Chapter XXVI.—Even the Metaphorical Descriptions of This Subject in the Scriptures Point to the Bodily Resurrection, the Only Sense Which Secures Their Consistency and Dignity.

To a preceding objection, that the Scriptures are allegorical, I have still one answer to make—that it is open to us also to defend the bodily character of the resurrection by means of the language of the prophets, which is equally figurative. For consider that primeval sentence which God spake when He called man earth; saying, “Earth thou art, and to earth shalt thou return.”177    Gen. iii. 19. In respect, of course, to his fleshly substance, which had been taken out of the ground, and which was the first to receive the name of man, as we have already shown,178    See above, ch. v. does not this passage give one instruction to interpret in relation to the flesh also whatever of wrath or of grace God has determined for the earth, because, strictly speaking, the earth is not exposed to His judgment, since it has never done any good or evil? “Cursed,” no doubt, it was, for it drank the blood of man;179    Gen. iv. 11. but even this was as a figure of homicidal flesh. For if the earth has to suffer either joy or injury, it is simply on man’s account, that he may suffer the joy or the sorrow through the events which happen to his dwelling-place, whereby he will rather have to pay the penalty which, simply on his account, even the earth must suffer.  When, therefore, God even threatens the earth, I would prefer saying that He threatens the flesh: so likewise, when He makes a promise to the earth, I would rather understand Him as promising the flesh; as in that passage of David: “The Lord is King, let the earth be glad,”180    Ps. xcvii. 1.—meaning the flesh of the saints, to which appertains the enjoyment of the kingdom of God. Then he afterwards says: “The earth saw and trembled; the mountains melted like wax at the presence of the Lord,”—meaning, no doubt the flesh of the wicked; and (in a similar sense) it is written: “For they shall look on Him whom they pierced.”181    Zech. xii. 10. If indeed it will be thought that both these passages were pronounced simply of the element earth, how can it be consistent that it should shake and melt at the presence of the Lord, at whose royal dignity it before exulted? So again in Isaiah, “Ye shall eat the good of the land,”182    Isa. i. 19. the expression means the blessings which await the flesh when in the kingdom of God it shall be renewed, and made like the angels, and waiting to obtain the things “which neither eye hath seen, nor ear heard, and which have not entered into the heart of man.”183    1 Cor. ii. 9. Otherwise, how vain that God should invite men to obedience by the fruits of the field and the elements of this life, when He dispenses these to even irreligious men and blasphemers; on a general condition once for all made to man, “sending rain on the good and on the evil, and making His sun to shine on the just and on the unjust!”184    Matt. v. 45. Happy, no doubt, is faith, if it is to obtain gifts which the enemies of God and Christ not only use, but even abuse, “worshipping the creature itself in opposition to the Creator!”185    Rom. i. 25. You will reckon, (I suppose) onions and truffles among earth’s bounties, since the Lord declares that “man shall not live on bread alone!”186    Matt. iv. 4. In this way the Jews lose heavenly blessings, by confining their hopes to earthly ones, being ignorant of the promise of heavenly bread, and of the oil of God’s unction, and the wine of the Spirit, and of that water of life which has its vigour from the vine of Christ. On exactly the same principle, they consider the special soil of Judæa to be that very holy land, which ought rather to be interpreted of the Lord’s flesh, which, in all those who put on Christ, is thenceforward the holy land; holy indeed by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, truly flowing with milk and honey by the sweetness of His assurance, truly Judæan by reason of the friendship of God.  For “he is not a Jew which is one outwardly, but he who is one inwardly.”187    Rom. ii. 28, 29. In the same way it is that both God’s temple and Jerusalem (must be understood) when it is said by Isaiah: “Awake, awake, O Jerusalem! put on the strength of thine arm; awake, as in thine earliest time,”188    Isa. li. 9, Sept. that is to say, in that innocence which preceded the fall into sin. For how can words of this kind of exhortation and invitation be suitable for that Jerusalem which killed the prophets, and stoned those that were sent to them, and at last crucified its very Lord? Neither indeed is salvation promised to any one land at all, which must needs pass away with the fashion of the whole world. Even if anybody should venture strongly to contend that paradise is the holy land, which it may be possible to designate as the land of our first parents Adam and Eve, it will even then follow that the restoration of paradise will seem to be promised to the flesh, whose lot it was to inhabit and keep it, in order that man may be recalled thereto just such as he was driven from it.

