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.They make God, then, ungrateful and unjust, if, while bothbelieve on Him, He desires to save one and not the other.Well, they say,but the soul is incorruptible, being a part of God and inspired by Him, andtherefore He desires to save what is peculiarly His own and akin toHimself; but the flesh is corruptible, and not from Him, as the soul is.599Then what thanks are due to Him, and what manifestation of His powerand goodness is it, if He purposed to save what is by nature saved andexists as a part of Himself? For it had its salvation from itself; so that insaving the soul, God does no great thing.For to be saved is its naturaldestiny, because it is a part of Himself, being His inspiration.But nothanks are due to one who saves what is his own; for this is to savehimself.For he who saves a part himself, saves himself by his own means,lest he become defective in that part; and this is not the act of a good man.For not even when a man does good to his children and offspring, does onecall him a good man; for even the most savage of the wild beasts do so, andindeed willingly endure death, if need be, for the sake of their cubs.But if aman were to perform the same acts in behalf of his slaves, that man wouldjustly be called good.Wherefore the Savior also taught us to love ourenemies, since, says He, what thank have ye? So that He has shown usthat it is a good work not only to love those that are begotten of Him, butalso those that are without.And what He enjoins upon us, He Himselffirst of all does.CHAPTER 9THE RESURRECTION OF CHRISTPROVES THAT THE BODY RISESIf He had no need of the flesh, why did He heal it? And what is mostforcible of all, He raised the dead.Why? Was it not to show what theresurrection should be? How then did He raise the dead? Their souls ortheir bodies? Manifestly both.If the resurrection were only spiritual, itwas requisite that He, in raising the dead, should show the body lyingapart by itself, and the soul living apart by itself.But now He did not doso, but raised the body, confirming in it the promise of life.Why did Herise in the flesh in which He suffered, unless to show the resurrection ofthe flesh? And wishing to confirm this, when His disciples did not knowwhether to believe He had truly risen in the body, and were looking uponHim and doubting, He said to them,  Ye have not yet faith, see that it is I;and He let them handle Him, and showed them the prints of the nails inHis hands.And when they were by every kind of proof persuaded that it600was Himself, and in the body, they asked Him to eat with them, that theymight thus still more accurately ascertain that He had in verity risenbodily; and He did eat honey-comb and fish.And when He had thusshown them that there is truly a resurrection of the flesh, wishing to showthem this also, that it is not impossible for flesh to ascend into heaven (asHe had said that our dwelling-place is in heaven),  He was taken up intoheaven while they beheld, as He was in the flesh.If, therefore, after allthat has been said, any one demand demonstration of the resurrection, he isin no respect different from the Sadducees, since the resurrection of theflesh is the power of God, and, being above all reasoning, is established byfaith, and seen in works.CHAPTER 10THE BODY SAVED, AND WILL THEREFORE RISEThe resurrection is a resurrection of the flesh which died.For the spiritdies not; the soul is in the body, and without a soul it cannot live.Thebody, when the soul forsakes it, is not.For the body is the house of thesoul; and the soul the house of the spirit.These three, in all those whocherish a sincere hope and unquestioning faith in God, will be saved.Considering, therefore, even such arguments as are suited to this world,and finding that, even according to them, it is not impossible that the fleshbe regenerated; and seeing that, besides all these proofs, the Savior in thewhole Gospel shows that there is salvation for the flesh, why do we anylonger endure those unbelieving and dangerous arguments, and fail to seethat we are retrograding when we listen to such an argument as this: thatthe soul is immortal, but the body mortal, and incapable of being revived?For this we used to hear from Pythagoras and Plato, even before welearned the truth.If then the Savior said this, and proclaimed salvation tothe soul alone, what new thing, beyond what we heard from Pythagorasand Plato and all their band, did He bring us? But now He has comeproclaiming the glad tidings of a new and strange hope to men.For indeedit was a strange and new thing for God to promise that He would not keepincorruption in incorruption, but would make corruption incorruption.Butbecause the prince of wickedness could in no other way corrupt the truth,601he sent forth his apostles (evil men who introduced pestilent doctrines),choosing them from among those who crucified our Savior; and these menbore the name of the Savior, but did the works of him that sent them,through whom the name itself has been spoken against.But if the flesh donot rise, why is it also guarded, and why do we not rather suffer it toindulge its desires? Why do we not imitate physicians, who, it is said,when they get a patient that is despaired of and incurable, allow him toindulge his desires? For they know that he is dying; and this indeed thosewho hate the flesh surely do, casting it out of its inheritance, so far as theycan; for on this account they also despise it, because it is shortly tobecome a corpse.But if our physician Christ, God, having rescued us fromour desires, regulates our flesh with His own wise and temperate rule, it isevident that He guards it from sins because it possesses a hope ofsalvation, as physicians do not suffer men whom they hope to save toindulge in what pleasures they please.602OTHER FRAGMENTS FROM THELOST WRITINGS OF JUSTIN[TRANSLATED BY THE REV.A.ROBERTS, D.D.]1THE most admirable Justin rightly declared that the aforesaid demonsresembled robbers TATIAN S Address to the Greeks, Chapter 18.2And Justin well said in his book against Marcion, that he would not havebelieved the Lord Himself, if He had announced any other God than theFashioner and Maker [of the world], and our Nourisher.But since, fromthe one God, who both made this world and formed us and contains aswell as administers all things, there came to us the only-begotten Son,summing up His own workmanship in Himself, my faith in Him issteadfast, and my love towards the Father is immovable, God bestowingboth upon us. IRENAEUS: Heresies,4.6.3Justin well said: Before the advent of the Lord, Satan never ventured toblaspheme God, inasmuch as he was not yet sure of his own damnation,since that was announced concerning him by the prophets only in parablesand allegories [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]