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| Death Changes, Without Destroying, Our Mortal Bodies. Remains of the Giants. PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
Chapter XLII.—Death
Changes, Without Destroying, Our Mortal Bodies. Remains of the
Giants.
It is the transformation these shall undergo which
he explains to the Corinthians, when he writes: “We shall all
indeed rise again (though we shall not all undergo the transformation)
in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last
trump”—for none shall experience this change but those only
who shall be found in the flesh. “And the dead,” he says,
“shall be raised, and we shall be changed.” Now,
after a careful consideration of this appointed order, you will be able
to adjust what follows to the preceding sense. For when he adds,
“This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must
put on immortality,”7558 this will assuredly
be that house from heaven, with which we so earnestly desire to be
clothed upon, whilst groaning in this our present body,—meaning,
of course, over this flesh in which we shall be surprised at last;
because he says that we are burdened whilst in this tabernacle, which
we do not wish indeed to be stripped of, but rather to be in it
clothed over, in such a way that mortality may be swallowed up of life,
that is, by putting on over us whilst we are transformed that vestiture
which is from heaven. For who is there that will not desire, while he
is in the flesh, to put on immortality, and to continue his life by a
happy escape from death, through the transformation which must be
experienced instead of it, without encountering too that Hades
which will exact the very last farthing?7559
7559 Comp. Matt. v. 26, and see Tertullian’s De
Anima, xxxv. [and see cap. xliii., infra, p.
576.] |
Notwithstanding, he who has already traversed Hades is destined
also to obtain the change after the resurrection. For from this
circumstance it is that we definitively declare that the flesh will
by all means rise again, and, from the change that is to come
over it, will assume the condition of angels. Now, if it were merely in
the case of those who shall be found in the flesh that the
change must be undergone, in
order that mortality may be swallowed up of life—in other words,
that the flesh (be covered) with the heavenly and eternal
raiment—it would either follow that those who shall be found in
death would not obtain life, deprived as they would then be of the
material and so to say the aliment of life, that is, the flesh; or
else, these also must needs undergo the change, that in them too
mortality may be swallowed up of life, since it is appointed that they
too should obtain life. But, you say, in the case of the dead,
mortality is already swallowed up of life. No, not in all cases,
certainly. For how many will most probably be found of men who had just
died—so recently put into their graves, that nothing in them
would seem to be decayed? For you do not of course deem a thing to be
decayed unless it be cut off, abolished, and withdrawn from our
perception, as having in every possible way ceased to be apparent.
There are the carcases of the giants of old time; it will be obvious
enough that they are not absolutely decayed, for their bony frames are
still extant. We have already spoken of this elsewhere.7560 For instance,7561
7561 Sed: for
“scilicet.” |
even lately in this very city,7562 when they were
sacrilegiously laying the foundations of the Odeum on a good many
ancient graves, people were horror-stricken to discover, after some
five hundred years, bones, which still retained their moisture, and
hair which had not lost its perfume. It is certain not only that bones
remain indurated, but also that teeth continue undecayed for
ages—both of them the lasting germs of that body which is to
sprout into life again in the resurrection. Lastly, even if everything
that is mortal in all the dead shall then be found decayed—at any
rate consumed by death, by time, and through age,—is there
nothing which will be “swallowed up of life,”7563 nor by being covered over and arrayed in the
vesture of immortality? Now, he who says that mortality is going to be
swallowed up of life has already admitted that what is dead is not
destroyed by those other before-mentioned devourers. And
verily it will be extremely fit that all shall be consummated and
brought about by the operations of God, and not by the laws of
nature. Therefore, inasmuch as what is mortal has to be swallowed up of
life, it must needs be brought out to view in order to be so swallowed
up; (needful) also to be swallowed up, in order to undergo the ultimate
transformation. If you were to say that a fire is to be lighted, you
could not possibly allege that what is to kindle it is sometimes
necessary and sometimes not. In like manner, when he inserts the
words “If so be that being unclothed7564
7564 Exuti. He must have
read ἐκδυσάμενοι
, instead of the reading of nearly all the ms.
authorities, ἐνδυσάμενοι. | we
be not found naked,”7565 —referring, of
course, to those who shall not be found in the day of the Lord alive
and in the flesh—he did not say that they whom he had just
described as unclothed or stripped, were naked in any other sense than
meaning that they should be understood to be reinvested with the very
same substance they had been divested of. For although they shall be
found naked when their flesh has been laid aside, or to some extent
sundered or worn away (and this condition may well be called
nakedness,) they shall afterwards recover it again, in order
that, being reinvested with the flesh, they may be able also to have
put over that the supervestment of immortality; for it will be
impossible for the outside garment to fit except over one who is
already dressed.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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