On the Resurrection of the Flesh

But if indeed there is a sect even among those who acknowledge God, more akin to the Epicureans than to the prophets, we shall know what the Sadducees hear from Christ. For it was reserved for Christ to lay bare all things previously hidden, to set straight what was doubted, to complete what had been foretasted, to make present what had been foretold; and certainly to prove the resurrection of the dead, not only through himself, but also in himself. Now however we are preparing ourselves against other Sadducees, sharers in their opinion. They acknowledge a half resurrection, namely of the soul alone; having despised the flesh, just as they despise the Lord himself as flesh. In short, none other than the heretics of a second divinity begrudge salvation to the corporeal substance.

And therefore, being compelled to arrange Christ differently, lest he be held the creator of flesh, they first went astray concerning his very flesh itself; either contending it was of no true reality, according to Marcion and Basilides; or of a peculiar quality, according to the heresies of Valentinus and Apelles. And so it follows that they exclude from salvation that substance of which they deny Christ to be a partaker; being certain that it is furnished with the highest guarantee of resurrection, if flesh has already risen in Christ. For this reason we also put forth beforehand the volume On the Flesh of Christ, in which we prove it to be solid, against the vanity of a phantom, and vindicate it as human, against the peculiarity of quality; whose condition has inscribed Christ as both man and son of man.

For proving him to be fleshly and corporeal, we likewise shut off by prescription that no other God is to be believed besides the Creator, while we show such a Christ, in whom God is recognized as he is promised by the Creator. Shut off then from that point concerning God as author of flesh, and concerning Christ as redeemer of flesh, they shall now also be refuted concerning the resurrection of flesh. Fittingly, of course. And we say that the disputation with heretics must be entered upon in roughly this manner. For order always demands to be derived from first principles, so that it may first be established from whom that which is in question is said to have been ordained. And indeed heretics also, from consciousness of their weakness, never treat things in orderly fashion.

For being certain how much they labor in insinuating a second divinity against the God of the world known to all by nature through the testimonies of his works; certainly also more primary in the sacraments, and more manifest in the proclamations; under the pretext of a supposedly more pressing cause, that is, of human salvation itself to be sought before all else, they begin from questions of resurrection: because the resurrection of the flesh is believed with more difficulty than the unity of divinity: and so the treatment, stripped of the strength of its proper order, and burdened rather with scruples that depreciate the flesh, they gradually temper the sense of a second divinity, from the very shaking and alteration of hope. For each one, cast down or moved from the degree of that hope which he had received under the Creator, is easily turned aside toward the author of another hope, even to be sought out of his own accord. For through the diversity of promises, a diversity of gods is insinuated.

Thus we see many ensnared, while they are first overthrown concerning the resurrection of the flesh, before they overthrow others concerning the unity of divinity. Therefore, as regards heretics, we have shown with what wedge we must meet them; and the meeting has already taken place under its own title, concerning the one God and his Christ, against Marcion; concerning the flesh of the Lord, also against four heresies; for the purpose of laying the groundwork chiefly for this question, so that now I may set forth the matter of the resurrection of the flesh alone, as though it were uncertain among us, while it is also certain with the Creator. For also many who are unlearned, and very many who are doubtful and simple in their faith; and more besides, who will need to be instructed, directed, and fortified; because the unity of divinity will also be defended by this being kept hidden. For just as it is shaken when the resurrection of the flesh is denied, so it is established when it is vindicated.

But the salvation of the soul I believe requires no re-examination. For nearly all heretics, in whatever way they may wish it, nevertheless do not deny it. Let some one Lucanus look to himself, sparing not even this substance, which he dissolves according to Aristotle, substituting something else in its place, as though some third thing were to rise, neither soul nor flesh, that is, not a man, but perhaps a bear, as befits Lucanus. He too has from us a most complete treatment concerning every state of the soul, which defending as immortal above all, we acknowledge the falling away of the flesh alone, and assert its restoration most especially; having reduced to the regular body of the matter whatever we have also elsewhere briefly touched upon and deferred by reason of intervening causes. For as it is customary for certain things to be foretasted, so it is necessary for them to be deferred, provided that what has been foretasted is also supplied in its proper body, and what has been deferred is rendered under its proper name.

It is indeed also fitting to think about the things of God from common notions; but in testimony of the true, not in aid of the false; which is according to the divine, not against the divine disposition. For certain things are known even by nature, such as the immortality of the soul among most people, and our God among all. I will therefore also use the opinion of some Plato pronouncing: Every soul is immortal. I will also use the testimony of the people's conscience, attesting to God of gods. I will also use the remaining common notions, which proclaim God as judge: God sees; and: I commend to God. But when they say: What is dead, is dead; and: Live, while you live; and: After death all things are ended, even death itself; then I shall remember that the heart of the crowd has been reckoned as ashes by God, and that the very wisdom of the world has been pronounced foolishness.

Then if also a heretic shall have fled to the vices of the crowd, or to the notions of the world: Depart, I shall say, from the pagan, O heretic; even though you are all one, who fashion God. Yet while you do this in the name of Christ, while you consider yourself a Christian, you are other than the pagan: restore to him his own notions, since he is not instructed from yours either. Why do you lean upon a blind guide, if you see? Why are you clothed by one who is naked, if you have put on Christ? Why do you use another's shield, if you are armed by the apostle? Let him rather learn from you to confess the resurrection of the flesh, than you from him to deny it: because if it were also fitting for Christians to deny it, it would suffice for them to be instructed from their own knowledge, not from the ignorance of the crowd.

So much so that he will not be a Christian who shall deny what Christians confess, and shall deny it with those arguments which a non-Christian uses. Take away from heretics, in short, what they think in common with pagans; so that they may confine their questions to the Scriptures alone, and they will not be able to stand. For common notions are commended by their very simplicity, and by the sympathy of opinions, and by the familiarity of ideas; and for this reason they are considered more trustworthy, because they define things nakedly and openly and known to all.

And so heretics begin straightway from that point, and build their foundation from there; then they build further from where they know minds are easily captured, from the favorable communion of common notions. Or do you hear anything else first or more readily from a heretic than from a pagan? And is there not immediately, and everywhere, an invective against the flesh, against its origin, its matter, its fall, its every end? Unclean from the beginning from the dregs of the earth, still more unclean thereafter from the slime of its own seed, frivolous, weak, criminal, burdensome, troublesome, and after the whole catalogue of its ignobility, falling back into its origin the earth, and bearing the name of corpse, and from that name too destined to perish into no name thereafter, into the death of every designation?

Do you then wish, O wise man, to persuade one snatched away from your sight and touch and memory, that it will one day restore itself to wholeness from corruption, to solidity from emptiness, to fullness from depletion, to something at all from nothing? And especially when fires and waves, and the bellies of wild beasts, and the crops of birds, and the milts of fishes, and the very peculiar appetite of time itself, are restoring it? And will the very same be hoped for that perished, so that the lame, and the one-eyed, and the blind, and the leper, and the paralytic return, so that it would not be pleasing to have returned to the former state? Or whole, so that they may fear to suffer such things again? What then of the consequences of the flesh? Must all things be necessary to it again, and first of all food and drink, and must it swim in lungs, and seethe in intestines, and feel no shame at shameful members, and labor in all its limbs?

Again, ulcers and wounds, and fever, and gout, and death to be desired again? Doubtless these will be the prayers of one recovering the flesh, to wish to escape from it again. And we indeed set forth these things somewhat more decently out of regard for the modesty of our style. But as for how much foul speech one may experience in their assemblies, both of pagans and of heretics!

Therefore, since even all the unlearned still think from common notions, and the doubtful and simple are again disturbed through those same notions; and everywhere this first battering-ram is aimed against us, by which the condition of the flesh is shaken; necessarily also by us the condition of the flesh must first be defended. You must repel censure with praise. Thus heretics provoke us to rhetorical exercise as well, just as also to philosophical. That futile and frivolous little body, which they do not shrink from calling evil outright, even if it had been the work of angels, as Menander and Mark hold; even if it were the construction of some fiery angel, as Apelles teaches; the patronage of a second divinity would suffice for the authority of the flesh. We know angels to be after God. Now then, whoever is the supreme God of any given heretic, I would not undeservedly derive from him too the dignity of the flesh, from him by whose will the impulse to produce it was present.

For surely he would have prevented it from being made, whom he knew would be made, if he had not wished it to be made. Thus even according to them, the flesh is equally a thing of God. Nothing of his work is not his, who suffered it to exist. It is well, moreover, that the more numerous and harsher doctrines yield the entire fashioning of man to our God. How great he is, you know well enough, you who have believed him to be the only one. Let the flesh now begin to please you, whose artificer is so great. But the world also, you say, is the work of God, and yet the fashion of this world passes away, even by the authority of the Apostle: nor will the restoration of the world be prejudiced on that account, because it is the work of God. And surely if the whole is irreformable after its passing, what of the part? Plainly, if the part is equated to the whole. For we appeal to the distinction.

First indeed, because all things were made by the word of God, and without him nothing. But the flesh also was established by the word of God on account of its form, lest anything be without the word: for he said beforehand, Let us make man. And moreover, by hand, on account of its pre-eminence, lest it be compared to the whole. And God, it says, formed man. A great reason for distinction, doubtless, according to the condition of things. For the lesser things that were being made were for him for whom they were being made. Since indeed they were being made for man, to whom they were soon assigned by God. Rightly therefore, as a servant, by command and authority, and by word of power alone, all things had come forth. On the contrary, man, as their lord, was built up by God himself for this purpose, that he might be able to be lord, while he is from the Lord.

But remember that man is properly called flesh, which first claimed the name of man: And God formed man, dust from the earth. Already man, who was still dust. And he breathed into his face the breath of life; and man, that is the dust, was made into a living soul. And God placed man, whom he had formed, in paradise. So man is first a formed thing, then the whole. I would commend this point so that you may know that whatever at all has been provided and promised to man by God is owed not to the soul alone, but also to the flesh; whether not from the fellowship of the kind, at least from the privilege of the name.

I shall therefore pursue my purpose; if only I can vindicate for the flesh as much as he who made it conferred upon it, already glorying even then, that that smallness—clay in the hands of God—whatever it amounts to, attained so much, sufficiently blessed if only by the touch alone. For what if, by no further work, the formed thing had straightway been established from the touch of God? So great a matter was being transacted, by which that material was being built up. And so it is honored as many times as it endures the hand of God—while it is touched, while it is shaped, while it is drawn out, while it is fashioned. Recollect that the whole God was occupied and devoted to it—by hand, by sense, by work, by counsel, by wisdom, by providence, and above all by that very affection which was tracing its lineaments.

For whatever was being pressed out of the clay, Christ was being thought of as the man to come—because He too is clay, and the Word is flesh, as the earth was then. For thus the Father's preface to the Son: Let us make man in our image and likeness. And God made man. That which flowed forth He made in the image of God—that is, of Christ. For the Word also is God, who, being established in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God. Thus that clay, already then putting on the image of the Christ who was to come in the flesh, was not only the work of God, but also a pledge.

Why then does anyone now seek to obscure the origin of the flesh by claiming the name of earth, as of a sordid and lowly element?—when even if some other material had been fitting for the making of man, the eminence of the craftsman ought to be considered, who both by choosing it judged it worthy, and by handling it made it so. The hands of Phidias fashioned the Olympian Jupiter from ivory, and it is adored; nor is it any longer the tooth of a beast, and indeed of the most witless of beasts, but the supreme divinity of the age—not because of the elephant, but because Phidias was so great: shall the living God and the true God not have purged by His own workmanship whatever vileness of material, and healed it from all weakness? Or will it remain that man has fashioned God more honorably than God has fashioned man? Now, even if the clay is a stumbling-block, it is already another matter.

I hold flesh now, not earth: although the flesh too hears, Thou art earth, and into earth thou shalt go—the origin is reviewed, not the substance recalled. It has been granted that something may be nobler than its origin, and more blessed by transformation. For gold too is earth, because it is from the earth; yet only so far is it earth: from the moment it is gold, it is a far different material, more splendid and more noble, from a more obscure matrix. So also it was lawful for God to have refined the gold of the flesh from the, as you suppose, filth of the clay, the account being discharged.

But the authority of the flesh may seem the more diluted, because the divine hand did not handle it directly and properly, as it did the clay. When it handled the clay for this purpose, that flesh might afterwards come to be from the clay, it was certainly transacting the business of the flesh. But I would have you learn further, when and how the flesh flourished from the clay. For it is not the case, as some will have it, that those tunics of skin which Adam and Eve put on when they were stripped of paradise were themselves the reformation of flesh from clay; since somewhat earlier Adam had already recognized in the woman the offspring of his own substance as flesh: This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; and that very portion taken from the male to be supplied in the female was supplied in flesh—to be supplied in clay, I suppose, if Adam were still clay. The clay therefore was obliterated and swallowed up into flesh. When?

When man was made into a living soul, by the breath of God—a vapor, that is, suited to bake, as it were, wood into another quality; as into an earthen vessel, so into flesh. So also the potter is permitted, by the tempered breath of fire, to reconstitute clay into a more solid material, and to fashion one form from another, more suited than the former, and now of its own kind and name. For even if it is written: Shall the clay say to the potter?—that is, man to God; and even if the Apostle says, In vessels of earthenware; yet man is also clay, because he was clay before; and the flesh is an earthen vessel, because it is from clay through the vapor of the divine breath—which the tunics of skin afterwards, that is, the hides drawn over it, clothed. So much so, that if you strip off the skin, you lay bare the flesh. Thus what today is made a spoil when stripped away, was a garment when it was laid over.

Hence also the Apostle, calling circumcision a despoiling of the flesh, confirmed that the skin is a tunic. These things being so, you have both the clay glorious from the hand of God, and the flesh more glorious from the breath of God, whereby the flesh equally laid aside the rudiments of clay and received the adornments of the soul. You are not more careful than God—so that you indeed set Scythian and Indian gems, and the white pearls of the Red Sea, not in lead, not in bronze, not in iron, nor even in silver; but you mount them in the most choice and moreover most elaborate gold; and likewise with wines and the most precious unguents you first take care that the vessels be fitting; and you match the dignity of sheaths to swords of perfect temper: yet God would have entrusted the shadow of His soul, the breath of His spirit, the work of His mouth, to some most vile hilt, and by placing it unworthily would have condemned it outright?

He placed it, however—or rather inserted and mingled it—in the flesh, with so great a union indeed, that it may be uncertain whether the flesh bears the soul, or the soul bears the flesh; whether the flesh appears to the soul, or the soul appears to the flesh. But it is to be believed that the soul rather rides within and governs, as being nearer to God. This too redounds to the glory of the flesh, that it both contains what is nearest to God, and renders it partaker of its own dominion. For what use of nature, what fruit of the world, what savor of the elements, does not the soul feed upon through the flesh? And why not?—through it the soul is furnished with every instrument of sense: sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch; through it the soul is sprinkled with divine power, accomplishing nothing without speech, even when silently sent forth beforehand.

For speech too is from the organ of the flesh; arts through the flesh; studies, talents, through the flesh; works, business, duties, through the flesh: and so entirely is all the living of the soul the living of the flesh, that for the soul not to live is nothing other than to depart from the flesh: so also dying itself belongs to the flesh, whose living also belongs to it. Furthermore, if all things are subject to the soul through the flesh, they are also subject to the flesh, through which you make use of them, of necessity. Thus the flesh, while it is reckoned the minister and handmaid of the soul, is found its partner and co-heir. If of temporal things, why not also of eternal?

And these things indeed I shall have procured, as it were from the common form of the human condition, in support of the flesh. Let us now see, from the proper form also of the Christian name, how great a prerogative this substance—frivolous and sordid as it is—has with God: and whether it would suffice for it, that no soul at all can attain salvation unless, while it is in the flesh, it has believed—so truly is the flesh the hinge of salvation. For when the soul is enlisted by God, it is the flesh itself which makes it possible for the soul to be enlisted. Plainly the flesh is washed, that the soul may be cleansed; the flesh is anointed, that the soul may be consecrated; the flesh is signed, that the soul too may be fortified; the flesh is overshadowed by the laying on of hands, that the soul too may be illuminated by the Spirit; the flesh feeds on the body and blood of Christ, that the soul too may be fattened on God.

They cannot therefore be separated in their reward, whom their works join together. For even the sacrifices pleasing to God—I mean the conflicts of the soul, fasts, and late and dry meals, and the sordidness that attends upon this duty—the flesh furnishes at its own expense and inconvenience. Virginity also and widowhood, and the modest concealment of marriage in secret, and the single knowledge of it, are offered to God from the good things of the flesh.

Come now, what do you think of it, when it is brought forth into the midst for the faith of the Name, and exposed to public hatred, and contends; when it is worn down in prisons, in the most foul exile from the light, in the want of the world, in filth, in squalor, in the indignity of food; not even free in sleep, being bound even by its very beds and lacerated by the very straw; when now also in full light it is torn by every engine of torments; when finally it is spent in punishments, striving to render to Christ the return due to Him, by dying for Him, and indeed often by the same cross, not to mention also by more atrocious devices of penalties? And is not that flesh most blessed and most glorious, which is able to repay before Christ the Lord so great a debt, that it owes Him this alone—that it has ceased to owe Him; bound the more by this, that it has been absolved?

Therefore, to retrace what God built with His own hands in the image of God, what He animated from His own breath into the likeness of His own vitality, what He set over the habitation, the enjoyment, the dominion of all His own work, what He clothed with His sacraments and disciplines; whose cleanliness He loves, whose chastisements He approves, whose sufferings He values for Himself—shall this not rise again, so many times God's? Far be it, far be it, that God should abandon to eternal destruction the work of His hands, the care of His genius, the sheath of His breath, the queen of His fashioning, the heir of His liberality, the priest of His religion, the soldier of His testimony, the sister of His Christ!

