apprehended: but this one thing (I do), for- getting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of blamelessness,5 whereby I may attain it; " meaning the resurrection from the dead in its proper time. Even as he says to the Gala- tians: "Let us not be weary in well-doing: for in due seasofi we shall reap." ^ Similarly, concerning Onesiphorus, does he also write to Timothy: "The Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy in that day; " ^ unto which day and time he charges Timothy himself " to keep what had been committed to his care, without spot, unrebukable, until the appear- ing of the Lord Jesus Christ: which in His times He shall show, who is the blessed and only Potentate, tli^ King of kings and Lord of lords," * speaking of (Him as) God It is to these same times that Peter in the Acts refers, when he says: " Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; and He shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached ' I John iii. 2.
sV'ers. 13,14. In the last clause Tertullian reads Tq? ai'sy*^^"'*"? = hlarnelessness, or purity, instead of t^« oivw xArjo'ecu^ =" our high calling."
unto you: whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of His holy prophets." ^ CHAP. XXIV. — OTHER PASSAGES QUOTED FROM ST. PAUL, WHICH CATEGORICALLY ASSERT THE RESURRECTION OF THE FLESH AT THE FINAL JUDGMENT, The character of these times learn, along with the Thessalonians. For we read: "How ye turned from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus." '" And again: " For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord God, Jesus Christ, at His coming? " " Likewise: "BeforeGod, even our Father, at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, with the whole company of His saints. " '^ He teaches them that they must " not sorrow concerning them that are asleep," and at the same time explains to them the times of the resurrection, saying, " For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus shall God bring with Him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of our Lord, shall not prevent them that are asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we be eVer with the Lord." '^ What archangel's voice, (I wonder), what trump of God is now heard, except it be, for- sooth, in the entertainments of the heretics? For, allowing that the word of the gospel may be called "the trump of God," since it was still calling men, yet they must at that time either be dead as to the body, that they may be able to rise again; and then how are they alive? Or else caught up into the clouds; and how then are they here? "Most misera- ble," no doubt, as the apostle declared them, are they "who in this life only" shall be found to have hope:''* they will have to be excluded while they are with premature haste seizing that which is promised after this life; erring concerning tlie truth, no less than Phygellus and Hermogenes.'^ Hence it is that the Holy Ghost, in His greatness, foresee- " I Thess. ii. ig. Some MSS. omit " God."
CHAP. XXVI. j ON THE RESURRECTION OF THE FLESH.
ing clearly all such interpretations as these, suggests (to the apostle), in this very epistle of his to the Thessalonians, as folltnvs: " But of the times and the seasons, brethren, there is no necessity for my writing unto you. For ye yourselves know perfectly, that the day of the Lord cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, ' Peace,' and ' All things are safe,' then sudden destruction shall come upon them."' Again, in the second epistle he addresses them with even greater earnest- ness: " Now I beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto Him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, nor be troubled, either by spirit, or by word," that is, the tvord of false prophets, "or by letter," that i?,, the letter of false apostles, "as if from us, as that the day of the Lord is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means. For that day shall not come, unless indeed there first come a falling away," he means indeed of this present empire, "and that man of sin be re- vealed," that is to say, Antichrist, "the son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth him- self above all that is called God or religion; so that he sitteth in the temple of God, affirming that he is God. Remember ye not, that when I was with you, I used to tell you these things? And now ye know what detaineth, that he might be revealed in his time. For the mys- tery of iniquity doth already work; only he who now hinders must hinder, until he be taken out of the way."= What obstacle is there but the Roman state, the falling away of which, by being scattered into ten king- doms, shall introduce Antichrist upon (its own ruins)? "And then shall be revealed the wicked one, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming: e^'en him whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish." ^ CHAP. XXV. ST. JOHN, IN THE APOCALYPSE, EQUALLY EXPLICIT IN ASSERTING THE SAME GREAT DOCTRINE.
In the Revelation of John, again, the order of these times is spread out to view, which " the souls of the martyrs " are taught to wait for beneath the altar,whilst they earnestly pray to be avenged and judged:'* (taught, I say, to wait), in order that the world may first drink to the dregs the plagues that await it out of the vials of the angels, ^ and that the 5 Rev. xvi.
city of fornication may receive from the ten kings its deserved doom, '' and that the beast Antichrist with his false prophet may wage war on the Church of God; and that, after the casting of the devil into the bottomless pit for a w^iile, ' the blessed prerogative of the first resurrection may be ordained from the thrones;* and then again, after the consign- ment of him to the fire, that the judgment of the final and universal resurrection may be determined out of the books. » Since, then, the Scriptures both indicate the stages of the last times, and concentrate the harvest of the Christian hope in the very end of the world, it is evident, either that all which God promises to us receives its accomplishment then, and thus what the heretics pretend about a resur- rection here falls to the ground; or else, even allowing that a confession of the mystery (of divine truth) is a resurrection, that there is, without any detriment to this view, room for believing in that which is announced for the end. It moreover follows, that the very main- tenance of this spiritual resurrection amounts to a presumption in favour of the other bodily resurrection; for if none were announced for that time, there would be fair ground for as- serting only this purely spiritual resurrection.
