Chapter X.—Doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body, Continued. How are the Dead Raised? and with What Body Do They Come? These Questions Answered in Such a Sense as to Maintain the Truth of the Raised Body, Against Marcion. Christ as the Second Adam Connected with the Creator of the First Man. Let Us Bear the Image of the Heavenly. The Triumph Over Death in Accordance with the Prophets.  Hosea and St. Paul Compared.

Let us now return to the resurrection, to the defence of which against heretics of all sorts we have given indeed sufficient attention in another work of ours.3303 But we will not be wanting (in some defence of the doctrine) even here, in consideration of such persons as are ignorant of that little treatise. “What,” asks he, “shall they do who are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not?”3304 Now, never mind3305 that practice, (whatever it may have been.)  The Februarian lustrations3306 will perhaps3307 answer him (quite as well), by praying for the dead.3308 Do not then suppose that the apostle here indicates some new god as the author and advocate of this (baptism for the dead.  His only aim in alluding to it was) that he might all the more firmly insist upon the resurrection of the body, in proportion as they who were vainly baptized for the dead resorted to the practice from their belief of such a resurrection. We have the apostle in another passage defining “but one baptism.”3309 To be “baptized for the dead” therefore means, in fact, to be baptized for the body;3310 for, as we have shown, it is the body which becomes dead.  What, then, shall they do who are baptized for the body,3311 if the body3312 rises not again? We stand, then, on firm ground (when we say) that3313 the next question which the apostle has discussed equally relates to the body. But “some man will say, ‘How are the dead raised up? With what body do they come?’”3314 Having established the doctrine of the resurrection which was denied, it was natural3315 to discuss what would be the sort of body (in the resurrection), of which no one had an idea. On this point we have other opponents with whom to engage. For Marcion does not in any wise admit the resurrection of the flesh, and it is only the salvation of the soul which he promises; consequently the question which he raises is not concerning the sort of body, but the very substance thereof. Notwithstanding,3316 he is most plainly refuted even from what the apostle advances respecting the quality of the body, in answer to those who ask, “How are the dead raised up? with what body do they come?” For as he treated of the sort of body, he of course ipso facto proclaimed in the argument that it was a body which would rise again. Indeed, since he proposes as his examples “wheat grain, or some other grain, to which God giveth a body, such as it hath pleased Him;”3317 since also he says, that “to every seed is its own body;”3318 that, consequently,3319 “there is one kind of flesh of men, whilst there is another of beasts, and (another) of birds; that there are also celestial bodies and bodies terrestrial; and that there is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars”3320—does he not therefore intimate that there is to be3321 a resurrection of the flesh or body, which he illustrates by fleshly and corporeal samples? Does he not also guarantee that the resurrection shall be accomplished by that God from whom proceed all the (creatures which have served him for) examples? “So also,” says he, “is the resurrection of the dead.”3322 How?  Just as the grain, which is sown a body, springs up a body. This sowing of the body he called the dissolving thereof in the ground, “because it is sown in corruption,” (but “is raised) to honour and power.”3323 Now, just as in the case of the grain, so here: to Him will belong the work in the revival of the body, who ordered the process in the dissolution thereof. If, however, you remove the body from the resurrection which you submitted to the dissolution, what becomes of the diversity in the issue? Likewise, “although it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.”3324 Now, although the natural principle of life3325 and the spirit have each a body proper to itself, so that the “natural body” may fairly be taken3326 to signify the soul,3327 and “the spiritual body” the spirit, yet that is no reason for supposing3328 the apostle to say that the soul is to become spirit in the resurrection, but that the body (which, as being born along with the soul, and as retaining its life by means of the soul,3329 admits of being called animal (or natural3330) will become spiritual, since it rises through the Spirit to an eternal life.  In short, since it is not the soul, but the flesh which is “sown in corruption,” when it turns to decay in the ground, it follows that (after such dissolution) the soul is no longer the natural body, but the flesh, which was the natural body, (is the subject of the future change), forasmuch as of a natural body it is made a spiritual body, as he says further down, “That was not first which is spiritual.”3331 For to this effect he just before remarked of Christ Himself: “The first man Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.”3332 Our heretic, however, in the excess of his folly, being unwilling that the statement should remain in this shape, altered “last Adam” into “last Lord;”3333 because he feared, of course, that if he allowed the Lord to be the last (or second) Adam, we should contend that Christ, being the second Adam, must needs belong to that God who owned also the first Adam. But the falsification is transparent. For why is there a first Adam, unless it be that there is also a second Adam? For things are not classed together unless they be severally alike, and have an identity of either name, or substance, or origin.3334 Now, although among things which are even individually diverse, one must be first and another last, yet they must have one author. If, however, the author be a different one, he himself indeed may be called the last. But the thing which he introduces is the first, and that only can be the last, which is like this first in nature.3335 It is, however, not like the first in nature, when it is not the work of the same author.  