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| What is to Be Replied to Those Who Think that Resurrection Pertains Only to Bodies and Not to Souls.
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Chapter 10.—What is to Be Replied
to Those Who Think that Resurrection Pertains Only to Bodies and
Not to Souls.
There are some who suppose that
resurrection can be predicated only of the body, and therefore they
contend that this first resurrection (of the Apocalypse) is a
bodily resurrection. For, say they, “to rise again” can only
be said of things that fall. Now, bodies fall in death.1370
| 1370 And, as Augustin remarks, are
therefore called cadavera, from cadere, “to
fall.” | There
cannot, therefore, be a resurrection of souls, but of bodies. But
what do they say to the apostle who speaks of a resurrection of
souls? For certainly it was in the inner and not the outer man
that those had risen again to whom he says, “If ye have risen
with Christ, mind the things that are above.”1371
The same sense he elsewhere
conveyed in other words, saying, “That as Christ has risen from
the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness
of life.”1372
So, too,
“Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ
shall give thee light.1373
” As to what they say about
nothing being able to rise again but what falls, whence they
conclude that resurrection pertains to bodies only, and not to
souls, because bodies fall, why do they make nothing
of the
words, “Ye that fear the Lord, wait for His mercy; and go not
aside lest ye fall;”1374
and “To his own Master he stands
or falls;”1375
and “He
that thinketh he standeth, let him take heed lest he fall?”1376
For I
fancy this fall that we are to take heed against is a fall of the
soul, not of the body. If, then, rising again belongs to things
that fall, and souls fall, it must be owned that souls also rise
again. To the words, “In them the second death hath no
power,” are added the words, “but they shall be priests of God
and Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years;” and this
refers not to the bishops alone, and presbyters, who are now
specially called priests in the Church; but as we call all
believers Christians on account of the mystical chrism, so we call
all priests because they are members of the one Priest. Of them
the Apostle Peter says, “A holy people, a royal priesthood.”1377
Certainly he implied, though in a passing and incidental way, that
Christ is God, saying priests of God and Christ, that is, of the
Father and the Son, though it was in His servant-form and as Son of
man that Christ was made a Priest for ever after the order of
Melchisedec. But this we have already explained more than
once.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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