Chapter XXVI.—Even the Metaphorical Descriptions of This Subject in the Scriptures Point to the Bodily Resurrection, th
To a preceding objection, that the Scriptures are allegorical, I have still one answer to make—that it is open to us also to defend the bodily character of the resurrection by means of the language of the prophets, which is equally figurative. For consider that primeval sentence which God spake when He called man earth; saying, "Earth thou art, and to earth shalt thou return."1 In respect, of course, to his fleshly substance, which had been taken out of the ground, and which was the first to receive the name of man, as we have already shown,2 does not this passage give one instruction to interpret in relation to the flesh also whatever of wrath or of grace God has determined for the earth, because, strictly speaking, the earth is not exposed to His judgment, since it has never done any good or evil? "Cursed," no doubt, it was, for it drank the blood of man;3 but even this was as a figure of homicidal flesh. For if the earth has to suffer either joy or injury, it is simply on man's account, that he may suffer the joy or the sorrow through the events which happen to his dwelling-place, whereby he will rather have to pay the penalty which, simply on his account, even the earth must suffer. When, therefore, God even threatens the earth, I would prefer saying that He threatens the flesh: so likewise, when He makes a promise to the earth, I would rather understand Him as promising the flesh; as in that passage of David: "The Lord is King, let the earth be glad,"4 —meaning the flesh of the saints, to which appertains the enjoyment of the kingdom of God. Then he afterwards says: "The earth saw and trembled; the mountains melted like wax at the presence of the Lord,"—meaning, no doubt the flesh of the wicked; and (in a similar sense) it is written: "For they shall look on Him whom they pierced."5 If indeed it will be thought that both these passages were pronounced simply of the element earth, how can it be consistent that it should shake and melt at the presence of the Lord, at whose royal dignity it before exulted? So again in Isaiah, "Ye shall eat the good of the land,"6 the expression means the blessings which await the flesh when in the kingdom of God it shall be renewed, and made like the angels, and waiting to obtain the things "which neither eye hath seen, nor ear heard, and which have not entered into the heart of man."7 Otherwise, how vain that God should invite men to obedience by the fruits of the field and the elements of this life, when He dispenses these to even irreligious men and blasphemers; on a general condition once for all made to man, "sending rain on the good and on the evil, and making His sun to shine on the just and on the unjust!"8 Happy, no doubt, is faith, if it is to obtain gifts which the enemies of God and Christ not only use, but even abuse, "worshipping the creature itself in opposition to the Creator!"9 You will reckon, (I suppose) onions and truffles among earth's bounties, since the Lord declares that "man shall not live on bread alone!"10 In this way the Jews lose heavenly blessings, by confining their hopes to earthly ones, being ignorant of the promise of heavenly bread, and of the oil of God's unction, and the wine of the Spirit, and of that water of life which has its vigour from the vine of Christ. On exactly the same principle, they consider the special soil of Judæa to be that very holy land, which ought rather to be interpreted of the Lord's flesh, which, in all those who put on Christ, is thenceforward the holy land; holy indeed by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, truly flowing with milk and honey by the sweetness of His assurance, truly Judæan by reason of the friendship of God. For "he is not a Jew which is one outwardly, but he who is one inwardly."11 In the same way it is that both God's temple and Jerusalem (must be understood) when it is said by Isaiah: "Awake, awake, O Jerusalem! put on the strength of thine arm; awake, as in thine earliest time,"12 that is to say, in that innocence which preceded the fall into sin. For how can words of this kind of exhortation and invitation be suitable for that Jerusalem which killed the prophets, and stoned those that were sent to them, and at last crucified its very Lord? Neither indeed is salvation promised to any one land at all, which must needs pass away with the fashion of the whole world. Even if anybody should venture strongly to contend that paradise is the holy land, which it may be possible to designate as the land of our first parents Adam and Eve, it will even then follow that the restoration of paradise will seem to be promised to the flesh, whose lot it was to inhabit and keep it, in order that man may be recalled thereto just such as he was driven from it.
Chapter XXVII.—Certain Metaphorical Terms Explained of the Resurrection of the Flesh.