In like manner (the heretic) will be refuted also with the word “man: ”  “The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven.”3336 Now, since the first was a man, how can there be a second, unless he is a man also? Or, else, if the second is “Lord,” was the first “Lord” also?3337 It is, however, quite enough for me, that in his Gospel he admits the Son of man to be both Christ and Man; so that he will not be able to deny Him (in this passage), in the “Adam” and the “man” (of the apostle).  What follows will also be too much for him. For when the apostle says, “As is the earthy,” that is, man, “such also are they that are earthy”—men again, of course; “therefore as is the heavenly,” meaning the Man, from heaven, “such are the men also that are heavenly.”3338 For he could not possibly have opposed to earthly men any heavenly beings that were not men also; his object being the more accurately to distinguish their state and expectation by using this name in common for them both. For in respect of their present state and their future expectation he calls men earthly and heavenly, still reserving their parity of name, according as they are reckoned (as to their ultimate condition3339) in Adam or in Christ. Therefore, when exhorting them to cherish the hope of heaven, he says: “As we have borne the image of the earthy, so let us also bear the image of the heavenly,”3340—language which relates not to any condition of resurrection life, but to the rule of the present time. He says, Let us bear, as a precept; not We shall bear, in the sense of a promise—wishing us to walk even as he himself was walking, and to put off the likeness of the earthly, that is, of the old man, in the works of the flesh. For what are this next words? “Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.”3341 He means the works of the flesh and blood, which, in his Epistle to the Galatians, deprive men of the kingdom of God.3342 In other passages also he is accustomed to put the natural condition instead of the works that are done therein, as when he says, that “they who are in the flesh cannot please God.”3343 Now, when shall we be able to please God except whilst we are in this flesh?  There is, I imagine, no other time wherein a man can work. If, however, whilst we are even naturally living in the flesh, we yet eschew the deeds of the flesh, then we shall not be in the flesh; since, although we are not absent from the substance of the flesh, we are notwithstanding strangers to the sin thereof. Now, since in the word flesh we are enjoined to put off, not the substance, but the works of the flesh, therefore in the use of the same word the kingdom of God is denied to the works of the flesh, not to the substance thereof. For not that is condemned in which evil is done, but only the evil which is done in it.  To administer poison is a crime, but the cup in which it is given is not guilty. So the body is the vessel of the works of the flesh, whilst the soul which is within it mixes the poison of a wicked act. How then is it, that the soul, which is the real author of the works of the flesh, shall attain to3344 the kingdom of God, after the deeds done in the body have been atoned for, whilst the body, which was nothing but (the soul’s) ministering agent, must remain in condemnation? Is the cup to be punished, but the poisoner to escape?  Not that we indeed claim the kingdom of God for the flesh: all we do is, to assert a resurrection for the substance thereof, as the gate of the kingdom through which it is entered. But the resurrection is one thing, and the kingdom is another. The resurrection is first, and afterwards the kingdom. We say, therefore, that the flesh rises again, but that when changed it obtains the kingdom. “For the dead shall be raised incorruptible,” even those who had been corruptible when their bodies fell into decay; “and we shall be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.3345 For this corruptible”—and as he spake, the apostle seemingly pointed to his own flesh—“must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality,”3346 in order, indeed, that it may be rendered a fit substance for the kingdom of God. “For we shall be like the angels.”3347 This will be the perfect change of our flesh—only after its resurrection.3348 Now if, on the contrary,3349 there is to be no flesh, how then shall it put on incorruption and immortality? Having then become something else by its change, it will obtain the kingdom of God, no longer the (old) flesh and blood, but the body which God shall have given it. Rightly then does the apostle declare, “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God;”3350 for this (honour) does he ascribe to the changed condition3351 which ensues on the resurrection. Since, therefore, shall then be accomplished the word which was written by the Creator, “O death, where is thy victory”—or thy struggle?3352 “O death, where is thy sting?”3353—written, I say, by the Creator, for He wrote them by His prophet3354—to Him will belong the gift, that is, the kingdom, who proclaimed the word which is to be accomplished in the kingdom.  And to none other God does he tell us that “thanks” are due, for having enabled us to achieve “the victory” even over death, than to Him from whom he received the very expression3355 of the exulting and triumphant challenge to the mortal foe.