We know God is good; we learn from His Christ that He alone is best; He who, commanding love—after His own, toward one's neighbor—will Himself also do what He has commanded: He will love the flesh, in so many ways near to Himself, even if weak—but virtue is perfected in weakness; even if feeble—but it is only the sick who need a physician; even if dishonorable—but upon the more dishonorable we bestow greater honor; even if lost—but I, He says, came to save what was lost; even if sinful—but I prefer, He says, the salvation of the sinner to his death; even if condemned—but I, He says, will smite and will heal. Why do you reproach the flesh with those things which await God, which hope in God, which are honored by Him, to which He comes to the aid? I would dare to say, if these things had not befallen the flesh, the goodness, the grace, the mercy, every beneficent power of God, would have stood empty.

You hold the Scriptures by which the flesh is darkened; hold also those by which it is illumined. You read when the flesh is cast down: apply your eyes also when the flesh is raised up. All flesh is grass—Isaiah did not pronounce this alone; but also: All flesh shall see the salvation of God. It is noted in Genesis that God says: My Spirit shall not remain in these men, because they are flesh; but also through Joel it is heard: I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh. Know the Apostle too not from the one pen by which he frequently pricks the flesh.

For even if he denies that any good thing dwells in his flesh; even if he affirms that those who are in the flesh cannot please God, because it lusts against the spirit; and whatever else he so sets down, that not the substance of the flesh but its acts are dishonored—we shall say elsewhere that nothing ought properly to be reproached to the flesh, except in the reproach of the soul, which subjects the flesh to its own service. But meanwhile Paul is also in those writings, when he bears the marks of Christ in his body; when he forbids our body, as the temple of God, to be defiled; when he makes our bodies members of Christ; when he admonishes us to take up and glorify God in our body. And so, if the disgraces of the flesh drive out its resurrection, why do not its dignities rather bring it in?

Since it is more fitting for God to bring back to salvation what He has sometimes rejected, than to give over to destruction what He has also at some time approved.

Thus far concerning the prerogative of the flesh against its enemies, and yet its most devoted friends. For no one lives so carnally as those who deny the resurrection of the flesh. For by denying its punishment, they also despise its discipline. Concerning these, the Paraclete speaks plainly through the prophetess Prisca: "They are flesh, and they hate the flesh." If so great an authority fortifies this saying, as much as it can plead on behalf of the merit of salvation, ought we not also to review the very power, authority, and freedom of God himself—whether he is great enough to rebuild and restore the tabernacle of the flesh that has crumbled, been devoured, and been snatched away by whatever means? And has he also published for us some examples of this his own right in the open book of nature, lest any who perhaps still do not know God should fail to know him, who is to be believed on no other terms than that he is to be believed capable of all things?

Indeed, among the Philosophers you have those who defend that this world is unborn and unmade; but far better is it that nearly all the heresies, acknowledging the world to have been born and made, ascribe creation to our God. Therefore trust that he brought forth this whole universe from nothing, and you know God, by trusting that so much lies within God's power. For some, finding it harder to believe this first, prefer to hold that the universe was dedicated by him from pre-existing matter, following the philosophers. Moreover, even if this were held to be true, since he is said to have brought forth from the reformation of matter substances far different and species far different from what the matter itself had been, I would no less maintain that he brought them forth from nothing, if he had brought forth things that had not existed at all. For what does it matter whether something is brought forth from nothing or from something, so long as what did not exist comes into being?

Since even not to have existed is to have been nothing. So also, on the contrary, to have existed is not to have been nothing. Now, even if it matters, yet both conclusions applaud my case. For whether God fashioned all things from nothing, he will also be able to produce from nothing the flesh that has been reduced to nothing. Or whether he shaped them from matter, he will also be able to call forth the flesh, however it has been consumed, from something else. And surely he who made is competent to remake; how much greater it is to have made than to have remade, to have given a beginning than to have given it back. Thus you may believe the restoration of the flesh to be easier than its original institution.

Look now also at the very examples of divine power. The day dies into night, and is buried everywhere in darkness: the glory of the world is laid in mourning; every substance is darkened; all things are foul, silent, stupefied; everywhere there is a cessation of activity. Thus the lost light is mourned; and yet again, with its splendor, with its gift, with its sun, the same light revives for the whole world, entire and whole, slaying its own death—the night—rending its own burial—the darkness—becoming its own heir, until the night too revives with its own array. For the rays of the stars are rekindled, which the advance of morning had extinguished; the absences of the constellations are restored, which the temporal division had removed; the faces of the moon are adorned again, which the monthly reckoning had worn away; winters and summers return, spring and autumn, with their own powers, customs, and fruits.

Indeed, even the earth has its discipline from heaven: to clothe the trees after their stripping, to color the flowers anew, to lay the grasses again, to bring forth the same seeds that have been consumed, and not to bring them forth until they have been consumed. A wondrous principle! From the deceiver comes the preserver: it intercepts in order to restore; it destroys in order to keep safe; it corrupts in order to make whole; it first diminishes in order even to increase. For it restores things more abundant and more cultivated than those it destroyed—truly making death a loan at interest, injury a usury, and loss a gain. To say it once: the whole of creation is subject to return. Whatever you encounter, it has been before; whatever you have lost, there is nothing that does not come again. All things return to their state when they have departed; all things begin when they have ceased; therefore they end in order to come into being; nothing perishes except unto salvation.

Therefore this whole revolving order of things is a testimony to the resurrection of the dead. God prescribed it in his works before he did so in his writings; he proclaimed it in his powers before he did so in his words. He sent nature before you as a teacher, intending afterward to send prophecy as well, so that you might more readily believe prophecy as a pupil of nature; so that you might at once admit, when you hear, what you have already everywhere seen; and might not doubt that God is also the resuscitator of the flesh, whom you know as the restorer of all things. And surely if all things rise again for man, for whom they were provided, and moreover not for man except also for the flesh, how is it that the flesh itself should perish utterly—that for whose sake and to whom nothing perishes?

If the universe figures the resurrection too faintly, if creation signifies nothing of the kind, because its individual parts are said not so much to die as to cease, and are thought not to be reanimated but reformed, receive the fullest and most firm specimen of this hope. For there is a creature of animate nature, subject to life and to death; I speak of that bird of the East, famous for its uniqueness, monstrous in respect of its posterity; who willingly performing his own funeral rites renews himself, departing and succeeding at the boundary of his birth; again the phoenix, where there was now no one; again himself, who was no longer; another yet the same. What could be more expressive and more significant for this cause? Or for what other matter could such a proof serve? God also in his Scriptures: For he shall flourish, he says, like the phoenix; that is, from death, from the grave; so that you may believe that the substance of the body can also be drawn forth from fires.

The Lord declared that we surpass many sparrows; if not also phoenixes, it is no great thing. But shall men perish once for all, while the birds of Arabia are secure in their resurrection?

Such being for the present the outlines of divine power—God having worked no less by parables than by speech—let us come also to his very edicts and decrees, in accordance with which we are chiefly ordering this division of our subject matter. For we began from the authority of the flesh, whether it is one to which salvation when dissolved is applicable; then we proceeded to the power of God, whether it is so great as to be accustomed to confer salvation upon a dissolved thing; now, if we have proved both, I would have you also inquire concerning the cause—whether there is one so worthy as to vindicate the resurrection of the flesh as necessary, and certainly in every way owed to reason—because it remains to say: even if the flesh is capable of being restored, even if the divinity is competent to restore, yet a cause of restoration must be present.

Receive therefore also the cause, you who learn from God, who is as good as he is just; good of himself, just on our account. For unless man had sinned, he would have known God as only good, from the property of his nature; but now he also experiences him as just, from the necessity of the case; yet even in this very thing good, in being also just. For by helping the good and punishing the evil, displaying justice, he renders both judgments to the good: on the one hand avenging this, on the other rewarding that. But you will learn more fully with Marcion whether this is the whole of God. Meanwhile such is our God: rightly a judge, because Lord; rightly Lord, because author; rightly author, because God.

Hence also that certain heretic, rightly not a judge, for he is not God; rightly not Lord, for he is not author; I know not whether even God, who is neither author, as God is, nor Lord, as the author is. Therefore if it is most fitting for God and Lord and author to appoint judgment upon man, concerning this very thing—whether he has taken care to acknowledge and observe his Lord and author or not—surely the resurrection will discharge that judgment. This will be the whole cause, nay the necessity of the resurrection; namely the appointment of judgment most fitting to God: from whose arrangement you may discern whether the divine censure presides over the judging of both substances of man, both soul and flesh alike. For what it is fitting should be judged, it is also fitting should be raised.

We say first that the judgment of God must be believed full and perfect, as being now the last and thenceforth perpetual: so that it is also just, since it falls short in nothing; so that it is also worthy of God, since, in proportion to his great patience, it is full and perfect: and therefore that the fullness and perfection of judgment consists in nothing less than the presentation of the whole man. Moreover, that the whole man is produced from the concretion of both substances; and therefore that he who must be judged in his entirety must be presented in both; who, unless he were whole, certainly would not have lived. As therefore he lived, so let him be judged, because he must be judged concerning that wherein he lived. For life is the cause of judgment; to be reckoned through as many substances as those through which it has also been discharged.

Come now, let our adversaries sever the bond of flesh and soul, first in the administration of life, so that they may dare to sever it also in the recompense of life. Let them deny the partnership of labors, so that they may justly deny also the reward. Let the flesh have no share in the sentence, if it had no share in the cause. Let the soul alone be recalled, if it alone departs. But it no more departs alone than it alone ran that course from which it departs: I mean this life. So far indeed is the soul from transacting life alone, that we cannot even remove thoughts—though they be only thoughts, though not brought to effect through the flesh—from the fellowship of the flesh. For what is done by the soul in the heart is done in the flesh, and with the flesh, and through the flesh.

This particular form of the flesh, the citadel of the soul, even the Lord taxes in reproach of evil thoughts: What evil things do you think in your hearts? And: Whoever has looked upon a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery in his heart. So even without deed and without effect, a thought is an act of the flesh. But even if in the brain, or in the middle of the space between the eyebrows, or wherever it pleases the philosophers to locate it, the sovereignty of the senses is established—what is called the hegemonikon—it will still be flesh, every thinking faculty of the soul. The soul is never without the flesh, so long as it is in the flesh. It does nothing without that without which it does not exist. Inquire further whether thoughts too are administered through the flesh, since they are discerned from without through the flesh. Let the soul revolve something inwardly, and the countenance performs the indication: the face is the mirror of all intentions.

Let them deny the partnership of deeds, who cannot deny that of thoughts. And they indeed enumerate the transgressions of the flesh: therefore the flesh as sinner shall be held to punishment. But we also set against this the virtues of the flesh: therefore the flesh as well-doer shall also be held to reward. And if it is the soul that acts and impels to all things, the compliance of the flesh is there; God cannot be believed either an unjust judge or a negligent one: unjust, if he excludes from rewards the partner in good works; negligent, if he separates from punishments the partner in evil ones: since human judgment is held the more perfect the more it also demands the ministers of each deed, neither sparing nor begrudging them their sharing, together with the authors, in the fruit either of punishment or of favor.

But when we distribute sovereignty to the soul and obedience to the flesh, we must take care lest they subvert even this by another argument, wishing to place the flesh in the service of the soul not as a minister, lest from this they be compelled to acknowledge it as a partner. For they will say that ministers and partners have the choice of ministering and partnering, and the power of their own will in either direction—men, that is, and those very persons; and therefore they share in the merits of those with whose authority they willingly lend their service; but the flesh, having no understanding, no sensation of its own, having no will or refusal from itself, appears rather in the role of a vessel to the soul, as an instrument, not as a ministry.

And so the judgment of the soul alone presides, as to how it has used the vessel of the flesh; but the vessel itself is not subject to sentence: because neither is a cup condemned if someone has mixed poison in it, nor is a sword sentenced to the beasts if someone has committed robbery with it. Therefore the flesh is innocent, in that respect in which its evil deeds shall not be reckoned to it; and nothing prevents it from being saved in the name of innocence. For even if good deeds are not reckoned to it, just as neither are evil ones, yet it is more fitting to divine goodness to free the innocent: for it owes benefits; and it is the mark of the best to offer even what is not owed.

And yet a cup—I do not say a poisonous one into which some death has belched, but one tainted with the breath of a sorceress, or a chief priest of Cybele, or a gladiator, or an executioner—I ask whether you condemn it any less than their very kisses? We are also accustomed to dash away one clouded by our own filth, or not mixed to our liking, so as to be the more angry with the boy; but a sword drunk with robberies—who would not banish it from the whole house, let alone from the bedroom, let alone from the service of his own head, presuming of course that he has dreamed of nothing other than the mockeries of souls urging and troubling the bedfellow of their own blood?

But indeed a cup that has a good conscience, and is commended for the care of its service, will also be adorned with the garlands of its drinker, or honored with a sprinkling of flowers; and a sword well bloodied in war, and the better for its killing, will balance its praise with consecration. There is therefore ground for passing sentence even upon vessels and instruments, so that they too may share in the merits of their masters and authors; so that I may have satisfied this argument as well, even though the diversity of things removes the parallel from the example. For every vessel or instrument comes into use from elsewhere, its material entirely foreign to the substance of man; but the flesh, sown together with the soul from the very beginning of the womb, formed together, born together with it, is also mingled with it in every action.

For even if it is called a vessel by the Apostle, who commands that it be treated with honor, yet by the same Apostle it is also called the outer man: that clay, namely, which was first inscribed with the title of man, not of a cup, or a sword, or any vessel. For it is called a vessel by reason of its capacity, in that it receives and contains the soul; but it is called man by reason of the communion of nature, which renders it not an instrument in operations, but a ministry. Thus the ministry too will be held to judgment, even if it has no understanding of its own; because it is a portion of that which understands, not a piece of furniture. Knowing this also, the Apostle, though the flesh does nothing of itself that is not attributed to the soul, nevertheless judges the flesh to be sinful, nor is it believed to be freed from judgment on the ground that it appears to be driven by the soul.

So also when he enjoins upon the flesh certain works of praise: Glorify, he says, and bear God in your body, certain that these efforts too are performed by the soul; yet he enjoins them upon the flesh as well, because he also promises it the fruit. Otherwise neither would reproach have been fitting directed at one alien to the fault, nor exhortation at one foreign to the glory: for both reproach and exhortation would be empty with regard to the flesh, if the reward also were empty—the reward that is obtained in the resurrection.

Some simpler supporter of our view will think that the flesh must also be presented at judgment for this reason: that otherwise the soul cannot receive the experience of torment or refreshment, being incorporeal—for this is the common opinion. But we both profess here that the soul is corporeal, and prove it in its own volume, as having a proper kind of substance, of solidity, through which it can both feel and suffer. For that souls are now tormented and cherished in the regions below, even though naked, even though still exiled from the flesh, the example of Lazarus has proved. I grant therefore to the adversary the opportunity to say: Therefore, that which has its own corporeity will be sufficient of itself for the capacity of suffering and sensation, so as not to need the presentation of the flesh. Nay, it will need it to this extent—not because it cannot feel anything without the flesh, but because it is necessary that it feel also together with the flesh.

For to the same degree that it suffices of itself for acting, to the same degree it suffices for suffering. But for acting it suffices less of itself. For of itself it has only the power to think, or to desire, to plan; but for the completion of a work it awaits the flesh. So likewise for suffering it demands the fellowship of the flesh; so that it may be able to suffer as fully through it as it was unable to act fully without it. And therefore in those things for which it suffices of itself, it meanwhile undergoes the sentence of them—of concupiscence, and thought, and will. But if these were sufficient for the fullness of merits, so that deeds also were not required, the soul would suffice entirely for the perfection of judgment, to be judged for those things in the doing of which it alone had sufficed.

But since deeds also are bound up with merits, and deeds are administered through the flesh, it is no longer sufficient for the soul to be cherished or tormented without the flesh, for the works also of the flesh—even if it has a body, even if it has members; which accordingly do not suffice it for feeling fully, just as they did not suffice for acting perfectly. Therefore, in proportion to the manner in which it has acted, in that proportion it also suffers in the regions below, tasting judgment first, just as it first introduced the transgression: yet awaiting the flesh as well, so that through it it may also compensate for deeds, to which it had entrusted its thoughts. Finally, this will be the rationale of the judgment appointed for the final end, that by the presentation of the flesh all divine censure may be able to be completed. Otherwise that which souls even now taste in the regions below would not be deferred to the end, if it were destined for souls alone.

Thus far I have dealt with preliminary arguments to fortify the meaning of all the Scriptures which promise the return of the flesh. Since so many authorities of just patronages procure this for it—I mean the honors of the substance itself, then the powers of God, then the examples of these, then the rationales of judgment, and its necessities—the Scriptures will certainly have to be understood according to the prejudgments of so many authorities, not according to the ingenuities of heretics, which proceed from sheer incredulity: because it is held incredible that a substance withdrawn by destruction should be restored, not because it is either beyond healing for the substance itself, or impossible for God, or unsuitable for judgment. Plainly incredible, if it had not been divinely proclaimed: except that, even if it had not been proclaimed by God, it ought to have been presumed of its own accord, as not proclaimed for that very reason, because it had been prejudged by so many authorities.

But since it also resounds in divine utterances, it is so far from being understood otherwise than those things desire by which it is persuaded even without divine utterances. Let us see therefore first under what title this hope has been set forth. One edict of God, I think, hangs before all: the resurrection of the dead. Two words—plain, decided, clear. These very words I will confront, these I will examine, to what substance they commit themselves. When I hear that resurrection impends for man, I must ask what part of him has fallen to that lot. For nothing will expect to rise again except what has previously fallen. Whoever does not know that the flesh falls through death cannot know it as standing through life. Nature pronounces the sentence of God: Dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt go. And he who has not heard it, sees it. No death is not a ruin of the members.

