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THE HERETICS AGAINST WHOM THIS WORK IS DIRECTED, WERE THE SAME WHO MAINTAINED THAT THE DEMIURGE, OR THE GOD WHO CREATED THIS WORLD AND GAVE THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION, WAS OPPOSED TO THE SUPREME GOD. HENCE THEY ATTACHED AN IDEA OF INHERENT CORRUPTION AND WORTHLESSNESS TO ALL HIS WORKS—AMONGST THE REST, TO THE FLESH OR BODY OF MAN; AFFIRMING THAT IT COULD NOT RISE AGAIN, AND THAT THE SOUL ALONE WAS CAPABLE OF INHERITING IMMORTALITY.(1)
[TRANSLATED BY DR. HOLMES.]
The resurrection of the dead is the Christian's trust.(2) By it
we are believers. To the belief of this (article of the faith) truth
compels us—that truth which God reveals, but the crowd derides, which
supposes that nothing will survive after death. And yet they do
honour(3) to their dead, and that too in the most expensive way
according to their bequest, and with the daintiest banquets which the
seasons can produce,(4) on the presumption that those whom they declare
to be incapable of all perception still retain an appetite.(5) But (let
the crowd deride): I on my side must deride it still more, especially
when it burns up its dead with harshest inhumanity, only to pamper them
immediately afterwards with gluttonous satiety, using the selfsame
fires to honour them and to insult them. What piety is that which mocks
its victims with cruelty? Is it sacrifice or insult (which the crowd
offers), when it burns its offerings to those it has already burnt?(6)
But the wise, too, join with the vulgar crowd in their opinion
sometimes. There is nothing after death, according to the school of
Epicurus. After death all things come to an end, even death itself,
says Seneca to like effect. It is satisfactory, however, that the no
less important philosophy of Pythagoras and Empedocles, and the
Plantonists, take the contrary view, and declare the soul to be
immortal; affirming, moreover, in a way which most nearly approaches
(to our own doctrine)? that the soul actually returns into bodies,
although not the same bodies, and not even those of human beings
invariably: thus Euphorbus is supposed to have passed into Phythagoras,
and Homer into a peacock. They firmly pronounced the soul's renewal(8)
to be in a body,(9) (deeming it) more tolerable to change the quality
(of the corporeal state)than to deny it wholly: they at least knocked
at the door of truth, although they entered not. Thus the world, with
all its errors, does not ignore the resurrection of the dead.
Since there is even within the confines of God's Church(1) a
sect which is more nearly allied to the Epicureans than to the
prophets, an opportunity is afforded us of knowing(2) what estimate
Christ forms of the (said sect, even the) Sadducees. For to Christ was
it reserved to lay bare everything which before was concealed: to
impart certainty to doubtful points; to accomplish those of which men
had had but a foretaste; to give present reality to the objects of
prophecy; and to furnish not only by Himself, but actually in Himself,
certain proofs of the resurrection of the dead. It is, however, against
other Sadducees that we have now to prepare ourselves, but still
partakers of their doctrine. For instance, they allow a moiety of the
resurrection; that is, simply of the soul, despising the flesh, just as
they also do the Lord of the flesh Himself. No other persons, indeed,
refuse to concede to the substance of the body its recovery from
death,(3) heretical inventors of a second deity. Driven then, as they
are, to give a different dispensation to Christ, so that He may not be
accounted as belonging to the Creator, they have achieved their first
error in the article of His very flesh; contending with Marcion and
Basilides that it possessed no reality; or else holding, after the
heretical tenets of Valentinus, and according to Apelles, that it had
qualities peculiar to itself. And so it follows that they shut out from
all recovery from death that substance of which they say that Christ
did not partake, confidently assuming that it furnishes the strongest
presumption against the resurrection, since the flesh is already risen
in Christ. Hence it is that we have ourselves previously issued our
volume On the flesh of Christ; in which we both furnish proofs of its
reality,(4) in opposition to the idea of its being a vain phantom; and
claim for it a human nature without any peculiarity of condition—such
a nature as has marked out Christ to be both man and the Son of man.
For when we prove Him to be invested with the flesh and in a bodily
condition, we at the same time refute heresy, by establishing the rule
that no other being than the Creator must be believed to be God, since
we show that Christ, in whom God is plainly discerned, is precisely of
such a nature as the Creator promised that He should be. Being thus
refuted touching God as the Creator, and Christ as the Redeemer of the
flesh, they will at once be defeated also on the resurrection of the
flesh. No procedure, indeed, can be more reasonable. And we affirm that
controversy with heretics should in most cases be conducted in this
way. For due method requires that conclusions should always be drawn
from the most important premises, in order that there be a prior
agreement on the essential point, by means of which the particular
question under review may be said to have been determined. Hence it is
that the heretics, from their conscious weakness, never conduct
discussion in an orderly manner. They are well aware how hard is their
task in insinuating the existence of a second god, to the disparagement
of the Creator of the world, who is known to all men naturally by the
testimony of His works, who is before all others in the mysteries(5)of
His being, and is especially manifested in the prophets;(6) then, under
the pretence of considering a more urgent inquiry, namely man's own
salvation—a question which transcends all others in its
importance—they begin with doubts about the resurrection; for there is
greater difficulty in believing the resurrection of the flesh than the
oneness of the Deity. In this way, after they have deprived the
discussion of the advantages of its logical order, and have embarrassed
it with doubtful insinuations(7) in disparagement of the flesh, they
gradually draw their argument to the reception of a second god after
destroying and changing the very ground of our hopes. For when once a
man Is fallen or removed from the sure hope which he had placed in the
Creator, he is easily led away to the object of a different hope, whom
however of his own accord he can hardly help suspecting. Now it is by a
discrepancy in the promises that a difference of gods is insinuated.
How many do we thus see drawn into the net vanquished on the
resurrection of the flesh, before they could carry their point on the
oneness of the Deity ! In respect, then, of the heretics, we have shown
with what weapons we ought to meet them. And indeed we have already
encountered them in treatises severally directed against them: on the
one only God and His Christ, in our work against Marcion,(8) on the
Lord's flesh, in our book against the four heresies,(1) for the special
purpose of opening the way to the present inquiry: so that we have now
only to discuss the resurrection of the flesh, (treating it) just as if
it were uncertain in regard to ourselves also, that is, in the system
of the Creator.(2) Because many persons are uneducated; still more are
of faltering faith, and several are weak-minded: these will have to be
instructed, directed, strengthened, inasmuch as the very oneness of the
Godhead will be defended along with the maintenance of our doctrine.(3)
For if the resurrection of the flesh be denied, that prime article of
the faith is shaken; if it be asserted, that is established. There is
no need, I suppose, to treat of the soul's safety; for nearly all the
heretics, in whatever way they conceive of it, certainly refrain from
denying that. We may ignore a certain Lucan,(4) who does not spare even
this part of our nature, which he follows Aristotle in reducing to
dissolution, and substitutes some other thing in lieu of it. Some third
nature it is which, according to him, is to rise again, neither soul
nor flesh; in other words, not man, but a bear perhaps—for instance,
Lucan himself.(5) Even he(6) has received from us a copious notice in
our book on the entire condition of the soul,(7) the especial
immortality of which we there maintain, whilst we also both acknowledge
the dissolution of the flesh alone, and emphatically assert its
restitution. Into the body of that work were collected whatever points
we elsewhere had to reserve from the pressure of incidental causes. For
as it is my custom to touch some questions but lightly on their first
occurrence, so I am obliged also to postpone the consideration of them,
until the outline can be filled in with complete detail, and the
deferred points be taken up on their own merits.
One may no doubt be wise in the things of God, even from one's
natural powers, but only in witness to the truth, not in maintenance of
error; (only) when one acts in accordance with, not in opposition to,
the divine dispensation. For some things are known even by nature: the
immortality of the soul, for instance, is held by many; the knowledge
of our God is possessed by all. I may use, therefore, the opinion of a
Plato, when he declares, "Every soul is immortal." I may use also the
conscience of a nation, when it attests the God of gods. I may, in like
manner, use all the other intelligences of our common nature, when they
pronounce God to be a judge. "God sees," (say they)(say they); and, "I
commend you to God."(8) But when they say, What has undergone death is
dead," and, "Enjoy life whilst you live," and, "After death all things
come to an end, even death itself;" then I must remember both that "the
heart of man is ashes,"(9) according to the estimate of God, and that
the very "Wisdom of the world is foolishness," (as the inspired word)
pronounces it to be.(10) Then, if even the heretic seek refuge in the
depraved thoughts of the vulgar, or the imaginations of the world, I
must say to him: Part company with the heathen, O heretic ! for
although you are all agreed in imagining a God, yet while you do so in
the name of Christ, so long as you deem yourself a Christian, you are a
different man from a heathen: give him back his own views of things,
since he does not himself learn from yours. Why lean upon a blind
guide, if you have eyes of your own? Why be clothed by one who is
naked, if you have put on Christ? Why use the shield of another, when
the apostle gives you armour of your own? It would be better for him to
learn from you to acknowledge the resurrection of the flesh, than for
you from him to deny it; because if Christians must needs deny it, it
would be sufficient if they did so from their own knowledge, without
any instruction from the ignorant multitude. He, therefore, will not be
a Christian who shall deny this doctrine which is confessed by
Christians; denying it, moreover, on grounds which are adopted by a man
who is not a Christian. Take away, indeed, from the heretics the wisdom
which they share with the heathen, and let them support their inquiries
from the Scriptures alone: they will then be unable to keep their
ground. For that which commends men's common sense is its very
simplicity, and its participation in the same feelings, and its
community of opinions; and it is deemed to be all the more trustworthy,
inasmuch as its definitive statements are naked and open, and known to
all. Divine reason, on the contrary, lies in the very pith and mar- row
of things, not on the surface, and very often is at variance with
appearances.
Hence it is that heretics start at once from this point,(1) from
which they sketch the first draft of their dogmas, and afterwards add
the details, being well aware how easily men's minds are caught by its
influence, (and actuated) by that community of human sentiment which is
so favourable to their designs. Is there anything else that you can
hear of from the heretic, as also from the heathen, earlier in time or
greater in extent? Is not (their burden) from the beginning and
everywhere an invective against the flesh—against its origin, against
its substance, against the casualties and the invariable end which
await it; unclean from its first formation of the dregs of the ground,
uncleaner afterwards from the mire of its own seminal transmission;
worthless,(2) weak, covered with guilt, laden with misery, full of
trouble; and after all this record of its degradation, dropping into
its original earth and the appellation of a corpse, and destined to
dwindle away even from this(3) loathsome name into none henceforth at
all—into the very death of all designation? Now you are a shrewd man,
no doubt: will you then persuade yourself, that after this flesh has
been withdrawn from sight, and touch, and memory, it can never be
rehabilitated from corruption to integrity, from a shattered to a solid
State, from an empty to a full condition, from nothing at all to
something—the devouring fires, and the waters of the sea, and the maws
of beasts, and the crops of birds and the stomachs of fishes, and
time's own great paunch(4) itself of course yielding it all up again?
Shall the same flesh which has fallen to decay be so expected to
recover, as that the lame, and the one-eyed, and the blind, and the
leper, and the palsied shall come back again, although there can be no
pleasure in returning to their old condition? Or shall they be whole,
and so have to fear exposure to such sufferings? What, in that case,
(must we say) of the consequences of resuming the flesh? Will it again
be subject to all its present wants, especially meats and drinks? Shall
we have with our lungs to float (in air or water),(5) and suffer pain
in our bowels, and with organs of shame to feel no shame, and with all
our limbs to toil and labour? Must there again be ulcers, and wounds,
and fever, and gout, and once more the wishing to die? Of course these
will be the longings incident on the recovery of the flesh, only the
repetition of desires to escape out of it. Well now, we have (stated)
all this in very subdued and delicate phrases, as suited to the
character of our style; but (would you know) how great a licence of
unseemly language these men actually use, you must test them in their
conferences, whether they be heathens or heretics.
Inasmuch as all uneducated men, therefore, still form their
opinions after these common-sense views, and as the falterers and the
weak-minded have a renewal of their perplexities occasioned by the
selfsame views; and as the first battering-ram which is directed
against ourselves is that which shatters the condition of the flesh, we
must on our side necessarily so manage our defences, as to guard, first
of all, the condition of the flesh, their disparagement of it being
repulsed by our own eulogy. The heretics, therefore, challenged us to
use our rhetoric no less than our philosophy. Respecting, then, this
frail and poor, worthless body, which they do not indeed hesitate to
call evil, even if it had been the work of angels, as Menander and
Marcus are pleased to think, or the formation of some fiery being, an
angel, as Apelles teaches, it would be quite enough for securing
respect for the body, that it had the support and protection of even a
secondary deity. The angels, we know, rank next to God. Now, whatever
be the supreme God of each heretic, I should not unfairly derive the
dignity of the flesh likewise from Him to whom was present the will for
its production. For, of course, if He had not willed its production, He
would have prohibited it, when He knew it was in progress. It follows,
then, that even on their principle the flesh is equally the work of
God. There is no work but belongs to Him who has permitted it to exist.
It is indeed a happy circumstance, that most of their doctrines,
including even the harshest, accord to our God the entire formation of
man. How mighty He is, you know full well who believe that He is the
only God. Let, then, the flesh begin to give you pleasure, since the
Creator thereof is so great. But, you say, even the world is the work
of God, and yet "the fashion of this world passeth away,"(1) as the
apostle himself testifies; nor must it be predetermined that the world
will be restored, simply because it is the work of God. And surely if
the universe, after its ruin, is not to be formed again, why should a
portion of it be? You are right, if a portion is on an equality with
the whole. But we maintain that there is a difference. In the first
place, because all things were made by the Word of God, and without Him
was nothing made.(2) Now the flesh, too, had its existence from the
Word of God, because of the principle,(3) that here should be nothing
without that Word. "Let us make man,"(4) said He, before He created
him, and added, "with our hand," for the sake of his pre-eminence, that
so he might not be compared with the rest of creation.(5) And "God,"
says (the Scripture), "formed man."(6) There is undoubtedly a great
difference in the procedure, springing of course from the nature of the
case. For the creatures which were made were inferior to him for whom
they were made; and they were made for man, to whom they were
afterwards made subject by God. Rightly, therefore, had the creatures
which were thus intended for subjection, come forth into being at the
bidding and command and sole power of the divine voice; whilst man, on
the contrary, destined to be their lord, was formed by God Himself, to
the intent that he might be able to exercise his mastery, being created
by the Master the Lord Himself. Remember, too, that man is properly
called flesh, which had a prior occupation in man's designation: "And
God formed man the clay of the ground."(7) He now became man, who was
hitherto clay. "And He breathed upon his face the breath of life, and
man (that is, the clay) became a living soul; and God placed the man
whom He had formed in the garden."(8) So that man was clay at first,
and only afterwards man entire. I wish to impress this on your
attention, with a view to your knowing, that whatever God has at all
posposed or promised to man, is due not to the soul simply, but to the
flesh also; if not arising out of any community in their origin, yet at
all events by the privilege possessed by the latter in its name.(9)
Let me therefore pursue the subject before me—if I can but
succeed in vindicating for the flesh as much as was conferred on it by
Him who made it, glorying as it even then was, because that poor paltry
material, clay, found its way into the hands of God, whatever these
were, happy enough at merely being touched by them. But why this
glorying? Was it that,(10) without any further labour, the clay had
instantly assumed its form at the touch of God? The truth is,(11) a
great matter was in progress, out of which the creature under
consideration(12) was being fashioned. So often then does it receive
honour, as often as it experiences the hands of God, when it is touched
by them, and pulled, and drawn out, and moulded into shape. Imagine God
wholly employed and absorbed in it—in His hand, His eye, His labour,
His purpose, His wisdom, His providence, and above all, in His love,
which was dictating the lineaments (of this creature). For, whatever
was the form and expression which was then given to the clay (by the
Creator) Christ was in His thoughts as one day to become man, because
the Word, too, was to be both clay and flesh, even as the earth was
then. For so did the Father previously say to the Son: "Let us make man
in our own image, after our likeness."(13) And God made man, that is to
say, the creature which He moulded and fashioned; after the image of
God (in other words, of Christ) did He make him And the Word was God
also, who being(14) in the image of God, "thought it not robbery to be
equal to God."(15) Thus, that clay which was even then putting on the
image of Christ, who was to come in the flesh, was not only the work,
but also the pledge and surety, of God. To what purpose is it to bandy
about the name earth, as that of a sordid and grovelling element, with
the view of tarnishing the origin of the flesh, when, even if any other
material had been available for forming man, it would be requisite that
the dignity of the Maker should be taken into consideration, who even
by His selection of His material deemed it, and by His management made
it, worthy? The hand of Phidias forms the Olympian Jupiter of ivory;
worship is given to the statue, and it is no longer regarded as a god
farmed out of a most silly animal, but as the world's supreme Deity—
not because of the bulk of the elephant, but on account of the renown
of Phidias. Could not therefore the living God, the true God, purge
away by His own operation whatever vileness might have accrued to His
material, and heal it of all infirmity? Or must this remain to shaw how
much more nobly man could fabricate a god, than God could form a man?
Now, although the clay is offensive (for its poorness), it is now
something else. What I possess is flesh, not earth, even although of
the flesh it is said: "Dust thou art, and unto dust shall thou
return,"(1) In these words there is the mention of the origin, not a
recalling of the substance. The privilege has been granted to the flesh
to be nobler than its origin, and to have happiness aggrandized by the
change wrought in it. Now, even gold is earth, because of the earth;
but it remains earth no longer after it becomes gold, but is a far
different substance, more splendid and more noble, though coming from a
source which is comparatively faded and obscure. In like manner, it was
quite allowable for God that He should dear the gold of our flesh from
all the taints, as you deem them, of its native clay, by purging the
original substance of its dross.
But perhaps the dignity of the flesh may seem to be diminished,
because it has not been actually manipulated by the hand of God, as the
clay was at first. Now, when God handled the clay for the express
purpose of the growth of flesh out of it afterwards, it was for the
flesh that He took all the trouble. But I want you, moreover, to know
at what time and in what manner the flesh flourished into beauty out of
its clay. For it cannot be, as some will have it, that those "coats of
skins"(2) which Adam and Eve put on when they were stripped of
paradise, were really themselves the forming of the flesh out of
clay,(3) because long before that Adam had already recognised the flesh
which was in the woman as the propagation of his own substance ("This
is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh "4), and the very taking
of the woman out of the man was supplemented with flesh; but it ought,
I should suppose, to have been made good with clay, if Adam was still
clay. The clay, therefore, was obliterated and absorbed into flesh.
When did this happen? At the time that man became a living soul by the
inbreathing of God—by the breath indeed which was capable of hardening
clay into another substance, as into some earthenware, so now into
flesh. In the same way the potter, too, has it in his power, by
tempering the blast of his fire, to modify his clayey material into a
stiffer one, and to mould one form after another more beautiful than
the original substance, and now possessing both a kind and name of its
own. For although the Scripture says, "Shall the clay say to the
potter?"(5) that is, Shall man contend with God? although the apostle
speaks of "ear, then vessels "(6) he refers to man, who was originally
clay. And the vessel is the flesh, because this was made of clay by the
breath of the divine afflatus; and it was afterwards clothed with "the
coats of skins," that is, with the cutaneous covering which was placed
over it. So truly is this the fact, that if you withdraw the skin, you
lay bare the flesh. Thus, that which becomes a spoil when stripped off,
was a vestment as long as it remained laid over. Hence the apostle,
when he call circumcision "' a putting off (or spoliation) of the
flesh,"(7) affirmed the skin to be a coat or tunic. Now this being the
case, you have both the clay made glorious by the hand of God, and the
flesh more glorious still by His breathing upon it, by virtue of which
the flesh not only laid aside its clayey rudiments, but also took on
itself the ornaments of the soul. You surely are not more careful than
God, that you indeed should refuse to mount the gems of Scythia and
India and the pearls of the Red Sea in lead, or brass, or iron, or even
in silver, but should set them in the most precious and most
highly-wrought gold; or, again, that you should provide for your finest
wines and most costly unguents the most fitting vessels; or, on the
same principle, should find for your swords of finished temper
scabbards of equal worth; whilst God must consign to some vilest sheath
the shadow of His own soul, the breath of His own Spirit, the operation
of His own mouth, and by so ignominious a consignment secure, of
course, its condemnation. Well, then, has He placed, or rather inserted
and commingled, it with the flesh? Yes; and so intimate is the union,
that it may be deemed to be uncertain whether the flesh bears about the
soul, or the soul the flesh; or whether the flesh acts as apparitor to
the soul, or the soul to the flesh. It is, However, more credible that
the soul has service rendered to
it,(1) and has the mastery,(2) as being more proximate in
character to God.(3) This circumstance even redounds to the glory of
the flesh, inasmuch as it both contains an essence nearest to God's,
and renders itself a partake of (the soul's) actual sovereignty. For
what enjoyment of nature is there, what produce of the world, what
relish of the elements, which is not imparted to the soul by means of
the body? How can it be otherwise? Is it not by its means that the saul
is supported by the entire apparatus of the senses—the sight, the
hearing, the taste, the smell, the touch? Is it not by its means that
it has a sprinkling of the divine power, there being nothing which it
does not effect by its faculty of speech, even when it is only tacitly
indicated? And speech is the result of a fleshly organ. The arts come
through the flesh; through the flesh also effect is given to the mind's
pursuits and powers; all work, too, and business and offices of life,
are accomplished by the flesh; and so utterly, are the living acts of
the soul the work of the flesh, that for the soul to cease to do living
acts, would be nothing else than sundering itself from the flesh. So
also the very act of dying is a function of the flesh, even as the
process of life is. Now, if all things are subject to the soul through
the flesh, their subjection is equally due to the flesh. That which is
the means and agent of your enjoyment, must needs be also the partaker
and sharer of your enjoyment. So that the flesh, which is accounted the
minister and servant of the soul, turns out to be also its associate
and co-heir. And if all this in temporal things, why not also in things
eternal?
