Inasmuch as all uneducated men, therefore, still form their opinions after these common- sense views, and as the falterers and the weak- minded have a renewal of their perplexities occasioned by the selfsame views; and as the first battering-ram which is directed against ourselves is that which shatters the condition of the flesh, we must on our side neces- sarily so manage our defences, as to guard, first of all, the condition of the flesh, their disparagement of it being repulsed by our own eulogy. The heretics, therefore, chal- lenged us to use our rhetoric no less than our philosophy. Respecting, then, this frail and poor, worthless body, which they do not indeed hesitate to call evil, even if it had been the work of angels, as Menander and Marcus are pleased to think, or the formation of some fiery being, equally an angel, as Apelles teaches, it would be quite enough for securing respect for the body, that it had the support and pro- tection of even a secondary deity. The angels, we know, rank next to God. Now, whatever be the supreme God of each heretic, I should not unfairly derive the dignity of the flesh likewise from Him to whom was present the will for its production. For, of course, if He had not willed its production. He would have prohibited it, when He knew it was in progress. It follows, then, that even on their principle v the flesh is equally the work of God. There is no work but belongs to Him who has per- mitted it to exist. It is indeed a happy cir- cumstance, that most of their doctrines, in- cluding even the harshest, accord to our God the entire formation of man. How mighty He is, you know full well who believe that He is the only God. Let, then, the flesh begin to give you pleasure, since the Creator thereof is so great. But, you say, even the world is the work of God, and yet " the fashion of this CHAP. VI.]
ON 1 HE RESURRFXTION OF THE FLESH.
world passeth away,"' as the apostle himself testifies; nor must it be predetermined that the world will be restored, simply because it is the work of God. And surely if the uni- verse, after its ruin, is not to be formed again, why should a portion of it be? You are right, if a portion is on an equality with the whole. But we maintain that there is a difference. In the first place, because all things were made by the Word of God, and without Him was nothing made.== Now the flesh, too, had its existence from the Word of God, because of the principle,^ that here should be nothing without that Word. "Let us make man,"" said He, before He created him, and added, "with our hand," for the sake of his pre- eminence, that so he might not be compared with the rest of creation. 5 And "God," says (the Scripture), "formed man. '"^ There is undoubtedly a great difference in the pro- cedure, springing of course from the nature of the case. For the creatures which were made were inferior to him for svhom they were made; and they were made for man, to whom they were aferwards made subject by God. Right- ly, therefore, had the creatures which were thus intended for subjection, come forth into being at the bidding and command and sole power of the divine voice; whilst man, on the contrary, destined to be their lord, was formed l)y God Himself, to the intent that he might \)Q able to exercise his mastery, being created by the Master the Lord Hitnself. Remember, too, that man is properly called Jles/i, which had a prior occupation in man's designation: "And God formed man the clay of the ground." 7 He now became man, who was hitherto clay. " And He breathed upon his face the breath of life, and man (thatis, the clay) became a living soul; and God 'placed the man whom He had formed in the gar- den."® So that man was clay at first, and only afterwards man entire. I wish to impress this on your attention, with a view to your knowing, that whatever God has at all pur- posed or promised to man, is due not to the soul simply, but to the flesh also; if not arising out of any community in their origin, yet at all events by the privilege possessed by the latter in its name.'
JFormam.
5 Universitati.
7 Limum de terra: Gen. ii. 7.
9 It having just been said that flesh was man's prior designa- tion.
«o Quid enim si.
" Adeo.
'Ista.
c;HAP. VI. — NOT THK LOWLINKSS OK THE MA- TKRIAL, BUT THE DIGNITY AND SKILL OF THE ^L•\K.l:R, MUST BE REMEMBERED, IN GAUGINi; THE EXCELLENCE OK THE FLESH. CHRIST PARTOOK OF OUR KLESH.
