Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol III:
Tertullian: Part II: Doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body, Continued. How are the Dead Raised? and with What Body Do They Come? These Questions Answered in Such a Sense as to Maintain the Truth of the Raised Body, Against Marcion. Christ as the Second Adam Connected with the Creator of the First Man.  Let Us Bear the Image of the Heavenly.  The Triumph Over Death in Accordance with the Prophets. Hosea and St. Paul Compared.

Chapter X.—Doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body, Continued. How are the Dead Raised? and with What Body Do They Come? These Questions Answered in Such a Sense as to Maintain the Truth of the Raised Body, Against Marcion. Christ as the Second Adam Connected with the Creator of the First Man. Let Us Bear the Image of the Heavenly. The Triumph Over Death in Accordance with the Prophets.  Hosea and St. Paul Compared.

Let us now return to the resurrection, to the defence of which against heretics of all sorts we have given indeed sufficient attention in another work of ours. 5626 But we will not be wanting (in some defence of the doctrine) even here, in consideration of such persons as are ignorant of that little treatise. “What,” asks he, “shall they do who are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not?” 5627 Now, never mind 5628 that practice, (whatever it may have been.)  The Februarian lustrations 5629 will perhaps 5630 answer him (quite as well), by praying for the dead. 5631 Do not then suppose that the apostle here indicates some new god as the author and advocate of this (baptism for the dead.  His only aim in alluding to it was) that he might all the more firmly insist upon the resurrection of the body, in proportion as they who were vainly baptized for the dead resorted to the practice from their belief of such a resurrection. We have the apostle in another passage defining “but one baptism.” 5632 To be “baptized for the dead” therefore means, in fact, to be baptized for the body; 5633 for, as we have shown, it is the p. 450 body which becomes dead.  What, then, shall they do who are baptized for the body, 5634 if the body 5635 rises not again? We stand, then, on firm ground (when we say) that 5636 the next question which the apostle has discussed equally relates to the body. But “some man will say, ‘How are the dead raised up? With what body do they come?’” 5637 Having established the doctrine of the resurrection which was denied, it was natural 5638 to discuss what would be the sort of body (in the resurrection), of which no one had an idea. On this point we have other opponents with whom to engage. For Marcion does not in any wise admit the resurrection of the flesh, and it is only the salvation of the soul which he promises; consequently the question which he raises is not concerning the sort of body, but the very substance thereof. Notwithstanding, 5639 he is most plainly refuted even from what the apostle advances respecting the quality of the body, in answer to those who ask, “How are the dead raised up? with what body do they come?” For as he treated of the sort of body, he of course ipso facto proclaimed in the argument that it was a body which would rise again. Indeed, since he proposes as his examples “wheat grain, or some other grain, to which God giveth a body, such as it hath pleased Him;” 5640 since also he says, that “to every seed is its own body;” 5641 that, consequently, 5642 “there is one kind of flesh of men, whilst there is another of beasts, and (another) of birds; that there are also celestial bodies and bodies terrestrial; and that there is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars” 5643 —does he not therefore intimate that there is to be 5644 a resurrection of the flesh or body, which he illustrates by fleshly and corporeal samples? Does he not also guarantee that the resurrection shall be accomplished by that God from whom proceed all the (creatures which have served him for) examples? “So also,” says he, “is the resurrection of the dead.” 5645 How?  Just as the grain, which is sown a body, springs up a body. This sowing of the body he called the dissolving thereof in the ground, “because it is sown in corruption,” (but “is raised) to honour and power.” 5646 Now, just as in the case of the grain, so here: to Him will belong the work in the revival of the body, who ordered the process in the dissolution thereof. If, however, you remove the body from the resurrection which you submitted to the dissolution, what becomes of the diversity in the issue? Likewise, “although it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.” 5647 Now, although the natural principle of life 5648 and the spirit have each a body proper to itself, so that the “natural body” may fairly be taken 5649 to signify the soul, 5650 and “the spiritual body” the spirit, yet that is no reason for supposing 5651 the apostle to say that the soul is to become spirit in the resurrection, but that the body (which, as being born along with the soul, and as retaining its life by means of the soul, 5652 admits of being called animal (or natural 5653 ) will become spiritual, since it rises through the Spirit to an eternal life.  In short, since it is not the soul, but the flesh which is “sown in corruption,” when it turns to decay in the ground, it follows that (after such dissolution) the soul is no longer the natural body, but the flesh, which was the natural body, (is the subject of the future change), forasmuch as of a natural body it is made a spiritual body, as he says further down, “That was not first which is spiritual.” 5654 For to this effect he just before remarked of Christ Himself: “The first man Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.” 5655 Our heretic, however, in the excess of his folly, being unwilling that the statement should remain in this shape, altered “last Adam” into “last Lord;” 5656 because he feared, of course, that if he allowed the Lord to be the last (or second) Adam, we should contend that Christ, being the second Adam, must needs belong to that God who owned also the first Adam. But the falsification is transparent. For why is there a first Adam, unless it be that there is also a second Adam? For things are not classed together unless they be severally alike, and have an identity of either name, or substance, or origin. 