We have also in the Scriptures robes mentioned as allegorizing the hope of the flesh. Thus in the Revelation of John it is said: "These are they which have not defiled their clothes with women,"13 —indicating, of course, virgins, and such as have become "eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake."14 Therefore they shall be "clothed in white raiment,"15 that is, in the bright beauty of the unwedded flesh. In the gospel even, "the wedding garment" may be regarded as the sanctity of the flesh.16 And so, when Isaiah tells us what sort of "fast the Lord hath chosen," and subjoins a statement about the reward of good works, he says: "Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thy garments,17 shall speedily arise;"18 where he has no thought of cloaks or stuff gowns, but means the rising of the flesh, which he declared the resurrection of, after its fall in death. Thus we are furnished even with an allegorical defence of the resurrection of the body. When, then, we read, "Go, my people, enter into your closets for a little season, until my anger pass away,"19 we have in the closets graves, in which they will have to rest for a little while, who shall have at the end of the world departed this life in the last furious onset of the power of Antichrist. Why else did He use the expression closets, in preference to some other receptacle, if it were not that the flesh is kept in these closets or cellars salted and reserved for use, to be drawn out thence on a suitable occasion? It is on a like principle that embalmed corpses are set aside for burial in mausoleums and sepulchres, in order that they may be removed therefrom when the Master shall order it. Since, therefore, there is consistency in thus understanding the passage (for what refuge of little closets could possibly shelter us from the wrath of God?), it appears that by the very phrase which he uses, "Until His anger pass away,"20 which shall extinguish Antichrist, he in fact shows that after that indignation the flesh will come forth from the sepulchre, in which it had been deposited previous to the bursting out of the anger. Now out of the closets nothing else is brought than that which had been put into them, and after the extirpation of Antichrist shall be busily transacted the great process of the resurrection.
Chapter XXVIII.—Prophetic Things and Actions, as Well as Words, Attest This Great Doctrine.
But we know that prophecy expressed itself by things no less than by words. By words, and also by deeds, is the resurrection foretold. When Moses puts his hand into his bosom, and then draws it out again dead, and again puts his hand into his bosom, and plucks it out living,21 does not this apply as a presage to all mankind?—inasmuch as those three signs22 denoted the threefold power of God: when it shall, first, in the appointed order, subdue to man the old serpent, the devil,23 however formidable; then, secondly, draw forth the flesh from the bosom of death;24 and then, at last, shall pursue all blood (shed) in judgment.25 On this subject we read in the writings of the same prophet, (how that) God says: "For your blood of your lives will I require of all wild beasts; and I will require it of the hand of man, and of his brother's hand."26 Now nothing is required except that which is demanded back again, and nothing is thus demanded except that which is to be given up; and that will of course be given up, which shall be demanded and required on the ground of vengeance. But indeed there cannot possibly be punishment of that which never had any existence. Existence, however, it will have, when it is restored in order to be punished. To the flesh, therefore, applies everything which is declared respecting the blood, for without the flesh there cannot be blood. The flesh will be raised up in order that the blood may be punished. There are, again, some statements (of Scripture) so plainly made as to be free from all obscurity of allegory, and yet they strongly require27 their very simplicity to be interpreted. There is, for instance, that passage in Isaiah: "I will kill, and I will make alive."28 Certainly His making alive is to take place after He has killed. As, therefore, it is by death that He kills, it is by the resurrection that He will make alive. Now it is the flesh which is killed by death; the flesh, therefore, will be revived by the resurrection. Surely if killing means taking away life from the flesh, and its opposite, reviving, amounts to restoring life to the flesh, it must needs be that the flesh rise again, to which the life, which has been taken away by killing, has to be restored by vivification.
Chapter XXIX.—Ezekiel's Vision of the Dry Bones Quoted.
