was that such a great work? Did it contribute so much to the spread of the faith? And yet Our Lord’s words regarding it have been strictly fulfilled to the very letter, and shall be fulfilled to the end of the world. More important than that was His prophecy concerning the triumph of His Church over the gates of hell, the persecution of tyrants, and the attacks of heresy: “Behold,” He said to His disciples, “I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves;”[1] and in those words He alluded to the persecutions they would have to suffer when He sent them into the world to preach the gospel. They will drive you from one city to another; “they will deliver you up in councils and they will scourge you in their synagogues. And you shall be hated by all men for My name’s sake.”[2] They will crucify you and put you to death; nevertheless My kingdom shall thrive and shall never be overcome in the midst of the fiercest persecutions. And this prophecy has been literally fulfilled, as is proved by the thousands of martyrs who have shed their blood for their faith, and by the progress the Church has always made in spite of heresies and persecutions; and in future heresies and persecutions she will remain just as unshaken in her faith.
It is then infallibly certain that we shall rise again, although we do not understand how that shall be. Now can Our Lord, who has carried out all His prophecies to His apostles, martyrs, confessors, and servants regarding the combats and martyrdom that was in store for them—can He deceive them in what concerns their reward and resurrection to eternal life? Utterly impossible! We have a faithful God, who cannot otherwise foretell things but as He knows they will occur, Nor should we pay the least attention to heathen philosophers, and the many worldly-wise Christians, who are really atheists, who try to measure all truths by their poor human reason, or to speak more correctly, who deny all truths that might disturb them in the enjoyment of forbidden lusts and pleasures. Who can understand, they ask, how the soul can be reunited to the body, once it has left it? Who can understand how the same body, after it has lain in the grave for hundreds or thousands of years, and has been turned into dust and ashes, or has been devoured by fishes or birds of prey or wild beasts, so that not a particle of it remains, can be restored to its former living state? That seems impossible; therefore what we hear about the
