Note 160 — Quest. LXXXVII.

Thus Pliny, who a little before related several stories of persons raised from the dead, notwithstanding calls the doctrine of the resurrection, puerile deliramentum. Vid. Ejusd. Nat. Hist. Lib. vii. Cap. lv. and elsewhere he speaks of it as a thing in its own nature impossible; and therefore concludes it to be one of those things which God cannot do. Lib. ii. Cap. vii. Ne Deum quidem posse omnia, nec mortales æternitate donare, aut revocare defunctos. And Minutius Felix. Vid. Ejusd. Octav. Cap. xi. brings in an Heathen, who was his friend, railing at it, without any decency, as though it was no better than an old wives fable; and the principal argument he produces, is, because he supposes it impossible for a body that was burnt to ashes, to spring up into life again. And Celsus, speaking concerning the impossibility of God’s doing any thing contrary to nature, reckons this among those things. Vid. Orig. Contr. Cels. Lib. v. Page 240. and says, the hope hereof is more worthy of worms than men and styles it an abominable, as well as an impossible thing, which God neither can nor will do.