§ 1.
As therefore Christ arose in the Substance of His Flesh, and shewed to His Disciples the marks of the nails,1 and the opening in His Side (now these are the tokens of His Flesh, which rose again from the dead); so, “Us too,” it is said, “He will raise by His own Power.” And again to the Romans he saith,2 But if the Spirit of Him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you; He that raised up Christ from the dead shall quicken also your mortal bodies. What then are their mortal bodies? Is it their souls? Nay, the souls are incorporeal, as compared with mortal bodies.3 For God breathed into man’s face the breath of life, and man became a living soul; but the breath of life is incorporeal. Moreover, they cannot at all term that mortal, which is the very breath of life. And therefore David saith,4 And my soul shall live to Him: as though the substance thereof were immortal. Neither again can they call the spirit, a mortal body. What then remains, to call a mortal body, except the moulded form, i.e., the flesh, (of which also we are discoursing,) how that God will quicken it? For this it is which dies, and is dissolved, and not the soul, nor the spirit. For to die, is to lose the faculty of life, and to become for the future breathless, and inanimate, and forgotten, and to moulder away into those things from which one had also the origin of one’s substance. But this befals neither the soul; for it is the breath of life: nor the spirit, for a spirit is uncompounded and simple, such as cannot be dissolved, and is itself the life of those who receive it. It remains therefore that Death be declared to relate to the flesh: which after the soul hath gone out, becomes breathless and inanimate, and is gradually resolved into the earth out of which it was taken. This therefore is the mortal part. And this also it is whereof he saith, He shall quicken also our mortal bodies.5 And therefore he saith of it in the first Epistle to the Corinthians,6 So also is the resurrection of the Dead. It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. For so,7 saith he, what thou also sowest is not quickened except it first die.
§ 2.
But what is it, which is sown like a grain of wheat, and rots in the earth,8 except bodies which are laid in the earth, wherein also seeds are cast? And therefore he said, It is sown in dishonour, it will rise in glory.9 For what more dishonoured than dead flesh? or what again more glorious than it, rising and receiving immortality? It is sown in weakness, it riseth in power:—in weakness indeed of its own,10 because being earth it departeth into earth; but in the power of God, Who raiseth it up from the dead.11 It is sown a natural body, it will arise a spiritual body. He gives us to understand without all question, that neither of soul nor spirit is he discoursing, but of bodies overtaken by death. For these are animated bodies, i.e., bodies partaking of the soul; which when they have lost, they are done to death: afterwards rising by the Spirit, they are made spiritual bodies, so as to have by the Spirit a life which abides for ever.12 For now, saith he, we know in part, and we prophesy in part:13 but then face to face. This is what Peter also speaks of:14 Whom, not having seen, ye love: in Whom now also not seeing ye believe; and believing shall rejoice with joy unspeakable. For our face shall behold the Face of the Living God, and shall rejoice with joy unspeakable: of course, upon beholding its own proper delight.