The Lord also expressed this fate of the body, when clothed in that very substance: Destroy, he said, this temple, and I will raise it up in three days. For he showed that what belongs to being destroyed, to being thrown down, to lying prostrate, belongs also to being raised up and resuscitated: although he also bore about a soul trembling even unto death, but not falling through death. Because the Scripture also says: He had spoken of his body. And so it is the flesh that is overthrown by death, so that from its falling it is thereafter reported as a corpse. The soul, moreover, does not even fall in name, because it does not collapse in condition. Yet it is the soul itself that brings ruin upon the body when it has breathed out; just as it is the soul itself that will raise it up from the earth when it has entered in. That which raised it up by entering cannot fall. That which cast it down by departing cannot collapse.

I will say it more precisely: the soul does not even fall into sleep together with the body, nor is it laid low even then together with the flesh. For it is active in dreams and is tossed about; but it would be at rest if it were lying down; and it would be lying down if it were falling. Thus it does not fall into the reality of death either, since it does not collapse even into the image of it. Follow now the word "of the dead" and examine upon what substance it rests: although in this matter let us grant that mortality is sometimes assigned to the soul by heretics: so that, if the soul that is mortal is to obtain resurrection, it may be a prejudgment that the flesh, no less mortal, will also share in resurrection. But now the proper meaning of the word must be vindicated to its own lot.

Already indeed, by the very fact that resurrection belongs to a thing that falls, that is, to the flesh, the same will hold also in the name of "the dead": because resurrection belongs to a thing that falls, which is called "of the dead." So also we learn through Abraham the father of faith, the man of divine intimacy. For when asking of the sons of Heth for a place to bury Sarah: Give me therefore, he said, a possession of a sepulchre among you, and I will bury my dead—meaning the flesh. For he would not have desired space for burying a soul, even if the soul were believed to be mortal, and even if it deserved to be called dead. But if the dead is the body, the resurrection will be of bodies, when it is called the resurrection of the dead.

And so this examination of the title and of the proclamation itself, defending as it certainly does the meaning of the words, ought to serve this purpose: that if the opposing party disturbs anything under the pretext of figures and enigmas, the plainer passages should prevail, and should prescribe from the certain over the uncertain. For certain persons, having seized upon the most solemn form of prophetic speech—which is for the most part allegorical and figurative, though not always—distort also the resurrection of the dead, manifestly announced, into an imaginary signification; asserting that even death itself is to be understood spiritually. For this death, they say, is not truly the one that is present among us, the separation of flesh and soul: but it is ignorance of God, through which man, dead to God, has lain no less in error than in the tomb.

And therefore that resurrection too is to be claimed, by which one, having entered upon truth and been reanimated and revivified to God, with the death of ignorance dispelled, has burst forth as it were from the tomb of the old man: because the Lord also compared the Scribes and Pharisees to whitened sepulchres. Thence therefore, those who have obtained resurrection by faith are with the Lord, since they have put him on in baptism. By this device indeed they have been accustomed often to deceive our people in conversations, as though they themselves also admit the resurrection of the flesh. Woe, they say, to him who has not risen in this flesh: lest they be struck down at once if they deny the resurrection at once. But secretly, according to their own conscience, they mean this: Woe to him who, while in the flesh, has not come to know the heretical mysteries—for that is what resurrection means among them.

But also many, claiming resurrection from the departure of the soul, interpret it as going out from the tomb, as escaping from the world: because the world too is the dwelling-place of the dead, that is, of those who are ignorant of God. Or also from the body itself, because the body too, in the manner of a tomb, keeps the soul enclosed, detaining it in the death of worldly life.

On account of conjectures of this kind, therefore, I shall drive away their first foundation, by which they wish that all the Prophets spoke through images: since if it were so, not even the images themselves could have been distinguished, had not truths also been proclaimed, from which the images might be drawn. And indeed, if all things are figures, what will that be of which they are figures? How will you hold up a mirror, if there is no face anywhere? So far indeed are all things from being images, and not also truths; so far are all things from being shadows, and not also bodies: that even concerning the Lord himself, the more notable things were proclaimed more clearly than light. For a virgin also conceived in the womb, not figuratively; and she bore Emmanuel, God with us, Jesus, not obliquely; and if obliquely that he would receive the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria, yet manifestly that he would come in judgment with the elders and rulers of the people.

For the nations also raged in the person of Pilate, and the peoples meditated vain things in the person of Israel. The kings of the earth stood by—Herod: and the rulers were gathered together as one—Annas and Caiaphas: against the Lord, and against his Christ, who also was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearer, namely Herod, without a voice, thus he opened not his mouth, giving his back to stripes, and his cheeks to blows, and turning not his face from the hurling of spittings; reckoned also among the wicked; his hands and feet pierced; subjected to the casting of lots upon his garment, and to bitter drinks, and to the nodding of mocking heads; priced at thirty pieces of silver by the betrayer. What figures are here in Isaiah? What images in David? What enigmas in Jeremiah, who did not even speak his mighty works through parables? Or were the eyes of the blind not opened, and did the tongue of the mute not ring out?

Did the withered hands and loosened knees not recover strength, and did the lame not leap like a deer? Which things, even if we ourselves are also accustomed to interpret spiritually, according to the comparison of animal vices remedied by the Lord; yet since they were also fulfilled carnally, they show that the prophets proclaimed in both modes; with this preserved, that the greater number of their utterances, bare and simple, and pure from every cloud of allegory, can be defended: as when the departures of nations and cities resound—of Tyre, and Egypt, and Babylon, and Idumaea, and the ships of the Carthaginians; as when they discourse at length upon the plagues or pardons, captivities, restorations, and the final outcome of the dispersion of Israel itself. Who will interpret these things rather than recognize them? The matters are held in the letters, as the letters are read in the matters. Thus the prophetic style of speech is not always, nor in all things, allegorical in form, but sometimes and in certain things.

If therefore sometimes and in certain things, you say, why should not the proclamation of the resurrection also be understood spiritually? Because indeed very great reason intervenes. For first, what will so many and other divine instruments do, attesting the bodily resurrection so openly as to admit no suspicion of figurative meaning? And surely it is fair, as we also demanded above, that uncertain things be prejudged by certain things, and obscure things by manifest things: lest amid the discord of certain and uncertain, manifest and obscure things, faith be scattered, truth endangered, and the divine nature itself be noted as inconsistent: then because it is not plausible that that kind of mystery, into which all faith is committed, upon which all discipline leans, should appear to have been announced ambiguously and set forth obscurely; since the hope of resurrection, unless made manifest concerning danger and reward, would persuade no one to a religion of this kind, especially one subject to public hatred and hostile condemnation. No work is certain of uncertain reward. No fear is just of doubtful danger.

And both reward and danger hang upon the outcome of the resurrection. But even if temporal, local, and personal decrees and judgments of God upon cities, nations, and kings were hurled so openly by prophecy, what manner of thing is it that his eternal and universal dispositions for the whole race of men should have fled the light? Which things, the greater they are, the clearer they ought to be, so that they might be believed as greater. And I think that neither envy, nor deceit, nor inconstancy, nor flattery can be ascribed to God, by which the promulgation of greater things is commonly evaded.

After these things, attention must also be given to those Scriptures which do not permit the resurrection to be presumed, according to those animal persons—not to say spiritual—either here already in the acknowledgment of truth, or to be claimed immediately upon departure from life. For since both the times of the whole hope are fixed by the most sacred pen, and it is not permitted for it to be established before the coming, I think, of Christ, our desires sigh for the passing of this age, for the transition of the world also to the great day of the Lord, the day of wrath and retribution, the last and hidden day, known to none but the Father, and yet foremarked by signs and portents, and shakings of the elements, and conflicts of nations. I would unfold the prophecies, if the Lord himself had been silent: except that the voice of the prophecies was also the Lord's: but it is more, that he confirms them with his own mouth.

When asked by the disciples when those things would come to pass which had meanwhile burst forth concerning the departure of the temple, he directs the order of times—first of Jewish times up to the destruction of Jerusalem, then of common times up to the close of the age. For after he declared: And then Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the nations, until the times of the nations are fulfilled—those nations, namely, to be summoned by God and gathered together with the remnants of Israel—thence he now proclaims to the world and to the age, according to Joel, and Daniel, and the whole council of the prophets, signs to come in the sun and in the moon and in the stars, the closing in of nations with stupor; the roaring of the sea, and the fainting of men growing cold, for fear and expectation of those things which threaten the world.

For the powers, he says, of the heavens shall be shaken: and then they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory. But when these things shall begin to come to pass, rise up, and lift up your heads, because your redemption has drawn near. And yet he said it draws near, not that it is already present; and when these things shall begin to come to pass, not when they shall have come to pass; because when they shall have come to pass, then our redemption will be present, which until then is said to draw near, meanwhile raising and rousing souls toward the fruit of hope now close at hand. To which also the parable of trees growing tender into the stalk of the flower, and then the flower, forerunner of the fruit, is subjoined: So also when you shall see all these things come to pass, know that the kingdom of God is near.

Watch therefore at all times, that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things, and to stand before the Son of man: assuredly through the resurrection, all things having been accomplished beforehand. Thus, even if it buds in the acknowledgment of the mystery, yet it flowers and bears fruit in the manifestation of the Lord. Who then has so unseasonably, so harshly roused the Lord already to the right hand of God, to crush the earth according to Isaiah, which I think is still intact? Who has already subjected the enemies of Christ to his feet, according to David, as though swifter than the Father, while every assembly of his people still cries out, Christians to the lion? Who has beheld Jesus descending from heaven in such form as the Apostles had seen him ascending, according to the constitution of the angels?

To this day no tribe has beaten its breast tribe by tribe, recognizing him whom they pierced: no one has yet received Elijah: no one has yet fled the antichrist: no one has yet wept over the destruction of Babylon. And is there already one who has risen again, unless he be a heretic? He has indeed already gone forth from the tomb of the body, even now subject to fevers and ulcers; and has already trodden down his enemies, even now having to wrestle with the powers of the world. And surely he already reigns, even now owing to Caesar the things that are Caesar's.

The Apostle indeed teaches, writing to the Colossians, that we were once dead, alienated and enemies in understanding to the Lord, when we were engaged in the worst works; then, buried together with Christ in baptism, and raised together with him in it through faith in the efficacy of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, when you were dead in your offenses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all offenses. And again: If you have died with Christ from the elements of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you pass judgment? But when he thus makes us dead spiritually, yet acknowledges that we shall also die bodily at some time, surely also reckoning us as raised spiritually in like manner, he equally does not deny that we shall also rise bodily.

Finally: If you have risen, he says, with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God: set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are below. Thus he shows that we rise in mind, by which alone we can as yet attain heavenly things; which we would not seek, nor set our minds on, if we already possessed them. He also adds: For you are dead—namely to offenses, not to yourselves; and your life is hidden with Christ in God. It has not yet therefore been laid hold of, which is hidden. So also John says: And it has not yet been made manifest what we shall be. We know that if he shall have manifested it, we shall be like him. So far is it from being the case that we are already what we do not know: surely we would know, if we already were.

Thus the contemplation of hope in this interval is through faith, not a manifestation, nor a possession, but an expectation. Concerning which hope and expectation Paul writes to the Galatians: For we through the Spirit await by faith the hope of righteousness: he does not say, we hold it. But he speaks of the righteousness of God, from the judgment by which we shall be judged concerning our reward. Hanging upon which also himself, when he writes to the Philippians: If somehow, he says, I may attain to the resurrection which is from the dead: not because I have already received it, or am already perfected. And surely he had believed, and had come to know all the mysteries, a vessel of election, a teacher of the nations; and yet he adds: But I press on if I may apprehend that in which I have been apprehended by Christ. Even more: I, brethren, do not reckon myself to have apprehended.

One thing plainly: forgetting the things behind, stretching myself toward the things before, I press on according to the mark toward the palm of the calling, through which I would attain: assuredly to the resurrection from the dead; yet in its own time, as to the Galatians: But in doing good let us not grow weary: for in its own time we shall reap. As also to Timothy concerning Onesiphorus: May the Lord grant him to find mercy in that day. For which day and time, he also commands him to keep the commandment unspotted, blameless, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which in his own times the blessed and only Potentate will show, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; speaking of God.

Concerning which times also Peter in the Acts: Repent therefore, and be converted, for the blotting out of your sins, that times of refreshing may come upon you from the presence of God, and that he may send the Christ foreordained for you; whom the heavens must receive, until the times of the restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of his holy prophets.

Learn what these times are from the Thessalonians. For we read: How ye were converted from idols, to serve the living and true God, and to await from heaven His Son, whom He raised from the dead, Jesus. And again: For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of exultation, but even ye before our Lord Jesus Christ, at His coming? Likewise: Before God and our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, with all His saints. Teaching that their falling asleep is to be mourned less, he at the same time sets forth the times of the resurrection, saying: For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again; so also God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep through Jesus. For this we say to you in the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who remain unto the coming of our Lord, shall not go before those who have fallen asleep.

Because the Lord Himself, at a command and at the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God, shall descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we who are alive, who together with them shall be caught up in the clouds to meet Christ in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. What voice of the archangel, what trumpet of God has been heard already? Unless perhaps in the chambers of the heretics. For even if the trumpet of God can be called the evangelical word, which would already call those men; yet either they will already be dead bodily, so that they might rise again; and how do they live? Or they have been caught up into the clouds; and how are they here? Truly most wretched, as the Apostle pronounced, who, having hope only in this life, shall be excluded, while they snatch beforehand what is promised after it; frustrated concerning the truth, no less than Phygelus and Hermogenes.

And therefore the majesty of the Holy Spirit, perspicacious in discernments of this kind, suggests even in that very Epistle to the Thessalonians: But concerning the times and the spaces of times, brethren, there is no necessity of writing to you: for ye yourselves know most certainly that the day of the Lord shall come as a thief in the night. When they shall say, peace, and all things are safe, then sudden destruction shall press upon them. And in the second, with fuller solicitude, from the same: But I beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together unto Him, that ye be not quickly moved in mind, nor be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, that is of false prophets, nor by letter, that is of false apostles, as if through ours, as though the day of the Lord were at hand.

Let no man seduce you in any way: because unless the falling away come first, of this kingdom to be sure, and the man of transgression be revealed, that is the Antichrist, the son of perdition, who opposeth and is lifted up above all that is called God, or religion; so that he sitteth in the temple of God, affirming himself to be God. Do ye not remember that when I was with you, I told you these things? And now what restraineth ye know, unto his being revealed in his own time. For the mystery of iniquity is already at work; only he who now holdeth, let him hold, until he be taken out of the way. Who is this, if not the Roman state? Whose removal, dispersed into ten kings, shall bring in the Antichrist.

And then shall the wicked one be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the breath of His mouth, and shall destroy by the appearance of His coming; whose coming is according to the working of Satan in all power and signs and lying wonders, and in all seduction of unrighteousness for those who perish.

Also in the Apocalypse of John, the order of the times is laid out, which even the souls of the martyrs beneath the altar, demanding vengeance and judgment, have learned to endure; so that first the world may drink its plagues from the bowls of the angels, and that harlot city may receive its worthy end from the ten kings, and the beast Antichrist with his false prophet may bring conflict upon the Church of God, and so, with the devil meanwhile consigned to the abyss, the prerogative of the first resurrection may be ordered from thrones, and thereafter, with fire also given, the reckoning of the universal resurrection may be judged from the books.

Since, therefore, the Scriptures mark out the state of the last times, and place the whole fruit of Christian hope at the departure of the age; it is apparent either that then everything whatsoever is promised to us by God is fulfilled, and what is here already claimed by the heretics is empty; or if even the recognition of the mystery is a resurrection, that resurrection which is proclaimed at the last is certainly preserved safe; and it follows that by the very fact whereby this spiritual one is vindicated, that bodily one is prejudged: because if none were then proclaimed, rightly would this one alone, and only the spiritual, be vindicated; but since it is also declared for the last time, it is recognized as bodily, because a spiritual resurrection is not also proclaimed at that time. For why would a resurrection of the same condition, that is, spiritual, be proclaimed again; since either it would be fitting to cancel it now without any difference of times, or then under every closing clause of the times.

Thus it is more fitting for us also to defend the spiritual resurrection from the entrance of faith, we who acknowledge its fullness to be the departure of the age.

I will make one further reply to the earlier proposition concerning allegorical scriptures: that it is lawful for us also to vindicate the bodily resurrection from the patronage of the figurative prophetic utterance in like manner. For behold, the divine sentence at the beginning, pronouncing man to be earth, Thou art earth, and into earth thou shalt go, according to the substance of the flesh, which had been taken from the earth, and which had first been called man, as we have shown, gives me the principle of interpreting also in terms of flesh whatever God has decreed of wrath or grace toward the earth; because the earth itself is not properly subject to His judgment, which has committed nothing good or evil: cursed indeed, which drank up blood; but even this itself as a figure of the murderous flesh.

For even if the earth has the capacity to be helped or harmed, that too is on account of man, that he may be helped or harmed through the outcomes of his dwelling-place; whereby he himself will the more weigh what the earth also suffers on his account. And so when God threatens the earth, I shall say He threatens the flesh rather; and when He promises something to the earth, I shall understand Him to promise it to the flesh rather. As in David: The Lord hath reigned, let the earth rejoice, that is, the flesh of the saints, to which the fruit of the divine kingdom belongs. Then he adds: It saw, and the earth was shaken; the mountains were melted like wax before the face of the Lord; the flesh, that is, of the profane: and: For they shall look upon Him whom they pierced.

