This article is reprinted here with the kind permission of Kevin Knight, who has undertaken a project to transcribe an online version of the 1907 Catholic Encyclopedia.
Resurrection is the rising again from the dead, the resumption of life.
In this article, we shall treat only of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. The fact of Christ's Resurrection, the theories opposed to this fact, its characteristics, and the reasons for its importance must be considered in distinct paragraphs. The main sources which directly attest the fact of Christ's Resurrection are the Four Gospels and the Epistles of Saint Paul. Easter morning is so rich in incident, and so crowded with interested persons, that its complete history presents a rather complicated tableau. It is not surprising, therefore, that the partial accounts contained in each of the Four Gospels appear at first sight hard to harmonize.