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84. Now, with respect to the resurrection of the
body--and by this I do not mean the cases of
resuscitation after which people died again, but a
resurrection to eternal life after the fashion of
Christ's own body--I have not found a way to discuss
it briefly and still give satisfactory answers to all
the questions usually raised about it. Yet no
Christian should have the slightest doubt as to the
fact that the bodies of all men, whether already or
yet to be born, whether dead or still to die, will be
resurrected. 85. Once this fact is established, then, first of
all, comes the question about abortive fetuses, which
are indeed "born" in the mother's womb, but are never
so that they could be "reborn." For, if we say that
there is a resurrection for them, then we can agree
that at least as much is true of fetuses that are
fully formed. But, with regard to undeveloped fetuses,
who would not more readily think that they perish,
like seeds that did not germinate?(192)
But who, then, would dare to deny--though he would
not dare to affirm it either--that in the
resurrection day what is lacking in the forms of
things will be filled out? Thus, the perfection which
time would have accomplished will not be lacking, any
more than the blemishes wrought by time will still be
present. Nature, then, will be cheated of nothing apt
and fitting which time's passage would have brought,
nor will anything remain disfigured by anything
adverse and contrary which time has wrought. But what
is not yet a whole will become whole, just as what
has been disfigured will be restored to its full
figure. 86. On this score, a corollary question may be most
carefully discussed by the most learned men, and
still I do not know that any man can answer it,
namely: When does a human being begin to live in the
womb? Is there some form of hidden life, not yet
apparent in the motions of a living thing? To deny,
for example, that those fetuses ever lived at all
which are cut away limb by limb and cast out of the
wombs of pregnant women, lest the mothers die also if
the fetuses were left there dead, would seem much too
rash. But, in any case, once a man begins to live, it
is thereafter possible for him to die. And, once
dead, wheresoever death overtook him, I cannot find
the basis on which he would not have a share in the
resurrection of the dead. 87. By the same token, the resurrection is not to be
denied in the cases of monsters which are born and
live, even if they quickly die, nor should we believe
that they will be raised as they were, but rather in
an amended nature and free from faults. Far be it
from us to say of that double-limbed man recently
born in the Orient--about whom most reliable brethren
have given eyewitness reports and the presbyter
Jerome, of holy memory, has left a written
account(193) --far be it from us, I say, to suppose
that at the resurrection there will be one double
man, and not rather two men, as there would have been
if they had actually been born twins. So also in
other cases, which, because of some excess or defect
or gross deformity, are called monsters: at the
resurrection they will be restored to the normal
human physiognomy, so that every soul will have its
own body and not two bodies joined together, even
though they were born this way. Every soul will have,
as its own, all that is required to complete a whole
human body. 88. Moreover, with God, the earthly substance from
which the flesh of mortal man is produced does not
perish. Instead, whether it be dissolved into dust or
ashes, or dispersed into vapors and the winds, or
converted into the substance of other bodies (or even
back into the basic elements themselves), or has
served as food for beasts or even men and been turned
into their flesh--in an instant of time this matter
returns to the soul that first animated it, and that
caused it to become a man, to live and to grow. 89. This earthly matter which becomes a corpse upon
the soul's departure will not, at the resurrection,
be so restored that the parts into which it was
separated and which have become parts of other things
must necessarily return to the same parts of the body
in which they were situated--though they do return to
the body from which they were separated. Otherwise,
to suppose that the hair recovers what frequent
clippings have taken off, or the nails get back what
trimming has pared off, makes for a wild and wholly
unbecoming image in the minds of those who speculate
this way and leads them thus to disbelieve in the
resurrection.
But take the example of a statue made
of fusible metal: if it were melted by heat or
pounded into dust, or reduced to a shapeless mass,
and an artist wished to restore it again from the
mass of the same material, it would make no
difference to the wholeness of the restored statue
which part of it was remade of what part of the
metal, so long as the statue, as restored, had been
given all the material of which it was originally
composed.
