Page 91 - Gnosis volume 2

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It was, indeed, a completely new way of tackling the problem.

And though the Gospel contains numerous references to the general Resurrection,
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which is considered as an accepted idea , the notion of the individual resurrection of
the dead, to which it gives rise, was totally unknown in the Old Testament. The oldest

texts do not refer to it; on the contrary, the one most commonly expressed was: man
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lieth down, and riseth not!
But, in the Gospel according to St. John, we read:

Jesus said unto her: I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me, though

he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never
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die .
One can see that this is a reference to individual resurrection, to a return to life

through the reunion of the soul and the body, separated by death.

The resurrection of Jesus-Christ went so far as to entail the return to life of the very

flesh from which all life had disappeared. The resurrected Saviour could say to his
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Apostles: handle me, and see for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have .
He was able to ask Thomas to touch his

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Matthew, XXIV, 31 and XXV, 32, 33, 46; Mark, XIII, 27; Luke, XIV, 14; John, V, 28-29 and VI,
39-40, 44.
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Dictionary of the Bible, op. cit., t. V, pp. 1064-1069; Job, XIV, 12; Psalm, XL (XLI), 9; XLII
(XLIII), 17; Amos, VIII, 14.
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John, XI, 25.
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Luke, XXIV, 39.