Now such remarks have I wished to advance in defence of the
flesh, from a general view of the condition of our human nature. Let us
now consider its special relation to Christianity, and see how vast a
privilege before God has been conferred on this poor and worthless
substance. It would suffice to say, indeed, that there is not a soul
that can at all procure salvation, except it believe whilst it is in
the flesh, so true is it that the flesh is the very condition on which
salvation hinges. And since the soul is, in consequence of its
salvation, chosen to the service of God, it is the flesh which actually
renders it capable of such service. The flesh, indeed, is washed, in
order that the soul may be cleansed; the flesh is anointed, that the
soul may be consecrated; the flesh is signed (with the cross), that the
soul too may be fortified; the flesh is shadowed with the imposition of
hands, that the soul also maybe illuminated by the Spirit; the flesh
feeds on the body and blood of Christ, that the soul likewise may
fatten on its God. They cannot then be separated in their recompense,
when they are united in their service. Those sacrifices, moreover,
which are acceptable to God—I mean conflicts of the soul, fastings,
and abstinences, and the humiliations which are annexed to such
duty—it is the flesh which performs again and again(4) to its own
especial suffering. Virginity, likewise, and widowhood, and the modest
restraint in secret on the marriage-bed, and the one only adoption(5)
of it, are fragrant offerings to God paid out of the good services of
the flesh. Come, tell me what is your opinion of the flesh, when it has
to contend for the name of Christ, dragged out to public view, and
exposed to the hatred of all men; when it pines in prisons under the
cruellest privation of light, in banishment from the world, amidst
squalor, filth, and noisome food, without freedom even in sleep, for it
is bound on its very pallet and mangled in its bed of straw; when at
length before the public view it is racked by every kind of torture
that can be devised, and when finally it is spent beneath its agonies,
struggling to render its last turn for Christ by dying for Him—upon
His own cross many times, not to say by still more atrocious devices of
torment. Most blessed, truly, and most glorious, must be the flesh
which can repay its Master Christ so vast a debt, and so completely,
that the only obligation remaining due to Him is, that it should cease
by death to owe Him more—all the more bound even then in gratitude,
because (for ever) set free.
To recapitulate, then: Shall that very flesh, which the Divine
Creator formed with His own hands in the image of God; which He
animated with His own afflatus, after the likeness of His own vital
vigour; which He set over all the works of His hand, to dwell amongst,
to enjoy, and to rule them; which He clothed with His sacraments and
His instructions; whose purity He loves, whose mor- tifications He
approves; whose sufferings for Himself He deems precious;—(shall that
flesh, I say), so often brought near to God, not rise again? God
forbid, God forbid, (I repeat), that He should abandon to everlasting
destruction the labour of His own hands, the care of His own thoughts,
the receptacle of His own Spirit,(1) the queen of His creation, the
inheritor of His own liberality, the priestess of His religion, the
champion of His testimony, the sister of His Christ! We know by
experience the goodness of God; from His Christ we learn that He is the
only God, and the very good. Now, as He requires from us love to our
neighbour after love to Himself,(2) so He will Himself do that which He
has commanded. He will love the flesh which is, so very closely and in
so many ways, His neighbour—(He will love it), although infirm, since
His strength is made perfect in weakness;(3) although disordered, since
"they that are whole need not the physician, but they that are
sick;"(4) although not honourable, since "we bestow more abundant
honour upon the less honourable members;"(5) although ruined, since He
says, "I am come to save that which was lost;"(6) although sinful,
since He says, "I desire rather the salvation of the sinner than his
death;"(7) although condemned, for says He, "I shall wound, and also
heal. "(8) Why reproach the flesh with those conditions which wait for
God, which hope in God, which receive honour from God, which He
succours? I venture to declare, that if such casualties as these had
never befallen the flesh, the bounty, the grace, the mercy, (and
indeed) all the beneficent power of God, would have had no opportunity
to work.(9)
You hold to the scriptures in which the flesh is disparaged;
receive also those in which it is ennobled. You read whatever passage
abases it; direct your eyes also to that which elevates it. "All flesh
is grass."(10) Well, but Isaiah was not content to say only this; but
he also declared, "All flesh shall see the salvation of God. "(11) They
notice God when He says in Genesis, "My Spirit shall not remain among
these men, because they are flesh; "(12) but then He is also heard
saying by Joel, "I will pour I out of my Spirit upon all flesh."(13)
Even the apostle ought not to be known for any one statement in which
he is wont to reproach the flesh. For although he says that "in his
flesh dwelleth no good thing;"(14) although he affirms that "they who
are in the flesh cannot please God,"15 because "the flesh lusteth
against the Spirit;"(16) yet in these and similar assertions which he
makes, it is not the substance of the flesh, but its actions, which are
censured. Moreover, we shall elsewhere(17) take occasion to remark,
that no reproaches can fairly be cast upon the flesh, without tending
also to the castigation of the soul, which compels the flesh to do its
bidding. However, let me meanwhile add that in the same passage Paul
"carries about in his body the marks of the Lord Jesus;"(18) he also
forbids our body to be profaned, as being "the temple of God;"(19) he
makes our bodies "the members of Christ;"(20) and he exhorts us to
exalt and "glorify God in our body."(21) If, therefore, the
humiliations of the flesh thrust off its resurrection, why shall not
its high prerogatives rather avail to bring it about?—since it better
suits the character of God to restore to salvation what for a while He
rejected, than to surrender to perdition what He once approved.
Thus far touching my eulogy of the flesh, in opposition to its
enemies, who are, notwithstanding, its greatest friends also; for there
is nobody who lives so much in accordance with the flesh as they who
deny the resurrection of the flesh, inasmuch as they despise all its
discipline, while they disbelieve its punishment. It is a shrewd saying
which the Paraclete utters concerning these persons by the mouth of the
prophetess Prisca: "They are carnal,(22) and yet they hate the flesh."
Since, then, the flesh has the best guarantee that could possibly
accrue for securing to it the recompense of salvation, ought we not
also to consider well the power, and might, and competency(23) of God
Himself, whether He be so great as to be able to rebuild and restore
the edifice of the flesh, which had become dilapidated and blocked
up,(1) and in every possible way dislocated?—whether He has
promulgated in the public domains of nature any analogies to convince
us of His power in this respect, lest any should happen to be still
thirsting for the knowledge of God, when faith in Him must rest on no
other basis than the belief that He is able to do all things? You have,
no doubt amongst your philosophers men who maintain that this world is
without a beginning or a maker. It is, however, much more true, that
nearly all the heresies allow it an origin and a maker, and ascribe its
creation to our God. Firmly believe, therefore, that He produced it
wholly out of nothing, and then you have found the knowledge of God, by
believing that He possesses such mighty power. But some persons are too
weak to believe all this at first, owing to their views about Matter.
They will rather have it, after the philosophers, that the universe was
in the beginning made by God out of underlying matter. Now, even if
this opinion could be held in truth, since He must be acknowledged to
have produced in His reformation of matter far different substances and
far different forms from those which Matter itself possessed, I should
maintain, with no less persistence, that He produced these things out
of nothing, since they absolutely had no existence at all previous to
His production of them. Now, where is the difference between a thing's
being produced out of nothing or out of something, if so be that what
existed not comes into being, when even to have had no existence is
tantamount to having been nothing? The contrary is likewise true; for
having once existed amounts to having been something. If, however,
there is a difference, both alternatives support my position. For if
God produced all things whatever out of nothing, He will be able to
draw forth from nothing even the flesh which had fallen into nothing;
or if He moulded other things out of matter, He will be able to call
forth the flesh too from somewhere else, into whatever abyss it may
have been engulphed. And surely He is most competent to re-create who
created, inasmuch as it is a far greater work to have produced than to
have reproduced, to have imparted a beginning, than to have maintained
a continuance. On this principle, you may be quite sure that the
restoration of the flesh is easier than its first formation.
Consider now those very analogies of the divine power (to which
we have just alluded). Day dies into night, and is buried everywhere in
darkness. The glory of the world is obscured in the shadow of death;
its entire substance is tarnished with blackness; all things become
sordid, silent, stupid; everywhere business ceases, and occupations
rest. And so over the loss of the light there is mourning. But yet it
again revives, with its own beauty, its own dowry, is own sun, the same
as ever, whole and entire, over all the world, slaying its own death,
night—opening its own sepulchre, the darkness—coming forth the heir
to itself, until the night also revives—it, too, accompanied with a
retinue of its own. For the stellar rays are rekindled, which had been
quenched in the morning glow; the distant groups of the constellations
are again brought back to view, which the day's temporary interval had
removed out of sight. Readorned also are the mirrors of the moon, which
her monthly course had worn away. Winters and summers return, as do the
spring-tide and autumn, with their resources, their routines, their
fruits. Forasmuch as earth receives its instruction from heaven to
clothe the trees which had been stripped, to colour the flowers afresh,
to spread the grass again, to reproduce the seed which had been
consumed, and not to reproduce them until consumed. Wondrous method!
from a defrauder to be a preserver, in order to restore, it takes away;
in order to guard, it destroys; that it may make whole, it injures; and
that it may enlarge, it first lessens. (This process) indeed, renders
back to us richer and fuller blessings than it deprived us of—by a
destruction which is profit, by an injury which is advantage, and by a
loss which is gain. In a word, I would say, all creation is instinct
with renewal. Whatever you may chance upon, has already existed;
whatever you have lost, returns again without fail. All things return
to their former state, after having gone out of sight; all things begin
after they have ended; they come to an end for the very purpose of
coming into existence again. Nothing perishes but with a view to
salvation. The whole, therefore, of this revolving order of things
bears witness to the resurrection of the dead. In His works did God
write it, before He wrote it in the Scriptures; He proclaimed it in His
mighty deeds earlier than in His inspired words. He first sent Nature
to you as a teacher, meaning to send Prophecy also as a supplemental
instructor, that, being Nature's disciple, you may more easily believe
Prophecy, and without hesitation accept (its testimony) when you come
to hear what you have seen already on every side; nor doubt that God,
whom you have discovered to be the restorer of all things, is likewise
the reviver of the flesh. And surely, as all things rise again for man,
for whose use they have been provided-but not for man except for his
flesh also—how happens it that (the flesh) itself can perish utterly,
because of which and for the service of which nothing comes to nought?
If, however, all nature but faintly figures our resurrection; if
creation affords no sign precisely like it, inasmuch as its several
phenomena can hardly be said to die so much as to come to an end, nor
again be deemed to be reanimated, but only re-formed; then take a most
complete and unassailable, symbol of our hope, for it shall be an
animated being, and subject alike to life and death. I refer to the
bird which is peculiar to the East, famous for its singularity,
marvelous from its posthumous life, which renews its life in a
voluntary death; its dying day is its birthday, for on it it departs
and returns; once more a phoenix where just now there was none; once
more himself, but just now out of existence; another, yet the same.
What can be more express and more significant for our subject; or to
what other thing can such a phenomenon bear witness? God even in His
own Scripture says: "The righteous shall flourish like the phoenix;"(1)
that is, shall flourish or revive, from death, from the grave—to teach
you to believe that a bodily substance may be recovered even from the
fire. Our Lord has declared that we are "better than many sparrows:"(2)
well, if not better than many a phoenix too, it were no great thing.
But must men die once for all, while birds in Arabia are sure of a
resurrection?
Such, then, being the outlines of the divine energies which God
has displayed as much in the parables of nature as in His spoken word,
let us now approach His very edicts and decrees, since this is the
division which we mainly adopt in our subject-matter. We began with the
dignity of the flesh, whether it were of such a nature that when once
destroyed it was capable of being restored. Then we pursued an inquiry
touching the power of God, whether it was sufficiently great to be
habitually able to confer this restoration on a thing which had been
destroyed. Now, if we have proved these two points, I should like you
to inquire into the (question of) cause, whether it be one of
sufficient weight to claim the resurrection of the flesh as necessary
and as conformable in every way to reason; because there underlies this
demurrer: the flesh may be quite capable of being restored, and the
Deity be perfectly able to effect the restoration, but a cause for such
recovery must needs pre-exist. Admit then a sufficient one, you who
learn of a God who is both supremely good as well as just(3)__
supremely good from His own (character), just in consequence of ours.
For if man had never sinned, he would simply and solely have known God
in His superlative goodness, from the attribute of His nature. But now
he experiences Him to be a just God also, from the necessity of a
cause; still, however, retaining under this very circumstance His
excellent goodness, at the same time that He is also just. For, by both
succouring the good and punishing the evil, He displays His justice,
and at the same time makes both processes contribute proofs of His
goodness, whilst on the one hand He deals vengeance, land on the other
dispenses reward. But with Marcion(4) you will have the opportunity of
more fully learning whether this be the whole character of God.
Meanwhile, so perfect is our (God), that He is rightly Judge, because
He is the Lord; rightly the Lord, because the Creator; rightly the
Creator, because He is God. Whence it happens that that heretic, whose
name I know not, holds that He properly is not a Judge, since He is not
Lord; properly not Lord, since He is not the Creator. And so I am at a
loss to know how He is God, who is neither the Creator, which God is;
nor the Lord, which the Creator is. Inasmuch, then, as it is most
suitable for the great Being who is God, and Lord, and Creator to
summon man to a judgment on this very question, whether he has taken
care or not to acknowledge and honour his Lord and Creator, this is
just such a judgment as the resurrection shall achieve. The entire
cause, then, or rather necessity of the resurrection, will be this,
namely, that arrangement of the final judgment which shall be most
suitable to God. Now, in effecting this arrangement, you must consider
whether the divine censure superintends a judicial ex- amination of the
two natures of man—both his soul and his flesh. For that which is a
suitable object to be judged, is also a competent one to be raised. Our
position is, that the judgment of God must be believed first of all to
be plenary, and then absolute, so as to be final, and therefore
irrevocable; to be also righteous, not bearing less heavily on any
particular part; to be moreover worthy of God, being complete and
definite, in keeping with His great patience. Thus it follows that the
fulness and perfection of the judgment consists simply in representing
the interests of the entire human being. Now, since the entire man
consists of the union of the two natures, he must therefore appear in
both, as it is right that he should be judged in his entirety; nor, of
course, did he pass through life except in his entire state. As
therefore he lived, so also must he be judged, because he has to be
judged concerning the way in which he lived. For life is the cause of
judgment, and it must undergo investigation in as many natures as it
possessed when it discharged its vital functions.
Come now, let our opponents sever the connection of the flesh
with the soul in the affairs of life, that they may be emboldened to
sunder it also in the recompense of life. Let them deny their
association in acts, that they may be fairly able to deny also their
participation in rewards. The flesh ought not to have any share in the
sentence, if it had none in the cause of it. Let the soul alone be
called back, if it alone went away. But (nothing of the kind ever
happened); for the soul alone no more departed from life, than it ran
through alone the course from which it departed—I mean this present
life. Indeed, the soul alone is so far from conducting (the affairs of)
life, that we do not withdraw from community with the flesh even our
thoughts, however isolated they be, however unprecipitated into act by
means of the flesh; since whatever is done in man's heart is done by
the soul in the flesh, and with the flesh, and through the flesh. The
Lord Himself, in short, when rebuking our thoughts, includes in His
censures this aspect of the flesh, (man's heart), the citadel of the
soul: "Why think ye evil in your hearts?"(1) and again: "Whosoever
looketh on a woman, to lust after her, hath already committed adultery
with her in his heart."(2) So that even the thought, without operation
and without effect, is an act of the flesh. But if you allow that the
faculty which rules the senses, and which they call Hegemonikon,(3) has
its sanctuary in the brain, or in the interval between the eyebrows, or
wheresoever the philosophers are pleased to locate it, the flesh will
still be the thinking place of the soul. The soul is never without the
flesh, as long as it is in the flesh. There is nothing which the flesh
does not transact in company with the soul, when without it does not
exist. Consider carefully, too, whether the thoughts are not
administered by the flesh, since it is through the flesh that they are
distinguished and known externally. Let the soul only meditate some
design, the face gives the indication—the face being the mirror of all
our intentions. They may deny all combination in acts, but they cannot
gainsay their co-operation in thoughts. Still they enumerate the sins
of the flesh; surely, then, for its sinful conduct it must be consigned
to punishment. But we, moreover, allege against them the virtues of the
flesh; surely also for its virtuous conduct it deserves a future
reward. Again, as it is the soul which acts and impels us in all we do,
so it is the function of the flesh to render obedience. Now we are not
permitted to suppose that God is either unjust or idle. Unjust,
(however He would be,) were He to exclude from reward the flesh which
is associated in good works; and idle, were He to exempt it from
punishment, when it has been an accomplice in evil deeds: whereas human
judgment is deemed to be the more perfect, when it discovers the agents
in every deed, and neither spares the guilty nor grudges the virtuous
their full share of either punishment or praise with the principals who
employed their services.
When, however, we attribute to the soul authority, and to the
flesh submission, we must see to it that (our opponents) do not turn
our position by another argument, by insisting on so placing the flesh
in the service of the soul, that it be not (considered as) its servant,
lest they should be compelled, if it were so regarded, to admit its
companionship (to the soul). For they would argue that servants and
companions possess a discretion in discharging the functions of their
respective office, and a power over their will in both relations: in
short, (they would claim to be) men themselves, and therefore (would
expect) to share the credit with their principals, to whom they
voluntarily yielded their assistance; whereas the flesh had no
discretion, no sentiment in itself, but possessing no power of its own
of willing or refusing, it, in fact, appears to stand to the soul in
the stead of a vessel as an instrument rather than a servant. The soul
alone, therefore, will have to be judged (at the last day)
pre-eminently as to how it has employed the vessel of the flesh; the
vessel itself, of course, not being amenable to a judicial award: for
who condemns the cup if any. man has mixed poison in it? or who
sentences the sword to the beasts, if a man has perpetrated with it the
atrocities of a brigand? Well, now, we will grant that the flesh is
innocent, in so far as bad actions will not be charged upon it: what,
then, is there to hinder its being saved on the score of its innocence?
For although it is free from all imputation of good works, as it is of
evil ones, yet it is more consistent with the divine goodness to
deliver the innocent. A beneficent man, indeed, is bound to do so: it
suits then the character of the Most Bountiful to bestow even
gratuitously such a favour. And yet, as to the cup, I will not take the
poisoned one, into which some certain death is injected, but one which
has been infected with the breath of a lascivious woman,(1) or of
Cybele's priest, or of a gladiator, or of a hangman: then I want to
know whether you would pass a milder condemnation on it than on the
kisses of such persons? One indeed which is soiled with our own filth,
or one which is not mingled to our own mind we are apt to dash to
pieces, and then to increase our anger with our servant. As for the
sword, which is drunk with the blood of the brigand's victims, who
would not banish it entirely from his house, much more from his
bed-room, or from his pillow, from the presumption that he would be
sure to dream of nothing but the apparitions of the souls which were
pursuing and disquieting him for lying down with the blade which shed
their own blood? Take, however, the cup which has no reproach on it,
and which deserves the credit of a faithful ministration, it will be
adorned by its drinking-master with chaplets, or be honoured with a
handful of flowers. The sword also which has received honourable stains
in war, and has been thus engaged in a better manslaughter, will secure
its own praise by consecration. It is quite possible, then, to pass
decisive sentences even on vessels and on instruments, that so they too
may participate in the merits of their proprietors and employers. Thus
much do I say from a desire to meet even this argument, although there
is a failure in the example, owing to the diversity in the nature of
the objects. For every vessel or every instrument becomes useful from
without, consisting as it does of material perfectly extraneous to the
substance of the human owner or employer; whereas the flesh, being
conceived, formed, and generated along with the soul from its earliest
existence in the womb, is mixed up with it likewise in all its
operations. For although it is called "a vessel" by the apostle, such
as he enjoins to be treated "with honour,"(2) it is yet designated by
the same apostle as "the outward man,"(3)—that clay, of course, which
at the first was inscribed with the title of a man, not of a cup or a
sword, or any paltry vessel. Now it is called a "vessel" in
consideration of its capacity, whereby it receives and contains the
soul; but "man," from its community of nature, which renders it in all
operations a servant and not an instrument. Accordingly, in the
judgment it will be held to be a servant (even though it may have no
independent discretion of its own), on the ground of its being an
integral portion of that which possesses such discretion, and is not a
mere chattel. And although the apostle is well aware that the flesh
does nothing of itself which is not also imputed to the soul, he yet
deems the flesh to be "sinful;"(4) lest it should be supposed to be
free from all responsibility by the mere fact of its seeming to be
impelled by the soul. So, again, when he is ascribing certain
praiseworthy actions to the flesh, he says, "Therefore glorify and
exalt God in your body,"(5)—being certain that such efforts are
actuated by the soul; but still he ascribes them to the flesh, because
it is to it that he also promises the recompense. Besides, neither
rebuke, (on the one hand), would have been suitable to it, if free from
blame; nor, (on the other hand), would exhortation, if it were
incapable of glory. Indeed, both rebuke and exhortation would be alike
idle towards the flesh, if it were an improper object for that
recompence which is certainly received in the resurrection.
"Every uneducated(6) person who agrees with our opinion will be
apt to suppose that
the flesh will have to be present at the final judgment even on
this account, because otherwise the soul would be incapable of
suffering pain or pleasure, as being incorporeal; for this is the
common opinion. We on our part, however, do here maintain, and in a
special treatise on the subject prove, that the soul is corporeal,
possessing a peculiar kind of solidity in its nature, such as enables
it both to perceive and suffer. That souls are even now susceptible of
torment and of blessing in Hades, though they are disembodied, and
notwithstanding their banishment from the flesh, is proved by the case
of Lazarus. I have no doubt given to my opponent room to say: Since,
then, the soul has a bodily substance of its own, it will be
sufficiently endowed with the faculty of suffering and sense, so as not
to require the presence of the flesh. No, no, (is my reply): it will
still need the flesh; not as being unable to feel anything without the
help of the flesh, but because it is necessary that it should possess
such a faculty along with the flesh. For in as far as it has a
sufficiency of its own for action, in so far has it likewise a capacity
for suffering. But the truth is, in respect of action, it labours under
some amount of incapacity; for in its own nature it has simply the
ability to think, to will, to desire, to dispose: for fully, carrying
out the purpose, it looks for the assistance of the flesh. In like
manner, it also requires the conjunction of the flesh to endure
suffering, in order that by its aid it may be as fully able to suffer,
as without its assistance it was not fully able to act. In respect,
indeed, of those sins, such as concupiscence, and thought, and wish,
which it has a competency of its own to commit, it at once(1) pays the
penalty of them. Now, no doubt, if these were alone sufficient to
constitute absolute desert without requiring the addition of acts, the
soul would suffice in itself to encounter the full responsibility of
the judgment, being to be judged for those things in the doing of which
it alone had possessed a sufficiency. Since, however, acts too are
indissolubly attached to deserts; since also acts are ministerially
effected by the flesh, it is no longer enough that the soul apart from
the flesh be requited with pleasure or pain for what are actually works
of the flesh, although it has a body (of its own), although it has
members (of its own), which in like manner are insufficient for its
full perception, just as they are also for its perfect action.