CAPUT X.

Revertamur nunc ad resurrectionem, cui et alias quidem proprio volumine satisfecimus omnibus haereticis resistentes; sed nec hic desumus propter 0494C eos qui illud opusculum ignorant. Quid, ait, facientqui pro mortuis baptizantur, si mortui non resurgunt (I Cor., XV)? Viderit institutio ista. Kalendae si forte Februariae respondebunt illi, pro mortuis 0495A petere . Noli ergo Apostolum novum statim auctorem aut confirmatorem ejus denotare, ut tanto magis sisteret carnis resurrectionem, quanto illi qui vane pro mortuis baptizarentur, fide resurrectionis hoc facerent. Habemus illum alicubi (Eph., IV, 5) unius baptismi definitorem . Igitur et pro mortuis tingui, pro corporibus est tingui; mortuum enim corpus ostendimus. Quid facient qui pro corporibus baptizantur, si corpora non resurgunt? Atque adeo recte hunc gradum figimus, ut et Apostolus secundam disceptationem aeque de corpore induxerit. Sed dicent quidam: Quomodo mortui resurgent? quo autem corpore venient? Defensa etenim resurrectione quae negabatur, consequens erat de qualitate corporis retractare, quae non videbatur. Sed de ista cum aliis 0495B congredi convenit. Marcion enim in totum carnis resurrectionem non admittens, et soli animae salutem repromittens, non qualitatis, sed substantiae facit quaestionem. Porro et ex his manifestissime obducitur, quae Apostolus ad qualitatem corporis tractat propter illos qui dicunt, Quomodo resurgent mortui? quo autem corpore venient? (jam enim praedicavit resurrecturum esse corpus) de corporis qualitate tractari. Denique si proponit exempla grani tritici, vel alicujus ejusmodi, vel quibus det corpus Deus prout volet; si unicuique seminum, proprium ait esse corpus; etaliam quidem carnem hominum, aliam vero pecudum et volucrum; et corpora coelestia atque terrena; et aliam gloriam solis, et lunae aliam, et stellarum aliam: nonne carnalem et corporalem portendit 0495C resurrectionem, quam per carnalia et corporalia exempla commendat? nonne etiam ab eo Deo eam spondet, a quo sunt et exempla? Sic et resurrectio, inquit. Quomodo? sicut et granum corpus seritur, corpus resurgit. Seminationem denique vocavit dissolutionem corporis in terram, quia seritur in corruptela, resurgit in honestatem et virtutem. Cujus ille ordo in dissolutione, ejus et hic in resurrectione corporis, scilicet sicut et granum. Caeterum, si auferas corpus resurrectioni, quod dedisti dissolutioni, ubi consistet diversitas exitus? Proinde etsi seritur animale, resurgit spiritale. Et si habet aliquod proprium corpus anima vel spiritus, ut possit videri corpus animale animam significare, et corpus spiritale spiritum; non ideo animam dicit in resurrectione spiritum 0495D futurum , sed corpus, quod cum anima nascendo, et per animam vivendo, animale dici capit, futurum spiritale, dum per spiritum surgit in aeternitatem. Denique, si non anima, sed caro seminatur in corruptela dum dissolvitur in terram, jam non anima erit corpus animale, sed caro, quae fuit corpus animale. Siquidem de animali efficitur spiritale, sicut et 0496A infra dicit: Non primum quod spiritale. Ad hoc enim et de ipso Christo praestruit: Factus primus homo Adam in animam vivam; novissimus Adam in spiritum vivificantem; licet stultissimus haereticus noluerit ita esse. Dominum enim posuit novissimum, pro novissimo Adam; veritus scilicet ne si et Dominum novissimum haberet Adam, et ejusdem Christum defenderemus in Adam novissimo, cujus et primum. Sed falsum relucet. Cur enim primus Adam, nisi quia et novissimus Adam? Non habent ordinem inter se nisi paria quaeque, et ejusdem vel nominis, vel substantiae, vel auctoris. Nam etsi potest in diversis quoque esse aliud primum, aliud novissimum; sed unius auctoris. Caeterum, si et auctor alius, et ipse quidem potest novissimus dici. Quod tamen intulerit, primum 0496B est; novissimum autem, si primo par sit. Par autem primo