He certainly did not intend two things to be understood, as though flesh were one thing and the body of the flesh another; but because 'body' is a name for many things of which none is flesh (for there are many bodies apart from flesh, heavenly bodies and earthly bodies), he said 'the body of the flesh,' that is, the body which is flesh. So likewise he called it 'the spirit of the mind,' that is, the spirit which is mind. Elsewhere too he named it, even more openly, an 'image,' commending indeed the very same thing in other words: 'Stripping off,' he says, 'the old man with his deeds, put on the new man, who is renewed unto the knowledge of God according to the image of him that created him.' What therefore is read in one place, 'Put on the new man, who is created according to God,' is in this place:
'Put on the new man, who is renewed according to the image of him that created him.' There, however, he says 'according to God'; here, on the other hand, 'according to the image of him that created him.' And in place of what he set down there, 'in righteousness and holiness of truth,' here he has put 'in the knowledge of God.' This renewal and reformation of the mind, therefore, takes place according to God, or according to the image of God. But it is said to be 'according to God' lest it be thought to take place according to some other creature; and it is said to be 'according to the image of God' that this renewal may be understood to take place in that thing wherein is the image of God, that is, in the mind—just as we say that one who departs faithful and righteous out of the body is dead 'according to the body,' not according to the spirit.
For what do we mean by 'dead according to the body' except dead in body or in respect of the body, not in soul or in respect of the soul? Or if we should say, 'He is beautiful according to the body,' or, 'He is strong according to the body, not according to the mind,' what is this but 'He is beautiful or strong in body, not in mind'? And we speak so in countless instances. Let us not, therefore, understand 'according to the image of him that created him' as though the image according to which one is renewed were one thing, and not the very image that is renewed. Assuredly this renewal does not take place in the single moment of conversion itself, as that renewal in baptism takes place in a single moment by the remission of all sins; for not even one sin, however small, remains that is not remitted.
But just as it is one thing to be free of fevers, and another to recover from the weakness which the fevers have caused; and again, it is one thing to draw out of the body a fixed spear, and another to heal by a further treatment the wound which it has made: so the first cure is to remove the cause of the sickness, which is done through the pardon of all sins; the second is to heal the sickness itself, which is done by advancing little by little in the renewal of this image. These two are shown in the Psalm where it is read: 'Who is gracious to all thine iniquities'—which is done in baptism; and then follows: 'Who healeth all thy diseases'—which is done by daily advances as this image is renewed. Concerning this matter the Apostle spoke most plainly, saying:
'Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.' And it is renewed in the knowledge of God, that is, in righteousness and holiness of truth, according to the apostolic testimonies which I recalled a little before. He, then, who is renewed day by day by advancing in the knowledge of God and in righteousness and holiness of truth, transfers his love from things temporal to things eternal, from things visible to things intelligible, from things carnal to things spiritual; and he diligently strives to bridle and lessen his desire for the former and to bind himself by charity to the latter. But he does this in the measure that he is helped from above; for it is God's own sentence: 'Without me ye can do nothing.'
In this progress and advance, when the last day of this life shall find each one holding the faith of the Mediator, he shall be received by the holy angels to be brought to the God whom he worshipped and to be perfected by him; and at the end of the age he shall receive back an incorruptible body, not for punishment but for glory. For in this image the likeness of God shall then be perfect, when the vision of God shall be perfect. Of which the Apostle Paul says: 'Now we see through a glass, in an enigma; but then face to face.' Likewise he says: 'But we, with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord.' This is what takes place day by day in those who make good progress. But the Apostle John says:
'Beloved,' he says, 'now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be. We know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.' From this it appears that then, in this image of God, the full likeness of him comes to be, when the full vision of him has been attained—although this might seem to have been said by the Apostle John also concerning the immortality of the body. For in this too we shall be like God, but only like the Son, because he alone in the Trinity took a body, in which he died and rose again, and carried it up to the heights above.
