On the Resurrection of the Flesh.

 Chapter I.—The Doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body Brought to Light by the Gospel. The Faintest Glimpses of Something Like It Occasionally Met wi

 Chapter II.—The Jewish Sadducees a Link Between the Pagan Philosophers and the Heretics on This Doctrine. Its Fundamental Importance Asserted. The Sou

 Chapter III.—Some Truths Held Even by the Heathen. They Were, However, More Often Wrong Both in Religious Opinions and in Moral Practice.  The Heathen

 Chapter IV.—Heathens and Heretics Alike in Their Vilification of the Flesh and Its Functions, the Ordinary Cavils Against the Final Restitution of So

 Chapter V.—Some Considerations in Reply Eulogistic of the Flesh. It Was Created by God. The Body of Man Was, in Fact, Previous to His Soul.

 Chapter VI.—Not the Lowliness of the Material, But the Dignity and Skill of the Maker, Must Be Remembered, in Gauging the Excellence of the Flesh. Chr

 Chapter VII.—The Earthy Material of Which Flesh is Created Wonderfully Improved by God’s Manipulation. By the Addition of the Soul in Man’s Constituti

 Chapter VIII.—Christianity, by Its Provision for the Flesh, Has Put on It the Greatest Honour.  The Privileges of Our Religion in Closest Connection w

 Chapter IX.—God’s Love for the Flesh of Man, as Developed in the Grace of Christ Towards It. The Flesh the Best Means of Displaying the Bounty and Pow

 Chapter X.—Holy Scripture Magnifies the Flesh, as to Its Nature and Its Prospects.

 Chapter XI.—The Power of God Fully Competent to Effect the Resurrection of the Flesh.

 Chapter XII.—Some Analogies in Nature Which Corroborate the Resurrection of the Flesh.

 Chapter XIII.—From Our Author’s View of a Verse in the Ninety-Second Psalm, the Phœnix is Made a Symbol of the Resurrection of Our Bodies.

 Chapter XIV.—A Sufficient Cause for the Resurrection of the Flesh Occurs in the Future Judgment of Man. It Will Take Cognisance of the Works of the Bo

 Chapter XV.—As the Flesh is a Partaker with the Soul in All Human Conduct, So Will It Be in the Recompense of Eternity.

 Chapter XVI.—The Heretics Called the Flesh “The Vessel of the Soul,” In Order to Destroy the Responsibility of the Body. Their Cavil Turns Upon Themse

 Chapter XVII.—The Flesh Will Be Associated with the Soul in Enduring the Penal Sentences of the Final Judgment.

 Chapter XVIII.—Scripture Phrases and Passages Clearly Assert “The Resurrection of the Dead.”  The Force of This Very Phrase Explained as Indicating th

 Chapter XIX.—The Sophistical Sense Put by Heretics on the Phrase “Resurrection of the Dead,” As If It Meant the Moral Change of a New Life.

 Chapter XX.—Figurative Senses Have Their Foundation in Literal Fact. Besides, the Allegorical Style is by No Means the Only One Found in the Prophetic

 Chapter XXI.—No Mere Metaphor in the Phrase Resurrection of the Dead. In Proportion to the Importance of Eternal Truths, is the Clearness of Their Scr

 Chapter XXII.—The Scriptures Forbid Our Supposing Either that the Resurrection is Already Past, or that It Takes Place Immediately at Death. Our Hopes

 Chapter XXIII.—Sundry Passages of St. Paul, Which Speak of a Spiritual Resurrection, Compatible with the Future Resurrection of the Body, Which is Eve

 Chapter XXIV.—Other Passages Quoted from St. Paul, Which Categorically Assert the Resurrection of the Flesh at the Final Judgment.

 Chapter XXV.—St. John, in the Apocalypse, Equally Explicit in Asserting the Same Great Doctrine.

 Chapter XXVI.—Even the Metaphorical Descriptions of This Subject in the Scriptures Point to the Bodily Resurrection, the Only Sense Which Secures Thei

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

 Chapter XXVIII.—Prophetic Things and Actions, as Well as Words, Attest This Great Doctrine.

 Chapter XXIX.—Ezekiel’s Vision of the Dry Bones Quoted.

