Chapter 12

§ 1.

For as the flesh is susceptible of corruption, so is it also of incorruption, and as of death, so also of life.¹ But these things give way to each other, nor does either of them continue in one stay, but the one is thrust out by the other, and in the presence of the one the other is annihilated. If then death, prevailing against the man, hath expelled his life, and exhibited him a corpse, much more doth life, getting hold of him, drive away Death, that it may present the man living before God. For if Death have made the man a corpse, why shall not Life come and quicken the man? as saith the Prophet Esaias,² Death in his might swallowed up: and again God hath taken away every tear from every face. But the old life is done away with, because it had been given, not by the Spirit, but by the inbreathing.

§ 2.

For the breath of life, the result of which is the natural man, is one thing, and the quickening Spirit, which makes him also spiritual, is another thing. And therefore Esaias saith,³ Thus saith the Lord Who made the Heaven and strengthened it, Who fixed the earth and all things therein; and giveth breath to the people thereon, and spirit to them that tread on it: wherein he affirms that breath indeed was given in common to all the people upon the earth, but the Spirit especially to those who tread down their earthly desires. Wherefore again also the same Esaias distinguishing the aforesaid things saith,⁴ For Spirit shall go forth from Me, and all breath I have made: wherein he set down the word “spirit” with especial reference to God, Who poureth it out on mankind in the last times by the adoption of sons:⁵ but the word Breath in a general sense with reference to the creature, which also he termed a thing made. But that which is made is different from the maker. The breath therefore is for a time, but the Spirit is eternal. And the breath indeed having for a short space been at its height, and having remained for a time, afterwards departeth, leaving that breathless, to which before it had appertained: but the other, encompassing the man from within and from without, as being apt always to abide, never forsaketh him.⁶ But not first cometh that which is spiritual, saith the Apostle, (uttering this as to us men,) but first that which is animal, then that which is spiritual: according to reason. For it was meet that men should first be formed, and being formed should receive a soul, and so afterwards receive the Communion of the Spirit.⁷ Wherefore also the first Adam was made by the Lord a living soul, the second Adam a quickening spirit. As therefore he who was made a living soul, lost his life, casting it away to the worse: so on the other hand that same person, on returning to the better part, and acquiring the quickening Spirit, will attain life.

§ 3.

For it is not one thing that dies, and another that is quickened: as neither is it one thing that is lost, and another that is found,⁸ but that very sheep which was lost, did the Lord come seeking again. What then was it that was dying?⁹ Of course, the substance of the flesh, which had thrown away the breath of life, and had become breathless and dead. This, then, our Lord came to quicken:¹⁰ that as in Adam we all die, as being merely animal, so in Christ we may live, as being spiritual,—putting off, not the form in which God moulded us, but the lusts of the flesh,—and receiving the Holy Ghost: as saith the Apostle in the Epistle to the Colossians;¹¹ Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth. And what these are, he hath himself explained: Fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry. The putting off these things, the Apostle proclaims; and they who do such things, as being merely flesh and blood, cannot, he saith, possess the Kingdom of Heaven. For their soul verging towards the worse, and sinking down to earthly desires, hath partaken of the same title which is applied to such things: which things bidding us to put off, he saith again in the same Epistle,¹² Ye, putting off the old man with his deeds. Now in saying this he was not extirpating our original formation: else we ought to slay ourselves, and so be parted from all conversation in this world.

§ 4.

Yea, and the Apostle himself, when he wrote to us,¹³ was the same as when he was formed in the womb, and had gone out therefrom; in the Epistle to the Philippians he made confession, and saith,¹⁴ And to live in the flesh is the fruit of my work: and the fruit of the work of the Spirit, is the salvation of the flesh. For what other apparent fruit is there of the Spirit, which appeareth not, than to render the flesh mature, and capable of incorruption?

If then “to live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labour,” of course he was not contemning the substance of the flesh, in that former saying, “Ye, stripping off the old man with his deeds;” but he set forth the putting off of our old conversation, that which groweth old and decayeth: and for this cause he added,¹⁵ And putting on the New Man, him who is renewed unto knowledge after the image of Him that created him. Thus in saying, Who is renewed unto knowledge, he was shewing how that the very same person who was before a man of ignorance, i.e., not knowing God, is renewed by the knowledge of Him. For the knowledge of God reneweth man. And in saying, “After the image of his Creator,” he declared our gathering into that Man, who in the beginning was made after the image of God.

§ 5.

And that the Apostle was the very same person as he had been born from the womb,—that is, the old substance of the Flesh,—he said himself in the Epistle to the Galatians;¹⁶ But when it pleased God, Who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by His grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles. As we said before, he who had been born of the womb, and he who was preaching the Son of God were not two persons; but the very same who was before ignorant, and persecuted the Church, when a revelation was made to him from Heaven, and the Lord spake with him (as we shewed in the third Book) was now preaching Jesus Christ the Son of God, Who was crucified under Pontius Pilate:—his past ignorance being expelled by his after knowledge: even as the blind men whom our Lord cured, lost indeed their blindness, but won the substance of their eyes in perfection; and with the same eyes which they saw not with before, received sight,—the darkness only being expelled from their vision, but the substance of the eyes preserved:—that seeing again through those eyes, through which they had ceased to see, they might give thanks to Him, Who wholly renewed their sight again. And he who had his withered hand healed, and generally all whom He cured, changed not those limbs which had been originally produced from the womb: but received back the very same, perfectly whole.

§ 6.

For the Maker of all, the Word of God, Who also moulded Man at first,¹⁷—when He found His own work shattered by wickedness, healed it in every way: both in each particular member, even as it exists in His original mould; and also in that once for all He renewed the whole man, sound and entire, preparing him perfect for Himself against the Resurrection. Yea: for what reason had He to heal the fleshly members, and restore them to their original type, if those which had been healed by Him were not to be saved? For if the benefit from Him was limited by time, it was no great thing which He vouchsafed to those who were healed by Him. Or how say they, that the flesh is incapable of life, which is of Him, which hath received healing from Him? For life is wrought by healing, incorruption by life. He therefore who giveth healing, giveth also life: and He who life, He doth also clothe with incorruption that which He hath framed.