And indeed if both utterances are taken simply as spoken of the element earth, how will it be fitting that it both be shaken and melted before the face of the Lord, over whose reign above it rejoiced? So also in Isaiah: Ye shall eat the good things of the earth; we shall understand the good things of the flesh, which await it in the kingdom of God, reformed and made angelic, and about to obtain what eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man. Otherwise it is quite vain that God should invite to obedience with the fruits of the field and the provisions of this life, which He communicates even to the religious and the blasphemous alike, once assigned to man by condition; raining upon the good and the evil, and sending His sun upon the just and the unjust.

A blessed faith indeed, if it is to obtain those things which the enemies of God and Christ not only use but even abuse, worshipping the creation itself against the Creator. Thou wilt count bulbs and tubers among the good things of the earth, when the Lord declares that man shall not live by bread alone. Thus the Jews, hoping only for earthly things, lose the heavenly, not knowing that bread also is promised from heaven, and the oil of divine anointing, and the water of the Spirit, and the wine of the soul made vigorous from the vine of Christ. Just as also the holy land itself, properly the Jewish soil, they reckon should rather be interpreted as the flesh of the Lord, which thence also in all who have put on Christ is holy land: truly holy through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit; truly flowing with milk and honey, through the sweetness of hope itself; truly Judaea, through familiarity with God: for he is not a Jew who is one outwardly; but he who is one inwardly.

So that the same is also the temple of God, and Jerusalem, hearing from Isaiah: Arise, arise, Jerusalem, put on the strength of thine arm; arise as in the beginning of the day; that is, in that integrity which had existed before the fault of transgression. For what voices of such exhortation and appeal would be fitting for that Jerusalem, which slew the prophets, and stoned those sent to her, and at last pierced her own Lord? But neither is salvation promised to any earthly element at all, which would have to pass away together with the whole fashion of the world. Also, if anyone shall dare to argue that the holy land is rather paradise, which he may also take as being called that of the fathers, namely of Adam and Eve: likewise also the restoration to paradise will seem to be promised to the flesh, which was allotted to inhabit and keep it, so that man may be recalled thither such as he was when driven thence.

We have also the mention of garments in the Scriptures to allegorize toward the hope of the flesh, because also the Apocalypse of John: These are they, it says, who have not defiled their garments with women; signifying virgins, that is, and those who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven. And so they shall be in white garments, that is, in the brightness of unwedded flesh. And in the Gospel, the wedding garment can be recognized as the holiness of the flesh. And so Isaiah, teaching what fast the Lord has chosen, when he adds concerning the reward of goodness: Then, he says, thy light shall break forth in due season, and thy garments shall rise more quickly: meaning not silk nor a cloak, but wishing flesh to be understood, he proclaimed the rising of the flesh that shall rise again from the setting of death. Thus we too have at hand an allegorical defence of the bodily resurrection.

For also when we read: My people, enter into your storerooms for a little while, until my wrath pass away, the storerooms will be the tombs, in which those who shall have departed at the end of the age, under the last wrath, through the violence of Antichrist, shall have to rest for a little while. Or why did he use the term of storerooms rather than some other word for a place of reception, unless because in storerooms flesh is salted and stored for use, to be brought out thence at its proper time? In like manner also bodies embalmed with the spices of burial are laid away in mausoleums and monuments, to go forth thence when the Lord shall command. Since it is fitting that this be so understood; for what refuges of cellars will preserve us from the wrath of God?

By this very fact that he says, until the wrath pass away, which shall destroy Antichrist, he shows that after the wrath the flesh shall come forth from the tomb, in which it shall have been placed before the wrath. For from storerooms nothing else is brought out than what is put in; and after the uprooting of Antichrist the resurrection shall take place.

We know moreover that, just as by words, so also by the deeds of the prophets, both depicted and enacted, the resurrection is proclaimed. When Moses hides his hand in his bosom, and brings it forth dead, and puts it back again, and draws it out alive, does he not portend this concerning the whole man? For indeed the threefold power of God was denoted by those three signs with its own order: first about to subdue the serpent devil, though formidable, to man; then about to draw back the flesh from the bosom of death, and so about to exact all blood in judgment. Concerning which, in the same prophet: For even your blood, says God, I will require from all beasts, and from the hand of man, and from the hand of his brother I will require it. Now nothing is required unless it is demanded back; nothing is demanded back unless it will also be returned. And certainly that will be returned which shall be demanded back and required in the name of vengeance.

Nor indeed could that be avenged which shall not have existed at all. But it will exist when it is restored, so that it may be avenged. To the flesh therefore is directed whatever is proclaimed against the blood, without which there will be no blood. The flesh shall be raised up, so that the blood may be avenged. There are also certain things so pronounced that they lack the obscurity of allegory, yet nonetheless thirst for an interpretation of their very plainness: such as that in Isaiah, I will kill, and I will make alive. Certainly after He shall have killed, He will make alive. Therefore by death He kills, by resurrection He will make alive. But it is the flesh which is killed through death; the flesh therefore also shall be made alive through resurrection.

Certainly, if to kill is to snatch the soul from the flesh, to make alive, the contrary of this, is to restore the soul to the flesh; the flesh must needs rise again, to which the soul, snatched away by killing, is to be restored by making alive.

Therefore, if both allegorical scriptures, and arguments from things, and plain words, shed light upon the resurrection of the flesh, even without naming the substance itself; how much more shall those passages which determine this matter in the very corporeal substances by specific mention not be drawn into question! Receive Ezekiel: And the hand of the Lord, he says, came upon me, and the Lord carried me out in the spirit, and set me in the midst of a plain: it was full of bones, and he led me around over them on every side; and behold they were very many upon the face of the plain, and behold they were very dry. And he said to me: Son of man, shall these bones live? And I said: Lord God, thou knowest. And he said to me: Prophesy over 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 will bring spirit upon you, and ye shall live, and I will give spirit into you, and I will bring flesh back upon you, and I will cover you with skin, and I will give spirit in you, and ye shall live, and ye shall know that I am the Lord. And I prophesied according to the commandment, and behold a sound as I prophesied, and behold a movement, and the bones came together bone to bone. And I looked, and behold upon the bones sinews, and flesh came up, and skins were stretched over them, and there was no spirit in them. And he said to me: Prophesy to the spirit, son of man; prophesy, and say to the spirit: Thus saith the Lord God: Come, O spirit, from the four winds, and breathe upon these slain, and let them live.

And I prophesied to the spirit, as he had commanded me, and the spirit entered into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceeding great host. And he said to me: Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say: Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost, we are cut off. Therefore prophesy unto them: Behold I will open your graves, and will bring you up out of your graves, O my people; and I will bring you into the land of Israel; and ye shall know that I the Lord have opened your graves, and have brought you up out of your graves, O my people; and I will give my spirit unto you, and ye shall live, and ye shall rest in your own land, and ye shall know that I the Lord have spoken and have done it, saith the Lord.

I know also in what manner they shake this prophecy into an argument of allegory, because by saying, These bones are the whole house of Israel, he made it an image of Israel and transferred it by its own condition; and so the proclamation of resurrection is figurative, not real. For the state of the Jews is portrayed as in some manner dead and dried up and scattered upon the plain of the world. And so the image of resurrection is allegorized with reference to them, because they must be gathered together and refitted bone to bone, that is, tribe to tribe, and people to people, and re-embodied with the flesh of their resources and the sinews of their kingdom; and thus be led out from the grave, that is, from the most gloomy and foul dwellings of captivity, and breathe again under the name of refreshment, and live thenceforth in their own land of Judaea. And what after this? They will die without doubt. And what after death?

No resurrection, O death, if this shall not be the very one which is revealed to Ezekiel. But indeed resurrection is also proclaimed elsewhere: therefore this one also shall be, and they vainly turn it into a reference to the state of Jewish affairs. Or if that resurrection which we defend is a different one, it is nothing to me, provided there be also a resurrection of bodies, just as there is one of Jewish affairs. Finally, by this very fact that the revival of the Jewish state is figured by the re-embodying and re-animating of bones, it is proved that the same shall also come to pass for bones. For a figure could not be composed from bones, if that very thing were not also going to happen to bones. For even if a fiction of truth exists in an image, the image itself exists in the truth of its own reality; that must first exist from which something else is configured: a likeness does not fit from emptiness; a parable does not suit from nothing.

Thus it will be necessary to believe also in the re-enfleshing and re-breathing of bones such as is described, from which the reformation of Jewish affairs such as is depicted can be expressed. But it is more reverent to defend the truth in the simplicity of its own authority, as the sense of the divine proposition demands. For if this vision looked to Jewish affairs, he would have immediately, upon the situation of the bones being revealed, added: These bones are the whole house of Israel; and the rest in order. But since, when the bones have been shown, he speaks of their own hope before Israel is yet named, and tests the faith of the prophet: Son of man, shall these bones live? So that he too might answer: Lord, thou knowest; God would certainly not have tested the prophet's faith concerning a thing that was not going to happen, which Israel had never heard, which ought not to be believed.

But because the resurrection of the dead was indeed being proclaimed, yet Israel, dissenting in its own unbelief, was scandalized; and looking upon the aspect of an aging burial, despaired of resurrection; or rather directed its mind not toward it, but toward its own present circumstances; for this reason God both fortified the prophet, as though he himself were also doubtful, toward constancy in proclamation, by revealing the order of resurrection; and commanded the people to believe what he had revealed to the prophet, saying that they themselves were the bones that were going to rise, who did not believe they would rise. Finally in the closing words: and ye shall know, he says, that I the Lord have spoken and have done it; about to do, that is, what he had spoken; but not about to do what he had spoken, if he were going to do it otherwise.

Plainly if the people were also allegorically murmuring about their bones dried up, and lamenting their hope lost through the outcome of dispersion, it might rightly seem that God also consoled a figurative despair with a figurative promise. But since the injury of dispersion had not yet befallen the people, whereas the hope of resurrection had very often failed among them, and it is manifest that he is undermining confidence in resurrection by speaking of the destruction of bodies: so also God was rebuilding that faith which the people were destroying. Although even if Israel was then grieving under some conflict of present troubles, the intent of the revelation was not on that account to be taken as a parable, but as a testimony to resurrection, so as to raise them to that hope of eternal salvation, that is, and of a more necessary restoration, and to turn them away from regard for present things.

To this end also other prophets speak: Ye shall go forth from the graves, like calves loosed from their bonds, and shall tread down your enemies. And again: Your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall spring up like grass, because grass too is reformed from the dissolution and corruption of a seed. In sum, if the image of rising bones is specifically pressed into reference to the state of Israel, why is the same hope of re-embodying and re-animating of remains, and of raising the dead from their graves, announced not to Israel alone but to all nations? For it is said of all: The dead shall live, and shall rise from their graves: for the dew which is from thee is their healing for their bones. Likewise elsewhere: All flesh shall come to worship before me, saith the Lord. When? When the fashion of this present world shall have begun to pass away.

For above: As the new heaven and the new earth which I make shall stand before me, saith the Lord; so shall your seed stand. Then therefore what he subjoins shall be fulfilled: and they shall go forth (out of their graves, that is), and shall see the limbs of those who have acted impiously, for their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be a spectacle to all flesh; namely to that flesh which, raised up and gone forth from the graves, shall worship the Lord for this grace.

But lest the resurrection should seem to be proclaimed only of those bodies which are committed to graves, thou hast it written: And I will command the fishes of the sea, and they shall cast up the bones that have been eaten, and I will make joint to joint, and bone to bone. Therefore, thou sayest, the fishes also shall be raised, and the other flesh-eating beasts and birds, that they may vomit up those whom they have devoured: since thou readest also in Moses that blood is required from all beasts? Not so at all. But beasts and fishes are named for the purpose of restoring flesh and blood, so that the resurrection even of devoured bodies may be the more expressly set forth, when a reckoning is decreed from the very devourers themselves. I think moreover that Jonah is a fitting proof of this divine power as well, since he is brought forth incorrupt in both substances, flesh and soul, from the belly of the fish.

And certainly the entrails of the whale over three days would have sufficed to digest the flesh, just as a coffin, just as a tomb, just as the decay of some body laid to rest and stored away in burial: saving the fact that he also figured wild beasts, men most savage against the Christian name especially, or even the very angels of iniquity, from whom blood shall be required through a vengeance to be exacted. Who therefore, being more inclined to learn than to presume, more diligent in believing than in contending, more devoted to divine wisdom than enamored of his own, when he hears something appointed by God for flesh, and skins, and sinews, and bones, will interpret these as something other, as though what is proclaimed for those substances were not appointed for man?

For either nothing is appointed for man—not the generosity of the kingdom, not the severity of judgment, not whatever belongs to resurrection—or if it is appointed for man, it must necessarily be appointed for those substances out of which man is built, for whom it is appointed. I also ask of those most clever transformers of bones, and flesh, and sinews, and graves, why it is that whenever something is pronounced concerning the soul, they interpret it as nothing other than the soul, nor transfigure it into an argument for something else; but when something is declared concerning some corporeal species, they assert everything rather than what is indicated. Is threatened? If corporeal things are parables, then so also are things pertaining to the soul; if not also things pertaining to the soul, then neither are corporeal things. For man is as much body as he is also soul, so that one species cannot admit enigmas while the other excludes them.

Enough of this from the prophetic instrument: I now appeal to the Gospels. Here too I must first meet that same cunning of theirs, who likewise contend that the Lord also pronounced all things in parables, because it is written: All these things Jesus spoke in parables, and without a parable he did not speak to them, namely the Jews. For the disciples also say: Why speakest thou to them in parables? And the Lord: Therefore I speak to them in parables, that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not hear, according to Isaiah. But if in parables to the Jews, then not to all; if not in parables to all, then not always, nor are all things parables; but some things, when to some persons; to some persons, however, while to the Jews, and sometimes plainly also to the disciples.

But consider how Scripture reports it: And he spoke also a parable to them; therefore he also spoke what was not a parable, because it would not be noted when he spoke a parable, if he always spoke thus. And yet thou wilt find no parable that is not either expounded by himself, as that of the sower in the administration of the word; or illuminated beforehand by the commentator of the Gospel, as that of the unjust judge and the widow pressing on to perseverance in prayer; or to be conjectured of itself, as that of the fig tree given a further delay of hope, after the manner of Jewish unfruitfulness. But if not even parables obscure the light of the Gospel, how much less do declarations and definitions, whose nature is open, mean anything other than they sound.

Now by definitions and declarations the Lord draws out either judgment, or the kingdom of God, or resurrection: It shall be more tolerable, he says, for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment; and: Say to them that the kingdom of God is at hand; and: It shall be repaid to thee in the resurrection of the just. If the names are absolute designations of things, that is, of judgment, and of the kingdom of God, and of resurrection, so that none of them can be compressed into a parable; neither let those things be forced into parables which are proclaimed concerning the arrangement, and transaction, and administration of the kingdom, judgment, and resurrection; and so let corporeal things be defended as destined for corporeal things, that is, not spiritual, because not figurative.

For to this end also we established beforehand that the body of the soul, no less than that of the flesh, is subject to the rewards to be weighed for their common operation, lest the corporeality of the soul, by furnishing occasion for figures, should exclude the corporeality of the flesh; since both must be believed to be partakers of the kingdom, and of judgment, and of resurrection. And now we proceed to this end, that we may demonstrate the corporeality of the flesh to be specifically signified by the Lord in every mention of resurrection, with the soul's corporeality preserved, which even that few have accepted.

First of all, when he says he came for this purpose, to save what was lost, what do you say was lost? A human being, without doubt. The whole, or in part? The whole entirely: since the transgression, which is the cause of human perdition, having been committed both by the impulse of the soul through concupiscence and by the act of the flesh through tasting, inscribed the whole human being with the sentence of transgression, and from that point filled him with the desert of perdition. Therefore he who perished wholly by sinning shall be saved wholly: unless indeed that sheep too is lost without a body, and recalled without a body. For if its very body along with its soul (which together make the whole animal) is carried on the shoulders of the good shepherd, there is in both substances alike an example of the human being to be restored. Or how unworthy of God, to bring back only half a human being to salvation?

To do almost less than is always claimed even for the full pardons of earthly rulers. The devil is understood to be stronger in his injury to man, casting him down entirely; God will be declared weaker, not raising him up entirely? And yet the Apostle also suggests that where sin abounded, there grace superabounded. How, finally, shall he be held saved who could also be called lost—lost, that is, in the flesh, but saved in the soul—unless it is also necessary that the soul be placed in the condition of the lost, so that it may be made saved? For that which shall have been lost must be made saved. Moreover, we receive the immortality of the soul, so that when lost it is not believed to perish into destruction, but into punishment, that is, into gehenna. And if this is so, salvation will no longer have regard to the soul—which is safe by its own nature through immortality—but rather to the flesh, which is agreed by all to be perishable.

Or if the soul too is perishable, that is, not immortal, as is also the flesh; then that same principle ought equally to benefit the flesh, likewise mortal and perishable; because what perishes, the Lord will make saved. I do not wish now to draw out the argument contentiously, as to which substance the perdition of man demands, since salvation destines him to both, equally distributed between both substances. For behold: from whichever substance you shall have assumed man to have perished, from the other he does not perish. He will therefore already be saved from that in which he does not perish, and he will nonetheless be made saved from that in which he does perish. You have the restoration of the whole human being: since both whatever part of him perishes, the Lord will make saved; and whatever does not perish, he will assuredly not cause to perish. Who henceforth will doubt the security of both substances, when the one has obtained salvation, and the other, though lost, has not been without it?

And yet the Lord expresses the meaning of the matter still further, saying: I came not to do my own will, but the will of the Father who sent me. Which will, I ask you? That of all that he has given me, I should lose nothing of it, but raise it up on the last day. What had Christ received from the Father, except what he had also put on? A human being, without doubt—the fabric of flesh and soul. He will therefore suffer neither of the things he received to perish; nay, not even anything of either; nay, not even a little. But if the flesh is a little thing, then not even the flesh, because not even a little; not anything, because not anything. But if he will not also raise up the flesh on the last day, then he will suffer not a little of man to perish, but—so great a part, I might say—nearly the whole.