Inasmuch, then, as even the figurative portions of Scripture, and the arguments of facts, and some plain statements of Holy Writ, throw light upon the resurrection of the flesh (although without specially naming the very substance), how much more effectual for determining the question will not those passages be which indicate the actual substance of the body by expressly mentioning it! Take Ezekiel: "And the hand of the Lord," says he, "was upon me; and the Lord brought me forth in the Spirit, and set me in the midst of a plain which was full of bones; and He led me round about them in a circuit: and, behold, there were many on the face of the plain; and, lo, they were very dry. And He said unto me, Son of man, will these bones live? And I said, O Lord God, Thou knowest. And He said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones; and thou shalt say, Ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God to these bones, Behold, I bring upon you the breath of life, and ye shall live: and I will give unto you the spirit, and I will place muscles over you, and I will spread skin upon you; and ye shall live, and shall know that I am the Lord. And I prophesied as the Lord commanded me: and while I prophesy, behold there is a voice, behold also a movement, and bones approached bones. And I saw, and behold sinews and flesh came up over them, and muscles were placed around them; but there was no breath in them. And He said unto me, Prophesy to the wind, son of man, prophesy and say, Thus saith the Lord God, Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe in these dead men, and let them live. So I prophesied to the wind, as He commanded me, and the spirit entered into the bones, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, strong and exceeding many. And the Lord said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say themselves, Our bones are become dry, and our hope is perished, and we in them have been violently destroyed. Therefore prophesy unto them, (and say), Behold, even I will open your sepulchres, and will bring you out of your sepulchres, O my people, and will bring you into the land of Israel: and ye shall know how that I the Lord opened your sepulchres, and brought you, O my people, out of your sepulchres; and I will give my Spirit unto you, and ye shall live, and shall rest in your own land: and ye shall know how that I the Lord have spoken and done these things, saith the Lord."29
Chapter XXX.—This Vision Interpreted by Tertullian of the Resurrection of the Bodies of the Dead. A Chronological Error
I am well aware how they torture even this prophecy into a proof of the allegorical sense, on the ground that by saying, "These bones are the whole house of Israel," He made them a figure of Israel, and removed them from their proper literal condition; and therefore (they contend) that there is here a figurative, not a true prediction of the resurrection, for (they say) the state of the Jews is one of humiliation, in a certain sense dead, and very dry, and dispersed over the plain of the world. Therefore the image of a resurrection is allegorically applied to their state, since it has to be gathered together, and recompacted bone to bone (in other words, tribe to tribe, and people to people), and to be reincorporated by the sinews of power and the nerves of royalty, and to be brought out as it were from sepulchres, that is to say, from the most miserable and degraded abodes of captivity, and to breathe afresh in the way of a restoration, and to live thenceforward in their own land of Judæa. And what is to happen after all this? They will die, no doubt. And what will there be after death? No resurrection from the dead, of course, since there is nothing of the sort here revealed to Ezekiel. Well, but the resurrection is elsewhere foretold: so that there will be one even in this case, and they are rash in applying this passage to the state of Jewish affairs; or even if it do indicate a different recovery from the resurrection which we are maintaining, what matters it to me, provided there be also a resurrection of the body, just as there is a restoration of the Jewish state? In fact, by the very circumstance that the recovery of the Jewish state is prefigured by the reincorporation and reunion of bones, proof is offered that this event will also happen to the bones themselves; for the metaphor could not have been formed from bones, if the same thing exactly were not to be realized in them also. Now, although there is a sketch of the true thing in its image, the image itself still possesses a truth of its own: it must needs be, therefore, that must have a prior existence for itself, which is used figuratively to express some other thing. Vacuity is not a consistent basis for a similitude, nor does nonentity form a suitable foundation for a parable. It will therefore be right to believe that the bones are destined to have a rehabiliment of flesh and breath, such as it is here said they will have, by reason indeed of which their renewed state could alone express the reformed condition of Jewish affairs, which is pretended to be the meaning of this passage. It is, however, more characteristic of a religious spirit to maintain the truth on the authority of a literal interpretation, such as is required by the sense of the inspired passage. Now, if this vision had reference to the condition of the Jews, as soon as He had revealed to him the position of the bones, He would at once have added, "These bones are the whole house of Israel," and so forth. But immediately on showing the bones, He interrupts the scene by saying somewhat of the prospect which is most suited to bones; without yet naming Israel, He tries the prophet's own faith: "Son of man, can these bones ever live?" so that he makes answer: "O Lord, Thou knowest." Now God would not, you may be sure, have tried the prophet's faith on a point which was never to be a real one, of which Israel should never hear, and in which it was not proper to repose belief. Since, however, the resurrection of the dead was indeed foretold, but Israel, in the distrust of his great unbelief, was offended at it; and, whilst gazing on the condition of the crumbling grave, despaired of a resurrection; or rather, did not direct his mind mainly to it, but to his own harassing circumstances,—therefore God first instructed the prophet (since he, too, was not free from doubt), by revealing to him the process of the resurrection, with a view to his earnest setting forth of the same. He then charged the people to believe what He had revealed to the prophet, telling them that they were themselves, though refusing to believe their resurrection, the very bones which were destined to rise again. Then in the concluding sentence He says, "And ye shall know how that I the Lord have spoken and done these things," intending of course to do that of which He had spoken; but certainly not meaning to do that which He had spoken of, if His design had been to do something different from what He had said.