Therefore as it has acted in each several instance, so proportionably
does it suffer in Hades, being the first to taste of judgment as it was
the first to induce to the commission of sin; but still it is waiting
for the flesh in order that it may through the flesh also compensate
for its deeds, inasmuch as it laid upon the flesh the execution of its
own thoughts. This, in short, will be the process of that judgment
which is postponed to the last great day, in order that by the
exhibition of the flesh the entire course of the divine vengeance may
be accomplished. Besides, (it is obvious to remark) there would be no
delaying to the end of that doom which souls are already tasting in
Hades, if it was destined for souls alone.
Thus far it has been my object by prefatory remarks to lay a
foundation for the defence of all the Scriptures which promise a
resurrection of the flesh. Now, inasmuch as this verity is supported by
so many just and reasonable considerations—I mean the dignity of the
flesh itself,(2) the power and might of God,(3) the analogous cases in
which these are displayed,(4) as well as the good reasons for the
judgment, and the need thereof(5)—it will of course be only right and
proper that the Scriptures should be understood in the sense suggested
by such authoritative considerations, and not after the conceits of the
heretics, which arise from infidelity solely, because it is deemed
incredible that the flesh should be recovered from death and restored
to life; not because (such a restoration) is either unattainable by the
flesh itself, or impossible for God to effect, or unsuitable to the
final judgment. Incredible, no doubt, it might be, if it had not been
revealed in the word of God;(6) except that, even if it had not been
thus first announced by God, it might have been fairly enough assumed,
that the revelation of it had been withheld, simply because so many
strong presumptions in its favour had been already furnished. Since,
however, (the great fact) is proclaimed in so many inspired passages,
that is so far a dissuasive against understanding it in a sense
different from that which is attested by such arguments as persuade us
to its reception, even irrespective of the testimonies of revelation.
Let us see, then, first of all in what title this hope of ours is held
out to our view.(7) There is, I imagine, one divine edict which is
exposed to the gaze of all men: it is "The Resurrection of the
Dead."(1) These words are prompt, decisive, clear. I mean to take these
very terms, discuss them, and discover to what substance they apply. As
to the word resurrectio, whenever I hear of its impending over a human
being, I am forced to inquire what part of him has been destined to
fall, since nothing can be expected to rise again, unless it has first
been prostrated. It is only the man who is ignorant of the fact that
the flesh falls by death, that can fail to discover that it stands
erect by means of life. Nature pronounces God's sentence: "Dust thou
art, and unto dust shall thou return."(2) Even the man who has not
heard the sentence, sees the fact. No death but is the ruin of our
limbs. This destiny of the body the Lord also described, when, clothed
as He was in its very substance, He said, "Destroy this temple, and in
three days I will raise it up again."(3) For He showed to what belongs
(the incidents of) being destroyed, thrown down, and kept down—even to
that to which it also appertains to be lifted and raised up again;
although He was at the same time bearing about with Him "a soul that
was trembling even unto death,"(4) but which did not fall through
death, because even the Scripture informs us that "He spoke of His
body."(5) So that it is the flesh which falls by death; and accordingly
it derives its name, cadaver, from cadendo.(6) The soul, however, has
no trace of a fall in its designation, as indeed there is no mortality
in its condition. Nay it is the soul which communicates its ruin to the
body when it is breathed out of it, just as it is also destined to
raise it up again from the earth when it shall re-enter it. That cannot
fall which by its entrance raises; nor can that droop which by its
departure causes ruin. I will go further, and say that the soul does
not even fall into sleep along with the body, nor does it with its
companion even lie down in repose. For it is agitated in dreams, and
disturbed: it might, however, rest, if it lay down; and lie down it
certainly would, if it fell. Thus that which does not fall even into
the likeness of death, does not succumb to the reality thereof. Passing
now to the other word mortuorum, I wish you to look carefully, and see
to what substance it is applicable. Were we to allow, under this head,
as is sometimes held by the heretics, that the soul is mortal, so that
being mortal it shall attain to a resurrection; this would afford a
presumption that the flesh also, being no less mortal, would share in
the same resurrection. But our present point is to derive from the
proper signification of this word an idea of the destiny which it
indicates. Now, just as the term resurrection is predicated of that
which falls—that is, the flesh—so will there be the same application
of the word dead, because what is called "the resurrection of the dead"
indicates the rising up again of that which is fallen down. We learn
this from the case of Abraham, the father of the faithful, a man who
enjoyed close intercourse with God. For when he requested of the sons
of Heth a spot to bury Sarah in, he said to them, "Give me the
possession of a burying place with you, that I may bury my
dead,"(7)—meaning, of course, her flesh; for he could not have desired
a place to bury her soul in, even if the soul is to be deemed mortal,
and even if it could bear to be described by the word "dead." Since,
then, this word indicates the body, it follows that when "the
resurrection of the dead" is spoken of, it is the rising again of men's
bodies that is meant.
Now this consideration of the phrase in question, and its
signification—besides maintaining, of course, the true meaning of the
important words—must needs contribute to this further result, that
whatever obscurity our adversaries throw over the subject under the
pretence of figurative and allegorical language, the truth will stand
out in clearer light, and out of uncertainties certain and definite
rules will be prescribed. For some, when they have alighted on a very
usual form of prophetic statement, generally expressed in figure and
allegory, though not always, distort into some imaginary sense even the
most clearly described doctrine of the resurrection of the dead,
alleging that even death itself must be understood in a spiritual
sense. They say that which is commonly supposed to be death is not
really so,—namely, the separation of body and soul: it is rather the
ignorance of God, by reason of which man is dead to God, and is not
less buried in error than he would be in the grave. Wherefore that also
must be held to be the resurrection, when a man is reanimated by access
to the truth, and having dispersed the death of ignorance, and being
endowed with new life by God, has burst forth from the sepulchre of the
old man, even as the Lord likened the scribes and Pharisees to "whited
sepulchres."(1) Whence it follows that they who have by faith attained
to the resurrection, are with the Lord after they have once put Him on
in their baptism. By such subtlety, then, even in conversation have
they often been in the habit of misleading our brethren, as if they
held a resurrection of the dead as well as we. Woe, say they, to him
who has not risen in the present body; for they fear that they might
alarm their hearers if they at once denied the resurrection. Secretly,
however, in their minds they think this: Woe betide the simpleton who
during his present life fails to discover the mysteries of heresy;
since this, in their view, is the resurrection. There are however, a
great many also, who, claiming to hold a resurrection after the soul's
departure, maintain that going out of the sepulchre means escaping out
of the world, since in their view the world is the habitation of the
dead—that is, of those who know not God; or they will go so far as to
say that it actually means escaping out of the body itself, since they
imagine that the body detains the soul, when it is shut up in the death
of a worldly life, as in a grave.
Now, to upset all conceits of this sort, let me dispel at once
the preliminary idea on which they rest—their assertion that the
prophets make all their announcements in figures of speech. Now, if
this were the case, the figures themselves could not possibly have been
distinguished, inasmuch as the verities would not have been declared,
out of which the figurative language is stretched. And, indeed, if all
are figures, where will be that of which they are the figures? How can
you hold up a mirror for your face, if the face nowhere exists? But, in
truth, all are not figures, but there are also literal statements; nor
are all shadows, but there are bodies too: so that we have prophecies
about the Lord Himself even, which are clearer than the day For it was
not figuratively that the Virgin conceived in her womb; nor in a trope
did she bear Emmanuel, that is, Jesus, God with us.(2) Even granting
that He was figuratively to take the power of Damascus and the spoils
of Samaria,(3) still it was literally that He was to "enter into
judgment with the elders and princes of the people."(4) For in the
person of Pilate "the heathen raged," and in the person of Israel "the
people imagined vain things;" "the kings of the earth" in Herod, and
the rulers in Annas and Caiaphas, were gathered together against the
Lord, and against His anointed."(5) He, again, was "led as a sheep to
the slaughter, and as a sheep before the shearer," that is, Herod, "is
dumb, so He opened not His mouth."(6) "He gave His back to scourges,
and His cheeks to blows, not turning His face even from the shame of
spitting."(7) "He was numbered with the transgressors;"(8) "He was
pierced in His hands and His feet;"(9) "they cast lots for his
raiment"(10) "they gave Him gall, and made Him drink vinegar;" "they
shook their heads, and mocked Him;" "He was appraised by the traitor in
thirty pieces of silver."(13) What figures of speech does Isaiah here
give us? What tropes does David? What allegories does Jeremiah? Not
even of His mighty works have they used parabolic language. Or else,
were not the eyes of the blind opened? did not the tongue of the dumb
recover speech?(14) did not the relaxed hands and palsied knees become
strong,(15) and the lame leap as an hart?(16) No doubt we are
accustomed also to give a spiritual significance to these statements of
prophecy, according to the analogy of the physical diseases which were
healed by the Lord; but still they were all fulfilled literally: thus
showing that the prophets foretold both senses, except that very many
of their words can only be taken in a pure and simple signification,
and free from all allegorical obscurity; as when we hear of the
downfall of nations and cities, of Tyre and Egypt, and Babylon and
Edom, and the navy of Carthage; also when they foretell Israel's own
chastisements and pardons, its captivities, restorations, and at last
its final dispersion. Who would prefer affixing a metaphorical
interpretation to all these events, instead of accepting their literal
truth? The realities are involved in the words, just as the words are
read in the realities. Thus, then, (we find that) the allegorical style
is not used in all parts of the prophetic record, although it
occasionally occurs in certain portions of it.
Well, if it occurs occasionally in certain portions of it, you
will say, then why not in that phrase,(1) where the resurrection might
be spiritually understood? There are several reasons why not. First,
what must be the meaning of so many important passages of Holy
Scripture, which so obviously attest the resurrection of the body, as
to admit not even the appearance of a figurative signification? And,
indeed, (since some passages are more obscure than others), it cannot
but be right—as we have shown above(2)—that uncertain statements
should be determined by certain ones, and obscure ones by such as are
clear and plain; else there is fear that, in the conflict of
certainties and uncertainties, of explicitness and obscurity, faith may
be shattered, truth endangered, and the Divine Being Himself be branded
as inconstant. Then arises the improbability that the very mystery on
which our trust wholly rests, on which also our instruction entirely
depends, should have the appearance of being ambiguously announced and
obscurely propounded, inasmuch as the hope of the resurrection, unless
it be clearly set forth on the sides both of punishment and reward,
would fail to persuade any to embrace a religion like ours, exposed as
it is to public detestation and the imputation of hostility to others.
There is no certain work where the remuneration is uncertain. There is
no real apprehension when the peril is only doubtful. But both the
recompense of reward, and the danger of losing it, depend on the issues
of the resurrection. Now, if even those purposes of God against cities,
and nations, and kings, which are merely temporal, local, and personal
in their character, have been proclaimed so clearly in prophecy, how is
it to be supposed that those dispensations of His which are eternal,
and of universal concern to the human race, should be void of all real
light in themselves? The grander they are, the clearer should be their
announcement, in order that their superior greatness might be believed.
And I apprehend that God cannot possibly have ascribed to Him either
envy, or guile, or inconsistency, or artifice, by help of which evil
qualities it is that all schemes of unusual grandeur are litigiously
promulgated.
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),(3) 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. Now, forasmuch as the seasons of
our entire hope have been fixed in the Holy Scripture, and since we are
not permitted to place the accomplishment thereof, as I apprehend,
previous to Christ's coming, our prayers are directed towards(4) the
end of this world, to the passing away thereof at the great day of the
Lord—of His wrath and vengeance—the last day, which is hidden (from
all), and known to none but the Father, although announced beforehand
by signs and wonders, and the dissolution of the elements, and the
conflicts of nations. I would turn out the words of the prophets, if
the Lord Himself had said nothing (except that prophecies were the
Lord's own word); but it is more to my purpose that He by His own mouth
confirms their statement. Being questioned by His disciples when those
things were to come to pass which He had just been uttering about the
destruction of the temple, He discourses to them first of the order of
Jewish events until the overthrow of Jerusalem, and then of such as
concerned all nations up to the very end of the world. For after He had
declared that "Jerusalem was to be trodden down of the Gentiles, until
the times of the Gentiles should be fulfilled,"(5)—meaning, of course,
those which were to be chosen of God, and gathered in with the remnant
of Israel—He then goes on to proclaim, against this world and
dispensation (even as Joel had done, and Daniel, and all the prophets
with one consent(6)), that "there should be signs in the sun, and in
the moon, and in the stars, distress of nations with perplexity, the
sea and the waves roaring, men's hearts failing them for fear, and for
looking after those things which are coming on the earth."(1) "For,"
says He, "the powers of heaven shall be shaken; and then shall they see
the Son of man coming in the clouds, with power and great glory. And
when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your
heads, for your redemption draweth nigh."(2) He spake of its "drawing
nigh," not of its being present already; and of "those things beginning
to come to pass," not of their having happened: because when they have
come to pass, then our redemption shall be at hand, which is said to be
approaching up to that time, raising and exciting our minds to what is
then the proximate harvest of our hope. He immediately annexes a
parable of this in "the trees which are tenderly sprouting into a
flower-stalk, and then developing the flower, which is the precursor of
the fruit."(3) "So likewise ye," (He adds), "when ye shall see all
these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of heaven is nigh
at hand."(4) "Watch ye, therefore, and pray always, that ye may be
accounted worthy to escape all those things, and to stand before the
Son of man;"(5) that is, no doubt, at the resurrection, after all these
things have been previously transacted. Therefore, although there is a
sprouting in the acknowledgment of all this mystery, yet it is only in
the actual presence of the Lord that the flower is developed and the
fruit borne. Who is it then, that has aroused the Lord, now at God's
right hand so unseasonably and with such severity "shake terribly" (as
Isaiah(6) expresses it ("that earth," which, I suppose, is as yet
unshattered? Who has thus early put "Christ's enemies beneath His feet"
(to use the lan-guage of David(7)), making Him more hurried than the
Father, whilst every crowd in our popular assemblies is still with
shouts consigning "the Christians to the lions?"(8) 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?(9) Up to the
present moment they have not, tribe by tribe, smitten their breasts,
looking on Him whom they pierced.(10) No one has as yet fallen in with
Elias;(11) no one has as yet escaped from Antichrist;(12) no one has as
yet had to bewail the downfall of Babylon.(13) 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 Caesar the things which are Caesar's.(14)
The apostle indeed teaches, in his Epistle to the Colossians,
that we were once dead, alienated, and enemies to the Lord in our
minds, whilst we were living in wicked works;(15) that we were then
buried with Christ in baptism, and also raised again with Him through
the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised Him from the
dead.(16) "And you, (adds he), when ye were dead in sins and the
uncircumcision of your flesh, hath He quickened together with Him,
having forgiven you all trespasses."(17) And again: "If ye are dead
with Christ from the elements of the world, why, as though living in
the world, are ye subject to ordinances?"(18) Now, since he makes us
spiritually dead—in such a way, however, as to allow that we shall one
day have to undergo a bodily death,—so, considering indeed that we
have been also raised in a like spiritual sense, he equally allows that
we shall further have to undergo a bodily resurrection. In so many
words(19) he says: "Since ye are risen with Christ, seek those things
which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God. Set
your affection on things above, not on things on the earth."(20)
Accordingly, it is in our mind that he shows that we rise (with
Christ), since it is by this alone that we are as yet able to reach to
heavenly objects. These we should not "seek," nor "set our affection
on," if we had them already in our possession. He also adds: "For ye
are dead"—to your sins, he means, not to yourselves—"and your life is
hid with Christ in God."(21) Now that life is not yet apprehended which
is hidden. In like manner John says: "And it doth not yet ap- pear what
we shall be: we know, however, that when He shall be manifest, we shall
be like Him."(1) We are far indeed from being already what we know not
of; we should, of course, be sure to know it if we were already (like
Him). It is therefore the contemplation of our blessed hope even in
this life by faith (that he speaks of)—not its presence nor its
possession, but only its expectation. Concerning this expectation and
hope Paul writes to the Galatians: "For we through the Spirit wait for
the hope of righteousness by faith."(2) He says "we wait for it," not
we are in possession of it. By the righteousness of God, he means that
judgment which we shall have to undergo as the recompense of our deeds.
It is in expectation of this for himself that the apostle writes to the
Philippians: "If by any means," says he, "I might attain to the
resurrection of the dead. Not as though I had already attained, or were
already perfect."(3) And yet he had believed, and had known all
mysteries, as an elect vessel and the great teacher of the Gentiles;
but for all that he goes on to say: "I, however, follow on, if so be I
may apprehend that for which I also am apprehended of Christ."(4) Nay,
more: "Brethren," (he adds), "I count not myself to have apprehended:
but this one thing (I do), forgetting those things which are behind,
and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward
the mark for the prize of blamelessness,(5) whereby I may attain it;"
meaning the resurrection from the dead in its proper time. Even as he
says to the Gala-tians: "Let us not be weary in well-doing: for in due
season we shall reap."(6) Similarly, concerning Onesiphorus, does he
also write to Timothy: "The Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy
in that day;"(7) unto which day and time he charges Timothy himself "to
keep what had been committed to his care, without spot, unrebukable,
until the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ: which in His times He
shall show, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings
and Lord of lords,"(8) speaking of (Him as) God It is to these same
times that Peter in the Acts refers, when he says: "Repent ye
therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when
the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; and
He shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: whom
the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things,
which God hath spoken by the mouth of His holy prophets."(9)
The character of these times learn, along with the Thessalonians.
For we read: "How ye turned from idols to serve the living and true
God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead,
even Jesus."(10) And again: "For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of
rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord God, Jesus
Christ, at His coming?"(11) Likewise: "Before God, even our Father, at
the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, with the whole company of His
saints."(12) He teaches them that they must "not sorrow concerning them
that are asleep," and at the same time explains to them the times of
the resurrection, saying, "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose
again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus shall God bring with Him.
For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are
alive and remain unto the coming of our Lord, shall not prevent them
that are asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a
shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and
the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain
shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord
in the air; and so shall we be ever with the Lord."(13) What
archangel's voice, (I wonder), what trump of God is now heard, except
it be, forsooth, in the entertainments of the heretics? For, allowing
that the word of the gospel may be called "the trump of God," since it
was still calling men, yet they must at that time either be dead as to
the body, that they may be able to rise again; and then how are they
alive? Or else caught up into the clouds; and how then are they here?
"Most miserable," no doubt, as the apostle declared them, are they "who
in this life only" shall be found to have hope:(14) they will have to
be excluded while they are with premature haste seizing that which is
promised after this life; erring concerning the truth, no less than
Phygellus and Hermogenes.(15) Hence it is that the Holy Ghost, in His
greatness, foresee- ing clearly all such interpretations as these,
suggests (to the apostle), in this very epistle of his to the
Thessalonians, as follows: "But of the times and the seasons, brethren,
there is no necessity for my writing unto you. For ye yourselves know
perfectly, that the day of the Lord cometh as a thief in the night. For
when they shall say, 'Peace,' and 'All things are safe,' then sudden
destruction shall come upon them."(1) Again, in the second epistle he
addresses them with even greater earnestness: "Now I beseech you,
brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering
together unto Him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, nor be troubled,
either by spirit, or by word," that is, the word of false prophets, "or
by letter," that is, the letter of false apostles, "as if from us, as
that the day of the Lord is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any
means. For that day shall not come, unless indeed there first come a
falling away," he means indeed of this present empire, "and that man of
sin be revealed," that is to say, Antichrist, "the son of perdition,
who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God or
religion; so that he sitteth in the temple of God, affirming that he is
God. Remember ye not, that when I was with you, I used to tell you
these things? And now ye know what detaineth, that he might be revealed
in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work; only he who
now hinders must hinder, until he be taken out of the way."(2) What
obstacle is there but the Roman state, the falling away of which, by
being scattered into ten kingdoms, shall introduce Antichrist upon (its
own ruins)? "And then shall be revealed the wicked one, whom the Lord
shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the
brightness of His coming: even him whose coming is after the working of
Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and with all
deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish."(3)
In the Revelation of John, again, the order of these times is
spread out to view, which "the souls of the martyrs" are taught to wait
for beneath the altar, whilst they earnestly pray to be avenged and
judged:(4) (taught, I say, to wait), in order that the world may first
drink to the dregs the plagues that await it out of the vials of the
angels,(5) and that the city of fornication may receive from the ten
kings its deserved doom,(6) and that the beast Antichrist with his
false prophet may wage war on the Church of God; and that, after the
casting of the devil into the bottomless pit for a while,(7) the
blessed prerogative of the first resurrection may be ordained from the
thrones;(8) and then again, after the consignment of him to the fire,
that the judgment of the final and universal resurrection may be
determined out of the books.(9) Since, then, the Scriptures both
indicate the stages of the last times, and concentrate the harvest of
the Christian hope in the very end of the world, it is evident, either
that all which God promises to us receives its accomplishment then, and
thus what the heretics pretend about a resurrection here falls to the
ground; or else, even allowing that a confession of the mystery (of
divine truth) is a resurrection, that there is, without any detriment
to this view, room for believing in that which is announced for the
end. It moreover follows, that the very maintenance of this spiritual
resurrection amounts to a presumption in favour of the other bodily
resurrection; for if none were announced for that time, there would be
fair ground for asserting only this purely spiritual resurrection.
