What we wish for them, not only God and prudent men, but even they themselves, though they be most hostile to us, perceive. For when they think we are to be terrified by their own destruction, they do not doubt that we fear lest they perish. But what shall we do, seeing how many, with the Lord's help, find through your occasion the way of peace? Can we, or ought we, forbid you from this insistence upon unity, while we fear lest certain most hardened men, most cruel toward their very selves, destroy themselves not by our will but by their own? We would indeed wish that all who bear the sign of Christ against Christ, and who glory concerning the very Gospel — which they do not understand — against the Gospel, would depart from their perversity and rejoice with us in His unity.
But since God, by a hidden disposition sufficiently — yet nevertheless just — has predestined some of them to extreme punishments, without doubt it is better, when by an incomparable multitude very many have been restored and gathered from that pestilential division and dispersion, that certain ones perish by their own fires, than that all alike should burn in the everlasting fires of Gehenna by the desert of their sacrilegious dissension. For the Church grieves for these who perish in the same way as holy David grieved for his rebellious son, concerning whose safety being preserved he had commanded with anxious love. For when the son was rightly cut off by his abominable impiety, David groaned with the testimony of a tearful voice; yet, the proud and malignant one departing to his own place, the people of God
who had been divided by his tyranny — acknowledged their king, and the fulfillment of unity consoled the father's mourning for the lost son. We therefore do not blame you, excellent lord and honorable son, that you thought such men at Thamugadi should first be admonished by an edict; but as to what you there said: 'Know that you are to be handed over to deserved slaughter,' they supposed — as their replies indicate — that you had threatened this, namely, that you would seize and kill them, not understanding that you spoke of that death which they themselves wish to inflict upon themselves. For you have not received the power of the sword over them by any laws, nor is it enjoined by the imperial statutes, whose execution is committed to you, that they be killed.
By the second edict, indeed, you more plainly disclosed what you wished, your love. But that you thought even their bishop himself should be addressed by letter, you most humanely showed with how great gentleness they are tempered in the Catholic Church, even those who by the power of the Christian emperor are set over the correcting of errors, whether by restraining or by punishing — except that you treated him with more honorable words than befitted a heretic. But in that you wished me to answer his reply, I believe you judged that this too ought to be furnished to the people of Thamugadi, that the deceitful teaching of the very man by whom they were being seduced might be somewhat more diligently refuted.
But we are both most fully occupied, and in very many other little works of ours have refuted trifling talk of this sort. For I know not how many times, by disputing and writing, we have shown that they cannot have the death of martyrs, because they do not have the life of Christians, since it is not the penalty but the cause that makes a martyr. We have taught also that free will was so given to man that nevertheless, both by divine and human laws, most rightly punishments of grave sins have been appointed; and that it pertains to the religious kings of the earth to restrain with fitting severity not only adulteries or murders or other such disgraces or crimes, but also sacrileges; and that those are much deceived who think that such men are received by us as they are,
because we do not rebaptize them. For how are such men received as they are, when, being heretics, by crossing over to us they become Catholics? For it is not on that account unlawful for depraved hearts to be corrected, because sacraments once given may not be repeated. But concerning the most furious deaths which some of them inflict upon themselves — deaths on account of which they are wont to be detestable and abominable even to many of their own, whose minds so great a madness has not possessed — we have often answered them according to the Scriptures and the reasoning of Christians. For it is written: 'He that is evil to himself, to whom will he be good?' Or at least, let him who thinks it expedient and lawful for himself to kill himself, kill also his neighbor, placed in the same temptations and wishing to die, since Scripture says:
'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' But that it is not lawful, with no laws or lawful authorities commanding, to kill another even willing and asking and no longer able to live, the Scripture of the Kingdoms sufficiently indicates, where King David ordered the slayer of King Saul to be killed, when that man had said that he had been asked by Saul, already wounded and half-alive, to do this — to release his soul, struggling against the bonds of the body and desiring to be loosed, from those torments by a single stroke of a wound. Accordingly, since everyone who kills a man without any authority of lawful power is a murderer, whoever kills himself would not be a murderer, if he is not a man.