Chapter XXXI.—Other Passages Out of the Prophets Applied to the Resurrection of the Flesh.
Unquestionably, if the people were indulging in figurative murmurs that their bones were become dry, and that their hope had perished—plaintive at the consequences of their dispersion—then God might fairly enough seem to have consoled their figurative despair with a figurative promise. Since, however, no injury had as yet alighted on the people from their dispersion, although the hope of the resurrection had very frequently failed amongst them, it is manifest that it was owing to the perishing condition of their bodies that their faith in the resurrection was shaken. God, therefore, was rebuilding the faith which the people were pulling down. But even if it were true that Israel was then depressed at some shock in their existing circumstances, we must not on that account suppose that the purpose of revelation could have rested in a parable: its aim must have been to testify a resurrection, in order to raise the nation's hope to even an eternal salvation and an indispensable restoration, and thereby turn off their minds from brooding over their present affairs. This indeed is the aim of other prophets likewise. "Ye shall go forth," (says Malachi), "from your sepulchres, as young calves let loose from their bonds, and ye shall tread down your enemies."30 And again, (Isaiah says): "Your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall spring up like the grass,"31 because the grass also is renewed by the dissolution and corruption of the seed. In a word, if it is contended that the figure of the rising bones refers properly to the state of Israel, why is the same hope announced to all nations, instead of being limited to Israel only, of reinvesting those osseous remains with bodily substance and vital breath, and of raising up their dead out of the grave? For the language is universal: "The dead shall arise, and come forth from their graves; for the dew which cometh from Thee is medicine to their bones."32 In another passage it is written: "All flesh shall come to worship before me, saith the Lord."33 When? When the fashion of this world shall begin to pass away. For He said before: "As the new heaven and the new earth, which I make, remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed remain."34 Then also shall be fulfilled what is written afterwards: "And they shall go forth" (namely, from their graves), "and shall see the carcases of those who have transgressed: for their worm shall never die, nor shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be a spectacle to all flesh"35 even to that which, being raised again from the dead and brought out from the grave, shall adore the Lord for this great grace.
Chapter XXXII.—Even Unburied Bodies Will Be Raised Again. Whatever Befalls Them God Will Restore Them Again. Jonah's Ca
But, that you may not suppose that it is merely those bodies which are consigned to tombs whose resurrection is foretold, you have it declared in Scripture: "And I will command the fishes of the sea, and they shall cast up the bones which they have devoured; and I will bring joint to joint, and bone to bone." You will ask, Will then the fishes and other animals and carnivorous birds be raised again, in order that they may vomit up what they have consumed, on the ground of your reading in the law of Moses, that blood is required of even all the beasts? Certainly not. But the beasts and the fishes are mentioned in relation to the restoration of flesh and blood, in order the more emphatically to express the resurrection of such bodies as have even been devoured, when redress is said to be demanded of their very devourers. Now I apprehend that in the case of Jonah we have a fair proof of this divine power, when he comes forth from the fish's belly uninjured in both his natures—his flesh and his soul. No doubt the bowels of the whale would have had abundant time during three days for consuming and digesting Jonah's flesh, quite as effectually as a coffin, or a tomb, or the gradual decay of some quiet and concealed grave; only that he wanted to prefigure even those beasts (which symbolize) especially the men who are wildly opposed to the Christian name, or the angels of iniquity, of whom blood will be required by the full exaction of an avenging judgment. Where, then, is the man who, being more disposed to learn than to assume, more careful to believe than to dispute, and more scrupulous of the wisdom of God than wantonly bent on his own, when he hears of a divine purpose respecting sinews and skin, and nerves and bones, will forthwith devise some different application of these words, as if all that is said of the substances in question were not naturally intended for man? For either there is here no reference to the destiny of man—in the gracious provision of the kingdom (of heaven), in the severity of the judgment-day, in all the incidents of the resurrection; or else, if there is any reference to his destiny, the destination must necessarily be made in reference to those substances of which the man is composed, for whom the destiny is reserved. Another question I have also to ask of these very adroit transformers of bones and sinews, and nerves and sepulchres: Why, when anything is declared of the soul, do they not interpret the soul to be something else, and transfer it to another signification?—since, whenever any distinct statement is made of a bodily substance, they will obstinately prefer taking any other sense whatever, rather than that which the name indicates. If things which pertain to the body are figurative, why are not those which pertain to the soul figurative also? Since, however, things which belong to the soul have nothing allegorical in them, neither therefore have those which belong to the body. For man is as much body as he is soul; so that it is impossible for one of these natures to admit a figurative sense, and the other to exclude it.
