Chapter XXVII.—Certain Metaphorical Terms Explained of the Resurrection of the Flesh.

We have also in the Scriptures robes mentioned 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,”189    Rev. iii. 4 and xiv. 4.—indicating, of course, virgins, and such as have become “eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake.”190    Matt. xix. 12. Therefore they shall be “clothed in white raiment,”191    Rev. iii. 5. 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.192    Matt. xxii. 11, 12. And so, when 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,193    There is a curious change of the word here made by Tertullian, who reads ἱμάτια instead of ἰάματα, “thy health,” or “healings,” which is the word in the Sept. shall speedily arise;”194    Isa. lviii. 8. 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 allegorical 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,”195    Isa. xxvi. 20. 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 preference 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, therefore, there is consistency in thus understanding the passage (for what refuge of little closets could possibly shelter us from the wrath of God?), it appears that by the very phrase which he uses, “Until His anger pass away,”196    Isa. xxvi. 20. 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 extirpation of Antichrist shall be busily transacted the great process of the resurrection.

CAPUT XXVII.

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Habemus etiam vestimentorum in Scripturis mentionem ad spem carnis allegorizare, quia et Apocalypsis Joannis (Apocal., III et IV): Hi sunt, ait, qui vestimenta sua non coinquinaverunt cum mulieribus; virgines scilicet significans, et qui semetipsos castraverunt propter regna coelorum. Itaque in albis erunt vestibus, id est, in claritate innubae carnis. Et in Evangelio, indumentum nuptiale sanctitas carnis agnosci potest. Itaque Esaias docens, quale jejunium elegerit Dominus, cum subjicit de mercede bonitatis: Tunc, inquit (Is., LVIII), lumen tuum temporaneum erumpet, et vestimenta tua citius orientur: non subsericam utique, nec pallium, sed carnem volens accipi, ortum carnis resurrecturae de mortis occasu 0834B praedicavit. Adeo nobis quoque suppetit allegorica defensio corporalis resurrectionis. Nam et cum legimus (Is., XXVI): Populus meus, introite in cellas promas quantulum, donec ira mea praetereat, sepulcra erunt cellae promae, in quibus paulisper requiescere habebunt, qui in finibus saeculi, sub ultima ira, per Antichristi vim excesserint. Aut cur cellarum promarum potius vocabulo usus est, et non alicujus loci receptorii, nisi quia in cellis promis caro salita et usui reposita servatur, depromenda illinc suo tempore? Proinde enim et corpora medicata condimentis sepulturae, mausoleis et monumentis sequestrantur, processura inde cum jusserit Dominus. Quod cum ita intelligi congruat; et quae enim ab ira Dei 0834C cellariorum nos refugia servabunt? hoc ipso quod 0835A ait, donec ira praetereat, quae extinguet Antichristum, post iram ostendit processuram carnem de sepulcro , in quo ante iram fuerit illata. Nam et de cellariis non aliud effertur, quam quod infertur; et post Antichristi eradicationem agitabitur resurrectio.