All these things we have said in many ways in very many others of our sermons and letters. Yet still, what must be confessed, concerning that elder Razis — whom, constrained by the utter lack of examples, having searched through all ecclesiastical authorities, they boast that they scarcely at last found in the books of the Maccabees as if for the authority of the crime by which they destroy themselves — I do not recall having ever yet answered them. But, what may suffice for your charity and for any prudent men to refute them: if for the life of Christians they are prepared to transfer examples of all deeds from the Jewish people and those writings, then let them transfer this too. But if there are in that place very many things even of those men who were praised by the truth of those writings,
which are either not suited to this present time, or even in that time not rightly done, such also is this which Razis committed against himself. For since he was noble among his own and had greatly advanced in Judaism — those things which the Apostle says were to him, in comparison of Christian righteousness, loss and dung — and on account of these things this same Razis was called father of the Jews, what wonder is it if proud elation crept upon him as upon a man, so that he preferred to be slain by his own hand rather than, after that eminence in the sight of his own, to endure an unworthy servitude in the hands of enemies? Such things are wont to be praised in the literature of the Gentiles.
But in these books of the Maccabees, although the man himself was praised, yet his deed was narrated, not praised, and set before our eyes to be judged rather than imitated — not indeed to be judged by our judgment, which we too as men might have, but by the judgment of sober doctrine, which is clear in those very ancient books as well. For that Razis was far indeed from those words where it is read: 'Whatever shall be applied to you, accept it; and in pain sustain it, and in your humiliation have patience.' Therefore that man was not wise in choosing death, but impatient in bearing humiliation. It is written that he wished to die nobly and manfully; but was he therefore wise?
Nobly, forsooth, lest as a captive he should lose the freedom of his birth; and manfully, in that he had such great strength of soul as to be fit to slay himself. Since he could not accomplish this with the sword, he cast himself headlong from the wall, and thus, still living, ran to a jagged rock, and there, now bloodless, drew forth his own entrails, which, scattering with both hands, he flung upon the people, and then afterwards, worn out, fell dead. These things are great, yet not therefore good; for not everything that is great is good, since there are also great evils. God said: 'Slay not the innocent and just.' If therefore that man was not innocent and just, why is he set forth to be imitated? But if he was innocent and just,
why is the slayer of the innocent and just — that is, Razis himself — thought to be moreover praiseworthy? These things meanwhile, lest it become too long, let them suffice for the filling out of this letter. But I owe to the people of Thamugadi a ministry of charity of this kind, since they have been well commended to me both by your wish and by my honorable and dearest son Eleusinus, who exercised the tribunate among them, that I should answer both letters of Gaudentius, the Donatist bishop — and especially the latter, which he supposes he made according to the Holy Scriptures — in such a way that nothing may be thought to have been passed over. 205. To my most beloved brother Consentius, Augustine. As far as pertains to the bodily eyes, we see certain men and do not know them, whose life and pursuits are unknown to us;
certain men we know and do not see, whose disposition and affections have become known to us by their writing, among whom we number you also; and therefore we desire the more to see you, that you may be among those whom we both see and know. For those who are thrust unknown upon our eyes are not only not desirable, but scarcely tolerable, unless by some signs the beauty of the inner man appears in them. But those whose mind, as yours did, first appeared to us by understanding rather than by seeing the body — them indeed we already know, but we desire also to see them for this reason, that through what is beheld by the eyes we may enjoy much more delightfully and familiarly, with the inner friend whom we already know, the friend within.
But this too concerning you God will perhaps grant us, when human affairs are quieter and more tranquil, as we hope, so that it may be of honorable charity rather than of troublesome necessity. Now let me answer, as by the Lord's help I shall be able, the questions which, apart from your letter, you sent to be inquired of me on another sheet. You ask whether now the body of the Lord has bones and blood, or the remaining lineaments of flesh. What if you were to add: whether also garments — would not the question be increased? For what reason, save that those things which we know to be corruptible in the use of this our life, we can scarcely conceive without corruption, although certain proofs of divine miracles have already been given, from which it is permitted to conjecture greater things?
For if the garment of the Israelites could last through so many years in the desert without wear, if the dead hide of their shoes endured so long without decay, God can surely prolong the incorrupt quality of any bodies whatever, for as long a time as He shall have willed. I accordingly believe the body of the Lord to be in heaven just as it was when He ascended into heaven. Now He had said to the disciples, as we read in the Gospel — to those doubting of His resurrection and thinking that what they saw was not a body but a spirit: 'See my hands and feet; handle and see, for a spirit does not have bones and flesh, as you see me to have.'