Chapter XXXIII.—So Much for the Prophetic Scriptures. In the Gospels, Christ's Parables, as Explained by Himself, Have
This is evidence enough from the prophetic Scriptures. I now appeal to the Gospels. But here also I must first meet the same sophistry as advanced by those who contend that the Lord, like (the prophets), said everything in the way of allegory, because it is written: "All these things spake Jesus in parables, and without a parable spake He not unto them,"36 that is, to the Jews. Now the disciples also asked Him, "Why speakest Thou in parables?"37 And the Lord gave them this answer: "Therefore I speak unto them in parables: because they seeing, see not; and hearing, they hear not, according to the prophecy of Esaias."38 But since it was to the Jews that He spoke in parables, it was not then to all men; and if not to all, it follows that it was not always and in all things parables with Him, but only in certain things, and when addressing a particular class. But He addressed a particular class when He spoke to the Jews. It is true that He spoke sometimes even to the disciples in parables. But observe how the Scripture relates such a fact: "And He spake a parable unto them."39 It follows, then, that He did not usually address them in parables; because if He always did so, special mention would not be made of His resorting to this mode of address. Besides, there is not a parable which you will not find to be either explained by the Lord Himself, as that of the sower, (which He interprets) of the management of the word of God;40 or else cleared by a preface from the writer of the Gospel, as in the parable of the arrogant judge and the importunate widow, which is expressly applied to earnestness in prayer;41 or capable of being spontaneously understood,42 as in the parable of the fig-tree, which was spared a while in hopes of improvement—an emblem of Jewish sterility. Now, if even parables obscure not the light of the gospel, how unlikely it is that plain sentences and declarations, which have an unmistakeable meaning, should signify any other thing than their literal sense! But it is by such declarations and sentences that the Lord sets forth either the last judgment, or the kingdom, or the resurrection: "It shall be more tolerable," He says, "for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you."43 And "Tell them that the kingdom of God is at hand."44 And again, "It shall be recompensed to you at the resurrection of the just."45 Now, if the mention of these events (I mean the judgment-day, and the kingdom of God, and the resurrection) has a plain and absolute sense, so that nothing about them can be pressed into an allegory, neither should those statements be forced into parables which describe the arrangement, and the process, and the experience of the kingdom of God, and of the judgment, and of the resurrection. On the contrary, things which are destined for the body should be carefully understood in a bodily sense,—not in a spiritual sense, as having nothing figurative in their nature. This is the reason why we have laid it down as a preliminary consideration, that the bodily substance both of the soul and of the flesh is liable to the recompense, which will have to be awarded in return for the co-operation of the two natures, that so the corporeality of the soul may not exclude the bodily nature of the flesh by suggesting a recourse to figurative descriptions, since both of them must needs be regarded as destined to take part in the kingdom, and the judgment, and the resurrection. And now we proceed to the special proof of this proposition, that the bodily character of the flesh is indicated by our Lord whenever He mentions the resurrection, at the same time without disparagement to the corporeal nature of the soul,—a point which has been actually admitted but by a few.
Chapter XXXIV.—Christ Plainly Testifies to the Resurrection of the Entire Man. Not in His Soul Only, Without the Body.
