Him alone so, all will believe in Him ' — From that day therefore they devised to put Him to death' ' (Jo. XI, 47-53).
28. As to the Resurrection of Christ, the fact is (a) related by all four Evangelists, and, as we have seen, (b) appealed to by St. Paul (n. 25) as an unanswerable proof of Christ's mission, (c) Jesus Himself had predicted it while He was still alive. For, when the Scribes and Pharisees asked Him for a sign, He gave them this as the one great sign of His mission, saying: "An evil and adulterous generation seeketh a sign, and a sign will not be given it but the sign of Jonas the Prophet. For, as Jonas was in the whale's belly three days and three nights, so shall the Son of man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights" (Matt. XII, 39, 40). The Death of Christ cannot be doubted. It had taken place in public, in the sight of a vast concourse of people. He had been put to death by Roman officials, in the presence of the Scribes and Pharisees and the chief priests, and the Body had not been taken down from the Cross till "one of the soldiers with a spear opened His side, and immediately there came out blood and water" (Jo. XIX, 34), and St. John adds emphatically that he saw it himself. At the burial, Christ's enemies sealed the sepulchre and placed guards, because He had foretold His Resurrection, and they said they feared lest His disciples might steal the Body (Matt. XXVII, 66). All these precautions served only to make the Resurrection, when it occurred, absolutely certain. The Jews did not deny that on the third day Christ had disappeared from the tomb; but they gave out that the disciples had stolen the Body while the guards were asleep. "What credit can be given to sleeping wit-