Inasmuch, however, as (a resurrection) is proclaimed for the last time, it is proved to be a bodily one, because there is no spiritual one also then announced. For why make a second announcement of a resurrection of only one character, that is, the spiritual one, since this ought to be undergoing accomplishment either now, without any regard to different times, or else then, at the very conclusion of all the periods? It is therefore more com- petent for us even to maintain a spiritual res- urrection a the commencement of a life of faith, who acknowledge the full completion thereof at the end of the world CHAP. XXVI. EVEN THE METAPHORICAL DE- SCRIPTIONS OF THIS SUBJECT IN THE SCRIP- TURES POINT TO THE BODILY RESURRECTION, THE ONLY SENSE WHICH SECURES THEIR CON- SISTENCY AND DIGNITY.
To a preceding objection, that the Scriptures are allegorical, I have still one answer to make — that it is open to us also to defend the bodily character of the resurrection by means of the language of the prophets, which is equally figurative. For consider that primeval sen- tence which God spake when He called man earth; saying, "Earth thou art, and to earth shalt thou return." '° In respect, of course, 6 Rev. xviii.
ON THE RESURRECTION OF THE FLESH.
[CHAr. XXVII.
to his fleshly substance, which had been taken out of the ground, and which was the first to receive the name of man, as we have already shown,' does not this passage give one in- struction to interpret in relation to the flesh also whatever of wrath or of grace God has determined for the earth, because, strictly speaking, the earth is not exposed to His judgment, since it has never done any good or evil? " Cursed, " no doubt, it was, for it drank the blood of man j" but even this was as a figure of homicidal flesh. For if the earth has to suffer either joy or injury, it is simply on man's account, that he may suffer the joy or the sorrow through the events which happen to his dwelling-place, whereby he will rather have to pay the penalty which, simply on his account, even the earth must suffer. When, therefore, God even threatens the earth, I would prefer saying that He threatens the flesh: so likewise, when He makes a promise to the earth, I would rather under- stand Him as promising the flesh; as in that passage of David: "The Lord is King, let the earth be glad, " ^ — meaning the flesh of the saints, to which appertains the enjoyment of the kingdom of God. Then he afterwards says: "The earth saw and trembled; the mountains melted like wax at the presence of the Lord," — meaning, no doubt the flesh of the wicked; and (in a similar sense) it is written: " For they shall look on Him whom they pierced."'* If indeed it will be thought that both these passages were pronounced simply of the element earth, how can it be con- sistent that it should shake and melt at the presence of the Lord, at whose royal dignity it before exulted? So again in Isaiah, "Ye shall eat the good of the land,"s the ex- pression means the blessings which await the flesh when in the kingdom of God it shall be renewed, and made like the angels, and waiting to obtain the things " which neither eye hath seen, nor ear heard, and which have not entered into the heart of man."* Otherwise, how vain that God should invite men to obedience by the fruits of the field and the elements of this life, when He dispenses these to even irreligious men and blasphemers; on a general condition once for all made to man, " sending rain on the good and on the evil, and making His sun to shine on the just and on the unjust! "' Happy, no doubt, is faith, if it is to obtain gifts which the enemies of God and Christ not only use, but even abuse.
» See above, ch. v. " fien. iv. II. 3 Ps. xcvii. I. 4Zech. xii. lo.
" worshipping the creature itself in opposition to the Creator! " ^ You will reckon, (I sup- pose) onions and truffles among earth's boun- ties, since the Lord declares that "man shall not live on bread alone! " ' In this way the Jews lose heavenly blessings, by confining their hopes to earthly ones, being ignorant of the promise of heavenly bread, and of the oil of God's unction, and the wine of the Spirit, and of that water of life which has its vigour from the vine of Christ. On exactly the same principle, they consider the special soil of Judaea to be that very holy land, which ought rather to be interpreted of the Lord's flesh, which, in all those who put on Christ, is thenceforward the holy land; holy indeed by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, truly flow- ing with milk and honey by the sweetness of His assurance, truly Judaean by reason of the friendship of God. For " he is not a Jew which is one outwardly, but he who is one in- wardly."'" In the same way it is that both God's temple and Jerusalem (must be under- stood) when it is said by Isaiah: "Awake, awake, O Jerusalem! put on the strength of thine arm; awake, as in thine earliest time," " that is to say, in that innocence which pre- ceded the fall into sin. For how can words of this kind of exhortation and invitation be suit- able for that Jerusalem which killed the proph- ets, and stoned those that were sent to them, and at last crucified its very Lord? Neither indeed is salvation promised to any one land at all, which must needs pass away with the fashion of the whole world. Even if anybody should venture strongly to contend that para- dise is the holy land, which it may be possible to designate as the land of our first parents Adam and Eve, it will even then follow that the restoration of paradise will seem to be promised to the flesh, whose lot it was to in- habit and keep it, in order that man may be recalled thereto just such as he was driven from it.