Adding further: This is the will of the Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day; he builds up the fullness of the resurrection: for he distributes to each substance its own reward of salvation according to its proper functions—to the flesh, through which the Son was seen, and to the soul, through which he was believed. Therefore, you will say, the promise will belong to those from whom the hope flowed thence. For if to those who saw, and therefore believed, the works of flesh and soul were then fruitful, much more to us. For more blessed, he says, are those who have not seen and yet believe; since even if the resurrection of the flesh were denied to those others, it would certainly have been fitting for those who are more blessed. For how are they blessed, if they are to perish in part?

But he also commands that he rather is to be feared who kills both body and soul in gehenna, that is, the Lord alone; not those who kill the body but can do nothing to harm the soul, that is, human powers. So here also the immortal nature of the soul is acknowledged, which cannot be killed by men; and the mortality of the flesh is acknowledged, of which there is a killing; and thus also the resurrection of the dead belongs to the flesh, which, unless raised up, cannot be killed in gehenna. But since here too a dispute is raised about the interpretation of the word "body," I shall understand the body of a human being as nothing other than the whole structure of flesh, however it is put together and varied by whatever kinds of materials—that which is seen, that which is touched, that which is finally killed by human beings. So too I shall admit the body of a wall to be nothing other than the mortar, the stones, the bricks.

If anyone introduces some secret body, let him show it, reveal it, prove that it is also what is killed by a human being, and the saying will be about that. Likewise if a body is set in opposition to the soul, the subtlety will be empty. For since both are proposed—body and soul—to be killed in gehenna, the body is distinguished from the soul, and it is left to be understood that the body is what is at hand; namely the flesh, which, just as it will be killed in gehenna if it has not rather feared to be killed by God, so also will be quickened into eternal life if it has preferred to be killed by human beings.

Accordingly, if anyone seizes upon the killing of flesh and soul in gehenna as meaning the destruction and end of both substances—not as punishment, as though they were to be consumed, not as though they were to be punished—let him remember that the fire of gehenna is proclaimed to be eternal for eternal punishment, and from this let him acknowledge the eternity of the killing, and therefore that it is to be feared more than the human, as being temporal. Then also he will believe in eternal substances, whose killing unto punishment is eternal. Certainly, since after the resurrection the body together with the soul is to be killed by God in gehenna, both points will be sufficiently established: both the resurrection of the flesh, and the eternal killing. It would be most absurd, otherwise, if the flesh were raised up and then killed in gehenna in order to be ended—which it would have suffered even without being raised up.

It will be restored, forsooth, so that it may cease to be, when ceasing to be has already befallen it. Supporting us in the same hope, he also adds the example of the sparrows, that not one of two falls to the ground without the will of God: so that you may likewise believe that the flesh, which has fallen to the ground, can also rise again through the will of that same God. For even if this is not granted to sparrows, yet we surpass many sparrows in this, that when we fall we rise again. Finally, affirming that all the hairs of the head are numbered, he assuredly promises that they will be kept safe. For what reason would have reckoned into a number things that were going to perish, unless it is because this is what it means: that of all that the Father has given me, I should lose nothing of it—not even a hair, just as not an eye, nor a tooth?

Otherwise, whence will there be weeping and gnashing of teeth in gehenna, unless from eyes and teeth?—the body having been killed and cast into gehenna, and thrust into the outer darkness, which are the torments proper to eyes, if anyone at the wedding feast has been clothed with works insufficiently worthy, and is straightway to be bound hand and foot, as one who has risen with his body. So therefore also the reclining at table in the kingdom of God, and the sitting on the thrones of Christ, and the standing then at the right or left hand, and the eating from the tree of life, are most faithful indications of a bodily arrangement.

Let us now see whether, in confounding the cunning of the Sadducees also, he has rather confirmed our position. The occasion of the question, I think, was the destruction of the resurrection. For the Sadducees admit the salvation neither of the soul nor of the flesh: and therefore from that aspect of the resurrection by which faith in it is most shaken, they adapted an argument for their problem: namely, under the pretext of the flesh—whether it would marry or not after the resurrection—under the person of that woman who, having been married to seven brothers, was held in doubt as to which of them she would be restored. Now, if the meaning of both the question and the answer is preserved, the controversy is met.

For if the Sadducees indeed rejected the resurrection, but the Lord confirmed it, and rebuked them as ignorant of the Scriptures—namely those which had proclaimed the resurrection—and as unbelieving in the power of God, which is adequate to raise the dead, and finally added: But that the dead rise—without doubt also confirming what was denied; that is, the resurrection of the dead before the God of the living—he was also confirming it to be of such a kind as was denied, namely of both substances of the human being. For it does not follow that because he denied they would marry then, he therefore showed they would not rise again.

But he called them sons of the resurrection, as being born through it in some manner, after which they will not marry, but being raised up, they will be like the angels; in that they will not marry, because they will not die; but in that they will pass into the angelic state, through that clothing of incorruptibility, through the transformation of their substance—raised up, nonetheless. Otherwise, neither would it be asked whether we would marry or die again, if the restoration of that very substance which properly undergoes both death and marriage—that is, the flesh—were not called into question. You have therefore the Lord confirming against the heretics of the Jews what is now denied among the Sadducees of the Christians—the solid resurrection.

So, even though he says the flesh profits nothing, the meaning must be directed by the context of the saying. For because they had considered his discourse harsh and intolerable, as though he had truly determined that his flesh was to be eaten by them; in order to set the condition of salvation in the spirit, he prefaced: It is the Spirit that gives life; and thus added: The flesh profits nothing; namely, for giving life. He also sets forth what he wishes to be understood by spirit: The words which I have spoken to you are spirit, they are life: just as also above: He who hears my words and believes in him who sent me has eternal life, and will not come into judgment, but will pass from death to life.

And so, establishing the word as the life-giver, because the word is spirit and life, he also called it his own flesh, because the word too had been made flesh, and was therefore to be sought after as the cause of life, and to be devoured by hearing, and chewed over by understanding, and digested by faith. For also a little before, he had proclaimed his flesh to be the heavenly bread as well, pressing throughout by allegory the memory of the necessary foods of the fathers, who had set aside the breads and meats of the Egyptians for the divine calling. Therefore, turning to their reflections, because he had perceived they were about to scatter: The flesh, he says, profits nothing. What has this to do with destroying the resurrection of the flesh? As though it were not possible for something to exist which, even if it profits nothing, something else may nonetheless profit it. The Spirit profits, for it gives life. The flesh profits nothing, for it is put to death.

And so, according to our view, he has rather set forth the proposition of each. For by showing what profits and what does not profit, he has equally illuminated what profits what—namely, the Spirit as the life-giver to the mortified flesh. For the hour will come, he says, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who have heard will live.

What is the dead thing, if not the flesh? And what is the voice of God, if not the word? And what is the word, if not the spirit? Rightly is he about to raise up the flesh, because he himself was made it; and from death, which he himself suffered; and from the tomb, into which he himself was laid. Finally, when he says: Do not marvel at this, for the hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs will hear the voice of the Son of God; and they will come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life; those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment; no one will any longer be able to interpret the dead who are in the tombs as anything other than bodies and flesh; because the tombs themselves are nothing other than stalls for corpses.

Indeed, even those ancient human beings—that is, those dead through ignorance of God, whom the heretics argue are to be understood as the tombs—are openly proclaimed as about to come forth from the tombs to judgment. Otherwise, how will tombs come forth from tombs?

After the words of the Lord, what are we to believe His deeds also signify—those deeds performed at biers, at tombs, raising the dead? To what end is this? If it was for the simple display of power, or for the present benefit of reanimation, it is not so great a thing for Him to raise those who would die again. But if it was rather to set apart faith in the future resurrection, then that resurrection too is established as bodily, by the form of its own demonstration. Nor will I endure those who say that the resurrection destined for the soul alone then ran ahead into the flesh as well, because the resurrection of the invisible soul could not otherwise have been shown except through the resurrection of a visible substance.

They know God poorly, who think He cannot do what they do not think He can; and yet they know He could have done it, if they know the instrument of John. For He who subjected the souls of martyrs, still alone, resting beneath the altar, to the sight of men, could surely also have displayed them rising before the eyes without flesh. But I prefer that God cannot deceive, being weak only in deceit, lest He seem to have sent ahead demonstrations different from what He had arranged: indeed, lest if an example of resurrection without flesh was not sufficient to introduce the matter, He should be all the less able to exhibit the fullness of the example in the same substance. No example, however, is greater than that of which it is an example.

It would be greater, if souls were raised together with bodies as a demonstration of rising without a body, so that the salvation of the whole man might serve as advocate for half of him; whereas the condition of examples would rather demand what would be considered the lesser thing—I mean the resurrection of the soul alone—as a foretaste of the flesh also rising in its own time. And so, according to our true estimation, those examples of the dead raised by the Lord commended indeed the resurrection both of flesh and of soul, lest this gift be denied to either substance; yet those examples produced something less (for they were raised not unto glory, nor unto incorruption, but unto another death) than what Christ produced.

The apostolic writings also bear witness to the resurrection. For the Apostles had no other business, at least among Israel, than to unseal the Old Testament and to seal the New, or rather to preach God already in Christ. Thus they introduced nothing new concerning the resurrection either, except that they proclaimed it also to the glory of Christ; for the rest, it was received with simple and already familiar faith, without any question as to its nature, with only the Sadducees opposing. So much easier was it to deny the resurrection of the dead altogether than to understand it otherwise.

You have Paul, before the chief priests under the tribune, professing his faith between the Sadducees and the Pharisees: Men, he says, brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of Pharisees; concerning hope and the resurrection of the dead I am now judged among you—the common resurrection, of course; lest, since he was seen to be a transgressor of the law, he should be thought to hold the view of the Sadducees on the chief article of the whole faith, that is, on the resurrection. Thus, the faith of the resurrection which he did not wish to be seen as abolishing he was confirming according to the Pharisees, rejecting the Sadducees who denied it. Likewise also before Agrippa, he says he sets forth nothing beyond what the prophets had announced. Therefore he preserved the resurrection also as the prophets had announced it. For in recalling what was written concerning the resurrection of the dead in Moses, he knew it to be bodily—that resurrection in which the blood of man shall be required.

And so he preached such a resurrection as the Pharisees had received, and the Lord Himself had defended, and the Sadducees, lest they believe even such a one, had wished not to exist at all. But neither had the Athenians understood Paul to be foretelling any other kind: indeed they mocked, and would not have mocked at all had they heard from him the restoration of the soul alone; for they would have welcomed the presumption of their own native philosophy, so frequently held. But when the proclamation of the resurrection, previously unheard, shook the nations by its very novelty, and a worthy incredulity at so great a matter began to torment faith with questions, then the Apostle took care through nearly the whole of his writings to strengthen the faith of this hope—showing both that it exists, and that it has not yet come to pass, and (what was more questioned) that it is bodily, and (what was further doubted) that it is bodily in no other manner.

It is no wonder, however, if arguments are also drawn from his own writings, since heresies must exist; which could not exist unless the Scriptures could also be understood perversely. The heresies, then, having seized upon the two men set forth by the Apostle—the inner man, that is the soul, and the outer man, that is the flesh—have adjudged salvation to the soul, that is to the inner man, but destruction to the flesh, that is to the outer man; because it is written to the Corinthians: For though our outer man is being corrupted, yet the inner man is renewed day by day. Moreover, neither is the soul by itself a man—it was inserted afterward into the creature already called man; nor is the flesh without the soul a man—after the soul's departure it is called a corpse. Thus the word "man" is, as it were, a clasp of two joined substances: under which word they cannot exist except as cohering.

Furthermore, the Apostle prefers that the inner man be understood not so much as the soul, but as the mind and spirit—that is, not the substance itself, but the disposition of the substance. For indeed, writing to the Ephesians, he signified that Christ dwells in the inner man—meaning the Lord is to be made known to the senses, that is, to the inmost faculties. Then he added: Through faith, and In your hearts, and In love; placing faith and love not as substances of the soul, but as conceptions of it. But in saying in hearts, which are substances of the flesh, he has already assigned the inner man himself to the flesh, since he placed him in the heart. Consider now how he alleged that the outer man is indeed being corrupted, but the inner man is renewed day by day.

And do not affirm that corruption of the flesh to be the one which it suffers from the day of death, destined to fail forever; but rather that which, in the span of this life, before death and up to death, it will experience through afflictions and pressures, torments and punishments, on account of the Name. For the inner man too will have to be renewed here by the supply of the Spirit, advancing in faith and discipline day by day—not there, that is, not after the resurrection, where we are not renewed day by day, but once for all to the summit. Learn from what follows: For that which is at present, he says, the temporal and light burden of our affliction, through surpassing, unto surpassing, will accomplish in us an eternal weight of glory—not looking at the things which are seen, that is, the sufferings; but at the things which are not seen, that is, the rewards: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.

For the pressures and injuries by which the outer man is corrupted, as light and temporal, he declares are to be despised, setting before them the reward of eternal, invisible things, and the weight of glory, in compensation for the labors which the flesh here endures by suffering and is corrupted. So that corruption is not the one which they ascribe to the outer man as the everlasting destruction of the flesh, to expel the resurrection. So also elsewhere: If indeed, he says, we suffer together, that we may also be glorified together; for I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the future glory which is to be revealed in us. And here too he shows the disadvantages to be less than their rewards. Moreover, if we suffer together through the flesh, whose it is properly to be corrupted by sufferings, then that which is promised in return for the co-suffering will also belong to the same.

And so he ascribes to the flesh the property of pressures, so that he also says above: But when we came into Macedonia, our flesh had no rest. Then, to give the soul its share of suffering: In all things, he says, we were pressed: outwardly fightings—assailing the flesh, that is; inwardly fear—afflicting the soul, that is. So even if the outer man is corrupted, he is to be understood as corrupted not as losing the resurrection, but as enduring affliction. And this not without the inner man. Thus the glorifying together will also belong to both, just as the suffering together does. In accordance with the fellowship of labors, the fellowship of rewards must also run its course.

He pursues the same thought still further, setting recompenses before afflictions. For we know, he says, that even if our earthly house of this tabernacle is dissolved, we have a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens; that is, through the fact that our flesh is dissolved by sufferings, we shall obtain a dwelling in the heavens. He had remembered the Gospel declaration: Blessed are those who suffer persecution for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Yet he did not deny the restoration of the flesh, if he set against it the compensation of reward; since the compensation is owed to the very one to whom the dissolution is assigned—namely, the flesh.

But because he had called the flesh a house, he elegantly wished to use the word "house" also in the comparison of the reward; promising to the very house which is dissolved through suffering a better house through the resurrection; for the Lord also promises many mansions, as it were houses, with the Father: although it can also be understood of the dwelling of the world, which being dissolved, an eternal abode is promised in the heavens; because also the things which follow, manifestly pertaining to the flesh, show that the former things pertain entirely to the flesh. For the Apostle makes a distinction when he adds: For in this too we groan, desiring to be clothed over with our dwelling which is from heaven, if indeed being clothed we shall not be found naked; that is, we wish rather to put on the heavenly power of eternity than to be stripped of the flesh.

For the privilege of this grace awaits those who shall be found in the flesh at the coming of the Lord, and who, on account of the hardships of the times of Antichrist, shall merit—by the shortcut of death abolished through transformation—to run together with those who are rising; as he writes to the Thessalonians: For this we say to you in the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself, at the command and voice of the Archangel, and at the trumpet of God, shall descend from heaven; and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we together with them shall be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.

He renders an account of their transformation to the Corinthians, saying: We shall all indeed rise, but we shall not all be transformed—in an atom, in a momentary movement of the eye, at the last trumpet; but those only, of course, who shall be found in the flesh. And the dead, he says, shall rise first, and we shall be transformed. With this arrangement therefore first foreseen, you will refer the rest to the higher sense. For when he adds: For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality; this will be that dwelling from heaven which, groaning in this flesh, we desire to put on over it—over the flesh, that is, in which we shall be found; because he says we are burdened, we who are in the tabernacle; which we do not wish to be stripped of, but rather to be clothed over; so that the mortal may be swallowed up by life—namely, while it is transformed by the putting on of that which is from heaven.

For who would not desire, while in the flesh, to put on immortality, and to continue in life, having gained death by the vicarious transformation, so as not to experience the underworld, which will exact payment to the last farthing? Otherwise, he who has already experienced the underworld will also obtain the transformation after the resurrection. For from this point we define that the flesh shall rise in every manner, and that it shall receive, through that transformation coming upon it, an angelic condition. Or if in those alone who shall be found in the flesh it will be necessary for it to be transformed, so that the mortal may be swallowed up by life—that is, the flesh by that heavenly and eternal garment—then those who shall be found dead will not attain life, already deprived of the material, and, so to speak, the food of life, that is, the flesh.

Or it is necessary that they too receive it, so that in them also the mortal may be able to be swallowed up by life, if they are to attain life. But in the dead, you say, that mortal will already have been swallowed up. Not so in all of them. For how many may be found as it were of yesterday's death—corpses so fresh that nothing in them could seem to have been swallowed up! Surely you understand "swallowed up" to mean nothing other than intercepted, abolished, removed from all sense, that which has ceased to appear in every way. Nor will it be established that the most ancient corpses of giants have been swallowed up, whose frames still survive. We have already spoken of this elsewhere. But also recently in this very city, when the foundations of the Odeum were being laid—sacrilegiously disturbing so many ancient burials—the people shuddered at bones of nearly five hundred years, still moist, and with hair still fragrant.