Let me therefore pursue the subject before me — if I can but succeed in vindicating for the flesii as much as was conferred on it by Him who made it, glorying as it even then was, because that poor paltry material, clay, found its way into the hands of God, whatever these were, happy enough at merely being touched by them. But why this glorying^ Was it that," without any further labour, the clay had instantly assumed its form at the touch of God? The truth is," a great matter was in progress, out of which the creature under con- sideration'^ was being fashioned. So often then does it receive honour, as often as it ex- periences the hands of God, when it is touched by them, and pulled, and drawn out, and moulded into shape. Imagine God wholly employed and absorbed in it — in His hand. His eye. His labour, His purpose. His wis- dom. His providence, and above all, in His love, which was dictating the lineaments (of tliis creature). For, whatever was the form and expression which was then given to the clay (by the Creator) Christ was in His thoughts as one day to become man, because the Word, too, was to be both clay and flesh, even as the earth was then. For so did the Father previously say to the Son: " Let us make man in our own image, after our like- ness." '3 And God made man, that is to say, the creature which He moulded and fashioned; after the image of God (in other words, of Christ) did He make him And the Word was God also, who being''* in the image of God, ' ' thought it not robbery to be equal to God. " '^ Thus, that clay which was even then putting on the image of Christ, who was to come in the flesh, was not only the work, but also the pledge and surety, of God. To what purpose is it to bandy about the name earth, as that of a sordid and grovelling element, with the view of tarnishing the origin of the flesh, when, even if any other material had been available for forming man, it would be requisite that the dignity of the Maker should be taken into consideration, who even by His selection of His material deemed it, and by His manage- ment made it, worthy? The hand of Phidias forms the Olympian Jupiter of ivory; worship is given to the statue, and it is no longer re- garded as a god formed out of a most silly animal, but as the world's supreme Deity — «♦ Constitutus.
ON THE RESURRECTION OF THE FLESH.
[chap. VII, not because of the bulk of the elephant, but on account of the renown of Phidias. Could not therefore the living God, the true God, purge away by His own operation whatever vileness might have accrued to His material, and heal it of all infirmity? Or must this remain to shcnv how much more nobly man could fabri- cate a god, than God could form a man? Now, although the clay is offensive (for its poorness), it is now something else. What I possess is flesh, not earth, even although of the flesh it is said: " Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. " ' In these words there is the mention of the origin, not a recalling of the substance. The privilege has been granted to the flesh to be nobler than its origin, and to have its happiness aggrandized by the change wrought in it. Now, even gold is earth, be- cause of the earth; but it remains earth no longer after it becomes gold, but is a far dif- ferent substance, more splendid and more noble, though coming from a source which is comparatively faded and obscure. In like manner, it was quite allowable for God that He should clear the gold of our flesh from all the taints, as you deem them, of its native clay, by purging the original substance of its dross.
CHAP. VII, — THE EARTHY MATERIAL OF WHICH FLESH IS CREATED WONDERFULLY IMPROVED BY god's manipulation. BY THE ADDITION OF THE SOUL IN MAN'S CONSTITUTION IT BE- CAME THE CHIEF WORK IN THE CREATION.
But perhaps the dignity of the flesh may seem to be diminished, because it has not been actually manipulated by the hand of God, as the clay was at first. Now, when God handled the clay for the express purpose of the growth of flesh out of it afterwards, it was for the flesh that He took all the trouble. But I want you, moreover, to know at what time and in what manner the flesh flourished into beauty out of its clay. For it cannot be, as some will have it, that those " coats of skins " ^ which Adam and Eve put on when they were stripped of paradise, were really themselves the forming of the flesh out of clay,^ because long before that Adam had already recognised the flesh which was in the woman as the propagation of his own substance ("This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh""), and the very taking of the woman out of the man was supplemented with flesh; but it ought, I should suppose, to have been made good with clay, if Adam was still clay. The clay, therefore, ' Gen. iii. 19. [" Earth thou art, */f." jo text.]