CHAP. XXVII. CERTAIN METAPHORICAL TERMS EXPLAINED OF THE RESURRECTION OF THE FLESH.
We have also in the Scriptures robes men- tioned as allegorizing the hope of the flesh. Thus in the Revelation of John it is said: " These are they which have not defiled their clothes with women,"" — indicating, of course, virgins, and such as have become " eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake." '^ There- fore they shall be "clothed in white rai- CHAP. XXIX.]
ON THE RESURRECTION OF THE FLESH.
ment,"' that is, in the bright beauty of the unwedded flesh. In the gospel even, "the wedding garment" may be regarded as the sanctity of the flesh.- '\nd so, wlien Isaiah tells us what sort of ''fast the Lord hath chosen," and subjoins a statement about the reward of good works, he says: "Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thy garments,^ shall speedily arise; "^ where he has no thought of cloaks or stuff gowns, but means the rising of the flesh, which he declared the resurrection of, after its fall in death. Thus we are furnished even with an allegori- cal defence of the resurrection of the body. When, then, we read, "Go, my people, enter into your closets for a little season, until my anger pass away,"^ we have in the closets graves, in which they will have to rest for a little while, who shall have at the end of the world departed this life in the last furious onset of the power of Antichrist. Why else did He use the expression closets, in prefer- ence to some other receptacle, if it were not that the flesh is kept in these closets or cellars salted and reserved for use, to be drawn out thence on a suitable occasion? It is on a like principle that embalmed corpses are set aside for burial in mausoleums and sepulchres, in order that they may be removed therefrom when the Master shall order it. Since, there- fore, there is consistency in thus understanding the passage (for what refuge of little closets could possibly slielter us from the wrath of God?), // appears that by the very phrase which he uses, "Until His anger pass away," 5 which shall extinguish Antichrist, he in fact shows that after that indignation the flesh will come forth from the sepulchre, in which it had been deposited previous to the bursting out of the anger. Now out of the closets nothing else is brought than that which had been put into them, and after the extir- pation of Antichrist shall be busily transacted the great process ^the resurrection.
CHAP. XXVIII. PROPHETIC THINGS AND AC- TIONS, AS WELL AS WORDS, ATTEST THIS GREAT DOCTRINE.
But we know that prophecy expressed itself by things no less than by words. By words, and also by deeds, is the resurrec- tion foretold. When Moses puts his hand into his bosom, and then draws it out again dead, and again puts his hand into his 3 There is a curious change of the word here made by Tertullian, ■who reads ifiorta instead of iajiara, " thy health," or "heahn&s," which is the word in the Sept, 4 Isa. Iviii. S.
bosom, and plucks it out living,* does not this apply as a presage to all mankind? — inasmuch as those three signs ' denoted the threefold power of God: when it shall, first, in the appointed order, subdue to man the old serpent, the devil, ^ however formidable; then, secondly, draw forth the flesh from the bosom of death;' and then, at last, shall pursue all blood (shed) in judgment."" On this subject we read in the writings of the same prophet, (how that) God says: " For your blood of your lives will I require of all wild beasts; and I will require it of the hand of man, and of his brother's hand."" Now nothing is re- quired except that which is demanded back again, and nothing is thus demanded except that which is to be given up; and that will of course be given up, which shall be demanded and required on the ground of vengeance. But indeed there cannot possibly be punishment of that which never had any existence. Existence, however, it will have, when it is restored in order to be punished. To the flesh, therefore, applies everything which is declared respecting the blood, for without the flesh there cannot be blood. The flesh will be raised up in order that the blood may be punished. There are, again, some statements (of Scripture) so plainly made as to be free from all obscurity of allegory, and yet they strongly require '- their very simplic- ity to be interpreted. There is, for instance, that passage in Isaiah: "I will kill, and I will make alive." '^ Certainly His making alive is to take place after He has killed. As, therefore, it is by death that He kills, it is by the resurrection that He will make alive. Now it is the flesh which is killed by death; the flesh, therefore, will be revived by the resurrection. Surely if killing means taking away life from the flesh, and its opposite, re- viving, amounts to restoring life to the flesh, it must needs be that the flesh rise again, to which the life, which has been taken away by killing, has to be restored by vivification.
