the strength of sin is the law" ^~ — that other law, no doubt, which he has described "in his members as warring against the law of his mind," '3 — meaning, of course, the actual power of sinning against his will. Now he says in a previous passage (of our Epistle to the Corinthians), that " the last enemy to be destroyed is death." '» In this way, then, it is that corruption shall not inherit incorrup- tion; in other words, death shall not continue. When and how shall it cease? In that " mo- ment, that twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, when the dead shall rise incorrupt- ible." 's But what are these, if not they who were corruptible before — that is, our bodies; in other words, our flesh and blood? And we undergo the change. But in what condition, if not in that wherein we shall be found? " For this corruptible must put on incorrup- tion, and this mortal must put on immortality.
What mortal is this but the flesh? what corruptible but the blood. Moreover, that you may not suppose the apostle to have any other meaning, in his care to teach you, and that you may understand him seriously to apply his state- ment to the flesh, when he says ''''this corrup- tible" and "//«V mortal," he utters the words CHAP, ..IK] ON THE RESURRECTION OF THE EEESH.
5i^S while touching the surface of his own body.' He certainly could not have pronounced these phrases except in reference to an object which w\'is palpable and apparent. The expression indicates a bodily exhibition. Moreover, a corruptible body is one thing, and corruption is another; so a mortal body is one thing, and mortality is another. For that which suffers is one thing, and that which causes it to suffer is another. Consequently, those things which are subject to corruption and mortality, even the flesh and blood, must needs also be sus- ceptible of incorruption and immortality.
CHAP. LII. — FROM ST. PAUL's ANALOGY OF THE SEED WE LEARN THAT THE BODY WHICH DIED VILL RISE AGAIN, GARNISHED WITH THE AP- LIANCES OF ETERNAL LIFE.
L,et us now see in what body he asserts that tlie dead will come. And with a felicitous sally he proceeds at once to illustrate the point, as if an objector had plied him with some such question. " Thou fool," says he, " that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die."' From this example of the ^^^^^ it is then evident that no other flesh is quickened than that which shall have undergone death, and therefore all the rest of the question will become clear enough. For nothing which is incompatible with the idea suggested by the example can possibly be understood; nor from the clause which follows, " That which thou sowest, thou sowest not the body which shall be," 3 are you permitted to suppose that in the resurrection a different body is to arise from that which is sown in death. Otherwise you have run away from the ex- ample. For if wheat be sown and dis- solved in the ground, barley does not spring up. Still it is nof* the very same grain in kind; nor is its nature the same, or its quality and form. Then whence comes it, if it is not the very same? For even the decay is a proof of the thing itself, since it is the decay of the actual grain. Well, but does not the apostle himself suggest in what sense it is that " the body which shall be " is not the body which is sown, even when he says, " But bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain; but God giveth it a body as it pleaseth Him? " 5 Gives it of course to the grain which he says is sown bare. No doubt, you say. Then the grain is safe enough, to which God lias to assign a body. But how safe, if it is • Cutem ipsam. Rufinus says that in the church of Aquileia they touched their bodies when they recited the clause of the creed which they rendered " the resurrection of this body."
sVer. 37.
4 An objection of the opponeat.
nowhere in existence, if it does not rise again if it rises not again its actual self? If it rises not again, it is not safe; and if it is not even safe, it cannot receive a body from God. But there is every possible proof that it is safe. For what purpose, therefore, will God give it "a body, as it pleases Him," even when it already has its own "bare" body, unless it be that in its resurrection it may be no longer bare? That therefore will be ad- ditional matter which is placed over the bare body; nor is that at all destroyed on which the superimposed matter is put, — nay, it is in- creased. That, however, is safe which re- ceives augmentation. The truth is, it is sown the barest grain, without a husk to cover it, without a spike even in germ, without the pro- tection of a bearded top, without the glory of a stalk. It rises, however, out of the furrow enriched with a copious crop, built up in a compact fabric, constructed in a beautiful order, fortified by cultivation, and clothed around on every side. These are the circum- stances which make it another body from God, to which it is changed not by abolition, but by amplification. And to every seed G^^^has assigned its own body^ — not, indeed, its own in the sense of its primitive body- — in order that what it acquires from God extrinsically may also at last be accounted its own. Cleave firmly then to the example, and keep it well in view, as a mirror of what happens to the flesh: believe that the very same flesh which was once sown in death will bear fruit in resurrectioti-life — the same in essence, only more full and perfect; not another, although reappearing in another form. For it shall re- ceive in itself the grace and ornament which God shall please to spread over it, according to its merits. Unquestionably it is in this sense that he says, " All flesh is not the same flesh;"'' meaning not to deny a community of substance, but a parity of prerogative, — reducing the body to a difference of honour, not of nature. With this view he adds, in a figurative sense, certain examples of animals and heavenly bodies: "There is one flesh of man" (that is, servants of God, but really human), "another flesh of beasts" (that is, the heathen, of whom the prophet actually says, "Man is like the senseless cattle"^), " another flesh of birds " (that is, the martyrs which essay to mount up to heaven), " another of fishes" (that is, those whom the water of baptism has submerged).^ In like manner does he take examples from the heavenly 8 Ps. xllx. 20, Sept.