CAPUT XXVI.

0831C Unum adhuc respondebo ad propositionem priorem allegoricarum scripturarum, licere et nobis corporalem resurrectionem de patrocinio figurati proinde eloquii prophetici vindicare. Ecce enim, divina in primordio sententia, terram hominem pronuntiando, Terra es, et in terram ibis, secundum substantiam 0832A scilicet carnis, quae de terra erat sumpta, et quae prior homo fuerat appellata, sicut ostendimus, dat mihi disciplinam in carnem quoque interpretandi, si quid irae vel gratiae in terram Deus statuit; quia nec proprie terra judicio ejus obnoxia est, quae nihil boni seu mali admisit: maledicta quidem, quae hauserit sanguinem (Gen., IV); sed et hoc ipsum in figuram carnis homicidae. Nam etsi juvari seu laedi habet terra, id quoque propter hominem, ut ille juvetur, sive laedatur per consistorii sui exitus; quo magis ipse pensabit, quae propter illum etiam terra patietur. Itaque et cum comminatur terrae Deus, carni potius comminari eum dicam; et cum quid terrae pollicetur, carni potius polliceri eum intelligam. Ut apud David (Ps. XCVI): Dominus regnavit, 0832B exultet terra, id est, caro sanctorum, ad quam pertinet regni divini fructus. Dehinc subjungit: Vidit, et concussa est terra; montes sicut cera liquefacti sunt a facie Domini; caro scilicet prophanorum: et (Zach., XII, 10): Videbunt enim eum in quem confixerunt. Atque adeo si simpliciter de terrae elemento utrumque existimabitur pronuntiatum, quomodo congruet et concuti et liquefieri eam a facie Domini, quo supra regnante exultavit? Sic et apud Esaiam: Bona terrae edetis; bona carnis intelligentur, quae illam manent in regno Dei reformatam et angelificatam, et consecuturam quae nec oculus vidit, nec auris audivit, nec in cor hominis ascenderunt (I Cor., II). Alioquin, satis vanum, ut ad obsequium Deus fructibus agri, et cibariis vitae hujus invitet, quae 0832C etiam in religiosis et blasphemis, semel homini addicta conditione, communicat; pluens super bonos et malos, et solem suum emittens super justos et injustos (Matth., V). Felix nimirum fides, si ea consecutura est , quibus hostes Dei et Christi non modo utuntur, verum etiam abutuntur, ipsam conditionem 0833A colentes adversus conditorem. Bulbos et tubera in terrae bonis deputabis, Domino pronuntiante, ne in pane quidem victurum hominem. Sic Judaei, terrena solummodo sperando, coelestia amittunt, ignorantes et panem de coelesti repromissum, et oleum divinae unctionis, et aquam spiritus, et vinum animae vigorantis ex vite Christi. Sicut et ipsam terram sanctam, judaicum proprie solum, reputant carnem potius Domini interpretandam, quae exinde et in omnibus Christum indutis, sancta sit terra: vere sancta per incolatum Spiritus Sancti; vere lacte et melle manans, per suavitatem spei ipsius; vere Judaea, per Dei familiaritatem: non enim qui in manifesto, judaeus; sed qui in occulto. Ut et templum Dei eadem sit, et Hierusalem, audiens ab 0833B Esaia (Is., LI); Exurge, exurge, Hierusalem, induere fortitudinem brachii tui; exurge sicut in primordio diei ; scilicet in illa integritate quae fuerat ante delictum transgressionis. Quae enim in eam Hierusalem voces ejusmodi competerent exhortationis et advocationis, quae occidit prophetas, et lapidavit ad se missos, et ipsum postremo Dominum suum confixit? Sed nec ulli omnino terrae salus repromittitur, quam oporteret cum totius mundi habitu praeterire. Etiam, si quis audebit terram sanctam paradisum potius argumentari, quam et patrum dici capiat, Adae scilicet et Evae: proinde et in paradisum restitutio carni videbitur repromissa, quae eum incolare et custodire sortita est, ut talis illuc 0833C homo revocetur, qualis inde pulsus est.