 Chapter XXX.—This Vision Interpreted by Tertullian of the Resurrection of the Bodies of the Dead.  A Chronological Error of Our Author, Who Supposes t

 Chapter XXXI.—Other Passages Out of the Prophets Applied to the Resurrection of the Flesh.

 Chapter XXXII.—Even Unburied Bodies Will Be Raised Again. Whatever Befalls Them God Will Restore Them Again. Jonah’s Case Quoted in Illustration of Go

 Chapter XXXIII.—So Much for the Prophetic Scriptures.  In the Gospels, Christ’s Parables, as Explained by Himself, Have a Clear Reference to the Resur

 Chapter XXXIV.—Christ Plainly Testifies to the Resurrection of the Entire Man. Not in His Soul Only, Without the Body.

 Chapter XXXV.—Explanation of What is Meant by the Body, Which is to Be Raised Again. Not the Corporeality of the Soul.

 Chapter XXXVI.—Christ’s Refutation of the Sadducees, and Affirmation of Catholic Doctrine.

 Chapter XXXVII.—Christ’s Assertion About the Unprofitableness of the Flesh Explained Consistently with Our Doctrine.

 Chapter XXXVIII.—Christ, by Raising the Dead, Attested in a Practical Way the Doctrine of the Resurrection of the Flesh.

 Chapter XXXIX.—Additional Evidence Afforded to Us in the Acts of the Apostles.

 Chapter XL.—Sundry Passages of St. Paul Which Attest Our Doctrine Rescued from the Perversions of Heresy.

 Chapter XLI.—The Dissolution of Our Tabernacle Consistent with the Resurrection of Our Bodies.

 Chapter XLII.—Death Changes, Without Destroying, Our Mortal Bodies.  Remains of the Giants.

 Chapter XLIII.—No Disparagement of Our Doctrine in St. Paul’s Phrase, Which Calls Our Residence in the Flesh Absence from the Lord.

 Chapter XLIV.—Sundry Other Passages of St. Paul Explained in a Sentence Confirmatory of Our Doctrine.

 Chapter XLV.—The Old Man and the New Man of St. Paul Explained.

 Chapter XLVI.—It is the Works of the Flesh, Not the Substance of the Flesh, Which St. Paul Always Condemns.

 Chapter XLVII.—St. Paul, All Through, Promises Eternal Life to the Body.

 Chapter XLVIII.—Sundry Passages in the Great Chapter of the Resurrection of the Dead Explained in Defence of Our Doctrine.

 Chapter XLIX.—The Same Subject Continued. What Does the Apostle Exclude from the Dead?  Certainly Not the Substance of the Flesh.

 Chapter L.—In What Sense Flesh and Blood are Excluded from the Kingdom of God.

 Chapter LI.—The Session of Jesus in His Incarnate Nature at the Right Hand of God a Guarantee of the Resurrection of Our Flesh.

 Chapter LII.—From St. Paul’s Analogy of the Seed We Learn that the Body Which Died Will Rise Again, Garnished with the Appliances of Eternal Life.

 Chapter 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 Resurr

 Chapter LIV.—Death Swallowed Up of Life. Meaning of This Phrase in Relation to the Resurrection of the Body.

 Chapter LV.—The Change of a Thing’s Condition is Not the Destruction of Its Substance. The Application of This Principle to Our Subject.

 Chapter LVI.—The Procedure of the Last Judgment, and Its Awards, Only Possible on the Identity of the Risen Body with Our Present Flesh.

 Chapter LVII.—Our Bodies, However Mutilated Before or After Death, Shall Recover Their Perfect Integrity in the Resurrection. Illustration of the Enfr

 Chapter LVIII.—From This Perfection of Our Restored Bodies Will Flow the Consciousness of Undisturbed Joy and Peace.

 Chapter LIX.—Our Flesh in the Resurrection Capable, Without Losing Its Essential Identity, of Bearing the Changed Conditions of Eternal Life, or of De

 Chapter LX.—All the Characteristics of Our Bodies—Sex, Various Limbs, Etc.—Will Be Retained, Whatever Change of Functions These May Have, of Which Poi

 Chapter LXI.—The Details of Our Bodily Sex, and of the Functions of Our Various Members. Apology for the Necessity Which Heresy Imposes of Hunting Up

 Chapter LXII.—Our Destined Likeness to the Angels in the Glorious Life of the Resurrection.