It is established that not only bones endure, but that teeth also remain incorrupt and lasting; which are retained as seeds of the body that will bear fruit in the resurrection. Finally, even if at that time the mortal shall be found devoured in all the dead—certainly by death, certainly by age, certainly through the passage of years—shall it be devoured by life, by the overgarment, by the ingestion of immortality? Moreover, he who says that the mortal will be devoured by these, denied it by others. And surely it is fitting that this be accomplished and furnished by divine powers, not by natural laws! Therefore, since that which is mortal is to be devoured by life, it must of necessity be presented in every way, so that it may be devoured, and devoured so that it may be changed. If you say that a fire must be kindled, you cannot affirm that that by which it is kindled is necessary in one place and not in another.

So also when he adds: Provided that, being unclothed, we are not found naked—speaking of those who will not be found alive, nor in the flesh, at the day of the Lord—he denied that those whom he foretold as unclothed would be naked, only because he wished them to be understood as re-clothed with the same substance of which they had been stripped. For they will be found naked, having laid aside the flesh, or having it partly torn away or worn down—for this too can be called nakedness. Thereafter they will receive it again, so that, re-clothed with flesh, they may also be able to be over-clothed with immortality. For to be over-clothed cannot be fitting except for one already clothed.

Accordingly, when he says: Therefore being always confident, and knowing that while we sojourn in the body, we are absent from the Lord: for we walk by faith, not by sight; it is made clear that this too does not pertain to the obscuring of the flesh, as though it were the flesh that separates us from the Lord. For here also the exhortation to despise this present life is set before us; since we are absent from the Lord as long as we live, walking by faith, not by sight—that is, by hope, not by reality—and therefore he adds: But being confident, and thinking it good rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord: namely, that we may walk more by sight than by faith; by reality rather than by hope. You see how here also he refers the contempt of bodies to the excellence of martyrdoms.

For no one who has been absent from the body immediately dwells with the Lord, except by the prerogative of martyrdom; destined, that is, for paradise, not for the lower regions, as a lodging. Had the Apostle run out of words to signify departure from the body? Or does he speak in a novel manner even by design? For wishing to signify a temporary absence from the body, he said that we sojourn away from it, since one who sojourns will also return to his dwelling. Thence also to all: And therefore we are ambitious, he says, whether sojourning or dwelling, to be pleasing to God. For we must all be made manifest before the judgment seat of Christ Jesus. If all, then wholly; if wholly, then both inner and outer—that is, both souls and bodies: That each one, he says, may receive back through the body according to what he has done, whether good or evil.

How you read this I now ask; for he has constructed it in a somewhat confused manner through hyperbaton: whether it is the things that are to be received back through the body, or the things that were done through the body? But even if it is the things that are to be received back through the body, the resurrection is indubitably bodily; and if it is the things that were done through the body, they are assuredly to be weighed through the body by which they were also done. Thus also this entire treatment of the Apostle from its beginning, concluded with such a closing clause by which the resurrection of the flesh is shown, will be understood in accordance with those things which are consonant with that closing clause.

For if you look back further to the earlier passage, from which the mention of the outer and inner man was introduced, will you not find the dignity and hope of the flesh intact? For when he says, concerning the light which God has shone in our hearts, for the illumination of the knowledge of his glory, in the person of Christ, that we have this treasure in earthen vessels—that is, in the flesh—is it because it is earthen, according to its origin in the clay, that it will be destroyed; or because it is the receptacle of the divine treasure, that it will be exalted? And yet, if that very true light, which is in the person of Christ, contains life within itself, and that life together with the light is committed to the flesh—shall that perish into which life is committed? Plainly, if the treasure itself is also to perish: for perishable things are entrusted to perishable things; as new wine to old wineskins.

When he likewise adds: Always bearing about in our body the dying of Christ Jesus; what manner of thing is this, which after being the temple of God can also be called the tomb of Christ? But why do we bear about the dying of the Lord in our body? That the life also, he says, may be made manifest. Where? In the body. In which? In the mortal. Therefore in the flesh—plainly mortal according to guilt, but also vital according to grace. See how great: That in it the life of Christ may be made manifest. In a thing therefore alien to salvation, in a substance of perpetual dissolution, shall the eternal, everlasting, incorrupt life of Christ—now also the life of God—be made manifest? Or of what period of time shall the life of the Lord be made manifest in our body? That life, indeed, which he lived up to his passion; which was not only openly known among the Jews, but has also now been proclaimed to all the nations.

So much so that he signifies that life which broke the adamantine gates of death and the brazen bars of the lower regions, which from that time is now ours. Finally, it shall be made manifest in the body. When? After death. How? While we rise again in the body, just as Christ also did. For lest anyone should argue that the life of Jesus is now made manifest in our body through the discipline of holiness, and patience, and justice, and wisdom, in which the life of the Lord flourished, the most provident intention of the Apostle urges: For if we who live are delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that his life may be made manifest in our mortal body; Therefore he says this will come to pass in our body after we have died. But if then, how, unless it be raised up?

Accordingly also in the closing clause: Knowing, he says, that he who raised up Jesus will also raise us up with him, because he has already risen from the dead: unless it means with him as him? But if as him, then assuredly not without flesh.

But again they stumble with another blindness upon the two men, the old and the new, when the Apostle warns that we should put off the old man who is corrupted through the lust of seduction; and be renewed in the spirit of the mind, and put on the new man, who is created according to God in justice and true holiness; so that here also, by distinguishing according to two substances, they assign oldness to the flesh and newness to the soul, and defend perpetual corruption for the old—that is, for the flesh. But if it is according to substances, neither is the soul the new man, because it came later; nor is the flesh therefore old, because it came first. For how small is the interval between the hand of God and the breath; I would venture to say that even if the soul came much earlier than the flesh, by the very fact that the soul waited to be filled, it made itself the prior.

For every completion and perfection, even if it comes last in order, yet anticipates in effect. That is more prior, without which prior things cannot exist. If the flesh is the old man, when was this? From the beginning? And yet Adam was wholly new, and from the new no one is old. For from that point on, from the blessing of generation, flesh and soul come into being simultaneously, without reckoning of time; and those which are sown together even in the womb, as we have shown in the Commentary on the Soul, are contemporaneous in the fetus, coeval in birth, these two men—certainly from a twofold substance, yet not also in age. Thus they produce one being, since neither is prior. It is more accurate to say that we are all either wholly old or wholly new: for in what way we can be one without the other, we do not know.

But the Apostle plainly marks the old man: For he says, put off according to the former manner of life the old man—not according to the sense of any substance. For he does not command us to put off the flesh, but those things which he elsewhere shows to be carnal; accusing works, not bodies, concerning which he also here adds: Putting away lying, speak truth every man to his neighbour, because we are members one of another. Be angry, and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your wrath. Neither give place to the devil. Let him who stole steal no more, but rather let him labour, working with his hands, that he may have something to give to him who is in need. Let no corrupt speech proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good for the edification of faith, that it may give grace to those who hear. And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you are sealed, unto the day of redemption.

Let all bitterness, and wrath, and clamour, and blasphemy, and indignation be put away from you, with all malice. But be kind to one another, merciful, forgiving one another, even as God has forgiven you in Christ. Therefore those who consider the flesh to be the old man, why do they not hasten their own death, so that, having put off the old man, they may comply with the precepts of the Apostle? For we, who have believed that the whole of faith is to be administered in the flesh—nay, even through the flesh—whose is also the mouth for bringing forth every good word, and the tongue for not blaspheming, and the heart for not being indignant, and the hands for working and giving—we maintain that both the oldness of man and the newness pertain to a moral, not a substantial difference.

And thus, we equally acknowledge that the man who has been old according to his former manner of life is likewise said to be corrupted according to the lust of seduction, just as he is also old according to his former manner of life—not according to the flesh through perpetual destruction; but otherwise, as sound in the flesh as he is the same man, having put off a vicious manner of life, not his bodily substance.

You may recognize the Apostle as such throughout, condemning the works of the flesh in such a way that he seems to condemn the flesh itself; but lest anyone think so, he takes care to provide this understanding from the suggestion of other connected meanings. For even when he says that those who are in the flesh cannot please God, he immediately recalls the reader from a perverse understanding to a sound one, adding: But ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit. For by denying that those who were known to be in the flesh were in the flesh, he showed that they were not in the works of the flesh; and thus that those alone cannot please God, not who are in the flesh, but who live carnally; but that those please God who, placed in the flesh, walk according to the spirit. And again: The body indeed is dead, but on account of transgression; just as the spirit is life on account of righteousness.

But by opposing life to death as constituted in the flesh, he without doubt also promised life there from righteousness, where he determined death from transgression. Otherwise he opposed life to death in vain, if life is not there where that also is to which he opposed it, namely death, which is certainly to be excluded from the body. Furthermore, if life excludes death from the body, it cannot accomplish this unless it penetrates to the place where that is which it excludes. And why do I speak more intricately, when the Apostle speaks more plainly? For he says: If the Spirit of him who raised up Jesus dwelleth in you, he who raised up Jesus from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies, on account of his Spirit dwelling in you; so that even if anyone should presume that the soul is the mortal body, since he cannot deny the flesh along with it, he is compelled to acknowledge the resurrection of the flesh also, according to the fellowship of the same condition.

From what follows, learn further that the works of the flesh are condemned, not the flesh itself: Therefore, brethren, he says, 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 flesh, ye shall live. Furthermore, to respond to each point individually: if salvation is promised to those who are placed in the flesh yet live according to the spirit, then it is not the flesh that is opposed to salvation, but the working of the flesh. But with the working of the flesh excluded, which is the cause of death, the flesh is now shown to be safe, lacking the cause of death. For the law, he says, of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of transgression and death; that which he previously said dwells in our members.

Therefore our members shall no longer be held by the law of death, because neither by that of transgression, from which they have been set free. For what was weak in the law, in which it was weakened through the flesh, God, having sent his own Son in the likeness of the flesh of transgression, and by transgression condemned transgression in the flesh, not the flesh in transgression: for the house shall not be condemned along with its inhabitant. For he said that sin dwells in our body. But with transgression condemned, the flesh is acquitted: just as, when it is not condemned, the flesh is bound to the law of death and transgression. So also he called the mind of the flesh death; and then also enmity toward God, but not the flesh itself. To whom then, you will say, shall the mind of the flesh be imputed, if not to the substance itself? Certainly, if you can prove that the flesh thinks anything of its own.

But if without the soul there is no thought in anything, understand that the mind of the flesh is to be referred to the soul, sometimes attributed to the flesh, because it is administered through the flesh; and therefore he says that transgression dwells in the flesh, because the soul also, by which transgression is introduced, is a tenant of the flesh, mortified indeed, but not in its own name, but in the name of transgression. For also elsewhere he says: How is it that ye also, as though living in the world, pass judgment? Writing not to the dead, but to those who ought to cease living in a worldly manner.

For this will be the worldly life, by which he said the old man was crucified with Christ, not corporeality, but mortality. Otherwise, if we do not take it so, our corporeality is not crucified, nor has our flesh suffered the cross of Christ; but as he added: That the body of transgression might be destroyed: through the amendment of life, not through the destruction of substance; as he says: That henceforth we should not serve transgression, and that, having in this manner died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. For thus, he says, reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed; to what? To the flesh? No, but to transgression. Therefore they shall be safe as to the flesh; but living unto God in Christ Jesus; through the flesh, of course, to which they shall not be dead; dead to transgression, that is, not to the flesh.

For he further insists: Let not therefore transgression reign in your mortal body, to obey it, and to yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto transgression: but yield yourselves unto God, as alive from the dead; not as living, but as alive from the dead; and your members as instruments of righteousness. And again: As ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto sanctification. For when ye were servants of transgression, ye were free from righteousness. What fruit had ye then in those things of which ye are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now, being made free from transgression, and having become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto sanctification; and the end, life eternal. For the wages of transgression is death; but the gift of God is life eternal in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Thus, throughout this entire series of thoughts, tearing our members away from unrighteousness and transgression, and joining them to righteousness and holiness, and transferring them from the wages of death to the gift of life eternal, he certainly promises to the flesh the recompense of salvation, to which it would not at all have been fitting to enjoin the proper discipline of holiness and righteousness, if the reward of that discipline were not also its own: nor indeed would baptism itself be entrusted to it, if through regeneration it were not also inaugurated unto restoration, the Apostle also urging this: Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death, that as Christ was raised from the dead, so we also should walk in newness of life.

And lest you think this said only of that life which is to be lived in newness through faith by baptism, he most providently adds: For if we have been planted together in the likeness of Christ's death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection. For in baptism we die by a likeness, but we rise again in truth in the flesh, as Christ also did: That, as transgression hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto life everlasting through Jesus Christ our Lord. How so, if not equally in the flesh? For where there is death, there also is life after death; because life was also there before, where death came afterward.

For if the reign of death works nothing other than the dissolution of the flesh; likewise life, which is contrary to death, ought to work the contrary, that is, the restoration of the flesh; so that, as death had devoured by prevailing, so also when the mortal is devoured by immortality, it may be possible to hear: O death, where is thy sting? O death, where is thy contention? For thus also grace shall abound there where iniquity abounded.

Thus also virtue is perfected in weakness, saving what was lost, quickening what was dead, healing what was struck, curing what was sick, redeeming what was taken away, freeing what was enslaved, recalling what was seduced, raising up what was cast down; and indeed from earth to heaven, where the Philippians also learn from the Apostle that our citizenship is: From whence also we look for the Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall transform the body of our humility, conformed to the body of his glory; without doubt after the resurrection, because Christ himself also was not glorified before his passion. These shall be our bodies, which he beseeches the Romans to present as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God. How living, if they are to perish? How holy, if they are profane? How acceptable, if they are condemned? I come now to what I think was written to the Thessalonians by the very ray of the sun alone, so brightly does it shine—in what manner shall these light-shunning men receive the Scriptures?

Now the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly. This does not suffice, but he continues: And may your whole body, and soul, and spirit be preserved blameless unto the coming of the Lord. You have the entire substance of man destined for salvation, and at no other time than at the coming of the Lord, who is the key of the resurrection.

But flesh and blood, you say, cannot inherit the kingdom of God. We know that this too is written; but we have purposely deferred it until now, so that what the adversaries block at the very first line of battle, we might overthrow in the final engagement, all the other questions, as it were its supporting forces, having been cast down beforehand. But even now let them wait for the preceding context to be recognized, so that the origin of this passage too may prejudge its own meaning. I think that the Apostle, having set out to the Corinthians the entire arrangement of ecclesiastical discipline, had concluded the sum both of his Gospel and of their faith in the commendation of the Lord's death and resurrection; so that he might derive from thence the rule of our hope, from whence it was established. And so he adds: But if Christ is preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?

But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen. And if Christ be not risen, our preaching is vain: for we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ, whom he raised not up. For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised. If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; because ye are yet in your sins: and they also which have fallen asleep in Christ are perished. By these things, for the belief of what does he seem to be building us up? For the resurrection of the dead, you say, which was being denied. Certainly wishing it to be believed under the example of the Lord's resurrection? Certainly, you say. But is an example composed from difference, or from likeness? From likeness, of course, you say. But how did Christ rise? In the flesh, or not?

Without doubt, if you hear that he died, if you hear that he was buried according to the Scriptures, you must grant that he was raised in the flesh in no other way. For that very thing which fell in death, which lay in the tomb, this also rose again—not so much Christ in the flesh, as the flesh in Christ. Therefore, if we shall rise after the example of Christ, who rose in the flesh, we shall no longer rise after the example of Christ if we also do not rise in the flesh; because, he says, by man came death, and by man the resurrection: so as to distinguish indeed the authors—Adam of death, Christ of the resurrection—but to establish the resurrection as being of the same substance as death, through the comparison of those very authors in the name of man.

For if, as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive; they shall be made alive in the flesh in Christ, as in Adam they die in the flesh. But every man in his own order, that is, because also in his own body. For order is nothing other than the disposer of merits. But since merits are also ascribed to the body, the order of bodies must necessarily be arranged, so that there may be an order of merits. But if some are also baptized for the dead, we shall see whether with reason; certainly he contends that they instituted this by that presumption by which others also supposed that a vicarious baptism would profit the flesh unto the hope of resurrection; which, unless it were bodily, would not otherwise be here bound by bodily baptism. Why also are they themselves baptized, he says, if the bodies which are baptized do not rise? For the soul is consecrated not by washing, but by response.

Why also do we, he says, stand in jeopardy every hour? Certainly through the flesh. I die daily, certainly through the perils of the flesh, through which also he fought with beasts at Ephesus; those beasts, namely, of the Asiatic tribulation, concerning which in the second letter to the same: For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our tribulation which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life. All these things, unless I am mistaken, he enumerates to this end, that, being unwilling for the conflict of the flesh to be held vain, he undoubtedly wishes the resurrection of the flesh to be believed. For the conflict of that thing must be held vain of which there shall be no resurrection. But someone will say: How are the dead raised? And with what body do they come? Here now he discourses on the qualities of bodies; whether the same ones or others are taken up again.

But since a question of this kind is held to be secondary, it will suffice for the present that from this passage also the resurrection is defined as bodily, since inquiry is made concerning the quality of bodies.

We have now come to the flesh and blood, truly the heart of the whole question—which substances, and on what condition, the Apostle has disinherited from the kingdom of God—and this is equally to be learned from what precedes. The first man, he says, is of the earth, earthy, that is, of clay, that is, Adam; the second man is from heaven, that is, the Word of God, that is, Christ; yet not otherwise a man, though from heaven, except because he too is flesh and soul—which is man, which is Adam; for he was also called above the last Adam, and drew the fellowship of the name from the sharing of substance; because neither is Adam's flesh from seed, which is also true of Christ. As therefore is the earthy, such also are the earthy; as is the heavenly, such also are the heavenly. Such in substance? Or first in manner of life, and then also in dignity, which manner of life also pursued?