For it is also called the image of the Son of God, in which, as he does, we shall have an immortal body, being made conformable in this respect not to the image of the Father or of the Holy Spirit but only of the Son; because of him alone is it read, and received with soundest faith: 'The Word was made flesh.' On which account the Apostle says: 'Whom he foreknew, he also predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.' The firstborn, assuredly, from the dead, according to the same Apostle; by which death his flesh was sown in dishonor, and rose in glory. According to this image of the Son, to which we are conformed in body through immortality, we also do that which likewise the same Apostle says:
'As we have borne the image of the earthly, let us also bear the image of him who is from heaven'—namely, that we who were mortal according to Adam should hold, by true faith and sure and firm hope, that we shall be immortal according to Christ. For thus we can now bear the same image, not yet in vision but in faith, not yet in reality but in hope. For it was of the resurrection of the body that the Apostle was speaking when he said these things. But that image of which it was said, 'Let us make man to our image and likeness'—because it was not said 'to my' image or 'to thy,' we believe man to have been made to the image of the Trinity, and with as much investigation as we could we have grasped this.
And therefore it is rather according to this image that we must understand also that which the Apostle John says: 'We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is'; because he said this too of him of whom he had said, 'We are the sons of God.' And the immortality of the flesh will be perfected in that moment of the resurrection of which the Apostle Paul says: 'In the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; and the dead shall rise incorruptible, and we shall be changed.' For in that very twinkling of an eye, before the judgment, there shall rise in power, in incorruption, in glory, the spiritual body which is now sown in weakness, corruption, and dishonor as an animal body.
But the image which is renewed in the spirit of the mind, in the knowledge of God, not outwardly but inwardly, day by day—this will be perfected by that vision which shall then be, after the judgment, face to face; but now it advances through a glass, in an enigma. For the sake of its perfection that saying is to be understood: 'We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.' For this gift will then be given to us, when it shall be said: 'Come, ye blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you.' For then the wicked shall be taken away, that he may not see the brightness of the Lord, when those on the left go into everlasting punishment, and those on the right into life eternal.
Now this, as the Truth says, is eternal life: 'that they may know thee,' he says, 'the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.' This contemplative wisdom, which I think is properly called in the Holy Scriptures 'wisdom' as distinguished from 'knowledge'—the wisdom, that is, of man alone, which indeed belongs to him only from him by whose participation the rational and intellectual mind can become truly wise—Cicero, commending it at the end of the dialogue Hortensius, says:
'For us,' he says, 'considering these things day and night, and sharpening the understanding which is the edge of the mind, and taking care that it never grow dull—that is, for those who live in philosophy—there is great hope: either, if this by which we feel and are wise is mortal and perishable, that our setting, once we have discharged our human duties, will be pleasant to us, and our extinction not troublesome, and, as it were, a rest from life;
or, if—as it pleased the ancient philosophers, and those the greatest and by far the most illustrious—we have souls that are eternal and divine, then it must be thought that the more these have been ever in their own course, that is, in reason and in the desire of investigation, and the less they have mingled and entangled themselves in the vices and errors of men, so much the easier will be their ascent and return to heaven.' Then, adding this very conclusion, and ending his discourse by repeating it, he says: 'Wherefore, that the discourse may at length be brought to an end, if we wish either to be tranquilly extinguished when we have lived in these arts, or to migrate without delay from this house into another far better, all our labor and care must be set upon these studies.'
Here I marvel that a man of such great genius should promise a pleasant setting to men who have discharged their human duties and who live in philosophy—which makes men blessed by the contemplation of truth—if this by which we feel and are wise is mortal and perishable; as though that should die and perish which we did not love, or rather which we fiercely hated, that its setting might be pleasant to us. But this he had not learned from the philosophers whom he proclaims with great praise; rather this opinion savored of that New Academy where it pleased him to doubt even of the most manifest things. From the philosophers, however—as he himself confesses, the greatest and by far the most illustrious—he had received that souls are eternal.
For eternal souls are not unfittingly stirred up by this exhortation, that they may be found in their own course when the end of this life shall come—that is, in reason and in the desire of investigation—and may mingle and entangle themselves less in the vices and errors of men, so that their return to God may be easier. But this course, which is constituted in the love and investigation of truth, does not suffice for the wretched—that is, for all who are mortal with this reason alone, without the faith of the Mediator; as in the earlier books of this work, especially in the fourth and the thirteenth, I took care to demonstrate as far as I could.