Inasmuch, however, as (a resurrection) is proclaimed for the last time,
it is proved to be a bodily one, because there is no spiritual one also
then announced. For why make a second announcement of a resurrection of
only one character, that is, the spiritual one, since this ought to be
undergoing accomplishment either now, without any regard to different
times, or else then, at the very conclusion of all the periods? It is
therefore more competent for us even to maintain a spiritual
resurrection a the commencement of a life of faith, who acknowledge the
full completion thereof at the end of the world
To a preceding objection, that the Scriptures are allegorical, I
have still one answer to make—that it is open to us also to defend the
bodily character of the resurrection by means of the language of the
prophets, which is equally figurative. For consider that primeval
sentence which God spake when He called man earth; saying, "Earth thou
art, and to earth shalt thou return."(10) In respect, of course, to his
fleshly substance, which had been taken out of the ground, and which
was the first to receive the name of man, as we have already shown,(1)
does not this passage give one instruction to interpret in relation to
the flesh also whatever of wrath or of grace God has determined for the
earth, because, strictly speaking, the earth is not exposed to His
judgment, since it has never done any good or evil? "Cursed," no doubt,
it was, for it drank the blood of man;(2) but even this was as a figure
of homicidal flesh. For if the earth has to suffer either joy or
injury, it is simply on man's account, that he may suffer the joy or
the sorrow through the events which happen to his dwelling-place,
whereby he will rather have to pay the penalty which, simply on his
account, even the earth must suffer. When, therefore, God even
threatens the earth, I would prefer saying that He threatens the flesh:
so likewise, when He makes a promise to the earth, I would rather
understand Him as promising the flesh; as in that passage of David:
"The Lord is King, let the earth be glad,"(3)—meaning the flesh of the
saints, to which appertains the enjoyment of the kingdom of God. Then
he afterwards says: "The earth saw and trembled; the mountains melted
like wax at the presence of the Lord,"—meaning, no doubt the flesh of
the wicked; and (in a similar sense) it is written: "For they shall
look on Him whom they pierced."(4) If indeed it will be thought that
both these passages were pronounced simply of the element earth, how
can it be consistent that it should shake and melt at the presence of
the Lord, at whose royal dignity it before exulted? So again in Isaiah,
"Ye shall eat the good of the land,"(5) the expression means the
blessings which await the flesh when in the kingdom of God it shall be
renewed, and made like the angels, and waiting to obtain the things
"which neither eye hath seen, nor ear heard, and which have not entered
into the heart of man."(6) Otherwise, how vain that God should invite
men to obedience by the fruits of the field and the elements of this
life, when He dispenses these to even irreligious men and blasphemers;
on a general condition once for all made to man, "sending rain on the
good and on the evil, and making His sun to shine on the just and on
the unjust!"(7) Happy, no doubt, is faith, if it is to obtain gifts
which the enemies of God and Christ not only use, but even abuse,
"worshipping the creature itself in opposition to the Creator!"(8) You
will reckon, (I suppose) onions and truffles among earth's bounties,
since the Lord declares that "man shall not live on bread alone!"(9) In
this way the Jews lose heavenly blessings, by confining their hopes to
earthly ones, being ignorant of the promise of heavenly bread, and of
the oil of God's unction, and the wine of the Spirit, and of that water
of life which has its vigour from the vine of Christ. On exactly the
same principle, they consider the special soil of Judaea to be that
very holy land, which ought rather to be interpreted of the Lord's
flesh, which, in all those who put on Christ, is thenceforward the holy
land; holy indeed by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, truly flowing
with milk and honey by the sweetness of His assurance, truly Judaean by
reason of the friendship of God. For "he is not a Jew which is one
outwardly, but he who is one inwardly."(10) In the same way it is that
both God's temple and Jerusalem (must be understood) when it is said by
Isaiah: "Awake, awake, O Jerusalem! put on the strength of thine arm;
awake, as in thine earliest time,"(11) that is to say, in that
innocence which preceded the fall into sin. For how can words of this
kind of exhortation and invitation be suitable for that Jerusalem which
killed the prophets, and stoned those that were sent to them, and at
last crucified its very Lord? Neither indeed is salvation promised to
any one land at all, which must needs pass away with the fashion of the
whole world. Even if anybody should venture strongly to contend that
paradise is the holy land, which it may be possible to designate as the
land of our first parents Adam and Eve, it will even then follow that
the restoration of paradise will seem to be promised to the flesh,
whose lot it was to inhabit and keep it, in order that man may be
recalled thereto just such as he was driven from it.
We have also in the Scriptures robes mentioned as allegorizing
the hope of the flesh. Thus in the Revelation of John it is said:
"These are they which have not defiled their clothes with
women,"(12)—indicating, of course, virgins, and such as have become
"eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake."(13) Therefore they shall be
"clothed in white rai- ment,"(1) that is, in the bright beauty of the
unwedded flesh. In the gospel even, "the wedding garment" may be
regarded as the sanctity of the flesh.(2) And so, when Isaiah tells us
what sort of "fast the Lord hath chosen," and subjoins a statement
about the reward of good works, he says: "Then shall thy light break
forth as the morning, and thy garments,(3) shall speedily arise;"(4)
where he has no thought of cloaks or stuff gowns, but means the rising
of the flesh, which he declared the resurrection of, after its fall in
death. Thus we are furnished even with an allegorical defence of the
resurrection of the body. When, then, we read, "Go, my people, enter
into your closets for a little season, until my anger pass away,"(5) we
have in the closets graves, in which they will have to rest for a
little while, who shall have at the end of the world departed this life
in the last furious onset of the power of Antichrist. Why else did He
use the expression closets, in preference to some other receptacle, if
it were not that the flesh is kept in these closets or cellars salted
and reserved for use, to be drawn out thence on a suitable occasion? It
is on a like principle that embalmed corpses are set aside for burial
in mausoleums and sepulchres, in order that they may be removed
therefrom when the Master shall order it. Since, therefore, there is
consistency in thus understanding the passage (for what refuge of
little closets could possibly shelter us from the wrath of God?), it
appears that by the very phrase which he uses, "Until His anger pass
away,"(5) which shall extinguish Antichrist, he in fact shows that
after that indignation the flesh will come forth from the sepulchre, in
which it had been deposited previous to the bursting out of the anger.
Now out of the closets nothing else is brought than that which had been
put into them, and after the extirpation of Antichrist shall be busily
transacted the great process of the resurrection.
But we know that prophecy expressed itself by things no less than
by words. By words, and also by deeds, is the resurrection foretold.
When Moses puts his hand into his bosom, and then draws it out again
dead, and again puts his hand into his bosom, and plucks it out
living,(6) does not this apply as a presage to all mankind?—inasmuch
as those three signs(7) denoted the threefold power of God: when it
shall, first, in the appointed order, subdue to man the old serpent,
the devil,(8) however formidable; then, secondly, draw forth the flesh
from the bosom of death;(9) and then, at last, shall pursue all blood
(shed) in judgment.(10) On this subject we read in the writings of the
same prophet, (how that) God says: "For your blood of your lives will I
require of all wild beasts; and I will require it of the hand of man,
and of his brother's hand."(11) Now nothing is required except that
which is demanded back again, and nothing is thus demanded except that
which is to be given up; and that will of course be given up, which
shall be demanded and required on the ground of vengeance. But indeed
there cannot possibly be punishment of that which never had any
existence. Existence, however, it will have, when it is restored in
order to be punished. To the flesh, therefore, applies everything which
is declared respecting the blood, for without the flesh there cannot be
blood. The flesh will be raised up in order that the blood may be
punished. There are, again, some statements (of Scripture) so plainly
made as to be free from all obscurity of allegory, and yet they
strongly require(12) their very simplicity to be interpreted. There is,
for instance, that passage in Isaiah: "I will kill, and I will make
alive."(13) Certainly His making alive is to take place after He has
killed. As, therefore, it is by death that He kills, it is by the
resurrection that He will make alive. Now it is the flesh which is
killed by death; the flesh, therefore, will be revived by the
resurrection. Surely if killing means taking away life from the flesh,
and its opposite, reviving, amounts to restoring life to the flesh, it
must needs be that the flesh rise again, to which the life, which has
been taken away by killing, has to be restored by vivification.
Inasmuch, then, as even the figurative portions of Scripture, and
the arguments of facts, and some plain statements of Holy Writ, throw
light upon the resurrection of the flesh (although without specially
naming the very substance), how much more effectual for de- termining
the question will not those passages be which indicate the actual
substance of the body by expressly mentioning it! Take Ezekiel: "And
the hand of the Lord," says he, "was upon me; and the Lord brought me
forth in the Spirit, and set me in the midst of a plain which was full
of bones; and He led me round about them in a circuit: and, behold,
there were many on the face of the plain; and, lo, they were very dry.
And He said unto me, Son of man, will these bones live? And I said, O
Lord God, Thou knowest. And He said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones;
and thou shalt say, Ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith
the Lord God to these bones, Behold, I bring upon you the breath of
life, and ye shall live: and I will give unto you the spirit, and I
will place muscles over you, and I will spread skin upon you; and ye
shall live, and shall know that I am the Lord. And I prophesied as the
Lord commanded me: and while I prophesy, behold there is a voice,
behold also a movement, and bones approached bones. And I saw, and
behold sinews and flesh came up over them, and muscles were placed
around them; but there was no breath in them. And He said unto me,
Prophesy to the wind, son of man, prophesy and say, Thus saith the Lord
God, Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe in these dead men,
and let them live. So I prophesied to the wind, as He commanded me, and
the spirit entered into the bones, and they lived, and stood upon their
feet, strong and exceeding many. And the Lord said unto me, Son of man,
these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say themselves, Our
bones are become dry, and our hope is perished, and we in them have
been violently destroyed. Therefore prophesy unto them, (and say),
Behold, even I will open your sepulchres, and will bring you out of
your sepulchres, O my people, and will bring you into the land of
Israel: and ye shall know how that I the Lord opened your sepulchres,
and brought you, O my people, out of your sepulchres; and I will give
my Spirit unto you, and ye shall live, and shall rest in your own land:
and ye shall know how that I the Lord have spoken and done these
things, saith the Lord."(1)
I am well aware how they torture even this prophecy into a proof
of the allegorical sense, on the ground that by saying, "These bones
are the whole house of Israel," He made them a figure of Israel, and
removed them from their proper literal condition; and therefore (they
contend) that there is here a figurative, not a true prediction of the
resurrection, for (they say) the state of the Jews is one of
humiliation, in a certain sense dead, and very dry, and dispersed over
the plain of the world. Therefore the image of a resurrection is
allegorically applied to their state, since it has to be gathered
together, and recompacted bone to bone (in other words, tribe to tribe,
and people to people), and to be reincorporated by the sinews of power
and the nerves of royalty, and to be brought out as it were from
sepulchres, that is to say, from the most miserable and degraded abodes
of captivity, and to breathe afresh in the way of a restoration, and to
live thenceforward in their own land of Judaea. And what is to happen
after all this? They will die, no doubt. And what will there be after
death? No resurrection from the dead, of course, since there is nothing
of the sort here revealed to Ezekiel. Well, but the resurrection is
elsewhere foretold: so that there will be one even in this case, and
they are rash in applying this passage to the state of Jewish affairs;
or even if it do indicate a different recovery from the resurrection
which we are maintaining, what matters it to me, provided there be also
a resurrection of the body, just as there is a restoration of the
Jewish state? In fact, by the very circumstance that the recovery of
the Jewish state is prefigured by the reincorporation and reunion of
bones, proof is offered that this event will also happen to the bones
themselves; for the metaphor could not have been formed from bones, if
the same thing exactly were not to be realized in them also. Now,
although there is a sketch of the true thing in its image, the image
itself still possesses a truth of its own: it must needs be, therefore,
that must have a prior existence for itself, which is used figuratively
to express some other thing. Vacuity is not a consistent basis for a
similitude, nor does nonentity form a suitable foundation for a
parable. It will therefore be right to believe that the bones are
destined to have a rehabiliment of flesh and breath, such as it is here
said they will have, by reason indeed of which their renewed state
could alone express the reformed condition of Jewish affairs, which is
pretended to be the meaning of this passage. It is. however, more
characteristic of a religious spirit to maintain the truth on the
authority of a literal interpretation, such as is required by the sense
of the inspired passage. Now, if this vision had reference to the
condition of the Jews, as soon as He had revealed to him the position
of the bones, He would at once have added, "These bones are the whole
house of Israel," and so forth. But immediately on showing the bones,
He interrupts the scene by saying somewhat of the prospect which is
most suited to bones; without yet naming Israel, He tries the prophet's
own faith: "Son of man, can these bones ever live?" so that he makes
answer: "O Lord, Thou knowest." Now God would not, you may be sure,
have tried the prophet's faith on a point which was never to be a real
one, of which Israel should never hear, and in which it was not proper
to repose belief. Since, however, the resurrection of the dead was
indeed foretold, but Israel, in the distrust of his great unbelief, was
offended at it; and, whilst gazing on the condition of the crumbling
grave, despaired of a resurrection; or rather, did not direct his mind
mainly to it, but to his own harassing circumstances,—therefore God
first instructed the prophet (since he, too, was not free from doubt),
by revealing to him the process of the resurrection, with a view to his
earnest setting forth of the same. He then charged the people to
believe what He had revealed to the prophet, telling them that they
were themselves, though refusing to believe their resurrection, the
very bones which were destined to rise again. Then in the concluding
sentence He says, "And ye shall know how that I the Lord have spoken
and done these things," intending of course to do that of which He had
spoken; but certainly not meaning to do that which He had spoken of, if
His design had been to do something different from what He had said.
Unquestionably, if the people were indulging in figurative
murmurs that their bones were become dry, and that their hope had
perished—plaintive at the consequences of their dispersion—then God
might fairly enough seem to have consoled their figurative despair with
a figurative promise. Since, however, no injury had as yet alighted on
the people from their dispersion, although the hope of the resurrection
had very frequently failed amongst them, it is manifest that it was
owing to the perishing condition of their bodies that their faith in
the resurrection was shaken. God, therefore was rebuilding the faith
which the people were pulling down. But even if it were true that
Israel was then depressed at some shock in their existing
circumstances, we must not on that account suppose that the purpose of
revelation could have rested in a parable: its aim must have been to
testify a resurrection, in order to raise the nation's hope to even an
eternal salvation and an indispensable restoration, and thereby turn
off their minds from brooding over their present affairs. This indeed
is the aim of other prophets likewise. "Ye shall go forth," (says
Malachi), "from your sepulchres, as young calves let loose from their
bonds, and ye shall tread down your enemies."(1) And again, (Isaiah
says): "Your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall spring up like
the grass,"(2) because the grass also is renewed by the dissolution and
corruption of the seed. In a word, if it is contended that the figure
of the rising bones refers properly to the state of Israel, why is the
same hope announced to all nations, instead of being limited to Israel
only, of reinvesting those osseous remains with bodily substance and
vital breath, and of raising up their dead out of the grave? For the
language is universal: "The dead shall arise, and come forth from their
graves; for the dew which cometh from Thee is medicine to their
bones."(3) In another passage it is written: "All flesh shall come to
worship before me, saith the Lord."(4) When? When the fashion of this
world shall begin to pass away. For He said before: "As the new heaven
and the new earth, which I make, remain before me, saith the Lord, so
shall your seed remain."(5) Then also shall be fulfilled what is
written afterwards: "And they shall go forth" (namely, from their
graves), "and shall see the carcases of those who have transgressed:
for their worm shall never die, nor shall their fire be quenched; and
they shall be a spectacle to all flesh"(6) even to that which, being
raised again from the dead and brought out from the grave, shall adore
the Lord for this great grace.
But, that you may not suppose that it is merely those bodies
which are consigned to tombs whose resurrection is foretold, you have
it declared in Scripture: "And I will com- mand the fishes of the sea,
and they shall cast up the bones which they have devoured; and I will
bring joint to joint, and bone to bone." You will ask, Will then the
fishes and other animals and carnivorous birds be raised again, in
order that they may vomit up what they have consumed, on the ground of
your reading in the law of Moses, that blood is required of even all
the beasts? Certainly not. But the beasts and the fishes are mentioned
in relation to the restoration of flesh and blood, in order the more
emphatically to express the resurrection of such bodies as have even
been devoured, when redress is said to be demanded of their very
devourers. Now I apprehend that in the case of Jonah we have a fair
proof of this divine power, when he comes forth from the fish's belly
uninjured in both his natures—his flesh and his soul. No doubt the
bowels of the whale would have had abundant time during three days for
consuming and digesting Jonah's flesh, quite as effectually as a
coffin, or a tomb, or the gradual decay of some quiet and concealed
grave; only that he wanted to prefigure even those beasts (which
symbolize) especially the men who are wildly opposed to the Christian
name, or the angels of iniquity, of whom blood will be required by the
full exaction of an avenging judgment. Where, then, is the man who,
being more disposed to learn than to assume, more careful to believe
than to dispute, and more scrupulous of the wisdom of God than wantonly
bent on his own, when he hears of a divine purpose respecting sinews
and skin, and nerves and bones, will forthwith devise some different
application of these words, as if all that is said of the substances in
question were not naturally intended for man? For either there is here
no reference to the destiny of man—in the gracious provision of the
kingdom (of heaven), in the severity of the judgment-day, in all the
incidents of the resurrection; or else, if there is any reference to
his destiny, the destination must necessarily be made in reference to
those substances of which the man is composed, for whom the destiny is
reserved. Another question I have also to ask of these very adroit
transformers of bones and sinews, and nerves and sepulchres: Why, when
anything is declared of the soul, do they not interpret the soul to be
something else, and transfer it to another signification?—since,
whenever any distinct statement is made of a bodily substance, they
will obstinately prefer taking any other sense whatever, rather than
that which the name indicates. If things which pertain to the body are
figurative, why are not those which pertain to the soul figurative
also? Since, however, things which belong to the soul have nothing
allegorical in them, neither therefore have those which belong to the
body. For man is as much body as he is soul; so that it is impossible
for one of these natures to admit a figurative sense, and the other to
exclude it.
This is evidence enough from the prophetic Scriptures. I now
appeal to the Gospels. But here also I must first meet the same
sophistry as advanced by those who contend that the Lord, like (the
prophets), said everything in the way of allegory, because it is
written: "All these things spake Jesus in parables, and without a
parable spake He not unto them,"(1) that is, to the Jews. Now the
disciples also asked Him, "Why speakest Thou in parables?"(2) And the
Lord gave them this answer: "Therefore I speak unto them in parables:
because they seeing, see not; and hearing, they hear not, according to
the prophecy of Esaias."(3) But since it was to the Jews that He spoke
in parables, it was not then to all men; and if not to all, it follows
that it was not always and in all things parables with Him, but only in
certain things, and when addressing a particular class. But He
addressed a particular class when He spoke to the Jews. It is true that
He spoke sometimes even to the disciples in parables. But observe how
the Scripture relates such a fact: "And He spake a parable unto
them."(4) It follows, then, that He did not usually address them in
parables; because if He always did so, special mention would not be
made of His resorting to this mode of address. Besides, there is not a
parable which you will not find to be either explained by the Lord
Himself, as that of the sower, (which He interprets) of the management
of the word of God;(5) or else cleared by a preface from the writer of
the Gospel, as in the parable of the arrogant judge and the importunate
widow, which is expressly applied to earnestness in prayer;(6) or
capable of being spontaneously understood,(7) as in the parable of the
fig-tree, which was spared a while in hopes of improve-ment—an emblem
of Jewish sterility. Now, if even parables obscure not the light of the
gospel, how unlikely it is that plain sentences and declarations, which
have an unmistakeable meaning, should signify any other thing than
their literal sense! But it is by such declarations and sentences that
the Lord sets forth either the last judgment, or the kingdom, or the
resurrection: "It shall be more tolerable," He says, "for Tyre and
Sidon in the day of judgment than far you."[1] And "Tell them that the
kingdom of God is at hand."[2] And again, "It shall be recompensed to
you at the resurrection of the just."[3] Now, if the mention of these
events (I mean the judgment-day, and the kingdom of God, and the
resurrection) has a plain and absolute sense, so that nothing about
them can be pressed into an allegory, neither should those statements
be forced into parables which describe the arrangement, and the
process, and the experience of the kingdom of God, and of the judgment,
and of the resurrection. On the contrary, things which are destined for
the body should be carefully understood in a bodily sense,—not in a
spiritual sense, as having nothing figurative in their nature. This is
the reason why we have laid it down as a preliminary consideration,
that the bodily substance both of the soul and of the flesh is liable
to the recompense, which will have to be awarded in return for the
co-operation of the two natures, that so the corporeality of the soul
may not exclude the bodily nature of the flesh by suggesting a recourse
to figurative descriptions, since both of them must needs be regarded
as destined to take part in the kingdom, and the judgment, and the
resurrection. And now we proceed to the special proof of this
proposition, that the bodily character of the flesh is indicated by our
Lord whenever He mentions the resurrection, at the same time without
disparagement to the corporeal nature of the soul,—a point which has
been actually admitted but by a few.
To begin with the passage where He says that He is come to "to
seek and to save that which is lost."[4] What do you suppose that to be
which is lost? Man, undoubtedly. The entire man, or only a part of him?
The whole man, of course. In fact, since the trangression which caused
man's ruin was committed quite as much by the instigation of the soul
from concupiscence as by the action of the flesh from actual fruition,
it has marked the entire man with the sentence of transgression, and
has therefore made him deservedly amenable to perdition. So that he
will be wholly saved, since he has by sinning been wholly lost. Unless
it be true that the sheep (of the parable) is a" lost" one,
irrespective of its body; then its recovery may be effected without the
body. Since, however, it is the bodily substance as well as the soul,
making up the entire animal, which was carried on the shoulders of the
Good Shepherd, we have here unquestionably an example how man is
restored in both his natures. Else how unworthy it were of God to bring
only a moiety of man to salvation—and almost less than that; whereas
the munificence of princes of this world always claims for itself the
merit of a plenary grace! Then must the devil be understood to be
stronger for injuring man, ruining him wholly? and must God have the
character of comparative weakness, since He does not relieve and help
man in his entire state? The apostle, however, suggests that "where sin
abounded, there has grace much more abounded."[5] How, in fact, can he
be regarded as saved, who can at the same time be said to be
lost—lost, that is, in the flesh, but saved as to his soul? Unless,
indeed, their argument now makes it necessary that the soul should be
placed in a "lost" condition, that it may be susceptible of salvation,
on the ground that is properly saved which has been lost. We, however,
so understand the soul's immortality as to believe it "lost," not in
the sense of destruction, but of punishment, that is, in hell. And if
this is the case, then it is not the soul which salvation will affect,
since it is "safe"already in its own nature by reason of its
immortality, but rather the flesh, which, as all readily allow, is
subject to destruction. Else, if the soul is also perishable (in this
sense), in other words, not immortal—the condition of the flesh—then
this same condition ought in all fairness to benefit the flesh also, as
being similarly mortal and perishable, since that which perishes the
Lord purposes to save. I do not care now to follow the clue of our
discussion, so far as to consider whether it is in one of his natures
or in the other that perdition puts in its claim on man, provided that
salvation is equally distributed over the two substances, and makes him
its aim in respect of them both. For observe, in which substance
so-ever you assume man to have perished, in the other be does not
perish. He will therefore be saved in the substance in which he does
not perish, and yet obtain salvation in that in which he does perish.