But in substance the earthy and the heavenly will in no way be separated, since they are once called men by the Apostle. For if Christ alone is truly heavenly, nay even supercaelestial, yet is man, in that he is flesh and soul, he is in no way distinguished from the earthy quality by this condition of substances: and so those who are heavenly according to him are understood to be called heavenly not by reason of their present substance, but of their future glory; because also previously, whence this distinction flowed from a difference of dignity, there is one glory of the supercaelestial, another of those above the earth, and another of the sun, another of the moon, another of the stars; because also star differs from star in glory, yet not in substance.

Finally, having set forth the difference of dignity in the same substance—both to be pursued now and to be attained then—he adds also an exhortation, that here we should follow the likeness of Christ by discipline, and there attain the summit by glory: As we have borne the image of the earthy, let us also bear the image of the supercaelestial. For we have borne the image of the earthy through fellowship in transgression, through sharing in death, through exile from paradise. For even if the image of Adam is borne here in the flesh, we are not warned to put off the flesh. If not the flesh, then the manner of life, so that we may likewise bear the image of the heavenly in ourselves; not yet gods, nor yet established in heaven; but walking according to the lineaments of Christ in holiness and justice and truth.

And so he directs all this entirely toward discipline, so that he says the image of Christ is to be borne here in this flesh and in this present time of discipline. For let us bear, he says in the imperative mode, speaking to this present time, in which man is of no other substance than flesh and soul; or if this faith looks to some other, that is, heavenly substance, let it nonetheless be promised to that one who is commanded to strive toward it.

Since therefore he places both the image of the earthy and of the heavenly in manner of life—the former to be cast off, the latter to be pursued—he then adds: For this I say, that is, on account of what I said above (for the conjunction renders a supplement of meaning to what precedes), that flesh and blood cannot possess the kingdom of God as an inheritance; he commands nothing else to be understood by flesh and blood than the aforesaid image of the earthy: which, if it is reckoned in the manner of life of the old nature, and the manner of life of the old nature does not inherit the kingdom of God, then likewise flesh and blood, in not inheriting the kingdom of God, are referred back to the manner of life of the old nature. Certainly, if the Apostle never used substance in place of works, neither does he so use it here.

But if, while still established in the flesh, he denied that they were in the flesh, denying that they were in the works of the flesh, you ought not to undermine its form—it is not the substance, but the works of the substance, that alienate from the kingdom of God. By which also, in the Galatians, with plain words, he professes to have foretold and to have foretold before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God—not bearing, that is, the image of the heavenly, as they bore the earthy, and therefore, from their old manner of life, to be reckoned as nothing other than flesh and blood.

For even if the Apostle had suddenly burst forth into this definition—that flesh and blood are to be excluded from the kingdom of God—without any prior construction of meaning above, would we not likewise interpret these two substances as the old man given over to flesh and blood, that is, to eating and drinking; whose it is to say against the faith of the resurrection: Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die? And this too the Apostle, pressing it home, rebuked as flesh and blood by their very fruits of eating and drinking.

But even setting aside such interpretations of flesh and blood that censure works, it will also be permissible to vindicate the very substances themselves, understood as nothing other than they are, for the resurrection: for the resurrection is not directly denied to flesh and blood, but the kingdom of God, which comes to the resurrection; (there is also a resurrection unto judgment); nay, the general resurrection of the flesh is even confirmed, when a particular exception is made. For while it is declared into what state one does not rise, it is implied into what state one does rise. And so, while the resurrection, distinguished according to merits, affects the work of the substance and not its kind, it appears from this also that flesh and blood are excluded from the kingdom of God by the name of guilt, not of substance; yet by the name of their form they rise unto judgment, because they do not rise unto the kingdom. I will say further: Flesh and blood cannot possess the kingdom of God as an inheritance.

Rightly so, alone and by themselves; so as to show that the spirit is still necessary to them: For it is the spirit that gives life unto the kingdom of God, the flesh profits nothing. Yet something else can profit it, that is, the spirit, and through the spirit, also the works of the spirit. All flesh and blood therefore rise equally in their own quality. But those whose part it is to enter the kingdom of God will need to put on the power of incorruptibility and immortality, without which they cannot enter the kingdom of God, before they can attain it. Rightly therefore, as we have said, flesh and blood alone will fall short of inheriting the kingdom of God. Now since this corruptible thing must be swallowed up by incorruptibility—that is, the flesh—and this mortal thing by immortality—that is, the blood—after the resurrection through transformation; rightly, flesh and blood not yet transformed and swallowed up cannot possess the kingdom of God as an inheritance, yet are not therefore unresurrected.

There are those who wish flesh and blood to be taken as Judaism on account of circumcision, which is itself also alien from the kingdom of God; because that too is reckoned to the old nature, and on this ground is already noted elsewhere by the Apostle, who, after the revelation of the Son of God in himself, for the purpose of preaching him among the nations, straightway conferred not with flesh and blood, that is, with circumcision, that is, with Judaism, as he writes to the Galatians.

But above all, that which we have reserved for the conclusion will stand firm—even to convict the Apostle himself of truly the greatest thoughtlessness, if, as some would have it, he so abruptly, with eyes shut as they say, without distinction, without qualification, drove out all flesh and blood indiscriminately from the kingdom of God, and therefore also from the very royal heavens; since there Jesus still sits at the right hand of the Father, man though God; the last Adam though the primal Word; flesh and blood, though purer than ours; yet the same both in substance and in form in which he ascended; such also as he will descend, as the angels affirm; to be recognized, of course, by those who pierced him. He, called the mediator between God and men, holding in himself the deposit committed to him from both parties, keeps also the deposit of the flesh in himself, as the earnest of the whole sum.

For just as he left us the earnest of the spirit, so also he received from us the earnest of the flesh, and carried into heaven the pledge of the whole sum to be brought there at some time. Be of good cheer, flesh and blood; you have taken possession of both heaven and the kingdom of God in Christ. Or if they deny you in Christ, let them deny Christ in heaven, who have denied heaven to you. So also, he says, corruption shall not inherit incorruption; not that you should think flesh and blood to be corruption, since they are rather subject to corruption through death (for it is death that not only corrupts but also consumes flesh and blood); but, because he had declared that the works of flesh and blood cannot attain the kingdom of God, in order to press this home the more, he has also taken away from corruption itself—that is, from death, to which the works of flesh and blood are profitable—the inheritance of incorruption.

For also a little later he expressed in a certain manner the death of death itself: Death is swallowed up, he says, in strife. Where, O death, is thy sting? Where, O death, is thy strife? Now the sting of death is transgression; this will be corruption: but the power of transgression is the law—that other law, without doubt, which he established warring in his members against the law of his mind, namely the very force of transgressing against the will. For also above he says that the last enemy, death, is to be abolished. In this way, neither shall corruption inherit incorruption, that is, neither shall death endure. When, and in what manner, will it fail? When in an atom of time, in the momentary movement of an eye, at the last trumpet the dead also shall rise incorruptible. Who are these, if not those who were previously corrupted—that is, bodies, that is, flesh and blood? And we shall be changed. From what condition, except that in which we shall be found?

For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. What is mortal, if not flesh? What is corruptible, if not blood? And lest you think the Apostle means something else, providing for you and laboring that you may understand it to be said of the flesh, when he says this corruptible and this mortal, he speaks while holding the very skin itself. Certainly he could not have uttered this except of what lay before him, except of what was visible. It is a word of bodily demonstration. Now corruption is one thing, and corruptible another; and mortal is one thing, and mortality another. For one thing is that which suffers, another that which causes suffering. Those things which suffer corruption and mortality—namely flesh and blood—must necessarily also suffer incorruption and immortality.

Let us now see in what body he argues the dead are to come. And it is well that he immediately broke forth to show this, as though someone were asking such a question. Thou fool, he says, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die. Let it therefore now be established from the example of the seed that no other flesh is quickened than that very flesh which shall have died, and so the following things will shine forth clearly: for nothing is against the rule.

Now it will be possible to understand by way of example. Nor, because there follows, And what you sow, you do not sow the body that is to be, should you therefore suppose that a different body will rise than the one which is sown by dying; otherwise, you have fallen away from the example. For when wheat is sown and dissolved in the earth, barley never springs up, but the very same kind of grain, the same nature, quality, and form. Whence, indeed, if not the very same? For the corruption belongs to it, since it belongs to it. For does he not also suggest how it is that the body which is to be is not what is sown, saying: But a bare grain, perhaps of wheat, or of some such thing; yet God gives it a body as he wills? Certainly to that grain which he says is sown bare. Certainly, you say. Therefore that is preserved, to which God has to give a body.

But how is it preserved, if it is nowhere, if it does not rise again, if the very same does not rise again? It is not preserved. If it is not preserved either, it cannot receive a body from God. But indeed it is preserved in every way, as is agreed. To what end, then, will God give it a body as he wills—to that which already has its own bare body—unless that it may rise no longer bare? Therefore what is built upon the body will be added to it; nor will that upon which it is built be destroyed, but it will be enlarged. Now what is enlarged is preserved. For the grain is sown as only a grain, without the covering of its husk, without the foundation of the ear, without the protection of the beard, without the pride of the stalk; but it rises up enriched with abundance, built up with structure, arranged in order, fortified with adornment, and clothed on every side.

These things are for it a different body from God: into which it is changed, not by abolition, but by enlargement. And he assigned to each of the seeds its own body; not its own, that is, its former body, so that even that which it acquires from without through God may then also be its own. Serve therefore the example, and preserve its mirror for the flesh, believing that the same flesh which was sown will bear fruit; the same, even if fuller; not another, even if returning in a different manner. For it too will receive the addition and adornment which God shall have willed to bring upon it according to its merits. Without doubt he directs this to the point that not all flesh is the same flesh; not to deny the communion of substance, but to reduce the equalization of privilege; making a difference in the body of honor, not of kind. To this end he also sets forth figurative examples of animals and elements.

One flesh is that of man, that is, of the servant of God, who is truly a man; another that of cattle, that is, of the pagan, of whom also the Prophet says: Man, he says, is made like the irrational beasts; another the flesh of birds, that is, of martyrs, who strive toward higher things; another of fishes, that is, of those for whom the water of baptism suffices. So also he brings arguments from the supracelestial bodies. One is the glory of the sun, that is, of Christ; and another of the moon, that is, of the Church; and another of the stars, that is, of the seed of Abraham; for star also differs from star in glory; earthly and heavenly bodies, namely the Jew and the Christian. Otherwise, if not figuratively, he would have quite vainly set beside human bodies the flesh of mules and kites, and the bodies of the heavenly lights, which have no bearing on a comparison of condition, just as they have none on the sequence of resurrection.

Finally, when through these things he had concluded that there is a difference of glory, not of substance: So also, he says, is the resurrection of the dead. How? Differing not in some other respect, but in glory alone. For again, recalling the resurrection to the same substance, and looking back to the grain: It is sown, he says, in corruption, it rises in incorruption: it is sown in dishonor, it rises in glory: it is sown in weakness, it rises in power: it is sown an animal body, it rises a spiritual body. Certainly nothing rises other than what is sown; nor is anything sown other than what is dissolved in the ground; nor is anything dissolved in the ground other than the flesh: for the sentence of God struck it down: You are earth, and into earth you shall go; because it had also been taken from the earth.

Hence also the Apostle conceived of saying that it is sown, when it is returned to the earth, because the earth is also the storehouse for seeds, there to be deposited and thence to be reclaimed. And therefore he also reseals it by impressing: for so it is written; lest you suppose that to be sown is anything other than you shall go into the earth from which you were taken: so that it is of nothing other than the flesh, for so it is written.

But they argue that the animal body means the soul, so as to call it back from the flesh as something that returns. Now, since it is established and fixed that the body which shall have been sown is the one that will rise, they will be challenged to demonstrate the very thing itself. Either let them show that the soul has been sown after death, that is, has died, that is, has been cast down to the ground, scattered, dissolved—which is not what has been decreed upon it by God; let them set forth its corruption, and its dishonor, its weakness, so that it may also be its own to rise in incorruption, and in glory, and in power.

But indeed in Lazarus, the chief example of resurrection, the flesh lay in weakness, the flesh nearly rotted in dishonor, the flesh meanwhile stank in corruption; and yet Lazarus rose in the flesh, with the soul indeed, but uncorrupted—the soul which no one had bound with linen bands, which no one had laid in the tomb, which no one had yet perceived to stink, which no one had seen sown for four days. The whole condition, the whole departure of Lazarus, the flesh of all men also experiences today, but the soul of none. In which, therefore, does the Apostle's pen find its mark—that of which it is agreed he speaks—that will be both the animal body when it is sown, and the spiritual body when it is raised. For that you may so understand, he stretches out his hand yet further, drawing back, on the authority of the same Scripture, the account of the first man Adam made into a living soul.

If Adam is the first man, and the flesh is man before the soul, without doubt the flesh will have been made into a living soul; made moreover into a soul, when it was already a body, it was certainly made an animal body. What would they have it called, except what it was made through the soul, except what it was not before the soul, except what it will not be after the soul, unless when it rises? For when the soul is received back, it is again made an animal body, so that it may become spiritual: for nothing rises except what it was. Thus, the reason why the designation animal body belongs to the flesh is the very reason why it in no way belongs to the soul. For the flesh is a body before it is an animal body. For having been animated, it was afterwards made an animal body.

The soul, however, even if it is a body, yet, because it is itself a body not animated but rather animating, cannot be called an animal body, nor can it become what it makes. For it is something else that makes that other thing animal; but how shall that which is not accidental to another make itself animal? Just as therefore the flesh, receiving the soul, is an animal body before; so also afterwards it is spiritual, putting on the spirit.

The Apostle, setting forth this order, also rightly distinguishes it in Adam and in Christ, as in the heads of the distinction itself. And when he calls Christ the last Adam, recognize from this that he labored with all the forces of his teaching toward the resurrection of the flesh, not of the soul. For if also the first man Adam was flesh, not soul, who was in the end made into a living soul; and the last Adam is Christ, therefore Adam, because man; therefore man, because flesh, not because soul. And so he adds: Not first what is spiritual, but what is animal; afterwards what is spiritual, according to both Adams. Does it not seem to you that he distinguishes the animal body and the spiritual body in the same flesh, the distinction of which he laid down beforehand in both Adams, that is, in both men? For from what substance do Christ and Adam bear a relationship to one another?

From the flesh, of course, though also from the soul; but by the name of flesh both are men. For flesh is man first. From that they were also able to admit an order, so that one might be reckoned the first, the other the last man, that is, Adam. Otherwise, things that differ cannot be arranged in order with respect to substance alone; with respect to place, or time, or condition, perhaps they can. But here they are called first and last with respect to the substance of the flesh: just as also again the first man is from the earth, and the second from heaven; because even if from heaven according to the spirit, yet man according to the flesh.

And so, since the order in both Adams belongs to the flesh, not to the soul—so that the first man is distinguished into a living soul, the last into a life-giving spirit—equally their distinction has prejudged a distinction for the flesh, so that it is said of the flesh: Not first what is spiritual, but what is animal, afterwards what is spiritual; and thus the same is to be understood both above, and as that which is sown an animal body, and which rises a spiritual body; because not first what is spiritual, but what is animal; because the first Adam into a soul, the last Adam into a spirit. All of it concerns man; all of it concerns the flesh, when it concerns man. What then shall we say? Does not the flesh even now have the spirit through faith?

So that it must be asked in what sense the flesh is said to be sown as an animal body. Plainly the flesh has also received the spirit here, but as a pledge; the soul, however, has not a pledge but the fullness. And therefore also for this reason it has been called an animal body by the name of the greater substance, in which it is sown, destined accordingly through the fullness of the spirit to be moreover spiritual, in which it is raised. What wonder, if it has been named more from that with which it is filled than from that with which it is sprinkled?

Thus questions are very much stirred up from the occasions of words, just as also from the associations of terms. For, because that too is set down in the Apostle: That what is mortal may be swallowed up by life—the flesh, that is—they seize upon the swallowing up also as meaning the destruction, namely, of the flesh: as though we were not said to swallow up bile and grief, that is, to hide and cover it, and to contain it within ourselves. Finally, since that too is written: This mortal must put on immortality; it is shown in what manner what is mortal is swallowed up by life, while, clothed with immortality, it is hidden and covered and contained within; not while it is consumed and lost. Therefore death too, you say, will be preserved, when it has been swallowed up. Therefore distinguish the association of words according to their meanings, and you will understand correctly. For death is one thing, and what is mortal is another.

In one way, therefore, will death be swallowed up, and in another way what is mortal. Death does not receive immortality, but what is mortal does receive it. Finally it is also written that this mortal must put on immortality. How then does it receive it? While it is swallowed up by life. How is it swallowed up by life? While it is received, and brought back, and enclosed within it. Otherwise, death is rightly swallowed up into destruction, because it also swallows up to this end. Death, he says, swallowed up by prevailing, and therefore it has been swallowed up into contention. Where, O death, is your sting? Where, O death, is your contention? Accordingly also life, the rival of death, will swallow up in salvation through contention what death had swallowed up in destruction through contention.

Although therefore, in proving that the flesh shall rise again, we thereby prove that none other shall rise than that which is under discussion; yet individual questions, and their causes, demand their own particular engagements, even if they have already been struck down from another quarter. We shall therefore interpret more fully both the force and the rationale of the change, which for the most part supplies the presumption that another flesh shall rise; as though to be changed were to cease entirely, and to perish from what it previously was. But change must be distinguished from every argument of destruction. For change is one thing, destruction another. Yet it would be no different, if the flesh were so changed as to perish. But it will perish when changed, if that very flesh does not remain in the change, which shall have been presented in the resurrection. For just as it perishes if it does not rise again; so also, even if it does rise, but is withdrawn into change, it equally perishes.