ON THE RESURRECTION OF THE FLESH.
[chap. liii.
bodies: "There is one glory of the sun" (that is, of Christ), " and another glory of the moon " (that is, of the Church), " and another glory of the stars ' ' (in other words, of the seed of Abraham). ' For one star differeth from another star in glory: so there are bod- ies terrestrial as well as celestial " (Jews, that is, as well as Christians)." Now, if this language is not to be construed figuratively, it was absurd enough for him to make a con- trast between the fiesh of mules and kites, as well as the heavenly bodies and human bod- ies; for they admit of no comparison as to their condition, nor in respect of their attain- ment of a resurrection. Then at last, having conclusively shown by his examples that the difference was one of glory, not of substance, he adds: " So also is the resurrection of the dead."^ How so? In no other way than as differing in glory only. For again, predica- ting the resurrection of the same substance, and returning once more to (his comparison of) the grain, he says: "It is sown in corrup- tion, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body."^ Now, certainly nothing else is raised than that which is sown; and nothing else is sown than that which decays in the ground; and it is nothing else than the flesh which is decayed in the ground. For this was the substance which God's decree demolished, " Earth thou art, and to earth shalt thou return;"* because it was taken out of the earth. And it was from this circumstance that the apostle bor- rowed his phrase of the flesh being " sown," since it returns to the ground, and the ground is the grand depository for seeds which are meant to be deposited in it, and again sought out of it. And therefore he confirms the pas- sage afresh, by putting on it the impress (of his own inspired authority), saying, " For so it is written;" 5 that you may not suppose that the "being sown" means anything else than " thou shalt return to the ground, out of which thou wast taken;" nor that the phrase "for so it is written " refers to any other thing that the flesh.
CHAP. LIII. — NOT THE SOUL, BUT THE NATURAL BODY WHICH DIED, IS THAT WHICH IS TO RISE AGAIN. THE RESURRECTION OF LAZARUS COMMENTED ON. CHRIST'S RESURRECTION, AS THE SECOND ADAM, GUARANTEES OUR OWN.
Some, however, contend that the soul is • I Cor. XV "the natural (or animate) body, "* with the view of withdrawing the flesh from all con- nection with the risen body. Now, since it is a clear and fixed point that the body which is to rise again is that which was sown in death, they must be challenged to an examination of the very fact itself. Else let them show that the soul was sown after death; in a word, that it underwent death, — that is, was demolished, dismembered, dissolved in the ground, nothing of which was ever decreed against it by God: let them display to our view its corruptibility and dishonour (as well as) its weakness, that it may also accrue to it to rise again in in- corruption, and in glory, and in power.^ Now in the case of Lazarus, (which we may take as) the palmary instance of a resurrection, the flesh lay prostrate in weakness, the flesh was almost putrid in the dishonour of its decay, the flesh stank in corruption, and yet it was as flesh that Lazarus rose again — with his soul, no doubt. But that soul was incorrupt; no- body had wrapped it in its linen swathes; no- body had deposited it in a grave; nobody had yet preceived it "stink;" nobody for four days had seen it " sown." Well, now, this entire condition, this whole end of Lazarus, the flesh indeed of all men is still experiencing, but the soul of no one. That substance, therefore, to which the apostle's whole descrip- tion manifestly refers, of which he clearly speaks, must be both the natural (or animate) body when it is sown, and the spiritual body when it is raised again. For in order that you may understand it in this sense, he points to this same conclusion, when in like manner, on the authority of the same passage of Scrip- ture, he displays to us "the first man Adam as made a living soul."® Now since Adam was the first man, since also the flesh was man prior to the soul,^ it undoubtedly follows that it was the flesh that became the living soul. Moreover, since it was a bodily sub- stance that assumed this condition, it was of course the natural (or animate) body that be- came the living soul. By what designation would they have it called, except that which it became through the soul, except that which it was not previous to the soul, except that which it can never be after the soul, but through its resurrection? For after it has recovered the soul, it once more becomes the natural (or animate) body, in order that it may become a spiritual body. P'or it only resumes in the resurrection the condition which it once *What in our version is rendered "a natural body," is St Paul's amy.a. (^uvixoi', which the heretics held to be merely a per- iphrasis for i^ux*!- ^^ have rendered Tertullian's phrase corpus aniwale by "animate body," the better to suit the argument.
