And I will pour out upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace, and of prayers: and they shall look upon me, whom they have pierced: and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for an only son, and they shall grieve over him, as the manner is to grieve for the death of the firstborn.
Tertullian
We must after all this turn our attention to those scriptures also which forbid our belief in such a resurrection as is held by your Animalists (for I will not call them Spiritualists), that it is either to be assumed as taking place now, as soon as men come to the knowledge of the truth, or else that it is accomplished immediately after their departure from this life... Who has yet beheld Jesus descending from heaven in like manner as the apostles saw Him ascend, according to the appointment of the two angels? [Acts 1:11] Up to the present moment they have not, tribe by tribe, smitten their breasts, looking on Him whom they pierced. [John 19:37; Zechariah 12:10] No one has as yet fallen in with Elias; [Malachi 4:5] no one has as yet escaped from Antichrist; [1 John 4:3] no one has as yet had to bewail the downfall of Babylon. [Revelation 18:2] And is there now anybody who has risen again, except the heretic? He, of course, has already quitted the grave of his own corpse — although he is even now liable to fevers and ulcers; he, too, has already trodden down his enemies — although he has even now to struggle with the powers of the world. And as a matter of course, he is already a king — although he even now owes to Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's. [Matthew 22:21]
Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.