Thus, when He was on earth, He was handled by their hands; thus, when He went into heaven, He was led away from their sight. There the angelic voice sounded: 'So shall He come, in the manner in which you have seen Him going into heaven.' Let faith be present, and no question will remain — unless perhaps inquiry must be made concerning the blood, because, when He had said: 'Handle and see, for a spirit does not have bones and flesh,' He did not add blood. Let us therefore not add to inquire what He did not add to say. And for brevity's sake, if it please, let the question be finished; for perhaps, taking occasion from the blood, a more troublesome examiner will press us and will say:
'If blood, why not also phlegm, why not also yellow bile and black bile, by which four humors even the discipline of medicine testifies that the nature of the flesh is tempered?' But whatever anyone may add, let him beware of adding corruption, lest he corrupt the health and chastity of his own faith. From the custom of things experienced, human weakness measures the inexperienced works of God, and thinks it prattles rather cleverly when it says: 'If it is flesh, it is also blood; if blood, also the other humors; if the other humors, therefore also corruption.' In that manner it would say: 'If it is flame, it also burns; if it burns, it also consumes; if it consumes, then the fire consumed the bodies of the three men sent into the furnace by the impious king.'
But if whoever rightly understands concerning the works of God does not doubt that this miracle was done in the three men, why should it not be believed that He who made those bodies unable to be corrupted by fire, made that body able to be corrupted neither by fire nor by hunger nor by disease nor by old age nor by any other force, by which corruption is wont to break down human bodies? But if anyone says that it was not incorruption against fire added to the flesh of those three men, but rather the power of corrupting taken away from the fire itself, why do we fear that He could not make flesh unable to be corrupted, who made fire unable to corrupt? For if that is understood not of a change of flesh but of fire, it is much more marvelous;
for at the same time it both did not burn the bodies of the men, that it might not be able to harm, and burned the wood of the furnace, that it might be able to blaze. But those who do not even believe these things distrust too much the divine power, and our discourse now is neither with them nor to them; but those who do believe these things, from these let them somehow conjecture also those things which they faithfully inquire. The divine power avails, therefore, to take away from this visible and tangible nature of bodies whatever qualities it shall have willed, certain others remaining; and through this it avails also to strengthen mortal members, the lineaments of the form remaining but the corruption of mortality being dead, with a stable vigor, so that defect be absent, the appearance present, motion present, weariness absent, the power of eating present, absent
the necessity of hungering. Therefore, as to what is read in the Apostle: 'Flesh and blood shall not possess the kingdom of God,' the question is indeed resolved also in that way which you mentioned, that by the name of flesh and blood the works of flesh and blood may be understood; but truly, since the Apostle was speaking not of works but of the mode of the resurrection, and was handling that question by disputation, in that place it is better understood that flesh and blood is put for the corruption of flesh and blood. For if the name of flesh signifies operation, why should it not also signify corruption, as it was said: 'All flesh is grass'? For here too that very corruptibility is signified; for there follows: 'And all the glory of flesh is as the flower of grass: the grass withered, the flower fell.'
Does this then also apply to that flesh of which it was said: 'Handle and see, for a spirit does not have bones and flesh, as you see me to have'? For in what way could it wither or fall, when it is written that Christ, rising from the dead, dies now no more, and death shall no longer have dominion over Him? Accordingly, inspect that apostolic sentence from above and consider the whole of it. When he wished to persuade of the resurrection of the dead those who said that there is no resurrection of the dead, having set forth Christ's resurrection as an example, among the other things which he there discoursed, he brought upon himself a question and said: 'But someone will say: How do the dead rise? and with what body do they come?' — that is, with what kind of body. Then, applying the proofs of seeds:
'Foolish one,' he says, 'what you sow is not made alive unless it dies; and what you sow, you do not sow the body that is to be, but a bare grain, perhaps of wheat or of some of the rest; but God gives it a body as He has willed, and to each of the seeds its own body.' According to this, therefore, he had said: 'You do not sow the body that is to be.' For it will not be that the wheat is not from wheat; but because no one sows the herb or the stalk, and the manifold coverings of the grains in the chaff, with which nevertheless the seeds spring up, therefore he says: 'But a bare grain' — wishing hereby to show that, if God can add what was not in the bare seed, much more can He restore what was in the body of man.