non est, quia non ejusdem auctoris est. Eodem modo et in homine hominis revincetur. Primus, inquit, homo de humo terrenus; secundus, dominus de coelo. Quare secundus, si non homo, quod et primus? aut numquid et primus dominus, si et secundus? Sed sufficit, si Evangelio Filium hominis adhibet Christum et hominem, et in nomine Adam, eum negare non poterit. Sequentia quoque eum comprimunt. Cum enim dicit Apostolus: Qualis qui de terra, homo scilicet, tales et terreni, homines utique; ergo et qualis qui de coelo, homo, tales et qui de coelo, homines. Non enim poterat hominibus terrenis non homines coelestes opposuisse, ut statum ac spem studiosius distingueret in appellationis societate. 0496C Statu enim ac spe dicit terrenos atque coelestes homines; tamen ex pari, qui secundum exitum aut in Adam aut in Christo deputantur. Et ideo jam ad exhortationem spei coelestis: Sicut portavimus, inquit, imaginem terreni, portemus et imaginem coelestis; non ad substantiam ullam referens resurrectionis, sed ad praesentis temporis disciplinam. Portemus enim, inquit, non portabimus; praeceptive, non promissive, volens nos sicut ipse incessit, ita incedere, et a terreni, id est, veteris hominis imagine abscedere, quae est carnalis operatio. Denique, quid subjungit? Hoc enim dico, fratres, quia caro et sanguis regnum Dei non possidebunt; opera scilicet carnis et sanguinis, quibus et ad Galatas (Gal., V, 19-21) scribens, abstulit Dei regnum, solitus et alias substantiam 0496D pro operibus substantiae ponere; ut cum dicit, Eos qui in carne sunt, Deo placere non posse; quando enim placere Deo poterimus, nisi dum in carne hac sumus? Aliud tempus operationis nullum, opinor, est. Sed si in carne quamquam constituti, carnis opera fugiamus; tum non erimus in carne, dum non in substantia carnis non sumus, sed in 0497A culpa. Quod si in nomine carnis opera, non substantiam carnis jubemur exponere; operibus ergo carnis, non substantiae carnis, in nomine carnis denegatur Dei regnum. Non enim id damnatur, in quo male fit, sed id quod fit. Venenum dare, scelus est; calix tamen in quo datur, reus non est. Ita et corpus carnalium operum vas est, anima est autem quae in illo venenum alicujus mali facti temperat. Quale autem, ut si anima auctrix operum carnis merebitur Dei regnum, per expiationem eorum quae in corpore admisit, corpus ministrum solummodo, in damnatione permaneat? Venefico absoluto, calix erit puniendus? Et tamen non utique carni defendimus Dei regnum, sed resurrectionem substantiae suae, quasi januam regni per quam aditur. Caeterum, aliud 0497B resurrectio, aliud regnum. Primo enim resurrectio, dehinc regnum. Resurgere itaque dicimus carnem, sed mutatam consequi regnum. Resurgent enim mortui incorrupti; illi scilicet, qui fuerant corrupti, dilapsis corporibus in interitum. Et nos mutabimur in atomo, in oculi momentaneo motu. Oportet enim corruptivum hoc (tenens utique carnem suam dicebat Apostolus) induere incorruptelam, et mortale hoc immortalitatem; ut scilicet habilis substantia efficiatur regno Dei. Erimus enim sicut angeli. Haec erit demutatio carnis resuscitatae. Aut si nulla erit, quomodo induet incorruptelam et immortalitatem? Aliud igitur facta per demutationem, tunc consequetur Dei regnum; jam non caro nec sanguis, sed quod illi corpus Deus dederit. Et ideo recte Apostolus: Caro 0497Cet sanguis regnum Dei non consequentur; demutationi illud adscribens, quae accedit resurrectioni. Si autem tunc fiet verbum, quod scriptum est apud Creatorem: Ubi est, mors, victoria tua, vel contentio tua? Ubi est, mors, aculeus tuus? Verbum autem hoc Creatoris est, per Prophetam; ejus erit et res, id est regnum, cujus et verbum fiet in regno. Nec alii Deo gratias dicit, quod nobis victoriam, utique de morte, referre praestiterit, quam illi a quo verbum insultatorium de morte et triumphatorium accepit (II Cor., I, III et IV).