By Water & Blood

On resurrection

Concerning resurrection.

Thus completing the mystery of baptism, we receive the hope concerning the resurrection, and we await a resurrection of bodies. For this the name itself also makes clear. For resurrection is the standing up again. And it is the body that is corrupted and dissolved and changed into dust. For “his spirit will go forth,” it says, “and he will return into his dust.” “You will take away their spirit, and they will fail, and into their dust they will return.” And the Maker himself said to Adam that “you are earth, and into earth you will go away.” Of this, then, the reconstitution from above is reasonably called resurrection. For of the immortal soul there is not a resurrection, but a return to the body.

But Marcion and Cerdo and Manes, and as many as did not accept the resurrection of bodies, cast this life out altogether as impossible. For just as they thought God unable to create without matter, so they supposed him least of all able to bring back again into its former form what has once been dissolved and changed into a little dust and consumed by time. And yet they themselves also say that God, taking one clod from the earth, fashioned the human being. And they ought to have understood that just as then the God of all most easily changed that clod into a body and made many and various parts, so it is easy for him from these few remains to construct the substance of the body.

For this we also see happening now according to the ancient creation in the womb. For from the little matter of the seed there grow bones and membranes and sinews and veins and arteries and skin and fat and flesh, and all the other things of which the body is composed. For nature proceeds according to the divine decree, and like some image-maker fashions the living image; and neither the smallness of the matter, nor the narrowness of the place, nor the surrounding gloom holds back the creation. It is therefore the height of folly to disbelieve the things that are seen, and especially when God promises. For Christ himself has said that “those in the tombs will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who have done good things will come forth into a resurrection of life; but those who have practiced base things, into a resurrection of judgment.” And no one of sound mind would say that the souls spend their time in the tombs; for the bodies lie in these.

And rebuking the Sadducees who did not admit the account concerning the resurrection, the Lord said these things: “Concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken by God, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’?” And he added: “God is not a God of the dead, but of the living.” And to Martha he also said: “Your brother will rise.” And she, having been taught this from the Old Scripture, answered: “I know that my brother will rise in the resurrection, on the last day.” Then taking up, the Lord said: “I am the resurrection and the life; the one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live.” Just as then, therefore, when he said, “Your brother will rise,” he did not raise Lazarus’s soul alone, but brought this back and raised the body that was foul-smelling and dissolved—so also, having promised the common resurrection, he will give back again the dissolved bodies standing with the souls, having shown them free from death and corruption.

And this the divine Apostle taught expressly: “For this corruptible must put on incorruption.” And again: “In which we do not wish to be unclothed, but to be further clothed, so that the mortal may be swallowed up by life.” “It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown a psychic body, it is raised a spiritual body.” And again: “For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible.” And he has set down the counter-statement of the unbelievers: “But someone will say: How are the dead raised? And with what body do they come?” And first he addressed them as foolish, as seeing in the seeds the type of the resurrections, and not being led from there to the resurrection of bodies. For “Foolish one,” he said, “what you sow is not made alive unless it dies; and what you sow, you do not sow the body that will come to be, but a bare grain, perhaps of wheat or of something of the rest.” “Look,” he says, “to the things that happen daily. For the furrows differ in nothing from tombs. For in these, as in tombs, the seeds are buried; but the Craftsman of all, supplying the rain, also prepares these to grow roots and leaves and stalk and the awns and the ears; and while the farmers do nothing else than bury the seeds, the decree of the One who framed all things works the rest.” For this the divine Apostle also said: “But God gives it a body as he willed.” And lest someone suppose that another body is being fashioned, he has necessarily added: “And to each of the seeds its own body.”

And writing to the Philippians he cries out: “For our citizenship exists in the heavens, from which we also await a Savior, the Lord Jesus, who will transform the body of our humiliation, so that it may become conformed to the body of his glory.” And he has called “transformation” not the change into another species, but the change from corruption into incorruption. And cheering the Thessalonians who were greatly despondent over those who were dying, he offered them the account concerning the resurrection. For “I do not wish,” he says, “you to be ignorant, brothers, concerning those who have fallen asleep, so that you may not grieve as also the rest who do not have hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose, so also God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep through Jesus.” And lest someone suppose him to say these things using his own reasonings, he added: “For this we say to you in a word of the Lord, that we who are living, who are left behind at the presence of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have fallen asleep.” And one can find countless other testimonies with him that proclaim the resurrection clearly. And even in Jerusalem, when judged as a transgressor of the law, he cried out: “Concerning the resurrection of the dead I am judged today.”

And why do I speak of the apostles, who received from the Lord a clearer teaching concerning the resurrection? For the divine prophets also continued holding this hope. For we hear the most divine David saying to God: “You will take away their spirit and they will fail, and into their dust they will return; you will send forth your Spirit and they will be created, and you will renew the face of the earth.” And we also hear Isaiah the divine crying out: “The dead will rise, and those in the tombs will be raised.” And the thrice-blessed Ezekiel said that he himself had seen the manner of the resurrection; for having beheld very many bones, he himself was commanded to charge these to grow flesh and sinews and skins. “And it came to pass,” he says, “as I was prophesying, and behold, an earthquake, and bones drew near, bone to bone, each to its own joint. And I saw, and behold, sinews came upon them, and flesh was growing, and was coming up upon them, and skin was stretched over them from above.” Then he teaches how, when commanded, the spirits returned from everywhere, and how, when these were joined to them, the type of the coming resurrection was sketched beforehand. But if even before the appearing of the Savior the prophets foretold these things, what punishment would those not justly pay who, after the resurrection of the Savior and the proclamations of the apostles, disbelieve the word of the resurrection?