The Teacher finished her exposition; and to the many persons sitting by her bedside the whole discussion seemed now to have arrived at a fitting conclusion. Nevertheless, fearing that if the Teacher’s illness took a fatal turn (such as did actually happen), we should have no one amongst us to answer the objections of the unbelievers to the Resurrection152    The situation here is, as Dr. H. Schmidt points out, just like that in the Phædo of Plato, where all are satisfied with Socrates’ discourse, except Kebes and Simmias, who seize the precious moments still left, to bring forward an objection which none but their great Teacher could remove., I still insisted.

The argument has not yet touched the most vital of all the questions relating to our Faith. I mean, that the inspired Writings, both in the New and in the Old Testament, declare most emphatically not only that, when our race has completed the ordered chain of its existence as the ages lapse through their complete circle153    περιοδικὴν: a better reading than παροδικὴν, which most Codd. have., this current streaming onward as generation succeeds generation will cease altogether, but also that then, when the completed Universe no longer admits of further increase, all the souls in their entire number will come back out of their invisible and scattered condition into tangibility and light, the identical atoms (belonging to each soul) reassembling together in the same order as before; and this reconstitution of human life is called, in these Writings which contain God’s teaching, the Resurrection, the entire movement of the atoms receiving the same term as the raising up of that which is actually prostrate on the ground154    receiving the same term (συνονομαζομένης) as the raising up of that which is actually prostate on the ground (τοῦ γεώδους), i.e. the term ἀνάστασις is extended by analogy to embrace the entire movement of the atoms. Though there is here of course an allusion to the elevation of the nature from the “earthly” to the “heavenly,” and perhaps to the raising of the body from the tomb, yet the primary meaning is that the term ἀνάστασις is derived from its special use of raising from the ground one who lies prostrate (as a suppliant). Some of the elements of the body are supposed to be γεώδη, i.e. mingled with their kindred earth. But though strictly the word ἀνάστασις should apply to them alone, it does not do so, but denotes more generally the movement of all the atoms to reform the body..

Γ. Ἐγὼ δὲ ταῦτα διεξελθούσης διδασκάλον, ἐπειδὴ τοῖς πολλοῖς παρακαθημένοις ἐδόκει τὸ προσῆκον ἐσχηκέναι πέρας ὁ λόγος, φοβηθεὶς μὴ οὐκ ἔτι ὁ διαλύων ἡμῖν τὰ περὶ τῆς ἀναστάσεως παρὰ τῶν ἔξωθεν προφερόμενα, εἴ τι ἐκ τῆς ἀῤῥωστίας ἡ διδάσκαλος πάθοι, ὃ δὴ καὶ ἐγένετο: οὔπω, φημὶ, τοῦ κυριωτάτου τῶν κατὰ δόγμα ζητουμένων ὁ λόγος ἥψατο. Φησὶ γὰρ ἡ θεόπνευστος Γραφὴ, κατά τε τὴν νέαν καὶ ἀρχαίαν διδασκαλίαν, πάντως ποτὲ τάξει τινὶ καὶ εἱρμῷ τῆς φύσεως ἡμῶν κατὰ τὴν παροδικὴν τοῦ χρόνου κίνησιν διεξιούσης, στήσεσθαι μὲν τὴν ῥοώδη ταύτην φορὰν τὴν διὰ τῆς τῶν ἐπιγινομένων διαδοχῆς προϊοῦσαν, τῆς δὲ τοῦ παντὸς συμπληρώσεως μηκέτι τὴν ἐπὶ τὸ πλεῖον ἐπαύξησιν προδεχομένης, ἅπαν τὸ τῶν ψυχῶν πλήρωμα, πάλιν ἐκ τοῦ ἀειδοῦς καὶ ἐσκεδασμένου πρὸς τὸ συνεστὸς καὶ φαινόμενον ἐπανελεύσεσθαι, τῶν αὐτῶν στοιχείων κατὰ τὸν αὐτὸν εἱρμὸν πρὸς ἄλληλα πάλιν ἀναδραμόντων. Ἡ δὲ τοιαύτη τῆς ζωῆς κατάστασις, περὶ τῶν τῆς θείας διδασκαλίας Γραφῶν ἀνάστασις λέγεται, τῇ τοῦ γεώδους ἀνορθώσει, πάσης τῆς τῶν στοιχείων κινήσεως συνονομαζομένης.