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| Section 43
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43. But let us
endeavour to assist those souls which fail in their faith through
reasons drawn from nature. If one should mix different sorts of seeds
together and sow them indiscriminately in the earth, will not the grain
of each several kind, wherever it may have been thrown, shoot forth at
the proper time in accordance with its own specific nature so as to
reproduce the condition of its own form and its own body.
Thus then the substance of each
individual flesh, though its particles have been variously and
diversely scattered, has within it an immortal principle, since it is
the flesh of an immortal soul, and at the time which God in His good
pleasure shall appoint, there will be collected from the earth and
drawn to it, its own component particles, which will be restored to
that form which death had formerly dissolved. And thus it will come to
pass that to each soul will be restored, not a confused or foreign body
but its own which it had when alive, in order that the flesh together
with its own soul may for the conflicts of the present life either be
crowned if undefiled, or punished if defiled. And accordingly our
Church,3415
in teaching the faith instead of
“the Resurrection of the flesh,” as the Creed is delivered
in other Churches, guardedly adds the pronoun
“this”—“the resurrection of this
flesh.” “Of this,” that is, no doubt, of the person
who rehearses the Creed, making the sign of the cross upon his
forehead, while he says the word, that each believer may know that his
flesh, if he have kept it clean from sin, will be a vessel of honour,
useful to the Lord, prepared for every good work; but, if defiled by
sins, that it will be a vessel of wrath destined to
destruction.
But now, concerning the glory of the resurrection and the
greatness of the promise by which God has bound Himself, if any one
desires to be more fully informed, he will find notices in almost all
the divine volumes, out of which, simply by way of bringing them to
remembrance, we will mention a few passages in the present place, and
then make an end of the work which you have enjoined. The Apostle Paul
makes use of such arguments as the following in asserting that mortal
flesh will rise again. “But if there be no resurrection of the
dead, then is not Christ risen. And if Christ be not risen, our
preaching is vain and your faith is vain.”3416
And presently afterwards, “But now
is Christ risen from the dead, the first-fruits of them that sleep. For
since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But
every man in his own order. Christ the first-fruits, afterwards they
that are Christ’s at His coming, then cometh the end.”3417
And afterways he adds, “Behold I
shew you a mystery: We shall all rise indeed, but we shall not3418
| 3418 A reading current in Rufinus’ time. | all be changed;” or as other
copies read, “We shall all sleep, indeed but we shall not all be
changed; in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump;
for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall rise incorruptible, and
we shall be changed.”3419
However,
whichever be the true text, writing to the Thessalonians, he says,
“I would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning those who
are asleep, that ye sorrow not, as the others who have no hope. For if
we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so those also who sleep
through Jesus shall God bring with Him. For this we say unto you by the
word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain at the coming of the
Lord shall not prevent them that sleep. For the Lord Himself shall
descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, with
the trump of God, and the dead who are in Christ shall rise first: then
we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in
the clouds to meet Christ in the air, and so shall we ever be with the
Lord.”3420
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