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| Chapter III.—The power and glory of God shine forth in the weakness of human flesh, as He will render our body a participator of the resurrection and of immortality, although He has formed it from the dust of the earth; He will also bestow upon it the enjoyment of immortality, just as He grants it this short life in common with the soul.
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Chapter III.—The power and glory of
God shine forth in the weakness of human flesh, as He will render our body a
participator of the resurrection and of immortality, although He has formed it
from the dust of the earth; He will also bestow upon it the enjoyment of
immortality, just as He grants it this short life in common with the soul.
1. The
Apostle Paul has, moreover, in the most lucid manner, pointed out that
man has been delivered over to his own infirmity, lest, being uplifted,
he might fall away from the truth. Thus he says in the second [Epistle]
to the Corinthians: “And lest I should be lifted up by the
sublimity of the revelations, there was given unto me a thorn in the
flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me. And upon this I besought the
Lord three times, that it might depart from me. But he said unto me, My
grace is sufficient for thee; for strength is made perfect in weakness.
Gladly therefore shall I rather glory in infirmities, that the power of
Christ may dwell in me.”4468
What, therefore? (as some may exclaim:) did the Lord wish, in that case,
that His apostles should thus undergo buffeting, and that he should
endure such infirmity? Even so it was; the word says it. For strength is
made perfect in weakness, rendering him a better man who by means of his
infirmity becomes acquainted with the power of God. For how could a man
have learned that he is himself an infirm being, and mortal by nature,
but that God is immortal and powerful, unless he had learned by
experience what is in both? For there is nothing evil in learning
one’s infirmities by endurance; yea, rather, it has even the
beneficial effect of preventing him from forming an undue opinion of his
own nature (non aberrare in natura sua). But the being lifted up
against God, and taking His glory to one’s self, rendering man
ungrateful, has brought much evil upon him. [And thus, I say, man must
learn both things by experience], that he may not be destitute of truth
and love either towards himself or his Creator.4469
| 4469 We have adopted here the explanation of
Massuet, who considers the preceding period as merely parenthetical. Both
Grabe and Harvey, however, would make conjectural emendations in the
text, which seem to us to be inadmissible. | But the experience
of both confers upon him the true knowledge as to God and man, and
increases his love towards God. Now, where there exists an increase of
love, there a greater glory is wrought out by the power of God for those
who love Him.
2. Those men, therefore, set aside the
power of God, and do not consider what the word declares, when they dwell
upon the infirmity of the flesh, but do not take into consideration the
power of Him who raises it up from the dead. For if He does not vivify
what is mortal, and does not bring back the corruptible to incorruption,
He is not a God of power. But that He is powerful in all these respects,
we ought to perceive from our origin, inasmuch as God, taking dust from
the earth, formed man. And surely it is much more difficult and
incredible, from non-existent bones, and nerves, and veins, and the rest
of man’s organization, to bring it about that all this should be,
and to make man an animated and rational creature, than to reintegrate
again that which had been created and then afterwards decomposed into
earth (for the reasons already mentioned), having thus passed into those
[elements] from which man, who had no previous existence, was formed. For
He who in the beginning caused him to have being who as yet was not, just
when He pleased, shall much more reinstate again those who had a former
existence, when it is His will [that they should inherit] the life
granted by Him. And that flesh shall also be found fit for and capable of
receiving the power of God, which at the beginning received the skilful
touches of God; so that one part became the eye for seeing; another, the
ear for hearing; another, the hand for feeling and working; another, the
sinews stretched out everywhere, and holding the limbs together; another,
arteries and veins, passages for the blood and the air;4470
| 4470 The ancients erroneously supposed that the
arteries were air-vessels, from the fact that these organs, after
death, appear quite empty, from all the blood stagnating in the veins
when death supervenes. | another, the various internal organs;
another, the blood, which is the bond of union between soul and body. But
why go [on in this strain]? Numbers would fail to express the
multiplicity of parts in the human frame, which was made in no other way
than by the great wisdom of God. But those things which partake of the
skill and wisdom of God, do also partake of His power.
3. The flesh, therefore, is not destitute [of
participation] in the constructive wisdom and power of God. But if the
power of Him who is the bestower of life is made perfect in weakness
—that is, in the flesh—let them inform us, when they
maintain the incapacity of flesh to receive the life granted by God,
whether they do say these things as being living men at present, and
partakers of life, or acknowledge that, having no part in life whatever,
they are at the present moment dead men. And if they really are dead men,
how is it that they move about, and speak, and perform those other
functions which are not the actions of the dead, but of the living? But
if they are now alive, and if their whole body partakes of life, how can
they venture the assertion that the flesh is not qualified
to be a partaker of life, when they do confess that they have
life at the present moment? It is just as if anybody were to take up a
sponge full of water, or a torch on fire, and to declare that the sponge
could not possibly partake of the water, or the torch of the fire. In
this very manner do those men, by alleging that they are alive and bear
life about in their members, contradict themselves afterwards, when they
represent these members as not being capable of [receiving] life. But if
the present temporal life, which is of such an inferior nature to eternal
life, can nevertheless effect so much as to quicken our mortal members,
why should not eternal life, being much more powerful than this, vivify
the flesh, which has already held converse with, and been accustomed to
sustain, life? For that the flesh can really partake of life, is shown
from the fact of its being alive; for it lives on, as long as it is
God’s purpose that it should do so. It is manifest, too, that God
has the power to confer life upon it, inasmuch as He grants life to us
who are in existence. And, therefore, since the Lord has power to infuse
life into what He has fashioned, and since the flesh is capable of being
quickened, what remains to prevent its participating in incorruption,
which is a blissful and never-ending life granted by God? E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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