3 A Valentinian notion.
was obliterated and absorbed into flesh. When did this happen? At the time that man became a living soul by the inbreathing of God — by the breath indeed which was capable of har- dening clay into another substance, as into some earthenware, so now into flesh. In the same way the potter, too, has it in his power, by tempering the blast of his fire, to modify his clayey material into a stiffer one, and to mould one form after another more beautiful than the original substance, and now possess- ing both a kind and name of its own. For although the Scripture says, " Shall the clay say to the potter? " s that is. Shall man contend with God? although the apostle speaks of "earthen vessels"* he refers to man, who was originally clay. And the vessel is the flesh, because this was made of clay by the breath of the divine afflatus; and it was after- wards clothed with " the coats of skins," that is, with the cutaneous covering which was placed over it. So truly is this the fact, that if you withdraw the skin, you lay bare the flesh. Thus, that which becomes a spoil when stripped off, was a vestment as long as it re- mained laid over. Hence the apostle, when he call circumcision "'a putting off (or spolia- tion) of the flesh," 7 affirmed the skin to be a coat or tunic. Now this being the case, you have both the clay made glorious by the hand of God, and the flesh more glorious still by His breathing upon it, by virtue of which the flesh not only laid aside its clayey rudiments, but also took on itself the ornaments of the soul. You surely are not more careful than God, that you indeed should refuse to mount the gems of Scythia and India and the pearls of the Red Sea in lead, or brass, or iron, or even in silver, but should set them in the most precious and most highly-wrought gold; or, again, that you should provide for your finest wines and most costly unguents the most fitting vessels; or, on the same principle, should find for your swords of finished temper scabbards of equal worth; whilst God must consign to some vilest sheath the shadow of His own soul, the breath of His own Spirit, the opera- tion of His own mouth, and by so ignominious a consignment secure, of course, its condem- nation. Well, then, has He placed, or rather inserted and commingled, it with the flesh?
Yes; and so intimate is the union, that it may be deemed to be uncertain whether the flesh bears about the soul, or the soul the flesh; or whether the flesh acts as apparitor to the soul, or the soul to the flesh. It is, however, more credible that the soul has service rendered to 7 Col. ii. II.
CHAP. IX.]
ON THE RESURRECTION OF THE FLESH.
it.' and has the mastery,' as being more proximate in character to God.' This cir- cumstance even redounds to the glory of the flesh, inasmuch as it both contains an essence nearest to God's, and renders itself a partaker of (the soul's) actual sovereignty. For what enjoyment of nature is there, what produce of the world, what relish of the elements, which is not imparted to the soul by means of the body? How can it be otherwise? Is it not by its means that the soul is supported by the entire apparatus of the senses — the sight, the hearing, the taste, the smell, the touch? Is it not by its means that it has a sprinkling of the divine power, there being nothing which it does not effect by its faculty of speech, even when it is only tacitly indicated? And speech is the result of a fleshly organ. The arts come through the flesh; through the flesh also effect is given to the mind's pursuits and powers; all work, too, and business and offices of life, are accomplished by the flesh; and so utterly are the living acts of the soul the work of the flesh, that for the soul to cease to do living acts, would be nothing else than sundering itself from the flesh. So also the very act of dying is a function of the flesh, even as the process of life is. Now, if all things are sub- ject to the soul through the flesh, their sub- jection is equally due to the flesh. That which is the means and agent of your enjoyment, must needs be also the partaker and sharer of your enjoyment. So that the flesh, which is accounted the minister and servant of the soul, turns out to be also its associate and co-heir. And if all this in temporal things, why not also in things eternal?
CHAP. VIII. CHRISTIANITY, BY ITS PROVISION FOR THE FLESH, HAS PUT ON IT THE GREAT- EST HONOUR. THE PRIVILEGES OF OUR RE- LIGION IN CLOSEST CONNECTION WITH OUR FLESH. WHICH ALSO BEARS A LARGE SHARE IN THE DUTIES AND SACRIFICES OF RELIGION.
Now such remarks have I wished to advance in defence of the flesh, from a general view of the condition of our human nature. Let us now consider its special relation to Chris- tianity, and see how vast a privilege before God has been conferred on this poor and worthless substance. It would suffice to say, indeed, that there is not a soul that can at all procure salvation, except it believe whilst it is in the flesh, so true is it that the flesh is the very condition on which salvation hinges. And since the soul is, in consequence of its salvation, chosen to the service of God, it is ' Invehi. • Dominari.