8 Compare ver. 45 with Gen. ii. 7.
9 See this put more fully above, c. v., near the end.
CHAP. LIV.]
ON THE RESURRECTION OF THE FLESH.
had. There is therefore by no means the same good reason why the soul should be called the natural (or animate) body, which the flesh has for bearing that designation. The flesh, in fact, was a body before it was an animate body. When the flesh was joined by the soul,' it then became the natural (or ani- mate) body. Now, although the soul is a corporeal substance,- yet, as it is not an ani- mated body, but rather an animating one, it cannot be called the animate (or natural) body, nor can it become that thing which it produces. It is indeed when the soul accrues to something else that it makes that thing animate; but unless it so accrues, how will it ever produce animation? As therefore the flesh was at first an animate (or natural) body on receiving the soul, so at last will it become a spiritual body when invested with the spirit. Now the apostle, by severally adducing this order in Adam and in Christ, fairly dis- tinguishes between the two states, in the very essentials of their difference. And when he calls Christ " the last Adam," ^ you may from this circumstance discover how strenuously he labours to establish throughout his teach- ing the resurrection of the flesh, not of the soul. Thus, then, the first man Adam was flesh, not soul, and only afterwards became a living soul; and the last Adam, Christ, was Adam only because He was man, and only man as being flesh, not as being soul. Ac- cordingly the apostle goes on to say: " How- beit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual,"-* as in the case of the two Adams. Now, do you not suppose that he is distinguishing between the natural body and the spiritual body in the same flesh, after hav- ing already drawn the distinction therein in the two Adams, that is, in the first man and in the last? For from which substance is it that Christ and Adam have a parity with each other? No doubt it is from their flesh, al- though it may be from their soul also. It is, however, in respect of the flesh that they are both man; for the flesh was man prior to the soul. It was actually from it that they were able to take rank, so as to be deemed — one the first, and the other the last man, or Adam. Besides, things which are different in char- acter are only incapable of being arranged in the same order when their diversity is one of substance; for when it is a diversity either in respect of place, or of time, or of condition, they probably do admit of classifi- • Animata.
sJSee the De Avima, v.-ix., for a full statement of Tertullian's view of the soul's corporeality.
cation together. Here, however, they are called first and last, from the substance of their (common) flesh, just as afterwards again the first man (is said to be) of the earth, and the second of heaven;5 but although He is " of heaven " in respect of the spirit, He is yet man according to the flesh. Now since it is the flesh, and not the soul, that makes an order (or classification together) in the two Adams compatible, so that the distinction is drawn between them of " the first man becom- ing a living soul, and the last a quickening spirit," ^ so in like manner this distinction be- tween them has already suggested the conclu- sion that the distinction is due to the flesh; so that it is of the flesh that these words speak: " Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual. "7 And thus, too, the sdccae flesh must be understood in a preceding passage: " That which is sown is the natural body, and that which rises again is the spirit- ual body; because that is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural: since the first Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam a quickening spirit."* It is all about man, and all about the flesh because about man. What shall we say then? Has not the flesh even now (in this life) the spirit by faith? so that the question still remains to be asked, how it is that the animate (or natural) body can be said to be sown? Surely the flesh has received even here the spirit — but o^ily its "earnest;" 5 whereas of the soul (it has re- ceived) not the earnest, but the full possession. Therefore it has the name of animate (or natural) body, expressly because of the higher substance of the soul (or anima,) in which it is sown, destined hereafter to become, through the full possession of the spirit which it shall obtain, the spiritual body, in which it is raised again. What wonder, then, if it is more com- monly called after the substance with which it is fully furnished, than after that of which it has yet but a sprinkling?
CHAP. LIV. — DEATH SWALLOWED UP OF LIFE. MEANING OF THIS PHRASE IN RELATION TO THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY.
Then, again, questions very often are sug- gested by occasional and isolated terms, just as much as they are by connected sentences. Thus, because of the apostle's expression, "that mortality may be swallowed up of life" '° — in reference to the flesh — they wrest SVer. 47.
ON THE RESURRECTION OF THE FLESH.