 Chapter LXIII.—Conclusion. The Resurrection of the Flesh in Its Absolute Identity and Perfection. Belief of This Had Become Weak. Hopes for Its Refres

Chapter LVII.—Our Bodies, However Mutilated Before or After Death, Shall Recover Their Perfect Integrity in the Resurrection. Illustration of the Enfranchised Slave.

We now come to the most usual cavil of unbelief. If, they say, it be actually the selfsame substance which is recalled to life with all its form, and lineaments, and quality, then why not with all its other characteristics?  Then the blind, and the lame, and the palsied, and whoever else may have passed away with any conspicuous mark, will return again with the same. What now is the fact, although you in the greatness of your conceit436    Qualiscunque. thus disdain to accept from God so vast a grace? Does it not happen that, when you now admit the salvation of only the soul, you ascribe it to men at the cost of half their nature? What is the good of believing in the resurrection, unless your faith embraces the whole of it? If the flesh is to be repaired after its dissolution, much more will it be restored after some violent injury. Greater cases prescribe rules for lesser ones. Is not the amputation or the crushing of a limb the death of that limb?  Now, if the death of the whole person is rescinded by its resurrection, what must we say of the death of a part of him?  If we are changed for glory, how much more for integrity!437    Or the recovery of our entire person. Any loss sustained by our bodies is an accident to them, but their entirety is their natural property. In this condition we are born. Even if we become injured in the womb, this is loss suffered by what is already a human being. Natural condition438    Genus. is prior to injury. As life is bestowed by God, so is it restored by Him. As we are when we receive it, so are we when we recover it. To nature, not to injury, are we restored; to our state by birth, not to our condition by accident, do we rise again. If God raises not men entire, He raises not the dead. For what dead man is entire, although he dies entire? Who is without hurt, that is without life? What body is uninjured, when it is dead, when it is cold, when it is ghastly, when it is stiff, when it is a corpse? When is a man more infirm, than when he is entirely infirm? When more palsied, than when quite motionless? Thus, for a dead man to be raised again, amounts to nothing short of his being restored to his entire condition,—lest he, forsooth, be still dead in that part in which he has not risen again. God is quite able to re-make what He once made. This power and this unstinted grace of His He has already sufficiently guaranteed in Christ; and has displayed Himself to us (in Him) not only as the restorer of the flesh, but as the repairer of its breaches.  And so the apostle says: “The dead shall be raised incorruptible” (or unimpaired).439    1 Cor. xv. 52. But how so, unless they become entire, who have wasted away either in the loss of their health, or in the long decrepitude of the grave? For when he propounds the two clauses, that “this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality,”440    1 Cor. xv. 53. he does not repeat the same statement, but sets forth a distinction. For, by assigning immortality to the repeating of death, and incorruption to the repairing of the wasted body, he has fitted one to the raising and the other to the retrieval of the body. I suppose, moreover, that he promises to the Thessalonians the integrity of the whole substance of man.441    1 Thess. iv. 13–17 and v. 23. So that for the great future there need be no fear of blemished or defective bodies.  Integrity, whether the result of preservation or restoration, will be able to lose nothing more, after the time that it has given back to it whatever it had lost. Now, when you contend that the flesh will still have to undergo the same sufferings, if the same flesh be said to have to rise again, you rashly set up nature against her Lord, and impiously contrast her law against His grace; as if it were not permitted the Lord God both to change nature, and to preserve her, without subjection to a law. How is it, then, that we read, “With men these things are impossible, but with God all things are possible;”442    Matt. xix. 26. and again, “God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise?”443    1 Cor. i. 27. Let me ask you, if you were to manumit your slave (seeing that the same flesh and soul will remain to him, which once were exposed to the whip, and the fetter, and the stripes), will it therefore be fit for him to undergo the same old sufferings?  I trow not. He is instead thereof honoured with the grace of the white robe, and the favour of the gold ring, and the name and tribe as well as table of his patron. Give, then, the same prerogative to God, by virtue of such a change, of reforming our condition, not our nature, by taking away from it all sufferings, and surrounding it with safeguards of protection. Thus our flesh shall remain even after the resurrection—so far indeed susceptible of suffering, as it is the flesh, and the same flesh too; but at the same time impassible, inasmuch as it has been liberated by the Lord for the very end and purpose of being no longer capable of enduring suffering.