5657 Now, although among things which are even individually diverse, one must be first and another last, yet they must have one author. If, however, the author be a different p. 451 one, he himself indeed may be called the last. But the thing which he introduces is the first, and that only can be the last, which is like this first in nature. 5658 It is, however, not like the first in nature, when it is not the work of the same author.  In like manner (the heretic) will be refuted also with the word “man: ”  “The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven.” 5659 Now, since the first was a man, how can there be a second, unless he is a man also? Or, else, if the second is “Lord,” was the first “Lord” also? 5660 It is, however, quite enough for me, that in his Gospel he admits the Son of man to be both Christ and Man; so that he will not be able to deny Him (in this passage), in the “Adam” and the “man” (of the apostle).  What follows will also be too much for him. For when the apostle says, “As is the earthy,” that is, man, “such also are they that are earthy”—men again, of course; “therefore as is the heavenly,” meaning the Man, from heaven, “such are the men also that are heavenly.” 5661 For he could not possibly have opposed to earthly men any heavenly beings that were not men also; his object being the more accurately to distinguish their state and expectation by using this name in common for them both. For in respect of their present state and their future expectation he calls men earthly and heavenly, still reserving their parity of name, according as they are reckoned (as to their ultimate condition 5662 ) in Adam or in Christ. Therefore, when exhorting them to cherish the hope of heaven, he says: “As we have borne the image of the earthy, so let us also bear the image of the heavenly,” 5663 —language which relates not to any condition of resurrection life, but to the rule of the present time. He says, Let us bear, as a precept; not We shall bear, in the sense of a promise—wishing us to walk even as he himself was walking, and to put off the likeness of the earthly, that is, of the old man, in the works of the flesh. For what are this next words? “Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” 5664 He means the works of the flesh and blood, which, in his Epistle to the Galatians, deprive men of the kingdom of God. 5665 In other passages also he is accustomed to put the natural condition instead of the works that are done therein, as when he says, that “they who are in the flesh cannot please God.” 5666 Now, when shall we be able to please God except whilst we are in this flesh?  There is, I imagine, no other time wherein a man can work. If, however, whilst we are even naturally living in the flesh, we yet eschew the deeds of the flesh, then we shall not be in the flesh; since, although we are not absent from the substance of the flesh, we are notwithstanding strangers to the sin thereof. Now, since in the word flesh we are enjoined to put off, not the substance, but the works of the flesh, therefore in the use of the same word the kingdom of God is denied to the works of the flesh, not to the substance thereof. For not that is condemned in which evil is done, but only the evil which is done in it.  To administer poison is a crime, but the cup in which it is given is not guilty. So the body is the vessel of the works of the flesh, whilst the soul which is within it mixes the poison of a wicked act. How then is it, that the soul, which is the real author of the works of the flesh, shall attain to 5667 the kingdom of God, after the deeds done in the body have been atoned for, whilst the body, which was nothing but (the soul’s) ministering agent, must remain in condemnation? Is the cup to be punished, but the poisoner to escape?  Not that we indeed claim the kingdom of God for the flesh: all we do is, to assert a resurrection for the substance thereof, as the gate of the kingdom through which it is entered. But the resurrection is one thing, and the kingdom is another. The resurrection is first, and afterwards the kingdom. We say, therefore, that the flesh rises again, but that when changed it obtains the kingdom. “For the dead shall be raised incorruptible,” even those who had been corruptible when their bodies fell into decay; “and we shall be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. 5668 For this corruptible”—and as he spake, the apostle seemingly pointed to his own flesh—“must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality,” 5669 in order, indeed, that it may be rendered a fit substance for the kingdom of God. “For we shall be like the angels.” 5670 This will be the p. 452 perfect change of our flesh—only after its resurrection. 5671 Now if, on the contrary, 5672 there is to be no flesh, how then shall it put on incorruption and immortality? Having then become something else by its change, it will obtain the kingdom of God, no longer the (old) flesh and blood, but the body which God shall have given it. Rightly then does the apostle declare, “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God;” 5673 for this (honour) does he ascribe to the changed condition 5674 which ensues on the resurrection. Since, therefore, shall then be accomplished the word which was written by the Creator, “O death, where is thy victory”—or thy struggle? 5675 “O death, where is thy sting?” 5676 —written, I say, by the Creator, for He wrote them by His prophet 5677 —to Him will belong the gift, that is, the kingdom, who proclaimed the word which is to be accomplished in the kingdom.  And to none other God does he tell us that “thanks” are due, for having enabled us to achieve “the victory” even over death, than to Him from whom he received the very expression 5678 of the exulting and triumphant challenge to the mortal foe.