You have (then) the restoration of the entire man, inasmuch as the Lord
purposes to save that part of him which perishes, whilst he will not of
course lose that portion which cannot be lost, Who will any longer
doubt of the safety of both natures, when one of them is to obtain
salvation, and the other is not to lose it? And, still further, the
Lord explains to us the meaning of the thing when He says: "I came not
to do my own will, but the Father's, who hath sent me."[1] What, I ask,
is that will? "That of all which He hath given me I should lose
nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day."[2] Now, what
had Christ received of the Father but that which He had Himself put on?
Man, of course, in his texture of flesh and soul. Neither, therefore,
of those parts which He has received will He allow to perish; nay, no
considerable portion—nay, not the least fraction, of either. If the
flesh be, as our opponents slightingly think, but a poor fraction, then
the flesh is safe, because not a fraction of man is to perish; and no
larger portion is in danger, because every portion of man is in equally
safe keeping with Him. If, however, He will not raise the flesh also up
at the last day, then He will permit not only a fraction of man to
perish, but (as I will venture to say, in consideration of so important
a part) almost the whole of him. But when He repeats His words with
increased emphasis, "And this is the Father's will, that every one
which seeth the Son, and believeth on Him, may have eternal life: and I
will raise him up at the last day,"[3]—He asserts the full extent of
the resurrection. For He assigns to each several nature that reward
which is suited to its services: both to the flesh, for by it the Son
was "seen;" and to the soul, for by it He was "believed on." Then, you
will say, to them was this promise given by whom Christ was "seen."
Well, be it so; only let the same hope flow on from them to us! For if
to them who saw, and therefore believed, such fruit then accrued to the
operations of the flesh and the soul, how much more to us! For more
"blessed," says Christ, "are they who have not seen, and yet have
believed;"[4] since, even if the resurrection of the flesh must be
denied to them, it must at any rate be a fitting boon to us, who are
the more blessed. For how could we be blessed, if we were to perish in
any part of us?
But He also teaches us, that "He is rather to be feared, who is
able to destroy both body and soul in hell," that is, the Lord alone;
"not those which kill the body, but are not able to hurt the soul,"[5]
that is to say, all bureau powers. Here, then, we have a recognition of
the natural immortality of the soul, which cannot be killed by men; and
of the mortality of the body, which may be killed: whence we learn that
the resurrection of the dead is a resurrection of the flesh; for unless
it were raised again, it would be impossible for the flesh to be
"killed in hell." But as a question may be here captiously raised about
the meaning of "the body" (or "the flesh "), I will at once state that
I understand by the human body nothing else than that fabric of the
flesh which, whatever be the kind of material of which it is
constructed and modified, is seen and handled, and sometimes indeed
killed, by men. In like manner, I should not admit that anything but
cement and stones and bricks form the body of a wall. If any one
imports into our argument some body of a subtle, secret nature, he must
show, disclose, and prove to me that identical body is the very one
which was slain by human violence, and then (I will grant) that it is
of such a body that (our scripture) speaks. If, again, the body or
corporeal nature of the soul[6] is cast in my teeth. it will only be an
idle subterfuge! For since both substances are set before us (in this
passage, which affirms) that "body and soul" are destroyed in bell, a
distinction is obviously made between the two; and we are left to
understand the body to be that which is tangible to us, that is, the
flesh, which, as it will be destroyed in hell—since it did not "rather
fear" being destroyed by God—so also will it be restored to life
eternal, since it preferred to be killed by human hands. If, therefore,
any one shall violently suppose that the destruction of the soul and
the flesh in hell amounts to a final annihilation of the two
substances, and not to their penal treatment (as if they were to be
consumed, not punished), let him recollect that the fire of hell is
eternal—expressly announced as an everlasting penalty; and let him
then admit that it is from this circumstance that this never-ending
"killing" is more formidable than a merely human murder, which is only
temporal. He will then come to the conclusion that substances must be
eternal, when their penal "killing" is an eternal one. Since, then, the
body after the resurrection has to be killed by God in hell along with
the soul, we surely have sufficient information in this fact respecting
both the issues which await it, namely the resurrection of the flesh,
and its eternal "killing." Else it would be most absurd if the flesh
should be raised up and destined to "the killing in hell," in order to
be put an end to, when it might suffer such an annihilation (more
directly) if not raised again at all. A pretty paradox,[1] to be sure,
that an essence must be refitted with life, in order that it may
receive that annihilation which has already in fact accrued to it! But
Christ, whilst confirming us in the selfsame hope, adds the example of
"the sparrows"—how that "not one of them falls to the ground without
the will of God."[2] He says this, that you may believe that the flesh
which has been consigned to the ground, is able in like manner to rise
again by the will of the same God. For although this is not allowed to
the sparrows, yet "we are of more value than many sparrows,"[3] for the
very reason that, when fallen, we rise again. He affirms, lastly, that
"the very hairs of our head are all numbered,"[4] and ir the
affirmation He of course includes the promise of their safety; for if
they were to be lost, where would be the use of having taken such a
numerical care of them? Surely the only use lies (in this truth): "That
of all which the Father hath given to me, I should lose none,"[5]—not
even a hair, as also not an eye nor a tooth. And yet whence shall come
that "weeping and gnashing of teeth,"[6] if not from eyes and
teeth?—even at that time when the body shall be slain in hell, and
thrust out into that outer darkness which shall be the suitable torment
of the eyes. He also who shall not be clothed at the marriage feast in
the raiment of good works, will have to be " bound hand and foot,"—as
being, of course, raised in his body. So, again, the very reclining at
the feast in the kingdom of God, and sitting on Christ's thrones, and
standing at last on His right hand and His left, and eating of the tree
of life: what are all these but most certain proofs of a bodily
appointment and destination?
Let us now see whether (the Lord) has not imparted greater
strength to our doctrine in breaking down the subtle cavil of the
Sadducees. Their great object, I take it, was to do away altogether
with the resurrection, for the Sadducees in fact did not admit any
salvation either for the soul or the flesh;[7] and therefore, taking
the strongest case they could for impairing the credibility of the
resurrection, they adapted an argument from it in support of the
question which they started. Their specious inquiry concerned the
flesh, whether or not it would be subject to marriage after the
resurrection; and they assumed the case of a woman who had married
seven brothers, so that it was a doubtful point to which of them she
should be restored.[8] Now, let the purport both of the question and
the answer be kept steadily in view, and the discussion is settled at
once. For since the Sadducees indeed denied the resurrection, whilst
the Lord affirmed it; since, too, (in affirming it,) He reproached them
as being both ignorant of the Scriptures—those, of course which had
declared the resurrection—as well as incredulous of the power of God,
though, of course, effectual to raise the dead, and lastly, since He
immediately added the words, "Now, that the dead are raised,"[9]
(speaking) without misgiving, and affirming the very thing which was
being denied, even the resurrection of the dead before Him who is "the
God of the living,"—(it clearly follows) that He affirmed this verity
in the precise sense in which they were denying it; that it was, in
fact, the resurrection of the two natures of man. Nor does it follow,
(as they would have it,) that because Christ denied that men would
marry, He therefore proved that they would not rise again. On the
contrary, He called them "the children of the resurrection,"[10] in a
certain sense having by the resurrection to undergo a birth; and after
that they marry no more, but in their risen life are "equal unto the
angels,"[1] inasmuch as they are not to marry, because they are not to
die, but are destined to pass into the angelic state by putting on the
raiment of incorruption, although with a change in the substance which
is restored to life. Besides, no question could be raised whether we
are to marry or die again or not, without involving in doubt the
restoration most especially of that substance which has a particular
relation both to death and marriage—that is, the flesh. Thus, then,
you have the Lord affirming against the Jewish heretics what is now en-
countering the denial of the Christian Sadducees—the resurrection of
the entire man.
He says, it is true, that "the flesh profiteth nothing;"[1] but
then, as in the former case, the meaning must be regulated by the
subject which is spoken of. Now, because they thought His discourse was
harsh and intolerable, supposing that He had really and literally
enjoined on them to eat his flesh, He, with the view of ordering the
state of salvation as a spiritual thing, set out with the principle,
"It is the spirit that quickeneth;" and then added, "The flesh
profiteth nothing,"—meaning, of course, to the giving of life. He also
goes on to explain what He would have us to understand by spirit: "The
words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." In a
like sense He had previously said: "He that heareth my words, and
believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not
come into condemnation, but shall pass from death unto life."[2]
Constituting, therefore, His word as the life-giving principle, because
that word is spirit and life, He likewise called His flesh by the same
appelation; because, too, the Word had become flesh,[3] we ought
therefore to desire Him in order that we may have life, and to devour
Him with the ear, and to ruminate on Him with the understanding, and to
digest Him by faith. Now, just before (the passage in hand), He had
declared His flesh to be "the bread which cometh down from heaven,"[4]
impressing on (His hearers) constantly under the figure of necessary
food the memory of their forefathers, who had preferred the bread and
flesh of Egypt to their divine calling.[5] Then, turning His subject to
their reflections, because He perceived that they were going to be
scattered from Him, He says: "The flesh profiteth nothing." Now what is
there to destroy the resurrection of the flesh? As if there might not
reasonably enough be something which, although it" profiteth nothing"
itself, might yet be capable of being profited by something else. The
spirit "profiteth," for it imparts life. The flesh profiteth nothing,
for it is subject to death. Therefore He has rather put the two
propositions in a way which favours our belief: for by showing what
"profits," and what "does not profit," He has likewise thrown light on
the object which receives as well as the subject which gives the
"profit." Thus, in the present instance, we have the Spirit giving life
to the flesh which has been subdued by death; for "the hour," says He,
"is coming, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and
they that hear shall live."[6] Now, what is "the dead" but the flesh?
and what is "the voice of God" but the Word? and what is the Word but
the Spirit,[7] who shall justly raise the flesh which He had once
Himself become, and that too from death, which He Himself suffered, and
from the grave, which He Himself once entered? Then again, when He
says, "Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in which all that
are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and shall
come forth; they that have done good, to the resurrection of life; and
they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation,"[8]—none
will after such words be able to interpret the dead "that are in the
graves" as any other than the bodies of the flesh, because the graves
themselves are nothing but the resting-place of corpses: for it is
incontestable that even those who partake of "the old man," that is to
say, sinful men—in other words, those who are dead through their
ignorance of God (whom our heretics, forsooth, foolishly insist on
understanding by the word "graves"[9])—are plainly here spoken of as
having to come from their graves for judgment. But how are graves to
come forth from graves?
After the Lord's words, what are we to think of the purport of
His actions, when He raises dead persons from their biers and their
graves? To what end did He do so? If it was only for the mere
exhibition of His power, or to afford the temporary favour of
restoration to life, it was really no great matter for Him to raise men
to die over again. If, however, as was the truth, it was rather to put
in secure keeping men's belief in a future resurrection, then it must
follow from the particular form of His own examples, that the said
resurrection will be a bodily one. I can never allow it to be said that
the resurrection of the future, being destined for the soul only, did
then receive these preliminary illustrations of a raising of the flesh,
simply because it would have been impossible to have shown the
resurrection of an invisible soul except by the resuscitation of a
visible substance. They have but a poor knowledge of God, who suppose
Him to be only capable of doing what comes within the compass of their
own thoughts; and after all, they cannot but know full well what His
capability has ever been, if they only make acquaintance with the
writings of John. For unquestionably he, who has exhibited to our sight
the martyrs' hitherto disembodied souls resting under the altar, was
quite able to display them before our eyes rising without a body of
flesh. I, however, for my part prefer (believing) that it is impossible
for God to practise deception (weak as He only could be in respect of
artifice), from any fear of seeming to have given preliminary proofs of
a thing in a way which is inconsistent with His actual disposal of the
thing; nay more, from a fear that, since He was not powerful enough to
show us a sample of the resurrection without the flesh, He might with
still greater infirmity be unable to display (by and by) the full
accomplishment of the sample in the self-same substance of the flesh.
No example, indeed, is greater than the thing of which it is a sample.
Greater, however, it is, if souls with their body are to be raised as
the evidence of their resurrection without the body, so as that the
entire salvation of man in saul and body should become a guarantee for
only the half, the soul; whereas the condition in all examples is, that
which would be deemed the less—I mean the resurrection of the soul
only—should be the foretaste, as it were, of the rising of the flesh
also at its appointed time. And therefore, according to our estimate of
the truth, those examples of dead persons who were raised by the Lord
were indeed a proof of the resurrection both of the flesh and of the
soul,—a proof, in fact, that this gift was to be denied to neither
substance. Considered, however, as examples only, they expressed all
the less significance—less, indeed, than Christ will express at
last—for they were not raised up for glory and immortality, but only
for another death.
The Acts of the Apostles, too, attest[2] the resurrection. Now
the apostles had nothing else to do, at least among the Jews, than
to-explain[3] the Old Testament and confirm[4] the New, and above all,
to preach God in Christ. Consequently they introduced nothing new
concerning the resurrection, besides announcing it to the glory of
Christ: in every other respect it had been already received in simple
and intelligent faith, without any question as to what sort of
resurrection it was to be, and without encountering any other opponents
than the Sadducees. So much easier was it to deny the resurrection
altogether, than to understand it in an alien sense. You find Paul
confessing his faith before the chief priests, under the shelter of the
chief captain,[5] among the Sadducees and the Pharisees: "Men and
brethren," he says, "I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee; of the
hope and resurrection of the dead I am now called in question by
you,"[6]—referring, of course, to the nation's hope; in order to
avoid, in his present condition, as an apparent transgressor of the
law, being thought to approach to the Sadducees in opinion on the most
important article of the faith—even the resurrection. That belief,
therefore, in the resurrection which he would not appear to impair, he
really confirmed in the opinion of the Pharisees, since he rejected the
views of the Sadducees, who denied it. In like manner, before Agrippa
also, he says that he was advancing "none other things than those which
the prophets had announced."[7] He was therefore maintaining just such
a resurrection as the prophets had foretold. He mentions also what is
written by "Moses ", touching the resurrection of the dead; (and in so
doing) he must have known that it would be a rising in the body, since
requisition will have to be made therein of the blood of man.[8] He
declared it then to be of such a character as the Pharisees had
admitted it, and such as the Lord had Himself maintained it, and such
too as the Sadducees refused to believe it—such refusal leading them
indeed to an absolute rejection of the whole verity. Nor had the
Athenians previously understood Paul to announce any other
resurrection.[9] They had, in fact, derided his announcement; but they
would have indulged no such derision if they had heard from him nothing
but the restoration of the soul, for they would have received that as
the very common anticipation of their own native philosophy. But when
the preaching of the resurrection, of which they had previously not
heard, by its absolute novelty excited the heathen, and a not unnatural
incredulity in so wonderful a matter began to harass the simple faith
with many discussions, then the apostle took care in almost every one
of his writings to strengthen men's belief of this Christian hope,
pointing out that there was such a hope, and that it had not as yet
been realized, and that it would be in the body,—a point which was the
especial object of inquiry, and, what was besides a doubtful question,
not in a body of a different kind from ours.
CHAP, XL.—SUNDRY PASSAGES OF ST. PAUL WHICH ATTEST OUR DOCTRINE RESCUED FROM THE PERVERSIONS OF HERESY.
Now it is no matter of surprise if arguments are captiously taken
from the writings of (the apostle) himself, inasmuch as there "must
needs be heresies;"[1] but these could not be, if the Scriptures were
not capable of a false interpretation. Well, then, heresies finding
that the apostle had mentioned two "men"—"the inner man," that is, the
soul, and "the outward man," that is, the flesh—awarded salvation to
the soul or inward man, and destruction to the flesh or outward man,
because it is written (in the Epistle) to the Corinthians: "Though our
outward man decayeth, yet the inward man is renewed day by day."[2]
Now, neither the soul by itself alone is "man" (it was subsequently
implanted in the clayey mould to which the name man had been already
given), nor is the flesh without the soul " man ": for after the exile
of the soul from it, it has the title of corpse. Thus the designation
man is, in a certain sense, the bond between the two closely united
substances, under which designation they cannot but be coherent
natures. As for the inward man, indeed, the apostle prefers its being
regarded as the mind and heart[3] rather than the soul;[4] in other
words, not so much the substance itself as the savour of the substance.
Thus when, writing to the Ephesians, he spoke of "Christ dwelling in
their inner man," he meant, no doubt, that the Lord ought to be
admitted into their senses.[5] He then added, "in your hearts by faith,
rooted and grounded in love,"—making "faith" and "love" not
substantial parts, but only conceptions of the soul. But when he used
the phrase "in your hearts," seeing that these are substantial parts of
the flesh, he at once assigned to the flesh the actual "inward man,"
which he placed in the heart. Consider now in what sense he alleged
that "the outward man decayeth, while the inward man is renewed day by
day." You certainly would not maintain that he could mean that
corruption of the flesh which it undergoes from the moment of death, in
its appointed state of perpetual decay; but the wear and tear which for
the name of Christ it experiences during its course of life before and
until death, in harassing cares and tribulations as well as in tortures
and persecutions. Now the inward man will have, of course, to be
renewed by the suggestion of the Spirit, advancing by faith and
holiness day after day, here in this life, not there after the
resurrection, were our renewal is not a gradual process from day to
day, but a consummation once for all complete. You may learn this, too,
from the following passage, where the apostle says: "For our light
affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for as a far more
exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things
which are seen," that is, our sufferings, "but at the things which are
not seen," that is, our rewards: "for the things which are seen are
temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal."[6] For the
afflictions and injuries wherewith the outward man is worn away, he
affirms to be only worthy of being despised by us, as being light and
temporary; preferring those eternal recompenses which are also
invisible, and that "weight of glory" which will be a counterpoise for
the labours in the endurance of which the flesh here suffers decay. So
that the subject in this passage is not that corruption which they
ascribe to the outward man in the utter destruction of the flesh, with
the view of nullifying the resurrection. So also he says elsewhere: "If
so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together;
for I reckon that the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to
be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us."[7] Here again
he shows us that our sufferings are less than their rewards. Now, since
it is through the flesh that we suffer with Christ—for it is the
property of the flesh to be worn by sufferings—to the same flesh
belongs the recompense which is promised for suffering with Christ.
Accordingly, when he is going to assign afflictions to the flesh as its
especial liability—according to the statement he had already made—he
says, "When we were come into Macedonia, our flesh had no rest;"[8]
then, in order to make the soul a fellow-sufferer with the body, he
adds, "We were troubled on every side; without were fightings," which
of course warred down the flesh, "within were fears," which afflicted
the soul.[9] Although, therefore, the outward man decays—not in the
sense of missing the resurrection, but of enduring tribulation—it will
be under- stood from this scripture that it is not exposed to its
suffering without the inward man. Both therefore, will be glorified
together, even as they have suffered together. Parallel with their
participation in troubles, must necessarily run their association also
in rewards.
It is still the same sentiment which he follows up in the passage
in which he puts the recompense above the sufferings: "for we know;" he
says, "that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we
have a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens;"[1] in other
words, owing to the fact that our flesh is undergoing dissolution
through its sufferings, we shall be provided with a home in heaven. He
remembered the award (which the Lord assigns) in the Gospel: "Blessed
are they who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the
kingdom of heaven."[2] Yet, when he thus contrasted the recompense of
the reward, he did not deny the flesh's restoration; since the
recompense is due to the same substance to which the dissolution is
attributed,—that is, of course, the flesh. Because, however, he had
called the flesh a horse, he wished elegantly to use the same term in
his comparison of the ultimate reward; promising to the very house,
which undergoes dissolution through suffering, a better house through
the resurrection. Just as the Lore also promises us many mansions as of
a house in His Father's home;[3] although this may possibly be
understood of the domicile of this world, on the dissolution of whose
fabric an eternal abode is promised in heaven, inasmuch as the
following context, having a manifest reference to the flesh, seems to
show that these preceding words have no such reference. For the apostle
makes a distinction, when he goes on to say, "For in this we groan,
earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from
heaven, if so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked;"[4]
which means, before we put off the garment of the flesh, we wish to be
clothed with the celestial glory of immortality. Now the privilege of
this favour awaits those who shall at the coming of the Lord be found
in the flesh, and who shall, owing to the oppressions of the time of
Antichrist, deserve by an instantaneous death,[5] which is accomplished
by a sudden change, to become qualified to join the rising saints; as
he writes to the Thessalonians: "For this we say unto you by the word
of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the
Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord Himself
shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the
archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise
first: then we too shall ourselves be caught up together with them in
the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with
the Lord."[6]
It is the transformation these shall undergo which he explains to
the Corinthians, when he writes: "We shall all indeed rise again
(though we shall not all undergo the transformation) in a moment, in
the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump "—for none shall experience
this change but those only who shall be found in the flesh. "And the
dead," he says, "shall be raised, and we shall be changed." Now, after
a careful consideration of this appointed order, you will be able to
adjust what follows to the preceding sense. For when he adds, "This
corruptible must put on incorrruption, and this mortal must put on
immortality,"[7] this will assuredly be that house from heaven, with
which we so earnestly desire to be clothed upon, whilst groaning in
this our present body,—meaning, of course, over this flesh in which we
shall be surprised at last; because he says that we are burdened whilst
in this tabernacle, which we do not wish indeed to be stripped of, but
rather to be in it clothed over, in such a way that mortality may be
swallowed up of life, that is, by putting on over us whilst we are
transformed that vestiture which is from heaven. For who is there that
will not desire, while he is in the flesh, to put on immortality, and
to continue his life by a happy escape from death, through the
transformation which must be experienced instead of it, without
encountering too that Hades which will exact the very last farthing?[8]
Nothwithstanding, he who has already traversed Hades is destined also
to obtain the change after the resurrection. For from this circumstance
it is that we definitively declare that the flesh will by all means
rise again, and, from the change that is to come over it, will assume
the condition of angels. Now, if it were merely in the case of those
who shall be found in the flesh that the change must be undergone, in
order that mortality may be swallowed up of life—in other words, that
the flesh (be covered) with the heavenly and eternal raiment—it would
either follow that those who shall be found in death would not obtain
life, deprived as they would then be of the material and so to say the
aliment of life, that is, the flesh; or else, these also must needs
undergo the change, that in them too mortality may be swallowed up of
life, since it is appointed that they too should obtain life. But, you
say, in the case of the dead, mortality is already swallowed up of
life. No, not in all cases, certainly. For how many will most probably
be found of men who had just died—so recently put into their graves,
that nothing in them would seem to be decayed? For you do not of course
deem a thing to be decayed unless it be cut off, abolished, and
withdrawn from our perception, as having in every possible way ceased
to be apparent. There are the carcases of the giants of old time; it
will be obvious enough that they are not absolutely decayed, for their
bony frames are still extant. We have already spoken of this
elsewhere.[1] For instance,[2] even lately in this very city,[3] when
they were sacrilegiously laying the foundations of the Odeum on a good
many ancient graves, people were horror-stricken to discover, after
some five hundred years, bones, which still retained their moisture,
and hair which had not lost its perfume. It is certain not only that
bones remain indurated, but also that teeth continue undecayed for
ages—both of them the lasting germs of that body which is to sprout
into life again in the resurrection. Lastly, even if everything that is
mortal in all the dead shall then be found decayed—at any rate
consumed by death, by time, and through age,—is there nothing which
will be "swallowed up of life,"[4] nor by being covered over and
arrayed in the vesture of immortality? Now, he who says that mortality
is going to be swallowed up of life has already admitted that what is
dead is not destroyed by those other before-mentioned devourers. And
verily it will be extremely fit that all shall be consummated and
brought about by the operations of God, and not by the laws of nature.
