negative criticism has assailed the doctrine
and has devised ingenious theories to explain on natural grounds the
testimony on which it is received. The diversity of such explanations
goes far to refute them, and their utter failure to account for the
marvellous effects which the appearances of the risen Jesus produced on
the witnesses, or for the place which the doctrine held in their
teaching, has tended rather to establish than to discredit the reality
of the Resurrection.

Various sceptical theories, to which much importance was attached for a
time, are now almost forgotten. The Mythical theory fails to account for
the immediate effect produced by belief in the Resurrection. Myths
require time for their growth an