the flesh which actually renders it capable of such service. The flesh, indeed, is washed, in order that the soul may be cleansed; the flesh is anointed, that the soul may be conse- crated; the flesh is signed (with the cross), that the soul too may be fortified; the flesh is shadowed with the imposition of hands, that the soul also maybe illuminated by the Spirit; the flesh feeds on the body and blood of Christ, that the soul likewise may fatten on its God. They cannot then be separated in their recompense, when they are united in their service. Those sacrifices, moreover, which are acceptable to God — I mean conflicts of the soul, fastings, and abstinences, and the hu- miliations which are annexed to such duty — it is the flesh which performs again and again ^ to its own especial suffering. Virginity, like- wise, and widowhood, and the modest restraint in secret on the marriage-bed, and the one only adoption ^ of it, are fragrant offerings to God paid out of the good services of the flesh. Come, tell me what is your opinion of the flesh, when it has to contend for the name of Christ, dragged out to public view, and ex- posed to the hatred of all men; when it pines in prisons under the cruellest privation of light, in banishment from the world, amidst squalor, filth, and noisome food, without freedom even in sleep, for it is bound on its very pallet and mangled in its bed of straw; when at length before the public view it is racked by every kind of torture that can be devised, and when finally it is spent beneath its agonies, struggling to render its last turn for Christ by dying for Him — upon His own cross many times, not to say by still more atrocious de- vices of torment. Most blessed, truly, and most glorious, must be the flesh which can repay its Master Christ so vast a debt, and so completely, that the only obligation remaining due to Him is, that it should cease by death to owe Him more — all the more bound even then in gratitude, because (for ever) set free.
CHAP. IX. — god's love for the FLESH OF MAN, AS DEVELOPED IN THE GRACE OF CHRIST TO- WARDS IT. THE FLESH THE BEST MEANS OK DISPLAYING THE BOUNTY AND POWER OF GOD.
To recapitulate, then: Shall that very flesh, which the Divine Creator formed with His own hands in the image of God; which He animated with His own afflatus, after the like- ness of His own vital vigour; which He set over all the works of His hand, to dwell amongst, to enjoy, anrl to rule them; which He clothed with His sacraments and His in- structions; whose purity He loves, whose mor- ■4 Instaurat.
5 Una rotitia ejus monogamia.
ON THE RESURRECTION OF THE FLESH.
[chap. XI.
\ tifications He approves; whose sufferings for I Himself He deems precious; — (shall that flesh, l say), so often brought near to God, not rise again? God forbid, God forbid, (I repeat), that He should abandon to everlasting de- struction the labour of His own hands, the care of His own thoughts, the receptacle of His own Spirit,' the queen of His creation, the inheritor of His own liberality, the priestess of His religion, the champion of His testimony, the sister of His Christ! We know by ex- perience the goodness of God; from His Christ we learn that He is the only God, and the very good. Now, as He requires from us love to our neighbour after love to Himself,^ so He will Himself do that which He has com- manded. He will love the flesh which is, so very closely and in so many ways. His neigh- bour— (He will love it), although infirm, since His strength is made perfect in weakness; ^ although disordered, since "they that are whole need not the physician, but they that are sick;" * although not honourable, since "we bestow more abundant honour upon the less honourable members; " ^ although ruined, since He says, " I am come to save that which was lost;"* although sinful, since He says, "I desire rather the salvation of the sinner than his death;"' although condemned, for says He, "I shall wound, and also heal. "^ Why reproach the flesh with those conditions v/hich wait for God, which hope in God, which receive honour from God, which He succours? I venture to declare, that if such casualties as these had never befallen the flesh, the bounty, the grace, the mercy, (and indeed) all the beneficent power of God, would have had no opportunity to work.^ CHAP. X. — HOLY SCRIPTURE MAGNIFIES THE FLESH, AS TO ITS NATURE AND ITS PROSPECTS.
You hold to the scriptures in which the flesh is disparaged; receive also those in which it is ennobled. You read wliatever passage abases it; direct your eyes also to that which elevates it. " All flesh is grass." '° Well, 1)ut Isaiah was not content to say only this; but he also declared, " All flesli shall see the salvation of God. " " They notice God when He says in Genesis, " My Spirit shall not remain among these men, because they are flesh; " '^ but then • Afflatus.
7 Ezek. xviii. 23.
SDeut. xx.xii. 39.
