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| Of the Obstinacy of Those Individuals Who Impugn the Resurrection of the Body, Though, as Was Predicted, the Whole World Believes It.
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Chapter 25.—Of the Obstinacy of
Those Individuals Who Impugn the Resurrection of the Body, Though,
as Was Predicted, the Whole World Believes It.
The foremost of the philosophers
agree with us about the spiritual felicity enjoyed by the blessed
in the life to come; it is only the
resurrection of the flesh they
call in question, and with all their might deny. But the mass of
men, learned and unlearned, the world’s wise men and its fools,
have believed, and have left in meagre isolation the unbelievers,
and have turned to Christ, who in His own resurrection demonstrated
the reality of that which seems to our adversaries absurd. For
the world has believed this which God predicted, as it was also
predicted that the world would believe,—a prediction not due to
the sorceries of Peter,1666
| 1666 VideBook xviii. c. 53. | since it was uttered so long
before. He who has predicted these things, as I have already
said, and am not ashamed to repeat, is the God before whom all
other divinities tremble, as Porphyry himself owns, and seeks to
prove, by testimonies from the oracles of these gods, and goes so
far as to call Him God the Father and King. Far be it from us to
interpret these predictions as they do who have not believed, along
with the whole world, in that which it was predicted the world
would believe in. For why should we not rather understand them as
the world does, whose belief was predicted, and leave that handful
of unbelievers to their idle talk and obstinate and solitary
infidelity? For if they maintain that they interpret them
differently only to avoid charging Scripture with folly, and so
doing an injury to that God to whom they bear so notable a
testimony, is it not a much greater injury they do Him when they
say that His predictions must be understood otherwise than the
world believed them, though He Himself praised, promised,
accomplished this belief on the world’s part? And why cannot He
cause the body to rise again, and live for ever? or is it not to be
believed that He will do this, because it is an undesirable thing,
and unworthy of God? Of His omnipotence, which effects so many
great miracles, we have already said enough. If they wish to know
what the Almighty cannot do, I shall tell them He cannot lie. Let
us therefore believe what He can do, by refusing to believe what He
cannot do. Refusing to believe that He can lie, let them believe
that He will do what He has promised to do; and let them believe it
as the world has believed it, whose faith He predicted, whose faith
He praised, whose faith He promised, whose faith He now points
to. But how do they prove that the resurrection is an undesirable
thing? There shall then be no corruption, which is the only evil
thing about the body. I have already said enough about the order
of the elements, and the other fanciful objections men raise; and
in the thirteenth book I have, in my own judgment, sufficiently
illustrated the facility of movement which the incorruptible body
shall enjoy, judging from the ease and vigor we experience even
now, when the body is in good health. Those who have either not
read the former books, or wish to refresh their memory, may read
them for themselves.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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