Now indeed, what he adjoins pertains to the difference of those who rise, on account of the diverse glories of the faithful and the saints. 'Not all flesh,' he says, 'is the same flesh; but one indeed is of men, another the flesh of beasts, another of birds, another of fishes. And there are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies; but one is the glory of the heavenly, and another of the earthly. And one is the glory of the sun, and another the glory of the moon, and another the glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead.' In all these things this is the meaning:
If the kinds of flesh, though they are all mortal, nevertheless differ among themselves according to the diversities of living creatures; and if bodies, though they are all visible, nevertheless differ according to the diversities of places, whence the glory of heavenly things is one and that of earthly things another; and if, in the regions on high, though they are all heavenly, they too differ in the brightness of their lights: it is no wonder that in the resurrection of the dead the glory of merits will vary. From here he now comes to that which every flesh has in common that rises to eternal life, and he says: It is sown in corruption, it shall rise in incorruption; it is sown in dishonour, it shall rise in glory; it is sown in weakness, it shall rise in power; it is sown a natural body, it shall rise a spiritual body.
In these words of the Apostle, is it in any way permissible to suppose that our bodies will rise better than Christ's, since it is from Him that the example is set before us, upon which we ought faithfully to fix our gaze and by whose grace we ought to hope? And therefore in no way could the body of Christ rise with corruption, if ours is promised to rise in incorruption; nor could His rise without glory, if ours shall rise in glory: but what glory is there where corruption still remains? It is therefore utterly absurd that we should believe that His body was both sown in weakness—that is, put to death—and rose in weakness, whereas our body is sown in weakness and rises in power, and the same Apostle says of Christ:
Although He was crucified through weakness, yet He lives by the power of God. But who would think so absurdly as to believe that His body was sown a natural body and raised a natural body, if ours is sown a natural body and shall rise spiritual? It stands therefore, and is in no way to be doubted, that the body of Christ—which, although it did not see the corruption of putrefaction in the tomb, whence it is written:
Nor wilt thou give thy Holy One to see corruption—yet could be pierced by nails and a lance, now stands wholly in incorruption; and that which was sown in the dishonour of suffering and death is now in the glory of eternal life; and that which through weakness could be crucified now reigns in power; and that which was a natural body, since it was taken from Adam, is now spiritual, since it is now inseparably joined to the spirit. For when the Apostle wished to bring forward the testimony of the Scriptures concerning the natural body, he set down that which is read in Genesis: If, he says, there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual; so also it is written: The first Adam was made into a living soul—or into a living being.
You surely recall how it is written: And God breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul. But it was also said of the animals: Let the earth bring forth the living soul. It is understood, therefore, that a body is called natural in likeness to the other animals because of the dissolution and corruption of death, which is daily restored by food and afterwards, when the framework of the living creature is overcome, is dissolved; whereas the spiritual body, which is now with the spirit, is immortal. Yet some suppose that the body then becomes spiritual when the body itself is changed into spirit, and that what a man was, made of body and spirit, will then be wholly and entirely spirit—as though the Apostle had said: 'A body is sown, a spirit shall rise.' But he said:
It is sown a natural body, it shall rise a spiritual body. Accordingly, just as a natural body is not soul but body, so also a spiritual body we ought not to think is spirit but body. Moreover, who would dare to imagine either that Christ's body did not rise spiritual, or that, if it rose spiritual, it was then no longer body but spirit—when He refutes this opinion of His disciples, where, seeing Him and thinking they saw a spirit, He said: Handle Me and see, for a spirit has not bones and flesh, as you see Me have?
Therefore that flesh was already a spiritual body, and yet it was not spirit but body, no longer to be loosed and separated from the soul by any death, as the natural body is—the body which was animated by the breath of God when man became a living soul, which itself too would have become spiritual instead of natural without the intervention of death, had not the transgression of the commandment, sin being first committed, inflicted the punishment before God should grant the crown of justice preserved. Whence the Lord Christ came through us to us, when the Just One found sinners—by way, as it were, of our lowliness, but not with the disease of our iniquity. For He appeared to us through a natural, that is, a mortal body, He who assuredly, had He so willed, could have come at first with an immortal body.