To begin with the passage where He says that He is come to "to seek and to save that which is lost."46 What do you suppose that to be which is lost? Man, undoubtedly. The entire man, or only a part of him? The whole man, of course. In fact, since the transgression which caused man's ruin was committed quite as much by the instigation of the soul from concupiscence as by the action of the flesh from actual fruition, it has marked the entire man with the sentence of transgression, and has therefore made him deservedly amenable to perdition. So that he will be wholly saved, since he has by sinning been wholly lost. Unless it be true that the sheep (of the parable) is a "lost" one, irrespective of its body; then its recovery may be effected without the body. Since, however, it is the bodily substance as well as the soul, making up the entire animal, which was carried on the shoulders of the Good Shepherd, we have here unquestionably an example how man is restored in both his natures. Else how unworthy it were of God to bring only a moiety of man to salvation—and almost less than that; whereas the munificence of princes of this world always claims for itself the merit of a plenary grace! Then must the devil be understood to be stronger for injuring man, ruining him wholly? and must God have the character of comparative weakness, since He does not relieve and help man in his entire state? The apostle, however, suggests that "where sin abounded, there has grace much more abounded."47 How, in fact, can he be regarded as saved, who can at the same time be said to be lost—lost, that is, in the flesh, but saved as to his soul? Unless, indeed, their argument now makes it necessary that the soul should be placed in a "lost" condition, that it may be susceptible of salvation, on the ground that is properly saved which has been lost. We, however, so understand the soul's immortality as to believe it "lost," not in the sense of destruction, but of punishment, that is, in hell. And if this is the case, then it is not the soul which salvation will affect, since it is "safe" already in its own nature by reason of its immortality, but rather the flesh, which, as all readily allow, is subject to destruction. Else, if the soul is also perishable (in this sense), in other words, not immortal—the condition of the flesh—then this same condition ought in all fairness to benefit the flesh also, as being similarly mortal and perishable, since that which perishes the Lord purposes to save. I do not care now to follow the clue of our discussion, so far as to consider whether it is in one of his natures or in the other that perdition puts in its claim on man, provided that salvation is equally distributed over the two substances, and makes him its aim in respect of them both. For observe, in which substance so-ever you assume man to have perished, in the other he does not perish. He will therefore be saved in the substance in which he does not perish, and yet obtain salvation in that in which he does perish. You have (then) the restoration of the entire man, inasmuch as the Lord purposes to save that part of him which perishes, whilst he will not of course lose that portion which cannot be lost. Who will any longer doubt of the safety of both natures, when one of them is to obtain salvation, and the other is not to lose it? And, still further, the Lord explains to us the meaning of the thing when He says: "I came not to do my own will, but the Father's, who hath sent me."48 What, I ask, is that will? "That of all which He hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day."49 Now, what had Christ received of the Father but that which He had Himself put on? Man, of course, in his texture of flesh and soul. Neither, therefore, of those parts which He has received will He allow to perish; nay, no considerable portion—nay, not the least fraction, of either. If the flesh be, as our opponents slightingly think, but a poor fraction, then the flesh is safe, because not a fraction of man is to perish; and no larger portion is in danger, because every portion of man is in equally safe keeping with Him. If, however, He will not raise the flesh also up at the last day, then He will permit not only a fraction of man to perish, but (as I will venture to say, in consideration of so important a part) almost the whole of him. But when He repeats His words with increased emphasis, "And this is the Father's will, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on Him, may have eternal life: and I will raise him up at the last day,"50 —He asserts the full extent of the resurrection. For He assigns to each several nature that reward which is suited to its services: both to the flesh, for by it the Son was "seen;" and to the soul, for by it He was "believed on." Then, you will say, to them was this promise given by whom Christ was "seen." Well, be it so; only let the same hope flow on from them to us! For if to them who saw, and therefore believed, such fruit then accrued to the operations of the flesh and the soul, how much more to us! For more "blessed," says Christ, "are they who have not seen, and yet have believed;"51 since, even if the resurrection of the flesh must be denied to them, it must at any rate be a fitting boon to us, who are the more blessed. For how could we be blessed, if we were to perish in any part of us?