Therefore, inasmuch as what is mortal has to be swallowed up of life,
it must needs be brought out to view in order to be so swallowed up;
(needful) also to be swallowed up, in order to undergo the ultimate
transformation. If you were to say that a fire is to be lighted, you
could not possibly allege that what is to kindle it is sometimes
necessary and sometimes not. In like manner, when he inserts the words
"If so be that being unclothed[5] we be not found naked."[6]—refering,
of course, to those who shall not be found in the day of the Lord alive
and in the flesh—he did not say that they whom he had just described
as unclothed or stripped, were naked in any other sense than meaning
that they should be understood to be reinvested with the very same
substance they had been divested of. For although they shall be found
naked when their flesh has been laid aside, or to some extent sundered
or worn away (and this condition may well be called nakedness,) they
shall afterwards recover it again, in order that, being reinvested with
the flesh, they may be able also to have put over that the
supervestment of immortality; for it will be impossible for the outside
garment to fit except over one who is already dressed.
In the same way, when he says, "Therefore we are always
confident, and fully aware, that while we are at home in the body we
are absent from the Lord; for we walk by faith, not be sight,''[7] it
is manifest that in this statement there is no design of disparaging
the flesh, as if it separated us from the Lord. For there is here
pointedly addressed to us an exhortation to disregard this present
life, since we are absent from the Lord as long as we are passing
through it—walking by faith, not by sight; in other words, in hope,
not in reality. Accordingly he adds: "We are indeed confident and deem
it good rather to be absent from the body, and present with the
Lord;''[8] in order, that is, that we may walk by sight rather than by
faith, in realization rather than in hope. Observe how he here also
ascribes to the excellence of martyrdom a contempt for the body. For no
one, on becoming absent from the body, is at once a dweller in the
presence of the Lord, except by the prerogative of martyrdom,[9] he
gains a lodging in Paradise, not in the lower regions. Now, had the
apostle been at a loss for words to describe the departure from the
body? Or does he purposely use a novel phraseology? For, wanting to
express our temporary absence from the body, he says that we are
strangers, absent from it, because a man who goes abroad returns after
a while to his home. Then he says even to all: "We therefore earnestly
desire to be acceptable unto God, whether absent or present; for we
must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ Jesus."[1] If all of
us, then all of us wholly; if wholly, then our inward man and outward
too—that is, our bodies no less than our souls. "That every one," as
he goes on to say, "may receive the things done in his body, according
to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad."[2] Now I ask, how do
you read this passage? Do you take it to be confusedly constructed,
with a transposition[3] of ideas? Is the question about what things
will have to be received by the body, or the things which have been
already done in the body? Well, if the things which are to be borne by
the body are meant, then undoubtedly a resurrection of the body is
implied; and if the things which have been already done in the body are
referred to, (the same conclusion follows): for of course the
retribution will have to be paid by the body, since it was by the body
that the actions were performed. Thus the apostle's whole argument from
the beginning is unravelled in this concluding clause, wherein the
resurrection of the flesh is set forth; and it ought to be understood
in a sense which is strictly in accordance with this conclusion.
Now, if you will examine the words which precede the passage
where mention is made of the outward and the inward man, will you not
discover the whole truth, both of the dignity and the hope of the
flesh? For, when he speaks of the "light which God hath commanded to
shine in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of
the Lord in the person of Jesus Christ,"[4] and says that "we have this
treasure in earthen vessels,"[5] meaning of course the flesh, which is
meant—that the flesh shall be destroyed, because it is "an earthen
vessel," deriving its origin from clay; or that it is to be glorified,
as being the receptacle of a divine treasure? Now if that true light,
which is in the person of Christ, contains in itself life, and that
life with its light is committed to the flesh, is that destined to
perish which has life entrusted to it? Then, of course, the treasure
will perish also; for perishable things are entrusted to things which
are themselves perishable, which is like putting new wine into old
bottles. When also he adds, "Always bearing about in our body the dying
of the Lord Jesus Christ"[6] what sort of substance is that which,
after (being called) the temple of God, can now be also designated the
tomb of Christ? But why do we bear about in the body the dying of the
Lord? In order, as he says, "that His life also may be manifested."[7]
Where? "In the body." In what body? "In our mortal body."[8] Therefore
in the flesh, which is mortal indeed through sin, but living through
grace—how great a grace you may see when the purpose is, "that the
life of Christ may be manifested in it." Is it then in a thing which is
a stranger to salvation, in a substance which is perpetually dissolved,
that the life of Christ will be manifested, which is eternal,
continuous, incorruptible, and already the life of God? Else to what
epoch belongs that life of the Lord which is to be manifested in our
body? It surely is the life which He lived up to His passion, which was
not only openly shown among the Jews, but has now been displayed even
to all nations. Therefore that life is meant which" has broken the
adamantine gates of death and the brazen bars of the lower
world,"[9]—a life which thenceforth has been and will be ours. Lastly,
it is to be manifested in the body. When? After death. How? By rising
in our body, as Christ also rose in His. But lest any one should here
object, that the life of Jesus has even now to be manifested in our
body by the discipline of holiness, and patience, and righteouness, and
wisdom, in which the Lord's life abounded, the most provident wisdom of
the apostle inserts this purpose: "For we which live are alway
delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that His life may be manifested
in our mortal body."[10] In us, therefore, even when dead, does he say
that this is to take place in us. And if so, how is this possible
except in our body after its resurrection? Therefore he adds in the
concluding sentence: "Knowing that He which raised up the Lord Jesus,
shall raise up us also with Him,"[11] risen as He is already from the
dead. But perhaps "with Him" means "like Him:" well then, if it be like
Him, it is not of course without the flesh.
But in their blindness they again impale themselves on the point
of the old and the new man. When the apostle enjoins us "to put off the
old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and to be
renewed in the spirit of our mind; and to put on the new man, which
after God is created in righteousness and true holiness,"[1] (they
maintain) that by here also making a distinction between the two
substances, and applying the old one to the flesh and the new one to
the spirit, he ascribes to the old man—that is to say, the flesh—a
permanent corruption. Now, if you follow the order of the substances,
the soul cannot be the new man because it comes the later of the two;
nor can the flesh be the old man because it is the former. For what
fraction of time was it that intervened between the creative hand of
God and His afflatus? I will venture to say, that even if the soul was
a good deal prior to the flesh, by the very circumstance that the soul
had to wait to be itself completed, it made the other[2] really the
former. For everything which gives the finishing stroke and perfection
to a work, although it is subsequent in its mere order, yet has the
priority in its effect. Much more is that prior, without which
preceding things could have no existence. If the flesh be the old man,
when did it become so? From the beginning? But Adam was wholly a new
man, and of that new man there could be no part an old man. And from
that time, ever since the blessing which was pronounced upon man's
generation,[3] the flesh and the soul have had a simultaneous birth,
without any calcuable difference in time; so that the two have been
even generated together in the womb, as we have shown in our Treatise
an the Saul.[4] Contemporaneous in the womb, they are also temporally
identical in their birth. The two are no doubt produced by human
parents[5] of two substances, but not at two different periods; rather
they are so entirely one, that neither is before the other in paint of
time. It is more correct (to say), that we are either entirely the
old man or entirely the new, for we cannot tell how we can possibly be
anything else. But the apostle mentions a very clear mark of the old
man. For "put off," says he, "concerning the former conversation, the
old man; "[6] (he does) not say concerning the seniority of either
substance. It is not indeed the flesh which he bids us to put off, but
the works which he in another passage shows to be "works of the
flesh."[7] He brings no accusation against men's bodies, of which he
even writes as follows: "Putting away lying, speak every man truth with
his neighbor: for we are members one of another. Be ye angry, and sin
not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: neither give place to the
devil. Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour,
working with his hands (the thing which is good), that he may have to
give to him that needeth. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of
your mouth, but that which is good for the edification of faith, that
it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the Holy Spirit
of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all
bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil-speaking, be
put away from you, with all malice: but be ye kind one to another,
tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ hath
forgiven you.''[8] Why, therefore, do not those who suppose the flesh
to be the old man, hasten their own death, in order that by laying
aside the old man they may satisfy the apostle's precepts? As for
ourselves, we believe that the whole of faith is to be administered in
the flesh, nay more, by the flesh, which has both a mouth for the
utterance of all holy words, and a tongue to refrain from blasphemy,
and a heart to avoid all irritation, and hands to labour and to give;
while we also maintain that as well the old man as the new has relation
to the difference of moral conduct, and not to any discrepancy of
nature. And just as we acknowledge that that which according to its
former conversation was "the old man" was also corrupt, and received
its very name in accordance with "its deceitful lusts," so also (do we
hold) that it is "the old man in reference to its former
conversation,"[9] and not in respect of the flesh through any permanent
dissolution. Moreover, it is still unimpaired in the flesh, and
identical in that nature, even when it has become "the new man;" since
it is of its sinful course of life, and not of its corporeal substance,
that it has been divested.
You may notice that the apostle everywhere condemns the works of
the flesh in such a way as to appear to condemn the flesh; but no one
can suppose him to have any such view as this, since he goes on to
suggest another sense, even though somewhat resembling it. For when he
actually declares that "they who are in the flesh cannot please God,"
he immediately recalls the statement from an heretical sense to a sound
one, by adding, "But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit.''[1]
Now, by denying them to be in the flesh who yet obviously were in the
flesh, he showed that they were not living amidst the works of the
flesh, and therefore that they who could not please God were not those
who were in the flesh, but only those who were living after the flesh;
whereas they pleased God, who, although existing in the flesh, were yet
walking after the Spirit. And, again, he says that "the body is dead;"
but it is "because of sin," even as "the Spirit is life because of
righteousness."[2] When, however, he thus sets life in opposition to
the death which is constituted in the flesh, he unquestionably promises
the life of righteousness to the same state for which he determined the
death of sin, But unmeaning is this opposition which he makes between
the "life" and the "death," if the life is not there where that very
thing is to which he opposes it—even the death which is to be
extirpated of course from the body. Now, if life thus extirpates death
from the body, it can accomplish this only by penetrating thither where
that is which it is excluding. But why am I resorting to knotty
arguments,[3] when the apostle treats the subject with perfect
plainness? "For if," says he, "the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus
from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Jesus from the dead shall
also quicken your mortal bodies, because of His Spirit that dwelleth in
you;"[4] so that even if a person were to assume that the soul is "the
mortal body," he would (since he cannot possibly deny that the flesh is
this also) be constrained to acknowledge a restoration even of the
flesh, in consequence of its participation in the selfsame state. From
the following words, moreover, you may learn that it is the works of
the flesh which are condemned, and not the flesh itself: "Therefore,
brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh:
for if ye live after the flesh ye shall die; but if ye, through the
Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live."[5] Now (that
I may answer each point separately), since salvation is promised to
those who are living in the flesh, but walking after the Spirit, it is
no longer the flesh which is an adversary to salvation, but the working
of the flesh. When, however, this operativeness of the flesh is done
away with, which is the cause of death, the flesh is shown to be safe,
since it is freed from the cause of death. "For the law," says he, "of
the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of
sin and death,"[6]—that, surely, which he previously mentioned as
dwelling in our members.[7] Our members, therefore, will no longer be
subject to the law of death, because they cease to serve that of sin,
from both which they have been set free. "For what the law could not
do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in
the likeness of sinful flesh, and through[8] sin condemned sin in the
flesh "[9]—not the flesh in sin, for the house is not to be condemned
with its inhabitant. He said, indeed, that "sin dwelleth in our
body."[10] But the condemnation of sin is the acquittal of the flesh,
just as its non-condemnation subjugates it to the law of sin and death.
In like manner, he called "the carnal mind" first "death,"[11] and
afterwards "enmity against God;"[12] but he never predicated this of
the flesh itself. But to what then, you will say, must the carnal mind
be ascribed, if it be not to the carnal substance itself? I will allow
your objection, if you will prove to me that the flesh has any
discernment of its own. If, however, it has no conception of anything
without the soul, you must understand that the carnal mind must be
referred to the soul, although ascribed sometimes to the flesh, on the
ground that it is ministered to for the flesh and through the flesh.
And therefore (the apostle) says that "sin dwelleth in the flesh,"
because the soul by which sin is provoked has its temporary lodging in
the flesh, which is doomed indeed to death, not however on its own
account, but on account of sin. For he says in another passage also
"How is it that you conduct yourselves as if you were even now living
in the world?"[13] where he is not writing to dead persons, but to
those who ought to have ceased to live after the ways of the world
But "flesh and blood," you say, "cannot inherit the kingdom of
God."[4] We are quite aware that this too is written; but although our
opponents place it in the front of the battle, we have intentionally
reserved the objection until now, in order that we may in our last
assault overthrow it, after we have removed out of the way all the
questions which are auxiliary to it. However, they must contrive to
recall to their mind even now our preceding arguments, in order that
the occasion which originally suggested this passage may assist our
judgment in arriving at its meaning. The apostle, as I take it, having
set forth for the Corinthians the details of their church discipline,
had summed up the substance of his own gospel, and of their belief in
an exposition of the Lord's death and resurrection, for the purpose of
deducing therefrom the rule of our hope, and the groundwork thereof.
Accordingly he subjoins this statement: "Now if Christ be preached that
He rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no
resurrection of the dead? If there be no resurrection of the dead, then
Christ is not risen: and if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching
vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false
witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that He raised up
Christ, whom He raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. For if
the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: and if Christ be not
raised, your faith is vain, because ye are yet in your sins, and they
which have fallen asleep in Christ are perished."[5] Now, what is the
point which he evidently labours hard to make us believe throughout
this passage? The resurrection of the dead, you say, which was denied:
he certainly wished it to be believed on the strength of the example
which he adduced—the Lord's resurrection. Certainly, you say. Well
now, is an example borrowed from different circumstances, or from like
ones? From like ones, by all means, is your answer. How then did Christ
rise again? In the flesh, or not? No doubt, since you are told that He
"died according to the Scriptures,"[6] and "that He was buried
according to the Scriptures,"[7] no otherwise than in the flesh, you
will also allow that it was in the flesh that He was raised from the
dead. For the very same body which fell in death, and which lay in the
sepulchre, did also rise again; (and it was) not so much Christ in the
flesh, as the flesh in Christ. If, therefore, we are to rise again
after the example of Christ, who rose in the flesh, we shall certainly
not rise according to that example, unless we also shall ourselves rise
again in the flesh. "For," he says, "since by man came death, by man
came also the resurrection of the dead."[8] (This he says) in order, on
the one hand, to distinguish the two authors—Adam of death, Christ of
resurrection; and, on the other hand, to make the resurrection operate
on the same substance as the death, by comparing the authors themselves
under the designation man. For if "as in Adam all die, even so in
Christ shall all be made alive,"[9] their vivification in Christ must
be in the flesh, since it is in the flesh that arises their death in
Adam. "But every man in his own order," [10] because of course it will
be also every man in his own body. For the order will be arranged
severally, on account of the individual merits. Now, as the merits must
be ascribed to the body, it must needs follow that the order also
should be arranged in respect of the bodies, that it may be in relation
to their merits. But inasmuch as "some are also baptized for the
dead,"[11] we will see whether there be a good reason for this. Now it
is certain that they adopted this (practice) with such a presumption as
made them suppose that the vicarious baptism (in question) would be
beneficial to the flesh of another in anticipation of the resurrection;
for unless it were a bodily resur- rection, there would be no pledge
secured by this process of a corporeal baptism. "Why are they then
baptized for the dead,''[1] he asks, unless the bodies rise again which
are thus baptized? For it is not the soul which is sanctified by the
baptismal bath:[2] its sanctification comes from the "answer."[3] "And
why," he inquires, "stand we in jeopardy every hour?"[4]—meaning, of
course, through the flesh. "I die daily,"[5] (says he); that is,
undoubtedly, in the perils of the body, in which "he even fought with
beasts at Ephesus,"[6]—even with those beasts which caused him such
peril and trouble in Asia, to which he alludes in his second epistle to
the same church of Corinth: "For we would not, brethren, have you
ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed
above measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of
life."[7] Now, if I mistake not, he enumerates all these particulars in
order that in his unwillingness to have his conflicts in the flesh
supposed to be useless, he may induce an unfaltering belief in the
resurrection of the flesh. For useless must that conflict be deemed
(which is sustained in a body) for which no resurrection is in
prospect. "But some man will say, How are the dead to be raised? And
with what body will they come?"[8] Now here he discusses the qualities
of bodies, whether it be the very same, or different ones, which men
are to resume. Since, however, such a question as this must be regarded
as a subsequent one, it will in passing be enough for us that the
resurrection is determined to be a bodily one even from this, that it
is about the quality of bodies that the inquiry arises.
We come now to the very gist[9] of the whole question: What are
the substances, and of what nature are they, which the apostle has
disinherited of the kingdom of God? The t preceding statements give us
a clue to this t point also. He says: "The first man is of i the
earth, earthy "—that is, made of dust, that is, Adam; " the second
man is from heaven"[10]—that is, the Word of God, which is Christ,
in no other way, however, man (although "from heaven "), than as being
Himself flesh and soul, just as a human being is, just as Adam was.
Indeed, in a previous passage He is called "the second Adam, "[11]
deriving the identity of His name from His participation in the
substance, because not even Adam was flesh of human seed, in which
Christ is also like Him.[12] "As is the earthy, such are they also that
are earthy; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are
heavenly."[13] Such (does he mean), in substance; or first of all in
training, and afterwards in the dignity and worth which that training
aimed at acquiring? Not in substance, however, by any means will the
earthy and the heavenly be separated, designated as they have been by
the apostle once for all, as men. For even if Christ were the only true
"heavenly," nay, super-celestial Being, He is still man, as composed of
body and soul; and in no respect is He separated from the quality of
"earthiness," owing to that condition of His which makes Him a partaker
of both substances. In like manner, those also who after Him are
heavenly, are understood to have this celestial quality predicated of
them not from their present nature, but from their future glory;
because in a preceding sentence, which originated this distinction
respecting difference of dignity, there was shown to be "one glory in
celestial bodies, and another in terrestrial ones,"[14]—"one glory of
the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars:
for even one star differeth from another star in glory, "[15] although
not in substance. Then, after having thus premised the difference in
that worth or dignity which is even now to be aimed at, and then at
last to be enjoyed, the apostle adds an exhortation, that we should
both here in our training follow the example of Christ, and there
attain His eminence in glory: "As we have borne the image of the
earthy, let us also bear the image of the heavenly."[16] We have indeed
borne the image of the earthy, by our sharing in his trangression, by
our participation in his death, by our banishment from Paradise. Now,
although the image of Adam is here borne by s in the flesh, yet we are
not exhorted to put off the flesh; but if not the flesh, it is the
conversation, in order that we may then bear the image of the heavenly
in ourselves,—no longer indeed the image of God, and no longer the
image of a Being whose state is in heaven; but after the lineaments of
Christ, by our walking here in holiness, righteousness, and truth. And
so wholly intent on the inculcation of moral conduct is he throughout.
this passage, that he tells us we ought to bear the image of Christ in
this flesh of ours, and in this period of instruction and discipline.
For when he says "let us bear" in the imperative mood, he suits his
words to the present life, in which man exists in no other substance
than as flesh and soul; or if it is another, even the heavenly,
substance to which this faith (of ours) looks forward, yet the promise
is made to that substance to which the injunction is given to labour
earnestly to merit its reward. Since, therefore, he makes the image
both of the earthy and the heavenly consist of moral conduct—the one
to be abjured, and the other to be pursued—and then consistently adds,
"For this I say" (on account, that is, of what I have already said,
because the conjunction "for" connects what follows with the preceding
words) "that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God,"[1]—he
means the flesh and blood to be understood in no other sense than the
before-mentioned "image of the earthy;" and since this is reckoned to
consist in "the old conversation,"[2] which old conversation receives
not the kingdom of God, therefore flesh and blood, by not receiving the
kingdom of God, are reduced to the life of the old conversation. Of
course, as the apostle has never put the substance for the works of
man, he cannot use such a construction here. Since, however he has
declared of men which are yet alive in the flesh, that they "are not in
the flesh,"[3] meaning that they are not living in the works of the
flesh, you ought not to subvert its form nor its substance, but only
the works done in the substance (of the flesh), alienating us from the
kingdom of God. It is after displaying to the Galatians these
pernicious works that he professes to warn them beforehand, even as he
had "told them in time past, that they which do such things should not
inherit the kingdom of God,"[4] even because they bore not the image of
the heavenly, as they had borne the image of the earthy; and so, in
consequence of their old conversation, they were to be regarded as
nothing else than flesh and blood. But even if the apostle had abruptly
thrown out the sentence that flesh and blood must be excluded from the
kingdom of God, without any previous intimation, of his meaning, would
it not have been equally our duty to interpret these two substances as
the old man abandoned to mere flesh and blood—in other words, to
eating and drinking, one feature of which would be to speak against the
faith of the resurrection: "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we
die."[5] Now, when the apostle parenthetically inserted this, he
censured flesh and blood because of their enjoyment in eating and
drinking.
