Vanishing bodies, Ascending gods

Comparing Chaereas and Callirhoe & the Gospel Resurrection Accounts

In the Graeco-Roman world, there were many tales of vanishing heroes; myths of great men who disappeared from their place of death or burial. Today, these stories are sometimes called ‘translation fables,’ because they signalled that the missing person had ascended into heaven and was to be considered divine.¹

The biographer Plutarch gives us a flavour o…