[chap. lv.
the word swallojved up into the sense of the actual destruction of the flesh; as if we might not speak of ourselves as swallowing bile, or swallowing grief, meaning that we conceal and hide it, and keep it within ourselves. The truth is, when it is written, " This mortal must put on immortality,"' it is explained in what sense it is that " mortality is swallowed up of life" — even whilst, clothed with immortality, it is hidden and concealed, and contained within it, not as consumed, and destroyed, and lost. But death, you will say in reply to me, at this rate, must be safe, even when it has been swallowed up. Well, then, I ask you to distinguish words which are similar in form according to their proper meanings. Death is one thing, and mortality is another. It is one thing for death to be swallowed up, and another thing for mortality to be swallowed up. Death is incapable of immortality, but not so mortality. Besides, as it is written that " this mortal must put on immortality," ^ how is this possible when it is swallowed up of life? But how is it swallowed up of life, (in the sense of destroyed by it) when it is actually received, and restored, and included in it? For the rest, it is only just and right that death should be swallowed up in utter destruction, since it does itself devour with this same intent. Death, says the apostle, has devoured by exercising its strength, and therefore has been itself devoured in the strujjorie " j-7tW- Imved lip in victory y ^ "O death, where is thy sting? O death, where is thy victory?" " Therefore life, too, as the great antagonist of death, will in the struggle swallow up for sal- vation what death, in its struggle, had swal- lowed up for destruction.
CHAP. LV. THE CHANGE OF A THING'S CONDI- TION IS NOT THE DESTRUCTION OF ITS SUB- STANCE. THE APPLICATION OF THIS PRINCI- PLE TO OUR SUBJECT.
Now although, in proving that the flesh shall rise again we ipso facto prove that no other flesh will partake of that resurrection than that which is in question, yet insulated ques- tions and their occasions do require even dis- cussions of their own, even if they have been already sufficiently met. We will therefore give a fuller explanation of the force and the reason of a change which (is so great, that it) almost suggests the presumption that it is a different flesh which is to rise again; as if, indeed, so great a change amounted to utter cessation, and a complete destruction of the former self. A distinction, however, must be made between a chatigc, however great, and everything which has the character of distruc- tion. For undergoing change is one thing, but being destroyed is another thing. Now this distinction would no longer exist, if the flesh were to suffer such a change as amounts to destruction. Destroyed, however, it must be by the change, unless it shall itself persistently remain throughout the altered condition which shall be exhibited in the resurrection. For precisely as it perishes, if it does not rise again, so also does it equally perish even if it does rise again, on the supposition that it is lost 5 in the change. It will as much fail of a future existence, as if it did not rise again at all. And how absurd is it to rise again for the purpose of not having a being, when it had it in its power not to rise again, and so lose its being — because it had already begun its non-existence! Now, things which are ab- solutely different, as mutation and destruction are, will not admit of mixture and confusion; in their operations, too, they differ. One destroys, the other changes. Therefore, as that which is destroyed is not changed, so that which is changed is not destroyed. To perish is altogether to cease to be what a thing once was, whereas to be changed is to exist in another condition. Now, if a thing exists in another condition, it can still be the same thing itself; for since it does not perish, it has its existence still. A change, indeed, it has ex- perienced, but not a destruction. A thing may undergo a complete change, and yet re- main still the same thing. In like manner, a man also may be quite himself in substance even in the present life, and for all that un- dergo various changes — in habit, in bodily bulk, in health, in condition, in dignity, and in age — in taste, business, means, houses, laws and customs — and still lose nothing of his human nature, nor so to be made another man as to cease to be the same; indeed, I ought hardly to say another man, but another thing. This form of change even the Holy Scriptures give us instances of. The hand of Moses is changed, and it becomes like a dead one, bloodless, colourless, and stiff with cold; but on the recovery of heat, and on the restoration of its natural colour, it is again the same flesli and blood." Afterwards the face of the same Moses is changed, ^ with a brightness wliich eye could not bear. But he was Moses still, even when he was not visible. So also Stephen had already put on the appearance of an angel, * although they were none other SSubducitur.
S Acts vi. 15.
cuAV. i,vn.]
ON THE RESURRECTION OF THE FLESH.
than his human knees ' which bent beneath the stoning. The Lord, again, in the retirement of the mount, had changed His raiment for a robe of light; but He still retained features which Peter could recognise. ^ In that same scene Moses also and Elias gave proof that the same condition of bodily existence may con- tinue even in glory — the one in the likeness of a flesh which he had not yet recovered, the other in the reality of one which he had not yet put off.3 It was as full of this splendid example that Paul said: "Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body." * But if you maintain that a transfiguration and a conversion amounts to the annihilation of any substance, then it fol- lows that " Saul, when changed into another man, " s passed away from his own bodily substance; and that Satan himself, when "transformed into an angel of light, "* loses his own proper character. Such is not my opinion. So likewise changes, conversions, and reformations will necessarily take place to bring about the resurrection, but the sub- stance of the fiesh will still be preserved safe.