CHAP. XXIX. EZEKIEL's VISION OF THE DRY BONES QUOTED.
Inasmuch, then, as even the figurative por- tions of Scripture, and the arguments of facts, and some plain statements of Holy Writ, throw light upon the resurrection of the flesh (although without specially naming the very substance), how much more effectual for de- •o Comp. ver. 9.
'-• Sitiant.
" Is;i. xxxviii. 12, 13, 16. The very words, however, occur not in Isaiah, but in i Sam. ii. 6, Deut. xxxii. 39.
ON THE RESURRECTION OF THE FLESH.
[chap. XXX.
termining the question will not those passages be which indicate the actual substance of the body by expressly mentioning it! Take Ezekiel: "And the hand of the Lord," says he, " was upon me; and the Lord brought me forth in the Spirit, and set me in the midst of a plain which was full of bones; and He led me round about them in a circuit: and, be- hold, there were many on the face of the plain; and, lo, they were very dry. And He said unto me, Son of man, will these bones live? And I said, O Lord God, Thou know- est. And He said unto me. Prophesy upon these bones; and thou shalt say, Ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God to these bones, Behold, I bring upon you the breath of life, and ye shall live: and I will give unto you the spirit, and I will place muscles over you, and I will spread skin upon you; and ye shall live, and shall know that I am the Lord. And I prophesied as the Lord commanded me: and while I prophesy, behold there is a voice, be- hold also a movement, and bones approached bones. And I saw, and behold sinews and flesh came up over them, and muscles were placed around them; but there was no breath in them. And He said unto me. Prophesy to the wind, son of man, prophesy and say, Thus saith the Lord God, Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe in these dead men, and let them live. So I prophesied to the wind, as He commanded me, and the spirit entered into the bones, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, strong and exceed- ing many. And the Lord said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say themselves. Our bones are become dry, and our hope is perished, and we in them have been violently destroyed. There- fore prophesy unto them, (and say). Behold, even I will open your sepulchres, and will bring you out of your sepulchres, O my peo- ple, and will bring you into the land of Israel: and ye shall know how that I the Lord opened your sepulchres, and brought you, O my people, out of your sepulchres; and I will give my Spirit unto you, and ye shall live, and shall rest in your own land: and ye shall know how that I the Lord have spoken and done these things, saith the Lord."'
CHAP. XXX. THIS VISION INTERPRETED BY TER- TULLIAN OF THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODIES OF THE DEAD. J A CHRONOLOGICAL ERROR OF OUR AUTHOR, WHO SUPPOSES THAT EZEKIEL IN HIS CH. XXXI. PROPHESIED BEFORE THE CAP- TIVITY.
I am well aware how they torture even this ' Ezek. xjczvii. 1-14.
prophecy into a proof of the allegorical sense, on the ground that by saying, " These bones are the whole house of Israel," He made them a figure of Israel, and removed them from their proper literal condition; and therefore (they contend) that there is here a figurative, not a true prediction of the resurrection, for (they say) the state of the Jews is one of humiliation, in a certain sense dead, and very dry, and dispersed over the plain of the world. Therefore the image of a resurrection is alle- gorically applied to their state, since it has to be gathered together, and recompacted bone to bone (in other words, tribe to tribe, and people to people), and to be reincorporated by the sinews of power and the nerves of royalty, and to be brought out as it were from sepulchres, that is to say, from the most miserable and degraded abodes of captivity, and to breathe afresh in the way of a restora- tion, and to live thenceforward in their own land of Judaea. And what is to happen after all this? They will die, no doubt. And what will there be after death? No resurrection from the dead, of course, since there is noth- ing of the sort here revealed to Ezekiel. Well, but the resurrection is elsewhere fore- told: so that there will be one even in this case, and they are rash in applying this pas- sage to the state of Je\.ish affairs; or even if it do indicate a different recovery from the resurrection which we are maintaining, what matters it to me, provided there be also a resurrection of the body, just as there is a restoration of the Jewish state? In fact, by the very circumstance that the recovery of the Jewish state is prefigured by the reincorpora- tion and reunion of bones, proof is offered that this event will also happen to the bones themselves; for the metaphor could not have been formed from bones, if the same thing exactly were not to be realized in them also. Now, although there is a sketch of the true thing in its image, the image itself still possesses a truth of its own: it must needs be, therefore, that that must have a prior existence for itself, which is used figuratively to express some other thing. Vacuity is not a consistent basis for a similitude, nor does nonentity form a suitable foundation for a parable. It will therefore be right to believe that the bones