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| The Power of God Fully Competent to Effect the Resurrection of the Flesh.
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Chapter XI.—The Power of
God Fully Competent to Effect the Resurrection of the Flesh.
Thus far touching my eulogy of the flesh, in
opposition to its enemies, who are, notwithstanding, its greatest
friends also; for there is nobody who lives so much in accordance with
the flesh as they who deny the resurrection of the flesh, inasmuch as
they despise all its discipline, while they disbelieve its punishment.
It is a shrewd saying which the Paraclete utters concerning these
persons by the mouth of the prophetess Prisca: “They are
carnal,7364
| 7364 Carnes. [To
explain the state of mind in which this sentence is written, let the
reader kindly turn back to Vol. II. p. 4, the paragraph, “As
Eusebius informs us, etc.”] | and yet they hate
the flesh.” Since, then, the flesh has the best guarantee that
could possibly accrue for securing to it the recompense of salvation,
ought we not also to consider well the power, and might, and
competency7365
of God Himself,
whether He be so great as to be able to rebuild and restore the edifice
of the flesh, which had become dilapidated and blocked up,7366
| 7366 Oehler explains
“devoratum” by “interceptum.” |
and in every possible way dislocated?—whether He has promulgated
in the public domains of nature any analogies to convince us of His
power in this respect, lest any should happen to be still thirsting for
the knowledge of God, when faith in Him must rest on no other basis
than the belief that He is able to do all things? You have, no doubt
amongst your philosophers men who maintain that this world is without a
beginning or a maker. It is, however, much more true, that nearly all
the heresies allow it an origin and a maker, and ascribe its creation
to our God. Firmly believe, therefore, that He produced it wholly out
of nothing, and then you have found the knowledge of God, by believing
that He possesses such mighty power. But some persons are too weak to
believe all this at first, owing to their views about Matter. They will
rather have it, after the philosophers, that the universe was in the
beginning made by God out of underlying matter. Now, even if this
opinion could be held in truth, since He must be acknowledged to have
produced in His reformation of matter far different substances and far
different forms from those which Matter itself possessed, I should
maintain, with no less persistence, that He produced these things out
of nothing, since they absolutely had no existence at all previous to
His production of them. Now, where is the difference between a
thing’s being produced out of nothing or out of something, if so
be that what existed not comes into being, when even to have had no
existence is tantamount to having been nothing? The contrary is
likewise true; for having once existed amounts to having been
something. If, however, there is a difference, both alternatives
support my position. For if God produced all things whatever out of
nothing, He will be able to draw forth from nothing even the flesh
which had fallen into nothing; or if He moulded other things out of
matter, He will be able to call forth the flesh too from somewhere
else, into whatever abyss it may have been engulphed. And surely
He is most competent to re-create who created, inasmuch as it is a far
greater work to have produced than to have reproduced, to have imparted
a beginning, than to have maintained a continuance. On this principle,
you may be quite sure that the restoration of the flesh is easier than
its first formation.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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