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| 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.
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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.5626
| 5626 He refers to his De
Resurrect. Carnis. See chap. xlviii. |
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?”5627
Now, never mind5628
that practice, (whatever it may have been.) The Februarian
lustrations5629
| 5629 Kalendæ
Februariæ. The great expiation or lustration, celebrated at Rome
in the month which received its name from the festival, is described by
Ovid, Fasti, book ii., lines 19–28, and 267–452, in
which latter passage the same feast is called Lupercalia. Of
course as the rites were held on the 15th of the month, the word
kalendæ here has not its more usual meaning (Paley’s
edition of the Fasti, pp. 52–76). Oehler refers also to
Macrobius, Saturn. i. 13; Cicero, De Legibus, ii. 21;
Plutarch, Numa, p. 132. He well remarks (note in
loc.), that Tertullian, by intimating that the heathen rites of
the Februa will afford quite as satisfactory an answer to
the apostle’s question, as the Christian superstition alluded to,
not only means no authorization of the said superstition for himself,
but expresses his belief that St. Paul’s only object was to
gather some evidence for the great doctrine of the resurrection from
the faith which underlay the practice alluded to. In this respect,
however, the heathen festival would afford a much less pointed
illustration; for though it was indeed a lustration for the dead,
περὶ
νεκρῶν, and had for its object
their happiness and welfare, it went no further than a vague notion of
an indefinite immortality, and it touched not the recovery of the body.
There is therefore force in Tertullian’s si forte. | will
perhaps5630
answer him (quite
as well), by praying for the dead.5631
| 5631 τῷ εὔχεσθαι
ὑπὲρ τῶν
νεκρῶν (Rigalt.). | 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.”5632
To
be “baptized for the dead” therefore means, in fact, to be
baptized for the body;5633
for, as we have
shown, it is the body
which becomes dead. What, then, shall they do who
are baptized for the body,5634
if the
body5635
rises not again? We stand, then, on firm
ground (when we say) that5636
| 5636 Ut, with the
subjunctive verb induxerit. | 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?’”5637
Having
established the doctrine of the resurrection which was denied, it was
natural5638
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,5639
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;”5640
since also he says, that “to every
seed is its own body;”5641
that,
consequently,5642
“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”5643
—does he not therefore intimate that
there is to be5644
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.”5645
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.”5646
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.”5647
Now, although the
natural principle of life5648
| 5648 Anima: we will
call it soul in the context. | and the spirit have
each a body proper to itself, so that the “natural body”
may fairly be taken5649
to signify the
soul,5650
and “the spiritual body” the
spirit, yet that is no reason for supposing5651
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,5652
admits of being called animal (or
natural5653
| 5653 Animale. The terseness
of his argument, by his use of the same radical terms Anima and
Animale, is lost in the English. [See Cap. 15
infra. Also, Kaye p. 180. St. Augustine seems to tolerate our
author’s views of a corporal spirit in his treatise de
Hæresibus.] | ) 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.”5654
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.”5655
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;”5656
| 5656 ὁ ἔσχατος
᾽Αδάμ into ὁ ἔσχατος
Κύριος. | 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.5657
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.5658
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.”5659
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?5660
| 5660 Marcion seems to
have changed man into Lord, or rather to have omitted
the ἄνθρωπος of the
second clause, letting the verse run thus: ὁ πρῶτος
ἄνθρωπος ἐκ
γῆς χοϊκὁς, ὁ
δεύτερος
Κύριος ἐξ
οὐρανοῦ. Anything to cut
off all connection with the Creator. | 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.”5661
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
condition5662
) 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,”5663
| 5663 1 Cor. xv. 49. T. argues from the reading φορέσωμεν
(instead of φορέσομεν), which indeed was read by many of the fathers, and (what is still
more important) is found in the Codex Sinaiticus. We add the
critical note of Dean Alford on this reading: “ACDFKL rel latt
copt goth, Theodotus, Basil, Cæsarius, Cyril, Macarius, Methodius
(who prefixes ἕνα),
Chrysostom, Epiphanius, Ps. Athanasius, Damascene, Irenæus (int),
Tertullian, Cyprian, Hilary, Jerome.” Alford retains the
usual φορέσομεν, on the strength chiefly of the Codex Vaticanus. | —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.”5664
He means the works
of the flesh and blood, which, in his Epistle to the Galatians, deprive
men of the kingdom of God.5665
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.”5666
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
to5667
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.5668
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,”5669
in order,
indeed, that it may be rendered a fit substance for the kingdom of God.
“For we shall be like the angels.”5670
| 5670 Matt. xxii. 30 and Luke xx. 36. |
This will be the perfect change of our flesh—only
after its resurrection.5671
Now if, on the
contrary,5672
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;”5673
for this (honour) does he ascribe to the changed condition5674
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?5675
“O death,
where is thy sting?”5676
—written, I
say, by the Creator, for He wrote them by His prophet5677
| 5677 Isa.
xxv. 8 and (especially) Hos. xiii. 14. | —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 expression5678
| 5678 The Septuagint version
of the passage in Hosea is, ποῦ ἡ δίκη
σου, θάνατε;
ποῦ τὸ
κέντνον σου,
ᾅδη, which is very like the form of the
apostrophe in 1 Cor. xv.
55. | of the exulting and
triumphant challenge to the mortal foe.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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