For it will equally not exist, if it has not risen. And how absurd, if it rises for this purpose, that it should not exist!—it which could have not risen, and not existed; because it had already begun not to exist. Things diverse in every respect—change and destruction—shall not be mingled at all, diverse as they are in their operations: the latter destroys, the former changes. As therefore that which has been destroyed has not been changed, so that which has been changed has not been destroyed. For to have perished is to be wholly non-existent as what it was; to have been changed is to exist differently. Furthermore, while it exists differently, that very thing can still exist: for it has being, which has not perished. For it has undergone change, not destruction.

And indeed a thing can both be changed and yet be itself nonetheless; just as the whole man in this age is indeed himself in substance, yet is changed in manifold ways—in appearance, in bodily bulk itself, in health, in condition, in dignity, in age, in pursuit, in occupation, in craft, in means, in abode, in laws, in customs—and yet loses nothing of being human; nor is he so made another as to cease to be the same: nay, he is not even made another person, but another thing. This form of change is attested also by divine records. The hand of Moses is changed—and indeed to the likeness of a dead hand, bloodless, and cold with a whitish pallor—but upon the return of warmth and the restoration of colour, it is the same flesh and blood. Afterwards also his very face is changed, with an uncontemplatable brightness. But Moses was still Moses, though he could not be looked upon.

So also Stephen had already put on the angelic dignity, but it was not other knees that gave way under the stoning. The Lord too, in the retreat of the mountain, had changed even his garments with light, but had preserved his features recognisable to Peter: where also Moses and Elijah—the one in the likeness of flesh not yet resumed, the other in the reality of flesh not yet laid down—had taught that the same bodily form persists even in glory. Instructed by this example, Paul also says: Who shall transfigure the body of our humility, conformed to the body of his glory. But if you maintain that both transfiguration and conversion amount to a transition of the substance of each thing, then Saul also, when converted into another man, departed from his own body, and Satan himself, when he is transfigured into an angel of light, loses his own quality—I think not. So also in the event of resurrection it will be permissible to be changed, converted, reformed, with the preservation of substance.

For how absurd, how truly also unjust, and how unworthy of God in either case, to work upon one substance and settle the reward upon another; so that this flesh is torn through martyrdoms, while another is crowned; and likewise on the contrary, this flesh wallows in filth, while another is condemned! Does it not better serve to draw all faith away from the hope of resurrection at once, than to make sport of the gravity and justice of God? To raise up Marcion in place of Valentinus!—seeing that it is not credible that the mind, the memory, the conscience of the man of today should be abolished by that changing garment of immortality and incorruption, with the profit and fruit of the resurrection, and the standing of the divine judgment in both its aspects, thereby rendered void. If I do not remember that I am the one who merited, how shall I give glory to God? How shall I sing to him a new song, not knowing that I am the one who owes thanks to God?

But why is the change of the flesh alone excepted, and not also of the soul at the same time, which has presided over the flesh in all things? What manner of thing is it, that the same soul which ran through the whole course of life in this flesh, which in this flesh learned to know God, and put on Christ, and sowed the hope of salvation, should in some other flesh, I know not what, reap the fruit? Truly that is a most favoured flesh, for which life will cost nothing. But if the soul also is not changed, then there is no resurrection even of the soul; for neither will it be believed to have risen, if it has not risen as another.

Hence now comes that common quibble of unbelief: If, they say, the very same substance is recalled with its own form, outline, and quality, then also with its remaining marks; and so the blind, the lame, the paralytic, and as each departed distinguished by some mark, so also shall he return. What then? Even if it be so, do you disdain to receive from God so great a grace, of whatever kind? For even now, admitting the salvation of the soul alone, do you not ascribe the same to men who are but halves? What is it to believe the resurrection, unless to believe it entire? For if the flesh shall be restored from dissolution, much more shall it be recalled from impairment. Greater things prescribe to lesser. Is not the amputation or the blunting of any member a death of that member? If universal death is annulled by resurrection, what of partial death? If we are changed into glory, how much more into soundness!

The impairment of bodies is an accidental thing; integrity is proper to them: in this we are born. Even if we are impaired in the womb, it is already a suffering of a human being. The kind comes before the accident. As life is conferred by God, so also it is restored. Such as we receive it, such also we receive it back. We are restored to nature, not to injury. We revive as we were born, not as we were harmed. If God does not raise men whole, he does not raise the dead. For who among the dead is whole, even if he dies whole? Who is sound, who is lifeless? What body is untouched, when it is intercepted, when it is cold, when it is pale, when it is stiff, when it is a corpse? When is a man more feeble than when he is wholly so? When more paralysed than when he is immovable?

Thus, to raise the dead is nothing other than to make them whole; lest he still be dead in that part in which he has not risen. God is able to restore what he made. This his power and liberality he has already sufficiently pledged in Christ—nay, also demonstrated—not only as the raiser of flesh, but also as its restorer. And so the Apostle also says: And the dead shall rise incorrupt. How, unless whole, who were previously corrupt—both by the impairment of ill health and by the decay of burial? For also above, setting forth both, that this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal immortality, he did not repeat the same statement, but assigned a distinction. For by dividing immortality to the annulment of death, and incorruption to the obliteration of corruption, he apportioned the one to resurrection, the other to restoration. I think also that he promised to the Thessalonians the integrity of the whole substance. Therefore henceforth the ruins of bodies shall not be feared.

Integrity, whether preserved or restored, will be able to lose nothing, from the moment when even what had been lost is given back. For in still prescribing the same sufferings to the flesh that is to die, if the same flesh is said to be about to rise, you rashly defend nature against its Lord, you impiously assert law against grace: as though it were not permitted to the Lord God both to change nature and to preserve without law. How then do we read: The things that are impossible with men are possible with God, and, God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wisdom of the world? I ask you: if you have changed your slave by manumission, because the same flesh and soul will remain which were formerly subject to stripes and fetters and brands, will those same things therefore have to be suffered? I think not.

Nay rather, he is honoured with the brightness of a white garment, and the honour of a golden ring, and the name of patron, and tribe and table. Grant this power also to God—through the force of that change to reform the condition, not the nature, while both sufferings are taken away and protections are conferred. Thus the flesh will indeed remain even after the resurrection, in so far as it is passible as itself, as the same; yet impassible in this respect, that in this very thing it has been manumitted by the Lord, so that it can suffer no more.

Everlasting joy, says Isaiah, shall be upon their head. Nothing is everlasting except after the resurrection. Pain and sorrow and sighing, he says, shall flee away from them. Likewise the Angel to John: And God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes. Assuredly from those same eyes which had previously wept, and which could still have wept, had not the divine indulgence dried every shower of tears. And again: For God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death henceforth no more. Therefore also corruption henceforth no more; put to flight accordingly by incorruption, just as death by immortality. If pain and sorrow and sighing, and death itself, arise from the wounds of both soul and flesh, how shall they be taken away, unless their causes cease—namely, the wounds of flesh and soul? Where are adverse accidents with God, or where are hostile assaults with Christ? Where are the onslaughts of demons with the Holy Spirit, when the devil himself with his angels is already plunged into the fires?

Where is necessity, or what is called fortune, or fate? What plague for the raised after pardon? What wrath for the reconciled after grace? What infirmity after virtue? What weakness after salvation?

That the garments and sandals of the children of Israel remained unworn and unimpaired through those forty years; that also in their very bodies the easy growth of nails and hair was fixed by the justice of fitness and dignity, lest even the enormity of corruption should be reckoned against them; that the Babylonian fires did not harm the tiaras or the sarabara of the three brethren, though foreign to Jews; that Jonah, swallowed by the sea-beast in whose belly shipwrecks were digested, was cast out unharmed after three days; that today Enoch and Elijah, not yet settled by resurrection, because not yet discharged by death—by which however they have been translated from the world, and by this very fact already candidates for eternity—are learning from the flesh immunity from all impairment, from all harm, from all injury and outrage: to what faith do these things bear witness and seal, if not to that by which it must be believed that these are proofs of future integrity?

For those things that are written were figures of us, on the authority of the Apostle, so that we may believe the Lord to be mightier than every law of bodies, and all the more the preserver of flesh, whose very garments, whose very sandals he protected.

But the age to come, you say, belongs to another dispensation and an eternal one; therefore the substance of this age, not being eternal, cannot possess what is diverse from it. Certainly—if man exists for the sake of the future dispensation, and not the dispensation for the sake of man. But the Apostle, writing: Whether the world, or life, or death, or things to come, or things present, all are yours, constitutes the same persons heirs also of things to come. Isaiah grants you nothing when he says: All flesh is grass; and elsewhere: And all flesh shall see the salvation of the Lord. He distinguished outcomes, not substances. For who does not place the judgment of God in a twofold sentence, of salvation and of punishment? All flesh therefore is grass, which is destined for fire; and all flesh shall see the salvation of the Lord, which is appointed for salvation. I know that I have committed adulteries in no other flesh than this, and that I am now striving toward continence in no other flesh.

If anyone carries about two sets of shameful parts, he may now also remove the grass of the unclean flesh, and reserve for himself alone that which shall see the salvation of the Lord. But since the same Prophet shows also the nations—now reckoned as dust and spittle, now about to hope and believe in the name and arm of the Lord—are we also deceived concerning the nations? And are some indeed about to believe, and others reckoned as dust, by reason of diversity of substance? But Christ also within the ocean, and from that very sky which overhangs us, has shone as the true light upon the nations; and the Valentinians themselves have learned to go astray here; nor will the form of the believing nations be other than that of the unbelieving—of flesh, of soul. As therefore he distinguished the same nations not by kind but by lot, so also he separated the fleshes, which in those same nations are one substance, not by matter but by desert.

But behold, that they may yet further aggravate the controversy, they argue against this same flesh also from the functions of the members, either saying that these must likewise persist in their own works and fruits, as assigned to the same bodily substance; or, because it is agreed that the functions of the members are to cease, they would also root out the bodily substance itself: the continued existence of which, they say, is surely not to be believed without the members, since neither are the members to be believed without their functions. For to what purpose, they say, will this cave of the mouth, and the row of teeth, and the descent of the gullet, and the crossroads of the stomach, and the gulf of the belly, and the tangled length of the intestines serve, when there will be no place for eating and drinking? To what end do members of this kind admit, press down, convey, divide, digest, and expel?

To what end the hands themselves and the feet and every working limb, when even the care of sustenance shall cease? To what end the kidneys, privy to the seeds, and the rest of the generative organs of either sex, and the lodgings of conceptions, and the fountains of the breasts, when intercourse, and begetting, and nursing are to depart? Finally, to what end the whole body, which is plainly to be wholly idle? But we have already laid down this principle: that the arrangements of things future and things present ought not to be confused, since a change will then intervene; and now we build upon this: that these functions of the members subsist only so long as the necessities of this present life, until life itself is transferred from temporality into eternity, just as the animal body into the spiritual, while this mortal shall put on immortality, and this corruptible shall put on incorruption; and when life itself is then freed from necessities, the members also shall be freed from their functions; nor shall they therefore be unnecessary.

For though they be freed from functions, they are retained for judgment; that each one may receive through the body according to what he has done. For the tribunal of God requires the whole man to be saved; but it is not lawful for him to be saved without the members, of which he consists not by their functions but by their substances. Unless perhaps you will also assert that a ship is safe without a keel, without a prow, without a stern, without the soundness of its whole frame. And yet a ship shattered by a storm, or dissolved by rot, we have often seen, when all its members have been brought together and repaired, glorying even in the title of restoration. Are we to be tormented about the craftsmanship, the will, and the right of God?

Moreover, if the Lord is rich and generous, granting the mere restoration of the ship out of affection or for his own glory, and has willed it to serve only thus far, will you therefore deny that its former frame is necessary to it, on the ground that it will henceforth be idle, since the ship's safety alone without operation is what is fitting? Therefore it is sufficient to learn only this: whether the Lord, in destining man to salvation, has destined the flesh, and whether he wills it to exist again—which you ought not to prescribe as unable to exist again on the ground of the future idleness of the members. For a thing may exist again and nonetheless be idle; nor can it be said to be idle if it does not exist. But if it does exist, it will also be able not to be idle: for nothing shall be idle with God.

But you received, O man, a mouth for devouring and drinking: why not rather for speaking, that you might be distinguished from the other animals? Why not rather for proclaiming God, that you might even surpass other men? In short, Adam declared names to the animals before he plucked from the tree; he also prophesied before he devoured. But you received teeth for gnawing at the butcher's meat: why not rather for crowning every opening and gaping of your mouth? Why not rather for tempering the beats of the tongue, for marking the articulations of the voice by their striking? In short, listen to and observe even the toothless, so that you may seek the instrument of teeth for the honor of the mouth.

There are openings in man and in woman, through which, no doubt, lusts flow: why not rather through which the juices of drinks are strained? There is further within women a place where seeds are gathered: or is it rather where the burdens of blood withdraw, which the more sluggish sex is not able to dispel? For these things too must be said, inasmuch as they bark mockingly, with deliberate intent to subvert the resurrection, about the functions of the members—of what members they choose, and of whom they choose, and in what manner they choose—not reflecting that the very causes of necessity will then first cease: the hunger for food, the thirst for drink, the begetting of intercourse, the livelihood of labor. For when death is removed, neither the supports of sustenance as defenses of life, nor the heavy burden of propagating the race will weigh upon the members. Moreover, even today it will be lawful for the intestines and the private parts to be idle.

Moses and Elijah, having fasted forty days, were sustained by God alone. For even then it was being dedicated: Man shall not live by bread alone, but by the word of God. Behold the outlines of future virtue. We too, as we are able, excuse the mouth from food; we also withdraw the sex from intercourse. How many voluntary eunuchs? How many virgins wedded to Christ? How many of either nature who are barren, built up with unfruitful marriage-beds? For if even here it is already an idleness both of the functions and of the benefits of the members—a temporal idleness, as in a temporal dispensation—and yet man is nonetheless saved; likewise, with man saved, and indeed more fully then, as in an eternal dispensation, we shall the more not desire those things which we have already grown accustomed not to desire here.

But to this dispute the Lord's pronouncement puts an end. They shall be, he says, as the angels. If not by marrying, because not by dying either, then surely not by yielding to any similar necessity of bodily condition. Because the angels too were at one time as men, eating and drinking, and stretching out their feet to the washing: for they had put on a human exterior, while their own proper substance remained within. Therefore, if angels, made as men, received in the same substance of flesh a spiritual manner of treatment, why should not men also, made as angels, undergo in the same substance of flesh a spiritual dispensation, no more subject to the customary practices of the flesh under an angelic covering, than the angels were then subject to the customary practices of the spirit under a human one?

Nor are they therefore going to remain any the less in the flesh, because they will not remain in the customary practices of the flesh: just as neither did the angels therefore remain any the less in the spirit, because they did not remain in the customary practices of the spirit. In short, he did not say, They shall be angels, lest he deny them to be men: but, as angels, so that he might preserve them as men. He did not take away the substance to which he attributed the likeness.

The flesh shall rise again, therefore, and indeed all of it, and indeed the very same, and indeed whole. It is held in deposit wherever it may be, with God, through the most faithful mediator between God and men, Jesus Christ, who will both restore God to man and man to God, the spirit to the flesh and the flesh to the spirit. Both he has already joined together in himself, he has matched the bride to the bridegroom and the bridegroom to the bride. For even if someone should contend that the soul is the bride, the flesh will follow the soul in the name of a dowry. The soul shall not be made a harlot, to be received naked by the bridegroom: it has its instrument, it has its adornment, it has its own bondservant the flesh; as a foster-sister it shall accompany. But the flesh is the bride, which in Christ Jesus has been betrothed to the spirit as bridegroom through blood. What you think is its destruction, know to be a withdrawal.

Not the soul alone is laid aside; the flesh too has its withdrawals in the meantime—in the waters, in the fires, in the birds, in the beasts. When it seems to be dissolved into these, it is as it were poured into vessels. Even if those vessels themselves fail, when it has flowed out from them also, it will be reabsorbed as through a roundabout way into its own matrix the earth, so that from it Adam may again be presented, about to hear from the Lord: Behold, Adam has become as one of us—truly then in possession of the evil he escaped and the good he attained. What, O soul, do you begrudge the flesh? No one is so near to you, whom after the Lord you should love; no one is more your brother, since it is born together with you even in God. You ought rather to have interceded for its resurrection; through you, perhaps, it sinned.

But it is no wonder if you hate it, since you have also rejected its author; you who have been accustomed to deny or to alter even Christ in the flesh. And so also corrupting the very Word of God, who was made flesh, either by the pen or by interpretation, and drawing over it the secrets of apocryphal writings, the fables of blasphemy. But God Almighty, pouring out against these devices of unbelief and perversity, by his most provident grace in the last days of his Spirit upon all flesh, upon his servants and handmaidens, both animated the laboring faith of the resurrection of the flesh, and purged the ancient documents from all obscurity of ambiguity by the clear lights of words and meanings. For because heresies had to exist, so that those who are approved might be made manifest; and these could not venture without some occasions drawn from the Scriptures; therefore the ancient documents seem to have supplied them with certain materials, and those very materials are refutable by those same writings.

But since it was not fitting for the Holy Spirit to dissemble, so as not to overflow also with utterances of such a kind as would sow no seeds for any cunning of the heretics, but would rather tear up even their old clods; therefore he has now dispersed all the ambiguities of former times, and those things they wish to call parables, by the open and perspicuous proclamation of the whole mystery, through the new prophecy flooding in from the Paraclete; of whose fountains if you drink, you will be able to thirst for no doctrine, no burning heat of questions will scorch you; and by drinking of the resurrection of the flesh everywhere, you will be refreshed.