But because it was fitting that we should be healed by the humility of the Son of God, He descended even to our weakness and displayed the merit and reward of our faith by the power of His resurrection. Therefore the Apostle continues and says: The last Adam into a life-giving spirit. Whether the first Adam be understood, who was formed of dust before, and the last Adam, who was begotten of the Virgin; or whether both are fulfilled in each single man, so that the first Adam is man in a mortal body, the last Adam the very same man in an immortal body: yet between a living soul and a life-giving spirit he willed this to be the difference, that there the body is natural, here spiritual.
For the soul indeed lives in the natural body, but does not give life so as to remove corruption; whereas in the spiritual body, since, perfectly cleaving to the Lord, it is one spirit, it so gives life that it makes the body spiritual, consuming all corruption, fearing no separation. Accordingly it follows: But not first that which is spiritual, but that which is natural; afterward the spiritual. The first man of the earth, earthy; the second man from heaven, heavenly. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. As we have borne the image of the earthy, let us also bear the image of Him who is from heaven. What is 'As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy' but mortal from the mortal? And what is:
'As is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly'—but immortal through the Immortal? The former through Adam, this through Christ. For the Lord became earthy for this end, though He was heavenly, that He might make those who were earthy heavenly; that is, He was therefore made mortal from immortal by taking the form of a servant, not by changing the nature of the Lord, in order that He might make those who were mortal immortal by imparting the Lord's grace, not by retaining the servant's injury. When therefore the Apostle, disputing about the resurrection of the body, taught that our bodies would be from corruptible incorruptible, from contemptible glorious, from weak strong, from natural spiritual—that is, from mortal immortal—he added the point at issue, and said:
For this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot possess the kingdom of God. And lest anyone should think that the Apostle had defined this according to the substance of flesh, he made clear what he meant by adding: Neither shall corruption possess incorruption—as though he said: 'What I said, Flesh and blood shall not possess the kingdom of God, I said for this reason, because corruption shall not possess incorruption.' In this passage, therefore, he willed corruption of mortality to be understood by the name of flesh and blood. Finally, as though it were said to him: 'How will there be flesh and yet not flesh? For there will indeed be flesh, since the Lord said after the resurrection:
Handle Me and see, for a spirit has not bones and flesh, as you see Me have—yet there will not be flesh, since flesh and blood shall not possess the kingdom of God'—he expounds what he had said, adding: Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall indeed all rise again—or, as the Greek codices have it, we shall indeed all sleep—but we shall not all be changed. Whether he willed this change to be understood for the worse or for the better, the words that follow nevertheless show. In a moment, he says—that is, in a point of time which cannot be divided—in the twinkling of an eye—that is, in the utmost swiftness—at the last trumpet—that is, at the last sign which shall be given, that these things may be fulfilled; for the trumpet, he says, shall sound.
And the dead shall rise incorruptible, and we shall be changed. Therefore this change must without doubt be understood for the better, since all, both the just and the unjust, shall rise; but, as the Lord says in the Gospel, those who have done well, unto the resurrection of life; those who have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment—calling 'judgment' the everlasting punishment, as in another place He says: He who does not believe is already judged. Accordingly those who shall rise unto judgment shall not be changed into that incorruption which cannot even suffer the corruption of pain; for that belongs to the faithful and the saints, whereas these shall be tormented with perpetual corruption, because their fire shall not be quenched and their worm shall not die.
What then does this distinction mean: And the dead shall rise incorruptible, and we shall be changed—unless that all shall rise incorruptible, but of these the just shall also be changed into that incorruption to which no corruption whatever can do harm? And therefore those who shall not be changed into it shall indeed rise incorruptible in the integrity of their members, yet still liable to corruption by the pain of punishments, when they shall have heard: Go into the everlasting fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels. Of that evil hearing the just man shall not be afraid. But of that change of the just, when he had said, We shall be changed—as though we were to ask how this comes to pass or what that future change shall be—he adds and says: