Chapter 13

§ 1.

For, let those who maintain the contrary, i.e., who speak against their own salvation—let them say of the High-Priest’s daughter who died,¹ and of the widow’s son who after death was being carried out near the gate, and of Lazarus who lay now the fourth day in the grave,—in what bodies did they rise again? Of course in the very same wherein also they had died. For if the bodies were not the very same, plainly neither did the same persons who had been dead rise again. And yet we read, The Lord took the hand of the dead man, and said unto him,² Young man, I say unto thee, Arise: and he that was dead sat up, and He commanded to be given him to eat, and gave him to his mother. And Lazarus He called with a loud voice, saying,³ Lazarus, come forth: and the dead, we read, came forth,⁴ bound hand and foot with grave clothes. This is the symbol of the man who had been bound in his sins. And therefore said the Lord,⁵ Loose him, and let him go.

As therefore those who were healed, were healed in the limbs which had before suffered; and the Dead rose in the same bodies, their own limbs and bodies receiving the cure, and such life as the Lord then gave:—the Lord who by things of time was forming beforehand things of eternity, and shewing that He is the Very One Who can bestow on His own work both life and healing,⁶ that His saying also about the Resurrection might be credited:—so likewise in the end,⁷at the last trump, the Lord calling, the dead will rise again: as He saith Himself,⁸ The hour shall come, wherein all the dead which are in the graves, shall hear the voice of the Son of Man, and shall come forth; they that have done good unto the Resurrection of Life, and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment.

§ 2.

Foolish then in very deed and miserable are they, who will not discern things so clear and manifest,⁹ but fly from the light of Truth: who like Œdipus in the Tragedy make themselves blind. And as untrained wrestlers, provoking others, holding as with claws some one part of the body, fall by means of that which they hold, and falling, think they are victorious, because they doggedly keep hold of the limb which at first they seized; and so besides their fall became ridiculous:—so also the Heretics, taking from Paul two words,¹⁰ “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God,” did neither discern the Apostle, nor make any previous search into the meaning of his words, but only making themselves perfect in the bare words, they die upon them; overturning, as far as in them lies, the whole Œconomy of God.

§ 3.

For to this effect they will affirm that those words mean the flesh,¹¹ and not the works of the flesh, as we have shewn—convicting the Apostle of contradicting himself. For he saith immediately in the same epistle, evidently concerning the flesh,¹² the following words: For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal put on immortality. But when this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. Where, O Death, is thy sting? where, O Death, is thy victory? Now all this will be justly said then, when this mortal and corruptible flesh, to which also death relates, which is even pressed down by a certain tyranny of death, shall have put on incorruption and immortality. For then shall death be truly overcome, when the flesh which is holden by it shall have gone out from under its sway.

And again to the Philippians he saith,¹³ But our conversation is in Heaven; whence also we look for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus, who shall transfigure the body of our lowliness to be conformed to the Body of His glory, so that it may be able according to the Power of His working. What then is the body of humility, which the Lord will transfigure to be conformed to the body of His glory? Plainly, the body which is flesh: the same which is humbled by falling to earth. And the transformation of it is, that being mortal and corruptible, it becomes immortal and incorruptible: not of its own substance, but through the Lord’s working, His power of winning immortality for the mortal, and for the corrupt incorruption. And therefore he saith,¹⁴ That death may be swallowed up of life. But He that hath wrought us for this very thing is God, Who also giveth us the earnest of the Spirit:—most evidently using these expressions of the Flesh. For neither is the soul a thing mortal, nor the spirit. But mortality is swallowed up of life, in that the flesh is no longer dead, but abideth living and incorruptible, singing hymns to God, who hath wrought us for this very purpose. For us then to be perfected within, well saith he to the Corinthians, Glorify God in your Body.¹⁵ Now God is the worker of incorruption.

§ 4.

But as to his speaking thus of the body of the flesh, not of some other body, plainly and unquestionably and without any ambiguity, he saith to the Corinthians,¹⁶ Always bearing about in our body the dying of Jesus, that the life of Jesus Christ may be manifested in our body. For always we who live¹⁷ are delivered unto death by Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. And as to the Spirit’s embracing the flesh, in the same Epistle he saith,¹⁸ That ye are the Epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the Living God, not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart. If then even now hearts of flesh become capable of the Spirit; what wonder if in the resurrection they receive that life which is given by the Spirit? Of which Resurrection the Apostle in the Epistle to the Philippians saith,¹⁹ Conformable to His death, if by any means I may attain to the Resurrection from the dead. In what other mortal flesh then can we understand the life to be manifested, except in this substance, which is also delivered unto death for its confession concerning God?²⁰ As he saith himself, If according to man I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what doth it profit me,²¹ if the dead rise not? For if the dead rise not, neither did Christ rise: and if Christ did not rise, our preaching is vain, and your faith also is vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we bare witness that He raised up Christ, whom He raised not up. For if the dead rise not, neither did Christ rise. And if Christ did not rise, your faith is vain: because ye are yet in your sins. Then they also who have slept in Christ, have perished. If in this life only we are hoping in Christ, we are more miserable than all men. But now hath Christ risen from the dead, the first-fruits of them that sleep; for since by man is death, by man also is the resurrection of the dead.

§ 5.

Wherefore in all this, as we have said before, they will either affirm the Apostle to be of two contrary minds,²² in respect of that saying, Flesh and blood not having power to possess the Kingdom of God: or again will be constrained to make malicious and forced explanations of all that is said, inverting and changing the meaning of it. For what sound thing will they have to say, if they shall endeavour to interpret otherwise what he writes, For this corruptible must put on incorruption,²³ and this mortal put on immortality; And,²⁴ That the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh; and all the other places, in which the Apostle openly and clearly preaches the Resurrection and Incorruption of the flesh? And so these passages, many as they are, must needs be ill interpreted by those, who refuse rightly to understand that one.