9 Vacuisset. »=Gen. vi. 3, Sept.
He is also heard saying by Joel, "I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh." '^ Even the apostle ought not to be known for any one statement in which he is wont to reproach the flesh. For although he says that "in his flesh dwelleth no good thing;" '* although he affirms that " they who are in the flesh cannot please God, ' ' '5 because " the flesh lusteth against the Spirit; " '* yet in these and similar assertions which he makes, it is not the substance of the flesh, but its actions, which are censured. Moreover, we shall elsewhere '^ take occasion to remark, that no reproaches can fairly be cast upon the flesh, without tending also to the castigation of the soul, which compels the flesh to do its bidding. However, let me meanwhile add that in the same passage Paul "carries about in his body the marks of the Lord Jesus; " '* he also forbids our body to be profaned, as being " the temple of God; " '^ he makes our bodies " the members of Christ; " =~ and he exhorts us to exalt and " glorify God in our body. ' ' =' If, therefore, the humiliations of the flesh thrust off its resurrection, why shall not its high prerogatives rather avail to bring it about? — since it better suits the char- acter of God to restore to salvation what for a while He rejected, than to surrender to per- dition what He once approved.
CHAP. XI. THE POWER OF GOD FUMY COMPE- TENT TO EFFECT THE RESURRECTION OF THE FLESH, Thus far touching my ei'.logy of the flesh, in opposition to its enemies, who are, notwith- standing, its greatest friends also; for there is nobody who lives so much in accordance with the flesh as they who deny the resurrection of the flesh, inasmuch as they despise all its dis- cipline, while they disbelieve its punishment. It is a shrewd saying which the Paraclete utters concerning these persons by the mouth of the prophetess Prisca: "They are carnal,- and yet they hate the flesii." Since, then, the flesh has the best guarantee that could possi- bly accrue for securing to it the recompense of salvation, ought we not also to consider well the power, and might, and competency -^ of God Himself, whether He be so great as to be able to rebuild and restore the edifice of the flesh, which had become dilapidated and '3 Joel iii. I.
'7 Below, in ch. xvi.
22Carnes. [To explain the state of mind in which this sentence is written, let the reader kindly turn back to Vol. II. p. 4, the para- graph, " As Eusebius informs us »'/f."]
»J Licentiaui.
CHAT. xn.\ ON THE RESURRFXTION OF THE FLESH. 553 lilocked up,' and in every possible way dis- located? — wliethcr He has promulgated in the public domains of nature any analogies to convince us of His power in this respect, lest any should happen to be still thirsting for the knowledge of God, when faith in Him must rest on no other basis than the belief that He is able to do all things? You have, no doubt, amongst your philosophers men who maintain that tiiis world is without a beginning or a maker. It is, however, much more true, that nearly all the heresies allow it an origin and a maker, and ascribe its creation to our God. Firmly believe, therefore, that He produced it wholly out of nothing, and then you have found the knowledge of God, by believing that He possesses such mighty power. But some persons are too weak to believe all this at first, owing to their views about Matter. They will rather have it, after the philoso- phers, that the universe was in the beginning made by God out of underlying matter. Now, even if this opinion could be held in truth, since He must be acknowledged to have pro- duced in His reformation of matter far differ- ent substances and far different forms from those which Matter itself possessed, I should maintain, with no less persistence, that He produced these things out of nothing, since they absolutely had no existence at all pre- vious to His production of them. Now, where is the difi[erence between a thing's being pro- duced out of nothing or out of something, if so be that what existed not comes into being, when even to have had no existence is tanta- mount to having been nothing? The contrary is likewise true; for having once existed amounts to having been something. If, how- ever, there is a difference, both alternatives support my position. For if God produced all things whatever out of nothing. He will be able to draw forth from nothing even the flesh which had fallen into nothing; or if He moulded other things out of matter. He will be able to call forth the flesh too from some- where else, into whatever abyss it may have been engulphed. And surely He is most competent to re-create who created, inasmuch as it is a far greater work to have produced than to have reproduced, to have imparted a beginning, than to have maintained a con- tinuance. On this principle, you may be cjuite sure that the restoration of the flesh is