32. Jer. Yebam. 6 b, relates what I regard as a legendary story of a man who was thus
induced to wed the twelve widows of his twelve brothers, each widow promising to pay
for the expenses of one month, and the directing Rabbi for those of the 13th
(intercalatory) month. But to his horror, after three years the women returned, laden with
thirty-six children, to claim the fulfilment of the Rabbi's promise!
On the other hand it was, however, also laid down that, if a woman had lost two
husbands, she should not marry a third - according to others, if she had married three,
not a fourth, as there might be some fate (lzm) connected with her (Yeb. 64 b). On the
question of the Levirate, from the modern Jewish standpoint, see an interesting article by
Gutmann in Geiger's Wiss. Zeitschr. f. Jüd. Theol. vol. iv. (1839), pp. 61 -87.
33. The reproach 'Ye err, not knowing the Scriptures,' occurs in almost the same form in
the discussions on the Resurrection between the Pharisees and the Sadducees which
are recorded in the Talmud.
In His argument against the Sadducees Christ first appealed to the power of God.34
What God would work was quite other than they imagined: not a mere re-awakening,
but a transformation. The world to come was not to be a reproduction of that which had
passed away - else why should it have passed away - but a regeneration and
renovation; and the body wi th which we were to be clothed would be like that which
Angels bear. What, therefore, in our present relations is of the earth, and of our present
body of sin and corruption, will cease; what is eternal in them will continue. But the
power of God will transform all - the present terrestrial into the future heavenly, the body
of humiliation into one of exaltation. This will be the perfecting of all things by that
Almighty Power by which He shall subdue all things to Himself in the Day of His Power,
when death shall be swallowed up in victory. And herein also consists the dignity of
man, in virtue of the Redemption introduced, and, so to speak, begun at his Fall, that
man is capable of such renovation and perfection - and herein, also, is 'the power of
God,' that He hath quickened us together with Christ, so that here already the Church
receives in Baptism into Christ the germ of the Resurrection, which is afterwards to be
nourished and fed by faith, through the believer's participation in the Sacrament of
fellowship with His body and Blood.35 Nor ought questions here to rise, like dark clouds,
such as of the perpetuity of those relations which on earth are not only so precious to
us, but so holy. Assuredly, they will endure, as all that is of God and good; only what in
them is earthly will cease, or rather be transformed with the body. Nay, and we shall
also recognise each other, not only by the fellowship of the soul; but as, even now, the
mind impresses its stamp on the features, so then, when all shall be qui te true, shall the
soul, so to speak, body itself forth, fully impress itself on the outward appearance, and
for the first time shall we then fully recognise those whom we shall now fully know - with
all of earth that was in them left behind, and all of Go d and good fully developed and
ripened into perfectness of beauty.
34. St. Matt. xxii. 29, 30, and parallels.
35. Through the Resurrection of Christ resurrection has become the gift of universal
humanity. But, beyond this general gift to humanity, we believe that we receive in
Baptism, as becoming connected with Christ, the inner germ of the glorious Resurrection-