Putting aside, however, all interpretations of this sort, which
criminate the works of the flesh and blood, it may be permitted me to
claim for the resurrection these very substances, understood in none
other than their natural sense. For it is not the resurrection that is
directly denied to flesh and blood, but the kingdom of God, which is
incidental to[6] the resurrection (for there is a resurrection of
judgment[7] also); and there is even a confirmation of the general
resurrection of the flesh, whenever a special one is excepted. Now,
when it is clearly stated what the condition is to which the
resurrection does not lead, it is understood what that is to which it
does lead; and, therefore, whilst it is in consideration of men's
merits that a difference is made in their resurrection by their conduct
in the flesh, and not by the substance thereof, it is evident even from
this, that flesh and blood are excluded from the kingdom of God in
respect of their sin, not of their substance; and although in respect
of their natural condition[8] they will rise again for the judgment,
because they rise not for the kingdom. Again, I will say, "Flesh and
blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God;"[9] and justly (does the
apostle declare this of them, considered) alone and in themselves, in
order to show that the Spirit is still needed (to qualify them) for the
kingdom.[10] For it is "the Spirit that quickeneth" us for the kingdom
of God; "the flesh profiteth nothing."[11] There is, however, something
else which can be profitable thereunto, that is, the Spirit; and
through the Spirit, the works also of the Spirit. Flesh and blood,
therefore, must in every case rise again, equally, in their proper
quality. But they to whom it is granted to enter the kingdom of God,
will have to put on the power of an incorruptible and immortal life;
for without this, or before they are able to obtain it, they cannot
enter into the kingdom of God. With good reason, then, flesh and blood,
as we have already said, by themselves fail to obtain the kingdom of
God. But inasmuch as "this corruptible (that is, the flesh) must put on
incorruption, and this mortal (that is, the blood) must put on
immortality,''[1] by the change which is to follow the resurrection, it
will, for the best of reasons, happen that flesh and blood, after that
change and investiture,[2] will become able to inherit the kingdom of
God—but not without the resurrection. Some will have it, that by the
phrase "flesh and blood," because of its rite of circumcision, Judaism
is meant, which is itself too alienated from the kingdom of God, as
being accounted "the old or former conversation," and as being
designated by this title in another passage of the apostle also, who,
"when it pleased God to reveal to him His Son, to preach Him amongst
the heathen, immediately conferred not with flesh and blood," as he
writes to the Galatians,[3] (meaning by the phrase) the circumcision,
that is to say, Judaism.
That, however, which we have reserved for a concluding argument,
will now stand as a plea for all, and for the apostle himself, who in
very deed would have to be charged with extreme indiscretion, if he had
so abruptly, as some will have it, and as they say, blindfold, and so
indiscriminately, and so unconditionally, excluded from the kingdom of
God, and indeed from the court of heaven itself, all flesh and blood
whatsoever; since Jesus is still sitting there at the right hand of the
Father,[4] man, yet God—the last Adam,[5] yet the primary Word—flesh
and blood, yet purer than ours—who "shall descend in like manner as He
ascended into heaven"[6] the same both in substance and form, as the
angels affirmed,[7] so as even to be recognised by those who pierced
Him.[8] Designated, as He is, "the Mediator' between God and man," He
keeps in His own self the deposit of the flesh which has been committed
to Him by both parties—the pledge and security of its entire
perfection. For as "He has given to us the earnest of the Spirit, "[10]
so has He received from us the earnest of the flesh, and has carried it
with Him into heaven as a pledge of that complete entirety which is one
day to be restored to it. Be not disquieted, O flesh and blood, with
any care; in Christ you have acquired both heaven and the kingdom of
God. Otherwise, if they say that you are not in Christ, let them also
say that Christ is not in heaven, since they have denied you heaven.
Likewise "neither shall corruption," says he, "inherit
incorruption.[11] This he says, not that you may take flesh and blood
to be corruption, for they are themselves rather the subjects of
corruption,—I mean through death, since death does not so much
corrupt, as actually consume, our flesh and blood. But inasmuch as he
had plainly said that the works of the flesh and blood could not obtain
the kingdom of God, with the view of stating this with accumulated
stress, he deprived corruption itself—that is, death, which profits so
largely by the works of the flesh and blood—from all inheritance of
incorruption. For a little afterwards, he has described what is, as it
were, the death of death itself: "Death," says he, "is swallowed up in
victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
The sting of death is sin "—here is the corruption; "and the strength
of sin is the law"[10]—that other law, no doubt, which he has
described "in his members as warring against the law of his
mind,"[13]—meaning, of course, the actual power of sinning against his
will. Now he says in a previous passage (of our Epistle to the
Corinthians), that "the last enemy to be destroyed is death."[14] In
this way, then, it is that corruption shall not inherit incorruption;
in other words, death shall not continue. When and how shall it cease?
In that "moment, that twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, when the
dead shall rise incorruptible."[15] But what are these, if not they who
were corruptible before—that is, our bodies; in other words, our flesh
and blood? And we undergo the change. But in what condition, if not in
that wherein we shall be found? "For this corruptible must put on
incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality."[16] What mortal
is this but the flesh? what corruptible but the blood. Moreover, that
you may not suppose the apostle to have any other meaning, in his care
to teach you, and that you may understand him seriously to apply his
statement to the flesh, when he says "this corruptible" and "this
mortal," he utters the words while touching the surface of his own
body.[1] He certainly could not have pronounced these phrases except in
reference to an object which was palpable and apparent. The expression
indicates a bodily exhibition. Moreover, a corruptible body is one
thing, and corruption is another; so a mortal body is one thing, and
mortality is another. For that which suffers is one thing, and that
which causes it to suffer is another. Consequently, those things which
are subject to corruption and mortality, even the flesh and blood, must
needs also be susceptible of incorruption and immortality.
Let us now see in what body he asserts that the dead will come.
And with a felicitous sally he proceeds at once to illustrate the
point, as if an objector had plied him with some such question. "Thou
fool," says he, "that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it
die."[2] From this example of the seed it is then evident that no other
flesh is quickened than that which shall have undergone death, and
therefore all the rest of the question will become clear enough. For
nothing which is incompatible with the idea suggested by the example
can possibly be understood; nor from the clause which follows, "That
which thou sowest, thou sowest not the body which shall be,"[3] are you
permitted to suppose that in the resurrection a different body is to
arise from that which is sown in death. Otherwise you have run away
from the example. For if wheat be sown and dissolved in the ground,
barley does not spring up. Still it is not[4] the very same grain in
kind; nor is its nature the same, or its quality and form. Then whence
comes it, if it is not the very same? For even the decay is a proof of
the thing itself, since it is the decay of the actual grain. Well, but
does not the apostle himself suggest in what sense it is that "the body
which shall be" is not the body which is sown, even when he says, "But
bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain; but God
giveth it a body as it pleaseth Him?''[5] Gives it of course to the
grain which he says is sown bare. No doubt, you say. Then the grain is
safe enough, to which God has to assign a body. But how safe, if it is
nowhere in existence, if it does not rise again if it rises not again
its actual self? If it rises not again, it is not safe; and if it is
not even safe, it cannot receive a body from God. But there is every
possible proof that it is safe. For what purpose, therefore, will God
give it "a body, as it pleases Him," even when it already has its own
"bare" body, unless it be that in its resurrection it may be no longer
bare? That therefore will be additional matter which is placed over the
bare body; nor is that at all destroyed on which the superimposed
matter is put,—nay, it is increased. That, however, is safe which
receives augmentation. The truth is, it is sown the barest grain,
without a husk to cover it, without a spike even in germ, without the
protection of a bearded top, without the glory of a stalk. It rises,
however, out of the furrow enriched with a copious crop, built up in a
compact fabric, constructed in a beautiful order, fortified by
cultivation, and clothed around on every side. These are the
circumstances which make it another body from God, to which it is
changed not by abolition, but by amplification. And to every seed God
has assigned its own body[6]—not, indeed, its own in the sense of its
primitive body—in order that what it acquires from God extrinsically
may also at last be accounted its own. Cleave firmly then to the
example, and keep it well in view, as a mirror of what happens to the
flesh: believe that the very same flesh which was once sown in death
will bear fruit in resurrection-life—the same in essence, only more
full and perfect; not another, although reappearing in another form.
For it shall receive in itself the grace and ornament which God shall
please to spread over it, according to its merits. Unquestionably it is
in this sense that he says, "All flesh is not the same flesh;"[7]
meaning not to deny a community of substance, but a parity of
prerogative,—reducing the body to a difference of honour, not of
nature. With this view he adds, in a figurative sense, certain examples
of animals and heavenly bodies: "There is one flesh of man" (that is,
servants of God, but really human), "another flesh of beasts" (that is,
the heathen, of whom the prophet actually says, "Man is like the
senseless cattle"[8]), "another flesh of birds" (that is, the martyrs
which essay to mount up to heaven), "another of fishes" (that is, those
whom the water of baptism has submerged).[9] In like manner does he
take examples from the heavenly bodies: "There is one glory of the sun"
(that is, of Christ), "and another glory of the moon" (that is, of the
Church), "and another glory of the stars" (in other words, of the seed
of Abraham). "For one star differeth from another star in glory: so
there are bodies terrestrial as well as celestial" (Jews, that is, as
well as Christians).[1] Now, if this language is not to be construed
figuratively, it was absurd enough for him to make a contrast between
the flesh of mules and kites, as well as the heavenly bodies and human
bodies; for they admit of no comparison as to their condition, nor in
respect of their attainment of a resurrection. Then at last, having
conclusively shown by his examples that the difference was one of
glory, not of substance, he adds: "So also is the resurrection of the
dead."[2] How so? In no other way than as differing in glory only. For
again, predicating the resurrection of the same substance and returning
once more to (his comparison of) the grain, he says: "It is sown in
corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonour, it
is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it
is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body."[3] Now,
certainly nothing else is raised than that which is sown; and nothing
else is sown than that which decays in the ground; and it is nothing
else than the flesh which is decayed in the ground. For this was the
substance which God's decree demolished, "Earth thou art, and to earth
shalt thou return;"[4] because it was taken out of the earth. And it
was from this circumstance that the apostle borrowed his phrase of the
flesh being "sown," since it returns to the ground, and the ground is
the grand depository for seeds which are meant to be deposited in it,
and again sought out of it. And therefore he confirms the passage
afresh, by putting on it the impress (of his own inspired authority),
saying, "For so it is written;"[5] that you may not suppose that the
"being sown" means anything else than "thou shalt return to the ground,
out of which thou wast taken;" nor that the phrase "for so it is
written" refers to any other thing that the flesh.
Some, however, contend that the soul is "the natural (or animate)
body, "[6] with the view of withdrawing the flesh from all connection
with the risen body. Now, since it is a clear and fixed point that the
body which is to rise again is that which was sown in death, they must
be challenged to an examination of the very fact itself. Else let them
show that the soul was sown after death; in a word, that it underwent
death,—that is, was demolished, dismembered, dissolved in the ground,
nothing of which was ever decreed against it by God: let them display
to our view its corruptibility and dishonour (as well as) its weakness,
that it may also accrue to it to rise again in incorruption, and in
glory, and in power? Now in the ease of Lazarus, (which we may take as)
the palmary instance of a resurrection, the flesh lay prostrate in
weakness, the flesh was almost putrid in the dishonour of its decay,
the flesh stank in corruption, and yet it was as flesh that Lazarus
rose again—with his soul, no doubt. But that soul was incorrupt;
nobody had wrapped it in its linen swathes; nobody had deposited it in
a grave; nobody had yet preceived it "stink;" nobody for four days had
seen it "sown." Well, now, this entire condition, this whole end of
Lazarus, the flesh indeed of all men is still experiencing, but the
soul of no one. That substance, therefore, to which the apostle's whole
description manifestly refers, of which he clearly speaks, must be both
the natural (or animate) body when it is sown, and the spiritual body
when it is raised again. For in order that you may understand it in
this sense, he points to this same conclusion, when in like manner, on
the authority of the same passage of Scripture, he displays to us "the
first man Adam as made a living soul."[8] Now since Adam was the first
man, since also the flesh was man prior to the soul? it undoubtedly
follows that it was the flesh that became the living soul. Moreover,
since it was a bodily substance that assumed this condition, it was of
course the natural (or animate) body that became the living soul. By
what designation would they have it called, except that which it became
through the soul, except that which it was not previous to the soul,
except that which it can never be after the soul, but through its
resurrection? For after it has recovered the soul, it once more becomes
the natural (or animate) body, in order that it may become a spiritual
body. For it only resumes in the resurrection the condition which it
once had. There is therefore by no means the same good reason why the
soul should be called the natural (or animate) body, which the flesh
has for bearing that designation. The flesh, in fact, was a body before
it was an animate body. When the flesh was joined by the soul,[1] it
then became the natural (or animate) body. Now, although the soul is a
corporeal substance,[2] yet, as it is not an animated body, but rather
an animating one, it cannot be called the animate (or natural) body,
nor can it become that thing which it produces. It is indeed when the
soul accrues to something else that it makes that thing animate; but
unless it so accrues, how will it ever produce animation? As therefore
the flesh was at first an animate (or natural) body on receiving the
soul, so at last will it become a spiritual body when invested with the
spirit. Now the apostle, by severally adducing this order in Adam and
in Christ, fairly distinguishes between the two states, in the very
essentials of their difference. And when he calls Christ "the last
Adam,"[3] you may from this circumstance discover how strenuously he
labours to establish throughout his teaching the resurrection of the
flesh, not of the soul. Thus, then, the first man Adam was flesh, not
soul, and only afterwards became a living soul; and the last Adam,
Christ, was Adam only because He was man, and only man as being flesh,
not as being soul. Accordingly the apostle goes on to say: "Howbeit
that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and
afterward that which is spiritual,"[4] as in the case of the two Adams.
Now, do you not suppose that he is distinguishing between the natural
body and the spiritual body in the same flesh, after having already
drawn the distinction therein in the two Adams, that is, in the first
man and in the last? For from which substance is it that Christ and
Adam have a parity with each other? No doubt it is from their flesh,
although it may be from their soul also. It is, however, in respect of
the flesh that they are both man; for the flesh was man prior to the
saul. It was actually from it that they were able to take rank, so as
to be deemed—one the first, and the other the last man, or Adam.
Besides, things which are different in character are only incapable of
being arranged in the same order when their diversity is one of
substance; for when it is a diversity either in respect of place, or of
time, or of condition, they probably do admit of classification
together. Here, however, they are called first and last, from the
substance of their (common) flesh, just as afterwards again the first
man (is said to be) of the earth, and the second of heaven;[3] but
although He is "of heaven" in respect of the spirit, He is yet man
according to the flesh. Now since it is the flesh, and not the soul,
that makes an order (or classification together) in the two Adams
compatible, so that the distinction is drawn between them of "the first
man becoming a living soul, and the last a quickening spirit,"[6] so in
like manner this distinction between them has already suggested the
conclusion that the distinction is due to the flesh; so that it is of
the flesh that these words speak: "Howbeit that was not first which is
spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterward that which is
spiritual."[7] And thus, too, the same flesh must be understood in a
preceding passage: "That which is sown is the natural body, and that
which rises again is the spiritual body; because that is not first
which is spiritual, but that which is natural: since the first Adam was
made a living soul, the last Adam a quickening spirit."[8] It is all
about man, and all about the flesh because about man.
What shall we say then? Has not the flesh even now (in this life)
the spirit by faith? so that the question still remains to be asked,
how it is that the animate (or natural) body can be said to be sown?
Surely the flesh has received even here the spirit—but only its
"earnest;"[9] whereas of the soul (it has received) not the earnest,
but the full possession. Therefore it has the name of animate (or
natural) body, expressly because of the higher substance of the soul
(or animal,) in which it is sown, destined hereafter to become, through
the full possession of the spirit which it shall obtain, the spiritual
body, in which it is raised again. What wonder, then, if it is more
commonly called after the substance with which it is fully furnished,
than after that of which it has yet but a sprinkling?
Then, again, questions very often are suggested by occasional and
isolated terms, just as much as they are by connected sentences. Thus,
because of the apostle's expression, "that mortality may be swallowed
up of life "[10]— in reference to the flesh—they wrest the word
swallowed up into the sense of the actual destruction of the flesh; as
if we might not speak of ourselves as swallowing bile, or swallowing
grief, meaning that we conceal and hide it, and keep it within
ourselves. The truth is, when it is written, "This mortal must put on
immortality,"[1] it is explained in what sense it is that "mortality is
swallowed up of life "—even whilst, clothed with immortality, it is
hidden and concealed, and contained within it, not as consumed, and
destroyed, and lost. But death, you will say in reply to me, at this
rate, must be safe, even when it has been swallowed up. Well, then, I
ask you to distinguish words which are similar in form according to
their proper meanings. Death is one thing, and morality is another. It
is one thing for death to be swallowed up, and another thing for
mortality to be swallowed up. Death is incapable of immortality, but
not so mortality. Besides, as it is written that "this mortal must put
on immortality,"[2] how is this possible when it is swallowed up of
life? But how is it swallowed up of life, (in the sense of destroyed by
it) when it is actually received, and restored, and included in it? For
the rest, it is only just and right that death should be swallowed up
in utter destruction, since it does itself devour with this same
intent. Death, says the apostle, has devoured by exercising its
strength, and therefore has been itself devoured in the struggle
"swallowed up in victory."[3] "O death, where is thy sting? O death,
where is thy victory?"[4] Therefore life, too, as the great antagonist
of death, will in the struggle swallow up for salvation what death, in
its struggle, had swallowed up for destruction.
Now although, in proving that the flesh shall rise again we ipso
facto prove that no other flesh will partake of that resurrection than
that which is in question, yet insulated questions and their occasions
do require even discussions of their own, even if they have been
already sufficiently met. We will therefore give a fuller explanation
of the force and the reason of a change which (is so great, that it)
almost suggests the presumption that it is a different flesh which is
to rise again; as if, indeed, so great a change amounted to utter
cessation, and a complete destruction of the former self. A
distinction, however, must be made between a change, however great, and
everything which has the character of distruction. For undergoing
change is one thing, but being destroyed is another thing. Now this
distinction would no longer exist, if the flesh were to suffer such a
change as amounts to destruction. Destroyed, however, it must be by the
change, unless it shall itself persistently remain throughout the
altered condition which shall be exhibited in the resurrection. For
precisely as it perishes, if it does not rise again, so also does it
equally perish even if it does rise again, on the supposition that it
is lost[5] in the change. It will as much fail of a future existence,
as if it did not rise again at all. And how absurd is it to rise again
for the purpose of not having a being, when it had it in its power not
to rise again, and so lose airs being—because it had already begun its
non-existence! Now, things which are absolutely different, as mutation
and destruction are, will not admit of mixture and confusion; in their
operations, too, they differ. One destroys, the other changes.
Therefore, as that which is destroyed is not changed, so that which is
changed is not destroyed. To perish is altogether to cease to be what a
thing once was, whereas to be changed is to exist in another condition.
Now, if a thing exists in another condition, it can still be the same
thing itself; for since it does not perish, it has its existence still.
A change, indeed, it has experienced, but not a destruction. A thing
may undergo a complete change, and yet remain still the same thing. In
like manner, a man also may be quite himself in substance even in the
present life, and for all that undergo various changes—in habit, in
bodily bulk, in health, in condition, in dignity, and m age—in taste,
business, means, houses, laws and customs—and still lose nothing of
his human nature, nor so to be made another man as to cease to be the
same; indeed, I ought hardly to say another man, but another thing.
This form of change even the Holy Scriptures give us instances of. The
hand of Moses is changed, and it becomes like a dead one, bloodless,
colourless, and stiff with cold; but on the recovery of heat, and on
the restoration of its natural colour, it is again the same flesh and
blood? Afterwards the face of the same Moses is changed,[7] with a
brightness which eye could not bear. But he was Moses still, even when
he was not visible. So also Stephen had already put on the appearance
of an angel,[8] although they were none other than his human knees[1]
which bent beneath the stoning. The Lord, again, in the retirement of
the mount, had changed His raiment for a robe of light; but He still
retained features which Peter could recognise.[2] In that same scene
Moses also and Elias gave proof that the same condition of bodily
existence may continue even in glory—the one in the likeness of a
flesh which he had not yet recovered, the other in the reality of one
which 'he had not yet put off.[3] It was as full of this splendid
example that Paul said: "Who shall change our vile body, that it may be
fashioned like unto His glorious body."[4] But if you maintain that a
transfiguration and a conversion amounts to the annihilation of any
substance, then it follows that "Saul, when changed into another
man,"[5] passed away from his own bodily substance; and that Satan
himself, when "transformed into an angel of light,"[6] loses his own
proper character. Such is not my opinion. So likewise changes,
conversions and reformations will necessarily take place to bring about
the resurrection, but the substance of the flesh will still be
preserved safe.
For how absurd, and in truth how unjust, and in both respects how
unworthy of God, for one substance to do the work, and another to reap
the reward: that this flesh of ours should be torn by martyrdom, and
another wear the crown; or, on the other hand, that this flesh of ours
should wallow in uncleanness, and another receive the condemnation! Is
it not better to renounce all faith at once in the hope of the
resurrection,[7] than to trifle with the wisdom and justice of God?[8]
Better that Marcion should rise again than Valentinus. For it cannot be
believed that the mind, or the memory, or the conscience of existing
man is abolished by putting on that change of raiment which immortality
and incorruption supplies; for in that case all the gain and fruit of
the resurrection, and the permanent effect[9] of God's judgment both on
soul and body,[10] would certainly fall to the ground. If I remember
not that it is I who have served Him, how shall I ascribe glory to God?