Just so, God--an artist who works in marvelous and mysterious ways--will restore our
bodies, with marvelous and mysterious celerity, out
of the whole of the matter of which it was originally
composed. And it will make no difference, in the
restoration, whether hair returns to hair and nails
to nails, or whether the part of this original matter
that had perished is turned back into flesh and
restored to other parts of the body. The main thing
is that the providence of the [divine] Artist takes
care that nothing unbecoming will result. 90. Nor does it follow that the stature of each
person will be different when brought to life anew
because there were differences in stature when first
alive, nor that the lean will be raised lean or the
fat come back to life in their former obesity. But if
this is in the Creator's plan, that each shall retain
his special features and the proper and recognizable
likeness of his former self--while an equality of
physical endowment will be preserved--then the matter
of which each resurrection body is composed will be
so disposed that none shall be lost, and any defect
will be supplied by Him who can create out of nothing
as he wills. But if in the bodies of those rising again there is
to be an intelligible inequality, such as between
voices that fill out a chorus, this will be managed
by disposing the matter of each body so to bring men
into their place in the angelic band and impose
nothing on their senses that is inharmonious. For
surely nothing unseemly will be there, and whatever
is there will be fitting, and this because the
unfitting will simply not be. 91. The bodies of the saints, then, shall rise again
free from blemish and deformity, just as they will be
also free from corruption, encumbrance, or handicap.
Their facility [facilitas] will be as complete as
their felicity [felicitas]. This is why their bodies
are called "spiritual," though undoubtedly they will
be bodies and not spirits. For just as now the body
is called "animate" [animale], though it is a body
and not a "spirit" [anima], so then it will be a
"spiritual body," but still a body and not a spirit. Accordingly, then, as far as the corruption which
weighs down the soul and the vices through which "the
flesh lusts against the spirit"(194) are concerned,
there will be no "flesh," but only body, since there
are bodies that are called "heavenly bodies."(195)
This is why it is said, "Flesh and blood shall not
inherit the Kingdom of God," and then, as if to
expound what was said, it adds, "Neither shall
corruption inherit incorruption."(196) What the
writer first called "flesh and blood" he later called
"corruption," and what he first called "the Kingdom
of God" he then later called "incorruption." But, as far as the substance of the resurrection body
is concerned, it will even then still be "flesh."
This is why the body of Christ is called "flesh" even
after the resurrection. Wherefore the apostle also
says, "What is sown a natural body [corpus animale]
rises as a spiritual body [corpus spirituale]."(197)
For there will then be such a concord between flesh
and spirit--the spirit quickening the servant flesh
without any need of sustenance therefrom--that there
will be no further conflict within ourselves. And
just as there will be no more external enemies to
bear with, so neither shall we have to bear with
ourselves as enemies within. 92. But whoever are not liberated from that mass of
perdition (brought to pass through the first man) by
the one Mediator between God and man, they will also
rise again, each in his own flesh, but only that they
may be punished together with the devil and his
angels. Whether these men will rise again with all
their faults and deformities, with their diseased and
deformed members--is there any reason for us to labor
such a question? For obviously the uncertainty about
their bodily form and beauty need not weary us, since
their damnation is certain and eternal. And let us
not be moved to inquire how their body can be
incorruptible if it can suffer--or corruptible if it
cannot die. For there is no true life unless it be
lived in happiness; no true incorruptibility save
where health is unscathed by pain. But where an
unhappy being is not allowed to die, then death
itself, so to say, dies not; and where pain
perpetually afflicts but never destroys, corruption
goes on endlessly. This state is called, in the
Scripture, "the second death."(198)
93. Yet neither the first death, in which the soul is
compelled to leave its body, nor the second death, in
which it is not allowed to leave the body undergoing
punishment, would have befallen man if no one had
sinned. Surely, the lightest of all punishments will
be laid on those who have added no further sin to
that originally contracted. Among the rest, who have
added further Sins to that one, they will suffer a
damnation somewhat more tolerable in proportion to
the lesser degree of their iniquity. |