Footnotes

He refers to his De Resurrect. Carnis. See chap. xlviii.

1 Cor. xv. 29.

Viderit.

Kalendæ Februariæ. The great expiation or lustration, celebrated at Rome in the month which received its name from the festival, is described by Ovid, Fasti, book ii., lines 19–28, and 267–452, in which latter passage the same feast is called Lupercalia. Of course as the rites were held on the 15th of the month, the word kalendæ here has not its more usual meaning (Paley’s edition of the Fasti, pp. 52–76). Oehler refers also to Macrobius, Saturn. i. 13; Cicero, De Legibus, ii. 21; Plutarch, Numa, p. 132. He well remarks (note in loc.), that Tertullian, by intimating that the heathen rites of the Februa will afford quite as satisfactory an answer to the apostle’s question, as the Christian superstition alluded to, not only means no authorization of the said superstition for himself, but expresses his belief that St. Paul’s only object was to gather some evidence for the great doctrine of the resurrection from the faith which underlay the practice alluded to. In this respect, however, the heathen festival would afford a much less pointed illustration; for though it was indeed a lustration for the dead, περὶ νεκρῶν, and had for its object their happiness and welfare, it went no further than a vague notion of an indefinite immortality, and it touched not the recovery of the body. There is therefore force in Tertullian’s si forte.

Si forte.

τῷ εὔχεσθαι ὑπὲρ τῶν νεκρῶν (Rigalt.).

Eph. iv. 5.

Pro corporibus.

Eph. iv. 5.

Corpora.

Ut, with the subjunctive verb induxerit.

1 Cor. xv. 35.

Consequens erat.

Porro.

1 Cor. 15:37, 38.

1 Cor. xv. 38.

Ut.

1 Cor. xv. 39-41.

Portendit.

1 Cor. xv. 42.

1 Cor. 15:42, 43.

1 Cor. xv. 44.

Anima: we will call it soul in the context.

Possit videri.

Animam.

Non ideo.

Animam.

Animale. The terseness of his argument, by his use of the same radical terms Anima and Animale, is lost in the English. [See Cap. 15 infra. Also, Kaye p. 180. St. Augustine seems to tolerate our author’s views of a corporal spirit in his treatise de Hæresibus.]

1 Cor. xv. 46.

1 Cor. xv. 45.

ὁ ἔσχατος ᾽Αδάμ into ὁ ἔσχατος Κύριος.

Vel auctoris.

Par.

1 Cor. xv. 47.

Marcion seems to have changed man into Lord, or rather to have omitted the ἄνθρωπος of the second clause, letting the verse run thus: ὁ πρῶτος ἄνθρωπος ἐκ γῆς χοϊκὁς, ὁ δεύτερος Κύριος ἐξ οὐρανοῦ. Anything to cut off all connection with the Creator.

The οἱ ἐπουράνιοι, the “de cœlo homines,” of this 1 Cor. 15.48 are Christ’s risen people; comp. Phil. 3:20, 21 (Alford).

Secundum exitum.

1 Cor. xv. 49. T. argues from the reading φορέσωμεν (instead of φορέσομεν), which indeed was read by many of the fathers, and (what is still more important) is found in the Codex Sinaiticus. We add the critical note of Dean Alford on this reading: “ACDFKL rel latt copt goth, Theodotus, Basil, Cæsarius, Cyril, Macarius, Methodius (who prefixes ἕνα), Chrysostom, Epiphanius, Ps. Athanasius, Damascene, Irenæus (int), Tertullian, Cyprian, Hilary, Jerome.”  Alford retains the usual φορέσομεν, on the strength chiefly of the Codex Vaticanus.

1 Cor. xv. 50.

Gal. v. 19-21.

Rom. viii. 8.

Merebitur.

1 Cor. xv. 52.

1 Cor. xv. 53.

Matt. 22:30, Luke 20:36.

Sed resuscitatæ.

Aut si.

1 Cor. xv. 50.

Demutationi.

Suggested by the ἰσχυσας of Sept. in Isa. xxv. 8.

1 Cor. xv. 55.

Isa. 25:8, Hos. 13:14.

The Septuagint version of the passage in Hosea is, ποῦ ἡ δίκη σου, θάνατε; ποῦ τὸ κέντνον σου, ᾅδη, which is very like the form of the apostrophe in 1 Cor. xv. 55.