How sing to Him "the new song,"[11]if I am ignorant that it is I who
owe Him thanks? But why is exception taken only against the change of
the flesh, and not of the soul also, which in all things is superior to
the flesh? How happens it, that the self-same soul which in our present
flesh has gone through all life's course, which has learnt the
knowledge of God, and put on Christ, and sown the hope of salvation in
this flesh, must reap its harvest in another flesh of which we know
nothing? Verily that must be a most highly favoured flesh, which shall
have the enjoyment of life at so gratuitous a rate! But if the soul is
not to be changed also, then there is no resurrection of the soul; nor
will it be believed to have itself risen, unless it has risen some
different thing.
We now come to the most usual cavil of unbelief. If, they say, it
be actully the selfsame substance which is recalled to life with all
its form, and lineaments, and quality, then why not with all its other
characteristics? Then the blind, and the lame, and the palsied, and
whoever else may have passed away with any conspicuous mark, will
return again with the same. What now is the fact, although you in the
greatness of your conceit[11] thus disdain to accept from God so vast a
grace? Does it not happen that, when you now admit the salvation of
only the soul, you ascribe it to men at the cost of half their nature?
What is the good of believing in the resurrection, unless your faith
embraces the whole of it? If the flesh is to be repaired after its
dissolution, much more will it be restored after some violent injury.
Greater cases prescribe rules for lesser ones. Is not the amputation or
the crushing of a limb the death of that limb? Now, if the death of the
whole person is rescinded by its resurrection, what must we say of the
death of a part of him? If we are changed for glory, how much more for
integrity![12] Any loss sustained by our bodies is an accident to them,
but their entirety is their natural property. In this condition we are
born. Even if we become injured in the womb, this is loss suffered by
what is already a human being. Natural condition"[14] is prior to
injury. As life is bestowed by God, so is it restored by Him. As we are
when we receive it, so are we when we recover it. To nature, not to
injury, are we restored; to our state by birth, not to our condition by
accident, do we rise again. If God raises not men entire, He raises not
the dead. For what dead man is entire, although he dies entire? Who is
without hurt, that is without life? What body is uninjured, when it is
dead, when it is cold, when it is ghastly, when it is stiff, when it is
a corpse? When is a man more infirm, than when he is entirely infirm?
When more palsied, than when quite motionless? Thus, for a dead man to
be raised again, amounts to nothing short of his being restored to his
entire condition,—lest he, forsooth, be still dead in that part in
which he has not risen again. God is quite able to re-make what He once
made. This power and this unstinted grace of His He has already
sufficiently guaranteed in Christ; and has displayed Himself to us (in
Him) not only as the restorer of the flesh, but as the repairer of its
breaches. And so the apostle says: "The dead shall be raised
incorruptible" (or unimpaired).[1] But how so, unless they become
entire, who have wasted away either in the loss of their health, or in
the long decrepitude of the grave? For when he propounds the two
clauses, that "this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this
mortal must put on immortality, "[2] he does not repeat the same
statement, but sets forth a distinction. For, by assigning immortality
to the repeating of death, and incorruption to the repairing of the
wasted body, he has fitted one to the raising and the other to the
retrieval of the body. I suppose, moreover, that he promises to the
Thessalonians the integrity of the whole substance of man.[3] So that
for the great future there need be no fear of blemished or defective
bodies. Integrity, whether the result of preservation or restoration,
will be able to lose nothing more, after the time that it has given
back to it whatever it had lost. Now, when you contend that the flesh
will still have to undergo the same sufferings, if the same flesh be
said to have to rise again, you rashly set up nature against her Lord,
and impiously contrast her law against His grace; as if it were not
permitted the Lord God both to change nature, and to preserve her,
without subjection to a law. How is it, then, that we read, "With men
these things are impossible, but with God all things are possible;"[4]
and again, "God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound
the wise?" [5] Let me ask you, if you were to manumit your slave
(seeing that the same flesh and soul will remain to him, which once
were exposed to the whip, and the fetter, and the stripes), will it
therefore be fit for him to undergo the same old sufferings? I trow
not. He is instead thereof honoured with the grace of the white robe,
and the favour of the gold ring, and the name and tribe as well as
table of his patron. Give, then, the same prerogative to God, by virtue
of such a change, of reforming our condition, not our nature, by taking
away from it all sufferings, and surrounding it with safeguards of
protection. Thus our flesh shall remain even after the resurrection—so
far indeed susceptible of suffering, as it is the flesh, and the same
flesh too; but at the same time impassible, inasmuch as it has been
liberated by the Lord for the very end and purpose of being no longer
capable of enduring suffering.
"Everlasting joy," says Isaiah, "shall be upon their heads."[6]
Well, there is nothing eternal until after the resurrection. "And
sorrow and sighing," continues he, "shall flee away."[7] The angel
echoes the same to John: "And God shall wipe away all tears from their
eyes;"[8] from the same eyes indeed which had formerly wept, and which
might weep again, if the loving-kindness of God did not dry up every
fountain of tears. And again: "God shall wipe away all tears from their
eyes; and there shall be no more death,"[9] and therefore no more
corruption, it being chased away by incorruption, even as death is by
immortality. If sorrow, and mourning, and sighing, and death itself,
assail us from the afflictions both of soul and body, how shall they be
removed, except by the cessation of their causes, that is to say, the
afflictions of flesh and soul? where will you find adversities in the
presence of God? where, incursions of an enemy in the bosom of Christ?
where, attacks of the devil in the face of the Holy Spirit?—now that
the devil himself and his angels are "cast into the lake of fire." [10]
Where now is necessity, and what they call fortune or fate? What plague
awaits the redeemed from death, after their eternal pardon? What wrath
is there for the reconciled, after grace? What weakness, after their
renewed strength? What risk and danger, after their salvation? That the
raiment and shoes of the children of Israel remained unworn and fresh
for the space of forty years; [1] that in their very persons the exact
point[2] of convenience and propriety checked the rank growth of their
nails and hair, so that any excess herein might not be attributed to
indecency; that the fires of Babylon injured not either the mitres or
the trousers of the three brethren, however foreign such dress might be
to the Jews;[3] that Jonah was swallowed by the monster of the deep, in
whose belly whole ships were devoured, and after three days was vomited
out again safe and sound;[4] that Enoch and Elias, who even now,
without experiencing a resurrrection (because they have not even
encountered death), are learning to the full what it is for the flesh
to be exempted from all humilation, and all loss, and all injury, and
all disgrace—translated as they have been from this world, and from
this very cause already candidates for everlasting life;[5] —to what
faith do these notable facts bear witness, if not to that which ought
to inspire in us the belief that they are proofs and documents of our
own future integrity and perfect resurrection? For, to borrow the
apostle's phrase, these were "figures of ourselves; "[6] and they are
written that we may believe both that the Lord is more powerful than
all natural laws about the body, and that He shows Himself the
preserver of the flesh the more emphatically, in that He has preserved
for it its very clothes and shoes.
But, you object, the world to come bears the character of a
different dispensation, even an eternal one; and therefore, you
maintain, that the non-eternal substance of this life is incapable of
possessing a state of such different features. This would be true
enough, if man were made for the future dispensation, and not the
dispensation for man. The apostle, however, in his epistle says,
"Whether it be the world, or life, or death, or things present, or
things to come; all are yours: "[7] and he here constitutes us heirs
even of the future world. Isaiah gives you no help when he says, "All
flesh is grass;"[8] and in another passage, "All flesh shall see the
salvation of God."[9] It is the issues of men, not their substances,
which he distinguishes. But who does not hold that the judgment of God
consists in the twofold sentence, of salvation and of punishment?
Therefore it is that "all flesh is grass," which is destined to the
fire; and "all flesh shall see the salvation of God," which is ordained
to eternal life. For myself, I am quite sure that it is in no other
flesh than my own that I have committed adultery, nor in any other
flesh am I striving after continence. If there be any one who bears
about in his person two instruments of lasciviousness, he has it in his
power, to be sure, to mow down[10] "the grass" of the unclean flesh,
and to reserve for himself only that which shall see the salvation of
God. But when the same prophet represents to us even nations sometimes
estimated as "the small dust of the balance,"[11] and as "less than
nothing, and vanity,"[12] and sometimes as about to hope and "trust in
the name"[13] and arm of the Lord, are we at all misled respecting the
Gentile nations by the diversity of statement? Are some of them to turn
believers, and are others accounted dust, from any difference of
nature? Nay, rather Christ has shone as the true light on the nations
within the ocean's limits, and from the heaven which is over us
all.[14] Why, it is even on this earth that the Valentinians have gone
to school for their errors; and there will be no difference of
condition, as respects their body and soul, between the nations which
believe and those which do not believe. Precisely, then, as He has put
a distinction of state, not of nature, amongst the same nations, so
also has He discriminated their flesh, which is one and the same
substance in those nations, not according to their material structure,
but according to the recompense of their merit.
But behold how presistently they still accumulate their cavils
against the flesh, especially against its identity, deriving their
argu- ments even from the functions of our limbs; on the one hand
saying that these ought to continue permanently pursuing their labours
and enjoyments, as appendages to the same corporeal frame; and on the
other hand contending that, inasmuch as the functions of the limbs
shall one day come to an end, the bodily frame itself must be
destroyed, its permanence without its limbs being deemed to be as
inconceivable, as that of the limbs themselves without their functions
! What, they ask, will then be the use of the cavity of our mouth, and
its rows of teeth, and the passage of the throat, and the branch-way of
the stomach, and the gulf of the belly, and the entangled tissue of the
bowels, when there shall no longer be room for eating and drinking?
What more will there be for these members to take in, masticate,
swallow, secrete, digest, eject? Of what avail will be our very hands,
and feet, and all our labouring limbs, when even all care about food
shall cease? What purpose can be served by loins, conscious of seminal
secretions, and all the other organs of generation, in the two sexes,
and the laboratories of embryos, and the fountains of the breast, when
concubinage, and pregnancy, and infant nurture shall cease? In short,
what will be the use of the entire body, when the entire body shall
become useless? In reply to all this, we have then already settled the
principle that the dispensation of the future state ought not to be
compared with that of the present world, and that in the interval
between them a change will take place; and we now add the remark, that
these functions of our bodily limbs will continue to supply the needs
of this life up to the moment when life itself shall pass away from
time to eternity, as the natural body gives place to the spiritual,
until "this mortal puts on immorality, and this corruptible puts on
incorruption:"[1] so that when life shall itself become freed from all
wants, our limbs shall then be freed also from their services, and
therefore will be no longer wanted. Still, although liberated from
their offices, they will be yet preserved for judgment, "that every one
may receive the things done in his body."[2] For the judgment-seat of
God requires that man be kept entire. Entire, however, he cannot be
without his limbs, of the substance of which, not the functions, he
consists; unless, forsooth, you will be bold enough to maintain that a
ship is perfect without her keel, or her bow, or her stern, and without
the solidity of her entire t frame. And yet how often have we seen the
same ship, after being shattered with the storm and broken by decay,
with all her timbers repaired and restored, gallantly riding on the
wave in all the beauty of a renewed fabric! Do we then disquiet
ourselves with doubt about God's skill, and will, and rights? Besides,
if a wealthy shipowner, who does not grudge money merely for his
amusement or show, thoroughly repairs his ship, and then chooses that
she should make no further voyages, will you contend that the old form
and finish is still not necessary to the vessel, although she is no
longer meant for actual service, when the mere safety of a ship
requires such completeness irrespective of service? The sole question,
therefore, which is enough for us to consider here, is whether the
Lord, when He ordains salvation for man, intends it for his flesh;
whether it is His will that the selfsame flesh shall be renewed. If so,
it will be improper for you to rule, from the inutility of its limbs in
the future state, that the flesh will be incapable of renovation. For a
thing may be renewed, and yet be useless from having nothing to do;
but it cannot be said to be useless if it has no existence. If, indeed,
it has existence, it will be quite possible for it also not to be
useless; it may possibly have something to do; for in the presence of
God there will be no idleness.
Now you have received your mouth, O man, for the purpose of
devouring your food and imbibing your drink: why not, however, for the
higher purpose of uttering speech, so as to distinguish yourself from
all other animals? Why not rather for preaching the gospel of God, that
so you may become even His priest and advocate before men? Adam indeed
gave their several names to the animals, before he plucked the fruit of
the tree; before he ate, he prophesied. Then, again, you received your
teeth for the consumption of your meal: why not rather for wreathing
your mouth with suitable defence on every opening thereof, small or
wide? Why not, too, for moderating the impulses of your tongue, and
guarding your articulate speech from failure and violence? Let me tell
you, (if you do not know), that there are toothless persons in the
world. Look at them, and ask whether even a cage of teeth be not an
honour to the mouth. There are apertures in the lower regions of man
and woman, by means of which they gratify no doubt their animal
passions; but why are they not rather regarded as outlets for the
cleanly discharge of natural fluids? Women, moreover, have within them
receptacles where human seed may collect; but are they not designed for
the secretion of those sanguineous issues, which their tardier and
weaker sex is inadequate to disperse? For even details like these
require to be mentioned, seeing that heretics single out what parts of
our bodies may suit them, handle them without delicacy, and, as their
whim suggests, pour torrents of scorn and contempt upon the natural
functions of our members, for the purpose of upsetting the
resurrection, and making us blush over their cavils; not reflecting
that before the functions cease, the very causes of them will have
passed away. There will be no more meat, because no more hunger; no
more drink, because no more thirst; no more concubinage, because no
more child-bearing; no more eating and drinking, because no more labour
and toil. Death, too, will cease; so there will be no more need of the
nutriment of food for the defence of life, nor will mothers' limbs any
longer have to be laden for the replenishment of our race. But even in
the present life there may be cessations of their office for our
stomachs and our generative organs. For forty days Moses[1] and
Elias[2] fasted, and lived upon God alone. For even so early was the
principle consecrated: "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every
word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."[3] See here faint
outlines of our future strength! We even, as we may be able, excuse our
mouths from food, and withdraw our sexes from union. How many voluntary
eunuchs are there! How many virgins espoused to Christ! How many, both
of men and women, whom nature has made sterile, with a structure which
cannot procreate! Now, if even here on earth both the functions and the
pleasures of our members may be suspended, with an intermission which,
like the dispensation itself, can only be a temporary one, and yet
man's safety is nevertheless unimpaired, how much more, when his
salvation is secure, and especially in an eternal dispensation, shall
we not cease to desire those things, for which, even here below, we are
not unaccustomed to check our longings!
To this discussion, however, our Lord's declaration puts an
effectual end: "They shall be," says He, "equal unto the angels."[4] As
by not marrying, because of not dying, so, of course, by not having to
yield to any like necessity of our bodily state; even as the angels,
too, sometimes. were "equal unto" men, by eating and drinking, and
submitting their feet to the washing of the bath—having clothed
themselves in human guise, without i the loss of their own intrinsic
nature. If therefore angels, when they became as men, submitted in
their own unaltered substance of spirit to be treated as if they were
flesh, why shall not men in like manner, when they become "equal unto
the angels," undergo in their unchanged substance of flesh the
treatment of spiritual beings, no more exposed to the usual
solicitations of the flesh in their angelic garb, than were the angels
once to those of the spirit when encompassed in human form? We shall
not therefore cease to continue in the flesh, because we cease to be
importuned by the usual wants of the flesh; just as the angels ceased
not therefore to remain in their spiritual substance, because of the
suspension of their spiritual incidents. Lastly, Christ said not, "They
shall be angels," in order not to repeal their existence as men; but He
said, "They shall be equal unto the angels,[5] that He might preserve
their humanity unimpaired. When He ascribed an angelic likeness to the
flesh,[6] He took not from it its proper substance.
And so the flesh shall rise again, wholly in every man, in its
own identity, in its absolute integrity. Wherever it may be, it is in
safe keeping in God's presence, through that most faithful "Mediator
between God and man, (the man) Jesus Christ,"[7] who shall reconcile
both God to man, and man to God; the spirit to the flesh, and the flesh
to the spirit. Both natures has He already united in His own self; He
has fitted them together as bride and bridegroom in the reciprocal bond
of wedded life. Now, if any should insist on making the soul the bride,
then the flesh will follow the soul as her dowry. The soul shall never
be an outcast, to be had home by the bridegroom bare and naked. She has
her dower, her outfit, her fortune in the flesh, which shall accompany
her with the love and fidelity of a foster-sister. But suppose the
flesh to be the bride, then in Christ Jesus she has in the contract of
His blood received His Spirit as her spouse. Now, what you take to be
her extinction, you may be sure is only her temporary retirement. It is
not the soul only which withdraws from view. The flesh, too, has her
departures for a while—in waters, in fires, in birds, in beasts; she
may seem to be dissolved into these, but she is only poured into them,
as into vessels. And should the vessels themselves afterwards fail to
hold her, escaping from even these, and returning to her mother earth,
she is absorbed once more, as it were, by its secret embraces,
ultimately to stand forth to view, like Adam when summoned to hear from
his Lord and Creator the words, "Behold, the man is become as one of
us!"[1]—thoroughly "knowing" by that time "the evil" which she had
escaped, "and the good" which she has acquired. Why, then, O soul,
should you envy the flesh? There is none, after the Lord, whom you
should love so dearly; none more like a brother to you, which is even
born along with yourself in God. You ought rather to have been by your
prayers obtaining resurrection for her: her sins, whatever they were,
were owing to you. However, it is no wonder if you hate her; for you
have repudiated her Creator.[2] You have accustomed yourself either to
deny or change her existence even in Christ[3]—corrupting the very
Word of God Himself, who became flesh, either by mutilating or
misinterpreting the Scripture,[4] and introducing, above all,
apocryphal mysteries and blasphemous fables.[5] But yet Almighty God,
in His most gracious providence, by "pouring out of His Spirit in these
last days, upon all flesh, upon His servants and on His
handmaidens,"[6] has checked these impostures of unbelief and
perverseness, reanimated men's faltering faith in the resurrection of
the flesh, and cleared from all obscurity and equivocation the ancient
Scriptures (of both God's Testaments[7]) by the clear light of their
(sacred) words and meanings. Now, since it was "needful that there
should be heresies, in order that they which are approved might be made
manifest;"[8] since, however, these heresies would be unable to put on
a bold front without some countenance from the Scriptures, it therefore
is plain enough that the ancient Holy Writ has furnished them with
sundry materials for their evil doctrine, which very materials indeed
(so distorted) are refutable from the same Scriptures. It was fit and
proper, therefore, that the Holy Ghost should no longer withhold the
effusions of His gracious light upon these inspired writings, in order
that they might be able to disseminate the seeds of truth with no
admixture of heretical subtleties, and pluck out from it their tares.
He has accordingly now dispersed all the perplexities of the past, and
their self-chosen allegories and parables, by the open and perspicuous
explanation of the entire mystery, through the new prophecy, which
descends in copious streams from the Paraclete. If you will only draw
water from His fountains, you will never thrist for other doctrine: no
feverish craving after subtle questions will again consume you; but by
drinking in evermore the resurrection of the flesh, you will be
satisfied with the refreshing draughts.
I. (Cadaver, cap. xviii. p. 558.)
The Schoolmen and middle-age jurists improved on Tertullian's
etymology. He says,—"a cadendo—cadaver." But they form the word thus:
Caro data vermibus = Ca-da-ver.
On this subject see a most interesting discourse of the
(paradoxical and sophistical, nay the whimsical) Count Joseph de
Maistre, in his Soirees de St. Petersbourg.[1] He remarks on the happy
formation of many Latin words, in this manner: e.g., Coecus ut ire =
Coecutire, "to grope like a blind man." The French, he says, are not
without such examples, and he instances the word ancetre = ancestor, as
composed out of ancien and etre, i.e., one of a former existence.
Courage, he says, is formed from occur and rage, this use of rage being
the Greek qumos . He supposes that the English use the word rage in
this sense, but I recall only the instance: "Chill penury repressed
their noble rage," from Gray's Elegy. The Diversions of Purley, of
Horne-Tooke, supply amusing examples of the like in the formation of
English words.
II. (His flesh, the Bread, cap. xxxvii. p. 572.)
Note our author's exposition. He censures those who understood
our Lord's words after the letter, as if they were to eat the carnal
body. He expounds the spiritual thing which gives life as to be
understood by the text: "the words that I speak unto you, they are
spirit and they are life." His word is the life-giving principle and
therefore he called his flesh by the same name: and we are to "devour
Him with the ear and to ruminate on Him with the understanding, and to
digest Him by faith." The flesh profits nothing, the spirit imparts
life. Now, was Tertullian ever censured for this exposition? On the
contrary, this was the faith of the Catholic Church, from the
beginning. Our Saxon forefathers taught the same, as appears from the
Homily of AElfric,[1], A.D. 980, and from the exposition of Ratramn,
A.D. 840. The heresy of Transubstantiation was not dogmatic even among
Latins, until the Thirteenth century, and it prevailed in England less
than three hundred years, when the Catholic doctrine was restored,
through the influence of Ratramn's treatise first upon the mind of
Ridley and then by Ridley's arguments with Cranmer. Thus were their
understandings opened to the Scriptures and to the acknowledging of the
Truth, for which they suffered martyrdom. To the reformation we owe the
rescue of Ante-Nicene doctrine from the perversions of the Schoolmen
and the gradual corruptions of doctrine after the Ninth Century.
III. (Paradise, cap. xliii. p. 576.)
This sentence reads, in the translation I am editing, as follows:
"No one, on becoming absent from the body, is at once a dweller in the
presence of the Lord, except by the prerogative of martyrdom, whereby
(the saint) gets at once a lodging in Paradise, not in Hades." But the
original does not say precisely this, nor does the author use the Greek
word Hades. His words are: "Nemo enim peregrinatus a corpore statim
immoratur penes Dominum nisi ex martyrii proerogativa Paradiso silicet
non Inferis diversurus." The passage therefore, is not necessarily as
inconsistent with the author's topography of the invisible world, as
might seem. "Not in the regions beneath Paradise but in Paradise
itself," seems to be the idea; Paradise being included in the world of
Hades, indeed, but in a lofty region, far enough removed from the
Inferi, and refreshed by light from the third Heaven and the throne
itself, (as this planet is by the light of the Sun,) immensely distant
though it be from the final abode of the Redeemed.