Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/124

Rh The dead prophet can be called back to admonish the living. Enoch and Elijah, like Ganymede with the Greeks, being favourites of the deity, and taken miraculously to him. Other passages deny the doctrine of immortality with great plainness.

After the return from exile, the doctrine appears more definitely. Ezekiel and the pseudo-Isaiah allude to a resurrection of the body, a notion which is perhaps of Zoroastrian origin. Perhaps older than Zoroaster. But it is only a doubtful immortality that is taught in the apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus, though in the Wisdom of Solomon, and in the fourth book of Maccabees, it is set forth with great clearness. The second book of Maccabees teaches in the plainest terms the resurrection of all; the righteous to happiness, the wicked to shame. They will find their former friends, and resume their old pursuits. Nothing is plainer.