CAPUT LVII.

Hinc jam illa vulgaris incredulitatis argutia est: Si, inquiunt, ipsa eadamque substantia revocatur cum sua forma, linea, qualitate, ergo et cum insignibus suis reliquis: itaque et caeci, et claudi, et paralytici, et ut quis insignis excesserit , ita et revertetur. Quid nunc? et si ita, dedignaris tantam gratiam qualiscumque a Deo consequi? Non enim et nunc, animae solius admittens salutem, dimidiatis hominibus eamdem 0878B adscribis? Quid est credere resurrectionem, nisi integram credere? Si enim caro de dissolutione reparabitur, multo magis de vitiatione revocabitur. Minoribus majora praescribunt. Cujuscumque membri detruncatio, vel obtusio, nonne mors membri est? Si universalis mors resurrectione rescinditur, quid portionalis? Si demutamur in gloriam, quanto magis in incolumitatem! Vitiatio corporum accidens res est; integritas propria est: in hac nascimur. Etiamsi in utero vitiemur , jam hominis est passio. Prius est genus, quam casus. Quomodo vita confertur a Deo, ita et refertur. Quales eam accipimus, tales et recipimus. Naturae, non injuriae reddimur. Quod nascimur, non quod laedimur, reviviscimus. Si non integros Deus suscitat, non suscitat mortuos. Quis 0878C enim mortuus integer, etsi integer moritur? Quis incolumis, qui exanimis? quod corpus inlaesum, cum interemptum, cum frigidum, cum expallidum, cum edurum, cum cadaver? Quando magis homo debilis, nisi cum totus? quando magis paralyticus, nisi cum immobilis? Ita, nihil aliud est mortuum resuscitari, quam integrum fieri; ne ex ea parte mortuus adhuc sit, ex qua non resurrexerit. Idoneus Deus 0879A reficere quod fecit. Hanc suam et potestatem et liberalitatem satis jam in Christo spopondit, imo et ostendit non tantum resuscitatorem carnis, verum etiam redintegratorem. Atque adeo et Apostolus: Et mortui, inquit (I Cor., XV), resurgent incorrupti. Quomodo, nisi integri, qui retro corrupti, tam vitio valetudinis, quam et senio sepulturae? Nam et supra, utrumque proponens, oportere et corruptivum istud induere incorruptelam, et mortale istud immortalitatem, non iteravit sententiam, sed differentiam demandavit. Immortalitatem enim ad rescissionem mortis, incorruptelam ad obliterationem corruptelae dividendo, alteram ad resurrectionem, alteram ad redintegrationem temperavit. Puto autem, et Thessalonicensibus omnis substantiae integritatem repromisit. 0879B Itaque nec in posterum timebuntur corporum labes. Nihil poterit amittere integritas, vel conservata, vel restituta, ex quo illi etiam, si quid amiserat, redditur. Praescribens enim adhuc easdem passiones obituram carnem, si eadem resurrectura dicatur, naturam adversus Dominum suum temere defendis, legem adversus gratiam impie asseris: quasi Domino Deo non liceat et mutare naturam, et sine lege servare. Quomodo ergo legimus (Matth., XIX): «Quae impossibilia apud homines, possibilia apud Deum sunt , et (I Cor., I), Stulta mundi elegit Deus, ut sapientiam mundi confundat?» Oro te, si famulum tuum libertate mutaveris, quia eadem caro atque anima permanebunt, quae flagellis et compedibus, et stigmatibus, obnoxiae retro fuerant, idcircone illa 0879C eadem pati oportebit? Non opinor. Atquin et vestis albae nitore, et aurei annuli honore, et patroni nomine, ac tribu mensaque honoratur. Permitte hanc et Deo potestatem, per vim demutationis illius conditionem, non naturam reformandi, dum et passiones auferuntur, et munitiones conferuntur. Ita 0880A manebit quidem caro etiam post resurrectionem, eatenus passibilis qua ipsa, qua eadem; ea tamen impassibilis, qua in hoc ipsum manumissa a Domino, ne ultra pati possit