What we have said is, indeed, no small proof of the destruction of death and of the fact that the cross of the Lord is the monument to His victory. But the resurrection of the body to immortality, which results from then on from the work of Christ, the common Savior and true Life of all, is more effectively proved by facts than by words to those whose mental vision is sound.
For, if, as we have shown, death was destroyed and everybody tramples on it because of Christ, how much more did He Himself first trample and destroy it in His own body! Death having been slain by Him, then, what other issue could there be than the resurrection of His body and its open demonstration as the monument of His victory? How could the destruction of death have been manifested at all, had not the Lord's body been raised? But if anyone finds even this insufficient, let him find proof of what has been said in present facts.
When a human being has died, he can no longer exercise any power; his influence extends only to the grave and then ceases. Actions and effective activity among human beings belong only to the living. Let anyone who wishes look, judge, and confess the truth from what can be seen.
Since the Savior accomplishes such great things among human beings and every day invisibly persuades so great a multitude from every region—both those living in Greek lands and those living among other nations—to come to His faith and obey His teaching, can anyone still doubt that the Savior has accomplished the Resurrection and that Christ lives—or rather, that He Himself is Life?
Does a dead man prick the consciences of men, so that they throw all the traditions of their fathers to the winds and bow down before the teaching of Christ? If He is no longer active in the world, as He must needs be if He is dead, how is it that He makes the living to cease from their activities, the adulterer from his adultery, the murderer from murdering, the unjust from avarice, while the profane and godless man becomes religious? If He did not rise, but is still dead, how is it that He routs and persecutes and overthrows the false gods, whom unbelievers think to be alive, and the evil spirits whom they worship?
For where Christ is named, idolatry is destroyed and the fraud of evil spirits is exposed; indeed, no such spirit can endure that Name, but takes to flight on sound of it. This is the work of One Who lives, not of one dead; and, more than that, it is the work of God.
Moreover, it would be ridiculous to say that the demons He drives out and the idols He brings to nothing are alive, while He Who drives them away, prevents them from appearing by His own power, and is confessed by them all to be the Son of God is dead.